An Ode to Mike on His Birthday

Happy 58th birthday to my dear, old dad.  Father, I have been blessed with many things and most of them are thanks to you.  So on this your day of birth, I would like to express my love and thanks (even though you have no idea this blog even exists).

However agitating they may sometimes be, your peculiarity and quirkiness provide endless laughter in my life.  Just the other day, mom and I were discussing your constant need to make noise, whether it be beating on the steering wheel or making farting noises with your mouth.  We laughed so hard I probably added years to my life.

You are passionate in a way I can only hope to be.  Your dedication to and love for Larry's BBQ is unprecedented.  The big "86" written in bright, red marker on the health inspection certificate isn't even enough to keep you away.  Your love surely does not go unnoticed.  It is clear by the greetings you receive by name as you walk to your usual seat and by the plate that was given to you upon your request so that you could "relive" your Larry's experiences at home.

You have a wonderful sense of humor about yourself.  That time you repeatedly told Brittany to watch out for the work van that was parked in the driveway and then immediately backed into it yourself, leaving a large dent/scratch along the entire side of your car, you could have been angry with me when I told you that it was one of the funniest stories I'd ever heard.  Instead, you took the jokes in stride.

Your thriftiness knows no bounds.  Thank you for keeping me from spending all of my inheritance by not going to eat at that nice restaurant.  Your fraternity brother that gave you the nickname Yarbroughstein was just jealous of how good you make those Sam's Club khaki shorts look.

Dad, you are one-of-a-kind.  There is no doubt.  All jokes aside, I thank God every day for giving me you as a dad.  I hope that one day I can make my children feel as blessed and loved as you have made the three of us feel.  With that I wish you a happy birthday and I thank you for being you.



So Let It Be Written, So Let It Be Done...

Six months ago I started this blog and told myself that I would not be one of those to just throw it by the wayside and do the usual "Lyndsey" thing and just quit if it got a little overwhelming. I did very well the first few months and then things started to slack.  I was busy with work and other things, but I believe I could have still found the time to write.  I've been contemplating a way to keep me focused on writing so this sort of thing doesn't happen again.  I know how horribly vacant all of your lives were during this period so I am vowing it never happen again!

I decided that the best way to keep myself on point is to incorporate a weekly blog post having some sort of theme.  I thought about several different options, but none of them really struck ma fancy and really interested me enough that I would look forward to writing about each week.  So I continued to think.

Pardon the following stream of consciousness.  It may not make sense and I may lose some of you, but what can I say?  It's pretty strange inside this head.  Moving on.

I've had a couple of conversations over the past few weeks with a friend of mine who is, in his own words, a "political nerd."  The first conversation about our nation's impending healthcare ended with a frazzled, slightly tipsy me storming inside to the couch where I'm pretty sure I pouted for the next half hour.  The next conversation held was about the whole synthetic drug phenomena happening in our country and the man who apparently was high on "bath salts" and ate a homeless man's face.  This story broke more than a month ago and I had no idea everyone around me was talking about it.  My ignorance of this story and others regarding "bath salts" prompted my friend to reply, "Don't you ever read the news?"  I was angry at first that he could make such a judgy assumption, but then I thought about it and realized that he was right.  I don't read the news.  I don't have a strong grasp on what is going on in my community, state, and the world around me, and that is sad. 

So since then I've made a conscious effort to be up to date on current affairs.  I feel smarter already!  Thanks Willard!  While reading an article featuring Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's response to the Supreme Court's decision regarding the Affordable Care Act and another 2010 Gubernatorial candidate by the name of Tim James came to mind.  James's ingenious idea to end multilingual testing for driver's licenses and provide English-only testing led to an even more ingenious campaign commercial regarding the issue.  This commercial led to several parodies, one of which made me roll when I first saw it.  Here is a throwback vidja from 2010.  Enjoy.

Gotta love it.  From this video, my idea for "Throwback Thursday" was formed.  Each Thursday I will come up with some sort of something from the past to entertain us all.  Sound good to all of you?  Good.  So let it be written, so let it be done.

I bet y'all thought it was going to be a weekly political rant.  I haven't earned my Political Nerd status quite yet.

Aging Is Distressing

This Thursday, June 21st, will mark 5 months until I turn 30.  THIRTY.  3.  0.  Three decades of life.  How can this be?  There are certain aspects of my life where I feel as though this milestone is appropriate.  For instance, my time spent staying in on the weekends far exceeds the time spent staying out until God knows when bar hopping.  And when I do make it out, my head turns into a 500-pound pumpkin and wants to hit the table no later than midnight.  Hangovers are deadly and take days to get over.  The appearance of new wrinkles sends me into a tailspin.  Said wrinkles have forced me to add a half hour to my nightly routine applying anti-aging crap, which then forces me to deduct a hefty portion from my paycheck by spending money on products that guarantee to revert my skin back to the way it looked at 16.  Our culture blows my mind.  We'll believe anyone who utters the words, "30 days till younger looking skin."  I digress.

Along with all of these attributes that make me feel as though turning 30 is logical, there are several that make it hard to believe.  No, I'm not married and don't have children, but shockingly those aren't what I find myself fixated upon.  I guess that may be a part of the uncertainty as a whole, but mainly I have felt myself stressing about needing to know who and what I want to be when I grow up.  I know the quarter life crisis is inherent for most 20-somethings, but aren't all the life crises based on a 100 year scale?  If so, I should be well past these issues and well on my way to achieving all of the goals I'm meant to achieve as the happy person I'm meant to be.  I'm supposed to have "found myself," if you will.  I always scoffed at the people that used this phrase.  You know, the ones that went off to Montana or some other mid western state to work on a ranch rather than take the obvious, and in my mind at the time, only next step of attending the state school whose football team you liked the most or where all of your friends were attending.  The irony of this is hilarious because honestly when I look back now that 10 or so years have rolled past, it seems as though those people did in fact benefit from that "time out" from life.  Was what I perceived as laziness actually maturity?  In most cases, I think so.  There were the occasional people who claimed to be finding themselves who were actually just wandering around the country following Phish or Widespread on their parents' dime. 

I look back now and I feel as though a lot of the choices and decisions I've made have been so arbitrary.  My first decision to go to Auburn and pursue architecture because I loved perspective drawing and had a creative mind was well thought out and made sense.  However, I got lazy and made up some excuse as to why that wasn't the correct path for me.  After drifting around campus I chose to go with marketing.  It was such a random decision.  I simply wanted to be done with college.  It's as if it didn't occur to me that this was what I would be doing for the rest of my life so I best enjoy it. 

I guess that's another joy that comes along with getting older.  We look back and we regret some of the decisions that we made in our youth and vow to do things differently.  But it never really ends does it?  We are constantly faced with obstacles we've never been faced with before that come along with all the varying stages of life.  The only thing I can hope for is that I have learned from these decisions and have been equipped with the knowledge to take on the next hurdle life throws.  Some of us are dealt more bad hands than others.  There's no doubt about it.  And even though it's terrible and you think the world is out to get you, I can't help but feel as though it's a blessing in disguise.  If you think about it, people who are dealt all of these bad hands have to go through a lot more than the others, but doesn't that mean they are given the ability to learn and grow from what these experiences teach them?  I feel as though this would, in turn, bring more wisdom and clarity.  It might be a stretch, but it makes sense.  There have been people in my life who have been dealt very poor hands and they are some of the most positive people I know.  I respect these people more than words can express because it may be easy to put into words, but always looking on the bright side of life is not an easy thing to do.

I'm a positive person by nature.  I try to be at least.  I realize I'm not always going to make the right decision.  Everything is not always going to work out perfectly, but it can ware you down.  I do know that.  However, dwelling on things you can't control can't make it any easier, right?  The best thing we can do is learn from what we've been through, try to repair as much as we can, and live the best life we can live because what they tell us is true.  It really is the only one we have.  We can't let the poor decisions and bad hands we've been dealt affect the rest of our lives in a negative way because what good would that do?  We can't let the possibility of happiness pass us by because we're stuck in the past.

Catching Up

My apologies for being M.I.A. lately (sorry, RRB).  I've been busy with work along with other life happenings and I feel like I've had a touch of the writer's block.  A lot of noteworthy things have happened over the last few weeks, but I feel like attempting to go back that far would end up being a bunch of inconsistent rambling so I've decided to spare you and just catch you up with the most recent happenings.  You're welcome.

The weekend before the race, I spent a weekend at the beach with some of my favorite people celebrating this one's 30th birthday...

Emily, aka Gibbla, Gibbs, or any other variation, lives down in Blue Mountain Beach, Florida.  We've shared quite a few good times down there and decided we would try and give it a go just like we did in the olden days when we didn't pass out at 9:30PM.  We dubbed the weekend "Adult Spring Break."  We ate good food, drank some good cocktails and wine, and laughed a lot, per the usual.  I wish I could go into more detail about this weekend because it was so much fun and just what we all needed.  There were a few of us who were unable to make it, but having the majority of this group together in the same place at the same time was very special.  Each of these guhs adds something special to my life in her own way and I honestly don't know what I would do without them. 

This past weekend I joined another group of close friends in Dothan to honor our friend, Harrison Clark, who passed away last summer.  A few of them got together after Harrison passed and decided to set up a scholarship fund in his name.  They have been working hard to raise enough money to make this possible.  In addition to individual donations, they decided to hold a fundraiser in hopes that it could become an annual event benefiting both the scholarship as well as the community.

On Friday, I grabbed Will, his 8 guitars, amps, and other A/V equipment, which took up my entire back of my SUV, and hit the road.  I rarely make it back to Dothan so I got to see some friends I rarely ever get to see.  Like these crazy clowns...

These guhs...

And two of my loves I NEVER get to see...

 
On Saturday, I had an amazing time catching up with old friends and telling stories about Harry.  We weren't quite done so we continued the party where I captured the only photograph I have from the weekend.  I have to get better about this.  Seriously.  It was pretty chilly out and Megan had handed out just about every coat and jacket the two of them own.  She dug DEEP for these two and came up with these...

After church on Easter Sunday, we were invited to eat lunch by a friend at his parent's house on the way out of town.  They were so incredibly sweet to let us crash their family's Easter lunch!
In things totally unrelated, I have been playing with the idea of changing the name of this blog.  I like the name "Mise en Place", but after a few months of this blog taking it's own shape, I don't feel as though it's right.  It will probably be a pain changing addresses, but if I plan to put in the work to create this thing, I want it to be the best that it can be.  I've been trying to think of something creative that better describes me.  I have a couple of ideas, but haven't found anything that has really stood out.  So if any of you out there have any suggestions, I'm open to them!!

So that about sums the last few weeks.  I don't plan to be gone this long again because it sends me into a tailspin thinking about all the details that I can't seem to keep straight in my head to put down into logical order.  So I hope to reconvene with you all soon!

Victory Is Mine!

Indy is over and I'm still trying to repair my brain.  I've been an ill-tempered zombie all week.  I'll be back tomorrow to try and play catch up.  For now, here are a couple of pictures from the weekend.  Also, if you are wondering, I did meet Will Power and make him fall madly in love with me.  Naturally.

This was taken from inside Race Control during the race. 

Beautiful Scenery

My apologies for the long absence.  It's been crazy town around here.  As most of you know I work for a museum that collects and exhibits vintage vehicles, especially motorcycles.  The Museum is located on a race track.  The majority of the time I tell people this and they, in turn, ask me if I am a NASCAR fan.  Excuse me, sir, do I give off the impression that I am a fan of NASCAR?  If so, please advise.  I know nothing about automobiles of any type, nor do I know anything about racing.  I have learned quite a bit, but I am no expert and I like it that way.

So one of the races that is held at the track is the Indy Grand Prix of Alabama.  This is, in my opinion and what I actually tell people, classy racing.  The money that goes into these teams and these cars is unREAL.  It's really exciting to watch.  And loud.  I do have to work during race weekends, which makes for about 14 hour days, but there is so much going on and so much excitement that it is actually fun.

The beautiful mens don't make it so rough either.  Patrick Dempsey races in the Porsche 250 (Grand Am Road Racing) and was here last year during the weekend.  HOWEVER, this year there is a big chance that he will be on a commercial shoot in Paris during the weekend and not here.  I am having hate in my heart towards his agent. 

Drats!  Maybe next year...yes?  I guess I will just have to be OK with these guys in his absence...

Australian driver, Will Power.  Yes, I said Australian.

A little bit of Helio might ease ma pain...

And I won't be disappointed if Raphael stops by either...

Hooooly hot guys.  It's gonna get good up in here in a couple of weekends.  In the meantime, I will be setting up shop somewhere in the vicinity of the entire pit crew and engineers from one of the teams that is working here in the Museum during their test.  Ain't life grand.

Obvi all of you know that I am NEVER this type of female, but it's so many beautiful people in one place at one time and my gender is the minority.  I'm just enjoying some of God's creations is all.

Gotta get back to the grind.  I'll be back in the next day or two with some pretty interesting tidbits from my so called personal life.  Until then, I'll leave you with this...

Holla back!!!

"Leaving New York"

Our flight didn't leave until 7:30 Monday night so we had the whole day to do the few things that we hadn't had the chance to do over the past few days.

We went down to Midtown and played around there.

Where John took some awkward photos.

We took a picture we knew our mother would love.

The plan had been to get up early and go down to watch Hoda and Kathy booze it up on national television, but they taped the show the day before.  Sad clowns.

It was so good to see you again, old friend.

We made a point to walk by the flat iron building as it was on Drew's list of must-sees.  Apparently back in the day, men used to stand at this corner and watch the wind blow the women's skirts up as they walked by.  Dirty, dirty men.

We stopped in Washington Square Park where we envied the lives of the NYU students who were hanging out there in the middle of the day.

We had to have one last drink before we left the city.

We caught a cab up to John and Abby's apartment and picked up our things to head back down south.  None of us wanted to leave.  We had such a great time and had such great hosts.  I truly love that city and I hope to visit again really soon. 

Hope everyone has a good rest of this Hump Day!  Holla!