Walkability

One of my favorite things about many European cities and European culture really is the emphasis on walking. As I can remember from my time abroad especially when I lived on Borgo Pio in Vatican City is that you walk often. We walked to school, we walked to go shopping, we walked to the grocery store, we walked to monuments and museums, we walked...well you get the picture. I love this style of living, it keeps you healthy and it is just a wonderful and tactile way to experience your neighborhood. Well this is something I am really looking forward to when we move to Denver. 

I have come across this really nifty site called Walk Score (http://www.walkscore.com/CO/Denver) and it basically breaks cities down in terms of how easy they are to walk around. Denver is rated the 16th most walkable city (and weirdly enough Cleveland is the 17th) and to put this into perspective New York is number one. Capitol Hill, one of the areas of Denver we are looking at has a Walk Score of 90 and this really gets my juices going! I have wonderful visions of bopping around my neighbor shopping and eating and chatting away staying fit and trim and NOT wasting money on gas. Now doesn't that sound delightful?!

Please Check Brains at the Door

Being stuck at work with the impending move looming in the near future has left me in limbo. This cubicle farm of an office is now my purgatory.  In addition, being stuck here all day is incredibly frustrating: all I want to do is get a move on (literally). My focus is split down the middle between work and moving to Denver. I want to start cleaning and packing the house and get rid of old clothes and sell off unused furniture, but I can't just yet because there is still some precautionary money to be made and saved. Thus, I marinate patiently in my thoughts of a city a mile high in the air, mountains of fluffy snow even higher, and an unfamiliar, albeit friendly, cityscape waiting to be explored and enjoyed. On the bright side, however, I have had lots of time to make to-do lists and think about what I want out of the next few months.

The first step toward the model life I've deemed more suitable for purveying my happiness is taking the GRE for graduate school acceptance. Initially, I had no idea what the GRE is or on what material it will test me. Turns out, it's pretty casual stuff. The GRE is comprised of data interpretation, verbal aptitude, algebraic math, and variations on each of the aforementioned. I've been focusing on the math portion so far. This may beg the question "why would someone who uses math almost every day need to prepare for a rudimentary exam?" But holy crap; I am amazed at how much I've forgotten.

All of the sudden I feel as if I'm on an episode of "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?"

(Probably not.)

Granted, everything is coming back pretty quickly, I just would not have been prepared at all if I had been hit with something like a quadratic equation and asked to factor it out. So I'm trying to get through all the math topics so I can get on with the verbal stuff. Maybe I'll take up reading the dictionary while I half-assedly complete my work projects... 

Even though I am here and I do not really want to be, I will not sink so low as to cause my peers and superiors to question my performance. But I know where my mind is and it is, unfortunately, not at work. Yet through forcing myself to drive here every day while a carrot named Denver hangs from a stick in front of my beloved Subie, I have realized that focus is an incredibly hard thing to master and maintain. Yet I've also learned that you have to be focused on something that you care about, something you love, something you actually want in order to truly access your potential as a happy human being. So no more doing things for a decent paycheck for me. No more taking the first job that comes along because it's a safe bet. No more forcing myself to act like I'm happy in front of my boss. While I won't be making any sudden changes that aren't financially and socially responsible, I will, however, be funneling all of my focus into things I truly love. And that is why we're moving. 

Who's Thirsty?

It is my belief that one of the scariest things in life is simply the unknown. Never truly knowing what the future holds can be intimidating, nerve-racking, and ofttimes downright terrifying. By knowing exactly what to expect, the majority of fear may be removed from any situation. Whether it be knowing what the weather will be like tomorrow or what work you've got waiting on your desk, just knowing things like that make the future considerably less scary. Yet, everyone has a tipping point at which they are compelled to hurl themselves straight into the vast unknown; a point at which people have decided they've had enough of their day-to-day life and it's time for a change. It is at this point in life, at this fulcrum of a moment, when hope is introduced into the unknown and it becomes not-so-threatening.

This is precisely where I am. I have come to the realization that you cannot (and should not) continue to do something that does not make you happy. Stir that realization in with the unknown and a dash of hope and you've got yourself one intoxicating concoction. And that's exactly what I've been sipping on these days.

"Imagine that, Joe making a drink reference in his first blog post."

Coincidentally, I must say that I believe it is that in life which makes us want to drink that may also be what pushes us into the unknown. In a bitter-sweet fashion I am happy for these things. After all, it's good to know not only what you want to do with your life, but also what you do not want to do. The latter is something that I've had less than a hard time figuring out thanks to five years in the industry I've chosen thus far and the people in it.

This introductory post may ring of themes found in Rachael's previous posts - she has her own motivations and her own story to tell, so I will let her tell it - but this is mine and this is my perspective. I offer it to anyone who cares to read it. This is a slight glimpse into my life, what I have been and will be doing, and what my motivation is. Like two columns holding up the same bridge, Rachael and I are bearing this load together. We may not know all the details of where that bridge leads, but I can assure you it is a sturdy bridge and I could not be more excited that we've made the decision to build it together.

So to my friends, my family, my wife-to-be, both liked and disliked co-workers, to Cleveland and our future home in Denver, I raise my glass. Here's to you and here's to everything in life that makes us all strive for greater happiness.

Cheers,
Joe

Carpe Diem!

Today is my first week of non-work, work and I'd say it falls on a pretty momentous and significant day. Today is not only the second inauguration of President Obama but it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day as well. How much more symbolic could this day get as far as living the dream, making changes and seizing the day goes? On that note I would like to give you a few quotes to sit on as you go about your daily activities.

"If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward."  MLK Jr.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Obama

Think about these two men we get to celebrate today. They represent the progress we have made as a nation and that is beautiful but they also represent the future and that there is no time like the present to DO things. I may not currently be working on the momentous things that they were/are like equality or ramping back U.S. spending, but I am working towards their ultimate goal which is happiness and (inner)peace.

So to turn the symbolic meanings of this day inward it is yet another reminder that I should just LIVE life and not worry so much. There is no one else on this earth who can propel me on my most productive, my most inspirational, my most meaningful life path then me. From today onward I would like to propel my own self closer to happiness and peace one small project at a time starting with the clothes that are waiting to be donated in my closet!

Before I really get down to the nitty gritty of de-cluttering I would like to leave you with one last gem of wisdom bestowed on us by Mr. Obama, "Why can't I just eat my waffle?" Now ponder that!

Up Up and Away: An Introduction

Dear Blogosphere,

I come to you with one week left of my two-weeks notice to start the process of what I consider one of the craziest things I have ever done. I am so scared and its not just first week of school jitters it is an all encompassing, existential fear, but it is a beautiful, good fear too. I know that doesn't make sense but hear me out now. On the one hand I am lucky enough to be able to quit a job that I really do not like so I can pack up the homestead and move across the United States with my hubs-to-be and make a cozy little life for ourselves complete with new jobs, new careers, new friends and big adventures. Maybe this doesn't sound all that crazy to you, but I was the girl who came back from freshman year in Chicago so I could be closer to my mom, like live at home for the next 3 years plus pastry school, plus a little grad school. And we still head over for breakfasts and dinners during the week. As my mom puts it now I live an umbilical cord away. So can I cut the cord and move to Denver and like it? I don't know. But I want to try and I want to like it and I am going to document this journey along with the hubs-to-be. This will be a place to share the ups (and some downs), the job searches and hopefully interviews, the dinners and drinks, and just the whole process of finding our peace in Denver.

Carpe Diem,

Rache