Snippets of Summer

Hello friends (and grandmothers). It's been a while, huh.

Matt and I were talking at dinner the other night. (We are adults now, and I've been pushing for sitting at the dining room table, now that our house is set up enough to get to it [oh right! we moved this summer. to a house two blocks over from our last place, our first standalone house of our married lives!]. It's kind of nice, having conversations instead of watching TV while we eat.) Over bowls of cauliflower chili, he mentioned that he kind of wished he'd kept a journal or something during his grad school years, so he could remember what his headspace was like, instead of looking back and realizing he had no idea what he was thinking during some parts of life. And I thought, this blog has been a record of my life for so long, and yet I've lost the drive to write on a regular basis.

I have lots of things I'd like to say, of course, but the thought of putting (figuratively) pen to paper, and figuring out what is worth sharing sounds more tiring than I'd like it to be.

But here's the thing. The more I choose not to write, the easier it is to keep not writing. I've got a whole, unwritten summer just behind me. The more I choose not to pour out my memories, the more I realize that I have forgotten the details, that I don't remember as well as I thought I would. Life stays full-to-bursting even when I choose not to write. And when I choose not to write, the good (as well as the mundane and bad and boring) is lost. And later, Matt will ask me, hey remember when we were/did/saw XYZ, and I will not remember the specific thing he's mentioning, and I'll worry again if my memory is shorting out a little earlier than it should.

From Summer 2016: I want to remember the wedding with the grits bar, and laughing as we sipped our drinks awkwardly on the lawn, and how happy we were on the dance floor. I want to remember hugs and walks and tears and Zumba and time spent quiet with close friends. I want to remember the sweet, puckering taste of that lemon cocktail at the fancy restaurant we went to for our anniversary, to celebrate FIVE YEARS, as my dad would say, and how Matt kept calling me "raven" because I'd had my hair dyed a bright, dark shade of purple that morning.

I want to remember the feeling of panic I first felt before I got my bearings when my mom and I went indoor skydiving over Memorial Day weekend, and watching cheesy '70s game shows in the little studio we stayed at in Boston when we road-tripped up through New England. And what about the creaminess of that long-awaited lobstah roll, and the dog on the field of Fenway! What about appreciating whiskey for the first time? And squeezing through the rocks in Georgia, and chatting on the patio in Chattanooga?

The visits from our parents, and the surprise 29th birthday party that I wish I'd gotten some photos of, because I was not expecting it at all (he lied about looking for a lawn mower!) and all my Virginia friends in one place at one time. The car breaking down in Dallas, and how we laughed when we thought we might miss the concert because of the absurdity of the whole thing, and the pool party with all my relatives. Being so excited to see Matt's cousin's performance in North Carolina, since we never made it up to Broadway.

I realize how much I will lose if I don't write. And so I'll try harder to find words for all this fullness.

Skin Care, or How Apathy Became Obsession

I have never had much interest in beauty products. I like lip colors a lot, and I wear a minimal amount of makeup everyday, but otherwise, you could pretty much guarantee that I was Not Interested. I routinely skipped past advertisements and recommendations for new treatments in the Beauty section of the few magazines I subscribe to, and I was generally bored by discussions of omg wrinkles crow's feet laugh lines aaaaah.

But then … a couple of months ago, I came to a realization. My skin was looking rough. There's a picture from Christmas from when Matt and I visited Washington D.C., and I swear you can tell how dry my skin is just by looking at the picture. I'm 28. I never developed a skin care routine, unless you count routinely falling asleep without washing my face. I was starting to see some good-sized creases in my forehead that didn't go away when I stopped making faces, and my skin always felt super itchy and dry.

And I thought maybe I was worrying about nothing, so I asked some friends about their skincare routines, and that's when I learned that I have been doing my entire life wrong. I didn't even know what my correct skin type was, so I don't know what I expected to happen when I bought face products. The few products that I had used and liked are, apparently, The Worst for your skin, according to people who pay attention to that kind of thing, and all the good habits I never developed are, apparently, Super Important. Things like, remove your makeup before bed! and Wear sunscreen every day! and If your skin is already dry, stop using things that dry it out more!

I bought moisturizers for day time and moisturizers for nighttime, cleansers that don't have skin-destroying plastic scrubby things in them, sunscreen that doesn't feel slimy and look greasy. I finally pulled the trigger and used a gift card to buy one of those face-scrub brushes that I've been thinking about since before we got married (… almost five years ago). I've become a tiny bit obsessed with reading about Korean skin care products, and got a subscription to the Jini Beauty Box so I can try out some of the products suggested by people who know what they're doing.

For years I pooh-poohed the idea of skin care because there's nothing wrong with aging and I'm going to look the way I'm going to look whether I spend money on face cream or not and  it all seems so complicated and I have other things to think about. (At my sister's bachelorette party, I compared skin care "routines" with both the bride and my cousin, and discovered that NONE of us had ever removed our makeup before bedtime.)

But it makes a difference. In how my skin looks and how it feels. And how I feel about myself. I'm a convert.

I'm still early enough in the process that I'm hesitant to share my favorite items yet (plus, discovering new ones all the time!), but maybe I will over the next few months. My sister has asked for recommendations when I find things I like, so I'm excited that maybe my trial and error will be helpful to someone that is still as apathetic as I used to be about the whole thing.

What are your favorite beauty items? At what age did you start to get serious about your skin?

If I'm Honest, I'm Afraid

Yesterday I had a bit of an existential crisis, and so I did the only thing I could think of that always puts me in a better mood: I went to the bookstore.

And as I was browsing the "Personal Growth" self-help shelves, I saw a daily journal titled something like Do Something That Scares You Every Day, full of pages with quotes about conquering fear and making your dreams come true and whatnot.

And as I flipped through it rather quickly, I kind of scoffed. This could not be useful to me. I'm not scared of anything, I thought.

So I turned away, and continued browsing, picked out a couple books to buy (Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey and Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert), got a latte and sat in the cafe to read the book I was carrying in my purse at the time. (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A re-read. Also, very heavy to be carrying around all the time.)

But as I drove home, and made dinner, and sat in front of the fourth quarter of the football game that Matt was watching, my brain was percolating. If I'm being honest, I'm afraid of LOTS of things.

I'm afraid of falling. Of failing. Of getting hurt, or embarrassed, or hurting someone else on accident. Of disappointing others.

I'm afraid of making the wrong decision. Of permanence. Of how impermanent my existence is.

I'm scared that I won't make an impact. I'm scared of alienating people with the things I'm passionate about. I'm scared that I am passionate about too many things, and that I never make the proper effort or time to follow through with any of them.

It scares me that I still don't know what I want to do with my life. It scares me that I'm getting closer to 30 and still don't know if I want kids.

I'm afraid that I've lost my creative spark from lack of use.

It scares me that I could go so long without writing.

It scares me that I am still so ignorant about so many things, even though I am trying hard to learn more about other time periods, other cultures, other experiences.

And so maybe I need to stop thinking I've got it together, and start dealing with these fears. Maybe if I have a grip on what scares me, I won't be so afraid of squandering my own existence.

What are you afraid of? Have you taken active steps to get over any of your fears? What things make you feel better when you start questioning everything?

That Time I Got Tricked Into Eating Meat

So. I accidentally ate meat last week. I've been a vegetarian/pescatarian for a little over two years now. And I got irrationally pissed off over something that is completely voluntary, which is ridiculous.

Last week, Matt and I had a date night. We went to the driving range to hit golf balls for a while, and then Matt suggested we go to this local burger dive. We had gone there on Valentine's Day last year (are we romantic or what), and I had a really good veggie burger with refried beans and chips and salsa on the actual burger, and I wanted to experience that again.

We got our food, and I took a bite. Something didn't taste right. I looked at the patty. I looked at Matt. I looked at the burger again. I said, "I think this is meat." I made Matt take a bite. He said that it was for sure a black bean patty. I shrugged. I took another bite, and a third.

This thing did not taste like a black bean burger! I ripped the burger apart and tore into the patty. Yep. That there's ground beef, through and through.

I took it back. They told me I had ordered a regular burger. I said the burger was CALLED "veggie tostada burger," and thought it was a fair assumption that the patty would have been vegetarian-friendly. Because there ain't no actual vegetables in it! They made me another one, but it kind of put a damper on my evening.

I realize that my vegetarianism is self-imposed. It's not like it would have harmed my health if I'd decided to just suck it up and eat the meat. But it made me think about my dietary preferences. I like how I feel when I'm not eating meat. I'm not interested in going back to a carnivorous diet right now. I don't crave it, don't want it, don't need it.

And I probably won't be going back for another burger at that place.

Do you ever return restaurant food if it's incorrect?

The One Where I Get Totally Irrational About a Pair of Shoes

Do you ever do or say something that makes total sense to you, but kind of accidentally goes against everything you are?

I had one of those moments yesterday.

See, on Saturday, Matt and I went shoe shopping. He needed new running shoes for his upcoming half marathon, and I needed to get some new Skechers Go Walks since the ones I bought in Chicago a few years ago are starting to wear out.

I wear them ALL THE TIME, and they are the PERFECT SHOES and so of course Skechers doesn't make them anymore. Now they sell Go Walks 2 and Go Walks 3 and Go Walk Flex and a bunch of others that are NOT THE SAME and DON'T FIT RIGHT.

(I especially need new ones because … I'm going to get to go on a business trip to Europe in a few months!!! I'll get a day to explore on either end of my trip — one of those days in Amsterdam, and one in Milan! I AM SO EXCITED! And I plan to do lots of walking!)

So I tried on every pair of Go Walk Not-Original-Flavor they had at Shoe Dept, and was huffing about how none of them were right. Instead, I bought a pair of Saucony gel-insert lace-up shoes, which were a fine alternative, but not what I wanted.

On Sunday, Matt came home from lunch and I was wearing the Saucony shoes around the house, to make sure I even really liked them. And I told him I had found the original Go Walks (in limited colors and sizes) on Amazon, and that I wanted to buy like, seven pairs and stockpile them so I never have to be without them.

I swear, I am not a hoarder. At all. I hate stockpiling things. It's stupid. I like getting rid of things. But that's how much I love and adore those shoes. I would stockpile them for years and years and years.

Matt told me I didn't need to buy seven pairs, and that one pair was fine.

(Three Years in the Future Matt is going to be kicking Current Matt for this.)

What are your favorite shoes? Any recommendations for things that are must-sees/dos/eats in Amsterdam or Milan?

You Get a Really Epic/Horrible Story To Make Up For My Absence

You know how life keeps kind of chugging along, and things happen and you think, "It'd be really nice if I blogged about this," but then a week passes and then three and you still want to talk about that thing, but then more things happened between then and now and you want to talk about those things too, and then it just gets so overwhelming that you just abandon ship so you don't have to think about it?

I'm really easily overwhelmed. I've been so overwhelmed for weeks and weeks. But I need to get some of these stories written down so I don't forget them.

Stories like how I threw my sister a bridal shower and how we visited a bunch of new places (Virginia Beach! the Biltmore! Williamsburg!) and how I turned 28 and how our families came to visit on several different occasions over the past few months.

(Oh, and only the most terrifically traumatic story.)

But despite my brief note-taking and photo-snapping, enough time has passed since some of those events occurred that I don't really feel like recapping entire trips. So instead, I think I'll just share a story or two from each over the next few posts.

Starting with this one.

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My friend Chelsea and I were driving to book club. It was being hosted up near Roanoke, way up in the mountains (and not really that close to the city at all). We were so, so late because traffic on the main highway had been completely stopped for almost an hour.

So we finally get out of traffic and exit the main highway, and start weaving through the mountains on one of those little two-lane highways. We're coming around a curve and this THING comes running into the street. A black, German-Shepherd-sized thing.

It was a bear.

Now, I had heard that there were bears in this area, but I had never seen a bear in real life before. When I learned that there were bears, I really wanted to see one for myself.

Well, I saw the bear all right.

Right before I ran it over.

I slammed on my brakes, but I wasn't fast enough. It went under one of my truck tires.

Thankfully I saw it get up and run right off the road, limping a bit, in my rearview mirror. Because it's not like you can get out and make sure the bear is okay. It's a freakin' BEAR.

We were horrified. I asked Chelsea if there was any way that I could have possibly seen the bear and avoided hitting it, and she said she didn't think so, that it came out of nowhere. But I still cried when we got to book club after the shock wore off. I hit a baby bear!

Matt says the bear is probably okay. (He once ran over a dog in our neighborhood in Texas, and it lived to continue chasing cars for many years.) I'm hoping he's right.

A month has passed since this happened. My book club has since met again, and it turns out the ladies in that club really love telling people the story of how the vegetarian ran over a bear.

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I don't have a good question. Anything I could ask after that story would just be too gruesome. So I guess, if you have a story to make me feel like a less horrible person? That would be great. Or just any story about something that's happened to you lately. I've missed you.

Lighting Bugs and Screaming Bridge

I have no idea if this is a true story or not. It might have just been something my dad made up when we were kids because he was sick of me and Rachel fighting in the backseat when he was driving.

My dad once told us as we were driving over a bridge in Arlington (Texas), that the bridge we were on was called Screaming Bridge. According to him, legend had it that one dark night, while the bridge over the Trinity River was out, a car full of teenage girls speeding down the road plunged over the edge into the river.

(I just looked it up. Turns out Screaming Bridge is a bit of an urban legend/ghost story in Texas. But you never know. My dad made up all sorts of weird stories when we were kids.)

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My grandparents live on a golf course. Right around the time my dad told us about Screaming Bridge, we went to my grandparents' house for some event, and we tried to convince my Paw-Paw to take us for a ride on his golf cart. As dusk was approaching, my Nana told us she'd take us for a ride over the course, which had several bridges over the little fingers of the creek, if I'm remembering it correctly. We told her about Screaming Bridge, and she said there was a Woman Screaming Bridge on the golf course. It was the biggest, narrowest, steepest bridge on the course. Rachel and I screamed as Nana drove over it.

It was dark and creepy under the trees as the sun disappeared, but lightning bugs glowed between them every now and then. I love lightning bugs. They're so pretty to watch. I would never have tried to capture any of them.

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Matt was attending a conference at Virginia Tech the other week. He came home around dusk one evening and told me that on his way home, he'd seen a whole bunch of lightning bugs. I said we should go for a walk to see if we could find some. They glowed neon all over our neighborhood. The warmer it gets, the more I see them flitting in the dark. It's beautiful.

Does your city have any local urban legends? Do you like lightning bugs?

Matt's Gonna Run a Half-Marathon!

Every year on Thanksgiving, Matt and his sister and his dad go into downtown Austin early in the morning and run the Turkey Trot. It's a five-mile course through downtown.

I never run the Turkey Trot. His extended family has its own "Turkey Trot" at the same time in which we all go trotting around their neighborhood, with no particular distance specified, and then eat breakfast together afterwards. I participate in the walking and the eating. It's a good way to feel better about the massive quantities of food we'll likely consume later in the day.

But what surprises me is that Matt rarely trains for the Turkey Trot. He'll occasionally run a mile or two in the days beforehand, but last year I'm fairly certain he did not run at all in preparation for it. He pulls a Barney Stinson, says running is easy, and then just does it.

Barney Stinson: How To Run A Marathon from Basri Haitam on Vimeo.

A few months back, Matt sent me a text message over lunch.

Yes, we text in complete sentences, with proper punctuation.

He has fallen into the same pit of grown-up-hood that has previously befallen the rest of us: now that he is done with grad school, he had nothing to work toward. He needed a new goal. 

He fully admits it will probably be painful. Especially because running in Virginia is nothing like running in Texas, because Virginia is very hilly. But he's been starting to train, running three or four or seven miles a few times a week. I'm really proud of him, and I'm really glad I won't be running. (We have a friend from Texas that loves running half-marathons, and she might get to come up and run the race with him, and that would be pretty cool. We'll see.)

The good news is, he won't even have to worry about training for the Turkey Trot this year?

Have you run any races? Do you have any advice for him? And what should I write on the giant poster I'm going to make to cheer him on from the sidelines? :)

Livin' The Dream

I've been trying to live the crap out of life. That's the short version of where I've been the last few weeks.

The longer version? You know how when you've been in and out of town or had people coming in to visit, how suddenly all your routines get thrown off and then you feel hopelessly behind for the rest of the week? I've been totally overwhelmed because not only did Matt and I take a little weekend trip a few weeks ago, but the following weekend his parents and a few other relatives came in to visit us, and we had a blast exploring new things in Virginia. Especially breweries. There were a lot of trips to breweries over those two weekends.

I'll be sharing more about both of those trips over the next few weeks, hopefully. The photo above is from Monticello, in Charlottesville. The tulips were blooming, and I took about a thousand photos of the flower I love so much I named my business after it. What up Thomas Jefferson. (I mean, I'm no longer actively running that business, but still.)

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The other long version is that sometimes I just get really overwhelmed, and then blogging starts to feel like a frivolous, pointless obligation instead of something I do for fun. I know it's not. I love looking back at things I've done and felt and tried, and my family loves seeing what kinds of stuff I've been doing, and I love the outlet of getting things out of my muddled head and onto the page. I love reading other people's stories too, though when I disappear from my own space, chances are good I'm not commenting either. But I'm always reading.

I'm not the best at taking care of myself, allowing myself rest. I always want to go go go, get more done, see more things, be all things to all people. 

So I'm going to try harder to cut myself some slack when I get overwhelmed, maybe not try so hard to stick to a writing schedule (you're laughing right now, going "what schedule? pah!") and just post when I have something to say or a new adventure to share.

But if I disappear again, know I'll always come back. Unless I get hit by a blimp or eaten by a bear or something. (Apparently there was a bear that went running through downtown a couple years ago. I hear the best stories from my co-workers. I don't know what happened to the bear, but I hope it's okay. And that no one was hurt.)

What do you do when you're overwhelmed? What things do you find restful?

Coffee Date

Hi friends! I didn't mean to fall off the face of the earth like that. Just stress and work and everyday life, you know?

But! A lot of that went away for a little while because last week we took a long weekend and flew back to Texas to surprise Matt's sister for her birthday! We also went to visit my grandparents, and stopped in College Station for a few hours to see a few friends. We managed to eat tacos for a lot of our meals. And got in some Blue Bell too. Ahh, food and family. This trip really cemented that Texas > Virginia in all the ways that matter. :)

Happy early birthday sister-in-law! We got beers and went bowling, and I learned that I bowl better left-handed. But still pretty badly.

What makes you and your partner laugh really, really hard? I'm not sure if it was because of the sleep deprivation or because it was really that funny, but as Matt and I were driving home from the airport at three in the morning — note to self, don't fly into an airport that's more than an hour away if it's going to land after midnight on a work night — we popped in a Taylor Swift CD and started singing all the songs in super deep old-man voices, and it cracked us up so much that it made the last half-hour of that exhausting drive fly by.

I am basically dying for a lay-around-do-nothing vacation. Did you know that Carnival has some cruises that leave from the Virginia coast, that basically just go out in the ocean for a day and then turn around and come back? They call it "the cruise to nowhere," and that makes us laugh. But we're saving up our vacation days for my sister's wedding, and hopefully we'll get to go on a real vacation next year. In the meantime, I'm hoping to get some more fun day trips in. There are so many states nearby that I haven't been to! And so many things I'd like to see in Virginia! What places are near you that you're dying to try?

I went to a wine-tasting with some friends the other week at this gourmet-cooking store, and I got really distracted by this wall that had all these beautiful canisters of tea. I've never been much of a tea drinker — my college roommate loved the stuff and believed it could cure everything, and I thought she was wrong and that tea was gross except in the cases of sore throats and so I avoided it forever for reasons I'm no longer sure of — but I'm finally feeling like I should give tea a fair shake. Or maybe the pretty wall of tea just hypnotized me into thinking this is a good idea? What's your favorite type?

Do you need a new thing to listen to while Serial is on break? May I recommend the podcast Grownups Read Stuff They Wrote As Kids? It's exactly what it sounds like: adults reading their childhood diary entries and angsty teenage poetry in front of a live audience. It. Is. Hilarious. Isn't life so much better now that we're not teenagers anymore? :)

What are your goals right now? I have a few things I want to accomplish in the next few months, but I'm thinking about letting go of some other small goals I've been working on that have lost their appeal, that I'm no longer doing to benefit myself, but still feel obligated to slog through. I read on Ali's blog that sometimes you have to let go of some things in order to make room for things you really want, and that's been resonating with me lately. I'd like to stop putting so much pressure on myself.

But enough about me. What's going on with you? What have I missed these few weeks? (I'm super behind on both writing and reading blogs. Feedly tells me I have an overwhelming number of unread posts waiting for me. I'll get to them eventually.)

"Allie Appreciates Every Flurry"

If I were still in elementary school, still getting hand-written report cards with notes from my teacher, that's what this semester's note would say. That I am ridiculously appreciative of every snowflake.

It was a little embarrassing, when one of my co-workers said it to the guy that's the president of our parent company at lunch the other day. But I don't know how to not be completely filled with glee at the merest hint of soft, fluffy snowflakes falling outside the window.

People are like, haven't you ever seen snow before? Didn't it ever snow in Texas?

And I say yes, there was that time in 1991 when it snowed over a foot in North Texas. There was that time when we took our engagement photos when it snowed.

But do I have memories of building snowmen or catching big flakes on my tongue or shoveling the driveway as a kid? No. Because it snowed like four times ever, and then we moved to College Station and it snowed never. More often, it just sleeted and we called it snow, and everything in Texas shut down. The snow was never fluffy, but it made a nice crunch when you stomped around in it. Snow-people were basically impossible, unless they were really small. It was never deep enough for angels, though it did pack decently well for snowballs if your goal was to hurt your opponent.

Oh, we tried. We tried all those things, because that's what you do when it "snows." But it was so rare that every snow day was filled with joy, with calm, with relaxation. With wet cotton gloves and red cheeks and static cling. With warmth and wood fires and hot chocolate and blankets and books.

It snows here, pretty often. We haven't had any big, deep snows since Thanksgiving, but we get snow flurries and a few hours of what look like blizzards — to me — here and there, and a little bit of pileup on our cars or in our yard, and my grin is so wide. I go for walks as it drifts downward and I smile and I throw my arms up and I thank God that beauty like this exists.

Thank you for each perfect snowflake.

Driving home from work, I pass by a field of black cows every day. And this particular day, the snow was swirling across the road, and I was smiling, and I looked to my right to say hi to the cows as I passed. The cows were just standing there, eating, as little piles of crystal formed across their backs, bright against their dark hides. And I laughed, because the cows were covered in snow and didn't even mind!

The snow blows past the office windows and I say "it's snowing!" and I crane my neck to see better. I look out the front windows to our cars and say "it's starting to pile up!"

My co-workers look at this, at me, like it's nothing to be excited about. Most of the north and northeast feels the same I suspect.

But I hope that I continue to appreciate each unique flurry. Because each one is beautiful, and worth getting excited over.

This is Weird. I'm Kind of Into Working Out Right Now.

Yesterday, I went for a bike ride. I've been meaning to go check out this six-mile trail in our city, and the one time Matt and I went to go for a walk on it, his blood sugar went low almost immediately and we didn't even make it all the way to the wooded area where the trail actually started. (As opposed to the part beside the road that's basically a sidewalk.)

So Sunday was beautiful, around 60 degrees, and I got my light jacket and my grandpa's bike and my helmet, and hit the trail. After about a mile and a half of riding, there was a sign saying the next section of the trail was closed, so I turned around, which is kind of pathetic but also kind of a relief. This trail is on a mountain, so there was lots of ups and downs, and I was basically dying. My mom called me while I was walking the bike up a giant hill, and I huffed and puffed a conversation with her until I figured I was either going to drop my water bottle, drop the phone, drop the bike or drop dead, and said I'd call her back.

I suppose my interest in going on a bike ride on a nice day isn't so unusual. But when you combine it with the fact that I'm steadily getting better at pushups — I finally started Week 3! Week 3 is kicking my butt! — AND the fact that I ordered a pedometer on Amazon the other day, AND the fact that I've become obsessed with the Fitbit app, despite not owning a Fitbit? It's downright strange. Who is this girl and what has she done with Allie?

Whatchu mean it's time to stop laying around?!

Also, this obsession of mine has caused me to learn some stuff. Like, did you know that your body burns a lot of calories just to keep you alive? ME NEITHER! (It's okay, you can laugh at me. I had to ask Matt why the Fitbit app kept congratulating me for burning all these calories when I did nothing but sit around all day.) Also, did you know that it classifies "meditating" and "fishing" and "sailing" as exercises? This app is my new best friend. Obviously, now I need to get me a yacht so I can sit on the deck and call it a workout. (Oh hi, regular lazy Allie, I guess you're back now.)

Have you picked up any new hobbies or obsessions lately? Do tell! What new knowledge has blown your mind? Also, do you have any ideas for upping the number of steps taken per day? (Because it is sad but I am nowhere near the recommended 10,000 steps per day. NOT EVEN KIND OF CLOSE.)

One of These Days I'll Be a Badass

After we got finished trying on bridesmaid dresses for my sister's wedding, I was looking at the photos my mom had taken of us, and made a decision.

I have never done any type of strength training. I have some hand weights, but the only ones I've ever used have been the little three-pound weights, and I find those to be a little heavy when I work out with them. I have no upper-body strength. I wasn't that thrilled with how my arms were looking in the photos, and figured that 27 is as good a time as any to figure out how to get muscles. So after we got back home from Christmas, I started doing the 100 pushups program.

In case you haven't heard of it before, it's a three-day-a-week, six-week program where you build up your arm strength, starting with just a few pushups and then adding more day by day.

Now, the website tells you to take a pre-test to determine whether you should start on level 1, 2 or 3. I skipped that because I knew I could only legitimately do one or two pushups before wilting like a delicate flower. I started with level 1, and the website says that on this level, you're supposed to be able to do 50 pushups in a row after six weeks.

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

I've been working for three weeks now. I repeated Week 1 twice, and I'm about to start Week 2 for a second time. Week 2 Day 3 said to do repetitions of 5, 7, 5, 5, and then a minimum of 8 pushups, and then Week 3 Day 1 tells you to start your first rep with 10 pushups! And I am faint of heart and can't fathom starting out with that many and then doing more sets after that.

On my best day yet, I managed 11 pushups in a row, and then I growled and did muscle poses all over the living room while my husband laughed at me and called me cute. But I am not deluding myself into thinking I could do 11 pushups in a row every day, not just yet. These noodles I call arms are still struggling, and my shoulder muscles that are by my chest are sore every day, and I don't want to hurt myself.

But I am going to have awesome-looking arms at my sister's wedding. And if I ever manage to get to 50 pushups, I will post a video to prove it. Because if I were you — heck, if I were me! — I wouldn't believe it.

Tell me what you're doing to work out! Are you still sticking to any New Year's resolutions? Do you like strength training?

Coffee Date

Grab yourself a mug of something and let's chat!

A "Nutty Irishman" from Lucie Monroe Coffee Company, and Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle

I'm still looking for a job in Virginia, and the other day, I saw a job listing that required a two-minutes-or-less video resume. Now, when I think video resume, I tend to think over-the-top and ridiculous, a la How I Met Your Mother. But the job sounded like it would be a really good fit for me, so I went about filming and editing and uploading my own resume. It was kind of fun, and I remembered how much I enjoy video editing, which then spiraled into me thinking I should do more vlogs. So maybe, if I remember, there will be more vlogs in EA's future.

Last week, I invited Matt to come with me to a percussion concert at one of the local universities. Apparently a famous-ish percussion guy was guest-performing, but I didn't know that until we got there and Matt was all, "You didn't tell me Michael Burritt was going to be here!" and I was like "Who?" But that's not what I was going to talk about, because the concert was good but did not inspire any crazy stories. Instead, while we were looking for a place to park, we drove past a pizza place that sold "pizza cones." And so for the rest of the night, we kept giggling about pizza cones. What IS a pizza cone? A slice of pizza rolled into a cone? A cone of dough with pizza toppings poured into it? An ice cream cone with pizza inside? We may never know.

You know how different identities tend to suit us better in different times and places? In Texas, despite the state having a reputation for big hair, I flat-ironed the crap out of mine every day. But since I got here? I haven't busted out the Chi even once. Instead, I feel like curly hair suits me better right now. And it must be true, because I just got my Virginia driver's license, and damn I look fierce in the photo.

I've been having a lot of good adventures with book friends lately. Unexpected book friends. That book up at the top of this post? Totally not the kind of book I would have expected to like, but after a little bit of a slow start, it got REALLY GOOD. And I'm listening to the audiobook of Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked, which is also really good (and well-narrated), and also something I might not have expected to like, since I'm not particularly musically inclined, and don't really follow any one artist or band obsessively.

Except Taylor Swift. I'm a little bit obsessed with "1989" right now. Have you seen the video for "Blank Space"? I kind of love crazy-eyes Taylor. Actually, I love all versions of Taylor, but it's especially fun to see her poke fun at her own reputation. (Also, if you haven't seen it, you should watch Saturday Night Live's "Swiftamine" commercial.)

Matt and I have made some friends! We met a couple that's our age when we went to a mini-golf meetup when I first got to town, and now I go and work out with the girl every once in a while, and they had us over for dinner a couple weeks ago. We reciprocated, and I prepared a proper Tex-Mex feast for them last weekend. They're semi-vegetarian too, so I did homemade salsa, mushroom-spinach enchiladas, and vegetarian tortilla soup, and it was amazing. (We've yet to try any Mexican restaurants in Virginia; this far from the border, is it even possible to do great Mexican food?)

HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART ONE is out today! Are you going to go see it? We used to do midnight premieres with friends, but since Matt has a job to go to — and we're old fogies — we probably will wait until a normal time of day. But I. can't. wait.

What's going on in your world? What's going on with your hair? (It looks fabulous by the way.) How's work going? What are you reading? What are you super excited about this month?

Oh, That's Just Me Making Your Trip to Target Awkward

Because I am the social one (between me 'n Matt, that is), the second I got to town I set about to finding fun things for us to do so that we might make friends and not be sad lonely hermits. Matt was perfectly happy with his level of hermit-atude before I got here, but I am sad when I don't know people, so out we went.

And it was during one of these outings (to get Viet-Thai food!) that it started to get pretty chilly in the evening. I was wearing a three-quarter-sleeve tee shirt and a furry vest, and I was FREEZING as we walked a few doors down to get dessert. That's when I was informed that, in addition to winter clothes and varying thicknesses of coats, I'd need to invest in some thermal underwear.

Whaaaat. This winter thing is crazy, ya'll.

So I went down to Target the other day to look for long johns. (That's what my mom always called thermals, and when I was a kid she wore them all year round, in Texas, because she's weird. Hi Mom!) It took me an awfully long time to find them, and when I did, there were so many options I didn't have any clue where to start. I was crouching there in the aisle looking helplessly at package after package of Cuddl Duds (that's the brand name Target carried) that came in like seven patterns and four colors, and crew-neck and scoop-neck and henley, and some of them are silky and some of them are waffle-y (as in, waffle-square-quilted, not actually pants made of waffles, which would be weird, but also delicious).

And there's this woman in the same aisle as I'm in, and she's facing the opposite shelf. I glance over at her, probably with this awkward, red face, and she catches my eye. So I say:

I have a question for you.

And she was like, for me?

And I said yes, I just moved here from Texas, and I have been informed that I'm going to need thermal underwear for winter, and I don't know what I'm doing. Is it better to have the silky kind or the waffle-y kind?

She said the silky kind feels nicer and is better for not bunching up under your clothes.

And I said thank you, and I picked up two pairs of the silky thermal pants, and one soft, silky top.

Yeah, uh huh, I'm suuuuure that a snow day is the perfect time to go galavanting in long underwear and cute vests.

(Is that going to be enough? Are thermals like regular underwear in which you need enough pairs to wear a different pair every single day between laundry days?! Or can you wear them multiple times between washes, like jeans?)

Tell me about what you wear in winter to keep warm! And if you live somewhere warm, tell me about how beautiful and hot it is outside so I can live vicariously through you, because I am so not ready for this.

I Don't Believe We're In Texas Anymore, Toto

In Texas, it's hotter'n hell ten months out of the year. Ceiling fans are basically mandatory for any room in any building, commercial or residential.

It wasn't entirely surprising that none of the rooms in our new place have fans — I've heard that a general lack of fans is common in the northern and eastern parts of the U.S. — but what did surprise me is how much I'd miss those seldom-considered ceiling fixtures.  I like having moving air, especially when I'm sleeping, so in Texas we often had our bedroom fan spinning all year long. It was weird on that first night in Virginia, to kick the covers off in the middle of the night and not immediately get cold again.

My mother-in-law commented on this too, as my in-laws stayed the night with us after helping me move all my crap across the country. My first thought was to turn up the air conditioning; hers was to open windows. (Obviously she'd lived in the northeast before.) And that was like, revolutionary to me. Open the windows?! Say whaaaat.

(All you people who live in the north are rolling your eyes and laughing at my ignorance/silliness. But seriously, this can't be a year-round thing, can it? What do you do when it's too warm inside in the middle of winter? I can't imagine you open the windows when it's snowing.)

So that's been a weird thing. Every time it gets kind of warm, I open a (screened) window or the (screened) sliding glass door. Elliott is having a field day.

Plus! It's legitimately fall here. In Texas, all the trees will be green one day, and the next day they're all bald. There's no pretty colors or crisp air, and most of the time it gets warm again after all the leaves fall.

But while Elliott was looking out the open back door with her whiskers pressed up against the screen, she jumped as leaves came streaming onto our patio, and looked over at me like she had no idea what was happening.

We'll get used to it, though. :)

Scenic overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Gorgeous, gorgeous place to see the fall colors! Pics don't do it justice.

Already scarf weather! Finally getting to put my enormous collection to use.

All Byyyy Myyyyyselffffff

I guess there's no harm in telling you I'm not at home, since our home officially belongs to someone else now. (Or it would if the realtor would stop making excuses for the closing date being pushed back.) For the next few days, I'll be doing a lot of driving as I road trip across the country with a drugged cat in the backseat.

(The vet says tranquilizers will take the edge off. We'll see.)

So begins day one of our trip to Virginia. (Well, my trip to Virginia. Matt officially moved out there over a month ago, I'm just not in the habit of announcing that I'm home alone.)

Obviously, I won't have a lot of Internet time, if any, over the next few days as I drive up to pick up Elliott-boo from my parents' house and start the 17-hour drive, so I'm going to start posting some of the things that I've wanted to say over the previous month that I wrote down and wasn't able to share.

My precious boo! Sober, and also traitorous for only being a lap-kitty for my mom. But I missed her fuzzy face.

First things first, though. We do have a home in our new town! When Matt and his parents moved the basics up to Blacksburg, they spent their first full day in town looking for a place for us to live. I was working that day, but I kept getting text messages and e-mails on my phone filled with pictures of potential rentals. They visited five places, but the second townhouse was a clear winner. Garage, washer/dryer included, central heating and air, in a nice neighborhood? He deposited the deposit, paid the rent, and moved in three days later. Done and done. We never thought it would happen that fast.

All he had with him was a desk, a recliner, and an air mattress. (Well, that was all the furniture, anyway.) So I'm sure he'll be glad to have a real bed again, and some legit places to sit. Oh, and perhaps his wife back. :)

If you had to live for a month with only three pieces of furniture, which pieces would you pick? Got any tips for driving cross-country with a cat?

What's a Hokie?

Here's an interesting factoid I learned. At church, of all places.

Because we're a small congregation, we had been asking for prayers about our job search for months. Matt just informed our church family that he had gotten his new job, and that we were moving.

And apparently, one of our friends, who is a professor at A&M, thought it was hilarious that he was going to be a Hokie. (That's Virginia Tech's mascot.) And gleefully chose to inform him what a Hokie actually is.

And Matt decided to tell me right in the middle of the sermon. Our pastor just started a series on the Seven Deadly Sins, and this week we were talking about Sloth.

Matt pulled the bulletin I was doodling on over to his lap, and wrote:

"[FRIEND] told me that a Hokie is a castrated turkey."

It took all I had to not snort during the middle of Sloth.

I'm sorry … but WHAT? A turkey is like, the worst mascot ever. Why on earth would anyone choose a team mascot to be a turkey with no, erm, Butterballs?

Virginia Tech's official stance is that a Hokie has nothing to do with turkeys. Urban Dictionary says Virginia Tech's stance is an elaborate hoax and/or conspiracy theory to cover up the existence of a Loch Ness Monster-style turkey that lives in the mountains. But Texas A&M is an agricultural school, so it's possible our professor friend is also correct — at least as far as what a castrated turkey is officially called — even if VT disagrees with it.

Whatever it is, it makes me laugh. :)

What is your favorite team mascot, for awesomeness reasons or humorous ones?

Worry Dolls

When I was in high school, my mom got me a set of these little hand-sewn "worry dolls." They're tiny dolls that you place under your pillow each night. You tell each one a specific worry, and they're supposed to worry for you while you sleep, so you don't have to.

They never liked to stay under my pillow in high school; those feisty dolls were always jumping backwards under the bed, or spreading out over my full-sized mattress like they owned the place. I don't know what happened to them when I moved to college. Apparently when I decided to leave town, they packed up too.

A few weeks ago, I went to visit one of my college BFFs in Tulsa for her baby shower, and I stopped at my parents' house on the way up. My mom presented me with a set of worry dolls and, assuming they were the same ones I'd had in high school, I asked where she'd found them — I hadn't seen them in years! And she told me that she got them in Honduras during a recent cruise. But they were exactly as I remembered them, down to the beautiful dress designs and hand-stitched faces.

(I'm sure the stitch lines are intended to be their eyes, but I like to think of them as eyebrows, to give them unique facial expressions.)

I don't know that I believe they actually work. But the idea is comforting to me.

It's no longer enough to hear that good things are coming. That something is going to happen soon. Soon is not enough anymore. Soon is no longer comforting.

So for the past week, I've placed two worry dolls under my pillow at night.

One for Matt's job search. And one for my little business.

And they've stayed there all night. Maybe this time they'll do their jobs. And perhaps be better behaved.

Coffee Date

I don't drink coffee. Sugary frappuccinos are about as close as I get. But I'd like to take you out for coffee sometime. I'll save up my pennies, because I'd really like to treat. You've been an awesome friend.

I'm still tired of talking about Matt, so we'll get those updates over with quickly so we can talk about something else.

I'd tell you that I desperately want to see The Fault in Our Stars movie, and that the previews make me want to cry and that I can't wait. I'd ask if you want to see it with me, and we could bawl our faces off together. You understand.

I'd share a YouTube clip of something I saw on So You Think You Can Dance about an all-ladies tap group, and tell you how much I am dying to be a part of something like that.

Then I'd complain about the speeding ticket I got last week on my way to tap class.

I'd confess that I signed up to go on a mission trip to Mexico this summer, and that the prospect makes me nervous. I've never been on a mission trip before, and I don't know that I'm a good enough person for this. (Also, I shouldn't have Googled the city we're going to, because now I'm a little afraid I'm going to get shot.)

I'd tell you that, after nine years of togetherness, Matt and I have officially crossed into the territory of sharing too much personal information, and that I am kind of not okay with talking about bodily functions with my husband. And hopefully you'd commiserate and share an awkward story, and we'd laugh over the silliness of being in relationships.

And I'd ask what's new in your life. I'd ask what you're reading, what's going on in your relationship, what's the latest with that co-worker you can't stand. How are the kids. How's your mom. What are your dreams. What are your fears. What was worth waking up for today.

What would you say if we went out for that coffee?

P.S. I went to this cute, "rustic" new coffee place in Downtown Bryan yesterday, Harvest Coffee Bar. It reminds me a lot of our wedding venue, which is a few blocks over. The barista made me a delicious chai latte, and complimented my shoes. I'll be going back soon.