Life is like...

A ball of yarn. I figured if I put that as a full title, no one would read this at all. Gotcha!

For those of you who don't know, I have taken up knitting. The scarf I started a solid month ago is starting to look more like a blanket than a scarf, but it's something to do. Plus, a part of the process that I weirdly enjoy is taking the big thing of yarn they sell you (yeah, the professional term) and rolling it into a tight ball that's easier to use and tote around to various activities. Well, today marked the absolute most frustrating time I have ever had with yarn. It's not saying much, but it says enough.

I took the beautiful cream colored yarn I purchased with my wonderful mother on Friday and started to quickly unravel it so I could pull it into a ball. Yes, a very boring process, you might think, but satisfying as well. Then, I literally hit a snag. I tried to take the easy way out and just pull it all at once. Apparently, yarn doesn't like that. I got the queen of all knots. It took me an hour to make it into the queen of all queens. My fingers were itching towards the scissors, desperate for anything to end the knot. But, I didn't want to waste a whole thing of yarn. So I kept on. Finally, I had to legitimately leave my apartment and go to the grocery store because I was ready to throw the whole thing out the window. I came back and went back to it. 2 hours later, I could see the end of the knot, a possible way out. 30 minutes after that, fingers sore and mind frazzled, I had this:

















Okay, so that could possibly be the longest story about yarn of all time, but as I sat on the couch, hunched over the largest knot in all creation, I realized that this stupid yarn with its knots, is like my life.

It is full of problems (knots), just basic tangles that make up my life. Stress from school, drama with friends, and just all around madness that pull me in 18 different directions until I am so wound up, I am useless and frustrating. It takes time for me to pull back, take some time for myself, maybe even leave for a bit, before I can come back and really tackle what's in front of me. It's hard to do, especially for someone who is used to taking the easy way out only to find herself in a much more difficult situation. To work so hard at something, even if it's something as pointless as yarn, is the most demanding thing anyone could face.

Now, yes, that is a mixed metaphor. Am I the yarn or am I the person pulling apart the yarn? I'd say both, only because I don't want to go back and change it. The bottom line is that sometimes, all it takes is the smallest snag to send me into a whirlwind of trouble. Occasionally, I just need to slow down, not watch the Superbowl, and make some pudding.
















Okay, realizations, yarn, metaphors over, life can just be a bunch of nuts sometimes and the tough part is figuring out how to deal. I hope you can appreciate that from one of the nuttiest nuts of all. Thanks.

P.S. Yikes, I can't believe you actually read all that.

I can haz birfday?

Just a very quick HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the most amazing mom a girl could want or need. I love you so much and couldn't ever say that enough. Golly, you are just too wonderful for words.

I'm so impressionable.

Sorry for this post, blame the weather and lack of society in my life right now.

Okay, so I just watched the Social Network, which is freaking good as all get out, it deserves all awards. And of course, as soon as the credits started to scroll, I panicked.

Why don't I have that kind of talent? How can this kid, who was younger than me when he created it, have this ability to create something that I log on to at least once a day? He knows computers and codes and websites and so much more and I know...books? Jeez, I feel like I can't even say that because I had to rewind and put on subtitles for the Jabberwocky allusion that he so brilliantly mocked.

I've always shouldered the grief given to me for having a pretty pointless major. The immediate question of if I'll be a teacher once I graduate, because honestly that is all you can with an English degree. I've even felt a little smarmy and superior because my major is intellectual and complicated (yeah, I know) and these people who ask me those inane questions just don't understand. But then there are people like Mark Zuckerber, who drunkenly creates a website, works hard for a few months and then becomes a billionaire, all because he was good at programming and had an idea. Why don't I have that brain power?

Okay, it's more than just the money thing. I honestly marvel at things like computers and technology all the time. Not even that, basically anything that I'm not a particular connoisseur of, I am flabbergasted about. Science, math, history, medicine, even English at times leave me all with a sense of idiotic wonderment. Perhaps that's why I've developed a pretentious attitude towards anyone who pastes a smile on their face when I say English as my major. Really, I just totally get it.

Phew. Sorry. I just needed to get that little rant out of my system. No doubt I'll start classes and wholeheartedly remember why is Literature is so much better than everything else and all will be well in Who-ville. Anyway, I think everyone should watch the Social Network. It's excellent.

Ring in the New Year!

So this post is NOT just because I have a precious kitten sprawled across my lap, forcing me to stay put on my bed instead of eating breakfast, reading, or just getting up in general.

I wanted to do my resolutions, because ahah! This year I will have them. Here we go:

1. Actually read my textbooks and notes in the weeks leading up to the tests, not just the few days before. And stop reading my kindle instead.
2. Drink good coffee for pleasure, not just caffeine (my new baby espresso maker will probs help this).
3. Stop biting my nails. Again.
4. Eat healthier, for goodness sakes. Nothing sucks more than ending a week and realizing I haven't had a single vegetable. Shudder at the thought.
5. Be nicer. In general.
6. Ugh, be less obnoxious in class. Not everyone needs to know how smart I am.
7. Church, Bible, and basically the Lord more. Focus, focus, focus and it really does help.
8. Remind everyone I love that I do love them. I love you.
9. Finish all DIY's I started and start more. Then finish those, too.
10. Stick to my new hobbies (knitting, playing guitar, and learning to cook)

Eh, so most of them aren't huge life changers, but they're important. Luckily for me, I've never viewed resolutions as absolutes, so these may change as well. Bottom line, as it should be for everyone, I gotta stay happy. It's all I can do. Hopefully, these will help. Again, I love all of you and honestly could not have gotten through 2010 without you. Let's try to do the same for '11. Oh, score, kitten woke up. Time for more (good) coffee and breakfast!

Baby, you're a firework.

I have absolutely noooo motivation for finals. Thus a blog post. Well, that and it's been weeks (AGAIN!)

Yep, within a mere 8 days, I will be finished will my fall semester. Crazy, but good heavens it couldn't come sooner. Seriously, I thought this semester would be my downfall, the reason I end up in a crazy bin, but then poof, it's over. Gotta love college and the way it's continuously surprising you...

Whatever, I'm so over talking about it all and it hasn't even started. I'm basically the one person who has a final on the last day possible to take them and I have to take one in almost ever class. Woohoo...I luckily am fairly confident that if I get all the studying done I need to do I might actually come out from this insane few months with some pretty decent grades to show. At least, that's what my crossed fingers keep telling me.

Golly, okay the real reason I wanted to post, before all this finals talk. It's something that's been on my mind for awhile and I just wrote a blog about how happy I am. Seriously, I am so freakin good with this life I've got. However, me being me, I'm starting to feel odd about it. A few days ago, I got coffee with a friend of mine who I haven't seen in awhile and he totally dumped all over me with his problems. He has recently decided to do a 180 on what he wants to do with his life but still has no idea what to do with himself now. Basically, he's lost. At first, I felt for him, really. I couldn't imagine doing that and not knowing what I was going to do with my life at all. Then I got a little irritated.

To me, happiness is a choice, your life is a choice. You can choose to wallow, to be lost or you can pick yourself up, get some dang perspective and move on. Well, I tried to relay that to my friend with somewhat disastrous results, but I still think he actually heard me. Of course the real irony of this is sometimes it's really hard for me to follow this advice myself, as is my custom. But the bottom line is that I KNOW that everyone is capable of making a good life for themselves. It might take some time, days or even years, but we are just so adept as a race at turning situations around and yet so often we choose to just lay down and take it. So I get irritated when people I know decide to do that when I am so sure they know better.

Anyway, the real moral of this story that I keep going back to is that I am so dang lucky to be so happy. Yes there are some really down days or even weeks, but who doesn't have that. I have learned to just process it, whatever it is, and just go back to my normal, pretty darn happy self. I'm glad to have that.

Sorry if this post was a little bleh, but my brain is a little fried and panicky due to all the massive amounts of work I have to accomplish over the next few days. Anyway, that's all for now, folks.

P.S. You're a big part of why I'm happy.

Tryin' to Find A Balance

It's so funny whenever I get a spare few hours of free time in which no studying needs to be done or any of that, I'm so excited that I fill it with tasks until I'm back to being stressed out. Oy, oh well.

So a few days, I got into this in depth conversation with my best friend/roommate about something that's been nagging at me for awhile, concerning her boyfriend. To put it plainly to my readers, she spends an obnoxious amount of time with him, while her friends, classes, and even parents are left to the wayside. Which is okay, most of the time, because it's her first "love" and she's supposed to be all wrapped up in it, but I felt the need to say something, because well, that's what I do. It turned out okay, but entirely too emotional. Like, when I talked to my eldest sister later, I just sobbed and sobbed because of all the bottled up emotions I had left. However, we both really said things we needed to say and she needed to hear. My main motif of the talk was that she needs to find a balance of all things. And step off, she listened to me and did just that. Of course, it will be interesting to see how it sticks, but there you go.

Anyway, I've lingered on this thought of balance for a long time. I feel like it's so taboo, one of those things that people forget to tell as you grown up. It seems so simple, yet wow, impossible too. It's definitely something I've struggled with these past few months. School, church, my family, friends, babysitting as much as I can get, and just going going going to get it all done. I was on the phone with my friend Anjli earlier, and I was surprised to hear myself say the words "burned out" with this semester. I've always scorned college kids who say they're so burned out by school, because for a long time, school was no big deal, but here I am: burned to a crisp. Of course, for me it's a cumulative effort by everything in my life demanding my attention, so I'll give myself a freebie (cue the comment by Melanie about how I don't even know).

But it goes beyond that. Trying to find a balance with everything. Fun with work, relaxation with stress, not going months without hanging out with certain friends, and enjoying school while still working my butt off. The weirdest part is, right before I am so certain I am drowning, I remember I can swim and pull my head above water. By deep breaths, by praying, by reading for ten minutes, I do what I can to keep level so I don't spin out of control. So far, it's worked.

Life is good right now. And, dare I say it, my life has almost always been good, despite many of my teenage years screaming in protest. I've had many blessings, not too many hardships, and a rather happy existence. Of course there are day to day conflicts and stresses that can sometimes seem too much for any one person, but so what? Everyone has that. I have parents who, really, I would be lost without, sisters whom I adore, straight up, friends who I trust and love, and a downright decent lifestyle. But of course, the scales in my head have me worried. Since I've had a pretty easy time, I am just so sure that such hardships are coming up. I mean it, I'm talking the worst anyone has ever seen are so surely in my path. Luckily, I come up for air soon after having these thoughts and realize that a) this is unlikely and b) even if it is, golly I just know I can get through it. I just do. I have too much on my side for anything to really get me. So it's okay. Bring it on, world.

Anyway, my advice to Veronica was balance. Soon after, I realized it's my advice for everyone. When it tips too far to the wrong side, give it a good ole shove, pick yourself up and remember, So What? People have weathered so much worse and likely, so have you. It's okay.

The Occasion

Today is Emma Rose Logue's 21st birthday. I'm not going to tell her I wrote this blog about her, wait and see how long it takes her to find it.


I don't know if you guys know Emma, but let me tell you, she is a blessing and a half. Seriously, the world would be a dim and dark place without her. Well, my world at least. She is one of my best friends and can make me laugh, cry and praise God faster than anyone I know. As most of my friends pass this landmark of a birthday, I am still shocked by it. It seems like just yesterday I was counting down the years (yes, years) to when I turned 16, but now all my friends are turning 21? The last birthday that people actually look forward to celebrating? Yikes. But as the partner in crime, of the Emma Squared group quickly passes by this birthday, I am, to say the least confident.

I'm going to expand, most likely to Ms. Emma's chagrin. It's more than supporting her, which I would do anyway. I supported her when she wanted to go to Africa. I supported her when she went to Bible College. And as she assuredly heads towards this next phase of her life, I just know, KNOW that she'll rock this party. No lie. Oh, she'll have drama, she'll have tears, she'll have blessings and prayers, but no worries, she'll have the happiest days most people could ever imagine. Which is why, as this day turns into night and I keep glancing at the clock until I get to leave to meet her for a birthday dinner, the first in two years, I am confident, sanguine, and imperturbable about this wonderful and exciting and beautiful and close-as-you-can-get-to-perfect best friend of mine. No matter what.

Happy birthday, darling friend. I do love you so very much.