choosing the sun {self-portrait challenge}

on the banks of puget sound, june 19, 2007

on the days when misunderstandings threaten to roll in the clouds. on the days when the missing rocks my heart and her voice seems lost to me. on the days when the last thread of possibility begins to tear. on days when the aloneness feels like a friend. on the days when dreaming feels immature and silly. on days when the patterns long left behind suddenly appear as an option. on days when i feel forgotten and realize i have actually forgotten myself.

on these days, like a violet on a kitchen windowsill, i choose the sun.
i choose.
i choose.

(see more reactions to the challenge of environment at self-portrait challenge)

goodness

goodness me, so many guesses! well, there are a couple of you who are pretty darn close! i will still keep the guessing open until sunday evening, so feel free to add your guess to the list if you haven't already.

thank you all for your kind birthday wishes. reading all your guesses and your kind words has been such fun.

i had a really nice day. it has been funny to answer this question this week, "what are you doing for your birthday?" (long pause on my end of the phone, followed by a slight giggle) "well, jon and i are going to 'an evening with bob newhart' at a theatre here in tacoma." (long pause on the other end) "oh yeah, he is great. i always liked him." "me too."

it was wonderful. he is just as cute in person and just as funny as you would imagine. a genius really with his timing and his facial expressions and his voices. we were in the fifth row...pretty darn cool. the place was packed and the crowd really enjoyed him. we were laughing all the way home. i love that guy. i think i might download some of his comedy albums...now that i have enough space on my ipod because...

Jon bought me a much bigger one! he used some of his birthday money last year to buy me a little nano. and he did the same this year (well, actually, it kind of works out that he used my birthday money as we used his to buy a new docking station for our iPods with me not knowing i would have a new one) because he knew i was just a wee bit sad that i couldn't put as much on my nano and that i wanted to be able to start listening to podcasts and other things. (not to mention that i still think he feels bad for erasing my entire iTunes library last december...and this way i can pretty much put almost every CD onto my iPod now, so if it gets erased again because of a massively huge miscommunication, it will be okay.) after it was charged, the first order of business, as decreed adorably by my husband, was to download the short film boundin'. do you know that animated short? the one that played before the incredibles in the theatre? if you don't know it, you should. really, it sums up my entire philosophy about life. (i am not kidding here.) and now i can watch it on a little screen whenever i want to. if i am ever on a plane that is maybe "going down," just know that i was there, sitting in my seat watching that little short and breathing deeply.

goodness. sorry for that morbid thought, but i am not kidding. the therapist i went to in college talked about the idea of staying calm in the midst of it all using the metaphor of either screaming as a plane experiences major turbulence or just sitting there and reading your book through it all. hmmm...i might not be doing this metaphor justice. but i think of that idea: that i would want to experience calm in those last moments. now i will be watching boundin' instead of reading if i ever find myself in that situation. moving on...

i am one of those people who loves a cake for her birthday. i know you might be nodding and thinking "don't most people?" but, my experience after grade school was that you don't always get a cake. (part of this has something to do with the fact that my mom doesn't like cake, so after we were a certain age i think she thought that we didn't want cake. so there tended to be dessert at the restaurant we went to to celebrate and i think there were a few ice cream cakes. and those are great. but, my brother and i are totally cake-cake people. i should have baked him one this year. hmmm. next year matt, i am showing up in portland with a cake.) i wish that i would have just started making myself one every year. anyway, the point is that i should have also just said, "hey friends and family, i like cake. and i kind of want a cake with candles and everything on my birthday." so, when jon and i got together, i finally said that. and this is where he started making one for me every year. super cute. the funny part is though that about every other year he tries something different. like adding cinnamon to a chocolate cake to try to make "mexican chocolate cake" like they served at this restaurant i love. not quite mexican chocolate. and this year, he was so cute as he made me a cake while i was out tuesday night, so when i got home, there was a note on it that said, "you do not see this." working from home and having to wait until thursday to eat the cake, well, that was torture. but, then, when we had cake thursday morning (i was up really early for some reason, so jon went ahead and put candles on the cake and served it to me for breakfast...hee, hee...love it), it was discovered that the cake and the frosting were made from an organic mix. hmmm. it was kind of like when you go to the store and you really want ice cream but buy some low-fat ice cream when you really want the regular chocolate and you get home and eat it and think "why oh why did i do this when i should have just gone to baskin robbins and eaten one scoop of the good stuff?" yeah. i love to do the organic thing as much as possible. but this cake was missing a little somethin' somethin'. however, i point out, that it truly is the thought that counts. and i think that we might just make some cupcakes together this weekend to celebrate the end of the school year for jon but also to just have that regular old pillsbury yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

today, as i chuckle a bit as i write this long post of silliness, i feel this true sense of joy that my husband is such a kind, sweet man. that he supports me in all that i do and that he wants to sprinkle pieces of joy in my life. that instead of just thinking "oh i could do that," he just does it, even if it means that sometimes things don't work out as perfectly as he would have liked. the fact is, he just wants to make me smile. and life is hard. so it is really nice to have someone in your life who just wants to do that for you.

(thank you sweetie)

more than 30 (also known as the one with the contest) (and in some circles known as the birthday post)

today, i turn 31. i loved turning 30 last year. simply loved waving good-bye to my 20s. was glad to let them be part of the past. i kind of want to stay 30 for another year though. it just feels like such a good age. i like answering that question, "how old are you?" and saying with a huge smile, "30." i think i like being an even age. and to be the beginning of a decade feels empowering. but today, i take a big step right into that decade.

last night, i was thinking about how excited i was to turn 16. how i didn't fall asleep and that at midnight i saw that my mom was still up reading, so i went into my parents' room and opened the presents my grandparents had sent. it was a pretty cool moment. my grandmother was always sending me "the latest thing" she had found. this time, it was these stretchy, metal bracelets (think almost slinky-like but rectangular). i did not realize that they were actually something you were supposed to put on the outside of your long-sleeve shirt, at the wrists, and then push up the sleeves - they were supposed to hold the sleeves in place. an odd invention that didn't seem to take off (do any of you know what i mean?). well, i thought they were just funky bracelets and put them on and when they went from being "stretched out" to resting against my skin, every single one of my arm hairs in that area of my skin was grabbed up in between the little slinky-like coils. holy crap. it hurt but it was so funny. my mom and i were cracking up until we were crying; trying to be quiet as my dad was sleeping. we had no idea what they were for. i think my grandparents also sent me a mug they bought in hershey, pa that had all the different hershey chocolates on it. and then, they sent a pretty nice-sized savings bond that they gave to all the grandchildren when they turned 16. i am sure that there was also a pair or two of super soft socks as that was something my grandma always gave me at birthdays and christmas. i guess the best part of the memory though is just thinking about sitting on the floor next to my mom's side of the bed and being in that moment with her. and, i think some hershey's chocolate was consumed as well...so fun.

lately, i have noticed several bloggers hosting little giveaways on their birthdays, so i decided i would like to join in on the fun...

a few weeks ago, i mentioned that jon helped me to count buttons. well, we were counting all these buttons:

we found this jar filled with them at an antique shop in portland. see that blue one? well, i had to have the whole jar after seeing that blue one (and the red one...oh and that green one...).

anyway, i thought it might be fun (and a bit silly i know), if i held a "guess how many buttons are in the jar" contest here in the comments. here's a hint: there are a lot more than 30 buttons in that jar, but there are not more than 10,000. oh and it took us several hours to count them (though we were nicely arranging them by color and other subcategories like "liz's favorites" and "ones that look like flowers").

just leave your guess in the comments. the person who is closest will receive a surprise of something i have made here in the little room and some other goodies (including, you guessed it, some of those buttons)!

i am going to go ahead and leave the guessing open until sunday evening, so jump on in with your guess! (though, i suppose i should have the rule that you only get one guess, so make it a good one.)

and thanks for making this last year, the year i was 30, such a good one with your friendship, support, words of wisdom, and all that good stuff. you all are just the best...

a circle of (fictional) friends

I often mention that I wish I had friends to meet up with at a coffee shop in my town. A group of girls to just connect with in person every now and then. I can count on one hand the friends I have made in our town since moving here three years ago. I am, though, very lucky to have made other dear friends in the area and down in Portland, but they aren't really able to meet for tea or wine one night a week after work.

I have talked about how in college I felt like the books that lined my shelves were my companions. The authors and characters were kindred spirits in my life, reminding me that I was not alone in my way of looking at the world. A person who spends a lot of time alone needs this. At least, I need them: These companions in the form of characters in books and also movies.

Thinking about these things led me to have this thought. Imagine if I could create my own circle from the characters I adore. As though there would be a world where I could invite these fictional women to meet me at The Mandolin Café for tea on a Friday afternoon. I imagine this to be a bit like Thursday Next's world (but maybe without the high-stakes crime) where people can move from the real world to the book world.

Imagine if I could just ask these women I admire and adore if they would meet me for tea? Who would I invite? Well, lately, I have been drawing quite a bit of inspiration from a few ladies who can be found in the fictional world. Elizabeth Bennet, Kathleen Kelly, Elinor Dashwood, Princess Ann (though if she were to spend an afternoon over tea with these ladies, she would, I think, want to just be called Anya), and Amelie are the first five who came to mind. Wouldn't this be quite the group?

My next thought was, of course, what would I wear? What bag would I carry? As I happen to be in the habit of creating bags lately, I decided I would have to create something new for the occasion. A bag that would fit my journal, a book of poetry (as we would of course be sharing poetry), my little coin purse/wallet, and the cookie I would bring home for Jon as he wouldn't be able to join us but how he loves the cookies at The Mandolin Café.

I think I would pair my bag with my twirly, off-white skirt and red eyelet top. Maybe some brown flip flops as not to be too dressy. Don't you think I can have tea with a princess while wearing flip flops (if that said princess is trying to blend in with the regular folks)? Something tells me she might have a pair herself when she visits me in the twenty-first century. And, I am quite convinced that Miss Elizabeth Bennett (or shall we say, "Mrs. Darcy" [insert swoon here]) would indeed have a pair. Well, maybe not. Hmmm...maybe little ballet flats would be a better choice.

Who would you invite into your circle of (fictional) friends?

(The Purse Project was the inspiration to use this vintage tea towel as part of my new bag. Love the way the texture of the towel looks with the linen of the bag. The purses made by people who sent their photos in on time for this month's Purse Project can be seen here.)

already another wednesday...

i have been writing blog posts in my head for several days now. i want to tell you all about the wonderful weekend jon and i had. how we celebrated his birthday. how i made him this pretty cool blanket. how we were able to eat outside because it is so nice here. how we went to folklife (an art and music festival) and i was dancing with glee there. how we spent time with my friends who are moving out here next month who were here looking for a house (i can't believe i haven't told you about them. they are moving here. it.is.the.best.thing.ever.). i want to tell you everything and even share some photos.

but. last night i had my first migraine. ugh. jon said it best, that it is like having a mindquake. yes. indeed. the worst. so today my brain and body are still trying to readjust and stuff, and i am conserving mental power for work (whatever that means...i hope you know what i mean), but i do want to leave you with something.

yesterday, my friend heather called to read me this article from newsweek. you might have read it; it is from the "my turn" page and is called "'I'm Sorry' Shouldn't Be the Hardest Words." i think everyone should read it. everyone. please go read it now and then share it with everyone you know.