Tag Archives: Miscellaneous

by

Every Saint has a past….

But does every sinner really have a future? Maybe they do. I understand what point is, there’s always a time for a downfall and a time of redemption. I also understand that sometimes redemption isn’t even the right word for what occurs, as usually redemption and downfall have the same qualities of intense crying and guilt. That’s my random thought of the day.

With power and life getting back to normal, I can now do my posts regularly 3 days a week again. Fantastic, just in time for the holidays! We all know I love the holidays. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be posting progress of my Christmas Village. So be aware of that to either avoid or enjoy it. Your choice, I won’t judge. Aloud anyways.

To the post, today I write about friends. Sometimes I think about the friends I have, the real friends I have. Sure the number has greatly dwindled but I’m sure I still have a few. At least they’re good liars and pretend they still like me. I’ll take it; it’s like a hungry person on a diet: sometimes you just take what you can get. You really want a nice piece of bacon, but you’ll settle for that carrot. Then even that carrot just tastes good.

I just compared friends to bacon and carrots. I’m either really hungry or there’s a reason I only have a few friends. I’m ok with that, because my greatest friends are as awesome as bacon. You can rely on them for greatness; you can miss the great ones when you lose contact with them. Carrots, they’re crunchy and difficult, something you rely on because you know it’s always in the fridge. Maybe I should get some breakfast before finishing writing this.

I understand why I don’t have many friends. I’m abrasively rude in a loving way (added that in to make me feel better), sometimes I’d rather be alone than out, and quite honestly I lack patience with other people. There’s also the “they’re better off anyway” thing, for whatever reason I decide that. The real friends won’t care; the ones who make you think they are the real friends would rather make you feel like dirt than give a crap. Sometimes the latter serves their purpose, the support in between the insults seem more honest than people who spend all day making you feel happy. Most of the time, they’re just good for making you feel like you’re less than you are. That’s never ok, however funny everyone else thinks it is.

I’m becoming ok with this fact. I know I have my Chickies to go to if I really need someone. Though we never talk or get together as much as I’d like, the unsaid understanding is they’ll be right at my side always. We were there throughout high school, and they stood by me when I got married. I know between them and my husband and even my little dogs, I have a support system that makes me luckier than those sad people who think those people laughing in their face care. I know I’ll get laughed at for this post, mocked for whatever reason people will. I also know I don’t care. My dogs are cooler than you, and I know who really matters out there. Maybe the beginning of my post does tie in here. It’s about shedding the negative and focusing on positives, we all fall and our real friends make sure we find our way back up.

by

Putting everything back together.

The remodel is done. The house I once knew is now transformed into something I don’t recognize. It’s new, and big and fresh and clean. It’s another reminder that often times things need tearing apart and left in shambles to become something more and something better.

But what does that mean? It means that sometimes you need a little destruction before everything becomes ok. Not ok, more than ok. The kitchen and bathroom were down to its core. They had to bring it to its bones and make it over. That’s what we all have to do sometimes, just take a step back and make something new, no matter how bad it was before. Even when things seem hopeless, restarting your life always seems to answer your problems.

Besides learning that important lesson the phoenix taught us, setting fire to something, brings a new life. Though, there was no fire unless you count the many times things have been burned in that kitchen. We learned another lesson: remodeling is nothing like you see on television. You see a house in shambles, dirty and in need of help. Suddenly (insert HGTV designer here) comes in, and in a half hour to an hour, a new house appears on your screen. The people cry in joy of finally having their dreams come true. They hug, and it ends. Sounds happy right?

However, much like when you watch Baby Story and actually experience your first birth, you realize that television is really fiction and nothing ever occurs like it does on the reality shows. The realities of what actually happens makes me wonder if I’m happy the house is done because it looks millions of times better, or if I’m happy because it’s done and my life is no longer disrupted by this. Knowing what I know now, I would really opt not to ever do it again. Ever.

First, when you redo your only bathroom, you’re making a gigantic mistake. Living out of a Port-a-potty is more disgusting than you can even begin to imagine. Then you have to shower at someone else’s home, which wouldn’t be too bad if you didn’t have to do it for a month and feel like an inconvenience for it. Did I mention the port-a-potty thing and how disgusting it is? It stinks, and it stinks worse when you get two weeks of muggy disaster. Oh and you get that one week in between the two muggy weeks of “freezing your butt off” because you live in Massachusetts and just because you have a muggy week, doesn’t mean the next week won’t require a winter coat for an early morning bathroom break.

Then you have the kitchen. Sure, it sounds fine and easy to adapt to. Just microwave everything, live off deli meats and take out. Of course, it doesn’t work out that easily either. The microwave just shorts a few every ten minutes of usage, taking out half the house with it. And the meals generally ranged from awful to tolerable enough to stomach out of hunger. When you cooked them, you when often times burn them as a result of the microwave blowing a fuse and you forgot how long it was in there before it went out. Best diet ever?

Now I can sit back and enjoy this. By this, I mean I get to pretend to sit back and enjoy it but really I now have to unpack everything and put it back in its place. We’re at the point of putting everything back together in hopes to forget the process and just enjoy the result. And the fact we have a bathroom that’s inside, a shower that’s ours, and a kitchen to cook something that isn’t Tyson or Hormel’s version of “home-style cooking”. We can enjoy our fresh new start.

by

Conversations

“That’s because she was too busy flirting with you to do it right”, I joked with my husband after his haircut.

“She wasn’t flirting, that’s what they do. They try to talk to you about things.” He looked at me like I was the weirdest person he’d seen. He’s probably right.

“Mine doesn’t bother with idle chit-chat with me.”

“That’s because she knows you.”

At first, a part of me became offended. Not really, but let’s go with that. He’s right though, I don’t do well with “how’s the weather?” conversations. It might for further than simple social awkwardness. If I wanted to know about the weather, I’d watch the Weather Channel or even just look out the window. I understand conversations about family; that makes sense.

“Some people look at misanthropy as a personality defect. I think it just allows more selective friendships.”

“We’re not talking about friendships, it’s about friendly conversation.”

I never once lied and said I was a people person. In fact, that could probably be so far from the truth that even I’m willing to admit to. Maybe my aversion to people is that I don’t understand simple polite conversation, or just gets bored with it. I could probably discuss things like the weather in a short time span. A 5 minute time frame, at most.

Maybe there’s a point, maybe it is a huge personality defect. But maybe some people just like their quiet and like being alone. I don’t think that means they are mentally ill, they just like peace. That’s just on the different extreme of people who always need people around. What’s the difference really? The only difference is that being outgoing is socially acceptable, even encouraged. Loners are just people who deserve mocking.

I don’t mind having “loner” tendencies. I also don’t mind always erring on the side of social unacceptability. I think blue hair is acceptable at any age, and skinny jeans make me die on the inside. Sure, at the bus stop I look at people with an awkward smile while they try a conversation. I might even secretly make a snide comment in my head. (Ok, it’s not a secret now.) I think it’s ok that I admit it, though no one else will think so. I can’t control my facial expressions to hide what I’m thinking, but I prefer it that way.

The point is, conversations with people are the main interactions you have with new people. It can define whether you actually befriend them or not. That first interaction really gives the first impression that decides how they interact with you later on. As a parent though, you learn that sometimes you have to put in a little effort because your kids chose your friends. It’s true, their friends and their parents become yours, whether you like it or not. Luckily for me, my son has taste in friends. This point of first impressions is making me more aware of how I act to others. It makes me more conscious of how socially unaware I am. Thankfully it seems most people don’t mind as much as you think, as long as you’re not outwardly rude to them. Sometimes they like a little weird in their life.

by

Familiarity

I got a new phone yesterday, and it was a good moment for me. But in the store, I was completely lost. I don’t know what the specs mean, or why anyone would ever need a dual core processor in a phone. (Even more than that, I didn’t understand what a dual core was. Thanks techie husband!) Yeah, technology isn’t my thing. I wanted something simple; take pictures, video, and using the social networking aspects.

Upon entering the store, I became overwhelmed with information. I knew I loved my Droid Eris. I knew my husband and father are big into the Thunderbolt. I knew my mom and brother had the Incredible 2. (My family realized mine and my husband’s love for Droids, and couldn’t resist.)  I knew my friend who worked at a Verizon store said a Charge. The salesperson there mentioned the Bionic. I just sat there doe eyed, waiting for the cell phone fairy to come down and tell me what to do. I’m a writer, not a very tech-savvy person.

My husband was no help. He had his bias, and he knew it and he knew that I’d get mad at him trying to influence my decision. I knew I wanted a 4G phone. That’s really the only criteria I had. So I did what any person would do. I played with each of those phones. I played until I got a feel for each of them, and that was the only way I was going to decide. I don’t get influenced by what anyone else says, I’m far too stubborn for that. After a good 20 minutes playing with all the shiny new phones I could, the answer was clear. I had my mind-set and that was that, much like every other time I make up my mind.

Approaching the counter, part of me felt ashamed. I knew the look she’d give when I gave my answer. I knew what everyone’s response would be. I had finally had a lock in my head of the shiny new Bionic, new today in stores, or the Thunderbolt. Dramatic, yes, but the walk back to the counter seemed longer than the 5 second walk. My head was spinning, apps, processors… I didn’t know anything. It wasn’t like this was a life changing decision, it was a phone I’d have for only 2 years. It seems so silly to over think something so inane. But it was foolishly important to me.

“Have you made your choice?” She asked. She was a very nice woman.

“I’ll take a Thunderbolt,” I stated comfortable in my decision.

I saw her look. I knew it was coming. I knew when I celebrated on Facebook that people who bothered to read sat there with looks of awe at my womanly stupidity. I realized this, even before I said anything. But I had valid reasons for my choice. I loved my Eris, I loved Sense. It was easy to use, and not to sound like a “stupid girl”, it wasn’t blocky and awkward looking that the Bionic was. I chose what I was familiar with.

Familiarity is something we all stick to. We follow the same routine day-to-day, simply because it’s something we’re familiar with. We’re all guilty of sticking to the same brands for items we commonly use. Cell phones are the same way. You have a person that sticks with the iPhone because it’s something that’s comfortable to them. Why should anyone feel guilty for that? I sure don’t. And, like I said yesterday, I regret nothing. I’m happy with my choice; it serves its purpose for me. Sometimes, it’s just good to stick with something you know and was something you had trust in.

by

What’s Your Favorite Show?

It’s fall. Fall brings the new year of school. The leaves are falling, soon will be Halloween. I love fall so much that I even got married in fall. But do you know what else happens in fall? Oh yes, the television premieres. And of course, football season!

I love football. I grew up the youngest sibling with 3 brothers, watching sports and playing them was something I really just always knew. Watching football is exciting, there’s always something going on. When I watch baseball, nothing happens but me falling asleep of boredom. I wouldn’t involve myself in fantasy football; the purist in me thinks it ruins the game. Instead of watching your team, the one you’re so loyal to and follow religiously, you spend your time looking at stats and to see who you need to sit the following week. No, I just like to watch it. I enjoy sitting around with my family, eating food that’s bad for you and cheering and booing loudly. That’s what fall and football are about. (Go Pats!)

Then there are the television shows. It becomes sad when you revolve the nighttime around your television shows and your DVR. But this is the reality I’m sure a lot of us live these days. Though my favorite show doesn’t start until next spring (yay Game of Thrones), I still highly enjoy most of the ones returning and I’m excited about some new ones coming. Television is a staple in most households, mine included.

Why is television as important as it is though? I like to watch television because I like how mindless it’s capable  of being, or how thought-provoking it is. In some weird way, it also has a family sitting together watching something and talking about it. At least it gets family talking to each other. It’s not always about sitting alone, eating chips and candy gaining a ton of weight from lack of exercise. It’s good to have something, anything, to bond with your family over.

I’m by no means saying you should lock up your entire family all day long to watch television together. But having a nightly tradition of watching a show or two with your family isn’t such a bad thing. What I am saying is that sometimes anything you can do to converse with your family is something you should do. In a lot of families, they don’t have the liberty of sitting down with each other. I think you need to find whatever way you can to get your loved ones to sit together to form that family bond that we see preached all the time. The worst that can happen is *gasp* you all find something you can agree on and enjoy together.

by

First Day

Today is the first day of school. Watching kids from the living room getting on their busses, anxious or upset of what awaits them today. Sure, they know it’s nothing to worry about, it’s just another day. Their parents are either overjoyed at the break, or saddened by being home alone. This just brings us back to the normal day we’ve all grown used to, whatever that means.

Even more than that, today is the first day of construction on the house. New kitchen, a new bathroom, another new reason I keep my Excedrin next to my computer. Everything is in its own sort of disarray today. That’s the purpose of first days; a new beginning that will hopefully bring better things to come. Hopefully a better, more functioning house will come out of all this hassle. Though, it makes me both sad and uncomfortable that something that lasted so long is being so easily destroyed. Sometimes it’s hard to forget a house is really just wood and metal that can easily be  left in shambles with such little effort.

Kids are the same way. It doesn’t take much to make them crumble to nothing but tears. The first day of school is powerful enough to do it. All it takes is on bad kid at school on the first day to ruin the year for them. Then their hopes of a fresh new start get ruin. But like the remodel, all you can do is hope that it ends up better than it was before. They can reinvent themselves in however and whatever they want to, and hope that the fresh start was worth it. We always assure them it is.

That’s what we always tell ourselves anyways. “It has to get worse before it gets better”. I never really liked that saying. Why? Because generally things go not just from worse to better, they go through different grades of worse than worse all the way to better, in the best case scenario. Worst case scenario? It goes from those varying degrees of awful all the way to a little better than it was before, it at all. But at that point, it’s “just a little better”. At least if you’re going to an awful you never want to see, you want something fantastic after all of it.

Now, this leaves me to the part where my kitchen and bathroom used to exist. Really, it’s the main point of this whole story. A new beginning is good for all of us. The first day of anything, brings you to a fresh and hopefully better start. The excitement and anxiety make things a little shaky at first, but if nothing else, a little change does a lot of good either way. And really, what’s the worst that can happen? I’ve learned a long time ago that sometimes you just need to make the best of things. Why not? You can’t change the past. But, you can always make your future. You just need that first day.

by

Natural Disasters… and the like.

Watching weather reports on Irene, I recall an ordinary day that occurred a few months ago: my father warns me of a tornado warning, like every other time, and I shrug it off. “We’ve never had one, those crazy meteorologists are just covering their butts”, I said to myself. After going out, I came home with 10 texts from my husband, and a phone call or three from my in-laws. On the TV, I saw where my husband works… with a tornado going over it.

Frantically I called more times than I should have with no luck getting through. Luckily, despite the cell signal for calls not working, my techie husband was able to respond saying he was fine on Facebook. (Thank goodness for 4G.)There were others not as lucky, including one person who died right next to his workplace. Apparently he was luckier than I thought, avoiding the tornado a few times as his journey home crossed it more than once. He rushes into the house, yelling for us all and our dogs to run downstairs where we hid until the TV told us we were safe.  We learned an important lesson that week:  the only way the Bruins can win the Stanley Cup, is with their state getting hit by a tornado. Oh… and we learned that Massachusetts can get hit by a tornado.

Then last month, we went to vacation at the Cape. We left early when we heard another bad storm came in, and knocked our tree down. Aside from our neighbors’ broken fence, we had no real issues, which was more than we could say about the trees that crushed cars in our neighborhood. Other houses in our city had damage, and then we seemed to really learn our lesson.

A few days ago, I cracked a tooth and thought that it would be the worst thing I’d experience that week. As I sat down praying for the Advil to work and for the Novocaine to wear off, I realized the chair I was in was shaking. Searching for the dog I thought was moving it, I realized the dogs were in the other room and the lamp was also shaking. I sighed, deciding my dentist had drugged me up and I was hallucinating as a result. A few minutes later, my mother called asking if I felt it. “No mom, they numbed my mouth so well, I still can’t feel it.” I could hear her sigh, and then she said “there was an earthquake in Virginia, and we felt the aftershock. Your brother said he felt it, I didn’t, and I wondered if you had.” At first, and I believed this idea occurred because I had been out of it as a result of my tooth, I became relieved that I wasn’t going crazy and hallucinating. Then it really hit me that we had experienced natural disasters we hadn’t in a long time or even ever, all in a few months span.

Now, much like everyone else in Massachusetts who had never had these extreme weather situations occur, I twitch every time an alert pops up for a tornado. We no longer take it lightly. Even more than that, any weather alert now turns us into basket cases, because before we never believed it would happen. The lucky thing about where we live, the worst we have to worry about is a bad snow storm, covering us in ice and snow. We now believe anything can happen.

Currently, we are under a hurricane watch, which normally we shrug at. Sure, we prepare to a point of “just enough”, because something maybe happens. That’s all changed now. Stores have run out of generators, waters, even gas. We made sure we secured our outdoor stuff and locked up the rest. Just in case. We’ve joined the rest of the country, we get scared now. We watch weather reports and pray, though normally we say “if you don’t like the weather in New England, wait five minutes”. While that remains true, those five minutes could bring bad things.

I don’t think fear solves anything; it just makes people overreact and really worsens the situation. I don’t particularly enjoy now looking at the weather, praying something bad doesn’t happen again. But I do think that it’s good now that we hit the point many teenagers do upon reaching adulthood: we’re not invincible. No place is really safe from it. All we can do is prepare and hope for the best.

by

First!

Another new blogger joining this overabundance of blogging sites, but what makes me different from the rest? Well, I suppose nothing really. Most are aspiring writers hoping to get out there and make a name, while others have a purpose or goal of informing the masses of readers on a specific topic. While I admit I have no specific aim of topics or goals, I will say that I will probably talk about whatever I feel like at the moment.

So with that, I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m Brianne, an aspiring writer. I graduated college, with a B.A. in English, formerly a double major of English and Education. Long story short, I realized that being morally opposed to many things in the public schooling made it difficult to actually want to teach. Originally, I had intended becoming a teacher because they are some of the most influential people in a child or teen’s life. The thought of helping students the way I  as once was became an idea that made me smile. In the end I realized inspiring someone, anyone, was more important than how I did it.

Now, married and still a little idealistic, I was able to do something I loved: writing. My husband, the amazing person he is, made this possible for me. His sometimes grating goal of making me happy has really inspired to finally take this plunge into a world where everyone can see what I write, although any person who does art can tell you how terrifying it is. The idea that you can write something, then be mocked by every reader is like that dream we all had of public speaking with our teeth missing, or standing in front of your audience stark naked.

At least something I’ve always believed sticks here: you never know until you try. You can get scared, or even say “why bother” and not even try; but you’ll never know what you could’ve accomplished without at least taking the first dive into the water. If nothing else, you’ll have the attempt and the experience behind you. Besides, without trying something you’re terrified to do, how can you expect your children to try something new?

Most blogs have a goal, a promise to their readers of a specific topic they can count on. However, much like how I live my life, sticking to the same thing every day just doesn’t appeal to me at all. I like variety, that’s how I like my life. I love options so I can read a fantasy book one day or a classic the next. And honestly, I love my whims. I will promise an honest outlook on how I see things, which will probably be the basis of what you’ll read.

So this leads me here with my first post.