The proverbial other shoe

Look at me, all over the shoe theme!

Today's post:  the exciting (?) conclusion of my list of 25 Things You Must Commit To Memory. 

14.  I will not work on my birthday.  Ever.  I think I got used to having the day off for it when I was in school, and then when my career took me back into education, it just stuck.  I started my new job a couple months ago and one of the first things I did was to stake out that day on the vacation calendar.

15.  I.  Love.  Sandwiches.

 "What is Joey's favorite food?"

"Sandwiches!"

Ross & Monica (David Schwimmer & Courteney Cox), Friends, "The One with the Embryos"

I love 'em.  A BLT is damn near a perfect food.  My panini press is my favorite kitchen appliance.  I'm also a big fan of creating my own combos.  Creamy peanut butter pairs surprisingly well with some weird stuff... crisp dill pickle chips; salty, smoky crumbled bacon; extra sharp cheddar cheese.  Yeah, I know:  it sounds gross and makes you wonder if I'm pregnant, but it's not and I'm not!

16.  Speaking of NOT KNOCKED UP I SWEAR, I don't have the baby fever just yet, buuuuuuut... I'm fairly certain I'm going to be a kickass mom.  I'm one of those people who genuinely enjoys being around her family and I'm excited to pass that along.  The best part (J please stop reading for a sec) is that J is the same way; his two brothers are his best friends and all three of them are fiercely protective of their little sister... so it's like I already know he'd be good at it too.  (OK J, safe to start reading again.  Thanks love!) 

17.  The reason I don't have the baby fever is that I enjoy being the combination superhero/bad influence far too much for now!  Exhibit A:  I may or may not have bought a drum set for a five year-old once.  Just saying.

They were Spider-Man drums, which made them even MORE badass.  

If a five year-old could say badass without getting scolded.

18.  I read a lot.  A LOT.  At last count I had more than 175 books.  (It was super fun to move them to the new place.)  I dated a guy in college who finally stopped going to bookstores with me because "we walk in and [my] eyes glaze over and [I] stop paying attention to [him]."  My shelves hold classics, chick lit, historical fiction, memoirs... the occasional guide to "bettering yourself"... and they're all embossed with my "from the library of" seal. 

19.  Speaking of that name embosser:  I love my middle name.  I am very particular about how it's spelled; my way is lovely and classic and the other is not.  Get it right.

20.  I almost got married once.  Like, "two weeks to the Big Day" almost.  Not going through with it was, at once, the scariest and bravest decision I've had to make in my entire life.  He's a good guy... just not the good guy for me.

21.  That little factoid is what I meant when I wrote in the first half of this list that it's nice to start fresh.  Yes, it was a big deal once upon a time, but now it's just something that happened.

22.  Runaway Bride is one of my all-time favorite movies.  *SIGH*  OK, peanut gallery, knock yourselves out.

23.  I went to an all-girls high school.  AND I LOVED IT.  We made t-shirts that said "Panther Football:  Undefeated Since 1923!!"  We didn't bother with daily make-up and ponytails were the de facto hairstyle.  More than that, though, we were immersed in an environment where women held the leadership roles.  We could ask questions without worrying what some boy would think; we were encouraged to push ourselves and stretch past the status quo.  When I got to college, not only was I incredibly well-prepared for the academics, but also, I realized that I was equipped to hold my own in any social setting... which is more than I could say for some girls, used to deferring to guys.  I know the Elms is largely responsible for my savage independent streak!

24.  Sure, it was all girls during the school day... but that didn't stop me from going to four different senior proms, at four different schools, with four different dates.  HEY-OHHHH!

25.  Live theater brings me to tears every time.  I've seen The Phantom of the Opera, RENT, Wicked, Les Miserables, The Lion King, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat... and the list of shows to see is growing as quickly as I can cross them off!

Phew.  So there you have it.  Hope you enjoyed Volume Two!

I'm gonna need a bigger Easy Bake Oven.

"I'm gonna be the mom that makes the world's best chocolate chip cookies!"

"Our kids are gonna be fat, aren't they."

Monica & Chandler (Courteney Cox & Matthew Perry), Friends, "The One With Phoebe's Cookies"

All right.  I will be the first to admit that this is ridiculous and a completely selfish and irrational reason for wanting to have kids, but... LOOK!

nom nom nom

And LOOK!

 

That is a CAKE!  Made to look like LEGOS!

Somebody around here better start having babies, because I am just DYING to get them all sugared up with this cute crap.

*finger on nose*

NOT IT...

Why Rachel should seek help: Exhibit C.

"Well, the end table is wrong, the couch looks bizarre and don't even get me started on the refrigerator magnets."

"If I want something done right, I have to do it myself.  Other people just wreck stuff! ...I really think I might kill someone tonight."

 - Courteney Cox as Monica Geller, Friends, "The One Where Phoebe Runs"

So, the move this weekend.  

First of all, I'm going on record to say that I will never, ever again attempt to move on my own.  The movers met me at the condo at 8:30 Saturday morning, gratefully accepted the proffered Krispy Kremes, loaded up all my furniture and hit the road.

A brief 90 minutes later, I was signing the "job complete" contract and sending them along their merry way.  You can't put a price on that kind of speed.

But lifting and hauling a king-size bed, dressers and a full living room set?  That was the easy part compared to what lies before me now.

Dude:  I HATE moving.  I'm seriously contemplating burning all my stuff and just buying new the next time I have to uproot myself.  It would be a lot more expensive, for sure, but what I'd spend on kitchen items and linens would save me a bundle in OTC sedatives.

The boxes are beating me.  

I had to put myself in time-out on Saturday afternoon for a nap, after the project of reattaching feet to the couch almost had me in tears.  J sweetly suggested that I wait for him to help me but NO I CAN DO IT MYSELF AND I WANT IT DONE NOW AND I JUST... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 

I love you, naptime.

I'm sure you can tell that I'm exaggerating just a tiny bit.  The nap did wonders for my morale; I only had to rearrange the living room four times to get it exactly the way I want it, and now that I'm almost completely settled in, the place is starting to look and feel like home.  Which was really the whole idea to begin with, so... point Cbus. 

Well played.

You're so pretty when you're quiet.

I used to write a lot.  A lot.  I was in creative writing competitions in middle school; in high school, I kept a journal on a 3.5" disk that I carried everywhere; I created a website one of my first college classes.  I even hounded my favorite professor to let me into his classes when they were overbooked.  One was a reviewing class for budding theater and film critics.  

Movies and telling people what I think?  I like both those things!

Somehow, though, I let it get away from me.  I was too busy, or there were reruns of Friends on (again), or I just couldn't think of anything "good" to write about.  I have dozens of blank notebooks and journals with just five or six pages filled.

This blog is part of a renewed effort to get back into it.  I'm tickled that you're reading! ...but even if I were out here on the interwebs alone, I'd still delight in each entry.  

The second part of that effort is something called a gratitude journal.  Oprah has talked about the concept on several occasions.  Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance, places great emphasis on using gratitude to find your "authentic self."  

I love that word:  authentic.  Real, true, genuine.  

So I've started one.  I bought a pretty blank book (#417, I think) and I have it sitting right out on my nightstand with the clock and my glasses and the omnipresent water glass, where I can see it every night before I go to bed.

It started out simple enough; I just wanted to keep some quick daily notes on the things that make my life more beautiful.  In the short time I've been logging them, though, I've discovered that it's given me one more thing to savor:  five minutes of quiet every day! 

Just making myself sit still for a hot minute is something worth noting.  I'm one of those morning people who is go-go-go from the moment my feet hit the floor... but at night, when I'm clocking out on the day, that split second of quiet is priceless.

(And yes, today's title is something J says every now and then... right before he ducks the punch I throw at him.)

Some girls have all the luck.

 

...and I'm not one bit sorry about it.

J is the boyfriend.  He's cute, if you like that "former college athlete-smarter than your Calc prof-takes you to chick flicks without rolling his eyes" type.

Which I DO.

We've been dating just this side of a year, and for the first 10 months we lived two hours apart.  Then, through the magic of new jobs and U-Haul trucks and an inhumane amount of packing tape, I moved to his fair city a month ago.

And it. Is. Awesome.

The best part about it is that I would have moved here even if not for J.  I love my hometown.  Northeast Ohio kicks ass and anyone who says otherwise never had ME for a tour guide.  But there's something... something about this city that just draws you in and makes you want to know everything about it.  I'd tried to move here twice before but never got the timing right:  I was looking for a paycheck, not a career, and I didn't know which were the "good" neighborhoods, and I only had one or two friends in the area.

Now?  I've landed a job that makes perfect sense in my life, both professionally and personally.  In two weeks I'm moving out of my temporary home at a friend's house and into a lovely little apartment (with my first ever walk-in closet! *SIGH*).

And my boyfriend, my best friend, is here too.  

Before, with more than a hundred miles between us, we had to actively plan out our dates.  Weekends were too short and it was An Occasion every time we got to see each other, since those times were always at least five days apart.


Now?  Weekends are still too short, but it's not as important because we don't have to cram a week's worth into them.  

"If I haven't said it before, she's a lucky, lucky lady."*


Friends, season 8 #15, "The One With the Birthing Video."**

**See?  Told you.

The One Where Rachel Starts Her Blog... No, For Real

Remember that episode of Friends, "The One With All The Resolutions," (season 5, #11) where Rachel resolves to gossip less and swears that she always keeps her resolutions? And Monica TOTALLY punks her out by grabbing the diary Rachel started the New Year's before and reading it aloud to the group?

"Dear Diary, I'm so excited! My resolution is to write in you every day. I'll see you tomorrow!" (fans the pages) "...NOTHING!!"

Yeah. Guilty as charged.

But here we are, after getting through a pantload of changes over the holidays, and now is as good a time as any to get to bloggin'. And of course, now that I've said it out loud on the interwebs, I have to stick to it.

Be warned: the Rachel Greene references? I've got a million of 'em. The way I see it: they used my name, I'm totally gonna bogart her scripted wit. (*DISCLAIMER: I'm usually witty enough for two - or three - but us real-life Rachels are allowed an off day now and then.)