I'm Nicole and I live in DC. I'm a writer, knitter, cat lady, social media lover, nonprofit worker, and beer and food enthusiast. Want to know a little more about me? 
Filed under: Uncategorized
When I first got my car in high school, I loved driving. To me, and probably every other 16 year old, driving represented freedom; I could finally go places and my mom didn’t have to drop me off or know exactly where I was going.
I grew up in a once-small country town that had more 7-11s, banks, and churches than traffic lights. We would have to drive more than 20 miles to get to the closest mall, and even further to get to one that had major department stores. Our Main Street served as “the strip” that everyone would cruise their souped-up cars down over and over again.
Needless to say, we drove a lot.
When I went to college, I thought I’d miss my car, that I’d want to go for drives and head to the mall twice a weekend, but my priorities changed. Instead, I learned how liberating it was to not have a car. For instance: in the city, your property is easily accessible to far more people than are in a small town. You have to worry about where your car can be parked, when you have to move it so you don’t get towed, and if someone’s going to break into it.
These are all things I don’t have time for. Plus, it’s really expensive. Yeah, I know, it can be really inconvenient to not have a vehicle for quick trips to the store or for visiting friends late at night or for quick drives home to see family. But, I know enough people with cars that I can just reach out to them and have them help me out.
So, needless to say, I walk a lot and, with the onslaught of Metro issues, I’ve vowed to give them as little money as possible. On the weekends, I hardly even take Metro unless I need to cross the river or go somewhere not within a three-mile walking radius.
I walk nearly 2 miles every day on days that I work. My office is approximately .8 miles away from the nearest Metro station and I walk that walk every single day, to and from work. In addition, I walk everywhere when I get home and that increases my daily walking total.
Sometimes, I don’t hit the 2-mile mark on weekends, but other times I walk 5 or 6 miles around the city in one day. Add all that up and you have approximately 60 miles walked in the month of July. I’m pretty proud of this number considering the average American walks just 400 yards a day.
That said, I often start these lofty projects without following through. So let’s see what I can do… All I need to do is add another 10 miles per week, and I’ll be able to hit the mark I set in yesterday’s post!
Filed under: Updates | Tags: blogging, craft festivals, crafty bastards, friends, jobs, knitting, wedding
Long time, no see. I’m sorry to have neglected you blog, but a lot of things have been going on in my life over the past two months:
- I quit one job and started another two weeks later.
- I got sick. Twice.
- I attended Digital Capital Week and experienced inspiration in every sense of the word.
- I started dating someone. Stopped dating them. Started dating someone else.
- I FINALLY found some blogspiration and developed a well thought-out blog theme, created a semi-homemade designed (highly customized a template), and recruited three new bloggers to contribute.
- I had plans every single day (sometimes I was double, even triple-booked) for 17 days in a row.
- I wrote two blog posts for my company’s website on social media crisis communications and how a Conan O’Brien skit relates to my Digital Capital Week experience.
In July, my schedule is going to quickly slow down (at least I hope it will) and I have a lot of things to accomplish:
- I will run/walk 100 miles. I’ve recently discovered that when I budget my hours at work based on projects I need to work on, it’s easier to focus on the tasks at hand if I tell myself, “I need to work on Project X for 2.5 hours today.” If I divide 100 miles up by 31 days, that comes out to approximately 3.22 miles a day (slightly higher than a 5K) or 6.44 miles every other day. I generally do 5 miles at the gym at a time, so this isn’t a huge stretch.
- I will apply for my first craft festival: Crafty Bastards, hosted by the Washington City Paper. I’m really nervous about this. I haven’t sold much on Etsy, but I also haven’t put in much effort. I also haven’t knitted anything new in a long time. I’m hoping to recreate a knitted gear shift (that I will make into a finger puppet) a friend recently posted on her Facebook that will be cheap, quick to make, and enticing to the kiddies who may come by my booth.
- I will launch my first real blog (I don’t count this as a ‘real’ blog). Originally, the plan was for the blog to be completely anonymous. I was going to have an alias, but that’s not going to happen anymore. I’m going to be completely open and honest about my unique experiences in my short-lived career. I think honesty is the best policy and I have no reason to hide. So, on July 5, check out my latest project JOBSESSED. I have some really great writers lined up and I think it’s going to be a great project.
- I will attend my best friend’s wedding. After 5 years, my best friends are finally getting married on July 31. It’s something I’ve been personally looking forward to for a long time and it’s going to be one of the best days of my life so far. My dress is amazing, my hair is growing out and I haven’t gotten a funny sunburn yet… things are looking good.
- I will write a blog post every day. This is probably going to be the biggest challenge for me all month long, but I’m going to do it. Just you watch me.
In middle school, I had a great Latin teacher named Ms. Noel. Every month, on the last day, she’d remind us to say White Rabbit the next morning (the first day of the new month) as soon as we woke up to wish us good luck for the rest of the month. Even though I rarely remember do this before I wind up talking to a cat, I almost always remember this superstition.
Even though it wasn’t the first thing I said this morning (I believe that was actually, “Uuuuuuuuuuugh, is it really 7 already?”), I’m hoping writing “White Rabbit” on my blog will wish it good luck for the next 31 days.
Filed under: The Internet
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, almost my entire life is spent online. Between work, communicating, watching television, paying bills, or selling my handmade items, I’d guestimate that 95% of my awake time is spent online. (I even wrote most of this post from a Metro train and I saved each time I hit a station with cell reception.)
Maybe it’s just my obsessive hyperconnectedness that causes me to check Twitter, Facebook and email several times an hour or maybe it’s a nervous tic I’m developing. Last night, I actually plotted how I could gain the “Brooklyn 4 Life” Foursquare badge (requires 25 separate check-ins at various Brooklyn locations) in two days’ time.
I’m beginning to think the Internet, and various technologies, are ruining everything good and wholesome about life.
Here are a few reasons:
- The Internet easily turns you into a stalker. No one can claim innocence here. Everyone has a little bit of stalker in them and social media encourages it. Just like everything in life, it’s okay in moderation, right? But, where’s that line between finding out your crush’s favorite band and guessing how many people he’s dated in the past 6 months by checking his facebook wall/status updates?
- The Internet makes people want to share things instantly — even live events. Maybe I’m a sucker, but I’m 24 years old and I still love surprises. Live tweeting might be one of the worst “inventions” to come out of social media, yet, again, I’ve done it before. [I'm more likely to live tweet my visit to my favorite cupcake store or cooking dinner, but I still do it.] Not only does it ruin the feeds of every person following you, but you’re not saying anything original about what’s going on.
Long before the days of Tivo, Twitter, and Hulu, you either caught your favorite show live or you didn’t see it at all. Missing an episode of Friends or Seinfeld meant you’d have to hope it shows up in re-runs over the summer. Websites dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of the smoke monster/The Man In Black wouldn’t have existed. Now, if you’re not home at 9pm on Tuesdays, yet you still want to check your Facebook or Twitter feeds, you’re almost guaranteed to have the entire episode of Lost spoiled for you.
- The Internet ruins past-times. Again, something I’m guilty of. I used to read and write all the time, now I struggle to open a book or read something other than the front page of CNN.com or Entertainment Weekly. I long for the feeling of reading a good book, but I just don’t. Instead of bringing a book along for my morning commute, I refresh my TweetDeck before I get on Metro and read updates I missed from the night before.
- The Internet wants me to connect to people and things with whom I don’t want to be connected. While I appreciate the new “community” pages on Facebook, I find the sharing options to be incredibly annoying. I’m not an organized person, but I keep my internet browsing very separated. Everyone I know on Facebook doesn’t need to know what I’m reading on CNN.com (or the embarrassing stations I listen to on Pandora).
What are some things the internet ruins for you?
Filed under: The District
Have you ever had one of those bipolar relationships? You know, the ones where you’re equally repulsed and equally turned on by the other?
That’s how I feel about the District. He and I have had an off-and-on, love-hate relationship for the past seven years.
It started out great; everything was exciting and new and nothing he did could let me down. Ahh, those were the days. Not even aching hips from walking on concrete all day or getting take out for every meal could ruin my idyllic fantasy of city life.
The honeymoon lasted more than three years until we had our first breakup.
I met someone else.
I was lured to New York for the summer with the promises of bright lights, new adventures, and … important internships. I immediately fell in love with my new city and moved on. For awhile.
Three months and two Life Moments later, I returned back to the District. The next year, we pretended that we were still right for each other. Both of us had grown and changed, but we weren’t able to recognize that it wasn’t a good fit. I tried doing all my “normal” things – going to my favorite theater, eating at my favorite places, studying for exams under my favorite tree on the mall. He greeted me with soupy summer days followed by beautiful autumnal nights. We were both trying to make it work.
We spent another year hating each other, resenting everything the other did. The hard, concrete sidewalks made me throw my back out and I moved to Arlington only visiting to go to work.
I moved back to New York the next summer where I thought I was fulfilling my every dream — working in the music industry, being broke and happy in Brooklyn, and doing that whole “growing as a person” thing. Until it all came crashing down.
All that time, the District was still there. Waiting for me. While I was gone, the city remained constant. Instead of rejecting the District as an option for the Next Phase of my life, I’d matured. I realized I’d gained the patience to cope with the finickiness of the city.
So, I moved back. One last time.
Last weekend, I officially fell back in love with the city. After weeks of going back and forth because of the weather, my job, or metro dysfunctions, I finally did what I used to do every time I needed to clear my head and get in touch with the city again: I went for a walk.
In 3.5 miles (from Woodley Park, down the bridge into Dupont, and onward to Georgetown), I was able to find the clarity I’d been lacking for awhile and realized that no matter what I do, who I meet, or where I go, the District’s home. How could I turn my back on him now?
Seven years in, I think things between us are only just getting started…
Filed under: Pop Culture | Tags: 2009, academy awards, avatar, movies, oscars, the hurt locker
Thankfully, tonight, the 82nd Academy Awards will conclude all the countdowns, year-end wrap-ups, and discussions of film in The Aughts. I actually agreed with the Academy’s choice to raise the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. Over the past few years, there’ve been some crazy years where one film really dominates the entire landscape of award shows leaving perfectly good great films out of the Best Picture category. Unfortunately for the Academy, 2009 happened to be a year of a bunch of good films that grossed a lot of money, and no actual standouts that achieved (near) perfection of the cinematic arts.
In 2009, I can really only compile a list of movies I enjoyed, but that didn’t necessarily move me. On the enjoyment scale, I’d say the best movies of 2009 were District 9, Zombieland and Where the Wild Things Are. Other than that, only one movie truly moved me, and I didn’t even watch it in 2009.
The night of the Golden Globes, I decided to watch The Hurt Locker. Normally, I’d watch the award show, but I was so disappointed with the films nominated that I couldn’t even watch. I’d seen a good portion of the films nominated except for Avatar and THL and I refuse to pay $13 for a movie, because it’s best viewed in 3-D.
I have to admit, THL is a subtle film about an explosive (literally and figuratively) issue affecting my generation right now. Honestly, whether bomb detonators in Iraq say the film is factually accurate or not doesn’t matter to me. The bombs and the war are secondary characters to Jeremy Renner and the emphasis is placed on the relationships he does and doesn’t build with the people around him. Film isn’t supposed to be reality; instead, they’re supposed to be thought-provoking interpretations of what’s going on in someone’s story. I truly believe THL is the best movie/story of the year.
If I was a voting member of the Academy, these would be my winners of the 2009 (I left a few categories out that I simply do not know enough about or didn’t have time to consider):
Best Picture :: The Hurt Locker
(I think Avatar will win)Best Actor :: Jeremy Renner
(I think Jeff Bridges will win)Best Supporting Actor :: Christopher Waltz
Best Actress :: Carey Mulligan
(I think Sandra Bullock will win)Best Supporting Actress :: Maggie Gyllenhaal
(I think Mo’Nique will win)Best Animated Film :: Up
Best Art Direction :: Avatar
Best Cinematography :: The Hurt Locker
Best Costumes :: The Young Victoria (period pieces always win this right?)
Best Director :: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
(I would not be upset if Jason Reitman won, I’m a big fan of his)Best Documentary :: Food, Inc.
Best Writing (Adapted) :: Up in the Air
Best Writing (Original) :: Inglorious Basterds
We’ll see how I do a little later. For now, off to see another movie instead of watching the awards show.
Riding the metro in the morning is one of the most somber experiences I’ve had. No one makes eye contact, no one smiles, no one talks. You don’t want to be that guy who has the sniffles because the few people who are awake, will look up from their books or newspapers to give you a dirty look. Other times of the day, some passengers seem to think there are no rules applicable to them.
If there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s people who willfully break the unspoken rules of general politeness. I’m not a always stickler for rules (unless it involves board games) and have a lot of different parts of my style and personality that contradict each other (i.e. having a ton of tattoos while also owning practically the entire Ann Taylor Loft collection), but there are certain ways you must behave in public, especially if there are others around.
I never seem to have an exceptionally good or bad metro experience; they all seem to be equally infuriating. I’m not one of those people who is an impatient traveler and commuter, so it takes a lot to ruffle my feathers. It seems like every trip I take on metro I get put in the direct path of the few types of people that really get my blood boiling.
So, here are the four worst metro passengers I come across every day:
- Parents with strollers: I’m not a horrible person; I understand that you need to bring your kid on the metro. I will probably do the same. But let me ask you a question: would you bring your double-wide stroller on the escalator at the mall? No, you’d take an elevator. Why can’t mall-etiquette/safety be applied to the metro? Not only is it frustrating for the people who like to walk up or down the escalator, but it’s extremely dangerous.
I once watched a woman pushing an empty stroller on the escalator while holding her very young baby in her arms. After two steps, the escalator jolted slightly causing the stroller and the woman (who was still holding the baby) to fall backwards. People behind her fell like dominoes and the escalator jammed. This is still the worst, and most terrifying experience I’ve had on the metro.
- The Seat Hoarder: I loathe anyone who thinks their bag deserves a seat more than my tiny self. I also think it’s pretty selfish to sit so you’re purposefully taking up just the teeniest amount (so it looks like you’re not purposefully doing it) of the seat next to you so someone won’t sit there. Look, I get it. I don’t want to sit next to you either, but as my dad reminded me so frequently when I was sick in high school, you have to do a lot of things in life you don’t like.
- Tall People (yes, all of you, I’m sorry): It’s not that I have anything against tall people, they just can’t understand the plight of the short person on public transportation. You really shouldn’t lean against the entire vertical rail just because you can. There may be people, like me, that would appreciate being able to hold on to the vertical rail because we can’t reach the ones more than a foot above our heads.
- The Important Guy: This is the guy who thinks he’s more important than everyone else on the train either because he’s wearing an expensive suit, has a lot of messages to check on his BlackBerry, or has a messenger bag with a defense contracting company’s logo on it. Everyone in DC is important (or at least they think they are) and has somewhere to be, you’re not the only one on this halted 8 car train that’s annoyed. Take a cab.
Filed under: Updates | Tags: exercise, friends, middle school, new balance, pheobe, running, sweat
Everything I know about running, I learned from my 9th grade gym class teacher. However, I didn’t pay much attention in 9th grade; I was more interested in the boy in my journalism class and how I could make sure I got to class fastest from the gym to sit at his table during class.
Running around a track or a field outside wasn’t stimulating and seemed pointless at the time. The boys would always lap me and taller girls would finish first. I hated running then, and have been afraid of it ever since.
A few years back, these New Balance commercials really intrigued me and almost made me want to run… but not quite enough to get me off my butt to do it.
I’m not sure what took me so long to get on the treadmill… I’m not afraid of a little a lot of sweat, I thoroughly enjoy working out, and am trying desperately to get into shape while still in my mid-twenties.
One of the biggest fears I had prior to stepping on the treadmill was the possibility of having bad form. How freely should your arms really move? Would I run like Pheobe in that episode of FRIENDS?
Also, what happens when you let go of the bar in front of you? Will you slide right off the back end like in a bad movie? What if you wind up running from side to side? Will I sound like a heard of elephants running down a bowling alley?
The only thing I remember from 9th grade gym class was our teacher telling us to hold our hands like there was a delicate potato chip between our fingers. Don’t ball your fingers into a fist and don’t squeeze your energy into your hands.
Once I stepped on, I realized that I didn’t need to answer any of those questions until I just did it.
I began doing intervals of 10 minutes – seven minutes jogging/running, three minutes walking. After three of those, I then did three more 7 minute intervals – four minutes running, three minutes walking. All in all, I ran/walked for nearly 60 minutes straight and it’s safe to say I got a good workout; I think even my fingernails are sweating.
More than anything, I feel accomplished. I’ve lived on the Blue/Orange line for 90% of my adult life and never really had residential areas to run in. Now that I live in a tree-lined, residential neighborhood with a bunch of rich yuppies on the Red line, people are constantly running… and constantly making me feel bad for not running.
Now, I can’t say I don’t know how to run. Or that I’m a bad runner. Yeah, it may take two sports bras and a super tight athletic tank to strap my chest down, but I can run!
Filed under: Updates | Tags: crafts, etsy, knitting, lisa, photography, sold
I’ve long debated launching an Etsy store for my knitted items. I regularly get people complimenting my scarves and asking where I got them and, after thoroughly cleaning my apartment, I found 16 completed items I’d never worn.
I often wondered about the actual earning potential on Etsy. Last summer, my former roommate and I hand folded, dyed, and ironed nearly 40 silk scarves. We took gorgeous photos of them, posted them to Etsy, and didn’t even have many “views.” A month later, we attempted to sell them at a craft fair in Brooklyn. Again, to no avail.
This time, I made sure I was going to do it right. With support from my Twitter account and blog, I knew I could at least get some views and get some friends and family to pass the link along to their friends. A friend came over and helped me photograph my handknits which I promptly resized and touched up.
After four hours of grueling Etsy uploading, my store was created.
Just 12 hours later, I had my first sale and, yesterday, had my second. I currently have two or three custom requests coming in and I’m going to start networking on the discussion forums with other users. Sunday, I went out and bought a bunch of spring-time yarns to get spring knitting started so I can put the winter knits on sale and get more items in the store.
I also rushed to get “finishing products” to wash, wrap, and send my knits in: I bought a beautiful blue, geometric tissue paper that was on sale at Target, blue metallic Thank You cards, and spring-time gentle soap. One of the most important things about Etsy is that everything is about having that extra special personal touch, and I really wanted to make sure to include that when I ship items as well. Today, I mailed my first Etsy sale and I was so excited that I took pictures of it.
In the summer of 2005, I dropped nearly 20 pounds doing Weight Watchers, eating properly and exercising, and having a very active job as an intern at a concert promotions company. The weight came off in a matter of weeks and then I started to slack and begin ‘rewarding’ myself. Not too long after that, I started dating and stopped eating healthily and making time for the gym.
The other day I had one of those realizations that, in 10 years, I could be one of those people on The Biggest Loser who wakes up and is over 200 pounds. I’ve slowly gained all that weight back – and more – in a matter of 4.5 years. Keep it on this pace, I could be more than 250 pounds by the time I hit 34, and that’s not something I’m okay with.
One of the major issues I have with my body is that I’m completely proportional and I hold my weight well. Yeah, that may not seem like a bad thing, but, when you gain and lose, nothing really changes. When I tell people what I weigh, they’re completely floored thinking I weigh at least 15-20 pounds less than I actually do. Maybe that has do to with my athletic background as a child and having a muscular build, but being proportional has a lot to do it with it, too. There’s no “oh, hey, my gut’s getting out of control” or “wow, my butt looks big in those jeans.” Unless I can’t buy a pair of jeans in the store, I never really notice that I’ve gained or lost much weight.
So, what am I doing now to lose weight? I haven’t changed my lifestyle that much, actually. Here are the things I’ve focused on so far:
- Getting to the gym no matter if it’s crowded or not. I love watching the activity points rack up on Weight Watchers. An hour on the elliptical is rewarding in many ways – it’s worth 8 activity points, I get a very good sweat on, and it wears me out so I can go to sleep. Also, it relieves the guilt of having a late-night snack.
- Choosing skim milk when drinking coffee/Don’t drink your calories. One of my long-term goals is to completely rid my diet of unnecessary/empty calories, especially those consumed through drinking. They offer very little nutritional value and don’t even come close to filling you up.
- Making sure to evaluate food at home before choosing to eat at a restaurant. I have a lot of food in my house. I could survive another snowpocalypse without having to worry about groceries — I really shouldn’t be getting takeout from the Thai place or Chipotle on my way home three times a week. Not only is it bad for my waistline, but it’s also bad for my wallet.
- Eating leftovers. For anyone who knows me, they know I basically can’t stomach leftovers. I blame it on the fact that I basically only at three things for the bulk of my childhood. This week, I cooked a pack of chicken up one night and vowed to eat all of it over the course of the week. I just seasoned it with pepper and salt when I cooked it so that I could use it in a variety of ways – on a sandwich, in tacos, or just plain… hot or cold. I wound up finishing the entire pack in four days.
- Setting an alarm for counting my points three times a day. I’ve actually been on Weight Watchers since my birthday and, six weeks later, I’m just beginning to count my points. There’s no bigger motivating factor than tracking your points and realizing “wow, that Pop Tart has 1/5 of the calories I’m supposed to consume in a day.” Even if you think you’re making a ‘sacrifice’ by eating Pop Tarts without the frosting (I did a calorie check in the store; some flavors without frosting have more calories than their frosting-less counterparts).
- Not counting daily routine in activity points. I generally walk 2-3 miles a day, but if I were to stop exercising, this wouldn’t change. While WW suggests that you track all activity, I’m not going to go with this method because it inflates how much actual exercise I’m finding the time to do.
When you can eat things like this on a diet, why would you not diet? (I apologize for the slightly blurry picture)
That’s a mozzarella, tomato, and arugula panini on whole wheat artisan bread with a chickpea, pepper, carrot and onion salad on a little bit of spinach. Grand total: 6 Weight Watchers points.
