All This Writing is Paying Off

In my last post I mentioned that there were a lot of things keeping me busy, including a secret project that I'm sure has had you all going wild with curiosity. Well fear not, my friends, because it's time for the big reveal...

I'M PUBLISHED!!!!

That's right, someone else besides me has published my writing. I got the chance to write as a guest blogger for a travel website called Smarter Travel, and they posted my article yesterday. It was only 800 words and I didn't get paid, but that doesn't matter to me. I finally have something published!

I actually discovered the opportunity to write for Smarter Travel back in October. It was seemingly perfect timing since I had just come back from my California trip and had plenty to write about, so I pitched my story and they were all for it. Unfortunately, this was also around the same time that I moved into my apartment, and my life was a tad bit stressful to say the least. I tried to write my piece as things slowed down, but life was still a bit overwhelming and my writing skills weren't exactly up to par. But thanks to writing regularly again (and thanks to life feeling somewhat more normal), I finally felt ready to give it another go. I was worried about the delay, but it turns out that waiting was totally worth it. Smarter Travel was still happy to take my piece, plus I less stressed and I knew that my writing skills had improved. And overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out.

If you'd like to read my post on Smarter Travel, check it out here: The Budget Traveler's Guide to Northern California. 

Also, in case you couldn't tell by the fact that I have a blog, writing is something that I really enjoy and that I would like to continue to pursue. I wouldn't be able to do any of it without the support of my family and friends, and this piece is no different. It may be something small, but for me it's a huge step forward. For this piece I want to thank three friends in particular - Maura and Nicole, for reading several of my drafts before I sent it in; and Carolyn, who not only read it but used her stellar PR and writing skills to help me edit and improve it. It may not seem like much to you guys, but to me it meant a lot. Thanks a million!

Follow Me @hphelps31

I know, I know. It has once again been almost a full two weeks since I wrote a blog post. I'm sorry! But in all fairness, I've been a bit busy. Preparing for the high school retreat, job hunting, watching Avengers to prepare for Iron Man 3, training for a half marathon, running a half marathon...it's a lot to juggle! Plus I'm working on another little project that I may or may not tell you all about in good time, but for now, it's a secret. Cue cliffhanger.

As fun as all of this has been, it has been frustrating not finding the time to write. When I first started this weekly blogging thing at the beginning of the year, I had a hard time finding things to write about. Now I have all sorts of things that I want to write about, but not enough time! Go figure. And of course, rather than write a blog post on my Friday night in (I'm just that cool), I decided to spend my evening doing something that I'm still surprised about -- I signed up for Twitter.

Yes, it's true. I was a Twitter Resister for a long time, and I know that my fellow Resisters are probably scowling at me thinking "Shunnnnnn." But the truth is, I'd been thinking about it for so long, it was time to take the plunge.

To be honest, I really didn't want another social networking platform to keep track of. Facebook and Pinterest take enough of my time, and for a while I honestly didn't understand the point of Twitter. To me, it seemed like it was just a long line of Facebook statuses with a character limit, and that seemed more like an annoying burden than something fun to follow. But thanks to talking to my friend Carolyn who's in PR, I came to realize that Twitter has some practical purposes, and those purposes seemed like pretty good reasons to jump on the bandwagon. Here are those reasons:

1. Twitter is a fast source for news. Headlines, sports, you name it. If you follow news agencies, summarized updates, usually with a link to the full story, will pop up on your feed. It's a great way to know what's going on in the world and have all the information in one place. And it really is surprisingly helpful with following your favorite teams when you can't watch the games.

2. It's practical...and I'm a very practical person. As I look around the job market, a lot of places need someone who's familiar with social media - including Twitter. Knowing Twitter will help me broaden my skills set and make myself more marketable for jobs. Even beyond my own job search, I've realized that a lot of businesses and organizations - that I'm a part of - communicate on Twitter. By not following them on Twitter, I'm missing out on an incredibly convenient way to receive information. Plus, at the last UMD football game I went to, they were giving away prizes via Twitter and I didn't have it. Womp womp.

3. Let's face it, it's a great promotional tool. Big companies obviously manage Twitter accounts, but so do entrepreneurs and my fellow bloggers. Since I would love for writing to become a bigger part of my life, I'm hoping that some day this blog will grow to something more. What that something more is I have no idea, but I think that posting my blog on Twitter is a great way to help that growth along.

I feel like there were more reasons but I can't think of them at the moment. And don't get me wrong, just because I'm getting on Twitter doesn't mean that I'm going to completely bury myself into the world of electronic communication and social media. Those of you that know me know that I am all about face-to-face interaction and I love being around people. As a matter of fact, after days one and two on Twitter I realized that I was spending too much time on it just trying to figure out how it worked, so I made sure to step away. But social media is not a bad thing. My friend Ben Heyman, who I worked with at camp a few years ago, is a PR student who works very closely with social media. He phrases its purpose perfectly on his website (be sure to check it out!):

"I wake up excited to jump on social media. I do not value social over face-to-face interactions.  I value them differently.  I value the ability to connect with people around the globe in a new way that was never possible before.  I value the ability to learn new things, be exposed to new things and connect with new people."

-Ben Heyman, www.benheyman.com

Using Twitter, or any social media for that matter, is about using it the right way. Not letting it dominate or take the place of real human interaction, but seeing its benefits for information and communication. 

Now, if anyone can help me figure out how Twitter actually works I would really appreciate it. 

Taxi Woes

From the moment I walk into the office in the morning to the moment I leave in the afternoon, my day is typically spent sitting behind a desk. Not counting my trips to the break room, bathroom, and my walks outside, my ass is pretty much glued to that chair from start to finish. For someone like me who likes to keep busy and stay on the move, you can imagine that this can get pretty unbearable at times. You can also imagine that when my office needed someone to run a simple work errand, I jumped on the chance to get out of the office like a frog jumps on a lily pad.

Typically, when our company needs to do business in other parts of the city, the offices we need to visit are pretty accessible as most of them are near metro stations. But of course, the office I needed to visit was no where near a metro station. If I had tried to take public transit, it would have taken me over an hour each way via train, bus, and on foot. That seemed a bit excessive - especially since I was only picking up a few things and wouldn't be at the office long at all - so to keep things simple, my boss kindly offered to pay for a cab. It would still be a 20 minute ride, but that was much better than an hour. "It'll be easy," he said. "Nice and simple," he said...

I knew I was in trouble when I got into the cab, gave the address, and the cabby said, "Where??"

No, he wasn't asking because he didn't hear me. He was asking because he literally had no idea where I was talking about. You have got to be kidding me...

Not only did he have no idea where he was going, but he didn't even have a GPS in his car. So, while he grumpily called his taxi buddies to help him out (it turns out they weren't very helpful, either), I pulled up the address on my phone and told him where to go. When we got to my location, I asked him to wait and told him I would be about 10-15 minutes. "Fine," he said, "I'll wait 15 minutes." When I came out (right around 15 minutes later) he said, "I was getting impatient!" What are you complaining about, jerk? I'm paying you aren't I?? Once again, you have GOT to be kidding me. At that point I didn't even bother having him drive me all the way back to my office. I just told him to take me to the closest metro station and I would get back from there. I didn't care that I had a rather awkward box to carry and had to now traverse the city in heels (thank goodness they weren't super high heels) -- no more crazy cab rides for me.

Sadly, this is not the first poor experience I have had with a DC area cab. When I was still living at home, there were a couple times I got home late and had to take a cab from the metro back to my house -- 5 minutes away -- and the cabbies didn't even recognize the streets I was mentioning. Sigh....

Maybe it's just my imagination, but shouldn't a cab driver know the streets of the city s/he is driving in? Are my expectations too high? Maybe I'm comparing too many of my taxi experiences to the awesome taxis I took in Spain. After all, I never took cabs on my own before living overseas, so my first experiences with taxis were when I was living in Valencia -- and I have to say, Valencian taxis are pretty awesome.

While I didn't take them all that often, Valencian taxis never disappointed me. Whether I had just missed the bus or didn't want to walk back from my friends' apartment at 3 AM, they were always very handy. They were relatively cheap, efficient, and the cabbies always knew where they were going. On the rare occasions they didn't know where they were going, they had a GPS to help them along the way (fancy that, modern technology...). And for the cherry on top, the cabbies were always really nice and were so much fun to talk to in my spotty Spanish.

When I told a friend about my varying cab experiences, she mentioned that good taxis aren't just a European trend - that New York City is another place where cab drivers actually know where they're going. It turns out that once again, my expectations really aren't too high. DC transportation is just terrible as usual.



Disclaimer: Yes, I realize this post is the epitome of First World Problems. I know that there are many more worse things in the world that could happen (and are happening) than me having a bad taxi experience. Just trying to keep things a little more light-hearted.

Praying for Boston

Ever since yesterday's horror in Boston, I, like everyone else, have been trying to make sense of it all. At this point I haven't been able to process it long enough to turn my thoughts into words. So for now, I'll keep it very short.

I did not personally know anyone at the marathon yesterday. But as a runner, I feel like there is an added level of sadness on top the typical whirlwind of emotion. The running community holds a very unique and special bond, and to see that community attacked hits a certain core. Not only is it painful to see the runners that have worked so hard be affected by it, but the spectators as well. Runners need all the support they can get to push through their races, and spectators pour out all their love and support to cheer on their loved ones. It breaks my heart to see so many wonderful people affected by this tragedy, and my heart truly goes out to the victims, their family and friends, and all of Boston.

While I may be struggling to find the right words to express this sadness, I found a few things on Facebook among my running friends that seem to capture a runner's sentiments quite well:

And finally:

"If you're trying to destroy the human spirit, marathoners are the wrong group to target."

Since all of these were found on Facebook, I do not know their original sources and am unable to cite them. 

Building a Nursery

Planning. Shopping. Building. Organizing. All essential to designing a proper nursery. We had a lot of work and research to do, since it turned out that we would be welcoming 7 new members to our N1109 family.

You read that correctly...SEVEN. SEVEN BABIES.

Baby plants that is.

Ha HA! Gotcha! Get it? Babies live in nurseries...plants live in nurseries...baby plants...oh goodness I crack myself up sometimes.

Okay, let's face it, even I have to admit the cheesiness of that introduction and the lack of cracking myself up. But it was still fun, and I just couldn't resist. And this weekend we did in fact welcome seven new plant friends into our borderline urban/suburban home.

Saturday afternoon Maura and I got back from our respective activities and were trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. She was feeling crafty and I was totally game, but we just weren't feeling inspired. We sat at the kitchen table, each gazing into our laptops, begging Pinterest to give us a fun, crafty idea that we could finish in a few hours. An hour and two chocolate milkshakes later, we still had nothing.

Then out of the blue...herbs! Let's grow herbs! I don't remember who came up with the idea at the time or how we agreed to pursue this particular project, but we both decided that we really wanted to try and grow herbs in our 11th floor, downtown Rockville apartment. After all, we all cook with them enough, why not? After a bit more online price-checking, it was time to begin our mission. THE mission. Soon we were in the car and on the road to stop number one: IKEA.

Yes, I said IKEA. Before we could buy the herbs we had to be sure we had a place to put them. C'mon people, keep up with me here.

I have to admit, I have actually never been to IKEA before (strange, I know, but true). And may I just say, that place is HUGE. It was fun at first, winding through the pathways and seeing all the fun furniture, but after a while it got a bit overwhelming and claustrophobic - even more so with all the Saturday afternoon idiots wandering around. We weren't having much luck finding a suitable and affordable table for our babies, either.

Then, ironically enough, we stumbled across a well-priced baby changing table that would have served our purposes wonderfully. I actually thought it would be pretty awesome slash hilarious, having a changing table as a plant nursery. But just then, Maura found a nice looking shelf that seemed like an even more perfect fit that we just couldn't say no to - of course, she found it on her phone and it was at Target. So, after driving 30 minutes to get there and wandering around for almost an hour, we left IKEA empty-handed and headed back to our own neighborhood to buy our shelf.

Next stop was Home Depot (side note - I can't help but laugh about being excited to go to Home Depot - my dad dragged me there countless times as a child and I absolutely despised that store. Now I was happily prancing in to buy plants). We wandered shyly into the nursery, not too sure about what we were getting ourselves into. We gathered a handful of herbs that we thought we might use the most and Maura bought some seeds for some extra flowers. After grabbing all the necessary pots and soil  (which turned out to be for "in-ground" use - oh well, we'll see how that turns out) and nervously telling a store employee that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing, we checked out and rolled our new family members to the car.

Both of us were oddly terrified as we walked out of that store:

"I hope we don't kill them all"
"What are we getting ourselves into??"
"OMG WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE DOING"

Clearly neither of us are ready for human babies yet.

After picking up Chinese food and bubble tea, we came back to the apartment and built our shelf/nursery/plant holder. We then proceeded to make a mess in our kitchen as we attempted to put our little babies in their new beds A.K.A. pots.

"Need some more dirt?"
"Is this enough dirt?"
"This dirt is getting everywhere."

Dirt. Not soil. Not possibly the wrong soil. Just dirt. Two giant green thumbs right here. It was awesome :)

This is how the final set-up turned out:

We plan to fill all those shelves soon. And that black trash bag is holding the bag of dirt.

It's only been a few days, but I'll let you know how our babies are doing as they hopefully grow and don't die!

Side note 2: We actually have eight plants total now. My Opa saw my apartment for the first time and brought me a lovely orchid. Our family just keeps growing!