Rough week for my phone

My phone has seen better days. I should have known it was gonna be a rough week, when my phone decided to dive into the toilet. I know, people reading this will think I’m joking about it ‘diving.’ Seriously though, I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth, in the bathroom. My phone was next to the sink (granted, not the best place for it) I hear a splash, and bam look in the toilet, there is my phone. Somehow it fell off the edge. I choose to believe it was somehow pushed by ghosts, or just has a death wish. Anyway, it was dead. It spent the next 1.5 days in a baggie filled with rice. What do you know, that stuff actually works. My phone was revived.

Just chillin' in some rice

Fast forward two days. I was getting out of the car and my phone slipped from my fingers, landing face first on the pavement. Keep in mind, I’ve dropped my phone probably 50 or 60 times, never done anything but scratched it or chipped. This must have been the perfect storm of height, angle, pressure, face area hit, etc. Because the below image is what I am left with.

It will works, so I’m plowing through with the phone. Besides it looking a little white-trash, it works. I can hold off awhile.

Just wanted to point out, it’s been a rough week for my phone.

‘I Choose Us’

I was in the cardio cinema the other day at Gold's Gym. The Family Man with Nicholas Cage was playing. This is a movie I have seen many times and even though i'm not a Cage fan, I think the movie is great and has a really good storyline and message.

In one of the final scenes the two main characters, Jack and Kate (Tea' Leoni and Nicholas Cage are having a discussion. I won't go into all the details, but at the end Kate just tell's Jack, 'I choose us... i'm willing to move our kids to the city, uproot them from a home we became a family in, and do whatever it is you need to do, because I love you and I choose us Jack.'

Let's be honest, i'm a single person. I've never been married, so i'm not going to wax philosophical about being married, or pretend to know how hard it is to make a marriage work. I will say this though, I love this line. For some reason even though i have seen the show many times, it really struck me hard as I was running on the treadmill in that darkened cinema, and really made me think. What a great sentiment--'I choose us.'

-

I think that is what needs to happen. In a marriage all other selfishness needs to fall to the wayside. You need to care about your spouse enough to 'choose us' fight for what it is you fell in love with in the first place. Don't choose yourself, choose them.

That's it... hope all you married people out there 'choose us.'

The Death of My Youth

It's always been easy to convince myself that i'm still young. I mean, i'm only as old as I feel right? and to be honest, I still feel like i'm 18 or 19... most days. (not the days where i wake up and my back hurts, and i stretch out my leg and it pops in 15 places) But most other days.

Yes, it's easy to convince myself of this, but when other age revealing clues start making themselves known, you kind of realize you might have to face the facts. Unfortunately that time has come and i've had a rude awakening as of late.

(Obviously this is not me, but I feel like it accurately portrays my feelings of finding gray hairs)

Two times, yes, two times, in the last two months, i've looked in the mirror, and had that scary/annoying looking wiry hair poking out of the side of my head--you know the one i'm talking about... it's that thick piece of gray hair. Sadly it sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the otherwise very dark expanse of hair i have coating the rest of my head, there's no way for it to hide. Each time i've quickly plucked it out, and tried to forget about it--those two times don't even include the time my roommate so kindly pointed out another one on my head, while sitting in church one Sunday. I believe her exact comment was

"wow, when you go gray, you won't be able to straighten your hair anymore, cause this little guy poking out is curly." I of course scowled at her, then immediately told her to pluck it out.

Basically what i'm saying is, the mirror doesn't lie. I'm getting old. Old age is coming... I can feel it, just like I can feel the colder weather of winter already approaching even though it's only September. I can try to avoid it, but inevitably it will happen.

Next thing you know i'll be complaining about the loudness of the radio, yelling at those darn kids to stop running past my house, or eating dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon. Yikes.

My youth is gone. It was fun while it lasted...

Thoughts

I know, it's been forever, i'm not great at this blogging thing.

Things on my mind right now:

1. Going to the park on a Sunday afternoon to read, write in my journal, take a nap, or just lay on my back staring up through the trees is my favorite way to spend the afternoon.

2. The more you love someone, the more disappointed you are when they make bad decisions.

3. Sometimes it’s okay to take a small break from being social, to have a few hours of quality Adrienne time—time with just myself. Take a breath and sort out my life.

4. If you play with fire, you will most inevitably get burned. Yes, at times it’s fun and exciting, but eventually the burn hurts.

5. I’m excited that Fall is well on its way. I love this time of year, and I love football. I’m not so excited that it will start to get cold. I’m not ready for cold temps, and I’m not even remotely ready for snow.

6. Good-byes are the worst. It's been like 4 weeks since my little brother went into the MTC. I'm doing okay, i miss him, but luckily i'm very happy he's on a mission and know he's doing the right thing. I don't like good-byes though. I'm not a cryer, but hugging him good-bye left me choked up, with tears falling down my face. I really don't like good-byes in general, I know it's horrible, but sometimes I would rather just slip out, without having to say good-bye, and then be gone long before anyone knows--then i don't have to say good-bye. Is that so wrong? Kind of a cop-out, i know. Just a thought.

7. Did I mention I love football? :) so excited for it.

that's all.

A Time Machine?

From a few of my other posts, you know that I love music, I listen to it all the time, and love discovering new songs.

Another reason I like music? It can almost act as a time machine for me. I hear a song and it takes me back to the first time I heard it, to a happier time, or to any number of experiences or memories attached to hearing that distinct song.

Yesterday as my iPod was shuffling through music on my way to work, a song with particularly painful memories attached to it slipped on. I was about to change it, but something held me back, and I listened. I was immediately transported back to a time months ago--I was sitting in the car with a guy I was dating at the time, we were in a parking garage, and he was playing me this song for the first time. He was explaining how it was his all time favorite, and had me listen to all of the words, laying out to me the importance of the words to him.

I was amazed at how extraordinarily detailed this memory was I could actually smell his car air freshener, I could see the earnestness in his eyes as he tried to portray the meaning of this song, and I could feel the ache in my own heart realizing it was just a memory.

This was the first time I’d allowed myself to listen to this song since things ended with this guy, things had not ended well between us, and it was just too painful to listen to. All the other times before I had skipped right over it. D@#n that iPod shuffle for pulling it up as much as it did. :)

I’m really glad I stopped it this time to listen--as it played, I not only remembered the painful memories, but I started to remember good one’s as well. I pulled myself out of that parking garage, and back to my car. I found myself smiling while listening to the words, and realizing that it wasn’t really painful. Things change and happen for a reason, they get better and you move on. By the end of the song I was singing along to it.

As the last two lines of the song played, and then faded out, I couldn’t help smiling at the appropriateness of them.

‘And so it goes…. And so it goes…’

This time my ‘Music Time Machine’ helped to heal my heart a little.

Slump...

I’m in a slump. Yeah, the kind of slump you just can’t pull out of…. I’m talking 10 feet under, deep in a sand-pit each step I take out of it falling two more steps backward, want to sit around in sweatpants laying on the couch too numb to even watch TV kind of a slump.

That’s how I feel.

Sorry. I’ve slacked off in my posting, but if I’m too ‘slumpish’ to watch TV, I’m definitely too ‘slumpish’ to post.

I think the cold winter is getting to me--Maybe I just need a hug.

I’ll pull out of it. Hopefully next week I will post on all the latest happenings in my life the last few months.

If not, no worries. It just means I’m still sitting in my sweats on the couch not watching TV. :)

Adrenaline Junkie

From my last post, you saw that I went Para Gliding. I went skydiving on Saturday (don’t worry, pictures soon to come) I think sky-diving finally pushed me over the edge. I used to just enjoy the sporadic adrenaline rush… that burst of excitement mixed with fear that really gets your heart racing and comes through doing fun/crazy things. Well, launching myself out of a plane at 50,000 feet was the ultimate rush. Now I crave it--that’s right, its official, I’m an adrenaline junkie.

Driving home from my parent’s house this past Sunday night, I sought after that rush. The drive usually takes me a solid 55-56 minutes. I made it home faster than I ever have dun dun dun—47 minutes. For those of you who can’t compute the numbers fast enough, I shaved 8-9 minutes off the drive. Mario Andretti would have been proud. I was going so fast, whipping in and out of cars, flying past everyone. (Granted, it might not have been the safest drive home, but it sure was speedy) the fact that I set a personal record, a PR if you will for my drive home, only heightened my rush.

I can’t help it, now I crave it. I found myself at Boondocks last night on the go-carts, pushing that little car to its limit, zipping around corners, I kept pressing down on the gas pedal, hoping against hope that the little guy could go faster, sadly it could not.
Split into teams later in the night for laser tag, running around in the dark--each person I ‘Lasered’ gave me a little burst of energy… I was running around like crazy trying to acquire as many points as possible.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is: It’s happened, I crave the rush--and now I can’t look back.

During conference one talk spoke on being addicted to things. My brother turned to me, and said I was addicted to adrenaline. I daresay, Dane, you may be right.