In Your Body is a Good Place to Be

Dig it:



Sometimes I feel like I seriously can't go to a meal out with friends without someone ragging on the way their body looks, and it breaks my heart and makes me cranky, and I think this way of thinking (I'm so fat or at least this one part of me is so imperfect) really trivializes us. I feel like awesome, powerful, intelligent, beautiful, fun women should not sit around a table discussing bread consumption in strained voices.

Louise Brooks/Daisy Buchanan (until I washed it)

Our roses are blooming, and I have a new haircut. Let us all celebrate! My hair is so Louise Brooks/ Daisy Buchanan in these pictures, which I took RIGHT after my hair was done. My hair has not looked Louise Brooks/Daisy Buchanan since. I just don't have the energy to straighten my hair, and my bangs seem to have a mind of their own... still loving the new 'do though.

On age and excitement

I bought this guy in Guatemala when I was 24. He hangs out next to the angel I bought at the same time. I feel like I was 24 just a sneeze ago, but it wasn't a sneeze. It was 8 years. That's the age of some of my students. It's crazy.

I feel like the stability I have in my life now has brought me fantastic freedom I never had before. This freedom makes me feel young. The world still feels big and exciting. Hanging out with 8-year-olds reminds me I'm old(er), but, hey, maybe in the long run this connection with kids will keep me young.

I like making them feel excited about things that are exciting (poetry, algebra, recess).

Something that's exciting to adults, but not to kids? Making beer. It's exciting! Such a process. As seen here.

Definitely an appropriate 30-something hobby.

Wearing leggings as pants is exciting and allegedly not appropriate at any age...

And if you want to go from exciting to SUPER exciting, then you have to bring up our owl with the pineapple hair who has survived the winter and is about to be put back outside. 

Because summer's coming, y'all, and that is something that excites the young and old alike!

Loving it

This post is about things I am loving.

For example, in the picture above I am loving hanging out in a princess tent with my niece who is wearing a princess hat.

This other time, I went to a cheese factory in Ashe County and the cheese factory had giant cows outside of it and I was like "This is something I am ALL ABOUT." And I was all about it. The factory was sadly boring, but the cheese was so good.

My husband is so handsome. Maybe this is not an interesting thing to blog about. It is an interesting thing to me.

We both enjoy comfortable footwear. In this photo, I may or may not be wearing leggings as pants. 

We also enjoy gorgeous views, but I think everyone enjoys a mountain range/river situation.

Then we went on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Blue Ridge Parkway! So gorgeous! So great! Then my car broke down on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Not so much loving that. Not so much. But we got the car fixed and set our sights on the beach. And the beach is a very pretty sight.

As seen here. What's not to love?

Something's coming...

I was walking on Queens University's campus and suddenly feeling sort of nostalgic for college even though I was in college and on my way to class.... sort of.

No matter how much time you spend in school, there is nothing like those first undergraduate years out of high school, away from your parents in college. The whole world is waiting. Possibilities are endless. It is very, very this song:



(Broadway musicals are my favorite thing. FAVORITE.)

I am about to turn 32. The possibilities are not endless. In fact, I am straight-up married to one dude. I am all like "This dude is IT." And this dude is like "I love my family and my job, we are never leaving Charlotte. Charlotte is IT." The possibilities are not endless. I am no longer 19. But life is still pretty nice. And I'm still pretty young. Young enough that I identify with this song:



I've decided I'm not going to consider myself old until I'm 68. That rounds up to 70, and you have to be honest with yourself, 70 is not young. Although, by time I'm 70, maybe it will be the new 30. You never know.

Loving Lately

Things I have been loving lately include but are not limited to...

1. Running into former students. I ran into one of the second-graders I taught (as a student teacher) last year. He was so tall! I was with Robert, who had a basket full of perfectly respectable items such as potatoes, carrots and broccoli. I was holding boxed wine. Of course. Not just wine. Boxed wine. I foresaw this happening. I always, always knew the first time I saw a student (former or current), it would be in a grocery store, and I would be holding wine.

2. Boxed wine. Black Box is good. It just is. And it's cheap(ish). And eco-friendly. I have no shame. Except for the shame I have. But I only have that because I live in the South.

3. Snow in the South. So while living in the South (and more likely for seven years in a very small southern town where I was a freakishly public personality for being a 20-something quirky chick) has made me a little paranoid about appearing like a lush in public, it has also made me a massive lover of magical, transient snow. We never get it! But sometimes we do! And when we do it is so beautiful. Snow in the South is a very specific, beautiful thing. It is not the same as snow in other places. We haven't had snow like this in three years. It was powdery and crunchy and stayed for less than 24 hours. MAGICAL. As seen here in blurry photos.

4. Ebay. I have developed a problem. I am now off of Ebay. Allegedly. Not coincidentally, I am now the owner of some awesome combat boots. I feel very myself circa 2000.

5. This song. I heard it on Jimmy Fallon. Cause me and Jimmy, we're still besties.



6. Bath salts. Not the drugs. The actual salts you put in the bath to relax. I'm really annoyed there's a drug called "bath salts." I feel it gives for-real bath salts a bad name when they are so healthy and awesome.

7. Looking forward to something. It is maybe not Zen to look forward to things. It is, perhaps, better to focus on the present. To just live in the Now, man. But I have always been a forward-thinking lady, and I find I am a much happier person if I have something very specific that I'm looking forward to. Right now, it's visiting my math-professor/gorgeous-genius sister in California. She is the bee's knees. And she lives two hours away from Disneyland (and no-hours away form the Farmers Market Ben Affleck shops at). So it will be an epic visit, and I may or may not come back with mouse ears (and Ben Affleck).

Saturday ride on a train

Kids are pretty much the best thing ever.

I know some people don't like kids, but I don't get that. Kids are funny. Kids are fun. Kids are intuitive and insightful and imaginative. I became a teacher so I could hang out with kids. There are some adults I don't like, but I've never met a kid who I thought was a bad person. Kids can have bad circumstances, but all people start out pretty okay (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). I mean, look at my niece in that picture. It does not get cuter. There is nothing better than making a child feel loved and important and happy. For real.