final blog post

Hi, All,
Keeping up my blog was so fun between 2006 and 2012 however I've learned since May that when I changed the gmail account associated with it back in 2015, that change inadvertently deleted all the photos associated with posts older than 2015.

For the past year or so, I thought I might restore these one at a time, but it probably would have taken me a year to do, so I gave up on the idea. At least my last dozen posts below have their photos in tact.

2018 ended up being a terribly challenging year while I started a new position in corporate social responsibility in June, and was laid off quickly after I started.

At first I felt embarrassed and didn't know how to explain this to future employers, but a few friends encouraged me by saying that it happens to most everyone, and I came to realize I don't even have to explain it. I also started to realize the turn of events was a gift because so many interesting companies had openings simultaneously in the fall.

I am thrilled to be starting a new job tomorrow, and am feeling great about the multi-faceted, fascinating and demanding role at an organization that does incredible research for the greater good of the world (keeping the bigotry-fighting flame of Facing History lit)! Jose also began a complex and high stakes job in 2018, as I noted in my last blog post, at a very small startup organization and he immediately said it's like you're using much more of your brain than ever before.

While I try to focus on other efforts in 2019, I am going to take time off blogging here, but in the future, I may come back and post travel stories or other adventures. I am often on instagram at www.instagram.com/laraonthemta

Cheers,
Lara

205 Days Later

Wow! I am impressed that my last blog was 205 days ago. More than half a year! A lot has happened, but some days my perspective's been lousy and it's felt like not a lot has happened. 

While our '17 summer was at times excruciating with ongoing drama, the first six months in Azulita were a slow-moving, uneventful time and pretty relaxing. Some days, knowing I was (still am) job hunting, we both felt down that we couldn't quite appreciate the new house. And without having a deadline, the transition to settling in to the house moved at a 🐌snail's pace. Some projects were put off for financial costs, but a lot of things were just my feet-dragging or lacking motivation. I must admit I donated a ton of stuff to Goodwill and to More Than Words before tax season though, and that was a great weight lifted!!

Mural-gazing one weekday in JP last month.

From November through January, I spent four days a week on job-search tasks in my day, even if it just meant updating and revising my LinkedIn connections and information. I usually also hiked with the dogs two or three days a week to wipe them out. I tried to do at least one thing networking-related per week and/or volunteered one day a week to feel current and contributing.

one of my nostalgic posters
from Nashville, on our indoor porch

In late January, job postings slowed down significantly so it was a pretty dreadful February, and at the farthest end of that month, I paid a visit to California to see my sister who has been 100% physically in a dire mood since Christmas (no exaggeration). I came back feeling a bit hopeless and useless because she wasn't really affected by my visit, and I wondered if it had been worth the effort. Since April, she's doing better and I think sending her an ipod of upbeat music, along with letters at least twice a week (only positive messages) has made a difference.

One thing that kept me smiling through winter though, was I volunteered to help draft and submit grants for my local CDC, the Hyde Park-Roslindale Southwest Boston Community Development Corporation, and although none of the grants were awarded yet, it felt fantastic to try a skill I had never done before, and also become more fluent in the affordable housing, community organizing, and youth outreach work that SWBCDC does.

In early April, I signed myself up to attend an affordable housing dialogue hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber and suddenly realized that since the audience was designated young professionals (21 to 39) I am no longer in the young professionals category, having turned 40 in March! It was a little funny, but kind of a stark revelation, too (one of those where you don't realize how much time has passed). They still let me come, and it was fun. I have also been attending a few She Geeks Out events which have no target age, and have helped out many candidates at my favorite volunteer position, career coaching at Career Collaborative.

this is one print I'm thinking of getting
for the new house, at the sake of over-doing
our worship of blue (ig: @livingpattern).

Although I've been silent on blogger, I have been actively photo-journaling every day via instagram and in fact recently started a new environmentalist-localist feed called BostonLitterisUgly 🚯 to urge folks in greater Boston to pick up litter, add more trash barrels in public places, and not drop litter on the ground in the first place. I didn't ever think of instagram previously as a job or skill, but it can definitely be a mission-driving social tool. There's a surprising amount (thousands) of other instagram accounts all over the world whose pet peeve is litter and they (like my mom and me) pick it up daily, journal and photograph it, too, which is hella #encouraging and #inspiring! I am now following them and joining in the shared experience.

Since March, I have also joined my neighbors in-person in a Keep Hyde Park Beautiful committee and I have been litter-collecting at least four times a month, which is great exercise, makes you feel grateful, compassionate and connected to the neighbors who "pitch in", and it does make a visible difference, if only for a short while. There is a great deal of positive strength and power in groups, I've learned. It's great to be part of that since we moved.

View of just-sprung trees near the public library in Hyde Park

The renewing mojo of spring weather (which arrived pretty early this year) somehow moved me to hang up art in the house, spend time outdoors in the yard, and look for the small blessings every day.

Speaking of which, Jose was offered a new job in April that we both didn't see coming, although he probably missed a few signals about it a few months before. He is elated, since it's an incredible opportunity to contribute to changes in the world of hospital diagnostics and treatment, and it's still within the MIT campus.
Although the highs and lows of the past seven months were one reason, the MAIN reason I have not been blogging is that all my blog posts prior to 2015 seem to have broken links where there had been images, and I don't know how to recover these images. I will try and reach out to blogger soon about it. If my promise of the word "soon" can be trusted!
😆

sketch from my sister 🐶

post note
<---- I forgot to write on this blog's first draft that Lucille's separation anxiety has finally turned a corner even though her amount of high-border collie-ish activity is just as high as ever. She used to convulse and quiver and pace whenever we were getting dressed in the morning, which was awful. Our vet proposed a different medication that works for dogs who have severe thunderstorm anxiety (she doesn't) and the med seems to be working thank heaven. Buster has been a troublemaker and breaking out of our fenced in yard through a little spot, but we recently had it reinforced/extended and feel much betta.

Hyde Park

Fun parts of being unemployed include:
Time is less crunched and your mind is free to roam. You realize a lot more things, half of which seem brilliant (!) but later, read, scrawled in the margins of a notepad, seem both silly and philosophical. You notice the odd quiet of the weekday while everyone else is at work. You get to wear yoga pants and sweat pants like they're goin' out of style.

I remember also feeling this freedom when I started working from home twice a week in 2015. Without the commute and deadline to arrive anywhere at 9 precisely, I woke up earlier but wandered around more. I could walk the dogs longer and enjoy the smell of the coffee brewing while simultaneously drafting emails or working on a spreadsheet a little at a time from my laptop or my desktop, either one. Google Docs makes that easier. There was more sunlight in my day from the office with a window.

The answer to the question of "are you feeling settled" in Hyde Park is out of reach since we moved in, and I have had now three trips away in that short seven weeks. There's a lot left to do, a lot to unpack, it can feel endless even without a full time job. But the break from working is certainly opening up my perceived possibility of getting unpacked, of getting things off the list. And Lucy seems to be getting a little healthier although not completely free of anxiety.

This morning, I simply got the task done of baking our pumpkins from halloween, to give dogs a healthy treat, researched a few jobs, sent snail mail letters to a couple friends and my sister, and made coffee dates with other friends in Brookline. A few pieces of halloween candy were grazed on between chores.

Self-portrait, braving the chilly October fresh air, above. Buster has been recently following his nose into trouble by escaping the yard a lot, so he's punished on the porch right now while I sit with my coffee and typewriter (chromebook) out in the yard.

This morning on our morning walk, because I wasn't rushed and it wasn't dark out, I noticed the neighbors about 6 houses away from us have a pretty and simple HP marker of the town border between Milton and Hyde Park.

For those of you who haven't heard of it (we hadn't!), HP is the southernmost village or neighborhood within the City of Boston, so our address is technically Boston, though it is surrounded by non-Boston towns, Canton, Dedham and Westwood. Milton is the eastern town to us, famous for large houses, large yards and many "academies" with uniformed student bodies, as opposed to Boston Public schools like its neighbors.

I'm really interested in studying the history of Milton and Hyde Park, and also the triple intersection of Hyde Park, Milton and Mattapan, since Mattapan is unfortunately the economically and socially least advantaged part of the city and I think it's no luck of the draw. Certain laws and biases have kept it that way, at least that's what my Facing History radar suggests.

This first month that we've been here, our neighbors have been so kind, so it was heartbreaking that on October 25th, a few days before halloween one of immediate our neighbors had their fence vandalized in what was in fact, an attack of hateful, spiteful, red-painted language. I decided to reach out to them with flowers and a note and say "That's not cool, and I'm doing my best to forgive whoever did this to you. I am glad you're our neighbor and consider us your friends. Please let us know if we can ever help you rebuild the fence later on."

Starting from Scratch

art by Lisa Congdon
instagram.com/p/BaeXe05BTEh

2017 has gifted me a handful of blessings, but these blessings were often clouded with dark and gloomy clouds that required patience and careful examination.

Our new house and back yard is an amazing fit for us, and well worth all the paperwork, negotiations and strife of weeks and expensive costs it took us to get in here. Often I feel like we don't want to go anywhere now. I could just camp out in our backyard under the stars.

Everyone keeps asking "are you feeling settled in?" about our house.

Well, we're feeling settled but the house is not quite looking settled. I need another two weeks at least to feel I can come out from under the rabble.

José and I have had zero vacations other than a short one to see my dad in Raleigh mid-September (which was rough on the dogs, leaving them in a new house), but we did take quite a few staycation days in Boston in August.

I've had two emergency family visits to California for my sister, and probably a third this December. Unfortunately each time, I barely saw the ocean, but zipped in and out without much time for calm or reflection. I am grateful that on my recent trip, two of my mom's closest friends were embracing us, literally and figuratively of course, and helping us manage the grief and struggle. The easiest way to put it is my sister is having a hard time - she's down, less than motivated, exhausted and needs a lift in spirit. I think she may need a change in her scenery, too.

Although it wasn't easy to decide or easy to execute, I decided to leave my job at Harvard in late October and pursue something that makes my heart sing more, and I don't mean, like art and writing, because those will stay in my heart as hobbies, but I am listening to my job-related instincts better than before. Finance was really wiping me out in every possible capacity. A new career direction in career counseling is something I now realize I've been gravitating toward for about six years with my volunteer work at Career Collaborative. I had a lot of experience mentoring and counseling peers at Harvard this summer, as well.

It was touching that when I left the role, a handful of staff who had started new since May each thanked me for the influences I had on them when they were hired, and in fact, they (along with my boss) gave me a set of beautiful paper journals and a set of colored pens that warmed up my heart. It was a very, very sweet departure and not bitter at all.

I am glad to have learned so much about the Kennedy School students, academics, and staff, and so glad I made a lasting impression on some of my colleagues. I will stay in touch with them just as I do with my Facing History friends, and will never forget the weekend in September that I was assigned to lead 50 grad students and alumni to a Mystic River cleanup project, and one of my volunteers, turns out, was the Secretary of the Interior for President Obama (well, alrighty then!)

cheers,
and more to come.

Nothing's gonna stop us now

ever since third grade, i've been a little obsessed with the Starship song "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" which was the closing credits of the terrible romantic comedy Mannequin staring Andrew McCarthy and Kim Catrall. sounds really stupid, but the movie was cooler than cool at the time and i just love Grace Slick's voice, no matter what. she's a force.

♪ take you to the good times 

♪ see you through the bad times

♪ whatever it takes is what i'm gonna do

it made my heart melt when i saw the dark comedy The Skeleton Twins with bill hader and kristen wiig, and the brother and sister character would dance and act out the song to each other even in grown adulthood. apparently it's not just me!

for years after third grade, i remembered this song, but couldn't find it on the radio (it was passe) or on CD (this was before napster) because in those days, there was no way to look up the artist for a song. no internet, no apps, no shazam, no web sites for radio stations. you had to sort of use the "ask around" method of figuring it out, or go to a well-informed record store to discover the artist for a single, and then often you might have to hum or sing it to someone for them to recognize it, which was embarrassing, especially with a cheesy-as-hell song like this one. but i found it eventually in college and hearing it always brings me back to third grade. it is beyond cheesy, but i could visualize myself someday moving into a cool house with a good-lookin' husband whenever i heard this song! at last, we're there.

2017 was one of the hardest years of my life emotionally. it felt like a series of strength tests and no punching bag to release our frustration on. jose kept asking between March and April whether i wanted to give up on selling our last house 'cause there was so much work to do every weekend and we had visitors coming in the middle of everything, but i was like "no way!". so we listed it as planned, we moved out and rented a cool place in Malden while selling Waterbell over the course of a week. we also went to cape cod for two days. the dogs were pretty chill then.

when it sold fast, we were thinking we might have to rent apartments for a year before finding a house, but we watched the weekly open houses religiously. in July, we wanted this blue house in Hyde Park, but were pretty sure it was going to get sold to another couple. there were 19 offers on it, in fact. we put our best feet and paws forward, enclosing some heartstrings in the note about how much our charming dogs were shopping for a better yard. 

but then, the appraisal wouldn't come up with the cost that we had offered to pay for the house and the bank was pretty fixed on not re-doing their appraisal. so that was a grueling three weeks of hemming and hawing about the price and whether to walk away. we finally did a second appraisal with another bank and everything was kosher. then the owners asked to stay in the house 5 weeks from closing, which was 4 weeks after our own closing. and in the midst of this, my sister was in the hospital in California, having a health crisis, so it was sort of all raining and pouring for a month. 

it was hard to find dog-friendly short term rentals, so we used airBnB and hopped from one place to the next, bringing 1 suitcase and about a dozen grocery bags that contained toothbrushes, socks, laundry detergent, a can opener, some wine or beer and basic groceries. usually when we moved out of a house, jose had a weekend job to go to, so we'd trek around in the car with all our belongings in the trunk for 7 hours until the next move-in was ready for us.

when we moved out of waterbell, things were great for our buyers there, and i only wish i had rented an apartment with a yard for the whole time because (as you read, below, in "azulita") lucy ended up resenting the lack of space to run around in our Cambridge AirBnB rentals, and I think all of us were generally depressed about moving on a weekly basis. jose's back got very sore from all the stress and different beds. it sucked, in short.

then i decided at the very end of labor day weekend, after a ton of thought, to quit my job. this position was so financial that it often felt like it was learning Trigonometry in Japanese and in this metaphor, it would also be that i had only learned algebra so far. no matter how positive my attitude, i just couldn't like the struggle of learning this job and the effort was exhausting me. so i gave about 8 weeks' notice and decided to try and help them with the transition while focusing more on life: finding a job that is more suitable, and maybe job hunting from home for a while this coming October.

moving in here last week was seamless and comforting. the neighborhood is so sweet that there was even an ice cream truck approaching the house upon our arrival (i still can't get over that)!!

we have a lot to unpack now, but we're a combination of relieved, excited and wagging.

the house is designed so well already, everything's blue (we both love blue), and the back yard is paradise. the commute is pretty relaxing. i hope it's all going to be UP! from here. (cards by jessica scissorhands)

photos of this past week via intagram.com/lara_sue

  the above sticker is part of our membership in HP main streets association

 this old school ice cream truck greeted me when i pulled up to Azulita in the U-Haul (nice!), sounds like he comes by on Saturdays regularly! (even better!)

 new kitchen window with makeshift vases:

 i had a little plaque made with our favorite Carmonas song:

 lucy with her ears permanently fixed in the down position surrounded by moving boxes:

 sunset over our new house Thursday:

 our train to work leaves from the hyde park postcard mural sign:

 an eye roll selfie day when we were living in Cambridge:

 
the dogs' new license to live in Boston:

azulita's profile picture

fun photo taken by my neighbor Bill this morning.
a few hours later, his wife brought us a ginger pumpkin bread that was such a delightful surprise. wow.

azulita

The "I literally can't even" moment at approximately the halfway point in our 8 weeks between houses finally happened last Friday.

I got home from work and only one wagging dog greeted me at the door, which was intriguing, but not in a good way. 

I immediately thought the other dog was in some kind of trouble, either resting and drooling on a neighbor's couch, or running dangerously loose on the Cambridge streets. 

But if one dog was gone, why weren't both dogs? Then I realized our bathroom door was shut tightly, and heard a squeak from that direction of the apartment. Then more squeaks. Shrill squeaks. 

Me: Oh for Christ's sake.

She must have panicked from being locked in the bathroom so of course, she chewed up the entire door and door jamb of our lovely, friendly AirBnB rental. And this is not even just a rental for rental's sake, but someone's actual home. 

When I told him, José texted "We really need to get in our home." 

He later said in person, "It's not as bad as you made it sound."

It took us more than hour to clean up the shards of door on the bathroom tile, though, and another hour to disassemble the door hinges on order to allow a carpenter to come and fix this. The damage is looking like $500, which is not as bad as I thought, but, Oh my God, Lucille.

I have our new Hyde Park house (nickname Azulita) in our sights though, and keep thinking we're going to look back and laugh at all of this someday. We try to put it in perspective. Jose mentioned last night that this packing and moving is good practice for all the travel we hope to do someday in our future, a combination of RV-ing and globe trotting.

Nomadic Summer

José and I are coming up on the fourth week of moving between houses, i.e. have moved four times to four apartments in four weeks, and we can't help but notice we're both wearing thin! Mentally, physically, motivationally...

I keep my Tim Russert "thou shalt not whine" magnet on each place's fridge as a reminder that this is actually quite a privilege to live in gorgeous little apartments close to Harvard Square for 8 weeks and on average, it's less than a hotel, averaging around $160 a night. Each place has felt homey and comfortable, more than a hotel would. But the packing up our laundry, our fridge, our dog beds and supplies every Sat/Sun is really exhausting on all of us- especially in the hot weather or sometimes down pouring rain - and as the trunk of the RAV4 overflows with our stuff, it reminds me each time that we should have shaved a little less off the list of essentials!

I literally am carrying my former kitchen's "pen drawer" around with us (scissors, pens, post-its, safety pins, magnets and tape) since that was my essential living supplies. Our bathroom bag alone is about 7 pounds including my "industrial strength hairdryer" like in Spaceballs (can't live without it!) and if I had to shlep this stuff across a desert, probably 9.5 out of 10 things would cease to be essential. And then there's a big bag of dog supplies, too and even a separate bag that's just 8 weeks of poop bags.

Since our movers packed almost everything in the house (I said "go for it" unless it was nailed down or labeled), we ended up taking what was left in the fridge or pantry (cereal, jam, cheez-its) stuffed in loose Grocery Bring-Your-Own-Bags which means that they are hard to stack in the car, and things shift around in the shuffle.  Last weekend, we laughed as José opened the trunk and watched an entire bag fall out on its head and tons of little kitchen containers of milk, coffee filters, plastic forks, and misc. sprawled out over a wet sidewalk.

Today we had a rare transition of apartments on a weekday, so I arranged a day off work, and shuffled the dogs and stuff into the car around 11, then shuffled into a new apartment around 1 pm. To make it even more interesting, I locked myself out of the first apartment at 10:45 with most things moved out except for the iphone chargers, the wine and the contents of the fridge. A kind housekeeper eventually let me back in to collect the rest.

AirBnB owners have been very accommodating with our schedule, knowing that the check in and check out window usually means I have to entertain a couple dogs for four hours on a hot afternoon. Sometimes we take the dogs on a road trip to fill the gap (like we went to Rhode Island and New Bedford two weeks ago). Today, we had the neighboring Cambridge Library lawn (about three blocks wide) to keep us company. The rest of our weeks, we are staying in repeat apartments that we have already been to, so at least we know what to expect.

Our apartment tonight is on the SIXTH floor which thank heaven had an elevator, but a very slow elevator, and we spotted a cute nearby fancy-grocery store so I picked up ingredients to bake homemade pizza with farmers market pesto, tart cheeses and a very welcome Sauvignon Blanc. I'm delighted that the locally famous Darwin's (pictured) coffee shop is downstairs from us, with most excellent coffee, sandwiches, organic berries, beer, etc. Prost!

Facebook makes me feel vain.

This past two years, my real life friends and family members often always ask why I leave facebook (deactivated my account about a dozen times, only to return later when some web site, organization or cause was shared exclusively on facebook). Everyone pushes for an answer of why I don't like it

With each time I deactivate, I have selected one of the numerous answers of the choices, except two exceptions (I never picked, "I don't understand how to use it." or "My account was hacked").  The fact that Facebook has this array of options means they already know why people are disconnecting.

Today I selected Other and in the explain further note, wrote honestly
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Facebook makes me feel vain.

I primarily use it when I'm procrastinating something else, and then regret the procrastinating later.

I have never once felt like the hour I spent on it was valuable.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Posts make me laugh at times, and I'll miss that. But more often, it feels like a vanity cluster via bragging, whining and the ultra-lazy "like" buttons replacing genuine interactions with friends and family. Clicking a thumbs up icon while you multitask other things is the opposite of real connection, communication or emotion. It's a gesture to say "I barely care".

The medium of facebook also encourages negativity, provocativeness, and snarky judgment. Who needs that! The online universe could use more compassion, civil discourse and encouragement. 

I will miss a few people who really use it well, especially a few high school teachers, but hope I'll find their positive content in other forms. Maybe there will be a future Care About the World book instead of a Facebook.

Midsummer Moving Madness

2017 has turned out to be a year of life events and changes, and I think Jose and I are both hoping the next couple years are the opposite, and looking forward to a more settled down Autumn and Winter!

In early January, I changed jobs heading to Harvard; in March, Jose changed jobs heading to MIT; by the last week of April, we put Waterbell on the market after weeks of prep work and wondering whether we could swing it. I originally sketched up a home selling/home buying timeline with a buffer of 21 days to allow us time to pack and move after closing on our home sale with the ideal thought of closing on a new house within the same month.

Although it might have been possible, looking back, that first sketch of a timeline was blessedly optimistic! It's more common for home buyers to be looking for three or four months, if not more, here in Boston. Well, we were right on time with our home sale June 15th. We arranged to stay in Waterbell for one month for a little relief and will move by August 1. But even with an offer in June, we close on our place August 15th, and plan to move in September 16th, based on the sellers' own timeline. In between the two houses, we have 8 weeks of roaming homes with essential stuff piled up in the car, like a family of hermit crabs.

I originally looked on CraigsList and Harvard Housing forums, hoping to find a sublet for 8 weeks, but I couldn't find anything that was willing to have our two rowdy, adorable dogs. It's especially hard since we'll be crossing over into the school year.

I finally opted to book AirBnB's knowing that we were going to pay through the nose for their booking fees, but by the time I knew our dates, we had to make 8 reservations over the course of 8 weeks. We'll be moving every Sunday! Thank goodness, all the rentals we're staying in are within Cambridge which is a shorter distance to get home every day and spend more time with the dogs. In the past, Lucy and Buster have been comfortable in any rental, but Lucy gets unsettled whenever we're packing luggage or boxes. Or maybe we're imagining that, but I don't think so.

Knowing it's stressful for the dogs and for me, too, I decided several months ago that we would only move if we could afford a full pack-and-move moving service this time, so that's the plan on July 26th.

I'll share some photos of our rental summer and of the new house when we get a little closer. I feel very upside down lately, and not always sleeping soundly, but I'm counting all of our many blessings and blaring my good mood mix on the ipod to get through it.

Home Shopping

As I type this, my dogs are sleeping at my feet and Buster's doing a little Grrr, Yip!, Grrrrrowl in his sleep and his little paws are running but going nowhere. Oh, the immeasurable joys of mutts.

Yesterday I had a pinched nerve removed from my foot so I have to elevate it and rest a lot the first 48 hours and try to avoid chores, lifting and walking. I will wear a big velcro shoe for two weeks, maybe less. Crutches aren't needed but I need to keep weight and pressure off of the part that's healing. I am so impatient with sitting still, and I wish House of Cards' final season had started by now!

Probably this is a harder adjustment because I've had months of maxed-out weekends. Since January, I was working every weekend on painting, cleaning and preparing Waterbell for its open house in April, and got it all done a little early. I was very, very proud of the real estate listing (Jose took the photographs) and the way we staged it for showing April 28. We had at least a dozen interested visitors without much advertising, and had two incredible offers the evening of the second open house. I feel very blessed about all of this. The couple buying from us are young, caring and have a little pug named Kevin. We think they're the perfect fit for this charming condo that our hearts and memories are so attached to.

Jose and I took the week of open houses to rent an AirBnB in Malden, a nearby affordable town we'd never spent time in, and really enjoyed it. The Chinese take out options are incredible and the nearby town Melrose has some great Venezuelan restaurants. Malden has a very different commute to Cambridge on the orange line via Oak Grove station and a cheerful walk along the stone wall perimeter of an old cemetery, and we would change trains in the center of Boston at Downtown Crossing for the red line to Harvard and MIT. Downtown Crossing is the one station in Boston that reminds me of the London tube, it's got badly lit long corridors, peeling-glue posters, graffiti and gritty subway smells.

Is a New Orleanian Victorian with New England colors,
a cozy porch and a patio too much to ask?

Since our purchase and sale was finished around mothers' day, we have been actively pursuing open houses now ourselves as buyers, and let me tell you, here in Boston you have to be Johnny on the spot. Houses are sold in hours instead of days, if they don't have a lot of improvement or inspection issues. Last week, one gorgeous property was listed with a five hour warning of its open house at 5 p.m. that evening and even though it was a hard address to find, and a long scramble to get there in rush hour, there were 24 different buyers who showed up and it was sold by midnight. You can not dilly dally.

We're really hoping to come across a single family with two bathrooms and two bedrooms under $500,000 but know we may have to compromise and get a town home or a home that's more expensive or a house with one bathroom with the potential to add a second. Wish us luck! The yard is also very important to Lucy and Buster (can we do a test run?) If we don't find a home by June 15th, we'll likely rent through the Fall which is so expensive in this area (plus moving to a storage locker) but the bright side from that, is we would have two or three more months to see homes and during a less competitive season.

A short escape from Winter

This coming weekend, we snagged an inexpensive flight to Nashville to see our friends who live there and we've got tickets to a band I have quite a crush on, called Shovels and Rope two nights in a row. I am so excited! Since I never shared photos of our trip last Fall, here's a few of the vibrant and colorful city (starting with the Ryman Auditorium at the top).

Decluttering your Inbox, Apps, Notifications, Posts, Likes, etc.

I just wanted to share some insight from a post I read on the Trello blog today about how most people's compulsive interactions with our phones, web browsers and social media has become like "digital clutter" and is just as infuriating as real life clutter. It also obviously creates less mindfulness and meditation, of which the universe must seriously be in an all-time low. I wonder if there is such a thing as a hoarder and interventions for digital clutter?

Find the link to the article here.You'll love it.

Below is a short excerpt:

Digital clutter is a bit easier to ignore than a messy home, but it can definitely benefit from the KonMari Method. In a tidy nutshell, KonMari centers on the concept that people will “spark joy” and live a happier life when they organize the items in their surroundings to eliminate stress-inducing clutter and take care of valued possessions. If the item brings you true joy, you keep it (and organize it properly). If it doesn’t? Sayonara, stuff.

Once your home is tidy, you might notice that you're more sensitive to digital clutter. The biggest hurdle is that digital clutter includes more than the files and apps that are saved on our devices.  
The time that you spend online and on social media can contribute to "digital clutter" if it's not aligned with how you want to live. Tidying digital clutter may involve lifestyle changes, since it's so common to be glued to our phones. 

Start by being more conscious of the volume of digital items in your life, and prioritize those that bring you joy. Feeling overwhelmed at work is natural when you constantly keep dozens of browser tabs open on your computer or have every item possible on your to-do list at all times. Notifications are another area to focus on: Be mindful of how you implement them to avoid overload, and be kind to yourself. What information is truly important for you to do your job most successfully?

Thanks for the valuable free advice, Trello!

The one whose forehead reads "Nutcase"

Today I rode my bike to work which was really, for me, the point of a new job, and even though it was a bit frigid and the road bumpy on my butt, I was so happy to get a fresh air commute, some head space and a little fitness in my day, since José and I are both gym-repellant.

I wanted to bike a few days sooner, but was waiting on a repair of the gears, and Boston's also had a bunch of rain recently. Memorial Drive had a little frost on it this morning, but it was pretty and bright.

I refuse to sink a ton of money into new gear, so I have been fortunate to come across a used bike from my upstairs neighbor that just needed a hearty tune-up. I found a bright pinkish-red Old Navy vest and a thick Polartec sweatshirt in Kendall Square's Garment District for under $20. I found these adorable pins on Etsy's The Found store recently which certainly are timely this month. They also have Michelle Obamas and Michael Jacksons (pins) that I love.

At left, is a photo on my first day of school, I mean, work, celebrating a new blue I painted on the walls of our home entry-way over the Winter break. The hall color used to be a dark lime green, close to the green in the film Amélie.  Our dogs are really great at being in photos, but not great at facing the camera! 

While I was doing the above painting project, I discovered while draping blankets and sheets over surfaces for protection, that our dogs really prefer to sleep with a curtain in front of their dog beds! When I left a sheet hanging on their "bedroom" for a few hours, they slept so soundly. Now when we leave for the day, we put this blanket down and they don't even wake up immediately when we first come home. Happy accident.

This evening, I received a little package of delight from my cousin Katie in Exeter: Mr. Men Royal Mail stamps! I love the hot pink scribble, Mr. Messy, but Mr. Tickle is a close second favorite and Mr. Bump a third.

Ask what you can do

This week I started a new job at the Kennedy School at Harvard University and it has been amazing to learn so far about the depths of departments, layers and levels of administration and governance and yet in some ways, it feels like a village. 

Across its campuses in Cambridge and Allston/Boston, Harvard comprises 5,000 acres, 18,000 employees, and over 20,000 students (6,600 undergrad). For many years, I've been driving or walking through Harvard Square while shopping, or on my way to other things, but I never thought of it as a village of people who have something in common. I never noticed how most every pedestrian you encounter is either a student, faculty or a staff of Harvard.

I've been fascinated with wandering around the HKS building, which sits on a beautiful park facing Memorial Drive next to an elegant white foot bridge that crosses over the river. My friend Art told me that in the 60's, the Kennedy family attempted to build the Kennedy Library in this location, but ultimately it was not approved. The HKS building is undergoing renovations to join its three wings with glass walkways and building a courtyard in the center. I sit in one wing (Littauer) but if I leave my cubicle and walk two feet, I'm in another wing (Rubenstein), both named for significant donors who were also alumni.

The inner child in me (the Judy in me) is very pleased that there's a spiral staircase up and down which I can take anytime I feel like it. : ) I also find it amusing that we are the JFK school on JFK Street, and everything at Harvard also seems to have a three-letter acronym. Everything. Everything. This place seems to be the inventors of sewn-on, monogrammed initials.

Many interesting and important experts in economics, policy, and leadership sit in the offices which I pass through several times a day and I probably won't recognize most of them. I was startled on Monday to run into Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first chief prosecutor for the UN's International Criminal Court in Den Haag. Maybe most people wouldn't recognize him, but Facing History has long acknowledged Ocampo to be one of many Watchers of the Sky, a term that fellow prosecutor and humanitarian Ben Ferencz coined.

I've decided in 2017 to give up facebook becuse it hadn't offered me any emotional or intellectual value for quite some time, and yet, instagram always offers me a soul service: good moods, smiles, laughs or a positive lift in my spirit whenever I log into it. Even if you don't have an account, you can find me on ig using this public link: www.instagram.com/lara_sue and you'll see what's new with me, at least in photographs and short captions.


One of my favorite ig photos recently is this campaign poster for the capital campaign at HKS. They have done a great job joining a call to action with what looks like the colorful sail of a sunfish, referencing the famous quote, "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country".

When I see this, it motivates me to think about all the ways in life, in all circumstances to ask what you can do.
It reminds me especially of Jesús Colón's mini-essay (which is like a fable), Little Things are Big. Even when someone is struggling with luggage on the bus or waiting in line behind you, looking like they had a really rough day and want to be left alone, you could greet them, smile, or offer a hand.

I also love my colleague's hilarious poster (left) about refraining from audibly sighing. That's applicable!

And finally, I loved this creative bookmark set (below) from Harvard's new Food Literacy Project which is working hard to raise awareness about healthy foods, nutrition, cleaner waste and recylcling practices, and shedding light on all levels of people having access to local, healthy foods with things like the Winter Farmer's Market. I think I am going to try to volunteer with FLP.

It was really hard to leave Facing History and Ourselves which is truly a hero of an organization, and which introduced to me to so many one-of-a-kind human beings and friends. But since I left the nonprofit sector formally, I am determined to volunteer with a couple orgs more than I used to, on a regular basis, and determined to continue going to FH public events as much as I can.