In honor of everyone's favorite holiday that centers around copious amonts of food gratefulness, I decided to write some thank you notes in the past month and share them with you now (YOU'RE WELCOME.)

p.s. this post was inspired by this blog! I totally encourage you to check out all blogs I link to. They all make my blog look like it's written by a schizophrenic kindergartener. Only reading my blog, of all the blogs in the entire blogosphere, is like only watching The Rescuers of all the Disney movies. Oh, really, The Rescuers is your favorite? So, tell me, what are the little mice's names? That's what I thought. No one messes with Belle's or Aladdin's names. (Or Chip's or Abu's for that matter.)

Before I embarass myself with my vast Disney knowledge and things get out of hand, without further ado, proof of me being thankful in the last month:

Dear Hotel Room,

Thank you for having the courtesy of knowing that I often get lonely on the road, and providing me with a friendly companion in the form of a huge elusive cricket on my ceiling above my bed. I've been meaning to wake my boyfriend up by crying irrationally on the phone for a while now, and you finally presented me with the prime opportunity.

See ya next trip,
Joyce



Dear Long Distance Relationship,

Thank you for still being intact even after the above mentioned episode. I owe you one. But, you owe me $7000 in plane tickets, so let's call it even.

Thx,

Joyce


Dear Old Oatmeal,

Thank you for being there for me when I needed to make no-bake cookies for my co-workers. A special shout out for having your old canister infested with little bugs that I didn't notice until after making the cookies, resulting in me having to throw them, and any culinary confidence, straight into the garbage.

My confidence in the kitchen has been hovering dangerously close to "0" lately; it's good to drop it back down to negative 1000 where it belongs.

My checked domestic ego is in debted to you,
Joyce


Dear insects,

Thanks for being so present in my month of November in general. It helps me to be appreciative of the fact I have no impending camping trips.

Have fun dying in the winter,
Joyce

On a more serious note: wishing you all a fabulous thanksgiving! I hope you can be surrounded by friends, family, food, fun, and have some time to relax and rejoyce :) I'm sincerely thankful for every person who takes the time to read my blog and support me!

xoxo,
Joyce

Baked Potato Social

These days, most of my life is spent in a rental car on the Illinois tollway. I would say it's karma, but I can't figure out what felony I committed. I did steal Skittles once in the third grade. I'll never forget the sleepless nights and crying when I gave my teacher a bag of fun-size Skittles and repented for the ones I had stolen from the jar.

I've had a serious conscience for as long as I can remember. It's a blessing and a curse. Also, the dangerous candy obsession manifested at a young age. Don't worry, I didn't start robbing gas stations of Reeses until I was 14. Kidding, mom.



I know at this point you guys are super jealous of my Illinois road trips, along with how many friends I didn't have in third grade, so here's a picture of what you're missing out on.

Usually, the discussion in the car with my co-workers spices up the otherwise dismal and terrifying landscape. That's right, I find windmills frightening. Don Quixote wasn't the only one. They're HUGE.

Anyway, last trip, a friend was talking about how her dad incorporates "under-utilized" words into his vocabulary by forcing them into otherwise mundane conversations. My life is to the point where the prospect of a vocabulary game with myself sounds exciting, so I'm totally determined to try it this week. The under-utilized word determined in the car was "Hark!" And congrats on your creativity: you just pictured angels, and, likely, Peanuts characters singing around a decorated tree.

Other than mention a carol two weeks too early, I have yet to work it into conversation.

Though, it might be too soon to say this, but I'm really looking forward to Christmas. Also, retirement. It's always good to have short and long term goals, especially when they both consist of varying lengths of existing, and Christmas is soon and retirement is a dim light at the end of a 60-year long tunnel. That's a long time to hold your breath.

What's that? What does this post have to do with a baked potato social? Turns out I'm just using the title to enlighten you of their existence. A baked potato social is a thing, that happens. Sometimes spontaneously on work trips.

And, if it ever happens to you (as I don't wager one would inflict a baked potato social upon one's self), I'd recommend bringing chocolate covered pretzels. Sticking to my self-proclaimed life motto "When in doubt: chocolate" that I've never actually explicitly stated before but I obviously live by. Hark! I think I could make a whole blog post listing my life mottos. Stay tuned.

November

First off, a very happy birthday to my mom, whose birthday was yesterday. I know a lot of people think they have the best mom in the world, but a lot of people are wrong. I am certain that I do. I love you, mom!

these are pretty flowers Becky got me for my birthday which I'm now virtually giving to my mom :)

***

It turns out that the more I travel, the worse I get at preparing for trips. I'm sure if I was any good at economics, I could draw a graph to illustrate this conundrum. Fortunately, microeconomics was my lowest grade in college so you can rest assured I'm not going to mention diminishing returns in this post, or ever.

As a fun aside, before my boyfriend was my boyfriend, I asked him to help me with econ. Didn't really help my grade, because I suck at econ, and I spent most of that semester trying to pronounce "Economist" correctly. (Shouldn't the emphasis be on the third syllable? Just as it is in economics?) Regardless of my grade, asking him for help was a very good overall life choice :)

So, Mr. eCONomist, my business trip ability seems to be inversely related to my apathy level. Graph that one out.

Concrete examples proving this theory arose this week. First off, my attire selection drastically limited our meal choices. Conversation last night:

Co-worker A: Let's eat at that nice seafood place!
Co-worker B: Welll....we can't really go there the way Joyce is dressed.

This was, of course, one hundred percent true. I was wearing yoga pants, Nikes, a hoodie and a ratty t-shirt. I had purposefully dressed that way to force myself to work out once I got to the hotel. Did I work out at the hotel? No. Did I prevent people from enjoying a nice meal? Most definitely.

Rather than work out, I had 12 wings, a mojito, and fell asleep with the lights on at 10 without setting any alarm or, I don't know, showering or brushing my teeth. This whole pass-out-from exhaustion unexpectedly thing is kind of becoming a concerning life pattern at hotels, but I did get up on time to realize that, for the whole week, I only packed sports bras. This would be totally appropriate if I were still a collegiate athlete. But since I work out about as often as I vote for President now a days, kind of more of a problem.

I actually thought to myself  "At least I remembered my dress shoes" which is clearly a slippery slope towards pathetic justification of all irresponsible actions. I was even proud of myself for blowing dry my hair like it was a special occassion, but I know I did it mostly because it was really cold outside. Regardless, my outfit was borderline presentable today (as usual, broadening the definition of "business casual.")

Then at work a male co-worker said he was considering doing No-Shave November, to which I responded, "Me too, I think. With my legs." I was told that was gross. Well, you know what I think is gross? Facial hair. And you can't cover that shit up with dress pants.

Also, No-Shave November for girls is also known as "being in a long distance relationship" which I have celebrated for the past 20 months, thank you very much. Also, as I mentioned, it was freezing outside. And, as I didn't mention, but you should have assumed, I obviously forgot any form of a coat on this trip as well.

Happy Golden Birthday Becky!

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!.