but first, coffee

oh hello,

this is just a little note to tell you that if you want to continue hearing all the things I have to say then head over to www.katieandemily.wordpress.com where you can not only get my lovely brand of commentary but my bestie Katie’s too! Update your google readers accordingly!

here lies dobby, a free elf.

There I was tonight, wrapped in blankets in the makeshift fort I’d constructed next to my bed. I always have loved tiny cozy places, like say, a cupboard under the stairs. I had my winter candle burning and a fresh cup of tea along with a plate full of sweet potato fries I’d made for dinner. Outside it was cold and rainy and Sufjan’s Christmas album was playing softly over my speakers as I curled up with the massive tome that is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I’ve been attached to the book for two days now, either by audio book as I file things at the office or in my cozy fort until my eyes become to heavy to continue. I’m always surprised at how quickly the strange vocabulary of the wizarding world makes it’s way into my daily thoughts. Like today when I thought “accio phone!” as I searched for it in my purse.  Of course, i’ve read it before but not since it first came out so I thought I should brush up before Friday.

Oh, it’s like reuniting with old friends. I still got goosebumps when Kinglsey’s patronus interupts the wedding saying “the ministry has fallen, scrimgeour is dead, they are coming” and remembered my own horror at reading that sentence on my porch several summers ago. I nearly cried when Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally get Potterwatch over the radio and hear Lee Jordan’s familar voice. And I did cry, wept uncontrollably actually, as Harry dug Dobby’s grave while “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” played softly in the background. I’m completely in awe of J.K. Rowling’s ability to create such an intricate world that though magically is completely realistic. It’s pretty hard to make someone weep over a fictional elf. The descriptions of horcruxes and hallows leave my mind reeling to think it all came from one person’s head. I can only dream of that level of creativity.

That being said, if I want to have it finished by Friday I’ve got to get back to my fort, where my fictional friends are waiting for me, ready to break into Gringotts!

“my real goal in life is just to have a porch that I love”

I met my friend  Sydney because we were in the same French class my freshman year of high school but because there were two Emily’s in the class (story of my life) I had to have a French name so she spent most of that year thinking my name was Madeleine. Eventually, we worked that out and she invited me over to her house which I liked because it was old and she had a claw foot tub in her bathroom. She’s equal parts hilarious and thoughtful and I wish on a daily basis she lived in Columbia because I know she’d love Uprise, Ragtag, and the Katy Trail more than just about anyone. Now she works at a publishing company in Athens and sits on her computer under fluorescent lights sometimes doing work but mostly sitting on gchat. Sound familiar? Chatting with her is quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of the workday, I’ll spare you most of it because it mainly involves a lot of counting down how much longer until 5:00 (shes on eastern time which I find entirely unfair.) but you’ve got to admit, there are some gems here.

on where I live:
“you’re still in Columbia? I thought you moved to fake Kansas.”

on dealing with annoying people at work:
“here’s an email i just received from an author ‘No problem. I have a million things going on, so it’s not like I was sitting here waiting on you..’ seriously?”

on twitter:
sydney: i know two people who use twitter
me: thats so weird, everyone I know uses twitter
sydney: yeah but you also have no ocean
me: a valid, though not totally relevant point.

enjoying our new computers the summer after we graduated high school. foreshadowing?

on language:
sydney: i just tried to use the word minimalize
me: did you succeed?
sydney: no, it’s not a word.
me: seriously? I feel like it should be.
sydney: i know. i was there too, i was there too.

on snacking at the office:
sydney: i’m eating a kashi bar just cause i want the chocolate inside
me: thats totally normal

hilarious, right?  if you’ve ever seen a romantic comedy you know every girl needs an irreverent friend to offer hilarious running commentary of life. I feel like I might fill this position in the lives of several people, so it’s nice to have someone around to do it for me. to her credit, a lot of times Sydney says really thoughtful things, like this, which inspired me to write this post in the first place.

on dream jobs:
me: whats your dream job?
sydney: I dont know. i’m definitely re-evaluating my current track. you?
me: my actual dream job is to be a writer, my realistic dream job is to be a counselor
sydney: my dream job might be a writer, too.
(insert discussion of how poor writers are.)
sydney: my real goal in life is to just have a porch i love.

I’ll leave you today with dreams of sitting on the perfect front porch, drinking tea, and reading something wonderful as the sun sets on this beautiful fall day.

you’ve got mail

{if you’re not part of my family, maybe you won’t find this as funny as I do}

I’ve been getting a lot of packages since moving into my new place. I’ve been justifying it under the guise that you need new things when you move, like a new duvet, and a printer…and floral rainboots. Okay, so maybe i’m slightly addicted to online shopping, you would be too if you had amazon prime free shipping!
Anyway, I wasn’t too surprised when my roommate mentioned I had gotten something in the mail. I hadn’t remembered ordering anything but these days, who knows. Upon seeing the package, however, I was quite positive I did not order it.

This is how it it came wrapped, complete with a Raleigh address I didn’t know. Needless to say, I was starting to get a little uncomfortable. Even more so when I pull out the creepy clown and found out it did this:

By this point, my roommate and I are both sort of jumping uncomfortably around the kitchen. All the plausible options are running through my head, my parents have been known to send me some weird gifts, but demonic clowns have never made the list, plus my mom is too good at wrapping presents to mail something like this. Finally I get around to reading the card, which was folded in half and stuffed into the box (an old walnut container from the fresh market) and lo and behold its a “present” (I guess this is the best word for it) from my Uncle Hunter who is moonlighting at a Halloween store and thought that I would enjoy a terrifying clown toy. Aside from a gift card to Best Buy for Christmas every year my Uncle Hunter has never sent me a gift in my life. I cannot fathom what possessed him to send this, but it gave me a good laugh (and scare)
How does one decorate with a scary laughing clown? Thoughts?

 

anthro life.

If you need me for the rest of the day, I’ll be sitting in front of my computer drooling over this

Anthropologie, you know me so well.
You know that when I see a dress in your store I don’t just think “wow that’s a pretty dress” instead I think “wow thats is a dress I could wear while I browsed the farmers market on a Saturday morning or perhaps while I was perusing a Parisian flea market which we all know I am wont to do on occasion. Yes, I think I will buy this dress, this dress understands me and my values.”
Yes, I was an advertising major and yes I know what they are doing to me through their carefully curated marketing and yes I will continue to sit here right staring at my computer and eating out of the palm of their hand.

impulsive decisions: a success story

time line of my morning at work
8:40 – arrive at work
8:45 – show co-worker how to print an excel spreadsheet
8:50 – alone in the office
8:51 – get on gchat
8:54 – meagan says “you should come to denver the weekend of october 30th …i’m not kidding even a little bit…”
9:00 – looking a flights
9:10 – booked flight to denver
9:10-9:20 – general celebration via gchat with meagan and holly
10:00 – boss walks in and I have to ask for two days off, even though i’ve already purchased a flight. I speak quickly enough that I think I confuse him into agreeing to this.
10:05 – more celebration including an e-mail chain of pictures showing what our faces look like when we think about denver

 

Every working girl worth her weight in paper clips and legal pads needs a good girls weekend every now and then and I can’t think of anything that could possibly beat one that will include climbing mountains (i’m clearly bringing my 2005 kanakuk colorado backpacking award winner medal. duh.), halloween, a birthday party for a girl I don’t know but judging by the description of her party is definitely awesome, sleeping on this girl’s couch, and hanging out with these girls before they leave for Africa!

(fact: this is the only picture I have of all 3 of us, can we please change that this weekend?)

See y’all out west!

working girl

the rumors are true! I’m a working girl now!

though unlike Melanie I ditched the shoulder pads and 80's hair in favor of a demure low ponytail and J.Crew cardigan also I don't work with Harrison Ford

I just completed my first day as office/personal assistant extraordinaire!
This mostly involved a lot of wide-eyed nods and sitting awkwardly at my computer pretending to do something because no one has told me what to do and now they’ve all left the office and every form i’m supposed to sort looks exactly the same. Luckily, there was gchat to keep me company and I received some invaluable personal assistant advice from fellow PA and long distance friend extraordinaire Miss Holly Hereth who told me to “poke around and see what looks chaotic and make a list of what you think could use some help that way if anyone walks in while you’re on your computer you can say, “oh i was just making a list of things that i could organize.” I had already done this (turns out typing the phrase “everything in this office needs to be organized” onto a desktop sticky note takes about 5 seconds) but later when my boss walked in and said “are you busy or can I give you something to do?” I said “Oh that would be great, I just finished making a list of all the things that need to be organized.” He seemed very impressed by this. Thanks Hols!

In addition to providing invaluable advice, Holly also shared her favorite PA story that literally made me laugh out loud at my desk (and by desk I mean conference table because I don’t actually have a desk yet) which I then tried to cover it up unsuccessfully by turning it into a cough. (I’m warning you about the language beforehand but you should also know that I think a well placed cuss word when used in moderation can be absolutely hilarious- plus I didn’t say it, Lauren Bacall did and as far as i’m concerned she can do what she wants.)

holly: My friend knows a girl named Amanda who lives  in New York and is the personal assistant for Lauren Bacall, who used to be married to Humphrey Bogart before he died. anyways, Lauren is in her 80′s
me: Right, she does the commercials for Tuesday Morning!
holly: yes! Lauren was hosting friends for the holidays last Christmas and asked Amanda (the PA) to put a sweater on her yippy little dog because it was getting chilly. so Amanda is trying to finagle the dog into a sweater and is really struggling when Lauren who is in mid-coversation, smoking a cigarette from a long filter (exactly what i hope to doing when i’m 80. or 28.) looks over at Amanda and sighs loudly then says to the guests she is talking to, “pardon me dears, it appears that Amanda needs a fucking diagram to put a sweater of a dog.” the end.

Best thing you’ve heard all day, right? I know.

Thankfully, I experienced nothing of the like on my first day and the people I work with couldn’t be nicer and were so patient with all my questions and blank stares. But this 9-5 lifestyle is definitely a change of pace and i’m completely exhausted which may explain why my dinner consists of a glass of red wine and applesauce i’m eating straight out of the jar. Time to relax by cheering on the East Dillon Lions before it’s back to the grind tomorrow!
Ah, the glamorous life of a working girl!

these are the best things

Here is something you may already know about me (and if you don’t you are about to) when I get excited about something I get REALLY excited. As in, I declare it ” the best thing EVER” and  not only want to do it all the time but want everyone I know to do it too. I think this quality is either very annoying or very charming depending on who you talk to and if you happen to be one of the people who find it to be the former than you should probably stop reading because i’m about to tell you about my most recent “best things EVER” discoveries.

1. Friday Night Lights- I didn’t want to watch this show for a long time because I thought it was about just about football. I was wrong. Friday Night Lights has something for everyone, especially if you really like watching the sweetest high school boy ever take care of his grandma or if youre just curious about what Logan from Gilmore Girls would look like if he became a Christian (hint: ugly sweaters and a bad haircut). It’s impossible to hate and even the worst characters have their moments of redemption which is probably why I’m a weeping mess at the end of every episode. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll care about football, you’ll wish Tim Riggins was your boyfriend and the Taylors were your parents.
Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.

2. The Hunger Games Trilogy-  It’s possible I started the first book yesterday around noon and stayed up until 3am reading well into the second book because I just HAD to know what happened. You’d think I would have learned my lesson with Friday Night Lights, but I didn’t want to like these books either because I swore off anything remotely science-fiction-esque after being required to read “Ender’s Game” in the 9th grade. Plus, the description on the back cover doesn’t really help it’s case “in a postapocolyptic world, children are used as gladiators in a televised fight to the death.” I know, right? But just like Friday Night Lights isn’t really about football, The Hunger Games isn’t really about kids killing each other. Bottom line, it’s a great story and every once in a while you need to read a stay-up all night book because it is one of life’s greatest pleasures. If you’ve been needing to fill the void left by the captivating world of Harry Potter, it should be just the trick.

3. Apple Crisp- If you want it to be really good, make joy’s recipe (I don’t know if its better than any other recipes, but Joy the Baker is my absolute favorite food blog and I feel very strongly that were we ever to meet we would definitely be friends, and she would probably feed me something delicious like maple bacon kettle corn.) Here is the great thing about apple crisp, it’s baking without actually baking. Let me explain, i’m kind of terrified of baking, the whole thing about the ratios and adding baking soda which can so easily be confused with baking powder and do I have to sift the flour before I measure it and how long do I knead the dough for and on and on… are you starting to get the picture? Baking = stress. But not so with apple crisp! You have the illusion of baking, but really all you did was just throw a bunch of delicious ingredients in a baking dish. Want some more brown sugar? Go for it! Big fan of cinnamon sugar? Perfect, throw some more in! Skimp on the apples because what you really like is the topping and not the fruit? Great!  It’s like making salsa, but with fruit and cinnamon. And the absence of stress leaves you free to dance around the kitchen to Taylor Swift. Go ahead, use the spoon as a microphone- no one’s watching.
This is also a good time to mention that I am the kind of person who likes to drink while they are cooking (are there other kinds of people? If there are I am almost positive I don’t want to be their friend.), I usually drink wine because that plus an apron makes me feel very grown-up and domestic (ignore the part about singing t.swift with a spoon microphone).  However, tonight my only option was my old standby- Weach. I know what you’re thinking- Weach could not be more summer and apple crisp could not be more fall. I have to agree with you, but it is September and the high today was 80 degrees. We are right in the middle of the switch to fall so I think if there was ever a day when Weach and apple crisp could coexist in harmony it is today. Lucky me.

You should implement the following 3 things into your life as soon as possible, because i’m not going to stop nagging you until you do.

courtesy of the red white and blue

Happy 4th of July! Hope your fireworks watching outfit is as stylish my grandma’s was!

doesn’t get better than home, now does it?

There are a lot of things I could tell you about my visit to my grandma’s but I think it can be summed up pretty well in this story:
My eight year old cousin Lily had an assignment where she had to write about her family. Most kids wrote things like “my family has three people. my family has a dog. my family lives in a house.” But no, not Lily. She wrote “my family is funny” and instead of a picture of her family she drew herself laughing.

It was the most delightful visit, and not just because my grandma took us to a dive bar next to a creek and ordered an appetizer known as “onion petals.” (And yes, someone did in fact walk in with a baby. Like that scene in Sweet Home Alabama. “Look at you! You have a baby….in a bar!”)
I told you my family was funny.

One of the highlights was the discovery of a bunch of old pictures

These are my grandparents. I think they look so happy in this picture. I’m almost positive that Bing Crosby is playing in the background and grandma has just brought in some carrots from her victory garden. (If it’s not obvious to you, my greatest source of knowledge of the 1940′s comes from Molly McIntire, the American Girl doll)

This is my mom as a baby, my grandparents thought she looked cute when she cried so they made her cry once and took a picture. We were teasing my grandma about it and she finally responded with “Oh for Pete’s sake, it was ONE time!” My grandma loves the phrase “for Pete’s sake,” I heard it often as a child when I would refuse to eat the plate of food she put in front of me because it was either A. touching or B. was not macaroni and cheese. “Oh for Pete’s sake Emily, it’s food!” she would say and I would respond with “my mom never makes me eat things I don’t want to eat.” Then she would turn to my mom and say “Oh for Pete’s sake Susan! She eats like a bird, she’s going to starve to death!” Oh for Pete’s sake is an underused phrase by our generation, in my opinion.

Lastly, here is a card that went with a gift my great grandpa gave to my great grandma Lois. It says, “Lois dearest: may our love and confidence in each other grow, if possible, and last long after this little timepiece has been consigned to other uses. Mac” Such a sweet little sentiment. They later got divorced, which was pretty unheard of at the time, but perhaps she kept him around as long as she did because he was such a good letter writer. I can certainly understand the appeal of that.

I hope that when I’m old and senile and my kids are cleaning out my house they get a kick out of digging up old pictures too. In fact I believe I will tuck away the pictures of my grandma sitting serenely in the bar for just such an occasion.