one of the reasons I don't work out is...

the shoes.

As far as exercise goes, I choose not to do anything requiring shoes. Meaning, you can find me doing yoga or swimming.. and by swimming I mean lying on the beach.

Anyway, every time we go on a family vacation, my siblings typically work out together. I get out of this by not having room to pack my running shoes. This excuse usually works. Until today. I am going on an Italy trip with my mom, there is a hike on the agenda and the issue of proper footwear came up.

We shopped around (two malls) and I had a panic attack. So many overly designed shoes with out of control amounts of mesh, neon colors, fat tongues. For some reason athletic shoes have to be futuristic have a million elements to prove they are tough enough to run in. I ended up with a pair of Asics in color Lightning/Storm/Turquoise. Even the color names have to be intense!

Why do they have to be so ugly?! [click images to enlarge]



 

a breath of fresh air (& belated announcement)

Where to begin. Where to begin? How have I turned into such a lazy horrible blogger?! Perhaps it's because I have been living in the moment enjoying my summer? And all the times I could have been blogging, I was watching DVRed episodes of A&E's Intervention. Those are my only excuses. Plus that show is SOO good!

My other excuse is I didn't really know how to muster up the courage or put together the announcement:  

I left New York City and am living in Seattle!

Yep, that's right. Big news. Take a deep breath... I have had to take many as well.

I had to take several calming inhales through the stress of having my apartment posted on Craigslist and weeding through the emails from interested weirdos. My personal favorite email was from a 34 year old man: "I am friendly, clean and respectful. I dont cook only microwave, maybe the occasional ommellte on weekends."

The image of him moving in with an armful of Hungry Man dinners fills my mind. How does someone only microwave? It took a lot of willpower not to write a snarky reply: Sorry weirdo, but it doesn't seem like you'd be a good fit and here's why--we don't even have a microwave! So unless you want to eat your ommelltes every single day not just weekends, I suggest you find somewhere else to live. Thanks, Jamie. ps. please learn how to spell the word omelet.

When giving my boss my resignation notice it took a lot of work to control the hyperventilating. Hours were spent on the phone with my mom "soooo wait.. what EXACTLY is going to be the first word that comes out of my mouth when I walk into her office?" Funny how much over analyzing can go into the simple concept: I am leaving New York City, so therefore I am leaving this job. Seems so simple after it's all over. Some words of wisdom: Do not be extra nice like me and give more than two weeks' notice. It may seem like a good idea at the time, but it will end up with everyone giving you their puppy dog eyes saying things like "what are we going to do when you're gone??!" My thoughts - I don't know. Learn how to call IT and get your own ****ing sodas out of the fridge? Funny that on my last day I was the last one in the office after 6pm struggling to finish someone's expense report. My office phone line rings and it's my boyfriend, "Why are you still there? You're the only one in the office on your last day? Jamie, put the expense report down.. get out of there" he is smart so I took his advice. Good bye RL.

I huffed and puffed as I scrubbed my walls, filled nail holes and changed light bulbs. I threw all my stuff into boxes, bags, suitcases and trashbags in the sticky 95 degree heat. Lucky for me, I found the guy who's always wandering around the neighborhood and Laina appropriately nicknamed "The War Vet." I did what any girl would do -- batted my lashes and asked him nicely to take my 7 large boxes down my stairs and help me load the truck. Speaking of The War Vet, Laina also discovered that if you Google map the apartment address, you can see him right there having some sort of sidewalk sale. It is very likely that some of my belongings will be sold at one of his upcoming sales.

The War Vet... courtesy of Google Maps

Just three days ago, I managed to wrap up my life in NYC and board the plane with my one-way ticket to Seattle. The bittersweet good byes were said and I sat on the plane pondering what the next chapter in my life will entail.

As for now, I am an unemployed lady of luxury sitting here drinking coffee, blogging and listening to the sound of the wind blowing through the trees rather than honking and sirens. It sort of feels like I am at a rehab center detoxing from life in New York City.. or maybe that's just too much Intervention talking. All I know is I have no agenda other than looking out at my new and improved view and inhaling some fresh air.

old view vs. new view

reactions to my new dark hair

9:15am "oooh heyyyy we have a new brunette in the office. Get out here and show everyone" made me get out from my desk and come out and show our department. 

10:15am "You look a lot older."

1:30pm "I noticed something different. You either changed your hair or are really tan."

3:30pm "It looks really good but when I came over to your desk and talked to you it was weird"

5:30pm --the grand finale and best of all. The office cleaning lady!
her: "You cut your hair?"
me: "No, I colored it. It's a darker brown."
her: "I did the highlights once, back in my country... my father..." (she starts laughing)
me: "He was upset?" (I start laughing too. This is gonna be good)
her: "No, my father... he was working in the farm and when I came home, he told me that I looked like one of his sheeps!"
me: uncontrollable laughter. This is too adorable. "Because it was light and your hair is so curly? hahah"
her: "Yes and so I went right back to the brown again."

Love it.

bits of my weekend

Dinner in Koreatown. See that hand on the left with the light blue thumbnail and silly bands? Her silver chopsticks are picking up MINNOWS. The little tiny fish were looking up at us all dinner long. I took one chopstick-bite full and was done. Not a fan of crunchy silvery baby fish.

Traded in my faded golden highlights for my luxe au naturale brunette look.

My sweet before and after hair shots.

Babysat in an Upper East Side apartment with this view of Central Park. We played a game called 'kids on stage' in which we had to act things out like charades. My first card was BACKPACK! How do you act that out?! When doing my very best Oscar-worthy performance, the little boy shouts "Putting on a bra!!!??" awkward. No kid, this is not how you put on a bra... well I guess maybe a racer back bra. You'll learn someday. Once the kids went to bed, I ate some of their chocolate cake and ice cream and a lot of cheese. Just like a good babysitter should.

My favorite weekend activity: leaving the city. This week: The beach! Can you believe how crowded it is?! I am always shocked. Despite how they look in the picture, the waves were big and the water was delightfully warm. While jumping and diving in waves, my foot came across something funny feeling. Seaweed clump? I thought.. I wrapped my toes around it to bring it to the surface. If it was seaweed, I was going to be a pest and throw it on my friends, obviously. As my toes pulled up the mystery ocean object, I had discovered a sunken SOCK! Who the heck wears SOCKS into the ocean?? Gross.

My beach lunch. Very tasty, but probably not the smartest choice of foods when wearing a bikini. And yes, I have a zebra beach towel. Trust me, it was the best option at Kmart.

Cloud watching the puffiest, fast moving vapory clouds at the beach. It's a bird..

it's a plane! .. a very very teensy one. Do you see it?

Hope you had a great weekend too! Now I have the Sunday night blues :-( I wish weekends didn't go by so quickly.

wacky dreams & wackier reality

I am an overly imaginative dreamer, and I am always looking for someone to listen to what goes on in my unconscious brain.. so I thought I'd share with the world wide web! You should probably be excited.

My dream last night started in a kitchen. My boyfriend Steve was with me and he was lounging on the kitchen counter but the counter was plush like a sofa. I noticed that Steve had been making odd eye contact, it wasn't fully there. Then all of a sudden it was apparent that he was blind. He had been blind this whole time and I was just realizing it! 'How does he know what I look like?' I thought. 'How has he read my blog? and how has he gotten around without me noticing anything strange?' I wondered. So many questions filled my head. Did he know how to read Braille? How come he had never told me or I never noticed it before?

I specifically wondered how in Braille he understood that :D was a smiley face.

Somehow it never crossed my mind that he could still design beautiful things without his eyesight. He asked for a yogurt and immediately spit it out and said it was spoiled. The yogurt he spit out touched my lips but it didn't taste bad to me. I looked at the container and it had some date in '99 typed on the bottom. I didn't want to tell him the date especially since I knew he couldn't see it. I gave him a glass of water.

Then I was at grad school. I thought I was at some university in Washington, but overheard someone saying that it was in Alabama. I was confused as to where I was, so I decided to go for a walk. On my walk I passed dozens of other students. We were in a desert. I approached golden sparkly rocks and laid my hand on one of them. When I took my hand off the rock, my entire hand was covered in golden sparkly glitter. I wanted so badly for Steve to see it and understand how beautiful it was, but I knew he was blind and wouldn't understand. Then a dirty, large, mangy yellow lab came running beside me and trying to attack me, but there was a fence separating us and he couldn't get through. Another dog showed up and started jumping in and out of the fence as they were pacing me and I was scared. The end.

 

Obviously I know my dreams are weird, but what is weirder are the things that come up when I Google image search for what I see in my dreams. I like learning about odd things in the world. If my brain can come up with wacky things, I love to see even wackier things actually in existence. For example, I searched for the golden rocks I touched in my dream and found THIS peculiar gold nugget! It's like something right out of Dr. Seuss.

This bizarre rock in Myanmar called Kyaiktiyo Pagoda. This is sort of like the one I laid my hand on but it wasn't as big and wasn't wearing a crown-like hat like this one has on. Did you know that this huge golden rock exists in our world?! According to legend, it is perched on a strand of Buddha's hair.

Also, on Tuesday night I dreamed about a yard full of weeping willow trees covered entirely with Easter eggs. My friend Google helped me find THIS! An Easter egg tree in Germany just like what I saw! This one is covered in 9,500 hand decorated eggs!

What will I dream up next?!

Twenty Ten New Men part II - My Fairytale Jackpot

For those of you who thought I'd never blog again, I am here to prove you wrong. I hope you're happy, Laina ;-) "Walk with me Wednesday" is not the most current post anymore so you can stop rolling your eyes and read my blog instead of using it as a portal to get to the other blogs whose authors actually update theirs.

I'm pretty sure all 6 people who check this blog anymore know me well enough on a personal level to know the most current events in my life (and yes, I do know there are only 6 readers because I have a tracker). Since I can't stop thinking, talking, and daydreaming about him, I am here to announce that after all this talk of '2010 New Men' and falling in love with fictitious characters in the movies, I am lucky enough to have actually fallen head over heels in love with a REAL boy! He trumps Edward Cullen, Jacob Black, Jake Sully, and Henry DeTamble any day. And the best part? The head over heels feelings are mutual.

It feels like I sped through all the rose ceremonies and won The Bachelor without having to compete against other nutso single women for the prize. I don't know how I got so lucky. And yes, I realize how cheesy I am. I can't even help it. Nope. Can't.

As someone who doesn't frequently fantasize about romance, I will say that I feel like I'm in a fairytale, or at least a romantic comedy--just don't let J-Lo or Katherine Heigl play me when the movie is made.

As for the story... A few months ago when Laina and I were discussing the details of her upcoming wedding, I realized I didn't know much about her reception decor. "Tell me everything!" I demanded. "What song are you dancing to? What is going to be on the tables? Are you still using birch wood?" She responded by telling me she was going to be surprised. She had a designer and he was going to do something amazing. She sent me the link to his website. Discussion of this designer turned into matchmaking, "jam AND guess what! I want to hook you up with STEVE the wedding decor designer!!!!!!" (this is a real copy/paste from a gchat convo mind you). Next it was "He is buying a ticket to New York for NEXT WEEKEND." When I caught up with friends over brunch, I was asked if there were any new guys in my life. I admitted that I had a major crush on a stranger I had never spoken to, only Facebook stalked. Communication was initiated (by me) and the mystery crush evolved into me obsessively refreshing my Facebook messages in anticipation of a new message from him. He was witty and I liked it.

His trip to NYC was a little shaky. I'm not getting into the details of it because I turned into the most shy and awkward person ever. Bratty almost. I was beyond nervous and intimidated. He was very cute and SO nice. He made me incredibly shy. Couldn't put sentences together. He'd ask me questions and I'd respond with one word answers. Idiot.

Fast forwarding to the good parts... lucky for me, he stuck with me long enough for me to come out of my shell. He came to NYC a second time. Crush was solidified. Boyfriend title was given. Lots of cupcakes were eaten. I couldn't get enough.. (enough of him I mean. I definitely had more than enough cupcakes)

Next on the agenda was the Seattle trip for Laina's wedding. Steve obviously put together the most beautiful reception ever and I was blown away--as was everyone else in attendance. Please see the pictures below to prove I am not biased.

Ok, so I may be slightly biased about one part. See those coconut cupcakes on the top next to the big lollipop? That was hands down the BEST cupcake I have EVER HAD. ever. And what girl wouldn't fall in love with a man who can bake delicious coconut cupcakes?!

The story gets even better: A few days after the wedding when I was still in Washington, Steve whisked me away on a surprise little plane ride to an island in the San Juans. HOW IS THIS REAL LIFE?! We were the only people on the island. It was us, our picnic basket, a few deer and some geese. It was the only sunny day the entire time I was in Seattle. What a miracle. We had the cutest most perfect picnic on the dock. I wish I could go back to that moment. I couldn't have dreamed up a more perfect afternoon with a dreamier guy.

 

He is so adorable!

So now I am back in New York counting down the days until I see him again. I can't believe how hard it is to be in a long distance relationship - ugh! I have equally mixed feelings of happiness and loneliness. I am so grateful for meeting someone so great. He is smart, extremely talented, kind, funny, weird, sings with me in the car when I force him to, and LOVES dessert. He has the whitest, brightest, biggest smile I have ever seen and a heart of gold. I am completely smitten and it is quite an amazing feeling to have.

...and yes, I did mean that I am literally counting down the days until I see him again. I made this paper chain out of post-its at work. 18 to go!!!