FLUID MOTION

And the Next Chapter Begins....

2011-07-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I finally made the big move from Chicago to Hoboken and even though leaving Chicago was definitely very bittersweet for me I feel that all I am going to gain will by far make up for all I had to leave behind. I made some really great friends out there, was able to mature as a person and make myself a pretty darn good life, and got closer to a great uncle!!! Overall it was 3 truly life altering years and though I may have put up a brave face when I moved there it was definitely one of the most intimidating and scary things I had ever done in my life. And I have come out of it feeling like a completely new competent and resourceful woman. Cliche maybe but it's incredible to see where I was versus where I am right now. Quite the transformation!

The last week in Chicago was of course exhausting what with all of the packing and seeing people for the last time, but I managed to do it all and ended up jumping on a plane, in complete zombie form btw, to head to Hoboken and then down to the shore for fourth celebrations!

The whole situation actually ended up working perfectly as I can't get into my new place until mid July so after the movers came and got my stuff I was able to focus on relaxing and rejuvenating myself during the 3-day wkend. Jeff picked me up from the airport friday evening and it was immediately off to LBI for a long weekend of beaching, drinking, and all around good times! We ended up having fabulous weather, add in some amazing cooking, tasty beverages, and an ocean and I'm set! Weirdest thing was actually on saturday there were all of these little jelly like things floating in the ocean.... no one had ever seen them before but we figured out that they clean the water and man they sure did cause the next day when they weren't there the water was all cloudy and murky! crazy little things but you couldn't put your hands in the water cause they would hit up against you!!! eek so creepy! haha

Overall it was a fantastic wkend and it was amazing to be with Jeff and not have to worry about going home at the end of it or when we would next see each other. It's been three years of constantly feeling like you're never getting enough time together and then even before that in college we would have summers apart and trips for school apart. Overall it's one of the more surreal feelings I've ever had to know that we can be togther, count on each other, and basically make awesome plans for the forseeable future! And as if the move itself didn't just feel right but it was like everything went our way the entire time! No traffic, no drama, no nothing and it all got topped off with one of the most spectacular fireworks shows that I have ever experienced. We went to see the Macy's Fireworks on the Hudson river and it was incredible. Shapes, and brilliant colors! At one point there was even hearts sent up there which I'm sure sounds incredibly cheesy but it's pretty hard to not think wow, in some small universe caused this way we have a huge fireworks show giving its support to us. Again very cheesey but I think everyone should have a incredible night like that where you just feel as if the whole world is rooting for you and this great man in your life. It actually made me understand the woman who wants huge weddings with insane decorations and demonstrations! Why shouldn't everyone have a "what feels like the world is celebrating with you" night. Though that will never be me I do know that this is not a night I will ever forget and I can not be MORE excited for this new chapter in my life! I will have new tasks at work, a new city and activities to experience, friends to experience it all with, and most of all a wonderful person to share it all with! Couldn't be more excited so thank you 2011 for thus far being a fantastic year!

Graduations & Celebrations

2011-06-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was both my sisters 18th birthday and highschool graduation as well as my cousin's graduation and birthday celebrations. This meant there was a lot of family time, party time, and celebrating! We started off Friday night with a senior dinner at Proctor and a little champagne for Maddie's 18th!

Proctor's ceremonies took place beneath a tent where it was just cold enough out that if you weren't in the sun it was freezing!!! So my friend and I hung around on the outskirts for most of it. This was all good though as we were then able to get lots of pictures of the graduate!

Proctor's classes are fairly small so a large chunk of time was taken up with speeches and things. Matt Nathanson was the guest speaker and he gave a great speech about how not to settle for mediocrity and instead to take the time and learn/hone your craft. Hopefully we are all able to do what we love in our lives.

The graduates! Maddie wore a dress almost every day which was insane and so fun! she looked great in all of them.
PEA's graduation site was outside which was good as it was slightly more chilly and their class was HUGE! Quadruple the size of Proctor's class most of the time spent in this ceremony was just presenting the diplomas. It certainly wasn't as joyful an affair occuring directly after Proctor's but it was great to see Emma graduate! I can't believe they are both going to college next year.

There's a fun pic of Maddie hugging Matt Nathanson... won't lie kinda wanted to get up there and hug him as well! Also got a bunch of great shots of various family members which was nice as I don't have too many recent ones.

Mother and Son

Chloe and me :) so good to see her!

I feel like they have this exact picture somewhere cause I had major deja vu when I first saw this. The standard Nana/Grandpa pose I'm sure.

Some of the family men....
Group Picture! Congratulations Maddie and Emma!!! You two have become beautiful young women who surprise and amaze me every time we get together! Your the best sister and cousin a girl could ask for! Can't wait to see what you do in college!

Momentous World Occasions

2011-05-03T04:32:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to think that for two big world events I have been in located in Dubai. And to think I haven't traveled internationlly for close to two years until now! I would like to say it's been amazing being a different country but really I don't think it's been any better or worse than if I were in good ole chicago. Though I did not go out and have a celebratory drink for either occasion whcih is definitely not so fun! Anyway I thought it'd be kind of fun to set down where I was while both events were occuring. And yes the royal wedding is a momentous event! i mean how frequently does a royal prince get married!

I also feel the need to write down somewhere my my own words that Osama is now dead because I feel as if I am having very unique reactions compared to most of the world. Not completely original as I've read/talked to many others who feel similar but def not in line with the overwhelming joy ppl seem to have. It seems odd to me to think that so many people are whole-heartedly celebrating the death of another human being. Yes he was horrible and "responsible" for so many horrible things but overall one man can not be held responsible for the actions of many and just because he is dead does not mean that the attitudes and feelings that he spent the last how ever many years harboring are just going to disappear. In fact I think it will only work to make them that much stronger but that is a whole nother post. I just don't get how thinking can be so shortsighted to assume that this one guys death is such a turning point. I mean ultimately he has just spent the last 10 years in hiding, I have a feeling that maybe he just wanted to be done with it by now. I also understand that a big deal has to be made of it because we have essentially been chasing this ONE man for the last TEN years and I mean you gotta have all that money and wasted lives be useful for something right? Overall, the fight against terror is still going to be needed and hopefully this little success won't make america assume they are invincible again. They say hindsight is 20/20 but that's only if you actually use it as a tool.

In other words I do think Obama's speech was very nicely worded and enjoyed that it was short and to the point. As I am resideing in a predominantly muslim country I also appreciated that he reiterated that our fight is not against the Muslim faith but against the terrorists themselves regardless of race or religion. A good thought to put out there for all of the celebrating college kids who really seem to have no concept of what this death meant other than another chance to go running through the streets drinking!

Now for the fun one! Prince William and Kate! She was so gorgeous in her dress, I think it was the perfect mix of being fun young and sexy while still classy and fitting of the royal aspect. I was lucky enough to be able to watch the procession and wedding itself while having lunch with a group of Egyptian Muslims at an authentic egyptian restaurant. Very certainly an experience in life I never could expect in advance. It was very fun though and the egyptian culture is very loud and welcoming with lots of laughing! now I only need to understand Arabic!

Congrats Will & Kate!

To the Holiday Season...

2010-12-13T20:51:00.000-08:00

I'm finding myself very peaceful with the holiday season this year around.... enjoying the lights and colors that cause the city to glitter, the holiday music twinkling around corners, loving our living room design!

It's funny... the walls are painted a light lime/seafoam green color (def more pretty than it sounds) and it gives all the pictures I took a very green light! It actually seems to work in this picture though.

A close up of the tree! A thousand red and gold balls ALL over the tree. I was a bit skeptical about the idea at first but it definitely works very well.

And then me being artsy!! Happy Holidays... I'm off to the east coast this friday and have two glorious weeks planned out spending time with friends and family. Busy at work, some xmas shopping, nyc! And to send me on the way I display my new look....

Short and dark! totally new

Change of Seasons

2010-09-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

This part of the year is always a tough time for me.... I am a warm weather lover. Basking in the sun, laying on the beach, even sun streaming through the window is my all time favorite place in the world... close ur eyes everything falls away.

Thusly summer is my favorite season, far and away. So once August ends I feel jumpy/edgy/disgruntled and overall just unsure what to do with myself. I tend to just make decisions without thinking about it because my mind keeps saying you need something new.... make something happen.... take a risk!

I took a risk this past weekend and while it was wonderful and relaxing and awesome it also leaves me feeling like i'm standing on the edge of a cliff and it's jump or stay. Either way is a large mind switch, changing my perception forever. Not a bad thing, i'm happy a decision is feeling forced but scary all the same. It's choosing a piece of me and saying this is the most important.... not easy...

So overall I'm surviving in this world of adulthood that I have seemed to jump feet first into. It takes a lot of energy to be the woman I envision myself as and though I love the challenge the exhaustion part of it is surprising...? Hey maybe i'll learn to like the fall more with these feelings!

I know what I want.... I just have to figure out how to get it.... two steps forward & one step back, it's not failure it's just life.

Summer 2010 Timeline...mainly for myself

2010-08-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

July 1st - Moving time! goodbye boystown....hello wp! who doesn't love hipsters!

July 2nd -6th - Wkend with the fam in New Hampshire. Dad's bday on the 4th. sister's softball game, chilling out and relaxing. Very nice to see the family and the lake :)

July 10th - Welcome house party for 1524! Crazy night!

Rest of July - Bumming around Chicago, poolside, boating, beaching, drinking :)

July 30th - Chicago Scene, being towed around on swan floats by a jet ski! stealing said swan floats from crazy biatches who would have fought us.... shitshow!

Aug 5th - Roomie dinner at Lucias. Awesome italian but expensive and not so much worth the money.

Aug 6-8 - LOLLA! Saw Gaga, Chromeo, Temper trap (awesome!), Mumford & Sons, Black Keys

Aug 10 - Roomies surprised me with cake, a bedroom full of balloons, and a card!

Aug 11 - 15 - Cinnci for Kristy's Wedding! Birthday spent cabrooing and partying with the college besties! Saturday was the wedding, reception on a riverboat. amazingly awesome time.

Aug 18 - Bday dinner with the uncle, Tocco, sooooo good

Aug 19th - roomie bday dinner at Cumin. Amazing indian food!

Aug 20 - 22 - Birthday month celebrations in Atlanta with Tiff! Beer fest and sunday fundays poolside

August 28th - Ending birthday month with a joint bday party with the roomie at Pint. drama ensued but nothing too fantastical.

Labor day wkend - New Jersey/Delaware/LBI with Jeff and cronies. Great weekend spent just being and living. Drove lots in the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, enjoyed being out of the city, gorgeous weather!

Now it's time to quiet down and study my little butt of for the FE on Oct 30th. goodbye social life :(

Biking in Packs

2010-07-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have FINALLY started biking to work again and am loving it...of course! It's been a very busy summer, nonstop activities, always go-go-go, and in the middle of that I moved to a new apt far FAR away from my gym that holds my very awesome Pilates Reformers classes. So ultimately this prodded me to break out the bike one morning when I knew I had class that night and didn't want to have to take the hour long public transportation trip back to my new place. Yes it really does take that long because there is no way to get across the city without transferring and when it's later at night there is no gaurantee that the trains or buses will be running too frequently. So anywho off I went merrily along one morning and before I knew it I was at work! I mean the whole ride prob took me 15 minutes, AND it's a ride I could easily do in say 7 if I actually tried.

The route I take to work is a straight shot down this one street and there are just groups of bikers who use it! I mean at different intervals you'll see 10 bikers or so going on their way! I love this becuase it means that the cars definetly notice you and know that this pack of bikers...is going to be on the road! haha, I love joining a pack every morning and feeling like we are pointing some kind of finger at the solo ppl in cars killing the earth! of course not to those ppl who NEED to drive but seriously it always amazes me how much traffic there is in this city when it's so easy to not drive! but that's sooo not my point.... not quite sure what my point is but YEA BIKING! which reminds me I should really bring the poor guy in for a tune up. He had some rough times in storage for 6 months and than the winter...

In other news work is work... the boss is about to have his first baby any day now which means that i've been handling a lot of our international work and will be sure to have more thrown on me once the little girl actually shows up. I'm semi nervous about this, not because I don't think I can handle it but because I feel that it's goign to make my work schedule very busy and really all I want to do is enjoy the rest of the summer! plus babies babies everywhere right now! I swear ppl need to stop having kids cause i'm not ready to deal with that whole thing yet! haha

Birthday month is almost here! I'm so excited for it! Have some awesome trips planned as well as some fun activities here in Chi-town. I think it'll be a good month :) Now time to do some work!

BonaROO!

2010-06-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

A week later I am finally recuperated enough to write a post about what an awesome/amazing/incredible weekend I had at Bonaroo the other weekend. It was truly one of those perfect weekends where you couldn't have hoped for anything more to happen. So many stories and secret jokes and crazy times that will never be written because truthfully...what happens at bonaroo STAYS at bonaroo. So instead of stories and me quoting silly things that I'm sure will never be funny to anyone but us I have thrown in some pictures that grasp a little of what the bonaroo experience is.

The group I went to bonaroo with... 6 guys, 2 girls, 1 RV! Hanging outside of our RV. I have to say after tenting it the first year and then experiencing the RV I will never go back. It makes such a difference to be able to use your own bathroom and even though I only showered once the whole time it was nice to have that option. And yes I really don't mind living the hippy life... I could have gone without a shower the whole time but my hair becomes a major rats nest!

A few of us getting a little crazy. This was the Stevie Wonder show. Def not the best show I saw while there but it was fun. It was also crazy hot at like 11 at night which is why we were all still in our bathing suits. I pretty much lived in that outfit only changing up the suit I was wearing :)
Me and the bestie! I heart this girl with everything I have and we had such an amazing time together this weekend. I am not sure where we are or who took this pic but I like it! I can't wait until the next time I see this chica.

A group of four of us, we spent a large amount of the time together just walking from concert to concert and checking out the sights. I had never met these guys before and was so happy that I was so comfortable with all of them but these two especially. Just worked to make the whole 4 days the ultimate experience.

so that's all I got in terms of bonarroo! Freaking fantastic time. Next trip up is a secret because sometimes I get lurker readers here! but I'm also having a fantastic time hanging out here in chicago, made a new friend who has a fun pool and there might be some boat action this wkend. Who doesn't love the summer!

Happy Summer!

2010-06-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Hello June! You arrived in a flash with lots of changes and excitement lining up. Life has been a fast paced roller coaster these days which is good and fun but rather stressful and requires lots of going with the flow.

Biggest thing?? I'm moving next month... yessiree I have found an apt in a different part of the city that I am so excited to live in but I also feel like I just haven't gotten a real chance to experience the part of the city that I am living in now. So all in all it's semi bittersweet. PLUS I am horrifically sad about having to leave my gym. I have completely fallen in love with it and my pilates class, both instructor and fellow classmates. I'm debating sticking with the gym anyway at least through the summer so that I can continue going to my weekly classes and there are a few around teh city. It will def make gym going a little rougher since it won't be at the end of my block but i seriously love this gym so much that I think it will be worth it! I missed my pilates class the past two weeks and I just had so much fun tonight hanging with the ladies and seeing how much I've improved. And now I have to miss the next two weeks! why oh why can't we have a few more days in the week...that we don't work obviously :)

I've also been dating dating dating and nothing has been sticking. met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun but it definetly gets exhaustign and annoying... I mean its hard enough for me to say no to anythign much less saying sorry not interested in a second date! ah! haha. I'm def enjoying it but I'm also like really? nobody yet? I know i'm picky and usually when I know I know but sometimes I wonder am i TOO picky/judgmental/quick in my decision.

Work is a constant fluctuation of good, bad, yes, no... Socially things are picking up. We had a ladies happy hour a couple weeks ago and it was such an amazing thing to see these woman outside of the office. We work in a mainly male dominated company and though I wouldn't say they shut down their personalities we all have small changes that we perform in order to portray a competent and intelligent woman. But everyone was sooo funny hanging out at the bar and since it was just ladies it was a no-holds barred situation. Once a few were taken in it was the event of the evening to pick out hot guys for me to date! I am the only single one so they all think its freaking fantastic! It was hilarious seeing who they picked out. My fav coworker, she has recently become my cubby partner, had the worst beer goggles ever! loved it. And hey she has a 7 month old so she prob doesn't sleep.

Work, play, moving?!?! I think we've covered it all here... heading off for bonaroo next weekend and I can already tell it is going to be a very busy summer. so exciting! Every month this summer has at least one major trip and I wouldn't be surprised for a few more to be added in. I'm also estatic to be spending some serious time in my wonderful city! I think this will be the first summer that I will 100% be in Chicago and lets just say... i'm ready.

UPDATE: I Just read through some old "recent" posts and I am totally repeating myself! good to see that I'm consistent with my feelings at least!

PINK flowers

2010-05-16T19:31:00.000-07:00

My roommates mom brought us flowers when she stopped by this weekend. I guess there home has these growing all along one side and their one of the roomy's favorite. She gave us 3 huge vases of them and their bubblegum pink color and fantastic smell has brightened up our living room! I love how it has layers and layers of petals... it's a whole piece of art within itself. so gorgeous! So I took pictures.... lots and lots of pictures of them. Here are a few of my favorites.

I love how the plate snuck into this one. I didn't even notice it while I was shooting, but it's totally trying to steal the show! This plate is nothing that I would have ever bought by myself, but it's the roommates and now that I've gotten used to it I love it!

Catchup Galore

2010-04-26T21:10:00.001-07:00

Sooooooo I have been very very quiet this past month or so.... and not for any single reason but more because so much has been happening that I haven't even wanted to process things as they go. Thus, here are loads of thoughts about the major occurrences in my life currently.

The new roomy has become a great friend in my life. I have found it very interesting to be around her because as similar as we are... there are many many things that are different. And I can obviously respect these differences but I'm also enjoying what I am learning from them. She has a boyfriend who is living in NJ and basically is in the same position that I was in a little over a year ago, except that she is adamant that she wants to stay with this guy. Like she says she could see her life with this guy. So this is great... but it's been very enlightening to see how they make a long distance relationship work. This girl is on the phone NONSTOP! I mean coming home from work she walks in on the phone 6 days out of 7. Her bf calls her every morning to wake her up, then they text/gchat/whatever during the day and then she probably calls him 2 to 3 different times in a night. When I was in a long distance I would maybe talk to my bf once every other day. And this was a huge problem for me.... one that I didn't voice enough but it was a HUGE problem. And now looking at her I can see that when you are in a long distance you need to put in double what you would when you live near each other. Talking 5 times a day is not insane because think, if you lived near each other you would most likely talk in the morning before work, then during work a couple times, then when planning what to do that night, etc. It's a lot more work than I would ever think and I have been in one! kind of enlightening huh?

I've started dating.... pretty seriously actuallly. Which is fun but also enlightening. I can now really understand why girls can be bitches or confusing or what! I mean there is this one guy who is great, very fun and talkative and respectful... He even bought me chocolates tonight but I am not going to see him until maybe saturday and this doesn't make me sad. Which tells me that even though I have fun with him... it's not going to be a permanent thing. tricky business this dating thing!

work has been work.. has been work. every day I go in hoping something will happen and every day I walk out being so incredibly happy to breathe in the fresh air! Things are so much better now that I have a window in my office but I seriously am going nuts being in the office day after day. And the worst... I've seen myself busy and I still find myself bored. It's just not in a I'm bored and the time is moving slow... it's a I'm bored and yet how the eff is it already 5 o'clock because I still have a TON to do! lol. I def need to figure out what the heck I want out of my professional life.... I just am not sure what that is yet.

We are soooo close to warm weather time.... and yet Ms. Mother nature keeps looking for ways to mess with my sense of equilibrium here by keeping it freezing in the morning, nice after work, and then cold again at night! just give me warmth please!

The old boyfriend has been popping up.... It still blows me away that the feelings I have towards that whole situation changes daily. I guess the biggest thing is that at the end of the day I enjoy talking to him and I enjoy the conversations we have. I know it's all about balance, I just have to keep working to get there. Because I am. There are just constant obstacles. Lol.

Lastly I went to Hotlanta the other weekend (April 16th-18th) and had an absolute blast! One of my best girlfriends moved down there right before xmas and I was so excited to have the chance to get down and see her new place and meet all her new friends. This is a girl that I talk to all day every day while we are at work meaning we pretty much know everything about one another so I had heard everything about her atlanta life and it was so nice to finally see/meet/experience her life. I want to put up pics but she hasn't posted them yet so when she finally does I will do a whole atlanta post. Especially since this is already a novel.

and signing off on a monday night.... this week looks to be exceedingly busy but I'm excited for it all!

Time to Meet Dei

2010-04-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

Dei... as in the name of my new DSLR!

So remember back when I put up a short little post announcing that I had invested in a new camera???? Well that camera came within a week! and after giddily opening it I put it back in the box and placed it in the living where I could stare at it whenever I wanted...and when I say stare at it I mean, stare at it. And for some reason that staring became a problem because that's all it was, STARING.

"Why haven't I tried that new camera yet?" I would ask myself... And I realized after almost a month had gone by and nothing had changed...that I was nervous! NERVOUS! For what reason? Who knows but there it was. And so as soon as I realized how ridiculous and silly that was... I signed up for a class and here we are.

So today, It was interesting to me to see how many people were in the class, granted it was free but I just hadn't really thought about how many people would own nice cameras. The professor was very knowledgable but still obviously loves photography and sharing it with others. That to me is a very promising characteristic in teachers as it makes me want to know why this topic makes them so happy! and so I learn it! The class itself was very informative in the basic basics of photography which was nice because it was the push for me to actually embark on this new DSLR journey that, but not too much that I felt overwhelmed with how much I don't know! even though it is a lot :) I def want to take another class but I am being thwarted by a number of options because almost half of the class time is spent in a lab and learning how to print, etc. It would be nice to learn but ultimately that is not a part of this that I want to experiment with right now. Plus I feel like most of that is just messing with the pic which is all opinion anyway! So yea, I would really love to find a class, that's not a boot camp... I know its out there!

After the class I walked around my little block and took some pics of the city and little signs of spring! It is amazing looking at my pics here and everything is so much sharper! Plus it's a real camera and I can play around with the settings! Here are some of the better ones.

Check out that cloud definition! Never with a point and shoot.

I will admit I feel almost self-conscious walking around with my camera but I think that is just something that will take time! And these guys didn't seem have much of a problem with it!

Gotta love day drinking... :)

A picture post.... with a few words

2010-04-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

So it's April and boy is it thunderstorm season this spring. We have been leaving the windows open nonstop this past week what with the gorgeous weather and the smell of the rain has been fantastic. I feel like the whole new summer and starting and I can NOT wait. So in order to get rid of the ickiness of my last post here is a few of the milestones I have this summer.

To start off there will be lots upon lots of this:

Though of course it won't be this gorgeous tropical beach but there will be plenty of Chicago lakefront! Which I am totally OK with.

Then one of my bests is getting married this summer! It will be the first of my close friends to do this and I am so excited for her.
Then her reception will be on a riverboat so I will be wearing something like this... But much cuter with more anchors is how I picture it! My girlfriend and I will both be dressing like this with matching little sailor hats! We are so excited... going a fantastic Weekend!

I will also hopefully be going to this music festival this year. It will be my second time and I would be absolutely thrilled! The atmosphere's of music festivals just amaze me. Every single person just having a good time! And hopefully this year there will be no rain!!!

And finally lots and i mean LOTS of sitting outside in good ole chicago here enjoying good food, friends, drinks, and merriment! The cubs and sox have opened.... the bikes and runners are out.... it is officially warm weather time here in chicago!

Sometimes you just have no idea....

2010-04-03T00:57:00.000-07:00

I hate feeling like I am unadequate at the end of nights even though deep down I know I am fine. AND even though I have had a wonderful night sometimes I come home and feel like bawling. I can deal with it and I can handle it but tonight there was a guy who I was ok giving the vunerability to and right now I almost wish he were here to hold me and yet last night I had a fantastic date and there was no vulnerability feeling in me. I guess it's just woman's feelings but seriously...

I guess to sum up this has been a rough month romantically and even though the toughest news has made me really go for it I just don't always feel like I'm right.

And beyond that where does older become too old.... as a poll. I'm 23 btw.

wishful, hopeful, and vulnerable thoughts out...

Buying new things is Awesome!

2010-03-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

I JUST BOUGHT THIS!!!!

It's been something I have been pondering over and thinking about for awhile now and I do believe the time has come. I would love to spend this coming spring and summer taking some courses and learning more about photography in general. I have always loved taking pictures and trying to be creative by seeing different angles. I also can tell that I am fairly good at it, not at all good in the professional, sell my stuff kind of way, but I do think I can take some nice shots. So yes, this will be showing up in 7-10 business days and I can not even express how excited I am! I'm gonna be a picture taking fiend!!! just hope it's not too heavy.... :)

It's Friday ya'll!

2010-03-12T06:36:00.000-08:00

Yes it really is Friday and I am sitting here at my desk after coming to work in absolutely gorgeous weather! you hear that? Absolutely freaking beautiful weather before 8am! amazing. Of course it makes me not want to work or really do anything today... thus the blogging. ahhh what a good distraction. Now lets just hope that no one comes and asks me to do anything :)

Seriously though things are good. The weather has picked up and maybe... just maybe...we might be approaching spring?! I really really hope so but if not I have spent all week loving the weather and walking around with my winter coat WIDE open. I even grabbed an ice coffee this morning and it's sitting here by me making my friday just grand!

It is also St. Patty's weekend here in Chicago which means that all sorts of craziness is going to go down. I'm very excited to experience the green river and all the celebrating that is supposed to happen. This will be my first time celebrating St. Patty's day here in Chicago so hopefully it's a good one! and that I don't get absolutely hammered. lol

Work has taken a turn for the better. I know have things to do on a fairly consistent basis and I just got assigned my first "solo" project. I put that into quotes because we rarely do things solo here but the managing etc is all usually one persons responsibility. And now I have one to manage! soooo freaky but also really really cool becuase hell I'm never going to succeed if I don't show 'em what I can do! I also changed desks and now I am basically smack in the middle of things which means I can't fool around on the computer so much anymore but the days def go by much faster with so many people stopping by to chat! It also has much more desk space and gets some natural sunlight!!!!!!!

Oh and while shopping the other day I picked up some sunflowers and we have this great tall yellow vase and they make our livign room so wonderful and cute. Come summer I am going to have flowers all over the place! plus this guy just makes me so happy. haha

well I think that's all. this has taken approximately all morning to complete and I now need to do some sneaking around to research tv's. We need a new one for our living room!

I like to take pics.

2010-03-07T18:31:00.000-08:00

I was out this past weekend because it was so amazingly gorgeous out and of course I brought my camera. Thus, here are a few of my favorite shots that I got during the day.

some awesome pigeons who almost look like they can't tell if they are frozen there or is they really want to be there! haha. the weirdest thing is that I saw bird couples all over the place while I was walking around. Pigeons and geese!

the webbed feet on the snow just seemed so quaint to me. It's a perfectly natural occurrence and yet so beautiful.

The snow seemed to me as if it were clawing and trying to hold on to the last passages of winter. I want to believe that this somewhat warm weather is really spring trying to come into effect here. I want warmth and spring so much i'll do whatever I can to believe it! :)

Finally the lone harbor. And yet this harbor will be bursting with activity very soon. It makes me feel awesome that even though it looks desolate now, very soon everything will be what Chicago summer is about! And if trivia tonight is anything to call for it... we are in for one interesting warm season!

Hilton Head

2010-03-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I went to check out a new part of this little old USA and was excitedly delighted to see how charming it was. Hilton Head, South Carolina was the destination. My grandparents have started a new tradition of traveling someplace warmer during these blah months of February and March and of course my mother goes along. Well this year I was able to join as well! Thanks Mom for the ticket! The first couple of days were still rather chilly because the sun wasn't able to get completely out but it was still warmer than Chicago and we were able to find plenty of things to occupy ourselves with. Sunday was then absolutely gorgeous too which made my entire weekend :)

the area we were in has these fabulous beaches that are so hard packed that you can bike on them and when the tide is out there is this huge expanse of beach to choose from! So of course I needed to check this out. Here is a pic of my mom as we head out. yes we were both experimenting with taking pictures as we rode. we like to live on the edge :)

After biking down the beach we decided to break off and go inland to explore some of that area. After getting lost and biking MILES out of the way we found the animal and forest preservation where we were able to catch some awesome alligators in their natural habitat.

It blows me away that they are just chilling on peoples lawns. I mean what if you wanted to go hang out there that day! perhaps there is some type of schooing mechinism that only the locals know about. The funniest thing is that even though these alligators are ALL over the place down there the only sign they have around is "Don't Feed the Alligators!" Like really? who needs that reminder? I mean I was excited to see them but no way would I think to offer them some of my sandwhich or something.

On sunday morning I woke up incredibly early for some reason and was able to catch the sunrise over the ocean. It was absolutely gorgeous and I ended up waking up my mom and we both ran outside to get some pictures! I dont' think I'll ever get tired of sunrise/sunset pictures over a body of water. It just perfect!

After realizing that no matter how pretty teh sunrise was, the sand was still freezing cold and my feet were getting very close to frostbite, jk I headed back inside to try to catch some more sleep. Instead I found this guy...

Yep a little lizard had found his way into my room somehow. So then I had to usher him slowly out while my mother sat on my bed like a scaredy cat! haha, I don't find them scary but the thought of getting close to them, so close that they might jump on me, makes me nervous as hell! luckily using two books as path markers I was able to slowly guide him out. he didn't even run very fast! poor thing, I think he was so confused by his predicament he didn't know hwat to do with himself!

All in all it was a great weekend. it was nice to just hang out with my grandparents and mom. It's very rare to get only mom and me time so whenever it happens it's very fun. We both enjoy days spent lazing in the morning, exercising, booking, and then having a few cocktails to end the day and it's always special when you can share that with someone else! specially your mom!!! I even managed to get a little sunburnt on sunday which was fantastic! yes, I am a sun junkie.

Valentines Wkend

2010-02-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend ended up being very fun. Not that I didn't expect it to but there are lots of things going on at work and I wanted to just forget about everything. Well I successfully did!

Fri night my roommate and I had some people over to watch the Opening Ceremonies and then we went out and had a dance party! Then on sat after recuperating and finally getting myself out of bed right around noon :) the roomy and I decided that it was finally time to reorganize our living room. It turned into quite the process with cleaning and stuff everywhere! but it was awesome. We then met up with some ladies and went ice skating at the Wrigley field rink! Didn't really like having to pay to skate but it did mean that the rink itself wasn't nearly as packed as the one at Millenium field. The skating itself was very fun! I love going at least once a year, would love to go more but first I need to get my own pair of skates. After skating we went and grabbed some food. We had 6 ladies out and having fun! great way to counteract valentines day I say! Sunday was seeing Dear John, def not as good as I wanted it to be. In fact I just left feeling like eh. i guess it was good they finally ended up together. And then this guy that I've been talking to for the past week or so was getting back into the city and asked if I wanted to grab some food. So.. ended up having myself a little valentine date anyway which was very nice. We had a nice dinner and then ended with some drinks. He is cute and fun to talk to. I think it'll be fun to see where it goes. :)

so that was my weekend. def the type of pick-up I needed... here's to the rest of February!

We redecorated my apt!

2010-02-14T22:37:00.000-08:00

So my apartment living room has always been very big ad yet uninviting and just blah! There is also a sunroom that is at the end of it a sunroom which is awesome. But until now it's been very unwelcoming and just not fun to be in. And the reason I have let this go on for so long is I haven't seen another way to make it better. Well this past weekend ladies and gentlemen, my roomy and me DID IT! Yes she bugged me and bugged me and then the set up hit me! diagonals and hidden spots! and tables to eat at all in the same line of view! my entire decoration norm went out the window. And after many hours sweeping and moving, removing and windexing, lifting and laughing... we ended up with a fantastic living room. A room that I am excited to hang out in and start off this summer laying in a little coach reading in the sun! lets go sun!!

The living room is here... the fireplace is now the focal point and with the mirror and diagonal placed couches it is much more intimate. I also love that you can see into the sunroom and have lots of light coming through. that used to be blocked with a screen.

There you can see into the whole sunroom. And the tv.

The breakfast (or any other meal) table that looks out onto the sidewalk now in the sunroom. Lots of sun and comfiness (love those chairs!), plus very good people watching and I'm happy!

The couch that I sleep on once the sun becomes warm! Typicaly on the weekends I'l wake up in the morning and move out to this couch so that the sun is on me. I'm such a vitamin D junkie! the coffee table is different as well.

So that's our new apt and though it caused lots of drama in between the third roommate it was totally worth it!

A week's (or months) worth of thoughts

2010-02-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

Well hello February! where did you come from? I feel like so much and yet so little has happened since I've last posted I don't even know where to begin. I've thought about posting so many times, and frequently will have a post all written out in my head. Then I sit down and bleah..... nothing actually comes out. But tonight I will! or at least i'll make a bullet list of whats gone down. cause really I want this blog to be a place where I can look back and see what's gone on, cause the truth is my memory is not always great. So!

Last weekend I flew out to Ct and met up with two of my very good girlfriends. One is getting married this summer and it was wedding dress shopping time! We spent all day saturday checking out some places and lots upon lots of dresses. AND we found one! I had such a blast with the girls, even after staying up till 5am the night before just because we can! Thank you to her poor fiance who was trying to sleep in the next room, not even 20ft away from us. The next morning he told us we giggle nonstop and it sounds like "pure joy." Which is exactly what it is. When I get with these girls it's like all the troubles fall away and we laugh and laugh and laugh.

Earlier this week I was walking back home from work and I noticed that there was very little snow left in the city. The sidewalks all around me were bare! I woke up the next morning and there were a couple inches on the ground! It was awesome. The walk to work was through a quiet slow-moving city.

now after that love paragraph of snow, I have been in a hell of a no sun depression and it's taken a lot out of me to just keep that at bay. I still believe I am going to have to go somewhere but there are a few options that have been rolling around in my head.

ok.... so I've been working on this post for like a week now and I think I just need to post it cause obviously me and posting is not going together right now. I have just spent the last two hours cleaning my apt (it drastically needed it) and I feel like such a lameo staying in on a friday but tomorrow I'm having brunch with a coworker and then we're going food shopping (trader joe's!) and I desperately need to go jean shopping. And then if I haven't grown exhausted by then I want to check out a bookstore! mmmm fresh sweet books, i've been reading second hand books for awhile and though those are nice to my wallet there is nothing like cracking open a brand new book. After all that awesomeness I will prob be drinking my life away given the superbowl and sat night.... but hey. that's fun!

oh some sadness, my cubby partner got let go today. I left for lunch and when I got back he was gone. No idea whatsoever that this was going to happen, I don't even think he had a clue. The small silver lining out of this (for me, not him unfortunately) is that he was considered an employee of a completely different office than mine so my job is safe right now. It still absolutely sucks though, he kept my sanity while I was working. I work for the international division and there were only 5 of us and now that he's gone I'm left with a lovely chinese woman, but she works like woah! and a korean guy who kind of annoys me. Not the best work situation. BUT I have been pushing myself to keep stepping out and talking to others in my office and there are two other girls my age and we've started to get pretty friendly which is awesome. We are all different departments and semi-quiet people so it's taken some time but I think we've all realized that eating lunch together and getting out of the office sometimes is going to make everything much more bearable so I'm excited! so ups and downs are occuring at work... the actual work this is still pissing me off. I feel like I'm incredibly useless there but I'm also starting to get a good idea of what I need to do. It's just actually pushing myself to become that person, because essentially I am not. BUT I CAN DO IT! and I want to. I want to be good, I want to be proud of myself. I want this new potential opportunity which I haven't talked about at all and won't until it's for real to HAPPEN. I intend for it to happen.

yep, so this turned out much longer than I thought, guess after cleaning the thoughts come out. :)

only 40 texts and a little gaga

2010-01-12T13:11:00.000-08:00

so quick wkend recap cause the beginning of it was so awesome! But here is my very blurry pic of lady gaga at the concert! It was amazing and wonderful and soooooo much fun. We just danced our ass off! Luckily we got there early enough to see a bit of Jason Derulo as well who was an unexpected surprise. I don't know much of his stuff but he was a good dancer and it was fun. Then before she actually came on they played a bunch of michael jackson and every danced their butts off as well!

And here we are looking cute. We weren't totally gaga'd out but we tried! haha can't help it that we aren't insanely crazy like her!

After that the wkend was just eh. We did manage to get out and check out some of the smaller boutiques on broadway which was nice since I keep walking past them but never go in! I found a couple pairs of cute earrings! not new for me, I have a jewelry problem. haha

Now on to some awesome texts that I have gotten in the past week or so....

From one of my good friends from college whom I haven't seen (except for like 4 hours) in months " I think i'm wearing a pair of your underwear."

haha yep, I got that at like 9 in the morning and it cracked me up for the whole day. I followed it up with "what the hell do I make with that?"

And earlier this week from the roomie... "I was so spacey I actually bought a homeless person a coffee, that would never happen on a normal day!"

Have to love both of them, they kept me smiling throughout the whole day! I'm documenting them becuase my silly ghetto phone can only hold 40 texts and that for me is like a normal day. so sadly I have to delete them :(

Happy Tuesday Everyone! It's trivia night tonight! Loooooovvvvve it!

Guys can suck

2010-01-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

my roommate got a call tonight from her "boyfriend" who is Australian but has been living in London for the past few years. Anyway he had gone home for the holidays and today and he called and said that he was staying in Australia. Now they have had a rocky relationship and add the long distance to it and it's complicated BUT he made this decision without talking to her or anything like that.

I guess where I am is I have no idea what to even think, and she wants some advice but what do you do with something like that? I first met the roomie 3 months ago and though we are close and I know most of the details, I have never met the guy and I only know her side of the story, bout everything. But my first instinct is, this guy has chosen to move from a country that's a 6 hour plane ride to a 24 hour plane ride away without even consulting her. And I know she loves him and they've talked about a future so I don't want to say you should end this becuase that's a big decision but I also don't want to say you should try to talk this out. Cause this guy obviously has problems and is extremely selfish.

This is an extremely strong and independent woman who falls apart when he is inconsiderate or mean to her. But when she talks about him she is happy. I get frustrated that guys can do this girls and we really don't have any power over it. Cause I seriously think she loves him and wants to spend the rest of her life with him, but he..... is impulsive and selfish and something...

so what does a roomie do? I brought her home and we're getting drunk but it doesn't really solve anything. It's a bandaid for a situation that is just going to be painful and sad. Are there any comforting words I can give her? anything that will make her forget that the man she loves is being a complete asshole!

oh and did I mention he called her on his way to work! so that they couldn't have more than a 15 minute conversation! right now I want to smack the guy!

Lady Gaga & Wisdom Teeth

2010-01-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

Tonight I will be seeing this!

yep... that's right. Awesome roomie and I are going to be checking out this fabulous concert all decked out in Gagaish outfits! We are so excited! Thank the lord that she changed venues and put more tickets on sale!

Then tomorrow morning I have something not so fun.. finally getting my wisdom teeth out after many many years of being told i should. Which means that I will be laid up for the rest of the weekend on a liquid diet. Which in my world means that I get to load up on mucho food tonight and then smoothies and ice cream!!! trying to look on the bright side of things here cuase I'm truthfully very nervous. I hate things like this!

Happy weekend everyone! I'll be busting out my dance moves tonight and can NOT wait!!!!

Xmas in Pics

2010-01-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

I'm busy still recuperating from the holiday season but here are a few great pics from the whirlwind!

Our pretty christmas tree. It was so big compared to my personal little one for the apt. Though I did love them both and can't quite get rid of mine yet :) Luckily I have a understanding roommate.

My sister likes to think she is the ghettoist girl living the "thug life."

How to get rowdy siblings to quiet down! Have them build gingerbread houses! Of course a competition is formed out of it, see the M on the door.

My mother being annoyed with my picture taking! We had had a long day by then filled with champagne, wine, cooking, and cleaning! exhausting!

NEW YORK!

my sister likes to believe she's taller than me.... she's totally not!

And here we are being nice.

Most of the NYC crew. SAdly my mom was taking the pic, but aren't we all cute! It was such a gorgeous day to walk around the city! loved it. A fantastic indian lunch followed as well..mmmm

Loved this in the city, they are trees on top of a building. SO COOL!

Good-bye 2009, Hello 2010

2009-12-31T10:04:00.000-08:00

2009, a year of many endings and new beginnings. a year of completely new experiences and travels that I will remember my entire life.

I finished my Masters program and now have a Masters degree in Fire Protection Engineering. It was a very long schoolward journey and I loved most of it, once I hit high school that is. But I am very happy to be done and using my brains for something real, rather than fake school projects.
I spent a month roadtripping around the southern half of the US with one of my best friends. We saw so many cool places, beautiful landscapes, met numerous interesting people, hiked impossible trails, and had a few drunken nights in the cities that called for it. Las Vegas, woot woot! And after it all I was completely unsatisfied with the short time we were able to experience it all. I now have a never-ending itch to do the same in the north part and repeat the south! Someday!
I spent quality time with the family and remembered what it was like to really live in NH and enjoy its beauty and peace. Though I do not want to be living there full time I do love the state. It was awesome to also connect with my family again as I hadn’t really lived at home for 4+ years and probably won’t again?!?! Scary but I can’t even think the next time I will be back in NH in this next year, so not improbable.
I accepted a full-time position with the company I interned for a year with. Though things with the economy, etc hasn’t picked up and I am still rather bored here I am thankful for a job and for the few opportunities that come my way. I will continue to do my best and learn everything I can so that when things pick up or a new job opportunity comes my way I will be prepared and useful.

I moved out of my first Chicago apt. I had a wonderful time with my roommate there but I was also excited to move on. She and I led very different lives and I realized that I got very frustrated living with a person who had a completely different schedule than me.
Following that, I moved into my second Chicago apt in a new section of the city with two new roommates who I found off of Craigslist. It was a huge leap of faith in myself that I would be able to live with two completely new people and I’m very happy with how it has turned out. I have found a great new friend in one of them and while the other isn’t as such a good friend, she is pleasant and fine to hang out with. Plus the apt is gorgeous and amazing and finally a grown up place. Though I am still waiting for the grownup furniture, mainly a couch. But hey, maybe in 2010
I read 30 books this year. Definetly on the lower side for me but my life was really just all go, go, go and I find when I don’t have set times to read (like on the way to work or something) that I will sit down and turn the tv on rather than pick up a book. I’d like to make a goal to hit right around 35-40 for 2010.
I traveled to Macau, China and spent a month doing a section of my work field that I loved.

Though I know 2009 has been a rough year for many, for me it’s been a huge growing year. I have enjoyed so many new things and learned so much about no matter how much things change, certain things, the relationships and friendships that get you through, don’t deep down. And really it’s the friendships that we all want right? Love, laughter, happiness. I had an incredible amount of it all this year and only hope that 2010 brings the same amount if not more! Good wishes to all. I’m bout ready to head out of this here office and go party my pants into 2010!!!!

After the gym and a carb-loaded dinner of course. Have to have a base for all that booze. Oh and a trip to the store for champagne! Can’t forget that.

See ya next year!

2000-2009 An Era of Time: My Life in Snippits

2009-12-29T08:18:00.000-08:00

2000: I was in 8th grade and I made a decision this year that changed my entire life. I chose to apply to a nearby private highschool because I wasn’t happy I in my current public one. I wanted the chance to remake myself and man did I get the chance! I spent that summer preparing myself for a new environment. I participated in the schools orientation and was amazed when I actually enjoyed camping and hiking while carrying everything on my back! It would later prompt me to make what my family saw as an insane decision a few years later.

2001: I was halfway through my freshman year at highschool in a completely new school. I was still figuring out my new love of theatre and singing by doing the musical Cabaret. I had my first real attraction towards a guy and my “heartbreak” when he got kicked out of school. J love the bad boys. I believe I spent the summer nannying my younger brother and sister which meant that I got paid to go hang out at our lake house and doing pretty much nothing. I turned 14 years old and enjoyed still being carefree.

2002: As a sophomore in highschool I was still deep into the theatre and singing scene. I played Maria in West Side Story and it was one of the proudest moments of my life. That summer I still nannyed. Ugh When Sept 11th happened I had just entered junior year and can remember being called out to our school’s soccer field and told the news. I was so confused that something like that could happen. I ended the year with the start of one of the most incredible experiences of my life, Mountain Classroom. I had a blast in my math and science classes not only because of the fellow students but also because of the teachers.

2003: As stated I was partaking in Mountain Classroom through the beginning of this year. It was the first time I had ever dogsledded, rock-climbed, backpacked/camped, and many other things. I forged a great friendship with 11 other people and changed many mentalities that I had had up to that point in my life. This summer I took my first real job lifeguarding, took drivers ed and got my license, and still enjoyed hanging out at our lake house. Right around here was also when I probably started sneaking out of my grandparents house, on my mothers orders, because the 10pm curfew I had was just not cutting it! This year I got even closer to one of my still good friends and we decided to direct the senior play together the next year.

2004: My senior year! I spent the winter directing Up the Down Staircase with my good friend. It was an incredible experience with lots of hands-on learning and mistakes. Our cast was huge and it took lots of patience and late nights from both of us to turn out a success. The spring was spent with the musical The Fiddler on the Roof and my senior project which left me with lots of free time to hang out and enjoy my last few months. Oh and I got accepted to college. Haha. I worked that summer lifeguarding and serving ice cream at the Quack Shack. Had a fantastic last summer! I entered college and couldn’t have been more excited.

2005: I was in the middle of my first year being on a Varsity Swim Team and taking numerous math and science classes plus having to choose a major. I fell in love with a great guy who would turn out to be my boyfriend for the next 4 years or so. I had a fantastic freshman year, went out lots, met a ton of new people, and had a generally fantastic time. My roommates, we were in a triple, turned out to be my best friends yet and the girl who lived next door became our 4th roomie. I spent that summer at home bummed because I wasn’t with the boy and bored with the slow life that is NH. I waitressed at a local country club with one of my friends.

2006: Sophmore year of college, started doing actual civil courses that I enjoyed. I was living with my two freshman roommates in an off-campus apt and loving it. My boyfriend was living in a dirty frat house and we had lots of fights because of all the stupid frat things he had to do. Swimming was great and it ended up being one of my best seasons. That summer I stayed in Worcester and had a great time waitressing down there. I watched one of my good friend s graduate but convinced her to come back for a grad year! Wahoo!

2007: Junior year at college I was now in the slightly more intense civil courses. I was captain of my swim team and had also taken on a job in our campus bookstore. Still in the same apt with a better 4th roommate. That spring I traveled to London for school and had a fabulous time. I fell in love with traveling as I also visited Ireland, Amsterdam, and Scotland. I spent that summer in Worcester as well missing my boyfriend who spent 2 months in China. It was a rough period where we fluctuated back and forth between being together because we basically spent 6 months apart! My fellow swimmer/roomy and I also convinced our other friend to join the diving team! Made swim meets WAY more fun.

2008: Senior year! Had to choose between going for a grad year and finishing up my masters or taking a one year internship. Opted for the one year internship after I got offered a position in Chicago and who could pass that up. I was busy with my graduate courses, swim team, campus bookstore, and helping my boyfriend who potentially couldn’t graduate navigate that. That spring after everything had quieted down I spent my mornings sleeping and my afternoons drinking in my backyard while calling everyone and convincing them to skip their classes and come drink with me! Graduation was absolutely insane and a complete mix of emotions. I spent a solid month hanging out with family and the boy before we road-tripped me to Chicago and moved me in. I started my internship which was not too fun. I later broke up with the boy in November because it was too exhausting living in two different cities.

2009: Now to this year, a year of mainly Chicago with multiple locations thrown in. These will be discussed in a future post to come tomorrow hopefully.

Last half of Dec Wrap-up

2009-12-28T07:35:00.000-08:00

wooooofffff, it's been awhile. I feel like the past few weeks have just flown by at warp speed. Like I grabbed on to the tail end of a light streak and just finally let go last night. which is all just to say that christmas and my week off with it was fabulous and wonderful. Everything went perfectly, I managed to avoid the couple of snowstorms (and terrorists??) that plagued so many air travelers, and had an amazing time with the friends and family I got to see.

The weekend before xmas I flew out to NYC and spent the weekend with a friend where we had just the right mix of being bums on the couch and checking out the holiday parties. I started watching Arrested Development (hilarious!) and finally saw the movie Hang Over (almost died I was laughing so much! a tiger in the bathroom!!!) I also got to drunkenly stumble down the middle of Hoboken streets through 8" of snow in heels! I absolutely love snow storms when the city just goes quiet and you're free to do whatever! Plus I was with a great group of people and when ur drunk the cold and wet just doesn't bother you as much :) I also got some fun close time with a member of the other sex which is always a plus. def crave that in the winter season when I'm always COLD!

Then I met up with my Mom, aunt, grandmother, sister, and cousin in the city on monday. We saw Billy Elliot that night, great play but a little too many kids for me. I don't usually find kids fantastic actors cause they usually either have the cuteness factor or nothing much. But the play was cute and there were some great musical numbers! On Tuesday we walked around the city, it was gorgeous weather out and we did some fun shopping and had a great time. I found cheap pashminas (5 for $20) which made my trip and then we spent the night drinking fantastically expensive cosmos! great trip

finally it was christmas time! my dad and I spent christmas eve day finishing up shopping and then it was a couple days of hanging out at home, bumming around, fires and champagne, family time, lots of good food, and really fun presents! I got lots of things for my room, from sheets to some decorations. I love getting the more expensive but simple gifts that I hate spending my own money on!

overall it was the perfect break, minus that fact that I don't think I have ever had a less relaxing vacation. I finally made it to the airport last night and was so exhausted my eyes kept going blurry! It took a big cup of coffee more than an hour to wake me up to feeling even somewhat normal! but I made it home and managed to unpack my suitcase before falling into bed.

Hope everyone had just as great a holiday! hopefully I'll have a post of the newly decorated room along with a wrap-up of 2009 coming soon. Holy hell, 2010 is pretty much here....craaaazzzzy!

ps. the pic totally has nothing to do with december but I really liked it!

Goodbye

2009-12-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

Today I found out that a member of my extended family committed suicide yesterday. He wasn't blood relative (married in) nor was he a very well liked member, in fact most of us couldn't stand him, but he was a part of our lives for many years and for that reason made me rather sad today. And even though my aunt had divorced him a few months back I still feel for the man who had let his life slide into such a horrible place that he saw death as the only solution.

This man had problems all his life in terms of social acceptance and drinking and then later on in life had medical troubles where drug dependence got involved and ultimately a life of sloveliness and self-pity occured. He stopped working, stopped helping out the family, stopped caring about how he appeared to others and how he interacted. This in turn caused others who might have previouslly liked him to turn in the other direction.

I remember as a child I would live with my grandparents over the summer and he would come up with my aunt and every wkend morning, Tom and I would take the boat out and go buy donuts at one of the harbors. As more grandkids started coming into the family he continued this. He was always a willing boat driver when us kids wanted to go tubing or skiing, even though I never actually went when he was driving cause he enjoyed throwing ppl off far too much! I guess the point I'm trying to get across is that at one point he and I did have a relationship and we did enjoy each others company. As I grew up though I started spending more time with friends and less time with family and then his troubles got worse and I found myself avoiding him. Not going to the lake house if I knew he was going to be there or sneaking in the back door! I'm not proud of this but I didn't like the person he had become. And now for the past 8 years or so he hasn't even been on my radar. highschool, college, life. I was happy when I heard they were getting a divorce, I was happy my aunt would finally be free of this baggage.

But it's sad, to spend a life where you aren't happy and where you don't do anything to change what you are not happy with. At some point he was a person. One who deserves our compassion and respect. My father said something along the lines of why is my aunt (his sister) so broken up about it, he can be a little crass at times, but to me it makes perfect sense. She's not grievign for the person who became a burden on her life but the man she fell in love with. The man who gave her two healthy sons and the man she thought she wanted to build a life with.

I don't like the idea of suicide, and I think that's mainly becuase I can't grasp how I feel about it. At times I think it's cowardly and selfish, at others I think if that's really how they felt at least I hope they're better in whatever comes next. All I know is I feel for the people who reach such a dark point in their lives where that is the only option they see. And for now I will remember the fun uncle who would do anything for me when I was a kid. Everyone has some good. Kind thoughts to my aunt and cousins :)

*Rest in Peace Tom*

Xmas Trees!

2009-12-13T08:31:00.000-08:00

our tree, it's slightly blurry but the roomie was a couple drinks in. :) it's got a million lights with gold ornaments and red accents. Gorgeous! I have seriously just sitting in my living room and staring at it! To the left you can see our second (and fake) xmas tree. Its silver with lights and blue and silver ornaments. very pretty as well but I'm a real tree kinda gal.

I had a lovely weekend with tres christmas parties. Saturday morning was slightly rough, always remember to eat dinner when drinking, but my roomie was awesome and dealt with my whining fantastically well. I was amazed with her patience. But we had a grand ole time spending hours in crazy chicago traffic and in lines at the packed booze and food stores. SERIOUSLY it was insane how busy everywhere we went was.

Now it's off to a going away party tonight... wish it were closer than WP!!! haha, i'm so lazy

Decorating Time

2009-12-09T08:37:00.000-08:00

it's getting close to christmas!!! I am getting excited! AND it is apt decorating time tonight! We have lights and ornaments and other fun things. Going to get a lovely tree, REAL of course and have a ball making things all festive and fun! I even have some christmas music i'm planning on downloading and playing while we decorate. Before the Top Chef finale of course! becuase that is going to be awesome as well. I really want all 3 to win...but mainly the sexy Voltagio cause he's really good.

Hopefully I'll grab some pictures, through my bberry unfortunately b/c my lovely point and shoot has a dead battery and the charger? back in silly ole nh.

Tonight I came...Home

2009-12-05T22:52:00.000-08:00

while brushing my teeth tonight and doing the general routine i realized that everything I had done once i got home had been instinctual and routine. And not in a bad way or anything, but I had been drinking and took the train home, etc, so I got into the tired checked-out state. But it was fun and comforting to think, while doing the teeth cleaning, that I was so set in this apartment that I was thinking "I am home" instead of "I am in my new apt."

I love when you finally have that feeling, it's an incredibly satisfying feeling, and with every apartment it's slightly different. Now just on to making the city feel like home again.

Winter and Pilates

2009-11-29T18:56:00.000-08:00

It is finally winter... I say this mournfully, sadly, regretfully and yet reconciled. In far too soon of a time it will be christmas and then the new year. What will 2010 bring? What has 2009 had? These questions are not ones I am prepared to answer.

BUT! it is winter... and I now this because:

The chill of winter is in the air. That creeping cold that sneaks up your nostrils, makes your eyes water, and makes any bit of skin that is unlucky enough to touch the air want to hide!
Probably about 50% of my block already has X-mas decorations up. And when I say up I mean inside and outside, lights and trees, wreaths and garlands. It is slightly too early for me to want those types of things but I won't deny that I am very excited for when our apartment becomes festive. The roomies and I have decided to have a holiday party so a tree will be present along with who knows what!
I have been sleeping with my electric blanket on for the past few nights. Means it is fairly cold. Brrr

Completely switching gears. I can't believe thanksgiving wkend is already over. I feel like it just started. Mine was relaxing and soothing, which is good because this December is shaping up to be fairly busy and will fly by i'm sure. I have signed up for reformer pilates class, I met a trainer at my gym who I instantly got along with and I think it will be fun to get myself back in pilates shape. I was feeling really good about it and had noticed significant improvement at the beginning of last summer, not too mention I really liked my body with that exercise, but now everything has fallen apart. lol. I am planning on focusing on the pilates classes and making as many as possible to jumpstart the getting back in shape. Bummer is the regular weekly classes start at 6 and it's rare that I make it home before six...Here's crossing my fingers!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I don't really like turkey so i thought I would go with the festive fall/thanksgiving picture instead of a silly bird. I just slept far too late and now am up and off to spend a lovely meal with some family and friends. I'll miss the real immediate family back in the NH but hope they have a lovely dinner as well.

Luv

Sunday Thanks

2009-11-22T20:44:00.000-08:00

I found this while in New Orleans... I never fail to appreciate how lucky i am to live in a city where a body of water is so accessible. I also try to never forget how amazing this city is in making it possible for all to enjoy that water. In case you can't really read it.

A man with a Past

Arms reach Empty-handed

God to a City In Love

with Water

A Trait

2009-11-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

I'm a rather forgetful person... and not in a I can't function or remember anything ever. When it comes to dates or meetings or facts I have never needed a planner, and I am pretty much always early. In fact I have tried to have planners, etc and I just never find myself looking at it. My daily schedule was just always in my head and that was that. But when it comes to anything else I just don't have a great memory. And add in booze and pretty much all bets are off.

This means that when I meet anyone who remembers insane details I get rather intimidated. I mean my two best friends: one if you ask her what she ate for breakfast at 10am that SAME day will not be able to tell you, and the other if you don't remind her 8 million times about something will not show up. So I've always just been surrounded I guess by people who have adequate memories. and I don't mean in like you can quote any music/movie/tv show lyrics or music artists etc. cause my friends can do that. I mean the like pertinent specific details about a person. LIke if you get asked what the first concert you went to was and then a month later they pulled that out on you. It's trippy!

one of the first memorable times this happened to me was during a business trip a while back. I had been doing night shifts with this one guy and we were hanging out alot and while you work (or wait) you talk. So then he would just throw out these random facts about me that 1) I had no memory telling him and 2) did not remember the same about him. So we were cool enough that I was just able to make fun of him for it and put it down to alright whatever.

well i just recently met another person who was the same way! and I have decided that it just freaks me out and makes me very uncomfortable. And in a completely selfish way it makes me feel inadequate. I will never be able to remember all those specific details, and I've tried. I remember as a child I would run home all excited to tell my mother a story adn then she would have ten million extra questions and I would be all like I dunno... why don't you just enjoy my story?!?!?! and she would be like aren't you curious about all that??!?!? and I would be but it had/has never occurred to me to ask all those probing, in-depth questions. I think this is along the same lines.

Now I dont' know if this makes me selfish or maybe I am just always thinking of too many things at once that I can never focus on one specific detail... and thus remember it. Whatever it is.... it is what it is... and I have decided that people who remember everything intimidate me. I would like to get better at the whole deal.. I mean I hate waking up on nights that I have one drink and think I know I had this conversation with so and so but for the life of me I can't remember the details. Any ideas on how I could fix this??? cause you want my schedule for the next month? down to the hours of my day until past christmas. but your dogs name if you've only told me once? or the name of the town you're from unless i've been there (or known you for awhile). it's not me.

Am I weird??

Sunflowers

2009-11-16T20:14:00.000-08:00

I bought these flowers today on a whim. I was on my way to an event after work and they just popped out at me from the sidewalk. I absolutely love the gorgeous color of them. Sunflowers are easily one of my favorite flowers and being this shade is uh-mazing. I'm just sitting here staring at them... gotta love the simple things.

and a close up so ya'll can see the gorgeous, to-die-for, fabulous color!

Happy Monday!

My grown up room!

2009-11-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

I typically have a very cozy, colorful, and sporatic room. I like to use things I have, I hold on to everything ever made for me which means I end up with a lot of cards hanging on the wall or my name in construction paper hanging up, etc. This room for some reason has gone in a completely different direction and though I like it, it is very different and thus has taken me a long time to get set up. The theme of this room is black and dark. which sounds dark in and of itself but for some reason that's just what a bunch of the furniture I had was and I decided to embrace it.

This is obviously my bed. I painted the end table black last wkend but I like the lizard above it! my grandparents gave me the lizard years ago and he's followed along to every apartment I go to and has always lived in a different room. In college he was just outside the bathroom and man was he a conversation starter during parties! I love my new bedspread. The blue is so vibrant. Not a huge fan of the gray pillows in the back but haven't found the right color pillowcases yet. I also totally need a picture or something for that incredibly plain wall, but I'm waiting for inspiration.

This is the other side of the room. I love how an old sarong I had matched the bedspread color. The table under it is this ugly little round table so it totally needed to be spruced up. One of the things I absolutely love about this room is I have incorporated tons of candles and whenever I am in there they are always lit. LUV candles! I also repainted the bookcase, totally needed a sprucing and the picture I LOVE! it's an early christmas present. the only thing is these incredibly tall walls make me want to fill them! it almost looks too small and it's over 3ft long!

This is a close-up on the top of my dresser. I absolutely love the wire basket that is all leaves and stuff and my jewelry looks so good resting all over it. I also love the peace I glued onto the dresser! I was a little afraid it wouldn't look good and then I'd be dealing with how to remove super glue but I like it! I'm not sure the pic will stay there but for now...

Trying to do a close up of the picture Mom. haha, let me know if you want a better one. Oh and if you can see the hill-billy pic of you, me and Dad. Yep I have that out. :)

So now for a few parts of my room that really make me happy... it was hard to choose cause it's all so fun but...

I came up with the idea to screw in those little hooks on the bottom side of the dresser. Who knew I had so many necklaces, but I love having them all hung up and displayed like that. In my old place I put thumb-tacks in the wall and hung them on that. For me my necklaces are art as well as fun to wear!

These were two postcards I picked up at an art show this past week. I loved the real paintings of them, but totally couldn't afford them so I had to settle for these. The flowers on the bike one is just so cute to me. Romantic without having people! And then of course who couldn't like the idea of dancing around in an alley!

That's all I got for now. I think it still needs some work but it's def pulling itself together and for the first time since I've moved in I have put away/organized all the random bits and pieces that come out when you move. It's def weird to not have the 100% cozy feeling when I walk into my bedroom but I do believe it's growing on me :)

The CTA is out to get me

2009-11-13T13:36:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend I lost my wallet while out and about and it really isn't such a horrible thing as it only had a credit card, my license, and CTA car, more just inconvenient and annoying. So now of I have been using the non chicago card CTA ticket but it's a pain because most of the machines only take cash and I typically take the bus so I have to think ahead. Then yesterday I finally ended up at an EL station that had the credit card machine adn I threw like 20bucks on that card. Figured my new chicago plus card would be around by next week. THEN myroomie and I checked out this art showing last night and stopped off at Bar Louies first... let me tell you those cocktails are insane! 1 went straight to my head, 2 made it so we were pretty close to drunk as we headed towards the art show. Needless to say when we got on the train back I have absolutely no idea where I put the CTA pass. I'm hoping that maybe I slipped it into the bag holding the things I bought but I didn't even think of that this morning and had to rummage around for quarters to pay for my commute this morning.

so that's about all i've got this fine friday...haven't even had the motivation to write emails today! (that's towards you mom, your novel like email intimidated me!!) Now i'm just waiting till it's time to walk out this door. Cousin time tonight and then a friends going away party tomorrow. Should be a pretty busy wkend!

Happy Friday Everyone!

circles of the season and my wkend :)

2009-11-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

I have a new obsession. Mad Men. The greatest tv show ever! and one hot Donald Draper! I have been watching it non-stop while I design my room (hopefully there will be a post forthcoming about that). It has also caused me to stay up way too late watching it... been exhausted!

I have finally started mindfully reading again. It seems like I can't get through a book if I don't make a purposeful decision to open up that book! read a fabulous one though, couldn't put it down, and am raring to go again!

I had this great long post all planned out in my head last night. the problem was I was sitting out by the lake and not at all by a laptop, which was the goal, but of course by the time I made it back to the apt all those lovely words had flittered out of my head and into the wind. See that's the problem with me and writing.. I can come up with great paragraphing and sentences when i'm inspired and talking it out to myself, but every time I sit down and actually go to type I hate what comes out. blah blah, I'll just keep on with the posts anyway cause I like the memories they form.

so this weekend was gorgeous! ABSOLUTELY amazing and fabulous. Now I'm pretty darn sure that it's going to be the last perfect weather we'll have for awhile so I was all prepared to relish in it the entire time! On saturday I had to paint some furniture (also required hours of sanding.. my arms were SO exhausted!) but anywho I dragged my pieces out and set them up in our back porch and in sweats and a T-shirt! went about my job. All afternoon enjoying the day and then went out with some fabulous girlies and hung outside for some of the night too!

Then on sunday I met up with a friend and after waiting for 20 minutes just soaking up the sun we found a place to brunch that still had their patio set up. I mean, it took us close to an hour walking around to find one. I feel like it's been patio patio patio and then none! but it was good and we just sat outside talking for like 3 hours. We also had the worst waitress, and the hostess wasn't too good either. Seriously for good food their serving sucked! Finally after getting home I decided to check out the lake, which is so close to me! like a 10 minute walk. Auh - some!

And that brings us around pretty much full circle to when I was sitting on the steps checking out a dark lake and then turning around to see the lights of the city! I forgot what a fantastic sight that is. It felt comfortable sitting out there, in only a fleece, knowing it was 6pm. lol It was a chance to say good-bye to the one amazing chapter of my life! 5 months of freedom, doing whatever the hell I wanted. Though it did instill in me a forevermore yearning to take another road trip, it was overall the most successfull. I did everything I had set my mind on and came around the bend with a degree, a horrid exam done, and a job. Though work deserves it's whole post, I'm excited.

Come on winter, I am ready! though the xmas music can always stay away!

RENT!

2009-11-05T06:48:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite musicals of all time. Playing at what looks like a smaller theatre here in chicago. Theatre Building of Chicago... anyone been there?? It's not till February but I'm totally putting it on my calendar. Anyone want to join??!?

Will I be posting more now that I'm working...?

2009-10-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

So i'm a little slow at work adn don't really feel like reading about fire pumps so thought I'd do this cute little meme. It's kind of cool, like a snapshot of my life at this hour and day. Enjoy!

1-Where is your cell phone? right next to me
2- Your hair? freshly cut! luv it!
3-Your mother? making chocolate all day??? weirdo :)
4-Your father? oh working
5-Your favorite food? chocolate! cheese!
6-Your favorite drink? currently white grape vodka and selzer
7-Your dream last night? I don't remember dreams
8-Your dream/goal? loads but a big one is travel to australia
9-What room are you in? my cubby at work
10-Your hobby? reading
11-Your fear? monotony
12-Where do you want to be in 6 years? who knows, that's the fun part
13-Where were you last night? getting my haircut!
14-Something that you aren’t? outgoing with strangers
15-Muffin? BAGELS
16-Wish list item? ummm I'm pretty happy with things right now
17-Where did you grow up? NH
18-Last thing you did? just ate lunch! and set up a gym interview! yea working out
19-What are you wearing? khakis, cute black shirt, necklace
20-Your TV? in the living room?
21-Your pets? wish i had a cute doggie
22-Friends? spread out way too much
23- Your life? changing as always
24-Your mood? ansty
25-Missing someone? always
26-Vehicle? snazzy zipcars
27-Something you aren’t wearing? sweats... wish I were
28-Your favorite store? a great bookstore
29-Favorite color? blue
30-When was the last time you laughed? at lunch
31-Last time you cried? for real, like 3 weeks ago
32-Your best friend? x3
33-One place you go to over and over? work
34-One person who emails you regularly? my mom
35-Favorite place to eat? Cosi's, sushi, thai!

A bulleted list cause I'm too tired to think

2009-10-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a over-packed busy/not busy week culminating in a fully great night out on the town with two new friends.

2 minutes a problem on a standardized test is totally not sufficient. At the 15min mark I still had like 40 unanswered questions and just had to go down filling in bubbles. In a situation such as that I can never decide if it's better to fill them all in the same (eg. all c's) or to go about filling in random ones and making it look not to guessed at. The second choice is what I ended up doing for whatever it ends up to be.
As you can tell from the first bullet I have finally taken the exam. It was long and I got very antsy but I feel pretty good about the final outcome. I'm positive I knew about 50% of the questions and then beyond that a good number were figured out and then it's luck. Unfortunately I won't find out the results for like 4 months but I'm going to tell myself it's all over. It's weird though, for the first time in a long time I don't have any cares in relation to learning. It's a very freeing feeling.
Which makes me think. did you ever have those professors who would never return your exams or let you know your grade until like the end of the class. I would have times that I would take 2 or 3 exams and turn in other assignments without getting any feedback in the form of grades or what they as a professor wanted. It would really annoy me because each professor is different and what different things out of their students and you tailor your work to that. The first exam of every class was always the most stressful for me, those were the ones were I would actually try to get a good nights sleep before and not do any irresponsible things like drinking :)
While out last night two guys I was hanging with decided to have a race (no idea why) and one of them ate it! It was legit a tuck and roll. First he was running and then next thing you know he's gone and on the ground between two cars. HILARIOUS!
I went out with my new roomie and one of her friends and it was really nice to be out with new people. I love making new friends and I'm really excited with how this new living situation has turned out. Now if only I could ignore this hangover long enough to make some order in my room.
My area has become flooded with costumed kids. I went out to get a coffee and they are all over the place! I could not get back to my apt fast enough! I do think it's cute though that all the stores give the kids candy and stuff. And that they do it on a weekend so you don't have to do it on a cold weekday night. The school down the street was also giving "hay rides" around the block. Cracked me up cause I've see real hay rides and these just weren't the same.
I need a halloween costume. There are a couple of parties I will be attending and I have no idea what to be! Any ideas that is somewhat cheap and fun and not too slutty????
alright think i'm out of bullet points. Off to enjoy the last afternoon of my freedom. Tomorrow it's back to the grind!

Bed-frames & Bureaus... OH MY!

2009-10-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

Today I spent about 5 hours putting my bed frame and ikea bureau together. It was long and hard and dirty but now I have mucho storage space! And well the bed frame wasn't really that hard. It's just these metal bars that pretty much raise the bed so I can slide awesome storage containers under it! BUT I had to laugh cause while talking to the bed sales person I mentioned that my old frame hadn't had a middle bar (I was concerned it would effect my storing things) she was HORRIFIED and kept saying I'm so surprised that your bed just didn't collapse in the middle or anything. To which I replied , well it did end up breaking so I guess maybe it's needed. I neglected to tell her that I was doing a bit more than sleeping when the leg collapsed. Gave me a laugh though. I woke up the next morning on a tilt...not so comfortable :)

So after the quick bed assembly and the not so quick dealing with a heavy mattress as a poor weak girl I moved on the constructing this!

And it is oh so pretty and fun! Luckily it was a lot more assembled than I had been picturing, alas it did still take me like 3 hours and I was exhausted after! I mean my hand was killing me from screwing in so many screws! lol. But it's so pretty and gives me so much room :) Note: things look much smaller in a very large ikea. In my room here it is definitely mammoth. In fact tomorrow I am planning some major furniture moving to see if it will look less mammoth anywhere else. Heres hoping!

beyond that, the countdown is on to my exam on saturday and I'm feeling very so-so about my preparation. I know I could have studied more but I also know that there is so much info I am suppossed to re-learn that I wouldn't remember it anyway. So I am doing my usual studying which is to re-alert my brain and now the basics and I will just have to trust that my problem-solving, engineer mentality, and brain will get me through. Because seriously, I've probably studied more for this exam than my entire time in college which is just insane. 4 days!

oh. if anyone has ideas on how to keep bed frame wheels from rolling on my hardwood floors please help?! wheels and no rug is not a good combination.

Musings

2009-10-17T00:15:00.000-07:00

A new place... by myself. I've never been there before. My first apartment I had my friends, my second apartment I had my boyfriend. My third... I have me. And my roommates are great, I just had a fabulous time with them tonight, but it's weird.

For awhile there my family became a family of 5 instead of 4. For the first time. Which we never really were cause I was always so far ahead of things. It was good, it was nice. I love my family.

Now I'm here, surging forward alone again. I know I can do it, I know it will be the best, but I hate transitions. hate the waiting. Sometimes I think I am just waiting all the time.

Colors of Fall

2009-10-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

Columbus Day Wkend always feels like the end of the end for me when it comes to being outside. This wkend the air is chilly enough that it takes sufficient motivation to get yourself outside, but not bad enough that once out there you're suffering, lol. Thus to commemorate my last wkend in NH and of freedom :) I had a number of my close friends up and we lounged around, hiked, hung outside, made fires and had a jolly old time. Perfect fall activities (minus the margaritas..but who turns down margaritas??) The shot is the view from our local ski moutain. We rode the chair up and then walked around and down. Very pretty.

The foliage this year is just to die for this year...or maybe it's just been so long since I've been in the thick of it, but I'll miss it when I leave. Until then I will continue to stare in awe at the gorgeous reds, yellows, oranges, and greens that are backdropped with a brilliant blue sky. But the frost that was here this morning??? you feel free to stay away till I leave please.

Happy Columbus Day! Did anyone else to any fun fall activities this weekend?

Stummy's

2009-10-08T20:47:00.001-07:00

Wanna hear something weird????

if anyone watches grey's anatomy, the stomach they showed when meredith was being cut open, I knew the girl who was acting it!

Kinda fun.. oh and stummy is stomach and tummy put together :)

Hal wears a Hat

2009-10-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

So in order to satisfy the goal I set for myself yesterday I formed an outfit today where the hat fit.

Scene: I have gathered myself together, hat is on and all is good. Walk downstairs.

Mom: Well well you are wearing the hat.

Me: well yes I am, do you like?

Mom: Oh yes you look like Paula Abdul

alrighty...not a fabulous compliment but take what you get

Scene: Dad walks in... stops and stares at me as I am doing things in the kitchen. Me: like the hat?

Dad: You're wearing a hat.

Me: yes I know, like it?

Dad: yea, sure, it's different

Scene: Brother enters the car when I go to pick him up...

What is with the hat???

Me: what? I can't hear you.

Brother: WHAT IS WITH THE HAT?

Me: I dunno, I liked it. Do you?

Brother: where did you get it?

Me: what the heck does that matter? do you like it?

Brother: WHERE DID YOU GET THE HAT?

Me: JESUS CHRIST!

Scene: Sister enters the house after school, I walk out of the living room with the hat on.

Sister: yea I saw that as you were driving by. Whatever

Me: Do you like it?

Sister: yea sure, weirdo wearing a hat. Think you're cool?

Think my family likes me wearing hats? just trying to bring a little class to NH... not sure how well it's working :)

2 Hats, 2 Scarves, a Purse & Shoes

2009-10-07T13:03:00.000-07:00

so many thoughts rolling around in my head... completely unable to process any of them. Perhaps I have been wasting the brainpower for a bit too long. I sit down to study and can not focus for more than 20 minutes. I tell myself I need to do laundry and I end up reading blogs or organizing my room. I go shopping with my mother so SHE (you heard me, SHE) can buy a purse and end up with two hats purchased! One a winter hat which will come in very handy and useful, but the other just so cute and perky. A perfect going out hat. Problem is I have never worn a hat out... Goal for October: Wear hat out! Here are my hats though!

I've been using Fitness TV these past few days to start getting my body back in

decent shape. And when I say decent I want to be able to actually do 20 crunches in a row or look like I know what I'm doing in pilates class. The point of this paragraph though is I saw one titled abs and got excited... turned out to be a Baywatch abs one. There were woman in skimpy bikinis, make-up, and long free hair telling me what to do and then after says hey! now that you've done this 15 minute workout you can go out and wear a mini-skirt. Good freaking lord. I like my instructors to be sweaty and gross just like me.

I have also been on a huge shopping spree...I mean ridiculous given that I don't have any money coming in currently but I've just been hitting everything right and when that happens you have to pick things up.

A gorgeous Coach purse (not real :)) and some fun cute looking clogs. A secret about me, I wear clogs ALL the time. I hate sneakers so in the winter this is all I wear. Thus finding a cute pair that can pass as work shoes as well is such a deal! And a girl always needs purses.

Two scarves. I love love love scarves, wear them all the time and am so excited that it is getting to scarf season again. The pink one has some thread work and is rather light. It can work as a summer or winter scarf!

Work out pants! I have been looking for the perfect pair of work out pants for pilates for so long! I am extremely picky though and will not buy one unless it fits and feels right. I loved these as soon as I put them on...now I only need to find a 3/4 length as well :)

alright, clean the kitchen time. I will not miss getting back to a living space where it's only a few smart, clean, females who clean up after themselves! This whole family thing is ridiculous!

Goodbye College

2009-10-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

After 4 fantastic years filled with friends, boys, swimming, booze, ridiculous drunkeness, hw, classtime, drinking during classtime, group meetings, working in the bookstore, booze, parties, apt parties, dorm room parties, "It's just coke!", etc I have closed the chapter on my higher education!

I've been crashing at my friends place the last few days and she is overwhelmed with loads of hw and classes...makes me think of the days we would lock ourselves in the library for hours upon end. Mini freak outs would ensue and then 15 min later you would be back at again. Because above all we chose to be there, we want to learn this. I have loved pretty much every second of my time in college, and out when I took online courses, but being where I am now I am ecstatic to be looking forward at using my brain and knowledge to do something real.

But being handed that degree....I am now officially a holder of a Masters Degree. Say what???

Note: I was going to have a lovely photo of the degree but my camera has decided to not turn on. I'm really really hoping it's just dead....

Happy Friday Everyone! My wkend looks to be fabulous...hopefully it just won't rain on us!

Red, Yellow, Orange

2009-09-29T09:45:00.000-07:00

My new favorite place at my home home. it gets an amazing amount of sunlight and very little wind so it is the perfect place to read and be warm even during these chillier fall days.

And using that as a segway fall is most def here, not even knocking on my shoulder anymore saying hello I'm coming. Nope it is everywhere around you here in good 'ole nh. Mom and I went hiking yesterday and it was absolutely gorgeous with all the red, yellow, & orange leaves above, below, and floating through the air. Though I do hate to say goodbye to summer the crisp fall days can be enjoyable and the colors of the trees are to die for. Every cloud has a silver lining or something like that right?

Countdown to the start of work begins tomorrow....26 days till adult time, 24 days till hell exam. 19 days till I move in to the new apt though!!! eek, and columbus day wkend should be a blast!

A list of Randomness

2009-09-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Chicago and it feels really great!

This weather is awesome. Warm and balmy! I'm very much enjoying the surprise indian summer and hope it lasts for awhile. :) totally not prepared for winter yet. I am enjoying the leaves turning though, sooo pretty driving around the northeast.

I deleted an entry in my phone the other day, felt like it was time. I'm not sure exactly what I'm hoping to come out of it, in fact kind of think it's silly now that I'm a few days into it, but I know I need to do something.

The seventh gabaldon book has finally come out! If you do not know the author Diana Gabaldon than you are missing out. It's this fabulous love story set way back when, all the books are very long but you just can't stop reading them. so excited!

I really need to start working out. Like really really really but I just have no idea where or how to even start. Very frustrating. I keep telling myself once I start working again and all that then I'll join a gym and stuff but I'm not sure I can wait a whole nother month. have to get motivated!

I'm out!

Excessive use of Exclamation Points!

2009-09-21T17:43:00.001-07:00

haha so i've been doing a lot of craigs-listing in the past few days b/c I am hitting up chicago the end of this week and will be a mad crazy apt looker gal! I have approximately 4 appointments set up so far and hoping for a few more! So excited! and yet stressed, cause meeting new people is nerve-wracking...i mean what if they don't like you!

but that's not the point. The point is it is interesting to see how people respond to my emails. I have a pretty basic email that I send out now, I've been doing this for a few months now. I know what gets the point across. But when someone likes what I have said I get exclamation points galore! and I mean after the greeting "Hey Hallie!" between points that they are excited about, etc. And it's funny cause i've found myself using it much more frequently as well because you really want to get the correct point across. I mean these are people that you just randomly found online. that elusive, you might be lying bout who you are, is this sketchy, are you sure you're a real person online. So I have been throwing these exclamation points around like it's the end of time and it is cracking me up. But I also feel like I get a decent idea of people through an email, which could be completely wrong. I mean I read into emails from ppl I know like the back of my hand, so why wouldn't I read into these ones by ppl I dont' know? but for some reason I am not, and I like it.

I can not wait to have my apt! hell yea after this wkend I have a very good feeling that I will know where I will be living for the next year or so. Lets all cross our fingers that it's true! thanks in advance.

Dirty Chai!

2009-09-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

I have found my new perfect, fabulous, amazing drink. This combination of two wonderful coffee-ish flavors are my two favorite things to get and now a little coffee shop in Hoboken has done the unthinkable. I'll stop raving now and tell you all what a dirty chai is. It is a chai latte with shots of espresso in it! yes ma'am, coffee and chai mixed. Good hot or iced, small or large.

now I'm sure this drink has been out there for awhile, that maybe many others have known what it is for eons now, but for me it is now my go to drink. I am even going to become one of those annoying people in the Starbucks line who takes a full minute to spell out their order. Yep, pretty exciting!

can you tell I have no idea what to post..... happy friday everyone!

Circles of Living

2009-09-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

I've been very interested in the past few months how I've been doing so many different things and every time I've been realizing how much I had missed this, or forgotten about this. It's like life just keeps bringing me back to places i've been before and yet I am different and view them all differently. It's all very new and fun, yet familiar and awesome because of that!

for example, I think I may have mentioned this before, but when I went on my roadtrip I had completely forgotten how fun it is to totally accept the dirty, hippy, nomadic life and become one with nature and the environment. To not care what is going on in the stressfull real world, so extremely to a point that I can go out in Las Vegas without showering for a few days and being grimy from the 3 mile hike I took that morning.

another one is how much I love my home in New Hampshire. It was a gorgeous day the other day and I was sitting outside on the newest part of our house, the backyard patio, that gets loads of sun and very little wind. Perfect for a cat-like human who wants to soak up some of the last summer rays. In fact as I type this I am hanging inside chilly because I went to get coffee earlier and tried to sit outside and read and it was too cold :( Back to the point, it was nice to experience again the complete relaxfullness of nh where you can be outside in your home and yet feel very peaceful.

And now I'm visiting a friend in Hoboken and I've been wandering around, he just got a new apt so I've been checking out the surrounding area, and I have forgotten what's it like to be living in a fun cool city. one of my favorite things to do while I was in Chicago was to just go grab a coffee and sit outside and people watch. Or just walk around the city. I love the interactions you can have with anybody and everybody. So diverse and different.

All in all this is a long-winded way of saying that I am very excited to get back to Chicago, to have a place of my own again. I do believe that my life is going to be very hard to choose where the heck I settle down. Nomadic hippy, country-bumpkin, city-gal....who knows!!? Guess that's the fun

Aruba Pics!

2009-09-10T14:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my favorite shots from the week. Jewlz and I are pretty much the only subjects :) In no particular order....

We tried out scuba diving! Jewlz is holding my hand cause she's nervous!!!! just kidding, she was a champ. I believe we spent maybe 30 minutes in the resort pool learning how to lose the stuff. We were so stellar he brought us right out after that and let us spend some extra time actually diving!

We played bingo one night. There was really not much night life around our B&B and the whole resort/casino thing is not our scene...so bingo it was! We were so bad, the old ladies sitting next to us were directing us what to do. LOL

Hint: If your plan is to hit up the beach for an awesome sunset and drinks...make sure you bring the bottle opener. Haha supposedly she knew a way to force the cork out, we obviously didn't have enough strength to do that.
This was pretty much our daily setup. A little shade, some towels, and a book. Jewlz had a book on tape the loser (I was just jealous) so she didn't even have to do the annoying lying positions that reading requires. I kept thinking up random things to say so that she would have to stop listening and talk to me. jk

We rented a car one day and had it for 24 hours. We got so tired out the first day (yes after three days of pure beaching it touring the island and snorkeling was exhausting!) that we decided to hit the hay early and check out a sunrise. It was gorgeous!

Ahhhh Aruba! If you ever need a place to stay check out Buffam's Tropical Haven! I swear, they are the sweetest people, make the best breakfast's, and their place is so cute it's over the top awesome.

Snorkeling, Scubaing, & Sunrises

2009-09-04T04:18:00.001-07:00

Over the past week jewlz and I have done lots and lots of beaching interspersed with everything in the title. Tuesday we did a resort scuba class where they taught us the basics and then we got to go on a 45 minute dive. I have scuba'd once before like 7 years ago, interestingly enough in Bon Aire which is very close to here, and absolutely loved it. Jewlz had never gone and so we def had to check it out. We dove in a rather commercial place, only up to 25ft and though I had a lot of fun and def don't regret it my memories of my Bon Aire dive are of much more color and fish everywhere! This was pieces of a ship that had been used for target practice so it didn't really look like a ship and it had started having coral grow on it and stuff and there were plenty of fish but it didn't have the vibrant color that stands out in my head from my first dive. But I do know that we dove on a legit coral reef so that's a major difference. All in all we decided we would love to do it again but certification is required so that we can do the interesting reef dives. Unfortunatly that is EXPENSIVE!

Then yesterday we rented a car and drove all around the island checking it out. We made a stop at one of the best snorkeling spots on the island and pittered around there for awhile. To get to the really good coral we had to swim out about 15 minutes and then it was low tide so we were floating over coral that was as close as a foot below us. You basically tried to just swim with your hands so that you didnt' touch anything! I was sucking in my tummy at points I was so close! It was AWESOME! saw so many cool fishes and the sea was a little rough so got a workout in as well. One of our host's friends brought us out and showed us around, they live right there, and she does it every day. I am supremely jealous, pretty fish, colors, water, and a workout. Perfection in my eyes.

After that we checked out the national park here and pretty much just wore ourselves out, so much so that by 9pm we were like man I really want to go check out downtown and have a night out but there is just no way I will make it. So we decided to hit the hay early and go see a sunrise this morning! so here it is now 7:30am and I have been up already for 2 hours...but the sunrise was absolutely gorgeous. We went to the tip of the island, by this old lighthouse where you could see the entire island laid out before you.

Now we will most def head to the beach at some point and spend our day reading, napping, and floating. Then maybe tonight we'll try that night out again...

Packing Woes

2009-08-31T20:47:00.001-07:00

From yesterday to next saturday I am staying in a fabulous little B&B in Aruba with one of my best's aunt and uncle. They decided to just up and move to Aruba a few years back because they had vacationed here and loved it and thought they would make it work by running an adorable little inn place. Their home has a main section and then three rooms that are available for rent. They make you homemade breakfast every day, have a great pool and sitting area in the back and the rooms are great. My friend and I lucked out and got the big room with two queen beds and a huge bathroom. guess it pays to know the owners! wink wink.

But yea, here I am packing for the trip a few days back and I was leaving my house a few days before our flight for some other adventures and I for some reason decided that no cords whatsoever were needed for this trip. Now I don't know about most people but I have an astonishing amount of cords that I carry along with me and though I remembered my laptop and phone chargers I ditched everything else! So that means my ipod hook-up, my camera cord, etc. So instead of getting the absolutely gorgeous picture that I took of the absolutely gorgeous beach that is an easy 10 minute walk from my room, you get this. A lovely wordy nothing post that does not make you picture envious or anything. I'm sad. Lol.

Packing. I manage to get it all into one suitcase and realize I've left cords, or I bring a huge ass suitcase and realize I brought nothing I need. Will it ever actually work itself out???? Does it really matter when all you're doing is beaching and relaxing it??? NOPE!

And here we go to the end of another August... And those pics...might come later. :)

If my life were a musical

2009-08-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

every once in a while I get absolutely obsessed with a musical and I watch it over and over and over again. Then once I get bored of the dialogue I start fast-forwarding through the boring parts to the songs that I love. Then once I get sick of just watching the actors/singers do it, I start bouncing all over the room singing the songs and rocking out. That is the same progression and it is such a relaxing thing for me. My two favorite musicals, Rent and Across the Universe. There is just something so incredibly moving about Rent and then Beatles songs put to a plot??? how could that not be fabulous?

sometimes I wish my life could be a musical. That at any tense/nervous/scary/angry times I could just burst out into song. I feel like it would be a great way of easing the situation and making things seem alright again. I mean maybe I wouldn't even be afraid of confronting people if I could just sing it to them! but alas, most people would look at me weird if I started vocalizing all my songs things. haha, I actually made up a choice few short songs during college that my roomies and others still use today! yes, they were very accepting of my weirdness.

I have to laugh at myself as I write this now though because in my apt searches I met with a girl who asked me if I had any pet peeves in a roomie and then she told me that hers was when people sing their conversations. I guess her old roommates would sing their questions and answers to each other just while doing normal things. I thought this was hilarious! I mean, it would totally get on my nerves but how funny is it still? loved it, and really that isn't at all what I'm saying. I would totally sing for real if I did it.

so, where do we end here...I think there should be a day where life just becomes a musical. One day and everyone around me sings. So awesome! though only good voices cause the bad ones hurt my ears :(

countryfest..who knew

2009-08-20T19:09:00.000-07:00

went to countryfest this past weekend and had a absolutely wonderful time tail-gating and when we finally hit the concert we were just in time for SUGARLAND! yes I am obsessed but man were they awesome and anyone who hasn't heard of them should def go check that out. Our seats were the very last row and we had all this space behind us to dance our hearts out. It was amazing. so after sugarland was kenny chesney and sometime during the break before him and getting a beer/mingling/being bored I started talking to this guy who as far as I was concerned was a spitting image of Channing Tatum. Now for all of you who don't know who he is here you go...

yes, isn't he just gorgeous. But seriously this guy totally had the same angled strong jaw. And height. good lord was he tall! now granted I may have had a few drinks but we talked and danced and overall had a good time. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The most annoying part was he kept trying to get close while dancing and it was so damn HOT! yes, I did not even want his arms around me. lol. but all in all it was a success, cause not only did I get to dance with a channing lookalike but then I got to blast rock music as we drove out of countryfest! can you imagine the dirty looks we got with that??? haha

Looking for a place to live....

2009-08-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

SUCKS!

so I am starting once again to look or a place to live when I come back to chicago and it is not going well. I really just want to find a place where I can be friends with my roommates and yet the place is decently clean and nice to live in. (along with having natural light, washer/dryer somewhere in the building, and an outdoor space) And yet, I can't seem to find that. granted I am trying to get this through craigslist which of course makes it hard enough but seriously....I just want a nice, fun, awesome place to live!

blah blah blah i know this is a ridiculous post, but I'm frustrated and tired of it... if anyone has any better ideas on how to go about finding a place to live in chicago please help me out!!!

Plans, schmams, and some Weather

2009-08-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir [women's] blood"

I'm reading Devil in a White City and the head director of works for the World Exposition, Daniel Burnham, was quoted saying this. I of course changed men to women because seriously, but I thought it was a very cool quote. Life is funny because even if you do plan it has a way of sending you off in a completely different direction but it's completely true that to make just small boring plans means you are living a never-changing life.

I make big plans but then keep them quiet so that if/when they change everybody doesn't know. But really who cares if my plans change??? It doesn't signify failure or defeat but just a curve in the road that I never saw coming. Yesterday I told ppl that what I really wanted to do down the road was be an investigator and be out in the field checking out fires that have occurred. Unfortunately for me, in my field a position like that requires you to have years of experience because you need to know EVERYTHING. But in 10 years or so I would really love to break into that. So there you go, my flimsy 10 year goal is out! And hopefully before then I change the focus of my job a few times...but that is a completely different can of worms.

As for now, it is HOT! I mean so hot I can't get out from in front of my fan!!! And my and the fam are going to head to the lake and chill on the boat for the day. Yessir! Wakeboarding please? Hope everyone finds a way to beat the heat.

How to kill a spider the New Hampshire way

2009-08-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Find a broom and boot

Step 2: spend 15 minutes gathering the courage to knock spider down from ceiling

Step 3: scream and run away when said spider is finally locked down

Step 4: carry broom, with attached spider, out to dirveway as quickly as possible

Step 5: smush, smash, & crush spider into miniscule bits and pieces

Coming home tonight with the sibs we found a HUMONGOUS spider in the corner of our porch ceiling. I of course had already seen this and tried to erase it from my mind because good lord do I hate spiders BUT my sister was unable to forget about it and insisted that we kill it. Now me being sensible and having many more years of experience in spider killing said no freaking way! that spider will jump off the ceiling, onto our heads and kill us with its freaky orangutang legs and fast crawling.

So after I have locked myself in the house (along with the dogs because what if it got on them??) they devised a plan to knock the spider off with a broom and then smack it with a shoe. Does anyone want to guess how long this took them??? like 20 minutes...and though the spider did end up being dead by the end (THANK GOD) they were utterly ridiculous making it happen. Picture a 23 year old hiding behind a front door with a crazy 16 year old jumping and screaming around and a silly 14 year old running around with a boot just making noise. Yes it is quite the scene.

*I would put a pic of a spider up just for fun but I'd have a heartattack every time I'd look at the post so now way jose!

That time of year :)

2009-08-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

I am 23 today! Yessirre I am moving up another notch on the 20 yardstick and it feels eh. There have been so many firsts this year such as trying a new area of work (in china!), beginning this whole blogging lifestyle (including writing & meeting other fellow bloggers!), completing my Master's degree, becoming single, accepting a fulltime job. Overall, so many that I almost got used to everything being new and nothing normal. Not a bad thing at all but very interesting.

But beyond all that, I have become so happy figuring out what I want and how I can make that happen. I also feel like I relax more and allow life to just happen! so all is good and now I have another great year to look forward too. who knows where I will be at the end of that!

So today I am going to treat myself to something pretty, maybe a lovely coffee and then go partay it up in the city tonight. Wish you all an awesome Hallie Birthday Day!

Texas Love

2009-07-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

When in Texas, do as the texans do and go two-steppin! Thas right ya'll, I am heading out to do the two-step. wish me luck!! Lets hope those numerous drinks just work to make me even more graceful :)

Tripping down the Road

2009-07-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

I finally found internet! uh huh yes I did!

Ive been on Jewlz and Hallie's road trip extravaganza now for about a week adn a half and finally convinced her to spend a night at a KOA campground so that I could get online. cause seriously here, I was jonesing.* And really only reason I was able to convince her? I had to finish a project for my class that is due thursday and we will not be getting back to internet till sat. AHHH! lol

guess i'll live though becuase we have been having such a fantastic time I can't even describe it. Thus far we have hit up

Yosemite

Las Vegas

Grand Canyon

Zion National Park

Bryce Canyon

Lake Powell/Glen Canyon Dam

Hoover Dam

Sunset Volcano National Park

Wupatki National Park

Are you tired? cause I'm tired just thinking about it! haha, but seriously we've even been able to get in a solid 2 hikes a day and not kill each other!!! :) I'll totally write more about it all and have pictures, cause yes I"ve taken a least a thousand already, but for now I need to go crash because my assignment has just been submitted and we are waking up early so that we can check out the petrified forest before driving to the Gila Cliff Dwellings! Then it's on to

Big Bend

The Alamo (San Antonio, TX)

Houston, Tx

New Orleans

Great Smokey Mountain National Park

Saco River, Maine

And somewhere in there I have to do one more project, and one more assignment before I am done with schooling forever! yes, this gal will have her masters, knock on wood. that whole thing is still surreal to me, not sure what I will do when I'm not constantly thinking about whne I have assignments due!

so anyway, keep enjoying that summer! and think of me sweating my life off on my fabulous, awesome, incredible hikes.

~Hal

*KOA campgrounds are really awesome chain campgrounds taht can be foudn pretty much anywhere and have all the amenities you could want. right now I am sitting out at our picnic table with wireless typing this up. trust me, this is not the norm. plus they have hot water, flush toilets, shower, laundry and really nice sites. All for cheap!

"It's like we're always stuck in second gear..."

2009-07-03T22:40:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning I fly out to LA where I will be spending the celebration of america's freedom with my two college roommates.

After that, after what will be, a fabulous party time, I start off on a road-trip with one of the fantastic roommates through the southern half of the US. Have to be back in Maine by end of July for a weekend of rafting/tubing our way down a river while camping with a pack of amazing swimmers! gonna rock that river! Getting home one night, I take off the next weekend for 2 weeks of the family vacation. Might sound boring to some but I love it! not too mention I am totally bringing a number of friends off and on which will be so fun!

so ultimately, the whole point of this rambling is I will be way off grid for the next month or so, and when I will be on, I will be finishing up this bitch of a class that I am taking. Can NOT wait for July 30th! From then on I am free and clear of the schooling shit, thank the universe! But I will also be having the most hectic/crazy/awesome next month and will not be up to posting/commenting/reading unless incredibly driven too. So live up the summer people! It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Beyond that as well, this post was supposed to be about friends if I remember correctly, at least when I started it was. And I know that cause I was watching an episode of friends when joey moves out of the apt cause all of a sudden he's a soap star, and then he and chandler are so sad about being apart. Episode makes me crack up every time...i'm that nerd who is obsessed with "Friends."

soooo anywho, know what tells me this is going to be a good month? not only do I get to see the two above I"ve talked about, but I saw this lovely lady just today as well and we had a great time checking out the taste as well as hanging about just chatting. This gal has made so many steps forward in life that are miles above where I am even close to and for a second there I was scared that maybe she had stepped too far ahead of me. But today has just proven that no matter where we are, or what is happening, she has always understood me in an impossible way (and vice versa) and we are gonna go strong through everything. Not too mention they might be moving out here in a year or so!!!! woot woot. And here to prove is a pic that got taken our freshman year, maybe halfway through the year. I didn't even realize how much this one girl would change my life or how important she would become, but man look how happy we look with each other already!

I think she looks gorgeous, and though I'm looking slighty chunky I think our shirts(jackets?) set our eyes off amazingly, not too mention us being fabulously coordinated. Anyway I love her to death and am so excited that I won't need to wait another 6 months to see her! And until then I'll be with the other amazing 2 roomies. How much better could it get!?

Sometimes I NEED to be alone

2009-06-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

I am done, and out, and so excited! This afternoon 6 wonderful men (aged far too young looking to work and far too old to actually be doing this as work) came and carried all my shit down the three levels of stairs and out to their truck. And now...

well after I did the sentimental part of leaving your apartment with the roommate...usually I appreciate that part but I didn't feel it that way this time. Basically this was my apartment that I was just nice enough to let my "roommate" stay here. I decorated it all, brought all the furniture, did all the responsibilities. Not trying to talk down, just the truth. So to me, after all that, it was my safe haven, my place of relaxation, my apartment.

And beyond all the moving and packing and planning, I was really looking forward to just a night of resting, catching up on my online life, and just being myself.

well no...tonight was my uncles surprise 40th birthday party. now however much I wanted to to celebrate with him, I just couldn't even find the energy to make conversation with the person sitting next to me. And when ur sitting with people you don't know that well (might have met a few times for short times) or with people you don't find attractive (yes that matters) it just doesn't seem worth it. not to say they are mean, not cool enough, whatever, it just means that at this night I don't want to play the game. It has been a very awesome and amazing month but it has also included a lot of meeting new people, talking to anyone and everyone, spending 24 hours a day with people... and all of that takes a LOT of energy out of me. It's exhausting to me to have to entertain, or make all the decisions, or make plans with other people. I do it...when I need to or when I really want to do something but ALL the time, I don't. and I don't like being forced into it.

This month, has had a lot of that. And I'm tired... I need rebooting, I need some sleep, and I'm going for it.

Have to add though, I absolutely loved meeting all the bloggers this weekend. I am amazed by the people I have already met through this community and can't wait to continue more. Almost sad I'm leaving for the next few months cause I won't be able to continue to be a part of it. I mean, my bookclub is reading my book suggestion. Lol. but really, I can't wait for July to start in 33 minutes but man, I need to gain some sanity tonight. wish me luck!

Michael Jackson

2009-06-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

rush, rush, rush and wait. that is what I have just done for the past 48 hours. I was lucky enough to be able to pack the entire apt by myself (whatever roommate) and it's been pack, pack, pack and then "shit" I'm out of tape and the closest store is a 10 minute walk from me, though now that I think Dominicks was closer...go me), so then I've collapsed, taken a little nap and then going. Ironically enough, this situation is very like my work and I love it! How weird?

So yea, I am sitting waiting for the wonderful movers to show up and carry everything I own down to their truck. slightly nervous....I've packed everything as perfectly and safely, and tightly that I can cause it's going into storage for the next 3 months + and I won't see it!!! This is the stuff I get stressed out about.... Just please don't break any pictures! or ruin my books! that's really all I care about, haha.

After that it's being a nomad for the next 3 weeks, rather excited!

As to this month of June, oh yes because if any of you have seen, it is the last day of June. ALREADY! I don't know where it went. I am actually finally able to sit down and process and a Michael Jackson story is on. And I want to watch it! So processing is getting shoved down, I will just sit back and remember a man who made revolutionary music and though had his problems, was one of the greatest icons in my life. I only wish he could have actually felt happy from all his amazing successes and life.

He almost made cute at times... :/

Family Party '09

2009-06-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

I've been very busy the past two weeks with numerous family obligations and then a few friend things. and though I call the family things obligations I don't mean them in that type of nuance even a little bit.

The other weekend I went up to my cousins place, which I have known and loved these cousins for years, but have never actually made it to their home. 1) because our grandparents had a wonderful lake house that they always came to every summer (and I always lived there all summer) and 2) because my dad HATES to travel. So ultimately one of my cousins got married in a rather fast wedding and my aunt had a party for him at their house. SO everyone went! and when I say everyone I mean everyone. See my dad's side of the family has not gotten together in years. last time I remember was my grandparents 50th anniversary and at that time I was still wearing an overall jean skirt outfit with a pink flowered shirt. (i was young) But all of my dad's siblings were there and their children, the only sad part was that my dad's parents weren't able to come, but the other grandparents were there! (who weirdly enough LOVE me, but that's a whole nother story). Anyway, their house is absolutely gorgeous with a pool, pool house, screened in porch. stunning! and to top it off their dog had just had 10 puppies! so ultimately it was a fabulous weekend.

The weirdest thing for me was to see how the generations were. Here I was, a 23yo, hanging out with all the adults, able to hold my own and actually enjoying it. Not too mention that all my cousins had their respectable boyfriends or girlfriends, and though I didn't have my own I had my own story of one who had just unfortunately had to close his time with me. And then I was looking at my parents and their generation and then my dad's brother and his close friends and then the grandparents of all and it was so fun to see how different and yet the same everyone is. We are all unique and yet there is that bond that you grew up with someone, or interacted with someone frequently, etc that makes you the same. Families grow and gain new traditions and have new traits and yet somewhere deep down in there u are the same. LIke I love my cousin B, and yet her sister is a mess. And I love my dad with all my heart, as well as his brother, and yet their sister is insane! it's all these intricacies and crazies that interest me when family reunions happen because who knows why all these changes happen.

All I know is I had a great time, puppies, family, and food. As well as congratulations to my very fun cousin Zach and his wonderful new wife Bobbi. You two compliment each other amazingly well and I wish them both the best!

Back to Reality

2009-06-16T12:43:00.001-07:00

Man alot of stuff happens when you don't have internet for a long time. I have been sitting in my living room for approximately 4 hours now and only feel like I have just started to put my self back together. Emails, bank/card accounts, bills, class, aahhhhh. haha. I also just spent almost an hour scouring craigslist while "listening" to my lecture...yea haven't heard much of the lecture but I have found a few prospects. and since I care more about where I'm going to live next than performance based design it seems a rather fair trade off for me. now I just need to catch up on my reader. oh and read a book for bookclub monday, though I have to get that book first....where's the library? and finish my current book, and go through my pics from this past week, and do homework.

Bah! I just need to stop thinking and go do!

The Craziness is Beginning

2009-06-10T08:56:00.001-07:00

I have decided to stop biting my nails. It's been a horrible habit of mine for my ENTIRE life and I have officially decided that I am sick of it. As of right now I have lasted over a week which is approximately a week more than I have ever lasted in my LIFE!
This article pisses me off! I mean more than I can even express. That there are still men out there who really think this just depresses me beyond belief because it is so untrue. And yet it can be true with BOTH men and women. It all depends on the person, not their freaking gender! I have been in a male dominated profession now for a year, and I went to a college that was mainly men and yes it is hard. But there is no question that I can do everything they do just as well or better in some cases. Argh ignorant people!
Almost related to that, I went to the NFPA conference yesterday and hung out at my company's and WPI's booth and had such a good time. I was so excited to meet new people, and see my coworkers, and I met the owner of my company and he knew who I was! I have this fear that I don't make enough of an impression on people at work cause I can tend to be pretty quiet but yesterday proved to me that I do! which is awesome! not sure if any of that made sense, but that's all I'm giving.
I'm leaving on a jet plane! haha, I'm shipping off to Bonaroo tonight so I will be off the radar for the next few days or so. I can NOT wait to get there and see everyone. I'm only worried about how the heck I am going to charge my phone and camera! cause I will of course be calling everyone I know to make them jealous if they aren't there and taking numerous pictures! Have a good weekend everybody!

Always carry a Camera

2009-06-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

I snapped this picture the other day on my way to meet up with a friend at Montrose beach. I sometimes let myself get distracted by the trivial day to day things and I always love when a gorgeous day like this can remind me why I love living in this beautiful city! To be able to go from a day of beaching it to a night out on the city is the perfect mix!

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow

2009-05-28T20:19:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of work! I have spent the past week getting myself all organized, transferring files to my personal computer, cleaning my desk, catching everyone up on the projects I've been running, etc. So much to do in fact that all of a sudden I'm sitting here tonight thinking "holy shit!" Tomorrow night when I leave work I will not be going back for 5 WHOLE months! Awesome!

And tomorrow...my day is, termination paper stuff, dealing with IT (which means sweet talking so I can keep my email hopefully!!), lunch with my team (which means long), and then drinks after work! wahoo! good way to end a very interesting year I say.

On another note: I love blogging and am not ashamed or whatever with it at all but I also don't tell everyone I know that I blog. As I've mentioned before I am not a great fan of my writing so for me to tell people I know in person that I have a blog only happens when I am completely comfortable with them. And though I absolutely LOVE meeting the bloggers that I have and want to totally keep doing it, it's different because they first knew me through my writing. so it doesn't feel the same.

but to get back to the point, every once in awhile someone I'm with makes a comment about "blogging" or they know someone who has this blog and it's just so ridiculous or horrible writing or whatever. Thus far I have only sat there quietly and stuff, don't want to jump all over them or something but I also don't really want to defend it because then I feel like you have to be like well I blog and you like me. so I always get stuck with what to do...I'm very proud of blogging and I think it's helped me tremendously even with just the short while I've been doing it, but I guess it's a sign that I'm not completely comfortable with it yet since I don't broadcast it...I dunno.

too important thoughts....I"m off work tomorrow and i'm soooooo excited! aaaahhhhhhhh

The Office is on..and

2009-05-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

over the past couple of weeks I've begun a number of posts only to end up staring at my laptop after a few sentences were given...i'm not sure exactly what is causing this or what have you but i'm just going to go

I've been having a few different occurrences with the other gender, all completely different and unexpected but it's been interesting to see my reactions to these. I don't really want to go into it so much because I still haven't quite figured out how/what I feel but I do know that I like where I am right now. single isn't so bad :)
Two of my absolute bests came out to visit me this past month (on diff wkends)! I in some incredible way got placed with them as my roommates at freshman year of college and lived with them for the next 4 years. I have no idea where that luck came from but these girls have kept me sane through all that gets thrown at you and known just exactly when to accept my craziness and join in on it!
Rockett & Me!!! 1st time at a SOX Game!!!

Jewlz & Me, checking out the bean!!! Yessir we're cool

Who the hell knew we would end up spaced across the entire country (1 in each timezone)? Miss them both like hell but have certainly loved getting to travel to see them. What great places we all live! I can't wait till I get to see them together in July!!!
I have 3 days left of work. Then after that I have 5 months of nothing!
Well not actually nothing, I will be finishing up my last class for my Masters as well as studying for a big exam all engineers need to take. But overall NOTHING!
I have a few trips planned out but am hoping to spend a decent amount at home and hanging with my friends out there before the real life begins. Until then I will be in the city here for the month of June hanging out so any chicago bloggers out there who want to hang out, during the day!!! let me know!
believe that's it....oh if chicago could get rid of this rain and send the gorgeous 80 degree weather back, you'd make me very happy :) kthx

Work = Stress

2009-05-12T13:35:00.000-07:00

Back in February or March or something my company did an employee survey so that we could rate the company and all that. I guess they have just gotten back the results because they have started sending out stress coping tips because, I'm assuming, that being stressed frequently was one of the biggest complaints. today's stress hints was "32 Stress Reduction Tips" from our current healthcare phyciatry company.

My favorites:

Get up 15 minutes earlier in the morning. The inevitable morning mishaps will be less stressful.
I'm sorry, but the only way getting up earlier in the morning is going to be less stressful too me is if I'm not allowing myself enough time to do all the normal get yourself ready things in the morning. I would prefer staying up 15 minutes later and doing things to prepare myself rather than get up earlier. Granted i'm that girl who snoozes for 25 minutes...

Get enough sleep. If necessary, use an alarm clock to remind you to go to bed.
Obviously! I would have to say that most of us probably dont' need reminding to go to bed and would willingly fall into bed some nights at 7pm if we didn't have those million and one things to do.

Be prepared to wait. A paperback can make a wait in a post-office line almost
pleasant.
YAY! I do this already. That's for all those people who make fun of me for carting a book wherever I go. :) Nothing to do with work stress though, I guess unless you're late for something and this line is making you later...but really is a book going to help you there? That's probably when the blackberry that's attached to everyone's hip becuase god forbid we shouldn't wait more than 10 minutes to answer an email gets pulled out.

Change in yourself what you do not like in others.
This will reduce my stress? or just make me a better person? and isnt' this really a lifelong goal, not an immediate one to reduce work-related stress

Yea, so though I think it's cool my company is trying to address the concerns that arose from the employee surveys I guess I just don't agree that giving out vague, common-sense tips like these that you can find in any book or whatever is really the way to go about it. Then again, I am also a person who believes an entire change in the paradigm of our current work scenario needs to change. I like the mentality that if you have work, you do it and it takes what it takes while if you don't you should be able to go. This whole at a minimum 40hr/week, 8-5 thing is CRAZY! But maybe this actually will help someone who hasn't ever taken the time to.....I dunno.

Work to live...not live to work right???

Brushing away the gloomies

2009-05-08T07:01:00.001-07:00

Happy Friday everyone! My last post was rather depressing so I'm not going to take a look at all the wonderful things in my life. Starting with...

I HAVE A JOB! A real, full-time, big person job that will hopefully allow me to do lots of traveling and contain a good mix of everything I want to do in my field. This job also allows me to stay in Chicago which I'm wicked excited about! I'm already thinking about where I want to move too, if anyone knows of someone looking for a roomate come October let me know! I'm so excited for a brand new apartment, which optimumly will have an in-unit washer/dryer and a roof top deck! or if not roof top at least an outside area that gets sun most of the day, my back deck right now is cute and fun but has a roof and thus gets sun for oh about 2 hours a day. Boo! I'm also not exactly sure what neighborhood I want to live in, I really love my little street but I think it's incredibly possible for me to find something slightly cheaper if I move to a different one. Any ideas from you Chicagoians?

This lovely job is allowing me to take off 5 months! before I start my real time. Now there are a couple reasons for this (finish my masters, take the FE) but mainly I will be floating around doing wonderful things and enjoying my last real time as a person with no responsibilities. And the best part! I get to do all this with money so I can actually plan trips. now if only I could forget about the silly little things like insurance and stuff. ugh.

thus, I have approximately 3 weeks left of work, 2 weeks left of my second to last class and.... i'm free!

I have also started the 30 day shred. It's going well as of right now, I don't find level 1 too hard so I think I'll probably only do it for about a week and then move on. I absolutely suck at push-ups which is the only reason I'm sticking with it for even a week. I really like Jillian though which is surprising because I usually never like the people who do these videos. but for some reason I find her rather motivating. We'll see if I still feel that way when it gets really hard...haha

alright i'm out, time to bust out some hw so I don't have to deal with it over the weekend!

who knows

2009-05-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

I accepted an offer for a job today which is really exciting and thrilling. But I feel like I let myself down and I am so angry and frustrated with myself. The offer was good and pretty competitive but it could have been better but becuase I am so freaking uncomfortable and awkward when it comes to being an adult I just threw it away.

And I hate that I'm angry at myself becuase the offer is great and far more than a lot of people make and it's more than enough for me to live happily and satisifed off of, but for some reason I am sitting here at my desk wanting to cry. I hate that I let myself get intimidated by men and people higher up than me. I hate that I worry so much about what others think about me and what they might say about me when I'm not around to actually go for what I want.

I failed myself today and even though I'm coming out of it with a great job I can't even focus on that point. At just want to go curl up with a glass of wine and a book and forget about everything.

you may have won the battle chicago

2009-05-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

But I'm going to win the war!

I stepped out of work today to POURING rain...and of course the one day I don't bring an umbrella. Every other day I cart my pretty blue and green umbrella around. I bring the big bag that it can fit in to work or around. I risk my shoulder to carry this umbrella! And today I get soaked.

But don't you worry chicago, you may have gotten me and the 1/4 of the city who were waiting in the armitage el station for the rain to abate. you may have tricked us with the absolutely gorgeous last weekend, but I've been reminded. And will now be forevermore prepared!

Bring it on! but not really cause I actually enjoy the sunny weather :) kthnx

A taste of the past 2 weeks

2009-05-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting because I haven't felt particularly inspired, not because things haven't been happening but because almost too much has been happening that I am having trouble processing or actually explaining. So I decided to post some of the fun happenings of the past few weeks and ignore the serious ones.

Saw this crazy duck at the Lily pond by the zoo this past weekend! It's like bright green and orange and makes me thing it should be someplace much fancier than a Chicago pond. Granted this city is great, but this duck is just a bit too cool for it. :)

I absolutely love the Boat Architecture Tour that Chicago offers. This was my second time going on it this past weekend and even though it was the exact same, I still wickedly enjoyed it. The fact that that truss thing on the front of this building is holding up that whole section is the coolest thing ever! Trains run underneath it and the truss is that dependable. AWESOME!

I was so happy with the weekend that my college roomate got when she came to visit. All we wanted to do was be outside and our wish was granted the entire weekend! But beyond that, all of the fantastic and beautiful flowers that CHicago puts around the city had started to bloom and everywhere you went was just awash in colors. Tulips galore! so enjoy these, I am absolutely loving the purpilish blue those one flowers are.

For earth day one of the companies in the building gave everyone little wheatgrass plants. We made fun of the googly eyes in the package when we first got them, but once I started growing mine I totally understood. I now have a little watchman who keeps me company during the day! This picture is from maybe 4 days ago and the grass is already twice as tall! Unfortunately it is getting gross inside the actual plastic so I might have to say goodbye to him fairly soon. :(

Even if you're drinking water, your drink can be fun! That is what we say here at PINT!

Life is "trying things to see if they work." - Ray Bradbury

2009-04-27T21:22:00.001-07:00

Junior year of highschool I did the unexpected and joined what we called "Mountain Classroom." It was a trimester long trip where we traveled out west by bus and did outdoorsy stuff things like rockclimbing, camping, hiking, etc. This was unexpected because I was one of the least outdoorsy, athletic person you would ever meet. I was forced to play field hockey and that was a challenge for me. But somewhere in the middle of sophmore year something clicked in me and I knew that I wanted to go and learn how to do all these crazy, completely out of the box activities, that I would never get another chance to in my life! So off we go...

One of our first stops was dogsledding in Minesota on the Boundary waters. Dogsledding was one of those crazy experiences that I would never in my life imagine myself participating in but as soon as I showed up and saw those cute dogs I was hooked.

Our group was about 12 people and only 2 could ride on a sled, we had two. So the rest of us had cross country ski equipment and would head out first to make the trail and then about a half hour later the dogs and sleds would follow. We only went out for three days, which meant that I got one day actually riding the sleds, but the entire experience was unforgettable.

I remember the day I was the sled master, it was me and my friend Josh, and the dogs were so excited and gung ho to go that you had to have the sled on its side and be sitting on it if they were attached. So we set off on our day and within an hour we are caught up with the group of skiers ahead so we yell "wooooaah woooaaaahh dogs" and they slow down just slightly enough that between the two of you, you use your entire body strength to flip the sled and then jump o it! I mean you would flip the sled and they still pulled it for another 100 yards until it stopped. Hilarious! and then they would sit there and howl until you let them run again. absolutely thrilling!

Every night we would have to make out entire camp which would include gathering fire wood, setting up our tents, digging a water hole (that's a picture of me doing that above), etc. It would take a good half hour to chop through the ice, just to get a little hole! And then you would need to expand it to be big enough to fit a bucket in. This was not my most favorite job, though it did beat carrying the big ass logs out of the woods and then chopping them up by hand! yes, this was one of the more physically demanding experiences of my life.

I remember the air being so cold that we would all huddle by the fire, close enough that the rubber on our boots would start pop and burn (shown below). These mornings were the only relaxing part of the day as the rest would include skiing to our new site, setting that up, preparing dinner, and going to bed, so it was one of our favorite times. Plus breakfast, usually hot cocoa and other warm substances were very welcome!

When we went to sleep at night, not only did we have one mummy sleeping bag, but TWO! you would fit on into the other and then cinch then both closed so tight that only your mouth would be able to poke out and get fresh air. Sometimes you would wake up in the middle of the night and get so claustaphobic because you couldn't find the hole! Creepy while ur experiencing it, but so cozy once you realized you were still warm and the air was freezing! The pic below is us seeing how it would feel at the Outward Bound base camp before we left.

Lastly, shown below, is a group shot of the fabulous people I shared this time with. And yes you really did have to wear like 8 layers anytime you stepped outside. :)

"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." - Charles Dubois

70 degrees + Patio seating + Chicagoians =

2009-04-19T21:49:00.000-07:00

Day drinking and Mayhem!

I got a new camera the other weekend when I was home so on Saturday I was so excited that not only was it time for the Chicago summer mentality but nice out as well! Quite the inauguration for my new fabulous point and shoot! This is my roomate and me causing a ruckus in the ladies room. For some reason we thought the day called for pastels, our other friend was wearing yellow. Not sure if we got confused and thought it was easter or what...haha

Also brought out to enjoy the first nice day was a confetti gun, numerous motorcycles, and people watching galore!!!!

Next weekend is supposed to be just as gorgeous and I can not wait! This city is amazing when the weather is nice. :)

Picture Wednesday

2009-04-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

on my way to work I cross one of the numerous bridges in chicago and today on a piling next to it there was a goose and huddled behind her were two little goose babies!! (chicks??) They were so cute, with like neon yellow fur! alas by the time I managed to extract my camera from my work bag they had settled down and gone back to bed. It was after all only 7:30am. who blames them.

So then I had an eye appt tonight which enabled me to get out of work early enough to enjoy the sunshine and it was actually fairly warm out. So once I was finished with the appt I decided to walk to the gym and get myself some Vitamin D! And lo and behold what did I see awaiting me at another gym. Yes, Mr. Goose. He looks so important.

And a fun view of the city with the absolutely gorgeous blue sky in the background! What an amazing sight to see in the city.

And lastly, a picture of my shadow. Haven't seen that in awhile. :) And for fun, that big building in the background is my gym.

Happy Sun Everyone!

Instead of my office, i'm imagining I'm here

2009-04-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

Because I am sick of what I am doing at work and all I can think about is how much I wish the sun were out and I could go lay out and soak up the rays once I leave here (living in dream world right now I know) I have made a list of the top 5 WARM places that I would absolutely kill to vacation in. In no particular order....

Thailand!
Not only does it have fantastically warm weather and absolutely beatiful beaches, but it provides a great touristy option as well. So for those non-beach loving people there will still be things to amuse you during the day! I am absolutely fine hanging on the beach day after day, but sometimes you do get antsy and it's nice to have the option to go see things.

Beaches to die for!!! AND thai food! though if they didn't have peanut sauce for real my love of thai might have to leave!

Kuala Lumpur!

Def not a place to go for beachy time, but after seeing Hong Kong I really want to check out this city! It's got shopping and touristy and it's on a harbor! gorgeous.

Hawaii!

I know it's a cliche but there's got to be a reason for that! :) I mean how fun would it be to get off the plane and be handed a lei (I got handed a bead string in Jamaica so this is totally possible) and then just go belly dance your troubles away. MMMM pina colada's on the beach. perfect!

Greece!

I have wanted to go to Greece since I can remember. My mom went when she was younger and the pictures I have seen from it, plus the stories, make it sound irresistable. Plus the ocean just looks fabulous! And I totally want to ride a donkey to wherever I stay! haha

And last, but totally the most important!!

Australia!

I will make it here and it will be like a month long trip where I pack a backpack and travel teh coast. Gorgeous and beautiful and seems so fun. plus I have never heard anythign bad about it.

Kangaroos!

Easter Wkend :)

2009-04-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

Happy easter everyone!!! I was lucky enough to go home this weekend... and it was amazing to see my family in every way. Meaning I was even asked the same questions over and over again but it was ok (and I think my family understands this so don't take offense). But it is good and wonderful and I love my family so much.

My sister is growing up! We have so much fun together and even though she is one hundred percent different from me, I think we are starting to understand and relate to each other. It's fantastic! It's hard to relate to a 15 year old teenager but I love what we have. There is def more to come but this needs to go up before we leave easter behind right? and since thats in 10 minutes....

Happy Easter, I hope it brings the hope of spring and new life. Everything is worth life. :)

200 Yd Backstroke, Flashback

2009-04-03T22:31:00.001-07:00

It was potentially the last race I would ever swim solo. just me, my arms, my legs, my soul fighting to make that time. I had a decent goal time in my head...nothing too insane like my coach had been pushing, just a time that would leave me feeling happy and proud and standing with hopefully a spot in the finals.

Buzzer sounds and I jump into the water, it's freezing and salty. One of my least favorite pools in our conference. Doesn't matter I tell myself, settle your mind and grab onto that wall. This is your race. The start signal sounds and we're off. Nearing the last lap, I don't feel as if I can move. My arms are exhausted, I can see my teammates cheering for me and yet, there's nothing there. I finish the race and look up at the clock. 2:23:26 ~3 seconds off my goal time, a good time overall, in fact 5 seconds better than my seed time, but nothing near where I wanted to be. Worst of all, I know this time won't bring me back for tonight. Ultimately I think, you just swam your last race and it sucked. I slowly look at the wall and gather myself together. "You will not cry, you will not breakdown. Just get yourself out of this pool and into the warm up section." I will myself to drag myself up and out, convincing my arms this will be the last thing they need to do today. My lovely teammates are there telling me what a great job I did. I hug the closest ones and then slowly make my way through the pack and to our bench where I drop my jacket. I dive into the warm up pool and the tears begin.

One by one I focus on making my arms continue to swim and drag me through the water. The tears are pouring down my face, luckily I can trap myself in the water and make myself believe it's not happening. I keep my face down until my lungs are screaming. Finally I lift my head and gasp for breathe. After awhile I feel calm and sane enough to get out and face my coach.

I walk over to our bench and grab my towel. As I'm drying off I hear my name screamed. I turn around and see my entire team coming towards me with huge smiles on their faces. I focus on the first three, Matty in the middle, Julie to the right, and Karen to the left. I don't know what's going on, no idea what is happening. They descend upon me, screaming and cheering and so excited. Deep down inside I start to understand that maybe, just maybe, the impossible has happened and I made it back for the finals. After the longest time hugging and screaming me they all pull away and Matt hands me the sheet. In some insane and incredible world I have made 16th position and I will be swimming that night in the finals. It's there in print, my name, with my time. I have another chance to do my absolute best. I look up from the paper and there is my coach. We hug and I've never felt more loved or special than I do at this moment. This group of people who are so incredibly happy for ME to make it back to the finals, even when most of them don't.

In the finals I race with my all and end up moving up a spot to 15th and cutting another half second off time 2:22:64. Overall I couldn't have done a better job and it is the perfect way to end

The relationships in sports teams can never be explained....I wouldn't change my experience for a second.

Wasting time at work.

2009-04-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

So the weather here is this lovely little city is 4o somethings for the next gagillion days!!!! Add to that rainy or snowy or wintry mixy and you have me going AHHHHHH! And yes, gagillion might be a bit of an exaggeration but really? Chicago all I ask of you is a nice 60 degree day or so this weekend. Perhaps a day when I can go sun myself in my lovely little school park up the street and begin to dream of days on the beach and summer cocktails in my cute little tank tops and skirts. Because I really could do with a bit of that fun.

Last night I was having dinner with my uncle at his bar and this limo came up and asked if they could shoot people coming in and out of the bar. Of course he said yes and very quickly like 10 girls all in tiny little dresses came parading out of the limo and came to stand in the doorway shivering uncontrollably. Cause you know....it was COLD out. I was sitting at a table in normal clothes and was cold when they kept opening the door. Geesh! But all I could think of was how wonderful it's going to be when we can be hanging out on the patio and enjoying the nice summer nights. And I ask myself yet again why I don't live in a warmer climate????

So come on Chicago, lets up the ante here and provide me with just one day that will allow me to continue through these spring showers. Kthanx!!

In other news
*one of my best friends just got engaged!!!!!!! She is one of the least likely people you would ever think to get married and I would have bet she wouldn't have even settled down with someone till like her 30's but hey, that's life. And I'm just so excited for her and can not believe it! I feel like she's passed over some life bridge or something. Here I am doing the single and being fine with it, and she's already living with someone and engaged. Crazy shite! But oh so fun :)

Future Stuff

2009-04-01T06:53:00.001-07:00

My internship is up at the end of May and I have/want to start thinking about what I'm going to do when that happens. I also really have/want to sit down with my boss and see what he is thinking come the end. I've heard lots of things from people I work with, but nothing at all from him. Unfortunately I suck at these things! I hate having to have talks and blah blah blah so I thought it might help me if I made a list of what I want to happen come end of May.

Personal

Pass my 2 current classes and finish the last class required for my Masters.
Take a few months off this summer/fall to finish my classes and have some fun
Decide upon a location of the earth that I want to live/decide if I want to stay in Chicago, unfortunately this will probably be determined by jobs available
Start looking into job opportunities, but where?

Work

I want to be out of the office and on-site at least 50% of the time.
I want to be more hands on and performance based design than code-consulting
I would love to be able to travel
I would like to stay with RJA if a position that fulfilled most of these wants was offered. Furthermore I would like to research different RJA offices to see what types of work they most frequently do. How does one go about that?
I don't think I want to stay in the actual Chicago office unless it's with International and I'm gauranteed traveling (frequently). Frequent travel, do you even feel like you're living somewhere?

All very vague and absolutely nothing concrete. That's the norm for me, unfortunately this is goign to be bothering me for the next two months....hopefully warmer weather comes to distract me.

Me and CG

2009-03-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

We've been pushing this last week here in Macau to get all of our testing and inspections done as much as possible because as of right now our contract technically ends at the end of MArch and not only are all of us travelers out here leaving but the actual Macau office is also losing some people to transfers and vacations.

What I'm trying to get at here is we have been working our ass off to get this stuff done which basically means that we are on our feet from 10 or so in the morning to 8 or 9 at night, walking around and around these casino floors. So around 7pm the other night I come back to our central meeting place to drop off some drawings and get some other levels and I get sent out with an escort who unbeknownst to me, until we get like a 15 minute walk out into the field, does not speak english. So here we are, trying to cover one of the more confusing floors that you keep needing to go up and down staircases to access different areas and the guy has #1 no idea what specific areas I want to go to and #2 can not understand what the hell I am saying to him when I try to tell him where I want to go.

Scene:

Just got to correct level (2M)...

me: so where are we on the maps right now? (not a weird question, they give us escorts whose job it is to lead us around)

chinese guy (cg): staring blankly

me: unfolds all maps, points to one. Where are we?

cg: staring blankly, then speaks chinese

me: I try to start comparing the maps to where I am standing and realize that I am nowhere near where I need to be. I try to point at map and show him areas I need to hit. unfortunately we highlighted the correct areas adn then realized that a couple weren't ready.

"Can you take me to these areas (pointing), the purple areas?"

cg: hahahahah, chinese chinese chinese, starts walking away

we walk for like 5 minutes till we hit a locked wall, cg stops and stares, as if confused that he can't fight his way through this locked wall. ultimately this continues for like another 10 minutes, he walking aimlessly with no idea where we are going (chuckling the whole time!), up and down stairs. Me tailing along getting more frustrated and starting to hyperventilate. Finally we go up another set of stairs and he stops and points to the map. I set it down and look around, there's a lift to my right, none of the areas I need to go have a lift. I check all of them just to make sure, nope I'm right. And then start to talk to him again.

me: I don't believe this is right, there is no lift on the map (me pointing at the lift and then the map)

cg: grabs map and points randomly at one section

me: there is no lift on the map! I don't think we are in the right section

cg laughing more, me starting to have a break down. Grab my walkie talkie and start speaking frantically into it trying to get one of my colleagues. Luckily I am able to make connection and they send out an english speaking guy who takes like 10 minutes to find us because my chinese guy is wandering around STILL laughing! Yea, this girl was never closer to breaking down in tears on a job before.... I mean, I know there is no reason for you to speak english but please stop laughing at me. I have been on my feet for easily 10 hours here and I'm exhausted! I just want to get this done, not walk an extra mile trying to figure out where to go.

Luckily it all ended on a good note with one of my colleagues sending me a funny text that made me laugh and the two great other chinese guys who came and found us knew exactly where they were going so we finished it up in like 20 minutes and my good mood was restored. But man, makes you grateful for most people knowing english.

sorry if this is not funny...I'm laughing about it now

Random rambings

2009-03-24T11:24:00.001-07:00

somewhere, somehow I played something wrong...not bad if I did, just weird cause I can't figure it out. Guess that's life???

I leave in like 4 days and as happy/excited I am to get home, I am pretty sad to leave what I am doing and go back to the land of nothingness... does growing up ever get easier??? I want to know my life decisions and that's it! haha, it's a wish right

btw: I do believe there is a huge monsoon going on right outside my window right now...

Where I pretend my blog is a girlfriend

2009-03-20T10:21:00.001-07:00

I am currently finishing my third week of being the lone girl in a very big pack of guys. This is a bit of an exageration because I am living with two other girls but they are both older and are the complete opposite type of person than I am. ie. I like to go out and have a good time where they both like to go to bed as soon as we get home from work. So even though they are around, I pretty much have only been hanging out with the guys I work with. And then beyond that I am working with these guys 12 or 14 hours a day and then head out at night with them because who else am I going to see things with in MAcau. Needless to say I am starting to hit that point where I could really use a girl around to just talk about girly shit with! I mean, I am fairly outgoing with what I say, and I've found these guys a lot easier to talk to than I could have ever expected but still! I have guy issues and I could really use a little chat session, face to face, about it! Cause it's fun! haha

So I am going to pretend that my blog is a girlfriend! don't believe I have any male readers(assuming I have readers here) but if so, turn away.

Point 1: I can not stand sports talk! I'll watch live games and other than that I don't care! stop talking it to me, stop trying to make me understand, let me zone out and let me know when you are finished. then I'll come back and join the convo! And going along with that please don't make me sit through an entire meal of sports talk. You have to have something else in your brain!

Point 2: Work talk should be left behind at some point! yes I understand we all met through work and we work ungodly long days but come on! you have to let go and relax at some point in the night.

Point 3: I really enjoy guys being courteous and polite and doing things like letting the girl go first and opening the door, but chinese men are so courteous (not even the right word) that it makes me feel like an idiot. When you are pointing out a huge ass hole in the floor to me so that I don't trip what could you possibly be thinking??? I don't see it! Give me some credit, after all I am walking around critiquing you! And when you open a door and then try to step backwards INTO me so that I can walk through first, it isn't courteous or nice, it's annoying! Yes I understand this is probably sounding incredibly bitchy but give me some rather ignorant american guys anytime! I may have to open my own door but at least I don't have an elbow in the shoulder every five minutes. Also along the same lines of thank you so much for thinking of me and bringing me a bottle of water in the field, in any normal circumstances I would love you for it as I drink water non-stop usually but I'm not you who can pull it out in any vicinity if you feel the urge to go, I actually need a bathroom which is miles away from me most of the time and I will not be going back to the office area for like 6 hours. I also am already juggling a notepad, pens/pencils/highlighters, maps, cellphone, and a walkie talkie. Do you really think I want to carry a bottle of water as well as we walk the 10 miles all over the site? yet again I don't have those fabulous big pockets guys depend on where everything fits! I have a hard enough time with my cell phone much less a bottle of water.

Point 4: STOP STARING AT ME! and STOP CALLING ME MA'AM! You will never know what staring is until you walk through a construction site with 10,000 workers and every single one stops what they are doing to watch you walk past! It's creepy and not so fun. And I'm not even calling myself that good-looking, I'm just the ONLY american girl on site. And then seriously, I am not 80 years old. please stop calling me Ma'am, it makes me sad. Madam is fine, I have had absolutely no misses.

Point 5: There are really no good looking guys in Macau. Unless you happen to know the Aussies who are here for work! And they are fun! But as of yet, I have only seen them in work. Which is not a conducive environment for having some fun. see previous post of hard hat, muggy weather, sweat = yucky hallie.

Point 6: Girls take longer to get ready after a full day of sweating your ass off! yes, it's true. deal with it and move on. You throw on a collared shirt and nice shoes. I have to make a whole outfit.

alright, I think i'm done. with the only major issue not being addressed but hey. only so much you can put to the internet! Like I believe I have said, I know a lot of this sounds bitchy and I totally understand that it is their culture and I never say any of this aloud to them or let on what I'm thinking but man did I need to vent!

One more week out here, then I go back to feeling absolutely useless in my chicago office. not good.... almost wish I were staying out here a little longer, weird to think but I think I've found the niche in this field that I want to make a career out of. maybe....who knows life.

UPDATE: Ended up staying in last night and catching up with 3 of my lovelies. So much happens when you fly halfway across the world! Felt wonderful though and I love all my peeps so much!

Hong Kong

2009-03-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we got a completely unexpected couple of days off from work and decided to jump at the opportunity to check out Hong Kong. HK is only an hour or so ferry ride from Macau and we had all been itching to get over there and check it out. I was waffling a little becuase I still feel like there is so much that I haven't seen in Macau, but then again, unless I come back out here for work, when am I ever going to get the chance to get over there. So off we went. Well let me tell you, HK is like no place I have ever been too and is absolutely amazing. It reminded me of a mix of NYC (the amount of people & atmostphere & amount of stuff everywhere) and then a little of Amsterdam. We went to this place called Lan Kwai Fang which shuts down the streets at night to cars and becomes an outdoor party place where there are just loads and loads of bars. On top of all that, the city is built on hilly islands so when you are driving around you feel like you are on a roller coaster.

The amount of people who were out completely blew my mind. Walking around the city was not walk and view the sights around you, it was a defensive exercise where you were bobbing and weaving to escape the throngs of people coming straight at you. Not to mention the fabulous people who walked at snails pace. I swear if you weren't actively trying to walk and just following the crowd it could take you 10 minutes to go 5 feet. I'm not sure how any locals every actually make it anywhere in decent time.

On another note: The Macau Tower is the highest bungy jump offered in the world and it is right next to where I am staying. In fact the picture offered in the earlier post is the tower I am talkign about. There are two guys here who have been planning on jumping and I'm seriously considering joining them.... Absolutely crazy! and yet not really something you can pass up right?

I've been

2009-03-09T08:21:00.001-07:00

I've been here...

in Macau, being this (literally I was a relay over walkies today)

and climbing this (totally had to go like 100m over the floor to find sprinkler heads and make sure they were positioned correctly. I went because no one bigger than me would even possibly make it).

That is scaffolding made of bamboo by the way...fantastically not sturdy. haha. I don't weigh much more than a small chinese man, so when he went first and didn't fall I was fine....that was what I told myself.

And finaly looking like this...

yea, humidity sucks here and my hair is freakishly curly and spastic! doesn't make for a nice looking hairdo when you have nice angled bangs and stuff. Throw a hard hat on that and it's the picture of beauty! :)

having a blast and learning so much on site though, work can actually be fun when you aren't stuck behind a freaking computer all day!!!!!

Have a good march everyone, does not seem like I will be posting much.

Flying across the World

2009-03-01T00:55:00.000-08:00

I embarked from Chicago, Il at 11:20am on Sat February 28 and I arrived in Seoul at 4pm on Sunday March 1. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the way time can be so fleeting like that. And yet, it's not so much. I mean I did spend 14 hours on a flight before I got here which in all truth can be considered a pretty long day in normal terms. At least as long as you aren't considering going out at night and partying. And the best/worst/crazy part is, I still have a 4 hour flight until I get to my final destination. The idea of how long it takes for me to get to Macau amazes me and yet I'm happy that it is such a monumental effort. With all of the great technology we have a person can get to London in the same time they can get to California (from the northeast) and I feel like sometimes we get a little jaded in our thinking. I mean California is far away but it's still the same country as other states, but London, totally different! And yet the time it takes to get there, minus your jetlag, is equivalent. So I like that this is big, though I will be exhausted come monday morning, all yours sunday afternoon/evening! WEIRD!

I've been resisting changing my watch, partly because they do universal time over here which I have to actually think about and partly because I like looking and being like ooh it's 3:08am back home. Wonder what everyone is doing...haha sleeping but still! I've dealt with time differences before both with myself being away and with others being away, and it's odd but for some reason I feel very much like this is going to be different.

I'm rambling, wasn't able to sleep much on the plane so right now I desperately want to be in a bed and not some uncomfortable airport chair. hope all are having sweet dreams....mine have been extremely vivid the past week or so...very trippy

Los Angelos...not what I expected

2009-02-24T20:58:00.000-08:00

A couple wkends ago I went to LA to visit one of my fabulous college roomates, ROCKETT!, and to wishfully enjoy the nice weather that is suppossed to exist out there. Though I did not get the nice weather, haha, it was still warmer than Chicago and I was with fabulous people so it did not matter in the least. I also thought I'd put up some pictures because my last few posts have been rather boring and no run.

Me enjoying the beach even though it was slightly chilly and rainy. I absolutely loved the LA beaches. They were so wide and open, flat and amazing. We got to watch a sunset on sat night and the colors were gorgeous! Unfortunately my camera had died by then or you would have seen a shot!

We took the time to travel up to Hollywood and walk Hollywood Boulevard. It was very dirty and not really as glamorous or cool as I expected it to be. I mean they have celebrities there all the time and yet it was just blah. Fun to walk around though, great people watching.

Here are us wonderful three, hanging out at Santa Monica Boulevard. We lucked out that after driving around all day seeing the countryside the rain decided to stop enough to allow us to walk around. We then followed that up with Happy Hour at a fun mexican place. Appropriate pictures do not exist!

Here's me and my friend posing with muscle beach. I think it's been awhile since I tried to make a muscle cause I decided it would be more fun to just pose. ish... haha. But muscle beach dude, you have to work it. We also did many other fabulous things but I will leave you with these. Just to set your mind at ease, I did actually see the sun while I was there. :) These pictures just don't suggest that.

Energy? Emails? Deleting?

2009-02-23T21:35:00.000-08:00

I opened up an email tonight from a completely unexpected person and completely burst into tears. It was an incredibly surprising experience for me as I don't think I've ever been so affected by a simple email. I was literally sobbing and shaking, and while it only lasted for about 10 minutes it was very intense. After I finally calmed down I really had no idea what I wanted to do with this information that I had just received and all I could think was oh my effing god. This does not & will not make sense at all because I have not given any details whatsoever about the whole situation, but I feel like it's interestingly enough tying into this crazy energy field I have had going on around me the past week or so. I mean the fact that I just immediately burst into tears after seeing two words is crazy enough when it comes to me.

But to explain energy, on sat morning I woke up and went to see something online and my safari opened up and then immediately quit on me. I didn't touch it, try to put in a website anything. It loaded the apple page and then kaput. So I tried a couple times, installed some updates, restarted, etc. still nothing, zip nada. I had to bring my friend touristing so I put it down and thought maybe it just needed some time so when we got back to my place after I tried again and nope. Biting the bullet I called up an apple support number and after close to 2 hours on the phone it ended up that something had happened with my account and I had to delete it and lots of other crazy computer shit. Luckily I did not lose any of my pictures or music so I was cool with it.

Then at work today, I went to open up a Microsoft word document (2007) which I don't have and all of a sudden the entire program crashed on me. After going and finding the lovely IT people they worked on it for about an hour or so it turned out that something was wrong with MY ACCOUNT on my work laptop. LIke for real???? Yet again though, I lost no settings or documents. I almost thought like maybe I should delete and reinstall myself...i mean that's the only thing you could get from that right? To which my mother said...yea that would be dumb, you should not get that from that! haha. But looking at what my night has been like I feel like maybe I shouldn't think about deleting myself, but maybe taking a look back at what I've gathered in my 22 years and bringing it forward into right now. Renewed and reformatted.

My mother is currently in Sedona, Ar where I guess there are big energy vortexes and she said that she went to a consultation the other day and the Shama?? or whoever kept seeing me while she was diagnosing my mother and letting her connect with her inner child. And I had to laugh at that because while my mom is trying to find her inner child I feel like I am fighting to find the professional young woman who is going to succeed in her chosen field.

Eh, lots of energy and finding talk here, even after it I still don't know exactly what I am thinking, I do believe though that it ties together somehow. But now I am off to bed, after not doing nearly as much to prepare for Macau as I would like, haha, but it was a good night. Let's just hope I'm able to sleep now....

On a thank you note: While I was walking home from Target tonight (with 4 enormous bags...I need lots of things for Macau) a lovely lady stopped and offered me a ride down to where I could catch my bus. So thank you Jeanette, and your lovely daughter Sophia! It was awesome to not have to walk in the freezing cold!

NEWMACS: GO WPI

2009-02-20T13:14:00.000-08:00

This weekend is the Women's swimming championship for my college swim team and I've been sitting here at work looking at the results as they go up. THey are taking place at MIT this year which has the most gorgeous pool in the entire world (ok maybe the olympic beats it) but seriously it is absolutely amazing to swim in. Anywho so my old team is there and though most of the people I still know, a lot of the girls are new so I really only care about a couple people.

Couple things you should know, my school is D3 and we compete against a couple D2 schools when we go to this championship. We are also a very small team, think 15 girls instead of 40,becuase it's an engineering school so girls have really only recently been integrated and the swim team has only started getting recognition in the past 4 years since we got a new coach and swimmers have been getting better. So thinking about all that:

I want to put out a loud shoutout to my favorite girl, Karen, who landed in the top 8 for the 200 im and her time was right on her lifetime best. Which in swimming is an extremely hard thing to. Usually your lifetime bests happen like once and then you never get close to it again so for her to do this year, her senior year, is so great. I am seriously sitting here at work freaking out because I am so happy and excited and proud and giddy and sad becuase I'm not there!!! My friend Tiff who has been checking the results with me is going up there to surprise Karen tonight and it makes me so sad that I can't be tehre to celebrate with her. And for her to make it back when there are like 40 swimmers is so fantastic. Our team usually only has 1 or 2 people each day who get to go to finals and for the past few years it's been her and me so I feel like I should be there to walk to the bull pen with her and blah blah.

Regardless!!! I am jsut estatic for her and will be sending many many happy and congratulatory and good luck thoughts out to my favorite swimmer as well as the rest of the team and the fabulous coaches!

Ramblings

2009-02-11T20:45:00.001-08:00

I'm off to LA tomorrow night and I'm sitting here looking at my tiny little carry-on and wondering how the heck I am going to fit everything I want to bring into this TINY ITSY BITSY suitcase. It's mocking me lounging in my circle chair, also known as a pop-a-dom. totally not the right spelling but it's how I think it. But back to packing, I have all the clothes I want to definitively bring and surrounding the silly bag, but I keep thinking of all the other clothes that are hanging in my closet, or relaxing on my floor and I want this, & this, & this.

Then the logical part of me kicks in and I say, how long are you really going to be there silly. Two full days + a half, ultimately. So if I were to break things down I would need 3 bottoms and 3 tops plus some layers in case it's cold. But let's multiply that a bit because night outfits are always different. So now we're up to about 5 different bottoms and tops. I probably have like 10 tops, 4 bottoms (ooh I'm below on that one!) and than 4 pairs of shoes. Because shoe's are a must.

So then I think, well I was going to bring my purple purse, but maybe I should bring my big black bag and then I can fit more in. And ultimately I don't want to do anymore tonight so I'm going to be stuck doing it in the morning....bah! packing is the WORST! whether it's long, short, fun, whatever. SUCKS!

But on better news, I officially passed on my projects tonight...a little bit tomorrow morning but in essence I finished and succeeded and satisfied everyone. Well sorta disappointed the customer, but it totally wasn't my fault. Planes got delayed, internet connections didn't work and everyone just lost out. But I'm excited cause I did it! And now I have to spend tomorrow catching up on all the class work I've been lacking on! Which reminds me, I do need to do my taxes sometime soon.....bah, it's never ending. haha, gotta love it

btw, the wind is going nuts outside my window tonight!! keep thinking someone is banging drums or something!

Cute shoes & Work Woes

2009-02-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

For the first time since I have started my job I have been steadily busy and man does it wear you out. I have been going through a steady 9 hour day, cause I don't really take lunch, it's just not me. If I'm at work I work, becuase I would rather not be here just hanging out, let me leave an hour earlier. Duh. haha Though I did take a very long lunch break last week and went shopping with some colleagues. Sometimes a girl has just got to shop. And I got the cutest pair of ankle boots, shown right here, which I am actually wearing today!!! They are fabulous. These aren't quite the ones I have but they are the same color, and the zipper is there, though not on both sides, not like you can even tell that but I am still at work and don't want to search anymore. Plus the heel isn't as tall. Alrgiht back to my real thoughts.

So being busy as work has actually been a real thrill, and it's made me a lot more comfortable with everyone in my office because I was basically told to design an entire automatic sprinkler system and fire alarm system. I've had classes in this, but the professor absolutely sucked and even though I passed I never actually understood the whole entire process and what I did understand I knew was wrong half the time, but he just gave me a slightly bad grade and went on his way. I am not a fan of him, if you can tell. So here I am designing this entire system for a fairly large building, not only with columns and roof obstructions, but skylights too. Which let me tell you, is a bitch is design around. Sprinklers have all these restrictions where they can't be too close together or too far apart or too close to this wall or this stuck out random mechanical thing. It's a major headache, but also kind of cool because it's puzzle like. Which I've always enjoyed.

So here I am doing this whole thing by myself which meant I went out and searched down the prominent sprinkler guys, and then the well-informed fire alarm guy, and talked to the CAD technicians and generally just took help from whomever was willing to give it. I also had to talk to the client becuase he is getting these drawings close to a week later than he requested, which were fine, that's how things work in this business, but I hate confrontation and not making deadlines. It's frightening! Luckily everyone was really nice about it. Even the Vice President of the company who had to review my drawings and see all of my stupid intern mistakes. Yea, it has been one hell of a last week and a half, though I truly don't think it's over either, but I do belive the worst is past us. And through all of this, I have learned how to design and present a working, intelligent, professional sprinkler and alarm system so it's def been a really great experience, it just really makes me wish that the cliche of getting thrown into the pot with no help wasn't true. though I bet by the end of the week I'll look back and see all the help I got, and be glad that the girl who hates to talk to 1) people she doesn't know, 2) people on the phone, and 3)confrontation had to deal with all of it. And is better for it???? I still dislike talking to people on the phone, if I know them or not.

Sometimes...

2009-02-04T23:06:00.000-08:00

I wish you could just get everything you want. No matter how it affected others, or what is caused, or what it meant. Or what it did. Just that you could have what you wanted, when you wanted it. Maybe that feeling is always why I've been called a princess???? (And you know, as long as it wasn't killing, hurting, maiming, torturing others....more? i'm out)

Still wish it would work. :)