2012, I Salute You

2012, The Year of 30 Days.  It’s such a cliché, but the older I get (I know, I know…  I’m only 28, but 30 is right around the corner, folks), the more quickly time seems to pass.   I swear I was *just* doing the ‘take a picture every day’ challenge.  Like, yesterday.  How did we go from that to 2013?  Boggles the mind I tell you.  Boggles.

In hindsight, I might have bit off more than I can chew (that's what she said) with this year-long challenge.  I was full steam ahead at the beginning of '12, but that slowly dissipated as we got into the colder months.  (Can I blame it on that?   Being cold?  Yeah, totally.  I was super cold.)

At first I was all, "whee" and then I was all "ugh."

With all of the regular life stuff going on (the life of a social butterfly is quite busy, I’ll have you know), I found it difficult to keep the challenges (and therefore, blog) in focus; eventually, they became more of an afterthought.  "Oh.  I have a blog.  I should write something.  About the challenges I'm doing.  Shit.  What is the challenge I'm supposed to be doing?  Dancing.  Right.  I should be dancing."

Making panties drop.

I was hoping this year would break me of this habit of not always seeing things through: "I'm going to lose 1,000 pounds!  "I'm going to become super-duper fit!"  "I'm going to learn a programming language!"  Etc.  It didn't.  But I did come to accept that that pattern is more of a Human Behavior than a Heather Behavior.  I am not a unique snowflake; I am not alone in the I AM GOING TO DO ALL THE THINGS (and then not do all the things) camp.  That doesn’t make it ok, but I feel better knowing that I am not a crap person simply because things didn't quite work out as planned.  Tomorrow's another day.  Or some shit.  I also realized that I would likely be more successful in achieving my goals if I break them into smaller, more manageable pieces.  Baby steps, people... baby steps.  One small step for man, one achievable goal for Heather.

It also reminded that I can find an excuse for absolutely anything, which I believe I have already written about on here.  I can reason away any old thing that seems hard or not fun.  Go ahead, try me.  Give me a problem and I bet I can find a way to justify your way around it.  ZOMG!  THAT IS MY SUPER POWER!!!  I have the Power of Justification. 

I will save you from the things you don't want to do!

Hm.  Reading over this, it sounds a bit negative.  I’m too lazy to erase it and start over, so let me touch on the highlights, the good stuff.  My favorite challenge of the year was hands-down ‘get rid of something every day’.  Holy moly, was that cathartic as fuck.  I have managed to continue that practice throughout the year – if I bring something new into the house, I get rid of something old, useless or unnecessary (wish I could include my cat in that category).  End the Cycle of Crap.  Rock on. 

My favorite picture of the year:

To infinity and beyond!

My favorite art project of the year:

An obvious choice, I know.

My favorite first day of a new month:

Meat!  I can eat meat again!
Yeah, get it in there.  Get that meat in there.

Party in my mouth.

Equal parts frustrating (as fuck) and funny, the ‘no swearing’ challenge surprised me with its obscene difficultly.  I truly believed I would sail through that month like a rockstar, with nary a swear word in site.  Silly Heather.  Silly, silly Heather.

Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about this experiment of mine.  Part of me feels like I could have done it “better”.  Whatever that means.  Some months I feel like I was going through the motions (no TV) and others I completely gave up on (meditation?  Bite me, introspection).   Maybe I could have been more creative with how I interpreted some of the challenges (did I need so many pictures of clouds?) and I certainly could have upped the frequency of my blog posts.  But I am often hard on myself and if I look at it more objectively, it was a great year, I had fantastic experiences, met fabulous new people, went on some amazing vacations, tried new stuff and things and learned a little about myself in the process (I love collared greens, rabbit, and swearing; do not love duck or meditation).

Did it change me in any grand, fundamental way?  Probably not.  I’d like to think I’m a little more self-aware and a bit more forgiving and accepting of my quirks and foibles.  I hope to be forever on the hunt to find ways to become a better version of myself.  I think this year I did that.  Good job, me.  I’m going to do something similar for 2013, so be on the lookout for a new blog name (same URL to make it easy) (you’re easy) and new posts for 2013.  WOO.

Length

Someone (*cough* Ari *cough*) commented (complained?) that my last blog post was too long.

I'm writing this one while lounging at the pool on a perfect, beautiful summer day.

That is all.

Mt. Nevis-Muddy-Shoes

I suppose I could have included this tidbit in that other post about Nevis (which, incidentally is pronounced "Knee-viss".  I know, right?  Never mind that it looks like "Neh-viss", it's definitely "Knee-viss".), but I climbed a volcano while staying on our wee island. 

Obviously this was a long-extinct volcano (extinct?  Are volcanoes extinct?  Defunct?  Dead?  Sleepy?  I think extinct is right; I'll go with that) and it's the highest point in the Caribbean.  I think.  It might just be the toughest climb in the Caribbean.  Either way.  I was hella nervous pre-climb and seriously considered not going for fear of slowing down my fellow hikers.  So glad I didn't do that and even more glad I have good friends who encourage me and know how to calm me when I get a bit cray-cray.

Here's the volcano.  The resemblance is remarkable.

Everyone else is in the Jeep.
The Jeep that had weird opaque windows you couldn't see through.
Just play along.

(It's 1:51 in the morning.  I should probably go to bed.) 

As good as my drawing up there is, here's a shot of Mt. Nevis for real (we weren't sure what its actual name is, so we dubbed it Mt. Nevis.  We very well could have completely made that up.)

Clouds.

This might be it too.  *shrug*

It was one of the funnest hikes/climbs I have ever done.  It was steep as shit and muddy as hell.  I fell numerous times (once off the trail with only a baby tree to break my fall) and was covered in bruises the next day.  And after all of that, we didn't even get to see the view from the top because that magnificent bastard was wearing a little cloud hat, but shit, it didn't even matter.  So. Much. Fun.

One of those muddy foots is my muddy foot.

The rest of our muddy selves.

After the climb there was much drinking and eating and rejoicing and frolicking and the day after the hike, there was in-home massages.  Yeah, horrible vacation.

PELICANS!

I have alluded to my trip to Nevis a few times now in my little blog.  Now that I'm nice and drunk and it's been a month+, I suppose now's a good time as any to talk about it.  Really, there's no reason other than sheer laziness and procrastination for having not written about it sooner.

Here's the least you need to know:  My friends, Nick and Eliza, invited me and some other super awesome folks to join them for a week at Eliza's parent's house on Nevis, a wee island near St. Kitts in the Caribbean.  I accepted their offer and proceeded to have the most decadent, wonderful week ever.  Ranks in my top three vacations, along with Peru and Tanzania.  You also need to know there will be a lot of pictures.

A few months ago I posted this picture, my first mention of the trip:

I AM SO TALENTED!

I didn't see a shark, but I totally wore that bathing suit and there was lots of drinking.  That plane is pretty spot-on too.

We stayed in this house:

 

This house is on the market, but my secret wish is that it never sells.

But seriously, it was a beautiful house; they spared no expense and our every need was met and then some.

See how close I was in my artistic rendition?

I  lived in this pool.

That entire outdoor porch/patio area?  It had automatic screens we could put down, along with misting organic bug spray shit, to save us from the mosquitoes.  Ridiculous. 

We all flew into St. Kitts, but I got there a bit later than everyone else so I missed the public ferry.  I'm pretty sure I just hopped on some random dude's boat and made my way over to Nevis.  "Oh, here's a dock.  And a boat.  You going to Nevis?  Sweet.  Can I bum a ride?"  Yup.  I showed up at the house to find everyone wearing what are clearly the greatest t-shirts ever made:

I hate this picture of myself, so you just get my boobs.
Thanks to Nick & Eliza for dressing us in such fly gear.

It took me a bit to notice.  "Why is everyone wearing green shir....  OMG!  THAT'S MY ART!"  (This is one of those times I wish there was a 'sarcastic' font.)

<And then lots of super-fun-awesome stuff happened.>

Seriously though, everything about that week was glorious -- our dynamic as a group couldn't have been better; we fit together like happy little pieces in a silly, drunk puzzle.  We relaxed, we laid by the pool, we read books, we laughed, we cooked delicious food (actually, I should scratch the "we" from that sentence because I didn't cook a damn thing), some of us climbed a volcano, some of us went snorkeling/SCUBA diving, etc., etc.  The weather was perfect, the house was perfect, the week was ... damn near perfect.  I don't mean to sound all Pollyanna-wearing-rose-tinted-glasses, but it really was a phenomenal vacation.  I don't have have a single complaint and I wouldn't have changed a thing.  I probably could have napped more, but other than that...

The sunsets were breathtaking.

I want to live here forever.

And don't even get me started on the clouds.

So puffy.

The clouds are real, but these were enhanced by the "dramatic tone" setting on my camera.

Even the storms are pretty.

(Quick aside:  As I type this up and drink my wine, I'm watching "Iron Man" for the twelfth time and there was just a scene where Obadiah/Jeff Bridges was smoking a cigar all up in Iron Man/Tony Stark/Robert Downey Jr's face.  What the hell did his breath smell like?  Did he have stank cigar breath?  I think about this all time, during every single movie I watch, ever.  Do they have good breath during these close-up, smoochie scenes?  Is there a mint guy on stand-by?  Is he like the gaffer?  A mint gaffer?  Or is that just a draw-back of being an actor?  Living in a cloud of someone's stank breath?)

Get this man a mint!

Anyway.  There were also pelicans.

PELICAN!

I found it surprisingly difficult to sit around and do nothing all day.  Not nothing-nothing; I was up by 6:30 or 7:00 most mornings, immediately jamming myself into my bathing suit and propping myself up pool-side.  I breakfasted, read, floated and breathed it all in.  That's something.

My "how ridiculous is my breakfast location?" face.
With ears.

I did read a book or two and as I said, there were lots of fun shenanigans, but mostly we just ... sat around.  I've never lounged and relaxed so much in my entire life.  It was hard, ya'll.  Hated it.

What I hated most though was the leaving part.  It's never easy to go back to the "real world" after a vacation, but this one was surprisingly difficult.  I've always known my friends are awesome -- I wouldn't surround myself with a group of drama-queen-douchcanoes -- but I was amazed at how easy it was to spend a week with them.  Seriously, wouldn't change a thing.

PELICAN!

Tidbits and Gadgets

Blogger recently updated their user interface.  You guys won't see a difference, but it's scary back here, ya'll.  Why do they do this?  It's not "better", I don't see any "improvements."  Everything is new and different and I feel lost and a little scared.

I'm very uncomfortable with this change.
I am lost in the white.
Mom?
... Anybody?
...
Help.

It's awful, right?  Couldn't they fill all of that space with sunshine or puppies or .. ooh! Ooh!  Clouds!  Clouds make everything better.  Ok, so they're white too, but they could be big, puffy, gray clouds or regular puffy clouds floating in a sparkling blue sky.  But this?  This ... nothing?  Pfft.  Nay, Blogger.  Nay.

Clouds.  Far superior.

See how much better that looks?  I hope you're paying attention, Google!  Fix it!  Fix it.

But I digress.  The point of this post is, erm, hmm.  To be honest, I, um, I don't know.  I'm volunteering at the USO from 4-8 this evening and it's a bit slow and I'm mostly here "in case shit", so I pulled up ye old Blogger (only to be horrified by the new look) and here we are.  Bored.

Wow.  My bored face looks remarkably similar to my angry face.
I AM NOT ANGRY!

How about an "I am trying to think of something to blog about" face?

Weird face is weird.

Moving on...

It's hard to believe April is almost over and May, The Month of Walking, is nigh.  April's challenge went surprisingly well.  Resisting the shopping urge was relatively painless as I quickly found I prefer to keep my money rather than spending it on stupid shit.  Funny, that.  I did make one purchase this month I don't feel bad about.

*begin justification*

I am rarely without a water bottle.  Most tap water tastes like a swimming pool and I do not enjoy drinking water that tastes like a swimming pool.  For some time now, I have been using a Bobble.  Its handy built-in filter takes care of that whole "tastes like a pool" issue.  We got along pretty well for a while, but you have to squeeze the Bobble to get the water out, which means your thirst is quenched one squirt at a time (*sexual innuendo*).  It took the fun out of drinking water. 

Incidentally, I brought my water bottle to Nevis -- as did many folks -- and as the week went on water bottles became community property... mostly because we were lazy and didn't want to leave our comfy chairs/sofas/pool floaties, so we grabbed/requested the nearest bottle.  The request I heard most often was, "Hey, can you hand me any water bottle that isn't Heather's?"  See?  It's not just me.

So, I was in REI the other day picking up a $5 rain poncho for my cousin, Wesley, who is about to head off on a trip to Belize, and strolling by the water bottle section I saw this little guy chilling on an end-cap display.  (You know, where the suckers stop to buy unnecessary things.  Consumerism.)

I make drinking water enjoyable again.

It has a filter!  And a straw!  And a little handle thing!  Exclamation points!  I love it.  I love it so much.  I have been drinking water like ... like ... something that drinks a lot of water.  I have easily tripled my water consumption and subsequently, my trips to the bathroom.

I have to pee all the time now!

Apparently, I have also tripled the number of self-portraits I include in a post.  Look, I'm really bored.  Don't judge me.  If it helps, I felt stupid and awkward taking them, but hey, it's content.

Anyway, I suppose this could be perceived as an unnecessary purchase, but I think drinking water is a necessity and having the appropriate vessel from which to drink is equally important.

*end justification*

In hindsight, I think it would have been wise to have combined "no shopping" with "no eating out."  I spent (spend) an exorbitant amount of money on food.  It would have been interesting to see the state of my checking account at the end of April had I curtailed all spending, but considering I got through the month buying only a water bottle, I'm still feeling a bit flush.  Woo, money.

I'm pretty darn excited about May's challenge.  Walking!  I do that all the time!  I added a new gadget to my blog that will track my mileage and whatnot.  I don't know how it works just yet, but it's there, waiting for me, silently judging my lack of mileage.  Jerk. 

100?  It'll be a cakewalk.
(see what I did there?)

In the next few days I will post a schedule ... that I will probably won't follow at all.  It's good to have a plan though.  Or something.

Nope

Day one of being creative elicited laughter, but not much in the way of actual art.  I consider myself to be an autodidact of sorts -- in some areas anyway.  Art?  Not turning out to be one of those areas.  Look!  I have a special pencil and an eraser I can't stop smelling, and a book and a fancy sketch pad.  (I look like I'm angry and/or annoyed in both of those pictures, but I was actually feeling quite chipper.  Awkward self-portraits.)

And yet...

Nope.

And yet...

Nope, nope, nope.

I gave up on the damn clouds (as you can see) and colored a picture instead:

Color in the lines?  Oh, I can so do that.

I'm not ready to throw in my drawing towel quite yet (in fact, I'm pretty mad at it and want to show it who's boss), but I am having a difficult time coming up with ideas for being creative outside of my "arts and crafts" box.  I need another box.  I do have a few things on my list that aren't necessarily hot glue gun or crayon-related, but I am open to other suggestions.  Got any for me?  Anything you'd like to see me attempt?  I am here for your entertainment, people!  Let me entertain you.

I spent quite a lot of time putting a fancy email button on my blog yesterday, please feel free to use it, if for no other reason than to make me feel better about the two-ish hours I spent trying to make two lines of HTML code work properly (thank you, brother-o-mine).  Let that time not have been in vain.

... of course most of you reading this blog are my friends and family and already have my email address.  Whatever.  Use the button anyway.

Dreams

My sister's cat, Duchess (aka The Crypt Keeper), took a nap on my lap this weekend.  She's sweet but has become incredibly needy in her rather advanced age.  I like her best when she's like this:

As soon as I wake up, I'm going to annoy you.
Just FYI...

 

Irritating or not, I'd like to think this happy picture is representative of her dreams.  That'd be rad.

Happy or not, I'm still going to annoy you.

(Saturday, January 28th)

Dark and Stormy

Clouds like these never bode well for my commute to work.

This makes NoVA drivers stoopid.

Some may say my interest to clouds adds to my special flavor of "crazy" (akin to my designated drawers and anal rules for socks, perhaps), but I think it's important to have a variety of interests.

Also, clouds are preeeeetty.

(Thursday, Jan 26th)

Dissolve and Saturate

Jan 14th was "Bond as a Family Before Going Back to School" day for Kristy (Now with parents! (picture not included)).

I love having an almost-DSLR camera and an aptitude for self-portraits, as they enabled us to dissolve into silliness and giggles at The National Arboretum.

Puffy coat is puffy.  Tilted head is tilted.

Kristy wins for Best Giggle Face.

I will eat your braaaains.

We were in public, but like the honey badger, I don't care.

Betwixt the giggling, I took pictures of flowers.  So many pictures of flowers.

(prettiest flower)

Next stop, the American Art Museum and fun with shutter speeds:

Head's up!  (bah dum tss)

 

Creepy, yeah?  Apocalyptic Horse?

Also, more clouds.

I took 60+ pictures,  tough to choose only ... nine.