Right Up My Ali

I’ll miss you friend.

Never thought I’d care about the color of my walls but I love my new dark blue bathroom.

The bunglaow is almost finished!  Here is a sneak peak into my front door

Lots of sunlight? Check

Garage in busy neighborhood? Check

Balcony, garden and safety? Check, check, check.

I’m so happy to be moving into my new space in Fells Point!  The entrance to the apt has ivy growing around it and I feel like I’m walking into some sort of enchanted garden. 

I’m making improvements little by little and the first thing that needed to be done was paint.  I chose a grey/blue and only painted two accent walls but I’m loving how it looks against the white.

It’s all in the details.  I love the crescent window over the bathroom and the molding lining the apartment.  Two things I never thought I would appreciate.

Since it’s a studio, I have to be creative with my space.  I’m lucky to have high ceilings to give the place a feeling of being larger but I need to be very smart with the furniture I choose.  Stay tuned for updates on how to make the most of a cozy little nookl!

I can’t claim this phrase to be my own at all but I have no problem borrowing it.  Ah the stages of adulthood and how they taunt us.  From the ages of 22-27 we’re duped into thinking that we’re really adults.  We live on our own, we have jobs, pay rent, have our own medical insurance, heck we’re even kicked off the family plan!  We buy some furniture albeit not the most sturdy or thought out but couches, beds and end tables that serve their purpose.  Our jobs also serve their purpose, showing us what it’s like to be a grown up by forcing us to go to bed a little earlier and focus just a little bit more on boring stuff like bills and 401(k) plans.  This stage I adulthood is pretty fun.  I say pretty because it’s also super difficult.  We can’t afford everything we want and we have to work really hard to get anywhere.  Our endurance both in working out and going out dwindles just enough to make us panic that we’re getting older.

By 27 you can feel stage I start to slip away as your friends and siblings your age get married and start to have babies. You actually start enjoying being a bridesmaid because it means you’re still young enough to be one.  You dread baby showers because it means one more of your friends won’t be making the “girls weekend” this year.  Stage II sneaks up on you.  It’s when you’re expected to “do the right thing” and you’re even looked to at work for answers.  Oh the responsibility!

I’m entering my own version of stage II and I’m moving in on my own. I’ve collected some decent furniture but I’ve decided to actually invest in my apartment.  I’m going to add little touches here and there and actually care about what goes on my walls and where it’s even hung!  This is new to me.  I’m not getting married or having kids, but I’m taking the next step in adulthood and not relying on someone else.  As stage II approaches you can do one of a few things.  You can avoid it like the plague and try to hold on to your youth by hanging out with younger people, drinking the same amount you did in college and even living with a bunch of roommates mirroring a college life you still covet.  You can embrace it and go the complete opposite way becoming the most serious version of yourself OR you can be somewhere in between.  I haven’t got it all figured out yet, but I’m excited for the next stage and whatever it may bring.

Stay tuned for updates on how I hand stage II.  It should be interesting.

There’s this girl that works at the Starbucks in my neighborhood that really bugs me out. Granted, when I walk in there it’s around 9:20 and I need to be at work at 9:30 and I’m more than 10 minutes away so I’m not in the BEST mood.  But I legit have a really hard time making eye contact with her.

Ideas on why this may be:

1)  I’m pretty sure she wants to sleep with every man she waits on and says it with her eyes so maybe that’s where my hesitation comes.

2) It’s unnerving that she managed to match her pearls with her horrible uniform and somehow got Strabucks corporate to allow her to monogram her apron (YUP).

3) She wears lipstick.

4) She smiles too hard.

5) She spells my name “Ally” on my coffee cup

6) She says “Thanks Ally” as I pay her

Thanks, Marie have a GREAT day!

Ok so Valentine’s Day is tomorrow but I’d write a topical post.  My mom came to visit this weekend and it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.  I’m not sure how she does it, but she makes me feel like the most beautiful, most grounded, most mature woman to walk the earth (these are not qualities I typically identify with).  I can attribute so much of my confidence to the support she has given me over the years.

When I broke my foot training for the New York marathon, instead of letting me wallow in my defeat, my mom told me how amazing I was for making it to 23 miles.  After each break-up in my life, my mom would assure me that everything would be O.K. and she wasn’t worried about me finding a mate.  Every time I step into a dressing room and try something on, my mom tells me it was made for me – this could be the reason my closest is busting at the seams.  My mother is so beautiful, thoughtful and loving and gives me the best person to look up to.  We went to church yesterday and the entire time I couldn’t stop thinking about how thankful I am for her.  I cannot wait until the day when I can live closer to her so I can have the opportunity to pop by for coffee and a talk whenever I desire.  Until then, I will settle for our daily phone calls and emails.  Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone and their loves, including their first Valentines – their sweet mom’s.

I spent the better portion of this work day browsing other women’s blog who have much more interesting lives than mine.  I’m actually not positive their lives are more “interesting” but their certainly more “pinteresting”.  I’ve been so unispired and I can’t decide if it’s because I look at other blogs and think to myself, ‘well that’s more captivating than anything I’ll come up with’.

I’m going to put some more time into this “lifestyle” blog this year.  I’m not sure what’s going to come of it, but I’ll tell you this much, I will try to be as genuine and original as possible.

Oh yeah, and I will be exploring a new design as well.  It’s like moving the furniture around in your room – it just feels better for some reason.

I spent my Friday night with a good friend battling cancer.  We ate cookies, drank wine and of course watched Newsies.  Who knew it was a favorite of both of ours!  In between musical numbers (we were singing along)  we talked about life and how it can really blow.  He had just posted on his blog writing not of how strong he felt or how hopeful he was – but  of how he was starting to lose faith.  Not only a few months ago he had posted “Cancer can take so much from anyone but it can only take hope if you let it”.  The same enthusiasm was not reflected in this post.

When I went over to his house, I just wanted to put him in a box and make everything better but what we found was that being normal was the best medicine for how he felt.  I haven’t been myself lately and feeling or acting “normal” has been difficult.  I will never forget his words “I just want normal 27 year old problems.”  I often have the same sentiment and simply replied – “no shit man, life can really suck.”

Today he was told that this last round of chemo was not effective as they found another tumor.  No amount of laughter and chocolate chip cookies can make up for the feeling he has at this moment.  He’s not going to stop fighting of course, but it just feels like another blow to his hope.  What I have learned is that we all have our own fights – sometimes it just sucks when we are paired with unworthy opponents.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at stars.” Oscar Wilde

Thanksgiving proved to be a great success!  I spent great quality time with my family and friends and even braved my 10 year high school reunion.  As I clenched my Stella and smiled wide at all of the young adults I graduated WHS with I looked around and felt so proud to be a part of such a successful group.  Rather than experiencing the feeling of being upstaged by intelligence and accomplishment, I was impressed and excited to hear that my close friend from childhood is now a pediatrician living in Nashville with her husband.  But jobs and husbands were hardly the topics of conversation at all.  What I realized is that our jobs and marital status is not what makes us adults.  We all shared memories of the past, funny stories about our holidays and just caught up.

All of these people that threw their caps in the air with me in 2001 have all had very different yet similar travels over the past decade and here we were all together laughing and sharing because although our heartaches, long nights at work, tears, joys and obstacles are different – in the end, aren’t they really just the same?

This moment I was dreading turned out to be a perfect time of reflection and retrospection.  I came back to Baltimore feeling refreshed and excited for the next 10 years of what life decides to sling at me with full force – whatever that may be.