Around Here (late!)

Finally emptied, cleaned and despidered our sunroom. A thrift store truck pick up was needed plus multiple special trash dumps. Furniture has been Craigslisted. I can breathe now in this room.

Had my best time ever in (of course) an untimed 5K. The Denver Graffiti Run had a fantastic concept - a fun, non-competitive 5K in which you received a healthy dose of colored powder in a highly mutated version of the Holi Festival of Colors. The colored powders were messy and enjoyable, but the race itself was a poorly organized disaster of no water stations, a barely marked course, no distance markers, and an inability effectively cope with the number of participants. Still, even an unofficial best race time is a victory.

Just in time for winter to...well, keep on going, new boot shelves for the collection. And to complete that thought - it dumped at least 8" on May Day. To put some perspective on this storm - schools are only less than three weeks away from summer vacation.

My Life List (part the first)

When I first read Maggie Mason's Mighty List project, I was intrigued. Her theory is that the act of writing such a list is in and of itself transformative and secondly, if you put what makes you happy on the list, then doing the items on your list will contribute to a happier life. It's basically a bucket list, but without the whole "kicking the bucket" aspect - something which I, a detester of "over the hill" parties and the like - certainly appreciated.

I played around a bit with some of the things that I would put on my own list, making vague notes here and there, and when she finally posted this, I was inspired enough to write my own.

So without further ado, here is the first part of my own Life List...I plan on blogging about the good stuff (which, because of its virtue of being a Life List, is all of it.)

1. Read the entire Bible - CHECK
2. Visit five Colorado landmarks (Royal Gorge, Dinosaur National Park, etc)
3. Take the train to Glenwood Springs
4. Taste 100 cocktails
5. Climb a 14er - CHECK
6. Visit ten Colorado museums
7. Visit ten national museums
8. Scrapbook my Life List
9. Sew something that I actually wear
10. Visit Hadrians Wall
11. Eat pho in Saigon
12. Cook my way through an entire cookbook
13. Visit all 50 states (continuing from where I am at now)
14. Design and create a font
15. Go on a girls-only trip with my best girlfriends - CHECK
16. Taste 100 unique desserts
17. Attend a taping of The Daily Show or the Colbert Report
18. Write my freakin' book
19. Go a full week eating all my food made from scratch (by me)
20. If it isn't beautiful or useful, get it out of my house
21. Submit a funny picture to I Can Haz Cheeseburger
22. Host a really swanky dinner party
23. Read the Big Read 100 books as ranked by the BBC
24. Leave a secret in a Post Secret book
25. Get a tattoo to honor my heart donor
26. See the glaciers in Patagonia before they disappear
27. Read Entertainment Weekly's list of new classics
28. Dine at the French Laundry
29. Learn how to alter/tailor my own clothes
30. Grow my hair to my waist - CHECK
31. Volunteer for Meals on Wheels
32. Learn how to knit and make scarves and handwarmers - CHECK
33. Learn how to use my DSLR on its manual settings
34. Get in the habit of grand loving gestures
35. Create family archive scrapbooks
36. Get paid to write

There you go! The first 36!

Monday Monday

Another confession time and this time not about Twilight. I actually like Mondays. Not a huge revelation to be sure, but common wisdom dictates that I should hate them. Despise them even.

Not so here. Mondays, while even though they mean I have to go back to work, also represent a fresh start, a chance to hit the re-do button on my chore list and everything, at least right now, is organized and ready to go. I also have FIVE full days to get all my stuff done. It's never a good realization when it's Thursday and you still have miles to go before finishing your week's work.

So there you have it. Mondays rock! Tuesdays...now that is a totally different story.

Friday Link Roundup

An eclectic collection of links this week...

• When I was in elementary school, I had two favorite educational films. One featured all sorts of things magnified into futuristic landscapes using an electron microscope and the other was super slow-mo film capturing various things like bullets being fired through an apple. This collection of high speed photographs clearly invokes the latter. Super sweet.
• From the "who knew?" category: The World Beard and Mustache Championships
• The best response I read to Clay Shirky's sexist rant against women. I am putting out the best response - not the link to Shirky's essay. If you want to read that drivel, you can find the link there.
• The funniest thing I saw all week, hands down. Oh Stephen, is there nothing you won't do?

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Skate Expectations - Speedskating Race - Shani Davis
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Happy weekend!

Today

(this is Thursday's post, but Vimeo was slow to upload and convert last night so here it is today...)

• Surprised a co-worker
• Had dinner with my girl (fab enchiladas, Liz!)
• Bemoaned the fact that peanuts are not actually nuts (criminal, I say!)
• Cleaned up cat pee
• Wore a new pair of boots
• Walked in an alto and out a soprano

And solved this mystery...

Super Doggy from Txgrrl on Vimeo.

Friday Link Roundup

A collection of some of of the things this week that inspired me...

- Haiti earthquake relief from Compassion International

- Remembering the wonderful times my family used to have on our trips to Helena, thanks to this beautiful post on my dad's blog

- A summoning spell for your lost cameras (do it now before you lose it!)

- Holy crumb. I need some apples - this cake is on the list for the weekend.

- Now that we own this, some serious discipline is going to be needed if we are going to get anything done this weekend.

Have a great weekend and thanks for joining me for another week of posts!

Good Day

Why today was good...

• Wearing a skirt in the middle of January
• Finding my favorite hoodies on sale at Target for $3.75. Serious score.
• Carrot cake
• For the first time, not having to drive to a production committee meeting
• My new boots
• Organized fabric
• Seeing my friends
• Stalking Lisa with emails
• Laughing with Chris
• ...did I mention carrot cake?

Hope your day was good as well!

Mashed Potatoes for Another Night

No lists today! How will I write?

If you haven't noticed, I've been posting a lot lately. I may or may not be trying to post every week day in January. Maybe. Okay, yes. I am. But no pressure. So let's all just be cool.

So I've been on this writing tear - every night a great topic (at least to me) and then it strikes! On the fourth night in? Writer's block! Yay! Well, that's why I'm doing this - the best practice for writing is writing so I'm just writing and hopefully it won't suck.

Blog writing for me is the thrill of writing on the fly. I just sit down with my topic (hopefully!) and write. I do revise and sometimes will even go back and rework a post months later, but it's relatively unpolished.

I do a lot of writing for work - mostly standard corporate writing - letters, reports, and marketing and promotional materials. It's one of the best parts of my job. It's writing that is the exact opposite of my blog - revised, carefully wordsmithed and refined. The kind where I can take ten minutes to find the perfect adjective.

But like this post? This one is just to get the words on the page. A meta-post on writing so that I can practice. So bear with me...this started as a post on mashed potatoes and look where my words took me.

See? That's the thrill of writing.

My Friend Ray

My friend Ray was a great guy. He was larger than life with a history filled with stories of music, laughter, family and service. He had a deep booming voice and a tendency to hit all the notes but to mix up the lyrics. Or sometimes he'd just make up a random word if he couldn't remember the right one. It never failed to make me giggle.

We must've looked like quite a pair when we stood next to each other in choir, a rare event for a bass and an alto anyway, but made moreso by our dramatic height difference and the fact that you could probably fit all of me into one of his pant legs.

What made Ray a unique friend was his humble and sharing spirit. As a young woman with a serious heart condition, it was rare if not impossible to find another person my age who understood the life that comes with heart failure. Meeting Ray was an "ah-ha!" moment - I learned in a flash that my support system would look different than I imagined - I could find camaraderie with the old guys. See, Ray was 44 years older me - old enough to be my grandpa - yet spirited and smart enough about his condition to see it fit to befriend a young'un like myself.

Ray and I (and Jim) began supporting each other through our various heart trials. We compared stories about tests, drugs, and procedures. I became used to hearing Ray asking me, "hey, kid...so they put me on this new drug..." And since we saw each other every week it was easy to keep track of what we were going through.

I called Ray from the hospital after my a-fib diagnosis just to hear him tell me (like seeing him wasn't enough) that yes, you can live with weird heart rhythms. He clued me in on the dangers of amioderone and I listened with to him share his struggles with weight loss. We commiserated over the low-sodium diet and the charming effects of lasix.

Ray died this past Saturday after a hard struggle with lung cancer. I have missed hearing my friend's voice in choir and I will miss his support and friendship. My heart goes out Sandy and his family. And Ray, wherever you are, thanks for ignoring the 44 years between us and helping me feel less alone in my fight.

We WON!

Not technically since we came in roughly 43,775th but just finishing is victory enough. More pictures (and maybe video!) to follow in a few days as we get everything uploaded and shared. The picture was taken by Chris who was running BACKWARDS in front of us grabbing shots as he could through the crowd.

Best Thing You've Ever Done

The other day I found myself saying, "man, that was one of the best things I've ever done for myself" in regards to my laptop. I gave a start when I realized that yes, buying the laptop was indeed one of the best things I've ever done. I use it all the time: for work-stuff at work, for personal-stuff at work, writing in bed at night, checking the internet while I watch tv - for EVERYTHING.

I was so stressed when I bought the laptop. I had promised myself that when the time came to get my heart replaced, I would treat myself to a Playstation. I knew, and rightly so, that if purchased willy-nilly, I would become addicted to playing video games. That has proved true. I can't get enough of my Wii. Even as I type this I'm planning my next moves in Zelda.

But I digress, when I found myself in the hospital waiting for a transplant, the PS3 had just come out for the ungodly price of $1,300. At the time, I just wanted the Internet and not video games so with trepidation, I spent the money on the laptop. I haven't regretted it EVER.

What have you ever considered one of the best things you've ever done for yourself? I'm not talking the big stuff - like going on that first date with your spouse or changing jobs - but something smaller and less life-changing. Something that you did that has made an impact on how you live your life or view the world. That's my lappytop for you...one of the best thing I've ever done.

The Name

Last year, we all did the Heart Walk in downtown Denver. For us humans, it was a great day. The sun was warm and we were celebrating a heart all whole.

But for the Claude the dog - it was a CAR RIDE! a WALK! human FOOD! new SMELLS! And, he got to do it all with the people he loved most in the world. With a dog's memory span, it was highly conceivable that this was his best day of life.

Just like every day has been for me since 8 Nov 2007.

My First Entry

I figured since I was going to announce to the world that I have a blog on my Facebook site, I probably ought to have something posted on the actual blog. Go figure.

Welcome to my blog! I will be writing about various things - mostly things going on in my life. Stay tuned for more information on who I am and what I want to say.