Keep on Truckin'

Things have been rough on a personal level for me lately. Sometimes I feel like everything is falling apart and sometimes I feel like I'm right where I need to be. I don't feel like thinking about or doing anything about or changing or moving past any of the things that are going on because frankly I don't have the time or energy right now. I just need to get through the end of the semester and the urgent pressing issues. I thought I'd share some motivation (for my own good) and also for any of you out there having a down day too.

You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction.

-George Horace Lorimer

Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

-Dale Carnegie

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday.

-Unknown

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

-Winston Churchill

A leader, once convinced that a particular course of action is the right one, must be undaunted when the going gets tough.

-Ronald Reagan

on feeling misunderstood

Being misunderstood is one of those things that I can't stand. Not "can't stand" in the sense that I want to yell and scream and make my opinions known but the "can't stand" that makes me want to curl into a ball and hide for the rest of the day because the feelings I have about myself are far from positive. The thing about being misunderstood to me is that I take myself and my beliefs very seriously, as everyone should, and feel a sense of violation when I'm portrayed as something that I'm not.

I've had to build my self image on my own, not that I don't have supportive family and friends now, but that wasn't always the case. In high school I had struggles with all relationships I was involved in; not just the boyfriend kind but the mother-daughter, the friend-friend... I had it all, which left me often feeling like I had nothing. For years, I tried to please everyone around me by conforming to the things they felt and believed. I like the same clothing, I went to the same services, I had the same group of friends. But I was lost. It wasn't until after graduation that the idea of having my own self, separate from those people around me and completely tailored to my own life, came and smacked me in the face. And I realized that deep within the conforming front I held for so long was a glimpse of the person I was supposed to be.

The guidance I received and the things that I learned were all from within my self and the experiences I had. I know I didn't always do the right thing and wasn't always the best friend/daughter/young woman, but hey, I did the best I could for being so alone. And while I had some serious self-doubt in those days, I pride myself that I've become who I am, on my own, and can be happy with the person I've become. But it literally tears me apart when someone thinks I feel something/do something/am someone that goes against my own definition of who I am.

The beliefs that I have and my opinions on everything in this world are truly 100% my own. Not to say that other people don't form their own self too but I was not able to build on the foundation laid before me. I was not guided into religion or self-respect or life goals from those around me and that's what makes me so defensive when someone misrepresents me. Friend or foe, I will defend myself. When I'm seen as someone I'm not, it goes against the triumph I've had through my struggles to make me who I am. I've gone through a lot, cliche I realize, to come to what I believe, so please don't try to take that away from me or act like I'm someone different.

Because in the end, I admit that I'm strong-willed but I believe I have the right to be. I believe that everyone should be able to voice their opinions, have their concerns and that it's okay for those to be different than others. Differences is what makes us human, differences is what brings people together and without them, who would you really be? You have not lived anyone's life but your own. You don't know what has shaped their personality and what makes their path different. You don't know what needs they have, the things they cherish or the things they take pride in. And while I may differ from you, I will also respect you, in every instance.

So how then, can you say my feelings are wrong?

on hating fixing things

+ It's official, I hate anything that has to do with fixing technical problems. Absolutely hate it. Like today, our internet decided that it wasn't going to run at normal speed. Not only that but it decided that instead of just being sorta slow on the pages that have lots of adds/pictures/links/etc, it decided to seriously not work. Like "take-ten-minutes-just-to-open-an-email" slow. Then when I tried to take matters into my own hands and fix the problem by restarting the router, it only made it worse. Now my lovely computer said I was connected to the airport network but would load and load and never get anywhere. I seriously wanted to throw the router at the wall it was so frustrating. And I wasn't going to call the internet company because well 1. I didn't have their number, I'd have to look it up online but funny, I couldn't do that anyways and 2. customer service people just annoy me. If anyone was going to call them it would have to be Jeff, he's much nicer to people in these types of situations. So the more time I sat here trying to get it to work the more pissed frustrated I was getting that I just started to unplug, re-plug, reset, push buttons, anything. I had no idea what I was doing and low and behold, it worked :-) But seriously, moral of the story, don't leave me with a non-functional router again. I'll attribute this time to luck and I doubt it would work for me again.

+ I went to Ikea this afternoon to purchase a cake pan because I want to make a cake but, as you can assume, I didn't have a pan. I have muffin pans and bread pans and brownie pans but nothing to bake a cake in. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed in Ikea's selection of bakeware. Sure its awesome if you want to make a cake in the shape of a horse but I'd rather die first. (In case you didn't know, I'm terrified of horses) I ended up finding a circular pan, one of those spring-form pans that the bottom comes out of and figured I could make it work for a regular cake. Plus it came with an insert if you want to make a cake with a hole in the center, like Angel Food Cake. I'll update if and when I decide to bake and let you know how this pan works or doesn't.

+I also purchased the following 3 jars that just happen to be my picture for my "365 Project". I've always wanted to have a kitchen where everything has it's place with little labels all in coordinating containers. This is my start I guess. This sort of goes along with my cake-aspirations because I hate having flour/sugar in the bags they come in. It makes it really difficult to measure, you always end up spilling and its just not as visually appealing. Someday I hope to have the kitchen of my dreams and not just have 3 jars it taped on labels. Maybe I'll have jars for spices, and cereal, and coffee, and snacks all with vinyl stenciled lettering... the list goes on and on.

003/365

+ Lowe's can be a very frustrating place especially when you go looking for some soil. I purchased some of these white flower pots to put my new cacti in so they weren't so farmers-market-looking in their plastic containers. They are the perfect size to fit on the window sill and I thought I'd give my new green friends a treat to some new soil. But what do you know... Lowe's sells nothing smaller than 1 cubic-foot of soil. Seriously? I don't need 23lbs of soil, I needed like 3 cups of soil. Needless to say, I left Lowe's empty handed and plan on scoping the nearby flower gardens for some extra dirt I can "use." For now my cacti remain in their original soil but in new pots with a little more room to grow. Good thing they're hardy and aren't fussy like some flowers.