A few things you should know right now...

Sassy ruby slippers!? Yes please!

Annnd we're back! Another manic Monday, but hey, another day closer to all those lovely holiday days off right!? I am so full of excitement for family visits, friend get-togethers and time off at home with my favorite Dr., that waking up this morning, despite not nearly enough sleep* was a pleasure. I feel like I'm full to the brim with good good stuff... like:

Did you know that Beyonce dropped a whole damn album, a visual album (14 tracks along with 17 music videos to compliment them) on Friday!? No hype, just a whole lot of "here I am, Queen B, Sasha Fierce, hottest mama (and I brought my baby and epic husband along for the ride)" in your face-ness. The album is ridiculously good and though I've only watched some of the videos at this point (Dr. H and I may need to have a screening tonight) it is clear that this woman absolutely owns life. Talented, business saavy, beautiful, powerful, everything. Download the full fierceness HERE and for some more info on this unique approach to rocking the music industry, check out THIS article.

Last night I made my own version of this delicious dish for dinner. I've been re-motivated to get back to eating better/cooking more recently (after several weeks of rock bottom laziness and indulgence) so I prepared this tasty one-pot dish more healthfully by swapping in chicken chorizo, whole wheat pasta, skim milk, and low fat cheese. The result was Merry Meri tested and Dr. H approved! (Pin it HERE, full recipe via Damn Delicious HERE)

Have you heard about Unroll.me? I don't know where I first heard about this great new email service which helps clean your inbox, but I'm in lurve. As a big online shopper, contest enter-er and activist, I get about a billion "junk-but-I-kinda-want-it" emails a day (think coupons, GW alumni updates, Gilt sales, Amnesty International newsletters). Using (the totally free!) Unroll.me, you plug in your email address and it identifies all your subscriptions (I had over 200!!) Then you either unsubscribe or "bundle" the subscription into a daily Rollup which you have sent to you at a time of day of your choosing. Now I get 1 email a day with thumbnails and the subject line of each subscription I elected to keep and the chance to add any new subscriptions to my roll with just the click of a link. It is like a daily housekeeping service for my inbox!! Though still a work in progress, I highly recommend you give Unroll.me a try!

Lastly, this sassy little lady who signed to her deaf parents throughout her Kindergarten concert will absolutely melt your heart:

* Funny story: Yesterday morning at about 8am I sprang bolt upright in bed and said "F*CK I had physical therapy at 7:30! I overslept!!!" until I looked around (in particular at a completely bewildered Dr. H), remembered it was Sunday, and passed the hell out again. Well that over-sleep anxiety apparently didn't go anywhere because I had the most fitful, in-and-out sleep last night. 4 hours 40 minutes total (thanks Jawbone Up). On the bright side, I was 10 minutes early to my PT appointment :)

Tis the season of mail!

keep up the good work little buddy!

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the sudden influx of "snail mail" I receive. After months of nothing but catalogues, solicitations and even the occasional empty mailbox, I'm now greeted daily by snowmen, photos of smiling children and glitter (obviously I love holiday cards with glitter). Come December, I look forward to collecting my mail  each evening because the holiday season is like a retro, pre-email moment in time when checking your mailbox is cool again (did anyone else LOVE getting the mail as a kid or am I the lone dork here!?)

Though many complain that holiday cards are a pain to send out (they are) I'm really glad that people still do it. I admit, it's tempting to opt for the speed and convenience of a digital hello or to let the hustle of the season eat up your "addressing envelopes time", but for me, nothing beats a colorful envelope bearing some ridiculous USPS stamp with my name on it. So dust off your address book, find the most beautiful/absurd/sentimental cards left on the shelf (or make a photo card, you know peeps dig the photo cards) and get mailing.

Love in a digital age?

Romantical.

I recently watched the movie Sleepless in Seattle [Warning: plot spoilers below] for the first time (late to the party I know, but SO worth the wait!) and after I recovered from my Nora Ephron-enduced moony love trance, I started thinking about how modern technology has absolutely obliterated the plot of this "timeless" romantic comedy. For starters, not too many people are listening to radio these days and even fewer are writing letters. If Tom Hanks' Sam Baldwin was around today, his inbox might have been flooded, but not his mailbox. Additionally, Facebook, Linkedin and Google pretty much guarantee that Meg Ryan's Annie would not have remained a mystery to Sam for long. They both would have had pictures, employment histories and countless other pieces of personal information to judge the other on prior to having an actual conversation. The mystery and romance of the Sleepless love story are just not possible in our internet dominated world!

Dr. H and I are of the generation that grew with the internet, meaning we fell in love just before the proliferation of the smartphone, when Facebook was only an idea floating around Harvard's campus. Other than over-analysis of AIM away messages (song lyrics never had so much meaning) we fell for one another face to face. Our romance felt organic and real. I wonder for today's generation if the internet has ruined falling in love, just a little bit. Though it's great to "know more", for me, the mystery and anticipation of learning more with each minute spent together was one of the best things about falling in love. I'm grateful there was no internet history for me to cross-reference or pre-judge. Because even though it took Sam and Annie months of "near misses" and cross-country wondering to find one another, without a single text or tweet, the crazy power of love led them to the Empire State Building. You can't find that kind of magic on the internet:)