On this very day a mere 24 years ago, I came into the world in the blossoming metropolis of Omaha, Nebraska. As the first offspring of my parents, I basked in my only-child splendor for a full 30 minutes before being joined by another wondrous being of glory. But with significantly less hair on her head. I'm prety sure I was working self-improvement from hour 1 of my existence - practicing opening my eyes and generating saliva and such, but little did I know that my tiny crying nearly-bald companion would soon become my best friend:

Baby Becky

I told you I had more hair!

Anyone who has known me for 30 seconds knows that, in addition to my smooth charm and graceful beauty, I also have a twin sister. For the first 18 years of life, I shared a bedroom with Becky. I believe I went to sleep after her every single night for 18 years straight - which seems quite the accomplishment now! Neither of us have ever been naturally artsy:

We essentially neglected arts and went straight to sports After conquering ballet and gymnastic as young children together (I have distinct memories of colliding head first during ballet class), we played basketball together 9 years, volleyball for 4, and I lost in the high jump to her for 345 consecutive track meets between 4th and 11th grade. That's a lot of second place finishes ;)

Natural Rhythm

07 Represent! Back 2 Back baby ;)

my favorite part of track was by far social hour

Happy Golden Birthday, Becky! I'm appreciative of the 24 years together and can't wait for more! We just need to make sure we both end up in the same city so we can start our own reality TV show! :)

I'll end this post with one of my favorite quotes and a series of rap-inspired hashtags:

"A sister is worth one thousand friends."

#ifyougotitflauntit #24sittinon24mil #idontseehowyoucanhatefromoursideoftheclub #youcantevengetin #scorpioisyoursign #andgirlyouresofine

Honest Tea

It's weird when you get older, and you realize that you simply aren't growing out of some of the qualities you were hoping to lose over time. I mean, when you're a teen you go through "phases" and you change, usually for the better. For example, I no longer cover myself in body glitter or randomly shave off the ends of my eyebrows. Much to the dismay of my friends, I'm sure.

I seldom post pictures of myself on here (for good reason), but if you thought I was crazy for shaving my eyebrows, after viewing the above picture, you now realize I was actually perfectly sane for doing so. It was quite possibly the best course of action I could have taken. I honestly think I could have donated my eye brows to Locks of Love.

To make matters worse, my twin sister and middle sister both have those light blonde barely-visible cute eyebrows that don't in any way resemble furry catepillars camping out on their foreheads. Cue my youngest sister to chime in with "Such a TRAGIC life you lead, Joyce." One of her favorite taglines for my overdramatic anecdotes.

And then, the last time I was home, the whole family gave me heat for paying my eyebrow waxing lady ridiculously high monthly tips. HAVE YOU SEEN THE ABOVE PICTURE?

Anyway, although I have adapted well (albiet expensively) to my unruly eyebrows, I realized something today that I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life: I will never be a careful person.

Today, I went to pick up a package at work (birthday/halloween gift from my mom! Side note: my mom's the best.) Right next to the package pick up place is the store, so I bought an Iced Tea. "Honest Tea" to be exact:

Cue my boyfriend to ask me "Why do you buy tea at work when your break room has fridges full of free tea?" This is a very legitamite question for which I have absolutely no answer. He is quite practical, thus proving the whole "opposites attract" theory quite well. He is also very careful. Hm. I'm still brainstorming the positive qualities I bring to the table.

After getting my package and tea I went to visit a friend's office because I was at the point of the day where any email I sent would either be sarcastic or downright hostile and I'm trying to keep my job.

So, I opened my friend's office door, stepped on in, and immediately dropped my tea on the floor. Which wouldn't have been a big deal if I were not so tall. And if the bottle wasn't glass. And full of liquid. Literally, before I could say hello - tea and shattered glass. Everywhere. Talk about making an entrance.

My friend promptly helped me clean it up, and offered me chocolate! Which was awesome, obviously. And it also made me realize, despite my lingering negative qualities, I have some really good friends. The only downside was I was quite thirsty.

Autumn Days

Last week I rented a car for the 985th week in a row. This time, my co-worker and I were driving for an hour as it was getting darker and darker and we couldn't figure out how to turn the lights on. We could either have Brights on or darkness. Don't worry, she consulted the manual.

Then, when I stopped for gas I accidentally popped the hood rather than the gas tank. I'm thinking of working in a garage for my next job because I'm such a natural. I clearly have bad rental car karma after venting in my last post.

I've taken a ton of fall shots around Madison - and wanted to share them in this post. Also, recently I read Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower and saw the movie (directed by Chbosky.) I loved both. Obviously, the book more. But the movie included Emma Watson and Pittsburgh so I definitely enjoyed it too!

I love reading -- and have posted a few times about books I've read [here and here and here and here]. But this is my favorite in a while, and I kind of talk about it/recommend it non-stop. So I'm soaring to new levels of annoying! Go me.

I decided to disperse fall pictures with quotes from the book. My English major self may secretly miss writing essays (sorry the below aren't in parenthetical citations or footnotes.) Enjoy :)

"And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

"Maybe these are my glory days, and I'm not even realizing it because they don't involve a ball."

"I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other." [on families]

"It’s much easier not to know things sometimes. And to have French fries with your mom be enough."

"You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things."

"It’s like when you are excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple, and they make you so mad. And all you want is to always feel happy for them because you know that if you do, then it means you’re happy, too."



The pictures above are from a few places -- the tree in front of the brick building (my little sister's dorm!) is from Grove City College, the apples and pumpkins are from a farm in my home town near Pittsburgh, and the rest are from Madison.

I'm torn between whether fall or spring is my favorite season. There's something both depressing and promising about fall, which is probably why I like it so much. On the one hand, it's getting colder, summer's over, and, quite literally, everything is dying. On the other hand, hoodies and scarves become appropriate, the air is brisk, it's my birth-season (is that a stretch? I use birth-week and birth-month all the time, because I'm secretly 5, but can I start using birth-season, too?), and the holidays are approaching! Also, when I look at the colorful trees and the leaves falling as I walk around down town, I don't think of them as dying. I think of how beautiful change can be.

DFW > MSN

When I tell people I travel for work, I get one of two responses. The people who don't travel for work picture me on the beach with a sangria and proclaim "That's awesome! How exciting! I wish I traveled for work!"

And the people who do travel for work look at me knowingly and envision me fighting with a gate agent. Winning, obviously.

Due to these responses, I've come to the conclusion that most people have an unrealistic ratio in their minds of cool places in the world to lame places in the world. Pictures from last week scattered throughout this post. (Note the lack of palm trees.)



two frog's cafe



Alley Cafe



I've never written a blog in an airport before but I have an hour and a half before my flight and I already ate a shitty 20 dollar salad and almost got run over by a people moving cart (literally, I jumped 5 feet in the air when he turned his siren on one inch behind me), so I figured blogging would be safer than wandering the dangerous paths of terminal B fearing death. Or worse, delays.

 I've blogged about how much I love traveling in August. And actually, way back when of March 2011. I like that post because I'm so angry, and looking back, it was just a typical terrible flight. I just didn't know any better since I was then a member of the first group of people referenced above.



I hate most aspects of traveling, including packing, obviously. One area I haven't complained about publically yet: rental cars. It's my goal to complain openly about as many topics as possible. Maybe you don't think rental cars are that bad, but you are wrong.

 First off - I hate driving. So I'm already biased towards rental cars. Second off, I have a terrible sense of direction. I was walking back to my home health wing from the bathroom today and I got lost in the hospital. It was my 8th day there. Side note: I'm pretty sure a nun helped me back. (Do nuns always have to wear those black things on their heads? If so, it wasn't a nun.)

But still, some things suck consistently regardless of my inept driving skillset. All gas tanks are opened differently. Outside, inside, hidden lever, push, pull, driver side, passenger side. Once I literally had to GOOGLE ON MY IPHONE how to open a gas tank on one of my rentals. Proving my theory that Smart Phones are making people dumber.

Windshield wipers? Forget it. Defrost? Not a chance. Then again, I can't figure defrost out in any car, so I guess I can't discriminate against rentals in this scenario. Does anyone know how that works?

To return the rental car in Dallas today, I literally had to follow a treasure map to the rental car building - after driving completely through the airport, which may be bigger than the city of Madison. But when you got to the destination, instead of a chest of jewels they charge you $600 and make you ride a shuttle bus. The rental car builidng was approximately 54 miles from the airport.

Made it though, in plenty of time (obviously) and am now lined up to watch the presidential debate with an eclectic group of travellers. I'll try to be as controversial as possible. Just kidding. I'll probably play Scramble with Friends and buy candy.

I'm excited because I just spent 10 nights in a row in a hotel so I'm home tonight!! :) I've spent 58 nights in a hotel so far this year -- I'm super pumped when I think about 2 months of useless rent payments. At least I have this radiant sun tan from all my awesome, exciting, adventurous travels!

See ya later, Oooooooooooooooookhlahoma!.