Family and Father's Day

The month of June is supposed to be a time for me to focus on my family. When planning what each month would be I made a month to focus on my friendships and thought long and hard about adding a month for my family. Normally this would be an easy decision. However, I'm insanely lucky to have such a close family. I mean, how many people can say that both their immediate and extended family on both sides is so close? 

My mom, brother, and sister are my favorite people in the world. Both sets of my grandparents are incredibly loving and have taught me so many life lessons. My aunts and uncles push me to be the best that I can and never skip an opportunity to give me a hard time about something. My cousins are seriously the coolest. The ones who are close in age to me have been some of my best friends while growing up. The ones older than me have been role models while teaching me how to have a blast at the same time. Their kids have taught me that I don't need kids of my own for a very, VERY, long time. 

So my big dilemma when starting this project was if I really needed to devote one of my few 12 months to family. If things are good, why try and change them? My family is the key to my happiness. People are always leaving while family stays. Mainly because they can't leave. Trust me, I've tried to disown them on a few occasions....doesn't work. 

Long rambling conclusion....of course my family needs a month. 

So we'll start with Father's Day.

Some people may think that Father's Day may be super sad for us. Out of all the holidays and individual days that can be depressing, this is not one of them. That's like giving me a bag of chocolate chip cookies on National Oreo Day and asking if I'm sad that I don't have an Oreo to eat. Sure, I'd really love to have an Oreo, but I have a WHOLE BAG of chocolate chip cookies. Who am I to complain? That's how Father's Day is to me. Sure, I'd love for my dad to be here, but I have a WHOLE FLOCK of men who have helped shape me into the woman I am today. Who am I to complain? It's a day to celebrate them!

So this Father's Day weekend I went to St. Louis to spend the weekend with my family. And it was fantastic.

I GOT A TAN. Okay I got burnt. But guess what, by this weekend it will be a tan. 

I got to see my little cousins. They're seriously adorable. One of them spent a good 2 minutes trying to explain to me how my cousins Tara and Tiffany were sisters. And then she told me that she thought that she would maybe be my age when she gets older. Too awesome. 

We had an awesome meal on Sunday to celebrate all of the fathers in our family. It was delicious. 

Then we watched the NBA Finals. I'll be the first to tell you that I don't really like the NBA. I'd much rather watch college basketball. I don't know what it is, but something about the NBA just gets to me and bothers me. Either way, the Heat lost and that's all I cared about because I REALLY don't like Lebron. MJ forever.

All in all, this weekend was great and my family continues to make me happy. 

Later, gators. 

May Wrap-Up

So to all of you trusty readers out there who actually pay attention to how my blog relates to my Happiness Project (mom I'm talking to you), you may have noticed I didn't really write about what the month of May was focusing on. 

Here's why.

You see, the month of May was a month for me to focus on being in the present. You know, put my phone in my purse, pay attention to world events, and try and not have my head so far up in the clouds in the wonderful world of Andi. 

There wasn't really a specific event that I felt really deserved a special post. So I decided to just make one and explain my conclusions.

But first, here is a great link that I read on one of my favorite procrastination sites, Thought Catalog. It really goes well with what I'm thinking.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/olya-kudriavtseva/2014/06/put-away-the-social-media-your-need-for-instant-gratification-can-wait/        Check it out!

Now don't get me wrong, I am totally one of those cell phone obsessed people. I'd like to think I would be completely fine if I lost the thing, but let's be real, I'd be so bored and I'd feel so out of the loop. 

Before texting was cool and I became attached to my cell phone in high school, I focused my free time in so many better ways. I love(d) to get completely lost in a book. So lost that I would quit reading and have to remind myself that I am in fact NOT Hermione Granger and I am unfortunately NOT a witch. Always such a buzz kill. I also love(d) to color. Boy oh boy how awesome a brand new coloring book was. The endless choices of which Disney character to bring to life next! I love(d) to people watch. People are so funny and do some of the most ridiculous things. I love(d) to sit and look for four leaf clovers. Blackwell luck is no joke. Documenting it with a special little clover can be so very exciting. I love(d) to do so many things that don't require an ounce of technology. I say love(d) because I still love all of these things. Honestly, I will love all of these things plus many others until the day that I die. However, I've let myself ruin my favorite activities by getting distracted with my phone or Netflix or Buzzfeed or stupid games that are addicting like 2048.

Do I still do all of these things? To some extent. When I'm reading, I let myself be yanked away from the wonderful make believe world I am in to check an incoming text. When I'm coloring I color while watching Netflix or a movie ruining my time that used to allow me to become less stressed. When I'm looking for four leaf clovers I allow myself to check the latest tweets and Facebook posts which being quite honest, takes all of the fun out of it. 

When starting the month of May I asked myself why I allowed myself to be so distracted with technology when I know that it really just makes me unhappy in the long run. And I didn't have an answer for myself. Why does anybody fall into the trap of technology? Just because? 

This month was hard. And I in no way got anywhere near where I want to be with technology. I decided this is going to be a very long work in progress. I decided to start off, I would make sure I always kept my phone put away when I was out with friends. And generally, I stuck to this. A few times when I was with one friend, they told me numerous times that it was okay to text somebody if I needed to. But there is the problem. Everybody is okay with this these days. I wish everybody would treat me like my grandparents do and scold me when I have my phone out around them. 

One time last month I was sitting at the orthopedic group waiting to see my doctor for my knee. I pulled my phone out at first to pass the time and quickly remembered this project and put it back away. Not a minute later an elderly man sat down across from me. We quickly picked up conversation. He told me about his family and I told him all about my regret for playing soccer which resulted in me being stuck in this knee brace. Why would I ever have my first instinct to be taking out my phone instead of have a really pleasant conversation with that man? 

For all the Mizzou kids out there. How many times have you pretended to be on your phone walking through Speaker's Circle so you didn't have to talk to anybody? Or while waiting for a class to start you get on Facebook or Twitter instead of trying to talk to a peer? Lord knows I do both of those. And that's weird. Because the world we live in is not a virtual one. We should be communicating the way everybody used to.

Since when did how quickly somebody responds to your text define how much they like you? Why does it make me so annoyed when I don't get 11 likes on Instagram? Why do I feel so accomplished when somebody retweets me?

I am unique. I am weird, an odd duck. I have great family and amazing friends. None of them like me any less because my tweets aren't favorited and I haven't hit the wonderful number 11 on Instagram likes. Why do I care so much? Because that is the society I live in and the world isn't going to change for me so I need to take matters into my own hands.

Like I said, I'm still really bad about this. I've checked twitter more times than I can count just today. Also, I'm blogging right now instead of being out in the world. 

This is going to be a slow change. But it's something that I really feel is necessary. I want my life to be focused on "the now" not what was posted to social media by all of my closest 700 friends on Facebook. 

SOOOO, if you see me out and about or just sitting at your house and I'm on my phone.....be my grandparents and tell me to put it away. 

I WANT YOU TO. 

Cookin' With Chlo...Round 2

Soooo....this post is a little late. Considering it happened like two weeks ago. Buuuut, it is just too classic of an evening in the life of Andi Blackwell for me to not share.

Also it's super funny because Chloe is this "super great cook who runs the kitchen and never messes up and everybody wants her to cook for her and I'm laughing at what I'm about to write about because it goes against everything I just said".

So here goes:

It was an ordinary Wednesday evening for Chloe and I while we were hanging out. We decided that eating and watching Scandal would be our exciting event for the night. You know, we decided to switch things up and try something crazy.

Well I found this super delicious idea on Twitter from a Pinterest account. It was called a cookie bowl. A COOKIE BOWL. And you are supposed to put ice cream inside of it. Like, get in my belly....NOW.

I mean honestly, who doesn't want a slice of that Heaven? If you say you don't then you are a liar and I just can't trust you anymore.

So I tweeted the link to Chloe and we planned to make these a week later. And to be honest, I thought about these bad boys for that whole week. And I'm still thinking about them. To this day. Right now. Okay I need one.

ANYWAYS....

So Wednesday night gets here and like any normal night of cooking with Chloe, I'm kicked out of the kitchen before the cooking even begins. Apparently I get in the way and don't exactly know what I'm doing. Oh, and she just really hates to share a kitchen. She's going to be one of those real nice wife ladies.

So Chloe tells me to just go start watching Scandal while she makes the cookie dough and she'll call me into the kitchen for the fun part once it's ready.

So going into this process, we had visions like this dancing in our heads:

Just beautiful.

So Chloe FINALLY calls me into the kitchen after taking her sweet, precious time creating an egg substitute since we didn't have any eggs. Apparently that makes you some kinda chef. Whatever.

This was my huge contribution to this project. Yeah, I really love cookie dough. That should have been obvious.

So we begin the process of molding these delicious pieces of art.

We decided to play it safe and only make three bowls to start out with. You know, JUST IN CASE they didn't go exactly according to plan. That way we would have some cookie dough left to use.

JUST LOOK AT HOW HAPPY AND EXCITED WE ARE.

So it's about time to put these little treasures into the oven and here comes a direct quote from THE Master Chef Chloe. "These really could use a bit more flour. Oh well, they'll be fine."

WRONG.

SO VERY WRONG.

DISASTER STRUCK.

We were watching some Scandal while they were cooking, and I smelled something burning. I don't have very good eyesight, and I can't hear very well, but by God I've got the snout of a police canine.

So after I suspiciously smell the burning for a minute or two I turn to Chlo and say, "Hey, you smell that burning? Think it's okay?" And she's all, "Yeah, I smell it, let's give it like five more minutes."

So we return to our show. Hellooooo, huge mistake.

A few minutes later the burning smell is getting quite strong, so we decide it is time to investigate. Our friend Amber was there too and had been sitting watching TV in the living room the whole time. I don't know how she handled the burning smell without saying anything.

So we open the oven.....and this is what happens....

Hasta la vista any hopes of having a cookie bowl that night....

Does the disaster stop there? OH NO.

So these little trouble makers decided to drip onto the bottom of the oven. Well when Chloe closed the oven door after removing them, it continued to smell like something was burning really bad. So I told her to open the oven again.

"FIRE!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled at her. She thought I was yanking her chain. LOL because I wasn't. She opened the door, yelled, and closed it again.

My brains kicked in and I told her that the fire won't actually put out itself and we need to actually do something. So she opened the door again. And obviously my first reaction was to have my camera ready....because what would have been a smarter decision?

There she blows.

Well, at this point Chloe asks me what we're supposed to do. I'm just laughing. Thank God for Amber being there because she took over and extinguished the flames.

What a champ knowing how to save lives and whatnot.

At the end of the day what did we have? Crushed dreams, burnt cookie bowls, an extremely smoky apartment, and our lives. I guess living and having a standing apartment are still decent outcomes.

But look at how sad we were. How can you not want to cry for our devastating loss?

I still need a cookie bowl. Now taking applications for better cookie bowl chefs. Sorry, Chlo.