Team Edward

I figure, if you're gonna be a loser, go all in. And that's what we're doing. Ashlee and I will be seeing New Moon at midnight tonight and we are very excited about it. She wanted a t-shirt so I had to make us both shirts and they turned out so cute that I'm actually excited to wear it.You should know that I individually placed each of those 'rhinestones'. That is dedication.

Now, clearly, I'm on Team Edward, which leaves Ashlee to be on Team Jacob. This really shouldn't surprise anyone. Jacob is sweet and sensitive and would never hurt Bella while Edward is smooth and sexy and badass. (Spoiler Alert!)While I like Jacob,I don't understand rooting for the losing team. We read the books, we know how it ends! Anyway, I'm excited and I don't care how lame it is.

Weekend Update

I don't really have any stories, but I haven't written this week so I'm writing something. Anything. I haven't decided yet. Just writing. Well, I might write something funny later, but for now here's an update. I'm at work. Got in this morning and realized I was wearing blue tights instead of black. Why do I even own blue tights?!? Fortunately, I live 50 feet away so I ran home and changed. Then we discovered that two apartments were broken into. Someone kicked the doors in. Why do people do this? They took one lady's "big screen TV" (I don't really know what she meant by that and I'm kind of curious to be honest - was it a flat screen? how big? old school big screen? I'm just curious) They didn't take anything from the other guy. He told me he didn't have a big screen so that must be why. Neither of them had renter's insurance so this is your friendly reminder to get renter's insurance if you are renting an apartment. It's cheap and so worth it if anything ever happened! So that's my day so far. The good news is that I'm off this weekend - WOO HOO! - so I just need to get through today.

Generally speaking, I've been really happy lately. Nothing has really changed that I'm aware of, but from day to day I'm just really happy. So I thought I'd share in case anyone out there is still worried about me. The cool part about this is that I'm not happy because of some guy or even some great new job. (That all still sucks)I'm just happy with me. So basically I rock and can now do anything. Speaking of, I've been busy lately. I decided I'm going to start working on a novel. I like to write and having been throwing around ideas in my head and in my journal for a while so I'm going to actually put pen to paper as they say. My mother, however, thinks I should write a self-help divorce book as she believes that would be more profitable (it's doubtful that anything I write will be profitable, but not for lack of awesomeness) so I'm working on that, too. It's like a fun spin on a depressing divorce book. I'll keep you posted on my progress. On top of the books, I've decided become a life coach. I don't really know if you can do that legally without a license, but I'm looking into it. I just spend a lot of my time cheering people up and telling them how to live their lives more successfully (for the privacy of my clients, I cannot share their personal information) and I've decided I'm good at telling people what to do (insert mean joke here) and people do that for a living so it's something I'm considering.

Shondell Out

Wild Strawberries

I have this resident who is kind of off. He's always nice, but just really different. I actually leased him an apartment when he lived at a different property I worked at and then again where I am now so I've known this guy forever. Well he just came in to talk about rent and some other things and I'm talking to him. Now, I'm not really as interested in talking to residents as some people - Joe for instance, will talk to anybody for an hour. Soups did the same thing. He really cared about his residents. Not that I don't...I want them to be happy and healthy, but I don't really want to hear about it. I know that makes me sound like a bad person. So you should know that I listen and nod and smile and laugh at their stories because I know they might just need to talk to somebody. Now the point of all that back story is to make you understand that when this guy was talking, I was mostly just nodding along. He's a sweet guy, but just talks about odd stuff. So I was pleasantly surprised when I enjoyed his story. We were talking about pets because he had to pay a pet fee and he asked if I liked dogs or cats and I told him I had a dog. He asked what kind and I told him she's a mutt, and that we're not really sure what she is. He thinks mutts are the best. He's had some purebreds and they were stupid or mean, but always had good luck with mutts. I agreed. Then he starts telling this story about how lucky he was to live on a farm growing up. They had cats, but they were mean. He's since grown to love cats and their cat is now a member of the family. They would have paid more than the $200 pet fee for her. Anyway, he grew up on a farm in southern Indiana and there was a railroad track at the back of their property. He's telling me how there was a big, what he called an impasse, leading out to this railroad track. He's telling me how it was pure Indiana prairie out there. He just loved it. And out on this prairie, these wild strawberries grew. Wild strawberries, he says, are just the absolute sweetest strawberries you've ever tasted. And that's like a mutt. They are a little wild, but just the sweetest.

I thought that was the neatest analogy. I had never heard anyone compare a dog to a wild strawberry, and I thought, 'That is Tilly'. She is wild, but the sweetest dog. Now you should know, when he started talking about the railroad track and the prairie, I had no idea where he was going with this story and I was floored when be brought it back to the dog thing. This may be why I was so impressed with it. I totally didn't see it coming. Regardless, I'm just glad I was paying attention in between nods and smiles.

Happy Fall from Tilly!

I think this is as close as I'm gonna get to dressing Tilly up for Halloween, as cute as that would be! :-) I haven't posted pictures of her in a while so I thought you'd all be interested in seeing how beautiful she's gotten. She's just about a year old. I think she was born around the first of October, although nobody's 100% sure. She was about 3 1/2 months old when I got her according to the vet who spayed her. Anyway, she's calming down a little bit, but still causes trouble occasionally. You should know that in the time it took me to write this blog, the stuffed jack-o-lantern has been destroyed.

It's Tuesday, right?

I know it's Wednesday and I'm sorry. I was sick yesterday and didn't do much of anything. I still have a touch of a fever, but I have to go to work because the owners are coming and Joey just won't know what to do if I'm not there. :-) So I'm toughing it out.

It's almost Halloween and this is the most thought I've given it so far. I'm not real big on dressing up and I clearly don't have any plans so I'm just not worrying about it. Maybe something will come up, maybe it won't. Whatev. My fall back is always the animal ears. Oh and I have those awesome hippy pants that I made last year (that's right, made). OK, now I kind of want to do somthing. :-) There wasn't a lot of photographic evidence of those pants last year so I'd like to wear them again. On that note, if anybody is doing anything or wants to do anything, let me know. There is a volleyball match that night so I could just go to Lafayette for that and avoid the whole "what to do?" fiasco. I kind of want to dress Tilly up. Maybe I'll make her a hippy outfit to match mine! How cute would that be?!? Or lame, but whatever.

Throw me a bone!

I'm making a real effort to write more. I've gone to more of a quantity over quality approach, and am posting more shorter entries. I feel like this is working for me and we're getting some entertaining stuff. It's not all brilliant, but it doesn't have to be because I'm writing so much more. It's a lot less pressure which I love. The problem is that I'm not getting any feedback. You all know there is a place for comments. If you don't feel comfortable posting so publicly, feel free to shoot me an email or a text. I would just like to know somebody is reading besides Ashlee.

Now that that's out of the way. Not a lot of other news. We went and visited Lindsay last weekend. It was fun. So good to see Lindsay! And nice to have a couple days off. Also, my dad just called to invite me down to Florida in December (Don't freak out, Ash! Call me and I'll fill you in) I am so excited and think I might actually be able to get off work and make it happen. The beach is just what I need! Also a good motivator to lose some weight. I'm feeling fat. Especially after finding a picture from 4 years ago when I was so cute. And we're getting a tanning bed in the clubhouse for residents (i.e. me) to use for free. So hopefully by Dec. 16 I'll be skinny AND tan. It doesn't get much better than that! OK, I'm gonna go color my hair. Maybe leave a comment. Let me know you're out there.

Red Devil Volleyball

So as predicted I am tired, but I am writing because it is Tuesday. Despite my predjudice to all things north of 96th street, I made the journey to Fishers High School to see Fish coach the Richmond Red Devils. I'll share the highlights.

NOTE: I just started writing my blog based on the notes that I made while (intently)watching the match, but decided that the notes were better than the long version so I'm just posting the notes.

1. Tall-ass camera (as described by Kyle that is apparently drug around to all matches)
2. Dean Knapp - Scarred me for life (JV coach for Richmond and younger brother of a girl I used to play with. He once held me under water for so long I thought I was going to die)
3. Jarett Habel - Ultimate Frisbee (Asst. coach at Fishers and a former Purdue manager. The only real conversation we ever had was about ultimate frisbee)
4. Wish I'd had my camera (to document Fish coaching)
5. How does Fish's hair affect his coaching??
6. Fishers is fancy (it cost $5 to get in and they had amazing concessions), but the gym is so 2000 - very dated.
7. A few people might think I'm a college scout. I knew I should have worn a shirt from an obscure university that might actually be recruiting at that match (ex. U of I, Rose Hulman)
8. Sideout cheer - it's been a while since I've gotten to hear one of those...for real...from real high school volleyball players.
9. WTF is up with 3 out of 5? It's just too long for a high school match.
10. I was completely disappointed by the absence of Magic Passing Bands on either team in the gym.

All in all, it was good volleyball and a good time. Richmond lost in three games, but they were good games. It was very entertaining. And it was good to see Fish. That's all for now.

Shondell Out.