Archive | March, 2012

How Tuesday: A Treat, A Wearable, and a Illumination

13 Mar

Got a roundup of three DIY tutorials for you this week, all of which had me drooling at Pinterest. First up:

Love love love! I picture this scarf with a long sleeve tee, short(ish) skirt, tights and slouchy boots. Check out Suddenly Found for the full tutorial.

Doesn’t this look like the perfect light spring dinner?

Check out Baked Bree for the full how to.

I’m slightly obsessed right now with making a chandelier for my dining area. I thought this was inspired:

So industrial, yet organic. I love it. We have Homme Maker to thank for this creative DIY.

Seen any good DIY tutorials lately? Made one of your own? Link up below and share the DIY love!

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One Day: Burbank to LA

12 Mar
9am
10am
11am – lafcadio
12pm
1pm
2pm – yes, that’s a monet
2:00:32pm
3pm – the child, myself, and my mother
4pm
5pm
6pm
7pm
8pm
9pm

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Saturday Soundtrack – Brought to You by The Perfect CA Road Trip Song

10 Mar

My mom and I are in SoCal visiting my littlest sister, The Child, this weekend. Originally being from here, Southern CA has my heart. We’ve been having gorgeous (albeit windy) weather all over the state this week, the kind of weather that makes you want to rent a convertible and drive for hours with the top down, singing at the top of your lungs.

This Saturday Soundtrack is a little different, because instead of highlighting a particular artist and their song, I’m sharing three versions of what I think of as the ultimate song for taking a road trip down the California Coast.

Don Henley‘s original version of The Boys of Summer came out the year after I was born. In high school it became the soundtrack of my summers spent in Huntington beach with my family. It’s the most melancholy of the versions, and made me feel nostalgic for childhood even when I was 17. It’s got a banging music video that it everything I love about the 80’s, and is, by far, my favorite version.

DJ Sammy came out with his version the year after I graduated high school. The Boys of Summer along with Heaven were played on repeat as I drove my closest girl cousins around Arizona the summer I went to visit them. I felt worldly and cool as the oldest cousin, the only one graduated from high school and the only one with a drivers license. They sang along with the radio while I added harmony, and we all felt young and wild and free.

The Ataris came out with their version as I was moving out of my all-black and fishnet stocking punk phase. I still dug the music, but was starting to add color to my wardrobe to combat the grey skies in San Francisco. I got so angry when I heard they changed the lyric “I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac,” to “I saw a Black Flag Sticker on a Cadillac.” They said they did it to be more relevant, I saw it as violating a classic and a sell-out move to appear more punk than they were. Still, the awesomeness of the song won my heart in the end, and the driving, almost angry beats of this version are what I turned to as I turned twenty and had to face the reality of not being a teenager with an endless summer of possibilities ahead of me for the first time.

So pick your version, click on a link below the title for Don Henley and DJ Sammy, as dailymotion doesn’t like to let you embed videos directly. I recommend listening to your favorite while driving down a windy road next to the beach with someone you love.

For fans of summer, nostalgia, and feeling young and free.

The Boys of Summer, a la Don Henley on Building the Perfect Beast, 1984

http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x1ydjt
Don Henley – The Boys Of Summer by rvdgu2006

The Boys of Summer, a la DJ Sammy on Heaven, 2002

http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xbols
DJ Sammy – Boys of summer by Stella78

The Boys of Summer, a la The Ataris on So Long, Astoria, 2003

What’s your perfect road trip song?

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Friday Five: Gratitude

9 Mar

image from askorbinka on pinterest

Given that A landed in the hospital this week and came home with a fistful of prescriptions, I feel it’s a fitting time to list what and who I am grateful for this week. I’m so grateful, in fact, that I’m cheating and listing more than one thing as my number three. Because it’s my blog, and I do what I want. Boo yah.

1. Texting
I left the house Tuesday morning with A saying he didn’t feel well and was going to stay home. He was running a slight fever (99.2°) and was going to call our doctor when they opened. He called me at 8:45 to tell me he had a doctor’s appointment at 11:30. At 12:30 I got out of class because I’d gotten no less than four texts from A and people from church telling me he’d been sent to the hospital with a 104.4° fever, severe dehydration, dizziness, and severe mystery abdominal pain. I was an hour away, without traffic, and since there are ten school campuses I could be at on any given day, A had no idea how to contact me except by cell. If it weren’t for texting, I’d never have known until way later, as I can’t check voicemail in class.

2. Shane
One of the texts was from Shane, our new Young Adult minister who A has become quite close to in the short time he’s been at our church. There were two men A thought to call when he couldn’t get in touch with me and didn’t want to be alone, and Shane was closest to the hospital. A told me later that Shane arrived at the hospital ten minutes after he’d called him. Shane sent me texts letting me know he was with A through triage, through his first doctor’s examination, and to tell me that A was in good spirits and joking. I didn’t tell Shane that his words were little comfort to me, as A would have done that even if he was dying just to make Shane feel more comfortable, but it was a huge comfort to me knowing that he was there. That A had a friend he was close enough to reach out to, and that he showed up.

3.1 Elaine
Another text I got at 12:30 was from my friend Elaine. She works with Shane, and not only was the second one to tell me A was on his way to the hospital, she let me know she was praying. Then she let me know others were praying, and checked in periodically to get updates on how my love was doing. In short, she made me feel very loved, and much less stressed and alone while we waited for the results from his CT scan.
3.2 Molly
I had plans with Molly on Tuesday. Not only was she completely understanding and concerned for us both, (A loves her like a little sister, after all) but she texted me that day to see how things were going and for two days after to see if we needed anything and if she could help. Even though I told her A was ok, and she’s got more than enough worry on her plate to last her the rest of the year, she kept reaching out. Again, I felt very loved and not alone.
3.3 Cara
I’ve never even met Cara in person, but she’s a kindred spirit I’ve been blessed to meet through my blog. She wrote a comment in response to my Mondays post that I didn’t see until I was sitting with A in the hospital. It was so sweet, so endearing, so heartfelt that it made me tear up. I emailed her back that night after A was home and safe and just poured it all out. She’s been going thorough her own stuff lately and we’ve been holding each other up in prayer. But when she got my email she sent back such a heartfelt response, I felt her prayers and love through her words. Again, one more person I’ve been blessed with who made me feel loved in a time of need.

4. Mom
My mother gets up at four in the morning almost every day. She’s usually in bed by seven. I called her because she was the first person I thought of who might be willing to take me back to the hospital to pick up my car after I’d taken A home in his. She picked me up after six, completely disrupting her schedule and sleep, without hesitation. She’s a great mother, and I’m glad I’m hers.

5. Aaron coming home
More than anything, I can’t express how grateful I am that A came home within a few hours, with nothing more serious (although still very, very painful) than good prescription drugs could cure. When the ER doc ordered a CT scan, every episode of Grey’s Anatomy came rushing back to me, and all I could do is watch and pray as I saw his insides scanned, hoping I wouldn’t see an abnormal growth or something that would require emergency surgery. (Because I SO would have been able to tell.) Especially considering how much crap I gave him that morning because I didn’t think he was serious enough about going to see the doctor. I was so scared and worried, and I am so glad that he is home, almost healthy, and on the mend. Thank you Lord.

What are you grateful for this week?

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A Bitter Pill to Swallow

8 Mar

image from hannah bruce on pinterest

I almost left the house angry yesterday, because I felt like a failure.

A is sick. Very sick. Sick enough to land him in the hospital, but thankfully not sick enough for anything more than prescription drugs. A and I have very different ideas about what it means to feel taken care of while not feeling well. I’m not good at taking care of him the way he’d like, and yesterday I almost chose to leave and not try instead of staying and feeling like a failure.

Avoiding that which we’re not good at is human nature. I’ve seen it over and over; kids who take band instead of PE because they’re not physically inclined, people who dive deeply into work because they feel unsuccessful at being a parent or spouse. I’ve seen it, I know it’s human nature. But it’s also human nature to deny that which we find unpleasant in ourselves.

Not to sound conceited, but I’m used to being good at things. I expect to be good at whatever I try, which is why I’m so eager to try new things. So it’s unsettling to realize that sometimes my decisions aren’t motivated by logic, by what’s best, sometimes my decisions are motivated by avoiding that which I might fail at.

I avoided exercise for a long time until I did something unexpected and felt successful.
I avoided the idea of marriage until two weeks before A proposed because I didn’t believe I could be good at it. Until I did. ( A long story for another post.)
I avoid reading C.S. Lewis because I’m used to being brilliant at reading comprehension and he makes my brain feel small.
I avoid talking to people about God because I’m afraid I’m not good enough at apologetics.
I avoid going back to school, when I’m very good at school, because I’m afraid of feeling like a failure when I’m in front of an academic advisor.
I almost left A when he was sick because arguing was making him feel worse, and I already feel like I fail when I try to care for him.

It’s very human. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

See, the problem with avoiding that which we’re not good at it that we can get stuck in these bubbles that give us a limited definition of success. One way I define success is growth. If we don’t try things that we might fail at, how do we grow? If we’re so afraid of feeling like a failure that we don’t reach beyond ourselves and try, we’ll never grow. I want to go back to school, there’s a whole new life that will open up once I do. By avoiding it because it will mean facing the dreaded academic advisor’s office I’m cutting myself off from a whole future that I want, not to mention all that I will learn and grow by going back. I almost lost out on the greatest love I’ve known apart from God because I was afraid I would suck at being a wife. And I can’t even go into how bad I feel that I almost left A (albeit temporarily) when he needed me, all because I felt I’d failed and wanted to run away instead of facing it.

So I want to be different.

I’m good at not lying to myself, once I figure out that I’m doing it, and I’ve never been one who was content to let my life be ruled by fear. That’s part of why I not only made a 30 Before 30 list, but put it up online; if I fail to cross everything off before November 10, 2013, everyone will know that I’ve failed. Not only is that a great incentive to complete the list, it’s also an exercise in putting it all out there fearlessly and deciding to be ok no matter if I’m successful or not. I want to live that way all the time, not just when I put things on a list. So I’m going to try to differentiate between the decisions that move me forward and ones that just move me away from something I’m afraid I won’t be good at.

Have you ever found yourself avoiding something you’re afraid you won’t be good at?

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