Friday Afternoon

I’m experiencing one of the most beautiful moments of my week right now. I’m at work, a place that I’ve come to really enjoy. It is a quiet and relaxing Friday afternoon. Most of my co-workers are gone for the day, I’ve completed all my projects for this week and the phone is silent. So, I’m enjoying some Pandora while sipping tea and day dreaming. From my desk I can look out the window, see trees that are starting to change in color and experience peace, or the thing that I most recognize as peace.

Tags: Life

Anne Lamott

One of my all-time favorite authors is Anne Lamott. She is one of the best story-tellers I have come across. Her stories speak the truth, beauty and pain of being a human trying to live with other humans while seeking a connection with God/Goddess. Her strength to be honest often leaves me daydreaming of the true, authentic life. I remember the evening when I devoured her book on writing, Bird by Bird, and felt the connection between her words and my creative spirit. They were warm, comforting and encouraging words that we expect to hear from our mothers. Yet, they were also the words that taught me “shitty first drafts”.

With that being said, you can understand my excitement in learning that Anne Lamott is coming to Richmond! She will be giving a lecture in early March. I know that is several months away, but you need to understand, this is ANNE LAMOTT!!!!!!! I will barely be able to sleep from now till March 5th.

Here are some details I received in an email:

Save the date!

The Sylvester Lecture: Faith, Writing, and Life Connections; An Evening
with Anne Lamott

Wednesday, March 5, 2008, 7:00 pm

The Office of the Chaplaincy at the University of Richmond will host
Anne Lamott Wednesday March 5. The event is FREE and open to the
public. Tickets will be made available through the Modlin Center Box
Office BEGINNING FEB. 11, 2008. If you need more information about the
event itself before Feb. 11, please contact Josh Dickerson in The Office
of the Chaplaincy at (804) 289-8500.

Anne Lamott is the author of six novels including, Hard Laughter,
Rosie, Joe Jones, All New People, and Crooked Little Heart (the sequel
to Rosie), as well as four bestselling books of nonfiction, Operating
Instructions, an account of life as a single mother during her son’s
first year and Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, a
guide to writing and the challenges of a writer’s life, Traveling
Mercies, a collection of autobiographical essays on faith, and Plan B:
Further Thoughts on Faith. She has been honored with a Guggenheim
Fellowship, and has taught at UC Davis, as well as at writing
conferences across the country. Lamott’s biweekly Salon Magazine
online diary; Word by Word, was voted The Best of the Web by TIME
magazine. Filmmaker Freida Mock (who won an Academy Award for her
documentary on Maya Lin) has made a documentary on Lamott, entitled
Bird by Bird with Annie (1999). Anne Lamott’s next essay collection is
entitled Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith (March 2007).

Tags: Life, Reading, Spirituality, Writing

Lonely

Grief is something that most of us do not know how to handle. We don’t know what to do when mourning and we definitely don’t know how to walk along side those who are hurting. I’m coming to grips with that. As time goes by, I’m finding it impossible to share my real thoughts and daily struggles with others. I am isolating myself, well, as much as I can while still blogging. At least with my blog I feel like you have the choice to stop reading. I can’t corner you, unload my fucked-up life on you and then feel guilty, or even worse, have to receive a “everything happens for a reason” or a “time will heal” speech. From my experience, time isn’t healing, it is more like dumping salt on an open wound.

Tuesday is the 6 month mark since Jarrett’s death. My Facebook is litter with status messages of others who lost siblings 6 months ago, all missing their brother or sister.

Though I know others are experiencing the same kind of loss and there are people who love and support me during this time, I am still alone in my grief. Life has gone on for others. They have found their way back to their normal life. My normal life is over. It died 6 months ago. I will never be that same person.

Tags: Insanity, Life

Potluck

The Farrell’s will be providing soup, salad & bread at dinner this week.  If you are coming and want to post what you are bringing, you can leave a comment here.

Tags: Friends, Life

Random

Too many blogs:

I use Google Reader to keep up with the blogs I like.  When I wasn’t working I added a lot of blogs and would read them throughout the day.  But, now that I am gone from 8-5:30ish each day, I come home and am faced with 40+ unread blogs.  It is a blog-overload, not to be confused with cuteoverload.

Shared-Meal:

For a few years now we’ve been wanting to have a weekly shared meal at our house, you know, a potluck (like the one at the Catrow House, but in Church Hill and with cats).  The dinner would be once a week at our house.  Ideally, everyone would bring some food/drink to share.  Then we eat and visit with each other.  If you think you’d like to come to some of the dinners, help us pick out a night of the week and we might start next week.

Fall:

I love the fall.  After visiting my in-laws I was inspired to put up some fall decorations around our house.  But, then I realized that meant I’d probably have to clean my house because people don’t really decorate dirty houses, right?

Last night:

Yesterday after work I stopped at a Starbucks to get coffee with a friend.  Little did I know it was the world’s worst Starbucks.  They were understaffed and it took 10 mins to get my drink that wasn’t made correctly.  At least the conversation was good.  Then we went to a friend’s house for homemade sushi and wine.  I was so tired that I fell asleep in the car as Dan drove from the Fan to Church Hill.

Today:

I slept in. Dan is building a fence. The chore-list is too long.  I should workout.  I’m going to Petersburg to find vintage jewelry.  We have 1 dinner, 1 party, and 1 game night to attend this evening, all in different parts of town.

Tags: Blog, Friends, Life

Work

This week I’ve received 3 phone calls for job interviews and kinda-sorta got another job offer.  I haven’t done any job searching for almost a month. Why does it take people so long to start interviewing?

Anyway, tomorrow completes week number three of my new job.  In three weeks I feel like I’ve learned a lot about this new field I’ve entered into.  I’ve also realized that I have A LOT more to learn.  I’ve picked up a couple of books about copywriting & advertising that I’m slowly reading.  I also picked the brain of a fellow-blogette about quality copywriting blogs.  I’m excited about the challenge to learn stuff in a new field.

I am still in love with my new job.  I’ll admit that I miss the life of afternoon naps that I enjoyed over the summer, especially on days that I get up at 5am to go workout.  (Yes, I am insane, but the thass has got to go.)
I’m getting into a rhythm with this new schedule and now the challenge is to have the energy for work and all the fun stuff I want to do, like, more blogging.

Tags: Blog, Life

Grouchy

I’m thinking of going to bed now, at 9pm, just to make this day end. Tonight I haven’t accomplished any of the 1oo chores I need to do. I also didn’t do any of the reading I wanted to do. All I did was spill beer on my laptop and nap.

I’m going to bed lazy & grouchy, but tomorrow I will wake up knowing that someone I love is mailing me this.   (Yes, the link is correct. Vera Wang has a line at Kohls.)

Tags: Family, Life

Next it will be the Lifetime movie

Twice this week I have seen bits of my life portrayed in unusual places.

1. Earlier this week I saw a TV commercial that must have been inspired by my life. The commercial was for a lady’s razor. In the ad there are lots of skinny ladies laying around in their bathing suits, just like in real life. One of the ladies is having a hair issue on her long, lean legs, but thankfully discovers this new razor that easily solves her problem. With her silky smooth legs the lady steps out into her backyard while carrying an orange pool float to her kiddie pool. For those of you with foggy memories, let me remind you that I am a lady with hair issues on my legs and I own an orange pool float that I use in my kiddie pool!! Clearly who ever created that commercial reads my blog. Do you think that I deserve a lifetime supply of razors?

2. Today one of my co-workers thought that I would enjoy (or needed to read) the latest copy of Women’s Health. On page 92 you can read a list of funny, but bad pick-up lines. Let me share with you bad pick-up line #8:

“I’d love to see you in bed naked with my four cats.”

Honestly, they forgot to write this part……”said Alicia, with a seductive look in her eyes and a bag of catnip in her hands.”

Tags: Life

Sup peeps

Our friend Scott came down from Baltimore to spend the weekend with us. Today Dan & Scott went to a top-secret round table discussion about world domination. Now we are going out for coffee to pump us up about all the cool stuff we are going to do tonight.

Tomorrow Dan is leading the discussion at church. After church we will watch some football and hope that I continue to DOMINATE my fantasy football league. Did I mention that I’m the only girl in the league and my team name is Man Eater…..

Now that I’ve been working for a week I’m going to try to schedule the rest of my life. Like, working out. I may check out some yoga studios in Petersburg. I also want to finally schedule a book club dinner.

Tags: Friends, Life

First Day

Today was the first day of my new job. I think it went well. I got to meet my co-workers and I think I remember almost all their names. They are all friendly and most of them (all but my boss+1) are female.

I think I’m going to really like this job. Let me just quickly share some things I don’t miss about my previous job:

- When I went to work today I only had to worry about me. I didn’t have to worry about how productive…or unproductive 8-10 other people were being and then having to explain the lack of productivity to the guy who signs my paycheck.

- I didn’t have to yell over loud music while being surrounded by TVs playing music videos of barely-dressed ladies dancing.

- I was able to dress like an adult and wear a brooch.

- It’s only 8:30-5.

Tags: Life

I got a job!!

Everyone should gather their friends and head to their favorite bar to have a drink in celebration of my employment. Today I was offered a job at an ad agency in Petersburg. I am so excited about this job that I doubt I will be able to sleep tonight!

Last week I found a job posting on CraigsList for a writer. Though I lack experience, I applied. For some reason, I got an interview. For me, the interview was great. I got to meet with the owner of the company and we had a great conversation. He is down to earth and quite genuine. I left the interview desperately wanting the job. Today the owner called me back with bad news. I did not get the writer’s position. He gave it to someone with more writing experience. But, he also really enjoyed our interview and thought that I would be a good addition to the team. So, he created a new position for me. He’s not quite sure of everything that I will be doing, but it will include some writing and helping out with projects.

I think this job is perfect for me. It’s just what I wanted, an opportunity to get started with a wonderful company, learn, and develop myself as the company grows. I can’t explain how excited I am about this job. Thanks to all my friends who encouraged me and crossed their fingers/toes for me. You guys are great and I’ll buy you a drink after I get my first pay check.

Tags: Life

Hokie Spirit Fund

Here is some information my family learned about the Hokie Spirit Fund this week:

- To receive any support from the HSF, the families of deceased victims have to fill out an application and submit it by Friday.

- On this application all living parents of the deceased must agree to how the fund will be given to the family.

- Also, on this application both signatures of the living parents are required.

- This also includes “fathers” who left their family over 22 years ago, has had little to no contact with his children, and owes about $100,000 in back child support.

Tags: Family, Insanity, Life

Farrells, River, Crabs, Football, & Baby-sitting!

On Saturday I raced home from Narrows, picked up Dan, and met some friends at the Rappahannock River.

We spent the afternoon relaxing by the river. It was beautiful and peaceful. That evening we went out to dinner and enjoyed watching our friends eat steamed crabs while we split a veggie burger & hush puppies.

Sunday morning I couldn’t get it together and also felt very anti-social, so I skipped church. With intentions of spending the morning reading, I laid down on the couch and slept until the day’s football games started. The rest of the day was spent by me finding various positions to lay on the couch while eating cereal and watching football.

Today I woke up super early, hit the gym, and came home to hang out with our friend Avery.

Now I’m trying to prepare for a job interview I have tomorrow! By preparing, I mean I am asking everyone I know to cross their fingers, pray to their God(s), and send lots of good thoughts my way around 10:30 tomorrow morning.

Tags: Family, Friends, Life

A Concert for Va Tech

I just got to Narrows after spending the evening in Blacksburg for the Va Tech concert.  I met my sister & brother-in-law at the concert.  We had over an hour to catch up with each other before the music started.

For me, the concert got off to a slow start.  I was too overwhelmed with being there to enjoy Phil Vassar, the country star.  Next, Nas arrived on stage yelling about all his “haters” then he rapped about gun-shots and how he is now great.  The mood really picked up when John Mayer came on stage.  I just want to take a moment and declare my love for John Mayer.

Mr. Mayer, your authentic spirit and genuine well-wishes for the Hokie community touched me.  I also enjoyed watching your wavy hair bounce as you bobbed along to your soothing music.  Thanks for making me forget about Nas. 

Dave Matthews Band was the last performance for the evening.  The music of Dave Matthews is very special to me.   The first concert I attended was in the Spring of 1999 when I got to see Dave Matthews at Va Tech on one of his acoustic tours.  I also have some fond memories of Jarrett and me enjoying some DMB.

I left the concert with a little bit of peace.  Just having a couple hours to let music touch me proved to be healing.  It may just be a temporary feeling, but I’ll take it.

Tags: Life

A Concert for Va Tech

Today I’m going to Blacksburg for the concert.  It’s strange for me to feel excited to go.  I know it will probably be an emotional event, but I will get to hang out with my sister at the concert.

Tags: Family, Life