Scent fixation

It's really no big surprise that I ended up with two beagles.  Not only are they absolutely adorable (like me), a bit stubborn (also like me), but they are above all else obsessed with scents and smelling.....which is 100% absolutely like me.  

When I say I am obsessed with scents I don't just mean that I like things that smell pretty, which I do, but I also mean that I have the ability to weed out certain smells with what I like to think is comparable to the skills of a drug sniffing dog.  (On a side note, I feel somewhat strange and possibly a little dorky comparing myself to dogs.  Please don't take this comparison too literally).  But for reals, I have a great smelling ability and am, shall we say, sensitive to the various odors that are often in the air.

Consequently, my obsession with scents kind of drives my husband nuts.  I buy Febreze and other room deodorizers like they're going out of style, in fact I usually have at least one bottle in all the major rooms of the house.  But my real weakness comes with Wallflowers and I have a different one plugged in in all but a few rooms of my house.  I love these things, even though one time some spilled oil from one of these devices ate through some of the varnish on my kitchen table.  Whatever.  That's why we have tablecloths, right?

Candles are another fave.  Sometimes Dean will actually count how many candles I have out just in the upstairs of our house, and at certain times of the year the number is a bit staggering.  Of course the only candles I buy are scented ones, and of course I don't see the silliness of burning a scented candle on top of having a Wallflower scent plugged in.  It creates this wonderful mesh mash potpourri of delectable fragrances, and puts my nose on sensory overload.  Seriously, it's like a drug.   

Yes, I am a scentaholic (yet another made up word).  Much like my dogs I live by my nose and if you ever come to visit my house I hope the different smells that prevail from room to room aren't too much for you to handle.  At times I feel like some kind of scent mixologist.....I'm constantly looking for and experimenting with the perfect blend between all the smells.  And by the way, don't they pay people to do that sort of thing?  I fear my talents are being wasted.         

Not everyone is going to like you....

When I started writing for my college newspaper I learned something very important. 

Not everyone is going to like you. 

I remember opening up the paper one day and reading the first negative Letter to the Editor about one of my columns.  It was a pretty crushing experience, and all day long as I saw people strolling around with their newspapers I just knew that they had seen that letter, and even worse, that they knew it was about me and what I had written. 

This of course is most likely a gross exaggeration.....except for the crushing experience part.  I don't care who you are, criticism hurts.  Especially public criticism.  For me, seeing that letter and reading about how much they disliked my article made me feel no bigger than a grain of sand.  This of course is the risk one runs in having their words published.  Unfortunately, most people don't feel the need to chime in with positive accolades, but instead only want to send in feedback when they read something they ultimately dislike or don't agree with.  That's just the way it is, and over the years I came around to accepting this hard truth, even though those negative letters still touched a nerve.  Still do, by the way.

Not everyone is going to like you.

I'm not afraid to admit that I usually try to win people over and get them to like me.  I don't enjoy being disliked, and while I don't go out of my way to be everyone's best friend I do want people's overall view of me to be a positive one.  Don't we all more or less go that route?  

Many times I have expressed not caring what people think about me or the things I write.  I talk tough, but the truth is it only takes one comment, one bad letter to the editor, to make me feel like I don't know what the hell I'm talking about and why don't I just throw in the towel before even more people join in on the public bashing.  My mind has a way of taking an idea and running with it....things tend to spiral out of control sometimes.   And let's face it, sometimes it can be extremely difficult to stay sure of yourself when faced with an audience that isn't so sure of you.

Not everyone is going to like you.

So, what is the point?  Because as we learned in high school English one must always have a point, a main idea, a theme, you get the gist.  Whether it's writing, debating social issues, or even just your overall demeanor, not everyone out there is going to agree or like what you have to say.  Not everyone is going to sing your praises, and there are a lot of people out there who will try and make themselves feel better by tearing you down.  It's vicious, but it's true.  I constantly need to remind myself not to take things personally, not to internalize everything and make it into more than it really is.  I have a hard time accepting and facing criticism, but if I want to be a writer it's just something I'll have to get used to.  I know this, and yet I haven't quite adopted the tough exterior quite yet.  

Not everyone is going to like you. 

But that doesn't mean that others out there will follow suit.  It doesn't mean that all hope is lost, or that there is something fundamentally wrong with you.  Again, things I have to remind myself of all the time, and not just in regards to my writing.  I have never been the best at standing up for myself, of speaking my mind and believing in myself.  I can be easily intimidated and on more than one occasion have chosen to stay silent for fear of having my thoughts challenged.  I'm not proud of these admissions, but it's the truth.

Not everyone is going to like you. 

I realize that wanting to be a writer, fiction or otherwise, is going to require some toughening up on my part.  I can't be afraid of the general public, of negative feedback, of not being loved by everyone out there.  I also can't be afraid to stand behind my writing, my thoughts and ideas.  Because I am so averse to criticism I will often accept the negative that is pointed out by others and readily agree with it, rather than challenge them with an argument defending my work.

Not everyone is going to like you. 

But a few will.  Much better to focus on that truth.     

Anxiety at 2 a.m.

Fact: I don't do very well with getting waken up in the middle of the night.  I will probably be a horrible mother because of this. 

Early this morning one of my adorable beagles woke me up at 2 a.m. because, apparently, he had to go to the bathroom.  I know, I know, he's quite the responsible dog for actually waking me up and not just relieving himself on the floor, but being startled awake out of a dead sleep kind of made me oblivious to this line of thinking.

Being the responsible pet owner that I am, I dragged myself out of bed, let the dogs out to do their business, and after about 10 minutes settled back into bed to hopefully get a few more hours of sleep.  But there was one tiny (and by tiny I mean big) obstacle standing in my way.  Suddenly, for no reason at all, I was incredibly anxious.  My mind was spinning, I was tossing and turning, and my body temperature was rising right along with my anxiety level.  Sleep could not have been farther away.

Why does every little facet of one's life seem so much more stressful in the early hours of the morning?  What is it about the middle of the night that makes all those buried worries suddenly rise to the surface?

With the help of some Seinfeld reruns, I was finally able to shut my mind down and get maybe an hour and a half more of sleep.  Once I was up and lacing up my shoes to get on the treadmill, I realized that I felt fine.  My stomach wasn't in knots, my head felt clear, and I thought I was somewhat ready to take on the day.  Why hadn't I felt this way a few hours ago?  Where was the clarity I so desperately needed as I lay in bed and watched the minutes on the clock continue to tick by?

This is nothing new for me.  I'm prone to anxiety first thing in the morning, and often any time I am woken up in the middle of the night.  I'm used to it by now, but lately.....lately I feel that my anxiety is becoming a bit too commonplace for my liking.  While this in itself has more than caught my attention, there's still something about the early morning hours that causes my mind to jump from one thing to the next, finding new things to worry about with each transition. 

And now?  I feel fine.  I feel more or less in control of everything I have going on, and more or less confident in my ability to handle everything to varying degrees of success.  It's easy for me to take this stance at 10:13 a.m., but turn the clock back about eight hours and I would be a complete mess.  A giant ball of anxiety.  Unable to stand up straight because of the tight knot continuing to twist in my stomach. 

All I can say is it's a good thing I have plenty of Seinfeld DVD's on hand.  If these late night anxiety sessions continue those reruns could be the only thing that save me.  

Habits

A couple weeks before going on vacation for the holidays, my husband and I started working on a puzzle.  I was thrilled.  I like puzzles. They stimulate and simultaneously frustrate me, and finding that one piece that fits in that one spot after searching for nearly an hour is what I imagine it feels like to discover gold.  Another great thing about the puzzle?  It was a new evening activity we could do together that didn't involve staring at the TV, which was essentially how we spent most of our evenings. 

Since getting back from vacation and setting back into the everyday routine that poor puzzle has sat on our card table, neglected for weeks.  We talk about going downstairs and working on it, until we realize that it's just easier to stay curled up on the couch and watch another episode of Breaking Bad on Netflix.  Every morning as I hurry out the door to work I walk by the puzzle, the edge pieces and a small section of the top all connected together, and I think how badly I want to connect the rest of the pieces and see the finished product.  But by the time evening rolls around and I swear I can feel a headache approaching because I've been staring at a computer screen for five hours straight, I decide I just need to put on my glasses and dish up some ice cream. 

The point of my story is not that I'm a crappy puzzle put togetherer (yes, I made up that word), my point is that habits are hard to break.  They don't even have to be good or bad habits, just habits in general.  Habits of your general routine become so ingrained that the simple act of spending the evening in a different room of your house sometimes seems too foreign to contemplate.  

Everyday routine, the habits we develop because we just get used to doing things a certain way, at a certain time, at a certain place, these are the ones that can be tough for us to recognize and also tough to amend.  My first year after college was very odd to me, because when I got home in the evenings I didn't have papers to write or chapters to read.  I didn't have, well, anything to do that needed to be done, and that just wasn't what I was used to.  

I know for me it's extremely hard to break these everyday routines.  This is why I have such a hard time writing in the evenings, as silly as that sounds.  My evenings are generally spent cooking, eating, talking with Dean, watching TV, and usually reading and snuggling with my dogs.  It is actually hard for me to go downstairs, sit at my computer, and type.  Even when I feel like writing, when I have words that need to get on paper, this is still hard for me to do.  Doesn't that make absolutely no sense??  At first I attributed this phenomenon to laziness, but I think there's more to it than that because I can see this pattern in other aspects of my life, in my day-to-day routine that show me it isn't just writing in the evenings where I notice this aversion. 

Sometimes I get too caught up in looking at the big picture that I miss the small details.  These everyday habits go by unnoticed because, well, we go through them everyday and before long they are just "the way things are."  Which is why my puzzle sits on that card table and the computer in my office hasn't been turned on in weeks.  Trying to break with what is normal, expected, and comfortable can be hard, even if the "break" is something we really want to do.

I'm always classifying my habits as either good or bad, never giving much thought to everything that falls in the middle.  Maybe it's time to readjust my view.      

Yay for introverts!

One of my friends posted this video on Facebook today (link is below), and it naturally got me thinking about my self-proclaimed status as an introvert.  I felt so empowered listening to this woman talk about introverts, their qualities, and how our society shouldn't be discouraging these traits but should instead embrace the people who possess them because they are, in fact, quite valuable.  

I guess watching this got me all excited because I could 100% relate to what she was saying.  I found myself nodding along and in my head thinking, "Yes, yes, YES!!"  It was like she knew me and my personality without ever meeting me.  I find that very refreshing.  I also find it refreshing to hear someone talking about being an introvert as a positive thing.  As in not negative.  As in not something that needs to be changed.  I can't count how many times in my life I have been told I'm too quiet, too withdrawn, too much of a reader, not social enough, and so on and so forth.  And the thing is, I'm never these things all the time.  Sometimes I am loud and obnoxious.  Sometimes I crave a night out with friends and interesting strangers.  But the majority of the time I happen to be perfectly content with my solitude, and that is not a bad thing. 

Whether you are an extrovert or an introvert, I think you should watch the video and give the speaker's words some thought.  I could go on and on about the great points that were made in the video, but since I've posted the link below you can go ahead and check them out for yourself.  

And let me just say again how happy I was to watch this.  I feel completely inspired to embrace my introversion and not feel ashamed by its qualities.  They do not diminish me in any way, in fact they should be seen as strengths and not weaknesses.  So from now on, that's exactly how I plan to treat them.  

Here's the link to the video:  http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html

Getting organized

If you know me at all, then what I say (okay, type) next is going to be a most obvious statement.  

I love getting organized. 

The whole process, while sometimes draining and oftentimes frustrating, ultimately leaves me feeling like a rock star.  Sit me down in front of a messy closet with some empty storage tubs by my side and before long I'll be feeling like a million bucks.  And my closet will be looking much better, too. 

I use the closet analogy because that's exactly the next project Dean and I are tackling.  We have a fairly large storage closet down in our den that is in desperate need of some TLC.  So we are mudding the seams on the walls, painting said walls a nice bright color, installing some laminate flooring (because the cold cement just isn't doing it for me), and putting up some nice, wide shelves for storage.  I. Can't. Wait.  But hold onto your pants ladies and gents because the fun doesn't stop there!  To add even more excitement and an added level of challenge to the project, we are also going to simultaneously reorganize and restructure yet another storage closet that is located under our stairs. 

What?  Yes, you heard me correctly.  Two closets in one fell swoop.  We think we are super heroes, and hopefully when it's all said and done we will be feeling like super organized super heroes.

I have this thing about closets in that I love them, and am sometimes intimidated by them.  An empty closet is my playground because if it's empty, you can fill it with.....stuff.  Of course, this has led us to the situation we currently are in, meaning that both closets look like a tornado has swept through.  There is no rhyme or reason to the way items are stored, and aside from a few very specific decoration bins, everything else is loose and just plain in the way.

I am very excited to tackle these projects, and even more excited to see the finished products.  I can already feel the peace of mind that will wash over me when I open the door to either closet and see cleanliness and order instead of chaos and free for all.  

It really doesn't take much to make me happy.  And since I'm trying more and more to focus on the little, everyday things that bring me happiness, I figure a couple of well organized closets is a great place to start.    

Another new year, but not much new

Welcome to 2013!  Yes, I realize I'm four days late on that sentiment, but since we're still in the first week of the new year I figure it still counts. 

I am on vacation until Monday and have definitely started to grow a bit sad by my impending return to work.  Here's an extremely obvious statement: it's very, very hard to willingly go back to work after two weeks off and I can already tell my stomach muscles will be tightened to the extreme when my alarm goes off Monday morning.  Vacations are great in the beginning, but after a few days one definitely falls into a "I'm never going back to work ever again" mindset, which really makes the end of vacation and the inevitable return to work even harder to deal with. 

Not to be a total downer with this post, but I was taking down my Christmas decorations a couple days ago, and the whole process left me feeling incredibly melancholy.  It was depressing having to take apart the Christmas tree (yes, it's fake, and no, I do not approve), take down my Christmas countdown calendar, my Santa Clauses, the garland, not to mention all the lights that were strung around our windows.  The more items I boxed up, the more depressed I became.  My house looks so bare now, and I figure that if the holidays are now officially over it may as well be summertime again, right?

I didn't make any New Year's resolutions this year, mainly because I am continuing to focus on the same items that I've posted about on this site time and time again.  Writing is still at the top of the list, as well as happiness in general.  I've been very focused lately on little ways to improve my personal happiness, and I'm trying to hone in on the small, everyday things I either do or don't do that play a part on my mental attitude.  I don't mean to suggest that I'm an unhappy person, but there are always improvements that can be made and I want to continue to focus on how to make that happen.  One gift that I received which I am particularly excited to start writing in is a Gratitude Journal.  Each day gives you a different writing exercise to complete which focuses on the things in your life you are grateful for, or the things that make you happy about your life.  I love this idea oh so very much and think it will really help to adjust my perception on things when I'm feeling particularly negative.  I'm a firm believer in perception altering any given situation, and having a daily reminder to focus on the good things and people in my life will be refreshing. 

On that note, here's a few wonderful things I was fortunate to enjoy over my two week hiatus.  Dog walks with my husband and my mom, a most enjoyable Christmas evening with the Plucker family up at the ranch, visiting with my cousin who just returned home from Afghanistan, a New Year's Eve dance party in the living room with my husband and our two very good friends, catching up on some reading, and visiting my sister and a couple other close friends in Seattle this weekend.  And these were just a few of my favorite things.