Revelations in Strange Places

So our Staycation has come to an end - we relaxed, cleaned, did laundry, hung out with family and I went up north for one of my favorite annual trips. I was surprised how hard it was to go back to work this morning. I love my job, I honestly do, and around Wednesday of last week I thought I was more than ready to get back to the grind but getting back into the swing of things wasn't as easy as I anticipated. I've come to realize that part of my difficulty getting back to reality is that I had a really thought provoking couple of weeks and it made me think about who I am, how I am to others and how I live my life. Here are some of the things I realized:

Everyone has difficult times. After Justin made it through chemotherapy I was so relieved that he was going to be okay for the time being that I had a tendency to think that everyone else's struggles were nothing in comparison to what we had just lived through. This made me slightly bitter and probably rather rude to those around me. After spending four days with my extended family I got the realization that everyone has difficult things going on in their lives and whether or not they are a life or death battle like cancer is, they are important and cause people to stress, worry, be sad, angry and depressed. It is not for me to determine that their struggles are any less important than mine.

Sarcasm is not always attractive. I am sarcastic. It's a fact. Most of the time it's to be funny, but sometimes it can just be plain bitchy (sorry for the lack of a better vocabulary word...) and when I gave myself some time to sit back and actually shut up for a few minutes I was able to realize that sarcasm is not always funny, sometimes can be condescending and just plain unattractive. I cannot (and will not) ever stop being sarcastic, but I promise to be more aware of where the sarcasm is coming from and the impact it may have.

Appreciation is important. I just spent four days up north with some of my favorite people in the world. How freaking lucky am I? I have a family that enjoys each other's company and gets together every year in a beautiful place to recharge and have fun! I very rarely take the time to be thankful for the little things in my life that are not necessarily so "little". On the way back from Mackinaw Island on Friday I was sitting on the top level of the Star Line ferry and I found myself gazing out at the Mackinaw Bridge on the most beautiful day I have ever witnessed and I was SO thankful for the opportunity to be up north, in my favorite place (Mackinaw Island) with some amazing people. I don't do that enough and I am going to to make it my mission to be more thankful for the people in my life and the experiences that I am fortunate enough to have.

I'm going to leave you to ponder these three things and with some fun pictures from Girls Weekend 2012 :)
Em

Progress Report

Welp, apparently it's 2004 again because I slept in until 12pm this afternoon which is absolutely INSANE! There is no reason for it - I didn't go to bed late last night, I slept just fine, I just kept sleeping until about noon and had I not gasped in shock when I looked at the clock (yes, that rhymed...) I might have fallen back asleep for a little longer. 

Now, before you all band together and start throwing eggs at my apartment - I am going to tell you some of the down side of this whole "staycation" thing. First of all I want to start by saying that I love and adore my husband and we've had a lot of fun together over the last few days but with that said, you can only hang out with each other for so long before you need to spend time with other people. Here's the catch: everyone else has to work! So you're stuck making plans for the evening and the day kind of gets lost inside or with errands - ie: sleeping until noon today. I've accomplished a couple things on my Summer To-Do List, as well as some other things that I didn't add but here's my progress thus far:

Borrow books from the library (instead of spending $ for e-books) - Going this afternoon or tomorrow
Go to the Plymouth Farmers Market (Sat mornings) and ACTUALLY buy produce!
Use our free tickets to the Henry Ford Museum
Go to Kensington Park
Do a bike riding trip
Take pictures and get them printed -- In progress
Make some pages in my Smash Book
Purge some of the stuff still in boxes from when we moved TWO YEARS AGO!
Have my parents over for dinner 

I've decided to to take the "Take Pictures and Get them Printed" goal to another level by learning more about my camera and how to use it manually to take better pictures. I've already found some awesome blog posts that explain the different functions (aperture, fstop, depth of field, etc) but the hardest part has been trying to figure out how to make those functions work on my camera...it's a work in progress and hopefully I'll be posting some awesome pictures soon!

That's all for now - Thanks for reading,
Em

Staycation Day One

Sleep, empty the DVR, sleep, eat leftover spaghetti, watch Wilfred with Justin, more sleep. We might be on to something with this whole "Staycation" stuff :)
Tomorrow I'm hoping to browse the library for some good summer reads! Stay tuned so I can make you incredibly jealous of my luxurious vacation!

I've Been Poisoned!

I have been pretty lucky for the past 27 years but that luck ran out yesterday when I realized I had gotten food poisoning. Ugh, it was NOT fun at all and I am just now, about 29 hours later, feeling pretty normal again. So, while I was trying not to die yesterday I was otherwise having a nice evening. I made dinner for my family who came over for dinner and a movie - I finally got to make sloppy joes for my parents! I fell in LOVE with this recipe I found online, it's easy and super delicious and it seemed to be a crowd pleaser! Here's the basic recipe, I don't measure anything - just mix and taste:

Emily's Sloppy Joe Recipe - Found Somewhere online

Brown ground beef in frying pan - drain

Add chopped green pepper and onions - continue cooking so the veggies soften up a little

Add Ketchup, Yellow Mustard, Brown Sugar and Garlic Powder - mix and let simmer for about 10 minutes. 

We eat them open-faced on hamburger buns - delicious!

On a more positive note - I get to check off two of the things on my summer to-do list! In case you missed it, I blogged about it earlier this week (here).

My mom and I went to the Plymouth Farmer's Market yesterday, I was so excited to go and got some decent deals on produce. I bought strawberries, blueberries, grape tomatoes and fuji apples for $11.50! So far we've sampled everything and it's been delicious! I plan on going back in a few weeks when they're up and running again.

I guess that even though I spent most of the weekend feeling awful some good things happened too:

• Our apartment is relatively clean
• I put up a bunch of pictures that I have been procrastinating on 
• I finished Season 6 of How I Met Your Mother
• I went to a nice bridal shower and one of the favors was Bath & Body Works hand soap and we TOTALLY needed soap!
• I sold some old stuff that I've been trying to get rid of on EBay (although I still couldn't sell my wedding dress or my Keurig)
• I had a nice time with my family last night

I think that's all for now - I plan on laying low and cuddling with Ally for the rest of the evening.

Happy Sunday!

Staycation

I seem to be having trouble sleeping tonight, I'm not sure if it's because I can't get my mind to stop whirling around in circles or if I had a dose of caffeine too late in the day...maybe both. It could also be the confusion that I was off from work on a Wednesday and my body thinks tomorrow is lazy Sunday not Thursday. Maybe it's because I keep wondering why I'm awake? Who knows, but anyway...

Justin and I had to make a responsible decision tonight but it made me kind of sad. We were planning on road tripping from Michigan to Texas next week to visit some friends in Lubbock, but unfortunately, due to limited funds we had to cancel our trip. It was the right thing to do with gas prices the way that they are but we were both looking forward to our first cross-country road trip and seeing our friends. So we are instead opting for a "staycation" which I normally would think is one of the DUMBEST words ever, but in light of our current predicament I have found some inspiration from this rather annoying, fake word.

Since we both already have the time off, we have decided to do some fun things while we're home and save some dough. Tonight while I was thinking of the (free) fun things we could do, I was inspired to create a list of things I want to accomplish this summer. I am slightly nervous that if I do not actually make a list and post it on my blog (that no one reads) I will not hold myself accountable to actually do these (free) fun things while I'm on vacation and I'll end up hanging out on the couch doing laundry watching endless episodes of How I Met Your Mother. So I leave it up to you, whoever you are, to hold me accountable to these summer goals. I might not get them all done on my vacation, but I would like to accomplish them before September. Hopefully that will also inspire me to post more on my blog, because let's face it - I'm not really being the best blogger.

Here is my list so far, I will add to it as I think of more things!

Borrow books from the library (instead of spending $ for e-books)
Go to the Plymouth Farmers Market (Sat mornings) and ACTUALLY buy produce!
Use our free tickets to the Henry Ford Museum
Go to Kensington Park
Do a bike riding trip
Take pictures and get them printed
Make some pages in my Smash Book
Purge some of the stuff still in boxes from when we moved TWO YEARS AGO!
Have my parents over for dinner (this one is kinda sneaky because I already have this planned for next weekend) ;)

That's all I can think of right now so I am going to try and go to bed - mainly because I am sitting in the dark living room with my laptop and am being attacked by a killer moth.

G'night, Em.