I'm blogging from a random restaurant by the running trail that my husband is running on today. I was planning to hang out in a cafe against the wall and play some Satisfactory on my laptop since I have it with me, but I decided it would be too much to do here where I'm kind of feeling out in the open...but then I chose to blog instead? Who knows. I don't know what to watch that I wouldn't watch with Alex, and there's not a specific project that I'm working on right now that I could work on, like an image/sign for church or a writing or musical thing, so I'm just blogging/journaling. 

I'm looking at the far wall as I think, but when people walk by and happen to get in the way of my line of vision, it looks like I'm looking at them, which is whatever except when it's a server and they think for a second that I might be trying to get their attention for something, but I'm just sitting at my table and listening to music trying not to stare at people, lol. 

I haven't really taken any cool/interesting photos lately, but I used to post some here and talk about them. I know I have some photos from years ago that I could bring up and talk about, but if I look through the photos I have on my computer or maybe scroll through my Google Photos gallery, I'd have my entire camera roll in front of anyone walking by, which isn't as hard to see by accident as this tiny white-on-black text in my blog post... So maybe I won't do that.

Lately I've been thinking and talking to some of the people in my life about how I wish I was currently working on writing something. I know that back when I had my poetry going strong, and when I was working on a novel or short story, that I loved getting in the zone and just writing for hours and hours.... I miss that feeling, and I wish—no, I want to start something up again. 

But what kind of project should it be? There have been several different types of projects that I've considered over the past few years, and a lot of them were either cool novel ideas that would take a lot of dedication to start, work on regularly, and complete, or research paper ideas that would require kinds of research and data collection and analysis that I have never done before. If I had any ideas outside of these two categories, they were usually related to my desire to seek having more fresh poetry to publish with an actual publishing house, rather than self-publishing like I did in 2018, and not with the same poems held in that edition, and under my married name. I've heard that publishers and agents tend to look down on writers who have self-published in the past, as if it conveys that their work wasn't good enough to try to get it published professionally, or that it had even been denied by a publisher. That's not really the case for me, because I really do think I'd be happy with trying to submit what I wrote to a real publisher—I just didn't know at the time that there was anything wrong with self-publishing. So maybe trying to publish something completely new with no ties to my previous writing could actually work, and negate the potential drawbacks from having self-published before.

—I don't know when Alex will be finished running, and I kind of want to be able to just close my laptop and go, so I might try to wrap this up pretty soon here so that I'm not working on it when they finish running... I do have earbuds in, noise cancelling ones, and I'm often sneaked up on when I'm in this working-on-my-laptop gtg

On vacation

I'm on vacation right now... We just went to the gourmet restaurant that we'd discovered when we were here last year, and man, it was just as amazing as the first time we ate there. They even had new drinks, and I tried one called "The Slayed Dragon" that had only ever been ordered once before, it was so new and different. It was a new spin on a whiskey sour, and it had the traditional egg white included. I knew as soon as I saw even just the name of it on the menu that I wanted to know what it was, and after reading the description and ingredients I knew I wanted to try it. It had a sprig of rosemary and a lot of blackberries blended in it, which ended up as pieces of seeds and fruit and leaf at the bottom of the drink. The egg white was a lot of froth at the top, but otherwise it blended with the drink fairly well. The reason for the name was that it was made with an Irish whiskey called "Slayer Whiskey" and as for me, it was a great choice. I'd had both an old fashioned (not on the menu, but it's a regular enough cocktail for it to be something I could order at any restaurant or bar and get a similar drink, since it's a classic) before that and a chocolate martini afterward, making 3 total cocktails... I did share some of the last two with Vinny and Uncle Dan, though. 

What am I trying to say.... I think tonight was really good. The food and drinks were, of course, but more than that, I had a really nice time sitting across from Alex and then next to him when we moved to sit around the firepit (which was also on the balcony in the restaurant). I knew I was at least tipsy, and that I was talking about things because I'd had a bit to drink, but that didn't mean it wasn't sincere, or that it wasn't something I took seriously and wanted to speak about with Alex; rather, it provided an opportunity for him to listen and the encouragement for me to talk about it. I talked about the discussion we'd been having about whether we want to have children, and how I'd been thinking about it and feeling less bad about deciding not to have any. He said he went back and forth between wanting one or two, and then not wanting any, and I agreed that I went back and forth as well. Then I talked about the song I'd been working on, and about a goal that I'd thought of: trying to write a song good enough to spend money on studio time to do a professional recording of it. He agreed that that would be cool, that it was a good goal. 

I think I'm gonna post this and do something else now, maybe chat with Uncle Dan, or maybe even write a new poem... I just wanted to post an update, and capture the mood I have right now. :)

I Don't Have That Job Anymore Thank God

I was just looking back through a lot of my poetry stuff and I realized that it had been a long time since I'd written anything, and that some of the most recent stuff was literally from the time I tried out being an insurance rep. That didn't last very long, and I think I honestly will need to consider future job offers with a lot more scrutiny since they literally talked me into signing into their pyramid shaped company and telling me I could make my own hours but they thought they could train anyone, and they were wrong. Not everyone is meant to be a salesperson, and I am certainly a great example of that. >_< I hate pretense. I hate following a script. I hate putting on a show in order to convince someone of something they wouldn't have thought of in the first place. I thought I could believe in the importance of having insurance policies, but that wasn't enough, because I had to sell them, too, and that takes more than just "I know people out there are driving around without an insurance policy on them or their partner and their kids are not going to be provided for financially if something happens to them." 

So now I'm a nanny again—I really like it, and that's a good thing, because it isn't easy. This baby isn't even 5 months old yet and he's already exceeding 20 lbs. He's so tall/long and he eats so frickin much! But mostly he's heavy. And holding him takes *groan* upper body strength. T_T But if I'm honest, I'm happy that's the biggest of my worries. His parents are my cousins, I love hanging out with them, they're wonderful people and it's a blessing to be close by them, and I don't know what I would be trying to do as a career if it hadn't been for the chance to nanny for them. Sure, I'm not charging them the rate I would have charged a stranger I was contacted by online, because they're family. But it's worth it to me, in so many ways. 

Anyways, I just wanted to update my blog so that the first thing anyone saw wasn't the "I got a job in insurance!" anymore. I won't be posting any photos of the baby for privacy's sake, but lemme tell ya, he's the cutest chumpey to ever chump, I say. Gah he's just so cute. x)

Here's the latest poem I've written, I think the inspiration came to me when I was clicking through Spotify and saw some of the old playlists I used to love that brought back a wave of memories.

Tinge

It comes from nowhere 

It's the faint, burning prickle 

Springs behind your eyes 

Bidding you stop and wonder 

Why your breath caught in your throat. 

—ACB 3.24.2022

New Job as insurance benefits rep!

10:50 AM - Yooo it's been a long time but I'm posting again! I kinda just want to do some writing to clear my head after being sleepy and having a second cup of coffee after an hour nap on the couch and realizing I really need to get myself up and running so I can get this stuff done.

So I started working with an insurance company called AIL, the local branch here in Ohio is SSBH, and I've been working on getting into this job for a month now. Yeah. 

First, I had to get the state insurance license, and that course took me almost 2 weeks before I completed it and then signed up to take the exam as soon as I could. Luckily, I passed (only needed a 70%, and I got 77%, whew), and from there I also had some waiting to do before my orientation or training could start. Then, they gave me the script that everyone memorizes, and that's currently where I'm at in the process. I have my final script check on Monday at 9am, and I'm scared I won't get it done. I know I can do it, I just have to make myself do it because it's going to take hours of just plugging away at it.

So I'm getting over my self-conscious embarrassment of needing to read and repeat this stupid script (it's fine, it's just annoying to anybody who doesn't need to learn it) when Alex is home, I know he doesn't mind because he wants me to start this job just as much as I do, but I ask him to close the office door whenever I'm working on it just because it helps me a bit. So that's something I need to get over, because I literally have just today to work on it, and he's home today so it won't be the "I'm home while he's at work so I can be as focused and loud as I need to be without overthinking it." 

But I can do this.

I'm gonna start working on it here after I use the restroom (second cup of coffee is kicking in lol) and then maybe I'll update this post with how it went. If I don't pass my final script check on Monday, I will have to wait 3 weeks until Brandy's training is finished so that Sky can start training me at the beginning. Brandy's starting on Monday, so I need to be ready, too. oof -.-

Sitting in Starbucks

How do I sum up what I haven't been keeping this blog updated on for months...

...First I think I'm gonna go to the starbucks bathroom real quick because my fingernails are too long to type fast. Brb.

Okay. I'm done clipping.

Well, there is one thing. I got my first set of tattoos for my birthday last month.

Eating at a local pizza place afterwards!

A couple days afterwards, when they had healed a bit

That was really fun, and for anyone wondering, the font type was Bodoni Book. Just because it was close enough to the complex serif-fonts that I was looking at, but simple enough to show up in a tattoo that small (according to the artists at the shop, Moon Light Tattoos in Loveland).

Other than that, well, the job that I started back in September (just a few weeks after the Aug 31st wedding), it's coming to an end, as I put in my two-week's notice on Monday.

Makes me think of that Michael Jr. standup clip where he talks about how he was just gonna leave his job, and didn't care about waiting two weeks, saying something like, "Two weeks from now, you're gonna notice, I ain't been here for two weeks." I can identify with that. I've had a couple bad days since Monday when the combination of 1) the weather being too gloomy to feel like the sun would ever come back, 2) the way my sleep schedule and breakfast habits had gotten backed up and tangled up, and 3) the simple knowledge that all my work duties had been completed in advance and I wouldn't have anything pressing to keep me occupied during the day if I went in, was all so much weight pulling against any desire to get up and drive to work just to not be needed that I called off early in the morning.

...It's times like this that I look at a sentence I've just pieced together and edited a couple times and wonder, "will anybody actually understand that, even if grammatically I've not made any real mistakes?" Makes me kick myself and then think about how it would have come out even worse if I was just rambling in your ear trying to make sense without editing any of it first.

Whatever. If someone cares to understand it, they can read it again, and that's what I like about written communication. Sure, you can try to remember what someone said afterwards, but man, if they say a lot for a long time, how much of it will you actually be able to remember verbatim? There's also just the human capability to misinterpret a phrase, and then reiterate it in their own words as if quoting that person, which can seem like they're purposefully twisting their words if the original speaker heard their account. God knows I've seen that happen way too much at my job in the kitchen. Sure, none of it came from my boss who hired me and holds my utmost respect for being both a hard worker, a good leader, and a kind, understanding individual with an incredible amount of patience. He doesn't try to get into the details of whose fault it was, but just tells them to quit acting like kids. I mean, he doesn't phrase it that way, I don't think. I can't remember his exact words x) anyway.

So while I'm sitting here...what are some things I need to get off my chest, things that I've put off posting about, that I have the time and presence of mind to attempt a record of?

Then that makes me wonder, what is really worth writing? Is it to help me, to let people know how I am, or just to occupy my mind this morning as I try not to think about the fact that I don't have a job after this one and I just need to get in with a psychiatrist so I can start going to therapy again and also have more insight into the medicinal side of my treatment? I did look up the people on the list of psychologists that our insurance covers, and I found one that's also a psychiatrist. That's been something I've needed to do for over a year, it's what my doctor keeps saying that I'll need to do "if this next addition to my meds isn't working" because she won't have any other go-to's with her general practice's experience and training.

Okay so the thing with my sentences being so long and convoluted: there's two possibilities that I'm considering. One is the possibility that I've been away from school for too long, and I've just been in a working environment where being a wordsmith or even grammatically correct was nowhere on the radar of my coworkers; another is the possibility that I've always been kind of rambly with my speech and writing, but I used to have the attention span to re-read what I'd written and then change it, while now I instead just give up and leave with a sense of having lost my capacity for meaningful and succinct communication. I think it's a combination of both. But still, I don't think I'd fix the problem just by reading books more and conversing with people whose vocabulary and patterns of speech are richer and more "bookish" the way I want to be able to think and therefore write... Maybe I'm just going through a crisis of voice. What do I want my voice to be as a writer? How do I want to come across to readers, and do I really need to try to "be something I'm not" by using bigger words or better phrases? I don't know. I do know that I do want to be able to convey deeper messages than can generally be conveyed through casual, conversational language. I want to talk about life and death, aspirations and disappointments, and all the things I try to solve in my thoughts. I want to put it in writing so that I don't just keep turning it over and over in my mind, which, while my meds have helped with that "circular, non-stop jumping from one thought to another" feeling that was overwhelming back in 2016, isn't neurotypical quite yet, I can say. There's still some imbalances of serotonin and whatever else is missing up there. The obsessive compulsion to always write in full, non-fragmented sentences is a trait of one of those imbalances, I'm sure. Or it's a result of the imbalance having been part of my growing up for those developmental years, and has now made a permanent mark on my perception of myself and the world around me.

I also use passive voice a lot, and I remember that back in 2011 and before, my MS Word grammar correction would underline sentences with passive voice as if it were incorrect. It's not only a reflection of my "passive" nature of not wanting to attribute blame to anyone in particular when speaking about a problem, but it's an aspect of the Indonesian language that I was introduced to when my parents were recounting their language learning lessons during our first year in the country. I didn't really have my own lens to look at that world through, but I knew what my parents thought of all the cultural differences. Sometimes I sided with them in their first-world bias, and other times I rejected their aversion to the culture I lived in from age 8 to 16.... Did I just jump from the subject of my speech patterns, to my mental health, to my speech patterns, to my childhood and thoughts of my parents' influence on my perception of the world?

I think that this is exactly the type of thing I've needed to put into writing. I don't know if it will offend anyone reading, or if this instance of vulnerability will come back to haunt me. Not like many people read my blog. I did that on purpose. But hey... If that dream of becoming an author did come true, I think the kind of people who would be fans of my fiction or poetry would be the kinds of people who would read my old blog posts and discuss them in ways that might make me regret how open I'd been.

But maybe I could just get over it and not worry about how one future version of me might think I'd been too brave. I've heard that people regret the things that they didn't do more than the things they did. One of those deathbed revelation things, like "go for it while you're alive, because there's going to come a time where you'll wish you had taken that chance while you had it."

Or maybe I just have a bloated sense of self, and I should think of myself less, and instead figure out what to focus on.... But then I think, if I don't know myself, both in my strengths and my weaknesses, how will I make good decisions in situations where knowing if I would be a help or a hindrance by offering advice or assistance? One feeling that I hate is that of realizing that I made things worse by trying to insert myself into the situation, because I really didn't know the background of the issue and the root of the conflict. When I try to mediate an argument, I don't want to make it worse by interfering, of course! And I would know if I was going to be halting progress if I knew myself and my limitations. And solving arguments is just one example of things you need experience and knowledge of yourself in order to succeed....succeed in...no, that's a prepositional....what's-it-called... Split prepositions? No, that's split imperatives that I'm thinking of. It's a rule that prepositions need to have their object coming after them, but is that a preposition?

Solving arguments is just one example (of things (that you need experience and knowledge of yourself) (in order) (to succeed in)). 

Prepositions that have that many words inside them are clauses, right?

In a way, I want to go back to school to brush up on my memorized knowledge of grammar. But man, thinking about going back to school just makes my bones shake. Some of the worst moments of frozen panic that I've ever experienced were brought on by the multitude of anxieties that being a student can produce. Do I really want to do that to myself again? Or, rather, have I really grown and healed enough from that point that I could do any better a second time around? I hate making the same mistake twice. I really don't want to make an expensive mistake like that twice, either, especially since so many people's expectations would be upon me. I almost want to secretly get an online degree and not bother to tell people who wouldn't need to know.

Do I really care that much about what people think of me?

Yes. Parents and in-laws want me to succeed, to be happy, and to have a good job and a chance to move up in life, and I don't want to make them wonder if I'm really happy when I fail out of college a second time. If I do. I don't know.

This is how my thoughts unfold...hard to follow, maybe, but probably just hard to understand the logic and reasoning in the leaps of conclusions. I have trouble getting to the root of why I think one thing about a way I feel. Like, there's so much history and cultural association and learned bias that goes into one's worldview and just general interpretation of the events of one's life. It's something that a therapist dives into and brings a fresh, structured perspective to in order to solve the barriers that their client has in front of them holding them back from a normal life. That's something I'll be really benefiting from as soon as I can get in with a psychologist/psychiatrist. I was seeing Neila last year, but things got busy and I was working almost full time and things seemed to be going pretty great every time I visited, so I came less often. Then I got married and things were wonderful and I had that extra boost to get me off of one dark thought and back to reality. But winter changes those things, and I need to get back in with a therapist so that I can regain the stability that I need.

I think this has been a pretty good summary of the contents of my thoughts. I should get some solid food in me so that all this coffee doesn't just throw me into a jittery, obsessive track that ends up dumping me into an exhausted heap on the couch in a few hours... It might already be on that track, seeing as I've been writing pretty obsessively for about an hour and 45 minutes, but eh. I'll work it out. Food.

I could make some pigs-in-a-blanket and clean up the kitchen while they're in the oven, that would be good. It would get me back home, too. I don't really want to run errands until I get worn out. I think this is a good plan. :) I should post more pictures of me and Lily, too. I have a cat! taken in from my cousin whose other two boy cats were harassing it into a paranoid behavior that wasn't going away no matter what she tried. She's completely changed, has a brand new personality, actually wants to be out and around people, and gives love and attention in a way she never did before. It's beautiful.

Lily curled up in this space beside me on the couch and fell asleep like that. This was exactly the comfort I needed.

Okay, I'll close this off and start packing up to go home. Thanks to anyone who read or skimmed any of this, and I hope your day is filled with uplifting thoughts and that you are able to spread joy to someone else during your interactions with people.

God bless,

—ACS 1.31.2020
(still haven't gone to social security offices to change my last name yet)

oh yeah, and coronavirus. we're worried it'll become a panicky thing. so we got shelf-stable foods and water bottles just in case nationwide panic ensues. I feel like it's a kind of "prepper" sort of action to take, but at least I'll use all this stuff anyway, even if we don't lose power or need to stop using the tap water. Just in case. :/ Okay. Bye!

7.3 Whew, wedding planning...

I Want To Invite Everyone

And I don't know what to do about it.

     But seriously. If you read this blog then you're someone I want to invite. I didn't share this blog with eeeverybody on, like, my Facebook friends list, or anything like that. Just y'all. Like 6 or 7 of you. 

     It's August 31st in Ohio, and if you could make it and want to come, I've probably already added you to my guest list (the invitations are going out really soon, I promise!) and you may have received my Save-The-Date email if I had the right address for you. 

     I think of new people every week that I want to invite, people that I want to be able to come and just have fun and get to be there for my wedding, and there are so many already in my list from my 75+ extended family members, to my parents' and Alex's parents' family friends from both AZ and OH, to the special little group of my college roommates I was able to round up to be part of my bridesmaids.... There are just so many. And Alex doesn't want me to add a hundred more people just in case we have to feed 300+ people because we are not prepared for that. :/ 

     I'm just so torn. 

     Like, back in November when Alex proposed to me, and we hadn't started talking about wedding dates yet, I thought it would be sooner than it ended up being. And I sorta thought it would be SO long to wait. But now, I feel like I wish I had more time to prepare, or at least had set my due dates a month earlier than I needed them, because now I HAVE to send out all the invitations and I just now finished designing them (my dad's printing and mailing them all, thank the Lord) and I realized I haven't organized everybody's mailing addresses in one place. >.< What am I doing? How did I miss that?

     And then there were some people whose email addresses hadn't been correct when I sent the Save-The-Date back in April or whenever it was. So they don't know when or where my wedding is and they're asking my mom. >.< aaaackk 

     So many of the people I love are on the list, though, and that's awesome and for the ones that I already know are going to be there, that's amazing! I am excited, I am glad, and I'll be thrilled to see everyone on the big day.

     But now I need to go make a little document with the RSVP and Registry info on it so Dad can put that slip of paper in with all the invitations. xP

--ACS, July 3rd, 2019

5.15 Sitting in Starbucks

So I'm sitting in a brand new Starbucks right now. It's so new, I hadn't even heard that they were opening a new one here until I drove by last week and saw the sign on the unfinished building. And today, I saw that the parking lot was full and the drive-thru screen was on, and everything looked like it had opened!
so I pulled into the next road, which was a gas station, haha, and since the parking lots didn't seem to connect, I said "oh whatever, I'll just park here and walk over." So I did.

(So there's a man with a David Crowder-ish beard, glasses, and a cap that I saw in the corner of the cafe and did a double-take because he looks just like Alex's uncle Dan from this distance. It's his dad's never-married brother, who's never come up to visit us, so we just stop in to visit him every time we're in town. He's a cool dude, owns an art gallery and plays Dungeons & Dragons. The first time I met him, it had been a while since Alex had seen him, and Alex kind of discovered his awesome uncle and it was really cool. ^_^ But yeah. It's not him, he wouldn't be here, but lol it really looks like him.)

Okay back to whatever I was going to be talking about. I'm loving this slow jazz music they're playing. It's totally relaxing and makes me feel like it was a good decision to come here :)
Ah yesss. So, I'm starting to think about switching this blog from Blogger over to another platform. Blogger was connected with Google+ and it made it easier to log in and post that way, but now that Google+ has been absolved (lol or whatever you would call it), some of the functions aren't working as well, and I'm just feeling like I'd like a change.
Blogger's been a great place to post content for a long time, and as I've been using it since, like, way back in 2012 or something when I used it for my serial story The Note, I don't want to put in all the work to change host websites if I am going to have to do it again in a few years. But I don't want to spend a lot of money on, like, a whole website....but I could have a really big one, if I used it as both a blog and a place to post my new music and maybe have some marketing stuff for the book I self-published in 2017. And maybe I could start some other projects, things that I might want to go to school for, like website designing and programming. I don't know if I'll go into IT specifically or if I'll decide that I want to do teaching or tutoring, or something else like that. Maybe speech therapy.
Anyway, it would be super fun to build a website and I think I would really enjoy the nitty gritty details and just getting to learn stuff along the way. The few times that I've done basic HTML code were always a fun exercise. I have a cool uncle who's given me some tips and a few places to start. :)
So yeah. If I do build a website, I'm pretty sure I could set this old blog up to redirect to the new place. There's a spot for that in the settings, anyway.
I'm gonna go research that stuff. ^_^
—ACS, May 15, 2019

Surprise days off :O

Hey =) Positive update on how I've felt slightly stressed with work:

I had a really nice day yesterday when I decided to check my work schedule to make sure I was supposed to come in -- and I had the day off! Praise the Lord. because I needed to take a morning to breathe. and make a breakfast sandwich. from bread that I baked on Wednesday. :)

I even ended up going shopping with Mrs. Broening to look for a new dress for the engagement photoshoot that Alex and I are going to have. I tried on 8 dresses at JC Penney's (lol yes it was a lot, but I at least like to think that I go faster now than I did in the past when shopping with her or my mom.) There were several dresses that I really liked, 2 that I would have bought, but we were just there for one, so I made the choice and maybe I'll go back with Alex sometime to look at some of the less fancy dresses that I had to pass over because of the occasion we were shopping for. :) But it felt good, uplifting to me, to analyze the clothing racks, discover a hint of a nice color behind the blacks and the jewel tones that would just absolutely make me look like a ghost, and to feel like an explorer in the jungle when I'd find the one medium in the sea of X-Small's and XX-Large's. The rare finds in the clearance section. The ridiculous styles that I saw and thought, "You know, I'll just try it on for fun." It was a breath of fresh air and a great time with my future mother-in-law.

After JC Penney's (where we bought the one dress), we tried Kohl's, but I didn't like the way any of the 5 or 6 outfits looked when I tried them on...there were a couple jumpsuits (the kind where it looks like a summer dress from far away and then when you take it off the rack, you realize it's not a skirt but Pants that are just flowy) that I tried on just for fun, because hey, I'm tall, but if there was one that looked good on me, it would be nice (and with jumpsuits you never have to worry about the wind blowing your shirt around). But none of them were a good fit, but it was okay because we already had the best JC Penney option. We just wanted to make sure there wasn't one gem waiting in the Kohl's store that would completely blow the other dress out of the water. But there wasn't, so we kept the JC Penney's dress. *ahem*

At that point it wasn't too late in the afternoon yet, so we talked about what else we could get done for wedding planning while I still had the day off. And I felt super proud of myself for being prepared and thinking ahead and being mindful of the errands I'd need to run/items I'd need to purchase: I had a List. 

(I just really wanted to show some kind of dorky excited gif about how I felt when I pulled that out and had the perfect thing for us to accomplish next.)

And everything turned out awesome: of the stuff on my list that I could look into without needing to choose them with Alex, most of them were bridal accessories.

So I don't know if I've shared this on my blog before, but a while ago when my family was staying with me (after Christmas when I'd traveled with them for several weeks and we were in my apartment while my dad & brothers did some maintenance on my car and my mom and I tackled some wedding planning stuff), I made a list of the aspects of a wedding, and I ranked them by how important of an issue it was to me.

This is completely unrelated but I saw it while scrolling down to find the picture from January that I actually wanted to share, and I remembered it and had to post it so I can laugh at it and share an ADD moment with you...okay...on to the actual topic

This is what Mom and Rickey were doing while I wrote up my master plan on the sweet new whiteboard they'd helped me install on my pantry door. 

Here!! These are all things I need to plan for the wedding, all things that need to be decided on and planned and bought and scheduled and organized, and I put numbers to them all so that I could express which ones were important enough for me to spend more money/more time on them, and which ones I just needed someone to help me make a quick decision about and move on with.

And guess what Mrs. Broening and I had the time to do?

Shoes.

The shoes that I wear at my wedding are a really important part of the whole day, to me, and I was going to make sure that adequate attention was given, ahead of time, to picking just the right pair of shoes so that I would

1. be comfy while standing,
2. feel awesome while dancing,
3. feel good about the shoe style in the pictures, and
4. be able to afford them.

And with the saving that I've been doing lately, I believe the 2 pairs that I had to decide between (I bought both, brought them home, and Alex helped me pick the right pair when he came over, so I'll be returning the other pair on Wednesday) were a great fulfillment of my 4 criteria. I felt great. And now, after showing it to Alex and having the chance to chat about the overarching purpose of shoes (not just to be comfy for one day, but to display the image that we are wanting to impart in our wedding ceremony and the image that we want to look back and remember when we look at our wedding photos for the next 60 years), I feel even better. I guess this is what being productive and accomplishing goals feels like. :)

And then after that, I checked the List again, and ooh, planning & booking honeymoon lodging was on there. Something Alex and I needed to get done together. And we had time to do it. >:D I was on a roll!

And after looking at stuff for a few hours and finding something perfect that was completely in a different area than the state that we had been poring over for the past few weeks (lol), we decided on a spot in Gatlinburg, TN, and Alex went home and booked it last night. ^_^

So I have to get ready to go to work now, but yesterday was pretty great. I just wanted to share the exciting stuff I was able to get done, and talk about how helpful it was for me to actually accomplish something instead of just talking about getting it done at some point (while not having the time to ever get it done, since I was always either waking up preparing to go to work, or was at work and keeping up my energy and motivation to keep working, or home from work recovering from the mental exhaustion that I'm getting better and better at handling now that I've had this 40-hr/wk job for a few months now). 

Things are looking up. I am smiley. Thank you all for your support and prayers for me, and just the little things you say and the ways you make me smile. I love you all, and can't wait to see you soon (at the wedding, or even sooner!)

Bye! <3

-ACS (for now), April 23, 2019

Alex's birthday today :D

Okay. I have a little bit of time as I'm coloring my hair this morning to write about everything I've already done today (and it's only 9:45 AM).

So I woke up super early (that's been happening a lot lately, especially when I have work, which is at 10:30 this morning and 10:00 on most weekday mornings). At first, I was just going to try to go back to sleep since I didn't really have to be up for another 3 or 4 hours, but then I remembered that it was Alex's birthday and that I hadn't done anything special for him yet, even though I'd been coming up with ideas the past few weeks. And then it hit me.

Walmart. I can go get him some groceries, like he's been needing for a while, plus his favorite cereal and some breakfast chocolate shakes and some other things for his mornings. I'll buy it this morning and bring it tonight to the cousins' apartment when we get together for our weekly game night. OR I could drive down and bring it to him before he left for work!!

It was a brilliant plan. I had hours until I needed to even get to work, and Alex started work earlier than me so I would have time to bring him the groceries—and oh! coffee, I should bring him coffee!—and still have time to see him off to work, come home myself, get ready, and leave for my work. It was foolproof.

(I kind of feel like I'm quoting the Megamind movie at some point but whatever. I loved scheming. For a birthday surprise.)

BUT yeah. I was going to order the stuff from the Walmart Grocery app and see what the earliest pickup time was, but alas, even at 5:20 AM when I was looking at it, their earliest time was 9-10AM. Maybe I wouldn't have time to bring it to him before he left work after all. 

I picked that slot and started filling my online cart, and had new gift ideas as I went along. I was having fun. I got up and cooked myself a sausage for breakfast and warmed up yesterday's coffee (the 3 ounces or so that were left in the pot....yeah....writing it out makes it sound weird now...) and then I remembered I hadn't checked out and bought the groceries yet. I needed to pay and order it so that I could pick it up at that time slot that I'd selected....but then when I looked, I had waited too long and that time slot had expired so the next time was 10-11AM. I wasn't going to have time to get it before even I went to work. 

And then the plan took new form in my mind. 

What if I just went to Walmart and shopped for this stuff right now? It's open 24 hours, and I have a car now (and I won't need to get a ride like I used to have to) and I have enough time.

So that's what I did. And it felt great to venture out and put my plan into action. x)

Okay...I have to finish my hair now, so I'll post this but I might write a part 2 about how I got lost on the way to his apartment and didn't know if he was even waking up early because he might have taken the day off from work like he had been thinking of.

Bye!

I'm Bored at Work....what??

So I got this new job as a dishwasher, and they're not even always bringing dirty dishes. It's pretty slow so far today. I came in at 11, and it was so weird...
It's because it's a movie theater (I'm working in the kitchen, which this theater has because it's a Dine-In theater) and movies don't start showing until early afternoon... And it's an 11am-7pm shift... So yeah it's a weird feeling to be bored at work. Just needed to say that here.