Dreamer’s block

This. Is. Ridiculous. For the past 10 years, every night, without fail, I have been blessed, mystified, and sometimes haunted by my series of dreams.  Seriously.  Every night.  It’s like waking up every Sunday and cutting on the TV to watch re-runs of 90210 or Saved by the Bell. You don’t have to look at the TV guide. You just KNOW that it’s going to be on. Just like my dreams. Every morning, I wake up about 30 minutes before my alarm, and I know I’m going to remember what happened.  Every night, except the last few nights.  I think the stress of this whole blog this is getting to me. It’s not the whole writing thing that’s stressful.  It’s the dreaming part. No dream = no writing. I think I’ve got dreamer’s block.  So this morning, I woke up and felt like a failure.  I mean, how is it possible to feel like that at 5am? I haven’t done anything yet. I hadn’t even got about of bed, and I already feel like a failure.  Day 106 of the blog has not been a good day. So tonight, before I go to bed, I’m going to do all of the things that “encourage” dreaming.  I even Googled ‘How to encourage dreams’.  So tonight, I’m going to try to eat large amounts of chocolate right before bedtime.  Hey – it’s a tough task, but I have to do it in the name of the blog.

Dream smushing

I have way too much on my mind when I go to sleep at night.  So much so, that my dreams are starting to smush together (for all of you Jersey Shore fans, I mean “join”. I’m not using the term the way they do) into one big, strange, disoriented dream.  It’s funny though. When I try to analyze it the next day, the dream makes perfect sense in individual parts. Since I really haven’t used my dream blog to officially analyze my dreams (I usually just go off on some unrelated tangent), I’m going to give it a try today.

Last night I dreamt that I was going to a housewarming party for some of our friends in Washington, North Carolina. When they gave me the tour of their new house, it looked EXACTLY like my parent’s house inside.

Seems like a pretty normal dream when you just read the above paragraph. It’s the concoction of thoughts, ideas, and real life situations that make the dream crazy. So here goes…

Housewarming party - Over my four week vacation I went one of my best friend’s housewarming party (which was fabulous, needless to say), but not the same friend that was in my dream.  

Washington, NC – the people in my dream actually live in Georgia, nowhere close to the small town in NC. My co-worker, however, just visited this town, and had a HORRIBLE experience.  She was traveling down there for an inventory observation, and being from Maryland, wasn’t used to the back country roads.  Well, long story short, the weekend she traveled down there, we had torrential downpours which closed most of the roads leading to her destination.  A few panicked phone calls later, and a stay at a very sketchy motel, she was able to get down to her destination. Obviously her experience has had an impact on me since I’m dreaming about it.

The people in the dream – I haven’t seen the couple in the dream since their wedding last summer.  Interestingly enough however, I was on the phone yesterday morning on the way to work strategizing with our kickball coach, and one of their names came up in conversation.  We were talking about a different person, but they have the same name, and when he said it I automatically thought of this couple in my dream (pre-dreaming it… if that makes sense).

Exactly like my parent’s house – I’ve had a lot of time on my hands the past few weeks. Four weeks of vacation with no real solid plans during the weekdays (surprisingly, no one else took a 4 week vacation during the middle of winter) can leave you a little stir crazy. Being the type “A” person that I am, I wandered around our house trying to think of all of the “improvements” I would like to make.  Side note: never watch HGTV while you’re on a 4-week vacation.  I love our house now. I mean, we have a couple of things that we’re planning on completing, but after one morning watching HGTV, you suddenly have plans to build a new house. Anyway, two things came out of my house wandering: new floors, and a new kitchen.  Nothing major (ok that’s a lie), but something in line with my parent’s hardwood floors and island countertop in the kitchen.

So there we have it. Four completely separate experiences/thoughts melded together to form one bizarre dream.  Dream analyzing = success.

I got Snookied

I’ve been on vacation for 4 weeks. While I haven’t been completely worthless the entire time, I did have several days where the only thing I managed to accomplish was a shower. Just a shower. No blow dry. No make up. Just the basics. I might would have expelled that extra energy effort if I hadn’t been woken up early nearly EVERY single day of my vacation.  I’ll pause here, and give an extra special shout out to my mom, sister, husband, kickball coach, college roommate, and several other people who don’t have a special title, but will now be greeted with a very special  4-letter word title when they call, text, or otherwise “drop by” the house before 10am while I’m on vacation. Yes. I am a morning person*, but please note the asterisk means that for the 5 weeks of vacation and 10 holidays each year I will assume my alter ego, act like a college student, and not get out of bed until noon, not even make the bed, do dishes, vacuum, and potentially not even brush my hair. Just deal with it. It’s only 7 weeks each year. Anyway, back to those several days I mentioned earlier.  I fibbed a little. I did manage to accomplish something else.  Turns out, in just two days, you can watch both seasons of Jersey Shore reruns. So that’s what I did. Looking back, I wouldn’t recommend it. You can’t watch two seasons of Jersey Shore and not dream about Snooki and Ronnie (I know… I was hoping to dream about Pauly D, but nope, I got Snookied).

So there I was in Miami. I had flown down that morning to watch the VT bowl game with my husband, and we arrived very early in the morning.  Since it wasn’t yet tailgating time, we decided to go to breakfast and met up with some of our friends in the lobby.  Who, you ask? Snooki and Ronnie. I rode with Snooki in a bright yellow Mustang and my husband rode with Ronnie.  Thankfully the dream ended there. I don’t think I could have handled watching my husband fist pump with Ronnie at the tailgate. Some things you don’t want to dream about.

“Cut”

I must be worried about my upcoming haircut. Actually, scratch that. I know I’m worried about my upcoming haircut. (I will make a note to add this to the list of worries – see “Worry List” blog).  On December 21, 2010, I will have made the executive decision to bring back the bangs. Scary thought, I know, but hopefully not scary in person. Don’t worry. I’m not going with the 80’s bangs (or the 80’s permed bangs, in my unfortunate case back in 1989). I’m going with the long, straight bangs (Google Taylor Swift at the 2010 AMA’s and hopefully it will resemble my upcoming ‘do). Anyway, I’m so frightened by this thought that naturally, I’ve started to dream about it. So here it is…

I’m outside of this fancy-schmancy hair salon in NYC. No, I don’t know why I apparently have to travel to NYC to get a dream haircut, so don’t bother asking. There are two doors to the hair salon. One says “Cut” the other says “Trim”. I boldly walk into the “Cut” door and am met by my assigned hair stylist, who happens to have the EXACT haircut that I want! While she is “getting ready” for my big hair cut (no, I don’t know what she would need to do to “get ready” for my haircut), she lets me know that games are available while I wait. Games?  Let me clarify. While waiting for your hair stylist to “get ready” at this hair salon, the guests are invited to play pool games.  Me and the other guests had a pretty intense game of Marco Polo going on when my stylist alerted me that she was ready.  Once you sit in the chair, the owner of the salon makes his rounds with what looks to be a chalk line (similar to what you would use to put shingles on houses… impressive that I know what a chalk line is, right?!). Anyway, he goes around and marks on your face any “improvements” that the salon thinks that you need, which they offer in addition to haircuts (i.e. Botox). I knew he was going to mark my forehead wrinkle, and without surprise, he did. I politely declined any other services besides the haircut though. I wisely know that even Botox can’t get rid of that sucker. Anyway, that’s where the dream ended. I don’t know what my haircut turned out like. I wish I did. That way, in real life I would know whether or not to make the cut.

Maybe this dream will come in episodes until December 21^st (a.k.a the big day).  I hope so, because seriously, it was one of the most vivid – an equally hilarious - dreams that I’ve had in awhile. Stay tuned.

Worry List

Every family has one. Unfortunately for me, I’m the worrier of the family.  It’s so frustrating that I worry about things even while I’m asleep. I don’t even have that much to worry about right now.  So I just make up things to be worried about. What if my alarm clock doesn’t go off, and I’m late for work? What if the dishwasher catches on fire during the dry cycle? Did I lock the side door? Did I lock the car? Did I lock the front gate so Sammy doesn’t get out? What if Sammy gets attacked by a wolf while she’s outside? Really? What if Sammy gets attacked by a wolf while she’s outside? That’s what I dreamt about last night. Why am I dreaming about wolves?  I’m totally team Edward, so wolves mean nothing to me, but nonetheless, last night in my dream I was too scared to let Sammy out of the house because of this fear…a completely unrealistic fear at that. If you’ve ever met our dog, you would know that NOTHING is going to get within 5 miles of our house, without her alerting the entire neighborhood by barking at it.  She has very distinct barks at that. I always know when she’s barking at my husband because she’s excited that he’s home vs. when she’s barking at the sweet kids in the neighborhood vs. when she’s barking/growling at those “other” kids in the neighborhood (Note: see “Entitlement” blog about the “other” kids in our neighborhood, and you’ll realize that we have the smartest dog ever. I think she can sense the road-blocking-egg-throwing-entitled kids from the cute hope-we-have-kids-like-that-someday kids). Regardless, I was so scared in my dream that she would be attacked that she received a life sentence as an inside dog. (Great. There goes the dream furniture, the dream paper towels, all of the dream blankets, and the occasional dream flip flop.)  

This worry of mine actually does have some realistic base to it.  Last week, she let out 5 minutes of strange, unusual barks.  I was sure she was just barking at the awful pit-bull neighbor that attacked her when she was a puppy (no, she has not yet forgiven or forgotten and neither has her mother), but when I looked outside, she was barking towards our shed.  Finally, and unfortunately, I realized a little too late what she was barking at.  I saw it lunge at her.  A panicked scream to my husband followed by a quick trip to the garage for a shovel, we had a dead cottonmouth on our hands.  Luckily, my poor baby came away unharmed. As for me, it’s just another item that I’m not adding to the list of things to worry about.

Canada Eh?

I hate when people are rude. I may not be super friendly all of the time, but if I don’t know you, I surely won’t be rude to you on our first encounter (even if I can just tell that I don’t like you).  I just don’t understand it.  It gets under my skin, and in some cases, including the one below, it can shape my opinion about people, places, etc., for a long time. This happened back in September. I went to Canada for a work-related trip.  I was traveling alone and had to fly into Toronto and rent a car to get around for my 8 day stay. Up to day #7, the trip was going really great.  I had never been to Canada before, and it is somewhere, up to day #7, that I would absolutely recommend going to and hope to visit again.  It’s really beautiful. Except for Toronto, which is a fairly large city (and reminds me a lot of Chicago, which I love!), Canada’s pretty rural.  I was staying in Brantford, about an hour outside of Toronto, and it reminded me a lot of where we live today (except with less people, and more farmland… if that’s even possible).  It was really beautiful though. Anyway, day #7, I had to refuel the rental car before I turned it back in.  I pulled into the gas station, and for some reason (unknown to me at the time), my credit card wouldn’t work at the pump.  Side note: it turns out that Canadians have chips in their credit cards to verify their identify. It’s similar to the “fast-pass” at American gas stations. You can just scan your card… you don’t have to swipe.  Anyway, I walked inside the gas station since my card didn’t work at the pump.  I explained to the cashier that my card didn’t work, and she asked, “Are you American”?  If my lack-of-ridiculous-Canadian-accent didn’t already give that away, I responded that I was. And here was her response…. “Well, we don’t like Americans here”. What?!?  Is she serious or is she kidding? Did she really mean Americans or just American credit cards? She has no facial expression at all, so I’m assuming that she’s serious. I paid inside and left. But in my mind, I verbally abused her. Really!?… you work at a gas station, you ignorant, worthless 5-letter word beginning with a ‘B’ (hey, this is a family blog, so I’ll keep it clean)…If Canadians didn’t use the American supply-chain for resources, blah, blah, blah, followed by several 4-letter words, and then a punch to the face.  Anyway, it bothered me.  From my trip, this is what I remember most.  Not Niagara Falls, not the Toronto International Film Festival, not the wineries at Niagara-on-the-Lake… nope, I remember this. 

One night this past week, I was dreaming that I was flying a kite.  Not sure why I was flying a kite.  I don’t think that’s the piece that matters.  What does matter is the design of the kite that I was flying.  It was in the shape of a big question mark and the pattern was made out of the Canadian-flag.  That’s exactly how I feel about Canada now. 

The New Office

For the most part, I consider myself a pretty smart gal.  I mean, I have two college degrees, and was a CPA at the age of 22. Not too shabby. So why on Earth, can’t I figure out how to get from the parking garage at our new office to the actual office building? I’m told that there is a very well lit and neatly labeled walkway that says “to office building” in the parking garage, but for the life of me, I’ve never been able to find this sign on my own.  It’s ridiculous.  Try #1 (with a co-worker who had yet to go to the new office) failed miserably.  We just ended up walking outside the parking garage to get to the office building (in the rain, might I add).  Try #2 succeeded only because I caught up with a tax associate who goes to the office on a daily basis, but after we winded through the parking garage, took the elevator up to another parking garage, walked down the stairs, through someone’s apartment, over several barricades, and under a limbo pole, did we finally arrive at the elevators that take you to the office building.  Unfortunately, as good as a memory that I may have, I can’t remember how to complete that journey by myself.  This is SO frustrating. Why did we have to move office buildings? I’m told the reason is that the new office building is “green”.  It’s not. It’s gray. And if they mean “green” like Earth-friendly, well that’s obviously going to be the case.  No one can find the stupid office. That means no one will ever be there. That means no one will need to turn on the lights, use the printers, etc, you get the picture.  Or maybe it’s “green” because now, instead of driving the 25 miles to the office, it’s actually closer for me to just park at home, and walk, since that’s about the equivalent length of our walk on Try #2.

Not to my surprise, I had a dream about this awful new parking situation.  I was in my car, winding around the floors of the parking garage, and they just kept getting smaller and smaller…. to the point, where I had to get out of my car and start crawling through the garage.  My car wouldn’t fit anymore.  So there I am, military-style, crawling on my elbows through the parking garage (apparently trying to find that not-so-nicely-lit “to office building” sign). The further I went, the more obstacles I had to go through (i.e. spider webs… except they didn’t have spiders on them, they had crabs and dead fish… yeah, I don’t know how they got into the dream.  I’ve been sick, so I took some cold medicine before I went to bed. That has to explain the craziness).  I can’t remember if I ever made it to the office or not.  I’m writing this on a Sunday, and I have to stop by the office tomorrow morning before work to pick up a few binders. Hopefully I have better success than last night!

I’m making a change…

Well… this is a hard decision, but I have to move the blog to a once/week ordeal.  While I may be able to keep up the daily pace when I’m not too busy at work, it’s nearly impossible to write everyday when I’m not getting home until late. Sorry people, but I’m choosing sleep/time with hubs, over the blog.  So, tough decision that this may be, I will only post once/week.  It’s better this way anyway (I mean, it’s seriously hard to try to be funny/witty on a daily basis. Sometimes I don’t feel like being funny. Sometimes I just feel like being the boring, old CPA that I am.) I know this is going to affect you all tremendously (ok, let’s get real, it’s going to only affect the 30 or so loyal readers that continue to check my blog everyday… yes, I can see the stats…. And I think you will be able to go on with your lives). Anyway, next post will be next week. Save this link, it’s also coming down from my FB page. Have a good one!

Dream sequence… take two

I was on a boat in Lake Gaston with my dad, and there were fish everywhere! There were dolphins continuously following the boat. We saw 4 sting rays, and even a blue swordfish.  I was on a boat in Lake Gaston with my dad, and there were fish everywhere! There were dolphins continuously following the boat. We saw 4 sting rays, and even a blue swordfish.  That’s not a typo. I literally dreamt the same thing twice in a row.  I woke up in the middle of the night and had my typical troubles falling back to sleep this morning.  So, while I lying there, wide-awake at this point, listening to the not-so-soothing sounds of snoring, I kept telling myself to remember what I had just dreamed so I could write about it in my blog.  I was WAY too lazy to get up and write it down, so I just kept thinking about it.  Well, I eventually fell back to sleep, and literally had the same dream.  That’s not how this is supposed to work!  I usually dream about things that are on my mind (obviously), but with this whole blog thing, when I wake up in the middle of the night, the act of remembering my dreams is on my mind (I’m SO task-oriented!) This could have a serious effect on my blogging skills.  Now I’m completely limited.  I usually have like 5 dreams a night.  I don’t want to dream the same thing 5 times… and I can assure you, that you don’t want me to!  I usually pick and choose the best dreams of the night to write about.  I mean, seriously, I dream about EVERYTHING.  You don’t want to hear/I don’t want to tell you about some of the craziness that I have going on upstairs.  The majority of my dreams are completely unexplainable (i.e. why would I dream about swimming in a parking lot with 2 feet of water or dream about being attacked by a jelly fish that was laying in the sand?), and there are some that I would never write about (i.e…sorry, never going to tell you). That only leaves the few gems that I share with you on a daily basis.  So, this whole “dreaming the same thing twice a night” can’t happen.  Otherwise, I’m going to have to attempt to explain why I was dreaming about a blue swordfish, 4 sting rays, and dolphins while at Lake Gaston… a.k.a., otherwise, there goes my blog. Wish me luck for tonight!

At least I have ants…

Yesterday was one of those days. There was no looking on the bright side.  Nothing went as planned. No one offered any help. It was just me against the world. (Ok, I may be exaggerating a little, but that’s how I felt anyway).  I was walking into a client’s office building, trying to juggle a glass container of pasta salad that I had made for a lunch meeting, a full and very hot Grande brewed coffee with 4 Splendas, and my oversized laptop bag, and somehow open the secure locked doors with my key fob.  There were people all around me, but no one offered to open the door. I know that’s against client policy, since access to the building requires government clearance, but really, do I look that threatening while carrying 2 pounds of pasta salad in my little black dress? I don’t think so. Anyway, it was an impossible task.  I knew I should have just made two trips to the car. A burn wound and ruined pair of hose later, I finally made it in the building (with help from no one). Much like my dream last night. All I was trying to do was build a shed in my parent’s backyard.  I had all of the equipment in my truck, but I couldn’t lift it by myself. I needed help, and no one was around to help me.  No one PERSON that is.  Instead, I had an army of ants that were helping me erect this shed, and they could lift anything. It’s amazing what those little suckers can accomplish!  Thankfully, with their help, everything went as planned. No thanks to humans though . Next time, I’ll know who to ask help me in the door.