Life passing by

Oh look, I forgot about my blog for months on end again....

It's been a pretty ho-hum, hum-drum year for me. I moved into a different department at work and am now a Billing Representative. Which really just means I take and make calls regarding clients' past due balances. So, not too thrilling, It can be a bit mundane, but it could definitely be worse. I still love the company I work for and I have pretty nice co-workers. I also really like my new supervisors. I am always looking forward though and have applied for a position that is a bit higher up in my company, so stay tuned for news on that! I'm really hoping to get this one.

Since Memorial Day, my car has been in the shop 5 times, and I've had it towed 6 times. 2 of those tows were in the same day....let's just say it was a long and frustrating summer with my car. I look forward to the future when I can buy a new car that no one has ever owned before, but I more look forward to hopefully marrying a man who really likes to deal with car issues. He doesn't necessarily need to be the one to fix it, just deal with it. Car problems stress me out more than anything. I'd honestly rather move to Iowa, shovel a mile long driveway after a blizzard every day, and eat green beans for dinner for the rest of my life than deal with my car.

My parents have had health problems this fall. My mom's turned out to be pretty minor. She did have to have surgery, but nothing life threatening. They are still figuring out my dad's stuff, but it's a little more worrisome. I was out with friends one Friday night several weeks ago, and my brother and sister both called and text me several times, because my mom had to call 911 to get my dad in to the hospital. She was pretty scared, which in turn of course, scared all of us. He is doing well now and they know part of what was going on, but he has told us all since that night that he thought he was going to die. It's a little scary to have my parents start getting old. Especially since they are not that old!

Okay, happier topic: I have decided to go on a trip for my 30th birthday this coming May. My friend Anna (also my roomie) and I are going to head to either Mexico or Guatemala at the end of May!! I've never been out of the country....well, when I was 8 we were up in northern Minnesota camping and my dad said "hey kids, want to go to Canada?" So we drove the extra 30 miles and went maybe 5 minutes into Canada. But, this was also in 1994, and we didn't need passports back then. Plus, all we did was go to the first Canadian rest stop and look at all the brochures about Canada and pretended to be Canadian by saying "How's it goin' eh?" to everyone that walked by....which may have only been funny to my siblings and I. Anyway....not really sure if that counts as leaving the country.
But I digress...I have some saving to do for this trip, and I have to buy that passport I didn't need when I was 8. But, I think it's going to be so fun to plan and go. More to come about this trip! This is one of the places my friend wants us to go in Guatemala: Lake Atitlan: Gorgeous, right?!


Well, that's pretty much my life updated. I did also get a new couch in there, went rock climbing a few times and drank lots of coffee. I know, it's hard not to want my glamorous and thrilling life.

Until next time.

Enjoying life

The last year has been pretty hectic for me. My sister moved back home from out of state with her two daughters, my brother went through a divorce, my best friend had her first child, I decided on a different major when I return to school soon, and I changed jobs just last week. This has made my year FLY by and I am now in need of some calmer waters! So, I've decided to try and slow down a bit and enjoy the little things in life more. 

Like making a dent in my "to read" stack of books that don't even fit in my bookcase! I have books piled in almost every corner of my room right now, along with two or three more boxes full of them in my parents garage. Someday, I will have my own library and I want to be able to say I have read every book in it!! So, I'm going to get started now and maybe give a little feedback here on some of the ones I really enjoy!

I'm also going to make more time for my own personal writing. I haven't been doing so great lately, but have very recently felt very motivated to work hard on my story. It's a young adult story of a young man who runs into a girl from the mythical race of Djinn (where genie stories originated). I have the whole story mapped out in my head, now I just need to get it onto my computer! 

My friend Crystal and I have also decided that we are going to try and enjoy more of our city. Minneapolis/St. Paul is beautiful and exciting. Astonishing scenery, wonderful artistic expression and hoardes of tasty coffee shops inhabit this place I live in! This May, Crystal and I will be going to see The Little Mermaid at  Chanhassen Dinner Theatre, as it is a favorite story for both of us! So, that and other experiences will also show up here! I am excited to learn more about the place I have grown up in. I can't believe how much I've never done and seen here! 

I have always loved thrift store shopping, but I am going to try and really embrace it in the coming months and try to create my own style. I love finding bargains on clothes that are normally pretty expensive. Just this week, I found a $98 Chicos blouse for $12, and it was brand spankin' new; Chicos tag still attached!! It's lovely and I got so many compliments on it the day I wore it to work :) A lot of my favorite articles of clothing are from thrift stores! I enjoy having someone compliment an outfit of mine and then seeing their shock when I tell them it cost less than $30 all together! This doesn't very accurately depict my beautiful new find, but I'll work on my picture taking ability...maybe Crystal will help me with that! ;) Here's to poppin' tags!

So, all this and more will be upcoming on this blog. I'm determined to be new and joyful person and to enjoy all that life has to offer, even if this is not how I pictured myself at 27. My life is FAR from horrible and I need to start remembering that :)

Happy day!

Are you serious?!!

Today, I came to the conclusion that for the past several years, I have been wearing an invisible sign that only strange people have the power to read. It must say something like "Please approach me and say the weirdest thing you can possibly think of". When one of these people approached me today, I remembered several other instances where this happened.

*In late high school, I took flute lessons from a friend of my parents. I was driving home from her house and stopped to put gas in my mom's car one Monday night. At the gas station, I was minding my own business at the pump and wearing my school letter jacket and watching my breath in the cold February air. The woman at the pump next to me said hi. I was nice, smiled and said hi back. That's where the normalcy ended. She then asked me if I had my parachute. I thought maybe she was telling a joke so I asked her what she meant. She said that when they take us up, it may be so overcrowded that some may fall off the platform, so I should be sure to get my parachute before they run out. I was utterly baffled, but made the mistake of being curious and asked her what she was talking about. She looked at me as if I were crazy (yeah right lady! I'M crazy?!!) and asked me if I'd been living under a rock. She told me that an alien species was invading and the government had a spaceship built in preparation to take us up into space to save mankind, but that it was overbooking and to save oxygen, the last people to sign up would have to ride on the "balcony" or "platform" until we reached space, and then we could go inside. She then startled when her pump finished and said "Oh! My pod is filled!" got in her car and drove off.

*Last year, I was going to visit a friend. It was the middle of the day, beautiful weather. I stopped at store for a snack, and when I came back out to my car, there was a man standing nearby in a long, dark trench coat. He approached me and said hello. Because it was daytime and there were many people nearby, I didn't think anything of it. I just figured he needed directions or something. So I stopped and let him approach. He then went on to ask if I was interested in purchasing some "authentic Wisconsin cheese curds" and gestured to his nearby van. You know? Those white ones with no windows that always remind people of snipers now? He told me he was selling them out of his van, but that I would have to get in because the credit card machine was hooked up inside. I ended up just walking away and getting in my car quickly. The funniest part was that inside the store were bags of these same cheese curds and we were maybe 15 miles from Wisconsin at that store. It's not like Wisconsin cheese curds are hard to find in Minnesota.

*This fall, I got a flat tire on the highway and pulled over to call for assistance. This was also during the day and it was nice out, so I wasn't worried about anything. A teenage guy pulls over shortly after I get out of my car to stand out of the way of traffic. I of course, think he's pulled over to offer assistance. He comes over though and after he says "Man that sucks. Flat tire huh?" he asks me if he can have my phone number. Did I mention he was probably 10 years younger than me? I said no and he looked at me like he was angry and said "Geez woman! I was just trying to flirt. What's wrong with that?!" He then stalked off to his car and he drove away.

*My mom had surgery on her foot a couple of weeks ago. Today, I brought her to her doctor's appointment and while we were in the waiting room, she went up to the front desk to ask some questions. My mom's foot is all wrapped up in a cast and she is using one of those knee scooters, so it's pretty obvious that something happened to her. A man walks over to me and asks me if she's my mom. I smiled at him and said yes. He then asks me if her foot got caught in a bear trap. I thought he was joking so I chuckled and said she had surgery. He looked at me in disbelief and said "Oh...she didn't get caught in a bear trap?! I was sure that's what must have happened." He walked away shaking his head. I think this man was totally serious.

I have had other strange people approach me in my life, but these are the ones that stick out.I have no idea what it is about me, but it makes for great stories. Maybe one day, those four people will read about these things in a book and say "Hey! That was me!"