Read, Reading and to Read

Just finished these books up recently. I really loved the Jen Lancaster book and highly recommend it! Take or leave the others.

Still reading this book

I've given up on this book

I want to read these books

On Da Bus

There lives a little old lady on Hanover. She drives with her seat fully reclined. It makes no sense. I don't see how that's very comfortable or safe. When she gets out of her car and walks, she walks a half an inch at a time. I worry about her.

Don't sit in the handicap section.

Don't forget your iPod or mp3 player or book or newspaper or *something* to entertain yourself with.

Be nice to your bus driver.

Smile but don't say anything. You never know what kind of weird conversation you'll get pulled into.

If you are reading a book, do not become engrossed! It will make you miss your stop. (true story)

Sounds like Taye Diggs

Something about the name Creigh Deeds makes me want to say Taye Diggs. I don't know why, but there you have it.

On August 6, 2009 at 5 p.m. a "Rally for Virginia" is happening in McLean. I plan on being there. All the big boys will be there - Obama, Kaine and Deeds. I've rsvp'd and cannot wait to get my ticket!

UPDATE: Ok so maybe I don't get to go. Maybe the person I was going with can no longer go. Maybe we can't get tickets to the event. Maybe I still take the time off from work and have a mini-holiday to myself.

sunshine will make you vomit

On my lunch break this past Tuesday, I walked to the library on Franklin St. I figured I'd check out a few books and then eat lunch at the park behind the library. I had my pb&j, some chips and a bottle of water in my purse and a few books in mind. I was ready.

I went into the library, checked out a few books, chatted with one of the librarians, walked around back where the park is located, sat down on a bench and proceeded to eat my lunch. A few chips and bites of my pb&j later a woman that had been sitting across the park from me did the follow: she put her book down, calmly stood up, walked over to the trash can, vomited, wiped her mouth, walked back to her bench, sat down, picked up her book and continued reading AS IF SHE HADN’T JUST RANDOMLY VOMITED IN PUBLIC!!

There are no words except - This city sure does keep it interesting…

I Bought a Dress from J. Crew

Hell has officially frozen over. I don't say this because I don't like J. Crew (I do), but I can't believe I fit into something from J. Crew besides like earrings and necklaces.

This is the dress I'll be wearing to The Wedding of Caitlin and Josh

Pretty, right?

The wedding is August 15th at the Hermitage Museum in Norfolk. It's an outdoor wedding. In August. Pray for us.

What I'm Reading AT THIS VERY MOMENT

We accept the love we think we deserve

A while back a secret was posted on PostSecret that I found to be very true. It was a picture of a woman's stomach and written across it were these words: "We accept the love we think we deserve."

Secrets are up for a week and then Frank (he runs PostSecret) puts up new secrets on Sunday. I read it twice that Sunday, logged off the computer, did some stuff around the house, logged back on and read it again. I went back to read it a lot that week. On Saturday night I right-clicked and saved a copy to my computer.

Someone got that secret tattooed on them and sent Frank a picture. It inspired others to go out and get PostSecret tattoos, too.

Here's why I think that secret, and really all of the secrets in general, resonate with people to the point of them wanting it tattooed into their skin: because it's everything they are feeling boiled down to a simple sentence that embodies everything they feel, but could not find the words to say.

I particularly find the "We accept the love we think we deserve" to be one of the truest things I've read. I've seen it, I've felt, I've read stories based around it, but could never find the words to express that feeling. Someone out there sees it too and boiled it down to an eight word sentence. I think it just goes to show that sometimes it really is about what you say and not how you say it. Those eight words separate and apart don't mean much, but together they mean a lot.



If you don't know about PostSecret, check it out: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/. Here's a little background information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostSecret.

Alice & Cast

New pictures!!

Blogs That Bring a Smile to My Face

All Richmonders. All awesomeness.

The Checkout Girl - Her name is TCG and she's sassy and says it like it is. A lady after my own heart. Reading about working in retail makes me happy that I no longer do. She has an advice column in Belle (it's a monthly woman's magazine), she writes for RVAnews and she brightens my day with her tweets.

Milk Glass Heart - Her name is Lara. I think. She always finds the best stuff. I'd be really jealous, but since she shares I'm only a little jealous. She does these +/- posts that I always enjoy. You will too.

Parasol Party - Her name is Tess and I wish I knew her IRL. She writes for RVAnews and seems like a very down to earth kind of person. She makes these hair accessories that I wish I had the sassiness to wear. That big red bow calls my name every time I look at it.

On Notice

Blogs That Bring a Smile to My Face

Let's talk about the blogs I'm loving. A few that always brighten my day are:

Heart of Light - Rachel always has pretty pictures and I love everything she posts. Today is Rachel's one year blogaversary!

[redacted] - Dan (and now Brooke) crack me up on a regular basis. They were living in New York but now they live in Miami. Brooke (Dan's fabulous and very pretty girlfriend) has taken to posting stuff and dare I say, she's funnier then him. Oh and they have a dog named Puppy. Puppy has a British accent and looks like the most chill dog ever.

Young House Love - Sherry and John are adorable! I was on a house tour in the Fan (they live in Richmond!) with my mom and actually saw them. It was very exciting. They were super nice about being attacked by some rambling idiot (me) that kept going on and on about loving their blog. They'll give you a tooth ache, for sure ('cuz they're so sweet).

A trip to D.C.

In November of 2008, I went to Washington, D.C. to see Marc Broussard at Sixth & I. Yes, I went alone. Yes, that means I drove to D.C. alone. And rode the Metro alone. And walked into a concert all by myself. And then proceeded to enjoy the concert all by myself (with a couple hundred new friends). And my alone time with Marc was fabulous! I had film of the concert, but my MacBook ate it (true story) so now I just have the few pictures I was able to take. You couldn't take flash photography because the synagogue (oh yeah, I said synagogue) is so small that it would blind the people on stage.

So here are two pictures that are decent (note the menorah)



My arty picture



Yep, sat in a synagogue, which means I sat in a pew, so a rocky, bluesy guy from the bayou could sing to me. It was awesome.

The opening act is worth mentioning. His name is Josh Hoge. He's from Nashville (I think) and he's a cutie. He's great live. Very soulful and has a great voice. I bought his album on the way out because I was so impressed with him. His live performance doesn't quite translate in the studio, but there's potential there. He's one to watch, for sure. It also helped that Marc was featured on one of his tracks.

My heart is seriously all a twitter

I follow Marc Broussard on Twitter, because it's Marc Broussard and I heart him and his music oh so much.

Turns out, Twitter can make dreams come true! (If your dream is tweeting with a musician, which mine is so... ta da!)

I tweeted a response to a question Marc tweeted and miracle of all miracles, he tweeted back!

O. to the M. to the G. !!!

I give you the play-by-play:

him: How do I get more followers?

me: a better avatar might be a step in the right direction...

him: How's this one [he changed his avatar BECAUSE I SAID SO!!]

me: *much* better! you're sure to have a ton of new followers now.

So of course I had to text my friends to tell them that I peed myself a little bit because Marc Broussard tweeted to me.

There really is no more talking to me tonight. Or me thinking about anything else really. I'm done.

Who needs a stinkin' frame, anyhow?!

For all the framing I do, I also do a lot of non-framing.

When you open my front door this is the wall that greets you



Nice, right? I had some stuff hanging on it but it just didn't make sense. Whilst flipping and scrolling through design magazines and blogs, respectively, I kept seeing these walls of photos people are doing. They're just double-stick taping their 4x6 and 5x7 photos to the wall. And it looks good. Some do all black and white photos, some do all color, some went crazy and have both kind. It's so cool and just the kind of thing I would do, so I did it!

I went through my Picasa albums for pictures I thought would look good on the wall. I tried to pick a couple pictures from each event I had taken pictures of. I sent my selection of about 30 photos to Shutterfly for printing. They arrived in the mail a few days later and I got to laying them out. I went for a plain row and column form, figuring that simple was best.

Here are all my photos, laid out



When they looked balanced, I flipped 'em and taped 'em



Then I stuck 'em to the wall



I took a step back to make sure it all looked balanced (not all the the dark pictures were near each other, not all the outdoor pictures were near each other, etc.) The beauty of the tape is that you can just pluck the picture off the wall and swap it with another picture, easy peasy.

Here's the view, straight on



I didn't know how many I needed to cover the wall and not all my pictures are in Picasa yet so I have more I want to add to the Wall of Photos. But now it's just a matter of adding to.

And when I'm tired of the photos I have up, I can just take the tape off and stick them in a picture book for future viewings.

The time has come.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

But mostly shoes. The Walrus was all about shoes.

I decided to organize my shoes. I had stacks of boxes of shoes and baskets of shoes and I ended up rotating the same four pairs because I could not remember what was in the boxes. So I came up with this brilliant plan of photographing the shoes in the box and putting said photo on the outside of the box. Brilliant!

I started with a pile of shoes...



I then photographed each pair...



Then, one sunny day, I went to CVS, printed the photos, went home, matched the photos up with their box and viola! I now have an organized *shoe collection!



*Please note that not all shoes are shown here.

Frame it!

I found a frame in the stairwell of my building so I turned it into art



And now it sits in my front room with some other stuff



And then I found this map and this frame (they were separate items) and I brought them together to make this



And then I framed some fabric and tissue paper and called it a day

Snow!

Not recently, but you know, kind of recently. It snowed and the power went out and all I could do was stare out the window. Here's a picture of it.

Out with the orange, in with the cream

Sad day. My coffee table is no longer orange. It's now cream, just like everything else. I loved my orange table, but the orange curtains are gone and it just doesn't make sense anymore.

So one last time, let's look at the orange coffee table...



And now here's the new and improved cream coffee table...



It makes the room calmer. Before, all you saw was the orange coffee table. Now you see the room. Zen.

UPDATE: I was looking at this the other night and I think I might paint those chairs black. I think there's too much cream going on now. We'll see...

A Day at the Rivah

I had a Friday off from work so I did this:

Those are my feet



The water is pretty fast



My view upstream



My view, across the rivah



It was great. Well it was great up to the moment when a snake came to take its rock back. Nature will ruin your day, let me tell ya.

So when the day was done looking like this:



I put a movie on and drank a pot of tea. It was a very lovely day off from work.

Those shoes *were* made for walking...

I need new walking shoes, in a bad way. Let me tell you how I know this: my toes are throbbing! I walked 3.38 miles on Sunday and 2.26 miles on Monday. My toes have been screaming at me ever since Monday evening.

My New Balances have been great (for the million years I've had them) but I think it's time to move on. My toes can't take much more abuse.

This article proved to be very helpful. Now I just have to go out and try them all on! Fun!

On Notice

Things That Make Me Want to Scream (and not for ice cream): 2

It's Monday, so let's bitch about a few things...

• People with bad handwriting. I can't process your letter if I can't read your handwriting.

• The weather. Apparently I'm never happy with the weather. The winter's too cold and the summer's not hot enough. This morning it was a chilly 70 degrees (IT'S JULY, FOR THE LOVE HUMIDITY!!). The high for today is a sweltering 85 degrees. Yeah.

• Companies that do not put their address on their letterhead. Only putting the name of your company at the top of your letterhead seems like a waste of time.

A Few of My Favorite Things, Volume II

1) I like that boom, boom, pow. Literally 'cuz I love fireworks. And this Saturday night is going to be all about fireworks.

2) Flats. I am moving away from high-heels and embracing flats. They just make my life easier. I'm no Carrie Bradshaw, running around the City in 4 inch heels. Not happening. There are grates and cracks in the sidewalk and I'm not the most coordinate person as it is. So flats it is!

3) GRTC. Deciding to ride the bus to and from work was a great idea! I'm loving my stress-free commutes. And did I mention that is saves me 40 bucks a month in parking garage fees? Even better.

My First Day Riding the Bus

This morning marked the first day of my bus riding adventure. It was pretty cool. And bonus! I got to work early. That almost never happens. I tweeted, of course, during my first bus ride. Let's review and recap with the help of Twitter.

I left my apartment at 7:35 a.m., walked across Blvd. and up to Robinson. During the walk, I discovered that my mp3 player wasn't working: Jul 01, 07:41 AM taking the bus to work is already off to bad start, my mp3 player isn't working. #grtc.

I arrived at the Robinson/Monument bus stop at 7:45 a.m. and sat in the front area where two things occurred: 1) Jul 01, 07:48 AM why is everyone sitting in the back of the bus? #grtc; and 2) Jul 01, 07:52 AM my legs are just short enough that they don't touch the floor & i can swing them. #grtc.

I requested a stop at the 9th & Broad intersection and got off the bus: Jul 01, 08:01 AM success! walking down 9th now. apparently front seats are for elderly & disabled. #grtc.

Because I got downtown so quickly, I decided a Starbucks coffee was in order. Got my coffee and headed into the office where I was 2 minutes early. Of course I spent my new found time chatting with co-workers and eating a melt away pastry from Westhampton Bakery, but at least I got on the right bus this time*.

*There's a story there and one day, I'll tell you all about it.

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UPDATE: Had the same bus driver for my return trip! How cute is that?