Paradigm Shifts – Half-full cups sound better (plus pics plus sweet cover song)

When I began this post I was going to title it “What I’m missing out on.” But then I stopped.

Yes – it’s true – I DID miss out on the family party shown below (pics courtesy of my older brother and father) but labeling it as “what I’m missing” makes it bittersweet.  And quite frankly – though I LOVE dark chocolate, I like my life to be a bit more on the sugary side. :)  So INSTEAD – let me show you what I have to look forward to in about 4.5 months.  :)

This Smile

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These Puppies

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My precious nieces

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Family Fun

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Bocce Ball

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Giggles and puppy play

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Unconditional Love

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That’s right – I have a whole lot of GOOD to look forward to – and although I may be missing out on some of it at the moment – it will be waiting for me when I finish here in Australia.

My adviser has been talking to me a lot about refocusing unconscious situational judgments.

I do it ALL of the time.  “Ooh – I missed out on that” instead of “Sweet! I can’t wait for next time!”  Or “Last semester SUCKED!” instead of “Last semester was a good growing experience.” AAANNNDDD I refer to 6 months ago as “when I was fat” when I only weighed 7lbs more than I do now!!  Problems??  I think so.

My adviser ALSO talked to me about learning to FEEL small emotions instead of rationalizing them away.

I’m the queen of logic.  Yes-sir-ee-bob! I sure am!  And guess what??

Emotions aren’t logical!!

So although I tease a lot about “hating” this or being “bugged” by that – I usually rationalize away my feelings and never take the time to ACCEPT that I feel this way.  It’s ok if this sounds confusing – it is.  :)  But the jist of it is that although I use exaggerated negative language to describe situations – I never actually ACKNOWLEDGE my feelings about the situation.  Of course exaggerations aren’t to be taking seriously and I never take my feelings that seriously either.

Anyway – I’m now working on this … and I’m just OVERJOYED about it.  ;)  HAHAHAHAHA!  teasing.

oh and I’m sorry if I haven’t commented for awhile!!  I am still a faithful reader to the people I follow – I just haven’t had time to comment. :)  I will be fixing this!!

Day 39-41
39/365 waiting for class

40/365 carpet in old teacher's college

41/365 - Rozelle - old mental hospital

Bleeding Love COVER by Mystery Jets – LOVE IT!!

Daisy says the Darndest Things days 20-31

It’s been awhile.  Like over-a-week-awhile.  Like the longest-I’ve-ever-gone-without-blogging-while.  Not a good thing.  What’s happened in the last 11 days??  A whole lot of not a whole lot.  Yeah – that’s right.

First I had an assignment due – a big one.  That was due 2 weeks ago.  I still haven’t handed it in.  Things haven’t been going as smoothly as hoped.

Day 20, 21 & 22- when I was still optimistic about my essay

20/365

21/365

22/265

Day 23 and 24 – Remember how I decided no more kissing North Sydney because HE IS A COMMITMENTPHOBE who FREAKS OUT every time HE kisses me!?!?  Yeah – that didn’t last long.  And then I went to my international adviser and she told me that she struggling to try and work with me because I’m smarter than her and my life is very complicated.  Gee – that’s encouraging. (insert glare.)

23/365

24/365

Day 25 and 26 -  I think it was about THIS point in my life when I discovered North Sydney didn’t remember ANYTHING about our meeting, his “stalk you later” phone calls and our very brief romance a year ago.  I very bluntly called this to his attention. :)  He tried to kiss and make up – I rolled my eyes and laughed.  Then I tried to do my essay and fell asleep over and over again.  Oh and I discovered I can tell the difference between fresh and not-as-fresh M&Ms. oh yes.

My angry face hee hee 25/365

Chocolate on My Lips 26/365

Day 27 – I went and met with the adviser again and this time she was more encouraging.  We determined that I’m having issues with essay writing because of my first semester as a graduate student when I had a super nasty teacher who used her dislike of my nationality to influence the marks she gave me.  As a straight 95% and above student my whole life – I lost all confidence in my ability to be a student after I received her grades and this lack of confidence is a detriment to my current studies.  :(  We agreed that discrimination and racism are out of my control and I need to try and move forward.  I decided to study in the park under the bright and beautiful sun.

Studying in the Park 27/365

Day 28 -  I actually went to class – instead of staying home sick like I did the rest of the week.  Class was REALLY good – I’m in the process of animating a girl on a swing set.  It’s a lot of fun and I can do it for hours and hours without getting bored.  A BIG relief from essay writing.

Flip Flop Season!! 28/365

Day 29 and 30 – I’ve had insomnia like no other the past couple of weeks.  “Bones” the television series has become my nightly insomnia treatment.  It also makes for great dreams.  I’ve never been a better crime fighter/super hero/pretend anthropologist in my life. :) lol.

Watching Bones 29/365

Bedtime!! 30/365

Day 31 – One month down – 12 more to go.

I love you! 31/365

It means “I love you” in sign language.  I might have accidentally kind of said something that would indicate the possibility that I COULD be in love with North Sydney.  I didn’t mean to!!  It slipped out!!!

He said- “You need to have kids.  You will be a great mom.”  (a nice compliment bcuz he has a child.)

I said – “Yeah but finding the right guy is going to be next to impossible.  I think I’ll just settle with my dogs – they’re like my kids.”

He laughed and said, “You’re getting close.  If you mix CC+4 with -3 you’d almost get the perfect man for you.”

I said, “Yeah but I’m never going to meet someone who is perfect and there isn’t going to be a guy out there who is a cross between all the good of CC+4 and all the good of -3.”

He said, “You never know…”

I said, “What I really need is just to find the American version of you – then I’d be set.”

I CAN’T BELIEVE I SAID THAT!!!

I told my flatmate that I couldn’t believe I let that one slip out!!!  North Sydney gets scared off every time he kisses me – and then I tell him he’s like the perfect guy for me??  My flatmate said, “Yeah but do you feel that way?”  I said – “Yes.”  And my flatmate said, “Well then you told the truth.  You shouldn’t be worried about it.”

He’s right.  I told the truth.  And fortunately for me – North Sydney DIDN’T freak out – he just took it as a compliment – and things are the same as always.  :)

Wordless Wednesday – NOT – haha! Lazy Summer Day Pics

At first I was like “I’m going to do a ‘Wordless Wednesday’” but then I thought about it and realized there was NO WAY I was going to be able to NOT comment on these pics. :) So here’s an attempt at a quasi-wordless Wednesday with lots of pics from yesterday (and apologies to some of you who may have already seen these pics on my blog.)

Mmm – I heart those yummy raspberries growing in the backyard

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My puppies (who are almost 4 years old) and – ME :)

Daisy and girls 2 mom takes crappy pics lol

The air and the breeze and my toes in the trees

old swing set for grandkids

It’s not tormenting – it’s smooching noses :) She likes it – no for real.

daisy and duchess again

Matty Matt’s pic for my new FB profile pic. lol.

daisy on grass

Rain Train – (and as Aussie Erin says – SO AMERICAN!!)

rain train

Grandpa said, “Who did this to you?”

Duchess 2

Uncle Scott said, “Is Mommy trying to choke you?”

Duchess

Grandma laughed and laughed

Chloe

Grandpa said, “It’s ok Scott. She’s only here for two more weeks. They will only look like cowboys for 2 more weeks.”

Chloe as a boy oopsie

Mommy said, “GRRRRR!!!!  They don’t look like cowboys!!!  They’re GIRLY GIRLS!!!”

Chloe and daisy

Mommy said, “And they’re SASHES not bandanas!”

duchess and Daisy

Ok so funny story for the day is that Scoman, who has been officially on my blogroll for a few weeks now (you can find the blogroll under “wicked cool stuff” and if your blog isn’t there TELL ME because it should be!!) anywho – Scoman “invited” me to participate in a blog tag.  Except he didn’t just invite me – he announced to his lovely loyal readers that my blog has an inappropriate acronym.  Happy happy joy joy!  Purple butterflies and pink bunnies!

I LOLd seriously – I did.  I can’t believe my blog abbreviation/acronym is VAG in A (Very American Girl in Australia.)  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

ANYWHO – I told my mom and she LOLd too.

Ok so the tag task is to give a shout out to the tagger.  That’s Scoman from “A Name in Your Recollection.”  So here’s my shoutout!  Yo Yo Scoman!  I love reading your blog!!  It makes me smile – even if all of your readers now know me as the girl from the VAGinA blog :P

Task #2 – list 6 unimportant things that make you happy.  My only issue with this is that if they make me happy then they ARE important!  But I won’t pick at the challenge – I’ll just play along.  :) These things are NOT the core of my happiness, but they’re little things that I delight in.

  1. I LOVE when the lines in the sidewalk are PERFECTLY spaced.  And by that I mean that I can time my footsteps so that I never step on a crack.  Or if a tile floor is multi-colored – I LOVE when one color is spaced perfectly so that I only step on that color and no other.  :)
  2. Bad fashion – it’s wickedly evil of me but I love seeing someone wearing the tackiest of all things.  I laugh.  And it’s wrong – I know – but it’s funny just the same.
  3. Trying gross things.  This is a little weird right?  RIGHT!  But I love mixing food together.  I know it’ll probably be gross – it usually is – but I do it anyway.  OR I also like to try gross products.  Like chocolate skittles.  I KNEW those would be foul but I had to try them.  Or pear flavored chocolate.  Or Harry Potter Jelly Belly flavors Booger and Earwax.  Or Chicken flavored potato chips.  If it looks too gross to be in a super market but they’re selling it anyway – I am SO trying it.  :) And I LOVE trying it even though it’s gross and I laugh about it afterwards.
  4. My dogs playing with their squeaker toys.  Chloe will sit there and chomp on that thing for an hour.  Then she’ll go through phases where she’s squeaking it like a crazy squeaking maniac to a nice lulled squeak.  I LOVE it.  It makes me smile every time.  And when she plays tug-of-war with her sister – it’s the BEST!!!
  5. I LOVE eyeshadow and glimmer, and shimmer, and lipgloss and flavored lipgloss and pretty lotion, and Victoria’s Secret and MAC and more eyeshadow and helping people pick eyeshadow and smelling pretty things and yeah yeah I know.  I get pretty geeked up about this stuff.  I LUV IT!!!  Take me to the MAC counter or Victoria’s Secret and I’m in happyheavenlalaland.
  6. Doing things that are meant for kids.  And yes – I realize other adults do these things – but they do them WITH kids.  I just do them on my own or with any adult I can convince to play along.  Slip-n-slides, building gingerbread houses, carving pumpkins, swinging on swingsets, telling secrets, having slumber parties, sneaking out late at night.  I DELIGHT in these things.

So there you have it – 6 little unimportant things that mean a whole lot to me because they make me happy.  :)

Next part – tag 6 other people.  Anyone want to volunteer?  No?  Darn it!  I hate tagging people.  So I’m tagging at random.  I picked some numbers then looked at my blog roll and here they are- ~Miss A~CarmenForward, NicoleElkington, a la Sophia, Pinkie Larue, Empossible in El Paso.  Love all the blogs in my blogroll!!  These 6 included.  :)

Good night!!

Roses are sometimes red

Want to know what I haven’t done for awhile?  Post my awesome emoticons!  But it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow and I think that warrants some major emoticon love!  And yes – it DOES kinda look like cupid threw up all over my blog.  But too bad so sad!  It’s Valentine’s Day – deal with it.  )

Blowing Kiss 5 Blowing Kisses 3Kiss 2Kiss 3Kiss 4Kiss 8Kissing HandLips 2CupidValentines Day 2Be MineCandlelit DinnerCloud 9Heart 2Heart 3Heart 4Hearts 2I Love You 2

Ah but my favorite one…  it’s called “go get a room.”

Get A Room

Just teasing!!!  My favorite one is this:

Love Eyed 3

HAHA!  lol.  No for REAL my fave is simply:

Valentines Day 2

Oh and THANK YOU to Dave from CafeDave because he sent me a link to find popcorn in Sydney.  YAY!!!  I’m sooooo excited!!

Ooh – it’s late.  I totally should be asleep right now – I have school tomorrow.  On Saturday.  I have school on Saturday – LAME!  And double lame because it’s Valentine’s Day!  Ah well – it’ll keep me distracted from the fact that MY sweethearts (which are none other than my adorable dogs Duchess and Chloe – aw – they’re so cute!!!!) AND any potential Valentine (like CC+4, Adorable Boy or Glitter Boy) are all 8,000+ miles away.

So I’m going to sign off for the night – tomorrow I’ll have to tell you about the crazy movie I saw, the yummy popcorn I ate ;) and maybe I’ll even tell you about the new kindred spirit I’ve discovered (would you ever have guessed it’s one of guys who used to be one of the slackers in my group at school?)  lol.

Good night!  Or maybe I should say, “Good morning!!”  xoxo ~Daisy