For love of the job
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by Casey under Raves |
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It’s been seven weeks since I started on the copy desk at the Monitor, and I already feel very much at home. I am so blessed to be part of a newsroom with such talented writers, editors, and designers. And I look forward to getting to know them all more in the coming weeks, months, years. (Yes, that’s me thinking semi-long term. We’ll see how long it takes for these New England winters to drive us away.)
Here are a few perks of my job:
- An endless supply of red pens. I spent my first few weeks editing on paper before I started training with the software on my Mac. Within those first few weeks, I even used up the ink in one pen. And even now that I’m well-versed in the software, eliminating the need to print most of my galleys, I still get a chance to bust out a red pen. Opening my top desk drawer to reveal a dozen or more red pens always makes me smile. (It’s an editor’s dream drawer!)
- Wearing white to the office. I know, this doesn’t sound exciting. But after working with the ink of daily newspapers and leaving the newsroom every night, fingers smudged with the breaking news, the day’s dead, or the little black blocks of the crosswords, wearing white again without fear is truly a joy. It’s too bad black has already overtaken my wardrobe.
- Easy commute. Five minutes from apartment to cubicle. Enough said.
- Surrounded by “Dunkin’ holics.” There is nothing better than hearing “I’m going to go grab a coffee” at least once a day, every day. Kevin would be going crazy. (He hates when my mom and I throw that phrase around when we’re together.) While I haven’t made it to the dedicated Dunkin’ drinking level of my coworkers, I am enjoying the daily ritual — and the occasional delivered-to-my-desk coffee. The Monitor staff definitely runs on Dunkin’.
- Free Friday afternoons. After meeting our press deadline (and factoring in my overtime from the week), I often find myself strolling the streets or the Prudential Center by 2:30 p.m. on Friday. Great way to start a weekend.
Maybe I need to use some of that free time on Fridays to keep up the blogs and the website. One con to copy editing: After reading for about seven hours every day, you don’t want to see another written word when you get off work. And when you do see something in writing, you copy edit it.
Shuffling the deck
| June 11, 2011 | Posted by Casey under She said |
Within a matter of weeks, our weekly routine morphed into something completely new.
For those few weeks, though, life was chaotic. Grocery shopping, cleaning the house, eating, and sleeping all became nearly impossible, at least to the degree that we had been used to. And then throw in a week long cross-country vacation that included a friend’s wedding in Texas, my brother’s high school graduation in California, and a stinkin’ flight from hell. (There’s nothing comparable to flying for eight hours next to a guy with super bad BO on a turbulent night flight routed through Chicago. At least the actual vacation part was enjoyable.)
Even with the much-needed vacation, we felt like we were living in an automatic card shuffler set on continuous reshuffle. But like all good card shufflers (unless they mimic my lousy technique), the cards eventually came out in one perfectly stacked deck. The cause of our new routine: my new job.
Quite unexpectedly, I landed a new job in the beginning of May. After a year or more of one exhausting job hunt — although I had learned to love life as a freelance writer and editor and Kevin had grown to love a stay-at-home wife — I found myself applying, interviewing, and finally accepting a copy editing position at The Christian Science Monitor, an international news organization based here in Boston. And while I couldn’t be more excited about my new full-time, out-of-the-house job, the new role took some serious getting used to.
Kevin’s solo morning routine turned into a two-man race for the bathroom; dinner quickly switched from my homemade meals to Hamburger Helper one-pot wonders; and evenings somehow slipped away altogether, leaving any other chores for the weekends. Plus, I had to get reacquainted with working in a newsroom and all the other tasks of a full-time copy editor. Surprisingly, the latter was the easiest part of the transition. The second income wasn’t too hard to get used to either.
But now that we’ve had a few weeks of practice, we are finding ourselves settling into our new routine. We’ve systematically found a way to juggle all the essentials while maintaining to a lifestyle we both love. And I’m absolutely loving my new job.
The biggest surprise was all the blessings that came with the job. The opportunity to work at the Monitor was a blessing in itself. But the beautiful unfoldment of grace, patience, and strength that came with transitioning to a new job and a new routine was truly uplifting. Plus, the timing could never have been better. Recently, our government-subsidized unit lost its subsidy, moving our unit to market rate. While we only have a slight rent increase for the next several years until our rent matches market rates, we are so grateful for the second income. We were so fortunate to have found an affordable-housing unit in the Fenway neighborhood last year. But we feel even more blessed to not have gone ahead with Boston Housing’s enhanced voucher program that was offered after our units lost their subsidy; with two incomes, we would have lost our voucher, immediately increasing our rent to market rate. Now we can stay in our unit as long as we like, bringing in any amount of income without the supervision of Boston Housing.
And you know the saying, “when it rains, it pours.” Well it’s pouring. Not long after accepting my job at the Monitor, I was asked to interview for the MIT Press’s summer internship in their editorial department. To have even been called back to interview for such a prestigious summer program is yet another example of God’s overflowing love and supply.
The biggest blessing, though, is the unfoldment of thought — the understanding that we are all equipped to succeed when we trust God and let Love lead.
Our geographical genome
| May 2, 2011 | Posted by Casey under Raves |
This weekend we celebrated family. And since we have such a stellar family, we wanted to hang a big ol’ family portrait of them all on our wall.
But we didn’t want a typical picture. Besides, at the rate my cousins pop out kids, we’d have to retake the picture every few months or Photoshop those adorable little offspring into the empty spaces. And what happens when we run out of room? We don’t have that much wall space! So leave it to Kevin (the resident muse) to come up with a plan. (He can’t “have an idea.” That’s my line.)
The plan started with one key factor: location, location, location! (Or is that three factors?) The one thing both sides of our family have in common is their tendency of moving. So we thought we would depict our family in a geographical picture and “map” out our family in a bit of an nontraditional family tree. A few of our cousins have done the tacks-on-a-map thing to showcase family trip destinations and several have framed maps as art, so thought we would jump on the bandwagon.
Plus, maps are pretty special to us. Kevin just loves maps; and I can’t read them. We’ve done some serious road-tripping with maps…which led us to investing in “Angie Garmin” our GPS. I don’t know what’s worse to Kevin — a navigator who can’t read maps or one who repeats everything Angie says exactly two seconds after her mechanical voice. Hmmm, I wonder why Angie never made the move to Boston? She’s still in a box in CA.
With “relocation” as our family’s theme, we needed to keep things flexible, nothing too permanent. So we picked up a cork board with a wooden frame (since this is a picture of sorts), some colored tacks, and a US map. Do you get where we’re going with this?Thank goodness our family is all in one country — and located in the continental US. When we mounted our map, which took some serious cutting, we had to lose some pieces of Alaska and a few Hawaiian islands.
Here’s what we came up with. (I’ll explain the colored tack system below.)
Before we could add any family to the map, we had to do some strategic planning. We decided to include immediate family, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins on both sides. Maybe later we’ll add some more relatives. But this was already quite the list of family. Then we divided them into three groups: immediate, paternal, and maternal. We opted to go this route because we quickly discovered in our list-making that Kevin’s dad’s side was almost equal in size to my mom’s side. And my dad’s side is almost equal in size to Kevin’s mom’s side. That made for pretty even groups (and colors on our map). Our immediate family (brothers, sisters, and parents) would remain their own color-coded group. And to use up the fourth color of tacks, we made ourselves our own colored group. Also worth noting, each household equals one tack on our family map.
Here’s the color break down:
- Blue = Paternal sides
- Pink = Maternal sides
- Purple = immediate family
- Green = Team Kevin & Casey
And here’s the final look of our new “office.” That’s a pretty handsome family portrait!
We think the cork board and map really add a real office vibe to the space without setting it too far apart from the rest of the room, since our desk area is conveniently located in our living room.
We had some challenges, though, hanging our little DIY project. Note to self: Levels are useless in an unleveled apartment.
We’re convinced that our cork board is hung “level” to the floor in that part of the room (at least that’s what I keep telling myself), but when standing on the other side of the room — at an even more unleveled section of hardwood — the board grows even more askew. And we won’t even talk about what the door frame is level with! But from the couch, it looks pretty perfect.
After studying our new wall art, we noticed a bit of a void in the mid-west region (and it doesn’t take a genius to figure this out). So calling all family — looking for a new place to call home? Love the mountains and scenic views of Colorado? The golds and reds of sunsets in the deserts of Arizona or New Mexico? How about the rain drumming on your back porch 365-days per year in Washington or Oregon? The mid-west needs you — at least on our map. Or maybe cross-country family domination revs up your hankering for boxes, bubble wrap, and packing tape. Consider this our Manifest Destiny.
Besides, if our family keeps up their current trend, their tacks will soon overtake the state of Virginia, the Bay Area, and the greater Dallas area. As is, we might have to resort to one mega tack for any family flocking to these areas in the near future.
Now in our free time, we can play games with our new homage to the family. Can you name the relative in South Carolina? Or how about all the family associated with the 18 tacks in Texas?
Here’s to one awesome set of genes — that’s you, family!
Leapin’ lizards!
| April 26, 2011 | Posted by Casey under Rants |
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Nope. There are no lizards — leapin’, loungin’, or whatever lizards do — in this post. But this is my favorite line from one of my favorite movies, “Annie.” And this is what I think every time I pass by that poor, unfortunate soul money tree. (Great, now I have that “Little Mermaid” tirade by Ursula stuck in my head.)
Look at my money tree! Leapin’ lizards, it’s turning yellow. Again!
I thought I had figured out this whole how-to-keep-a-plant-alive-thing. (We won’t even discuss that basil plant I start from seed.) Cheyanne (the money tree) was doing so well…until I watered her. It had been well over a week, and with the warmer temps, she looked a bit droopy, so I poured in a tablespoon or so of water in the tray under her pot. And BAM. She turned yellow! Could it be something in the water? I know, that’s a cliche blame if I’ve ever heard one.
Now, I’m just not going to water her for a very, very long time. Take that, Miss Cheyanne!
But those yellowing leaves aren’t going to get me down. Besides, I’m still on a post-Easter sugar high from all that candy. And there is still hope that my green thumb exists.
I bet it takes serious skill to grow garlic in your refrigerator. Maybe the potatoes will start sprouting next. This is my kind of a veggie garden.
P.S. I apologize for the craziness you might have spotted on the top of our homepage. I was playing around with our Picasa widget on our site, and I clicked to show 16 photos instead of the usual five or six. (I was trying to get the “random” photo rotation to kick in, and 16 sounded like a fun number to click on.) When nothing happened, I figured our site’s theme had trumped my changes. Well, some things take time. So for a few hours, you all had the pleasure of viewing our entire album at the top of our page. Ooops. Did I do that?
A bloomin’ good Easter
| April 25, 2011 | Posted by Casey under Inner(city) beauty, Raves |
You’d never know it now with the overcast skies, but the sun made an Easter appearance yesterday, warming Metro Boston to a jacket-shedding 73 degrees. And we took full advantage of the afternoon sunshine by taking a walk through The Fens. I probably stopped to gawk at every bloomin’ tree, bush, or plant, which I’m sure drove Kevin nuts.
But it felt so good to feel the spring sun on my bare arms and see so many springy hues — purples, pinks, reds, yellows, oranges. (The photos from our walk are scattered throughout this post.) The hubs and I hadn’t really experienced seasons until moving to Boston, so this was pretty exciting for us. And after a long, frigid winter, the spring flowers and warm temps are quite the blessing.
Some things, though, still have their winter white. As we walked through the park, we couldn’t help but notice how pale everyone looked as they tossed Frisbees or lounged on blankets in the grass. And when we sat down on a bench, we compared our arms’ skin shades, too. This is usually my favorite pick-me-up moment or bragging time because I’m always tanner than my porcelain partner-in-crime. But even my arms looked pale — all signs of growing up in sunny San Jose completely faded away.
So this is what it’s like to live in Boston?! The seasons are pretty stellar. But having your skin rarely see daylight during the winter months (which seems like half the year!)…I don’t know if that totally works for me. I definitely have my work cut out for me before sporting any summer shorts.
But until the sun decides to show itself again, I’ll just keep watching the buds burst into blooms. This morning, the tree outside our window showed its first lime-green leaves of the season! (I’m probably the only person who watches a tree on a regular basis. I guess it’s better than pulling a grandma and peering through my blinds to stare at people passing by on the street.)
Oh, and I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. We did! We started the day off with an egg hunt, complete with clues to find the next egg — a family tradition that Kevin so lovingly put together and surprised me with after a few hours of my pouting the night before. Wait, this might not be what you think! I know, I usually run from any traditional form of holiday celebration or conformity, but after 25 years of existence, I’ve finally learned to love one holiday out of the year. Yes, that’s a start. Easter is officially my most-loved day to celebrate. I was pouting on Saturday because I didn’t think the EB (as I so fondly call that bunny who brings colored eggs and candy and PJs — another family tradition) would bring me a basket or leave any clues for the annual hunt.
But the EB came — looking shockingly similar to the dude I married. Did I mention that all the clues in the eggs rhymed?! Kevin sure knows how to impress me. He also surprised me with a hand-made Easter basket and chocolate bunny. (He reused the TV remote basket. And since he tried to disguise it until the final clue led me there — hey, it’s a small apartment — I thought the cotton-tailed Kevin left me TV remotes.) What a guy! Really, he was super to put together a morning egg hunt with clues.
For dinner (my Easter treat for Kevin), we feasted on ham, twice baked potatoes, honey and lemon glazed carrots, biscuits, and deviled eggs. And we had carrot cake for dessert. Yummy!
We hope your Easter was just as tasty…and sunny.
Happy couples budget together
| April 19, 2011 | Posted by Casey under Raves |
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It seems like every month is slathered with at least a handful of different commemorative causes, aimed at bringing awareness for anything from various forms of cancer to individual food groups. This month is, among others, Financial Literacy Month. And we love bringing awareness to financial responsibility. Like financial guru Dave Ramsey says, the consequences of financial ignorance are damaging, yet the antidote is so simple — education.
So in honor of Financial Literacy Month, Dave is offering some great deals on many of his financial planning products and books featured on his site. Dave’s latest venture is backing rising stars in the literary world of financial education. Our favorite featured author on Dave’s site is Jon Acuff and his soon-to-be released book “Quitter.”
Here’s the “Quitter” trailer:
The book sounds like it will be a great read, and with the Dave endorsement, we’re betting it will very informative. We pre-ordered our copy last night. And if you’re interested in getting in on this great deal ($12.99 plus a free audio copy!), we recommend you act fast. This deal probably won’t be around for long.
Kevin and I are stoked about this book for multiple reasons. Besides our obvious interest in exponentially increasing our chances at career success, we’re loving this book because it’s the first book we’ve ever pre-ordered. Yeah, you’d think a literary lover and her book-worm-to-be hubby would have racked up countless pre-orders over the years. But we usually wait to buy everything in paperback from Amazon, score the coveted title as a gift, or simply wander on down to the public library. So, yes, we’re seriously excited about hunting down the mailman a few days after our book’s May 10th ship date. And you can fully bet Kevin will be all over that audio file the second it appears in his email inbox. (I’ve already called dibs on the hardback and convinced him of the pros of the audio copy.)
But while we eagerly await the release of “Quitter,” we’ll be getting our financial fix reading other Dave-endorsed books (he has an entire reading list on his site), listening to Dave’s radio show, and browsing all the other gems on his site. So get a move on securing a healthy wealthy future for yourself. Learn something about budgeting, saving up for a house, funding retirement. Remember, happy couples budget together!
P.S. The title of this blog, which is also the blog’s last line, really doesn’t encompass the theme of the blog — Financial Literacy Month and our first official pre-ordered book. But it’s our motto (that I just came up with), so I wanted to wow you with my motto-ing abilities. And I wanted a fun blog title, even if it is a little random.
