A few things I'm loving this week.

Hi all!

I know I've been a little MIA and I'm hoping to get back on track here soon. I was out of town for a long weekend to attend my grandmother's funeral and came back to what basically feels like a war zone in my house. I'm knee deep in major roommate drama and trying to deal with it has kind of consumed my time and energy this week.

I've owned my house for 3 years during which I've probably had 7 roommates/tenants and I've never had an issue until now. I don't have the energy to get into the messy details, but I'm disappointed and to be honest, I am really angry. Needless to say, I'm tired and so ready for this nightmare to be over.

Enough about that, though. I'm back and in the spirit of focusing on the good things, here are a few things that I'm loving this week:

This photo of Jonathan and I dancing at a wedding a few months ago...

 These quotes...

This photo of my siblings and I at my parents' house this week...

This text from Jonathan...

Getting to spend a few days with my adorable nephew...

I absolutely adore that little guy. He is by far the sweetest, most easy-going little baby I've ever been around. Just thinking of his cute face makes me smile.

I couldn't end this on a happier note than that. I hope you're all having a great week!

Cuatro de Mayo

It feels great to say I'm not suffering from the slightest hangover today. Our Cinco de Mayo involved a trip to the flea market, an afternoon bike ride and tacos for dinner at Jonathan's parents' house. I was happily in bed by 9 p.m. while Jonathan played poker with the guys.

Our Cuatro de Mayo, however, was full of dancing, bubbles, tequila and beer bongs. Jonathan's friend threw a huge party and we had an absolute blast!

I made oh, about 4 dozen of these babies, Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies and they were a huge hit. I'll admit to having one of these for breakfast on Saturday morning. They were that good. The recipe is super simple, too!

 

Reason #1,458 why my boyfriend is way cooler than me...he has all this super fancy DJ equipment so he was in charge of providing the music all day. This didn't stop me from visiting him at the DJ table every now and then to steal a kiss or two. This also didn't stop some other girl from hanging around him all day, but that is a story for later on. 

My sisters were there, too! I was so happy they came out and we had a blast dancing and drinking together all day long. 

Jonathan set up his bubble machine by the DJ booth which obviously made it my favorite spot of the day. Why are bubbles so exciting? I'll never understand but if you can't tell from the photo above, they make me so absolutely happy.

Oh, so that girl that wouldn't leave my handsome boyfriend alone all day? I'm really not the jealous type, but I couldn't help but notice that every time I looked over there, she was standing around the DJ table, either dancing or talking to Jonathan. I don't worry about him at all, but in my drunken state, I was a little annoyed by her. This led me to start requesting Jonathan play songs like "Move bitch" by Ludacris in the hopes she would take a hint. I know, so classy. 

Anyway, you can blame this behavior on the multiple margaritas, beers and my participation in this...

Bongzilla. It's as scary as it sounds.

It was another absolutely perfect weekend and I'm already counting down to the next one. My best friend Taryn will be in town just in time to celebrate my 27th birthday. My birthday is on Sunday, but we're hosting a big birthday BBQ at Jonathan's house on Saturday. I can't wait!

Finally linking up with Sami for Weekend Shenanigans!

Why I Think We Should Stop Being so Hard on Taylor Swift

I am a Taylor Swift fan. This isn't news to any of you, I'm sure.

The big news this week is apparently that her and Harry Styles called it quits. Now, I don't know who Harry Styles is and I'm quite satisfied with that. It makes perfect sense considering I am not a tween and don't still have an unhealthy obsession with boy bands at my age.

We all know Taylor Swift uses her many, many short relationships as inspiration for her hit songs and she gets a lot of criticism for that. Everyone knows by now (especially after he whined to Rolling Stone about it) that "Dear John" was so obviously about her relationship with John Mayer and "Back to December" is apparently about Taylor Lautner.

People all over the Internet are commenting on how many men she's been with, how short her relationships are and of course, making jokes about new songs everytime she splits with someone. Don't get me wrong, as a huge Taylor Swift fan (I think if we knew each other in real life, we would be really good friends), even I can admit to the laughing at things like this:

And if I had to guess, even I'd say that T. Swift is probably a little clingy with a side of crazy, which could be why she has so many short, failed relationships.

But to everyone criticizing her, I do have a few things to say.

• I have also had a series of short-lived romances. In many of these situations, like Taylor, I probably made too much of the relationship and turned it into a bigger deal than it was. I've fallen too quick, been more upset over someone than I should have been and been way overdramatic when it didn't work out.  
•  I've used those relationships for inspiration. Instead of writing a song about them (trust me, you wouldn't want to hear my singing) I just happen to record my thoughts on this here blog. Like I'm sure writing songs helps Taylor, writing helps me sort out feelings of anger, confusion, sadness when a relationship doesn't work out. Because of this, a lot of my blog content ends up being about...you guessed it, relationships.
• I, too, have dated a lot. I have friends (and sisters!) who have met the love of their lives and didn't date much, if at all, on the journey to find that person. I'm so happy for them and you if you have experienced this. It's important to remember though, that not everyone finds their someone like this. For some, our search is a little more...extensive, to say the least. Do we deserve to be criticized for trying to find love? No ma'am. We just know that we aren't going to meet the love of our life if we sit at home and think about it. So we go on dates...lots of them. We have short romances that make us wonder why we were ever interested in that person. We might kiss more guys than than we ever wanted to during our search for the one. Don't judge us for this. We are just trying to find what we are looking for.
• I sure can relate to a lot of Taylor's songs. I should add that I don't just relate to the ones about breakups. I can also relate to "Mean," which she wrote about a music executive who said she couldn't sing, "Everything has Changed," which is about the wonderful feelings we experience at the start of a new relationship and especially "Never Grow Up," which is about growing up and wishing you could go back to your childhood when things were simple. I'm sure if you listen to some of her music, you too would relate to many of her songs.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this:

Taylor Swift and I are one in the same.

Just kidding.

I'm saying to give my girl Taylor a break. She's 23-years-old and writes about love, breakups and relationships. What do you expect her to sing about?

Tell me...

It seems everyone either loves or hates Taylor Swift. Where do you stand?

It's Okay Thursday

Linking up for It's Okay Thursday!

It's okay that I ate a York peppermint pattie at 7 a.m. today. My sweet roommate left a box of them on my bed  this morning with a lovely little note. How could I resist?

It's okay that The Dog Whisperer has turned out to be a complete disappointment. I liked him, I tried to get to know him, but he seems to have completely checked out I don't have the energy to beg for someone's attention. I'm disappointed, but it'll be okay.

It's okay to be in a bit of a funk sometimes. I'll snap out of it soon, I'm sure.

It's okay to say what's on your mind and not worry about how the other person will react. I need to work on being more okay with this.

It's okay to be happy and independent on your own, but also able to admit that you can't wait to find someone to share your life with.

It's okay to walk back upstairs 3 times before leaving the house in the morning to make sure you unplugged the straightener, even though it turns off by itself anyway.

On that note, it's okay to have a slight serious case of OCD.

It's okay to be overly excited about signing up for the Tap n' Run 4K. An easy 2.5 mile race with beer waiting for me at the finish line? This is perfection beyond belief.

What's okay with you today? Link up!

Quotes from Downtown Orlando

I had another wild, crazy and super fun weekend with friends. I'm still processing all the fun and not-so-smart decisions I made, so I will fill you in soon! In the meantime, you all know by now that I am a freak magnet whenever I go downtown and this weekend there were plenty of examples of that! I leave you with the creepiest/most hilarious/weirdest things that were said to me in bars over the weekend. Enjoy and thank goodness you weren't victimized.

Exhibit A: "I'm sorry to bother you, but I wanted to tell you I think you have the most beautiful smile." Well, that was friendly and completely non-creepy, so I say "thank you!" and turn back to my friends. A few minutes go by and he creeps up from behind and whispers in my ear, "It's just your smile is so inncocent...it really just makes me want to take advantage of you." Well, that got weird.

Exhibit B: From a random guy as he walked out of the bar: "You...you're bad." I obviously laugh and say, "Huh?" He responds by telling me, "You're aura is bad" and keeps on walking out never to be seen again.

Exhibit C: After helping a guy drunk out of his mind find his watch in the bar, he gave me a creepy long hug, then proceeded to pull three bottles of hot sauce out of his pants pocket. I asked him why he had so much hot sauce in his pocket and he said, "I just...I really like hot sauce."

Exhibit D: I didn't know if this guy was trying to hit on me or not at the time, but 5 minutes after meeting him, he said, "You still haven't told me why you're still single." I told him to ask my ex boyfriends, that I didn't have an answer for him.

The same guy proceeded to spray beer all over me later in the night because I was hanging out with his friend and he was apparently jealous. When my roommate yelled at him and asked him why he did that, he simply said "Because she shouldn't be with him. They look awful together!" Rude.

I'm sure alcohol plays a big role in all of this, but where do they come up with this stuff? I'm sure you've been there too...what's the weirdest thing you've experienced while out with your girlfriends?

Confessions

Why hello there. 

In case you thought I fell off the face of the earth, or if you didn't even notice I was gone, I'm back! Between prepping for my business trip, then being on it for almost a week, then trying to recover from that trip, I realized I haven't blogged in what seems like forever.

Because I don't have any groundbreaking news to share, I won't bore you with a bunch of mundane updates. I do, however, have a few things to confess.

I've seen Magic Mike...twice. 

The first time I saw it, I was all about it. A movie about male strippers, one of them being Channing Tatum? This is going to be so bad and so good at the same time. It was all fun and games the first time, laughing at the horrible dialogue and talking about how hot the guys are. I walked out of the theater saying it was the best worst movie I've seen in a long time. In other words, completely unnecessary to see again. But, I did anyway. I ended up going with my coworkers who hadn't seen it yet and while laughing at the same scenes and drooling over the same men, I literally started to feel like a complete joke for seeing this movie not once, but twice. In case you were wondering, the dialogue and plot are a whole lot more painful to sit through the second time.

Seeing this sexy beast strip was obviously worth the price of admission.
Kidding. He scared me a little. (source)

I had so much fun on my business trip to Indianapolis. 

Don't get me wrong, I worked my ass off. It was exhausting and stressful at times. I was up at 5:30 most days, working the booth for 8-10 hours, then going to dinner or drinks with a client or networking in the bar, all to wake up and do it again the next day. Five days of this and I was one tired girl. I've also never enjoyed my job more. I absolutely thrive in that environment. I love networking and meeting new people. I love meeting clients and potential clients in person and connecting with them. It makes me wish we had more opportunities to do this rather than just the one or two conventions a year we go to. Oh, I also got a chance to meet Brian Tracy. He was a client of ours several years ago and is one of the world's most famous motivational speakers. I was pretty psyched to meet him. 

Brian Tracy!

 I bought a bubble wand and keep it in my car. 

Before you jump to conclusions, let me reassure you: by bubble wand, I don't mean sex toy. 

I'm obviously referring to those sword-like tubes for blowing bubbles. They are really meant for five-year-olds, or me. Either way. I can't explain to you why blowing bubbles makes me so happy, but it does. I bought this when visiting my parents' house one weekend, but left it in my car and I take it into the courtyard at work when I need a break, a stress reliever, a reason to smile, whatever. At least it's the only random thing in my car these days. I drove around with Twister in my car for almost a year, after all. 

That's all I have to say tonight. Talk about random. 

I hope you're all having a great week!

Dear Credit Card Thief

To the evil human being who thought it would be fun to steal my credit card number and try charging hundreds of dollars on it at a gas station in California--

source

Note to self: Do not let this inconvenience start your week off on a bad note. Worse things could've happened and it's getting taken care of. Let it go. :)

That is all. Happy Monday everyone!