4.29.2011

things to do

1. new pens for school starting on monday

2. new attitude for school starting on monday (it's goal is NOT to kill you. [repeat])

3. change my last name. I think I just reached a place of peace about having TWO names that no one can pronounce or spell.

5. write more letters.

6. MORE tea, less coffee. my body will write me thank you notes.

7. read lots of books. fairy tales, novels, books about god, books about goats. just read.



8. more documentaries, less movies.

9. set that doctor's appointment.

10. go take the laundry out the drier & fold those suckas.


over & out.

4.21.2011

#75 it's the little things

photo by annie huntington

1. a customer came back to wordshop over the weekend to drop off a bouquet of flowers for me. just to say "thank you for helping me with my wedding invitations". sunflowers and tulips. Overwhelmed by the sweetness of that gesture, I went home and wrote three thank you notes to some dear people in my life.

2. Eric and I bought 5 dozen eggs at Safeway last night after I picked him up from class. 5 dozen eggs. (Eric kept repeating this to me on the drive home. I just smiled blissfully.) I will be the happiest breakfast-eater for a good while. No more skimpy 2 egg-breakfast. I'm going for 3. If the three meals of the day were a social heirarchy, breakfast would be the king. If we're in ancient greece, I might make it a god.

3. Robin, my mama in law, made us a dinner for 2 last night. Salmon with mango salsa, sweet pototatoes and brown rice. Raspberry crepes for dessert. Oh the simple granduer of a colorful, carefully-prepared meal. And one good episode of 'Survivor' to top it off.

4. The weather is getting warmer and there's a bush on the front lawn that has bright white blooms popping out all over it. It's simply exploded over the last three weeks. Is there a better sight to see after my walk home after work? I think not.

5. My Las Vegas trip with Lauren Mae to see Miss Tobi Anderson is only 15 days away. 15 days. That's like two weeks plus one day. I can do that. The only thing I want to see in Las Vegas is Tobi. She's all the sparkle I need. But if we happen to see some city glitz, that's okay with me.

4.12.2011

#74 accomplished


So it happened Sunday;
Despite some serious, coffee-impervious morning grogginess,
heavy snowfall during our drive and beyond freezing conditions
atop the mountain, we solidered on, with our 1980's model skis in tow.

I didn't notice until we were hunkered into our ski lift and being slowly pulled toward the summit that my skis had the words "light speed" enscribed on each one, each letter form bowed slightly forward to help with the concept. [clever.] Growing up in a generation of diet foods, I breathed a quick sigh of pure satisfaction knowing "light" to be the cozy cousin of "low". Oh jolly good. Wait. No. Nevermind. Light speed, says my slightly more intelligent self who attended science class and listened, is actually the fastest speed known to man. And indeed, compared with the hundreds of other skis I found sliding around this small, flat-topped snow station, mine were the very skinniest and proportionally the longest.

What does a girl from Maryland know about skis anyway?
Not enough to save her life.

On top of 12,000 feet of solid rock and earth topped with a slick coat of snow (and more mounting) with a couple of lightning fast boards attached to my feet, there's nothing left to do but to go down. And nothing I'd like to avoid more. Oh, and no poles. (My past, bad-ass Maryland-hill skier self says that they get in the way. But maybe, just maybe, they help with balance. )

Well I made it;
One good crack to the skull and a solid flip or two into a tree and down a short snow bank, but I made it, by the end of the day, back down to the valley of the living in Denver and to a un-threatening evening church service. My body still whole. Accomplished.

Despite the terror and frozen face, I don't think I'll stay away from the slopes for too long; something about the sore knee cap the next day that makes me feel invigorated about my "lightning fast" mortality and that, heck, life's either a daring adventure--or a crazy sunday trip to the mountains with skis you found for twenty bucks---or it's nothing.

the no-pole freak.

4.07.2011

#73 lady


Look what arrived at my door step today.



I decided to make the jump
from my half-hearted, wear it only on tuesdays, .27 ounce, roll-on perfume to the we-should-probably-exchange-vows, 4 ounce, spray version
after

(a.) eric told me it made me smell "powerful."
yes, i got power-hungry.

he also said it made me smell "yummy" but that didn't inspire me as much. I'd rather smell like a president than an oreo.


(b.) a woman came into my shop with a good-smelling perfume and, no lie, turned my day around. I even told her so. she smelled like sunshine and daffodils. it was a beautiful moment. smelling good is a kind, thoughtful thing to do, i found out.


(c.) my stunningly kind-hearted boss, Jill, gifted me a surprise "thank you" gift card. yes, out of the blue. for a girl who relies heavily on encouragement, that was like a blood transfusion to a wounded and dying solider. Or like a big cup of orange juice right after you wake up. or the sunshine finally breaking out from behind that impossibly-massive and cursed-slow-moving cloud.



(d.) i read the short paragraph on the packaging [see below]. I want to be graceful! and evidently,lucky for me, refining your character is only half the battle. you also need to smell like you mean it! right? yes! It's not perfume. It's an attitude.




such a pretty little duo.

yes.


amazing grace
philosophy: how you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain. and so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. in the end, it all comes down to one word. grace. it's how you accept winning with losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light.

-via the box for AG.

4.06.2011

#72
I'm thankful for eggs & strawberrys and half-moon kiwis; all of which i just gobbled up for breakfast.
heavy sleep. good breakfast. hot coffee. laughing before i'm out of my pajamas. i know your supposed to climb the ladder, be ambitious, dream bigger, set goals, move on up. (get a shiny car at some point with a quiet AC.) but sometimes i can't help feeling that i'm sitting in some beautiful space right now and have no desire for "bigger" or "better" but to just "be."

4.05.2011

Writing is
a process in which we discover what lives in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.


-Henri Nouwen

4.04.2011

positive pointing #71: we have boots. i repeat, we have boots.

Ski adventure update: As of yesterday afternooon, I now own a new (to me) pair of ski boots to use with my new (to me!) skis. Thank you, Craig's List, for sometimes sparing us the spooky let-downs and providing a shiny new pair of robotic footwear so I can fly down some icy slopes with my bestie. I appreciate that.

4.01.2011

positive pointing #70


Eric bought us skis!

(1 day off + thrift store roaming = skis, baby)

Keep in mind, I have not skied for 5+ years.
Keep in mind, Eric has snowboarded since he was 7.

Guess what that means?
New adventure for the Bushaws.

I'm grateful to Eric for believing that we're
always capable of trying new things.


(And that he knows me well enough to get me purple and hot pink skis.)