Not Your Average Gal

Copywriter. Content Creator. Constant Sassypants.

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Holiday Roundup

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I’m not entirely sure why December is giving my immune system a run for its white blood cells, but I can only have so many green smoothies a day before I want to barf. I had a nasty stomach bug two weeks ago and thought I successfully avoided the plague going around the office.

Nope.

My immune system was probably pretty wrecked after the stomach bug and the day before I left for Minnesota, I knew I had a cold. Which has turned into a snotty infection, taking away my voice and, you know, actually tasting food.

I don’t “do” sick, you guys. I’m not sick that often. I’m about as healthy as they come, constantly pumping in vitamins, trying to eat right and obviously exercising. I have a history of getting sick right before I travel on big trips.

  1. Our wedding in England. I’m sure stress didn’t contribute to that…
  2. Our honeymoon in Thailand and Cambodia. Some people experience an adverse reaction to the typhoid vaccine. Guess who won that lottery?

Anyway, I’m currently sitting here typing this not feeling a whole lot better and hoping I can recover sometime soon back to my normal healthy self.

All that said, I’ve trudged through with antibacterial gel and Kleenex in-hand and enjoyed my Christmas in Minnesota. Yes, it was cold, but I actually was totally okay. Those 20+ years in Michigan did some good. I hope you enjoy the pics.

Had a lovely take-off.

A photo posted by Caroline (@carolinemadethis) on

 

Enjoyed my upgrade.

What? You don't watch Guardians of the Galaxy in First Class while enjoying a Bloody Mary? How lame.
What? You don’t watch Guardians of the Galaxy in First Class while enjoying a Bloody Mary? How lame.

 

Took selfies to send the Hubster at church.

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Laughed at different versions of a “sippy cup.” IMG_4129 Had a delicious Christmas Eve dinner. IMG_4122 Chased this penguin butt around.

Penguin butt. #MerryChristmas

A photo posted by Caroline (@carolinemadethis) on

Returned to being a 10 year old.

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Laughed around the tree opening presents.

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We Facetimed with the Hubster stuck on-call. (no pic, sadly, he looks cute in scrubs)

Hid from Cara’s camera.

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Looked adorable.

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Had a delicious Christmas dinner with the fun fam.

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“Will this make your blog so we'll be famous?”

 

Sent sick selfies to the Hubster. Like literally, sick.

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Said goodbye and goodnight to my favorite nugget.

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Sat around the tree chit-chatting while the snow fell before I hit the hay for my flight.

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3 hours of sleep later, we headed to the airport and I said goodbye to this white stuff.

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Got on the earliest flight home yesterday morning so I could have a belated Christmas with the hubster before he went on-call the next day (today).

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It’s been a whirlwind few days.

Here’s to a healthier time next week to ring in the New Year.

I’m thinking of doing a Year in Review post for the blog. Is that something you’d dig?

Off to the Frozen, Cold Tundra

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I live here.

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Ft. Lauderdale

 

I’m going here.

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NOT Ft. Lauderdale

 

My family owes me.

Tomorrow I’m off for the frozen, cold tundra of Minneapolis. It will be a quick trip, but one that was deemed appropriate since we didn’t have plans and the hubster is on-call on Christmas. Plus, Christmas alone with my ginger cat didn’t sound as appealing as spending it with THIS little nugget.

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Oh yeah and I needed just a few more MQDs to make my Delta status for next year.

Love you, family!

Last night I asked the hubster where all our sweaters were. No, I’m not joking. These are very foreign objects in South Florida. He pulled out a box of his from under the bed of all his sweaters, you know, that have yet to be worn. After fumbling through them we determined I must have donated all my sweaters because, you know, I don’t wear them. It was a ploy to never live in a cold state again. Shhhhh.

So layers for me! Weeeee.

Flying on Christmas Eve isn’t ideal, but I have a non-stop flight and I’m well prepared because I know How To Survive Holiday Travel. The holiday travel Gods liked me enough to get me upgraded for my flight already!

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Did you see the TSA even got in the holiday spirit with this hilarious video? When government organizations can make fun of themselves, I call that a win.

I’m looking forward to quality family time, but I also can’t wait to get back and celebrate a belated Christmas with the hubster. He’s sort of my favorite.

To all my friends and family near and far: safe travels and I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

A Holiday Change of Heart

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I had a whole wonderfully witty but sad post written earlier this fall about why I hated the holidays. I was ready to post it when some nagging feeling kept telling me to wait. I try to listen to these nagging nuggets of wisdom as much as I can. So I waited. And waited.

I’m glad I did. Because something happened this year that has taken me by surprise.

I’m actually fucking enjoying the holidays.

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It’s started at Thanksgiving this year when I had an incredibly good time with family. Who knew?!

Okay, back up the train. Maybe it started last year, when the hubster and I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas together in our new home in Florida. We had just gotten back from our honeymoon in Southeast Asia. We didn’t decorate anything. We didn’t travel anywhere. We had no guests. We ordered Chinese food. We watched football. We cried over a glass of wine after a family member pulled a fast-one on us again. Oh wait, no. No, that was me. That was only me.

But you know what? It was one of my fondest holidays until this Thanksgiving.

I never quite understood, as an adult, how the holidays could be so magical for people. Dare I say, I was even, cynical about it.

No. Who, me?

In complete honesty, there are some pretty legit reasons why the holidays have sucked for me that I won’t go in depth about. In a nutshell, the holidays have always been a mixture of feeling like an inconvenience and when I was younger, being shuffled around seeing who I could go visit. I still try to coordinate schedules and am finding that since we don’t have kids, we have very little pull over who will come see us. This may be our reality from here on out or we may have to resort to begging?

That’s a good reason to have kids, right? Presents and shit.

This year, I really focused on the wonderfully supportive people I have in my life. I reminded myself again, that I’ve been given a chance to start my own traditions, create my own less drama-filled holidays. I absolutely love that feeling!

We may be small, but I have my own little family of three, if you include my overweight, ginger cat. Said ginger cat also looooooves being dressed up for the holidays.

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I love our little family. We create some hysterical memories. One of the best things about meeting my husband has been the life we’ve brought together, just the two of us…and said ginger kitty.

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Just another Sunday morning around here.

I wanted to celebrate and embrace this newfound love of the holidays, so I busted out our holiday decorations. Remember how I didn’t even want to decorate for Halloween? What is happening to me?

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I noticed, quickly, that I donated a majority of items a couple years ago. So, of course, I had to go to Target to get more. Then, the hubster was on-call on a Friday, so I went back to Target after work…and got more.

I was Clark fucking Griswold. I just couldn’t stop!

I spent the evening drinking wine, listening to Christmas music and decorating with all my new and old goodies. (It all still fits in 1 Rubbermaid bin, my practical mind wouldn’t allow too much.) I think the results are quite pretty!

The hubster keeps walking around our place saying, “I really like all the decorations, honey.”

Maybe he just likes that I’m not totally annoyed by the holiday season and I’m actually pretty happy.

And I have to admit it…I am too.

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Happy Holidays, guys!

A Time for Thanks

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I really don’t like the holidays. It’s something I have a future blog written about, but in general, it brings up lots of mixed feelings for me. All that said, I think there’s always time for gratitude and I’m very thankful for the time I just spent over Thanksgiving.

I may need to rethink my stance on not liking the holidays because lots of smiling occurred, which makes my heart incredibly grateful.

Take a look.

I took an early flight out of Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving.

Ready. See you soon #LAS. After a layover in ATL. 💃

A photo posted by Caroline (@carolinemadethis) on

 

Landed in Vegas just in time to see this turkey.

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Enjoyed this amazing Thanksgiving spread from my sister-in-law’s parents.

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Had one of my girliest moments ever when the hubster surprised me by secretly flying out to join us. (Med school rotations often throw a kink in holiday plans…or plans of any sort.)

(it’s playing sideways. I’ll fix it later…) 

Saw another glorious Nevada sunset.    

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PAID to be cold.

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Took a wonderful, non-sweaty run. Even clocked my best mile pace in years. (So what if the last .15 was all downhill…)

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 Went shopping with Carlos…errrr, my niece. 

 

I mean…COME ON! 😂 #adelynnjo

 

A photo posted by Caroline (@carolinemadethis) on

 

Put those pants we got her in Thailand to good use.

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Hiked around Valley of Fire.

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Sipped one last Vegas margarita at Chili’s in the airport because that’s mandatory when you take a red-eye.

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Somehow managed to get upgraded with this clown on our way home.

Somebody let these nutbags in first class today. Jokes. I earn those freaking upgrades. 💃 A photo posted by Caroline (@carolinemadethis) on

 

And in between all of that, we laughed. Oh, did we laugh. I’m so thankful for laughter. I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with lots of laughter and love…and a crazy family, of course.

What did you guys do for the holiday?

You Will Always be Too Much of Something for Someone

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Jazz hands are always necessary in Sydney, Australia

Ever had one of those epiphanies and ask yourself why you put up with the same shit for so many years?

I had it happen to me at the end of last week. Staring right at me on my computer screen. Right there. In the comments awaiting moderation on this very site.

There was a nice, little nasty-gram comment that struck me as odd b/c it wasn’t spammy; it didn’t contain any links and the email address looked legit. I ask you to provide an email address (that is never published) when making a comment for security purposes. Quack email addresses get sent to SPAM and those without email addresses can’t comment. Sometimes there are lots to wade through and I miss some, but I had just cleared comments out so I only had 2 comments to moderate. I didn’t recognize this email address though and the person made up a fake name “All your friends.”

Curious about it, I looked up the IP Address (as anyone can do). It was a mundane reaction as I wasn’t expecting to find anything. I saw where the IP address was located and after a super ah-ha moment (meaning I only know one person who works at this place), I knew who it was.

As in, I know this person. Or loser, as my husband and friends said.

Yup. My first nasty comment was from someone I know. How fun, right?

My website is getting good traction these days – I LOVE YOU GUYS – but let’s keep it real. Until I gain more readership (which will happen) the vast majority of people who are reading this know me in some capacity, either having met me or knowing me virtually. Internet trolls are usually total strangers.

So this one was a fun one. Trolls that you know.

This one made me smirk and say, “Finally. VALIDATION!”

*Epiphany engaged*

You see, I have plenty of supportive, wonderful friends in my life. This person really wasn’t one of them. I sucked up instinctive feelings and pushed aside obvious actions over the years for the sake of remaining affable.

I had something staring me right in the face late last week that said— Forget ’em.

Yes!

It’s funny, I had a conversation with a close guy friend of mine maybe over a decade ago, but the memory is very vivid. I was confiding in him that one of my friends had hurt my feelings and it was hard to push past them. He told me something that has stuck with me to this day. The gist of it basically went like this:

Look, Caroline, snap out of it, you turd.

Just kidding.

Look, Caroline, friends aren’t always going to be perfect or say the right things and they may even be mean unintentionally, but at the end of the day, it’s the guys that are waiting out in the parking lot to defend you when someone is picking a fight with you, that are your real friends.

While I think this is a very masculine way of saying, your real friends are loyal, I got what he was saying and it held true after the absurd comment was left on my blog. (Which you can find if you look through, it’s not tough.) Support came from texts and calls, a comment back and even encouragement on Facebook.

I have a great support system. With or without nasty comments left on my blog.

I realize writing about this event is bringing more unnecessary attention to it and I want you to know the reason I chose to write about it is because I know the struggle is real. In a world filled with just the highlights of the “good life” on Facebook and balancing out what real friendships mean, you have no room or obligation to keep people around who aren’t supportive. I’m not talking blowing-hot-air-up-your-ass supportive, either. True friends give it to you straight when necessary. Not under a fake name and not without a shred of credibility to hold their stance.

That’s what gets me about leaving a stupid comment under the guise of a fake name, why take the time? You don’t like me but are still coming here to read and watch what I do? (Hi. Hello. I’m sure you’re reading this.)

I’d rather be someone’s shot of whiskey than everyone’s cup of tea. Don’t like me? Move on. It took me far too many years to embrace that. Sometimes it’s still a struggle in my people-pleasing head. But, it’s true.

Make no apologies for who you are. Learn, grow from mistakes, evolve as a friend or wife or sister, fill your heart with experiences, apologize when necessary, but don’t ask for forgiveness for being your unique self.

And more importantly don’t waste my time and yours by putting up this charade masked in friendship. Time is valuable and I’m spending it on genuine relationships.

So put that in your peace pipe and smoke it.

Don't apologize for being who you are. - Caroline Made This www.carolinemadethis.com

 

Be Soft. Do Not Let The World Make You Hard.

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No matter how prepared you are to deal with any situation, there are still unwelcome events that can give even the most emotionally equipped person a nice case of whiplash.

The emotions are swift. A rogue wave of sorts. You can’t turn your face quick enough as it’s frigid force smashes into you, soaking your clothes, leaving you gasping for air at its bone-chilling temperature. Finally able to gather your breath, you gently shake off your clothes and quietly say,

“Where did THAT come from?”

Recently, the selfish, exploitative actions of someone I know delivered a swift punch to my gut and caused a very visceral reaction.

I felt like spikes were going to shoot out of my spine. I was unusually pissed off for what was, and still is, an all-together sad situation.

In these moments, I get mad at the world and immediately want to put on armor; shield myself from the other manipulative stunts this person may bring into my corner of the universe.

It’s in those knee-jerk, “I’ll show ’em”, “Fine! Then I’ll take all of my toys and just go home” moments, that I have to remember how very seldom I actually feel this way.

Because in reality, it doesn’t last long.

Perhaps it’s part of my stubborn will to refuse to believe that evil outweighs the good in the world.

I will not let the disingenuous actions of someone else define my reality, which is surrounded by supportive, loving souls. This world is a wonderful place and I won’t let anyone shatter that belief.

I will not let it make me hard.

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