Hello!

I'm not waiting a month to post again. Weird right?

So I, the girl next door, have found an activity I really enjoy, and it is in no way kosher to my squeaky-clean image: I like pole dancing. I've been taking classes for about 3 weeks now, and I'm battered, bruised, and sore all over, and I couldn't be more pleased. :) My flexability is not up to par with where it needs to be, but I'm sure after a couple of months I'll get there. I love feeling strong and sexy. That's not something I get to feel on a day to day basis. I am constantly fighting myself for a positive self image. I typically feel I look weird and comical trying to do anything remotely sexy. This class has helped a lot with that. Not only because I'm in a comfortable environment, but the other girls taking the class seem to be in the same boat. We're constantly looking around at eachother to see if we are all feeling equally ridiculous. It also feels like we're getting to know eachother better and are starting to become comfortable with eachother. I might even go so far as to say I'd like to hangout with them after class sometime.

Saturday I went to a 4 hour pole dance bootcamp. Holy cow, my legs, arms, thighs, and ankles are killing me! And that's still today, on Monday, 2 days after the class! I learned some new tricks and a routine...not that I'll be using it anytime soon...things like this are where a boyfriend would come in handy...Well, maybe moves and confidence come first and then the boyfriend will follow...

It also snowed on Friday night. First time Charleston's had snow in a loooong time. Some places got up to 8 inches! I had to go out and run around in it. I'll post pics soon, when I get them loaded.

Other than that I spent Valentine's Day at home watching the Olympics. Oh yeah, I know how to party. :-P I actually spent the first part of the day taking photos in my room. I tend to be a bit uptight, and I hate that about myself, so I'm working on loosening up and having fun. And what I thought would be fun that morning was dressing up like Beyonce in the Single Ladies video and taking pics of myself.

I think I clean up pretty well, don't you? ;) Come and get me, boys! Haha.

That's all I have to post right now. Pole class is Tues and Thurs this week. and another HCC meeting on Thursday. I forgot to weigh in last week. Oops. We'll see how that goes. Bye!!

Where do I belong??

Hey there--

So what I am coming to discover is that I love it here. What I don't love is the lack of human contact outside of work.

Since coming here I have yet to make any friends. 0. That's a zero, I know it looks like an O, but it's smaller, and that makes it a zero. Trust me on this, people.

I joined Healthy Charleston Challenge and have successfully lost 23 lbs from Sept-Nov. I've been pretty good about keeping it off too. I fluctuate between 1-4 lbs. Not bad. I went from 179 down to 157.

I then went home for Christmas, and I loved seeing everyone again. :) But while I was home I realized that I don't really fit there anymore. I stopped in to work and felt completely out of place. I still love my co-workers, but I didn't belong there anymore. None of my friends even really live by Grand Rapids. Charleston would be more of a home if I had friends. I've pretty much figured out that home isn't were the heart is, it's where my friends are. If all my friends lived within 30 minutes of my house, i don't think I'd ever be sad or lonely again. Honestly, my friends are amazing.

So, in order to get some more friends, I have signed up for a couple classes. I am now a mentor at HCC for a new team with a new trainer. Unfortunately, everyone on the team is twice my age. Drat. There doesn't look to be too many people my age helping out either. Double drat. But it does motivate me to stay in shape, so I suppose that is a good thing.

I have also started volunteering at the children's hospital. I love kids, but when I signed up I think I pushed the depressing realities of hospital children out of my head. They all came rushing back quickly at orientation when an entire section covered "Loss: and volunteering afterwards."

Oh yeah...some sick kids don't get better. *sigh*

And (as if i didn't have enough on my plate) I am taking dance classes. This seems to be geared more toward girls my age. It's pushing me a little outside my comfort zone, but i'm finding the more I go, the more I like it. My competitive side kicked back in full swing at the last dance class when everyone could do a move and I couldn't. I got really angry that I couldn't figure it out. My body just doesn't bend that way...yet. This is something I will have to practice before class on Tuesday.

After work today I am heading to the Charleston Music Hall to see RENT! You have no idea how excited I am about this. I love that play and I finally get to see it. I don't even care if I'm by myself, I'm front row center!! Maybe I'll get pulled up on stage and I can sing La Vie Bohem with them. ...Dreaming is nice. haha.

Nothing really going on for Saturday. I'm deciding if I should go to a Jersey Shore party downtown at a local bar. I bet I could get the look down, but I don't know if going to a bar by myself is the best idea...

Sunday my roommate's dad is having people over to watch the Super Bowl. I am all about that. I already have 2 huge Papa Murphy's pizzas in the fridge. Yum! Go...team?

I am also mentoring the cutest puppy in the world at Pet Helpers. His name is Bronco and he is a 3 yr old Pitbull. He was abused and is not very trusting of anybody. At least when we first got him. It's been about 3 weeks of mentoring him and him going home with Alex (one of the kennel staff) every night. He now perks his ears up, waits by the cage door, loves to go on walks, and beats up on his friend, Rodeo. Seriously, is he not the cutest puppy you've seen? We're still working on his problem with sudden noises. I was sitting with him in his cage and one of the dogs started barking. Apparently he was saying not nice things about Bronco's mom, because Bronco ran to the front of the cage and practically did a backflip off it. Needless to say, I was impressed. :)

That's really all that's going on right now. If I have anything else of any importance to add...I'll do so in about 3 months. Haha.

Charleston ate me.

But I'm back now.

I wish I had more interesting stories and things to share, but really all I've been doing as of late is trying to keep my head above the water that is my life. Work keeps me busy, the gym keeps me busy, the house keeps me busy, the cat keeps me busy, I keep me busy... *whew* something's going to give. ...right now it looks like it's the house....messyyyyyyyy.

Right now Kitten is sleeping on my lap, and I am contemplating going to bed. I have been homesick a couple of times since July...I especially missed being at the cottage for the 4th with all my family. That sucked. I got to watch fireworks by myself. And then I went to see the Harry Potter movie...by myself. Noticing a trend here? What's a girl gotta do to make some friends around here?

Right now my biggest enjoyment is counting down the days to go home for Christmas. Which is awesome, but, shouldn't I be looking forward to things going on around here too? I'm really curious to know how one meets new people when her life consists of work, errands, and chores. Hmmm...this sounds like something that needs to be explored...maybe that should be the topic of this blog...where to go to meet people in Charleston. And I'm talking people. Not college students. Yes, technically they're people too, but they aren't people who're sticking around after college. Not cool. Moving after I've only known you for a year.

So there it is...my goal: To go out and find where these potential acquaintances/friends are hiding.

It's so nice having goals... :)

Folly...

Yay for Internet connection!

I haven't actually set anything up yet, but "borrowing" has had a stronger signal lately.


I've been getting used to the hot and humid weather around here, and now can wear jeans without passing out from the heat. :)

I try to make sure I go on walks around the neighborhood every day. You never know if there's an opportunity to meet some new people. Not that many of them would be out during the day in this heat anyways...but the option is there.

I went to Folly Beach the other day, which I just love. I think that is where I'll be spending most of my time in the future. I am somewhat of a bird enthusiast, and Charleston's been great for spotting all sorts of different birds. My new favorite bird of the moment is the Black Skimmer. I was walking down Folly and it flew past my head. These birds are really neat because they stick their lower beak into the water as they are flying to try to scoop up fish. Their bill is also comically orange...like Toucan Sam. Which makes them pretty noticeable from far away. Yup, that was pretty much the highlight of my day. I love finding birds I've never seen before. I would never ever own a bird...but to see them out in the wild is pretty cool.



I also found a couple blue crabs as big as my hand! Usually I find little tiny ones that you can pick up by the back legs and carry them around and not have to worry about them pinching you. But these were monsters and they probably weighed a good 1-2 pounds. Somebody would have loved to have them for dinner. Yum yum blue crab. I tried catching them, but they were in oyster beds and those can really cut up your feet if you're not careful. So I let them stay. That crab in the picture may be a bit bigger than the couple I found, but you get the idea.



I attempted using my Navigator in the car the other day. I have never taken it out of the box since Christmas and thought, "hey, this could help me find my way around Charleston." Well...it could, I guess, if I didn't already know some routes myself and know that the confounded thing was telling me to go ways that didn't exist, or that took me miles and miles out of my way. For the longest time it kept thinking home base was in downtown NY. Even though I kept programming my address and saving it as home base...it kept wanting to take me to the Big Apple. Maybe that will be my excuse for a next vacation. "I typed in Michigan, but it took me to Manhattan! I have no idea why....." Maybe not...I'd like to think I'm a little smarter than that. Once I started seeing signs for Virginia, New Jersey, New York...I would hope I'd catch on.



Oh! And I also found out my friend Katie is living in North Carolina temporarily while she recuperates from hiking the Appalachian Trail. This is the closest we've lived together since high school! ....and I'm not going to tell you how many years ago that was....She's only 5 hours away! So at some point in August I am planning on taking a 3 day weekend to visit her. She works as a whitewater rafting guide. Sweet. I'm sure I'll get to tag along, and probably fall off....and get swept away down river where I'll start to hear the sounds of dueling banjos......ACk!



I'm not quite sure what's going on today, but I'll try to be more consistent with posting.



Peace!

Almost all moved in...

So it's hotter than hades here, the last couple of days it's been in the high 90s. Which is good...and bad.

My favorite part so far has been the fact that I have lizards and tree frogs that live on my house! I have 3 squirrel-tree frogs that I have named Slappy, Skippy, and Scrat. Yay!

I'm still trying to find my way around, but I love pretty much every place I've been to so far. I've found some awesome resturaunts, and some good shopping. I also bought a sweet grass basket. I love it! It looks similar to this, but the handles loop around. It's awesome. Although, they are rather expensive, and I had to barter with the lady. She wanted $150 for it. But I explained I didn't have a lot of money, and blah blah blah and I got her down to $50, which is what I was wanting to pay anyways. It now sits in my kitchen and holds fruit. It is a good fruit holder. :-P

Apparently the groceries here are uber expensive. So....who wants to eat Ramen noodles for a year? I do! Sweet...

Right now I am watching the Scrubs episode where everyone sings. I love this episode.

Ok, I don't have anything to add at the moment...I'll figure it out later.

Peace!

I feel like I'm dragging my feet.

I know I only have one week left, but it seems soooo faarrrrr awaaaayyy....that I have simply slowed packing down to almost a standstill. Instead, I worked on photo albums. I had been meaning to make them for some time. I wanted to gather all the photos I had taken of my extended family at our shared cottage over the years, and then put them in an album for everyone to enjoy when they visited. Some of my cousins live as far away as Florida, so I only really see them during the summer at the cottage...or when someone gets married. Which has become less frequent as there are only 3 of us single rele's left. Brian, my sister, and myself. Eep.

So I made the photo albums and changed the oil in my car, and packed a few things, and ate lunch and then it was time for work. Maybe tomorrow I will be more productive....although I doubt it.

I also need to be exercising more....my back problems escalated today making it difficult to sit on my butt at my desk job. Joy.

I don't want to spend 4th of July by myself. :(

The Decision...

The decision had actually been made a long time ago when I was still a little girl. I was going to live in Charleston, South Carolina when I grew up. Just like my mom did, and just like her mom did. But, seeing as I was a Michigan girl, the likelyhood of ending up in Charleston seemed pretty slim.

Until I got the phone call....

I had applied for a communications job at the medical university of south carolina and had flown down for an interview and had been waiitng impatiently for the last week for a decision. I was informed at 5pm on a Tuesday that the job was mine and that I had 2 weeks to get down there for blood work and a physical. Yay! ...and yikes! I hadn't even thought about how to get there, what all to bring, how to tell my friends, where I was going to live, and how I was going to get by on my own....and now I had 14 days to figure it all out. Scary grown-up stuff. Yuck. Never much cared for grown-up things.

So in the middle of packing up everything Ive ever worn, done, owned, or BEEN...I realized that what I was doing was probably the most important, life changing thing I've ever done, aside from choosing a college and getting braces...And since I'm moving so far away and the culture is sure to be at least a tad different than that of the "dirt under your nails means you're working!" Midwest, I figured I should chronical some of my experiences so that, if for no one else but me, I had a record of what I went through.

So here is my first post. Status? Scared sh*tless. And super excited. Can a north mid-western "girl next door" make it in the historic south? I have 14 days before I find out...and I can't wait. :)