If Only...

Falling For Fall

Even though Fall has always been a great season for birthdays, it has never been my favorite. I am more of a spring girl, fresh blooms, honeysuckle, warm breezes. But this year, Fall has been growing on me. The amazing colors of the leaves, some trees with hundreds of different shades in just one branch. I can't really put it in to words, how amazing I now find it.

I went for a walk this morning through my neighborhood. It is amazing the different perspective you gain on your surroundings by just taking a stroll down different roads and sidewalks.

And You Can't Stop Me

It's Saturday, just past noon, and I am eating cinnamon rolls. Usually reserved for holidays in our family, we would eat them after opening presents Christmas morning. My dad would make scrambled eggs just after frying some link sausage, in the same pan. Oh heck, seriously yummy.

Just thought I would share.

Turn Over and Close Your Eyes

We took a lot of road trips growing up. A lot of time spent in mini-vans, driving through deserts and desolation. Ok, sometimes the view was nice, but out West, it's few and far between in certain states. Our parents would bribe us with the promise of a 'treat' (aka dessert) after dinner if we would stay awake in the car. Makes sense now, let a kid sleep all day and you are pretty much SOL for the rest of the night. Back then, we didn't have gameboys and dvd players folding out of the roof. It was a lot of reading, staring and taunting siblings.

So, we would arrive at our destination for the evening, check in to the motel, and go for dinner. Depending on where we were, sometimes we would take a look around. We would stop for our 'treat', my favorite was McDonald Land cookies (yum!), and then head back to the motel to go to bed. Well, a cool place like a motel room, filled with your brothers, and your parents watching Johnny Carson, does not provide sufficient motivation for sleep. Sugary treat, or not.

Our parents would see us tossing and turning, mostly turning to see the tv. Depending on where you were sleeping, that is. Some of us got to share a double bed, some of us enjoyed sleeping on the floor. I am not one of those crazy people. So, I would often try and maneuver myself to a supreme Carson vantage point. Our parents aren't stupid. I'm still trying to find the eyes in the back of my Mom's head, for goodness sake. You would get a few warnings and then......you would hear it, the last words before real trouble came (ok, I'm exaggerating, but you knew to cool it once they said it). "TURN OVER AND CLOSE YOUR EYES." Ugh.

I was always convinced that it was a ploy to deny us all a peek at those cool celebrities and, oh maybe, just maybe a chance to see Carnac the Magnificent. No, unfortunately, I have realized as an adult that a lot of things I thought my parents were spouting off as crazy talk is actually true. I know kids, shocking. But see, turning over and closing your eyes, it really does work. Try it, I'm getting ready to.

The Time of Your Life

I went to Washington, D.C. this weekend (am still there for the rest of the day, in fact). To visit The Goat and celebrate the year of my birth. This is the second year in a row that I have been in this city on my birthday and it was decidedly different yet oddly the same.

I walked my friggin butt off!

I told Tanya I wanted to take some pictures. Didn't matter where, didn't matter what the subject was. We hemmed and hawed over where and finally decided we would just hop on the Metro and see what happened. Uh oh. I'm not good at Mass Transit. It is like one big maze and I am the rat that inevitably just crawls in to a corner and waits to be lifted out. But, surprisingly, we did quite well. Visited Arlington Cemetery, which I had been to before, but got to see a few things I hadn't before. Tanya had never been before so we at least went to see the JFK flame but then we kind of wandered off the beaten path.

Oh wait. Hold on. I skipped something. Something BIG. Um........Tanya got me a digital camera for my birthday. Hooty hoo! A small HP to tide me over until I work out the details of getting the big one.

Ok, back to regularly scheduled programming. So here are a few pics from Arlington Cemetery.

It was nice to see things I hadn't seen before. I'm not keen on repetition and enjoy a good surprise. This stop worked out well. Our next stop was Chinatown, baby. Well, at least that's where we got off the Metro. Our poor little Goat feet had no idea what their flip flopped soles were in for. Sure, we walked around Chinatown a bit, but we turned the corner and I saw the dome of the National Gallery of Art and all of the historic gene's that my Mother passed down to me immediately started screaming for a view.

Again, I saw things I had never seen before. Nothing a million other people haven't already seen. But still, I love surprises. These were great ones. Poor Mom was in Portland, getting ready for my cousins wedding and I was constantly sending her text messages of all the things I was seeing. She could have kept walking for hours after we gave up and headed by to Chinatown for some snackage. Here are some pics from the Giant Loop of Death.


We finally got back to Tanya's apartment and pretended we were dying for a while. Got ready to go out, and had a very yummy dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery. The rest of the night didn't exactly go as planned. A typical Goat evening only has two requirements. Beer and Pool. We had already checked the first one off the list but the second was proving quite difficult. Seems that Saturday, October, 20, 2007 was an important sport night for bar goers. The Maryland/UVA Football game, the Cleveland/Boston Baseball game, the UFC fight. Pool tables covered. Bars insanely packed. Sweet heavens, what to do? We drove to three bars before settling at a pool hall for those who think they can dance. Let's just say, there was a dj and girls who decided the dj was playing just for them. The place was packed and there was a waiting list to play on the tables. Tanya ran the table. Massacre. It wasn't pretty.

So, today is Five Guys and a trip home. I am trying to decide if I will take the road to Charlottesville, like we did last year. It was beautiful and I have a camera to document it this time. Thanks, G.

Edited for weird spelling errors. I blame the fact that I wrote this when I was extremely tired.

A Fair To Possibly Remember

I went to the NC State Fair today. Man, is the midway loud and the food section stanks. Ugh.

Here are some pics.
That last one's for the G. He was in charge of that hay bale, I'm just sayin'.

Working on.....

a jump.

A Gift From The Sea

Channelled Whelk

"But I want first of all - in fact, as an end to these other desires - to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact - to borrow from the language of the saints - to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace, I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from Phaedrus when he said 'May the outward and inward man be at one.' I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God."

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Simple Steps

I have talked a lot this week. I'm tired of talking. What else could I possibly find to say?

Moving on, oh my, time for another jump. I'm getting too good at this.

8 Things..

1) I was 11 during the New Kids on the Block hysteria. My friends were entrenched in the cult of it all but I stood on the fringes, enjoying it all but hiding my participation. A girl gave me a tape of Step by Step and I spent a few weeks falling asleep with my cassette player under my pillow and rewinding the title song to hear Joey McIntyre do his bit in the 'step' section of the song. I also had one picture of him taped inside my closet. Was never one for tear stained posters.

2) My first concert was Pink Floyd. Senior year of High School, 1994. A friend invited me the day of, during photography class. I called and asked if I could go and even though I had been denied the opportunity to see Amy Grant five years earlier, Mom said yes. Carter-Finely Stadium, on the grass.

3) My Dad took for my first movie in a theater when I was 4. "The Fox and the Hound", I fell asleep mid-way through and my Dad and sat through to the end just in case I woke up and wanted to keep watching. I love that.

4) Tomatoes. It's been a life long battle. My family LOVES them. My brother used to eat them like apples just to gross me out. It was always a rule that we had to eat what was served at dinner. "This isn't a restaurant, I don't provide a menu." So, I've lived through salads and salsas. I just don't like them uncooked and glaring at me with their seeds and bitter meat. Just thinking about it is making me sick. Ketchup, Spaghetti Sauce, even Sun Dried, I'm all for 'em.

5) I hate wearing shoes. I've been wearing flip flops long before the fad that had people wearing them to the White House. From the moment Spring gets warm enough to the minute Winter starts to numb my toes, I am donning my $4 flops from Target. Oh and the toes get a new color probably twice a month.

6) 42 out of 50 - Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Wisconsin. I've been to every state, but these. It's gonna happen one day. But, I can only bring myself to get excited about two of them. Ok, maybe three.

7) When I walk through my neighborhood, and others, I scrutinize each yard and decide what I would change about each one. Hmmm, maybe I should put that on my list for when I change my mind about work, again.

8) I get bored easily, I can't believe I made it to number 8. Blah.

Musings

• I just realized only one state I have ever lived is landlocked. Further evidence that 1) For my own sanity, I must always live near the water and 2) I must never live in Utah, again.
• I usually love a song for it's lyrics. While I don't connect with these, I can't escape this song right now (it doesn't hurt the songs beauty that I have a crush on Mraz):

• These, I do.

She loves her mama's lemonade,
Hates the sound that goodbyes make.
She prays one day she'll find someone to need her.
She swears that there's no difference,
Between the lies and compliments.
It's all the same if everybody leaves her.
"Beautiful Disaster" John McLaughlin

• She is my best friend. My first true friend. Thank you , G.
  

Do No Harm

Healing wounds does not come so easily. Once broken, skin and bones can mend in time but, our emotions do not find such solace.

Be peaceful and kind. Be patient and open minded. Be forgiving and honest.

Willingness to overcome is the beginning of hope.