Late Summer

It seems I often blog at a change or an event, etc.
Lately I haven’t blogged much at all.
Bad blogger!
But today I blog about late summer. I do kinda sorta like late summer. Not, of course, as much as I like early summer or mid-summer. But there is some fun stuff that does come along with late summer. (Not fun is how big spiders seem to be by this time of year — YUCK!)
First of all, our anniversary is Aug. 30. So, it seems we always kind of dedicate that entire week to just us. I know, what a bunch of nerds. This year we had a really nice anniversary. Tim surprised me by dropping flowers off at my desk. That evening we went out to eat at the Blue Orchid. One of my favorite Thai restaurants here in Lincoln. My favorite dish there is the Panang Curry. YUM. It is creamy, sweet, spicy yumminess. Their seafood dishes are also good and probably healthier for me, but the taste of their panang curry is just so different that I always have to order it. Tim, loves the crying tiger. It is a simple, super tender beef dish and is served with white rice and edamame — pretty much all of Tim’s favorite foods. Well, besides cucumber salad — ha! Anyways…while that was all good, we also took a trip to Kansas City over Labor Day weekend. It is nice that our anniversary falls around a holiday weekend, I think. We really didn’t do anything too exciting, but stayed at the Intercontinental and got some R&R, took in the Country Club Plaza area and ate at Bristol Seafood, Figlios, PF Changs and of course had to get dessert at the Cheesecake Factory.
Also got in some shopping. I found a few nice outfits/fall outfits for work, which I am excited to wear as the temperatures cool down a bit! So, yeah, I think that highlights our anniversary.
Last night was my first Junior League of Lincoln meeting for the year. Looking forward to volunteering again this year with that.
I was just thinking, got asked a lot last night what I’ve been up to.
I am always one to go blank whenever someone asks this question. I think sometimes my brain doesn’t think right unless I am at a computer typing it out! ha!
But really, Tim and I did have a fun summer. We so LOVE summer. While this cooler weather is nice, I am not ready for dreaded winter! Boo!
But in the meantime, I guess I will enjoy late summer. The first day of fall is Sept. 23. With that comes lots of fun things like cooking soups and stews, apples, apple crisp and, of course, Husker football. We’ve done a fair share of tailgating already this football season! Last weekend our friends Holly and Kevin had their annual tailgate. It is always a good time, and I always get to see a lot of my friends from way back in the day (I mean way back, two of the people there I have actually known since kindergarten). This weekend, I am actually looking forward to watching the game at home! Another fun thing: Apple Jack Festival in Nebraska City this weekend! yay!
So, yeah, that should catch you up on my month of September. And, I’ll go into fall with a positive attitude. However, don’t know if I’ll be able to say the same thing come January! ha!
In the meantime, I’ll eat probably one of my last purchases of sweet corn from one of Lincoln’s wonderful Farmers Markets and enjoy what little bit of summer I have left.

Blogging

I think blogging is kind of fun. It is a great way to write about things that people otherwise probably wouldn’t want to sit and listen to you talk about. When you blog, you make your thoughts available to the world, where there’s got to be someone who will care, right? I read several blogs and often am one of those people who just plain like reading about people’s ordinary lives.
The thing I wanted to write about today, are the several drafts of blogs I have saved ever since I’ve started this blog. Sometimes I’ll write a blog article and save it instead of publish it. I’ll think, wow. I can’t publish this, people will think I’m weird, too negative, not happy, insecure, etc., etc. So, they get put in my drafts folder where they’ll probably stay forever.
However, even though I didn’t publish those articles, it still feels good to have a place to write all those feelings down. It really makes you feel better even if the whole world doesn’t get to read it.
For those of you thinking about starting a blog, I think they key thing here is don’t think too much about it. Just do it! The words will come. People will enjoy what you have to say. And it really does make you feel good!

Blogging

I follow a few blogs myself, one of them being the Pioneer Woman. At first, I wasn’t sure about this woman. She moves from New York City to a ranch in Oklahoma and blogs about it. Yeah, I know what this is going to be about. I grew up on a farm. But for some reason, I like this woman’s wit and charm. I love her recipes, and like hearing about how her blog has made her famous. Cool, eh?

Anyways….wanted to point out this article she wrote:
Ten Important Things I’ve Learned About Blogging

It talks about blogging. I think this is good advice for any of you who are thinking of getting started with a blog. It really isn’t hard, and it really is fun to do. In fact, I wish I could get paid to do this! It really is fun! In fact, sometimes I’ll write up 4 or 5 blog posts in one sitting and send them out on different days. Weird, I know. I never have writer’s block when it comes to blogging. I may think I do, then I just start writing and out things come!

Now, if I could just make that happen with this story I have to finish tomorrow at work…

Speaking of work. It is time to go to bed! What am I still doing up! ha! Good night!

P.S. The spelling and grammar thing, yeah, do let me know if you find mistakes! Like I’ve said before, I do write for a living! ha! I have a reputation to uphold! ha!

Grammar, Spelling, Etc.

So, yeah. I write for a living. Then, why did I have to double check that I spelled grammar correctly in my title? Seriously, for a minute there, I thought it might actually end in an er instead of an ar.

I think I got into writing because I was pretty good in English while a student a good old District 84. Man, loved those sentence diagrams! However, all my teachers probably remember what a bad speller I was. Thank God for Spell Checker! (Altho it quite often fails me on Facebook, where all my writing colleagues are quick to point on my errors.) How embarrassing!

Now, my grammar, on the other hand, usually is correct on paper. However, put me in a conversation and the errors just start coming out — especially after I’ve had a few drinks. Throw in some old friends and some sort of accent overtakes me and I start pronouncing all sorts of words wrong too.

I guess the only thing I can blame this on is my upbringings. (Sorry Mom and Dad. This will be the only thing I blame you for, though.) I guess the corn and hogs didn’t care that I didn’t speak correctly. In fact, what we often said to the hogs wouldn’t be appropriate language for anybody! I never realized I had a problem with speaking correctly until I studied abroad in Australia. Yeah, not at the top of my list of discoveries I thought I’d make about myself in Australia. But one of my friends who I met while there asked me, why do you always use your don’ts and doesn’ts incorrectly. I can’t even remember the mistakes I was making, but then realized why I say what I did when I got back home. My Mom uses them incorrectly all the time! So, then I started correcting her all the time! ha!

All in all, I hope someday I’ll woo people with my poetic tongue. I am trying! Until that day, I guess I’ll just have to try to keep on writing. Even though I hate this saying, “You can take a girl off the farm, but not the farm out of the girl!” it just might be right.

Blah

I was afraid this day would come. I would go to write a brilliant blog post and have absolutely nothing to say. Well, let me rephrase that — I would come up with 100 million ideas of what I could write about, but would not write about them because I am afraid of what people would think.

I guess I just plain feel blah. I don’t know why. But it seems at least one or twice a month, it’s just like I absolutely cannot take things anymore. I don’t know if I am bored, or need a change, but I just want to either run away to a far off land, or crawl up in my bed and not come out!

I think a lot of this comes from my personality. A couple years ago I got to be a part of the ACE (Association of Communication Excellence) Leadership Institute. It is a professional organization I am in. During the two-year leadership institute I was able to partake in the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator.

What an eye opener! Here I thot I was just weird and insecure! Reading my description was a real eye opener! I am an ENTJ. This means I am extraverted, intuitive, thinking and judging. My dominant process is extraverted thinking. My auxiliary function is introverted intuition. Introverted feeling and extraverted sensing are my least developed functions.

So, yeah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. What does this mean? Well, this all came with several pages of reports. Some of the things that stuck with me:

“You may have to seek out others’ views actively, since people may not volunteer them.”

Ah, yeah.

“Many people with your personality type tend to manage their feelings by repressing and denying them or by discharging them in ways which may be both inappropriate and destructive.”

Hmmmmmm

“In love with learning, fascinated by the very concept of intelligence, all-intuitive-thinking types share an inner drive toward performance and a highly self-critical nature which continually strives toward self improvement.”

Ditto. In fact, I think that is why I loved college so much. Like, seriously, I just plain loved to hear all the knowledge some of my professors expressed. Just sitting in class, listening, was so awesome.

“You live in the future more than you live in the present.”

Wow. Yeah.

People that know me know I am a perpetual planner. I really never stop planning anything — from fun nights out to vacations to what I am going to cook and wear for the week.

“Sometimes you set your personal standards for achievement impossibly high.”

“You may relate to recreation most comfortable as exercise (it’s good for you, you know!)”

Seriously, I thought all recreation was exercise? You mean, I can go out and ride my bike just for the fun of it?

“Your outgoing personality prefers working with human companionship, so you may wish to think long and hard before accepting a job or work assignment which forces you to work in isolation.”

Which is why I think I do get down at work at times. I don’t really have an equal in the section I work with. I really feel I performed much better when I had someone in the cube sitting next to me, doing to same things as me, which probably has only been for 3 out of 9 years I’ve worked here. Now, I know I have lots of colleagues where I work. But they all have different jobs as me.

I won’t bore you with many more details, but this is what really sticks with me and happens quite a bit to me:

“Then things settle down. You stifle a yawn, while your frazzled coworkers sigh with relief. While you yearn for the next crisis, they make no effort to disguise their earnest hope that routine is reestablished as soon as possible. Then, one morning, sure as death, you wake up, staring blankly at the ceiling, and you know you’ve been stricken, once again, by the insidious dark side of the intuitive enthusiasm: boredom. You try to fight it and deny it to your friends and enemies alike, but the fact is: you know you don’t want to go to work. Your energy’s gone, your spirit’s flat, and, once again, you realize you’ve fallen into one of your slack periods.”

WOW.

Nothing has ever spoken to me like this! Well, except for a recent sermon at church not to long ago about worrying (will have to talk about worrying some other time, but in the meantime, it is archived here.)

So, yeah. Boredom. I think boredom explains a lot of things in my life. Like right now, I have a couple of interesting stories I am working on, but all news writers know how those go, especially at a university. They move pretty slow. You can wait for weeks for people to get back to you. You do all you can to get ready, intricately write out the questions, envision the interview, do some background research. And still no call back. Then, some other meeting advances come along to use up your time. Eventually the stories get done, and more come along. It isn’t only my job in which I am like this. It is a lot of things in life. Travel. Tim and I haven’t gone anywhere since we went to Aruba in December 2008. We’ve done a city weekend here and there to Chicago, Kansas City and Denver. But nothing big. Now, we have a trip coming up to Hawaii with Tim’s family. I am so freaking excited! I am reading and finding every little piece of information I can about it! We also are planning to go to London next summer, so also reading up on that. Living in the future, not paying attention to present. That is me. In fact, I actually have planned trips that we have never gone on. Yeah. The daydreamer in me again.

So, yeah, I guess I didn’t think I had anything to write about today. Boy was I wrong. I think I might of even cleared some things up by writing this. How therapeutic.

To end, I want to share a quote that I heard on one of my favorite TV shows this week: “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” (my other favorite shows at the moment are “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” — yeah, I don’t know why — and “Mad Men”). But this writer/editor associated with Tony said, “If you’re a writer, you’re a fool.” I love this! Tim thought I was being negative with the title of my blog, but I think I am write on target.

That is all for now — over 1,000 words when I thought I had nothing to say!

I hope you enjoy my blog!

So, I have been blogging now for about a month. I kept it private at first because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to write anything worthwhile. I guess it has gone pretty well. So, here it is for the world to see!

I hope you enjoy my easy recipes and random ramblings. I hope you enjoy reading about my travels when I actually have the money to travel! I hope you enjoy reading the life of Average Me. Maybe I’m just a writing, daydreaming fool, but I at least dream big.

I am a writer, a dreamer. I love to cook and travel. I am trying to save money and plan for that condo in the Carribean some day. Enjoy my life’s adventures with me! Stay tuned and enjoy!