Yay for Spring, Boo for skin-cancer!

Summer is near my friends. The warmth of the sun is slowly progressing day by day, ingenerating a brightness inside of my soul. This is my favorite time of the year; the passing of winter to spring, and more importantly the change in my skin tone from pasty white to a more not-so-pasty tone. This is always a good thing. However, every year, the sunbathing tradition scares me more and more. As much as I love laying in that chair, eyes closed, soaking in the strongest of the sun's rays day after day, as much as possible, I refuse to do so without the proper protection. I do not want to be leather-face by the time that I am 35, nor do I want skin cancer, so I have turned into somewhat of a sunscreen nazi, and I would encourage the rest of you to do the same. You cannot turn back the "aging-clock" of time, well, not without lots of money and a risk of looking like Joan Rivers once you become addicted to it, so my vote is for the much more simple and affordable approach....SUNSCREEN!! And, no, SPF 4 does not do the job! If the thought of your skin one day resembling pig-skin is not enough to scare you, then the very-possible risk of skin cancer should. This includes tanning beds people! If you go by the books, you should always wear minimun of 30 SPF when sunbathing, and reapply every 2 hours. I cannot say that I am that strict with myself, but I promise to make a conscious effort to do so, as long as the rest of you will put forth some effort as well. I challenge each and every one of you (again, pretending I have tons of readers) to put aside your vanity, grab some sunscreen and APPLY!...everyday before you leave the house. You don't have to be sunbathing in order for your skin to be damaged. Famous words from my mother and mothers around the world I'm sure..."Just because you are wearing sunscreen does not mean you won't get any sun!" My mom exhausted this expression every summer growing up, and I never took her advice until now, and much to my surprise, she was right! You can still achieve that summer glow, except without the sunburn and the peeling of your skin. Peeling skin=not good! I am a HUGE fan of gradual self tanners such as Jergens and Aveeno, and also of spray tans for that quick "special event" tan. Consider yourself officially challenged! It's not going to be easy, but I can promise that it will be worth it! Ok everyone, on your mark....get set.....GO!! TO YOUR LOCAL WALGREENS TO BUY SOME SUNSCREEN....and self tanner or whatever else you need.

I love Walgreens by the way!

Bachelor trash and Bluegrass bash

Not-So-Breaking News: Jason Mesnick is a Douchebag!....and a cry baby.

Jillian is the new Bachelorette just as I predicted. YAY!!!!

I'm going to Auburn this weekend for a Bluegrass festival and I am SUPER-STOKED about it! I can't even put into words how bad I need to get out of this town :) It's going to be a very sunny weekend on the plains and I am so excited! My best friend Amy is coming and bringing her "new man"...which I am very excited about, because well she is really excited about it, and he seems like a REALLY good guy. Can't wait to meet him!

It's been a pretty good week so far. Had dinner and Bachelor finale on Monday with the girls, my boyfriend's birthday dinner yesterday, and now just looking forward to a relaxing, sunny weekend in one of my favorite little towns :)

Oh yeah, so does anyone know any good tv shows that come on Monday nights?? My friends and I need to replace our "Dinner and the Bachelor" night with "Dinner and some other show" night, and so we're trying to figure it out. I know that new show Lie to Me is supposed to be really good. Maybe we'll just make it "Dinner and rent-a-movie" night?? I hope everyone is having a good week!

"Watch a man in times of... adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off." -Lucretius

My not so "rose-colored" blog

"Yeah, this is my town! na na na na naaa..." Love me some Montgomery Gentry ;)

http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20090225/NEWS/902250297/1016/NEWS01

This is a really sad story, but I mean, come on! How does this happen???

I know I know. I haven't blogged in quite a few days now. I feel horrible that I have left my handful of readers with nothing to read, but being that my blog is titled "My world through rose colored glasses," I was having some problems coming up with anything "rose-colored" to blog about. The crazy thing about that is, that in reality I have SO MANY rose-colored things and people in my life, but for some reason we overlook those things when something is going wrong in our lives. I have been pretty down in the dumps lately, and I have tried to disguise it as much as I can; however, much to my dismay, I haven't been doing a very good job at it. I keep getting the dreaded, "Is everything ok with you?" question. I lose my ability to hold it all together when people start asking questions. Apparently, it's "good to talk about your feelings" or something like that. So, I have been trying that, but mostly it's been talking to myself...at night....when I should be sleeping, which equals no sleep...which is NO GOOD for my stress levels. I'm working on it though. The most important thing though, is for me to keep in mind that I have GREAT people in my life. Family, friends, boyfriend...and they support me 100%. I am extremely lucky to have such a wonderful support system, so THANKYOU to all my people who have been there for me through so many tough times, and also for being there for me now. I love all of you!

Bad day. Big fish.

I can't blog today. Sorry to the two people who actually read it. I just don't feel like it.

Maybe later though.

* The picture is of my mom with an exceptionally large brim that she caught in our lake..."Lake Jonesy." It holds the world's largest brim. Seriously.

The Strutting Duck: I came. I saw. I conquered. Part 1

So, I just got a facebook message from "The Strutting Duck" informing me of a bluegrass music festival happening at the beginning of March. Even though I am SUPER-STOKED about this event, for oh-so-many reasons...it is not the reason for this blog. For those of you who don't know...(I like to pretend that people that don't know me actually find my blog interesting)...ok, so for those of you who don't know, The Strutting Duck is what I would call the perfect description of a "dive bar," located in Auburn, AL. It is a place that is very near and dear to my heart, not only because of the memories that will last a lifetime, the friends that were made, or the nights I can't remember, but also because of (excuse my language please, there is no other way to say this) the funny-ass shit that happens there....and more than likely, nowhere else. I am going to use this blog as a tribute to some, but not nearly all, of the funny-ass shit that I have experienced at the Strutting Duck. Enjoy

*line dancin', high-waisted wrangler wearin', tobaccer spittin', ....WOMEN...and the wasted frat boys that are hittin' on 'em.
*girls dancing as if they were strippers to the song "I'd love to lay you down" by Conway Twitty and couples dancing/dry-humping to the song "Dust on the Bottle" by David Lee Murphy. This does not necessarily mean that they were drunk. Obviously, they just missed a very important turn on their way to Twisters or the back room at Sky Bar.
*one time I actually witnessed what had to have been the Auburn Highschool Prom afterparty take over the entire bar. It was one of the most hilarious, but also brutally awkward moments in my "Duck" history....possibly my life.
*hands down, everytime I went to "the duck" I could pretty much assure you that the most redneck, unfortunate-looking, country-bumpkin male in the entire bar would, at some point during the night, approach me and ask me to dance....repeatedly. This never happened with any of the scarse amount of good-looking guys in the bar. Ever. Unless they were my friends. haha
*I could also rest assured that at some point in the night I would get to witness my bestie Leanne "put that b**ch in her place" for trying to steal her spot on the front row. Sometimes I was scared, and sometimes almost peed my pants from laughing so hard. Good times though.
*And one time there was this really hyper girl, and me and my friend Ryan watched her for hours. Not gonna go into it, cause I'm pretty sure you had to be there, but I think Ryan thought she was hot.
*Of course there were always the "line-dancing girls" who everyone would make room for so that they could watch them turn what is supposed to be the "Watermelon Crawl" into a rendition of the routine from the Pussycat Dolls video "Don't Cha." Classic. I'm pretty sure that was when me and Leanne decided that we wanted to take hip-hop dance classes. We were gonna show those bitches up....not that it would've been hard.

Well that was my stroll down Strutting Duck memory lane...to be continued. Hope you enjoyed.

Kate Greene, my hero

So, I couldn't really find a friend to join me in my quest to get fit, however, I have found what I like to call a "cyberpal" to join me on my journey, or I on hers?. Either way, I have found the inspiration that I needed...and she goes by the name of k...a...t....e....g....r.....e....e....n....e! Thankyou Kate. You are my hero. All it took was a couple of "bootcamp updates" and I'm officially motivated. WoooHooo!! Look out world...get ready for K-squared "new and improved!"

*The pic is me after my 10 mile bike ride in the Destin "Crabtrap Triathlon 2008"

Team Jillian forever!

Whatever, Jason. Jillian is not the loser in this story, you are. Good luck with sketchy, mousey Melissa, since we all know that's who you pick. I guess it would be better than Molly the creepster.

Oh, and to all of the women on the show that kept saying things like, "I am so ready to be a mother", "I think that I am the perfect girl for Jason and for Ty" , "I know that I can be the role model that Ty needs in his life".....and so on....FYI: Ty already has a freakin' mom! And if she could even stand to watch the show, she probably cringes every time she hears each of you talk about how perfect you would be for HER son!

Yes, I have become one of those annoying people who get way too involved in a reality tv show.

For all of my fellow Jillian fans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nN8UrBkyag

burritos, bachelor, and big thighs...

Sooo....I made a very serious promise to myself last week that I was DEFINITELY going to start my new workout/eating healthy regimen today. However, obviously, I forgot that today was President's Day. So, out of complete respect for this holiday in which I take very seriously...I did not exercise or eat healthy. I mean, what kind of person would I be if I stole all of our wonderful presidents' thunder? Exactly. So instead, I slept until 11am, played on the internet, ate a ridiculously large amount of mexican food for lunch accompanied by my perfectly crisp, exceptionally large glass of dr. pepper, went to the grocery store and bought groceries to make a really fattening, yet delicious buffalo chicken pizza for my friends and I, so that we could sit on our asses for 2 hours watching the Bachelor throw his life away by kicking off my favorite girl, Jillian...she was so obviously the best choice. Molly is creepy, and so is her family. Melissa obviously has some skeletons in the closet. I mean really, she's like "Hey Jason, come meet my oldest, very best friends in the whole world! None of whom have ever met any guy I've ever dated or my parents." Do her parents have a problem with the "publicness"...Melissa's word...of the show, or just the public in general? I'm thinking it maybe has something to do with incest or something crazy that Melissa doesn't want, not only Jason, but ANYONE to know about. Red flag. Jillian, however, was smart, beautiful, normal and her accent was cool. What's not to love about a girl who can make the words "sane" and "again" rhyme. I know, right? Oh well, I am officially starting the, "JILLIAN, FOR BACHELORETTE" campaign for anyone who is interested in joining me. Yeah, my short attention fuse ran out and took me off on a whole different subject. Probably my subconscience steering me away from thinking about my inability to motivate myself to get on a treadmill. Basically, I really thought that it was the real thing this time. I was actually going to start today, and change my life into a more healthy one. My failure to do that, much to your surprise, actually had nothing to do with President's Day. I am just lazy and suffer from a severe self-discipline deficiency. Tomorrow, I suppose. Definitely, tomorrow.

Oh no he didn't!

ATTENTION ALL GADSDENIANS!!

I am here to report the breaking news...to me atleast, and hopefully to you, otherwise this blog is of little importance....that someone by the name of "Paw" is trying to take down Connie's Coneys! I was driving down broad street today taking in all the lovely historicness, and that's when I saw it....PAW'S DOGS! How dare he? This "Paw" character has a lot of nerve to set his hotdog stand up just feet away from our precious Connie and her coneys. I'll be forming a picket line at the gazebo tomorrow. See you all there.

"Live and Let Live"

Just the other day I got into a somewhat heated argument with a friend about bi-racial relationships. I have always considered myself to be a pretty conservative person. However, as I was making my argument, which to me doesn't seem like a very hard one to make, that, morally, there is nothing wrong with two people of different races being in a relationship, for the first time in my life I was referred to as a "liberal." Maybe I'm missing something here, but does thinking that there is nothing wrong with a relationship between two consenting adults that just happen to be of different races make me a liberal?? What bothers me the very most about this ever-so-popular topic here in the south, is that for a lot of people a "bi-racial relationship" is defined as a couple consisting of a black person and a white person. A chinese girl and a white boy won't get near as much attention walking through the mall as a black girl and a white boy. I've just never understood this. Why do people even CARE?? Why would anyone let something that has no affect on their life whatsoever send them into a frenzy? Anyone ever heard of the phrase "live and let live?" I think we could all learn a lot from that simple little phrase. I just needed to vent a little bit about that. Thanks for listening.

*Now, I think that we could all learn some obvious things from the little boy's drawing. But one, not so obvious thing that I would like to learn is why some of those children in the picture have yellow faces. It's a precious picture, really, but I was just wondering...

Snapshots

Photography is a new and developing interest of mine. These are some recent photographs that I have taken.

I have arrived in Blogville

Say goodbye to the sacred act of expressing one's personal thoughts in a private journal and hello to broadcasting them on the web for the whole world to see. I'm not really sure what possessed me to enter into the world of "blogging" but here I am! Maybe it's as simple as me being bored...or maybe it's a longing to provide insight to my world of thoughts, and more importantly, as a result of doing something that goes against the nature of who I am, become more understood. In this blog you will probably endure a lot of mindless babble, but I hope that atleast once someone will be able to read and relate to something I have to say, and maybe even learn something from it. Welcome to my world...misunderstood, but quite possibly somewhat interesting.

*The picture is of me and one of my oldest friends Andrew taken at a local bar in my hometown over Thanksgiving.