rambling...

Happy Thanksgiving to all my faithful readers and friends (some of who are one in the same). I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday with friends and family and whoever else you spent it with. we had 2 thanksgivings this year. the first was with my parents, our good family friend, my cousin and my boyfriend and i. food was good. we laughed, A LOT, which was much needed after the past few weeks and i lost $15 playing poker b/c i had to buy in for not only myself but for my cousin and bf too... something about that doesn't seem right. at least i know i'll see the money from the bf but my cousin... doubtful. friday night we went to Mohegan Sun to see boyfriend's all time favorite band Staind. they have a new album out which is a little on the hard side if you ask me, but none-the-less, we went. i'm more of a fan of the solo stuff, but that's b/c i really like all of their mellow songs and he tends to play the mellow stuff when he is solo. but i digress. one of my most favorite slots at Mohegan is the Wizard of Oz machine. i LOVE the wizard of oz so the fact that i can gamble on it makes it ever so much better. but... when i got over to the one i like, there was only one seat open. unfortunately, some lady thought it would be okay to play 2 machines at once. NOT okay i don't think. at all... then, when another opened up, the lady who took it (she was there before me so it was fair) jumped up and down in her seat every time she won even $1. and then, these 2 other dudes just kept switching off... so i was getting super heated... especially when i realized it was 7:45 and we had to go into the concert. the show was good- shorter than i anticipated but i think they usually talk more in between the songs. he played 18 including one off his solo album- country boy- which i love. i'm also a fan of his new song "paper wings"

Make some paper wings
And learn to fly

while i'm sure the lyrics mean something totally different, i feel like there is something to be taken from them... it's like, at some point, you have to just do it. you have to trust that you can and will be okay if someone pushes you to do something you are unsure of. you have to learn to fly solo. a friend sent me a card for my birthday and since then, we have had a few conversations stemming from this card. it said "leap and the net will appear" it's from a series of cards/mugs/paper etc. from quotablecards. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these products. did i mention that i love them? i do. it stemms from my love of all things quote related (no really?) and b/c they are done in cool fonts and colors and just... i love them. anyway. back to my original story.

leap and the net will appear. so many times, we are afraid to do things. to try new things. to take a leap of faith, or a leap of no faith. to move on from the thing we know to that which is unknown. i used to be afraid to take the leap. to jump in, both feet, unsure of how close the bottom would be. until recently. i hated where i was, liked the idea behind what i was doing, hated where we were living even though i was lucky to have the unwaivering support of boyfriend. so i lept. literally. i got a job interview appointment on a thursday for the next day (friday). i called out of work to go to the interview. i took the job before i quit the one i was working at. i quit the first job and spent the next week preparing to transfer my case load. i was sad to leave the kids, and some of the staff, but i needed something different. i couldn't be miserable. i couldn't keep holding on to something that made me want to come undone at the very thought of it. i cried on a daily basis. i cried when i left meetings (even meetings that went well) and i cried during my entire drive home each day. then, i would cry again when boyfriend would get home or when i would see him. i worked from 7am-3pm most days (some days not till 8) and then would drive home, run errands if i had any, and work from then till it was time to make dinner, sometimes while cooking dinner and then after dinner. i watched tv from my computer, turning around periodically to see what was going on. boyfriend and i argued about my working constantly... it hurt us... not enough to break us up, but enough that he would be really frustrated that i was doing work again... it was never ending. but i lept. and somehow, out of thin air, the net appeared. similarily, a friend also took a leap. left. moved. tried new things. was scared. and just like that, the net appeared.

so i've learned... it's okay to be scared. it's okay to leap and it's okay to not know what to expect. it's normal to be completly freaked out and not have any idea where your life is going. on some days, i still don't know where my life is headed or if it's headed in the right direction. but i know that it's okay to leap. that it's okay to not know where i'm going every day but to know that if i jump, somehow, i'll be okay...

two posts in one day!?

this one will be brief... i promise...

every monday night, we settle in to watch our line up of television shows. we start at 8:00 (or whenever i get home and dinner is done cooking) with How I Met Your Mother which neither of us ever used to watch but that we purchased on DVD, caught up and are now HOOKED. following that, we usually watch Two and a Half Men because I personally happen to like watching 2 Broke Girls last and we follow 2.5 up with Mike & Molly before making it to 2 Broke Girls. If you haven't already, you should 100% check it out. it is seriously one of the funniest shows I have watched lately and on a Monday, funny is necessary. But I digress... anyway... after 2.5 men and Mike & Molly, there is this clip at the end called a Vanity Card. I'm still not entirely sure who they are actually written by but it is part of our routine to pause the DVR and read these vanity cards. It's kind of become my obsession. If we miss it, I have to rewind to read. so... i wanted to share them with you. Check out Chuck Lorre Vanity Cards here.... ENJOY!

this life is what you make it... (m. monroe)

today i got to thinking... can you ever really escape "small town" life? physically, sure. it's quite possible to pack up, pick up and move. and i'm no stranger to the pack it up and move it along- i left town for college as all who live in a small town must do if they wish to attend and live at school given that there are no colleges in this here small town. and after that, i stayed for a while, mostly because i didn't have anywhere to live out where i was working so i commuted back and forth, wasting gas and putting miles on my (at the time) brand new car. and then i packed up. i moved out to eastern mass. a land where prior to, i had only been to go to fenway. i bearly even ventured out there in college to do "21 year-old things" with the exception of when i went out "that way" to visit college friends. but i did it. i moved to "eastern mass". i embraced boston. in fact, i embraced boston so heavily that i ended up with a pure-bred bostonian. thick-ass boston accent and all. okay so i'm straying from my initial topic... small town life. so after moving to "boston" and doing "eastern mass" things, i made it back to western mass. and i dragged my pure-bred back here with me (as a side note: he went to college in western mass and loved it so it's not like i had to pull TOO hard...) so i'm back. and i don't live where i grew up but i'm still around enough to know that things in this small town haven't really changed. i have a number of friends who still live here, and i have a number of friends who have left for other adventures and who have found SO much happiness in those adventures. they have found new jobs, new homes, and most importantly, new and strong loving relationships. and that's not to say that they didn't have those things here but just that in moving on to different places, have found the things that we all wish for our friends. but i know that small town hasn't escaped them. i know that although they are waking up to fame in hollyweird and to government in our nation's capital that there is always the thought of this small town and everything they learned from it. and because i know these people so very well, i know that they have been shaped by the things they learned here and the things that they took from it- the good, the bad, the ugly. you can never escape it. and anyone who says you can is a liar. it is ALWAYS a part of who we are. i get that there is drama in a small town but in reality, there is drama in a big city too. you just don't necessarily see the drama because there are more people for it to be hid behind or based upon. but take from it this... that drama will not haunt you for the rest of your life. in fact, if you play your cards right, any and probably most of that drama will teach you a very valuable lesson. it will teach you about who matters. it will teach you about who is going to be there, no matter how far away you go or how many times you come back. it will teach you about yourself- if you let it or it will bite you in the ass... IF you let it. when you wake up every morning and real ize you're in that same small town and that the same drama is going to make its way in and out of your ears at school or after school or wherever... remember this... in a few years, you are going to wake up and miss that. you are going to wish to have it back and to do it over again and once you know then- what you don't know now, you will want it to be exactly the same because from it, you have become the best you that you can be. and in all honesty, even if you do decide to move away, to leave "small town" life forever... ultimately, it will always be with you. you will always find yourself saying things like "well in my hometown" or "when i was in high school..." and comparativly speaking, your experiences are going to be just as great, if not better, than your new friends from the big city. hell... some of them never had a snow day where they could actually spend it sledding or if they could, had no hills to sled down. (okay so as of late, that might be a bit different but...) some of them have never spent their nights kicking back coldies at a bon fire in someone's back yard (this is where some of the best memories are made-btw). and some have never been able to say that they have never utilized public transportation. (it's true, not everyone rides a bus to school. some people take the T... really!). it is these things that make you who you are today and will help to shape who you will become. so embrace it. don't let anyone tell you that "small town living" isn't really living...

The big reason why folks leave a small town, he used to say, is so they can moon over the idea of going back. And the reason they stay put is so they can moon about getting out. He meant that no one is happy, anywhere. -Chuch Palahniuk, Rant

...it's been a while...

so i realize it has been something like 17 days since i last posted. okay it has been 17 days. there have been a lot of times i have sat down to write and nothing makes it onto the page b/c something comes up and i just don't do it... and then by the time i get home and make dinner and snuggle up into pajamas and sit my ass on the couch to watch tv, it's time to go to bed and i haven't blogged. i've toyed with the idea of blogging via my phone but it annoys me in all honesty. so... what's been going on...

a week ago today, actually right around this very time, we (my parents and sister and i) had to say goodbye to our beloved dog, iggy. those of you who know iggy know what a huge part of our family he was (like most dogs) but this one...i dunno. i'm pretty sure my parents (at least my dad) considered him a human more than my sister or i. so after a long weekend (friday/saturday/sunday) of my parents and during some points, myself being in and out of the doggie ER (which is no cheap feat) we were told that the vet from earlier in the weekend had been basically, wrong, and that Iggy was suffering from cardimyapathy. which is heart disease. he was also in congestive heart failure at that point and his heart was functioning at a very low percentage. he was getting progressivly worse throughout Monday morning and so we made the decision to say goodbye...  it's been a week and i know that going to my parents on Thanksgiving is going to be so super hard b/c he won't be here... now, we are really going to have to wash the dishes instead of just letting him lick them and putting them away. I'M KIDDING! but seriously... he's been gone a week and hopefully, my mom and dad will get another dog soon. not to replace him b/c NOTHING could replace this guy but to make the house feel a little more normal....

Iggy Czarniecki... 6.9.02-11.14.11

overall, this has not been the best year... i mean there were some high points... my sister got married. we went to a bunch of weddings. friends got engaged, are buying houses and having babies.. that stuff is all great and i'm very happy for each of those friends who have had the good things happen. but overall, this year has sucked. tornado- lots of damage to my parents house. really stressful event in general and something i'm going to spend every summer praying to avoid... a hurricane- which provided us some damage both for us and my parents but that ultimately didn't stop our trip to new hampshire or hinder my sister's cape cod wedding. and the last freak-o-nature snow storm that tore up our yard and trees and just sucked in general.

don't get me wrong. i am VERY thankful for the things i do have and not just b/c it's almost thanksgiving. i'm thankful for these things all year long and it seems kind of cliche to be "thankful" just b/c it's thanksgiving on thursday but why not take advantage of it right? the people i am thankful for know that i am thankful for them. b/c i take the opportunity to say thank you...

on that note... i have a hard time with words. not saying them or using them b/c let's be honest i can easily talk to anyone. but i have been thinking lately about the way we use certain words. i actually dedicated 4 handwritten pages of a letter (yes, imagine that, an old fashioned, hand-written, letter) to talking about the overuse of the words i love you, just for the sake of saying "i love you". okay so not a whole 4 pages but still... i'm not saying you shouldn't say that you love someone. in fact, if you do, i think you should say it b/c too often we don't get to say it until it's too late to say it (hey, deep thought). but i think it's a go-to word for a lot of things. i "love" this or that or her or him or that thing or something that happened... but really, do you LOVE it? or is it just something you enjoy or really like or it makes you happy. i mean, you can use "love", who am i to shut down your feelings on the situation? but i just feel like sometimes, and even i am so very guilty of this, we overuse the word love when we can't find anything else to say. there are a lot of things i really enjoy, things that make me happy and things that i look forward to. but if i really stop to think about it, the things i truely LOVE are harder to come by. i guess it's all based on your definition of love and if you are saying that love can have different values or that it can in fact be more of a tiered approach. just something i've been pondering lately...

134 hours later...

it's baaaaackkkk... never have i been so excited to hear the words "your power has been restored..." i mean, seriously. how the hell did people do it in the past? i guess if you weren't used to having electronics and cooking on a stove and keeping your food cold in the fridge you would be okay... which just leads me to believe that convienence has made us relativly lazy people... i mean, i can plug in a device that cooks my dinner while i go to work... really? but seriously. i'm really excited to go home and do 100 loads of laundry, to wash my comforters b/c they smell like fireplace, to wash my pillow b/c it too smells like fireplace and to sit in front of the tv... i do feel bad b/c some of my friends still don't have power and let's be honest here, that sucks... the lack of power has become less about when we are getting it back and more about who makes it the longest without it and therefor, wins by losing... over the past few days i have gotten pretty damn bored. here are the results of that boredom combined with leftover halloween candy that has been staring me in the face for the past week...

milk dud mountain... as i was building this i was saying "candy mountain...yay..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5im0Ssyyus

check this out if you aren't sure what candy mountain is... b/c it's effing hilarious...

the starburst tower was created when i picked out all the pink starbursts, then discovered the purple tropical ones... then i just went nuts... and the S.O.S... self explanatory...

so now i have power back... but alas, no food... literally. my freezer has a bottle of cherry vodka, some blueberry vodka and some ice packs that have at this point defrosted fully... my fridge has some waters, garlic and onions (to keep away the vampires) and.... that's it... so... we have to go out to dinner (AGAIN) because we have no food. and hopefully tomorrow, we will go to my sisters (thanks, Jenna) for a nice home cooked meal... and hopefully we can convince my dad to come along.

i'm excited to go home and clean... to vaccume... to do laundry... and i'm NEVER excited about this...

and... i'm ready to sleep in a heated house with no fireplace... it's been a VERY long week....

115 hours.... and couting... part 2

....where was i... so i start to make my trek home. i get on the mass pike and immediately, i'm going 10mph... now mind you, they had already reduced the speed limit from 65 to 45 b/c of the road conditions but 10?! 10?! so i'm driving along, trying not to freak out that i'm low on gas (ps. remember when they told you to fill up before a storm? do it the morning before... not after the storm starts)... anyway... so my 15 drive turned into a 45 minute drive... but being as i was covered in white face paint i opted to go home and wash my face and shower first. this turned out to be the best idea i had all day. so i showered, made a list of things i needed to make some turkey chili and headed to the grocery store. it was GROSS out, but i was still convinced that a power outage would be minimal... a day or so... so i was going to make some turkey chili and then i'd just keep it to eat over the next week... yum! before hitting up big Y, i stopped for gas... something told me do it now, or else... once, i think i heard that if you have a full tank of gas, you won't slide around as much. it's probably bullshit but if it's the reason that that made me fill up, so be it! so... i filled up and moved on to big y. i picked up the necessary items plus a few extra things for snacks and for pat and headed home. i got my chili going on the stove, threw on the tv and just relaxed while it cooked... a little while later i made myself a nice bowl of chili. it was delicious... i snuggled up on the couch with coors (the dog) and waited patiently for pat to find out if he had to work till 10 or if they would let him out early because of the weather. around 7:15, he texted me saying "we're getting out in a little bit"... i think he called to say he was on the road about 7:40ish and again around 7:55 to tell me he was pulled over b/c the road was closed for a few minutes. at this point, i was excited for him to come home and for us to not only spend some unplanned time together but also to catch up on DVR'd shows from last week. until 8:00.... when i hear the sound that everyone hates to hear... the death of all things electrical, simultaneously... power... out... pat came home about 5 minutes later and he too was less than thrilled about the lack of all things electric... around 9:30, we retreated to bed  as it was too dark to see ANYTHING... luckily, i had charged the kindle and phone so i could read a bit... we both fell asleep only to wake up multiple times during the night to the cracking and subsequently, trees hitting the ground. around 1, i made pat go out to make sure our cars were okay and that the house didn't have any major damage... he came back in and because i was satisfied with his detailed description, we were able to go back to bed... and woke up to this...

the first picture is... my car.. no seriously. that branch got SO heavy that it covered my entire car and somehow, by the grace of god, did not break... or else, it'd be a new car for me which i would not have complained about but only would have added to the mess... (oh. ps... no power at this point, still)... the second is a tree in my front yard that snapped and was laying in the road. we lost something from all the trees, which was awesome. but.... despite the scene, at least someone was happy....

so... pat went off to work after shoveling and i plugged the phone into the car and retreated back to bed to read and stay warm.. it was a balmy 56* at this point so it wasn't too too bad... sunday night we took a trip to hooters for some dinner because we couldn't find anything else open. dinner was good and it was nice to be out with lights, tv and warmth. (add to the power bullshit that the Pats lost). we got home and went back to bed becuase lets face it, after over 24 hours without power, the house was staring to get cold... we made it through sunday night and i went into work monday morning. we transformed work to accommodate another company without power and upon returning home to a house that was now 40*, we opted to make the move to my parents house to spend the nights in front of the fire.



that was monday... it's thursday... neither i, nor my parents have power... i have been showering at work, throwing elbows at people at the laundry mat and have changed my casual "hi, how are you" for a "do you have power" greeting. to say it is getting old is an understatement. my clothes have a constant stench of fireplace smoke, i'm exhausted from getting up every few hours to feed the fire, and i'm about ready to throw all the dogs out into the snow... they are estimating my restoration to be tomorrow by 12 noon but i "should be cautioned as this is just an estimate and actual times may be later than anticipated". but rest assure "we at Western Mass Electric won't stop until power has been restored to the last customer".....

115 hours later... that's reassuring.....

115 hours without power... part 1

restless... that is probably the only way to describe how i am feeling after the past (almost) week... but let's back up...

last thursday night, i tried to go to bed early b/c i had to get up to be at work to drive to malden, ma for a conference at the department of education. trying to go to bed when it's so out of your routine and you aren't tired always makes for an interesting evening. so because i wasn't tired, i did not manage to actually fall asleep until past 1am... which normally would be okay since i don't work till noon but did not bode well when the alarm went off at 5am. i got ready, drove to work and headed into boston with a co-worker/good friend of mine. he, after 2 coke zeros and a large black coffee, was strangely awake which could be in part due to the fact that he (for some reason) enjoys the early morning. okay so we get to malden (3 hours after the start of our journey) and sit in this meeting which was almost entirely pointless and had i known they would send me the powerpoint upon returning home, would have probably skipped but... i digress... i get back to work around 3ish and my other co-workers are in full swing decorating for our halloween party we have for the little town kids... so we decorate, have a few kids in the office and then around 5, lock up and head home. so at this point, i'm beyond exhausted because i do not do well in a car for that long without a nap... but, we had already committed to a halloween party at an adult beverage establishment with other friends of ours. so despite my exhaustion, i went home, ate some subway (thank you hunny) and got ready to go to the party. P & I went as a team from Double Dare!

I made our tshirts with some transfers and although the red sweats were INCREDIBLY hard to find, it was a super fun, comfortable costume and people LOVED it... we came in second place in the costume contests, but in our defense, the people who won were "bar regulars" and our friends left prior to voting.. which means people really liked our costumes!! I would have probably added some green slime and perhaps a beaker with a line on it like they had on the show but all in all, a success...

so.... needless to say we are out a little late on Friday night. we probably got home around 12:30 and i went straight to bed. however... again, with the little sleep on thursday night and now having to be up at 7 saturday morning, i was in no mood... but i rallied. got up, came to work, finished decorating and got all ready in my cosutme. i was a mime (which i will NEVER do again b/c in my opinion, the costume was an epic fail but i already have a great idea for next year- thank you to a fellow blogger who at this time shall remain nameless). So our "party" at work starts around 11 and people are coming in at a pretty steady pace... about 1:00, it starts raining... people are still coming in at a pretty steady pace... around 2, it starts to slow down becuase the impending snow is finally starting... it's heavy, really heavy and by this point was pretty damn cold out too... it even smelled like snow, which i think happens to be pretty cool that you can "smell snow". anyway... digression again. so at 3, the party ends, we push the last people out the door, do a quick cleaning (REAL quick) and decided to get out because well, the snow is actually coming down at a pretty good pace, the roads are starting to get covered and well, we were all over it. let's just be honest here... so i begin my trek home....

to be continued... (in the next post, to appear shortly)....