Missing the beach today

Today marks my first day back from vacation and the harsh reality that has hit me in the face as soon as I got home yesterday - bills, past due notices and the fact that I had to go back to work this morning.

But I am trying to hold onto all the amazing memories I made in the past six days. And all the love I feel from my extended family...I can't remember the last vacation where I got happily bombarded with hugs!!

I guess what is also great about vacation is that it gives me a chance to relax and clear my mind and return back to my life with a clean slate. Any problems or issues I had before...time to let them go! Now I have the rest of the summer to make some more incredible memories with J. :-)

So many incredible things....so many lines I can write before you die of boredom

My oh my Bloggie Blog...it's been FOREVER and a DAY since I have written in you. I feel like you're that abandoned child that I keep feeding ice cream and cookies and plant you in front of reruns of the Wiggles until I can get a moment to breathe and actually ENJOY you.

But I think that what I have been missing is the fact that I keep waiting for the moment instead of just seizing it. There was a time before this where there was never a day that I didn't NOT talk to you and I want to get back to those days.

I think it's high time that I give up all those stupid and silly excuses that I kept giving myself for not picking you up again...

I could sit here and drown you in all the disgusting, so-sweet-you-could-puke details of all the great things that have happened in my life... but really I'll just sum it up to this:

DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE.

-insert eye roll here- I know. As cliche as that sounds, I feel like I am a living testimony.

I wake up every single morning to a beautiful man, an awesome beginning to an incredible life... and what I hope will continue to be my "happily ever after". :)

Will write more later...

Since when do we pick and choose the definition of "freedom"?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

That is the first amendment. Freedom of speech and respecting an establishment of religion...The government shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion. Shall NOT.

So why all of a sudden have we forgotten what it is to be an American? Why do we pick and choose? I know, I know - we're all guilty of it in some way. I know that I am. But this is serious, people. Our forefathers came to this country as immigrants, fleeing religious persecution in their own countries and trying to seek refuge in a land where they could worship peaceably the way they wanted to. Our very soil was given breath from the fruits of religious freedom and here we are, standing here in hypocritical glory, trying to persecute those who are seeking a place to worship their beliefs.

Do you not all see the irony in this? Do you not see how angering this is? We have thousands of thousands of soldiers overseas - fighting and representing our country and for what it's worth, fighting to protect and defend our civil liberties and our FREEDOMS as Americans. And one of those freedoms is religion and speech. Yet we condemn anything that is not familiar, and we walk around blaming others and pointing fingers and casting stones towards those we claim are insensitive. But who really is being insensitive here?

It's so frustrating and upsetting to see this country for all that it is today. It is frightening to know that one day I may have children who will grow up in a world where 'tolerance' and 'freedom' are words that are just words tagged with meanings that no one seems to honor anymore.

This does NOT make me want to visit Detroit, and I have family there!

Oh man, just caught this over at Angry Asian Man. Cannot believe this is an actual commercial for my "adopted" hometown of Detroit... or can I?

Who was in charge of this campaign idea?! Ha! Apparently it has been running in airports...which makes me wonder how I missed out on this little beauty during my trips to the DTW...

As if the city of Detroit needed any further of a beating to its reputation, these commercials need to be filed in the "CEASED AND DESIST" folder, covered in some extraneous Gulf oil and burned - immediately. Not only does Detroit have to fight the rumors of its poverty (which are true as my eye has seen) but now it has to deal with "self-proclaimed" racist tourist commercials?!

Poor Detroit. I'll still come back to you. I know you've got some bomb ass sushi places tucked away in Lansing.

Saw this lady at Artscape this year and fell in love...

being the total nerd that I am, I absolutely fell in love with these tea towels!

You can find more of her stuff here.

I am a total science geek nowadays so these tea towels totally caught my attention among all the little shops and kiosks they had going on at Artscape this year. I took a ton more pictures though and hopefully when I get home tonight I'll be able to post them all for you. It was my little sister, Hannie's first time to the festival and she had a total blast (as I promised her she would!)

I loved Inception but this is too funny not to share...

CONTRACEPTION: The Bath Boys Comedy

95 Southbound Traffic and Financial Independence

So I started my new job in Laurel this past two weeks and it's great. I really enjoy it - a lot of the aspects of previous jobs that I loved are the main aspects of this job now. Mainly, talking to people and scheduling things, making sure things are in order and of course, inventory.

It's funny now that I think about it - every single job that I have ever held - whether it was working in Nordstrom's as a saleswoman (or more appropriately, girl), shaving Hawaiian shaved ice in a house in the middle of Timonium, a top commercial construction administrator for a local bank (and virtually sinking ship that I was lucky enough to jump off of before it began its dive into the financial deep end) or as a claims representative/specialist...I have ultimately always been "stuck" (for lack of a better word) with being the same person you'd come to request your 0.2 ball point pens from Uniball. Oh, and what was that? You wanted to make sure it was GEL ink because you like how smooth it glides across those sticky notes as opposed to the generic ink pens they have boxes and boxes of still unopened in inventory? Okay, yes, I'll make sure to buy the sticky notes with alternating sides of "stickyness" before you have a HEART ATTACK and die because the sticky notes don't fit into your AWESOME BLUE-COLORED DISPENSER.

Call me weird or maybe according to Disgrasian, I am just owning up to my Asian-ness but I really love doing the inventory purchases.

I love the thrill of the chase. A dozen pens for $12.99? I bet I can find the same ones for HALF of that through some quick keyword searching on the office supply website. Ohhhh yeah. You know it's a turn on when a woman can find not one carton but TWO cartons of copy paper for $24.99 each. Boo yah, bitches. Doncha wish your girlfriend was HAWT like ME?

The only new adjustments that I have made with this new job is actually having a purpose to waking up so God forsakenly early. Before I was waking up at 3 or 4 AM and aimlessly flipping through my external hard drive to find a movie that I hadn't seen at least a dozen times to try to lull me back to sleep for another hour before I needed to head out to the gym. Now - I legitimately can wake up at 3 or 4 and head to the gym, get a nice hour workout in and then take a shower and head into the wonders that await me on southbound 95.

Perhaps it is because I started this job in mid-summer, but the traffic southbound hasn't been as horrendous as I expected that it might be. It has actually been quite pleasantly - save for an occasional stop-and-go here and there. I think for me the worst part is trying to get HOME. 95 north headed back to Baltimore from Laurel, if you're not out on the road at 4:30 pm on the dot is suicidal. And when I say suicidal I mean me banging my head against the steering wheel hoping to cause permanent hemmorage to my frontal lobe so that it may ease the HORRIBLE EXCRUTIATING PAIN that is the moving parking lot of 95 north. UGH!!

I have also been trying really hard to get back on the financial bandwagon. Not that I had fallen off completely, but you know - losing two jobs within a two year span is not the best thing in the world. Not something that I would wish even on my worst enemy (okay... who I kidding... I would, I would.) And it took me a year and some change to get financially stable with the job before last... and then I got laid off. And then I found a new job that gave me a significant pay cut, no benefits but the work hours of a work horse. No fun. And now I am at this job with awesome benefits, working my way hopefully to a brighter future. It's going to take some time but I've got patience even though sometimes it may not feel like it to myself. I just have to remember the bigger picture and realize that all the suffering today is worth tomorrow's win.