Sweeps Week

When did I become this person? I used to follow 2, maybe 3, television shows. Now I need a schedule for premier week and I don't even have cable or a DVR. It simplify things a little that our digital tuner doesn't pick up NBC [necessitating frequent use of Hulu]. It does, however, get an evangelical channel, 4 Spanish channels and doubles of the CW and CBS.

The following are my contenders for the fall season. 

New shows I'm interested in:

Hawaii Five-0- The production value alone on this show looks pretty impressive. And I like Scott Caan and Jin from LOST and I have no competing shows for the 10:00 time slot on Monday nights. I'll at least watch the pilot.

My Generation- Ya know what's depressing, this show could be about me. It's about people that graduated high school in the year 2000 and picking up their stories in present day. This is a huge check in the column of life signs that I am getting older.

Running Wilde- Love Will Arnett. Love Felicity. This could potentially be awesome. 

Outsourced- Slightly interested. Again, I don't get NBC so this would take extra effort to watch it online.

Shows I've watched in the past but am I'm not entirely on board for this season:

The Biggest Loser- Reality shows run their course about 5 seasons before they actually get canceled. This one might be one of them. Plus, I'm getting tired of crying every week.

Parenthood- Watched most of last season but tampered off towards the end. I don't know what happened at the finale so I'm not as hooked to start up on it this season. And, I don't have NBC.

Grey's Anatomy- While I'm glad Izzy is finally gone, I spent the entire season finale from last year saying "Seriously?" over and over. If that wasn't a jump the shark season finale, I don't know what is. I've watched almost the entire series of this one but it's getting a little tired and stale.

Favorites that will remain as my must-see TV:

Bones- Formula crime dramas are as common as Silly Bands these days but Bones will always stand out as superior to them all, in my opinion. I sense that the series is starting to run a little dry but it still delivers plenty of intrigue and dark laughs.

How I Met Your Mother- Love it. Will watch until the very end.

Fringe- Fan-freakin-tastic. We were late to the game on this one and have been watching the past seasons on Netflix. Unfortunately, the most recent season (#2) was JUST released. We are catching up but will try to jump into this season as soon as we can.

Modern Family- Truly deserving of it's Emmy. I will be sticking around to see if Season 2 delivers.

Glee- Since FOX is one of the only stations that has reruns over the summer instead of creating short seasons of really lame dramas, I was able to catch up on Season 1 of Glee. I absolutely love it. Jericho even likes it [his favorite character is Sue Silvester].

Dancing with the Stars- I almost put this in the "maybe" category but it's the final season and lest we forget, David Hasselhoff is among the "stars". How can you pass up The Hoff?

The Office- This was also a tough call, mainly because once I start watching Fringe, there will be a conflict. And, I'll be honest, I'm starting to lose interest.

So what do we think? Am I missing any? Any I should absolutely take off my list and simplify my life? What shows are you looking forward to this season?

Mental Freedom

I love the beach. Not just "I love vacations and relaxing and getting a tan." I love, love, LOVE the beach. I love the ocean. I love the wind and the smells and the food and the warmth. I often fantasize about having a boat or a beach house and finding some cheesy name for it. Like "Island Fantaseas" or "Waves of my heart".

I could live at the beach. I know a lot of people say that but I really think I could.  A slower paced lifestyle is in my nature. No big cities or hustle and bustle. Living a life that allows life to happen instead of being worked away. 

This weekend, I spend four great days with my family at Carolina Beach. I spent a morning on the oceanfront porch, book in hand, yogurt and muesli breakfast and a bottle of water, knowing that I could spend many, many days of my life doing that very thing. Perhaps one day the reading would instead be writing. Or editing pictures. Or talking to my husband and kids.

everyone's happier at the beach. it just happens that way

Life is too complicated. There are too many lists. Too many emails. Too many definitions of success. Too many electronics for when we get tired of thinking for ourselves. Life is meant to be absorbed, not washed quickly away and merely tolerated.

My first day back at work and in front of a computer after four days at the beach, my mind became instantly foggy, like I'd just woken up from a too-long nap. Never really focusing on anything and definitely not really caring about anything. And for what? A job? A paycheck? Being a productive member of society? Maybe it is all relative. Maybe appreciating the dynamic sensory experience of something like the ocean goes away if you live in it long enough. Maybe your senses become dull and in turn yearn for meetings and to-do lists and complicated schedules. Maybe. I'm sure happy to test that theory. 

Sad, Sad August

Wow. How lame am I? I'll tell you. Two posts in August! [This makes three]. That's super lame. My Analytics is even telling me how lame I am. My numbers are falling. It sent me an email that said "Your readership is falling at a rate of .47% per day. You're not posting. Your blog is entering lameness. If you continue in this sucky blogness and to tarnish the reputation of bloggers around the world, Blogger will hereby remove your blog from existence. This is your first warning."

I blame my lack of blogging on a few things... other than my own lameness.

1) I gave a talk in church last week. I had the entire month of August to prepare and thus spent most of my evenings and weekends researching and writing, time that otherwise would have been spent blogging. Maybe. Plus it was on a crazy huge topic: Grace and Works. I can now teach you an entire lesson on the gift of grace, which is something I couldn't do before last week. Success!

2) I spend all day at work on the computer. But don't you blog on a computer? This would normally be helpful but lately the 8 hours a day of computering has really started to take its mental toll on me. I've been avoiding the at-home computer whenever possible. Also, my at-home computer is slow as spit. Once Obama sends us our 8 Gs for buying a house, we can solve this problem.

3) I've been reading.

4) I haven't been taking very many pictures. What!? I know. Foolishness! This falls into the bigger excuse of plain ol laziness. I have a picture of Jericho and me from my birthday dinner. That's it. It's it lovely?

I also have this one from one of my quiet mornings with tea and a book in my fabulous new kitchen. Other than pictures of food, this is all I got.

5) I keep avoiding doing a post about the house. I have three draft posts started that have something to do with my new house. There's just so much I don't know where to start. And when it starts coming into blog form, it all seems so boring. Plus I posted all those pictures on Facebook. That was a cop-out though. I sometimes would like to think that this blog is my virtual journal and that I'll one day get it printed into a book. Therefore I get angry with myself when I neglect to post in detail about big things. Like the house. And my anniversary! Hello! I know I was in the Caribbean, but still. I should have written something on May 2. But alas, I didn't. 

6) I am officially in a funk. Not a blog-funk. An all-encompassing funk. The last few months have been showing signs of an impending funk and I think it's officially here. And I think I know why. But I'm not sharing [part of it has to do with #2, kind of]. It requires more explanation that the #6 bullet point allows.

Happy Kelley-Day

Today is my birthday.

Today, I am 28 years old. Twenty-eight! I'm officially in my late-twenties. I'm 2 years from 30. I'm half-way to 56. I'm the month of February [in a non-leap year]. 

My mother and father made me dinner on Saturday night. I had pre-birthday dessert last night. I had lunch out with my buddy coworkers. Tonight, I will be going out to eat with my dear husband and good friends to Firebirds. [Yummy yummy steaks without spending half a pay-check.]

More birthday posting after today since I don't have pictures yet to capture all that is my birthday. I just wanted to pop in and declare to the blog-world that it is my birthday. And having a birthday on a Monday is way weird.

Advocates for the Preservation of the Newly Married

Married Person 1: "...Kelley's still a newlywed. She doesn't know yet what it's like to hate her husband."

Me: "I don't like to rush through my mornings. I like to take my time, eat some breakfast, actually talk to my husband for a little while before rushing out the door."

Married Person 2: "Oh you'll get past that phase."

Married Person 3: "Let's not tell too many real stories about our husbands in front of Kelley. She'll never want to get married." [said while I was engaged]

They are right about one thing. I still consider myself newly married. I have only been married for 15 months. But newly married doesn't equal newly stupid.

I have heard all my life that marriage is work. You will have fights. You will have disagreements. It will be tough. It will take sacrifice. I have never been a butterflies and rainbows and candles and romance kind of girl. I don't go skipping through the house at the sound of the my husband's voice at the end of the day because I can't wait to hug him and smell him and tell him how much I love him [okay, at least not everyday]. We don't sit around for hours looking into each others' eyes because there is nothing else we'd rather do with our time. We both have a very real and grounded approach to love and relationships.

And I am happy. I love my husband. He loves me. We are respectful to each other. We get along. We hang out. We talk about things. Nothing is always perfect but I'm happy. Why is that so wrong for me to be happy? Why do people that are married for a while feel that it is their duty to rain bitterness on young marriages? Is it because you are unhappy and misery loves company? Are you envious of new love? Is your husband not even close to mine in fabulousness and you hate me for it [this one is very believable, btw]?

The above are just a few examples of things I've been told over the past year and the list is much longer. I often get asked how I'm enjoying married life and when I respond with something positive [which is every time], I frequently receive a negative comment back like "Oh, well you're still a newlywed," or "Yeah, wait a few more years and you won't be saying that." According to the masses, once I pass say, 3-4 years, all bets are off. I stop taking my husband's phone calls. I stop enjoying the time I spend with him. The way he does everything from brushing his teeth to tying his shoes makes me hate his everliving guts. Why is it so expected and normal to allow this disintegration of marriages? And more importantly, why is it so normal that it be made public knowledge? [Don't even get me started on TV sitcoms that use insults and arguments in family settings are basis for their comedy. URG!]

I'm not saying that a marriage can only be great if it is always perfect bliss and harmony. Marriages change over the years. Problems and crises are inevitable. I'm not newly-stupid to the point where I don't recognize this. My biggest problem with the way people treat their marriages is they let their experiences, heart-aches, problems, etc, become other people's business. A marriage is two people. Not two people, plus your bridge club and bowling team. If you have a negative attitude towards marriage because of something in your life, that's your problem, not mine. Don't try to make others think that just because certain things happened in your marriage means that you need to warn all those that have happy marriages that it's gonna hit a crap-hole here in a few years.

It's one thing to have a problem that you confide in a friend for counsel and advice. It's entirely another to use your spouse's faults as fodder for the lunchroom table conversation. I really don't care to know the details of your latest fight or other intimate details of your spouse. Now next time I see said husband, I'm all awkward because all I'll be able to think is: "You got unnecessarily crazy-mad at your wife for that time she didn't park her car in the garage properly. Stupid jerk." And I don't want to be that person. I don't do band-wagon hatred.

This rant is becoming much longer than I anticipated. I know I'm not perfect but I try to at least be aware. I have felt strongly about this for some time, ever since I started getting the light-hearted "warnings" about marriage when I was engaged.  I recently read in the Ensign a tip on marriage that said something to the effect of: Keep your marriage in your marriage. You owe your spouse a level of respect to not let the petty, and sometimes not so petty, issues become trivial topics of conversation with your friends. I would be mortified if I found out that my husband was sharing stories with his buddies about a recent fight or venting about something I do that makes him postal [we all know this isn't possible because I don't do anything that annoys him, right]. It has become so common place to vent about marriages that people don't think it odd or in poor taste anymore to gossip about your spouses. Your spouse should take a place far above all others when it comes to the level of respect and loyalty that you give them.

Rant over.