Category Archives: Love + Relationships

Like someone? Tell the person.

Posted in Love + Relationships, Thoughts by

newborn baby Ann
If you appreciate someone’s work or just plain think the person is cool, go ahead and tell him or her.

I’ve always been the type to wear my heart on my sleeve and I firmly believe that if you like someone you should tell the person.

I’m not talking about romantic relationships here, although I have done that my fair share before too. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. What I am saying is that if you appreciate a person for who he or she is or even if you have never met the person, but admire her work, go ahead and say it. People love compliments and love should be spread all around.

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A love story

Posted in Life & Adventures, Love + Relationships by

Sparkelers and love

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today I thought I would share a little love story with you. Bear with me.

(If you feel like reading a romantic story, please read on. If not, perhaps you will enjoy this post written a few months ago in which I wrote about how I came to love my Jack Russell Terrier.)

Our love story

The first time I saw Paul was in our school’s newsroom in 2011. He was one of the last students in for our first staff meeting of the summer. It was just a few weeks before school, or maybe even less, and we had to plan out the first issue of the year. He was wearing a blue button up shirt with a fresh rip on the sleeve, jeans and Vans. Such a cutie! The newspaper staff sat down at a round table in the center of the room. I made sure to be one of the first to sit and was happy when he sat next to me.

At least, that’s the way I remember our meet-cute. He remembers seeing me two years before when I worked as a cashier at the Carl’s Jr. on campus and he was a frequent customer. Apparently, I took his order more than once. Sorry sweetie! I still can’t remember that. There were too many customers to keep track of.

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Throwback love songs

Posted in Entertainment, Love + Relationships, Music by

Sound Bites 2

Happy almost Valentine’s Day! Happy Galentine’s Day! I’m actually not doing anything for either day this year. Myself and everyone I know seem to be really busy lately. We hang out on other non-holidays, so it’s all good.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. It’s everywhere, am I right? Particularly, I’ve been thinking about romantic love and how my ideas of what that means have changed over the years. Whether you’ve been in love or not, I’m sure you can say the same.

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Inexpensive Valentine’s Day gift guide

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Inexpensive Valentine's Day Gift Guide

Have you ever heard of the Five Love Languages? Well, I think one of the ways I like to show love is by giving gifts. I actually like giving gifts more than I enjoy getting them. There’s something special about picking something out that will be just perfect for a loved one. It can be even better if the gift is homemade.

Since I enjoy gifting, I like looking at gift guides too, although I don’t think I have ever bought something from one. I often find the items are too expensive for my budget. For that reason, I decided to put together a Valentine’s Day gift guide for cheap folk like myself. These items could be great for a girl or a guy. They’re approved by my guy, who isn’t a super manly man and therefore wouldn’t like a lot of the things I’ve been seeing in gift guides.

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Childhood best friend

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Best friends

On Wednesday I finally had the chance to hang out with my childhood best friend. I don’t think we had hung out since like October. We finally gave each other Christmas gifts. Ridiculousness.

This girl, Daniela, has been my friend since fourth grade. Now we’re five years out of high school. I won’t make you do the math because that’s annoying. It’s been 15 years. Wait. Is that even possible? I suck at math. Well, I’m 22, almost 23. We probably met when we were 8 then. I knew it had been more than half our lives but jeez!

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Merry Christmas

Posted in Life & Adventures, Love + Relationships by

Christmas fireplace

Merry Christmas Eve!

I hope you all are enjoying the holidays. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza or some other holiday, hopefully you are enjoying time off and resting up before the new year.

I’m excited to be back into blogging, but I’ll try to give myself a break and not post too much between now and the second week of January. I love Christmas and spending time with those I love. Ha! I just started and ended a sentence with love! How’s that for Christmas spirit?

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My dog Max

Posted in Life & Adventures, Love + Relationships by

My dog Max

Have you ever been ungrateful for a special gift in your life, but then learned to love it more than you thought possible? That kind of happened to me.

When this adorable, crazy, hyper Jack Russell Terrier first wandered into my front yard I honestly couldn’t wait to get rid of him. Now I would hate to lose him and I think he’s pretty found of me too. He won’t go to our bedroom for bedtime without me. So, as I write this he’s looking at me with sleepy eyes, wagging his tail. He’s probably wondering if I’m almost wrapping things up. In fact, that’s a usual occurrence for him.

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My mom, Colleen O’Brien

Posted in Life & Adventures, Love + Relationships by

mmom and me

As a woman and as a feminist, I feel it is important for me to recognize women in my own life. I’ll also be doing posts on women in history who inspire me once a month as well.

Colleen Anne O’Brien

Born Colleen Anne Carpenter

Today she had a childhood friend over for breakfast, along with one of her sisters and her mom (my grandma, of course.) After breakfast my mom and her friend were recalling making mudpies in their backyards as kids, swimming on hot days and learning how to make doll clothes. It was nice to hear about those times and think about the little girl she used to be. Every one used to be little once- even moms!

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I love love

Posted in Entertainment, Love + Relationships, Music by

I love love. I love to love love. That’s a little saying my sisters and I used to say a lot when we were younger. My oldest sister Katie picked it up from the high school leader at church. It’s always stuck with me.

Over the weekend I noticed Mary Lambert’s new video for “She Keeps Me Warm” was recently released. I’m such a sap for cute stuff and anything romantic, so of course it made me tear up. It’s a meet-cute love story based on her personal experiences. The song was made from the hook she wrote for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Same Love,” which she performed with the duo at the VMAs.

Love is a beautiful thing. When two people care about each other enough to put the other person’s needs first and be willing to get hurt, I think that’s a pretty sweet thing. As long as both people are of similar age, or if not then at least both over 18, I don’t have a problem with them falling in love.

I also recommend checking out her other songs. She has a beautiful voice and good song writing skills. My favorites are Body Love and I’d Be Your Wife.

Working together, seperately on Dia de los Muertos

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Boyfriend and I at Dia de los Muertos

Two weeks ago my university hosted its 18th annual Dia de los Muertos event. It was amazing to be a part of it and hear the experiences of other people at a the big cultural event.

Last week I wrote about the event for ASInside, a blog with my school. Here it is! It would mean a lot to me if you would check it out.

One of the most fun things about the event that I didn’t mention in the blog post for ASInside was that my boyfriend was also there taking photos and videos for the school newspaper as a freelancer.

We got to work on a few stories together last spring when we first started dating. He was the multimedia editor and I was the news editor and we teamed up on a few feature stories.

For the first time the boyfriend and I were working separately, but hung out together. Yeah, if it were more of a newsy story that could be a conflict of interest, but not in this case. Besides, it’s not like we shared quotes or photos. It was all good fun!

Here is the boyfriend’s awesome video “CPP Dia de los Muertos 2012” hosted on YouTube.