A poll

The other night, five of us went out for dessert to one of the fanciest (and darkest, judging by my terrible picture) restaurants in town. Our waiter tempted us with key lime and creme brulee flavored martinis, and my friend who doesn't drink ordered a coffee. The waiter would not take coffee for an answer.

"You want some kahlua with that coffee, right?" he said

"No."

"Some rum?"

"No."

"Some Bailey's?"

"She's pregnant!" one of my friends blurted out, trying to get him to shut up. As we all giggled nervously, the waiter asked what she was having. Apparently, Fake Baby D is a girl.

Our giggling kind of wore off as our waiter, who was practically misty eyed, reminisced about how holding his now nine year old as a newborn. The lie wasn't funny anymore. (Until my friend got extra ice cream since she was "eating for two").

So, my question is, it is just in my part of the world that, even in your mid-20s, you have to make up an entire human being to get out of being peer pressured?

In hindsight, I'm not sure why we didn't just tell him she was driving. Oh well.

my "photography" attempts

my flickr

It's nice finding a little bit of color in every day.

a roshalution & lots of lists

There are lots of fun things about being Jewish, like being lifted up in a chair, Jewish summer camp, and being able to relate to more someecards than the average person:

But the best part about being Jewish is obviously having two new years, which means more new year's resolutions and more excuses to do some of my favorite things ever, make lists and goals (and, probably just like you, subsequently forget about them). It's not really customary to set goals at the Jewish new year, but I love lists and fresh starts so much I like to pretend it is.

The Jewish new year chooses not to focus on how we can improve our lives in the next year, but uses apples (which we have none of in our house) and honey to signify a sweet new year. We wait until Yom Kippur to really think about how we've screwed up in the past year.

So for this Rosh Hashana (translated: head of the year), which started Wednesday night and ends tonight, my resolution (roshalution? I like it.) is to be more creative. Between my cinderblock office, the lack of creative opportunities at work recently, and my very cut and dry graduate program where a "creative" presentation involves inserting video clips into a powerpoint (so outside the box...) I kind of feel like throwing a 60 pound object at someone.

PLZ DONT FRO ME

So, I enrolled in a creative writing leisure class at the local college, which could turn out interesting since the last two times I took creative writing in college, I came out of it with a story called "Why the Girl Hugged the tree" (because Heath Ledger had touched it); a story about meeting a celebrity (Jennifer Aniston) and a story about a paparazzi who befriends a movie star (a fake one, because I was absolutely positive it would be published someday... snort).

I also signed up for this:

which is
"a creative photography school where we offer daily assignments for a set period of time. The school is not a photography 101 class ... At SFS we intend to get you shooting... Our ultimate goal for our students is that you begin seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. "

Basically, I love to take pictures but rarely do it, and having an "assignment" makes me more likely to use my camera. My photography history is not so great; I've always enjoyed it but have never been good at it. My high school photography class was an excuse for my best friend and me to hang out in the darkroom (that sounds scandalous, but what we really did was develop snapshots and make up dances to N Sync songs), and I had to withdraw from the college photography course I took because my professor hated my pictures and I was in danger of failing.

If you love lists and goals as much as I do, there are so many "projects" going around the internet: The 365 Project, 101 in 1001, 43 things, Wanderlists, Nano, LuluLemon's BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals -- they even have an online goal setter) and so many more I'm sure I'm forgetting. It's overwhelming and ridiculous, but sort of inspiring at the same time.

And who am I kidding... the most fun part of making goals is writing them down on cute stationery.

Lists that cost money:

knockknock.biz

modcloth.com

Chronicle Books

And lists that are free!

Free printable goal list from Buttoned Up

This link has tons of cute, free list templates - make sure to go through all the pages, there are at least 3!

A "honey-do" list

2 cute to-do list templates
&

A healthy goals list

A list for moms

In case you are trying to incorporate more homemade meals into your life - a cute menu planner

occupational hazard

The other morning, Y and I were watching TV in bed.

We are unlikely fans of Handy Manny. Don't ask. Ike prefers staring at himself in the mirror.

Y was flipping through the channels and he stopped on C-Span, where an attractive girl was talking about who knows what. Y got excited.

Look at her!, Y said, look at her throat.

Her throat?

Her thyroid is huge! Soon she's going to start presenting with constant sweating, weight loss, hair loss, heart palpitations, and bla, bla bla bla...

fashion police

The other day, I left my house wearing this:

I park across a busy street from my office -- one of the busiest streets in town. As I was standing at the edge of the parking lot, waiting for traffic to clear, a car that was speeding by slowed to a crawl in front of me. It was stuffed full of people, and the driver rolled down his window. I swear he was Damien from Mean Girls.


But instead of shouting "You go Glen Coco!" or something equally awesome, he shook his finger at me, yelled, "UH UH girl! That is not a good look for you" and drove off.



You know how 2 minutes after something like that happens, you think of all these great comebacks? I still haven't thought of one, although I did consider chasing him down to ask questions. Was it the skirt? Are you not into Toms wedges? Do you have any words of encouragement for Lindsay Lohan?

Sadly, I don't think I'll ever see old Damien again. But I'm collecting outfit advice in case I do-- and comebacks-- so help me out here.

And no, older woman in my office, "What do you know, f*ggot?!" is NOT a good comeback. Yikes.

butterflies

When I was 12, I made the mistake of mentioning to my mom that I liked smiley faces. Everyone liked smiley faces. They were on t-shirts, stickers, and anything else that could be sold at Claire's or The Icing.

Sidebar: You should see all the stuff you can learn by googling "smiley face". Apparently, the image is popular with murderers who leave it as their mark. AND, there was a movie called "Smiley Face" starring John Krasinski and Ana Farris. Who knew?

That summer at sleep-away camp, I paid for my confession. While the other girls in my cabin got occasional packages with forgotten necessities and maybe a special treat or two, my packages looked like The Icing's smiley face inventory exploded. Pens, stickers, even a giant smiley face stuffed animal that I remember being almost as big as I was. My friends from camp make fun of me to this day for those packages.

Suddenly, smiley faces weren't cool anymore.

I get the feeling my dad had the same issues with my mom's gift buying strategies. My dad has been playing golf his entire life, and for as long as I can remember unused golf paraphernalia littered our house: snowglobes, wrapping paper, ties, fancy golf ball cleaners, paintings.

But I'm being unfair because I, apparently, horrifyingly, have inherited the overkill method of gift giving. A friend of mine started a small collection of all things rooster that was probably much cuter before I started gifting her anything and everything with a rooster on it. I have to remind myself of the smiley face catastrophe every time I'm tempted to add to her collection. It is a constant struggle.

Anyway, today is my mom's birthday and while I was thinking of all the ways I could pay tribute to her on the blog -- and all the ways we've been honoring her memory since she passed away a few years ago -- I realized that I have subconsciously been paying her back for the smiley face incident by ignoring any other interest she may have had and focusing solely on butterflies.

The flower girls (my niecess) carried butterfly bouquets at our wedding.

Part of my collection of butterfly necklaces. I don't even like butterflies.

My mom loved butterflies. But now I'm beginning to wonder; she always said that butterflies reminded her of her mom. Maybe what she meant by that, is that one day she told her mom that she liked a shirt with a butterfly on it, and her mother bought her said shirt, passed word of the butterfly love onto her father, who told my dad when he came around, and perpetuated this idea that my mother loved butterflies more than anything in the world.

It's a totally plausible theory, my mom was so averse to confrontation that I can imagine she silently cursed us as she accepted butterfly gift after butterfly gift, and wished for once in her life she would get a crayon drawing from her grandkids of, say, a truck instead of another. freaking. butterfly.

If that's the life she lived, I'm glad I debunked the smiley face myth early. Ugh, can you imagine?

After having said all of that, of course the only blog tribute idea I came up with involved butterflies.

A quote from the column my mom used to write in Texas.

I bet you were wondering how I was going to sneak Ike into this blog post, weren't you?

Piece of cake.

good morning

Don't be jealous, but this is the first thing I see when I wake up:



Unless of course, I wake up to find Ike standing on my chest and dry heaving. That looks more like this: