Thank you to my sweet husband for editing this video for me on our anniversary.
Isn’t he just the best? I love it. What do you think?
xoxo,
Adora
Author Archives: adoramae
Education
I can safely say in the nearly 4 years I have been out of college, I have learned more from cracked.com articles than all four years of college combined. I don’t know if I am just more hungry for knowledge now that I genuinely understand that education isn’t free, if I’m genuinely interested in brain mapping, historical misconceptions, & physics or if it’s just easier to keep my attention if you drop a swear word every once in awhile. I will tell you that when I “learn” about some big development in science…that happened in 1999, I curse my public school education.
Perhaps I should just stick to “I do love little kittens.”
Relax, it’s funny.
xoxo,
Adora
I promise…
I promise this won’t become a blog where I only talk about my (precious little baby) cats. However, you’re here… so you should look at this magic. I love my husband.
Josh and Boba
Could you just die?
xoxo,
Adora
Kittens and Babies and Everything Nice
Well, last night Josh and I went and adopted two little baby kittens, they are brother and sister and so adorable. After MUCH back and forth, we named them Boba (the boy) and Prim (the girl)…yes, we named the boy after Star Wars and the girl after the Hunger Games, so what?
Anyway, Josh and I may have only dated for eight months before we got married, but I’ve known him for several years. I realized last night, however, that in all those years I’d known him it had always been in the same type of situations and not one involved the care of animals or babies or anything helpless. So, last night I saw my husband take on the role of caretaker for the first time.
My mother (who is full of wisdom) encouraged us to get a pet in order to defer the desire to have a baby which has started to occur in me lately. I’m almost twenty-five it was bound to happen sometime.
So we get home with our new little babies who weigh less than three pounds combined and I watch Josh take to these kittens like a fish to water. Now, taking to kittens isn’t hard to do as they are the most adorable little things ever, but he took to feeding them, scooping the litter box, cleaning Boba (he is a messy little eater) and all the other not so fun aspects that come with having pets.
So my mom’s theory pretty much becomes void at this point. I have never been more certain that I picked the right husband or that he will be a phenomenal father. Instead of stemming my baby cravings, seeing all this had the opposite effect. I can’t wait to see him interact with our children some day, but I know it’s not the time for that yet.
So, ladies and gentlemen, our furry little babies: Boba(fett) & Prim(rose)
Boba and Prim
Eeeeeeek!
xoxo,
Adora
The truth is…
Our culture has accepted two huge lies: The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate. – Rick Warren
Stealing
Okay, maybe not stealing stealing. A few weeks ago I found myself sitting bored and alone in a bookstore, so when I came across a copy of Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’ I took the opportunity to crack it open. It’s been almost 10 years since I read that book and even longer since I really enjoyed reading. I remember that this was one of my favorite books my Freshman year in High School, but I couldn’t have even told you the plot, it had just been too long. Anyway, I make my way through the first two chapters during that visit to the bookstore, but alas that book was about $15 and I had (read: still have) about $2 to my name, so I put the book down and moved on.
A few days later, bored again (this is a consistent pattern in my life) and without any plans again, I found myself at the bookstore, reading through the next few chapters sipping a diet root beer. (side note: most of my delight in diet root beer from the bookstore comes from that fact that it comes in brown glass bottles and middle schoolers there always think I’m drinking beer & ask me about it.)
This continued for about a week and a half, if I didn’t have plans I found myself and Barnes & Nobel, scoping out a comfy chair, grabbing the book and diet root beer and just reading for a few hours. Cut to Sunday night, when I am at it again and then suddenly, I was done. I finished the whole book all in the bookstore, without ever having an intention of buying it.
I try and reassure myself, saying that I must have spent $15 on diet root beer during my time spent at B&N, but the truth is… I straight up stole that book, a chapter or two at a time. Anyway, sorry Sylvia Plath, if you hadn’t stuck your head in an oven, I would send you the $15 when I get paid on Friday.
P.S. If you ever want to feel COMPLETELY sane by comparison, read this book. The narrator is going crazy; you will never feel more sure of your sanity then when you are hearing the first person account of someone who is totally losing it. That is all.
Suck it up
One of the least fun things about becoming a grown up is the idea that you are now responsible for your own emotions and the expression of them must now be done cautiously and with forethought.
There were days when a miscommunication with a friend could result in any of the delightful fight tactical responses; there was the cold shoulder, rumors behind their back, yelling, passive aggressive sarcasm, or my personal favorite: pretending the person no longer exists.
Adulthood does not allow for these types of responses. If you don’t believe me try any of the fight tactics on your boss and see how long you can keep your job while using them. We can no longer be immature in our emotions, we have to come to terms with mistreatment and hurt feelings, (even the times when our feelings were hurt on purpose) sigh at our lack of ability to change them, the past and other people and just move on.
There if a silver lining to this grown up change. As an adult you won’t get calls from your friends explaining that they have had a fight with a mutual friend and that you must now pick whose side you will be on or you will lose them both for life. Essentially, the down side is you can’t act like an overly emotional idiot, and the up side is neither can anyone else.
Suck it up, it’s the Grown Life.
Manna Manna Manna Manna Rockin’ Everywhere!
What was Paul smoking? ::
“…I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation…-Philippians 4:12″
Safe to say, I have NOT mastered this yet. It may be just as safe to say I never will. If history is any indicator, I am the least content person in the history of the world. I find this to be most true when it comes to my relationship with God. I am not a person who looks at God like a genie in a bottle, in fact I have always handled God saying no to whatever requests I made of him, fairly well. Where I tend to totally mess up is when he says “Yes!” but not in the way I wanted him to say yes.
Recently, I have been struggling with making friends in the new town the Lord moved me to nearly a year ago. For awhile I was content to be by myself in my spare time, breaking my social solitude with a 5 hour (each way) drive back home to see my ‘real friends’. However if you know me, you know I was not built to be alone. I thrive when i’m around other people and involved in their lives. I also, had never had a problem making friends so when I finally gave up on living a life without other people I expected the friend making process to go quickly and smoothly as it always has in my past. This was not the case. I prayed fervently for friends and when I would meet people, we just wouldn’t click and I would toss the idea of them as a friend aside and keep on searching. I kept praying and meeting people for the first time, then deciding to never meet with them again. For awhile I was beginning to think that God didn’t want me to be friends. On that subject I approached him with anger and questioning, backtalk and sass. “Why don’t you want me to have friends? You are relationship God, why on earth do you want me to have no one in my life?!” This went on for awhile.
Then I read Exodus.
I sat there thinking to myself. “You stupid Israelites! God is giving you this magical food that no one else in the history of the world has ever had, and that no one else will ever have again, and you COMPLAIN?!” You see, the Israelites wanted food, but not the food that God had given them. The way they complained would have made you think that God wasn’t feeding them at all, but this wasn’t the case. So I sat there reading away, feeling so sure of myself that I would have eaten the Manna and I would have been so greatful for it. I would never have complained to God like that and I am so great.
Then He said it, then God said “Your Manna is the friends I have given you.” Ouch! Way to hit below the belt Jesus!
Naturally God and I went back and forth, because arguing with infinite wisdom always works out for you. (okay, not really) But we went back and forth; I carefully explained to God how my situation was different and yada yada yada. Needless to say, I lost that argument and started to really think about this new truth that God just dropped on me.
You see, I have what I asked for. I have people around me that I like, that are good influences, people who I can learn from and (maybe) teach something to. I couldn’t see this because when you’re throwing a big tantrum you squeeze your eyes shut so tight that you miss what’s going on around you. My manna is good. My manna meets my needs, and as time is passing I’m starting to see that it is exactly what I need right now, and even becoming what I genuinely want.
Doing things like a grown up girl…err I mean, woman.
I still feel weird when I refer to myself as a woman. I am still taken aback when someone asks me if I have kids. I kind of just assume that everyone will realize I’m young. However, I’m starting to realize that I’m not really as young as I’ve been thinking I am and it’s time to start living a woman’s life.
There will be many future entries on this topic but today we are just going to cover: The Art of Grocery Shopping.
I learned how to grocery shop when my mom was a full time teacher and I was in college with no job. So, my parents would give me grocery money and I would scour for coupons and discounts because any money that was left over after groceries I could keep. This was a great learning experience for me, and if everything in my life had gone as planned and I was married by now and planning a family this would be a wonderful skill for me to have. However, I live alone, I work full time and I have yet to figure out how to grocery shop for one person. One would think that it’s all the same; just buy the groceries. That however, is a common misconception. Mind you, I’ve lived on my own for over 8 months now, and I’ve just figured out, after throwing out hundreds of dollars worth of spoiled food, that I can’t shop like I’m buying for a family.
Grocery Shopping for a Single Girl Myth: Never buy premade items, they are way more expensive than If you make it yourself.
You see when I buy a whole bag of lettuce and tomatoes and carrots and cucumbers and onions and bell peppers for a salad, I spend about $15.00 and before I can eat all of it, mold will win the battle and it will get tossed out. However, when I spend $2.00 on a small Publix premade garden salad, I know it’s fresh and I will be eating all of it the day I buy it. Even if I eat one a day all week that’s still only $14.00 and it will always be fresh. The make my own salad method would produce spoiled vegetables before the week was over, therefore I get more salad for less money when I buy premade. This newly learned lesson blew my mind.
keep runnin’ runnin’ and runnin’ runnin’
I sometimes think I was born to be an encourager. Don’t get me wrong, I can be a B!@*# when I want to be; but I have found that more often than not, I draw a lot of strength from encouraging other people.
I have suspected this about myself for a while but really started to see it when it came to the whole running/fitness and diet/nutrition pact that Lindsay and I are attempting to commit to. When I was in Tampa last weekend and ran 2 miles with Lindsay (the farthest I’ve ever ran at one time) I kept looking over at her and smiling and trying to yell encouraging things over the sound of our headphones (although she didn’t really need any of my encouragement) I felt like the run was easier for me while I was trying to lift her spirits. Actually, I thought, “Wow! I can do this 2 miles thing! I will have no problems doing it again when I get back home!”
I. Was. So. Wrong.
Standing in my gym back home with an overly toned, bleach blond, spray tanned, want-to-be model giving me the stink eye every time I tried to give her the old “we are both working out, and I acknowledge you as a person” smile. Here, the 2 miles seemed so much longer of a distance. So I start my run, not really stretched out since there’s no real place for me to do that, and no one to do it with. I run. I run. I start to realize I’m tired and not even a half-mile into this beast. I look around for someone to encourage me, but only catch eyes with an old lady who is looking at me the way most people do the first time they see me work out, fearful and concerned, she doesn’t know that purple color my face has become is normal for me. Next thing you know I’m just passing a mile and having to stop and stretch and deep breath, and get another dirty look from Ms. Super-Fit.
Then. Right then is when I realized. I don’t need someone to encourage me, I need someone to encourage. Someone to lift up, someone to make think that this run is easier for me than it really is, so they are more confident that they too can finish strong.
I’m not sure if I’m really talking about running anymore or just life in general; but here it is, a little bit of me for your consideration.