The Problems with Being Outgoing

Lately I've noticed that my nights of going out with my close friends to hang out always go pretty much the same way, though some of the parts and issues change orders. Here I have the common problems an extremely outgoing and spunky (if you will) individual runs into on a typical night out.


1. "The Frenzy"- All those dudes over there who were laughing about how loud the one just belched? Yeah... they just saw you and your friends walk in... You're now the topic of conversation. Starting with the bet they just made to see who can get your number first. Even if you're dating someone and they are standing right behind you...
2. "Over-Social"- Easy to ruin a night out with friends or a date night when the first thing you do is start chatting up the table to your left... and right... and those people in front of you... and the ones behind you... oh, and those guys at the pool tables.
3. "The Flirt"- which is not actually a flirt, it's a politeness thing when someone gives you a compliment to give them one back... except then they think you like them. Even when your date is standing right behind you... or next to you. Even when they know your date... And it gets awkward fast.
4. The "Cheers" Phenomenon- Everybody knows your name, and as such, you cannot have a quiet evening which your friends, or a date, or by yourself, because EVERYONE knows you... They all yell your name as they see you, come say hi and chat you up, say goodbye as they leave, try to buy you drinks every 5 seconds... and there's no room for being social with the people you actually came there to be social with... not even a date... because everyone interrupts you to talk to you every 3 seconds without fail.
5. The bartender knows your drink- Except when you want something different and he already poured it for you when you walked in the door and someone stopped you on your way to go order your new drink... Good thing you still like that beer he just poured you.
6. Buyers Remorse- You look at the tab and wonder "How did we spend this much money?" until you realize that someone ordered something 3 times more expensive than you... Good thing you only pay for what you drank. (A wise rule to have.)
7. To walk or to Drive: That is the question- The place is 2 blocks away... should we walk so we don't have to leave the car there? Is it snowing/raining/intensely cold? Do we have a DD to move the car? (All very important questions.)
8. No matter how hard you try to not get noticed you always do... and half the time it's by the creepiest person there, the rest of the time it's kinda okay as long as they don't hit on you or ask for your number, because you're just not interested...

Words and Verbal Habits

I'm a psychology major, and in my learning class last week we discussed Verbal Learning, and the thing that stuck with me most is the idea that who you are around shapes your speech and verbal habits. We use slang around our friends. We never (or rarely) curse in front of our families. We talk baby talk to babies. We use bigger words around our professors and bosses. We use smaller words around children.
This made me think more carefully about the ways my verbal habits have changed over the years, things I used to say have been replaced by things that I say now, and some things have stayed the same.

1. The struggle/The struggle is real: My best friend taught me this one, and it's become one of our most common phrases. Anything that takes more effort than we feel like exerting at the given moment.
I'll give you an example: Painting my nails and then getting hungry before they were entirely dry and having to make food. Could I do it if I was starving? Probably. Did I feel like doing it right when I was hungry? Nope... The struggle... (I texted her to tell her all about it, but I couldn't go get food. Touch the phone...Touch the refrigerator...)
2. Babytalk/My little kid voice: My significant other thinks this is cute... Unless I'm talking to a little baby or a dog, I shouldn't be using this voice. And even then it's a little unnecessary...
3. Curse words: I would never curse in front of my parents or my grandparents, my teachers or my boss, or even my significant other's parents, but put me in front of my friends or my SO and I'm probably overusing and misusing most of the curse words I know.

Take some time today, look into your life, and think about the different ways you communicate with people based on their relationship to you. You might be surprised what you find...

Fold and Roll

I spent a good portion of today taking all the shirts I own out of their drawer, folding them in thirds and then rolling them up in order to try and save space. It's amazing to me that the amount of stuff that overflowed the cabinet folded flat beforehand just barely fills the drawer when they're rolled up and stacked now. I'm totally in shock.

I rolled my tank tops too and was shocked to find the same thing again. I'm confused as to how this is possible, but I'm not complaining since it means I don't have to get rid of any of my favorite clothes.

Life on the Water

I've always wanted to wake up every morning to the sunrise over the water and spend my sleepless nights and midday musings staring out at the ripples in the current and the boats rocking on the water.

And now I get to do that most days, because the love of my life started renting  a home right on the shore of the bay. I've always been a water baby. It's like I should be a mermaid or something... I practically live in water at all moments that I can. I feel at home in a pool, a nice warm bath, or even a river deep enough to wade in in the spring. My love for water is seemingly a part of me that I will never get rid of, so finding out about him moving into this wonderful house made my heart skip a few beats.

We've been in the house for about a month now, and I'm still in love with the view... I sit in my favorite chair every night that I can staring at the water watching the current move. Every once in a while in the middle of the day I get the chance to see a boat full of people go fishing or the heron who lives on our dock, or the ducks swimming past in the water.

The house needs a little work, but I wouldn't change the view for the world. I'd give anything to have a boat sitting out at the dock waiting to spirit me away on the bay for the afternoon, but I guess that will come in time.

Motivation to Clean House

That's right people...! I actually found the motivation to start slogging through all the junk strewn about my room and make this space livable for the rest if the time I live in my parents house. Where did I find this motivation you ask? Surprisingly... On YouTube. I know... It sounds as weird to me as it does to you. I became motivated to clean by watching videos of this wonderful lady and her husband who pretty much clean, redecorate, and reorganize (and swap meet) their house for fun.

They did a video blog series on her channel showing the various stages of the project called Declutter Your Life: Less Stuff, Less Stress. And it actually inspired me to get off my butt and do something about the clutter I'm living in. I've promised myself I'm gonna get it done by the time Christmas gets here ( nothing like a big pile of stuff I don't really need coming to make me need places to keep it all).

First thing I'm gonna tackle is getting my clean laundry put away and out of piles. You gotta start somewhere, right....? Luckily, I only have two rooms to handle. But I've got a lot of childhood stuff cluttering up my room that I can't bear to let go of... I may need assistance with some of that.

New Updates and Grievances

First, My 100 things challenge has been updated with new stuff.

Second, I got a haircut, so now I don't look as much like I don't take care of myself as I used to. And I can see now which is also good.

Third, why does it have to be cold and dark in the mornings now?! This is so unfair...
It's scarf  and hot cocoa weather now people... not even joking around. I just got out ALL my scarves this week.

But, I did find a new brand of coffee that I'm totally in love with. Problem being I can only buy it at Seven Eleven because Big Energy Coffee isn't sold in any other location ever. Not even on Amazon...
Three times as much caffeine and I have to drive all the way to Seven Eleven to get it. But, at least I don't have to speak to people to get my coffee, because I can't handle that first thing in the morning...

Halloween is in 24 days! Not that I'm going to be doing anything, but I can pretend I want to dress up and pick a costume if I want right. (Just as long as I don't buy it.)

Just so everyone is aware, I update my beauty blog WAY more often than I update this one because most of my thoughts have to do with beauty tips now...

Finally, It looks like graduating college might still be in the works for a semester later than I wanted, but there's still hope that I can squeeze it all into a winter mini session, and a spring session and still graduate on time, with some special permission from the university and a lot of REALLY hard work.

Steam, Minecraft, and Other Assorted Fun

I got Steam about 2 months ago. For those of you who don't know what Steam is... It's a giant gaming service for the PC in which you can buy games from various sources and open them through Steam to play them. Now, the first thing I bought on Steam I am amused to admit was a pack of games from my childhood including Freddy Fish, Putt-Putt, and Pajama Sam. My favorite of which is still undeniably Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear's Activity Pack (and Fatty Bear still kicks my butt just like he always used to). Surely these games are made for people WAY younger than I am, but regardless this is a giant blast from my past and it amuses me to no end to play such simple games.  I keep looking for more good bundles from Humble Bundle to get but they haven't come along yet. I'll keep my fingers crossed on this one I suppose and see what comes out in the next few months.  I love supporting Humble Bundle by buying from them because they give part of the money you spend to certain charities.

Minecraft... I never used to get the hype. But, Believe you me... I do now. A few months back, my significant other introduced me to the world of Minecraft, simple yet repetitive. And at first I refused to play, explaining that I just don't get it and I don't find it amusing... But one day I tried it... And believe it or not, I'm entirely hooked! I don't do anything else when I'm on Minecraft. The world outside the screen doesn't even exist anymore once I start playing... no joke.

My Get Rid of 100 Things List

Yes, it's late as usual but here it comes!

OK! So let's review the rules here real quick. Multiple items of the same type are good but they do not count as multiple pieces of the 100, so throwing away 100 pieces of paper does not qualify. Keep in mind not all of these things necessarily went in the trash, some of them went to other people who needed them more than I did.

1. Old papers from Elementary School and Middle School
2. Random tags and boxes from clothes and beauty products (I have a problem... I know.)
3. Dried up nail polish (The stuff I hadn't used in ages anyway)
4. Empty hair products and used lotions
5. Useless papers and cards from my memory box (Obviously things I don't intend to remember... Haha)
6. Unopened but definitely expired snack foods
7. Hair dying materials
8. Stained clothes
9. Old clothes
10. Old hair accessories (Stuff I'll never use now that my hair is a pixie)
11. Old shoes
12. Old toys (except those Polly Pockets man because those are mine for the rest of eternity!)
13. Old books (The one's I'm not keeping for my kids, if I ever have any)
14. Makeup that I trial tested but didn't like.
15. Nail polishes
16. Old jewelry
17. Random trial/travel sized toiletries I never plan to use
18. Packaging to my kitchen products
19. Giant clumps of dog hair and people hair (scraped out of the carpet of course)
20. My childish (and rather decrepit) Crayola crayon coin bank (because everything is on plastic now!)
21. Empty whiskey bottle (I was saving it, but who needs a Jack Daniels that's empty when I could have a full one instead?)
22. Laundry and cleaning supplies from college (I don't have my own bathroom now so what am I supposed to do with these?)
23. Old, finished Mad Libs (But to be fair, I did read them first and rip out my favorite/the funniest ones.)
24. Doodles, poetry and other assorted creative writing type things that weren't valuable to me in any way

25. Writing utensils that no longer write
26. Extra porcelain jewelry boxes
27. Old and empty makeup palettes (Which I found out through another blogger that Sephora collects.)
28. Old calendars, and planners
29. My old address book from when I was too little to keep an address book properly
30. A broken and leaking e-cigarette cartridge (Kept the battery in case I get the urge to buy another cartridge)
31. A giant pile of broken clothing hangers (they got eaten by my closet and snapped by the amount of clothes I have been trying to stuff in it.)

32. Pots and pans from my college days (They went to my man's new house.)
33. Old blender (Also to his new house.)
34. Extra Keurig (Another donation to his new place, because we have one at my house and not enough room to put up a second one.)
35. Old, unfinished craft projects and dried up clay
36. Broken exacto knives (from my craft kit.)

I'm more than a quarter of the way done! I'll keep updating as I go, but this is harder than it looks!

BNB

General Updates

I have a few things for you, and I swear I'll get back to my random musings and life events it seems you enjoy so much as soon as time permits it.

1. Still working on the throw away 100 things challenge. Getting close, but not quite there yet.

2. School started again last week, YAY senior year of college! (ish)

3. The whole going to the gym thing I keep going on kicks with? Yeah that doesn't happen much.

4. As for the "in with the new" part of my last post... Giant beauty haul from Ulta arrived a week ago. Can't wait to start working on some new posts (see my other blog)

5. Stuff's been rough the last few months, but hopefully its all calming down and things will go smoothly for a while so I can get back into my habit of morning coffee and a morning blog muse as it used to be last year. Probably not going to happen daily anymore (I've got so much more to do than I used to), but hopefully at least once a week. (My goal is two a week really as a minimum, but let's aim low and overachieve shall we?)

BNB

Out With The Old, In With The New

Recently I moved back home after spending a few years living at college, and it's become time to get rid of old things I no longer need and move on to getting things I will use in the years to come. It's been a rough process full of letting go of things I'm not quite ready to give up but know I will never use again. Having these items reduced to dust collectors on my shelves doesn't seem so bad except that I don't have any space to grow within my place anymore. My childhood memories are important, but they are beginning to suffocate me while I try to grow and become an adult.
The more memories that are attached to something the harder it is to get rid of. Some things I have put away in a safe place to save for my own kids one day, and others I keep on display because they remind me of the part of me inside that's still a kid.
When I began this process, I came across a challenge on Pinterest called the "Get Rid of 100 Things" Spring Cleaning challenge. This idea gave me just the motivation I needed to get rid of the things I don't need, and it came along with a few hints from the person before me who completed the challenge and posted their photo list of discarded items. I think I will spare myself the photos and simply post a list once I have completed this, but for now it is still in the works.

For now, a list of helpful tips when undertaking this challenge:
- Take photos of things that have memories attached to them that stop you from getting rid of an item (I started taking pictures of my old school papers and art projects I didn't want to throw out.)
- Pass things on to friends or family when you grow out of them, so they will still get use and be taken care of (This gets you the added bonus of still getting to see the item every so often along with it creating more memories for your family)
- Start a box where you can keep memories from your childhood, and sift through it often for items you no longer want to keep
- Create a temporary place for things you say "Eh, I might use this again someday" and sort through it last

Hope this was of some help and I'll let you all know when I have successfully completed the challenge and what I got rid of!