Posts from — March 2010

Okay, so in less than one week, 6 days to be exact, I’ll be boarding a plane with my bff (not to be mistaken by the BF) and heading west to Los Angeles.

And in 2 days, I’ll be driving 5 hours north to spend a wonderful weekend at the boyfriend’s grandparents sprawling farm. Yes, you heard me correctly.  A farm.  You know, the kind with a big red barn and tractors and animals and fresh eggs and vegetables.  And of course, lots of dust and dirt.  Forget not, that before city life and designer clothes came along I was, and continue to be, a Mainer.  A good ol’ fashion Mainah.

See?  I even shot a gun.  Me, I shot a gun, and I wore orange.  Anyways, that really isn’t the point.  The point is that my entire life I’ve had a serious overspending problem, and my choices as far as when I buy what have never really been too appropriate.

Like now for example.  When I’m working for a tiny non-profit, making minimal amounts of cash money mula and continuing to live my not-so-minimalist lifestyle – if you need me to spell it out more clearly, I’m broke.  I’m broke, and about to spend a week in Los Angeles where I will undoubtedly make plenty of inappropriately timed and unnecessary purchases.

I’m broke, about to embark on a vacation, so logically, what would this overspending gal decide to do?

Get ready folks.  I’m buying a new camera! A nice, big, fancy, DSLR. This all started only a week ago when I decided that I really, really want to take pictures like Heather and Ashley and the rest of the SLR using photographer bloggers out there.  But really, you know, I can’t afford a $700-900 camera.  And unfortunately, I have nothing huge and exciting like a wedding or graduation coming up, from which I might be able to receive such a gift.

So I started doing some Consumer Report reading / googling to see what the world is saying about point and shoot cameras for those of us who just can’t quite afford the SLR yet.  And then, my next step was to talk to Dad.  Dad loves all things geeky: cameras, TVs, computers, cars.  Anything that he can research, buy and then play with – he loves.  So Dad sent me some CR articles.  Great.  Knew he would.  But what I didn’t know, was that the next day he would actually go out to a camera store and talk to some camera store people who know their camera stuff.  And, even more exciting, and (maybe not so) unexpected – Dad informed me that he would help me finance such a purchase.  Which, has all of a sudden thrown the dreamy SLR back into the cards.   Can you believe it?!

Now I realize any such purchase is going to set me back a bit as far as saving goes, but this is a quality investment, right?  Stay tuned as I hope to purchase, and figure out how to use this bad boy by the weekend!  (Ha, yea right) But no really, it would be fantastic if I were able to purchase this by LA, and even more incredible if I could have my hands on this guy by the weekend.  The farm is beautiful, and I’d love to capture the true landscape of Maine.

“No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater…The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that’s the key. It’s like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.”

- This Lullaby By Sarah Dessen

Yes, you heard me right.  This weekend, I, little miss Whitney, will attempt to find, purchase and redo FURNITURE!  I’ve been completely obsessed with John and Sherry since I stumbled upon their site last week, and their ability to motivate, well it’s insane!

They have me wanting to renovate bathrooms (that I don’t own) and re-landscape the small field across the street (it’s a city park, probably shouldn’t). Anyways, since I don’t own my apartment, and don’t have a yard, I’m left with the simpler options.  Yanno, like refurnishing a thrift store chair and transforming an ugly mirror.  Since I haven’t found a thrift store chair, and my mirrors are actually quite pretty (in my opinion), I’m going to go out and look for a thrift store coffee/side table that I could refurnish, and maybe some porcelain pieces I can spraypaint white or black.

Stay tuned for pictures!

Pardon me while the boyfriend and I go fondue for the evening. Okay, okay I know fondue is not a verb. But neither was Google a decade ago, right? So there. It’s restaurant week in Boston and we cheapies over here are certainly not going to let a deal pass us by!

Tonight: The Melting Pot.  Can you think of anything more delicious than food, lots and lots of food, dipped in cheese and chocolate? No? Weird, me neither. Reservations are at 7pm so lucky us, we get to enjoy a few cocktails before dinner.

Fondue!

InStyle.com has been taking to Twitter to share the latest spring trends.  Quite a few of them I think are rather repulsive.

But bright wedges?  I’ll take them!  I love these, a lot.  And cannot wait to pair them with my other new obsession: jeggings.  I’ll take a minute to defend myself here, because although the celebs have all taken to jeggings, I still hear a lot of people mocking them.  And I’ll admit.  I see some jeggings in the store that just look, well, gross.  Way too cheap and cheesy, trashy.  But find the right pair, and fabulous.

So finally, a piece of spring fashion advice that I actually like.   Hopefully I’ll even be able to splurge on a pair in time for my trip to California!

While I’m at it, I’ll mention that I’m thrilled InStyle is going with girly pastels for a must have nail polish color this spring.  They are high fiving The Art of Spring color collection by essie and thank goodness. I’m not a huge fan of the blues and greens that have been popping up everywhere.  Something about a cool color on your nails, just doesn’t sit well with me.  Unless of course, it’s You Don’t Know Jacques by OPI. That’s a gray that I can rock.

Rain rain go away. Don’t come back another day. The only thing worse than waking up in Maine, with a “maybe I shouldn’t have gone out last night” headache, and knowing you have to drive 2 hours home to Boston, is waking up in Maine, with a “maybe I shouldn’t have gone out last night” headache and looking outside to find… lots and lots of rain. It’s been raining in New England for 3 days straight. And by raining, I mean pouring, and by pouring I mean a monsoon. A 31 degree, cold, windy monsoon. Parking lots are flooding, yards look like ponds, and streets (and train lines) are closed all over because of flooding.

But, the light at the end of the tunnel is the fact that the 10 day forecast is glorious. 60 degrees and sunny. Tomorrow. Until then I’ll enjoy my wool sweater and warm boots.

So back to waking up in Maine.

After staying in Friday night and falling asleep with the BF at 9:30pm, we both had to work all day Saturday. Not ideal, I know. But it was manageable. After wrapping up our 6 day work week, we drove to Portland for my celebrate my dear friend’s 25th birthday party. It was held at a local bar, tons of fun, lots of familiar faces – many that I haven’t seen in ages.  The best girls and I  had our fair share of wine, beer, of course a flute (or two of champagne) and well.. you get the point.

It was really, really fun. And I had a 24 hour hangover to prove it.

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

I’m getting there! How do y’all like it? Still have some tweeking to do, but I’m pleased with the static front page. The sticky post just wasn’t necessary for this blog.

The debate has begun.  Do BF and I move from the big city of Boston to our hometown of Portland?  Or does BF move to hometown while I stay in Boston? (Nooo!)  Do we both stay in Boston for the indefinite future and wait until we’re married with kids to move to Portland?  These are the questions that are now officially consuming my life.

Since BF and I met, and subsequently became serious, we’ve agreed that we want to raise our family in the Greater Portland area.  The ocean, the islands,  museums, cafes, art galleries, restaurants, farmers markets, public parks, the schools, the sports community.  My admiration of Portland, and Maine in general is unbounded.  Seriously.

So why then, do I buy into the stigma of “moving home”?  At what point in one’s life does “moving home” no longer mean failing, giving up on bigger and better things?  Why will my friends fail to believe that bigger and better things for me may actually be in Portland?   And most importantly, why am I letting that influence my decision?

My desire to move home, and to move home so suddenly, is going to shock most anyone that I tell.  But the move really just makes sense.  I’m starting to realize that there is nothing holding me close to Boston.  There really is no reason why I choose to renew my lease each year, or why I chose not to travel elsewhere after college.  The only thing I can come up with is that it’s ‘comfortable.’  And to be frank, it’s just easier to stay put than to relocate.

But moving home will be even more ‘comfortable,’ right?   On one hand, yes, it might be.  But I’ve been gone 6 years now and although I know the bars like the back of my hand, I haven’t lived in Portland as an adult.   I haven’t made a life there for myself since I was in high school.  I want to join a kickball league and go to a happy hour at RiRa’s and meet a friend on Commerical St. for lunch.  And even though I could do these sorts of things in Boston, the point is that I don’t.  I haven’t, and probably will continue not to do so.  Am I just lazy?  Broke?  Or friendless?  I want to say none of the above.  There’s just something about living here that is so exhausting in itself, that it’s all I do.  I work, go home, eat, sleep, repeat.  On the weekends I go out.   And when I do make ‘fun’ plans, they all originate from Portland.  And that means I have to drive 2 hours north first.  In the summers I want to go to the islands or go to the lake without having to drive two hours first.  And in the winters I want Sugarloaf to be 2 hours away, not 4.

There’s something to be said for making a life of your own.  And while I fully respect people that successfully and happily do this in a new and unfamiliar place, who’s to say I can’t do it just as successfully and just as happily in the same town that I was raised?

I should mention that all of this is dependent on a job.  BF and I are beginning to talk to a few people, scope out the work scene up there, and I will not move home – unless I have a job.  That being said, if I were to get an offer in Portland tomorrow – I can’t say I’d move.  How am I going to figure this out?

Boyfriend and I went home this weekend.   We survived 3 family dinners, 2 poker tournaments and 1 life changing revelation.  More on that later, but first – the weekend.

Friday: I took the day off, remember?  I didn’t get a ton done, but playing pretend stay at home mom for the day allowed me to pick up the boyfriend from work at 5:00pm sharp.  Well I didn’t get there until 5:20pm, and on top of my tardiness we hit a ton of traffic heading out of the city.  Not sure why we were surprised there, but my tardiness + rush hour traffic / 7:00pm dinner reservations with the BF’s family = BF & me 45 minutes late for said reservation.  Not to worry though, his family isn’t the type to get mad.  They’re pretty good at entertaining themselves.  And I mean that as a compliment.  Really.

2 hours of maki, sashimi, saki and tempura later, BF and I thank the fam for a fancy Japanese dinner and head to the boys house for the night.  Fortunately tonight, unlike most nights at the boys’ house, there were actually a few other females present.  You see, normally it’s me and oh I don’t know, 15 poker playing, beer drinking, cigarette smoking men.  And I stand here now, waving the white flag.  It was fun.  Despite my attempts to leave the college-like-life of drinking games and staying out until 3am, I did actually enjoy the endless games of beirut, the taste of Miller Lite and the feeling of just hanging out, letting go and having fun.   I also, thoroughly enjoyed being an enjoyable person.  I have a love-hate relationship with many of the BF’s friends back home.  Like I said – they are the poker playing, beer drinking, cigarette smoking kind of men.  And although I do love them, and admire the relationship they have with the BF, well… let’s just say that I haven’t always agreed with all of their decisions, choices, actions, behaviors… you get the point.  And when I have disagreed with said behaviors, I’ve made it pretty clear.  You know – by storming out of parties, fighting with the BF, screaming – my list of (in the past) crazy GF behaviors is pretty long.

So cheers to me!  For just being the fun, enjoyable, sweet GF for the night.

Saturday: BF and I wake up to a gorgeous, and I mean gorgeous spring day.  We drive to get coffees, drive to the beach, drive, drive drive.  Windows down, music up.  Glorious if I must say so myself.  We part ways for the day and I do some serious damage hitting up the outlets in Freeport with Mom.   A quick “I just want to get a new pair of dress pants” turned into a day long excursion and I made out quite well – new jeans, (2) new pairs of dress pants, new high waisted pencil skirt, gorgeous gold necklace from BR and … a new purse!   Mom picked up the tab for quite a few of the purchase because they were work related and well, she still loves to treat me to some things.  And she picked up the tab for the new bag! It’s technically for my birthday in May, but consider it an early present and we’re all set.

We rejoined my family for family dinner #2.  We went to a new hibachi grill in Portland and hours later, after saki and Sapporo and hibachi mmmmmmm, we went downtown.  Saturday night was spent at the bars with both his friends and mine, so it was just a blast.  Started to feel like a bender of a weekend.

Sunday: Pretty harmless.  Coffee date with BF then parted ways.  I spent the afternoon lounging in yard furniture, drinking mimosas and beer, enjoying some snacks with my good friends.  Another glorious, glorious day.  Family dinner #3 followed with BF’s mom and family, and then a long, dark drive back to Boston.

I don’t know if it was the warm weather and sun, or the days filled with family and friends, but BF and I returned to the big city on Sunday wanting to move back to Portland.  No joke.  I’ve been here for 6 years now, so this is a huge, huge idea.  And it’s already giving me anxiety.  I mean, finding a job in my field in Portland isn’t going to be super easy.  But… this is a to be continued conversation.