Sweet romantic 20-year-old nights?

Oh, how moving sucks. I feel like it's the end of the year at college - except I'm missing the shared pain you get when you meet eyes with another college kid who is also dumping all their stuff in loose pieces, dangerously piled on top of each other into cars to take it to the next place they will keep their assortment of junk.

I haven't been as responsible as I should about moving so I think this Saturday - when we absolutely have to be out of the apartment - will feel like move out day at ASU. But luckily, I know I can do it, because I have done it four times before. I just hope I really follow through with that desire I get afterwards to throw out a bunch of my stuff because really who needs to own so many things it can fill up a couple cars?

Anywho - the point of this post is a thought that came upon me when finding a sweet parking spot in front of the bar where our friends were hosting a happy hour. There were a bunch of songs that while I was in college, I assumed would only feel like they applied to me at that time and I wouldn't enjoy it as much when I left school. One such song was on in the car - Italian Restaurant by Billy Joel - a song I always tried to force the piano players at The Big Bang in Tempe to play by giving them a twenty dollar bill. The line that stood out most for me in that song was this: "Cold beer! Hot lights! My sweet romantic teenage nights!" And it dawned on me that I am certainly having cold beer, hot lights, and sweet romantic 20-year-old-age nights. Which first made me want to find a better word for someone in their 20's, and then made me want to share with more people who are graduating that all these things that you think won't apply to you when you become an "old person," may not happen at all if you invest time in friendships, and make time for fun, even when you feel major adult responsibilities (like I don't know needing to move out of your apartment into a new condo...) weighing on you. We always found ways to take care of homework, part-time jobs, club leadership duties, and more in college in addition to enjoying our lives to the point of recklessness. I say drink an extra cup o' joe and deal with it - and you'll always have sweet romantic soul-recharging nights.

Memories from graduating last year

Wow! I have changed so much since graduation. My awesome friend Arman (who met the President this time last year actually) sent us a message to update us all on his life - and invited all of us to update every one else. It's honestly made me so happy to hear how everyone's doing. These are people that will always stay with me. I made a video for our Senior Year Banquet - and it was such a joy to put together.

Here is part one of the video:


And here is part two (which features Arman at the very beginning!):


I love you '05 cohort and always will!!

These are the days...

....to remember.

When I was younger, I'd stay up late while my mom-mom would talk about a few of her favorite things. She had a blue coat with blue buttons when she was sixteen and she felt like a princess whenever she wore it. She had pumps she would wear with it. I can just imagine her, with the hem of her dress hanging below her long coat, feeling like a queen.

Well, that's how I felt when I went into the city today - walking in heels over cobbled stone paths with big green trees dropping rain drops all around me. A drenched spring in D.C. is the best when you have girly feelings like I did today. It's easy to soak in the beauty as you walk by - especially if you feel pretty, which I did because I was wearing a blue coat, with a lovely full skirt peeking out underneath and I couldn't help but think of my mom-mom.

I'm glad I learned to always remember how lovely it is to be a girl from all the fabulous women that raised me.

Photo post

My favorite blogs have LOTS of photos. The latest ones I've put on facebook are QUITE old (as in Oct./Nov.) but they are still fun. So I will write about the photos......


This is my friend Calvin. He's pretty cute. This is a great picture to start with because he just moved here and I am TOTALLY thrilled about it. This guy is my best friend. We stuck by each other (especially when we needed each other most) all through college and tried to hang out AS MUCH as possible before I moved to D.C. and he moved to Tucson.

BUT Guess what? He lives in D.C. now too! He has a fancy job at the Treasury and still has time to hang out with me. Sweet!

Neeeeeeexxxxxxttt!



These are some of my FAVORITE girlfriends. They live in AZ, sadly, and look how cute they are dressed up as roller derby girls. It was a very touch subject to bring up the fact that Whip It just came out in theaters. THEM, (collectively): "We came up with this idea BEFORE we even heard anything about that movie! Sad face." Do roller derby girls count devil girls as their good friends? I hope so.

Thirdsies!



He is the cheese to my macaroni, and the sun to my devil. I came up with this costume for going back on Halloween for Homecoming, and it was my BIGGEST pet peeve for someone to say "Devil? Sooo original" (with rolled eyes, of course) whenever Dusty wasn't by my side. It WAS pretty original actually!

You want more? Here comes numbah 4!



My dear friend David. He was a battery. He has lots of energy. I thought it was perfect. Another AZ friend, who I miss as well.

5555555


I truly aspire to make a sangria this beautiful and this delicious. I'll invite you over when I do. Don't let me forget.

Six is for sweethearts ... newlyweds!



I love these two so much! Taylor & Jason just got MARRIED!!! Just a few weeks ago. Their wedding was blissful, classy, and represented the two of them as a couple so much it made me weepy. I CANNOT stop talking to Dusty (and partly freaking him out) about what I want my wedding to be like. Taylor did such a FANTASTIC job, I feel like I need to plan for five years, even without a ring on my finger! : ) Here is herblog and the blog of the photo studio her FABULOUS sister owns!

7 is the place I've wanted to go (and haven't been to!) since at least that age...



This is an odd angle on this REALLY cool LAND ride in DISNEY WORLD! I took about a thousand pictures there. They take you through a greenhouse where they show all these amazing ways they are growing things. One of my favorite "rides" that wasn't a ride.

8 is for grrrrrreat family



This is a picture of my brother, Jim, my sister-in-law Renee, and my sister-in-law's brother, Eric. We went to Disney together, and we've been on other trips together since I've moved to D.C. I really love these three people and feel that they are a wonderful family to me--dealing with my obnoxious amount of picture-taking and my overexcitement about everything.

A stitch in time saves 9



"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." If this didn't come up as number 9 in my little photo post I would have never posted it using that expression as context. But I think it's a good frame of mind around sustainable agriculture, or sustainable anything for that matter. Prevention is worth the pay off. People would sometimes just rather do the cheapest, easiest, most convenient, laziest thing rather than the one that should happen now but will save us lots of trouble in the end. This is a picture of a .... get this... tomato tree. How cool and innovative!

How is it sustainable? A caption I found online explains:

The plant's single vine grows tens of thousands of golf ball-sized tomatoes which are harvested and served at restaurants across Walt Disney World Resort. Huang's first tomato tree at Epcot, planted last year, set a Guinness World Record when it yielded a harvest of more than 32,000 tomatoes from one vine. The tomato trees can be seen by guests on the pavilion"s "Living with the Land" boat ride.

I loved that Living with the Land boat ride!! : )

To Infinity and Beyond!!! (Or just to 10... and no further) : )



How gorgeous!!! I love the parks at Disney World. They are so inspiring, and everything a kid dreams it to be like. Tomorrowland was a blast!!!

Sorry there were so many dorky puns but I can't help it; it's just me!

Love out to the blogosphere!

VANCOUVER!!

Sooooo I feel like I have SO MUCH to say about covering the Olympics in Vancouver! I feel like once I pull in pictures, it will be easier to tell more. So, for now, in my mess of a suitcase that I'm sure contains the camera cord I need, I will just make a list, of what I will miss a lot... and what I won't miss. : )

What I won't miss:
10) Being away from home and being away from my routine of going to the office, working on a video story, talking to Katye, Les, & Rene, driving to and from work with Dusty, going out with friends in D.C., playing in our bocce league, etcetera...... : )
9) Beeping horns after Canadian wins... They were intense! I will not miss that.
8) Take out, take-out, and more take-out... India Gate's buttery chicken was the best thing I had that was take-out in Vancouver (yum) ... but it was nice to sit down in a restaurant the few times we got away from our production room.
7) My total inability to buy souvenirs! There was nothing that really appealed to me for friends & family (besides the few things I was able to pick up--like the shot glass I got Meg for her collection) and what I REALLY wanted was the mittens. I checked and rechecked so many times, but only snagged 3, and 2 were already promised to a friend.
6) No Hulu and no pandora! What would I do with my life? Thanks to fellow blogger and another one of those good az friends who ended up in D.C. and an advo too in fact Natalie Fletcher Cubbal, I found out about grooveshark, a website where you can list a bunch of songs and listen to them as much as you want. Quite ideal, I'd say! Which is why I was listening to SO very much of the boss, GREAT motivation. : )
5) Long render times... and maybe the long hours, too. (But I do not lose sight of the fact that I was really really lucky to be there, no matter what kind of work I had to do.)
4) Lack of social time with anyone there. But same footnote as the one before it... And it must be said that I went to a really sweet curling party before the games started. So awesome!
3) Slow-moving crowds. It's soooo east coast of me, BUT everyone was looking up and around and never straight ahead and moving forward. There were several large stairs that led me down to the office where I worked. It was a BEAUTIFUL plaza, and so much was constantly going on -- jugglers, performers, dancers, everything. (You can't see the crowds in this picture because it wasn't shot during the Olympics, but basically this level is after a few stairs down, and then after I tucked in a door to the side there were more stairs down... So many people, though! haha)
So I guess you can't blame them because they were there for fun, and I was there to work so I had a direct mission and a place to get to while they just ambled and took it all in. But still, you can be considerate to who is trying to get through! And the worst part was the stairs... If there had been any kind of emergency, people would have been stuck for sure! There was no easy way to get through on the stairs YIKES!
2) No phone!! That was really rough for me. Also no kindle was pretty bad... It got damaged on the trip. That was another major way for me to unwind, and I didn't have those. Lame-o.
1) Cheesy for sure, but what I missed most was Dusty. He's my best friend and he's so great to live with! So of course I missed him!


What I will miss:
10) My PRESS PASS!! I will definitely post a picture soon. The beloved press pass got me into so many cool places and around crowds in certain ares, so that was way awesome. I saw the finals for ladies' figure skating because of that bad boy. So cool.
9) Pin trading! It is a super big deal to trade pins in the Olympic host city--between journalists, Starbucks baristas, the security personnel at all venues--It makes everything like a big opportunity to meet anyone. It's really fun. I got some sweet pins from this French guy who I think only knew the words "pins" and "no money" in English. That's all I needed! I got a pin from Nagano and Calgary from him! The whole thing kind of reminded me of the National Catholic Youth Conference, and any 4-H conference I went to where it's just all about meeting people. So nice!
8) My hotel was on the WATER! Seeing ships on the harbor every morning gave me instant happiness, and there was something so romantic about the foggy misty look of English Bay. I usually walked from my hotel along the water up to the press center where I worked. Sooooo pretty!
7) I got gifts in my hotel room every day! I made a facebook post about it: Shannon Green I'm excited to get back home to D.C., but I know I will miss the person who comes into my room every day and makes the bed, cleans the bathroom, takes out the trash and even organizes my stuff sometimes. On top of all of this, they have been leaving a gift everyday, and good ones! So after working 13-14 hours, it is nice to come back to a clean place with a gift waiting : ) hmmmm... guess I'll have to hire a gift maid. haha - Friends suggested that Dusty would be up for the job and work for cheap. I think I'd rather have him make dinner every night (no more take out for a really long time!! yay!) which he does for free. sweeeeet. I'll make a blog post with pictures of all the stuff I got.
6) Funnily enough, there was a lot of funny Canadian tv shows on at 3 a.m. that I liked. I think my favorite channel was slice and the best show was Til Debt Do Us Part. This woman comes in and puts crazy spenders on a budget and if they survive, she gives them $5,000 and they have a plan to get out of debt in the next couple of years. It hurt their relationships a lot so she helped with that, too... It was kind of addicting! I also saw some sweet Scottish wife swap episode and it made me think of my friend and (again) fellow blogger Jane Christie. She can do a sweet Scottish accent lickety split because she still has family living there. I think I kept watching the show solely because of their accents! Also, a dream come true: Waiting for Guffman came on at 3 a.m. It happened when I was pretty far in (I think 16th or 17th Vancouver Today... so I was sooooo happy, haha)
5) I learned a whole bunch in a short amount of time and learned a lot about staying calm and solving problems in high-pressure situations. I felt like I also learned how to identify what I need to be more effective and how to respectfully ask others to help me with that and achieve my goal. I also learned a lot technically from the nightly shoots and editing all night.
4) I was in the Olympic host city!! There was so much beauty all around, excitement, and things you would ONLY see there. Case in point: the Olympic cauldron, the torch relay which I caught the tail end of, athletes, athletes, and more athletes!, the countdown clock to the Olympics , a zip line (not sure this is an Olympic city thing but it was pretty cool going across the square haha), proud and kind Canadians, tons of people from all over the world wearing clothes to identify where they are from with pride, and general controlled chaos.
3) Being able to attend Olympic events. I went to women's hockey USA v. Russia, ladies' figure skating, long-track speedskating and saw a medal ceremony! and finally, closing ceremonies. That is fantastically lucky and fortunate and I am so so so happy I took a bajillion pictures and videos of those happenings. I think I took so much because I just wanted to say, "I was here and I saw this" and document it forever. I kept pinching myself.
2) Being completely immersed in the stories of Olympians, who are in the end normal people who work really really hard and get up after they fall. I was pretty baffled when I saw them in the airport entourage-less and in coach like the rest of us. How did that happen? I'm still not sure. There were stories of complete failure and complete success--sometimes for the same athlete. There was drama, and there was friendship and happiness. When I felt upset about a technical difficulty with the show, I just reminded myself that I didn't get disqualified in an event that I had been working towards for four years, so I was okay. The stories of these Olympians are so heightened and powerful because they are competing on the world stage. Wow. And they do it and they either succeed or fail or do a mixture of both and then they go home to do more work for the next four years. On top of that, all these people with different cultures and backgrounds come together and respectfully compete against each other. There's really something redeeming and beautiful that comes through in all of that.
1) All the walking in the pretty town of mountains against beautiful water past smiling faces, flowers for sale, and book stores. I know it was good for my health and good for my soul.

More Olympic stories to come. : )

Posting for posting's sake

Right now, I am wishing I was able to celebrate with Taylor & her bridesmaids for the bachelorette party. I did get a lot done this weekend, so that is my only solace for missing it.

Dusty & I are decidedly not watching the super bowl. I'll watch all the ads on USA TODAY's ad meter, and he will probably watch them on Hulu. We're kind of excited for this"If I can dream" show on hulu. Guess we'll see if it amounts to anything soon enough.

I leave for the Olympics SO soon! It's crazy and exciting!! I hope I have everything ready. I'm trying to do everything I can to be prepared for the daily show.

I haven't blogged in a while, but here were some funny thoughts between last post & this one:

Dusty and I were getting ready to go to our Bocce Ball game (we joined a league) and he said, Oh no, the State of the Union is tonight! And I said, what, do you want to stay home and watch? (Because that didn't sound very much like Dusty). It took me a second (or maybe more seconds than I'd like to recognize publicly on my blog) to realize that he was talking about the fact that our league meets a few blocks from the Capitol. Ha-ha! Only in d.c.

Also, we won our bocce ball game of last week! My teammates said that I was "mvp" but I think I just got ridiculously lucky. Regardless, we were all super happy!

I guess all I have to talk about besides work is bocce.

Oh, and I guess one more thing:
Dusty & I dug out our car this morning and now we feel super strong and capable.

Anywho, that's all.

grown-up stuff and friend fun... wowza they are growing up too!

a few moments ago - dusty: facsimile? what's that?

We are slowly becoming grown-ups. Tonight, the two of us kids...

-Applied for a loan, and worked out a joint agreement contract for POSSIBLY owning a home together! : )

In other news: justin & toby might come to d.c. for a visit-- justin, to check out law schools; toby to check out d.c. - never been to our nation's capital before--apparently, never been out of az nm ca area!

Also, my funny cousin Megan left me a voicemail nearly singing with excitement that she browned ground meat for tacos. "I think I should win an award for being awesome." That is a direct quote.

Finally, I leave you with a challenge for myself: no more vending machine food of any sorts, even if it seems harmless like trail mix. I was doing great with this when I didn't have any dollar bills but they seem to keep coming back to me in change lately. I need to bring my own snacks carefully measured out in ziploc bags. Here's to hopin' I start seeing some results!

I'm waiting to start running until I get back from the olympics because I'm using free time to work on production plans for Vancouver Today. Before I know it, it will be March and I will be shimmying into a pretty yellow bridesmaid dress for Taylor Dancer's wedding!! Tay tay loves me so much she even made a special leg shout-out to me and suggested we all shorten our dresses. She will become Taylor Joy Ake, and Dusty & I are going to walk down the aisle together at their ceremony, just like she had always planned. She told the entire crowd at our LSP senior campfire that this would be so, and I love her for even beginning to think of me that highly. I adore her. It kills me that I won't be at her VERY fun Bridal Shower and bachelorette party fun due to all the Vancouver stuff. Check out her pretty blog, the actual cutest blog on the block: http://taylorjoy.wordpress.com/

Love to all!