I actually typed in my blog address this morning — just to check & see if it’s still here.  lol.  I wasn’t even sure if I re-newed the domain or deleted it off my server.  This blog just hasn’t even crossed my mind in so long.  I guess life is that way - things change and move so fast and other things become priority.  Especially over blogging to all 3 of my readers.  Which I probably don’t even have 3 of anymore.

At one point in the past I would have been a little upset about that.  I started this blog right at the time when “blogging” was just starting (for personal blogs, at least).  I remember Sara and I installing Wordpress to mess around with it and we thought it was a pretty cool playground for a while.   Then we both started blogs and blogging and web sites to make money and focussed on that - and I think the freeing nature and FUN of blogging really just faded away.  It became an obligation, a chore even.  I know many bloggers - especially those who live off their blogs revenues - know what I mean by that.

But alas, I digress.  And here I am just saying hello, writing this post not because I’m going to make money off of it, or because I have to.  But because the memory of how fun it was to send your personal thoughts out there into cyberspace for all to see, has prompted me to post & say hello.

(cyberspace? wow. wtfbbq does anyone even use that term any more?  I’m old I can’t help it.)

-joy

Ok I’m about a week late on my February update - but whatever.  This is just my own little outlet and it’s not like anyone really reads this anyway.  (sshh I kinda like it that way).

So February was probably one of the busiest, craziest months for me in a long time.  But GOOD busy and not uggghhh busy like December was.

The first couple of weeks were pretty mellow actually - I was just busy preparing and anticipating my weekend vacation to Phoenix towards the end of the month. I was helping out a friend for about a month watching his cat and she sadly passed away while I was watching her.  She was a sweet kitty and I’m glad she at least seemed happy & content the last month of her life in my care.  To be fair, she WAS about 21 years old and I’m assuming it was just old age, since she didn’t seem to have a sickness or whatnot.  (RIP Anne Frank)

The second weekend I had a small get-together at Shark City for my bday - which was fun as hell!  Actually that whole weekend was so fun thanks to my homie Josh.  He hung with me and even took me to Wildfire to eat before we went to Sharks.  It rocked, that place has the best food ever!  I saw a bunch of peeps I hadn’t seen in YEARS, it was really great.  Thank you everyone who came out!

We’ll just skip right over Valentines’ Day since it’s a stupid, useless holiday anyway and go right to my BIRTHDAY. And right to the Mudvayne/Nonpoint show!  Was a great show and I think I missed Mudvayne the last 1 or 2 times there were in town (which is unheard of b/c I try to NEVER miss them) so I was totally psyched for the show.  And with Nonpoint??  psssh heck yes!  It was at the Pearl Room in Mokena, which is about 50 minutes from my place and I travelled there by my lonesome to meet up with some friends.  I ended up being the only girl there (as per usual at a Mud show) - OH except for seeing one of my girl friends for about 5 minutes during the show & after at the bar - but other than that it was just me and the boys.  Which always proves to be entertaining and this show was no exception.  I toughed it out in the mosh pit for the majority of the show and got STOMPED on.  The bruises on the tops of my feet are just now going away 3 weeks later.

Nonpoint played a great set and to be honest, I was probably more excited about their show than the Mudvayne part.  Only because I KNOW Mudvayne puts on a good show and that I’m going to love it every time.  But I haven’t been a big fan of Nonpoint’s last couple albums and I wasn’t sure if they would play any old stuff that I would know.  But they definitely brought out some kick ass stuff when they opened with Mindtrip, then went on to play Victim, What a Day, Bullet with a Name on it and even their cover of In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins.  (yes we will not talk about how I feel about bands covering Phil & Genesis at this juncture.  We could be here a while)  Let’s just say that I let slide and Nonpoint does a decent job so it was moderately cool.

Mudvayne’s set was awesome and I think they only played 1 song off the new album (which, in a way is a bummer since the new album is AWESOME, but in a way I was fine with b/c I would rather hear old shit).  I won’t go into every song the played cuz you can find set lists other places I’m sure, but it was a killer show and I had a blast.  Afterwards we went to the bar next door and hung out with the new guitar player from Nonpoint - he’s a friend and ex band member of a friend that was with us.  Totally cool guy and we all had a great time.  But alas, I am old AND I had to work the next day, so I bailed about 1:30.  Slightly early I heard because only moments later my boys were invited upstairs to hang out with more of the bands and I missed it.  I actually wasn’t too disappointed - as much as I love rockstars, my days hanging out backstage or on a tour bus are LONG gone and I don’t even really have that urge anymore.

The bad thing about my birthday weekend was that even before the Mudvayne show, I was starting to feel sick.  So staying up late for the show just made it that much worse and I came down with a bad cold.  But there was no recovering possible because I was headed to Arizona the next weekend!   So I took as many meds as I could to try and knock it out and I thought I had done a decent job.  Until vacation time came around.

Friday the 21st I headed to Phoenix to see Steve and my other friends who are (still) living there.   I’ll sum up the weekend by saying that it was absolutely amazing to see my friends and to just sit in a room and hang out with them. It had been close to probably 6+ years since the 5 of us were all in a room together hanging out.  It felt very at home and I miss them all so much.  Of course I was sick ALL weekend - but I took meds, ate good and got a lot of sleep while I was there so I did what I could.  It was the best weekend I have had in years and I’m sure I’ll be going back to PHX sooner rather than later.

I spent the remainder of February sick and trying to get better.  (It’s actually now March 8th and I’m STILL very sick and trying to get better.  I don’t know what the deal is!)

Overall February was great and busy and crazy and great some more.

There are so many pics from February and I couldn’t pick my favs, so if you swing over to my Facebook or Myspace, they’re up.

So I just finished reading through (and editing) 3 YEARS worth of posts on the blog.  It’s kinda strange to me that I’ve been “at it” for three years with this, but after reading through old posts, it’s really great to have some of these experiences written down.  I laughed so hard at some of the posts.  The general feeling that I took away from it?  Holy hell I miss Sara. 

Little recap:  Sara and I became friends through SitePoint about… hhmm.. I’m not quite sure, 4 years ago at least?! We’re both web developers and both love music, so we became fast friends.  Her husband Drew was in Iraq at the time, so we spent a LOT of time online on IM talking and hanging out (especially on Friday nights).  We would drink and download music, be stupid, call each other.  It was a really good time.  To this day, Sara and I STILL have not met in person, but she’s one of my best friends.  We haven’t been able to talk much in the past year with her MOVING TO BELGIUM.  lol.  She’s back in the states now and I’m sure we’ll catch up soon.  But Sara, my dear, I miss you.  You should read some of these old posts.  Holy crap they are funny.

Most of the people that I talked to or hung around with back in the days of this blog’s conception are still in my life as well.  I’m grateful for all of my friends and relationships that I’ve had.  No matter what the connection or situation, I learn something from everyone in my life and all the experiences have made me who I am.

I’ve been going through a lot this past year - a lot of changes - and I can only express gratitude for all of my friends who have stuck by me.  I’m also fortunate to re-connect with some old friends who I lost touch with years ago and they are all still very important to me.  I spend a lot of time analyzing my life and who I am, but there are times like these when I take a step back from that and see all the GOOD things that I have.  And I’m grateful.

To Sara and everyone else, you know who you are, thank you for being you and for being such a great part of my life.

xo Joy

My likes and dislikes, hobbies, interests and attention are constantly changing.  Most of the time I don’t think anything of it and even assume it is pretty normal.  But there are times when I feel like my interests drastically change more than most.  Not that it matters, or even means anything, it’s just one of many things I am aware of about myself.  That being said (which means nothing haha), here are things I am loving lately:

1. Dexter - LOVE this show.  Just got into it and watched Season 1 and Season 2 in 3 days.  ELEVEN hours of it in ONE DAY.  Tell me that’s not impressive? Season 1 was awesome, I’m hooked.

2. Internet Meme: Inspirational Posters - Holy crap some of these crack me up so much.  I’ve spent hours looking through them and laughing my ass off.  Great way to waste some time.

3. Facebook.   Holy crap I’ve been a myspace fan since the start.  Majority of my friends were there so I just hung out there all the time.  I’ve HAD a facebook for years, but I never really used it.  But in the span of a few weeks it has quickly become my primary method of communication with my friends.   I’ve re-connected with some old friends and I’m really thankful for Facebook right now.

4. Coheed and Cambria.  One of my new favorite bands.  Period.  This is NOT the type of music I normally listen to.  Well, it IS in a way, but I never saw myself being a fan of C&C but low and behold.  They are SO awesome and I’m obsessed with both Apollo albums.  It’s ridiculous, I’m borderline a super-fan. haha.

Â

I’m an avid StumbleUpon fan, user, time-waster, etc. In fact I often spend hours upon hours stumbling, rating, sorting through all the wonderful things the internet has to offer. I always filter out videos and I’ve started to aquire a huge annoyance for image-only stumbles. But I digress.

Here is my short list of interesting things I’ve stumbled lately. I don’t want to hear comments like “this has been around forever”, etc; I’m making this list more for myself to keep track of things, not to turn people on to things that I’m deeming “new” to the internet, when they are most likely not.

1. Aviary - (http://a.viary.com/) Suite of web-based creative apps - and there sure are a LOT of them. I’m looking forward to testing out the BETA and *hopefully* switching over when the time is right. I’m a huge fan of online apps and have completely given up MS Office in favor of Google docs. That’s just how I roll.

I’ve been reading thru the dev blog and the tools look like they perform great. They are cleverly named - Peacock, Eagle, Phoenix, Owl, Penguin, Pigeon, etc. Someone has a thing for birds. The site is beautiful as well. I’m excited about these apps.

2. Brave New Traveler / Matador Travel, etc - This is a whole host of online travel information & goodness. They look to be all separate sites/domains/etc rolled into one big community. Navigating it is slightly confusing but they do a good job keeping identical themes, etc. My huge passion for travel & information made me sign up and I haven’t had an appropriate amount of time to search around as much as I’d like. But for now, I like it.

3. Ferm Living Wallpapers.

WANT!!! Collection #2 rocks. Awesome stuff.

4. 11 Places you should see on an around the world trip (yes please!)

Tonight I found an incredible blog that I have to share.  I think it’s something that everyone can/will enjoy.  It’s called “The Big Picture” and the posts are news stories told with beautiful photography.  In sort, the stories (pictures) are moving, emotional, shocking and just amazing.  I immediately added the feed and will visit daily.

It’s a fairly new blog and has only been around about 6 weeks, so it’s easy to go through the whole thing and see everything up until now.   Please enjoy and let me know what you think.

Here’s a taste: