life

I’ve Been A Bad, Bad Blogger (Pictures, Long)

28 December 2010 / christmas, life, ohio, pictures, yay

It seems that blogging once or twice a month is going to be par for the course for me, which makes me kind of sad. I still read everyone’s blogs, but when I sit down to blog myself, I just kind of get overwhelmed with a sense of non-motivation and non-inspiration. I’ve been working a lot–a ten hour day is pretty much the norm these days (except today was pleasantly slow and I got out on time), and we’re short handed, with people out for the holidays. It’s tiring, but the money is good. And tomorrow I get a half day off, I am off Friday-Monday, and Tuesday I get another half day off. I’m looking forward to all the resting and the extra time with Aidan!

Lots of stuff happened since I last made a *real* update. I’ve fallen out of my yoga practice, which I am regretting. I REALLY ~~want~~ need to get back into it ASAP. I can’t wait until the work hours lessen so I can do so. Just walking into the studio is good for me. I attended WindyCon, and got to see S.J. Tucker perform (and also bask in some s00j love). I also met some new friends there and heard some good music.

And oh! Check out the hair fall I made!

I’m working on a mate for it so I can have two ponytails, but I need to find my materials. I’ve misplaced them. Hmm.

Yeah, that’s a bad thing about working so much. I can’t find anything. I make huge messes that I have no time to clean up, and I get overwhelmed with the lack of free time to do much besides bathe and sleep (hence the lack of blogging/updates). I also didn’t get to go around and take pictures of the Christmas trees, visit Chriskindlmarket, or see the big tree in the Walnut Room at Macy’s. No time, or just too freaking cold to go out. Thank GOD for Amazon Prime. I did a lot of my shopping online this year. It’s fun getting packages!

Aidan arrived December 17th. It was really cold, his flight was delayed but we didn’t care. We decorated the tree as soon as we got home!

The next day, I’d planned on just staying in all day, but I decided we should pop into the Moksha Yoga holiday party. I am so glad I went. I got loads of hugs, and all three of us attended an acroyoga workshop. Check out Aidan flying!

Anywhere Is turned ten at the end of November. I’ve had my domain for ten years, y’all. I used to have a huge following. Not so much anymore. The site has seen its share of drama, slow times, layout changes, and migrations from blogger to greymatter to b2 to wordpress. I was around in the heyday of the Internet Girl World, and I’m one of the few who is still hanging around, and hanging on.

I remember the trends back then. All sites had a basic format: Me, You, WWW, Site. Under all of those links there were tons of stuff to explore, if the site was good. Cliques, cjb.net, pixels, woogoo, being “hosted” (I remember how awesome it felt when Dara asked me if I wanted to be hosted!), UBBs, gbook.nu, virtue.nu, banners, link buttons, blinkies… tons and tons of things! I can’t believe how much the Internet world has changed and simplified!

Moving on from that trip down memory lane, I HAD A REALLY AWESOME CHRISTMAS. We began celebrating December 21st, on the Solstice. We opened our presents to each other and watched Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. It was REALLY NICE to be able to spoil people like I’d wanted to for years. And Adam got me a really pretty Tiffany necklace! 🙂

After a couple more nights of opening presents and eating Ivy’s delicious cookies, we set out for Ohio just before 5am on the 24th. Thank God we had clear weather. Even though the car needed a $323 repair during our travels, I was less concerned with the cost and more concerned with getting the thing fixed so we could make it to our destination. And we did! We went to Columbus first to drop Aidan off at his dad’s, then to Aurora to spend the holiday with my mom. My sister, who I hadn’t seen in years, was there! The food was excellent, my mom LOVED the record player I got her, and Chris surprised us by bringing Aidan up Christmas night instead of waiting until December 26th. There was also a Doctor Who marathon on BBC America, and I got to see Doctor Who at the Proms. Awesome.

I had an OK birthday. It started off great, but I ended up working late and I got a migraine. Still, I got a couple of cool gifts and they threw a small party for me at work. It could have been worse, so no real complaints. Plus, Aidan is here, so who cares about everything else!

Thanksgiving was weird. Adam and I usually have Jeff and Deborah over, but this year, they wanted us to go to their place. It turned out to be a relief because I was just too exhausted to clean or prepare for guests. I’d worked so much that week, plus I hadn’t been feeling well at the beginning of the week, so it was rough. It was nice to go and relax, eat, hang with friends, and watch Doctor Who. 🙂

Aidan turns eight in two days! I know, right? Last night, Adam and I surprised him with a trip to the LEGO store, where he made three LEGO guys for 9.99, and I got him a LEGO City sports car that was only $5. He’s obsessed with LEGOs and video games, and drawing.

I’d better wrap this up. I’ll try to find time to do the end-of-the-year review. I get four days off, plus a half-day off tomorrow (apparently, I have accrued .50 days of PTO that I HAVE to use before the end of the year–I tell you what, it can’t be every day that your boss calls you and says “I need you to take half a day off this week so you won’t lose your PTO”–so I’ll be using that tomorrow. Yea!), and I am taking 1/2 day off Tuesday. So looking forward to the time to relax and be with my family.

Life is good.

Til next time! 🙂

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No Idea For a Title (Pictures)

7 November 2010 / christmas, life, pictures, work, yoga

Holy cow. Fewer than 20 days until Thanksgiving! That means fewer than 20 days until dressing and gravy and mac&cheese and homemade cranberry sauce and all sorts of delicious noms.

The past few days have been super chilly. Temps in the 30s when I walk out in the morning, not making it out of the 40s for the high. I hate it. Me and the cold? Not good friends. That’s probably why I have so many coats and hats and gloves and scarves. Now that my hair is really curly and sticky-outtie, I am not sure how to keep my head warm during the winter. Hats don’t really fit over my hair, and earmuffs and head wraps won’t be enough for long. I suppose I’ll just have to smash my hair down, and fluff it back up when I take my hat off. I’m all about comfort over style. I don’t play when it comes to keeping warm.

I’ve started seriously thinking about Christmas shopping, but haven’t actually DONE any yet. I already know one thing I am getting Adam, one thing I’m getting my mom, and a few things I’m getting Aidan. I’ll probably get to work on that stuff soon. I enjoy going out to the stores to shop, but I got another Amazon Prime membership, so I imagine I’ll be ordering quite a bit as well.

I’ll probably put the tree up… early December or so. I enjoy decorating for Christmas–it’s about the only time I’m any good at it, but I don’t like to do it too early. A lot of stores around are already doing so. Macy’s windows are done. I plan to look at them Monday during my lunch. I’ll post pictures, probably on my Flickr. 🙂

Work is still really crazy. I clocked 47.75 hours this week. That’s nothing compared to some people. But I did NOT have to go in last Sunday, thank goodness. They keep reassuring me that Schawk is not like this all year! Just a few weeks left of fourth quarter, but I’ll be sad because one of the temps will most likely be leaving (I hope they keep extending her contract if not hiring her altogether) because she makes work a *lot* of fun.

I dream of the Sears ads. I often find myself waking up and seeing a page, wondering how to make it better. That’s madness. I wonder if that will ever go away. I certainly hope it does.

I can tell Helena misses me. I don’t get to spend a lot of time with her these days. When I was home all the time, I’d lie on the couch and she’d lie on my feet or legs and purr and purr and purr. If I was sitting up, she’d butt up against me (like she’s doing now!) and just sleep. I’m gone all day, and when I get home, I hop on the computer, work, gobble down some dinner, take my bath/shower, prepare for work and go to bed. Yesterday morning, I took my time getting in (cause um, hello, it was Saturday), and she was sitting on the couch in her spot. I just pet her and cuddled her and she purred like crazy. She didn’t even try to bite me when I rubbed her tummy.

I love my little Helena.

Friday evening, I took a Fall Detox Vinyasa class. It certainly was not what I was expecting. There was amazing music which I loved, and oil. Lots of oil. Asanas. Some hard stuff. Some easy stuff. Some stuff I love like pigeon and double pigeon. I’m definitely getting stronger when it comes to plank and chattaranga, but those first down dogs are always so hard for me for some reason. When class was over, I felt happily yoga drunk, chatting with people, eating fruit, and drinking dandelion tea. There’s another detox right after Thanksgiving. I wonder if I’ll be ready for that. Especially for those hard moves…it’s for intermediate to advanced students, so maybe I’ll hold off until next year. I’m still pretty new to yoga.

I could be telling myself this because I know parts of it is hard and I have trouble keeping up. And I might be too scared/lazy to take the challenge.

But here was the funny thing. Friday evening was the first time I’d been to a yoga class since Amber’s class not last week, but the week before. It’s amazing how quickly the fast pace of downtown was in my blood. I keep mentally yelling at people to HURRY UP and GET OUT OF MY WAY and wondering why they were all moving.so.darn.slowly. But then I realized that *I* was the one not centering. My mind was in a million directions, and my body was following suit. I was impatient and irritable and fidgety. But then class started and I felt better once the Sun Salutes started.

It’s so hard to do make yoga a priority these days, when work/chores/responsibilities is taking up what feels like every free moment. But I HAVE to do it, for my sake.

I must make yoga a priority.

So, I’m planning on attending a couple of workshops in January, the kirtan on November 20th, and some weekend practices. My friend Cassandra, whom I met at Moksha, is now a certified teacher at P.S. Yoga and she personally invited me to take her Monday night class. So I’ll have to make sure I do that sooner than later. I love her teaching. She has such great energy, too. I watched her grow over the summer when she was teaching her karma classes; I attended one of her workshops. She said that she had a lot to teach me, and I’m eager to see how much more she’s grown, and what she wants to show me. 🙂

As a gift to myself for getting a job, I ordered an Ellowyne Wilde doll. I’d been looking at her for months, and I got a free shipping code from an email, plus the one I wanted is and end of edition doll (meaning she’s about to be sold out and retired), so she was marked down! Here is my newest girl!

I am in love with her. Absolutely smitten with this doll. Her clothes–the fabric is really good quality, and she comes with jewelry. But my favorite is her beautiful red curls and green eyes. I don’t plan on buying any more. She’s special, and I don’t want to overwhelm myself. (Says the girl with 12 American Girl dolls, all but four of the Monster High dolls, many Doctor Who and other assorted action figures, Barbie dolls, and more.)

So, I know she comes with the name Ellowyne, but I feel like I should give her a name that I choose. I haven’t decided on one yet, though. I know it’ll come to me. Or maybe it won’t and she’ll stay Ellowyne. We’ll see what happens.

At any rate, I’m tired. I’m going to head to bed with my ARC of Afterlife by Claudia Gray (ooo, aren’t you jealous?) and hope it doesn’t scare me awake! (I was reading it while taking a short break in the cafeteria Saturday, and the ice machine did its thang where it drops ice and makes lots of noise–yeah, startled me. I was all on edge b/c of this book!)

Anyway. *rubs eyes* Good night! I plan to sleep in big time. We’ll see if the cats/neighbors/weather will let me!

P.S. Oooh YAY extra hour! 😀

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Time Is Flying (Picture)

30 October 2010 / life, pictures

Say what? When did the end of October get here? I mean, seriously! This is nuts.

I worked a TON last week. I thought I’d be sleeping in until noon today, but I woke up at 9:30am. I have so much housekeeping stuff to do. The laundry? Yeah. We’ll be taking a trip to Coin Laundry World and utilizing their Fluff ‘N Fold services. I am also going to gather up the stuff that needs to be dry cleaned. The bedroom on my side is a falldown mess, and so is my closet. I need to get a big bag and throw in all the clothes I can’t/won’t/don’t need to wear anymore and donate it. My body’s changed so much since moving here; so many things I could fit or looked good in look absolutely stupid on me now. I don’t like it one bit. It’s annoying how easy it is for my body to expand but how hard it is for it to contract to the way it used to be.

Last night, I opened the new Excel (I like Microsoft Office 2011!) and downloaded a Christmas shopping template. I already know two things I want to get Adam and I know two things I want to get Aidan. No ideas for anyone else, yet, but little Lola will be easy. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is only 56 days away.

I’ve been buried in work. Today is the first day I don’t have a billion proofreading things to do. (This reprieve is only temporary–things will get crazy again next week when a new project officially gets off the ground.) Freelance projects galore! But it’s all good. Very good. Especially because yesterday, I was offered a full-time permanent proofreader position at Schawk! I haven’t worked in a permanent position since March of 2008 (we’ll just ignore the day-and-a-half I spent at Concierge, Unlimited), so it’s going to be an adjustment. Things won’t end after Thanksgiving this time. It’ll keep going, and going, and going! But I’ll get benefits, and I’ll have a steady income, and I know the work and the people. I know exactly what I am getting into. It’ll be good. I’m not going to lie, though. I will be VERY glad when fourth quarter is over. Having one day a week off, and wanting to sleep halfway through that day, is very hard. I’m behind on TV shows. My reading count has slowed way down. I’ve already mentioned the laundry situation. The free time goes so quickly and there is never enough time to do all the things I need/want to do, plus try to relax on top of it. Plus, people want me to call them, and I just can’t. Socializing is pretty much out the door. I am eager for things to slow down. This is the worst fourth quarter ever. I worked 12 hours last Saturday, 11 hours Monday, 11 hours Thursday, and 13 hours yesterday. I’m also on call for tomorrow. *Really hoping I don’t have to go in, but pretty sure I’ll have to*

I will have to re-evaluate my plans for the winter. I was planning on staying inside, scrapbooking, going to many yoga classes, and writing. The scrapbooking will have to take a back seat. Yoga will have to move to the evenings and weekends, which means no more Tantric Vinyasa 1-2 classes on Tuesdays at noon with Mia. 🙁 Fortunately, she teaches a basics evening class at Tejas Yoga on Mondays, and the studio is an easy orange line trip from work, so I can go to those. So I don’t have to lose my Mia fix. 🙂

Anyway, I need to get going. I have a bunch of stuff to do today. (I’d like to hit the 1:30pm yoga class but I don’t know if that’ll be possible.) I leave you with a photo of Aidan’s Jack O Lantern from our pumpkin carving party a few weeks ago:

Happy Halloween!

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Just A Little Bit Busy… (Pictures)

13 October 2010 / family, life, living in chicago, ohio, pictures, work, yoga

It’s fourth quarter again. Looking at the trends from the past few years on my Web site, it’s obvious that fourth quarter is not the time to be expecting many updates from me! And this year, I am busier than ever.

In addition to Schawk! (where I am working part time this year–three to four long days a week), I am doing freelance work for Critical Mass (an ad agency in Chicago), Shakespeare Squared (an educational publishing company in Chicagoland), and I will be starting a project for Rainbow Educational Concepts (an educational publishing company based in Chicago and Arkansas) in a few weeks. (I have to admit, I am most excited about my opportunity with Rainbow. I saw a sample of what I’ll be working on and yeah… SQUEE!) In addition to that, I am still doing occasional work for Loyola. I am swamped, and even though I am tired, I am grateful.

Most days, I work from home, right here on my couch. Usually, a certain sweet orange kitty cuddles at my feet:

But the days I go to Schawk, I have a marvelous view, even if it is noisy, sitting by a window.

Since the last time I updated, I went to Ohio to visit friends and family at the beginning of September. First I visited Cleveland, where I saw my mom and my friend Andy. I got to eat at Hartville Kitchen (nom), and I visited the “A Christmas Story” house. I also managed to snag an entire tub of old pictures for scanning. That’s a project I’ll be working on this December, although I got a bunch of them done already.

Then we visited Columbus. It was so nice being in Columbus again. I was sad that I’d forgotten my way around, though. Thank goodness for my GPS. I bought one of those since last updating–a refurbished TomTom that helped us get around with no problems. I got to visit my friend Heather when I was there, and meeting her new little baby was fun. Adam dropped in at the school where Ms. Yingling works and was treated like a rock star!

Since I’ve last updated, I attended the Urban Pig Roast, which was a block party on my street. Lots of free food and booze, but I didn’t have any of that. I did have lots of pink lemonade, though. And pork. Mmm pork. I went to two yoga workshops (one with master teacher Seane Corn), met Suzanne Collins (author of The Hunger Games trilogy), visited the new Disney Store that opened in the Block 37 Shops downtown, ate turkish food at Pars Cove (om nom lentil soup yum yum mmmm), acquired two new Monster High dolls, read many new books, lost count of the number of Molly’s Cupcakes I scarfed down, and though I did this before my last update, I forgot to mention that I rode in a boat on Lake Michigan in August.

Here is a small photo montage of the past six weeks:

Meeting Suzanne Collins was quick, but she was very sweet in the very short time we had together. Learning from Seane Corn was amazing and I really hope to get the opportunity to attend one of her workshops again.

I had a great summer and can’t believe it’s already over and that we’re pretty much into fall now. Time is flying. Only 73 days until Christmas. I’ve barely begun thinking about Christmas shopping, let alone decorating and things. And travel. Blah. I’m worn out just thinking about it.

Fourth quarter is when I let a lot of things kind of slide by the wayside. I’ve cut down my Facebook games to only two that I play regularly now, and even those get neglected when I am buried in work as I am now. I haven’t cleaned in ages. Writing is definitely on hold. My brain is fried by the time I am done proofreading or copyediting for the day. When I the work of the day is done, I want to eat fried foods and watch mindless TV. Yoga doesn’t happen as often as it used to, either, although I did go Saturday and yesterday. Mia, one of my favorite teachers, even commented on how much stronger I am. (I don’t feel much stronger, but I did rock that long chattaranga pose, so maybe I am.) I plan to get myself back on track once fourth quarter is over. But for now, I’m just makin’ that money.

Oh well. I’d like to update more, but I’m tired. And thirsty. Two long work days ahead, but I’m very much looking forward to Saturday because Aidan will be here!! I hope to take him to the new Disney Store. He has $15 that I forgot to give him when I saw him last, so maybe he can pick out something cool there.

OK then, good night!

ETA: I forgot to post one of the best pictures of summer:

Aidan’s very own Modern Family

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I Can Has Corn? (Lots of Pictures, Long)

22 August 2010 / family, iowa, life, pictures, vacation

Yes, indeed, we had corn. Got a lot of it from one of those roadside stands in Iowa. Nothing like sweet, Iowa corn. Well, except the corn we had at a potluck. 18 cups of bi-color corn, baked in a pound of butter and a pint of half-and-half, frozen, and then slow cooked for hours. Yeah, probably enough cholesterol to last me until Christmas, but DANG was it good.

Iowa was busy, overwhelming, and fun. Aidan had a blast, and meeting little Lola was amazing (and did nothing to alleviate this ever growing ticking of my biological clock that has restarted for some reason). Lola is a total adorable squishy little sweetheart. I love her.

Precious little Lola

Here we are, with little Lola

Aidan was so good with Lola. He loved holding her, and every time she’d cry, he’d hold her cheek and rub her ear and calm her down. I forgot how magical babies are to kids, and I don’t know HOW I forgot, because babies are magical to me, too.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was visiting a century farm. That means it’s been around at least 100 years, original farm house and everything. Interesting that I was able to get a decent cell phone signal at a century farm, but there you go. While we were there, we got up close with some turkeys, saw some peacocks and chickens, and Aidan gathered some eggs that we had for breakfast the next morning. Just so you know? I will never eat a “regular” egg again if I can help it. Organic, cage-free, grain fed eggs from now on. They are SO much better for you and they taste way better. And I always buy brown ones because they’re cool.

The ones we ate from the farm came from Easter Egg Hens (Araucanas), and the eggs were different colors, like light blue or light green or yellow. Very neat and pretty, too.

Anyway, here are some photos from the farm, including one of the eggs from the Easter Egg Hens:

We visited with lots of family and took lots of pictures. I’ll try to refrain from posting too many here, but I must post some, of course!! 🙂

…and the obligatory Selzer silly photo:

* * *

When we got back from Iowa we immediately jumped into finishing our summer with Aidan.

Aidan is definitely a city kid!

We tried to make the most of Aidan’s last week here. Monday, we went out to dinner with Adam’s agent and some other cool writing folks at the Atwood Cafe. It was very yummy. I had the pork duo which included pork belly. It was my first time having pork belly. IT WILL NOT BE MY LAST, FOLKS. Wow, it was good. I had pineapple upside down cake for dessert, also good.

Crookshanks got really, really sick. Adam was afraid that it was the end for Crookshanks. Fortunately, we put two and two together and realized that the poor cat was just constipated. The vet prescribed him some Metamucil, and Crookshanks has been MORE than fine. He’s jumping and wailing in the morning for attention and chasing Helena and climbing to the high shelf like normal. (Oh wait, he puked today, but that’s because he ate some carrot leaves. Silly cat.)

We took a trip to this huge shopping center Oak Brook, where the sales tax was only 7% or so, and I got 15% off of my American Eagle purchase (a pretty yellow shirt and some earrings) just for checking in on Foursquare. Aidan loved all the fountains out there.

I loved that it was like Easton, but WAY bigger. I was overwhelmed! (I am looking forward to Christmas shopping out there!) Aidan was pretty patient, considering, so he earned himself a Build-A-Bear that he named David.

David, hanging out at Molly’s Cupcakes

We ate dinner at Home Run Inn Pizzeria, and that pizza really was delicious. Something about the sauce… and the cheese. It reminded me of this pizza place I used to go to when I was little called Scotto’s Pizza. Anyone who shopped at Randall Park Mall in Cleveland in the early 80s would know what I’m talking about. Mmm. We definitely want to go back. After dinner, we all shopped some more. I *finally* used my Michael’s giftcard that I’d gotten for my 30th birthday back in 2004! It was still good! I was tickled pink. I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten that card before or after they passed all those laws preventing stores from screwing over gift card holders. At any rate, I picked up some scrapbooking stuff because guess what? I plan to do some serious scrapbooking this fall and winter. I am very, very, very behind on my scrapbooking. I want to make an Aidan book, a Ronni + Adam wedding book/honeymoon book, a Disney World 2009 book, and a family book. Seeing as I am not all that ambitious with the fancy embellishments and stuff, it’s gonna be a lot of paper and stickers. 🙂 I am going to post some of my old layouts on Facebook. If we’re not friends there yet, why not?

Oh, and I went to Whole Foods for the first time. But not any Whole Foods. Folks, this was the most epic Whole Foods ever. Oh my God. This place is HUGE. It has all these food bars, free WiFi, a cheese counter, a fish counter, fruit forever, breads, tarts, cupcakes, cookies, salad bars, soup bars. Holy cow. I can’t even. And samples everywhere. Oh yes. I even tried an anchovy (and it wasn’t bad). Aidan was pretty bored (he wanted to get home to play with a toy or something), but I was fascinated. I hope I didn’t act like an idiot. We prefer going to Trader Joe’s (it’s way cheaper) but Whole Foods is fun, too! Nice people work at both. Nice people behind counters can be a rare thing to find in Chicago.

Summer is now winding down. 🙁 I didn’t care much for the steamy nearly 100 degree days, but I’d rather have that than dead of winter any day! Now, it’s cooling down and I like where the weather’s been lately–low 80s or high 70s. Aidan went back to Ohio yesterday. He got to walk onto the plane with the Captain again, which thrills him to pieces. In the meantime, I was trying to hold back tears. I wasn’t fooling anyone, though, and a sympathetic mom hugged me. Adam and I went and drowned our sorrows in a trip to Burlington Coat Factory, which really didn’t help much. I got a cheap yoga tank and a cute short-sleeved hoodie (orange!), but there were some people in there who I wanted to shake!

Now it’s quiet in the apartment. So very quiet. At dinner, Adam said “Focus on eating,” because it didn’t feel like a meal without him needing to say it at least once. But there was no Aidan to say “I am.” 🙁 It’s weird without him here.

But there is a lot to keep me busy in the meantime. I’m picking up more proofreading gigs (most of them are from home, which is great), I’ve been listening to kirtan like crazy, we’re gearing up for a trip to visit my family (especially AIDAN) and friends in Ohio, we’re going out on the lake in a boat next week, MOCKINGJAY comes out Tuesday, I’m going to meet Suzanne Collins in October (I’m #221 in line!), OVFF and Windy Con will be happening in a few months, a new America’s Next Top Model starts soon, Doctor Who Series 5 will be out on DVD, Beauty and the Beast will be out on Blu-ray™, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 will be in theatres, and I’m trying to talk Adam into a Disney World trip in January, when it’s cheap enough with the free dining that we’d get to stay in a moderate resort rather than Pop Century (although I LOVE me some Pop Century).

For now, I’ll continue my yoga, enjoy listening to kirtan, work on my writing, reading, and just enjoying life as much as I can. ‘Til next time.

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