Be Anything

"We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving. We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins. We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive are our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers… We are the daughters of the feminists who said, ‘You can be anything,’ and we heard, ‘You have to be everything.’"

Courtney Martin

A friend shared this with me today and I found it to be very poignant, as I am at a point in my life where I find myself full of questions regarding what I want to be in my life. Career, home, socially, you name it. And with the word "anything" hanging out there in space as though it opens up all of these doors, it leaves me feeling like there so so much space to fill in.  Hence the bullseye that is hit with "everything" because that is what fills up the space in the effort to be anything in life.

We hear about leaning in and it at first feels awesome and empowering like you can really be everything! But then you go back to the grind. You make it from point A to point B and back to point A. And then you go to sleep and you wake up and do it again tomorrow.  Like an album on repeat. And that's when you're lucky. 

Tiny Dancer

This was all over the interwebs this week. I feel it is my duty to make sure you've seen it. So I am sharing it here.  It's a sing-along contest and Joseph Gordon Levitt killed.  Just sayin'.

Cinemagram- Chema

Chema

Created with cinemagr.am

First post in who knows how long and this isn't even my puppy. this is my friend Elizabeth's puppy.  I need to get some action shots of Wookie! doing something cute with his head.

Cinemagr.am is a fun and free app that I just downloaded to my iPhone yesterday. It is pretty cool. It will obviously take me some time to perfect it's use.

2011- A year in review

We are looking forward to ringing in 2012 with friends and starting a new year of adventures.
This year we've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to:

Explore Parisian culture:

Walk through ancient history in Rome

 Eat a little barbeque with friends

See the sights of San Francisco

Drink some fine Napa wines 

And enjoy them with friends

Listen to 20+ hours of music at ACL

See some college football (we'll be wearing orange and blue next year- Go Gators!!)

Enjoy the holidays with family

And the beauty of the San Antonio River walk

Enjoy the sites in Fredericksburg

And lots more great times with friends and family!

Cheers to you and yours and may 2012 bring everyone all they looking for in the new year. 

Oh Wookie!.

Our cute pup, who I prefer to think of curled into a giant puppy ball as seen here:

threw up. Yes. He threw up part of what appeared to be a towel he ingested. Normally this is not notable, but he is now sleeping in our bedroom at night. Not in our bed- that's like an extra person- but on the floor like the sweet puppy he is. 

But this morning at 5:30am- he threw up. I didn't take a picture to share because, really, who wants to see that? Definitely not me. And I had to get up close and personal with it to detect what it was. He has an old beach towel that he lays on to chew down his rawhides and he's torn it apart a bit too.  Well, he must have still had some chewing to do. And I have no idea how he managed to swallow it either. I also hoped this wasn't an omen as to how my day would go- so far, so good.

A contributing factor to this might have been all the bread he ingested on Monday. You might be thinking, "what are you talking about Ariana?" Well we had bought some yummy and delicious smelling King's Hawaiian rolls and 8 HEB Bolillo rolls and when I got home, they were gone, save a piece of cardboard wrapper and a shred or two of plastic bag. Our pup is apparently a carb addict just like his mommy.

For those concerned, he was his usually happy-go-luck self by the time we left for work.

The ground was thirsty...

It hadn't rained here in a long time. The last time precipitation touched the ground might have been during the great South Central Texas Snow Day. But, that all changed today when it rained. Which means our pool probably won't get cleaned. Which means Justin will have to clean it. But I digress into #firstworldproblems.

This is a pic of what it looked like from our office before the rain started.  The clouds are cool and at the same time a little freaky. 

Here's a pic of when the rain started.  The sky isn't as impressive looking, but it's still a little crazy. 

 

Hopefully this rain is recharging the Edwards Aquifer. Which will help everyone. And make everyone feel better because they know we have water.  Hopefully this rain will stop before the ground is totally saturated and flooding starts. We flood here pretty easily.  I don't know all the science behind it, but it seems like the ground just doesn't know what to do with all the water. 

At any rate, cheers to the rain and all those who danced for its arrival!

Needing versus Wanting

Justin likes to point out the obvious line between needing something and wanting something.  I can be a 5-year-old sometimes.   That said here are some things I need want. (inspired by Charlotte's Web)


1. I have some Converse that are like these but much older.  Like I-only-wear-them-to-the-dog-park-with-socks-I-don't-care-about-cause-there-are-holes-in-the-sides-of-them older .  I want some new ones, but maybe in a bolder blue? But these go so well with everything! Like everything, everything.

2. These are the converse I was thisclose to buying to wear during our wedding. But at the end of the day I'm not that original. Our colors were royal blue and cream.  It fit. And I still want. 

3. I need want a new pair of classic Reefs. Wookie! chewed the the strap on the ones I have and those we relegated to house only shoes a few months back.  Now do I go for the blue/black or the brown/tan ones? 

4. You know what would be nice? Some new sunglass that aren't so cheap the plastic coating starts to wear off after 3 months of good use.  Some polarized Ray-Bans would be ideal, perhaps these tortoise shell frame RB4140... with the polarized lenses of course.

5.  I have a shuffle and it does just fine at the gym, but what I really want is an iPod- I'm cool with the classic since my classic (which wasn't a classic when we bought it in 2005) died about 2 years ago and become a paperweight and now we can't find Justin's (poof it's disappeared like magic).  The only question is silver or black?  I'm thinking silver.   It's all about the music and the podcasts and the walking tours for Europe and the 160 GB of memory.  Have I ever mentioned my computer in college had a total of 4GB of hard memory. Yep- 4GB.  This thing holds 40 times that. FORTY!  We'd look a little silly sharing one machine and one headset.  Plus I think i can get some sort of rebate when I turn in my paperweight. And I hope to get the iPhone w/ Verizon when my current Verizon contract expires- hence the iPod Touch isn't on the table.

6.  I love books. Real books.  Smell like the public library books. Hardcover jackets that crinkle books.  But somethings got me thinking that an investment should be me in the digital age readers. So the question I posted on Facebook the other day was: Nook or Kindle? Kindle or Nook? Who has the same reading tastes and me and from whom can I borrow the most books?  The NookColor can get library books though. Oh the decisions. 

Justin- if you paid any attention at all- you will know want to get me each month for the next six months leading up to my 30th birthday. You know, once you hit a small lotto jackpot and we each get 4 new tires on our cars. 

Google Ads are Funny.

So, there are some Google ads that appear on my blog and when you post
about Bacon Explosion one week and the Biggest Loser the next week, I
think the algorithm gets a little confused.  Why would I think that? Well it
served up an ad for a diet product up top and Gourmet Cheese Sticks
down below.

See:

Note- I don't endorse either of these sites.  But cheese straws do sound delicious.

Just a little bit of randomness that I thought was interesting.  Google's a little to smart for it's own good sometimes!