304/365: Happy Haunting

Hodpodge Modpoge

October has been a big month. 

I finally dealt with having to say goodbye to my car. Yes, I was way too attached. I feel like this is God teaching me to deal with holding onto things with an open hand.

I was sad to see it go, but I am realizing that this is kind of a blessing in disguise, Left to my own devices I would have never decided to get rid of my car until I was forced to. I was holding onto it for a lot of emotional reasons, when the car was not practical at all anymore. 

Which brings me to the next thing that happened during October; last week we bought a new (to us) car. It's a lot bigger and roomier than my tiny ZX2, but it should serve us for many years into the future since it has fewer miles and four doors. Can I just say I am exceptionally excited to have four doors? Finally, I no longer have to worry about hitting myself in the head with my seat when letting someone in or out of the backseat. I am also looking forward to the anonymity of no longer having a personalized license plate.

I rolled over 80,000 miles just the other day on my way to work. Seth is also pretty jealous and insists on driving my car at every opportunity. Actually, it's not my car because both of our names are on the title. It's our car. How very adult of us, buying our first car together. The car we will probably buckle our children into someday. No, that's not a pregnancy announcement.

Hmm, this post has turned into a car update. Not going to lie, that's pretty much all we did this month. We were supposed to go to a few different weddings, but that got pushed aside for the more urgent necessity of needing to replace my car. 

We did rearrange the apartment again, but I don't know if I'll even get pictures of it because we are already planning to rearrange again since a loveseat is being given to us. Hooray for more seating!

Maybe in November I'll get back to posting photos daily and finishing out the year strong! One can dream....

Frustrations

I actually did take some pictures this week, I just haven't had time to upload them and then put words with those pictures.

I was really excited about the update for my iPhone that came out wednesday. We ran out of our internet usage for the month on thursday, when the download was just minutes away from being complete.

Right now, I am in a local coffee shop using their terrible internet. I didn't think that the internet could get any slower than our little hotspot we have. Well, it can. My plan was to update my iPhone and get some other stuff on the internet done. However, when I first plugged in my iPhone the estimated time it would take to download was 38 hours. I do not kid. Also, I managed to find a plug in, but it doesn't work. Currently, there are about 6 hours left but I think my computer will die before then.

Just checked the progress of the update and it is down to 4 hours, maybe there's a shot my computer will make it. Except I don't have 4 hours to sit in this coffee shop and wait for that to happen. Boo.

I'm actually not convinced the internet connection I have is even the coffee shop's. Maybe they got rid of the internet because the only people who come here are old folks. They are annoying and every time I look up at least one of them is staring at me. None of them probably even know what the internet even is.

Thoughts on Change

I remembered the other day that when I turned 24 I set all of these goals for myself that I wanted to accomplish before I turned 25. I then said I was going to revisit this list each month and see how I was doing. I think that lasted maybe 2 months and let me just tell you: I'm not making a lot of progress.

I think I really underestimated how much change was going to happen in my 24th year of life. I didn't know that Seth was going to get a different job or that we were going to move to a different town back in January.

However, I did know that I was going to be starting my internship and taking on a completely foreign to me schedule. I really did not think through how much that change would effect me though. I don't think I've ever had to work 4 days straight. There has always been a day in there to break things up so my body is really making a big adjustment to that.

I really noticed this after my car accident when every muscle in my body ached. By noon I was about to fall asleep at my desk -- this has happened every day I've gone into work since then. There just must be something about the particular muscles that move the most when you sit at a desk in front of a computer, or drive, or pretty much anything that has you moving your shoulders a lot.

All of this to say, I made some really lofty goals and I am now realizing that realistically they are not all going to happen. For my own mental health I just need to admit that. I really wanted to be able to run in a 5K this year, but with all of the other stuff going on in my life, the last change I want to make to my schedule is to decide to get up an hour earlier in the morning to run. (Sidenote: I think it will be easier to get up and run when I have control over my schedule everyday. My schedule isn't as flexible as it was when I first started, meaning I kind of have a routine, but I still have to work with other people a lot and I don't feel like I completely own my schedule.)

I've realized that when my life gets hectic I start getting back to basics. I cut out running and sleep a little longer. I don't cook dinner and we eat out. I'm not sure when I'll find the balance and be able to work out, have a full-time job, budget, meal plan, and not feel overwhelmed by trying to do it all.

I've decided that getting my master's degree is going to be a big enough accomplishment on it's own. And if I have a job...even better. Running a 5K would be nice, but there will always be a 5K I can run next year.

280/365: Corralling the Cord

So....every time I want to use my laptop away from my desk the cord falls behind the desk. Then I have to crawl under there later and attempt to get the cord back to the laptop. I'm just not flexible enough for that, so I usually end up getting the whole cord and dropping it back behind the desk again, which is extremely annoying. I've seen this idea on pinterest--using the big paper clip to hold the end of the cord in place. I finally, finally remembered to actually do it and I have to say it is fabulous.

It's all about the small things in life.

279/365: Takeout

I have to say, when I am stressed out cooking is the last thing I want to do. Seth got a B-Dubs gift card for his birthday so when he suggested we have wings for dinner I jumped at the opportunity.

278/365: Surprise

Today I came home and Seth had surprised me with roses. He told me that he looked for blue flowers too so that I could have Illini flowers but he couldn't find any. Love that husband of mine!

277/365: Issues of the Stove Variety

A week ago today our oven started acting funny. It's always taken forever and a day to heat up, but we just assumed it was the oven's own weirdness. Well, last week the oven never got warm at all. The next day someone (I'm not really sure who come to think of it) looked at it and identified the problem and said it would cost as much to fix as to just buy a new stove. Naturally this was the week I started meal planning. Naturally, everything I planned required an oven. Le sigh.

Well, on wednesday it was working again and it was working better than it had before. Weird. I think I decided that the oven replacement was not going to happen and I would be destined to use an apartment sized stove all of my life. But then on saturday morning I got a call from my landlord, who wanted to measure and make sure a new stove would fit. Ok, then.

This afternoon when I got home from work there was a new stove. And it is normal size! However, as you will notice, it is not usable. Apparently the guy who hooks up oven and the like was sick today. The nerve.

Just kidding. But you better not be sick tomorrow, oven-hooker-upper-guy.

Reset

For a whole myriad of reasons (like this or this) I have been slacking on posting daily pictures. It didn't help that I was super behind and that uploading pics takes forever because the internet is just a wee bit slow. It goes without saying that posting pics just wasn't a priority. It still isn't at the top of my list (just being honest!) but I am declaring a reset and I'm starting again fresh! I might go back and add in some of the pictures I took, but I'm not promising anything!



***Update: I went back and added in a lot of photos. I actually took them on those dates, just was a big ole slacker on getting them on the blog.***

276/365: It's All In the Details

Today I drove a rental for work and used it to take home one of the children who was actually in the accident with me. First let me say that she is 5 and the first time she rode in my car she called it a van. My car is about the furtherest thing from a van, being a compact two-door.

This rental car was black, and had four doors. Not really anything like my RED car. We walk outside to get in the car and the little girl says, "Your car got fixed!" Yep, she was pretty excited. On the way home I had to explain to her what rental cars are. So far I have taught her that not every moving vehicle is called a 'van' and that sometimes people drive cars that aren't theirs when other people 'bonk' into them. Good times.

Making Lemonade

Last monday I was in a car accident while I was transporting two children to the office. I am not going to lie, it was traumatizing and none of us were seriously injured. I have had a whole gamut of emotions since then, but mostly angry and sad. The other driver (who pulled out in front of me) walked away uninjured and with a drivable car. My car on the other hand, was not able to be driven away from the accident. To top it off, the other driver never even came over to see if I or the children with me were okay. Instead, he was hellbent on tearing off his fender. 

I had titled this post "I'm not good at making lemonade." I was really bitter about the whole situation. My car is emotionally charged and is an item of sentimentality to me. My grandpa bought it brand new for me when I was sixteen. It's the only car I have ever driven and I planned on driving it until it wouldn't go anymore. Just a couple weeks ago I replaced the brake pads for the first time. The day before the accident I filled up with gas. Earlier this year, I replaced the battery for the first time. I was less than two thousand miles away from rolling over one hundred thousand miles. When this guy ran into me he took all of that away from me. The last thing I wanted to do was think about making lemonade out of lemons. 

Then I checked out the guy on judici. I found that he had a record a mile long. Not so long ago he left the scene of an accident and didn't have insurance. A bit before that he had a DUI. Basically, every time this guy gets in a car he makes it his mission to screw up as badly as possible. Long story short, I am lucky this guy stayed at the scene, let alone that he actually had insurance. I'm starting to get a little bit better at making lemonade.

275/365: Imitation Soup

Even though the temperatures are set to get warm this week, I was in the mood for soup. I found what was supposed to be a Panera broccoli soup imitation. I can't say I've ever had Panera's broccoli soup so I actually have no idea how it compares. I really love Panera's tomato soup but Seth isn't a fan of tomato soup (even though he love tomatoes). It wasn't my most favorite broccoli soup but it definitely satisfied my soup craving!