Corner View : Four-legged

I can't help but be excited about today's topic! I've had pets my whole life- one black lab (Lucky), two chocolate labs (Ceaux Ceaux and Rusty), and one cat (Socks), all outside animals. Now there's little Rufus, the smallest and most social dog of them all, who cannot possibly ever get enough of people and is very friendly with other dogs of all sizes. He's always excited to see you, and I wish I could get half as jazzed about anything as he does about going outside. He loves ice, minty things (is especially good at finding already-been-chewed gum!), or snacks... the latter two of these he finds on his own when we go walking. He's about the most loving ball of fluff you'll ever meet!

Holiday Recap!

Happy New Year!

I went home after finals to enjoy a couple of weeks with family and friends. While I don't have any desire to return there for my own career/life any time soon, I love being from a small town in a region of its own, distinct culture. I love visiting periodically (hadn't been back since May) and seeing everyone I miss the rest of the year. I love eating, seeing what new things have popped up as well as the familiar.

Left: With the Amandas :)
Right: Jordan and Taylor with Nanny, who brought presents!

I spent a few days in Houston and one of the best parts of that trip was that I took my 3-year old godchild to her first movie (Tangled), and she sat on the edge of her seat the entire time. I ate at Armadillo Palace, which had a giant rodent out front. Back home I saw old co-workers and high school and college friends. I went to the shooting range and managed to avoid the mall. My dad even watched the pooch for a couple of days while I visited Baton Rouge, and if you know anything about my dad or his stance on inside animals, this is a pretty big deal. Overall, I had a really nice time and while I wasn't ready to return to DC, it was a pretty fulfilling time in the South. I even did pretty well for Christmas, which isn't the norm once you're past adolescent years it seems. I may've been most excited about my new gumbo pot (or stock pot, as is the non-Cajun name for it ;), but there were some other goodies to love as well. Now I need to make a gumbo!!!

With one of several first cousins, Garrett

And here it is, 2011. A year that begins with 1/1/11 has to be lucky, right? With graduation and hopefully a new job not far away, I'm planning on just that! One more semester to go, plenty to get done in it, and hopefully a lot of enjoyment to accompany the undoubted onslaught of work. I will sit down at some point this week and rework my flowchart of life and probably make some resolutions to fit it.

What was the best part of your holiday? Do you have resolutions or plans for 2011?

Corner View : Anything Goes

Well here comes another week where my only blog is the CV. No time in between to post any goodies! I wish I'd been saving recipes to post. I'll get back to it eventually. Actually feel as though I'm at the right amount of work lately-- not so much or so little that I am not motivated to do or overwhelmed by any of it, but just enough to keep me moving and feeling good about all that's going on.

I've learned a lot this semester both at school and outside of it, but always felt as though I was barely keeping my head above water with everything on my plate. Things seem to be regulating a little bit more now as the semester winds down.

Upcoming things I'm thinking about include the holiday (Thanksgiving in NC and Christmas in La), next semester, moving, and being back in the working world. My concerns with it all are balance at home, fun(ds), enjoying both work and what it allows me to do outside of the 9 to 5, time management, understanding and sticking to what's important. There've been a lot of changes in the past few years-- living abroad, living domestically but far from family and friends, being married, being alone while my husband was in Iraq for 15 months, back in graduate school, in a different city, in student government. All of it carried heaps more responsibility than plenty of folks my age have, some of it wasn't ideal but it has all been a wonderful experience in some way or another. I can only expect the same for the upcoming changes! If you'd told me five years ago what I'd be up to now, well, I can imagine that I'll feel the same way when I look back on now in five years :)

And given today's title, throwing in a photo I took recently outside of the b-school building seems appropriate :)


To see what kind of anythings are going on around the globe, try: jane - ian - bonnie - joyce - kim - kay - trinsch - ritva - francesca - state of bliss - cabrizette - isabelle - janis - kari - jgy - lise - cate - otli - dorte - b - sophie - mcgillicutty - sunnymama - daan - ibb - pienduzz - kelleyn - ninja - sammi - theresa - cherry b - juliette - shokoofeh - cole - grey lemon - lucylaine - lynn - skywriting - anna - dorit - conny - l´atelier - kamana - anne marie - rosamaría - victoria - tikjewit - juniper - annabel - andrea - valerie - merel - soisses - mlle paradis - cacahuete - wander chow - barbara - emily - tally - nadine - matilda - don - flowtops - susanna - tania - dana - ingrid - tzivia - mezza - lollipop - mari

Corner View : Autumn

Well hello from the lovely East Coast! Autumn here is certainly scenic. Although it's prettier as you climb the Eastern seaboard from here (we drove to Connecticut last year mid-October), DC still has some nice colors. And oh the flavors that come out around now-- peppermint (albeit more associated with winter, at least for me) and pumpkin are some of the best things to ever hit your taste buds.

My friend Andy recently came down for a visit. We had a good time during the few hours he was out of the Big Apple. We alert one another each year when Starbucks' Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins make their appearance, and he decided that his *one* for this year he'd have with me. I wish I were as disciplined... We went to three different places to get it, because it's not worth it if it isn't warmed. Here's us being silly on the walk to get the treat. And here's a recipe for pumpkin bread I like to make :)

A friend of mine got some tickets to the White House Garden Tour several weeks ago, so I popped into that for a bit. All due respect intended, it wasn't that great. A cucumber plant in Mrs Obama's garden looks just like one anywhere else, with the exception of the swarms of people photographing it. The flora were nice, but nothing that really blew me away. The lawn looked nice, no doubt, and the putting green was pretty cool. (I recently played golf for my first few times and was surprised at how much I enjoyed the heck out of it!)

Rufus also enjoys this time of year as it's just about the last he'll see of squirrels until after winter. These furry-tailed critters are quite possibly the most exciting piece of his day, with the exception of when my husband or I come home, and he goes absolutely nuts over them-- hops on his two hind feet, restrained only by an owner with a leash, when he sees one on the loose. It's pretty absurd and entertaining. In this photo, he'd gotten up early to peek through the blinds and see if he could find any. You can see the yellow leaves in the crack behind him.

For more autumns around the globe, check out:

jane - ian - bonnie - joyce - kim - kay - trinsch - ritva - francesca - state of bliss - cabrizette - isabelle - janis - kari - jgy - lise - cate - otli - dorte - b - sophie - mcgillicutty - sunnymama - daan - ibb - pienduzz - kelleyn - ninja - sammi - theresa - cherry b - juliette - shokoofeh - cole - grey lemon - lucylaine - lynn - skywriting - anna - dorit - conny - l´atelier - kamana - anne marie - rosamaría - victoria - tikjewit - juniper - annabel - andrea - valerie - merel - soisses - mlle paradis - cacahuete - wander chow - barbara - emily - tally - nadine - matilda - don - flowtops - susanna - tania - dana - ingrid - tzivia - mezza - lollipop

Corner View : Holiday Photos

I've definitely been a backlogged blogger lately!

I have some recipes to share when I get a chance. I'm on student government this year, both for my particular school and then one that's university-wide, which takes 10-30hours per week. I tutor, though that thankfully has been pretty calm. I'm on the committee to search for a new dean, which is amping up. Oh, and I'm taking more than is considered full-time for a grad student. My sweet little dog is definitely a stress reliever when I come home from days full of all of this! I'm not at all complaining, though. A friend recently said he didn't want to serve on student government because he saw how busy last year's president was, and then asked if I enjoyed it. I felt silly not having thought about it, but yes! I really do enjoy it. It's great practice in organization and prioritization, I get to work with folks from all around the school at every level, I have to quickly perceive and understand needs and then communicate responses. It's a pretty exciting, rewarding role. I don't think I could have something this time consuming outside of a career, however, so grad school is probably the best time for it all.

I've recently been doing some self-evaluation, too. I realized that I work a lot. I never felt as though I worked a lot because my perspective is jaded and it's taken me more than a couple of decades to figure it out :) I also have come to understand myself better in that I do what's in front of me, rather than putting in front of me what should be. If e-mail's in front of me, I write them. If my homework is, I work it. If dirty dishes are, I clean them. I've started to write numbers next to items on my To Do list in order to give myself the "okay" to move onto something else. It's about prioritizing and knowing what's important, not just treating it all equally. And one other thing I've noticed is that it's hard for me to feel proud of something unless I've gone overboard. When I work in a group or when I put thought into a gift, I often don't feel as though I've done enough to be proud of unless I've gone over the top, "just to be sure," and have some sort of cushion of overdoing. I'm not quite sure where these latter two things come from, but I suppose the important part is in realizing them.

And so part of what all of this rambling brings me to is that I have my holiday cards for this year in already. Yep! Ordered them in September. Call me a nut who can't prioritize, or an overzealous Christmas card sender, or a bargain hunter (20% off email is what motivated me! That and already having the "Cmas 2010" album with photo options started...), but they've been created, ordered, and are sitting on my desk in the box awaiting addressing and some jolly red and green stamps. I can't spoil the mail for those receiving them, so after all my rambling, you'll still have to wait to see them!


To check out holiday photos from around the world, check out:
jane - ian - bonnie - joyce - kim - kay - trinsch - ritva - francesca - state of bliss - cabrizette - isabelle - janis - kari - jgy - lise - cate - otli - dorte - b - sophie - mcgillicutty - sunnymama - daan - ibb - pienduzz - kelleyn - ninja - sammi - theresa - cherry b - juliette - shokoofeh - cole - grey lemon - lucylaine - lynn - skywriting - anna - dorit - conny - l´atelier - kamana - anne marie - rosamaría - victoria - tikjewit - juniper - annabel - andrea - valerie - merel - soisses - mlle paradis - cacahuete - wander chow - barbara - emily - tally - nadine - matilda - don - flowtops - susanna - tania - dana - ingrid

Annapolis

In order to get in some "us" time before school starts, we drove up to Annapolis for part of today. The weather was in the 70s, partly cloudy, 10mph winds; in other words: perfect. My hub could've spent all day in the various museums, just not the art ones. I could've walked along the streets, window-shopping and gallery-gawking until the cows came home. So our styles of playing tourist are different, but we managed to have a nice time walking around Dock and Main streets and visiting the Maryland State House, having a sushi lunch.

I have a thing for harbors. I don't know what it is, or why, but anywhere I go that has a harbor I just want to stop, take photos, stick my toes in, and just sit around and observe. There seemed to be more yachts in this harbor than in others where you might expect a lot, but there were also plenty of sailboats, whose masts are what make harbors prettiest to me.

Of course, when you hear "Annapolis," most people think of the Naval Academy. (GEAUX ARMY!) I found a cute photo in a shop window that I loved-- a woman in her Navy whites with her legs crossed in a sea of men in theirs, seated uniformly, assumedly for a school function. You can sort of see my reflection in the lower corner of the shot.

And, perhaps appropriate for such a day spent, given that this photo was on our Save The Date magnet, is the article on the cover of the Times this morning: Nurse Tells of Storied Kiss. No, Not That Nurse.

Corner View : Summer

A few photos from the Martha's Vineyard excursion last weekend pretty much sum up summer's excitement thus far :)

__
Bryan and me after the first ferry. _________________________ Bryan, Nick, me, Jane after a dinner of
I was also wearing SPF 100+. ____________________________________homemade mussels.

Bow Candy : Samantha, Amy, Jane, Heather, me, Nick, Kelly

Learning to tie a tie with Vineyard ______________Bryan, Nick, Tim, all in purple, in
Vines pink, blue and green material ____________________the dinghy named "Puck."

only seems appropriate. ________________________________

See what summer offers around the globe by checking out:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele,

caitlin, joyce, ani, kim, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t., jeannette, outi, ritva, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, denise, cabrizette, bohemia girl, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, janis, kari, jgy, skymring, elizabeth, allison, lise, cate, otli, ida, lisa, dorte, kimmie, nicola, vanessa, britta, april, b, kyndale, samantha, kristina, goldensunfamily, sophie, mcgillicutty, aimee, sunnymama, britta, juanita, inna, daan, myrtille, cris, ibb, jodi, gillian, travelingmama

athena, pienduzz, kelleyn, demara, mus, ninja, guusje, di, sammi, theresa, cherry b, victoria, lisa, liza, juliette, mulot, lucy, leonor, elizabeth, helene, shokoofeh, cole, jenna, podane, grey-lemon, line, nihal, inner toddler, puna, lucylaine, adrienne, lynn, skywriting, eliane, the wanderer´s daughter, carole, anna, dorit, kenza, sherry, conny, susan, l´atelier, elis, kamana, anne, rosamaría, marinik, elisabelle, victoria, malo, the yellow door paperie, tikjewit, juniper, ocean girl,
emily, marcie, annabel, andrea, valerie, karin, michelle, merel, pia, soisses, angie, adèle, latisha, mlle paradis, 24 ruel, cacahuete, wander chow, debra, linnea and emily, barbara, emily, maryline, tally, therese, nadine, matilda, don, cheryl

The Vineyard

One of my good friends in graduate school is a native of Martha's Vineyard-- Edgartown, to be exact. His name is Nick and he wears the original Nantucket reds that very few people understand the origins behind, and can't get enough whale polos, seersucker, or madras anything. I tease him about his undying, exclusive love for blond women. He's an exceptionally social kid and an entertainer at heart, never turning down a drink or an invitation, as it may somehow expand his network. And in line with him keeping this up, several friends and I (at least one of them is blond, probably my all-time grad school favorite-- Kelly-- and she will undoubtedly be our bow-of-the-boat candy) are going to see what it's all about. Tonight we're off to Martha's Vineyard! I haven't ever been, but I grew up on the water-- albeit in a much more humid place-- and am very much looking forward to seeing what experience my pal exchanged in place of meeting Obama last week.

My dear friend Julie is camping out at my apartment to do some language studying for work and watch my sweet little fluffball. It was going to cost a fortune to board him, or be pretty challenging to get him to someone else to take care of for the weekend and then get him back in time to get to obedience class on Monday. Now, everyone wins!

We'll all spend the night in Boston, then ferry over in the morning. Our itinerary includes sailing to Nantucket and having a good ole New England lobster boil and clam bake. We're promised to meet some cool local folks, and I'm told that Meg Ryan shops at the same grocery store. Whatever works!

A photo labeled "MV happy place":

Corner View : Bliss

This week's theme seems pretty broad to me, so I've decided to make it also the name of my latest jewelry creation. Bliss earrings by CB :)

That's right, today's CV is a giveaway! These earrings below can be yours simply by commenting by Tuesday, June 16 at 9pm Eastern. Make sure I have a way to contact you so that I can mail them your way. I'll choose a winner before the next Corner View.

Please excuse the photo quality! These are about 2" from top of hook
to bottom of ocean blue crystal gemstone. The two top beads are freshwater
black pearls. Homemade by yours truly, great for a fun summer outfit!

For other worldly interpretations of bliss, check out:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele,

caitlin, joyce, ani, kim, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t., jeannette, outi, ritva, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, denise, cabrizette, bohemia girl, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, janis, kari, jgy, skymring, elizabeth, allison, lise, cate, otli, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, nicola, vanessa, britta, april, b, kyndale, samantha, kristina, goldensunfamily, sophie, mcgillicutty, aimee, sunnymama, britta, juanita, inna, daan, myrtille, cris, ibb, jodi, gillian, travelingmama

athena, pienduzz, kelleyn, demara, mus, ninja, guusje, di, sammi, theresa, cherry b, victoria, kathryn , lisa, liza, juliette, mulot, anne, lucy, leonor, elizabeth, helene, shokoofeh, cole, jenna, podane, grey-lemon, line, nihal, urbaNiche, inner toddler, puna, lucylaine, adrienne, lynn, skywriting, eliane, the wanderer´s daughter, carole, anna, dorit, kenza, sherry, conny, susan, l´atelier, elis, kamana, anne, rosamaría, marinik, elisabelle, victoria, malo, the yellow door paperie, tikjewit, juniper, ocean girl,
emily, marcie, annabel, andrea, valerie, karin, michelle, merel, pia, soisses, angie, adèle, latisha, mlle paradis, 24 ruel, cacahuete, wander chow, debra, linnea and emily, barbara, emily, maryline, tally, therese, nadine, matilda