a little humor for this weepy thursday

because i was feeling a bit weepy this morning (do you ever get that way? just weepy...i teared up over a song about trailer parks and shotguns this morning...), and because work is getting tremendous and the days are getting shorter and i need my sunshine more than ever,

i thought i'd share with you something that never fails to make me laugh.

robert is a hobbyist, and is always looking for something new to dabble in. 2010 was the year of home brewing, with concoctions bubbling away in our basement for months.

he decided to name his brew "pablale" a mixture of our dog, pablo, and ale.

and his friend kevin made this label. that is pablo riding a motorcycle. enjoy!

p.s. thank you all for your sweet, sweet messages of encouragement on my presentation yesterday. i may or may not have totally bombed it. maybe the fluency fairy got lost? she certainly visited the girl who went before me, with the killer powerpoint and over-the-top professionalism. better luck next time, right?

gratitude

 xxx
if the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice. 

-Meister Eckhart

changes were thrown at me yesterday. a little academic mixup turned threw my world on its axis and spun me around 180 degrees. and i was lost. i spent hours on the computer trying to salvage something. trying to piece together the broken fragments that spilled out from the screen and burned my eyes. i went to bed defeated and broken.

but then something remarkable happened.

the sun rose again. the morning came. His mercies were renewed. 

and i sat on the white glider in the wee hours, homemade afghan wrapped around my nightgown, hands wrapped around a coffee mug. and i breathed in the air. the kind of freshness that only 6 a.m. can bring. 

and i was thankful. for these challenges, stepping stones, and boulders. because i can handle them. not alone of course, but through the help of the One who led me down this course in the first place. before a heartache can reach me, before stresses and blunders can poke their way through, they have to go through His hands. and there are none other i'd rather be in. especially when my own are shaking.

cutting corners

sometimes i take the easy way out, it's true. well, maybe not the easy way, but the practical way, which often seems to be the same thing. and it's crazy. i'm creative, passionate and ambitious about some things. but others, eh. not so much. sometimes saving time and money trumps being free-spirited, and i cut corners. in fact, i cut corners twice this week, and it's only wednesday.

i shall explain.

xxx

   

cutting corners #1

yesterday morning, my hair dryer died. it would not even start. and i realized this only after i washed my hair. so there i was, six in the morning, sopping hair dripping down my cold back. and all i could think of was my mama, and how she chided me for going out of the house in the winter with damp hair, and how horrified this situation would make her.

then i started scheming. of a morning trip to wal-mart to get a replacement. i thought, hey, i can make this fun! i'll go right now, super early. grab me an coffee and granola bar from my favorite organic bakery. get to work before my boss. catch up on writing letters at my desk. watch the sunrise on my drive.

instead, i went about my morning as usual, puttering around the house until the last minute, and i dried my hair with the heat vent in my car. static ensued.

cutting corners #2

the other night, i had ambitions of going to the gym. actually using that monthly membership, because right now it's just looking like a pretty expensive "free" t-shirt.

what did i do instead?

exercise on demand. from my living room, in front of the television {did you know there are like 50 free shows to choose from?} i did pilates and hip hop classes and learned the audition dance from cats, all in about 45 minutes. i didn't run on the treadmill, do any crunches, or even really break a sweat. it was kind of pathetic, but i never see robert during the day, and wanted to be home with him.

-------

so my days didn't go exactly as planned. but i'm still just as blessed today as yesterday.  and the creativity and energy will come again, just as smoothly and effortlessly as it went. 

and i thank God for today. for the chance to be me, even if that means cutting corners every now and again.

hey, at least when you cut corners, you're not square.

like a pair of bookends

xxx

the older i get, the more i realize the importance of self-preservation, often unfairly veiled as selfishness, though it's anything but.

it's stepping back and exaimining the many hats, roles and personalities we women are blessed to carry. and saying no to some of them. not comitting to every bake sale, jewelry party and volunteer activity that happens to make its way onto our path.

as a pleaser, i struggle. how to i maintain my sense of likeability and sweetness while putting my foot down? how do i say yes to some and shake my head at others without looking like i'm picking favorites? how do i maintain professionalism without becoming a professional doormat?

{the very fact that we ask ourselves these questions and carry the struggle within us reveals so much about our desire to please.}

yesterday was a day when i just couldn't do it. not for the life of me could i commit to one more thing.

i stayed up until 3:00 in the morning sunday staring into a work assignment glowing at me in the dark. i got to work and realized my hair was held up by a rubber band. not a hairband. a.rubber.band.

i logged into my online classroom and saw a sea of forum posts. i looked at my yoga mat rolled up in the closet. i stared guiltily at my tomatoes, rotting before i had time to make sauce with them. 


so many stresses and challenges and commitments and requirements and expectations.


so i let them go. instead, i went to a pizza restaurant and stuffed myself silly. i took a long shower and stretched deliciously under the water. i snuggled into the nook of my couch and watched the bachelor until my eyelids sunk. i needed a good cry, a good man, and a good dog.

because we're not bookends. we can't always hold ourselves together. rather, i like to think of women as the books in between. the beautiful, adventerous, tragic, happy stories that make up a pretty fine collection. 


even if we're not always collected.