The Richmond Project.

As you may know, I moved. I moved to the Commonwealth's capital, Richmond. Well, Richmond will, by God, be the LAST place I live on my tour of Virginia, next stop, any other state. I have been living in Virginia for a healthy 5 years now and while I love that Virginia gave me an education and a career, I highly doubt that my husband is lurking (because of course, he is lurking) in this state, so how about you let me go, VA?

Richmond was not at all my number one choice, the only other 3 cities below Richmond: 1) Little Rock, AR (sweet Jesus, please let me never EVER get moved there) 2) Hell Paso, TX and 3) Norfuck, VA. Regardless, I ended up in Richmond and Richmond has reflected my bad attitude towards it, right back at me. I would be understating that I had a week from hell last week.

In an effort to make Richmond affectionate towards me and vice versa, I decided that my attitude needs to change for the better. Basically, I need to maintain an attitude of gratitude. This is a hard thing when someone doesn't necessarily want to be where they are or would prefer to go the easy route and hate everything having to do with this new place. So I am going to do a little "project" for 31 days. This is in hopes of staying positive in this move and finding reasons to love Richmond.

I base part of this project on an experiment my friend Jen did last December. Check out her experiment and the outcome. I base the other part on tone of my favorite blogs.

My project: For 31 days I will be positive about Richmond and find worthy and worthwhile things to do while I am here.

The Outline:
-9 positive things for the day
-1 reason why living in Richmond is awesome
-1 cool fact about the city or one neat place that I visited (restaurant, store, site)

The End Result: To find my place here in Richmond and to like living here because I chose this path.



and maybe i will throw a picture every once in a while.... (we'll see, but don't get your hopes up)

See you tomorrow!

Conserving my values

I have struggled for a long while over whether or not I wanted to write this post. It has been an internal struggle for me. So with that... beware.

I have always considered myself fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Not on a whole lot of topics, just pro gay marriage, pro choice, etc. I am still a firm believer in the death penalty and support any state that chooses to make an express lane to take that route- yes, I truly AM Texan.

So here I stand at a crossroads in my growing up period and one thing that has been bother me since about April 2009 is my stance on abortion. Here are my two influential and conflicting stories.

Story 1) Pro-life

There used to be this girl that I worked with. I used to consider her a friend and some days of the week, enjoyed her company. A little bit of background on her, she was married and we had been working together about 4 months at this point (April 2009). Obviously, she was not happily married because she started having an affair with another man that we worked with. She was not terribly discreet about it and even felt proud of having an affair. Needless to say, my other co-worker and I were appalled of how careless she was not only in having the affair, but also in the way she talked openly about it at work.

There was a brief lapse in our talking days prior to the month of April and this is when she found out that she was pregnant with her affair-ee's child. Yup... Not the sharpest tool in the shed, this one. So, on Easter weekend, she had an abortion. (irony?) Not because she didn't want the baby or didn't have the finances to sustain a life of a child, but because she didn't want to shame her family. She didn't want to shame her family because of the horrible, ignorant, life-altering choices SHE chose. She chose to be selfish- shocking- and end the life of the baby. In her mind and according to her religion- "it was okay because the soul doesn't enter the baby until after 40 days".  So she killed it, yet goes around preaching that she is pro-choice, but would NEVER have an abortion.

Fortunately, her now ex-husband has no idea otherwise he wouldn't have to pay her any alimony. He did, however, find out about the affair. And still agreed to divorce HER, therefore she still gets alimony. Manipulation at its finest.

Story 2) Pro-choice

I know this girl. This girl is equally as ignorant and selfish as the girl in story 1. She is just younger. Well this girl decided that since her mother wouldn't let her have a dog, she would just get pregnant. So, September 2009 rolls around and here appears a sweet, little baby who has done nothing to deserve the life he shall endure.

****Disclaimer: There was a whole SLEW of drama that ensued with this pregnancy and the father of the child. (Let's just say he is a REAL winner, felon style)****

Anywho, this girl has no education, no job and literally does NOTHING all day. Nothing. She relies soley on her brother and her mother to take care and support her and the baby since the father is all sorts of useless.

Well.... here we are in December/January timeframe and guess what? The baby is 3 months old and the dumb b-word is now preggars with a 2nd child. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Do NOT bring another child into this terrible situation. Everyone surrounding her prayed to God that she would turn her life around... No such luck, in fact, she made the situation worse. Congrats, you dumb b-word, I will give you a freaking trophy for worst mother EVER.

And unfortunately, unlike story 1, she is actually faithful to her beliefs and will not get an abortion. This is a case where I genuinely think having an abortion or giving the baby up for adoption would benefit the child.

So here I stand, at the crossroads of my decision making on my social beliefs. Where do I go from here?

*This was written and saved for many months before posting*

the engagement project.

Today- I was reading through a previous frenemy turned enemy's blog and stumbled across a blog entitled "the engagement project" and it made me think, "holy s, I am so not ready for that!" I say this because the past year I have had more than 50 friends get engaged. I am not kidding you, thanks sorority life. A little history about me- I was engaged and then decided not to get married because he was not ready and, well, neither was I. Anyways, I now have 50+ sets of wedding pictures I will surely be stalking via facebook and only a few select weddings I will allow myself to go to. (Hey, if i don't go, you get a better present!) But all this engagement stuff made me think, I am totally not ready to be there. I always say, yes I am, yes I want it, but, pardon my language, shit, I can't even freaking commit to a cell phone for more than 1 year, let ALONE commit my LIFE to another person. I understand that these two things don't seem to be related, but my mentality on it IS similar, I always want the next best thing and the grass is always greener on the other side, yada, yada, yada.

So, peruse the website, between this blog and watching Julie & Julia, you can expect some sort f "project blog" in the works for me. I'll keep you posted!

<3,
J

Week 3

So- here I am. Week 3 at my new job and living in Richmond proved to be uneventful, went out and managed to run into MORE people I know and rehash the past two years of my life. My thoughts on this- "Dear College- loved you when I was there, but I'm kind of over it and would prefer you to stay where you belong, in my past. kthanksbye. <3, JB."

The social scene at my work is lacking, but it HAS potential. This is the first time in MONTHS where I haven't had a million things to do and been surrounded by so many people, so I am trying to embrace my alone time and enjoy it, because I know it will not be long before I am busy again. Plus, it gives me a great deal of time to stop and THINK and look at my life, where it has been, where it is going and the person I want to be. Trips to DC help. :)


Lots of scattered thoughts, will try to get my thoughts reorganized and come back. <3