Your questions, a new blog name, and more!

Yay! I'm back!! :) We had a faaabulous time in Florida; the weather was great and it was so relaxing! Even if it's just for a few days, isn't it great to just get away once in a while?


I took some great photos, now I just have to find the time to upload my favorites to Flickr and post them here. Maybe this weekend...

Now it's time for me to answer your questions! Yay!! Thanks to the dedicated few that left me something fun to come back to! ♥ ♥ ♥

So without further adieu...

♥ Krysten from After 'I Do' asks:

When you're in a bad mood what's something you do to cheer yourself up?
Naps. Naps ALWAYS help! Sleep therapy...! :) Also, weather permitting, I'll go outside. Being outside has always been very theraputic for me and just sitting outside and listening to the birds for a few minutes is enough to make me go .... ahhhhh.

Favorite dessert?
ALL! ... Well .... since I'm VERY closely monitoring my calorie intake lately, I can't eat as many desserts as I would like! I am a sucker for fondue, though. Chocolate + caramel swirl = awesome!

Favorite place you've ever visited?
A toss up between Las Vegas and my first trip to Animal Kingdom!

♥ Gnetch over at Thank Goodness for the Good Ones asks:

What do you usually do when you're bored?
Sit around on the internet ... and browse .. forrreevveeerrr.... *echoing voice* I like to catch up on or rewatch my favorite TV shows (thank you instant Netflix!) or again, go outside.

♥ Shelly Ann asked what city I was posting from! We were passing through Savannah at the time. We visited last spring and stayed in a bed and breakfast, and LOVED it!! What a wonderful city!! :)

♥ STANDY! ♥ (he gets two hearts, because we've been friends for a LONG time!!) asked:

Would you ever wash your car in a bikini? XD
ARGH! I'd have to go on a SERIOUS fitness plan!! I'm not self conscious, but I want to be in top shape if I'm going to be sporting my bikini anywhere other than beachside.

When would you visit Australia? Them koalas want to play with teh Sami.
NOW! I would sneak a koala home in my suitcase... it's on my list of places to visit before I go four paws up, but saving up some cash first would be a good plan. ;)

Out of all the food that you can cook, which one is your favorite to eat? and which one is your favorite to cook?
My favorite to eat is usually anything that's new or inventive that I haven't cooked before... like things that I try out. It's fun to cook new recipes, and it's fun to eat them!! :D My favorite thing to cook is grilled porkchops... yum... they always come out nice and juicy, and healthy!

♥ Amanda at Teasingly Diverse asks:

How do you post from your blackberry?!
Argh this evil phone! But I use an app called CellSpin; it's free and lets you post from all sorts of social media, not just Blogger or WordPress!

♥ Gasai at Gasai Photography asks:

What is your ideal vacation? (where would you go, who would you go with, and what would you do?)
I'd grab Matt and go on a month (or two!) long tour of Europe, stopping in Germany, Prague, Greece, and Ireland, just to name a few spots! ;) Just touring, photographing, enjoying the culture!



THANKS Y'ALL!!! That was fun! :) Speaking of fun, expect a new and delightfully interactive feature at this blog within the next week! I'm excited for it!!

And speaking of this blog, I've changed the name to Sami by the Sea. Herding Cats was fun, but it wasn't very original (I stumbled across two other people with the same blog name! Egads!) and this one is a little more personal and fun. :)

Now I dare say it's time to catch up on my blog reading... hope everyone's having a sunny week so far!

Road-blogging.

Hi from Georgia! I'm trying out blogging from my evil Blackberry.. so far so good! Our trip thus far has been uneventful, but we did drive through some waaaay backwoods towns in SC, and one little downtown-esque area that looked just like a 50's zombie town. Eeee...

Anyways, my faithful and bombtastic readers (<3), since I am on vacation and not blogging regularly... I invite you, yes you!, to ask me a question! Whatever you want to know, ask away! By leaving a comment, of course. Lots of folks do this on their blogs to get to know people better, and I think it's a fine idea. So leave a question or two, and I'll answer them all in my next post! (AND post a link to your blog... whoa.. double awesome!)

I think I've seen my fair share of Shoney's billboards for today... later! ;)

Lions and tigers and safari tours, oh my!

Hi y'all! It's HOT out! On my way home from work, the temperature sign at the gas station said 85... yikes! Too soon! It's almost like we gave spring the old heave-ho a little early and charged right into summer. It's supposed to cool down over the weekend, but phew! so not ready for an April heat wave!

Tomorrow afternoon, we are heading out of town for a long weekend to go here ...

... Yep, gonna hang out under a big ol' tree... heh heh...

Nah, it's a picture of the Tree of Life at Disney's Animal Kingdom! We're headed down to Orlando to visit Matt's parents, and as we generally do, peruse a Disney park while we're there. New camera + safari animals is gonna = awesome! We went in 2007 for the first time and it was AMAZING! Disney really did such a great job with this place, and it shows in every exhibit. And if you get the chance to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge... DO IT. Their best hotel in my opinion! It's very Africa-inspired, with lots of sun, dark woods, and plant life everywhere. And the balconies of the rooms actually overlook savannas with real animals! We woke up to giraffes and warthogs every morning. ;) Definitely the coolest. Lots of great memories. (Maybe I'll post some pics of our trip we took then.... hmmmm... I wonder where the hell they are, LOL!)

And tonight?!


My favorite show!!!!!! Only six more episodes!!!! AAAAHHH!!! What am I gonna do?! I'm sure I'll start to cry at them all towards the end of the show, when favorite characters start dying or doing emotional crap or something. AHHH soo good!! Haha, sorry... :)... does anyone else watch LOST? Who's your favorite character? (Mine's Faraday!... But, we haven't seen him anymore.. :( )

Of Bikinis and Bunnies

Good morning all, and Happy Easter!! :) We forgot to color Easter eggs this year, but my Cadbury creme eggs were hidden around the house this morning when I woke up! ;) Hope everyone has great weather and a lovely day!! ♥ ♥ ♥

ANYWAY, I have a story for you... and would like your opinion! Read on, if you please...

So Friday we decided to walk to the mailboxes to get our mail. Lately our neighborhood is literally Construction Rowe; about 8 houses are going up at the same time so there are workers alllll over the place! (Not to mention dust, lumber, trucks, etc...)

We get to the mailboxes and I look down the road... in front of one of the houses are a young couple washing their cars, in bathing suits. The guy has trunks on and the girl has this little bikini on. Normally, I would say whoopdee doo, except for the following:

1. The house is directly across from the model home. So everyone visiting for information on the 'hood sees Bikini Car Wash.
2. About 50 construction workers swarming all about. Uhhhhh. Yeah. You know what they're thinking about at lunch and beyond. Your scantily clad bum. And bubbles from the soap.
3. Please don't wash your boyfriend's back with the sponge. PLEASE. This just takes it to new levels of ewwww.

My argument was that a little modesty goes a long way, and while it was unseasonably warm (mid 70's) and I'm far from being a prude as far as bathing suits go, it wasn't scorching enough to require teeny bikini carwash. A tank and shorts could easily be washed afterwards, and considering the general busy-ness of the neighborhood, make you stand out a bit less than a sore thumb.

What do you think? Am I being totally over-analytical of this? I just don't know!

FACT - Life Ain't Easy.

If I am anything in this world, ANYTHING at all, I am living testament to the fact that a) life ain't easy, and b) you can come out on the other side rocking out with a margarita and still be ok. :)

I debated posting about this for a LONG time, because it is kind of personal, but in the end I decided... whoopdee freeeeakin' doo! Yes, this is my life, and this is happening to me, so why should I care who knows? I think I'm at a stage in my life where, after everything that has happened to me, I either have no shame or an incredible amount of resilence. (Or a really sweet combo of both!) And I could write a laundry list of all of the gnarly things that have happened to me over the past five years, including being held up at gunpoint in my own home and going through two breast cancer scares, but that will be for another time. (Maybe!)

Okay. Flash back with me, if you will ...

*Wayne's World 'time-travel fingers' and 'doodly-doo' noises...*

As a young gal I grew up in the middle of nowhereville. I was very naive, because nothing happened in nowhereville so there was no real reason to, you know, be worldly. So when it came time for me to move out into the world with my now-ex-boyfriend from nowhereville to Mega Urban Crazy DC Suburbs... yeah. You don't really realize HOW naive you are until you look back on yourself and see the glaring mistakes you've performed!

Long story short, now-ex and I bought a house. BIG commitment. My naive self was all, wheeee COOL, like, and stuff! Nevermind the fact that I really did not feel ready to purchase a house, and feelings for now-ex(fiance at the time) were pretty wishy-washy at the time, but he was persuasive so voila, house. (Whee, cool, like yay!, etc.)

To make another long story short, our breakup was nothing short of World War Twentyfive, and after many many issues property-wise and aside and failed sales, the house foreclosed. Like, oops! My naive self had since turned into a ball of worry and stress; the time between breakup and foreclosure had been about 2-3 years, in which I had met the amazing dude I'm with today, and moved to this lovely coastline. So that was good. And hey, the economy was (is still?) in the can, so I'm not the only one with a foreclosure on my credit report.

However ...

Often times a foreclosure doesn't mean the end. Remember those back HOA dues? Yeah, they're suing you. And that home equity loan? Oh yeah.. that's still out there. ANOTHER long story short (noting a trend here? ;), the HOA sued and settled against us for a pretty decent amount of money.

Now-ex has lots of money. I, clearly, don't. (Helloooooo full-time job? Are you out there?) He's not paying it, and there was nothing I could do, short of doing nothing and having my bank accounts seized and wages garnished. (Scared yet? Ugh, sounds yucky, right?) And that HEL could sue at any time. Dun dun dun....

So. I am filing for bankruptcy.

Yeah, you heard me. Do not pass go, do not collect ... well, you know.



And you know what??

I haven't felt more hopeful in YEARS.

Sure, bankruptcy is like the big bad, and it's got such a negative stigma around it. The ultimate "oops". And I did make a pretty big oops, so I'm owning up to it. But the feeling of relief I'll get for not having to deal with this anymore, the crap I've been dealing with for almost three years... is SO worth it. No more worry. No more being terrified of strange phone calls, or getting served court papers (THAT was an experience), or being fearful of something as mundane as checking the mail because there could be more evil notices in there... No more sleepless nights wondering what's going to happen next. A fresh start. It's so appealing and EXCITING to me to be able to leave that dreary, horrible part of my past behind.

And sure, it chews up and spits out your credit score, but I already have a foreclosure AND a settlement on there, so what's another turd in the litterbox, as I say? ;) There are a lot of myths about bankruptcy and one is that your credit will be miserable forever, and that's simply not true. I'm working with a great lawyer that makes me feel comfortable and at ease, and there are a lot of steps I'll have to take, but I'm on the road to a new start and that, more than anything, gives me such IMMENSE amounts of hope that ... yeah, it's ok. :) I've got a wonderful support network of people that are taking care of me through this, and I couldn't be more thankful.



So that's my scary story that's really not-so-scary anymore, and I'm stickin' to it! Thanks for reading guys, and thanks for hanging around. I heart you all and being able to get this off my chest is another big step I've accomplished! Now there's nothing to do but look forward.

Looking forward right now ... hmm, is that a bottle of rum on the counter...? ;) I think it is! Happy Friday y'all!! (And I promise, my next post will be MUCH more fun! ;)

Hello, out there! We're startin' up!

Okay! HI!

Wow, the Blogger interface looks a little foreign... welcome back, me! :)

Now that I'm (finally) ready to blog again, I'm totally going to renovate this thing from the ground up. New layout, new name (maybe?), new content -- I want to post 3 times a week MAX, that every day posting thing just ain't my style! I'm excited. :)

And, yes, I've been going through something very scary. But before I post my story on that, I wanted to make this post first.

I'm SEVERELY going to be cutting down my blogroll. You know, in the whole renovation spirit. There are a lot of y'all that I read and comment on that also read over here, and I give you muchos smooches for it, but there are also a lot of people I read that I'm usually number 56 in their post comment total of 284, and that's no fun. So I'm working on weeding the blogs out that I just don't feel connected to! Slowly but surely.

So, for all 10 of you that still have me friended and read here (LOL), do me a favor and leave me a comment here so I make SUPER SURE to keep connected! I'll appreciate it, because my poor Google Reader is SUCH a mess, and at this rate I'm more likely to just junk the whole thing and start from scratch.

Ok, done! Since it's time for LOST (eee!), and also since you've read this far, here's a photo of the awesome sky I took yesterday! Some big ex-rain clouds rollin' on out of here... :)

Hey there blogfriends -

So it's been almost a month since I've posted.. I know, I'm awful. I'm also going through something pretty big and pretty scary right now, and while I'm not quite ready to talk about it, let's just say it's been a long time coming and it's not quite what people may think. So natch, I really haven't been feeling creative enough to blog lately.

I took a big step today towards doing what I have to do, so give me a little time to get some stuff under my belt and I'll come back to tell you all about it. :) I hope everyone is doing well, and is happy, healthy, and warm.

xoxo
Sami