Bermuda Bahamas Come On Pretty Mama

Ok I definitely live for Friday's like this. At this time tomorrow I will be driving down the coast to my beach destination for T and T's wedding in the Outer Banks where we will be spending a whole week in a quaint little beach house with a hot tub half a block away from the beach. Mmmmmm I can hear the waves crashing now. This means I have approximately 4.5 hours of work left today and surprisingly I have not yet "checked out" as they say. I am trying to get a lot done today so that I will not be crazy busy when I get back. I am reeeealllly praying that it doesn't rain because I have not had a real beach vacation in years and I want to come back with a tan. I bought another new book to take with me so I am excited to get some time to kick back and read. I am sure we'll have a great time rain or shine, but a few prayers can't hurt!

Perfect Day to Break Away

It is such a relaxed and chill day at work day, which was much needed after yesterday. Today is one of those days, like most Fridays, where put on my ipod and just breeze through the work. The Rascal Flatt's song Break Away came on and today just hit me and had so much meaning to me it's crazy. Most of the time when I turn my ipod on at work I don't hear it...I don't listen to the words...but this song just hit me.

Let's disappear, gotta jet out of here
Feel the wind across our face
We'll have some fun, gonna dance on the run
It's a perfect day to break away

All I want to do today is just break away. I want to break away from work, from daily tasks, from negativity, from people that have hurt me. I am going to break away. It is really the perfect day to break away.

I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend. I will be spending mine with some of the people that mean the most to me and I cannot wait!

Real Housewives

Ok so I will whole-heartedly admit that I am strongly to addicted to everything Housewives, whether it be Desperate Real, Really Fake, whatever. Of course my boyfriend is not so fond of this obsession, but I always tell him that I like to keep drama out of my life and watch it on tv instead. Rerun after rerun it's being embedded in my head that while a lot of this is not real, a lot of it is what people don't want to believe is real. I mean come on, people are constantly talking about how these shows are scripted and fake and whatnot, but who can honestly say that gossip, vanity, fakeness, and greed are not real? As much as I try to keep the draa out of my life, these same things that I see these women deal with week after week are constantly a part of my life and of those around me. If they did a show of my life would it turn out the same way? I mean the Housewives are all incredibly rich so that would sure be lacking here but I wonder...

So when can we decipher what is real and what isn't? I have a hard time with some of the people in my life figuring out when they are telling the truth and when they are elaborating, making up stories, and manipulating people. I have my moments where I want to become Kelly and just live in my own made up world where everything is happy. I know that there are struggles and temptations to do and be all of these things that maybe we shouldn't be. There are times when I could watch a taping of the people in my lives to see something closer to the truth, though I think seeing how it had ended up for most of the housewives, I will continue to be happy in my own little "Kelly" world where everyone is nice and happy :) 3 Weeks until Vacation!

Go Hard or Go Home

I haven't written for awhile, and I have had this overwhelming and developing idea in my head for quite some time, I just haven't had time to write. I feel it necessary to write on Fridays because that was my original idea, so here I am, finally finding a free moment to do so.

For the last few weeks I have really started to analyze the words and thoughts of the people around me, in particular in relation to stress and hard work. I have been really bothered by the mentality of some people and I think it weighs heavily on me because I have a really strong work ethic. Ok so even though I am sitting here taking time to write this while I am at work, I thought this would be the perfect time because this is just the place for thoughts to come to me about this topic.

I grew up in a very blue collar family. I am the first person in my family (very extended family excluded) to obtain a bachelor's degree. I consider myself very fortunate because many of my family members did not have this opportunity. This has allowed me to have a "cushy" job as I would call it. My significant other and I, like many other couples, live comfortably but not extravagantly with the jobs that we have.

Growing up, watching my parents work full time and then go to their odd side jobs like working in retail stores, cleaning office buildings, installing HVAC systems, teaching aerobics classes, etc I have to say that it was VERY rare to hear them complain about their jobs or complain about having to work so hard. As I say this I think about my grandparents and great grandparents who not only worked all day, but had to go gather the eggs from the chickens in the morning, hang out all of their laundry to dry every night, and still at their worst moments they were talking about how great life is.

In today's world there is this major push for efficiency so that we can all make as much money as possible. A push to create gadgets and computers and machines that will make life simpler. I am not sure how I can call myself "old-fashioned " given that I am so young, but I hate it. I mean yeah all these things are really neat and I am constantly impressed that someone had the knowledge and ability to develop these tools, but I can't help but think that the things that are designed to make life simpler sometimes fail to do so.

Ok so back to my real thought...I don't think a lot of young(er) people know what hard work is. They want everything in life to be fast and easy. Every day I hear people at work complaining about how hard it is. I can't help but think my job would have been a lot harder 15 years agao when computers were not the standard, when everything was done by hand, when we didn't have all of these procedures in place to handle certain situations. But it really isn't even the technology and the idea of wanting things done fast and easy that gets to me the most, it's the complaining. Every single day it's "I'm tired" "I'm too stressed" "I don't have time for myself and family" "I hate my job" "This is just too hard on me" "This process is just too complicated" and it just gets ollllld. Sometimes at work it makes me want to rip my hair out just listening to it.

Jobs are jobs. Nobody likes to have to work. Sometimes things can't be made easier no matter how many times you try to change the process. A lot of the time if you fix one thing, something else will go wrong. These are my mottos. I also think that we might as well just suck it up so that we have more time to focus on what is important in life like loving, laughing, and remember that working allows us to have money to do all the things that we want and need to do in life and is just a fact of life. For now I am happy that I don't have to gather my eggs from a chicken or clean up other people's crap in an office building to make a few extra bucks...unfortunately some day I might.

Work hard, play hard.

Addictions Ashamictions

I feel like I have been bombarded with the topic of addiction this week. Earlier this week I sat down with co-workers at lunch and chatted about the food industry and how they make food addictive to us consumers. One person said that she had read an article in which the author explained the science and combination of additives and fats and attractiveness that make it impossible for us to resist certain foods. In it the author exclaims that people should not feel bad about the fact that they just cannot stop eating those Lays potato chip, pasta at the Olive Garden, and Snickers bars because they are a victim of the food industry. The makers of these products have done research on the perfect combination of all that is unhealthy so as to seduce you into a food oblivion.

Now I don't know about you, but I have seen addiction. We typically think of addiction to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes, or whatever. We watch this from the privacy of our own homes through shows like Intervention and Addiction amongst many others. This is what a lot of people think of when they hear the word addiction; needles, bags, deceit, depression, dependency. I even worked for an agency that did research with addicts, so I have "seen it all" so to speak.

If there is one thing I learned through a lot of these media outlets and personal experience, it is that an addict who seeks treatment of any sort needs to be willing to take responsibility, to admit that they have a problem, to understand what is causing them to continue with the addictive behavior.

Of course I do not know what article I am referencing here, but how is it ok then for the author of that article to tell people that it's ok to overeat and to tell them not to feel bad that they are doing so because the fault lies with the manufacturers, developers, etc of these products. This seems a little ridiculous to me. If people who are addicted to crack must must admit their wrongdoing and that they are part of the problem, than those with addictions to food should follow the same path. We shouldn't be telling people to blame others for their addiction.

I never thought so much about food addiction. It seems like an inconceivable concept to most because it is food...not crack, not alcohol, not any of the things that society looks down upon. In our society it is socially acceptable to overindulge....as long as you stay thin that is.

A Long Time Coming

Ok so a long time ago there existed this thing called live journal. In fact, people probably still use xanga or live journal, but it is my opinion that as a grown up, I have to move on from calling my ramblings a "journal" and create something more sophisticated, i.e. a blog.

I've been reading others blogs and decided that this is something I want to do for the time being. I always enjoyed putting my thoughts out there for "the world" to see. So here it is, my first "blog." Every Friday I'd like to write about things I have been thinking about about that week. No real theme, just whatever comes to mind. I am open to and would love to hear your comments as my readers. Hopefully this will not only be therapeutic for me, but will also encourage all of you to think about things that you don't think about on a daily basis. Oh and don't worry, no real names will be used, only pseudonyms!

This week I have been thinking a lot about interpersonal relationships. I have a conflict going on in my life right now that has been causing me a great deal of stress and pain. If anyone knows me, I like to keep stress out of my personal life and leave it at work. Right now I am unable to do that. Vague, I know, but it leads me to my question...

So I was wondering, was it always like this? Did people always talk behind each others backs, pretend that liked people, and say hurtful things about one another? I'm not talking about Bible times here, or ancient ruins, I'm talking your grandparents or my grandparents, or their parents...did they treat each other the way that we do now? I mean if your grandparents are like most, you probably look at them and think they don't have a harmful bone in their bodies, but maybe that's just because after so many years they just stopped.

Now I've done my fair share of talking about people, don't get me wrong, but at 25 I feel like it's time to be done with it. I never liked treating people that way, and 99% of the time I felt guilty for doing it, but I did. Is there a point that we can just announce to the world that we're over it, and that we can handle whatever someone has to say so just bring it on! I never thought I'd have to do that. I mean, I always thought that at some point everyone just grows up and that everyone would just be able to say whatever they are feeling, whatever is on their mind, whether it hurts someone else or not.

I have always believed in honesty. I believe it can work. I believe that if I am honest, then I am real and I deserve the respect and love of others. I wish I could say that I could go back and change the way that things are, but if that's really the way it's always been then I am not hopeful. And if it's always been this way, then I suppose I can look forward to the day when everyone just grows up, like our grandparents seem to have done.

All I know is that I will continue to speak up, to not treat others the way that they have treated me. To give the person that has been causing my pain the benefit of the doubt and to be honest with them. Then I will remind myself that even though it probably didn't make a damn bit of difference, I am true to who I believe I am. I will continue to ask that they do the same...because I'm a big girl now and I can handle it.