Playing Solitaire at Work

Playing solitaire at work is like the most frantic thing I do at work. Its super fast clicking with the back up plan of pulling up windows pretend like I am working everytime I hear footsteps coming up behind me. My desk, being in the front of the office, is wide open for anyone to see what I am doing, so you have got to be CAREFUL!

My tips for solitaire playing at work:

1. REMEMBER, people may be able to see your face, so you have to look like you are doing something more serious than a game of solitaire.

2. Have a window that is work related easily accesible so you can click over to that window quickly if you hear or see someone approaching.

3. NEVER get too committed to a game, because with all this fast clicking around, you may very easily exit your game or click re deal.

4. When taking a break to text, remember, minize the solitaire window, getting caught texting and playing solitaire is never going to look good.


Happy Solitaire playing!

Laziness and Loneliess (not as pathetic as it seems)

I have learned a lot about myself this past weekend. I had the house to myself as well as having to look after another person's house and I realized what levels my laziness and loneliness can reach. The problem is I hate being alone and I am completely unable to function well as a human being when I am completely alone. My laziness, already a strong force, tends to take over all control.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on my bed, catching up on the Tudors, dreading having to drive the two minute drive to the house I am watching in order to water their plants and generally watch over the house. First of all, I was already getting into this paranoid crazy state of mind because when I had gone the other day, someone had taken in their trash barrells, so I knew that someone else was keeping on eye on their house.

So as I sat on my bed, stuffing my face with Cheerios, I started coming up with these insane ways to make it seem like I was doing a great job housesitting without having to actually go spend all my time there. I began to make plans to go in the afternoon to water, and then, on my way home from babysitting, stop off at the house to check on it, but not actually stay and come home and sleep in my own bed. I realized that I was coming up with this overly complicated plan in order to come off as responsible to some unknown person who may or may not be watching the house, and in fact, going and staying there would be simpler and actually doing my job.

Interestingly enough, even after realizing that my plan was completely crazy, I ultimately decided to just make one stop there and sleep in my own bed...laziness prevails again.

Past month

I have been home a month now and this is the first weekend that I actually have multiple things to do. I am FREAKIN OUT!

But seriously, I have found myself with a house sitting job for family friends as well as having to watch my own house and the zoo of animals that lives in it this weekend. That means feeding three cats and taking care of two dogs. This all would not be that big a deal if I wasn't having to also sleep at the family friends house beginning at about the same time. So, starting tonight I have to sleep away from home. My family will be taking off Friday morning, and I will then be in charge of my own house as well.

This seems simple enough but for some reason my social life has decided to make a brief cameo this weekend as well. I am heading out to a friends apartment somewhere in LA for her birthday which will take up Friday evening, and I am assuming most of the morning as well. That means, good luck lil doggies, you will be going to bed vurrrry early and sleeping in vurrry late. I also will already be neglecting my first paying job of house sitting on the second day of the job.

Sadly, Saturday is not going to be any simpler. I am babysitting from 6:30 until probably around 11PM, so that will be another early night for the dogs. And poor lil baby Kingsley is going to be totally neglected and starving for attention by the time the weekend is out.

BUT I AM NOT COMPLAINING. Despite this being a hectic weekend I will finally be making some money which is a huge relief and probably the first productive thing I will have done in the past month.

Since being home I have mastered the art of chilling (as if I hadn't already mastered it, but somehow you always reach new levels you didn't know you could get to). Each night, I go to sleep thinking that the next day is going to be the day that I am productive, and it is amazing how you can repeat that same thought process for about a month now.

However, I have had my brief moments of productivity. I have made TWO dresses. Real dresses, that people would wear out in public. I even wore one of them out in public. Unfortunately I misjudged the crowd. It is a bright flowery dress and I found myself at some weird Goth club with girl dressed in pajamas wearing antlers dancing on stage. I still wore my dress proudly, although the attention I recieved was less than satisfactory. I did manage to find myself stuck in a lovely conversation with a guy named "Mo" telling me about how crazy girls are when they PMS, that guy really knew how to win over a lady.
The dress is still waiting for its day in the spotlight where it can truly be appreciated.

this is the one I wore out

This is what it looks like on

I have also made some jewelry. My friend, Ereeni, has been making earrings so we all decided to try and make jewerly. I pulled out all of the beads and crafty things I had piling up from my childhood and I managed to make a somewhat decent looking bracelet and barret clip.

Other than that, I spend a lot of time sitting on bed where I can pretty much do anything I would ever need to do: sleep, computer, eat. tv etc. If you look closely below you can see the breakfast drink, lunch drink and dinner drink all sitting together on my shelf.

Wine glass, mug and diet coke can

procrASStination

I am going to keep writing in this blog, I am going to keep writing in this blog, I am going to keep writing in this blog.

But seriously. I am. I have just moved home and I am finding my groove and as a result I am feeling uncreative, not witty and especially lazy. But it will happen. After I unpack all of the stuff (cat included) that I had to send back to the west coast:

Random thoughts (because I can't be bothered to tie any of what I am thinking together)

I had breakfast this morning...strange things are happening! I was also really excited to go to work because I had TWO new shows to watch, Big Brother (best ever) and Rescue Me. However, I am a stoop and Big Brother is on tonight. It was definitely a tragic moment when I realized I had already seen the episode. Now I have to wait until 8 PM tonight...I don't know if I can make it!!!

One thing that annoys me is, now not only are internet ads just overtaking your screen, but when you click for them to close, they take their sweet fucking time doing it. I want you to close right when I click the little X!!! Not in a nice calm fading out way, I am already pissed that you are blocking what I am trying to look at, bitch.

I have somehow also managed to develop a nasty addiction to Law & Order SVU. I can watch it all day long. After each episode I say its my last, but then I just click to the next one. Sometimes I will even finish the episodes when I go home. People sometimes wonder if I am getting a lot out of my free time at work, for instance learning something new etc. But rather I am rotting my brain out with a steady flow of SVU episodes to the face and I LOVE IT. Althoughhhh, I have learned some important things from SVU:
1. Being a detective might be pretty sweet, but the hours would be oh so shitty. Benson and Stabler have no personal lives!
2. Maybe being a rapist would have better hours, but unless you have tons of money, its not really going to work out too well in the end ESPECIALLY if Benson and Stabler are on your case. So then I might consider crimes of a non-sexual nature. But I would definitely have to do my research with Law & Order CI, and that shit is just boring.

An important lesson that I learned last night and I am suffering the consequences of today: don't play with knives when you are having an argument with someone, it can only end in tragedy...my tragedy fortunately or unfortunately. Fortunately for the person I was arguing with, unfortunately for my hand.

luckily it was just a baby, I know you can barely see it, but I can feel it for sure! Its there! LOOK CLOSELY

GROMIT!

I am feeling down in the dumps, its like a case of the Mondays, but in my case, a case of the mornings. SO I decided I would write a post about how AWESOME my dog is. Because he is a pretty effing sweet dog.




We got Gromit shortly after my dog Mister died, because we wanted to have another dog for our second dog Zoe, who was left sad and lonely. My dad was really attached to our old dog, Mister, and really didn't want to be a part of getting a new dog.

'sup

So my sister, mom and I headed off to the Humane Society to start to look around for another dog.


We snapped some photos to show to my dad (quickly before we were caught and scolded by the workers).


He came right up to the bars and gave us this chill look like "what up, please adopt me, this place is shit"
It was impossible to ignore his airplane hears and casual pose on the door of his kennel. We knew this dog had to be ours. When we showed my dad this picture he was immediately won over.







After a lot of deliberation, we named him Gromit. He attracts all sorts of attention because he is so odd looking. Everyone thinks he looks like a dingo or some wild African dog. We have even been sent pictures of different animals that he resembles.

This one is some sort of wild african dog that I took a picture of in the Amsterdam zoo

Although, I think he looks more like these cute lil hyenas:

oh hey

Anyways, Gromit has just turned out to be the coolest dog. He has so much personality. He loves playing soccer.

I like to think he is the perfect gentleman. In this picture I imagine I asked him to close his eyes while I change, and he gratefully obliged.

"Don't worry Julia, I'm not looking"

Here are just some more pictures of Gromit that I think are great for your viewing pleas (PLEGshh)

Groms giving his new girlfrand a little kiss

happy dog

This was on a hike, I am not sure what he was doing. I think he was very curious about the water because he kept biting it and sticking his whole face in. Its not like there were any fish...

wrestlin with the new kitten, Hermione

great picture my sister took of him

This is one is one of my favorite pictures of Gromit. My sister and her friends were taking pictures in the park and I guess they were trying to take jumping pictures. But you can see to the right that Gromit is all excited and joining in the fun and jumping with everyone else. Gromit: "Woo! Ladies! This is great!"

Rough Life Decisions

These past few weeks, and even past few months have been tumultuous to say the least. I moved to Boston four years ago to go to school with the idea that I needed a change and wanted to get away from my life from high school and start anew. I definitely did start anew, and I know that I am a completely different person from the one who first arrived in Boston.

I have now found myself as a completely different person, with a new niche in Boston and not very much of one back home since I have been away for so long. Since graduation in May, I have been faced with the decision of what to do next. Should I stay in Boston where I know the city very well, know some people, and am growing to really like? Or should I leave the people and place that I know to return home where my family is? This decision has been weighing on me pretty much since I started my senior year this fall.

As it turned out, my senior year was great. I lived off campus with all of my close friends that I had known from sophomore year. We tore it up and really made the best of our last year in college. The apartment we lived in turned out to be a place that we all lived in for the longest since moving away from home to college. We even got a cat that we all grew to love and adore. Boston really started to feel like home, and I found a lot of comfort in the neighborhood that I lived in. I recognized people in the area, I spent a lot of time in the nearby park and I had a lot of friends in very close proximity. It was clear to me after my first semester that I wanted to stick around in Boston for as long as I could.

My connection and attachment to Boston increased when I met someone in one of my classes. I was taking Anthropology Food and Culture and we had to go on trips to different parts of Boston to learn about food and culture around Boston. It was on the trip to Chinatown that I met him as we were assigned to work in a group. We got along immediately and ended up seeing each other nearly every day and have continued to see each other and be together throughout this summer. Needless to say, he was another important reason for my attachment to Boston.

Slowly throughout the summer people began to move out of Boston to go on to bigger and better things. Some moved home, some went abroad and some moved to go away to grad school. The Boston I knew was slowly crumbling in my hands. I felt confident and committed to making it my home. I told myself that I would find a job and I would move into an apartment and meet a whole new set up people and, in a way, re-integrate myself into the city.

I hit a series of road bumps, that in the bigger picture, are probably just the normal occurences of life after graduation. I found a temp job, but it was not something that challenged me mentally, distracted me, or even allowed me to have any co-workers. I was turned down for a few jobs that I got really excited about having despite not really knowing what I ultimately wanted to do professionally. My close friends began to move away, either out of the city or further away from the neighborhood. My social network in Boston was disentegrating and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay upbeat and positive about commiting to stay living in Boston. I kept wondering if I was making the right decision. It was becoming increasingly clear that my network of people I could count on and have as support was not quite as reliable as I would have hoped.

After a crazy and emotional day filled with lots of discussion with many different people, I believe I have ultimately decided to go back home. My best friend in the world is returning home for a couple of months and I know that it is important that we spend this time together since we have not had a lot of chances to live in the same place since we both went away to school. I have been too stressed out trying to decide what I want to do with myself professionally and I think I need some time to take a step back and think and do something else for a while.

I do believe this is one of the hardest or at least saddest decisions I have had to make for as long as I can remember. I am leaving behind a life that I have had for four years for an unknown amount of time. I am leaving behind people that I have grown extremely close to and it is heartbreaking to me to be leaving them to move back across the country. The thought of not having some of these people in my life or not being a part of their life (for the time being or longer) is devastating to me. The most important thing to me in the world are the people in my life.