Bill Cunningham New York

My in-laws used to subscribe to the Sunday New York Times. And when I was around for Sunday Breakfast Jon's dad would slide the following sections over to me in this order: style, literature and travel, with a slight smile. He knew I could hold my own with the rest of the paper, but he realized what I was after. There is something about seeing the women of New York City dressed for the work day ahead or for an evening out. I would draw inspiration from the style section as well as strengthen my own imagination.

Years have gone by since then and even though my father in law is no longer there to separate my favorite sections from his Sunday paper, my mother in law and chat about it together now. I still love the Style sections for the same reasons and now I have another reason. I recently watched a fantastic documentary called Bill Cunningham New York. It is an insiders look about the heartbeat behind one of the most influential voices of the Style Section, Bill Cunningham. Bill wears a simple blue coat and rides his bike around the city but he LOVES fashion and has literally devoted his life to chronicling it. It is a great look at classic NYC as Cunningham lives above Carnegie Hall. The documentary also touches on the last of the dwellers of Carnegie Hall-I could have watched a documentary just on them!

So, if you love documentaries like I do I highly suggest this very entertaining peak in to a very interesting person.

The Sassy Book Worm

 

 Jon travels a bit for work and being the friendly guy he is he often strikes up conversation with people he sits next to on the plane. I love hearing about the different people he meets on his travels but this last time in particular was especially interesting to me. 

Jon got to talking with the man sitting next to him on the plane. After a bit of talking Jon found out that the man next to him was a book agent. This man asked about what types of books Jon liked. At this point Jon mentioned that he really enjoyed reading but his enjoyment of reading was nothing compared to me. After explaining to the man how I will read anything I can get my hands on the man asked for Jon's card. He then told Jon that he would send a box of books for me to Jon's office. 

How great is that?

Well sure enough, a week or two went by and a box of books arrived at Jon's office for me. It was like Christmas in a cardboard box! So far I have read The Dinner by Herman Koch (really good!) and Lost Kingdom by Julia Flynn Siler (a really interesting read about the history of the Hawaiian islands) and right now I am reading Healer by Carol Cassella which is a really great read so far.

What are you reading?

Irons In The Fire

Lately I feel like every "iron" I own is in the fire. I'm studying for my licensing exam, I was just in a wedding and will be traveling to be in another in July (and a bridal shower coming up in two weeks), I have a full time job and a part time job, school is almost over for the schools that I work at and my internship of three years is coming to an end. I do hope I am not coming across as complaining-because goodness that is not the intention.  The thing is, yeah it is a little overwhelming to have all aspects of my life going full force-but its all good.

I realized something a bit ago, life is pretty good when you aren't looking. I feel like when life gives you stressful/sad things you have no choice but to deal with them, to walk through them, to really feel them. The only way to get past them is to go through them. But when things are good or even just "not bad" I find that people make choices to pay attention to things that are less than desirable. For example, when your family is healthy and things are going alright it can be easy to pay attention to how someone cut you off in traffic or how tired you are. Make sense? When things aren't going horribly wrong they are going pretty right.

So yes, things are busy-but at their core they are really good. When all of your irons are in the fire it isn't helpful to complain about their heat...its best to strike while they are hot!