LOVE THURSDAYS

Some times we come across the most unexpected things on our daily walks. Yesterday, this mantis was the surprise. I haven't seen one this big in years, probably not since I was little.

I like the way she kind of blends in to her surroundings. I know there's a lot to be said about standing out and uniqueness, but some times there are benefits to blending in. There's comfort and a feeling of safety when you can blend in and lay low under the radar.

Of course, I don't recommend it all the time. Neither does the mantis. Even she likes a little splash and pizazz. You can tell by the vivid green of her legs.

Happy Love Thursday!

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

I really need this list. Yesterday was not a good day and it's really stressful working in such a toxic environment. But I'm working on it.

• The weather cooling down just enough to make it comfortable to walk outside
• Meeting Chris at Big Truck Tacos on a Friday after work
• Riding the scooter down Walker between 23rd and 13th
• Chatting with the older farmer gentleman who we buy our eggs from at the Farmer's Market
• Chris finally getting his bacon
• Watching Top Gear ( I have a secret crush for James May)
• Buying seeds to plant for the Fall
• Naps
• Finding a new Asian Food Market (they have fake meat in the shape of chicken!)
• Sunday morning with coffee and bagel, a newspaper and Chris
• Making pickles (tasted them yesterday; they're awful :)
• Dreaming of giving my two weeks notice
• Robin after a particularly bad lab meeting
• My yoga students!

Sigh...

LIFE LIST UPDATE

This weekend I tackled #44 and #45 of the Life List: can vegetables and make pickles. OK...maybe I cheated on the vegetables part, but I had to learn the canning process in order to actually make the pickles. So there.

It was really a very simple process. Actually the hardest part is not eating the cucumbers straight out of the brine. I think we lost a whole jar there. First I cleaned the jars.

Then I sliced cucumbers and snapped green beans. I placed them all in a big bowl along with some left over okra, water and Kosher salt. I left this in a cool place over night with a plate on top to keep everything submerged.

The next day I boiled the jars and lids to sterilize them. Then I rinsed the veggies and began to fill the jars. While I filled the jars, I boiled equal parts vinegar and water. Then I sprinkled some pickling spice into each jar. Some jars I added a clove or two of garlic or a sprig of dill or a chili.

Next, I poured in the water/vinegar mix, put the lids on and set them in the pan to boil. Once they started a gentle boil, I set a timer for 15 minutes. Now all I have to do wait for them to do is cool overnight and then tighten the lids.

Mission accomplished.

WHERE I TRY TO BLOG ABOUT OTHER THINGS

My toes are peeling off. I blame it on all the barefoot related things that I do. I know that this is what pumice stones and even the PedEgg (shudder) are for, but really? I barely make the time to trim my nails, let alone scrub the dead skin off of my feet. As I type this I can hear my sister-in-law saying that I have my brother's feet or that I have Graham toes. There was a time when this would have bothered me immensely.

You see, I don't really look like anyone in my family. Actually, my sister-in-law and I are often mistaken for sisters (or sometimes, much to Katrina's shagrin, mother and daughter). My sister used to joke that I was the Milk Man's kid, which was suspicious because at the time we really did have a milk man. Then there were the teenage angst years where I prayed that I had been adopted.

Now, I'm OK with all of that. I have McCool eyes and a Graham nose. I'm a patchwork blend of my family, all of which mixes together to make me the truly unique person that I am.

Wait. Wasn't this originally an entry about my scaly feet? Oh well.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

My pal Robin gave me a bag of jars so that I could tackle Life List #44 over the weekend. I may not have vegetables from my very own garden, but the local Farmer's Market has plenty. The plan for the weekend is to make spaghetti sauce, maybe just some stewed tomatoes, and depending on the cucumber situation...some pickles.  There have been many times since I started the Life List where I've gotten a little down. I feel like I could be accomplishing more or I'm not trying hard enough to get some things I want to do done. Today, I am thankful for all the friends in my life who have pushed and nudged and helped me get some things done on the list. Looking back over some pictures, I got to the water balloon fight set. I wanted to go back to Anna's right then and do it all over again. I'm so thankful that she was such a good sport and let me bust all of those balloons in their yard. I'm thankful for Talaura who jump started the 100 new Museums part of the list. I am thankful for Misti, who is going to keep my hair under control while I grow it out for #42 and who also told me to start taking Biotin (though I think it's working more on my nose hair and eyelashes). I am thankful for every single one of you that wrote to me and said "I will help with #...".

I have a lot to be thankful for. Have a wonderful weekend!

LOVE THURSDAY

One time, while driving along the highway, I noticed a spot tucked in along some brush that looked kind of interesting. Saturday, I dragged Chris out to where I thought that place would be. We parked off of the main road, kind of under a highway overpass. It seemed a little seedy at first; like we were up to something illegal. But as we hiked down the sandy path littered with cables and tires, we began to notice little things like the ant lion dens in the sand.

Then we came to the train tracks and hidden overpasses that were covered in graffiti. It was like an explosion of colors splattered all over in this normally dry, dead area. It looked like a practice ground for graffiti artists. And then Chris and I noticed something else. The whole area was relatively clean. There wasn't empty cans or soda bottles laying around, no dirty needles poking up out of the dirt, no garbage. The artists took care of their studio.

I found the place to be beautiful and I love that Chris and I could find it together. Happy Love Thursday!

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

I did not forget. I'm getting to the list slowly today. I suddenly got very busy. In fact, I'm eating my spaghetti lunch while typing this. Imagine the mess.

• Yoga students who missed me while I was away
• Having a fairly easy and straight forward work week.
• Zooming as fast as I can on the scooter in order to create my own breeze
• Seeing the woman who owns the studio I teach at. I hardly ever get a chance to see her.
• Going to yoga class and then hanging out with the other students at brunch afterward
• Getting my CV touched up enough to send it to my new pal Boni for review
• Getting good H&E results
• Urban hikes to great graffiti areas
• Hanging out at Coffeeslinger's with Chris and working on web page stuff
• Bloody Mary's from Cheever's (pickled okra ya'll)
• Brunch with Misti and all the talk of future and possibilities
• The Urban farmer guys parked outside Cheever's
• Cleaning up the veggie garden and getting ready for Fall
• Making plans for spinach, carrots, and potatoes
• Making Asian Spring Rolls for my lunches this week

So happy. Have a beautiful day.

GARDEN DIARIES

I don't even have pictures for you today. It's just too hot. Too hot for anything but laying around with cool delicious beverages and tall straws so that you only have to turn your head to take a sip. I have things growing in the garden. Growing out of control is probably a better way of putting it.

There are plants out there that need to be yanked from the ground. The soil needs to be mushed up with some fertilizer and dried milk (for the tomatoes). Tomatoes need to be cut back and fall veggies need to be planted. But I just can't muster the strength to get out there and do any of it. I open the door and it's like opening an oven door except I'm looking at sad droopy plants instead of chocolate chip cookies.

Maybe later this evening. That seems to be my new mantra these days.

THANKFUL FRIDAYS

You know that moment when you lay down in your bed, pull the covers up, lay your head on the pillow just right and surrender your body to the cushioned support of your mattress? That was exactly what I was thankful for last night. Yesterday seemed more physically demanding than usual. The ride home from the studio way over on the north side of town dragged on forever. There was even a moment while putting the scooter into the garage where I thought for a minute that it was going to fall over on top of me. My scooter is HEAVY. If it falls over, I can't pick it up. I had flashes of me being pinned under the scooter with my legs all shriveled up like the Wicked Witch of The East. Somehow I mustered enough strength to right the scooter and get the support stand down. Today, I am thankful for the kind of strength that gives you just enough of a shove to get you through. Whatever that may be. Lately, it seems many of us are living for the weekend. I am completely guilty of this. Then I decided to be perfectly okay with it. There are moments in the week that I love. I love teaching my classes. I love my daily walks with Robin and Heather. I love that brief twenty minutes in the evening where I can get Hooper to lay on my lap. But the weekend? The weekend is always something to look forward to. It's the reason I find that extra bit of strength to get me through.

Seize every moment of every day, but particularly savor every moment of your weekend. Have a great Thankful Friday.

LOVE THURSDAY

These gals showed me all around their city. Kizz was my BlogHer security blanket. Talaura was my anchor. Kizz helped me push myself forward and made sure I made it onto the subway heading in the right direction. Talaura, God, what can I say about Talaura?

We laughed and laughed. We talked about everything from boys to religion. We walked and walked and walked. We laughed some more. But what I cherish most of all are the quiet times. Those moments sitting in a cathedral listening to a choir rehearsal. The moments making faces at each other while riding the subway. That moment when we were so enraptured with our Nutella pizza that we didn't talk.

My time in New York would have been nothing with out them. Happy Love Thursday!

THOUGHTS ON NEW YORK

Everytime someone asks me if I had a good time on my trip, a huge grin spreads across my face and I reply "I had the best time". Whenever someone asks me what I did in New York, I'm at a complete loss for words. I haven't even managed to get a rundown of BlogHer up here. All I can manage to come up with is "I had a great time". And I did. Have a great time. (Cue cricket chirps now). Seriously, I don't know what the problem is. I finally got all of my pictures uploaded, and I thought that would be helpful, but still I've got nothing. Today though, today I make an effort. First of all, lets talk about the conference. I'm not going to give a day-by-day rundown of all that I did. Kizz has done an excellent job of this. I will say that I sat in on some really great panel discussions, the first of which was about finding your passion and finding a way to do what you love. This was a great session for me to start with because it's where I decided that I did need to make some changes to the blog. It was the session that got me all fired up and ready to go.

From there, I went to a panel discussion about sex and blogging about sex. This was great fun and enlightening (don't worry mom, I'm not turning this blog into a sex-talk blog) and they had an awesome swag bag for those of us in the audience.

The next day of the conference, I went to a session about dealing with loss and grief on the internet. All of the people on the panel are amazing and brave and I completely respect them, but this session solidified my decision that there were things that I just won't blog about. I am perfectly okay with this.

The last session I went to was on how to make my pictures ten times better. I gleaned lots of useful knowledge from this one, particularly that I need Photoshop (or Lightroom, which is what Chris is pushing for) on my computer.

I think what I got most out of the conference was the wonderful people I met. Ananda was one of the first people I met and she was so nice and helpful. We talked about the joys and trials of teaching yoga. Boni was one of those people I met at the beginning of the conference who was always a reassuring face in the crowd throughout the conference. She also gave me some great resume advice. I met soooo many people I can't even begin to keep them all straight.

There was Zahra who just made me laugh and Stephanie who I'm totally going to connect with when we start planning our trip to Kansas City, Missouri. Everyone was so encouraging and wonderful. During one of the lunches a woman at my table said something about the fact that there didn't seem to be any "mean" girls present. I think it's because those of us that are into the whole blogging thing were probably once the victims of those "mean" girls.

And I think the only way I'm ever going to get any of this typed up for the blog is if I keep BlogHer separate from all the sightseeing stuff. Also, I still don't even know what to say about all the sightseeing stuff.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

It's good to be back in a routine. There's so much I could put on this list, but I decided to just leave it with last week stuff.

• Getting to know some one I already liked a lot even better
• Surprising Misti with a framed copy of her Bagel Boyfriend
• Dancing naked with the bathroom door open to a Flaming Lips tune
• The sweet cantaloupes from our garden
• Putting my veggie sandwich in my new sandwich container from Hillshire Farms
• The lovely sweet comments left by my readers
• Clean sheets
• Spending time with Amy
• Making this list while I should be paying attention in lab meeting
• Pizza dough with fresh basil
• Having Chris home
• Wine, laughter, and food shared in Misti's backyard
• Being excited about something

Enjoy your day!

GARDEN DIARIES

I came back from New York to over 100 degree temperatures and a slightly neglected and droopy garden. So you can imagine my surprise when I found actual food out there. That's just a small representation of the amount of peppers that I've harvested. We have a bagful in the freezer. I was very happy to pluck the cucumber because I've planned veggie sandwiches for my lunch this week. The cantaloupe were the biggest surprise. I have two more out there that were not ready for picking. These two may be small, but we ate one of them already. It was sweet and juicy and perfect.

BOLD

A long time ago, before college, I was very bold. I pushed myself to do things I really didn't feel comfortable doing like getting on stage or speaking in public. I did all of this in the name of scholarship. I was willing to withstand the knotty stomach if it meant that I was going to get out of the small little town where I lived.

Once I got to college, I didn't have to do those things any more. I didn't have to assert myself or entertain. I just had to be and this was a relief. But maybe not such a good idea. When I realized that I would be attending BlogHer alone and traveling by myself to New York, I was suddenly gripped with fear. How was I going to do this? How would I ever be able to talk to anyone? I had let myself fall into Wallflower Status.

But something strange happened in the weeks leading up to BlogHer. In panic mode, I impulsively contacted Chookooloonks through chat to ask her about business cards. And that one little act or seed started to grow. When the actual BlogHer event started, I was talking and handing out business cards right and left, meeting new people, laughing and joking, and joining in. I almost didn't recognize myself. So, when I finally made it to the front of the line for Karen's booth at the Gala, I knew exactly what I wanted her to paint on me. (Photo graciously taken by Kizz.)

Then I was on a roll. Talaura and I participated in the Yoko Ono's instruction piece entitled "Scream" at MOMA. One of the best parts about this was hearing all the other screams as we strolled down the stairs and out the door. We had started the ball rolling and it felt really good.

Then, while we were strolling around Central Park, we came across this little stage. I decided that this was the perfect time to mark number 39, sing on stage, off of my Life List.

OK, so it wasn't my best performance and my audience included a small group of skateboarders, Talaura, and Kizz. But I did it. And I really think I needed this week of boldness. I needed that nudge, that kick in the pants, because I came home knowing that I am ready. For whatever comes this way.

THANKFUL FRIDAYS

Today is Friday the 13th ...Dun duh dun. I've never been the superstitious type. Though, Chris and I had originally set our wedding date for March 15th. We changed it to the day before when we realized it was The Ides of March. Nope. Never been one to worry about the dangers and pitfalls of a Friday The 13th. I'm usually just glad and thankful that it's a Friday. And I just realized that I have no idea where this post is going. Probably because I'm tired. I think the trip is finally catching up with me. So, today, I am thankful that it is Friday and that I will have a chance to rest over the weekend. I need a chance to start organizing some things that are rattling around in my brain. I have a few more pictures uploaded, but I moving kind of slow because I want to get them organized in sets as I upload them. I've been too scatter brained to figure out exactly how I want to group things. I need rest and a little patience.

I am thankful that Chris has made it to Orlando safe and sound. I'm sure he's having a great time even though he's not going to the Star Wars Celebration until tomorrow. I am thankful that we've both had such wonderful opportunities this summer. I am thankful for the time I will get with Misti this weekend. I have so much to tell her and I need some one like her to hear all the things and ideas I gathered from my trip. Plus I have a special surprise to give her.

Hope all is well and that every one is having their own Thankful Friday.

LOVE THURSDAY

I had never been to New York City and was very much like "Country Mouse meets City Mouse". I couldn't stop gaping at all the...stuff. I couldn't believe I was standing in front of the actual buildings of things I'd seen on TV and in the movies. I couldn't stop myself from pointing and saying "hey! look at that!". I don't think I've felt this kind of wonderment in years.

New York City architecture is amazing. A person could spend years just looking at all the buildings. Just looking. Just spending months noticing the shapes, the curves, the blend of old and new. Just stopping and noticing the way the light bounces off of this building onto the building next to it. And it's ever changing. Kind of the way I want to be.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Happy Love Thursday

BLOGHER 2010 JAZZ HANDS

I didn't get to bed until some where around two this morning, so this post may be a bit crazy and random. But I thought I needed to get something down. I suppose that it can be summed up in this way: BlogHer was AWESOME! I met so many new people and you should see the stack of cards I acquired. Everyone was so nice. I met and visited with some of my most favorite bloggers. I learned some things and I was inspired. I mean really inspired. I suddenly realized that I want people to follow this blog, and I want it to be more than it is at this moment.

There are changes coming to the blog. Chris has been trying to get me to making some of the aesthetic changes for some time now. Well, I think I'm finally ready for that. There will also be some content changes. I'm not getting rid of anything that I'm already doing, just adding some things. Most of these things won't happen over night, but the seeds of change have been planted.

Now, I'm off to start editing and uploading the over 300 pictures I've taken. Maybe I need a second cup of coffee for that.

ALL ROLLED INTO ONE

I think this week I'm giving myself a break. There may be some time to write and update while I'm away, but I'm not counting on it. Tomorrow morning I leave for BlogHer and New York City.

I can't believe I'm doing this and I can't believe how excited I am. It was all I could do to keep myself from jumping up and down all day today. Plans would be made and I'd start laughing. More plans were laid out and I'd go into hysterics. NEW YORK CITY!

This post everything today. Read it on Thursday and think about the love of the anticipation of a good thing. Read it on Friday and be thankful for gifts we can share with each other. I can't wait to spend time with Talaura and meet Kizz (I hope she realizes that I will call her Kizz all the time). I can't wait for everything. My bag is all (mostly) packed. The last thing I need to do is turn off the computer and pack it up. And that's what I'm going to do.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

Oh Man. Last week was not too pleasant (work wise). But this week? This week is coming up Milhouse. I have some good things on the list from last week. Just be prepared that next week may be a whopper.

• When Hooper decides he wants to be a lap dog
• My hair. It's awesome!
• The fake meat balls we had in the spaghetti
• Hearing all about Robin's vacation
• Meeting Randy and Katrina for dinner
• Cruising through the city with my brother and sister-in-law on their motorcycle and me on the scooter
• Ethiopian food
• Buying travel sized stuff
• Trying out a new taco place where Chris and I turn out to be the minority
• The Flea Market for so many reasons
• The vegetarian sandwich at the Asian Food Market
• My boss gone for ten whole days!
• Two days until I'm in New York City!
• Cucumber salad with Greek yogurt blended with garlic and dill
• The finger nail polish I bought for my toes (NYC, Soho)
• My new goggles
• My new elephant measuring cups (they're so cute!)
• This day

Hope every one is having a great Tuesday!

GARDEN DIARIES

These are the tomatoes that I keep getting from the garden. They Look great from the top, but turn them over and blech. Every single one so far. Any one know what's this all about? The good news is that I have more flowers on the tomato plants. Technically I could still get something tasty from them. In other news, we have peppers. Lots and lots of peppers. And they are finally turning red!

We also have cucumbers, or had cucumbers. We had two and I picked them and ate them. They were gooood.

The baby cantaloupe is still chugging away. We have eatable chard and the bean look like they may fruit again. We're into the dog days of summer. I'm hoping the heat will turn somethings around. But I have to admit that I'm already about the next round. What am I going to plant in the Fall?