status updates

Facebook is getting to me. Not only do I check it every day but I now also find myself constantly creating status updates/tweets in my head.

I don't post them, because I don't want to be the obnoxious person who has to post every single thought that they have but I definitely think them. All the time. I guess the reason that I have noticed it more is because instead of them just being my thoughts, they are my thoughts in the third person.

For example, when I am showering I will have the thought, "Nicolette wonders where all the hot water went?"

Or as I was painting last night, "Nicolette's new bedroom reminds her of a Tiffany's box."

I know this is weird, but am I the only person who does this? Are we going to have a whole generation of children growing up thinking in the third person?

bad idea

I'm redoing my bedroom. It's about time. I've never really been the one to decide what my bedroom looks like. That's not entirely true. I'm an adult and I can decide these things but I've always just settled for whatever cheap furniture and crap I could find around the house. Now I am actually putting in the time and energy to have a bedroom that looks the way that I want it to.

Right now the only things that are in my room are my bed and a desk and the desk is going to be leaving as soon as I find someone to help me carry it- that thing's heavy!

So I'm following the advice that I saw on Oprah- you should only put things in your bedroom that you LOVE. I am clearing away the clutter and I am going to have a bedroom that is grown-up and adorable.

And I am keeping my computer in the dining room instead of letting it come back in the bedroom.

Much more zen that way.

So I've been painting my bedroom. My bedroom always seems small until you start to paint it and then it suddenly seems huge and like you will never be done.

I'm sick of painting and my back hurts but I want to be done so I've decided to push through and finish it tonight. I was about to take the lid off the paint again when I thought, "Do you know what would be nice right now? A glass of wine." Except that I would have to open a new bottle and so we all know it would not be ONE glass of wine.

Anyways, I resisted. Because you don't have to be a genius to figure out how combining wine and me painting would have ended up! See, I'm not an idiot all the time.

fun fact

Your fun fact of the day... did you know that Hello Kitty has a twin sister named Mimi??? As someone who was sort of obsessed with Hello Kitty growing up, you would think I would know this. Mimi looks just like Hello Kitty except she wears her bow over her opposite ear. Mimi likes to do housework and sewing, whereas Hello Kitty is more of a tomboy. I swear, I am not making this stuff up.

fall cleaning

I know typically people wait for spring to do the big, whole house cleaning but I think fall is a good time too. Time to switch out the shorts for the sweaters. Also apparently time to go through decades worth of stuff in the attic and closets.

So far my mom and I have gone through two closets, half the attic and two dressers.

And can I tell you something? It feels really good to throw stuff out. I'm a really big packrat and have a hard time throwing stuff out. That purple and white striped funky shirt that I picked up at Goodwill and have never worn? But what if I need it someday for an 80's costume party?

I've been doing a pretty good job today. I even just threw out one of my favorite pairs of jeans. They don't fit me... not even close... so you would think it would be sort of easy to throw them out. But what if I get down to a size six again- I would totally want these! I battled in my head for about a minute and finally decided to give them away. Like all the clothes that I give away I checked the pockets first... and found five bucks! I decided it was Fate's way of rewarding me for making the right decision!

This cleaning binge feels different than a regular one. I don't feel like I am just dusting and mopping and sorting. I feel like I am cutting some of the ties that were holding me back and creating room in my life for new, better stuff to come in.

Alinea

On Saturday night to celebrate my father's birthday we went out to dinner. But not just to any old restaurant- we went to Alinea.

It is sort of like saying that I went to Carleton College. Those people who know about the college are impressed, everyone else says, "Okay, so you went to a small college in Minnesota, big deal!"

People who know about Alinea are definitely impressed that we went, other people think "So you went to fancy restaurant in Chicago. It's just dinner."

It was not just dinner. It was an experience. Alinea was at one point ranked the 10th best restaurant in the world.

So what is it about the restaurant that made it stand out? Impeccable service. Perfect presentation. Delicious foods. Creative foods. Original foods. Foods that surprised you and delighted you. Using all of your senses to experience the food.

Instead of just thinking about it as food, I prefer to think of it as art. Which it is. It is art that I get to eat.

There were twenty-four courses. Which isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. (Except that of course, it is.) Many courses consisted of only a single bite. Occasionally the courses were served together if they happened to compliment each other. The whole thing took over four hours. You left full, but not uncomfortably so.

What were my favorites? The brioche (sort of like a croissant) that was made of foam. Foam is hugely popular these days as anyone who watches Top Chef, or the like, knows. How do they do that? It was foam. Whipped, light, frothy foam. Yet it tasted like bread.

There was one thing that was served on the end of a twig. A real twig, that had leaves on it. And they lit the leaves on fire so that they smoldered a bit and let out that "burning leaves smell" which is so heavenly in the fall.

Who even thinks to do that? And instead of it being cheesy or crazy, it is just impressive and fun.

I definitely couldn't eat like that every day- maybe once a year or it would become too routine.

But if you enjoy fine dining and happen to have a crap load of money laying around, it is something that you should definitely experience once in your lifetime.

This was a dish that they served on a "pillow" that was made of lavender scented air that slowly deflated while you ate.

It is hard to tell from the picture but there are four dessert dishes here. The main one that is on the napkin is one of his signature dishes. I believe it is called Bubble Gum and you actually suck it out of the straw.

Those were sprigs of rosemary that were our centerpieces for most of the evening. One of our later courses actually used them in a dish where each of us had a hot slab of stone that our meat was cooking on and there was a hole in the rock where the rosemary sat and heated up and released its fragrance.

Those are just a few examples of the ridiculousness of this lovely restaurant.

special day

Today is October 15th which is a very special day. It is the start of Carleton's basketball season, which I have to admit, doesn't really mean that much to me. But it is also Jamie's birthday!

Happy birthday, Pookie!

I love you!

what is cool anyways??

Every now and then I wish that I was "cooler" and trendier. I see these hipsters rockin' down the street in their tight ass pants. I see people who really make a devotion to their "look." And then I look down and see my jeans and Sambas. I could definitely try harder, it's true.

But then I have this thought... how lame is it to dress like other people just so that you can seem cool??? It is so much cooler just to be yourself, even if being yourself means that you wear a t-shirt every day.

So maybe I'm not cool, but at least I'm not trying to be something I'm not.

The Bell Jar

Reading a story about a girl's descent into mental illness and her attempts to commit suicide that is written by an author who went on to commit suicide a month after the book was published is a really intense experience.

paths to follow

As much as I claim not to have been impressed by the book Siddhartha, there are parts of it that have stuck with me weeks later. Isn't that the sign of a good book?


The most insightful thing that I've learned was that everyone has to follow their own path and you can't choose it for them, even if you don't think it is the right path.

That's an easy thing to say, but a hard thing to put into practice.

Especially when you see people making what you think are huge mistakes. Sure, you can give them your opinions and advice but when it comes down to it, they sometimes need to learn things the hard way. It's their life. And people aren't going to live the lives that YOU think they should live, they are going to live the lives that they want to live.

I just want to say thanks to my parents for letting me be me. Sure they forced me to do some stuff like take piano lessons and play on the soccer team even when I hated the girls on the team, but they also let me be me.

I have a friend who asked me what I would do differently from my parents when I raise kids. I'm sure there are things I would do differently, but I hope to be as accepting as my parents were. Of course, maybe I was just their sixth kid and they had given up! :)

gray skies

How can gray skies make such a big difference on my attitude? Every other factor can be the same- same temp, same amount of wind, same place- yet if the sky is gray instead of blue, I just feel like crap.

Does the amount of light really make that much of a difference? Is it psychological?

Blaaaaaaaaah!

random emails rock

I hereby declare this week to be random email week. How great is it when you get a random email from a friend that you haven't heard from in years just out of the blue?

It's awesome. So now it is your turn... go write someone you haven't talked to in a while an email.

Go! Do it! If you are reading this blog it means that you have nothing better to do anyways!!!

will I become another statistic of this poor economy?

What to write about today? Let's write about the fact that I may be losing my job. The horror! It is nothing definite yet but the spa has been struggling for quite some time and is in some danger of closing. The bosses actually sent out a mass email to our client list that basically said that in this tough economy the spa has been hard hit and if it continues like this that the bosses would have to make some "tough decisions."

My brother thought this was terrible marketing. After they sent it out though, the phones started ringing and we started booking up. Hopefully this will last for more than just a week. We also received tons of really sweet emails back from people telling us how much they loved the spa.

How many times have you gone by a place and noticed it was now closed and said, "Damn! I loved that place! If I had known it was struggling I would have gone there more or sent my friends there!"

So we'll see. Maybe the spa will pull through.

Would it be the worst thing in the world if I lost this job? Yes and no. I'll never find another job like it again. My coworkers are amazing. The staff is incredibly supportive. It is a healthy and fun place to work. I love my job.

But there are lots of massage jobs out there and I still have my private clients and it could be just the push I need to finally start focusing on writing like I keep saying I want to do.

I don't want to still be working at the spa ten years from now (not full time anyways) but how do you quit a job that you absolutely love?

Now maybe I won't have to. Maybe the decision will be made for me. Maybe the fates have been reading my blog and know that I need a little kick in the butt to do something more with my life.

That was actually one of the other things that the tarot card reader said to me. She told me that I was "half-assing it." She told me that my life was fine and that other people might be happy with it but that I would never be happy with it since I was just half-assing it and that I could and should do more.

I hate it when people are right.