Making it Through

Yesterday was a bit of a rough day.  I won’t go into details.  All I will say is that I’m glad it’s over and I’m hoping that everything will work out for the best.

Today is already turning out to be a better day.  The weather is finally feeling cool and crisp, One Direction released a new song (YAY!), and I’m really beginning to feel like the holidays are on their way.  I’m so ready.  I’m ready for Christmas lights and hot chocolate and Christmas sweaters and the smell of fresh balsam and firewood.

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I’m ready for my family and friends to get together for Thanksgiving and Yuletide festivities.

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I’m ready for parades and good food and drink and laughter.

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I’m ready for Christmas music and snowflakes and winter’s chill.

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I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.  Trust me, I’m excited for Thanksgiving as well.  It brings just as much warmth and joy and laughter with it as its December counterpart.  But after yesterday, I need this dose of holiday cheer.  I’m ready.  I’m so ready.

Spa Days and Seven Facts

This weekend, I had my very fist spa experience.  It was a friend’s birthday and so a group of us went to celebrate with her.  I had no idea what to expect, but my friend told me that there was an indoor swimming pool with a bar.  Sold.  It’s like, I don’t even care what else this spa has to offer me.

As it turned out, when you get to the spa, you are given a uniform that you’re supposed to wear while you’re there.  It was actually really comfortable, despite being a rather unflattering shade of orange. But since we were heading straight for the pools, we just wore our bathing suits.

The pools were awesome, full of jets and streams and illuminated this amazing shade of turquoise that made me feel like I was in a fantasy novel.  There was also an indoor water slide, which is meant for kids, but when you’ve got five twenty-somethings who, you know, enjoy the finer things in life (like bars in indoor swimming pools), you’ve got to ride the water slide.  That’s just all there is to it.

There are still lessons to be learned, however, even when you are in your mid-late twenties.  For example, stranger danger is still totally a thing.  Don’t talk to strangers.  Just don’t do it.  Especially in a spa where there’s alcohol.  Also, don’t leave your new boyfriend alone with your best friends.  That’s one my friend Kit Kat learned the hard way.  While she and the birthday girl went off to get pampered, she left her boyfriend alone with me and our friend, Roxanne.  We basically gave him what was probably the longest girl talk of his life.  We told him all about our bad dating experiences in the past and gave him a run down of what not to do.  I’m not sure if he was amused or scared.  Probably a little of both.  He seems like a cool guy though, so he probably wasn’t too scarred for life.  He also has his own LED lighting business!  Check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/enviraldesign

After we finally left the pools (after about six hours), we went to the sauna.  Apparently, people go into the saunas to relax, but we’re a pretty social group and we like to talk.  I would therefore like to issue a formal apology to everyone in the saunas whom we disturbed with our chatter.  I’m sorry.  I hope we didn’t ruin your evening.

All in all, my first spa experience was a pretty positive one.

The next day, I went on a Downtown adventure to the Dallas World Aquarium and Spaghetti Warehouse with a friend I’ve met only recently, but who is lot of fun and very easy to talk to.  It was a great day.  Very uncharacteristically, however, I forgot my camera at home!  I did get this shot of Downtown Dallas on my iPhone, however…

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Finally, I was tagged in a Facebook post asking me to list seven things that people may not know about me.  I was tagged by my author friends Ben Ditmars (https://benjaminditmars.wordpress.com) and Melissa Zaroski (http://davenportmanor.net).  I’m kind of an open book, so I’m not sure if there’s a whole lot that people don’t know about me, but I’ll give it a go.

1.  When I was little, I was afraid of band-aids.

2.  I hate talking on the telephone.

3.  When I first learned to ride a bicycle, my dad promised me two doughnuts if I rode around the block without crashing my bike. I did. But I never saw those two doughnuts.

4.  I enjoy playing chess.  I’m not good at it, but I have fun. I’m not a competitive person at all.

5.  I own 11 square feet of land in Scotland.

6.  I’m an enabler.

7.  My favorite necklace is one that my grandmother gave me. She called me into her room one night when I was about five or six and told me to reach into a bag she was holding.  Anything I pulled out, she said, was mine.  I pulled out the necklace.  To this day, it is my most treasured possession.

If you’re reading this, I tag you!