I’m pretty sure that if there wasn’t already a Saint Anne, that I know the woman who’d become known as Saint Ann (no E).

From the time I was a baby until I was about 10, my parents had a fantastic care giver for me and my brothers. Ann Sullivan, as my mom often says today, was a god send.

Ann had 8 children of her own and opened her heart and home to the three of us. She’d feed us, play with us, read to us, take us to the library and mass with her. I swear, that I cannot remember a single day that woman raised her voice with a house full of 11 kids raising all kinds of hell. She was so patient and loving, so generous, so full of faith - never asking for anything in return. She was our second mother, and her family our second family.

Today, I’m attending Ann’s funeral and am full of so many emotions for the woman who cared for me as a child. Grief, sadness, awe, but most of all gratitude. I’m so thankful for the time we spent with her and for the love she gave us.

Ann leaves behind a husband of 45 years, Bill; her 8 children and 42 grandchildren.

The massive amounts of love this woman put into her life and those around her amazes me.

i’d heard about how great these twilight books are and blew it off because it was a teen series. well, when yet ANOTHER one of my best friends told me it was rad, and it IS on the NY Times best seller list… so, i picked up the first book to give it a try.

started reading on friday afternoon and finished sunday morning. ran out to rent the movie and pick up the second book which i started immediately. i can’t stop thinking about it. i got the soundtrack to the movie. i dreamt of vampires last night. it’s an amazing series so far and i’m already dreading the day i finish the last book, which won’t be for another 1000 pages, but still.

i can’t remember the last time a book drew me in like this. hats off to stephenie meyer. nice work.

i have spring fever like mad lately, so this morning i was day dreaming about one of the summers i didn’t work. i think i was 25?

my daily routine was to wake up, watch reruns of Dawson’s Creek for 2 hours, walk to the pool and LISTEN to books on cd. THAT is how fantastically lazy i was that summer. after my skin was saturated with UV rays, i’d walk home, shower and go out for the night.

there are moment i miss being irresponsible and care-free.

did i mention i saw revolutionary road recently with my best friend? the acting was amazing, but i left the theater detesting the movie.

jen and i looked at each when it was over. she said, “wanna go see Bride Wars?” to which we both started laughing hysterically. and then i said, “reason 342 i don’t want to move to the 'burbs.”

in previous years i’ve hated on resolutions because, well… i think they are a crock of shit. what makes new years day different than any other day to change the way you live? especially for the realistic short amount of time??

this year though, i realize that new years day really brings reflection of the past year. what went well that you are grateful for and what you want to improve on in this year.

today made me realize how very thankful i am…

i am thankful for my gorgeous, curious, intelligent, hysterical husbie. he makes me laugh every single day. and even on days when i’m being a brat, he makes me smile. today in the car after we had such a fantastic (ya right) 15 minute lunch at mcdonald’s, i just wanted to capture a picture of his face in my brain so that i can always remember him the way he looked today and how that made me feel. these moments inspire me and remind me that i love him always and unconditionally.

i am thankful for my family for loving me, supporting me, entertaining me. it is never dull, it isn’t always fun, but mostly we’re in this together and are going to make it count.

i am thankful for the list of friends that i see on a regular basis. it’s much needed and always enjoyed.

i am thankful for my home, my job, my car, the ability to sleep at night. and i hope, with all of my heart, that i am able to be thankful for these same amazing pieces of my life again at the end of this year.

so with that, the “resolutions”:

1. love – show it, cherish it
2. inspiration – find it, give it, live it out
3. balance – work for it, embrace it, honor it
4. peace – examine it, uncover it, make it mine

can you get sick from eating too much poultry? not at one sitting or anything… just like if you eat chicken and ground turkey everyday is that bad for you?

dunno, but feel like it’s all we’ve been eating lately and wonder if too much is a bad thing?

my brother was here for 10 days over christmas and with him, he brought a little guest. it’s name was iphone.

now, being a windows lover, i’m a big time smart phone user. i’m on my 2nd smart phone, looking for a 3rd. until last week, i was really really impressed with how connected i was. and then iphone came to stay with us…

the thing is BADASS. i’m not a techie by any means, but this makes me really want to leave my smart phone in a drawer and not look at it again for a long, long time.

major internal struggle, i tell ya. major.

i go through these phases where i want nothing but simplicity. and when i say that, i mean i want to be clutter-free in everything. in my house, my office, my car, my life. i want to look around at only pretty things that have their place. no piles of receipts, no stacks of laundry, not a book on the coffee table.

i want neat little nesting of cool little things that look random, but are in fact, completely planned. i want my house to look “together” and calm with kick ass paint on the walls and chic interiors… i look around at the chaos that is my desk and my house and i want to claw my own eyes out.

i want my house to look like this:

i won’t even start on what i want my kitchen to look like, because… well, you just don’t have enough time and the kitchens i like with the dining table i’m obsessed with uses stupid flash, so i can’t save as and post here.

i have these pictures pulled out of magazines where i keep looking and looking and looking to figure out how i can make my house look like this… i’m determined, it may take a while, but i am.

last december, i visited my brother in nyc. we were wandering around SOHO, as we usually do when i’m there and we happened upon an artist that we were both impressed by.

his name was alexandre and he was russian. now, if you’ve been to nyc, you know there’s an artist on every corner. and most of them you can walk on past. but others, they just grab you and make you want to buy everything they have. alexandre was the one that we wanted to buy out.

he draws on match books and match boxes and something about his pieces just makes you tilt your head and admire.

that cold day in SOHO, ryan and i both bought a picture from him. mine is hanging on the wall next to my desk, so i see it everyday. and this year for xmas, ryan got me another. he said he ran into aleksander at a christmas market this year. it is also hanging next to my desk and the collection is looking quite cool, if i do say so myself.

http://www.sketchesonmatches.com/index.html

Today Em and I had coffee with our favorite chef, Shellie. I think we were both in awe of her for being this fantastic chef and making her career/living so easily out of what she loves and just being fricken cool.

and not that we don’t think she’s cool, that certainly hasn’t changed at all. i’ve still totally got a girl crush on her. but this am when we met, she was all dolled up and i asked if it was a meeting and she said, “nope, my day job,” as she walked to get her coffee.

i looked at Em and she looked at me… and i said, “dude… she has to have a day job too!” and i think that’s when reality set in.

prolly should’ve known it was too good to be true. no one has a life that that cool, we all still need to pay the bills.

sigh.

i think our recycling man hates us. every single pick up, and i do mean EVERY SINGLE one, our bin is toppled over and right smack in the middle of the driveway so i have to get out of the car and move it to pull in.

i just watched him do it again this am. no one else’s is knocked over or blocking their driveway…

i wonder what we did?

my latest crush is Cole Hamels, a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. We watch baseball in my house, especially when the Phils are playing. My hubby is a HUGE fan of his hometown team.

Back to Cole -- The guy is so sweet, genuine and just seems like a really nice person. He’s a great athlete and, oh yeah – he’s amazingly HOT.

I’m dreaming up a homemade iron-on shirt that says “I <3 Cole Hamels.” Why not? i had one with the hot Gibb brother on it when i was like 4, and this time i can make it myself.

Naturally the husbie sent me the link to Cole’s profile… I’m a little grossed out that he’s like 24 and I’m drooling over him. The follow up link to his profile from the husband by the way, was the link to Cole’s wife, of Survivor and Playboy fame.

my response to the husband -- “she’s not THAT hot.”

today i had a reminder pop up on my outlook for a friend’s birthday. and as the thought of getting a card entered my mind i kept reminding myself that she is gone.

Stephanie died last November. i think of her so often and sometimes i even wonder if i just dreamed the whole thing. i think that she’s still here, happily married, being her cute peppy denial hygienist self, loving her sisters, her husband, her friends and her little dog…

my heart hurts thinking of her, but it’s important to remember. and although i’m teary this morning thinking of her and her birthday, i don’t think i can ever bring myself to delete the appointment on my calendar. i won’t forget, i’m afraid to. she deserves more than that.

happy birthday steph. we love and miss you.

just yesterday i was talking about how i didn’t go far from the nest. i live 15 minutes from my parents. i live 8 blocks from my aunt & uncle. i live less than 1 mile from the house i spent my childhood in and the place i went to kindergarten through 5th grade.

i occasionally see a girl who was a year younger than me in elementary school at the gym. she is a SNOT (even now), so we don’t speak.

but i never ever see anyone else i knew from that long ago. and i do mean never. today, i’m at work, greeting a few people at an event and i hear a first and last name that make me look up. and there is one of my oldest oldest friends in the world. i haven’t seen her in 20 years and there she is in my office.

we had a mini-reunion in the lobby and it was great to see her. so so so bizarre, but so great.

they say the first step is admitting it, right?

my name is erin and i’m a facebookaholic.

today i was reading Meg’s blog about her college quest of becoming a writer. i smiled and instantly related.

when i changed my major from biology to education to journalism, i had my first class with Mr. Bud Pagel. affectionately known to his students and friends as “Uncle Bud.” he was soft and cuddly, super sweet, reminded me of what Santa Claus would look like if he was a super secret undercover agent.

for as soft and cuddly as Uncle Bud was, he was no bullshit. if you wrote something that sucked, he told you. and on the first day of his class, he gave us an assignment. we all had the same first line… we had to make that line into a story. the line was something like:
”Shhhh, he’s dying,” she said.

We all feverishly tapped on keyboards in the computer lab, printed them out and then handed them in.

Uncle Bud finished the class that first day with this amazingly inspiring lecture to my class of 15 and then he said something so profound it had us walking out of class questioning our lives, our goals, our purpose in life. he said, “we’re all here for the same reason – we love to write. we all want to write the great american novel… (HUGE pause) and i’m here to tell you that you won’t.” dagger. through. the. heart.

on that day, i was a little bit crushed. well, more like super crushed. i think we all were. however, i think that day was the first time in my entire life that someone was brutally honest and real with me about what i’d planned to do with my life. before that i was encouraged to save the whales, cure cancer, be WHATEVER i wanted to be. and the key learning from Uncle Bud was “try your damnedest, but know what reality looks like. you might not get what you want.”

i went home and thought about changing my major, AGAIN. because shit, defeat sure sounded like hell. but went back to Uncle Bud’s class the following Thursday.

Uncle Bud busted out our stories from the class before and he started… “we’ve got 8 dying dogs, 2 dying fathers and 5 dying grandfathers.” and then he said, “out of all of these stories, there’s only one that worked.” AND HE READ MY STORY OUT LOUD!! i almost cried. he said my story was the only one with a beginning, middle and end… And, it was actually pretty good, full of detail, and had some style. that day i decide to stick with my major. there were days it kicked my ass and days i kicked it’s ass. but i learned a lot and i’d never change a thing.

when graduation time came around and I had opportunities to work for the Associated Press in Ohio and a newspaper in Columbus, NE, i decided to take a different path. i went with marketing, where my paycheck wasn’t solely dependant on my ability, or lack there of, writing skills.

it’s funny to think about what might’ve been if i’d taken news jobs in Ohio or Nebraska…

i wouldn’t have what i have, be with the people i love or working for a company that inspires me every single day. so might’ve been doesn’t seem so glittery and gold.

this afternoon it occurred to me that if someone read some of my personal email threads, they’d laugh hysterically or think i (and my friends) are insane.

we live in an old house. it’s 60, so when i say it’s old don’t be confused. don’t think that it’s some historic place with architecture to marvel. it’s not. it’s just old and nothing really special about it.

i love my house. well, let me rephrase that… i love where my house is. i love that i can walk to the gym, the park, the movies, the grocery store… i love that my commute is, on a bad day, 10 minutes. on the other hand, i hate my (1) bathroom, i hate my kitchen. i REALLY HATE my kitchen. my kitchen is so narrow that the refrigerator door will not open all the way. this is hardly an appropriate set up for someone who loves to cook as much as i do.

so thursday night, it started to rain here in the mile high city. not that rare… but it rained until sunday. this, my friends is quite rare. saturday, i was hanging pans up after washing them and noticed a little something on the ceiling. upon further review with the hubby, i can now add something else to the reasons i hate this house… there is a leak in the roof and it’s warping my ceiling and walls. (insert melt-down and cursing here.)

i’m over this house. officially.

i wish i could tell you how appealing the suburbs are looking right now… where we could buy a house twice the size, with a fantastic gourmet kitchen, a 2 or 3 car garage and 4 bathrooms… sigh.

everytime i think i’m going to give up blogging for good, something great happens and i want to tell the world.

and when i say something great happens, i usually mean i see something hilarious or disgusting and want to share with everyone.

this time is no exception, and naturally i was without my camera or camera phone…

on the elliptical at the gym tuesday, in front of me on the rowing machine is a very, very large woman. which i totally will not hate on, because we are all there working toward something, right?

well, i look over to watch her take a drink of something… and i swear to god she has a venti starbucks frappacino sitting next to her. at the gym. not kidding. even if it’s a “light” frappacino, that’s disgusting. you’re at the gym…

totally blog worthy, wish i had a picture though.

last week i was in atlanta for work. at the end of our global marketing and sales conference, they host a big ole party with a headlining music act.

insert seth saying “i’ve said it once, i’ll say it again: you work at disneyland and i work in a sweatshop.”

this year they had two headliners: Pink and Daughtry

i was all pumped up to see Daughtry, becuase of american idol and because i like his music… but Pink was freaking amazing. the girl can perform! she was just awesome. Daughtry, not so much so.

we were right up front and here are a few pics from my phone.