Aug 24th 2010 04:59:29 pm

the blahs…

It has been rainy in Brooklyn ever since my (icky) race on Sunday and it is not helping my mood or my motivation. It is not a good sign when a few days of cloudy weather in August can sap my energy… how will I survive the winter?! Let’s not think about it. Let’s also not think about all of the work I didn’t complete today, or the angry emails I can’t bring myself to respond to, or the stacks of ironing I told myself I would get done. Instead, let’s draw silly rain clouds and drink diet coke! Yes!

6 Comments » Categories: Feeling Sad, New York, Work

Apr 28th 2010 04:33:37 pm

Life has been changing and moving quickly lately. On Saturday, we spent all day at the Handmade Cavalcade craft fair, then on Sunday we took an all-day trip to New Haven, Connecticut, to sell our car. Boohoo. I feel sad about it. We bought our 2004 Subaru Imprezza WRX about two weeks before our wedding in 2003. (The photo above is us driving off in the car after our wedding ceremony.) It felt like our kid, or maybe our home. We drove it across the country twice, and it had been our only car for five years. But for the last year here, in New York, the poor thing just sat parked on the street. We hardly used it (maybe driving 200 miles in the last six months) and Travis had to move it to a new parking spot twice a week. Yuck. Plus, the insurance was expensive. So, it is on to a new life via CarMax and we are car-less. It is a relief to not have to worry about it any longer, and after one last trip to the DMV we will be able to cancel our insurance. I do love extra money!

Early Monday morning we headed to the hospital (by hired car and driver) for Travis’ ACL reconstruction knee surgery. The Hospital for Special Surgery was fabulous and everyone there was very professional. You can read Travis’ thoughts on the experience on his blog. The surgeon said that the surgery went perfectly, and it seems like it did because Travis is recovering quickly. My only complaint is that it now falls solely on me to take Crusher down and up the three flights of stairs to our apartment every time he needs to go outside….

Life is good and all of the recent excitement has gone as smoothly as we could expect, but I am definitely ready for some downtime! If you need me, I’ll probably be taking a nap.

4 Comments » Categories: Family, Feeling Happy, Feeling Sad, Health, Home, Travis

Feb 17th 2010 03:25:39 pm

Living in New York City is difficult. Especially for a midwest girl who spent the previous four years in the laid-back, hippie town of Eugene. I have been trying to stay positive about the move (almost a year later!) and have tried to be the strong, confident, optimistic woman that I would like to be. Ha! Some days it works, some days it doesn’t.

On Monday, I had a meeting in Manhattan and then Travis and I planned to eat dinner at one of the many confusing, but oh-so-popular Momofuku restaurants. I was so cheerful and energetic when I started out! I took the 40 minute subway ride, ran some errands, went to my meeting, did some shopping, then hung out at Barnes & Noble waiting for Travis. Barnes & Noble is cool because they let you use their bathroom even without a purchase (very rare in NY), but they are uncool because I got scolded for sitting on the floor reading a book. There are no comfy chairs in this NY Barnes & Noble, only a handful of folding chairs that were already full with other tired city goers, and apparently, you aren’t allowed to sit on the floor. So… basically, by the time Travis got to me I was exhausted and dehydrated, and promises of Momofuku pork buns wasn’t enough to get me pumped up. Plus, we had to walk lots of blocks to the Noodle Bar (one of the Momofuku restaurants), which was too crowded. Then, we walked lots more blocks to the Momofuku Ssam Bar and waited for a seat at the super-crowded, loud bar. I was so tired and so hungry. Poor Travis. BUT, here is the good news: New York City always seems to make up for its inherent hassle and hardship. Our pork buns and barbecue sandwich arrived and they were just about the best food I have ever tasted! Too expensive, too trendy, too difficult to get, but still worth it. Plus, then we went next door to the bakery (the Milk Bar) and got two slices of amazing cake and their signature Cereal Milk (above you see the left-overs in our fridge). Travis even splurged on a taxi ride home! Ahhhh.

What else have I been up to?

• Watched The Hangover last weekend and I loved, loved, loved it! I was totally caught off guard by how much I loved it. It is, like, my new favorite movie, and I don’t even like Las Vegas!
• Travis and I have also been making our way through Entourage, and again, I was surprised by how much I like it. I thought it was all about womanizing and partying (and it is), but it is way sweeter than I expected.
• Oh. This isn’t great, but I have abandoned the thing-a-day project. My daily creative submissions just weren’t very good and I didn’t need another thing to feel stressed over. I am a thing-a-day failure.
• This guy is my favorite thing about the Olympics.
• I had another article (a book review of Weekend Sewing) published on CraftCritique.com this week.
• I have been doing these Dance and Be Fit workouts on FitTV and I am really enjoying them. The instructor, Kimberly Miguel Mullen, is really cute and fun. They make me want to take some “real” dance classes…

What have you been doing to keep sane during this long, cold February? I need suggestions!

11 Comments » Categories: Birthday, Feeling Happy, Feeling Sad, Food, New York

Dec 13th 2009 10:13:32 pm

So… I think my blog is finally back up thanks to Travis and his tireless work trying to get everything fixed after our blog “emergency.” Travis is amazing and he will probably need to correct me on some of the details, but basically Media Temple – the supposedly big time, awesome hosting company where we store all of our blogs – was hacked. Some jerk stole some of their passwords and started overwriting important files. It affected all of the “Lamble Family” blogs (including this one, obviously), Roundrock Journal, and the Swap-bot blog. Ugh. The Swap-bot blog is the worst because now our users think that the actual site was compromised – which it was NOT. The actual Swap-bot.com site is hosted at a completely different company which has nothing to do with the current blog mess, but it is hard to convince people of that when they see “hacksor” on our official blog page. Anyway, we are slowly getting back to normal, but this situation was a huge setback, both personally and for Swap-bot. I already feel like I can barely keep my head above water and unexpected problems like this really cause me to feel completely overwhelmed.

It also didn’t help that last week, right after our big Swap-bot press in the NY Daily News, one of our ad networks (which we use to publish ads on Swap-bot) started serving up a horrible, bogus ad that made it appear that the viewer had contracted a computer virus. The ad didn’t actually spread a virus (it just sold anti-virus software), but it really frightened our users. We shut it down quickly and are no long using that ad network, but it is just another thing that is out of our control and yet causes huge problems. It also hurts to shut down an ad network because it means we could potentially be shutting off an opportunity to increase our extremely miniscule profits. Swap-bot has gotten to be so much work that it is very difficult to justify continuing to do it basically for free. We have to figure out a way to make it support at least one full time person (me) or we are going to have to let it go. Sad. Pay accounts and more direct advertising sales are both options, but both require a lot of work and it is hard for me to stay on top of things as it is. Basically, I am feeling overwhelmed and need to re-evaluate how I am spending my time…

This weekend was packed with holiday shopping and computer work. Next week, it is work, work, work (with a bit of holiday partying in the mix) – I have a tremendous amount to accomplish before Christmas!

11 Comments » Categories: Feeling Sad, Swap-bot, Travis, Website

Nov 3rd 2009 10:14:07 pm

I had such high hopes for this week. I had major plans for productivity. Instead, I am super-sick. I spent the whole day in bed. blergh. I hope to be back tomorrow.

3 Comments » Categories: Feeling Sad

Oct 6th 2009 01:14:26 pm

Bleh. I have been beating myself up over my abandonment of this website, but I just can’t come up with anything positive to say. Wait. The weather has been nice. Does that count?

3 Comments » Categories: Feeling Sad, New York

Aug 10th 2009 08:39:37 am

My Grandpa Lamble passed away early this morning. It is a sad day, but I find hope in the amazing legacy he left behind: 54 years of marriage, eight children, and sixteen grandchildren – all of whom have little piece of him inside them. xoxo

11 Comments » Categories: Family, Feeling Sad

Nov 23rd 2008 12:35:36 am

Forgive my late and short post today. Crusher has been feeling sick all day. He has been all cuddly and quiet, and tonight he has been throwing up a lot. I am not sure what brought it on, but if he doesn’t get better soon we may need to take him to the vet. I am worried. I’ll let you know how he is doing in the morning…

UPDATE: Crusher is doing a little better this morning. He is still in bed and I think he is dehydrated, but he will probably make a full recovery.

4 Comments » Categories: Crusher, Feeling Sad

Nov 13th 2008 12:35:45 am

I woke up this morning with a terrible headache. I actually had it all night and had trouble sleeping. Needless to say, I was not feeling my best today. I did manage to rake the leaves in our yard which were out of control and I think I caught up on most of my Swap-bot emails. I also cut Crusher’s nails, which he absolutely hated. I had a super blog post started for today, but I think I will just have to finish it up tomorrow. Something to look forward to…

7 Comments » Categories: Feeling Sad

Mar 15th 2008 11:31:53 am

WARNING: bellyaching ahead…

So…. it turns out that my husband travels about 70% of the time now. Sucky. I am basically his laundry lady when he is home and I watch way too much bad tv when he is gone. I actually watched CMT the other night. ugh. My life is slowly wasting away… The only good news is that I have been spending a lot of time at the gym. I am also thinking about getting a tattoo… basically just to freak out Travis…. which isn’t a good enough reason, so I probably won’t actually go through with it. Anyway, today I get to spend the day answering hundreds of rude and demanding Swap-bot emails. yay. Oh, and for a little break I can wash the huge pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen. What can I say, being an adult is the bomb.

So… I turn to one of my favorite distractions: digital window shopping. Some stuff I am digging:

Legacy Bridget Clutch from Coach – - Pink Satin Collection and Pink Raspberry Glitter Gloss from bobbi brown – - Fiona Jacket, Lily Cardigan, and Kingston Suede Driving Mocs from J. Crew – - blue metal Andros Bistro Chair from the barn – - and to soothe my lonely heart, Vosages Caramel Marshmallows

Try to have a good weekend despite my bad attitude…

6 Comments » Categories: Clothes, Feeling Sad, Make-up & Beauty, Travis