I joined Twitter about a year ago, I think. I'm not an active user, it was mainly to just keep up more with some of the bloggers that I love to read and also some interesting celebs, or whatever (I was following reporters at the Casey Anthony trial, which was really informative). I never expected much from it, it was just a time waster, basically.

But today I deleted my account cause I just got fed up with it. I suppose, like with anything, in order to build relationships with the people you follow/that follow you, you have to give them something to work with. I get it. I didn't Tweet a ton because, first of all, there's just not that many things to Tweet about in my life! Secondly...I noticed that some of my favorite bloggers, would Tweet all.day.long. And while I've been teased by some of my "backwoods friends" (Brad's friends, mainly) for being on my phone a lot (cause they all have the old-school flip phones that only make calls...sad that those are considered 'ancient' these days!), I couldn't ever imagine myself Tweeting as often as some other people did. And unfortunately, I think that was what contributed to my frustration. I would Tweet someone randomly (NOT a celebrity, mind you, just a blogger) a question, compliment, etc and be TOTALLY ignored. I can only guess that cause I didn't Tweet a hundred times a day what I was doing, what I was wearing, pictures of people in the store, links to stuff I wanted/bought, etc, that I was just overlooked.

The straw that broke the camel's back though was when a well-known blogger who is currently on a huge health kick (which is NOT a bad thing) re-tweeted a link about how sausage is really made. Okay....number one, I eat sausage. Not a lot, but I do. Number two, not everyone is on your health kick and only eats farmers market organic produce and no meat cause it's not "compassionate". I happen to like sausage and no, despite your Tweet saying "everyone needs to know how it's made" - NO WE DON'T. If we wanted to know, we would go look for ourselves. I got frustrated about this and Tweeted as much, and then realized....I don't even like Twitter. Most days I read what people write and get so annoyed at their pettiness (which I am not without, it just annoys me to read the gall that others have. I know I'm guilty, too), their materialism, and their ideals that they want others to have, it just ruins the whole experience for me.

So, I did what everyone always says to do: If you don't like it, don't read it. So I deleted my account. Yes, I will miss a handful of people's Tweets. I realize I could've just un-followed people. But I just wanted to be done with the whole thing.

I will miss Clay Mathews tweets, though.

No better city

When I lived abroad in Stockholm for a year, my Swedish family sent me to Paris for my 26th birthday, for a little weekend trip. I had met a delightful fellow au pair online who was living in Paris at the time, and she offered to host me for the weekend and show me the city.

I am here to tell you, Paris is like no other city you will ever, ever go to. It oozes beauty, romance, history, art...even on a short, budgeted weekend trip I felt the city. I spent two weeks in Thailand and two weeks in Bali, Indonesia and truthfully have fewer memories of those places than I do of my 3 days in Paris.

Here's a couple pictures for you of my time there:

[city hall]

[Eiffel Tower at night]

[Again, Eiffel Tower...it is breathtaking]

[Connie - my friend/host took this...I ate a million pain au chocolats that weekend]

With all that being said....I'm writing this in hopes that I'll win a 7 day trip to Paris with my love. Oh Happy Day! is hosting a contest to win a trip to my favorite city, and gosh dang it, I want to win.

You too can enter, even though it decreases my amazing (haha) odds of winning.

http://ohhappyday.com/2011/06/goes-to-paris/

Weekend!

And I've got some randoms for ya....

1 - I got some V-neck tees at Target last week (cause I only wear V-necks, HATE crews) and oh.my.gosh....I'm ready to buy a hundred more! I'm amazed at the incredible softness of them. Best part is that they're only $8.

2 - I have a new favorite summer drink: Absolut Ruby Red with Tonic and a lime. My "old faithful" summer drink was Bacardi Limon with Sprite, but my new drink has a little bit of a bite to it, which I love.

3 - I FINALLY got a folding lawn chair! You know, those cheap plastic tri-fold ones? I wanted one last summer, but of course could not find one in all of this town (and I went to every possible store that would carry them). So when I saw them at Target last week I snapped one up, and I can't wait to lay out on it! [the little things, right?]

4 - I love my job. I love the work, I love my boss, I love the people I work with (Mel!), I have never loved a job in my life, so this is a very good thing!

5 - Is anybody else following the Casey Anthony trial? I've mentioned it a few times on Twitter. For some reason, I've gotten really sucked into it and have been listening to the trial live all this last week. I think it's very clear that she did it, especially if you take time to read case docs that detail the way she lived her life after Caylee went missing, and even just watching Casey during the trial...if your daughter actually drowned and you had to bury her, you'd think you'd show emotion, which she hasn't done at all. And, her defense team is really not doing her any favors, they're terrible.

6 - I had gotten pretty excited about the idea of running a half marathon, but because it's such an extreme amount of training/running and I actually really like running right now, I think I'm going to wait until a later one, or wait til the time feels right. I want to join a fitness class at my gym, and maybe find other forms of working out. If I were to train for a half, I'd be spending all that time running and truthfully, I'm ready for a change-up in my routine!

7 - If you're big in working out and you're not taking yoga, I highly recommend it. My yoga class has strengthened my core and I've definitely noticed a difference from it.

....and I think that's it.

We have chairs, people!

For the last three (three) years, Brad and I have been doing the unfortunate eat-in-front-of-the-TV move because in this little house we live in, we do have a dining room but it's about twice the size of our bathroom. And our bathroom is what my good friend Dan would call a "shoilet" - basically a shower with a toilet. It's way, way small. So that makes our dining room way, way small as well. And on top of having a postage-stamp sized dining room, we didn't even have chairs for our dining room table. Hence, we ate in front of the TV.

One thing we do have in this cute little rental that I love dearly and will be sad to move from, is a back porch enclosed with windows. When I first moved into the house, we spent a lot of time painting every room and making the little house a home. Needless to say, the ugly back porch didn't get a lot of attention that year. Or the next, or the next. Until this weekend!!

I set out on the long task of painting the windows white. If you ever feel like you need a very justifiable reason to stab your eyeballs out with pencils, just paint a couple tiny window panes and you'll be grabbing for pencils in no time! Thankfully my sweet husband rescued me at the right moment - the "Just SCREW it, I don't need this porch finished anyway!" - and helped me finish painting the whole room. [For the record, he is usually GREAT about helping me with house projects. But he hates painting, and further, I'm terrible at starting a million things that I take forever to finish, so....]

Anyway - I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

BEFORE

This top photo is how the whole room looked - wood walls and tan windows. The bottom photo is how the initial progress on the windows on the opposite wall.

AFTER

The chairs I ended up finding at an antique store in town, literally because they were the only place I could go to find a set of 4 chairs. How's that for no options?? But honestly, I love them! They're antique wooden folding chairs, and the shop owner figured they date back to the '20's. They're also pretty sturdy and have a rustic patina to them that fits with the light tones in the room.

Needless to say, I love it out there now! It's so nice to sit out there and eat dinner and have a glass of wine with the windows open.

I'm on my own tonight as Brad's out fishing, so I'm going to finish my glass of wine and get crackin' on the laundry!