Hair Color Poll

Some people have very strong opinions about my hair color -- most do not, but if you could...take the time and vote in the poll over there ----->
Here are photos to help you...

Blonde

Brunette

I don't think I look particularly bad with either color, but would like to know which you all prefer. Thanks for taking the time to vote! :)

Instant Gratifaction

Patience is a Virtue. Or so they say. I suppose that is true, but it is so hard for me. I am so impatient. I know it's awful, but it's true. I am 27 years old and I couldn't sleep the night before Christmas. What is that?? I've always been this way. Now Christmas is over and I can't wait for Spring. Christmas - Check, Why is it still cold? Oh, because I have to wait 5 months for warmer weather. Seriously? It's just awful.

And society isn't helping me any. First there are the cliches like fast food and cell phones. We can't wait for anything. But now we have On Demand and video streaming. I just got an X-Box and can stream hundreds of movies and TV shows from Netflix to watch instantly. It's unbelievable. I'm obsessed with it. I decided I might as well go back and watch all 5 seasons of Lost before the premier in a month. Might as well...it's right there. So we've gone from having to wait until a show we liked was actually on TV, to the incredible advancement of TV on DVD which was taken a step further by rental stores. Then we couldn't bother to get up to go to the store so we created Netflix and Blockbuster Online so they would come straight to our mailbox. And now, it's right there, magically waiting for me inside my television. I'm now left to suffer through the last 25 minutes of my work day (don't even get me started on the fact that I'm working the day after Christmas because people can't wait until Monday to see an apartment, pay rent, etc.)until I get home to House of the Rising Sun.

Happy Un-Birthday!

Today is not my birthday. It's not even my half birthday, which fell on Thanksgiving this year so I completely forgot to celebrate. It seems like a lot of people I know are having birthdays this month which has me thinking about birthdays. Yesterday my grandpa celebrated his 80th birthday. Lots of grandparents are 80, but if you sit down and think about it, that's a lot of birthdays. I feel like I've done a lot in my 27.5 years, but 80! That's a lot. So to celebrate this occasion we had a family party (a brunch) for those who could attend at the Greenwood Red Lobster. Yes, I said a brunch. It was the first time I'd visited the Red Lobster at brunchtime, but it was surprisingly busy. We planned to meet at 11:00 and since people were driving a ways, we all were there by 10 'til (well, that's when I got there, everyone else was already there and I have no idea how long they'd been there). The Red Lobster doesn't open until 11:00 so my parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle were waiting in their cars in the parking lot when I pulled in. I hadn't really thought about it being too early for a dinner restaurant to be open until I got there, but what I enjoyed the most about this scene was that my family were not the only people waiting in the Red Lobster parking lot Sunday morning for them to open the doors. There were three or four other carloads of people waiting on that Red Lobster manager to unlock the front door. Who knew? We had a lovely time and my grandpa enjoyed all of the attention.

In other birthday news, with the passing of my (uncelebrated) half birthday and all of these other birthdays I've been thinking about how old I am and how I feel about that, and I have come to a couple of conclusions. 1. I kind of like being as old as I am. I've gone through some phases where I feel like I haven't accomplished what I'd wanted by this time in my life, blah, blah, blah. But I'm kind of over that. I like being in my late-twenties. I feel like a grown up. I can take care of myself and my dog, do what I want-when I want, make my own decisions, and even admire an attractive older man (I saw Jeff Bridges on the Today Show this morning and I don't know what it is, but I'd totally make out with him if I had the chance). So I'm happy in my own skin...even if it is aging. 2. Most of the people that I spend a lot of time with who are "my age" (which is still calculated by what year you graduated high school) are 28 so I guess for that reason, I feel like I'm 28. Even though in reality, I'm a young 27 1/2. Now that I think I'm 28, I'm starting to feel a little bit of pressure because 28 seems like an important year for me. After 28 is 29 and by the time I'm 29, I really do need to have my sh*t together. For this reason, I've decided that I need more than a year to get through everything I need to do when I'm 28 so I'm just going to start being 28 now which gives me more like a year and a half which seems a lot more doable than 12 months, which can just fly by. So that's my plan. I think it's a good one.

Before I sign off, I'd like to send a special shout-out to the inspiration behind today's blog, Robby, who turns 28 today. Happy birthday, Robby, and good luck being 28 for just a year.

Christmas Card Question

So I ordered these Christmas cards with a picture of me and Tilly. (NOTE: This is not an opportunity to tell me how lame it is to send out a card with a picture of me and my dog!) Well, once the cards arrived, I realized that the photo I chose may be a little too cleavagey.

I'm torn because I want your opinion on the appropriateness of this photo card, but I don't want to post the picture because it would ruin the surprise when this card appears in your mailbox. So if you are able, without actually seeing the picture, weigh in on how bad it would be to send these cards out to all my friends and family. If it helps, the picture is from the same photo shoot as a facebook profile picture I posted a few weeks back of me and Till. In the card photo, I'm leaning over so you, the photo viewer, are kind of looking down my shirt.

Once the cards arrived, I decided it was too questionable to risk sending out and thought I'd just take another picture and order new cards. The problem is that now it's time to send cards out and I don't have a new picture. It would just be so much easier to just send out the ones I have.

So I'm asking you all to tell me what you think. Would you or your family be offended by a christmas card picture with a little more cleavage than you were expecting? Let me know what you think.

The Games People Play

I know I'm starting to sound like a boring Carrie Bradshaw column and for that I'm sorry. I'll try to spice it up a bit, but for now I'm venting some more. I'm just sick of all the BS game playing. I don't understand why it's necessary. You meet someone and either you like them or you don't. You like each other, you hang out. You don't, you don't. I think it should basically be that simple. Maybe I'm way off base and the game-playing is in fact just a part of our culture...Like saying please and thank you. If that's the case, I need to get better at it. I'm good at meeting people and flirting. I'm also good at being someones girlfriend. I am not good at the wait 3 days to call and don't text until texted game that gets you from point A to C. This is what frustrates me.

So, after several text messages, e-mails and rainchecks, I finally went out with Jesse... And I am sorry to report that I don't think I will becoming Jesse's girl any time soon. I apologize for getting everyone's hopes up, but it doesn't seem to be meant to be. After literally months of communicating primarily via text message, we found a time to meet when we were both available (obviously, I am terribly busy rarely have time for something as trivial as dating...my dvr is way too full for that). So we went to the Ale Emporium, my favorite restaurant/bar and had a good time. I looked gorgeous and was pretty hilarious although maybe a little on the loud side, as you can maybe imagine. Now I had a curfew for this date because I had to pick Aaron up at the airport at 9, which means I virtually turned back into a pumpkin at 8:30 because that is about when I should have left Ale, but that still gave us a good 2 hours to get to know each other which I thought was sufficient for a first date. He looked just like his pictures, which I was a little suspicious about since I'd been talking to him for so long and never seen him (I was starting to doubt his existence). He was a really nice guy - smart, funny, etc., but there really was no spark as they say. Still, I'd decided that I'd go out with him again if he was interested. So I leave a little before 9, albeit a little later than I should have, to drive to the airport. We hugged goodbye and that was that. I walked away thinking it was in no way a waste of time, but probably wouldn't amount to much. So really I shouldn't have been surprised when I received a text message at 12:17am that read "I'm guessing no spark. It's ok. You're an awesome girl and if you ever want someone to just throw back some beers after work, I'd show. I think you're pretty cool". The thing about this message is that it almost made me want to fight it. Like wait, no spark? You thought there was no spark? With me? This got me wondering if this was all part of the game. Does he send this just to make me want him? Or is it more of a defensive move? I'll probably never know.

So that's where things are now. Back to the drawing board I guess. I'm just sick of the games people play.

The obsession continues...

I cannot get enough of this! It's sad really. And my current favorite song lyric comes from this song as well. This is that.

Anything other than yes is no, anything other than stay is go...Anything less than I love you is lying...

How to: Comment on my Blog

I've had a few people try to comment (at least claim to try and comment), and get hung up where it asks for your google account. You do not have to have a google account to comment. If you do have one, you can log in and use it, but you don't have to. To comment without a google account, click on either "Name/URL" to just type in your name. Or click on "Anonymous" to comment anonymously.

Just in case you're out there dying to comment, and feeling inhibited by the website.

John 14:13

There's this guy - some might call him a bum - who stands on the corner of 96th and Allisonville (right across the street from Riverwood), begging for money with a sign that reads "Family Facing Eviction: Anything Helps". He's out there every month. The first time I saw him, I felt a little bad, but also laughed to myself (imagine an evil laugh) because I could have easily been evicting him. And unfortunately, due to the nature of my job, I have very little sympathy for people who don't/can't pay their rent. I know that is terrible, but it's true. Well now, the guy's out there every month, which only makes me like him less. I imagine he does pretty well on that corner. Just takes him a couple days to make all of his rent money. Not a bad gig, if you think about it. Actually, when you think about it that way, I've got a couple residents I'm going to send out there. Now the guy's out there again (he's probably cleaning up with all the holiday traffic). He even looks a little bit like Santa Claus which is definitely not hurting his cause. So today I find out that not only is he jolly, but he's also spreading the word of God. Apparently, the man is passing out homemade worry stones (or rocks). The man is obviously stealing smooth landscaping rocks from the apartment community that he owes money to, and writing bible verses on them. He's passing these out to people who give him money. Now that's a classy bum!

Shondell Out!

The 3 B's

During Sorority Rush, there were three things we were not allowed to talk about with the rushees. We referred to those as the 3 B's. They were Boys, Booze, and I can't think of the third one. For today, I'm going with boobs. Boys, Booze and Boobs. You'll see why momentarily.

Let's start with boys. They suck. I know this is cliche so I'll keep it brief, but it's true. Even the nice ones are a-holes inside. They can't help it. It's in their DNA or something. Just look at Tiger. If Tiger can cheat on his wife than there's nobody out there who doesn't have that in them. Men in relationships are constantly fighting against their natural urge to be unfaithful. I do not have scientific evidence to back this up...just personal observations. It's hard to fault men for this because I truly believe it is hard-wired in them to be this way. So really we should be rewarding them every time they don't act on these impulses. Now I am digressing because this is not my current man matter. Every issue we as women have with men comes down to this one simple truth. So I'm dating or whatever sort of. And some people in my life like my mother and therapist are concerned that I will avoid going out at all because of my fear of getting hurt and end up holed up for the rest of my life. Well, that may be a little dramatic, but you get the gist. I just need to trust my instincts and not let anybody else convince me otherwise. Nothing really to report on this front which is fine. Moving on.

I have nothing to say about booze, but seeing as how I could only remember two of the three B's, I couldn't leave one of them out.

No, I am not taking advantage of this blog as an avenue to remind you all that I have perfect breasts. Oh look, I went ahead and did it anyway! Anyway, I'm currently in a debate with myself about breast health. This began when my sister called with a story (that I will not share here) which led to her informing me that we should be going braless as much as possible because wearing a bra can increase your risk of breast cancer. Apparently this was on Oprah, which obviously makes it true. I had never heard this before, but I had heard that wearing a bra more - specifically to sleep in was good to maintain breast perkiness. Charina at work (I like to roll the r when I pronounce her name, especially in my head because I can't really roll my r's out loud) has told me that her mother always told her to always wear a bra for this reason. Charina herself is pretty petite, but she claims that her mother is in her 60s and has shockingly perky breasts. So I'm torn. If anybody has any further insight on this bra vs. no bra debate, I would appreciate it.

Same thing on the 3rd B...Let me know if you remember what it was.