Sorry.

You don't get to go around throwing fire and burning bridges... and then expect people to still like and respect you. That's not how it works. If you are nasty and hateful to people, you can't really play the victim or feel sorry for yourself when no one wants to pursue a friendship with you, or even talk to you anymore.
If you have sincerely had a change of heart... ball up and apologize to people. Don't send someone else ("tell everyone I'm sorry") or expect social networking sites to do the job for you ("I sent him a message on facebook..."). That kind of response still lacks maturity and responsibility in every way. And quite honestly, pisses people off.
It is, unfortunately, a long, frustrating, and humbling process to rebuild that bridge you burnt absolutely to the ground, so if you know yourself to be impulsive, immature, fickle, or you opinion easily swayed... next time, I would think very carefully before you get out your flame thrower.

Loot

I had a lovely birthday! Dinner with my parents, a comedy show, a day at the lake ...and even a surprise party! It was tons of fun. I also got tons of gifts! Including new sewing scissors, Gift Cards (to get my hair done, starbucks, maurices, itunes, and NY&Co.!!!), a grill, a new zjusher, an apron, couple candles, a box full of fabric/ribbon scraps, buttons, and dye, and a new bible! I am feeling incredibly spoiled and inspired. I have lots of shopping, cooking, and creating to do!

100DC Update

I guess the deal is I am going to give you an update on this 100 day challenge (100DC... yes?) every Friday. So here is the first week update... and some honesty.
My 100DC has had a slow start... we were on vacation for the first couple days this week... and I've had a hard time catching up to life since then, plus it's birthday week around here, so we have been doing lots of extra celebrating with extra lazy time mixed in... anywho... here's how i am doing on each of my 4 challenges:
1) P90X: Worked out with Joel the first day. Had fun. Was so sore the next day I wanted to cry. We haven't received our copy in the mail yet-- so it's up to me to be active on my own, I guess... and I've been doing more ice-cream eating and movie watching, BUT it's beautiful weather and the boys are dying to get outside these days... so I am sure there will be much activity this weekend... at least a run or two with the dogs.
2) Learn/try something new: This week I played frisbee golf for the first time, did P90X for the first time, Met two cool people and learned about their lives, Wrote the longest sewing tutorial I ever have to date (and discovered I need to learn a) how to make patterns and b) correct sewing lingo. ha!). I also learned some things about my husband and how to communicate and relate to him better, just by spending time with his family, and talking on our car ride. Learning, trying, growing, good for me.
3) Dishes: Well... um... when we left town the sink was full of dirty dishes (I had asked my husband to help me with that, since I was crazy busy that day, but he was not feeling helpful in any way, and we were walking out the door when i saw the still-full sink.) I dreaded coming home to the inevitable stinky mess, and was it ever. Yesterday did a load in the dishwasher in the 13 minutes i had at home before rushing out the door again, but still can't bring myself to tackle that pile. But today is the day. We'll call it a birthday present to a better me.
4) Three Rs: I go through the house each morning and turn off all the fans and lights in rooms we are not using. I have a tub in the basement full of soda cans (and probably other stuff, as I cannot for the life of my convince my dear husband that is not a trash can) that I will take in sometime tomorrow. We need to clean out our basement... DESPERATELY and so that project will probably have a lot of recycling, upcycling, freecycling and the like attached to it. I hope to not send much to the landfill... but get A LOT of stuff out of our house.

Soooo thats where I'm at. With hopes for a better next week in all areas of my challenge! :)
Oh, and it's also my Birthday today. I have plans tonight with my parents for my traditional daddy-made birthday dinner (fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and watermelon) and a motorcycle ride. Should be... amazing. :)

My Boys and Their Toys

Oh, Dad, all i really want is to play with your new toy... or, you know, kill it!

(Yes, our house is rather messy... we just got home from vacation and took a break from cleaning and unpacking to play with the boys. Winston Grace was FASCINATED with his dad's new helicopter. Every time he would get close to it-- of the couple times he snatched it out of the air... he got in trouble. Not fair, not fair at all, huh bud? Charlie, on the other hand, could not have been more disinterested in the whole scene. He crawled on my lap and snuggled in with his mom. Awww... Charlie. We missed our boys.)

Insight from my best friend:

McDonalds never lives up to expectations...just like the men in my life. You convince yourself you MUST have it and once you've got it, it's kind of gross.

100 Day Challenge

My friend Courtney put out a 100 day challenge to all of her friends. Basically the challenge has 2 rules/guidelines: 1) challenge yourself to better yourself in some way 2) complete your challenge within 100 days. And... you have the support of lots of other people who have challenged themselves to be better in some way as well... or something. I don't know, read what she said about the 100 Day Challenge, she probably explains it better than me.
Anywho, I decided to participate and so I am posting here for you my goals. I have a couple different goals I am working on... and they have actually changed slightly from what I originally posted on Courtney's site, but I have explained in detail about each of them below...
1) Complete P90X in 100 days Okay, I know that P90X is a 90 day program. I also know that Valeries are not as ambitious as Tony Whats-his-bucket who designed the 90 day program. So I figure if I can stick with it and have 10 free passes in the next 100 days I can feel good about that. Z's fam bought us P90X for our b-days, so it's perfect timing. I do better with quantitative goals than qualitative... so instead of 'get in shape' or 'lose weight' my first goal is two fold, complete P90X and be able to do an unassisted pull up (Which i have never before even come close to doing--don't judge me) by Dec. 1.
2) Learn/Try something new every day I know I just made my qualitative/quantitative speech... and this one hardly falls into the latter category. But i was sitting around my place of employment the other day looking at my dreary bored co-workers and I thought to myself, I am not going to be here forever. Meaning in this place, this job, this stage of life... whatever. But the only way to move yourself out of dreary bored-ness is to keep moving and keep learning and sometimes trying things and learning by error... learning and trying. I am currently teaching myself to sew. I like trying new cooking techniques, the other day I refinished a bedside table, and since recently getting married I am attempting to speak a new language--MALE. Sooo... Learn/try something every day, easy enough to accomplish. I think it will be interesting to record. ha!
3) Don't go to bed with Dirty dishes this seems simplistic enough, but I am not a tidy person by nature. And the kitchen... well the kitchen messes quickly overwhelm me. I can create more dishes than any person I know making dinner for 2. It's out of control. But if I can get each day's dishes out of the way before starting a new day, I can re-gain control of my kitchen... slowly but surely... this is going to be the toughest for me, I am afraid.
4) The Three R's. I live in lovely Johnson County Kansas, which is a backwards part of the world where they charge you to recycle. If you want to recycle your paper products, cans, and glass... you have to pay a monthly fee for recycling pick up service. Drop off centers for such resources are few and far from here... it's just silly. That will not, however, keep me from my attempts to reduce my carbon footprint... or whatever that lingo is. Here are a few things I am implementing:
a) buckets in the basement for aluminum and paper. (I know of local-ish drops for those items that i can make a trip to weekly)
b) Freecycle.org--I make fun of my mom because she is a little out of control with her free-cycling, but it's a better way to get larger items to someone who can use/fix stuff that would otherwise sit in a landfill. Likewise, I have saved a couple items from landfill status by taking them off the hands of others... and saved $$$ at the same time. woot.
c) Light switches. There is a switch for a reason-- so you can turn it off. This is more of a challenge for my dear husband than it is personally... but we will work to be better about unnecessary energy consumption...
So there's our few things we will doooooo... not world changing, but world helping, right? right.

So there are my goals, my friends. I hope you will... participate with me in encouraging and keeping me accountable to the challenges i have put myself to. Should be fun. As my friend Sara would say... it will be Life Changing! :) yay!

***Challenge runs Aug 23, 2010 through Dec 1, 2010****

I LOVE SURPRISES!

I do! I really really love surprises! I love it when people surprise me, and I love surprising other people. Birthday surprises are the best... and I just so happen to have one up my sleeve that is making me really anxious for this week to get over, because I can't keep a secret for long! YIKES!
It's going to be a Happy Birthday for someone I love...

Highlight of my week:

"Will you please just go over and smell the dogs breath? It makes me sick when I smell it, and I think it might be poisonous!"