Happy Halloween and birthday to me!

It's been a minute and I don't remember what I was talking about here so let's start from right now!

• Behold, the mailbox project that became ultra-ridiculous is complete and has officially been marked off my list of goals for 2018!!! I had to take this ultra-ridiculous picture to match, complete with vignetting. Numbers are on the other side of course! 😉

• I got locked in the parking lot of the elementary school the other morning for a long time. Yes, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who gets myself into these kinds of situations. Lol Here's what happened. I dropped my kid off at the curb in the long line of parents dropping their kids off at the curb in the morning. I then veered into a nearby parking space to have a few minutes of alone time after a hard weekend. Roughly twenty minutes later I come out of my daze, pull out of my space and see that they have closed and locked a gate across the only entrance and exit!! 😯 Let's keep in mind that I was wearing no bra and the shortest shorts I own so I was NOT going into the main office. Long story short, they had to send someone out to unlock the gate just for me and I rode home giggling. SMH
• I turned 35! 😊
• I deadlifted 260lbs! 😊💪
• I killed a houseplant! ☹ I tried everything but couldn't seem to make this spider plant happy. Sorry, plant.
• The site where I watch ALL of my Korean shows and movies died! 😯 With only a couple episodes left of the drama I was watching! Currently looking for a good substitute...
• I went through a crazy interview to get a bigger, better job and failed. ☹ Booo! It was the first time I've ever been on an interview and didn't get the job. I guess my streak couldn't last forever, right? 😉 I learned some valuable things though and now I know better what to expect. 
• It's Halloween and that means the kickoff of the holiday season. $$$$$$$$$$$
• I started watching an anime! A boy-love one!! 😯 LOL My coworker is very into anime and gave me a big list to choose from to try one out. I said I was down so I get in my bed at night with my laptop and this is how it went. Anime starts; VERY corny opening song and sequence play out where two boys hold hands, run through flowers, exchange teddy bears, etc.; I giggle profusely at how this kind of thing would never fly in this country; seven minutes into the episode one guy is getting sexually assaulted by his tutor...and secretely LIKED IT! My mouth dropped open. LOLOL I guess we get straight to the point! I'm on episode 3 and this is exactly my face every time I watch. So bizarre, entertaining, and I can't stop giggling.

via GIPHY

• I started reading Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson. I wanted a good outbreak story. Something where people are violently vomiting up their melted insides all over the place and everybody freaks out. Quarantines break loose and general mayhem and destruction follow. You get the idea. This...mmm...isn't really cutting it and I'm bored. Its a teen book so its a little more mellow. I should have known. Its good but not exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something more like The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. Now that was good, gory, suspenseful, and TRUE! 😊 Not sure if I'll finish this one.

Now, I did say I turned 35. Yes, yes I did. For shits and giggles I looked back through my planners and such to see what kind of stuff happened in the last year. So without further ado, here are...

Twenty Things That Happened in My 34th Year of Life:

1. Walked across the stage and got a masters degree!
2. Finished a five year long journey through therapy!
3. Beat Assassins Creed Black Flag and Journey and played Witcher III for 6 months straight!
4. Completely paid off my undergraduate student loans!
5. Tried having a cleaning lady and decided it wasn't for me!
6. Did pull-ups for the first time in my life!
7. Cooked and tried some Ukrainian food for the first time!
8. Tubed down a natural spring!
9. Bought my first professional suit!
10. Left one job and started another; the one that had my dream job title!
11. Took two trips to Alabama where I'd never been before and laid out on a tiny island in the bay!
12. Sat on a committee that planned and executed a big city event!
13. Got a credit card!
14. Donated blood for the first time!
15. Built four planting beds in my garage with my best friend!
16. Changed the oil in my lawnmower for the first time!
17. Started drinking and found out I like sweet wine and Tequila!
18. Got a passport!
19. Started working two part-time jobs!
20. Attended a professional conference!

I can't wait to see what year 35 has in store for me!! ❤

Let's have some quotes before I go! Shall we? I'm always running into quotes I like.

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
-African Proverb

"You can't have everything...where would you put it?"
-Steven Wright

"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take."
-Wayne Gretzky

What were some of your favorite moments from the last 12 months of your life?
Bye!!!

I'm coming back to life!

FINALLY, my other side is coming out. Got a little too sad for a little too long and I've been waiting. I knew it was coming and its here. All my fucks are flying away, I feel like I'm back on solid ground, I know what I've come from, what I've been through, and who the fuck I am which almost always has me feeling this song!!



Let me travel you down some of the roads of my thoughts today.

I caught myself feeling jealous today. My thoughts angrily ended on, "What a stupid fucking feeling." How to explain...I think it came from first thinking about why I was feeling jealous in the first place which at its most basic level boils down to someone else got something I want. At first it felt sad and pitiful but that whole thing is based on the belief that if the other person hadn't had the thing that it hypothetically could have ended up being mine. Well...I don't think that's the case. Therefore, what a stupid fucking feeling. If the thing would never have been mine regardless of if the other person had it or not...If I was lined up with the other person and 200 others at the right time and the thing STILL wouldn't have ended up being mine then why am I feeling jealous. It was never even an option for me. What a stupid fucking feeling.
Now, if the thing ever hypothetically could have been mine then that changes everything! LOL Then, yes, I could feel jealous and think of what could have been with a smile and a tear and in some weird way it would feel nice. Satisfying that I at least had a fucking hope and a prayer.
Anyway...other than that, if someone has something that I feel jealous of and its in my ability to get it, why be jealous? I can just go get that thing too! Most of the time it turns out that its a matter of a difference in timing and priorities and that's ok. Jealousy gone!
I blasted and sang this twice on the way home tonight. Jealousy: It can be 100% justified and understandable, 100% no good, or any combination in between. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I hate it. But we're human and so it will be there.



Money was also on my mind today. I gave over 3k of it away towards the bathroom remodel and also went to work. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Money often costs too much." I thought today about what money is costing me right now. I only work part-time but because of the way the schedule is, I barely see my kids during the week. Money is costing me precious time with my kids. Every week they plead with me to see me more. They beg to sleep in my bed. Get out of their beds to greet me when I come home at night and try to cram their whole day into the five minutes before I make them go back to bed since they have school in the morning. They have things they're excited about and waited all day to tell their mom. I have no idea what they're doing in school anymore or what homework is due, or when. I'm completely out of the loop. At some point they'll accept my absence and will no longer plead for that time with mom. They'll lose hope and quit sharing. Money is costing me that and that loss is too great which is one reason I'm trying to get a better job even if its less money per hour. No amount of money could ever buy that time back. Its priceless.

This got me thinking about what else is priceless in life. Definitely nothing materialistic. I mean, my entire house could burn down tomorrow along with everything in it. I would be devastated at the loss. There are pictures and momentos and all my belongings that some of which I could never get back. But what are the most important things that you want to make it out of a fire. Its whatever and/or whoever you love. Insurance would give me money and another house would come and different belongings would eventually feel like mine, too. My oldest kid said something the other day that made me realize he'd learned something REALLY valuable, in my opinion. He said that when he's home alone its nice for awhile but even though its our house, it doesn't feel like our house unless we're all in it together. He said it just feels like "a" house; empty. Not "our" house. I told him that was true and that there is a saying that home is where the heart is. Today I thought, if you've got the people you love by your side and you know they love you back just as much and they'll be there by your side no matter what, whether you live in a mansion, suburbia, an apartment, a box, or wherever, you already have the most important component of a home. Let me ask you this? If you had someone you really, really loved and the feeling was mutual but you were separated from this person all the time. Which do you think would feel more like home? Wherever you are, alone, or being with them wherever they are? Would it matter where that was? No, it would not. You compromise, plan, work hard, play, and make decisions together and you make it the home. Together. It sounds beautiful! Unfortunately, this has not exactly been my experience thus far. Lol Never say never, right?!

What else is priceless? Basically everything inside a person. There is nothing I have within me that someone can take away. No one can take my education away or my life experiences or all the life lessons I've learned along the way. I'll always have each and every memory (that I can remember at least) and each defining or meaningful moment. No one can take away my feelings or times that made me smile, laugh, or cry. No one can take away my intelligence or the way I look at things. All the little quirks that make me who I am. No one can take that away from me. I'm priceless and it has taken almost 35 years and a lot of shit for me to get to the person I am right now. I'm like a rare fucking artifact and I get more priceless and valuable each year! No amount of money could ever be worth more than that. Of course, that's easy for me to say in my cozy, middle-class bed. But you get the point. If I died tomorrow, maybe people would care and maybe they wouldn't but one thing is for sure. I, Aberiah, would be gone. Gone gone! And there would never be another like me. When I think of the people that are most important to me and how priceless they are like that in the same exact way, I get overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the time I get to spend with them. No amount of money made could ever buy something so precious as that time. Money gets me places and allows me to buy the things I want and need but I never want money to "cost" me too much in return.

It true what they say I think:

• Life is a great balancing act
• The best things in life are free and 
• You can't take "things" with you when you die

Again, all this is very easy to say from my cozy, middle-class bed. I acknowledge that. 

To catch up on books quickly...

I finished the Trump book today. It was a solid read and I would recommend it! You may have to ignore Trump's GIANT ego but I still recommend. I also finished The Bird Box which I would also recommend. The ending was appropriate I think and while it could have been more I think it was smart to keep it short and sweet and to the point. To try to explain things better would have made it a much longer and altogether different book. I looked up his other books and didn't find anything that caught my eye so I'm moving on. I enjoyed that read and I'm always grateful for that!!

In other news, I got flowers today. Flowers... I mean, they really are relative. Who they're from and what they're for makes all the difference in the world. In the end though, I think at the very least, flowers are always a nice gesture and look pretty on the table so I was grateful and that's where they went. That's all I'll say about that here. 

Since today seems to be all about quotes for me I'll leave you with a few that hit home for me today.

"If you only do what you know you can do--you never do very much." -Tom Krause

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?" - George Eliot

"Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see life with a clearer view again." -Alex Tan

On that note...I'm going to sleep so fuck off! ;)

Working and waiting to get back up

"I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become."

"Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger but they will never be you."

"I am thankful for my struggle because without it I wouldn't have stumbled across my strength."

Ran across each of these recently and they stood out. Therefore, they go here for me to read again and again.
I've cried a lot in the last two days. What can I say? I'm having some really shitty feelings at the moment. I know deep down that this only goes two ways. Eventually, I will either get better again or I will die. Nevertheless, I'm taking steps to stay in the "alive" camp.

1. Cuddle with my dog who seems to love me the most in this world
2. Exercise even if its takes Herculean effort and tears to put forth a pitiful effort. It still makes endorphins...I think
3. Do at least one thing on the "to-do" list so there will be a sense of progress and accomplishment no matter how small
4. Listen to really loud music and sing along
5. Keep to the regular "routine" of what happens in day-to-day life no matter how badly the desire is to call out of work, quit going to the gym, stop eating, throw away the phone, wither away, and die in my sleep.
6. Learn all over again how to say "Fuck it" and "Fuck them" and really mean it when there are things that are out of my control no matter what I do and even for the things that are in my control and yet I fail at time and time again
7. Keep my heart warm and continue to give love no matter how many rejections I may face
8. Sleep, sleep, and then sleep more.
9. Cry until it feels numb and then realize that I'm still here. Move on until the next cry
10. Do things I like no matter how empty or numb it feels doing them. Do the things. (eat, cook, watch kdramas and movies, game, read books, sleep, etc.)
11. Remember that no matter what I will always at least have myself in this world and I think I'm alright!

I need to sleep now. I'll leave you with a song that has hurt like hell since I was a young girl. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Let's fight to stay alive, shall we? Why? I have no idea. Because its not time yet, that's why. Because maybe someone needs us.

Until next time...

Nervous and stagnant and scared, oh my!!

Now that grad school is over, the family-visit rotation has started up again and I'll be traveling to see quite a few of them this weekend. Yesterday, the emotions about that came, as they always do. 😩 I don't know how to describe it. Simply put, it feels bad...like a horrible blanket that I used to wear and have since put away but always seems to slide back on when I know I'm going to be around people from my past. On the other hand, I'm excited to see them and I'm almost guaranteed to have a good time. Its complicated.

The most important presentation of my life so far is coming up in a couple weeks. I applied for a bigger and better job again and have been called in for an interview/exam/presentation combo which is great! I'd be nervous for that anyway but I really want this job so I'm extra nervous. 

Never been through an interview process like this before so its intimidating. The presentation is only 5-10 minutes and I'm sure I'll do fine but its going to be hanging over my head in a major way until its over. The good news is that all this is going down on a Friday morning so once I'm done and walk out of that building, I can relax and do whatever I like the most for the whole weekend.

I think these two things I've just talked about have me feeling kind of stagnant. I think I've put myself on pause until they pass so I feel dull and like I'm not making any progress even though seeing my family and getting a job like this were both on my list of goals for 2018 so I am, in fact, making some progress. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm just nervous, ok? Leave me alone! 😉

In book news...

I've finally found a book that's scaring me. Its scaring me so much that I've actually had to throw it down a couple times because I couldn't know what the next sentence was!! I've searched high and low (years!) for a book that could scare me without success so this??...THIS??!?!...makes me happy.

It's called Bird Box and its by a guy named Josh Malerman. I will definitely check out what else this guy's written. Anyway, so far it goes like this. There's something going on in the world. People started seeing something that would make them violently kill others and then themselves. There have been some really epic deaths, too! Once people started figuring out that it was something people were seeing outside, everybody got really paranoid and started blindfolding themselves/barricading themselves into dark houses. (Think The Quite Place movie, except with sight instead of noise) Obviously, a lot of people died. Now, four years later, a mom is going to try to take her kids (who are four and have literally never seen the light of day) 20 miles down the river that's behind their house, blindfolded.... I don't know what's at the end of her journey yet or what the "things" are that people are seeing. The fact that they know these things are out there with them coupled with only being able to hear/feel things is making it REALLY scary. The unknown is almost always scarier than the known. It better not be zombies and it better not be a bird. Lol. 

Wanna know what is so awesome though?! While I was writing this paragraph, I found out that its been made into a movie that releases in December of this year!!! 

That's enough for now because its almost gym time. Keep your head down and keep grinding!

October!

October has come and I feel full of fall. I went out for my annual candy corn haul today and brought home all this.

The only one I'm missing is the bag that has all pumpkins. I don't really eat or crave much candy but there are a few important ones.

1. Candy Corn in October
2. Cadbury Creme Eggs in April
3. Heath bars year round, as needed 😉

I feel like life's been put on pause. I went to bed in a really low and dark place in my mind on Sunday night and haven't fully recovered yet I guess. Anyway, I just...kind of lost my motivation to do extra stuff so its been cut down to the basics and taking it easy. I've read a lot in the last two days and actually just finished my mystery book about an hour ago. (I'd give it a solid 3.5/5 ☆ and that's coming from someone who doesn't like reading mystery) I'm enjoying the weather, being cozy in my blankets and pajamas when I can, enjoying the silence of my house when I can, keeping my head down, and trying to do what I can to take care of myself until my mind comes back around to a better place. Definitely feeling kind of alone and unloved but I think that goes with the territory of being down so I try really hard not to pay much attention to it.
Right at this moment its kind of rainy and cloudy out, I've got this bowl of roasted potatoes, a little candy corn, I'm curled up into a bunch of pillows and blankets, and writing this here. What could be better than that? Huh? 😋

I'm on the last boss fight of the main story line in Witcher 3 this week! How long have I been playing that game? February? May? Idk. Long time though and it's been a GREAT game. Just wow.  I'm hoping to beat him this week and will start a new game on Friday. I'm sure I'll say more on that another day.

I've been poking around in political stuff a little and decided I'd like to learn a little more about what our president has to say for himself so I started listening to Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again by the one and only Donald Trump. Ah, look at that sour face. I can't look at it too long or I get disturbed. Lol Let me just say that whoever made the decision to have someone else be the voice for this audiobook deserves a gold star because Trump does the introduction and I didn't think I could make it through an entire four hours of him yelling and spitting at me. There's a lot of bragging, chest pounding, bashing, and back patting going on but I kind of expect that kind of thing from Mr. Trump at this point. In between all of that is a clear message about each issue and I'm learning exactly where he stands; something I think I would never get from watching the news.

Its time for me to get ready for work so I'll be going but I'll leave you with a quote about a little thing called hope; sometimes we lose it, sometimes it feels really good, sometimes its all we have, and sometimes it gets crushed. Let's keep grinding, k?

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.