Thursday, December 20, 2012

One Last Post Before The World Goes Boom

I'm pretty sure I start every post apologizing about how I have neglected my blog. I am just going to skip over that fluff today today in my introduction paragraph. I have desperately missed blogging. My life the last few weeks has been so busy. I learned that 5am exists on a Saturday... twice.. I've been doing overtime at my work (about 30 hours to be exact...) to get everything accomplished for the year end. It is one of those awesome things about working in insurance. I can't complain too much, a job plus a Christmas bonus isn't too shabby. I hope you enjoy the post!

I guess I should start off saying thank you to everyone who decided to spend their last day on earth reading this post. I'm sure hope we meet in our next life.. I have come to the realization that if the world really does "come to an end" then I am just going to roll with it. People are out buying supplies trying to outlast the end of civilization as we know it. I have nothing. Not even a single bottle of water at my house. I'll backtrack and tell you that Curt Byrd does not allow us to have bottled water because he says it will make him female and it should be outlawed. Pick your battles. I picked this battle to let him win and stop drinking bottled water. Hello, how can it hurt me?! I already have a uterus! Anyway, I like to analyze my situation about not really caring about the end of world like this.. Have you seen/read (the book is always better) The Hunger Games? If I were in this scenario I would be the first one dead. I have accepted this fact.. I have accepted the fact that if civilization ends how we know it that I am royally screwed. I don't even camp! I don't know how to built a fire other than by flipping a switch on a fireplace. I would eat every horrible berry out there that would instantly kill me. I have accepted the fact that I would be a goner and really I have no qualms about it. However, Curt Byrd, he would live forever. I really should have been nicer to him........ Hmmm..

Speaking of crazy events, I am going to have a short rant about school shootings and Facebook. I am by no means downplaying what happened last Friday at Sandy Hook. It is an awful, awful thing and I will never be able to understand how someone could do such a horrible thing. I don't have a mental health problem and I thank God everyday that I was created how I was. Obviously the killer had a problem. It is unfortunate that we don't really place more importance on mental health in our society. This may be a little political but bear with me. It is very awesome to see people so concerned about everyone involved in the incident. It is very not awesome to see so many people turn a complete tragedy into a political war. I watched Facebook statuses pour in everyday about gun control, The President, school safety, etc.. It was seriously like the election all over again. I was saddened by the amount of statuses that would rip apart someone and then end the status with something about prayer. I HATE this.. Are you seriously going to throw in prayer after you just ripped someone to pieces.. Bigotry wrapped in prayer is still bigotry... Enough on this subject. Moving forward to lighter and fluffier topics.

Showers.. Not the type with water but the type with estrogen and weddings/babies.. I have never thrown a shower before for anyone before Tuesday. One of my favorite people is having a baby and I volunteered to throw a baby shower for her at work (we work together). Let's back up. I am not a great event planner by all means. It is seriously a miracle of Jenny Clack that my wedding wasn't a disaster. I went to my friend Kristin's wedding last summer and it was one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. I have no idea how people can throw stuff together and make it presentable without a miracle of a wedding planner. Some people just have that awesome gene, I am not one of them. Luckily, I know lots of creative people who are always jumping at the chance to plan events. One of my sister-in-laws has a wonderful friend, Sarah, who is pretty much the planning master of events. I am pretty sure I scored there when we have to throw her a party. :) Anyway, I had no idea where in the world to even begin throwing a baby shower.. My advice to any novice party planner, consult Google. I don't know how anything got done without Google. Luckily the shower went pretty well and my friend got lots of needed items so I will mark it as a success.. I hope this paragraph has detoured anyone else who wants me to throw a party.. Joke.. Kinda.. :)

My work has wonderfully exciting insurance classes they offer to us employees. It really isn't a bad deal. They pay for the test/class, which can count for college classes, it makes you look good and they throw in some money (that's the kicker) for passing the classes. I signed up to take a test on 12-13-12. In September I started reading a book they shipped to me which consisted of 11 chapters with each chapter consisting of about 30 pages.. Plus they give you an online website to take practice tests to help you.. Not too bad right? I mean a few years ago I used to take 5 of these a semester.. WRONG! I have only been out of school a few years but I have found it almost impossible to study again. I have developed a large case of ADHD. I have no idea how people go back to school at a later age. I now have way, way more respect for this group of people. Luckily I passed my test and I can now go back to reading five books a week and blogging again.. Yay!!

My final thought for the day will be about the weather. Today in the wonderful state of Missouri we got snow. Snow is not my best thing. Honestly any sort of weather is not my best friend. I HATE driving in the cold white powder (not cocaine, Nick... Geez..). I pretty much refuse to do any sort of driving in it actually.. Curt gets the lucky task of driving me around in snow. When I came downstairs at about 7:15am this morning there was no snow falling from the sky. I was in a good mood because I didn't have to worry about driving in the bad weather.. I was going on my golly way by making my breakfast so we could leave in about 30 minutes. Half-way through my Cheerios of the multi-grain kind, I looked outside and realized there was snow.... I suddenly became a bitchy drill Sergent.. Poor Curt. He thought he was going to get to enjoy his breakfast in peace because we were avoiding the snow. I started to firmly demand he abandon his mission and put his shoes on (he takes forever to put his shoes on.. It will be the death of me) so we could immediately go to avoid sliding to our death because of slick roads. This is a great mixture of an insurance career and anxiety.. He was sitting at the table and then suddenly I became a crazy.. I feel bad for him a little.. Marriage is so fun.. :)

I hope everyone enjoyed the post and has a great Christmas. After tomorrow I don't have to be at work until 2013.. That is my Christmas gift to myself. Everyone be safe on the slick roads. If you need a reminder on how dangerous they are and how you will die if you drive on them, call me. I'd tell you free of charge!

H











Monday, November 12, 2012

I'm Sorry Thanksgiving

Hello and Happy Blogging Monday! I am so, so glad to be able to watch television and not have to be hounded by political ads. I have blogged enough about politics so I will spare every one's eyes of having to read about this for the third time. I am glad to have my friends back again and I will have to overlook some bad behavior statuses from my friends based on politics. Bad, bad behavior statuses.. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this blog post.

If you remember back in my previous posts I discussed my dislike of Columbus Day. Apparently a lot of my friends read my blog (yay for having nice friends) and now like to bring up my hatred of Columbus Day.. I have noticed that I am very particular about my holidays.. I did not realize this until Curt pointed it out to me. I happen to LOVE Thanksgiving. I have no prejudice against the pilgrims. Heck, I am very greatful for their non-murdering, raping, std giving contribution to society. Thanksgiving is a holiday based around a few of my favorite items. One of my favorite cooked birds is definitely turkey.. It is so delicious! I think my favorite cooked bird may be chicken of the fried kind but I can work with turkey. One of my favorite jellies is jellied cranberries! One of my favorite potatoes are mashed. My first potato choice is definitely fried but a girl can settle for second. I love pies especially chocolate, cherry and I am warming up to pecan. I do not like stuffing at all but I can't be completely greedy. A holiday all about eating is one for my heart. Plus with Thanksgiving you have football, shopping, family and naps. One can't go wrong with this holiday.. However, it seems more and more of America wants to forget Thanksgiving by going straight to Christmas. Everytime I see a Christmas tree, decorations or lights I must tell Thanksgiving that I am sorry. Unfortunately, I have said this frequently this year. I am sure I drive people (mainly Curt) completely crazy with this behavior. I don't know why I feel that it is necessary to apologize to Thanksgiving but it makes me so mad that people forget the pilgrims. Like Curt said, I have a problem with holidays..

Speaking of holidays, November had three extra holidays this year that most people do not realize. First, as mentioned earlier, the end of the political ads on television. I think both parties together can be thankful for this ending. Maybe I can somehow weave this into the Thanksgiving list of thanks this year.. This year I am thankful not to see anymore Todd Akin political ads. I am seriously considering sending all politicans letters about my friend Kristin who can shape their politican butts up.. Second, daylight savings time ends. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know we lose an hour of daylight at night but hello, we get an extra hour of real sleep in the morning. It is like a little piece of heaven until your body adjusts to the extra hour. Third, college basketball startsm this month. Curt and I purchase Mizzou basketball season tickets each year so we are particularly excited for the season to begin. We both love, love going to the games. It is nice because it gives us something to do in the winter and really the tickets are not the expensive. We have been grandfathered in with rates so that is especially nice. I have noticed we suddenly get more friends during basketball season so people can use our tickets. I will tell you that we can be bribed.. :)

Anyway, thanks for reading my blog. I hope you don't think i am anymore crazy than you thought I was before this post. If I don't post before Thanksgiving, enjoy your holiday! I am going to go Black Friday shopping for the first time ever this year.. I am excited and super scared at the same time. Come on big deals!!!!

H




Monday, November 5, 2012

Voting

Omgsh.. Two posts within a month.. Hell must be freezing over soon.. :) First off, I must say I won't be calling out any political party that much.. So all of my extreme liberal and conservative friends can keep reading if you desire.... I hope you enjoy!!

Who reading this is extemely happy to have their regular tv commercials back after tomorrow. I never thought I cared much about commercials but now I know to never take these 30 to 60 second ads for granted again. I am literally sitting here watching Wheel of Fortune (I am so old) and I have not seen one single commercial that is a political ad. Why we are on the subject of political ads, how do some of these make the air? I sometimes watch an ad for a candidate and feel like it was an attack ad on the person it is supposed to be for.. I will watch the whole ad and say there is no way in hell I am voting for this person.. Bad, bad advertising.. My friend Kristin needs to tear into these ads and make them acceptable. I am a HUGE believer in a separation of church and state.. If you mention your church, I am not voting for you.. This is my new decision. There are thousands of people in the USA who are NOT Christian and that makes me mad to leave people out.. Also, if you are a male politican and you look like you are wearing more makeup than Lady Gaga, strike two.. If you air a commercial being a meanie butt to someone then I am not voting for you.. If you are named Todd Akin then I will never ever vote for you.. Enough ranting about him..

Speaking of voting, I think everyone needs to take a second tomorrow and honestly understand how important it is that we can have a free election. (If you are reading this outside the USA, first off, you rock and secondly, sorry about this blanket statement.). There are so many countries out there who do not let people choose what "douchebag" candidate they have as a leader. We/I do not get in any trouble for posting our opinions on the internet/Facebook/blogs or even speaking what we believe in. Democrat/Republican/Blue or Green we can all agree that this is one of the many freedoms we have and we shouldn't take it for granted. Whomever gets elected tomorrow will still be by a free election and a whole heck of a lot better than so many other places. Just remember that tomorrow..

Curt and I for the first time ever in our relationship will be voting for the same person for the main event tomorrow. In years past we both took great joy in canceling out each other's vote. It gives you a little more incentive to vote. We started thinking about a month ago how to make our vote "count" a little more this election since we aren't voting different. We have decided that tomorrow when we cast our vote we will be casting our vote with a little bonus of canceling out that one person who has annoyed the crap out of you this political season. I have been joking with a very conservative co-worker for the last month that I will be canceling out his vote. He doesn't annoy me so I am not sure if tomorrow he will be my wild card cancel vote or not. I may have to "cancel" out his vote just because he gets so worked up about my slightly liberal views. Curt has his person completely nailed out to cancel tomorrow. I suggest you try this little trick.. It adds a little bonus to voting and I bet you have a little chuckle about you win..

Speaking of friends, I am ready to have mine back. I think some of my friends may not like my views on certain subjects just as they do not like mine. Luckily after the election (give people a few days to cool off either way..) we will start having lollipop/rainbows/puppies statuses because Christmas is coming up soon and people will start getting days off of work (thank you Thanksgiving). I love that Facebook/media forums gives people a voice to be heard. I honestly have been surprised about how intelligent some of my friends are on subjects even if I do not agree. On the other hand, I have been surprised at how some people blantantly ignore/blast whole groups of people without thinking twice about it. That completely upsets me because people are still people. I once heard a person talking horribly about illegal immigrants coming into our country and I heard the best response to these ignorant comments.. The person responded by asking what would you do if you had a starving family? Don't you realize those people are unfortunate to be born in a place without wealth and ultimately they are mothers/fathers/sisters/brothers/people trying to take care of those whom they love. Wouldn't you do everything in your power to take care of your family also?

On that note, hopefully you didn't think I was a crazy person who insults the who world. I hope everyone who is of age tomorrow votes, whether you are voting with me or picking me to cancel out my vote. Just remember, only two more days until we have our tv commercials back. As always, thanks for reading..
H








Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Abandoned

I have been the worst little blogger over the last couple of weeks. If you are reading this for the only purpose of Curt and I's blog questions, I will stop you right there, no questions in this post. Curt and I are about halfway through our questions. We received a 100 different questions for our friends/family.. I was shocked at the willingness to participate by people. This also means that if you have questions to submit, have at it. Curt and I promise.. Well I promise for me and I'll make Curt do it... 

Speaking of Curt.. We celebrated my birthday this month and national boss day! We celebrated boss day because I am just so dang good at bossing him around.. Haha. I told him that I was expecting a present.. Sadly, the big boss day holiday is the day after my birthday so he said he combined the two holidays.... I now understand what it is like to have a birthday by a major holiday. You would so get cheated if you had a birthday around Christmas or Columbus Day... Here is my short rant about Columbus Day.. This should not be a holiday. Columbus first did not even discover America! He came to America and took land from the Native Americans, who obviously found America first hence them I dunno.. living on the land.. Second, he raped, killed and passed stds to the Native Americans.. Yay government for making this a holiday! No way can government workers get the day after Thanksgiving for a real holiday off, Black Friday, but we give them this holiday.. Grrrrrr!! I also had a birthday mixed into this month.. 25 years old... I am now closer to 30 than to 20.. This hurts my heart a little.. I was a little emotional about this new age.. I don't want to really get older.. 24 honestly was my best age.. After some serious thinking, I have decided 25 will have to be my best year.. If not, I will drink a looooot of wine.. I am also going to have my friend, Kristin, who can get anything done with letters send a letter to the Cardinals to stop losing on my birthday! Hello.. Don't they understand it is my birthday! Ugh, leave it to men to mess things up..

Back to major events in my life.. Curt and I got up the courage last weekend to talk to our bank about getting a mortgage. Luckily, the loan officer was an old family friend and she made everything really, really comfortable and easy. First, figuring out what to wear to an interview for money is a little confusing. It is kind of like a tamer mullet.. Do I go business or do I go for a more relaxed look. Curt and I seriously had a debate about our clothes. We went for a relaxed look because it was Saturday and with someone we knew.. Otherwise, we would have went business. I will later have the debate to what you wear for looking for a home.. Man, the thoughts that go through my hair.. A random fact about Hannah is that I have pretty bad anxiety. I can literally think of all the horrible outcomes we can hear from the loan officer in about 10 seconds.. While in our "interview" I think we both started to feel like big time adults. We were asking about fees, monthly payments, insurance (I rocked this section) and escrow payments.. The officer once told us we could save about $50k in interest if we go for a shorter mortgage..... Not $50 dollars... $50,0000... Omg! Fortunately it all worked out and Curt and I are almost ready to make the big boy and girl decision of a house.. I hope we don't divorce..

My final thought for my short blog tonight is about Halloween. I am on the "fun" committee for my work this year so I am getting in the Halloween spirit.. I have decided after many hours of Pinterest creeping (I wish I was kidding) to be the beanie baby duck, Quackers. I have to give a shout out to my sister-in-law, Heather, and my sister, Emma, for making my sign and lending me duck clothes. Stay tuned for pictures. I ordered a sweet duck hat that quacks and has flapping wings.. Emma has nicely let me borrow some yellow rain boots. I am stoked! I like how adults act like they don't like Halloween at all but I think they may like it just as much as the kids. We had a cubicle decorating contest at work and so many people actually seemed to be in a better mood because of the silly little decorations. I wish I could trick or treat still and no get looked at silly. Getting free candy is amazing! Going door to door is a little creepy but you can't win them all. I need to find a little kid to be friends with for trick or treating in a non-molester kind of way. I also don't like men in masks.. Normally to me that would be robber but for one night I have to overlook that.. No way! 20/20 on WE has taught me otherwise. 


Thanks for reading my quick blog. I promise soon to have the questions completed. I hope everyone has a nice Halloween. I am secretly going to creep on every Halloween picture people post on Facebook.. Don't hit any trick or treater with a car, this will make your car insurance go up and have bad results for the superman/batman/princess/animal you hit. 

H

Monday, September 24, 2012

Mexico 2012

Hello! This post could have been titled Hannah doesn't want to study for her Insurance test. I have been very motivated to be unmotivated to study for this test.. I'll give you a little background on this test thing before I move forward with recapping my awesome Mexico vacation.. My work pays for us to take insurance tests to better ourselves at our jobs and when we get a designation, they pay us some moolah for doing a good job.. I have told myself that I am now allowed to check out anymore library books until I have taken my test.. This is a big rule in my life considering I successfully have read 5 books in the past 10 days.. I have to now focus my reading on insurance concepts.. Yay... I did discover a new author the last time I went to the library though.. Her name is Kristin Harmel (this just goes to show that I love all Kristins).. She incorporates Hollywood along with humor and a love story in her books. I read How to Sleep With a Movie Star, The Art of French Kissing and The Blonde Theory.. Definitely check her out if you want a fluffy read.. Okay so as promised, a post about Mexico.. Enjoy!!

I was so excited to go to Mexico for 5 days but I must admit I was a little nervous too.. I am sometimes a glass half full kind of girl and I was a little worried that something would go wrong.. I mean, I was spending 5 whole days with another couple and I have to admit, that I may not be the best person to hang out with for 5 continuous days.. The other couple we went with were one of our best friends and I didn't want anything to jeopardize this. Heck, sometimes I may not want to spend 5 continuous days with my own husband. What if sometime crazy happens on vacation and we can't be friends anymore? I am such a worrier.. I am sure I am going to have a heart attack at the age of 50.. Luckily, we all got along perfectly and had a great time. Curt and I laughed because after about 24 hours of being separated from Michael and Kristin, we had to admit we missed being with them everyday. I just think we need to plan another vacation soon. :) I will give a little plug for our travel agent/agency, they were amazing! We had a little problem with our bank on Thursday morning (the only real issue we had for the entire trip.. Make sure you always double check that your bank knows you are going to be out of the country...) and our travel agent called us and helped us through everything. Also, they told us to travel the week we did because it would be way cheaper and the hotels would be empty because it was right after Labor Day and they were spot on. We were told that the week before the hotel was at full capacity and the week after they would be at 80% but our week they were at about 40-50% capacity. This was amazing because we didn't have to wait for anything and fight through a crowd for anything..


This is the view from our room. It was absolutely amazing. I honestly wish I was there currently. The sand was so white and the water was an amazing blue color and was pretty clear. What this photo doesn't show you is that it had about 2054278792% humidity. We had a note in our room stating that Riveria Maya (where we were) has one of the highest percent of humidity in the whole Caribbean.. Boy was that true.. The first night I did my hair all pretty and walked outside and it was completely ruined and wet in about 3 minutes. It was pretty amazing really how humid it was. I kept a pack of gum in my room and took it back to Missouri with me and now the paper is glued to the gum because it got so wet in the room and then dried.. We got so lucky because it only rained for about an hour one day at about 9pm. We were in the lobby which was completely open when the rain poured down. The hotel workers had the lobby closed up in literally 2 minutes. It was like watching a Nascar pit crew (this will probably be my only Nascar reference as I hate this awful "sport"). Otherwise the weather was a beautiful sunny and 85 degrees. Perfect weather for every white person on earth to get scorched by the sun. I luckily didn't get to sunburned.. However, we all were very amused by the sunburned patterns on our fellow resort goers.. Some people did not believe in any sunscreen and looked like a red Christmas light and some people used sunscreen but only it patches.. I couldn't help but wonder what their crazy peeling will look like later.. Man I am a weird person...

We did venture off of the resort to a snorkeling/zipling resort called Xel-Ha. See photo below :)

I was a little hesitant to go off of the resort.. Hello, I could get kidnapped and die! Okay really, I have only tried snorkeling once before this time and it was an epic fail. Random fact about Hannah, I do not swim well and I do not float well and I do not breathe well. All of these combinations do not bode well for snorkeling and spending all day snorkeling did not sound too wonderful... I only got talked into it because Curt was so, so thrilled about going snorkeling.. This was one of those pick your battles moments.... If we traveled to one of the best snorkeling places in the world and I didn't make Curt feel like he and I wanted to go then I may have failed as a wife.. Plus I was excited about zipling. So on Friday morning off we went to this park. It was actually really cool. It was a 60+ acre through a rain forest with a river leading into the bay plus you could eat and drink all day long.. This was definitely an added perk.. We started about by snorkeling in a freezing cold river.. We saw some neat fish but I was a little scared because there were all sorts of tree over hangs and rocks that made me think snake.. I would definitely not swim in these waters if we were in Missouri... It didn't help that on our way to the park our tour guide told us that we may see a few pythons on the paths and if we do, just to alert a park ranger.. They would be alerted by my screaming... Thankfully we did not see any snakes. We also did some cliff diving at this park. You would snorkel up to these marked off cliffs and go up the stairs and jump off. I believe the cliffs we jumped were about 15 feet up.. It was weird because after you jumped, you had enough time to think about hitting the water before you did. I was very scared to do this but I am glad I did because it was a ton of fun. I think the European guys snorkeling next to us were glad I did too because I totally lost my swimsuit top... in crystal clear water... Oops..... Zipling was a ton of fun too.. We ziplined over water and then we would have to let go. It was cool because you could see all the fishies while you were flying over them.. It was definitely worth the money.... Snorkeling was fun too.. We saw some really cool fish/jellyfish/shells. We saw a school of fish when we were snorkeling.. That was so amazing to think that a group of animals could swim so in sync. (It was so hard not to write N'SYNC... My 90's boy band obsession is coming out here....). We saw a really big rainbow sherbet colored fish. It was by far my favorite.. We saw a manatee from afar.. They may be my new favorite animal.. They are a sea cow! How awesome! I call myself a manatee and Curt tells me to stop but hey, I am drawn to these weird animals! I will admit that I got very tired of snorkeling at the end.. I held on to Curt and he told me when to look down.. My snorkeling routine was looking at the fish for about 20 seconds then come up and remove my mouth piece and cough out all of the water I swallowed.. I have no idea why but I am terrible at breathing through my nose.. I had to laugh because I am pretty sure Michael had the same routine as me.. Apparently only Kristin and Michael could comprehend the basics of snorkeling.. Go Figure!!

The rest of our trip was spent eating, drinking and relaxing by water. We happened to go to Mexico on their independence day which was a very big deal to them and rightfully so. We went to Jamaica on their independence day also. Apparently Curt and I have a knack for going to other countries when they are having a huge celebration.. It was cool to see another county's patriotism.. The food was so good. We had a pretty normal buffet for breakfast and lunch. The omlet they made for breakfast was amazing. Dinner though was amazing. We sampled all of their dinner restaurants. We ate at a Mexican, French, Seafood and Steak, Italian and Japanese restaurant. We had an appetizer, main course and dessert at every place we went. The resort also had a coffee shop with delicious cakes and pastries.. I had a mocha frappe every day with dessert.. It is safe to say that I gained about 10 lbs or so.. Don't worry, my friend Kristin ate just as much as me but she ran 10 miles each day...... I didn't even know where the gym was... I will give you a short overview of the drinks.. They were so delicious.. I can't ever order a margarita again but they can't touch how amazing they were in Mexico. I drank about a million of these delicious drinks in 5 days.. My liver is thanking me for being back into my normal routine of not drinking tequilla everyday. :)

We had to be dragged out of resort after five days.. None of us wanted to go.. We did have a little laugh on the way to the airport.. We had to pick up this very tall man at a different hotel to take to the airport with us.. Apparently the bellman was having trouble/was slow at getting his bag down to the lobby after the man gave him the bag.. Our little driver was upset because we were going to be late (he must be on a strict schedule because we were plenty early..) and told the very tall man that he was going to leave him.. The tall man told the driver that he couldn't do anything and nicely asked him if he wanted him to superman the bag to him.. We couldn't stop laughing about supermaning the bag.. Luckily we got the airport in plenty of time and had a nice flight.. We went through Apple vacations and they chartered DirectTv and 4 movies on the plane of us so the flight we quick. I watched Brave and Dark Shadows and Curt watched the Avengers.. I'm highly recommending Apple Vacations as they were awesome....

I'm sad to say that I think this may be our last big vacation for awhile. We are expecting some changes in our life hopefully soon that will probably leave us with less disposable income to travel for awhile but I am going to go back sometime.. I have placed this on my bucket list.. I will leave you with photos of Curt and I and Kristin and Michael on our vacation. Notice the sweet tan as it is now sweet white.. As always, thanks for reading!
H







Wednesday, September 5, 2012

F to the Riends

Happy Wednesday which feels like Tuesday which is a week from Hannah's Mexico vacation! I'm so stoked about my vacation. I can't wait to spend a week not thinking about insurance, housework, grocery shopping, laundry or what I am going to eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner for an entire week.. I have to admit that I may be a little stressed about having to go through an airport but since I have some company in this journey and my journey ends at the beach, I think I will survive this time. I won't be bringing my phone or computer for a whole week so that will be a little bit of a shock. I know everyone will be so sad that they can't read any blog posts probably for the next two weeks but hopefully my next post will be so awesome that you will forget. I do have some more sad news to report before I get into my topic...... Katy Perry and John Mayer were reported being back on after they were reported to be done... Boo! Hopefully my future girlfriend makes the right decision and leaves him.. I wouldn't mind being one of her friends! (Nice transition into my next paragraph.. My English teachers of the past would be happy by this transition.. However, they would not be happy by my troubles with commas..)

Friends bring me some of the best moments in my life. I can't resist being in a good mood/happy when I am surrounded by a group of people I love. However, I can't help but being in a terrible mood when something isn't right with my friends.. I was thinking today about all of my different groups of friends that I have in my life. When I started thinking of my different group of friends I immediately thought of my old friends.. Not my old friends age wise but my friends who have been in my life the longest aka Vienna friends. I have girlfriends that I remember being in kindergarten with way, way back in the day. Since I don't live in Vienna anymore I don't see my old friends as much as I really should. I know a lot of this is my fault.. I need to make a better effort to see them whenever I go home to see my family. I was home for 2 days this weekend and didn't have go see some of my best friends back home.. This scenario = bad job Hannah. It is funny how we all used to in high school all get together on the weekend at parties or friends house and now we see each other at class reunions or weddings. I do have about 2 really good girlfriends that I still see on a regular basis. I love when we get together we tell tales of all the crazy/fun times we had in high school. I realize that if I told these stories to non-Vienna people then they wouldn't understand or think it is funny but we tell the stories and are almost in tears because we think it is so funny. I guess it should have been told earlier that since I am from a small school that all the kids a few years older or younger than me could be considered my old friends. Curt and I have some of our best friends right now that we knew growing up but we were never super close until the last couple of years. I guess that goes to show people that you should never lose contact with people because they may end up being your best friends.

College... College is kind of a weird time for kids. It was weird for me because I was one of the few people in my group of friends that was actually going away to college. Most of my friends were staying in Vienna and just commuting to school. I found that most of my friends who stayed behind actually became better friends while I was drifting away in a far away land called college. I literally got dropped off at my dorm without a car and maybe knowing two whole people on campus, both of which were older. If that doesn't motivate you to make friends, I am really not sure what will. Luckily, my roommate in college was awesome and was in a similar boat as me. We had to become friends or we would spend a lot of time alone.. This is a prime example of how opposites attract. We had the same morals but otherwise we were completely opposite. I have no idea why her mom made her join a freshman sports interest group as I get texts from her on a regular basis on all sorts of sports questions but I am glad she did it. I kept making new friends at school but it still felt weird because I had all of my friends back home. I found myself having less and less to talk about with my old friends and spending more and more time with my new friends. I think this is a cruel joke that someone is playing on 18 year old girls.. It's not like they are confused/emotional enough much less adding this new scenario of balancing friends. In the end, I just had to find a balance between both of the groups.

After college.. I remember a little bit after I graduated college going through my phone and wondering what I should do with the phone numbers of my college friends/classmates. I knew that I would probably never need their numbers again but I felt like deleting them would be like a wiping them out forever and closing a chapter of my life.. It is like you aren't old but you aren't young anymore. What do you do with these old friends? Most of them were moving on and leaving you behind. Do you really want to do a long distance relationship with people who were your friends but not best friends? Sadly, I didn't put the effort in for a long distance relationship and deleted most of them out of my phone.. Luckily, most are my Facebook friends so they are never far away.. I can always creep on them when I want to keep up with them. How did people keep friends before Facebook? I stayed in the same town in which I graduated college. I can drive by all the places I used to go to hang out with my friends but not have the same friends to go with me. It was depressing. I was in a familiar place but all alone. I watched all of my friends pack up their belongings and years of memories and move off to their new lives while I was still here. Luckily my senior year of college I scored an internship at an insurance company in the same place as my college. I was offered a job before I even graduated college so I didn't have to deal with the finding a job stress. I didn't realize that when my college life was over and my college friends were leaving me that I would find new friends through work. I seriously work with some awesome people and they have become my new core group of friends. Curt happens to work with awesome people too and they have became my friends by default. I honestly don't know how people don't work because I would go crazy. I miss my co-workers and social interactions when I am gone from work.

I think I am kind of a weird girl. I love sports and bluntly talk like a man sometimes but I follow celebrities and like fashion/makeup.. I used to be a huge tomboy but I guess I realized that in order to communicate with 99% of the female population I would have to expand my knowledge of clothes/makeup/shoes. I always joke with Curt that I hate it when we go to our friend's house to watch major sporting events because all the wives/girlfriends like to sit and chat while I actually want to watch the complete game. I want to hear the commentary while the other girls like for it to be muted. It is hard for me to find girlfriends because we don't have a ton in common. We do have a couple friend where the girl, Nikky, likes sports a lot also. I told Curt that my new rule is that I will only go to major sporting events at other people's house if Nikky is going also. A friend of mine once joked that we are friends because we hate the same people. This made me laugh so hard because this is probably true.

Politics.. I need the November election to be over quick as I am not sure I can remain friends with some of my friends after I see their political statements/views. Curt tells me that I am a confused voter so my beliefs are all over the dang place. However, I cringe sometimes when I see a friend's/spouse view on politics posted all over Facebook. People probably think this about my views too which is fine. I think November needs to hurry up so we can all remain friends. I sometimes have to stop the urge to comment on people's posts because what they posted drives me nuts.. I have to say, I am doing pretty dang well. Please remember this in the future if I post something you dislike, don't blow up my status bashing people/ideas/things that I am obviously in favor of.... That is all I am going to say on politics.. Next topic!

Facebook... I can't type a lie on this blog so I must confess that I creep often on the Book. I feel like if you put it on a public site for my eyes to see then I won't feel bad about reading it. I have decided that I like some of my friends way more because of Facebook. I didn't know some of my friends could be so insightful/humorous/awesome because of Facebook. I feel like this about blogs too. I read a couple of blogs and it makes me like people way more than I did before.. However....... This goes both ways.. Facebook sometimes makes me dislike my friends.. I am not the best with grammar but I don't think I am horrible either. My Nazi grammar friend, Kristin, may disagree though.. Kristin and I have a game where we screen shot a status that someone posted on Facebook and text it to the other person and the other tries to top it... One of my biggest pet peeves is when people use the incorrect form of your/you're and there/their/they're... Look over there and you will see their beautiful new house. I bet they're happy with it......... I bet you're happy with your new Ipad purchase so you can creep on my blog....... If you struggle with these words, please use the last couple of sentences for references.. Facebook needs some spell check so I don't judge you.. I am a horrible person..

Family.. I normally thought of family as just that, family. However, the older I have gotten the more I am seeing family as my friends also. I remember severely disliking my siblings growing up. They were not my best friends to say the least.. I couldn't wait to leave the house to get away from them.. Now they don't live in my house but 2/3 live in Columbia with me. We now get together about once a week as friends to play games or just to hang out. Someone makes dinner and we all sit around a table and eat-something we used to hate doing. My family/friends have expanded as my brothers are now married. I'm really glad I have siblings now that I am older even though I hated it when I was younger. A great part of getting married was I also inherited Curt's sibling to be my family/friends. He has a great sister whom I love hanging out with as a friend as opposed to a sister-in-law.

I must confess that I really started thinking of the friends topic at a BBQ with friends on Labor Day. We hung out with 2 other couples and honestly had a great time. We all got along and actually enjoyed each other's company. One of the couples was an old friend from high school and his wife and the other was a couple who was friends with our old friends and then we became friends also. Curt and I were discussing this on the drive home and decided that we are finally extremely happy with our friends situation. We feel like we have surrounded ourself with positive/happy people. I am done having friends who are negative. When I am around those people I find myself conforming being two faced and not the person who I want to be. You can never ever have too many friends but you can have too many negative friends. Actually one negative friend is probably one too many. I am now to the point in my life that I am not striving to be accepted by people and will do whatever it takes to be someone else's friend. If those peole don't want to accept me for me then I don't need to change to be their friend. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed the group of friend we were with at the BBQ. I didn't feel pressure to dress up, act like a normal girl or be someone I am not.. It is a really good feeling to finally be in this place in life..

I know this post wasn't a normally fluffy Hannah post but I will promise one of those posts soon. Say a little prayer that I don't get kidnapped in Mexico like my father-in-law is sure will happen. As always, thanks for reading my rambling!
H

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Notes #2

Two times in one week.. What in the world has gotten into me?! This particular note was completed by me on September 14, 2007.. Enjoy!!

95 random things about me (numbers 41, 67, 83, 85, and 86 are missing).. I have no idea why......

1. Ever been given an engagement ring? nah
Yeah!! It is pretty and perfect.. I was just telling Curt today how we need to purchase a second wedding band.. He says only if the ring has 4 wheel drive.. I think once we going down the kid journey I will have about 40 weeks to break him down..

2. Longest friendship? omgsh.. no telling..
I think probably my friend Erica... We go way, way back


3. Last gift you received? my gma gave me 5 bucks.. that was cool
Curt brought me flowers home from work last Friday.. I think it was a nice gift not a I messed up and don't want to be yelled at gift

4. How many times have you dropped your cell? i cant count that high
I haven't gotten any less clumsy that is for sure....

5. How many kids do you want? 2, one of each
Just 2 still.. Preferably one of each but I will take whatever

6. Thing you spend a lot of money on? Gas
Oh how silly I was back then.... Gas was probably like $1.24 a gallon back then... I spend my money on rent/student loans/taxes/cocaine.... Only one of those is not correct

7. Last food you ate? bbq ranch burger from chilis!
Jambalaya

8. First thing you notice about the opposite sex? face
Their personality.... Haha... yeah right

9. One favorite song? right now its #9 on kristins crazy cd.. ahh its a classic
I wonder what the heck that song was back then... Definitely Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
10. Where do you live? Columbia, MO

11. Cell phone service provider: cingular
Cingular does not exist anymore even though my dad swears we still have Cingular... I have AT&T

12. Favorite mall store: maurices
Dillards.. Now that I have to buy my big girl clothes maurices is too expensive.. You can find great deals at Dillards

13. Longest job ever had: hmm i dunno
Auto-Owners Insurance going on 4 years next May

14. Do you own a pair of dice? sure
We own lots and lots for dice game... We like to gamble

15. Do you prank call people? nah
They could have stopped at do I call people... No

16. Last wedding attended? some random ppl my mom was taking pics of
Trevor and Lindseys!

17. First person you'd call if you won the lottery: probably curt
Ohhh Curt or maybe Kristin.... Hard choice  
18. Last time you attended church: sunday
Sunday again at 11am

19. How old are you? 19
24...........

20. Biggest lie you have heard? something about us all ending up in a hole
HAHAHAHA Kristin will love this old answer.... I have no idea...

21. What do you want to drive? hmmmm i like the new mustangs
A lexus or bmw

22. Where's your favorite place to eat with friends? ummm baskin robbins, does that count?
Yen Ching
23. Can you cook? im trying
I'm not trying and I still can't....

24. What car do you drive? a red cavalier
Curt drives the Red Dragon now... I have the Black Jag aka the Toyota Corolla

25. Best kisser? my boyfriend
Channing Tatum

26. Last time you cried? hmm saturday?
Ohh it has been a long, long time

27. Most disliked food: watermelon, hands down
Lima beans probably

28. Thing you like most about yourself? i guess i have pretty green eyes
I like my pinky finger

29. Thing you dislike most about yourself: ugh i could go on and on b ut mainly my face in general
Bad answer 2007 Hannah.. Definitely my thunder legs

30. Longest shift you have worked at a job? 15 hours this summer
I guess so.. I haven't worked that long recently

31. Favorite movie? im on a bad santa kick now
Oh I love so many

32. Can you sing? yeah but im bad
Oh I am so bad at singing..

33. Last concert? i dunno actually
I went to a kid's concert last year
34. Last kiss? monday?
Today!

35. What color are your eyes? green
Same!

36. Who knows your darkest secret? hmm i dont know lol
I farted on a man's face one.. in the library... seriously..

37. Last movie rented? employee of the month
Piece of Heaven or something.. Remember in Marley and Me when the dog died for 10 minutes and it sucked? Yeah the main character dies the entire movie... What a happy movie........

38. Thing you never leave home without? keys and cell phone
And an extra pair of contacts

39. Favorite vacation spot? florida so far
Jamaica.. It was amazing and blew Florida out of the water.. I get Mexico in 2 weeks!

40. Do you like Chinese food? love it
I love, love, love it

42. Is your room clean? uhhh no
I'm a neat freak.............. Yeah right!

43. Laptop or desktop computer?desktop
Laptop.. I have an ASUS computer and I love it

44. Favorite comedian? Carlos Mencia
Really 2007 Hannah? I love Daniel Tosh

45. Do you smoke? no
I smoke hotness.. duuuh

46. Sleep with or without clothes? With
I mean... it depends.. I am a closet nudist a bit

47. Who sleeps with you every night? myself
Curt.. We are married so it is okay
48. Long distance relationships work? Nah
I think they can but it takes a lot of work
49. How many times have you been pulled over by the police? once
twice..... No tickets though!!

50. Pancakes or French toast? French Toast
French Toast

51. Do you like coffee? no
I'd die without it

52. How do you like your eggs? Scrambled
Or over easy

53. Do you believe in astrology? no
Nah

54. Last person you talked to on the phone? curt
I still think Curt

55. Last person on your missed call list? curt
Debbie Byrd but it was actually Mr. Byrd
56. What was the last text message you received? hayley
My lova Kristin!

57. McDonald's or Burger King? mcdonalds, i love mcdonalds but i HATE HATE burger king
Agreed! I love, love, love McDonalds..

58. Number of pillows? 3
5.........

59. What are you wearing right now? blue gym shorts and a white tshirt with a rolling stones hoodie
Black gym shorts and a black shirt with a lime green flamingo... Smoking hot!

60. Pick a lyric, any lyric or song? " then theres my thumb, hes a grumpy one and he goes GRRRRR!" - skybox song
Omg....... I love that song! I'm keeping the 2007 answer

61. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich? Grape
Or red plum... So, so good.

62. Can you play pool? im terrible
It is not my best friend

63. Do you know how to swim? i could save my own life
I can't save your life.. I can barely save mine... I'm like a dying walrus in the water

64. Favorite ice cream? raindbow sherbert
I like mocha too.... I'm going to Mexico so I'm trying to avoid ice cream..

65. Do you like maps? they are helpful
No... They cause Curt and I to fight...

66. Tell me a random fact about yourself? my roomy thinks i have the smallest toes ever
Hahahahahaha! Random fact about Hannah.. I can't wink.... It sucks

68. Ever attend a theme party? no
I still haven't but I really, really want to go to one!

69. What is your favorite season? winter
Ugh no to winter... Fall or spring!

70. Last time you laughed at something stupid? lol tonight, kristin dressed me up as a goth.. it was impressive
Hahahahahahaha! Oh my! I laugh all the time about things..

71. What time did you wake up this morning? 645
6:37... I'm going the wrong direction

72. Best thing about winter? christmas
Christmas or sweat pants

73. What kind of shampoo do you use? Pantene
Suave... I'm poor
74. What's the scariest thing you've ever done? uh i went to vermont by myself
That is still pretty scary.. I got married.. I checked my student loan balance.... All scary...

75. Name of your first pet? i think george
This hasn't changed..

76. Do you think pirates are cool or overrated? overrated
Agreed...
77. What are you doing this weekend? going to see curt and a football game
Going to the big Vienna Parade and watching Mizzou football

78. Who's your best friend? i have lots probably hayley, amber, kristin, andrea and curt (sometimes) just kidding
I still like all of these people! I think Kristin though is probably my BFF
79. What is the third letter of your name? n
I didn't change my first name.... Just my last name..  :(

80. How old are your pets? ava is 3!
Ava is going to be 9 soon...

81. What color is your backpack? Its white and light blue
Ducks don't use backpacks... Pffft

82. Are you sick? yeah actually i have a cold
No.. I'm knocking on wood

84. Is the bathroom open? uh sure
With my wisdom that comes with age, I still have no idea what this means

87. Are you smiling? nah
Sure!

88. Do you have on eyeliner? Not anymore
It's always on my face

89. Do you miss someone right now? yes:)
I miss my bed.. We have a love affair
90. If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go? australia
Fuji

91. Do you have a Myspace? not anymore
Myspace... I bet some young kid reading this has no idea what Myspace is.. I have Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter...

92. Are you in high school? Nope, college
I'm in freaking old woman working world

93. Do you have a crush? I guess on my boyfriend
See Channing Tatum

94. What is your favorite nickname for yourself? haynay
Duck or H

95. What color is your bathing suit? black and pink
Pink.. Black and white.. Purple.. I hate bathing suits
96. What's your favorite brand of water? nestle
Columbia Water that comes from my tap

97. Did you go on vacation last month? no
No but I am in 2 weeks
98. Have you ever been on a cruise? no
No.. I do not like books

99. Do you have a sister? Yes emma
My parents have no repoduced since then.. Thank God
100. Are you upstairs? yep
I'm downstairs... Hahahahahahaha

Happy almost Friday!!

H
 

Monday, August 27, 2012

One Crazy/Exhausting/Interesting/Awesome Year

 I've been putting off doing this blog post for awhile.. If you know me this is NOT surprising.. I wait until the last minute to do everything and then scramble around like a chicken with its head cut off ( I couldn't use duck in this example.. I had to sacrifice the chicken so the duck could live) to get whatever task done at the last minute.. It is not my proudest attribute but it is indeed my attribute.. I am proud of the fact that it took me under a month to do this post (Life is measured in small victories.. I rocked this post 3 days before the month deadline..). I made a small outline today but I am sure it is missing hundreds of stories that I will later have to blog about later about my adventures of my first year of marriage.. I am hoping to let everyone in on the highlights of what I learned from marriage and not scare people from marrying.. No matter how sarcastic/mean/unhappy I may sound about a particular story, it has been 100% worth it.. (I won't go over 100% as my math brain would be on overload on how that would have to be a mixed fraction and we don't go over 100%..) I'm tutoring math tomorrow to get this craziness out of my system.. Enjoy!

I started my adventure as a married lady on 07/30/2011.. It was a hot end of summer day without rain (the wivestale is that if it rains on your wedding day then you will be wealthy..Fitting for us that it didn't.. Well played God..).. I slept well the night before my wedding (I drugged myself.. Thank you sleep aid).. The day started with all of us girls getting prettier (I have some seriously hot friends/family).. We took pictures before the big moment.. Curt and I didn't see each other before the big moment but looking back on it I wish we did.. We could have actually talked before the big I do/I don't segment.. Besides, it is hard to be romantic with a Catholic priest looming 2 feet from you.. (If you have any bad catholic jokes/comments, check them at the door or tell me when I have been drinking and think it would be hilarious ;).. I just remember the wedding being long and waiting for it to be over.. Hello, we were in it for the reception.... Boy, I know I am biased but I had a blast at our reception.. We have gotten lots of compliments on the party we threw.. Hell we may be responsible for relationships/babies.. Curt and I have it on our bucket list to have a vow renewal.. Basically this is an excuse for all of our friends to get together and kick it again when we are "old".. My theory is that you go to work to live.. I would love to spend my hard earned money on another party to experience the thrill of the first wedding.. I think this may be the secret to marriages.. Have a vow renewal! You get to rekindle the love, drink and buy a new pretty dress... Mark your calendars for 07/30/2016!


Now from the wedding to the first married fight.. Dun, Dun, Duuuun! This happened on 08/01/2011.. Yes.. Exactly 2 days almost to the moment from the wonderful I Do moment... We were going to Jamaica (amazing by the way... We loved, loved, loved it!.. If Katie Denning is reading this she will understand the humor... ) and Curt was trying to be all macho/manly by taking charge in the airport.. This is hard for me as I am bossy.. Very bossy.. But since I was still on wedding bliss, I let control go.. Curt marched up to the desk of the airline and got our tickets...... He also decided to leave BOTH of our passports on the desk counter... We had waited in line for about 30 minutes (the airport was a zoo and Kristin we aren't sophisticated enough to travel in the business line) and I asked Curt to give me my passport as we were almost to the passport checker dude (who was scary).. Curt had a look of panic and then decided to blame his mess up on me by saying he gave the passports to me.... Wrong! I may be old and married but I did not turn forgetful in 2 days.. He ran as fast as he could to the airline desk (I am sure this was comical to the people beind us.. If I wasn't so mad, I may have laughed also) and luckily they had our passports.. This was our first married fight.. I nicely informed Curt that I would kill and divorce him if he cost us our honeymoon.. I took over after that and we got to our destination safely and soundly.. Yay first married fight!! First and only... Hahaha yeah right!!

Okay so a big thing with marriage for me was giving up my last name.. Hence my blog name.. Btw, I am very impressed with my creativeness in coming up with this name.. Go me! Anway, I told Curt right after we got engaged that I was NOT changing my last name.. A little background on Curt, he is always really calm and rarely picks his battles....... So when he fought this battle with a dang bazuka, I knew I was in trouble.. He says it is because when we have kids that our kids are not confused (good point C. Byrd) but I really think the main reason for him wanting me to take his name is solely pride.. He takes great pleasure in calling me Hannah Byrd.. I should be happy that he isn't calling me Mrs. Byrd because I really haven't gotten used to that in the 13 months we have been married.. That is still his Mom and just not me.. I know there is some lady reading this blog saying how in the world could a woman not want to take her husband's last name.. I know those girls.. The ones who put Betty Crocker to shame and have dreamed their whole life to be Mrs. So and So... That is so not me.. It's not that I don't want to be married to Curt but I just don't want to change my whole identity.. I mean, what was wrong with Hannah Schiermeier?! You liked her enough to marry her and now you want to chang her name? Ughh... Schiermeier was unique and people always asked questions about it... Granted it was normally how to spell it but still! I was never a girl to write on my trapper keeper (wow.. oldschool) Mrs. So and So.. Okay, I will admit that Mrs. Justin Timberlake may have been doodled somewhere on my belongings but that doesn't count! I did ask Curt if he would like to be Curt Schiermeier and he looked at me with disgust.. I then told him that I didn't like it either! As you can tell, I gave in.. Honestly Byrd is much easier but I still think of myself as Hannah Schiermeier.. I think Hannah Schiermeier was probably way cooler than Hannah Byrd so I don't really want to see her go.. I smile a little bit when I check my student loan balance as it is still under Hannah Schiermeier.. I then cry when I see my remaining balance remaining..

The whole year I have been married I have been having mini mental breakthroughs realizing that I am indeed an old married duck.. A couple of weeks ago at work they made us fill out an emergency contact just in case I find a way to severly hurt myself from my office chair.. My whole life when I saw emergency contact my first response is Laura Schiermeier.. Relationship-Mother.. It dawned on me, I think I would offend Curt if I put my mom as an emergency contact.. I mean, if I somehow managed to hurt myself at work who would I want them to call? Do I think Curt should make my medical decision? I mean he is my husband but he has never once made a medical choice about me.. I am pretty proud of myself that I haven't had to see a doctor in like 5 years.. I hope I don't drop dead in myself after this huge jinx... I did finally fill in my emergency contact card with Curt Byrd-Spouse.. I secretely hope that if I get hurt he calls my mom... He won't know this as I won't let him read my blog.. We will know if he has been cheating and reading my blog if this situation occurs and he calls my mom and asks her for advice..

Money..... More importantly, joint bank account... We had separate bank accounts for about a month until I walked into my bank and asked them to change my new with my new license which I had to have every proof of identity on earth to get and they said no because I didn't have a marriage license.... Oh I pulled a Kristin Wiederholt (not Glaza.. not ever.. sorry) and demanded for them to close my account because it is crazy that one can't change a name on a bank account with a new license.. So therefore I was left with no choice but to make the dreaded journey to Curt's bank and open a joint bank account.. Yeah it has worked out and we have been able to communicate on money, which is good, but it also sucked at first.. Before the conversion over to Byrd, I could go shopping and buy a nice new shirt and no one but me and the processor at the bank would know how much it cost.. Now, thanks to online banking, my husband also knows.. However, his wife, this lady duck, also knows how much he spends on his 22nd fishing pole at Bass Pro.. It look a little adjustment and honesty but we have worked it out. Plus, I get to spy on my birthday/christmas/valentine's day gifts.. I had no idea I was getting flowers for Valentine's Day until I was checking on our account and saw he ordered flowers a month in advance.. Good job Curt! I didn't tell him I knew about the flowers because he was so, so proud of himself for surprising me..... It is little secrets like this that make a marriage go round.. I probably shouldn't post it on an open blog forum but whatever.. I have a strong feeling that mainly woman are reading this anyway..

Kids.. I won't spend much time on this topic because I know this will be brought up in the future sometime but I do have to comment on how this whole conversation changes when you get married.. On 07/29/2011 no one in their right mind even suggested we have kids because, God forbid, we weren't married.. On 07/30/2011, the world let us have our peace.. On 07/31/2011, everyone wants to know when/how/if we are practicing on having kids.. Holy smokes.. It is amazing what adding an extra ring to your left hand will do for this conversation.. I mean you get this topic from people whom you never, ever want to discuss how kids are made with... This is a hard topic for us though too.. I mean it isn't like the rest of your life when you just knew when to do it.. Marriage was easy because we both were graduated and I told Curt we either get engaged by Christmas or he may die.. Kids is a different subject.. Holy cow, when do you know you are ready for a kid.. Somneone once told me that you are never ready for a kid but you have them anyway.. I'll be sure to blog about this topic when someone actually happens but right now, we are going to Mexico in 2 weeks and that is my most important thought..

Sleeping.. Okay most people who know me also know that I LOVE to sleep.. Notice how I put love in capslock.. It is very important in my life.. Curt and I have a snug double bed we sleep on everynight.. It was free from college so I have no complaints.. However, if I was a small little duck it would be easier to sleep.. I don't really like to be touched at all when I sleep and that is hard in this small of bed.. We do have a twin bed in our guest room and it appears to be very comfy.. We don't want to buy a new bed until we finally buy a house so we are stuck with what we have.. However it occured to me a short time ago that we could bring the twin bed in our room (our room is huge btw) and we could sleep in the same room but in separate beds.. It was brilliant! We could both have our own space in bed but be in the same room.. Curt was completely against this move and he even yelled at me if I knew the divorce rate of married couples who don't sleep in the same bed.. I advised that we would at least be in the same room and the situation isn't because we are mad but just because we can't get a new bed yet.... Besides, how does he know divorce rates? Is he just looking up divorce stats for funsies? Anway, we decided to wait it out in one bed (ugh) and we will get a king/queen bed as soon as we buy a house.. I can live with this arrangement.. The things your sacrifice (your own dang sleeping space in bed) when you decide to get married.. However, the nights he isn't here to crowd my space, I honestly miss him to pieces.. I also think a robber is going to break in and kill me but that robber won't kill me if he is sleeping like the dead next to me.....

Speaking of no space, hello in marriage you live with someone.. Suddenly you understand why your mother didn't mind a quiet house and being left alone for a bit.. Suddenly you live with someone and that someone is always there.. I remember the weekends in college when we saw each other once a week and couldn't wait to see each other and spend every waking moment together.. This changes when you get married.. Oh honey you want to play Madden for 3 hours tonight, just make sure you do the dishes before hand and that will be fine.. He thinks he is catching a break as he only has to do dishes then he can dive into his undefeated Madden season but in reality you get to dive in to trashy reality TV, your book, the entire bed to yourself, and enjoy a moment to yourself.. It is something that definitely takes some getting used to in the least but it is nice to have someone on the couch next to you on a Friday night when you are chilling.. However, I do not take the few moments I get to myself for granted anymore..

Lifestyles... I sort of skated around this subject earlier but I am going to hit in on the head now.. Curt and I grew up very differently.. His parents are way more conservative than mine so we are used to doing things differently.. I am sure this will come to light more once we have kids but that is a journey we aren't taking right now.. When we were going car shopping because his Chevy Malibu (The green grasshopper) was on the fritz this difference became apparent. He was going to take charge and get advice from all the other men to make this big decision.. (conservative).. I was going to go out and buy this dang car by what I wanted because I am a woman and dang it, I can make decisions on my own (modern).. We had a HUGE fight over purchasing a vehicle.. It was our first really big purchase and honestly, we failed miserably at communicating.. We both had to give a little as he wanted a Camry which was out of our price range and I wanted a Chevy HHR since it was way under our price range... We settled for our highly efficient 2009 Toyota Corolla (the black jag).. We compromised by buying a very basic model so it would be almost the price of an HHR. It was a good decision by us.. We joke that we are both going to implode when we have to buy a house but I think we will do better as we know how to communicate better now...... Or I hope to God we do.. :)

In summary, marriage is a lot of work.. It is not just a big game of playing house but it is totally worth it.. It takes a lot of work and constant communication with compromise but I wouldn't take back a second of the first year..... No that is a lie, I would take back some of it but I think that is normal.. I am sure I will think of more important marriage wisdom to share in the future so expect a second post.. As always, thanks for reading!

H. Byrd.............................. or H. Schiermeier ;)






Tuesday, August 14, 2012

I Heart Katy Perry

Hello Friends!! Welcome back to my blog.. I hope your August is going fantastic.. Mine is going pretty well especially now that the sun isn't melting on Columbia, Missouri anymore.. It is nice to walk outside and not feel like God is threatening us all to hell if we don't behave a little better.. We must have been on a little bit of better behavior as the weather is much, much cooler. I hope you enjoy my blog post today.. I'm working up to my post about being married for a year so now you will have to suffer through a bunch of random topics.. Don't you worry though, I did put together a random list on a post it note so I would be a little organized. It is amazing all the blog topics you can think of while analyzing whether you should designate liability to a business premises or let the liability sail to everyone.. If my boss is reading, I do work.. a lot.. I just like to multi-task while I underwrite... So enjoy!!!!!

I guess I have to first start with my title.. I heart Katy Perry.. Big time.. This made it to my post it note as KP :) JM :(... I will get to that in a minute but let's take a step back for a bit.. I am not muscial at all. When people say you can be whomever you want when you grow up is wrong.. I could never in a million years be a singer because singing is not my best thing at all.. I don't even sing in church not because I don't to discourage God with my off key dying but I don't want to hurt my neighbors ears.. I don't understand why some music notes are filled in black, why some are filled in white, why some have little sticks, why some have sticks with flags and why some have no flags at all.. However, I imagine in my fake little play world that if I were to be a singer/diva, I would so be Katy Perry.. I know my friend Kristin is going to read this and roll her eyes and say but she is so cartoony! That is why I love her. I want to be her candy loving self.. I love her music because it is so fun and I think she is fun. I would definitely kick it with her and if I had to pick a girl to try and convince me that guys aren't needed in life, it would be her.. I feel like I should try and convince her that guys aren't needed because she has horrible taste in men.. Russell Brand looked like he was trying to look like a caveman their whole marriage and he isn't even that funny. I will give it to her that he does have a hot British accent but that is it.. Now swing to the present future.... My superstar love has been rumored to be dating my arch enemy of music John Mayer... UGH! See previous KP :) JM :(.. I hate John Mayer's music and stupid personality. I hate that he somehow gets hot women and then treats them aside like they are a dog toy.. It wasn't as big of a deal until he stole my Katy!! Let's just say that I am not happy with new couple.. ugh...

TMZ, US Weekly, E! Online are just a few of my guilty pleasures when it comes to Hollywood.. If you didn't notice above that I follow this gossip too closely, you will after this paragraph.. Curt makes fun of me because he says I talk about celebrities like they are my friends.. Oh did you see that Jennifer and Justin got engaged? Oh, of course we don't know any real people engaged named Jennifer or Justin getting engaged.. They are just people I watch on TV.. Oh you mean Jennifer Aninston... (insert weird look here...) What this paragraph boils down to is that if you need someone on a trivia team who knows Hollywood, call me... If you know someone who wants a friend, send them my way as I obviously need a few more.. :)

Olympics.. This was the next topic on my list.. First off, I am so sad that the Olympics are over. I think I am going to start saving my vacation days for the 2016 Olympics.. I loved watched all of the random sports along with the popular sports. I of course love gymnastics. It is crazy to me how those girls can make their bodies do those crazy moves. I have went to several Mizzou gymnastics meets and it is seriously crazier in person. It is worth the admission for sure. I become very interested in water polo. I watched a women's water polo match/game and it was crazy. Random fact, I do not swim well at all. I can swim enough to save myself in a pool of water without a current or waves on a sunny day with no wind or rain.. If you were beside me drowning, I sure hope you have lived a really nice long life and have recently went to confession because you will be meeting God soon.. Let's not even discuss how treading water to me is probably the hardest thing on earth.... So here i am watching a sport where girls are treading water, swimming, and throwing a large ball in a pool like it is nothing! Also, the girls are literally beating each other.. I saw a girl with a black eye! I was trying to figure out what is a foul in water polo and I am seriously stumped.. Girls were out there beating on people and trying to drown their opponent and it apparently. Hello in the USA we call that a felony and you bet my butt would be pressing charges on you for your bad behavior but in water polo that is normal apparently.. Pffft.. I couldn't stop watching though.. It was like watching a car wreck... I think they should have a summer olympics for just normal everyday people... Could you imagine your next door neighbor attempting to play water polo? Gymnastics? Mountain biking? I should pitch my show to NBC.. Surely it would be better than that stupid Animal Practice or whatever it is called in which they interrupted the closing ceremony to air commercial free.. I think the commercials may have been more entertaining than that show.. Speaking of the closing ceremonies.. Holy hell were the Spice Girls amazing.. I love, love, love them.. They looked amazing! If they came to Missouri I would pay more than I would be willing to admit in my blog to go see them... Maybe I should change my title to I Heart The Spice Girls...

Weekend.. I am super stoked for this weekend. Another couple friend and Curt and I are going to see my friend Amanda and her husband this weekend at their house. We are going to go on a lake and have a bbq and pretend like we are in Mexico a month early. Unfortunately my friend Amanda can't go with us to Mexico because she is married to a farmer.. I don't know much about farming but she has helped enlighten me a little.. What I get is that September when we are in Mexico=Harvest Time.. Harvest Time= Big deal for farmers to make money and therefore since they can't harvest from Mexico they must stay with their crop.... I bet when Amanda reads this she chuckles and wonders how we are friends.. Though she will admit that I am making progress.. If my sister marries a farmer, I am not sure if I will be able to make it.. :) Anywho, this weekend I am very excited to hang out with everyone and I am sure it will be a blast since we all get along so well.. Don't worry, I will be extra safe swimming this weekend and I will be sure to blame Curt if someone goes wrong :)

Christmas shopping..  I am here to announce that I bought Christmas presents for 5 people on my list this weekend (only seven million to go) and got awesome deals.. Curt and I usually have a holiday meltdown in December over Christmas shopping so we are trying to space out our shopping over the next couple of months.. So far, so good on this arrangement.. Stay tuned for information regarding any future meltdowns.. Also, if you have any requests for a Christmas present, you better get it in now.. Unless you are Lindsey, Debbie, Dad, Mom, or Nana... You have already secured a Christmas present from this duck...

Jorts.. This whole fashion trend makes me laugh.. I love when I see old men who refuse to acknowledge that jorts are no longer in fashion.. Now, I normally don't go by every fashion rule in the book or make Curt for that matter, but this is one I follow strictly for guys fashion.. Curt would sadly be wearing jorts if I didn't put my foot down.. I love when jorts are paired with a sweet short sleeved button up shirt... It is even better when the whole outfit is paired with high white socks and kicks.. It is even better when the kicks are sandals.. I think I may have just described my dad.......... I would bet a ton of money though that jorts will be back in fashion one day.. I heard that early 90's fashion is coming back now.. I can't wait to buy a bright purple wind breaker and curl my bangs and fluff them up as high as they can go...... I guess this is good news for people who never stepped out of the 90's..

Hair.. I still can't believe that I chopped off all of my hair.. I don't regret my decision but it still catches me off guard sometimes when I look in a mirror. One guy told me I looked a lot prettier with long hair.. Haha.. Thanks....... Let me go drown myself in my tears lol... It takes so much less time to shower, blow dry, and straighten my hair.. Plus my hair feels and looks so much healthier now. I didn't realize how dead my hair was until I cut it off.. I do believe sometimes a change is good..

Money.. Money is something that is a necessary evil in all of our lives.. Sometimes I seriously wonder how people have nice things when they make no money.. I have friends who don't have jobs and survive.. Hell I live in a two income house and I don't know if we can survive.. (joke we survive just fine).. A question was asked at work about what I would do for a $1 million.. Honestly, the answer is a lot more than I would admit.. What would you do for $10 million, $100 million or $1 billion? I think people who say they wouldn't do something for all the money in the world are full of it.. If someone put $10 million in front of me and said to cut off my toe, I couldn't grab that weapon fast enough.. Well toe we had a nice run but you got to go so mama can be a rich duck.. If you are reading this and think I am nuts, then you haven't paid any student loans lately...... :) It is just something to ponder... What would you be willing to do for $1 billion dollars. I would be interested to hear the answers to this.. You can leave a comment with a question and I will probably answer it.....

Okay, enough random topics for this post.. I hope you enjoyed my craziness. As always, thanks for reading!
H


Tuesday, August 7, 2012

I Did It!

Hi!!!! I hope everyone is having a good week/day/life/moment. This will be a short but sweet blog post as I need to the time and write out my next blog but today I wanted to give you an exclusive look at my new hair cut! I'm very excited about it as you can see by the post and exclamation mark. I have been growing my hair out for YEARS and I have been telling myself I was going to cut it soon since it annoyed me to take care of it. I have to take a shower in the morning before I go anywhere so that means blow drying and straightening my hair every single morning.. This takes forever and makes me very hot. Back in my skinnier days I never had to worry about these things.. Oh the joys of getting older! I kept making excuses of being in weddings to not cut my hair but I was in my last wedding on Saturday for awhile so I decided to do it.. Here are the pics below!!!
Notice the long hair!







































Here is the after.. Notice how much hair is gone.. I like it thus far.. I almost got cold feet in the chair but I'm glad I didn't.. Here is a new Hannah!



I don't really like this picture but I am taking one for the team here.. Hope you enjoyed!

H