When I was a kid

So, pumpkin time is here. So says Starbucks. And every blog, Twitter and Facebook account that have been talking about pumpkin lattes since they launched on September 1st.

You know what pumpkins make me think of – HALLOWEEN!

I’m not going to lie – the first, “What are you going to be for Halloween?” question came from my little sister during our road trip back from a cabin on Memorial Day weekend, four months ago. The two of us share a love for Halloween that far surpasses any love that creepy fat guy feels for double rainbows. Perhaps it’s genetic – the Halloween love, not the fat. Well, the fat might be genetic too. But then we’d call it “big boned.”

Anywhoosit – TANgent.

What my sister and I don’t share, however, that sometimes becomes painfully apparent to me, is a generation. There’s a gap. Sometimes that seven year gap makes no difference in the world, and then sometimes it slaps me right in the face and just makes me feel G.D. OLD. Take our conversation via the ole el telephono tonight:

Me: Have you decided what you’re going to be for Halloween yet?

My sister: Yeah – I think I’m going to be a green M&M…with a green leotard, paint a white M on the front, wear red lipstick and white gloves. I think it’ll be really cute.

Me: Are you just looking for an excuse to wear a leotard? I don’t get it – I thought M&M costumes were usually round.

My sister: Yeah – but I don’t want to be round.

Me: Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess you’re right. Round’s no good. That’ll be cute!

My sister: What are you thinking?

Me: Kristen, Adam and I have been talking about being Three’s Company for a couple years now, so I kinda want to do it this year.

My sister: Huh?

Me: Three’s Company!

My sister: …

…

Me: You know – “Come and knock on my door… we’ll be waiting for you…”

My sister: …

…

what?

Me: It’s this really popular 80s sitcom with three people who live in an apartment together, and er, one of them wears cute socks to her knees and pigtails and one girl wears a red sweater with hearts, and the guy is, er, Jack and he’s the only guy, and they’re um all friends, and well, it’s super funny and well known.

My sister: Oh. Well seven years and I’m totally socially out of it.

Or I’m totally socially OLD.

Gawd, save me from myself. I’m just years away from mom jeans and referencing, “When I was a kid…”

“…we had Blockbuster stores! Like ones you walked INto to rent movies. And I remember when we rented VHS!!”

Currently Feeling: Great that I ran around Greenlake tonight on a whim – back to boot camp tomorrow. This week is going to be a great fitness week.
Currently Anticipating: Knocking through my to-do list the next three days, so I can relax during my staycation next week. Going to visit some family down state!
Currently Recommending: “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” movie – it’s so dang good! Listening to Swedish and reading subtitles for two hours kinda makes you go bonkers, but totally worth it!

Five little updates on July

Well hello there, July 16th. Where have the last two weeks gone? Been busy soaking up the sun that finally came to Seattle – and as my GChat status says, “The summer sun makes me irresponsible.” Less time for blogging and computer playing, more time for outdoors, friends and barbecues. The best time of the year!

Life has been trucking along quite nicely these days – I’ve got a few little updates for you.

I finished my 30-day challenge – you can read my somewhat wrap-up thoughts here since they were the same for the last two weeks of the challenge. I was a couple days shy of the complete 30 days. It was tough to make it to class every day the last two weeks cause I became super burnt out. But for the most part, I did it! So, I’m back to boot camp a couple days a week, and hot yoga a couple days a week. I’m also walking to work now that the weather is nice! Two miles – 45 minutes of walking a day – so it’s been a great addition to my workouts.

My Fourth of July holiday weekend was one of the best ever. Choosing Lake Chelan over Seattle turned out to be the best decision I could have made since Seattle gifted everyone with grey skies and rain for the holiday. Meanwhile, I hung out in my bathing suit, drank BLs on the beach all day and finished the evening up with a crazy dance party boat ride to watch the Chelan city fireworks. Lots of funny pictures and memories of the weekend that, unfortunately, don’t belong on the Internet. Good times were had by all.

My summer garden is rockin’ and rollin’. I had to upgrade my basil plant because I used it so much, I dried the first one out and killed it. So, I purchased a bigger and better one. I have basil for days! My favorite summertime dinner meal these days has been some whole wheat pasta tossed with olive oil, garlic, fresh mozerella, tomatoes and basil from my garden – finished with salt and pepper. Mmm. Someone told me our summers in Seattle don’t usually last long enough for peppers or strawberry plants, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed there. And I have a couple tiny green tomatoes that I’m watching with much love!

Turns out my work is sending me to New York City for the BlogHer 10 conference the first weekend of August. I’m super, duper excited and geeked out to meet so many bloggers and make some (hopefully) lifelong connections. I’ll get to hang out with Doniree for the first time, which I’m fantastically excited about. I feel like I’m the only 20-something blogger left in this world that doesn’t know her personally. I’ll also be hosting a fun Sex and the City walk through the city with a Kindle giveaway at the end. I think it’s going to be a fabulous, successful event, so that pushes my excitement that much further. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my job? By the way – this will be the first time I’ll have visited NYC while 21 and over. Trouble to be had! NEW YORK…. These streets will make you feel brand new…Big lights will inspire you…Let’s hear it for New York, New York, NEW YORK.

I’m heading over the mountain pass again this weekend for a bachelorette party for one of my high school girl friends – lots of longtime girls of mine will be there. I hang out with all 10 of them about twice a year, so this should be interesting and fun. We’re starting off with a night out in the tiny town our cabin is in, wearing ugly bridesmaid dresses. (Thank you, Goodwill, for mine). We’re also floating a river Saturday in intertubes and then heading back out in matching tie-dyed tank tops with nicknames on the back. Mine? G-Spot Je-Spot. Yeah. That’s right. High school nickname I can’t seem to freakin’ get ride of. (For no other reason than my name being Je Anna). Should have some fun stories and pictures to share with all of you. Happy weekend!

Currently Feeling: A little bit of a nervous belly.
Currently Anticipating: Relaxing this weekend in the sun before a SUPER busy work week next week. Time to recharge!
Currently Loving: The new Eminem CD. Seriously – it’s so good. He amazes me, and brings me back to memories in high school when I used to listen to his first CD, all at the same time.

OMG, Becky. She must be one of those rap guy’s girlfriends.

I’m alive! I know I’ve been gone for like 456,742 days, and each one of them have been agonizing.

I’d like to give a world of excuses, but one of my all-time favorite bloggers, Karyn from Pretty in the City, recently said it best:

“When you’ve been blogging for seven years sometimes you need a bit of a break…”

Just substitute a four in for that seven. But seriousry (in the words of Kim Jong-il), sometimes you do just need a break. I’ve been climbing the uphill first-three-month battle at my new job, juggled with volunteering for Girl Power Hour, friends, family, boyfriend and trying to keep my sanity. I’ve been oh so busy, but looking forward to getting back at it in 2010. I’ve recognized that I’m doing too many things at only about 75%, and not enough of a small list at 100%. Adjustments are on the horizon.

In the world of updates – I was gifted that fabulous laptop tray that’s been posted below for the last two months. Yippee! It should now be a lot easier for me to squeeze in some relaxation and blogging now since I can do both from bed or the couch. (!!!) The one downfall of having a social media job is that when you get home from a looong day of social media-ing (what I do best, if I do say so myself), you oftentimes want to unplug and not sit on your laptop all night.

But, I digress. I also have some other big life updates that perhaps I’ll share soon. (No, I’m not preggo or engaged). And I’m looking forward to doing my 2009 recap and plans for 2010.

In other words, I’ll be back. I’ve just taken a short commercial break.

Currently Feeling: Finally a bit better after a week of being bed-ridden. Of course after being healthy for two years, I get sick over Christmas.
Currently Anticipating: Hanging with the trivia team tomorrow – hope we’ll do better than second to last place this week!
Currently Reading: “The Girl Who Played With Fire” by Stieg Larsson. It’s the sequel to “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” which is a fab book.

Spam (the edible kind), charity and mini celebrations

It’s been a little quiet here for the last week – September has been a busy, busy month. So much for slowing down after summer… I have a fall that’s looking like it might be just, if not twice, as busy as summer. I can only imagine how exhausting it is for the BF to date me. Poor guy thought he was going to catch his breath after our summer of a million camp trips and plans.

But, I digress.

After tomorrow, I will have attended four networking/industry related events in five days. I’m signing up for everything to network my little butt off. If you don’t network professionally (in person), I’m telling you – GO. Do it now. You’ll reap huge benefits from it. In fact, every time you go to a networking event, an angel gets it’s wings, clouds turn into marshmallows, and rainbows, kitties and unicorns rain down on you from the sky. True story.

Thursday I went to a fun scavenger hunt/networking event around Seattle, put on by a local, fancy hotel, a theatre and a mobile food truck where I tried SPAM for the first time. That’s right, I said SPAM. I’m slightly embarrassed that it was actually super good, and I went back for seconds on my Spam slider. I guess I won’t be able to tease the Bestie anymore when she goes to pick up Spam for her dad’s Christmas stocking. Who would have known ham in a can would be so tasty? I guess that’s just a testament to my love for all things pig. I know what I’m getting my dad for Christmas!

Friday I went to a charity meet-up put on by Q-13 Fox for the Washington Burn Foundation, and why yes, the firefighter calendar models were there. I try to rarely miss events where male calendar models are in attendance charity is involved.

And finally, Saturday night was the accumulation of an event I helped plan for the last couple months – Twestival Seattle – a “social media for the social good” event put on through Twitter to raise money for a local charity. We chose YouthCare, a Seattle nonprofit that supports homeless youth, and we raised more than $6,000 for them. How exciting is that! Twestivals are happening in cities all across the globe this month, so if you can, find out when and where one is in your city and go support your local cause!

I’m also in full swing with my digital photography class that started two weeks ago. It is SO awesome. Words cannot describe how excited I am to get to know my Nikon P90 (on loan from the Nikon COOLPIX Circle) a little bit better and learn about all sorts of things like lighting and composition. AND I’m doing an awesome job slacking on my training for the first 5K I have schedule to run NEXT WEEKEND. Yikes!

Anyway, it feels pretty great to be creative, focused on knocking off some of my goals for 2009 and involved in such awesome events around my community. Lately I’ve CHOSEN my time, my path and where to spend my energy, and I’ve become happier than I’ve been in a long time.

In other news – remember that bottle of wine I was saving since last Memorial Day when the BF and I picked it up on our first camping trip of the summer? We were able to pop that open in celebration this past week. After six months of LOTS of hard work, the BF finished the guest bathroom that he had gutted, re-tiled, painted, installed fixtures in, etc. It was something he had to finish before he could get a roommate, and it was hard for him to find time between working, The Mini and the million plans I always had for us on the calendar. It strained our relationship at times – the lack of time spent together, the stress, the length of time it took to finish. And now he has a roommate in, so the first thing we did was crack the bottle and salute to all the hard work being over!

I don’t know if it was because we’d been saving it for four plus months, or because it was actually an expensive, quality bottle of wine over $10 – but it was the tastiest wine I’ve had in a long time, and turned out to be the best way for us to celebrate.

Huh, maybe there’s something to this whole “late 20-something” stuff, after all.

Currently Feeling: Happy to have a family dinner with my sister tonight while she’s home from college. Barbecue ribs… mmm.
Currently Anticipating: This week! More super exciting stuff going on in Je-ville!
Currently Loving: All the great fall TV that has started – Project Runway, Top Chef, America’s Next Top Model – I’m in TV heaven!

HOUSEKEEPING! Oh, and Mayo

Forgive me, readers, for it’s been a week since my last confession post. This could possibly be because it’s been between 80 and 90 degrees in Seattle for weeks, and I’m working on the most epic tan. I don’t think I’ll ever see my skin this color again. I mean, if I don’t have to sit inside, in front of a computer all day, I’m not going to.

If I really had to put blame on my brief absence though, it’d be that I’m spending the majority of the time I do spend in front of a computer, trying to do actual work-related stuff such as editing my resume and working on a personal branding project. This includes coming up with a logo, style specifications, fonts, business cards and a Web site. Time consuming stuff, but just a few more tweaks and then I can hit the job ground running.

I have been wanting to ask a few housekeeping questions. Such as: are you having trouble loading my blog or leaving comments? I’ve had a few people reach out and tell me that the black background is all that shows up, so they can’t read the text. Or they can’t comment. I’ve tried to fix both, but please let me know if you continue to have technical problems – obviously I want the reading experience to be as smooth as possible. No one likes a crappy Web site.

Also, I am currently hovering somewhere around the 80 readers mark for my feed, and I want to do a giveaway at 100 readers. I like to celebrate these milestones, and well, giveaways are kinda fun no matter what. So, IF I were to host another giveaway, what would you most like to be gifted (lock your answers in below. Multiple choice is accepted):

In the meantime, I’ll eventually knock out the long list of anticipated blog posts I’ve been collecting. A few of them include getting around to discussing decorating, with pics from my bedroom, and a post about my thoughts on growing up in separate states across this very large nation of ours. I’ve also been dying to share this with you:

Only my biggest obsession since, um, I gave up my drug habit a few years ago. (I kid, I kid). But really – I can’t stop talking about this wasabi mayo from Trader Joe’s. It gives everything a kick. Recently, I’ve thrown it into deviled eggs (wasabi deviled eggs = YUM), tuna for a little spice or onto sandwiches with turkey, roast beef or ham. The stuff is freakin’ addicting. Unfortunately, it’s not that great for you, but fortunately, a little goes a long way. I highly recommend purchasing it. AND, if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s in your area, I’ll put on some black and wear a veil over my eyes to mourn your loss.

Until next time, blog lovers, cheerio!

Currently Feeling: Stoked about my progress this week, and really excited about a few jobs I’ve seen posted that I want to get in the running for!
Currently Anticipating: Barbecues galore tonight, my first Girl Power Hour meeting, catching up with an old college acquaintance tomorrow, and sunbathing with high school girl friends and my sis on Friday!
Currently Eating: A smoked turkey wrap with chilled sweet potato bisque. YUM.