Have you met?

Have you ever met someone who would stay up all night listening to you as you work through your problems? Or hold you when you need a good cry? Or laugh at you so you know its ok to laugh at yourself?

Have you ever met someone who would spend hours with you trying to find the perfect halloween costume, perfect first day of work outfit, or perfect wedding dress?

Have you ever met someone who would fly across the country on a moment's notice in order to be there for you? Someone who drops everything for you because there is nothing more important in this world than you?

Have you ever met someone who cares enough to tell you when you're wrong? Who believes in you more than you believe in yourself? Who loves you enough to stick with you through it all?

Have you ever met someone that will teach you, help you, cry with you, encourage you, support you, challenge you, pray for you, laugh with you, push you, catch you, trust you, celebrate with you, have faith in you, and love you with every last breath they have?

I have.

I love you, Mom.

The Food Network...aka My Saving Grace

I have insomnia...its true. I never have trouble falling asleep, just remaining that way. I'm a vivid dreamer and more often than not, I'm startled awake by a terrifying nightmare.

All this to say, I don't like late nights. And I don't like late night TV. There is nothing on. I'm not interested in buying some random bump-it or super mop off of an infomercial, and I am not interested in waaaay out-dated sitcoms with canned laughter.

Enter Food Network.

Its AWESOME! I love food, the eating of it, not the preparation. And since finding my way to this channel, I have been able to drift back to sleep, night after night, with thoughts of Giada's weekend getaways, or the three course challenge on Chopped running through my head.

Thank you, Food Network, for giving me sweet, salty, and sometimes spicy dreams.

xoxo, until tonight.

Sun-soaked season fades to gray...

I've been warned.

Cleveland winters are not the friendliest sort. They are harsh and cold and blustery and....gray. Many a native have cautioned me of this reality, and told me to leave before it strikes. Seriously.

But, obviously, this is where I live, and so I am absolutely determined to make the most of it.

The fall in the Great Lakes is spectacular. The trees are on fire -red, orange and yellow- and the sky is a pristine blue. When you step outside, you can't help but breath deeply of the fresh, crisp air, and close your eyes to let the heatless sun kiss your face. I love it. I love going to the park with my puppy, Froggie, and I love taking walks with my fiance, Brian. I love that everyone steps a little lighter as the joy of fall is soaked in and not taken for granted. It's beautiful.

But its fading...quickly. Cleveland has been known to get snow before Halloween, and that same snow will be clinging to the sidewalks in March. What?! In Dallas it may, on rare occasion, snow ONCE and last a whopping three hours....if lucky. Snowmen are a project for the talented and speedy, not the masses.

But, as with many other things, weather is different up North. So I choose to look on the bright side at all I have to enjoy in the coming months. More football, for starters. I can't get enough of my teams and the surprising twists and turns this season has taken. All I can say is, despite excellent or disappointing records...Go Stangs, Longhorns, Wildcats and Spartans!!!

The holiday season. My sweet aunt bought me a Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin candle(go get one!!!) for my apartment which I have already almost entirely exhausted. But I love it as it reminds me of the coming coziness of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Family and friends and food are awaiting as these two holidays approach.

Lastly, I intend to tackle the cloudy dreary months ahead not with blankets and sweatpants and movies, but with skis, snowboards, sleds and toboggans. I refuse to hole up in my apartment and have determined to get moving as a solution to my incessant feeling of being cold. Brian and I are planning trips to New York and Pennsylvania to teach me to snowboard, and we are also headed to Colorado to ski. We are going to go ice skating on the lake, and tobogganing in the park. We have thought about snow shooing and even cross country skiing. We will keep busy. And I am excited for the opportunity to have winter for the first time in many years.

So bring on the gray. Kiss the sun and warmth goodbye. I will see you in April, and by then I'm sure, appreciate light and heat all the more.

~Bec

My Not-So-Audrey Reality

This is not my day for firsts. This is not my first time starting a job(just began as a Marketing Assistant at Cleveland Magazine), this is not my first time starting a blog(I had one when I lived in Spain and briefly this summer), and this is not my first time catching myself wishing I lived in an Audrey Hepburn-ish reality.


The first two non-firsts are sure to be maintained...the last can hardly be remedied. I find myself watching her movies, reading her quotes, and emulating her style and I can't help but think that her life was graceful, elegant, and refined. A very glamourous, yet unrealistic expectation for my own. And while I have complete admiration for his as an individual, an icon, and an actress, my own life is much more colorful. Nearly everyday is filled with misadventures and silly mistakes ranging from simple trips, to hair-dying catastrophes.


But I couldn't be happier! I love the unexpected twists and turns my daily life takes, and I love that I can laugh at them, and more importantly, myself!


Therefore, I bid an Audrey-like existence farewell in lieu of my own. Crazy. Beautiful. Wonderful. Horrible. Exciting. Me.


I live by her words of wisdom: I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles. 


For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.


But more importantly, by these: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

~Bec