Empire State of Mind

New York never disappoints. Remember that! Even if you are barely able to walk to due bruised metatarsals from a not so wise decision several days prior to hike all over the nationals capital in flip flops for 8 hours, it STILL doesn’t disappoint! I HEART NYC!

Sunday at 6pm, I am supposed to meet Hannah and her new beau at the top of the Empire Hotel on 63^rd and Broadway for some cocktails and catching up. My sad self somehow gets the address stuck in my head as 63^rd and 5^th….which in any other city would just have been a 2 block correction, but in New York they have this little place called Central Park, maybe you've heard of it? Well, I was inconveniently on the wrong side of it!  So 30 minutes later and with gratuitous apologies to all I finally arrive and we proceed up to the rooftop bar (aka a little piece of New York heaven). I order one of their signature drinks, a Summer Tea, and almost break down in tears- the best drink I’ve had all weekend! Finally! (You know I love you NY, but those communion size shots for $8 a crack are the most pathetic things I have ever experienced.) I give the group a re-cap of the last few days: dinner at Mesa Grill, drinks at Lillies, dancing at Mean Fiddler and the Social, watching the Alabama game with 200 Alumni at The Ainsworth and a midnight burger at The Spotted Pig. I find out that this wanna be NYCer didn't do too bad. The Mean Fiddler happens to be one of their favorite haunts and they have been to The Spotted Pig more than once! I'm feeling pretty proud to say the least.

Hannah's beau asks me a little bit about where I'm from and what I'm up to, and I wont' re-cap that whole story here as you all pretty much know it, but I will tell you that what happened next could only be described as, say it with me, a "firefly moment". It turns out that one of his friends is a former model who started her own event planning company in New York. The sole focus of her company? Planning events that support the troops. No way! He comments that he just had lunch with this friend last week, and then proceeds to shoot her off an email in the middle of cocktails asking her if she would be interested in expanding her business to Hawaii. No way! She emails back almost instantly that she is always interested and to send her my info. WAY! 

I'll keep y'all posted on the developments...but for now, just know that fireflies are alive and well- even on rooftop bars in the middle of New York City!

Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams! (Part I)

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler."-Henry David Thoreau

Well, I don’t know that it’s always been a dream of mine to move to Hawaii, but that’s where I am going as confidently as possible on September 28th.


It’s funny; I never meant to return to California after graduating from Alabama. I always thought I would settle down in Georgia, get married and start a family. (Well now, that’s a whole other post for another time!) But life has a funny way of firmly encouraging you to go in a different direction. At any rate, I landed back in the Bay Area and have been here for much longer than I ever expected. After losing my job of 8 years just two weeks before Christmas (insert violins here), I jumped right into looking for a new source of income. I truly believed I would be back to the grind within a month, maybe two at the longest. Yeah, right! That would be assuming I could get an interview. Just kidding! That would be assuming I even got a call back. Wrong again! That would be assuming I got an email other than “We received your application. Do not reply to this email.” After 4 months of exactly ZERO interviews, I decided to continue my job search from my mom's empty condo in Waikiki. (I know, I know-rough life. Don't judge!) It was while in Hawaii I spontaneously rediscovered a lost passion of mine and a whole new field of fireflies!


About a week before I was headed back to California I met a couple of Marines on the beach. (Note to self: a whole other post on this too!) The three of us were inseparable for an entire week, and I made promises to them both to write letters and send cookies and awesome care packages while they were deployed in Afghanistan. They seemed touched by my offer, and I was surprised that they would be so thankful. I went home with a renewed spirit and some sort of purpose-finally! In between shopping for all things "care package" and writing letters, I sat at home searching for jobs. Up until this point I had been looking for a replacement job, same sort of position- new company. Then I asked myself, if I could do anything, what would make me happy? Surprisingly enough, the answer came-plan events for the military and not as a volunteer! Now that would make me happy! The search was on, and within 24 hours I had found my next dream position-a Fund Raising Coordinator for USO Hawaii! Are you kidding me?! I just thought up a job and it appeared it front of me?! Ridiculous. Unfortunately that opportunity didn't pan out, and neither did the next one I found...but the momentum was certainly going in the right direction!


To be continued...

The (Lunch) Hour I First Believed

Can you remember a moment in your life-a single moment- that changed the way you viewed the world? You know, the kind that excites and humbles you all at once. Here’s one of mine. Back in the day, after the Bears but before Bear Bryant, I used to attend a local junior college called De Anza. In between classes I would often walk around the outdoor track to get some fresh air, clear my head after a pretty mind twisting philosophy class and well, pray. (I should probably mention that at this time in my life I was very involved with church and various Bible study groups.) Anyway, one particularly windy day I was doing the old “right over left” stretch (See Ms. Wimberley, P.E. wasn’t a complete waste!) and I couldn’t help but notice the crazy amount of trash on the field. I remember thinking, “How weird would it be if there was like a piece of Bible or something underneath my shoe” (Yes, I even thought the word “like” into my internal dialogue back then too. Sad, I know.) So anyway, I lifted up my foot and curiously inspected the many scraps of litter stuck to the bottom of my size 7 ½. There was one piece of paper about the size of my thumbprint that caught my eye. Go ahead and take a closer look at the picture. Do you notice any key words? Even though I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t ‘actual’ scripture, it didn’t matter because a surge of absolute awe and disbelief was already coursing through my body. NO WAY! NO FA-REAKING-WAY! Although I'm no longer actively involved in church or Bible studies, I've kept this little treasure tucked safely inside a Winne the Pooh jewelry box for the last, um "several" years. Every time I need a reminder that anything is possible, I just pull this little puppy out and hold it in my hand for a minute until I remember-Uh, WAY!


What was your first “firefly moment”? I’d absolutely love to hear it!

Life Is Like A Field of Fireflies (a la Forest Gump)

You know when something happens that you can’t plan or predict, perhaps something small and seemingly insignificant, but it just makes your day? These are the moments I live for! Firefly moments. Catching a shooting star out of the corner of your eye; bumping into a coworker 3000 miles away from home in the middle of Central Park; or yes, even seeing that “OMG- full on double rainbow all the way across the sky!” . This is the cool stuff of life! I’ve noticed over the years that although I cannot predict when these events will happen, they do happen with great frequency, and it is my intention to start documenting them.


When I was a kid growing up in North Carolina, summer was my all time favorite season, and though there were endless reasons to love summer, mine could be boiled down to just two things: honeysuckle & fireflies. I was pretty much a girly-girl. Well, except for the fact that A) to this day, I still have no idea how to successfully operate a curling iron and B) I was never fortunate enough to own a Barbie. (Btw, thanks be to Gaby for humoring my never-ending fascination with her Barbie Dream House and Barbie shoe collection.) On second thought, maybe owning a single pair of pink Nike Cortez, a bottle of Love’s Baby Soft cologne and an Easy-Bake Oven didn’t exactly qualify me to be a girly-girl, so let’s try this again. How about, I was never much of a tomboy? That’s better. So then as a ‘non-tomboy/wanna be girly-girl’ you can guess that with the exception of having to save a wayward ladybug from an untimely death at the local pool, I was not at all into creepy crawly things. But fireflies… *sigh*…they were different. Fireflies were magic. Staring into an open field at dusk, just waiting to catch a glimpse of the first firefly of the night is still one of my favorite munchkin memories. “I saw one! Did you see it?! Where?! There’s another one!” It never got old. Knowing there was a field full of magic in front of you, and all you had to do was wait for it to be revealed to you?! Priceless!


I feel like as I get older, I am realizing that this is what life is all about-for me: noticing the magic that is already around me and being grateful for it. I’m not too concerned with figuring out the big questions-you know, the how’s and why’s of our existence or what my exact purpose is in life. Instead, I just want to have more firefly moments. :-)