What's Next

Oh boy.

Seriously. I am the exact opposite of Peter from Office Space right now. Every day of my life is better than the day that came before it. Every day you see me or talk to me is the best day of my life. Life is so, so very good!

I have been giggling like a school girl for almost three solid days now. I love everybody! This is pretty much an exact replication of how I reacted on Monday after hanging up the phone upon receiving my offer:

Not Gonna Cry
Jerry Maguire at MOVIECLIPS.com

YEEEAAAH BUDDY.

What's Next?

Well, tomorrow is my first day of work. God I really can't wait. CAN'T WAIT. I am going to dominate so hard.

I immediately canceled my move-out notice, and I will sign a new lease tomorrow. I know I may need to move at some point, but honestly, I can't emphasize enough how much I don't want to worry about that right now. Baby steps. One thing at a time. I like this apartment a lot, and the commute isn't going to be that much longer than when I rode the Metro. At worst, if the commute sucks, I'll deal with it for a while, and then look at some other living arrangements then.

I can finally book my flight for Boston next month now that I know from what city I'll be flying. A bunch of us have tickets to the State/BC game -- a true battle of who could care less, to quote Ben Folds. But nonetheless, it'll be an awesome trip with both DC and Raleigh friends heading up there. Plus, I have a cousin who lives nearby! Gotta go get down in Beantown.

While I plan on waiting and getting settled at the job before I do anything, I will absolutely begin my search for a band to join with MUCH excitement. I'd like to see how the first few weeks at work go, but I will be crafting my Craigslist ad before too long! Hell, I may just post the blog post I wrote about it over the summer.

The biggest challenge will be holding onto my fitness and eating habits while working all day every day now. I'll just have to wake up early enough to walk Allie and run or hit the gym before I leave. I just so much prefer to work out in the morning than in the afternoon. I love the feeling of an awesome workout, but I like to get it out of the way and feel the energy rush throughout the day. Like today, I ran four miles this morning, and I've felt awesome all day. Although there are certainly extenuating circumstances for that as well! LET'S GO.

I'm going to have to work hard to maintain my food discipline, too. I'll need to bring my lunch a minimum of three days a week. Since hitting 185, I've lost hardly any weight at all. Some of that is due to fun trips to Raleigh and Charlotte, to be sure. But I've also noticed my pants getting looser and looser in the interim. So it's not all that I'm not losing weight. I could just be toning and tightening up. I mean, geez. My new 34"-waist jeans that I was so excited about just a month ago were LOOSE on me last week, despite holding steady at around 185. What in the world!

I'll need to get my old dog walker back on retainer, too. There are going to be nights where I don't get back until later than Allie is used to. But she really seems to like the woman who's walked her in the past, and she's not too unreasonably priced, so it seems worth it. She'll come walk Allie for 30 minutes or so and feed her for me. Not bad at all.

So the blog. Obviously, I won't be able to devote time during the day to writing anymore. Honestly, I cannot believe I've managed to keep up with posting three times a week since early June with very, very few exceptions. I have no intention of stopping now either. I've gotten into a rhythm, and I really enjoy writing for whomever decides to stop by and read. What I plan to do now is write my posts the night before and just post the link during the day. I'm sure the new blog routine will take some getting used to, but it'll work out just fine.

Weekend Roundup

You may have read about my less-than-awesome drive last week. Turns out I completely busted BOTH wheels on the passenger side of the car. The car place ordered one wheel because they didn't know both were wrecked. The back wheel was wrecked on the inside, which they didn't know until they took the wheel off. To which I'm compelled to ask, "Why didn't you do that before ordering parts?" But I digress.

They called me on Friday to say it would be done by closing. Then they called 20 minutes later to tell me about the second wheel. The second wheel was supposed to arrive on Monday. It did not. The guy at wherever they were getting it from somehow failed at putting the wheel on the UPS truck, and it didn't arrive until Tuesday afternoon.

Anyway, the rest isn't that important. Both wheels eventually arrived. Both tires eventually arrived. And everything was put on the car. A good time was had by all.

I finally got home last night around midnight. What a week.

Oh and Kirk and Liz's wedding!

Wow what an awesome wedding. Incredibly beautiful and unique location. Excellent food and dancing at the reception. Old friends I hadn't seen in forever. The unbelievable experience of seeing my old friend Paul dance. I've never seen someone control a dance floor like he did Saturday night. It was really something to see.

I've got nothing else. I'm so incredibly giddy right now. Tomorrow's drive in the morning rush will be the best drive in the history of mankind. I can't wait!

Next time we speak, I will no longer be unemployed. GREAT SUCCESS.

LET'S GO!

-BG

Blog Birthday!

This little blog turned a year old today. Happy birthday Island in the Sun!

In honor of the occasion, I present an Ode to Peach Snapple, immediately followed by another three weeks of neglect. Good day.


Peach Snapple, Peach Snapple,
Oh you help me grapple
with all of the day's little chores.
I pop off your cap
and read the fun fact
Drink up so that my mood will soar.


But seriously, fun times ahead!

• New Jersey this weekend for Easter, where Rachel will meet the extended family.
• Next weekend, Rachel and I are flying to Chicago for a long weekend to check out her favorite American city.
• And then in the next few weeks I'm moving!

Yes I found an apartment! Allie will be coming home to me soon! WOOHOO! I miss my girl. It's been far too long since I've seen her. More details on all of this in the coming weeks!

As I am quite fond of saying, life is good!

-BG

Whoops

I seem to have neglected my little Island in the Sun for a few days there. My bad guys. My bad.

See, the problem is I haven't really worked it into the "routine" just yet. And if you know me, you know how much I love routines. I find one that works, and I don't just stick with it -- I run it into the ground.

It takes an act of Congress to remove me from my routine.

I think it's a family thing. Change and my family don't get along too well. Lately, this has been my routine:

Wake up at 9.
Fart around on the Internet for an hour or so.
Take Allie for a three-mile walk around Shelley Lake.
Shower and lunch.
Work on the resume/look around for jobs/other unemployment related activities.
Play the drums/guitar.
Take Allie for a twoish-mile walk up the street.
Eat dinner.
Watch some TV.
Read and bed.

Try to contain your excitement. So yeah. I need to throw "blog" or "think about blog" into the routine. Maybe somewhere in the "Farting around on the Internet" stage of my day.

Another part of the problem is I didn't want this blog to be a lame "HERE'S WHAT I DID TODAY!!1" kind of blog. That's why I have the music posts, and the post from Anne's blog.

Any 8-year-old can start a diary about what they've done all day. But I'm an actual writer. I've been paid, professionally, for writing. So I wanted this to be an interesting, insightful, even funny(!) blog, rather than a step-by-step posting of my daily activities.

And I've struggled with ideas, mostly because all my functional brain activity has been devoted to thinking about jobs -- specifically, not having a job, how to go about procuring the next job, where the money is going to come from next month, etc.

On that front, my aunt (the basketball coach up north) is going to be in town recruiting at the end of this week. I'll go meet up with her and give her several hundred copies of my resume. She really does know the entire world, and if you're hoping to get hired in job markets like this, that's how to do it. So we'll see what happens.

I've noticed I start sentences with the word "so" quite a lot. Way more than I realized. That's strange.

Any ideas for interesting blog posts? I've got a couple, but I'm always open to suggestions.

Laaaater,
-BG