1. Dreaming I'm allergic to strawberries and tomatoes....only to wake up and realize yay!!!! I'm not! (Seriously, I was so upset that I was allergic to tomatoes in my dream—do you KNOW how much I LOVE tomatoes?)
2. Molly putting her head on my shoulder and staring at my face while I type.
3. Getting tickets to see Annie with my sister and mom. It's Annie. You know, my childhood movie heroine? Yeah, her.
4. Having all my Valentine's Day presents figured out and bought way ahead of time.
5. Butternut squash soup with lots of black pepper.
Just five today. But five good ones.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Small Things
Ok, here's something. Maybe on the days I'm having trouble blogging I'll be counting my blessings. After all, this year is about downsizing (for a lot of people) so the small things become even that much more important. (Or at least it's important not to lose perspective.)
Here are some of my small-good-things.
1. Sending off a query to a major national mag. I might get rejected, but I'm excited nonetheless. And it brings me one step closer to a goal.
2. We only have one parking spot that we pay for for our building. Usually there are a couple free spots to steal at night, otherwise you're stuck with street parking, and meters start at 8. I don't have to leave for work until 8:30 most days, so it's kind of a pain. And you have to make sure that you're parked on the correct side of the street. Anyway, a lot of the free spots have been taken up by the Bobcat that plows our lot when it snows. Tonight I came home and William had squeezed into a free spot I couldn't have maneuvered into, so that I could have our regular spot.
3. Eating comfort food with my mom and dad.
4. Friends finding out they're pregnant.
5. A super yummy double-crazy spicy tuna roll at a fun restaurant.
6. Molly snuggling up.
7. A nap.
8. Trader Joe's Molokai coffee. The day they sell out I will cry. It says it's limited edition. Stock up people! IT'S SO GOOD. Better yet, ship it to me. I will appreciate it the mostest of anyone in the WHOLE WORLD.
9. William waking me up in the morning.
10. Making lists.
Here are some of my small-good-things.
1. Sending off a query to a major national mag. I might get rejected, but I'm excited nonetheless. And it brings me one step closer to a goal.
2. We only have one parking spot that we pay for for our building. Usually there are a couple free spots to steal at night, otherwise you're stuck with street parking, and meters start at 8. I don't have to leave for work until 8:30 most days, so it's kind of a pain. And you have to make sure that you're parked on the correct side of the street. Anyway, a lot of the free spots have been taken up by the Bobcat that plows our lot when it snows. Tonight I came home and William had squeezed into a free spot I couldn't have maneuvered into, so that I could have our regular spot.
3. Eating comfort food with my mom and dad.
4. Friends finding out they're pregnant.
5. A super yummy double-crazy spicy tuna roll at a fun restaurant.
6. Molly snuggling up.
7. A nap.
8. Trader Joe's Molokai coffee. The day they sell out I will cry. It says it's limited edition. Stock up people! IT'S SO GOOD. Better yet, ship it to me. I will appreciate it the mostest of anyone in the WHOLE WORLD.
9. William waking me up in the morning.
10. Making lists.
Uhhhh....
Well, hello, strangers.
I know it's been awhile. It's been a busy couple of weeks, in a good way. Lots of activities going on, including work, so I haven't had very much free time to write.
And, quite honestly, I've been really, really boring besides that. So there hasn't been much to write about.
Um.
Halp, plz? Anything you're interested in right now?
I know it's been awhile. It's been a busy couple of weeks, in a good way. Lots of activities going on, including work, so I haven't had very much free time to write.
And, quite honestly, I've been really, really boring besides that. So there hasn't been much to write about.
Um.
Halp, plz? Anything you're interested in right now?
Monday, January 26, 2009
Today Is the Greatest...
Ok, maybe not the greatest, necessarily, but it was a good day. And since I've been doing my fair share of moping and having feeeeeeeeeelings up in here, I thought I'd share.
Here are my reasons why I had such a good day today (excuse the poor writing, I am simply too tired after the last couple days of editing to work too hard at this):
--I forgot I parked in a zone that is reserved for commuters from 6 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday. However, on weekends, it's not metered, like most of my neighborhood, and my usual safe spot was taken. Well, since my brain was frozen with the -30 windchill this weekend, I just plain forgot I wasn't in my usual safe spot or I would have moved my car yesterday.
I realized, as I was putting my coat on at 8:30 this morning, that I almost definitely had a $30 parking ticket. In a panic, I ran down the street in my super-awesome boots, (my mom picked them out for my birthday last year) but looking otherwise psycho, only to find that my windshield was ticket-free! I almost did a dance in the middle of the street, I was so excited. I wasn't even mad when I realized I was almost out of gas and had to stop in the snotfreezing cold to get some.
--I had happy hour with a lovely friend, good food, and conversation--and to top it all off, two colleagues of mine were at the bar, and secretly picked up the tab for our first round of drinks.
--An unexpected funny e-mail from another friend, and a sweet e-mail from my husband.
--Encouragement from another friend to kick some butt on my national freelance goal (which was yesterday, but also today), plus tickets to a fun hockey game in a couple of weeks.
Just the kind of stuff I needed to buoy me up for a while. OK, must now collapse. So tired.
Here are my reasons why I had such a good day today (excuse the poor writing, I am simply too tired after the last couple days of editing to work too hard at this):
--I forgot I parked in a zone that is reserved for commuters from 6 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday. However, on weekends, it's not metered, like most of my neighborhood, and my usual safe spot was taken. Well, since my brain was frozen with the -30 windchill this weekend, I just plain forgot I wasn't in my usual safe spot or I would have moved my car yesterday.
I realized, as I was putting my coat on at 8:30 this morning, that I almost definitely had a $30 parking ticket. In a panic, I ran down the street in my super-awesome boots, (my mom picked them out for my birthday last year) but looking otherwise psycho, only to find that my windshield was ticket-free! I almost did a dance in the middle of the street, I was so excited. I wasn't even mad when I realized I was almost out of gas and had to stop in the snotfreezing cold to get some.
--I had happy hour with a lovely friend, good food, and conversation--and to top it all off, two colleagues of mine were at the bar, and secretly picked up the tab for our first round of drinks.
--An unexpected funny e-mail from another friend, and a sweet e-mail from my husband.
--Encouragement from another friend to kick some butt on my national freelance goal (which was yesterday, but also today), plus tickets to a fun hockey game in a couple of weeks.
Just the kind of stuff I needed to buoy me up for a while. OK, must now collapse. So tired.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A happy, but fairly controversial, post.
Happy Roe v Wade anniversary everyone! One more year of the government not being able to tell us what to do with our bodies! This is all I will say about it: choice is great because you can also choose NOT to have an abortion, and the government can't say anything about it, as they shouldn't. And choice doesn't make you anti-life, it makes you in favor of making informed, healthy, safe decisions, whatever that persuasion may be.
Thanks, all you Planned Parenthooders (and other pro-life organizations), for helping a LOT of women to obtain safe access to affordable healthcare (abortions are a very small percentage of the services they provide).
Today a man decided to crash his truck through the front of a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul. I'm not sure what his point was. Seriously. To kill someone? To ruin the clinic? To stop an abortion? To stop a woman from getting a physical? How would that change anything?
Other good things:
*We are getting a new mattress, free! Covered under our warranty. ROCK ON. This was one of my financial woes, thinking about replacing mattress that was fairly new.
*Obama ordering shutdown of Gitmo, along with investigations of CIA secret prisons. Buddy, two days in office and my heart is bigger already! Human rights are awesome. Let's have some more of those.
*A 30 degree day. It might be cold as crap tomorrow, but today I wore a skirt and tights and didn't lose feeling in my legs.
*The latest issue of Esquire renews my faith in journalists. If you love profiles, or want to read some background information on the latest pols in DC, which are also entertaining and extremely well-written, you'd do well to pick up a copy. It's cheap! It will keep them writing! Do it!
*I'm trying to embrace downsizing of my personal financial situation, as a lot of us are. I saw a great idea on a blog the other day about "What I really, really wanted to buy, but didn't." Sort of a methadone for we "social" shoppers. Look for this to be a semi-regular feature as I work toward paying off my debt and rocking my bank account!
*Woo, the Office back in fine form tonight.
Thanks, all you Planned Parenthooders (and other pro-life organizations), for helping a LOT of women to obtain safe access to affordable healthcare (abortions are a very small percentage of the services they provide).
Today a man decided to crash his truck through the front of a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul. I'm not sure what his point was. Seriously. To kill someone? To ruin the clinic? To stop an abortion? To stop a woman from getting a physical? How would that change anything?
Other good things:
*We are getting a new mattress, free! Covered under our warranty. ROCK ON. This was one of my financial woes, thinking about replacing mattress that was fairly new.
*Obama ordering shutdown of Gitmo, along with investigations of CIA secret prisons. Buddy, two days in office and my heart is bigger already! Human rights are awesome. Let's have some more of those.
*A 30 degree day. It might be cold as crap tomorrow, but today I wore a skirt and tights and didn't lose feeling in my legs.
*The latest issue of Esquire renews my faith in journalists. If you love profiles, or want to read some background information on the latest pols in DC, which are also entertaining and extremely well-written, you'd do well to pick up a copy. It's cheap! It will keep them writing! Do it!
*I'm trying to embrace downsizing of my personal financial situation, as a lot of us are. I saw a great idea on a blog the other day about "What I really, really wanted to buy, but didn't." Sort of a methadone for we "social" shoppers. Look for this to be a semi-regular feature as I work toward paying off my debt and rocking my bank account!
*Woo, the Office back in fine form tonight.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Two Kinds of Blues
It's no secret I've had a touch of the blues lately. For good reasons, but they're also probably mixed with a little seasonal affective disorder.
Why do I think this? Well, today I watched a brilliant sunset from my office window, and it was...5:25. Yeah! The sun didn't set until after 5 today and the light lingered, in a way that it only does when the days start to get a little longer. On our shortest days, it's like it sinks immediately. I felt better driving home tonight.
But.
That could have also been the awesome (blue-state-heavy) events that took place today. Like Wan, I think future generations will ask us where we were on the day we inaugurated the first black president.
I was at work, but we had canceled our meetings and camped out in our conference room, where we have a projection screen. We ate doughnuts and laughed and cried as we watched the events unfold. I loved in particular the very human moments--the oath getting messed up, the Reverend Lowery, who resembled a Muppet, but moved me to tears nonetheless, the Obama children taking pictures and giving thumbs-up to their dad. The multicultural awareness without being overbearing--come on, Aretha, Yitzhak, Yo-Yo--it was like, hey, we're all here. We all want this. It doesn't matter if we're white, black, Asian, Christian, Jewish, or our middle name is Hussein. Those things have never mattered much to me, but I think it's a great model for people to see, who aren't quite so educated or open-minded. (Rick Warren being the sole bad call, in my mind.)
I was moved by all the people on the Mall, maybe not united in every approach, but united in wanting a better future for this country, agreeing that this man is the best person to lead us out of this quagmire.
I am proud that I was part of this. I'm proud that if I have children, it will no longer be a strange or exceptionally moving for them to elect someone other than an old white guy into our highest office. I want it to be normal. I hope that the same will be true for a woman, by the time they turn 18.
I hope, too, that future presidents take a key from Obama. His class, his style, his complete refusal to give in to the shit-talking that happens so often with politics. It's going to pull him through the pressure of being the first black president, the pressure of trying to right what's been so deeply wrong for eight years. It's a big job.
I just saw parts of Beyonce's interview, given after she sang "At Last" for the Obamas. her complete lack of PR touched me. She cried, she rambled, she didn't have a pat answer ready. She said she feels like this was fated to happen. She said, "He makes me want to be smarter. He makes me want to be more involved. And I am here! And I am singing! And I am overwhelmed!" And I cried.
Because he makes us want to be a better generation. He makes us want to be better people. Not by telling us so, but by leading by example. Today a lot of people felt very invested in wanting to be here. We are all singing.
Did you hear that, future hypothetical children? Today we are singing, because in this really dark winter, we finally feel like we've elected the people's representative. And for the first time in eight long, awful years, we feel like we have a fighting chance.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Loft Photo Tour
As promised yesterday, our blog is going to have much more photos with our new toy from Santa - no not that Santa, this one. Anyways, I woke up this morning and took a few quick photos around our loft to give everyone a sense of what we call home.
Molly is a little confused as to what the $%^& I am doing and where our afternoon snuggles have gone...With Molly now eating a treat I can freely move around the loft and not have a little follower at every turn.
Katie and I found these vintage letters at an antique store in St. Paul. Although these blocks are great, Katie gets the award for best find.
Down in the cluttered basement she uncovered this gem! It is a custom Lightolier chandelier. There are a few glass domes that were missing, but at $125 we could not pass this up. It is an energy hog, but it makes our loft sing from within and especially from the street corner outside.
Some of Katie's books. I am sure Katie will get on my case for not selecting her favorite books, but remember I don't read (joking) and I am just looking for pretty things right now.
Katie is a HUGE music fan. This is one of the things that attracted me to her. I am sure you have all heard about our first concert together. She has more CDs than anyone I know and if you think you can outdo her you're crazy.
More cds in the custom cabinet I made for her. It holds upwards of 400 cds and I thought that would be plenty for the both of us. Let's just say I totally underestimated the number of cds, as there are piles and piles of cds all over our place as well as another cd tower.
My love! I was extremely lucky to work with three great guys that got me into biking. As you can see, I need to show my bike some love and give it a good cleaning. Speaking of bike love. (sorry for the shameless plug, but hey, that's what you're gonna get)
My other love are antique robots and vinyl toys. These things are so damn awesome! Katie and her mom usually give me a new one each year - always a great gift.
My newest little guy is actually a 2gb USB thumbdrive as well as the coolest little guy you have ever seen.
These great cuffs have two different antique maps within. One shows St. Paul, where Katie and I call home. The other, Makena beach, the place where we made our vows to love each other forever. The coolest part is that I was able to trade a couple of my photos for them. Now, I just need to get more french cuff shirts...
Our dresser. This was another gem I found in Katie's mom's attic. It belonged to her grandmother, and is totally awesome. In fact, there are many copies of this in recent furniture catalogs. Above the dresser is a beautiful print I purchased in India. The colors are absolutely stunning and it is a depiction of an Indian man and woman getting married. The artist is Mukesh Sharma.
The colors on the link are not acurate, they are more vibrant like this one.
I bought this "soapstone" statue in Mumbai. It was extremely cheap and there were dozens of identical statues for sale. It is obviously a cast statue, but I love it nontheless.
This craftsman sits just outside of our entrance hall. The "love" print above was purchased at the Art Attack art show for my birthday. My birthday is less than a month before Katie's and so she was able to sneak this purchase before I could swoop in and get it for her.
This is our other art supply storage unit. It came from Ikea and was incredibly cheap for flat file storage.
Just off to the right of our art supply area are more officey items. Yes, Katie does in fact LOVE Jim.
Want a great way to kill some time...try this retro video game. It comes equipped with a ton of old games.
Some good old minnesota brew to keep me moving along...
As you can see, Molly has stopped moving a long time ago...
One last shot. I made this "think" sign as part of Katie's Christmas present. It is a simple sign made from recycled plywood and made to appear aged. It's something that slows me down on a daily basis to think of what I am devoting my time towards and what I should be focusing on.
Molly is a little confused as to what the $%^& I am doing and where our afternoon snuggles have gone...With Molly now eating a treat I can freely move around the loft and not have a little follower at every turn.
Katie and I found these vintage letters at an antique store in St. Paul. Although these blocks are great, Katie gets the award for best find.
Down in the cluttered basement she uncovered this gem! It is a custom Lightolier chandelier. There are a few glass domes that were missing, but at $125 we could not pass this up. It is an energy hog, but it makes our loft sing from within and especially from the street corner outside.
Some of Katie's books. I am sure Katie will get on my case for not selecting her favorite books, but remember I don't read (joking) and I am just looking for pretty things right now.
Katie is a HUGE music fan. This is one of the things that attracted me to her. I am sure you have all heard about our first concert together. She has more CDs than anyone I know and if you think you can outdo her you're crazy.
More cds in the custom cabinet I made for her. It holds upwards of 400 cds and I thought that would be plenty for the both of us. Let's just say I totally underestimated the number of cds, as there are piles and piles of cds all over our place as well as another cd tower.
My love! I was extremely lucky to work with three great guys that got me into biking. As you can see, I need to show my bike some love and give it a good cleaning. Speaking of bike love. (sorry for the shameless plug, but hey, that's what you're gonna get)
My other love are antique robots and vinyl toys. These things are so damn awesome! Katie and her mom usually give me a new one each year - always a great gift.
My newest little guy is actually a 2gb USB thumbdrive as well as the coolest little guy you have ever seen.
These great cuffs have two different antique maps within. One shows St. Paul, where Katie and I call home. The other, Makena beach, the place where we made our vows to love each other forever. The coolest part is that I was able to trade a couple of my photos for them. Now, I just need to get more french cuff shirts...
Our dresser. This was another gem I found in Katie's mom's attic. It belonged to her grandmother, and is totally awesome. In fact, there are many copies of this in recent furniture catalogs. Above the dresser is a beautiful print I purchased in India. The colors are absolutely stunning and it is a depiction of an Indian man and woman getting married. The artist is Mukesh Sharma.
The colors on the link are not acurate, they are more vibrant like this one.
I bought this "soapstone" statue in Mumbai. It was extremely cheap and there were dozens of identical statues for sale. It is obviously a cast statue, but I love it nontheless.
This craftsman sits just outside of our entrance hall. The "love" print above was purchased at the Art Attack art show for my birthday. My birthday is less than a month before Katie's and so she was able to sneak this purchase before I could swoop in and get it for her.
This is our other art supply storage unit. It came from Ikea and was incredibly cheap for flat file storage.
Just off to the right of our art supply area are more officey items. Yes, Katie does in fact LOVE Jim.
Want a great way to kill some time...try this retro video game. It comes equipped with a ton of old games.
Some good old minnesota brew to keep me moving along...
As you can see, Molly has stopped moving a long time ago...
One last shot. I made this "think" sign as part of Katie's Christmas present. It is a simple sign made from recycled plywood and made to appear aged. It's something that slows me down on a daily basis to think of what I am devoting my time towards and what I should be focusing on.
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