just to see you smile

do you carry cash? i never, ever do because i don't like how you have cash, then you suddenly have none, but you don't have any idea what you spent it on. at least with a debit card, you can go see what you bought and realize how it all adds up.

so today when guillermo and i were driving home from the airport and i thought a shaved ice sounded good.. we had to scrounge up the $4 for two smalls. i had $3 and some change. thankfully majjy had some quarters in her change thing in her car. thennn when we got up to the window, we saw that they're actually $2.25 each. he had a random nickel, and i had exactly three dimes, two nickels and five pennies in my change purse. you would have thought we won the lottery, we were so excited.

it was a flashback to elementary school though when you got really excited to find a quarter in the couch cushions.

highway out of town

yippee! new key.

majjy admiring her car while sorting the mail on the day it arrived.

and the first (three.. see the teeny ones under the big one?) tomatoes!

we went to the lake today in the new car. perfect day to be on a jet ski. the water is still pretty chilly though in the 60s. 

jetta club

you know you have the best mom in the world when your car dies and her solution is to get a new car so she can give you her current car. i was driving a 95 altima with AC that didn't work when the outside temp went over 90 degrees, no radio and smelled a little bit funny. nowww i have real AC, heated seats, a sunroof and a radio! and turbo diesel engine that gets 40mpg! i win!

the only thing better about my old car is the story of how we bought it. for starters.. my mom, who is sometimes a little like something out of harry potter, had been told by her psychic (are you still with me?) that the color of my future car would be purple. then she said blue. then she said gray. so when we saw a purpley-bluish-gray colored car, we just knew. my dad mentioned to the used car salesman, louie, that we had also been thinking about hondas. louie freaked. he went on a tirade about how nissans are better than hondas in every way, and just uttering the 'H' word was sacrilege as far as he was concerned.

after a spin around the block, we decide on my car. i was sold at the get go because it had this fake wood panel inside that was just like my friend amber's maxima had. ... so faj and i go inside louie's questionable 1 bedroom apartment to sign the contract. on the arms of his sofa, where your grandma might have a lace doily, louie had rabbit pelts. if that wasn't enough, his living room wall featured his large collection of machetes. we made it out alive, but i've never seen faj with wider eyes.

but i could not be more thrilled to say goodbye to that car and not have to sing to myself anymore for lack of radio, as much fun as it sometimes was. thank you, majjy.

dizzy bat

...continuing with yesterday's theme of [not] living with less.

overheard in yoga: "seems unamerican to me. if you've got space, use it."

(our yoga instructor has been booking the smallest room for the last couple of weeks because the class size at noon is usually between 7 and 10, and he wants to foster a sense of intimacy and community. the room comfortably fits 12 or so. today we had 17, but we were all still at least a foot away from each other, which is totally fine. but some people were complaining because the big room was empty while we were all getting to know our neighbors. the woman behind me was not having it, and all i could think was 'namaste to you too, lady!')

i went to the season opener round rock express baseball game with andy & his fam tonight. i will happily sit for 3 hours watching anything as long as there's funnel cake and a soft pretzel involved. it was a beautiful night in the 70s and i learned a lot from andy, who is a baseball pro from pitching in college. fun night.

do you wrong

i made the mistake of watching part of the crazy coupon show on TLC tonight. it really struck a nerve with me. on the surface, it is kind of cool. spending $6 on a $600 shopping spree takes obvious skill and is somewhat amazing. but what isn't amazing is when you get to see into these women's basements and there are 200 bags of assorted flavors of lays chips, 40 containers of deodorant, 50 packages of candy, etc.

the smiles and laughs and comments about how proud they were of their 'stockpiles' was disgusting. they aren't donating it to shelters, they aren't feeding hungry people. they're just showing that they can be super-consumers. it embarrasses me to think about how off track we are in this country sometimes.

i should note that i'm not claiming to be the model of anti-consumerism. i spent more than my fair share of hours this week shopping online for fabric for a new yoga mat bag. yoga mat bags are not high on the list of necessary objects.. but the point is that i don't have 40 yoga mat bags. teaching in taiwan and seeing kids come to school wearing the same outfit every single week because they had one set of play clothes really changed my mentality on buying millions of things i don't need. we can all do a lot more with less if we think about it.

garden week 2

 the garden is growing! the squash and cucumbers have grown the most. their big leaves came out.

 i'm just proud that i can tell the difference between a squash plant and a cucumber plant now!

 the soaker hose has had positive and negative consequences. it's nice not to have to stand out there with the hose.. but i wasn't feeling as emotionally attached as i was when i individually watered them. majjy suggested inspecting all of the plants while they're being watered, so i did that today.

 the basil is the only plant so far with any issues. see how the leaves are kind of browning?

 and the squash was getting a little bit wilty.. but it's back to normal after i cut a few more holes in the hose. so far, so good!

where did you come from

we need rain. not only so the garden can get some really serious watering.. but we need to wash away all of the pollen in the yard. it's nice to have big oak trees, but this is ridiculous. the cat sneezes almost nonstop.

well my day was interesting today. after delicious sushi lunch downtown with a friend, i'm driving up a little hill and my engine just cuts off completely. i put it in park, turn it off and turn it back on (meanwhile, there are 5 cars behind me on a windy hill wondering what the heck is going on). it did turn back on and i was able to pull into a neighborhood. but that was no good.

the day ended up fine though. had dinner with a friend and we got my car to a different shop without incident. and before all of that mayhem, i found a tea shop that makes shaken iced green tea that tastes very similar to tea shops in taiwan. it's $3 instead of $1, but it's still a tiny victory. and i had peach cobbler for dinner.. any day with peach cobbler is a good day.

it's going to be lonely without cate this week!