eunice ann

tales of a girl trying to make sense of it all.

They say it’s your birthday

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Today was a great day. It made me think about many birthdays past, both good and bad.

20 years ago – I was celebrating a wonderful birthday at Disney World, seeing my grandpa and his (now ex) wife for the first time in years, and rocking the awesome socks with sandals look. I only wish I had a picture to share. I met Mickey Mouse, what did I care?

15 years ago – It was snowing. A blizzard. Major. My brother and sister were having sleepovers elsewhere and my mom was mad that I got butter pecan instead of chocolate ice cream.

10 years ago – I was enjoying my first (legal) beer with some coworkers in downtown Flagstaff. I was having a blast. So much so, that I missed my dinner reservations with my (then) fiancee.

5 years ago – I was received my divorce papers in the mail. I had a pretty crappy day all around.

1 year ago- I had a complete meltdown, packed a few things in a bag, got in the car and drove to Flagstaff. Turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time.

Today was a fabulous day filled with fabulous friends. Overall, a great day.

Thanks to all of you that sent wishes or happy thoughts my way. You helped make my day feel special.

I have no words

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Today has been a Monday, that’s for sure.

Which is funny, since I have Mondays off. They are really like my Saturday, so I should have no excuse for having a sincere case of the Mondays, but today, I do.

It started off well. I woke up (at 7:30) to my mom asking me what my plans were for the day. I said, “to enjoy my last day of being 30.” To which Alissa replied, “mommy, why are you gonna be dirty?” Which was pretty darn funny.

Then I went for a run. I managed 1/2 a mile before I had to cop a squat behind a pine tree before I peed all over myself. Then I hit yoga and Pilates after that. Three straight hours of exercise really pumped me up.

Then I got a call from my dad. He needed my help. Which I was glad to do, but it stressed me out and exhausted me, all in the 90 minutes I spent.

When I picked my darling daughter up from school today, there was a note from the teacher. Not a good one. She had a bad day. Really bad. I have an appointment to talk with her tomorrow. That put me in a pretty foul mood. Oh the joys of parenthood…so even though I have a ton of stuff to work on tonight, I really just want to curl up on the couch, watch TV, and go to bed early.

So I’m refreshed for a big day of turning 31 tomorrow.

So the writing thing is going well

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I know this is completely weird to say this, but I am in love with my writing project. Sure, there are days that it’s hard – I am opening up cans upon cans of raw emotion that I never dealt with, both good and bad. It feels simply amazing. I wish I had done this years ago.

A dear friend of mine has been reading it and giving me feedback, which she actually compared the anticipation of reading it to watching LOST. Having never watched LOST, but aware of its draw, I like that compliment. But she also knows the players involved and was there for me through most of this, although even she admits it’s been interesting to hear things from an open and honest perspective.

But something else has happened that I did not expect. I am actually feeling all of the stuff that I felt back then, but more purely and more intensely. It’s crazy. I can’t even explain it.

A few years ago, when I was still seeing my hypnotherapist, she unlocked this same wave of emotion that I am feeling now. She told me that it would be best for me to deal with it. Process it and share my emotion with those that were involved. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was too afraid of the outcome.

It’s amazing to me that we can allow fear to be so crippling, to the point that the pain of being afraid becomes worse than the thing we’re afraid of. I can’t remember where I heard it recently, whether it was on a show I’d watched or something that I’d discussed with a friend, but this idea stuck with me:  “change occurs when the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the fear of making a change.” Love that.

It’s true. Or it certainly seems so.

So the other day, I picked out a card and I wrote a letter. I took a lot of time to compose my thoughts, and sat down and wrote the first thing that came out. I wanted to write a letter for a few reasons: First, because a handwritten letter is just so nice to receive anymore. Second, I wouldn’t have a chance to re-write, re-read, and obsess over what I said specifically. I know the gist of what was put out there, I don’t need to stress over semantics. Third, there’s something about relinquishing control to the US Postal Service that just feels so final.

I embraced the moment and ran with it. I put everything on the line to say how I felt because, simply enough, the pain of remaining quiet hurt more than the fear of speaking my heart.  A few more days and we’ll see.

This chain of events triggered a string of tweets on the matter, and one of my tweeps (who is a total doll, btw) ended up reading the blog and also loved it. I didn’t do this for the accolades, but it does feel nice. One thing I can say is it sure hasn’t been as painful as I thought it would be. It’s been freeing. And freeing is good, right?

So I guess this post is the ribbon cutting for what I’ve been working on the past couple of months. Although if you pay any attention at all, you’ll notice it’s been in my sidebar for the past three weeks. 🙂

foursquare junkie.

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You may or may not have heard about the “next Twitter phenomenon”, up and coming social media application, foursquare. If not, let me clue you in.

foursquare is essentially a means of geotagging yourself via Twitter as you run errands, dine out, or check out new venues in town. You leave tips for other users such as, “Reverse happy hour starts @ 9 & tapas are $2,” and the more you check in to any given place, you earn badges and mayorship (meaning, you’ve been there more than anyone else). Aside from the fact that it easily enables people to essentially stalk you, it’s pretty fun. Plus, several businesses are getting on board and offering specials to the mayor or users with certain stats. You can’t go wrong with a free cup of joe just for being an obsessive tweeter.

The things I like about foursquare:

  1. I am more inclined to try something new based off a tip someone left.
  2. I patronize local business and help spread the word about their establishment.
  3. I get a huge ego boost when I see the words, “Congrats, you just became the mayor of…” (yes, it is all about me)

Things I don’t like:

  1. Currently, the listings are user added & maintained, and if people don’t stop and take the time to search for a venue, duplicates crop up. (Which you can report as a dup and foursquare will take care of) For example, there were six listings for Camelback Ranch when I went down for the Dodger game a few weeks ago.
  2. All the information my tweeps see is a link to a Google map – they don’t get to see any of the tips or information about the venue.
  3. That stalking thing I mentioned.

I challenged a friend-of-a-friend (whom I’ve never met) to a mayorship duel this week on the best mexican restaurant in town, in retaliation for him booting me as mayor someplace else. I am also on a mission to unlock the “Super Mayor” badge – being mayor of 10 places at once (I am at 9 right now).

In all, it’s dumb, sure. Just like Twitter is. But it helps to stimulate our local economy, which can’t be bad at all.

I’m feeling lazy today

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I don’t feel so hot today, and I’ve wasted all my creative energy writing another blog post and designing postcards at work. So all you get is a picture. My favorite from last weekend’s portrait sessions. I’m a big fan of lens flare, in case you didn’t know…

megan & ray

I’m about to get all political on you

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There. You’ve been warned. I’m not politically charged, generally speaking, but there are just some issues that get me going sometimes. Education is one of them.

I’m annoyed. In the 13 years since I was a student in the Flagstaff Unified School District, I see that nothing has changed. Not a damn thing. In short, the district is out of money. Again. And they are asking for taxpayers to cover it. Again.

The funding for the district is so bad, they are projecting closing four schools – two elementaries, one of two middle schools, and one of the three high schools here in town – prior to the start of the school year in August. They simply cannot afford to staff schools that aren’t even full. In March, the voters passed a hotly contested budget override, which would provide additional funds to the district by increasing property taxes. Now the district is asking for a sales tax increase to cover the remaining deficit. Almost half of the educators will be receiving temporary pink slips today, until the district knows what next year’s budget is going to look like.

When is this going to stop? I have never heard the term, “budget override” outside of a discussion directly pertaining to FUSD. They ask for an override every. Single. Year. It’s ridiculous. Where the hell is all the money going?

They try to tug on the heart strings with statements like, “this is going to affect our kids if this doesn’t pass.” Why weren’t you thinking of the kids when you were out wasting spending the money we gave you last year? No one wants to make them accountable. They just want to save the jobs and the classrooms and deal with the repercussions later. They just keep throwing money at the problem in hopes it will go away.

And they wonder why kids are defecting in droves to private and charter schools within the city…

Hallmark – my best friend and nemesis

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I’m addicted to greeting cards. I can literally go into a card store and spend hours reading each and every card. I love to send cards, I love to get cards, I think greeting cards rule.

But Hallmark cards – those are the best. No matter what you need to say or how you want to say it, there are a hundred cards to look through and choose from to say just what you want to say, the way you want to say it.

I’m reminiscent of a card that my ex-husband got for me when he was trying to apologize for being in love with someone else. He got me a card with a raggy teddy bear on the front, pouting and flopped over. It was blank inside. Alluding to my love for both teddy bears and my love for perfect Hallmark cards, he wrote inside that they must make the blank cards for the occasion that someone needs to write “I’m a horrible and pathetic person.”

Today, I found myself at Hallmark, wanting to buy a card to send to a friend, but was challenged in picking one out. It seems that there were several cards that communicated what I felt, but had that one odd line that made the gist feel totally cheesy and generic. How I wished for one of those blank cards today.

I’ve been kind of tortured lately, between telling someone how I really feel about the situation that they are in and just keeping my mouth shut. I was kind of hoping that I’d find the perfect card to convey my emotion on the matter. I didn’t. I found two cards that would work, but wished I could blend them into one. Maybe I should just send them both.

Baffled.

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I’m in a quandary right now.

I’ve been dating a great guy for eight months now. I mean, a really great guy. Our first date was like something I daydreamed about, and he only continued to get better from there. Despite the fact that his crazy travel schedule and our living 140 miles apart makes it really difficult to see each other, I am still. So. Smitten. And just when I burden him (unbeknownst to him) with my own baggage from past relationships, he surprises me with not being like every guy from the past. In fact, he’s nothing like most of them.

Except one.

I’ve spent the better part of the past ten years totally in love with one of my best friends. He gets me. He’s amazing. And he’s so emotionally stunted at times that it’s impossible for me to so much as entertain the idea of a relationship with him, if he ever decided that he wasn’t afraid of the outcome. But we definitely connect to each other. I love him, and I know a part of me always will.

So it’s no surprise why I am so into this new guy. He’s merely a younger version of exactly the guy that I know I want. I don’t think he even knows how alike they are, outside of my occasional comment stating that fact.

And now the monkey wrench — a couple of months ago, I had a long conversation with my friend. As in, three or four hours, saying a lot of the things that I’d been needing to say and hoping to hear for years. It was amazing. And confusing. I had no idea what to do with the new information that I’d received.

So I did nothing. I still think back on everything that was said and wonder what I should do, if anything. But for now, I am just enjoying things as they are. And I’m holding nothing back. I’m all in this time. And it’s not as scary as I would have expected.

5 years later…

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Yesterday was my 5 year divorce-ary. On the one hand, I can’t believe it’s already been that long. I’ve now been divorced for longer than I was married.

I still have hard days. A lot of hard days, if I’m to be perfectly honest. I still keep up with my ex through the articles he writes for a publication in Seattle, mostly because I love his writing; he’s very talented and I’m happy that he kept up with it. I don’t really give a shit how his life is going otherwise. Unfortunately, it means that I have to suck it up when I read comments like “my wife and I…” I guess it still bothers me that things worked out with the two of them (even though they are really right for one another).

I don’t know — I guess there’s some level of fairness that I expected out of all of this — to see their indiscretions blow up in their face at some point. But it hasn’t. And I need to let that go.

I wasn’t happy, so I don’t know how fair it is for me to be mad about everything, after all.

But I still have hard days. They are much fewer and farther between, but when they sneak up on me, like they did yesterday and a few months ago, they really get the best of me. And I get angry, hurt, and sad all over again. Fair? Probably not. But really, I think I still have a lot of healing to do. But I’m getting there.

I forgot how much I love Sedona

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Yesterday, I hosted a group of mini sessions at Tlaquepaque in Sedona. Tlaquepaque (pronounced tuh-la-keh-pa-key) is an art community that is housed among some really gorgeous adobe and tile buildings. I am going to have to go back down there this week just to shoot because I didn’t manage to get any personal shots in yesterday.

It’s just a pretty little place filled with fountains and plants and beautiful, stunning artwork. There were three weddings taking place at the time as well, and we did our best to stay out of the way.

Sedona has changed and grown, and it’s still overrun with tourists, but man, is it beautiful. When I was in high school, the 30-minute drive down the hill was where we escaped to when we’d ditch school (something I didn’t do much of until my senior year), especially when the weather started to get really nice. It was great to just lay out on the Red Rocks, enjoy a picnic lunch, and swim wade in the creek. Then we’d hike around some trails and just enjoy the afternoon.

Aside from the horrible sewer smell and widened split highway into town, Sedona was mostly as I remembered it. Pretty rocks, bustling trees, sound of the creek. It was a great day. I got some great photos that I will be posting on my photography blog shortly.