For me, watching television is a deliberate act. I’m not one who curls up on the sofa and surfs channels hoping to stumble upon something that appears interesting or to settle on something that is so obviously uninteresting. Whatever shows I do enjoy get watched online, per my convenience, when I have space in my life for them. The only exception to this rule applies to the NBA. I make my best efforts to watch most games in real-time. (ARE YOU GUYS SEEING HOW AMAZING MY BULLSIES ARE DOING THIS SEASON?! HELLO, D.ROSE FOR MVP ROUND TWO!)

But tonight, as the dark of night got deeper and I found myself tossing and turning in bed; I gave up wishing for sleep, grabbed an orange from the fridge and plopped down on the couch. Did you guys know that Friends now airs on Nick at Nite? Is this real life? Remember when the late night line-up was reserved for shows shot in black and white? How is a show from my childhood old enough to be featured on a network where-once-upon-a-time couples couldn’t be seen sleeping in the same bed? But I digress…

The cliche-laugh-track-fueled-half-hour seduced me in. As I giggled at the antics that took place in Monica’s rent-controlled purple apartment with copper saucepans and mismatched chairs, I began to slowly drift back to the young girl I was when I first watched these episodes. A bright-eyed kid impressed by the lifestyle of these characters whose job’s were a joke, they were broke, and their love life was DOA. As a kid, Friends served as part escapism and part hope.

As the episode continued, I began to remember what this time period had been like. This was 1998, when our biggest federal scandal involved the president’s sex life, when Jennifer Aniston was Hollywood’s golden girl instead of tabloid-fodder, when Cougar Town didn’t exist. This was when there was no war, no $13 trillion dollar deficit, no 8.5% unemployment rate, no housing collapse. We lived in a Disneyland of sub-prime mortgages and college loans, APR financing and shopping malls and our Boomer parents waved their magic Mastercards and told us that, someday, we could be anything we chose.

Suddenly, in this moment, this Friends episode started to become so much more to me. That’s just like me isn’t it? Taking something frivolous, enjoyable, and exacerbating it into something bigger, greater, bursting with meaningful undertones. This old episode featuring Ross flying into a public rage when someone steals his gravy-soaked turkey sandwich took me back to a time where the only thing I believed in was possibility. Exactly what I needed to remember now that the beginning and endings of my days are blurring together, my needs are ranked lowest on my list, and where work is consuming almost every waking moment. I’m reminded that as a young girl, sneaking upstairs to my room to catch the next installment in the Rachel/Ross love story, this is exactly what I imagined.

I imagined the thrill that would come from doing creative work that I would be underpaid for. I imagined all the sleepless nights I would endure because my thoughts would be far more interesting than anything I could ever dream. I imagined meaningful conversations with my own vapid self-absorbed Rachel and a burgeoning romance with my very own charismatic but slightly sardonic Chandler. I imagined my 20′s bursting with in-cohesive but enchanted moments of stress, delirium, and true bliss.

This little late-night getaway is taking me back to a time when my own adulthood was as much a fantasy as that half hour on NBC. Though stock-piled with pretty people in flattering lighting, Friends isn’t about success. This sitcom illustrates that even in our wealthy, sushi-eating daydream, life wouldn’t be perfect. But each moment would be worth it. And I think tonight, in the midst of my own personal, wonderful, professional hell, this was exactly what I needed to remember.

All these years later, as an adult, Friends is still providing me with a little bit of escapism and a little bit of hope.

I want to share something that Oprah wrote as it mirrors a lot of my own sentiments:

Of course no one knows what will actually happen in 2012, but one thing I do know for sure is the power of intention. And I intend to approach this year as one of great promise. I’m going to do my part, within myself and within the world…, to bring about a shift that lets us live more authentically, more lovingly, more intuitively, more creatively, and more collaboratively.

I choose to see it as the dawning of a new year of alignment, because with alignment comes enlightenment. When you’re aligned with your heart’s desire, when you’re in sync with who you’re meant to be and how you’re supposed to contribute to our magnificent Earth, you feel a shift in perception. You start to notice that miracles show up regularly.

Some people call these miracles coincidences or serendipity. I like to call them marvelisms. Because when I’m doing everything I’m meant to do to keep my mind, body, and spirit whole (which for me means meditating twice a day, eating healthy, and exercising at least one hour daily), I constantly marvel at how other experiences fall into place. It’s as though that beautiful line in Paulo Coelho’s novel The Alchemist comes true: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

I try to take no encounter or experience for granted. Everything happens in accordance with how we think and what we choose. Yet I do marvel that life, year after year, keeps revealing the best of itself—if we’re willing to see it that way.

Mmm, yes, captures everything doesn’t it? Wishing all of you true enlightenment and a blessed year bursting at the seams with love and success. Let’s make this one a magnificent one! xo

p.s. sorry I was MIA for a couple weeks, went vacationing for awhile! Full recap coming soon!

I’ve been thinking about relationships a lot lately. The push and the pull, the selflessness and the needy. How to make it all work, how to ensure that it lasts forever, how to open your heart up and let someone in. Into every corner, every crevice, every happy place, every dark place. How to unravel my emotions, thoughts, and feelings that are wrapped so tightly around a colorful spool. How do I turn and continue turning, exposing each part of myself before the end of the line is finally reached. Letting someone in that deeply and that completely, it sounds terrifying and yet exhilarating.

A good relationship should make you feel empowered. You should be magnified by your presence in a couple, supported endlessly. Communication, commitment, all necessary components to battling the ups and the downs; combatting all the ebbs and the flows. Laughing, continuously, consistently, for always.

But how to fall? How to get to that place? How to trust feelings that have betrayed you before? Gut instincts that proved to be wrong, inaccurate, far off the mark. How to look beyond a history, only to trust this moment. Our presence, here, in this space of time. What does this moment feel like? Are you ready to leap? To risk? To dive in, head first, soul wide open, to offer your bleeding heart?

Are you ready to open your arms and let someone lie in them. Share in the misery and the fear. The trials and tribulations of all the minutes that are strung together to create days. How do you know? How do you know you’re ready? Can you feel it? Growing in the pit of your stomach, the excitement, the anticipation. Can you let yourself go to it? Lose yourself in it.

The worries, the concerns, the beginnings, the endings, the in betweens, compounded with confusion, propelled forward by interest and fascination.

Trust. Trust. Trust.

Now, fall.

(What do you guys think constitues a successful relationship. What’s necessary? What’s essential?)

I usually just savor it by the spoonfuls or as a side to fruit or pretzels (ha, as a side, yea right) but lately, I’ve been trying to incorporate it into other tasty treats. My first experiment was to make Self Frosting Nutella Cupcakes. I came up with the idea mid-afternoon on a Sunday and needed something that was quick before people came over for the Bears game. The whole process took me no longer then 30 minutes so it’s now my go-to recipe for when I need something fast and easy.

ready for baking!

Ingredients

**I had some leftover cake flour sitting in the pantry so I used that instead of flour but I’m sure the results would be similar if you just use regular ol’ flour.

Method

we're so ugly but we taste soooo good.

All those warm feelings seem to evaporate as we trample on each other to score the best item. But in an effort, to maintain the feeling of gratitude all year long, I signed up for www.happyrambles.com a couple months ago. Basically, it took Oprah’s idea of a gratitude journal and brought it to the web. Every evening at around 7 or 8 pm, I get an email from Happy Rambles that asks me to list five things that I was thankful for that day. I respond to the email and it stores all my lists online! You can even attach photos if you want to remember something particularly special and it will be stored for years to come.

I think it’s a great little site that helps keep life in perspective on a daily basis. I highly recommend signing up so that you can stay thankful for your blessings all year round. Even on days when life feels not so spectacular, there is always something to be grateful for.

Happy Rambling!

xo.

All of my history is tied to yours. Our milestones are the same, birthdays just a couple months apart. You grow and I grow, too.

Our skinned knees would take us higher and higher on the swings. I was flying so you were going to fly, too. Tired, you were going to drink Sunny D, so I was going to drink it, too. Exhausted, we’d dress our barbies in the living room of my house. You accidentally streaked her hair with green glitter, I was so upset with you. But then I took the same green glitter stick and ran a streak through the hair of your barbie doll. If my doll was a rockstar then yours had to be, too.

You put your Barbies away. The Barbie Dream House came undone, put into storage. I outgrew mine the same day, too. Placed them in an old pink backpack and stuck them in the back of my closet. I bought you a stuffed animal for your birthday, two months later, you gave me one too. I displayed it on my bed as you did with the one I gave you.

I’d get mad at you. You’d get mad at me, too. I’d pack my suitcase and leave your room and sit in your mother’s room, crying. I’d write a note to you, saying sorry, you’d write one for me, too. We’d pass it underneath the door. First, you’d come to me and then I’d come to you. Scraps of paper covered in raw childhood emotions. I’d bring my suitcase back in your room.

All my history is tied to yours.

We’d start our plan early in the day. You know, the plan to get our parents to let us have a sleepover. You lived an hour away from me, I an hour away from you. Some days my dad would get you, somedays your mom would get me. Driving all that distance, every weekend, just so that we could do everything, together.

We’d laugh, loudly. Always waking up our parents. We’d laugh for days and fight for hours. This time you left my room and sat crying in my mother’s room. I still wrote the first note. You’d come to me and slip it underneath the door and I’d come to you. Different house, same game. What goes for me, also, always went for you.

We’d eat ice cream, late at night, while watching a movie. Scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough, one cone for me and one for you. Still hungry, we’d warm up a hot pocket each, perfect how they came in two’s. Take our plates and our softest blankets and climb the trampoline outside. We’d lie on our backs, staring into the night sky, talking about the future when’s and what if’s.

All my history is tied to yours.

You bought make-up. I was with you, but this time it was just you. Even though, I shortly followed after you. You put eyeliner on my lids and I put together outfits for you. I bought black heels and this time you did, too. You started driving, I was still a bit behind you. But you always drove to see me, until I could drive to see you.

We traded our skinned knees for broken hearts. I cried and this time you didn’t cry too, you yelled. At him. And then when you cried, I yelled, too. At him.

I was growing and you were growing, too. I came to your high school and you would come to mine, too. You always laughed the hardest with me and I with you, too. We traded matching Happy Meals for matching bowls of Clam Chowder every Friday. If I’d get a bowl, you’d get one, too. If you were craving chocolate cake after, I’d want it, too.

You bought me a Burberry scarf for my birthday, I bought one right back for you.

All my history is tied to yours.

College started. We’d study together. I’d get a latte, you’d get one too. I’d bring one of my friends and she would become yours, too. You’d bring one of your friends and she’d become mine, too. I’d always introduced you as my best friend and you me, too. For twenty years, what I thought of you, you thought of me, too.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, you got engaged. I didn’t. You got married. I didn’t. You moved away. I didn’t.

You were growing. And I wasn’t growing, too.

I went through a hard time. You didn’t experience one, too.

You didn’t talk to me. I didn’t talk to you. I missed you and you missed me, too. You felt alone and I did, too.

Time passed.

I made other connections, you did, too. But I’d always think of you and you of me. Enough became enough. For me and for you.

You called me. I called you. I cried and this time you cried, too.

Twenty-three years later, when I say your my best friend, you say it, too.

(this post was inspired by today’s BlogHer prompt: “What is the moment that you leave childhood and enter adulthood” , but it eventually ended up taking a life of it’s own, funny how that happens sometimes.)

ohh haiii. I know we're subpar but please love us anyway.

I’m obviously not clever enough to have come up with a cute name on my own so I relied on my journalist-friend-headline-writer extraordinaire, Amina, to help me come up with something. She didn’t disappoint people as we now have, Homebody to Love.

Currently, I’m focusing on selling home decor and wall art. Thus far, I’ve listed several hand-crafted yarn wreaths, hand-painted wall art is coming up next! (As an aside, listing something on Etsy takes a lot longer than you would imagine. So if you’re planning on opening your own shop, I’d definitely recommend setting aside a large block of time to figure out your shop policies, take photos of your items, and list them with effective descriptions.)

I hope you’ll stop by and look around. If you have an Etsy shop, leave your link in the comments! I’d love to check out what you’re selling and add you to my circle! Yeah, Etsy totes went all Google + on us.

Until tomorrow, xoxo!

So moving forward, instead of just trying to get a post out each day, I’m going to try to make it a meaningful one. I’m probably going to fail but I’ll promise to at least try.

Until then, forgive me for this “just for the sake of it post”. In my defense though, I did just get my hair cut and now I need to spend hours staring at myself in the mirror to figure out if I love or hate it. Yes, an incredibly intellectual evening lies ahead for me, guys.

But I’ll leave you with this hilarious image I came across earlier today. See you tomorrow! xox

I’m running a little low on time tonight so I thought I’d share a quick snippet from a gchat conversation I had with one of my best friends earlier. This should fall under the category of “with friends like these, who needs enemies”. haha, just kidding. We do it in love… or so I think.

SEE WHAT I HAVE TO DEAL WITH? God, my life is so hard. I’ll be auditioning for new friends now.

Erm, also, is my banner creepy?? Tell me the truth, don’t worry, I won’t take it personally, promise! I’ll just stop commenting on your blog. jokesss

Hope you’re having a great Tuesday night, xo!

It’s probably her most endearing quality, one that I find refreshing most times, but there are moments where it still catches me surprise. For instance, this waitress was just doing her job of relaying the specials to us; there was some white chocolate macadamia delight and whatever else, and as she was telling us, my girlfriend kept saying things like “Oh, that sounds so gross”. “No, definitely not ordering that” etc. The rest of us kept giving her the stank eye to cool it on the commentary and allow the waitress to finish her list in peace.

When she finally walked away, we all turned on her like vampires on a human (uh oh, the effects of seeing one too many Breaking Dawn commercials) and reminded her that she can’t do stuff like that. The conversation swiftly lead us toward discussing our behaviors with strangers. Many of us agreed, that although silly, we cared a great deal what the random lady on the street would think of us if we passed by without flashing a smile. Or what the man who held the door open for us would think if we didn’t say ‘thank you’. The list went on and my filter-free girlfriend responded with “okay, but are you as nice to your families where it actually does matter”.

I don’t think she meant for it to hit hard but it did. For me at least.

On my drive back home, I considered my reaction. I’m not mean towards my family, in fact we all get along quite well (barring the moments where my mother and I butt heads) but I may not be as kind to them. It’s true that we take out our frustrations on our families because it’s easiest. But when caught up in a bad mood, if I can smile for a stranger, why can’t I smile for my own father? My adverse reaction to her comment wasn’t because of the depth of these actions because, obviously, my feelings for my family and my experience with them isn’t threatened by a passing look to a stranger, but if it’s the little things in life that matter, then it’s precisely those little things that I should focus to change.

Those moments when I’m being a crabass and take it out on my younger brother only to be sickeningly sweet to the telemarketer that calls my cell phone. Or those moments when I’ve had a particularly bad day at work only to come home to avoid all conversation with everyone, even if I made an extra effort to ask the conductor on my train how his day was. Why didn’t I ask my mother that? Moments like these go on, everyday. A few seconds here or there that add up to a lifetime of misguided kindness.

If I can effortlessly muster up a smile when I’m feeling rotten for someone that I will probably never see again, then I can most definitely incorporate these little gestures towards my family and close family-like friends. Here’s to making some little changes that I think will lead to a lifetime of differences.

xo loves.