Finding my zen

I waver between being a high stress and a low stress person. So much so that it irritates the people closest to me.

Every so often my Mom will give me a look and point out the extreme nature of my personality, ie: how if I care about something, I care about it with my whole being, and if I decide to not care about something, I again do so with my whole being.

When it comes to work, I have decided to try to be zen about it. To not care, to just embrace and roll with the punches and the stress and the stupidity. In some ways, this is totally working and in others it isn’t at all.

So I’m not looking for a job right now, since I’m too busy, I’d rather save money for my Hawaii trip, and my summer is too crazy to fit in a brand-new-job on top of everything else. And that is actually a huge relief. I feel like every year I try to shove-cram-fill everything I possibly can into my summer only to realize, at the brink of a panic-inducing season, that there is simply no reason to do so.

And then I let loose and allow myself to enjoy some sunshine.

So I’m being zen, and I’m trying so very hard to not care about the daily stresses and the suffrages and the stress of new coworkers and upcoming craziness and life not going as smoothly as it should.

no worries

I fail at updating. I acknowledge this. Life has been keeping me busy in good ways but keeping me less than stimulated in bad ways.

I’m caught in the looking for full-time employment slog in the middle of trying to balance two jobs I’m not altogether thrilled about leaving behind (hey, guess who hates change?) on top of preparing for the craziest upcoming six months of my life (job changing, loans due, dogsitting, vacation, dogsitting, wedding1, weddings 2-8, bachelorette, best friend’s wedding dogsitting aaah ahh aahhh I AM ON FIRE WHY) so I am a bit at a loss of what to talk about on this blog without just whining

And I already know that I’m pretty darn good at whining.

I’m just not sure how all of this is going to work out.

And I know it will, but I’m a worrier, and I always have been, and I’m feeling at a loss of what my purpose is on top of the fact that every thing I feel designed for is either a) not lucrative, b) nonexistent or c) requires approximately ten more years of college.  And even after those ten years of college how easy is it going to be to get a job as a Professional Freelance Editing Rocket Crafter Knick-knack Collecting Wiz ?

So, yeah. Worries. Constant. But Things are happening. Or as I would say in a text message: THINGS are HAPPENING and that is probably GOOD but I’m still NERVOUS as ALL HELL.

which seems pretty normal.

sunnies

Today I spent way too much time figuring out what I wanted to wear to work and then I missed the bus. Twice.

So I walked to the train.

Walking to the train involves walking on busy streets for approximately five hundred years and crossing a distance that reminds one of the Oregon Trail. (30 minutes, 3 miles)

Here in Oregon, once our “Winter” of about 2 inches of snow and 10 minutes of freezing weather dries up, we start our in-between season of Gray, a seemingly never-ending period of time where it’s not sunny, it’s probably raining, sometimes it’s windy, and the sky is eternally clouded over in a haze between off-white and silver.

The biggest side effect of the Gray is that while most ‘natives’ love it, after awhile it wears on everyone and the universe starts to get grumpy. Seriously grumpy. Some years I can stave off this emotion for a month or two and avoid the inevitable depression that follows this period without sunshine, but this week has been pretty rough.

I have been seriously grumpy. A rough week on top of being unable to pick out a good outfit (I’m still not sold on it), having issues with my hair, and missing the bus twice did not help this state at all.

So I wore my sunglasses in the dark during my entire walk in order to stave off the grumpiness. In my Adidas track jacket and scarf, in windy-hazy-almost-drizzly weather, and with my hair falling out of its bun.

I probably looked like an idiot, but I kind of don’t care.

Valentines

“You need someone who loves you for your quirks.”

My boss said this today as I left work and it really stuck with me.

Valentine’s Day is an easy trap for a single girl to fall into. Even when I am at a point where I am perfectly content with myself, my busy schedule and my social life, it would be incredibly easy to allow myself to wallow. I could spend tonight sitting alone in bed, a small tear running down my cheek, just wishing that someone loved me in that specific way and that they had sent me a flower, or a rose, or a piece of chocolate the size of my face.

In lieu of this, this morning I gave each of my coworkers a PRINCE OF PERSIA Valentine (complete with a temporary tattoos) and I wore a bow-tie and red lipstick to work.

Taken awkwardly at the Cafeteria

As to quirks, I guess I am full of them, even though I kind of loathe the “quirky” label. (Or is it just labels in general? I am not… quite decided.) I purchased that bow-tie at The Buffalo Exchange for $6.50 last week (with a little encouragement from a friend) and I am kind of tempted to add it to my permanent list of quirks. A new bow-tie for every day? Is that too intense? Am I destined to become like my customer we refer to as “Mr. Bow-tie” because he always has a different one on when we see him? (He complimented me on mine today, by the way) Am I just trying very hard to be just like The Doctor? Am I going to have to start wearing a fez now?

I am not sure!

I have to say that I am pretty content with both Valentine’s Day and myself this year. While it would be nice to have a beau, I am glad that I am single (since I am busy and broke), and glad that I have friends and family who have bought me chocolates, assured me that they love me, and while that affection is not quite the same as a sweetheart, it certainly is wonderful in its own way.

I might have a problem.

So, financially, I am kind of a nightmare.

Okay, not really. I don’t have (many) bills, I work 2 part time jobs, I try to get extra hours and I put money in my savings weekly.

But I still spend… a lot more of my income than I should. This week I was excited to receive my paycheck, since I hadn’t spent much of my last check (hello extra special shopping trip!) when I got a hospital bill in the mail. Oh lordy. Hurray hospital bills.

With that paid off I am left with a total of $(not enough money in my bank account) to last me for two weeks. So what do I do this morning? Order a new bracelet off etsy ($8 !) on my iphone, during my lunch break at work.

This is a visual picture of my shopping habits for you. Impulsive, silly, and utterly irresponsible, but not that expensive!
Maybe tonight I will draw a bar graph or a pie chart of how much stupid money I spend on silly things.

And so, consider this post a part of the preamble to this blog: the saga of Brittneigh’s stuff. Hopefully writing with care about the objects I own will motivate me to cherish them more instead of just buying new things (and stuff).

boom boom boom boom

More than a month has gone by on thsi blog without a post from me. Here is what has gone on in my life in the meantime:

• I hosted an epic NYE party.
• I read about 10 books.
• I had a birthday (my 25th!)
• I thought a lot about what I want to do with this blog.
• I thought a lot about what I want to do with my life.
• I ate a few sandwiches.

This is me, being way too busy to write blog posts

I feel like this month of inactivity, while silly and annoying and kind of stupid, was pretty necessary for me. I thought very hard about pursuing a job 77 miles away from where I currently live, and decided against it. I ran into my old high school English teacher who suggested a new career path that I had never even thought about until now.

Tomorrow I go back to my University and talk to a career advisor about pursuing it.

In the meantime, I plan to start writing about my antiques and misadventures in more detail. I just need to commit to this blog for good!

Holycow, freedom

So, last week I finished my BA in literature. It took me 6 years.

What am I going to do with it?
I really don’t know. I could do anything with it. I could win the lottery tomorrow, decide to turn to alpaca farming, write a book, work for The Man, or just tutor and be poor for the rest of my life.

In reality, I’ll probably settle for any full-time job I can get, eventually apply for a master’s degree in Education and plow myself into even more debt.
But for right now? I am free.

Free to read any book I want, (this week: “Beloved” by Toni Morrison and “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” by Alan Bradley), watch as much TV as I want (seasons 1-3 of the Venture Bros, Grimm, and My Little Pony), listen to new music (Kavinsky and The Black Keys), watch that movie that I promised my coworker 3 months ago I’d watch (Meet the Robinsons), and be as social as I can without going broke.

I quit blogging a year ago, trapped between college pressures and not knowing just what I ultimately wanted to blog about. Did I want to blog about fashion? Collections? Antiquing? College? Slice of life?

I had no idea.

Every blog post I sat down to life morphed itself into a lesson in “What Can I Do to Better The World”, or “How Can We Work Together To Live In Harmony” and eventually got deleted. This wasn’t my style, my writing, or my message. A year later, I’ve figured it out: I have no message. I want to write. I want to tell you how I feel, what I’m thinking, what I’m collecting, how I’m saving, and how I wore a technicoloured-rainbow-sweater to a meeting full of people (read: ADULTS) wearing taupe and gray and didn’t realize it until halfway through the meeting. (Don’t worry, I played it cool by making fun of my coworker’s beard. For hours.)

Hello, internet! I’ve been around awhile, but my name’s Brittneigh. And Brittknee. I can’t help but be contrary and loud most of the time. I like to buy old things and pretend I’m a movie star, when really I’m just a kid who makes coffee for a living. Someday I’m going to take over the world, and it’ll probably be because I tripped on someone important.

Nice to meet you!

Things I am going to do as soon as I am finished with my 2 final papers of college.

• Freak out a little.
• Sleep
• Get a cold
• Watch a whole bunch of Freakazoid
• Work on an actual blog post for here.
• Re-install photoshop on my computer.
• Catch up on My Little Pony.
• Make some Christmas ornaments.
• Call the physical therapist about my shoulders
• Watch some Venture Brothers
• Do everything I want to do right now but can’t because homework is pressing down on me.
• Have an epic burnpile where I burn something related to college.
• Make a helluva bunch of friendship bracelets.
• Buy tickets for Hawaii in June.
• Figure out what the heck we’re doing for NYE
• GO ON SOME DATES, MAN

I haven’t told anyone about this blog yet

But I’m getting seriously excited about updating. When I have time.

I used to follow up that statement with the word “Someday“, but OH MY GOODNESS I AM GRADUATING IN LESS THAN FOUR WEEKS.

So Someday is getting pretty close to Soon. And I’m so so so excited to blog, post things I’ve found on pinterest, share my views with the world, chronicle my daily life, and just be me, in my name, and completely honest for awhile.

So, until then, I guess I’ll just use this image as a visual to show how COMPLETELY EXCITED I AM about this blog:

Sup kids!

This is a placeholder blog in preperation for some serious blogging.

 

And I mean serious.

 

I’m so serious about serious blogging I’m including this image into my post:

 

 
YEAH.

ASTRONAUTS ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS.