Dragonfly

A lot of bad stuff has gone down this week.  Unlike a good little blogger, I don't really want to talk about it.  It will just make me sad and it will make you sad and there's already enough sadness in the world without me adding fuel to the fire.  I would like to say, however, that I would never cheat on Robert Pattinson.

Anyway, here are some pictures of a dragonfly I saw when I came home from work today.  Dragonflies are my favorite insects and they make me happy.  I hope they make someone else's day happy too.

*All photographs © copyright by Jacqueline E. Smith.  

Love Songs For Yu Darvish

1.  Hanging by a Moment  

"I'm falling even more in love with Yu..."

by: Lifehouse

2.  Can't Help Falling in Love

"Wise men say 'Only fools rush in,' but I can't help falling in love with Yu..."

by: Elvis (not Andrus... the other one)  

3.  A Whole New World

"Now I'm in a Whole New World with Yu..."

from: Aladdin

4.  I'm With Yu

"I don't know who you are but I... I'm with Yu..."

by: Avril Lavigne

5.  I Need Yu

"You don't realize how much I need Yu..."

by: The Beatles

6.  Because Yu Loved Me

"I'm everything I am because Yu loved me..."

by: Celine Dion

7.  Dreaming of Yu

"Cuz I'm dreaming of Yu tonight, till tomorrow, I'll be holding Yu tight, and there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be than here in my room, dreaming about Yu and me..."

by: Selena

8.  All For Yu

"It's hard to say what it is I see in Yu, wonder if I'll always be with Yu... Words can't say, I can't do enough to prove it's all for Yu..."

by: Sister Hazel

9.  Yu and Me

"Cuz it's Yu and me and all of the people and I don't know why, I can't keep my eyes off of Yu..."

by: Lifehouse

10.  Can't Take My Eyes Off of Yu

"You're just too good to be true... Can't take my eyes off of Yu..."

by: Frankie Valli

11.  Someone Like Yu

"Never mind I'll find someone like Yu..."

by: Adele 

12.  Someone Like Yu

"But if someone like Yu loved someone like me then suddenly, nothing would ever be the same..."

from: Jekyll and Hyde

13.  Ain't No Mountain High Enough

"Cuz Baby, there ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough to keep me from gettin' to Yu..."

by: Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

14.  Melt with Yu

"I'll stop the world and melt with Yu..."

by: Modern English

15.  What I Like About Yu

by: Lillix

16.  I Wanna be Like Yu

"Oo-bee-doo, I wanna be like Yu-u-u.  I wanna walk like Yu, talk like Yu, it's true-u-u..."

from: The Jungle Book

17.  I See the Light

"And it's warm and real and bright and the world is somehow shifted... All at once, everything looks different, now that I see Yu..."

from: Tangled

18.  All I Want for Christmas is Yu

by: Mariah Carey

19.  Could I be Yu?

"And I was wondering, could I just be Yu tonight?"

by: Matchbox 20

20.  Tearin' Up My Heart

"It's tearin' up my heart when I'm with Yu..."

by: N'Sync

21. Rhythm of my Heart

"The rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum with the words "I Love Yu" rolling off my tongue..."

by: Rod Stewart

22.  Yu

"I never met anything that makes me feel like I do about Yu..."

by: Chris Young

23.  I Knew I Loved Yu

"I knew I loved Yu before I met Yu, I think I dreamed Yu into life..."

by: Savage Garden

24.  Not Over Yu

"No matter what I say I'm not over Yu..."

by: Gavin DeGraw

25.  Collide

"You finally find, Yu and I collide..."

by: Howie Day

26. Babe

"Cuz you know it's Yu, babe, whenever I get weary and I've had enough, feel like giving up, you know it's Yu, babe, giving me the courage and the strength I need... please believe that it's true... Babe, I love Yu."

by: Styx

27.  You're Still Yu

"I've loved Yu for so long, and after all is said and done, you're still Yu..." 

by: Josh Groban

28.  I Get a Kick Out of Yu

from: Anything Goes

29. I Just Called To Say How Much I Love Yu

by: Stevie Wonder

30.  If I Ever Lose My Faith in Yu

by: Sting

31.  How Do I Live

"How do I live without Yu?  I want to know..."

by: Leann Rimes

32.  Happy Just to Dance With Yu

by: the Beatles

33.  She Loves Yu

by: the Beatles

34.  Can Yu Feel the Love Tonight?

from: The Lion King

35: Anyone Else But Yu

“I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else but Yu...”

from: Juno

36.  Crazy for Yu

"Cuz I'm crazy Yu... touch me once and you'll know it's true... I never wanted anyone like this... it's all brand new... You'll feel it in my kiss... I'm crazy for Yu..."

by: Madonna

37.  What Makes Yu Different

"What makes Yu different makes Yu beautiful..."

by: The Backstreet Boys

38.  She's So Heavy

"I want Yu... I want Yu so bad... I want Yu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u... I want Yu so bad it's driving me mad, it's driving me mad..."

by: The Beatles

39.  If God Made Yu

"I can't say what I might believe... but if God made Yu, He's in love with me..."

by: Five For Fighting

40.  God Only Knows

"I may not always love Yu, but long as there are stars above Yu, You never need to doubt it, I'll make Yu so sure about it, God only knows what I'd be without Yu..."

by: The Beach Boys

41.  The Reason
"I've found a reason for me to change who I used to be, a reason to start over new, and the reason is Yu..."
by: Hoobastank

42.  Why Can't I?
"Why can't I breathe whenever I think about Yu?  Why can't I speak whenever I talk about Yu?"
by: Liz Phair

No copyright infringement intended.  Just having some fun.  In a borderline creepy kind of way.  

I love you, Yu!  Go Rangers!  

For more Ranger goodness, check out My Subtle Tribute to the Best Team in Sports History featuring the Adorable Elvis Andrus, Superman Josh Hamilton, and Ultimate Stud Mike Napoli.  

Sunset Flowers

I really don't have an interesting story to tell or beautiful tribute to write with these pictures, but just for the sake of writing something out and giving people something to read, here you go.  A variety of thoughts rolling around in my mind right now. 

1.  It's hot outside.  It's so hot, in fact, that I don't want to do anything.  Even swimming is undesirable because it's so hot that the water is lukewarm and it feels like you're swimming in bathwater. 

2.  I'm a hypochondriac.  My newest ailment that I suspect I have is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.  For the record, I've never actually been right about having an illness or disease or whatever (thank God!) but of all of them, I feel this is the one I'd be most likely to develop.

3.  I love, love, love the television show Ghost Adventures.  If you've never heard of it, it follows three guys, Zak, Nick, and Aaron, as they travel around the world and spend one night locked down in a haunted location.  This show is unlike the other paranormal investigation shows that I've tried to watch in the sense that the guys are absolutely hilarious, they have real chemistry, real friendship, and the stuff they capture is legitimately scare-your-pants-off creepy.  I don't know if you believe in ghosts or not, but I do!  I believe in them even more after watching that show!

4.  I wish I could erase my literary memory just so I could go back and read The Hunger Games again for the first time.  I would say Harry Potter also, but I was too emotionally invested in that series and there were a few moments I actually thought my life would end just because I was so nervous about what was going to happen to my favorite characters (all but two of whom ended up dead, by the way).

5.  I have an intense and unparalleled hatred for Hagrid from the Harry Potter series.  He's thoughtless, careless, dangerous, childish, and worst of all, he survived to the point of still being alive during the stinking epilogue while Sirius, Remus, and Fred all kicked the bucket.  Thank God George and Charlie survived!  Of course, even they didn't get as much "page time" as freakin' Hagrid. Grr.  

6.  I think I might be a nerd. 

7.  I don't like soft drinks.  I wish I did, however, because I could really use an energy boost.

8.  "All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun..."

9.  I want to be rich because I'm tired of living off microwave meals.  Of course, being rich probably wouldn't make me any more inclined to cook, or better at it for that matter, so I guess that point is moot.

10.  I spent less than ten minutes outside the other night taking pictures of a rainbow and I came in with over twenty mosquito bites.  It is an honest-to-God miracle that I haven't contracted West Nile yet.

*All photographs © copyright by Jacqueline E. Smith.  

Celebrating Independence

In this post, I'm going to do something you are NEVER supposed do on the internet, and that is talk about my personal life.  Now the good news for me (bad news for interested readers) is that my personal life is REALLY boring.

On the Fourth of July, I, along with my family, went to watch fireworks.  And of course, I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of them.  As I was editing them, I knew that I needed to somehow incorporate Independence Day into my blog post.  The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that there really isn't a whole lot I can say that a million other bloggers have already said.  I could, however, write about my own personal "independence," however.  So that's what I'm going to do.

 I'm twenty-four years old and single.  That's not some huge scandal or anything.  It's probably not even that shocking.  However, I am the odd one out among my particular group of friends.  Every one of my friends that I see on a regular basis is either married, engaged, or in a long term relationship (I'm talking going on five years).  Now, I'm not a total recluse.  I've dated, I have crushes, and I've even had one serious boyfriend.  But for some reason, at this point in my life, marriage, or even a serious relationship, holds very little appeal for me.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm a girl.  I fantasize about my wedding all the time.  But at this point in my life, I'm more excited about the ring and the dress and the party than I am about the actual marriage part.  

However, the other night, I was out with two of my oldest, dearest friends.  One has been married for a couple years now and the other is in the midst of planning her wedding which will take place this coming fall (I'm Maid of Honor, just for the record).  I listened to them talk about weddings, about their relationship with their guys, and I suddenly realized that I had absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation.  I don't know what it's like to have that connection with someone (well, sometimes I think my sister and I can read each others minds, but that's not the kind of connection I'm talking about).  Now, I'm used to being the third wheel, sometimes even the fifth or seventh wheel (that is, unless I bring my sister along), and it never bothers me.  I remind myself that I have other things in my life that I'm concentrating on and that when I'm meant to find him, I will.  I have goals I need to focus on and, as I learned a few years ago with Serious Boyfriend, sometimes it's difficult to be a full time dreamer and a full time girlfriend.

That's something that chick flicks don't tell you, by the way.  They make it seem like you get everything when you get the guy at the end.  I call it the "Happily Ever After" moment, where the couple finally gets together and declares their love for each other.  That, however, is where most chick flicks end.  They make relationships seem so easy when, in reality, they never actually go into the "relationship" part of a romance.  Chick flicks focus solely on the chase and the inevitable victory where she ends up with the right guy.  That's the easy part in my opinion.  The hard part is what comes after.  It's the part the movies never show and quite frankly, it's the part I'm not very good at (yeah, yeah, I know, bad grammar).

This one looks like a hamburger.

 The other night with my friends, however, I realized it's something I want to be good at.  Maybe not right away.  I still have way too many things I want to do without having to worry about keeping a boyfriend happy.  And I'm so scatter-brained and in love with my "me time" that there's no way I could give anyone the time or attention that he deserves.  I do hope I'll one day be able to, and I think I will.  After all, I already have my wedding planned out.  It'd be a shame if I never got to, you know, go through with it.  Until that day comes, however, I'm not going to force anything.  There's nothing worse than being with someone just for the sake of being with someone.  If it's not right, no one will be happy and it will turn into some big emotional mess and honestly, who has the time or the energy for that?

I realize after going back and rereading this that I sort of sound like some stone-cold harpy with no capacity for love or emotions.  Not true.  I love my family, my friends, and my kitties with all my heart, and I sincerely hope that one day I'll find him to love too.  And I think I will.  I'm just not ready yet.  Maybe he isn't either, wherever, whoever he is.  I guess, in my group of friends, I'm just a late bloomer.  And that's okay.

*All photographs © copyright by Jacqueline E. Smith.