Check yourself...

Because I have some of the best friends in the world, I get birthday gifts from time to time even though all I really ever need to feel spoiled already is the gift of their presence in my life.

This year I got a book of story prompts and a couple years back I got two books with autobiographical prompts.  Prompts are my jam.  Prompts are all I need to be off and running my fingers over the keyboard or pen over paper.

And in honor of the new book I went back to look at one of the old ones... they were selling it at Paper Source's and stores like that in the fall of 2013 

Glorious, right?!  I had filled it cover to cover by mid January of 2014.  The other one I got



I have on my to-do list to complete when I'm approaching 35 (the age I'd be privy to becoming president if I were so inclined... ahhh how I love arbitrary rationalizations)!

Anyway, I thought I'd post two of the essays I wrote in late November/early December of 2013.  I thought maybe I wasn't posting much around then on here, but it looks like I did at least a handful of times.  Nevertheless, it's still pseudo noteworthy... here's my answer to the question "how would you describe yourself" as of this time of year three years ago...

"Is it a bad thing talking about myself comes so easily to me?  Self-aware - that's the way I'd start describing myself I guess.  Eternally if not relentlessly optimistic.  A glass half full kind of girl.  A type A person who wishes she could be a free spirit.  A "Yes" person with a high tolerance for bullshit.  Remarkably unobservant.  Pretty impressively patient in my personal opinion.  Loyal.  Loving.  Lovable I 'd like to think.  I love to laugh, love to learn, love to lean in when I feel like I have something worthwhile to bring to the table.  I'm a homebody who loves to travel and loves to make the world feel a little smaller with each new trip around it.  I'd say I'm a leader by nature most likely due to my eldest sibling role.  I'm a straight shooting sagittarius and a little slight of tact sometimes if I'm being honest.  I have high expectations of the people I love because I believe in them with every fiber of my being, but I'm pretty hard to disappoint because I'm pretty level-headed anreven keeled.  I'm not a very passionate person, but I love to do the things I say I'm going to, andI am great at committing for the long haul to projects that I either believe in or think are important.  I'm pretty maternal, but also self-serving.  Self motivated, easily excitable, always open to being newly inspired.  I'm open and accepting and always trying to stop my natural instincts to judge.  I'm Catholic with a little 'c.' The oldest of 5 kids. Irish/Catholic/Italian/French Canadian and a couple other things.  A boston girl at heart.  And way more of a city girl than country bumpkin."

This all still applies.

I'll add that I'm grateful.

We interrupt this message

to bring you this very important and hilarious message I got yesterday in response to the last line of my email to her "ROMA in 2 DAYS!!!"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: One of my favorite curly haired friends
Date: Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: flowers
To: Danielle Naugler


AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SEND A POSTCARD!!!!! THAT IS SOOOOO FUN!!! ARE YOU PACKED?!?!?

oh my good god.  be safe, have fun, and def meet a man who will take you on a moped ride... k greatttt.

eatpraylove.

ooyfchf (One of your favorite curly haired friends)

------------------

Love this.  Love my friends.  Love my sisters.  Love that we're going to be in Rome together for all of 3 days worth of amazing memory making.

The kids are saying #YOLO, and in my effort to carpe diem Newsie style and maximize this time I have when my sisters and I are all still basically 20somethings, I'm saying #YOYO (you're only young once) and living it up.

Arrivaderci, Nueva York.  BRB.

On having vs not having

specifically: 5 kids vs no more than 4

I am pretty obsessed with my sibs (obv).  I thank the Big Guy & my rents every day for the Naugler 5 and wouldn't trade having two brothers and two sisters for anything in the whole wide World.

But I've often had friends fantasize about having a big family or acquaintances ask whether I'd recommend they go for more when they've already got 3 kids or 4, so today I thought I'd post some of the wisdom I've shared with friends and random people alike on family size in general over the years.

First  - without a doubt, 2 kids is THE most manageable amount of offspring to have.  one per parent at any given time.  plenty of resources, time, energy and love to go around.  plus the little ones learn to share (sort of).

Second  -  if you have 3 kids, you're golden because you never have to upgrade from a sedan or small SUV to a car with a second back seat.  there's ample room for backpacks and sports equipment w/out needing the extra space afforded to you in a godforsaken minivan.  plus your kids get the practice of being friends with two distinctly different individuals which is clutch.  true you get a middle child, who's bound to have a middle child complex, but you're at least contributing conceivably well adjusted individuals to the world.

Third  - if you go for 4 kids, the good news is, between you and your partner you can hold all four of their hands when crossing the street.  this i deem a verrrrry important aspect of the child rearing process.  and maybe it's just me, but i think it's also an important symbol of attention division - if each kid gets one parents' hand it's fair to assume each kid is getting an equal amount of attention, love, and energy throughout their childhoods.

Fourth  - 5 kids... 5 is the real deal, guys.  THE REAL DEAL.  5 is a special force division, a basketball team, a LITERAL HANDFUL.  There are 5 kids in The Family Stone, and Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson did a damn good job with that fictitious brood.  I think mama and papa naugs really knocked it out of the park with the 5 Naugleberry knuckleheads in real life too, so it's not that it can't be done well, it's just that the decision to have 5 kids reeeally deserves SERIOUS contemplation and reflection ahead of time...

Fifth - same thing with 6 kids.  Calls for a SRS (I think that's how the kids are shortening serious these days) amount of pre-meditation.  Cause 6 must merit the lable of a gaggle right?  a flock?  a herd? 

Really, more than four is no man's land and anyone's game.  more than ten, obviously, forget about it... you run out of fingers to count them off on.  that's a crazy undertaking - just simply not for the faint of heart.

But who am I kidding?  Having ANY kids is not for the faint of heart. 

-- I'll give a simple nod in this split second to the only children and babymomma / babydaddies of only children out there now because that's quite the undertaking in its own right - you are responsible for successfully socializing that little one who's flying solo.  So g'luck with that.

Back to bringing any amount of babies into the world... it's got to be easily the craziest career choice out there and nearly EVERYONE's inclined to do it.

But if I have learned anything in this week of "caretaking" in Newton, it's that ANY number of dependents is significant.  So you really just gotta know your limits, cast your lot and then play the game to the best of your ability.

It's kind of like that old Hasbro toy Kitty Surprise (a Christmas favorite in '93)

I had the "breed" of cat below back in the day.

...and she had a litter of 4 (exactly what I'd been wishing for as an 8 year old) so I named them Alexandra Marie, Marie Alexandra, and then two boys names in the same back to back just reversed ordered... Charles something?  Something Charles was it?  needless to say, I have come to realize I could never handle having 4 kids.  I should have figured that out in fourth grade when I couldn't even come up with 4 distinctly different names for my kitten surprises.

Photo Book aka my most advanced use of multimedia to date / mama naugs' stocking stuffer

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a wide range of artful designs and embellishments to choose from.

Merry Naugmas

Many of my girlfriends have at least a glass of wine a night and are no stranger to the "woops I polished off that bottle of 3 buck chuck" phenomenon.

I had never drank by myself however until last night.  When I realized it was the last night I'd have on my own in 2011 (from here on out it's holiday gatherings, nights home at my parents' with my siblings & puppy, and hosting out of towners visiting for NYE in NYC) I decided to have myself a merry little Naugmas and dip into (drink) the birthday bottle of Malbeck the nice waitress at Jadis sent me home with last month while watching The Holiday.

I also, full disclosure, took an intermission and grabbed a single dogfish head 60 minute IPA from the bodega on the corner, and better yet, I took notes throughout the viewing on the things I loved about the movie...  scrawled in chickenscratch, I think they say...

1. The character Iris
2. The hot guy who almost sits beside her on the plane
3. That Jim from The Office has a bit part 
4. That Cameron's character can't cry
5. That that fucker Jasper texts Iris the second she's seated and ready for take off
6. That Cameron's character has Atonement with her in first/business class
7. That Iris drives along the same LA strips I did this June
8. Cameron staying on her feet just barely the way I did when I nearly fell on my face in front of my crush John Paul last Wednesday 
9. That I made it through 3/4 a bottle of birthday wine and a beer from the bodega before 11pm
10. That Jude Law can play "non d-bag" ala my fave gay chorus boy/one-day leading man who REALLY pulls off straight
11. Kate waking up in Amanda's bed mirroring my every morning in LA on Iovate's dime 
12. That Jasper rouses Iris from her LA wakeup with a request for her to ______ on his career
13. VOM
14. How much Jude Law's beauty in the breakdown buddy looks like Paul Rudd
15. That Cameron's character has a Lexus SUV
16. Jude Law's line: "I sew and I have a cow in the back yard.  How's that to relate to?"
17. Jack Black's confrontation with the girl cheating on him
18. Iris giving him water when he asks for something stronger
19. How I cried when Cameron as Amanda _____ "welcome back" cried

The _____'s are place holders for where I can't read my own writing, and I think it becomes ENTIRELY clear that I had all that wine and the beer when I switch from calling Kate Winslet by her character's name to calling Cameron Diaz by her's around #11. 

This was a fun exercise.  I highly recommend it.  I also think I need to make a point of going back to California before too long and checking out the English countryside one of these days.

Love.

My Christmas Earrings

A few years ago my family started a sibling grab.  There are five of us, and it would be super costly to have to shop for all of the sibs and significant others of sibs, and everyone else does it, so it seems to make the most sense for us to too.

Anyway, my middle brother the really, really, ridiculously good looking one, had me in the grab the first year, and the way our grab works is that we each get to basically tell whoever has us what we want them to get us.  So I told my bro I really wanted some drop earrings.  They didn't have to be expensive, they just had to be "going out" earrings.  You know?  He had a girlfriend, he still lived at home, I figured he'd consult the girlfriend, one of our two sisters, or our mom maybe before buying what I expected to be one of those sets of three silver hoops or dangling earrings of different sizes.

But instead, he set out on his own and bought me what I now affectionately refer to as my Christmas Earrings and religiously wear each December.  They're these little drop wreaths of Avon Holiday Caliber, and believe it or not they totally come in handy more often than I ever would have imagined they could have when I first opened them that Christmas morning.

Tonight I have to go spend an absurd amount of time on the treadmill at my NYSC, because yesterday I was a waste of space and skipped my long weekend run, and I'm getting ready to head there now, but I just stopped and thought, I think my Christmas Earrings will make my time on the treadmill much more bearable, and dug them out of my jewelry box (which my middle bro's new wife gave me for being a bridesmaid actually) so I could put them on.

This is approx the 4th time I've worn them just this month.  And they just make me so very merry.