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Things I love Thursday

Getting some work done. As I posted previously, I finished a website and the restaurant menus this week. Exciting to be done!


Hanging out with other people's pets. I hung out with my neighbor's corgi the other day, and I will be hanging out with Jess' cat this weekend. The next best thing until we can get our own dog.

So Much Going On Lately

My To Do list has been growing at an astounding rate, lately—business is going well, things at the restaurant are going well, and there have been other personal developments that are finally going well now that everyone is on track. The things that have been keeping me from updating this thing, ever, these days.

I keep thinking about starting a professional blog—something I can tie to my website; a website that is woefully out of date at the moment. The Catch-22 of being a web designer is that I haven't had the time to work on my own portfolio recently. Which is why a professional blog seems like such a silly idea.

Tidbits from the past while:
We have met the neighbors. Drank a few bottles of wine with them. I ended up massaging the downstairs neighbor's dog's feet, which I could have done all night...LOVE HER. She was going to be a show dog before she broke her hip, so she has pins holding her together. I told her I knew how she felt, and about how my jaw is held together with pins, too. Downstairs neighbors' chihuahuas are scared of her, though, so they didn't really want to hang with us.

The new restaurant menus that I designed will be unveiled this week, and I am so excited about them.

I got a rockin' haircut.

J finished his Master's! No more grad school! For now!

I launched a hair studio's website

Plus other stuff, that I can't talk about just yet...Exciting times! As they say, Stay Tuned for more!

Quelle Belle

Palomino Colored Pencils

"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms"

Making Marriage Sound Cute

quote via so much to tell you

Choose Your Own Adventure: Logan Airport

Every time I come home from the airport, I manage to take a different route. This is never my intention, and usually I get home without incident, even if I end up taking Storrow Drive to Harvard Square instead of the more direct route to Inman Square.

This time however, at three o'clock in the morning I might add, I veered entirely off course in a way that was terrifying, moreso because I didn't even have my cell phone on me. My usual exit was closed, and instead of taking the next exit, I managed to get off the highway a little bit too early and ended up in Boston's North End. J and I have walked through Charlestown to the North End before, so I figured it would be a snap to get back from there using my bearings. Boy was I wrong.

I had no cell phone and no way of knowing when to get on and off the dozens of highways that might or might not send me back to Logan airport, where at the very least I would know where I was! I kept trying to catch a glimpse of the Boston skyline, so I'd know vaguely which way to go. Long story short, guess who ended up at a Walgreens in Revere, nearly in tears, asking the security guard how to get back to Somerville. I'm just really glad I had decided against driving in skimpy pajamas and had opted for real clothes, instead. His directions weren't really very accurate, uh, AT ALL—the only real insight he provided was that instead of taking a left out of the parking lot like I wanted to, I should take a right. I found signs for Everett/Somerville, and things finally began to look familiar at some point.

This is the route I SHOULD have taken, provided the exit I needed hadn't been closed:


View Larger Map

And in the end, this looks pretty close to the route I ended up taking, instead:


View Larger Map

When Gilmore Girls Mirrors Real Life

"I feel awful—I feel sick...It just sucks, you know, because I graduated today, this was supposed to be a happy day in my life and now when I look back on it I'm just going to think about this whole other thing that happened." --Rory Gilmore

I don't really think about my own graduation anymore, but the penultimate episode of the Gilmore Girls dredged up some pretty awful memories for me. Thank God life has turned out beautifully every since I left college boyfriend's wretched family in my past. The wonderful thing about heartbreak is that it leaves you feeling alive, though. Going through it at the time is no picnic, and I personally learned a lot about depression when I graduated from college, but watching Logan's heartbreak was as beautiful as it was painful. I can imagine Logan telling the story about Rory—the love of his life before he met the actual love of his life—to his grandchildren when he's 80.

I won't be telling any stories about my awful college boyfriend to my grandkids or anything, but I can imagine talking about other boys in my past. And that kind of childhood heartbreak is just the type of maudlin thing that brings a smile to my face.

After all, I wouldn't be here in this wonderful place if life had taken a different turn at any point along the way.

Nice Guys

The captions: hilarious.

Swagbucks

Over the past few months, I have gone on a spending spree on Amazon. First, I finally bought the ipod I'd been saving for, then, when my mouse broke, I broke down and bought a magic mouse. When I went on this spree, I didn't spend any of my own money. I had accumulated amazon gift cards by participating in surveys and by using swagbucks.com for my daily searching.

Every time my account reaches 450 swag bucks, I get a $5 Amazon gift card. Searching the internet is something I do anyway, every day, and their search engine gets better and better as the site develops and grows stronger. Searching is a simple way to see swag bucks add up, but the real money is in referrals. After I had a few friends join, my points went through the roof and I ended up slowly being able to afford a $150 mp3 player, $5 at a time. There are some other prizes on there, and I can't speak to their value, but I know some people will "save up" for things like an XBox (I can't imagine how many swag bucks you need for an XBox).

If you're interested, you should check it out. It's pretty exhilarating when you get your first prize, just for using the search engine, and if you're into online games, they have a pretty active twitter and facebook account where they post opportunities and contests to grab swag bucks every day. And because this post is clearly about shameless promotion:

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/dearsweetbriar

Magic Mouse To The Rescue...I Hope

In continuing with my whorish consumerism, I made another Apple purchase today. The scroll button on my mouse constantly sticks, and it has become a daily battle with the thing. I use lotion pretty frequently, and I know this has contributed vastly to the problem, which isn't helped by the fact that I eat at my desk sometimes. Yesterday the scroll button stuck, and after my usual struggle with it (which I will sadly admit includes banging it on the desk to dislodge the dirt) it did something awful—the whole mouse got stuck in the clicked position. I figured it was just dirty, so I tried to clean it to no avail. Now there's a piece of my mouse on J's desk, and the rest of it's over here, still in the "clicked" position, rendering it unusable.

So after absolutely no deliberation or thought whatsoever, I bought a magic mouse. I immediately regretted the spontaneous purchase, and I don't know how I'm going to feel about this new toy once it arrives. It is all unicorns and glitter and rainbows, I'm sure, but it's also relatively new and probably buggy, and now I'm the proud owner of something that will most likely become outdated this summer and obsolete by next summer.

A lot of the people whose twitter feeds I follow bought this toy when it came out—and they were all duly impressed. The reviews on CNet, however, seem to indicate that no matter how impressed people were with the magic mouse when it first came out, they are not thrilled with it after using the thing for a bit. So, we'll see what happens when the package arrives for me. If I return it, I'll have to see what else Amazon has to offer before my Amazon Prime trial is over. I've always had good luck with logictech mice, and I will be damned if I spend money on another stupid mighty mouse that I will have to throw out the window once the track ball starts sticking.

iPod Madness

source

I got a brand new 5th genereation ipod nano on Wednesday. After applying swagbucks gift certificates and signing up for an Amazon credit card, I spent a whopping $32 (I had $180 saved up in a bank account for just this reason).

I've been so out of touch with new technology that I was overwhelmingly impressed with my new tech toy. I got an 8GB nano because I figured that my old ones only carried one or two albums and a dozen songs that I listened to at once. I was able to store everything I listened to on a tiny little 4GB ipod, before. But this nano? This nano plays video! This nano has a pedometer! This nano has games! In color! This nano makes me feel old.

But it is so pretty, and now I can watch episodes of the Office when I travel. I'm kind of starting to regret not going for the 16GB, or holding out for a touch!

Massholes, Revisited

Some interesting theories put forth by the Boston Biker on his blog:

A normal well adjusted person would be able to take a 30 second delay in stride, a normal person wouldn’t roll down their window and threaten to kill another person, a normal person after they had just nearly killed someone would have apologized (and mean it). It would seem that driving a vehicle in Boston on a regular basis can actually turn you from a normal well adjusted human being into a murderous asshole.

This is stuff I witness on a daily basis, and my commute, from point A to point B has never taken me more than 15 minutes. In 15 minutes, I am threatened multiple times, even if sometimes it's just by accident. Usually it's not. Parts of me just want to move, the parts that value my sanity over the sadness that people can't be better towards one another in my little city.

My April Goal

My goal for April is to workout more, especially in the mornings. As a server, I don't have to report to work until 10:30 AM, so there is a whole chunk of potential time to do...things! I could work! I could answer emails! I could...sleep in.

So this week I have been using Hulu's exercise TV feed to explore new cardio workouts. I bought a stability ball recently, and as soon as we've moved into the new place, I'll buy some weights. I commute by bike, although my world is so small these days, I'm rarely on it for more than ten minutes, but cool spring nights are the best time for rides out to Deer Island, so one of those trips is surely coming up.

This is the one thing I'm going to focus on in April. Eating better is also on the short list, but I think that one goal a month is going to be the way to make these changes lifetime changes instead of whims.

Throw Out Fifty Things: Day Four

This week was great because I placed these ten items outside for the taking, and a lot of them got taken!

31. Method dish soap that smelled terrible. TAKEN
32. Success Rice that we didn't use for three years.
33. Prototype mittens that I've made but don't wear.
34. Shampoo. TAKEN
35. Frank Lloyd Wright coffee table book. TAKEN
36. Sticky notes from Target that were too sticky when stuck together, but not sticky enough when I wanted to stick them to anything else! TAKEN
37. My old bike bell, which I removed when my mom bought me a bigger louder one. TAKEN
38. Placemats that have seen their day. J will thank me some day.
39. See-through bag that I got when employed with that big retail store at the mall. It was to prevent staff-shoplifting.
40. More yarn, and there will probably be another round of yarn before we move!

Things I Love Thursday

This picture is fabulous.

Greening Our Apartment

J and I will be moving over the next few weeks , and I want to get more plants into our living space. I managed to kill many of the plants we had here, but mostly because...okay, I confess that there is probably nothing wrong with the sunlight, the placement or the hardiness of the plants I choose. I just forget to water them! But I want to resolve to be better about this in the new place. Things that might help are a balcony. And my being more responsible (ha!)

In addition to more greenery, I would like to have fresh cut flowers in the apartment more often, and I think there's a perfect spot for them, too, because there is a cutout between our kitchen and living room that has a groove where I would hope we can fit one of these planters from Urban Outfitters:



I also think that a hanging planter would be pretty great in the space next to the sliding glass door to the balcony:


I decided to take advantage of Amazon's universal wish list and set up my own New Apartment wish list. I hope this will help me budget for the new place, and maybe we can eventually get everything we need for our new space without breaking the bank.

Throw Out Fifty Things: Day Three

This week's things came from all over, again.

21. Florals from inside the centerpiece at a reception I went to.
22. The placeholder from another wedding J and I attended last summer.
23. A tank top that has always been too baggy for me
24. A shirt that is sadly a little bit too young on me
25. Some nail polish that I haven't really worn. These purchases can seem like such a good idea until I get them home!
26. Some computer mice that I don't use since I got my Mac, plus they are both missing the USB keys that make them work.
27. Sequined suspenders I bought for St. Paddy's day, then I didn't wear them PLUS I didn't make any money to pay for them. Fail, all around.
28. My old point and shoot which is outdated, cracked, and pretty much useless now that we have two other digital cameras and a bajillion analog cameras.
29. A candle holder that I've had for years, loved, and used, but it is now time to let it go, as it's been half hidden in the bathroom for two years, not doing much of anything—not even really being decor.
30. Scraps from the mesh earring hanger I made last year.
    

Things I Love Thursday

Feel Script from Veer, which I have been lusting after for so long I can't even remember. This font is not super cheap ($99), but I will be purchasing it at some point, when I feel it's necessary. Isn't it fabulous?



This cupcake kit from Meri Meri. Robots and Space! This has J written all over it. Hello, graduation party theme :)

This Flight of the Conchords poster by artist Dan Stiles. I would love to hang this on the walls of our new apartment, but sadly, it's sold out.

We got a new apartment! We signed the lease last night, and will get the keys April 1st! We're still hoping the stars will align and we will be able to work things out with our current place—the lease here doesn't expire until June 31st. For now we're just thrilled to know we have a top floor apartment that has a deck, a shared backyard, 2.5 bedrooms, and allows puppies waiting for us next week.

Throw out Fifty Things: Day Two

My next ten items came from all over the apartment. I was spot cleaning the apartment because we've been having prospective tenants come by to look around.

11. Books—I have a lot of books that I need to weed through, but these two aren't going to sell on half.com or swaptree.com, and they weren't even on the bookshelf. I have two or three cookbooks that I do use, but for the most part, I use allrecipes.com or google. I also don't have the same interest in architecture that I used to, and while I want to keep a few of my old textbooks, I see no reason to have multiple books on the subject.
12. AIA conference bag. There was a point in my life when I didn't think I could have enough bags. It turns out you can, and I do.
13. J's sister found a Kodak Pleaser Instant camera at a thrift store, complete in it's original packaging. I kept it because it was kind of cool, but then I realized that since the camera is for display, I would have already thrown away the box if it were new, so there's really no reason to keep a musty old box...
14. Yarn, and this is only the tip of the iceberg, because this was drifter yarn that had found its way into my closet. I actually have to tackle the collection of yarn at some point to see what I can do with it. Maybe some of it is sellable, but mostly it will probably go to goodwill (or knitting friends).
15. Some Old Spice body wash that was left when J's brother visited our apartment.
16. Old plastic pots that I picked up at the recycling center to plant some seeds last summer. Yeah, that never happened.
17. Big Black Notebook, because like bags, I have lots and lots of notebooks, and this one has been hanging out since college.
18. Some glittery eyeshadow that I have not worn since I bought it, in high school.
19. A paper take-out box that was handmade by a student in my typography class as her final project. We each got one that had candies and a little handmade paper fortune cookie inside. Each fortune was an inspirational quote by a designer/typographer. A cute idea, but also not something I need to hang onto forever and ever.
20. Old catalogs, one of them is the 2009 IKEA catalog, some of the Urban Outfitters catalogs were from around that time, too. Let it go, woman!
    

Things I Love Thursday

TeuxDuex.com, a great website I found recently that allows me to keep to-do lists accessible online, whenever I need them!

Paper Source, once again, where I found some awesome neon Bistro Chalkboard Markers, which I am using to style up the Tommy Doyle's Specials board something wicked.

Also, the fact that doing the Specials board is my "thing" during the week, now.

This blog, Mighty Cycle Media, which I found while searching for ampersand cookie cutters (I think. It was definitely an "ampersand" or "epershand" related query!)