Rêve Rouge

#28 Gear

2012-01-23T07:23:00.008-06:00

I'm coming back to the 30 Days of Indie Travel Challenge on BootsnAll. Prompt #28: GEAR. The right gear can make or break your trip. What gear did you wish you had on your most recent trip?

Packing for my trip to New Zealand was challenging because I didn't know what to bring. My friend Lucy had confirmed that she'd pick me up from the airport and this was all I knew about what to expect because she was too busy with work to fill me in: "Dang, I am making some sweet plans. I hope you are keen for an authentic kiwi adventure... EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!!!!!! No tourist shit, you're going straight to where the crazies all live." So although I brought the typical things that you need when you're traipsing around and staying in hostels — flip flops, towel, a decent amount of underwear, nail polish, of course — I wasn't totally prepared.

Lucy picked me up from the Christchurch airport in a car packed to its sunroof of stuff for an epic voyage: food, sleeping bags, tent, even a futon mattress so we could sleep in the car if needed. We stopped at her parents' house to grab a few things I didn't have. Lucy wanted me to have hiking boots and a rain jacket, because she was hoping we would find an awesome place to go tramping. But all she could find were her dad's size 42 boots and XL jacket. We packed them in the car.

I really needed walking shoes that were my size though, so we stopped at the mall so I could buy a pair of sneakers. Everything in New Zealand is way more stupid expensive than here, so the cheapest I could find on my quick 10-minute browse through a Foot Locker type of store were a pair of New Balance sneakers on sale for $80. It pained me to pay that much for a pair of shoes when I had 3 or 4 pairs of old running shoes at home that would have done just fine, but they weren't doing me much good 8349 miles away. I had even thought of bringing an old pair of running shoes, but had decided against it. I should have gone with my first instinct!

But the shoes served me well. They took me to this glacier for example:

Here are a few other things that I think I will pack for my next trip regardless of where I am going:

Headlamp (to read at night and walk in caves and find random things in the car)
Nail clippers (in case I break my big toenail in half trying to pull myself onto a rock while swimming in a river as I did on this trip)
Disposable camera (there are places I don't want to take my fancy camera, mainly ones involving water: kayaking, sailing, and river exploring)

Resolved?

2012-01-12T05:15:00.002-06:00

I didn't have much time for New Year's resolutions this year, what with an early family Christmas, the busiest couple of months at work in my young professional life, kinda (but not really) planning my current adventure, and squeezing in as many freelance assignments as I could to afford Christmas and travel without going broke. 2012 resolutions would have to start with 2011 reflections, so I suppose I'll start with that.

This was the year I stood up in my first wedding, completed my first triathlon, and pitched my first glossy magazine piece.

It's the year I started the first job that I feel is 125% a good fit for me professionally and personally.

It's the year I decided I was ready to move in with this guy I've been seeing for the past four years.

It's the year I decided to work on my posture and my swim stroke.

It's the year I decided I needed to be a more compassionate person.

It's the year I decided it was time to let some family stuff go.

It's the year I dyed my hair red.

It's the year I won a trip to France.

It's the year I found out a friend had cancer and the year I felt one of my closest friends start becoming not-so-close anymore.

The year Jake and I finally made it to Cedar Point.

The year I finally made it to New Zealand.

The year I finally made it back to France.

The year I started waking up early to write.

The year I worked too hard.

The year I decided to reach out to a part of my family that hasn't been a part of my life in years.

The year that actually went smashingly well, all things considering, despite me falling into a rut of completely over scheduling my life so as to accomplish the most things possible in every hour of each day, but also the year my byline appeared in more legit articles than ever before.

So 2012?

I think I need to take time to especially appreciate smaller things: the delicious cups of coffee, the changing of the seasons, and other little but beautiful happenings that ask to be a part of my life every single day.

I plan to work just as hard this year, but I also plan to be better at managing my time so I can better appreciate good books, snow, and hearty, full glasses of wine. I am even thinking of investing in a big comfy chair to put in our reading room so I can appreciate all of those things at the same time.

In Australia at Last

2011-12-27T04:04:00.004-06:00

After a 4-hour flight to LA, then a few hours layover in the cruddy LA airport, then a 15-hour flight to the Melbourne airport, then a 30-minute bus ride to the city center, and a 30-minute tram ride to my hostel, and I finally arrive to find it closed. Then it started raining.

I don't freak out, I'm just tired. There's a number to call, and there's a cafe next door. So I do that, and wait, and think about how anticlimactic my arrival to Australia has been. It's an expensive flight, and a long flight, and I even missed Christmas for it. And when I get there, the city is pretty much shut down because it's a national holiday, and I'm just sitting around waiting to get into my hostel. It's like no one cares that I'm here.

The cafe owner cares though, and offers to make me a glass of fresh-squeezed mango juice even though I tell him I can't pay him since I don't have cash. He says not to worry about it, that he trusts I will come back the next day and pay. So I drink that, and continue to wait, and think about the bendy straw.

Once I get into the hostel and take a shower, I feel a bit better. The hostel's okay, kinda grimy, but clean enough. The shower is hot, and the bed is clean, and the wifi is free, which is why I picked the place. The people are actually quite nice. Most of them are here long-term for several months or so. They have work visas and are working around Melbourne and living here. I feel like an outsider because the others are becoming fast friends after spending so many weeks living together — they had a Christmas celebration and they frequently cook dinner together — but everyone is very chatty and nice to me even though I'm not part of their group.

I explore the neighborhood a bit; a half mile or so away I find a cute area with a lot of cafes and boutiques. The next day I explore downtown Melbourne and visit a few of the major monuments of the city. I do a lot and I see a lot and I take a lot of pictures, but I feel lonely. Jake sends me a video of his family opening my Christmas present, and I am sad to have missed the celebration. His mom gave me a light-up globe.

I'm kinda glum most of the day. Maybe I'm just jetlagged. But I'm a little sad that there's no one to laugh at some silly shop names with me, like "Lord of the Fries" or "General Pants Co." Other things bum me out too, like that there aren't any classes this week at the cooking school I wanted to check out, and the Queen Victoria Market doesn't have produce today, just souvenir trinkets. I could also be looking for reasons to be bummed out because that is how I feel like feeling.

Maybe I just expected visiting a foreign country to be so much more exciting. I like things about Melbourne, but I'm not excited about it. I have no one to be excited about it with.

I've traveled alone before, and I know this'll pass. I have two more days here before I head to New Zealand to meet a friend, which will be totally different. I don't have anything to be glum about. For now, I will keep myself busy and occupied. Tomorrow I will work all day, which I'm actually looking forward to. I think it'll cheer me up. The next day I might do an all-day wine tour, which will super duper cheer me up.

Trashy Food Experiment

2011-11-21T07:22:00.005-06:00

I recently read a book called The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks.** This was one of the first non-fiction books I've really enjoyed in sometime. In the book, the author does an experiment where she goes into the kitchens of nine self-professed horrible cooks, sees what some of their mistakes are both in what they stock in their fridges and how they prepare food, then leads them in weekly classes to improve their kitchen confidence and skills.

In reading this book, I realized that a lot of the common mistakes people make in their kitchen are the same ones I make in cooking, too. For example, people are so married to the notion that you have to follow a recipe. When really, if you just throw things together that complement each other and add your favorite spices and seasonings, you can make a pretty yummy meal. So I started making more soups from scratch, and it's been pretty rewarding and delicious! The only problem is that my food processor isn't so patient with liquids, and I keep getting soup on the kitchen walls. But I can deal.

I've also been working on my knife skills. My aunt gave me a gift card to take this class for Christmas last year, but I never got around to doing it. So I went and learned much about knives and how to use them, and I've since been cutting things the right way. I asked for a better cutting board for Christmas, too.

I'm updating my spices. Spices should be replaced every 6-12 months. I haven't yet thrown away my old and defunct spices, and it's hard for me to admit they're no good, because they look okay, though some of them are seriously years old. But I have started to acquire new, fresh spices.

The last thing I've been working on is using up what's in my fridge and repurposing leftovers. We all know we should eat produce, and a lot of Americans will go to the grocery store and stock up on loads of the stuff, but then not know how to prepare it. Or, they'll buy the giant bag of spinach because it's a better deal, but they won't be able to eat it all. It ends up rotting in their fridges, and they end up throwing it out. Thus, Americans throw out 18% of their groceries a year.

Anyone who's spent more than 5 minutes with me knows I am obsessed with saving money — that travel habit of mine ain't cheap! So I decided to do a little experiment to see if I, too, threw out 18% of my food. I labeled the price of all my groceries for the week with Post-It notes.

Here are some of the rules I followed:

- Grocery shop with specific meals in mind. Planning meals saves money.
- Don't buy the bigger portion just because it's cheaper. So, for example, I bought a small amount of loose spinach instead of a whole bag of it.
- Don't buy fruits for the whole week. Buy enough for the next 2-3 days. If you eat it all, you can go back and buy more. You'll notice I only bought three apples.

And once I brought the food home, I tried to follow these rules:

- Save the meals with non-perishables for last.
- If something's starting to get mushy, eat it already! It's not going to get any better.
- Try to be creative with meals by using whatever's left from previous meals.

Throughout the week, every time I threw away a Post-It note, I felt great accomplishment. To try to use leftover tomatoes and basil, I mixed them with pasta and Parmesan cheese. It wasn't the tastiest thing I've ever eaten, but it was okay. To use up the rest of the buttermilk, I made biscuits. Even though the raspberries and strawberries were looking a little sad within a few days, I threw some yogurt over them, gobbled them up, and hardly noticed their overripeness. They tasted like saving money. Yum!

At the end of the week, I did have to throw some of it out. I couldn't use all the basil, and the tomatoes were pretty awful, even when I first bought them. I didn't finish the cucumber, and I don't even know why I bought it, as I don't even really like cucumbers that much. There was a little bit of spinach I never finished, so that went in the trash, too. I'd say I threw away 10%, which isn't bad, but I can do better.

I don't think I'd do the Post-It note thing again as it is a waste of Post-It notes and paper, but I will try harder this week. It'll be challenging with Thanksgiving; I know I will be sent home with tons of leftovers, and I will do my best to eat them all.

** Does anyone else think book titles are getting especially long for better SEO?

Self Doubt... Kinda

2011-11-15T08:06:00.006-06:00

I've always wanted to write. I didn't doubt it when I was unemployed or finding a way to use my (some would say) useless journalism degree. I knew I would end up with a job that involved writing, and if I didn't get one right away, I would keep working towards it.

The other night I met two high school friends for dinner, and after some catching up, I started to feel like I had nothing to show for myself. One friend works for the Environmental Protection Agency and the other is just about to graduate law school, and I know she is going to rock the bar exam and do great beyond that. They brought up words I've never heard and discussed things such as government corruption and investigating chemicals. I was genuinely interested, but as I plopped a piece of sushi in soy sauce, some splashing on the table, I thought about how my day-to-day work involves analyzing a single sentence and all its parts.

I've always been proud to talk about my work. And even better, I like it! Even when I didn't have a job, I was doing something writing related. So it wasn't that I wasn't proud of what I do or that my friends were trying to make me feel ashamed. I just felt so much smaller than them. While they will go to work and defend the rights of individuals and even entire communities, I will write 20 variations of the same sentence until I find the perfect combination of words. An admirable pursuit, of course. But not quite the same impact as visiting a site contaminated by chemicals and figuring out what when wrong.

I'm going to have to find some other way to change the world.

#12 Meaningful Connections

2011-11-13T11:05:00.002-06:00

I'm participating in the 30 Days of Indie Travel Challenge on BootsnAll. Prompt #12: MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS. Travelers meet dozens, if not hundreds, of new people on every trip. They may become friends, enemies, lovers, and resources; they may stay in your life forever or be forgotten the next day. Tell about a time you felt a powerful connection – for however long – to another person while traveling.

My 10-day Croatia trip in 2008 was a big independent woman voyage for me. I was going solo, plus I was trying CouchSurfing for the first time, plus I was going to be making all my travel arrangements on the fly once I got there. It was the kind of trip mean to empower single ladies across the planet!

The whole thing went fine with generally no problems. I had lots of experiences that'll stay with me forever, but for the purpose of this post I'll talk about this girl I met.

Traveling alone is empowering and all, you can do what YOU want to do and not have to compromise with anyone. You can spend your money how you want to spend it, linger in one place for longer or leave another place sooner without consulting anyone. But, it can get lonely. I think I'm pretty independent, but even I got lonely.

I was staying at this hostel in Dubrovnik and was hoping to meet some people my age to explore with. I didn't have much luck, so I headed to the walled city to explore it in the company of thousands of other strangers. The walls that were built to protect the city in the 12th to 17th century still stand, and you can walk the interior circumference of the old portion of the city, which is littered with red rooftops.

It was pretty and I took heaps of pictures. I came back to the hostel at night and did end up meeting some people, but I secretly didn't care much for them. They were a few years younger than me, and to save money, they had been stealing all their food and booze throughout the trip. But, I had nothing else to do, so I ended up hanging out with them all night. I also met this other girl while I was eating alone at a restaurant one night — I noticed she was also eating alone and asked if she wanted to eat together — and although she was perfectly nice and we ended up drinking together that night in the company of strange old men, I was just something to do to pass the time. I still felt so lonely, even though I was meeting all these people.

Then I met this girl who was staying in the same hostel as I was. She was a few years older than me and had been WOOFing her way across Eastern Europe. She was a super interesting person, very laid back and interested in sustainability and organic farming (that's what WOOFing is all about). She was interested in going to visit the walled city, and asked if I had been yet and would like to join her. I lied and said no, I hadn't been, but wanted to. I paid once again to visit the old city, really because this was the first person I met in Croatia who I connected with, and I wanted to hold onto that. It wasn't even like we were super chatty and were discovering so much about each other. In fact, much of our time visiting this site was spent in silence as we took in what was around us. We stopped to rest and she took out cheese and bread from her bag and offered me some. I knew she was broke because she had told me, but I felt it rude to reject her gift, so I enjoyed lunch with her. My second visit to the walled city was a much more enjoyable experience than the first because I had someone to share it with.

We didn't spend more than that day together. One of us had to leave, so we just exchanged CouchSurfing usernames, not even emails. I remember I immediately sent her a friend request and left a comment on her page for everyone to see about how much I enjoyed her company. But she never accepted my friend request, I assumed because she was traveling so much with so little access to Internet.

What really gets me is now, I don't even remember her name. All I remember is how much meeting her meant to me, pulling me out of the throes of loneliness, even just for a few hours. I wish I could find a way to thank her one more time.

$23,000 Poorer

2011-11-12T14:39:00.002-06:00

I stopped in Amish Healthy Foods this week to use a Groupon that was expiring soon. It is a small grocery with organic meat and dairy and some vegetables and non-perishable items. As I was getting together my items at the register, I asked the woman how the Groupon was going. She turned out to be the owner. She didn't have many positive things to say about it.

She said she had lost $23,000.

Everything else she said, I had heard before. For each $30 coupon that Groupon cutomers purchased for $15, she only got $7.50. According to the deal on Groupon, 960 people bought it, but she could count on one hand the number of customers who came back. People were stingy. If their total was $32, they wanted to swap out an item to bring the total down to $30. This is familiar.

But that a business owner lost $23,000 because she partnered with Groupon? That leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. I have never felt so guilty to use a Groupon as I did this time. As I was saving $15, she was losing way more.

She told me not to worry about it, that it wasn't my fault. She didn't blame the customers. She understood how the deal worked. She was just glad it was ending soon. The Groupon was expiring in 2 weeks, and she could go back to life as normal.

My total was $40, and she asked me if I wanted to put something back so I wouldn't have to spend more than the total of the Groupon. I insisted that I wanted to buy all these things, which included fresh sausage, wine cheddar cheese, steaks, and bacon. I told her that I wanted to support her business and that I would come back, because I was trying to spend more money on good quality meat. I could tell she didn't believe me, that it didn't matter how good my intentions were. She did not expect to see me ever again.

I will be back. I really think I will. I don't buy meat at the grocery store for all those do-gooder reasons, and I rarely shop at Whole Foods because it's too far, and I end up putting too much in my shopping cart there, then end up having buyer's remorse. This place is smaller, with just the basics, and it's just a few minutes out of my way on the way home from work.

I will be one of the few who returns to give her my full-price business not just to prove her wrong, but because I want to shop there. So she's got one customer on which the Groupon worked its magic, because I would have never known this place existed if it weren't for the Groupon. But I'm just one customer who doesn't even have a family to feed. There's nothing I can personally do to make up the $23,000 she lost.

Some of Them Had Blogs

2011-11-12T14:11:00.002-06:00

I listen to WBEZ, Chicago's NPR station, most mornings. The other day I heard a particularly disturbing story: Air Force Admits Losing Remains At Dover Mortuary. Body parts of servicemen have been lost at the Delaware Mortuary. Mortuary workers also sawed off a U.S. Marine's arm so he could be placed into his uniform and then placed in his casket. I know. It's disgusting in every sense of the meaning of that word.

And then, the Air Force didn't tell the families, even though they found out about it and took the allegations "seriously." These things happened in 2009 and 2010, and the families were notified just this last weekend. Last March, the Office of Special Council asked the Air Force to talk to the families, and then asked them again recently. Why hadn't they? "Their response was that these families, some of them had blogs; they couldn't be trusted - that they might go to the media."

That quote made me so mad. You are allowed to know the mortuary effed with your family member's body, but only if you don't have a big fat blogger mouth and can keep it a secret. Because those people who blog about their personal lives — how ANNOYING — will probably blog about how we sawed off their family member's arm. It's best to just keep this one in the top secret file. We can't let word get out on the blogs!

It's ignorant of the Air Force to assume the family members with blogs would even would want to blog about it. I have no idea how I would react if I found out this had happened to the body of someone close to me. Would I blog about it? I don't know. Why should it matter if I have a blog or am connected to the media? What matters is that the stupid Air Force protects their stupid image.

Happy Veterans Day. I'm glad our country has so much respect for the families of our dead servicemen and what they have provided for us.

#5 Kindness

2011-11-08T07:30:00.003-06:00

I'm participating in the 30 Days of Indie Travel Challenge on BootsnAll. Prompt #5: KINDNESS. One of the greatest joys of travel can be the random acts of kindness you’ll receive from total strangers. Have you ever found kindness from strangers in unexpected places?

I have met many, many kind people while traveling. I often wonder if I could ever reciprocate. Like CouchSurfing, for example. I surfed a couple of couches in Croatia a couple years ago, and I could not believe how generous and welcoming these people were. They fed me, gave me a place to sleep, and one guy even drove me a couple hours to the next town on his way to work. Or this other backpacker I met in Croatia, we visited the walled city of Dubrovnik together. And she shared her Gouda cheese with me for lunch. There are not many people I would share cheese with, and a stranger is not one of them. That sounds like a joke, but it's not really. I especially like cheese.

Anyway, I think about CouchSurfing. I can't host people now, since I live with two other roommates and two cats. But one day, I'll live alone. Would I open my home to strangers and pay forward the kindness other strangers have paid me? I'd like to think I would, but it's a lot to think about. And perhaps there are other ways to make strangers to Chicago feel more at home. I would be lying if I said I didn't know where to start looking; there is the Internet.

Writing this post is making me feel guilty about how little I've tried to seek out foreigners to my city who could really use some local advice and help. I think about all the kind things people have done for me in France, and all those times I promised myself I would be the same kind of person when I was back in America. It's so easy to get caught up in your day-to-day life and forget that all the things that come naturally to you are challenges for other people. Like paperwork, or opening a bank account, or finding an apartment, or explaining why the El goes in a circle downtown. Kindess doesn't necessarily mean giving someone a place to sleep. It can mean a lot of things.

#6 Fear

2011-11-07T06:56:00.006-06:00

I'm participating in the 30 Days of Indie Travel Challenge on BootsnAll. Prompt #6: FEAR. Just as travel can be fun and exciting, it can also have its challenging, or even downright scary, moments. Being in a new place pushes us out of our comfort zone and makes us face our fears. Tell about a time you had to face your fear when traveling, and what was the result.

I'm not a very nervous traveler, not in general. What does make me nervous is the very start of a trip. I'm always nervous about having everything ready and getting to point A on time. So for this Europe trip, for example, our flight was at 5 p.m. on a Friday. I left work at noon to make sure I had everything ready. Of course I did. I had packed Wednesday. So all there was to do for me at home was to pace nervously around my apartment with the Swiffer until it was time to leave for the airport. Then I go to the airport and the security lines for domestic flights were the longest I have ever seen in my entire life, so many people spilling out from the lines that people just walking through had difficulty getting past. This is O'Hare, a giant airport, where there's plenty of space for waiting in line, so it was pretty extreme. There was no way anyone was getting through those in less than an hour. Although we were obviously flying out of the international terminal that has its own lines, still, this was a sign that the airport was packed.

Our flight was in 2 hours and Jake wasn't there yet. I started to become irrationally afraid. What if he didn't make it on time? What if we couldn't get through security on time? What if the plane left for France without us? I couldn't concentrate on anything except for the feeling of fear in my stomach until Jake arrived to the airport, 1.5 hours before our flight, plenty of time to check our bags, go through international security (which took all of 5 minutes), buy food, and sit and wait for an hour by our gate for our flight.

Once I make it safely and soundly to the first leg of a trip, I don't care anymore. We had three more flights on this trip — to and from Berlin and then back to Chicago — and I was never nervous about those. In fact, we could have been late for a couple of those. We took the wrong direction on the train en route to the Berlin airport (my fault), so lost a few minutes there. And at Charles de Gaulle, they were pretty understaffed, so we spent a lot of time waiting in lines. We made it to the gate with only a few minutes to spare.

Maybe I don't worry about this stuff once the trip gets started because I wouldn't mind so much getting stuck or delayed in Paris or Berlin. It could be a fun adventure, and I'd get to stay a tad bit longer. To get stuck in Chicago when I'm trying to leave it for a vacation... that would not be the slightest bit of fun.

#4 Mistakes

2011-11-06T18:04:00.002-06:00

I'm participating in the 30 Days of Indie Travel Challenge on BootsnAll. Prompt #4: MISTAKES. Everyone makes mistakes. We forget to ask for Coke without ice in Mexico and spend the rest of the trip in the bathroom. Or we arrive at the airport for a 7pm flight only to realize the flight left at 7am. Tell us the story of your worst travel mistake.

We were meeting people for dinner at 7, right by the Eiffel Tower. It was 5. It was a pretty nice day out, and the Eiffel Tower was close. "Let's walk to the Eiffel Tower," I sugested. "It's only about a 20-minute walk. We'll have time to go up and then we can go to dinner. They live just a few minutes away." Jake said okay. A 20-minute walk isn't bad, right? Along the way we could take some photos and see more of Paris.

The 20-minute walked turned into a 45-minute walk turned into a 1.5-hour walk. Somewhere along the way, Jake stopped trusting me that it was a 20-minute walk. First he didn't say anything. We just continued to walk in silence, and Paris started to feel miserable. It was SO close though, we were almost there. We could see it. Except, just because you can see the Eiffel Tower doesn't mean you're anywhere close to it.

Jake finally asked if I had looked at a map before I decided it was a 20-minute walk. No, because I knew how to get there. But I am not good with distances. I know Paris well, but I used to bike everywhere. It was probably a 20-minute bike ride from where we were. Which is not the same thing as a 20-minute walk. We finally get there, and Jake is miserable, which makes me miserable. He'd been feeling sick all day, and started complaining about his rotator cuff hurting too, and decided he was not going to go to dinner and would just go back to the hotel and sleep. Even worse, we had no time to go up in the Eiffel Tower. It was 6:45 by this point.

We were both grumpy, so we just sat on a bench with our backs to the stupid Eiffel Tower and didn't talk. It's supposed to be this romantic thing, this Eiffel Tower. But, no, not at this time. I made a mistake and I was mad at myself and Jake was mad at me too. Plus, he wasn't coming to dinner to meet some good friends of mine and probably wouldn't have the chance to meet them ever again. Blerg.

Jake finally agreed to drag himself to dinner, because it's not like he's in Paris that often. On our way there, we walked past a pharamacy, so I was able to pick him up some drugs. He said he instantly felt better after taking the mystery pills and dinner was really, really great. We went to a Japanese restaurant with two of the families I used to babysit for. They're awesome and their kids are awesome, too. It was just one of those dinners where everyone is having a good time and it's over before it even started. Jake also tried his first piece of sushi and liked it, SUCCESS (I've been trying to get him to try sushi for 4 years)! He even talked about going to Coast when we got back, a swanky sushi place by where we live in Chicago. We were sad to say goodbye after dinner, but everyone was in high spirits.

Afterwards we walked back to the Eiffel Tower. We were too tired to go up and it was too dark to get a couplely picture in front of it. But we enjoyed watching it glitter, all romantic-like, and I was happy I had brought someone with me to Paris who forgives me for my mistakes.

One of my Favorites

2011-11-04T06:06:00.002-06:00

There are a few things that I'll always visit every time I go to Paris, and Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) is one. Of all the churches I've ever visted, this one is still my favorite, even though it's crawling with tourists, every single one of them taking the same pictures. There's always some guy playing pop songs on the guitar, and those weird dudes trying to tie strings around your wrists and scam you out of all your euro coins. But still, I find it beautiful despite all these annoyances.

If you've ever been to Europe — or just seen pictures of it — you'll know that every country has tons of amazing old churches and cathedrals. Unfortunately, they lose their impact because there are so many of them. After awhile, all the churches look the same. I like Sacre Coeur so much because it's so much different than the rest. The basilica is always bright white, even after 100 years of weathering and polution, because it's built from travertine stone, which exudes calcite (that's what Wikipedia said). Also, it's built on the highest point in Paris, so it has a great view of the city.

Sacre Coeur never loses its magnificence to me, and it doesn't hurt that it's in Montmartre, where a lot of Amelie was filmed. I would have loved if our hotel had been in this area. Although parts of it can be a little sketchy, I love the tiny windy streets with bistros and cafes. Also, a lot of souvenir shops, but you can try to ignore those. This is where Jake tried his first crepe and liked it! A small victory.

#2 Embracing Change

2011-11-03T05:58:00.009-06:00

I'm participating in the 30 Days of Indie Travel Challenge on BootsnAll. Prompt #2: EMBRACING CHANGE. Change can be exciting and bring new joys into our lives. But it can present challenges that frustrate or annoy us. How has travel changed you in the last year? Did you welcome these changes or resist them at the time, and how do you feel about them now?

I've been wanting to take up more freelance work ever since I knew freelancing was a thing. And I never really did not because I didn't think I was good enough, but because I didn't know where to start. But a few months ago, when I started planning some trips and realized I didn't really want to wipe my savings clean, I started pursuing more freelance stuff.

Freelancing's hard, with more dead ends than leads. A lot of people don't need you right now, but maybe later. A lot of projects are one-time only, or the money runs out and they end. Working with some companies just plain sucks because they're unorganized or don't really know what they're doing. And in the work I've done, I'm usually paid a flat fee for one piece, which may sound like a fair price at the start, but that doesn't include the amount of time you spend researching.

But, I'm not complaining. Those are just realities. And even if a company's difficult to work for and I may never write for them again because they sucked so hard, frankly, I'm happy to have the $300 check from it. Because that's one round-trip domestic flight (if I fly Southwest and book my ticket far enough in advance).

My travel aspirations haven't changed the way I write, but they have changed the way I pursue being a writer. I was terrified of being rejected before, but now, it's just part of the business. In fact, I expect to be rejected by most of the clients I pitch. But you'll never know unless you ask.

I'm not making bank as a freelancer or anything. My full-time job comes first, so that restricts the amount of time I can spend writing other stuff and researching clients and projects to seek out. But I've done about 100% more freelance stuff than I did last year, which means I'm writing more and learning more and earning more and even though it sounds laughable, improving my Google rankings (if you don't think that's important, then get off the Internet).

It helps having a goal. I have a purpose for waking up at 6 a.m. This money's going to flying to Seattle for my sister's graduation, or a dinner with my friend Megan whenever I make it to Dallas or a road trip with my friend Lucy whenever I make it to New Zealand. Having this idea of where the money is going definitely helps, and even if I am just getting a $50 check for something that took a few hours, it's $50 more than I didn't have. And $50 checks add up, right?

The only thing I don't look forward to is tax season in April...

Goals

2011-11-02T06:39:00.001-06:00

I'm participating in the 30 Days of Indie Travel Challenge on BootsnAll. Prompt #1: GOALS. What were your travel goals last year? Did you accomplish them? What travel goals do you hope to accomplish this year?

I've already written about this to exhaustation. I wanted to go back to Paris this year. Then I won a trip there. So yes, I've accomplished my travel goals this year. Goals next year? Well maybe I'll set the bar high and try to win another contest to somewhere else.

Mean French

2011-11-01T05:56:00.003-06:00

One day in Paris, Jake and I explored the Marais. This is a great little area to walk around in, as it's very picturesque and chic with lots of boutiques selling stuff most people could never afford. I also wanted to take Jake for a delicious and inexpensive lunch at l'As du Falafel, which is right there in the city's Jewish neighborhood (NYT says it's delicious enough to turn you vegetarian for a day). I didn't have the address on hand, but the area is pretty small, so I figured we'd find it easily. I saw a woman eating a falafel that looked exactly the same as the one I was searching for. So I asked her if she could point us in the right direction.

As we started talking, I noticed falafel bits were smeared all over her face. She was eating it like a savage, which was a great sign. First, she told me that the place I was looking for was only the 2nd best in Paris, and her place was the best. She was so invested in us finding this particular restaurant, she wanted to escort us there. Her husband wasn't so keen on the idea. As they bickered about coming with us or not, more falafel bits seem to take over her face and her husband wiped them away. I insisted on just getting directions, and apologized for angering her husband. "Oh no no, he's not angry!" she told me "He just knows I want to go back to get another one, and he doesn't want to pay for it!" Finally we were on our way with just the directions, where we ending up waiting 20 minutes for the most delicious €5 falafel in the city. And we even saw the lady return while we were waiting in line! Don't tell her this, but I think this place and the place I was looking for serve exactly the same falafel, so they are equally good. Either way, it's evidence that you don't have to spend a ton of money to eat well while traveling.

Later that day, after walking and walking and walking some more, we stopped at a cafe for some drinks. We had a dinner date with a friend who lived in the 10th, a ways away from where we were. I was trying to find the address on the map the hotel gave us, but wasn't having much luck. So I asked our server if he was familiar with that area. Maybe he had heard of the street or lived close by and could tell us what metro stop we needed. "Ah, that map you have, that is only for tourists," he told me. "It is good for finding tourist things, but not for the little streets of the city." From his breast pocket, he removed a little red book like Paris Pratique. He located the street I was looking for in the index, then located the street on one of the maps. He cross referenced his map with mine, then made a mark on my nerdy tourist fold-out map where the street would be. Keep in mind Paris servers don't work for tips. Unless we decided to be particularly nice and leave a couple extra euros, this location service he provided was free of charge.

I tell these two stories to show that Parisians are not as mean as everyone says they are. Although, I had something that most Americans don't have, and that's the ability to speak French. But it's not like I just woke up one day and spoke the language. More like I woke up every day for 10 years, and sometime during that day, I worked on learning it. So maybe I feel like I am owed these extra helpful experiences because I earned them. If you go somewhere with a different native language, try to learn at least a few words. If you would like to talk to a random lady on the street about falafel or ask your server for directions and expect them to be genuinely helpful, I guess you're going to have to study the language for 10 years.

Think I'll Take Up Jugger

2011-10-31T06:35:00.003-06:00

One afternoon in Berlin, Jake and I enjoyed a filling and delicious brunch with my friend and our host Cate, then went for a walk in the park by her apartment. An airport until 2008, the transformation to park is still underway, so it's mostly just a gigantic field. It's a popular place for kite enthusiasts of all kinds, since it's so windy and there's so much open space. Also, it's apparently the location of a twice-weekly Jugger practice.

This picture not taken by us. I got it from the Internet. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about here.

We came across this group of people who we thought were LARPing. But they didn't have Medieval costumes on, so we thought it might be LARPing practice. But as we watched, we realized this was probably some sort of game with a set of rules. The players had weapons and would attack each other systematically, and each match lasted only a few minutes before they went back to each of the end of the field and did it again. I especially appreciated the constant drum beat. It made whatever was happening seem so much more serious.

After we thought we had it mostly figured out, Cate went and ask the guy beating the drum what it was called. Jugger, an "official" sport for many years they said, inspired by 1989 Australian movie The Blood of Heroes. The goal is to capture the dog skull (not an actual dog skull, but is meant to look like one) and bring it to your stake to score. Weapons include the staff, the "famous" Q-tip, the sword, the shield, and my personal favorite, the chain. The chain has a ball attached to the end of it. The player with the chain gets to whip it around and knock people out. If one of your opponents strikes you within the legal strike zone (essentially anywhere but your head, lower legs, and forearms), you must stay down for five beats of the drum, or eight beats if the chain dude got a strike on you.

Get a little bit of a better idea, complete with a Creed soundtrack:

As I said, the people we saw playing weren't wearing costumes, just normal athletic gear. Also, hot girls were playing, which kind of boggled us. Aren't hot girls supposed to play tennis and volleyball? But no, this one hot girl would always challenge the chain guy, and 9 times out of 10, she would bite it hard, face-first. It's very hard to battle the chain, we learned. If she can do it, maybe I can too. I don't know if there are any Jugger teams in Chicago.

Anyway, my whole point in writing about this, was that we didn't exactly go to Berlin to discover Jugger. But that's what happened, and I think all of us preferred spending that time watching the Jugger match and then subsequent YouTube videos than we would have visiting a museum or church. Just one of those true clichés of travel, I guess: the things you accidentally stumble across can make for some of the best memories.

Bike Crash

2011-10-29T20:55:00.005-05:00

One of my greatest fears is getting in a bike accident. I always imagine it'll be me vs. car, but yesterday, my first major bike collision, it was me vs. pedestrian. It was awful.

I was working another race, this time leading a half-marathon on my bike. My job was to help clear the course and make sure the people racing had a path. They were mostly running on the Lake Shore path, which is a pretty crowded running and biking path as is. There were a lot of runners not participating in the race.

I tried to get out of the way of a runner coming towards me. He tried to get out of my way. We both moved to the same direction and collided. I don't know how I fell, but we all fell, me, him, and my bike.

When I hit the ground, I didn't feel anything, but just saw this guy just laying there. Not moving. I somehow managed to untangle myself from my bike and didn't even see if he was okay. My first instinct was to get him help, so I immediately called the race's medical team on my walkie talkie, and they were soon on their way. Meanwhile a few other bystanders had stopped to help and called 911 and were talking to the guy to keep him awake. I acted calm. But I wasn't feeling calm. The guy obviously hit his head. Blood had started to seep out from behind his head. He was talking, but he was too calm in my opinion. If it were me on the ground, I would have been talking more, asking more questions. He seemed confused and made no effort to move. And he was older. Obviously fit, because he had been running, but still. In his '60s.

It wasn't long before the medical team had arrived, and an ambulance and fire truck shortly after. He was obviously in good hands, and he was talking, though a bit lucid. His name was Ed, he was 65, and had no medical conditions, but he took one medication, though he didn't seem to remember what for. Everyone was super calm, and it all felt very a routine. I'm sure the medics see stuff like this all the time, and all they did was bandage his head and ask him a few questions before carting him off to the ambulance. In retrospect, that was a very good sign; no neck brace, no scary equipment. But as I stood by as they worked, all I could think about was that I was responsible for this guy on the ground with a head injury and blood all over.

Plus, there was a race going on. Hundreds of runners were passing by, clearly horrified by the scene. When the ambulance was ready to take him to the hospital, they had to reroute the race and send the runners onto the beach so they could back the ambulance out on the path. There was a puddle of blood left on the ground, but the medis decided to leave it because didn't want to wash blood onto the path of all the runners.

No one would take my name or let me file any reports or sign anything. I asked every single medic and firefighter present. No, they told me, it was fine. Everything would be fine, they said. Instead everyone was asking me if I was okay. I didn't understand why that would be an issue, and it took me a few minutes to realize that I could very well be injured too. But I wasn't, aside from a few bumps and scratches.

It wasn't fair that I, the younger person involved, the one with the vehicle, was walking away from this. Everyone kept telling me that it was no one's fault, even the people who had witnessed the collision said so. But I felt responsible. I should have been more careful. He was defenseless against a bike. I felt like I could have done a better job to avoid it.

The ambulance took him away and I just stood there. One of the medics made me feel a lot better. She told me these collisions happen all the time, which I know, they do. The Lake Shore path is always crowded. That didn't make me feel better about being a part of one. But, she said, he would probably just need a few stitches and go home fine. That a concussion is not the worst thing to happen to someone.

I considered following the ambulance to the hospital, but I was working and would have to notify my manager, who was out on the course somewhere. He didn't even know what had happened. Plus I had one of the race's walkie talkies, so I would have to drop that off somewhere. By the time I got to the hospital, it was unlikely they'd let me see Ed, because I didn't even know the guy. I didn't his last name either, so I wasn't sure how I would even find him. I decided the best thing to do was to let the hospital take care of him, that there wasn't really anything I could do by going there to see him.

Really, there was nothing to do but get back to work.

I still feel awful. I'm confident that Ed's okay based on the information the medics gave me, but I still have the image of him on the ground in my head. And I still feel like the whole thing was my fault. It's not a good feeling to have. I wish I had walked away with more than a few bruises and bumps. It's not fair that I got off so easy.

I hope Ed has insurance, and that they were able to contact his family so they could come be with him at the hospital. He didnt have a phone and it didn't look like any identification. Since he was talking and conscious, I'm sure he was able to tell the doctors who to call. And I also feel guilty for not being the first next to him talking to him seeing if he was okay when it first happened. I know I did the right thing; I had the walkie talkie and access to the medical team, so letting other people tend to him while I called for help was the right thing to do.

I wish I could tell him I'm sorry.

Paris Syndrome

2011-10-27T07:08:00.005-05:00

According to Wikipedia, Paris Syndrome "is a transient psychological disorder encountered by some people, in most cases from Japan, visiting or vacationing in Paris, France." This Atlantic article descibed it better:

And though it may sound like a disease unique to freshman girls with Le Chat Noir posters everywhere, it is a serious disorder that causes tourists, especially Japanese tourists, many problems on their trip through the City of Light. And what is Paris Syndrome, exactly? Simply put, it's a collection of physical and psychological symptoms experienced by first-time visitors realizing that Paris isn't, in fact, what they thought it would be.

I am not a first-time visitor to Paris. My passport is filthy with France stamps. My first time was on a trip funded by my grandpa when I was 19, when I spoke not a word of French, and this is my fourth time back. I love Paris and my whole being ached when I decided that the best decision for me was to leave. Such a beautiful city with so much rich culture and such a beautiful language that I could never grow tired of hearing or speaking!

I live in Chicago now, but. I repeat. I still love Paris and France, obviously, or I wouldn't have entered this competition and worked so hard to win. Just so you understand that.

Now.

People need to stop making such a big deal about Paris.

I mean, there's this Paris Syndrome thing, which is laughable, but apparently a real condition. Because people think Paris is this whimsical place, just like a Coco Chanel commercial. When really, there's dog poo everywhere and pretty much every metro station smells like old urine (with the exception of Line 14, which smells like sulfur). It's grey and rainy a lot, and the black/grey sidewalks make it seem even more dreary. The sidewalks are narrow as are the metro cars, so you always feel like the crowds are closing in on you. Rent's high, so most people live in small apartments. When you spend a considerable amount of time in Paris, these things come together and can make for a blue day or two.

There are amazing things about Paris. While I don't think any city in the world has anything on the Chicago skyline, Paris, the City of Lights, is very beautiful at all hours of the day and especially at night. I have met great people there. The food's yummy, the wine's cheap, the cheese is plentiful. The pace of life is slower than here.

What am I trying to say?

Maybe I'm just frustrated that people see Paris as a postcard and not as a real place where people live and work. It's not like Parisians are frolicking under the Eiffel Tower on their bicyclettes every day. It has this feeling of romance, but just as many people are in love in other cities in the world. A city is a city is a city. If you remind yourself of that before you go to Paris, maybe you will not be shocked to realize there are not mimes and accordian players on every corner. If you have the opportunity to go, do it, go. It is a city unlike any other and even if you only owned a disposable camera, your pictures would still turn out great because the city is so photogenic.

But keep your expectations realistic and watch your step because there's plenty of dog poo waiting to be stepped in.

How was Paris?

2011-10-27T06:37:00.006-05:00

How was Paris? It was great! Of course it was great! A lot of people think I won this trip by chance, but that's hardly the case. Part of my success was tact, but most of it was asking every single person I had ever met via phone, text, email, or Facebook to vote for me. And the other part of it was having friends and family rallying behind me and spreading the word, because they wanted me to win. Everyone knows I freaking love this city and this country. I would have made it this year anyway, I just would have been thousands of dollars poorer. Of course Paris was great because I could just wander down the streets and be happy. But my vision of Paris is very different than most.

I had mixed emotions there. Sometimes I remembered how lonely and sad I was when I first arrived. In recent months, I've forgotten about all the things I did alone while I was there. I would go to events, bars, and museums alone all the time, half hoping to make a new friend. Jake and I spent a lot of time in the area where the Centre Pompidou is, one of our favorite places, a modern art museum. But that area has bad memories, because I lived there with some pretty awful people who were passive aggressive and mean and ultimately kicked me out. It was the for the best.

It was for the best because it led me to my next apartment, where I met the most amazing roommate who welcomed me into her circle of friends. These are the happy memories I have of Paris, and the ones that made it so hard to leave. Not only these friends, but also the families I worked for babysitting and tutoring. When people ask "How was Paris?" these are the people that made it great. By the time Jake and I left Paris for Berlin, I was exhausted by the many dinners and appointments with all these people. But I was glad for them all.

These were great times and I am so happy that I could go back to Paris and spend time with these people. Although they are far away, they are all very important people in my life. It was nice to see everyone and catch up, and it was nice to remember why this city is so amazing. We have the stereotype that French people are rude and hate Americans, and some of them do, yes. But not these people. They helped make Paris feel like home for me, and I really think I needed those lonely months to appreciate that more.

Paris was wonderful, because I was able to see these friends and that will help me continue to maintain these friendships. I stay in touch with these people via email and Facebook, but dining and drinking with them is much better. When I go back — I will, because I cannot stay away, even if I don't live there — I hope to again visit my favorite Thai restaurant along the Canal St. Martin, to see what the kids I used to babysit are up to, and to drink delicious inexpensive wine in the company of friends. I'll see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre and all that good stuff, too. You gotta! But Paris means more to me than that.

Paris: Day 1

2011-10-17T04:14:00.010-05:00

Our flight to Paris was pretty okay. Air France is a classy airline, with complimentary wine, yummy food, and a large selection of in-flight entertainment. So we watched some movies and did our best to sleep. That didn't go so well. Someone brought a robot baby programmed to cry the whole flight. I slept more than Jake, but he needed more. He had only slept a few hours the night before because he woke up early to get the iPhone4S. We got to Paris pretty exhausted, but I had deliberately planned a busy day to get us adapted to Paris time as quickly as possible.

My friend Pierre met us at the airport. When I was a teacher in a couple primary schools here, most of the teachers were cold and rude. I didn't have an amazing time teaching because a) I didn't know what I was doing and b) no one was very helpful and I felt unwelcome. But Pierre was the opposite, and I had a great time with his class doing all the fun activities I had planned. Other classes didn't get as much fun because their teachers thought my lesson plans were stupid. If a teacher was standing in the back of the classroom rolling her eyes because I wanted to — God forbid — sing a song in English, the class would sense the negative energy and feed off it. Pierre embraced my energy and dedication to make learning fun, even though I was young and inexperienced, and he worked with me instead of against me. So I stayed in touch with him and was happy to have a chance to spend time with him in Paris.

He helped us navigate the RER and Metro to our hotel, where we dropped our bags in our room, changed clothes, and immediately headed out to see some cool Paris stuff. We started with the Catacombs. Back in the 1800s, people in Paris were getting sick, and they blamed the cemeteries. So, they cleaned the cemeteries out and brought millions of bones to these underground quarries to contain the diseased dead. The Catacombs contain the bones of six million Parisians, which are neatly stacked for a mile or two. It's pretty creepy, but also cool. It's weird, you see the first portion of the visit, with femurs and fibulas stacked on either side of you with skulls placed on top, and it's very strange and morbid. But then you continue along the visit and see the same thing over and over, and you begin to become desensitized to it. You know these are real bones, but they kinda seem like they could be fake ones too. Pierre commented that these people probably never got that close to another human being when they were alive, but once they were dead the concept of personal space ceased to exist. Now their bones are all mixed up with other folks' bones.

After the Catacombs, we grabbed lunch at Exki, which was an inexpensive soup and sandwich place with all organic and natural foods. The atmosphere was cool; it was minimalistic and contemporary, with bamboo and plants. It was pretty yummy, and it was nice to eat some good, healthy food. The chicken and rice Air France served us was great for airplane food, but, it was airplane food.

Then, it was off to the Louvre. I was feeling pretty spent at this point, and almost wanted to skip it, but we had free tickets and Pierre had a whole folder with him with stuff about the paintings he wanted to show us. Also, it's the Louvre. Pierre is really knowledgeable about art, and had told me in advance that he would prepare a visit, but it would be best to only see one section. The Louvre is ginormous, and if you try to see it all, you won't remember anything. We saw some of the best hits (Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, some old thing of a lady smirking that some da Vinci guy painted), as well as the Italian painting wing. It was really great to have some context for what was going on in the paintings and what significance they served. Pierre doesn't speak English and Jake doesn't speak French, so I translated. I was worried it'd be difficult, but it really wasn't bad.

We would have loved to stay at the Louvre longer, but by this time it was 5 p.m., or midnight for us. I wanted to meet friends for dinner, so we had to say goodbye to Pierre and get some sleep. I slept about an hour, left Jake so he could sleep longer, and made it to Mme Shawn only 30 minutes late, which is just on time for Paris. Mme Shawn is this Thai restaurant I really like, and I had eaten there a couple times with the group of Parisians I was lucky enough to call friends. I met them through my roommate, Ina. They were really her group of friends and she shared them with me. They kinda took me under their wing and let me hang out with them and stumble through my French even though most of them speak great English. I have them to thank for a lot of slang I know. I also have them to thank for not being totally miserable and lonely my whole time in Paris.

I really like the neighborhood where the restaurant was located. Mme Shawn is on the Canal St. Martin. It's not close to the Eiffel Tower or any of the main sites, so it's more residential. The canal is a nice place to walk or have a picnic or play pétanque, the French version of Bocci ball. I also spent a lot of time running along the canal when I was training for a marathon. I was happy that my friends had picked this restaurant, because I wanted Jake to see the neighborhood.

After dinner, Jake met up with us and we went to a little bar that struck us as very French, just because it was small and rusticish with oldish decor. The bartender was kinda a d-bag, but that's okay. It didn't really bother us. Customer service is not at all a thing here in France, and it cracks me up. A lot of Americans get really angry if they have bad service, but hey, that's just how it is. For example, we ordered two pints and he kept suggesting that I order the half-sized glasses instead. Weird, right? Wouldn't he want to make more money? Also, I ordered a pint glass, so could you please give me what I ordered? He said he was out of big glasses, so I gave him the glass from my previous beer, he magically found another (even though he was out), and we got our 2 pints.

We stayed until close, and he gave us plastic cups to take the rest of our beer with us. I poured my beer into the plastic one and Jake pounded his. In America, you can't drink outside of restaurants or bars, so he didn't know that we could take our beers with us. We said goodbye to our friends, tried to find a taxi back to our hotel, failed, but then randomly ran into a couple we had met earlier in the night that was friends with one of my friends, and took a night bus with them instead. That was pretty lucky, because I'm not sure we would have found a cab, and I'm terrible at navigating bus maps and routes. Jake commented that this bus was the most attractive bus he had ever been on. I don't think Parisians are necessarily more attractive than us Americans, but they just put more time into their clothes, makeup, and accessories, so they look more attractive.

So that was our first day in Paris. I am exhausted thinking about it and now I don't have the energy to recap day 2.

Marathon Fever

2011-10-13T07:26:00.001-05:00

I'll occasionally work behind the scenes at a race to make a little but of extra cash. I wouldn't do it for free, but I also enjoy the adrenaline that comes with these races. I ran all through high school, and although I don't run races as much as I used to, I still get excited when other people do them.

This past weekend I worked with the elite fluids for the Chicago Marathon. All the elite athletes mix their Gatorades and electrolyte drinks the day before and bring them to us to set out every few miles on the course. It was easy work, and also interesting to see a little bit of how much goes into organizing a race with 40,000 runners. Of course the elite fluids had to be on the course before the everyone started running, so our work day was done by the race start at 7:30 a.m. Then we had front-row seats to watch the marathon start.

There are so many runners in this race that it take about 30 minutes for all of them to cross the start. That's a whole lotta adrenaline and excitement, and I decided that I absolutely had no choice but to run the marathon next year.

I've done three marathons since I was 18, roughly one every two or three years. My last one was in 2009. Every time I run one, I tell myself I'm never going to do it again. And then I do. It doesn't make sense, but it does. I don't feel like explaining it.

I always tell people that running the marathon is the easy part. Once you get to the starting line, you've already (or should have) done the hard work in training for the race. The race isn't easy, but it's easier than the 4 months you've spent training for it. Anyway, I won't bore y'all with marathon talk. It's a weird weird cult. But just know. I'm doing it.

On Steve Jobs

2011-10-09T18:45:00.004-05:00

I haven't written about Steve Jobs yet mostly because I felt like I didn't have anything worthwhile to say that hadn't already been said. As soon as the news of his death reached the Internet, every article ever written about him was shared. When I saw one of the pictures of an Apple store window plastered with Post-it notes, I started getting a lump in my throat. When I visited the Michigan Avenue store myself, I felt that lump creeping up. Seeing all these multicolored notes thanking Steve Jobs in so many different languages really got to me. On my bike ride home, I started crying.

I've never lived in the same lifetime as an inventor who has so heavily influenced my daily life. I have an Apple product in my hands about 12 hours a day. I wake up early to my iPhone alarm clock, flip open my MacBook Pro to write a little, then head to work where I'll spend the whole day writing on another Mac, then stop at the grocery store on my way home and check a recipe on my iPhone, and switch back to my Mac personal computer when I'm home to do more work. Other products that factor heavily into my day-to-day life — bikes, forks, ballpoint pens — are ones that were around way before I was. I never saw these inventions evolve and so was never able to imagine a world in which those things didn't exist.

Many of us who love Apple products feel personal about our relationship with the brand, that we independently discovered our first Apple computer, and it significantly changed everything in our lives that happened after that point. My dad had this crazy smart ahead-of-his-time friend who influenced him into purchasing only Apple and nothing else, so I was lucky to receive my own personal desktop Mac at age nine or ten in the early '90s. This was around the age when I started to realize how much I liked writing. My favorite computer games were writing-based ones. I wrote a lot of really really dumb stories on a program called Imagination Express, and I was always playing Oregon Trail. You know how Oregon Trail kept a journal of your journey with entries detailing who died of cholera that day or exactly what was lost to the current when your wagon capsized in the river crossing? I actually went added my own made-up stories to those journals.

I could type faster than I could write by hand, so all of my silly little-kid stories were written on a Mac. I typed and I typed and I typed. I typed so much the keyboard had to be replaced. During Steve Jobs' Stanford speech, he talks about how his interest in the art of calligraphy influenced the clean type of the first Mac, and influenced the clean type of every computer that came after that, since Microsoft just copied everything he did. The type was so well-designed that it didn't feel designed, and for me, a kid stumbling through writing an extremely underwhelming story, it was perfect; everything was very simply and cleanly about the words I was writing and nothing else.

I am sure I would have pursued writing regardless, because I loved it so. But I had a platform that made it easy for me to get my words out, and I didn't want to stop. The Mac was so intuitive that I was able to fully become engrossed in this writing thing without thinking about anything else. And that's what I still love to do today, and, I still do it on a Mac.

This is my personal story with Apple and what Steve Jobs gave me, and it's not that interesting. But those Post-it notes? Man I can't keep it together even thinking about them. Because everyone who scribbled a few words and stuck a note to the window had some insignificant but personal story with how Apple changed their life. These Post-it notes are a celebration of a life well-lived. I wish I had a Post-it note to add. I don't know what I'd add. I could only squeeze a few sentences on there, which wouldn't be enough to say all that I wanted to say.

Damn You Dutch Oven

2011-10-02T14:46:00.003-05:00

I was at Goodwill the other day, and I found the Dutch oven pictured above. Cool! I could use that. It's a great (FRENCH!) brand, and I could make French onion soup or something in it. I turned it over for a price, and experienced some sticker shock. $40. $40 is a lot to spend on something at Goodwill. I decided to take a pass.

At first I felt I made a horrible, horrible decision, because a new Le Creuset Dutch oven is about $250. Of course I went back the next day to try to buy it, but it was gone. And of course, Le Creuset Dutch ovens have been haunting me ever since. I went to a knife skills class yesterday, and had to walk past a whole shelf of Le Crueset Dutch ovens in the practice kitchen. I opened my issue of Bon Appetit and of course the Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs recipe I would like to try requires a Dutch oven. On page 42 of the magazine, Bon Appetit pictures one specific Dutch oven — a Le Creuset one — and tells me to buy it for homestyle entertaining. If only I had purchased the $40 Dutch oven, my life would be so much better!

Ultimately, not spending $40 on something I would use sometimes but not all the time and don't really need was actually good decision. Yeah, it was $200 cheaper than a new one. And that's the part I'm kicking myself over because I love deals so very much. But it was also $40 more than needed to be spent. $0 was the price I should be spending on things I don't really need. And $0 was what I spent.

Deals aren't great deals if you're buying something you don't need or won't ever use. That's why the Extreme Couponer people with hundreds of tubes of stockpiled toothpaste have a problem. It's great to get toothpaste for chep, but the average person only uses a few tubes of toothpaste a year. That being said, I still kinda wish I bought the Dutch oven, but I'm not terribly upset that I missed my chance. I can make Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs in a pot.

Favorite Things of September

2011-10-01T16:41:00.006-05:00

Home Cooking: Since we finalized our Europe trip, I'd decide I'd try to scrimp and save a little more. So I resolved not to eat out until Paris. Aside from our weekend in Toledo and today's Chipotle festival, I've stuck to it. I don't eat out frequently anyway, but cooking 100% of my meals at home has led me to try some new recipes, such as creamy carrot soup and homemade macaroni and cheese (I apparently only cook orange foods). I like this trend. I think good food tastes even better when you've made it yourself. Next week's menu will include slow cooked buffalo wings. Yum!

Starting the day early: Since I've picked up some extra freelance work, I've been waking up a couple hours early to get it done. It's nice to brew a cup of French press coffee and be productive early in the morning. I feel much more accomplished. It also helps me work a couple morning workouts into my schedule too.

This: Travel Planning: Paris. Berlin. Australia. New Zealand. It's all happening before my next birthday. Yay! This means more work and even more frugality, but all in the name of voyage!

The cat's space heater: Nothing keeps the Lib happier than a Holmes HFH442-UM Heater Fan with Adjustable Thermostat and ALCI Plug. She discovered my roommate's last year and has taken such a liking to it that I bought one just for her. If the cat's happy, then I'm happy. I'm hoping she'll forget about me when I'm in France and just curl up next to this heater the whole time. Fall flavors: Pumpkin, pomegranite, apple, caramel. I welcome your scent in candles and flavor in food stuffs.

Disinfectant Thief

2011-09-29T07:24:00.002-05:00

You know how grocery stores now have containers of disinfectant wipes so you can degerm your cart? As I was leaving the store yesterday, I saw this guy reach into the container and pull out the whole roll of wipes. He slowly stuffed it in his bag as I gave him a dirty and disgusted look. Who steals a roll of wipes like that? As soon as I was outside the store, I felt terrible. I wished I hadn't given him that look.

For some reason, stealing the stuff meant for cleaning carts seemed more shameful than swiping a container of Clorax wipes from the Dominick's shelf. Maybe because if you got caught with the container, you'd have to return it. If you got caught with a roll of sopping, disinfectant-smelling wipes, what are they gonna do? Make you stuff in back into the container? So this got me thinking about why he was stealing them. Maybe he's got a kid at home, and baby wipes are not in his budget. Wet Ones ARE expensive. Or maybe he's homeless, and he uses these wipes to keep clean. There was something going on, and I didn't know what it was. Sure, it's wrong to take a roll of disinfectant wipes from the grocery store. But I still felt judgey and awful. I automatically judged him for doing something I do never do, but he probably has some problems I will never have.

Romantic Roller Coaster Weekend

2011-09-19T21:30:00.003-05:00

This weekend started with a very important backstory; I have been nagging Jake to go to Six Flags pretty much ever since we started dating. So, um, for 4 years? He always has a great excuse, such as it's too hot, or too far away. Last year around this time, I had planned a trip with a very dear friend of mine for the very last day of the season, but she backed out at the very last minute. To this day, I don't think she knows how crushed I was. I cried over it and moped around my apartment like a mopey mope pants the whole day. I was SO upset that my plan to ride roller coasters was foiled once again.

Finally, yes, this year, it is true, Jake caved and said we could go on a trip. But no, not Six Flags, he said. If we were going to go ride roller coasters, we were going to go to Ohio to Cedar Point, home of the biggest baddest roller coasters on the planet (or something).

He booked the hotel room, I rented the car, we headed out on our grand adventure Friday after work. Our trip was much upgraded by the satellite radio — there was an 80s station and a 90s station, which we both muchly enjoyed — a very comfortable hotel bed, and great weather for our day at the park. Although we spent a lot of time waiting in line with awkward 14 year olds, the rides were definitely worth it. They were much more exciting and scarier than our memories of Six Flags. Especially this crazy one:

We waited extra long to ride in the first car, and that one was our favorite. But even the wooden rides that didn't flip upside down were fun. We want to go back again next year and ride some of the coasters we missed. There was also a Christian metal band called Skillet playing that we could hear while we waited in line! (::sarcasm::)

New Season

2011-09-15T09:35:00.002-05:00

There's no doubt about it. Fall's here. This is how I know.

The Big Star patio, usually packed, was empty yesterday.

One of the coworkers who graciously drove me home yesterday evening joked about turning on the heat.

Another coworker noticed the yellow tint of the leaves on the trees outside our office.

Someone came to work wearing a hat.

I have a hankering for pumpkin scones and cider.

I sipped a fall-flavored pomegranate martini while preparing dinner.

Every time of year is my favorite time of year in Chicago for different reasons. The reason I like this one is because it's a season of transition. Fall is very short in this city. But it's nice to have these few weeks where I can bike to work without packing a change of clothes, a necessity both in the summer and the winter. And it's still warm enough where the windows are open. When I unlock my bike in the morning, I can here American Girl from one neighbor's apartment and If You Leave from another's.

Saying Thank You

2011-09-13T21:03:00.005-05:00

30 gifts to 30 strangers in Sydney from Lucas Jatoba on Vimeo.

I found this wonderful little 30 gifts to 30 strangers video via Operation NICE. It brought a tear to my eye. When you are living in a foreign country, you appreciate SO much the niceness of strangers. You are far away from friends and family, and when someone goes out of their way to do something nice to you, it makes this strange faraway place feel a bit more like home. I come from the overly friendly Midwest, where everyone is generally nice and helpful. You take it for granted, until you realize the whole world isn't like that.

I love the idea of turning it around and saying thank you to strangers.

Favorite Things of August

2011-08-29T20:41:00.002-05:00

My friend Erin over at Alcoholics Conspicuous posted about her favorite things of August, so I thought I’d do the same. Here we go.

Goodwill

This has actually been a favorite thing of mine since I started working at Threadless in March. It’s a 3-minute walk from work and has amazing things such as this beautiful dress for $9.95.

Pricey for a Goodwill purchase, but totally worth it, obviously. I wonder how this dress got made in the first place. Maybe it was a bridesmaid's dress? What lucky bridesmaids!

Losing 5 lbs. or maybe 7

Your beautiful Goodwill dress might fit a little baggy, but that’s okay. Also you will probably gain them back after you stop training for your triathlon. Speaking of which.

Doing a triathlon

My mom reminded me that I mentioned doing this in high school. I have entertained the idea of doing a this since I was 14, which means it’s taken 11 years for me to get around to it. If I were smart, I woulda done it in high school so I could have guilted my parents into buying me a multi-thousand dollar bike because I was on the honor roll and stuff. Just kidding, I wouldn’t have done that. Anyway, I finally trained for and did one, the biggish Olympic distance one, and even though I wasn’t too fast, but wasn’t too slow either. Also, I rode on my old vintage Schwinn, which prolly weighed 20 pounds more than any other bike on the course. It was a lot of fun. I have already signed up for subsequent swim practices, yay.

Winning a trip to Paris

Remember when that happened? SO AWESOME. We submitted our ticket requests today so hopefully we hear back soon if we get the dates we want. Jake and I hope to be in Paris in October.

Learn Vest

Muchas gracias to my manager who recommended this email newsletter and website. It’s a finance and budget website specifically for women. If you are a lady, check it out. Lots of tips and really interesting information from a female perspective. Since I am already super cheap and save heaps of money by doing things like riding my bike to work, shopping at Goodwill (SHHH don’t tell anyone I got my prom dress there), and cooking at home, not much of their information is helping me save that much more money, but I really like the articles and thought starters it provides otherwise.

Freelancin’

I’ve picked up some smaller gigs here and there this month. I haven’t received the checks yet, but when I do they are going straight to the Paris fund. The best meal I ever ate was here, but it’s not cheap. Thanks freelancing cash, you're really going to help me out! Can’t wait to pay taxes on you later.

Purging my closet

One of my roommates and I donated a ton of clothes to Howard Brown earlier this month. Going through my closet and getting rid of stuff was so much easier than I thought it would be. I just got invited last-minute to a clothing exchange, but it was easy to go through my closet again and pull out more stuff that I haven’t worn in forever. My style is changing as I grow older or hipper or whatever, and I just don’t wear the same things I used to.

Reverbin': August Prompt

2011-08-16T20:13:00.003-05:00

Describe an unexpected moment, activity, sighting or conversation that touched you during July.

I betcha you didn't guess this was going to come back to Paris! But I absolutely cannot think of any other way to respond to this prompt than by talking about how surprised I was by how many people helped me win this trip (if you somehow missed it, I won a trip for 2 to Paris and 5 nights in a hotel I would never be able to pay for otherwise). I'd like to think that 600 people voted for me in this thing because they know how much I love France and know I would do the same thing for them. But... I don't know 600 people that well. No way, jose. So, what really happened is a buncha people that I know hardly well — maybe once worked with or went to high school with or studied abroad with ages ago — as well as a buncha people I have never even met — friends of family and friends of friends — went and voted on this thing because someone asked them to and they thought it would be a nice thing to do.

Once again, I'll bring up that my victory was nearly derailed by a nasty cheater. Even as his number of votes continued to grow, mine kept creeping up, too. I was fairly confident he would be removed from the competition, but even so I was blown away by all the people that kept working to get me votes so that I could still win. I'm a writer, so I should have a better way to say it, but simply put, it was just nice. Really, really, nice.

A few weeks later, I'm still not finished thanking everyone I know who voted for me, and I don't even know how to thank those I don't! But all this excitement made July one of the most bestest months ever.

Wake Up Call: Biking is Dangerous

2011-08-08T08:39:00.002-05:00

A biker got killed in Chicago on Friday night. She slipped under a garbage truck and wasn’t able to get out fast enough. The driver didn’t see her.

I love riding my bike everywhere and wouldn’t have it any other way. I love the exercise and the freedom to get from point A to point B without having to wait for a train or bus or pay oodles of money for a cab. And even though I am one of the safest bikers I know — I always wear my helmet, have bright front and back lights, and anticipate that drivers won’t see me anyway so bike proactively — it’s still dangerous. This biker’s horrible death reminded me of that.

The following night, I was biking to meet up with friends and feeling a bit skiddish for obvious reasons. I was being extra special careful, and just as I was about to pull up to the bar, a cabbie suddenly pulled over and cut me off. Stuff like this happens all the time. If you’re paying attention, as I was, it’s not a big deal. He didn’t come close to hitting me, but that’s because I knew if I didn’t get out of the way, he would.

I was perfectly fine, but annoyed and angry. I’ve had much closer brushes with injury, but his lack of concern pissed me off. He’s a cabbie, I know. I can’t expect otherwise. But because of the recent death of the biker, I felt especially irked. Normally I would forget about something like this, but this time I decided to say something to the dude. Before he had a chance to zoom away, I walked up to him and said calmly, but sternly “Hey. You just cut me off. You can’t say you didn’t see me, because I know you did. I’m trying to be careful out here. You need to do the same.”

He said he was sorry. I said “Okay. Well it’s my life. And ‘I’m sorry’ won’t save it.”

I didn’t really feel better after giving the cabbie my two cents. Maybe he’ll be more careful for a few hours, but it’s his job to get places fast. He’ll forget. Also, he’s only one cabbie in a city of thousands. I’m not going to stop riding my bike, but I’ll do my best to be even more careful, if that’s even possible.

!! On #WINNING !!

2011-08-02T10:42:00.005-05:00

As you probably already know if you follow my Facebook or Twitter or know me in real life, I WON the Air France USA contest. When the contest closed, I had more than 600 votes and the second place person was somewhere around 250. The cheater dude, skeezy Eric P. was disqualified a couple hours earlier for his magical ability to instantly acquire 750 votes. Shortly after voting closed, I received an “official” congratulatory email from Air France USA’s social media people. They said: “Internally you were easily one of our favorite candidates and we are thrilled to see the way that the votes fell in your favor, congratulations again and thank you for participating!”

So what do I win? I win two round-trip tickets on Air France to Paris. And I win five nights in Pullman Montparnasse (initially I thought it was Montmartre. I was wrong, but this hotel looks pretty swanky). Pets are allowed so I can bring Libby!!!! She does love Paris. I am hoping to go in the fall sometime and will be taking Jake, who ever so patiently maintained his cool this past week as I was literally freaking out 24/7 about winning this thing. If Jake can’t make it because the Cardinals are playing, I’ll take my sister. If my sister can’t make it, I’ll take my aunt. If my aunt can’t make it, I’ll take my mom. If none of them can make it, maybe I’ll take you. Let me know, and I’ll add your name to the waiting list.

I still can’t believe I won, and I really can’t believe how many people helped me do it. First off, for my entry I have to thank coworkers Nikki and Alex for helping me out. And then, once I made it to the top 10 I contacted every single I person I knew asking for votes, but I certainly do not know 600 people. I had so many people rallying for me. My whole triathlon club voted. The Threadless community voted. My neighbors voted. My whole work voted. I am pretty sure a lot of my old coworkers voted, too. My aunt asked people she knew on her train, my sister’s boyfriend asked his coworkers, my dad asked everyone at his favorite restaurant, Jake’s mom asked all her friends. Once the nasty cheater revealed himself and jumped ahead by 200 votes, I was so surprised by how many people were pulling for me and asking everyone they knew to help me out. The cheater kept going, but so did my fan club. I was somehow able to pull in 100 more votes yesterday, and that was long after I had asked everyone I knew. I’m fairly certain those last 100 people didn’t even know me. And I don’t know them, so I can’t even thank them.

If you voted for me, thank you. If you got your friends to vote for me, thank you more! You have no idea how excited I am. Paris is my favorite city and I am so excited to go back.

Everyone's asking me about the cheater, and I don't know much about his tactics. All I know is that he had about 50 votes Sunday morning, and suddenly had 400, gained 200 more overnight, and by the time he was removed from the competition Monday afternoon, was up to 800. I personally think he wrote a script or code or application or something that was automated. His votes wouldn't move for hours, then would suddenly shoot up in a short amount of time. He was a very unintelligent cheater, and I am happy for that. :-)

SO Close to Paris!

2011-07-26T08:44:00.004-05:00

There are few things that would make me jump up and down in my apartment, run back and forth, and screech like a crazy lady. 1. Winning the lottery (because then I could go to France) and 2. Finding out that I was really close to winning a trip to France.

Air France USA is running this contest. They asked their Facebook fans to create an image or photo around the theme "Picture Yourself in Paris," and that is exactly what I did. See below:

I mean I thought it was pretty good. I had help from some awesome coworkers named Nikki and Alex and I really thought it turned out smashingly well. And when weeks and weeks later I found out that I was one of the top 10 finalists out 1,800 to win this trip — two round-trip tickets on classy Air France plus 5 nights in a hotel in Montmartre (that's where a lot of Amelie was filmed. It's a beautiful area!) — I jumped up and down in my apartment, ran to and fro, and screeched like a crazy lady.

Wanna help me win? YEAH YOU DO.

Like Air France USA and then like my entry (the first one). If I win, I will send you a postcard or a baguette, whichever you prefer! Voting closes August 1, so do it now!

Death by Email

2011-07-20T09:41:00.001-05:00

Reverb Prompt: What new thing will you try this month?

I notice when I make improvements in my life, other things start to slip.

So I joined this triathlon club, and for the most part, have been doing a great job at showing up to practices — some of which are at 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. — and kicking ass at some really hard workouts. And to do that, I’ve had to go to sleep at reasonable hours and been trying to put good things in my body (like Bloody Marys! Tomatoes are good for you!). So that’s great.

But now that I am running and swimming and biking at all hours of the day, I’m not staying on top of other things. Like emails. That sounds so minor, but when I realized I had 100+ unread emails in my inbox, I just stopped opening my inbox.

I feel compelled to respond to every single person who emails me, but I never have the time. So I mark emails as unread to remind myself to get back to them. And then, a few days later, I have more than 100 unread emails.

I went to a coffee shop last night with the mission of getting my stupid email inbox in order. I spent time unsubscribing from newsletters and listservs I don’t care for. I removed email notifications from many of my Facebook and Twitter notifications. I organized my labels so it’s easier to digest my inbox at a glance.

Also, I’m going to work on not responding to every email. I will delete some. People will not be sitting behind their computers wondering “WHERE IS MY RESPONSE FROM BETSY!??!?!” They will deal.

This month, I will try to declutter my email life and respond only to the important emails. Because who wants to spend their free time reading and responding to emails? Ugh. Life is too short to spend all of it emailing.

Try a Tri? Okay.

2011-06-25T18:34:00.004-05:00

After my sunrise adventure last Friday, I was changing into my work clothes at the gym locker room when I heard a couple women talking about triathlons. I've always been interested in triathlons for lots of reasons: it seems pretty badass, triathletes have the best bods eva, and unlike marathons (of which I've run three), there's variety. I joined in the conversation and one woman told me she was in our gym's tri club. She said the club had a lot of new folks who'd never done a tri before, and she loved it. She recommended that I join.

So I did.

And the next morning, I was gathered with a bunch of strangers, ready to run five miles. That was a week ago, and I've since attended almost every workout. And I'm tired. Really tired. But I'm going to keep going to the practices and see what happens.

When I was unemployed, I told myself when I got a full-time job, I'd do a tri. These suckers are expensive including the race costs and all the gear. But of course I never followed through, even though I've been a working girl since last spring. Afraid of something? Maybe just sacrificing my social life. Also, even though I can afford to buy a wetsuit, do I wanna? Do I want to be that girl who has a wetsuit hanging next to her summer dresses in the closet?

About one week in, I'm thinking maybe yes. I haven't registered for an actual race yet, but there's one at the end of August. I know that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go all out. I'm not doing a wussy sprint tri. I'm going to do the Olympic distance, mile swim, 25-mile bike and 6-mile run.

But I still haven't regiatered yet...

I've always wanted to do this. For years and years. I think before I even aspired to run a marathon I thought about triathlons. I was worried I wouldn't know what I was doing, but the tri club has three coaches who are there for exactly that reason. It is pretty hard, too. Even though I'm always swimming/biking/kinda running, these practices are faster and tougher. So maybe I'm worried about being tired for two months straight.

I dunno why I'm so apprehensive about registering. Someone convince me?

Early Morning

2011-06-17T08:55:00.004-05:00

I had trouble sleeping last night. I was extremely nervous that I was going to oversleep my alarm, which was set to wake me up at 4 a.m.

Last week, a friend had the brilliant idea to catch the sunrise on the lake. He emailed the group and everyone was ecstatic about it, except no one wanted to wake up too early. Unfortunately, waking up too early is how you catch the sunrise. A few of us were ecstatic enough to do what needed to be done in order to achieve this magnificent goal. Hence the 4 a.m. alarm, which I ended up not even needing. I was awake a couple hours earlier.

As I was leaving home, some people were just trickling out of bars. But the streets were pretty deserted, as you would imagine. We met at Chess Pavilion at 5 a.m. and watched the sun come up.

It was every bit as peaceful and pretty and wonderful as you'd imagine. Then we biked over to Lincoln Park Zoo to try to see some animals, but they were all sleeping. Who woulda thought camels sleep?

We then biked to a diner, where we ate leisurely breakfast and accepted every coffee refill that was offered. And then we biked to work.

I was glad I snapped myself out my regular routine to do this. It made me love Chicago more, because I saw a different part of the city.

Get 'Er Done

2011-06-09T08:03:00.003-05:00

I like to be a busy person. I like to fill my day with this and that, the gym and French class and volunteering and baking some banana muffins and then maybe running to Dominick's to get a great deal on Greek yogurt. I have trouble just sitting around, unless I'm reading a book. Sitting around bores me to death.

But then, I don't have time to do my laundry or catch up on emails or figure out what I'm bringing for lunch tomorrow. Then I get all stressed out. 'I'M SO BUSY' I *wail* to myself. Then my roommate will innocently ask me "How was your day today?" And I will say "Oh, fine. Busy." But in my head I'm thinking 'JEBUS CRIPES I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO! HOW DO PEOPLE FINISH EVERYTHING IN 24 HOURS??!?!'

But remember how I said I like to be busy? And that I'm the one who adds all this stuff to my schedule? So me not getting home until 9 p.m. last night and being too tired (and hot) to cook dinner was no one's fault but my own.

Really it's just about prioritizing. Before I went to sleep last night, I made myself cut down the unread 100+ emails in my inbox down to 10. It didn't take that long, only about 20 minutes. But I felt a lot better because something looming was close to not looming anymore. Then I woke up early this morning and made a delicious lunch and got some things in order and was ready to start the day before I really needed to. Now, when I get home tonight and my roommate asks me how my day was, I can say "Oh, fine. Busy." but minus the screaming in my head part.

* this is a funny word and I like it very much.

Doctor Recommended Preparation H!

2011-06-03T08:28:00.002-05:00

I bought a travel pack of Preparation H wipes yesterday. No, not because of the burning and itching on my butt. Because CVS paid me $2 to buy it! (yes I had coupons and stuff, but it'll take me too long to explain it. Just go here.) You know what $2 can buy you these days? Well about a fraction of a whole box of Maximum Strength Pain Relief Preparation H Cream, that's what! Also one Big Star taco or one sip of a Violet Hour drink.

But in all seriousness, I'll either ask around and see if anyone's having hemorrhoid problems, and offer the PH wipes as a thoughtful gift for their birthday or just because, or, I'll donate them. Unlike Extreme Couponing hoarder people, I don't have extra rooms, garages and deep freezers to store my stockpile of worthless crap I got for free with coupons. I only have two tubes of Colgate stocked up, not 100. Although I have to admit, it's sometimes hard to resist "buying" all that free toothpaste at times, but I do often resist, because how much toothpaste do one girl and her cat need?

I watched a few episodes of Extreme Couponing when the show first started, and I quickly got bored and frustrated. It's the same thing over and over: stay-at-home mom spends 40-8,203 hours a week clipping coupons and scouring ads and stores for the best deals, makes a detailed Excel spreadsheet, heads to store where she buys 100 bottles of Gatorade, 67 boxes of pasta, and 74 Milky Way Bars, among other things, hits minor snafu when all coupons won't scan because the cash register cannot process 1,000+ coupons in one transaction, but then it works out, pays 1 percent of what the stuff is worth, rolls outta the store a few hours later with 7 carts of junk guaranteed to give her whole family diabetes, HOORAY! Sorry if you haven't seen it, and I just ruined the show for you. :-/

I'm frustrated with the show because it doesn't give a realistic vision of how average people can save money with coupons. How you can get a lot of healthier foods and most toiletries for cheap, and how saving money doesn't need to be a full-time job. I save money on lots of stuff: yogurt, oatmeal, shaving cream, and body wash for example. And I don't dedicate my Saturday nights to rifling through people's garbage in hopes of finding their discarded coupon inserts (well, maybe just that one time. OKAY FINE I will admit to finding some coupons on the sidewalk when I was walking home late at night once and picking them up).

I buy what I need, and that's it. And I save heaps of money doing so. You can't argue with that!

And also, you know what? I read that "Prep-H has a well deserved reputation tightening eye bags and for aiding in the healing of dry, cracked and irritated skin." Maybe I'll jut keep those wipes to myself then.

Lucky Duck

2011-05-27T08:35:00.007-05:00

My dad always says “I’ve got more luck than brains!” I grew up with him saying it, and it lost it’s humor long before I even understood what it meant. Now that I think about it, I don’t rightly agree with that. I believe more strongly in a quote from Cal Hockley (Titanic, DUH!):

A real man makes his own luck.

Or, if you scoff your nose at this brilliant film, I’ll give you a quote by a real person, possibly more respected than Billy Zane’s character in the 1997 historical fiction masterpiece. Benjamin Franklin said:

I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Whenever I think about people that I think are really lucky — the sucky copywriting student who landed a kickass job when her more talented peers didn't, my sister randomly being awarded a scholarship, my friends who moved to Germany and Jordan with grant money — I remind myself how hard those people worked to get to those places.

My sister for example, who has been rejected for what feels like 10 scholarships before getting this one. Or my friend, who has been learning Arabic for years. Of course he got a Fulbright, and of course when it ended, he was offered a job that'll send him around the world to travel. Because he speaks effing Arabic. (And because he’s awesome in general). Or a more trite example: I get amazing stuff at the Goodwill, like BCBG and Banana Republic dresses, and really cute heels, and brand new jeans. But I pick over every single thing in that store multiple times a week, so I see all the new stuff when it comes it and sweep it up.

For anyone waiting for a lucky break — and these days, especially for someone around my age, it’s usually job related — I don’t really think there’s enough luck out there to go around. It comes down to hard work, and repetition, and failing multiple multiple times before you succeed. Whenever I come across the folder saved on my computer with all the resumes and cover letters and portfolios I put together for the roughly gabazillion jobs I applied for over the seven months I was unemployed, I want to cry just at the memory of it. But, I have a great job now! Might I dare say my dream job? Yes I think so. I’m so lucky to have it.

* The only thing I can’t argue with is someone who wins a vacation via a sweepstakes. That’s lucky. I guess they deserve it by entering the content anyway. But I enter those things all the time and I never win. *

A Writer Who Doesn't Write

2011-05-26T08:24:00.003-05:00

When I tell people I'm a writer, I feel like a liar. Yes, I write every single day, all day, at work, but I have a difficult time making time to write for myself. And, writers are supposed to read. I read on average, 1-2 books a month, but that's not nearly enough. I wish it were more like one a week.

I've been able to make myself read and write more at times, but only in spurts. I challenged myself to blog every day for the month of December and was able to pound out 31 posts throughout the month.

Saying that I don't have time isn't an excuse. It's like people who say they don't have time to exercise. I simply don't believe it. If exercise is something you really want to do, then you do it. "I don't have time to exercise" means "I don't make time for exercise." And it's the same with making time to write.

So what's the solution? To do it. Since I rarely have time after work (I'm at the gym, or at French class, or stopping by the store to get stuff for dinner), I'm going to start waking up a little bit earlier every day so I can write in the mornings. So see you tomorrow morning, and the next morning and the next. I have to get in the habit of doing this now before it's too late.

Where's The Toilet?

2011-05-25T20:27:00.002-05:00

This evening as I was leaving the gym, I was greeted by a frantic text from my roommate.

"Sooo just got home... the toilet is in the shower and the sink is in the living room..."

Now, we were expecting our landlord and his maintenance crew to be doing some work in the bathroom. They notified us they'd be doing some pretty major work to replace the ancient pipes, but he told us the only inconvenience to us would be that the wall would be ripped out for a few days. No big deal.

But the toilet in the bathtub was a big deal, as you can imagine. I called our landlord to see what was up. I tried not to make any assumptions and be as nice as possible, but I was secretly pretty pissed. He had no idea what the state of our apartment was and apologized a million times. He said he'd figure out what the deal was and call me back.

Turns out their work was taking longer than they expected, and the guys were still working on it, but were in a different part of the building. They intended to come back and finish things up for the night (ie put the toilet and sink back where they belonged). We just thought they had left everything all over the place and went home.

In the end, it wasn't that big of a deal. And I guess the lesson here is to never make assumptions. I could have been really rude to my landlord when I called to ask wtf was going on. But I was nice, and he was nice, and everything worked out. Now we can pee and take showers!

What's Blossoming?

2011-05-02T13:16:00.002-05:00

April #reverb10 prompt: What’s blossoming?

I started writing this blog post and stopped, then started writing and stopped again several times throughout the month of April. I never finished it, because I didn’t feel I had any “blossming” things worth bragging about. Also, I don't think I liked the question really. All I could think of was flowers.

I felt I had to answer something HUGE. Four months into 2011, and I had to have accomplished something gargantuan, right? When in fact, nothing huge was happening. Except that I started a new job, which was kind of huge. And I stood up in a good friend’s wedding, which was also huge. But none of those things felt huge enough to make a big deal about.

The hugeness I wanted to celebrate was that I could finally do a handstand or that I had written a novel or run another marathon. Something that had taken time, but something that I could finally say “yes. yes it’s true. I did that thing, finally.” But I am nowhere closer to doing those things than I was several months ago. And when I realized that, I felt that I had wasted these months doing nothing. But that’s not true. A lot of things take time, and what matters is that I am moving in the right direction.

I can’t do a handstand but I can do the six postures of vinyasa yoga without resting.
I haven’t written a novel, but I have been inspired to write more.
I haven’t run a marathon, but I have been running once a week.

The things I am trying to improve about myself are things that take time and patience. I am typically not a very patient person, so I don’t like to admit that. Getting better at something just takes continuous practice, and as long as I am sticking to that practice, then I should be proud of myself.

Muscle Definition Class = Not for Me

2011-04-26T08:53:00.001-05:00

The pool is closed for a week for cleaning, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to branch out and try some other things at my gym. Muscle Definition seemed like it could be fun.

I wish I could recount a tale about how I was so helplessly lost amidst the other muscle definers that it was actually quite funny. But it wasn’t really. I was miserable and everyone could see. I thought I was being discrete setting up shop in the back of the room, but the instructor took position there instead of the front. So I was instead stuck in front of the mirror for everyone to notice that I was not 100 pounds, not wearing skin tight Lululemon everything and that my hair wasn’t blonde.

I disliked how EXCITED the instructor was. I disliked that I looked stupid. I disliked that the music was so loud. I disliked that I didn’t know we were supposed to switch arms during the weight lifting bit and only used my left arm. I disliked that something smelled vaguely of cat pee. Was it my shirt? My sports bra? My shoes? (My shorts, I later discovered. Dunno how that happened. THANKS CAT!) Really all of those things combined made it an absolutely horrible class that I couldn’t wait to leave. And I definitely would have ducked out early if I wouldn’t have had to crawl over everyone to get out.

I guess... I’m proud of myself for trying something new. And at least I now know that I’ll never ever go back.

Would you rather...

2011-04-25T20:07:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, my friends and I somehow got on the topic of babies. ‘Would you rather have a baby right now or never have one?’ someone asked. ‘Never,’ I said. Most of my friends said the same. We had different reasons. Pretty much everyone said they wouldn’t be equipped to care for a child. They wouldn’t know how. They would be horrible parents, they thought.

I’ve spent a lot of time with kids, both in schools and as a babysitter and tutor. I like them a lot. I could take care of a kid just fine. I’m not saying it’s an easy task or anything, but I would genuinely enjoy being a mom, I think. But it’s not what I want to do right now, or anytime soon.

My reason for saying I’d rather be babyless forever than having one now is that there is so much I want to do before I’m ready for babies. Maybe I want to write a book. Or live in France (DUH). Mostly, I want to travel. I want to scrimp and save every last penny so that I can travel the world. You can’t do such things with babies. You really have to be more settled to do that. And I don’t want to settle right now.

Once a Runner

2011-03-31T09:03:00.001-06:00

A lot of people hate running. I’m one of them. The only thing different about me and a lot of people is that I’ve run a few marathons. Full ones, not those wussy half ones.

It’s amazing that I thrice ran 26.2 miles and spent a collective one year of my life training and running almost every single day to do so. I might run once a month now. Actually, that’s a lie. Once every two months. Okay, every three.

What I do like about marathon training is feeling fit. Not just looking it, but also feeling healthier and stronger and more badassier in general. Yet I decided about a year and a half ago that I was done with marathons (although watch. I bet I do a few more). So I had to seek fitness elsewhere.

That wasn’t so easy. Since all I ever did was run, pretty consistently from age 14 to about 23, I didn’t know what else I enjoyed doing. I knew what I didn’t like. I hate machines — elliptical, treadmill, stairmaster and the like — because they make me feel like a robot and anything I can do while watching TV feels like fake exercise to me. I hate group exercise classes — cardio salsa, body pump, things like that — because they make me feel like I’m at cheerleading tryouts. I hate lifting weights; so so so so boring. Also, I hate running.

It’s taken a long time for me to figure out what I actually like. I decided I enjoy things that move me from point A to point B; I now bike to work, to run errands, and sometimes to restaurants and bars if there aren’t going to be too many drinks involved. I like things that don’t involve equipment or special gear (one reason why I did commit to running for as long as I did. It’s a pretty cheap sport); I swim twice a week usually. And I like things that challenge me in ways that I have never challenged myself before; I try to make it to a yoga class twice a week. As someone who has been referred to as hunchback and Splinter (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, cuz he was hunched over I guess), I’ve never had the strength to even really stand up straight for more than a few minutes at a time. Ever single yoga class challenges me to improve my posture.

So now, I’ve settled into a nice and varied routine of biking, swimming and yoga each week. I am not terribly good at any of those things, but I’m better than, say, someone who never bikes, swims or does yoga. And it’s not about being better than anyone really. It’s about feeling healthier, stronger and morebadassier in general. Which I think I am, depending on the day.

One Hour Later

2011-03-25T15:07:00.001-06:00

When I took my bike in for a Spring tune-up last week, I though it’d take a few days. Instead, it was going to take more like 6 or 7. I painfully accepted the facts, and reserved myself to taking the bus to and from work for a week.

I hate taking the bus. I hate standing around and waiting for it, or if I track it, I hate stressing over only having 3 MINUTES to run out the door and catch it. Also, I frequently forget things — my phone, my thermos, my yoga pants — and about once a week I have to turn around to pick something up. When the bus is going to be at the corner in 2 MINUTES, there isn’t time for that running back business. I accustomed to used to to leaving the house when I want, biking my merry little way, and not having to touch any grimy poles or stand squinched between people on my commute. I like the fresh air and the using of my muscles as I get ready to start my work day.

After four days of riding the bus to work, I was done. Finished. Sick and tired of being sick and tired of the bus. So today I walked. It’s 3 miles I think. It was great.

I didn’t really wear the right shoes for walking such a long way (I didn’t want to wear athletic shoes, then carry shoes for work, too heavy), so I might have a tender toe or two. I also stopped on the way to get a bagel, but in the effort avoiding the avalanche of cream cheese they pile on, I ordered the cream cheese on the side. I must say, trying to walk while trying to smear cream cheese on a bagel while not dropping the bag or the lid to the little cream cheese container or the knife or the napkins is not an easy feat. But I survived. Too bad the bagel wasn’t that great.

I took me a little less than an hour to walk to work, but it didn’t feel that long. I had some Moth story hour podcasts to catch up on and observed a few things along the way that I had not noticed before on my bike or bus commute; this bridge I pass under has these gigantic and amazing icicles hanging underneath it! Tons and tons! It was totally wild.

I won’t be walking home (I would, but I got a party tonight and I need time to look my finest!), and I don’t intend to be walking my commute from now on. I get my bike back today, so no more bus worries. But in the future, if I have the choice between bus and walking and I have an extra half hour in my day, I think I shall take the scenic, non-germy, and less irritating route.

The Coupon.. er.. Rush?

2011-03-23T10:19:00.002-06:00

It’s no secret that I love coupons, and I love saving money. It’s not even like I’m broke or anything. But why would I pay $3 for toothpaste when I can pay nothing?

I have a list of coupon blogs to thank for a lot of the deals I get. These women do the work so I don’t have to. But they get a little ridiculous at times. One recently posted about the “rush” she gets when she checks out with her coupons:

As I walk up to the register, my hands start to tremble and my heart starts to beat. My eyes are moving around quickly …. As the coupons keep getting scanned, I can feel the tension build up behind me. Finally, I hear her high heels tapping the ground with force … I stand there with pride as I look up and down that magnificently long piece of paper. Life is good! As I leave the store, I know beyond any reasonable doubt that every part of getting to the moment of victory is so worth it in the end. And now I can head home with my head held high and brag to anyone who will listen.

The whole post a bit dramatic. Yeah, it’s super exciting to pay $1.50 for some stuff that originally cost $30 — like I did last night! But my hands don’t tremble and my heart doesn’t start to beat faster when I approach the cash register. I actually dread checking out because I feel like I am inconveniencing the cashiers. They have better things to do than deal with my wad of coupons.

But the bragging part? Guilty. I love to brag about my deals. My roommates and friends are probably so sick of hearing about them. I think I need to be more conscious of that. Does anyone care that I got two boxes of Triscuits, some hair dye and organic blush for a just a couple dollars total? Probably not.

I'm Judging You, Mom on Bus

2011-03-22T09:07:00.002-06:00

I’m on the bus this morning, sitting by a mom and her little girl. She’s brushing her daughter’s hair, ever so carefully. She holds a clump in her hand, then with her other hand timidly tries to brush out each individual tangle. It’s the most inefficient hair brushing technique I have ever seen. What you need to do is yank the brush through the whole clump of hair in one fell swoop, repeat maybe 3-5 times, and the tangles will disappear quickly. It’s how people have been brushing hair for centuries. Painful? Yeah. But not as painful as say cutting off a finger or breaking a leg. This type of pain is bearable and forgettable.

But this mom didn’t want to hurt her little girl in any way. So instead, she was going to take up 30 or 45 minutes of her own precious time, brushing each individual hair so the process produced no discomfort. I felt bad for her. What a waste of time. And I felt bad for her kid, who I (maybe unfairly) assumed is being raised to be overly pampered and will turn into a self-absorbed little wench because of it.

Kids are a lot more resilient than they tell us they are. So many little girls have suffered under the tough-as-nails and swift hair brushing of their mothers and have lived to forget about it. Little girls have also been told they can’t watch TV too late, can’t have those glittery jelly shoes or can’t buy that candy, and most have also turned out just fine.

While I was secretly being overly critical of this mom for not brushing her kid’s hair the way I thought she should, the girl goes “Ow mommy you’re hurting me.” I wanted to scream “LIAR! LIAR! YOU LIE LITTLE GIRL. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HAVE YOUR HAIR BRUSHED THE REAL WAY.” But I didn’t.

Checking in on What I’ve Resolved to Do This Year

2011-03-17T10:13:00.000-06:00

1. Take more pictures
I’ve been doing well with this one. Except... I never load them onto my computer or Flickr or Facbeook, so no one would know. I tried a few times, but I can’t find my card reader. I think my cat hid it.

2. Wear more accessories
I am now the proud owner of more belts and rings. But I think my cat also hid half my rings.

3. Be more thrifty
Eh... I have made a few purchases at Goodwill. But I’ve also made more than a few purchases at Urban Outfitters, which is definitely not thrifty.

4. Stop buying meat from the grocery store (either it's local or nothing)
I don’t remember the last time I bought meat at the store, so I guess I’m following this one. Oh yeah, I tried to buy some wings for Super Bowl. Instead I bought whole things of chicken. Maybe this proves I don’t even know how to buy meat anymore?

5. Take a dance class
Haven’t followed up on this one yet.

6. Touch my toes
Most of the time in yoga class, I can touch just one toe. My right big toe. For like, five whole seconds.

7. Do a handstand
I feel as if I will never accomplish this, but I’m working on it. Even though I swim twice a week, I still have no upper body strength.

8. Not look like a fatty fatty two-by-four in Kari's wedding this spring
The wedding is at the end of April, so we’ll see. But I resisted eating leftover cold pizza for breakfast at work today, so go me.

9. Dye hair red
Done.

Film Festivalin'

2011-03-15T20:38:00.004-06:00

A couple weekends ago, I went down to Columbia, Mo., home of the Missouri Tigers aka my alma mater and the True/False documentary film festival. This isn’t my first time back there since I graduated a few years ago. I went back to Columbia for a football game last fall. It was okay, but the whole experience made me feel ancient. It was the same old, same old, same sorority girls celebrating their 21st birthdays in skimpy dresses and teetering stilettos, same wasted bros at the bars, etc. etc.

This time I was looking to be inspired and to come back home with something to think about.

Some documentaries can do that. Some can’t. Documentary is a very tough medium, me thinks. Sometimes it’s a good story, but not a good documentary; that was the case for most of the movies I saw. Sometimes it’s a good story, but just okay enough and pretty good, but not inspirational.

And sometimes, it’s not even freaking a documentary, as was the case with Troll Hunter. Awesome CGI, but definitely NOT a documentary. (Sorry if I ruined it for anyone...)

You’re lucky if you see one that really floors you, as this one did.

“In Chicago, an experimental program attempts to change the way we impact urban violence.”

First things first, this film was looooooong. But that’s because it covers a whole year of violence in Chicago, and that is a lot to cover. A lot of violence, and a lot of deaths; way too many deaths.

Of course it hit home because I live, love, breathe Chicago. I don’t live in this part of Chicago. But this is still my city, and every report of another death, especially when it’s a kid, hurts us. It hurts their families and their communities more. All we can ask ourselves is “why are parts of this city so violent?”

Because it’s a disease, the Interrupters say. They believe violence is learned behavior that needs to be intercepted like any other disease. Or, interrupted. This film follows them throughout a year as they try to do that. Most of the Interrupters are ex-gang leaders who have served hard time for drug possession and attempted murder. They return the communities where they were raised to try to turn things around. They reach out to anyone and everyone who is being affected by violence. Maybe someone’s son has been shot. Maybe they were shot. The Violence Interrupters offer support and try to stop revenge and vengeance for the violence and deaths that have already occurred. They aren’t police, and they don’t care about gang activity, as long as people aren’t killing each other.

It looks like the scariest, most dangerous job someone could have. The movie does show one Interrupter who is hospitalized because he was shot when he was trying to resolve a conflict. Jeez. What if your job put you in the middle of gang fire. Can you imagine?

All I can say is see this movie. If it’s coming to a festival near you, see it. Pick up the current issue of Chicago magazine and read about it (page 20). Or check it out on WTTW.

Deep Thoughts on Health Care

2011-03-11T12:36:00.001-06:00

I had a pretty nasty sore throat a couple weeks ago that I couldn’t shake, no matter how many glasses of Emergen-C I drank or nasty mouthfuls of salt water I gargled. I worried it might be strep, so I headed to a non-urgent care doctor’s office by my work.

A short time in the waiting room, a throat swap, and blood pressure and ear-check later, the doctor determined that I did not have strep, just a “pretty bad sore throat.” She instructed me to take some ibuprofen and take it easy. On my way out, the receptionist said they would bill my insurance and send any leftover bills to my house.

Today I received a notice from my insurance that they had covered it. Thank goodness. Because that cost $290. All I could think was “$300 for what?” But that’s ‘America. Health care don’t come cheap.

I’m really fortunate to have made it this far with no major health problems. I really don’t get sick. I have a pretty good immune system I guess, and exercise pretty often enough, and eat vegetables almost every day. And even so, I’ve always had insurance to fall back on. I have only been uninsured for four months of my life. I’ve always had dental and vision, too.

This health care stuff just boggles my mind. It is so hard to wrap one’s mind around why if I were in, say, Canada or France, I could have gotten my throat checked out for $0, not $300. Although I pay for my health care with each pay check, and those folks do pay for their health care in their taxes. So what’s the difference?

The difference is I wish I had instead been able to use that $300 for a plane ticket somewhere fun instead of for paying to have a ginormous cotton swap stuck down my throat.

Reverb10: One Last Month

2011-03-09T11:51:00.001-06:00

The monthly Reverb10 prompt: If March 2011 was your last month to live, how would you live it?:

When I first saw this prompt, I immediately knew my answer. I would take the month to travel all across the world and see all the glorious countries I’ve never visited, sample yummy foreign foods and take artsy fartsy photos of it all. But then I began to think about how much it would suck to spend the last month of one’s life alone. I’ve traveled alone before, and it’s okay. Sometimes it’s just nice to do whatever you want at your own pace. But sometimes it’s really, really lonely. You run out of things to think about and write about and end up taking a bunch of naps to pass the time.

So if I had one month to live, I would still travel. But I would travel to places where my friends are, to say goodbye and tell them one last time how much I cared for them and how happy them being in my life made me. To New York, to Wisconsin, to Missouri, to Louisiana, to Texas, to California, to Washington. To France, to Germany, to Croatia. To Australia, to New Zealand. And I guess after I have given every last friend a hug, I’d be ready to go.

A Successful Sunday

2011-03-01T10:41:00.001-06:00

A few months ago, my sister raved about the stuff she made out with at* a friend’s clothing exchange. I thought it would be fun to host one myself. I’ve been nagging my roommates about it since then, and they finally gave in. We picked a date, invited tons of people (I invited literally every female I know who lives in Chicago) and got to purging our closets.

Purging one’s closet is fun. At first, it’s difficult. ‘Maybe I will wear this…’ you think to yourself as you hold up the shirt you loved so hard three years ago. But then you remember that you haven’t worn it for three years. And it goes into the giveaway pile. Once the pile starts growing, you gain more and more confidence to get rid of more stuff. Soon you have a leaner closet, lighter shelves, roomier drawers and a happy heart. Getting rid of stuff, no matter what kind of stuff it is, feels so damn good.

My roomies and I piled everything up in our living room, and we did a mini exchange ourselves. I scored an AWESOME Mizzou sweatshirt (I wore it all day onwards) and a couple other things. Then our fellow clothing exchange guests started arriving, shoulders heavy with bags stuffed with clothes. I was super stoked by how many people were showing up and how much stuff they were bringing. Once everything had been put out, we simply got to it. Everyone started rummaging through everything. It didn’t take long for everyone to find some stuff they liked.

The thing is, adding something new to your wardrobe, regardless of it is technically new or not, is something that makes every girl giddy. Even if someone else is tired and sick of it, it’s new to YOU. I was surprised by how much some people walked away with. Even better, it was absolutely free!

After all was said and done, we packed the remaining clothes, shoes, accessories and hodge podge of stuff into bags and dropped it off at the Ark, a non-profit thrift shop that uses proceeds for social services. I’ll be perfectly honest that the clothing exchange was entirely selfish: to get rid of stuff and get new stuff. But the leftovers are doing a bit of good. Hooray!

*is a string of three prepositions even allowed?

Arts & Crafts pt. 2

2011-02-14T21:22:00.002-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

Out With The Old

2011-02-12T13:26:00.004-06:00

Today I did something new. I went to a new eye doctor. Up until this point, only Dr. S has had the opportunity to get intimate with my eyeballs. But she lives in the suburbs, I don't have a car, and she's not close to the train. It was time for me to make a change.

I broke up with my lifelong dentist last year, too. Since however old one is when she first gets her teeth cleaned, I've only gone to Dr. J. But there's the same issue with the suburbs.

I know people try new doctors/dentists/opticians all the time. But I hadn't. So I was all nervous and stuff. And believe it not, these new doctors I picked, both within walking distance of my apartment, were better than the ones I had been going to all my life. I was in and out of the dentist's office in 30 minutes with sparkling clean teeth and my complimentary toothbrush. My old dentist would take at least an hour, plus she would always talk about how French people have horrible teeth hygiene (although France is one of my favorite topics of conversation, I don't really care about the country's teeth). And same with the eye doctor. He was a really nice guy, didn't put those weirdo drops in my eyes, then make me wait 20 minutes for my pupils to grow to the size of pepperoni slices, then shine gazillion-watt light bulbs in my eyes. In and out and it was all relatively painless.

Trying new stuff can be hard, especially when you are pretty okay with whatever the status quo is. But just remember people, you could have something so much better. Like an eye doctor who is hip to your hipness and thus doesn't try to sell you clip-on sunglasses. Nothing against Dr. S and staff. But I never wanted clip-on sunglasses and they always tried to get me to buy them.

Back to Reverbin'

2011-02-11T13:39:00.007-06:00

Remember that reverb10 thing I did all throughout December? They sent a prompt for the month of February: One month into 2011, what question(s) are you living? Are there any prompts/questions that arose during #reverb10 that are still resonating in your life? Are you living new questions?

Questions? I’m always living questions. Is what I am doing is right? Am I making a big enough difference? Should I clean the litter box today?

I need someone to ask me some questions, so I shall respond to this list of “20 Questions That Could Change Your Life.” Thanks Oprah. Or Martha Beck, who wrote these questions on Oprah.com.

1. What questions should I be asking myself? I already answered this. See above, especially the one about the litter box.

2. Is this what I want to be doing? What, like my job? I don’t really talk about my job here. My writing otherwise? It’s going okay. I could be more ambitious. My French class? Well, my last French teacher, who was very good but also very lazy, suddenly quit the Alliance Française, so I’m trying a new teacher. We’ll see. He has a weird accent. And by weird I mean not Parisian, so I’m not used to it.

3. Why worry? I know I know I know I know. Stop telling me that. I’m working on it.

4. Why do I like {cupcakes} more than I like {people}? (feel free to switch out the words in the brackets) Because cupcakes are delicious and people are not.

5. How do I want the world to be different because I lived in it? I would like to bring the world more compassion. I am working on making myself more compassionate, then I can push it out to the rest of the world.

6. How do I want to be different because I lived in this world? Fluent in French? Also I want to travel more in the world. That’s what the savings account is for.

7. Are {vegans} better people? (can change the word in brackets) I don’t think they are better, no. And if they are judgmental of non-vegans no freaking way. I hate you judgey people. Sorry that I like cheese. Actually no I’m not sorry. Why should I have to apologize for liking cheese?

8. What is my body telling me? A couple weeks ago, it told me to stop it. Stop trying to do so much at one time. And I did. But I’m back to my old self, heh heh heh tricked ya body!

9. How much junk could a chic chick chuck if a chic chick could chuck junk? I am hosting a clothing exchange at my apartment in a couple weeks, that will be good.

10. What’s so funny? I was making these chicken legs for Super Bowl and had to roll the raw chicken around in flour to batter them before baking in the oven. I thought it was really funny to pick up the legs and move them back and forth like they were living, breathing chickens. No one else thought it was funny.

11. Where am I wrong? Ooooh…. Good question….. Lots of places. Remember when I said I hated judgmental people? That would also mean I hate myself. I don’t really hate myself. But I need to work on that judgmental thing.

12. What potential memories am I bartering, and is the profit worth the price? I don’t understand this question. I think I could if I tried, but I don’t feel like it right now.

13. Am I the only one struggling not to {fart} during {yoga} (Can swap out those words) I oddly don’t have this problem. Just watch. I bet I fart at my next yoga class.

14. What do I love to practice? French, reading, writing, cooking, baking, being a better friend and family member.

15. Where could I work less and achieve more? I’m an achiever, so this question is not relevant.

16. How can I keep myself absolutely safe? Better health insurance? But it’s more expensive and I never get sick. That money is better spent on the savings account travel fund.

17. Where should I break the rules? Writing! It is so much fun. I am a huge stickler for grammar, but love to play with it, too. Also, making up words is fun and I am not sure if I have the authority to do that really.

18. So say I lived in that fabulous house in Tuscany, with untold wealth, a gorgeous, adoring mate, and a full staff of servants...then what? Meh, sounds boring. I’d do it for a week, maybe a month. But this is not something I strive for.

19. Are my thoughts hurting or healing? Hm, well probably both depending on the thought in question.

20. Really truly: Is this what I want to be doing? Oh, I get it. You REALLY want me to think about this one. Okay I will think about it this weekend and get back to you.

Mystery Arts & Crafts Project

2011-02-09T21:24:00.003-06:00

What do you get when you combine these things? Hm... stay tuned.

Doing Good Doesn’t Have to Be Boring

2011-02-09T15:33:00.006-06:00

A coworker passed on an interesting website to me because “You like to save money on food.” (Read: you are always getting weird stuff with your coupons.) PlaySpent.org raises awareness about the realities of unemployment and living on minimum wage by having you play a game. The purpose of the game is to not run out of money by the end of the month. It’s sponsored by Urban Ministries of Durham, an organization that provides food, clothing, shelter and other services to those in need in Durham, North Carolina.

At the beginning of the game, you can get one of three jobs, each of which has as low of a paycheck as you’d assume.

You pick your job and throughout the month have some decisions to make. Opt-in to the $275-a-month insurance? Live close to work and pay more than you make in rent, or work an hour away and pay oodles in gas? Every choice you make gives you some more information, such as the fact that health insurance premiums are so high that many low-income workers opt-out, and the lack of affordable housing is the number-one cause of homelessness.

By having to actually (theoretically) make these decisions yourself, you realize that working a minimum wage job can be a losing battle. Your car might break down. You might get sick. Your kid might get made fun of for eating free meals at school, and you might have to decide if it’s worth it to just put in money for lunch food. Or, your kid might get a birthday card from grandma and grandpa with $10 inside. Should you take it?

And sometimes, the best option is to ask a friend for help. This is one of the most creative uses of Facebook integration I’ve seen as of late. For example, when you have to move to a smaller, more affordable apartment, you have the option of renting a storage unit, selling your stuff or asking a friend to store it. When you ask a friend, you have the option to share it on Facebook, which is a great way to share the game and its message with your network. You can also ask a friend to babysit or take a look at your car when it starts making funny noises.

At the end of the month (if you even make it that far), you have the option to donate money to the organization or learn about other ways to get involved.

I poked around a little bit and found out that the game was designed by McKinney, a Durham-based agency. I like that a local agency did this. Also, I read on their blog that their employees are allowed to bill 10 percent of their time to “innovation” and “trying cool stuff.” I really like that.

Have a look at the game yourself and you’ll see what I can’t really sum up here. It’s cool, well-designed and effective. I really hope the Urban Ministries of Durham gets some more donations and volunteers because of it.

Actual Conversation

2011-02-08T14:12:00.002-06:00

Me: where can I buy a swim cap close by?
Coworker: in the convenience store downstairs
Me: are you serious? they have them?
Coworker: nope
Me: JERK
Coworker: but they do have socks
Me: I don't need socks I need a swim cap!
Coworker: I had to buy a pair once cuz I stepped in a snow puddle
Me: hahaha. is that real? did you really buy a pair of socks from that store?
Coworker: yes, which is why I almost wouldn't be surprised if they had swimcaps

WFH

2011-02-03T15:05:00.004-06:00

As you may or may not know, Chicago got dumped on by a whole lotta snow over the past couple days. Braving the blizzard yesterday would have been simply silly, so most of our office worked from home. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today, ready to go in early and dismiss this cabin fever as a thing of the past. The public transportation system had something else in mind. I waited on the platform for about an hour with hundreds of other people trying to get to work. Only a few trains came by, and none had room for more than one or two people. I wanted to believe a train would come by with enough room just for me, but I had to give up to save my fingers and toes. So it was back to working from home for yet another day.

It ended up being not so bad. I was super productive, working from my desk in our reading room that looks out onto piles of white, pristine, only-a-little-dog-peed-upon snow. Here are some other pros about working from home:

1. Doing laundry at the same time (I didn't do it)
2. Making your lunch in the oven instead of the microwave
3. Sweatpants
4. Cats (although she ignored me. Jerk)
5. Roommate bonding

But some things never change, no matter where you work from. Like the fact that it's work. And that you have the same space heater in your home office as you have at your work office. Except a cat is sitting in front of it in one office.

A Little More Hope for Haïti

2011-01-30T23:03:00.009-06:00

A couple weekends ago, I took the train and bus far, far up North to attend my first event for a new group I joined called Chicagoans help Haiti. It was a sewing workshop to make dresses and pants for children orphaned by last year's earthquake. We were instructed to bring some t-shirts (for pants) or pillowcases (for dresses) and a $1 donation. I didn't really know what to expect. Frankly, I thought it'd be a bunch of old people. But I gave it a shot anyway.

I met someone while I was walking in who was around my age, which was quite comforting. As we were handing in our t-shirts, we realized we both had shirts from Threadless, so we obviously hit it off right away. We chatted and hung out a bit throughout the event, then exchanged emails as we were leaving. Turns out she is freelance photographer, and I sometimes freelance write. We thought we could team up sometime in the future to work on an article or project together.

The event itself was a well-oiled machine if I ever saw one. Two head sewer ladies supervised the whole process of ironing, tracing, snipping, pinning, elasticing, unpinning and sewing the little pants and dresses, which also had little pockets. Each t-shirt and each pillowcase went through 10+ steps before its transformation into a pair of pants or a dress. Every single station was manned and humming with conversation and laughter. It looked like everyone was having a good time.

When I wasn't taking notes, I was on the elastic crew. I sat with two lovely nice old French ladies and guided pieces of elastic through dress collars. I enjoyed creeping in on their French conversation. Actually, I was super shy around them and apprehensive to let them know I spoke French. I told them I was embarrassed I would make mistakes. "That's how we feel in English!" they said. "I am sure we make mistakes all the time." I felt a little bit better and so I chatted with them in French.

As I was working away, I thought that it kind of seemed silly to bring all these people here to spend a few hours sewing clothes when each person could just have easily gone to a thrift store and purchased some children's clothing for a few measly dollars. But as I looked around, I understood that people wouldn't get the same feeling of accomplishment out of donating someone's old and forgotten clothes. We were all working collectively to make something that would benefit others, and that's why the sewing workshop was a good idea. Most of the people couldn't even sew, but they were given simple tasks that didn't require sewing skills. The event also brought friends and strangers together over a common philanthropic goal. Plus those head sewer ladies were awesome at delegating, so a lot got done. I left before the event was over, but the pants and dresses were piling up as I left. I hope they make some little Haitian kids happy.

Here are some of my photos, which are pretty awful. I wasn't dedicating too much time to taking them. If you'd like to see some really great photos — including one of me working hard on that elastic — visit Sarah Tilotta Photography's Haiti Sewing Workshop album. She's my new photographer friend, and you'll quickly see that she's great at what she does!

patterns for boys' pants.

That's Sarah's pillowcase! I am sure it made a great dress. I really like the pattern. I wish I had a dress with that pattern.

Super awesome sewer lady on the right. She seriously kicked butt. She was so nice and so efficient, which is not easy to do at the same time.

Cute little girls who served as models for the dresses. For even cuter photos, see Sarah's album.

Once a t-shirt, now little boy pants.

Once a pillowcase, now a little girl dress.

Low Battery

2011-01-29T18:03:00.003-06:00

This week started off well enough. Then that flat tire thing happened. And that was no big deal because I handled it well enough. And then, the next day, another flat tire happened. So I had to take the bus home, which stresses me out. Not the bus itself, but taking the bus with a bike is stressful. Everyone is waiting for you to put your bike on or get it off and there is all this pressure and inevitably you pull the wrong lever and drop your bike in the middle of a busy street known as Chicago Avenue. In between all of this, I was cramming in a lot of freelance work and had a lot of nine-to-five work to see to, and I just got über stressed in general. Plus I couldn't make it to the pool or yoga or obviously ride my bike or eat things that are good for me. I could probably find about six more things to make the week more dramatic and horrible, but to make an already-long-enough story short, I was not feeling great.

By Thursday I was totally fried. I never miss Thursday night French class. Never ever never ever. But I needed to try taking a few hours off of life. So I headed home to where my two good friends and roomies were. The second I walked in the door, I unloaded everything on them. About the bike and the work and the this and the that. They patiently listened, then one handed me a dinner of delicious leftovers and another offered to accompany to a coffee shop so we could both get work done. They didn't even know how much I needed those things. I was SO hungry and SO unmotivated to spend the rest of my night working.

And just having some human beings to unload my complaints to felt great. Especially because I internalize things a lot and think because I moved to big bad Paris alone, I can handle anything. And I probably can. But it's nice when I don't have to.

The week is over. Tomorrow starts a new one. Hooray!

On Flat, Salty, Deflated Tires

2011-01-26T13:20:00.003-06:00

I spoke too soon when I boasted last week about how productive my life is, because I definitely put too much on my plate sometimes. Yesterday, I fudged up my volunteering schedule so was running late for my shift, then realized my bike tire was flat. Really the flat tire had nothing to do with my jam-packed calendar, but it reminded me of how tight I schedule my day-to-day life. I cram it all in and leave absolutely no room for hiccups.

My first instinct with the flat was to freak out, perhaps leave my bike at the shop and hurry up to Open Books. But I would still have a flat tire and no bike. Thankfully, the folks at the bookstore are super understanding and know all about work/life/volunteer balance. So I decided to get it fixed before riding up there.

There’s a repair shop precisely six feet from where I park my bike, so I rolled on in. The mechanic took a look and began to give me the run-down on my bike: it’s in bad shape, kinda. The tires are old and cracking and are getting worse from biking in winter (salt). He found multiple pieces of glass, which have probably just been hanging out there for some time because my tire pressure was so low. It’s supposed to be at 90 PSI, and mine were at 20. Really I am lucky I got a flat because I could have blown my tires in the condition I was riding.

I felt stupid. Stupid for messing up my volunteer schedule and nearly missing my shift. Stupid for not checking my tire pressure and biking around with apparently a whole freaking windshield in my tires. Stupid for feeling like I could do 10 things in one day. And stupid for thinking any of this even matters.

Mandatory let’s-talk-about-France moment: Those people don’t care about anything. They don’t care to get stressed about things anyway. I got really good at this carefree attitude when I was over there, but the longer I’m in ‘Merica, the more easily I seem to get stressed about minor petty things such as scheduling mishaps and flat tires.

But the flat tire was good. I couldn’t go anywhere, so I could breathe a little bit and not rush to my next calendar reminder. I just had to sit there. And do nothing. It was exactly what I needed to do. I thought about how maybe I need to scale things back a bit. And even though I won’t, I’ll at least check my tire pressure more often.

No Nager, Merci

2011-01-19T22:40:00.004-06:00

One of my fav Paris bloggers, Prêt à Voyager recently blogged about her experience at Paris swimming pools. I was cracking up as I read the whole post, because she was so spot on. Basically, Parisians are WACK when it comes to swimming pools. I like swimming a great deal, and when I was in Paris and training for my most recent marathon, I tried my hardest to swim once a week as cross training. But it was impossible. It was just too weird. And crowded. And naked. Here are some other things:

- The lockers were always really complicated. I tried to swim at several different pools hoping to find one that was a good fit, and every time had to learn some new complex locking system. Whatever happened to the good old key? No, instead they have euro coin locks, or locks where you have to enter a secret pin code after two beeps. Also, one pool has these weirdo mannequin hanger thingys that everyone casually hung their clothes on and put inside their lockers. I was embarrassed because I just threw my clothes in a heap inside the locker. I thought that was what normal people did.

- For men, anything but a Speedo is deemed unsanitary (see picture). Men must wear Speedos to be allowed to swim. Gross. If you forget yours, you can buy one from the vending machine. Double gross.

- After exiting the locker room and before entering the swimming pool, you must walk through 1-2 feet of stagnant water. It's like a kiddie pool blocking your path to the swimming pool. It's, you know, to sanitize your feet. Triple gross.

- Parisians can't swim. Not fast or in a straight line or anything. I don't even know why they go to the swimming pool. They enjoy clogging the wall space so that swimming without stopping is absolutely impossible. They can't smoke there, so I really don't see why they are wasting their time poking around the pool.

- The hours at every pool are very limited, which means you have to share a lane with 10-15 Parisians who can't swim. See above.

- I don't want to talk about the locker rooms.

I finally gave up on swimming and just counted riding my bike up Rue de Belleville as my cross training.

Now I live in 'MERICA, and I belong to a big fat American gym that has a pool. I swim twice a week usually. It is heavenly. I can flip turn to my heart's content without worrying about some Speedo-clad man kicking me in the face. AND the locker room is just ladies only! Crazy!

Gettin' er Done

2011-01-13T12:45:00.005-06:00

I read this post from a blog called Frugal Girl in which she discusses cutting schedule clutter. She says that her readers are always amazed that she finds time to blog, bake, read, paint furniture, etc. Her retort is that she plans ahead, works efficiently and gets enough sleep, which gives her the necessary energy to get it all done!

A lot of people have the same reaction to all the stuff I am able to get done. These are the things that I do pretty much every week work week outside of actually working:

- Read ½ a book
- Go to two or so yoga classes
- Swim two or so miles
- Bike 40 or so miles
- Climb some walls
- Attend a French class
- Grocery shop
- Cook or prepare most of my meals
- Interview a couple folks and write some blog posts
- Write some other stuff
- Get some good deals with my coupons
- Watch a movie or bake a delicious treat
- Talk to Libby

I don’t always get it all done (with the exception of talking to the cat). But I mostly do. And just like Frugal Girl, I have a schedule, and I do my best to stick to it. If I plan ahead, I can pack it all in. For example, on Thursday nights I have French class at 7:45. So, after work, I go swim laps, and, if I have time, pick up a few groceries before class. I guess I could just go home and twiddle my thumbs until class. But that’s not really my style.

I am not a time waster. I like to pack as much as I can into every single day so that I can feel like I’ve accomplished/learned/achieved something. And every single day, I probably do! I don’t watch a lot of TV or spend a lot of time looking at people’s Facebook pictures or do whatever it is that a lot of people do that prevents them from being productive.

Itty Teeny Baby Steps

2011-01-12T21:11:00.004-06:00

Today something groundbreaking happened in yoga class. I absentmindedly somehow touched my big right toe. In my young life, I've never been able to stick my legs straight and comfortably touch any toe, ever. In past years, sometimes I could almost-very-nearly-ouch-this-hurts graze the tops of my feet. But today, January 12, 2011, I touched a toe.

I started doing yoga weekly about a year ago, and my progress has eekingly been slow. I've been sitting hunched over my whole life and have very weak shoulders, core, upper body, everything — except I could kill a man with my legs, which are pretty freaking strong from all those marathons I've run and the biking to and from work every day. And since I am such poor model for what a yoga should look like, I am honestly surprised that a. I haven't given up yet and b. some of these tecahers haven't approached me after class and said "listen honey... I'm sorry to tell you this, but this isn't for you."

But I have stuck with it and no teacher has laughed in my face (for the record, yoga teachers are SO encouraging. The one last week was really quite nice, even though her class was so hard I thought I might barf). And even though it has taken me a year to touch one measely toe, I am proud of said accomplishment and am excited for the rest on the horizon.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to do a handstand. I still have nine more toes to touch. I shall work on this.

Getting to Know Wormhole

2011-01-11T21:33:00.007-06:00

I recently came into some freelance work this weekend, which meant it was time to head to a coffee shop. There's always Filter, but it's crowded, a little bit too hip and limits Internet to two hours. So I decided to try Wormhole, a newish coffee shop in my neighborhood. As an added bonus, a friend from high school recently started working there. I thought it'd be nice to see him.

I didn't get good pictures of the whole place since I didn't have the right lens on my camera, but it has a pretty cool '80s theme. I chatted briefly with the owner, who brought in a lot of the memorabilia from his mom's basement — lunchboxes, mugs, posters and even a working Nintendo with tons of games for customers to play.

This wasn't my drink, but I couldn't resist snapping a photo.

This was my vegan bluebery/cornbread muffin. I couldn't resist taking a bite before the photo. It was so good I ate two.

I also like this photo, and aspect of the shop. I hate coffee shops that don't have enough space for you to "season" your drink. This left enough room for a few people to mix in sugar, grab napkins, etc.

Open Letter to the Person Sitting Next to Me at The Coffee Shop Singing to His Friend

2011-01-09T15:30:00.004-06:00

Inspired by McSweeney’s open letters to people are entities who are unlikely to respond.

What the ef is wrong with you? People who listen to music on their computers at coffee shops bring headphones. Because it is an invasion of personal space and other people's sanity to blare your music in public. The same goes for blaring your voice. Which is not very good anyway. Also there is no variety, you are singing the same two mumbley lyrics over and over. What are you mumbling anyway? About crying? What do you have to cry about? I am the one that should be crying because you are ruining my productivity. Your coffee cup is empty, so it would be nice if you could leave now.

Janorexcia

2011-01-07T14:42:00.005-06:00

Janorexcia – The act of starving oneself in January to lose Christmas pudge. Also might have something to do with New Year’s resolutions.

How to use it!

• I didn't eat lunch today and instead went to the gym so I am a good janorexic. – me
• Drinking coffee no cream no sugar for janorexia. – Bradley
• Who keeps putting chocolate caramels in the kitchenette? this is not helping my janoerexia – Amy

Are you participating in janorexia?

An Open Letter to Facebook and Your Damn Engagement Ring Ads

2011-01-05T17:30:00.000-06:00

I like some of the services you provide for me. You make it easy to tag my friends in photos, put me in touch with faraway acquaintances, and entertain me a little bit on a bored Saturday afternoon. But I do not enjoy the part where you try to pressure me into getting married.

I know you think you know me. That me being 24, female, and in the same relationship for some time now = put a ring on it. So maybe that’s why you keep bombarding me with your “Do You Like Diamonds? Like us!” pay-per-click ads. But listen. I’m not interested in getting married anytime soon. That is why I keep deleting all your engagement ring ads. And then when you ask me why, I say I’m not interested in them. So why do you keep shoving those diamonds down my throat?

Usually I do not get so offended by advertising, especially because I know you need it to keep your service free for me. But I can only delete so many ads, tell you I don’t care about engagement rings, then see three more glaring at me in the right-hand column the next day. I. Don’t. Want. To. Get. Married. At. This. Point. In. My. Life. Is that so hard to understand? If you cared about me, you would listen. But you don’t care about me. You just want me to get married. LAME.

Resolved

2011-01-03T15:48:00.003-06:00

My roommates and I have been talking resolutions for the past few weeks. I thought of several throughout my month-long reverb10 blogging project. And last night I sat with my friends and sister to review what ours were. Here are mine:

1. Take more pictures
2. Wear more accessories
3. Be more thrifty
4. Stop buying meat from the grocery store (either it's local or nothing)
5. Take a dance class
6. Touch my toes
7. Do a handstand
8. Not look like a fatty fatty two-by-four in Kari's wedding this spring

December 31: Core Story

2011-01-03T13:50:00.001-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.) (Author: Molly O’Neill)

I rang in 2010 kind-of-but-not-really sure that I wanted to be in Chicago. I was pretty sure, but not totally sure. By the time 2011 came along, I was definitely sure. This has been the core story of the year and of a lot of these reverb10 posts. Although I still have some work to do, things are going pretty dandy. And that is that.

Reverb10 was good because it got me to write almost every single day. But I also felt like many of the prompts made me search for meaning in places there wasn’t any. Many of the prompts were also repetitive, and it was challenging to keep my posts different from one another.

I liked that these prompts made me think about what I’ve been doing over the past year, but nothing bubbled up that I hadn’t thought of before. I’m thinking about stuff all the time.

And I was also surprised by how many people told me they’ve been reading. This is a little scary for me because I’m a perfectionist, and I don’t have the time to make every single post perfect. I am worried that people will find typos or a misspelling and think poorly of me. But such is life, I suppose. If don’t want to mistakes, then I shouldn’t try, right?

Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me over the past month. I am going to try to keep the blog going strong and write a few times a week.

December 30: Gift

2010-12-31T11:59:00.000-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Gift. This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What’s the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year? (Author: Holly Root)

I've been thinking about this prompt ever since it was posted yesterday and haven't been able to come up with anything good. So I'm going to cop-out a little bit on this one and say the best give I have received this year is patience. See, I'm a very impatient person. If things don't go my way, I immediately become very frustrated and pissy.

I appreciate the patience of my friends and family whenever I get like this. And I also appreciate when they tell me "stop it." It really puts me in check. I am working hard on improving this quality about myself, and the patience of those close to me really helps.

An Open Letter to the Woman Furiously Popping Her Zits in the Locker Room Mirror

2010-12-30T15:16:00.000-06:00

Inspired by McSweeney’s open letters to people are entities who are unlikely to respond.

When I first joined the gym many moons ago, I was meek in the locker room. While woman of all ages and shapes and sizes unabashedly changed in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, I scurried to the bathroom to do my changing in the privacy of a stall. But, due to my laziness and gradual nonchalance about other women critiquing my body (I know they do it to me because I do it to them), I was soon enough changing out in the open with the best of them.

This was a major hurdle for me to overcome, and I can only hope to one day achieve that all you have. Some women – usually of the quite old variety – watch television or sit in the hot tub in the nude. Others do their makeup or hair while wearing nothing but skimpy towels. I admire these women. But I admire you more. You, who has the confidence and spunk to put your face centimeters from the mirror and pop your zits onto it. You have turned the athletic club locker room into your personal dressing table! Where did you learn to care so little about your environment or respecting the people in it?

December 29: Defining Moment

2010-12-29T21:42:00.003-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year. (Author: Kathryn Fitzmaurice)

In my last post, I talked about my strive to achieve things. What was the most frustrating about being unemployed for seven months was 1. I wasn’t achieving what I wanted to professionally and 2. I was so focused on achieving #1 that I couldn't concentrate on achieving anything else. So I guess the job offer turned the tables and defined the rest of 2010 for me.

The idea of defining my whole year by that one thing leaves a really bad taste in mouth. It feels long ago and the excitement has faded. I am disappointed that I have nothing better to show for myself since then. Maybe I do, but nothing as huge. Boo and hiss. This prompt is making me feel like a failure, and I don't even know why.

December 28: Achieve

2010-12-29T21:24:00.004-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today. (Author: Tara Sophia Mohr)

Earlier this year, everyone in my office took a personality assessment for some team-building workshops. Based on our answers, everyone received a list of their top five "strengths." My number one strength was Achiever:

Your Achiever theme helps explain your drive. Achiever describes a constant need for achievement. You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself … After each accomplishment is reached, the fire dwindles for a moment, but very soon it rekindles itself, forcing you toward the next accomplishment. Your relentless need for achievement might not be logical. It might not even be focused. But it will always be with you.

And so on and so forth. Now that I read the description, it kind of terrifies me. It makes me sound like a workaholic weirdo who doesn't know how to have a good time. That's not true. But this does describe me really well. I just met a couple college friends for breakfast last weekend and was telling them how I didn't feel like I had achieved anything in the past year. "BETSY YOU GOT A JOB," Lauren the ever positive, said. "THAT IS AMAZING!!" (yes Lauren speaks in all caps). But that was eight months ago. For an Achiever, eight months is a long time to go without achieving a lots more things.

Of course I have things I would like to do in 2011. I would like to do a triathlon, touch my toes and do a handstand. I would like to speak more French. I would like to read more books. I would like to write more. I would like to take a couple more trips. I would like to find more meaningful volunteer work. I would like to save more money with coupons. I would like to be better at thrifting. There isn't one thing I would like to achieve the most. I want it all.

And, if I were to accomplish every single thing on my list, I know exactly how I would feel: incomplete and eager to find something else to achieve. It sounds pathetic, that I am never able to appreciate my successes because I always have to move to the next thing. Do I strive to achieve things simply for the sake of achievement? Or are these things I actually want to achieve?

So maybe I should work on NOT achieving things this year. But I know that won't happen. It would be a waste of a year of my life. Instead of ten thoughts I shall try to concentrate on one, and that will be to feel satisfied with all that I've accomplished.

December 27: Ordinary Joy

2010-12-29T16:40:00.005-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year? (Author: Brené Brown)

I’ve been eying the climbing wall at my gym since I joined this summer. When I was in college, I got into climbing for a bit and invested in my own shoes, harness, chalk bag and belay device. A few months ago, I brought all my equipment from my parents’ house with the intention of getting back into climbing. But it all just sat in my closet for awhile.

I don’t know what was holding me back. I wasn’t scared or nervous. Maybe I just didn’t feel like adding yet another physical activity to my life, which already includes biking, swimming, yoga and sometimes running. But I finally decided gather up my equipment and head to the wall about a month ago.

I surprised myself by how easily I remembered all the knots. And although I hadn’t climbed in a few years, I figured I would do okay since all my yogaing and swimming might have done something for my upper body strength and endurance. Wrong, apparently.

I climbed a little bit up the wall, and then I got to this 90-degree jutty outy ledge and absolutely didn’t have the strength to pull myself over it. Then I tried again the next week. And I still wasn’t strong enough. It wasn’t until my third or fourth week that I was able to pull myself up to get my feet and hands in the right position and get over the ledge.

Maybe I didn’t feel pure and ordinary what-does-this-even-mean joy. But I felt accomplishment. I couldn't do this one thing. I kept trying. And then I could do it. Neat.

Also, I realized during my swim earlier this week that I could breathe every four strokes instead of every two strokes for a longer time and wasn't totally out of breath. That isn't as exciting though because that is quite possibly one of the dumbest accomplishments ever.

Family Christmas Far from Home

2010-12-28T16:28:00.005-06:00

I had never missed Christmas at home. But I was 4,145 miles away in Paris. So instead I took the train to Thionville, a commune in northeastern France, where I would spend Noël with Jessica and her family.

Although I was not one of Jessica’s closest friends, her family welcomed me like one. To Strasbourg to visit the holiday markets and to try flammenküche! To Nancy to sightsee and sample macarons! Back home to warm up with raclette! By the night of December 25, I had Jessica to thank for a crash-course in local cuisine and culture. It was finally time for Christmas dinner, which Jessica said would start late and last until the wee hours of the morning. Père Noël might even stop by before the night’s end.

The servings were small but rich. In between the brioche stuffed with foie gras and compote and the oysters, there were frequent breaks to rest, to drink, to smoke and to laugh. We drank the wine I brought as a gift, and I explained how I had picked out the bottle by copying some French wine connoisseurs at the supermarket. My French storytelling wasn’t perfect, but no one acted like they noticed.

When the final desserts hit the table, I was happy and full. As I sleepily enjoyed my slice of bûche de Noël, I felt just like one of the family. In a foreign country and far from home, this feeling was nothing short of extraordinaire.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

December 26: Soul Food

2010-12-28T12:27:00.003-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul? (Author: Elise Marie Collins)

Photo by Louis Beche.

First things first. Let’s talk macarons. No, not macaroons. Macarons. They’re like little cookie sandwiches, but comparing them to cookies might be insulting. Macarons take great care, patience and know-how to prepare and bake. If you eat a just-okay macaron, you’ll easily forget the experience. But if you bite into a perfect macaron, with its eggshell-fine crust and sweet melt-in-your mouth inside, you will understand what all the fuss is about.

It’s best to pay big bucks to eat a professionally made macaron because making them is quite complex and difficult, especially for common folk. The best place to get them is Paris, most say at Ladurée, a Parisian tea salon and pastry shop. But my aunt, my mom and I weren’t in Paris. And we like to bake. So we decided to have a shot at making our own macarons.

The afternoon spent processing our own almond flour, tracing macaron-sized circles on parchment paper, whipping egg whites to the exact and perfect consistency and trying to decipher French recipes (I’m the worst at translating recipes and menus. French has so many words for eating and preparing food, and I don’t know half of them) was only kind of about the macarons. It was more an excuse for us to experiment together with something we all enjoy. We joked that if the macarons turned out horribly, we’d give them away to people we didn’t like.

And the first few batches DID turn out horribly. The macarons were crunchy, which equals failure. But then my aunt discovered where we had gone wrong – something with the almond flour proportions. And they started turning out better and better. I might go so far as to say they turned out good! Not Paris good, but still pretty good.

For me, making French macrons with my mom and aunt was and continues to be the perfect example of why Chicago is the right place for me right now. For someone so obsessed with France and its culture, you’d think I’d have moved there for good already. But the people I love are here in Chicago. And that is why – for now at least – I’ll take making my own imitation macarons with my family over eating a real Ladurée one in Paris.

December 25: Photo

2010-12-28T10:41:00.003-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you. (Author: Tracey Clark)

In my world, “Sift through all the photos of you from the past year” means “look at all the photos on Facebook in which you were tagged in over the past year.” So I did that. And what I was looking for is one that shows me as skinny as I want to be, as happy as I want to be, with as good of hair as I want and probably in a fun place with fun people so I have a good story to tell.

Of course that photo doesn’t exit. And it’s not because it couldn’t have. It’s because my friends and I never take any freaking pictures.

When I was in France, I took all kinds of pictures. Living in Paris is very exotic. I know people who were living in Korea, Berlin and Jordan over the past year. They took all kinds of pictures. Because they are living in far away countries and we all want to see what their lives are like.

But Chicago? We feel our lives are mundane, so we never take pictures. But that isn’t true! Chicago rocks. Why haven’t I taken any pictures of the parties we’ve had, the festivals and concerts we’ve been to, the family dinners we’ve cooked? I'm going to work on fixing that in 2011. Stay tuned.

But for the purpose of this prompt, I guess this is my favorite photo of me from the past year. It was taken by photographer Glitter Guts at a Gemini Club show at Metro a few months ago.

December 24: Everything's OK

2010-12-27T14:47:00.002-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead (Author: Kate Inglis)

Somewhere around this time last year, I had to convince myself that everything would be all right even though I wasn’t sure it would be.

I was so stressed out by looking for a job. All I did when I wasn’t working in a t-shirt warehouse or writing articles for pathetic paychecks was look for jobs, write cover letters and network with people who might be able to help me out. It was so demoralizing, especially because I had left a good thing in Paris to come back to absolutely nothing. I had been at it for a couple months.

I had a panic attack or something. One day, as I was writing a cover letter, my chest tightened up, I had trouble catching my breath, and I had to lie down. I made myself NOT do anything job-related for the rest of the day. It was hard to sit on the couch and watch TV, but I realized that for an afternoon, I needed to not think about this one thing.

And that’s kind of when I realized I needed to start telling myself more often that everything would be all right. That finding a job wasn’t everything. Well, it was. But I needed to think about other things, because concentrating 156 percent on something so hopeless and so out of my control was making it difficult to breathe.

I decided I would not be defined by the job I didn’t have. I began volunteering. I started writing for Chicagoist. I started training for a half marathon (well I pretended to). I made new friends at all my odd jobs. I went to listen to literary readings.

It wasn’t until four months later that I was offered job. And that whole time, everything was really okay. I became better at interviews and writing kick-ass cover letters. I got to know Chicago better. Sure, I didn’t eat out or go shopping for new clothes. But I changed my attitude and actions and acted as if everything was all right, then realized it was.

How will I incorporate this discovery into 2011? I will remember that focusing on the present is just as important as focusing on the future. I will remember that things out of my control aren’t worth as much stress as I put into them.

December 23: New Name

2010-12-23T13:22:00.002-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Promopt: Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why? (Author: Becca Wilcott)

I will not play this game. I like my name.

December 22: Travel

2010-12-22T21:04:00.000-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Promopt: Travel How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year? (Author: Tara Hunt)

Last night I heard about super sweet deal to Paris: roundtrip, direct to and from Chicago, for $550 — a steal. I emailed friends asking if I could visit over a weekend in March, and went to bed dreaming of breaking wine glasses in Seb's apartment, cooking curry with Ina and knocking on Loïc's door and demanding in person a reason for his silence to my countless emails over the past few months. I woke up. The tickets were gone. Back up to $900.

I was sad, but not too sad. Because I WILL see my friends in Paris again, even if it isn't this March. I don't know when it'll be, but it'll happen. And besides, I have another trip in the works in calendar year 2011, and that is to Australia and New Zealand. Once again, it's to visit friends.

These days, visiting friends is the only way I travel. We can catch up for a few days during my visit, and I have on-site tour guides who are always more than happy to show me their favorite places and neighborhoods. Since this time last year, I've visited friends in New Orleans, my sister in Seattle, friends in New York and met up with a couple on my trip to Missouri. It looks just like a list of places I've been, but every one of those trips was awesome in its own way. This is one reason why I need to get a better lens. So I can take pictures and show these experiences to people.

Another journalism fairy loses his wings

2010-12-22T17:00:00.003-06:00

I found out via Facebook yesterday that yet another classmate from college lost his job. I didn’t know him or his work very well, but he was one of those reporters who always had a lot of my respect. One I assumed would weather all this out no matter what happened, because I thought he was just that good. That he would win awards and have bylines all over the news for years to come and retire old and such.

I don’t know what the circumstances are, but I can guess. His employer had no money left. He had to be let go. The fact that he lasted this long is a miracle. Yadda yadda yadda.

I have seen so many former classmates or colleagues I worked with at the university paper lose their jobs. Someone I once worked with recently left her reporting job to go to PR. Even though our professors told us this was the Dark Side (For realz. “Don’t go to the Dark Side.” “We shun graduates who go to the Dark Side.” Similar hogwash that no one listens to anymore etc.), I was so happy that she had such an opportunity. And by opportunity, I mean paycheck, stability, future and hope.

I don’t know what my purpose in writing about all this is. I guess it is just a way for me to publicly wonder what is happening to the industry that six years ago seemed just fine. It’s not a worry I have for myself. I’ll always want to write and will find a way to do it, and journalism or no journalism isn’t going to prevent that. My Bachelor's of Journalism degree was not worthless and I will never see it as that. I just don’t think I’ll tell my kids to get one.

December 21: Future Self

2010-12-21T23:05:00.001-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?) (Author: Jenny Blake)

My five-year plan involves seeing more of the world and doing something in my career or life that moves me closer to working in French or with something French-related. For 2011, I would stay "Betsy, you're on the right track! Keep it up!"

I'm a pretty driven and motivated person. If I set my mind to something, I'll do it. We'll see if I still have that drive five years from now.

And 10 years ago: You are not as good of a writer as you think you are.

December 20: Beyond Avoidance

2010-12-21T16:23:00.006-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Beyond Avoidance. What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?) (Author: Jake Nickell)

I didn’t take a real dance class this year (the Latin Rhythms class at my gym didn’t count since it was a lite old lady version), but I’ve already vowed to do that this year. So that doesn’t count.

My answer is something that is more of a long-termish goal, and that is to take an extended trip around the world. This isn’t something that I could have done last year or will be able to do in 2011. But it’s something that, over the past few months, I have started to think more seriously about doing. And once Amy and I put that world map up on my wall, and my friend Kevin posted this link on Facebook, I got to thinking even harder.

It’s really something I should do before I “settle down” or whatever it's called these days. Could I take a six months or a year off of life? Absolutely.

So once I have enough money saved for my Australia/New Zealand trip, I am going to start saving up for this. Could take me some time. But I’m only 24. As long as I do it before I’m 30, I think I’ll be content.

December 19: Healing

2010-12-21T13:11:00.003-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011? (Author: Leonie Allan)

I rarely get sick (except when I got what I think was food poisoning on Sunday night, which is why I’m a little behind on these prompts). So I don’t need any healing right?

But if I could take this prompt in a little bit of a different direction, I think enrolling in French class has done a fair amount of “healing” for me. I enrolled in my weekly Alliance Française courses as soon as I got my job (re: could afford them). I usually take Thursday night classes, which always tends to be THE night when coworkers are grabbing drinks, the Chicagoist staff has their monthly happy hour or friends are meeting up for a trivia night. I love doing all those things. But I have this thing about missing French classes – it's something I don't do.

People always ask me if I’m fluent in French, and I never know what to say. Learning this language is a continuous and evolving process. I have worked really super unbelievably hard over the past however many years to learn it, and these classes help me not only keep up with it, but also learn more about what continues to be a boggling and complex language for me to wrap my head around.

See, I’m not good at learning another language. I took four years of French in high school only to be placed in FRENCH 1 after a placement exam before my first year of college. Part of that had to do with a pretty awful teacher. But part of it also had to do with my brain not retaining information very well. All throughout college, French was a struggle. When I studied abroad, which was five or six years after I had first step foot in a French class, I flailed. I couldn’t speak it.

Like I said, I've come a long way since then, and it’s taken work to get to where I am. There's a lot of French in my head, and I’m terrified of losing it. With my weekly classes, it’s nice to step into a no English zone for a couple hours a week. These classes remind me of how much I have learned and how much more I have to learn. This is the nourishment my brain needs to continue to grow and learn with a language I love.

December 18: Try

2010-12-21T10:54:00.002-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it? (Author: Kaileen Elise)

Here are some things that I have been thinking about trying or have already started:

Semi-vegetarianism
Getting to the top of the climbing wall
Harder in learning/maintaining my French
Standing up straight
Writing more
Thrifting more
Cooking soups
A dance class

December 17: Lesson Learned

2010-12-21T10:44:00.003-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Lesson Learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward? (Author: Tara Weaver)

I have learned that I let petty things annoy me too much. I already knew this, but I am working on letting it bother me less. This is especially hard because anytime I am riding my bike, I am thinking about something petty that annoys me. I ride my bike to and from work, over an hour a day total. So that's a lot of mulling over petty things. But I find that if I spend a good deal of time thinking about being disgruntled about something, it's easier for me to soon forget it.

I am working on mantras: It's not that big of a deal. There are other things to worry about. When you've cooled down a bit, you can come back to it.

And I've also been doing yoga, pretty consistently once a week or twice if I can. I am hoping this helps, but I don't think it does (It's pretty much just helping me get closer to touching my toes and stand up straighter, but that's also something I need to work on, so that's just fine).

That's the best thing I learned.

I also learned that I have an unhealthy habit of yo-yoing between extreme fitness and complete lethargy. I began to understand this year that it's probably better for my physical and social health to run somewhere in between zero and 20 miles on a given Sunday, not one or the other.

I learned that it takes the same effort to be nice to someone as it does to be mean to them.

And this isn't so much about myself, but I learned how to be a damn good coupon clipper.

December 16: Friendship

2010-12-21T10:30:00.002-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Friendship. How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst? (Author: Martha Mihalick)

I am always intrigued by friendship. You can spend years developing a close friendship with someone you see almost every single day, and the second one or both persons moves somewhere else, the friendship withers and dies (like some college friends). Or, you can have a short and brief period of friendship, and when you two part ways, you both try work very hard to maintain it (like some friends I met studying abroad). And then there's the we-only-talk-sometimes-and-it-doesn't-matter-how-far-away-from-each-other-we-are-or-when-we-see-each-other-next-we-always-will-be-friends friendships.

No friend has changed my perspective on the world this year. So instead I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about how grateful I am for one good friend.

I've hopped the fence at the LPD pool with John and dumped all the chairs in. I followed the Tour de France with his family a couple summers ago. At my birthday party, he got all my French friends to play Sardines. I can have fun anywhere with John, whether it's on the Eiffel Tower or in the grocery store. He makes a game out of everything and is never dull. We like to sit in the car with the doors closed and windows up and spray a whole bottle of Axe. Whoever opens the door first loses. It's called the Axe game. And besides from being fun to spend time with, he's a thoughtful and genuine guy. Here's a good example:

I get a phone call from John a few weeks ago, who lives in California, but is home for Thanksgiving.

"I am at the Lemont liquor store and they have tons of Four Loko. I'll buy it all, just say the word."

Instead of the whole store, he only buys me three cases, nearly $100 worth. I'll pay him back later. But, John is such a good friend he would buy a whole store of Four Loko for me. In my phone contacts, he is saved as John Good Friend.

Spread the Holiday Cheer

2010-12-16T11:48:00.009-06:00

One of the Chicago coupon bloggers I follow is frugalista, who recently published a post titled “8 things you should do before the end of 2010 to save money.” She has some good tips, but one I couldn’t get too excited about was #4: Cut someone off your Christmas list. Well, I kind of agree. Frugalista suggests cutting someone such as your cousins’ niece’s husband. That makes sense. You don’t need to give every single one of your extended family a present, or even all your friends for them to know you care about them and love them.

But.

People like frugalista and myself are couponers. And that means we save heaps of money on almost absolutely everything. I don’t keep track on how much I save, but here’s an example for you. I had a $60 purchase the other day at CVS that I got down to $3 thanks to all my coupons. On top of all the savings, there's all the stuff I get for absolutely free. That’s a lot of money saved in a calendar year.

Do you get where I am going here? If you’re saving hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars a year, I think you can afford to add someone to your Christmas list. But instead of a random relative, how about adding someone who makes a huge difference in your day-to-day life? Even just a $10 gift card is a nice gift, I think.

Here are some ideas of people it might be nice to thank with a little gift:

• the barista who hands you your coffee every morning
• your postman (mine sucks baguettes so is NOT getting an xmas gift from me, no absolutely most definitely not!)
• the admin at work who does all your expenses for you or schedules all your meetings
• your yoga teacher
• your bus driver
• your doorman

Got any others?

December 15: 5 Minutes

2010-12-15T16:41:00.008-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: 5 minutes. Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010. (Author: Patti Digh) (I didn't understand this at first, but it means you are supposed to write for 5 minutes.

I will start by saying that this has been a really great year that completely fortified my decision to be in Chicago at this time and place in my life. I got a good job that paid me enough money to continue studying French, and even though I think about France all the time and how great it would be to be back there somedayish in the futurish, all the great experiences of this year are the reasons I should be here!

Where to start?

I automatically think to the summer, my favorite time of the year, where I went to a lot of music festivals. I’m not even that huge of a music person, but I love being outside among other hot and sweaty festival goers drinking and dancing and generally having a great time! This year topped all years for many reasons that I don’t have time to list in this short amount of time. But the festivals. Remember that they were great.

Remember that you met a lot of amazing people and solidified relationships with a lot others. Starting a book club helped (KKN I’m looking at you). So did getting out there and meeting people (hey D!). So did moving in with new roomies a few months ago (love you ladies and Maude!). The people of Chicago are what makes Chicago Chicago!

Also, you worked hard to try new things or more things of things you already liked this year, even if they were little things. Yoga, for example, which has really helped you focus a bit better and be a stronger person (kinda). You've been reading more, and although you could always read MORE than that, it’s been nice to get more books under your belt. And you worked to be a better writer, which is something that is a continuous and evolving process. But ever since you graduated, you have been angry at yourself for not writing more, but this year you cannot complain. You wrote a lot, and I expect to write more next year. Perhaps on this blog! Well, definitely here.

(ps why did I put in so many !!exclamation points!!)

December 14: Appreciate

2010-12-14T10:14:00.002-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Appreciate What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it? (Author: Victoria Klein)

Photo by Andrew Coulter Enright.

A few months ago, I was going through files on my computer and came across my “Job Hunt” folder; full of awful hopeless days hunched over the dining room table, dead-end interviews and flakey HR people. That folder has so many personalized resumes, cover letters and writing tests and samples. That folder is solely responsible for my butterflyish excitement every time my cell phone rang – could it be someone calling me to offer me a job or interview? Or was it my grandparents calling again wondering why a girl “so smart” couldn’t find a job? That folder was seven months of my life.

I appreciate my job every day, and if you are a human being who has lived on this earth sometime over the past two or three years, I don’t have to explain to you why. Furthermore, this is a job I actually wanted, one that helps me build my skill set and get me to the places I want to go. Those seven months weren’t wasted. They made me awesome at interviews and made me appreciate even more when I found one that was absolutely the perfect fit.

If I could answer this question twice, the second thing I appreciate greatly is my youth. How many 24 year olds do you know who have great jobs that align with their career goals? How many 24 year olds do you know who can siphon money off each month for a future vacation to the other side of the world? I love being young, how flexible my future is, where I’m going and who I will be when I get there.

Free Food Is Delicious Food

2010-12-14T08:09:00.003-06:00

This morning, the wind chill was hovering around -8° F. I woke up at 4:35, willed myself out of bed, threw on four pairs of socks, three pants, five shirts (too many), double gloves, hat, balaclava, boots and helmet and biked the deserted streets of Chicago all in the name of 52 free breakfast sandwiches.

Einstein Brother's Bagels just opened a new location by my work, and I saw a promotion yesterday as I walked by: free breakfast for a year to the first 100 people in the door on December 14. On closer inspection, I saw that is was in fact 52 free breakfast sandwich vouchers. But that's still a lot of free breakfast. The only sucky part? Einstein's opens at 5:30 a.m.

Well. I like free stuff as much as the next person. In fact, I like it MORE. I am very serious about flying to Australia and New Zealand next fall or winter, and every penny towards that trip is gold. So that's why I was up at 4:35.

Since I was 3+ hours early for work, I swam a mile at the gym and filled my Amazon shopping cart with Christmas presents. It's still super early and I'm tired. But. At least I have 52 free breakfast sandwiches.

December 13: Action

2010-12-13T16:12:00.007-06:00

photo by Beatriz AG.

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Action. When it comes to aspirations, its not about ideas. It's about making ideas happen. What's your next step? (Author: Scott Belsky)

I took a basic photography class my last year of college. My school let me borrow really fancy cameras and lenses for the weekend, and I would go around and shoot a bunch of stuff for my assignments. I finished the class with a pretty nice portfolio.

Then I got my very own fancy camera for graduation. Although I go through spurts of shooting a lot of pictures, I don’t as often as I should. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that the camera is bulky and awkward and doesn’t allow me to take up-close-and-personal photos of people and things.

I aspire to take more pictures, but I need a new lens. It would solve a lot of my problems. I have put off buying one for forever. So I am making it happen soon. I’ve been doing some research. I’ve narrowed it down. Now all I need to do is make the purchase.

And then I need to take some pictures.

December 12: Body Integration (?)

2010-12-12T14:43:00.001-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Body integration. This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn't mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

If I were presently under the throes of marathon training, this would be easy. During those four months, my legs are moving so much that I can feel every single muscle even when I'm just sitting down. But I haven't been running much lately, so that's out.

But I did go to a few hot yoga classes. I don't know if my face dripping so much sweat that my glasses fell off my face is a "a cohesive YOU, alive and present" moment. But it was a moment when my mind was pretty aware of what I was making my body do. If I go into further detail about my yoga matt became a slip and slide, you'd get grossed out. I'm grossed out. So let's just end this now.

December 11: 11 Things

2010-12-12T09:28:00.005-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author: Sam Davidson)

Photo by imago.

1. Eating meat on Mondays and hopefully other days
2. Half assedness in French class and French studying
3. Negativity
4. Multitasking. Really it decreases productivity.
5. Eating a gazillion cookies and pieces of candy and slices of cake and other free sweets at work
6. Slouching
7. Holding grudges
8. My fear of dying my hair (I've always wanted to try a redish color)
9. Losing touch with faraway friends
10. Procrastinating redesigning my blog and/or having a personal website
11. My inability to touch my toes or do a handstand

December 10: Wisdom

2010-12-11T22:19:00.005-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Wisdom Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (Author: Susannah Conway)

One of the wisest decisions I made this year was to not run the Chicago marathon. When registration for the raced opened in January for the race, I knew I needed to register immediately to guarantee myself a spot (even though the marathon isn't until October, it sells out pretty fast).

I've run three marathons in the past six years. I've told myself I'll stop once I make it to Boston, a marathon so popular and prestigious that all runners must qualify at a previous marathon. In other words, you have to run two marathons to run Boston.

Like I said, I've run three, and I'm ready to get this Boston race under my belt. So if I were to have run the Chicago marathon, I would have tried to qualify. Which means I would have had to cut off 20 minutes from my best time — entirely doable with a lot of hard work, running a gazillion miles, healthy eating and absolutely no alcohol for 4 months.

I'm going to do it someday. Maybe next year. But this year wasn't the year for me. The bulk of my training would have been over the summer, and I ultimately decided it wasn't worth forfeiting my first real summer in the city for a race I have my whole life to run.

So I didn't enter. And this was wise. Because I had a great summer. The kind of summer that 145 percent reinforced my decision to live my 20s in Chicago. A summer of late nights and drinking and not exercising much and music festivals and general all around fun; a million things I would not have experienced had I been staying in every Friday to wake up early to run 20 miles the next day.

December 9: Party

2010-12-09T07:50:00.006-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Author: Shauna Reid)

I'll start off by saying that my track record for parties hasn't been exactly stellar. Take my 21st birthday, for example, the ultimate party of all parties. Only two friends came. It was soul crushing.

I have since overcome my fear of throwing parties. It hasn’t been an easy path – attendance was low at a game night party last fall and I was left with an entire pot of chili – but I have learned along the way that having a successful party is all about quality over quantity. That being said, quality AND quantity in one room makes for a great party. And my roommates and I had one of those Halloween weekend.

There are a lot of reasons this was a good party. My mummy hot dogs were a hit. I had one of the best costumes I have ever had in my entire life. All my favorite people came. Good music, good times, good stories to tell later on. Great decorations thanks to my aunt.

Describing how much fun a party was to those who weren't there doesn't accomplish much, since all great parties are pretty much the same. So I'll end this here. But it was great, and this song will always remind me of it.

December 8: Beautifully Different

2010-12-08T23:04:00.002-06:00

I'm participating in #reverb10, a month-long challenge to blog every day of December based on prompts provided here.

Prompt: Beautifully different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different - you'll find they're what make you beautiful.

This prompt kinda rubs me the wrong way. Doesn't everyone want to believe that he or she is different than all the rest? Of course. We all do. That's why some of us wear wacky glasses or throw mustache parties or travel to Croatia solo. Or run marathons or sometimes dance in front of the mirror when we're alone or casually slip in that we've lived in Paris whenever it's pertinent (or not).

Those are things that I've done that are a bit different, but I definitely don't think these actions make me differently beautiful or beautifully different or whatever than the next person.

To say that I am different means I must compare myself to someone who is not. Someone who is undifferent, who is boring, who is normal. While I definitely think these people exist — I interact with them daily and shhh… I probably judge them — it is really not my place to say "I am different because I do these things that this person does not do." I really think claiming myself as different is a lousy way to make myself feel like more of a person than I really am.

When it comes down to it, we're people. We have different motivations for doing certain things or feeling certain ways or dressing in certain clothes. Maybe I wear these glasses because I think they define my personality, because I think they will make me stand out in a crowd or because I really want to look like a Mad Men character. Maybe it doesn't really matter.

Maybe we should stop trying to be so unique and different from each other and just do things that make us happy, no matter how those actions measure up to the actions of our neighbors. If we keep trying to be so very hard to be different all the time, we are all going to end up being the same.