Category: Off The Cuff

City, Food, Life, Off The Cuff

So this is twenty three

by itsmeganelaine2 Comments on So this is twenty three

This past week was my golden birthday — I turned twenty-three on the twenty-third. 

I spent the day with my mom because, low and behold, it was her birthday too. We have always spent our birthday together. It’s been that way for the past twenty-two years and, even with a job and a full to-do list, this year was no different.

For our day, we went out to brunch at a local restaurant named Milktooth, which was dubbed one of the top 207 restaurants to eat at around the globe according to Conde Nast. I’d heard about the restaurant so often while I was an intern at Indianapolis Monthly this past spring, so I was so happy to finally try out their menu.

Both my mom, my brother, and I ended up ordering the same thing: Brochedi Donuts with bacon and eggs. Needless to say, it was delicious.

While driving this afternoon, I thought about how twenty-two was a good year. It was a year of learning, of surviving my last year of college, of figuring out what it was I wanted and didn’t want. A year of healing and finding patience in the unknown. Thinking about this next year, I can’t tell you where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing or how I will get to wherever ‘there’ is. I think that’s okay sometimes, not knowing your next step but trusting your gut, where the universe unfolds and leads you.

So far, twenty-three has looked like adding more business professional clothes to my wardrobe, going on a cleanse, and writing. Lots of writing.

Regardless of what I know or don’t know about this upcoming year, there are a few intentions that I know I want to move through. Here are a few:

  • Listen: to myself, to God’s soft whisper, to the voice of my mom and brother, to my friends, and my body. 
  • Read full books, finish them, stick with them, contemplate over them. Not rushing myself, but taking it slow. 
  • Focus on creating vs consuming. Scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, passively streaming a show, getting lost down the rabbit hole of YouTube. I spend way to much time with these consuming activities. It’s time to turn the table and start creating instead of constantly consuming media. 
  • Be mindful: about what I eat, about the quality of my breath, about listening to people, about each moment I find myself in, about what I’m working on and what I’m creating. 
  • Prioritize my health and the food I eat. Cook at home and bring lunches to work. Continuing my yoga practices. Be aware of what I eat and put on my skin. College was a good ride but I focused more on grades while my health was neglected. It’s time to change that. 
  • Have a heart of gratitude. 

No matter where I end up or what I do, I know that this next year is going to be a good one. A one of thriving, learning, seeking… and maybe hitting up Milktooth again.

Here’s to twenty-three. 

Life, Off The Cuff, Photography

August’s Last Note

by itsmeganelaineLeave a Comment on August’s Last Note

The last note to August: a collage containing a handful of my favorite photos from the end of summer. August was a full 31 days, brimming with books and soft pretzels at the state fair, warm letters and coffee, a wonderful boyfriend and puppy lovings. August was a month to discover that my closet is half full of clothes from Target and that I have a knack for playing duckpin bowling. August was a month to say yes to taking the scenic route, to devouring pizza after midnight, to meeting up with old friends, and to eating ramen after yoga class. August was a month for remembering the old, and remembering all that we’ve been given while being thankful for it, both in the past and in the now. August was a month that ended with a sigh of relief, followed by a cheer when the Hoosier’s won the first football game of the season.

Books, Life, Off The Cuff, Uncategorized

Autumn and Coffee and Books

by itsmeganelaineLeave a Comment on Autumn and Coffee and Books
Autumn and Coffee and Books

When I woke up early this morning, there was something different in the air. Maybe it was the fact that over the past week the temperature has dropped several degrees outside and the crips nature of autumn is starting to caress my windows, or maybe it is the strong pumpkin rum candle, the one that I can smell the heavenly scent of throughout the house, even if it’s not lit. 

No matter what it is, I can definitely tell that summer is coming to a close and fall is slipping around the corner.

The other day when I was heading out to my car, I looked down and there were a few leaves, dried and a brittle yellow. Although the majority of the leaves are still clinging to the branches, a vibrant green, within the next month they will be fading as they shout their last hoorah for the end of this decade.

The tree that is out in my front yard is huge and every year I get excited for its change from green to gold. The first year we spent fall here, I had my mom’s orignial Polaroid Spirit 600 that we found film for. I took it everywhere, including down the street where I catpured a picture of the tree in it’s radiant bloom. This little memory is kept forever in the squared-off corners of a piece of film. Although the same phenomenon is bound to return year after year, I have the picture to look at whenever I want to be reminded of it.

Even though fall is almost here, I’ve been trying to pay respects to the last of summer that’s not quite done yet. I picked seven tomatoes off my overly large tomato plant yesterday. I’m excited to get to try out a recipe where I’ll get to use them. Most of the time I just throw whatever I have in the pantry together–pasta, spinach, the garden tomatoes, cheese, and maybe a tad of salt and paper– and eat it like a smorgasbord of whatever sounds good at the time.

Lately, I’ve been working on an article for a magazine I’m freelancing for about specialty fall coffee in my neighborhood. Just on the Southside of Indianapolis alone, there are over ten local coffee shops. Tuesday, I went to six coffee shops in the Greenwood area. Each had it’s own aesthetic, distinguishing itself with key features, even though they all serve a similar purpose: to proved caffeine, drinks, and a place to cultivate community, even if it’s only a handful of strangers.

I love the spirit of coffee shops for this reason, not because they’re hip and cool nowadays, but because they’re spaces for communal existence, work, and to get to know people you otherwise wouldn’t have met.

I’ve met so many of the people in my life, that I wouldn’t have met in any other way, through coffee shops. Bookstores, too. I’ll have to write a whole essay about that sometime. Neadless to say, I’ve been enjoying my work lately, finding real fulfillment in it.

Another new thing: It’s the first of September and I’m taking a detox from social media. Namely, Instagram. September is the start of fall, my favorite season. And in honor of new seasons, I thought that taking a break from the scrolling and liking and constant connection would give me a nice breather. Instead, I’ll take stock of the what this year has so far gifted me. What the rest of this chapter, and the next, will hold. This year is the end of a decade, and next year is the start of a new one.

I deleted the app this morning, and so far I have picked up my phone about ten times and slid past pages of apps until I reached where Instagram used to be. When I don’t find it, it feels refreshing. I can regain control and focus on what I’m dedicating this month too.

While I’m taking this next month off of social media. I hope it’ll give me more time to finish a few books I’ve been flipping through but haven’t finished yet. The first one is When in French, by Lauren Collins and the second one is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver. Fiction is definietly a love of mine, but I’ve been attracted to narrative non-fiction lately, it’s what I’ve been craving to write, too.

How about you? What are you planning for the start of fall? Are you reading anything interesting?

P.S. more thoughts about redefining my relationship with social media.

Off The Cuff, Uncategorized

A Lovely Weekend

by itsmeganelaine3 Comments on A Lovely Weekend
A Lovely Weekend

These past few weeks have been about soaking up summer. June has been penetrated with long drives through rual Indiana, writing freelance feature artilces, learning about tax forms and earning first post-grad paychecks, staying bunkered down through the tornado-fourming storms, and getting out when I can when the blue sky shows itself. This weekend has been especially wonderful.

Columbus Indiana has been a place I’ve been visiting every week, and every time I’ve found a little secrete of the small city–like a flying pig resting on a legde in a quiet ally that leads to more of the interesting archeticure. Did you know that Columbus was designed by several famous architects, both present and historical? The modern-mecca buildings are like nothing else you’ll see in Indiana and they have such an instering history.

On Friday, I kicked off the weekend by going to an escape room downtown Indy with my friends. We didn’t escape, unfortunately, but we were pretty darn close. Afterwards, we walked around the city, treated outselves to ice cream and fugde, and visted Rocket Fizz.

Yesterday was the Freedom Festival in my hometown, Greenwood. An annual festival that happens the week before the 4th of July. Although the day was pretty busy, I took over the instagram side of social media of our family buinsess for my mom, I think the best part was at the very end of the night, where it was just my mom and I walking through the crowds who were anticipating that evening’s fireworks. We ended up walking where concession stands and food trucks where set up, and at the every end of the long line of options, was Ben’s Soft Pretzels, the absolutly best pretzels ever. Of course I snagged one, along with cheeder cheese sause to go with it.

Today I have a few articles on deadline that I need to finish up. In college, one of my favorite assingments that I ever did was for my journalism class. We had to write a profile of someone or some place we thought was interesting. I loved it so much because I got to look closely at a subject, ask questions, and show their story in a way that it could be accessible to many. I never thought I’d get to do it as an actual job after graduation, but I am doing it. And I love it.

Oh, and of course I’ll be enjoying these beauties all day.

So what about you–how have you been spending your weekend?