Thursday, January 30, 2014

Update!

Hold the phone, I'm finally updating! I've been meaning to for forever but kept putting it off due to a combination of business and laziness. Also my old laptop died and it had almost all of my pictures on it so I had to set aside a suitable mourning period for that. But alas, I'm back now.

Here are a few highlights of what I've been up to for the last, oh, 5-ish months.

In September I went to Arizona. The desert is really pretty and oddly soothing, however, it will also kill you. This picture is from Sedona, which is possibly one of the prettiest places ever.


Fun fact: They (whoever "they" are) say that Sedona is an energy vortex and sometimes watches and electronics can act up. My watch died within an hour of being there. Coincidence or vortex? (Sidebar: more on vortexes later)

Also, this:


We also spent a few hours in Tombstone, which is a nifty and weird little one-street old Western town.

They also have crazy-huge cacti succulent things in the graveyard there.



Here's a view of the surroundings looking out from the graveyard. It's weird how Tombstone is just out there by itself.



Then in October the leaves changed in my neighborhood and it was really pretty. I'm a sucker for fall and for my neighborhood. Combine the two and I turn into some kind of creepy tourist walking around leering at colorful leaves even though I live here.



Then in November my parents and I went to Libertyville, Illinois to see my brother graduate from Navy basic training. I'm really excited that my brother went with the Navy so I can have a plethora of jokes at my disposal. For the love of all that's holy, they're called Seaman. How am I supposed to let that go?!?! Anyway, it was NOT warm up there. We were just a few minutes from Lake Michigan so that was interesting to see.


I knew the Great Lakes were big but didn't realize how huge they were. Lake Michigan is so big that it really does look like the ocean. That was the only picture I took before I ran back to the car like a weenie because the wind chill was like -4 degrees.

Two of my friends gave me a Daryl Dixon cardboard cutout for Christmas. My own personal Daryl has been a source of warmth and enjoyment in this frigid Polar Vortex (see, I told you we weren't done with vortexes (vortii?) yet.) Here's Daryl taking a shower. He wants me to remind you all how important personal hygiene really is.

Back to the Polar Vortex. IT SUCKS. I'm too poor to turn on my heat (which especially sucks when the high is 15 degrees and the low is 3. I feel like a pioneer woman toughing out this cold without heat) but luckily my cat has discovered that her calling in life is to be a footwarmer. She excels at this and at being adorable, often at the same time.

Anyway, she's mad at me right now because I spent the last 2 and a half days trapped at my parent's house because the snow and ice and abandoned cars made it impossible for me to get back into Birmingham to my apartment. Luckily my parents live outside of town and close to where I work so it was the perfect location to wait out Snowmageddon 2014. My Dad and I love a good weather crisis so we got a kick out of watching the news and how dramatic they made everything. They created the byline "Waiting on The Thaw" like The Thaw was some kind of monster. "Don't be too loud, kids, or THE THAW will find you!" 


Anyway, moving on from THE THAW that hasn't happened yet. It's hard to tell, but that's ice hanging off some leaves. And this is my parent's yard:

THE THAW was nowhere to be seen.

But luckily the ice cleared up some today and people were able to go get their cars from the highways and interstates so I was able to get back to my apartment to this furball:


She was upset that I had been gone so long. Can't you see the pain and abandonment in her eyes? Maybe one day she'll understand that her furparent is a survivor of Snowmageddon.

I've also been up to other stuff that doesn't involve freezing to death. I've been working with my friend MJ on some blog posts for her new project called Fashionably Responsible. I'm officially a contributor on her site so keep an eye out for that. (You can tell I'm officially a contributor because if you go to the page helpfully labeled "contributors" you'll see me there. See, I'm not crazy and making it up!) I've also been applying for a ton of writing jobs in hopes of pursuing a career I'd both really enjoy and be really good at and would maybe allow me to turn the heat on. Anyway, go check out MJ's site!

So, long story short, I'm going to start regularly blogging again. I've done a couple of projects in the past few months that are worthy of posts and I don't have any travel plans (yet) so I don't really have any excuses for going 5 months without a post. 

I leave you (for just a little bit, I promise) with a parting picture of me and Ringo.

I don't send out Christmas cards because who wants a picture of me and my cat, ya know? Then I started thinking about it and thought it would be hilarious to send out cards for some obscure holiday like Groundhog's Day instead of Christmas. Ringo wouldn't cooperate with me trying to take a selfie of us for the card so I suppose it's not going to happen. (For now anyway. There are other obscure holidays. I have my eye on the Ides of March.)