Meme - Day One.

The Meme topic for today is A Photo of Yourself and a Description of How Your Day Was. Let's start with a photo of myself, taken today just for this blog. This is how I look most days - nothing special.

Now that we have the photo out of the way, lets get onto my day! I woke up today at 4:45 and made my husband his lunch and let the dog out, then laid myself right back into my comfy bed until 6:30am, which is when I actually got up for the day. I again let the dog out, got his breakfast ready. While he ate his food, I checked my Facebook, Twitter, and other important sites (Hey, Lamebook and Failbook are really important!). At around 7:20, I started getting ready for the day. All that means for me is brushing my teeth, getting dressed and putting on minimal makeup (i.e. powder, blush, and mascara). After I was ready, I took the dog outside to throw the ball around and get him worn out. After about 15 minutes of playing ball, I came back inside and ate a cup of peach & mango yogurt and gathered my things for the day. After putting the dog in the crate, I left for the day at around 8:20, stopping at Gas City to get a Diet Coke fountain drink. I then made my way to work.

When I got to work, I counted my money and waited for the store to open at 9am. Work was pretty typical, am a cashier and I just take peoples money, sounds exciting, I know. I get a 15 minute lunch break, which I usually take around 12:30. Today I ate a granola bar and some peanut brittle that someone had brought in to share. I spent the rest of my lunch break walking around the store, but I didn't find anything worth buying. The next 2 hours went by pretty slow and after the store closed, I counted down my drawer and left to come home.

My husband was home when I got here, he was outside watering the plants and cleaning out our fountain, after he had played with the dog. I started a load of laundry, mostly my husbands work clothes, and then I decided to write this blog. The rest of my night entails dinner at 5pm (I'm reheating a pepperoncini roast and making some mashed potatoes). Then I'll take a bath, and perhaps watch some TV and play some Halo Reach, and then head to bed between 10-11.

And there's my day!

My Secret Identity as a Video Game Nerd

When I met my husband in Iraq 6&1/2 years ago, I was not someone who played video games at all. Growing up, my sister and I had a Nintendo and years later a PlayStation. I also had a GameBoy when they first came out - yes, the big brick one! Most of these systems I hardly played myself, usually my dad or my sister played on them while I would prefer to read a book or watch TV. My husband on the other hand, grew up playing video games. He had more systems than I care to name. He and his siblings and friends would spend hours playing video games, and the amount of time played didn't change as he grew older. After we met, he tried to get me to play games with him, and sometimes I would, but I would never call myself a gamer.

After we got married in 2004 and we moved from North Carolina to Arizona, I was feeling very lonely since I was so far away from my family and had no friends. One of the hubby's friends kept talking about how Halo 2 was coming out. I had played the first Halo once at a friends house and actually liked it a lot. My husband asked me if I was going to get Halo 2, but I of course said no, I didn't play video games afterall. The day the game was released, I had this sudden urge to go buy it - and I did. I became so hooked on this game, it's not even funny. I would play it for hours when my husband was at work. This was around the time when XBox Live first came out, and I found myself making friends with these people on a game. They gave me companionship when I felt so alone and without friends.

A few months later, my husbands coworker introduced him to a new game - only this one wasn't a console game, it was a MMO (mass multiplayer online) game for the PC called World of Warcraft, or WoW for short. My husband was often play this game while I would play Halo 2 -talk about a couple of nerds! He tried relentlessly to get me to play this game too, but I had no desire. I thought it looked confusing with a million buttons. But one day he convinced me to sit down and watch him play. That lead to me making my own character and learning how to play. Again, I was hooked. When my husband deployed a few months later, WoW, school, and XBox Live kept me occupied, since we had again moved and I had no friends.

It's so funny to me that I play video games, especially since I used to hate them. In fact, it's killing me that we don't have our XBox right now and Halo 3: ODST comes out soon. I hate that I don't have my desktop and I have to play WoW on this not-made-for-games laptop. So yes, it's true. I am a girl gamer - and I never thought I would be.