Second favorite.

October is my second favorite month out of the year.

I love fall. I love seeing the trees change colors, I love fall football games, the spirit of homecoming, drinking hot apple cider and finally wearing long-sleeved shirts after a miserable summer.

And after a wet, cold and pretty awful time in Nebraska a few weeks ago, I'm excited to start wearing boots again. (I hope Nebraska wasn't offended by that comment.)

I've linked to this before on my blog, but I thought today would be a good time to post it again. I wrote this last October. It's probably my favorite thing I've ever written. I remember sitting in a coffee shop in a big(ish) city writing this.

I loved every minute of it.

Here's a link to the column.

It's kind of fun to think of what the past year has brought me, including the places I've traveled to, the things I've accomplished and conquered, and the things I've completely failed at doing.

I can't wait to see what the next year brings me. Hopefully it involves more travels, more great people, and a lot more laughter. Okay, I'm not going to lie. I want more beer, too.

Full disclaimer: Even though I love October, I really hate pumpkin flavored stuff. I had to make that loud and clear. It even deserves italics.

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Alumna shares advice with Southwestern students

I had my life planned out seven years ago.

I was finishing up at a community college and I was planning to transfer to a state university. I was set.

Then, life threw me a wonderful curveball. Once I made a campus visit to Southwestern and saw that beautiful building on top of the hill, that was it.

I knew I had to change my plans and go to school in Winfield.

If you’re a Southwestern student reading this, I need to talk to you. I have some advice that, if given to me a few years ago, could have saved me a few dollars, some sleepless nights and some heartache.

Here’s my advice to you.

You’re going to spend the rest of your life dodging those curveballs. It doesn’t matter what you have planned out, life will take you in another direction.

Let it.

I think you need to know that in the end, it’s all worth it. One day, a few years from now, you’ll look back and realize that you went through everything you did for a reason. If you try really hard and put your degree to good use, one day you’ll have a wonderful life.

You’ll have Southwestern to thank for that wonderful life that you love.

Tonight at sunset, sit on top of the 77 and watch the sun in all its glory. You’ll miss that and wish you did it more often when you move away from Winfield.

I also have some job advice for you. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. And don’t be afraid to leave a situation if you don’t like it. The best decisions I’ve ever made in my professional life have been leaving situations I’ve been unhappy with.

If you’re brave enough to leave, life will greet you with a wonderful new hello.

You have a wonderful gift. You get to decide how your life will go. You get to decide who to spend the rest of your life with, what city to live in, and what career you want to have.

Those are all big decisions to make. Time your time.

It’s been five years since my class finished college. We’ve gotten married, had children, advanced in our careers and have had some wonderful things happen in our lives.

Achieving all of those things is not easy.

It’s my hope that every single one of my classmates knows this, and I want to pass it onto you.

You might not know that sometimes life doesn’t work out. Sometimes you’ll break, and it’s okay if you do. Before that happens, surround yourself with people who don’t mind putting the pieces back together for you.

Sometimes you can’t do it yourself.

And the next time you’re walking around the Southwestern campus, take a look around. You have an amazing network of people who want to help you achieve your goals. Talk to professors after class. Ask about internships, jobs and part-time jobs. Ask students, too.

Jobs fizzle out, cities can change and friendships you make can fade. Don’t let go of your friends from home or your friends from college – they’ll be there when jobs and cities change.

And that student sitting next to you in class? That person could someday be your boss. Be nice to other students, and don’t be afraid to network with them if you’re looking for a job.

Trust me.

The most important piece of advice I can give you is this: Be confident. Aggressively seek what you want in life, and don’t ever settle until you get it.

You deserve it.

Monica Springer

Southwestern College, class of 2008

A conversation with a Pug.

I'm a bad Pug owner. I ran out of chicken chewies and I haven't bought any yet.

My picky Pug only likes a certain kind of chewies, and it just so happens that I can't buy them in my hometown.

Dog, you're special, but you're not so special that I'm going to drive 100 miles specifically to buy you treats.

Of course, Penny doesn't understand this. Every day, almost every time she sees me, she asks for a chicken chewie. She looks at my bookshelf, does a little happy dance, starts whining, and gives me those big Pug eyeballs.

I wonder what she thinks sometimes. Does she think the chewies just magically appear on my bookshelf? Does she think if she whines enough, they'll appear out of nowhere?

I'll buy her some when I go out of town in a couple weeks. Until then, I'm going to have a very sad Pug on my hands.

That'd be great.

As much as I love shopping, there's a certain store here in town that gets on my nerves.

I can justify spending $45 on a shirt if I like it enough. But after that, I have to buy a shirt to go under it and a cardigan to go over it.

Really? I'm all for looking good and fashion. I'm also lazy and only want to wear one shirt.

Relevant:

Whoever invented feta cheese, I love you.

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I just made delicious Greek pizza and made my own pizza dough.

I'm not saying I'm going to open a pizzeria soon, but it was pretty good.

In Nebraska a couple weeks ago we ate at a delicious beer and pizza place. I skipped out on the beer part, but did order a Greek pizza and added some chicken on it.

I can't even begin to describe how delicious it was. It had olive oil, sun dried tomatoes and black olives on it. The crust was perfect, thin, and crunchy.

And, oh darn, I had to eat it for breakfast one morning. What a terrible life I have, right?

I knew after that I was going to attempt to make my own pizza.

It started with a shopping list and several different recipes. In the end, I'll be honest, I just made my own recipe up.

I have no patience for recipes and I'm not really one for following written instructions anyway.

I knew I wanted to make two different kinds of pizza. The first one was my version of the pizza I had in Nebraska. My version had feta, black olives, spinach and onions, chicken, and roasted red pepper.

It was my favorite of the two. I did a pretty good job rolling the crust out in a circle, and it actually looked like a real pizza.

The second one, um, not so much. But it still tasted okay.

For the second one I added chopped up canned tomatoes for a sauce and threw some mozzarella with the feta.

This pizza wasn't round, it was kind of oblong, and I put way too many toppings on it.

Like I said, though, it was still pretty good. Whoever invented feta cheese, I love you.

A few pizza notes:

• As with many other things in life, I completely failed at some aspects of it. I didn't put enough flour in the dough and it wasn't as crisp as I wanted it to be. I also messed up and bought a roasted red bell pepper instead of sun dried tomatoes. Gah. Who does that? 
• Also, making your own pizza is definitely not cheaper than buying a pizza. 
• I spent an entire afternoon making two teeny tiny expensive pizzas. I have plans to do it again, too.  
• I have no idea how people on Chopped cook in 20 or 30 minutes. It took me 20 minutes to pit 15 olives. I could have used more, but I got annoyed and gave up.

Metaphor.

Last night my dog, an 18-pound Pug, was playing toys with a dog bigger than her.

Penny the Pug was running all over, playing toys with a dog more than three times her size. She tried her best, but lost the toy battle.

There might be a metaphor in there somewhere for life. There was zero chance of her winning that fight, but she didn't know that and still probably had fun during the toy battle.

I thought about telling her to give up. I tossed her another toy to play with, but she didn't want it.

She wanted the one the bigger dog had, the one she couldn't even reach in his mouth because she's so small.

Yes, I'm pretty sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

An adventure

I wrote this a few days ago. Since then I read the babies a book for the first time. It was a riveting story about pumpkins and ghosts. They paid attention until the end.

You have to start them early, you know.

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I haven't seen my nieces in a week. I swear they grew about 28 feet since I saw them last.

I spent a lot of time with them last night. Around 7 p.m., I asked my Mom if she wanted to go shopping with the babies.

My parents were game, loaded the kids up in the car, and I met them at the store.

The babies love shopping. We showed them Halloween and Christmas decorations, they laughed at a piece of glittery scrapbook paper I showed them, and one baby grabbed a pink feather boa and held onto it for a while.

Before we left, I changed one baby into a clean outfit. As I was changing her diaper, she screamed at me so hard her face turned red.

Like I told my Dad last night: Shouldn't I get a 'thank you for changing my diaper' instead of screams?

I guess babies don't know how to say thanks. They should, but they don't.

:)

Grasshopper of doom.

Not that long ago I got a text message from a friend. A grasshopper found its way to her car, she said, and tried to kill her when she was driving.

I sympathized, but couldn't understand. It's a bug in a car. What's the big deal?

Well, I understand now. The grasshopper of doom thing happened to me yesterday.

I was going to the post office, living out my happy little life and minding my own business, when something flew past my head.

It was scary, and the grasshopper flew past me fast. I was stopped at a stop sign when it landed on my dashboard. It stayed there for a couple of seconds, then flew into my backseat.

How terrifying.

I looked in the back of my car when I got home last night, but couldn't find it. Just to be safe, I rolled all of my windows down in my car, in hopes that the stupid grasshopper of doom would hop its way out of my car and life during the night.

I ran an errand for work this morning, opened my car door, and looked down at the floor.

The grasshopper was sitting there, staring at me, mocking me.

A terrible first world problem enhanced and circled by Photoshop for dramatic effect.

I did what any other adult would do in this situation.

I threw my car keys at it. It didn't budge. I took one of my shoes off and threw it at the grasshopper. It still didn't move. I was thinking it would get scared and jump out of my car.

On second thought, can grasshoppers even get scared? Maybe my line of thinking was stupid.

Anyway, this morning I was standing in my work parking lot, keyless and shoeless, staring at a bug in my car. The only thing left to do was take a photo of it and send it to my friend, the one who understands how evil grasshoppers are.

They come out of nowhere and really do try to kill you when you're driving.

The thing is, I'm a strong, independent woman, except when it comes to bugs. When bugs are involved I become kind of weak and whiny.

Spiders and grasshoppers and other creepy crawlies? I'm not even going to pretend to be strong. There was an incident week involving spiders. Like a grown up, I noped it out of there and made someone else deal with it.

I can handle a lot of things in life.

Bugs I can't handle.

(I finally did get the grasshopper out of my car. It took both shoes.)

What do you blog about?

At the conference I went to in South Carolina we had to fill out sheets of paper as a get-to-know-everyone exercise.

There were several squares on a piece of paper, and each square had something written on it. The idea was to introduce yourself to people, then get them to sign whatever square described them.

Examples of squares: Can spot a typo a mile away, Grammar Nazi, Writes a blog.

Mostly I signed the 'can spot a typo a mile away' square, but sometimes those were already signed.

Hmm. What's a blogger to do in this situation?

On a few I signed the 'Writes a blog' square, which led to people asking me about my blog, which made me realize that I really don't like talking about this blog.

Weird, right?

The main question people asked me was what I blogged about.

I write about making babies mad and how much of an introvert I am.

Then there was the time my bff got married and my eyes almost exploded (not really), the time I danced like an idiot, and a post about how I fall down a lot.

So, basically, that's a terrible question to ask a blogger, especially an introverted blogger, because I have no idea what the answer is. 

Bossypants

I needed some reading material for my travels over the past week.

The book had to be small enough to fit in my purse, so the Harry Potter book that I'm reading is automatically out.

I also wanted something light to read, so Dan Brown's newest book that's sitting on my bookshelf was also ruled out.

Hmm. What should I read on the plane?

I was shopping and came across Tina Fey's "Bossypants." I can't even begin to explain how amazing it is.

First off, I love Tina Fey. She's hilarious and the book is wonderful.

I tore off pieces of paper to bookmark places in the book I wanted to quote.

The first part I loved is about a page long. She talks about how awkward it is to get a manicure for the first time.

"Now that you've radically embarrassed yourself, you are ready to squeeze into a seat at a tiny table and basically hold hands with a stranger for twenty minutes. That really is the craziest thing the first few times  you go, getting used to passively flopping your hands into another woman's hands. It's like something they'd make you do at a summer camp as a trust-building exercise, I assume."

Loyal blog readers (hi Mom and Dad!) might remember that I don't really like getting manicures, either. 

At least I'm not the only one who thinks it's really weird.

Other quotes from the book:

"You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go."

"With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn't there to be cute. She wasn't there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys' scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you liked it."

"Yes. We don't fucking care if you like it."

"My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne."

"Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue. In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff?  'I'm not one of those fancy Harvard heart surgeons. I'm just an unlicensed plumber with a dream and I'd like to cut your chest open.' The crowd cheers."

"When people say, 'You really, really must' do something, it means you don't really have to do it."

"When it's true, it doesn't need to be said."

"Why not do both, like everybody else in the history of earth? Because, as I think we have established in this book, things most people do naturally are often inexplicably difficult for me."

Jesus stick.

For the past few days I've been in Nebraska at a farm show for work.

At every farm show I go to I see people wandering around with walking sticks.

Yesterday morning while roaming around the show, an old man stopped me and asked me if I wanted a walking stick.

Sure, I said. Why not?

He told me I'd have to listen to his story. His story involved being inside of a tent and dry grass, so I figured it wouldn't be bad.

Might I tell you that it was 45 degrees and raining yesterday in Nebraska? And that dirt roads in those conditions turn into mud soup?

Going into a tent seemed like a good idea.

The old man sat me down with a couple of other older men. He was part of a Christian organization, and he explained that life is short and can end at any second.

You don't have to tell me this, especially on Sept. 11. I admired what he said and listened on.

After a few inspirational messages, he asked each of us (me and the two other gentlemen listening to him) whether we would go to heaven if we died soon.

I said, yes, I think so.

He asked me why I think that.

I said something like, well, I think I'm a pretty good person. I also go to church sometimes and try to treat people respectfully (although I mess up sometimes).

The old man got kind of agitated. That's not good enough, he said.

It's not good enough! You're not going to get into heaven just because you're a good person!

He then told me what I could do to get into heaven, but honestly I stopped paying attention. Some guy basically told me I might go to hell in 45-degree weather while I was wearing an $18 Wal-Mart coat, all because I wanted a Jesus stick.

My thought? Dude, look around. We're already in hell!

I think it's worth noting that I did get my Jesus stick after the old man prayed for my soul. Or something, like I said, I wasn't really paying attention.

And I still maintain that I'm a pretty good person with a pretty good shot at seeing those pearly gates.

So there.

A case of the blahs.

I don't deal with change very well.

It was north of 80 degrees on Monday. Yesterday there was a monsoon in Nebraska, where I'm working for the week, and today it was in the 50s and overcast.

Change is hard, even if it just involves the weather.

My allergies don't really know what to think of this. I set a new record and sneezed 12 times in a row yesterday. Sigh.

To make it all worse, I'm kind of a moron and I didn't bother to check the weather forecast before I packed. In my defense, I got home at 9 p.m. Sunday and left at 7 a.m. Monday, so there wasn't a whole lot of time for planning ahead.

Anyway, I didn't do a hot job of packing for this trip. I didn't bring a coat or a raincoat, and I brought my kind-of good shoes and no jeans.

The farm show we're working at got canceled today because of the downpour yesterday. Tonight for dinner I wore nice black pants, a pair of cute flats I just bought today, a t-shirt I wear for pajamas and an $18 coat I had to buy at Wal-Mart in Nebraska on Monday night.

I didn't pack jeans or a non-pajama shirt.

Oops.

I want to go home and hear my Pug snore all night.

Grouchy

For 25(ish) minutes yesterday I was in a big metal thing sitting on concrete watching a lightning storm pass me by.

Storms delayed my flight from Atlanta to Kansas. That the flight was late wasn't the thing that concerned me the most.

I had no connecting flight in Wichita, and I really didn't care if anyone else was late.

What worried me is the metal part. If I remember third grade science right, metal and lightning don't mix well. Throw in a massive amount of anxiety and a dose of Dramamine (at least my stomach was okay through this) and I didn't have a great trip home.

This whole flying thing is weird. Remember, this is the first time I've flown by myself and only the second time I've ever flown.

You have to get into a big metal thing and trust a total stranger not to kill you. And then you have to trust 200 other strangers not to kill you, too.

And some of those strangers are really annoying.

Before our weather delay, the guy in front of me was talking on the phone. The plane isn't full, he said, and you still have time to get here.

Please note that I'm tired, grouchy, kind of anxious and kind of irritated that I have to listen to another human being's voice at this point.

The guy then gave at least a 10-minute explanation of how to get to gate A32.*

You turn here, go down there, and walk about 10 minutes, he told his friend on the phone.

He went on and on and on and I was pretty sure he'd never stop talking.

In the meantime, I'm thinking just tell your stupid friend that gate A32 is between gates A31 and A33. And then shut up and get off the phone.

If we crashed the plane on an island, I'd probably punch him in the face. (Lost reference for those of you who don't know).

I should also mention that I haven't slept well this week and I just finished reading Tina Fey's "Bossypants."

I'm tired, grouchy, and kind of in a "Don't even bother messing with me' kind of a mood.

Ha, ha.

*I just made that gate number up, but you get the point.

Also, no one got on the plane after dude's phone conversation ended. Maybe his friend really couldn't find gate A32.

I also thought I lost my phone in the Atlanta airport. I backtracked and still couldn't find it. After a few minutes and an almost-heart attack later, I found it.

It was in my purse.

A happy note: I bought a copy of The New York Times and the Atlanta newspaper. The Sunday Times is thicker then my head, and you better believe I was nose-deep in that thing for the afternoon.

There's so much newspaper there I'm probably going to be reading it for the rest of my week.

Other notes

I have a few random notes that I can't make into full blog posts, so I'm going to write some tidbits.

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Today a woman from Virginia told me I have an accent. To which I said, oh puh-please.

Ha, ha.

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Accents are funny. I don't travel much, and I definitely don't travel to the South much.

The word 'your' is pronounced 'yo.'

Example: "Eat yo biscuit."

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People here call their parents momma and daddy. Even if you're 80, you have a momma and daddy, not parents, mom and dad or mother or father.

I like that.

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"I lied, but I was really confident about it."

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"A few simple but carefully crafted words go a long way."

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"Eat yo biscuit."

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"If it's what you want to do, what you want to do from the bottom of your heart, then do it. It's worth it."

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"Do you want to be associated with stupidness?"

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"You don't have to use a lot of words to tell your story. Just use the right words."

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"Do what you're passionate about. Life's too short to be unhappy."

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Seriously. 

"Eat yo biscuit."

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I'm at the National Federation of Press Women conference in Greenville, S.C.

More info: nfpw.org

Pigs.

When I return home from my road trips, I always make it a point to tell my dog that I didn't see a single pig while I was away.

Penny, my Pug, has a nickname that I hated at first. Her nickname is Pig.

At first my immediate family called her that. Then my friends started calling her that, and now she answers to Pig.

I mean, it fits. She snorts like a pig and she has a curly tail.

Being 29 and having a dog named Pig isn't really how I expected my life to go, but hey, sometimes life happens.

No matter where I go, whether it be Kansas City, Nebraska, Texas, or somewhere else, I always return home and tell my dog I didn't see any other pigs while I was away.

I can't tell her that this time. 

South Carolina loves pulled pork (as do I) and I've had quite a few conversations about pigs.

These are pigs in a museum.

I still maintain that Kansas has the best pig, though. 

Dat face!

Kansas girl tries southern food, hilarity ensues.

I want to apologize in advance for the ignorance of this post.

Last night we went to a fancy pants reception at a museum. 

It was beautiful, wonderful, and I had a great time.

The food was also beautiful, the kind of food you eat with a tiny fancy fork wearing fancy pants clothes.

Please note that I do not fit into the crowd of people who do this.

But it was fun!

The food, though, was not something I'm used to. There was shrimp, stuff in a shell, some type of fish on a waffle. It was all southern food.

I'm from Kansas. I eat things with four legs, not things that swim.

I did try one of everything. At least the one shrimp I ate didn't have eyes and wasn't looking at me. That's a plus.

Somebody asked me if I was eating an oyster. I looked at her, thought about it for a second, then said: "I'm from Kansas. I don't know what I'm eating."

Everyone laughed. Honesty is usually the best policy.

The real meal afterwards was this.

That's a big bowl of watermelon sorbet with sprinkles and chocolate candy.

I have no regrets.

Eating on the road is tough. I'm lactose intolerant, allergic to cinnamon and have a whole slew of other issues when it comes to eating food.

My main requirement for food is that it walks, not swims. 

You can take the girl out of Kansas, but you can't take Kansas out of the girl.

First leg

I had this crazy stupid idea that I would travel across the country and not take my laptop.

It turns out I should have taken it so I could write.

Oh well, you're going to get a phone update instead.

Today was the first time I flew by myself, and only the second time I've ever flown.

To say I was scared shitless was an understatement.

On the 2.5 hour drive to the airport, my stomach was in knots. I felt terrible (at 5 a.m.).

I stopped at a store to get some last-minute stuff, then I headed to the airport.

In the airport, the weird stomach feeling continued. I was sweating. I felt terrible.

I should probably warn you now that I likely have a little anxiety problem. 

Anyway, I followed the person in front of me, which turned out to be a pretty good idea.

I made it through with no trouble. Please note that I have no idea what I'm doing. Literally, not a clue.

Then the flight took off. I was in an isle seat, and I kind of thought my stomach was going to drop out of my butt.

It was not good.

We hit a few bumps, and I started screaming obscenities in my head. A guy three rows up started pointing out the window.

I cursed in my head.

Why are you pointing? Stop it!

Meanwhile, the cowboy next to me was sleeping through all of this. He was also snoring.

Near the end of our flight, the pilot told us there were some storms in Atlanta and that we were going to cruise around at 6,000 feet for a few minutes until the storms cleared.

A person with an anxiety problem is flying in storms.

WHY?

I had a 39-minute layover in Atlanta. You guys, I was cutting it close.

Once we landed, it seemed like we were on the runway forever. Sigh.

When we got off the plane in Atlanta, I stopped to take it all in.

It was huge! There were people everywhere!

The gates had numbers AND letters. It's kind of how I feel about math - I liked it better when it was all just numbers.

Once you throw the alphabet into the mix shit just starts getting weird.

Anyway, I found my gate and my way to the gate. It involved a subway ride and lightly jogging past 52 gates.

FIFTY TWO GATES.

I hauled ass, didn't stop to eat for lunch, and got into my next plane with less than 10 minutes to spare.

It was nine minutes and 32 seconds, to be exact.

By the skin of my teeth!

That flight didn't mess around. We left on time.

This time, I had a window seat. My nerves had settled a bit, and I'm really glad I changed my seat yesterday.

Plus I kind of felt like a badass for navigating the Atlanta airport.

I wish I could describe how beautiful the clouds were we flew into and over on the second flight.

There were a few rainbows. There was lush green scenery below, long windy and twisty roads, and whispy clouds floating around us that looked like huge cotton balls exploded.

It was beautiful, and it was just what I needed to calm my nerves down.

For now on, I think I'm a window seat person.

That flight lasted 22 minutes. It was by far the best 22 minutes of my week.

Taking time off.

Good evening!

I just wanted to say that I'm going to be taking a few days off from blogging. I'm going to a conference in South Carolina through Sunday.

This is a big deal to me, because I'm flying by myself for the first time tomorrow.

Somewhat miraculously, I packed all of the stuff I need into one single suitcase and a carry-on bag.

The thing I'm most excited about is the copy of Tina Fey's "Bossypants" that's waiting for me.

This is going to be a good trip. Some time away from my hometown is almost always a good thing.

So, until later!

"Sometimes you have to break the rules and have fun."

At lunch today my mom was feeding one of my nieces. We sit them on the table in little chairs and feed them fruit and some kind of meat and noodle mixture for lunch.

Today, one twin was acting especially ornery. She would take a bite of food, think about it, and in the cutest way imaginable, spit it out at us.

Then she would look at us and laugh.

Now, she's only seven months old. Does a baby that little know what she's doing?

My answer is yes. Yes, she knew she was spitting food out at us and she thought it was hilarious.

Honestly, I thought it was pretty funny too. Some baby food got on my arm. Damn, kid, you can aim!

Like I just told my mom over the phone, the only thing we taught her today is that you can spit on people and people will laugh and love you anyway.

Normally that isn't acceptable behavior. But dammit, it was adorable.

Oh well. Like my mom just said: "Sometimes you have to break the rules and have fun."