drama

i dislike drama. i dislike drama to the point that sometimes i purposefully avoid any confrontation because of a possibility of drama. i'm working on that (the confrontation avoidal--and realizing that if i stay calm, usually the other person will too).

i have concluded, especially lately with repeated examples, that some people are drama factories. their friends and acquaintances constantly get mired in their ridiculous, often self-righteous or judgemental thoughts and actions and feelings, and eventually they will be friendless and alone (or just have shallow drama-factories for friends).

so lately i've been trying to decide what causes people to create or invent or thrive on drama. is it a feeling of insignificance? is it loneliness or lack of excitement in their lives? is it a holier than thou feeling which makes them feel like they have the right to tell others how to live?

DISCLAIMER: IF YOU ARE READING THIS I'M MOST LIKELY NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU. The people I CHOOSE to keep in my life are purposefully NOT drama creators. And if i've ditched you specifically, it may not be on purpose. My life is a smidge busy at the moment.

i think part of my problem is BECAUSE i generally drop drama factory friends like hot potatoes, i don't have to experience it often (and it's usually third party drama when it happens) so it bothers me maybe more than most people.

also, my family (and most of my friends) growing up was always, ALWAYS very "real" with each other. i think that sense of being straight up about everything and sometimes even brutally honest, combined with being generally pretty comfortable with myself from a very early age made me see how truly ridiculous creating or participating in drama was. seriously, why bother? you'll just have high blood pressure and not be able to get along with people. it sucks the fun right out of life.

i think some examples and definitions are in order:

drama is:
-when you are unaccepting of other people and blow their differences out of proportion, thus creating an uproar.
-when you try to force the things that YOU would (or wouldn't) do on what other people SHOULD (or shouldn't) do, and cannot or will not stand in their shoes for a bit.
-when you have a life philosophy that doesn't have "live and let live" at its core, and you avoid anyone you consider "those people." (and since you can't avoid everyone your whole life, there will inevitably be drama caused). we're all human. remember that, and life will be better.
-when you approach relationships with friends, family, or anyone else from a controlling standpoint, or see their actions through the lense of fear and judgement rather than the lense of acceptance and love and humanity.
-absolutely, drama is a compulsive liar (a whole nother category, even). i HATE liars. i get this from my father, this rage when people lie. fortunately i don't have any liars for friends.

so anyway. i have been guilty of most of the above at random points in my life (except the compulsive liar part). i choose to not be that way, and it has made for a wonderful lack of drama in my life and i have forged relationships with people that i previously might have considered too "different" and that has made a HUGE difference in my life. it's now a fun life, full of people that i care about and who care about me, and who do not let the ridiculous shit get in the way of meaningful friendships and having fun.

so here's to you, my friends. i love you all. :)

more on willpower

i'm feeling somewhat refreshed from my weekend away. my cats aren't grating on my nerves quite so much, and i have some renewed motivation as far as finances and health. school is treading water in my pool of willpower. so right now, i am okay with where i am.

this week i plan on starting to clean and pack my apartment, finish my two schoolwork assignments, and resume eating better (this weekend was bad as far as healthy eating, but definitely restorative. and although i ate a lot, for the most part it was seafood, which is healthy, right? never mind the butter to dip the crab in lol....)

i also have to get the documentation together for refinancing my car loan at a lower interest rate for less remaining time (yay!) and getting the lower interest credit card.

busy week. i'm feeling purposeful for a change, instead of unmotivated and slothish. :)

Goals

i continually frustrate myself. i WANT to be healthier, i WANT to do better with saving money, and i WANT to have a clean/clutter free apartment.

i read an interesting article about willpower recently. i think it might have been on MSN. anyway, it said that people have a limited amount of willpower, and if one uses a lot of willpower for something, there is less leftover for other things. this makes sense to me, especially lately, as i use a lot of willpower for work and school and then feel like i have NOTHING left for finances and health.

the article also said that it is possible to gain more willpower with practice. i think, in a large part, that is what the past eight months (since i started simplicity) have been about: my struggles with how to allocate the willpower that i DO have, and practicing to gain more.

as a child, i was never the queen of willpower. monetarily speaking, in comparison with all my friends, i was well off due to having had a part time job that paid decently from the age of 13 on. so if i wanted something, i bought it. pretty much EVERYTHING i bought was an impulse buy. the high point of vacations was the shopping that could be done while there. my parents would often question whether i really needed something or not, and in my head, i'd scoff and think, "why does it matter? i have plenty of money!" HA. i should have listened. sigh.

i also never had much willpower in the food department. as a teenager, i'd regularly down entire cans of french onion dip (which, i noticed the other day, contains almost zero actual food) or whole canisters of honey roasted peanuts, or whole bags of cheese puffs (the bags were smaller than they are now, but STILL).

HOWEVER, over the last year, i have noticed small changes. i don't LIKE spending money very much anymore, and i ask myself if i need whatever it is, and if not, then i ask how much value it will honestly bring to my life. i still suck sometimes, but at least fifty percent of the time a useless purchase is avoided.

i miss how i felt when i exercised, also. but so far, that hasn't proven to be motivating enough. i'm working on the willpower thing though.

and the most important piece of news:
i joined a credit union at work the other day. (wednesday is when we had the little meeting and i filled out all the paperwork). so i get a call today (just now) from the loan lady at the credit union. i had told her about my car loan and wasn't really hoping for much, because the loan i have has a pretty low interest rate (4.9%), even if it is exceedingly long (6 years). so anyway, she called me TODAY, after getting all my account stuff in yesterday, and informs me that she can refinance my car loan with an interest rate of 4.75%, in MY NAME ONLY (my mom's on it because at the time i didn't have a real job), AND shave a year off the payments, for about the same money per month. that, people, is AMAZING. so i was all excited.

AND THEN. she can get me a credit card with at least 5% less interest than the ones i have, transfer all the balances, and then i can pay THAT off EVEN FASTER. she rocks my world. ROCKS. MY. WORLD.

so, i am looking at forseeably being out of all debt other than mortgage in as little as three years (less if i use what i pay on credit cards after i pay them off for extra on my car loan).

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is gonna be an AWESOME memorial day weekend. :)

oh yeeeaaaahhhh

the hyatt in savannah (which, coincidentally, was cheaper than our other options, according to my mom) has an indoor pool. rock OUT.

my goals for the weekend:

sleep. a lot.
swim. in the mornings and possibly evenings too.
eat good food, and a praline or two from river street sweets. yum yum!!!
go to the beach one day. and eat crab shack for dinner that night.

um...but i need to pack first, and that means i need clean clothes, and i'm just not sure about that. lol.

twitterlicious and stuff

so, i got twitter. i'm not really sure why, but maybe i'll be important someday and people will follow me! ha.

going down to savannah this weekend with my mom and sister. i plan to see how much wine i can get my (MORMON) sister to consume...but hopefully not fracture her hand smashing a palmetto bug this year. (and, just in case you wondered, the correct pronunciation of palmetto bug is: pal-METTUH buuug. just draw out the "uh" sound in bug to sound more correct).

so, have i ever told y'all about the words i make up? no? okay.

ruckified: of or having to do with a ruckus.

ruckification: the process by which a thing becomes ruckified.

then, there are the words i didn't necessarily make up, but use a lot.

shit ton. so what if it's two words? it means a LOT of something, an assload, whatever. i.e., "i sure do love you a SHEEUT-TUHN, baby."

oh! hey! i might actually close on my house this month! (MAYBE)...the house that started the whole short sale process a couple weeks before mine got approved on thursday, so i'm hoping mine will be approved in the next two weeks....cross your fingers, y'all!

um, also? my ankle hurts and i don't know why.

and, a little note to SOME PEOPLE. who will never read this anyway:

when you think you're god's gift to engineering, and i'm just a stupid STUDENT and GIRL, i'm looking at you, feeling sorry for you because you aren't capable of actually listening to anything i have to say to know if i'm smart or stupid. SHUT UP and LISTEN and maybe, just maybe, you'd realize some things. harrumph.

so, where was i?

so i haven't updated in a while. go figure. life does that sometimes. :/

anyway, let's see...relevant info for your reading pleasure:

-i chopped off my hair. it's great. i don't eat it accidentally now, or roll it up in the car window. i'll post a pic at some point.

-still don't know about the house. seller calls the bank daily, listing agent does too, still nothing. i'm beginning to wonder if i should look around at other options.

-my summer class started on monday. i think it'll be ok. (and, just in case you didn't know, i got B's in BOTH CLASSES! YAY!)

-i'm behind on basically everything--housework, packing, organizing, getting stuff together for the yard sale this weekend, simplicity reading...you name it. sigh.

-and the grand finale: i'm trying to eat fewer carbs.

NOTE: i was going to entirely cut OUT simple carbs, until i realized they were about 90% of my diet, so now if i must eat carbs i eat half of what i normally would or go for whole grain options. it's been interesting. i truly didn't realize how much of my diet consisted of white bread, pasta, sugars, and junk food until i started this. and lately i've been craving vegetables but don't have any clean dishes to cook them in. (don't laugh. it's true. i HATE dishes). i've also been drinking water sometimes instead of tea all the time.

not much of an update, i know. sorry. that's all, folks.

my awful, no-good, terrible, very bad day

or two days. whatever.

so my grandmother died yesterday at 4:15 am. i didn't go back to sleep. went home last night and helped mom wash sheets/make beds/clean mimi's house a little so family can stay there for the next few days. you will find no details of that here.

got home last night around 10:30. crashed. didn't want to wake up this morning. duh. had to come to work for a half day because there's a lunch meeting that if i don't attend, will cause hardship on other people and i didn't really want to do that. get to my car this morning and realize it's been keyed on both driver side doors in one long line. no camera aimed at my car, so i'm just fucked and can't/won't pay the money to have them repainted right now. cry in sheer frustration on the way to work, get unusually frustrated at fellow drivers. (unusually even for me, which was really bad. it didn't help that traffic was worse than normal). get to work.

finally get in touch with my apartment people re the fact that i accidentally paid rent (exorbitantly-overcharged-month-to-month rent) TWICE because the statement no longer said autopay, but then they auto deducted it anyway AND are cashing the check. so get in touch with them finally, and find out i have to fax the debit people proof that i have money in my account (hello? i HAD money till YOU TOOK IT OUT FOR RENT, why should i have to prove that i have money for you to put it back in??) in order to get it refunded. type letter, print proof, go to fax machine only to find it NOT WORKING. get computer guy to come fix it (after getting snapped at by other guy at work who someone told me would fix it).

i want to cry and curl up in a ball on my bed under the covers and not see anyone/do anything/have my shit fucked up for the rest of my life at this point. and i still have to go to the meeting and then drive to carrollton after. joy.

In Memory

My Mimi
Helen Virginia Braswell Findley
June 9, 1925 - May 5, 2008