yogarific!

three days in a row? scotty's on fiiiiirrreeee :) its been a while since i pulled out an austin powers reference, so youre welcome!

so yoga - im obsessed right? its challenging and awesome all at once. who knew sweating profusely and twisting your body could make you feel so great?! i love it.

i have a friend that lives in the bahamas and she is a yoga instructor. i started to talk to her about where she studied and let me tell you - i'm hooked. She studied in the bahamas - http://www.sivanandabahamas.org/index.php here! yes please! ok so it is a four week insensive training program and something i would totally love to do! you can stay in a tent or a dorm, tho i would likely pick a tent and everyday you meditate and do yoga and eat delicious healthy food. the more i think about it, the more i want to go - like tomorrow! i think it would be such an amazing experience and while i would miss everyone here, its only 4 weeks and the trade off is so great.

sometimes i feel so out of whack, like when you see those guys who spin plates on top of long sticks and then he gets out of rhythem and the plates dont spin all together and wobble and topple. i feel like that. like im not in sync or something. practicing yoga helps get me back together so my plates arent all spinning in opposite directions. i think learning about the philosophy and way of life that intense yoga is all about would be magical.

granted - i cant just up and disappear for four months - at least not now.. and the 2400$ it costs to attend the training isnt growing on my money tree out back. so for now, its just a dream. a goal. a wish. something. but i would loooove to do it! there is a class starting may 5 - someone sign me up!!! haha :)

paddleboarding = love.

ok, so talk about an adventure.

last sunday i talked matt into trying out a new possible hobby for me. i really need something fun and active to do outdoors bc i am so over the gym and i cant do yoga everyday. i always see people down at the beach on stand up paddle boards and it looks like so much fun! i've been dying to try it and its finally warm enough to be in the water and not freeze in the wind.

so sunday. matt isnt anti-outdoors, but there are other things he would rather be doing than be on the water balancing on a long board. plus hes the whitest kid i know and burns pretty easy. so we stocked up on our spf70 for him and planned our day around renting paddleboards. we got all sunscreened up and set out on a perfect sunny and clear day. i was ecstatic! i planned on taking loads of pictures and really soaking up everything i could from our adventure, so i could make an informed decision on whether or not i wanted to invest in a board of my own and make paddleboarding my new best friend. we were heading to jupiter to the rental place. windows down, sun like you wouldnt believe. but we cant find the place. its there, but it isnt. the jupiter outdoor center- where we planned on renting boards - is actually extremely hard to find if you dont know where it is. truth is, its attached to a tropical outdoorsy restaurant on the river called guanabanas. cool place, hard to find. plus, at guanabanas, you HAVE to valet park bc there is zero parking at the restaurant. so after driving in circles for ten minutes and watching matts blood pressure rise with every u-turn, we valet the car and hop out, towels in hand. now, on a side note, i had been trying to call the jupiter outdoor center (joc) all morning to see if we needed reservations, or if we should bring anything special. no answer. at all. its like they kept looking at the phone all morning, knowing it was me, and giving the phone the finger while it rang and rang and rang. annoying.

so we walk up to the counter, i have a huge stupid smile on my face, super excited! annnddd they are booked. eff! no paddleboarding for us. so we turn and drag our feet back to the valet counter and give the same guy who took the car from us ten seconds ago our ticket. matt is pissed. maybe not pissed, frustrated, frazzled even. not at me, but at the whole day. now we smell like sunscreen for nothing! and itll be damn near impossible to talk him into this adventure attempt #2 after the first one was such a trainwreck! he's so far being a good sport and entertaining the idea, but he's not 100% sold on it yet.. i'll keep you posted...

fml.

today i am over it. all of it.

i am over stupid ppl at my job who dont know how to do their job after 11 years of working here. how is that possible?! i mean really, i do the same thing every. single. day. it is NOT rocket science i assure you. really, the most difficult thing i do during my work day at the front desk of a fabulous hotel is not laugh at the ridiculous questions, or yell at the assholes. somedays its harder to bite my tongue. like today. ugh. im in a terrible mood and its barely 9am. wtf.

i am also over the current state of my house. disaster zone doenst even begin to explain the magnitude of destruction my house looks like it has endured. i blame myself. i am responsible for the laundry - not because i want to be, bc honestly i hate it, but because i hate doing dishes more. so that is the compromise - i do the laundry and matt does the dishes. it was a "lesser of two evils" compromise - i won. but i won nine million loads of laundry as my prize (which ill take over icky dishes any day..but still..) if you know me, you likely know my giant size fiance who stands over a foot taller than me at 6'4". his clothes are much larger than mine, and one pair of his pants is about the same as 3 pairs of mine. are the piles of laundry materializing in your mind? they are forever burned in mine and i frequently have nightmares about them swallowing me whole. another hitch in this wagon ride is that i am a compulsize clothing shopper. its a problem really. i have more clothes than 5 people need. so that adds more to the growing pile. on top of all of this - with all these odds stacked against me - i'm lazy. not in the sense that i lay about every second of every day bc i dont - but lazy in the fact that i hate sacrificing one of my two days off to monitor the laundry, fold, hang, rinse, repeat. i cherish my days off and hate it when i have to spend one cleaning, so i often put it off until its so overwhelming that i lose my mind. i'm currently in the "lose my mind" stage of this vicious cycle and i'm trying to form a plot where matt allows us to move to a nudist colony and i dont have to wash clothes. that or we win the lotto and my clothes -like my income- become disposable. :) someone pray for me - i may have lost it.

what else? buckle your seatbelt, we have only just begun.

i am over being a short person who has to constantly fight about their weight. i fight with myself mostly, so maybe i should work on channeling that to a more healthy place. my struggle? likely the same struggle all short 20-somethings face. i work my ass off - literally. i ride my bike to work most days, i go to the gym five to seven days a week, i eat salad and veggies and pay attention to every morsel i consume  -and what happens? nothing! abso-fucking-lutely NOTHING. someone just slap me. it kills me. and anyone who has been a part of this knows how totally discouraging this is. the balance is very delicate and if you dont get it juuuust right, youre frustrated and ready to quit. which i do, often. i cant tell if i'm working out to hard and not eating enough, or not working hard enough and eating too much, or what?! and then after weeks of this nonsense, of making myself continue, trying endlessly to convince myself eventually something will change, i give up. and feel worse than before. why does this happen? i mean i give it a solid serious 10000% percent effort. but its always the same. totally frustrating right?! well, it is. if youre one of those naturally skinny, eat french fries and chicken fingers jerks who never gains an ounce and has a stupid 6 pack (ahem, my sister) - screw you! not really, im just jealous and hate this struggle.

and then theres my writing...

honestly, im not meaning to complain. i just need to get all this icky out of my mind so i can move forward.

writing is hard. making yourself do it every. single. day. nearly impossible. i have to be in the mood to write. i have to reallllly be in the mood if i'm writing about hard times in the past. my entire thesis is based on the past - primarily things i'd rather not think about daily. old relationships, fights, drama. its in the past for a reason. i dislike thinking about, let alone write about it. i'm also struggling to turn myself into a character. a round and well managed character that people fell for and want to root for. its hard. i dont think of myself that way and it is hard to pull my "writer self" out of the story and focus on what me as a character was thinking in that moment i'm describing. i know so much more now than i did then and its difficult to exclude my feelings now about the situation i'm writing about. does that make sense? i have to be, think, act, feel like i did in whatever scene im explaining. and it is hard. really hard. i know this is an important part of the "process", but its causing me to lose sleep and i feel very strongly about my sleep. dont eff with it.

ok, enough of the rambling..
i'm going to start a new post about a new possible hobby :)
kthanksbye<3

i'm corey, i'm obviously irresponsible.

i swear i dont do this on purpose. i'm going to be better about writing here, promise :)

ok, since we last chatted. wow. so much has happened. the most notable thing is that ive started to write my thesis. i severely underestimated the difficulty of this project. i'm writing a memoir about the tendancy people have to create many "selves" and using my own experiences to highlight the danger of losing yourself. "writing about yourself?", you're thinking.."sounds easy." yeah, its not. telling the truth, the complete and total truth about yourself and how you feel about whatever scene thats out there - scary! and hard! but, i'm working. its a process, i suppose. so far i have my proposal in draft and my advisors are reviewing it before i revise it for the 8 millionth time and then submit it in may. i'm also working on rounding out my first character. for now, i'm calling her the "doormat" even tho i'm not totally satisfied with that name. thats what we'll call her for now. she is the version of me that dated someone toxic for a long period of time and lost herself in a sea of neediness and self doubt. not healthy. not cool. but she is an important version of myself, so she must be included. other characters will follow.. baby steps...

in other news, i had a birthday. 26! damn, im getting up there. my wonderful and loving fiance treated me to a night of theatre (we saw beauty and the beast -so good!) and he bought me a kindle :) obsessed much? i love love love it! and him for being so fantastic. i had a delicious coconut cake from his mom and managed to eat 2 pieces on my bday. it was my bday! stop judging! anyways, it was a great day!

we also are now less than a year away from our wedding, which is reallly exciting! we have our venue already, its a beautiful waterfront house on the river in jupiter fl and its so old florida. very laid back. very beautiful! we will get married under a big oak tree on the property and then eat, drink and dance the night away on the porch overlooking the water! so perfect! ...and i bought a dress that is so me and so great! i cant wait to wear it :) we have been meeting with caterers and next up will be photogs, all very exciting and neccessary. i think everyone is really looking forward to it and i hope its a night of love and fun :)

i also got the chance to go to new orleans with my bestie haley to visit her sister erin :) and it just so happened to be mardi gras!!! woot! talk about crraazzzyyy! so many people doing so many illegal things in a very cramped place. erin lives in a cute apartment in the french quarter, so we were right in the middle of all the action! we saw some great parades and got tons of beads (sans flashing..) and got a lil tipsy down on bourbon street! it was a great time full of yummy food and fun <3 and it was great seeing erin who i hadnt seen in months!!! and it was nice to have a few days off, but i came home feeling like i needed a vacation from my vacation. whew.

recently ive been feeling overwhelmed by everything in life from work, and school, to the laundry and the list of wedding things. just talking about it now makes my head spin. there is so much to do and never any time to do it all...wtf!? so, ive been trying to take more time for myself and focus on getting my mind relaxed and focused so im not so all over the place all the time! my savior - yoga! i just started practicing at a new studio and i love it! they offer classes in all kinds of yoga from the more simple and relaxing to ashtanga - which if you have never done...o.m.g. it will kick your ass. in a good way of course. its fantastic! and you leave all sweaty and hot and surprisingly relaxed and energized! im in love. of course i also like going to see the people much better than me twist themselves into crazy poses. i am in awe of them and wish i could be like them. some day..some day...

anyways.. thats where i am. in the midst of all the insanity i manage to find a few moments for me and i love those few hours a week when i can lay on the couch with matt and our sweet puggy june bug and just relax. im also going to try out paddleboarding sometime soon.. so wish me luck on that one :)

until next time (which will be soon, i swear!).. <3

oh ehm jee

wow. talk about the busiest month of my life!

i've been lazy, many appologies. well, not lazy in life because it has been one crazzzy month, but lazy in the land'o'blogs. so sorry.

i have a lot of writing to post, and will include it here soon. i have finished my last semester of classes at nsu and only have my thesis to complete before i am officially a master (hehe)! and also, ohh jeeze i have alot of writing still to complete. its terrifying actually.

on top of all my writing and near mental breakdown because of writing- its effing cristmas! hells yes! i love this season and every single stressful thing about it. i love getting gifts and being a part of america's mass consumerism. its amazing. i actually have most of my shopping done already -go me! -but there are always last minute lose ends to tie up so hooray for that.

matt and i finally decorated our tree after it sat sad and nakie in our living room for a week. and the house is all decorated and looking festive and ready for the holidays!

my freelance writing gig has fallen through and after all the writing i did for local flair magazine - they never made it past go - never collected $200. although i sure did - thank god they paid me before crashing and burning. but i'm sad. its hard getting into all this writing business - no one wants someone without experience -but how the hell do you get experience? someone please take a chance on me - i can do it! i know i can!

i hate knowing what i'm capable of and not having paper proof to show it. annoying much? i'm patiently (sometimes not so patiently) waiting for the doors of opportunity to fly wide open. hello world? are you out there? i can write! pick me!

sigh. this feeling sucks.

damn - how did i get all the way down here? we were all high spirits a second ago talking about xmas and here i am debbie downerizing it all. my bad.

yay christmas!

happy holidays kids :)

The Once, Possibly, Almost Corey Jenna Hammond

this week i had to try and move through time. eaiser said than done buddy! i tried to explain something important to my identity by using a scene in the past embedded in a scene from the present. my head hurts. anyways, here is the lil bit that i've got. in the future i'll explain more about the name and expand on the memory more probably. anyways, here it is...


The brilliant diamond refused to be unseen on my left hand and I couldn’t stop looking at it. This Christmas would top them all for the rest of my life. It’s like Santa himself came down and said, “Oh hey Corey, you know that ‘happily ever after’ thing Cinderella was in on, how about some of that?” Uhm, let me think, sure. Matt and I hadn’t been engaged for twenty four hours, and already it seemed like the whole world knew.  His mom had been at our house gushing over us for all of five seconds before the serious discussion began.

            “So, Corey, do you think you’ll take Morrow as your last name? Corey Morrow?”

            “Uhm, I guess I hadn’t really thought about it yet, but probably”, I was lying. I had thought about it. I thought about the future of my last name often actually. My last name had always been a sensitive subject in my life and my feelings about it had been different for almost two years now. The contents of an old cardboard box had changed everything, and there in the room my grandparents once shared, my life shifted.

In that room, I sat on the floor, cheeks damp from slow rolling tears. The room was bright and empty. Millions of tiny dust pieces swirled in the sunlight that poured through the sliding glass door. It was silent, save for the distant ruffle of my mom and grandma in the spare room at the other end of the house. I sat amongst old boxes, their contents pilled in mountains of memory around me. I was looking without knowing what I sought. Now that he was gone, I could think of a hundred questions I wanted to ask him. What was Vietnam like? What was his favorite book? This was both vastly important and irrelevant all at the same time.

            I was digging through boxes that my mom didn’t want to. I wanted to see what was hiding in them for all these years before our heritage was shoved in the back of a closet again. She said it was just old junk, but in my own experience, the good stuff always hides with the junk. I searched slowly, content with the time passing as I had nothing else to do that bright afternoon.

            I swished my hand through a box full of loose papers, swirling through them with ease. A hard cover found my fingertip and I plunged deeper, my elbow disappearing in the sea of paper. I pulled the book from the bottom of the box and sent papers pouring over the edge. “Cooley High, 1940”. I knew that name. I always loved hearing about Poppy’s time at Cooley, because the name sounded like something out of Grease or West Side Story; it was so authentic. I would wait patiently for Poppy to tell me that he sang and dance his way between classes, but it never happened. I cracked the book open and it smelled like the library.

            Old books are always enchanting. I flipped through the pages, looking for Poppy’s dark hair and big eyes.

“Allen…Allen… where is he?” I wondered.

I scanned the first few pages of every class, searching for his last name, my last name. He wasn’t there. Why would Poppy have a yearbook for a year he wasn’t in school? It didn’t make sense.

I stood up and brushed years of dust off my sweatpants.

“Mom?” I yelled, stopping in the living room. I was too perplexed to walk all the way to her.

“What?” she walked in, trailed by Gramma.

“Why do we have this yearbook? Look, Poppy isn’t in here anywhere” I flipped pages to prove my point.

“That’s his, he graduated in 1940” she assured me.

“Uhh then where is he?” I was out of patience and I wasn’t blind, he wasn’t in there.

She took the yearbook from me and turned the yellowing pages, “Here.” She pointed to a picture I knew well.

“Carter Hammond? What’s that about?” I was so confused now. Why would Poppy change his name? Allen wasn’t Gramma’s last name either, she was a Renner.

“Allen was Poppy’s step-dad’s last name. He took it after his mom got remarried, but that was after he graduated high-school.”

“How come you never told me?” I was in disbelief. This was the closest thing we had to a family secret and I had to hear it before realizing I’d waited twenty two years for its reveal. All those times I had to trace our lineage back for some lame school project, she never thought to tell me my bloodline name was Hammond?

“I didn’t know it was important”, she said as her and Gramma were drifting back towards their project in the spare room.

Not important. Was it important? I marinated. It felt important. My head swirled like the sheets of paper the yearbook was buried in. I could have been Corey Hammond. That sounded weird in my head and I didn’t like it.

Until now I was so attached to Allen. It was my mom’s last name and I had been proud of it, no matter how many fights it caused. I had planned on keeping it even when I got married because of the massacres we had been through because of it. Dad wanted me to have his last name, Ritenour. And after twenty two years of fighting over it, whether to hyphenate it or not, I felt weird holding onto Allen so tightly when it wasn’t really ours.

Gramma and Poppy’s house dissolved; the yearbook evaporated from my hands as the memory faded back to the depths. The smells of Christmas morning breakfast pulled me back and I smiled at the tiny sun on my finger. When Matt asked me to marry him, the answer was obvious, and the choice to change my last name would follow. I would become a Morrow on our wedding day and put the controversy to rest once and for all. After being in a family full of last name drama, I was looking forward to the peace and quiet a new last name would bring.

homey, home, home...

well, hello.. this week i did some more writing, surprise! i decided to write about home. to be more specific, my current home. matt, my fiance', bought our current home for us and its sorta like heaven. it was a struggle to get there but we did it. good times. below you will find my take on two parts of our home buying process with a short explaination at the beginning. ready go!

     Matt bought our house on October 31, 2009, almost a year ago. That time was both exciting and stressful, and it led up to what became my first home. It would be the first time when all of my belongings, and my mail, and my cat were kept in one place. Until then, I had multiple homes with stuff at each of them. It was what I knew, what I was used to; I had shuffled between Mom, Dad and Grandparents since I was very young. We didn’t move into our house until December fifth, but the months leading up to the big move, and moving day itself meant a hurricane of emotions inside me.

Corey vs. the old Jewish lady

            It was days before we closed on our house, and after months of searching, bidding, signing, waiting, crying, we found our house and it would soon be ours. Matt and I decided to buy a house on his Mom’s suggestion, bless her, and we began researching. Well, I began researching and Matt mostly listened. I’m the worrier, he’s the sensible-calmer-downer; it works. Finding the house was the easy part. We both knew what we wanted and how much we wanted to pay. Convincing the crotchety old bitty to sign it over and get the hell out was the hard part.

            The first time we met Joyce, my future nemesis, was in August. Her house had just been put on the market and we stopped by on one of our many days of searching. It was great, perfect even compared to the half destroyed foreclosures we had seen earlier, and the price was right. Joyce seemed nice, slightly eccentric, possibly crazy, old but nice. Her hair was trying to be red but it was an old lady pink. She was tiny and very Jewish. I lost count of the Yiddish words within the first five minutes. I could tell Matt was counting them in his head too. I watched him lose count and smiled. Perhaps in an effort to up sell her house, Joyce offered us toast and played the piano and bongos for us. Not together obviously, although that would have been amazing…

Anyways, our relationship with Joyce started out as such a relationship should. Everyone was polite and cheery, though it wouldn’t stay that way. It looked like a win-win; Joyce sells her house and we move out of the 2 bedroom apartment we shared with Matt’s friend Chris and his girlfriend. I didn’t have a key to the apartment and getting up at 7am to leave when Matt went to work was old the week after I started staying there. It was time to move out.

            Now we were so close closing on the house, finally. We had been back and forth with Joyce about everything from cost to closing date and did everything to accommodate her. It hadn’t been easy or stress free. At the same time, Matt’s twin brother and sister-in-law welcomed an adorable little sprout into the world. Everyday was busier than the last. Baby Liam was only a day old when I got to hold him for the first time, but we’ll save those emotions for another day. My phone rang in the oversized blue hospital room while we were visiting the newest addition. I dug for my phone in my messy bag and apologized to everyone.

            “Hello?” I questioned. She knew what I was doing tonight, why would she call when she knows I’m at the hospital with Matt’s family?

            “Cor! We’ve got problems…” my Mom sounded out of breath. I wanted to tell her to stop and not say another word. I didn’t want to know right now. I wanted to enjoy seeing the baby. “Joyce is refusing to close!”

            “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I blasted, before thinking about where I was or who I was talking to. Tears sprung from my eyes and pooled in my lap without my consent. We had already given Joyce so much, waited so long, and now she does this shit to us. Unfair doesn’t even begin to explain. “Why?” I asked when I could think again.

            “She is senile and old and crazy. And she doesn’t want to” Mom said.

            “Seriously! What a bitch! I mean, can she even do that?” Laws and all that business weren’t my forte, and this was my first home buying rodeo.

            “Yeah, she can. You can try and take legal action against her because she did sign the initial contract, but that is going to be expensive and time consuming” she explained.

            “Ugh! I hate her!” I didn’t even know where to begin. The hospital room full of people had vanished and was reorganized into stunned faces. “I’ll call you back” I told her and hit the end button on my Blackberry.

            “What’s up?” Matt asked.

            “I’m going to go to Joyce’s and murder her tonight with my bare hands” I joked.

            “Why? What now?” Matt was more concerned now, he knew my sarcasm came out most when I was really on the brink of insanity.

            “She’s saying she won’t close” and my anger reduced me to tears again.

            “It’s ok” Matt cooed as he put his long arm around me, his goal was always to keep me calm. Staying glued was one of my favorite things about Matt, especially since my tendency to become unglued was at an all time high. I focused on breathing and keeping it together. I had been dating Matt a year and I didn’t want his family to see me in this ridiculous state. I hadn’t sealed the deal yet, no ring, so I had to try and be normal.

            “This is frustrating. What do we do?” I asked. His sister-in-law chimed in with her lawyerly advice, and my heart rate slowed. “Ok. We can do this, let’s try talking to Joyce”

            “Good. I like that. We can call her in the morning.” Matt sighed. He was sick of all this drama too.

            We reasoned with Joyce, and closed on our house in the following days. She ended up staying in our house for an extra month. Fine, perfect. I had to fight to get days off from my retail job from hell, and now I would spend them sitting at home staring at my life packed up in boxes, waiting for December. I thought we had finally finished with Joyce and her craziness, but as it turns out we had only just begun.

Moving Don’t

Joyce was moving out! FINALLY! I was worried we would have a squatter on our hands and I would have to start fighting dirty, like singing loudly outside the house, to get her old ass out. But, after the longest November of my life, she was leaving. Our moving day had been pushed back several times, and we fought about the large check she owed us for rent. I’m still not sure we got that effing check. Her equally insane slightly more hinged daughter dropped the keys off to my mom that afternoon and we were all excited to be shot of old Joycey. When Matt got home from work, we met my mom at our new house. This was it! I could hardly walk I was so excited, one foot then another, Corey. We were done with Joyce, we were moving tomorrow; this was ours, all ours. My mom snapped a picture of us turning the key and my cheeks burned from smiling. I followed Matt through the door and my traitorous tears burst through as he flipped on the light.

            “WHAT THE HELL!?” I screamed and my mom poked her head through our doorway.

            “Whoa” she said, “what a freakin mess”. Matt kept quiet and flipped on lights as he walked through what might have been the aftermath of a bomb. So much for all my dreams coming true.

            “Is she kidding me? What is all of this?” I kicked trash and paper, pushed past furniture and surveyed the damage. It was bad. Really bad. Whatever Joyce felt like leaving, she left. Potted dying plants, old dirty dishes, everything. It was like someone phoned her to say that aliens were coming so she grabbed a few things in a whirlwind and abandoned the rest in a quick escape. I thought of my one day off this week, tomorrow, our designated moving day that would now take twice as long since Joyce hadn’t really moved out at all. She was gone, but all her kitschy shit was left for us to deal with.

            “At least she took the piano” Matt chimed. My smile fought my anger and won.

            “Yeah, at least there’s no piano” I chuckled through the tears. “I just can’t believe this is happening!”

            Through all of this, I had been excited; excited to have my stuff together, excited to be with Matt everyday, excited to cook food that might turn out bad, just excited. This was something new, something brilliant and I wanted to stare directly at its light and lose focus. I already had the man I wanted, and now we had a house. It turned out to be a house full of worthless shit, but it was ours. Matt never tried to stifle my excitement, but he never truly accompanied me on my journey to blind insanity. He was too level headed for that. Leading up to moving day, I made him remind me that he was excited, since he never really wears it quite like me. But even then, this would be different for both of us. Home. Our home. My Home.

I didn’t know what to expect, and even now it’s new and real. Everyday is foreign at first and I think back to times when I had multiple homes. My memories of those homes aren’t bad, or worse, or sad, they’re just different. I never felt like I belonged to one particular place, none of them were truly mine. Almost like I had been lost and decided to rest somewhere rather than actually attach myself to the address. But not now, I was home and holding on for dear life.

           

           

....so there it is. again, this is just draft one. but hopefully you liked it. cuz i do :)