Headin' South

Packing and preparing for Disney World! So excited, but super busy. To occupy your mind for a minute or two, some of my favorite travel quotes:

When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.
~Susan Heller


There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.
~Orson Welles
(I actually love flying, but yes, there is a good amount of boredom)


Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
~Mark Twain


Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.
~Freya Stark

Thank You

Happy Veteran's Day!

Thank you so very much to all the service men and women who served and are currently serving our country. Our prayers are with you and your loved ones for the daily sacrifices you make for us.

For those currently deployed - stay safe and come home soon.

Never underestimate the power of a thank you.

Roman Weekend

I lived in Rome for five months and I will be the first to admit it was anything but perfect, but it was beautiful and it certainly had its high points. It was definitely one of those things where if you could have done it with the people you care about most in the world, it would have been an entirely different experience. From a culinary standpoint, I wish I had gone out to eat more, but let's be honest, I wasn't exactly rolling in money and I was finding good food on my own ;-).

I was a dipping into the local scene and hitting up the grocery stores and markets, which was often extremely nerve-racking (have you tried ordering meat from a butcher... IN ITALIAN?!?! Not an easy thing to do. I was basically a vegetarian while I was there and returned to the States with significantly better charades skills).

Rome was actually when I realized how much I loved clams... and nutella, LOTS and lots of nutella, not combined though. So, as an ode to my Roman life, I am making Linguine with White Clam Sauce and Crepes this weekend.

Now, crepes aren't strictly a Roman memory for me. I've been making them for years with my family. One of my favorite "comfort foods" is actually a sweet, (fresh) strawberry cream cheese filled crepe, topped with a fresh fruit compote and powdered sugar, which was my Dad's concoction that we perfected together. For the reason of those wonderful memories, I don't think I could make them without him with me, so I'll be having the classic nutella and banana filled crepes this time. A yummy snack that was readily available at a stand right in front of the Pantheon. They were gynormous and delicious and wonderful.

Buon appetito, ragazzi!

I'm Getting Restless

You know what this means if you know me at all... time for a new hair style/color. This was attempted on my birthday a couple months ago but it wasn't exactly satisfying, so time for a redo! This time I can't decide if I want to stick with my original plan to go blond or do my absolute favorite color hair: deep, dark, chocolaty brown. Like almost black.

I also need a hair cut. I'm trying to grow out my hair again, like below:

But, I have a loooong way to go to reach that length, so I'm thinking my cut is going to look more like this:


And probably something similar to this coloring:

Snooze

Do you ever wake up and wish you hadn't... or, that you at least woke up to something entirely different than your reality?

I go through phases where I am just completely taken away with my daydreams and can run away with them for hours on end.

These binges are fueled by music, my everlasting and insatiable addiction. Such artists as Amos Lee, Ray LaMontagne, Ryan Adams, Newton Faulkner, Dispatch and many more are on my playlist. They are my enablers and healers all in one, clouding my thoughts with smooth melodies and acoustic guitars.

At a young age, I learned the best way to feel something was to embrace it fully, so turn up the music and get carried away...