75? That is Crazy

Posted on January 23rd, 2010 in Joy of Zen by joyofzen

Today my dad would be 75 years old! He’s been dead about 2/3 of my life though, so he will forever be 55 to me. I decided I would post the two mp3s I have of him singing country. The sound quality isn’t very good, but besides these two things, I only have one cassette with his voice. And his voice is younger in these songs, it doesn’t sound like the voice I knew, but I am very glad to have them.

A Million Tears

Roses Bring Old Memories Of You

My dad wrote these songs too. The woman’s voice is my aunt, his sister.

Random Failage

Posted on January 22nd, 2010 in Failage Sisters Podcast by joyofzen

Please enjoy the second episode of the Failage Sisters podcast! We talk about random things, that will hopefully not bore you to tears. There are a couple places that were edited so it skips from one thing to another abruptly, sorry about that… but believe me, you wouldn’t have wanted to hear those parts :)

Thank you for listening! You can subscribe on iTunes if you like it.

 

Pimpin’

Posted on January 21st, 2010 in Joy of Zen by joyofzen

So, I added a few links over there <——- and I just wanted to draw your attention to them. I am only doing this because I genuinely love them. I have nothing to gain from the pimping. Although, this means that I am not really much of a pimp huh? If I’m not getting paid? Damn, I’m gonna have to re-think this….

Anyway… LOL That’s Tasty! is my friend Adrian who is traveling around to various food places and reporting back. His YouTube videos make my mouth water. Please check him out if you like food (includes meat).

And please, visit The Bloggess. Especially if you’re having a shitty day. I swear she’ll cheer you up, with things like.. okay, I was gonna put a quote, but rather I am going to put the title of the post and the link cuz it’s awesome: An open letter to the people sitting next to me at the movie theater who won’t shut the fuck up.

You are welcome for the linkage :)

A Day in Weather

Posted on January 19th, 2010 in Joy of Zen by joyofzen

I never expected to be writing a blog post about the weather, but my drive home earlier today was nothing short of amazing.

I was heading east for quite awhile, and the sky had beautiful blue part with these great white clouds, the way the sun was coming through was awesome. It had poured so hard earlier in the day, this was a welcome view. There were various other clouds around, some gray, but the view straight ahead was great.  I wanted so desperately to have my camera with me but didn’t. I took two 12s on my cell and a picture, but they don’t do what I saw justice.

So then I started to drive north, and that view was of complete doom. I said aloud, alone in my car, “What the hell just happened!?” I turned around to get a full 360 degree view of the sky. There was still the gorgeous view to the east, but everywhere else was being captured by this gray blanket. Immediately there was rain. TONS of rain pounding to the ground so hard. I could hardly see and had to put my windshield wipers on full-blast. It was so a quick, drastic change from the last scene I was enjoying.

Thankfully people kept driving pretty decent during this downpour. The traffic started to slow and the rain let up a bit. I looked up to see his beautiful rainbow against the gray backdrop. I immediately tweeting about it since I hadn’t seen a rainbow in many years. It was awesome. I knew my phone wouldn’t capture that, so I didn’t bother trying. I just stared at it, enjoying all of its colors.

As I got off the freeway, the  rain was light and again there were blue skies and the rainbow was nowhere in sight. As I drove closer to home, more clouds came into view. They were big, purple fluffy ones taking over the sky. I haven’t been so excited about nature in who knows how long. I just wished someone had been there to share in the experience. Once I got home I didn’t even get out of the car before texting my friend, telling him about all the amazing things I just witnessed. It is definitely something I will remember for a long time.

This is me Procrastinating after 1 in the Morning…

Posted on January 13th, 2010 in Joy of Zen by joyofzen

I need to be writing my philosophy of education statement… but I figured ‘Oh, I can get up at 7 and write it.’ That’s all fine and good, but now I decided to write a blog rather than head straight to bed. This will make it more difficult for me to get up at 7 to write it, and I’m fully aware of that, and yet, I continue to type.

One thing just came to my mind about something I said on Christopher’s radio show that I want to mention here. After some thought, I realized that it is my blog where I most edit myself. This is very true, but I do want to say that whatever I do say on my blog is very genuine and I do try to let people get an honest look at who I am and my life.

I do feel the need for some sort of barrier since this is such a permanent way to communicate. With Twitter, I never shutup, so things pretty much just fly by. With Facebook I mostly just have people I know in real life or are good online friends. Recently I have added people I do not know very well, so I took down a couple of informational things about me on there, but I still don’t edit what I say in my statuses.

I guess my blog is (at least for the moment) where I take a more deep look into what is going on in my life. And I have gotten pretty personal at times, but I do always hold back some. I enjoy conversations, and if anyone were to ask me questions on here, I’d likely answer, of course depending on the question. I would probably be a bit more open if I had a base of regular readers, which I don’t think I do. That is definitely my fault since I fell out of blogging regularly for so long.

I like on Christopher’s blog how everyone feels like family. I’ve pretty much been using my blog to talk to myself I think. I am always excited when I see someone read what I wrote, and maybe actually enjoyed it. So, if you are reading this, thank you for stopping by! I do plan on blogging regularly again, I have really missed it.

And if you didn’t catch the LIVE blog radio show Christopher invited me to do, you can download it here (and subscribe to his podcast too). I don’t think I can listen to it, although I sort of want to. For one, I can’t stand the sound of my voice, and two, I might sound like a dork. I do remember talking over him a few times and cringing. Bad timing on my part. I do appreciate the kind comments from those who listened and enjoyed it.

Failage Sisters Podcast!

Posted on January 8th, 2010 in Failage Sisters Podcast by joyofzen

This is our first episode. I apologize for the bad sound, the next one will be better! Thanks for listening :)

 

Tonight at 7:30

Posted on January 7th, 2010 in Joy of Zen by joyofzen

I will be on the CRC Radio Show, LIVE! I am both excited and nervous. I think the nervous outweighs the excited part right now. If you can tune in, just head over to Christopher’s blog. :)

So Long 2009

Posted on January 1st, 2010 in Joy of Zen by joyofzen

I always look forward to the beginning of new years because I always feel hopeful. Granted later things usually suck and I look forward to the following year after that heh. 2009 was pretty crazy. A lot of bad things happened relationship-wise, people dying, and then the usual stress. I’m going to try my best not to dwell on these bad things and try to just move forward.

Some good things happened too. I met some new friends and actually managed to make myself more social by the end of the year. Also did better in school the last quarter of the year too. I also got to move within walking distance of good friends I’ve known since 97.

Lessons Learned:

These may be lessons I learned prior and re-learned, or they could be new.

  • Don’t settle for someone. At the first sign of something that will obviously cause issues through an entire relationship, get the fuck out of it.
  • Learn to love in many ways. I realized I’ve always connected the feeling of love to bf/gf relationships, and never strongly connected it with friendship. But friends are always there.
  • Don’t be so hard on yourself. People can tell me this until they are blue in the face and I still won’t listen, even though I know I should.
  • Re-read the last one. It’s echoing in my head right now.
  • Enjoy random small things. I briefly had a journal of ‘things I let make me happy.’ I would just list random things like warm water, caffeine, clouds, helping people, learning from people, good friends, me.
  • Don’t dwell on mistakes. This ties in with the not being so hard on yourself. I guess it is sort of a subcategory of it. It’s so easy to play situations over in your head, and think of things you could’ve done differently but didn’t. That’s just it though, you didn’t, so it is what it is. You learn from it and move forward with your head held high.
  • Keep your head held high. Confidence comes from within, if you believe in yourself, others will too.

These lessons can fall under new year’s resolutions too I think. Because while I am aware of all these things, it’s another thing to actually follow through. I guess my goal for 2010 is to be a better person. I am very logical and think quite a bit, but I don’t always fully listen.

To all of you, I hope that you have an amazing year. For those of you who need a fresh start, I hope you get it. For those who are doing great already, I hope this carries on.

Big love.