wanderlust-ful

I'm going to officially add Chicago to the list of places I want to live. I recently spent some time in the heart of Chicago and I think I fell in love. I may not fall in love easily with other humans, but cities have a way of calling out to my heart and making my knees weak.

Enter my latest love: Chicago. It really is some kind of wonderful. So much going on, so many people, and some beautiful architecture.

I tend to have this feeling of wanderlust after basically every place I visit which leads me to believe that I'm not in the geographical place I should be. I think I need to try harder to make things in my life happen and pursue my dreams, even if I don't know what they are exactly.

Maybe I'm meant to figure them out on the way to some place wonderful, possibly like Chicago.

Wooo ee, what's up with that?!

I feel like I've encountered a lot of extremes lately with how people act and emotions.

I guess it is just a nice reminder that the rest of the world has its ups and downs too.

It definitely keeps things interesting and it also makes me want to strive for more balance in my life. Because I may not have any control over others and their emotions, but I sure as heck can try to keep my actions and emotions in check. At least until the situation calls for intense emotions and actions, of course. :)

Not so 'pawsome'.

Recently on 20/20 they did a story on crazy cat ladies. Apparently a documentary or something was going to feature these 3 women and their obsession with cats. They ranged in age from 30's to 60's. The number of cats owned ranged from one woman, the one in her 30's, having 16 cats to another having 123 cats. (Yikes!)

The experts claim that there are underlying reasons for why people become crazy cat ladies and these women just reach that breaking point and take up this attachment with cats. Whether it be relationship issues, family issues, or even self worth issues due to job loss or a major change in their lives, something just causes them to snap and try to get what they are longing for from cats. We all know that cats can't be a fix for issues of that magnitude, but these women seem to be oblivious to that fact.

Me and my baby Emma.

I am a cat lover myself and even have paw prints tattooed on my foot, yet I can't and hope I don't ever become a crazy cat lady. I can't see my life ever going that way, but if it starts to unravel and I start taking in as many cats as possible, please stop me at 5. Thanks in advance.

Peace.

Hopefully less is more.

I really love writing about my thoughts and feelings and putting them down right here in my blog, for you and the rest of the world to read. (Shout out to whomever visited my blog from Europe; you made my day.)

But there are some things I want to write about that are just too personal for my beloved blog. So to help with the craziness that is my thoughts bouncing around my head, I've purchased a journal. Technically it's a travel journal, but it has a map on it and I have a thing for maps so it was a done deal. Also though I am not currently physically traveling from place to place, I like to think I'm traveling through life. So it was a perfect fit.

It's my baby and I carry it around with me everywhere just in case inspiration or frustration hits.

She's a beauty.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that I may blog even less or when I do, it might have a different tone since this isn't my only outlet anymore. My posts will probably be less personal, but who really wants to read about my problems and frustrations in my life? My blog will hopefully be more positive and therefore be love. So keep reading and I promise to try and keep it interesting.

As always, thanks for reading.

Where am I?

My blog is having an identity crisis, not me. But therefore the name has changed and may or not change again.

It's my prerogative after all.

Got a dart and a map?

If I could throw a dart to a map to pick a place to live, I would. One day, I want to pack up all my things, or at least the important things, and move. Preferably to a different country. I want to experience life somewhere else than America so badly. I am convinced that other places do it better than we do. I just need to find those places. And if they aren't so great, I will just come back to good old America.

With that, here is the most current list of the places that I want to live someday. I started to make a list of all the places I want to visit, but it is way too long.

Possible places of habitation as of 10/21/09:

• Copenhagen, Denmark

• Seattle, Washington

• New Orleans, Louisiana

• Denver, Colorado

• Vancouver, BC, Canada

• San Diego, California

• Somewhere in Spain*

• Somewhere in Norway*

• Santiago, Chile

*I need to do a bit more research on Spain and Norway to narrow down cities. Really, I think mostly anywhere in Spain would be great and Norway made its way onto the list by being named the best place to live in the world. And people jump off mountains there.

Sidenote: After looking this list over, it looks like I have a thing for mountains...

I realize that not all of these are practical and therefore have some options still in the US. Yet it would be so great to just move somewhere brand-new and foreign. How scary, yet exciting. I don't want the consumer driven life we have in America. I want to pay more in taxes in order to have good health care and just take care of each other. I want to live in a place where you can have a year of paid maternity leave and let your baby sleep safely outside in front of your house, like Copenhagen, Denmark. Any place where people live more organically and in tune with the earth and life.


I'm such a dreamer.

Stir-crazy.

I don't know exactly how many days I've been unemployed, but it feels like forever. It was nice at first, but now I'm starting to think I'm losing valuable skills by basically sitting around everyday reading and filling out job applications. For example, talking sometimes is a struggle as of late. I have no other language to rely on, so I really need my English speaking skills to be above average or at least average. I have a friend who was out of the country for a while, so now when he tries to speak English sometimes certain words still escape him. To make up for this lack of vocabulary, he whistles and gestures to make his point and it usually works out for him. Crazy. I would do this, but alas, I still can't whistle. (I wonder if that is a skill I will ever pick up...)

So I apologize in advance if I have a conversation with you and struggle with my words. Just remember to give me a break because besides my roomie, Jude (my hipster jade plant) is typically who/what I talk to on a daily basis.

Therefore, I am going crazy. I desperately want to be doing something with my life or at least something relevant to living the life I desire. But the more I think about the life I desire, I wonder if I really even know what I want. Yes there are things I want to achieve but how do I want to spend all of that other time either leading up to or after those things. I tend to be someone who looks forward to the bigger things coming up in my life and ignore what's happening to lead up to those bigger things. I feel I am getting better at embracing the smaller things and learning to embrace more of the present situations I am in. But a part of me is always looking to the future and willing the time to go faster.

Deep breaths have become a big part of my life to try to counter these urges. Sometimes I like to just take a deep breath and really take in my surroundings. Other times I do it just to try and relax myself. But for whatever reason, I do it all the time now without realizing it; I just did it while typing this. It is my hope that it will help to focus on my surroundings more and really take in my life. Because these smaller moments and events are my life. Maybe not going to be the most memorable, but I am trying to be more conscious of it all which will hopefully help me to figure out what I want out of life, big and small moments combined.

I guess this time of not working has been a pretty good reflection time for myself and my overall focus. When I least expect it, something comes into my life and changes it. Whether positive or negative isn't important after a while because we deal with it either way. And that's life.

I like these...

'As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live' - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And in the lyrical genius that is Jason Mraz...'go make your life, not a living'.