Pedi = Relaxation

There's something so relaxing about getting a pedicure. Sometimes, there's nothing better after a long day than soaking one's feet in warm, bubbly water while reclining in a massage chair. Feeling the vibration along one's spine and the inevitable lotion massage combine to melt away the stress of a day spent feeling underappreciated and unwanted.

Today, after months of avoiding pedicures because I was battling the fungus from Hates (quite literally) that I managed to pick up at the place that must now be avoided at all costs. After seeking out references from friends, I tossed all of my work down the drain with one impulsive Google search. That's right, I chose a nail shop based solely on the facts that it was fairly close to my house and that the woman who answered the phone told me that they were closing in 10 minutes, but would stay open if I was coming right away.

I jumped in my car and almost ran out the door.

When I got to the salon, I wasn't overly shocked by the decor. Like a hundred other nail salons I've entered in my lifetime, this salon was sparsely decorated in posters featuring photos of perfectly manicured nails. What surprised me, though, were the homey floral and country scenes hanging between the nail posters. There were overstuffed couches, eagerly awaiting those who had to wait for an opening. I, however, did not fall into that category. The nice Asian lady promptly ushered me to a waiting spa chair and bade me sit.

Since there was only one manicurist and  two customers (which soon turned to three), I had plenty of time to just sit and relax. I had no reason to hurry home, as The Boy was sound asleep and snoring when I left, so I just let myself sink a little further into the vibrating chair and dug my toes a little deeper into the bubbling water.

For those of you locals who are wondering where I went, I made the long trek to the other side of the 99 to the Von's shopping centre on the corner of Olive Dr. and Victor St. The place is called Top Nails III and it's tucked into the corner next to Rusty's Pizza. The prices were fantastic, as well.

I've had a string of bad luck with similar nail salons. First, there was the salon just down the street from my house where I experienced something akin to torture which left my toes throbbing for days (I am not exaggerating). The spa chair in that particular establishment also seemed to be intent on forcing me into the water meant for my feet. Needless to say, I will never return to that spot. Then, there was the aforementioned "fungus" spot. Excuse me while I shudder a bit in rememberance.

Top Nails III was simple in decor, but definitely clean. In fact, it was probably one of the cleaner establishments of the sort that I've had the pleasure of using.

Overall, my experience was an almost perfect balm to one of the more hectic Mondays of the past several weeks. I'm fairly certain that the only missing piece was a big, icy, salt-rimmed margarita. Of course, nothing says that there won't be time for one a little later in the evening.

A Farewell to Writer's Block

I am hoping that, by writing the above, I can banish the writer's block that's been plaguing me, and I'll be able to get some work done on the many things that have been sitting untouched.

The one aspect that seems to have suffered least is my poetry. I haven't been writing nearly as much as I should, but I'm at least not completely blocked in that area. Anything other than poetry, though, has been waiting in the wings for quite a while now.

I think the lack of writing is probably attributable to a couple of things in my life: happiness and stress. While I know those two things don't typically go together, I'm finding they're the two occurrences that make me least likely to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys). When I'm stressed (as I increasingly find myself lately), I often retreat from many things I enjoy, which leads to depression, which makes me even more apathetic and less likely to do anything outside of sleeping and working. Happiness, likewise, influences my writing (or lack thereof) because I am an angsty writer. I write my best when I am upset or feeling particularly morbid. When I stop to consider how wonderful my life is and how happy I truly am, I'm less inclined to write about the nonexistence of love or some other suitably jaded topic. Love, especially, has been difficult to write since I have no experience in writing about love gone right.

I have an excruciatingly vivid imagination, but, when it comes to "true love," my imagination falls horrifically short. I am going to attempt to remedy that, though. I'm still not sure that I can bring myself to write a "happily ever after" story, but I definitely feel the urge to attempt something a bit more realistic. While I'm immensely happy in my own relationship, I'm not stupidly so. I have very realistic expectations of how difficult things are going to be for The Boy and me. They haven't exactly been a walk in the park thus far.

About a year and a half ago, a close friend of mine and I started working on what we imagined would become at least 2 novels, though we were aiming for a trilogy. For the time, it's teen fiction and the heroine is much like we were at eighteen. The problem I have with long works of fiction is that I get lost in the details and lose sight of where the story should go. I'm great with the intricacies of a scene and I would rate my descriptive capabilities pretty highly, but I'm lousy with a general outline. My friend is wonderful with the outline, but she gets bored with the details (there is reason that we claim to each have one half of the same brain). For the first few chapters (all we managed to accomplish before real life intervened), our method worked extremely well. She would draft a chapter to give me a basic idea of what was going on, and I would fill in the details. We actually have a few very good chapters and an intriguing prologue.

My goal for this summer is to get some work done on the book. Each of our bucket lists includes becoming a published authoress, and I intend for my work to be published in more than a non-profit teen magazine (Teen Ink, for those of you who are wondering). There is also the wonderful thought of being able to make some money from my writing that keeps me itching to write more, even when I'm suffering from the world's worst case of writer's block.

Meanwhile, I'll keep rambling until I find something worth putting pen to page.

Serendipity

I often wonder about the ways in which people find themselves connected. I've had a few of those "small world" experiences myself in the past few years and am always amazed at how God manages to bring the right person into one's life at the precise moment he or she is needed.

My favorite recent example is a person who became one of my closest friends within a few days of our meeting. I had just promoted to my current position back in 2008 and was preparing for my first day of training. I am not a training kind of person. Especially in our department, training tends to be long and tedious, not to mention full of people who cannot seem to grasp the simplest concepts. Those of you who know me may or may not be surprised to learn that I'm somewhat antisocial. Work settings more than social turn me into somewhat of a curmudgeon.

That day found me nervous about starting a new position and frustrated at the change in my work schedule. Out of habit more than anything, I chose a seat towards the back of the room, leaving a wide berth between myself and the two people already seated in the front row. Shortly before 8:00 AM, I noticed a pretty redhead walk through the door. After a cursory glance around the room (which, at this point, was still mostly empty), she deliberately walked over and sat in the seat next to mine. I will be the first to tell you that I was very irritated at this turn of events. Her husband would tell me later that she came home that evening and told him that she sat next to "a scary girl with lots of tattoos and piercings." She told me later that she wasn't sure at the time what made her sit next to me (as it turns out, she's also the type to sit away from others in a room). Now, we both agree that God was definitely at work.

Over the course of the 8 week training class and the ensuing 4 month training unit, we became nearly inseperable. I jokingly described her to my other friends and family as "just like me, except skinny and redheaded." We both joked that since each of us only had half a brain, we had separate halves of the same brain.

While we were getting to know one another, we soon discovered just what a small world had kept us apart until that time. Just a year and a half before, I was working part time at Shoe Pavilion. I was hired shortly after the previous manager had quit and was told that the new manager was looking for someone she could promote to the assistant manager position. As it turns out, my friend's husband was the previous manager. I also met her briefly while she was pregnant with their second child when she came into the store one afternoon. She worked at My Gym during the time when I used to take Melanie to classes. She went to high school with several people with whom I'd grown up. Better still, we grew up less than 2 miles from one another.

Still, despite all of these things that could have connected us over the previous years, it was the Kern County Department of Human Services that brought us together. She has since moved on to bigger and better things, and we don't see each other nearly as often as we did when we worked together. Despite the fact that I rarely see her these days, she is still one of the first people I turn to when I need advice or encouragement. She is the one person I know who can not only listen to my craziness without prejudice, but who can also understand exactly what I mean and how my brain operates.

In a somewhat different turn of events, I met The Boy through a couple of mutual friends. My oldest friend (I actually cannot remember a time when I was not friends with her) was bartending at a restaurant right around the corner from my new apartment. The Boy's best friend was a regular patron. Since I soon became a regular patron myself, he and I ended up as friends by default. Most people know that I don't actually remember meeting The Boy for the first time. That first meeting took place about six months before our second, much more memorable, meeting. Once we started dating, I found out all kinds of interesting things. One of my favorite connections is the fact that one of his brother's high school buddies dated my aunt while they were in high school (for those of you who didn't know, The Boy is almost 10 years older than I).

I'm still not sure how others explain these serendipitous occurrences, but I know that they're God's way of giving me what I need. I waited my whole life to find this particular breed of friend, and I value her friendship all the more because of the wait. I can't even begin to explain how perfect The Boy has been for me. I'm not, by any means, saying that we have the perfect relationship (for starters, we're both as stubborn as mules and far too used to being single), but he brought things to my life that I never knew I was missing. He was definitely worth the wait.

At Last!

I finally have regular internet access! Hooray!!! I've been waiting for this moment for over a year now. Let me tell you, while it is wonderful for Facebook, my iPhone just doesn't cut it whent it comes to blogging.

I stumbled across a fantastic deal on a brand new HP laptop, so I decided that I couldn't pass it up (even though I really want a Macbook). It's a pretty nice laptop and I'm seriously enjoying the ability to sit in the air conditioning while I surf. The Boy has a very nice computer in the office, but there's also no air conditioning in the office. There is only a/c in the living room. That makes things a little claustrophobic when we're all home...and very difficult when The Boy and I are both home and need to find someplace to sleep. When he's working, we sleep on opposite schedules, so there's no dispute. Except for days like this morning when he comes home and steals the couch, relegating me to the bedroom where I can't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time because I get so sweaty.

I have been so desperately busy lately, I haven't had time to read a blog, let alone actually update my own. I'm really hoping that things will slow down at some point and I'll be able to do more than drag a ragged breath in between activities.

The Boy, The Munchkin, and I did end up going to San Diego last month. It was a nice overnight trip. We drove down on a Sunday morning and came home Monday night after spending a full day at Sea World. The Boy drove to Anaheim and I drove the rest of the way home because he was falling asleep. I forgot how much I hate driving the Grapvine at night, mostly because of all of the idiots who insist on braking on the decline. Ugh! Overall, it was a fun trip, though. We squeezed in almost every show in the park and everyone had a blast. The only bummer was theh Shamu show. I guess after the whole "Shamu eating his trainer" issue, they're not letting the trainers actually get into the water with the Orcas. Of course, that equaled a pretty lame show. The Sea Lion show was great, though, as was the Cirque de le Mer show.

The Saturday after we went to San Diego, The Munchkin turned five. I'm very nervous about her starting school this fall. She's not used to having structure or having to do what she's told. I really hope school is good for her, though. She needs the attention to her education that she can't get at home because of The Boy's work schedule. I've tried to work with her, but she just gets an attitude and refuses to cooperate.

We had a really nice Independence Day celebration, too. We spent the evening with my mom's side of the family at my aunt and uncle's house. We had a nice potluck, quite a few fireworks, and swimming for the kids. Where they live, we could also see the shows from 2 different local country clubs, plus the neighbors on the next block were lighing off illegals, so we got a pretty fantastic show.

Anyway, I'm going to run for now. I've been awake for about 2 hours now and I'm getting rather hungry.