Retail Therapy

I had the day off today. I was woken up early (8am) because my sweet Kevin wanted McDonald’s for breakfast and didn’t want to go alone. I reluctantly got up and we got ourselves some good Sausage McMuffins (no egg). We came back home, ate our food, and watched some TV. After a bit, Kevin had to do some work, since he was working from home. I was feeling a bit restless and claustrophobic and couldn’t bare the thought of sitting in front of the TV my entire day off; so I left to do some retail therapy.

I was going to drive out to Factoria Mall, but realized it was about 20-30 mins away. I choose to go to Redmond Towne Center instead, since I had never been there. I wasn’t impressed at all. All the stores are outside, as opposed instead like at a mall, but that wasn’t the annoying part, it would be very nice to walk around if it was warm out. The selection of stores was pretty pathetic; I went to Macy’s and PacSun, that’s all that entertained me. There was a lot of stuff on sale at Macy’s, but nothing that caught my attention. I gave up on the Towne center and went over to the two stores that never let me down: Kohl’s and Target. Kohl’s was having some amazing sales and I even, gasp, tried on some dresses. Here is one of the dresses I really liked on me. Please excuse the socks, buts it is a dressing room and no one would stand on that floor barefoot.




I also found a really cute skirt, but I ended up leaving empty handed. I went to Target and just walked around looking at stuff. I ended up buying a few things, but nothing exciting just the normal toiletries.

After Target, I needed to get a haircut. I don’t think I have had a haircut in over six months and it was time. Not only did I have lots of split ends, but the length was annoying me. I went into Great Clips and all the ladies were Asian (nothing against Asian’s I promise). I didn’t have a good feeling when I went in, but I was too lazy to drive somewhere else. When it was finally my turn, the lady who cut my hair barely spoke English. It was hard to understand her and I’m sure she had no idea what I said. I told her I wanted my hair chopped with layers, the longest layers falling right below my chin. She kept saying “one inch? One inch?” so finally I just said “sure”. She did understand layers though and the haircut did turn out okay; however, it is not as short as I would have liked. I figure I will wait a few weeks and then go somewhere else and get it cut shorter. If I go see my parents this weekend I might be able to talk my mom into doing it for me. I was pretty disappointed with the way the hair turned out. My mood was a little better after my shopping, but then the hair thing brought me back down again. Stupid, it doesn’t look bad but I have to go somewhere else now and pay more money to get it done the way I want. If she had spoken better English I would have asked her to make it shorter, but I just don’t think she understood me.

And the Beat Goes On...

Life is a funny thing. We live, we struggle, we feel, we fight, we love, we lose love, we give up, we find happiness, and then we do it all over again. Sometimes life hits you strong and hard and all I really want to do is hide under the covers and sleep it all out. I feel myself falling into a depression, and I cycle through this over and over. I’m not sure if it is hormones or what, but I repeatedly find myself heading toward the depression side of life. The good news is that I see the signs of it coming on when it does and I wallow in it for a few days and then force myself out of it. Too many things are going on right, and too many things are out of my control.

As a counselor, I am always teaching people that there are events which will always be out of your control and you are only in control of your reactions. You cannot control every event in your life, and you cannot control other people, only yourself. I teach that each person is responsible for their own feelings and their own happiness and if they don’t like how they feel, they alone have the power to change it. It seems at times I am not able to practice what I preach. I agree that it is hard at times to pull yourself out of your funk, but you are the only one who can pull yourself out.

I digress, as usual, back to me and my funk. The signs I usually get are as follows: constant tiredness regardless of how much sleep I get; junk food munchies; lack of motivation; and anti-social behavior. The biggest thing for me is the desire to be alone. I get restless sitting at home on the couch and I just want to get out and blend in with the crowd for awhile. It goes along with the old saying “be alone amongst a thousand people”, or however it goes. I don’t want to socialize or talk to people, but just get lost in the crowd and basically be left alone.

I don’t know what really brings this on. Currently, I am discouraged by my job and want to quit; however, I need the money for survival. I want to concentrate more on my writings, but in the last few weeks I have found very little writing gigs and haven’t written to my blog or anything. This makes me believe I am not cut out to be a writer because I am not motivated enough to do so. I feel like there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all the things I want to do, so I just do nothing. I fear that by quitting my job, I will not accomplish my goals of being a writer. I hope that I will be more motivated and more disciplined, but I fear I will not be. All that said, it all irritates me to no end. Yes, I irritate myself and make myself cranky and depressed. I suppose it is up to me to change it, easier said than done though.

It is tough when you go through struggles and depression and the people around you are going through the same thing. It brings about a more helpless situation, because you are unable to give anything to the people you care most about and you are unable to get anything from them as well. It seems like we are all carrying our own burdens alone, and I don’t like that either.

I suppose I should just figure out some sort of schedule for myself and stick to it. Make myself blog daily, write a few pages in my book, look for writing jobs, write blogs for different sites, and stick to the schedule I make. If I do a little each day, I will at least feel like I am accomplishing something and maybe that will pull me out of this funk I am falling into.

V-Day Comes Early

V-day is coming faster than we can say “Money, Shopping, Diamonds!” I like to think I’m not like normal females who buy into this ‘special’ day, where the more money spent equals how much you love me. I would rather have someone love me every day and show me in his own special way as often as possible. I’m not much of jewelry loving materialistic girl either, so diamonds and shiny prizes aren’t going to do much for me. As an early valentine’s day present, Kevin bought me the following things.



I have a man who knows what I like and pays attention to keep up. The occasional surprise of flowers in my bathroom sink (that’s where he leaves them for me to find), mustard (cause I put it on almost everything), Ranch (cause that goes on everything else), and M&M’s (cause its chocolate). Yes, I can honestly say my man knows me and he knows how to make me happy, mostly without even trying. I can’t believe I am so lucky to have found such a fantastic man. All the money and possessions in the world couldn’t even come close to causing me such complete joy and happiness as Kevin does. I love that man and I know without a doubt that he truly loves me too.

Not for the Weak of Stomach

I have been a bit gassy lately and food seems to not be a friend of mine. I made a decision to try cleaning out my system to see if that did the trick. I talked to Kevin who informed me of a Salt-Water cleanse, which will make you poop a lot but cleans everything out. It is the least expensive and easiest procedure, and I would rather drink something than flush water up my bum (enema anyone?). Anyway, I took 2 teaspoons of unionized salt, or Kosher salt in my case (by the way it was suppose to be 2 tablespoons), put it in a small water bottle and then filled it up with warm water. Then, I drank it down, yummy…no not really. Tastes as bad as it sounds, and the trick is to keep it from coming back up. For some reason, it wasn’t difficult to drink (maybe because I didn’t have enough salt in there), so I finished it all up. Then, you wait around for about 30-60 minutes before the fun really starts. I put a scented candle in the bathroom and some magazines to read, for the fallout and then did some chores around the house while I waited. Sure enough about 50 minutes later, I felt a rumbling sensation in my intestines and actually started to get excited (I know I’m strange). I went to the bathroom and after about 10 minutes, was strangely disappointed at the lack of “stuff” coming out. I was hoping for pounds of waste to come out so that I would lose 5 pounds or something. I took a few trips to the bathroom, all with the same result. There was no huge cleansing, not big relief, I didn’t feel lighter, and in fact I gained a pound when all was said and done. I was under the impression that a Salt-water cleanse cleans out the bowels and intestines, but this was not the case with me.

I told Kevin of my disappointment and that was when I realized I did not use enough salt. Will I try it again later this week? Of course, I need an exciting tale to blog about after all. I wasn’t feeling to good most of the day anyway, due to an all-night Migraine, so after my depressing non-poop fest, I took a nap.



Kevin came home and began typing up some court documents, so I continued to sleep. Once, I got up, I decided I should try to lose weight the old fashion way…working out. I drank some water and then headed down to the gym for some treadmill action. As I was walking on the treadmill, Kevin came in and lifted some weights. Then, we decided to go in our new Sauna. I am starting to really enjoy that thing. I love that you go in and you are all cold (cause you are naked, or mostly naked) but when you come out you are drenched with sweat. Below is a picture of my sweaty, glistening Kevin as we are getting out. He tried to get my back, which just drips sweat like its running out of my body, but the camera kept fogging up in the box. It feels really good to sweat out all the toxins and stuff in your body, plus it’s the equivalent to burning about 300 calories in a 30 minute sitting.



Now, I am just praying for snow to continue falling outside, anything to get out of work really.

Writing for Profit

In the last few months, I have been wanted to work on my writing skills with the hopes of eventually moving into some sort of freelance writing career. I have realized that the counseling field is not quite doing it for me. There is too much paperwork, too many rules and regulations, too little results, and not enough time in the day to do it all. I have found I am becoming bored and restless, come on it is been almost a year in the same job.

Anyway, after talking things over with Kevin and explaining my thoughts on the matter, he expressed his unfailing support for whichever path I choose. We came to the conclusion that as long as I paid off my car and other large bills, I could quit my job and concentrate on the writing biz for awhile. While most people would jump at the opportunity of being taken care of, independent Michelle has a small problem with that. I can’t rely on other people to take care of me financially, when I am quite capable of taking care of myself. Besides, the little voice inside of me which fears failure started screaming in my head that it would be a waste of his time and money if I found out I couldn’t write after all. I am a harsh critic on myself, but I think I can write in a semi-entertaining fashion.

Two paragraphs later, I get to my point. Kevin introduced me to an amazing site where I could get some practice with writing and get paid. The site is www.rentacoder.com, and it has been an amazing ride for me. I joined the site at the end of December 2008, and received my first payment today, $220.00. Not to shabby if you ask me. I have completed 9 projects, and am currently working on two more. What sort of projects have I done? Here is a short list of my completed projects:
-Ghostwriting an 11 page article on the past seasons of “24”
-Wrote 6 short reviews on various Facebook applications
-Ghostwriting 15 articles on Astrology signs and compatibility
-Wrote a short review on an Itunes application
-Read a book and posted a review on Amazon
-Created a database for a cruise line
-Created a database for a website, stating hits and financials
-Posted a real estate listing to Craigslist
-Edited two articles regarding a company’s software program

Fairly simple projects, some requiring more work than others. I’m excited for the opportunities this will lead too. As I gain more experience with my writing, I am able to build a stronger portfolio and charge a higher rate for my projects. I am waiting for the day I turn my writing into a full blown career. At this time, I am polishing up my writing skills and getting in as much practice as I can. I hope to leave my job soon and spend my days as a writer. I look forward to all the adventures this will lead to, and all the future blogs I will force myself to write.