So, here goes – A Few Things I’ll Remember About 2011

Hiking the Grand Canyon

At the beginning of Day 2, on a bridge over the Colorado River.

This surely deserves its own post, but it’s a daunting thought, to be honest. In November, I hiked the Grand Canyon with 7 gals from church, carrying a giant pack for 3 days and camping 2 nights in the canyon. It was crazy hard. I cried. I cussed. I bled. I fell over about 20 minutes into the hike and had to be pulled up by a nice Swedish man because I was stuck under the weight of my pack. I ate oatmeal for the first time. I sang The Eyes of Texas when I felt like I wasn’t going to make it. (Loretta’s response:

Done!

“Wow, that is both aggressive and religious.” Welcome to Texas!) The other women literally carried my burden for me when my knees—bad from the fall and just because they are—were giving out at the bottom of the steep climb down and they took gear out of my pack to make the hike easier for me. I made new friends and got closer to the ones I already had. The Grand Canyon really is a magical place and one you have to see in person. You HAVE to see in person. As we reached the top, mentally, emotionally, physically exhausted, I burst into tears like an Olympic marathoner winning the gold. I was overcome by emotion and weakness and disbelief at what we had just accomplished. It’s one of the sweetest and most emotionally charged memories of my life, and I’m utterly grateful to have the experience with me forever. Also, praise Jesus for walking sticks and 500 mg Tylenol.

Living in Philadelphia

Shout-out to Rittenhouse Square! I already wrote about this, so I won’t rehash here. I don’t know if we’ll ever live there again, but we do find ourselves missing our little historic neighborhood, the parks, cafes, tree-lined streets and public transportation. It was a leap of faith that I’m very glad we took.

The Head and the Heart

Maybe my favorite album of the year, this little debut gem from the Seattle band of the same name is meaningful indie pop at its best. It also features a guy-girl lead singer combo, which I always love. Many of the songs are about being young and on the move, separated from friends and family and trying to figure out new roots. Big themes in my life right now. Rivers and Roads, Sounds Like Hallelujah, and Down in the Valley are especially good and are perfect for road trip sing-alongs.

I finally read Harry Potter

My friends were sort of disgusted/ashamed that I wasn’t interested in reading this series. I liked the movies but just didn’t care about the books. Travis even gave me the first one for my birthday one year, to force me to read it, but it didn’t hook me. Then after watching Deathly Hallows Part 1, I wanted to know what happened next, so decided to give in and read the whole thing. I never doubted that they were good, and I’m glad I finally made the plunge. Also, when coming out of the theater in Philly for seeing Deathly Hallows Part 2, we walked by that girl who sings and plays the ukulele on Raising Hope. Celebrity-sighting bonus!

Photo 365

In April of 2010, I decided to start a Photo 365 challenge to force myself to be creative and practice photography. Using my DSLR and iPhone I took a picture pretty much every day, with the exception of a two-month gap in the fall when some life stuff got in the way. I also took an intro digital photography class at Pima Community College in the spring, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I really enjoyed both endeavors, and I definitely feel more comfortable behind the camera now. Some people complain that taking photos takes you out of “the moment” but I’ve found that it helps me pay more attention. I’m still afraid of photographing people though.

Here are a few of my favorite shots:

Beautiful things don’t just happen …

… If you want something marvelous, you’ve got to make something marvelous. You know where I got that quote? From Pinterest. I wonder what percentage of my conversations this fall included, “I saw this thing on Pinterest.” A lot. A lot percent. Pinterest is a sort of online visual bookmarking/inspiration board/search engine/social community website thing that I love. I decided awhile ago that, as much as possible, I want everything in my house to be pretty. Even spatulas and staplers. I love beautiful things. They make me happy. I love seeing people’s creativity and care and heart. Pinterest is fun if you want a few minutes to drool at gorgeous kitchens or cute clothes, but the reason it earned a spot on this pliest is because it actually helped spur me to action. I have 19 things on my “I did this!” board on Pinterest—ideas I found there that I actually used or made in real life. From recipes to crafts to hairstyles. I made wedding and Christmas gifts, Thanksgiving and baby shower decorations and relished the creative opportunities I was creating.

It also got me thinking about some bigger things. About how I want to be more intentional and caring in general—as a wife, friend, daughter, employee, community member. In my relationship with God, my diet, exercise and *cough* housekeeping.

Hey, now that I think about it, that sounds an awful lot like some kind of resolution.

We rented a cute little furnished apartment from a Penn graduate student in Center City, near Rittenhouse Square. We went on lots of walks. We ate pizza and, on our last night there, cheesesteaks (thanks to my cousins Austin and Ashley for the tips). We took weekend trips to New York City and Cape May on the Jersey Shore (not that Jersey Shore). We made at least three treks a week to both Food and Friends (groceries) and Good Karma (coffee shop) in our neighborhood. We visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art on pay-what-you-want Sunday (glorious) and the Benjamin Franklin Institute on a kid-packed Saturday (kinda weird and dinky, but I did get to make my own paper).

We tried to catch a Phillies game and even scored tickets through Travis’s job, but a rain delay screwed things up and made us miss the game, so we had to settle for the Camden River Sharks instead.

We walked blocks and blocks and blocks carrying car batteries when the Fit died—twice. We lost $100 on our security deposit when Maeby, confused by this whole not having a yard thing, peed all over the rug.

We did not complain about it never raining, the way one does when one summers in Austin or lives any other time of the year in Tucson. We saw that chick who plays the ukulele on Raising Hope on the street outside of a movie theater. She was carrying her ukulele.

We shopped at the Macy’s where Mannequin was filmed, and I took a moment to acknowledge my deep and abiding love for that fine movie, pointing out where Kim Cattrall hang-glided and Andrew McCarthy played the organ.

We paid an exorbitant amount of money for the most mouth-wateringly delicious fish and chips in the world—thanks, Dandelion Pub!

I turned 30 and was treated by my mom to an all-natural pedicure where they rubbed cold lime slices between my toes.

We missed our friends and our home. We soaked up the time to ourselves, like a little incubator for our family. We wondered if we were meant to return to the northeast sometime in the future. We settled on undecided.

So thank you for a memorable summer, Philly (and people really do call it Philly). You are charming and unassuming and a little difficult at times. But that’s sort of how I like life to be.

Think our landlord will notice?

In just 21 easy steps:

1. Move into a sublet for the summer so that you confuse your dog and she doesn’t know how to ask outside to go to the bathroom. Also this way you can lose money from your security deposit since the rug doesn’t belong to you.
2. Look away for two seconds so that your dog can pee on the rug.
3. Panic. The last time I tried to clean a jute rug, it just ended up looking worse than the stain itself.
4. Do a spot check with color safe whitening Tide. It won’t appear to have any effect.
5. Google! WikieHowFloorLady says to avoid getting the rug wet at all costs.
6. Run to the other room to remove the damp towel sitting on the stain.
7. Per WikiehHowFloorLady’s suggestions, pour baking soda on the stain to remove the moisture and odor. Let sit.
8. Vacuum up baking soda.
9. Why isn’t the $#%&*! baking soda coming up?? Dear god, it seems to have woven itself into the tiny fibers of the rug and is building a permanent settlement.
10. Since you’re not in your own home, you only have one dish towel, which you already used to blot the pee, so you’ll have to use paper towels now. Scrape the paper towel across the rug to pull up the pioneering baking soda. Be sure to do this hard enough so that the paper towel produces delicate flakes that join the baking soda’s settlement and open a school and general store.
    

    The demon baking soda and paper towel flakes together in their frontier jute settlement.

11. Attempt to scrape up the baking soda with a knife. It will not be intimidated out of its home.
12. Try WikeeHowFloorLady’s last resort – mix white vinegar and water and blot on the stain. For an added Russian roulette level of excitement, try to determine which corner of your dish towel doesn’t have pee on it and use that.
13. Hurrah! The fizzy vinegar is uprooting some of the baking soda settlers, forcing them to the suburbs. Unfortunately it doesn’t do anything for the stain.
14. Use your hair dryer to soak up the moisture of the vinegar mixture. Use high heat so that you can realize in a few minutes that you might actually be setting the stain instead of drying it.
15. Try the Tide again, but this time over the whole stain. Still nothing.
16. Sprinkle baby powder, with a less heavy hand than you used for the baking soda. It’s less hearty, so maybe it will flee after soaking up the moisture.
17. Vacuum up baby powder.
18. Why isn’t the $#%&*! baby powder coming up?? Dear god, it seems to be so lightweight as to be untouchable.
19. Glare at your dog while she gives you sad face.
20. Get dressed. (You were doing all this in your pajamas, right? Because it’s how you started your day?) Realize the Anthropologie cardigan your mom bought you has a hole in it, like many of your other tops recently. Cry just a little. Who is doing this to you?
    

    I may have overreacted.

21. Admit defeat. Go get a fountain drink.

Congratulations! You are a successful, graceful keeper of house.

Image credits:

Firetruck

Skulls

Toddler

Wife

Anyway, I decided I wanted to remember these new experiences and lessons and feelings, but I’m too lazy to write about all of them. Instead I return to my dear friend, that little engine of writing–the list!

So, in no particular order, and to be updated regularly:

Out of the Ordinary Things I’ve Done Since Moving to Tucson

• Completed a 15-mile mountain bike ride on a desert (read: cactus-lined) course with a series of hills called The 7 Bitches
• Went salsa dancing. In a Halloween costume.
• Watched a bellydancer backed by a Middle Eastern band
• Adopted a dog named Maeby
• Played in the snow
• Attended a gallery opening of Andy Warhol photographs, complete with live go-go dancers
• Used my bike for transportation
• Learned about the horrendously unorganized adoption system in Ethiopia (via others – not our own experience!)
• Drove two hours just to go to IKEA
• Ate In-N-Out
• Tried a Sonoran hot dog
• Participated in a Moulin Rouge sing-along not at Alamo Drafthouse
• Saw a javelina
• Had tofu for the first time. And liked it.
• Started a photo blog
• Collected fall leaves
• Basically gave up shopping
• Realized UT’s football stadium is just insanely nice for a college facility
• Felt old
• Worked on a Habitat for Humanity home
• Got a tattoo
• Sold something on Etsy
• Experienced a dust storm
• Drooled over the most spectacular sunsets I’ve ever seen

It’s the Photo 365 Project: My life in pictures. Every day.

And it’s exactly what it sounds like. Every day for the next year, I’ll take at least one photo and post it online. It’s a chance to practice photography, pay more attention to the world around me, force me to think and act creatively and chronicle my life. I know it will be a challenge, but it’s one I find exciting. And if you include my phone, I have 4 different cameras, so I really have no excuse to ever not take a picture. Visit my photo blog to track my progress.

Here’s today’s picture – a shot of my collection of vintage printing blocks. Aren’t they beautiful? I like that taking this photo reminded me of how much I love them.

I must give a plug to the wonderful WordPress theme I’m using for the project: AutoFocus. It’s free, gorgeous, super easy to use and built specifically for photo blogging. I highly recommend it!

Interested in starting your own Photo 365 project? Check out these blogs for great tips on how to make it work: Photojojo | Digital Photography School | Shutter Sisters

I used to think the first line of our national anthem was “Jose can you see,” because we sang it at Astros games and their star player was Jose Cruz.

1. Craig Biggio.
2. Singing. What other sport gets 30,000 people to stretch their legs in the middle of a game and join in chorus to sing about snacks, rooting for your team and never going home? Take me out to the ballgame, indeed.
3. Food. If it was important enough for the song, it’s important enough for my list. Nothing beats a beer and a hot dog on a sunny afternoon at the ballpark.
4. Wooden bats. I’m looking at you, college baseball.
5. Clapping for the fan who catches a foul ball.
6. Passing your money down the row. Passing the beer/hotdog/cotton candy back.
7. At-bat songs. Penetrating glimpse of a player’s psyche or just something he picked off his iPod?
8. Loyalty. Jeff Bagwell was with the Astros for about 57 years. Biggio for roughly 120. They are beyond beloved by the city of Houston. I know this is getting less common, but I feel like baseball has more long-term franchise players than other sports, and it makes a team feel very special for the fans.
9. The witty, snarky old men who hassle the umps and opposing players at UT games. 
10. Minor League shenanigans.
11. Friday night fireworks. This has become a post-game tradition at multiple ballparks, and next to the 4th of July, it’s about as Americana as you can get.
12. First-base chats between players on opposing teams.
13. The thrill of extra innings.
14. Spring Training. My mom and I went to Astros, Braves and Dodgers Spring Training games for spring break my senior year of college, and it was one of my favorite experiences ever.
15. Dozing off for a few innings when you’re watching a game on TV. It’s the perfect white noise.
16. A perfectly executed double play.
    

Photo by Matt McGee

I’ve loved the Olympics for as long as I can remember. One of my all time favorite gifts was the U.S.A gymnastics leotard, ala Mary Lou Retton, that my mom gave me when I was a little girl. Complete with totally inauthentic ribbon wand. But you can bet I rocked that outfit.

When I was much older, but not much different, the 2004 Athens Olympics kept my mom and I company as we spent nearly 24 hours a day in the hospital with my dying grandma. It is no small wonder to be able to become enthralled and sustained by MSNBC’s coverage of men’s water polo at 2 a.m. in a hospital room.

And while I’m truly awestruck by an incredible athlete performing at the highest level–Michael Phelps, Kerri Strug, Apolo Ohno–my all-time favorite Olympics moment stars someone you’ve never heard of and who will never even come close to being on a Wheaties box.

Eric Moussambani, of Equitorial Guinea (what’s that?), was all set for his 100 m swim in the qualifying rounds of the 2000 Sydney Games, when the 2 other swimmers in his heat got disqualified by a false start. Small, alone and conspicuously lacking the fancy body suits favored by other competitors, Eric stepped up on the starting block to race against no one.

Neither the crowd nor the announcers really knew what to make of this awkward athlete. I remember the broadcasters pointed out that he didn’t have a proper pool to train in back home, so he swam in a river alongside alligators. What?? Anyway, at first the crowd sort of laughed and snickered, but as he pushed through, looking every moment like he was going to just stop and sink, they slowly realized the beauty and heart of the moment. When he finally (barely) finishes the race, every person is on their feet, cheering wildly at this monumental, moving display of mediocrity.*

I was right there with them, cheering him on at home, my eyes welling up with tears. For me, Eric embodies the gut-wrenching, do-or-die hard work and perserveance required, yes, at the Olympics, but in the hard-fought, messy scramble of life. And that’s why I love the Olympics.

*Wikipedia tells me Eric still managed to set a new personal best and national record with that performance. : )

Video of Eric’s swim. Pardon the foreign play-by-play – I couldn’t find an English version.

I’ve lost my husband. He’s crossed over to a mysterious, distant plane where I cannot visit. It’s called grad school.

Oh sure, he tries to invite me into that world, showing me projects he’s working on and sharing a few stories from class. We’ve even spent time together with some of his classmates, exploring Mt. Lemmon and taking in a fantastic Bon Inver show at the Rialto.

But I know there’s so much more I’m missing. He spends his days learning and discussing site analysis, perspective drawings, AutoCAD, ASLA, UofA—subjects and acronyms I know not of. When we’re outside, he starts pointing at plants and yelling out gibberish Latin phrases that sound like Harry Potter spells. He stays up late agonizing over every detail of his schoolwork. Who is this person????

We both moved to an unfamiliar city, but Travis has a place here. A new community of which he is a real and clearly defined member. But I don’t have that. Since I telecommute and work from home for my job in Austin, I don’t have my own new daily adventure. (I stress the word new here – working in higher ed communications is definitely a daily adventure.) I’m sort of a vagabond right now. I feel left out of Travis’s new life – as much as he shares with me, I’m not an insider. And that feels weird.

But more than feeling possessive territorial selfish weird about Travis’s grad school life, I am over the moon about the fact that he’s found something he loves to do and a community that can help him do it. I love that he has a passion to get lost in.

As long as I get him back from the dead grad school eventually.

*This mildly morbid but ultimately optimistic post brought to you by recent excessive viewing of Dead Like Me. Great show, but a little twisted.

Photo by Loz Flowers

Yesterday's Sweet Leaf Tea lid perfectly sums up my life right now. Who needs fortune cookies anymore?

I’m a lucky one. Part of the privileged few. A golden child. You guessed it—I’m a native Austinite.

Not only a native Austinite, but a South Austinite. Even more authentic!

My youth was filled with trips to Barton Springs and Fiesta, when it was still called Fiesta and held on Laguna Gloria’s storybook grounds. During the summers, I learned snorkeling and repelling at the Austin Nature Center day camp. My parents had season tickets for UT baseball and Lady Longhorn basketball games, so by the time I entered UT as a freshman, I had spent countless hours on campus.

I dined on Milto’s, Dan’s Hamburgers, Eastside Cafe and Nuevo Leon. I developed an alarmingly high tolerance for spicy foods. I partook of Austin City Limits and KGSR against my will, before I realized how cool they are.

I wondered about mythical places like The Arboretum and Pflugerville, and dreaded the intersection of South Lamar and Oltorf, the scene of a creepy mural on the side of a taxidermy shop. You know the one!

As I grew older, attended college, desperately searched for employment, got married, bought a house (in South Austin, natch) and adopted a dog, Austin remained home. It was a large and vital part of my identity, of how I saw myself. Austin and I were inextricably connected. It was my city. Austin was easy and charming and cool and perfect. It was the envy of all other cities! I never wanted to leave. Who leaves an oasis?

Then, after 28 years of blissful companionship, I got out. Packed up and left.

My husband was accepted to the master’s of landscape architecture program at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and we decided he needed to pursue that path. It was an agonizing decision because it meant leaving everything and everyone both of us knew and loved. But it was an easy one in that we felt 100 percent conviction that it was the right thing to do.

We’ve been in Tucson just over two months now and have been delightfully surprised by so many things: The striking friendliness of nearly everyone we meet; the glory of a sun-washed mountain and wide-open sky; the sheer abundance of locally owned pizza shops.

But the biggest surprise, the thing I truly never expected was this: I don’t miss Austin.

Don’t get me wrong—I very much miss my friends and family. And when I think about our lovely little house, which we still own, or missing the birth of my best friend’s baby, my heart aches. But I’m not longing for the city itself.

It hit me when I traveled there last month for work. (I’ve kept my job with UT’s business school and work from home in Tucson.) I couldn’t wait to get back to my city, hit the regular stops and spend time with my friends and family.

But from the moment my plane landed, I felt off, somehow. I wasn’t overwhelmed with kiss-the-ground gratitude at being back in the world’s greatest hometown. Suddenly I felt like an outsider, an out-of-town visitor passing through.

I spent 28 years cultivating and clinging to my citizenship, and it took less than six weeks for it to disintegrate.

And you know what? It’s kind of a relief. I don’t think I could survive three years in Tucson if Austin still had its hooks in me. I’m thankful that my new city is one that’s easy for me to like, and I’m excited about coming to feel more at home here in Tucson than I already do. I don’t want to live my life just filling time until I can get back to Austin.

Austin is a special place and I love it dearly. It is so much a part of who I am. But I’ve realized I’m in a season of my life when I get to allow another place to become a part of me and shape who I become.

I’m a lucky one, indeed.