Oh, duh.  What I need is a chamber maid, to come in the morning and open the blinds for me and leave me clean clothes and tea and toast with butter and marmalade and maybe a hardboiled egg.  I guess if I had a chamber maid I could also have a house with east facing windows on the water or on a mountain somewhere that blinds were not necessary.  Then I wouldn’t need my chambermaid, but breakfast would be pleasant.  Then I might bounce out of bed at 6:30. 

Alas, I was languishing in bed at 7:45 this morning, thinking about what I would wear today.  And I checked the weather, 71 degrees, 84% humidity.  This sounds like an improvement over 78 degrees with 97% humidity, but I wasn’t entirely convinced it was a significant improvement.  The fact that it is September 30th means nothing as far as what kind of weather could be expected. 

Have you ever wondered what the UPS guy does all day?  Because when you want a package to arrive at your house by a certain time, and you track it, it seems like regardless of anything else, the UPS man never gets to your house til after 5 pm, regardless of where you live, even though the UPS.com tracker told you he left the warehouse at 8 am this morning.  Well, apparently he is delivering packagings, because I got a delivery I’d been waiting on at 1:45 this afternoon!  It is like the UPS man knew i needed the package before 5.  Or else it’s friday and he just wanted to go ahead and get rid of all the boxes so he could go home. 

Why do I need this package before 5 pm?  Because I’m going to Augusta today for Britt’s 30th Birthday!  HOORAY!  Happy Birthday Britt!  Yay 30!

I have to admit, my 30th year so far has been pretty spectacular, and I feel sure Britt’s 30th year will be equally amazing!

Happy Friday, take time this weekend and smell the tea olives, and when it gets cold tonight, or tomorrow night, and you shiver in your tank top, remember that is finally the best month of the year, OCTOBER!  Just typing it makes me happy.  I’m going to go dig up some fingerless gloves with skulls and crossbones on them.

Summer has come to the low country, and the humidity is here to stay.  As are the tourists.  All winter, I would run through the main tourist district on week nights, mostly monday, tuesday and wendesday.  There were always people around, it is better lit than other areas of town, and it allowed me to be on the streets a little later than I would venture alone in less populous areas.  The time change and the lengthening days makes running through the tourist area less of a necessity, but last night I ran my regular route anyway.  I was shocked by the enormous influx of people.  Seriously, it is a different town.  It is the town I would expect on a Saturday, but yesterday being Tuesday, I did not expect it. 

The most amazing part of the late spring here is that the entire town smells like confederate jasmine.  I LOVE the way confederate jasmine smells, and there is nothing more enjoyable than being assaulted with wonderful flower smells everywhere you go.  Even Briscoe likes the way the flowers smell.  Of course, she likes the way a lot of things smell I find questionable, so her opinion probably doesn’t really support my point.  My point is that it is awesome. 

Libby’s bachelorette party was last weekend, and maggie bought some FAGE yogurt that made it to my refrigerator on sunday afternoon.  I’ve been eating a good bit of yogurt recently, trying to be healthy.  I must have grape nuts or granola to make yogurt work for me, and I can’t eat plain yogurt without some kind of sweetness in it, but with a little strawberry and cereal, I find yogurt fantastic.  On Monday, while stirring the strawberry jam portion into the plain yogurt portion of my FAGE container, I noticed writing on the container, in red lettering:  “Suggestion – DO NOT STIR.”  I paused my stirring.  Wait.  I need the strawberry taste in the yogurt, why can’t I stir?  Did they have to be so bossy about it?  Should I have known that stirring yogurt was bad?  Have I been eating yogurt incorrectly for years?  Am I killing the live cultures?  All those fruit at the bottom yogurt cultures murdered by me, the stirrer?  Who knew you weren’t suppose to stir yogurt?  Apparently, other people who are not me.  From what I can discern from the internet, apparently the yogurt tastes better and is lighter and fluffier if you don’t stir it.  Good to know. 

Life has been moving at a rapid pace recently, with lots of changes over the past month.  I had to retire the silver bullet, attend the funeral of an amazing man who lived a fantastic life, watch an impressive golfer and even more impressive person fall apart in the prettiest place in the world, get my little dog’s hair cut to transform her from a winter bear to a springtime lamb, run the bridge run with some great old friends, and really start to settle into this job that I love so much.  Thankfully, at the last minute, Congress got it together and I still had a job.  Haha. 

I think things are starting to calm down a little bit, so I’m planning on being much more diligent in my blogging.  But then again, I’ve said that before, right?

Before I go, I have some television recommendations – Blue Bloods (if you don’t like Tom Selleck, you hate america) and Chicago Code.  Cop shows at their finest.  I also watched the first episode of Game of Thrones, which has a great deal of promise, and scared me to death in the first ten minutes, and broke my heart in the last two.

This year, I’m again confused.  Twenty Eleven?  Two Thousand and Eleven?  Most of the radio commercials here in Charleston have decided to go with Tweny-Leven, which I’m fairly certain is not the proper pronunciation, but it sure does roll off the tongue real nice.

It is no longer dark when I leave work, which makes me insanely happy.  Sometimes I worry at my emotional stability by how happy certain things make me.  Like the sun setting a minute later every day.  I got so excited about the sun staying up longer, that I figured I needed to know more about when this whole daily light saving thing was going to happen. 

I found this sweet little website, and I learned a few things I’d like to share.     First, and most importantly, mark your calendars for March 13, 2011, because that is when summer officially begins as far as I’m concerned.  Then, I want you all to know that it is Daylight Saving Time, and not Daylight SavingS Time.  Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle).  It modifies time and tells us more about it’s nature, namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight.  The site goes on to say that the term Daylight Shifting Time or Daylight Time Shifting would be more accurate, but neither is politically desirable.  (I find this interesting.  What makes it undesirable?  People don’t want the government shifting around their daylight?  Hmm.)  The US of A begins daylight saving time two weeks before Europe in the spring, and ends it a week later in the fall, giving us A-mare-ic-uns three more weeks of extra daylight shifting.  The website has a lot of other interesting facts, none of which I find interesting enough to discuss right now, other than to say that the idea behind DST is attributed to Ole Benjamin Franklin. 

I went to New York last weekend for an engagement party for Libby and Bryan.  The party was Mad Men themed, and I have to say I believe it was a complete success.  I succeeded in teasing my hair up about half a foot on my head.  I hadn’t been to New York in TWO YEARS.  It was a quick trip, and the weather was BRRR, but it was really fun.  There was tons of snow.  And wine.  Haha. 

The weather tomorrow is suppose to be sunny, high 63, and the weather on Sunday is suppose to be Sunny, high 67.  I’m so happy it is friday, and I’m so happy about the impending sunshine and the fact that it is only going to get warmer from here on out.  I anxiously await the day where my feet and shoulders are bare, the humidity causes my sunglasses to fog up when I go outside, and the inside of my car is consistently over 110 degrees.  I’m dreaming of beer with condensation, leather seats that burn the back of your thighs, and the smell of sunscreen.  Happy Sigh.

You know how when you date someone who isn’t nice to you, and then you date someone who is nice to you, and you think, wow, why did I ever put up with that last guy?  That’s the way I feel about my professional life.  It is unbelievable.

The most fun about this new job that I’ve acquired out of sheer luck and happenstance, is that it is in Charleston.  I didn’t want to leave Augusta, and I’m not sure I would have left Augusta if my professional life hadn’t forced my hand.  But fate intervened and I didn’t have a choice, or not a reasonable and mature choice.  The only thing for me to do was to pack up my life and move to Charleston for the job I’ve always wanted.  Life is so hard!  Haha.

So here I am, in my new amazing apartment downtown, trying to absorb what has happened to me.  Two months ago I had no idea any of this was going to happen.  I accepted the job less than a month ago, and tomorrow will be the end of my 3rd week at the new job.

I’ve missed my blog.  I’ve missed my blog friends.  And I’m looking forward to this new chapter in this new city.  I’m going to do my best to document it, because I know I’ll regret it forever if I don’t.   I feel like not writing was a reflection on how stifled I felt in life in general.  I don’t feel stifled anymore.

Oh, and I turn 30 on 10/10/10 – which is Sunday.  So get excited.  Briscoe is going to take lots of pictures.  She might even take some videos.  You never know with the fluffy puff.

On a sad note, someone stole part of my herb garden.  I had three pots – one with mint (it was a BIG pot), one with Lavender (it was a MEDIUM size pot), and one with oregano (it is a LITTLE pot).  I had these three pots on the side of my yard so they could get enough sun.  Well, while I was gone, some one stole the two big pots.  Which is weird if only because the BIG pot – I can barely pick up and carry ten feet.  And I’m strong.  And the other pot is heavy too.  Plus the little pot was the actual thrown pottery pot of value, and the only one portable enough to carry off in your arms.  And if they pulled a truck up and threw the big pots in the vehicle, why not take the little one?  I don’t get it.  But now I’m fresh out of mint and lavender and my life is less complete.  Sigh.

But on a happier note, I had an awesome new friend that I met during a period of logistical difficulty this past weekend send me a super awesome package that I got yesterday.  It was amazing, and hopefully I will tell you more about the contents of the package in the future, if I can stop neglecting this blog.

I also got some fun mail on Tuesday, but I’ll wait to tell you about that later.  Suffice it to say, as cool as email and bbm and gchat can be, there is nothing better than pulling up to your house after work and seeing something interesting sticking out of your mailbox.

Yesterday and today have been the first truly hot and humid days we’ve had this summer.  When I got in my car after work this afternoon, my sunglassess fogged up completely.  I had to roll down the windows to unfog them.

This time every year I have to relearn my jogging routes that involve shade.  My winter routes involve sunshine, so it’s always an adjustment.

I had dinner tonight with Robin Anne – tomorrow is her birthday!  HOORAY!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBIN ANNE!  We had so much fun, it was a perfect evening.

YAWN!  So happy tomorrow is Friday.  Sweet dream friends.

A while back, at the beginning of the year – I said I was going to reflect on things I learned in the past decade.  That still hasn’t happened.  I think it is partially too big of a task to complete in one sitting, and that I’ve become overwhelmed by it, thus paralyzing my writing completely.  So I’ve decided to just start writing down little things I’ve learned, then maybe over time I’ll have enough for a whole – WHAT I LEARNED IN THE (I’m not sure what you call 2000-2010 – so I’m going to call it my 20s) – MY TWENTIES.  This could take a while, and a lot of these things I learned this week, but I haven’t turned 30 yet, so I’m going to go ahead and count it.

1.  Last night, while watching Lost, I realized that over the years I’ve learned that on television, when you are injured – either by a savage  beating, being hit by a car, falling off a cliff, ingesting poison, shot in the chest, hit in the head with a two by four or a baseball bat – if after such an incident, you begin to bleed profusely from your mouth – you are going to die.  I’ve also learned that a lot of times the above mentioned events occur to television characters, and these characters do not bleed profusely from the mouth and survive these catastrophic events with little trouble.  Being hit in the head with a rock can kill you in real life.

2.  Briscoe really likes cats and thinks they want to play with her.  Cats do not want to play with Briscoe.

3.  Feeling good about your physical appearance only takes you through the first fifteen minutes of a cocktail party.  After that, you better feel good about yourself in some other way, or it’s going to be a long night – for you, and the people around you.

4.  I don’t like to work out when I’m hung over.  I know that people say it makes you feel better, but part of me thinks those people are just masochists who feel the need to punish themselves for the great time they had the night before.  Maybe this is just my rationalizing excuse for why I don’t like to do it.  When I am hung over – I like to lay on the couch and watch television or go to brunch and eat lots of food and drink a bloody mary.  I can’t fight who I am.

5.  When you hate your job, it manifest itself in other aspects of your life in an unpredictable fashion.  I personally stop eating and sleeping, but that’s just me.  Many people suffer complete opposite reactions.  That being said, I think there is a requirement that at some point in your 20s, you should have a job you hate, that lasts for longer than a year, where you learn a lot, but hate ever minute of it.  I think this partially because I think it helps people with the incentive to find the right job, and appreciate to the fullest extent the rarity of having a job you don’t hate.   It helps you to be empathetic to other people’s plight.  I also believe that work is work, and regardless of what you do, there are going to be times you don’t enjoy it, because, well, it’s work.

6.  Along those same lines, I instantly dislike any article of clothing I wear to work.  Dislike is the wrong word.  Once I wear something to work, it becomes work clothes, and I won’t ever wear that article of clothing outside of work.  It’s been tainted.   It is sad really.  Many a great outfit has been ruined.

7.  Friends who will mow your lawn or lend you their lawn mower are the best kinds of friends.  They are in the same category of friends who will make you a cake from scratch for your birthday and bring you gatorade and saltines when you have the flu.

8.  Speaking of saltines, I feel very strongly about the fact that the best way to survive a stomach bug or a horrible hangover is saltines and ginger ale.  Ginger ale is a gift from the gods.  Seriously.  Everyone should have saltines and ginger ale in stock in their house, because you just never know.

9.  GIS maps of your neighborhood can provide hours of entertainment.

I’ve been making Briscoe run with me recently, partially because the puff has gotten fat, and partially because I’m out of shape, and partially because pretty soon it will be so hot that the puff won’t be able to play outside unless it involves swimming.  She gets really hot.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this blog, and blogs, and life on the internet.  I recently celebrated my sixth blogiversary, and I’ve become a very slack blogger.  I don’t necessarily mind being a bad blogger.  But I realized this morning that more importantly than me not blogging, I haven’t been writing much recently.  I stopped writing on a regular basis at some point last year, I think.  I made excuses that the writing I did at work was the reason for my lack of motivation to write.  My new job doesn’t afford much writing, and I can’t use that as a reason anymore.  And I still don’t have a lot of motivation to write, which makes me sad.

I know there are other reasons I lost my motivation last year.   And I think I know what they are, but I’m not sure they make sense.  There were times I was too miserable to write, and times when I was too happy to write, and I’m inclined to say I was also too busy.  But I hate that excuse.  I don’t care how busy you are, you make time for the things you love.  Like the people who tell me they love to read, but just don’t have time.  If you loved it that much, you would find the time.  Maybe it is simply an over use of the world love.  You can’t love an indefinite number of activities.  For instance, I like to bake, and I like to cook.  But I love to run and I love to read (and I love to drink beer and wine, but that is probably another post).  So when I come home from work, instead of going to the grocery story for lots of fun food to prepare the new recipe I just found that I’m excited about – I come home and put a leash on my dog and go for a run.

That’s not to say that I don’t ever cook, because I do, but mostly because I get hungry and have to eat something after I work out, not so much because I just love to do it.

So maybe I just don’t love writing as much as I wish I did.  It is sort of like running, in that it can feel like work, but you always feel much better afterwards, and the more you do it the more enjoyable it becomes.

In other news, the new Frosty Card is out.  For a dollar you get free frostys for six months!  The best part?  When your little card’s time runs out – you can buy another card for another dollar!  Sigh.  It’s one of the greatest things that ever happened.  Thank you MCG Children Medical Center for making my summer exceptional!

Also, I would really appreciate it if someone would go to the mall and buy me a bunch of new clothes that I would really like – I need some work clothes and some fun going out clothes and a couple of really cute dresses to wear to weddings and engagement parties this summer.  Make sure it is the right size, will be flattering for my figure, is a good color for me, will be appropriate for the occasion, is comfortable, and isn’t too expensive.  Thx.

Do you think there is something wrong with me that I’d rather make lists of things that have already happen than to make lists of things I think should happen?  Like resolutions?  I’ve never been much for resolutions, but I do think the new year is cause for introspection.

Right now, my goal for the future is to make it through this horrible, horrible cold spell.  I’ve never been so cold for so long in all my life.  My heart is slowly turning to ice and stone.  I’m sick of it.  My ferns are dying (or dead, depending on who you talk to), my knuckles are dry and chapped, and I’m all out of warm socks.  I live in Georgia for a damn good reason, and it’s not to have the temperatures hang out in the 20s for weeks at a time.  Briscoe says she is sick of it too.  She wants to go swimming and get her hair cut.

Remember last summer when I decided I was going to play tennis and relearn this sport of my childhood?  Well, this past weekend I decided that I was going to relearn how to swim, another sport of my childhood.  I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to not drown, what time I should swim, and how I can get comfortable being at the pool and how to get from the pool home – change clothes, not change clothes, etc. 

Which is difficult right this second because it’s cold as…as…wait, how come all the terms I want to use to describe cold are actually hot?  Like cold as hell, etc.  Hmm.  Whatev, it’s extremely cold outside. 

Catherine gave me a new Frosty card last night.  My old one expired, and she works for MCG, so she knew it had expired and that I really liked them so she gave me one.  You should go buy your own Frosty card before they sell out.  They are only $1 and they benefit the Children’s Medical Center!

Something about swimming makes me also want to do hot yoga.  I wish there was a good hot yoga place around here. 

I had a dream last night that I was skiing, but I had a hard time getting to the lift platform.  Then I had another dream that it was summer time and it was so hot I was able to wear my favorite patagonia tank dresses late into the night without ever even having a chill.  The second dream was much better than the first.

I have things to say tonight.  I think some pandora radio will help me think and write. 

Guess what the first song Pandora wants to play for me tonight?

Rain – Patty Griffin.  I wish I could start it over and play it again.  I love this song. 

My room is basically in the attic part of my house.  When I bought the house the upstairs wasn’t exactly finished.  The upstairs bathroom had to be almost completely redone, and the floors had to be fixed and there was a lot of painting.  The upstairs isn’t connected to the central heating and air.  I have a window unit for a/c, which has been strangely enjoyable.  I like the noise it makes.  But I haven’t done anything about the heat.   It gets sort of cold, but if I leave the stairwell door open during the day, it’s not bad.  Or it hasn’t been so far. 

 I guess last night was sort of cold.  I woke up with the fluffy headed dog snuggled up all along the lower part of my body.  And let me tell you, she puts off a shocking amount of heat for such a small animal.  I woke up because I was sweating.  How do you tell your sweet dog that you are really sorry she is cold, but that underneath the cozy quilt you are quiet warm and that her body heat is actually throwing off the whole balance of the situation?  Y’all wouldn’t believe how much room she takes up on the bed.  It is incredible. 

Loren and I went to see the Blind Side last week.  There is nothing better than a good movie friend.  We both agreed that it was a wonderful, enjoyable, real, encouraging and overall excellent movie.  We would both like to be Sandra Bullock’s character one day, or at least have her marriage.  We laughed, we cried, we left uplifted.  Go see it. 

Life can be complicated sometimes.  Sometimes it’s like the string in a favorite sweater that you shouldn’t pull, but you can’t help it and you pull it anyway, and things are never the same again.  Sometimes it’s a tangled necklace, that you are sure you can get untangled with the right tools in the right light without someone looking over your shoulder trying to help.  Sometimes, it’s the cupcakes that you didn’t watch, and now the bottoms are black, and you try to cut the bottom off and ice them anyway, but the scorched taste is still there, somewhere, even if you are the only person who notices it. 

And sometimes it’s your grandmother’s recipe that you’ve never made before that you wait until Thanksgiving morning to actually cook, knowing that your whole family knows what it is suppose to taste like and that you definitely don’t have time to fix if it is wrong and there is nowhere to hid if it sucks.  But it doesn’t suck, it is perfect, and even your most critical relatives want seconds. 

It is hard to know how things are going to turn out, even the simple things.  Especially the simple things. 

So I’m all for complicated.  It keeps things interesting.