thankful 2014: first edition

as has become a family tradition, i will be attempting to list 100 things that i am thanking God for throughout the month of November.  there is no particular order to the items on my list, although i am following the lead of my wonderful mother this year and intending to explain them each a little bit, rather than just list them.

1. my job. i have a very good job. it is stable, it is in the field i studied in college, and it has a traditional monday through friday work week. this means that i reliably have weekends off and can afford both the time and dollars to do things like drive to Pittsburgh for a few days to hang out with people i love. thankful for a consistent schedule.

2. Sophie.  yes, i named my car. i bought her with my own money (and my dad's co-signature) after graduation, and five years later i own her outright. she is a great traveling buddy, and she has facilitated most of my best memories in recent years. thankful for her reliability.

3. Gordon is broken. so while i was traveling this weekend i relied heavily on my backup GPS on my phone, which took me to my BFITW's house by way of my sister's house. she was surprised to have a trick-or-treater come to her house on Friday night, and even more surprised that it was me! thankful for backup GPS and spontaneous sister visits.

4. a BFITW. everyone should have a Best Friend In The World. i am especially thankful that mine isn't afraid to have the tough conversations, tell the hard truths, or share the awkward moments. and she gives the best hugs. thankful for her best-friendhsip.

5. work friends. its nice when the people you are forced to spend 40 hours a week with are also people that you genuinely like to be around. thankful to have people to joke with throughout the day, who speak my same sarcastic language. 

6. a captivating podcast. started listening to Serial while i was driving to Pittsburgh and back. devoured the first six episodes. a little disappointed that now i have to wait for new episodes to be released weekly to try and figure out who-dunnit. thankful for anything that makes a long drive seem to go faster.

7. my Momma. we have a standing phone date on Friday afternoons to chat about work and life and occasionally make pizza together. thankful to be close with her.

8. my husband. when i got home last night, the house was clean. the dishes were done. he was folding the laundry. so very thankful that he loves me.

golf for dummies, by dummies.

1. you should probably own a putter. and just in case you were wondering, the club in your bag with the P printed on the bottom is not it. that's apparently a pitching wedge. looks nothing like a putter. common mistake, i hear.

 

2. only use a tee once per hole. tees belong in the tee box, when you tee off. that's it. once you're out on the fairway (or the rough, or the sandtrap) your tee is of no use. leave it in the cart. or your pocket. but if you put it in your pocket, remember that's where it is or else you will look silly after you lose or break all of your tees and then have to borrow a tee only to find that a tee has been hiding in your pocket for the last couple hours.

3. keep your head down. if you lift your head, or take your eye off the ball, or blink at the wrong time, you will either whiff or send the ball flying into a tree or watch it land approximately 10 feet in front of you. generally you would like to get more distance out of your swings. (hits? strokes? i dont understand golf lingo)

4. dont be afraid of divots. divots happen. if you are aftraid of them, you will likely swing too high and just nick the top of the ball, or whiff completely. because golf is a giant frustrating head-game. neither of these will get the ball much closer to the green. hit the ball, fill the hole, and move on.

5. your drink tickets are a perk, not a challenge. so you have four drink tickets. and then your friend gives you their three they aren't using. and then someone else slips you five more. this is not a challenge to down a dozen beers before 2pm.  enjoy your drinks, but keep in mind that maybe a company event is not the best opportunity to be shotgunning beers in the parking lot.

6. sometimes the best ball is in the sand. whoops.

7. your golf glove is probably more fancy than you realize. in fact, it might even come with a built-in ball marker. looks like a useless snap-on decoration, actually a useful piece of golf equipment. i discovered mine on about the 17th hole of the day. so fancy!

8. there is no number eight. i dont know that much about golf.
but look! video! not as funny as last years, but proof that every now and again i can hit a decent shot.

 

 

round two.

the office is all a-buzz with talk of drivers and irons this afternoon.  there were at least a dozen people at the driving range over lunch. yes, it is company golf tournament time once again. and yes, once again i am right in the thick of it.

tomorrow, i will play my second round of golf. ever.  and surprisingly, i am not the most inexperienced person on our team this year. in fact, i even have my very own clubs. i got them at a yardsale this summer - spent ten whole dollars on the entire set, including the fancy new bag. they are men's clubs, which means i have to choke up on my driver a good bit, but for what averages out to less than a dollar per club? i can deal with that.

i also have my very own golf glove. it is white with pink accents. i was hoping to find one with some red and black in it (to match my fancy golf bag of course) but apparently women who golf can only have pink things. because breast cancer. or something like that.

today i learned how to drive the ball straight more consistently. i thought it involved "breaking my wrists" but apparently that is not the correct terminology - rather, i learned how to "snap my wrists" which sounds just as painful. in reality, i learned that if i roll my wrists forward right when i hit the ball, while also managing to keep the head of my club turned just so, and my left arm stays straight, with my knees bent, and my head down, (this reminds me of a girl scout song!) and then finally  follow through just right, then sometimes the ball goes kind of straight.

the rest of the time, it generally veers in the direction of other people's heads.

my teammates are planning to bring helmets to the tournament tomorrow. i think they're only half-joking.

well that's a first.

Dear Self -

let's get it together and either get skinny, or get pregnant.

let's save ourselves and those around us from any more super-awkward copy-room encounters and get out of this in-between, yes i really AM just fat, i'd rather not have to get into the specifics of my menstrual cycle to prove it to you, middle-ground of awkwardness.

for everyone's sake, let's start exercising again pleaseandthankyou.

Love Always,
Mando

PS apparently those super-comfortable new maxi skirts are not doing your midsection any favors right now. suck it in, girlfriend.

on coffee creamers and thievery.

so, what is the etiquette for those little coffee creamers at the gas station?

asking for a friend.

they just sit there near the coffee, all sorts of varieties and flavors, as a courtesy to coffee drinkers. but there's no cost explicitly associated with them. your cup of coffee costs the same whether you add seven creamers to it, or none. so are they free? because that doesn't seem like a sustainable business model for the gas station. or is it more likely that the cost of them just automatically factored into the price of the coffee, assuming an average number of creamers that would be used per cup of coffee? would the gas station then turn a profit if no one took creamer in their coffee?

but the real question here is: how unethical would it be for a person to just... take a few creamers for their own brewed-at-home travel mug of coffee?

again, asking for a friend.

would that be a definitely-going-to-hell kind of offense? (after all, stealing is addressed as one of the ten commandments) or is it more of a kind-of-a-gray-area sort of issue? does it depend on how desperate one is for their morning coffee? let's say that a person absent-mindedly drank the last of the milk in the house before brewing their morning cup, leaving them with an undrinkable travel mug of coffee and no time to spare before having to head out the door? what if said person had every intention of actually buying something at the gas station in order to offset their creamer cost, but then it turns out there was a giant line at the register and seriously you guys she was already running late at that point and there was no time to waste.

is that stealing? or just taking advantage of a universally-provided courtesy?

my friend is conflicted.

three-day weekends.

I feel like I've said it before, and I'm sure I will say it again someday, but I think all weekends should be three day weekends. They are just the best. Two day weekends are alright, but they just don't hold a candle to the sheer beauty of three full days of not being at work. There is unlimited possibility. Endless potential for adventure. The promise of being so very productive, and at the same time a sense of joy in knowing that actually being productive is not actually a requirement.

 hiking Maryland Heights

 

 I took off work the past two Fridays, giving myself the gift of two three-day weekends in a row to celebrate and soak in the end of summer.  The first weekend was originally going to be a beach weekend, but when that fell through it turned into an entire three days of nothing. It was sleeping in, and eating out, and doing just a couple little projects around the house, but mostly sitting on the couch binge-watching Sherlock on Netflix, and ignoring any and all of our grown-up responsibilities.

Old Town Harpers Ferry



too creepy to pass up

 

This past weekend, we went to Harper's Ferry with the in-laws for a couple days of hiking, ziplining, and white water rafting.  While there was a lot of rain, it never negatively impacted our adventures - the rain would stop just before our planned activites, and then start up again once we had finished.  The sun even came out a couple times! It was weird weather for the end of August, to be sure, but we were having so much fun we hardly noticed. 

in a tree over the Potomac River



 

With next weekend being Labor Day (already!? this year is FLYING by!), that will make three three-day-weekends in a row for my tiny family. Our plans right now are a bit up in the air as far as which adventures we are going to be able to accomplish and which ones we will have to skip, but no matter what I have a feeling that it will be great. Because that's just how three day weekends roll, yo.

lately.

so i think i've hit a point (again) at which so much has been going undocumented, but i don't want to jump back into documenting just the most recent adventures i've been on without at the very least mentioning the less-recent adventures, and then i get myself stuck in an endless loop of non-documentation because i am SO far behind and i can't pick just one place to pick back up again, and i feel like i've talked myself in at least three circles in just this one giant run-on sentence and so here's a lame bulletted list of some recent adventures and minor mishaps and travels and happenings.

• so there was this wedding: the lodger got married. and maybe more excitingly, he moved out of our basement! Mark and I both had a part in the wedding - he did a reading, and i did a painting. live. in front of people. as part of the ceremony. it was terrifying. but i think it turned out pretty well for being designed and executed in less than 4 days.

• 4th of July in Pennsylvania: Mark and I took advantage of the long holiday weekend to spend some quality time with my grandparents in Pennsylvania. it was beyond nice to just hang out with them, sit and chat on the porch swing, and just be togther. we helped to finish painting the shed (just the inside of the doors), went on a walk with Pap to get icecream, and caught up on all the new family gossip. we were bummed to miss the family reunion last weekend, but we already had plans made. next year. we will be there.  

• long weekend in Wyoming: ok, so i don't know if 6 days can really pass for a long weekend since its closer to a full week, but two of those days were travel days and there was a weekend in the middle so i think it totally counts. however you want to classify it, it was too short.  i was flying solo on this trip (Mark couldnt swing the vacation days) which was awesome and sad all at the same time. awesome because i got to have all of that time with my parents and brother all to myself, and sad because i didnt get to share those memories with other people i love so much. also, long layovers are not nearly as much fun when you're travelling alone.

• miscellaneous yardwork: Mark spent most of his weekends in July cleaning up brush in the backyard: all told i think he took something like 11 truckloads of branches and brush and leaves and random other detritus to the dump. we also finally cut down the big bush/tree on the other front corner of the house that we never quite got around to last year. yay for chainsaws! the guest room gets so much more light now! there is still plenty of cleanup work to be done, but we have made some serious visible progress over the past few weeks and it feels good.

that giant monstrosity in the background of this picture? gone!

• kitchen overhaul - planning: it looks like this might really happen. we started playing with the idea of adjusting our floorplan back sometime last year i think. we started seriously laying out options in April. to date, we have met with the cabinet guy, and talked with our general contractor, and are getting estimates for all of the different trades that will be involved (and there are a lot!), and thinking about appliances, and there is a very good chance that we could basically have a whole new house by this time next year. this is going to be big.  

• technological upgrades: yes, we finally got ourselves some smartphones! we went with iPhones because we already owned an iPad and mostly understand how the platform works. Android just seemed a bit intimidating, especially since Mark is the most adorable technically-challenged-old-man-stuck-in-a-young-man's-body. but i think he's getting the hang of it.
• girls weekend at the beach: i spent the last weekend in July in Southern New Jersey with some good friends, an acquaintance, and a few complete strangers and no one died. we all shared a nice hotel room in Wildwood, and spent time chilling on the beach, walking the boardwalk (so much walking!), and doing plenty of quality people-watching. 
  
   we also ventured south to Cape May for several dinners, some sightseeing, and a paddleboard adventure! Cape May was very cute - full of charming Bed and Breakfasts and a downright adorable pedestrian mall full of little shops, but overall seems like a pricier vacation spot than neighboring Wildwood. Since we were staying in Wildwood but spending so much time in Cape May, i joked that instead of it being a Wildwood Weekend, we were actually doing a Cape May vacation on a Wildwood budget. either way, it was great to be on the beach again, and i'm thinking that Wildwood trips might become something of a tradition in years to come. 

• action camp! the event previously known as vacation bible school at our church was last week, and as always it was a blast. i was the group leader for the 4-5 year old age group (yay yellow team!) as we took a Trek to the Top and learned about Mountaintop Moments with God. its always a little bit of a crazy week, but i just love it so much.  

so anyone want to place a bet on how long it will be before my next oh-wow-its-been-so-long-since-my-last-update-heres-a-lame-list-of-what-ive-been-up-to post? i'm really going to try to update more often, and with more interesting things to say than just "hey look i did this! still alive!"  but i dont want to make too many big promises... lets just see how it goes. ok? ok.