For real?

The latest BS conversation I heard while working at Whole Foods: "I'm not going to get a tattoo unless it's vegan ink. They use crushed insect shells to make the color red."

Oh. My. Gosh. I have to give service with a smile to the worst population on the planet.

Out of love with Whole Foods Market.

Remember how just 6 little weeks ago I was obsessed with Whole Foods Market? Well guess what, I have totally fallen out of love with them. I'm not even sure where to start.

You may have read this article:

"Employees Are Bitter" as Whole Foods Chops Jobs and Wages

—By Tom Philpott

Sat Oct. 3, 2015 6:00 AM EDT

Ya, Whole Foods has really soured that kool-aid they are always shoving down our throats. 1500 team members lost their jobs. 1500 PEOPLE, not 1500 employee ID numbers that clock in and clock out every day, but 1500 actual people. I, fortunately, was not directly affected by this. However, some very critical positions were "eliminated" and we lost some great, hardworking, Whole Foods advocates. About one week after all of these jobs were eliminated, they went on to eliminate our Human Resources department. Ya, now disgruntled team members don't even have a healthy outlet anymore. If you need your hours adjusted, there is no one to do the paperwork anymore. If you have a question about your insurance, there's no one to ask. If a manager is sexually harassing you, good luck finding the phone number to someone that can handle the situation properly.

Ug, I'm disgusted. I thought Whole Foods and I were going to have a long, healthy, firmly rooted relationship, but now I just want out. I have put in my three years which I feel should count for something, but I now know that it doesn't. We had people who spent years (15+ years) working their way up the ladder, following the Whole Foods "Grow with Us" program, people who had been loyal and worked retail every holiday since they can remember. These people had a retirement plan that was promised over and over again. And what did they get? SCREWED. There is no other way to say it because it really is an ugly, dirty, underhanded scheme they pulled out of left field. Shame on them.

I could lose my job for uttering these words (these truthful words) online. Do I care??? About as much as Whole Foods cares about me.

Santa Fe & Taos

After we visited with the family for the 4th of July, Jake and I headed to Santa Fe to see my good friend, Harmony. She hooked us up with a great dinner at The Compound where she bar tends. We had plans to hit up the SF Farmers Market the next morning but unfortunately, I had picked up some crazy 24-hour bug and was feeling absolutely terrible. As always, Jake was the perfect hubby and let me sleep in as late as I needed to in the big fluffy, comfy hotel bed. He visited the lobby and brought me my continental breakfast in bed. Once I started to feel better, we did what I always like to do when I visit somewhere new: check out the local Whole Foods. Yes, we visited both the old and the new location. I understand that Whole Foods is ridiculous half of the time. In case you missed the viral picture, I'll share it with you now.

 

Yes, this picture is for real. One of the higher-ups implemented a bottled water program and at my store we make "berry infused" water. Sometimes apple. Sometimes grape. We pretty much add a couple of pieces of produce to some water and idiots buy it for a lot of money. But asparagus? I don't know what this particular Whole Foods store was thinking. I agree with all of the mockery that accompanied this photo. ANYWAY, I'm still obsessed with Whole Foods and I love working there. Like any job it can become monotonous and test your patience, but I just want to be there. It's filled with healthy people who do interesting things. I like being surrounded by energy-rich deliciousness and an eclectic crowd.

From Santa Fe we headed up to Taos to visit the earthship community. Anybody who knows me, knows that building one of these is my dream. Jake and I have been planning on it since before we even knew we were planning on it. I feel like it's part of my calling in life to build one of these and teach as many people as possible about the capabilities we have to live more sustainably. We only have one Mother Earth and every day I think about the disasters we're creating that future generations may not be able to reconcile.

 

The community has close to 100 houses and, little did we know, it backs up to the Rio Grand Gorge. We saw a road sign that said something like Summit Mesa Lookout, so we traveled a mile or two farther down the road from the "museum." The road wasn't exactly paved and it started winding downwards into a canyon. I quickly became uncomfortable, imagining our car breaking down in the middle of nowhere on a road that nobody drives. On one of the switchbacks I looked down the edge of the cliff and caught a glimpse of something incredible. The Gorge was absolutely beautiful. An oasis in the high desert of New Mexico. And yes, my shirt says Trucks, Cowboys, Country Music. It's funny.

We also interrupted some mountain goats crossing the road and jumping up and down the steep cliffs like it was a game. These animals look so much bigger in person than they ever do on television. When we got to the bottom of the Gorge there was a father and son, both in a pair of waders, fishing in the middle of the river. They had a spectacular 360-degree view. Actually, they had a spectacular 360-degree SQUARED view. Any direction they looked, front/back/left/right/up/down, the scenery was amazing. The sound of the water bubbling by. The breeze feeling the perfect amount of crisp on my face. The smell of sagebrush and evergreens. In that moment I was so jealous of what looked like these peoples' every day life. I could just imagine living in the basin of the Rio Grand, fishing for dinner and watching the wildlife. Jake and I took our shoes off and sat on some rocks by the river, letting our feet dangle and freeze in the water. Even on a hot day in July, that water is still as cold as the Rocky Mountains at 10,000 feet.

 On our way home we took the road less traveled, back down past Santa Fe but then headed west on Highway 60. You know what you find between Magdalena and Omega? Well, let me make this easier to grasp- you know what you find somewhere between Albuquerque and Phoenix?... A place called Pie Town. It felt more like Ghost Town. We were driving through on a Tuesday at about 6:30 in the evening and there was no one to be seen. We passed a cabin that looked like the village gas station. And food mart. And law office. The only building in town with a 15 foot mural painted on it's side that read EAT PIE HERE, but there was no one in sight. I had been seeing PIE signs for at least fifty miles before reaching this place, my mouth salivating more with each passing minute, and then when we get there, nothing! What a strange and disturbing disappointment. I just looked up the elevation and it's right around 8,000 in altitude. It's a certain breed of human who enjoys living in a place that borders so closely to the treeline.

We continued on this road where we didn't pass another car for maybe an hour. There just isn't much out there. Somewhere along the way we started noticing satellite dishes out in the distance. Lots of them. Like, maybe 100 dishes spread out over 5 miles. Supposedly, there is a radio observatory that gives tours called The Very Large Array.... but there are a lot more satellite dishes out there than they claim to have on their website. Plus, the fence along the road has signs posted everywhere that says Government Property No Trespassing. It was strange, to say the least. And I'd like to keep believing in conspiracy theories and military coverups and extraterrestrial visitations and time travel experiments and fountains of eternal youth and so on and so forth. It was a good trip.

July Fun.

I finally took some time off from work and had a fantastic vacation. I was able to see all the people I love at the Shumway Compound. I'm pretty sure my parents keep adding onto their house to accommodate more granbabies. We were 14 adults and 11.5 kids including: a great aunt, second cousin, our unofficially adopted brother Mark, and a baby on the way. All of my nieces and nephews melt my heart. Jake and I were spoiled enough to get one on one time with my older sister and her family for a night before heading up the mountain. Since it was about a million degrees outside, we capitalized on all of the best indoor activities. We visited the Phoenix Art Museum and enjoyed a smorgasbord of fancy imported cheeses. Trying new and exotic cheeses is the part of my job that I love best. I'm glad somebody else in the family has classy taste buds.

I'm pretty sure Grandmother was in heaven, snuggled between and reading to a bunch of grandkids. And the grandkids looked like they were having some fun too. These kids are fearless! Put a 3-year old Shumway behind the wheel of a go-cart and they will stretch their legs as far as they can stretch until their foot hits the gas pedal! Jake always talks me into a 4-wheeler adventure and it's always fun.

We also celebrated one of the nephews birthday. He was lucky enough to be born on July 4th, but that also means that he usually gets stuck with the whole crazy Shumway gang that day. I'm glad he puts up with us because it's always fun to have everyone together. We played a game of capture the flag and I'm not gonna lie... I was sore the next day from running around for about twenty minutes. Haha! We also had a night of dancing and word games and lots and lots of food. It was a good time.

Holy HOT.

This is my fourth summer in Phoenix...................
And it feels like the hottest! OH MY GOODNESS PEOPLE! I can't handle it. I am currently sitting in the library because my house is too hot-- even with the air conditioning on. Jake and I were both sprawled out on separate couches with ice packs on our heads. We decided to come read books (or blog) at the library where it is always nice and cold. The library even has shades up on their 40 foot windows today. It is seriously hot people. I just looked up the 16 hottest cities in the world and guess where Phoenix lies?

Fifth hottest city IN THE WORLD! We beat out Death Valley and Las Vegas.
4th place: Illizi, Algeria
3rd place: Mecca, Saudi Arabia
2nd place: Ahvaz, Iran
1st place: Kuwait City, Kuwait

What are we doing here? These aren't life sustaining temperatures. Jake and I have been trying to buy a house here in Phoenix for a long while now, but why? What is wrong with us?! Everyone keeps saying, "only two more weeks and then the monsoons will be here." HELLO, these are NOT monsoons. People out here just don't know what a rain storm looks like. And the monsoons don't necessarily cool things down. We might go from 115 degrees to 100 degrees but then we're talking about sticky humidity. Every day this week and last week all had high temperatures over 110. It is seriously getting to me. My head always feels like it wants to implode. We tried to get out of the heat yesterday so we drove up to Payson to go camping. It was about ten degrees cooler which made a big difference but I still think this place is insane.

Do I still want to live here? Yes, but I am not going to say that I don't mind the heat. It is absolutely terrible. There should be a rule that for every parking lot that gets built there needs to be a tree every ten feet. There should also be a rule that the golf courses can't water their grass June through August. And the state should invoke "summer hours" so that every place of business can flip flop their hours of operation. 7pm-7am sounds great to me. I could sleep during the hottest part of the day and then have energy at night after the sun has gone down and the temperature drops to 89 degrees. Yes, this sounds like a perfect idea. How come no one else has ever made this happen?

Finally! I found MY GENERATION and life makes a lot more sense.

I read some statistics the other day that compared Generation X to Millenials and the different lifestyles they lead. I was born in 1982, and Jake in 1981. The birth years were not posted under either generation so I was trying to place myself according to the data. I couldn't figure out which generation we were because I found myself disagreeing with all of the statements about how people from these generations work, play, shop, travel, eat, socialize, make plans, etc. I brought this question to Jake: So what generation are we? We talked about it for a while without conclusion, and then went to the internet for a third opinion. According to the research and opinion of Anna Garvey, we are a pretty special group of individuals-- almost like a mini generation-- that are misunderstood by those just a few years older and a few years younger than us. I lived my first two years of college without a cell phone (like everyone else around me) and it was a blast. I spent my third and fourth year of college with a cell phone (along with everybody else) and that was a blast too. I'm really glad to have been born when I was. And I'm really glad to have found this article. It's nice to know that there is a large sum of people out there who understand me a lot better than I thought anyone did-- especially when I find myself disagreeing with so much that goes on in the world.

THE OREGON TRAIL GENERATION: LIFE BEFORE AND AFTER MAINSTREAM TECH
by Anna Garvey

We’re an enigma, those of us born at the tail end of the 70s and the start of the 80s. Some of the “generational” experts lazily glob us on to Generation X, and others just shove us over to the Millennials they love to hate – no one really gets us or knows where we belong.

We’ve been called Generation Catalano, Xennials, and The Lucky Ones, but no name has really stuck for this strange micro-generation that has both a healthy portion of Gen X grunge cynicism, and a dash of the unbridled optimism of Millennials.

A big part of what makes us the square peg in the round hole of named generations is our strange relationship with technology and the internet.  We came of age just as the very essence of communication was experiencing a seismic shift, and it’s given us a unique perspective that’s half analog old school and half digital new school.

YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY

If you can distinctly recall the excitement of walking into your weekly computer lab session and seeing a room full of Apple 2Es displaying the start screen of Oregon Trail, you’re a member of this nameless generation, my friend.

We were the first group of kids who grew up with household computers, but still novel enough to elicit confusion and wonder.  Gen X individuals were already fully-formed teens or young adults when computers became mainstream, and Millennials can’t even remember a time before computers.

But, when we first placed our sticky little fingers on a primitive Mac, we were elementary school kids whose brains were curious sponges.  We learned how to use these impressive machines at a time when average middle class families were just starting to be able to afford to buy their own massive desktops.

This made us the first children to grow up figuring it out, as opposed to having an innate understanding of new technology the way Millennials did, or feeling slightly alienated from it the way Gen X did.

AN AOL ADOLESCENCE

Did you come home from middle school and head straight to AOL, praying all the time that you’d hear those magic words, “You’ve Got Mail” after waiting for the painfully slow dial-up internet to connect?  If so, then yes, you are a member of the Oregon Trail Generation.  And you are definitelypart of this generation if you hopped in and out of sketchy chat rooms asking others their A/S/L (age/sex/location for the uninitiated).

Precisely at the time that you were becoming obsessed with celebrities, music and the opposite sex, you magically had access to “the internet,” a thing that few normal people even partially grasped the power of at the time.

We were the first group of high school kids to do research for papers both online and in an old-fashioned card catalogue, which many millennials have never even heard of by the way (I know because I asked my 21-year-old intern and he started stuttering about library cards).

Because we had one foot in the traditional ways of yore and one foot in the digital information age, we appreciate both in a way that other generations don’t.  We can quickly turn curmudgeonly in the face of teens who’ve never written a letter, but we’re glued to our smartphones just like they are.

Those born in the late 70s and early 80s were the last group to have a childhood devoid of all the technology that makes childhood and adolescence today pretty much the worst thing imaginable.  We were the last gasp of a time before sexting, Facebook shaming, and constant communication.

We used pay-phones; we showed up at each other’s houses without warning; we often spoke to our friends’ parents before we got to speak to them; and we had to wait at least an hour to see any photos we’d taken.  But for the group of kids just a little younger than us, the whole world changed, and that’s not an exaggeration.  In fact, it’s possible that you had a completely different childhood experience than a sibling just 5 years your junior, which is pretty mind-blowing.

NAPSTER U

Thanks to the evil genius of Sean Parker, most of us were in college in the heyday of Napster and spent many a night using the university’s communal Ethernet to pillage our friends’ music libraries at breakneck speeds.  With mouths agape at having downloaded the entire OAR album in under five seconds, we built our music libraries faster than any other dorm-dwelling generation in history.

We were the first to experience the beauty of sharing and downloading mass amounts of music faster than you can say, “Third Eye Blind,” which made the adoption of MP3 players and music streaming apps perfectly natural.  Yet, we still distinctly remember buying cassette singles, joining those scam-tastic CD clubs and recording songs onto tapes from the radio.  The very nature of buying and listening to music changed completely within the first 20 years of our lives.

A YOUTH UNTOUCHED BY SOCIAL MEDIA

The importance of going through some of life’s toughest years without the toxic intrusion of social media really can’t be overstated.  Myspace was born in 2003 and Facebook became available to all college students in 2004.  So if you were born in 1981-1982, for example, you were literally the last graduating class to finish college without social media being part of the experience.

When we get together with our fellow Oregon Trail Generation friends, we frequently discuss how insanely glad we are that we escaped the middle school, high school and college years before social media took over and made an already challenging life stage exponentially more hellish.

We all talked crazy amounts of shit about each other, took pictures of ourselves and our friends doing shockingly inappropriate things and spread rumors like it was our jobs, but we just never had to worry about any of it ending up in a place where everyone and their moms (literally) could see it a hot second after it happened.

But unlike our older Gen X siblings, we were still young and dumb enough to get really into MySpace and Facebook in its first few years, so we understand what it feels like to overshare on social media and stalk a new crush’s page.

Time after time, we late 70s and early 80s babies were on the cusp of changes that essentially transformed modern life and, for better or worse, it’s shaped who we are and how we relate to the world.

Anna Garvey is the Director of Content and Social Media for WebRev Marketing & Design, a boutique firm in Chicago. In past lives, she’s also been an ex-pat in Italy and a 6th grade teacher on the Southside of Chicago. When she’s not scouring the internet for social media and blog fodder, she enjoys Netflix binges, soulful music and New Orleans culture.

Mazel Tov

A few weeks ago Jake and I were invited to our first traditional Jewish wedding. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ceremony. I learned a lot just from reading the program. I shared it below, excluding names to allow privacy, so I hope you'll enjoy it!

Birthday Celebrations

I always like to celebrate my birthday for a whole week. Why not? Right? Jake took me camping twice. The first night we went out west to Tonopah with our friends Tim & Valerie. They are my favorite people here in Phoenix. Val is such a great person to know and I'm happy she's in my life. And Tim has been a great friend to Jake. They performed a few concerts together in the past and they make some beautiful music. Anyway, the second night we went camping at Bartlett Lake (where we go about once a month) with a bunch of my friends from Whole Foods. It's always a treat to visit a large body of water and splash around in this desert. 

After our camping adventures, Jake took me to Tucson where we drove the mighty Subaru around the  back roads of Saguaro National Park. We got some delicious Ethiopian food and then walked downtown to the Open Mic Night at Hotel Congress where, unfortunately, there was not a lot of great music. LOL. We also visited all three Whole Foods that are in the Tucson area. I like the company I work for and I enjoy seeing what kind of cool stuff the other stores have happening. 

The next day we visited Biosphere 2. This place is pretty awesome. The architecture alone is crazy impressive. If you've ever seen the movie BIODOME with Polly Shore (such amazing acting...) then you have seen Biosphere 2. There are five different ecosystems inside and the story is true-- eight people lived inside the dome for two years with nobody going in or coming out. They did this to study different ecosystems in a controlled environment, without the effects of everything unnatural we are creating on this planet. I didn't take a lot of pictures but we really enjoyed it. Our tour guide, Bill, was awesome. I would definitely recommend visiting this place. We purchased and used a groupon which took the price down from $20/person to just $12 each.

Jake also got me the best yoga mat ever! It's a Manduka Black Mat Pro and it is amazing! It has a lifetime warranty and it has the power to make anybody feel like they are a super yogi. The week after my birthday my parents were able to come down to Phoenix and have lunch with Jake and I in our home. My parents are really cool and I love hanging out with them. Now that I am 33 years old, I can admit that. Overall, it was a fantastic birthday week filled with people I love and mother nature. Life doesn't get much better.

1/3 Life Crisis

It's not a midlife crisis because I'm hoping to make it to 100 years old. This is my one-third life crisis. I'll be turning 33 years of age this week. I can't really wrap my head around the idea. I still identify myself with a bunch of 20-somethings. My parents will probably read this and laugh because I'm pretty sure they still feel 20 in their minds. To me it seems that as we grow older, we all want to stay young, energetic and fun, but still collect a lifetime of experiences to become more wise. It's a catch 22. Only time allows us to learn, grow, experience and become more. But that darn thing called time is also what prohibits us once our bodies are ready for their final rest.

About three months ago I needed a change. I didn't know what kind of change, but I was beginning to go crazy in my own skin. I didn't make any rash decisions, and I didn't pick up and move across the country (like I always feel like doing.) No tattoos. No Ferrari. No Pony. No sugar daddy. Instead, I dropped my full-time status at work. This means I'm going to lose my insurance benefits in 6 months. It also means that I should have more free time to do what I want, only, I don't. I went out and I got a second job! Why? I can pinpoint a few reasons. 1) I like to be social and meet lots of people. 2) Having a job gives me a purpose whether it be big or small. 3) I know Jake would disagree with this statement but I feel like I need to be sure I am pulling my own weight in our relationship. We don't have children yet (yes, YET. Sometime.) so I don't think it would be right of me to just take a break and stress our budget-- especially when we're looking for and trying to buy a house. A house...that's another story for another day. I'm perfectly capable of working full-time right now so I took a second job... as a server! I served tables for a couple weeks back in college. It wasn't my favorite thing, but it's pretty decent money without much commitment to an employer. So I currently have two jobs where I work with a bunch of young people. There are plenty that are my age and younger, but not many that are older than me. In recognizing this the other day, I started to reflect on my life, status, career, etc. Which consequently, put me into crisis mode.

I work at Whole Foods Market where I cut fancy imported cheeses and I work at OHSO Brewery where I serve people american food and craft beer. When I talk to people who are older than me, I get embarassed when I tell them what I do for my "profession." When I talk to people younger than me, they seem excited and interested in what I do and they think it's "cool." So what is this inner struggle that I'm having? Is it me "growing up?" Is it ridiculous that I've used quotation marks three times in the last three sentences? I like both of my jobs and I absolutely love all of the people I work with, but I am left unfulfilled. Do I want a white collar job? No. Call me crazy, but I think I would really enjoy a job that requires digging in the dirt. I could be outdoors all day. (when it's 115 degrees in Phoenix I could spend all day outdoors in a different city.) Maybe I just need to start gardening daily. Something I've learned about myself is that I am a nature lover. I am most happy when I'm spending time outdoors. Outside of my house. Outside of an office. Outside of the media.

Maybe it's time for a career change, or maybe it's just time for a new hobby. Whatever it is, I need to dedicate more time to the outdoors and to myself. This upcoming 33rd birthday has gotten me more riled up than any other number birthday. I'm not sure why that is, but I know that I'm ready for another change. Yes, I am that part of the population that likes and embraces change. It's my gypsy soul and I'm glad that my Jakey puts up with it because he is stuck with me forever and that's the one thing that I hope will never change.

I've wanted to build an earthship for a really long time now. If you know me and you don't know what an earthship is, then we must not be very close friends. This has been my desire for a good chunk of time and I think this may be the year to move on it. I've also been looking into shipping container homes and I'm realizing that it is difficult to find someone with real expertise who would be interested in minor individual projects like this, and difficult to find a single place on the internet with all of the general information one would need to start a project like this. I only got this idea yesterday, but maybe I need to be that person/website people can go to for information about creating homes like this. I'm passionate about anything and everything eco-friendly so maybe that's where I need to focus my energy this year.

Career + Interest + Outdoors + Environment = Cody's Fulfillment???

Do I feel like I'm running out of time? Yes. Is 66 years enough time for me to finish everything I have yet to start? Was this entire post just a pep talk to myself? Probably. I think my blog has turned into more of a personal journal than a show and tell page. My words are free flowing. I am editing myself less. My thought process is starting to manifest itself and you are witnessing how scatter brained I can actually be. My dad taught me the word tangent at a young age. He tangents. I tangent. The word has a bad connotation but when I allow them, tangents usually move me forward and I learn things about myself along the way. We have to entertain crazy ideas in order come up with the genius ones.

I don't make New Year's Day resolutions. I always make Birthday Year resolutions. I won't share with the blog world what ALL of my resolutions are this year, well, at least not today in this post. *Raised glass. Here's to a killer year and no limits to our dreams! 

Puerto Rico

I went to finish a post that I started typing last week and I also found this post hiding in my Drafts folder from January.... eek. You can tell from the last sentence that it's obviously incomplete but I don't know if I'll ever add to/finish it so I may as well share some of it!

It was summertime in Phoenix... so it was hot and I was cranky. Jake has the opportunity to go out of town with his job occasionally but I'm usually in Phoenix working my 40-hour amazing retail job. Yes, that was sarcastic. Retail is never amazing. Anyway, I was itching to get out of town and we had the perfect excuse-- our 7 year wedding anniversary. I began looking at some travel options. I wanted something really exotic-- like a Mediterranean cruise. However, I could only get one week off from work so something closer to home made more sense. Plus Jake has not updated his passport since it expired. So what's the most exotic place we could go without passports and within our budget? Puerto Rico! I'm actually glad that we couldn't travel any farther because I'm not sure we would have otherwise ever visited PR.

We had a blast! I took pictures but they were with my new smart phone (which I still have and still hate) and I'm just unfamiliar with uploading pictures from my camera onto my computer. Yes, I am an old fart and I refuse to give into this new technology. Somehow I have figured out Instagram and you can check out a couple of Puerto Rico pics under my name @codythegirly. Haha, before I posted that sentence I had actually typed it as a hashtag. #codythegirly. Then I googled #codythegirly and Instagram came up with the @ symbol at the beginning of my name. See, I really don't get this new age stuff.

ANYWAY, we had fun. We couchsurfed 3 nights, slept on the beach with new friends one night, and got a hotel one night. Our first couchsurfing friends were a very artistic couple who are trying to start a hostel in San Juan. They had two other surfers staying the same night and we went out to a bar and played pool for a while. The city of San Juan stays up late. The people are all about living life which was a welcoming start to a vacation. Even though most of them have jobs during the day, they find it equally important to go out at night and dance and have drinks with friends. We met a guy at a gas station who invited us to a local spot that was a few blocks away. Jake and I squished into his front seat and went to meet a bunch of his friends. We asked everyone what we should see while we were visiting and they marked up some spots on the tiny and simple map that we had received on our flight. It was a pretty fun first night in a country that is half-familiar. More about that later.

Our second day we headed west along the north coast to Arecibo.

stupid internet.

I blame the internet for everything. It makes me watch too much tv, too much netflix, too much Facebook, too much amazon, too much of just looking and not doing. I stopped blogging because I don't have the patience to do much of anything anymore. I clock in to work 40 hours a week for somebody else, and then I come home and use the internet to just look at life happening without going anywhere.

Right after that sentence I turned Netflix off. I thought I could have a show playing in the background while I type out some of my thoughts. Eww. Who wants to read half ass thoughts? I hate having half assed conversations with people around me. Put down your phone-- whatever it may be that you are looking at-- and experience life with me! I walk into the break room at work and five people all have their heads down looking at their phones.

Do you remember those funny Taco Bell commercials that talked about getting TNS? Taco Neck Syndrome. It's what happens when you eat too many tacos. Your head is always off to one side because you've tried hard not to let your taco toppings fall out of their shell. This is now what is happening to the entire population. Our heads and necks are constantly curved downward.

Recently some friends of ours went on a cruise. I've only briefly considered a cruise when planning my vacations. If I'm taking time off work and spending some savings, then I want to go somewhere new and have the chance to take my time in exploring all of the exotic that exists there. I've always thought that taking a cruise was the boring man's vacation. You don't have to think, just show up. I guess that could be relaxing. But what really caught my attention while talking with our friends about their latest cruise trip, was the idea that nobody has a wireless signal on the boat. Because of this, people are actually engaged in conversation with those around them. You wait in line for a buffet, or dancing, or waterslides... and you have no reason to look at your phone so you actually become more human for a few days. I liked that idea.

I'm still not planning a cruise anytime soon, but I'm open to the idea now. I wish there were more situations where people were forced to converse with one another. Even as I sit here, I wonder if it would be better for me to call up a friend and go on a walk & talk. I did that earlier this week, so I'll accept this moment right now as my personal time. Time for putting thoughts into words. It's the year two-thousand fifteen. What the heck? Time is really flying by. I have a little catching up to do on my blog. There are a few stories from the past few months that are blog worthy. I will try to post them soon. After that, I hope to be a regular on here again. I like typing out my life. It almost works like a checks & balances to my soul. Am I following my true desires? Did I accomplish anything I wanted to last year?