-I’m leaving for Jacksonville, FL Friday and I can not wait.  I need the Florida sun in my life immensely.  And the sand. and beer. and possibly skydiving.

-I’m even looking forward to the road trip down there.

-A vacation without a child to chase after.  Oh, I can’t wait.  It will be glorious.

-I want a puppy. A spotted one, preferably.

-I like lettuce.

Sometimes it’s way easier to think about the way Mt. Dew makes your teeth feel than it is to think about anything else.  It’s easier to think about not drinking Mt. Dew, because the end result is my thighs being nasty, than to think about the future or your marriage or why people are the way they are.  You don’t owe Mt. Dew anything. It probably owes you.

I like just thinking about Mt. Dew sometimes.  It’s easier. It’s pleasant. It’s an odd yellow-green color that looks cool on a crayon but questionable for a liquid.  It tastes syrupy and if anyone asked me what Halloween tastes like, it’s probably Mt. Dew.

And by the way, can we talk about that?  Why is the man in the yellow hat so creepy? I mean, he keeps a pet monkey and wears a giant yellow hat.  There are so many more things to point out, but isn’t the monkey and the hat enough? Surely it does his oddness justice.  I sort of understand wanting a pet monkey, but as a mother, I honestly just see the monkey as something else I have to clean up after.  Cranky, I know.

Oh, and while we are discussing creepy things, can the facebook applications that pose as if they point out your facebook stalkers be highlighted for a moment?  I love seeing that I’ve been tagged in a montage of photos of alleged stalkers. Especially when it is someone that I’m not even sure if I’ve ever looked at their profile, let alone give it high traffic with views and clicking and such.   Not to mention, it’s not as if anyone that goes and signs up for a facebook hopes to not be looked at.   That’s the point, isn’t it?  Reconnecting, being nosey, whatever excuse you use, it’s good people watching, and facts are generally facts.

Also, I don’t know if I mentioned it in last post that I don’t want to go back and read, because reading my own writing generally makes me vomit, but–I recently realized it is getting close to BlogHer ‘10 and I bought my ticket during BlogHer ‘09 so I’m excited.  And I know there are people out there who are all ‘omg. are we really talking about this already?’   Hell yeah I’m talking about this already, because I’m excited (maybe even, dare I say, nervous).  But yeah, that’s that.

I turned 25 on February 11th.  I’ve nearly let my driver’s license expire, which isn’t great for someone that drives everywhere they go.  I’m not reading or writing near as often, and I feel somewhat broken. I also have trouble typing that I feel somewhat broken without feeling like a kid wearing all black clothing and too much black eyeliner. It’s the sort of thing you can tell people you don’t see everyday, but the people you do see everyday act dumbfounded when they read. Surely it isn’t that much of a secret, and if it is, they likely aren’t paying enough attention.  Just my theory.

Moving on, Allie turned 5 on March 4th.  FIVE. I cried for at least an hour thinking about it the night before.  It was the normal cliche sort of ‘my baby is getting older cry’, I suppose.   But I was so sad and happy, and really, I was just amazed.  I’ve raised a baby, and she’s turned five.  She has all of her fingers and toes.  She walks, talks, argues and analyzes things.  It’s amazing and heartbreaking and breathtaking. It’s lots of things.

Also, once of my younger cousins attempted suicide last week.  She’s 16, and it truly breaks my heart that at 16 she wants to die.   When I was 16, I wanted a later curfew.  I wanted to live hard and fast and strong.   I most definitely did not wish to die.  To be honest, it just really sucks that she’s in that sort of pain.  There are tons of words I could use, but sucks just really sums it up. I hope desperately that anything good will come out of this, because she’s really an incredible girl, and the various sets of circumstances that seem to have blazed this trail are horrible.

Anyway, on to happier places:

-I’ve been watching American Idol, as per usual. Crystal Bowersox is basically my homegirl.

-I’ve been playing Super Mario for Wii. It’s rocking my world.

-I’m still dieting. It’s working and I feel fabulous in that sense.

-I’ve taken up watching college basketball, and I get so anxious during games that I remember why I avoid watching sports.

-The number of white hairs on my head has increased by so much.

-I miss writing here, but I don’t know how to fix getting myself to actually write.

I turned 25 on February 11th.  I’ve nearly let my driver’s license expire, which isn’t great for someone that drives everywhere they go.  I’m not reading or writing near as often, and I feel somewhat broken. I also have trouble typing that I feel somewhat broken without feeling like a kid wearing all black clothing and too much black eyeliner. It’s the sort of thing you can tell people you don’t see everyday, but the people you do see everyday act dumbfounded when they read. Surely it isn’t that much of a secret, and if it is, they likely aren’t paying enough attention.  Just my theory.

Moving on, Allie turned 5 on March 4th.  FIVE. I cried for at least an hour thinking about it the night before.  It was the normal cliche sort of ‘my baby is getting older cry’, I suppose.   But I was so sad and happy, and really, I was just amazed.  I’ve raised a baby, and she’s turned five.  She has all of her fingers and toes.  She walks, talks, argues and analyzes things.  It’s amazing and heartbreaking and breathtaking. It’s lots of things.

Also, once of my younger cousins attempted suicide last week.  She’s 16, and it truly breaks my heart that at 16 she wants to die.   When I was 16, I wanted a later curfew.  I wanted to live hard and fast and strong.   I most definitely did not wish to die.  To be honest, it just really sucks that she’s in that sort of pain.  There are tons of words I could use, but sucks just really sums it up. I hope desperately that anything good will come out of this, because she’s really an incredible girl, and the various sets of circumstances that seem to have blazed this trail are horrible.

Anyway, on to happier places:

-I’ve been watching American Idol, as per usual. Crystal Bowersox is basically my homegirl.

-I’ve been playing Super Mario for Wii. It’s rocking my world.

-I’m still dieting. It’s working and I feel fabulous in that sense.

-I’ve taken up watching college basketball, and I get so anxious during games that I remember why I avoid watching sports.

-The number of white hairs on my head has increased by so much.

-I miss writing here, but I don’t know how to fix getting myself to actually write.

So I’m starting p90x tomorrow as well as going low carb.  Now might be a great time to discuss my love for carbs.  They are so pretty and sparkly to me.  Why does bread have to taste so good?  Why can’t I find a low carb breakfast that I love? Why do people pay for and produce low budget commercials that only make their businesses look sketchy? Why am I allergic to all of the things I love? Questions: I haz ‘em.

Allie has only had school twice since her Christmas break started nearly a month ago.  Just twice. I love her, but I am also nearly crazy.  I was pretty pumped when I figured out she would be going back tomorrow and then I realized tomorrow is MLK day and there is no school.

I turn 25 in a few weeks.  I’d like to do something fun for the big quarter century, but nothing comes to mind and I’m really not excited about my birthday like I usually am.  On a normal basis, I am ecstatic about my birthday for months up until it arrives.  This year, well, this year I’m just mehhh about it. Birthday Schmerfday.

Allie feel asleep on the couch tonight and has been periodically sitting up and yelling things like, “I WAS JUST MAKING CHILI!”  Following the yells, she just lays back down.  oh, to be 4.

If you are at all familiar with John Wall or Kentucky basketball, you’ll probably appreciate this.

It’s a lot to think about, I guess.  I’m sure every stage of life is that way.  You look back at what you’ve done and compare it to what you once intended to do with the result not always being something you are  completely pleased with.

Part of me feels like that if I document what is wrong to me, if I try to fix it with words, maybe it would be fixed in real life.  Sometimes when I write things out, when I describe things that are bothering me in my life they seem so insignificant when placed in words.  It’s half of the reason I don’t post.  Once I write out what I feel is going on, it seems so very silly that I can not bring myself to hit publish.  My problems are so tiny.  Large to me, but tiny in the grand scheme. Sort of like ants in your kitchen, I guess.  They seem like a huge problem to you, but at least you have a home and a kitchen. They’re just ants. But still, small things exist.  They count.  They mean something.  It’s a big whirlwind of whogivesafuck, I guess.

The problem is: I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about what I’m trying to accomplish as a want-t0-be writer, as a person, as a mother; as anyone, really.  What bothers me is that I’m not completely sure.  I no longer lay out plans in advance for myself and attempt to follow the path.  It seems as if I’m just following random paths and hoping that the destination is one that I would like. The planner in me, the one that keeps extensive notes regarding important things and keeps track of nearly everything on excel, has a hard time coping with this new mechanism for life.

It’s like being lost and hoping you wind up in a place you love by haphazard chance.

I don’t know. Just pretend this makes sense.  I am.

The month of December was December at its best, or the very best that December knows how to be, I suppose.  You know December, always pulling shady tricks on you. Sometimes it’s good.  Sometimes it’s bad.  Most of the time, it’s just December.   It came in with messy bouts shopping and tidied up with Christmas and New Year’s Eve.  Which, if I were to label evenings filled with some of my poorer decisions made under the influence, NYE 2009 is raking it in close to the top.  Not at the top, mind you, but very, very close.  That said, I do NOT do dark liquor under any circumstance, especially in combination with many others.  And Jager.  Oh, Jager: How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.

Exciting Christmas tidbits?  If you’ve been reading for a while, you would know that when I married Adam I inherited a nut of a relative that I had not previously met.  I call her 80’s Lady on here and I used to discuss her quite frequently when I relied on the fact that she most likely did not know how to work the internet.  Then I found out she actually had the internet and regularly rocked myspace, and–well, shit obviously went awry.

But anyway, 80’s Lady raked it in at Christmas and stole various gifts from a Christmas function, which I suppose is supposed to be sad, but mostly it just made me laugh.  I know it sounds horrible, but I guess if you know her and her level of ridiculous finding humor in any of the oddly motivated things she does is really the silver lining.   One of the gifts was even Allies.  It’s still funny to me, though.   I’ll just chalk another one up on the list of things I’m most likely going to hell for.

Apparently in my long break from blogging, I forgot how I usually write in concise paragraphs because concise paragraphs are what I like to see on other peoples blogs.  I’m more likely to keep reading if you don’t toss too many sentences into one spot.  Oh well.

Anyway, back to regular things, Allie has been fabulous.  I stood in line at Wal-Mart at 4 a.m. like a total redneck so that Santa could take the glory of bringing her Zhu Zhu pets, or “Susan pets” as she calls them.  I was ready to throw bows like a backwoods ninja should anyone try to cut line.  But I got out safely with TWO zhus zhus at that.  They were going like crazy in our area.  Finding them was like stumbling upon a hundred dollar bill laying crisply on the sidewalk.  It just wasn’t happening.  But victory happened.  Oh sweet victory.

And what else:  I’d like to thank everyone that participated in the twittering about my disappearance and the messages.   It’s nice to be missed.  It’s even nicer to know that people are concerned enough to message and email and such. I’m obviously very behind in email.  What’s new, right?

But anyway, how are you?  Thanks for coming back.