Ladies & Gentlemen.  Thank you for joining me today.

It is no secret that I won’t be twenty-two years old forever. It would be awesome if I could though. I’d never wrinkle or gain weight. I could keep my youthful spunk forever!

Well, now I don’t have to worry about turning 23 (besides getting closer to aforementioned wrinkles and decreased metabolism) because my good friend Joel has set me up with a new blog. It has its own website and everything!

I won’t be updating Life at Twenty Two any more and have already moved everything over to the new location. It’s kind of sad to leave because we’ve had some good times here, but alas.. we must move on.

So everyone, please update your favorites and visit me at my new blog, High Heels & Heat Transfer over at http://www.engineerinheels.com

I’ll see you there

Sigh.

(Just kidding. He dressed up like this for Halloween. 
At least I think he only dressed up like this for Halloween. )

And I wouldn’t really say that the stereotype is unfounded.  Just like all stereotypes, it doesn’t necessarily encompass the entire group and is the result of a few that give us a “bad” name.  But most of us are just like you non-engineery types. 

But yes, we do have our nerdy tendencies.  We have a tendency to over analyze things because… well… we can.  We can talk about the heat transfer properties of cast iron.  We can discuss the friction coefficient of tires.**  We are well versed in integration, differentiation, and laplace transforms.  And while “nerdy” can classify as anybody that knows way too much about any one thing (for instance, Tommy Lee probably knows an unreal amount of information about drums), we are the dreaded type of nerd because nobody cares about what we know.  Does anybody really want to know about the friction coefficient of tires?  NO!  THEY DON’T!  And if anybody were to accidentally overhear any of that conversation, they would probably say, “Wow, those engineers can tell a mean bedtime story.  This is so boring, I’m having a tough time keeping my eyes open… and it has only been about 15 seconds.”

But the thing is, I find those conversations to be hilarious.  And maybe it’s just me, but I get a huge kick out of how bullheaded engineers can be and how willing we are to argue details.  So yesterday, as I sat and did work while the men next to me discussed grilling and the physical properties of cast iron, the idea for “Way Too Nerdy Thursdays” came to me. 

Every Thursday (assuming I remember) I will share a funny conversation, random factoid you may or may not be interested in, or a fact about myself that could be considered “nerdy”.  The subject matter for these posts will come from conversations at work, with Dan, or just nerdy things that I have done in the past. 

And sure, I might be pushing forward the engineering “nerdiest people ever” stereotype.  And a lot of you probably won’t even think the stories that I’m going to share are interesting or funny.  Most likely, you’ll be sitting there scratching your head thinking to yourself… “Uhh… I don’t really get it…. was that a joke?”  But I will think they are interesting and funny, and I will be able to go through these stories at a not-to-distant point in the future and giggle like an idiot.  And to me, that’s the point of having a blog in the first place.  So I can reflect on it later.

And yes, “Way Too Nerdy Thursdays” can be renamed.  If you have recommendations, please feel free to let me know.

I don’t have time to write up a nerdy encounter this week, so until next Thursday, please enjoy reading (or re-reading) about The Monty Hall Problem.  It’s a pretty good post to get things started.

** Yes, those conversations really happened. 

So make sure that all of your friends named “Don” or “Donald” know that they are among the coolest people on earth. Give them a high five, a fist bump, a butt slap, or whatever you crazy kids do these days.

They’ve earned it.

• Work out twice a week (despite failing miserably since starting this thing)
• Find out WHO IS STEALING MY EFFING NEWSPAPER. And I will. Mark my words.
• Attend two volunteering events
• Read 1 book (despite failing at this one, too)
• 100% complete all of my calligrpahy homework.
• Fully clean out my car.  Vacuum and everything.
• Finish decorating the apartment
• Get my total credit card balance below $1000. The finish line is in sight!!!!!

As a side note, these monthly resolutions are working significantly better than the standard yearly ones.  I feel like I am getting so much more done… and I am feeling so much more motivated to do it

On December 31st, I declared my New Years Resolution:  Make monthly resolutions.

For the month of February, this is how I did –

• Read at least 1 book: FAIL. I did not read a single page.

• Work out at least 3 times a week – hopefully this will go better this month…: FAIL. I did not go once throughout the month of February.

• Pay off another $1000 on my credit card *sigh*: TOTALLY PWNED. Thanks to that wonderful tax refund I got, I accomplished this and then some.

• Put $1000 toward my student loans: SUCCESS! I just barely made it. Again, I’ve got to give props to the government for taking lots of my money and giving it all back to me.

• Attend my calligraphy class each week – no skipping class!: DONE! I love that class

• Love Dan (he requested that one…): ALWAYS & FOREVER

• Follow my dermatologist’s orders every day after my appointment on the 8th. In the past I have followed the doctor’s orders for about 4 days and then tapered off from there: TRIED, BUT HAD TO GO A DIFFERENT ROUTE. My health insurance held me back from that one. I went to Ulta instead and grabbed Dermalogica, which I have been following consistently. Sure, it’s not the same, but it is as close as I could get without dropping $400+ (no joke) on medication.

• Do my laundry every week instead of waiting until I have nothing to wear: I DID IT TWICE THIS MONTH. SO NO.

So for those of you keeping track, I succeeded at 5 out of 8. 

I still struggle to believe that I didn’t go ONCE thoughout January. I mean.. I can believe that I didn’t go since I was there every morning when I rolled out of bed late and got to work barely at 9am, but… ugh. Disappointing.

I guess I can pride myself in that I don’t just “kind of” fail. I fail big and go home. *HIGH FIVE*

So I got up this morning, cleaned my apartment, and brushed Lucy.  Usually I use some really crappy brush that I probably got from the dollar store or something, and it doesn’t really do much.  It pulls out maybe 3 hairs, and then 15 seconds later she is wandering around shedding all over everything again.  Today I wisened up and decided to try out my dog’s furminator on her.  And for those of you with dogs that shed a lot but you haven’t heard of the furminator yet, you are missing out on the best invention EVER.  Seriously.

So I don’t know if these wonderful inventions from the heavens are made for cats, but this is what I got before Lucy started gnawing on my fingers, the brush, and my arms.

That is a lot of hair.  I even compacted it all in a dense hairball.  Gross.

And when I showed Lucy, of course she grabbed the whole thing between her front paws with a death grip and tried to eat the whole thing.  I actually gave her a little piece of it just to see if she really would follow through and eat the hair, and she did.  I should have known better. It’s like she’s upset that the hair is no longer on her and she needs to eat it so she can grow some more.  Because she needs it.  And I need more of it on my couch.

I wish I had something awesome to tell you. Like I won millions at the casino. I actually won $100 from a slot machine, but then I lost all of it. Ugh.

I have to get up in about 3 hours, so I should probably stop phone-typing my love letter here and get to sleep. Maybe I will write from the plane tomorrow.

Hugs, Kisses, & Rainbows,
Heather

You don’t really get as much detail through the picture as you would have if I had scanned it, but that’s okay.  You get the gist of it.

I’m pretty proud of myself – it’s not too bad for only using a pen and ink for a week.  I would have shown you what I was able to accomplish during the first class, but it was mostly just a sheet of paper that had ink smeared all over it.  My hand had a lot of ink on it, too.  Then I discovered that I should have an EXTRA sheet of paper to get rid of excess ink.  DUH. 

But if it makes you feel any better, “Max plays jazz sax” was the first real sentence I ever wrote.

My teacher thinks I’m pretty good (and my mom tells me I’m special), and what I really need to work on is consistency.  Once in awhile, my letters look pretty good.  Once in awhile, the spacing between letters and words is right.  Once in awhile, my letters have the correct slant to them.  Once in awhile I hold my pen at 45 degrees.  So I just need to correct that to become all of the time.  No biggie.

I also need more patience.  We draw the letters instead of write, so each letter is created very slooooowwwwwllyyyyyyyy.  By the last sentence, I was getting really agitated and trying to rush through it.  Maybe this calligraphy thing will help me out.

But for now – practice makes perfect!

I can’t begin to tell you how uncomfortable that makes me.  And I don’t think I ever had the words “pouting” or “anus” anywhere in this blog… until now… so by posting this, I’m probably opening up some kind of weird, twisted can of worms.

Dan and I are thinking the same thing right now.

Who types stuff like that in!??!?

**UPDATE

 I just put that into google to see what other hits it could get, and since I put that search term directly into this post, my blog was the first thing to show up.  Now I feel dirty.

I might delete this if I feel too gross as a result.  We’ll see if I can still sleep tonight.