I was rejuvenated this weekend. Some of my friends from the old days of The Nest and I all reconnected on Facebook. Some of us are still posting all the time. Others have stopped posting. And others, like me, are on the sporadic side these days.

It felt good to talk to them and catch up. It’s interesting how much of a closeness I felt with some of them a few years ago. They were there for me when I moved to Kuwait, when I was homesick, when I had work woes, and celebrated with me when we returned. Lots of changes, all captured here, and read by my blog friends.

It continues to remind me how much I enjoy this little space of mine, and how much I appreciate the friendships forged because of it.

I turned in my paper tonight.

Thank goodness.

A week of freedom.

And then back at it again.

Ugh.

The good news is that after this upcoming summer class I have a whole month off before the fall starts.

I promised an update, and trust me, it’s coming.

I just had to pop in tonight and breathe a sigh of relief that I’m done with this class! I also wanted to share how blessed I am to know some pretty amazing women I’ve been able to cross paths with because of our blog-o-sphere. Pretty great if you ask me.

I posted this ages ago. It was about how P and my mom came all the way to Camp Arifjan, where I worked in Kuwait, and surprised me with a Johnny Carinos canolli and a crown for being “Employee of the Month.” It seems sort of silly when I look back on it now, but at the same time, when I look back on it now, it touches me even more.

For one, I hated my job experience in Kuwait for a long time. If any of you have read my blog from those days you know I had a hard time. It was so sweet when they came up to my work and surprised me with such a thoughtful gift just to show they loved me. Also, getting onto Camp Arifjan is a giant pain in the ass. Yes. I said it. Ass. Because it is. It really is, and there’s no way around not cussing because it’s THAT much of a pain. Anyway- it took a lot of time driving there, waiting to get to the gate, having your car searched, getting fondled in the 100 plus degree heat, and then getting to my office. That alone shows the thought behind the gift. What a nice gesture. I’m a really lucky girl. 

It only took us almost seven years, but Will and I recently joined the league of married adults- actually… adults in general- and purchased our first alarm clock.

Yep. Seven years. No alarm.

Weirdos.

We’ve used each of our phones as our alarms throughout our entire marriage, but after a couple of malfunctions we decided we probably should grow up and get a freaking alarm clock so we can slam the crap out of the snooze button in style.

I suddenly feel much more responsible and self aware. As if I’ll be on time to all events now. All because of our alarm clock.

I’m lying.

I just seemed like the right thing to say.

Speaking of time. I’m not making good use of mine.

Well… I guess I wouldn’t go that far. Blogging is defintiely good use of my time!

However, I could probably make better use of my time by working on this stupid paper I have to do for school.

That’s what I need. A life alarm. Like one that has my entire day rigidly scheduled- 2 hours for my paper, 1 hour 8 minutes to get ready in the morning, 13 minutes to post to my blog.

How great/annoying would that be?

Instead I’m forced to be my own time manager.

Which means I probably need to stop droning on about alarm clocks and start droning on about cyber bullying. Both equally entertaining. Ha.

More to come…

1.I can’t blow my nose in public. I just can’t do it. In fact, when I feel like my nose may run in front of others I get all panicked and plan an escape route.

Yes you read right, an ESCAPE route. It’s like a whole Jack Bauer thing- what’s my exit strategy? Are there Kleenex nearby? What about a mirror to ensure there’s no post nose blow drippage?

Oh- and I should probably mention that I am an awful nose-blower. I don’t even think I could properly blow my nose until I was a teenager.

Wow- the fact that I’m volunteering this information? So great. Thank God I’m not looking to join the Junior League anytime soon. I’m pretty sure this is the stuff that you don’t tell others, right?

2. The first Will I ever loved, Prince William, is getting married. Which totally dashes my dreams of ever becoming a real princess. Granted, my marital situation sort of dashes that too, but I like to think Will would have been okay with me bring a princess. But now? Now Prince William is engaged and my dream is all over…

What about you? Any fellow Prince William crushes?

3. Guilty pleasure: secretly loving when I hear a rap song that mentions another rap song’s lyrics and being able to totally understand the reference and what song it comes from. You have to have lofty goals, my friends, lofty goals.

4. I realize I’ve neglected this blog a little in recent years, for a number a reason- mainly because I’m a lot more grown up than I was when I started this thing at the baby age of 21 (can you believe I’ve been blogging that long!?!). However, I was going through and looking at old posts the other day and realized:
a. How young and silly I sounded most of the time
b. How many freaking ANNOYING emoticons I used- how did you guys bear through these posts back then with a smiley after every
fourth word!?
c. How I still am that same girl but just a little older and wiser
d. How this blog is a continual reminder about how much I enjoy writing and sharing of myself. And it makes me realize what I enjoy
in life and what I’m good at and that maybe one day I’ll take a different path in my life to focus more on such things.

5. They’re making a new True Grit movie. Which makes me want to cry. I actually blogged about the first True Grit a few years ago, when Will
was on his John Wayne kick and we literally watched a new (ha well, new to us) movie of his every weekend. True Grit was pretty painful the first time for me- but it gave me so super great material to joke with Will about. “These corn pies taste like blood!” <- in the most Southern accent you can imagine of course. In fact- if you typed that phrase into my search bar I’m pretty sure the my post about John Wayne ( as well as 15 other things because, per number 4. Sub section a I sounded young and silly and scattered most of the time. Scattered… we should have added that to the list). Anyway- I have a feeling know I’ll be going to see that whenever it opens. A big sarcastic yay!

6. I don’t DVR it (cough- yet) but when I catch Teen Mom I totally watch it. Another awful guilty pleasure.

More to come!

Or at least far less excuses! I’ve recently joined the 21st century and have an iphone! Up until a couple of weeks ago I was sporting a Razr- which was functional, don’t get me wrong, but now that I’ve had my new phone for a couple weeks I think to myself- how did I ever survive!? Okay so I’m exaggerating but it has definitely made life a lot easier and has allowed for more efficiencies in my life- which will now in include blogging! I can’t really have many excuses now. Although I will say typing this post from my phone has been sort of hard.

Excuses excuses! I guess I better start posting more to get my practice right?

Much more to come!

I think there’s something about getting older that seems to squeeze the fun spontaneity and creativity out of a person. I was convinced that would never be me. Ha! Let a mortgage and responsibilities turn me into a boring old tool? Never! Well- here I am at home on a Friday night blogging. I might as well be drinking Metamucil and reading an AARP magazine. Perhaps the lack of creativity and the pain I experience trying to squeeze some amount of pithiness on this screen has kept me from blogging- oh, you know, for like a YEAR now.

Did you guys know that when I started blogging, way back in 2005, when my posts were actually pretty funny (and annoying. I went back and read some the other day and wow- I found a way to add a smiley face to freaking EVERYTHING. It really annoyed me. A lot. In fact I contemplated going in and removing the thousands-yes thousands- of smileys that occurred from 2005 to about 2007 but I refrained) that it was mostly right after I moved to Kuwait and wasn’t working? Translation- I had hours upon hours of time on my hands to create brilliant works of art (okay- I’m kidding, but you get the point). I would spend a ridiculous amount of time phrasing each post. Putting a lot of thought and love into every smiley face I placed (haha).

Then I started working. I use that term loosely. My boss once told me to shop online for work. Yes. No lie. Your tax dollars hard at work. Which meant once again I had plenty of time to blog and pontificate and create smiley works of art (again- kidding with the works of art stuff).

And then I changed jobs. And was actually busy. However, I still had access to my blog at work which meant I could type a few sentences (with smileys of course ) here and there and by the end of the day have a full fledge post ready to go.

And then we moved to America. Where I had tons of time on my hands all of a sudden. What a weird feeling. I should have been a blogging machine! Yet I wasn’t. When I look back at the decline of my posting it all started when we moved back, which is sort of weird. I’ve contemplated it before and there are a lot of reasons. Don’t worry. We won’t explore them. I guess I thought being back here would make me more consistent and it did the total opposite.

So lately I’ve wondered if I actually still like blogging anymore. And I haven’t come up with an answer. I hope it’s okay to be this honest with you. I really don’t know if I like posting anymore. I used to love it. It was my “passion.” My “thing.” Wow! Getting a little crazy with the quotations. They may be the new smileys.

That’s me being honest. I don’t know how I feel about blogging anymore and honestly it sort of makes me feel sad. It makes me feel sad that something so important to me could possibly not be important to me anymore. I know it sounds silly to feel sadness when I think about it, but I do. How is it that you can feel so strongly and so resolved about something at some point in time only to change your mind? I mean, I know that sometimes circumstances change the way you feel about something, but my blog didn’t change. I didn’t really change… I just sort of stopped caring. Why do you think that happens? I mean, I still enjoy writing. In fact I’m willingly freaking enrolling myself in school to pursue my masters- where I will be writing and writing and writing until I might want to die. Yet, again, I enjoy writing. It’s something I like. So why the blog lapse? I know that’s what you’re thinking.

Anyway, I’ve thought about a few options if I’m going to keep this thing active. I think I will try them and see how it works. Don’t worry, I will not now go into some long drawn out vow to post. Scouts honor.

Wow. You guys got like this whole long blog history. Definitely more than you wanted or bargained for. I will say, though, I have this feeling few people are reading my blog these days and the crazy thing about that is that it makes me SO HAPPY. I know I said I wouldn’t get into the reasons why I went “dark” (Ahh! Again with the quotations!), but I will say that very issue is definitely one of the reasons. I went from being a blog attention sleaze- pay attention to me! Read my blog!- to really resenting the fact that people I knew personally were reading my blog and judging me and that the potential for running into them at Walmart was all of a sudden a real possibility. That is one thing that I really hate. Which can be remedied I suppose…

Okay. Enough of the blogging talk. I’m annoying myself which means you- assuming you’re still reading- are VERY annoyed. Oh, sorry, I mean “very annoyed.”

So there’s actually been some things going on in my life. Where should I start?

Let’s not waste time elaborating on crap. I’ll just give you the high points.

I got a promotion this year! I now how a fancy, shiny “Sr.” in my title. Something about being a senior- a S-R-period- is so exciting to me. I was pretty excited about it.

I decided to get my Masters. Mainly because I’m a glutton for punishment and obviously don’t like myself very much. I’m going to study Organizational Communication. I tried, really tried to make myself get my MBA- because really, isn’t every other Masters a waste?- but the more I looked at everything and considered the whole package I wanted to drive a stake in my left eye, so I decided if I was going to willingly go back I should study something I would like- hence the degree choice.

Will and I are the same. Actually, we’re pretty darn good. We went through a rough patch over the last few months, which was the first one we’ve had in our 6 years of marriage, which I guess is pretty good? I don’t know. I guess it’s normal, which is what I had to realize. For so long I was used to us having this picture perfect life and marriage and then to go through a period where I was frustrated all the time was sort of like a reality check- like “Hello!! You’re freaking NORMAL. It happens sometimes.” You know? Anyway, it was sort of like- “Ahh, okay- so this is what that whole for better for worse stuff means.” (Wow. Again with the quotations. Sorry! I will now supplement with a smiley. Because we all agree they’re so darn great, right? )

I turned 27 this April. Which isn’t old, yet in some ways it seems as though it sort of is. My 20s are starting to come to a close and I’m a big fat grownup. I have been for quite some time now, but turning 27 really hit me. Not necessarily in a bad way.

Will turns 30 on the 27th. Which may hit me harder than it hits him. We shall see. Will’s dad turns 60 this year and we’re going to do a weekend a Branson (a quick whirlwind weekend full of lots of driving there and back) to celebrate. Will and I hope to take a trip for his big day but it will be postponed.

Still no babies. Which makes our families sad. But it’s just not something we’re talking about yet.

Speaking of families, I did mention to you that my parents are moving two doors down from me, right? If THAT’S not enough to thrust me back into the blog world quite honestly, I don’t know what is.

I still eat like crap most of the time. I don’t think there’s any need to elaborate on that. Besides, there’s like a daily story about it.

I got a personal trainer for a month and it was so freaking great and I loved every painful, sweaty, drippy, yell-y minute of it. I only wish I could afford him all the time. Plus I’m pretty sure it would allow me to justify a calorie increase. Bummer I can’t really justify it now.

We have a wedding tomorrow and Will gets to dress up again which is exciting since I never see him in a tux. In fact that’s one of the reasons that I’m still awake.  I couldn’t take off work today, so he went to the rehearsal by himself and I stayed here. He’s on his way home (it’s a 2 hour drive) but I figure by the time I get to sleep he’ll come in and wake me up so I might as well just stay awake. And possibly eat something terrible. I rarely stay up past 10 but I’ve been told that people that stay up late snack. I believe it’s called a “midnight snack?” (AHH! Attack of the quotations). Yes… a midnight snack sounds great.

So I think that’s the recent highlights since my last post. I guess in a sense, the highlights were of themselves a bit of a snack. Tiny pieces of information totally unhealthy for you yet necessary at midnight.

Help me to remember to tell you guys the life group story. It’s pretty funny and worth telling but I think I’ve written enough for tonight.

And it feels good to just get on here and unload. Really good.

Thank you blog, for putting up with my crap and just being here.

Thank you friends, for reading and understanding.

Hi!

So it’s somewhat late, I’ve had a long day, and I’m sleepy (read: boring). However, I wanted my first “real” post in half a year to be a little different so I made a few boring videos!

My face is hilarious in this one.

And because I feel really bad for being such a terrible blogger and friend I wanted to embarrass myself as a peace offering. Please excuse the fly-aways, sausage fingers, and giant zit.

So my blog is up for renewal. Which means I have to pay to blog. Which means I have to make the decision about whether I’m going to pay for this thing again- and if I do- am I actually going to utilize it and get my moneys worth.

So the answer is yes. I’m going to renew.

And yes, I’m going to post.

If I’m going to pay for another year I’m going to post.

So there you have it. It happens in March.

Stay tuned. 

Hi guys.

Guys?

Guy?

Anyone?

Probably not- not that I would blame you. At all. At all times a million.

The answer to your question is- I have no idea why.

The other answer is yes, I am going to post soon. A real one. Because I’m a “blogger” and that’s what bloggers do. Even if they don’t blog for oh- like four months.

Yikes.

We’ll talk about all that later.

Not that there’s much to discuss really.

But I do feel like we should talk anyway.

About anything.

And everything.

Welcome back, Brittny. You’re home again.

More to come (soon)…

Boredom will make you do crazy things.

Like eat.

Or post for no good reason.

Or watch totally stupid crap on TV (Hello MTV True Life!).

Or quite possibly the worst of all-

Facebook.

I know.

How dare I speak ill of our beloved Facebook right?

Ha- don’t worry, I’m not.

Truth be told I think I’ve spent more hours on there the last month than I have my entire Facebook “career.”

Heh.

Facebook Career.

But something gets terribly skewed when you’re so.incredibly.bored and sit online for hours despite having plenty to do.

(cough- cleaning)

You start on the homepage looking at all the updates.

Then you go to your page (for the billionth time) to see who’s left you a comment.

And then you go to a few of you favorite friends’ pages and say hello, see what’s been going on etc.

And then you sit there.

Bored again.

You could clean.

Who are you kidding? You’d way rather sit in front of a computer screen than face your laundry pile.

You could go for a walk.

Eh… fresh air is overrated.

So once again you’re in front of the computer screen.

And then it happens.

You start looking at all your friend’s pages.

You begin looking at all their posts, their pictures, and their friends.

There’s no nice way to put it.

You’re facebook stalking.

The more friends you look at the crazier you get. It’s like this switch flips on and you’ve become this crazy ex girlfriend sitting outside your Facebook friend’s house waiting for them to come home from their date so you can size up the girlfriend’s car and hair and shoes.

It’s like you’ve become the creepy guy that calls your crush a million times but every time she pics up the phone and says hello you panic, chicken out, and hang up.

It’s like you’re BE FRI part of the BEST FRIENDS necklace and are watching to make sure that ST ENDS is not cheating on you.

You’re completely out of control!

Sigh…

As you can see, I’ve been way too bored the last few days. Although I don’t think I’m anywhere near the crazy ex girlfriend facebook stalker status, I must admit I’ve logged a lot of hours on that poor site. It’s like I’m studying for an MFA- and it’s not a Master of Fine Arts. It’s a Master of Facebook Activities.

Thankfully I can say I have never gotten into the whole, “So and So wants to invite you to have a drink on them! or So and So thinks you’re the 9th nicest person they know! Vote for them too!” So, I mean my Facebook activity could most definitely be far worse I suppose.

Right?

It’s like this awful drug that keeps reeling you in! You want to stop so bad. You want to stop and be a productive member of society but you’re so tempted by that high. That “one last hit” on someone’s wall…

it hurts so good.

So, I’m trying to quit.

Okay, I’m lying. I’m not trying to quit.

Although I’d be a genius if I could invent a patch for quitting Facebook.

Hmmm....

Anyway- I really need to tear myself off of the computer a little more so I can be more productive this fall.

I could take up knitting.

Or basket weaving.

Or sopapilla making.

Or maybe just learn how to spell “sopapilla.”

...

Or I could just stay on Facebook.

I could do that too.

Maybe I’ll try to quit another day. That sounds like a plan.

See you on your wall (or outside your house).

I swear I’m only kidding about the house part. I’m not a Facebook stalker.

Hey I saw that look! I’m not and you know it. Scouts honor.

<3