I say that sarcastically because it’s basically just little balls of ice falling from the sky.
Well of course being the that photographer I am I brought my camera with me the last time Miss Oakley went outside.
Well she kind of loves this ice/snow mixture.
This weather is crazy! I think the craziest part is that it’s supposed to be up in the 70s this weekend.
Schools are shut down.
Bridges are closed.
People aren’t working.
You know what bothers me the most?
My box being closed.
I know it’s because of the road conditions and personal safety, but all I want to do right now is lift a bar and throw it around! Crazy, I know. But it’s my therapy and all I want to do right now instead of being cooped up in my apartment with a crazy little schnauzer and lots of episodes of Dexter is go workout.
I’m just hoping that this weather changes enough tomorrow to melt the ice off the roadways at some point to let me go workout.
Oh well. I’m going to try and enjoy these next two days. I know I won’t end up working tomorrow either.
Might as well read some books, clean some stuff and watch some Dexter.
Ok so go ahead and forgive me for the little rant. Oh, and grab the popcorn.
During the evening hours Monday through Friday I can be found at my gym, Red Stick Crossfit. Saturdays and Sundays? Those are the leisure days when I walk five or six miles around LSU and Baton Rouge with Miss Oakley. Now, during the week I walk her two or three miles a day just to get her out and about. Before the spring semester started and the weather was halfway decent, I’d walk her around the lakes and LSU campus without a lot of traffic. The weekends same deal.
People tended to be a little courteous.
“Excuse me.”
“On your left!”
“Excuse us.”
You’d see the same few people if you went around the same time everyday. Wave, say hello, the kind of neighborly behavior you’d see on a street lined with cute little houses and white picket fences.
Enter spring semester.
Class is back in session, students are back, staff are back, professors are back.
A lot of people are back. A lot.
And a lot of this common courtesy seems to have migrated away for the spring.
Now, when I’m walking Miss Oakley, she’s on a tight leash, not roaming freely in busy areas, and I manage to keep control of her around people. Always alert. No distractions (other than the occasional text message), we walk.
In the past two days I’ve almost been run over by three different cyclists (on the sidewalk), a car failing to yield at a crosswalk, people allowing their dogs with questionable behavior to approach Miss Oakley and I and cyclists just appearing behind me expecting to me to sense their presence.
Y’all, forgive me for being all ‘on the pedestal’ and whatever, but that’s just plain rude.
Anyway, that rant is over.
Just be courteous, let people know when you’re passing them, and use common sense.
It can’t be THAT difficult. I mean, the majority of this influx of people-traffic are supposed to be in college, right?
So I’m sitting at home watching the series finale of Treme with my dog sound asleep next to me and I can’t help but think over the last year and what I’ve done.
In January I started grad school. Something I was proud of at the time but then realized I had jumped the gun too quickly. I also got rid of some extra baggage I was carrying around and found a new apartment to escape from my crazy neighbor.
February was ok. Moved into my new apartment and woke up every morning drinking coffee on the patio and waving to my ex-crazy neighbor. I started a new part time job. New Orleans hosted a Super Bowl and the LSU baseball season opened.
March is the best month because it’s my birthday month. It was a month filled with shenanigans and the travelhood of the sisterpants. Operation “Wet Kiwi” was a success after two of my best friends broke into my apartment and surprised me with birthday shenanigans and general craziness. Oh, and that crazy neighbor? He got evicted.
In April I shared a plate of crawfish with Kirk Herbstreit and other members of the ESPN Gameday crew. It’s is the month that I’m most proud of. April is when I started Crossfit at Red Stick Crossfit. Joining that gym was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and I can’t thank the coaches and my fellow athletes enough for pushing me to my limits and beyond every day.
May was a month filled with craziness. Ms. Oakley turned 1 on Cinco de Mayo and we celebrated accordingly. I quit grad school, put it on the backburner and tried to figure my life out (which no 23 year old should have to do because it’s not fun).
June meant summer. Summer means freedom, well, kind of. LSU baseball made it to Omaha on the anniversary of Warren Morris’ 1996 CWS winning homerun. Tiger Stadium got a new field. Many sunny days were spent at my friends’ rooftop pool in New Orleans, and one of my friends taught me that those fancy sleeves they put on coffee cups is called a zarf.
The rooftop shenanigans and late nights in New Orleans continued all through July, with many trips to the Bulldog, car rides, and kids movies at 10pm on a Saturday night. I made my mom a TOTALLY non-paleo incredibly dirty yet incredibly delicious birthday cake (think cookie, brownie, cookie, brownie, cookie with vanilla icing between each layer covered in chocolate icing and sprinkles galore).
August brought me into the green smoothie lifestyle. Many summer WODs were completed in 90o+. There was a beach trip and Ms. Oakley found her way into the Gulf of Mexico and played in the sand. I started eating paleo and doing food prep. I also lost my car to a negligent driver to couldn’t see around a truck at a stop sign but thought it was ok to go anyway. RIP Puf Daddy.
September meant fall (kind of). Fall means football. LSU football started and September also let me go play on the boat in the marsh and bayou for a few days. I got my first RX at Red Stick Crossfit and was incredibly proud of myself. I became addicted to stuffed pork tenderloin. I got a new car that I named Roux and became a grownup with a car note.
October was just junk. Roux got hit by a drunk driver in Downtown Baton Rouge. I had a 28-day rental in the form of a Ford Focus (aka tiny car). I got a crown and was told I was a princess by my dentist. FINALLY hung photos in my apartment after living there for almost a year. I stuffed pork tenderloin with bacon. Yep, I sure did. And I got Roux back just in time for Halloween.
In November I went full paleo and became obsessed with bacon. I tried cooking everything with bacon. And I mean everything. I even tried to convince my mom to wrap the Thanksgiving turkey with bacon. Yep, that pretty much sums up November.
Welp, December. December was a month of letdowns. I had two promising job opportunities that I had interviewed for and found out that neither of them wanted to bring me on as a team photographer. Yeah, I was sad but at the same time I realized that for one of them, I beat out 250 other applicants to become one of the 10 finalists. I went to dinner with my dad and the waiter thought we were together. That was awkward. I helped some crazy friends move into their new house, became BFFs with I-12, got the game winning touchdown in a college playoff game, and got excited over a new dishwasher. The filthy fifty Friday and 12 days of Christmas WOD both kicked my butt but I loved every second of it. And I ordered a small large at Reginellis. These things happen.
So it’s New Years Eve.
The last day of 2013.
I need to come up with some goals for the New Year, right? Hmmm.
Eat Clean, Train Dirty 