Well it seems to be getting to the point where I don’t really blog here unless I have something to say…which probably isn’t a bad thing! So in the future, expect rather sporadic posting =p (of course, the beauty blog is usually updated regularly).

This past weekend my family had their friends from Norway over (they were vacationing in the U.S). We went to Lancaster and did some touristy Pennsylvania things like visit the Amish farmers market and go on the Strasburg Railroad (one of the oldest railroads in the US, founded in 1832). It was fun and something different!

The ridiculous heat we’ve been getting lately means that the flies have returned in our apartment to slowly push me to the brink of insanity. Even the Raid bug barrier that I sprayed way too much of everywhere doesn’t seem to be keeping them out this summer. It is having some effect, because I’ve been finding dead flies all over the place so I guess they make their way inside and then are slowly poisoned or something? But then there’s ones that are definitely not dead and flying all over the place (almost always more than 1, like 3-4). I’m seriously going to end up having a panic attack if I have to deal with these freakin flies anymore. I need to just take a deep breath and let them be or something…which would be easier to do if not for the buzzing sound they make. Arrggh! I would seriously pay like $200 for some kind of magic device that would allow me to never see a fly in my apartment again.

Now onto a completely different topic. start-rant/ I was reading an article on Mashable today which linked to this opinion piece from the NYTimes called “The ‘Busy’ Trap“. Its a really great piece and I would definitely give it a read if you can. It basically sums up everything I feel and think about the way our society works and how frantic and stressed out we make ourselves over work (of course, worded in a much better way than I could ever manage). I mean…this quote is just perfection: “More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible…I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.” This is how I’ve always felt, and this is what I just don’t get. People (not everyone, but a majority) work 8 hours a day. EIGHT hours. That’s a full 40 hours a week of your life that you’re giving to someone else to do something that, in most cases, you don’t really want to do. That is so much time and, in my opinion, enough time to accomplish whatever it is that needs to get done. Why do employers expect employees to spend even more time outside of this eight hours continuing to work? Why do they always seem to want employees “on call”? There are jobs that legitimately involve being “on call” where actual emergencies occur…anything in the medical field, for instance. But I’m sorry, there is no reason why one needs to be “on call” in professions that don’t require actual emergencies and where getting whatever it is done that very minute is actually a matter of life and death. Why do we collectively make these things seem so important? They’re not. And what’s sad is that most people don’t have much choice because everyone has become so lost in thinking of all these things as “important”.

Btw, this isn’t anything that’s related to me or my job (which I’m lucky does not include a situation like above)…just something that really gets to me whenever I come across it or think about it. The article talks about a lot of other good points, like how creativity comes when we don’t have so much stuff going on. I know that I definitely wrote more music and had lots more inspiration with that when I was unemployed and chilling out at the apartment all day long. I don’t think I’ve written a song in 2 years (probably more). Of course, I don’t want to ever be in that situation again (unemployment), but I do miss the creativity that came along with it. /end-rant

Tomorrow I have off work for Independence Day/July 4th. It kind of sucks because it lands on a Wednesday this year so we don’t really have the day off before or after it. Its just kind of right smack in the middle of the week. It also sucks because its supposed to thunderstorm, but maybe that’s not so bad. I can just chill inside and relax or something. The following weekend I’ll be going to Virginia to see a friend that I haven’t seen in a while so that should be really fun =)

Have a great holiday (if you celebrate it) and stay cool!