a search for authenticity
We are loving our weekly potluck dinners! I’ve decided to start a page on my blog about potluck. You can go here to find out about upcoming themes and share recipes.
This week’s theme is pizza!! I think it will be my all-time favorite.
Yesterday Dan & I went down to Williamsburg to meet up with his parents who were there for the weekend. It was a beautiful drive followed by a yummy lunch at the Mother In Law of the Year awards banquet. After lunch we spent some time browsing through the stores, which fueled me with ideas for some jewelry and handmade gifts I want to attempt to create this holiday season.
Saturday night was game night at a friend’s house. I was the champ, walking away with gold medals in Apples to Apples and Cranium Pop 5. I also snuggled with a pit bull.
This morning I pulled the heathen card and skipped church. It was a much needed few hours at home alone. I did things like laundry, go to the store and snuggle with cats.
Twice this weekend I was the recipient of once-loved, but now unwanted clothing from female friends. I love receiving handme downs! Even when I still lived at home I would take my sister’s clothes when she grew tired of them. Now I have added a few pretty shirts and skirts to my wardrobe that will be perfect for work. To compliment my new clothes I bought 2 pairs of boots today and made myself a matching necklace & earring set over the weekend.
I also kicked ass in fantasy football. Man Eaters #1!!!
Here’s what I did today:
- Got up early and went to the gym before work.
- Ran into Fat & Sassy friend, Alisha, at gym and worked out together.*
- Home to shower, eat 2nd breakfast, and break my hair dryer.*
- Work, with damp hair.*
- Lunch. Tried to plan leaving for lunch at the perfect moment, but timing was off and I got caught in the rain.*
- Work, round 2….colder & wetter.*
- Ran out of work and sped up I-95 to get to Beads, Bangles, & Bitches before their 6pm closing time. (I know I said I don’t want to shop there, but I really needed some beads and this is the only place that I know has what I needed.)
- Was practically pushed out the door at 5:55pm by the Beads, Bangles, & Bitches staff.
- Pushed out the door…into the pouring rain.**
- Changed out of wet shirt and into dry fleece….while in car.*
- Went to Target looking like a drowned rat.*
- Received a compliment on my Etienne Aigner shoes, which made me smile because these are the most grown-up shoes I own.*
- Shoe compliment turned into a long conversation that resulted in me figuring out this kind lady was a job recruiter.*
- Bought a new hair dryer.*
- Home to delicious Amy’s Pizza.
- Now I will knit & watch Coupling with Dan until I fall asleep.
* indicates damp events that were
** indicates events that resulted in extreme dampness.
I’m in need of a good bead store. I have been getting my beads at a certain store in Carytown, but I’ve had too many bad experiences there and want to take my business elsewhere. So, if you know of a place to get pretty beads and good customer service, please let me know.
Our potluck dinner for this week is going to have a Mexican theme. Chips, salsa, burritos y mas, on Thursday evening at our house. Show up anytime after 6:30. Hopefully we’ll start to eat a little after 7:00. We’ll eat, chill and watch The Office.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Dan just read this to me from the Simple Way’s website:
“Try reading only female writers for a year (since many of our problems seem to be stemming from men).”
I’d love to see any of my male friends commit to this, if even just for 3-4 months.
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.
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.
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.)
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