Stuck.

Stuck in a small circle of procrastination right now.
I should be packing.
I should be doing my taxes.
I should be filing for my medical claim.
I should be blogging about actual topics.
I should be preparing for work tomorrow.

I'm watching a movie and painting my nails.

86 hours until departure.
31.5 of those hours will be spent working.
Ideally 32 of those hours will be spent sleeping.
And Monday and Tuesday nights are spent with people, having last minute hang out sessions.

So, yes, I should be freaking out.
In fact, I am.

But I'm just not doing anything about it.

And I wonder why I am so stressed all the time...

An update on the March challenge.

4

5

6 (not my opinion, just documenting)

7

8

It is a little bit laughable that the one free day I had, I didn't end up getting around to taking a picture.
So none for 9.

10

A time for grieving, and a time for moving on.

I felt bad for Flamingo Frances( as her nametag stated), I really did. Here she was, just trying to get through her Monday evening shift at Petland, enjoying the quiet calm of the store without customers, when I appeared.

{Some back story}
As some of you might know, my fish died a little while ago. We had been together for over 2 1/2 years, and I was quite attached. I'm realizing that he was there throughout some of the most difficult times in my life so far, so maybe that why I had such a special bond with a pet that you usually don't connect with.

Just about a week before Reggie died, I had bought a large 5 gallon tank in an attempt to cheer him up. As it would appear, it didn't work. And I was left with this new tank, sitting empty on the counter. It stayed that way up until now, because I didn't have the heart to buy a new fish at the time.
Last Monday was forced into being the time, maybe only because my mom was threatening to go buy fish if I didn't. And I didn't want to be stuck looking at fish that I didn't pick out. So, I went to Petland.

And I gazed at all the different fish for a very long while. And then I asked F.F. some questions. And that's when my sob story started pouring out.
Honestly, I don't even know how I could make such a big deal about a fish. But it seemed that every other sentence, I was mentioning Reg, and something about him, or how I felt now that was gone. I am ashamed of myself. Thankfully, she was a fellow fish lover, and she seemed to understand, or at least she is very good at acting. In the end I was triumphant in finding 4 fish that I could live with, but I still drove home feeling as if I wasn't ready for this step.

Despite my lack of love, they seem to be surviving, and hopefully in time I can grow fond of them.

Introducing for the first time..........

Hal and the Karens!

*note* There are three Karens. It's just hard to see one of them because she is so small, and facing the camera.
Also, Hal is frisky, and seems to sense when I am taking pictures of him. So there hasn't been a clear photo of him yet.

Month #3

Let's just put the facts out there. Going to the gym isn't very fun. 

I tried to trick myself for a while, but I soon saw through the lies.

Month 2 didn't work out so great. But I did learn how to work some new machines, and I feel comfortable going to classes, and working on free weights, so I won't say it was a total fail.

This month is going to be something totally different.
Since I am leaving the country on the 21st, I wanted to make it something that won't be a hassle while I am traveling around, and not so much about diet or exercise, since I really, really don't want to have to worry about those things while I am on vacation.

Instead, I went in a different direction completely.
A picture a day.

As the aspiring photographer I pretend to be, I want to challenge myself to find something worth taking a picture of every day.
Now most days, I'm sure I will cheap out, and not put any heart into it. But I really hope I will be able to learn a bit more about my camera through this, and get a little more sense of what is photogenic and what is just a bad picture.

So here is March 1, 2 & 3.

I didn't actually make the new goal until Saturday. But fortunately I had taken a couple pictures on Friday anyway.

It was raining really hard on Saturday night, but I couldn't capture the magic correctly,
so I settled for a different kind of magic.

Can't get enough of the new ink.

The permanent decision.

Anybody who knows me well, knows that I'm an over thinker.

Almost every decision I make is a large process, taking at least a couple days to consider, usually with me making my mind, and then changing it 20 times before actually making the final decision. Or not making the decision ever. Example being my lack of career plans :).

Take my last big purchase.

The iPhone.

  I can't even tell you how many times I went back and forth on this one.
My blackberry started acting up months ago, and it was extremely frustrating. It would freeze up at least a couple times a day, randomly turn off (usually while I was on the phone), and sometimes not send or receive texts. But even though I knew what phone I wanted to get next, since it was so much money, I couldn't make myself take that large step. So, I would just smash my head into walls whenever my phone acted up instead.

Then I created a plan in which I would set aside a small amount of money from every paycheck, towards the new phone, so when I finally I had enough, I would feel as if I had earned it.
And this took a very long time.
The day finally came when I had enough, and I still couldn't do it.
It took me almost another month to work up the courage to spend the fortune that is required for the new iPhone.

So.
I come to my next large decision.

But this one came with another added pressure.

Permanence.

It's a whole 'nother stressfilled time when you are considering something that you will never be able to take back.

Like a tattoo.
So, like my phone, this choice was a long time coming. Which years of thinking it over. And I'm not really exaggerating when I say years.
After ages of thinking this through, in the fall I told myself it was time, and that I would do this for my birthday. Haha. That was wishful thinking.
4 months later, I was exasperated with my indecisiveness, and almost on a whim, I went into the tattoo parlour to see when I could book an appointment. There had been a cancellation, and I could come in the next morning. ACK! Instant panic attack. I thought I would have to wait weeks, and it would give me time to get used to this new development  But no, I was plunging head over heels into it. If you can say that after years of processing.
But maybe it was better this way. Like ripping off the bandaid.
And it turned out okay.
No time to stress, no time to change my mind. Just enough time to spend a couple hours pouring through websites looking for the perfect font.
Going into this, I wasn't sure what my pain tolerance would be.
I know generally, I'm not that great.
And it hurt.
I picked a very sensitive part of the body, and most of it was right on top of bone, which makes it hurt that much more. I was very unprepared, but I didn't make a fool of myself by crying. Very proud to say that not a tear was shed. I had to keep up a nonchalant "this is totally fine" attitude to prove to the tattoo artist that I was cool enough for this :).

Here it is.

To explain this tattoo, would be like giving up a part of my soul that I'm not so sure I'm willing to share quite yet. It obviously has meaning. But I'm sure I would do a very bad job of explaining that meaning.
Instead, I will leave you with the song that it came from, and maybe you can come up with an idea of what it means to me.