Posts from — July 2011

Happy Sunday morning to me. Reading, iced coffee, catch up with DVR and homemade chocolate chip pancakes.  So, my pancakes didn’t quite turn out as pretty looking as my dad’s, but hey, they sure tasted delicious.

Thoughts running through my mind right now:

• I just watched the move Life As We Know It, alone on the couch in my 90 degree apartment.  In my skivvies.  I’m not sure whether it was the movie, or my mood, but I cried.  The whole time.
• It’s 90 degrees in my apartment.  Need I say more?
• I feel like it’s fate that tonight on my tumblr feed I found one of my favorite, to die for, to live by quotes.  A quote I heard once, only once, years ago.  Every since then -yes, for years- I’ve been trying to find this one quote.  It was there tonight, staring me in the face.
• I wish he had stayed tonight.  I didn’t ask him to stay, but I wanted him to.  I wanted him to want to stay.  Not to stay because I asked him to.  Or because I made him feel bad for going.  God dammit, I wanted him to want to do the dishes.
• One of the worst parts about living above a busy, big city intersection:  car alarms that go off for far too long.  Hello, owners.  Where the hell are you?
• It’s Saturday night.  I’m hot, moody, bored, and alone.  I hate this city.  I hate the heat of this city.  I just want to move home.

This week’s heat wave is literally, unbearable.  Remember earlier when I complained of heat in Boston?  Well that was nothing. There are many reasons behind my decision to reside in New England.  Close to the top of that list, is the fact that it’s not consistently hot. I hate the heat. I hate sweating. I hate air so humid you can hardly breath.

I don’t mind the cold, and in fact, I quite prefer it.  When it’s cold, you can always bundle up.  Add another layer.  When it’s hot. You’re shit out of luck. There’s no escaping it.  No where to go.  No way to cool down.  Unless of course, you have AC.  Aaah, air conditioning.

Get me to the ocean.  The ice, cold, ocean.

In other, more important news.  One of my best friends gave birth to a gorgeous, perfect, beautiful baby girl this week.  Congratulations Heather and welcome to the world baby Clara!

Please excuse my dear blog’s theme.  For the past 2 years I’ve had a blast creating new blog themes, writing my own css, building .php files and learning the ins and outs of Word Press development.  However, I am by no means an advanced .php developer.  And quite honestly, I rarely check out Word Press developer sites to keep on top of updates and their implications for theme development. So, each time Word Press pushes an update, and I install it, I cross my fingers, close my eyes and hold my breath – hoping that the update doesn’t break my patch work like theme.

So, I’m thinking about returning to a packaged theme.  One that I can customize through css and still try to make look like my own.  But gone are the days of deleting and duplicating and editing .php files.

Bummer.

To be continued, revisited, added to, and eventually conquered:

• Go skydiving
• Drive across the country
• Travel to Greece
• Become a mother
• Learn how to sail
• Run a marathon
• Go on a safari in Africa
• Sell a photograph
• Save a life

A photo reminder of where I spent the past weekend.  Tucked into the coastline of Maine, spending quality time with my family.

The road to Cozy Harbor. Over Robinson’s Wharf swing bridge, and through the woods.

Cozy Harbor Cottage. View from the lawn.

Surprise, surprise, I had the most wonderfully sweet and relaxing Sunday in Maine this weekend.  Tucked away in Cozy Harbor, surrounded by family members, baby cousins and gorgeous weather.  My mother’s cousin is visiting Maine for a week with his wife and two children – born and raised here, he and his clan now live in San Francisco.  He picked a special location to vacation.  Cozy Harbor.  A small harbor in Southport, Maine, just one bridge away from Pratt’s Island.  Pratt’s Island is a memory filled spot on the coast for my mother’s family, so it was awfully appropriate for Erik to return there now, 20 years later with his family.

A glimpse at how I spent my weekend:

Cozy Harbor, Southport, ME

Little cousins from San Francisco and Northern Maine

Cousin Augie

Cousin Quinn

Cousin Erik loving his baby

My heart is filled with love tonight.  I’m so thankful that cousin Erik invited us all to visit.  A family weekend on the coast is just want this girl needed.

I recently watched 21 Mind Blowing Escapes, a program on the Travel Channel that left me jonesing for a far away vacation. The program featured safaris in Africa, beaches in Hawaii, lagoons in Iceland, cliffside villages in Italy and Santorini.  I’ve wanted to go to Greece for a long, long time.  My initial urge to go may or may not have been caused by a little book called the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (embarrassing), but it wasn’t until my junior year of college when I was studying in Florence that I really, really wanted to go.  My housemates planned a trip to Greece in the month following our finals, but I had decided to return to the states.  I missed some of the most beautiful travels (Greece, Croatia, Portugal), and ever since have been determined to go back to Europe.  To see the places that I missed that semester. The top of my must travel to places is: Santorini.

I’ve always thought that it would take years for me to get back.  I’d need to be older, more settled, more financially stable.  But as it turns out, a European and world tour might not be as far in the future as I thought.  My parents have been talking about a family trip, a world tour, for quite some time.  And now, the talks are being had more frequently.  When the time comes, I’ll be making sure Greece is on the itinerary.  One of my best girlfriends just spent a few weeks in Greece, and now the Travel Channel is taunting me with Santorini’s beauty.  I must go.  And I must go soon.

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to see that sunset in person?

When I was younger I was obsessed with a lot of people: Devon Sawa, JTT, Leo, Justin Timberlake.  All the usuals.  I was also, and still am to this day, obsessed with Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.  For every JTT poster on my wall, I had two of the Olsen twins.  My best friend and I also decided that she and I were pretty much the same as the twins, so she called (and still calls) me MK. I call her A.

Of all my obsessions, I admit, it’s one of my sicker ones.  I mean, I really, really wanted to be the Olsen twins when I was younger.  And apparently, the love hasn’t died.  I saw this picture on StyleList’s It Happened Last Night and my heart skipped a beat.  Awww, the girls are still kicking, and looking fab.

I love, love, love Ashley’s dress.

If there’s anything that living in Boston for the past seven years has taught me, it is that no matter where you move within the city, you’re never moving very far.  Case in point.  After college, I moved just 1.1 miles down the road, into a 4 bedroom apartment with my 3 best friends.  The next fall, I moved 0.6 miles to my current apartment.

Now, after two years in this location, I’m making another move.  I’m moving a whole 2.3 miles down the street!  Despite moving closer to downtown, my new apartment is technically in Brookline, so not only am I moving, but I’m moving to a new town. Quite exciting.

View of Boston, and my new apartment.

Zoomed in on my neighborhood.

But that’s not it.  The biggest news is that this fall, I’ll be moving into my new apartment with the boyf.  Yup, you heard me right.  After almost 3 years together, the boyf and I have decided to move in together.  We are so, beyond excited.  And fortunately we have the love and support (and equal excitement) from our friends and family.

We began looking at one bedroom apartments around March, and focused primarily in the Brookline / Kenmore / Back Bay area.  We each felt strongly about certain ‘must haves’.

• I demanded plenty of storage space.
• Boyf wanted location close to the city.
• I wanted a private, off street parking spot.
• We both agreed that a large, separate living space was important.
• We both felt proximity to T was crucial.

After looking at just a half dozen apartments, we found the one.  ‘The one’ turned out to be the first one we saw, and after 4 or 5 additional places, we knew just nothing would compare to the first place we saw.  So, we signed, we paid.  It’s ours.  In in less than 2 months, we’ll be moving in!

We talk about the big move constantly.  With less than 2 months to go, it’s pretty much all we can think about – all day, every day.  I can’t wait to document the move here, to share pictures, and ideas and undoubtedly ‘new roommate’ disputes.