talk to me.

dear taylor,
i miss you.  the past two days i've been jealous that you're in a big city with all the eating-out options you could want and i've been stuck in bed sick.  someday, let's go to dallas together.  and eat really good food there.  until then, come home to me so i can kiss you!
love your {sometimes} impatient wife.

dear work,
i can't wait for you to start opening at eight am. instead of six.  i'm pretty sick of seeing 4:10 am. on the alarm clock.  also, i wish there was a create-your-own-schedule button.  for some reason, every week your schedule just seems really inconvenient.
love someone who uses you for your money.

dear bed,
you've been good to me this week.  here's to seeing less of you in the future.  don't be offended, i just don't like being sick.
love your loyal friend.

dear jeans,
stop getting tighter.  just stop it right now.
love me and i'll love you back.

dear waterbottle,
i love you with all my little watery heart.  it's good to have you back in my hand.  i'll try desperately never to leave you somewhere inconvenient again.
love my lips.

dear natalie,
you don't know how happy i am that you're speaking to me again.  even though it was just texting, our conversation yesterday made me come alive more than i have in a while.  i'm going to keep playing scrabble with you online because i know it's your weakness - and might be my only shot at consistent communication.
love your sister, still.  please.

dear gym,
after getting a membership i've been once.  sure, think me a fool for giving you my money, but dog-gonnit, i'm gonna be seeing you every day next week so you better keep your mouth shut and be good to me.
love your hesitant client.

dear husband,
i want to make you a treat.  i really want you to come home to something delicious right out of the oven.  but i can't decide which would be better: making you a treat to come home to or taking fifteen minutes to speak on sunday so you don't have to speak for a half hour.  it's not gonna be both, thank my four thirty tomorrow morning for that.
love your indecisive second-job chef.

confessions

if i didn't believe that tattoos are a desecration of a great gift, i would want to be a tattoo artist.  because really, i think there's a lot of great ink out there.  it's why i love henna.
if i did drink coffee, i'm pretty sure i'd love a tuxedo latte every morning.
secretly, i wish i could move deep into farm land, grow and raise all my own food, never wear makeup or do my hair again, and milk cows every morning.
lately, despite my certainty three months ago that seattle was the worst place on earth, i wish i could go back.
sometimes, although i want a big family more than i want anything on earth, a life lived with my husband, a dog and a great line-up of races sounds best.  guess that's why i don't have children yet.
i still call myself an artist although i haven't put pencil to paper in that way for years.  when i say i'm an artist, i don't say that deep down i'm terrified that i've lost that part of myself and replaced it with research.
i've been trying to work up the guts to dye my hair red for the past six years.
a year ago, i started thinking about going to hair and beauty school.  although i faked the death of that dream when i got married, it still intrigues me enough that i think about it several times a week.
i love fiction most because it helps me believe that magic and fairies and dragons still exist - we've just lost the ability to see them. {shout out to fablehaven. i'm a believer.}
although i would never wish myself back in high school in a million years, i miss having a good group of girlfriends to go out to dinner with more than just about anything.
sometimes i wish that reincarnation was a real thing.  if it was, i'd really like to be the lead singer in a rock band in my next life.  {side note, the song galileo by the indigo girls is one of the best songs ever written.}
i want so much to start racing consistently {and i have for a while}.  it's obtainable, and after a year, i still can't put my finger on what's stopping me - other than fear that i won't be able it.
all it took to shake my confidence in the kitchen was a malfunctioning oven.  after burning three batches of granola consecutively, i'm scared to undertake another expensive baking endeavor.

often {lately}, i think i don't really know what i want in my life right now.  i'm in search of a dream.  in search of something that's just mine to go after.  whether it's a cat, a career as a hair designer, or a marathon.  just something that feels like it's mine.  and me, something that's really really me.

an unexpected three days off

sick sick.  it started last night at 2 am. and persists, although it's not nearly as bad now as it was last night.

luckily, i have a sympathetic manager who's covering my early morning shift tomorrow.  what goes around comes around, i guess.  i'm pretty grateful at the moment i covered for him yesterday.

now, the question is what to do with myself.  taylor's out of town volunteering at an mft conference for the next three days.  originally, i'd planned to pick up a couple shifts while he was away - might as well while i'm alone!  now, i won't be working at all while he's away.  i'll get some good rest, but sadly i'll probably be working more next week while he's on spring break {lucky man... sometimes i wish i were back in school}.

at the moment, i'm unshowered, my hair's greasy, and i finally have an appetite.

however, i'm afraid of the bathroom because i found an ant in the tub earlier today.  nothing makes me cringe like finding an ant in my house.  i can't handle them, and that's the truth.

and now, i think i need a grapefruit, an egg and cheese on toast, some bacon, and something chocolate.

really, chocolate makes just about everything better, right?

unexpected schedule

this morning, i woke up at 5:30 to the wind rattling my blinds like all it wanted was to get into the bedroom and crawl into bed with me.  finally being conscious enough to realize i could do something about the obnoxious rattling, i slithered out of bed and crawled along the floor to slam the window shut.  ten minutes later, barely dozes off again and fully aware that my alarm was going off in twenty minutes, my phone started chirping - a text message.  at 5:40 in the morning?  whoever was texting me that early deserved to be ignored.

twenty minutes later, i looked at my phone.  after reading the desperate situation my manager was in, i decided my schedule was going to flip-flop today.  so what was supposed to be a free morning filled with DAILIES, granola bar making, reading and working out became another morning at work making coffee and smoothie for the people that weren't having a great day and needed a little lift.

luckily, i finished at two.

the man of the house was feeling pretty sick today, and my body wasn't exactly feeling in tip top shape, either.
he ate with me on my lunch break {and made us a killer raspberry cheesecake yogurt parfait}, then came to pick me up after work.

at home, i pulled off my red uniform shirt and crawled back into bed.  a forty minute nap turned into a four hour nap this evening.

after waking up, i made yellow curry over rice, we watched another episode of psych and now it's back to bed.

needless to say {not really, i'm saying it..} we're both ingesting quite a bit of emergenc, grapefruit seed extract, vitamin d, and water.

here's to a healthier-feeling day tomorrow.
over and out-like-a-light again,

have a happy night!

day one.

today marks the beginning of a set of goals that i'm anticipating will make quite the difference on my current quality of life.  for about a month now, i've been stuck in the blah's.

backing up, for several weeks before getting married, there was company, i was stressed, we ate out often, we ate sugar more often, and i didn't exercise nearly as much as i planned.  after getting married, i relaxed.  i didn't exercise the for two or three weeks straight and my diet stayed in sugarland.  even after settling into our new apartment and started to buy and make real food, i found myself supplementing every meal with a dessert... or two.  and not those great healthy, homemade desserts i love.  lots of brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and the like.

after a good three months of this, my head's hurting quite a bit, i'm not dealing with stress the way i know i'm capable of, my jeans {and especially underwear} are uncomfortably tight, and i'm tired more than i'd like to be.

the good thing is that i know how to change this.

so today marks day one of buckling down on all the things that maintain my health and keep me happy and feeling chipper.  here's the rundown:

• exercise: 45+ minutes a day (60 = goal), 6 days a week, allowing 2 miss days in a 4 week period
• nutrition: sugar only 1-2 times a week {enforcing the 80/20 rule here}.  3 meals a day + a healthy snack if i need one {or two depending on my exercise schedule}.
• think: positive thoughts about myself - create a healthy psychological environment

i'll also be tallying up how many times a week i make time for relaxation yoga and how many affirmation/breathing/stretching sessions i get in, as well.  those i'm being a little more relaxed about because i don't want to be a drill sergeant with myself - just get mindful of those things so they can increase.

aaaand here's my little chart i've made up for myself.  notice the first day's a success! ;)

notice the quote at the top - this is the motto.  the goal is to adjust this as necessary to so i can be super consistent and maintain it for a long time.  eventually, that'll mean cutting down the exercise strictness.  for now, that's to boost my motivation and help me get to the gym.

which.... as of today, i am the proud owner of a gym membership!  it's a darn good thing our apartment complex has an agreement with gold's gym.  let's all give a round of applause for a free gym membership.  yay!!!!

anyway, the workout today was a bit intimidating, it being my first time inside a real big-sized gym, but it felt good to move.  it was also great to go without dessert - today was a boost in confidence.

i got this thing.

'night, world.  off to sleep away my exhausted legs and feet.

living the artful life

this week, i want to live a little more with this in mind.  be a little more punky brewster with my wardrobe.  drink a little more herbal tea and recognize that the drinking of it is beautiful in and of itself.

i love art.  and to recognize that i am {indeed} art, that would be a beautiful thing.  this week, i'll notice the artful things.  i'll notice that the way i tuck my hair behind my ear is uniquely mine.  i'll recognize that the mukluks i wear are actually a piece of art {of which i ought to take a photograph so my children will believe that i did used to wear something that cool}.  i'll give myself permission to call the color and shape of my eyes artful.  i'll allow myself to agree that my goals are a staple in the piece of art that i am.




i learned several things today.
one.  my husband is a pessimistic post-positivist.
two. waking up at 4:30 am. for two days and going to bed at 12:30 am. a day later is going to get to me eventually.  let's hope i can find a way to be consistent even with switching off between closing and opening.
and three. although i get anxious during situations in which i stand up for an opinion that isn't mutually supported, i can.  and it isn't the end of the world.

happy sunday :)