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July 31, 2014

To Change My Last Name Or To Hyphenate...

I know after reading the title of this post you guys are probably like, "Why is she even writing a blog post about this?! We have no idea what this chick's actual name is..." But I'm having a life problem right now.

Okay, so here it is... I kinda love my last name, not only because I think it's awesome but because I am very proud of my family and would like to keep our family name going as long as possible seeing as there are no males aside from my father that are left in my family with the last name. So I kinda wanna keep it by hyphenating it.

I mean, both the hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of my future name sound good. It's not like my name would be weird like Julia Gulia or something like that. But I don't know what to do.

Justin told me to do whatever makes me happiest, so he is no help on the matter. I know my father would tell me to hyphenate it because he loves our last name. So I don't know....

I know I probably didn't provide enough information for you guys to tell me what I should do, but you guys can still tell me your thoughts on name hyphenation. Lemme know what you think.

August Photo-A-Day...

Here is the photo a day list Fat Mum Slim made for August...
How to take part in August photo-a-day:
1. Using the list as inspiration, take a photo each day.
2. Share it on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #FMSphotoaday You can also share on your blog or on Facebook ... or even keep the photos privately for yourself.
3. Check out other people's photos and like them or comment on them.      

July 30, 2014

Little Free Libraries Inspire...

As you may or may not know I was recently able to complete my pet project and got my library, in conjunction with our city, to put up Little Free Libraries on the local boardwalk as a community outreach project -- Which you can read about here. But what I didn't mention was that the Little Free Libraries were featured in some newspapers and on various community Facebook pages.

Since the articles were printed we've been getting a lot of positive feedback from the community but nothing compares to what I just heard. I literately just received a phone call from an elementary school teacher in Brooklyn who had seen the newspaper article and was so inspired by it that she wanted to contact me to ask me how she could do the same thing in her community.

After explaining to her that Little Free Libraries are a thing and that like her, I had seen a newspaper article on one and felt compelled to make it a thing in my community, I told her how long it took me, how much they cost, how many people I had to go through, etc. And I let her know that I'd provide her with any information and/or support she needed to make her Little Free Library dreams come true and that when she gets hers I will be in Brooklyn to see it.

I cannot tell you how amazing it was to get that phone call today and to be able to help another person who feels as strongly as I do about being able to give to the community and have books available for those who might not other wise be able to get their hands on them.

I feel so awesome right now.

July 29, 2014

Forgotten Photos From My iPhone...


July 28, 2014

Stuck In My Head: Here In My Room...

Yesterday while my sister and I were driving back and forth from Queens, she had on an Incubus Pandora station and since I heard "Here In My Room" I've had it stuck in my head.

Here In My Room by Incubus on Grooveshark

Wedding Check List...

Since the wedding is less than two months away and I need to get my shit together, I thought that I'd post the wedding checklist that I've come up with on here so I know where it is and so I can get some input.

Some of the above are in the works. Like I have a hair and makeup trial booked for August 10th, we ordered our wedding rings but they aren't in yet, I took off half of Friday to get our marriage license, I've jotted down things for my vows and I've been collecting brooches since day one.

If there is anything you think I need to add to my list let me know! I would really love some advice from people who have done this before.

July 27, 2014

Engagement Ringless...

I'm having a first world problem right now. So, yesterday Justin and I drove up to White Plains to go to the jewelery store that he bought my engagement ring from because we ordered the matching wedding band from them and the company that make the rings did the professional thing and sent sapphire samples down to the jewelery store so that the sapphires in my wedding band could match the sapphires in my engagement ring as close as possible (Holy run on sentence Batman).

This was all awesome and great, but none of the sapphires matched. For some reason I had gotten some particularly dark sapphires in my ring (Like they are so dark people think that my ring is white and black diamonds in certain lighting) and none of the sapphires matched. The owner of the store tried to insist that I get a certain shade that they had there but I could see the difference and both Justin and I knew that I'd have mini OCD fits over the sapphires not matching for the rest of my life if I listen to the jewelery store lady. So I had to give my engagement ring to the jewelery store to send back to the jewelers so they could properly match the sapphires.

So I am ringless for the next five weeks and I am so sad. I actually had to go find a ring in my jewelery box when I got home to wear on my ring finger so I don't try to touch my ring and bug out because its not there. I know I only got the ring in May but I am seriously distraught and I know it's a stupid thing to be upset about. I mean, I know in the long run I'll be happy because I'll be wearing these rings forever and since they took the ring I told them to resize it because it was half a size too big, so silver lining? I'm being ridiculous, I know but I had to get it out.

Sunday Social...

1. Three Favorite Songs Right Now

"Bailando" by Enrique Iglesias
Bailando ft. Sean Paul, Descemer Bueno, Gente De Zona by Enrique Iglesias on Grooveshark

"Black Widow" by Iggy Azalea & Rita Ora
Black Widow (feat. Rita Ora) by Iggy Azalea on Grooveshark

"Latch" by Disclosure feat. Sam Smith
Latch by Disclosure feat. Sam Smith on Grooveshark

2. Three Favorite Movies That Remind You Of Summer
Yes, I'm aware I picked an odd combination of movies...

3. Three Favorite Articles Of Clothing You Own
  • Thrifted DNKY boyfriend jeans that I ripped up
  • Lucky Brand men's "Marianao Cuban Baseball League" shirt
  • Red, white and blue polka dot square headscarf
4. Three Items On Your Wish List
These are three of my non-crazy wish list items...

5. Three Books You Would Recommend To Someone 

July 24, 2014

Listening To The Radio...

The other night I was driving home from work and I decided to manually search through all of the radio stations because I was bored and I came across this random station playing "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" by Weezer, so I left it on. After the song was over the people on the air started talking about how the Blue Album, which the song is from, is twenty years old and they were playing it because the station "Is looking back to the summer of 1994 to explore the hits, defining albums and pop culture of 20 years ago."

After the shock of realizing that the Blue Album is twenty years old, I started listening to the station (Which happened to be WNYC 93.9FM Soundcheck, it took me a while of listening to figure that out) and I cannot tell you how entertained I was.

Here is what I was actually listening to that night...

And here is the article the Soundcheck website had up about the Weezer thing I was listening to, which was entitled "Summer '94: Comedian Hari Kondabolu On The Golden Age Of Weezer"

Looking into Soundcheck I found that they have a podcast up on iTunes, I think I'm going to give it a shot.
Description: WNYC, New York Public Radio, brings you Soundcheck, the arts and culture program hosted by John Schaefer, who engages guests and listeners in lively, inquisitive conversations with established and rising figures in New York City's creative arts scene. Guests come from all disciplines, including pop, indie rock, jazz, urban, world and classical music, technology, cultural affairs, TV and film. Recent episodes have included features on Michael Jackson,Crosby Stills & Nash, the Assad Brothers, Rackett, The Replacements, and James Brown.


I'm really glad I decided to search through the stations. It was a nice change of pace and I enjoyed listening to what John Schaefer and Hari Kondabolu had to say instead of listening to "Problem" for the millionth time.

When was the last time you were pleasantly surprised by what was on the radio?

Forgotten Photos From My iPhone: Meant To Instagram Edition...

July 23, 2014

Trying To Give A Dog A Bone...

Oh wow, so "Julia" did this fossil program yesterday and she apparently bought cheap dog bones for the children to use to make imprints into whatever dough was made. And since last night she has been trying to give the extras away. First she asked "Emily" who cooks dinner for herself and her dogs and then she asked me if Nella would like them. To which I stopped myself from telling her that Nella eats better than most humans, and definitely better than her.

So just now she walked up to the teen reading club volunteers and asked if any of them had a dog. Then proceeded to tell them that she has these cheap dog bones she is trying to get rid of. And she forced the box on one of the teens.

What is wrong with this lady?! Just throw the damn cheap dog bones away. God knows she bought them in a dollar store and they were probably made in some random country that allows weird chemicals and metals to be put into their products.

I just don't understand...

Little Free Libraries...

For the past seven or so months I've been working on getting the library, in conjunction with the city we are in, to install Little Free Libraries on the local boardwalk as outreach and I'm excited to announce that it's finally happened.

After months of annoying my Director, me threatening to annoy our City Counsel and subsequently my Director annoying the City Counsel and the Library Board of Trustees, we have four library sponsored Little Free Libraries on the boardwalk.
I'm so excited to have my pet project come to fruition and hear all of the positive responses that the community has had to them in the few days they have been operational.

I'll keep you all up-to-date on how they are doing and if we end up get more.

Stuck In My Head: Black Widow...

Since I first heard Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora's song "Black Widow" it's been stuck in my head.

Black Widow (feat. Rita Ora) by Iggy Azalea on Grooveshark

I'm not going to lie, I kinda love Iggy Azalea. How do you guys feel about Iggy?

July 22, 2014

Annual Rafting Trip Recap...

As mentioned in my last post, I went Upstate for a long weekend for Phil's annual rafting trip and here is my brief recap of my trip...

Wednesday evening after we all got out of work Erin, Justin and I packed ourselves and our crap into Erin's tiny car and we started our five hour trip Upstate. This year Phil asked us to meet him in White Plains by his job so that we could caravan up to his grandparent's property, and since it's his trip we did.

We took a minor detour and stopped at Wal-Mart for a variety of crap that Phil thought we would need and then we were off. Phil stole Justin from us so that there would be two people in each car and we made our annual trek.

We made it up to camp around 11:30pm. We cleaned up a bit (Camp can be GROSS). Justin built the tent, as well as a fire and then the four of us hung out around the fire until 2:00am.
As we have every year prior, we used our free time Thursday to go to Cracker Barrel in Binghamton, NY for breakfast and then we hit up Iroquois Antiques & Collectibles in Bainbridge, NY to see what goodies we could find. I didn't get as much as I have in previous years but I still got some sweet stuff. I ended up with an awesome hand painted ten piece matryoshka (Russian nesting doll), brooches for my bouquet, matchbooks, etc.

Once we were done at Iroquois Antiques & Collectibles we hit up a another antique store that Erin's coworker told her about, but it wasn't nearly as amazing as Iroquois. And after almost dying from all the dust in the second antique shop we decided to head back to camp and hang out before some of the other arrived -- Which wasn't until almost midnight. 

Like the night before it was kinda cold so we built a fire early and kept that sucker going until 3am.
Friday morning we woke up relatively early and got ready so we could head up to Cooperstown, NY to go to Brewery Ommegang for lunch, a brewery tour and beer tasting.
After we had our fill of Ommegang, we headed into Cooperstown just to walk around and kill time.
When we finished walking around (Cooperstown isn't that big), we headed back down to camp to wait for the rest of our friends who were arriving in the early evening.

While we were just hanging out Phil's dad decided that we should have paddle boat races, so he formed teams and there were paddle boat wars.
Eventually our other friends showed up and we ate, drank and sat around the fire until we were all tired.

Saturday was rafting day, so we all got up around 9:30am and gathered our rafts, beer, food, cameras, etc. and set off on our boozy day of floating down the river.
After hours of river tomfoolery we eventually made it to our end point. Thankful unlike last year we were able to make it up the river bank without almost drowning in river water and mud -- It was really bad last year.

We ran our rafts across Country Road 8 and the boys cleaned and packed them up as Erin and I snuck into Phil's grandparent's house to take showers -- They let us girls take showers in their house instead of making us use the showers down at the dam which has bugs and gross stuff.
When everything was packed we hopped into our cars, the boys headed to the dam to shower and Erin and I just hung out around camp -- Actually I wasn't really hanging out because I was suckered into making homemade mac and cheese for everyone.

After everyone was back at camp we just relaxed, had dinner, hung out by the fire and eventually went to bed.
Sunday morning we all woke up, packed our stuff up and headed back to Long Island. 

I can't believe how great of a trip it was. We all had an amazing time and no one fought with anyone this year -- We think it's because we're all getting old, at twenty-eight and twenty-nine we are too old for stupid stuff. I cannot wait until our next trip.