things I learned from my sisters

I am not the generally warm-fuzzy let's all talk and cry about our feelings sort of girl all the time so it may come as a surprise that I was involved with 3 different sororities during my undergrad. Probably the most...controversial? (not sure if that is the right word) decision I made (maybe controversial in my own head) was to join TBS my senior year of band.  I recently had a professor ask me why I would join a sorority my senior year and I think at the time...no wait, I know...that I had something to prove in terms of that sorority.

I came to school fresh from a high school program where I loved people, loved to serve my band (how dorky is THAT statement right there?), and just loved service in general.  When I got to UT I did probably every service event that TBS put out there, not because I wanted to get into the organization necessarily but because I just liked hanging out with the people, liked serving.  I had no way of knowing that I was being judged on how good I was as a person by several members.  It became clear as years went by and I never got a bid that I was maybe not cut out to serve the band with this elite group.  I didn't understand it, other people didn't understand it either, but the way the system was set up let lots of personal issues get in the way of who got into the organization.  My husband was even president of the brother-organization and he didn't know what was going on, but it was still fun (albeit awkward) to show up with him to functions.  Not awkward for me so much, but I could see it in everyone else's eyes, as if my worth came from whether others thought I was good enough.  I remember the day after everyone got their bids my dear friend and I went to band rehearsal (her story is similar in some ways to mine) and I said, "I feel like everyone is looking at us." Like, that it was some huge tragedy we hadn't been picked.  Again.

So somehow the rules got tweaked and bent (no really, the person who was president at the time really did change everything) and I was given a bid, apparently by unanimous vote.  My roommate at the time also got one, and she definitely was going to take it because she had been given a bid earlier and then dropped out because of school stuff.  I was a wreck about it.  There was so much drama wrapped up into this decision - was I walking away from the other two sororities (both which were in different ways very...opinionated about this one)? The president -who was also a good friend at the time- was convinced that I was going to show up at a meeting and burn the bid, and I nearly didn't show up to one of the first things we did together.  I remember driving to the place we were supposed to meet completely in tears.  My roommate talked me through it and said that I could drop out at any time, to just come to this meeting and see how it goes.

I ended up getting all the way through pledging and becoming a member, then realized that serving when I had to write down all the hours and being forced to show up to events that were sometimes pointless but supposed to make us bond as sisters was making me into a really unhappy person.  Top it off with the deterioration of a friendship with aforementioned president and my decision to attend the national music therapy conference in Austin (*sidenote: I had JUST decided to seriously start looking into MT and the conference was IN TOWN and my sister had completely paid the $300 super late fee or whatever for me to go) instead of a 24 day of talking about who should be allowed in the organization and the fact that that got me put on probation in the organization was a recipe for disaster.  I tell people now that if I knew then what I know now about TBS, I wouldn't have joined it.

Except, my pledge class. 

Most of the girls were freshmen when we got bids, and that means that they came into band when I was New Man (I think they call it New Member now) Advisor.  We're a seriously motley crew (crue?) of ages and experiences and personalities, which was to be expected in a group of 20 something girls.  I cannot adequately put into words what the time spent with these girls did for me.  They were the ones who kept me going, kept me sane when I had to deal with all kinds of BS that last year and a half.  I had way more fun getting to know them than pretty much anyone else in the organization, and we as a group in our absurd, quirky, irreverent way made a place for ourselves in the legacy of TBS.  I mean, during one event we were put in a tent and made to write a poem about how wonderful and glorious the organization is so what did we do?  Slam poetry. And a haiku.  Don't get me wrong, we loved band and loved the organization, but I think we were from the get-go over the you're-going-to-feel-nostalgic-about-this-because-someone-else-is-telling-me-that's-how-I-should-feel thing.  It took us a long time to really bond as a class, but I think all the awkwardness forced us to be genuine with each other. One of us said last night that we're going to end up ruling the world one day - one is in Hollywood, one in New York at school, one is in London, others in graduate school, all living their dreams.

I was going to be in Austin anyway this weekend, and when I found out that our last two pledge sisters are graduating and being "roasted" I tried to get our whole pledge class together to be there, which turned into 4 people at dinner and then just 2 at the event, with one sending love via Email.  It was a surprise, and the looks on the faces of the girls was totally priceless.  When we FINALLY got around to talking about you girls, I was truly honored to have started out in this organization with you. So many girls had much to say about how strong, inspiring, and rock star y'all are which made me giggle because I vividly remember your first days in band.  I treasure all of the pledge class but I think it is poetic that you two were the last ones standing, because y'all are far more rock star than any of us.  L and B, you are fabulously strong women, and you know that, and you don't compromise yourselves in any way for anyone, which is something I really admire.  B you are so shamelessly smart and humble at the same time that it baffles me and getting to talk to you nearly every day is a joy. L you are so genuine and hilarious and I've never really been able to trust someone who is as nice to everyone as you, but I do trust you.  Last night I remembered what a huge impact individual people can have on each other's lives, and y'alls beautiful words of wisdom, advice to do what makes you happy, to really truly care about other people, to really listen to people, honestly was like blowing on dying embers in my soul. So from the bottom of my heart, thanks for that. Also, hearing the love that you guys have for the organization and for people in general reflected back at you was just a testament to how wonderful y'all are, and I was so proud of y'all.  Happy graduation, folks - go show the world how it's done.

little boy ____ come blow your horn...

Rarely do I do things well when I am pressed for time.  A fabulous example of this is when I ordered wedding invitations.  Not only did I not order enough, I accidentally put Austin instead of Arlington on the return address part (thank goodness the zip code was right) and then I misspelled the in-law side of the family's last name.  It was a mess, a mess I attribute to the fact that I was trying to get through my first year of graduate school.

We've had lots of conversations about what colour the living room/kitchen area should be.  I want warm in the living room, green in the kitchen, while my better half wants the opposite.  We even went as far as deciding on a greyish blue for the living room.  Well, even though it's my last week of class we decided that I was perfectly capable of picking out a paint colour by myself so I went over to the paint store in Plano and picked out (what I thought was) a lovely shade of grey/blue.  I got home and with the help of my lovely and talented assistant Candace got it up on the walls. It was nighttime and she graciously let me obsess all night about the paint color because it was not in fact coming out blue/gray but LITTLE BOY'S ROOM BLUE.  If I get to the house later today I'll take a picture.  And next week, when all the stress of school is done, I'm painting over it.

last week of school! FOREVER!

Well, probably not forever, I do plan on getting my Ph.D. some day.  I just found out that UTSA may be starting a new music psychology Ph.D. soon, so I'll have to keep my eye on that!

Today I was completely floored by a music therapy experience.  I was toward the end of a session with my bilingual PPCD kiddos, the group that receives music therapy in only English.  I brought a chicken puppet and some baby chick finger puppets so we could do a song called "Los Pollitos Dicen" that I had translated to English from Spanish.  When I got all the way through the song the first time, suddenly this cute little girl started singing the song in SPANISH and the whole rest of the class chimed in.  Why is this a big deal?  It's sort of pivotal to my paper, that you cannot suppress culture, that it's part of who we are, and by doing music therapy only in English with clients who speak another language is just not going to cut it any more.  I was seriously moved to tears on my way home because it was really beautiful.  

I'm going to go paint my living room - hooray!  The hubs I have been going round and round and round on colours and we've finally settled on cool for the living room and warm for the kitchen.  We've also chosen to use Benjamin Moore's Eco Spec, which has lower VOC's.  I'll post pics soon!

can't...stop...watching....

if I could only figure out a way to incorporate this song into a therapy session...

renovating a house is fun

(via AIM chat)

Me: so, if we pick paint colours today/tomorrow i can just go to the store myself

Hubby: do you want to get test colors?

Me: umm, sure.

Hubby: Ok, if you get test colors then when do you want to put them up and when would you want to pick and put up the final color?

Me: earliest I could do test colours would be Wednesday at 3:00pm.  I could also put them up right after that. I don't think that I have piano class on Thursday morning, so I could pick up final colour before noon and put up final colour after 3:00pm on Thursday.  Why?

Hubby: I don't think you could do test colors on Wednesday and then the final color Thursday, you have to take time to look at the samples in different light.

Me: OMG I am so not this anal.

Hubby: Then do you want to just skip the samples?

Me: Besides, blandy mcblanderson, how different could off-grey look in morning, noon, and evening light?

Hubby: You'd be surprised.

Renovations Day 2: A Tale of Two Oz Posts

The fence was down by the first day, as well as some post holes dug. The hubs even went all the way back to Frisco early in the morning to return the post-puller. There's a section in our driveway where there's a square hole where a post used to be, now all there is in the hole is a rotted post that was cut off at the level of the concrete.  We're now wanting a gate to go there, so he found a way to put a post there - with the help of an oz post that he would drive through the old wood.  To keep the top part together, he stuck a metal pipe so he could bang on it with a sledgehammer.  I was super nervous holding onto that thing. By the time we got the post mostly in the ground, the pipe was pretty mangled. So mangled, in fact that we couldn't get it back out of the post.

The hubs even went to the hardware store and got a bit for some saw tool he had and he tried to saw the metal out.  Unfortunately, the blade went SHINK! and split in two in oh, about the first two seconds.

So, he went BACK to Frisco and rented the post-puller again (we had this idea about 2:25 and the place closed at 3:00 and Frisco is definitely 30 minutes away...) and I went to the Lowe's in Plano to get another oz post.  He pulled out the old post and then spent the next half hour or so hammering the new post back in. We got around the previous problem by getting a heavier duty pipe as well as end caps for the pipe so that it would be more difficult to get stuck.  We also had the bright idea to shove some paper towels into the post hole in order to cushion the blow.  As you can see in the picture, it still took quite a beating.

I told him he was my hero for finally getting that thing in. (insert kate, sarah, and michelle giggling here)

Renovations: Day 1

Sweet friends showed up early to help us do stuff - Candace and I set to cleaning the place up and the boys left for Frisco to get a post puller to pull part of our fence down:
That is certainly not the best picture, but you can at least see the fence.  It took Candace and I all morning and two mimosas apiece to get the entire living room scrubbed, taped, and all the fixtures removed.

I knew Kate and Sarah were driving up and when they got there, Michelle jumped out of the car also!  I was so excited!  Once the trio of power arrived, I gave them a tour and then we all got to work and everything went MUCH more quickly.  We got the living room primed, as well as the
guest bath and finally after a dinner break, the master bedroom.  Two gallons of Kilz and many "that's what she said" jokes later, we finished for the day.

House Closing

We closed on our house this past Wednesday :)  it was supposed to be Tuesday, but we couldn't get funded because our signatures looked different than what they did on our IDs.  So, we had keys but couldn't go in the house, but we had a pizza party that night anyway.  Hooray house!

Eco Chic, Vol. I

I followed the advice in Real Simple today for repurposing glass bottles and came up with a super sweet centerpiece. I have other pictures of the actual various bottles...beer and pasta, mostly, with a small Starbucks liquor bottle thrown in for kicks.

We close on our house on Earth Day, which I'm not taking as coincidence at all (and no we didn't plan it like that). Since we're doing renovations to the house, we're trying to be health-minded and do the extra research in order to find the paint/countertops/flooring that is sustainable/recycled/low VOC and whatnot. Sometimes we're creative about it, sometimes we totally steal the ideas from other cooler people who went green way before we were born (Like Ed Bagley, Jr.) but I do know this - we've been given the responsibility of redoing this house and we've got my mom's chemical sensitivities to take into consideration and just flat don't want to live in a house that does more harm to the planet than good. Also, when we decide to have kids this blog will get REAL interesting, and though they might get laughed at at school for having hummus and sprouts in their lunch pack, they'll know that the hubs and I are doing everything we can even now to keep them healthy by surrounding them with as natural stuff as we can.Plus, I'm sure we'll make mistakes along the way (I mean, so far I have the black thumb of death when it comes to gardening) but the point is for this to be a community effort and we can all learn from each other.

Our ever-growing list of things we want to do at said awesome abode are:

1. Recycle - you should've seen the look on the lady's face at City Hall when I told her I was really, REALLY excited that we wouldn't have to drive 15 minutes to recycle any more. This morning as I opened a new squeezy tube of toothpaste I also considered that we so easily think to recycle things in the kitchen but don't really think about all the boxes and plastic we toss in our bathroom receptacle. The solution is either dig through the trash, get TWO trash cans, or design something suitable. You know which one I'll pick. Yes yes, Nerd on both of those.

2. Compost - I used to compost with my dad when I was younger and I was at once totally grossed out by the coffee-puke smell and also fascinated by the process, especially when worms get involved. I've done some reading about this and seriously that's going to be the first thing I do when we move in - figure out where to compost in our yard so our dog doesn't roll in it (which is going to be tough, he loves disgusting stuff).

3. Play Chicken - We are seriously considering buying baby chicks and having our own chickens, and we're looking into our city's building code. Not a rooster, we don't want MORE chickens, and only 3. Why? Well, apparently chicken poo is good for the soil so we can, er, harvest that. Plus, fresh tasty eggs. Remember, I'm not vegan.

4. ORGANIC GARDENING! - I know I said I have the black thumb of death but grrrl, I can grow tomatoes like you wouldn't even believe. Or at least, I did last summer. My in-laws have this wonderful back yard where during the spring and summer when we visit they've been known to grab tomatoes, squash, herbs, and chives from the raised beds and throw them on the grill with the pork loin. Seriously, this stuff makes my toes tingle! I love nothing more than grabbing fresh fresh fresh herbs and throwing them into whatever we're cooking. We've got a bigger front yard than back yard, so figuring this part out will take some time, but I'm stoked. I think we have enough room/sunlight for a raised bed immediately behind our house, so we'll look into that first. The hubs wants to plant an avocado tree, tomato plants, onions, jalepenos and cilantro so we can have fresh guacamole and salsa in the Spring and Summer. See? He loves being married to a Latina :) Also, the lady who owned the house before us did the Tru Green stuff, but after talking about it, we decided we don't want to put a crapload of chemicals on our lawn. The hubs has ordered two organic gardening books from Amazon so far, I'll let you know what they are when they come in and if they're actually worth their salt.

So, there's a start. If anyone out there wants to post ideas, experiences, etc. I would LOVE to have good, green conversations, especially from people who have personal experiences with this because I've really just started this and haven't done a lot of research yet.

Ciao!

the last iPod update, maybe.

So today I called the TWU DPS and the conversation went like this:

Me: I am calling to see if someone's turned in a silver iPod with-
Copper: YES!
Me: WHAT!? Okay - does it have little black and white earphones with Koss written on the side?
Copper: Let me check.
[pause]
Copper: Does it have a yellow fish on it? And did you say GREEN earphones?
Me: No.

sigh.

starve a cold

My body is a funny thing.  It likes to take allergies and turn them into something dark and sinister, so last night I woke myself up coughing painfully and explosively at least five or six times during the night.  I'm mostly pissed because I have to cancel a camping trip that I was really excited about going on, but keeping my fellow campers up with my death rattle is no way for anyone to spend a Saturday night, really.

Being sick really messes with my head creatively.  My session on Thursday was uncharacteristically disorganized and overwhelming for me, partly due to cold meds and also because I can't breathe very well and when I can't breathe, I can't sing.  Like this morning, I woke completely without a voice and started panicking when it got to 9am and I had a 10:30 session looming.  I heated up a small cuppa soup, which gave me my voice back but during the session I had to get the kids singing then mouth the words.  I spent 11:00 - 2:30 in complete silence, drinking as much water as I could handle, and taking an hour and a half nap.  The kids in the afternoon class were in rare form, as they are every Friday, and I think being sick also helped me to relax and think a little bit, so the session went fairly well, even though I didn't particularly like the songs I was using.  

I'd been really a chaotic mess internally until yesterday I requested a relaxation from my professor who is a Guided Imagery and Music fellow, and it rocked my face off, and me back to center.  I hate to sound trite but gosh, I really love music.

Anyway.  We were going to go see the South Austin Jug Band tonight in Deep Ellum but nobody in the house is really up for it, and more importantly it's BATTLESTAR NIGHT!

hear that?

Storm sirens twice in two weeks?  It's my lucky April!

kinda like...

I decided today that getting a new house is much like being a bride.  Nobody in the bridal industry gives a rip that this dress is THE ONE and OMG I LOVE THESE SHOES and DON'T YOU THINK GELATO INSTEAD OF CAKE is just THE MOST?!  Much like, nobody cares that I'm setting up water and gas and getting a fence building permit in OUR VERY FIRST HOUSE THAT WE CLOSE ON NEXT WEEK because here baby, it happens every day.

Still.  I'm excited.  :)

you know what happens when you say "YES! I haven't gotten sick this year!"?

You get sick.  I think it all started when I took Jake for an hour-long walk down into the neighborhood where people were cleaning up their respective pieces of Destruction left over from last week.  There were lawnmowers, chainsaws, leaf blowers, and other bits of gas-powered allergy-inducing paraphernalia going to town.  I went to bed Sunday night with allergies and woke up with a sinus AND a respiratory infection.  What sucks about that is while I could skip my music history class and guitar lesson, I could not skip my music therapy sessions at 10:30 and at 2:30 because they're part of my thesis.  So, I went, then picked up stuff to make delicious cure-all chicken soup which I'm pretty sure rocked, even though I couldn't taste a darn thing.

Sleeping last night was hindered not only by my coughing and only bare ability to breathe but also by the fact that my dog has little nubbin feet and an elizabethan collar on at the moment. I took Jake to the dog park on Sunday to meet Nutmeg, a dog that belongs to some friends of mine.  He ran and ran and RAN around with her but also with an italian greyhound.  When I went to pick him up, I noticed he had ripped the pads on his paws - like, had little hangey bits of skin and was bleeding.  So the next morning we took him to the vet and they...made him look like that.  He's been wandering into walls and just stopping and whining like COME GET ME OFF OFF THIS THING I CAN'T MOVE and when the hubs put him in the crate last night he whined, turned his back to us, then kept whacking his left paw against the side of the crate in indignation. It was pretty hilarious, and also very sad so so we took pity on him and let him and the E-collar sleep in our room...first it was on his pillow in the corner and then sometime in the wee hours of the evening he jumped up on our bed (which i thought was funny, considering he couldn't get himself unstuck from the wall earlier in the day) and snuggled in right smack between us.

So anyway, today I dragged myself out of bed to get to piano class, then came home and fell asleep around 11am and just now woke up.  Don't be jealous, I feel like ass.

ketchup

The hubs and I woke to the sounds of tornado sirens going off at 3:30am last Thursday morning.  We jumped out of bed and turned on the TV and saw this:

So we grabbed the dog and huddled in the guest bathtub for about 30 minutes while the storm raged, the power flickered, and the hubs visually assessed the integrity of the structure we were huddled in.  Not a fun night.  We also live across from a firestation, so we heard sirens going off the whole rest of the night. The next day I was completely shattered, but I did snap some photos:

So yeah, it's been rather exciting around here.

iPod update

I asked my music history class this morning if anyone has seen an iPod floating around and turns out I left it in the student lounge during lunch.  Everyone in my class asked, "The silver one with the cool headphones?" Apparently lots of people saw it, one girl even moved it from beside the couch to the table...and then it sprouted legs.

Sigh.

time to get off our collective tushes and do something.

TxDOT is proposing a 6-lane highway looping the city of New Braunfels.  This is a developer-driven project that will increase urban sprawl from San Antonio to Austin.  The proposed project will cut through undeveloped land on top of the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone as well as pristine farmland.  The resulting construction and development will do unimaginable harm to the environment as well as the heritage and tradition of the New Braunfels community.

The final NB Outer Loop Proposal can be viewed here.  The stated goal of designating the corridor now is to plan traffic concerns 30 years from now, but there is no guarantee that TxDOT will wait 30 years to complete this.  If approved, they can build it how and when they want in a way that benefits TxDOT most, not the community.

Things to consider:

- How will the loop effect the environment, particularly sections on top of the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone and across the Guadalupe River?

- What impact will the new development this loop brings have on the heritage, tradition, and community of New Braunfels and surrounding areas?

- It is well known that TxDOT is in enormous debt and has adopted the policy of tolling all new highway construction.  Will TxDOT be building the NB loop as a toll road to route traffic from I-10 to I-35 or will it be a part of the greater trans-Texas corridor network?

How you can help:

- SPREAD THE WORD about the loop proposal and the townhall meetings going on in NB.

- Write letters to the City Council and the County Commissioners voicing your opposition.

- Write letters to the editor of the Herald-Zeitung.

- Research TxDOT, highway construction, toll roads, environmental impact, developer motivation, etc. as much as possible so we can make the best arguments to city officials.

This proposal is clearly not the most responsible way to account for future grown in the NB area.

Also check this out - the Citizens' Alliance for Smart Expansion

Interestingly, Robert Redford has also recently submitted a film to Sundance that is definitely worth checking out. Click here for the trailer.

thinker..

after a full 30-minutes of facebook stalking new friends, I found this quote:

"Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.  The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small dirty object.  It is better to forget about yourself altogether."

C.S. Lewis

I wish I had found that quote in middle school.

grrr

i lost the hook-ey up thing for my iPod, so i went to Target and bought another one, and now i've lost my iPod.  it must be the end of the school year or something...

Rainy days and Mondays rock my face off

So, I survived today, and not even by just barely, which was totally rad and unexpected.  I woke up at 6am, showered and got ready for a music history exam in Denton at 8 which I ACED and then drove to Lewisville to do music therapy with a new group of cutie-pie PPCD kids, then drove back to Denton for an SAMT officer's meeting and guitar lesson, drove BACK to Lewisville for music therapy session #2 (at this point I'm asking myself why the hell I chose to write a thesis instead of a lazy professional paper), vented with my mentor for about an hour, then drove BACK to Denton to revise the SAMT constitution, order pizza, and preside over an SAMT meeting.  Totally drove like 120 miles today.  Now all I want to do is let my brain melt in front of Gossip Girl.

for Daina

Dude girl you are so right I am totally remiss in *not* writing about my 104-degree fevered, almost-3-year-old nephew on the spring break trip and how I had to rethink my whole wanting-to-have-kids thing. Except, he really was cute looking for Easter eggs and that time we wanted pizza and then he took a bite of pizza, spit it out, and said, "I want eggs." and then after you made him eggs pushed his plate back and said "I want apple."  

But seriously, I do envy your patience, girl - you are an incredibly wonderful, loving, fun mother and Michael should be nicer to you ;)

bored...

I was not tagged, but here you go anyway:

10 years ago:  I was 15.  I just unearthed that journal.  And then I burned it.

Things on my to-do list today:

read and outline chapters for music history exam on Monday

pick up mom from airport

pick up agency approval letter from Lillie J.

pack another box 

SAMT stuff

workout (1km swim!)

If I were suddenly made a billionaire, I would:

go on a very long adventure that would end in a house in Spain

pay off my student loans

do everything to my mom's house she wants done

get a girl puppy that actually LIKES to snuggle

donate

invest

I don't know - I had a hard time wrapping my brain around what $50K a year looks like.

Three of my bad habits are:

1. PROCRASTINATION - although I'm starting to not so much see this as a bad habit, just a habit that I have to accomodate for.

2. not reading my Bible

3. driving while texting (working on it)

Five jobs I've had:

1. Restaurant Hostess

2. Music Librarian for LHB

3. Waitress at Jolly Cooper's in London

4. Swim teacher for babies

5. Personal assistant for musician/producer in Austin

Five things people don't know about me:

1. I have a plantar's wart on the bottom of my right foot that I tried to get frozen then burned off and it keeps coming back.  I hate to get pedicures because it grosses me out and I'm pretty sure the Asian girls talk about me and my nasty foot in Korean and then laugh at me.

2. I have a horrendous weakness for french fries

3. I won a John Phillip Sousa award for musical excellence in high school, which is ironic because though he may have been the world's first rock star, I still hate his stupid music.

4. I actually like Dallas, I just pretend I don't so I sound cooler.

5. I am an excellent friend, it just takes awhile to get to know me 'cos I have some silly walls up.  But, who doesn't. 

kicking my own butt

I worked OUT today.  I ran for 20 minutes (!!!) and then did an hour spin class.  Needless to say I was hankering for some serious grub afterwards - we had awesome veggie tacos with refried black beans and for dessert some Pocky sticks, which I just discovered at the store and am totally in LOVE with.

Next week I start 10 music therapy sessions a week for a month.  Wish me sanity.

My friend Kelli is freaking giving BIRTH tomorrow.  I honestly can't believe it, but am really really excited to meet the new baby!

moving, moving everywhere

so, we close on our house mid-April, we move to our new house sometime in May, and then I move to Austin.

I was thinking just a second ago about the things I'm excited about moving to Austin for and one thing stuck out in my head like a firecracker: WASSAILFEST. I'm such a country mouse.

eh?

Spring Break is over, and it flew by.  We went to Arkansas to fish but had far less luck than last time, as there had been mega storms recently.

There were several highlights of the week, mainly my father in law being doped up on painkillers from a very recent shoulder operation and the quote, "Theresa, take this sandwich" to which Theresa replied, "What sandwich, dad?" because he was not, in fact, holding a sandwich, nor was there any sort of sandwich nearby.

I actually had to force myself to relax - every time a thought of school popped up I pushed it away with thoughts of trout and how cool the water that I was wading in was.  I have 5 weeks of school and a thesis left and then I am done with schooling for a very, very long time.  I can't wait. 

I've started packing for moving and I came across a box of high school/college stuff...old love letters and graduation cards, which I mostly tossed, except for the one from my first boyfriend where he tried to use the word "quixotic" in a sentence about me and graduation cards from my grandpa who died recently.  Not recently, but, well, recently.  I made the mistake of opening a journal from the last part of my relationship with THE ex-boyfriend and I relished in the sentence "I have the feeling our relationship is dying..."  I threw that journal away, it was mostly about him and made me very sad because things were ending.  Reading all the highlights from my junior and senior year put me in kind of a funk, and then I pulled out my hubs's Christmas present to me a few years ago of all the Emails we've ever sent to each other starting with one back in March of 2002.  I sat and read the whole thing.  It's not one of those lovely dovey chronicles of puke but every bit of our first awkward moments, through the tumultuous time of me being in Spain and then London and then his job training.  It made me smile all the way down to our toes, especially the last quote in the book that I added to an  Email - "Things do not change, we change" (Aristotle).  

I've been thinking a lot about that today, people changing. Expectations and motivations and everything in between, which brings me back to being done with school in that I'm hardly going to know what to do with myself when I don't have schoolwork plus SAMT meetings, theses, or anything scholastically related to be obligated to.  To be honest I'm really looking forward to it, to doing all the scrapbooking/sewing/sending letters to my friends/baking/cooking/painting/maybe finally taking that pottery throwing/photography/creative writing/gardening class that I've been thinking about for the last almost decade.  Phew.

spring break: day 2

I am still exhausted from yesterday's events - the St. Pat's parade on Greenville in Dallas. I had a really good time with good friends, good beer, good food, good jello shots, good shameless schmoozing for beads, etc. etc.  Maybe it's because we watched Rendition last night after the festivities, but I came to the realization that all of that waking up early, buying tacos, buying beer, putting on sunscreen, standing around for 3 hours and having to stand in line for sketchy bathrooms was just waaaaaay too much work to put in for a sunburn and a mild hangover.

Maybe this is me growing up again, realigning my priorities, as per usual when the seasons change. But, when you realize that you and your husband can put this kind of effort in and keep making excuses for not going to/finding the right church, there's something a little off-kilter.

Note to self: no matter how hungry you are, do not freaking eat the meat you gave up a few months ago.  I had a big yummy piece of barbecued chicken and a couple pieces of sausage yesterday because I was *so* terrifically hungry after the parade...and my entire system is giving me hell for it today in the form of stenchified poots. Blegh.

In awesomer news, I got a music therapy internship in Austin for 6 months starting in June, which puts me in line to graduate in December and also a boost for my resumé because it is at a psychiatric facility.

And, we got a new tent today on a sort of impulse-buy...April and May cannot get here fast enough¡

high on sugar...and the weather.

i could kick my barista's butt for suggesting the new sweet tea - it's black with sugar brewed into it which, thanks to the coupling of that and the cranberry orange muffin has sent me over the edge of a sugar mountain so that now i'm like, free floating all tweaked out like through my day.  

Jesus take the wheel..

...and my papers and projects and everything related to school, buying/renovating a house, possibly graduating soon, being a fantastic wife, feeling crampy and barfey for the last two days and/or getting an internship.  

Please?

the week before spring break: chaotic.

There is nothing quite like waking up at 6am to get to class early the day after daylight savings (read: extra painful) AND after going to bed at 11:30pm, only to get to class and have your professor not show up! Gah!

This past weekend in Austin was awesome. The internship interview went really well, and I got the chance for some one on one time with a girlfriend who I feel like even though we've known each other for 7 years, I know her better after this weekend. The baby shower was also a huge hit but did I take any pictures? Of course not! I was too busy being one of three hostesses with the mostesses.

Now we're back to Dallas and I think the hubs and I have finally figured out a game plan for our kitchen renovations. Hopefully we'll hear back from the electrician soon. The most interesting part of all this has been trying to figure out our collective style, to come up with a kitchen that works AND is aesthetically pleasing to both of us. We've pretty much settled on the types of cabinets we want and that we would like to put an island in. We go round and round about the floors (one type of floor in the kitch and the rest hardwood or hardwood all over or cork maybe but definitely NOT tile etc. etc. etc.). I'm excited about having a piano in the house, and really about painting everything. This is so typical boys vs. girls thinking but the hubs is really into the hardware and the behind the scenes stuff (AC etc.) and when he asks me what I think about what we should do to this room or that I start talking paint colors and hardware from Anthropologie *drool* Go figure, eh? Also on our list is fixing the fence so our dog can't get out...the last person who owned him mentioned that he is an escape artist...so, we can't have chain-link fences and he could easily clear a 4-ft fence if he needed to. Decisions, decisions.

morning swim

I know I'm not exactly saying anything new when I say that I love Austin. ESPECIALLY in March. Unfortunately, my Spring Break does not coincide with SXSW, or else I'd finagle a way to be down here this coming week. Anyway, in keeping with my tri workouts, I had to swim today, and the friends we're staying with don't go to Lifetime any more so they said I should go to the local outdoor pool...heated, of course. After many twists and wrong turns I finally made it to the community pool, where the girl standing guard straight up told me I was crazy for swimming in this cold of weather. She uncovered a couple lanes for me and I got about halfway through when I looked over to my left, the darker water where the lanes were still covered up.

And, I FREAKED out. I think it has a lot to do with growing up swimming in lakes and rivers where dark water = cold and scary. Anyway, I tried to relax but think that all the stress coursing through my body made me nauseous when I got out of the pool. But hey, at least I'm sticking to my routine :)

Back to loving Austin, I woke up at about 6:30 to swim and turned on 107.1 KGSR...there is nothing better than waking up to that radio station. I've decided that Kyle and I need to work on some sort of 10-year plan to get back to Austin.

bzzzzt!

going through a house inspection is totally overwhelming!  The good news is that aside from some electrical work, everything else is mostly good!  Just little things here and there.  The next step is getting the electrician out there, then talking to contractors about work.  I can't help but feel this like, urgency to get everything done and at the same time an overwhelming sense of peace.  

Wacky.

cross your fingers for a clean bill of health

inspection day is tomorrow - I'm really excited and nervous about this.  Excited for obvious reasons, and nervous because I'm really allergic to mold, and don't want there to be any bad stuff.  The foundation looks pretty solid...no huge cracks in the wall or anything like that.

We've been talking about redoing our kitch first thing when we close, which has sent us into a rightful tizz about appliances and flooring options.  There's so much to think about!  Everyone's general advice is that redoing a house is super stressful.  We're heeding the warnings and vowing to keep communication lines open and be realistic about our budget.  I can't wait to get in that house and start fixing it up!  April 22nd can and can't get here fast enough ;)

not only a house but...

cars in snow!

Jake in snow :)

!!!!!!!!!!!!

OUR OFFER WENT THROUGH!!  WE HAVE A HOUSE!

the master bathroom that will soon be expanded...

and our fabulously retro kitch :)

garden party, anyone?

It was built in 1959...1632 sq. ft.  The cool thing about this is that the last people who put an offer in on the house put a higher offer than our original one and it got rejected.  Also, we put in an offer, got it countered, then we countered, and totally expected another counter but they accepted it and it was a little under our target price - so we're like, supposed to have this house!

We close April 22nd God willing - we've got all that inspection stuff to get through this next week.

confirmation

Today we went and checked out house #2, were only mildly impressed, then went back to house #1 that we originally put an offer in on.  As we walked around, I said, "Man...I hate to be all impulsive about this, but I really like this house better.  Like, a lot better."  My hubs did too, which was totally awesome :)  I had forgotten how great the closet space is, how little the guest bathroom needs updating, and the oodles of charm.  And, in reference to my other post about the coincidences and such, this trip seemed to be more of a confirmation that this house is the righgt one for us.  The seller countered our offer and we countered right back, but the process is going super slowly because she had a BABY on Saturday night! What timing!

Keep all of us in your thoughts and prayers the next couple days!

spinning away

I have totally slacked on tri training this week, which sucks because last week I hit all of my sessions.  I made it to swimming on Monday and Wednesday but didn't run or do any short bike rides at all.  I know!  Terrible!  However, now that we're into March and into the training schedule timeframe, I'm going to have to be more dedicated about this.

This morning I went to a spin class at 9am and actually got clipped in in under 15 minutes (an unbelievable first for me) and ended up going a whole 12 miles!  The sprint tri is 13 miles, and the training guide has long training rides going up all the way to 3 hours - I guess to build up endurance.  I'm feeling a more pressing need to get my bike worked on and a helmet because I want to start doing this stuff outside/work on transitions, and get down to Austin to figure out where the track is going to be as well as do some riding on the illustrious Hwy. 360.

In other biking news, Lance Armstrong was at the Richardson Bike Mart recently, doing a birthday ride with Mr. Hoyt.  That would've been so ridiculously amazing to be there - what a treat!  That's part of the reason I'm looking forward to living here...the Mart has rides on Saturdays and real spin classes.

Anyway, hopefully next week will be better.  I can't stop this stuff - it's addicting, and I have to stay in this new jeans size ;)

peace like a river

Kelli pointed out to me that "peace like a river" is a funny concept, because sometimes rivers are totally peaceful, but sometimes they are totally not.

Growing up I was taught every bend and twist of the Guadalupe River from my dad's motel to Gruene.  I still know that river the way I know my own body, still know the curves and bends, which side you want to be on to prevent capsizing or scraping your ace on the riverbottom.  My favorite time of year was the end of season, when the river authority would release water from Canyon Dam at much higher levels (3,000 - 5,000 CFS) than typical tourist days (around 250 CFS, depending on how much or little rain had been received that year). On those high river days, there weren't many rapids and you could fly down from Canyon Lake to Gruene in about 4 hours, which would normally take 8.  On the lower-CFS days, though, it seemed that the river struggled to get downstream.  It was those days that made me severely nervous about Hueco Springs.  For a video click here.

There's a rock in the middle of the river, which I was always strongly cautioned to stay away from at the risk of being sucked in the undercurrent and smashed against the rock, or worse, held underwater in that crazy washing machine-like chaos until spit up long after I had ceased breathing.

So, when I think about "peace like a river" I can't help but picture the calm and treacherous bends of the Guadalupe, and right now in my life seems to really reflect that picture.  Besides all the stuff that's going on in school (see previous post), today we put a bid in on a house that would require significant upgrading, but we really love the location and the prospect of updating a house.  Not five minutes ago, the hubs called me into the living room to look at a house that is the exact square footage, in the same price range and had been recently updated.  We're going to try to go look at that house either today or tomorrow.

I know that no matter what, we'll have a house probably by May and that we'll be in the place we're supposed to be.  I just think it's funny because I had no reservations about buying the fixer-upper, but was still praying that if we were supposed to be somewhere else, that God would make that available.  Coincidence?  Don't really know that yet. 

times they are a'changing...

First off, I bought a size smaller jeans today because my others were like, falling off me.  Best shopping trip ever.  (if you think I'm being vain, catch up with my triathlon training blog stuff)

Second, we're putting an offer on a house tomorrow!  Pictures to come soon!

note to self: do not throw textbooks at your powerbook.

Last night in the throes of scholastic fervor I leaned back in my chair to grab a book - when I righted myself, the book flew out of my hand and onto my keyboard.

I was so depressed and freaked out that I spent the morning backing up my files in case the Apple folks wanted to keep it overnight. I mean, really?  In the middle of revising my IRB application, THIS!?

So, I took poor Apple (that's her name) to the shops at Willow Bend.  After explaining that not only did I have a trick ghetto-lock mechanism that requires me to use an earring/safety pin/bobby pin/straight pin to open my laptop, I had gone and destroyed my keyboard.  By the way, apple care covers NEITHER of these, because damage would be not the responsibility of Apple.  The genius behind the bar assured me that he had odd keys laying around in the back and carted my computer away.  As the minutes ticked by, I realized that the minutes were ticking by, which means he had been a long time, which is never good.  Lo and behold about 15 minutes later he came back, pushed the button on the front of my Mac and IT OPENED!  I could've kissed the guy, and told him so.  

swimmer's ear

dude seriously - I've got ears with extra twisty canals or something because every time I go swimming I get a headache.  Today I worked on making my flip turns more efficient because I've been really struggling with them lately.  Pretty much everything was great - I love swimming so much - it's really nothing like running where I hate life for 15 minutes.  Every single minute is peaceful and lovely :)

Consolidation

You know, I've had two separate blogs for awhile - one for triathlon training and one for everything else.  I'm just going to start blogging about the tri in here.  You can catch up with my previous posts by clicking here.

Maroon 5

Today was probably one of the crazier days I've had since moving to Dallas.  I've been craving live music the way I experienced it back in Austin, so when I heard that Maroon 5 would be playing a free concert sponsored by 106.1 Kiss Fm (yes even though it plays crap pop music 24/7 and the morning dj's are only slightly tolerable) at 7am, I was determined to get in. I set my alarm for 3:30am which in hindsight I didn't really need to set because I woke up every hour in anticipation (i'm a huge nerd).  I got super lost in Las Colinas, which is really unnerving at 4:15am.  Luckily a girl waiting and having a smoke in her car while waiting for 5am to open her Starbucks pointed me in the direction of the canal.  After I parked I ran into Rose Marie, who had just gotten off her shift at Wal-Mart. 

When we walked up to the radio station fishbowl, there were already about 30 people there, all giving us the stink-eye for showing up and lessening their chances of getting tickets.  We started talking to these two other folks...I can't remember the girl's name but the guy's name was John and they had driven in

from South Ft. Worth for this.  

A station worker came out and announced they would be passing out a raffle ticket to each person, and that raffle ticket would be good for two passes, which you could give to your best friend, so Rose Marie decided that we would give our passes to each other if the other won.  Then, we waited. 

Shannon was there first, then Kidd Kraddick, Big Al, Kelly, J-Si showed up. We had prime real-estate in front of the morning show windows, but then they announced that they would be passing out raffle tickets, which engaged the PUSH AND SHOVE! PUSH AND SHOVE! mechanism in everyone's brain so that when we finally got the tickets and circled back around to where we were standing, there 

was a crowd of high schoolers and two thirty-year-olds directly in front of us who were slowly starting to piss me off.  If anyone has ever been to a concert, you know the type, the girls who pretend they can't hear you when you say "Excuse me no way are you going to stand in front of me - first off you're taller than me and second of all we've been here a good 8 hours before you have." The other thing that was baffling to me were the single moms who bundled up their kids and brought them down to the radio station.  I'm pretty sure 4-year-old Sally has neither any idea who Maroon 5 is nor wanted to be sleeping on the cold hard ground (did I mention it was like, 50 degrees?) while mom got a glimpse of hotness.

So...they FINALLY got around to announcing numbers and they called John and his sister's name, which totally bummed us out, then the people right next to us got called, and someone else, which is when Rose Marie said, "Think positive!  We're going to get thi..." which is right about the time they called her number and we FREAKED out.  The show, in short, was amazing.  They only played two songs acoustically - "Won't Go Home Without You" and "This Love."  Instead of rushing through a 3rd song, they took questions from the audience.  I asked Adam for a hug but Kidd Kraddick *boo hisssss* shot me down.  It was totally fine, though - a 12 year old got a hug at the end of the QA session, which made it worth it.  I know, I know - I'm NEVER that girl who does stuff like that but I figured it was worth a shot :)

The rest of the day I was in a warm, fuzzy, sleep-deprived haze, which was okay with me, because that was the perfect start to my day. 

Artichoke Enchiladas

A note about my recipes - if it's cooking, I don't really measure stuff accurately, I do it all by taste. I'll come up with a standardized system for words such as "dash" and "touch" but for now, just bear with me. Also, I really like to use fresh herbs, and when it comes to ground spices, the best thing you can do is buy it in bulk and get a spice grinder - that way the spices keep their flavor and they are way more potent and therefore delicious.

After my first trip to Mother's in Austin a couple weeks ago, I was inspired to try my own version of artichoke enchiladas. They turned out totally yummy! Here's the recipe:

you'll need
a small bit of butter (for flavor)

1/2 clove of garlic

1/2 white or yellow onion
1 can chopped artichokes
1 can tomatoes & green chiles
8 oz sour cream
1 bundle of spinach
8 flour tortillas (i would've preferred corn, but those fall apart...I'm still working on how to remedy that.
any kind of enchilada sauce you want - I used green
shredded mexican cheese

caldo de pollo
comino (cumin) - the hubs bought cumin seeds and i shook out about a tsp. and ground it up and split it between this and the beans (recipe following)
salt & pepper

Lightly oil a glass baking dish and set aside, pre-heat oven at 350.

Melt butter in a pan and add a little bit of olive oil.
Sauté onion until it turns clear-ish and add garlic.
Add artichokes and cook until they soften up a bit.
Add spinach and tomatoes/green chiles, along with a bit of the green enchilada sauce.
Add salt & pepper to taste, along with the comino and just a teeny bit of caldo.
Cook this for about 7-10 minutes, really let the flavors mingle - it gets a little soupy, so make sure and cook the liquid out of it.
While the mixture is cooking, take a spoonful of sour cream and spread it in a tortilla.
Scoop out some of the mixture and add some cheese, roll it up and place it in the baking dish.
When you're done maneuvering the enchiladas into your dish, take the remaining enchilada sauce and mix it with any remaining sour cream you have and pour this over the enchiladas.
Top with a bit of cheese, then pop into the oven for 20 minutes or until the sauce/cheese get bubbly.

Be sure to let 'em cool before you eat 'em.  I think these could be really good with a little chicken or even some shrimp, which I would just have chopped up and cooked in olive oil, salt and pepper and then thrown all the veggies in.

We had them with black beans, which I spiced up:
you'll need
1/2 clove garlic
1/4 white onion, chopped
2 cans of black beans - 1 can drained, one not

caldo de pollo

comino (from enchilada recipe)

salt & pepper

TINY shake of ancho chili powder (I really like the smoky depth this spice added to the beans!)

*note if you want to make these borracho beans, just add half a can of beer...and drink the rest ;)

Sauté the garlic and onion in a bit of olive oil until soft. Add a touch of caldo, the comino, salt and pepper, and the chili powder.  Add *beer at this point, beans, and bring to a boil, then let them simmer.  I would probably get these started first and then start working on your enchiladas to let them simmer until the enchiladas are ready.

I wish I had had a jalepeño, in which case I would have finely chopped a whole fresh one and sauteed it with the onions - beware, it makes your eyes burn doubly bad if you do this.  If I'm not wearing my contacts I have to go get my swim goggles.  No joke.  Also, the enchiladas would have been fabulous with some avocado.  My husband said everything had just the right amount of spice which was a HUGE accomplishment for me because I usually way freaking overspice everything!

If anyone out there tries this, let me know how it goes!

take THAT, peaceful sleep!

things to do:

revise prospectus
revise IRB application
turn in IRB application again
get Cowart to read my prospectus
revise prospectus again
turn prospectus in to the graduate school
send out consent forms to parents
schedule meeting for parents to meet with me and a translator to explain my thesis
plan out my therapy sessions for my thesis (just got new Spanish song books from Amazon -ROCK!)
...which is by the way 2 sessions a week in two classes for 8 weeks. You do the math.

ALL WHILE:
finding another practicum setting for my 5911
preparing for and rocking a presentation at the SWAMTA conference
apply for internships
have interviews for internships
prepare music for internship interviews
studying for music history
practicing piano
practicing guitar
keeping up with not one but TWO online graduate bilingual education courses
trying to find a house
training for a triathlon
planning a baby shower
cooking
laundry
cleaning
staying sane
loving life
having friends


prayers, please.

House Hunting!

We've had this date scheduled with our realtor for about a month, and we must've forgotten to call in a special order great weather day because we couldn't have had crappier weather! Seriously! We looked at eight houses and came up with our top 3, top 2, really, if you get rid of the one that's outside of our price range and doesn't have a third bedroom. The bathroom situations in these houses though is CRAZY! They need a little bit of work, but that's a really cool part, because we get to make the place our own! Maybe we'll put a bid on one in the next couple of days...if we can decide between the two. Both have insane bathroom situations but are in good neighborhoods and are a reasonable price, and have open-ish floor plans...both have sunrooms...I mean, it's pretty much a win-win, we don't really have a deal breaker at either one.

Sigh! I'll be so glad when we've got this thing closed!

In other news, my TWU IRB form came back, which means I need to make corrections to my application and then send it back in and I can start my thesis research! AHHH! Way exciting! I have a possible opportunity to graduate this December, which makes me all kinds of giddy. I'll know specifics in a couple weeks, and I'll let cha know.

artist's way

i've (re)started going through this book called The Artist's Way, which is this totally zen approach to unleashing your inner creativity and saying, "to hell with you, inner and outer critics!" It's a long process, so I'm hoping I can actually stick with it. Step number 1 was getting a notebook and making it pretty. Step 2 involves doing this thing called Morning Pages where you sit and write 3 pages every morning, stream of consciousness, whatever, just get it out on the page. This little practice has become a way for me to maintain my sanity and get all my thoughts OUT of my head so I can focus on more important things. That's of course the point of the Pages. I encourage anyone anywhere to do that if you can. I have to wake up a little bit earlier to do them because of school but it is SO very worth it!

We've been studying the Enlightenment in music history lately which was defined by Immanuel Kant as "man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity isself-imposed when its cause lies not in a lack of understanding, but in a lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another." I think that pretty much describes my whole state of being lately - especially since turning 25. I like to think that this time in my life is my own Enlightenment - rethinking my values, traditions, which will hopefully lead to a new outlook on the relationship I have with myself, between me and other people, and between me and God.

Oh, and happy Made Up Commercial Holiday!

:o)

YAY!

BEER AND WINE IN THE GROCERY STORES! YES!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/local/stories/110707dnmetelexalcohol.1e51ed718.html

breathing

I hate not being able to breathe properly - I wake up all stuffy and not at all well-rested. I try to use the nasal strips but I end up tearing them off in the middle of the night...sigh.

Austin fabulousness

My trip to Austin can be summed up in one word: educational. Not only because I went to check out a prospective internship site and learned way more about myself professionally and even music therapy than I had anticipated, but because in general I learned things about myself, the people around me, and even the city of Austin. I felt more at home this time around. I'm not sure "at home" is the right term, it can only be described like how I feel when it's cold outside and I take a drink of warm tea. I met up with some friends for a happy hour and it was like reuniting with family. When we went dancing later that night I recognized dancers from my freshman year of college who would be there every Wednesday at Antone's. Hopefully one day I'll have that same sense of community here in Dallas.

I somehow managed to see nearly everyone I wanted to see without kicking my own ass, which is generally what happens with all the running around I usually do. I found it easier to say no in order to maintain my sanity and to stay true to myself. It felt awesome to do something nice for myself on my own time, including wandering around South Congress and dipping into the local artisan shops. I could live down there. I think the vitality of that little stretch of road really reflects the soul of the city. Even the waiters and waitresses were friendlier than anywhere else I've lived. Except maybe New Braunfels. Jeez.

Saturday was probably the perfect day - I woke up at my friends' apartment in the hills overlooking the Austin hill country, drove to my cousin's house to relax, and then took a walk with my best friend Haley at Town Lake. After the walk, we drove to South Congress to enjoy some pizza at Home Slice, an establishment I HIGHLY recommend, along with the pizza margherita. I then attended a beautiful SAI baby shower for two dear sisters who are both soon having boys!

Now I am back home, catching up on schoolwork and looking forward to the weeks and months ahead, which will be chock-full of thesis stuff, internship, and a new house! Hooray for growing up!

babies

So I officially know FOUR couples who are having babies this year, one of them is my ex boyfriend and his wife - totally crazy.

I am leaving for Austin tomorrow to check out a prospective internship site and go to an SAI baby shower for two of my sisterly friends :o) I am packing up tonight and getting out of town at 9:30 tomorrow morning after my first class. The last week has been sort of rough, and even though Kyle's not going with me to Austin, this weekend is much much MUCH needed. I feel like I should make a short list:

Why I Love Austin (in no particular order)
1. Zilker Park
2. Good radio stations
3. Trudy's
4. Z Tejas
5. Shopping on South Congress
6. Trees and grass and sometimes wildflowers on the highways
7. 15 minutes to get anywhere
8. Proximity of friends and family
9. Live music
10. Waterloo
11. Absence of pretension

Not that I hate Dallas - here's a (shorter) list of why I tolerate Dallas:
1. DMA Latenight
2. Proximity of family and friends
3. Dallas Farmer's Market

That's all I've got for now - the guy next to me totally stinks so I've gotta get out of this coffee house.

Dear Lady Who Honked at Me...

...instead of honking at me when I'm 4th in line at the light, maybe you should've left home 5 minutes earlier. >:|

i love the Dallas Farmer's Market

we bought so much produce today! For dinner tonight we're having grilled lime-cilantro tuna steaks with honey glaze with garlich-chive pasta...not sure what else we're going to make...we have cherries, peppers, squash, limes, mushrooms, japanese eggplants and onions. I think I'm going to sauté some onions and mushrooms and throw them in with the pasta. ¡YUM!

vegetarian mexican deliciousness

There's this stuff called Soyrizo that is totally rocking my world right now. It looks and tastes EXACTLY like chorizo, except it needs a little oil when you cook it, and you don't feel totally gross and oily after eating it. I mean, seriously. EXACTLY. Freaks me out but ooooh is it delicious. I've taken to eating that and Rosarito's vegetarian refried beans for breakfast. Yum yum yum. Vegetarian does not at all equal boring, and that makes me so happy.

Cloverfield.

You know, I love a good sci-fi. I also love a good horror flick. Fortunately, this movie mixes them brilliantly! Who's in the movie? Nobody you know, which is way admirable, and it gives a new twist on perspective...Blair Witch-esque...one of the girls even says "I'm so scared" at the end, which I can only presume is a nod to BW.

Yeah, in short, it's freaking brilliant - but take your dramamine. Or at the very least, don't go see it at a dine-and-watch place like the Drafthouse or Studio Movie Grill. All the jostling around actually made me very, very dizzy and I had to walk out for fear of tossing my cookies WHICH unfortunately made me miss one of the most intense scenes of the film. That's okay, I'll totally see it again...just not on a big screen...

ouch.

I'm going to try to write something in here every day as sort of an exercise.

Speaking of exercising, I went to the gym yesterday for a strength-training orientation where the trainer pretty much kicked my ass with no apologies. Ladies and gents, if there was a diamond on the floor and the fate of the free world rested on me getting that gleamy bauble, we'd be toast.

Random Thoughts

If you're really into good films you should check out Paris, Je T'Aime. I found it at Blockbuster, so you should have no problem finding it. It is a series of several different stories directed by greats such as Wes Craven, the Coen brothers, and Gus Van Sant, just to name a few. Everyone and their mother is in this movie, including Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman. There's even a nice little bit of Elijah Wood, a'la Sin City. This movie delightfully surprised the hell out of me and after getting halfway through a bottle of wine inspired me further to learn French and repeat the mantra, "Someday I will live in France."

I'm getting old and farty. For my birthday we went to Dave & Buster's and stayed up late and while it was fantastico, I woke up the next morning planning my next birthday party, which will be a dinner party...with probably all of the same people :)

My new favorite wine is Argentinian Malbec. You should check some out. It's fruity-ish but dark and oakey. The wine in question from last night was a white by Smoking Loon. I don't usually do whites but it was undrunk in the fridge and I was having a light pasta for dinner, so it all worked well together.

Oh, and about that pasta. The night we went to D&B I left my car at a friend's house in Richardson. I've been cleaning/studying/practicing like a madwoman so decided that yesterday I would laze, including dinner. I think the only thing accomplished was finishing a scrapbook for a friend. Anyway, when the time to pick up dinner rolled around I grabbed my keys and made it halfway down the stairs when I realized that my car was not in fact in my driveway. I had to call back and get it delivered, even though it's a block away and I didn't want to walk down there in the cold night. It was delicious pasta, though. It would have been better with sausage, but I'm trying not to dwell on that ;)

Can exes be friends? Yes, but only if the two actually try. I've come to the realization that by the lack of communication he probably didn't really mean he wanted to be friends. I'm done trying to understand him. Officially done. Maybe I'll even torch the shoe box.

What I think is funny is that understanding and acceptance of the demise of one relationship can come from reconciliation, thoughtfulness, and honesty in another tragic relationship-turned friendship. Thank God for that.

I miss my husband. He's been crazy busy at work and worked on a charity project all weekend that had him coding into all hours of the night. Thank goodness that, and last week is over.

I think when other people flake it bugs me most because I have a serious tendency toward flakiness as well.

Sometimes I think we're totally ready to have a kid and sometimes I lay in bed with my hands on my stomach thinking, "Are we ready for that yet?"

I will never fall out of love with swimming, or playing the piano.

happy birthday to me!

Turning 25 has not really brought up a whole lot of doom & gloom or anxiety about growing up. It's more about excitement at what's in store for the next 5 years (getting a house, graduating with my master's, getting a job, having a garden, having BABIES...) I do feel more grown up than I did yesterday, which is weird. The last time I felt anything near this was when I turned 20. It's funny, being 5 years from that surprise birthday party that my hubs threw for me because look where we ended up :) I feel like I'm more credible as an adult and professional because I've got some age on me, and I feel more confident in myself and as a woman, more sure of myself and what I believe and that I can stand up and fight for it all.

I've probably said before that I don't have New Year Resolutions but I do have some 25th-year goals...like doing the triathlon (training officially starts today!) and sticking with vegetarianism (despite the insatiable pull of sausage...), spending more time being quiet and aware of God. This past weekend I was in Austin and got all teary because a few guys that were freshmen when I was New Man Advisor for LHB (and they were therefore my babies) are graduating this year and they're like, my brothers now, which is crazy because I went to college not thinking that I'd ever be as close to anyone as I was (am) with my high school friends, but I feel as if I've known these kids forever.

Anyway, 25, and 2008 is going to be a good year. We'll have a house soon (!!!) and hopefully will start traveling (we have a list about a zillion places long). Someone once told me that I blogged (and therefore was) like the kind of person who expected the rug to be pulled out from under them at any second. I totally agree that I used to be that kind of person and looking back through all the hardships and crazy family and friend drama...I mean, I am who I am because of all that and I am more put together now because of unconditional Love.

It was all worth it.

[insert sound of crashing through an iceberg]

I don't know if it's the new birth control, but the last few days have been exploding with clarity and motivation. Last week I looked to the coming semester with trepidation...last semester wore me out. Or perhaps the semester before that wore me out and made last semester rather trying. Whatever it was, left. I think it was Saturday, driving with the windows down with my husband and dog in the car, heading toward a dog park with dear friends. My feet on the dash I remember thinking, "Now THIS is exactly where I'm supposed to be." It can't all be blamed on school, however.

This is going to sound profoundly cornball, but I watched a show the other day that made me realize how much perception has to do with accepting yourself. I realized that I had been doing battle with my body and in essence hating it, when that had never been my personality before so it was very strange to be in my own skin and sort of loathe it. I guess maybe when you start honoring your body it starts honoring you back and reminding you that nobody's perfect, but everyone is beautiful.

Happy (belated) New Year!

I freaking love the beginning of the year! Not only is my birthday mere weeks away but everything feels so fresh and clean - there's a whole year of possibilities just waiting for you to go out and make something of them, and it's always very exciting. I would say that I don't have New Years Resolutions but this year I kind of do. Since giving up meat I've been taking much better care of my body, including drinking less alcohol (I mean, at least since the beginning of the year, all 5 days of it or whatever) and cutting dairy products out of my diet. I noticed the biggest change yesterday when I went out for lunch at Macaroni Grill and had the eggplant parmesan....and then a good helping of a colleague's birthday cake. Since being veggie I've noticed this crazy clarity and spike in energy and yesterday I crashed in a coma on the couch for a good hour and a half. It felt really icky. I took my dog on a walk and drank some water, which made it better. It may have been the milk/sugar overload that did me in. What's been totally puzzling to me is, did I just feel like that and not pay attention to it? In which case I have to say many apologies to my body because I've been treating it horrendously for the last few years. It's as if my senses are more aware of what is going on in my body, and it's...dazzling. That's the only word for it, dazzling.

I guess part of the reason for all this clean living is because we've been talking about buying a house soon, which brings in conversation about our life path and when we're going to have children and such, which will probably be in the next few years, and I want my body to be in the best shape possible. I also want to run a triathlon when I'm 25, and my friend Kate earlier this week sent me a Danskin update, which has gotten me totally excited. I am also seriously considering the Muddy Buddy in Austin. I know that marching band was my main source of exercise throughout college, but I feel like I'm in much better shape now than I was then. I can at least now run for a considerable amount of time without getting totally winded, and I can ride a bike at least 15 miles without even really thinking about it. I write about my journey of working out at http://ihatetorun.blogspot.com. I really used to hate running, even way back in middle school when I was in track because the geeky boys I had crushes on were also in track. That was probably the last time I was in really fantastic shape.

This whole turning 25 in a couple weeks has me reeling a bit, and I didn't think it would. I definitely feel different on this birthday, and have been making some realizations about being an adult, about who I want to be professionally, and the things in my life including stressers, thoughts of the past/how screwed up my life used to be, and even what kind of people I want to surround myself with. For the New Year, we went to Boerne to my uncle's ranch with my cousin and some of their friends. I had met these friends back in college and we all ended up really hitting it off again. I turned to my cousin Joel and said, "Why do I always have such an awesome time with you and your friends?" (I mean, really - some of the best times of my life have been with him and/or people he's introduced me to.) He replied, "Because I don't have friends that suck! I may only have a few friends, but they're all awesome."

Another "resolution" I guess is that the hubs and I need to get out and do stuff more often. Today we went to the dog park, and I'm going to start looking for some nice live music to go see...perhaps at least a show a month. I'm a huge fan of the DMA late nights, but I know Dallas has more to offer, and I'm going to dedicate this year to exploring it.

Whew! Time to quit procrastinating on putting away the laundry :)
X

Fasting

This past Wednesday, I had to give my body a break from the weird "vegetarian"-ness I endured while traveling, which included lots of beans, cheese (blegh) and seafood. When we got home, I laid on the couch for several hours moaning that I was dying (I maybe get a little over dramatic when I'm sick...) because I had a cold that I'm pretty sure I had gotten from the hubs. 

I had endured raging cold sores on the bottom of my tongue, the right side of my cheek, and two on my bottom lip for the last week. Something was NOT right with my body. To make matters worse, on New Year's Day, I woke early EARLY in the morning feeling totally nauseous. So Wednesday morning I found a place nearby where I could get wheatgrass AND cucumber juice so I drank that all day, along with lots and lots of water. I broke fast that night with some green stir-fry, much less of a portion that I would usually eat. The next morning, folks, was amazing. I had nothing but green tea and fruit for breakfast and I was totally buzzing with energy. I thought that not eating for a day would be horrendous, but it was surprisingly refreshing and when I drank the wheatgrass and cucumber juice, I felt my body saying, "Ahhhhhhhh...." and smiling at me. I know you're supposed to break a fast with broth or something, so maybe I'll do that next time...