**Guest Post** SailingBo

 I am finally back in Copenhagen, happy to be snuggled in my old bed, looking out on my old city, enjoying the sunshine, the cafes, listening to the Danish surrounding me, and most of all, chattering away with my niece! 

Bo from Sailing Bo, on life and boats, has agreed to guest post for me. I just recently "met" Bo and instantly he has become one of my favorite bloggers. He inspires me by his look on life. So I am very excited to feature him today! Please check him out!! 

 

Without further ado...  

 

 

Guest Post: Practical jokes & the first date accomplice.

 

Back when I was in college I kept my sailboat at Lake Lanier, about an hour’s drive away.

As much of a chick magnet you may think a normalish college junior with his own sailboat (like myself) would be, for some reason that wasn't my experience.

But, there was this one girl.

She'd heard that I had a boat and asked me to take her sailing. I'd scheduled a trip for my parents and one of their friends from church to go sailing that weekend. I mentioned it to girl in passing, thinking she would politely decline.

She didn't. Awkward.

So there we were on our first date of sorts, driving up to spend the afternoon with my folks. On the way to the lake we stopped by Subway for lunch. Standing at the cash register, I realized I’d left my wallet at home. Awesome.

Once we finally got to the boat, I ate the sandwich she'd bought & tried to salvage a shred of dignity.

About the time my parents get to the parking log & start walking down the dock, Girl leans over the back of the boat, looks at the stern & embarrassingly asks "Is <em>that</em> the name of your boat!?!"

"Huh? I haven't named it yet..." As I turned around to look, I immediately knew what happened. I had made the mistake of showing my boss where the boat lived, and he had taken it upon himself to do the naming for me.

In great big black vinyl letters, the words "Blow Me" were pasted on the white fiberglass.

As my parents were walking down the dock, I quietly told Girl what had happened & explained that we couldn’t let my parents & their friend find out.

There was a close call when their friend made a move towards the back as she asked "what'd you name the boat?" Girl masterfully moved between her and the stern as she explained it remained unnamed.

There was another close call when another boat rode up behind us, read the words, smiled & gave me a thumbs up. Girl saw the look on my face & pointed towards the front of the boat to distract the 'rents.

We could barely hold our laughter until after my Dad paid for the gas for our return trip home.

Her performance that day earned her another few trips to the lake, but our future was doomed. All that's left of our relationship is this secret memory.

My folks never did figure out what was really happening that day on the boat. And I’m hoping that’s the way it stays.

________

Bo recently quit his job and moved aboard a sailboat in Orange Beach, Alabama. He is currently throwing ideas at a wall hoping one sticks long enough to fund a sailing trip around the world. He writes about life and boats and stuff over at http://www.sailingbo.com. Follow him on Twitter @SailingBo.

A sponsor, a representative, a model of Faith

On Thursday my little sister will be confirmed, and she has chosen me as her sponsor. She may have chosen me because I was the easiest one to ask. I am her sister, I will be in her life forever, I am seven years older than her - so "wiser." And I would be home during her confirmation.
But to me it is a little more than that. Although my confirmation sponsor did not end up taking an active role in my life, much like my godparents have been in the shadows, I wanted to take my role as an example in faith very seriously.
I felt the same way when my brother asked me to be Clara's godmother. These people are asking me to be a role model, to be a witness of faith. And I do not want to fall short.
It is difficult, because I am not the model Catholic. I lapse in my faith, I fail to go to church every Sunday when I am away from home. I forget to pray. I put myself before God, before my faith, before everyone. I have faltered. I have been angry with God. I have turned my back on him. I have lived a life I am not proud of.
But I always go back. I always recognize that feeling of emptiness - isn't it funny how overwhelming emptiness can be? - as a yearning to be close to God once more. Is that enough? That I recognize through it all, no matter the paths I take, that God will always be there? Maybe not quite. I need to work on welcoming Him into my life, always.
It is tradition to give a gift to the confirmed. I have been scouring the webs (because there are no shops in my town - and even if there were, I have absolutely NO time to go anywhere...) for something wonderful to give her. But my brother is already getting her a crucifix, my grandmother is getting her a ring, and my mother bought her all the saint books she would ever need. So what am I left with?
I decided that the most meaningful present would be to write her a letter (and maybe buy her a pair of earrings).
But the letter would address more than our faith. Well, not more than our faith, because our faith encompasses everything. It comes out of the church and into our daily lives. Our love and worship of God flows into our friendships, our relationships, even into our education. God is behind our decisions, our goals, our thoughts, our worries. He is a part of everything. So when I write a letter to my sister about my faith as it pertains to her, it will be a letter about life, love, hopes, and dreams.
Hopefully God will send me inspiration, hopefully I will be able to use my hand to write His words. Hopefully I can lead my sister down a holy, happy path.

Stay tuned, I may post bits of the letter...

I still encourage random acts of crazy...

...it's just no longer my blog name... I found this quote and it spoke VOLUMES.
I hope this isn't too confusing. I have a problem with having the same thing for too long - seriously - I'm constantly changing everything.
Sorry. It's just the way I am...

Europe knows how to fly... and drink... and vacation

I've been trying to book a flight to Austin, and I am going insane. When Madic and I move down there we will drive down, but apparently it's a good idea to look at apartments before we sign the lease? Yeah, it's a good idea. So we must fly. Which presents two problems: flights are ridiculously expensive and I only have three days free, so there is no wiggle room.
As I was perusing all the different websites for the *best* deals, all I could think about was how I flew from London to Spain for twenty pounds and to Ireland for five. The planes were dinky. The food and drinks were expensive. The flight attendants sold scratch tickets. But it was only a couple of hours, I didn't care what the plane was like as long as it flew and it got me to where I wanted to go.
Sometimes "slumming" it isn't all that bad. Sometimes, it makes it more of an adventure.
When Sie and I flew to Spain last year, it was one of the best flights I had ever been on. We flew EasyJet at nine am. At eight thirty when we all began to board the plane, we realized we were the only sober ones on the flight. We also realized we were the only two passengers under 30 years old.
About twenty middle aged men in pink polos and navy blazers were singing, throwing back beers, and flirting with the stewardess. They took over the rear of the cabin and as soon as we were in the air, never returned to their seats. There was dancing, ordering of champagne, and buying the whole plane drinks.
In the row ahead of us were three women in their late seventies. One had the classic blue hair, one was holding on to her "original" hair color for as long as possible, and the other had bright white hair. They were dressed in bright colors, wore bright red lipstick, and were rocking over sized sunnies. As soon as they sat down they ordered a bottle of champagne each (they were the liter bottles). And quickly ordered another round.
In celebration of our own little vacation, Sie and I ordered some champagne as well, and then of course the pink polo brigade bought us another round. We made friends with everyone on the plane. The women ahead of us had been friends for fifty-five years, and were taking a little vacation together. Sie and I were in awe. We hoped we would turn out just like these women.
We never really figured out who the pink polo brigade were. The logo on their jackets were made up. They had just decided, if they were going to travel together they might as well wear matching polos and jackets. We got a different story from each guy we talked to.
By the time we arrived and met up with our boys (who were coming from Barcelona) we were happily fuddled and ready to start our little vacation (which ended with this...)

 

Now wouldn't life just be so much better if we had EasyJet in the states?

Free* Stuff... just tell everyone how much you love it!

Yesterday I got an email from a company asking me if I wanted to try out their product for free and blog and tweet about my experience with it. The first thing I thought was, ha, they've got the wrong girl. Didn't they see I only have 26 followers? They probably wrote to everyone on 20sb.net, and do I want to give in to someone who is that desperate? Also it is something I would never use. Why couldn't someone contact me with something I need?
This got me thinking. If it was something I've always wanted to try and I know they are not desperate because all of a sudden I have a thousand followers... would I give in then? Would I accept their product and then bombard my readers with my reviews of it? I feel like that is selling out. But hey, free stuff is free stuff and I'm living on a verrry tight budget.
So the conclusion, it would have to be really good. How good? Well, the only thing I can think of is if God wanted to give me something to review, like a free miracle.
So I said to him
*this conversation may not have happened...
"Hey God, if You want to throw me a free miracle or something, I will blog and tweet about it. THINK of all the followers You would get! I don't know God, I think I'm really on to something here... It would have to be something specific to me, because if it's a big miracle everyone can blog about it, and that defeats the purpose don't you think."
This is where God rolls His eyes.
"You could send me a husband!"
"A husband? That's not a miracle."
"Well, my mom thinks it would be a miracle... You could send me a man who is tall and strong. Handsome. With a good sense of humor. A guy who likes to break out in song randomly. One who doesn't mind going to a musical now and then. One who loves my family, who doesn't mind getting his feet dirty. One who could be comfortable in the country and in the city. A man who is reliable, who will love me unconditionally. A man I could trust. Now that would be a miracle!"
"I think we have bigger issues here than giving away free stuff for a review."
Sigh, God's always right. But I promise I would write a good review!
Maybe he could just make it spring RIGHT NOW? I'm over the snow. It's April, you know.

The boy

I have a confession to make. I am running away. I have been running away. Every decision I have made in the past few years, every time I have picked up and moved thousands of miles away, it has been to escape.
When I am back home, I hide. I rarely go into town. I hate going into the grocery store.
I'm hiding. I'm running away. From my past. From a boy. THE boy. The boy I fell in love with when I was eight years old. The boy I spent years staring at while I was at church, during soccer practice. The boy who finally asked me out in high school. The boy who gave me butterflies with every smile. The boy who would sing to me when I was feeling sad. The boy who was there for me, the boy I told my problems to, the boy who would lean on me when things weren't everything we wanted them to be.
He was the boy I planned my life around. He was the boy who asked me to marry him, the boy I said yes to.
But he was also the boy that played with my emotions. The boy who lied. The boy who cheated. The boy who strung me along after he realized he hated me. The boy I finally broke up with. The boy who continued to call me over and over. The boy who showed up at my dorm in the middle of the night, begging me to see him. The boy who got a new girlfriend two days after we broke up. The boy who didn't tell me about the new girlfriend for months. The boy who would tell me he loved me over and over, and then tell me he hated me.
The boy who seemed to show up everywhere I went. The boy who would tell me I was ugly, I was crazy, I was unloveable. The boy who would tell me he couldn't live without me, while he paraded his new girlfriend around our town. The boy who would freak out and show up in the middle of the night when he found out I went on a date.
The boy who ruined me. The boy who made me hate myself because I let him treat me the way he did. The boy I spent years trying to get over, to get away from.
I finally did, I finally escaped, I finally ran away. I moved to Copenhagen. He sent me a terrible letter just weeks after I moved there. It was as if I couldn't get away. He still tried to contact me constantly. I blocked him from everything.
I returned home for a visit. I saw him again. I fell into his spell again. I thought it would be ok if we became friends. I thought it would be ok. It escalated. And then it fell apart again. He peppered me with abusive language. He blamed me for every bad thing in his life. He told me he never loved me. I hated myself.
Every time I would see him, every time I would see his parents - his parents who I had loved like my own family, who had started to become my own family - I would fall apart. My ears would burn. I would start to shake. I couldn't handle being in the same place as him.
I spent six months in London and things started to change. I met Penn. I realized just how terrible our entire relationship had been.
But as much as I had changed, had healed, there was still something there. Still a terrible fear that I would fall back into the destructive life I had been living for so long. Just to feel loved. Just for those fleeting moments of adoration.
Moving home was difficult. I didn't want to see his parents. But I do see them, almost every week. They try to catch my eye. They try to say hello.
They said hello today. We ran into them at the bagel shop. They had overheard my aunt talking about my move to Texas. His dad told me he had been there. He had gone to Texas to look at grad schools with HIM. He joked about the Red Sox as if what he said had not made my stomach drop out of me.
He left. And I panicked. I am moving thousands of miles away. And for what? To possibly be in the same city as him again? But just because they were looking there doesn't mean he will go there, right? This cannot possibly happen again. I have spent the last couple of years running, and he keeps catching up to me.
Why can't he just be the boy I barely remember, not the boy I can't escape?

Blog Love

The beautiful lady from Everyday Love awarded me with this little thing...

Which I just think is so fun! Thank you for thinking of me! Have you seen her blog? Check her out, she's a cutie! 

The award comes with a hitch though, and I have to provide everyone with seven details about me... So why not? Here's some easy reading for your Saturday...

I am obsessed with sudoku. Everytime I'm in an airport I pick up a book of puzzles.
When I move to Austin I plan to get a kitten and name him Bingley.
The last time a guy bought me a drink he was in his sixties, he kept admiring my nails and telling me how beautiful my smile was.
I make wishlists on online shopping sites but never actually make purchases, it’s my own type of retail therapy.
My mom traveled to the Taj Mahal by herself when she was 21 years old. She hiked through Nepal and India to get to my dad who was in the Peace Corp building bridges in the foothills of Nepal, it’s the coolest fact about them ever.
I believe in fate and in miracles.
I make decisions very quickly, because when I know what I want to do something, I start doing it right away.

So there's a little more about me.
Tell me one random fact about you! Please?