Welcome To A Break In The Routine

Because on  Wednesdays we wear pink...

I am a creature of habit. This is a fact, not an opinion. I won't get too much into my weekly routine because this is the Internet and I have no idea who is reading this blog. However I do have a few habits. For example, I hit my alarm clock snooze button three times before actually rolling out of bed. As soon as I get to my office, I turn on my laptop and then go and get my first cup of coffee. On Sunday I go to the farmers market.

We all have our quirks.

So any break in my routine will throw me off. Daylight savings time is the worst offender of this change. For about a month after the changes, I'm really confused as to what time it is. It might be 9pm as I write this, but I feel like it's 10pm and should be fast asleep. It's also really confusing leaving work when it's pitch black outside instead of as the sun is setting.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has these issues and I do welcome change. A disruption allows me to be flexible and learn to deal with change without freaking out (it's not a major life change).

This week, I had a major break in my routine. I had Veterans Day off. I had never had this day off before and the fact that it took place on a Wednesday really through me for a loop. When I came back to work on Thursday, one of my friends and I noticed how much it felt like a Monday. Which lead me to be even more confused when I woke up on Saturday.

Now that it's Sunday, I am still working around the fact that I have to go to work tomorrow. I would rather sleep in an extra day, but that's not in the cards (or at least not for so called adult people).

How do I deal with these breaks in routine? Well, I usually have enough warning to get ready for the disruption. I try to keep my weekend and vacation routine similar to my weekday routine (I wish I could sleep past 8am, but alas I can't).

What about those days that I can't plan for? Usually my first response is to freak out. I'm stubborn like that. I hate any sort of change that I can't account for at least a week in advance. My next response is to calm down and assess the situation. I can calm myself down any number of ways from calling someone to talk it out to practicing meditation breath. One of my yoga teachers even recommends standing on one foot to make a quick decision (I haven't tried this one yet).

 Routines are familiar, safe and something I can control. However, life isn't safe, it's not something I can control, and as I keep moving forward, I am constantly put into situations that I haven't encountered before. A break in my routine can be welcoming. It can also freak me out. That's life. I sometimes think that it's the small stuff, the small everyday choices, that snowball into huge changes and are easier to deal with one small step at a time.

If only that was how all changes were presented. I don't know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow, but I take a guess that I'll still hit my snooze button at least three times before rolling out of bed.

If you enjoyed this post, or it really pissed you off, please like, share, or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Until next week.

Welcome to Fall Leaves

They're everywhere!

I think the 60s and 70s really missed an opportunity for a pile of leaves to be a monster in a B movie. I mean, who knows what could happen if you get caught in a pile of leaves and they certainly get everywhere. I've had to clean my car out because of all the leaves at least once a week since they started to fall.

Brightly colored leaves are a factor of fall. When I was younger raking the leaves was one of the worst chores I could be assigned. It took forever and the leaves would be back by the end of the week. Jumping in the leaves was fun. I could pretend I was diving off to a new world like in Alice in Wonderland. I'm grateful I don't have a front lawn.

Bag of leaves were also often used as a Halloween decoration. People would buy these big orange bags with jack'o'lanturn faces on them. A few people would even jump out of the piles of leaves while we were trick or treating (maybe it was their way of cheating us of our candy).

I love the colors. Bright yellows, lush oranges, and fired reds make the whole world seem to glow. It's comforting and makes me excited for all the tastie foods. Sure the days are really short (especially in New Jersey), but when the sun is out its a prefect picture.

To deal with all of the leaves, I try to keeps a broom or vacuum cleaner handy. I don't know how many times I've dragged leaves into our apartment or have found a few stuck in my hair while I've been washing it. A quick vacuum gets most of the leaves up.

Fall is definitely my favorite time of year, even if it has it's annoying quirks. I'm actually about to make baked apples (hull out the middle of an apple, add brown sugar and butter, bake u Gil tender and you have a delectable dessert).

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Now about those baked apples...

Welcome to Halloween Decorations

Tis the Season to Decorate like Crazy

Halloween is officially over. At least according to major retailers. I'm still celebrating by watching Coraline and the Nostalgia Critic has an extra Nostalgiaween episode coming out this week. It will probably be another week before all of the Halloween decorations have come down.

All of the pumpkins at market!

 
Then comes the Christmas decor. I wouldn't mind too much, except that Thanksgiving comes a good month before Christmas does and retailers barely seem to pay any attention to that holiday (though I personally feel it has a great potential for a market).

Personally I think Halloween has the better outdoor decorations. There are a lot more options for the spooky holiday. Driving through the different neighborhoods, I saw skeletons, ghosts, spiders (I think a lot of people read the same magazine there were a lot of them), and graveyards popping up on people's lawns.

Neighborhood decorations

Growing up, we had a small hill on our property that was the perfect spot for a graveyard. We would put up tombstones, have a witch crashed into a tree display and show everything in an eerie green light. It was a lot of fun to set up (taking it down was another story). We would put a fog machine next to our front door and put decorations in our front bushes that the trick or treaters would have to walk next to to get candy. Everyone who drove on our side of the neighborhood could see our house and we always got complements on the display.

My roommate and I were able to put up a decoration on our door. It's a ghost saying "Boo". We also put up smaller decorations like candles and a few signs reminding us to have a "spooky time". Though it wasn't a lot, it was still festive. We don't exactly have a lawn to put up a graveyard. I wish I could have recreated something like what I saw at the Chelsea market in New York City.

Decorations at the Chelsea market in NYC

The town of Ridgewood even set up decorations in town. There was a small celebration in the park at the center of town for the little kids. It wasn't a lot, but it was still cool to see. Definitely something for kids under the age of 7.

The park in Ridgewood featured a graveyard with ghosts and spiders on Halloween.

They even had a pumpkin patch for the kids to pick out pumpkins in.

Sorry Linus, no Great Pumpkin in this patch.

I'm sad to see all of the Halloween decorations come down. Yeah, sure Christmas is just around the corner and I'll start getting the whimsical magical feeling deep down in my gut. I'd rather have Halloween stick around a little longer. After all, if it's aceptable to have Christmas lights up until February, shouldn't we be able to have that graveyard up until December?

If you enjoyed this post, or it really pissed you off, please like, share, or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Parking Wars

I Guess I'm S. O. L.

Ridgewood is a really cool town. There is no denying that. I love the fact that I can walk to a coffee shop at 9pm, take a train to New York or the airport without paying huge fees, and seeing all the cool events that happen in the park (Halloween celebrations are starting up).

If there was one major draw back about this town, it's parking. Not only are there limited spaces, they also have limited times or (even worse) meters. For the most part, I don't have to worry about parking. I only really think about it when people are coming to visit. My current solution is to have people who visit me park at my office since there isn't any guest parking at my apartment.

Growing up in the DC suburbs and then living outside of Baltimore, I was spoiled by the amount of easy parking. It was only if I went within 5 or so miles of th city that it became a problem and even then I could get creative in getting around those restrictions. Not so in Ridgewood.

Parking has become a huge issue in the village. So much so, that a few months ago I started noticing a flyers going up around town. It called the "Vote Yes on Parking" campaign. There was no other information available. So I decided to do a little digging.

Apparently someone who owns one of the parking lots in town wants to turn it into a garage. This would be helpful if it increased the number of parking spaces available. It doesn't seem to for those of us who live in town. The town government also wants to increase the meter times from 6pm to 9pm and there is still no free overnight street parking. At least this is the information I've been able to track down.

I continue to pray to the parking gods that there will be a favorable solution. As of right now, I'm glad I usually have a place to park. It is just another thing to stress me out on my long list of things that stress me out.

Until...wait next weekend is Halloween! Oh boy! It's the best day of the year. Maybe I'll finally see a ghost or a vampire (not one that is sparkly). I'm gonna get ready by reading Uzumaki. It's about a town infected by spirals. I know what you guys are thinking, spirals aren't scary. You guys would be wrong, very very wrong.

If you enjoyed this post or it really pissed you off, please like, share or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome To New York City

They Tell Me It's The City That Never Sleeps

There is a small stretch of highway that goes up a hill that I take on my way home from work. On clear days I can see the closest major city (and most likely one of the top ten five powerful cities in the world) New York City. It's not like Washington DC or Baltimore. For one thing it's much bigger than either of the cities I grew up around. For another, it's a very different culture from what I'm used to.

Honestly I sometimes can't explain what makes these cities feel so different. Maybe it's that the two are a lot smaller or that one of them is the seat of the national government. Even the people are different.

If I were to describe Washington DC (DC for people who live there), it would be professional. I feel it's the heaven for a lot of Millennials hoping to make an impact while maintaining their nerdy hobbies.

If I were to describe Baltimore (from what little I was able to explore), it was DC's quirky cousin. There was still some government presence, but it allowed for a lot more personality. Heck, we used to have a Batman cosplayer (may he rest in peace) who would visit children in the hospital as well as drive his batmobile in the Inner Harbor.

Two weekends past (yeah, I know I skipped one), I was in New York City with my family. We stayed on Broadway somewhere in Midtown (or what I assume was Midtown, it might have been part of Chelsae). It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed my time in the city. I'm still not sure what to make of the city.

The hotel I was at had a few unusually large rooms, for the city that is. Hotel rooms are typically the size of a closet. One room I was in was only able to fit a full size bed and the bathroom door would only open part way.

The city is beautiful. We were able to walk along a path that had once been part of the subway (Google isn't supplying me with the actual name). Though it was crowded, the view was great. It was a great way to see the city without feeling like an ant.

We then headed to Chelsea Market which was all decorated in Halloween stuff. Seeing all of the shops was cool, but the displays were so much fun. They were advertising an event in the 30th for the holiday. If it wasn't while I was working I would totally go.

My favorite thing we did was go to a theater and see a radio type show featuring Lovecraft readings. It was so creepy and awesome. The theater was in the East Village (or at least I think that was the area). It was very different from Chelsea and Midtown. The theater was small, maybe 100 seats. It was very different from anything I'd seen in DC.

New York City is huge and each neighborhood has its own personality. I'm having fun exploring and hope to do more. Now I just need volunteers to come with me.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to Frustration

When nothing goes your way.

I will be the first to admit, that I tend to learn things the hard way. This can be very frustrating. I want things to go smoothly, but it's not always that easy.

In math, learning things the hard way is actually quite practice. It makes it easier to identify short cuts in equations and solve problems a lot faster over time. The way people  work is not the same way as equations. I have to constantly adapt to different people's styles and personalities to get similar results.while one person might get back to me right away, another might take a whole week to respond.

Personally, I don't like this kind of inconsistency. I live for stability and patterns. Humans aren't that great at either of those two things. Just because change is a constant, doesn't mean I have to like it, only accept it.

When my stress levels are through the roof, my frustration levels go off th charts. Yes, these are too different things. I can be frustrated about the fact that I am suffering from writers block, but not stressed out about it. On the flip side, I can be stressed about getting to a place on time, but not frustrated since nothing is preventing me from being on time.

Does that make sense?

The way I combat frustration is similar to how I deal with stress:

1) Knitting - it soothes the soul and helps me calm down. The repetitive nature of knitting is soothing and I feel like I'm being productive.

2) Medetation - It helps me focus on what I can control vs. what I can't change. Since I'm not able to make other people do what I need to, I have to learn to accept that fact. Meditation helps with understanding my feelings and accepting them.

3) Writing - if I can't control my world, I might as well control someone else's (even if the characters aren't real). I am able to put myself in a different pair of shoes to see a different perspective.

These things work for me, but there are other ways people can cope with being frustrated. I recommend sharing them on social media. Shout it out with a hash tag. Sometimes it is good to take th see things out.

If you enjoyed this post, or it really pissed you off, please like, share or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Until next week.

Welcome To The Farmer's Market

Most places are closed in my county on Sunday. It's either an old tradition or law that keep most stores closed (including Target). I don't mind that much. Sure I have to plan on doing most of my shopping on Saturdays, but it's not that big of a deal. I can use Sundays to catch up on other things.

Like going to the farmers market. Yeah, despite the fact that most places are closed, the farmer's markets in my area are open Sunday morning.

There are two markets in my area that I go to regularly. The first is at the Ridgewood train station. It's small and I can easily walk to it. There are two vegetable stands, a baker, a man selling jams, a pickle stand, and a truck which sells fresh mozzarella. The food is always delicious and I can get a about half a week's worth of grocery shopping done.

The Ridgewood New Jersey train station

The other farmer's market is in Ramsey. I have to drive there and it's always crowded , but it's well worth the trip. Not only are there the traditional vegetable stands and bakers, but there are artisans, a winery, a few butchers, a fisherman, and other specialized stalls. I loving going to the bakers there for breakfast and fresh bread throughout the week.

Farmer's Market in Ridgewood New Jersey

Unlike when I go to a regular supermarket, I can't always make a list. Most of the food I want is available, but sometimes I'm completely surprised by what I come across. For example today I was planning on buying some cauliflower and when I got to one of the stalls they cauliflower that was white, orange and purple. I had no idea that cauliflower could grow in those different colors. I asked if there was a difference in taste and the seller said that she didn't know of any.

I don't think I've ever seen a purple cauliflower at a Giant or Wegmans.

An orange cauliflower that I brought at the Farmer's Market in Ramsey NJ

The farmer's market in Ramsey occasionally has special events and features musicians and demonstrations. One weekend I went and they were doing a recording for a TV show with a food demonstration. I didn't feel like waiting in the crowd, so I didn't stick around for that one, but it did smell wonderful.

Farmer's markets are fun to go to and they help support the local community. I love talking to the people who run the stalls and have found some things I wouldn't have imagined trying if I gone. If you have a farmer's market near you, please check it out and support your local farmers.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. If there's a topic you'd like me to write about or have any questions about my transition from college to the working world, please feel free to ask.