Monday Night Blog Buffet

Welcome to the Monday Night Blog Buffet! Just like a real buffet, you get to sample all the juicy morsels in a variety of choices... bon appetit!

Humidity-D, the allergy cure
There are things I miss about Chicago... like how happy my skin and sinuses were, *le sigh*. I'm a native Colorado girl. Carrying around a Nalgene water bottle, lip balm and lotion are as necessary as oxygen to prevent withering up like a prune in this dry state (and I don't mean liquor - umm, Colorado breweries??). Any "humid" day here causes all of us natives to whine and moan like spoiled children... I thought the humidity in Chicago would near kill me. The opposite actually. My skin LOVED it, and suddenly my allergies were nonexistant. Gone, cured, nowhere to be found! That's nothing short of a miracle, considering I have the worst allergies known to womankind. Well, sweet. I guess the sinus surgery I discussed with my doc back in May can be put on hold... indefinitely. Apparently I just need to move to a humid place. I don't even want to discuss what my skin has been doing for two straight weeks. FREAKING the F out, yo!! No amount of lotion or oil is soothing it. I've been drinking water by the gallons (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but still...) Hey, um, skin?? I don't graduate for another year and a half (if I'm lucky), so we're kinda stuck here for a little while longer, so throw me bone, huh??

No excuses!
At some point over the weekend I decided that it's time to step it up and get my little behind into the studio every night after work. The semester starts in two weeks! I'm not going to stay in shape and maintain my sweet physique (haha) by sitting around all day and night. Enough lollygagging around and no more excuses for me... "I do better in a formal class... I have this and that to do... I'll go tomorrow..." If I could crank out 6+ hours each night in Chicago, I can get myself into the studio for at least a couple hours. One of the many lessons I learned in Chicago was, where there's a will, there's a way.

Craigslist
... can suck on it. I'm so frustrated. Just like before leaving for Chicago, I'm trying to sell some things for some quick cash. Cash I really need. Like now. Well, out of the blue, I've been getting spam email about my items... LOTS of it! Each time I open my inbox there are 10 or so emails, and each one of them is crap... "Did you lose your job or are you in debt? I can help!" "Do you need help with your bill?" "Do you need assistance with your financial situation?" OMG!!!!! Not one email has been a bonafide person interested in buying my stuff. Awesome. I'm pulling my ads tomorrow and going to sell stuff the old fashioned way... putting up posters in my apartment building. And eBay. Take that, craigslist!

Scholarship hunting
... is as much fun as the dentist. For a non-traditional, second-bachelor's candidate performing arts student, it's slim pickin'. I always hear about the thousands upon thousands of unclaimed scholarships out there, but I'm starting to think it's just an old wives' tale made up to sucker us. My usually positive self gets realllllly discouraged when it comes time to hunt down financial aid... it's like going to the dentist to get fillings without drugs. Good times!

Time flies
Work zipped by today, which was positively glorious! I'm praying/crossing my fingers/making sacrifices to the 9-to-5 gods that the rest of the week is the same...

School shopping
I'm not talking leotards and tights here people. The fall fashion in the magazines and online have pulled me in hook, line and sinker. I'm enamored with some of the trends for fall... as I usually am, I LOVE shopping at this time of year... AND I'm inwardly gloating that some of them are my old stand-bys... um, grey eye shadow? Been there done that. Grey the "new" neutral? Oh honey, been rockin' the grey for years... And the rich, jewel colors are deelish and a good balance to all this grey... I'm not quite ready to give up our hot summer weather, but a part of me is excitedly anticipating when I can bust out some fall fashion goodness.

Well, I'm stuffed. Check please!

The Easter weekend of highs and lows

The LOWS
The blues started returning at the end of the week. They hit full throttle yesterday. I would say yesterday was a "mean reds" day (no idea what I'm referring to? check out this post). I spent the day crying off and on. I had terrible dreams last night, too, so I slept like total crap. Crying all day + sleeping like crap + forgetting to take my allergy meds = waking up this morning with very puffy, red, itchy eyes - again. I felt SO pretty today for Easter :( , ugh. They're a little better now, but I still look like I got into a brawl last night. LOVE my allergies.

The HIGHS
I watched Independence Day on TV yesterday. Cheesy movie, maybe, but Will Smith makes me laugh. I get such a kick out of him. I got to see my mom and her signif other today. They went to church with me and then we visited over lunch at my apartment. I made quiche and Mom brought strawberries and kiwi. She also brought me dark chocolate. After Mom and K left I called my dad and BFF to wish them Happy Easter and catch up a bit. Hip hop was canceled today so I decided to fight back against the mean reds and get some things accomplished. Getting things accomplished always makes me feel better. I dusted and vacuumed - very overdue! - cleaned up the kitchen, seriously organized and cleaned my room, did a load of laundry, ran a couple errands, got rid of a few things... all this while rockin' out to my feel-better iTunes mix (one of the songs is below). Now I will sew my new ballet shoes, stretch and massage my leg/hip (still not 100% healed), keep eating the dark chocolate, and who-knows-what-else until bedtime. My roommate gets back tonight, too. It will be nice to have her here again. I've had enough quiet time.

[Oh and P.S., I did find out on Friday why my dance piece was not selected for the Spring Dance Concert. I'll write about that soon. And don't worry, its not the source of the mean reds...]

This is my theme song on those mean red days...

(Whoever made this vid cut part of the song, but you get the point.)