Blog: Underground New York Public Library

June 26, 2012

Neato book-related find of the day!

Underground New York Public Library

From the blog’s About page: “The Underground New York Public Library is a visual library featuring the Reading-Riders of the NYC subways.”

Every day the site posts a photo of someone reading a book while riding the New York City subway. It’s such a simple idea, to collect all of these photos together, and I think that’s a huge part of the site’s appeal. Plus, the photos are fantastic and I think the faces people hold while engrossed in a book are fascinating.

So fun, eh? :) Enjoy!

In book-geekery,
AS

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Dear Babygirl #14: Our new normal

June 19, 2012

Dear Babygirl,

You are 6 weeks and 1 day old today.

A couple months ago I wrote you a letter about normal. I wrote about how you would be arriving soon, so soon, and how my very normal days would soon be totally different very normal days.

Earlier today we went to the grocery store, you and I. It’s a million degrees outside and my car had been roasting all morning in the sun so I put you down in your swing and ran outside to pre-cool the car. Back inside I grabbed my cell phone and an extra burp cloth, hit refresh on my Inbox, glanced inside the diaper bag and yup, I did remember to restock the wipes, strapped you into your car seat, walked the dog into her kennel, grabbed my keys, confirmed no new emails had come in that needed attention, and we were off.

45 minutes later, driving home, I realized that, oh my gosh, this is my new normal. Actually, I take that back. I realized that the very first day we brought you home. Today I realized that my new normal was now…normal.

I didn’t worry or think thrice about the diaper bag contents and I didn’t try to pretend I could time your sleep or fussiness schedule with our grocery store trip and I didn’t give a thought to what might happen if you decided to scream in the middle of aisle 4. I just did it. You and I just did it.

It took me six weeks to get here, this normal New Normal with you by my side. Our very normal days of eating and pooping (on your part) and emailing and reading (on my part) and snuggling and fussing (for both of us). Our very normal days of sending photos to Grandmommy and making calls to Vemma friends and figuring out why even your freshly laundered clothes still smell like spit-up and writing for the Prairie. Our so very normal days. Today. These days. Now.

So very normal is now a better so very normal than it used to be. In every possible way.

Cheers to celebrating another so very normal day tomorrow, little one.

Love,
Mama

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For more in the Dear Babygirl series: Letters to my Daughter

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Energizer bunny?

June 15, 2012

Someone remarked today, after spending a couple minutes with me, that I seemed so energized for a new mom.

I wasn’t sure what to say.

Thanks! I think?
Why thank you, I took my vitamins this morning!
Energized? Yeah, I charged my batteries last night.

I have to admit, I’m not sure I agreed with this energized-accusing person. Looking in the mirror in the mornings, my most alert self I do not see. But, I started thinking about it a bit and, aside from my physical appearance, maybe I am energized…

My daughter. She energizes me.
She exhausts me, but she energizes me. (You know?)

The fact that I’m completely flexible in schedule, that I don’t have to count down the days until my defined maternity leave might end or worry about arranging child care, energizes me. Makes me feel more alive. More content. In some odd way, more free to be me.

I don’t have to “go back to work.” My life is my work. I’m adjusting to my new life, with my new role of Mama Dearest Snugglebunny. I get to incorporate that role into my life, into my work. And vice versa.

I’m happy. And tired. And fulfilled and openminded and excited.

About…everything.

I have a beautiful, healthy child, a wonderful husband, half a dozen projects to focus on and learn from and grow, and the freedom to do just about all of it when I want and how I want.

I have a lot of people that inspire me, push me, and who I would love nothing more than to help achieve the same freedoms.

And perhaps, I suppose, all of that energizes me.

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So there, Energizer accuser! :)

I better go plug in,
AS

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Just because you want to define your own life, doesn’t make you selfish

June 8, 2012

For a long time, I really struggled with the underlying reason why I wanted different things for my life than most other people.

Why I wanted Different, I had no idea, I just knew that I did. That frustrated me and often made me feel guilty.

Why was everyone else supposedly ok with the same things that I had?
Shouldn’t I be ok with just those things too?
Why did I feel like I deserved more?

Anyway, I got over it when I realized that those thoughts were holding me back from the very things I wanted. I got over it when I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and into situations where there were others that felt exactly the same way. I got over it by surrounding myself with as many of those people as possible.

Just because you want to define your own life, doesn’t make you more special than the next guy. It doesn’t make you selfish. You shouldn’t feel guilty for it.

If it’s how you feel, make it happen. I got in my own way – sometimes I still do – and it has done nothing but hold me back. Don’t make the same mistake, ok?

Don’t let yourself get in your own way.

Food for thought on this lovely Friday afternoon. :) Happy weekend!

Hugs,
AS

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Oprah’s Book Club re-launches!

June 4, 2012

Well this is fun news:

Oprah Announces Oprah’s Book Club 2.0

It’s the true story so fantastic Oprah launched a brand new, interactive book club to share the experience with readers everywhere! Watch to find out why Oprah says Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is truly a wild ride, and learn more about how to participate in Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 on your favorite e-reader.

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What’s even more fun is that this book, Wild, is one I just finished reading last week. Actually, I started and finished it last week. It was, like, kinda good, man.

It’s also the book that received the honor of First Book I Actually Sat Down to Read After My Child Was Born. So it’s got that going for it.

My thoughts on the book? Loved it. It was a fascinating, emotional, and adventuresome memoir that ended up being a lot ‘deeper’ than I ever expected. Thumbs up from this peanut gallery.

Looking forward to upcoming Oprah picks!

In the mean time, what have YOU been reading lately? Anything relaxing you’d recommend for a new Mama? :)

Yay for book clubs,
AS

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A book’s vision, 8 years later

June 1, 2012

The Weekend Millionaire’s Secrets to Investing in Real Estate
by Mike Summey & Roger Dawson

This book has been on my shelf for as long as I can remember. I’ve avoided it for years. For some reason last month, I finally plucked it off the book shelf and sat down to start skimming its contents.

I had no recollection of when, where, or why I bought this book. Remember this for later.

I’ve read a couple dozen books on investing in real estate, and only a handful of them have come close to describing the philosophies and methods that we actually follow. Not that how we choose to invest in rental properties is the only way to do it, only that there are a TON of different ways to do it. Most books on the subject I read and think, “Thanks, but I politely disagree.”

This book had be nodding my head and yup yup yupping to practically every page. It described our process to a T. It was perfect.

Once I had skimmed the majority of the book and excitedly shared the discovery of it with Hubz, I happened to take a glance at the inside front cover.

Actually, before I show you what it said, a quick reminder about my background:

I graduated college in May of 2003, moved to Kansas City, and started my corporate job that July. I started really getting into personal development in college, mostly by reading books, but I was very much at the beginning of my journey. I wasn’t actively learning about investing in real estate, I knew no one who had invested in real estate, I was in no position to invest in real estate. I was just beginning to form the idea that I could work for myself someday if I found a way to build a business that could support me.

What I did have, however, was the knowledge that someday, somehow, I would have rental properties. That’s it.

Ok, here’s the inside cover:

“ALP Mar 2004”

I bought this book in the spring of 2004, barely nine months into my corporate, post-college life. Why I bought it then, I have no idea, but I like to think that I was meant to.

At a time in my life where all I knew about real estate investing was that someday I naively wanted to be involved in it, I purchased a book that described the exact methods I would someday follow, didn’t know it, ignored the book for years, forgot all about its existence, in fact, and proceeded to learn the hard way through trial and error and mentors and experience about investing in real estate exactly as the book described.

I’m not sure what all of that means – Vision? Fate? A higher power? – but I think I like it.

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The voice has returned. I think.

May 25, 2012

I’m sitting in bed, still wearing my pajamas with the laptop propped up on a pillow in front of me. Little A is laying in the bassinet to my left, wiggling and grunting, apparently deciding if she wants to fall asleep or demand a larger breakfast. The clock on the dresser reads 9:27, but it’s fast, so I suppose it’s really around 9:15.

It’s raining outside, the type of rain that follows a mild thunderstorm. Steady and peaceful and refreshing. I went downstairs a couple of hours ago to feed the dog and grab a bowl of cereal and realized that with the thunderstorm came a 10+ degree drop in temperature. On my way back upstairs I clicked off the AC and reveled in the fact that I will get to snooze and snuggle and check my email for the rest of the early morning with the windows open, listening to the rain and breathing in the scent of fresh that accompanies it.

It’s been 18 days since the little one came into our lives. 18 days of my new role of Mommy, 18 days since oh wasn’t that the most darling grunt ever ouch do not do that with your mouth IT HURTS I think her eyes are turning a lighter shade of blue with each passing day look at me I can type with one hand!

I’ve barely written anything in those 18 days. Three weeks ago I was in the midst of a wonderful streak where story ideas and blog ideas and writing project ideas of all kinds were pouring out of me. I use a basic text editor to initially record snippets and ideas and my desktop was so overrun with text files that I spent an entire afternoon while I was in the hospital opening and re-reading them and filing them away.

I haven’t touched my journal – not even a one-line “She’s here!” entry – for three weeks. I think about it daily but it just doesn’t appeal to me. It feels like it would take too much effort. If it feels like it would take that much effort, well, isn’t that NOT the point of journaling? It didn’t require effort or even thought before. It flowed. It just happened.

So this morning when I returned to bed, set down my cereal bowl, and picked her wiggling buns up from the bassinet, bending carefully to avoid angering the back that I have already ruined by nursing and carrying her around with terrible posture, it took me a while to realize that I was narrating again.

The writing voice had popped back into my head.

I was narrating the sound of the Friday morning raindrops on the window sill and the feeling of happiness and contentment in the room and the look of the messy bed and her white and pink striped one-piece with the zipper that’s still a size too big but oh isn’t it cute she looks like a girly convict.

I was putting words to my thoughts about time freedom and flexibility and its true purpose in life, its true purpose in my life. I was making mental notes to write down ideas for blog posts from those two emails I received that triggered that cool idea. I was outlining the guest post for that blog that I love that hmm maybe I could give something to their audience like they have given to me?

The voice had very much returned.

So back into the bassinet she went and back downstairs I went and back up the stairs I returned, laptop in hand, to begin awkwardly yet effortlessly listening to the narrator and recording as demanded.

And that’s what I’m doing now.

I’m excited to see where this goes.
AS

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Dear Babygirl #13: You have arrived.

May 15, 2012

Dear Babygirl,

You have arrived. (!!!!!!!!!!!!)

And it’s about time, girlfriend.

Sunday, May 6th I stepped out of the shower around lunchtime and realized that your swimming pool had sprung a leak. You threw that water over the edge for several straight hours, until Daddy and I finally checked into the hospital late that afternoon.

More than 24 hours of natural labor, chemically induced labor, and pharmaceutically eased labor later and there you were, sweet and perfect and screaming.

Well, not so much on the screaming part. You decided to blaze your own unique trail into this world, Babygirl, and you put yourself through the ringer while you were at it. Your scream was more like a whimper. But it was the loveliest little whimper we had ever heard.

We laughed while you were whimpering because, after all, doing things your own way and stubbornly taking your own time? Sounds a little bit like someone we know.

Ahem.

I asked your Daddy twice in the first thirty seconds after you arrived if he was going to faint. The look on his face, well, let’s just say that the impact of seeing his Babygirl for the first time was a bit more forceful than he had anticipated.

It was heartbreakingly darling.

The past 8 days have been filled with so many firsts, I’m not even sure where to begin.

Your first snuggles with your grandparents. Your first nap with Mama.

Your first trip to the doctor, to Target, and – very, very important, this one was – your first trip to Barnes & Noble.

Your first screaming fit at 3am, your first diaper blowout and subsequent wardrobe change, your first “gas smile.”

(We think you might have a dimple, Babygirl. If you do, it might just send your Daddy over the edge.)

We’ve dressed you in your first outfit and showed you off to your first visitors and taken you to your first photo shoot.

Your first bottle, your first paci, your first hair bow, your first spit-up all over Mama’s clean shirt.

So many firsts, and it’s only been a week and a day.

So many more to come. So many, many more.

Love,
Mama

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Addy Lane Sorensen
May 7th, 2012, 5:30pm
7 lbs. 7 oz., 20 inches long, and perfect in every way.

(Photos courtesy of only.young.once photography.)

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For more in the Dear Babygirl series: Letters to my Daughter

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