Question of the day

Round two...

Question: Which would you prefer: a wild turbulent life filled with joy, sorrow, passion and adventure - intoxicating successes and stunning setbacks; or a happy, secure, predictable life surrounded by friends and family without such wide swings of fortune and mood?

Answer: It may just be my mood today, but I think I'd choose the happy, secure and predictable life. Part of me (like most people, I imagine) would like to feel that they experienced life to the fullest and that in the end, it was a fabulous life. Sometimes I get really caught up in that idea of "living life to the fullest." It sounds like a good plan. And no doubt - I envy people that can pick up and leave the comfort and security of day-to-day life for a new adventure, but I'm just not sure I'm one of them. I have several friends who do just that. They fall in love and move across the country (or world) to be with the object of their affection, they study abroad for a year or so, they quit their jobs and move around with no real idea of where they'll live or how they'll pay the bills. Such a refreshing concept to me - yet absolutely terrifying. Does that mean I'm not living life to the fullest? I'm not sure. I guess part of me does, but part of me is quite content to keep going the way I'm going. I like knowing what's coming next, where I'm spending the night, how much money will be deposited into my account on payday. What gives me real joy is actually the simple stuff. Spending time with friends and family, getting the job done, arts and crafts on my coffee table (just looking at the mess I've made tonight...), and knowing that I'm living independently.

That being said - I think it would definitely do me some good to incorporate some spontaneity into my life. (Hehe - even that sounded like planning it in...) Last time I was reading a personality book (yes, I do that from time to time - I love gaining more insight to my personality) it said that I should just go to the airport one day and hop on a plane. No pre-purchased ticket, no definite destination in mind. Just hop a flight. The idea exhilarates me and seems foolish at the same time. Would I do it? Probably. Though I think I'd enjoy it more with a friend.

Maybe that'll be my next adventure - once these freaking conferences are over for work.

In the meantime - what do you guys think? Better to be a free spirit and go anyway the wind blows or are you happier to live the day-to-day? Ideas for ways to keep from thinking that you're not living life to the fullest?

Noah-Noah-Balboa

This is my buddy, Noah (aka Noah-Noah-Balboa).

Pic 1: Noah just after his baptism yesterday with his doting aunts.

Pic 2: Getting ready for the big party with his god-mother, Renee!

Pic 3: About ten minutes into the party (12 hours without a nap will do that to a kid!)

A question from the Book of Questions

In an effort to spend at least a little time writing each week (as I feel I'm quickly losing my ability to write coherent sentences), I'm going to try to answer a few questions from my handy "Book of Questions." Feel free to let me know your answers as well.

Today's question: If you could have free, unlimited service for five years from an extremely good cook, chauffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or personal secretary, which would you choose?

My answer: I can truly see the benefits of each, but I guess that's the point, right?

As I just finished my dinner of frozen tortellini with prego sauce and a bud light - I can definitely see having a personal cook. It would probably be a lot healthier for me anyway. :-) That being said, I really enjoy cooking (well maybe more baking), so that might be hard for me to turn over to someone else. Plus they'd have to cook things I like and as my big brother would be quick to point out - I'm a bit picky.

A chauffeur... hmmm, I wasn't immediately attracted to this one - but then I thought - if I had a personal chauffeur does that mean I could get rid of my car (and therefore my car payments?) If so, that might make it worth it. Add in not having to deal with finding a parking spot in the city and, yeah, I'm liking that one more and more....

As for housekeepers - I live in a small, one bedroom apartment. Keeping it clean should not be a problem in the slightest. But, alas, I just don't keep after it the way I should. I keep a cleaner place than I could when I lived with two boys - but there's still much more that could be done. And I do LOVE a clean place. If someone would just clean up all the cat hair my dear Maverick leaves around that would probably be a wonderful help.

Masseuse? I do get a nasty-tight neck and back when I get stressed out. And this is probably the only one that I actually pay for now and again currently. When life has you down - there's nothing quite like a good massage...

One thing I'm sure I don't need is a personal secretary. My life is just not that hectic. Now, if someone wants to come to work with me and do all the stuff I don't want to do or don't have time to do - well that's a different story - but in my personal life - just not an issue.

So, which to choose??? Guess you really can't go wrong - any would be a step-up for me, right?

Why can't I just find a guy that fulfills many of these roles? There's gotta be a guy out there who would be happy to drive me around, cook me a decent meal now and again and give me a massage in the evenings.... C'mon all you people out there - you must know someone.... :-)

No? Well, then I guess I'll take the cook.

Did everyone see my boy Barrett kick ass?

Here's how I spent my Friday...

So you want to know what I'm listening to...

So, my cousin has tagged me. From what I gather in the blogging world, this means it's my turn to respond to a question that's been put out there.

I'm not a believer in chain letters (and I just don't know that many people who blog) so I'm not going to continue the chain, but I'll give in to telling you what's frequenting my CD players these days. (That's right - I haven't moved into the MP3 thing yet.)

1. Still the Night- BoDeans

2. Best I've Ever Had - Gary Allan

3. Right Where I Need to Be - Gary Allan

4. When Will I Be Loved - Linda Ronstadt (?)

5. Go Where You Want to Go

6. Eight Days a Week - Beatles

7. Welcome to My Life - Simple Plan

8. All You Need is Love - Beatles

9. You Don't Know a Thing About Me - Gary Allan

10. Can't Do It Today - Gary Allan

The clear winner - Gary Allan of course. I must admit, I can listen to his CDs over and over again. And with work going the way it is these days - I can use the serene, happy effect it has on me.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Today's annoyances...

1. Some friend of my neighbors hitting on me just outside my front door as I went to retrieve my laundry.
2. The guy who sat down in the middle seat between me and someone else on the bus and proceeded to slouch down and spread his legs apart as far as he could - making me and the guy on his other side be even more crunched.
3. The people who refuse to climb those apparently scary steps to the back of the bus. C'mon people - you see the 70 people waiting at the bus stop - could you MOVE TO THE BACK?!!!
4. Watching the Cubs lose... again.
5. Neighbors smoking outside my windows so I don't want to open them up.
6. The Navy Pier band that only did Dave Matthews Band covers. BORING.


Today's joys...

1. Being able to walk to the corner store for milk this morning instead of having to get in the car.
2. The little girl sitting near me on the bus who was having a great time with her mini-magnadoodle.
3. Enjoying the Navy Pier Fireworks with friends.
4. Eating dinner at Giordanos.
5. Having my check book balance perfectly on the first try.
6. Getting an email from my graphic designer at work to let me know that the print piece that has to be at the printer's first thing monday morning is ready to go.
7. Hearing that my sister-in-law accepted a new job that she's really excited about.
8. Sleeping in until 9:30am.
9. The beautiful weather.
10. My cat curling up on my lap for a nice nap.

And once again - the good outweighs the bad! Helps to keep things in perspective.

Oh, the great Garden State

It just amazes me how rude people truely are in New Jersey. And, yes, of course that's a huge generalization and not everyone in New Jersey sucks, but I sure met my fair share in the 2.5 days I was there. Doesn't make me very happy that I'm holding one of my work conferences there, but what are you going to do.... I can't even count the number of times I had to swerve to miss idiots that decided stop signs didn't apply to them at intersections. And even then did I get an apologetic hand-wave or even a slightly stunned look of "what was I thinking?" Nope - just nasty glares and some nice hand gestures.

While I had a great time at the beach and spending time with Carl and Kathleen, I can't say I was sad to be leaving the great Garden State. And after waiting through several delays I was definitely more than ready to get out there. So once we finally got up in the air I decided popping a movie into the computer was a must. It cracks me up to watch movies on planes because it just seems like the person sitting next to you can absolutely not help the fact that they're watching the movie over your shoulder. Not that I mind in the slightest, but everytime I'd get the feeling the guy next to me was looking at the screen, I'd glance over and he'd jerk his head the other direction. Hehehe.

Ahhh, glad to be home!

Into the 20th century

So Wednesday night I'm hanging out in my apartment, watching a little TV and the picture goes a little fuzzy. (Oh, yeah, I'm one of those people who doesn't believe in paying for cable so I still fight with my TV antenna every night. :-) ) So, I start playing with the antenna and nothing seems to be helping. While I'm standing over my TV, I notice some cables that are laying on the floor. I remember when I moved in there were cables everywhere and not knowing what they were, I pretty much just pushed them to the edge of the wall and placed my furniture in front of them. But, I figured, what the heck, I might as well plug them in and see if it helps the reception - thinking they were probably connected to the antenna on top of the building. And just like that - I suddenly have cable! There's no stopping me now!

R.A.B.

Most of you know I'm a Harry Potter fanatic and though I have a pile of work sitting in front of me that I really should be working on - I rather feel like taking a few minutes to share my Harry Potter theories with you. (Warning - if you haven't finished the book - you probably shouldn't read this!)

So, at the end of book 6 we're introduced to the idea that there's someone with the initials R.A.B. that discovered that Voldemort has created horcruzes and wanted to help bring him down.

Now after some consideration and a little re-reading, I decided that R.A.B. is Regulus Black, Sirius' brother who is presumed dead after defecting from the death eaters about 15 years ago.

Today, as I avoided work, I logged onto mugglenet.com to see what other theories are out there regarding this. Not really to my surprise, many others have come to the same conclusion as me. (OK - so many are saying they knew immediately that R.A.B. stood for Regulus Black without any re-reading or long consideration. What can I say - I'm just not as quick as all those kids out there.)

Anyway, I read a really interesting editorial while on mugglenet about who Regulus' accomplice must have been as he stole the Horcrux. We know Regulus would have had to find the cave, get through the many challenges to cross the lake and then drink all the poison in the basin to be able to get to the Horcrux. As we saw with Dumbledore and Harry, it really takes two people to be able to do this. Someone has to drink the potion while the other forces it down their throats. Yet, we know that the boat is sensitive to weight and would only carry one full-sized wizard. So, just who did Regulus have with him? Hmmmm. Well this individual's theory (and a good one, I believe) is that it must have been Kreacher! He's a house-elf so he wouldn't have caused a weight problem in the boat and he's the only character I can think of who would do whatever Regulus told him to do. The person who wrote this editorial can do it more justice than I can, so check it out at: http://www.mugglenet.com/editorials/editorials/edit-ladytory01.shtml.

I'm also slowly coming round to the belief many others already have that Snape is not indeed a bad guy. There are just too many problems with him not being a spy. I just can't think that Dumbledore was that clueless. However, I did appreciate J.K. Rowling's comment about Dumbledore chosing to trust people whether or not they really deserved his trust. I just can't believe that Harry was more all-seeing than Dumbledore was. And Dumbledore doesn't seem to trust just anyone.... He's never been buddy-buddy with anyone at the ministry of magic really.

I don't know - I just needed to get that all off my chest. I hope everyone else is enjoying the book as much as I did (and still do!)

My big catch

Wedding Crashers

OK - so I went to see the Wedding Crashers last night. By far the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. I went into it with a little trepidation, fearing that all the funny parts would be in the previews - but wow, I was wrong. The movie kept me laughing from start to finish. Vince Vaughn was absolutely hilarious. I think I missed half the lines because I was laughing so hard that I couldn't hear it all, so definitely one I'll have to see again.

Why am I doing this?

So, really I only set up this blog because I wanted to be able to post comments on my family's pages and this was the first option I hit.

Maybe I'll become a regular poster - maybe I won't. Probably depends how interesting my life is at the moment. If nothing else you can check out some links to my favorite things and maybe see a picture or two.