St. Mary's of Regret

Oh blog of mine, I have not forgotten about you – I swear I haven’t. I just lose track of things sometimes and then I am reminded that I need to return to them. I also need to get my dear friend S to help me with some techno stuff so I can combine this blog with another blog that I have and see what we can make of it…

Anyway – last night I went to see 2 singer/songwriters of my youth – and by youth I mean my mid-20s. I saw Richard Shindell and Susan Werner. Two fantastic artists and fantastic spirits. Susan sang the song “St. Mary’s of Regret” which is a song I haven’t heard in a long time. It was always a song that touched my heart but last night I listened in a different way…you see, Susan Werner is the artist that my ex-husband and I saw on our first date. There is, of course, a story to that first date but it is unimportant now. There is a story to our whole relationship, but that too, is unimportant right now. But last night I saw the 8 years of my life that was held by that relationship flash before my eyes and over my soul. But I did it sitting next to someone with whom I am now very much in love – someone who makes me happier and calmer than I’ve been in a long time, perhaps ever. I have never doubted that ending my marriage was the right decision for both of us but there are times when I do wonder what if…when I do visit the graveyard of St. Mary’s and last night I had a lovely visit.

And then I went home to my real life.

St. Mary's Of Regret
Susan Werner
I'm wearing that dress
I've pulled on those gloves
I put on my veil
We once were in love
We once had it all
The entire sky
We threw it away
And I wonder why

Passion's always half impossibility
But lovers that we lose we never dare forget
We visit them in mourning in December and in May
In the graveyard of St Mary's of Regret

The end of the street
The wrought-iron gate
The cobblestone path
The names and the date
The anxious hello
The everyday laugh
The intimate tears
The epitaph

Passion's always half impossibility
But lovers that we lose we never dare forget
We visit them in mourning in December and in May
In the graveyard of St Mary's of Regret

Mind, Body and Spirit

I have been quiet on the blog front for a few weeks…I do apologize.

It has been an interesting few weeks in Amanda-land. In the big picture, things are dandy. Work is good but busy and busy in a good way. Life with family, friends and the wonderful boyfriend are great. I finally lived a dream and went to Fallingwater in Western PA. Next weekend I am going to Florida with my dearest girlfriends and then in June Mr. Wonderful and I are going to Vegas Baby, Vegas for a 4 day trip. Life is really good.

I did hit a blip in the road about 2 weeks ago when I found out that someone I counted as a friend didn’t really extend me the same courtesy. The details are really unimportant but it has really gotten me to think about my friends and how I treat them. Being a good friend is very important to me and I think that on the whole I am a very good friend. But I am not perfect and I have been thinking of the ways in which I am not the friend that I want to be. I am nosey by nature and that may lead me to be a bit of a gossip. If you ask me to keep something in complete confidence, I do. No questions asked. But I do talk about my friends with other friends but I really try to not say something I wouldn’t mind getting back to the other person – at least in sentiment. I may say about friend x “gosh, she is making some crazy headed choices” and to that friend I may say “I am worried about you and your choices” but the sentiment is consistent. But I am trying to be aware of those times and be as honest about that policy as I can. That’s all one can do.

I am also back on the wagon of taking care of myself. I am eating better, exercising more and putting some bigger events on my calendar for the year. Philadelphia Distance Run, anyone?

At the end of the day I just want to feel good – in mind, body and spirit!

A Friend Who Would Help Move A Body

I feel like I need to find a new, springy blog template. While I like this one a lot, it feels very winter to me and spring is starting to arrive in Philadelphia. The pink and white of the cherry trees is appearing, forsythia is leaving pops of bright yellow along the landscape and there are buds on trees. Very soon the world will stop being so brown and will be full of colour and light again.

Which is how I am feeling myself.

I am doing the read-along profiled on the right side over there somewhere (imagine cool graphic arrow here) and it is amazingly profound. It’s one of those things that I feel has found me at the right time. I love when right place and right time line up!

One of the things that Brene talked about was “a friend who would move a body” and I LOVE that. I have always defined a good friend as one who doesn’t ask why the hell are you calling so late when you call at 3 am but rather “what took you so long to call?”. I am blessed to have a few of those in my life. But I like the idea of a friend who would help you move a body. Brene tells the story of a friend of a friend whose mother is struggling with alcoholism and winds up passed out on her couch one afternoon. This woman comes home from work and finds her mother and wants to get her to the bedroom before the kids come home so that they don’t see their grandmother that way. So she calls her friend and says “I need you to help me move my mom” and her friend does. And she chose this friend because she knew that there would be no judgment, no telling tales of this gossipy scene and the next time she saw her mother there wouldn’t be a trace of this situation on her face or in her presence. I LOVE THAT. And I strive to be that kind of friend – one who would help a friend move a body and the one that would be called upon to do so.

A week is a long time

I owe the world a real blog post and one will happen because I have much to say but for now...I leave you with my Hannie.

Just say NO! to Twitter?

I’m saying NO to Twitter and I encourage you to do the same as well. Ok, I’ll be real for a moment here – I think about 6 people read this blog so I highly doubt I am going to bring down the empire that Twitter.com has become but that being said – I encourage my readers to say no to Twitter.

It seems like the last few weeks have been all atwitter (HAR!) about Twitter and how people are using it. Members of Congress were “tweeting” during the President’s address to Congress. Reports have segments about what people are “tweeting” to them during the broadcast so that they can answer them on the spot. People say that they follow companies and organization’s tweets to know what is going on there. Just this morning, Joe Scarborough talked about how he used Twitter to understand how people on the left, right and center were responding to White House press conferences. Ok – so Twitter gives us instant access to people’s thoughts and actions. Is that such a good thing?

I really and I mean REALLY loved that Obama responded to a question about why he took a few days to respond to the AIG bonus crisis by saying “I like to know what I am talking about before I respond.” Your damn right you should know what you are talking about before you respond to stuff – particularly when your words can send the stock market into a tail spin. I think we, as a nation, have become so insistent on instant access and instant response that we have forgotten that sometimes it takes time to formulate the response that you want. And it is that formulation of response that begins a conversation and the best conversations of my life have definitely happened in bites of more than 140 characters.

Toke Up Baby!

Yay US Justice Department.

YAY YOU!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/19holder.html

I am not a pot smoker. You could hand me a bong right now and I’d pass it on to the next guy. It just doesn’t interest me. But the fact that we have made it illegal is just silly to me. You can get liquor and cigarettes legally, I don’t get why you can’t get pot. Making marijuana legal would do so much more positive in the world than negative. It would empty our jails, it would help us raise much needed tax revenue and it wouldn’t make folks like Michael Phelps a big story for anything more than being the greatest swimmer of our time.

But even if you don’t want to legalize pot. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let’s legalize medical marijuana. It is SUCH a no brainer. We give people poison EVERY DAY to fight disease. I wanted someone I loved very much receive radiation and chemotherapy and I saw how sick it made him. We’ll do THAT to a person to help them “get better” and we won’t allow someone with migraines or MS or …oh, I dunno … the horrific side-effects of chemo to smoke something that will make them feel so much better?

Oh yeah, that seems fair and logical.

Please let me remind you....

Dear Citizens of Philadelphia,

I would like to talk to you about the difficult situation that we as a nation, state and city find ourselves in right now. To put it bluntly and simply, we’re broke. We aren’t poor – poor is a state of mind, but we are broke and just like with your family, when we are broke we have to take a second look at how we are doing things.

I know that you don’t want your libraries to close. I don’t want mine to close. I also appreciate the fact that in the latest poll, you have expressed that you don’t want services to children, the elderly and the homeless cut. Good for you for knowing how important it is to take care of those who can not care for themselves. I know you don’t want to lose police officers or firemen. I know you don’t want to pay $5 per month for trash pick up and I know you don’t want your taxes raised. I get that. Were I you, I’d feel the same way.

But let me remind you of a very important fact here, we’re broke. The city is estimating a $1,000,000,000 deficit in the next 5 years -- for those of you math challenged folks, like me, that’s $1 billion.

Yes folks, we’re broke.

And when we’re broke, that means we have to tighten the belt a bit. In my life that means not going out to eat as much or not buying that sweater I have my eyes on, or cutting down on how many zillions of cable channels I have or getting a part time job.

For a city it means cutting services or raising revenue. And the way we raise revenue is to raise taxes. The talk of which caused you to boo Mayor Nutter today when he mentioned some short term tax increases.

Or we could cut services – which means that we close say 11 of 54 library branches. Yes, that is 20% of the libraries and that is a lot but would you rather have to walk a few more blocks to the library (by the way, my closest library is 2.6 miles away) Or would you rather not have a fire station in close proximity to your house?

Again, let me remind you. We’re broke.

You can complain all that you want about not wanting to lose services and not wanting your taxes raised. I get wanting 2 things at the same time but unfortunately, those 2 things are not currently compatible wants – so you pick.

Again, let me remind you. We’re broke.

Sincerely,
Amanda

The Real Thing, Part 1 & 2

It doesn't taking knowing me very long to know that my favourite actor of all time is the one and only Michael J. Fox. I have loved him since the days of yesteryear when "Family Ties" was the #2 rated TV show in the country (#1 being "The Cosby Show"). I watched Alex P. Keaton -- the embodiment of damn near everything I am against and yet I adored him and I adored Michael J. Fox. I used to see all of his movie as soon as they came out. I had 63 pictures of him on my bedroom walls circa 1986 and when I ran out of pictures, I used to take pictures of the TV so I'd have more pictures. I was a 13 year old girl with a very serious crush.

A few weeks ago, I found out that reruns of "Family Ties" was on FamNet channel so I started taping them. I knew I was getting close and today -- after a few less than fabulous days -- FINALLY - my 2 favourite episodes were on. For those of you who aren't in the know -- these 2 episodes are when Alex meets Ellen Reed (Tracy Pollan) and falls in love. When I was 12, this was the HEIGHT of romance. And it's funny -- I'm watching these episodes now and I still remember the dialogue, I still remember what they characters wore - it is all so familiar. I must have watched these 2 episodes over and over again until the VCR tape wore out and then I'd tape them again and again.

It is nice that some things -- even 23 years later can still bring such a huge smile to my face and a big tear to my eye.

It's the final countdown...

I feel like hell.

I have a low grade cold which in and of itself isn’t killing me. It’s the cold – coupled with a lack of sleep and I just feel like I am punch drunk tired. I was literally weaving walking into the office this morning. If someone saw me, they would have thought I was hitting the bottle before 8 am. Not good.

I am coming up on my birthday and I am feeling very conflicted about it. I really love my birthday and love the trappings of it (except having happy birthday sung to me, I hate that – always have) but I do love the day.

I also really love my life right now – I like my job, I have a fantabulous boyfriend, I have great friends and am doing a bunch of things I love and yet I can’t help but look at where I thought I’d be by 36. I try not to focus on that but some days are harder than others. I think I thought that by 36 I’d feel like a grownup and I most certainly DO NOT. Then again, I’m not sure what would make me feel like one – perhaps nothing and that’s why everyone says they don’t feel like a grownup. I know I’m not alone in this one.

So as we mark down the days until the 16th, I shall work on focusing on all that I do have and all that I have achieved as none of it is anything to sneeze at.

And I just made myself sneeze – I’m such a rock star.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun...

Are we having fun in here? I have been writing and editing a blog post over the last few days so I decided to just start over and blab for a bit before I go upstairs and finish the laundry and pack.

Why pack you ask? I'm going to Baltimore tomorrow with my sweetheart for his niece's 1st birthday. I am bringing the camera so this will be the first real test run of it. I tried to take some pictures last weekend of Holly's daughter but it was a bust. Well, not really as the pictures are cute but they didn't capture what I was trying to for my photography class. Speaking of which -- I am loving my class! We're also going to stop at a winery or 2 on our way there and/or back as March is Barrels on the Brandywine and we have our passports and glasses ready! Now we just have to go taste wine. YAY!

I also declared this morning that I am sick of feeling like crap. I'm sick of eating junk, I'm sick of being tired all of the time and I'm sick of being out of shape. So I got rid of a bunch of junk in the house tonight - I ate really well today and I contacted wonder trainer Jen to help me put together a program and I registered for a 5K. I haven't done one since October so it will be...ummm...interesting but 5Ks keep me honest and I do enjoy them so back to them I shall go! It is starting to warm up here so I'm going to get up early tomorrow morning and hit Ridley Creek Park and walk the 4.3 mile loop. And then not be able to walk for the balance of the weekend. HA! It will be good for me and will feel good to be back out in the world. I am just so ready for this winter to be over. It does feel good to do things that are good for me. I just have to remind myself of that when I am tempted to do things that aren't good for me.

In other news, I booked plan tickets to go to Florida in May. Three of my best girlfriends are flying own to visit the 5th of us. I am excited! We haven't gotten together like this in a long time and it will be nice. 2 of my friends are expecting babies this summer so it will be a nice last horrah before they are back in new born mode. And maybe I can get a little sun in my face too.

And on that note - I shall go prep for the weekend so that I can get up early and hit Ridley Creek.

Hail Mary Full of....snow?

When I was a little kid and the weather folks would call for a big snow storm, I was sit in my room and make the sign of the cross over and over again really fast chanting "please let it snow God, please let it snow." I always thought if my dad had found out that I was doing the sign of the cross, he'd get pissed but I couldn't help it. I wanted snow days, dag-nab-it!

So here I find myself on the verge of what may or may not be a snow day almost wanting to do it again. It was supposed to start around 6 and now it is almost 8:30 and there is nothing yet. So I wonder if it will really happen. We haven't had any real snow this year so it would be nice.

But nothing.

I made up a meal for dinner tonight. I like making up stuff and tonight's turned out good.

3 cloves of garlic
1 chopped onion
olive oil
turkey sausage
1/2 red wine
1 can (28 oz) organic fire roasted tomatoes
1 can mushrooms (I have always preferred canned mushrooms - don't know why)
1.5 tsp Italian herbs
salt
pepper
chopped basil (6 or 7 leaves)
Organic Penne

It turned out really yummy! And there was plenty for leftovers tomorrow. I meant to add capers but I forgot -- I'll add them when I warm it up tomorrow for lunch or dinner (depending on if I am home or not.)

I have been trying to shop at Whole Foods more and pick up Organic items when possible. I do wish that eating better didn't cost more - that is a frustrating part of the process but it is worth it in the big picture.

I spent some time today stimulating the economy. I am in the market for some new shoes and I have a big challenge finding shoes as I am a "rare" size. I'm an 11 and it totally sucks. I went to the outlets outside of Pottstown and went to about 8 stores and didn't really find what I wanted. I did get 1 pair but I am still in the market for a brown pair. Buying shoes shouldn't be so challenging. I did pick up a few other things that I have been wanting so that was good too.

And I tried to complete my first photography class assignment and I botched it up. I am not really sure what I did wrong except perhaps my subject was too far from me. I'll try it again tomorrow if I can find a time and place to do it. Hopefully tomorrow will be a snow day and I can wander around and take some pictures....yay!

Tweet, tweet, tweet...and no, I don't mean Twitter!

What’s that? What’s that sound? What do I hear today? Oh yes…BIRDS! Winter is giving us a small reprieve in Philadelphia today and making us think that Spring is coming. It’s not, it’s a big lie. I know this. Punxsutawney Phil told us on February 2nd that we had 6 more weeks of winter which puts us firmly at my birthday and since we’re not there yet, I know it isn’t Spring. But it sure smells like it today. I actually left a few windows open at my house today – I hope the cats aren’t freezing to death but I just wanted to air things out a bit, let some new light and life into my home. According to my phone it is 60 out and I imagine it will get a smidge warmer too. YAY!

I’m going to do some Spring Cleaning tonight because that’s the kind of rock star Friday night I’m having. First I’ll do an IT call at my mom’s and then I’ll go home, make some dinner and CLEAN. I love having a clean house but I hate doing the cleaning but it will feel good to have it done and things put away and spruced up so I don’t have to think about it for a little bit. Normally I have a date on Friday nights but my sweetheart has a work obligation so I’m left to fend for myself. And given that the vast majority of my friends are all married with kids and not driven to party like crazy people – I’ll be left to my own cleaning devices tonight. Strangely I am really looking forward to it. I might even watch re-runs of “Sex And The City” while I do it.

Now THAT’S living!

Do other people have “their people”? What I mean by their people is Lori. I have Lori. Lori is the woman who works at the Wawa that I stop at every morning on my way to work. Unless her line is super long, I always wait in her line. Her line does tend to be the longest because I don’t think I’m the only one who claims Lori as their own. She is so damn pleasant and sweet. Every day. Even when she isn’t in a good mood, she is. All she knows of me is that I am nice and I went to Utah and Germany and I drink Diet Coke in the morning. All I know of her is that she’s donated her hair to Locks of Love and she is very religious but I have no idea what religion she is – she just mentions church a lot. But every morning that I get to start by visiting Lori is a better morning than the one’s I don’t.

Think she’d be weirded out if I invited her for coffee or something?

Let's Get It Started...In Here...

Because I am sure that the universe is waiting with baited breath to know my thoughts and feelings on every blessed thing on the planet...I'm entering blogger world.

Seriously though, I am less than 3 weeks away from turning 36 and I'm feeling a bit of an itch to start doing some more things that are good for me and good for the world so here I be - creating a place in the Intarwebs for me to keep track of that and perhaps share some of what I'm up to.

I started a photography class this week I am so very excited about it! I have never been much of an artist but I feel like I have a bit of an artist's soul somewhere in me. One of the few ways that I have been able to express that soul has been through photography but sadly I haven't picked up anything more than a point and shoot camera in damn near 20 years (ok, probably 18 but who's counting?) so I have a camera back in my hands and it feels good. Now I need a nice day so I can go out and take some pictures! The fun thing about this new fangled technology is that I don't have to drop cash and take time to see the results of my pictures . I fully intend to share the fruits of my labour with you.

I love cooking. I love eating too (more than I should!) but I love cooking and I love to try new recipes. My natural inclination is not to gravitate towards traditionally "good for you" foods so I like to find ways to make my favourite things in a more healthy way. How I wish apples called to me more than Devil Dogs but alas and alack -- I have to find ways to make things that are good for me that I want to eat. In that spirit, my mom and I are going to join a CSA this year. Once we're all accepted to the one I picked, I'll certainly share the bounty (har!) but I am hoping it will inspire me to not only cook more but to eat better and eat better things for me.

I love travelling. In that department, I was blessed to spend a month in Germany last summer and a month in Utah. Both were fantastic experiences. I would love to do a big trip this year but I am not sure it is in the cards so I shall focus on some small trips. If nothing else I want to get to Nova Scotia this summer as I didn't get there last year and my family has a home there. And I need to go to Ireland. Need. Not want. Need.

I have a goal to complete 2 1/2 marathons this year which means I need to get off my duff and prepare and sign up and stuff. Perhaps this blog will help me be accountable.

Other than that -- I think we'll have random musings around here. Please comment, please join in and welcome.