What do you do?

I read a pretty amazing blog post the other day.

I've been a fan of Peter Shankman for a while now. While I was online the other day, I came across his latest blog post where he talks about the shit hitting the fan.

I don't know what situation that particular friend of his was in, and I have no idea what happened, but I think it's safe to say that at some point, the shit hits the fan in everyone's life.

The point of his post is to encourage people to have a plan in place when that happens. Because, whether you like it or not, life's not always rosy and bad stuff can and will happen to you.

Here's the post I'm talking about: What protects you from your unexpected darkness?

Here are some good parts from his blog: 

So I ask you… When your shit hits the fan, what do you do? Do you have a plan? What is it? Is it healthy or is it destructive? Do you know the difference? When your world turns upside down, will you be able to do that which saves you, or that which dooms you? 
I will NEVER begrudge anyone their own way of handling themselves when their shit hits the fan. All I’ll do now is ask you this one question: When did Noah start building the ark? Before it started raining.
My friends, if you don’t have a solid plan in place to protect you when your own darkness hits, I beg of you: Come up with one, and have it ready. HEAR ME: You’re valuable to so many people, and you never know when your own darkness might be too much for you to handle. Make sure you have a plan in place, along with people willing to listen, so that when the bad news you were least expecting hits, you’re protected. And if you don’t, and the bad news hits, I’ll listen. Email me. Call me. Get in touch. We’re all on this rock together.

I've been pretty lucky in life so far. I have food to eat, a reliable car to drive, a roof over my head, and a great job. I don't have a lot to complain about.

I don't know that I've figured out what to do when the shit hits the fan, but I've figured out what I can't do.

I can't stay inside. 

Happiness doesn't come from staring at a clock on the wall, four walls around you or with a visual reminder that you haven't done dishes or laundry yet.

To get out of whatever funk that's getting to me at the moment, I have to be outside. I go for walks, I take my dorky dog out for a drive, I go to the gym, I sit around a chiminea and listen to music. 

That's what I do.

What do you do?

On babies and Reddit

Reddit is one of my favorite ways to waste time.

I saved a Reddit comment the other day that I liked.

It said:

Infants are the drill sergeants of parenting bootcamp. They give you four basic tasks - diapers, burping, feeding, and napping - and then scream at you when you do them wrong. There's no encouragement, no smiles, just crying and quiet. And they give you tasks at any time, day or night. Just finished changing my diaper? Change it again. Good job, now change that one.
After a few months of breaking you down, they build you back up. They smile at you. They sleep through the night. They hold their head up, so you don't have to.
And after it's over, the tasks you learned - swaddling, diapering, bottle prepping - are tasks you will likely never use again. But the skills you've gained - patience without sleep, calm in the face of screams, moving your hand into the shit instead of recoiling - are skills that will serve you the rest of your life.

I agree with that.

I messed up.

I screwed up yesterday afternoon. It was a pretty major screw up.

Before I get to the part of the story where I messed everything up, I need to tell you the story from the beginning.

My birthday was yesterday. On Wednesday night, I mentioned to my brother and his family that I took vacation days from work on Thursday and Friday. I could pick the twins up from daycare on Thursday afternoon and they could hang out with Aunt Monica all afternoon.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, yesterday afternoon rolls around. I've never picked the babies up from daycare, I've never loaded car seats into my car, and I've definitely never driven with babies in my car.

I got the car seats loaded just fine, and the babies loved the car ride. On the way home I stopped and got some food to go, since I was too lazy to wake up early and cook something for lunch.

I got home, loaded the babies and the food into the house, and that's when disaster happened.

I wasn't really paying attention to the babysitter when she told me who ate when and who got changed when. I was too nervous about the car ride to pay attention.

One baby was awake, and she was not happy. I warmed a bottle up, and she fell asleep. Fine, I thought, I'll put the bottle in the fridge and sit down to eat my lunch.

Nope.

The same baby started crying again.

I warmed a bottle up, then the same thing happened. This cycle repeated itself a few times, until the awake baby finally decided she was hungry enough to stay awake and eat.

My lunch was sitting on the table and was cold at this point.

The baby ate half a bottle, then I decided to burp her. We didn't even get into the burping position when she barfed all over me, and her.

Who barfs on their aunt on her birthday?

It took that baby an hour to drink that half a bottle that just came back up. And then she had no milk in her, and she was crabby again.

You guys, this baby stuff is hard work.

She finally ate the other half of her bottle, burped without barfing, and then drifted off to sleep peacefully.

Meanwhile, her sister woke up and she was not happy.

I told them that I was hungry too, but I wasn't crying or throwing a fit about it. They didn't really care what I had to say.

Something I now know about twins: they are never on the same schedule. They don't sleep at the same time, eat at the same time or poop at the same time. That would just be too easy, you know?

Anyway, sister woke up and was pretty crabby. A diaper check revealed absolutely nothing, so I decided she was crying because she was hungry.

I warmed a bottle up, but she was crying bloody murder so I took the bottle, which was mildly lukewarm at that point, and gave it to her.

She spit it out and cried even louder.

What the hell, kid? I thought you were hungry?

She cried a few minutes, she fell asleep, then she woke up again screaming in agony. I did the same thing. I took a bottle from the fridge, warmed it up a little, then gave it to her.

She spit it out.

This cycle repeated itself more times then I'd like to admit. I finally just gave up, decided she wasn't hungry and let her cry.

I called it tough love.

Something about this kid you need to know is that she doesn't give up. That poor baby was so heart broken and pissed off at the world that something had to be wrong with her.

I did a diaper check. I told her I was impressed her farts stunk so much. She was not happy and was still screaming.

And then baby No. 1 woke up and started crying. I just couldn't do anything right yesterday afternoon.

This time, I took the bottle out of the fridge for baby No. 2 and warmed it up for a long time. Like, 10 minutes.

By the time I tested it on my arm, it was almost too warm to give her. I held a crying baby in my arms and told her that she had to wait at least two minutes to drink her milk.

I timed it. At the two-minute mark, I stuck that bottle in her mouth and heard silence for the first time in three hours.

It was then that I realized my mistake. One of the babies likes her milk warm, the other baby doesn't really care.

I gave cold milk to the baby who likes warm milk.

Oh my God! I've known that about this child forever. I messed up, starved the kid for an hour and created a temper tantrum so loud and dramatic it almost caused another world war.

By the end of the afternoon, my dog and I laid down to take a quick power nap before dinner. My dog was as exhausted as I was from all of this.

At dinner, both babies basically slept through everything in the restaurant.

They were perfect little angels.

The good thing about babies is that they're babies. They won't remember that I got their preferences mixed up and completely screwed the milk situation up.

I'll try harder next time, babies.

And if you care, my lunch is still sitting in my fridge.

At least some of us ate lunch!

What students really need to hear

I found a blog post earlier today, and I just now got around to reading it.

This is amazing.

Here's the link: What students really need to hear

My favorite part:

The main event is learning how to deal with the harshness of life when it gets difficult — how to overcome problems as simple as a forgotten locker combination, to obnoxious peers, to gossip, to people doubting you, to asking for help in the face of self-doubt, to pushing yourself to concentrate when a million other thoughts and temptations are fingertips away.
It is your resilience in conquering the main event — adversity — that truly prepares you for life after school. Because, mark my words, school is not the most challenging time you will have in life. You will face far greater challenges than these. Sure, you will have times more amazing than you can imagine, but you will also confront incomparable tragedy, frustration, and fear in the years to come.

Also:

I see some of you quit by choosing not to take opportunities to work harder and pass a class, no matter how far down you are. The main event is not getting a number to tell you you are worthy. The main event is pulling your crap together and making hard choices and sacrifices when things seem impossible.  It is finding hope in the hopeless, courage in the chasm, guts in the grave.
What you need to see is that every time you take the easy way out, you are building a habit of quitting. And it will destroy your future and it will annihilate your happiness if you let it.   Our society cares nothing for quitters.  Life will let you die alone, depressed, and poor if you can’t man or woman up enough to deal with hardship.  You are either the muscle or the dirt.  You either take resistance and grow stronger or blow in the wind and erode.
As long as you are in my life, I am not going to let quitting be easy for you.  I am going to challenge you, confront you, push you, and coach you.  You can whine.  You can throw a tantrum.  You can shout and swear and stomp and cry.  And the next day, guess what?  I will be here waiting — smiling and patient — to give you a fresh start.  Because you are worth it.

Personality plus

I was supposed to go out of town last week to beat some snow that was forecasted the following morning.

I delayed that trip by about 30 minutes because I kept laughing at my dog.

I have a full-length mirror sitting on my floor that I've had for about a year. My dopey dog just noticed the mirror and looked at it. Apparently she didn't like what she saw.

She did a play bow, wagged her tail a few times, then got really upset. She barked, she growled, and the hair at the back of her neck stood straight up.

She was upset at herself in the mirror. It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

She'd run across the room, look in the mirror again, then get upset when she saw her reflection. This went on for about 20 or 30 minutes. I couldn't stop laughing.

My dopey, dorky Pug.

Today is a good day to talk about her. Three years ago today I picked Penny up from the animal shelter in my hometown. It was three days before my 26th birthday, and I was pretty nervous about getting a dog.

What was I going to do with her? Was I going to be a good dog parent? Would she like me?

Oh, life. It turns out that Penny was the worst birthday gift I've ever received.

Penny had separation anxiety when she was a puppy. She was crazy, and her butt got put on anti-anxiety medicine for the first few weeks I had her/my family had her.

By the time my birthday rolled around that year, I hadn't slept in three days. Penny cried at night. She spit in my face. My 11-pound puppy ate her way through a metal crate. When I tried sleeping beside her crate on a wood floor, I got mad one night and asked her what the hell was wrong with her.

She didn't answer me.

Three years later, Penny is a pretty normal dog, who does normal dog stuff.

She snores. She snorts. She sometimes lays on my head. I yell at her more than I should about how I don't want her ass on my pillow. She hides dog bones in my laundry basket. She gets mad at tall people for no reason.

She also doesn't like new things. When I buy new picture frames and hang them on my walls, she notices and pouts for a few days.

Pugs have personality plus.

All in all, Penny is one pretty bad ass Pug. Her favorite toys are tennis balls, but she'll play with any toy if given the chance.

And if you buy her an anniversary gift, don't even think about buying her the cheap tennis balls. Her favorite ones are the soft ones that squeak, and they are the more expensive brand.

Give her a tennis ball that doesn't meet those requirements and she just acts so sad and disappointed in you. And then you feel guilty for taking the cheap route in life.

Trust me.

You can't look at Penny's grey chin, her under bite, and hear her snorts and not like her.

If you know Penny, you love Penny.

We've had some good times the past three years. I'm excited for the next three.

Those sweet, familiar words

Good evening and happy Easter!

My dog has been snoring for a while now. She's exhausted from a day full of babies, family and food. There's a lot of good in the world. Like, an insane amount of good. Crazy good.

I don't have a whole lot else to say. 

I've been listening to this song a lot lately. I've posted lyrics on my blog before, but it never hurts to post again. The song is Forgive Us by John McCutcheon

In the little town that I was born in

Early every Sunday morning

We'd drive past those fields of corn

That led us to Saint James

Planted in those hard oak pews

Your neighbors sitting next to you

Said the words each of us knew

As well as our own names

"Our Father,

Who art in Heaven,

Holy is your name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done.

Give us this day our bread."

Then came the hardest part

The one that troubled every heart

Those haunting words of mystery

That long have followed after me

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive each other

In the long years since those days

My soul and heart have often strayed

But still I bow my life to pray

Those sweet, familiar words

But, oh, the meanings shift and dart

Whenever I come to that part

It stirs my soul, it stills my heart

Like nothing I have heard

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive each other

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us

In that Pennsylvania town

That awful day, that awful sound

When madness struck the young girls down

A tale too often heard

These strangers from another time

They knew the grief, they knew the crime

But somehow, somewhere they could find

The strength to say these words:

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive each other

Sometimes what's holy is so true

It's standing right in front of you

Nothing you can really do,

There's nothing you can say

Except to humbly take your place

And in every trial that we face

May we somehow find the grace

To live the words we pray

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive each other

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, as we forgive

Forgive us, forgive.

Damn adorable

I just spent almost my entire Friday night getting barfed on and farted on. My hair has also been pulled several times.

Babies are gross. They're also pretty damn adorable.

Short notes for Thursday

I've travelled 700 miles this week. I'm tired, so you're just going to get a few short notes tonight.

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I'm sad to report that my pink lace shirt is a no-go. I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm not a pink and lace kind of a person. It's going back tomorrow.

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I did, however, buy a dress. I haven't decided whether I'm going to keep it.

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Worth it.

I've always known I what I wanted to do.

When I was little, a family friend would clip out newspaper articles about things I liked and give them to me. In first or second grade, he gave me a story about a man who raised giant rabbits for a living.

I carried that article around in my pink crayon box for the longest time. I still remember the black and white picture beside the story. I remember reading every word in the story, amazed such giant rabbits existed.

More than that, 8-year-old Monica was amazed that some writer got to hang out with rabbits and rabbit people all day. (I had five rabbits when I was little, along with a bird, hedgehog, and multiple dogs. I've always liked animals.)

In high school, I knew I needed to go to college to do that thing I've always wanted to do. I went to college, then another college, then I knew I needed some work experience in my field, along with having a part-time job that actually made my car payment.

Two days a week, I worked at a retail store from 1 to 8 p.m., then went to my hometown newspaper to do sports clerk things until midnight, sometimes past that. Then I'd go home, sometimes do homework, then go to class at 8 a.m. the next day.

I remember thinking I couldn't wait for the day where I could do journalism full-time, and not have to fight with my schedule or with a boss in a part-time job or with anything else in life.

After one year too many and some pretty cool experiences along the way, I finally finished school. I was not a traditional student at a very traditional school. I didn't hate it, but to be honest, I robbed myself of having a traditional college experience.

That die-hard school pride that I see at universities kills my soul. I don't have that. (Part of this is because I transferred so many times, part is probably my personality.)

If I don't have that, what do I have?

I've been thinking about this recently. I always knew I had to go to college. I knew that I would graduate, but I didn't know what would come after that.

Six years post college, I have that figured out now. I always knew I would go to school, but I had no idea what that school would give me in return.

What has it given me?

It's given me a pretty amazing network of people that I still keep in touch with today.

It's also given me some pretty cool life experiences.

I've interviewed a Holocaust survivor.

I've interviewed people who were at the Pentagon on 9/11.

I've shot a gun with a field full of wounded soldiers behind me, all of whom were very vocal in telling me that I have a right to bear arms when I tried to shy out of shooting the gun.

I had no idea what college would give me, maybe because no one in my immediate family went to college. There was no path to follow, and most of the time, there was no advice given to me or wisdom along the way.

I was kind of just swimming around in life, sometimes panicking and starting to drown, and sometimes learning how to swim, but mostly just flailing around until I found something that kind of worked. I cringe when I think about this. College was just a lot of flailing around, trying to figure out what to do, making countless mistakes and acting like an idiot along the way.

I wasn't the world's best student. I wasn't the world's happiest student. And when I make those student loan payments every month, I wonder if it was even worth it, especially when I compare my life to the lives of friends my age who didn't go to college.

I've known this for a while now, but I don't think I've said it out loud or written it down anywhere.

Yeah, it was worth it.

I don't regret taking the messed up, not traditional route I took.

When I transferred schools the first time, I remember thinking that I just messed everything up, I would never amount to anything and that I was finished. I remember being really pissed off and hopeless.

When I left journalism in 2011, I remember thinking that I had screwed everything up, no one would hire me and that I would never amount to anything. There was absolutely not a single ounce of hope left in my body. Also, I was pretty pissed off that life didn't go the way I wanted it to.

Those were both really bad times.

Both of those times, my parents remained pretty adamant that my life wasn't as hopeless as it seemed in my head.

You went to school and finished, they said. You have things that other people don't have - a career and potential.

They were right.

(My 18-year-old self just let out a huge gasp for actually admitting that, by the way.)

College taught me that it's okay to leave a situation if you're not happy. It taught me that there's something better yet to come.

The best thing that college gave me is a network of people who don't believe in giving up.

I'll never have that die-hard, paint my face for football games love for my school. Instead, it's a more subtle kind of emotion.

It's more like a, meh, you're pretty okay after all kind of a feeling.

I know now that it was definitely worth it.

Little dogs rock

One of the many things I like about little dogs is how much maintenance they require.

Now, I'm not talking about attention maintenance. That's another story. I'm specifically talking about bathing maintenance.

All I have to do is ask Penny to follow me to the bathroom. She's happy to follow me wherever I go. Then, I start the bath water, get about two inches of water in the tub, then tell her to hop in.

She's not too thrilled about it, so she stands in the bathtub and doesn't move a muscle. This is her defense mechanism. In her mind, if she doesn't move, the human nearest to her can't see her and her problem will automatically go away.

Whatever, Pug. This actually makes bathing her pretty easy. A two-minute wash with soap and water and she's done.

She's small enough that I can wrap her in a towel and toss her outside. There's no wet paw prints on the floor to wipe up, and she doesn't get wet dog smell all over the bathroom walls.

Have any of you reading this ever tried to bathe an 80-pound Collie who doesn't like baths? It's about as easy as bathing a dinosaur. Dog hair and water and soap and tempers go flying all over the place.

Penny is pretty low maintenance. Little dogs rock.

I did not take a photo of the Pug in a tub today, so here's a photo of my dog pouting because I asked her to go outside one day. How dare I demand that!

I also found a cute pin on Pinterest today, so I'll include that.

More Lost quotes.

I'm tired and this week hasn't been the greatest week ever. This will be a short post.

Here are some more quotes from Lost:

"I will always love you, but I will never help you."

"Are you going to beat me with the Jesus stick?"

"Who are we to tell someone what they can or can't do?"

"Trust is a hard thing to win back."

I would have punched you in the face.

I realized about a month ago that I have a major problem in life.  It's a very serious, potentially expensive problem.

I don't have any spring clothes.

All of the clothes in my closet from last year have been donated, as they're at least two sizes too big for me now. I bought a few new winter clothes, ones that are long-sleeved and dark colored, to get me through December, January and February.

Now it's 60 degrees and sunny, and my wardrobe is bleak and dark.

I've been trying to change that recently. I bought three new shirts. One's light blue, one's blue and green, and the other falls within my comfort zone of black.

I love the blue and green shirt. The black shirt is amazing and looks decent with jewelry I have. But the light blue shirt? I've been trying to decide whether it's getting a stay of execution or not.

My main problem with the shirt is that I don't have any jewelry to go with it. I tried wearing it with silver colored jewelry, but that's not my favorite thing in the world and I didn't like it.

None of my long necklaces really match it.

A couple days ago, I came up with a bright idea. My mom has a cute strand of pearls that could have potential with my light blue shirt.

With her permission, I tried that out today.

Fabulous! Now I love the shirt and plan to keep it. I'll add a pearl necklace to my list of wants as well (eventually).

I don't often wear light colors. I struggle to remember the last time I wore something light or bright. I had a pink shirt a couple of years ago, but I hated it and never wore it.

So, let's just say that seeing me in color is a rare occasion (besides red, of course, because red is the best color on the planet).

This morning I felt great. My pearls looked perfect with my light blue shirt. It looked like I tried. Plus, when you wear real pearls, you just feel confident about life, period.

But there's a catch.

This is why I can't have nice stuff: Before I even sat down to eat lunch, I got mustard from my sandwich all over my brand new shirt.

Trust me on this, guys. Bright yellow and light blue don't really go well together. Sigh.

I quickly threw said shirt into the washer, opened my closet and reverted back to my old ways.

It's 60 degrees and sunny outside, and I'm wearing black.

Well, I tried. That's all that counts.

Spring shopping is still commencing, ever so slowly. In a moment where I lost my mind, I ordered a pink floral tank top with black lace, to potentially be paired with a pink 3/4ths sleeve jacket.

If you would have told me last year that I would have typed the previous sentence, I would have punched you in the face.

Things Pugs should know but they don't.

In the past five minutes or so, I've yelled the following things at my dog:

- Do not jump on my head. Don't do it. Penny, DON'T DO IT.

- Don't bite me. Don't do it. PENNY, STOP IT.

Pugs.

I'm not lost anymore.

For the past few weeks I've been trying to balance hanging out with two babies and also hanging out at friendbride's house.

Friendbride and I, along with her future husband, are watching all the seasons of Lost.

I have several notes about this. First, we'll start with the food.

There's Lost chips, then there's the Lost popsicles, and last night I made (er, Betty Crocker made) Lost brownies.

There was also Lost fruit last night, but the brownies were way better and were inhaled pretty quickly. Triple chocolate chunk gooey yumminess? Yes, please.

Watching Lost also provides some pretty funny moments. Annoying chick finally died in an episode last night, thank God. They always kill off the cute guy first, but they bring him back in flashbacks, which isn't really fair.

As I told friendbride last night, he was at SXSW a month ago, so I'm pretty sure he's still alive and kicking and not dead in a hole somewhere on an island. That makes me happy.

I haven't been keeping track of the quotes throughout all of the episodes we've watched, but I've caught some that I like. Although I didn't like him at first, one John Locke might be my favorite character (besides Jack).

Quotes:

"Don't tell me what I can't do."

"I'm not lost anymore."

"The same way that anything lost gets found. I stopped looking."

"I keep saying it's silly to be upset about a thing. It's just a thing."

Winning conversation

I would describe by bff, otherwise known as friendbride, and I as somewhat intelligent people. We both went to college, have jobs, and are pretty successful in life.

We had a text message conversation yesterday that made me giggle. What fun, productive adults we are.

Me: Shut up. For the record, I typed 'shit up' and 'ship up' about 1,400 times before I got that right.

Her: Haha. I think I'll shut up and ship up before I shit up.

Her: PS you must say "shit" too much because it wasn't even an option in my auto correct.

Me: That's shitty.

I would call this a winning conversation.

More notes.

I'm in the middle of a weird problem...I don't have anything to write about.

I have some time off scheduled for the end of the month that I'm looking forward to. Birthday time off, sweet!

If you haven't noticed, April is my birthday month. I'm probably getting to the age where I shouldn't be excited about this, but who cares.

It's my birthday month! I love April.

That's really all I have to say today.

Other notes about life:

- My nieces are cute.

- My dog snores like a monster.

- Naps are good.

I found a story via The Onion a few weeks ago and laughed. My friendbride didn't like it very much. Ha, ha.

Couple Excited to Start Planning Wedding Expenses 

DENVER—Shortly after local woman Mary Ann Burnett accepted the marriage proposal of longtime boyfriend Dave Ellsworth during a dinner date Wednesday night, the smiling couple announced they couldn’t wait to get started planning their wedding expenses together. “I’ve been dreaming of this special day’s financial burden ever since I was a little girl, and now I finally get to shoulder it,” said Burnett, noting that she and Ellsworth were thrilled to begin leafing through magazines and picking out invitations, flower arrangements, cake, and all the other personalized touches that quickly add up as they put together the most costly moment of their lives. “We already have our hearts set on this perfect little venue beyond our means, and tomorrow I’ll start shopping for the priciest dress I’ll ever wear. Then Dave and I can discuss what painfully expensive dinner options we want for 120 people, or whether to go with an overpriced DJ or an unaffordable band—basically just come to a consensus about how exactly we want to spend a sum of money in a single night that could otherwise be used as a down payment on a house.” The couple affirmed they wanted to get the exorbitant ceremony just right, as it represents the debt they’re solemnly entering into for the rest of their lives.