Oh Dear

First, please imagine my post title in a very Winnie the Pooh voice.

Oh, dear.

It certainly has been a while since I posted. And I promise dedicated reader Adam that I will get a picture of my alleged husband for him soon.

Life has, unsurprisingly, been busy. Working 50 hour weeks regularly, starting grad school (full time!), and so it goes.

Hey, I never promised you a rose garden...err...to update everyday.

Just thought I'd check in and remind you that I'm still kickin'!

Let's Have Some Fun

So, since my blog is so new I figured I'd play a little game of sorts.

Ask me to take a picture of any aspect of my life that you're interested in/curious about - it can be anything from my DVD collection to my favorite pair of shoes. Leave your choice(s) here as a comment, and I will reciprocate by taking the pictures and posting them as an entry. That way you get to know a little bit about my life.

So, let's have some fun!

Manic Monday

Today has certainly been a Manic Monday. I wasn't even on the road today, but I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. My day got off to a late start and then the landlady called with news of a leak. Thank goodness we rent from people who own a hardware store! They know how to fix this sort of thing. Of course the leak lent it's own source of hilarity in the fact that I saw I had missed a call as soon as I got out of the shower. I checked the voicemail to find out that lo and behold someone would be up very shortly - they weren't kidding! The acoustics in our apartment are not good enough to be able to hear someone inside the apartment from the hallway so the gentleman that they sent up almost got quite the eyeful.

I just have to chuckle, because one of our unofficial slogans around the office is "Every Day is Monday". Today certainly was. Hopefully my Tuesday (and the rest of my week) will not be Mondays. Especially on the heels of the epically bad week I had last week; just one of those down deep in a funk and couldn't pull myself out kind of weeks. It ended with a doctor's visit where I discovered that when I had sprained my ankle when I tripped and fell two weeks ago at a baseball game. I've been dealing with the fallout from that for the past few days and I have to say, wrapping my ankle sucks. I don't like the bandage, I can't wear cute shoes (including a cute new pair of heels that I bought last weekend), and I have trouble walking with the bandage on. However, my ankle and foot no longer swell to comical proportions, so that's definitely a plus. Another downside; I think the addition of the bandage and having my hair dyed darker (closer to my natural color) has scared the cats. I guess I smell and move differently so now they spend most of their time running from Zombie-Mom. I do kind of zombie shuffle when I move with the bandage on, mostly because I can't really bend my ankle.

Let's place bets on how many Mondays I'm going to have this week. I'm going to say that it will be at least two, today and probably one of the days this weekend that I'll be in grad school classes. Which just reminded me, I have reading to do!

Nicheless

This being a blogger thing is tough. I'm a type-A person, so clearly I want to do well at it. The problem is, most blogs that you find out there that are even remotely successful fit into a niche.

There are TONS of blogging niches and I don't fit into a single one (or I do, but I don't want to be that type of blogger).

I'm clearly not a mommy blogger, I've tried a few separate times to be a "healthy living" blogger and chronicle my weight loss, but it never took off or seemed to stick, and I'm not a photography blogger (further proof, I was on the road on Thursday, didn't take a single picture).

The type of niche that I could fit in, but I don't want to be that type of blogger? Infertility. Primarily because most of the time, it's boring to everyone but me. I've kept a more private online journal for almost 10 years now and I've heard from a lot of my friends that they appreciate what I've shared, that it's taught them a lot about how conception works and given them a glimpse into what couples struggling with infertility deal with. That's all well and good, and sometimes I really can be a fount of information. But sometimes I get into the deep, dark, unhappy place and I end up crying big fat ugly tears on the way to my hair appointment over absolutely nothing in particular, just the overall pressure and weight of what not being able to have children feels like.

And I know I said I would be honest (and believe, this post is quickly entering into the "slightly too honest, making me uncomfortable" category for me, so I imagine by now you've all x'ed out of the window and ran, screaming, away from your computers), but I will tell you, I honestly don't want to share that part of myself. That part is ugly, bitter, hateful, and jealous. I don't like that part of myself and try to keep it under wraps as much as possible.

Whew.

Okay, enough of that. Two heavy posts in a row? That's not even fair! If I was a decent picture taker I would share funny pictures with you to make up for it. Thankfully, I live with a professional photographer (he's won awards and everything!) so I'll just steal some of his pictures...

This is one of our kittens, hanging out in our beanbag chair. We put him in it, he got a little stuck, and an adorable photo shoot commenced.

Beautiful shot of a local field my husband took.

Sunset in our town.

A shot to prove that spring was coming.

Isn't my husband crazy talented?! Well, you might disagree, but I certainly think he is. He's much more comfortable with non-posed and non-people shots, but his pictures of people are pretty fantastical, too. Here's a shot from his sister's wedding last month.

Look at that height!

Alright, that's enough for now - catch you later!

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

Money. To quote Liz Lemon, "Blerg."

I'm not sure exactly why it happens or what causes it, but for some reason money is always the tightest for my husband and me in August. You would think it would be December with Christmas presents and traveling for holidays, but ever since we got married, it's always been August. Even though it's probably not true, I'm going to lay the blame squarely on the fact that I was a college student when we got married. I think we got into this weird "school starting, student refund not here yet" cycle, which sadly, we are right back in now since I'm starting grad school in a week.

If any of you are familiar with Dave Ramsey and his "Total Money Makeover" you'll know that he talks about how in a marriage/partnership one person is usually the nerd and one is the free spirit. Well, I'm raising my spreadsheet loving, budget keeping nerd hand high. And that occasionally causes some problems. I can't speak for every partnership that has a nerd and a free spirit, but usually the nerd (me) is plugging right along with money, usually knows exactly how much is in the account at any given time, what bills are due soon, etc. etc. while the free spirit (my husband) just kinda lives out there in la-la-land knowing that there's some money somewhere and that they'll use it to pay for things. This arrangement tends to work pretty well until the free spirit gets "the shock." "The shock" is what I refer to as the free spirit realizing that there isn't as much money as they thought and proceeding to freak out. When this happens, as least for my husband and I, it means he's suddenly EXTREMELY interested in the finances, something he didn't really care about before, and no matter what's on the horizon in terms of income and expenses, bemoans that there is no money and we are forever broke.

I'm sure you can imagine that this is not fun for anyone involved. And it's not! Really, any time you deal with money regardless of whether it's friends, family, spouse, or significant other, money woes are the pits. Thankfully though, I know this is just a little stumbling block that will be resolved shortly, but it still stinks to deal with.

Howdy y'all

Welcome to the new brand spanking blog!

First thing I'd like to point out - do you see my post title? That, for your information, is the correct apostrophication for y'all. It's a contraction of "you all". You put the apostrophe to serve as the letters you are taking away, in this case "ou". You wouldn't apostrophize "isn't" as "is'nt" would you? Of course not, because you're removing the "o" from not. Yet, for some reason, so many people continue to apostrophize "y'all" as "ya'll". Sorry, weird pet peeve of mine, I know.

So, this is the blog. Like the name suggests, it's going to be about my travels through WV. A colleague actually suggested that a few of us write a book, which really, we do have some very odd and unusual things happen to us when we travel. But this will be SO much more than just my journeys through the beautiful state of West Virginia (Ooh and I'm hoping to take LOTS of pictures!), it will be about my journey through life. I plan on using this to talk about EVERYTHING I'm experiencing and dealing with - finances, health and fitness, daily happenings, you name it! Which means I have to be good about tags, uh oh.

I can't make a lot of promises. I can't tell you that I'll update every day or even every week. But I can promise one thing - I will be honest with you. Honest about what I'm seeing/feeling/thinking/experiencing. And with that, a warning that you may not always like what I have to say. I tend to be blunt and occasionally swear like a sailor. I will try to limit those kinds of postings to my private journal though, rest assured.

I like to think that I'm funny and quirky and have a pretty decent sense of humor. My husband I laugh a lot so I think that's a good indication. I think I'm pretty smart, but I can't spell for beans, so if I've spelled something wrong just let me know. Although please don't do it in that snooty "Oh my goodness, you idiot, I can't believe you spelled disestablishmentarianism incorrectly!" Spell check is my friend, but it tends to miss a lot of things. Not to mention I'm notorious for making up my own words.

So strap in and enjoy the ride!