Weekend Review

I must say that I am really disappointed that I have not been able to consistently update this blog. Life has been in overdrive lately and I can’t say that I hate the chaos either. However, here’s the brief.

Thursday my dad came up to help me move into my new apt. Thank goodness he came because I don’t think I really would have made my April 25th deadline. Much appreciation to Derek (@derekrva) for letting me cut into his work time and dealing with the heavy lifting. Ugh. I really hate moving. Next time we’re hiring movers. I love this apt but shooo, it was pretty crappy that there were stairs and oncoming traffic to deal with.

It’s beginning to come together and I hope to have my ducks squared away for a housewarming gathering this weekend 🙂 But I remind myself to be realistic because I am going to Clemson on Wednesday for the Communication Studies Career Panel and won’t be in Asheville until after lunch tomorrow.

I am still in Charleston, looking forward to a brief introduction in the morning. I am freshly laundered and re-stocked on goodies, so all is well. This weekend was entirely too much fun. It is 11 o’clock and I still have my Alhambra bracelet on. Granted I was on Cinderella curfew last night, which quickly turned into last call after a very long day. I am not sure of the time, when I tucked in, but I was woken up around 5:45 or 6 to shower. I sluggishly obliged and came out to my mom and said, “What am I wearing?” She hands me some clothes and everything was a blur. We drove to Augusta and I was finally able to sleep sometime around Columbia. I don’t think I laughed so hard this month or even last month. Megan and Katie were keeping me stitched up in hilarity between “3 o’clock girls at 1:30”, my running list in my moleskine, the business card swap, and Katie practically reading my thoughts and keeping my lips buttoned before I really embarrassed myself. I saw everyone I have ever known in the past 8-10 years in one weekend. Talk about a blast from the past. As I wrap up another week and my thoughts run together, I prepare for a month. Until my next mental break…

Outland: Charlotte, NC

So after the Orange & White game, I packed the car up and headed to Charlotte to spend Easter with the Kakadelis’. It was nice to “come home” and not feel like I had to see anyone else. Everyone I needed to be with was under the same roof 🙂 I love visiting them because they are the nicest people you’ll ever meet! We stayed up late catching up and then went to church at the Ballantyne Campus where some jokester decided to pull the fire alarm! The kids had to be collected and evacuated from the building and it became chaotic for everyone.  Thankfully, it was in between services and people were already out the door.

On the way back in we caught up with an old friend, who I had not seen since high school. Karl, Brittany, and I served on the Carolinas District Board of Key Club International. We were “do-gooders” to say the least. I believe we would have been flagged as some of the most notorious troublemakers in our  respective states 🙂 It was great to be reunited, just like the old reunions we had outside of Key Club. You couldn’t write a better sequence for a movie, but Karl recognized another fellow Key Clubber in the parking lot. One that was in the Class of Lieutenant Governors before our term. From behind him appeared a wife. Surprise, surprise. Then his mother emerged between two cars with a baby! We were shocked and overly congratulatory to say the least. I promptly dialed our other mutual close friend in Phoenix and left the story on  her voicemail. It was just intense that we saw 2 years of Key Club flash before our eyes in 5 mins. Life comes at you fast!

Anyways, the Kakadelis’ own Outland Cigar which boasts an elite club for gentlemen. Gentlemen such as Tom Petty who owns a Founders’ Locker for his personal entertainment at the Outland Lounge. They can set you up, nicely, with great gift ideas and help you try some new cigars like the Gurkha that I am more partial to. It is like a trip to Tommy Bahama-land 🙂 There are two locations, one in Ballantyne and one on Piedmont Row near SouthPark Mall. The SouthPark location has great chocolates and will have the lounge nearly complete. If you’re looking for a place to play cards, enjoy some scotch, watch any golf, races, or games….Outland is the place for you! They do host some wives’ nights and ladies nights, but memberships are exclusive to gentlemen. Some local restaurants in the area are willing to deliver, so definitely check them out for a new place to meet or have casual business discussions!

Who knows who you’ll run into!

There is something about going home to Asheville. I’ll tell you what, the drive to Charleston is not scenic via I-26. However, the drive from Charleston to HHI through Beaufort, on Hwy 17, ranks on my top 5 views among Hwy 25…all the scenic routes lead to Asheville. It’s funny coming from Charlotte, driving into South Carolina, to get back into North Carolina. I can’t say that I mind it much when I get a preview of the Blue Ridge.

And then the ridgeline really comes up on you and takes your breath away 🙂 I have gone through a whole bunch of mileage. Needless to say, I will be chasing it down with a trip to Charleston and day trip to Augusta this weekend. When this month ends, I will have some reprieve. I hope I can keep myself together for a few more weeks. Although, I find some comfort in the chaos. I have been training myself since high school to manage multiple schedules and attend conferences back-to-back. Maybe I am meant for a more chaotic future ahead of me. If that’s the case, I welcome it with open arms!

24 Things

On the contrary, of a birthday of receiving, this is what I have given back to the universe in the development of 23 to 24.

1. For my “birthday dinner”, I gave a friend a beer as a toast to her camaraderie and gratitude for her listening ear.
2. For my “birthday lunch”, I gave Happy some of my lunch from Doc Chey’s.
3. For the bitterness in my heart, I gave my friends grief.
4. For the solitude in my mind, I laid hurdles down for those who chose to meet me half way.
5. For the sadness in my soul, I gave the world less than 100% of myself.
6. For the tenderness in my life that often comes from solid hearts and good people, I turned a cold shoulder.
7. For the the frustration on my mind, I gave a sharp tongue.
8. For all of the things that will not give back to me, I expended all of my energy.
9. For all of the foolish things I can’t go back on, I give a step forward.
10. For all the barricades I have built, I greeted new friends.
11. For the sake of getting by, I faked a smile.
12. For the sake of getting over it, I am reintroduced to myself.
13. For the sake of being thankful, I am truly humbled.
14. For all the things that can go right, I look for a little wrong.
15. For you to be you, I was not completely me.
16. For the moments of being brutally honest, I was not sensitive.
17. For the times you were being open, I was being closed.
18. For all the laughter I have laughed, I had equal amount of tears.
19. For the days when my heart aches excruciatingly, I strike pain into others.
20. For all the hope I have in the world, I had little trust in others.
21. For all the ways I hope to succeed, I focused on my failures.
22. For all the ways I can change, I haven’t.
23. For all the things I would like to do, I didn’t.
24. For all the ways I can learn and grow, I should do so in the future.

I have a ways to go, but I should hope I make it there someday!

The Maddening Crowd

Have you ever felt like stick in the mud? Or do you understand the “meerkat” perspective when you are extending your neck above the crowd? Apply the “meerkat” view to Pride and Prejudice, when Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bingley, and Caroline Bingley first enter the ball in Hertfordshire. The entire crowd was facing them and Elizabeth Bennet was singled out in that camera angle.

That was my life last night. Everyone was dancing and lights were invigorating the crowd and the beats traveled from your feet into your heart. It was wasted on me. I should have sold my ticket. I just stood there to the point of exhaustion when I vanished and went home. Typical, really, I always pull a Houdini disappearing act. No sight, no sound, just exit. I had a low-key dinner over Mamacita’s fish taco and veggie taco with Ashley Sue over some tallboy Tecates. Basically, I sabotaged the plans that I had, the plans that were altered and plans that never were, to eat something I eat every week at a place that I always patron. Have a slice of the un-birthday cake! Some point in the night I let a ridiculous thought slip across my mind and wanted to reduce myself to tears. I didn’t break down. I was just absent from my setting. Vapid and vacant.

Today, is just a day. A transient day from now until tomorrow, from here until I’m home and when the salt air heals my soul and bandages my wounds. Each breath provides some sort of uplifting spirits to my present disposition.

Happy Birthday to me.

I’ve squandered my to-do list, rather it drowned me

I woke up this morning and needed to put much action to my list. I flipped through this book (image provided by Amazon.com). The author Sasha Cagen has a blog about people’s to-do lists, http://todolistblog.blogspot.com I just couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by my own to-do list. I have a series already from this month that I have, yet, to revisit and scratch off.  So I maintain to feel completely inundated by words on paper that have the power to bully me into pathetic guilt.

Regardless, I am aware of my floundering plate of itemized things to accomplish and hope to consolidate all of my lists in one plate. Awareness is the first step, right? Among the clouds in my sky are work items, event planning items, organizational items, and oh you know sometimes if I can manage to schedule a little happy time for myself–I try to get away with it!

I have filed my taxes, using the Freedom Edition, so my federal and state were free! Except they don’t like you to know it’s available. I read on Abi’s blog that she filed her for free and her brothers for not-so-free. So I just directed a volatile complaint to TurboTax to ask them, “What the heck, man?” and they promptly addressed my concerns. So lo and behold, I was filled in the TurboTax secret. Of course, it’s not easy to find on their homepage. So I shimmied on down to the IRS and followed the “free” trail. Huzzah!! And for those of you who made an AGI <$30,000 can also experience some “freedom”.

Now it’s off to scavenge for quarters and really concentrate on some laundry. I mean it has been officially over a month since my last load and maybe I cheated and did an in-betweenie at a friend’s house during a slumber party. However, I really could go on since I have enough unmentionables to last a few more days, but the weather is too cold to break into my skirt/dress collection. I really am in dire need of denim and pants, sadly. For once, it’s not the unmentionables!

So I am sitting on Patton Ave. and hear, you know, the typical Irish song on bagpipe. So I look out for a parade and guess what I saw! No kilt, no herds of Irish lassies prancin’ down the street, but a young lad who is very talented to play the bagpipe like someone out of the Hibernian Society. Then, I smiled because there is youthful appreciation to long-lasting tradition. In these little moments do I really treasure Asheville and it’s quirk, sadly, this town seldom fills tremendous and overflowing joy in my heart. I will give it chance to win me over again.

Happy Pi Day!

Feb. 20, 2009: Season 1, Episode 1

Hi, I know it’s not February 20 anymore, but for this blog it was the conception of an idea. It has taken me 6 days to pen thoughts to blog. This is not real time.

The short end of it is, Molly was packing up her desk and she said, “This is sad”. I replied, “Oh my gosh, this is like on The Hills when Whitney goes off to NY and Lauren is saying goodbye to her in LA! Except I am Lauren because you’re leaving me and you’ll be making more chedda than me.” Molly was an intern, like Lauren was, and I had been around this sensible block for 7 months. Regardless, our characters were juxtapositioned and she left me. She left me thinking…I should write a blog about my life in The Villes. Why is Asheville near Burnesville and Weaverville and Hendersonville?
So here I am, writing a blog about my “new” life in Asheville. New is such a relative term, I have been living here since the end of June 08. It just sunk in–I live here. Granted, I am from Charleston, another magical place where there is some beat in the city to chase…and detoured to Clemson, Go Tigers! So from here, I may travel in retrospect to some stories of yesteryear. I did write a blog in 08, but that died when I took vacation leave from my job called life, or lack thereof–some call it “unemployed”, and went to California and Hawaii. Essentially, it was a major turning point in my existence and I just haven’t caught up to recording my life story. My other blog was weak sauce anyways because I was dissecting emotions and figuring out my niche in the neighborhood of life.

I hope to improve on communicating my thoughts, sharing my stories, and touching a nerve with someone in the great open. Life here ain’t no beach, but is it really ever??