the death of a dream. or, smell ya later, regularly scheduled blog posts

so if you're reading this today, it means that you probably came looking for my weekly manic monday post. instead, you find out that i am giving up my weekly scheduled posts. damn, i'm a buzzkill.

it's not that i am going to stop blogging, so ease your worried minds. i'm also not going to stop setting goals for myself, the original reason for this blog. i'm just merely not going to set a day to write these things down.

the reason i started this blog was to make myself write more because i love writing. well, when i'm not overanalyzing and judging my own work. but i've realized that i started dreading getting to my "required" posts and i enjoyed more just writing about what i was working towards. since i am a "grown woman, i can do whatever i want."



listen to it. magic, kids. pure vocal magic.

anyway, i have decided that i'm just going to work on writing about my goals as they come and go. no set timeline to finish. just all the feels and the funnies. less of a weekly scheduled time.

which for this week is FINALLY getting back into the workout space. having been cleared to work out after what seems like forever, i'm going to make it back to both the volleyball court (two games, y'all) and the gym (treadmill and trudog). once i get through this week of getting back in to the swing of things and hopefully not dying, i'm starting couch to 5k next week to get ready for my color run in about 8 weeks in the hopes that i can "jog" (i use the term lightly) the entire race.

so mourn the manic for today, but then get ready for a SUPER fun time with my somewhat topical rants about how much working out kind of sucks and general things that need to be discussed.

such as batshit crazy courtney love telling amanda bynes to pull it together. because if courtney love thinks you have issues, it's time to examine your life. am i right? 

yes, i am 100% right.

sunday showdown: peace of mind.

there is nothing like a bit of time away to give a girl some perspective. last week's plan was to just get through the week, and it's exactly what i did.

results? glorious.

while i am still exhausted from too many late night drinks and early morning flights, the time spent with my family was exactly what i needed to get perspective on my life. i'm not going to go into too much detail because it's a) boring and b) i'm busy live tweeting the disastrous finale of smash. why anyone could like that insufferable karen cartwright is beyond me.

just be prepared for project improve betsy to be back tomorrow in full force.

manic monday: just keep swimming (not literally)

for the past few weeks, i haven't done much on the weekend, and yet i'm still exhausted when i get to work on a monday.

i'm trying to get to bed earlier and rise and shine appropriately but nothing seems to be working. not even waking up to this snuggle buddy makes the morning easy.

basically, i feel like the walking dead on a daily basis right now. and i keep thinking that i will make up the sleep during the week, but i forget that i'm a total social butterfly (picture me as shosh from girls) and that i have things planned almost every night. and then on the nights when i do get to go home in time, i watch all the TV that i missed and then i am suddenly awake and unable to calm down.

the first half of the week this week is not doing me any favors. in addition to work, i have dinner plans with VERY important people (my dad and my dear friend rachel for her birthday) for the next three nights. THEN i have a 6am flight on Thursday morning to go down to Birmingham for a family visit. it's just.so.much.

so this week, my goal is just to make it to vacation without flipping out and crying. just keep swimming and it'll all be okay. i'll get some sleep, some family and some happiness. i will not be a ms. grumpy pants, guys. i can do it.

sunday showdown: princess and the pee

i'm pretty sure that the title of this post says it all.

this week was extremely successful in mission hydration. i have spent the past week running to the bathroom every hour to pee straight up clear liquid. i also think my skin is clearer and i'm less hungry so i'd really take that as a twofer, you know?


i was going to have the twofer introduction from 30 rock to go with that, but i love tracy jordan correcting him too much to not use the above clip. sue me.

anyway, while i was going through this week, i remembered why i used to try so hard to stay hydrated. call me crazy - "you crazy girl!" - but it actually makes me feel like i am flushing out all the bad juju in my system. and sadly, that pun wasn't even on purpose.

i really don't have much more to say today so i'm just going to call it and finish watching game of thrones. this week, melisandre takes s&m to a whole new level by introducing leeches. if someone was to leech me, i think all they'd get right now is water. suckkaaaaaas.

i'm still 13 years old at heart.

i bought 8 tickets to see BSB in august today via groupon and i'm not even a TINY bit sorry about it.

i'm celebrating by listening to this megamix and you should too. happy weekend kids.

goodbye old friends: a farewell to dunder mifflin.

this is going to be extremely hard and and pretty long. that's what she said.

finally, something that has to do with the dirty jokes aspect of this blog.

anyway, tonight is the series finale of the office and i can't believe it's ending so soon.



i have been watching this show since the writer's strike when i literally watched the first three seasons and all that was available in the fourth season in a week. ONE WEEK. that's how into this show i was. and then i waited - not so patiently - for the show to come back on the air. and when it did, i was not disappointed.

now don't get me wrong, the show has had its misses, most of them in the past season or two, but overall, it's been hilarious and heartfelt and has given so much to the pop culture landscape. i mean, the theme song is my ring tone, people.

so in honor of my last day with the dunder mifflin family, i am sharing with you a few of my favorite things about the show.

obvi, we have to start with that's what she said. because, there is no michael scott without #twss



then there are the constant pranks:



and finally, i leave you with my favorite person: jim halpert. he has probably ruined me on love with everything he went for to get pam. last week's episode pulled together a lot of my favorite moments.


sadly, most guys aren't like jim. i said most, guys. so hopefully there is a dude out there who will prove me wrong.

so tonight i will be watching, live tweeting and crying during the retrospective and the final episode tonight. so in closing, i'll leave you with the cast goodbyes:

straight up blogging #shame

yeah, so this wasn't exactly what i would call a banner week in the betsy blogging experiment. not only have i not blogged since last monday, but i did three things i am not proud of.

1. i missed my first sunday showdown
2. it didn't matter, because i barely met any goals.
3. i bought soy cheese

personally, i find the third the most offensive in the scheme of betsy-verse (my universe, duh), but the rest ain't to great either, yo.

and you know what, i don't even have a good excuse. and as much as i'd like to enact my 2013 motto of "sorry i'm not sorry," i actually am sorry. i took on this project to actively make a change in my life and i'm letting myself down. in more ways that one. 

don't get me wrong, i love myself. possibly a little too much if you ask some people. but whatever. for the most part, i am great. however, it's been a rough month for a few reasons that i will choose not to share with you here. just know that unlike momma rose, not everything is coming up betsy right now. which is okay. that's how you evolve as a person, or whatever.

the problem is that i happen to lack this thing called "patience."so i want things to change immediately, which is not realistic or feasible right now. and instead of continuing to believe in the system and continuing to take the steps to make changes, i'm letting it get me down. and frankly, it's not okay. 

now don't get me wrong, i don't have the blues and definitely not the reds (breakfast at tiffany's shout out!). i'm just not as new-puppy-first-day-home-with-a-family as i have been before. 

i mean, this is what i did last week, so things aren't all that bad:

snuggling with buddy, the destruction cat. new talent? he can open my medicine cabinet.

sangria. drink of the gods.

this city, man.

a beautiful show that i got to see with a beautiful friend of mine - hi pats!

iconic.

so, now that you can clearly see that i am not on the ledge, i'm going to take this week and focus on an extremely easy task: drink more water.

now, most of you are probably thinking, umm, b you are practically a fish because of how much water you drink. and that used to be true, but in the past week or two, i've been substituting wine for water. while delicious, it's probably not the best for my liver, kidneys or waistline. so the goal this week is to simply drink at least 4 containers of my brand new, lime green nalgene every day. including weekends, where typically the wine swap happens. 

don't get me wrong, there will still be wine. there will ALWAYS be wine. but this week, there will simply be more water.

let's see if when i pee excessively (not TMI guys. it's a truth) this week if i can also flush out all the other toxins that  i'm letting seep into my optimism so i can get back to myself.

shit, that actually sounded deep. +1 for this week already.

manic monday: lather, rinse, repeat.

so i didn't want to not post something for manic monday, because that would defeat the purpose of the post. as well a the alliteration. manic tuesday just doesn't work for me. sorry.

anyway, i really haven't put a lot of thought into something new that i want to work on this week due to a pretty busy day today and a day of no thinking yesterday. so i am dubbing this week a redo. on basically everything i've tried to do to date: clean my house, go to bed early, be at work on time and give up dairy.

i've been trying to keep up with it, but might as well take a week to remind myself that just because i'm moving forward does not mean that i should slide back in other ways.

and on that note, it's just about my bed time. more later this week, friends!

sunday showdown: not what i expected to learn.

so, i learned like a huge lesson this week, but it was not related to my dairy-free existence. which was pretty easy by the way. probably because of the whole nausea thing that lasted all week.

related, i've also hit my turkey burger limit for the year.

anyway, so the big lesson that i learned? i actually do have maternal instincts. and yes, i'll provide ample explanation.

so, as you all have seen, i am the proud owner of a handsome kitty, buddy. 

every breath you take, i'll be watching you, girl. 

thanks for providing the comfy nap spot

this past week, he has been a bit of what i call a rascal. and unfortunately, it caused for some sleepless nights and extra fretting for me.

to give you some background, i previously chalked up my mom potential to the fact that i put my arm out to protect my purse from flying when i slammed on the breaks in my car. so needless to say, when i woke up at 2am friday morning to the sound of my purr-baby puking, i was a bit concerned.

now, i know that cats throw-up. but since i didn't want to wait until the morning to clean it up, i hustled out of bed to take care of it. however, what i saw was not a normal hairball. in fact, it was a bunch of elastics. it turns out buddy has been systematically eating each one of my hairties, which he got from knocking over the mason glass that holds them and dragging them out with his paws. i'm sure you can all understand that this is not on the recommended diet for kitties.  so naturally, i freaked.

i picked up the vom, threw it away, then picked up my cat and took him to bed with me. he curled up and i proceeded to stare at him for 30 minutes to make sure he was breathing (he was) and then googled bowel obstructions in cats to find out if i needed to rush him into emergency surgery. i finally fell asleep and decided that i would figure out after seeing his behavior in the morning to decide what my next steps were.

i still woke up to a purry kitten who head butted me for 20 minutes to get me out of bed 40 minutes before my alarm went off, but he didn't bound out to his food like i wanted him too. however, given that he pooped - important information, guys - and did eat, i went to work and spent the entire day trying to google different ways to make sure he was alive. 

i came home to an empty food bowl and a playful kitty, so we were out of the woods. i moved all my elastics to a drawer and called it a day.

and then yesterday happened. i was getting ready for a fun-filled day at the new yorker's passport to the arts and couldn't deal with my allergies for the day. so i got out my trusty zyrtec to take care of the job. in the 5 seconds that the pill was sitting on the counter while i picked up my water glass, my friend buddy managed to ingest it. apparently, much like his mom, he'll eat most anything. 

again, i freaked the fuck out and tried to capture him so i could force him to puke. but he is small and fast and can hide under my bed. i called my mom (thanks for talking me down) and then the vet, where i talked to a receptionist who was like umm, watch him for a while. not enough information people!

then i was reminded that i have a very dear friend who is a vet. uh duh! so i texted her and she reassured me that ONE pill was not going to hurt him. in fact, it's actually prescribed to animals his size in some cases. cue a slight breath of relief on my end.

especially because i had a full day planned that included some art galleris and lots for rooftops and the following:

priorities.

photo booth gif-set love with silvia. 

i managed to make most of the day without truly believing that buddy was dying, but i took every chance i got to tell my friends that my cat could be dead at home. tons of fun, i know.

since the drinking started early, i was in a cab on my way home around 11pm and i walked into a destroyed role of toilet paper, an empty food bowl and a full litter box. needless to say, he was back to normal. and him waking me up at 7am this morning wanting food just made it more so obvious.

but, despite the fact that i did leave him to get my culture (and drink) on, i did showcase more care and forethought than i thought i had. i even started using my forceful voice more to keep him from getting on top of the fridge. and you know what, it doesn't make him hate me for enforcing the rules.

yep, that's him curled up on me.

the responsible thing to do would have been to lock up my potentially edible goods a while ago, but i'm a work in progress. you all know that. it's why you're reading. uh duh.

bad medicine is NOT what i need

this no dairy thing has been a lot harder than i originally thought it was going to be. and not just because i always want to eat pizza and ice cream.

it's been hard because i've been dealing with a constant state of nausea for the past few days and the only thing that remotely sounds appealing is a grilled cheese. 

and before you all start wondering if i'm pregnant, i'm not. (don't worry mom!). it's rather a super-fun side effect to the antibiotic i'm taking as a precaution to go along with my stitches. 

i've never had any of those potential side effects before from any medication (and let's keep it that way, shall we inner self?), so this one caught me off guard. in addition to making all food sound disgusting, it gives me a metallic "mouthfeel" (real word used in food marketing. thanks salt sugar fat!) that makes my mouth taste like i just licked the outside of a beer can for hours. not the inside where the goodness is. the OUTSIDE. so yeah, it's gross.

i've subsisted on gatorade, seltzer, plain turkey burgers and potatoes (mashed or french-fried) for the past two days, despite the fact that a grilled cheese has always been a comfort/sick food of mine. because it's fucking delicious yet quite mild mannered on the stomach. the ultimate win-win in my opinion.

yet, i've resisted. chalk that shit up to personal growth, ya'll.

now excuse me while i go chug a bottle of pepto.