Let me tell you something you don’t already know

I can’t…
Stand country music. Draw anything other than flowers and stick figures. Stop obsessing about losing someone close to me. Sit inside on sunny days. Carry a tune to save my life. Be in a sexless relationship. Leave the house without matching earrings, shoes and bag. Throw a Frisbee.

I can…
Play the piano. Say I’m sorry. Read a 500-page book in three days. Obsess daily about what I’m doing with my life. Spend all day reading and writing blogs. Procrastinate until the eleventh hour. Camp for days without showering and not care. Spend $15 weekly on fashion and celebrity gossip magazines. Make some mean chili. Be really ornery. Often fall head first into a bottle of wine.

I won’t…
Get married until I’m really, really sure. Wear Uggs. Give money to someone begging on the street. Ever again find myself dating someone who won’t call me his girlfriend. Go a day without using the Internet. Give up my dreams for a boy. Sunbathe without sunblock. Eat peas.

I will…
Always have a jug of sweet tea in my fridge. Live somewhere other than Seattle for a short time. Give food to someone begging on the street. Always love those who have loved me. Watch Sex and the City over, and over, and over again. Find my dream job. Invite everyone; the more the merrier. Be proud of the paths I’ve taken in my 20s.

I shouldn’t…
Ever, ever, ever smoke. Tan. Bite my nails. Love Taco Bell as much as I do. Love not working as much as I do. Web MD myself because it’s always CANCER or AIDS. Buy any more earrings.

I should…
Move to San Francisco this year. Censor myself a little more than I do. Be applying for jobs instead of writing this blog. Call my dad and grandparents more. Make friends with someone who has a boat. Become a better runner. Revel in how happy I feel right now.

Inspired by her and her.

Currently Feeling: A little sleepy from the happy hour that turned into an all-night laugh, drink and eat fest. Love it!
Currently Anticipating: Hot yoga tomorrow with my sis. I’ve never been!
Currently Loving: Firefly Lane. Seriously – every girl should read it! I devoured it in three days and balled my eyes out. SOOOO good!

One person’s junk is another’s treasure

Oh garage sales. What a seriously interesting sociology experiment into the human mind. Someone should write a book on garage sales and what people will sell and buy – I took a sociology class in college called “Deviant Behavior” where we analyzed the social workings behind gangs, gambling and sexual deviance (David Carradine, what?!), I think that a little section there about garage sales would have been equaling interesting. Although, garage sales aren’t necessarily deviant… so that blows my whole theory, but I digress.

This past weekend, the BF and I combined piles of our junk (me from moving out, him from the divorce and general junk collecting since he owns a house and has more space than he knows what to do with. I guess this equals a lot of junk purchasing) and threw a garage sale. This is my first experience in selling my crap for others’ purchase.

I started out with good ole fashioned advertising – a Craigslist post and some neon signs that a college girl friend helped me decorate. She happens to be unemployed too, so we spent last Tuesday afternoon, coloring the signs and seriously mapping out our route for where they’d be hung. I bet we never would have guessed that four years after college, decorating garage sale signs while unemployed would be the highlight of our week. Oh how I love you, Recession.

Saturday morning the BF and I got up at a ungodly Saturday morning hour, after six hours of sleep, to throw our junk out in his driveway. I’ll let you in on a little secret – even if you put in bold and CAPS, “No early birds,” there’s always going to be some jack ass that shows up at 7:30 a.m. asking if they’re too early. And then commences the mayhem…

I was absolutely amazed at what people will buy. “One person’s junk is another’s treasure” couldn’t be more true. The items of value that I thought would actually sell – nice area rugs, a standing lamp, a snowboard and quality bar stools – remained unsold. But I got rid of a lot of stuff I thought I’d just throw out there for shits and giggles, but would never sell… half-used lotion bottles, ugly jewelry my grandmother bought me, old clothes that I thought weren’t even worth giving to the Goodwill (two pairs of gauchos that someone actually bought. Yuck!), a pink mosaic Kleenex holder, a brown juice pitcher my mom gave me for college that must have been from the 80s, a computer bag with World Vision’s huge logo on the front that I received for free when I worked there, a kinda dingy white bathroom towel, a plastic paper filer, a puff paint butterfly belt I bought at a clothing boutique five years ago and thought was cute at the time… All sold. Some guy jumped out of his car and ran breakneck speed to pick up my crappy iron for $1 that has burned junk on it so every time you iron, it leaves black goo on your clothes. Lucky him.

Seriously… who would have thought I could sell this crap? The BF thought it was so fun to make money off the junk you just kinda have lying around, that nearly the whole time we were supposed to be sitting out there together, he was going through cupboards and pantries, trying to find additional items to sell. I joked that our garage sale was like Kmart – new blue light specials added throughout the day!

And I won’t even go into the types of people who came and went… some nice little old European lady was as sweet as can be and kept piling stuff up on the table for purchase. I thought I was going to make a gold mine off her until she turned into the Gestapo and started halving all my prices, combining everything and saying, “All this – $4.” I just shrugged and let her make off with my gold teeth. (Bad joke, bad joke).

After it was all said and done, I made $100 off my junk and then turned around and posted the items that are actually of value on Craigslist. Although some have argued that $100 isn’t really worth my time, I’d say that the entertainment value alone was worth it. The $100 is just an added bonus.

Currently Feeling: Excited for my first Social Media Club Seattle meet-up tomorrow!
Currently Anticipating: Moshi Moshi all-night happy hour tonight with a big group of people.
Currently Hating: Scales. But I bought one anyway.

GOOD MORning! It’s that time of the week again – Bacon for Saturday morning breakfast! Remember that post a couple weeks ago where I ridiculed my bacon-obsessed boyfriend for his bacon tuna confession?! Well, I had enough of you crazy bacon loving readers tell me that it’s actually good, and I should try it. So what did I do – no challenge goes undone! I searched for a bacon tuna recipe, but realized I didn’t have much around the house, was starved and too lazy to go to the grocery store to whip up something fancy. So I opted for the easy peasy bacon tuna melt panini that I found on this lovely blog (with a few Je twists, of course). I’m calling it…

I started with whipping up some tuna (two pickles per can. I like high pickle to tuna ratio). I then took a whole wheat hot dog bun from Trader Joe’s (because I refuse to put refined carbs in my mouth, well, unless it’s pizza or mac and cheese, or a cheeseburger. Argh. Nevermind. I try to eat complex carbs, and these are great cause they’re hot dog buns that can double as sandwich hoagies). Then I spread a little mayo on the buns. (Buns. Haha.).

Next I added the tuna, some cheese (orange) and two pieces of bacon. I poured a little olive oil in a frying pan and carefully grilled that sandwich that way since I don’t have a panini press. I got the idea from this great chart that tells you how to create paninis with different appliances around the house.

After a minute or so on each side, I had a bacon tuna perfection!

And I’m not just saying this for the ratings… or shits and giggles… it was GOOD. I am now a complete bacon tuna convert. Dammit! I hate it when I’m wrong. I loved it so much that I’ll definitely be exploring a few more tuna bacon concoctions. (Just don’t tell my boyfriend).

Slow Dance

I just received this poem in one of those always lovely chain e-mails; apparently it was written by a terminally ill teenager who has six months to live. I thought I’d share it here because I think it has a really great message. I’m a busy, busy person, and feel like I’m living life at 80 mph. I need to take the time to slow down sometimes…

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?

When you ask, “How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say,”Hi.”

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.
Hear the music.
Before the song is over.

Currently Feeling: Sleepy. Up too late at the movie theater last night, and up too early for a career workshop this morning.
Currently Anticipating: Our garage sale this weekend! I’ve never had one. Should be interesting.
Currently Loving: The simple gold sandals with a buckle I got at Ross for $8. They dress up any outfit without having to wear heels!

Take a bottle out, pass it around

I found these genius Reduce® WaterWeek water bottles at Metropolitan Market a year or so ago and bought them for a coworker’s birthday (they’re only $20 for the set). I finally purchased a set for myself last week, and I love, love, LOVE them! They are cute little reusable bottles that have their own tray for the fridge. It’s awesome because I now always have a water bottle on hand (with SAFE plastic) that I can throw in my beach bag, on my bike, on my nightstand, etc. Instant cold water that saves you money and is green friendly… just thought I’d share them with you!

You can buy them on Amazon.com here.

*Sent from my T-Mobile Sidekick®

Summer burns fast and bright in this part of the world

I ditched The Year of Living Biblically (I tend to be fickle with both religion and books that don’t keep my interest, so it’s somewhat fitting) and started reading Firefly Lane. Too many people told me how good it is, and well, it’s like $500 was burning a hole in my pocket. I needed to start it straight away. For me, a good book I can’t put down is like a drug I need and think about all the time.

And boy, oh boy, am I glad I did. I’m only 120 pages in – and I’m totally sucked in already. I’ve been averaging approximately 60 pages a morning before I force myself to put it down and get started with my day.

I mentioned in my summer reading list that the book is set in Seattle…I read this passage this morning:

[source]

Outside, it looked like a postcard of Seattle; the kind of blue-skied, cloudless, picture-perfect day that lured out-of-towners into selling their homes in duller, less spectacular places and moving here. If only they knew how rare these days were. Like a rocket blaster, summer burned fast and bright in this part of the world and went out with equal speed… page 67, Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

I love, love this paragraph. It’s SO true, and it showed me that this author just didn’t set her book in Seattle – she’s actually from here. It’s a simple paragraph like this (or like the one I posted about a year ago) that makes me fall in love with an author. This could have only been written by a Seattle native, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Seattle summers are amazing and luring and gorgeous and sparkly. It’s like the whole city has been washed all year, and gleams the four months the sun comes out. Summer is an infectious disease that the whole city and all its inhabitants catch. People seem lighter, happier – everyone is a little bit more busy. This city comes alive.

And I’m going to enjoy every freakin minute of it before the rocket takes off once again, awashing us in grey.

Currently Feeling: Disappointed in this season’s Bachelorette. Seriously? She has kept some pretty big D-bags around and got rid of a freakin cute and nice guy last night.
Currently Anticipating: Getting my scary doctor’s appointment over with on Thursday!
Currently Hating: The phrase, “Nice guys finish last.” Bull shit. Nice guys are the greatest.

We all need someone we can leeeaan on, and if you want, you can lean on me

Last week, I spent a considerable amount of time with one of my guy friends, partying away his recent sorrows over the break-up with his live-in girlfriend of three years. I needed someone to entertain me; he needed a shoulder to cry on. We were a perfect match.

Sometimes, it seems really hard to be a guy. They bottle everything up, and rarely have the outlet that girls have – a constant shoulder to cry on, the invite to always talk about relationships, love, sex, fights, break-ups and make-ups. When I have relationship problems, I usually just bounce from friend to friend, talking about what bothers me. Each girl friend makes me feel better in a different way and tells me the things I need to hear, until I can feel whole again. Guys don’t always have that support system.

So I nodded, asked questions when I needed to and mostly just let him talk. Some of the things he was saying hit home in a huge way. Break-ups are so painful. No matter if you’re male, female, tall, vertically challenged, pretty or beat with an ugly stick. It’s almost overwhelming when you’re in the midst of a relationship – even if it feels so far away from the breaking point – it’s scary to think about being there again. I guess it’s a leap we all take by giving our heart to someone.

“It’s like we’re total strangers,” he said.

I groaned. “That is the.worst,” I responded. And boy did I mean it. Is there anything crappier than feeling like the person you’ve spent 900 plus days with feels like a stranger on the street? The person who has listened to you vent over coworkers, made you waffles in the morning before you’re even half awake, given you butterfly kisses and shared inside jokes with you that no one would ever understand. The person who is half of your happiest memories, your biggest laughter, the photos that make you smile, the vacations that make you reminisce. Someone you’ve shared your ups and downs with – death of family members and family pets or graduations and promotions at work. And then POOF. Something happens when you break up, and you’re left mumbling responses that don’t mean anything, avoiding each other, keeping secrets, averting eyes and treating each other like you’re not two people in the world who know each other best.

It’s just so sad. And as hard as it is to listen to, and as much as it dredges up a million painful feelings in my past, I’d do it 100 times over for anyone of my friends. Sometimes, we all need someone who we can relate to or a shoulder to cry on.

“Thank you. I just wanted to let you know that our friendship means a lot to me,” he sent the next day in an e-mail.

Tell me that doesn’t make it all worth it.

Currently Feeling: Short on time even though I’m not working?! I need to prioritize my days better.
Currently Anticipating: Attempt number two at date night for The Hangover tomorrow.
Currently Loving: Scrambles in the A.M. with chives, cheese, ham and mushrooms, and a side of cottage cheese and peaches. So healthy and yummy!

Talented in the Bubble Letter department

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting my Dolphin Sister‘s 3rd grade class. Not gonna lie, when I received the invite, I wasn’t too thrilled. “Ew. A classroom full of other people’s bratty kids?! No thanks!” I thought to myself. This is probably really terrible to admit out loud, but I really don’t think third graders are that cute. Five year olds, yes. How can you resist little squishy faces like this. But third graders, not so much for me. I agree to go out of sheer support for one of my best friends – as a friend, I feel that you’re supposed to do stuff like visit the place they spend eight hours a day.

Surprisingly, I had more fun than I ever thought I would. My Dolphin Sister set up an art project that we were able to help out with – glitter glue, markers and hot-gluing feathers, seashells, pipe cleaners, yarn and more. This was right up my alley – I don’t think I’ve ever told you that I used to want to be an art teacher. Yep. If you look in my high school yearbook, it’s the career I have underneath my name. I abandoned that idea when I realized in NO WAY did I want to teach angsty junior high and high school students, and you couldn’t really teach art to kindergartners full time. Anyway, I have a SERIOUS crush on art supplies. When I was in the art department in college, I’d go to the student store and just browse the art supply aisles to see what I could blow money on. I don’t think there’s a person alive who doesn’t love a good box of smudgy, bright-colored pastels!

Apparently bubble letters are all the rage these days – thank God I’m still with the times. Word got out I could do bubble letters, and I had every kid in the class, lining up for their name in bubble letters. I felt so popular!

Art supplies and bubble letters aside – what I enjoyed the most about the day was watching each individual child, their talent, their differences and the way their minds worked. I loved all the different ideas each one had for decorating their little book.

I loved the individuality – the kid who loved bike riding and wanted me to make a bike out of pipe cleaners for him (um, what?!), the little boy who was super excited because his teacher allowed him to rap and dance for 30 seconds, in which he played the air guitar and did a break dance (rap star in the making!), the smart little girl who pulled out a notebook of stories for us to read that she writes FOR FUN (that was totally me in elementary school).

These children have their whole lives ahead of them. They can choose a million different paths. They can go to college, travel, paint, dance – they can BE anything they WANT.

The whole day was just a huge breath of fresh air. And dammit, they were cute. I hate it when I’m wrong.

Currently Feeling: Excited for some of the job opportunities that have been sent my way – online brand manager for a famous beer company? Yes please.
Currently Anticipating: Getting my hair did today. I broke down! Good thing my Bestie is a hair stylist.
Currently Wanting: To ditch the book I’m reading right now and move onto Firefly Lane. I’ve heard too many good things about it!

Good morning lovely blog readers! Happy bacon Saturdays! I’m sure the majority of you fabulous Internet-savvy peeps have heard of This is why you’re fat blog. But, JUST IN CASE you haven’t, I thought I’d have to share it here for my bacon series. This is why you’re fat is a site that posts pics people send in of the fattiest, grossest foods and meals. Basically – why American is fat. Nearly every one of these special fatty recipes include bacon. I’m not joking – probably 90 percent of them. So you can only imagine how much I love it. Is it wrong that I look at most of the pics (with bacon) and say, “YUM!” This site is like a bacon-lovers orgasm. Here are some of my most recent favs:

The Clogger
(Layers of scalloped potatoes and cheese wrapped in bacon.) Um, who doesn’t love scalloped potatoes? Cheese, carbs AND bacon? YES PLEASE!

The Pattie LaBurger
(A triple bacon cheeseburger with deep fried patties as buns.) Yes – you read that correctly. DEEP.FRIED.PATTIES.AS.BUNS. Who needs a bun when you can just fry up a couple hamburger patties? That’s like some MacGyver shiz.

Bacon Crust Pizza with Bacon
Screw cheese-filled crust. Throw some bacon in there! And then better yet, top it with bacon, bacon and more cheese, followed by cheesy bacon!

Potachos
(Thick potato chips covered with cheddar, bacon, tomatoes, onions, ketchup, chives and sour cream.) I’m a sucker for potato chips AND bacon – put the two together, and I might actually start to believe in a heaven and a God.

Breakfast Sushi
(Bacon, egg, hash browns and rice rolled into sushi.) Don’t think for a minute that I’m not really going to try this out. Breakfast sushi with bacon = genius. I would marry the person who came up with this.

And last but certainly not least…

The Bacone
(A bacon cone filled with scrambled eggs and country gravy topped with a biscuit.) FILLED with country gravy? This is seriously disgusting, genius and delicious looking all at the same time. I bet the gravy just oozes out the sides and down your cheeks when you bite into it. YUM.

Happy Bacon Saturdays my lovely friends. Enjoy your weekend! (P.S. Today is my UnBirthday! A very merry unbirthday to me, TO ME!)

Summer Reading

Do you remember, as a kid, those summer reading programs at your local library? There’d be some sort of contest and a cool, colorful list where you could pencil in all the books you read – well, I LOVED those. I lived for them. I wanted to do nothing more than fill that list up and then some. That’s just how nerdy I am on the inside. (Cause clearly I’m fabulously unnerdy on the outside. Like doi). Anyway, I’m bringing back the summer reading list this summer. I mentioned last week that I was super excited to have a little more time to read the looong list of books waiting in my reading queue… I seem to have good books coming out of my ears these days. Here’s what’s on the agenda for this summer; let’s see how many pages I can check off.

Waiting on my bookshelf already:

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
My former coworker highly recommended this one. She said it was a story of friendship, but not overly girly and cheesy. I’m a sucker for novels about best friends since it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy about the girl friends I have. It also takes place in Seattle, so that’s kinda fun!

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Winner of the Man Booker Prize, this book was sold out of the last two books stores I went to. I figured it must be good. The book follows a taxi driver’s story in modern India and was recommended if you’re a fan of Slumdog Millionaire, which um, DUH, I am.

Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman
I was sent this book by the lovely Vanessa, who was my partner for a book swap on Just a Small Town Girl. We had to do some emailing back and forth about possible books to send since I was paranoid I was going to get something I already had. The book she chose follows seven perspectives of characters affected by the abduction of a 6 year old and was rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com!

Bought by Anna David
Harper Collins contacted me again, similar to when I received the copies of Thanks for Coming, and sent a copy of Bought to me a couple weeks ago. It’s a little more chic lit than I’m into these days, but I thought I’d give it a try. Apparently it delvs into women as escorts and the price you pay to get what you want. I sell my body regularly for diamond earrings and Cristal, so I thought, at the very least I could relate.

Waiting on my Amazon.com WishList:

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
I found this book on a reading list from NPR radio. This one sounds a bit creepy, but super fascinating – “The only survivor of the ‘Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas’ massacre that wiped out her family is forced to confront the lies she told that convicted her brother of the killings.”

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
This book keeps popping up on recommended reading lists and in bookstores everywhere I am, so even though I’ve read the back of the book at least twice – Oscar is a 300-pound-plus ‘lovesick ghetto nerd’ with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. – and it didn’t immediately grab me, I’m going to give it a try.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The most recent, 2009 Pulitzer winner, this book is a series of short linked stories about a gruff, 60-something school teacher in a coastal town in Maine. I’m not usually a fan of short stories, but much like Oscar Wao, the whole Pulitzer thing sucks me in. Slap an award on the cover of a book, and I’ll probably purchase it.

(That’s all I’m going to highlight for sake of length, but just so you know, I also have My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler, Getting Stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost – the follow up to The Sex Lives of Cannibals, which I just finished – and I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley on my list. Who freakin’ knows if I’ll be able to get through all of these).

Currently Feeling: Tan and relaxed after my week of beaching and sleeping in. Next week – time to crack down on resumes.
Currently Anticipating: Camping this weekend – it’s our first camping trip of the summer with The Mini.
Currently Needing: To desperately clean my room. I have zero excuse for not having the time – I just don’t wanna! *Clenches fists and beats them on the ground*