Welcome To Resolutions

So it is the end of the year. I honestly do not have any thoughts on what to write this week. A lot of things have happened (mainly Christmas) and more things are still to come (see 2014 on calendars for details). I've been fairly lazy since Christmas. I think time off does that to a person. I have been enjoying it, been catching up on cooking.

I don't really have any New Years resolutions. I think my Christmas wish list sort of summed up what I want out of life. They aren't things to buy so much as things I want to work on / would like to magically fix themselves (except meeting Ellen).

This is the start of a new year and my six month mark for starting my new job. I still sometimes think of myself as the young college student ready to go to class, but not for the test. I should stop thinking like that though because I can never go back to that time. I have got to keep moving forward.

Wait! I've found it! My New Year's resolution is to keep moving forward. Kind of like the movie Meet The Robinson ( I know it wasn't one of Disney's best, but I have a soft spot for it), you can't always look back over your shoulder to the past. I have to keep thinking about the future. It is a scary place after all.

Next week I'll hopefully have something more interesting to write about. After all the new year hasn't started yet.

If you liked this post (or it completely pissed you off) please leave a comment or share. Oh and Happy New Year!

Welcome To New Christmas Wishes

Sure Adults Can Have Them Too...

First I would like to thank the people who have left comments on my blog. I find them very helpful and I will (to the best of my ability) implement the advice you have given me. I always love getting advice even if it confuses me. It helps me make decisions. I think that is my first Christmas wish this year.

Christmas Wish Number 1: To continue to get as much advice as possible. Some people might think that this is a bad idea and that a lot of people will give contradicting advice. While it is possible to get a lot of contradicting advice, this can also be helpful in obtaining different points of view and understanding other people’s logic. Yesterday I went to my leasing office to get more information on my contract. My significant other and I ended up having a cool conversation with one of the people working there about street smarts in the work force. He directed me to several books. I will let you know what my latest research finds. 

My second Christmas wish sort of stems from the first one, I love learning new things and applying them to my everyday life. 

Christmas Wish Number 2: To grow as a person. Hey I still feel and, occasionally, act like a kid. I need to mature and grow as a person. So my second wish is to keep growing. I hope I never fully grow up, but I do want to be mature enough to be perceived as an adult. 

I have found adult life stressful (more stressful than high school and college combined). The blog does help with my angst, but I do not think I will ever grow out of worrying about everything. So…

Christmas Wish Number 3: Worry less, prepare more. I might never grow out of my worry wart phase, but I can prepare more. Having a check list helps. I think I’ll post one on the fridge and one on my front door. Also never leave home without a hat. One never knows when they might need something to cover your head.

I write a lot now. It’s a great stress relief. I have even started a few fiction works (not to be confused with my fan fiction). 

Christmas Wish Number 4: Finish a novel. I would like to complete a full length novel by this time next year. It does not have to be the final draft, but it would be nice to have a full story written down. 

So far my Christmas Wish List has been pretty self centered and you know what sometimes you need to be a little selfish. You can’t be selfish all the time, but you should have goals and things you want for yourself. It gives you something to strive for know what to keep and change about yourself. However my final Christmas Wish is to meet someone who is incredibly selfless. 

Christmas Wish Number 5: Meet Ellen. Ellen does so many wonderful things and knows how to make people smile. I think she is a great role model. I would love to meet her, shake her hand and maybe help her play a prank on unsuspecting people. However I would be perfectly happy enough to get a hug from her.

So those are five of my Christmas wishes. I have a few more wishes (lower cable bill would be nice), but those are not as important. What is important is living life to the fullest and I think these wishes will help me accomplish that. One day I hope to be someone that people can ask anything of and I’ll be able to give them an answer I feel is correct (or point them to someone who can). Until that day I’ll be here navigating Wonderland and letting everyone know how I do. Merry Christmas everyone!

If you enjoyed this blog post (or it really pissed you off) please comment or share it with your friends, family or even worst enemies. I love hearing back from people and I hope someone is finding some useful advice. Have a great week.

Welcome To Christmas Cheer

No One Seems To Have It Anymore...

First I would like to say that the “Hobbit the Desolation of Smaug” was great and I highly recommend it. Second, I am watching Psych: The Musical and it is amazing. I think I might laugh my butt off. Please tune in as soon as possible. I wonder how often they will reshow this episode.

So it is ten days to Christmas. Yes Christmas, a holiday recognized by Christians as the birth of their savior and everyone else a huge financial head ache. I am (did I not mention this before) a Christian, though I do have my issues (cough Saint Paul cough cough). I have set up my Christmas tree with Harry Potter Legos (copyright Lego) surrounding the base. I have my advent wreath in the center of my dining room card table. I helped pick out the trees for my parents house. I saw the children’s Christmas Play at the church I grew up in today. I am definitely feeling the holiday spirit. 

A white Christmas is not on my list of desires this holiday season. I have already had two snow falls this December. I did not enjoy either. One encased my cute little car in two inches worth of ice. It took me twenty minutes to dig it out and defrost it. I was unhappy and almost late to work. Therefore snow should only fall on the weekends and melt by Monday morning. I command it and therefore it must be so (I wish that was how it worked). 

Other than discovering that snow is evil during the work week (as well as loosing email access while working from home, but that is another story) I discovered that people actually believe that Santa and Jesus were both “white”. If anyone saw John Stewart (one of my idols) you would have seen his piece on Fox News talking about why Santa and Jesus were “factually” white. I literally burst out laughing. Factually Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew. Unless the Middle East suddenly moved geologic locations and have a very demographic than I learned in Model United Nations then he was definitely not white. Also Santa, or Saint Nicholas if we have to be specific, was from Turkey, not Greece (okay technically it was Greek occupied Turkey, but in modern times it is Turkey). I have officially lost all respect for anyone who has not realized this (mostly Jesus, I can kind of understand the ignorance around Santa due to media stereotypes).  

I shouldn’t rant. I really shouldn’t, but it is sometimes so hard not to. I could probably rant an entire one person play about how bad Maryland driving is and how to correct it. 

Christmas time used to be so magical for me. All the music, the lights and the happy memories were great. I loved it. Now I’m actually kind of sick of it. They play all of the same songs over and over again on the radio. People are going out of their way to make our society dumber (or point out the idiocy in our society). I am just not feeling it anymore. Maybe I will start feeling the spirit again once it gets a little closer to the “Big Day”. 

Happy Holidays everyone and yes it is Holidays. I believe New Years, The Winter Solstice and Kwanzaa all qualify as Holidays at this time of year along with Christmas. I celebrate at least two of those listed on top of Christmas. 

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please leave a comment or share it with your friends, family and / or enemies. I am going back to the musical Psych. Until next week.

Welcome To Winter

It's Not The Wonderland It Used To Be...

Today was the first time it snowed since I moved out and no long am a student. It was not as exciting as it used to be. When I was a little kid snow meant a day off from school and fun in the snow. I might build a snow fort out of the piles of snow made by the snow plows in my court or start a snow ball fight with my friends. In high school I had a day off to do more studying and get a head start on projects. In college, snow meant beautiful pictures, lazy days sleeping in and a higher chance of breaking something on the brick paths.

Snow now means checking to see if the roads are safe enough for me to get to work on. If they are I have to brave the highways with crazy Maryland drivers (I have finally realized the reason they are such bad drivers is because they have zero clue how to merge). If the roads aren’t safe enough to drive on (read been clear of ice), I get to work from home. This wouldn’t be so bad except I might end up with a huge cell phone bill from overages and I only have one screen instead of two to work on. I am not sure which idea is worse.

I actually can drive in the snow. I proved that today coming home from church. The first time I drove on the highway was in a blizzard driving from Michigan to Ohio. I distinctly recall my mother telling me to not be a baby and drive like I normally would. Since I had never driven on a highway I decided to get behind a truck and hope for the best. It was a wise decision because soon after I started out on the highway we hit white out conditions and they only thing keeping me in a straight line were the truck’s tail lights. I was finally able to give the driver’s seat back to my mother in Pennsylvania. It had been a very stressful two hours, but I learned how to drive in a blizzard.

Honestly the way people are acting you would think we had been hit with three feet of the white powder and all power had been knocked out. It thankfully hasn’t, but we live on the East Coast. We are far more likely to have a power outage because of a thunderstorm and that doesn’t seem to be a huge deal. Okay yes it would be really cold if we lost power because of snow, but that’s why you have plenty of blankets and jackets ready. I even made sure to have a few pairs of socks ready just for going outside.

Alright so maybe I’m making a horrible disaster waiting to happen sound trivial, but I have been in Michigan and Ohio in blizzard conditions. Parts of Texas and lower Midwest losing power do worry me a bit, but I checked the weather reports and it didn’t look like it would be that bad here. Heck one Christmas I had to shovel my Aunt’s driveway before opening presents while it was still snowing. I was unhappy, but we did get to go to my grandmother’s house.

So yes I am grateful that nothing too terrible happened during my first snow fall. I’m waiting to see what tomorrow looks like before I try going into work. I might just have to email my boss and say, well there’s ice everywhere I think I’m going to work from home, but that’s tomorrow. Winter might never be what it was when I was a child (let alone student). It won’t be magical and a break from the crazy school work, but I can still enjoy its beauty. Right now I’m going to curl up with some hot chocolate and Skype the Significant Other.

If you enjoyed this post (or made you laugh, smile or go on a ranting rampage of anger) please post a comment or share my blog’s link. Who knows I might actually meet Ellen someday.

Welcome To The Holidays

They might just kill you...

So Thanksgiving has passed. I spent it with the family. We had a ton of food and I watched the parade. I always watch it with my Snoopy doll (we also watch the Charlie Brown special together). It was exciting to see the Lions beat Green Bay (first time in nine years). I guess you could say that Thanksgiving is the start of the holiday season, but then you have to remember all the holiday stuff that was out in retail in October. 

Black Friday wasn't that interesting. I remember when the stores opened at 4am and the rush to get in. Now there's hardly any point. Sure sales are there and I'll shop, but now it's just ridiculous that stores want to start Black Friday on Thursday. For one thing Friday is in the name. It also really cuts into family time, unless your idea of family time is seeing how many other Black Friday shoppers you can take out as a unit (ten points for taking out grandma). 

However, despite my distaste for the Black Friday hype, I realized how many people work on the sacred day of feasting on Turkey. I had to drop my significant other off at the train station on Thanksgiving and as soon as he jumped out of my car five minutes before departure, I realized that there were people running the transportation system to make sure everyone got home to stuff themselves silly. I thought to myself, is this a free ride home for them or are they working because they have to ( or have nothing better to do)? Several super markets were also open until the mid-afternoon. Was this also necessary. Couldn't people have remembered everything they needed the day before? Heck, my sister ran to one store twice before the dinner was in the oven.

Let also not forget about the people who work at the football games. It's freezing and they could be hearing a nice hot dinner by a crackling fire and they're out there making TV magic for the football fans. 

I am starting to think that it is a little hypocritical that people complain about workers not getting time off from major retailers for Black Friday, yet it is okay for people to catch a plain or train and watch a football game on an"American Holiday set aside for family." I think we also forget about the troops who can't be home or the news reporters letting us know what is happening in the world (or just how to cook a turkey). They also have to work on this holiday. I am not saying it is right what stores are doing, but all the hype on both sides (shoppers and angry ranters) sensationalizes the problem of greed in our country. 

I found it shocking to realize that there are a lot of people who work on Thanksgiving. It made me thankful to have a job that allowed me the time off to celebrate an odd American tradition that others find strange (I spent Thanksgiving in the UK once and they thought it was a celebration like the forth of July for us). In fact I'm thankful to have a job and a home to call my own. I am thankful to have friends and a wonderful significant other. Heck most of the time I'm thankful to just be alive and thinking and totally free to do as I please. 

I hope other people are thankful too. No matter what the future holds I am thankful for today and the day before. Now to see what the future holds.

If you enjoyed this post (or if it really pissed you off) please comment and share (either on the blog or on Facebook). Maybe I can make someone smile for a moment to two.