NOPE

I took that last post down.  It bothered me more than I realized and now I'm not happy I wrote it.

HOWEVER...I've thought about it and since it was such a long time ago, I'm not going to let the muggles get me down.

Instead, I'm going to post a picture of a bunch of puppies.

It's not even otter worthy!  

Everything about me is, and has always been, perfectly adequate. 

 I'm sure the puppies would agree. 

EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING!

1) I'm not sure how much I actually want to write about stuff, or how much I want to procrastinate doing my job.  I have a feeling that it's mostly about procrastinating.  It's always about that, really. :)

2) This past Saturday, Steve and I went with the church's youth group to play paintball!  It was so much fun!  I'd never played before, but Steve had gone with them for the past couple of years and told me how much he enjoyed it.  So, for once, I offered to attend a youth event without either being tricked, or guilted, into it.  Aren't you proud of me?  Hahahaha!  Don't be. Like I was going to give up a chance to shoot kids with non-lethal projectiles.  Please. 

Steve and I drove out to Athens to meet everyone at the paintball range.  There were 11 kids, and 5 "adults" there that day.  Our first course was out in the woods, and I didn't realize our teams had to split up and start from one point, so I was hiding in the trees for a while before someone found me.  I didn't last long in that first scenario.  I got pegged in the thigh by one of the kids.  By the way, getting shot by paint balls HURTS.  I'm not sure how close I was to the person who got me out, but I now have the weirdest red bruise on my leg.  It is a perfect circle of regular skin surrounded by a splat mark of red.  I didn't find it until I got home, but it has been two days and it hasn't faded completely yet.  I kind of hope it stays.  It's a really interesting bruise!  I'd take a picture, but I only share pictures of my thighs with very, very important people, sorry.  So few people have ever seen them that there are rumors that I don't even have them.  True Story.  Ha!

We moved to the "Town" and spent the rest of our time there.  The town is a post-apocalyptic looking area of shacks, an old van, and stuff you can hide behind.  I did much better on this range, but in the first game, I got shot in the head.  Oh, dear Lord in heaven, that was unpleasant. It wasn't that it hurt, although it did, but that it hit at just the perfect angle on my mask that the paint squirted into my hair, and into my eye at the same time. My eye didn't even have time to close, so I saw through a haze of yellow goo, and when I raised my mask to wipe my face, I got reprimanded by our referee.  I had to wait until we were back in the safe zone before I could get the goop out of my eye, and my hair stayed greasy until I could take a bath. Gross.  I did much better during the rest of our games, and I even managed to shoot the only person in our group who plays with any regularity, twice.  I made him bleed by accident.  I don't know how, because paint balls aren't supposed to do that, but he showed me his arm and there was a big splotch of dried blood where I got him.  Oops.

We picked up 4 stray people to join our group, and they all were very good and had their own equipment.  They got most of the people out, I think.  Anyway, it was fun and I want to go again! 

When I got home, my eye had started to hurt, so I took out my contact lens to clean it.  It was stained yellow and I couldn't get the goop off of it and I had to open a new pack.  Boo.  My eye still isn't right, but at least everything isn't tinted anymore.

3)  I had the weirdest dream this weekend.  I dreamed I was an elementary school teacher and our entire school was taken hostage.  I don't think anyone was killed, but they wouldn't let us leave.  I think the point was that they were going to brainwash the children into converting to whatever religion or group these people were with (I'm assuming ISIS guys, but who knows?  Just bad guys is all I remember.) and they made the teachers stay with them, threatening that if we left or escaped, they'd start killing children.  It was a bad, bad dream.  I don't remember a lot of what happened, but I know that another teacher and I tried to sabotage the bad guys, but what we did was ineffective.  That took the heart out of me, and I just gave up and complied with whatever they told me to do.  That was the worst part, that sense of defeat and not being able to do anything to fight back.  In the weird way that dreams have, I was aware that days were passing and I couldn't get away from it and I was losing hope. 

I actually woke up during that part.  I didn't wake up in a panic, like you'd think, but I woke up feeling awful and sad and depressed.  I kept having to remind myself that it was just a dream.  I stayed awake for about 30 minutes before I fell asleep again, and I was dumped right back into the same dream!  If I'd been woken from an awesome dream, that would have never happened!  At any rate, once I was back in the dream, I was ready to fight my way out!  My problem was that I was very bad at escaping.  I don't remember exactly what I did, but in the dream, I was killed.  Instead of waking up again, the dream reset like a video game!  I kept waking up back where I started, and it was so freaking frustrating!  I tried to escape 4 different times, and all four times I got "killed" in the dream.  I finally woke up again when my alarm went off, but I have to say, that was one of the weirdest dreams I've ever had, and that is saying something.  I guess I need to put my Zombie Apocalypse plan on hold and brush up on my terrorist escape plans. 

Now I just have to learn to fly a helicopter.

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Yeah, I don't know why I'm writing so much these days.  Let's just accept it for now and it will probably sort itself out.  Don't judge, I'm alone a lot!  I have to talk to someone! God help you all if I ever try Podcasting.

2) I finally had to get rid of my red hair.  I loved it while it was still red, but the pinker it became, the weirder it looked.  If I was going for pink hair, that would have been fine, but it had started to look like I'd sprayed on Halloween color spray when I was underneath certain kinds of light.  I should probably say that I tried to get rid of my red hair, but even though I chose a color as close to my natural color as I could find, it didn't completely cover the red, which is weird because the red dye wasn't supposed to be permanent, but the brown dye was.  Oh well, it's darker, at least, and it's hair...so...it'll do what it wants to do in time.  My only real issue with it is that now all of my pretty white hairs are gone.

Next time I have a bad day, I'll just go get a tattoo.  I don't think it will last as long as the dye!

3) in 2013 I attended a self defense class.  I wrote about it, but if you haven't read it and would like to, you can do so here.

Not long after that class was over, I saw an ad where I could order a new, not yet released, product which was marketed as "Smart Jewelry."   It was supposed to be a fitness tracker, like a Fitbit, but with a personal safety element to it.  So, let's say I was alone, running (stop laughing) down a trail or something and someone jumped out at me and tried to grab me.  If I were wearing this thing I could press its button for three seconds and it would send an alarm to a person I designated as my safety contact.  That person would have downloaded and app on their phone that would send an alert that said I was in trouble.  It would show my location (with a GPS locator) and ask if they needed to call 911. The tracker could also be placed in different pieces of jewelry sold by the company, so, for example,  if you were on a date and things got hinky in a way that put you in danger, you could press the button and alert someone without being really obvious about what you were doing.  I joked to a friend that I go on so many out of town dates these days that I needed one of these just for that reason alone! Haha! (I'm sure Steve would not run to my rescue for that.)

Anyway, fresh off of that self defense course, I was all in for ordering the thing.  I work in a place where I don't always feel safe, and unfortunately, sometimes just going places alone isn't safe for me because I'm a woman.  Granted, I'm a woman who will do everything in her power to rip out your spine if you try to hurt me, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't appreciate back up if needed.  I also wanted the fitness tracker, since my other one had to be returned.  I actually wanted the fitness tracker more than the alarm, but the combo appealed to me. So I ordered it, with the promise that I'd receive the kit by the next spring when it was released.  Unfortunately, the company that was making it couldn't get their act together.  Either the programming wasn't getting completed, or the jewelry things weren't getting produced.  It was frustrating.  At any rate, I could have canceled my order, but I chose to stick it out and wait. 

Well, I finally got it last week, much, much later than promised.  However, I was informed that the programming was never completed for the fitness tracker, but it could still function as a security alert.  FINE, I GUESS.  UGH!  One other function that the thing (I'm not using it's name, because I don't want other people to buy it and I don't want anyone to come to my page in a Google search) does is alert you if you get a call or text from people you designate on a list.  So if I'm in a situation where answering my phone would be inappropriate or rude, if any of those people called it would vibrate and I'd know to excuse myself and call them back.  So I download the app and set about setting up my preferences on my phone.  I only had two people I wanted to designate as safety contacts (my mom and Steve, who are probably the two who'd care the most if I was being murdered...and maybe not even Steve, but he'd already agreed to do it) because not every friend you have wants to be responsible for your life and/or well being.  However, I did want to populate my list of approved callers so I'd be alerted if THEY called.  Only when I started adding names to that list, the dumb app sent out text messages asking people to download the app - and for all I knew was telling them that I was in danger. I also managed to accidentally set off the safety alarm, which scared my mom.  So I had to contact people and let them know they didn't have to download anything and that I wasn't currently being assaulted or murdered.  Now I'm too afraid to actually wear the device in case I accidentally set it off and have a SWAT team called to my destination.  At this point, I think it would be less stressful to carry a gun. 

4) There was something else I was going to talk about, but it took me about two hours to type that last part out in between doing work and getting sidetracked. I'm tired of thinking about myself. Whoever you are reading this, you just go on and have yourself a nice day. Thanks for stopping by! :)

WEIRD

For the past several days I have had a very weird feeling.  It worries me.

There are many of you who have little patience with my "weird feelings" and think they're silly, but you don't have to believe they are real. I know they are. I don't know what it's about and I don't know who it's about, but I feel like something has happened to someone important to me and I can't do anything about it.  That probably doesn't make much sense, I know.

The closest example I can come up with is this, and it might not be universal enough to make anyone else understand:  If you've ever had anyone close to you pass away, there is a point when you are trying to wrap your head around what happened and you want to fix it, but know you can't.  It's incredibly frustrating, because you know the situation is completely out of your hands, but you keep trying to think of ways it could have been avoided, or reasons it happened, or ways you can change it, but you know that there is nothing you can do. You realize that everything in your life has changed somehow and it wasn't a change you wanted.  It's a bad feeling, but one that eventually fades because your rational mind takes over and helps you to work through it.

Only in this case I do not know what is happening or to whom it is happening to, and the feeling isn't going away!  I do know how crazy this whole thing sounds, because I have no reasons to think anything is seriously wrong with anyone important to me. Everyone seems fine, or acting as if they are. That doesn't mean stuff isn't going on that I don't know about, of course, but I'd like to think anyone felt they could talk to me if they were having a problem. I'd also normally worry that maybe I'd done something to someone that hurt them or made them mad, but I know that isn't the case.

Maybe it's all the craziness going on in the world and I just want to keep everyone close and make sure they are safe and happy. Who knows?  I just want everyone to be OK, and if you aren't, I can try to help or maybe point you in the direction of someone who can.

I know I can be annoyingly huggy, and sometimes I can be a bit judgy (but I promise once that's out of the way I can be full-on sympathetic) but if you are out there reading this and something has happened, or even if you've done something stupid and think you are beyond sympathy/help, it'll be OK.  Even if you think it won't be.  You can talk to me, or if you don't want to do that, please talk to someone at least.

Anyway...so...weird or not, I hope everyone is OK, and if you aren't, I hope you will be.

Of course, if everyone is fine and no one is having any problems, the feeling may be caused by the bad Red Rope licorice I ate on Monday.  Either way...

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) So, sort of good news from the pulmonologist!  He said nothing has changed with my CT scans, so my next one won't be until next year!  Woo-Hoo! He told me that if the next scans show either no change or improvements (obviously) then he'll know the nodules are benign.  Yay!  The only bad thing about my scan was that he said it showed I had possible pneumonia activity in my left lung, but that with my "history of coughing" he didn't think it was anything important.  I honestly don't know what he means by history of coughing, because I haven't been coughing, nor have I had a chronic or even persistant cough in years and years.  Who knows?  It does hurt to breathe on that side of my chest, but I don't have any other signs of pneumonia, so no worries until there are worries to be had.  Woot! 

2) Someone shot our church!  No one was in it at the time, thank goodness. When I got to work yesterday, I saw a weird mark on one of the columns on the porch.  When I went out to see what it was, it was bullet damage. Well, that's what I thought when I looked at it and I am a world renowned forensic tech, after all.  Haha!  I showed the spot to the pastor and he agreed that it was a bullet hole.  We had to file a police report, (and the cop also agreed it was a bullet hole, so obviously my talents are wasted as a secretary) because it could tie to a crime down the line.  It's a crappy thing to happen, to be sure, but on the bright side, now our broken window has a friend! :)  Silver linings!

I named it Steve McQueen! 

3) Steve has informed me that his company is having a Christmas party.  I'm already starting to worry about the things I'm going to knock over. It won't be in anyone's home this time, and hopefully whatever I manage to destroy will be covered by some kind of damage deposit.  Also, the invitation says that it is "Festive Attire."  WTF does that mean?  Do I dress like an elf?  People think I'm kidding when I say I don't know how to dress myself, but I'm not.  I don't have a local girlfriend to tell me if I am appropriate, and Steve wouldn't care if I walked out of the house in a fitted sheet as long as all of my personal bits were covered.  

Sigh.  I'll Google it.

At any rate, I am determined about one thing: I will go to, and leave, this party without awkwardly hugging a caterer this time.

4) Speaking of awkward...  I was talking to someone the other day and made a kind of off color joke at my own expense.  I do that a lot, and I don't know why. It's just how I do. Anyway, right after I made said joke, we got interrupted and our conversation ended before I got to explain that I was only joking.  I'd like to believe that the person would know realize I was only joking, but I can't be completely sure.  The only way I'll know is if I bring it up and explain, but I'd rather not, because I'm afraid they'd think it was a case of protesting too much or something.  I need to stop talking to people who don't know my humor.

5) It's been almost a year since Butler died and I'm still not quite adjusted.  People keep asking if we are going to get another dog soon, but I don't think I could stand it yet.  Well, we have other important reasons not to want to get a dog right now, but a lot of it has to do with fact that I still miss my other dogs too much it would feel like we were getting rebound dogs. That is stupid, I know.  I don't like to feel things.  It makes everything too complicated.  If I could turn off feelings, lots of things would be easier.

6) Last week Steve had his concert at the Host of Christmas Past in Fayetteville, TN. The band did great and we had a lot of fun, but the thing that stuck out for me was seeing a volunteer fireman almost melt his own face off!  I was sitting near the line of food booths while Steve's bad was playing and I heard a BOOM.  When I looked over, I saw a man brushing at his face with some other guys standing around looking concerned.  The sleeve was almost blown off of his shirt, and he had a flash burn across his forehead.  He had been trying to light a propane heater underneath a tank of chicken stew and I don't know what happened, but it caused a fireball to hit him in the upper body.  Luckily he seemed to be ok, except for maybe losing an eyebrow.  It could have been a lot worse!

I'm so very, very tired of all the bad that is going on in the world.  It's not like it's a new thing, obviously, because evil has been around since the beginning of time, but it just seems like the yuck is getting bigger and uglier and more violent every day.  Maybe it only looks that way because we're on a 24 news cycle and every time you turn on the television, or open the internet, or turn on the radio all of the bad stuff is just staring you in the face (or the ear...because radio.)  I don't see how journalists can deal with the onslaught of it all, since they are the ones immersed in it until they can move on to other things.  They are much stronger people than I will ever be, I guess.

And it isn't going to stop.  Not ever.  It might not be as big or bad as it is right now, but it will always be there, running like an infection underneath the skin of life as we know it.  There will always be people who have ideals that they are willing to die for, and to kill other people for.  We can pretend that world peace is achievable, but that isn't how mankind is hardwired.  There will always be someone who MUST BE RIGHT at all costs and they will stop at nothing to grab hold of whatever power they think comes along with that rightness.

I don't know which scares me the most at this point: the fact that we are faced with the possibility of someone blowing us up or shooting us every time we go into a crowded, public area, or that a lot of people are just resigned to the fact that this is normal life, now.  It's disheartening.

Last night, after the day was over and I was lying in bed thinking of all of the things going on in the world, all I wanted was to be able to sit next to someone, hold their hand, not talk, and just feel safe for a while. I think maybe everyone could use that.  If you get that chance, you should.

AN ADDENDUM

I've been thinking about the last entry that I wrote and decided I'm not embarrassed anymore.  In fact, as I thought, it didn't take long before I thought the whole thing was hilarious.

So here's what I'm going to do!

I'm going to order the filthiest thing I can afford from this messed up Tupperware party. 

I know she'll see the order, because she has to make sure the order is fulfilled to get credit for it.

Then, when she sees me at church, she will be the one who is uncomfortable!

Muahahahahahahaha! 

Of course, then I'll have to figure out what to do with whatever it is I order.  I don't know what that will be at this time. I guess I'll have to find someone to give it to! 

Christmas is about to get weird, y'all.

WTF, MATE?!

I just got a Facebook invite from a woman I go to church with for one of those online selling-things parties.

You've probably gotten an invitation for one of them before, for nail polish, or monogrammed bags or some such thing.  I don't usually participate in these things, mainly because I don't have the money to throw down on overpriced junk jewelry or iffy weight loss products.

But the invitation I just got wasn't for any of those things.  This lady invited me to a, uh...toy party.  An adult oriented toy party.

A lady from my church just invited me to an online sex toy party! Whaaaaaaa?!

OK, I'm not a prude and I don't have problems with people either having these parties nor buying things from these kinds of parties.  I'm not offended or anything like that.

But a lady from my church inviting me to something like this is weird...isn't it?  It's not just me?  Please tell me it isn't just me that finds that odd.

OK, let's say I "attend" this party (it's only online, so I wouldn't actually have to get face to face with a group of Southern Baptist ladies all discussing the merits of different sexy time stuff, thank God) and bought fuzzy handcuffs, sexy lingerie, or any of the plethora of things that vibrate, restrain or is described as "life-like?"*  I know how these online parties work!  You have to put in your name and address, and the person hosting this party would see the order!  She would know what I bought, and then she'd know too much!  She'd see me at church and know!

 I will let this cat demonstrate my initial reaction.

Look, I don't care what people do as long as it's consensual and enjoyed by both parties, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with anyone in my church family knowing what I kept in my personal "toy box." 

I'm sure that in about half an hour I'll find this hilarious.

* Yes, I know all of those things are available because I looked at the website.  I couldn't really believe that was what the invitation was for so I checked for myself.  I was wrong.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I've been learning stuff!  It isn't important stuff, but it is interesting.

Did you know that Nabisco, the snack company, used to be known as the National Biscuit Company and the name Nabisco is just a short version of that?  I feel that that is probably common knowledge, but I didn't know and it is strangely interesting.

Did you know that the slogan "Don't Mess With Texas" was originally an anti-littering slogan?  I had no idea.

Ah, trivia. :)

2) I had a massive and completely unexpected anxiety attack last week.  It was terrible, and honestly, it hit me without warning while I was at home by myself.  I don't have them like that very often, thank goodness, but the ones when I'm alone are the worst because there is no one there to tell me I'm being dumb. I began questioning everything I'd done since I'd gotten home, which was stupid, because I hadn't done anything particularly out of the ordinary, but everything I'd done seemed really wrong. I finally emailed someone for help, and they told me I was being dumb. That helped. The anxiety attack passed, thank goodness. 

I really, really hate those things, and I know other people hate having to deal with me when I have them.  It's incredibly embarrassing.

3) Our 15th anniversary is tomorrow!  That's amazing to me for lots of reasons.  We were going to go on a trip, but that got cancelled.  In fact, I won't even get to see Steve for more than a couple of hours, if I'm even awake when he leaves and comes home. He's working and taking an evening class, so I guess I'll do something fun by myself! Maybe. I really have no idea. It actually seems kind of pathetic now that I've written it out loud. (Wait, is that a thing?) Maybe I'll just do laundry. I'm always doing laundry.

4) Why is it that I always want to do the absolute worst things for me?  I swear, I make terrible decisions!  I don't mean to be self destructive, but I can't seem to help it!  I always forget I'm supposed to be eating better, so I'll catch myself with a cupcake in my face before I think "Oh, this is not a good idea!"  I'll keep putting off going to the gym for one reason or another, even though I know I should go, and I'm constantly doing stuff that makes me feel like I'm a 7 year old in a grown up person's body.  I think the little Jiminy Cricket voice in my head has died or something.

Oh, well, at least I'm not a danger to others! :)

5) Do you remember the scene in Home Alone, when Kevin orders a pizza while using clips from the movie (You know, the "Keep the change, ya filthy animal" movie) so he'd sound like an adult?  He scared the pizza guy off by playing the scene with the gunfire.  Why did that pizza guy not call the police?! This has been bothering me.  If a person delivering a pizza is shot at, or thinks he is, why wouldn't he tell someone!  Kevin would have been found a lot sooner, and the whole thing with the burglars wouldn't have happened.  Of course, the movie would have been 20 minutes long.  I've overthought this.  I know, I know...

6)  There was more, but I don't remember.

A DREAM

Last night I had a dream that I was hanging out with a friend of mine from high school that I haven't seen in years.  Well, actually, I dreamed we were on a furniture dolly being pulled behind a car, but we were able to talk and everything.  Shut up, dreams are weird.

Anyway, after we got to where we were going (and I don't remember where that was) he handed me a piece of paper with a list of the nicest compliments about me on it.  I can not for the life of me remember what any of those compliments were, but I remember that they made me very happy.  I don't think this particular friend would ever say anything quite that nice about me in real life unless I died and he was feeling nostalgic or something. Who knows?

While I was thinking about that dream this morning, I remembered that when I was a teenager, our youth group minister gathered us together one night for some event and gave everyone a piece of paper with our name at the top of it.  We passed it to everyone else in the group, and each of us anonymously wrote one thing we liked about that person on the paper.  Once it circulated around, we got our own pages back so that we could read what everyone wrote.  I kept that piece of paper in my wallet from that night until I'd been married almost 10 years, and I only put it away because my new wallet didn't have a place I could safely keep it.  I suppose it sounds really narcissistic (oooh, spelled that right on the first try!) to keep a list of compliments about yourself within easy reach, but I didn't keep it for that reason.

As I got older, I  sometimes felt (and still feel, at times) like there was nothing good or admirable about me. I didn't really do any of the things I thought I'd do, for one reason or another. Not that life has been bad, but I sometimes felt like I didn't take as much advantage of it as I should have. Especially now with social media, we get to see how awesome everyone is and everything they accomplish on a daily basis.  I know that we can't compare ourselves to those people realistically, because for every degree they earn, or every promotion they get, or every trip to some exotic or amazing place they post online, there are just as many disappointments or lost opportunities that they don't tell us all about.  Sometimes it's hard to remember that we are seeing only what people want us to see, and it's difficult not to judge ourselves against that. Well, it's difficult for me. I don't know about you.

So really, I kept that piece of paper because I wanted to remind myself that there were people out there who liked me and thought well of me, even if they never said it out loud.  Even though I'd lost touch with those people a while ago, at one time, even at my teenagery worst, there were people who could see good things in me, even when I couldn't.  I think maybe I had that dream to remind myself that it's still true.  Even if I'm not particularly successful, or doing really awesome things that I can post onto Facebook or whatever, there are people out there who can still see the good things in me even when I can't see them myself.

In case your interested, this is what my paper had listed on it.  I will spell everything correctly, though!  Haha!

-She's Nice
-She's good looking  (-Oy Vey)
-She's a good friend
-She's sweet
-Sweet disposition
-She's got a good sense of humor
-Bestest Friend
-Her
-She's always perky!
-She's sincere
-Caring
-Kind person

You know, now that I read that list again, I'm not altogether certain they were talking about me after all!  ; )