Live like you're dying

I'm a busy girl*. Family and friends comment on this often, and I can't disagree with them. Even when I look at my calendar and I have a few free days, by the time I actually get to them, they seem to be teeming with activity. Most of the stuff on my calendar is fun stuff though: dinner with friends, concerts, weddings, family gatherings, volunteer work, etc. All of these are things I love and choose to do. It's not like I'm adding "laundry" or "carpool to soccer practice" to the calendar, so I really can't complain. I try not to either, but I'm sure I do more than I should. I'm an extrovert by nature, but over the years I've become more introverted. As all the personality tests put it, I "get recharged" by taking time for myself alone.

(* Maybe I should start calling myself "lady" or "woman" since I am 28 now, but I prefer the term girl - the others just seem too old ;-))

That being said, however, I do like to stay busy. I feel like life is full of opportunities to take advantage of and to pass them up is hard for me to do. I also have a hard time saying "no." If someone invites me out, I tend to say yes, as long as my schedule allows. This has led to some amazing experiences and I believe is the reason I have such a wide network of friends. It's impossible to stay connected with everyone you befriend in life, but by golly, I'm going to try!

This past weekend took the cake for how much I can squeeze into a 4 days, however.

Thursday I already had plans to have dinner at Trinity House, "a residential transitional program designed to serve homeless men with issues regarding drug dependency." I have been involved with Trinity House for a little over 4 years now and serve twice a month. It's definitely one of the highlights of my month, and I look forward to seeing all the guys and staff every time it comes around. More on that another time.

Web highlights

I read an incredibly touching and sad story today on The Atlanta Journal Constitution's website. It's a story of love, loss, hope and devastation. I highly recommend checking it out, but beware: you'll probably want to have a box of tissues nearby. I nearly started boo-hooing at work today (a really professional look, if I do say so).

Couple's wedding vows put to immediate test

Once you are done reading that, you'll probably need a pick-me-up. So with that in mind, let me introduce you to one of the cutest species on the planet being even cuter:

Take me out to the ball game

It's Monday, and I'm back in the office after a nice long weekend. I was the lucky recipient of a fun day at the ball park yesterday. On Wednesday I got a text from my friend Summer. She wanted to know if I was free to go see the Braves on Sunday as she had just received all 20 tickets to the Coca Cola suite at Turner Stadium. Um, yes please!

My excitement was two-fold. 1) I still hadn't made it out to a Braves games this season. With the insanely hot Summer, and non-existent Spring, this year, I just hadn't mustered up the interest to melt in the stands. Don't get me wrong, I love going to watch the Braves play, in fact, I love going to just about any professional sporting event, but I've made the crucial error of going to a game in 100 degree weather before. It's not a fate I would wish on an enemy, if you catch my drift. 2) It was suite tickets. Coca Cola suite tickets! How rad is that (and yes I did just pull "rad" out of the 1980s for my use on this blog - at least I didn't use "radical"!). So, it was my first time venturing into the cool, dry air of the Club level at Turner Stadium.

Sunday rolls around and we got to the ball park about 45 minutes before the first pitch. I felt like a kid in a candy store when we finally made it into the suite. There were 4 stocked fridges - that's right, 4. One for beer, two mini fridges and one large one full of, what else, but Coke products. On one counter was a basket of freshly popped, cheesy popcorn, and on another counter were small bags of peanuts and cracker jacks and hot dogs with all the fixings - quintessential ball park food.

Almost as soon as we had settled in, our suite server brought in a platter of tortilla chips with a 7-layer Mexican dip in the shape of a tomahawk. I wish I had thought to get a picture before everyone dug in. Oh well. Throughout the day the server brought more and more food. It was crazy. Cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza, parmesan fries... of course we had to try a *little* of everything, right?

So while all this was fantastic, and believe me it was, nothing could beat the view:

Our view from the suite.

We spent the next three and a half hours cheering, doing the Tomahawk Chop, eating, drinking and having an all-around great time. I was definitely grateful to be in the shade with access to air conditioning. It was another scorcher in Atlanta yesterday! We all agreed that we probably wouldn't have lasted through the whole game if it weren't for our awesome seats.

Kari, Summer, me and Angela

Me and Ang cheer on the Braves

The clouds rolled away partway into the game, and Los Bravos ran away with a 13-1 victory! All in all, it was a pretty great day at the ball park!

That's one way to exit your job!

Unless you're living in a cave, you've probably already heard of Steven Slater's dramatic exit from the JetBlue flight on which he was working. Not much can be said that hasn't already been herald on most news, blog and social networking sites, but to quote Chris Farley in "Tommy Boy":

"I swear I've seen a lot of stuff in my life, but that was... awesome!"

I particularly love that he grabbed the beers before hitting the slide. I admit that one of the first things I did after getting laid off from my job was go to happy hour with friends...Slater just didn't see why he should have to wait. I can't really blame the guy!

This clever hoax was posted online yesterday and has quickly made the rounds. It was originally believed to be real until The Chive writers admitted that it was a fake 24 hours later. Clearly it would have been better if it was real, but I will give it to the guys at The Chive for an entertaining twist on dramatic job exits.

It makes me wonder if we won't start seeing more real stories of people getting fed up with less pay and more work in these difficult economic times and saying "peace out" in their own memorable (and let's hope non violent) ways.

Here goes something

Welcome to the first blog entry of my first blog. Blog. It's a word you'd think I would have grown used to by now, like Skype or Google, as it has been around for over a decade, but for some reason I still think it sounds weird. It's like the sound you make when you are gagging or something. Anyway, welcome. I'm glad you're here.

So, why am I blogging, then? Well, it goes a little something like this: my job allows me plenty of free time to do with as I please, as long as what I please involves me sitting in front of my computer 9+ hours a day, smiling at the few who walk through the door and answering an occasional phone call with "Thanks for calling ____ _____, how can I help you?" So, what do I find myself doing with all that free time? I wish I could say I spend my days bettering myself reading high brow literature or taking online classes for a master's degree or even editing the novels I wrote as part of National Novel Writing Month. Alas, I cannot. Most days I spend emailing and instant messaging friends, dumping loads of time into the black hole called Facebook, or visiting the many other websites and blogs I have bookmarked on Firefox. So, if I'm going to be spending loads of time online, sharing my favorite finds on the internet with friends and family via Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Buzz (yeah right!), StumbleUpon or any other of the hundreds of social media tools available these days, I thought "Why not have a central place to post both my thoughts (rants, opinions, whatever you want to call them) and my favorite things that other people have created and posted online for the world to see?" Well, why not is because I will likely just be adding more noise to the already cacophonous interwebs, but one more voice can't really hurt, right?

I'm just sayin'...