To Borrow a Cooking Term

My dears, I am done with all negativity today.  Do you ever look at yourself and realize you don't like the things that you spend so much time and energy thinking about?  I am doing an over-due spring cleaning of all the things I worry about, because they are not important.

And I am replacing myself with new things that make me happy.  It seems to me that we people are always wanting of something.  Wanting more or wanting something new or wanting to feel a certain way, etc. and so forth.  And wanting is good so far as it keeps you out of complacency, but bad so far as it keeps you out of contentment.

This last weekend, I watched my roommate cook and bake her cares away.  And I watched her do it all with a tremendous smile, because cooking and baking just simply have that effect on her.

And then I just watched her marinate in all those good feelings because she was doing something she loved.  She marinated all weekend long.

THAT is what I need to do.  Marinate in the things I love.

I am for the next while, car-less, and I think this is the perfect opportunity for me to try and do that.  Because instead of feeling stuck and bored, I want to feel like this is a new opportunity for me to enjoy the world in a new way.

Ya digg?

Some Thoughts on Today

I've been exercising more often lately, which, to say I had been exercising with any degree of constancy would, by nature of how I am usually a lazy-girl, mean I am exercising more often.  I mention my exercising because I realize that I had forgotten about endorphin's, and how after I am done working out I want to do more and more things.  Like a surge of productivity, those endorphin's.

Also, I like the way that when I take off all my clothes after the exercising and before the showering, there are patches of skin across my body that are all splotchy and red and sweaty.  It is like a road map of blood flow, and I am the united states and my veins are interstate highways.  Don't credit it me for that one, because I'm pretty sure I got it from that one episode of the Magic School Bus where the bus shrinks and the class goes in that one dude's body. (Except that I actually think that was two episodes of the magic school bus.)

My brain does this thing when I am running, where it struggles to think about anything else besides how much I hate running.  I find that the longer I can get my brain to forget to think about it, the longer I can run before I want to walk.  Unrelated (but slightly), Jillian Michaels is such an enchanting she-devil.

Isn't the Summertime Grand?

I don't think they appreciate the summertime at my new job.  They are like deadlines, deadlines, work, training.  And I am listening, but not all the way, because in the months of June through, oh, mid-September, my brain is at least 20% thinking about sun-tans and beaches and books and not having any cares in the world at any moment.  I'd like to keep it that way, you know?


And the living is easy, my friends.

This Summer

Oh, boy oh boy do I have plans for this summer.

I grew up with great summers.  It seemed like there wasn't anything I had to do in the summer, and the days were long and the popsicles were plentiful.  Every year my Mom would take us to the library at the beginning of the summer and we would pick out books.  So many books!  And so leisure reading is a summer time thing for me.

This year, I want to get a lot out of my summer.  I hate that most days when I am bored I just plop down in front of the tv or in front of the computer and get sucked into this zone of mindlessness.  My goal for this summer is to be able to entertain myself.  To be able to be unplugged and to still enjoy myself.  So here are the things I want to do this summer, should time and funds allow:

• run 100 miles in 100 days (I have already started!)
• blog a lot
• read CS Lewis
• read at least 2 biographies
• play the piano a lot
• write a lot
• practice my spanish
• go to the beach
• get a good tan
• get a lot of sleep
• make new friends
• go new places

I'm really excited to start going through my list.  Oh and DEFINITELY ask me about my 100 miles in 100 days.  I want to be held accountable for that one.  

The fun has already begun, my friends.  

Talk About This and That

We're not going to talk about the fact that my car died again on my drive back to Stanford.  And how Lolita might be dead forever.

We are going to talk about how the tow truck man was talking to another tow truck man, but then reprimanded him for using foul language because there was a lady in the car, and how he opened the door for me.  Gentleman do exist, they are just older than my father.

We're not going to talk about how much money I spent to get a plane ticket back to San Jose or about how I sat down on the plane and just cried.  Just cried and cried and cried and avoided eye contact with anyone and everyone.  Or about how I'm a dummy and booked the shuttle for the next day.

We are going to talk about the fact that a homeless man gave me his bus pass for less than the price of a ticket and then told me all about his deceased wife.  And then we'll discuss how the bus driver and I got to be really good friends on account of the fact that I had been on his bus for about an hour by the time I got off.  And we are going to talk about how good it felt to come home and shower and eat cereal and just lay in my bed until I fell asleep, feeling for the first time in this entire day that I was where I was supposed to be.

And then, I'll tell you that that was a day of sadness and today is a day of happiness, and that there are always a billion things good in my life.  Like the fact that even though my car blew up, I made it safely to the side of the road.  And that I was only an hour from home and my hero-dad raced over to save me.  And that smart phones make it so that when you book a shuttle for the wrong day, you can figure out how to cheaply get back home in approximately one minute - perfect timing for catching the bus you need.  This summer is going to be good, my friends.

If nothing else ever, this summer is going to be good.

Good Enough For Now

Oh I have so much to tell you, and so very little time in which to tell you about it.  But until I do, let me leave you with a few pictures

and tell you that I posted over at my sister's blog here.

Questions

Sometimes (let's face it, it's quite often), I walk into a room or reach into my purse, or turn on my computer, and I can't remember why.  My mind goes a little blank, and I think
What am I doing?
This question haunts me.  Every time I take notes in a class that I have absolutely no interest in, I hear it like a whisper in an empty room.  When I find myself laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, too lazy to put on a pair of pants and face the world, it pops into my head.
      What am I doing?

Usually, I let the answer be that I am just doing what needs to be done.  That there will be a reason if I keep going.  These four years are not the end all be all like I thought they would be.  And that is good.  But they are important.  I will want to remember them for a long time.  Plus, there are all sorts of good things going on.

Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself what I decided.  I want to fill my life with love.  Am I doing that?  Most likely, no.  Most likely if I am  feeling so lost and negative, I am being the opposite of love, which is selfish.

I don't know what I'm doing, quite honestly.  But maybe that doesn't matter.

How Embarrassing

Anecdote time, y'all!

One Saturday night, I went to the grocery store and I ran into no less than 7 people from church that I know, who all know each other, all at the same time.  At the time I had only feminine care products in my basket.  I was not embarrassed.

One Saturday night, driving home from the grocery store, there were some road flares and a cop in the middle of the street and I stopped because everyone in front of me was doing it.  When I got there, the police-man was cayuute.  I mean he was probably a 7/8 out of uniform, but in uniform he was a 9.  And when he waived me forward, I stalled my car hard, and it was totally because he had distracted me with his polices charm.  I started my car again and looked at him to realize that he was sort of half-laughing at me and I just about died.

I do not not not get embarrassed easily.  I do stupid/awkward things all the time.  It is just part of my personality.  Which is why this moment sticks out in my head.  I feel like I was the pinnacle of a young girl getting flustered over a pretty face and the cliche of it all just made me want to bury myself.

But, as embarrassed as I was, I am over it now.  I have learned that most embarrassing moments are moments that other people think are funny for about two minutes, and then promptly forget.

9,000 is Very Close to 10,000

Another thousand pageviews, another giveaway hint.  YOU KNOW WHAT's UP!


People of the world, I love orange juice.  That was ir-elephant.  I mean irrelevant.  I am in one of those good moods where everything is awesome for no particular reason and you think that maybe orange juice reacts with your brain like unto uppers.  That would be really cool.

OKAY HERE IS MY HINT:
You have options here my dudes.

Ok that hint was super duper lame, but looking at the last hint, I realized that I pretty much hinted at everything there is to be hinted at.

Also, Saturday blogging, what is this, Cuba?  I really don't know what's going on in my noggin.  Can I tell you a story of an old man who was giving out new testaments on campus and he looked really worried when I didn't want his partial-Bible and then when I told him I already had one, he nodded and I felt like I was his granddaughter and that he had approved of all of my life choices in one single nod?

Have a picture of me eating chocolate mouse in Italy when I was 16: