[ checking in ]

Well hello there bloggie land! I'm alive! The trip is fantatical so far... I'm currently in Baltimore, MD, staying with friends from college. Just thought I'd say HI!

[ the unthinkable has happened ]

I have become more of a girl than I ever thought would happen.

Not only am I bringing actual make-up on vacation (more than just concealer and chapstick, I mean)... I couldn't decide what shoes to bring.

So I'm bringing FIVE pairs.

FIVE.

What?

When did this happen?!?

I also threw a dress in my bag, just in case.

Mom... I hope you're happy! You and Sarah's evil plan to make me girly seems to finally be working! ;)

[ it's vacation time ]

I am officially on vacation!

I leave tomorrow night on a red-eye to Boston, and then I'm having three solid weeks of no-work-bliss. Where am I going for three entire weeks, you may ask?

Well....


All over the damn place!

I'll be in Massachusetts Friday morning through Tuesday morning (in a different city each day); New York City Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday evening; Baltimore Wednesday evening through Saturday morning; Raleigh for Saturday; Greenville, SC from Sunday through Thursday; then back to Raleigh from Thursday to Tuesday. Then back to Phoenix on Tuesday, July 15th.

I'm so incredibly excited for this trip. I'm going to be seeing a ton of my friends... most of whom I haven't seen in over a year... some of whom I haven't seen in three or more years. Plus, I'll be seeing pretty much my entire extended family, whom I haven't seen since my sister's wedding last March. It's gonna be freaking awesome.

So, if you notice a long lapse in posting here, for once I will have a legit reason. I still haven't decided if I'm going to bring my computer with me or not. I barely have any space left on it, so I'd have to do a bunch of frantic moving-files-around and backing-shit-up tomorrow before I leave in order to have space for any pictures I take while I'm gone. But if I don't bring it, I'll only be able to take photos until my cards fill up, which will probably be really really fast, because I'm going to hopefully be shooting a lot.

So, I guess I should probably do the frantic moving-files-around and backing-shit-up tomorrow, so that I can bring it, so that I won't have to watch how much I shoot. I am bringing several cameras... a couple film and two digital. But, if I bring my computer I won't have to worry about it at all.

Therefore, thank you blog, for letting me argue with myself on you, because now I've made a decision.

If I don't post for three weeks, see ya in three weeks! Have a rockin' Fourth of July!

[ one whole year ]

Today is my one-year blog-o-versary!

One year ago today, I started this sucker. We've had good times and bad together. Sometimes I have neglected it. Sometimes it's felt like my best friend.

Let's see... how has my life changed since starting this blog:

+ I moved across the country
+ I planted the seeds of starting my own business
+ My longest romantic relationship to date ended
+ I visited the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas for the first time
+ I took large strides towards making friends in a new place
+ I lived in two different, but equally awesome, apartments

I'd say that overall it's been a pretty good year. It was my twenty-third year of life; my first year on my own; my first year being away from my college friends; my first year as a college graduate; my first year as a real adult; my fifth year knowing that photography is what I want to do with the rest of my life; my fourth year of not calling Sandwich home; my first year of not worrying about exams and tests and due dates; my third year of being a twenty-something.

It's pretty fitting that I started this blog just three days after my birthday. With every year that I get older, this blog will be another year older too.

I wonder what this year will bring for me. I've officially started living my twenty-fourth year of life. Is it right to say it's my twenty-fourth year of life, when my age is twenty-three? I've been alive for twenty-three years, as of three days ago, so now I'm starting the twenty-fourth year, right? I'm going with it.

Anyone else's blog-o-versary coming up? How long have you been blogging? What's changed in your life since you started?

[ yesterday was my birthday ]

Yesterday was my 23rd birthday! Woot!

I stayed home from work, and basically just bummed around and relaxed all day. I did some reading (Harry Potter One in Italian and a few chapters of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier), playing video games (old school Mario on Super Nintendo), and movie watching (Amelie, although I fell asleep part-way through... must have been tired).

Then Jesse (yes, my ex-boyfriend) took me out to dinner (not on a date, for those of you who thought, "What?!?") to this Mexican restaurant called Sam's Cafe that's right near my apartment, and has amazing Southwest Shrimp Quesadillas (shrimp, goat cheese, roasted corn, rice... soooo good) and tasty margaritas. And our waiter was wicked cute, and carded me for my margarita, and then gave me free cheesecake because it was my birthday! Score!

Overall, it was a good day. I got a bunch of emails, Facebook messages, text messages and phone calls wishing me a happy birthday.


In other news, My Boys is back tomorrrrrrow night! So excited... I finally get to find out who PJ brought to Italy. I'm pulling for Brando or Alex. I really hope it isn't the baseball player or Thorn. You should watch it!

In other, other news, I love working at the office downtown. We share the space with an architecture company. Three really cool guys work there, and one of them has taco nights pretty frequently. Hopefully I'll be able to go to the next one. And another one owns a coffee shop a few blocks away, and frequently brings us back free coffee. Today I got a delicious iced coffee, for absolutely zero dollars. Awweeeesome!

Happy Hump Day :)

[ guest bloggers wanted ]

Hello out there in blogland!

I'm going on vacation for a little over two weeks at the end of June, and have made a promise to my dear little friend, the blog, that I would not continue to leave it unattended for weeks at a time.

Anyone want to guest blog for me?

(Anyone know precisely how the guest-blogging-action works? 'Cuz I don't. But I wanna!)

[ dangerous occupation ]

Anyone who thinks being a wedding photographer isn't dangerous, listen up:

This weekend, I second-shot at a wedding with my boss. For the first ten or fifteen minutes of the ceremony, I shot from on top of the roof of the resort.

On top of the roof, people.

And to get on said roof, there wasn't a staircase or a ladder or anything. Nope.

That would be easy.

I had to duck through a couple overgrown trees, and hop across a small gap onto the roof.

And every single step I took made the roof make scary noises.

And the roof was of course, not flat, but sloped. So my worth-shit-absolutely-horrendous-balance had to actually work for me. Luckily, I only almost-fell once. Maybe twice.

And of course, my boss got a total kick out of me being up there, and snapped a few photographs of me. In at least one, I look absolutely terrified.

Photographic proof coming once I gank the pics from work.

[ update on life ]

Once again, it has been forever since I've posted. Almost three weeks. Myyyyyy bad.

I've actually been really busy. To prove my point, check out this tiny screenshot of my calendar for this month:


So it's been a busy couple of weeks. I've been working down at the studio three days a week; there have been a couple weddings recently; I've actually had quite a few of my own clients recently; I've been having events with my Meetup group pretty regularly, as well as hanging out with some of the members outside of the group; and I just started working with another business, a health product that has actually been working wonders for both my back pain and my allergies since I started using it, and will also help me get out of the rat-race before I hit 30.

I also recently decided to make a serious effort to do more reading, less television-watching and less random-internet-surfing. Reading more and having more to do has equated to less general time on the computer, with means less blogification. I used to read voraciously when I was younger, and it recently came to the point that I couldn't actually think of the last book I had read. I have definitely successfully changed that: since the middle of April, I've read six books, and I'm working on a couple more.

One of the books I just finished (as in about an hour ago!) is The Bounce Back Book, by Karen Salmansohn. It is a great little book of 75 tips on "how to thrive in the face of adversity, setbacks, and losses." The tips are amazing for helping you through hard times in your life, both small and huge. It's a really quick read, and totally beneficial. Some of the tips are the types of things you should incorporate into your daily life whether or not you are in a particularly tough spot.

Some of my favorite tips, which I'm going to work on bringing into my everyday life:

#10: Happiness is a choice, not just a matter of genes or good luck.
#22: Give yourself 120-second recharging sessions.
#35: Don't just write a "To Do" list. Write a "To Be" list.
#55: Sing your heartache out.
#58: Cultivate the habit of zest.
#70: View change as chance.

(All quoted from The Bounce Back Book)

Obviously there are sixty-nine more amazing tips, and lots more detail to the six I shared with you. I highly, highly recommend picking it up. It's less than $15, and worth every single penny.

So after that crazy tangent, I'm once again apologizing for being away so long. And once again, I am promising to try to be better. I should post about the fun things happening in my life, instead of just doing the fun things, right?!? Indeed!

[ takes me back ]

I've all by given up watching television lately. I only have basic cable, so there isn't too much to pick from beyond news, various sitcom reruns, and shitty reality shows. I've started listening to my vast iTunes library and reading instead, and I've noticed specific memories are cropping up when certain songs come on.

Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
When I was studying abroad in Italy, we were in Rome at the end of the semester, and had our final dinner at a really cute restaurant, tucked into a side road, off a large piazza. We ate outside, and were serenaded by a man playing guitar and trying to think of American songs to sing us once he realized we were American. His fly was also open the entire time. He started singing Bohemian Rhapsody, and our whole group started singing it at the top of our lungs. We even, without any planning, sang the different parts correctly (the Galileo part, mostly). Now every time I hear it, I feel like I'm back in Italy, practically yelling Bohemian Rhapsody, probably pissing off everyone within earshot, loving every second of it, and being insanely sad that the trip was over.

Listen To Your Heart by DHT
Reminds me of almost every single party we had in our senior year of college, because we always played it at least once, and every single person sang along. But in particular, I remember driving around with one of my closest friends, Brent, and we were randomly calling people. When Listen To Your Heart came on, we turned it up insanely loudly, and called our friend Hot-Dan, and proceeded to sing the entire song to his voicemail. Why? No idea, but it was fun as all hell.

Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy by Big & Rich
Another case of belting out a song with Brent. I agreed to drive to Wilmington with him to buy his gigantic television our sophomore (or was it junior?) year of college. After bickering the entire time we were in the store, we hopped back in his car (a bright red pick-up truck, lovingly named Little Bitty), and were jamming to a country station. We were pretty much the only ones in our group of friends who really loved country music, so we always listened to it together. Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy came on, and we rolled down all the windows and started screaming it. And when the "and we made love" line came on, we yelled it especially loud... and totally freaked out a guy next to us at the stoplight. Goooood times.

I Love Rock & Roll by Joan Jett
Our senior year, most of the parties I went to were at my apartment. We had an awesome party apartment. And one of the most fun parts of the parties we had, and several chill evenings as well, was that one of our friends had the XBox Karaoke game, and was actually willing to bring the entire game system over so we could play it. And two of our guy friends, Aaron and Scott, were so incredibly determined to get a perfect score. But after trying on one song maybe four or five times, they gave up for the time being. Kelly & I decided to sing I Love Rock & Roll... and totally got a perfect score on the first try! It was absolutely fantabulous.

Cecelia by Simon and Garfunkel
One of the a capella groups at our school sang this song as their alumni song at every concert... any alumni from the group who were at the concert would get on stage and sing it again. I think I actually prefer their version to the real version. It was so much fun, and always so good.

Accidentally In Love by Counting Crows
My friend Darrell, who I had known since our freshman year, was in an a capella group in college also (same one as Jesse), and finally got a solo song our sophomore year. He's an incredible singer, and would also sing to us whenever we asked him. When he found out he got a solo, he came sprinting to my room, and was so excited he could barely tell me. And then I made him sing the entire song to me, standing in my doorway.


Maybe I miss college or something. All those memories are from college.

What song takes you back?

[ on ladylike behavior ]

How in the hell do you ride a bicycle in a dress? A sundress, that's kind of flowy, and comes down right to your knees?

How do you ride a bike without flashing the world your underwear?

I've adopted the riding with one hand on the handlebars, one hand holding down the skirt approach.

Do you just say screw it and walk? Do you just say screw it and throw on a pair of shorts underneath the dress?

Although, I suppose saying "screw it" wouldn't be very ladylike either...

[ my middle name should be random ]

And now, a random sampling of the haps of my life:

I know I'm wicked late to jump on the bandwagon, but I finally saw Juno. And I heart it just as much as every other person who has raved about it. I watched it two times this weekend, and contemplated letting Blockbuster charge me the extra $20 for keeping it. In the end, my desire to actually have money in my pocket led me to return it today.

As much as gas prices suck, I'm actually pretty okay with it. Mainly because my car gets rockin' gas mileage. I kept track this time around, and since my last fill-up, my little Suzy got an average of 29.64 miles to the gallon. GO SUZY!

I named my bike Lily. For absolutely no reason. She's a blueish green, and doesn't even look particularly feminine. But I looked at her and said "Lily." First thing that popped to my head... sometimes shit just goes down like that.

Speaking of names, how do you refer to yourself? My whole life, I've been Becca to my friends and Rebecca to my family, teachers, professors and bosses. But now, I always introduce myself as Rebecca, so that's what most people I know in AZ call me. But I called a couple old friends from good-ole-Sandwich today, and I actually stuttered when I was saying who it was... "Hey! It's Rebe... Bec... Rebecca. Becca (last name)!" I didn't know my own name for a minute. It was weird.

And lastly, I know I already mentioned this once, but if you haven't checked out She & Him, Volume One.... DO IT NOW!

[ march 30: favorites ]

A month of lists wouldn't be complete without a list of favorites! Here are some of mine.

MY FAVORITE:

Color: Orange
Song: Now & Forever by Richard Marx (the ultimate love song... it never gets not-good)
Pet: PUPPIES! (Although I've never had one)
City: Florence, Italy
Country: Italy
Meal: Breakfast (especially pancakes)
Item of Clothing: My orange and blue New Balance sneakers that I bought in Siena
TV Show: Gilmore Girls; My Boys (comes back in June!!)
Film: The Princess Bride
Book: The Hobbit
Scent: Pomegranate Martini from Bath & Body Works
Vacation Spot: Italy
Type of Weather: Sunny and warm, with a slight breeze
Body Part (on the opposite sex): Arms
Body Part (on me): Freckles (not a body part, but still my favorite)
Drink: Coffee
Season: Winter
Time of Day: Dusk
Holiday: Christmas

Any favorites I didn't reveal that you'd like to know? Ask away, my dears!

I can't believe that March's NaBloPoMo list-making craziness is almost over! I've got to get to work finishing compiling the big doozy list: a new and improved 101 in 1001 list! I also have about half a dozen non-list, real-life posts in the line-up, that I haven't had a chance to post... seeeee you tomorrow!

[ march 27: weirdo habits ]

Soooooooooooo... I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I'm kind of a kook. And, although you're supposed to blend into the crowd and be like everyone else, I've decided to proudly list some of my weird habits and tendencies. Because it's funnnnnn.

1. I rarely eat peanut butter on bread or bagels or anything... I prefer to just eat it with a spoon.
2. I can't eat food with chunks in it. At least, food that is supposed to be smooth. It's mostly yogurt and baked goods. I cannot eat either with fruit chunks. It totally grosses me out, and I actually physically can't swallow it. That shit is nasty.
3. I always freeze chocolates with caramel centers. They're so tasty like that, plus the caramel doesn't really freeze, just kind of hardens, so it's a much neater way to eat caramel!
4. I like to organize my movies by category. Some of the categories are legitimate genres, like comedy or genre. But some are fun and random, like: epics (Harry Potter, Indiana Jones), chick flicks (Love Actually, Prime), superheroes (Spiderman, Transformers), musicals (Across the Universe, Guys & Dolls), 80s movies (Flashdance, Footloose), and parodies (Spaceballs, Robin Hood Men in Tights).
5. I always eat corn on the cob from end to end, in rows of four kernels.
6. I'm always 15 or 20 minutes early for everything... I hate that embarrassed feeling of being late for something so much, that I leave almost double the time to get there than it should take. I spend lots of time sitting in my car, waiting for things to start.
7. Because of #6, I always bring a book or two with me everywhere I go.

I like being kinda weird. Life's more fun that way. Do you have any kooky habits?

[ postdated due to serious internet issues the past few days ]

[ march 23: fictional character crushes ]

You know when you watch a movie or television show, and you think to yourself, "Man, I want to date a guy like that!" This list is for you, my friends. Fictional characters that I have had a crush on. I can admit it. It's not wicked weird... only slightly.

• Luke Danes (Gilmore Girls): Holy moly, I want a Luke. He was always so thoughtful and caring... he made Lorelai an ice rink; he cooked at the inn when Sookie had to be on bed rest; he pined for Lorelai for like eight years; he wanted to beat the crap out of Logan for kissing Rory. I heart him.
• Jess Mariano (Gilmore Girls): Every girl has got to love a bad boy, and he was mine. He was so angry, but then he came back in the end, and he was the one who kicked Rory in the ass. Gotta love the reformed bad boy.
• Seth Cohen (The OC): Such a dork. Such a good heart. So freakin' cute.
• Matteo Carati (The Best of Youth): Just because he was hot. And only until the point when he went nutty angry. And then nutty sad. But he was great up until the nutty hit.

Did you ever have a crush on the fictional character? I promise I won't laugh!

[ march 19: places to live ]

If I were a squillionaire, I'd have houses in all of the following places (at least!):

• Anywhere in Italy... probably Florence or Siena
  
• San Francisco
• Boston
• Somewhere tropical... maybe Fiji?
  
• New Zealand
• Seattle
• New York City
• London
• Paris
  

Where would your homes be?

[ march 15: places i've lived ]

I never really thought that I'd lived in a lot of places. I mean, how many places can you possibly have lived when you spent 19 of 22 years in one place? But I did manage to squeeze six different places into the list!

• Sandwich, MA: Born and raised. I lived there all through growing up, middle school, and high school.
• Newark, DE: I went to college there, so I'm counting it. For four years I spent more time in Newark than anywhere else, so that counts as living there, right?
• Siena, Italy: This is probably the biggest not-really on the list. I studied abroad there for a semester, and lived with a family in town. That totally counts. I swear.
• Raleigh, NC: Raleigh was my home address for three of four years of college. My parents live there still. I actually only lived and worked there for a summer, but it's where I go when I see the fam!
• Peoria, AZ: The first seven months of my post-collegiate experience.
• Phoenix, AZ: Current. Living right downtown. Still liking it a lot. Starting to explore more, which is good.

Where have you lived? Anywhere exotic?

[ march 14: people born on my birthday ]

I was born June 10, 1985. The following people were also born on June 10th:

• John Edwards, Politician: 1953
• Judy Garland, Singer & Actress (The Wizard of Oz; A Star is Born): 1922
• Elizabeth Hurley, Actress (My Favorite Martian; Austin Powers): 1965
• Tara Lipinski, Ice Skater: 1982
  
• Maurice Sendak, Author & Illustrator (Where The Wild Things Are): 1928
• Leelee Sobieski, Actress (Here on Earth): 1983
• Shane West, Actor (A Walk to Remember): 1978
• Keven Corcoran, Actor (Babes in Toyland; Pollyanna): 1949
  

Anyone nifty born on your birthday? I found my list by googling "people born on june 10."

[ october road ]

So I have a new favorite show: October Road. If you've seen the movie Prime, the lead actor in the show is the Hottie McHotinstein from that... Bryan Greenberg. Unfortunately, I only caught the last two episodes of the second season on television over the past couple weeks.

But, fortunately, my Mummay gave me an iTunes gift card for Christmas and iTunes has television shows now. So I got to use the gift card (thanks Mom!) for a couple episodes. And now, obsessed. It's great.

[ productive and fun weekend ]

Oy, galapagos.

The apartment is starting to come together. I have officially finished / admitted defeat to painting. The lighter color looks absolutely gorgeous (and happens to match the cabinets in the kitchen area perfectly), and the darker color is just what I wanted. It's a bit splotchy in some places, but after about thirty hours of painting this weekend, and four to five coats of the darker color, I simply can't paint anymore. Now I'm slowly shoving all the furniture back up against the walls (as opposed to clustered in the middle of the room, four feet from all walls, with a giant plastic drop cloth covering it all), finally putting away the rest of my stuff, and clearing out the cardboard boxes from the IKEA furniture that I was using as makeshift drop cloths.

Pictures to come when the place doesn't look quite so much like a disaster area.

I actually had quite a fun weekend, in addition to my painting craziness. Thursday night, I went to a British-style pub called The Rose & Crown with a Meetup group. The pub is so freakin' cute. It's in a historic downtown house (a theme I've noticed around the area), and since the house is historic, the rooms can't be altered architecturally, so the pub is a bit disjointed, but I think it just added to the charm. One room had a small pool table, most had tables and bars. We sat out on the patio, and were perfectly comfortable (yes, in February, after dark... still can't get used to the warmth during the winter here!). I met a bunch of really nice people, and will definitely be going to future events with this group.

Friday afternoon, I went to downtown Tempe to go to a Lunch with Ladies Who Launch (Sunny... I promise I'll do a post devoted to LWL soon!). As always with LWL, the meeting was great. I met a bunch of really nice women, and we had a blast. The place we went is called The Center Bistro and it's an organic-type restaurant. A little pricey, but the food was amazing.

Saturday morning, I drove over to Bevla's (my LWL leader) house to shoot some images for her website, and to get a haircut! Finally! I haven't gotten a haircut since I moved to AZ... eight months ago! Bevla's been a hair stylist basically forever, and was a celebrity stylist for a while actually... she got to tour Europe with Prince! So I totally trusted her to clean me up. Here's a kinda shitty picture (taken with the Photobooth on my computer) of the new do, with the pretty pretty new wall color behind me. Note that I match. My favorite color is orange... can you tell?


Yay for new hair!

And then on Sunday, Jesse and I hung out. He helped me pick out a DVD player (no more movies on the computer!), and then we went to lunch at a really great sushi place, and then just hung out at his place for a while.

All in all, a very good weekend.

And today, I walked over to the Italian market that's around the corner to see what it was like. It's pretty small, not a ton of variety, but just enough items I'd prefer to get from an Italian market. I picked up a couple things: some pesto sauce, an Italian seasoning mixture, and some Pizzelle cookies. I think I'll be having a nice Italian dinner for myself tonight... pasta with pesto, with some Pizzelle for dessert. Yum!

[ birth month traits ]

I'm currently sitting in my apartment, surrounded by bags of books (I've uttered the phrase "I read too much" A LOT the past couple of days... lugging big bags of books is not fun!), empty and full HUGE cardboard boxes (from my new IKEA furniture... pictures to come when this place isn't such a sty), and other random shit that doesn't have a home yet. I'm totally and completely hijacking someone else's internet, while I wait for mine to be turned on today, "sometime before 7pm," as the man from Cox said. I'm trying to decide if I should go to the grocery store and buy some food (because right now I have Mac & Cheese, pasta, Special K, oreos... and nothing else), finish building my IKEA furniture and try to clear out the cardboard that has taken over my apartment, go to Home Depot and pick out paint colors, or go back to IKEA (for the third time in a week) and get more storage solutions and other accessories. I'm going to do all of that (hopefully today), but can't decide what to do first.

So instead, I'm perusing 20-somethings members' pages and blogs, and finding fun things to post. For example: (I have since closed the page where I found this, and I only copy/pasted part of it. Sue me.)

You're supposed to find your birth month and say which of the traits apply to you. If I find the whole post again, I'll post a link. Here's my month:

JUNE:

Thinks far with vision: I'd like to think so. I'm working on expanding my visions for my photography business.
Easily influenced by kindness: I think most people are. When other people are nice to you, it's easier to be influenced by them. Although, I'd like to think I'm not easily influenced.
Polite and soft-spoken: Umm.. polite, yeah. Soft-spoken... no way in hell. I'm freaking loud.
Having ideas: Yes, yes.
Sensitive: I guess.
Active mind: Most definitely.
Hesitating, tends to delay: If that's the same thing as thinking things out a lot, then yes.
Choosy and always wants the best: I suppose. I know what I like and what I want.
Temperamental: I wish I wasn't, but I definitely am. I'd like to think that as I've gotten older, my ridiculous temper has calmed down, but I know I still am temperamental.
Funny and humorous: Most of my friends definitely would agree with this one!
Loves to joke: Yes, yes. Sometimes too much. Although I'm not really a fan of practical jokes. I think they're kind of mean.
Good debating skills: No idea. If you replacing "debating" with "fighting/arguing" then probably yes. I'm too hotheaded to debate, I think.
Talkative: Most definitely.
Daydreamer: Yep.
Friendly: I am indeed! Be my friend!
Knows how to make friends: I'd like to think so, however I've been having trouble making friends since I moved out West. But it's getting better!
Able to show character: I guess so. Does this mean showing your personality well?
Easily hurt: Ummm... I'm not really sure. I think I'm lucky in that I haven't been horribly hurt by a lot of people. I've had the best friend who bailed on me and picked the boyfriend over me, which sucked A LOT. Of course I've been dumped and hurt that way... but I don't think being hurt in general happens a lot to me, which is good.
Prone to getting colds: I'm actually quite healthy, and rarely get sick, but when I get sick... I get SICK. I once had strep throat for like a month and a half. In college, I had a mysterious illness for pretty much an entire semester (I only ever went to the campus health center because I hate going to the doctor... and if you aren't pregnant or don't have strep, they don't really know how to deal with you). I dropped a bunch of weight, was never hungry, and was completely and totally exhausted. It wasn't mono or lyme disease (got tested for both). I'm just a weirdo.
Loves to dress up: Not so much.
Easily bored: Definitely. My family would always joke that that's why I never really had longterm boyfriends. I would get bored in about a month (3 months was the record until J came around), and break-up with them. In general, I always am looking for new things to keep myself from being bored. I'm the weirdo who was ready to go back to school after about a week of summer break, just because I would be bored to tears.
Fussy: I equate fussiness with infants, so I'm going to say no.
Seldom shows emotions: I show happy emotions all the time. It's the sad ones that I definitely hide.
Takes time to recover when hurt: Holy moly yes.
Brand conscious: Not really. I love my Dove soap & shampoo, and I'm obsessed with Apple, but the brand loyalty pretty much ends there.
Executive: I try to be.
Stubborn: Oh good lord yes. I'm definitely one of the most stubborn people I know, and I'm sure most of my friends would agree.

Now... I must go do something productive. I think I'll work on furniture for a while, and then go grocery shopping. Laterrrrrr.