Randi with an i

Three ‘taboo’ things I did by myself in the past few weeks

November 8, 2018 Randi

The older I get, the fewer friends I seem to have.

OK, that’s not entirely true. I have tons of friends — but most of them are in LTRs, or are married, or have kids, or have moved away, etc. So, as a single 29-year-old, making plans to go to a concert or take a vacation or go to dinner is no longer as simple as polling my roommates to figure out who’s doing what for spring break, or walking across the street to ask my neighbors whether they’re down to go to a music festival with me in two days.

The only real chances I have to get together with friends take loads of planning. Like, yunno, weddings and bachelorette parties and whatnot. Finding friends who are free for international vacays, last-minute concerts, out-of-town weddings? It’s practically impossible.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years not doing the things I really wanted to do because I was afraid of doing them alone. I’ve passed up concerts, weekend trips, street festivals — you name it. I spent years turning down the things I really wanted to do because I was so afraid of doing them by myself.

Hello 29 and hallo Germany

October 21, 2018 Randi

Guten Tag and hallo! I’m sleep deprived AF and am currently typing this on my phone from a seat on a budget airline flight somewhere between Berlin and Chicago!

I’ve got a preeettty bad (good?) habit of buying super cheap flights for super short trips months in advance with the “oh I’ll figure it out later” mentality. So, when I was surfing Skyscanner three months ago and landed on a $320 round-trip flight from ORD to SFX on my birthday week? No brainer. I packed my single backpack (#nobaggagefees), left Chicago at about midnight this past Tuesday, arrived in Berlin Wednesday afternoon, and landed back at O’Hare really late Saturday night — just in time for my 6 a.m. Sunday shift at the Trib. Perk: My trip only cost me a single vacation day.

Happy birthday to me, right?

How I get my manicures to last a week

September 24, 2018 Randi

So, this is a post I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

I get asked — a lot, actually — how I do my nails since I pretty much always have them done. I worked at a bar throughout college, and health codes don’t allow for nail polish usage in the food service industry. So, all through college, I couldn’t ever paint my nails. If I did, it was for a two-day span and then the polish had to come right back off for my shift. Long-lasting manicures weren’t really necessary.

Once I graduated college and got fired from my bar job (long story), I started painting my nails again. I was a reporter so I always had my notebook and pen out in front of me, and had a lot of attention on my hands. I started making more of an effort to keep my nails polished. I started getting acrylics done right after college, but didn’t like the feel of them, and thought they looked a little too high-maintenance. Plus, they were expensive! I started painting my own nails instead. And, after a few years of trail-and-error, I finally figured out what products work and what don’t.

Here’s my step-by-step.

How I afford to travel

June 26, 2018 Randi

OK guys, ready? This is a post I’ve been asked to write multiple times. I’ve been putting it off because I wasn’t really sure how to write it without sounding like a privileged and/or condescending asshole, but people keep asking me this question, and I really do want to answer it.

The question? “Randi, how do you afford to travel?!”

New Orleans and southern Louisinana

June 4, 2018 Randi

Oh, hey. Another weekend travel post. *Ducks under desk*

My mom likes to joke about how — if I’m not currently on a trip, I’m planning one. She’s not wrong. As soon as I got back from Boston last month, she asked where I was off to next. I told her I’d been thinking about visiting New Orleans for a while, and surprisingly, she said she wanted to go as well.

So, NOLA it was!

Life lately, a slightly longer-than-necessary version

May 24, 2018 Randi

So, I haven’t really been around too much lately, and I don’t really have to struggle to find the words to explain why. I mentioned at the beginning of the year that 2017 was shitty, and — while I was hoping 2018 would be better — we’re almost halfway through the year and it’s pretty much just as shitty as last year. Welp.

I’m still trying to take things day-by-day, dealing with the fallout from my recent breakup, parents’ divorce, work transitions, etc., and so far that’s meant refocusing my attention away from things like social media and blogging and toward things like reading, yoga, traveling and happy hour with my girlfriends.

Ironically, it seems like the more time I spend doing the things I love, the less time I have to blog about them.

Anyway, I wanted to give a little “Life Lately” update. I used to do these every other month or so, but haven’t posted one since last year. Where has the time gone?

A weekend in Boston

April 27, 2018 Randi

So, I realize a majority of my posts lately have been travel posts. Not gonna apologize! After a really rough late 2017 and a 2018 that honestly hasn’t been any better (in fact, I think it has actually been WORSE), my frequent trips are one of the few things that have been keeping me sane.

I just got back from a weekend trip to Boston with my coworker Colleen, and despite the cold and rainy weather, I couldn’t have asked for a better trip.