things i love friday.

So like I said, I'd really like to start a sort of...recurring theme / blogging schedule. Every successful blog I've found has some sort of schedule they follow, and as I'd like for this to be at least semi-successful, I suppose I should follow suit. Therefore, we now have things i love Friday. Sure, it doesn't rhyme. But everybody likes Fridays best of all, and this is just going to be the things I love best of all from the internet. Yay.

This workspace, found on olof jakobina. Guhhhhh, inspiring.

Haiiiiir, from hair romance. Holy heck, I wish I could make my hair grow faster.

This kate spade bag. Late birthday present, anyone? Ohpleasepleaseplease.

This baby.

These shoes found at wanelo. I actually think I could make these. Maybe.

This tattoo found from malamai. Unfffff.

This harry potter comic. I laughed for days, I swear.

So that's enough for today. I'm off to make a big, big request of someone I care a lot about in hopes it works out for me. Yesterday was my 22nd birthday, so I'm hoping that's reason enough for him to not say no. Wish me luck!

This is Blake. I'm sure I've talked about him a hundred or so times on here, but I just thought you all should know just what he looks like. Innit he dreamy?


Anyway, so we have big news. Mostly just he has some big news, but considering the fact that we're a team in this together...whatever, WE have big news. Tomorrow, Blake takes his GRE! He's finally decided he wants to go to grad school - and he's picked

Yeah, I know right? Totally not...anything like we had ever envisioned. But! (there is a serious but here) BUT from the practice exams he's taken, combined with his fantastically good GPA, he'd more than likely get into the honors study at Ole Miss. And he's a fourth generation student. As in, his great-grandfather went to Ole Miss, as did his grandfather, and his aunt. And now him. And the family is BIG on school tradition. As is the school. This essentially means we'd practically be guaranteed a spot. And, as I've mentioned before, if I have the Gardner name as well, I'd more easily get in, too.


It's a party school. We're not exactly party people. Also it's extremely conservative. And we're...well...anarchists. And atheist. But this is okay. If we get in, and move all the way to Mississippi, we'll be inbetween our families, and we'll be in a cute little artsy-fartsy town and everyone will have a grand old time. 


Either way, everything will be okay. I'm sure he'll pass his exams just fine, despite his nervousness. (He might try to hide it, but I know him better than anyone, and that boy is kind of nervous. It's kind of cute.) So tomorrow, we get out of bed at the crack of dawn and drive an hour to Shreveport where he'll sit in a room for four and a half hours and make his brains explode. Joy.


Here's to hoping!

i honestly can't think of a title.

So I have good news and blah news. We'll start with the blah news first. Blah news is that (despite my admittedly rather perfect immune system in which I rarely get sick, even with the most minor of colds) Blake has somehow managed to infect me with his respiratory whatever-you-want-to-call-it, so now I'm stuck here on the couch with a rather nasty bout of the sniffles. Which means I probably won't be able to go out tonight with my boss and co-workers as I had originally planned. ;[ Well...I may go anyway. I'm not feeling THAT bad, after all.

Good news is my 22nd birthday is next week!! ! !!! And I'm doing pretty much nothing for it (as far as I know). That's ok though. The REAL good news is that the day BEFORE my birthday, Blake and I will be headed to Shreveport to take his GRE! Finally, my boy has decided what he wants to do with his life, and what he wants to do with his life is go back to school. And stay at school. Yes, my dear Mr. Gardner has decided to become a professor. A professor of Anthropology (and probably a particular field of anthropology - he likes the idea of ethnobotany, but really just isn't sure, which is why he's going to grad school in the first place).

We've chosen Ole Miss as our alma mater. Blake is a fourth generation student (his great-grandfather, grandfather, and aunt are all graduates of the prestigious party institution), and as such, it will be rather exceptionally easy for him (and myself) to get in. It's in the South, it's fairly close to home (and actually inbetween his family and mine, as mine relocated to Florida last spring), and it's academically accredited enough to our standards. We think it'll be a good fit. Now for the financial aid part.

Which brings me to my next matter of discussion: we're getting married. And potentially really soon. In fact, we've even set on a date of elopement: March 20th. Neither of us are pagan-y or anything, but the first day of Spring sounds awfully perfect. We like the idea of actually getting married to be a more private thing, just the two of us. Of course, we'll eventually have a real wedding for our families (and me - I gotta admit, I've always had wedding plans in mind since I was...in the womb), but the actual official-ness of signing documents and being married should be shared just between the two of us. The timing is pretty much perfect, because we'll be applying for financial aid after we get married, and it'll be a little more than easy to get the help we need if we're legally tied to each other.

I never really thought I'd be married so young (I'll only be 22, after all, compared to Blake's 24 this summer), but in retrospect, I think it's the best time. It's hard to believe that I'll have been broken up with my ex for two years this fall. It seems like only yesterday when I gave the phone call that ended everything. I'd promised my life, my future to this guy, and looking back, I can't believe I ever actually let myself do something like that. This time around, we've promised nothing but today, and the hope of tomorrow. Yeah yeah, it sounds cheesy, but I've had the bad habit of rushing into everything way too fast. Too many promises that I didn't ever know if I could keep. Whether or not Blake and I will be together forever (let's hope so, but heavens to betsy people die and/or get divorced every day now), but that doesn't mean that we can't be happy and live life to the fullest while we ARE together. I'm ready. We're ready. Let's do this.

bits of life.

So it's no surprise that most popular blogs have some sort of orderliness to their posting habits. Kitschy Thursdays, for example, where they spend their day thrifting and miraculously finding perfect-condition vintage Doc Martens and when they look in the label, they were actually autographed by Mr. Vicious himself, and (of course) photoblogging the entire experience. Unfortunately for you guys, my life is not nearly so impressive or exciting. The best thing we have for thrifting would be the Salvation Army, and this part of Texas isn't all that inspiring for fashion or interesting knickknacks. Le sigh.


But back to the subject. I really, really would like this whole blog business thing to work out. I must admit, I've always been super-jealous of bloggers who actually have a loyal (and large) following, and while I honestly don't think I'm at all that interesting enough (and I don't have a good camera, which seems to be the kicker), at least I have somewhat of an above average life. 


SO, this week I'll be plotting out ideas for a regular posting schedule...thing. With lots of pictures. Or as many decent pictures as my little iphone 4 can take.


Till then.

big rock candy mountain.

This is where I live. Innit pretty?

Anywho, even though I'm obviously running...almost a week behind, my new years resolution is to keep this blog up and running. At this point, I'm not exactly sure what it will end up as, but...we'll go with it, for now. Honestly, as much as I love fashion/design/photo blogs, I really, really enjoy blogs where the writers just end up talking about themselves and their lives. Those are the ones I always end up being a loyal reader of. Pictures are wonderful (and with my fancy iphone, pictures will obviously be happening), but if there's no content more than a few captions, I ain't interested.

So, it turns out that I'll be hunting for a second job. I can't recall if I said in here that I now work at a GameStop. It's awesome, I absolutely love everything about my job (which is crazy, if you know me personally - I never stay happy with a job more than a couple weeks, and I've been at GS since September), and I'm planning on sticking with it. As Sephora is going to be opening a store in our town, Blake will be hired there as a senior consultant (eee, free makeup and fancy skin care!), but in the meantime, we just need a little more money than we have now. Don't get me wrong, life is actually really comfortable for the both of us. We don't have to pay rent or utilities, food is extremely cheap, and my job gives me enough money for gas into town and back and a little left over afterward for cigarettes and the occasional shopping splurge. I'm just trying to save up enough money to make a visit to Florida, as I haven't seen my family in over a year. :[ 

Either way, we'll be fine. Our farm is up and running, we'll be building a greenhouse and cleaning out the workshop (for my own personal use, yayyyy) this spring, and life is good. I just bought a baby blue ukelele, too! It's so fucking adorable, you guys have no idea. And I can officially play Happy Birthday on it. Woo!

We have a bit of drama in our lives at the moment, Blake and I. And life is already stressful enough with a certain...problem that may or may not be an official problem in February. Our house (both houses, actually) were burglarized (that sounds so funny, but apparently it's an actual word...whatever) about twoish months ago. I assumed the stuff would never be returned, as everyone knows how anything stolen goes. You report it, the police always say they'll keep an eye out. It never turns up. BUT IT DID THIS TIME. Well, at least the television they stole. And guess who's name was in the pawn shop records? Blake's best friends. Well, "best friends." You can't honestly say that a person is your genuine friend if they break and enter into your house and steal your most valuable (not only monetarily but emotionally as well) possessions and then have the audacity to keep a smile on your face, and even keep coming over to visit at the same house that you broke into. I've never liked them. What can I say? Good riddance to bad rubbish. Who needs 'em, anyway? The police have a warrant out for them, and will be arresting them in the next couple of days.

More on the details as they unfold later!

hello again, my old friend.

So, I honestly haven't even been so much as reminded of the existence of this blog in several months. Every once in a while, it would dawn on me that it was still here, neglected, after all this time. Unfortunately, I don't have a better excuse other than the fact that we couldn't get even semi-high speed internet out here in the countryside until...today, actually. I had internet access at the radio station where Blake works, but as he still doesn't exactly know that I used to write on an online blog every once in a blue moon, I never really found the time to try and sneak a post here and there. I don't really feel sorry.

A lot has changed since...July? June? I can't remember. At the time, I believe I was working for a chain steakhouse. I quit just around the time of my last post, and started working for FedEx customer service just a few weeks later. Oh goodness, those were the days. It was nice making over a thousand a month (woo yay upper lower class jobs!), but sitting at a desk from 9-5 day in and day out, on the phones nonstop to people who would jump at the chance to yell at me for thirty minutes over something that I didn't even do (lady - you're in Michigan. I didn't deliver your package, and no, I don't know the driver who did. Please stop calling me a bitch...please) pretty much drove me crazy. So one day, it dawned on me. I shouldn't have to waste away my life doing shit work that makes me want to kill myself. Life is far too short to do anything but something that makes you happy. So I walked out, and I never looked back. This was in October, mind you.

The Occupy Wall Street protests had just started up around that time, and we were interested in joining one. Quitting my job was the spark that made us think about it more. We planned to actually move to the Big Apple two weeks after I quit, but those plans were pushed back to early December, then those plans were pushed back to "early Spring-ish," and now they've fallen through completely. Turns out my boyfriend is more of a homebody than I thought (no matter how much I'd like to think). True, he's not Dan. Dan will never, ever leave his mother's house in country bumpkin Blum, and that just didn't settle well with me. Blake and I, homebody though he may be, actually WILL be leaving New Boston some time soon. We're just not moving to the metropolis that is New York City. :[

So anyway, since Blake detests the idea of working, and I'd rather just work instead of making him miserable for a few hours every day, I decided to apply at Gamestop. Luckily, I was friends with the employees at the only store that was hiring after visiting them so many times, and was pretty much hired on the spot. Most of us were eventually transferred over to the mall (ugh!) which is where we are today. I adore my job, surprisingly. It's retail, and it's mall retail, which is hell inside of hell central, but I genuinely enjoy the days when I get to wake up and head into work. Sure, I've gotten some strange looks (this is conservative Texarkana, after all, and girls like me are usually thought to shriek in horror at the sight of a video game, but, well, there you have it), but as one of pretty much only two employees who actually are avid gamers, most of the time people will look to me for opinions. It makes me feel important, I know.

And now we come to the present. Some (seriously) life-changing things have happened since my last post, some my readers may know about (do I even have readers anymore? Did I EVER have readers? HAHAHAHAHA), some may not. I may discuss it in the future. It's not really a "sensitive" topic anymore, but it is a long story, and the drama isn't exactly over with yet. We have to wait until February for that plotline to (hopefully) finish up. Secret: there's babies involved, and I'm not even pregnant!

Until next time (and, if you ARE reading this, I promise, there will be a next time, and soon).

I've been very sad lately. And frustrated. I haven't written anything in forever. I suppose you could say I'm afraid of making a bad blog post. I would like to tell myself that I write solely for myself - but I don't. I DO write for myself, but I also write in the hopes that someone else will see it and like what I've written. I guess it's silly, but there's no harm in hoping that someone out there will one day continually read this, right?


My frustrations are stemming from a certain person who will remain unnamed, but if you at least have vaguely heard of the situation at one point in your life, it's easy to find out who I'm talking about. I've known this guy for four years. We were on and off interested in each other (or at least I was on and off interested in him), but he was always sketchy about his relationships. Not to mention the fact that my best friend at the time was also very, very much interested in him, too. It was more him and her that had a semi-relationship, but she eventually found out he was talking to several other girls, many of them in the...fifteen-ish range, when he was about twenty-four. Kiiiiinda awkward. ANYWAY, so we all got over that and became friends again, but then he started flirting with me. Still at least vaguely interested in him, and thinking the one friend had stopped talking to him and didn't care, I flirted back. She cared. Although I don't regret losing her friendship at all, a big part of not being her friend was the blow-up fight we had over him. I didn't care if she wanted him for herself / didn't want me talking to him / whatever. After I found out that he had been talking to both of us at the same time, it was far too shady for me and I wanted no part in it.


We're talking again. WELL, I must admit that we never really stopped talking as friends. And let me just clear this up right now: he and I are JUST friends. I may very well have been a terrible girlfriend to my past ex, but there should be no question as to my faithfulness and my commitment to Blake. This guy and I are just very casual friends (there are times when we go months without talking). 


As a matter of fact, I'm considering cutting him out of my life again, at least for a while. He just does this...thing, where it's not really flirting, but it kind of implies flirting. Does that make sense? I honestly can't give you any examples, I don't have any recent texts from him, but it's just...weird. It's almost as if he's trying to play me, but he thinks that I still have feelings for him, so it's working. But I don't, and it's not. And he plays oblivious whenever I confront him about it. And maybe he is oblivious to what he's doing. But he clearly at least has some feelings for me, as small as they may be, and it shows. And I've talked to him about toning it down. I am relieved that at least it's not that often, and we're allowed to mostly talk in a completely platonic manner, but occasionally there's some things he'll say that will reek of "I'm going to try and make you think I have feelings for you and am missing you in a text so that maybe you'll guilt-trip or starting thinking that you miss me and you can fall back into your old routine of being a lying cheater but really I probably don't have any feelings for you whatsoever and am just the casual playboy I have generally been in the past."


I would love for us to be just friends. I don't want anything more from him. And it would suck to lose him completely, as he's a delightful, charming, and intelligent person to be around. But I don't want him to want me to be his girlfriend. I want him to want me to be his friend, and nothing more. And I guess if I can't trust that he wants just that, then that will have to be the end of it. I'm not willing to compromise my relationship with Blake in any way.