Who Moved My Bliss?

Conversation I had with myself at 3:20 this morning:

Wow. How did I end up like this? I have no passion. For anything. I can't recall that I ever did. I wish... I don't know what I wish. I remember when I was about eight years old. That was the one and only time I ever saw a shooting star. I can't remember what I wished for, but I do remember squeezing my eyes shut tight and wishing with all the power of my eight year old self possessed. I can't ever remember being passionate about anything, even as a child. I was born middle aged. I had toys, sure, but I didn't play with them. I just organized shit. Sorted and labeled and bagged it all up. Why am I so.... lukewarm? I watch shows like The Voice or America's Got Talent and see these kids, basically, that just know what they want to do. Hell, I'm looking down the barrel of 40 and I have no flippin' clue what I want to be when I grow up. I really don't want to grow up. I am jealous of those who go their whole life pursuing one goal, one dream, one passion. What is my passion? How does one go about finding their passion? Seriously. How do I find that? I've had interests, sure. Hobbies, even. But a passion? A dream? A personal "bliss"? Nope. Nada. This realization kinda makes me sad. If I could go back and talk to my eight year old self, I don't even know what I would say to her. "Sorry, but you're gonna flounder through life. Good luck with that." Somehow, I don't think that would work out too well. So, am I in the minority? Do most people have passion about something and I am just more out of whack than I originally thought? Or am I like the majority and there are fewer people that just know what they want out of life? I often wonder how my life would have turned out if I had made different choices in life. I know everyone does the "what-if" game and it really serves no purpose, really. Even doing the "what-if" game, I can't figure out where I would be or what I would be doing.

Looking back now, I may have told my eight-year old self to play more. Just be a kid and stop worrying about EVERYthing. Or I might have told her to invest in Apple and don't worry about it. Oh, well. "What-if"s aren't going to get the dishes washed.....

This Post Pretty Much Wrote Itself

I just got home from the dentist. I had a couple of cavities filled. I was supposed to have three done, but instead, I got two filled and one temporary filling. When she got into that third one, she realized it was way deeper than she thought. I wouldn't have minded if she'd went ahead and filled it, though. Because of two little words.

Nitrous. Oxide.

Here's a rundown of my thoughts while high on laughing gas. (Which, by the way, didn't make me want to laugh at all.)

-I wonder if I should tweet about this?
-OMG. I wasn't paying attention. Did she say to close or NOT close my mouth?
-Do I look like a dying fish with my mouth hanging open like this?
-I've never seen "How I Met Your Mother"
-Ooooooooh, Maroon 5 is on the radio. Maybe I'll drift off into sex with Adam Levine dreams.... (No such luck, though. Bummer.)
-My feet feel like they're floating...
-Why is the upper half of my body still but my legs are doing the hula hoop in opposite directions?
-I should get a manicure. I bet they're looking at my gnarly fingers and thinking the same thing.
-I want a pet opossum. I'll call him Petey and I'll love him forever. Or until he bites me.
-Did she just tell the assistant to crank it up to make me MORE comfortable?!
-Was that my phone? Shit. I thought I silenced it. (side note: I didn't silence it, but I'm not popular anyway so I was just hearing things. The phone didn't actually ring.)
-I should have eaten more than just Lucky Charms...
-Man. Each sound I hear has a different color. And I can feel them bumping against me.
-Maybe they should turn this shit down a litte.... Nah.

And then I was done. For the time being, anyway. I have to go back next week to get the other
filling(s). And yes, I'm boarding the Nitrous train again then, too.

My final thought as I was coming out of my gas-induced stupor was:
            My mouth may hurt, but at least my toes look smashing!!

What The Hell Did I Get Myself Into?!

We arrived in Texas on December 29th. The ride from Georgia only took 16 hours and was super comfortable, seeing as how the three of us were smooshed together on a bench seat in the U-haul. Also, Maddie was an awesome traveler and didn't whine OR get bored with all the shit I packed her to play with. And then we lived happily ever after. (My sarcasm font is broken.)
                                                
Yeaaaaaaaah, not so much. The ride was ass-numbingly long. We were crammed into about a 4x2 foot space, with Terry driving, Maddie in the middle and me hugging the passenger door. Along with the three of us, I packed a bag of stuff to keep her entertained. She took each thing out and played with it approximately 4 minutes before handing it off to me to switch for something else. Before we had even crossed into the Central time zone, she was done with all her stuff.

A couple of weeks prior to moving, I bought her one of those $20 Seat-Pet things. You know, it's kinda like a stuffed animal but you attach it to the seat belt and it serves as a pillow. Well, that was a total waste of money. Out of 16 hours, she only slept about 45 minutes. All I can say is thank God for iPods! There were enough apps on there to keep her (marginally) entertained and off my nerves.

So there we were, just bumping along, headed a thousand miles away from everyone and everything we knew. I had to keep reminding myself to look at it as an adventure. Otherwise, I probably would have had a nervous breakdown. We had to stop several times to pee, get gas and just stretch our legs. Maddie continued on her quest to visit every public bathroom we come within a mile of. I tried to tune her out so we didn't fuss at each other. I'm glad my mom let us use her iPod for Maddie to play on. I have one, too, but it's older and doesn't have the apps. I listened to a ton of music, though. Imagine Dragons is my favorite right now. I'm pretty sure they kept me from totally losing my shit. Them and Maroon 5.

Anyway, when we finally crossed into Texas (although still several hours from Houston) we stopped at the first rest stop so we could take a picture. And pee. Again. The pictures aren't very good, but at this point we had been riding for about 13 hours.

You'll notice the giant star and the flag poles in the background. Apparently, Texans are super proud of their state. They are the only state that flies the state flag at the same height as the American flag.

Anyway, we took the pictures and then went to the bathroom in the rest stop. On the way up the ramp to the bathroom door, I noticed a sign off to the side. Mind you, we hadn't even seen the "Welcome To Texas" sign yet, as it is on the far side of the star and flagpoles. The sign read:
                                                WATCH OUT FOR SNAKES

WTF?? That's how Texas welcomes their newest inhabitants?! Before the "Welcome to your new home, we hope you like it here" sign was a warning about snakes. Then Terry, being ever so helpful added, "Yeah. And look out for aligators, too. The last time I was here there were three under this deck up by the fence." I'm sure my mouth was wide open. I'm undecided if it was open to ask further about this wild new land I found myself in, or if it was just a silent scream.

Once we hopped back in the truck and headed out, we passed the "Welcom to Texas, Y'all" sign. All I could think was, "Someone in a government-y position should either move the welcome sign to the closer side or move the snake sign further away. No one should have to have their first encounter with Texas be a warning for snakes!"

The rest of the drive wasn't too bad. It was dark, of course, so we couldn't really see anything. Mountains were noticably absent, though. We passed this one oil refinery. It was all lit up. I thought it was a little city we were about to go through. It was as big as downtown Chattanooga and spanned out for miles on both sides of the highway! They probably have a tram like Disney World to get their employees from the parking lots to the factory.

So, after much excitement and numb tushies, we made it to Houston. We passed Bush Intercontinental Airport, which was H U M O N G O U S! Also, on the road we came in on, there is everything. Chain restaraunts, mom-and-pop places, clothing stores, big chain stores like Target, and strip malls lining both sides of the road. After about a mile, they repeated, just on the opposite side of the street. We passed 2 Wal Marts, 2 Targets, and I don't know how many other stores in the last 3 miles before home. My first impression with Houston was: "Ho-ly crap. I'm NEVER gonna find my way around here!"

We got to the apartment around 11 p.m., went straight to the air mattresses Terry had been sleeping on, and crashed. Maddie was so exhausted she snored. (She will deny this, but she is lying. I heard her.) The next morning we ventured out for breakfast and took a little tour. It was so much bigger in the daylight. (Adventures' blog post coming soon.)

We had scheduled some help to unload the truck, and they got there around lunch. Four guys unloaded all our stuff and hauled it up a flight and a half of stairs in like 22 minutes! They were super unloaders! And they didn't just throw the stuff anywhere. They put the furniture where it was going and everything! That was the best $200 we ever spent, according to Terry.

So..... I know this is kinda rambly and probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but that was our "adventure" moving to Texas. In my next posts I will tell you about the scenic tour, the beach, update on school, and other information you just can not live without. :)

XOXO
Tab
   

Greetings From The (Transplanted) Crappiest Blogger Ever

Ok. So it's been like 3 months since I posted anything. It's not like life has been boring or anything. I'll give you a super short update and will do some more in depth posts later.

November: Terry was still in Texas. He came home for a couple of days at Thanksgiving. Life went on. We packed.

December: Spent most of the month packing and organizing crap to move. I threw stuff out like a mad woman. Terry came home a couple of days before Christmas. We didn't even put up a tree. Maddie and I made our tree. We took green tinsel and glued it down to posterboard. We then hot glued little ornaments on it. It was cute... in a kitchy, corny kind of way. She liked it, so that's all that really mattered. We did the family tour at Christmas and the month flew by really fast. A couple of days after Christmas we rented the U-haul and began the loading process. By the 28th we were loaded and ready to go. We spent that night at my in-laws'. Around 6 a.m. on the 29th, we got up, dressed, checked and double checked that we had everything. We were on our way to Texas by 7 a.m.

Tons of stuff happened between 7 a.m. on December 29th and today. I am going to try to compose my thoughts in an orderly manner and break up the posts so I don't have a 30 page post.

There will be drama, danger, and decongestants.
There will be snakes, school, and the seashore.
There will be... ok, ok. There's gonna be a lot of stuff. So, until next time (which won't be 3 months from now)...

XOXO