Optimist Under Siege

If you work at home, and even if you don’t, it’s pretty safe to say that you have at one time or another been victim to (*dum dum dum*- scary music) Mental Tangents. You get some kind of idea in your head and you just can’t seem to drop it, even though the more rational part of you knows you should have given it up hours ago.

Case in point. Last night I came to the realization that this weekend is labor day weekend and hey, wouldn’t it be nice to go somewhere relaxing? So this morning I stumbled out of bed and headed straight to my computer (without passing Go, collecting $200, or brushing my teeth). I was determined to find a relaxing, low-key vacation house/hotel/motel/inn/whatever that didn’t cost too much, was easy to get to, and wasn’t already all booked up. At this point, I’m sure some of you are already rolling your eyes at me because of the outrageous criteria I set for myself (low cost and not booked already? yeah, right).

But remember, this is a mental tangent, and once you find yourself caught up in one, it’s not always easy to have a clear perspective and nearly impossible to tear yourself away.

So I spent, well, let’s just say a significant portion of what might have otherwise been a very productive morning surfing random spam-filled last minute vacation sites to find just what I was looking for.

Surprise news flash: I was unsuccessful! At some point I forced myself to get up, brush my teeth, pack up my laptop, and LEAVE THE HOUSE, thereby physically leaving my mental tangent behind me.

And here I am at Starbucks trying to make up for lost time. Like Aesop’s fables, let this be a lesson to you. Be wary of those mental tangents! They’re always out there just waiting to suck your time away!

I’m finally getting around to doing the preliminary set up of my new “holly and eric” site. As I’ve previously mentioned, the purpose of the site is to create an organized social hub in the Boston area that allows people to get together to do fun things and meet new people (but especially us!).

It’s basically supposed to be a cure for the post-college, post-grad-school, no kids, young professional problem of not being able to keep meeting new people and making new friends. I, of course, love all my old friends, but it’s fun and interesting to incorporate new people as well.

But where are you supposed to make new friends outside of a school context and with no kids? In a bar? At the supermarket? Now I know that a lot of people enjoy hanging out with their coworkers, but what if you end up in an office where everyone else is 20 years older or younger than you? And hey, let us not forget those of us who WORK AT HOME!! What are we supposed to do?

So I’m making a website. I should have something minimally functional by the end of the day (and will link to it once I do). I’m trying something a bit different (and potentially disastrous) on the website design for it. My plan is basically that of trial and error. I’m going to keep moving elements around and adjusting borders and colors and things until I like it. It probably won’t win any design awards this way, but we’ll see. I’m sure everyone will be waiting with bated breath (I don’t know why, but I just love that expression!) to see how it turns out. Stay tuned!

I’m excited, but also a little bit apprehensive about our upcoming Boundary Waters canoe trip (coming in early September). The Boundary Waters, for those who don’t know, are a series of lakes in northern Minnesota (and into Canada) where you can go and canoe/portage your way as far as you’d like. My husband and I are taking a 7 night canoe trip.

Now, the trip itself is fairly easy on the planning side. The canoe outfitter we booked with provides nearly everything we need: canoe, paddles, life jackets, food, tents, even toilet paper (I think…I hope!). So that’s not the intimidating part.

What’s a little bit scary is the idea of being out in the woods for seven days with no phone/internet contact (oh come on, I live on the computer…it’s like eating and breathing!), no other people besides the two of us (hey…romance is nice and all, but once romance wilts, next comes domestic violence!), although there may be plenty of bears and snakes to keep us company (oh goody!). Then, there’s the 7 days of built up sunscreen, perhaps bug spray, and sweat with no shower (ewww). And, at the risk of sounding like a stuck up member of the tv/internet/video games/constant electronic entertainment generation, I’m a little afraid we may get bored at some point.

I like going backpacking, but I’ve only ever gone on 2-3 day trips with a nice hot shower at the end.

That being said, I AM excited about it. I AM glad we’re going. And I DO think we will ultimately have a fabulous time. Doubts, I cast you out! (This post makes me seem way more girly and high maintenance than I really am…No, really!)

As a Friday at the end of a long week where I was doing some freelance work all week (and therefore didn’t have much time to work on my own stuff!), it seemed only fitting to take this opportunity to reorient and compose a semi-longterm To-Do List to get back on track and remember my priorities. So here’s my first attempt.

• Add more interesting and user friendly features to the cheese site.
• Make the cheese site generally more user-friendly.
• Eventually redesign the cheese site (as my web design skills get better and better over time).
• Continue to learn and be inspired by all the great other blogs out there I’ve found to follow. Cheers to you all!
• Learn to do all sorts of crazy, wacky yoga poses (tying my body in knots, balancing on one finger…you know what I mean!).
• Continue smiling through my mom’s repeated requests for grandchildren!
• Work on publicizing my super awesome maid of honor site (I wish I had found something like it when I was a maid of honor and bridesmaid!).
• Take a cooking class to help me learn to be a better cook (not a gourmet cook, but at least an adequate cook!).
• Develop my web design skills because designing websites is something I really enjoy doing (more than other things).
• Make an effort to plan more social events (for both myself and my husband). It’s all about connecting with people, right?
• Develop and grow my new “Holly and Eric” social connection website (which I’m still not going to link to because it’s not worth visiting yet!). Ultimately become a social hub in Boston.
• Develop and expand my husband’s tolerance for or (hopefully) love of watching movies (I mean, seriously…who doesn’t like watching movies?!).
• Work hard during the day and still try to cook dinner regularly.
• Stay up with SEO as it changes and improves upon itself.

Well, there are quite a few more, but here’s a start anyway. I really mean it about that yoga thing. Just wait…one of these days I’ll be the queen of yoga. Oh yeah!

This week I’m doing some freelance work outside of the house and it’s making me realize just how much work I have to do inside the house! Suddenly I’m scrabbling to the find the time to write new entries for my cheese blog, and my new Holly and Eric site (a site, in the long run, meant to help unite potential friends in the Boston area) is sitting neglected on the internet, forlorn and half-coded. (Notice that I didn’t link to the H&E site…that’s because it’s not worth going there yet!) And please, don’t get me started on the cleanliness level of the apartment. I’m so not going there! My new mop isn’t getting any love.
Well, after another day or so of WORK (outside), I should finally be able to get back to WORK (at home)! Funny that.

This past Saturday night I once again proved to myself that I am in fact not getting old and boring! Not that anyone would ever have suspected that, of course! I’m wild; I’m crazy!

On Saturday night, I got dressed up in a sexy dress, went out dancing late into the evening, late enough and furiously enough that I even indulged in a late night slice of pizza at a local place that stays open for just that purpose (and OH, was it amazingly delicious under the circumstances!). I slept in nice and late and even had a mild hangover to show for it all (which normally I wouldn’t consider a good thing, but it was evidence!). I completed this lovely sequence of events with a fabulous carbohydrate-packed breakfast of french toast and strawberries at a local restaurant.

That’s right, world, look out, I’m still around and I am awesome! Oh yeah! Old, married, and boring…NO WAY!

So I was telling my husband yesterday that I was unusually excited to have finally bought a new mop. I mean…it’s just a mop, right? But somehow, to me, it was so much better than that! He suggested that I really ought to blog about my overzealous mop enthusiasm, so here I am. I was a little hesitant at first because it seems like such a lame thing to be psyched about. It’s just a mop, bought at CVS, not even anything particularly interesting.

But it works!!! And I was able to mop the bathroom floor again!!! I had run out of wet cloth replacements for my old mop and could only locate them online for an inexplicably ridiculous amount of money (come on…it’s just a mop!).

So now I have a new mop and the world is made right again. I wish you all equal amounts of happiness with your mops (or whatever household items bring you joy)!

Last night my husband and I took advantage of restaurant week in Boston by visiting a fondue restaurant we’ve enjoyed in the past called The Wine Cellar (near Mass Ave. and Newbury St. in Boston). We enjoyed a lovely prix fixe three course meal of swiss cheese fondue (extremely delicious appetizer- my favorite part), shrimp and beef fondue (entree), and dark chocolate fondue with cookies and fruit (yum, dessert!).

Wait a minute, scratch that. We did have the cheese and chocolate fondue, but only I had the shrimp and beef entree fondue, while my husband ordered a fish plate. And let me explain why!

To be fair, the hot oil fondue in which you cook the raw beef and shrimp before dipping them in various sauces isn’t all that amazingly good tasting, but it’s fun and that’s the point. Just like sushi has its own ritual with wasabi, soy sauce, and chopsticks, so fondue has its own fun procedure. You take one of your several fondue skewers, hook a piece of meat, and rest it inside the hot oil fondue pot where there are special slots to hold it. Usually you have more than one piece cooking at once in order to have something to eat more of the time.

I, for one, quite enjoy the whole concept. Besides the fun of the ritual, it also forces you to slow down, talk, sip your wine, and otherwise relax and enjoy the scrumptious fancy meal you came for. My husband, on the other hand, avoided this particular meal because he just wants to eat! He doesn’t want to have to wait and “take forever,” especially while he’s hungry.

In a way, I think this serves as a metaphor for our two personalities and takes on life. I savor the whole process of doing things and like to step back and watch what’s going on around me. I can’t get enough people watching and I love to do all sorts of pointless things like dressing up for Halloween (which is coming up…yeah!). My husband is more of a results-oriented kind of guy. He appreciates a nicely prepared meal in an elegant atmosphere, but wants to eat his food, pay the check, and move on. He’s not the type to linger. He wants to have had the meal, have accomplished a cool activity.

Now this isn’t entirely fair to either of us, but the fondue incident does show something very interesting about how we each interact with life. Deep thoughts over fondue.

When I first quit my office job to work at home full time, the theory was that I would spend a certain number of hours each week on non-work-related stuff, like house cleaning, errands, and even vacation planning and the organization of social events (inviting friends over, having parties, etc.). And while our apartment is a LOT cleaner than it used to be (trust me…it wasn’t a pretty site!), most of my time still goes to strictly “work” related things.

Is this a bad thing? I don’t know. On the one hand, it makes sense to put all my time into the career/money-earning/what-I-do-for-a-living stuff until it starts to be reasonably successful. But on the other hand, the personal organization and planning forces us to be more social, to connect with people, to get out there and do more interesting things like traveling, exploring Boston, and going to unusual events like free outdoor yoga on the esplanade in front of the Boston hatchshell (where the Boston Symphony Orchestra performs on July 4th and other times). Okay, the yoga was just me, but the point is still the same (and the yoga was really cool!).

Perhaps I should reserve more time for personal stuff. I know that my husband loves it when I schedule social events or shows for us. For example, we went to see a local production of the opera Carmen last weekend. That was a lot cooler than staying home and hanging out.

On that note, we are trying a new method for social organization. It’s only a rough framework so far, but at Holly and Eric, we’re trying to set up an internet presence where we can interact with old friends and potential new friends in order to get out there more and socialize. To begin with, you may notice that the feed is using Twitter, but that may change in the long term. Check it out and join us! As someone who works at home, it’s even more important to strive to get out and be social (so we don’t lose our minds!).

This weekend is going to be AWESOME! I get to do one of my very favorite things, dressing up! My husband and I are invited to a black tie wedding at a hotel on Boston harbor for one of his coworkers. And, let me just say that his coworker is now one of my favorite people ever. By making his wedding reception black tie (I’m sure he was thinking of me when he planned it, obviously!), he is forcing my husband to wear a tux (which he will look SO cute in…um…or handsome, debonair…whatever you prefer!) and I get to wear the beautiful long green silk grecian-looking dress I originally bought for my own rehearsal dinner.

I’m also going to get my hair done! This is mainly because I’m completely useless at doing my own hair- it’s not one of my many skills- and I want to look good for his coworkers, but I’m also secretly (or not so secretly) looking forward to it simply for its own sake. At the wedding, we’ll dine, we’ll dance (Oh yes, husband, we will!), we’ll mingle, we’ll drink champagne. How great is that! Oh yeah, and somewhere in there they’ll be a wedding or something (lest us not lose sight of the purpose here!).

Assuming that we’re on top of things enough to remember a camera (neither myself nor my husband are great on the picture taking front), I’ll add pictures to a future post. Three cheers for the black tie wedding!