lake house

this weekend was everything i needed it to be and more. the berkshires, uncle ron's house in particular- is amazing. it's right on garfield lake, in monterey (mass.).

we got there friday night and were welcomed with wine and bread and cheese and salami (!) as uncle ron set about bbq-ing fresh veggies and salmon and skirt steak. that enough was a welcome change from my more recent nights without cooking in my broken-down apartment. we continued drinking and eating and listening to music until finally we could take no more and all fell into our beds around 2am.
saturday was filled with so much fun! uncle ron and i went canoeing at 9am around the lake, and we were practically alone out there- due to the overcast/rainy weather predicted for the weekend. it was amazingly peaceful. we woke up arielle and ben, then made pancakes with fresh berries and hung out for a while as the rain came down outside. uncle ron took us to a local farm that has a bakery, where we got dessert for the evening and a ham and cheese croissant to take with us in the car for lunch. he drove us around monterey and great barrington and showed us the sights. it was adorable and i absolutely fell in love.
in the afternoon we went out on uncle ron's boat- he showed us around the lake and where his friend's lived. it was still grey out, but the lake was amazing. we decided to try water skiing- and to my amazement i made it up on the ski's! (arielle took pictures. they'll be up on facebook soon). i learned that it is one thing to get up on the ski's, and another to cross over the wake and stay up on them. i worked muscles i didnt even realize i had.
we came back and took warm showers and ben and uncle ron prepared dinner as it poured outside. arielle and i relaxed and read magazines. we had more fresh veggies, as well as seafood: tuna and divers scallops! it was so amazing my mouth is watering just remembering it. of course we had to break out the cakes for dessert as well. (i will be rolling myself to the gym tomorrow)

this morning we couldnt eat a thing until noon. we got up and hung out for a while, then went to a goat farm where we saw baby goats! and got fresh goat cheese! then headed back to gould's farm/bakery for some more ham and cheese croissants and a look at some chickens and piglets! plus hogs so large i didn't even have words when i saw them. (don't worry, we didnt eat the ham croissants in front of them- we didn't want to be rude).
all four of us went out canoeing this afternoon, before heading back to reality.

there was great food, great music, great company, fun on the lake, and an amazing house to boot! seriously- it made me realize that i need to start saving my pennies (and make more pennies to save) so i can one day have a 'country house' on a lake somewhere- and have a slice of heaven for myself.

happy trails

hello! i'm blogging (quickly) from work today before i set off on my weekend adventure to the berkshires!

uncle ron has a new fancy house on a lake up there and arielle, ben and i are going to check it out for the weekend! hurray!!! i love fun summer weekend trips! especially when they involve me leaving work early.
uncle ron has plans for us to do a lot of 'water sports'. those are in quotes because- 1. can you picture me doing water sports? and 2. its supposed to rain for most of the weekend.

so you'll have to wait until sunday and see how it all turned out.

in the meantime- thank you to autumn and aaron for allowing me to borrow your gps device for the weekend. i'm excited to try out this newfangled technology (jk, i have seen them before- but never actually had to use/follow one myself!)

see you on the flip side!

day 64

so i just looked at the calendar and counted out the days. today is june 10th, and it's also day 64 of my 90 in 90 project. i am over a third of the way there!

i thought i would take a little time to just think about that, and how i feel this far into the project.
and honestly, i feel good. i feel proud of myself. on occasion i think about going through the day without following through with this project, and it seems wrong. i don't want to let myself down.

and frankly, i think that is a huge step. this is important to me. i feel good about the fact that i have been able to stick to something for 64 whole days, just because i decided that i wanted to. it gives me hope that i can really accomplish things i put my mind to- for no other reason than because i feel like it. i mean, in some ways i did not doubt that i could do something if it was important enough. but before i always had excuses for why "fill in the blank" wasn't necessarily all that important. i feel like now i will do that less. at least, i hope i will.

i am also thinking about getting myself together in other ways. i recently went back to therapy, which has always been a good thing for me to do. i have noticed that i tend to have minor breakdowns if i am out of therapy for too long. i develop bad habits or stop taking care of myself (in small yet meaningful ways, but never like 'i can't get out of bed' or stop showering type of way) and recently i have been getting burned out at work, and burned out at life. i have stopped trying to communicate when something is wrong, or even when something is really right. it's ironic, considering it happened in the midst of me writing a blog. but it did. i realized that i have a hard time communicating my feelings to important people in my life. real, serious feelings. not like everyday ho hum feelings. real ones- like 'i'm scared' or 'i miss you' or 'i can't handle this' or 'i'm hurt' or 'you make me happy'. things people would either like to hear, or probably should hear. i keep those inside. and i think that will be my next ongoing project. becoming more open, and more comfortable talking about those feelings that currently make me squirm. i think i owe that to myself. i think it will make me better at being me.

64 days down. 26 left to go. let's see where it takes me.

ok

today has been the weirdest day.

i woke up on the wrong side of the bed. i knew it immediately.
work was strained. i felt burnt out by 11am. luckily my afternoon was light and the end of the day arrived before i knew it. also, sherri was totally supportive today.
and i find that the universe has a way of knowing just when you have had enough. because just when i felt so tired and frustrated, i had a really good session with a client. a very interesting client. and it made me feel a little bit better.
then, my last client of the day came in and announced that she is finally starting to feel better. she leaves the house more, is trying to be more social and her depression is lifting a little day by day. and she said that she hears my voice in her head motivating her to get up and go everyday. (not in a hallucinatory way, in a normal motivational way). my voice! i swear i almost cried right there. because on days when i am irritable and feeling useless and frustrated, i am reminded of why i do what i do. and it makes all the difference.

i rounded out the day by going to see my therapist, whom i love. followed by a random trip to anthropologie- where i may have done a little retail therapy (not officially recommended as a therapeutic tool, by the way) and went to a truly delicious korean bbq restaurant for dinner with colin- who is funny and interesting and nice to be around.

and i kind of forgot the mood i was in all the way back this morning.

sunday night ramblings

it's sunday night, and i feel slightly ill. i was fighting off a cold last week, and then went to a really fun house party in manayunk last night followed by a hot day today of hung-over eating and lounging in the heat watching the philly bike race. good for the soul, bad for my attempt at healthy living.

i got back around 4 this afternoon and took the best shower ever- mainly because i felt so groddy that i couldn't wait to shower and wash away the grime. i realized i am spoiled by my central air. spending almost 24 hours in houses with window box air conditioners that were not actually in the same room as me- i mean, if i thought i was melting yesterday afternoon, i was a puddle on the floor by this afternoon.
thankfully i had nice clean towels to come home to- and i brushed my teeth and washed away all the grime.
and promptly put on my hamilton tshirt and shorts. oddly enough, it wasn't until laura called me tonight that i realized i got this very shirt a year ago at my five year reunion. i can't believe it was a year since i was back at hamilton having what was a truly random and fun weekend of memories. and yet- arielle and ben's one year anniversary was last weekend. so time does indeed fly. whether you're having fun or not. (thankfully i think this past year has been pretty fun- most of the time)

i spent tonight reading- a book that i already have mixed feelings about and i'm not even a third of the way through yet. its a 'psychological thriller' that i think at the time i bought it i thought was more of a more serious 'chick lit' novel. but it involved attempted murders and abortion clinics and failing marriages. its really...a downer. and yet i feel guilty putting it aside because i spent money on it so i feel i should read it and see how it turns out. even if i have to force myself. lesson learned. i do not like 'psychological thrillers about abortion doctors who have marital issues'. depresso.

plus i have some family stuff going on- with my grandparents down in florida and my dad acting like a bizarre one dimensional character in a bad book about 'how not to act when your parents are getting old and sick'. and i find i don't have the energy to really deal with it. lecturing my dad on how to be a better child/responsible adult is depressing. not to mention i have had to do it before, with mixed results. i feel more numb this time- like maybe if i choose not to get involved my dad will realize on his own that he needs to do better. silly diana- that is not what will happen. but perhaps i will just let arielle do all the lecturing this time.

i just feel kind of sad. which puts a damper on my fun, productive and social weekend. but hey- it's sunday night, so i should have expected as much.
here's hoping this week is fun and productive- and i can hold on to a positive outlook to carry me to next weekend when i'm venturing to uncle ron's house in the berkshires! maybe reading a more uplifting book would help...

i'm melting

oh my god. its so hot i'm melting. there is no point in wearing makeup, or even wearing clothes. (i am in fact wearing clothes...i'm just saying)

i'm blogging from the perlstein home today! autumn and aaron have graciously allowed me to take over their house while they're in orlando visiting aaron's parents. i'm catching up on laundry (towels are in the dryer as we speak) and was able to cook some pasta with veggies to stick in my fridge and take to work for lunch during the week. thank you thank you thank you for allowing me to get this stuff done!!

also- i'm watching Wall Street. i have a few things to say about it. firstly, when i was in the other room, and charlie sheen was talking- i could have sworn it was emilio estevez in the mighty ducks. i know they are brothers, so that makes sense- but i never really thought they were that similar before. charlie sheen is just so....sleazy. is this movie the beginning of his sleaziness? or was he sleazy before and that's why he works so well in this movie? it's an interesting plot. charlie sheen has a scummier melanie griffith in working girl thing going on. darryl hannah shows up as an interior decorator/girlfriend- and is responsible for one of the ugliest high-end apartments i've ever seen. even for the 80s. michael douglas plays an excellent greedy villain. i am almost looking forward to the sequel. however, i've been thinking about continuity- and i know in the second movie carey mulligan plays gordon gekko's daughter. which is all fine and good, except that in the first movie he has a son named rudy....and no daughter. how are they going to explain that? there are ten minutes left of the movie- maybe it'll explain itself. oh- charlie sheen's character is getting arrested now, and is crying like a baby. now he's getting his ass kicked by michael douglas in the park. is he wearing a wire? he totally is wearing a wire! hmm now its over. what's weird is that we never see either of the characters go to jail. it ends with charlie sheen walking into the court house. that's kind of weird.

ok wow. i did not mean for this to be a budget recap of wall street. but oh well. my life's not really that interesting right now anyway. i'm almost 60 days into this project, and going strong!

ok time for me to get my act together and head back over to my place. i'm headed to a party over in manayunk tonight which should be fun. and tomorrow i may go up to jersey city to hang out with some family and sit my the pool at my dad's apartment. you know what that means.....floppy hat!

finding comfort in the little things

when i was a kid, we lived in tudor house on forestdale road. it had three bedrooms and one full bath upstairs, although it seems looking back now that it was all kind of cramped together off of this one small hallway. the bathroom was at the top of the stairs, separating my parents bedroom from mine and my sisters. the bathroom was brown and beige- i have no idea why it was so drab. it was a pretty big bathroom too- there was a shower stall, then a space under the window and a full tub. the toilet was next to the tub, and the sink was on the wall opposite the tub, with a wall mirror and lots of counter space. i think there was a closet in there too, which i completely forgot about until just now.

i have a lot of memories of that bathroom. this sounds strange, i know. but i do. when we were little kids, we'd take baths together- sometimes with our cousin kim too! we'd play with these my little ponies that could go in the water. they had little shell houses that suction-cupped to the tub. we could brush their hair and make them swim around. we sang songs and had a grand old time, which looking back on it was totally our parents way of getting us clean without complaining. i think i was one of those kids who hated bathing. i especially hated showers, but i have fond memories of baths. i loved the feeling of relaxing in warm water, making the water splash with my every movement and watching my fingers turn to prunes. having arielle and kim in the bath was equally fun, although three little girls in a tub did tend to cause a space issue from time to time.

even when it wasn't bath time, sometimes we'd just hang out in the bathroom. i used to keep arielle company in there, sitting on the ledge of the tub or under the window talking about our day or our friends or what we were going to wear. i remember laughing in there. the sound echoing and filtering out the window to the backyard.

i also remember watching my mother put on makeup a lot. my mom had an entire cabinet to herself next to the sink for her makeup. well, she likely had other things in there- facial products, etc. but i never thought about that when i was a kid. i just knew that's where she kept her makeup. and i remember sitting on the counter or behind her on the tub and watching her put on foundation, mascara, lipstick. she'd let me play with her old lipstick tubes, which were usually thick and gold and made me feel fancy. her cabinet smelled like her perfume, which i think she kept on one of the shelves. when you opened the cabinet the smell of my mother would waft out as you looked for whatever it is you needed. Shalamar. that's the perfume she wore most of the time. i know exactly what it smells like.

i shaved my legs for the first time in that bathroom. i think i was in seventh grade. a lot of my friends at summer camp had already started shaving the summer before, and i did not want to be all hairy when my friends legs were smooth and soft. i locked the door and borrowed some of my mother's shaving cream and one of her disposable razors and got to work. i don't think i cut myself too badly, but my mother was definitely shocked when she realized what i had done. she wasn't mad though. at least, not that i can remember. i don't think we had a lot of rules about when we could shave our legs or start wearing makeup. when she noticed that I was interested in wearing it- she showed me how to do a little and not look like a clown, which was helpful.

i had a dream recently where i woke up and went to go to the bathroom, and it was that bathroom. brown and beige. it seemed natural, as though in my dream i used this bathroom everyday. and it was so weird- because we moved away from that house the fall i started high school, when i was 13. i hadn't even thought about it in years. and yet ever since that dream i think about it. i remember the smell of my mother's perfume, which i think she still wears most of the time- even though i know she has others. i don't know why it's suddenly come up, but i find it comforting to think about. memories are weird that way.