Lucky 10

Erin at the fabulous Design Crisis tagged me to round up ten things that make me happy. Right now, I'm wrapping up things at my current job all while learning the ropes for my new gig,which involves a big gear switch and two trade shows in the next week. So things have been more than a little hectic for the past two weeks or so. Adding this round up as just one more task to my gigantico to-do list almost sent me over the edge...until I started doing it.

Seriously, so much drama is making me focus on all the irritating things such as the fact that if I don't do laundry tonight, my swimwear is going to have to pull double duty as undergarments. Which in turn makes me think about cellulite remedies, which drives me to the kitchen in search of chocolate. Good God, I am such a Cathy cartoon these days.

Anywhoodle, taking stock of what makes me sigh and smile is much more therapeutic than dwelling on everything that makes my shoulders hunch up and my left eye twitch. Thanks, Erin. I needed this!

Ok, here goes. I made a point to not make this all about food. It was tough.

10. Indian food. With lots of Naan in particular. I'm craving it like whoa.


9. Grenada tiles.



Love love love. I would possibly tile my bed and my sofa in some of these patterns. And I think a lot of the appeal of these is their old-worldliness. Mostly, they make me want to take a trip to Greece or Turkey.

8. Design Vagabond. Great design blog from an industrial designer who manages to find awesome stuff that's not reported on other sites ad nauseum.


Here's an example post on wonderful Crudo ceramics.

7. Writers who are so hilarious they make me laugh so hard I forget to be jealous. I'm thinking of Tula from Whorange and April Winchell at Regretsy. Those two are always good for a pick-me-up.

6. Speaking of bloggers, I am madly in love with this Patrick Townsend Orbit Light (in white) and am determined to get with it and hang it somewhere fabulous in my house.


I never knew how badly I wanted it in my life before I saw it on DC, so thanks for that, ladies. And thanks for making me cheer myself up today.

This is so fun I'm going to stretch it into two posts--top 5 to come tomorrow.

Even though I'm only halfway done, I'm tagging Melina at Owl and Peacock. And I'm expecting at lest one cheese-related entry.

Two things I recently discovered about myself:

1. I have distinct Liz Lemon tendencies (and not the cute ones)
On Friday, my work had a bake sale to raise money for breast cancer awareness, so I stopped by first thing in the morning. Being the altruistic person I am...Ok, let’s be honest here...Being the sugar-crazed freak I am, I bought a cupcake, a Rice Krispie treat and brownie, took them back to my desk and immediately began to devour them in that order.

When I got to the brownie, I decided it wasn’t that good, I’d had enough sweets (this is a sure sign of maturity!) and threw most of it away.

Work, work, work. Hands gliding around the clock’s face.

The next time I looked up, it was 3:30, I was starving and in the middle of working on a presentation that was due at the end of the day.

So yeah, I took the remaining brownie out of the trash, ate it and got back to work.

That’s right. I’m almost 30 and eating chocolate out of the garbage. In my defense, I could tell you about how it was the only thing in my wastebasket and how it was still sort of resting on its paper plate, but I really have no excuse for why I’m not capable of eating something with actual nutritional value from a sanitary surface. That cup of nice blueberry yogurt I have stored in the refrigerator 30 feet from my desk was apparently too much of an effort for me to reach.

2. I like excercising to montages
This weekend, I worked out on an elliptical machine while watching Ocean’s Eleven (I had to make up for the dark chocolate times outlined above). Whenever the movie got to little montages of the guys prepping for their big heist, I found myself especially inspired to keep my heart rate up. I gotta tell you, there’s some sort of powerful alchemy at play when you’re gliding along to a series of scenes that act as shorthand for accomplishment and/or transformation.

Can someone make an all-montage DVD mix? Makeovers! Dance/sports practice/training! Cleaning/painting a house! The above-mentioned heist!

Maybe the snazzy bubblegum pop/percussive anthem rock/techno is good for exercising, But really, I think it’s watching some people get some serious business done in three minutes max tricks me into playing my own montage loop in my head:

Sweats-clad Alison runs three miles on the treadmill, looking drained and red. Her legs shake like a newborn colt as she steps off the machine. Next, she’s sweating it out in bikram. Oh no! She’s wobbling in the tree stand pose. Down she goes, toppling to the floor, taking the poor girl on her right with her. Eye rolling, shoulder shrugging. Later that night: Alison sits down to a giant bucket of fried chicken. Sighing, she pushes it away and instead gnaws on one of those huge cartoony carrots with the green foliage still attached. Turning point! Wearing a tighter-fitting tank top and running shorts, she’s jogging by the lake. Even though she collapses out in the grass after her run, a radiant smile lights up her face. Now, cutting through a lane in the lap pool, The hunk of solid muscle formerly known as Alison emerges, glistening and sleek. She hoists herself over the side of the pool and immediately chugs a blender full of Creatinine and raw eggs. Her biceps bulge as she wipes her mouth with her forearm.

So much progress in about 30 seconds. Much easier than actually eating right and doing all that crap. And if watching someone else’s magical transformation keeps me exercising for another few minutes, maybe my own personal moment of triumph isn’t so far behind.