04.03.22 • Live Music • Laptop Issues •

A cool thing happened last night – Two of my friends who I worked with nearly a decade ago are both in separate bands, and they were playing at the same venue last night! Rarely do I get to see them both play on the same night, so I was elated to learn about this show and I cannot tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to it!

I have been going to Hungry Hollow’s shows for almost ten years, and I have always attended as many shows as I possibly can. Back in the beginning, both friends I saw last night were a part of Hungry Hollow, so seeing them both yesterday felt familiar and special. Hungry Hollow’s music regularly gets played in my car, and attending their shows has become to be one of my absolute favorite things to do. With COVID-19 in recent years, it has been a long time since I last got to attend one of their shows, and I didn’t expect how good it would feel to be a part of one again.

I haven’t yet been as familiarized with Kasteel’s music, and watching their show made me realize how much I have been missing out on. The first song they played in their set, Head Down – if memory serves me correctly, blew me away and I’m dying to hear it again! I’m certain their music is going to find a regular spot in my library, and I’m looking forward to attending their next show.

I have missed experiencing live music so much. The energy of that kind of atmosphere is one of my absolute favorite things in the world. I hope that this year brings many opportunities for me to rekindle that love.

If you’re someone who is electrified by live music the way I am, I recommend looking for events in your neighborhood of local bands and giving them a chance. The magic of local music is unique, the experience is intimate, and the memories are personal.

The laptop I write with is about a decade old. Up until the last few months, it has been working perfectly, but lately, it’s starting to show some issues. It will randomly think certain keys on my keyboard are stuck and repeat them over and over again whenever I click on a box that allows text, it will abruptly start glitching and everything on my screen will begin to dance, or like today – it will keep freezing and the screen will randomly go black.

Sometimes, when I open my web browser and I am prompted with the option to restore my old session, it will instead restore a session from a month or two ago. Every day, there is a new issue with it and I am becoming so nervous that it doesn’t have much life left in it… All I want to do is write! All I need is for my laptop to hang on until I can replace it. I’m so worried… I would be angry and sad if, after all of this hard work, I abruptly had to halt it all because my laptop decided its life has ran its course. Just a little while longer, old friend…

04.05.22 • Job Interview •

I have a job interview on Thursday. Aaaaahh!! I’m nervous and excited… I feel as prepared as I don’t. I hope they like me, and I hope I like them, too. The opportunity seems amazing; the commute is nice, and the location is perfect for where I live now, where I would like to live down the road, and where the people I care most about live, too. The role is in a field that I want to grow in, and according to what I can find online, the atmosphere and the employees seem to have a respectable and comfortable reputation. Boy, do I hope that it is as good as it sounds, and boy do I hope I’m what they’re looking for. This could be really good…

The idea of beginning at a new place is as unsettling as it is intriguing. It’s an odd feeling when you’re forced into a position where you must begin a new chapter and I keep having to remind myself to refrain from questioning and doubting the unknown. A big enough part of me is excited about a fresh start that the feelings of worry have been fairly easy to combat so far, but as things become increasingly more real, all of the “what-ifs” swarming my brain are becoming increasingly more prominent.

I hope I’ve done enough with the preparations of my website to maintain momentum through this new chapter – you know – providing all goes well on Thursday. I think that no matter what, I will wish I had more time to do more here before starting at a new job, so I need to figure out how to stop worrying about this element of everything. I love it here, I’ve been working hard on a fool-proof plan, everything will be fine.

Aaaaaahh…..! I hope I love it and if I love it I hope I get it. Aaaaaaaah!

Everyone who reads this is lucky because you get to know what happens in the same space of time. I have to wait two whole days before the butterflies in my stomach can finally relax. A true supporter will wait two days before reading whatever I write here on Thursday to experience the same anxiety I have now. (I’m kidding, of course.)

I feel both like I definitely have enough time to prepare and like there is no way in Hell that I have enough time to prepare. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this flustered for an interview before. Granted, I’ve never been so certain about the career path I wish to set out on, either. Everything leading up to this point for me has been about learning what I like and what I don’t, and now knowing what I like, and not knowing if I meet the qualifications for the avenue I wish to explore has thrown me on a rollercoaster – the type you need to sign a waiver to ride, and I’m not certain I’m strapped in all that securely. This is wild. I’m feeling a lot of things.

04.07.22 • Job Interview Day • Visiting Family •

Well, today was the day of my interview. I was so nervous all morning, and I was sending my mom and sister photos of the outfit I chose and how I did my make-up and hair to get their feedback. I relied on my sister a lot beforehand for words of encouragement and doses of confidence, and she was incredible at helping me keep sane and calm.

On Monday, she and I drove by the place just so I could have a look, and today, I used Google Maps to aid me, but just from that one short drive-by I already confidently knew the way and I scarcely checked in with the directions on the way. The ride felt way too short, I wished I could have kept driving for a while yet before arriving, just for that extra bit of time to collect my thoughts and reign in all my feelings! I arrived about ten minutes early which felt good. I remember two jobs ago – I showed up to my interview nearly ten minutes late because I was struggling to find the damn place, so it was a relief to not have those burdens facing me this time around!

This interview felt different than any other interview I’ve ever been in. Not that it was the most challenging one – my last place of employment takes the cake on that one, boy was that a different interview. Maybe I’ll talk about it more someday. No, the reason why this one was so impactful was that arguably, it’s the first time I was applying for a job in a career I knew I wanted to pursue. At my last job, I was originally hired in an administrative role, and I was quickly promoted into more of an IT role, and that experience made me realize how excited about an IT career I was, and that’s the role I applied for now…

Up until this point, I’ve been figuring out what I want to do, and so knowing that I was applying for a role that I wanted to grow in had a totally different impact on how I felt about the interview. I’ve also been worried about my IT experience, as my last job is the only real experience I have in the IT field, and I know that my toolbelt isn’t as developed as many other applicants might be. In fact, this was the only IT-related role I applied for while I was looking and that was largely due to my worry about not being qualified enough.

This was also the place I was hoping to hear back from the most… So, I had a lot riding on today. I honestly wasn’t confident in how it would play out, and I was trying to keep my expectations low because of every factor. Remember what I said last week about my feelings about every place I handed out a resume? Do you see how applicable it is now?

Anyway, to my relief – the interview felt like it went well. I was there for a full hour, and I caught them going off-script and asking me questions outside of the ones they had prepared several times. I also noticed them beginning to shift their language from “if” to “when,” and “our next employee” to “you” several times which certainly boosted my confidence.

Not only did I feel good about the feedback I received from the interview, but learning about their company firsthand and hearing the responses they had to the questions I had for them, I fell more in love with the idea of working there. Genuinely, their values seem to mirror mine, and all of the reasons I have for liking working anywhere in general, they seem to have accommodated in their company. I think it has the actual potential of being a place I would love to work at, and the environmental aspect is arguably equally as exciting as the position itself for me. So… my fingers are very, very crossed. My knuckles are white and I ran out of fingers to cross.

My final piece of good news from that experience came from taking my sister’s advice and sending a follow-up thank you email after the interview. If anything at all, I was expecting to receive a polite, generic, acknowledgment email, but instead, I got this:

The email came at a good time too, because even though I felt good after leaving the interview, of course, worry and doubt inevitably set in later and I started second-guessing every interaction I had while I was there. I began reading between lines that didn’t exist and worrying that the good feelings I had had prior were falsified and imagined through the lens of my rose-colored glasses. You know, the natural post-interview emotional rollercoaster that always seems to set in…

I don’t feel like I’m a shoo-in at all, mind you. I’m certain some more qualified candidates applied for the position and considering I am just stepping foot into this career path, I don’t feel totally assured by anything that has played out so far. I’m eager for their call, but I’m also being very careful and mindful to keep my expectations at a reasonable level and keep my emotional state as balanced as I am able. Practically, there is still a good chance they don’t choose me, and it shouldn’t be something that shatters me – given all elements in this complex puzzle. Regardless of what happens, it was a good experience and I intend to move forward whether the news I hear is what I’m hoping for or not.

If I am to receive bad news, part of me hopes that I don’t hear back from them until Monday, because right now, I am riding a high after that interview and it is one I would like to carry through the weekend. Also, if it is bad news, I hope I’m able to cling to the positive aspects of this experience enough to have a similar experience in every interview I wind up in before my next chapter begins.

I really, really hope that it’s good news…

After the interview, I hung out with my mom for a while and she bought me Booster Juice (despite her opinions on it,) and I gushed all my feelings to her. When my sister was off work, I visited her and repeated the same feeling-gushing as I did with my mom. My sister also has a lot of new and exciting things going on in her life, especially in the aspect of her career, so it was a real “yes, and…” visit with her, and our excitement and enthusiasm built up a lot while we were together.

Overall, today was a very good day. Here’s to more good days in my future…

04.08.22 • Balance Board • Kitty vs Puppy • More Danika’s Memory Box! •

I have been improving surprisingly rapidly on my balance board. I’m very excited because this makes the probability of learning tricks in my future all the more likely, and there’s so much I’m dying to learn! I feel significantly less afraid of falling than I did on day one, and I’ve already begun finding new ways to challenge myself. Today, for example, I learned how much more impactful squatting on a balance board feels compared to just on the ground… I couldn’t believe the burning sensation I felt after one – not-so-low – squat, but also, finding the balance to be able to do that at all was an achievement all on its own! I started practicing squatting because understanding the balance required for getting lower to the ground will open up the catalog of tricks I could hypothetically learn in the future.

I also learned the pros and cons of the size of the cylinder beneath my board. Watching videos of people on balance boards now, I imagine the initial terror of balancing on a larger cylinder must be significant, considering the sensation of falling I already have with my itty bitty one, but the advantage the larger ones seem to have over mine is the ability to continually shift back and forth on the board without accidentally chipping the end of it on the floor as you go to do your next pass.

Though with that, maintaining the ability to stay off the ground as I transition from one side of my board to another is more challenging, and I think I’m learning a lot more about my limits and boundaries with a smaller cylinder than I would if it was larger. I have to be more particular about my footing and my lean to keep a longer flow, and I honestly believe that that element of this experience is giving me an advantage of learning more rapidly and completely.

I knew I was going to love balance boards, but I honestly didn’t know that I would love them this much. It is such a fun hobby, and I hope I stick with it for a long while yet. There are so many different avenues to explore in terms of what you may be able to do, and I want to explore all of them. I want to be able to do cool things and have people say, “Hey look – she’s doing cool things!”

I have lived with my boyfriend for about a couple of years now, and previous to our relationship, I got myself my kitty. For a very long time, I did not bring my kitty here because he owns two dogs; one of which suffers from high anxiety, and with both breeds we know she’s mixed with, we know there’s a high likelihood of her having a high prey drive as well. For a long time, I was nervous to bring my kitty here but after long consideration, heavy guilt for not being the one to take care of my kitty, and deep conversations, I decided to try bringing her here and seeing whether we could make it work.

The first little while was rough. We had my kitty, Thirteen in a room by herself most of the time and we would bring her out for slow, supervised introductions, and the dogs were too hyper, anxious, and frantic for us to keep Thirteen out for long. Over time, we were able to bring Thirteen out for longer durations of time, and the dog’s response slowly minimized in electricity. We trialed and errored several ideas, some stuck, some were taken off the roster, and some were modified.

One modified idea, for example, was we turned a dog crate into what we called a “kitty condo.” The crate is rather large, and you have visibility of everything in the crate from every angle, so the idea was to put Thirteen in it for short durations of time, so the dogs could see her move around and act like a cat with the barrier of safety for every animal involved.

We quickly learned that Luna, the dog with anxiety, found that place to be a safe space, and instead of the crate being for the kitty, we will have Luna lay in the crate during movie time, because whether the door is closed or wide open, we have found that when Luna is laying in it, she does not whine or show any signs of stress when she is inside it and Thirteen is in her presence, where if she leaves the crate, even with no other changes, she begins to show signs of stress around our kitty friend.

Within the last few days, I have seen the most prominent leaps of progress through this journey. Not only does Luna have high anxiety, but she also has zero desire to listen to me. Since the beginning of our relationship, I have had to rely on Corey, my boyfriend, to correct her behavior because, despite every attempt, she has shown no ambition to respect my commands.

The other day, I asked Corey if I could let Thirteen out for a while, and Corey said he had his own things to go do and he could not be present for it. Considering the progress already made, I decided I would give being solely in charge of interaction between Thirteen and Corey’s two dogs, Cali and Luna a chance… If I was careful, I could trap Thirteen and me together inside my office before anything horrendous happened, surely. Up until this point, I had made an avid point of having Corey around for every interaction because of Luna’s stubborn decision to only listen to Corey.

Luna loves Corey more than anything on this entire planet, after all. The devotion she has to him is honestly immeasurable.

Up until that point, Corey could watch over Luna, Cali, and Thirteen on his own, but I never had on my own. Corey was always present.

I was nervous about this new trial, and that is putting it extremely lightly.

For whatever reason, Luna decided that day would be the first time in the history of our relationship that she would give listening to me a try, so with every little thing, even if it seemed so insignificant and dismissable, I would hype up my enthusiasm and appreciation, and I would call her A REALLY GOOD GIRL OH MY GOODNESS YOU’RE A  GOOD GIRL YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD GIRL AND YOU’RE DOING GOOD GIRL THINGS YOU GOOD GIRL…Like, I made the biggest deal about every single thing.

Turns out, Luna responds very well to being told she is a good girl. By the end of that trial, I had her in a sit-stay, I was walking circles around her, and Thirteen was bouncing around exploring in the background – at one point even crossing her path so close that I’m sure she stepped on Luna’s foot, and Luna’s attention was only on me. Luna was showing zero signs of stress or anxiety. Her tail was not helicoptering, she wasn’t making a single whimper or whine, her ears were relaxed, her eyes weren’t showing the whites, her jaw was relaxed… She was calm!

Trust me, without knowing this dog, you can not grasp how big of a deal that was. Corey got her as a rescue, and she has had a traumatic and depressing past, which is why she suffers from anxiety today and probably is a reason why she cares about Corey so much. Hell, she still occasionally guards Corey from me, and she knows me – and my relationship with Corey – very well at this point, so saying that the other day was a milestone is honestly understating it. Not only did she listen, but she was happy, relaxed, and calm – with a cat in her presence and me alone to supervise. Unbelievable.

Since then, I have been letting Thirteen out more and more frequently. Being able to supervise on my own allowed me a lot more freedom and opportunity to help her and the puppies coexist. Since then, I have seen incredible things.

The following day, I let Thirteen out, and when I was occupying Cali’s attention, I failed to notice when Thirteen had slipped downstairs. Corey was downstairs at the time playing video games, and that meant Luna was downstairs too – as she’s never far from him if she can help it. A couple of weeks ago, this wouldn’t have ended well. I would have heard scared meows, maybe even a growl from Thirteen – and it would have probably ended in a not-so-friendly kitty-nose-boop. I would have heard anxious, loud, high-pitched whines from Luna… She would have been intrusive on Thirteen, and she would not let up. However, instead, Luna walked RIGHT BY Thirteen – not a sound made by either of them. Luna walked upstairs – calmly – directly to me, her body language comfortable and balanced. She sat in front of me and waited for me to call her a good girl.

After one day. One day. She remembered our experience from before, and she related seeing Thirteen to ignoring her and coming to me to be told she was a good girl. One day!

I’ve been seeing miraculous things of that nature ever since. Every day, I am beaming, elated to tell the stories of progress I’ve witnessed to Corey, my sister Davon, and Corey’s sister Kelsey. I’m sure they’re growing tired of my updates by now, but I’ve just been over the moon!

Just before I began writing about this, I had let Thirteen out again. I was keeping both Luna and Cali occupied – as my newest mission has been to show them that they can relax in Thirteen’s presence, which has meant rewarding them when they leave her alone, and trying to keep them in a sit or a lie down while she wanders about, and again, I lost sight of Thirteen long enough for her to saunter downstairs.

Thirteen isn’t the most agile cat. I regularly have to catch her butt when she tries to jump on my lap, and she’s more likely to hide than she is to run – which means Luna and Cali haven’t really seen Thirteen in action much at this point. She scarcely travels faster than a slow walk, and even when it’s quick, it’s just for short bursts – just long enough for her to get behind the couch, or dart through a doorway… Nothing fantastic. I keep telling her that her dad was a panther despite all the evidence I see that that cannot be the case.

Today, when Thirteen went downstairs, I decided to try and retrieve her, and Luna and Cali both briskly pushed by me at the top of the stairs. Thirteen was outside my line of vision, but it turned out that she was just at the bottom of the staircase. When she was suddenly surprised by Luna and Cali’s appearance, she boltedup the stairs and to my office doors. Cali took off after her, and I managed to catch Cali at the top of the stairs, but Luna…

Luna, high anxiety, prey drive, Luna

Luna remained at the bottom of the stairs and awaited my instruction. Luna kept eye contact with me, and her body language remained calm. Luna did not attempt to take off after Thirteen, even after Cali led by example.

Un-forking-believable. I cannot express how absolutely HUGE that is. I feel more and more confident every day that it won’t take much longer until Thirteen can have free range of the house and I can feel comfortable with it. I’m not going to get ambitious with that though, I want to take my time and be certain that everything will be fine before I throw Thirteen into the deep end, but I am elated. I can’t wait until Thirteen can have a comfortable life again that is as fulfilling as she deserves, and this week, I’ve taken gigantic steps towards that being a reality. I’m relieved, grateful, and enthusiastic. My God, I can’t believe how well this week went! The future is bright, folks!

Tomorrow is the first day a Two Minute Read will be posted – which means finally, more content here! I can only bore you with the going-ons of my life for so long…

I know it has to seem typical for a blogger to show enthusiasm about their website and I bet it doesn’t always come across as genuine, but I honestly, truly cannot tell you how thrilled I am. I mean that sincerely; every time and everything I post, I am refreshing my notifications far more regularly than I would care to admit, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate every tiny bit of engagement I receive. I think long and hard about everything I want to put here, and I’m continuously feeding off my excitement to create and post more.

With my new Two Minute Read chapter, I’m excited for the ability to provide regular short reads, not only for the safety net of being able to regularly post here again but also for the triumphant meaning that every Two Minute Read has – though it may not always be apparent. I want to ramble on about all of my thoughts all of the time, but it has come to my attention that that isn’t sustainable – and I believe that Two Minute Reads will aid my ability to make this website everything I want it to be, and it will keep you engaged until I have the next thing.

Two Minute Reads are designed to equip you with the tools to make your every day better, and hopefully – in turn, give you a better quality of life overall. If you’ve been here a while, you know that that is unimaginably important to me. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you’re excited about them, too. They’re a lot different than what you’ve become accustomed to here, but those long-winded, thought-provoking reads you’re used to will also (and always) be prevalent too. I hope you give Two Minute Reads a fair chance, and I hope they become something you look forward to engaging with every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I hope they become a regular part of your routine, as they are mine – in more ways than one.

In fact – since I’m beginning Two Minute Reads in mid-April, if you’re reading this, I challenge you to see how many Two Minute Reads you can fully implement into your life as they come up for the remaining duration of this month. See if you can incorporate every Two Minute Read in April into your day, and please tell me how it impacted your life come April’s end. Despite their length for the reader, a great deal of dedication, careful thought, and passion has gone into each one for me, the writer, and I hope that’s apparent.

All in all, I’m excited to be back. I look forward to sharing everything in my little noggin with you, and I hope you enjoy the ride. This place means the world to me, and I feel like I’ve barely begun. Thank you for participating in my weekly activities these last few weeks, despite these reads being the only new content as of late. That changes now! I will still, and always provide these weekly updates, and I hope you continue to follow along. I also hope, and perhaps I care more, that you find value and comfort in everything else I have coming down the pipe.

I know this week had a lot more to read and if you’re still here – thank you. Onward and forward! Until next week, friends. ♥︎

While you’re here, why don’t you stay a while and take a look around? Perhaps you would like to read a deeper post about my life, or maybe you’d like to dive into a more complicated subject that will inspire you to ponder, or just maybe – you fancy a fictional read. Whatever your poison, I’m sure you’ll find something for you here, there’s lots to explore!