i like your beard

so, turns out i'm like the world's most awesome cook and i don't know why i haven't been cooking all this time. tonight for dinner i had a stir fry. it was delicious. a little delicious? no. way. it was like cooking fairies delivered a lovely dish from dinner heaven... which is, obviously, run by fairies. tonight's dinner was stir fry. lots of delicious vegetables, chicken and rice. for dessert i had some pumpkin ice cream that i purchased this evening from my friend, trader joe.

trader joe is my new best friend. i like to go to his store... trader joe's.

anyway, i was driving home from work today and i was thinking about how it is important to have people in your life who encourage you to do good things. i have this friend at work who convinced me to join the gym and also convinced me to start cooking. i know it's only been a week, but this has already been such a positive change in my life. it just makes me happy to be gyming and cooking and just taking care of myself.

diane is currently in the process of having her baby. i'm excited to meet the new baby.

also, i'm almost done with book 6 of harry potter. and this wednesday i will be at a cap's game. yessssss. i love me some hockey. hopefully i will get to see my husband, mike knuble. yeah ya do knuble.

puppy dog eyes

in case you were wondering, i had a blast in boston. i love weekend trips. so much fun. i got this new hat while i was there. it's a puppy. the end.

i start battin' my eye

so i joined a gym about a week ago. by nature i am an all in kind of person. i'm either totally doing something or i'm not doing it at all. so obviously i am now an obsessive gym goer. this first week has been good. i went friday evening. was in boston saturday and sunday. went monday, tuesday and wednesday. thursday i got to the gym, got half way through changing and then realized i didn't have any tennis shoes. this morning i went again. i can already feel it in my bones... the ache to be at the gym. i've suddenly stopped caring about anything except hanging out at the gym. at any rate, if you don't hear from me much or if i seem to be more flakey than usual, it's probably b/c i'm either (a) at the gym or (b) thinking about the gym.

after the gym this morning, i got my eyebrows waxed. this, above all things i have to do as a woman, is my least favorite thing. they put hot wax on my face and then rip it off in hopes of pulling my hair out. it makes me want to die. and what's worse is that for hours, many hours, the skin around my eyebrows is bright red and hurt-y. honestly, i don't know why i even do it. well, yes, i do. i like to look nice for the boys. i'm just thankful that my eyebrows are extremely slow at growing back in and i can usually go months between eyebrow waxings. oi.


after the waxing, i went to trader joes to do some grocery shopping. ::love:: i decided this morning that i would take my gym-ing one step further and i'm going to make the goal to not eat out as much. so i bought some stuff so that i can cook at home. the first meal went well. i cooked a chicken breast and some rice in this fabulous marinade that i got at trader joes. it waa called island soyaki or something like that. seriously i could have just drank the sauce from the bottle. screw chicken. the sauce made me decide that i need to go buy some snow peas and brocolli b/c i could eat that for every meal. including breakfast.

the bacon selections at trader joes was very confusing. the cured / uncured thing. i've never noticed that before. i'm guessing i usually eat cured bacon so i decided to go with that. i also got some tofu b/c i love tofu. a lot. i like traders joes b/c it's small and i'm not tempted to buy candy or icecream when i'm there. ha.

Baby Monkey

This is my new favorite thing. I can't stop watching it! Going backwards on a pig, baby monkey! Baby monkey!

a little night music

this is me at work today. when i am particularly stressed out this is how i stare at my computer. i find that fake smiling at my computer generally tricks my body into thinking maybe things are ok. it's like the rest of my body is like 'well, if her face is doing that we might as well get on board too.' so, i spent the majority of my day looking like that.

my buddy text messaged me today and asked how my day was going. i told him my day was standard, which we both decided was acceptable for a day to be. i feel like the day balanced out with good and bad. instead of just the entire day being neutral, i had a lot of good stuff happen and a lot of bad stuff happen. if for every good thing i had put a bean in a jar and for every bad thing i took a bean out, my jar would be empty right now. i'm glad i don't actually do that b/c i think that would be pretty depressing at the end of the day.

in other news, we started up the thankful board at work. every year during the month of november i write down one thing i'm thankful for every day. here in richmond we put it up on the white board and random people will add to it in addition to me. and it winds up being a neat collection of the many people, places and things people are thankful for. it's always a really cool project and neat to look at when the end of the month comes around.

today when i was driving home i realized that all i care about is listening to jazz, reading and watching hockey. and then i wondered 'when did i become this person?' i just don't know how, when or why it happened.

and now, a picture of me as gertie from halloween!

baby look at you now

a friend just posted this quote on facebook:

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. -Michael Jordan

it reminded me of a conversation i had recently in the car with a friend. i seem to do all my best thinking in the car. so lately i've been really struck by the realization that generally people don't set high enough goals. people are so paralyzed at the idea of not achieving a goal, of falling short, of failing that they set only small, easily achievable goals. and really, how is that helping?

as far as goals, are you better off if you make a goal to lose 5 pounds (when you need to lose 50) and you lose 5 or if you set the goal to lose 50 and you only lose 10? in the first scenario you've met your goal but only lost 5 pounds. in the second, you have failed by a large amount but lost twice as must weight.

i think we are too attached to the idea of failure. we act as though failing is the worst thing that could happen to a person. like it's some great evil that we need to run from and be ashamed of. there's no shame in failing because it means you're trying something.

so back to the car, during the course of our conversation i thought of a great way to illustrate my point to my friend. humor me and play a long.

i asked her this:

10 years ago what were your goals? what did you think your life would be like now?
she responded i thought i'd be married, with kids.
have you achieved either of those things?
no.

5 years ago what were your goals? what did you think your life would be like now?
i'd thought i'd be married and graduated from college.
have you achieved either of those goals?
i've graduated from college.

1 year ago what were your goals? where did you think you would be?
i thought i would be teaching.
but you aren't. do you think that makes you a failure or do you think you are where you are supposed to be right now in your life?

she said that she definitely felt like she was doing what she was supposed to be doing with her life right now.

exactly. think of all the goals you've made over your life and never achieved but you have been led to other, greater experiences. so really shouldn't we all be setting our aim as high as possible and trying with all we have to get to the highest point and let the rest work itself out? because really when it comes down to it you're probably going to get redirected from your plans anyway so you might as well shoot for the top.

i believe in setting big goals. set big goals and figure out smaller steps to achieve them. set goals that are bigger than you. set goals that stretch and seem impossible... and then set stepping stones in front of you to get you there.

and get out there and fail big! fail. get rejected. say something stupid and mean it. fall down and get banged up. hit dead ends, make wrong turns, fight for something, for someone, for some where. don't apologize for not living up to someone's expectations, not even your own. just go and do what you can, while you can and be stronger than you ever thought you could be.

anyway, that's my rant for today. i can proudly say that today i have had at least one miserable failure. onward and upward.