Dec
22
2009

Christmas Past, Present, Future

For some reason this idea of getting in touch with people from the past has been coming up in different forms lately.  On the other hand, D and I recently discussed the challenge of spending time with our current friends/family along with the idea of making new friends. There are so many people that we meet or already kind of know and want to spend time with but it seems insane because we already don’t spend enough time with people currently in our life.  Why bring people from the past into the mix?

There’s something about people from the past that I love.  I love hearing about people I’ve lost touch with and even more, I love catching up with someone I haven’t heard from or spoken to in a long time.  However, the people from the past that are springing up are actually people that I’ve lost touch with because of a conflict or wrongdoing.  I’m confused about my own feelings…why I would want to catch up with such a person… or why WOULDN’T I want to know what has happened to such an individual.  Is curiosity a good reason or is it just opening up a can of worms?  For the record I can truthfully say that I have long since moved on from these situations so I certainly am not harboring any ill will or negative feelings.  Yes, yes, I know, you’re thinking, ‘That’s what Facebook is for!’  Yes, in fact it is, but I don’t think Facebook is going to cut it.

Maybe there’s something about the Christmas season that stirs up emotions or thinking that people have put out of their minds for awhile.  People feel a little nostalgic.  They’re actually thinking more about memories of the past and somehow making sure the present turns into future memories…

Speaking of the present… (yes, I know this is a horrible transition)

This winter break has been completely insane!  I haven’t even had time to take the laundry from last week out of the dryer!  Today I spent the morning on the couch because I felt emotionally fragile after two horrible incidents with the pup but other days have just been filled with activity.  Christmas related activity, The Reckoning, seeing friends, just generally catching up on things I haven’t been able to do because of school.  Yet the house is still filthy.  What up with that?  Sometimes I think a housekeeper would be nice- just to come and clean the floors and vacuum the dog hair once a week.

I’ll try to blog more the next couple of weeks because we have a lot going on…

**EDIT**

What a pleasant day this has turned out to be!  Somewhat spontaneously met up with my best friend for some Johnny Mango’s, then picked up the husband and shared a hot cocoa at Gypsy.  Came home, took a quick nap before heading over to Tree Country where we ran into Gauri post violin recital.  Enjoyed a delicious dinner of Sweet Potato Tempura Maki and Massaman Curry (soooo good!)  Ended the evening at Zachariah’s book signing party.  It’s good to see him and catch up with other friends.  As a bonus we came home with Motley Crue’s autobiography signed by the notorious Zachariah.  We should have had him sign Becoming A Woman of Freedom too.  On a kind of sad note, we noticed that our copy of the Five Love Languages is gone.

By patty | Posted in Life, Op-ed, Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Nov
30
2009

Friends and Stress

I’m not sure that I handle stress all that well.  I’ve noticed that I tend to work quickly and effectively when my stress levels are really high.  However I tend to be really grumpy and that usually affects friendships and loved ones. (sorry, Dj!)

After class, a friend and I were venting our last week of school anxiety.  My personal schedule this includes six papers, a fundraiser (helping and attending), and two plays, all on top of my usual life.  Since this is the last week of school every student feels like they have an obscene amount of work due- and each and every student is correct.  However, as my friend and I were talking I realized that a disproportionate amount of our stress tied directly to various friends that we had to work with on group assignments.  We both felt varying degrees of frustration/anger/annoyance/shock at people that I know we like very much.  The funny thing is that just moments earlier this same friend and I had been sitting next to each other in class and I kept finding myself feeling borderline annoyances.  Sadly the annoyances were around things like her chair being too close.  Sometimes a girl just needs some personal space, right? Right?  No one?

Anyhow, it makes me all feel like I can’t wait until this week is over and everyone can go back to being just friends again.

To all my friends that I have to work with this week in some form (school, party planning, etc) let’s try doubly hard to be patient and loving to each other.  And I’m going to ask in advance for a bit of grace because I am definitely a grumpy bear this week!

By patty | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)
Nov
24
2009

Tweet, Tweet.

I’ve been skeptical of twitter for some time.  Last week an old friend and I were chatting online and he asked me if I was on Twitter- to which I responded no.  Later that night, my husband, who I respect, love and admire told me that he was joining Twitter.

Huh???

Me being who I am decided that these two interactions amounted to a sign.  A sign that I should Tweet!

I’ll be honest, it’s been rough.  How do you decide who to follow?  Why would anyone follow me?  The whole thing is uncomfortable and strange.

However I think I turned the corner today.  I’m afraid of becoming someone who only retweets other posts but I can’t help it.  I’ve seen so many interesting posts today!  I’ve tried really hard to resist retweeting but it’s kind of hard to decide.

There are probably dozens of others that I should be following but I’m getting a bit overwhelmed with those I’m following now.  In the meantime, I hope my friends don’t think my tweeting is annoying.

By patty | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Sep
14
2009

Boo Blogs

We hardly ever update the blog anymore…  I’m wondering if it’s not immediately gratifying enough for us.  I can’t speak for DJ but I hate checking our blog and seeing that the only feedback we have is 5 spam messages about Viagra or some other drug.

For most of my life I kept journals chronicling everything from daily occurrences to my heartaches, joys, and hopes.  Sadly I think that as I grew older I grew more afraid of someone discovering my journals and reading them, thereby reading my innermost thoughts.  That’s one of the most horrifying things I can imagine.  I think this idea scares me because I’m too concerned of what people will think of me- that is, the me that I usually hide away.  The reason I mention this is because I wonder if part of the reason that I don’t write more blog posts is because I’m censoring myself.  This is a public place after all!  I’ve learned that the internet is not the place to vent your real feelings about your co-workers or even questioning/surveying other about your friend’s demands of her bridesmaids- seriously, that’s a BIG mistake that you cannot take back and may not be forgiven for making.

The net of all this is that I think it’s kind of funny that I don’t want people to read my thoughts in the form of journals but I do want people to read my thoughts in the form of blogs.

On that note… I think I should write in my Moleskine more, not just for taking notes of meetings but more to keep track of my journey and maybe help to keep me honest.

A final note… does anyone even blog anymore?  Or has everyone moved on to Twitter?  I’m too long winded for Twitter.

By patty | Posted in Life | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)
Aug
08
2009

Sustainable Cleveland 2019

Many people are surprised to learn that Cleveland is ranked 16th in the SustainLane 2008 City Rankings of sustainable cities.  Well there are lots of exciting things happening in Cleveland and I’m excited to share about one.

Next week, from Wednesday to Friday we will be attending the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit.  The summit will be facilitated by David Cooperrider, one of my professors next semester, and one of the reasons why I decided to attend Case for my MBA.  That alone was enough to get me excited about it but add to that Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface Flor and Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs to the White House.  Woot woot!

More to come next week!

By patty | Posted in Business School/MBA, Cleveland, Good stuff, Sustainable living | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Jul
31
2009

Business School In A Nutshell

Whoa.  I really thought that I’d have time to update the blog and stuff during my first semester of grad school but obviously I didn’t.  We’ve made it through the first semester!  I can honestly say that I learned a lot this semester.  Here’s some high points from my classes:

Accounting- represents exactly how I don’t think

Finance- Finance professors can be ridiculously nice, almost like an older uncle or grandfather

Economics- is so much more interesting if you are applying it to what is actually happening in the world

Strategy- When you’re British, people like you with little to no reason but then if you give a difficult test they immediately dislike you

Systems & Design Thinking- Business people are not only not skilled at drawing they are extremely insecure about their drawing skills

Marketing- Is kind of a joke even for people like me who have spent their entire career in marketing

Operations-meep… meep… meep… ????

Statistics- Don’t eat meat, wear only black and when in doubt write calculations that fill the entire board but will not be on the exam- but make sure you don’t mention that until AFTER everyone has frantically tried to copy down everything you’re writing.  Suckas!

LEAD (Leadership Assessment & Development)- People think differently about you than you think of yourself

I’m looking forward to the next three weeks.  My plans include:

- Detox- no more coffee for me!

- Cleaning the house because it’s not untidy, it’s actually dirty

- Learning to prepare more nutritious meals

- Attending Sustainable Cleveland 2019

- Figuring out and preparing for my future career

- Catching up with friends I haven’t talked to in months!

By patty | Posted in Business School/MBA | Tagged , | Comments (0)
Jul
09
2009

Best 29th Birthday Ever

CLICK HERE—>  Stapp-sings-happy-birthday-ay-ayeah

By dave | Posted in Life | Tagged , , | Comments (0)
Jun
05
2009

Tweeting for Tacos

Finally, a reason for Twitter I can understand.

 

 

By dave | Posted in Good stuff, Op-ed | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)
Jun
02
2009

Food Party Premiere!

If you haven’t seen Food Party yet, then you better find a friend that has IFC (Independent Film Channel), break into their house Tuesday night, fix yourself a fried bologna doughnut sandwich and watch the cable premiere at 11:15pm. Food Party is the creation of a team of recent Cleveland Institute of Art grads, which includes our beloved friend Zachariah Durr, director of the absurdly delightful cooking show. The Food Partiers describe their labor of culinary love as    

a mind-bending, non-reality cooking show with Thu Tran as your hostess, a cast of unruly puppets as culinary aides, and a cavalcade of fictitious celebrities as surprise dinner guests. Shot on location in a technicolor cardboard kitchen as well as other foreign and exotic cardboard locations, each episode will or will not instruct you on how to prepare wild gourmet multi-course meals with ingredients you probably have on hand in your kitchen already, such as pretzel rods, eggs, narwhal lungs, bizarre plot twists, secret ingredients, and pizza. After all, you never know who might show up for dinner.

If you don’t have IFC, don’t know of anyone that has it or have an issue with breaking and entering, then you can watch old episodes on the Food Party website. The show has such a raw energy right now…I just hope it doesn’t go mainstream. Fortunately, I’m pretty confident Thu won’t be asked as a challenger on Iron Chef anytime soon. Or am I…

Food Party Premiere :: Tuesday, June 9th @ 11:15pm on IFC

By dave | Posted in Art & Design, Cleveland, Good stuff | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)
May
27
2009

Tiptoes Trailer

Uh…what the huh?!?

By dave | Posted in Op-ed | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)