Mug from above

Coffee is crucial in the morning. In the summer months this nectar of the gods provides caffeine...but in the winter it has a dual purpose.
Warmth and Energy.
I took a hiatus from coffee for a month or two...just because I'm lazy. But now that its -30 when I wake up in the morning, coffee has made its way back into my life.

The dilema with coffee is the travler mug.

For those that have the perfect traveler you would not understand the difficulty that comes from having a bad traveler. It's like taking a newborn to a movie...just not worth it in the end. So it is with bad travel mug. The only one we have in our house is one of the short pudgy ones. I have the Danny DeVito of coffee mugs (compared to the ideal tall, skinny travler...aka Heidi Klum). Now let me explain why the DeVito mug looks cute..but fails miserably!
1. Too fat to fit in cup holders. This COMPLETELY null and voids the purpose of a traveler. Instead of being hands free I have to either drive with one hand or master the art of driving with it in between my legs. (This never ends well)
This leads me to number 2....
Devito Mug is not air tight. Nope. When this thing tips over (see #1) coffee goes everywhere. You might as well take the lid off and just pour it on the floor- exact same end result.
These are the main reasons I gave up coffee. I'm too lazy and the effort to enjoy it in the car wasn't worth it! Also, I was way to cheap to go buy a new one and I hadn't seen the Ideal Traveler. I wasn't going to drop $20 bucks on another "accident waiting to happen". So I just gave up.

That is until the "Mug from Above."
I came home the other week and there was a stainless steel coffee traveler sitting in my drive way. You could say it looked like it was waiting for someone. (Me? I asked) I racked my brain for who's it could be....none of my family drinks coffee. No one had been at the house (that I knew of) for a couple days. And yet this Perfect traveler sat in the driveway. Could it have been forgotten....travesty. Or possibly a gift....I like that idea. Well, honestly either way I was going to take it. It looked perfectly clean...no left over coffee inside(thankfully!) I took it as a present from above. The Lord knew it was going to be getting cold soon...so he left me a mug :)
I did't realize "Mug from Above"'s full potential until our first experience together. This miracle mug is completely spill proof. I could launch that sucker into the air and not spill a drop! Also, I press a button to trigger the mouth to open so there is no whops I left the mouth open now my coffee is freezing...or spilled. And the most impressive thing....I brewed this coffee at 7:30 this morning. Didn't drink all of it....decided to see if it's still decent.
2 PM...Coffee is STILL WARM! Impressive!
This mug will make these winter months so much more bareable...and accident proof. So thank-you mysterious mug giver... I appreciate it!

I...

I Am: looking forward to the Holidays and eating way too much!
I Have: a new job, which is amazing
I Think: too much sometimes
I Know: that I am destined for greatness. But I forget my potential sometimes.
I Dislike: collard greens...and easily offended people
I Miss: the care-free days of college
I Fear: failure
I Feel: tired, excited, happy, scared, joyful, and especially cold.
I Want: to succeed
I Smell: fall in everything.
I Crave: chocolate. Or ice cream would be awesome too!
I Cry: rarely. And when I do it usually sneaks up on me
I Usually: wonder where the weekend went
I Search: for something good in everyone.
I Wonder: if I'll realize when I'm doing exactly what I was called to do. Will it hit me and be like " Oh THIS IS IT!"
I Care: about what people think way to much
I Love: laughing with friends and family more than anything!
I Regret: having not clung to every moment in highschool and college.
I Always: want to make wonderful memories
I Worry: way too much
I Am Not: perfect
I Remember: when my biggest worry was the spelling test on Friday.
I Dance: in the car and in front of the mirror...a lot.
I Don't Always: think before I speak
I Write: because I don't understand until I've written my thoughts out.
I Win: all the time! Unless I'm playing my brother Mitchell.
I Wish: poverty didn't exist
I Argue: very rarely
I Listen: to country because I love the stories the lyrics tell
I Lose: my purpose in life's business
I Don't Understand: why people would believe there isn't a God.
I Can Usually Be Found: in the bathtub. I love water and I love being warm!
I Am Scared: of being chased. Therefore, I usually hate Hide N' Go Seek
I Need: to learn to trust
I Forget: things a lot. I use sticky notes
I Am: excited about these new stages in my life and where they will take me!

Flu Season

I hate throwing up. Hate, Hate, HATE IT! Thankfully, this is only a miserable experience I go through every 7 years. However, whenever Flue season comes around I get scared. If someone near me is even thinking about being nausiated, I wear a face mask and stear clear. My roomate was sick last year....I wouldn't even go in her room. I love taking care of people when they are sick, but I have no tolerance for vomit.

Why? Because when I throw up I pass out. Yup. That's right. The gag reflex makes me black out. Unconscious. Its not fun. I discovered this in highschool when the morning of homecoming I got sick and kept waking up on the floor by the toilet. This resulted in a huge headache and since the I have learned to pad the floor near the tub and toilet with towels.

Why on earth am I talking about this?? Because it's Flu season and I'm getting scared. The intern who works with me has felt awful all day...nauseous. She said her roomate has been throwing up the past 3 days!! My reaction: oh...go HOME! If you don't feel good you really should get some rest. Don't worry about work...it'll be fine. (This all said as I back away from her)

Seriously, I avoid sickness at all possible. At lunch, I went out and bought Purell to soak my hands in the rest of the day. If I could get my hands on some Lyscol spray....our storage room would be a fog of disinfectant. I keep thinking of where the germs might be. Ugh...on my keys. Can't rub that down in Purell. OH...the doorknob is definately contamiated! So I've been walking around all day trying not to touch anything with my hands (elbows can be used for a lot!)

However, this reminded me of my all time worst/funniest sick story. So I felt like those who don't already know it..would love it!
Let me set the stage: May of last year....end of semester test are coming up....and I've just started dating Will. (We're talking like just over a month...still fresh.)

So, I wake up one morning feeling very nausiated. End up passed out on the floor in my bathroom. I crawl out of my bathroom and throw a shoe at Natalie's door (roomate) in hopes that she's awake. Not likely...its 6:00 A.M. and she sleeps HARD.


NAAATTTTAAAAALLLLIIIIEEEE is my sick call.

She comes and takes care of me for a little bit, but keeps her distance. She calls Will because she has to go take a test and my "NEW" boyfriend comes over to see his girlfriend curled up, fetal position, on the floor with the chance of throwing up again very likely. He was awesome and took great care of me.
Now fast forward...
I warned him I passed out when I throw up but after having been sick 5 times already...I figure I'm done, so not much of a threat anymore.

Wrong.

I'm laying in the bed in my sweats while he studies German. Suddenly I get a hot flash...(menapause?? really?) so I get up the energy to go to the bathroom and put on some shorts. I let Will know he doesn't need to check on me because I'm not that sick anymore. So wrong. I get in the bathroom and get the sweat pants off. As soon as they clear my ankles I feel another wave of nausea. Oh man...not good. I knock over a glass on the way to to toilet and it shatters. Immediately Will is at the door screaming for me. I, irritated at my clumsiness, tell him I'm fine. (this is while I'm hanging over the toilet waiting for the wave to pass.) You know where this is going....Yup, gag reflex....blackout.
Next thing I remember is Will is calling my name and I feel him pulling me by my arms out from between the tub and the toilet.

I was mortified! Oh my gosh did I pass out in my sickness!??

He chuckled....No. But you are in your underwear.

UGH!!! REALLY!!!! More embarassment. This is just ridiculous!

He then sweetly asks (after propping me up against the wall) if I want him to leave. I shake my head embarrassed and ask if he could just hand me my pants and put me back in my bed.

I give him props for not running for the hills. Girl passed out in the bathroom in her underwear isn't really a good start to a relationship. But he stuck around....and 20 minutes later when he found me again passed out in the bathroom he even chuckled a little bit.
And this is why for the next 4 months Airborn and Purell are gonna be my best friends!

Like your snakes

I often wonder if people act the same way when they were kids. You, but just in a mini version. My mother told me a story the other day that I feel like best sums me up as a person, and after my mother told me this story I am certain now that, at least with me, not much has changed.

Apparently when I was little my mother said I was full of questions and was a very observant 3 year old. Hmm…sound familiar. Also, she remembers that I would say whatever it was I was thinking…good, bad.inappropriate (ha of course). It didn’t matter; if I thought it, I found it necessary to let everyone know. Years ago someone said that my mental filter was broken.

this is proof that I probably never had one.


Well I was about three and my mother took me to a McDonald’s and while she was ordering she set me up on the counter. However, much to her chagrin she noticed that the guy taking our order had some intense tattoos. His tattoo was of a giant snake going up and down both of his arms…in perfect sight for her chatter-box three year old to notice. I just laugh envisioning my mom noticing last minute and realizing her mistake moments to late to prevent me from seeing these impressive displays of artwork. She tried to order as quick as possible because knowing her inquisitive child, I would probably say something extremely embarrassing if I noticed the tattoos.


Umm...Quarter Pounder and uh, kids meal ...quick. (Nervous glances towards me)


“Would you like cheese?”


“Cheese.....yeah sure.” (More nervous drumming of the finger nails. Eyes darting between the snakes and me quietly observing the slithering artwork.)


“Anything to drink ma’am?”


“Yah that’s fine...how much?” (Receipts go flying as my mother rummages for money as quick as possible)


I stayed quiet the whole time. Impressive right? As my mom picked me off the counter to go sit and eat she probably closed her eyes in relief that I had kept my mouth shut. However, we all know this story doesn’t end with me remaining quiet.

As she picked me up to leave, impressed at my silence, she says that I simply looked up at the guy and very matter-of-factly said…


“Like your snakes.”


With that my mother whisked me away to finish my kid’s meal and hope that my happy meal toy would distract me from further questioning the tattoos.

It could have been a lot worse…


And thankfully my taste in tatoos has changed since then.

Close but no cigar

Fall weather is here.

My favorite running weather.

Came home from work....

got the shoes laced up....

Appropriate running spandex were on.

IPOD....check.

started stretchin....

weather was perfect.

I was ready for a great run.

but instead...

I baked a pie.

sigh. maybe tomorrow.

They found me

I created this blog to fill a void. A void I have a work, when I don't have work. It fit very nicely. If ever I had a good hour of nothingness....get on type blog or stalk some other bloggers (more than you would think) and the hour would fly by! It became my routine....a habit...a soon to find out luxury.

why?

Because they found me.

yup. "they"
"they" is who us interns call the IS&T guys. I don't really remember what it stands for. Something and something and technology. They're the nerds. The Tech grads. The pocket protector wearing, PC's are crap ranting, everyone should get a mac, glass pushing, suspender wearing, probably could do circles around me, tech guys that pretty much ruined our lives. As interns we have work sometimes but we do it frugally because when we finish it...its done. Then we enter the boredom phase. I usually work a little bit. Surf the Internet. Work some more, get a snack. Return to work, write a blog. Stuff like that. But oh, not anymore. You see IS&T's main job is that they monitor everyone at my office's Internet usage. They know who goes to what websites, how often etc. Yeah ....obnoxious. As you may have guessed this has led to the blocking of all the good websites. Facebook...fat chance. MySpace...nope. And the most random and obnoxious one....UGA Football website. Really?
So I discovered that this blogging website wasn't blocked...SWEET....found a way to spend my extra time.
All was going great for the first month or so.....that is until they found me. I had gotten too lax....probably got on too many times a day...or it may just be that I got on it every day. But, never-the-less they found me and blocked me. Sigh. I've tried every loop hole but to no avail. This sucker is good and blocked.
I can just imagine them sitting in front of their computers arguing about what external hardrive is better suited for certain computers....or perhaps discussing their new Apple products.(either way this discussion is probably lame and painful) But they notice...

Hey Jim..computer 4,678bc in the storage room at location 45t7 has been on this website a lot!
Really? What is it!
OMG....we missed one!!! How could we not have seen this!
What...what...what one!?
It's....it's a blog
NO!
Yes! And this computer goes to it all the time..oh and look she's convinced her storage room buddy computer to start going to it to. Now this is just getting out of hand.
Well Ned you know what to do.
Yup. BLOCKED!
*evil nerdy laughter in sues*

So...this is why my posts are fewer and far between. Revenge of the Nerds. Knew I should have been nicer to those guys in high school.

I need an external hard drive

This happened once in college. I went through a busy phase when school started up and I seriously thought I had the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. I couldn't remember the simplest things for the life of me.
Where were my keys? What day was it? What class am I going to....I go to this class every other day but for some reason it's evading me? What did I do this weekend? Did I eat lunch?
Ridiculous stuff like that.
If I had a hard time remembering who the President was in 1804 than I would write it off as just losing pointless information...but no this was CRUCIAL day in day out, can't function if I don't remember it info. I even called my mom and asked her to set up a doctor's appointment because it was getting bad. She reassured me that I simply had too much going on that my brain couldn't remember it all so it simply was dropping information. Ummm not cool. My brain kinda runs everything and suddenly it had gone renegade and turned against me, deciding to drop information and data without asking permission. It was running amuck and doing whatever it felt like....just trying to function. After a lot of training I had it's leash back on and reminded it who was boss and that it couldn't just delete things like my class schedule from memory.
Well....my brain is acting up again. Apparently my new job has it on overload and so once again my brain has started Spring Cleaning my memory and it is deleting important daily functions. Oh I could tell you what so-and-so had in her teeth at Waffle House in 1999, but what I did yesterday....complete loss. It's getting so bad now that I forget crucial stuff at work. I tried to tell someone something important that I had made a note of and midway through talking I literally stopped and my brain informed me that for lack of space it had decided to delete the rest of that memory. Ugh...I stuttered and spat and internally yelled at my brain for making me look like an idiot as I tried to remember. Meanwhile, Co worker thought I had lost my mind....

Oh I just wrote it down...what was it...Oh my gosh I can't remember...hold on it will come to me....hmmm, nope....I'll be right back...there's a sticky note somewhere.

Thanks brain.

So to solve this problem I've started using the ever brilliant invention Post-Its. My desk looks like one giant reminder because I write them about everything....I have Post-its that remind me about other Post-its. I usually have to sort through my stickies to find the one I'm looking for. Yesterday, however, my brain revolted against my counter attack to memory lost. I miss placed a sticky note.

seriously?

It took me a good 10 minutes to locate it...during which I seriously doubted my capabilities to function. I eventually found it...stuck to some random wall...not near my desk. I do not remember putting it there. My brain had apparently gotten an overload of sticky notes so in an attempt to help me organize, it decided to start moving them. At this point I decided I needed to invest in an external hard drive for my brain, that way at the end of the day I can just transfer crucial files and then I don't have to worry about when my brain crashes.

Good news ....I don't have Alzheimer's.... bad news ... I'm impressed every day when I can do the basics.

If you see me driving down 85 confused....someone direct me towards home.