241/365 (8/29)

Got to see a good friend in Charlotte last night, and bonus: Passenger was in town!

240/365 (8/28)

It has been a VERY busy week, so haven't been able to take too many pictures. However, I saw this and decided it was perfect :)

239/365 (8/27)

For some reason, I find these to be hilarious.

238/365 (8/26)

REAL chocolate milk... this is the perfect occasional treat.

Just what I needed on a crappy Monday.

I will be the first to admit that I am my own harshest critic. I often dwell on things much longer than I should, and much longer than anyone else dwells on them. I generally doubt that I'm really making a difference or that my work is being noticed by anyone. I think its mostly the fault of the self-esteem issues I've dealt with for as long as I can remember, but I do at least recognize that its not particularly healthy to think that way.

But then there are days like today where I'm reminded that there is no reason for me to be thinking that way. A couple of weeks ago, the Navy Chief select list for this year came out, and one of my sailors from my second ship was on that list. I was super stoked, because she had always been a hot runner. She got to the ship in 2005 as an E-3, quickly made E-4, and made E-5 soon after - each on the first try. So the fact that 7 years after I left the ship she's making E-7? Not so shocking.

It took a couple of tries, but I eventually tracked down a good email address for her and was able to congratulate her. I got a really sweet reply from her today, including the following:

Ma'am! It is wonderful to hear from you and to know that you haven't forgotten me. I think about you quite often and remember how strong you are and how patient and kind you were to me early in my career. Are you still in? I hope so, you were a great role model.

That really made my day. I'm not sure I've ever heard words like that from someone who worked directly for me before. And even this many years later, it was enough to make me feel MUCH better on the crappy Monday I was having. And it was a much-needed reminder that no matter how hard I may be on myself, nobody else is being that hard on me, and I really should lighten up.

237/365 (8/25)

What a BEAUTIFUL non-typical August day!!

236/365 (8/24)

Happy birthday to my (not so) little brother!

235/365 (8/23)

Restaurant week - dessert was yum!

234/365 (8/22)

Another steak dinner by the fiance for the win :)

Kelly Clarkson and I should be friends, part 2

Oh Kelly, I am so jealous... from People

Despite original plans for an "earthy" outdoor fall wedding at home, the "Catch My Breath" singer, 31, revealed to PEOPLE on Wednesday, "We are so busy that we finally just came to terms the other night and were like, 'So, we change our minds and we want to elope.' We just got so overwhelmed by it – all the decisions."

Explains Clarkson: "We sent out a save-the-date to everyone and then it got crazy and all the details were leaking."

Not that I want to cancel our wedding and elope - we're SUPER excited about it, not to mention we've already spent a penny or two. But I just really like the way this girl thinks. She seems to be very real, with a good head on her shoulders, and she's consistently shown that ever since she won Idol way back. THAT is the kind of role model our girls should be looking up to - someone who will tell the media to F off when they start talking about her weight, and doesn't seem to think that the most important thing is how much media coverage she can get of her life or how much money she'll be able to get for her wedding pictures. More, please.

And I think I'm done talking about Kelly Clarkson, for now at least :)

233/365 (8/21)

This character is only one of the fails in the Under the Dome TV show...

Kelly Clarkson and I should be friends.

I read an article this morning (OK, maybe not really an article, it was in People) about Kelly Clarkson and how she's enjoying her new role as soon-to-be-stepmom to her fiance's two kids. A little further down, she was talking about her wedding planning, and I had one of those moments where I just say PHEW! I'm not alone!!

The Stronger singer has long made it clear she will be a laid-back bride, and it appears she's becoming increasingly blasé as the wedding draws near.

"I'm so over it. It's so overwhelming," she admitted to Seacrest. "We're just doing a lot: touring and the wedding and the Christmas album [out Oct. 29], so I'm over the wedding part."

Now granted, I don't have a tour coming up or a Christmas album about to drop, but this is EXACTLY how I feel about wedding planning. I'm a pretty laid back bride (in the words of one of my bridesmaids, "Rebecca, you could NEVER be a bridezilla"), and it looks like Kelly's wedding is only a couple weeks after mine. And she's probably also paid someone gobs of money to do most of the planning, whereas I'm doing most of mine myself.

But either way, I pretty much wish with all my heart that I had enough money to pay someone else to do the rest of this for me. There's not THAT much left to do, but I'm over the wedding planning and just ready for the wedding to be here already! I keep thinking I'm forgetting things, and having trouble making some of the final little detail decisions. Half of those final details are honestly things I could care less about, but that other people care about. You know, table decorations, etc.

And one of the biggest things I still have left to finish up is my playlist. I've got a pretty solid start, and my little sister is helping me out, but I would love some suggestions. Just for the party section - I think we've got the special stuff just about covered. Help me out a little here!

52 days to go...

232/365 (8/20)

I got a Charlie kitty by my head :-)

231/365 (8/19)

Another shot from this weekend - I was a very good sound helper :)

230/365 (8/18)

Our little corner at this weekend's festival - very fun!

229/365 (8/17)

This weekend's festivities.

228/365 (8/16)

Show time!

227/365 (8/15)

A little Throwback  Thursday picture - spring of 2002, right before USNA graduation :)

226/365 (8/14)

I know, its a video not a picture, but its so darn cute :)

225/365 (8/13)

This might be among the greatest inventions ever.

224/364 (8/12)

I'm generally not a huge beer drinker, but this stuff is GOOD!

223/365 (8/11)

Its a twofer! The nuggets came to town :-)

222/365 (8/10)

We did some engagement pictures today!

221/365 (8/9)

Why did I ever buy a cat bed?

220/365 (8/8)

A little throwback - August 1996 on the beach in Noirmoutier, France.

219/365 (8/7)

First wedding present!

218/365 (8/6)

An entertaining screen shot from turntable the other day - my screen name hover showed me in the audience, but that's my laptop and avatar in front of the pink one at the end on the right :)

I miss writing.

I read a really interesting post the other day in a blog that I started following primarily for the guy's recaps of The Bachelor. It was far from the normal hilariousness he normally posts, and it really got me thinking about why I have this blog. He was talking about why he writes, and was talking about his grandfather. One of my favorite sections of the post:

He made me want to write. And he taught me the only reason I needed to write was because, “because.”
Then, one day, I began to write for a living and experienced a conflicting moment when I had trouble finding my “because”.
It’s always so petty, that moment.
“I don’t have any good ideas.”
“I don’t have anything interesting to say.”
“I will misspell a word and people will judge me for not being the best at never making a mistake in my writing, all of the time, always.”
“I will incorrectly use effect/affect as I may have done above. Shit, did I incorrectly use effect/affect?”
“People will just rip whatever I say apart and hurt my feelings.”
These are all terrible, horrible, no good, very bad reasons.

Believe it or not, I did not start this blog solely to post pictures every day. While I'm enjoying this picture a day challenge, it wasn't why I decided to blog.  The tagline under the title of this blog, "These words are my diary screaming out loud," are a pretty perfect description. Yes, I stole them from an Anna Nalick song, although I wish I had written them myself. The thing is, I've always loved to write. I wrote stories when I was a kid. I started writing songs when I was 12. Every time I moved, I could never understand why even though I wrote tons of letters to my friends in the old neighborhood, nobody put quite as much effort into writing me back. I thought it was because they had forgotten me, or maybe they didn't like me as much as I thought, or they didn't want to be my friend anymore, or any other number of reasons. But looking back now, I think it might have just been that they didn't like to write as much as I did. And do.

But lately I've been severely slacking. I don't remember the last time I wrote a song. I've written phrases down here and there, started more than I can count, thought about it all the damn time, but I have zero product to show for it. Even this blog has been slacking. Sure, I've been posting every day, and just about every picture has a caption. But really, that's a cop out. There's not much thought that goes into those pictures. There's no risk, other than people saying oh good, another picture of her cats. Or what she had for dinner. Because let's be real, that's what most of the pictures comprise.

I know I've said before that I want to try to blog more, and I haven't generally succeeded. But I'm working on it. I want to be writing again. I want to be creative again. I want to feel like I have a place to express myself, to hash out my feelings and emotions in a way that, while not everyone will always understand, will make me feel better. That's always why I've written. And I miss it.

217/365 (8/5)

My little stair guardians, protecting me from anything that might come up while I'm getting ready :)

216/365 (8/4)

Charlie likes to watch Bill Maher too.

215/365 (8/3)

Got to see my friend today for the first time in way too many years. Missed her!
(Obviously this picture is not from today - this is back when we first became friends in 1998)

214/365 (8/2)

More MIL presents - thank you!

213/365 (8/1)

Very strange time of year to see our neighborhood bunny out and about - must be this AMAZING cooler weather!