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I am a pair of black pumps’ worst nightmare: wearing them to work and wearing them out at night leads to me wearing them down to nothingness. It is only a short matter of time until I completely ruin them. I’d like to ask my fellow heel-wearing friends: what brand do you turn to for your trusty black pumps? How long do these last? I’m a person who loves coffee. Brewing it, smelling it, drinking it—I love everything about coffee. Another thing I love is seeing a company with a great cause. That’s why I’m suggesting you head over to Jumpy Monkey Coffee’s website and purchase a gift for the coffee lover in your life. First thing, I love their coffees. They have amazing fresh roasted coffees that come in amazing flavors and varying roasts. My personal favorite is the Cinnamon Sticky Bun flavored coffee. Go to their online shopping page and browse the flavors. Most 12 oz bags are $8.00 Some of my happiest childhood memories were during the holiday season in my hometown of Ida Grove, Iowa. There were weeks of festive cookies, a real Christmas tree decorated to perfection, visits with loved ones, white blankets of snow and evenings spent opening advent calendars and Christmas cards. My mother would decorate the entire house so beautifully that holiday parties were an absolute must. On Christmas Eve, we would watch Christmas Vacation, eat Rueben sandwiches for dinner and attend the evening service at St Paul Lutheran Church to sing classic hymns in a candlelit sanctuary. To me, the holidays were truly magical and those family traditions made it so. However, families naturally evolve: babies are born, loved ones pass on, folks marry in and people move away. My family is no exception. I live in Dallas, my brother’s family lives in Florida and the majority of my relatives are back in the Midwest. Unfortunately, a mega-trip to Iowa is not feasible every December and my family understands. Over the last two years, this complicated geographic situation has given me the idea to come up with some of my own holiday traditions. I’m not sure what the final catalyst was—if it was the fact I’m becoming more and more like my mother every day OR if it was that my apartment seemed to lack the magic of my home in Iowa—but whatever it was, I’m glad it happened. Here are some of the holiday traditions I’m beginning… It’s the most wonderful time of the year again, and I’ve compiled my (shameless) annual wishlist. Unlike my childhood years where I flagged pages in the JCPenny Christmas catalog, this year I used the internet to provide links for reference and easy purchasing. Thank goodness for online shopping! I wanted to share my list on Trina Left Iowa just in case any of my readers were thinking of buying me a gift or need gift ideas for a fellow twenty-something female. I found that Target.com had some great tools and lists for different personality types – my favorite lists for females were Corporate Diva and Urban Gourmet. Courtesy of my beloved NPR, thisis a great animated video on how the flu invades your body and spreads. NPR’s Robert Krulwich and medical animator David Bolinsky are your visual guides in this viral journey. Once you get past the amazingness of it, you will wonder how we aren’t all dead by now. Dear Autumn, Ah yes, it’s autumn yet again and that pumpkin-shaped hole in my heart has been filled. That’s right, the leaves are changing, the air is cooler, drunk people in burnt-orange shirts are wandering around Uptown Dallas on Saturday afternoons and Starbucks has their pumpkin-flavoring out. I LOVE this glorious time of year, and I want to sing these affections from my balcony. For the last 3 falls, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing autumn in 3 very different states: Iowa, Rhode Island and Dallas. Each one has offered up something delightful in this already wonderful time of year, and I’m going to share my favorites from each with you… The past few weeks have been hectic to say the least with finding my groove in the new role at work and having my on-and-off-again long-distance Irish boyfriend move to Dallas, and I have found myself going a bit nuts… My zero-to-frustrated time is minimal, I’ve burst into tears twice and an early morning runner in my hose turned into an over-the-top dramatic event (there were witnesses too…). I may be a bit feisty, but this is too much even for me…something is out of wack. In the past, I have written about the need to treat yourself for sanity’s sake and created a list of “treats” I give myself. In noticing my recent ridiculous and totally out of balance behavior, I realized that this list needs to be updated. What’s the additional sanity-saving treat? Blogging, of course. Over the last few years, I couldn’t stop hearing about the Twilight Saga. I listened enough to get the gist of the story: a teen vampire falls in love with a teen human. I was not impressed and just could NOT understand how this plot was creating such a phenomenon!?!? Vampire romance was not appealing to me. When the Twilight movie came out, I applied the same rule I used for Harry Potter: watch the movie and make the official decision on how I feel about reading the books. After seeing the second Harry Potter movie, I decided I would read the books when the series was complete and wound up reading (and loving) all of them the month book 7 was released. In similar fashion, this past spring I rented the Twilight movie. I thought it was okay, but I was still baffled as to what the big deal was… No plans were in the works for me to read the series. Dear Irish Boyfriend, I think you are as wonderful as a cool pint of Guinness on a Saturday afternoon, and I want to sing my praises for all of your help in my Trina Left Iowa adventure. This blog would not be possible without you. No, seriously it really wouldn’t! Recently, a few posts on Brazen Careerist about work-life balance have caught my attention. Many people have strong opinions on the matter. Jake on Jobs is of the “work now, play later” mindset. He says, “…Work/Life balance is not something 20-somethings should be worried about. Instead, my suggestion is to work your butt off until you find a job that doesn’t feel like work.” Whereas Jenny Blake talks about looking at your overall quality of life, “…part of the reason I was feeling so tired was that I let work completely take over my life…the more I let things that energize me fall out of my routine, the more tired I become, and the less able I am to perform high-quality work.” My stance: I don’t think you can get to a place where it doesn’t feel like work unless you have a good quality of life. In other words, good personal life is complementary to good work life. Many of us millennials are focusing our twenties on our careers, and I am definitely one of them. I push myself at work and am looking to grow myself in my free time. I have designed my lifestyle to be conducive to work my buns off (I wish that were literal…): I live alone, I am far away from my family, I’m educated, I’m single, I have an open schedule and I dress for success every single day (I truly love the way I look in a suit). However, I’ve realized that focusing my twenties only on work is no way to live. |
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