A Pig in NOLA (pt.1)

Read this with a southern accent if you can. It's better that way.

Tourisme 

I'm finally just coming off of my post-vacation high, and accepting that it's over. That real-world-blues that follows shortly after pretending like you aren't a tourist while blatantly doing touristy things is heavy on the heart and almost makes you wonder why you went.

Almost.

I went to #NOLA ya'll! For those of you not in the know, that's Nahlens to you. And boy was it a trip. 

Let me start by saying I never vacation. Like truly vacation. I bought multiple Dr. Scholl's products while on this trip so let that paint the picture for you of how into this I got. I travel quite a bit, but it's almost always based on work which means I always have an agenda--some other motivation that makes me go somewhere for the benefit of getting something done. Last time I checked, vacations are for exactly the opposite. 

And so it was.

After an extremely impulsive afternoon, I found myself with tickets to the Big Easy. And because I never actually take vacations, I didn't actually believe it would happen. With any other sort of good news, I sing it like I'm a Disney villain with a great melody. But this time I was so nervous something would go wrong, that I just sat back and ignored it until the day before I had to start plane hopping. At this point I was more concerned with my 3oz containers that I didn't take the time to research or make any plans.

This is so incredibly unlike me, but so is vacationing so I just rolled with it. Kathy, my partner in crime, and I had only two things in mind: getting to where it was warm hot and stuffing our little brown faces with seafood like the gluttons we aimed to be.

We luckily have similar interests in history, architecture and food so once we hit the city we were thoroughly giddy to just be in a new place, no schedule required. When does that ever happen? When do you ever get to just completely be somewhere and know you are fully present? My mind was genuinely blown away and I will say that overstimulated is an understatement.


New Orleans in itself is fabulous. It's a city that doesn't pretend or give any pretenses about who she is (I think it's a she?). She's flamboyant and romantic and everyone we met was more than happy to tell you how much fun you'd have in this Southeast Sin City.

Bourbon Street is everything you expect it to be at night: full of temptation with beer and daiquiris spilling into the cobblestone streets. In a city filled with this much neon, you feel like you're in a Girls Gone Wild audition on the Vegas strip. It's a bit racy for my Saturn Return-blood but it's hilarious if you accept it for what it is. Or if you imagine a petticoat version of it (I had Louisiana Purchase on the mind a lot).

Of course, in a place hundreds of miles away from your friends and family, you would expect that you run into someone you know and Kathy and I did just that. I think that's the kind of magic Bourbon Street harbors; it's quirky enough where you are not really that shocked and aside from my maxi dress doubling as a bar rag on the post-downpour streets, I'd say I would have enjoyed people watching into the wee hours of the morning. (Note: The bars don't close in New Orleans with the exception of one hour every year. One. Hour.)

We actually stumbled onto Bourbon by accident. We arrived early and needed to kill time before check-in and found ourselves wandering 75% of the French Quarter before dinner time. My fitness tracker told me we walked roughly a half marathon. On the first day. Genius, right?

Giving my feet a break and trying to look discreet about it.

Wrong. Insert the inserts. In a desperate attempt to save my feet, I tried multiple Dr. Scholl's inserts and only met demi-success with one set. I only tell you this because it was a significant part of my morning so if you go to NOLA, wear comfortable sandals (Not closed shoes because: Your feet + humidity for 12 hours = just throw those shoes away.)

Preservation Hall. I love Louis Armstrong so it's an honor to be in a city that adores him and keeps his spirit alive through his brassy tool. Everywhere you went there was music trickling in from not too far or next to you if you're lucky. See my favorite tuba here. So when presented with going to a jazz concert I imagined some variation on our Middle School Jazz Pops concert right before the whole band came on stage-- some organized situation with chairs and tiered seating but I couldn't have been more wrong. Preservation hall is the size of my college dorm room with the closets removed. It's dark and all exposed wood with a few benches meant for you to snipe for relief on your toes should you have been lucky enough to wait the hour in line to get up front. As soon as the music began, however, I was sent back into time.

Louie, Ella and the whole gang were going to show up in a bit to play me some jazz in our parlour room. Suddenly I was wary of police coming in to bust us for violating noise restrictions but we were going to bring down the house in the meantime. 

The beauty of the south is nobody is in a rush and it worked so well because neither were we. The majority of our time was spent "lollygagging" as my grandma would call it. Along the way we stopped for some museum tours and accidentally stumbled on a National Mint museum. My favorite, of course, was the Pharmaceutical Museum. We walked past it and it caught my eye when it was closed, which only heightened my giddiness when it was open for $5 tours the next day. The curator was phenomenal and presented a plethora of information on 19th century medicine that makes you question current medicine considering the outrageous treatments society used to think helped them but in fact killed them (think Belladonna and gold cased pills).

The tourism part--if you embrace it-- is very entertaining in a place like New Orleans. People love to tell you about the city, it's history, it's nooks and crannies and I loved hearing about it. It led to some amazing historical sites and of course fabulous places to eat. In fact, they're especially adamant about the food. It was glorious. Oh, what did we eat? Well funny story...

Lessons I learned from NOLA

I learned more than just a few things when I went on vacation this week. Of course, these lessons learned the hard way will undoubtedly set the scene and cultivate laughter

1. Manicures matter. If you’re a nail freak like I am, get a gel manicure and get serious about it. It’s genuinely disturbing to see chipped polish in an otherwise perfect photo and you will have less grumbles over it later.

2. Walking shoes. I think Birkenstocks were made for walking, right? I have ruined a pair of sandals because in the city of--Nah’Ahlans, as it’s pronounced unsarcastically--will ruin your cute accessory sandals. I am sure there’s another brand out there but if they’re ugly you’ll also be miserable so make a compromise and invest.

a. The alternative to this is buying multiple Dr. Scholl’s products only to ifnd they are less than functional in sandals and don’t bear well in the rain. Mhmm. INVEST!!!

3. Be patient. Travel itself took forever and my trip home took an entire 20 hours of a day pending layovers and gaps between flight schedules (in my defense I did stop in 4 states and fly two different airlines). But that kind of endurance is not natural so figure out a way to deal with it. We saw so many flight delays due to maintenance and weather that it is bound to happen to you. The odds are stacked—we were just lucky this time. (Also nobody wants to go to Minnesota so we’re lone-wolves in that route).

4. Be even more patient. We had a day of epic failures. The service industry is a weekend biz, which means Mondays (sometimes Sundays) and Tuesdays are mommy’s night out. Call ahead because with cellphones, the internet and a little voice to voice, you can save yourself miles and miles of walking heartache as you search for a Ginger Mint Julep to no avail based on these Service Industry Saturdays.

5. Plan. Figure out what you want to do or at the very least-- don't want to do on your trip. My co-pilot and I had the sole intention of eating anything and everything when we got to the Big Easy, and that is exactly what we did. We had a list of recommendations that fell through based on the fact that we were only walking the city, not wanting to miss a moment of a too-quick taxi.

No Draft, Just Writing

Holy busy Spring!

What's the latest update on the Xo front?

WELL...

This is what I look like when I travel/
send lame texts to my friends during the work day. 

This little piggy went to the Minnesota market and ran around town like it ain't no thang. Translation: I went to yoga a lot, raided Trader Joe's (Sorry Nat) and had a girl's night where we stayed up past our bedtimes and did yoga moves in the living room.

I started a new side-gig working in Social Media with a company I met out of Chicago. Learning a new role has been a really interesting process. It's been a long time since I've been the "new guy" at anything and it's weird feeling like I'm blindfolded running a maze. You get so used to knowing everything-- where to go, what to do, who to ask-- that it's stressful to not just understand. That's a confidence I think we take for granted no matter how much we gripe and whine about the daily challenges we meet in our jobs.

Overall, it's a great experience-- Social Media, Writing, Public Relations, Travel & Food. I want to keep my toes dipped into all of these ponds and right now I've got a decent handle on a few of them, so it makes each week interesting to say the least. Don't worry, I won't tip over... yet.

It makes me miss learning, though. Part of that could come from the fact that I ran into one of my favorite college professors at the Twins game, and part of it can come from the End of School season that is upon us. It's like Back to School only you feel like you really have no excuse not to kick your life into gear because you've got "less" on your plate. I feel my molecules starting to move a little faster in anticipation of our 16-year habit that we haven't quite kicked.

I don't plan on watching TRL or hanging out in Park Point all summer so instead I plan to really hone in on the projects I've got going before I take on my next one in the fall. It's taking everything in me to not do it all at once. Literally, as I sit here with tabs open on my future project, I just want to tell myself "Go"/write about it on here so I have a reason to start on it now, but I'm still really working on being fair to myself about how I allot my time and energy.

Does anyone else feel like their permanent student is leaking out this spring?

Like you're squirrely but know that if you take on anything else, you might implode? But then part of you wants to? No? Yes??

The Dress

It's Monday, and I know you're already thinking about the weekend, so let me just tell you what you should be doing this Saturday...

I have seven, (7), sieben, sept, yes-- siete-- weddings this year (a personal record!)

A custom made dress from Linyage. Mind. Blown.

I am not married myself and so the whole process is a general mystery to me. The tidbits I get from my girlfriends are useful and I make notes for the "someday" that is the date I put a boulder on my finger.

However, in the meantime, I still don't retain the general knowledge the comes with wedding planning. Where did everyone get their to-do list? Does it come with the ring like when you have a baby and your doctor tells you all the general things you should know about birthing? Is there a pamphlet I threw away as junk mail???

In all of the joy that surrounds weddings, one thing fascinates me more than most-- the dress.

I have a Pinterest board like every other basic bitch about wedding things, but dresses encompass the bulk of it because they are so astonishing. How is it, that we don't wear them on the reg-reg? mmm.. cost/practicality/value in rarity aside, it's safe to say I think they're truly something to be treasured.

Until recently, this was all hypothetical because, as I've said, I'm not married and as a child of divorce, I always feared I'd have a Carrie Bradshaw meltdown if I ever tried one on, scarring me for life. But when the ladies of Linyage asked me to model some of their pieces for them I could not have been more honored.

I didn't know what to expect other than those big clips that make the dress look like it fits when you try on something that you haven't been measured for.

Wrong.

Having met the Lindsay, the co-founder and designer of Linyage, in-person only a handful of times before, and subconsciously refusing to send my measurements (because I've been off the wagon), I was astounded that I stepped into a dress that fit perfectly. Why don't all of my clothes fit like this???

I will admit, I was feeling hideous and bloaty that day, having come directly from drill and carrying the water weight that eating out/being on the road for 5 days does not allow most to feel their most glamorous. But despite all my best efforts to feel self-conscious, (and the help of the one-woman glam-squad, Flannery) I felt quite unabashedly, beautiful.

Was it the vintage lace? Was it the hand-sewn stitching or the delicate pearls that had me all kinds of smitten? I don't know. But I liked it. All of it.

I will get married some day, in a court house if I'm lucky, with my puppy (yes, the one I don't have yet) acting as my ring bearer, and maybe, just maybe, if I'm super spoiled, I'll be wearing a Linyage dress that makes me feel as beautiful as I did on that unlikely Sunday.

Linyage is having an official launch party this Saturday, May 2nd, and come hell or high water, I'll be there. I hope you come join in celebrating these local entrepreneurs, bundle up a bouquet and generally bask in their energy-- who knows maybe you'll even work with them on a dress someday (one can only hope!)

Info is here-- check it out & I hope to see you there!

xoxo

Earth Day Guilt

Hawaii. I mean seriously. This is our world. Stop being so gorgeous.

When I was in High School, I had this hideous yellow t-shirt that I used to wear only on Earth Day. It said something like, "Save the Trees" or something equally statement-y but it was the only tradition I kept despite my peers mocking my "hippie" ways.

I went to college in Duluth where there is a loud voice for activism and because hindsight is 20/20, I know I could have been a bigger participant in standing up for things I believed in. Instead, I went to parties, took a lot of naps and whined about finals, giving little thought to other things that mattered to me or the grand scheme of the universe.

Earth Day comes each year and I have a pang of guilt for all the days I opted for Netflix instead of going out and volunteering or planting trees. I get really bummed out that part of me didn't embrace the "hippie" persona and do it any justice for that era of my life. I chose to otherwise fawn over Abercrombie and Victoria's Secret like all the other boring girls of my generation. *Hey! What's going' on?*-- A&F Tagline du jour.

Today I think about where I was and shake my head with a silly grin because this kind of self-deprication is unfair to myself. I am who I am. I did what I did, and nothing is truer than true. Just kidding. I won't get all Dr. Seuss-y but the reality is I can't change the past.

If I had my way, I would win the lottery and I would want to dedicate a lot of my energy to a charity like celebrities do. I would push for a clean water initiative, plant a lot of trees, try to slow deforestation and try to support sustainable farming. But since I'm not a millionaire, those plans will have to wait. Those are both past and future thoughts, right now, I will do what I can with what I've got:

• I donate to a foundation that plants a tree in your name every year. It's not a lot, but it's something. 
• I try to discourage my friends from burning plastic, saving the Ozone layer from another battle against the disposable water bottle.
• I utilize re-usable bags whenever possible, and always carry my items from the store instead of taking a bag (That's why I have a big purse, and if I carried it to the register, why can't I also carry it from?).
• I DIY when it makes sense, and buy when it uses more materials (including gas for traveling from store-to-store to gather materials) to DIY than it would just to purchase. Eventually I'll buy the expensive T-shirts that use recycled materials, but for now that isn't in my budget and going broke with an up-cycled v-neck benefits nobody.

Earth Day shouldn't be a battle between you and your conscience, it's a friendly reminder to do what you can, with what you've got. 

Happy Earth Day, friends!

Sunshine

If you're wondering: I survived my workout class without incident. In fact, it was notably uneventful-- including the workout. wah-wahh. 

I'm not one of those people who naturally gets jazzed to workout. I need to be inspired and motivated and so I'll continue to hunt for the class that gets me on the wagon. I'm testing out another tonight so I'll let you know how it goes.

Last Thursday felt like Friday. It was 70+ degrees and I actually got some color while basking on our little balcony. I am brown, but there are variations and I'm currently in my freckle-stage. This means I'm light enough where you can see the contributions of my father's mixed European heritage triumphing over my Filipino roots-- this is rare but then again, it's still only spring in the Midwest.

Anyway, I set up a little blanket, grabbed a water and laid out. In my sports bra and on my felt blanket, it wasn't exactly optimal but I didn't care that I was sweating into the thick layers, I was literally basking in the light of life. What is it about sunshine that gets us out of bed and improves our mood? I think it has to be more than chemical.

That was a Thursday, so come Friday and Saturday the grey skies were a far-cry from uplifting. Instead of staying indoors and avoiding the outside, manfriend and I decided to go golfing. This is an anomaly because I'm strictly a fair-weather-outdoors person and it was a little cold without the UV shining extra bright.

We finished our round and I was amazed: 1) I played some of the best golf I've ever played. 2) I was actually in a decent mood despite the doom and gloom of the howling winds and neutral skies. I think it sounds obvious to say that we have to work harder on rainy/unfortunate weather days, but I think I'm going to make a serious effort to do get those endorphins pumping anyway or it could be a very long spring.

Aside from rainy day Netflix marathons and cat-naps, how do you spend your cloudy days?

On the Wagon

Image via

I see a lot of posts about doing something that scares you at least once a day. For me this usually means eating an egg with a runny yolk (Hey--You never know when bird flu will strike!). But today’s challenge is going to a new fitness studio.

I've been sulking about for a few weeks now, eating my emotions and promptly packing on the pounds that go with each bite. I'm at the age where working out isn't just a vanity thing, but a real necessity so that your health doesn't suffer.

I've been getting more sleep because of the latest 30 Day Challenge, but without the counterbalance of exercise, I've been sluggish and kind of in a fog. So I've been desperate to "get back on the wagon" as I call it, but I have let 3 weeks slip past me without once lacing up my sneakers. (I just wanted to say sneakers. Do I sound like a grandma yet?)

My yoga mat has been eyeballing me from the backseat of my car so eventually I just took it out. I don't need that heavy rubber judgement every time I go to get groceries! But internal paranoia aside, I want to get back to my mat. 

I miss peeling off sweat-soaked clothes, or staying in them and freezing and having to do my 3rd outfit change of the day while contemplating a shower at 9pm at night. Just kidding. Nobody loves those things, but I do miss the euphoria that comes after a workout. The sense of accomplishment that I fought-- and won-- the battle du jour.

I also look forward to the minute that I can tell the little voice in my head that chirps, "You should go workout today..." like a regular heartbeat to STFU. So while I dust of my trusty Lulu pants and play Missy Elliot on repeat to get myself pumped up, I suggest that you stop reading this and go do it too. 

Just kidding, don't stop reading. But if you're in the mood for some motivation, I can have my friend Natalie provide you a pep talk or, you could just watch this awesome Nike video that seriously does get me jazzed. 

Happy Hump Day friends!