Tag Archives: comfort

today

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I woke up early this morning, got dressed, made myself an egg sandwich and commuted over the sunny Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. I had to stand on the train, and my feet were killing me by the time I got to the office. But I really didn’t mind too much. The walk from the subway to my office building is lovely.

I’m not exactly allowed to and don’t plan to talk in detail about this job. I don’t want to risk it. I’ll say that I like the people I work with so far, I have a fair amount of responsibility and a lot of freedom too, I don’t mind the work and I don’t have to answer phones (!).

If I have to have a paycheck job this appears to be a good one. I’m lucky.

I came straight home from work tonight, ate dinner, and worked with Harvard Sailing Team on a project. And now I’m exhausted. Goodnight.

eight years later!

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Well, I totally dropped the ball on my promise to do some “good ol’ fashioned desk job entries” last week.

It’s Monday. And I’m still working an office temp gig this week (which has just been extended by a few days due to an unforeseen circumstance in the office). It pays well and I’m enjoying the routine. In fact, I think it’s making me more productive all-around. Interesting!

That said, I’m also busy as eff.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t point out that today is a special day for me. September 27 will always hold an important place in my heart because it’s the day I started losing weight in 2002. On this day eight years ago, I was a very, very heavy young woman. I weighed over 265 pounds, looked awful, felt worse, and had maaaybe owned three pieces of clothing I could fit into. It was a miserable reality.

Losing the weight and keeping it off hasn’t always been a cake-walk, but I feel so blessed to realize that eight years later, I’m so much thinner, happier, healthier and feel more at peace with my body than ever before. Changing my habits and behaviors wasn’t just a phase – I really DID it.

Do I still have to keep myself from eating too many french fries and force myself to workout? All the time. But those day to day mini-battles are meaningless (which is why I rarely talk about them) when compared to the big picture.

Eight years ago, on this day, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to change my physical reality. And I did. The old, fat me is screaming joyfully from the rooftops right now.

Moving on, here are a couple orders of business:

1.) My latest article’s over up at Spring!

2.) If you’re looking for a some direction in your professional or personal life my dear friend Michelle Ward, the When I Grow Up Coach (and one half of a coupla married cuties with whom Kevin and I love to double date), has partnered with her colleague and a very talented artist, Jessica Smith, to launch a brilliant new website and e-course called The Declaration of You! I love their plan and their passion, and I’m going to be taking the course MYSELF! So, maybe you should too?

will work for margaritas

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WANT.

These are chicken mole tacos from the cute little Mexican place near our apartment. I’d love a plate of these bad boys right now, along with a blood orange margarita and a scoop of their incredible guacamole. But I just got back from Las Vegas, you say? Where I drank margaritas the size of footballs? Yes, well. I’m not ready for the summer party to end.

A scrumptious dinner out isn’t gonna happen this week, though. And probably not next week either. It’s shaping up to be a very busy month…and I’m discovering that October will be similarly packed.

Between writing, rehearsing, performing, babysitting to help make ends meet and working on a few other fun projects, I’m almost as busy as I was back when I was working the 9-5 shift. (The difference now is that I actually like what I’m doing with my time.)

One of the best parts of 2010 so far has been all the traveling I’ve gotten to do. I was married to my office job schedule last year at this time so trips out of town were few and far between. This year I’ve had time to go to Montreal, Chicago (twice), Vegas, and this fall I’ll go to Philly and Florida…AND to Los Angeles for the first time in my life!

The LA trip will be a whole week with Harvard Sailing Team. We’re doing a show and taking care of some other biz on the West Coast – can’t wait! I loved being near that part of the world this past weekend, so I’m excited to go back in just a few weeks. I’m looking foward to the weather, the change of lifestyle pace, and catching up with a bunch of old college and high school friends who live in Cali now.

In the meantime, it’s still warm and sunny here in New York and even though the kids are all marching back to into school this week, it doesn’t quite feel like summer’s over for me yet. Maybe I can talk Kev into a Mexican night out this weekend. :)

the haircut!

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Eep – I really got a talking to from a few of you guys via comments and email for not sharing my haircut sooner! Sorry to leave you hanging.

I did indeed decide to cut my hair after blogging about it last week. The deciding factor was that my mom generously offered to pay for the cut. I humbly accepted. So off I went to the salon, looking like this:

Yikes.

Now, as much as this does look like I literally put a mop on my head and snapped a photo, they ask you to show up to the salon with your hair totally unstyled and without product in it. So, no, I wasn’t walking around NYC looking like a cockerspaniel on a daily basis.

But I will say that whatever I was doing with it in public couldn’t have been much of an improvement.

The finished product left me feeling much lighter.

Of course, I have yet to successfully make it look like it did when I left the salon that day, but that will forever be the plight of the woman with a new haircut, so I’m not gonna sweat it.

Thanks for all the positive feedback, everybody!! And thank you, Mom, for making it possible.

a wedding weekend

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My little cousin Kalan celebrated her wedding this past weekend. Kevin took this shot from inside the reception hall while we were out on the patio with the photographer. (Pretty great for a through-the-window shot, babe!)

Kalan and her Scottish hubby Dave were officially married in a small civil ceremony in December, but on July 22, the whole family came out to don fancy outfits and party with the newlyweds. It was a great time. The bride was nervous as heck, which was so funny and sweet. She also looked stunning – like a true princess. I couldn’t help but picture her as a five-year-old girl in a Cinderella gown.

Kalan is one of four sisters. I’m an only child, but I grew up very close to my cousins, and as the oldest grandchild I got to enjoy some of the sisterhood experience myself. “The girls” (as we call the four sisters) and I all lived in the same town growing up and spent a ton of time together. Today, they’re all fabulous, strong, smart, beautiful young women who each have a razor sharp wit and a wicked sense of humor.

Many of my childhood memories involve those girls – ridiculous games we played, dress-up clothes we wore, productions we put on for the family. And there was no shortage of screaming fights, jealous fits and memorable and violent physical altercations.

We used to daydream when we were little about growing up together – who would get married first, what appetizers we’d serve at our weddings, how many kids we wanted to have, where we’d live, what our husbands would be like. It’s amazing how quickly time has passed.

Finding myself standing up at their weddings (Trisha and Kalan are both now married, Mallory will be married in September) is so surreal. There are moments when I feel like I’m  still 10 years old, and watching a video of what my life might be like as an adult. I remember those girls so vividly as the scrappy, loud little kids that I loved to boss around. Seeing them in wedding dresses is bizarre and amazing.

Anyway. Enough sentiment. You get the point. We had a great time at the wedding and all the activity surrounding it.

I wish Kevin and I had more time in the midwest – it’s always nice to be there – but I’m glad to be home after two weeks of traveling first to Montreal, then to Chicago. I’m nothing short of exhausted.

Congrats, Kalie & Dave! So happy for you guys!

an entirely selfish post about my hair

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My hair is getting so long and unruly – I haven’t been willing to shell out the $100+ to visit my favorite hair salon (Devachan) for a while now. At this point, I don’t care how it looks. I’m considering chewing it off because it’s driving me nuts.

For me, the problem with long hair is what the eff to do with it. I can hardly ever stand to have it down, especially in the summer. It’s too hot!

Sometimes it’s really curly. After a few days without washing it, it becomes really straight in certain places. It’s unpredictable and inconsistent.

I usually just throw it up in a pony tail. But that brings a whole other host of issues: two twists of the rubberband isn’t tight enough for my thick, heavy hair, and I end up looking like a colonial housewife. Three times around hurts my head because it’s too tight. Do you see the existential crisis I’m managing here?

I remember when I decided to chop my hair off to chin length a couple years ago. It was quite long at the time:

And despite how cheerful (and young!) I look in this picture, I was ready to throw a tantrum, I was so sick of that damn hair. I went to get it chopped right after this shot was taken (it was taken the green room at the UCB NY, by the way).

When I got stuck in traffic on the way to the salon and thought they were going to close before I could get there, I was so overcome by fury and sadness at the idea of having to live another day with that mop on my head that I started crying on the street. Yup.

I’m a grown woman.

But when I did cut it (I got to the salon just in the nic of time that night), I felt like 10 million smackers, like a huge weight had been lifted…

…as is evidenced by the dorky, happy photo I took to in the bathroom of my old desk job to document the transformation.

Here I am with Kevin’s brother-in-law Eric a few days after I got it cut. God, I loved that haircut.  Come to think of it, Eric’s haircut looks pretty sharp too.

The point is, my hair long again. And I’m fantasizing about shaving my head.

Have I ever told you that I once shaved my head when I was 19-years-old? It happened for reasons I cannot begin to explain, reasons I don’t think I understood myself at the time.

I don’t advise it.

the end of june

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I have such a love/love relationship with summer. But I’m also always dismayed when it passes through my fingers too quickly.

May is my favorite favorite month. May is like a Thursday. Almost the weekend. Time to party.

I love June too. June is like a Friday – one of the good ones when you have exciting, festive plans later that evening that make you happy to be alive all day long.

July is a perfect Saturday – relaxed, playful, no responsibilities for miles.

August is like a Saturday night. A great ol’ time – maybe you stay home, maybe you go out, but you’re chillin’.

September is like a lazy, calming Sunday. Monday morning has almost arrived, but you’re gonna milk the rest of the weekend for all its worth.

We’re about to enter the Saturday day of summer. Hot, festive, exhausting – the dogs days. Heaven.

the magic hour

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I took a long walk through Prospect Park at dusk last night. I needed it.

Concert music from the bandshell drifted along the grounds. So many people were playing soccer, walking dogs, jogging, laying in the grass. Little kiddos were yelling and screaming and giggling as they ran around in the dirt without shoes.

It smelled like a breezy, warm summer evening.

It was perfect.

better

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I’m feeling much more balanced today, y’all. Just in case you were worried about me. There’s a lot going on and it can be overwhelming, but it’s all really good stuff. I’d be insane not to focus on the positive.

Talking it out to Kevin really did make me feel a lot better. It also helped to put on some big girls clothes and get the hell out of the house. I did two improv shows last night, had some nice chats with friends and felt much better this morning.

It’s a hot, sticky soup of a day in NYC  and I’m holed up writing, working, blogging in the delicious air conditioning.

when it’s hard

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So, as you know, I quit my desk job 8 months ago to pursue stuff that makes me happier. And I’ve been doing that. I’ve been writing, which I love, I’ve been baking, which I also enjoy very much, and I’ve been acting, telling jokes and having fun collaborating with talented people, which makes me feel very happy and alive.

I’ve received so many emails and comments over the last year from people telling me that what I’ve done inspires them. Thank you!! That makes me feel humble and grateful.

Meanwhile, I don’t always know where the next significant paycheck is coming from and I’m confused as hell half the time. But I’ve gotten by (and eaten well) for 8 months. And I’m not dead yet. So hopefully I’m onto SOMEthing here.

Some times are fantastic, others are hard. Today, for instance, I woke up feeling like I’ve lost my mind lately. I’ve been confused, moody, uncertain and feeling generally lost for a few days now. Par for the course, of course, but still difficult.

I mentioned these feelings to the boyfriend this morning. And I ended up crying over my iced coffee.

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