all look, no leap

YOU ARE NOW AT THE WRONG WEBSITE

Shanna — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:39:44 +0000

I got a real domain and moved so please update your links!

ask me and you’ll get crickets

Shanna — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:19:06 +0000

Tonight, I sat in a class at church and began to realize why I always feel so uncomfortable answering questions in Sunday School and Institute classes. Anything of a spiritual nature is filed away in my mind somewhere in a folder labeled “personal.” This file is buried under a ton of other crap, yet somehow I manage to fill it with things all the time. It’s contents include, almost exclusivly, religion and relationships. I’m not sure why those are the only two things I keep in there, but at least I’m fairly open about everything else.

Although the questions in class tonight were only acutely personal, I still felt insanely uncomfortable turning to the person next to me, as the teacher instructed, and discussing questions on the board. Although my question anxiety was caused by the fact that they related, even if only mildly, to the contents of my “personal” file, it was compounded (irrationally) by the following three things: I’d already spent the day talking to strangers; my ability to socialize had been exhausted even though the guy sitting next to me was pretty cute; and all I could really think about was my craving for speckled jelly beans or how badly I needed to eat dinner.

Despite my inability to discuss certain personal things, I often find myself on the receiving end, as the porter for other people’s emotional baggage. Perhaps I exude an aura of trustworthiness? Could my ability to carry others emotional luggage have squashed any willingness to do my own sharing?

Ever hear a woman complain that a man is “emotionally unavailable?” Each time a friend comes to me, lamenting along these lines, I see my own behaviors line up with those of the men they’re trying to get over.

I should probably fix that.

red is my favorite color…

Shanna — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:16:10 +0000

Literally and it’s an Okkervil River song

ANYWAYS.

Valentine’s Day happens to be my parents wedding anniversary and the birthday of one of my best friends and I’ve never really been one to make a big deal about it.

Actually that’s a lie. In elementary school everyone had to make a mailbox for receiving valentines and I’d make a fuss over having the best one. I was that kid. I had to be better than you and You and YOU. My competitive nature peaked at about 10 years old and has somehow declined ever since.

From college up until now, there have only been two instances when I was dating someone on Valentine’s Day. During both, I insisted on not doing sappy stuff. The guys were probably both skeptical, thinking I was just saying that and terrified they’d end up in trouble for listening to me. Lucky for them, I meant it. Sophomore year we had pizza delivered and watched a horror movie off his crappy laptop. Then last year, we (different guy) went out to eat and then to a “singles awareness day” party even though we weren’t quite as alone as the rest of the guests. It was a little awkward and as you can guess, super romantic. I’m all for cheesy things, but Valentine’s Day is sappy mixed with cheesy and kind of forced. I guess I could be open to it, but I’m not going to demand it.

If I wanted to hold responsible someone for my lack of caring about the day I could probably point a finger at my parents, but I hardly think it’s worth blaming anyone. As I mentioned earlier, February 14th is my parent’s wedding anniversary. Never, since I can remember, have they made a big deal about celebrating it. So there you have it, my indifference to the day is learned behavior from my mother and father. It’s not that I hate it, it’s just that I like Halloween and Christmas better. I guess.

This year, I’m not exactly dating anyone, so I made dinner for my parents wedding anniversary. Since Valentine’s fell on a Sunday, they didn’t want to go out to eat and, like I said, they’ve never made a big deal about the day anyways. I’m not going to bore you with the menu, but I was kind of pleased with how the stuffed tomatoes turned out.

Anniversaries and Valentine’s Day are pretty much celebrated the same way. There are a few differences, but mostly similar. To me, Valentine’s Day is like how in elementary school, they’d pick a day to celebrate all the summer birthdays on one day. They were trying to make us not feel left out, but it was not my real birthday, it was not my friend’s real birthday and it was lame. Valentine’s Day is like a fake anniversary. Unless you’re my parents.

Rock on Jim and Suzanne.

stars: nature’s bling

Shanna — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:46:10 +0000

While sitting in an ethics and legal updates class for 7 hours today, I learned:

stars are nature’s bling
smaller purse = less baggage

The only time paying attention wasn’t painful happened during the review of recent court cases involving real estate. Apparently some dude set fire to his own house and lied about something…

…our instructor couldn’t get through all the material because some Realtors ask too many (dumb) questions and make too many (idiotic) suggestions. While discussing one of the cases, about a dispute over the source of square footage data, someone asked why we even list the square footage of a house in the MLS.

Really?

So yes, I had a lot of time to think about things of greater importance, such as, stars and why I like my purses smallish. I don’t plan on carrying myself in them, so I shouldn’t be able to.

Then I went to ballet class because I’m like five years old.

feathers

Shanna — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:13:17 +0000

Please tell me why this did not happen when I was in Italy?

love the joy division shirt. my guess? They’re buried amongst the 50,000 songs he’s got on his ipod. play count: 0

my dad is great at family photos

Shanna — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:04:24 +0000

Funerals aren’t exactly fun, but they’re one of the few things, besides holidays, that bring my family to one place. One such event occurred last week when Sadie, my great aunt, passed away on the 22nd. Looking around at my family, I realized how lucky I am, that they’re all relatively successful and classy people. All families have their issues, mine is no exception, but at least no one was standing around at the wake wearing ripped jeans and drinking a 40. I had a little re-realization of how lucky I am to be part of the family I’m in.

If you’ve read this before, hopefully you’ve picked up on how I talk about my “weird” family a lot. News flash: talking about “successful” or “classy” people isn’t as entertaining. So, for your (but mostly my own) distraction, I’ve found some pretty awful personal family photos. They’re NOTHING like awkwardfamilyphotos.com, but that’s only because we’re not trying. It just happens. Yesterday, I was supposed to be backing up photo files, but I wasted most of my time looking at them instead. I should be embarrassed by these pictures, but let’s face it: I was at an awkward age in most of these and my dad really knows how to capture family moments…

mom takes great pictures of us too…

me when i’m 60…

oh hi dad…

thanks…dad…

oh. yeah. no big deal.

Shanna — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:32:45 +0000

My dad got back into town on Sunday night, we had our family dinner, and that was that. Not until a few days later did he mention that an engine on his plane burst in to flames during a landing. My dad’s a pilot and apparently this was “no big deal”.

During the landing, there were strong winds coming from the left side, yet the plane was drifting in to the wind. Odd? Left engine went berserk so the right engine overcompensated, causing the plane to drift left despite the winds. The control tower people were freaking out because it was night and all they saw were flames coming out of the front of the left wing engine. I kind of glazed over as my dad gave me an extremely detailed description of what happened, so I’ll spare you. Basically, the fact that there was fire coming out of the front of the engine wasn’t going to harm the engine…or something. What I mean is, the engine wasn’t like…disintegrated and nothing blew up. In fact, the fire was out by the time the plane slowed on the runway.

Confused yet?

The best part? That exact plane was able to complete two other trips and land back in the states, only for the same thing happened again.

So yeah, the next plane you get on. Safe.

so my dad brought back movies again.

Shanna — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:42:56 +0000

Every time my dad goes to hong kong or wherever, he brings back dvd’s. They’re cheap, generally ok quality, but oftentimes not even decent movies. This go around, he got some good ones, but a lot of bad ones. They pretty much hand him a stack and he pays for it, so we take what we can get.

avatar
up in the air
2012
the blind side
law abiding citizen
the proposal
9 (not Nine, no singing, tim burton)
armored (never heard of it)
district 9
born of hope (some fan film prequel to LOTR that is probably awful)
The final destination (THE?…and they’re still doing those movies?)
Terminator Salvation
bad lieutenant (…all i can think of is national treasure)
gi joe: the rise of cobra (i dunno…)
surrogates (bad)
kill shot (straight to dvd…i think)
battlestar galactica: the plan (wasn’t that one made for tv?)
harry potter and the HBP

there are only 3 i’ll be watching.

because i should post something

Shanna — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:17:08 +0000

My mother discovered December 21,2012. I don’t know where she’s been the past few years, but…

I’ve decided, even though I like college football, college basketball, and professional basketball, I really don’t care all that much about professional football. There’s not a good reason for it, I just don’t care. My only explanation is that I got the flu once during the super bowl when I was 13. I never said it was a good explanation.

I also never said this was going to be a long post.

this happened:

Shanna — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 06:06:59 +0000

I HAD A NORMAL CHRISTMAS! I think.

My mother and I both got cameras from dad this year. The best part is that the one he gave me is pink and I’m incredibly against girlifying electronics. I guess my dad doesn’t know that? Either way, I can’t carry around my DSLR everywhere and my old point and shoot is…well…old. The one he gave me happens to be waterproof and shockproof although I don’t think I’d try taking underwater pictures with it or using it as a football. Basically, my dad did well and it can survive in my purse at all times even if it is pink.

The first/worst/blurry picture I took with it:

many more amazing shots to come…

I got/gave a handful of other things, but I won’t bore you with my list.

For new years, Joanna and I went up to Dallas to visit Christina. We went here: http://risesouffle.com

Then other stuff happened but I only caught some of it on camera because I’m not a big picture taker:

Then we went to walmart dressed like this:

nice pants joanna