Super comfy recliners!

I love my parents and all, but I've gotta say, one of the best parts of going back home has to be an oversized, leather recliner that sits in our family room. My parents managed to find a leather recliner that feels like a La-Z-Boy without resembling one of those schlumpy, ugly devils that bachelors seem to find so appealing. In fact, the chair reminds me quite a bit of the chair that Aiden made Carrie on "Sex & the City." See? (In the right corner!)


Anyway, I love the chair not because of its resemblance to what some would call famous furniture, but because it completely, totally envelopes those who sit in it. It is a far superior piece of furniture than any I've ever experienced in my life, even soaring above the ridiculously plush couches in my apartment. The beauty of the chair is that it is so multi-purpose; its wooden arms are perfect for resting plates or glasses on while eating. I usually put my digital solitaire game on own arm and the remote on the other, so they are both without reaching distance whilst I enjoy some TV.

Being leather and all, this chair is not the greatest in the summer because it sticks to your legs, etc. But despite Global Warming's best efforts to raise temperatures into T-shirt weather as of late, it is still chilly enough to snuggle up under a blanket while sitting in my favorite chair during the evening. I've been enjoying falling asleep mid-way through movies while sitting in that recliner recently.

If you have the means, I'd highly recommend picking up a chair of similar structure. I mean, who doesn't love super-comfy recliners? I love it when I'm at someone's house and I find the oversized recliner free for my enjoyment. It is always better than awkwardly getting stuck crammed on the couch with friends and/or their various family members. This recliner's the tops, though. It even makes me look forward to aimless channel surfing with my mum.

Naps!

During the winter it is so easy to become consumed with the television and freshly washed blankets and snuggle up on the couch. Naps have quickly become one of my favorite past times. No matter what time of day, I love the feeling of rolling over on the couch and just taking a little nap, it's relaxing and a great way to pass these boring December days.

I think some of my best napping experiences have occurred in between classes while I am at school. I remember having one particularly good nap Freshman year where I had a dream that my roommate had come back from class and pulled a mountain bike down from the ceiling of the room. She then proceeded to go on a bike ride. I woke up when she actually came through the door and I asked her how her ride was, needless to say, she gave me such a strange look.

I also had a number of really good naps last year in Scott Quad. My bed was super comfortable and super warm and was so incredibly welcoming when I came back from my 8am Linguistics class Winter quarter. To snuggle up in those warm sheets on those cold mornings was like heaven in memory foam pillows.

I have had little success with naps in my apartment, my room does not feel nearly as cozy and my blankets aren't as welcoming. Hopefully the winter will change this. For now, I'm just napping to pass the time.

Coffee on Cold Mornings

I never drank coffee until I was a senior in high school and I did so because all my friends were doing it (in the traditional after-school special sense). Once I moved away to college, coffee became less of a social activity and more of a necessity, by Winter quarter freshman year I was hands-down addicted.

The height of my addiction was probably Fall quarter sophomore year where I would wake up extra early in the morning so I could venture out to The Front Room just to intake my daily requirement of caffeine.

When I wake in the morning, one of my first thoughts is "coffee now!" and it's nice to be at home because I seem to have an endless supply. What is spectacular about winter cups of coffee is that they not only wake you up, but they warm you up. It's like an energizing little hug every morning (or afternoon, if you're like me and you sleep until one o'clock).

I feel like I'm living in a Folger's Commercial.

anti-simple pleasures

It has been a million years since we have updated and I fear that this update is going to focus more on my anti simple pleasures. these are things that grind my gears or make me kind of sad.

ERIN'S ANTI-SIMPLE PLEASURES

1. Vomiting.
long story here, but just let you know that a.) I'm never drinking again and b.) I enjoyed my thanksgiving dinner twice

2. Loneliness
I'm home, with only my parents to keep me company. I love them dearly but I haven't been around people my own age in a week.

3. Carpal Tunnel
due to the boringness of being home, I have excessively been using the internet. perhaps I may even start living in the internet. prolonged laptop use = sore wrists. uck.

4. The Shower at Home
my shower in my apartment is so luxurious - it's always steamy and always has wonderful pressure. my shower at home is only lukewarm and the pressure is terrible. not to mention I left the good shampoo in Athens.

5. Faux Pas
of any sort. hate them.

Diet Coke

As we speak I am in the ACRN studio and I have just completed a delicious can of diet coke. I am a diet coke-head, the only drink I can honestly say i am in love with.
Diet Coke is a simple pleasure because it has been with me through thick and thin, good days and bad days. Diet coke gets me going in the morning and helps me rewind in the evening. If i could I would marry diet coke.

New Classes

Here at Ohio University, our academic year is divided into quarters which makes the joy of having all new classes come three times a year (or four times if you do summer quarters). I love having new classes because each fall, winter, and spring it is a fresh start to do something great. Each class affects me in a different and exciting way and each quarter I always seem to welcome one class that will forever change how I view the world. Although, going to class can sometimes be a drag, at least that first class can hopefully motivate you for the entire quarter.

ice cream!

Ice Cream. It's my greatest treat and my greatest vice. Each bite of this cold, sloppy goodness brings back great memories of childhood, sunday afternoon dates and gabfests at Cold Stone Creamery.
Ice Cream is the one food that can always make me so much happier as soon as it falls upons my taste buds. The sun suddenly shines brighter, the world becomes vibrant, my life becomes complete.

Honestly, if the government would pass the bill to make marrying inanimate objects legal, I would be know as Mrs. Ice Cream.


Side Note: If Cold Stone Creamery wanted to create a signature "Erin S." dish, it would be banana ice cream with brownie mixed in.

Reading!

I have been such a slacker in a number of ways this summer, updating the blog, keeping up with cleaning house, and getting myself organized for going back to school (four days now!), but most disappointingly I have been seriously slacking in my reading for the entire summer.
This is a huge shame because those hazy humid days of bad hair and sticky thighs always allow me to lock myself in my air conditioned bedroom and snuggle up with some good reading. But this summer I have been too focused on either working or losing my mind to daytime television (my guiltiest of all pleasures). Luckily, I have a boyfriend who has his own personal library and allows me to take as many books as I like. So in these last remaining days of Summer I have been trying to catch up on all the reading I have allowed to escape me. However, there will be absolutely no way I can finish up my reading list which includes:

1. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (a library book that I need to finish by friday)
2. Ariel by Sylvia Plath (I'm not usually a big poetry advocate but Sylvia Plath's writing is so beautifully tragic it's hard to ignore... also a library book)
3. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (I bought then when Jill and I went thrifting during my trip to Athens, a complete steal at 35 cents)
4. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (One of Alex's books, a play based on the Scope's Monkey Trial, I'm not exactly that keen on reading plays)
5. Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk (I never finished Fight Club in the Spring, blame my Sociology class)
6. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (a book I bought Spring quarter Freshman year and have yet to finish, but was around to entertain me during the most beautiful of Spring mornings after my BIOS 103 class. Ms. McCullers and I shared a few good moments in Emerti Park)
7. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (I've had this one for a long time, it's the time to read it!)
8. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (After reading Where Have you Been? Where Are You Going? in English 201, I have always wanted to read more of Oates' stuff. It's about violence and what not. big surprise)
9. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (a lender from Alex)
10. Euthyphro, Crito, Apology, & Symposium by Plato (an obvious borrowed book from Alex)
11. Islam (another lender from Alex)
12. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
13. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
14. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
15. The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (Existentialism! WOO!)
16. Lucky by Alice Sebold (I loved The Lovely Bones, here is another book that will freak me out so much that I won't be able to leave my house)
17. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (I began it when I was in Australia but never finished

This fall will be the perfect opportunity to lounge by the Hocking River and tackle some of these books.

Visits home...

As most college students spend their summers rotting away at bad jobs in their hometowns, I've spent this summer rotting away here at OU. You see, they pay me more to rot here.

After a stint as a popcorn bitch last winter break, I swore I'd never again spend more than a couple weeks at a time in my hometown of Hubbard, Ohio. It did, however, feel nice to head back to Hubbard for a bit last week.

My mom's cooking is always appreciated, as is the gas my dad puts in the car when he knows I'm coming home. Driving around town with the windows down and the stereo bumping feels like freedom, even if I'm just driving to get a haircut downtown. And laundry is free! It felt good to be back on my old stomping grounds, especially when I knew I'd be back in Athens, my home, in a few days.

The best part of my week at home (you know, besides the two concerts I went to) was definitely hanging around my friend Billy's digs. Casa de Billster is a place where you can find puppies with bladder problems, fat cats, video-game-playing moms, a Chinese exchange...man..? named Tang (not a student, just this Chinese guy who lives with them because he teaches little kids or something) and most importantly, brand new Mac desktops sprawled out on the dining room table (because eating is so very over-rated these days).

Billiam and I made several ridiculous YouTube videos in Photobooth, in addition to taking many ridiculous photogs. One of the videos somehow got 141 views and 1 comment overnight. Upon viewing, the Chinese man Tang seemed convinced that we were YouTube stars. Give the guy a break, he's real foreign.

Anyway, here are two of the videos. I'm warning you, they're silly as hell, especially the second one:

U Street D

even the food is happy!

I have been pretty lame at keeping up with simple pleasures, but this is one that Jill and I can completely agree with: Union Street Diner.
Last week, I went down to beautiful Athens, Ohio to visit Jill, Rika, and Jason. It was a wonderful time. We had chinese food, watched 90s dramas (My So Called Life is my new fave teen drama*) and Jill and I went to our classic dining spot, Union Street Diner.

During the school year, U Street D is a staple for the weekends. They're open 24 hours so after a good night of party hopping or hanging out with friends, it is the go-to destination for a cup of coffee and scrambled eggs (my favorite late night food).
Union Street Diner holds so many memories, from the first time I ordered chocolate chip pancakes at 8pm to the time after $2 Prom (an annual event that ACRN.com holds at The Union) where i ate there with Jill and my boyfriend Alex and ended up spilling syrup all over my Junior year homecoming dress.
Union Street Diner is a wonderful little hole in the wall place that offers crazy good meals (spicy chicken sandwiches, breakfast quesadillas, and a plethora of different kind of melts). If you're ever in Athens and you need a good meal for not much dough, Union Street Diner is your place, plus it's a wonderful place to gather all your friends (just don't be alarmed by the holes in the seats of the booths).

*except for this "so bad it's good" drama on ABC family called The Secret Life of the American Teenager.. I watched a marathon of it today.

Uplifting songs...

These past two weeks have been the most stressful, discouraging and downright frustrating of the whole summer. This week saw much improvement, but I must say that I crucial factor in modifying my mindset about my recent struggles has been uplifting songs.

Now, I'm not usually one for really, really positive music that features messages that will encourage people like they're popping Paxil or anything. Whether music is truthful or harsh or thoroughly depressing, what matters to me is if I can relate in some way. What I've been needing lately, however, has been uplifting music, especially two specific songs that I've listened to a lot.

There's something inherently beautiful, completely pure and eerily ethereal about the music Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros create. I love most of their music, but one song in particular, "Hoppipolla," truly speaks to me. The visual imagery that this song conjures for me is the sight of bright sunlight shining through throngs of tall, bushy trees atop a hill.

Even though I can't understand the song's lyrics, the piano let-in alone is enough for me to have a visceral reaction...in a good way, you know? It's like the encouragement I feel from the beautiful polyphony of the whole song hits me right in the stomach. It's undeniable. This song not only gives me hope in music, it gives me hope in myself. Maybe it's the blaring trumpets. Or the glockenspiel.

After listening to "Today Will Be Better, I Swear!" by Stars on repeat for a half hour last Saturday, I really wanted to believe what the Canadian band was preaching. The lyrics are so dead-on (at least for me) and much more original than that awful "Bad Day" song from a couple years ago, that I believe stemmed from American Idol. Why am I not surprised? American Idol might be the root of all evil.

ANYWAY, this song is perfect, even down to the exclamation point in the title, which is grammatically uplifting in and of itself, don't you think?

And everybody only wants to fight
You're up against never being right

When the worries of the world hold your feet
And there's little left to believe in

Today is going to be a better one
There's nothing more to take in
That's going wrong

-- Stars

The Nine O'Clock Hour

I can never decide whether or not I'm an early bird or a night owl. However, there is no better feeling than waking up early enough to feel as if you can seize the day. That is why the nine o'clock hour is one of my simple pleasures.

During this past quarter at school, I dubbed nine a.m. to be the perfect time to wake up. You could still stay up and watch Sex and the City re-runs on cable and feel completely refreshed. Plus it's a time where the world has already woken from their night-time reveries to make their ways in the world.

As a true simple pleasure, 9am always evokes a number of strange and pleasant memories. For instance, when I was a kid, during the summer I would always wake a 9am and I would throw on a pair of shorts and run to go play outside. We lived at this cute little house on the Licking River and I had this fun make-shift swing made from a big rope and a piece of wood. I could swing on that piece of wood for hours and hours, looking out onto the river and daydreaming.

The nine o'clock hour also reminds me of the time that my mom and I were driving to Florida. We had stopped at hotel on the border of Georgia and Florida, some run-down joint where they sold peaches and pecans next door. We woke up not too late and not too early and continued our journey into the sunshine state (I do believe we were visiting colleges). The sun sparkled of the cars as we drove down the interstate and through Jacksonville. I had my first mp3 player blasting some Beatles and I could feel the sun's warmth coming through the windshield.

This morning I welcomed my "early" rising, made myself a cup of coffee and sat down with a book, knowing that I was ready to take on today's adventure.

Mother-Daughter Movie Outings

My mom and I very rarely go out, except for our weekly voyages to Wal-Mart and occasionally the mall. But today, we went down to our movie theater (which is actually in our mall) and saw Mama Mia. Now the last time my mom and I went to an actual movie together was to see Crossroads when I was thirteen (come on, what thirteen year old didn't love Britney Spears back then?). Seven years passed and we were long over due for another cinematic adventure.
Prior to the movie, mom and I went to Penny's and chicked out, we bought dresses (for my cousin's wedding).

The movie itself was everything that you could ever want in a production that features weddings and ABBA songs. It was cute, funny, and overwhelmingly heart warming. A big thumbs up from mom and me.

Going to the movies with your the woman who gave birth to you is always a simple pleasure because it's time where you can get to that long-needed bonding, she usually splurges for popcorn and large sodas, and it's so much better to go to a chick flick with your mom rather than with your boyfriend because you won't have to watch five gun-blasting, bikini-clad women, explosive action movies to make up for it (believe me, i'm still paying for making him watch The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants back in 2005...).
So all you ladies out there, get down to the cinema and watch a movie with your mom, you both will love it and it will bring you closer together.

Bikes in the hallway...

Although missing my family is like, the anti-Simple Pleasure of my summer, there are moments of Simple Pleasure goodness creeping into my life like you wouldn't believe. Just a bit earlier, mi amiga Xana started riding her bike in our adjoining dorm rooms, then up and down the dorm hallway. I snapped some blurry photos whilst she did so, as I was sporting some PJs (Morrissey shirt & yoga pants, thanks) and well, I don't know how to ride a bike. She was making all sorts of goofy faces, and we were cracking up at the pictures that ensued.




Xana and I typically have all sorts of fun little adventures late at night, especially this summer. It usually starts with one of us IMing the other, despite being within earshot of one another. Aaaand then one of us will be hungry, so we'll get in the car and drive to Wendy's. Or maybe one of us needs something minor at Wal-Mart. An excuse for a trip out. Xana does junk like that all the time, and I can see why. Our late night pow-wows are definitely a Simple Pleasure, even when we don't do anything but sit around goofing off or booping (noses, of course; get your mind outta the gutter) for a few minutes. She gets excited about little things like I do, and I like that.

Also another Simple Pleasure: Living in this brand new, ultra plush dorm for free as a perk of one of my jobs. Well, I guess that's not so simple, but I still like it a lot.

A Taste of Zanesville

It is summer time which means being at home, 95% humidity, daytime television, and strange town festivals. I'm from Zanesville, Ohio which is a little pimple on the map of Ohio. It's a boring place to live, we have decent shopping and few restaurant chains, a y shaped bridge and some rivers. It's probably not a town to brag about, but it has been my home since I was a baby. When the weather begins to heat up, the council heads of Zanesville try to gather the community to take part in some sort of consumer therapy.

A Taste of Zanesville has been happening downtown for the past nine years and strangely this has been the first year I had ever heard of it/cared about it. Always eager for a change of scenery, I took my boyfriend Alex to taste Zanesville (prior to leaving he exclaimed that Zanesville would taste like drugs and I said it would probably taste like unwashed masses.. probably not a fair assumption).

Appropriately enough, A Taste of Zanesville is my first Simple Pleasure. Why? you ask. I look for any excuse to walk downtown. Any culture that is to be found in a little podunk town like Zanesville, can be found downtown. The architecture screams of yesteryear, it is grandious, ancient and beautiful. It is usually an unpopulated and not busy area of town since most businesses have moved to the metropolis that is Maple Avenue (Maple Ave. is where Wal-Mart and the Mall reside). A Taste of Zanesville also provided free samples of food and ice cream, and those are always classic Simple Pleasures in my book.


Alex enjoying frozen custard from the Whit's booth and looking at all of the fun to be had in the St. Thomas parking lot


This a pottery throwing booth. I think kids could throw bricks or something at old coffee mugs.. I don't know, I really don't understand this town.


As always, I'm more interested in the strange little alleyways that can be found all over the downtown area.

So if you find yourself in Zanesville, Ohio and you are looking for the most Simple Pleasures for your buck, try the downtown area, there are neat little things like a nice park for sitting and watch the sun set on the Muskingum River (I did that a few days ago), fun statues, antiques, and neat-o buildings.