Thursday, August 20, 2009

Puddles and Awards

First off, I have recently received two different blog awards, but the same award. They are from Robyn at Putting Pen to Paper and Lady Glamis. Since each was suppose to allow me to list five bloggers, I have combined it to put ten. There are a couple others that I *really* wanted to add, but I kinda bent the rules as it was. So if your name isn't here, it was you that I was totally thinking of!


While this award is traditionally used to represent animal friendly bloggers, the writing community has embraced it as celebrating encouraging writer. So I will say five bloggers who have been encouraging me in my writing.

1) Lynn - My first commenter...so she deserves to be my first on my list!
2) Spy - Technically Spy is Natasha. She recently moved out onto the open road in an RV. She used to be a piano teacher with a blog called spyscribbler so I still call her the old name, but the new blog is super cool!
3) Shelli at Market my Words- Writes about writing from an interesting perspective--marketing
4) Stu - Stu is wrapping up his PhD, but always find time to write about various occurrences with his life or his writing.
5) Charles at Razored Zen - I've been reading his book, Swords of Talera and loving it. He's such a great commenter and always has something interesting to say.
6) Struggling Writer - Real name: Paul. He's a fellow techie, so that's fun.
7) Barry - He's been through so much with battling and defeating cancer and has over 600 followers, but still seems to find time to comment on my blog!
8) Christina - Just has interesting things and observations going on in her life.
9) GutsyWriter- Really named Sonia. She took her whole family to Belize in order to get her kids to be less materialistic. Seems to work because all three of her boys are doing very well for themselves at their various life stages (just after college down to high school, I believe).
10) Raph's Ramblings - This giraffe takes the time to talk to us earthlings about his interesting life on another planet--one full of giraffe-ie things.


Sooo...that was the "awards" part of my title. What about the puddles? Well, I am glad that you asked :-P

My husband and I have been trying to re-fi our condo. It's been a super pain because I didn't have any credit history until we got the condo two years ago (side note, parents of teens and college students, get your kids on some form of credit. Make sure they are responsible with it, but get them on credit. Our world is run by computers today and that little credit number is so important.)

Anyways, I took over my most recent set of documents to the mortgage lady today. It was kind of drizzling so I grabbed my starbucks in one hand and my umbrella in the other and set off. The walk over was fine. It's summery and I enjoy being outside. I gave Wanda the papers and set back off to work.

Unfortunately, the new shoes I was wearing had different plans for me. You see, as I crossed the street and attempted to step over a puddle, my heal (which wasn't properly secured, something that I normally look for in a shoe, but my others were literally falling apart and and been secured with elmers about ten times too many so I hastily got shoes that were moderately comfortable and ignored the fact that they were gloried flip flops with a wedge)--anyhoo, my heal slipped perpendicular to my shoe.

PLOP.

That was me. Falling. Into a dirty roadside mud puddle. On top of my umbrella. And under my Starbucks. Remember it's Chicago so about a hundred people saw me. I had mud up to my right knee. That was better than my left side. There was mud on my bright orange dress up to my hip. AND, the coffee was all over the road. I scrambled up. I didn't need to be hit by a car again this year. (Twas only a bump).

But then, suddenly, it began to rain harder. I put my umbrella above my head, but the mangled metal spikes sticking in all directions only seemed to direct the water onto my head instead of away from it. So there I am, covered in mud, underneath the el tracks with the rain cascading down. Empty Starbucks in one hand and smooshed umbrella in the other. Oh, and when I got back to my block, it had been closed so I had to walk around.

What else could I do? I tried to frown, but couldn't, I just laughed. What a perfectly horrible situation.

I am not trying to sound vain, but usually when I walk any distance, especially in a brightly colored dress through Chicago with lots of people, I get some form of complimentary comment, gaze or noise. I've got that whole cute, but not too pretty, approachable thing going on, especially since I try to always walk around with a bouncy step and a smile. People usually say hi. Don't get me wrong, on this walk I got looks. Far form complimentary, though. And given my laughter and overall appearance, some were down right confused and worried. But, seriously, how could you NOT laugh at yourself after doing that?!

Once the rain had gone away and I'd managed to clean myself up in the bathroom sink a little bit, I went for a new Starbucks. The sun was shining. Sun glasses on my head, Caramel Frappachino in my hand, sunny dress, sunny smile. Guy in truck whistled. I waved.

Rain; it goes away.

I love summer.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Finals Week

So I didn't realize that this was finals week until Saturday night. I thought that it was next week. Oops. Looks like I have my work cut out for me. So, needless to say, I don't have time to write about My Town Monday. Anyhoo, I wrote something on my other blog that readers of this blog might find interesting. It's a little bit about me as a kid complete with a few pictures. Yes, it's a way to bail out, but...hey, finals. :) It's all just papers though, so that's good :).

A Bit About Me. I hope you enjoy

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Getting Back into the Flow of Things

I am recovering this week from my week off last week. First priority is school. That's almost all caught up. Second priority is writing. I've done a little bit, but this weekend Pete is the one with the busy social schedule and I am the one with nothing to do (by design). Friday and Saturday I will spend on writing. I will not make plans. I will not go out (other than to the coffee shop). I will stay in and write, write, write.

So, I've been patchy on the commenting, but now that I am back in the swing of things, that too will be better :)

New comments on the weight loss. I've lost 2 of the needed 10 pounds, but haven't been that great on the no drinking thing. I have cut way back as I've only drunk a couple times and both times only had one drink. However, I think that I have developed an alcohol allergy (in addition to maybe something else) so this will make giving up drinking even easier. Hey, there is always a positive thing. Per directions of a friend of mine who is an RN I am keeping a food journal and will go to doctor after I have collected 2-4 weeks of data.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

New Blog

I have decided to start a second blog, New-Fashioned Housewife. I plan on posting about recipes, dinner party ideas, cleaning ideas, dating one's spouse and randomness I deem somehow related to household management in a post-modern world.

We shall see how good I am about posting on two blogs :-P.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Motivation

Those of you who read by blog know that I am almost obsessed with goals, but from time to time my motivation totally takes a dive bomb. That happened last week, which really ticks me off since I had the whole week off. I did go into work one of the days, but the others...what did I do? A big fat nothing. Well, I went to a networking event and hung out with some friends on a few of the nights and did write a couple papers, but for the most part I hibernated. All that stuff was less than I do on a normal week. Admittedly, I wasn't feeling very well. But still. Mostly I feel bad because I promised Jill, my friend who I am starting a company with, that I was going to spend all week working on business stuff and I promised my crit partner that I'd read her stuff and I promised by beta readers that I'd get them two sets of my novel. Then I started to feel bad about it so did even less work. Bad cycle.

I don't talk about my ADHD on this blog much, but I'm unmedicated. The meds just make me lose all appatite (which I suppose would be good right now with the whole weight gain). I got down to 85 pounds when I was on it a few years ago, which was just unacceptable. I tried again later but kept forgetting to schedule the appointment to get more (yes, sterotype).

I'm bad too. It can be funny (hmm...how did my debit card get in the fridge??). It can be annoying (where are my keys??). It can be a time waster. Seriously, if anything is in my hand and I see anything at all what ever is in my hand is magically transported to the floor.

But this is why I am a list and goal person. It helps me get stuff done. I guess that I should have predicted this would happen. I need structure. Without it time just sort of evaporates. But now I feel so behind and bad. Back to the lists. Back to the schedule. I think that it will be good for me.

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