April 2013: Midwest

I haven't gone on an 'airplane' trip since last April and this makes me sick.  just a few years back I was traveling upwards of six times a year on an airplane--going through bottles of Valium just to muster up the courage to actually get to the airport and spending thousands and thousands of dollars on credit, which I am still paying for, just to be able to go shopping in Paris or zip lining in Costa Rica.

That last paragraph actually made me gag at how immature and overprivileged I just sounded.

Well, then, at the beginning of last year, on the cusp of my 30th birthday I got all self- righteous and vowed to eat a ton of kale and to never use a credit card again. Thankfully the latter stuck and I am not only almost (almost!!) finished paying off my debt but I am also pretty much land-locked when it comes to going places and doing things ('sorry I can't spot all 10 of us and buy these concert tickets and just have you guys pay me back whenever you feel like it and then inevitably spend the cash on wine and/or more wine').

No more shopping either. Which means I am now down to like one bra an a pair of moccasins that I can't stop wearing...out of comfort and because all my other shoes are two seasons ago (immature/overprivlidged).

I DIGRESS

So it's vacation time, and I've earned it, and if timed properly, I will have my tax return to get me through it. I got to pick where to go for this trip and I am extremely excited to be able to cross this off my wish list: Mt. Rushmore!!!!! I know it may be nerdy as all get out but BUT I seriously get nerd chills thinking about how massively bizarre it must be to go and see those guys up close and personal. It's ok that I can only name three of them off the top of my head, it's also ok that I had no idea that to go there we'd be in...South Dakota? Needless to say, I can't flipping wait and we've built in some pretty rad road trip pit-stops and this is where this blog post is going to get interesting (I promise).

I have fan-girl love affairs with the following three 'things' (for lack of a batter word): shipwrecks, preferably abandoned/ abandoned creepy amusement parks (and the lore that surrounds them) and...weird kitschy roadside attractions.

Think Muffler Men and giant monuments to yarn or light bulbs. Mystery holes and fairy tale forests. I still own, and actively peruse, pretty much every issue of Weird NJ and I'm certain that's where my love for offbeat sites stems from. A few years back I was begging Ryan to go to Marfa, TX just to see this.

So- I need your help--anything offbeat I should check out in CO, WY, SD, NE? So far I made promises to myself to go see some additional large busts of President's past  in Hermosa, SD (you can climb them...how fucking cool/weird!)

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Montpellier

I was able to convince Ryan to paint the living room as part of my 'it's a new year let's do new things' goal. I became mildly obsessed with this color when I read about it in This Old House magazine. The walls were previously the color of frozen chicken nuggets. I hated it...and it made me hungry. (PS- that image is unfortunately not our home)

Vintage: Board Games

Last year I started collecting some vintage board games (check out a post about it on my old blog).

I will regretfully admit that I've played them...never? On a drunk Sunday night while waiting for Mad Men to start, Ryan and I and a friend of ours played Go For It and giggled a ton about what people seemed to be 'going for' in the 1980's...namely jet-skis. But since then, these guys have been gathering dust.

Then, today I was on this pretty great website that my sister shared with me and low and behold, a fab idea...frame the actual board of the board game! 

Doing this over the weekend with my vintage Clue set...

2012 in Review: in books, in houses, in food

Pretty much the only thing I have been diligent about when it comes to blogging is not actually writing anything at all. I have had 900 starts, stops, switch to this platform, switch that one, only talk about this (everything else is boring), only talk about everything (being confined to one topic is boring)...and then I just decided to chill out, write about what I want to write about and that's the end of that.

In blogs past I needed for there to something tangible that was happening. Two years ago on my personal blog I set out to pretty much record every single ting I did on every single day...bananas, boring one's at that. I also started a home/decorating/hoarding sort of blog about my very first 'by myself apartment' but, I wasn't constantly painting or hanging curtains for that blog to gain any momentum. Ah, then I moved from the city to the beach and wanted to try a whole home-y sort of 'this is my quaint life with bicycles and pots of soup and what have you'...that didn't work either. THEN, for a class I was taking at NYU, I started a blog about vintage and antique home wares  This actually, finally, proved to be fulfilling until the professor turned out to be a giant dick and I had to bow out of there so I could get my refund in time.

Needless to say, I am back to blogging about all of the above, none of the above, you name it!

To start- I kept a list of books I read in 2012 and hey skew very YA (what?):

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? -Mindy Kaling

Funhouse- Diane Ho (don't even ask, I loved it as a kid and sold it in a garage sale/left it on vacation so rebought and re-read)

A Moveable Feast- Ernest Hemingway

Anagrams- Lorrie Moore

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society- Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows

The Beginners- Rebecca Wolff (read this!)

The Hunger Games

Before I Go to Sleep- SJ Watson

50 Shades of Gray- E.L. James (eh)

13 Reasons Why- Jay Asher

The Road Less Traveled- Dr. Scott Peck

Full Service- Scott Bowers

The Blue Notebook- James Levine (read this!)

Are You My Mother?- Alison Bechdel

Gone Girl- Gillian Flynn

This is How You Lose Her- Junot Diaz

Skinny-Donna Cooner

Member of the Wedding-Carson McCullers

Friendkeeping- Julie Klam (eh)

What did you all read?? I need suggestions for 2013!

Also- I've lately been really trying to conjure up what I was doing, thinking, feeling this time last year bcaeuse I feel like I was in such a great place (although I was unemployed and living at home). So, I have restarted the Whole Living 2012 Action Plan. 21 days of clean eating and no drinking. Day 3 (eh) but hopefully by next week ill be like 'read this!'

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