A photo a day....

...gives me something to do in my spare time.

I will admit this one was not taken today, but over this past weekend but it is too cute to NOT share and to kick off a new project:

Sharing secrets on the windowsill.

Plus I'm pretty sure my husband took this. Oh well, from now on, they will be from my pov. And although my way too short for the windows curtains make this picture work, I need to get on that still. Le sigh.

Anyway.

I am going to start carrying my camera with me all the time in an attempt to capture a snapshot from my days. I probably won't upload them every day, but maybe three or four times a week, but I'll try to have a couple pictures each time. And they probably won't be anything fancy, but I need a new hobby (besides reading, it will always be my first hobby-love, but I want something new).

Wee, fun times.

Day Seventeen: Book.

The day we picked up my first set of glasses when I was 6 years old is a day I still remember clearly. I was mostly nervous but a little bit of me was excited. I brought a book (Bearenstein Bears) and read the whole thing out loud to my mom on the way home. My mother said from that day on she would find me in my room, reading out loud to my stuffed animals and later I would spend hours curled up on the couch with a book. Once I started a book, I couldn't put it down and once it was finished I wanted more.

My first book report in the fourth grade was on a biography about Jackie Kennedy. I read it twice just because I was sad when it was over.

I read 10 or 15 V.C. Andrews books the summer between 8th and 9th grade simply because my older sister had left them behind in what was now my room after she moved out. I thought it was weird to have them in my room but to have never read them.

So I did. And then after I read all of them, I took them to a used bookstore and traded them in for more. I was on a first name basis with the lady who owned that store by the end of the summer.

I love books. I've spent countless hours reading in my lifetime but one that stands out on changing my view about something is Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry. It tells the story of a little girl who's family takes in her friend from school during the war. I read it in the sixth grade and it was my first exposure (that I remember) to learning about World War II and the Holocaust. Once I was done, I felt like the world was a different place; that not only good things happen, but also the bad. I remember thinking how my grandparents were alive when these things were happening and I was in complete awe of how big the world really is.

***

My thirst for books will probably never be quenched. I go through phases with types and genres. I've been known to wander libraries for hours, reading backs of books and jacket flaps to find the right one. Reading is such a great escape, plus it's free!

Grateful.

So I'm all over the online social networking world. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter...even a cool little Ning network called Offbeat Bride Tribe. This blog is my own little place...and I know very, very few people (probably just the one real-life friend who follows when she is uber bored) read this, but I don't really care. I'm not really doing this for anyone but myself.

Since all my friends keep up with the surface of what is going on with me via the networks listed above, I felt like I needed a little place to call my own....a place to really dive into the randomness and sometimes ridiculously angsty parts of me....also where people wouldn't wonder....wow, ____'s gone off the deep end again. I really enjoy rambling my thoughts here...again even if no one really reads it. It's the closest thing (besides reading) I have to a hobby these days. Plus I've stumbled across a handful of awesome blogs in the process...and when I do get a bit of feedback from my few and far between comments to them, I love it.

My point to all of this was focused on my Twitter this AM (I usually only update it in the morning and sometimes at night...unless something exciting happens, which usually doesn't happen.) It was something along the lines of, trying to only think positive thoughts today. Now, I can't say I completely succeeded, but I can say my attempt has left me with a very good mood.

I am so very thankful for what I have today. Including my random, not-at-all-popular blog.

It's 2009: What are you doing with your life?

I submitted a rambling piece of writing to a blog http://portraitsofaneconomy.blogspot.com/ which is addressing how the current state of our economy (for lack of better words) sucking is effecting them. (side note: you should check it out, people from all over the country are writing in with all kinds of different stories...mine is the only Ohio one to date...and probably the one with the worst grammar) Ever since then, I've been thinking about my life as a whole and wondering how such an insanely interesting person as myself (ha) got stuck behind a desk, working 40 hours a week at a mostly boring, sometimes frustrating job.

What do I really want to do with my life? Or at least if I do end up working in higher education for the next 30 years (def not at the institution I'm at now...holy jesus, I'd lose my mind), can't at least have awesome hobbies to counteract my seemingly normal day job? Please??

Asking myself these questions makes me realize I'm a grown up now and I decide my hobbies and what I do with my time when I'm not working hard for the money.

I tend to dream more than I do...I want to do a yoga class at this studio that is literally 3 doors down from where I live, but I still haven't signed up. I would love to take an art or pottery class, even though I'm thoroughly un-artistic, but I love to learn an am willing to try. I need to get a kitty in my life before I end up thinking I want to have a baby some day and then having one and remembering all the reasons I have ALWAYS been against reproducing (mostly the whole being in charge of shaping a person's pysche freaks me out....along with my chubby and horrible eyesight genes cursing the poor thing with a childhood filled with hurtful words from little snot-nosed bastards...I've come a long way, but still carry those scars).

I consider myself assertive....but it seems like things that I want to do for myself always fall to the wayside but don't get the wrong idea thinking I'm some martyr. As soon as I get the least bit stressed due to trying to make everyone else happy, I crack and usually get mean and bitchy when I realize I'm unhappy.

I guess the bottom line here is I need to get a life. Sure I have friends, teeny-bopper book series (don't get my started on the Twilight series, I may never shut up) and my slowly growing addiction to cyber-space, but I think I need to start living my Ohio life a little bit more for me.