Category Archives: Uncategorized

Shoes! … or not!

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I can’t put it off any longer. I am rapidly running out of time. I leave in a little over two weeks. (Cue the panic attack – how did it get here so quickly?)

About two months ago I tackled the armoire and the clothes in the closet. Several trips to Hope Services and the consignment store later – I still have more than enough clothing. A month ago I cleared out the drawer of nail polish – yes a whole drawer – and got rid of about 50 bottles. Earlier this week I went through all of my makeup and slimmed things down to one small bag.

But I have been putting off cleaning out the rest of my closet – shoes, purses, the storage rack holding all my sweaters, scarves and cold weather gear. It seems so final and more importantly – daunting.

So today I started with the shoes – I figure stages are much easier. Less daunting – maybe. What I learned was I clearly have a problem. Ok to be honest more than one. I a) have a tendency not to throw things away and b) I shop too much. There I have admitted it.

Shoes

Giving up all these shoes!

Witness the aftermath. These are the shoes I am getting rid of. Yes that’s right. This is the pile I am getting rid of. Note the yellow cardboard box filled with – yup you guessed it – shoes. And this doesn’t include the boots I have yet to dig out from under the bed and the pile of shoes I still haven’t made a decision about. But all in all it was easier than I expected. There were shoes in boxes that I forgot I even had. Clearly this was a long overdue project. And there are still more shoes than I can carry with me when I leave.

On that note I’m going to go wash the dust off and find something more pleasant to do.

UPDATE: Eight pairs of shoes found new homes with my cousin’s girlfriend, four with other family members and the rest will be donated to the American Cancer Society Discovery Shops. 

“If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked!”

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Wine in its many forms has been gracing tables, parties, flasks and more for hundreds of years. With technological advances and better production some things have changed, some things have stayed the same and some things have been forgotten. But in celebration of the Bard himself, Shakespeare Santa Cruz and the spirit of exploration Sones Cellars has created their very own Sack. Oxidized, fortified and sweetened – Sack was once what passed for white table wine in Elizabethan England. White wine was imported from Italy or Spain. But given the limitation of the times upon arrival in England the wine would have spoiled and been oxidized. To return it to a drinkable state it would have been fortified with either brandy or sherry and then sweetened. After doing the research the Sones’ created their own – awesome – version. Served warm, cold or mixed in a cocktail it is a fun taste of history.

Last night I joined the Sones family and the Sones Cellars Family – for a picnic and a wonderful – and Sones Cellars sponsored  – performance of Henry V in the UC Santa Cruz Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen. (Shakespeare is always better when it’s performed outside, don’t you think?)

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The past two seasons, Shakespeare Santa Cruz has put on performances of Henry IV Part 1 and Part 2 – the inspiration for the research, creation and bottling of the Sones Cellars’ Sack. Of course, much of the historical record about Sack comes from Falstaff’s famous drunken soliloquy in Henry IV Part 2. It follows then that this year the festival added Henry V to the line up.  If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area I highly encourage you to make the trip to Santa Cruz visit the Sones Cellars tasting room to try some Sack and enjoy a performance of either Henry V or Taming of the Shrew. I can say that Henry V was magical and I can’t wait to see Taming of the Shrew.

Click here to visit the Sones Cellars website.

Click here to learn more about Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

Visa Visa Visa

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Passport Photo

 

Whew! It’s done! And despite a meltdown, a mostly sleepless night (two to be perfectly honest), a bit of scrambling and a lot of stress – I got approved for my student visa. Yay! Happy dance!

I have to return to the consulate in San Francisco in about 10 days to pick up my passport and my shiny new visa. But otherwise I feel like the biggest departure hurdle has been cleared. Of course I still have a lot to do – booking a plane ticket from Paris to Bordeaux, paying tuition (yikes!), packing (double yikes!) – but I finally feel like things are winding down toward departure. Now I can turn my attention towards getting on the plane on September 10th.

I do need to say a big thank you to those of you who helped with last minute official documents, peeling me off the ceiling as I had a meltdown and those who kept me sane in general. You know who you are! And I wouldn’t have pulled this off without you to keep me going.

Ta for now!