Take it easy

I grew up on classic rock.

My mom is a hairstylist, always working on Saturdays. So growing up my dad would load me and my brother up and off we'd go to spend the day at the body shop while he worked on cars. I remember him pulling my hair into pigtails, buckling me into the bucket seats in the back of the s10 and singing along to Tom Petty on the half hour drive. "the tree's fallllllin...." was my 7-year old self's rendition of Free Fallin.

I'd play with my Barbies on the empty jack stands while he bending and twisted and beat on the metal bodies of cars the next bay over. Those Saturdays are where I earned my appreciation for classic rock. Classic rock and the smell of brake parts cleaner.

One of my friends gifted me quite possibly one of the greatest birthday gifts I've ever received.... tickets to the Eagles concert the weekend of my birthday.

Good tickets!

All night long I garnered remarks about how young I was, and how no one expected me to be an Eagles fan. But I just shrugged them off and told em my daddy raised me right!

It was a seriously awesome concert, although the crowd was understandably mellow compared to the concerts I am used to ha! I'm so glad I got the chance to see them once in my lifetime though!

Is it water on the knee? Operation!

Once October rolled around my mind went into Halloween mode. I am one of those weirdos who hates buying a costume (slutty nurse? no thanks.)

I could always resort to the pinata costume from last year again.

As I was talking with a friend one day he started joking that I should be the Operation board game, following the year I had. Uh, hello... GENIUS.

In the span of a single Saturday afternoon I hit up Walmart and Joanns, dyed some horribly ugly white faux Under Armour, and cut out all my "pieces", the next night I attached velcro to the red side, and adhered them to my new tan body suit using a mix of sewing and fabric glue.

I added a "popped balloon" piece to commemorate the good ol' lung collapse. Adorned my nose with a dab of red lipstick, added some 'tweezers' and I called it a success!

Apparently no one over the age of 25 remembers the board game Operation, and no child plays it any longer. So, basically no one got my costume. Womp womp.

(PSA: Fruit of the Loom's "WarmWear" is incredibly high rise and has a very awkward extra panel that could accommodate for an adult diaper maybe? I'm not real sure. Consider yourself warned.)

At least my niece loved it!

Snoots.

These days, I hit up Starbucks on one of two occasions:
1) if someone has given me a gift card, or 2) if someone else is buying.

Being that my 21st* birthday was Sunday, of course I'm armed with gift cards. (*how long can I keep this 21st birthday facade going? I wish I blogged on a graphic calculator, so I could literally type 21^5... actually I don't even think that's the proper mathology, but then again I did drop out of calculus as soon as I got my acceptance letter to art school. And I'm rambling.)

Tangent.

I swung into Starbucks yesterday after leaving work, I had somewhere to be and by some miracle of God I was running slightly early. After scoffing at the pumpkin spice littered menu, I struggled to decide what I want.

I'm probably the cheese standing alone when I say this... but 'bucks just makes their flavored coffees too damn sweet for me. And I'm not about to be THAT girl with 37 cliff notes to my order because I'm not a fan of drinking spit-in coffee, and we all know that's what 'only one-third of a lump of sugar, 135degrees, steamed soy milk" leads to.

I finally settled with a good ol' large iced green tea.

To which I was corrected that I wanted a "VENTI".

Out of habit I rolled my eyes, and this ensued:
"Dude... did you know what I meant when I said large?"
"Well, of course but it is referred to as a venti here"
"But you knew when I said large which cup size I was referencing?"
"....yes ma'am"
"...then don't be an asshole."


I pulled around to the window, handed him my gift card as he delicately Bieber-flipped his blond locks, and handed me my LARGE iced green tea.

And I drove on down the road enjoying my spit-filled tea. I don't even know how you "regulars" deal with this daily
 

birthdays in blue

I can't say I'm sad to send my 25th year on it's way. It had more cancer, surgeries, and hurt hearts than I ever want to deal with again.

It just so happened that my birthday fell on one of the biggest Colts games of the year, the night Peyton returned to Indy. So I gathered up some friends and we tailgated the night away!

As with all tailgates, we ate, we drank, we danced.

We Dirty Danced. 

I think it's safe to say a good time was had by all. And the fact that the boys in blue gifted me a big fat win against our ex-qb really made it that much better!

Crappy jobs.

The weirdest thing occurred to me last night as I was telling a friend I was spur of the moment ripping tile out of my bathroom... I learned that some people actually (wait for it) PLAN their home renovations.

Which just sounds totally foreign to me.

I mean I have been dreaming about redoing my upstairs bathroom since before even signing the closing papers (I mean, pale green floors, really?) But it was functioning, therefore the least of my worries. At some point during the HJ era we bought quick-fix peel and stick tiles and I redid that in some fit of "I don't need you, you cheating asshole" rage after we broke up. (This story is getting dramatic quick).

Everything was fine and dandy in a 'god I still hate this floor, and this toilet has been unlevel since I bought the house' kind of way until I realized my bathroom starting to smell last week. Which made my dad laugh in a "damnit, I've been saying for three years we would need to redo that bathroom and rip out the subflooring because your toilet is unlevel so naturally it probably has leaked' kind of way. And so we both shrugged it off because DAMNIT three years of tearing up my house is TOO DANG MANY!

And then yesterday, prompted by an impending house guest next week, I decided 'hey, what better time?!'

I conspired with my mom how to trick my dad into coming over to help me work on my house yet again. By 8pm we had removed the toilet, sink, vanity, a layer of tile and a layer of subflooring, and called it a night.

The saddest part of this whole story was that the only thing I really did was shut off the water main and drain the toilet.... and pull up tiles. Me and crowbars and upper arm strength just don't really mesh well.

THANKS DADDY! 

(And no, I have no clue what flooring I'll be putting down, nor what sink/vanity I will be replacing the old one with. So there's that.)
 

the fourth one.

We walked into the government building and smiled at the lady at the front desk as we strolled past. Military man after military man, dressed in full camo, strolled by with their newly issued weapons and her and I looked at each other with a nervous laugh. "Kind of weird, no?" she asked me, as I spouted something off about this being the place they come to to pick up all of their gear, but that none of them were loaded guns anyways.

We headed in the direction of the elevators crossing paths with a twenty-something blonde guy in an American Eagle tee carrying a matte black handgun, a duffle slung over his shoulder. He smiled as he turned right to accompany us onto the elevator. "What floor?" he asked as we stepped in, pushing the button for the 7th floor after we responded. My friend and I stood in the back corner of the elevator making small talk about our day as the door closed. Out of the corner of my eye I notice his disposition completely changed. He drew the gun up, arms extended and pointed it directly at me. He mumbled something about how stupid they were to let people walk around the complex freely carrying weapons, and how easy it was for him to slip in with his completely loaded. And then pulled the trigger. I felt the warmth from the blood immediately, as I fell to the ground he fired again into my leg, and then twice at my friend who stood next to me in shock.

He stopped the elevator at the next floor and gingerly walked out.

I struggle to put together the rest. We made it to the seventh floor and I crawled out, knowing we had to get out of the building. I kept asking where the stairs were, or an emergency exit, but no one seemed to believe me or care. My hair was soaked with blood, and in reality there was no way I could have even still been living judging by where the bullet had entered.  I remember another shooter coming in, and more people getting shot... in the order of men, then women. Already having been soaked by blood was the only thing saving us from that round of bullets.

This is the fourth time I've had a dream like this in the past month. The first time I chalked it up to the fact I had just had surgery, and kept referring to my four incisions as "bullet holes". The next I blamed on melatonin. They keep coming though, and I'm running out of excuses. Every time, I get shot at least once, usually twice, and generally they should be life-ending.

Sometimes it's someone breaking into my home, sometimes it's in public, it's never by anyone I have seen before but the other people in my dreams I know in real life.

No matter which way you stack it, they're really starting to freak me out.

october: currently

tasting soy chai latte. i'm not even anti-dairy but what is it about soy that makes tea so much tastier?

smelling like a smorgasbord of perfume. I forgot I wore Tom Ford yesterday, and sprayed on TokyoMilk today. Much to my surprise I'm kind of digging the mix though. (Who showers daily. Ain't nobody got time for that)

eagerly awaiting australia. Five weeks from today!

listening to tom petty & the heartbreakers. probably all day long. it's one of those days.

debating taking this braid out. I have a serious complex when I wear a braid, I feel like such a child.

making an effort to cook more. It's easier (and honestly cheaper half the time, since I'm not a fan of leftovers) to eat out... but I truly think I enjoy this whole 'cooking' thing. It's kind of fun to me!?

giggling at this debate i'm having with a friend regarding my self-proclaimed introverted personality. He disagrees. This might actually need it's own blog post.

learning to just BE happy because I decide to be, and ignore any/all outside factors

wondering why certain people have crossed my path, and what their role is in the 'big picture'

realizing that my birthday is only 10 days away, and I have zero excitement about it

anticipating my follow-up appointment with my surgeon next week. i've tried to get in touch with him twice regarding symptoms, with no return phone call warranted. not a happy camper

wanting to completely redo my upstairs bathroom. paint, floors, new sink, the whole shebang. yikes.

smiling that it's baby Friday, and another weekend is well on it's way!

Mixer & Mingle Fridays: Flasks

Sometimes you need a way to get from A to B.

And I don't mean A-sober to B-schwastyface... I mean getting your Fireball from the bottle in your home to your seats at the football game. If you so choose. I hear it's frowned upon to bring your own in.... I'm not accepting any responsibility.

I think we can all agree transportation via waterbottles is a little high school-esque. Now that we're grown ups, it's time to graduate to your very own flask. You're scared, I know... don't worry, I will help.

Perhaps you've got an alternate agenda... or you're patriotic... or maybe you're THAT GIRL...

1 Frisky // 2 THAT girl // 3 Boozie Bear // 4 'Merica // 5 This Way Up

Cheers!

My shiz is far from together: A post on money.

Us twenty-somethings catch a lot of slack for doing things wrong, out of order, bass-ackwards. And they try to make us feel guilty for it.

When I bought a home at the age of 23 I garnered all sorts of praise for "having my shit together".

I'll let you in on a little secret. My shit couldn't be farther apart. Seriously. It's scattered aimlessly.

I think I put maybe a couple thousand down on my house. Did I put 20% down like everyone says you're supposed to save up and do? Hell to the no.

Did I meticulously create an Excel budget with what my monthly income versus expenditures would be? Meh.

I've never made a budget in my life, save for that one assignment in Econ class senior year of high school in which I pretty much lied and said I ate WAY less food than I really do just to compensate for the "extra" category I planned on spending on clothes.

I've always lived by the "you can't take it with you when you go" philosophy. So I lead a lifestyle that makes me happy.

I bought the 'car of my dreams' my first year out of college, when I was about $500 away from paying off the existing car I owned. Hello 30k in debt. Guess what? I'm now less than a year from paying her off.

They teach you to never rely on plastic. Guess what? I've got two credit cards. For stores. (gasp) Do you know why? Because Target offers you 5% off with every purchase, and because TJ Maxx gives you coupons (and lord knows my entire wardrobe basically hails from that store).

Guess what else. I put a LOT of daily expenses - ie gas, food, other shopping - on that TJ Maxx card, just so I can get those points. And guess what else.... I pay both of those credit cards off every month, they've never held a balance and I've never once paid a penny of interest on them.

I have had a savings account since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I am always putting money into it. I take money out too. When I have to buy $400 license plates, or a $1000 vacation. Does it have the "recommended six month cushion to live" nope. No it does not. And I'm ok with that.

I've had a 401k since I started my 'big girl job' nearly 6 years ago. I've had multiple CD's throughout my life as well. Believe me, I can save just as well as I can spend!

So maybe my views on money truly are bass-ackwards, but they work for me. And why does any one else need to tell us how we "should be" handling our money?!

Oh, and I once heard you weren't supposed to discuss money. So forget you read any of this, and just take away the fact that you shouldn't ever let any one make you feel guilty for what you do with your paycheck. That's all. 

On being That Girl.

2012.

2013. 

I noticed something while deleting photos the other day. The Zippo Lighter app still proves to be the MVP on my iPhone.

And maybe I owe an apology to my friends, for always being THAT person who insists on whipping out my lighter at every concert.