nephews, in my opinion, are simply lovely.
yes, there is that small reality that exists where you think "these are not my kids, so therefore i can allow them to do things or tolerate things that they do that may bug their parents."
but the larger reality is what a joy these little ones are BECAUSE you get them in little snippets. they don't keep you up at all hours of the night, they don't require much of you by way of changing diapers and doing laundry. there is that. but it's more. nothing compares to my three year old nephew, who is EXTREMELY independent, reaching up to hold my hand not because he needs to, but because he wants to. the adorable way he has been taught to say "excuse me, daddy" when my brother is talking to someone else. and of course my brother always answers him when he's interrupting politely.
i love the way he notices and remembers everything. many months ago we were in the van together, which required me to lean up from the backseat to be closer to him by the way, to search for tall towers and he still remembers this. he also called my dog his best friend yesterday (mind you, the contractor visiting their house last week was his best friend) and he told his mommy that he missed me last night. he (almost successfully) walked my dog and does give the very best hugs ever. i love that he asks me to sit by him for dinner and i sort of love that i can still pick him up to show him the cupcakes in the display case....i know these types of moments are fleeting for sure.
the one year old nephew has been sick a lot lately, but his small personality is beginning to come through. he's an observer. he saves his smiles and reactions - for now - and is in the I Love Mommy the Most phase. but he's cute and sweet and i can't wait for him to keep growing and changing. and i'm pretty excited for when he starts talking.
in sum: i love my nephews.
Monday, March 04, 2013
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
going to Texas!
i'm going to Texas for work tomorrow for a few days and i couldn't be MORE excited. Austin/San Antonio have been on my "top 10 list to visit in the US" for a LONG time, so i'm super stoked to being going. more to come!
Monday, January 21, 2013
human.
today, i officially feel like a human again.
follow me.
i have a job, which i may have mentioned a time (or 17) that seems to consume my life during roughly 8 out of 12 months of the year. the other 4 months are just a bit more sustainable/normal but it's still stressful and busy during those months, too.
so, i met a TON of deadlines - finally - but not all of them. and i worked all weekend at my school so i decided to have Work Lite today. i emailed minimally though i didn't put the out of office assistant on. but i also ran some errands....
and grocery shopped....
and got dog food...
and ate lunch with a friend without feeling like a rushed maniac.
i got to see another friend and the cute boy she is a nanny for. and i made food in my crockpot for this week and walked my dog at a leisurely pace and saw a movie (Silver Linings Playbook) without feeling guilty about NOT working all night.
and, i felt normal. and lucky. and thankful that i was able to do what i wanted when i wanted, without any MAJOR interruption. which is a miracle in my mind.
follow me.
i have a job, which i may have mentioned a time (or 17) that seems to consume my life during roughly 8 out of 12 months of the year. the other 4 months are just a bit more sustainable/normal but it's still stressful and busy during those months, too.
so, i met a TON of deadlines - finally - but not all of them. and i worked all weekend at my school so i decided to have Work Lite today. i emailed minimally though i didn't put the out of office assistant on. but i also ran some errands....
and grocery shopped....
and got dog food...
and ate lunch with a friend without feeling like a rushed maniac.
i got to see another friend and the cute boy she is a nanny for. and i made food in my crockpot for this week and walked my dog at a leisurely pace and saw a movie (Silver Linings Playbook) without feeling guilty about NOT working all night.
and, i felt normal. and lucky. and thankful that i was able to do what i wanted when i wanted, without any MAJOR interruption. which is a miracle in my mind.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
bad blogger loves fall turns into winter...what?!
i need to get back on the wagon, friends and with the new (and LAST!!) semester of school about to start and work (hopefully) about to be a BIT slower in the next few weeks, i am nearly positive that i can get a bit better.
so, i thought i'd start with a Year in Review type post.
1). my favorite movie was Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. there seem to be like 13 movies in theaters currently that i just am in need of free time
2). while i didn't get to travel too many exotic places this year, i was able to do my several trips back to Ohio, a couple of trips to see my friends in Florida, Asheville NC, and visited Cape May, NJ for the first time ever; what a lovely place that was.
3). i got to see some rock shows: Coldplay, my Avett Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, and the Lumineers/Dave Matthews just recently. all extremely good experiences.
4). life: consisted mostly of 3 grad school classes, commuting 2 hours to work a time or two a week, working an insanely busy job and attempting to stay sane from the juggling act of it all. the good news is that i made it and i hope to never recreate the busy-ness of that 15 weeks; there is no bad news.
5). i have friends and family who make me happy and keep me grounded and let me know they care and love me. for that, i am grateful.
6). i haven't been posting quite as much on the blog mostly because of point 4 above. however, i started another blog with some friends (a private one, just more or less for the 4 of us to keep in touch about being single and dating, etc) and for some stupid reason when i write on THIS blog, it comes up as "world class single" who is posting. that is the name of the other blog. all of the girls are spanning parts of the globe, so i created the "world" part, they are classy and, well, we're single. and it really bothers me that it publishes here as "WCS" instead of Tropy Life. i'm TL, darn it.
7). i haven't really ever used this blog to talk about my dating/love lives, but i have been dating a guy for about 4 months. i think in some ways, it's at a pretty typical we've-been-dating-for-4-months-stage... still a bit new, but not totally so, and the true colors are coming out. i have no prediction about which direction this relationship will take. we shall see.
8). in what i think was/is the weirdest story of the year regarding the single/dating situation is that i randomly met a pilot on one of my flights to Florida. he was living in Texas. we chatted, he ended up delaying his own flight (he was a passenger, not the pilot) for 5 hours to sit and chat with me for another 45 minutes before i ended my layover and took my next flight. we stayed in touch via phone and he actually came to see me for like 12 hours one day in the late summer. then... he fell off the face of the planet. i truly was not affected the greatly, it was just one of those odd things that i accepted as, well, odd.
9). my gray hairs seem to be multiplying these days.
10). i resolve in 2013 to: buy no clothing with stripes on it, get into some type of better shape and possibly run the Columbus (OH) half marathon for a third time this spring. my school/work/balance in the next few weeks will determine whether i get my act going, but i'm hoping i can do it.
happy 2013!! i got into this year with a bit of an indifferent attitude for some reason, but want to determine that it is a year of positive change. for myself, my family and friends/loved ones. i am feeling change on the horizon. new jobs, houses, babies, etc.
Saturday, October 06, 2012
bad blogger loves fall.
life is busy. it is for E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E - and i'm no different from anyone else on this. but i'll say that relative to any other busy phase of my life, this one tops the charts. I commute 2 hours to and from work a couple of times a week, i take 3 graduate courses, i have an internship for masters program requirement (LAME, but a good experience), and have a really really really full-time+ job. it's just a lot.
but there are good things. like impromptu visits to see 2 nephews on saturday afternoon when work ends. there are new things that are fresh and growing and in the works and old things that are still old things. current to-do lists like crazy. and i feel like the ball will drop at any moment on something; i'm truly juggling.
but..... i'm surviving. i'm relatively calm and peaceful MOST of the time. i know that this season/semester that i dreaded for so long is about halfway over and I'm. Doing. This. there were times this summer where i almost had myself talked into quitting something or prolonging my degree for an extra semester, but in the end i just wanted to plow through. knowing that people can do anything for a season and many people suffer through much worse. all of my stuff is easy compared to what some others are facing through.
so, life is full. and mostly of good things. and, as noted in the title, I Love Fall. there's not much else to say - perfect temperatures, leaves becoming more beautiful as they are dying for the season, plans coming up that are small and not that exciting but good.
and i just liked the quote at the top. so i wanted to post it here so i would keep it. it was a pinterest find, of course, and i do still love The Pinterest. i think i've pinned 1 million worth of calories in "recipes i'd like to try out" so now i just need to find the time to try them out. but fall does make me want to "nest" more and get ready to snuggle in for the winter. funny, seeing as how i live in Virginia.
and that is this month's version of your very ADHD-scattered-random Trophy Life post.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
i bought this dress. and i like it.
i'm excited for it to come to my mailbox
i do most of my shopping online these days; it's just easier for my schedule
this dress makes me really excited for fall. i envision it with a cute necklace and my brown knee-high boots
that's all.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Jessie.
i'm not even sure what direction this post is going to go in. but i need to write and elaborate. and put this down somewhere.
i was at a coffee shop today waiting to meet 2 of my friends for lunch. i was an hour early, so took some books and my laptop and was trying to get some work done, while semi-people-watching (the usual).
there was the couple to my left, sitting at 2 different tables while each listening to their music through headphones and randomly checking in on their research projects or whatever they were doing separately but together.
the table to my right was first full of 2 couples and one young baby. i believe the second woman must be VERY newly expecting, as talk was about ultrasounds, morning sickness and switching to cereal in the 4th or 5th month. the likely-expectant-mother-from what-i-could-tell looked a million miles away. i couldn't tell if it was because the parents of the baby sort of seemed like know-it-all Perfect Parents or what? but something was off. that table then filled with some older ladies chatting about this and that.
but, at the table right in front of me, right in my eyesight, sat a man maybe around my age and his mother. he walked by and greeted me. he had a noticeable physical disability, but it wasn't easy to tell at first glance if it was something from birth or from something else. he asked me how i was and i said "fine" and i asked the same back and he said, two times, "better than bad". and we made some small talk about his response and laughed and that was that. he greeted several others, and the thing about these types of interactions for me, i realized, is that OTHER people's discomfort is obvious and it makes me cringe.
he later asked me what i was reading/studying which led to a conversation between the 3 of us about higher education, our lives, the politics of it all, etc. My friends arrived one at a time and I tried to wrap up my small talk with the new people. Which became difficult. Jessie, I later found his name, was staring. RIGHT AT MY HEAD. And his body was perched right to the left of my friend, so as I was looking at her, I could just feel Jessie's eyes searing into my forehead or eyes or whatever.
when i got up to leave the table and order my food, i heard his mother beginning to lecture him. something about if he wanted to have a 2-way conversation, then that was fine, but..... i got too far away to hear the rest. he came to apologize and said that his mother was getting on him about staring at me. but that he came to apologize, which gave him another excuse to "look into my beautiful eyes". again, i was patient and accepted the apology graciously. well, i thought i did anyway.
i forget what happened in the next few minutes. but i attempted several goodbyes with Jessie before he finally began telling me that he was in a horrible, traumatic car accident on May 19, 2007. he said he had a horrible brain injury (the worst of them possible) and that he felt lucky that it happened to him. that it made him smile. i completely respect that Jessie shared that story with me although i couldn't exactly tell what the intention was. was he embarrassed? did he want me to know that he was "normal"? i can't tell.
i really mean to say that there were several attempts at goodbyes. and i think his mother was getting annoyed. at one point he referenced that she was his "pawn" in getting to talk to me or something like that. Jessie came to my table then and, in front of my friends, insisted that i write down his phone number.
and i did with that phone number what i would have done with probably 99% of other phone numbers that would have been given to me in that manner: i threw it in the trash. half of me wanted to be that person who kept that number and called Jessie and met him for coffee and invested something of myself in another person. and half of me just felt annoyed and confused and tired. of phone numbers and time investments and.... i don't know.
i can't even articulate a take-away from today's scene. i don't know why our paths crossed. maybe they'll cross again, maybe they won't. i feel badly that i'm not 100% the person who could take that phone number and call it up one day and make a new friend. but i didn't feel compelled to do it.
i know what the take-away is: i hope Jessie is okay. i hope he finds what he's looking for in life and i hope that people are kind to him and that he is oblivious when they are not, though i know that is wishful thinking on my part. i hope his mother takes care of herself. i know that she probably never planned for her son to need her as much as he does for so long in this life. i think they both had other plans. and i admire them for their bravery in the face of tragedy.
that's all.
i was at a coffee shop today waiting to meet 2 of my friends for lunch. i was an hour early, so took some books and my laptop and was trying to get some work done, while semi-people-watching (the usual).
there was the couple to my left, sitting at 2 different tables while each listening to their music through headphones and randomly checking in on their research projects or whatever they were doing separately but together.
the table to my right was first full of 2 couples and one young baby. i believe the second woman must be VERY newly expecting, as talk was about ultrasounds, morning sickness and switching to cereal in the 4th or 5th month. the likely-expectant-mother-from what-i-could-tell looked a million miles away. i couldn't tell if it was because the parents of the baby sort of seemed like know-it-all Perfect Parents or what? but something was off. that table then filled with some older ladies chatting about this and that.
but, at the table right in front of me, right in my eyesight, sat a man maybe around my age and his mother. he walked by and greeted me. he had a noticeable physical disability, but it wasn't easy to tell at first glance if it was something from birth or from something else. he asked me how i was and i said "fine" and i asked the same back and he said, two times, "better than bad". and we made some small talk about his response and laughed and that was that. he greeted several others, and the thing about these types of interactions for me, i realized, is that OTHER people's discomfort is obvious and it makes me cringe.
he later asked me what i was reading/studying which led to a conversation between the 3 of us about higher education, our lives, the politics of it all, etc. My friends arrived one at a time and I tried to wrap up my small talk with the new people. Which became difficult. Jessie, I later found his name, was staring. RIGHT AT MY HEAD. And his body was perched right to the left of my friend, so as I was looking at her, I could just feel Jessie's eyes searing into my forehead or eyes or whatever.
when i got up to leave the table and order my food, i heard his mother beginning to lecture him. something about if he wanted to have a 2-way conversation, then that was fine, but..... i got too far away to hear the rest. he came to apologize and said that his mother was getting on him about staring at me. but that he came to apologize, which gave him another excuse to "look into my beautiful eyes". again, i was patient and accepted the apology graciously. well, i thought i did anyway.
i forget what happened in the next few minutes. but i attempted several goodbyes with Jessie before he finally began telling me that he was in a horrible, traumatic car accident on May 19, 2007. he said he had a horrible brain injury (the worst of them possible) and that he felt lucky that it happened to him. that it made him smile. i completely respect that Jessie shared that story with me although i couldn't exactly tell what the intention was. was he embarrassed? did he want me to know that he was "normal"? i can't tell.
i really mean to say that there were several attempts at goodbyes. and i think his mother was getting annoyed. at one point he referenced that she was his "pawn" in getting to talk to me or something like that. Jessie came to my table then and, in front of my friends, insisted that i write down his phone number.
and i did with that phone number what i would have done with probably 99% of other phone numbers that would have been given to me in that manner: i threw it in the trash. half of me wanted to be that person who kept that number and called Jessie and met him for coffee and invested something of myself in another person. and half of me just felt annoyed and confused and tired. of phone numbers and time investments and.... i don't know.
i can't even articulate a take-away from today's scene. i don't know why our paths crossed. maybe they'll cross again, maybe they won't. i feel badly that i'm not 100% the person who could take that phone number and call it up one day and make a new friend. but i didn't feel compelled to do it.
i know what the take-away is: i hope Jessie is okay. i hope he finds what he's looking for in life and i hope that people are kind to him and that he is oblivious when they are not, though i know that is wishful thinking on my part. i hope his mother takes care of herself. i know that she probably never planned for her son to need her as much as he does for so long in this life. i think they both had other plans. and i admire them for their bravery in the face of tragedy.
that's all.
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