Hello shelbylately.com

Hi friends! Although mon Cheri amour has been an awesome experience, I’m ready for a new one. I’m really fascinated by the blogging community and want to take blogging more seriously and become a more active participant. I have some great friends whose blogs have inspired me and pushed me to be a better blogger and writer.

So I’m retiring this blog and moving on to more ambitious things. If you’re interested, please follow me on over to shelbylately.com

Thank you so much for reading and I really hope to see you at the new blog

Little commitments

I have a few resolutions but one of them involves this blog. I’m going to take it more seriously; I’m going to take writing and the blog community more seriously.

I bought a domain tonight and will be working on a revamp this month. Sadly, Cheriamour.com and other similar names were all taken but the new name hit me like a ton of bricks the other night as I fell asleep. I actually like it better as it encompasses what I and this blog are really all about.

I’ll be working on that this month along with some freelance copywriting I’m doing for my friend who is launching her business in February. I really believe that her business and product are brilliant and I’m excited to have a small part during its infancy. I have told her to pay me like Google paid their employees in the beginning – with stock! Even the janitors got filthy rich at Google.

So if it seems a little quiet for a bit, please know there are bigger and brighter things on the horizon around here as I work on improving this site and improving myself.

Tags: growth, revamp

Jack and V

Happy New Year! I spent last night with my Starbucks co-workers and new friends Shanita and Velma aka Miss Velma, V or MIss V.

Miss V is the kind of person who should have novels written about her. She’s a mature woman (whose age I refuse to reveal for fear she’d slap me!) but she smokes and drinks and curses like a sailor. In short, she’s a fucking blast.

The customers at work adore V. She is the favorite. People who no longer live or work near the store still come in for their daily dose of common sense, verbal abuse and tough love. Every Christmas they pile her with gifts. She loves to read, so she gets tons of Barnes & Noble gift cards, and she loves to drink. One gift was a huge bottle of Jack, which she generously
shared with us last night.

Miss V is impossible to explain because she’s so full of life that you’d have to meet her to understand. I’ll give you an example of her awesomeness though, based on an exchange she had with a customer.

Said customer walked in the door and wanted a cup of coffee. She was in the middle of brewing the coffee and told him it would be ready in a few minutes. The customer made a mistake at that moment by snarking.

“I thought this was supposed to be a coffeeshop.”

To which V replied – “There’s a Wawa in both directions, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”

(Wawa = coffee station/ convenience store)

And you know what happened? He sat his ass down and waited for the coffee to finish brewing. When it was brewed she called out cheerily “Here you go sir, have a nice day!”

Happy 2011 my friends! May we all find a little bit of V’s spirit in us this year.

Tags: friendship, spirit

Return of Saturn

I’ve been listening to No Doubt’s album “Return of Saturn” a ton lately. I remember that Gwen Stefani had a specific reason for the album’s title and I remember thinking then that it was profound, but that was the extent of my memory. So I went looking and got more than i bargained for. According to Wikipedia, the definition of Saturn Return:

The Saturn Return is an astrological phenomenon that occurs at the ages of 27-30, 58-60, 86-88, etc., coinciding with the time it takes the planet Saturn to make one orbit around the sun. It is believed by astrologers that as Saturn “returns” to the degree occupied at the time of birth—approximately every 29.5 years—a person crosses over a major threshold and into the next stage of life. With the first Saturn Return, a person leaves youth behind and enters adulthood. With the second Return, maturity. And the third and usually final Return, a person enters wise old age.

The first Saturn Return is famous because it represents the first test of character and the structures a person has built his life upon. According to traditions, should these structures be unsound, or if a person is living out of touch with his true values, the Saturn Return will be a time of upheaval and limitations as Saturn forces him to jettison old concepts and worn out patterns of living. It is not uncommon for relationships and jobs to end during this time of life restructuring and reevaluation.

But the Saturn Return is not all about painful endings. During this time astrologers note that goals are consolidated and people tend to gain a better vision of where they are going in life.

WHOA! Right? I think it’s safe to say that 2010 would mark the beginning of my personal Saturn Return.

Tags: astrology

And the price of a memory (is the memory of the sorrow it brings)

No matter what my feelings on the war are, it’s still important to remember that there are men and women who are currently sacrificing everything to fight in it. It’s really easy to forget and it’s very easy to vocalize dissent when my husband/brother/child isn’t the person on the line. I can be really insensitive sometimes.

I ventured to the Virginia War Memorial today. I’ve driven by it a few times on my way into downtown Richmond so today I pulled into the parking lot. I expected to have a quick look around but ended up staying for nearly two hours. There were some great exhibits, my favorite being a wall containing soldiers’ wartime letters home. The dates ranged from 1942 to 2005. But mostly I just sat on one of the cement benches and stared up at a massive glass partition which contains over 11,000 names. The names are every Virginian (on record) who lost their life in World War II, The Korean War, Vietnam and Persian Gulf.

It was humbling. The reasons for any war are complicated and extend beyond black and white. In my opinion, some wars have been more necessary than others. But 11,000 is a staggering number; it’s a lot of blood, tears, families, children and heartache. As I sat there, a photo I remember as a child appeared in my mind, as if I’d viewed it yesterday instead of 15 years ago. The photo was of my father in Vietnam. He’s skinny, handsome, young, uniformed and leaning against a car, smiling. I asked my mom about it on the phone and she doesn’t remember where it went. Although Vietnam happened way before my time, it made me grateful that my father made a successful transition into civilian life. Some of those who got out alive didn’t really survive. Not in the way that counts. There’s no memorial for this, no way to etch that kind of loss into a glass partition.

What caught my eye most of all was the empty space underneath the Persian Gulf. There will be so many more names to come.

Tags: Richmond, sights

Betty Crocker, feminist style.

Hannah and Hailey are my cousin’s twin girls. Which technically makes them my second cousins but given the age difference it seems weird to call them that. Everybody should have an embarrassing bathtub photo, so I took it upon myself while bathing them which you can see at the end of this post. Have you ever given twin babies a bath? Holy crap! Translation: Shelby needs wine. I think Hannah is in the front? Truthfully, I can’t tell them apart. I’m always relieved when they come over and are wearing different colors because when the outfits are identical, it’s hopeless. I’m hopeless. Also below – Hannah (Hailey?) gnawing on my Stella & Dot jewelry and also a prime example of the damage two little girls can do when you leave the room for 30 seconds.

Christmas lights are popping up in the neighborhood. I took the long route home from work tonight so I could see all the decorations. I don’t remember ever seeing this at home, but putting electric candles in the windows is a really popular thing to do. Of course, the style of the homes around here is split level with 6-10 perfectly symmetrical upstairs/downstairs windows. We installed candles in our windows yesterday so one night when they’re all lit up I’ll snap a picture.

I’ve mastered a leaf blower and have learned a killer whole wheat banana loaf recipe. If your bananas get bad before you eat them like mine do, let’s talk.

I’m like Betty Crocker, but with knee-high boots instead of an apron.

I’ve got some exciting volunteer work on the horizon and I’m also trying Weight Watchers for the first time ever. Weight loss is not my struggle – weight maintenance is! WW seems to be the most successful program at teaching you how to permanently change your lifestyle. So I’m going to give it a shot.

After all, it does no good to go to the trouble of losing 25 pounds if you go and put 17 pounds right back on. Am I right?

I certainly get homesick. But the slower pace here brings a quiet peace that has eluded me for the past year. When you’re in place where everybody knows you, sometimes you can really get away with never knowing yourself. There’s no one who really KNOWS me here in Richmond, and there are moments when it has made me sad. But it’s been good for me. It is forcing me to evaluate what I really want in every aspect of my life. I can certainly say that every decision I’m making is because I am unquestionably in control. That feels really good. In the long run, a little loneliness is worth it.

Besides, my mama is coming for Christmas!

Tags: domestic, self-improvement

Virginia Holocaust Museum

Adjusting to the East Coast time change is not easy. By 6pm, it feels so late, and and yet it’s hard to fall asleep at night. I am already nocturnal, so adding three hours to this does me no favors. After spending the weekend sick in bed with a stomach virus, I was feeling antsy to get out and do something today. (Yesterday?) Soooo I went to the Virginia Holocaust Museum which turned out to be free (!!) and a completely sobering experience.

The Holocaust is one of those things we’re taught about in school. 6 million Jews, Allies, World War II, etc. I realized today how LITTLE I know about this subject. I know the basics, as I’m sure we all do. But I don’t know the specifics. The different medical experiments. The artwork of the imprisoned children. The aftermath of “liberation”, which often ended up being as horrible as the concentration camps. The specifics are what we should know. The specifics are what we owe it to ourselves to learn.

At the end of the exhibit, there was an entire wall filled with the artwork of local middle school children who painted these gorgeous tiles in response to seeing the Holocaust-themed play “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”. Then as I walked back into the lobby, there were nearly a dozen cases and trunks filled with pennies. The Penny Project is an ambitious task the museum launched a decade ago. Their aim is to collect 6 million pennies to represent those who were exterminated. They’re at 2 million and counting! I added a few pennies of my own as I left. It was an incredible, hopeful way to end such a dark experience and ease back into the real world.

Happy Thanksgiving. There’s so much to be thankful for now, and always. I forget that too easily.

Tags: Richmond, sights