Dear Someday Fan,

Let me start out by saying, I absolutely love the Miami Dolphins. They have been my team since birth and I will never leave them. Thats just the way is. Now, this doesn't mean that i won't support you in your loving of your team. I may even wear their colors just for you! But please  realize that I will not abandon my team for yours. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings.

Oh, and one other thing, if you happen to be a Bills fan, we may not be able to be friends during football season. I only say this because I love you.  :)

I can't wait to spend our Sundays together!

Ever yours,
Sarah

separate ways

Ok, so I know it's not a Christmas song but I've been rocking out pretty hard to this lately. The lyrics are great and musically it's so perfect and 80's rock. I just love Journey and I LOVE this song. I suggest listening to it while you're at the gym...it's a great motivator!

Oh and the video's pretty rad too haha Enjoy!

timing

Yesterday a woman told me the story of how she came about marrying her second husband. It was movie worthy!

As a young girl, Mary (we'll call her) got pregnant right before her sister was to be married. Being the time that it was, her mother insisted that she marry her boyfriend in order to save face at her sister's wedding. She did, knowing that he wasn't the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Three children and ten years later Mary finally was able to get a divorce from her husband. In her words "He believed in not working" and she had been supporting them financially through their entire marriage. Once the divorce was final, her divorce lawyer, we'll call him Dave, turned out to be someone she was very interested in and vice versa. They dated for three years before her mother became ill and she made the decision to move her children and life to Georgia to be with her. Mary's relationship with Dave wasn't meant to be a long distance one so they went their separate ways. Over the course of eleven year, Mary lost her mother and father, her children grew up and went to college, and she found herself at a new start...again...in Georgia. This brings us to Christmas 2010. Mary decides to send a Christmas card to Dave, just a friendly, how is your life, card. He quickly responds and tells Mary to come to Buffalo to visit as soon as she can. Mary does. Mary and Dave married last October and she said she's the happiest she's ever been.

Yup, all that at the cutting counter at Joann's. I couldn't believe it. She was bursting at the seams to tell the story and her joy was absolutely infectious. I was pretty blown away.

After thinking about the story for the rest of the day I couldn't ignore the idea of timing. Timing played such a big part of how Mary met and eventually married Dave. If she hadn't moved and had married Dave when they dated the first time maybe it wouldn't have worked out. There was a reason they didn't re-find each other until years later.

I can't help but think about the ended relationships in my life. Why they ended. Sure there were specific reasons that I could point out. Reasons to call exes mean names or hold bitter feelings towards....like everyone wants to do. But in reality, wasn't it just timing?

It's like everybody is on a time line and they're a different version of themselves as the time line goes on. As they meet people, who are on their own time lines, they are a not the same person as they were a week, a month, a year before. In terms of my relationships, I can't help but feel like in each of them neither of us were the person we were supposed to be yet in order to make the relationship really last. We weren't the people we needed to be for each other. Our timelines didn't match up. Sure some people were closer than others and those relationships can lasted for a while, but they didn't go all the way.

Timing is everything. No one knows who will enter, exit, and re-enter their life. Maybe when someone exits your life it's simply because they aren't the right version of them-self yet. Maybe you aren't the right version of yourself yet. Maybe eleven years down the road you'll both be at the right places in your timelines and what's meant to be, will be. The joy is in the journey.

So thank you to Mary. I wish you and Dave all the happiness in the world!

karma

I believe in karma. I especially believe in the idea of just putting good vibes out into the world in general. It just makes getting through life that much easier, whether it comes back to you or not.

Today I stopped at the grocery store after work. On my walk through the parking lot I was on the phone with my friend Lou, and it was particularly blustery outside. As I was walking I happened to notice a small handicap sign fall over onto someone's parked car. My conscience wouldn't let me walk by. Still being on the phone and without looking to see if anyone was in the car I walked over and propped the sign back up. After I had done so I glanced into the car to see two very happy elderly people giving me the thumbs up and ok hand signals. I smiled and waved and continued on into the grocery store. (Not to worry, this post isn't just to go on about how awesome I am....I'm not perfect and I let things slip by me all too often. Back to the tale) After purchasing my items, which totaled $7.26, the cashier handed me my change and I returned to my vehicle. Now usually I simply through my change into my cup holders and that's the end of it. But for some reason I chose to count my change. 3 quarters. The cashier had given me an extra penny in change. Coincidence...I think not. I was thrilled. Not only do I love quarters but with having 3 instead of 2 I was able to fill my little quarter holder in my car.{joy!}
Sure it was just a penny, but I'm more than convinced that it was good karma coming back to me. Upon arriving to Lou's house after this trip, I told him about my karmic happenings. He had a good laugh over it all and then said something rather thought provoking. Amidst his laughter he said "wow, it makes me wonder how many people I've given an extra penny to and if they view it the same way". Think about it, sometimes the smallest things, the things the seem the most insignificant to you, can mean the world to someone else. A smile to a stranger, giving your change to the salvation army bell ringers, letting a car turn in front of you when traffic is thick. All little things that literally take seconds to do but can make someone's day.

So...here's my challenge to you: do one small act of kindness this week. Just one. Without hopes of getting any in return or the expectations of someone seeing and congratulating you. Just do it for the feeling of pride that will swell up inside you. There's no time limit on karma so I can't promise that something great will happen in the same moment...but I can say that i will come around...in it's own time. Just trust that it will and be open to it. Maybe you'll start finding it in small things around you that you may not have noticed before.

Spread the love!

weekend recap

What a great holiday weekend! Even though I worked for 2 days of it, I still felt like I was on vacation...a well needed vacation.

Lou and I

It began with a whole day off on Wednesday that I used to the utmost! I was able to work on some Christmas gifts, hit the gym, have dinner with my old men, and then hit the town with my friends. It's always a good time go out on Thanksgiving Eve because everyone is home and this tiny little town comes to life. It's kinda the only night worth going out all year. My friends and I were looking and feeling fly and we had a really fun night. Dancing and Drinks and Friends...what more could a girl ask for?! Needless to say it was a great way to kick off the long weekend.

a bunch of turkeys

Thanksgiving Day was wonderful. We did the annual travel to Rochester to spend the day at my uncles house and this year my aunt and uncle from Texas even joined us! It was great getting to see them all and smack talk over the Dolphins/Cowboys game (it was a tough loss). And of course Cassie was there so it was nice to spend some quality time with her. We barely left the couch we were perched on and I was totally fine with that.

Poppop and a sleepy Bri

Although Black Friday started with a 5 hour shift at work beginning at 5:45am, I didn't mind too much. It went my surprisingly fast with how busy we were. Afterwards my mom and I went on a movie date! She's a twilight fan, and while I'm not really, I figured it would be nice to take her to see the newest one. Plus it spared my step dad from having to sit through it (brooding vampire tween dramas aren't really his thing...weird). With the way my schedule has been lately it seems like I only really see my mom for the few moments that we're upstairs before I leave for work. So it was really nice to just have a movie day and split a package of twizzlers. It was a much needed date.

The happy couple!

Saturday started the say way Friday did...more work. Luckily it went by just as quickly so I wasn't terrible upset about it. Gotta make that money. The res of my day was spent celebrating with friends and family at a wedding. My 5th cousin Sam married a high school friend of mine, Sandy, so her brother Tim (whom I graduated with) invited me to be his date. And by invited I mean I may have made it fairly obvious that he should take me...cuz I'm tons of fun obviously. Anywho, the whole event was like a big family/high school reunion. My friends Nic and Alex were seated at the same table as me and it was soo much fun having them there! I feel like all too often life and work gets in the way of socializing so it was the perfect opportunity to catch up, reminisce, and have a silly ol' time. And since Tim lives in North Carolina, I rarely get to see him, so of course it was great getting to hangout and dance our faces off together. 
Sandy is one of the sweetest people in the world and Sam is equally wonderful so I felt so blessed to share their day with them. I wish them the happiest marriage ever!

That brings us to Sunday....and a lazy, lazy Sunday it was. To sum it up...football, naps, pizza, and wings. Pretty perfect if you ask me. Oh and I did clean my room...so that can't be a bad thing.

All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better Thanksgiving weekend. It was exactly what the doctor ordered! Now it's back to reality, work, the grind. I can only hope that my next super awesome weekend won't take as long to arrive as this one did. I have a sneaky suspicion that it won't. :)

Hope everyone else had an awesome weekend too! xoxo

favorite things

I know it's been a hot minute...shame on me. SO here they are...my fave things lately

• Jones Bakery ( a great lunch spot)
• canolis
• supporting local businesses/awesome causes
• buying Christmas gifts
• lunch dates with my bestie
• cyber monday...you mean I don't have to take the risk of getting trampled and I can still get awesome deals?? Count me in. 
• spending time with old friends
• celebrating the marriage of an awesome couple
• making the water almost too hot in the last couple minutes of a shower

thankful

Since it's thanksgiving and all, I thought it was only appropriate to list some of the things I'm thankful for.

-my loving and supportive family
-my freedom
-my wonderful, true friends
-hot chocolate
-having my best friend around again
-my 5 functioning senses
-theatre
-Fiddler On The Roof (it's a Trostle thing haha)
-knitting
-the men and women who have served and are still serving my country.

I could go and get to the knitty gritty but I'll spare you. I think what's most important about today is really looking at ones life and seeing the good. Instead of stressing about little things or dwelling on the negative we should all use today to really revel in the positive. And who knows....maybe it will feel so damn good that we'll start to do the same everyday....not just once a year.

Happy Thanksgiving

Sometimes we need to stop analyzing the past, stop planning the future, stop figuring out precisely how we feel, stop deciding exactly what we want, and just see what happens.

 -SATC

uphill battle

I went to the gym yesterday and had a really good workout. Well, any workout could be considered really good lately since I haven't been entirely dedicated to fitness {shameful}. Anyway, I was feeling fit and on my game. I didn't eat a huge dinner since I had to go to work so I was still feeling pretty good...till I got home from work. I felt like I hadn't eaten in days. The next thing I knew I had consumed 4 wings, ham and cheese rolled together, and some veggie chips. It was a 10 o'clock massacre. I was so ashamed of myself. I'm usually very good about not eating after 8 or 9 and definitely NOT eating that much. It was like my brain told my appetite that I had a free pass since I had exercised that day. I was and still am mildly frustrated about it. What is it about eating right that I can't seem to get a grasp on? I just LOVE food!!! I can't win.

you

 i don't fall hard very fast. 

i don't lose myself in someone else.

but all those years ago i did with you. 

and i don't know how or why

 

we've never been together. never shared a life. never been a pair.

but you've always been the one. 

the one i compare the rest to. the one i find myself holding out for. 

the one who makes being with the rest worth it. 

 

i've thought about all the things.

the things i've never thought about with anyone else

the silly things

 

like doing our laundry

 and bringing lunch to you at work.

 or walking our dog,

sharing your name, and

seeing you at the end of a long aisle.

 

is there a time?

a time when we get the chance to see how it goes

if we sink or swim

did it come and we missed it?  

 

i feel myself coming to terms with the answer being yes.

maybe there isn't meant to be such a time. 

maybe i'm holding on to something that will never be.

 

maybe it's time to let go of something i never had.