The Nicki Minaj Catastrophe

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Whoops, sorry about that. My dog attacked my keyboard. Anyways…for those of you that are used to me posting all the intimate details of my life via blog, I decided to be a me monster here for a sec and update you on my life. Or…what’s all happened since I left the blogging scene for the last two months.

I quit my job at Big Apple Bagels. I don’t want to bad mouth anyone so I’ll just be vague and say that me and my boss had a disagreement while my dad was in the hospital and I quit. End of story. I did get the job I had last year back. It’s a flower shop called North Star and I love it. I love flowers, I love the people, I love my co workers, and get this: I have the BEST boss ever. Seriously. I don’t care who your boss is, mine is way cooler than yours mkay?

A few sentences back I mentioned that my Daddo whom I adore, was in the hospital. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced (way worse than passing a cop as you realize you’re accidentally going ten miles over the speed limit). See, he was at work and he had this episode thing where he started slurring his words and was light headed I guess, plus a bunch of other crap I can’t remember because I hate thinking of it. Anyways, they thought he had a TIA so he went to the hospital and resided there for a few. He’s fine now, it turns out that it was just his Sodium/Potassium levels flipping out. Funny though, how you don’t realize how much you love someone until you almost lose them. Even if you think you know…you don’t.

Also, I’ve become an Instagraming fool. Follow me @hollyaugust. I mostly take pictures of flowers we have at work and crap I’ve planted. And beach scenes. You know. Anything I could possibly take a picture of. My ultimate goal is to not post selfies. It’s been pretty easy considering the fact that I’ve pretty much kissed makeup goodbye and never bother to look in the mirror anymore. Sometimes I think I Instagram too much though. I’ve begun to stalk through people’s hair pictures. This one girl had rainbow hair and I actually found myself wanting to do that. Yeah. It looks cool. Until you realize that people are only going to see your hair and be so focused on that that they won’t be able to so much as have a conversation with you because they’ll just be like…you know…checking out your hair. Kind of like Nicki Minaj and her lime green catastrophe…I saw it in People magazine (which I don’t normally read by the way). Plus, I’m pretty sure my boss would fire me if I showed up with rainbow hair.

Oh, and I kind of found the love of my life (just being dumb and girly here). He doesn’t know that I exist though. Don’t you love it when that happens? Anyways I guess I might as well tell you who it is since he’ll never read this. Jordan Taylor. Yeah, you know the guy from Blimey Cow? It was his cute laugh that sealed the deal. He’s adorable and if you haven’t watched his videos, do it. Now. But remember, you can’t have him. He’s mine. Because you can totally lay legitimate claim to people you don’t know via blog post.

Yeah, anyways…that’s pretty much all that’s been happening in my life. Enjoy. See ya later gater.

Band Guys...

(Note: I'm not saying that all guys in bands dress like this. Infact I know a lot who don't. This is simply me venting on my blog. If you can't take it, then please feel free to stop reading.)

Today I feel I must address a most important and disturbing issue in our society.

 This issue is: Guys in bands and how the way they dress screams, “I JUST STOLE MY SISTER’S PANTS!!!!!” even though they probably didn’t (99% of the time anyways).

Awhile back I was wandering around at a Christian music festival, called Big Ticket, in Lower Michigan.  Something I couldn’t help but notice while I was there is the way that the “band guys” dress. It’s pretty hilarious. I would say that about 89% of the band guys were wearing skinny jeans and about %55 percent of the skinnies were three times too small.  I don’t understand why guys do that to themselves. It’s as if they have this attitude of, “Well I’m in a band now so I have to be super obvious about it by wearing my little sister’s skinny jeans and a rad pair of sunglasses that I never take off.” And if they weren’t rockin’ the super skinnies, they were rockin’ the super skinny CUT OFFS.

WHAAAAT?!

True story. And if you’re fortunate enough to not know what skinny cut offs are, then by all means, please let me scar you for life by describing them:

Skinny Cut Offs: Way too tight pants that are cut off just above the knee, thus screaming that the man wearing them is having a bad case of gender confusion. This fashion crisis is generally paired with a wife beater or a really low V neck t-shirt. Both of them just add to the overall awfulness.

I saw one of the guys had his skinny cut offs, rolled up to short shorts. I suddenly felt the urge to make fun of him on my blog. He was probably a hipster.

I mean honestly, if any of the guys in my band showed up wearing that….I would fire him. I don’t care how freakishly talented he is, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR SCARRING PEOPLE FOR LIFE!

I really would rather you be covered in tattoos, pierced up beyond recognition, wear guyliner and have hair longer than mine, than wear skinny cut offs.

So, for those of you teeny bopper fan girls chasing after any guy who can play so much as Smoke On the Water on his First Act guitar, fear not. Fortunately for you, not all guys in bands are trying to fit into size -0 pants. There is hope. That hope lies in you and me. Maybe if we complain enough and make a huge deal out of it, we can force them to convert to shopping in the men’s department again.

Don't Feed the Hipsters

Don’t you just love stereotypes? I do. It’s so easy to put people in a box all neat and tidy, especially if you’re lazy type A like me. I could stereotype people all day. Like, take my brother for instance, he’s a total motorhead. My youth pastor? Boy next door. Psychopath. Dork. My cousin? Jock. My best guy? Musician. My best girl? She’s...well……… okay so; no one really knows what she is. (LOVE YOU AUTIE!)

Like I said. Stereotyping is easy. Almost as easy as writing a whole blog post using. Fragmented. Sentences.

I was thinking yesterday about what I’m generally stereotyped as and if people are labeling me correctly (according to me).

Things I’m most commonly labeled as:

That Homeschooled Kid

Religious/Christian

Musician

Hipster (actually should be at the top of the list because people ask me all the time if I am)

When someone first asked me if I was a hipster, I was thinking “Um…I thought hipsters were a kind of underwear. What the heck?” However, after doing a ton of research on Google (the fount of knowledge according to my boss) I found that hipsters are actually a group of people! And get this; at first glance I almost do resemble a hipster…except that I drive a car. Apparently owning a vehicle is super offensive in hipsterville. But really, you often see me roaming through wherever in an over sized plaid shirt, messy hair, and jeggings or something. And yes I drink tons of coffee, usually stuff I make myself. Also I’m big into buying local (except for a few Amazon splurges) and gardening (mostly herbs). Also, I like a lot of music that most people don’t “get”. Still. I’m not a hipster.

Reasons I’m not a hipster:

I’m conservative                                                                                                          

I take showers

I listen to Coldplay (And they’re way too popular for hipsters to listen to. Although, they probably “listened to them before they were popular”.)

I like almost everything

I try not to have an opinion on every single little thing

I’m too lazy to recycle (sorry mom)

I don’t have a bike as old as my grandmother

I don’t purposely contradict myself

I don’t obsess over indie bands to people that really don’t give a crap

I’m not trying to be a jerk here; I just think the whole idea is ludicrous. Another funny thing this website said is that hipsters love blogging and they almost always use BlogSpot/BLOGGER. Oh and they’re supposedly really sarcastic. If I put the hipster label on every sarcastic person who drinks coffee and buys locally….then about 56% of America's population are hipsters. Just sayin’.

I’m not saying, “Don’t label me a hipster” by all means, label me what you want. After all…what would the world be without nice little stereotyping boxes? So label away. Whatever you do, just don’t feed the hipsters.

What's in a name?

What’s in a name?

I’ve never really given it a whole lot of thought because after doing some internet research on the meaning of my name, all I found was “small shrub with poisonous berries”.

Not far from the truth.

Then my mom found this baby name book from like, the 70’s or something, and apparently the true meaning of “Holly” is actually “good luck”. My guess is, when my parents adopted me they weren’t quite sure what they were doing. They needed all the luck they could get because, let’s face it. I’m a handful….so they named me “good luck”.

Now, me and my little brother have always had a funny relationship. He….well….he doesn’t “act” like the youngest. He has none of their quirks. He acts like the oldest. He tells me what to do, and I do it, or ignore him. And like the mischievous younger sibling, I usually weasel my way out of everything by confusing people into agreeing with me.

                                                                                             ….Probably shouldn’t have said that.

The funny thing is, my brother’s name is James which is a derivative of Jacob which means, “Supplanter”.  Now, think back to Jacob in the Bible. He’s the one who stole his brother’s birthright. He became like THE OLDEST.

So I’ve decided that my twerpy little brother has supplanted. He took away my role of being the dreaded oldest.

Now I’ve been thinking about other names and how they suit the people I know, like, every Deborah that I’ve ever known has been strong, audacious, and occasionally cheeky!

And then there’re others, like “Bonnie” which means “sweet and good”. I know a lady named Bonnie, and she is one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever met!

My dear friends’ mom’s name is Ann which means “full of grace, mercy and prayer”. She has to have grace, mercy, and prayer to put up with me hanging around the house all the time! I love you Mrs. Duran!!!!

Then there’s “Bridget” which means “mighty and strong”. My doctor’s name is Bridget. She’s as mighty and strong as summer days are long.

                                                                                       

That rhymed.

                 [Kind of.]

                               You’re welcome.

Also…I have this theory about guys named Steve….

                                                    ….but we’ll save that for another blog.

Anyways, all these people and their names have got me thinking…I have GOT to give my children good names.

So far, I’ve come up with “Zelda Adele” which basically means “the heroine, noble and kind of spirit” and “Wylie” which means “beguiling and charming”.  A few others I love are, “Zane” a derivative of John which means “gift of God”, “Zelig” which means “blessed”, “Leo” meaning “brave”, and “Birdie” (Yes it’s a [girl’s] name!) which means “sweet little bird”.

Yeah, I like that.                                                                                                                                                              

So how about your name/ name meaning? Does it suit your personality?

B-b-b-back and forth like Vertigo =/

I remember when I was little and had that foreign feeling of…oh what’s it called? Ah, that’s right…ENERGY! Yeah, when I had energy back in the day, I remember my sweet mother trying to calm me down and relax. When all her ideas would fail to catch my interest, she would smile slyly to herself and say, “Hey Holly Girl, I have a game for you!” Me being the psycho six year old that I was, I ran over all excited (I’ve learned over the years that when mom says that she has an “idea” or a “game” it usually involves cleaning something) and asked what the game was. Momma leaned in and almost whispered like it was a secret, “Here’s how you play” she smiled (evilly…bwuahaha) “You look up at the ceiling like this…” she looked up and I copied her, “…and then you spin around and around like this!” and she spun. Then after a few seconds she lay down on the floor and said, “The walls are spinning!”

Now let’s pause here for a second. You’re probably thinking, “Holy cow, Hol’s mom is a weirdo.”  Well let me tell you this dear reader….

                                                                            ……….She is.

She’s always enjoyed weird things like getting her teeth cleaned at the dentist and walking barefoot in the dirt. Personally, I think it’s funny. I love my mom’s weird quirks. It’s what makes her my mom.

Back to the spinny game.

I imitated my mum and I spun and spun with the exuberance of a little girl. Then I crashed to the floor and giggled as the walls spun around and around. I did this over and over and over, never tiring of the feeling of being dizzy.

Now, ten or so years later, I sit here thinking, “…Wow.”

See, Tuesday started out like any other week day. I heard my mom’s voice dancing through the hallway and into my ears, ‘Holly! Get up!’

Me: (opens my eyes, groans, stretches, closes my eyes, rolls over, tries to go back to sleep)

Mom: (being persistent) “….Now.”

Me: (wondering why I feel really weak and tired and wondering if I should tell mom….eventually, deciding that I’m probably just being a wimp, I get out of bed)

(Insert reggae music here as I go about my business doing my taxes [last minute….I know] and doing school and getting ready for work)

So I go to work right? And it’s all good. I was going about my business when all of the sudden, I started to fall over. I caught myself though and I was fine. I moved on. And then the room started spinning like in that game that me and mom used to play. Eventually it got so bad that I gave in and went home. Driving while the world was spinning was pretty interesting. Thankfully, I only ran off the road once.

When I got home, I ate salt (thinking it would get my blood pressure up, if that was the problem) and went straight to bed. The smurf blue walls in my bedroom were spinning and I sighed as I wondered what could be wrong with me. After a few hours of this, I had this brilliant idea to get out my “Nutritional Healing” book and I looked up Vertigo (because my mom said that she thought that’s what was wrong with me). After reading the symptoms, I thought that’s what it was. However, today I went to the doctor’s and she said that it’s some strange virus that’s going around and giving people false "heart attack" alarms and stuff. Weird. So anyways, I have my meds and I’m not contagious and therefore I’m good to go (Praise God!).

In the meantime though, I’m sitting here reminiscing on the days when I would actually MAKE myself dizzy, and laughing at my mom. I mean really, who tells their kids to play games that make them dizzy? I guess I would. But me and my mom are alike that way. We both have relatively warped senses of humor.

The Trash Can Game and The Magic Exploding Latte...

So you know how in my last post I mentioned that ‘I love my job but I really wanted to be trained to be a barista?

Well…..today I was trained as a barista.

Coolest. Thing. EVER.                                                                          

Yeah, I can make lattes and caramel macchiatos and stuff. And I got to smell coffee ALL DAY. Not so say that I was inhaling espresso or anything, it was just the coffee smell in the air, you know?

I always looked at baristas in awe, like they had some amazing talent that I could never in my wildest dreams posses. Like, they were in touch with coffee. It spoke to them. And it does speak to us. We are in touch with it. And it does take talent and by gosh I do posses it! (Victory dance)

Anyhow, the first order of the day was just a plain latte. Simple. I was so excited. My heart pounded within me as my coworker, Natasha, lead me over to the espresso machine and showed me what to do. On the next order, she had me make the latte. So I made the espresso, and then I started to steam the milk. Before I knew what happened, the steaming hot milk exploded all over everything including me and Natasha. It was SO embarrassing. And so funny. I have this strange tendency to laugh at myself when I do something really stupid. What else can you do? Everyone else is laughing at you, so you might as well laugh too because getting mad is getting nowhere. Like earlier this week at youth group we played this game where we all stood in a circle and held hands and sang Kumbaya there was a trash can in the middle. The goal was this: we all had to try to pull other people into or over the trash can. Now, keep in mind I had a little summer dress on therefore I wasn’t too thrilled about this game and figured that being the absolute klutz that I am, I’d probably fall over…in my dress…awwwwwwkwarrrdddd. Nevertheless, I forced myself to stay in. I tried to think optimistic thoughts. So as I stood hand in hand with the two guys beside me, ShinDong (who makes really legit origami frogs) and Jake (the next American Idol) my optimistic thoughts began to fade. I almost wished that I was in between two girls because, let’s face it, we girls are dumb and not competitive and lose just so we don’t have to play (okay, not all girls, but a lot). However, it was too late to take such action and so I stuck it out. I’m pretty sure that Jake and ShinDong were thinking the exact opposite thing during this game because they kept running in the opposite direction and therefore I was being pulled left and right. Yet somehow, I managed to stay in and in the end it was just me and ShinDong left. Then we played another round and it had the same ending, which I thought was hysterical considering that I’m the least athletic person ever. So anyways, it was: Me. The Boy. And the trash can.

I was dead meat.

I looked up at ShinDong standing across from me; I was probably squeezing the life out of his hands, as I mouthed “Please don’t make me fall….please”. So then our youth leader, Matt (…his middle name is awesome…), started counting to three, I braced myself. On three Matt ran up and pushed ShinDong, thinking that maybe it’d spare me the humiliation of falling (my guess), but somehow (I have NO IDEA how since I didn’t see it coming) I toppled over. Or more like, I flew backwards and tried to land somewhat gracefully.

My first thought was, “Oh my gosh this is awful. How embarrassing.”

My second thought was, “….It happens…now laugh before they realize how embarrassed you are!!!”

So I laughed.

Sorry, that was a really long rabbit trail.

Anyways, back to the coffee. Or milk rather. It flew everywhere and all the old guys at the coffee bar were cracking up. So I cracked up with them and grabbed a rag and started to clean up. Thankfully this was my only major mishap of the day. Everything else went pretty smooth and I love my job even more. Even though I had to wake up at 4:30am to get to work on time, it was worth it.

Oh and another thing, my co-workers and my boss, are amazing! I feel so blessed to once again be working amongst super nice, funny people.

Tomorrow I work again, being St. Patty’s Day (and being like, 1/16^th Irish myself) I have to find something green to wear. I hope we don’t sell green bagels…

Paper Cuts and the Lame Guy at Starbucks...

Oh the agony of sitting down at a computer on a lovely day like this...

Unfortunately, my conscience has been nagging at me to “get back in the blogging business” and stop “deserting my precious readers”. Not that I really have any readers, and that’s all the better because sometimes I think it’d be better if the world didn’t get a glimpse into my personal thoughts like this. But then, it could be a good thing seeing as you may actually somewhat kind of possibly almost understand me a teensy bit after going through my blog. I don’t know.

…The caffeine is talking again.

                                                         …..Shhhh…..

Anyways…you might know from my last post that I quit my job, and well…in that time I’ve found a new one. All I did was print up a bunch of resumes and drive in to town and start looking. I started out at Payless Shoe Store where they told me that I had to be eighteen to work there. What. The. Heck. I mean, really, it’s not like I’m selling knives or lighters or alcohol! They’re SHOES for crying out loud!

Yeah…

So after that, I walked over to the Hallmark store and they told me the same thing. Probably because selling overpriced cards and books is super dangerous. Paper cuts you know…

Then I went to Starbucks. Oh loverly Starbucks. I walked in and as soon as I saw the guy working, I pretty much knew that he wouldn’t know whether or not they were hiring. He kind of smiled and said, “Heyyyy how can I help you?”

I asked if they were hiring by any amazing chance.

“Ummm……er…….ehhh…..ahhhh….I’m not sure…..you could check online?”

Yeah…that’s what he said.

So I thanked him and left.

Then I saw a Big Apple Bagels across the parking lot (All these businesses were kind of located in a strip mall type of thing) and I thought, “Why not?” I drove over there and to my great delight I saw a gargantuan “HIRING” sign on the door. So I straightened my dress, put my shoulders back (I have a nasty habit of slouching), slapped a hopeful smile on my face and walked on in. I had no idea what they did at Big Apple Bagels…. (Although I was guessing it had something to do with bagels, I mean come on…I’m not that dumb…) but I knew I needed a job. Opening the door, I caught a delightful whiff of fresh bagels and coffee! Oh it was so nice and toasty in there, I smiled to myself and walked swiftly (without tripping oh sweet surprise) over to the lady at the counter (who I later found out was the manager) and told her that I noticed they had a HIRING sign out front and that I was interested in working here if they’d have me (although I said it much less eloquently [not that that was at all eloquent or anything] and I’m pretty sure I stuttered….a lot). So the lady handed me an application containing questions such as, “Have you committed a felony in the last five years?” and “Why do you want to work here?” and blah blah blah. I filled it out and brought it back to her, she looked it over and asked me if I’d come in Wednesday at 7:30am for a working interview. I just about squealed in excitement and told her that I’d most definitely be there.

Wednesday morning I was so siked that I practically leapt out of bed and I started singing the theme song from Happy Days!

Wednesday morning, like every morning, I slapped my alarm clock thing repeatedly until it turned off, and almost fell back to sleep. I dreamt about my mom bringing me coffee in bed and I actually considered posting that on facebook hoping that she’d see it and bring me the elixir of life itself, but then I realized that I would have to sit up to drink it so I might as well just get up. Gosh, I thoroughly despise mornings. A lot. Though nevertheless, I survived and I made it to my working interview on time. Like, RIGHT on time. The manager, being the joyful extrovert that she is, was really excited (or acted like it) to see me and we started training right away. That day was focused on sandwich building and smearing cream cheese on massive bagels. It was actually pretty fun, I learned fast and once I got over my fear of the knife I could whip up a triple decker sandwich in almost no time at all! Still, the whole time I was making food, I wished inwardly that I was making coffee. One of the reasons that I wanted the job was so I could (make money for college and…) learn how to make lattes and frappuccinos and such because…well, I love coffee.

Near one o’clock I got the news that I was hired. I was ecstatic as I skipped out of the building and into my car. Of course the first thing I did was post it on facebook. Something to the effect of, “I GOT THE JOBBBB!!!!”

So yeah. Now I have an amazing job. Thank you Jesus!