Walking With Nora

Borrowed today’s blog concept from Lisa at Knitting Yarns.

1. One of your scars: how did you get it? I have a newer one on my right forearm from the stupid oven. I have a fairy faint scar above my upper lip from when I flipped head first over my bike. I was seven or eight at the time and yes, I still don’t like to ride bikes.

2. What is on the walls in your room? Tinkerbell green paint (that is the name of it, I swear!), a mirror, some pictures of me with friends and an old-school (read: pre 9/11) photo of the NYC skyline in black and white.  

3. Do you snore, grind your teeth or talk in your sleep? Ugh, yes, I grind my stupid teeth. It’s painful. I only snore if I’m sick (I think).

4. What type of music do you listen to? Lately I’m loving either cooner music like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, 1950s pop hits or early 80s music. I’m all over the place musically.

5. Do you get scared in the dark? Normally I do not, however after the Ghost Tour I went on in New Orleans I was terrified. Literally afraid to go to sleep terrified.

6. Coffee or energy drink? Dr. Pepper.

7. Favorite quote?:  Of course I can’t find any of the quotes I’m looking for and I don’t want to misquote anyone so suffice to say one is from Mother Teresa, another from Henry David Thoreau and the rest are (pathetically) from Sex & the City, the series.

8. Favorite Place? In Irish’s arms. Cuddling with Jack. On a beach. Taking a nap in my room.

9. Do you like your handwriting? Yes, I do. I think it looks a lot like my mom’s.

10. Mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese? Well if it’s my dad’s homemade macaroni & cheese (aka Italian-infused macaroni and cheese) then that, though I’d surely be incredibly fat because he makes it with cream and really excellent cheese.

11. Republican or Democrat? Socially liberal. I’m fairly moderate the rest of the time.

12. Kisses or hugs? Both

13. What book are you reading? The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Also The Miracle at St. Anna.

When on a Summer’s Morn

When on a summer’s morn I wake,
And open my two eyes,
Out to the clear, born-singing rills
My bird-like spirit flies.

To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush,
Or any bird in song;
And common leaves that hum all day
Without a throat or tongue.

And when Time strikes the hour for sleep,
Back in my room alone,
My heart has many a sweet bird’s song –
And one that’s all my own.

- William Henry Davis

I remember the years of summer days and nights that were endless: numerous sleepovers spent cutting out photos of the latest hot celebrities and taping them onto our binders for the next school year; hours spent on AOL IM; family vacations; floating in the pool; ignoring the “s” word as much as possible until after Labor Day.

I remember the time spent in college searching for internships, the perfect summer job; escaping to my parents for a break; relishing in my summer school classes like a dork;  dancing until all hours of the night; day dreaming about being a “real,” adult.

I remember the rude awakening post-graduation. No more summer breaks. Less freedom. More of my life tied to Corporate America and a steady paycheck. Somewhere between work, graduate school and other social events, I’ve lost my summer song.

Mandy declared this the “Summer of Me.”
Kyla has her summer dubbed “the Summer of Starting Over.”
I’m following suit and declaring this the summer I rediscover my song.

I’ve become too bogged down in the daily hum-drum time table I have indavertently grown accustomed to. Graduate school and 10-hour work days has sucked my creativity dry, my will to cook away, and a bit of my pizzazz has just poof! disappeared.

While I can’t change the fact that I’m working long hours, I can change other things, like my graduate school schedule, the number of social events I say yes to, the tasks I undertake.

I realize we are halfway through the summer – although I’m not entirely sure how that’s happened- but I’m going to work on finding my inner song. I had the song on repeat just before this last graduate school class but it was drowned out by all the theories, concepts, study questions and more over the last nine weeks.

I want to bake extravagant desserts for no reason. I want to experiment with new dishes in the kitchen. I want to blog more and fill up pages in my personal journal. I want to spend hours by the pool. I want to read a book in 24 hours because I can. I want to go on long walks with Jack and Irish. I want to kick my own ass at the gym on a more regular basis. I want to go on a spontaneous trip and plan a few others. I want to feel more inspired. I want to get back to doing the random sweet things for Irish. I want to send out more cards. I want to redecorate my rooms at my parents.

Things like graduate school and extra hours at the office can wait. As Kyla mentioned in her most recent post, it’s important to think about how much time we have left and what we’d like to spend it doing.

Yes, I do want my Masters, but I don’t need it NOW. It’s not going to change my job, my salary or any other aspect of my life other tha my pride and the space it takes up on my wall.

Yes, my friends are important to me, but I can’t keep giving all the time because at the end of the day, there has to be something left for me.

So while it may be belated,  I have until late September to enjoy my summer and find my summer song. And once I find it? I’ll learn to be better at carrying it with me through the rest of the year.

… left the office feeling good about what I do and how I do it (a welcome change)

… received an invite to my cousin’s wedding in Florida and plan to go

… hugged my Gram twice and gladly met several of her neighbors

… enjoyed my first Tequlia Sunrise and got a tiny buzz

… started the new Book Club book (The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins)

… found out my old roomie and his fiance had their baby girl (and have dually noted the Baby Fever that is surrounding me)

… made plans to be poolside with KH this Saturday while Irish kicks butt during his Kickball League

… ran out of time to make all the phone calls that I want to make

… found my stack of cute notecards which means I can start creating

… talked to AT&T and discovered they failed to process my internet disconnect at my old place but have fixed it and credited my account

… jumped 10 feet in the air after lightning struck outside my office building, making the loudest “CLAP!” sound I’ve ever heard in my life

… started Season One of Gilmore Girls, just for fun

… cried over a segment I saw on Oprah

… laughed at the things I accidentally overheard while out to dinner with my parents

… had my heart melt when my younger brother shouted “love ya, sis!” on his way out the door to the Cards game

… sent Irish kisses over the phone

What was one thing you did today that stood out for you?

I had planned on putting together a well-thought out post about my recent declaration on the “Summer of Me,” largely inspired by many conversations I’ve been having with Mandy but life got in the way with mostly lovely things so today we’re going with a GiST theme:

1. Receiving very unexpected snail mail from a blog friend.

2. Making the best of a poopy situation (studying for a final during 80 degree, no-cloud, breezy weather) by taking Irish and myself to Bread Company for bagels and their outdoor patio.

3. Movies OnDemand through our cable provider.

4. Hosting an incredibly successful garage sale on Saturday morning.

5. Deciding to save the money earned as “fun money,” for either unusual dates or to put towards our fall trips.

6. A delicious plate of chicken nachos, over girl talk on Saturday night.

7. Laughing so hard I almost cried at least three different times during “The Ugly Truth.” Sure it’s a predictable chick flick but I liked it (probably becuase I’m a sucker for a romantic comedy).

8. Passing out on the couch at 11:30 pm Saturday night afer rising at 5am for the yard sale.

9. Beating Irish at Meteos, a Nintendo DS game (for the record, he beats me at most other games we play together.)

10. A lovely, hilarious email from Kyla that literally made my day.

11. Study breaks for “True Blood,” and “Hung.” on HBO Sundays.

12. The promise of a few calm weekends in my near future.

13. Irish taking care of Jack this morning for me since I had an early work fire to put out.

14. Quality time with my brother; he leaves for school soon and every moment counts.

And, I promise more regularly scheduled posting coming soon on topics such as: NOLA, the adjustment moving home, The Summer of Nora, and much more!

…as part of her Virtual Bridal Shower

The lovely Erin put this special event together for one of my (newest!) most sincere, hilarious, honest and beautiful blog friends, BelleRenee. Since we couldn’t all gather together to throw her a shower, there’s no better way to celebrate her upcoming nuptials than with a Virtual Shower, right? You can view a list of all the bloggers who participated on Erin’s blog.

BelleRenee,

Okay, so we know I’m not married so clearly offering my own marriage advice is not possible. Thanks to the vast internet I found some great tidbits of wisdom that I thought I’d share since it struck a chord with me:

* Always try to outdo each other in kindness, that way you are concentrating on the positive

* Remember your vows and remember that often we don’t know we’re making a mistake unless we are told so speak up without being rude and hurtful.

* The secret of a happy marriage is a short tongue (or so they say).

It’s 20SB Blog Swap day! Be sure to check out my blog (er, uh, meme) that I wrote for her.

Here’s a note from Sarah, my Blog Swap Partner, on her thoughts behind this post.

While I would be celebrating my birthday tomorrow, I thought of writing something related to it. Being a blogger, I wondered if how s/he spends his/her b-day and this is what I came up with. Since I enjoy writing poetry, I tried to jot down a piece with a poetic  touch. I hope it would entertain your blog readers and followers alike.  

Donned with a crown of thoughts and random muses
She braces herself for the special day
And slowly sips coffee with a kiss of chocolate
As she traces her way into the blogging alley
A blogger’s birthday in a bloggerville may not be so real and live
But the pretty play of words as birthday greetings lets her soul have some jive
She pens down a birthday post as a blogging treat and sends a few networking invites
Then heads off to twitter to flip through the tweets and retweets too, at her delight
She, then unveils the soulful images on Flickr of the cherished moments and mos
And finally concludes her blogger’s bash on Facebook by thanking her friends, and dear fellows
While there are no candles to glow and no balloons to blow in the ever-evolving bloggerville
There’s always a lot to give and a lot to share on a blogger’s birthday truly depending on one’s will.

Back from a week-long work trip. It was a whirlwind working triple duty (all day meetings, working remotely at night and trying to be a good girlfriend to Irish who came along for the journey).

Was it great? Yes.
Stressful? Hell yes.
Did I manage to really see NOLA? Double check.

I’m rather swamped this week with more catch-up work, family coming to town, a garage sale and a final sweep of my apartment (my landlord has someone who wants to lease it before mine is up which means a money back in my pocket!) and oh, that pesky thing called school.

But I’m sure you are dying to hear about some of my trip to NOLA, so please check out the post I wrote for Mandy.

I will likely and shamefully be marking my reader “READ,” so please let me know what’s new with you, what posts I must read and know that I missed all of you much more than I thought possible.

(I have some great posts coming soon, I promise, so don’t abandon me yet, dear readers.)

I only have one friend who knows I blog: KH.

KH and I met over a year ago in Organizational Behavior, a required class for our MBA studies. We didn’t talk much that semester as a kid sat in between us but after discovering we were both taking the same class the following semester, we became fast friends.

Our first hanging out night involved Mexican, two HUGE maragaritas and partying until 4am. Our nights now are more low-key for the most part, but still just as awesome. We laugh all the time. Yes, we are those girls.

Unlike a lot of my friends, KH totally gets me. I don’t feel the need to keep things from her which is why a few weeks after we became friends, I told her I wrote a blog. And, as predicted, she understood my motives writing. Not to say she totally understands the Blog World, because let’s face it, until you’re a blogger, no one really gets the Blog World.

So when Rebekah asked me to go to a Girlfriends Guide to Gaming Party which I’ll write in more detail about once the photos come in, and asked me to bring a friend, KH was the obvious choice. Not to mention I know she loves playing the Wii just as much as I do!

We “pre-gamed,” with some crackers & Laughing Cow cheese, while watching some really interesting/gross show on the Travel Channel about the bizarre foods in faraway lands. (Last night’s country: Ethiopia. I’m sure that if I had grown up in Ethiopia I would love the food but after watching that show I’d say sending me to Ethiopia would be a great way for me to lose weight.) Anyway, I admitted to KH that she would be meeting one of my blog friends, Liz, and for some reason I was nervous. I was officially “marrying” my real life with my Blog World life.

As usual, I had no reason to be nervous because KH and Liz are rather similar in that they are both chill, relaxed, funny women who are easy to be around and both told me, separately, that they’d like to hang out with the other person more which of course makes me happy and I want to plan triple dates and girls’ nights and…. yeah, I like to plan.

I realized on the drive home last night that I have already married my real life and Blog World in a big, big way since Las Vegas, since I started the Blog Love project, since I met Nilsa. Facebook friends. Text messages of encouragement or just because. Email exchanges. Gchat. Snail mail. Phone calls. Planned trips. The crossover is complete.

Funny thing is, though, I’m not ready to tell everone I blog or share my link on my facebook account. I’m not quite ready to be a 100% “known,” blogger. I don’t tell all my friends how I know all my fabulous new friends on Facebook. I’m not sure why I can’t stand up and shout from the rooftops, Yes, I blog! Yes, I share my life on the internet. Maybe it’s because some of the thoughts I share here are hard for me to write. I never know what my readers will think of me. Of my words. Of my life. Maybe it’s because by and large the blogging community is non-judgmental and scrutinizing and maybe it’s because some real life friends are. Maybe it’s because I like to have a part of me that is still marginally prviate from the main stream world. I’m not sure.

All this to say:

a) KH rocks for being a supportive, non-judgemental friend about my online presence (Irish, too! He encourages me to write and keep up with the blog.)
b) there may be a few password protected posts here and there if I’m writing about a super-sensitive topic that I’d die if “real” people found
c) Nintendo DSi’s are pretty sweet and
d) I’m still in shock and awe of all the enrichment blogging has given me

I received a new award from Lisa at Knitting Yarns, the MeMe Award. Or perhaps it’s the Meme award? Either way, the focus of this award is more-or-less all about MeMe in that I must:

a) share seven tidbits about myself

b) share the award with seven blog friends!

Onto the tidbits!

1. I haven’t printed any photos I’ve taken in almost a year. My real life friends would ask what is wrong with me as I used to be the girl who took high school photos for one-hour processing the next morning. I made weekly treks to Walgreens in college to pick-up and drop off new photos. I have over 200 photos marked as ones I would like to print, some to share with friends, others to scrap, others yet to frame. And yet they reside within the depths of my computer, in the dark, where no one can see them. Perhaps it’s time I get with the times and use my Snapfish account to upload them, choose and print them.

2. I had a short career in elementary and middle school as a “Stage Manager,” for the many plays my school put on. I like to think I revolutionized how plays were done. I created a process for marking and keeping track of the props. I made spreadsheets for attendance, prop location, scene lighting and more. There were two stage managers for each play: we had identical binders with every possible bit of info about the play attached to our hips at all times. At the same time, I made some amazing friends, got my childhood dog into one of the scenes and memorized all the lines right along with the actors and actresses.

3. I have a love/hate relationship with tanning. I prefer to be tan. I feel more sexy and confident when I tan. You can’t see any imperfections that may have popped up as a direct result of my lack of exercise when I’m tan. I have 10 tans at my favorite tanning place. I’ve used one since I purchased them. I know tanning is bad for me. I’m terrified of skin cancer. So right now? I’m slightly tan but not anywhere near my usual “Ovaltine,” color that my brother used to call me.

4. I’m afraid of heights. Rollercoasters, lighthouses, airplanes, helicopters all give me immediate anxiety including sweaty palms and a look of sheer and utter panic. I’ll do it if I have to but I won’t like it.

5. I marched in Disney World on New Years Eve, 1999, when I was a huge dork and was part of the marching band. I played flute and piccolo. The first thing I did on January 1st, 2000? I rode Space Mountain. Five times. (There was no line!)

6. I met Air Supply on my trip to St. Thomas two years ago for my friend’s wedding. Totally cool band. No really, I mean it. I don’t know much about their music but the band members were intelligent, well-rounded, gentlemanly and really funny.

7. I had a chance to go to France my senior year in high school but I backed out at the last minute. I don’t regret it by any means as I heard some really bizarre stories about the “Family Stays,” my friends went on but I do wonder when I’ll have the chance to see La Tour Eiffel in person and not just in French Kiss.

Now, for the blog award winners (which was incredibly hard to choose):

1. The State I am In
2. Dear Friend
3. Won’t you be my Neighbor?
4. Rocky Time Warp
5. Fab Brunette
6. We Keep Saying
7. Little Miss Obsessive

Ingredents you will need:

* Four rooms, full of over two years of furniture, household appliances, the necessities needed to live and of course the obligatory junk that accumulates
* One incredibly patient, supportive and surprisingly strong (in all aspects of the word) boyfriend. Acceptable substitute: best friends who bring wine to help during the moving process.
* One 4-door Honda Accord. Full tank of gas desired but not required.
* Three flights of stairs in an old apartment, but charming, apartment building
* 83- the average temperature preferred during moving days
* Two movers, aged approximately 21, and one very large truck
* Ten or more boxes. Acceptable Substitute: Five or six boxes that you unpack each trip you make to the new residence.
* One flight of stairs at your new residence
* One and a half rooms, some basement space and the cupboards at your boyfriend’s place to cram all your belongings
* Four trash bags full of junk tossed to the curb
* Three trips to the curb with things you decide not to move

To Make Moving Soup:

Combine one strong boyfriend, one Honda Accord, various boxes plus other large furniture, as well as three flights of apartment stairs. Repeat until Honda Accord is full: every nook, cranny, floorboard, trunk and the area near your feet must be jampacked. Deliver the contents to the New Residence. Repeat three more times, unfortunately without the aide of your strong boyfriend.

After four Honda Accord carloads have been deposited at Your New Place of Residence (aka Chez Parents), wait patiently at empty, internetless apartment for the Two 21-year old movers and their laaarrrge truck. Proceed to clean baseboards, window sills, dust all corners, vacuum, mop, Clorox all surfaces, scrub and repeat until the movers arrive.

Worry about competence of movers as they proclaim they are tired, sore, and, um, move your futon down all three flights of stairs but then cannot get it out the front door. Cue return of futon to empty apartment, making sure to include one broken light bulb in the hallway, large dents and scratches on the walls as part of the failed futon side dish that accompanies Moving Soup.

Once large truck is full with the large “pieces,” of furniture you own and apartment is (mostly) empty, proceed to Your New Residence with the Movers following you in their laaarrrge truck as they failed to get directions from Point A to Point B.

Instruct movers on location and placement of all pieces of furniture within Your New Residence. Once movers are watered, tipped and paid, begin to navigate the minefield that is your bedroom, hallway, and adjacent rooms full of boxes, artwork and random stuff. Take it one room at a time, slowly mixing the contents of the boxes until they create one beautiful New Residence.

Chef’s Note: The last step, navigating the minefield that is the boxes, bags and mounds of stuff you own may take several days. Or weeks, depending on your schedule. Be sure to allow plenty of time for this step so as to not feel overwhelmed. Promise to your dear eaters readers that you will post pictures as soon as the New Residence is picture-worthy. Rejoice in the fact that you only have six or seven bruises, stronger arms, legs and butt muscles as a result of this move.