A Cottage by the Sea: Epilogue

I recently finished a book called The Little Cafe in Copenhagen. It's one of the countless rom-com/chick lit books I read while at the gym. I like to rotate between these books, mysteries involving a baker who solves crime with the help of a meddling ghost, and memoirs by former cult members. Sometimes I throw in a biography or historical novel for giggles. Anyway, this particular novel was about a young woman responsible for taking a group of British journalists to Copenhagen to learn about the art of hygge. It's all part of a campaign she's working on, promoting a Danish department store opening in London. The owner believes this group of journalists would benefit from experiencing hygge in person. Along the way, our heroine learns about herself, what she really wants to do with her life, the true meaning of hygge, and of course, she falls in love. It's a very typical example of one of these books with some Danish culture thrown in for good measure. Reading the book made me want to buy some cozy sweaters and drink copious amounts of tea. Oh, and make cinnamon rolls everyday. Imagine what my house would smell like if I made cinnamon rolls everyday.

What I also realized upon completing this book was that it's been a full year, almost to the day, since I declared myself your resident chick-lit heroine in my series A Cottage by the Sea. You can read the original posts here (scroll to the end to start with the first entry). Yes, I celebrated Rex Manning Day as I always do with a viewing of Empire Records, but I was also devastated with the reality of being laid off, dealing with my aunt's death, and generally feeling awful. I felt unmoored, not quite prepared for a job search (although I recovered on this one pretty quickly) and certainly not prepared to be so fucking angry and defeated at the same time. Like a crappy boyfriend or a terrible friend, a toxic work environment eventually gets the best of you and you may not even realize it until you're no longer part of it. That's where I was and it wasn't pretty.

If I think about it now, I was lucky. I found a job relatively quickly (two months) and have an awesome group of friends and a super supportive family who were all there through this. I've been in my new job for about ten months now. This past week, I hosted the "graduation" event for the leadership development program I was hired to manage. Despite a recurring dream about not inviting the CEO to the event (I did, he attended and thoroughly enjoyed the event), it went smoothly. The presentations were successful and the participants seemed to genuinely enjoy the experience despite it being intense and a lot of work. It was satisfying to see the conclusion of something I've worked so hard on go well. Honestly, it's helped me feel more like me. It made me feel more accomplished and capable, something that I wasn't feeling a year ago.

Has it been easy? Absolutely not. It's hard to start a new job. Yes, it's exciting and new, but it's also terrifying and uncomfortable. In my experience, not just with this job, everyone wants to focus on the excitement and the fact that something new is starting. You have to be grateful that you even have a job. These are all true things, but they're also 100% devoid of reality. It's exciting, yes, but it's also stressful and scary. First, there's the new job stuff: learning new responsibilities, new technology, new processes. Then you have to build relationships with team members and other co-workers. Add to all of this navigating the hierarchy of an organization and the politics, which you probably have to figure out on your own, even if your manager is well-meaning and helpful. Everyday is a mix of being vulnerable and confident, making mistakes and being awesome. It's exhausting. Exciting, sure, but exhausting.

Like any chick-lit heroine worth her own series, I've spent the last year thinking a lot about what I want in my life. That's what always happens in these books; the heroine rethinks her life plans, her ambitions, her views on love and family. This year has led me back to my novel (finally wrote a new chapter and have at least two more in progress). I started my creative practice again, mostly with my embroidery projects. I've embraced learning new things, like my upcoming drum lessons and learning to make croissants from scratch. I have a new big goal, which I'm not ready to discuss yet, but it's been forming this last year and I'm excited about making it a reality. It's taken a year, but I finally feel like me again.


Coming soon to the Island: a new Lazy Movie Weekend involving the potato of injustice, I finally make croissants from scratch, and we celebrate Record Store Day 2018! It's going to be an exciting April!

A Cottage by the Sea, Part Three: In which our heroine begins a new journey

I'm exhausted. I woke up this morning a little after 7 am with a tiny, orange cat staring at me. I believe the look I was given was the "Wake up, human. You are shirking your sole responsibility in life which is to feed me. Get out of bed. Do your job." Pumpkin has a lot of feelings.

To provide some context...

My exhaustion stems from a very exciting development in life: I started back to work this week! This means I've finally moved into phase three of being your resident chick lit heroine. You can revisit phases one and two at your leisure. Phase three, which we'll discuss in more detail shortly, is the phase where things fall into place and the heroine moves forward on a new or new-ish path. I thought I would be stuck in phase two forever; phase two is the waiting phase, the phase where our heroine both begins to give up hope of things going her way and where glimmers of goodness shimmer in the distance. My phase two lasted about six weeks; long enough for it to become stressful but short enough that I know I'm lucky to have moved onto a new gig. Honestly, I could have been in phase two until the end of the summer. That would have been miserable.

I forgot how exhausting it is to start a new job. I haven't been the brand, brand new person at a job in 10 years. I've spent the last 5 years onboarding new employees so I was always exhausted at the end of each new hire week but for completely different reasons. There's so much information to take in during the first few days of a new job; by day three my brain was definitely mushy (which I told my new manager, our VP, and our SVP - super professional on my part) and in need of an information break. This is why I save certain shows on my DVR rather than watch right away. It's not only learning a new organization (I've only scratched the surface of that) but diving right into the programs I'll be managing/assisting with. Then there's remembering everyone's name and what they do. Thankfully, we have to wear badges, the workplace equivalent of name tags. That's made the name game a little easier.

Information overload aside, starting a new job also means starting a new schedule. I have an actual commute for the first time in 15 years so I spent a lot of this week trying to figure out what time to leave in the morning and wondering if leaving at 4:30 would be a good or bad thing (so far, it's a draw). My route happens to take me out 66. If you know anything about DMV traffic, you may have just shuddered a bit. It's a reverse commute for the most part but it still takes me an hour or more to get home. My GPS, Norma, seems to think that going from 66 to 495 to 395 is the best way home. While that may be true from a time in car perspective, it's an absolute lie in a "everyone sucks and you have to get over seven lanes to get to where you need to go in two seconds" perspective. There are a bunch of ways to get home; I have to figure out one that won't make me want to punch other drivers in the throat every day. I'm sure this route exists.

I know it'll all even out in a few months. I'll figure out a new routine, including the best time to go to the gym (either at home or at the office), my volunteering will slow down some, and I'll get into the groove of my new job and organization. That's all part of phase three; journeying down a new path and figuring out all my things. Getting back into being an adult and doing the things adults do like complaining about traffic and packing a healthy lunch. Deciding when to go to the grocery store and not feeling bad when the young women next to me in line spend the exact amount of money I did but they spent it on wine and cheese while I bought sensible things like vegetables and protein packed snacks. My exhaustion will morph into regular tiredness (since I'm old now) and life will return to normal.

What has this chick lit heroine journey taught me?

• Suit jackets are terribly uncomfortable and do literally nothing for me. I'm glad my new company has a more casual approach to dress codes so I can store those bad boys away for hopefully a long, long time.
• Only surround yourself with people who are going to be good for you. I don't mean people who will tell you're making a smart life choice when in fact, you're about to drive off a cliff, but people who are supportive, cool, and will have those reality check moments with you when needed. 
• Don't turn your back on the things you love even if you're not 100% feeling it. 
• While filling my time was exactly what I needed to do, it was also a challenge but the best kind of challenge. This did bite me in the ass last week when I realized I scheduled my life within an inch of itself but it all got done.
• Focus is incredibly important. I took time to figure out what I did and didn't want in a job and a company which made applying for positions and going through the interview process less stressful (it's still stressful but wasn't as bad). 
• Pay if forward. I have some amazing people in my life who were awesome these last few months. I hope to be as helpful as they are in the future to the people who need it.
• Set realistic goals. I said I was going to reorganize my bedroom closet and have yet to do it. However, I did take another trip to Dinosaur Land, saw Wonder Woman, and began the slow process of cleaning out my parents' basement so I did the things that needed to be done.
• When in doubt, a 90s dance party is the answer. 
• It is perfectly acceptable to binge watch canceled Gordan Ramsay shows and find comfort in his ability to yell at people and weave a tapestry of obscenities that is still hovering over a crappy bistro in a strip mall in California.
• If the 90s dance party isn't working, stop what you're doing and bake something, preferably something with chocolate, peanut butter, or a combination of both. 
• Sometimes, you pass through phases two and three without a meet cute, the intersession of an adorable child, and a coffee mishap. I'm not saying these things won't happen but they didn't happen during my chick lit heroine journey. 
• Treat yourself.
   
  
  
  As Semisonic, the great poets of 1998, tell us "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Since I didn't get my own meet cute or super spectacular rom-com moment, I leave you with this from the movie Friends with Benefits.

Treat Yo Self image

A Cottage by the Sea, Part Two: Islands are nature's circles...or something

I visited Ocracoke Island for the first time in September 2006. One of my dearest friends, Kelly, asked me to be her maid of honor and the wedding was on Ocracoke. Don't know where Ocracoke is? Neither did I at the time. It's part of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, an island only accessible by ferry. It's the island where Blackbeard died and is known for figs (the Fig Festival is in August). If you were a fan of The Lonely Doll books as a child, the author, Dare Wright, was also known for her photographs of Ocracoke and set one of the Edith books on the island (the one where Edith and the bears go on a holiday). At the time of Kelly's wedding, I had just relocated to Virginia following Hurricane Katrina. Leaving New Orleans (where Kelly and I met; were were roommates in college) was simultaneously the best and worst decision I have ever made. New Orleans is the only place I've lived that I've felt was a home; such is the life of a military child. It's the most vibrant city I've ever been in. However, I know now, and probably knew then, that if I stayed much longer I would never have moved forward in the way I needed to. I probably would have left later, a bit more broken from what was going on in the city.

A month before the wedding, I started my new job working for a start up ed tech company, moving into the first of many roles I would fill for the company over my 10 years there. I started as a support team member, one of those roles that is both incredibly rewarding and incredibly soul-crushing at the same time. There are only so many polite ways to ask a person (who is paying for a service you provide) if their computer is turned on or if they've clicked on the very large button that says "send" (you know, the one staring them in the face at this exact moment). This would all come later; at that moment, the moment where I drove my car onto the ferry to Ocracoke for the first time, I only knew I was enjoying a new adventure, getting to know my co-workers, and finding a place to live that was not the guest room at my parents' house. I was slowly dealing with the stress of Katrina: the evacuation, the three month "exile", the nastiness I encountered on the road as I worked to bring in a class for the university, the garbage pile outside my apartment that grew and grew and grew, the punch to the gut every time I picked up an application and read another essay from a student who lost everything. I had no real support network left in New Orleans but I had started the slow process of building one in Virginia (a process that would take a long time and I would argue, is still ongoing).

All of this was swirling around in my brain when I boarded the ferry the first time. Of course, Ocracoke has the ability to remove the mainland from view very quickly and not just because you eventually can't really see Hatteras from the island. Cell service is spotty at best so it's easy to disconnect because it won't work anyway. It was nice to be able to focus on my friend and the wedding and nothing else. It had been at least 2 years since I'd seen Kelly but, as I knew we would, we fell into our jokes and stories and friendship the way you do with your best friends. It was the perfect event to end 2006 (so to speak). I didn't get to experience all of Ocracoke on that trip but I completely understood why it was the perfect place for the wedding and why Kelly and her family continue to come back.

I didn't make the connection between 2006 and 2017 until I was driving down NC-12 earlier this week to catch the ferry for a return trip to Ocracoke. As I passed the pun-tastically named houses and dinosaur and pirate themed mini golf courses along the way (no, I didn't stop at either although I wanted and yes, they are separate mini golf courses), I realized that the last trip to Ocracoke was at the start of a new part of my life and this trip is at the actual end of that new start. The universe has an incredible sense of humor. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I'm currently experiencing the life of a chick lit novel heroine so what better thing to do than to read way too much into something AND go on a trip to an island which is the actual premise of dozens of novels within this genre?

I can, because I'm me and I'm female (and we do this sort of thing all the time), read a lot into this.  I have successfully completed phase one of being the quintessential chick lit heroine. This phase includes wallowing, binge-watching Netflix shows, baking for no reason (or to make the people in your life happy), crying, and a trip to a winery on a Monday. Completing phase one allows me to move on to phase two: the connection phase. This phase always coincides with a journey of some form and during this phase, the heroine reconnects with people she doesn't often see in person (like Kelly and the rest of the group in Ocracoke). Additionally, the improbable events will begin any day now. Improbability in chick lit novels usually leads the heroine directly to phase three where the pieces begin to fall into place and the new path is forged by our plucky heroine. Improbability takes some time; I could be in phase two for awhile.

Ocracoke did not solve my problems but it was the break I needed. I have spent far too much time in my apartment over the last few weeks. More importantly, this trip provided a few of the things I desperately needed at this exact moment in my chick lit heroine life:

• A road trip - literally nothing is as good as driving along scenic routes listening to music and having an Icee at 10:22 am.
• Conversations that were about everything but also nothing. Kelly and I had so much to catch up on and may have retold some stories more times than needed. I would have to ask the others if this was annoying or charming. I'm going to guess charming.
• Planned for Kelly's next artistic project...seashell and driftwood art. There is definitely a market for it in the Outer Banks so really the only thing left is to come up with a delightfully punny name and harvest raw materials. We were able to create a list of possible items Kelly should create: jewelry, wine racks, name plates for beach houses, spice racks. Everyone helped with this part. Kelly now needs to let the shells speak to her, as one does.
• Learned the importance of appreciating YouTube video humor from a 12 year old. The 12 year old and I also agree that Rocket Raccoon is the best and that super hero movies where the super heroes are too "super hero-y" are the worst. 
• Considered the possibility of my next art project being a book entitled The Feral Cats of Ocracoke. There's an audience for this book somewhere.
• Laughed a tremendous amount.
• Went to the beach. I'm not a huge beach person but it was incredibly satisfying to walk along the beach. Kelly was able to start collecting her shells so now it's just a matter of time before her sea art is the next great thing. I also got slightly sunburned despite my wearing sunscreen so the world is working in the way it is supposed to. 
• Discovered that skinny jean shorts are a thing. Imagine the most hipster dude you can conjure in your brain, hack the skinny jeans off just above the knee, add an ironic statement beard, and the beach night out equivalent of a deep V-necked shirt (so a collared version) and you have the one person I never thought I'd experience while visiting an island in the Outer Banks. 
• Began planning our 40th (we're so old) birthday trip. This was countered by being asked, not carded, but asked if we were over 21 at dinner one night when we ordered beers. Only Kelly and I were asked so there's that. We've identified a large number of things we don't want to do so we're off to a good start. So far the list of possible trips includes: the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, somewhere in Canada, and my suggestion of a trip to Mexico to visit Frida Kahlo's museum. We have work to do.

Sometimes you have to revisit a place in order to truly move on to whatever is next in your life. That is the lesson of this phase of chick lit heroine living. That's how you get closure.

The first photo of my book project - they look like Pumpkin's less pleasant cousins.

Some inspiration for Kelly - I feel like the fish/mermaid plant holder would be better with a topiary in the shape of a mermaid or fish head.

I am not participating in Record Store Day this year for reasons. Happy 10th Anniversary to RSD!! You can relive my past RSD adventures here or go out and make your own by visiting your local record store today.

A Cottage by the Sea, or How I Became a Chick Lit Character

When I started going to the gym regularly, I had to find a way to make it less awful. Music was a given but I found that reading on my Kindle helped make the time fly by. My 45 minute workout did just that everyday and I crushed my yearly book totals (I read a lot of books this way. I don't even count anymore.). I like variety in what I read but I'm also not interested in spending over $3 for a Kindle book and I don't want something that takes a ton of concentration so I tend to focus on a few genres for my "gym books":

• Mysteries - specifically those involving a sassy woman who can communicate with ghosts and teams up with the cute sheriff to solve old crimes (there is more than one series that fits into this category). My most recent find was called The Girls and it was wonderful despite its lack of sassy woman communicating with spirits.
• Horror - I like stand alone horror so I've reread some Stephen King classics and a few new ones by Christopher Rice and Joe Hill.
• Biography/Memoirs - I'm a huge fan of books about people who used to be cults and odd celebrities who led fantastic lives like the girl who played Veruca Salt in the original Willy Wonka movie (she was not in a cult).
• Chick Lit - throw in travel, baking, or music and I will buy your entire series and read it twice.

I was thinking about this earlier in the week as I walked on the trail near the Village at Shirlington. My apartment complex is still renovating the fitness center so I have to walk outside now rather than on the treadmill. The weather is nice enough (finally) so it's a good way to get out of the house for a little while every day and have something to do. I have a lot of time on my hands right now; it's important to fill the time.

Anyway, as I was on lap four of one of my walks, I had the realization that I have become a woman in one of the novels I read at the gym. Most of the chick lit novels I read involve a woman approximately my age (or in the range of 25-40), something "terrible" happens to her (marriage dissolves, business folds, laid off, death in the family, horrible breakup, all of the above), and she spends the novel reinventing herself or getting her shit together. Along the way, her friends and family get involved (they're always a little quirky), there's a romance, and shenanigans abound. My recent favorites include:

• The Little Bookshop on the Seine by Rebecca Raisin
• From a Paris Balcony by Ella Carey
• The Dress Shop of Dreams by Menna van Praag
• The Coincidence of Coconut Cake  by Amy E. Reichart  
• Vintage by Susan Gloss
• Village Books by Craig McKay
• Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

There are many more I could list but you get the point. Of this group, Little Beach Street Bakery is my favorite (followed closely by The Coincidence of Coconut Cake). It involves living on an island (which I have done), baking as a form of therapy that becomes a business, bees, and a puffin as a pet. There's also a sassy best friend, a super rich dude, a sweet American (the novel takes place in England), and an elderly lady who is awful but ends up being a decent person. Polly, our protagonist, loses her business, her boyfriend (with whom she was in business), and her apartment all at once so she moves to a tiny island that is only reachable when the tides cooperate. She begins covertly baking bread which angers her landlady but leads to her opening a little bakery to make her rent. She also adopts a puffin who breaks his wing on her first night in her new home (his name is Neil which is exactly what I would name a puffin if I had a puffin). She makes a bunch of mistakes and then rights them and there's a Star Wars themed wedding (I'm not making this up).There's a sequel but I haven't read it yet; it's not under $3 so I have to wait.

Since my disastrous week last week, I've done many of the things that any good chick lit heroine would do:

• I've wallowed.
• I've visited a winery.
• I've eaten ice cream and let it count as a meal.
• I've gone to a yoga class.
• I've listened to what can only be described as girl power music (you know what I mean minus Beyonce since she's not really my jam).
• I figured out how to get my gym time in without a gym and now have three new dog friends in my neighborhood.
• I've talked to everyone I know (slight exaggeration), trying to make them see this as a good thing as I try to convince myself of the same thing.
• I've reorganized my kitchen cabinets (my closet is next).
• I've baked and cooked a lot (and have more to come).
• I listened to three Radiohead albums. 
• I've talked to my mom at least four times and I'm visiting her today.
• I'm binge-watching shows on Netflix (about to start season 2 of "Love") and spent an entire day watching CSI reruns.
• I've considered becoming a flight attendant.
• I've had conversations with Pumpkin (I do this anyway but it seems like it's happening more).
• I'm going to Ocracoke right after to Easter to spend time with some friends because all great chick lit heroines go on a trip at some point in their journey.
• I think about time a lot as in how to fill it and how to set goals for myself to accomplish things.

Following the chick lit heroine trajectory, I'm right on track for week one following the shake up. I stopped crying, both from grief and anger/shock on Monday so I think I'm good on that front at least for now. I've had multiple pep talks from friends and family (thanks guys, you're all the best) and I've started hearing from a bunch of people with opportunities for me to look into for my next job. Now all I have to do is get the old resume together and start applying for things. I'm also going to build a project portfolio website which sounds super fun and something I didn't think I'd do.

Which brings me to week two. Typically in these novels, it takes more time than two weeks for our heroine to get her shit together and move forward; a novel would be boring if that was how it worked. I'm not drowning in a sea of takeout containers and wine bottles (I'm such a disappointment I know). However, since I'm a real person and a certified (in my mind) planner, I can't sit that long. I've got to make lists and feel like I'm moving forward. It's been overwhelming, in an absolutely amazing and positive way, to hear from so many of colleagues and friends in the last few days about job leads and opportunities and how awesome I am. This gives me confidence to get ready for whatever is coming next. So next week, rather than wallow some more and pretend cookie dough is a food group, I'm going to get my resume updated, build my website, and reorganize my closet. It's good to have goals. And bake some; I promised to bring delicious treats to Ocracoke.

The only chick lit week two plans I'm missing are: a meet cute, a spilled cup of coffee (possibly involved in the meet cute, possibly a way to show our heroine's awkwardness or cause her to have a mini-meltdown in public), an awkward conversation with someone, an improbable connection with someone I know (think something along the lines of my friend's uncle is in publishing and wants to read my unpublished novel and thinks I'm a genius), and a fashion montage. Who's up for a fashion montage?

 This weekend on the Island, we're going on a little field trip to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibition, Infinity Mirrors, at the Hirshhorn. I'll post a photo blog so if you don't get to go a least you can see my photos and feel like you were there. 

DON'T FORGET: Saturday, April 8th is Rex Manning Day! I hope you celebrate appropriately by damning the man and saving the empire.