Yeah, it's not important

You know how once twice a few times a semester I like to complain to the internet that I AM SO BUSY AND SWAMPED AND ALL OF THE PAPERS ARE DUE AT THE SAME TIME and so on?

I decided not to do that so much this time.

Instead, I'm quietly sneaking out of the internet and plan on some major awesome excellent things concerning the design of this blog. I may even ask my mom to help me figure some things out.




So, HEY! I'm still alive. I'll figure out where to go from here once things calm down on my end. That's about as specific as I want to be*.





*If you can tell me where that quote is from I will send you an internet cookie. And ten points.

A birthday note for mom

Today is my mother's birthday. I'm not going to post her age. Mostly because she's still very young and it seems weird to me to mention her number. She's much more fun than some people I know at her (still) young age.

She is one of the strongest people I know and she always works hard at everything she does. When she sets her mind on something, she does it. Her work ethic has always motivated me and she inspires me to be more creative in my everyday life.

Her laugh is loud and energetic- it's incredibly easy to laugh along with her. It's a good thing too, because she laughs a lot. I love to make her laugh too, and she is very good at making me laugh in return.

We share a lot of similar traits- our hair is the same, we have the same smile and I have her eyes. Which I've discovered are very similar to my grandfather's eyes. We share the same humor when it comes to most things- except she didn't think The Hangover was too funny, whereas I found it hilarious. She did bring on my love for coffee, and I am more than ok inheriting that.

We've always gotten along, and I praise her patience for that. I know I was not always an easy child, but she let me grow and learn on my own. I made mistakes, and she still loves me for them. She worked hard at bringing me up to be a good person, and she made sure to surround herself with supportive, positive and caring people.

She's the most creative person I know. She creates art out of everyday things- purses made out of neckties, exquisite jewelery made out of random collections of beads, photographs of rust that make you feel that you could feel the texture if you ran your hand over the picture. She's amazingly smart as well. She works hard at her job, and creates magic for websites. Her drawings are fantastic and I like looking at her pieces of paper when she's doing her thinking work.

she made these skirts for our 4th of July celebration

For my twenty-first birthday I asked her to take me out. She arranged for her two best friends and her sister (my awesome aunt) to celebrate the occasion with a night out in downtown Detroit. It was the best birthday celebration I have ever had. We stayed in a hotel, toasted with champagne at midnight, and hit up a casino for a while. The day after the celebration was a little rough, but totally worth it for the amount of fun we were having.

She has given me endless praise, encouragement and help. She's been my biggest fan from the beginning, always finding a way for me to participate in beauty pageants, then cheerleading, and the theatre. She taught me about respect, the importance of family events, and why font really matters online.

Happy Birthday, mom. You're the most amazing woman I have ever known and I want to be like you when I grow up. Thank you for always being on my side.

I love you.

A birthday note for brother

Today my brother is fifteen.

It is a scary number to me. Fifteen seems too old for my little bro. He only came home from the hospital fifteen years ago. He only went to kindergarten ten years ago. He only lost his first tooth, learned his first song, performed at his first school concert, played with his first stuffed animal, became known as the "Monkey Boy" in our family- all within the past fifteen years.

And man have these years flown by.

As I see him today, he is very much a young man. Almost as tall as I am, he is incredibly sarcastic, enormously hilarious, and an all around good guy. He's the best trumpet player I've ever met and he knows his way around any video game (especially my favorites from our N64).

He is smart. He is clever, and he knows it. He has a certain smile when he thinks he's being funny and his poker face is terrible.

He still likes to tease me and poke me and sit on me when I'm comfortable. He isn't terribly nosey and he doesn't go through my stuff... anymore. He's a great listener and has one of the cutest laughs I've ever heard. But don't tell him that, because I don't know if it's cool to have a cute laugh in high school. When we went to Disney this past spring, he had his arm around me the whole time. Sometimes it was annoying (think: little brother literally hanging off of you) but most of the time it was adorable.

We've had our moments of being not-so-nice to each other, and we've made some pretty hilarious memories together. Like when he was just a little guy and he tried to mock me in front of our parents. Or when we first moved into our new house and he was certain someone was being murdered outside. Related note- when goats bleat, it sounds like someone yelling "heeeeeelp" from far away. He's fantastic at cheering me up too; recently I had a rough day at work and when I went home, he had the N64 waiting in the living room with all my favorite games ready to play.

It was his idea to make the funny faces for this picture.

He's good like that.




Fifteen years ago my parents gave me a playmate, a fellow game player, someone to tease, a confidant, a road trip buddy, someone to automatically sit next to on a plane, someone to go in the hot tub with no matter what the weather is like, a movie watcher, the best babysitting training ever, someone to teach, and a life long friend.

For years before he was born, I asked for a brother for Christmas. And I am so happy that he is in my life.

Happy Birthday, little man. I love you forever and always.

Lists, reasons, and the good/bad

Real life gets messy sometimes.

I'll break down the bad first, because it's always better to end on a good note than a bad one.

Excuse me while I show my political side

I try to keep things light on this blog, mostly because things get pretty complicated and heavy in real life and this is an escape and everyone likes to laugh at dumb people in restaurants so that's easy for me to write about.

I also try to keep my personal personal life offline. Besides introducing you to the closest people in my life. And telling you about my job. And my cat.

But as far as school stuff, I like to keep that on the DL. Mostly because it involves politics and I prefer to not get into an argument on my blog. A debate, sure, but it's been in my past experiences that not everyone is a.) as informed as I am or b.) not as understanding as I am.

I'm not just trying to sell myself, as conceited as that last sentence sounded. It's just been a realization of mine in the past few months that my opinion differs a lot from the people in my profession of choice and also a large portion of my real-life community. So I like to make sure I don't step on any toes if I don't have to.

All of that was a great huge lead up to THIS:

Well that was quick

November came out of no where.

Here I was, minding my own business, happily writing October on all of my schoolwork (what am I, seven?) and then BAM!

It's the eleventh month.

What the hell, 2011? WHY ARE YOU MOVING AT A SPEED I AM NOT COMFORTABLE WITH?!


This month shall prove to be interesting. Actually, these next two months will be pretty intense, seeing as it's holiday season (and by the way, did all of the stores forget that Thanksgiving is before Christmas and there are decorations for it?) and that means busybusybusy at work. Oh, and family time.

But first I have to get through November. Let me explain.