Brown Eyed World

Perspectives on the World from a Brown Eyed Girl

Thankful November 16, 2009

Filed under: Bailey, Hobbies, Home Life, My Brown Eyed Life, Things I love — browneyedworld @ 8:15 pm

It was recently suggested to me on Facebook that everyday from now until Thanksgiving I should update my status with something different that “I am Thankful for…”  Well, if you know how great I am at remembering to update things, you’ll understand why this could be problematic for me.  So instead, I am just making the comprehensive list today.  That way I won’t screw up and forget to update my thankfulness for like 4 days in a row and feel like a big, forgetful, ungrateful failure!  By my count there are 11 days until Thanksgiving:

1) My AMAZING family.  How was I so blessed?

 

2)  The equally amazing group that I am privileged to call my  friends.  My family is stuck with me, you guys volunteer!

 

3)  That somehow I was gifted with a positive outlook.  I can’t imagine life without one.

 

4)  All things Coach, including the 4 recent additions to my collection.

 

5)  Annie at the Impulse counter at Macy’s.

 

6)  Incredible books like Her Fearful Symmetry and Guernsey Literary…Society, and funny ones, too, like Pretty in Plaid.

 

7)  Grande Caramel Brulee Lattes at Starbucks.

 

8)  A crazy dog that keeps my life interesting.  Every day.

 

9)  Taylor Lautner.

 

10)  My treadmill at the YMCA with the “in-dash” TV.

 

11)  Better things falling together.

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!  I am Thankful for YOU!

 

 

Feeling the Love November 5, 2009

Filed under: My Brown Eyed Life, Things I love — browneyedworld @ 11:40 pm

OK, so I’m not one to toot my own horn.  I don’t like to be the center of attention.  It makes me sweaty.  Any time in my life that I have accomplished anything or have been awarded with something, walking closely along with the pride and excitement there has always been an unnerving fear of stares and judgement.  Thankfully I haven’t won too many awards in my lifetime.  (Certainly if awards were being given out based on ‘keeping up with your blog’ I would be going home empty-handed… I get it peeps, I haven’t posted in over a month…. but I digress.)

 

 Even with this sense of discomfort when faced with compliments, I have got to share what has been happening to me lately!  No joke, in the last 2 weeks, I have had more “You look great[s],” “That (fill in the blank piece of clothing) is fabulous on you!” and “You just look so happy[s]” than I think I have heard in my whole life!   I don’t know if some memo was passed around work that instructed my coworkers to randomly compliment me on different days of the week or what, but by the end of this week any time someone would say something kind to me I would break out in a fit of giggles.  It has truly been the best couple weeks ever.  It even got to the point that in the span of 5 minutes at the end of one school day last week, I got 3 compliments almost back to back.  My friend Hannah and I just looked at each other and slightly exacerbated, she exclaimed “She got a spray tan, ya know!” as if the color of my skin was magically pulling the good wishes out of people.

 

The only physical thing I can possibly attribute this verbal stream of happiness to really is the spray tan that I got for my sleeveless Halloween costume.  But I’d like to think that it is the glow coming from the inside of me, not the outside, that people are responding to!

IMG_0574

 

The Perfect Plate September 30, 2009

Filed under: Hobbies, Home Life, My Brown Eyed Life, The Ex Files, Things I love — browneyedworld @ 9:18 pm

So I have been on a hunt for months now for the perfect dishes.  Dishes that make you want to cook something super yummy for dinner just so you have an excuse to pull them out of the cupboard.  The ex was a chef.  Did you know?  He could cook.  Amazingly well.  The things he made were delish.  They tasted incredible and looked even better.  But the dishes we had were crap.  They were the most boring piece of round pottery ever.  I believe that dishes are like shoes.  You can, and should, have fun with them.  I’m not talking about roosters or those ugly painted chefs, I mean real fun.  You should express yourself with your dishes  (I apologize if you have been expressing yourself with roosters, I don’t mean to offend).  

 

When the ex and I were getting married and the time came to register I had to be very gentle in how I handled the situation.  You see, coming within 100 feet of a shopping center we call a mall sends him into a state of panic.  So I had to do some online research first.  I had to find 3-5 acceptable choices online first, so that when we actually had to go into the store he could handle the task of making a choice while also feeling like his heart might explode from the anxiety of being at –oh my–Macy’s.  You may well remember the “discussions” I have spoken about in previous posts regarding his lack of acceptance of any type of floral or feminine designs.  This perspective narrowed our choices down to solids, and um…solids.  These were our old dishes:

Noritake

 

Snoozarama!

 

 

So when the ex moved out I encouraged him to take the dishes with him in order to set myself up to have to buy new ones.  I searched forever for ones that were exactly what I had been missing every time I opened the cupboard doors in the old house.  Tonight I finally went out and made them mine.  Drumroll please!

 

Misto Green 10 1/2" Square...Misto Angela 10 1/2" Square...Misto Light Taupe 10 1/2"...

 

Hello, Paisley, Green, and Taupe!  Welcome to my kitchen!  What will I serve on you first?  (Cuz the ex wasn’t the only one that could wear an apron in our house!)

 

Hello New Shoes! Bye, Bye, Blues! September 29, 2009

Filed under: My Brown Eyed Life, Things I love — browneyedworld @ 8:06 pm

So I am not sure if it is a symptom of starting over or has just always been a lurking, yet newly unleashed obsession.  Either way, shoes are rapidly becoming an addiction I cannot squelch.  I can no longer walk by the shoe department at Macy’s and not slow to admire the beauty in a pair of eggplant wedges, gaze at a pair black casual flats, or caress (yes, I said it) a pair of soft leather heels.  And worse than the ogling habit I have formed, somehow these new shoes seem to find themselves coming home with me.   So how ecstatic was I when the VIP invitation for Online Shoes fall warehouse sale magically popped into my inbox.  This sale is shoe nirvana.  Imagine a 140,000 square foot warehouse filled with thousands of pairs of shoes just ripe for the picking.  When I had attended the spring sale last April, no pair was more that $40.00.  I began counting the days. 

 

Opening day of the sale finally came and I was counting down the hours until I would meet the newest members of my footwear team.  There was so much excitement in the air that at one point during the day my coworkers and I were dancing in the hallway to “I Put Some New Shoes On” by that Italian guy.  The perfect one-hit wonder for the afternoon of shopping that awaited us.  And although the prices were a bit higher, no pair over $60.00 (in the spring  I happened upon the sale on the last day, not the VIP hours of the sale opener), and there didn’t seem to be as many shoes, it was still heavenly to walk up and down the rows of my size and know that I was getting monster deals!  When all was said and done  I walked away with 4 new pairs:  Merrells, Danskos, Keens, and Privos; all for $170.00!  And I’m not even going to get rid of any current shoes to make room!  All my pairs are just going to live happily together in the shoe section of my closet!

 

 

Experience the 3 day sale in about 2 minutes:

 

Time Keeps on Ticking September 19, 2009

Filed under: My Brown Eyed Life, Things I love — browneyedworld @ 7:45 pm

So this morning I had the priviledge of being a spectator at my cousin’s 2nd soccer game of the season.  She’s 8 and she plays for the Sharks; *CHOMP*CHOMP.*  As I watched her and her teammates, hiding safely under my umbrella, it reminded me of all of my soccer playing years.   Inclement weather always made soccer better.  Rainy day games were the best.  There was something about playing in the rain that let you detach yourself from your constraints and play all out.  Play rain-crazy.  I can remember one game from my childhood where we even got to play in snow. 

 

I believe that today marked my first official honor of being a spectator at a rainy soccer game.  As I was trying to dodge the raindrops dripping off the back of my umbrella, I chalked it up to retribution for all the years my poor Mom had to watch from the sidelines getting drenched while I ran my heart out.  Alyssa’s game was actually held on a field that I used to practice on as a child, and as I watched her enjoying her morning, I had flashbacks of the teams I played on and all the girls I played with. 

 

When I woke up this morning and heard the rain pounding my roof, my first instinct was to crawl back under the covers and give myself a reprieve due to precipitation.  I could always catch the game next weekend.  It was a hard won fight that ended with me showing up  on that soccer field, pumpkin spice latte in one hand, rickety newly-purchased $6.00 umbrella in the other.  But I am so glad that I made it.  Seeing one of life’s pleasures be passed down to the next generation was so worth it.  The energy that accompanies a rainy day soccer game is undeniable.  For the rest of the day, every time the rain rattled the windows at my house, I smiled and thought of Alyssa; shingaurds strapped up, hair pulled back, rain in her face, LOVING every minute!

 

Things I Learned In First Grade September 12, 2009

Filed under: My Brown Eyed Life, Things I love — browneyedworld @ 8:33 pm

As the first week of first grade comes to a close, I am in awe of the things my students have taught me.

 

*Being a super hero or a Jedi Knight is a perfectly acceptable career aspiration

*New things can be scary

*One million dollars is more than one thousand dollars, but less than one thousand billion dollars

*Macy’s can be your favorite place to go–even if you’re 6

*Everybody wants to feel respected–even if you’re 6

 

It’s going to be a good year!

 

I’m Not Dead…Yet September 9, 2009

Filed under: Home Life, My Brown Eyed Life — browneyedworld @ 9:47 pm

Actually I’m doing very well considering that in the last two weeks (REALLY, I can’t believe it’s only been 2 weeks!)  I have painted several rooms in the new house, moved all my worldly possessions, cleaned the old house, finished putting my classroom together, and started a new school year with 27 new first graders.  Whew!  NOW is when I need my summer vacation!  What was I doing all those months just lying around reading books?  Jeez!  I am still living 1/2 in, 1/2 out of boxes in a few rooms, and there is one closet that is still a scary cardboard mess, but other than that I am mostly unpacked. 

 

The painting is about 1/2 way completed, too.  The living room accent walls are completely finished, painted in Eddie Bauer Bordeaux (the color at the top of the wall in this picture):

bordeaux

 

 

My bedroom, however, is not so finished.  Currently, it’s 1/2 Valspar “Free Wheeling” which matches the flowers on my duvet perfectly!

Free Wheeling

New Bed

 

I had to rush and get the walls painted where the large furniture was going to go, and so the bed wall and the dresser wall are done (minus a bit of touch-up that will have to be done with drop clothes on the furniture) but the other two walls are still snowy white.  I am hoping the painting fairy comes in one night while I sleep and I just wake up to a fully painted room.  It could happen.

 

 

The Smell of Cardboard Makes My Stomach Turn August 24, 2009

Filed under: Home Life, My Brown Eyed Life — browneyedworld @ 9:40 pm

Moving boxes

OK, so here’s the thing…I HATE moving.  I get sweaty just thinking about carrying cardboard boxes…and furniture…and OK, pillows, too.  It has got to be on my top ten Most Hated list.  It’s amazing how much stuff a person can accumulate!  I think there are some things in my house that I have not touched in 4 1/2 years.  And we moved in April 2005 (you do the math).  The thought of moving all of those accumulated belongings makes me nauseous.  Lugging boxes down stairs and then back upstairs, wishing you hadn’t shoved those last few books in before you taped the box shut.  Wishing you could be anywhere except where you are, carrying the 284th box out to the truck.  Wondering why the mountain of boxes doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller.  Wondering why you can’t just stay in one place for the rest of you life. 

 

Thank GOD for movers.  That’s right, at 31 years old, and at least 13 moves, I finally got smart.  I hired movers for my move this Saturday.  I think I might be in love with my movers.  They calm my nerves when I am feeling anxious, I can’t wait to see them, and I feel giddy every time I think about them.  Love?  Maybe that’s a bit much, but I am definitely smitten.  The fact that 2 big, strong men are just going to come into my old home Saturday morning and carry all of my belongings into my new home by Saturday afternoon has me all aflutter.  And the fact that I don’t have to break a sweat makes this the most glorious news I have heard in a long, looong time. 

 

PS:  For some reason, even though  I hate moving myself I don’t mind helping other people move.  So don’t worry, if you need a hand, just ask.  I won’t run screaming in the opposite direction.  Probably.