A good day

I'm this happy:

: 

::photo of me on a beach near Monterey, CA a few years ago.  More big grins.::

I ran a lot tonight.  Not a lot compared to people who run, but a lot compared to me.  I've been working on building up my stamina and endurance and after a pretty kick ass pep talk from my friend the chocolatier yesterday I decided to push myself today.  I can run.  Cool.

I was asked to head up the research end of a task force to develop an entirely new leadership training curriculum for Pinnacle Entertainment this morning.  YES!  This company needs structured training so badly and I am just the girl to make some initial recommendations.  

I got a really sweet email from my friend Amy and it made me smile big.  Claire and I figured out how to use our webcams in the office and chatted that way from our offices because the phone just wasn't enough for our overly expressive selves and that made me laugh big.  My cousin invited me to the opera in a few weeks and that made me...well, maybe that makes me cultured big??  My friends rule.

I got season 3 of Mad Men from Netflix today AND two Crate and Barrel catalogs.  Red letter mail day.

I live alone and don't have to worry if not putting my laundry away offends anyone.

The songs "Show" by Lenka and the Glee covers of "One", "Gives you hell", and "Hello" are ruling my itunes right now.

Happy.  

The Price of Happiness, or, Who Do You Love?

A word before you proceed.  Writing posts after I've taken my sleeping pills leads to wordy and often disconnected thoughts.  I feel I have some coherent points, lets see if I can get them across before this kicks in big time.  =)

 

I am hooked on the tv show Greek.  Not hooked like, "Can't wait to see the new episode next week and want to chat about it," but hooked like I've been watching it nearly non stop in my down time on hulu.  (Hulu is a real treasure for a gal without cable)  I've developed a huge crush on one of the characters and am pretty engrossed in their (yes, fictional, I know) lives.  I should be picking up one of the three books on my nightstand.  I am not.  I'm watching Greek.  I am living vicariously through Greek.

I do this.  I get in these obsessive cycles with tv shows.  Some cases in point (case in points?):

• It started with Sports Night.  It was the first tv show on DVD I ever received, one Christmas, probably 6 or 7 years ago.  It was kind of a sad time, Dad was gone and I was going through a break up.  I holed myself up in my big comfy red arm chair and watched the entire two seasons in about two and a half days.  I don't think I showered during those days.  I only remember getting up twice for food - once was macaroni and cheese, once was graham crackers and a container of icing.  I was so emotionally invested in this story and these people.  I refer to that weekend as my Sports Night journey. I wrote what I refer to as the Sports Night epiphany which was a plan for my future.  It was kind of an intense weekend.  

• Colin indulged this behavior and he and I went full force into Friends, LOST and The West Wing.  He and I would devour entire DVD's of these shows in one evening.  We owned Friends, so we could go through those fast as we were willing.  It's a really nice memory actually.  We had just moved to Louisiana and we started season one in September and finished season 10 by New Years Eve.  It was a project of sorts.  We had Netflixed LOST and West Wing and on more than one occasion I'd get so frustrated that we didn't have the next dvd waiting that I threatened to go out and buy whatever season we were on at Best Buy.  I'm bad at patient.   I'm bad at not knowing what happens next.  I like neat, tidy endings.

• My next major obsession became Grey's Anatomy.  A show I never watched until the summer of 2008.  It didn't sound like it was for me.  I thought it would be like ER, and I was kind of over ER.  Then in late spring of 2008, I was back in St. Louis in the house Colin and I had bought.  He was still living in Louisiana.  Once again I was a gal without cable, and on top of all of this I was pretty depressed because I was alone, unemployed and pretty sure my marriage was broken.  One night at Target I saw Season One of Grey's Anatomy for $9.99.  I thought this would bring me hours of entertainment which is something I was searching for.  I didn't like spending money since we still had two mortgages and I wasn't pulling in any money.  I got sucked in to the show immediately.  My sisters loaned me season two on DVD, I ended up buying season three and illegally downloading season four.  I was speaking about these people like they were my pals.  My sister would call and I would use someting Izzie did as a reference for advice, "You know Izzie and Meredith had to deal with something like that - this is what they did."  I was also making Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies by the batch and then eating them all with tall glasses of milk during this phase.  To this day if I smell that cookie baking I hear the theme song, and vice versa.  Either one of them will send my mind right back to that red couch.  Ahhh, sensory memories.
  

And now Greek.  I get sucked into these fictional worlds with fictional people and their fictional problems.  This is exactly how I've become a girl with a fairy tale complex.  The line between fiction and reality is blurry for me.  The problem lies in that I'm more than content to hang out with these "people" rather than getting out of my apartment, sitting among actual people that I could have actual interactions with.

I promise, there's a reason I shared this rather embarassing quirk.  Bear with me if you will.

After I thought the writing on the wall was clear that Colin and I needed to separate, I doubted the decision 29 times a day.  Many times the doubt came from fear.  A lot of the fear was about losing status and stuff.  I rationally know that a wine fridge won't make me happy.  But remembering what a pain in the neck trying to get the wine fridge into my car was, in fact it's how the stain on my passenger seat came to be, and remembering how we filled it with wines that we tasted in Napa, knowing that we were on the Shafer mailing list which is fairly exclusive - those memories were attached to that wine fridge.  The platters that I couldn't leave were full of cookies at the Christmas cookie exchange I hosted in our beautiful house in Louisiana.  The tv we bought with wedding money from my grandparents.  The kitchen that had been full of our friends and family.  I was attached to these things and to the lifestyle.  With the help of a good shrink I could identify that since it was so hard to create emotional attachments to my husband at this time, I was creating emotional attachments to the stuff.  I was assured it was normal.  I was given the assignment of creating attachments to people and experiences to break free.

I accepted the challenge of breaking the emotional ties with my stuff and moved to Chicago where I thought I would be partaking of many real life attachments with real life people and places.  It didn't go exactly as I planned and what I ended up with was an emotional attachment to food as I drifted back into fictional worlds.  (Is there any doubt I was the girl who completely stalked boys she had a crush on back in high school and college?  I wish I could turn this obsessive personality towards something good.  Which is kind of the point of this post.  Getting there.  Remember, I'm writing under the influence of Lunesta.)  So now I'm finding comfort in food and cooking and still hiding away from the world.

Which brings me to tonight.  I'm trying to embrace healthier living at the age of 30.  Get all of these aspects of my addictive personality under control.  Use the power for good, and not for evil.  Take charge.  You get the picture.

I decided to make an inspiration board.  Pictures, images, words, thoughts, doodles, goals, glitter, and more on a piece of poster board hung in my bedroom that I see every day and can be added to over time.  My cousin Anna and I had something like this when we lived together.  It was this giant 4x8 piece of foam core that we covered in great quotes, magazine articles, pictures...it was kind of a masterpiece of girl power.  I like to be crafty and I like to look to something for daily motivation.  Inspiration Board sounded like a great idea.  I started browsing through my old magazines looking for stuff to cut out that spoke to me.  I ran across an article that talked about the real price of happiness.  It suggested making a list of five things that make you happy and list the real cost of them, e.g. Talking with a friend on the phone - FREE!  The moral of the exercise is to make you see that the things that bring you actual happiness may not be things tht cost money at all.  Knowing that was the goal, I brainstormed about things that make me happy.  The first two things that came to mind were: Ally McBeal on dvd (which JUST came out after YEARS of waiting for it) and crab legs.

**heaves large sigh**

So much work to do. 

This is my assignment now.  Five things that make me happy.  And in my case they have to be things that don't allow me to retreat into a fictional land or a carton of ice cream.  What makes me happy?  And how much would it take?  Effort?  Money?  Cooperation with others?  Perhaps I can give myself two handicap answers.  One will be *Great food and wine, including cooking, baking, drinking and dining out.  Another: * Film and television.  Now I only need to come up with three.  Three things that make me happy. 

Maybe if I recall some of my happiest memories - working for or visitng Disney World, painting sets for Hawthorne and especially the summer of the 1776 production, large scale musical theatre, the times I've laughed, the times I've traveled to visit friends, anytime I feel helpful and useful and appreciated for it, working for Talent Development when it was full of rock stars, and having my cat purr at my feet.  I love to dance in this one particular gazebo at Tower Grove park in the middle of my walks through the park.  Rollerblading along the lake in Chicago made me happy.  Playing board games with groups of friends. 

I am going to need to work on cleaning up the list.  What about you?  What makes you happy, and what does it cost?  I wonder what my imaginary friends in the land of Greek would say....kidding, kidding. 

For making it through these thoughts with me - I offer you the recipe for the amazing cookies I made during the Grey's phase.  And if I haven't already, remind me to tell you the story about me and Season four - the season I procured by downloading them in a way I'm pretty sure is not recommended or sanctioned.  Sometimes, what makes me happy is my ability to laugh at myself.  I can be really entertaining, even if I'm the only one I'm entertaining.  I used to be a lot of fun.  Sometimes I see glimpses of that girl.  Next time I see her I'll tell her to get on this list making.  I digress...the cookies!

::photo taken from www.kraftfoods.com::

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk cookies, courtesy of Kraft Foods.

1 cup flour

1 cup  old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp.  CALUMET Baking Powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup  (1 stick) butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup  firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

1   egg

1-1/2 tsp. vanilla

6 squares  BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, coarsely chopped

Make It

PREHEAT oven to 375°F. Mix flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside. Beat butter, sugars and peanut butter in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing until well blended after each addition. Stir in chocolate.
DROP heaping tablespoonfuls of dough, 2 inches apart, onto ungreased baking sheets.
BAKE 10 to 12 min. or until lightly browned. Cool 1 min.; remove from baking sheets to wire racks. Cool completely.

Brunch wonderful-ness

Brunch was all I could have asked for and more. Great company and great stories (two at the table were in the Greek system in college and lots of good stories came from that. My contribution to that conversation is that I watch the show Greek on ABC Family) and more mimosas than was necessary and really good food.

Had a blast. Here's a picture of the group:

left to right - Katie, me, Laura, Casey

Hope you had a happy Easter!

A Good Day

This morning on the Today Show I heard that 40% of American women are on anti-depressants. Are we a country full of women with dashed hopes and lowered expectations? I would imagine that number doesn't include many women not on the drugs and perhaps should be legitimately. Instead of talking about how we're an over-medicated country, I thought it was time for the things I'm grateful for post.


I'm grateful that I can find the answer to any knitting question I've had online. Videos and blogs and posts and free patterns have been great fun for me to browse through and move on with my projects.


I'm grateful for my friend Todd who came to my house and helped me decorate it for Christmas. My house would have been nice, but rather ordinary for Christmas. Todd will transform it to grand and classy, which my house deserves. Granted, I think one of the swags he made looks like moose antlers hanging on my wall, but I'm pretty sure that's just me and others will ooh and ahh appropriately. I'll get some pictures up for all of you soon. I just do not have an interior decorating gene and I'm so grateful that he's taken two evenings of his time to help me out.


I'm grateful I live back in a city and can walk to dinner. It wasn't too cold last night so we walked to a Diner several blocks away. I'm so happy I can do this.

I am grateful that Crystal got voted off Survivor last night. It's about time she and Kenny got kicked in the pants on that show! I'm a huge fan of Sugar and Bob and the game took a nice turn last night.

17 People

I come from a fairly large family. And we're not just large in numbers, we're also all fairly close. Close geographically and close emotionally. Both of my parents had lots of aunts and uncles and siblings and I have lots of cousins. My mom's side is the closer of the two. I credit my grandparents for this. My grandparents on my mom's side are my most favorite people in the whole world, and have been for as long as I can remember. They are both traditional and progressive thinkers, which makes them wise, insightful listeners and advice givers. I know they've been proud of me my whole life and I think about that with almost any decision I make, what would my grandparents think of this?

My grandmother made the wise decision many years ago to never compete with the growing tug of multiple families as her children married and had several places to visit on a holiday. She has maintained a Saturday Thanksgiving tradition when everyone was available knowing that it's the people that make the event, not the actual date. Wise, I told you. Last night was this Thanksgiving. I love this Thanksgiving. I love the family they have created. I think we are an interesting bunch, respectful and hard working. I think we have vastly different opinions for being raised with mostly the same values. I like watching how some of my cousins are as parents to their children. Mostly I like to watch Grandpa as he takes it all in and knows that he had something to do with this.

I didn't realize how badly I needed a dose of this family yesterday. I had a rough afternoon with big decisions and realizations on my horizon. Some things in my life are a real big mess. I was reminded yesterday though, that no matter what, this family will be there. They will still be mine. Lucky for me.

I also decided I knew exactly what I wanted for Christmas from my grandparents. I wanted a wedding picture of theirs. Not the original, but I wanted to scan one in and frame it. I left last night with a few options, and even more than I asked for, a picture of my great grandmother (grandpa's mom and dad) at her wedding.

This is my great grandparents. Check out the amazing veil/head piece my great grandmother (whom we called Muzz, though I don't know why) is wearing! I think it's incredible. They were married in 1923. Here are my grandparents on their wedding day:

These pictures make me happy.

The Cold

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I'm most grateful for Adrian Soyers, the nice woman who is buying my Louisiana house. Happy Thanksgiving to you Ms. Soyers. I'm grateful for my perfect cat and my many friends. I'm grateful for my giant kitchen island that provided lots of space for cookie making & merriment last night.

Here are some pictures of how all that turned out:

The pictures are, from top to bottom, our sugar cookies, in mid decoration. We had a variety of icings to use last night and they came out so great! The second is hard to tell, but it's my pan of marshmallows before I cut them. I'll have to take a better picture now that they're cut. The last is Laura and I. Another very successful year of Christmas cookies under our belt. My kitchen is a disaster mess, and I'm pretty sure the secret to hard candy involves corn syrup and water and sugar because that's what is stuck in the bottom of my pot. (My fault for waiting until the next morning for dishes.) Oh well. I should also say that Laura was a trooper. When she arrived at my house last night to make cookies, I informed her that our first floor heat has gone out and it was 56 degrees in the kitchen. It warmed up with the oven and all, but still. Chilly night for making cookies.

The Indians in the Lobby

My friend Alex has charged me, in a blog tag-you're-it-fashion, to list 7 facts about myself.

Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.

Here goes:

1. One of the great tragedies of my life is that sometime during the last year in Louisiana I accidentally scooped up my Care Bear along with a pile of give away clothes that were on the guest bed and added him to the box. If you have a childhood stuffed animal that made it with you to adulthood, you know how tragic this can be. I think the Care Bear almost meant more to me later in life than earlier. I took it when I donated blood, when I saw Scream the movie in the theatre, on all of my out of town internships. It was a constant companion and I'm always sad when I think of how I could have possibly done that. It was Birthday Bear, it had a cupcake on it's tummy. I think this is how my obsession with cupcakes has grown...

2. I don't eat yellow candy.

3. My "theme song" is Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall.

4. I downloaded the entire Miley Cyrus album that recently came out and I love it.

5. Everytime I went to any Mexican restaurant for years I ordered chicken tacos. That was it. I think it's a real sign that I'm maturing that I've begun branching out to things like enchiladas.

6. I think the sexiest things in the world are: toned arms on men, subtle winking, Crane's stationery, the Fugees song Killing Me Softly

7. I've seen Cowboy Mouth live in concert more than 20 times. Their concerts bring out a very real & true Sarah, and I like that about them. I never would have guessed a little hoosier rock & roll band could have done that to me, but it does everytime. Although as I get older I find myself standing further and further from the stage. I still love them, but I'm getting old.

Talking Points

I have a thing for toothbrushes. I'm fascinated by what I refer to as toothbrush technology. And I'm not talking about electric toothbrushes that feature sonic or infrared abilities or have built in timers. I'm talking about plastic sticks with bristles. Everytime I see a new toothbrush hit the market I think to myself, "That's it - there's nothing else they could think to add to a toothbrush," I am proven wrong. I recently picked myself up a new toothbrush and was amazed by my options. This is something I feel should be standardized. Why do we need so many different varities? I went ahead and bought this one. I beg you to click on the link. The Colgate website has a whole video about this toothbrush's features. It has this scrubby pad on the back of it that I thought was intended to clean your tongue, a nice feature. It's also designed that way to help (for lack of a better word right here) exfoliate the inside of your cheeks! Genius! Why haven't we had a toothbrush that's thought of this before? And what will they come up with next. You know I'll be watching.






I did a little blog hopping this morning. My friend Cyndi has found some of the most stylish and most interesting blog friends and I enjoy link hopping among them to see what they are loving at the moment. I ran across this picture this morning on Coveiter. It's a random package of numbers, letters, labels and more and can be found to purchase at the Uppercase Gallery. I think these are so fun and I can see eclectic little displays of these mismatched items all over my house. I love to decorate with words and letters and I'm so happy I stumbled across this on my blog hop. For those of you struggling with the perfect holiday gift for me for under $15 - let me help you out...I want this!




Lastly for today, tonight is one of my most favorite holiday traditions and that is baking Christmas cookies with my best friend Laura. We've been doing this since high school and the last couple years we've had to take a hiatus since I lived in Louisiana and she was in Chicago and we were only in St. Louis together for about 3 days and they were jam packed with family festivities. For many years throughout college this event took place in my mom's kitchen. My mom had a large tupperware bowl she kept in the pantry full of sprinkles and Laura started to comment after a couple years that she wasn't exactly sure what the shelf life of sprinkles were, but she was pretty sure some of ours had reached that point. We used these same holly berry sprinkles far past their prime. Those nights are full of good memories and old jokes that have managed to live on. We once tried to make chocolate covered pretzels that were sprinkled with peppermint. They did not come out quite like the picture and we have given them the affectionate nickname of "nappy-kins". (Laura explains it as "nappy" - because they were kind of gross looking, and "kins" because that made them cuter. It oddly works.) We have made them again, our skill level increased, and I made a version of the nappy-kins for her bachelorette party (imagine a pretzel rod dipped halfway in white chocolate and covered in a clear sugar sprinkle. Trust me, they were pretty, and delicious after a night of drinking.) The first time I ever tried to make fondue was one of our cookie nights and I went a little heavy on the white wine. I look forward to our adventures tonight, that will include homemade marshmallows (a first!), some chocolate peanut butter surprise cookies, our standard sugar cookie and a chocolate dipped chocolate cookie. Wish us luck!

A Good Day

I decided to make the things I'm grateful for a weekly post. I think it's valuable to find the small things that are going well and focus on them, even if it's for 10 minutes as I write this.


I'm grateful for friends who will explain what the movie Signs was really all about. I've been trying to catch all of M. Night's movies since Laura and Anna are such big fans. I watched it last night and knew it wasn't supposed to be about the literal alien plot, but wasn't quite sure what to make of all of it. I did know that I liked the odd coincidences that seemed helpful and the fate is bigger than us concept. So, cheers to people who will tell you what the movie is really all about.







I'm grateful for finding a 6.5 foot white Christmas tree for $35. I thought $75 was as low as it was going to get and then I got the call that my mom had found one for $35. I haven't had a Christmas tree in 3 years, so this year I'm getting two. A traditional one for the first floor living room, and a white Disney Tree upstairs in front of the big window in the reading nook. I also found this great tree skirt that has glitter swirls all over it and if you look really hard, squint your eyes and tilt to the left, it even looks a little like Mickey's head.


I'm grateful for Hodak's fried chicken and french fries. They are a reason I'll never be able to commit fully to a vegetarian lifestyle. Hot, crispy, inexpensive and delicious.

I'm happy I have some weekend plans that I'm really looking forward to. A haircut, dinner with a high school friend at a local thai place, scrapbooking with a friend I don't see very often and dinner with my sister are all on the list for the weekend, and I have a huge selection of alternates as well. A movie, some Christmas shopping, tree decorating and some baking are on the B list. I'm grateful to be busy.

Happy weekend everyone. I hope it brings you something you're happy for also.

The Crackpots and These Women

Wednesday night is Knitting and Tea night at my new favorite cozy place - the London Tea Room on Washington Avenue. You should go read their website - read through the menu and the tea information - not only to get information - but because some of the cheekiest humor is woven throughout the site. It made the place even more attractive to me. (I was first attracted because they have scones and tea - enough said.)

Once a month they've stayed open a little later and invited knitters into the shop to sit and knit and sip. I went last month and it was a really lovely night. I'm currently working on a project that requires some helpful hints from more experienced knitters than I.

If you're just not sure what that is - it's the start of an R2D2 knit hat. Yes, I know. It's pretty dorky. It was a request and since there's really not a lot of knitted projects that I want to take on (I never want to knit myself a poncho or a purse - I am not Ugly Betty) I say yes to anyone who asks for a scarf or a hat. And I like the challenge that this hat is providing - knitting with two colors of yarn is tricky.

So, tomorrow I will sit, sip, knit and ask questions of some strangers doing the same.

A Good Day

I'm grateful for crunchy apples this morning. I had a bag of kind of sad and smushy red delicious apples that I've been doing my best to make my way through. Each one was like biting into a sphere of applesauce. Not what I'm looking for in my apple experience. While at Whole Foods last night I bought some Honey Crisp Organic apples and it gave a very satisfying crunch. Happy. That's breakfast for me the majority of my mornings, and always on work days. An apple for breakfast while driving to work.


I'm grateful that my car started this morning. I had left one of the small overhead lights on last night. As I was pulling into the garage last evening I dropped my phone between the seat and console and had turned the light on to find it. Found the phone, never turned the light off. Panic was right at the surface until the car started right up. Happy.


I'm thrilled that I'm wearing such a hot shirt this morning. I recently splurged big time on a tailored, white, french cuffs shirt. It's specifically tailored for women, it's made of a really beautiful textured white cotton material AND it's arm sleeve is enough for my monkey length arms. These are all big deals to me. So, this morning I borrowed my husbands cuff links, ironed the collar so it would look super crisp and I'm soo happy.


I'm also very excited about this new hair product. I had read about it in a magazine recently and it was recommended for girls who have curly hair and are trying to control frizz.





It's a miracle in a bottle. The smallest amount works and my hair is smooth and gorgeous and the product smells amazing. I'll have to look into more of the line.

There's the way I wanted to start my morning. A small list of things that are good today. Have a great one.