diamonds, they fade

today i discovered this blog/hairstyle. it is so easy, and it looks so fancy. i did about one million versions of it before leaving it, but all of them.. almost all of them.. were pretty.

(taco deli fish tacos are the besttt thing.)
really, i have nothing to say today. went to yoga. had a delicious fish taco for lunch. thought i was going to make tiramisu for an event tomorrow night, but bought the best cookies from world market instead. did a little work. laundry. shower. that was my day.

hands to floor

today was one of those rainy, cozy up on the couch with a book and a quilt and take a nap days. so this evening, i thought i would go to back to back yoga classes to make up for a day of inactivity. my favorite instructor was teaching both classes.

the first was hatha flow, which isn't the hardest of the hard, but the 'flow' part means that you're continuously moving, so it's harder than regular hatha. we ended up doing lunges in various forms for 45 minutes. lunge, sit in chair position, bend forward, lunge, chair, forward x 6. then lunges with your hands on your hips x 6, then with your arms over your head. my legs were soo shaky by the end of it, i could barely stand. and there was a slow but constant stream of sweat dripping down my face.

(images from yogatic.com, lunge/warrior 1 pose)

the whole idea is that you focus on your breath and your body to clear a space in your mind that isn't thinking about any outside thoughts.. only on how your body is feeling, and eventually, your body gets to a place where everything doesn't burn and hurt, so you can have a totally clear mind. as someone who can never shut her brain off, that's the main reason i love yoga. at least if all i'm thinking about is how much my legs are burning, there's no room to think anything else. if we're being totally honest, the thought that most often runs through my mind during yoga is 'you're not going to die from this, it just burns, just keep breathing and wait 10 more seconds and it'll be over. no one dies in yoga.'

so after class, i asked the instructor how many lunges would be in class 2. he said maybe 1. i said ok, i'll go.

(chair pose. she isn't sitting back very far though.)

so we're in class 2, regular hatha, and we do our one set of lunges and thennn we sit in chair pose over and over. at one point, i looked up and our eyes met and he just started laughing at the front of the room. i was tricked! only one lunge, but i didn't ask about chair. lesson learned.

and be glad in it

fun weekend. went to another farm fundraiser last night, and two of my favorite girls came. i'm kind of hunting their friendship. as we've discussed in the past, it's hard business becoming friends with new people sometimes. so i was glad they came and hung out.

this afternoon i jailbroke one of my volunteers out of his retirement home and we went to the symphony in the tiny town where we live. he's the youngest one there, and he just wants to get out and about and do normal things. my journalism adviser from high school is on the board of the symphony, so when they need volunteers last minute she calls me, and i've helped out a few times, so she donated her tickets to us so we could go. he really enjoyed it. we had a nice time talking. he couldn't believe all of the different things i've done since graduating.

the symphony itself was chamber music from the 1700 and 1800s. this man beside me was really into it. i mean, i enjoyed it, but this man would start giggling during certain parts, or rocking from side to side. at one point, my volunteer whispered 'he would make a good boyfriend' in my ear. but the man was clearly in his late 40s, and had a wedding ring. what is it about elderly people playing matchmaker?

so that was my day. waiting on udon noodle soup at sushi niichi right now. it is so busy in here. the soup is worth waiting for.

friday

do you want to know a fun fact? when i send emails, i almost always use the day of the week for the subject line. i was an english major in college, and the most agonizing part of every paper was the title. i just hate summing things up in a few words for some reason. so with the day of the week, it's just done.

this is my favorite find of the day:

happy 11/11/11! (it happens to be 11:11pm at the moment, too). the day which most closely resembles corduroy.

one is silver and the other's gold

are you on pinterest? since my main blog audience is extended fam, i'm going to guess you haven't. its kind of like an internet bulletin board. you 'pin' things you find all over the internet. i have 6 categories (food, flowers, home, recipes, etc.). and i was all into it when i first joined, cleaning out my folders of links and just pinning things instead. when people click on a pin, it takes them to the original link you found.

it's gotten really popular in the last 6 months. i get an email every time someone follows my boards (they see what you post), and every time, i feel like writing back and saying 'don't follow me. i never post anything new.'

anyway, it's worth checking out. seems like most people get really excited in the beginning and pin in flurries and then taper off. or maybe i just think everyone has tapered off since i have.

twirl you all around the floor

i think rose water is the secret to rose milk tea. tonight i made a normal cup of tea with gram's black tea of choice, salada, a lot of milk, a tsp of sugar and maybe 1/2 tsp of rose water, and it was pretty close. they make it with a lot more sugar in tea shops, and they steam the milk which makes it all seem a little thicker.

in the summer, i like a teaspoon or so mixed into lemonade. it sounds kind of iffy, but it's good. a lot of people on the blogs say they like it in apple pie or in muffins. it isn't strong, but it adds another layer of flavor.

one last update on the guy: we went to a coffee shop and played scrabble this weekend (i whipped him by 100 points).. and i think the sparkle is officially dead. it's interesting how it's so different to be around someone when you're romantically interested in them vs just being friends. i didn't rush to fill the gaps in conversation, or think about which way i crossed my legs. my friend steve in taiwan used to always comment on how if you cross your legs away from someone, it shows that you're not interested in them. i can never get that out of my head now when i'm sitting beside someone.

speaking of taiwan, the o'sullivans had their baby. tegan clare.
jeremiah wrote me a really sweet email in march of '09 when they had just signed up to teach in taiwan and had read my whole blog. he said 'we did get a little addicted to your blog and i think i ended up reading almost every post in four days (shhhhh, don't tell anyone) and my wife is dying to be caught up.  i would have to say the addiction was up there with our six feet under addiction we had over the summer.' 
it's still one of my favorite emails from the blog. now we're all fb friends.

tiny calendar

maybe you've noticed, but one of my strategies for success in life has been to tell everyone i know every detail about everything that's happening to me, or that i want to happen. sometimes this works out very well.. like the white house internship. sometimes not so well, like failed non-relationships. 

it's good for following through though. if i tell a million people about something, there's a lot more pressure on me to complete it than if i just make a decision by myself and no one knows. 

anyway with that idea in mind, i invited a bunch of my friends to participate in 'lipstick november,' in which we wear lipstick four days a week each week in november. 

lipstick can make you look so much more put-together, but i find it hard to put it on and keep it on for some reason. usually i put it on (and by usually, i mean once every 6 months), feel overly made up, and tissue it off. 

so i made and printed this teeny calendar so we can easily keep track. me and 10-ish friends are doing it. but! i made a little one for you to print out if you want to share or join. it prints at like 2.5 by 3.5 inches.