the good ol' days.

unless you live under a rock, you know that the office ended forever on thursday.  it was my all time favorite tv show for sure, and like many other fans i really felt like i had a bond with the show.  so i delayed watching the finale for a few days, thinking that if i didn't watch it live on thursday then it wouldn't really end, at least not for me.  but yesterday was the day that i finally said goodbye.

i could sit here and write about my thoughts on the finale almost all day, but i know no one would want to read that.  in the last six minutes of the show, the characters gave their last interviews of the 'documentary.'  it was touching, heartwarming, and super sad.  but there was perhaps the line that struck me as a person more than anything else, thanks to the wisdom of andy bernard:

"i wish there was a way to know you are in the good ol' days before you've left them."  

i sobbed for a second and kicked my husband's leg on the couch.  we have had this discussion many, many times i feel like.  it's hard to have that level of awareness to know that you are experiencing a moment that will forever be important to you.  and i'm not talking about big ones, like the birth of a baby or marrying your love.  i mean the little things.

for me, it's the time i spent back in prague.  the day philip and i ditched class and spent the day walking through the city, and we bought loose-leaf tea and walked back to my apartment to drink it and talk.  it's the day that my two best friends and i took a plane, a bus and a train to meet our three best guy friends in venice, and we walked down the middle of the street with our giant backpacking bags to our hostel, which was actually a b&b super far out of the city.  it's the time we threw a party to say goodbye to our friend j's last newport cigarette, because that was all he smoked and you couldn't buy them in prague, and his supply from home was gone. 

i can honestly say that i think i have that gift, thanks to my deep-rooted penchant for nostalgia [to a fault sometimes].  the last time our whole crew had dinner before our last night bar-hopping, i had to excuse myself from the table, and parked it on the curb outside the restaurant to cry.  i knew that the upcoming goodbye with people who i felt knew me best would be one of the most difficult things i'd ever have to do.  i knew what was coming and what i had experienced in the past few months, and i even knew that what i would see in the coming months in prague wouldn't be as perfect.

PI and i discuss this because where i have that ability almost too soon, before the goodbyes even come, his is delayed.  very delayed.  it wasn't until seven months later that he finally was hit with the fact that we will never go to those same places with those same people, that it would never be the same.

photo from my good ol' days, with my bestest crew, rome 2006.

but andy's words were just perfect.  and they speak to the tendency of people to look ahead to the future and to back to the past with rose-colored glasses, rather than enjoying what they have at that moment. 

after i heard andy's thoughts and sobbed a little more, more poignancy came.  the last words of the show, again, seemed to speak to me, especially together with what andy had admitted.  pam had the honor of ending the show with:

"there's a lot of beauty in ordinary things. isn't that kind of the point?"

as my girlfriend W put it, those words need to be framed on the wall of everyone's home.  as a reminder to live in the present, to admire the beauty of mundane moments.  because it's there, if you look hard enough.

to hear andy + pam's words for yourself and catch the last few minutes of the office, check out hulu.  and grab a box of tissues.

til next time...

REAL life, unedited.

a great reminder for today.

guys, i read this today and i LOVED it.  it's on instagram's envy effect.  oh wait, here's yet another link to it.  because.  it.  kicks.  ass.

if you aren't going to read it, here's a little summation.  it's about the snippets of lives that we see on the internet.  and about what we edit out of our status updates, what's just out of the corner of that square crop on your photo.  it's incomplete.  they are moments that are highs, which is why we want to share them.

but what about all the other moments?  the photo may be of the great outfit you picked out today, but what about the days you don't get out of your sweatpants?  niequst [the author] also points out the happy couples that don't share their fighting, or the great meal you made but not the mess to be cleaned up. 

again, these are the moments to be shared.  no one wants to see your dirty dishes.  no one wants to see you in sweatpants [i mean this mostly to myself, as a reminder].  the things you want to share with other people - and strangers in some cases - are the highlights of your life, of the things you do.

but the result?  it's that everyone lives perfect lives without those tense, awkward, heartbroken moments.  that spouses don't fight, that chicken doesn't get burnt, that you don't have bad hair days.  it's just not realistic.  and part of the point of increased networking is to be there for one another, is it not?  to share in times of joy and triumph, but also help one another when things aren't going their way. 

there are days that this social-media-filter really effects me.  days when i would get a negative pregnancy test yet again, and hop online to see four more girls who went to my high school were pregnant.  days when i would feel so fat, being unable to get my skinny jeans to make me look skinny thanks to my fat bulge, but would see a girlfriend in a bikini with her perfect flat belly.  days when i would be feeling a little lazy, just lounging around with the tv, and would see a facebook friend out in front of the coliseum.  it makes you feel bad.  people have topped documenting their struggles, and the result is facebook news feeds and pinterest home pages and instagram shares filled with just successes.  and if you are down, it's easy to be knocked further down looking at what everyone else has and you don't.

i know i am guilty sometimes.  i look at it as sharing my high points, the things people will be interested in.  and fights i may have with pi, well, those are personal.  but i try to branch out, too.  i recently started sharing about our infertility issues, i blogged about the outrageous stress of going back to school while working and volunteering.  and i want to continue to blog about the challenges i face, as well as the high points i have.  i don't think i'm as bad as some [helloooo, i instagramed a pic of my busted-up knee last week], but i could make some improvements too.  i want to be real with everyone.  i want them to know the highlights as well as, sometimes, the low points.  

i'm making some changes to my blog, and one of the changes i want to make is to be more forthcoming.  to share with you all a bit more of me [yes, there IS more], and to be real.  to share my struggles so i can connect with people and help participate in a community; one in which we share our high highs, but our low lows as well.

post something REAL today.  put it out there, on some social media platform you use.  step out from behind the veil of perceived perfection.  it doesn't have to be a secret, just something real - piles of laundry, or the pizza you ordered in for dinner because you didn't cook a martha-stewart-style meal.  it will be refreshing, i promise.

here's my SOMETHING REAL today:
my blood results from last week reveal that i am still pregnant, according to my hcg levels.  pretty disappointing.  should all be done by now, but it isn't.   so i have to go get by blood taken yet again at the end of the week.  and let me be a little bit more real by telling you that i don't do well with needles in my veins.  i've puked half of the times my blood has been taken since this pregnancy disaster began.  so i don't know where this leaves us or what will happen after i get my blood results at the end of the week, but it's disappointing.  and i wasn't going to share it because... i don't really know.  i just wasn't.





til next time...

on being cute.

you know what, it's tough to be a girl, to be a woman sometimes.  i was thinking about this a few weeks ago, flipping through the february issue of glamour, featuring zooey deschanel.  she had this little gem to say:

'i'm just for being myself.  there is not an ounce of me that believes any of the crap that they say. we cant be feminine and be feminists and be successful?  i want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking peter pan collar.  so fucking what?'

i read this quote from ms. deschanel over a month ago, and i've been thinking a lot about it ever since.  it wasn't until i watched the oscars last night that i really felt motivated to write about this topic yet again: body image.

her quote, to me, epitomizes a struggle i have felt for a long time.  i have always had my own style that i like and that i feel secure in.  but the one time i had a very hard time looking like myself was when i was shopping for a wedding dress.  see, i had decided years before what dress i would wear.  i was maybe in high school or early in my college years, and i was flipping through lucky magazine, and i just saw it.  i wasn't even dating at the time, but i tore the page out and kept it.  so as soon as philip + i set a date for the wedding, the first thing my mom and i did was try on my melissa sweet wedding gown.  when i put it on, i felt like myself.  i looked like myself - not like someone trying to play dress up.  i instantly knew it was the dress.

my dress!

but i struggled for months before finally deciding to buy it.  why?  because everyone told me that i looked so 'cute' or 'adorable' or 'sweet' when i put it on.  i was never beautiful, or glamorous, or sexy.  i wanted, just for one day, to look beautiful.  but the truth was, that just wasn't me.  over time, i accepted that and bought the dress i wanted.  and on my wedding day, i felt like i looked like myself, and my dress fit my personality and our wedding just perfectly.

me in the dress.

however, the issue of cute v. sexy is something i still come back to quite a bit.  i am 28 now, and i am not beautiful, i'm cute.  and you know what?  i'm finally, 100% ok with that.  in fact, i LOVE it.  but in our society, in our american culture, you still have to have the perfect figure to be called beautiful.  remember that lovely girl zooey i was quoting above?  well, a certain word has been coined to describe her - adorkable.  which i absolutely detest, more than anything.  when she walks the red carpet, why isn't she described as gorgeous?  can't a woman be sexy or beautiful even if she isn't willing to be slutty?  no.  she buttons it up and puts on glasses for time to time - which earns her some weird hybrid word between dork and adorable.  pathetic.  and mind you, she's a tiny thing.  but she's secure with who she is, and i love that about her.

work that buttoned up collar, girl!

the truth is, to me, i wish most other celebrities could be more like her or these beautiful ladies below.  i wish everyone could be secure enough to just be themselves and stop trying so hard.  trying so hard to fit into this box that has been created for women, and stop cutting down other women who don't fit inside that box.  it's unhealthy. 

so, on that note, i'd like to share a few other of my girl heroes, besides the fab ms. deschanel.  

adele

'i don't like going to the gym.  i like eating fine foods and drinking nice wine.  even if i had a really good figure, i don't think i'd get my tits and ass out for no one.  i've seen people where it rules their lives, you know, who want to be thinner or have bigger boobs, and how it wears them down.  and i just don't want that in my life.' 

'i like looking nice, but i always put comfort over fashion.  i don't find thin girls attractive; be happy and healthy.  i've never had a problem with the way i look.  i'd rather have lunch with my friends than go to a gym.' 

'no matter what you look like, i think the key is to be happy with yourself.' 

queen latifah

'i had to grow to love my body.  i did not have a good self-image at first. finally it occurred to me, i'm either going to love me or hate me. and i chose to love myself. then everything kind of sprung from there. things that i thought weren't attractive became sexy.  confidence makes you sexy.' 

maya rudolph

'for me, i feel beautiful when i'm just resting.  i think that's when you really get a chance to sink into your own skin.'   

'i don't look my best when i wake up.  but, i do feel beautiful when i'm tired and happy and i've had a good laugh and a glass of champagne.'

gabourey sidibe

'people always ask me, ‘you have so much confidence. where did that come from?’ it came from me. one day i decided that i was beautiful, and so i carried out my life as if i was a beautiful girl … it doesn’t have anything to do with how the world perceives you. what matters is what you see. your body is your temple, it’s your home, and you must decorate it.'

amy poehler

'when you feel really  crappy about your body or how you look, sometimes a good way to help yourself out of it is to have some gratitude.  if you can go around your body and kind of thank it for what it gives you and thank yourself for your great eyesight, or your think hair, or your nice legs, or your strong teeth or whatever it is that you have that you were given.'

tina fey

'now every girl is expected to have caucasian blue eyes, full spanish lips., a classic vutton nose, hairless asian skin with a california tan, a jamaican dance hall ass, long swedish legs, small japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of michelle obama, and doll tits.' 

'don't worry about trying to change  opinions.  do your think and don't care if they like it.'

mindy kaling

'since i'm not model-skinny, but also not super-fat and fabulously owning my hugeness, i fall into that nebulous 'normal american woman size' that legions of fashion stylists detest.  for the record, i'm a size 8 (this week, anyway).  many stylists hate that size because , i think, to them, i lack the self-discipline to be an aesthetic, or the sassy, confidence to be a total fatty hedonist.  they're like 'pick a lane.'

[stepping off of soap box].  on that note, i want to say that yes, some women are naturally slender or like being fit, which is wonderful.  i think everyone should be at a healthy place, inside and out.  to me, it's about being happy and healthy however you look. 

hope this is a good way to start your monday long with looking at the best red-carpet looks from last night [which i will also be doing too].

i guess the sun of california really is doing me some good :)

til next time!

off the wagon & loving it.

for those of you who read fairly regularly, you may remember that not too long ago i blogged about the paleo diet.

well that's over.

truth be told it's been over for quite a while... about three weeks.  i was on the diet for about a week or so and lost four pounds, but it just wasn't working for me.  i had hoped that paleo would help me with some health issues i had last year, but after looking more into it i learned that it wasn't giving the proper calcium or vitamin D to a woman of my age and health concerns.  so screw that.

now to venture somewhere i don't think i've ever really gone before... my body.

if i am being totally honest - i've just never been a diet person.  i do enjoy eating healthy, and for the most part most of the foods that i love to eat on a day-to-day basis are pretty healthy.  i love fruit, i don't eat much meat and really do enjoy my vegetables.  but on the downside is that i am italian - which means some form of carbs at every meal, and no shortage of cheese either.  and now that i am home all the time, i have really enjoyed cooking new and more complicated recipes, and even baking - which is something i could never successfully do before [side note: now i am only semi-successful].

now, i don't have a perfect body.  but generally speaking, i am happy with how i look.  i am happy with my dimensions.  i am a curvy girl, but in a 50s pinup kind of way [i like to think].  i'm not overweight and have a healthy BMI, so i can enjoy the bit of excess that i do have.  i don't believe that a full life should have too much 'nos' on it... no carbs after lunch, no eating after 8, no fried foods, no sweets.  that's just not my style.  i don't eat dessert every day, but i like knowing that if i see an old-fashioned doughnut, i'm gonna eat that bad boy. 

nor do i enjoy the regiment of having to go to the gym every day.  i love having a healthy lifestyle, but for me that's jogging when it's nice out and hitting the treadmill when it's not [and i feel like it].  it's swimming as much as i can in the summer, and relaxing my body, mind and spirit with yoga.  do i want a bikini body?  bet your ass i do, but i'm just not one of those girls who is willing to give up everything to have it.  and i'm becoming more and more ok with that as i get older.

my weight has never fluctuated a huge amount.  yes, i still have some clothes from high school that i fit into.  but i've gone up a few cup sizes and my ass has definitely filled out.  but i am pretty happy.  i don't believe in scales in the house [much to pi's annoyance] because i think that if you can look in the mirror and like what you see [and of course are healthy], what else matters? 

for the record, i did yoga and ran two miles today.  and i plan on doing it again soon - but after i take the weekend off and eat homemade spaghetti tonight :)

and just to prove i'm not full of it, here's a shot of my bikini body from last may i hid.  you can tell it is very impromptu by my less-than-smiling face. 

tomorrow i will probably wake up, feel fat, and delete this post.  but today i feel pretty great.

til next time...

balanced goals.

what a boring blog post title, right?

last year i mentioned that i don't do new year's resolutions.  thanks to my mom, i do something called balanced goals and objectives for the coming year.  they are so much better than resolutions, because they aren't big pie-in-the-sky unachievable wishlist type of goals.  they have to follow a certain criteria.

S - they must be specific

M - measurable, so you know if you've achieved it

A - they have to be achievable, not too out-there

R - realistic [see above]

T - time-based for quantifiable results

there are six different categories plus three additional categories that may not fit other goals.  there should be at least one goal for each category, or as many as you want.  

career/financial - can be both business + personal

relationships - family, friends

well-being - health + physical condition

spiritual - spiritual + intellectual growth

personal - what are you going to do for yourself

what am i going to STOP doing this year?

what am i going to START doing this year?

what am i going to CONTINUE doing this year?

so they sound kind of labor intensive, but it's not that hard.  i mean, think about a typical resolution: 'i want to lose weight,' or 'i want to cook more.'  what is more?  what is exactly losing weight?  making goals that are specific and measurable are so much easier to achieve. 

this will be my third year of making these goals.  and to help keep myself on track, i thought i would share some with you [but some i am keeping to myself ;) ]

career: find a fulfilling, meaningful career using my new degree

relationships: see my brother at least once a week, trip out to nyc at least once per quarter

well-being: run a 5k

spiritual: find an organization to volunteer with in boston within my first three months here

personal: cook at least 3x a week

wild card: make photo albums of all our trips [carried over from 2011 's goals!!!]

what am i going to STOP doing: stress eating [big vice of mine]

what am i going to START doing this year: surprise pi at least 2x a month with something special

what am i going to CONTINUE doing this year: blogging - upping it to at least 3x a week

hopefully this will help keep me on track.  i have a lot of things i want to do this year, and i want 2013 to be MY year.  now that school, the election and everything else has settled down i am so looking forward to a fresh clean slate.

feel free to take the SMART criteria and make your own goals + objectives... and stick to them.

have a happy and safe new years eve all!  see you in 2013!

til next year...

thanks, robert ingersoll!

i was hard at work on my political philosophy paper last night, and i wanted to share this beautiful quote from robert ingersoll.

while i am opposed to all orthodox creeds, i have a creed myself; and my creed is this.  happiness is the only good.  the time to be happy is now.  the place to be happy is here.  the way to be happy is to make others so.  this creed is somewhat short, but it is long enough for this life, strong enough for this world.  if there is another world, when we get there we can make another creed.  but this creed certainly will do for this life. 

awesome.  i can't believe that i went to school to study stuff like that.

and no, i didn't finish my paper yet.  the writing stage is totally done - but it just has to be edited tomorrow before i turn it in.  then i will truly breathe my huge sigh of relief.

sunday evening deep thought.

you can't be a man.

don't even try.

be a woman.

it's powerful business when done correctly.

thought of the day, courtesy of mad men.

photo from http://jensonjane.tumblr.com/

letting go.

yesterday was a rough, bittersweet kind of day.

not only was it 9/11, which i know brings back nightmarish memories for people all across the globe. i know it does for me. but i buried a friend yesterday.  watching his family mourn was heartbreaking, and i know their grief is beyond words.  the service was very nice and we had the opportunity to sit and listen to his family, siblings get up and share their memories of him, which was kind of wonderful, while we all tried to grapple with the conclusion that this was really happening.  he was 26.

but as in many horrible situations, there was a glimmer of happiness.  there is a happiness, for me, in seeing so many of my classmates.  some people i didn't recognize, some people who looked just like i  remember them, which i loved.  it was so awesome to hear how well some people are doing and where their life path has taken them.

for me, high school was another life.  a lifetime ago which included many people who aren't involved in my life today.  but as i was surrounded by people that i spent an important portion of my life with, i was undoubtedly reminded of the fact that these people will never really not be a part of my life.   

i wasn't a big fan of growing up in a small town.  everyone knew eveyone's business and you couldn't go anywhere at all without seeing someone that you knew.  all i wanted to do was get out and leave the people and place behind.  and i went very far indeed, going as far as eastern europe to try to find the truth of my life.  and after years away, when my life path took me back home along with my husband, i didn't have any plans on integrating my past life with my new awesome one.  but just a few week in to being home, a good friend from high school died (yes, another one, this was 3 years ago), and i was thrust back into my high school world.  to put it lightly and briefly, i didn't handle it well.  and this time, i was actually able to enjoy my high school friends company and look back with a smile, somewhat, on my high school life.

but as i slide back from my past life into my current one, i can't help but wonder: how do we integrate  our past lives into our present one?

all these people - an old best friend i've grown apart from, a high school sweetheart, an older friend who got me through my first two years of high school, a boy who i spent a brief amount of time with but who dared to share his soul... while they may not have big parts in my life now, they will always have places in my heart.  and i am finally at a place where i can look back with a smile, and let go of past angers and heartbreaks. 

they don't all fit in to my life now, no.  but they are part of who i am, and many of them helped shape the person that i became, and i carry that with me always. 

just in time for my 10 year high school reunion.

wolves

hi all. i hate to say it, but i need to get into some personal (and depressing) stuff today.

i woke up this morning to the heartbreaking news that a friend of mine from high school passed away.  out of respect i won't go into who or how or why, but no matter the means, that is the end.

but it got me thinking about bullying and judgment of others. i've seen bullying throughout my life, as everyone else has.  and i have been in both sides of it as well.  but as we get older, bullying takes on different, more complicated and evil forms.  it's not just about making fun of someone's old used backpack, or bad haircut, or whatever kids target.  it becomes about judging people's choices and labeling them, sometimes even writing them off completely.  and the fact of the matter is that  (yes, i know this is cliche) it's impossible to know why people make some of the choices they make.  it's been a journey of life lessons as well as education that i have learned this.  it's easy to judge the homeless person on the corner, asking for money.  it's easy to pass by and not give up the other half of your sandwich or the extra $5 in your wallet.  but how did they get there?  sure, in some cases it could be bad choices - but what led them to those choices?  what past hurt or pain led them to make those choices?

everyone has as path.  i believe that the major points are laid out for you, how you get to those points are up to you. i believe there are some people who aren't meant to be a part of your journey, or perhaps just play a small part.  and those intersecting paths  may be cut off in clean. breaks or rough, jagged, painful edges.  but i guess what i am trying to say is that we should never judge someone else's path.  there are people that are only supposed to have in our lives for a short time, and after that, our paths lead in diffent directions.  they are not for us to judge, just for us to accept and move on.

that's about it for me today.  pretty much listening to this song on repeat today, so enjoy.  and please be nice.

til next time... xoxo