Coming Soon...

"My View From the Back Seat"
Official advice from the "Third-wheel

Prologue:

Throughout my life I have perfected the role of the third-wheel.  I know that might not sound like anything to brag about and trust me I am not.  There are so many misconceptions that come along with the grand title.  I didn't grow up hoping, wishing and praying that one day, just maybe one day, I would become best friends with Mary and her boyfriend John.  Though it may be hard to imagine, my childhood dreams did not consist of going everywhere, while Mary was in the passenger seat, John in the drivers seat and me in the back.  I did not picture spending my nights and days talking to each of them, extensively analyzing every detail of their relationship.  The way John might have happen to glance at that girl in algebra or lending a helping hand in not only the conception, but the marvelous execution of the perfect valentines day surprise for Mary.

That was TOTALLY me! I shortly became the ultimate counselor for just about any conflict or situation you could think of.  I found this ironic considering majority of the things I was advising people on, I had never personally dealt with.  It all came from many years of observing the first and second wheels, if you will.

Most of us have been there a time or two, and God bless us for it.  I realized that a huge part of participating in this humble role, was watching everyone else live their lives while you stand on the sidelines.  While this realization hit me, another epiphany came to me.  Through the years I had watched and observed just about every personal situation you could think of or imagine.  I started to wonder, should I complain about just watching people do things I have yet to do or should I instead learn from the events I observed that I prayed I would never find myself going through.  I went with the latter.

To Be Continued...

Put this in your Burrito and eat it!!

I have lived my whole life with this huge dilemma. That is right, my whole life and have yet to find a good solution to my problem. I have yet to master this and believe me I have made it my life’s work to come to a safe resolution, but it has yet to be solved. I am hoping that others have lived with the same problem and maybe some that are willing to admit it or even better, some one that has figured out how to avoid it. Maybe you can answer my question…

Question...what do you with your eyes when you are hugging someone in the middle of a group of people?? There are only a few options and each is equally awkward.

1. Do you close your eyes?? For everyone around looking on, it just appears as if you are way to into the hug and probably need to step away.

2. Do you stare at the person right in front you and smile? With this option you are just left with an awkward visual exchange with another person while you are in a physical exchange with another. Basically you are emotionally hug cheating. Just not appropriate.

3. Do you look up? Hmmm, I am thinking now way on this one. If you attempt this, it will just look like the next move you should make would be to swat at a fly zooming around above you. Or it could lead everyone to believe you were praying to the heavenly father that this hug will not last any longer then it needs to.

4. Do you hug from the feet up to the waist and then lean back and look them in the eye?? Obviously not, unless you are planning to both participate in a mutual spin.

I mean seriously, there is no good, logical option. Maybe we should just stop hugging in these situations all together. I mean the people around didn’t wake up that morning hoping they could WATCH a good hug that day. I mean I can’t stand when I am the on looker and then someone maybe chooses the option of finding someone in the outer circle and making eye contact with me and smiling. AHH…I get chills just thinking of the awkwardness that fills me. I say we start respecting others around us and keep the hugging to closed doors and private moments.

The Fat Babysitter...and I don't mean "PHAT"

When you first think babysitter, what is the picture that comes to your head? I pretty much think of a sophomore or junior in high school, braces, and maybe some acne thrown into the mix. Well, I am here to testify that I am a young professional in the corporate world and I still baby-sit.

The most recent babysitting job that I accepted and barely completed was for my bosses’ children. I am going to use made up names to keep their reputations fully in tacked. The oldest is name is...Pam and she is in 6th grade. Then there is Bobby and he is 4th grade. Last, but certainly not least there is Sally, who is in Kindergarten. While there were many different issues that occurred on this wonderful Monday night, I am just going to focus on one.

I convinced the kids that we should head to the park to enjoy the beautiful afternoon. We all awkwardly grabbed some sort of sporting good and threw ourselves into the car. The two girls jumped into the back seat and little Bobby occupied the front seat. Don't you think for one minute we didn't spend a good 5 minutes working on getting the seating arrangements as fair as possible. As we finally started cruising down the neighborhood street, Bobby decided to have a "come to Jesus" moment. He felt the sudden desire to come clean for his little sister Sally. He shouts out, "Sheena...Sally said something mean about you!!!" Immediately, the older sister Pam whispered back, "Bobby, NO!". At first response to Bobby's comment I thought, what this time?? But then with hasty attempt to cover Bobby's tracks, by his older sister, my interest was peaked, "Oh she did huh?? What did she say?" I asked with a little hesitation, suddenly wondering if I really wanted to know what the comment was. Bobby then proclaimed with no hesitation at all, "SHE SAID YOU WERE FAT!!" The words seemed to echo through the car as if we were taking a horseback ride through The Grand Canyon. Sally then started to giggle. Are you kidding me right now?? From this point on, the only thing I can remember was my throat hurting, from tensing up in order to hold back the tears.

Why is it that any adult could have said that to me and I would have just thought they were just rude? Why did I hear from someone from one of the most unintelligent ages of the human face and struggle to not lose my cool?? Well, it is simple. When an adult makes a comment like that, it is almost always in an attempt to be rude or cut down the other in some way. But in this case when Sally was saying to another person, she wasn't saying it to be mean, she thought she was stating the facts…the obvious. Before anyone runs to the phone to call their favorite self-esteem counselor, I am fine. Later, I came to learn that she was just joking, and she really doesn’t think that...right!!

While Jesus does say that we need to be like little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, I am thinking that he was only referring to some of their traits.

Mall RATS

What does being hot truly mean?? I know that the lovely, smart, well-composed Paris Hilton brought the word to a very general definition, but I am not meaning that. I would like to know when a member of the opposite sex refer to the other by saying, "Wow, they are hot!!" Is that only referring to their outer appearance or can other things about a person make them hot??

For example, can I guy ever walk up to another guy and be like, "whoa man, that girl is a good friend and loyal to the core...she is sooo hott!" Does that ever happen??? I guess this is mainly a question for the male race. I was thinking about this the other day after a trip to the mall on a Saturday afternoon.

After seeing the movie "Catch and Release", which I didn't like by the way. If you haven't seen it, I won't go into detail. See it, and then we can talk. As I was storming past people right and left, something happened to catch my eye. I started coming up on this beautiful girl, dressed to impress. I actually noticed her shoes and thought, "wow, those are cute". As I made my way up the rest of her outfit to her face, I realized she was one of the better looking girls, from the female group and of course standing right next to her was a incredibly good looking guy. I mean, he was REAL cute. I was soo annoyed right away. Of course they would be together, they are only perfect looking. Then I looked a little closer. The girl was stopped and talking to two other girls, which I can only assume were her friends. All I could make out were words like "totally", "whatever", and "no really, you look sooo cute". You can tell right away, these girls were talking about some pretty important issues. Then I looked at the boyfriend. He was carrying like 5 shopping bags; lets just say you can tell by the brand on the bag, they were not his bags. As I closely passed, I looked at his face, and I can safely say I have not seen someone that bored in a really long time. He was rolling his eyes and just plain annoyed. I wanted to yell to him "RUNNNNN". Instead I just walked past and started thinking.

Yeah, I know, I really don't know what was going on with this couple. But I think we all know some couple or situation similar. Basically, it happens with both sexes. Please don’t hear me saying that just b/c you are physical appealing then you have nothing else to offer. I just feel that if we thought a little more about the important characteristics in an opposite sex companion, we might have less “Mall Couples” out there.

Breaking Bones

Recently, I was comparing medical histories with someone. This was not the first time I have discussed this random topic, except for this time I had never received this conclusion from it. On average, the friend will usually state a total number of injuries had in their lifetime and along with every cut or broken bone, comes this amazing, daring experience, most of the time very worthy of the cost. The only bad cut I have ever had I got by pulling up a weed, that's right. I received 7 stiches for this sad little cut. Usually when I have this conversation I am always swelling with pride in the fact that I have never broken a bone. Shortly after admitting this fact I knock on wood and give a little giggle as if to be like "I am awesome and responsible". Then the statement, "oh wow, you are 22 and have never broken a bone" will then usually come out of the individuals mouth. Leaving me to translate this as some sort of accomplishment. Now if you are reading this right now and you can relate to me...listen.

In this particular convo...the response was a little different. Nothing could have prepared me for this person response to my confession of accomplishment. He then says, "wow sheena, you need to get out there and do something". WHAT??? You mean me saving myself from physical distortment isn't doing something?? He was so right!

PEOPLE WE NEED TO BREAK SOME BONES!!!! By this I dont mean run out of your place of residence and pick up the nearest baseball bat and smash the crap out of your leg. I mean, what fun is to be had by always living in fear of falling, or failure. We are going to get hurt, we can't do anything about that. We are totally going to miss out on the sidelines, while people win gold medals, get record deals, write books, make movies, fly planes, fall in love, show christ to people or just simply trying a really odd looking piece of food that happens to be amazing.

I am so bad about this (not the food sampling, I am always up for that). I want to take the easy safe route in life to avoid all of those "broken bones". God's way isn't easy, in fact he promised us it wouldn't be. New goal in life: Risk breaking some bones! Can I get an amen??

ps It is so late right now...I hope this makes since!

I can't believe I am actually doing this!

Well, along with a lot of things I have wanted to start doing more of in my "new" life, journaling or writing has never been one of them. My wonderful, beautiful, talented sister has always had the artisitic edge on my me...she still does. However, many times in my life, people have always commented to me "if only you could write a book on what goes through your mind". While my attention span may not ever allow that, so a blog seems like a very practical way to make these 2 or 3 people's dreams come true.

WARNING: I am not promising this will be interesting or even good. But considering I am a random, single, girl living in Dallas Texas...I am thinking this may prove to be a little more productive than other things I could be doing.

You may consider this a reality blog for a very average, as far as EVERYTHING goes, girl's life. I feel like we always hear about the beautiful, the rich, or even the ugly, and the poor. Am I right??? I mean, what about the average?? I am here to represent them. The people who don't always have something "cool" to do. The people who don't always capture people's attention. The folks who have every intention of eating right and working out. Basically, the people who don't really have it bad, but don't really have it good. Enough said...