Yep, you guessed it... things are kind of messy around here right now. I'm currently looking at some new site designs, and the easiest way to play with them is just to change things around on the main pages. I know, it's not the "proper" developer way to do it, but I'm lazy, ok? So if you see changes or things look funky, that's why. Just deal with it until I'm done, k? :)

Some of you may have heard of or subscribe to the RSS feed for the website 1000awesomethings.com.  I actually don't follow the RSS feed, but every once in a while, a post from there pops up in my Google Reader shared items, usually shared by Isha.  I don't remember how I found out, but I realized that the author of this site recently published a book containing some of his "awesome things", called The Book of Awesome.  I love this concept, both of the book and the site... basically just taking note of some of the great things that make you happy in this world.  Simple things that can take a bad mood and completely turn it around or at least improve it a little.  The book and website both list very specific things, a lot of times things that happen, such as "when the thing you were going to buy is already on sale" or "finding your keys after looking forever".  While I do think these things are pretty awesome, I have my own list of things that make me happy, and a lot of them are very simple everyday things, things that when I think about them or do them or partake in them, it makes me feel better or improves my day.  So I decided to list a few of these things for my faithful readers. Coffee and Coffee Shops While I like the taste of coffee, I think that a big thing that I really like it for is the ritual.  Drinking coffee is a daily morning ritual for a lot of people.  It's something you can look forward to when you get up, or something you can look forward to in the middle of a busy day.  It's something that can get you going or something you can relax with.  It's a simple daily pleasure.  I stop almost every day at Starbucks on my way to work to get a cup.  Part of the reason is to get coffee, of course, but part of it is also just to stop in to the coffee shop.  I like seeing friendly barista faces and having the break in my day.  It just adds something to it.  I also love the ambiance in coffee shops.  There's no better place to meet a friend just to chat, or to take some time to read a book, or to work on writing or doing homework.  And Starbucks has made this even better lately with their free Wi-Fi. Bookstores I own way too many books.  Well, maybe not.  I'm not sure you can ever own too many.  But honestly, I probably own more than I will ever read.  And I still love to visit bookstores and 99% of the time will not be able to leave without purchasing something.  One of my favorite things to do on my lunch break at work is to go visit Borders.  I love going in, grabbing a cup of coffee from the cafe there, and then browsing to see what there is to see, from the newest bestseller to what is on the bargain rack, it all fascinates me.  There is something calming about being able to go there and browse the racks of books and absorb yourself in knowledge. Traveling Traveling has to be one of my most favorite things in the world.  I didn't travel too much as a kid.  Our family vacations were usually short trips to Kings Island or to visit family in Kentucky or Oklahoma.  Now, as an adult, since I have started flying places and trying to visit more distant lands, I am totally in love with traveling.  I like every part of it, from flying, to road trips (although for long distances, I prefer flying over a bunch of hours in the car), to hotels, to trying new places to visit and eat.  When I know I am planning a trip, I will go crazy just researching where I am going.  I look things up on Google Maps.  I find out what there is to do in a place via Wikitravel.  It's actually pretty obsessive, but I love it all.  I'm lucky I'm with someone who loves travelling as much as I do, otherwise they would get left at home a lot! Apple I know the first thought that probably pops into your head when I say that.  It's that I'm a fanboy (or fangirl, in my case) just like so many others.  And I will admit, in some ways, that probably is true.  Do I want an iPad? Sure.  Do I want an iPhone 4?  Duh.  But, I also have my reasons for not getting them (which is another blog post entirely).  But I love Apple's aethetics.  I love the way things work on my iPhone 3GS.  I love visiting the Apple website just to see what the latest fun product they have is.  And I like visiting the Apple store just to play with everything.  I have been the owner of multiple iPods, and am now considering buying my first Mac (whoa!).  Even though I have heard the language absolutely sucks, the thought of attempting to write an iPhone app brings back my programmer roots.  Apple is just a lot of fun to me. Superman I think this fascination may have started when I was a teenager.  One of my favorite shows was Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.  And while I haven't kept up that well with it, I also have several seasons of Smallville on DVD.  I don't know if it's the mythology of this famous superhero, what with his secret identity and goal of rescuing people from the perils of this world, or if it's the muscles and the red and blue cape and costume.  Honestly, maybe it's just the tall, dark, and handsomeness of Dean Cain that first won me over.  But the whole story of this seemingly nerdy journalist that secretly saves the world while falling in love with his cute co-worker is one of my favorite stories ever. These are really just a few of the things that I get excited about.  When I first started thinking about it, I immediately came up with a list of twenty just off the top of my head.  So now it's your turn... tell me, what are a few of your favorite things?

I want to write this post, but I don't even know where to start.  If you read my blog regularly, you know that my dad passed away a little over a year ago, and that I've had a difficult time dealing with this.  Over the course of this last year, a lot has happened in my life.  Along with my dad's passing, various situations happened among some of my friends.  Circles of friends fell apart.  I also started grad school, and that has been its own struggle as well.  Looking back over the last year, I have learned a lot.  I can look back now and examine some of my actions or non-actions during that time.  One thing I've noticed is that I lost virtually all of my "social energy" for quite a while.  Let me explain what I mean by that. See, I used to be someone that brought people together.  One of my friends even dubbed me the "nucleus", meaning that I was how friends knew each other.  Plenty of people met through me, because I've had a habit in the past of just inviting people from various parts of my life to come together, whether that means parties at my house or just inviting friends to hang out when other friends are getting together.  And after my dad died, that changed for me.  Between dealing with his death, struggles with grad school, and various drama with friends, I just didn't have the energy to initiate connections with people like I could before.  Being the "nucleus" literally just drained me, and I would've had no energy left to sort through my own dealings, which was hard enough in and of itself.  So I stopped initiating much with people.  I couldn't be the nucleus anymore, not for a while anyway.  Instead, I really needed people to be there for me.  Normally, I feel like I'm pretty capable of being the friend that people can come to and talk to as well as the one that hosts events and brings people together.  But not right now.  I found myself needing people to support me, at least emotionally. I've started to notice that recently I have begun to reach out to people again.  I'm just starting to once again feel like myself, like I can reach out to people and be there for them and not just need them to be there for me.  I've noticed friendships developing, and I'm starting to feel more connected where I haven't for a while.  It's a good feeling.  It's also caused me to look back over the last year at other friendships.  I'm not really one to judge friendships, and I call people "friend" pretty easily, because I make an effort to truly try to be friendly and be a friend to pretty much anyone, no matter who they are.  But I've just realized lately that I really do have very few people I consider a close friend, especially looking back over the last year and who has stuck around and who hasn't... who has been a friend that only really was there when I initiated connection with them and who has continued to be there pretty much no matter what.  It's been a discouraging, enlightening, and at the same encouraging revelation.  There are people that I don't look at the same way anymore - people I used to call close friends, but wouldn't anymore.  There are people that are truly gifts in my life - people that held me up, listened, and supported me through very rough times.  There are friends that I have grown closer to.   There are new friends that have become just what I needed at just the right time. One new thing I have learned is that I will no longer chase after friendships.  I don't mean that I don't think my friendships are valuable - I do, very much so.  But if someone makes it clear that they really aren't that interested in my friendship, I won't chase them.  I have done it in the past, and it's just not worth it.  If someone doesn't want to be my friend, then I owe them nothing.  Some people might have said it in words and others in actions, but I know I have people that have been in my life that I just don't feel the need to try to please anymore.  So I won't.  My time and energy will go into the friends that I know I can truly call friend. On a more positive note, I am very lucky to have some truly amazing people in my life.  And I think I try to do a decent job of making this clear to those people.  Thank you.  You know who you are.  Thanks for coming into my life to some of you - and to others, thanks for sticking around. <3

Probably not the best way to start off a blog post, but this post will probably bother some people.  I know at the very least probably a lot of you will disagree with it.  It has already gotten me into a couple of disagreements just for mentioning it to a couple of people, so I have that to go off of. Most, if not all, of my readers here likely live in (or have lived in) Indiana, I'm guessing.  And by default that probably makes quite a few of you Colts fans.  Now, while I wouldn't necessarily define myself as a "Colts fan", I'm all for them winning the Super Bowl.  I know barely anything about football, have no interest in it really, and haven't even watched a game this season.  Sorry, but it's the truth.  Doesn't mean I don't want them to win (as I said, I do), doesn't mean I haven't accumulated a few Colts shirts over the years, doesn't mean I won't be watching the Super Bowl and rooting for them.  But for the most part, I really have no major interest - it's just something generic to connect with friends on, honestly.  I'll clearly admit that.  In that sense, yeah - I'm a "bandwagon" fan.  My only interest is in the fact that everyone else around here cares, and it gives me something in common with them if I care at least a little bit too.  Is it wrong or unauthentic?  I don't know, you decide - but I'm being pretty clear about what I think here, so I'm not sure it's fair to call me unauthentic. Now, while outside of the fact that it gives me a chance to connect with friends and have some fun cheering on a team they care about, Sunday is not that big of a day for me.  But this past Tuesday was.  It was the season premiere of the final season of LOST.  And I am a pretty big LOST fan.  I've been watching it since season 2, when a co-worker recommended it and I had a weekend to catch up on season 1.  I love this show.  Yes, it has its faults.  Yes, in some ways I can see how people think it went downhill by season 2 and all sorts of crazy things started getting introduced.  But it's full of mystery, which I love.  When I was a kid, I wanted to be a detective.  And my love for logic and figuring things out is a big part of how I became a programmer.  So to me... watching this show and trying to figure out what's going on - well, it just floats my boat.  Yeah, I'm "sucked in" - because I want to be.  It just does it for me.  Not all shows have.  I've tried to watch and catch up on both Heroes and Smallville, and I just can't quite muster up the enthusiasm that I have for LOST.  It's just an all-around interesting show.  And I have a feeling that most of my friends that are just as avid fans as I am feel very similarly. So Tuesday was the season premiere of the final season.  LOST fans all over the country (or world, even?) spread their excitement and shared it with other fans via social media, particularly Twitter.  LOST was a trending topic on Tuesday, meaning it was one of the most talked about items on the social media site.  And, as almost anything, it got some haters as well.  People calling it madness, saying they would be glad it was over (presumably because they were sick of hearing about it), saying they'd never watched it and never planned on it, etc., etc.  See... to me, that's kind of how I feel about the Colts.  Not that I dislike the team, not that I want them to lose, but honestly - yeah, I'm pretty sick of hearing about them.  During a Colts game, I cannot log on to any social media site and not see 90% of the content be about the team.  And the rest of the time, well even on an off day, I see at least one tweet or status update about them.  And I never really complain much about it (up til now, if you see it that way).  I get it - people are really into something.  And that's ok. Here's my thing.  Pretty much all the people I saw complaining about all of the talk about LOST - are huge Colts fans that talk about the Colts quite a bit.  Isn't this kind of hypocritical?  I mean, you can be a fan of something, but if I am, you make fun of it?  I saw tweets today wondering how people could live here and not be Colts fans.  Is that really that hard of a question to answer?  People like different things.  Is it not understandable that I really don't care too much about football?  And it's fine if you do, if you love the Colts.  But then what's so bad about me loving LOST?  Why do you have to complain if it's a trending topic for one day?  Is that really too much to deal with?  I see your tweets about the Colts all the time, and I don't really complain much or let it get to me.  You're entitled to be a fan of whatever you want.  I won't try to stop you. And you might say "well, it's different".  But here's why I think it's not.  Aren't LOST and Colts games both there for entertainment?  Both consist of things happening... yeah, LOST is scripted, but it's a story, even it's planned out ahead of time, just the way the game is basically a story of what happened, only in real-time.  Both contribute to the economy by keeping people employed.  To me - it's not that different.  Here are some of the arguments I've gotten otherwise: - Colts football promotes hometown pride. Does it really?  What do you define as hometown pride?  To me, it's pride in where you came from, because you care about your roots and admire the place you came from.  What do the Colts really have to do with Indianapolis other than the fact that the name of the city is on their shirts?  The team originated in Baltimore, and I'm pretty sure that even in my limited knowledge of them, it's safe to say that a lot of the players are not from here.  Is that really hometown pride? - Playing sports promotes self-esteem and learning life lessons, but acting doesn't. I would beg to differ on this one.  Yes, Hollywood has its problems, but I'm pretty sure that people that get into acting make quite an impact on their self-esteem and learn plenty of life lessons as well, just like a lot of other careers. - LOST started out with a good premise, but turned into just a way to make money. I had a long conversation about this one.  First of all - I get it.  What happened with LOST was that no end date was set, so while the writers knew there was an end to the story... they didn't know when they were supposed to end it, so plenty of things got thrown in there that probably really weren't necessary, and yeah - caused some people to stop watching.  Heh - this is where I relate bandwagon LOST fans to bandwagon Colts fans.  I've been watching LOST for a while, and I like the story.  To me - it's a good idea, and even though they might have gotten out of hand in the middle (when there was no end in sight), I will still watch until the end, because I am a true fan of the show and believe it will all play out well.  Isn't this kind of like bandwagon Colts fans?  You know, those out there that really only care when the team is winning all the time?  If the Colts had started losing a lot over the last few seasons, I'm pretty sure they would've lost a lot of their audience as well. Another point I would add to this one is that in both situations, there are people that are only out to make as much money as possible.  And there are also people that are out to put out the most quality product that they can, whether that be an episode that fans enjoyed or a game that was won. I've made a lot of points here just to prove my parallel, but my main point is this: people have different interests, and different things they are a fan of.  A lot of them are just meaningless entertainment and don't matter in the long run.  If you are a fan of one of these things, that's great.  But don't go on and on about how great "your" thing is and then bash what other people like just because they get excited about it for a day.  They let you have your fun - return the favor and let them have theirs. Go Colts and yay LOST! :)

The other day I happened to run across my birthday card from my parents last year.  My parents... yep, signed "Mom & Dad".  It almost made me cry then... I had to take a moment.  Well, today I have my stack of birthday cards from this year sitting on my dining room table.  And I picked up the one from my mom.  My mom... just signed "Love, Mom".  It's the weird little things like that that really make it sink in.  I mean, they're both in my mom's handwriting - I know she signed both of them whether or not they were signed "Mom" or "Mom & Dad".  But it's just the reality of it - my birthday cards are just from my mom now.  I wonder if signing them that way makes her cry too.  I wouldn't blame her if it does. I think I realized yesterday something I hadn't quite admitted to myself yet.  I often have a big Halloween party every year, it's something I look forward to.  But this year I'm not, and I keep attributing it to the fact that I have a class that meets pretty much all weekend next weekend, over Halloween.  That really is preventing me from not having a party, but the reality of it is... I'm not that into Halloween as much this year.  Because the Wednesday after Halloween, November 4, is my dad's birthday.  And that's been on my mind about as much as Halloween, honestly.  It's so weird... in my family, we've always had birthdays every month from August to November, and then my parents' anniversary is in December.  And with each birthday, it just seems weird.  My dad's not here to celebrate.  And what do we do for his birthday?  Nothing?  He's not here to celebrate it.  He didn't make it to 68 years old.  But you can know that it won't pass by unnoticed, I know.  I have a feeling it's on my mom's and brother's minds every bit as much as it is mine. I'm not sure how to end this.  I didn't even know it was going to turn into a long blog post, or so personal.  But that's how I'm feeling.  So if I'm not into Halloween so much this year, well... that's why.  There's someone's birthday I keep thinking about instead. I miss you, Dad.

I've done more reading lately than usual. When I was in college, I had so many textbooks that I was supposed to read that I rarely did much reading for pleasure. It's been a bit difficult to get back into at times - I get distracted pretty easily. But my vacation last week gave me quite a bit of time to relax, disconnect... and read. I was in Chicago a few weeks ago and happened to see a book in Jamba Juice that I read the cover on while waiting for my friends to get their drinks. The book was called The Four Agreements, and inside cover was enough to catch my attention so that I had to go to Borders and buy it before the day was over. I read it pretty quickly the first few days of my vacation. I do have to say, some of this book came off as a bit New Age-y to me, and I kind of just glossed over it. But the basic principles of the book - the four agreements themselves - while simple, definitely gave me some food for thought. Ponder the following: Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. Don't Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret. Pretty profound, at least to me. I mean, they're simple thoughts... but they definitely seem like something good to live by. The book also talked a lot about the other agreements we make with ourselves, the filters that we create or have cast upon us by our circumstances or how we grew up. The things we do in life, our actions and reactions, how we see things, really does have a lot to do with those filters. I think the two statements that had the most impact on me were "don't take anything personally" and "always do your best". As probably anyone does, I do take other people's actions and words personally. But the author of the book is write - usually what someone says or does is way more related to themselves than you or me. And I need to remember that. Feedback is good, but it's impacted by the filters of the person it came from as well. I also have a tendency to beat myself up about a lot of things. I've blogged about this before. That's why what the author had to say about "always do your best" made a lot of sense to me. If I focus on always doing my best, realizing that my best doesn't mean always doing everything perfectly, I have no reason to beat myself up. If I'm sick, my best probably won't be as good as it is when I'm feeling better - but it's still my best in that moment, and if I know that I've done my best, I have no reason to be disappointed in what I've done. I'm adding these two to my commandments, so here they are - commandments #4 and #5: 4. Don't take anything personally. 5. Always do your best.

Finally, here it is... the next one. (See previous posts - My 10 commandments and Commandment #2.) 3. Be me. I've been having a hard time of it lately. Now, usually I consider myself a pretty strong, independent individual that gets along just fine in life, generally. But lately I've been struggling with depression quite often. I'm not too concerned - I've got plenty of people to talk to and people that watch out for me. And I'm pretty sure it's related to the death of my dad three months ago. There's been several deaths and hard circumstances in my life over the last few years, including the death of my dad, my uncle, and two cousins that were significant parts of my life growing up. And I think it's just all starting to catch up to me. I've read that depression is a part of the grieving process. I think it's pretty normal, and I'm just trying to ride it out the best that I can while taking advantage of the support system that I have. This depression and struggle with life and motivation in general has contributed to insecurities and worthiness issues that are usually just a small part of my life struggles from time to time. Lately they've become even more pronounced. Here's one such example. I look around my life and start to compare myself and how I think to the people around me. I start to see girls that are thinner and think that I should be thinner. I see girls that put more time and money into their appearance, like getting manicures or wearing trendier clothes and wonder if I should do that too. Should I be smarter, more successful, thinner, prettier, do more "popular" things, have a better or cleaner apartment, spend my money more wisely? All of these are questions that have popped into my head lately and made me doubt myself. But here's the thing... if I really dig deep, I know myself. I know who I am and what I'm like. I'm really smart... I got my bachelors degree from Purdue University with a 3.8 GPA. I'm soon to be working on my MBA from Indiana University. I have a good job as a software engineer. I'm a good friend, with a fun personality and a good sense of humor. While I'm not the perfect weight I might like to be, I'm pretty. But I don't really care all that much about putting an abundance of time, energy, or money into fitting into the standard of what's popular. I'd probably be content to just dress like a college student for the rest of my life, wearing mostly hoodies, jeans, and flip flops. I'm most definitely a geek. I like to swing dance, I'm a Star Wars nut (I even dated a stormtrooper), and I volunteer to help homeless kids. That's me. So why should I worry about whether who I'm being or what I'm doing is right or wrong according to someone else's standards? I'm pretty great just being who I am.

Ok, so I know that I didn't quite follow through on my promise and continue my story of Memorial Day weekend. But my boyfriend, Ricky - a blogging fanatic - has recounted pretty much the whole thing on his own blog. And since I've had a few busy weekends and some deadlines at work lately, rather than tell the whole thing over myself - this time I will just be a slacker and point you to his blogs about the trip, if you'd like to know the rest of the story: Surprise Weekend Getaway: Part 1 Surprise Weekend Getaway: Part 2 Surprise Weekend Getaway: Part 3 And of course I just realized that he never did a Part 4, talking about our trip to Cedar Point, the actual highlight of the trip. Oh well... there are always the pictures.

Besides being a social event and a chance for good conversation and connection with people, Mo*Con also made me think. Standing outside of the building on Saturday of the event, I found myself in a conversation with Kelli Dunlap. The panel happening at the time was about the writing business, and I had decided to skip it and use the time to head home to let my dog out and go get my copy of Orgy of Souls (to be signed by Maurice and Wrath). Upon telling Kelli this, she asked me, "are you a writer?" I wasn't sure what to say... I mean, at this point the whole convention had made me actually consider writing more. But how do I answer that question? I blog. I journal. I do like to write. And I never seem to have trouble having the words flow pretty freely. And it is something I enjoy. But had I ever tried to get a story published? Not even close. So I didn't know what to say. Kelli termed me a "hobby writer" and told me that that was perfectly okay and not to let anyone tell me any different. She's right, at this point. But even my "hobby writing" hasn't been much of a focus lately. But maybe it should be. One thing I took away from Mo*Con was the feeling that I'm lacking something. I've heard that to be happy in life, you need a good balance of all your "life areas". One of those life areas is spirituality. And to me right now - I believe that connection and creativity are a big part of what spirituality is in my life... two things that I found in abundance at Mo*Con. As far as creativity goes - I'm not much of an artist, but I DO like to write. So I've decided. In an effort to increase creativity and gain some spiritual balance in my life, I'm going to write more. There's no rhyme or reason to it, and no publishing of stories will be sought after any time soon. Heck, I don't even know if stories will be written. But something will be. Right now, my focus is just doing it. It's easy to get caught up in the things in life that it feels like have to be done, and to not do the things that really are necessary for fulfillment that just don't seem as pressing. But I need the creative outlet. I need the channel for paying more attention to the world around me and the wonder it contains. So be it blog post, journal entry, or whatever may flow out... write I will. I guess I am a writer.

And now - back to reality. After a weekend full of... well, not normalcy - I'm just trying to get back in the swing of things. This weekend was Mo*Con, the annual convention that my friend Maurice has hosted for the last 4 years here in Indy. I could probably never do Mo*Con justice trying to describe what it is, so I will just link you to his blog and tell you that really it's mostly a family reunion for Maurice and his writer friends. Now what does that have to do with me? Well, I'm not entirely sure... let's just say that I've met some of these writer friends and they tend to be pretty cool people, so I really just decided to come join the fun. I enjoyed the panels that I listened to. One was about writing and relationships that I thought had some points that I believe could be applied to relationships among non-writers as well. I especially liked Kelli Dunlap's comment about how for a good relationship to have the proper balance, there needs to be "my time, your time, and our time". There was also some good conversation to be had surrounding this topic. Another good panel was the one about religion and faith or the lack thereof. Wrath James White gave a "sermon" about atheism and why he chooses to not believe there is a God, followed by Maurice's account of why he does believe in God. Following this was a panel about the subject along with some more good conversations over the course of the weekend. The poetry was good, the food was good, the art was good, but probably the best part of the weekend was the people and conversation. I made some new friends, spent time with some old ones, and overall got to spend some quality time with interesting and intelligent people. I feel like lately I've lost a bit of myself, gotten caught up in the shallowness of society and forgotten some sides to life, some sides to me. The part of me that sees (and seeks) wonder and creativity and connection in the world. The part that doesn't care about trying to match up to society's standards of what should be chased after or found interesting. It might have only been a couple of days, but there's an uplifting of spirit that I obtained from Mo*Con that I hope continues to last. Among the people I met, re-met, or re-connected with this weekend are Kelli Dunlap, Alethea Kontis, Michelle Pendergrass, Wrath James White, Jason Sizemore, Linda Addison, John C. Hay, and a few more. It was good to spend time with Maurice and his clan as well. In some ways, I almost felt out of place considering I'm not a professional writer and felt like more of a fangirl. But hopefully they didn't mind too much. I really admire Kelli and Alethea. They seem like confident women that were an encouragement to a girl that's struggled to find her worthiness lately. And people like Jason and Wrath are proof that not all guys are into the skinny blonde Barbie image that our society seems to want every girl to kill herself to obtain. So I come out of the weekend with a renewed sense of... something. Maybe it's creativity. Maybe it's my own worthiness. Maybe I just needed a bit of a vacation. But whatever it is, I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out and where it might take me.