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happy (mid) november! *

// Friday, November 21, 2014

October ended quietly: my roommate and I spent Halloween in, eating delicious pumpkin oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies and watching America’s Next Top Model with our downstairs neighbors. The last week of October was a whirlwind of activity (helping my boyfriend move, hosting dinner for my mom and grandma – I made lamb chops with pears and balsamic sauce and they were delightful (which was a pleasant surprise because I’d never cooked lamb chops before), seeing Rodrigo y Gabriela in Boston at the Orpheum Theatre, failed dinner plans that turned into an errand night), so it was nice to have a low key night in with good people.

On that note, a few words about the last week of October, which was filled with family and more good people. It marked the first half-month of being 25 (that’s a thing people count, right?) and it couldn’t have been better spent. I hadn’t seen my grandma since last October when she sold her house up in MA and moved completely down to Florida (she’d been dividing time between the two for some time), and I was able to show her my apartment for the first time. The kitchen alone (we’ve since unfolded that table and the space looks even bigger) demonstrates everything I love about the apartment I share with my roommate, and also is precisely why my grandma loved it. It reminds me a lot of her old house at the Cape, actually, so I loved the symmetry of being able to show it to her for the first time on the same visit she was going back to the Cape** for the first time in over a year. It’s funny how things work out. The night my grandma flew back to Florida was the night T and I went to see Rodrigo y Gabriela, which also happened to be the (sold-out) last night of their tour. It was wonderful, and I’ve been lucky enough to go to more opening/closing nights of tours than seems statistically feasible given that I don’t plan it that way, and the energy is always elevated in a way that’s hard to tangibly describe. It’s phenomenal how talented they both are.

the first 5 ft of water is normally beach, even at high tide…

the far far edge of corporation beach

Cape Cod in October is the best.

calamari pizza @ figs

rodrigo y gabriela @ the orpheum

Calamari + Pizza (though I’d never had the two combined before…) + Rodrigo y Gabriela = happy!Melissa

November got off to a strange start: the first weekend was rainy(/snowy on Sunday) and cold, but it was somehow also cozy and very November-in-New-England-y. It poured all day Saturday – with crazy wind – so it was a good day for errands and coffee out and sprinting between the car and store entrances trying to keep dry, and it was also a perfect night for hot chocolate curled up on the couch watching Parks and Rec. That first November weekend was also the weekend T and I went to the aquarium (library passes: the best), which was super super fun. (these guys – little blue penguins – are my favorites).

rockhopper penguins!

little blue penguins!

seriously, though, how cute are these guys?

Stepping back in time slightly, on Halloween, I decided – in earnest – that I’m going to attempt NaNoWriMo this year; I’ve tried twice before but never with much success. It’s been slow going so far because I forgot that I needed to account for falling back into the writing headspace, but at least I’m writing. And now it’s three weeks later and I’m still writing, though this post has been unfinished for a week and a half and words have stagnated. It’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll hit my word goal (or anything even close to it) nine days from now, but if nothing else, nano got me writing again after a long time away from it, and that has been wonderful. I’ve missed words. I need to work on making writing more of a routine again, because I wrote best when it was habit and necessity and comfort, and I’m trying to get back to that place without the negative connotations it had, off and on, for a while.

This past weekend was a much needed break from everything: from work, from struggle!writing, from stress in general. It was time spent equally between old friends and baking and new friends. Sunday marked the first Friendsgiving I’ve been to, but I just had to think about that for a moment because I was peripherally involved in a few in college. It was lovely and filled with good food and an embarrassingly wonderful amount of discussions about America’s Next Top Model. (Sidenote: I stopped watching YEARS ago, but my roommate watches regularly and this season – cycle – we’ve been watching together, and I still haven’t wrapped my head around the fact that there are guys, too, now, and all the drama that entails, and I’m sad the guy with the beard weave (!) is gone, because seriously what even, and I miss Nigel, and it’s fun and terrible and great all at once.)

all ingredients but the pumpkin

in process

pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies…almost

This weekend might bring a day trip to Portsmouth and a low key diner with T’s downstairs neighbors, but mostly it’s going to be a weekend of low key, cozy productivity, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

*This post was originally titled endings and beginnings because it very early November when I started drafting it. And then life happened, and time got away from me, so. Now it’s just a happy November post and all that entails. I can’t wait for Thanksgiving.

**I still am planning on a Cape Cod picture post, but, well, I am all sorts of behind with regards to pictures (all of the pictures in this post are largely unedited cell phone pictures, though those two Cape Cod ones were run through Afterlight). But it hasn’t been a month yet! So it’s fine. Probably maybe kind of sort of. I’m going to try and sort through pictures this weekend, so hopefully I’ll have a (wonderfully picturesque?) Cape Cod post for you guys soon. Life, though. How does time move so fast? I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is less than a week away.

on appreciating the quiet, and a milestone

// Friday, October 24, 2014

This weekend, I’m headed down to the Cape with my boyfriend, my mom, and my grandmother, and as odd of a combination as that sounds like, I think it will be wonderful. My grandma sold her house on the Cape last year, and she hasn’t been back since (nor have I). The house she moved out of was one she’d built with my grandfather over fifty years ago, and I grew up spending weeks every summer in Dennis. I learned how to swim on the steps of her pool; I took tennis and swimming lessons at the same places my mom had taken them as a teenager. Cape Cod is an extension of home for me, even though I had only gone once or twice a year since graduating high school. T has never been to Cape Cod, and I’m excited to show him around an area that feels like home, especially in the fall. Late October and early November at a quiet, non-touristy beachside community feels poetic and peaceful; the quiet seeps into my bones in a way it can’t in the city. My thoughts are clearer and language flows into me in a way that’s hard to put into words properly. I’m looking forward to walking the beach and taking pictures and drinking coffee in the quiet. (I’m excited to post about the trip when I get back. Published posts don’t show it yet, but purchasing a domain has been good for me. I have a lot of things I’m in the midst of writing. Writing again is wonderful.)

I turned twenty-five last Sunday: the weekend was low-key and wonderful, filled with loved ones and friends, almost in spite of my lack of planning anything. It was lovely and exactly what I needed. 24 was a wonderful, strange year, filled with all of the things. I grew a lot as a person; I started speaking up more; I learned I can deal with a helluva lot more than I thought I could, which is saying something (eventually, maybe, that will be a post; or a memoir; or a novel; but not right now). I am excited, in the deep-seated real way, to see what this next year brings. I survived my ~quarter life crisis~ without experiencing any sort of a crisis, so I think I’m doing well. I have many, many things for which I am grateful. Added bonus of being twenty-five: I can rent a car, should I need to, without ridiculous surcharges. (On that note, my car is part of the recall brought on by airbags that can spontaneously explode and shoot metal (also informative is this earlier New York Times article), so that’s something fun I need to get fixed ASAP.) Yay, adulthood?

Here’s to continually growing and moving forward; here’s to another twenty-five good years and starting the second “quarter” of my life. (Also, on the subject of growing and goals: I think, but am not 100% certain, that I am going to do NaNoWriMo this year. I tried once before, but this year, I am determined to – at the very least – make a solid effort and dent into 50,000 words.) Life is good.

25th-birthday

Birthday churros are the best churros.
(photo credit: Caitlin)

consuming versus creating

// Friday, September 19, 2014

This summer has been the summer of travel for me. As I’ve mentioned (in this terribly organized post), I went to Minnesota/Bayfield, WI; Washington, D.C.; Old Orchard Beach, ME; and Quebec City, Canada. When I travel, I try to limit my cell phone use – I want to be in the moment, experiencing, laughing, photographing, enjoying the company of the person or people with whom I’m traveling. Limiting my phone use has an odd way of simultaneously making me realize (a) how little I need my smartphone most of the time and (b) how much I use my smartphone almost all of the time, something I especially noticed this summer. I noticed it the most in D.C., when there was downtime at a coffee shop or in a restaurant, and I found myself absentmindedly taking out my phone and opening up Facebook/Twitter/etc. even though I had no desire or intention to read through any sort of newsfeed. It was a weird realization. Was there really anything I needed to know about anyone’s day or life highlights right then? Nope. Not even a little. So: why?

It was after I noticed my unconscious Facebook skimming that I realized how much I’m primed to consume on my phone. As I increased my efforts to go off the grid social-media wise, I noticed that I spent more time browsing blogs, the New York Times website, and miscellaneous other online news sites. I realized that within the the context of ‘normal life’ (because though DC was a vacation, it felt a lot like home and it was just…hanging out with an old friend, versus like “Here is an itinerary of places to see on vacation and other Things To Do”), I don’t let myself have much downtime anymore. My time frequently is spent reading or working or watching tv while also catching up on online news. And that’s not the way I want to be. It was a good reality check, and one I didn’t get with my other, more “vacation-y” vacations. In MN/WI, I didn’t get much cell service, nor did I want to (sailing!). In Quebec, I couldn’t use my phone, because Verizon is Verizon and I didn’t want to pay for data or fees for texting or calling. So given that it essentially wasn’t available, I just put it out of my mind, which was a very welcome and relaxing break, but didn’t make me rethink my daily habits in the way that I needed.

After said realizations, I sent out, in small ways, to make this summer the summer I spent outdoors (last summer I wasn’t so great at that), and while I’ve been good at that, somehow that has also translated to consuming much more online than I am creating. I would spend weekend days outside, walking around, and nights either with friends or on the internet, reading about everything I didn’t read during the day. In part because of all of the above, I’ve been lax about posting on here, which I’m working to fix, because god help me, I love this blog even though it isn’t much yet. In true-to-me form, I’ve gotten caught up in the idea of perfecting this site (fixing categories and tags, of which I have far too many; purchasing a domain and switching to self-hosted WordPress; developing a logo; etc.) that I’ve somehow rationalized neglecting it until it can be Right.

That’s not how life works, though, and it’s easy for me to lose sight of that. I need to remember to focus forward more, constantly striving towards something. Life is more, I think, about the forward: You work and you fix as you go, and if you’re lucky, you end up with something that’s as close to almost perfect as it’ll ever be, and you continually improve and maintain. That’s my goal for the fall: maintain and continually improve, both in the personal sense and in the sense of this blog. The plus of all the content-consuming I’ve been doing this summer is that I’ve discovered some wonderful, well-written, inspiring, beautiful blogs (dear former English teachers and professors: sorry for all those adjectives). I now regularly read (and check almost daily) numerous blogs (my two favorites at the moment are C’est Christine, which has a little bit of everything and offers me a wonderful perspective on life (and also makes me want to live in NYC), and where my heart resides, which I love because it’s so different from where I’m at life-stage-wise, but the writing is gorgeous and somehow very relatable).

September is always more like the New Year for me than January is, so here’s to channeling content consuming into content creating and adhering to goals and personal growth. On that note, expect to soon see a post about attending my first and second ever yoga classes. Here’s to improvement and moving forward.

on posting posts months after writing them?

// Friday, September 12, 2014

{Apologies. This post is a mess and about fifteen tenses but I’m posting it anyway, because I’m sick of telling myself that I’ll post it soon/as soon as I properly fix it. Because, well. I wrote pieces of this post originally in May. Early May. Let’s not talk about it…}

A couple of ~~weekends~~ months ago, I went on an accidental ~6mi hike, filled with water crossing adventures and realizations that any balance beam skills I had as a child are long gone. (See also: poorly marked trails -> much longer hikes than intended but also prettier ones with frogs and broken bridges and sunlight through trees).

It had been too long since I’d been outdoors in any meaningful sense of the word, and I’m going to try and get better about that this summer. (Update: I’ve succeeded! More tan than I’ve been in a long time, though in the “hey this just happened from being outside” healthy way. It’s the best.) I was considering joining the local gym my roommate joined recently, but I’ve realized that at least for now, my schedule isn’t consistent enough that I want to fork over a decent sum of money for something I’m not sure I’ll be able to use as much as I’d want to given the cost.

I’m looking forward to this summer, and July 4th travel and sailing (sparknotes update: it was absolutely wonderful) and being healthy and taking advantage of all the sunlit hours of the day. I’ve been reading an increasing number of travel blogs lately. I finally got around to purchasing an REI membership. I’ve also decided to purchase my first pair of real hiking boots (update: I purchased Merrell Moab waterproof leather low-top hiking boots and though I’ve only used them once I’m pretty sure I like them a lot.) Also, I want to go camping? I’ve never been – I’ve also never been on a ~serious~ hike – and I think it has the potential to be a great deal of fun. Mostly I just want to be outside more and do things.

Along those lines, I have a bunch of travel plans in the works. I’m excited about that; I’ve been feeling a little static and I’m trying to find ways to work on that. So this summer, I’ll be going (see also: I went) to DC; Minnesota/Bayfield, WI; ~~New York at some point to be determined, Montreal or~~ and Quebec in August. It’s going to be a good summer. And in honor of said travel, I finally bought this small duffle from L.L. Bean in ‘sea holly’, which I’ve been meaning to do for forever. I have a great four-six day duffle and a wonderful messenger bag (an older version of this the Rothco Vintage Explorer Messenger Bag, which I’ve mentioned before) that’s great for an overnight but small for anything longer, but I’m lacking a good weekend away bag. I think the one from L.L. Bean will be perfect. [it is!!!]

Short term goals/to do list: go for runs, spend time with family/friends, and have some down time. [accomplished!]

Current (as of September) goals: finally go through and edit some hiking/travel pictures so that I can post some here — a picture post is long overdue at this point. Post more. Write about coding, write about Quebec, and post reviews of books that I’ve been reading.

on wednesday week in review posts (or: sometimes weeks are months)

// Wednesday, April 30, 2014

This has been sitting as a draft for a while, because sometimes I am the worst at figuring out what I want to say. Therefore, this particular Wednesday has become a month in review post instead of a week in review post, but my goal is to start actual week in review posts next week.

I know Friday is often the day people choose for week in review posts, but I’ve decided to be more realistic about when I’m most likely to want to sit and think back on the previous seven days. On Fridays, I’m tired. I’ve had a full work week, typically with many (non-work) evening activities, and when I get out of work I don’t want to sit down in front of a computer again. I’m ready for a screen break. I’ve noticed over the past several months that Friday nights and Saturdays tend to be my digital detox days – for the most part, I tend to stay off the computer, tablet, and phone (save making plans). Wednesdays, though, are just a typical day/night, and for me, they tend to be relatively low-key, so it makes sense for me to do something that’s not only productive but also in keeping with the low-key theme. (tl;dr – Wednesday are now going to be week in review days.)

Anyways, for the most part, this has been a relatively low-key month. I’ve done a bunch of new things, though, and I’ve been pretty close to fully successful at completing my buy nothing month plan. Overall, I’d say it’s been a pretty good month for me, and I’m hoping to continue that into May. There’s been some chaos in limited aspects of my personal life, but I’ve largely gotten better at focusing on the positive and allowing the negatives to be experiences from which I learn instead of experiences that drag me down more than I want them to. I have never been one of those people who advocates the whole “You Choose To Be Happy Regardless of How Terrible Things Are or Seem” thing, but I do think that I can have some control over my degree of unhappiness, which is to say, really, control over how much I let one area of unhappiness affect the happiness in/with other areas of my life, if that makes sense. I’ve been working on that more, and it’s going relatively well.

To continue with focusing on the good, some of the fun and/or new things I’ve done this month:

Dinner at the Russell House Tavern (I’d never been), which I very much enjoyed. The group was fun – six people including me, two of whom I’d never met and one with whom I’d only spent limited time, varying in age from 24 to ~late thirties. But it worked well, and even though I was exhausted, conversation flowed wonderfully. Food wise, I got the char, which I’d never had but is very much like salmon (see also: yum!).
Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra. First time I’d seen them and first time they’d performed “on the road”, so to speak, because we saw them at Berwick Academy in Maine, which is decidedly not Portsmouth, NH. It was an all Mozart program, and it was absolutely lovely.
My first ever Red Sox game. I’d acquired tickets through work, and I really enjoyed myself, even though I’ve never particularly thought of myself as a baseball fan. I was also rather entertained that they were playing the Orioles, as the one and only baseball cap I’ve ever owned was an Orioles cap (it’s a long story, but it mostly boils down to six-year-old me really liking the colors black and orange.) We lost, but whatever. It was a good night with good people and free food/beer. And getting home on public transportation wasn’t nearly as horrible as I thought it would be.
Spending the day up in Portsmouth, which consisted of lunch at Lexie’s Joint (fun fact: their cucumber mint lemonade is the actual very best thing. and their burgers and milkshakes ain’t half bad, either) and then walking around downtown for about four hours. We lucked out, because the weather was gorgeous.
Easter. Easter’s never been that big of a deal in my family. (Sidenote: I’m Unitarian Universalist, so while I often “celebrate” the major religious holidays, it’s definitely more of a secular thing in my family, meaning that it’s more of an excuse to have a nice dinner with the good china than anything else.) That said, there was a 10 lb ham for dinner with yams and asparagus, and there’s something nice about going home (/bringing T) and having a meal + wine with family. And there’s also the added bonus that I now have (well, had) a lot of leftovers to bring to work with me for lunches. There’s still a part of me that wishes I received an Easter basket, though, so I don’t really know what that says about me. But I did get to share an Easter basket/bag given to someone else, so I’m counting that as a win (Reese’s eggs! Lindt bunnies! plastic grass! Also, yes, I am six years old.)
Boston Symphony Orchestra thanks to their $20 under 40 special offer. We saw “Charles Dutoit conducts Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky featuring pianist Behzod Abduraimov” and it was a wonderful night. The pianist was AMAZING. Caps are seriously not even remotely enough to covey how good he was. Also, he’s only a year younger than I am, and I am now seriously questioning my accomplishments in life…). Also, had dinner at Helmand in Cambridge, and I highly recommend the Qabelee.

Like I said, overall it’s been a very good month. Here’s to hoping May is equally as good and fun and filled with good people/events.

*This post was also going to contain an update/reflection on my Buy Nothing month, but it’s gotten fairly long as is, so look for that post tomorrow.

on things i’ve been thinking about recently, or: a post before vacation*

// Friday, March 28, 2014

I leave for vacation in less than twelve hours*; I’m going to the Caribbean for six days and I’m very much looking forward to it. I’ve been ‘attempting to pack’ for the last four days or so, because I come from a family of compulsive overpackers (one time, when I was 11 or 12 and my mom and I went to Florida for a little less than a week, we brought – in addition to presumably more clothes than we could possibly need – my two American Girl dolls, our Razor Wheelie Scooters (the basic ones with the wheelie bar on the back, and we justified bringing them because they ~collapsed~), and somewhere between 8 and 10 Nancy Drew books for the trip (I read 3 on the way down, I think; somehow we both overlooked the fact that I should be reading more difficult books, clearly).) Nowadays, I can be on either end of the spectrum: I’ve used a Rothko Messenger Bag [in khaki], which I love, for weekend trips to NYC/weekend trips in general for the last two years, but I’ve also been known to pack a full duffle (this, in pink and black, which is also what I’ve used for my last three trips; I’m able to pack a LOT into it) for a weekend. Incidentally, that’s the duffle I’m packing for this upcoming week. (Sidenote, I’m also bringing this backpack from LLBean, which I just got in blue and with which I am kind of in love.)

But my point is this: in thinking about packing and making lists and winnowing down lists (Do I really need eleven shirts for six days? No, no I do not), it’s occurred to me just how easy it is to accumulate far too many things.

I recently happened on to the blog Our Little Apartment because I wanted to clarify a cold brew iced coffee recipe, and somehow I ended up reading ~four years of her life. Her blog (which is fantastic, and I now highly recommend it) has such a focus on being frugal without being obsessive about it. I came across a couple of different posts that really resonated with me, from discussing Target as a guilty pleasure and way to kill boredom, to how she allocates her family’s budget, to how she’ll be the bag lady sipping a latte. I’m inspired by her ‘Buy Nothing Month’ posts; that’s definitely something I should do once in a while.

Anyways, my point is this: now that I’m going on vacation for a little less than a week and then will be back and feeling like I shouldn’t spend money, I’m going to say that April will be a ‘buy nothing’ month for me. What that means, essentially, is that I am limited to spending money on only necessary items (food, bills, house items like paper towels, etc.). I’ll definitely do a few posts in April detailing how that’s going. I think, overall, I do pretty good re: purchasing, but there are things on which I should work. I’m also going to limit myself to purchasing at most one coffee per week; the k cups at work won’t kill me if I run out of time to make coffee at home before work.

—

*I left for vacation March 14th. It’s now March 28th. This post was 99% finished and I forgot to add the links and post it. Yes, I am the worst. Yes, I am going to backdate it in about a week but I’m still going to leave these asterisks here. So there’s that.

ps: a vacation post will be up soon. vacation was the most wonderful.