it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...

so i guess christmas is around the corner! it always seems to sneak up on me, christmas. but it's exciting. tonight it's the family and fondue, which sounds promising. becca's starting to get sick though and she's still housesitting whereas i am feeling pretty good and having to take care of the zoo here at the apartment toute seule...i might hang out with her, which sounded fun a few days ago but now that she's sick doesn't sound quite as positive an experience. then tomorrow i am definitely a happy girl because tomorrow is actually CHRISTMAS which means CHRISTMAS BREAKFAST AND MIMOSAS. seriously, i don't even need presents, as long as i have breakfast. christmas breakfast is always the bestest. that almost rhymed and yes, i intended for it to do so.

nate also comes home tomorrow, which makes me even more happy, because even though i like having alone time, to an extent, i miss coming home to my best friend every night and i don't like coming home to such a quiet apartment. it will be a relatively short reunion though, as i have to get myself down to hilton head the day after christmas for a short and sweet grandparent visit...evidently i've been volunteered to attempt fun phyllo dough creations while i'm down there, which is fine by me, as at least there's something to DO!

after that, i have one more day off, and then i suppose it's back to 'normal,' whatever that is.

i hope that everyone who reads this has an exceptionally happy holiday and enjoys it to its full potential. know that you are surrounded by love. be positive, be happy, revel in the hustle and bustle and energy of the season. and if you have snow where you are, PLAY IN IT FOR ME.

la vie est belle.

lame.

britney spears' SIXTEEN YEAR OLD sister who LIVES WITH her NINETEEN YEAR OLD boyfriend is PREGNANT.

and their mother was trying to hawk a parenting book a couple months ago?! really?!

and i guess britney went out that night and partied like usual, and apparently kevin federline knew even before the magazines and the blogs broke the news while britney didn't, etc. etc. etc. i just keep reading these things and i think it's sooooo lame.

silly.

project runway post

in response to katieoh:

all time favorite contestant=JAY. i absolutely adored him, his designs and his clever one-liners about cigarettes ('they're like little sticks of salvation!' or something to that effect). to this day, i can watch re-runs and i still laugh at jay and i remember hanging out in my room with xiao back at randolph macon and watching it with her and debating the best designs each week.

these days, it's a bit more difficult as we haven't seen QUITE enough of the contestants' work and personalities. yet. i'm quite fond of crazy elisa and 'fierce' christian makes me laugh. fatboy chris march got to come back, which i thought was sweet, but i'm not sure he and his flamboyant costuming mindset will go too far. i like kit, she seems relatively down to earth and smart. however, in general, i'm all over kevin for the win. i love him, i think he's great, and i want to go to lunch with him after he wins and talk about how awesome i think it is that he hasn't been bitchy or dramatic (yet, i guess...)

speaking of bitchy, not a fan of victorya, jillian (IS SHE HIGH? ALLLLLL THE TIME?!), and rami. they all seem very 'i'm better than you' la di dah, obnoxious and petty. and ricky is a crybaby who's not good enough. i feel sorry for him, but he also really grates on my nerves.

so. that's that.

prediction for this week: ricky's out.

progressions

last night i came home from a relatively un-lucrative shift at work, but still in a good mood.

i'm not the kind of girl whose mood is controlled by money or lack thereof. there's still time for this to change, but i hope to keep it the way it is, because i admire it in myself. there are too many more important things about which to fret, in my opinion and while i'd love to have more money and have that be a complete non-issue and while there are a whole slew of things i would be able to do and opportunities that would present themselves with the presence of more money, i maintain that life, and one's good mood for that matter, is not not dependent on the presence or lack of dinero.

to continue. i came home in a good mood, kind of wanting to go out and celebrate that, but totally fine to just hang at home with my boyfriend, some beers, a couple smokes, and the animals. which is what happened and it was spectacular. there's something to be said for being able to come home from work on any random day and just kicking back and having that be the highlight of your week.

work's been slow lately, which to some extent i can understand, certainly not wanting to go out to eat myself these days and holiday preparation taking up a lot of mindspace, yet it's still disappointing, especially when coworkers who have been here for at least a year comparing it to the success of last year and what sounded like a really busy, fabulous, exhausting, and super-lucrative time. meanwhile during the day, i continue to just sort of run my errands and hang out and that's all fine. the gym, taking care of our pets, shopping for gifts, writing, etc.

basically, yes, this is a blog about how happy i am where i am. again. i'm just feeling really positive these days, and optimistic, and content. inside of work, outside of work, whether i'm hanging out with nate, sitting on the balcony having hours of really amazing conversation or i'm with relative strangers, joking around about the weather at one of my tables at work. whether it's with my mother picking out a christmas tree, or going out and just letting loose with friends, or talking with caitlin on the phone on a sunday afternoon, i'm a very happy person. and i'm a very lucky girl.

la vie est belle.

are we excited?

or are we dreading it?

we don't care about the old folks...

so i was looking through some OLD pictures the other day and decided to put them online, via facebook. turns out, putting pictures of the kids i knew when we were truly KIDS is a fantastic way to get back in touch with those people! everyone likes a little 'time machine moment' to quote one of the aforementioned kids.

it just makes me happy to put a smile on the faces of people who i haven't been able to see in years, sometimes even since that time. one guy commented on a picture, saying, 'how did you recognize me?! i don't think i would have' or something to that extent, provoking my response of, 'well, that's easy, since i haven't seen you really since you looked like this.' i mean, i wouldn't recognize him NOW necessarily, funnily enough!

there may be more where those came from, i'll have to see...i'm the kind of girl who has a massive hatbox full of these kinds of pictures, strewn around in absolutely no order, so it's always fun to look through and discover and remember and laugh.

it's funny, because i look through these photos and it strikes me that there were years where some of the most important people in my life were completely uninvolved. i was eighteen when i met caitlin. i was twenty when i met nate. and i don't want to sound dramatic, but i think it's amazing that i lived an average of nineteen years without them! because they're so much a part of my life now, and they're soooo important to me and my happiness, it's interesting to look back and think, 'i wonder if i knew there was something missing then.' because i think there was. and not to detract, so to speak, from the validity of everyone else i've known--i think you are all fantastic and am so pleased that i've been able know you and wish that we could get together these days and catch up, not just post comments and messages on facebook about our good times together when we were fourteen--but there was a small hole in my life before nate and cait were in it and it's filled and i'm complete, to sound compleeeeetley cliched.

caitlin called me the other day (and by other day, i mean saturday) and we had a short conversation filled with 'i love you, i miss you,' la di dah, all that nice stuff, and then she said something about how she wants to be just like me, which was the sweetest, especially considering that for years i admired her, and i always thought i sorta looked up to her more and between last year and this, it's been a far more mutual admiration, just this, 'i think you're amazing because you're living in new york city, you have a great job, you're doing so well, i'm so proud of you,' and 'you're doing so well with nate and the job you love and you're so responsible.' it's just really nice. these things make me happy. life makes me happy. these are very upbeat, optimistic blogs these days!

live.it.up.

em.

picture post

'some moments last forever, some flare up in love, love, love'

my goodness that's a cute little (?) cat

free advertising for daddiO. saratoga: perfect from start to finish.

delicious cofffee only comes from my saratoga mug :)

super skinny me

so i watched this special on BBC America the other night entitled 'super skinny me.' the basic premise consisted of taking two mentally/physically/emotionally stable, healthy female reporters and setting a goal for the two of them (size 6-8, probably) to go down to a size 00 in about five weeks using any and all of the crazy diets, fads, exercises, etc out there. sort of taking a real person and putting them on all the extreme measures that celebrities take to get thin quick. these included the watercress soup diet, the cayenne pepper/lemon/maple syrup 'diet' (fast), the protein shake diet (along with 2hours of working out, DAILY), colonics, juice fasts, etc.

reeeeeeally interesting results. both women were miserable. one pretty much cracked, kind of becoming a true anorexic, things from her young adulthood rearing their ugly heads for the first time in years and years. both were seeing a doctor every week to track their 'progress' for lack of a better word and the one was asked to continue seeing the doctor even after the experiment was over (and even after she had been asked to end the experiment early because people were so worried about her.) the other girl, the one who seemed to be a bit more healthy, who was working out excessively and drinking protein shakes all day lost weight really fast, but hated it. she was over-emotional, she couldn't go out, she couldn't do anything, she had nothing to talk about. she lived with her boyfriend and while interviewing him, HE looked miserable too!

people forget that eating disorders affect so much more than just weight. it truly is a lifestyle. you are limited, completely. you don't go out, you don't socialize, you don't have anything to talk about because all you think about is what you aren't eating and how many calories you're burning and how many pounds you've lost and how many you still want to lose. no one wants to hear about that mess.

it was fascinating, really. and i don't care how many times all the celebrities tell us they're not anorexic, that's just the way they eat or something, or whatever they say (victoria beckham, i'm talking to you), it's still anorexia. just a bit glorified.

i'm just glad i surround myself with healthy, strong people now. it's easy to sort of get sucked into that sort of thing, which is precisely why it's so widespread, but let's suck people into the trend of being awesome.

live.it.up.
em.

blogless weekends

it's monday and i'm back to blogging.

again, however, i seem to be at a loss for subjects about which to write. there's the usual humdrum 'i'm listening to some fun music these days,' 'i'm getting my hair trimmed again this wednesday,' 'the gym was kinda' awesome today' jibber jabber, but i don't feel like writing about that, because i have a sneaking suspicion that kind of thing is only interesting (and not even that much) to me.

but i don't want to sit here and analyze why i don't have anything about which to write and make that an entire entry. that's just silly.

the other day i was thinking about my living situation and wondering how others could perceive it. i think i had read someone else's blog or something to that extent to inspire this thinking, but i got kinda involved. because there are so many different ways to perceive my (i think) fantastic situation. there are those who will look at it as 'living in sin.' probably not many of those these days, but i'm sure they exist somewhere. then there are those who look at it as me maybe being dependent on a man. i've never lived alone, really. i mean, i had my own room last year at macon, sans roommate, and i've lived with a french family in an entirely different country and didn't have THAT much interaction with them, really, thus feeling like it was almost my own little space, but i haven't lived alone and i wonder if people look at where i am and feel sorry for me that i haven't had that experience.

i certainly am not sorry. for several reasons, foremost of which is that i'm completely in love with the man with whom i share my living space, but in addition, he's gone until the afternoon, when i've already left for work, so i really feel as though i get that experience of being independent and myself and solo all day long, and then i get to come back home to someone who loves me every night.

so really, the true question is how many people envy me?

and not in a bitchy way, i'm not trying to be like that, but here i was, the other day, thinking this all through, smoking a cigarette and just sort of sitting here, like, wow, i'm very lucky. because i do get the best of both worlds.

i get my share of alone time, which is something i believe is absolutely impossible to live without, and i get my share of lovey time, and i get to feel like i'm part of something. i look around this apartment, and it's beautiful to me, because it's such a representation of US, not me nor him.

i like feeling part of an 'us.' and not in some silly, portrayed on television cheesily kind of way, but a true way, where i just feel so content, always.

even when the two of us are sort of 'off' or 'weird' either physically or emotionally or mentally and even when we get into our silly almost-but-not-even 'fights,' i'm always content, because it's all part of the 'us' that i love so much.

even when i miss caitlin all the way in nyc or i'm still sort of getting over/struggling with the fact that i am becoming a really responsible woman and i'm no longer a crazy college student whose main worry is finishing her senior paper, even when i take that stress out on him, or even when he's tired at the end of the week and doesn't feel like doing anything, i love the process of getting past all of it, and deciding together what to do about everything, be it staying in just snuggling together and being together and being able to comfort each other in a way that no one else can, or going out and having such a fun time, just the two of us, together and having that be not even enough, but surpassing enough...i don't know, this isn't where i expected the blog to go today, but there it is, these things that i've been thinking about as i drive my car to the grocery store, as i make coffee, as i take the dog for a walk, as i run on the treadmill at the gym.

there's definitely more that i wanted to write about today, but i think that was sufficient for one entry.

i'm a very happy girl. living in sin suits me well, thank you.

live.it.up.
em.