Good morning! It’s been a while, yeah? Sorry for that. Wanna catch up?
Grab yourself a cup of coffee!
We got a French press lately, and I am loving it. It’s not something I have time for on weekday mornings, but boy do I enjoy my Saturday coffee. Josh digs it, too. This morning it’s Larry’s Beans Cowboy Blend. I made it a little strong, but I’ll survive.
So life! Right? I’ve been hard at work at my new job — early mornings and close to regular hours took some getting used to, but I’m loving it so far. I am a little concerned over how out of control my coffee habit is getting…I’ve started switching to tea after noon in an effort to wean myself off of the sweet, sweet java.
I’ve decided something. Before July 17, 2010, I want to take a class in / start learning American Sign Language. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for years, and I’ve decided that this is the year to start. It’s a long shot, but do any of you have resources to recommend?
As you may have noticed, the try it diet sort of…died. It was a quiet death — definitely more a whimper than a bang. It died in Auburn, AL at a restaurant called “Cock of the Walk.” It was done in by fried catfish, fried pickles, cornbread, and the death blow came from warm, gooey blackberry cobbler. I’m not ashamed — I think I got a little too ambitious. I am still on a quest for more natural, healthy foods, and I still want to start COOKING more. But I’m not going to saddle myself with a bunch of rules. Personally, I’m most inclined toward Michael Pollan’s simple three: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
So! How have YOU been? What did I miss? Fill me in!
I was doing some image research at work today — specifically looking at “The Saturday Evening Post.” I was reminded of how much I love creamy, Rockwell-ian images like these. Do you ever get the feeling you were maybe born in the wrong decade? I do.
I think I was meant for Rockwell to paint, fair skin and rosy cheeks and thick glasses and all.
(PS. I ordered some new dorky glasses last week and I can’t WAIT to get them in and show them off. We’re talkig trés geek.)
So Josh and I headed to Charlotte yesterday for an engagement party for some dear friends. We packed our bags and our puppy and hit the road – and I realized that we drive a LOT. Like. A lot a lot. Like, 12,000 miles on our car since October a lot. We’ve probably spent as many weekends out of town as we have in Asheville. You can see in the video below that I started to catch a little bit of road-trip crazy yesterday.
We’ve both been falling more an more in love with Asheville, and I think we’re going to start trying to spend more of our time here. We live in a great city! And we don’t have much room now, but we’re hoping to move house-ward in October, so we’ll have room to host visitors! We can be the ones other people travel toward! It’s really exciting – I’m ready to focus on being a grown-up and making a house a home for us.
(June wallpaper courtesy of this Smashing Magazine post.)
So far, I love June. Thunderstorms, sunshine, pool parties, cookouts (and all those delicious grilling smells that follow), the MEAT I’m allowing myself to eat this month (I’m lookin’ at you, bacon). Yup. June is turning out to be just my style.
Jennifer and I got to visit the Lee Walker Heights Community Garden on June 1. Earth Fare Westgate has partnered with the Girl Scouts this quarter, and this community garden has been one of the fruits (no pun intended) of our partership. On this visit, I got a guided tour of the garden. The girl scouts also taught me the surefire way to tell you’re doing a good job in your garden (hint: it involves hands that smell like poop!).
My first day as Web Content Producer at Earth Fare is Wednesday AND I’m off this Saturday and Sunday! I’m telling you, it’s a good time to be Corley May Cole.
(This post originally from the TRY IT diet blog, found here.)
So it’s the 31st and I’m proud to say I made it!
I won’t say I was the most creative or that my diet was the most varied (I ate more of our Soy Delight mock chicken salad than I’d like to admit), but I kept to my promise and I didn’t eat any meat! I’m excited about the coming month – now that my “warm-up” is over, we’re getting in to the REAL lifestyle changes.
I took to twitter today to ask for any advice or tips on a new gluten-free eater. Some of the input was encouraging and helpful:
And some, not so much:
Thanks, mom!
Gross, husband!
Do you have anything to add? I’m working on a list of common and more surprising foods containing gluten. As a bread addict and chronic carb-muncher, I’m a little worried about going through withdrawal. For those of you who have made the switch, how was your adjustment period? Did you notice any side effects? Do you have any advice for me? Leave it in the comments or email me here with your input.
So! Some of you may have seen my big announcement on facebook and twitter. If you didn’t, let me recap.
I got the job! Many of you didn’t know I was even applying for the job – things happened fast, which was for the best because I don’t handle suspense and waiting very well.
I seriously couldn’t be more excited about moving to the Earth Fare home office and really (officially) starting my career. My first day on the new job will be June 9, and I’ll be thrown right in to the world of content management and web writing (and yes, blogging on behalf of a company). I’m so excited about the technical aspect of this new job and the opportunities I’ll have to learn. It’s going to be crazy, and it’ll be a lot of work, and I can’t wait.
Thanks for those of you who encouraged me to go for it like a crazy person and who believed that I could actually be the person they were looking for. Life has definitely been a roller coaster the past two weeks, but I’m pretty happy with how I’ve come out. So that’s it! My big announcement. Thanks for reading along!
Ok, so I know we’ve almost all seen this video at this point, but I just had to post it here. This little girl has it down! Something that I took years to learn – that “I can do anything good, better than anyone,” – she’s on it. She knows it. And she tells herself!
As you may have surmised from my recent and sudden change in mood, things are looking up! I should be able to make an official non-mysterious announcement later today or tomorrow, but I can say this: life has a sense of humor and I LOVE IT.
I decided this week that, if I had to come up with my own motto, it would be “Make it happen.” I might even get it tattooed on my other wrist. Or maybe just an abbreviation. MIH. Make it happen.
Do you climb up on your counter for daily affirmations? Do you love your aunts and your Allisons? What’s your motto?
