Happy Christmas, Y'all.

From all of us at Eric and Annie's Home for Dysfunctional Christmas Cookies.

Posting every day is hard work.

And boy, do I suck at it.
That said, bring on the shitty iPhone photos!

That turned into some seriously delicious salsa. 

Let me remind you that this is a dumb cell phone picture.  But seriously?

Everthing here is a wild shade of green.  That house waaaay waaaaaaay back

in the distance?  Oprah's, apparently. 

A baby gecko fell off of the ceiling on right onto my laptop keyboard today.
Stay tuned for more updates.

Relationships and Other 13 Letter Words.

(note: There will not be any other thirteen letter words in this post.)

New relationships are the silliest clusterfuck of emotions and awkwardness that has ever existed.

So, in a new living situation, you're constantly learning new things about your partner - most that you love (hopefully!) and some that simply baffle you, such as his inexplicable love for those shoes with the toes in them.  The things you don't love, you accept (or change, if the matter at hand is terrible taste in shoes... love you E!) and move on, growing closer and developing a tighter bond.  Quick to forgive, slow to anger, and so on.

The hardest part, as I've been learning in the short time I've been here, is dealing with your own self-loathing without coming across as too neurotic or brain-damaged.  It's easy to overlook how many things you've come to hate about yourself until you are living with this person who previously thought you were absolutelyperfectineveryway (riiiight?).  Then all of this insecurity starts to bubble to the surface:

"Oh my god, I hate me feet. If he ever sees my feet in broad daylight he will run away forever while projectile vomiting."

"I SWEAT WHEN IT GETS HOT OUTSIDE! HE CAN NEVER FIND OUT."

"My right boob is way bigger than my left boob.  I am a fucking freak show."

I'm making jokes here, but it's actually sort of alarmed me how much of the day I spend worrying about all of the things I hate about myself, and  how they'll all join forces to drive away this guy that I love.  I've lashed out at him, in pathetic attempts to hide my insecurity underneath anger about... anything really.  Anything I can get my hands on.  Where does that even come from inside of us?  I know I'm not the only one.  What in our lives causes us to believe that we are undeserving of a good and fulfilling love?  That there's something so wrong with me that I couldn't possibly be in a successful relationship?  Do we blame that on the media?  On failed past relationships? 

And how do we move on?  How do you learn to love yourself as much as you love everyone else in your life?  I don't know the answer to that just yet, so I guess this post is incomplete, and maybe a little depressing.  Sorry about that.  The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, though, right? 

To be continued... sort of, or probably not.

On a lighter note, passion fruit is my new favorite anything ever.

...I love baby goats.

You guys, this place is the perfect combination of Green Acres and... I don't know, some television show based around the beach.  Bay Watch!  Yes.  It's like Bay Watch, because everyone here is gorgeous.  I've just been lurking in the shade, my pasty white skin glowing like I just fell off of a radioactive waste truck.  It's all very tragic.  So, I guess the Bay Watch part of the combination is less than perfect, but at the very least, I'm getting an opportunity to face my insecurities and also get sunburned a lot.  Yay?

Friday night we went to see Lukas Nelson in his father's (Willie!) bar.  It was an awesome show, with an odd mix of dirty hippie, dirty surfer and dirty redneck.  Very nice.

E's house is surrounded by farm animals.  Mostly of the goat and horse persuasion.  Did  you know that baby goats are basically puppies?  They are the cutest, most amazing little animals on the plant.  They bounce everywhere, tails wagging and heads bobbing.  It is completely ridiculous.  I'm in love.

Speaking of my puppies, I miss my dog.
His birthday is on the 27th and of course, I'm going to miss it.  I'm weary of bringing him out here because he would have to stay outside because E is allergic to dogs (but less so cats? a likely story) and Oliver was just not raised to be an outside baby.  I cried when I left him with my parents.  You just can't explain to a dog that you're leaving for a while, but you'll come back to see him and he didn't do anything wrong.  I am the worst dog-mom ever. 

Now that I've turned myself into a weepy mess, here are those boring pictures of sand you were looking forward to, Steven:

These were all from the super-touristy, beach-front-condo part of the island.

I'd be okay with never going there again, but the beaches

are gorgeous.

HI.

Not "Hi!" ... HI! 
Like, Hawaii.
Because that's where I am.

That was anticlimactic, wasn't it?

More specifically, I am in Maui, in the most perfect little house in the most perfect little town. 
My mind has been sort of blown the past few days, combined with an outrageous case of jet lag, so I don't have much to offer right now.  It took me about 12 hours to start applying for jobs, though, if that tells you anything.

So, there are things I really like about Hawaii, like how its so vegetarian friendly and the people are wonderful and you can go from a gorgeous countryside to the beach in under twenty minutes.

And then, there's the thing I love about Hawaii:

I know!
(ALSO: I am two days late on my "post every day" promise, but I'll keep it up from now on!)

I KNOW.

I am the worst blogger ever.  It's a fact, I've accepted it.
So here's the run-down of the last few weeks.

...
Um, nothing, really.  I've been working and schooling my little heart out.
Last day on the job was this past Friday.  It was tougher than I expected.
I cried like a baby, but not before making it to my car, so I'm calling it a success.
Friday night was the company Christmas party.  Super fun.  My bowling
skills are non-existent, but my cheese stick eating skills are out of this world, so
it all balanced out.  Went to our Going Away Party Bar afterwards and closed the place down.  There may or may not have been some Justin Timberlake and Vanilla Ice karaoke.  I'll never tell.

So now we play the waiting game.
The problem with me and the waiting game is that I'm completely neurotic
(if you haven't already noticed)
and so these next three days are going to basically consist of me sitting around thinking of all the ways this whole thing could just come crashing down on me.  How many ways can I screw this up?  A lot, is the answer to that question, and I will be playing them all on repeat over the next 72 hours as I pack a random assortment of my belongings into this really sweet luggage I found at a thrift store (7 dollar bills, y'all!).

I don't know why I have such trouble accepting good things happening to me.
It's not like I've led one of those super tragic lives full of orphanages and tuberculosis -  why can't I just let happy things be happy?  Well.  I can.  And I'm going to.  So, put that in your pipe and schmoke it, Universe.

Oh!  So, I made a promise to myself to blog every day while I'm on this extended trip - we'll
see how that goes.  I've got to develop some sort of self-discipline, and so we're starting with blogging.

My next post will be from about 4,000 miles west of here.  See you guys there.

A very Happy Holidays to you and yours from my boy, John McCain.