Fall Cleaning

Once in a blue moon I get an urge to clear out items that I own. I like to go through everything and see if I realty need them anymore. It helps control the clutter in my life and gets rid of unnecessary items.

Don’t be fooled though. I’m a terrible pack rat. I hold onto papers, receipts and knickknacks for years. I hate throwing things out but every once in a while I get this urge (read: OCD) to clean out.

I always feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders when I’m done. It’s very cathartic for me. So come this weekend there will be a major cleaning out.

Since I’m crazy and I love lists I decided to share with you my breakdown of getting rid of things.

Clothes

Suits: I’m finally going give away all my suits, except for one, to Dress for Success. I’ve been meaning to do this forever, but I just never get around to putting the box together.

Casual: things I haven’t worn in a year or don’t like anymore will go into bags to take to the clothing drop bins.

Shoes: ditto

T-Shirts: There are tons of t-shirts that I never wear but won’t throw out because of sentimental value. I’m going to gather up the ones that have a special meaning and I’m going to have a quilt made of them. My friend recently did this and it looks amazing!

Makeup

I love makeup. I literally have an entire dresser drawer filled with it as well as the makeup I use daily on top of the bureau. It’s bad. I hate throwing away makeup more than I do clothes but I really need to clean this out.

Old mascaras (more than 3 months), creams, and foundation will go in the trash.

Eye shadows, and others that haven’t gone bad will be divided up and distributed to friends and family.

My desk

Ugh this is the one task that I dread doing. My drawers in my desk are stuffed with random papers, receipts, books and all sorts of junk. There is no order whatsoever and it’s total chaos. I barely ever even go in them, only to throw more junk inside, because it’s so bad. I really have to go through each drawer and clear it out. I have receipts in there from last Christmas!! Obviously I don’t need them anymore.

My room doesn’t look like a mess, I really don’t like it to be, but for some reason I let my desk get crazy like that. I have to clean it out. Every time I open up a drawer I cringe.

Any tips on cleaning out? Have you ever felt the need to just purge yourself of unnecessary things?

Party Bus

This weekend was amazing. It was my best friend’s 25th birthday and she decided to get a party bus to take us out so no one would have to worry about driving. I’ve never been on a party bus before.

They are awesome! The inside looks like a really big limo. Black leather seats that goes all the way around the bus. Lighting on the ceiling that sparkled and you could make however bright or low you wanted. They had an Ipod hook up and XM radio with surround sound speakers. It was like your very own club. The driver was really cool and thankfully took his time taking us to where we were going.

There were 12 of us in total and we just went crazy. It was one of those nights where everyone has a good time and there is no drama or problems at all. The next morning I was actually sore from dancing all night long!

I hadn’t had a night like that in a while and it was just what I needed.

Me and the birthday girl

Aerial Shot at the club

Thursday Thoughts

Lat night I went out for some drinks with people from my office. We went to a bar were a freaking cranberry and vodka was 12 dollars!! I wasn’t paying, thankfully, but still. Who in their right mind wants to willingly spend that much money for a drink? They didn’t even have Miller light there! What bar doesn’t carry staple beers like that? They only had “fancy” beer. Give me a bar with 2-dollar beers any night of the week.

Today is my best friend’s 25th birthday!!! She can’t really do anything today because of work and then a conference tonight, but this weekend we will be celebrating her birthday the right way. Lots of booze and dancing! There are about 13 people going out so we all hired a party bus to take us to our destination. I’ve never been on one before so I’m super excited!

What happened to the fall?? The past two days has been hot and humid. Ugh. I’m ready for the crisp air already!

Can you keep a secret?

I just found out that my brother is married!!!

And only like 3 other people know!

Apparently before my brother and his wife moved to India, when they were getting everything straightened out, they were married. It was a quick two second thing.

At first I was a little hurt. I mean he's been married for MONTHS now and i didn't know!

Then I realized that they want to celebrate and have a "real" wedding. Felt that it might detract from the special day even just a little if people knew they were legally married already. I can completely understand that. They don't want anyone to feel left out or jaded for not being at the first one. Even if it was in a tiny office.

They are planning a ceremony to happen in the next few months when they come back to the states.

I can't wait to witness the special occasion and celebrate their marriage!

I hope no one I know in Real Life reads this or I am in big trouble!

Rekindling friendship

This past week I reconnected with a friend. I had mentioned her before and how frustrated I was becoming with the fact that she was never calling me back or trying to get in touch with me. Well almost a year later and we finally got back in touch.

I had stopped trying to call her a few months ago because I was just sick and tired of always getting a voice mail and never an answer back. I decided that the ball was in her court and if she wanted to get back in touch, she had to call me.

At first I was really upset and angry because I consider her to be a very good friend. She’s just one of those people who is impossible to get in touch with. I know she was going through a lot of rough times and this is pretty typical behavior, so I stopped taking it so personally.

When she first called I was really surprised. Instead of just letting it go, I made sure to let her know how much it initially hurt me about what happened. I hate being confrontational but I just couldn’t let this slide. She apologized profusely and filled me in on what was going on in her life. Since I wasn’t angry anymore I did accept her apology. I’m not one to hold grudges. Plus I know this past year has been really bad on her and she just needed time to work things out.

After that, it was just like old times. She’s defiantly the kind of person that you won’t see for years but once you meet up it’s like no time has passed. It was good talking to her and about everything that has happened. She’s one of the few people who really knows everything about me and it felt good to be able to talk about things that I can’t/don’t normally talk about with others. She just gets it.

We even meet up for drinks later that night. It was so much fun! I’m really happy we reconnected but at the same time I’m not going to think this will be a regular occurrence. Even though she is back living where I live. She’s one of those friends that when we talk we get along great and then when it’s done, we just go along with our own lives until we meet up again.

And you know what? That’s just fine with me.

Change of plans

I was all set to go see this apartment today. I kept going back and forth about whether or I should go and finally I decided to just go see it. Doesn’t me I have to take it right?

Well after all that, the girl e-mailed me to tell me a friend of hers is taking the room.

Oh well. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be then.

I still want to move out but I really need to be making more money first. I really hate the idea of living paycheck to paycheck.

Instead of looking for apartments, I’m going to be looking for jobs.

Wish me luck!!

Splurge

Last Wednesday I was sick. I mean like woke up at 2:30 am feeling like crap sick. The worst part was that I could not fall back to sleep. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. By 5 am I decided I wasn’t going to work and see a doctor. I hate using my PTO days like this. I rather save them and use them for vacation but there was no way I was going to make it through the day on like 2 hours of sleep.

Turns out I caught a parasite from my trip to Jamaica and had to start taking 3 different prescriptions to get rid of it. Thankfully I went to the doctor because it would have gotten a lot worse and with the medicine I was starting to feel better later that day.

By the weekend I was feeling great. Saturday I got my haircut and colored. I went really dark this time and it took a while for me to get used to it. Since the sun lighted up my hair so much this summer it was like a new person staring back into the mirror. I’m loving it now though. It really makes my eyes pop out.

For some reason I really felt like spending money this weekend. First was my hair, which cost a pretty penny. Then I bought a Kate Spade bag from their outlet store. It is gorgeous and I don’t even regret spending all that money on it. It was 40% off, I couldn’t resist. Then I bought myself some Puma sneakers and a birthday gift for my friend and my mom. Both aren’t for a while but I just couldn’t help myself.

In total I spent almost $500 dollars this weekend. Since I’m pretty tight with my money usually I tend to splurge once in a while. This was defiantly a splurge weekend. I don’t even feel guilty!

Have you ever just splurged on something without giving it a second thought? What was your best splurge?

Jumping head first

Sooo remember my post a while back about me looking at apartments on Craigslist? Well I found one that sounds amazing and I contacted them. Almost immediately I got a reply back from them giving me all the information that I asked for. Going back and forth we set up a time for me to see the place next week.

Que me starting to freak out. I told myself I wouldn't move until I got a better paying job and here I am looking at an apartment that if I were to move in to I would pretty much be living paycheck to paycheck.

The other side of me is saying that if I don't do this now, who knows when I will actually move out?? What if I live at home FOREVER and become a sad sad person?

I decided I'm not going to make myself crazy until I actually see the place. You never know I might hate it, or not like my potential roomates. At the same time what if I love it and then realize that I really can't afford it? Then I will be upset.

Ugh I really need to stop thinking about this.

One step at a time.

No problem mon!

While I was in Jamaica something happened to me that rarely EVER happens.

I was hit on. A lot.

I mean like every single guy who worked at the resort hit on me. I am not the kind of girl that has guys regularly approach me when I go out so this was interesting to say the least.

At first it was really flattering. Guys telling me how beautiful I am, writing their addresses down and asking me to keep in touch, even guys asking me to sleep with them within one minute of talking to them. One guy even told me that he thought about me while he was smoking up the night before. How romantic is that? Lol.

Then it quickly turned into me being really freaked out.

I mean everywhere I went it happened. While I was on the beach, the lifeguards and beach attendants would seek me out and come talk. One guy who called himself Sticky sought me out like 10 times a day. Every time he would ask me to be his girlfriend, ask if he could come visit me or ask when I would come back to see him.

What really got me was after the conversation was over instead of leaving he would just stand there staring at me. It was so awkward.

There was another man, Marlon, who said he wanted my body and that we would have a beautiful relationship. He was like 50, was missing teeth and was asking me to be his girlfriend! Then he would walk away about 20 feet, stand there and stare at me.

You know how some guys you can just tell that they are harmless, while others you met give you this feeling deep down that you want to stay away from them? Well that was how it was that week. Some guys would talk to me and I wouldn’t be freaked out or anything. It was just fun and flirty. Others like Sticky and Marlon really started to freak me out. I mean I would be walking back to my room and all of a sudden there is Sticky walking with me.

Also they would always try and get my friends and I to go off the resort and out with them. Since the resort has a lot of rules about staff talking to guests for to long, they would always ask us to meet them off the resort.

We went out once with this one guy Stewie who you could tell was harmless and actually really fun to hang out with. He really liked my one friend so I figured I was safe when we went out. Well turns out Stewie is really good friends with Sticky and invited him to come along. I was pretty pissed. Sticky was wasted before he even showed up and then the entire time was all over me. Sitting on a bar stool he was like glued next to me and kept on asking me to be his girlfriend.

Also the bar we went to was the sketchiest place I have ever been in. We were the only girls in the place and every single man there approached us. After about an hour I was done and just wanted to get back to the resort. When we left Sticky came and kept on trying to kiss me. Which was really awkward again.

Then they finally left and right before we got to the resort one of the guys from the bar came up to me and asked why I wouldn’t talk to him when he was giving me the look the whole time. I tried to be polite but at that point I was fed up so I just said goodbye and went into the resort.

While it was nice to get attention like that, I just wish it hadn’t been so intense for the entire week. Most of the guys though were fun; it was just the few bad ones that really irked me.

Jamaica pictures

My friends and I at the Jetty bar. The swings were big and comfy!

I climbed a Waterfall!! Another post about that later.

View from the beach at the resort. You can see the boats that we got to use.

Me on the glass bottom boat

Bottom of the boat

Some of the fish we got to see!

The Catamaran

Me sailing away on it.

View of the resort. You can see the little huts that people got to stay in. We opted for sleeping in an actual hotel room which was bigger and more comfortable for the three of us.

Me at dinner with the sun setting behind me.

Sunset Jamaican style

Everything Irie

I really have no idea where to start about my vacation. It was so beautiful down there and there was just so much stuff to do at the resort. Usually when you stay at an all-inclusive place the food, drinks, tip and things are included. A lot of times though any kind of water activity you may want to do aren’t. With this place they included tons of activities that I was so happy about! I usually tend to get ADD and really restless when I sit at the beach all day long. Here I didn’t have to worry about that because I was able to break up my day with funs things to do!

There was a trampoline in the ocean with was so much fun to go on.

There were paddleboats and kayaks you could take out whenever.

We did a glass bottom boat tour that was so cool.

The guy who did our tour apparently had a crush on me (more on that later) and took me and my friends out on the catamaran after the glass bottom boat and took us all around. That was by far my favorite thing.

Other things they offered that we didn’t get a chance to do were water skiing (I can’t because of my knee) and the banana boats (broken for the WHOLE week).

On top of all the activities they were always organizing games on the land. Whether it be volleyball, horseshoes or trivia there was always something going on.

They also were also playing music throughout the place from either a DJ or a live band. Although my only complaint about the music was this place LOVED the electric slide. They must have played that song literally 10 times a day! The best was when one of the bands played the song. They were three really old guys singing an acoustic slow version of the song. It was hilarious to hear it played like that. Especially the boogie oogie part. lol.

At night they had a show in the main area of the resort. If you didn’t want to see the show you could walk to the other side of the resort and go to the Jetty Bar, which was by far my favorite place. Instead of stools at the bar you sat on swings! Isn’t that the best idea ever?? You would get your drink and can sip and swing. Heaven.

The resort is technically only 3 Star, but honestly because of the service there it should be higher. The staff does their best to keep you happy and entertained. Also the front desk was really helpful and friendly. We had a problem with our room and right away we were able to switch to a much more comfortable room. Then that room had some ants in the bathroom but again right away they sent someone up and we had no more bugs.

All in all this is a place I would defiantly consider going to again in the future.

Since I don’t want to make this a super long post I am breaking it up. Each day this week will be a new post. Tomorrow will be pictures!