wishing you a fabulous weekend!

via

Like Usher, these are my our confessions. . .  

Annye's:

1. I cannot function without caffeine. I thought I could make it today without my daily cup of coffee. It being Friday and all. Surely the pure excitement of the weekend at my fingertips would carry me through my day. Not likely. This girl needs a nonfat white mocha, stat.
2. I have not had nail polish on my nails in over two weeks. Unheard of! It is driving me nuts. I don’t feel right without my nails painted. Must make time for that this weekend.
3. I haven’t had my curling iron this week—been forced to rock the straight hair. My hair is probably thanking me for the reprieve from the heat damage. But I confess that I am so ready to get it back today. Praise!
4. Clearly I’m obsessed with my beauty routine and when it is disrupted nothing is right in the world. #whitegirlproblems 
5. I confess that I completely and utterly failed my Lenten sacrifice of giving up texting. Don’t even bother asking how that’s going because, well, it isn’t. Maybe next year?

Jena's: 

1. I noticed I am a huge sucker for pet names for women. “Doll,” “baby girl,” “my love,” “little mama.” When I get called any of those, or hear another woman called one of these by her man – my heart swoons. Totally grossing myself out with this one but can’t seem to help it. It’s so sweet.
2. Scored a copy of the Justin Timberlake CD from my boss. Totally made my Friday.  For anyone else who wants a huge fan of Suit + Tie the rest of it is everything you hoped for.
3.  I read a funny quote by Tina Fey yesterday. Confidence is 10% hard work and 90% delusion. This is totally true. In fact, I’m practicing a counseling technique in my life that employs this notion that what you think can be more powerful than what actually is. It’s called acting “as if” – act “as if” you are the most confident woman in the room, or “as if” you are the smartest person in your class. Whatever it is for you that you want to change, act as if you have and see what happens.
4. Speaking of delusions…I have been acting as though I’m not in graduate school this week. Haven’t opened a book all week long. I’ll blame it on Spring Break? Though it doesn’t technically start 'til Monday…
5. Speaking of Annye’s goal of irresponsibility, I booked a flight to Chicago for the end of next week. Who cares by bank account is hurting due to Vegas or that I have a million projects to work on for school. I haven’t been home since April of last year. Time to see that bestie of mine and hug my mom and pop! 

old habits die hard

NYE 2012

In June, I turn the big 2-5. (Stupidly excited about that. Hurry up June 17!) And with that milestone of a birthday, I’ve decided that in my next year of life I’m going to strive for…. Irresponsibility.

No, that’s not a typo.

Right about the time that everyone else around me is probably hoping for the opposite, I’m going to do my best to be a little more reckless. Carefree. Young.

Maybe it’s just a figment of my imagination, but I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my young adult life doing everything I was supposed to be doing, exactly how I was supposed to be doing it. Just because that was what I was told to do. Or at least what I thought I supposed to do.

I went to college. Worked a few jobs while going to school. Took a full course load each semester. Graduated a semester early. Immediately started a full time job. And three years later here I am.

Bored.

I’m not excited by my own life. I know how blessed I am. How lucky I am to be where I am. But my day in-day out is so predictable and typical that sometimes I want to pull my hair out. Nothing is out of the ordinary for this girl.

My 25^th year is going to be out of the ordinary. 

I'm going to do things I want to do. Stay up past my bedtime. Follow my heart instead of my conscience. Eat donuts for breakfast just because I want. Spend my savings on stupid things. Enjoy being young and {semi} free and stupid. 

I’m kicking it off a month early in May, with plans for a few days in New Orleans with my boyfriend. Can I afford it? Barely. Should I spend so much money on a long weekend in New Orleans? Probably not. Which is exactly why I’m doing it. So there.

If I’m going to only get one life, you better believe I’m going to start being excited by it. So cheers to a more unpredictable, thrilling, exciting life....starting in May! 

And yes, I’m planning my own unpredictability. Old habits die hard. 

the first step is admitting

In the words of Hannah Horvath, "I want all of the things."

I've tried to convince myself (and am still kind of trying) that I don't want all of the things everyone else wants. A husband? Who cares. Kids? Eh. A house? Too much work, really. A steady career? Borrrrrring.

The thing is, I have not actually convinced myself of any of this. Deep, deep down, I want them all. The old house that is a giant pain in my ass but is so full of history its worth it. The husband who most of the time makes me want to scream, but somehow, every morning when I wake up next to him, I feel like the luckiest woman in the world. The two or three kids who will most likely cause me to increase my wine intake and make me long for the days when I flew to Vegas just because I could. But, who will undoubtedly be the greatest joys of my life. The little human terrors I will try my best to raise into awesome big people who want to make the world better. And the career. The career in which I will sit across from people, day in and day out, and do the same thing. The career that some days I will hate, find stifling and pointless. Because it's a career that involves no real skill except the ability to sit with another person who is hurting, and care. But I will dedicate my life to it anyway, on the hope that I will help one person find their happy. 

And how it looks for me -- as much as I don't want it too -- is the same way it looks for most. I'm not really different. I want a family. I want to be someone's wife. I want to be someone's mom. I want to have a home. I want to have a steady career that I love. I want to create my own little world in this big one, and that will be enough for me. 

Maybe there is something special about it though. That despite the giant divorce rate, terrible economy, and slew of troubled youth -- we do it all anyway. We try anyway. We want it anyway. 

Sometimes I honestly fear that if I admit I want all of these things -- they won't happen. And, maybe they wont. But, if I keep trying to ignore that I want them, or convince myself that I don't, well, they sure as hell won't happen then.

So, I'm normal. I crave love, connection, and commitment. Hi, my name is Jena, and I want all of the things. 

what happens in vegas . . .

. . . doesn't always stay there ;) 

We definitely brought back plenty of memories (some of which we're trying to forget), but we learned a lot on our short trip to Sin City, too. You always learn the most when you're out of your comfort zone, right? Well here are our biggest takeaways from Vegas. . . .

Annye learned. . . 

1. To go with the flow. Traveling in groups is sometimes a challenge because not everyone wants to do the same things. But with seven girls, we really had not one bit of drama. I was very impressed by my girlfriends!
2. You don’t have to be single to have fun. I may not have been able to over indulge, but I certainly had my share of good times, free drinks and even a little dancing on tables.
3. Dancers really do have the hottest bodies. In my next life, I’d like to come back as a Vegas go-go dancer or showgirl. Holy hotness.
4. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and rally. On our last night in Vegas, I was suffering from what I like to call a case of dehydration (otherwise known as severely over hung) and my stomach was not handling it well—up until an hour before we were set to leave for dinner. I did what any respectable girl does when in Vegas. Got in the shower and forced myself to have fun anyways. You can't keep a good woman down, Vegas!
5. Which leads me to my next point—one glass of water for every two drinks. Did not follow this rule and I definitely learned it the hard way. Though the amount of alcohol certainly didn’t help, I do think dehydration was my biggest problem in Vegas. Damn that desert air ;)

Jena learned. . . 

1. Being 25 is kind of a fantastic age. Over our fancy dinner of crab and filets, we were sharing our proudest accomplishments and what we're hoping for in the year ahead. We sounded like a table of pretty accomplished adult women. Then the birthday dessert for our friend Leigh arrives. It's a brownie with two big scoops of ice cream, a candle in each. Leigh: "Does this look like boobs to anyone else?" Cue the giggles. It was one of the best moments in the trip, to me at least. We're in betweeners, and that has such a beauty in and of itself. We're kind of adults, and we're kind of not.  
2. Girls are more fun than boys. Had we gone on this trip at 21, I'm pretty sure our mentality would have been a little different: Let's meet boys! But we were there to party it up with our gal pals, and that's exactly what we did. Despite a few brief make outs by the single gals, that was the extent of any interest in the opposite sex. Oh, and in conning them to buy the $16 drinks, which was just an exercise in intelligence. Any more than that? No one was interested. 
3. I have an alter ego. And I like her. Yes I got up and got my groove on with one of the dancers, surprising all my pals. I used to dance in high school, and a little in college. When I dance, I feel like I am the sexiest woman alive. It's just me and the music and everything else fades away. I'm not sure what her name is yet, but I'm taking suggestions. 
4. The sum is greater than the parts. I had my reservations about seven women traveling for a weekend together. But I will say of these amazing ladies, that everyone wanted everyone to get to have fun and do what they wanted. And I think that mentality worked.
5. Vegas will kick your ass, but you can kick its ass, too. After I returned from Vegas Monday night on little or no sleep from the night before, I got in a fight with a significant person in my life, had a midterm at 9 a.m. the next morning, and came down with a wicked sickness of sore throat, 102 fever and vomiting. Vegas. kicked. my. butt. But, despite all of that, I got an A+ on that midterm. Take that, Vegas.