Pet Peeves

Can I just share with you my pet peeves? I’m going to make a little list. Maybe talking about them will make them go away. These are in no particular order, except the first one, because that’s my big one.

1. Mouth Noises: this includes, chewing, breathing, snoring, and other sounds that remind me of liquids.
2. Empty jars being put back in the cupboard.
3. Cupboard doors being left open.
4. Others not washing hands after sneezing, coughing, general nose pickery or bathroom use.
5. Taking the last piece of toilet paper, neglecting to replace the roll and not thinking that the next person might need it.
6. People saying “myself” to sound clever when it 100% not grammatically correct.
7. Others confusing conjugations for past tense: “I should have went” (nope, you should have gone).
8. Elbows in my personal space when eating with others. Keep them in! And stop holding your fork like a dagger.
9. People who ask questions that the “expert” has repeatedly already answered.
10. “Forgetting” what time it is…you got a reminder about that meeting. I know that because I got one too.
11. Girls who twirl their hair. Excessively. Excessive hair twirling.

Everything to Everyone

I’ve been feeling lately like I’m not being what I want to be. What I mean by that is I’m trying to do my best at work and be the best wife I can be and take good care of myself, and I feel like I’m not  overwhelmingly successful at any of those things. I stayed up late watching ‘The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet‘* on the weekend and although I’m not generally taken by women centred programme, like this one which is of course on the Lifetime Network, I did find one thing really beautiful and I’ve been thinking about it for the past few days.

She was interviewing Diane von Furstenburg, who said when she was younger well before she started her wrap-dress empire, that

“…I did not know what I wanted to do, but the I knew what kind of woman I wanted to be.“

I find these words really inspiring and comforting and I am trying to figure out what it means to me in my life right now.

I turned 27 last month and that was going to be a big year for me according to all of my plans. It isn’t not a big year, but in terms of where I thought I might be, like managing a team of people, living in a home I own with my husband and awaiting the arrival of our first child, I’m a few checkmarks away from the goal post that I completely irrationally imagined for myself in high school (and continue to cling to on my worst days). 

My 2012 Books

I’ve decided to read 15 books this year. That’s a little over 1 a month (obviously, because of math!).

This is another scary challenge for me because I buy a lot of books and they are lovely and just quietly sit there adorning my bookcases but aren’t read because I’m lazy and just simply don’t do it. Anyway, I’m going to post about them as I go, which also is scary because I have to do it now, don’t I, I’ve told you I’m going to do a post for each one!

If you’re wondering how I picked them, some of them (a lot of them) were gifts, some of them I decided I wanted to read ages ago and then didn’t but now own and why not, and some of them are ones I’ve chosen for myself recently because they caught my interest at the bookstore.

Here is my list:

30 Day Yoga Challenge

I’ve been thinking a lot of how to get the year started off in the right way, but I am very skeptical of New Year’s Resolutions, and that’s mostly because I make them and then forget or pretend like they didn’t matter because I only told a few people and they’d forget I said it, right? I feel like I’m genetically unable to let myself commit to things I think I might fail at, which makes one of those terrible circles: I beat myself up when I say I’m going to do something and then don’t follow through (this blog, for instance, is a great example of that) and that makes me not want to commit to anything because what if I’m not perfect at it?

Ok, now that’s out of the way, I want to do a 30 Day Yoga Challenge. I really, really want to do it. But not just say I want to do it and never start it in the end, but say I’m going to start on the first of February and then finish at the beginning of March and feel good because I’ve done something fully that I said I’d do and not make excuses for myself so that I wouldn’t have to do it properly.

Happy Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Although it’s hard to believe that yet another year is drawing to a close, I can’t pretend like this isn’t my favourite time of year. And no, it isn’t just because of the presents and you all know me well enough to know I love presents.

Christmas has always been my favourite time of year. And this year, I’m looking so forward to really making some great traditions with Bear. This year, we have our first Christmas tree and we’re making our first Christmas dinner together, and I’ve made stockings and we’re going to watch movies and have a big breakfast and maybe go for a lovely walk along the seafront.

I love Christmas because everyone is nice, and cheerful and while a lot of times there is one person who’s super stressed (I’m not necessarily looking at you MomKat but if the shoe fits), they usually stop freaking out after the wrapping paper is cleared and the snacks start piling up. Christmas to me isn’t about making that once-a-year trek to Church to pretend like I’m a good Catholic. It’s about having your family around you and being able to feel the love and joy that seems to just be floating around.

“I was reading your blog…”

“…and I think it’s really good!”

I was just going through the comment people have left on my blog and I was surprised to find they’re all nice. I mean people are very supportive of my posts, and I haven’t quite figured out why I think they wouldn’t be. I’ve been working on that for a while – why I’m so fearful that no one genuinely wants to be around me. I haven’t come up with anything really good so far, except that maybe it goes back to what I said in my last post about being apathetic because I’m hesitant to be held to a higher standard.

2011 Post-a-Day Challenge

I wrote in a post at the beginning of the year that I was going to try my best to either tweet or post an entry here on my blog everyday. I knew that it was unreasonable to think I’d be able to write a full post each day, but I thought that since Twitter is pretty short and sweet I’d be able to do mainly tweets and supplement my 140 characters with a post or two each week.

Considering that there’s been a post drought since June, I’d say I wasn’t quite able to supplement my social media activity with wordier entries here. Something I’ve learned this year, having started my first real job and all, is that I’m a bit (a lot?) apathetic. I have a bad habit of determining something isn’t quite good enough but deciding it’s just fine the way it is, then getting frustrated with myself, and deciding that next time and every other time in the future) I’m going to be better and do it properly.

Thoughts on the new colour scheme? I can’t decide whether I like it or not. Someone reaffirm my choices?

Going Veg. Or not. Or something…

I (mostly on the weekends) feel like I should be a vegetarian. Or a vegan, because really if you’re not going to eat meat why would you eat animal products? Once I’ve thought about being a vegetarian, or a vegan, I think about the summer I lived on Cambridge Street with three real vegans and how I was mostly vegan then. I don’t think that I felt any better in terms of being my health that come with not eating meat or dairy or eggs. But I do think that having to focus so much on food almost definitely ensures that a balance is achieved. It’s also completely exhausting having to read labels on everything, to deny yourself something yummy in order to replace it with something not nearly as yummy and to spend so much time focussed on what goes in to your body.

I couldn’t agree more with ethical farming and free range and organic. I don’t want to eat poultry that’s been forced to live on top of each other in a football field sized barn where there is poop all over the ground because it’s never been cleaned, the chickens don’t ever, ever see sunlight in their atrociously short lives and have zero quality of life. I don’t want to eat meat from cows that don’t get to wander around eat grass and I’d prefer not to ingest the antibiotics that have been forced on them either. But, that all being said, I don’t want to deny myself food that I love.

The Wolseley

This weekend was a Bank Holiday Weekend here in jolly old England, and I met my lovely friend Sally just outside Green Park for a lush and very chic breakfast/brunch/chat over many cups of coffee at the absolutely gorgeous and classic London staple The Wolseley. “What is this place?” you ask. I shall tell you! But, first I have to insist, very strongly, that you stop what you’re doing and go there now. Well, not so really now, but the very next time you have to eat breakfast and you want to feel fabulous, this is definitely a place to be.

Back to your first question. The Wolseley is a restaurant near Piccadilly Circus that has been open since 2003, but the building itself was built in the early 20th Century as an elaborate showroom for too-expensive cars that didn’t sell so the building was then turned into a bank. It’s an awesome cavern like space (which you would expect from a car dealership) and there are lots of spiral staircases and smaller rooms which is where we sat and which I am thankful for as the middle room is huge, and as I was walking through it kind of reminded me of that scene in Titanic where they’re in the dining room and it’s so loud and hustle bustle.