My Thirties so far (as reviewed in tweets)

In January 2011, I turned 30, and man was I pumped about it. My twenties as a whole were a rough decade and I was going to take my thirties by storm. I was ready! And then all of a sudden it was January 2012 and I was turning 31…

And I was not happy about it. AT. ALL. A funny thing happened, I believed that taking my thirties by storm meant everything had to happen in one year. I was sad, I was disappointed. Thirty had not been as amazing as I had planned. It’s been a few months and I’ve lightened up some, but I still have dark moments. Moments thinking, what if the next 9 years  are the same and nothing changes and nothing is amazing and then I’m 40. FORTY. OMG. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!?!?!?!

Last night I got a nice dose of perspective as I was randomly scrolling through my old tweets. I guess Thirty wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, it was a pretty great year. I needed this.

“Hello from the 20! That’s right – we got field access ” – Feb 6, 2011 @ Dallas Stadium for the Superbowl

“So if you buy 6 bottles you get 10% off. But if you buy 10, you get the 10% off plus a look that silently asks if you are okay.” – 2/26/11 @ Total Wine buying the wine for book club at my place.

“Totally copping out by sending an email to tell a guy that I didn’t want to see him again. Avoiding his texts got too exhausting.” “Also… if @elizabeth_cw is much later to BSP, I may have to break up with her too” – 3/18/11 at BSP with EW (eventually)

“Poolside with a mimosa. Not a bad way to start the afternoon.” 3/26/11 in Clearwater, Florida on a station trip.

“‘Mickey Mouse You too!’ – SW #disneyappropriatecurses” – 4/3/2011 @ Disneyworld for a wedding.

“Got my new passport in the mail today, so… The govt has my permission to shutdown if they are so inclined.” – 4/8/11 @ home.

“He said, “I’ll wear you down eventually, even if it takes 2 years. We have all the same friends” I said, “I’ll make new friends” – 4/9/11

“Is it bad that I said yes when the Party City lady asked if the Princess Tiara was for my daughter” – 4/29/11 @ Party City buying a tiara for a Royal Wedding Party.

“Excited for Six Flags Today!” – 6/18/11 on my way to Six Flags for the first time since I moved to Atlanta.

“Walking Rusty after a couple margaritas is no easy task. I mean, the poor guy is stumbling all over the place”  - 6/24/11 after walking Rusty after having a few drinks at a summer work happy hour.

“Wouldn’t it be better if we just gave Keanu Reeves the job and ended this whole lock out think. Just Saying #badjoke #thereplacements” – 6/28/11

“In case anyone needs a unique compliment someday… my grandpa just told me I’m as handy as a pocket in a shirt” – 7/3/11 in Missouri visiting my grandpa.

“Cruising past Canada. Can’t wait to hit Alaska tomorrow!” – 7/9/11

“Taking tequila shots at Old Decatur Courthouse. I’d say it’s time to hit the dance floor…” – 7/23/11 at K&N’s wedding reception

“You know it’s a good night when you get home from book club and it’s technically the next day ” – 8/9/11 @ home after a super-sized book club.

“Wine & Cheese Happy Hour at work is the perfect precursor to Shade & Shots at the Botanical Gardens!” – 8/18/11 sometime in between the two…

‘Somali Pirates sentenced to life. Really? Couldn’t we have been more creative with that. Gang Plank over sharks or something…” – 8/23/11 and I still wholeheartedly stand behind this statement.

“Ready to dance to Yacht Rock at Park Tavern with Jools:)” – 9/2/11 @ Park Tavern

” ‘This is not Camp Hell, This is Camp Boring Ass Movie’ – me. ‘Yeah, when’s the murdering going to start’ – LH” – 10/12/11 @ my place for scary movie night with the girls.

“LH, Don’t you mean “The Orchestra – starring former members of ELO” Good Times at Epcot!” 10/21/11 in Orlando for Horror Nights and Epcot Food and Wine Festival

“If my mom had invented SIRI, then she would have been programmed to tell me to enunciate after everything I say” – 11/10/11 after getting my very first (and so far only) iPhone

and finally…

“I kind of want to get blue solo cups for Saturday just as a joke for AB. I think she’d appreciate it.” – 1/11/12, or as I like to call it 31 years after the most amazing person on the planet was born.

Special mention to a couple of my favorite tweets written by someone else when I was thirty.

” Given our current economic status, I wonder if LFO would now settle for girls who wear Aeropostale” – @jscottmoore
“When a server asks, ‘Diet Pepsi okay?’ The proper response is ‘Do I look like a murderer?!’”  @kellyoxford

Thursday Thoughts

* Went to Orlando a couple of weeks ago for Horror Nights at Universal, Islands of Adventure, and the Food & Wine Festival at Epcot. I’m a wuss. I pretty much screamed at everything that jumped out at me in the haunted houses. Add that to a day of screaming for fun on the roller coasters at Islands of Adventure and my voice sounded pretty awesome by the end of the trip.

* For Halloween, I stole my costume idea from an 11-year-old. I’m okay with that.

* I’ve spent entirely too much time following the #tweetyour16yearoldself hash tag on twitter today. Realized that I don’t really have anything to say to my 16-yr-old self (at least nothing twitter appropriate)

* I’m currently going through sugar withdrawals because our office Halloween candy is down to only yucky stuff.

* I’ve got a Beers of the World party to go to this weekend where I need to bring an import or microbrew. Any suggestions? I’m not very good at picking out good beers so I probably won’t win.

* Rusty has pretty much become ruler of my house. Not sure how I feel about that, but I’m such a sucker that now he’s sleeping on the bed more and more. I can’t help it.

Girls Night

Last night I met up with some girlfriends for dinner. They were planning on seeing Eclipse. I was planning on coming home after dinner. My plan failed. After a few glasses of wine, it wasn’t hard for them to talk me into going along.

So like we did when we saw Dear John, we met for dinner at Twist and then bought a few bottles of wine from The Grape (screw top) to sneak into the movie. (I’m kind of digging this new tradition)

The wine did not help mask how bad the movie was. I have not read the books or seen the first two movies, but I don’t think that would have helped. The acting was awful, and I watch Secret Life of the American Teenager so I know bad acting.

It was a fun night overall, but I think that will be my first and last experience with the Twilight series.

Thursday Thoughts

- I finally tried the new spicy chicken sandwich from Chick Fil-A. It was pretty good, but a little much for me. I’ll probably stick to the original.

- I’m going to the lake this weekend for a friend’s bachelorette weekend. Trying my hand at Mango Mojitos* (or any kind of mojito) for the first time – hoping it goes well.

- Isn’t it kind of funny that no matter what lake you are going to, people always just say “the lake.” You should be able to read my mind and know exactly where I’m going.

- I really don’t care about the World Cup so I’m getting tired of Twitter being over capacity every time something happens. There’s only ever been two things that made me interested in soccer. By things, I mean boys.

- Wimbledon on the other hand is something I usually try to watch a little of. I saw approximately 60 of the games in the last set of the Isner v. Mahut match. Amazing. So glad Isner won the match (last set 70-68). Go USA!

- Some people train for races & triathlons. I’m currently training to be able to swim real laps at my gym’s pool by swimming diagonally across my small pool at home.

- For two people as smart and LB and I, we did absolutely horrible at trivia last night. I’m going to have to redeem myself sometime in the near future.

* spell check tried to get me to change this to Doritos. I thought this was funny.  Is there some kind of Doritos/WordPress collaboration I don’t know about?

Even the Taxis Are Green Here

Saturday morning we left San Francisco and headed north towards Portland. We spent the entire day driving up through the various redwood parks and then finally hit Oregon. Our original plan was to stay somewhere along the coast, but we decided at some point in the drive to go ahead and do Crater Lake first and then do the coast on Sunday. By the time we got up into the mountains it was dark, but not so dark we couldn’t see the crazy amount of snow on the ground. I was not even thinking there would still be snow up here, but there was a lot. We stayed at the Crater Lake Lodge for the night.

Sunday we caught a few glimpses of Crater Lake in between the clouds of fog and it was really pretty. We were worried for a bit that we wouldn’t get to see it at all so we hung out at the Lodge a few more hours than planned before we left. Next we headed west to drive along the coast, but it was a pretty yucky day so we only made a few stops. We did stop at the Sea Lion Cave, which apparently is one of the largest sea caves in the world. It was pretty amazing – about 300 feet below the road and accessed by an elevator. Lots of sea lions lounging around. My sister joked that this must be where they all went when they left San Francisco, because apparently last year there was a mass exodus of the sea lions that hung out at Fisherman’s Wharf and they haven’t been back since. We headed a little further north along the coast, but once we hit Newport we decided to cut over to the interstate and head on up to Portland because the weather wasn’t getting any better. We got in late last night and because of the rain we just ate dinner at the restaurant attached to the hotel.

Today we got up and headed to the Rose and Japanese gardens. Both were pretty cool. I’ve been to a few rose gardens in my days, but never to  Japanese garden. Since my sis actually lived in Japan for a bit, this was more for my benefit, but she was able to point out what they got right and what they got wrong, so that was pretty neat. Next we had lunch at a little restaurant in Nob Hill before heading back to the hotel to drop the car off. After lunch we walked down the block through Pioneer Courthouse Square and continued down to the water. The waterfront park has been taken over for the Rose Festival, but alas, it wasn’t going on today, so really all we saw were a bunch of closed booths and non running carnival rides. We walked along the water for a ways and then over to China town and the Pearl District. We stopped at Powell’s Bookstore and then meandered through the rest of downtown until about 4.

Next we decided it was just early enough to maybe hit up a nearby winery, so we drove out of town a little bit to the Ponzi Family Winery. They had some good stuff. Their Arneis was one of the wines served at the White House for the inaugural dinner last year. I had never heard of this kind of white wine – it originated in Italy and the Ponzi winery is the only one in Oregon the produces it. There are also three in California that produce it. It was a nice surprise to be introduced to a new variety. After the winery, we came back to the hotel and we were treated to beer tasting in the lobby of 4 local Oregon microbrews. After our little happy hours, we had a nice dinner down the road at Ringside. It worked out perfect because it’s dine around town month so they had special 3 course options for a great price. No big night plans, other than the bed – it’s been a long day.

The plan is to wake up early tomorrow and head back over to the coast because it’s supposed to be partly sunny, and then we’ll drive north along it back towards Portland and over to the Columbia Gorge and then east towards Idaho.

Technology is great… now.

I wonder how much trouble I would have been in growing up if all the technology we have at our fingertips would have been available when I was  in high school.

Basically, I was watching Gossip Girl last night and Jenny got called out for drug dealing and then got in trouble with her dad. This made me think how much trouble I would have gotten in if information was sooooooo available. Some people probably watch this show and think, this is nothing like my high school. Not me, minus the price tags, this was exactly like my high school experience. Drinking, partying, sex, backstabbing – it was all there

Don’t get me wrong, I never dealt drugs or anything quite so illegal, but I did get up to some things that I’m glad weren’t on the Internet minutes later. The most technological advancement that ever busted me was *69.

I just know that if they were available my Mom would have been all over Facebook and texting and anything else that came along. I don’t know if I would have been able to stop her.

So while, I really enjoy everything we have now, I’m really glad that when I was in high school all we had were pagers and pay phones.

Another lovely day at the office

I love my job for many reasons, not the least of which is the people I work with on a daily basis. Here is the end of a phone call I had today with one of my favorite reps…

B: Going to any parties this weekend?

Me: Yeah, one tonight, but tomorrow night we’re just going out to the bars.

B: Fun, which ones.

Me: Probably just the highlands or something. Hopefully it won’t be as crowded there like spiralween and the like usually are.

B: I used to go to those all the time.

Me: Really, I’m not a fan. All you do is wait in line.

B: Yeah, I guess I only went once and it was a lot of waiting. When was that, I think like ’98.

Me: Ha, I wasn’t even old enough to drink then.

B: And, we’re done…. (click)

Yep, he hung up on me and all I could do was laugh.

Things I learned at the Beach – Part 4

In case you’ve missed them: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

1. 15 girls and a few guys to help and still no one will be able to get the outdoor speakers to work – yes, the volume on my speakers is terrible, but at least I had some

2. Hot tubs probably work a lot better if the owner of the house tells you there is a charge to heat it beforehand instead of informing you that’s why it won’t work when you call to ask how to work it – Hot Tub Fail!

3. Kathryn makes delicious fish tacos and Samantha makes amazing French toast.

4. It might be possible to play a drinking game based on how many times Beau says totally or chug (this one is courtesy Amy and definitely something we should try next year)

5. No matter how well you think you plan there will have to be a few beer runs throughout the weekend, and oh yeah, why aren’t we drinking mimosas – we need to get stuff for mimosas…

6. Thanks to Elisabeth, I learned that there is such a thing as a dress that requires a DVD because there are about 20 different ways to wear it. Thanks to Summer, she was able to wear it even though she forgot the DVD.

7. I will only wear 1/4 of the clothes I pack but will have to wash them all because everything within a five mile radius of my suitcase will be covered in sand.

8. There are many spellings of Lindsey/Lindsay/Lyndsey and having four of them in one place will get confusing – even if you try numbering them because everybody has a different #1.

9. There are a million ways to get to Grayton Beach, going through Montgomery both ways this year and somehow managed to mix it up some between there and the beach.

10. Alabama has many fun little towns: I don’t remember the name of the town, but the tagline “Front Porch City” was true to its name (except one house, who may or may not get invited to town functions); Seeing a sign that says Welcome to OPP will immediately make me start humming O.P.P and being really sad that out of 3454 songs on my iPod there is not one by Naughty by Nature; some girl named Lisa owns almost a whole town – true story.