New Friends

New friends last season
Good friends this season

Last season, I was in the middle of a lesson when I looked over and there was this thug looking guy (Mat) teaching this tiny little girl (Becca) how to snowboard. My lesson came back for the next few days, and the Mat and Becca came back. By the end of the week, we all exchanged Facebook information and became friends.

Then Mat, Becca, and a few of their friends came to the mountain just after I'd returned to Maine from Lyn's funeral. I was a mess, I'd been away from the mountain for two weeks, I'd seen the boy I'd dated for five years...and I just felt broken and hollow. But I took the day off work, and we all rode. Slowly the pieces came back together. I dubbed it mountain therapy.

This year, the Mat came back with another friend who'd come for that Mountain Therapy trip. I drove up, slept on their hotel floor and couldn't believe how great it was to be around these guys. I felt energized, bold...and best of all, happy.

So your mission then, is to be open to new people. Even if they look like thugs, or hooligans, or whatever. Sometimes it can re-inspire you more than a new pen. Plus sometimes they make fun new characters (these guys are obsessed with reggae).
I'm thankful that I met these people.

2-4, me, Mat
My new friends :)

New Gear

Back in December, I ripped my work pants in a place that shouldn't be ripped. It got so bad, I felt I couldn't bend over without exposing my undies to the world. Then the snow came...then I got my season pass to the mountain and realized, I need new bindings. So, I bought new bindings rather than new pants. (Thankfully my mommy sent me pants for Christmas.)

From there, I started looking at my other snow gear. Sure, I had gloves, but they had really big holes. Sure, I had a jacket, but it was the same I'd had since 8th grade (this is not an exaggeration).

There was a sale online and with the help of Christmas money from friends, I ended up buying new gear.

You can't tell, but I totally had a Red Bull in my pocket :)

The first day I wore my new jacket, gloves, shirt, hoodie, and hat, I was walking tall. Each step I took had a bit of swag to it. Then, I got my board (new as of last season, with the new this season bindings), and hit the chair lift.

I felt like I needed to do my gear justice. I hit rails. I hit jumps. I did 180s. I put on a show (small, because I'm not so brave yet) for the people on the chair lift. And IT FELT GOOD.

The novelty of the new gear has worn off over the last two months, but I still think of that first day with all of my new toys, which brings me to my next point:

When was the last time you bought yourself some new gear? Perhaps a new pen you've been eyeing at the grocery store. A new notebook with a cute puppy on the front? Whatever. Your mission is to go out, and buy something that will inspire you to be great. I promise it'll be worth it.

Happy Monday.

A Call For Submissions

 I've been blowing this blog up a lot with the whole abortion debate, and politics, and other fun things. In order to focus The Submission Process more-so on writing (and ranting about the real world), and less on politics/changing the world, I'm starting a new blog, AbortionChat, and right now, I'm calling for submissions.

Really, really excited

The idea behind this is I want to hear from everyone. ProLife, ProChoice, Pro--whatever. Male, female, puppy, etc. I had a meeting with some folks from Planned Parenthood, and basically, we want to spread some grey area. Abortion is no longer a black and white area. There are people out there who say, "I'm against it...unless in case of incest." So, I want to know why you believe the things you do, why are you for/against abortion? Did someone close to you have one? Are you involved in the church? Were you raped? Do you have a little girl who you want to be allowed to make her own decisions with her body?

With that said, I'm hoping to launch this here new blog sometime in March. I'd love if you'd stop by. Even if you don't want to tell your story, maybe you can connect with someone else's.

Have an awesome weekend. It seems like Baxter will...

January Reads

So my Goodreads goal was to read two books a month, thus bringing my year-long total to 24 books. Sadly, I'm a bit of a slacker who constantly goes through roommate/landlord drama and so I'm falling a little short.

Either way, in 2013 I've managed to read two pretty decent books. Here are my reviews:

The BFG
By: Roald Dahl
Rating on Goodreads: *** of *****

I remember in third grade I heard a lot about this book. I'd tell people I hadn't read it, and they'd gasp. 

So after a million years, I finally sat down and I've got to say, it was cute. Not much else to say about it. 

I feel that if I'd read it years ago, I would have loved it. The ending (literally, the very last line) was very clever. If you're looking for something magical and uplifting, this is a quick read.

 Wither
By: Lauren DeStefano
Rating on Goodreads: **** of *****


This book was incredibly well written. From the very first sentence you're sucked into Rhine's horrible world. I didn't expect to feel as nauseous as I did the entire book. This is NOT a novel to make you feel uplifted.

The only real thing I had an issue with was the ending, it felt a bit too rushed for me to give this a five star rating. Though it's a trilogy so I'm excited to read the next one.

 Are you my friend on Goodreads yet? You should be :) 

Valentine's Day

I am an inadequate girlfriend. In prior years, I've had boys tell me the day before V-Day that they cheated on me...six months ago. This year, I figure hey, I'm in a healthy happy relationship so...try to do it right, right?

Plan one was to eat dog food. Well, Jen's car blew up (not literally) but it turned out that she lives in the middle of nowhere, so the Dog Food Challenge has been rescheduled. Damien and I spent the night eating Subway and watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower...

The following day, because I'm poor and classy, and Valentine's gifts were 50% off, I finally manned up and bought some presents. He picked me up from work, drove me home, and a few minutes later we exchanged gifts.

He opened a very obnoxiously large card (it had an adorable bear on the front), discovered a hot pink heart full of candies that on the front read, Princess, (I call him Princess because it's funny) and another smaller heart full of Reeses (because he likes them).

And then he handed me a large box and said, "It's kind of wrapped awkwardly. Sorry."

I opened the box. In the box was sweatpants...wrapped around something. I removed them, and low and behold, it's The Hunger Games trilogy. I about peed my pants. (Seriously. He then asked if he could read them...and because I'm pretty anal about my books, I encouraged going to the library.)

His Present......My Present

Moral of this story is that I'm a terrible girlfriend. Then I proceeded to ask him if I could borrow $10 for lunch money this week...

Happy Monday.

Dog Food Challenge 2013: Eaters Four And Five

Welcome to the 2013 Dog Food Challenge.

Earlier in January, I posted some information about the 2013 Dog Food Challenge. Basically, I have four people and myself. On Valentine's Day (because we hate V-Day) we're going to circle up, and delve in to some canned dog food. Some of us for research. Some because it's also a fundraiser...(we're each aiming to raise at least $10 to donate to the local animal shelter, we'll see if that actually happens) and some well... I guess we'll find out why they're doing it. 

You've met Jen and Marlene, and Billy. Today, you'll meet the last two contenders:

Damien and Me :)

One fancy day at the pharmacy a cute boy walked in. I talked some snowboarding, he dropped his number and ran out the door. A month or so later, we were dating and I asked if he'd want to eat some dog food. He said yes. Huray!

And well, I'm the last one. Stay tuned. The eating is tomorrow :) (Hoping to be able to do some video)

#AbortionChat

We are women, hear us roar

Last week I had a meeting with a representative from my local Planned Parenthood on how I could get involved. He told me why he wanted to work with the non-profit organization, and why it's important that health centers offer a wide variety of sexual health services. I told him my story.

From there we discussed what we dubbed, "Grey area."

The truth about abortion/carrying a fetus to term/opting for adoption is that the questions are no longer black and white. It's no longer a simple line of, "Are you pregnant?" but more so "Why are you pregnant?"

There are factors that determine pregnancy or abortion rates:

*Marriage
*Rape
*Contraception
*Failure of contraception
*Incest
*Eating disorders
*Mental health
*Genetics
*Your own parents

This is just a small list but dissect the words. There can be happy healthy marriages, and there can be domestic abuse marriages. Rape no matter how you put it, is awful. The bottom line is that there are women walking into clinics around the nation seeking a medical procedure. Many are judged. Many, like me, are screamed at by protesters holding signs on the sidewalks. The truth is, I don't know that woman, so who am I to pass judgement on her circumstance? Is she going there to end her pregnancy? Yes. But the real question here may be, why?

This Tuesday, February 12, 2013 at 9pm (EST), I will be hosting an #AbortionChat on twitter. If you have questions about the procedure, if you want more information, or if you want to gain knowledge from the safety of your own computer, please join us, we'd love to have you there. All we ask is that you keep an open mind.

Dog Food Challenge 2013: Eater Three

Welcome to the 2013 Dog Food Challenge.

Earlier in January, I posted some information about the 2013 Dog Food Challenge. Basically, I have four people and myself. On Valentine's Day (because we hate V-Day) we're going to circle up, and delve in to some canned dog food. Some of us for research. Some because it's also a fundraiser...(we're each aiming to raise at least $10 to donate to the local animal shelter, we'll see if that actually happens) and some well... I guess we'll find out why they're doing it. 

You've met Jen and Marlene, and today, you'll meet Billy (the man, the legend).

I met Billy a few months back at the road race. He was a friend of the Partner in Crime and it turns out that he also snowboards. After a few rounds of hanging out, I decided to ask him, 'Hey, do you want to eat some dog food with us?'

He asked why, and I explained about the fundraiser and the research and he jumped on board.

Stay tuned to meet the last two contestants (though you already know me, so really there's only one more :) )

On Death and Dying

When you're fifteen years old and walking out of a basketball game, the last thing you expect your sister to say is that her best friend is dead. Or a few months later, when you're sixteen and sitting at a computer waiting for your own best friend to get online, you don't cringe when the phone rings, Not until your sister tells you your friend won't be on the computer because she's been in an accident.

I'm going to be cliche but it feels like your heart has been ripped out of your chest, like someone has put a bulls-eye on your innards and they're playing darts with it. I remember being angry because my friends were so young, they were just kids. When I'd read obituaries about older folks (you know 20-40 years old) passing away I wouldn't get as sad...at least they'd lived some life. Meanwhile, my friends were dying at 16-17-18 years old. They didn't even graduate high school.

I thought as I got older the deaths wouldn't hurt as much. They wouldn't have as much impact as Kellie or Kara or Darren or Fred's death. I wouldn't cry, I'd brush it off saying, "I've been through it before" and press on.

And then I get a text from my sister asking, "Are you awake?"

And the game changes again.

Within about ten minutes, I found out that not one, but two friends were dead. One has been so for months now. The other died from a hanggliding accident. Suddenly, my heart is back on that dart board. Even though it's scarred and harder to penetrate, it's still heavy, it still hurts.

The truth that people don't tell you when you're young is that 27 seems old until you're 24 and your siblings are around that age. You've partied with these people. You've flown with them. They are still kids, even if they graduated high school.

I understand that death is part of life. It's natural, it can be beautiful. But what I don't understand is why so many don't make it that far. Zach was a beautiful soul. There isn't a single bad thing you could say about him. He was full of life, ready for anything. To have him not in the world means that the world has just become a darker and scarier place. His happiness was infectious.

If you don't believe me, watch this video.

I feel bad being as upset as I am. I wasn't close to him by any means, but I did enjoy the times I bumped into him.

The moral of this post, I guess, is to just remember to keep your head up. We have a limited time on this earth. Be remembered for how awesome you are rather than how crotchety and mean. Spread goodness into the world.

With that said, Happy Monday.

Dog Food Challenge 2013: Eater Two

Welcome to the 2013 Dog Food Challenge.

Earlier in January, I posted some information about the 2013 Dog Food Challenge. Basically, I have four people and myself. On Valentine's Day (because we hate V-Day) we're going to circle up, and delve in to some canned dog food. Some of us for research. Some because it's also a fundraiser...(we're each aiming to raise at least $10 to donate to the local animal shelter) and some well... I guess we'll find out why they're doing it.

Marlene and Patrick.
Love at first sight.

This is my good friend Marlene. A few months ago I approached her at work and asked, "Hey, that novel I was talking about...the chick has to eat dog food...and it's more fun to do dumb things with friends so want to eat dog food with me?"

She squirmed. Looked uncomfortable. Then, after some pressuring we stood in the pharmacy and took a small bite out of a dog biscuit. Now, after more pressuring and the idea that it's a fundraiser, she's on board.

Stay tuned to find out who the other contenders are :)