It is What it Is

Thank you!

 I'd like to thank everyone who has voted, RT-ed my tweets, commented on my blog, put up with my blog and liked posts on Facebook to help me in my quest to be Volvo's Biggest Fan of the Big East. I appreciate your support and patience, and I never could have made it through to the final four without you ... [Read more]

D.C. Trip Part Two: The Actual D.C.

 Once we finally arrived in Baltimore, the SO and I were picked up at the airport and taken to meet the Volvo.

I call it the Volvo because when you’ve spent four months hearing about a car, a girl has certain expectations ... [Read more]

D.C. Trip Part One: In Which We Barely Make It Out Of The Airport

 This past weekend, Volvo graciously sponsored a trip for me to return to my Alma mater, Georgetown, and watch one of the biggest games of the season, Georgetown v. Syracuse.

Our trip began with a two-hour delay due to winds in Baltimore ... [Read more]

A Recap of The Volvo Big East Experience

 Well, the time has finally come for the last Volvo blog post challenge.  As I think back over the past few months, a few things really stick out about this experience.

1. I’ve loved meeting new people and following tweets and messages from people I wouldn’t normally interact with ... [Read more]

My Trinity And Good Intentions (With Video)

 I fully believe the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Of course, I’ve also always hoped the adage wasn’t referring to a literal hell. I just figured it was pretty obvious that we all get more than we bargain for when we try a little too hard ... [Read more]

 

My Top 5 Car Care Pointers

 I don’t think this will come as a surprise to most people, but I am a very neat person. I love storage bins – easily identified thanks to my handy label maker. I enjoy doing laundry, and I might consider my steam mop more than just a cleaning apparatus – it’s kind of like an anti-bacterial friend ... [Read more]

Staying Up Past My Bedtime, The Economy And Crepes

It turns out that a lot can change between a decade and a systemic economic collapse. Last week, Volvo challenged me to write about my top picks for late night eating near my Alma mater. While this would seem like a really easy topic for someone who likes both food and late nights as much as I do, let’s just say time and geography have not been on my side in this one ... [Read more]

 

 

Save The Skeet

When I was younger, we took a lot of family vacations that were combined with various lawyers’ conferences. At nine, I took my first trip on a plane, and we went to Disney World. It was awesome (and that’s only talking about the plane trip), and since my dad took me with him to pick up some papers in the hospitality area, I had some unexpected and treasured one-on-one time with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

For fourth grade Spring Break, we went skiing. I liked skiing, but what I remember most from that trip is boarding the chartered bus that would take us from the airport to our condos and being surrounded by attorneys demanding a stop to buy booze on the way. (I kid you not when I say there was an actual chant at one point along the lines of “li-quor store, li-quor store.”)

However, it was our trip to the Greenbrier in West Virginia when I was 11 that was my favorite vacation by far. It was July, and I loved everything about the place. There were huge indoor and outdoor pools as well as a bowling alley and movie theater in the hotel. (How is that even possible?) The Greenbrier is also one of the few places I know of where you can practice falconry even though my dad wasn’t handing over the money for that one.

My Top 5 Road Trip Play List

Being tone deaf and a huge nerd, my iPod is an embarrassment or riches – if you really love show tunes, Shakira and soulful girl ballads about break-ups. (When I was going through some old CDs from the mid-90s, a friend commented, “I didn’t realize you were a lesbian in high school.”) I have been making mixes titled “Mellow Music” since I was about 14 ... [Read more]

One Resolution I Won't Be Making

As we all know, I tend to think that we all have limited supplies of certain virtues or abilities, like patience, and every so often, we need a refill.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling that way about my creativity. No new ideas. No outside-the-box thinking. Not even adjectives with more than two syllables. I kind of figured I’d run out of this year’s supply and would probably need to wait for 2011 for some good stuff – knock on wood. (Or mediocre stuff. I’d take either at this point.) So far, I haven’t had much luck.

Fortunately, the SO, in a lovely show of support for my writing, gave me a box full of journals, pens and other fun stuff for Christmas. (He also included The Art of War for Writers, which would only be his fifth attempt to get me to read anything related to Sun Tzu, earlier versions including the plain old Art of War, Art of War flash cards, a mini-book/abbreviated version of The Art of War and The Art of War for Women at Work. Do you think he might be trying to tell me something?)

Moving on, one of those gifts is a small book shaped like a block called, wait for it, The Writer’s Block. (How I love those clever marketing gurus.) It comes complete with 786 ideas to jump-start your imagination – and a hilarious attack on The Bridges of Madison County, which I might have appreciated more than the ideas.