An important note

Good morning!

I'm bringing this post to you with glittery nails and a smile on my face.

It's wedding weekend! Not my wedding weekend, but whatever, it's wedding weekend nonetheless.

This post will not be about weddings, though. It's about something else that's important and something that has been years in the making.

This morning I made my second to last car payment.

You guys, we're on the home stretch. This is a big deal!

I bought my recent car, a Toyota, a few months after I paid my old car off. Said old car wasn't very reliable.

My old car broke down the day I moved to college. To this day, I still can't stop at the gas station where I spent three hours waiting for a tow truck (and crying). And if I'm driving with other people through that small town in Kansas, I ask them to please not stop there.

I still can't handle it.

After college, the air conditioner broke on my old car. My first summer after college was spent commuting to a neighboring town where my first grown up job was.

When I got off work every weeknight, I'd go to a convenience station, buy a cup of ice, go back to my car, dump the ice in a small towel, then put the towel on my head for the drive home.

That was my air conditioner.

I still view that summer as punishment for all the stupid stuff I did in college. It really, really sucked.

A year later, the air conditioner in that car stopped working again. My parents told me to come back to my hometown that weekend. I did, and they had pretty much cherry-picked my new car for me.

I bought it that day.

It was hotter than sin outside, and I drove up to the car dealership with my windows rolled down. The salesmen made a comment about the AC not working.

Shut up, sales guy. Just shut up and give me my new car.

My new car isn't new anymore. It needs some work after I pay if off, some dings and scratches probably need to get fixed, I need to upgrade my tunes so I can play iThings in the car, and some other things need fixed and replaced.

But those things can wait.

You guys, my car is almost paid off! I never thought I'd see that day. This is a big deal to me.

Hooray!

To forgive

Good morning!

I was going through documents on my computer recently, and found this quote I saved.

I like it:

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

-Lewis B. Smedes

You can't do that!

I spent part of last night at bff's house. In between wine drinking and her dog sitting on me (and farting on me), I helped her out with some wedding planning details.

The wedding is a week away.

:)

Anyway, we were Google-ing Bible verses to use during the ceremony (how 21st Century of us). This in itself is tricky, because you want the Bible verse to be perfect, modern, and you want it to mean something.

I came across one that was acceptable. It was pretty long, a few sentences, and there was a sentence in the middle of it that wasn't ideal.

I told bff that she could use that verse, but cut the middle sentence out. It's her wedding, after all, and she should do whatever she wants to do.

That didn't go over so well. You can't edit the Bible, she told me.

Yes, you can edit the Bible. It's your wedding, do whatever you want. No one will notice if that sentence is missing, I said.

Her: It's the Bible! You can't edit it!

Laughs were had all around while we discussed the topic. In the end, she won, and I did not edit the Bible and she decided to use another verse.

After we finished off a glass of wine on her front porch, she said something that made me laugh.

"This is a good story for your blog."

I agree, bff. I agree.

I love The Onion

As a person who worries obsessively about nearly everything, this article from The Onion is golden:

Study: Anxiety Resolved By Thinking About It Real Hard

WALTHAM, MA—Potentially offering hope to millions of Americans struggling with psychological and emotional problems, a study published this week in The New England Journal Of Medicine found that test subjects were capable of fully resolving their anxiety by thinking about it very intensely.

The study, which followed 1,200 adults suffering from mild unease to chronic anxiety, confirmed that focusing continuously and exclusively on one’s own specific sources of distress to the point that one’s mental and physical health began to suffer was associated with the complete elimination of anxiety from patients’ lives and their subsequent return to happiness and emotional well-being.

“Of the hundreds of individuals we studied, those who thought about their feelings of dread and apprehension at every moment of every day—including throughout their workdays, at home, and in social outings—were able to effectively cure themselves of anxiety in 100 percent of cases,” said psychiatrist and lead researcher Rajiv Menon of the University of Virginia. “Whether someone is feeling overwhelmed at the office or constantly pondering whether their relationship might be falling apart, it appears that incessantly agonizing over this source of stress is all that’s required to eliminate your feelings of tension about this subject altogether and leave you feeling untroubled and fully satisfied with your life.”

“The results are clear,” Menon continued. “The more you obsessively worry about something bad that has already happened or about something bad that may happen in the future, the better you’ll feel.”

According to Menon, research participants who focused all their mental energy on fretting passed through three distinct stages as their feelings of angst were systematically eradicated. First, subjects frantically overanalyzed each detail of their particular anxiety, after which they mentally tormented themselves regarding every single thing that could possibly go wrong. Finally, and most crucially according to the data, subjects beat themselves up over their stresses to such a degree that they became virtually paralyzed, rendering themselves too impaired to function in most aspects of their lives.

After completing these three stages, Menon confirmed that every subject was found to be completely free of anxiety and immediately went forward leading a normal life.

“The key to beating anxiety is to let yourself become totally consumed with intrusive, irrational thoughts until you actually raise your pulse and blood pressure,” said assistant researcher Dana Kelley, who said that blinding stress headaches were a crucial indicator that one’s anxious feelings were disappearing. “If you can get to a point where you legitimately feel short of breath and begin to perceptibly tremble, that means you’re progressing. In fact, the more tense your neck and shoulders are, the closer you are to moving past your anxiety altogether.”

“Lying awake in bed for hours every night due to your singular, debilitating focus on your insecurities is a great start, but ideally you want to get to a point where you have horrible nightly anxiety dreams that persist throughout your few fitful hours of sleep,” Kelley added. “That’s a clear sign your anxiety is almost entirely gone.”

Kelley warned individuals, however, not to attempt to take a step back and distance themselves from their angst issues or try to gain a rational perspective on their fears, as such efforts caused immediate spikes in their overall levels of anxiety, setting their treatment back weeks. In addition, she urged friends and family members of those suffering from anxiety to be as dismissive as possible about their loved ones’ conditions, noting that hearing frequent belittling and condescending remarks about how their fears were “not valid” and “nothing to worry about” was correlated with markedly enhanced and expedited recoveries among test subjects.

One of the study’s participants, April Willis, 41, praised the research for resolving deep-seated insecurities about her appearance and competence, citing in particular the effectiveness of a technique in which she mentally replays her most anxiety-inducing thoughts and memories over and over in her head at all hours of day and night.

“After years of struggling with anxiety, I found that the cure was as simple as mentally torturing myself over every last shred of disquiet in my life until I became so riddled with doubt and unease that I was unable to eat or sleep,” Willis told reporters. “Once I obsessively worried to a point that I was effectively debilitated and felt that I barely even wanted to go on, then, poof, the anxiety went away for good.”

“So now when I sense any anxiety, no matter how minor, I just allow my intrusive, anxious thoughts to take over and take me wherever they choose—it’s that simple,” added a smiling Willis. “If I can do it, so can you!”

The Penny Post

My 99th blog post is dedicated to Penny.

After a frustrating attempt to organize all of my photos on multiple computers, I came away with folders and folders of dog photos. Looking at the photos made me realize that Penny is probably the luckiest dog alive.

She has a pretty good life, and she's not complaining about it.

For instance, she:

Plays with Christmas fabric.

Hangs out with her bigger, furrier buddies.

Frolics in the snow.

Wears fashionable clothes.

Eats like a pig.

Is the subject of this text conversation.

Helps me pay the bills...kind of.

Doesn't really like her hoodie.

Plays with ribbon.

Takes unflattering selfies.

Drinks coffee.

Takes more selfies.

Plays with Angry Birds.

Hangs out and becomes a pillow for friends.

Has more fashionable clothing.

Is a professional taste tester.

Plays tennis ball.

Takes naps in weird positions.

Chews bones.

Takes medicine for headaches...or just chews the box up.

Tries to wiggle out of her fashionable clothes.

Climbs big dead trees.

Still more Lost quotes

Greetings!

Here are a few more Lost quotes. We're on season four now, and it's getting weirder by the moment.

Quotes:

"Perhaps you underestimate the power of faith."

"You've spent too much time running away from whatever you're supposed to be running toward."

"What do I do now?"
"Whatever comes next."

"You're more lost than you ever were."

Wednesday notes

While I feel much better now, I still feel somewhat uneasy eating solid food.

I've picked at food here and there, but my appetite still isn't back. Meh, and watching tv is gross because of all the food commercials.

Being sick is not fun.

My abs and my throat still hurt. I'll keep the details about why those things hurt to myself.

Ahem.

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I'm going to be in a wedding next weekend. NEXT WEEKEND!

I have a hair appointment tonight. New hair day is always the most exciting day out of the month, people.

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I was going through my old photos when I realized that my dog, Penny, has the best life ever. Expect a photo post sometime in the near future that chronicles her southwest Kansas adventures.

The Sicks

It started around midnight on Saturday.

I noticed I didn't feel great. I had a questionable lunch, so I thought maybe the cheese and other stuff upset my lactose intolerant stomach.

One minute I was fine, and the next minute, well, I was not fine.

It was the flu.

You guys? That's the sickest I've been in a long, long time.

The only positive thing was that a friend was texting me advice along the way. Crackers and peach juice helped, and medicine got rid of the headache and body aches.

Um, the body aches. Parts hurt on my body that I didn't even know existed.

I'll spare you the rest of the details, but let's just say I'm pretty happy to be eating solid food and moving again.

Now I feel like I can conquer the rest of the week. Yea!

So many lols.

I just spent an hour searching through old scrapbooks and yearbooks.

I have one conclusion from this: You guys, I was a weird kid.

There are some photos of my brother and I that my family talks about all the time. There's one of me sleeping in a chair with a big toy gun in my arms.

Someone has to protect the house, you know?

There's also a photo of me painting my mom and dad's house when I was two or three years old. I have red lacy underwear on, and that's it. No pants.

Those two photos I actually remember.

What I don't remember is standing next to my brother in front of the Christmas tree when we were little. I was wearing a heavy sweater, a winter hat, and snow boots...but no pants . My brother had pants on to go outside and play in the snow, but I apparently didn't think it was necessary.

Did I ever wear pants when I was little? It makes me wonder if every kid goes through a no-pants stage, or if I was always just a little weird.

I won't post photos of the no pants incidents. What I will post, though, is how brilliant my 8-year-old mind was:

Yes, that's a future journalist right there, spelling the word "spaghetti" as "spegedy."

You guys, I was destined for greatness.

Two kinds of squirrels, err, people

A friend sent me a pin the other day that made me lolololol.

The caption: There are two types of squirrels in the world.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/56506170299233501/

Side note: I'm an all or nothing kind of a person. I don't like doing things half way, so when I do something, it better be the correct way.

I think I'm the second type of squirrel.

Also, that's the funniest thing I've seen all week.

The link that pin takes you to is also pretty funny: 31 GIFs that will make you laugh every time

This is not a weather story.

I first noticed the sky yesterday afternoon. It was kind of overcast, and Mother Nature started to spit out a few rain drops.

I mentioned it to my family, and asked if everyone had their car windows rolled up.

Soon after that, the downpour started. And then came another round, and another, and another.

It hailed between downpours several times.

I don't know how many times it rained or hailed, but it seemingly went on forever. My little place in the world is in a drought, so any type of precipitation is usually welcomed with open arms.

I'm sorry for the people who got hail damage, wind damage, tornado damage or any other type of damage.

Bad stuff aside, it's kind of peaceful to look outside and see Mother Nature giving us something we so desperately need.

We pray for rain in church every Sunday for farmers. While we could have done without the ugly stuff, that prayer was answered yesterday.

My hometown got anywhere from 3-5 inches of rain. My phone was buzzing the whole night with severe thunderstorm warnings and flash flood watches.

Flash flood watches in western Kansas? Those are still weird to get.

Lovingly stolen from the US National Weather Service Dodge City's Facebook page.

My Dad and I drove around afterwards to look at the town. There were odd-looking rotating clouds for a time. The pond/lake at the community college was flooded, and a bridge that normally rests in the middle of the lake came loose, and was floating at one end of it.

There was water flowing in the river (although it probably didn't last very long).

Western Kansas needed a drink badly.

Funny side story:

How to get the latest local weather data is instilled in my brain from being a newspaper reporter. Last night while laying in bed, I did this without even thinking:

Go to local National Weather Service website: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ddc/
Click on 'Latest Text Products'
Click on 'Local Storm Report'

And there you go, all of the hail, wind, rain and tornado reports for my hometown for the night.

In other news, I'm a nerd.

Haha.

When it's busy weathering outside, one thought flashes through my mind - At least I don't work at a newspaper and at least I don't have to write a weather story tomorrow.

Score.

Pinteresty stuff

I love Pinterest.

Here are some of my favorite pins of the week and month.

Quotable

Here are some more quotes from Lost, plus a fun graphic from Pinterest.

Happy Saturday!

Quotes:

"Having hope is never stupid."

"We make our own luck."

"There is hope and there is guilt. Believe me, I know the difference."

"There is new life, too, and there is hope."

On expanding my horizons

I'm going to follow a post about working out with a post about food.

Ha, ha.

I had the itch to experiment with recipes today. After work, I looked at Pinterest, and decided to try three new(ish) things. I cooked two of them tonight, and I'll probably make the last one tomorrow night.

First of all, before I started cooking I downed a bowl of fruit first. If I could eat fruit every day for the rest of my life, I would.

But there's more to life than fruit, and I need to expand my horizons. Hmm. I saw a recipe on Pinterest that involved quesadillas made with feta cheese and spinach. Sounds yummy!

I'm kind of a carnivore, so I added chicken that I cooked with a liberal amount of pepper, a little salt, and some random spices from the cabinet. I also added some mozzarella cheese to the feta, chopped up a handful of spinach, then threw all of that stuff between two taco shells.

Pair that with lime and cilantro salsa, and ladies and gents? We have a total winner right here.

A plus is that they're so big, I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Hooray.

The second thing I tried was mozzarella sticks. This involves two ingredients, string cheese and egg roll wrappers.

I've made these before, and I was craving them again. After cooking them on the stove, they get nice and brown with a good crunch on the outside and gooey cheese on the inside.

The only downside to these is that they're very, very dry. I bought a new type of marinara sauce and was hugely disappointed at how watery it was.

Side note: What is marinara sauce, exactly? Is it different than pizza sauce? How about spaghetti sauce? And what was that vodka sauce on the store shelf? I mean, it's vodka, and that has to be good, right?

This cooking stuff is confusing.

Regardless, it makes me wonder if I can make my own sauce instead of buying something that sucks in the store.

That recipe was ho-hum.

I'm still impressed by my quesadillas, though. At least I got that right.

Tomorrow night, or whenever I get to it, I'm going to try pepperoni roll ups. Expect a report about that later.

New goals

I fell off the bandwagon.

Last year, I got into the habit of working out five times a week, and burning between 400 and 500 calories. Sometimes it was more, sometimes it was less. I worked out until I was tired, and I was okay with whatever calorie number that was.

Through a series of unfortunate events, well, working out became an option and not a priority.

I've been trying to change that recently.

I've been going two or three times a week, and burning between 150 to 250 calories.

I need to get back on the bandwagon. My goal from now on is to burn 500 calories five days a week.

Lovingly stolen from Pinterest.

A plus I've noticed recently is that the gym I go to isn't busy. In February and March, it was so busy that I walked out several times because there were no machines available.

It's May now, and I'm pretty sure the New Year's resolutions people have given up. I feel guilty for being happy about that, and maybe I'm a terrible person, but it makes me happy that I can have whatever machine I want and not be squished between tons of people.

A less hectic gym makes me pretty happy.

The more intense workouts start tonight. We'll see what kind of a mood I'm in tomorrow.

:)

Under construction

There are things that you're allowed to gripe about in life, and then there are those things that you shouldn't really complain about.

What I'm about to complain about is the epitome of a first world problem.

I live north of the highway in town. I work south of the highway in town. Said highway is under construction at the moment, something about a resurfacing project that might last a few more weeks.

It's the most annoying thing that's happened to me within the past month.

Yes, I know that it's for the greater good. I'm thankful for the people who stand outside on hot days to direct traffic to make sure everyone is safe.

That being said, I'm going to be a total brat and complain now.

My brain knows there's road construction, and it knows the way around it. All I have to do is take the side road a couple of miles to the outskirt of town, turn on the highway for about a block, then resume my normal route to work.

Sounds easy, right?

I've driven the same way to work for almost three years. Change is not easy. Every morning, every day at lunch, and every night I end up going the same way and turning at the same stop light.

And then I realize, darn, there's road construction and now I have to wait a few minutes for that pilot car.

Have you ever tried to change something that you do every day, multiple times a day? Trust me when I say that it isn't easy. It's annoying and hard.

Life just isn't fair sometimes.

(Editor's note: It's my blog and I'll whine about something stupid if I want to. Also annoying: typing while growing your fingernails out. I might be in a bad mood today...)

Quick notes tonight.

Good evening!

I have a few quick notes tonight.

First off, my Pug went to battle with that Pug in the mirror again the other night. This time, Penny pawed at the mirror, and the mirror fell on her. It's not heavy and she wasn't hurt.

That stupid Pug in the mirror won the fight. It was pretty funny.

Good times.

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I'm happy to report that this blog is now award winning! I joined the Kansas Professional Communicators group last year, but am just now becoming involved in it.

I won several other awards too, but this is the one that I'm most excited about.

Winning stuff, yeah!

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I have some more Lost quotes for you. If you need a friendly reminder, some friends and I are watching Lost on DVD. We're on the third season, and it's starting to get weirder by the minute.

Anyway, quotes:

"Don't be so hard on yourself. It doesn't happen overnight."

"If you want to change, then change."

"I was raised to never question my blessings."

"People are saved in different ways."

"Why would fate do that?"

"There are many distractions along the way."

"It doesn't matter who we were, it only matters who we are now."

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Possibly my favorite time of the year is when my Mom's lilac bushes bloom.

I didn't get to experience this last year because of the weather. But this year? This year I'm soaking up that wonderful scent.

I'm pretty sure that's what Heaven will smell like.

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Speaking of nature waking up, in two bouts of sneezing today I managed to sneeze 21 times.

Hi, spring. Nice to see you.

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I haven't been to the Cosmosphere in Hutch in years. I had fun there the other day.

Also, I managed to amaze myself. Even though I had multiple navigation tools at my fingertips, I still managed to get lost.

Hutch and I don't get along. It's the one city that I can't navigate, for some weird reason.

Yep.