Backstreet Boys

These handsome boys graced my bedroom walls for many years. I loved them and all their songs and good looks. ;) As a teenager it was never an option for me to go to a concert. I couldn't afford it and my parents definitely weren't going to dish out the money for it and to be honest, I don't know that I really looked into it. I just knew it wasn't an option and that's the way it was and I went on singing loudly to every boy band song to makes it's way to me across the radio waves. Fast forward 20ish years and the Backstreet Boys are still together and making music. I wanted to go but couldn't think of who to go with (my friend I would have gone with went with her siblings) so I pushed it out of my mind and continued on with life.

THEN my sister invited me to go to Vegas with her to surprise my mom while my dad was at a conference. My dad knew I was coming and asked what show I wanted to go to. They were thinking a Cirque de Soleil show, but I had other plans. I looked up if BSB would be performing that week and sure enough, they were! My dad said no way would he go to "Buttstreet Boys" and my sister didn't want to go either, but then I thought to myself "This is BACKSTREET BOYS! I don't need anyone to go with. I'm a big girl. I'm just going to be geeking out and singing the whole time anyway so what does it matter if I go with anyone." So that's what I did. I bought my ticket and I went by myself.  And it was AWESOME! It was so much fun. I knew all the words to every song. I sat by the nicest couple, Duane and Fran, and really just had such a blast.

I would go again in a heartbeat and am glad I decided it was worth it to go by myself.
BACKSTREET'S BACK ALRIGHT!

Shortcuts

Sometimes the shortcut is not worth it. That's what I learned last night.

I decided to go for a walk last night instead of a run, since my knee has been hurting. There is a trail behind my house that I wanted to explore. I had to walk 3/4 of a mile to get to it and was hoping that as I walked along the trail I would discover a way that it connected to somewhere closer to my house.

After walking longer than planned and ignoring the feeling that I should just turn around and go back, I finally turned around. I didn't want to walk all the way back around since I could see my house from the trail and the river was pretty low in some spots and the riverbed looked pretty dry.

I took myself and my brand new, out of the box that very day, shoes and scrambled down into the riverbed. I slipped on a wet spot and got my shoes a bit dirty, but I kept going. That should have been my clue to turn around and just walk the long way.

As I stepped onto a spot that looked solid enough, I sunk to my shins. There goes my beautiful new shoes. I turned to go back and my other foot sunk. Now I'm really pulling to get my feet out and off come my shoes. I yank them out of the muck and walk down a bit to see if there is a better spot to cross. I thought about just going back up on the trail and walking home, but that's a long way to walk when you're covered in mud and don't have any shoes. So I pushed onward. Onward through 2 feet of nasty, smelly, silty, grey muck that felt like it was pulling me down. I had my shoes in one hand and just kept praying that I would make it through this mid thigh high gunk to the other side.

I made it and walked home in my nasty socks. I started washing my shoes out under the faucet outside the house and washed my legs off. Then went around back and stripped off my pants so I could walk through the house without tracking mud everywhere. I grabbed a scrub brush, soap and a pair of shorts and went back outside to try and salvage my shoes. The soap and scrub brush seemed to do the job. I threw my socks, shoes, pants, and jacket into the wash and then headed to the shower. I smelled SO bad. Apparently river muck is very smelly.

Overall things turned out okay. I didn't get anything else done that I wanted to, but I discovered that in life, sometimes shortcuts just aren't worth it.

Dating Apps

Nothing reminds you how crappy dating is like dating apps. You see all the terrible options you have or you see the other guys that look like potentially good options who don't match with you. It's basically a no win situation. And the alternative of not being on the apps, gives you relatively the same results without the visual reminder that there are some real doozies out there and those are your options. I'm not sure where to go from here.

Do you know anyone? Single, male, relatively normal, not completely unfortunate looking, doesn't live with his parents, actually a good member of the church (this last one is key, lots of guys out there say they are members, but haven't stepped inside a chapel in years). I know I'm being a bit picky (*sarcasm* I really don't think that's being picky), but honestly!

Brenda got married

Brenda got married today! The festivities started last night with a dinner. Brenda gave me the option to give a little speech or not. I chose or not. First of all my mind drew a complete blank and then even when I thought of something I knew I would just be too emotional and never actually get through it. I wrote it down for them instead. This morning the weather was not looking too awesome. Lots of wind and rain, but when I got to the temple it was starting to clear out a little bit.

When we came out of the temple the skies were blue. It was pretty windy, but no rain!

I told Brenda as she was getting ready to through the bouquet to not hit the chandelier. I don't think she heard me....

It was so great to be a part of Brenda's big day and I'm so happy for her and Ryan and their new adventure together.

Types

People are often categorized into types. Type A, Type B. The gym type, the bookworm type, the silent type, the outgoing type, etc. And people claim they have a type when it comes to dating. But as I've gotten older, I've found that my "type" isn't what I think it is. And as I'm now 32, that "type" hasn't been working for me, so maybe I need to look at different types.
I think we limit ourselves when we think we can only be with one type of person. People have so much to offer! Maybe there are a few types out there that just aren't going to work and those are usually pretty obvious. If you're the bar hopping type, smoking type, cursing like a sailor type, I am very confident we just aren't going to work. But if you are the gym type and I'm not, we could still work. If you like to read self help books and I don't, we could still work.
I have tried in the last few years to branch out from my "type" and give people I wouldn't usually consider a chance. Some of them have been great, others not as great. But it has taught me that I shouldn't limit myself by what I think is going to be perfect for me. I also shouldn't short change myself or put myself down by saying he's too good for me. He's too handsome, he's too smart, he's too successful. I am pretty and smart and successful too. Maybe not in the same way, but who wants to be with someone who is just like them? BORING.
I am willing to give them a chance and hopefully they are willing too, and if we were all a little more willing, maybe we would find more success.

Believe in miracles

I'm supposed to move on Saturday. I've known for a month and have been looking for someone to take my current contract for that whole time. With less than a week til moving day, my anxiety has been skyrocketing. I don't want to be stuck with two rent payments or have my current roommates have to foot the bill. Our neighborhood is very popular and it's never been a problem selling a contract, but the two girls who came to look at it just didn't work. One wasn't a good fit personality wise and the other kept dragging her feet and finally said she didn't want it.
Yesterday leaving work I was especially anxious. I've been moving forward with "faith". At least the motions of faith, doing what I could to find someone to take the contract. Yesterday I found myself despairing a little bit and thinking that maybe my new landlord could just find someone else to fill my spot and I could stay where I am.
I even messaged the new landlord with my woes and worry. Telling her I would need a miracle and that I didn't have the faith for a miracle right now. I didn't want to burden her but I didn't want the 2 rents and to burden my current roommates. Then I drove to the new place to unload boxes. When I got there I realized I was being ridiculous and went back and deleted the message, luckily it deletes it from her and me.
I felt good about the move although to be honest I'm not super excited about it. My room is half the size and the location is proving to be super lame with the jobs I'm looking at.
Anyway, last night I was in a panic and messaged to tell my roommates that I was going to offer it to the girl who wasn't a great fit personality wise because there were no other options. They asked me to wait until we could talk about it and at 10:15 when I got home I started talking with my one roommate. As we were talking I got my phone out and looked at facebook and saw I had two messages. One was from a girl asking me about the room. I hadn't seen it earlier in the day because it came from someone I wasn't friends with so it didn't show up. She sounds like a pretty good option and is going to come look at it Saturday. The landlord has also said we could pay $100 less on my rent this month since we are trying to fill it. The relief I felt was immense. Then this morning another girl messaged me about the room. So now I have two new options. Hopefully one of them works out.
I don't think it was my faith that did anything since I was feeling pretty faithless, but miracles do happy and the Lord is very merciful.
Here's hoping everything else works out too. It usually does.

The color of change

My 5th graders are writing color poems this week. We read Hailstones and Halibut Bones written by Mary O'Neill and illustrated by John Wallner. Then they had to come up with their own words for a color of their choice. They have to describe what it sounds like, tastes like, what emotion it is, what it feels like, what it looks like and smells like and then put those words into a free verse poem. I decided to I would do it too. I started on words for all the colors last week and today I chose orange for my color.
As I was working on my poem most of my words relate to Autumn which is my favorite season, but I still couldn't come up with another emotion word for orange, so of course I polled Facebook. As I came to the end it popped into my mind that orange is the color of change. I don't know that that is an emotion of that it fits into any of the other categories, but that's definitely what it is. The color of change. Out with the summer, in with the fall and soon it will be winter. We have seasons in our lives and change is inevitable. The other emotion words were anticipation, excitement, frustration, energy, joyful/happy, ecstatic, cautious, bold and wild. I love those words paired together with change. They describe what change is and how it makes us feel. I hope I can be bold, excited and full of energy as I face the changes that come into my life. That I can anticipate happy joyful things and deal with frustration and caution in a productive way.