Manic Monday: Year Long Blogging Challenge (Oh My Gods I Am Awful At This)

I suppose I should just stop saying things like, “And THIS time I will DO what I SAID I would DO – ON TIME!” Because, lol really. Let us just go ahead and call it like it is: I have failed this challenge. Yet, I continue…

Week 7: What is the most important life lesson you’ve learned to date?

The most important life lesson I have learned is one I am still learning: to accept me and not compare myself to others. It is so easy to fall into mindset of wanting – more ambition or drive, a higher metabolism, a quicker mind – but the truth remains that I am nobody else but myself. To modify a quote from Wreck-it Ralph, “I am [me], and that’s good. I will never be [anyone else] and that’s not bad. There is no one I would rather be than me.”

Week 8: What Staple Foods Stay Stocked in Your Fridge?

• Skim milk
• Eggs
• String cheese
• Deli turkey
• Fruit/vegetables (right now: strawberries, apples, grapes, asparagus, green beans)
• Spinach or other salad greens

Week 9: If you could get rid of one thing from your daily schedule, what would it be?

I would love to be able to eliminate sleeping, or at least to be able to exist on less of it. My daily requirement for sleep is currently about 7 or 8 hours, and ain’t nobody got time for that. At least, I do not, with all the things I would rather, or should, be doing.

Week 10: Favorite Childhood Memory

This is a strange one, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind. I used to spend several days each summer at my aunt’s condo in Pensacola, FL. One late morning I started to have typical menstrual cramps, and dealt with them in my typical way: by being sad about it. This was before I was comfortable swallowing pills, so I would just deal with it and be grumpy like a typical young teenager. My practical aunt would not stand for such nonsense, so she convinced me to take a couple of Aleve and lie down with her heating pad for a little while. After much self-coaching, I choked down the medicine and slid between the fluffy white down comforter and soft white sheets. Half an hour later, I woke up pain-free. This was the first time I had ever felt relief from my monthly pains, and it was the most incredible feeling ever. Even better, I was hungry, and the turkey-on-toast sandwich my aunt made me was the most delicious, satisfying meal I had eaten to that day. I still remember the incredible sense of relief and relaxation beneath the heating pad in that glorious cool bed, and how wonderful hunger felt in place of pain and nausea.

I am sure there are much better memories than that, but hey, I’m crazy! edit I did have a normal, healthy childhood. I just have a terrible memory, I guess. IT’S MONDAY, OKAY

Week 11: Describe a product that needs to be invented. What irritation or problem could be solved with a nifty new device?

Now that I am a real person and can handle taking pills… a capsule of some sort that satisfies hunger, cravings, and all the required vitamins and minerals for keeping a body alive. Food and a healthy diet are a constant source of stress for me. Making healthy choices is fucking hard. Though, I would really miss eating, as obvious by some of my other answers.

Week 12: What is your favorite restaurant in Huntsville?

Hands down, Below the Radar.

Week 13: What goals are you currently pursuing?

This is less my goal than my husband’s, but I support him entirely and it requires both of our efforts. We are currently working on becoming the owners of a local business. This has been his dream for years, and it is only a few more months of pinching pennies away.

Personally, I still am fighting towards a 50 or 60 pound weight loss, and reading 50 books by the end of the year.

Week 14: What is the most memorable meal you have ever had?

There are two of them, and they are both during the same week in 2011. I traveled to Austin, TX, for a work conference in August. The second night my coworkers and I arrived, we had dinner with some customers at Fogo de Chao. I had the rarest cut of filet I’ve ever eaten before, and it was unbelievable. Also, I tried grappa for the first time. Aside from excellent food (and drinks!), the group was amazing. We had such a fantastic few hours together.

Despite my hotel being 2 blocks from everything, I was completely exhausted mid-week. Long days of being on my feet coupled with it being Texas in August meant I just crashed one afternoon in my hotel. I woke up a little disoriented with a text from my boss inviting me to dinner with another coworker. After making myself as presentable as possible, I walked in a daze to Moonshine. At first I had no appetite, but my coworker insisted I have a meal, so I ordered baked rainbow trout (and yes, I only ordered it because rainbows) with a side of macaroni and cheese. This meal is my favorite meal in the history of ever, and I have eaten a lot of fucking delicious things. Just know that I ate the exact same meal twice the next year, and the crushing, bitter disappointment at not being able to go this August is 99% because I won’t get to eat at Moonshine.

Week 15: What is your favorite quote?

“What fun is there in making sense?” – Discord, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Shut up.

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I am not going to make any promises any more.  🙂

The Rocket City Bloggers are a diverse group of bloggers with at least one thing in common: writing from the Huntsville, AL area, otherwise known as Rocket City. This April began a Year Long Blogging Challenge, and I am attempting to participate. Clearly, though, this is proving to be more of a challenge for me than I initially believed.  Click the image below for more awesome people from the Rocket City.

(manic monday) Rocket City Bloggers’ Year Long Blogging Challenge: Weeks 3 – 6

Oh, dear. I really am behind. The point of a weekly challenge is to post weekly, so I suppose it defeats the point if I end up posting monthly instead… yet here I am, with four weeks rolled up into one post! This is kind of a manic Monday, isn’t it?

Week 3: Assuming the apocalypse is upon us, what do you stock up on?

Let us also assume this is a survivable apocalypse (zombie, holy) and not a nuclear one which would annihilate everything, including hope. In which case: I stock up on nothing because I would almost certainly not survive zombies. Is that a depressing thought? Totally. Do I curr? Naw.

In the spirit of participation, let us suspend all belief and say that the biblical apocalypse occurs, or that I do somehow manage to keep myself alive after a zombie-disease outbreak, and have reason to consider long-term supplies. This is what I would want:

• Weapons: a bow and many arrows, as they are recoverable.  An impressive collection of knives (for hunting and cleaning animals, as well as protection and other survival necessities)
• Books on the following subjects: generic wilderness survival and medicine, hunting & fishing (and how to clean animals for eating), plants, and first aid
• Rope
• Water containers and a large stock of purifiers (such as iodine tablets)
• First aid supplies, including antibiotics

Seeing as how I’ll be dead for all of this, my plans are moot. Next!

Week 4: What is your favorite joke/cartoon?

While I love many cartoons, choosing a favorite is easy: Adventure Time, because I am an adult, and seriously this show.  Fortunately my kids love it as well, so I have an excuse to watch it. Not that I would need an excuse if I didn’t have kids, because it is that awesome. Never growin’ up.

LSP forever

Because I have a rather dark sense of humor, all of my favorite jokes are the most inappropriate. I cannot possibly choose just one, but for the sake of the challenge, here is a (not so?) tame joke that never fails to make me laugh:

What is the hardest part of a vegetable to eat?

The wheelchair. 

I’m sorry.

Week 5: What are you passionate about? 

Reading. Writing. (Not arithmetic. So bad at math, tho.)  Photography. Art. Love. Learning. Those don’t require much explanation.

I am also passionate about mental heath awareness. Being bipolar and having many friends with different mental health issues, I know firsthand the difficulties of existing in a world unaccepting and ignorant. Even close family members can be hurtful without meaning to be: “Wow, you don’t seem bipolar.”  My disease is mild and under control, quite different than its frightening rap. Can I fault people for having no clue? Of course not. I can understand their side – give to them what they had not been able to give to me – and use my passion and knowledge to bring awareness to those around me. A flickering light.

 

Week 6: Are you a city mouse or a country mouse? 

I suppose you’d have to call me a suburban mouse. I love visiting both the city and the country, but my real home is right in the middle. That’s all I got to say about that. (What’s a good day without a Forrest Gump quote?)

Week seven coming your way – on time! On its own!

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The Rocket City Bloggers are a diverse group of bloggers with at least one thing in common: writing from the Huntsville, AL area, otherwise known as Rocket City. This April began a Year Long Blogging Challenge, and I am attempting to participate. Clearly, though, this is proving to be more of a challenge for me than I initially believed.  Click the image below for more awesome people from the Rocket City.

Rocket City Bloggers Year Long Blogging Challenge (YLBC): Week Two

For this week’s question, we look to the past. For those of you who are transplants, when did you come to Huntsville and why? For those of you that grew up here, why did you choose to stay?

This week’s challenge has me struggling for anything interesting to say, unfortunately. I was born in Huntsville Hospital and raised on the outskirts of town. I stayed in the same school district my entire life, and even my college attendance in another city lasted a single semester before I moved back home. My life, it is so very exciting.

That first semester back home was the final nail in the Huntsville coffin. On the morning of Good Friday in 2006, I found myself quite unexpectedly pregnant at the ripe old age of 18. My boyfriend (now my husband) and I decided to keep the baby, but it made moving anywhere less desirable after many years of wanderlust. Alabama is so lame, I would constantly whine, fully knowledgeable in all things as a teenager, and quite convinced there was no worse place to live, except maybe Mississippi. (In fact, my friends and I always joked that the Alabama motto was, “At least we’re not Mississippi!” Apologies to any Mississippians out there, but you probably understand the feeling of being adjacent to a state as poorly perceived as your own.)

With a baby to raise and her brother coming a couple of years later, thoughts of other homes far away went just there. Dreamland. Especially after purchasing a house and snagging a cushy job in the shitty economy, it seemed rather foolish to want to go anywhere else. My family is truly amazing, without whom I would have never made it as a mother. Or a person, honestly. Having the majority of them within ten minutes was a great comfort. Even with the suffocating feeling of over-protectiveness,  I never wanted to have to feel the stress of being alone in a city. My mood disorder makes a supportive net necessary for the health and well-being of not only me but my children.

As I have gotten a little older, the appeal of Rocket City has grown. Not just the web of supportive family, who would be there for me no matter where we lived, but the sense of community as a whole. Our fantastic public library (borrowing new books every couple of weeks never gets less exciting for me). Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment, the coolest mix of talented local artisans and performers. Comic book shops like Haven Comics and The Deep. An amazing brewpub with the best food in town. A hands-on museum or two. And, of course, the budding blogging community within Rocket City Bloggers. That is just a little sampling of what Huntsville has to offer.

There truly are some amazing people in this town, regardless of our state’s stereotype. You can find ignorance anywhere, just like you can be bored anywhere, especially if you are always the hermit. Building solid relationships in your own community and supporting the local flavors are what make a city feel like your own. Cornily enough, I am proud to call my city home. Come on, guys. We’ve got rockets. 

Rocket City Bloggers Year Long Blogging Challenge (YLBC): Week One

Recently I joined the local community Rocket City Bloggers. I guess because I am kind of a hermit when it comes to local events and groups, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon it. You mean boring Huntsville has actual things? People around here do cool, non-church-related stuff? Maybe this city isn’t so bad, after all. Yeah, a little late to the party, but all of the sudden I am wanting to be involved! Cue frantic waving.

It just so happens that the Rocket City Bloggers have, just this week, started a year long weekly blogging challenge. The first week’s topic just so happens to be What Do You Need More of Right Now? My answer just so happens to be motivation. The RCB community and the YLBC (so many acronyms! this must be a military town!) just so happen to be perfect motivation for blogging more often, which I have needed for quite some time.

You can see by looking at my list of posts – less than 25 in almost two years – that I am not the most active of bloggers. My online presence is fairly scattered. A private Livejournal was my first pursuit of writing online, like many people I know . Since then I’ve hopped around on different sites with little direction or care. I like a hell of a lot of different things, I’m a mom, I like have to write, and I have a mood disorder that sometimes prevents me from doing anything, sometimes makes me go on days-long creativity highs. When given direction and a deadline, however, I usually can kick some ass.

One thing I have noticed is that when I really feel the motivation to write, my words are more genuine and my voice comes through easier. Reading through past posts, not just here but on all my other blogs, it is pretty obvious (to me) when I felt a deep, inner need to write and when I just felt guilty or bored.

Here, here! To motivation from new sources, a new found diverse community of local bloggers, and more god damn posts! Plenty of nonsense coming your way.

And rainbows. Always plenty of rainbows.

 

P.S. Local folks – I will SO be hitting up Ponypalooza at the Madison Public Library this weekend with my daughter and few friends (mine, not G’s. Yes. Adults). Hope to see some of you there!