I can’t believe I didn’t post the entire month of November. So sorry! It was a very busy month, filled with…

Starting my own photography business. Yeah, I decided to go for it. Well, just wading my toes in slowly. I would hate to get burnt out on something I love so much. But, most of my photography posts are now over at the new photography blog. You can also become a fan of me on Facebook (that sounds so narcissistic) or follow my photography Twitter account.

Celebrating my birthday. A bunch of us Scorpios got together and threw a big party. Then I went to Orlando to spend my birthday week at Universal and Disney. And I know I just linked to the photography blog twice more. I promise I’m not abandoning this one.

Being busy at work. Although, that’s pretty much been non-stop all year.

Starting Christmas shopping. I’m already halfway done!

And, um, NOT finishing the things I’m supposed to do before I’m 28. Yeah. Uh. We’ll just move that to the Before 29 list. (But to be fair, there was only one thing I didn’t do!)

Side Note: I was originally writing a post called “On standards, compromise, change, and respect” which was inspired by the recent drama over at That Wife’s blog. I spent several days thinking about some of the topics she and her husband brought up, and, while trying to formulate my opinion on everything, decided to write this post instead, which I think better sums up what I was trying to say.

Breaking up is an interesting thing. After the depression subsides and the crying is over, you are left to reflect on what went wrong and how you can keep that from happening in future relationships. You learn from them and grow as a person, which is why I never regret anything. Why would I regret learning?

The biggest thing I learned from my last relationship is that you absolutely cannot change someone. Even if they want to change, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will ever happen. Ben told me within the first few months of dating that he wasn’t good with commitment. He had never been in a long-term relationship and didn’t know if he could ever really be in one. Like people tend to do, I thought to myself, “Well, clearly that’s because he’s never been in a relationship with ME.” I tried to change him. For five years, we struggled with his commitment issues. He didn’t want to have them; he wanted to be with me. Two break-ups and a botched engagement later, we both conceded; it just wasn’t going to happen.

So, coming out of this, I had decided that the next relationship I get into, I should not be expecting to change that person. Likewise, they should not expect to change me. Yes, I have my flaws. I’m aware of 99% of them. Do I want to change them? Some of them. But that’s my call. And the same extends to the other person in the relationship.

But now I have changed my mind. While keeping in mind that you can’t change someone is a good thought to have, what I really need to be looking for in my next relationship is the ability to sacrifice. I’ve noted, on various occasions, how I have felt unappreciated in the past. When I’m in a relationship, I am very much a ‘giver’. All I care about is making the other person happy. Sometimes this even extends to the sacrifice of my own needs. Some people say I give too much; perhaps it is true. Certainly, I probably shouldn’t have continued to let Ben stay in my house and support him for months after we had broken up. But I cared about him and did not want to see him broke and homeless. Character flaw? I’m not sure. Unfortunately, I have a terrible trend of getting into relationships with ‘takers’ and this is how I always end up feeling unappreciated.

There needs to be a healthy balance of give and take in a relationship. Those where one person always gives and one person always takes will probably never work out. If one person is always sacrificing and never getting back anything in return, resentment builds. This was the main cause of the break-up of my first marriage: I gave, he took, I resented, bad things ensued.

I regularly do things in relationships that I wouldn’t normally do if the other person didn’t ask me, without complaint. In fact, I truly want to do these things because I know it will make him happy. Don’t want me to wear certain things you don’t like? Okay. Want me to come hang out with you at work until 3 am even though I have to be up to go to work at 8 am? No problem. Need me to support you for six months while you don’t have a job? Sure. It’s only when I feel that these things are going unnoticed that I even start thinking about what I’m getting back in return. Or when I truly need him to do something for me and he refuses and says, “I just don’t want to.” Then I start thinking, “What about the sacrifices I’ve made? Why don’t you want to make me happy like I want to make you happy? Am I the only one really devoted to this relationship?”

I remember when Ben and I split up for good, I was trying to explain to him exactly how I had felt for him all these years. How I couldn’t wait to see him when I got home from work, even after we’d been together so long. How 90% of my thoughts every day revolved around what things I could do to make him happy. He looked at me with a sort of stunned expression and said, “I think you were right. I don’t think I did love you in the same way that you loved me.” He said most days, he rarely even thought about me at all.

That’s not what I want. That’s not what I need. I need someone who is going to put the same amount of effort into a relationship as I do. I need someone who understands give and take. I need someone who will sacrifice for my happiness, as I sacrifice for his. I want to be an equal, not a doormat.

I want real love.

Each month, I want to list out five things in life that are small but never fail to brighten my day. It’s like at the beginning of “Amelie” when the narrator lists what the characters enjoy. I’ll start with what inspired me to write this post to begin with.

#1: Licking cake batter off the beaters after mixing a cake.
This is something I always enjoyed doing as a child (I think it’s the only way my mom could get me to help her bake…I’m not worth much in the kitchen). Yeah, sure, there’s a risk of salmonella from the eggs, but I eat raw cookie dough too and still haven’t died.

#2: Narrators in movies.
Speaking of “Amelie”, I have discovered that I really like it when a movie has a narrator doing voice-overs. I have no idea why. This occurred to me a couple days ago, when I was watching “Little Children”.

#3: The curve of ballerinas’ feet.
Every time I go to the ballet, I always watch the ballerinas’ feet when they are en pointe. I really like it when they have a good arch, haha. I’m so weird. I swear I don’t have a foot fetish.

Source: raek6g6 on Flickr

#4: Having exact change at Chick-fil-a.
I get a chicken sandwich and a brownie when I eat there for lunch. At the Chick-fil-a across the street from where I work, this comes to a total of $4.26. This means I need some one dollar bills, a quarter, and a penny. Today, I only had a twenty. Oh well. Can’t happen all the time.

#5: Receiving a card for no reason.
Okay, this hasn’t happened in quite some time, but I’ve always really liked it when it does. Cards are like flowers. They are better when they are given when they don’t have to be.

As most of you know, yesterday was the day I had spent over a year stressing out over and planning every meticulous detail about. Therefore, I was concerned that it was going to be a huge letdown to not have any of that happen and would be moping all day. Not because I think that we should still be getting married (I do realize that it’s for the best, and I am over the heartbreak for the most part), but because so much time, energy, money, and excitement was put into something that just wasn’t going to happen. Luckily, my best friend Sabrina had other plans for me.

She showed up Friday night, with a bouquet of tulips in hand.

Then we went and hung out at the Opryland Hotel. A local high school’s prom was apparently that night, so we ate dinner and commented on the prom dresses we saw and joked about going to put on fancy clothes and seeing if we could pass for high school students.

The next morning, we headed down to Franklin, where we had lunch at Logan’s. (By the way, their mesquite grilled chicken is really good.) She had told me before I had gotten ready to make sure my legs were shaved, and I discovered why next. She was taking me to a spa! I got a 30-minute Swedish massage, which was great and relaxing. Afterward, she took me out to Chili’s for molten chocolate cake.

It was a pretty great day.

Later that evening, I went out to the art crawl with Wayne and got lots of free (albeit, cheap) wine. I was pretty exhausted after all that, so I just came home and went to bed.

I’m thankful to have great friends to keep me distracted. And I will note that it would have been raining and we had no backup plan for the outdoor wedding, so I’m sure I would have been more stressed out if the wedding hadn’t been called off, haha.

Yes, I promised this post to a few people, oh, a year and a half ago? Hmm. I may be a bit behind.

I had a few people curious about the transformation of my house. If you’ll recall, I ended up getting a house that was covered in Pepto-Bismol pink: pink carpet, pink wallpaper in the master bath and upstairs hall, mildly pink countertops. It was bad. So I spent the first month of my home-ownership painting and having pretty much every floor in the house redone.

I wish I had more photos of the house ‘before’. I have a video somewhere that has all the rooms, but I’ll have to dig that up at a later time and post it. I’m also lazy and didn’t take any good ‘after’ photos before I moved all my stuff in. And I’m not going to take any now because, well, I don’t feel like cleaning. But I have a few I took at my housewarming and various other events that I can show you to compare.

First up, the living room and dining room.

You can see the horrendous pink carpet that extended all the way into the dining room. That carpet covered every floor surface in the house, except for the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the laundry room. It got ripped up. All of it. It was replaced by a nice, neutral-colored frieze carpet, except for in the dining room and the upstairs bedrooms. My parents installed wood laminate in those rooms, as well as the kitchen.

Here’s a similar ‘after’ shot, if you ignore all the people playing Guitar Hero.

I also painted the wall that you can’t see in the ‘before’ shot red.

Now for the kitchen. You can’t see it well in this photo, but it had some very ugly pink and beige linoleum.

This was, of course, replaced with the same laminate we put in the dining room. I haven’t done anything about the countertops yet. I may at some point in the future, depending on how long I think I’ll actually be living here.

And I just realized how much crap the doors of my refrigerator have accumulated since I first moved in (when the above picture was taken). Hmm.

I have no ‘before’ shots of any of the bedrooms. (And I don’t think I have any ‘after’ shots of the upstairs bedrooms either.) But I do have an ‘after’ shot of the master bed when it was actually clean! Woohoo! The carpet was obviously replaced and I painted it gold.

The master bath was covered in pink wallpaper. It was removed (which took FOREVER) and painted gold. I’m not in the habit of taking pictures of my bathroom, so I have zero pictures of it, before or after.

The upstairs hall also was covered in pink wallpaper. It was removed and painted red.

And here’s a ‘before’ shot of the loft/office. The house came with these shelves installed in this former closet, so I just made use of them and turned it into the computer area. I don’t seem to have any ‘after’ shots. (And I complain that I have nothing to take pictures of…)

I’ll dig up the video at some point in the future so you can see the bad wallpaper.

And now for some rare insight into my inner psyche…

For the majority of my life, I have had to come to terms that I am pretty much the epitome of my astrological sun sign. My rising sign and moon sign are both Leo, which probably accounts for that I’m-an-introvert-who-wants-to-be-an-extrovert thing I have going on, but for the most part: I am Scorpio.

The majority of people I have come into contact with who know anything about Scorpios automatically are wary of me. Apparently, Scorpios have a bad rep.

I will preface this by saying there is at least one Scorpio trait that I do not think I have. Scorpios are supposed to be vengeful when they are wronged (that whole Scorpion’s tail thing). I may have been this way when I was a lot younger, but I definitely am not now. Unfortunately, I think I have actually turned into more of a doormat. I lost my stinger a long time ago.

So, I present to you things that I hate most about being a Scorpio:

First, Scorpios are secretive. True, I don’t like people knowing everything about me, especially upon first meeting me. I ask more questions than I answer. However, due to being so true to my sign, it’s pretty easy to determine my personality. All you have to do is google ‘Scorpio’. This irks me. (Yet, here I am, writing this post.)

Second, Scorpios are obsessive. Honestly, this is probably the thing I hate most. Why must I obsess over every little thing? I blow everything out of proportion, read into things way too much, and am completely distracted by my thoughts on one particular subject (whatever my current obsession is) 99% of the time. This can be a hobby, a song, a person, it’s not just limited to one thing. The flip side to this, and something I like, is that I’m passionate about things.

Scorpio is one of the Fixed signs. While this is usually a good thing and means that I finish things I start, the downside to this is I have a hard time letting go of things that I should have let go of a long time ago. It also means I’m really, really stubborn and refuse to take no for an answer (not a good combo with the obsessive quality I mentioned above).

Scorpio is one of the Water signs. This basically means that I’m emotional. Anyone who knows me, knows how emotional I am. It’s very annoying. While Scorpios can also be very analytical, they are pretty much entirely ruled by emotion. I was trying to describe to Ben one day the constant war that goes on between my logical side and my emotional side and how the emotional side of me almost always wins, despite my logical side usually having the more compelling argument. This is why I have to tell my friends to stop me if I ever try to do something that I said I wasn’t going to do. I may logically know that I shouldn’t do something, but my emotion gets in the way and overrides me sometimes. The plus side of being a Water sign is that I can be very empathic. Of course, this sometimes means that I cry when watching the news. (I seriously cried for like three days straight when James Kim’s body was found. And when that guy was beheaded on that Greyhound up in Canada.)

But, before you start to hate all Scorpios (as some people apparently do), I would also like to mention things I like:

Scorpios are very loyal. While this can be a bad thing (as I’ve been known to stay friends with people who aren’t the nicest to me), I think it’s usually a pretty good quality to have.

The aforementioned passion. Sure, I’ve gotten into many a heated argument with someone who disagreed with my opinion on something (or, even worse, when I know I had my facts right and the other person was just WRONG), but I think it’s good thing to have passion about things. And I am very passionate about pretty much everything: my friends, my family, my likes, my dislikes. “Passion” is Scorpio’s key word. To quote AstrologyZone, “One Scorpio once said to me that passion was the single most important ingredient in life, that is, to be passionate about one’s loved ones, one’s career, one’s lifestyle, for without passion, what kind of life would we have in the end? Well said!”

Scorpio’s intuition. I can usually tell if I’m going to get along with someone like a second after meeting them. I can read people really well, and when I can’t, I just get annoyed and move on (usually). There is one obvious downside to this. I can tell if I really like someone well before they feel the same way, so I have a tendency to come on strong and scare people off. Oh, well. Who wants to be around people who scare easily, anyway?

My eyes. Scorpios are well known for their eyes. I’m fairly certain the only people I can lose staring contests to are other Scorpios. Most people have problems with holding my gaze. I also have incredible control over my eyes and can pretty much choose for them to reflect any feeling I want. I’ve had other Scorpios tell me that people have always said stuff about their eyes, but never really understood what they were talking about until they met me. I have no idea where I originally found this, but: “Don’t even both trying to identify a Scorpio. If a Scorpion is attracted to you, they will search you out. Your first hint will be the pair of hypnotic eyes that scrutinize you from head to toe. The Scorpio will then decide whether you will be accepted or rejected. Flirting is useless with a Scorpio. Scorpion’s want and demand loyalty, devotion and true passion.”

Speaking of flirting….this is actually something I like about myself sometimes and sometimes I don’t. I hate flirting. I mean, it’s fun, sometimes. But it’s so completely pointless. Just get to the point. I hate mind games, like playing hard-to-get. Just say what you feel and mean it. I hate feeling pressured into having to play these stupid games when I’m dating. They just make me lose interest and think that someone is fake. If you’re going to make me guess if you like me or not, I’m just going to assume that you don’t and go away. You know, unless you happen to fall into a current obsession. And then I’ll just be stubborn and annoy you until you actually don’t like me. (Or, in some cases, fall in love with me. My personality quirks don’t always fail me.)

But, to sum up, this is me. You can love me or you can hate me. I’m not going to change.

“That’s silly,” you say. “You’re blogging right now.” True. But I guess I really don’t have much to blog about these days (you know, besides creepy photos of Easter Bunnies).

When I was blogging for Weddingbee, it all came so easy. I had tons of topics to cover, and it was awesome to have an outlet for my writing with lots of readers to give me feedback. Don’t get me wrong, I love my readers over here (all 5 of you!) but anyone who has ever blogged knows how exciting it is when that comment number keeps growing. It would probably help if I actually ever commented on anyone else’s blog because then people are more likely to come read my blog, but 80% of my Google Reader is comprised of wedding blogs, and I still haven’t really been in the mood to read them. Although I do still keep up with some of the ones that I’ve been following towards the beginning. (Like yours, Ruby Slippers! Sorry I never comment! I’ve been enjoying your recaps and reading about you delving into the world of digital photography.) The remaining 20% are humour blogs (like Fail Blog, Photoshop Disasters, and Picture is Unrelated), local stuff (so I can figure out if there’s anything going on to get me out of the house on the weekend), and general decorating/party planning blogs (which I rarely read anymore either).

But lack of readers aside, I really don’t have all that much to talk about. So, the point of this post (I’m getting to it, I promise): Does anyone have anything they want to read about? I’m looking for any and all ideas, so don’t be shy. It could be something along the lines of irrational fears (one of my few non-wedding related posts over at Weddingbee) or what I think about certain topics or lists of favorite things. Or maybe you want me to go take some cool photos somewhere with my Digital Rebel and post them. Just drop me some ideas! I need to get back in the habit of writing, so I can get motivated to start my novel.

Sorry for my slightly emo post.

Due to the recent gas shortage, I was forced to put regular gas into Lilo this morning. Couldn’t find mid-grade or premium anywhere. I keep expecting her to explode or something. (I know that’s not possible, but she can’t be happy with me.)

About a month ago, Oscar spilled a glass of water on my phone. It acted really weird for a few days but then started working just fine (minus a couple occasions when the only keys that would work were 1, 3, 5, and 9). Well, last Friday, it stopped charging. Now it says ‘unable to charge’ when I plug it into the charger. I also sometimes can’t call out, and I’m not really sure of the status of receiving calls, since it’s dead most of the time, unless I happen to be in my car or in bed (where my two chargers are).

So, until I find some money to get a new phone or it decides to start working (which it could, it did decide to charge for like an hour over the weekend and then stopped again), if you need me you can: email me, send me a message via Facebook, call my business phone (I’ll put the # on my Facebook profile), or call Ben’s phone.

Now that summer is here, you will regularly find me driving around with my windows down, sunroof open, singing along off key to my blaring stereo. I’ve been living here for almost two years, and there’s still one thing that kind of weirds me out: the fact that several of the artists I listen to could be driving right beside me listening to me butcher their songs.

I mean, Ben Folds lives here. Jack White of The White Stripes lives here. Jewel has an apartment here, since she’s here so often. If I listened to country, it would be even weirder, I think.

I realize that the probability is low that this would ever occur, but sometimes I can’t help but peek at the car next to me just to be sure…

Ben drove them to the vet this morning and I’m picking them up this afternoon. I keep thinking about how scared they must be, and I keep getting emotional about it. Ben said they meowed the whole way there. Poor kitties. He called when he got there this morning and asked if we wanted to pay $24 for pain medication for them. I was like, um, yeah! I don’t want my kitties to be in pain.

On Saturday, he went into work as normal. About 15 minutes after he got there, two men came in and pointed a revolver in his face. Ben was quick to react and gave them all the money and they ran out of the store. Thankfully he wasn’t hurt, but I can only imagine how scary that would have been. He said that there was one other employee there with him and about seven customers in the store at the time. He didn’t get a good look at the guys (their faces were covered) but the video cameras did get a look. They hadn’t found them as of Saturday night, and I haven’t heard anything else about it. Ben said they got away with about $1500.

Scary. I’m just really, really glad he’s okay.

Ben, Wayne, and I had a homemade fondue night last night. There are pictures in the photo section, but here are some highlights.

Items to dip: For the cheese fondue, we had broccoli, celery, bread, and summer sausage. For the main fondue, we had chicken, beef, tortellini, and lobster. For the chocolate fondue, we had strawberries, marshmallows, brownie bites, and cheesecake.

The fondues:

I created these on AIM’s website to use as buddy icons.

Me as an M&M.

Me as a Simpsons character.

I created this one for this superheroes thing on Facebook.

Ben and I went to look at a kitten this weekend. I had seen him on Petfinder and thought he was really cute. When we got there, he was playing with his brother and sister. They said it was better to get two if you weren’t home during the day so they wouldn’t get lonely. And they looked so cute. So I got two. And here’s some pictures:

There’s a few things left at the apartment that I will be getting tomorrow, but for the most part, I am moved in here. The Internet is up and running (as you can tell); however, the digital cable is giving me a headache (between Ben and I, we have called Comcast about some sort of problem with the cable at least 5-6 times in the past 24 hours…I keep getting him to call them because he is way better at getting them to actually do something than I am). There are a million boxes everywhere, especially upstairs, since we are still working on the floors in the bedrooms (I am basically in a cave of boxes right now). I would take and post pictures of the chaos, but I’m not really sure where the camera’s USB cable is. It took me forever to find my phone charger so I could charge my phone that had been dead since the beginning of the move. Here’s to hoping I can get everything straight before the festivities this weekend. Thankfully, I’m only working three days this week.

It’s Lilo!

It felt like home. It was initially weird, since I’m so used to Ariel, but it became natural in no time. They didn’t have exactly what I wanted on the lot, but they found several others that were being shipped to the states soon that they could get and are going to call and make inquiries on them tomorrow. I could have my Mini as soon as Thursday. I have decided to name her Lilo.