Music Tells My Stories

Good morning, my Lovelies! The weekend is finally here and freedom is so damn close that it is filling my nostrils with a beautiful bouquet of peaceful relaxation. Does that make sense? I think it makes sense. What am I talking about? I'm going on a trip! That's right! I leave tomorrow morning and I'm so ready - well, not packed ready because y'all should know that I do that shit last minute, but READY! Mentally, physically, emotionally? I couldn't be more ready. Here lately I've been feeling like someone threw me in the washing machine and hit spin. Yep! That's exactly what I've been doing. Spinning. Every time I think I have something sorted with my job situation, a new aspect/possibility arises. At this point, all I know is that one way or another, at some time in the (hopefully) not too distant future, I will be back in the office that is closest to my home. I'm not sure if I'll still be doing my current duties, or new duties, or some crazy c

Good morning, my Lovelies, and welcome to another episode of Shell's Chronicles of Dumbass-ery. Throughout my life I have done so much that I could classify as dumbass-ery. Many of these things I don't even think about anymore until I have something trigger my memory. Some of these things have become teachable moments, laughable lessons, if you will.  Depending on how epic or how funny people think these things are, we can find ourselves reminded of these things for years. Well, with my family you might as well be prepared for a walk down memory lane each and every time you see them. This story I"m about to tell you has given my family giggles for many, many years. When I was in college a group of friends and I went to an off-campus, out of town, even, party. We went in my friend's car and I was not the one driving so I didn't pay much attention to the roads we took getting there. We went, we partied, we had a great time. Or, we did until my friend started not feel

Good morning, my Lovelies! It's that time of the week again and though my brain is still sluggish from a poor night's sleep two days ago, I'm determined that I'm going to write this blog today. I have things to say (when have I not had things to say?) and I need to get the thoughts out of my head, even if they are fuzzy and disjointed. Without going into too much detail, I experienced an unpleasant moment at my office yesterday. I'm not sure how I held my shit together until I got home, but I did. When I finally got home and walked in the door, I lost it. I cried, I got a drink, I explained everything that happened while my family sat and listened, and I cried some more. I'm pretty sure y'all know I haven't been happy in my job for a while now, and the situation that happened yesterday pushed me right over the limits of what I could handle. I spoke to some of my friends about it, as well, because that's what friends are for. And in speaking to my fri

Good morning, my Lovelies! Welcome to the first edition of things I've done that I shouldn't have done because I fucking knew better. (Or something like that.) Maybe we'll call this Shell's Chronicles of Dumbass-ery? You see, I know that I'm a smart person, in fact, I consider myself quite intelligent (most of the time).  However, I have done some seriously dumb shit throughout my life when I 100% knew better. I'm sure this is something that we have all experienced at times. (I can't possibly be alone in this idiocy!) Some of us are just better at hiding our dumbass-ery than others. So what exactly am I talking about? Well, let me give you a few examples. When I moved away to college I did quite a bit of dumb shit. The first thing that comes to mind was when I was trying to plug in my stereo and realized that the plug was bent and wouldn't fit properly in the outlet. My method of fixing it by holding the metal part of the plug while trying to insert it g

Good morning, my Lovelies! Please forgive me for being a day behind. It has been a hell of a week and I can't begin to tell you just how happy I am that it is Friday. I'm doing my best to hang in here with this job situation, but my limits have been pushed to the absolute edge. I don't like being irritable and hypersensitive, but here lately it seems that is my normal mood. So if you see me and I'm a straight-up bitch, just know that it has nothing to do with you (probably). This week was another one of those weeks where I could have written this post about a multitude of different things. However, I couldn't seem to narrow down what I wanted to talk about. I even went so far as to ask a friend of mine, "If you didn't know me, what would you want to know about me?"  Well, let me tell you, his answer was no help whatsoever! What was his answer? "Likes, dislikes, hobbies, and sexual fantasies." Dude...I'm fairly certain that I've gone o

Good morning (afternoon?), my Lovelies! I sincerely hope this day finds you healthy, happy, and hopeful! It is so easy to get caught up in and be solely focused on our tomorrows and what's ahead of us in life, work, and our relationships, that we tend to lose sight of the beauty of our present. I am horribly guilty of this and I'm finding that I'm missing out on many of life's enjoyable and precious moments.  I want you to do something with me. I want you to close your eyes, take a deep, soul-cleansing breath, imagine your relaxing spot or activity, release your breath slowly, and repeat until the tension in your shoulders lessens and your body calms. Did that help? I hope so. You see, I don't normally have much trouble relaxing, but every now and then I can't seem to push past the things that stress me to truly reach that feeling of relaxation. I stress over my never-ending list of things to do, my job, my writing career, my children and how much I've proba