Why would you give Nick Saban a raise based on ONE game in which they are doing well? In post-season, no less. Alabama went 6-6 this year, sealing Nick Saban’s fall from grace, and now the ESPN announcers are talking about him getting a raise over and above his already exorbitant $4M a year he currently makes. Who is Colorado anyway? Another 6-6 team. Sarah Jessica Parker is having the game of his life, and it is against Colorado. I hope this raises the confidence level of the Crimson Tide to a ridiculous height, and when they get back to the reality of an SEC schedule, they will get bitch-slapped back down to earth. Hard.
So here it is, the last couple of days of 2007. Can’t say that I’m sorry to see it go. This has been pretty much the crappiest year of life so far. The year started out badly when I went against my better judgment and rented my house out to Mssrs. Wood, Williams, and Raines. Raines never gave me any trouble, but Wood and Williams were the bane of my existence for the next eight (8) months. Every time my cell phone rang, my heart dropped into my stomach for fear it would be Williams calling about something Wood (or one of his friends) had done. They destroyed my house. It took us two months and several thousand dollars to make the house livable again. It was not the most pleasant seven months. That house in Trussville has been the source of most of my strife this year. I cannot wait until it is sold. Hopefully we will close on it next week, and it will be out of my life forever.
Sidenote: Sammy is looking really cute curled up in a ball beside Zac. I wish you could see this.
Work hit a rough patch around March, but after attitude adjustments all around things are better than ever. I actually find myself enjoying my job instead of dreading going to work every day. I’m really glad this part of my life got better, because there is no way I could have handled a crappy work situation on top of my real estate woes.
Haha, Sarah Jessica Parker just threw an interception.
You know, all in all, this year hasn’t really been so terrible. We’ve actually gotten ourselves together financially and haven’t missed a mortgage payment on either house, nor have any of our bills gone unpaid thanks to some strategic money management on the part of Mr. Burks. Other than problems with the Trussville house, things have actually been okay. Mr. Burks and I are getting along better, we and the animals are healthy, nobody close to us has died (although Zac’s cousin was diagnosed with cancer and is now on hospice), and we have learned that we are more resilient than I had thought.
Still, I’m ready for 2007 to be over. 2008 will be a fresh start, a chance to finally have a normal life again. I feel like I will actually be able to sleep when we close on the house. I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things.
Like having a baby. We saw Juno on Friday night, and I identified with Vanessa Loring. I was born to be a mother. I feel like once that piece to the puzzle is provided, I will feel complete. Contrary to what you might think, I’m very maternal. I have a very strong nurture reflex. I am hoping to get this endeavor underway as soon as possible.
I am also going to go back to the gym every day. We have free facilities at work, and I feel it is a shame to waste them. Especially when I’ve put on about 20 pounds in the past eight months. I can’t help it, I’m a stress eater. You take on the kind of stress I have dealt with this year, let’s see how you handle it. I could’ve picked up smoking again, I could’ve started drinking heavily, I could’ve developed much worse coping mechanisms. No, I ate fries and pizza and ice cream. Sue me. Now I am going to try to stick to a healthier eating regimen and start getting in some quality cardio every day.
And now, I leave you with this quote:
“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Things don’t just happen. Go out and make it happen.
At my office, I have a large white dry erase board behind my desk. I use it to write a daily quote or interesting fact. Instead of a Quote of the Day, I thought I would share with you the Quote of the Year, according to the Yale Book of Quotations. And the Quote of the Year is………………..
“Don’t tase me, bro!”
For an explanation of the quote, if you do not already know, please go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_incident
“Depend not on one another, but lean instead on thyself. True happiness is born of self-reliance.” - The Laws of Manu
This is my own personal anthem.
Every day, people rely on someone else to make them happy. Oh, if I only had this boyfriend or that girlfriend, or a boyfriend or girlfriend period, I would be happy. WRONG. I have seen happy people turn miserable after they start dating that elusive catch they thought they would never get. They start out thinking that this person is the key to their happiness, but as soon as that shining armor starts to dull a little, they are back to square one, feeling unhappy and dragging everyone down with them. Not only are they unhappy, but they are saddled with a person they thought would make them happy and are thus jaded.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband more than life itself. I would die for him and I would kill for him. But Zachary Burks is not the key to my happiness. He is the most important person in my life, but I don’t rely on him to make me happy. I wouldn’t want to put that kind of pressure on another person. That’s a pretty heavy load, being responsible for someone else’s happiness. Nobody can be “on” all the time. We are human, and we are going to fail. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s happiness for fear of what might happen if I were to ever make them unhappy. Who wants to live with that kind of pressure on them all the time?
I choose instead to “look out for 1,” so to speak, and make sure that I am happy in and of myself. I was a happy person before I met Zac. I would still be a happy person if I had never met Zac. I am glad that we are together because he’s a pretty cool guy and has a really cute butt, but he is not my happiness. I make sure that I am taken care of. I could be self-sufficient. I don’t need a husband to validate my self-worth. I value myself apart from my husband, apart from my parents, apart from my friends. I. Have. Worth. And so do you. I do not have to have people around me all the time to be happy. I do not have to be looked after or catered to or coddled (although it is nice sometimes) to be content. I love myself, by myself. And because I love myself, I am able to more fully and completely love my husband, my family, my friends. I am able to give of myself more without expecting other people to make me happy in return. I don’t have a “what’s in it for me” attitude. I don’t care what’s in it for me, because I’m absolutely thrilled with me. Warts and all, I’m pretty fantastic and I’m a big fan of me.
“Cocooned inside our private dramas we often don’t realize life is rolling by us like it should.” - Waiter Rant, www.waiterrant.net
Waiter Rant is a wonderful little blog by a waiter (obvs) just observing and noting human interaction, which, as you may or may not know, is one of my very favorite things to study. I enjoy his stream of consciousness storytelling. I found this little gem on his blog, and it really got me to thinking. Everyone (myself included) gets so wrapped up in their own lives. Life sucks for me? Then it sucks for everybody! It does not work like that, my friends. On the day you find out that you didn’t get that job, someone else has been promoted. On the day you give birth, someone’s child dies. One man finds out that he has cancer, another gets a call from his doctor telling him that he is officially in remission. The ebb and flow, the yin and yang of life. I dealt with a little bit of “woe is me” this fall while working on our house in Trussville. But you know what? Time passed by at the same rate it always has. The other day I felt like complaining about work. But then I thought about my husband’s cousin who is dying of cancer, and all of a sudden I couldn’t find a single thing to complain about. No matter how bad you’ve got it, there is someone out there who has got it worse. Lately I have been realizing that more and more, and as a result have been doing much less complaining.
“If you would not stop into the harlot’s house, do not go by the harlot’s door.” - Thomas Seeker
I found this quote today, and it reminded me of something my mother used to tell me when I was a kid. She used to tell me that the Bible says to avoid the very appearance of evil (1 Thess. 5:22). I took this to heart, and tried my best to stay out of situations that might reflect badly on me. It wasn’t really a problem in high school or my first two years of college, but when I went away to school it became a little bit of an issue. The freedoms that come with living on your own away from your parents can be a little overwhelming for a 19-year old kid like I was. I got a little bit of semi-rebellion out of my system, then buckled down and got back into my studies and tennis. But anyway.
Biblical principles aside, this just seems to be prudent advice. Look at Michael Vick. He said that he wasn’t involved in the whole dogfighting ring, but people who don’t support dogfighting wouldn’t let people who are fighting dogs use their house for such purposes. Nobody believed him, and look what happened. Turns out he was bankrolling the whole operation and even participated in the slaughter of dogs who did not perform well in test fights. We’ve all heard the term “guilt by association.” If you know what’s going on and continue to stick around or do nothing to stop it, you are just as guilty as the perpetrators. Just like Frankie in “Alpha Dog.” He didn’t kill Zac, but he allowed it to happen when he could have stopped it. In the eyes of the law, he was just as guilty as Elvis even though Elvis was the one who actually pulled the trigger.
What I take this quote to mean is that you shouldn’t tempt yourself to do something you think is wrong by putting yourself in a bad situation. If you are on the wagon and don’t want to drink, you may not want to go to happy hour with your co-workers. If you are trying to quit smoking, you might not want to accompany your friends outside to keep them company whilst they have a cigarette. If you are saving yourself for marriage, you might not want to allow your girlfriend or boyfriend to spend the night at your house. If that cute new girl at school or work has the hots for you, it’s probably not a good idea to give her a lift home. When you go to happy hour, people assume you are going to have some drinks. When people drive by your house and see your S.O.’s car sitting in the driveway at all hours of the night, they are going to assume you are doing the dirty. My mother didn’t allow me to spend the night with Zac even after we were engaged, and hated it when we went on an overnight trip with other people because she thought it gave off the wrong impression (which it probably did). When you get up to go outside with the smoker, people are going to assume that you are having a smoke as well. Which is all fine and well and good, if that is what you want to do. But if you don’t want people to think you are doing something that you are in fact not doing, you shouldn’t give the appearance that such a thing is occurring. It’s what we in the business call “playing with fire,” and people tend to end up getting burned.
All this to say: if you want people to think one way about you, don’t do or say or participate in things that would make them think anything else. That simple.
Thank you for taking this trip into Rachel’s thought process. I hope you have enjoyed it. Maybe, just maybe, you might have learned something as well.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article531449.eceThis is retarded. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with Islamic extremists, but this is ridiculous. The teddy bear was named Mohammed BY A MUSLIM PUPIL. This is all absolutely foolish. They are absolutely foolish. Get a grip.I want to get a pet pig. And I want to name him Mohammed. Take that.
Trend-setting radio talk show host Michael Savage has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the Council on Islamic-American Relations, and has accused the organization of being a “political vehicle of international terrorism” that seeks to do “material harm to those voices who speak against the violent agenda of CAIR’s clients.”Lovely. If I am unfortunate enough to be in the car past 7:00 p.m., I usually listen to Dr. Savage’s radio show on our local talk station, News Talk 750 WBRC. While I don’t always agree with what Dr. Savage has to say, I fully support his right to say it. I for one am sick of the so-called moderate Muslims staying mum on the atrocities occurring in Islamic countries today. They sentence rape victims to floggings, behead homosexuals, and even DENY that homosexuals exist in their countries. Are you kidding me? Why are feminists and gay rights activists not UP IN ARMS about the treatment of women and gays in Islamic countries? That is just something I will never understand. As I am at home sick today, I don’t really feel much like blogging. But I just wanted to get this article out there.
