Ten Ways to Make Your Work Day Brighter

Wear perfume you really love.

Write anonymous notes to your co-workers.

Put extra special love and yumminess into your bagged lunch.

Wash your face on one of your breaks. Exfoliate and tone, or use a face mask during your lunch.

Suck on chocolate covered altoids.

Make a list of your favourite customers / co-workers / people.

Pin up an inspiring picture, or a photograph of someone you love by your work space.

Match your nail polish to your shirt every day.

Take a “smoke break” and stretch your muscles or do a few yoga poses.

Bake something at home and bring it in to share with everyone.

I’m allowing myself to sit in silence, learning meditation in the pauses between breaths, the spaces between the lines. I’m learning to run thirty seconds at a time, pushing to do what my body has never done. I’m enjoying the sunshine and savoring days off.

Photograph borrowed from http://cupcakethemusical.wordpress.com/

If you’re in Boston any time in the next six weeks, I recommend you head on over to the back bay area, eat dinner at Club Cafe and then see the Cupcake The Musical right after.

Cupcake The Musical is a whimsical story about a baker boy who sells his cupcakes on the streets of Summertown, a librarian and a life guard who are both crushing on said baker boy, and a cop who is trying to shut baker boy down. It’s a short, sweet musical that includes talk about magic cupcakes (which I happen to be writing a novel about currently), a few not so subtle innuendos and a real estate agent/ judge named Judy/”and others” who makes reference to her playing more than one character. Club Cafe coffers cabaret style seating and rows of theater seating as well as a drink menu complimenting the characters concocted from Cupcake Vodka.

Photograph borrowed from http://cupcakethemusical.wordpress.com/

You can find Cupcake on Facebook, also.

I promise to return to less music slash Hanson related blog posts next week, but I Just wanted to let you know that I wrote a Guest Groupie post over on the Good Groupie. It’s my attempt to put to feelings to words, or as The Good Groupie says in the post,  I describe “ that single moment when you stand in front of the stage and feel the musical high and you understand yourself perfectly through verse ” You can read the post here: Every Word I Say

<3

fried pickles
iced chai tea lattes
sleeping on planes
Third Eye Blind playing (for free!) on Saturday in Boston
when my netbook actually connects to the internet
Modern Family
Ben & Jerry’s Frozen Greek Yogurt (in banana & peanut butter) it’s so weird! And slightly tangy! And greek yogurt-y! And less likely to make me want to keep going back for it
cramming into phone booths for photos

where’s my mouth?? ha

new dresses and skirts
sunburns that actually turn into nice tans (I’ll have these farmer’s tan lines until next year, I’m sure)
lobster rolls at Panera Bread
trying on brightly colored sunglasses
not having to wear a jacket outside, especially while I’m driving
getting my weekend update through hashtags on Instagram. (it went something like this, “oh look there’s isaac on a bike! he looks like the wicked witch of the west!” “oh there’s a line already!”)
“think happy. be happy”
hummingbird charms

What do you love today?

Over the weekend I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was for a festival of sorts, what we named a convention that was really a weekend of stuff put on by the band Hanson in honor of their 20 years as a band. At the beginning of the show they played (actually the second of two shows — they had to do two shows on Sunday night because so many people RSVP’d for the event) a video from their audition to play at Mayfest twenty years ago. Isaac was 11, Taylor was 9 and Zac was 6. It was precious.

If you’ve never been to Tulsa, it’s a small city in Oklahoma. The first time I landed there, I was shocked to see there were only five (!!) tall buildings in downtown. This is very unlike cities I’ve been to before, mostly on the northern east coast, even the small ones.

There are cute little stores and restaurants, really pretty houses and art on buildings. I ate fried pickles, breakfast for dinner and drank ice chai tea lattes. I even found a coffee place with tangerine kombucha. We rented bikes and reenacted music videos and blared music in the middle of the street at 11:30pm while we waited for a train to pass.

It was one of those weekends that was exactly what I needed. Even if I couldn’t put it all into words that makes sense just know that I returned home feeling inspired and full of music and love.

ps You can read the Good Groupie’s reaction to our weekend at her post here, where you can also see a video of part of the street dancing three of our friends did in attempts to reenact the Thinking About Something video they were in.
That’s something I was reminded of this weekend as we drove around Tulsa, listening to music we all have in common and the stuff we don’t – it’s so much fun to share a musical moment with someone, knowing you both have a connection to a song. – The Good Groupie.

July 2010

Oh, Hanson. You probably remember them. If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any amount of time, or friends with me in real life for more than a month you’d have to know they are my favorite band. Even after fifteen years.

On May 6th, 1997 the Governor of Tulsa, OK declared that day Hanson Day in Tulsa and ever since Hanson fans have acknowledged this day as a “holiday” we have in common. One of those little things that separate us from everyone else. Everyone else being, mostly, the people who have forgotten about the band or taken the time to comment on (and make fun of) my love of the music.

Still fifteen years later I feel like I am defending myself when it comes to my music. It was just the other day that a co-worker was singing “Mmmbop lollipop” at me while we told a customer that my upcoming trip is, ultimately, to see Hanson perform in their hometown (something I also did seven years ago).

The favorite part goes way beyond “oh, hey I like this album”. It resonates deep within me and has made me who I am today.

The lyrics spoke to me when nothing else would, they describe my thoughts and feelings when I can’t put words to them. The first fiction I finished was, gulp, Hanson fan fiction. And I met many many amazing people and best friends through the love of Hanson.

In fact a friend of mine, Miranda the Good Groupie (who, might I add, will be venturing to Tulsa to see the boys with me this upcoming weekend) wrote a post that basically mimics everything I could write about in here called Why I Still Love Hanson 15 Years Later.

& If you’re interested in reading about that time I caught a ride with a near stranger to sleep on Sunset Boulevard, their cover of Troublemaker, how I am still listening or why the music moves me so much, read on my friends.

Happy Hanson Day <3