Robot…or conspiracy?

Ryan Phillippe hasn’t aged. Ever.

See for yourself:

1999 – Cruel Intentions

And almost 10 years later in Stop-Loss.

So is he a (sexy) robot or is it some sort of conspiracy?  Also, keep in mind that Phillippe was born in 1974, so he’s due to be 34 this year.

Farewell to grumpy, hello to happy

I changed something on my 101 in 1001 list recently. It’s cheating – maybe – but I don’t care. It’s not a big change, but a necessary change. Instead of making a list of 101 things that I love about myself, which seemed like a good idea at the time but turned out to be crazy difficult, I’ve decided to switch gears just a bit and make a list of 101 things that make me happy. It’s still positive, still a step toward being happier with life and myself, and, after a rather crappy holy-crap-I’m-almost-24-and-this-(meaning nothing)- is-what-I’ve-done-with-my-life-kind-of-day on Saturday, I think it’s time to start. Plus, lists are one of the loves of my life and starting a list really, really makes me happy and hopefully it will keep my mind off such things as birthdays and on such things as butterflies, chocolate, and other, similar, cheesy things.

#81 – Create a list of 101 things that make me happy. 1 – 10

1. Salt. I put it on everything. My taste buds and I cannot comprehend such ideas as “too much salt.” As far as I’m concerned, “too much salt” is a myth.
2. Butterflies.  No, really, I love them.  They’re graceful and beautiful and free and really, what’s not to love about them?  I even have one tattooed on my back, although it’s a rough and tough tribal butterfly and not a dainty little butterfly.
3. Tattoos.  I have five and while I haven’t gotten a new one since I was 17, there’s something about tattoos, on anyone, that I find incredibly beautiful and intriguing.
4. Sewing.  To be honest, I’m not really good at it, but I do enjoy it.
5. My husband, naturally.  I didn’t put him first because that’d be entirely too adorable and sweet and I think we all know how I feel about things that are adorable and sweet.
6. Tea.  I think the best days I have are the days I start with a cup of  tea.
7. Taking pictures.
8. Lists.  I love them, need them, might even feed off of them.  I’m not an organized person at all; however, lists make me feel like I can fake being an organized person.
9. Water. Besides tea, and the occasional beer or glass of wine, it’s about the only thing I drink anymore.
10. Sunshine.

Well, that’s a start anyway, although now I’m a little irritated that I had to think so hard to come up with a list of just ten things that made me happy.  I hate being in a funk for reasons that I can’t even completely grasp.  It’s annoying.  I’d rather be happy, I just don’t seem to know how to be completely happy right now.  I hate birthdays.  I really, really hate birthdays.  I’d like to not have one this year, actually.

Ruins, or, the Last Freakin’ Awesome Honeymoon Stop

Well, it’s possible that I’ve failed miserably at recounting the stories from my honeymoon. I’ve been back for a whole month now and I’m just now getting to the end of the story. What can I say? A lot happened. It was too much joy and excitement to write down immediately. Or, maybe I’m just being a lazy bum. Yeah, that’s more likely.

Anyway, the last stop on our freakin’ awesome honeymoon cruise was to Cozumel, Mexico, or, as I like to call it, holy-freakin-beautifulness of beauty. But, we didn’t actually end up spending much time in Cozumel. Instead, we hopped on a tender for 45 minutes on the rockin’ and rollin’ waves that made just about everyone on board nauseous (oh and also, I had to pee in the middle of the trip and let me tell you – walking to the bathroom on a rockin’ and rollin’ boat is not a fun endeavor). After the tender, we got to ride on a bus for 45 minutes. Really, it was great fun.

After of hour and a half of both land and sea travel, we arrived at our destination. The Mayan Ruins at Tulum. Now, I was impressed when I went to Germany and wandered around a castle that was older than America, but the ruins were even cooler, even more magnificent and made me feel even smaller in this great big world (in a good way). Seeing something that old, that historic was amazing. I love culture (maybe that’s why I’m a sociology major), religion and different life experiences and visiting the Mayan ruins was the perfect treat for my curiosity.

What sucked about the trip is that we didn’t have nearly enough time to explore. See, if you remember, it took an hour and a half to get to the ruins, and then we had two hours at the ruins themselves. Two hours seems like it might be enough time to wander around incredibly interesting and absolutely beautiful ruins, but our tour guide talked for about an hour and half of the two hours. So really, we only got about 20 minutes to wander around the ruins and snap a few pictures and it was not, in any way shape or form, enough time.

Regardless of the lack of time spent at Tulum, what I did see was absolute beauty. Tulum is located on the Yucatán Peninsula directly on the Caribbean Sea. And when I say directly, I mean the Tulum Ruins are on a cliff overlooking the ocean, meaning you can take pictures like this with both the ocean and the ruins in it:

I want to go back. I HAVE to go back at some point and what’s more, I’d like to visit other ruins although I seriously doubt any of the other ruins are as beautiful as the ruins at Tulum. Sure, some of the other ones are climbable, but the beach, and the ruins and the palm trees and the beauty….I’m not sure it gets any better than that.

And that’s the end of the freakin’ awesome honeymoon tales, although feel free to click here and check out all the pictures we took.

Camp Bondsteel on the Travel Channel

Yes, you read that right folks, Camp Bondsteel, what was my home away from home for almost a year, was indeed mentioned on the travel channel last night. More specifically, the Burger King on Camp Bondsteel was cited as being the “World’s Best War Zone Fast Food Stop.” See, the show it was on is called World’s Best and I guess it goes around and finds top ten lists of the world’s best whatever. Well, last night it was the world’s best fast food stops. Lucky for the Soldiers deployed to Kosovo right now (can you sense my sarcasm?) they have the privilege of dining at the #2 world’s best fast food stop.

I know the show was made long before they put in the Taco Bell on Camp Bondsteel which makes me wonder if they were to do the list over again, who would win out as the best?  Taco Bell or Burger King?

Steps toward privacy

A few days ago we finally hung the curtains, thus shielding us from the outside world just a little bit. We’ve got two ENORMOUS windows in our apartment and while we love the sunlight that streams in during the day, we hate it when, while sitting on our couch, our neighbors lean out their windows and wave at us. Not so fun really. So, I took on the task of making gigantic curtains. We got fabric from IKEA, 21 yards of fabric to be exact and I used bed sheets as a back liner for them. Thankfully, they look pretty good.

I was extremely concerned that we were going to hang them up only to discover that one was a foot shorter than the other, but no, amazingly enough, they’re all the same length.

Also among my recent projects were pillows, which, sadly, now that we’ve hung bright colored curtains in the living room, don’t really go well in the room at all.

Oh well. It was good practice and thankfully I’m not too attached to any of them. I’m hoping to make some new, even better pillows in the future to complement the new, and did I mention enormous, curtains.

Lastly, the adorable wee little garden gnome that Andrew got for Christmas has officially found a home on the windowsill. I know it’s probably hard to believe, but he’s even cuter in person.