Happy Halloween

Reason #508, 1,045, 67, and 22 why I need to get my own place and get a kitten:














Need I say more?

Since the last time I updated this blog I have:

- Graduated college
- Temporarily (or maybe not so temporarily?) moved to AZ to stay with my sister and her family
- Lost 20 pounds
- Successfully made it to Alma in the B.o.M. (and plan to actually finish the whole book before 2011 for possibly the 2nd or 3rd time in my life)


I'm so excited for Wednesday! That will be the first day of the last 21 days of the diet I have been doing with my sister. The only downside is that means I have to wait 21 more days until I can have chocolate and other sugary goodness again! But on the upside, on Wednesday, I will be able to eat cheese, nuts, butter, bacon, eggs, peanut butter and more than 500 calories a day! And the clouds parted and angels started singing HALLELUJAH! (Did I mention I was excited?)

However, in the midst of all this seeming joy, I still seem to be floundering. Sometimes I really don't know what I am doing here. I don't know what to do with my life or where to live. I feel like there's nothing for me in VA anymore and I need to be out on my own. But now I'm here (not on my own, I might add) and I feel like I don't know what I'm doing here. I need to get a job, but this place is the middle of nowhere and I have no idea where I am going to find a job.
And the problem is I have no idea what I want to do with my life, and it's obvious that I'm going to be on my own for a while so I have to start thinking about a long-time career and I really don't want to. I want to do something meaningful, not important or prestigious, just something that I enjoy doing and something I can help others by doing. But I have no idea what that is yet. And I hate waiting and not knowing what direction to go in or what to do.

I'm going back to VA in about 3 weeks, and I'm completely excited for that for a lot of reasons. Mainly because I'll be away from my sister and her family. I love them, don't get me wrong, but since I haven't been working and I have no friends here to do things with I have been feeling very sequestered. But the one reason I'm kind of dreading it is because it means that I have to make decisions about my "future" (what future? I ask). Decisions like whether or not I'm going to move back there and whether or not I'm going to drive the car back out to AZ after Thanksgiving. I hate making decisions...because I'm always afraid of making the wrong one. So instead of just making a decision, having it be wrong, and then learning from it, I stay paralyzed and refuse to make any decision at all and then wonder why my life's not going anywhere. Hmm...go figure. I used to be smart, honest. Or at least I thought I was.

100 Things...

Because I seem to be in a surprisingly good mood today, here is a somewhat upbeat entry for a change.

I heard about this little exercise where you try to make a list of 100 things you want (to do, to have, to achieve, etc.) and then see how many of them you actually get/achieve/do down the roller-coaster road we call life.

Here is mine so far, in no particular order:

I want...

1. To graduate

2. To move out of my mom's house

3. A job that I am enjoy and am happy in, a job that will allow me to still have adequate free time to pursue my hobbies/interest, and is lucrative enough that I can fund my hobbies (Maybe that should be three separate things)

4. To meet a guy I am crazy about and that is crazy about me

5. To make friends easier

6. To take a pottery making class

7. To take a jewelry/bead class

8. To get healthier and lose weight

9. To love myself completely, unconditionally, and unequivocally

10. A boyfriend

11. To be myself without caring what others think

12. To be honest to goodness happy

13. To change the negative thinking patterns

14. To go on a cruise

15. To drive across the country and take my sweet time doing it and to go to Mount Rushmore, and Niagara Falls

16. To fall deeply and madly in love

17. Marry a guy I am deeply and madly in love with and who feels the same about me

18. Let go of the past

19. Develop my skills in photography

20. A nice DSLR camera

21. to take riding lessons in Dressage or jumping with my horse

22. to be able to really and truly talk to my dad without it feeling awkward or forced

23. A house and several acres for my horse

24. A Netherland dwarf rabbit

25. to visit Paris

26. to go on a safari in Africa

27. To wake up every day with a purpose

28. To own a horse that is a good match for me and who bonds with and trusts me

29. To let go of all the anger that I carry with me like it's my identity

30. To know who I am and what I am supposed to do here

I don't know what is going on these past few days or why I feel so out of sorts and down. This semester started off so well, but it has slowly deteriorated and now that it's almost over I just can't seem to care anymore. I don't care that I don't know what I will write my research paper about, nor do I care that I only have 5 (soon to be 4) weeks left to write it and really have no idea of what my focus should be. Apparently not even the fact that this paper would be the only thing keeping me from graduating this semester is enough of a motivation to actually sit down and do it because I keep trying to procrastinate it away.

Blah, things were going so well before I left for school. And then the car incident happened (I still miss you MAZDA!!) and then driving with grandma and mom, instead of just with mom as planned, happened, and then school happened! Now life feels the way I mistakenly thought it never would again, the way it was for far too long. I know I just need to swallow my pride and suck it up and call her because the last time life was good was when I had talked to her and worked through these things. Part of me is just bitter that these same things are coming up again because I had hoped I had resolved them, but apparently not.

Ugh, just call her, you idiot, stop wasting time and set up an appointment before it's too late.

Do you ever feel like you don't belong? I've spent most of my life feeling that way and I'm not sure why or how to not feel that way anymore. Chalk it up to moving around growing up, or a dysfunctional home life. Whatever the cause, I need to find a cure because lately I feel nothing but lost. Supposedly life is grand - great - or at the very least fun, but I can't say I've ever really felt that way about it and at this point in my life, I really don't see how I'm ever going to - especially at the rate mine is going. I know deep down that there is a point to all this, but I'm having a hard time finding it, and if there were ever a time to find my purpose in life, it would be now because I'm running out of reasons why I'm here.

Instead of doing homework

Right now, instead of doing homework, I am....

• thinking that I should be doing homework because I don't really want to do it all tomorrow
• grateful that I have no classes tomorrow
• dreading tomorrow (D-day) because I am afraid to find out if I will in fact be graduating this semester or not for many reasons. Two of which include: fear of having to get out into the "real world" and get a real job, and fear of having to stay in the 'burg for yet another semester but this time all by myself.

Really it comes down to the fact that I already had all these plans and as of tomorrow they may or may not all be completely null and void. I hate making plans just to have them get disrupted by life. I guess that is life. It's just going to be super inconvenient if I find out I won't be graduating in July because I was totally expecting to and had planned this whole semester according to that prior knowledge. All the classes I signed up for this semester, I chose because I thought it was my last semester, if I had known it wasn't going to be my last semester I would have picked completely different classes and saved these classes for my last semester so it would be somewhat easy. If I have to stay another semester I am going to die from the psycho difficulty level of the classes.

And if I have to stay I will have to scramble to find housing, scramble to figure out what classes I am supposed to take next semester (which I would have needed to already register for if I had a chance of getting them), try to figure out an alternative to driving home with my clandestine friend, and about 5o other plans I will then have to substitute with crappy and less than appealing alternatives. So in case you were wondering, that is where all the animosity of today's entry is coming from.

So basically, I've decided to prepare myself for the worst but hope and pray (x a million!!) for the best. I even started to think of some pros of having to stay another semester or two:
1. I really don't think I'm suitable enough for the "real world" at this point in my life
2. Maybe by staying in school longer I'll finally figure out what I want/am supposed to do with my life and what career path I should be preparing for

Yeah, my pros list pretty much ends there. For now I'll feel better if we just assume that everything will be fine and by some miracle, I will get to graduate in July. Maybe they'll let me graduate anyway because they'll sympathize with me since my adviser is apparently an idiot. Gosh, how I hope that is the case.

Someone hide my credit card, quick!

Hello, my name is Jocelyn and I am addicted to buying products from infomercials. That is what I would say if I were in some type of an addiction recovery program, haha. But don't worry I'm going to nip this in the bud before it becomes a real problem.

I hardly ever watch t.v. anymore because I just don't have time with my work schedule, but of course, on my day off yesterday, in the few minutes during which I was waiting for a friend to come over I might add, I turned on the t.v. and there was an infomercial for The Firm's The Wave exercise program. Now, I only watched the infomercial for about 5 minutes before turning it off because my friend had arrived. But somehow, in those 5 minutes I got it in my head that I should give this program a try and that it might be better/more effective than the other infomercial product I recently purchased (a few weeks ago).

I kept trying to talk myself out of it but then I tried to rationalize it by telling myself things like, "oh this will be good, you're giving yourself options. Now you can try this program out and compare it to the one you already bought to see which one you like better." I basically told myself that if I ordered it I would have to pick one of the products to return because having two exercise products is kind of ridiculous. So once this one comes I will try it out and see if I like it better than the Slim in 6 I've been doing.

Now I'm trying to talk myself out of spending way too much on the new makeup that I tried out and actually really LOVE. And did I mention that shoebuy.com was having a shoe sale and that yesterday I bought a pair of black moccasins that I may or may not actually ever use, and I pretty much felt compelled to buy them just because they were on sale for $31 rather than the usual $65? (and I wanted to buy them because I've always wanted a pair of moccasins, but honestly, when am I ever going to use them?) Who is developing a horrible spending habit? Apparently some crazy girl named Jocelyn. Oh wait, that would be me.

I think someone needs to hide my credit card before I get myself into some trouble. Actually, it really is fine, I've already figured out my budget and established that I can purchase all these things and still be fine. The real question is whether or not I should.

I am Now...

Currently I am:

1. Reading Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I was going to start with Sense and Sensibility and read them chronologically, but I realized I don't have S & S. And that led me to realize that I only have 2 of her 6 novels. I then proceeded to buy the other 4 novels from Walmart.com because they were cheaper than Amazon and I was too lazy to actually go out to Walmart and buy them myself. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, so since I didn't have S & S I decided just to start with the next one I did have, which happened to be Pride and Prejudice. I like it so far, but it's hard not to think about all the different movie versions I've seen and compare them to the book. I need to not do that because they can't compare, they are very different forms of media and it would be unjust to compare one to the other. It'd be like comparing apples to oranges, so yeah, I'm just going to read it with an open mind.

2. Wondering why I didn't come up with some great idea/product to sell on infomercials, while at the same time wondering why in the world I bought THREE products just this week from infomercials. That is so out of character for me, let me tell ya. It's a good thing I finally have a job or I would be broke from this week's purchases, that's for sure. But I must say I am super excited to try them. Wait, let me back up.

So I saw this infomercial for an acne product earlier this month that claimed to work better than proactive. I've been using proactive for several years and yes it has helped some, but I wasn't in love with it. I've had acne forever it feels like, and this stuff wasn't getting rid of it, and basically I'm just tired of acne, so I decided, What the Heck, I'll try this other product. So I did. Supposedly using this product will give you clear skin in 4 weeks, I'm only on the first week. On Day 5 to be exact, and while it may seem too early to say, I think I am in LOVE! I wish I had discovered this product sooner, but I'm soooo glad I found it now. Hopefully it continues to work as well as it has been so far.

That was my first infomercial purchase. Then I saw one for makeup. I've been using the Bare Minerals and I like it, but again, I'm not totally happy with it, I don't love it. Granted, that may be because I'm not putting it on right or not using the right colors, which is why I need to go to one of their actual stores and have them do a makeover on me to convince me why I shouldn't switch makeup brands. That being said, I don't think I'm completely incompetent when it comes to makeup application, so it may just be that this brand is not the best for me, I'm not ruling anything out.

So I figure that until I can get to an actual BE store and have them do a makeover on me, I'll give this other brand a try and then I'll have something to compare it to and hopefully be able to figure out which one I like better. The downside is that it won't be here for at least a week, maybe two.

And that was my second infomercial purchase. My next infomercial produce purchase happened by accident, sort of. In fact, I really cannot remember now how I got to be looking at it. I didn't search for it or anything, I just found it on a website somewhere. I think maybe I found it when I was reading reviews about exercise programs. Anyway, so I bought an exercise/weight loss program, which will probably end up kicking my butt, however I am NOT going to give up because I paid good money for this and I am GOING to do it and it is GOING to work, GOSH DANG IT!

3. This has turned into a super long rant which needs to end now. There were more things I was going to add to my currently, I am list, but this will be the last one for now. Currently, I am wondering if my adviser got my email telling him which classes I am signing up for next week. He needs to make some changes or fix something so that I can sign up for them. I just hope he is going to do whatever he has to do for me to get those classes before next week because if March 3rd comes around and I can't sign up for the classes I need because he was too busy to fix it then I am going to be EXTREMELY upset. No joke.

That's all for now, possibly more tomorrow.

scarf girl

It's official. I have become scarf girl. I am now someone that other people give scarves to because they don't know what else to get. Don't get me wrong, I like scarves, in fact, I've started collecting them, but I'm worried about what this implies about me as a person. I'm annoyed at myself that I have allowed myself to be so distant for so long that my friends (who, in theory, I'm supposed to be close to and who are supposed to be the people who know me the best) get me scarves because they don't know what else to give me. It's like when you draw a co-worker's name for Secret Santa and you end up getting them hand lotion or stationary because you don't know them well enough to know what they want or what they would like. And I realize that this sounds like a diatribe against friends, and I'm sorry because it's really NOT that at all. Really I'm just venting my anger and frustration at myself.

Really I'm just disappointed in myself because it is so obviously NO one's fault but my own that people don't know me well enough to know what I like.

I don't know how I got to be so impersonal and distant and removed, but I HATE it. HATE. IT. I keep holding my breath, hoping things will get better. Hoping I'll change or something. Every year I think, "This is MY year, this will be the year I change and have the life I want, be the person I want to be. This will be the year I'll break the cycle" but every year I disappoint myself - again.

Sometimes I really do wish I had a backbone, that I would stop being so wishy-washy and just do it. I'm just so tired of doing and being this day in and day out. Whenever I get like this I have to keep reminding myself about all the times I could/should have died but didn't (some of those times self-inflicted and others not). Apparently, I'm still here for some reason, or at least I like to think so. I just hate not knowing what that reason is.

It's especially disheartening right now because there's not even one thing that I feel good about in my life right now. I don't even like my job, which I should totally enjoy, but I don't. I don't know, it's just sad when the only thing you feel like you have to look forward to is a T.V. show in the middle of the week. Blah, get out of this funk. No wonder you don't have any friends.

Happy New Year

I have been at my sister's in AZ this past week, which has been nice, interesting, but nice. I haven't visited her and her family for years, and I've never visited while they've lived here. I love my sister but I think I'm only just now starting to realize how very different we really are. And while they really only criticize a select few subjects, I honestly just cannot stand the criticism they do dish out on those subjects. And sometimes she makes me angry for stupid reasons. Oh wait, it's the new year. I'm going to stop right there with my little and loud complaints because none of that is really important right now. What is important is that it is a new year and I'm going to do what I can - no, scratch that. I'm going to make this a good year. The first in a very long time.

Sometimes it's hard to be yourself when you don't feel at liberty to speak your mind or say what you want. And the annoying thing is that that is exactly how I feel with practically everyone. I can't think of even one person to whom I would feel truly comfortable saying anything. Sometimes what you have to say is not nice or good or worthwhile, but regardless, you just need to say it, even if it's just for you.

I need to make a new blog devoted to what should be my one and only real goal for this year. I'll have to do that when I get back.