today is the day...

That I officially decided that my #1 favorite band as of February 4th is....

Brand New

I've never been easy to choose just one band or artist as a favorite because there are so many choices and so much variety.

But after listening to Brand New non-stop for the last two weeks... I knew they were my favorite. Like favorite favorite.

I can listen to them when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm angry, when I'm hurt, when I'm anything and they make it seem like it will all be okay and that I can get out of bed.

Oh and because Jesse Lacey:

 

kaleena's bookshelf: invisible monsters

Did I just finish reading Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk? Yes.

Is it now probably on my top 4 favorite books/things ever? Certainly.

Do I just want to call everyone I know and talk and talk and talk about this book? Oh yeah.

Do I love this book so much it hurts? Hell. Yes.

Did this book have many, many quotes I adored and wrote down? Yeah, here they are:

“The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.” 

“It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness.
We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.”

“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.” this one is actually from his book, Choke.

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”

“No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention.
Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day.
This is all practice.” 

“When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves.” 

“You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.”

"The best way is not to fight it, just go. 
Don't be trying all the time to fix things. 
What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger."


She says, "Don't do what you want." 
She says, "Do what you don't want. Do what you're 
trained not to want."


It's the opposite of following bliss.
"Do the things that scare you the most."


-Invisible Monsters
Chuck Palahniuk

if everyday was like monday.

It's Monday. And here are some pancakes for you. I really don't mind Mondays.... I only don't like them when I've been on vacation for three days. I was hoping work would go by super freaky duper fast which it did and in which I am thankful for. I was sososososo happy to get home and as I arrived to this lovely apartment of mine, I was greeted by the pile of luggage from my trip I don't want to unpack. So.... I'm not going to ask anyone to come unpack it for me, but that would be the ideal situation. Do you know what the worse part of vacations are? The part where you have to come home and unpack... with blisters all over your sad feet.

Anyway. One month ago, I decided to grow out my bangs. I am more than certain your hair will grow and grow and grow but when you actually want it to grow, it stops growing. So, I am going to go for a drive and be busy growing my hair/bangs.

photo of the day #118

Introducing: Wookie dogs. Life is good when you have Chewie as a co-pilot.

a good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.

 

Wanna know the first sign you are great at procrastinating? Well, besides procrastinating your procrastinating, it's instead of packing for the road trip you've known about for weeks, you get on your laptop. In my defense, it looked lonely and it was just sitting here.

This road trip I am excited to:

+take pictures.

+ride shotgun with a pile of goodies on my lap.

+get some thinking done. 

+eat gas station food at rest stops.

+see four corners.

+not be at work.

+enjoy this wonderful three-day-weekend. Oh, yeah.

This road trip I am not excited to:

+Toss and turn in the front seat of the car looking for that comfortable napping spot that I refused to believe exists in any car.

photo of the day #106

Introducing! The most happy cup in the history of ever. Now, I don't drink a lot of coffee... or anything out of a mug for that matter. But I would be willing to drink out of anything that had a donut holder.

"i guess sometimes there just aren't enough rocks"

While

Is my favorite movie of all time for countless and rather obvious reasons...

....is also my all time favorite movie. For reasons like these:

IN OTHER NEWS:

I'm moving to a new desk tomorrow at work. And since I get attached to basically anything and everything against my will, yes, I will probably cry when I start packing up my current desk. It's going to be the end of a 2 year love/hate relationship.

dogs are awesome.

I could probably think of close to... 100 billion reasons just off the top of this head of mine, why dogs are probably the best creatures on planet Earth. Among these endless reasons... 

+ People who own a dog typically live up to seven years longer.

+ People who own a dog typically live a more happy and fulfilled life.

I really really really want a dog.

hammocks.

Oh yes, please!

Where will you find me tonight?

Ideally:

In a hammock with some red velvet cake batter and/or cupcakes.

Realistically:

In my apartment. Not in a hammock.

Sigh.