SRQ

"You know you're from Sarasota when... you don't know where the "Q" in SRQ comes from but you still refer affectionately to your city by those three letters"

A few highlights from a relaxing weekend at home...

Tampa Airport, welcome homeee

First stop: checked out Dad's new sailboat. Oh, Florida.

Why did I ever leave this?

Village Idiot, classic Sarasota.

home sweet home.

I have to admit, after a few days spent soaking up as much sun as possible and bonding with the parents, I was strangely ready to get back to my crazy cat, tiny apartment and hectic city. Who would have thought after only a few months I'd be calling NYC home...

Home Sweet Home

No matter how great things are going in life, there's always something so special about going home for a few days. Knowing that I don't have to do anything but relax and spend quality time with friends and family for the weekend is just so settling.

Is it weird that within a day I feel right back at home in my old bed from high school and having my mom make me coffee in the morning? It's like I never left. Sure, my room has been rearranged, I haven't lived here for four years, and my baby brother is off at college (all details that force me to realize I'm no longer 17), but it somehow feels like nothing has changed.

I feel so lucky to have a place to go home to that will always feel like home. Unlike many of my friends, I was born and raised in Sarasota. My family has been in the same house almost my entire life, and they have no thoughts of leaving this beautiful city any time soon (as far as I know). It's so sad to me when families move away and my old friends no longer have their home here to come back to. I can't imagine spending Thanksgiving anywhere but here, or going somewhere for Christmas that I can't spend the day at the beach because it's 70 degrees in December.

It's just nice to know that no matter what I'm doing, no matter where I'm living, home and all the emotions that come with it are only a plane ride away.

(PS - While I'm raving about being home, I have to give a little shout out to Siesta Key, which was featured in the New York Times "Escapes" Section yesterday, including pictures from an old friend of mine!)

No Day But Today

As I mentioned in my last post, I started a "picture of the day" blog about a month ago.  Each day, I post a picture of something I did that day or something that caught my eye.  When I started this, I figured it would just be cool to look back on in a year.  I know, without a doubt, that this first year after graduation will be the most exciting and life-changing thus far.  I'm living in a new city, interning for the summer, and for the first time paying my own rent and supporting myself the best I can (hello, 2 jobs).  I literally have no idea what I'll be doing in a year, which I'm actually really excited about for once.  Up until now, I've always known where I would be a year from the day.  Life was always dictated by what I was "supposed" to be doing... elementary school, middle school, high school, college, with some traveling, jobs and internships thrown in the mix.  For the first time ever, I have no plans, which is a great mixture of thrilling and terrifying.

Anyway, back to what I intended to write about.  Rather than something I'll look back on, my picture blog has turned into a part of every day.  Now that I have an iPhone, I find myself snapping pictures of random things I pass in the city that make me smile.  There are so many cool/funny/quirky things going on at any given moment in this crazy city, and I always end up with many pictures to choose from. 

Taking a picture every day makes me truly appreciate what I did that day.  Even those relaxing days where you do nothing but read 100 pages of Twilight and watch an entire season of Sex & the City (oh... just me that has days like that?) are special, and everyone deserves them every now and then.  It will definitely be cool to look back at the end of the year (well, May 2010) and see what I've done and where I've been, but for now I'm enjoying every day and what it has to offer... even if it's just vampires and HBO re-runs.