Dana Burland

2012 was the year of the book for my little hands. I assume this means my brain finally recovered from years of force-reading in school. It was my higher education rehab, if you will. Of course it didn’t hurt that my official reintroduction to the literary life was sparked by a Pennsylvania book and by book I mean wine club with four of the most lovely girl friends. Even now that I'm sans book club (tear), I’ve been whippin’ through stories like a mad woman. I loosely keep track of books through Goodreads , and based on those reviews and my very poor memory, here are my top recommendations from the last 12 months of book worming: Best Education-In-Disguise: Still Alice This is the story of a 50-something-year-old Harvard professor named Alice and her deterioration with early on-set Alzheimer’s. It doesn’t hurt the author is a professor at Harvard studying early on-set Alzheimer’s. If Alzheimer’s were reversible, THIS is the way a survivor would want others to unders...

Lately, I’ve been getting nervous before my long runs. I know I’m physically capable of running up to 13 miles (welp, when training that is), but mentally and emotionally I just don’t feel like I can ice that cake. I’m not sure exactly what the road block is. Will I have a bad run? Been there, done that. Will I have to stop early, or walk for a bit? I’m alright with that. Will this be the run my legs finally rebel after a heavy year of running, snap off and gallop into the forest? Ok, I might be in trouble in that case. Last weekend I ran a nervous six, so this weekend I challenged myself to eight. I could hardly sleep Friday night I was so anxious, but Saturday morning I laced up and knocked it out—eight miles, plus another two. You know, just to make sure that damn cake got done. With sprinkles on top. It was my longest run since half-marathon training last spring. I’m not training for anything right now, so my goal is just to keep at it and keep happy. Even with this weekend...

My desk on any given September day Those who think workplace initiation rituals don’t exist have never been immediately assigned the Best of Grand Rapids project. This beast—in the form of hundreds of yellow cardstock ballots—was waiting for me when I showed up to work on my first day. The project is a annually published reader vote on the best restaurants, bars, services, shops and attractions in town. Close to 50,000 Grand Rapids Magazine subscribers get tear-out and mail-in ballots with 69 different voting options. For several reasons that don’t bear mentioning cough, cheaters, cough , the least pleasant yet most feasible way for us to tally these entries is by hand. And by hand I mean by my hand. I can’t even verbalize how long it took me to tally up the ballots that came in, or my emotions after hours spent getting up to speed just to walk past my mailbox and see it jammed full of MORE ballots. My pretty collection of ballots, kept as a reminder Hand cramps and he...

This weekend was my first home alone since moving in. Yeehaw! In honor of B’s absence, I entertained myself with a full weekend of lady-like activities. I spent almost a full afternoon debating shadowboxes at Michaels; watched a documentary on wanna-be professional ballet dancers ; and treated myself to my most favorite among B’s most hated meals. Important side note: I also totally made a fire ALL BY MYSELF, too. And no, it wasn’t just a fireplace of flaming newspaper though for the first 20 minutes it was ; I did eventually succeed in getting the wood to burn. What a total Spice Girl’s girl power moment that was. One of the things on my solo weekend to do list was to finally learn how to make my favorite dish from my favorite local Thai place. It’s about to get embarrassing how many times I’ve picked up panang curry from the little family of cooks at Thai Kitchen anyway. Praise Buddah I gave this a shot (a double praise for mustering up the courage to buy fish sauce for this ...

Elena is one of my super cool girl friends from Pennsylvania. How cool you ask? So cool she once danced so hard she broke her ankle. Ouch. Recently we were chatting about other painful situations when she shared her recent struggles with sub-par random office chatter. It’s a strange professional world out there, but Elena’s take on the blurry line between not sharing and over sharing with co-workers (and anyone in general, really) is worthy of immediate promotion. Take it away, Elena! "I love sweatshirts, but I'm not crazy about embroidered sweatshirts." – Actual conversation overhead in my office. This man shall remain anonymous to protect his dignity. Although, judging by his flagrant sweatshirt conversation, I’m not sure he cares much about that. Something’s been afoot. The people in my life who I want to hear from are being drowned out by people I think of as ‘megaphones’—irritating, loud, and only interested in being heard above the crowd. Primarily thought of as...

At one point in my stint at Runner’s World , I was helping out a print editor with a front of the book section of quick running stories and tidbits. The blurb I was working on was about a woman who ran the Chicago Marathon as a guide for a blind man. (I mean, if there ever is a sentence to make your good deed of the day changing the paper towel roll without being asked seem insufficient, I’m pretty sure that’s it.) So, I talked to this crazy b.a. of a lady—who planned to get this guy across the finish line of his second marathon in a Boston Marathon qualifying time, none the less—and felt like there was a bigger story here. (Blind runner qualifies for Boston Marathon—annnnd the feeling of self-insufficiency continues.) Welp, that long-winded version of that story doesn’t exist, you know why? Because a Google search for ‘blind marathon runner’ brings up almost four million results. This crazy makes-all-other-life-accomplishments-seem-like-stale-bag-of-Chips-Ahoy-next-to-molten...

I have such a bad romance with Detroit’s Fifth Third Turkey Trot. This race brings out the full spectrum of racers—newbies, vets, groups, walkers, costumed crazies, runners with dogs, runners with strollers, runners with dogs AND strollers, ect. Downtown is just mobbed (get it? Detroit? Mobbed? Ba doom ching!); which is strange, exciting and special—up until the starting horn goes off. The course follows the parade route, thus there’s a lot of out and back action. Those kinds of courses aren’t particularly exciting in my POV, but even less exciting when crowd congestion forces dead stops at hair point turns. But hey! It is what it is (said with optimism because after five years of these shenanigans my dad and I have mastered sliding through this back up with relative ease). This year my dad was pacing another sub-hour 10K finish . I was having my own internal parade at the thought of his face when he saw a PR while crossing the finish line. But, if the congestion at the cours...

Nothing says romance like heading north (120 miles north of the 45th parallel line ‘north’) in November. But, That's what B and I did, last weekend while celebrating our anniversary  for a northern Michigan, back road adventure. By ‘back road’ I mean BACK ROAD (actually, I mean no road); and by ‘adventure’ I mean exaccccctly that. Maybe it was the fog + late-fall gray + ‘closed for the season’ signs + my ridiculous fear of careening off the bridge while driving over it; but our jaunt across the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula was kind of scary. B had never been to the U.P. before, and I was stubbornly set on showing him around. Important note: I’ve been to the U.P. no more than four times, for mostly indoor activities. I was no expert before a few hours planning on Google Maps. Post-trip analysis: any chance of possibly one day being an expert has been revoked. With limited time a limited budget, we were limited in our explorations. Still I found some activities to...

I typically don’t grocery shop with B. The guy has stickier fingers than a preschooler in the cereal aisle and when he’s along we always, ALWAYS, make it back to the apartment with at least one ‘treat’ in tow. Several weekends ago it was salsa. Didn’t I know that he needed it to watch the Michigan/Michigan State football game that was on that afternoon? An hour later he had set up his coffee table snacking station—with my wide mouth flowered tea mug as his dipping apparatus. Some things are unique to each of us (my long distance running, his fantasy football leagues), but slowly and subconsciously some things are becoming ours. Watching B scoop and snack out of my our flowered tea/chip dip mug was just the latest example of blurred ours/us-ness. These moments aren’t new, but living together seems to make them pop up more frequently. Our trip last spring to Montuak  with a cheap hotel and big restaurant bills was very us; our mutually trained and conquered 30-mile bike race...

Please, please try not to make a face when you read this. I know, I knooowww this doesn’t sound right. I know it sounds like I’m ruining a perfectly delightful bottle of red wine; but my younger self also thought beer tasted like feet until I got use to it. Not that this tastes like feet, I’m just saying try this. Try it once, ok? When my college roommate got back from a summer studying abroad in Spain, she brought back this drink recipe. At first I was all wine + pop? Never . I was like you! It sounded wrong! It sounded gross! It sounded like a crime against grapes that had given their life to fermentation! But lemme tell you, the only crime that could be related to Kalimotxos (pronounced cali-mochos) is a crime against Spaniards for not sharing this with us sooner (ba doom ching). Here’s the whole recipe: fill a glass half full with Coke. Finish it off with an equal part of cheap red wine. Done. Sip. Enjoy. Salud. Now, if you really want to drink like the Spaniards do...

A few weeks ago I spent my lunch break sifting through colorful corduroy pants at LOFT hoping to make a purchase. I ended up leaving empty handed, so I came back to my computer and bought this instead: Boom. My first 25K. I really didn't know after my first(/last) half-marathon if I'd race again. I had a good experience sans obscene blisters  and wanted to race again, but not right away and not with 7+ mile summer training runs involved . But lately my little body has been taking me on runs both faster and farther than usual. Also lately, my friends have been racing, and I have jealously  not been. I feel like I've both physically and mentally recooped from my last big race, and I'm ready to do it again. I want that little red number on the bottom of my planner glaring at me through the day. I want the fist-pumping pride of rocking a training run; the oozy blisters, squeals of pain during foam rolling and and not-to-be-detailed woodland mishaps. I want a goa...

I’ve been begging B to build a fire in our fireplace since I moved in late-August. Never mind it was still 80 degrees out, we found—and replanted our lives into—an apartment in our price range with one of our wildest dreamed up wouldn’t-it-be-awesome-if-we-could-afford features. This girl wanted to crank up the A/C, light a few logs and celebrate. In true fall in Michigan fashion, late-October has felt more like early-December. It’s gotten colder the last few weeks and a few days ago it finally felt like appropriate fire-makin’ weather. I had the good intentions of going to my newly favorite spin class at the gym but sometimes a night just calls for canceling plans, PJ’ing it up and playing Rummikub near crackling, cozy glow. Rarely, if ever, have I seen a man as happy as B after building his first successful fire; and rarely, if ever, have I been as cozy and happy sitting in the warmth with him beating him in Rummikub.

Beautiful. I cry. Somewhere between college graduation and this past Saturday, my emotions evolved to those of a 70-year-old lady. Listening to the lyrics of a country song? Tears. A semi-moving movie trailer? Sniffy nose. A quiet moment reflecting on the good in my life? Watery eyes. It’s a new irritating reality. What’s non-irritating, of course, are the many happy events that launch the waterworks—like Kendal’s wedding this past weekend. I was crazy honored to not only be able to make it to her big day, but to have been asked to help out before and during the ceremony with some small but valuable specifics. Kendal looked stunning (p.s. just tearing up typing this, oy). The details for her wedding were so very her and Rob; from her classic yet glam veil, Kendal-crafted center pieces at the reception, to the Rob inspired Lego chocolates. It made the entire day a well-rounded celebration of them, and it was so great to be a part of. The 'personal assistants' and ...

One of my biggest work concerns last Tuesday was about Sharpies—where they were and why there weren’t enough of them. I was, while frantically digging in a box of unused name tag holders for said Sharpies, in the midst of hosting my first event for my new company (i.e. executing my first event ever). I’ve helped out scooped ice cream at apple festivals until my blisters had blisters at plenty of functions before, but never had to deal with ALL the details like best placement of a potted plant (answer: blocking the uneven floor), determine when to close what bar (answer: the one in the reception room, during the award ceremony to discourage additional noise) or address a crowd of 280 and announce honorees (with two names easily mispronounceable as unflattering synonyms for ‘butt’ and one wickedly authentic Latin name). This event was mine*—missing Sharpies, quickly disappearing mini meatballs, 12 minutes of speaking and all. (*Minus a little awesomely helpful prep work from my pr...

The old grbj.com I don’t want to talk about the speed of sliding images, discuss location of social media icons or spend hours fighting with a WYSIWYG editor for a long, long time. This past Monday my company relaunched the Grand Rapids Business Journal website. When I joined the Gemini Publications team in September, the relaunch was already underway, but there were plenty of placement and populating projects within the last six weeks of the project. My role was limited to lending my eye and web building experience  to final placement suggestions, and lending my fingers to tweaking lines of text and populating photo galleries. This meant I could turn work off at a reasonable hour and go to sleep at my normal time, unlike our super hero web development team who worked til all hours of the night for many, many nights. From our marketing goals, most of my work on the new site starts now—post launch. The new site has new registration features to get readers accustom to, and...

Work has been bananas lately in a high stress, learning and doing new things, juggling 3,000 to-do tasks kinda way. Secretly, I couldn’t be happier; a little month in to my new gig, it feels good to feel so needed. Today after a particular eight hours that felt more like 20, I needed comfort food in a bad way. Enter the quickest warm and cozy meal I know—my whatever goes lightened up Alfredo. I don’t know where the bones of this recipe came from; I’ve made it so many times I can cook it up from memory. It’s always a little different depending on what I have on hand, but always the coziness I need to chill out or warm up. Dana’s Whatever Goes Lightened Up Alfredo Ingredients Short cut pasta 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 1 1/2 -2 cups milk (I use skim) 1 handful Parmesan or Italian mix cheese Basil/Oregano/salt/pepper Directions 1. Cook the pasta up ‘til al dente. Set aside. 2. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large sauce pan. 3. Once melted, add the flo...

It’s a good thing B and I popped for a two bedroom place instead of one. The last two weekends our office has been converted into a cozy makeshift guest room for varying out-of-towners to crash. I could never just snooze ‘til noon and leave hungry guests to their own breakfast devices. For starters, I don’t think I could sleep ‘til noon unless someone spiked my bedside water bottle with children’s Benadryl. So this morning, well before any other sign of life in the apartment, I pulled out a bag of extra muffin batter from the fridge and got baking. If I were elsewhere than my cozy bed, I’d certainly love to wake up to warm muffins straight out of the oven—specifically Barefoot Contessa’s blueberry coffee cake muffins, please. This recipe has been a hit of the last three brunches I’ve hosted. Blueberries are out of season, so I bake ‘em plain, with chocolate chips or doctor up the dough with cinnamon, nutmeg and diced apples. The recipe claims it makes 16, but I can always squeeze...

Elaine's mom on the far left, next to her mom; and my grandma on the far right next to her's.  I’ve been to one family reunion many, many years ago. Here’s what I remember: a LOT of older people, extreme boredom, and my long-lost Canadian ‘cousins’ in near-tears over the lack of Tim Horton’s in Michigan. My immediate family on both my parent’s sides is small—most holidays don’t even require an extra leaf in the dining room table—and after that reunion experience, I appreciated the size. I figured when I took my family tree project last winter, I’d be able to add a little color to what I already knew, not gain additional family—but I did. While emailing back and forth with my aunt to collect information, she got back in touch with her childhood pal and my half first cousin twice removed—Elaine, and put me in touch with her too. Soon after moving back to Michigan, I was in Elaine’s house in southeast Michigan eating chocolate chip cookies and listening to her and my mom ...

Part of my high school shower routine was a quick scrub with that season’s new Bath and Body Works scent and three sneezes. Every shower. Without fail. Why? Orange Neutrogena Oil Free Acne Wash. Thirty seconds into every washing I’d sneeze, sneeze and sneeze. At some point I quit using it, and moved on to other random products that either stung, dried or smelled funny. Why should it take such a miracle cocktail of chemicals to produce smooth, clean skin? Well, it doesn’t. I found that out one day over lunch with my former boss—a spunky 50-year-old lady with flawless, wrinkleless, smooth skin. And even though she once told me about a wickedly expensive facial in Europe all done with rare, collected nightingale poop, her normal skin care routine was simple and inexpensive. More often than not she used warm water—no soap; but sometimes she used olive oil. And she’s not the first person with baby’s butt skin I’ve heard jump on the olive oil bandwagon, either. Last year on a mad chemi...

“I know I feel more like myself when I run, even if it's only a few miles, or at least I feel like the self I like best.” – Bart Yasso That’s one of my more recent favorite quotes—mostly because I found the way running fits in my life the way Bart describes and partly because I had the privilege to work with him  for a while; but I like it beyond that, too. I like to think that quote applies to everyone in some way; I like to think everyone has that thing (or things) that bring them back to their core. For B it’s an episode of Breaking Bad and triple checking his fantasy football league, but my self-care is different, and important to acknowledge and practice to keep me feeling whole. A small dose of these activities always seems to wipe off the film that can build up after too much routine. Running A few days without a trot and I start to feel gooey. My muscles get achy in an under-used kind of way and soon the restlessness seeps into my brain in the form of angsty lady th...

ArtPrize to Grand Rapids is what the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy is to Gen Y females; what Wayne Gretzky is to hockey fans and what Tickle Me Elmo was to moms of toddlers during the holiday shopping spree of 1994—combined. For the last four years the city has turned itself inside out with art. Exhibits hang from bridges, float in the Grand River, nestle themselves in empty patches of grass, mold onto the sides of buildings, hang on any/all vertical wall space and jump out of public fountains. In three square city miles live 1,500 exhibits. It’s a ridiculous, near-impossible-to-see-everything, amount of art. The mass consensus amongst Grand Rapidians is that ArtPrize rocks. It’s pulls in big bucks for the city ($15.4 million last year), exposes locals to art from around the world and makes this little-big city an early October destination point. The atmosphere around town is full on celebration. The interactiveness (viewer votes from Smartphones determine how the $560,000 priz...

Silence—sans crowd ‘whoa’s Black lights, pipe drums, paint-by-spit Rave—to a butt song* * a song about butts.

Ignore the crazy hair, enjoy the view behind. This past weekend I spent some quality time with B, his parents and our bikes. We tackled (and schooled) the Zoo De Mack ’s younger brother, a 30(ish) mile Fall Frenzy ride in northern Michigan. It was windy, there was rain (albeit only five minutes or so), and the hills had to have grown taller for our ride back—but it was great. This was my first Fall Frenzy; the first Fall Frenzy for B and his parents, and their first ride over 25 miles. The four of us met in Harbor Springs for the weekend ride. And despite a cold and rainy forecast on Saturday morning, everyone was in sunny spirits. Well, sunny/nervous spirits. B and his parents absolutely rocked this ride. Nothing about 30 miles is easy, especially when you have limited time to train and challenging weather; but it rarely seemed like an issue to my biking crew. Everyone’s spirits remained high, even those wicked climbs in the last seven miles. I tracked the whole thing on...

There weren’t many females at the indoor shooting range last Saturday; and by ‘not many’ I mean none—other than me and my mom. She was happier than a Pollock on Paczki Day that I was home this past weekend and willing to go shooting with her. When we got to the range near opening time, four lanes were already full with men a glow from heightened testosterone. My mom (in her baby pink ear protectors) and me (in a bright colored plaid button up that screamed the-only-thing-I-hunt-for-are-sales) only stood out just a little bit. Once geared up, my mom clipped the brown paper target to the automated dry cleaner rack gizmo and flicked a switch to send it about 10 feet back, then we loaded up the magazines. Handling bullets next to my mom felt so strange; it was like orchestrating a drug deal while on the phone with her talking about dinner plans, or to be more realistic to my teen-hood it was like telling her I was going to Tori’s house and going driving with pals around Birmingham inst...

When I moved, the first restaurant I ran back to with an empty stomach was the Electric Cheetah . This was the first place I experienced the culinary glory of sweet potato fries, and thought so highly of EC’s version, with their 64-crayola crayon like variety of aioli dips, that my pals and I dubbed every Thursday “Carb Thursday”, just to have an excuse for ordering four servings. I won’t tell you how many times within the last month that I’ve been back there; nor will I tell you how many times I’ve recreated this simple quinoa grape salad I’ve ordered each time I’ve been. The EC chefs do this up to the max with crispy onions, grilled turkey and a sherry-based vinaigrette. Sista don’t have time for crispy onion strips and swanky vinaigrettes—especially when this is tasty enough in a more simplistic form. Make this salad. Pack it for lunch. Pack it for lunch for the boy you like to smooch. It’s been tested and proven, the menz like it too. Quinoa Grape Salad Ingredients Qui...

Just slightly above knitting, my grandma’s favorite hobby is to fret. This was only amplified when she retired about nine months ago. Once, when she was harassing me for the 12th time that week about the same old subject, I asked her if there wasn't anything else she had to concern herself over. She laughed evilly cackled and said now that she didn't have to work, she only had MORE time to concern herself fret-able topics. Oy, the kibitzing over bupkis, Marge! I’ve prided myself on my lack of fretting; my calm, easy going, non-dramatics—until lately. What retirement did for my grandma, full-time employment did for me. My typical day is all about routine, and not dotted with football games; deadlines for the school newspaper and Hawaiian themed parties. It leaves plenty of room for the social cortex of my brain to go idle and circle around the same old subjects like the 80-year-old Jewish woman I’m not. It’s time to put the kibosh on this meshugaas. I want to...

This past weekend was my third here since I moved back, but it felt more like my first. It was the first weekend I felt like the apartment was actually up and running, and not like I was running around to get it there. So, instead of running to Target 20 times, I ran on the trail (the paved like buttah, wide and open and beautiful trail) behind my apartment complex, and biked it with B plenty too. Our 30-mile ride is coming up at the end of the month, so on Saturday I took him out for a marathon ride. We found out just how far the trail system goes (forever), just how badly rotten deer in the woods smell (vomit-inducing) and just how necessary energy sport chews are for a two hour ride are (will dance for gummies). The night before we met up with B’s family in East Lansing for the Michigan State football home opener. B was all nostalgic for his college days, but I was a little shell-shocked coming from a university with a glorified high school “stadium”. Seriously, why do NFL tea...

I can’t speak. I can hardly type. I’m too overcome with warm, creamy, gooey garlic pasta-ness wrapped around my belly like a hand knit blanket. I saw this recipe linked to in a food blog I regularly read and immediately took note. Creamy garlic pasta—what, pray tell, is not to love? Oh, by the way it’s a one pot, 10 minute meal. If you think you found something not to love, consider that ‘one pot’ tidbit you unfinding it. Sure, this isn’t the healthiest dinner you’ll make all week, but it’s friggin’ delightful. The pasta is infused with the garlic flavored chicken broth it hardly passes as spaghetti. The starch from the noodles helps the broth thick to a sauce as it boils. Topping pasta with sauce is so 2011. This is a perfect recipe when you want something comforting, quick and homemade—like after your first day of work. It’s not, however, a good meal if you planned on using the limited post-dinner daylight available for a bike ride. #concretepastabelly Creamy Garlic Holy Crap P...

I’m usually a breakfast minimalist—unless there’s good reason not to be. This morning was a prime example. My wine-soaked belly is growling for something good, and I know I need a good base of tasty fuel for a long day ahead. Last night we gave the apartment a test run and hosted our first game night with B’s childhood friends. By 1 am wine glasses were still full and late night snacks were brought out (thus starting what Andy called the wine and Cheez (It) portion of the night). All in all it was a success; and I’m not just saying that because I won Settlers of Catan or finally learned how to play Euchre. Later today, B and I plan to take the bikes out for a bit. We’ve got a race mid-September to prep for and a new (to me) trail system that I can’t wait to get lost on explore. A late night and long ride call for a big breakfast. There are thousands of pancake recipes around the web and I’ve tasted my way through plenty of the crappy varieties. This one is different. It’s no fr...

B and I had been dating for less than a year when I mentioned I might want to move back to Michigan. I tossed the idea to him it as a (much) distant future kind of goal; he read it as I was ready to get packing. A post-holiday pick-up from the airport proved we were both wrong on the timing. I’m not normally weepy, but fresh off the plane in B’s car, I broke down. I missed my family, Michigan State sweatshirts, Coney Dogs and more—I wanted to be closer to home. Once my crazy lady emotions simmered down, I tackled the subject again. It was a heavy topic to throw on a happy, rather bump-free relationship; but we’re both good communicators and calm by nature, so I felt comfortable broaching it. One of the most important (if not the most important) elements to this conversation was flexibility. Because I didn’t wait until my idea was a must-execute plan, there was plenty of room for compromise. We were both able to say ‘here’s what I’d like’, not ‘here’s what I’m doing’. B was relieve...

What do you get when you mix a back beat, a banjo and two black men? Gangstagrass. Some buddies and I caught them at Musikfest this past weekend and just about lost it with the brilliance of their act.   Here's a song off their new album, Rappalachia. I'd love to say I made any of that up, but I'm not nearly clever enough. Oh, you like them, you say? Here's more . 

Community can be a strange thing. It’s been 10 years since I hopped in the pool for my first swim practice and seven since I've lived in my hometown. My experience on my high school swim team wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies either (if your high school experience was, you’re lying), yet there’s still an emotional thread that’s kept me connected. My brother swam for four years after I graduated, and I’d occasionally—and oddly—encounter the dry, spectator side of swim meets. Most of my teammates weren’t just four-year friends; they were friendship bracelet weaving, monkey bar climbing, Ring Pop sharing connections from years of summer and club swim leagues. I met my high school coach, Rado—sans the ‘Mr.’ only for his swimmers, not for his students, mind you—when I was part of the eight and under team at our summer swim club. The female half of my homecoming group in 2003--all swimmers. Unfortunately, our community has come together for more sad than happy lately. Two ...

Next to Christmas, Musikfest is the biggest thing to happen in Bethlehem—it’s a pretty big deal around here. Loads of local and nationally known bands (500 says fest.org) set up at 15 different stages for a week; and folks crawl through the sticky August downtown streets like flies to poop taking it all in. Not to be a Grinch or anything, but I’m not a huge ‘fest fan. Maybe my attitude was tarnished when I lived on actual ‘fest grounds’ and heard every giggle, conversation and Celine Dion song from the flutist outside my window for days on end. This year I’ve wandered down to Main Street a few times (mostly because my buddies wanted to) Sunday morning I Musikfested solo, though. Main Street was quiet and all the pop up food tents were covered. I was on foot, desperately attempting to get some summer mileage in. I ran down to the Historic District, one of the ‘fest’s main hubs. Here, a few workers were awake, getting tents stocked for the day, setting up stages and folding...

Every time I go to the grocery store, I come home with rice and beans. It’s not that I particularly eat a lot of rice and beans, it’s just that I can never remember if I have enough on hand so I inevitably stock up on more. Thankfully rice is a good chameleon ingredient. It’s like that friend you can invite out to any gathering who mingles in a way that brings strangers amongst the group together. (For the record: I’m not that friend.) I’m more of a beans kinda gal (minus the gas)—hearty, trusty, a little wacky upon closer inspection, but versatile if given the chance to prove it. That wackiness made moving solo to Pennsylvania two years ago an exciting and feasible adventure; my heartiness made sailing on chaotic seas the past few weeks more manageable; and I’m trusting my versatility will make my transition back to life in Michigan a seamless one. For the next two weeks I’ll be eating my way through all the excess beans and rice that have taken root in my pantry. Thankfully it...

Last month I started watching AMC's  Mad Men   on Netflix. You know, that show all the kids were raving about five years ago. (I've never been one to be on time to a party.) No point in posting a late and lengthy review now (CliffsNotes: it’s fantastic; if just for the costumes and set design alone) but watching the 1960’s-based show online, while pausing to check my Facebook news feed of course, got me thinking about the connection between the two. I’ve been turning over my personal social media usage in my head for the last year or so—how I use it, how others use it and why—and though I don’t have any concrete answers to these wonders, I’m getting there thanks to copious amounts of Mad Men . Mad Men characters Roger Sterling and Don Draper Watching the way the actors in the ad company’s creative team pitch campaigns for brands isn't all that different from the way Gen Y’ers present themselves online. Not that many (or any) of my friends are putting pe...

Wah! Vacation is over! I soaked up so much pure Michiganness I'm practically bursting with sun, lake water and my mom's cappuccino chocolate chip muffins. My family and I had a few days of sun and a few of clouds during our week in Harbor Springs (northern Michigan). Still, we carried on with our usual activities, plus some. I figured given my water resume, kayaking down the Sturgeon River wouldn't be too challenging, but turns out steering a body down a straight black line and navigating a hefty boat between trees and branches is about as similar as Mackinac Island Fudge and Hershey's fudge — i.e. not very.  I was much more successful chowing down at the new Thai place in Petoskey. Panang curry is mid-meal drool-worthy. But the new aside, the real joy in vacationing up north is the routine. S ince the loose tooth days of my now 21-year-old  brother  (se riously, once he lost two teeth in the orange shag carpet of my  aunt's chalet  and only one was ever...