Friday, May 27, 2011

Preemptive Blogging

We all know that with Spring and Summer come the countless numbers of wedding invitations in the mailbox. There is nothing wrong with these announcements - it's great that these friends have asked me to celebrate their big day with them. I do try to attend as many of these events as time and money allow.



Becoming ever more common these days though is the post-nuptual creation of a blog. The blog background gets decorated, the first post includes some form of the explanation "since we're married now, we thought we should have a blog," and three pictures appear down the side bar - an individual shot of each of the newlyweds, and one of them together with captions like "Him, Her, Us!" to ensure that you, the reader, didn't miss the fact that they are perfectly blending their two lives into a single entity.



Cool.



Now, if you know me at all you know that I have nothing against blogs. I have three of my own, one I contribute to with my family, and one that I set up for my friends and I to collaborate on. Blogs are fun! What I don't understand however, is the urge one suddenly feels to join the blogging world solely because they tied the knot. Is marriage considered a pre-requisite for starting a blog? It is almost as if one doesn't gain the knowledge of blogging until they have a ring on their finger. Or maybe they didn't think their life was interesting enough to blog about beforehand. It's kind of like the Christmas card club... you don't see single people sending out a picture of themselves accompanied by a letter of what they did during the year.



I pondered on these thoughts for a while, looked around, and have found that "saving blogging for marriage" does seem to be the trend. Take a gander at some of your favorite blogs and look at their friends list; I'd be willing to bet that the majority of those people are married bloggers. I understand that some of these people may once have posted companionless, but my guess is that the majority did not. One list in particular that I found on a friend's blog backed my thinking. I am the ONLY single blogger listed:







So since I blogged before marriage I have come to the conclusion that I must either be ahead of the curve, or committing some sort of sin. To hell with it. I need your addresses - I think I'll send out Christmas cards this year.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Staring Me In The Face

For many years now I've had a bump on the right side of my nose that has slowly grown bigger. I'm not 100% sure what it is exactly, but I've ruled out the possibility that it's a wart. Anyhow, it's at the point now where it's super annoying, I can see it when I look down my nose, and I've given up hope that it will decide to go away on its own.

This is a problem, because without insurance it's way too expensive of a cosmetic procedure. Tack on the fact that any dermatologist will want to biopsy it and send it to a lab, and yeah... I don't have that kind of money right now.

So tonight I had an idea that I wanted to try. (Word to the queasy - this may be disturbing to some of you...) When I was finishing my nightly bathroom routine I pulled out a short piece of floss and simply tied it around the bump to cut off the circulation. It didn't hurt at all; there's really no feeling in the bump, and I instantly saw a color change.

After getting it secure I walked into my bedroom to excitingly share my plan with my roommate. She. Freaked. Out. She proceeded to tell me that I couldn't do that, that my nose would bleed a ton (I figured...since there's a ton of blood vessels in the nose, and I had previously tried wart removal stuff which made it bleed profusely - the bleeding wouldn't phase me), that it could get infected, etc. and that she had a friend who had things lasered off before and would have good advise/input about how to take care of it in a more professional way.

She made me take the floss off.

Sigh... I guess I'm going to keep staring this bump in the face for a while longer.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Dominating 6 Continents

Celebration time!! I checked my map loco gadget at the bottom of my blog just a moment ago, and was extatic to see someone had visited my blog from AFRICA! I now officially have had visitors from 6 of the 7 continents (I totally don't expect visitors from Antarctica, so basically, I've had visitors from every continent that matters)!

Listed below are some of the most recent visitors (I did not include all of them). What I want to know is, who is visiting me from these locations? Post a comment so I can see who you are!!

Location of Visitor
Time of last visit to blog
Total number of visits from that location

Tanzania, United Republic of
Yesterday @ 2:38 pm
1

San Francisco, CA, United States
Yesterday @ 7:14 am
2

Bethel, OH, United States
Yesterday @ 4:58 am
1

Baden, Germany
Yesterday @ 3:58 am
1

West Palm Beach, FL, United States
6 May 2011
12

Oak Lawn, IL, United States
6 May 2011
5

Las Vegas, NV, United States
6 May 2011
16

Henderson, NV, United States
6 May 2011
4

Mendota, IL, United States
6 May 2011
2

Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States
6 May 2011
2

Gary, IN, United States
6 May 2011
1

Chicago, IL, United States
6 May 2011
2

Bell, CA, United States
5 May 2011
1

Orléans, France
2 May 2011
1

Bloomfield Hills, MI, United States
2 May 2011
2

Kingston Upon Hull, United Kingdom
2 May 2011
1

Nellis Afb, NV, United States
2 May 2011
15

Penfield, NY, United States
27 Apr 2011
3

Mount Pleasant, SC, United States
25 Apr 2011
1

Mountain View, CA, United States
22 Apr 2011
3

Calgary, AB, Canada
22 Apr 2011
1

Bountiful, UT, United States
20 Apr 2011
3

Cincinnati, OH, United States
20 Apr 2011
6

Arvada, CO, United States
19 Apr 2011
4

Fort Mill, SC, United States
19 Apr 2011
6

Saint George, UT, United States
19 Apr 2011
9

Montreal, QC, Canada
19 Apr 2011
1

Phoenix, AZ, United States
19 Apr 2011
6

Brisbane, Australia
18 Apr 2011
2

Springfield, MO, United States
18 Apr 2011
5

Liverpool, Australia
18 Apr 2011
1

Seattle, WA, United States
18 Apr 2011
10

Bronx, NY, United States
18 Apr 2011
3

Little Rock, AR, United States
17 Apr 2011
3

Australia
16 Apr 2011
2

Logan, UT, United States
15 Apr 2011
2

Parker, CO, United States
11 Apr 2011
2

Provo, UT, United States
5 Apr 2011
1

Huntington Beach, CA, United States
3 Apr 2011
1

Pleasant Grove, UT, United States
3 Apr 2011
1

Layton, UT, United States
3 Apr 2011
1

Pacoima, CA, United States
3 Apr 2011
1

Hamilton, ON, Canada
2 Apr 2011
1

Houston, TX, United States
2 Apr 2011
2

Scranton, PA, United States
1 Apr 2011
1

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Birthday Bucket List

Recently I have witnessed several of my friends doing wonderfully grand things to celebrate their birthday. One friend even went to the effort of creating a calendar of events leading up to his birthday that lasted as many days as the number of years he was turning. Seeing as I previously decided that this is "The Year of Me," I want to celebrate big too! Therefore, I am creating a themed list of things I want to do to honor my birth!

“THE WORLD IN MY BACKYARD”

I love to travel, but since taking big trips to all sorts of foreign places takes all sorts of time (and money), I thought it would be fun to explore the world – locally. Here’s the travel itinerary so far:

Saturday, June 11th – THE MEDITERRANEAN (Greece, Italy, etc.)

The Getty Villa in Malibu
· 11:30am – Architecture Tour
· Wander and see exhibits
· Free, but we need to book timed tickets in advance
· $15 parking = carpool!
·
http://www.getty.edu/visit/

Late lunch at either Stop’n Café (1237 Third Street Promenade) or Sham Restaurant (716 Santa Monica Blvd.)


Saturday the 18th – FRANCE

Les Miserables at Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center downtown Los Angeles
· 8pm
· $42-$65 for the cheapest seats
·
http://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/productiondetail.aspx?id=13736


Tuesday the 21st (My Actual Birthday) – CANADA

Attend my regular hoop and aerial fit classes with a handful* of close (and adventurous) friends. Okay, you’re probably thinking “how the heck is this Canada?” I’ll sum up: the owner of my studio was in Cirque du Soleil. Cirque du Soleil is a Canadian based entertainment company (Quebec), therefore Canada.
· 6:45pm – Hoop
· 7:45pm – Aerial Fit
· *You MUST contact me if you plan to do this. I have to let the studio know how many are coming beforehand (we can’t overcrowd the class), there are liability waivers to be filled out, etc. Just contact me.


Thursday, June 23rd – MEXICO

Mana in concert at the Staples Center!
· 8pm
· Cheapest tickets - $59.00.
·
http://centerboxoffice.org/ResultsVenue.aspx?venid=100&vname=Staples+Center&event=Mana&nid=1&sortcol=retail&sortord=asc&showall=true&dist=GS&uq=mana%20staples&cid=7170563555&ppcsrc=1-HY-Staples+-Mana&gclid=CMqkxaTi0qgCFQYGbAod6EY__w

So far this is just a framework of ideas; none of it is set in stone…yet. But I do hope to make a majority of these events happen! I’d also like to add some more activities to include the Asian, African, and Australian continents if possible; maybe I’ll toss in a visit to the LA Zoo to cover all three of those!

And please, if you would like to join me on one (or more) of these adventures, let me know!!