I want

I want to go places.

I want to see things that make me not want to blink and despair over the fact that sometimes pictures just don't do it justice.

I want to see things that make me want to close my eyes and turn away but that open my soul and make me a more valuable part of this world.

I want to then do something to make those things less prevalent.

I want to write a book. 

I want to have things to say that are worth being read.

I want to decorate a home with color and light so that poeple know that it's a place to live in, a place to spill wine in because you're laughing so hard you just can't help it.

I want to talk like they do on The West Wing.

I want big book cases.

In highschool I wanted to be voted "most likely to brighten your day," I still want that.

I want to see my parents more often.

I want to pay more attention to detail without sweating the small stuff.

needing a little motivation

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it

- Thomas Jefferson 

about that whole cooking thing

I had a goal last week, a goal to cook three healthy meal as week that I blogged about here.  It was a small goal, piddly even and seemingly easily achieved.   There was a second goal last week that I hadn't blogged about, equally as piddly and seemingly easy to achieve, which was to not work excessive overtime.  I epically failed on both counts. 

In the face of having waxed poetic about setting small but achievable goals and then failing to meet said goals, I can only conclude that I am an imperfect person who at times cannot meet even the smallest of goals.    I do suspect however that failure at the second goal may be at least in part responsible for failure of the first.

Life might not be inherently messy but mine is and only two meals were cooked this week: Bean and Hominy Potpie and Lime Chicken with Avocado Salsa.  I did however put a patient on a study, scored a dubious point against EPIC electronic records, practiced the virtue of patience, ran circles in 100+ degree heat, did the right thing over the easy thing at least twice and talked at length about leukemia with a very scared and nervous woman.  In light of all this I opted for:

instead of Zucchini Fritters with Tzatziki on Thursday night. 

Two words: worth. it.

oh the things that you will learn

Karen: God. My hips are huge!

Gretchen: Oh please. I hate my calves.

Regina: At least you guys can wear halters. I've got man shoulders.

Gretchen: My hairline is so weird.

Regina: My pores are huge.

Karen: My nail beds suck.

"I used to think there was just fat and skinny. But apparently there's lots of things that can be wrong on your body."

- Mean Girls

 
Like most women in their twenties, I'm pretty good at cataloguing my physical flaws. Actually, if psychological self abuse was an olympic sport, I'd probably have a decent shot at a gold medal.  After four years of college prep school and another solid decade living in a climate where minimal clothing is not only acceptable but at times, essential, I'm extremely proficient at identifying my own physical flaws. 
 
So imagine my shock, imagine my amazement when in the course of conversation I discovered something that had never even crossed my mind to be insecure about: nipple placement.
 
A friend of mine recently saw a plastic surgeon in consult (ludacris in and of its self) and was told that she had good nipple placement.  Correct me if I'm wrong but good nipple placement in turn implies that there is such a thing a bad nipple placement. 
 
Seriously? SERIOUSLY!?  The mind literally whirls with dismay.
 
Do we really need to add nipple placement to the list of things to worry about when / if someone sees you naked?
 
Sometimes I'm just not sure that this is a world that I am okay with living in.

3 Meals a Week is all a working girl needs

I'm not sure when it happened or even how it happened but I'm coming to enjoy cooking. I especially love to cook when I don't have to cook.  There's something about knowing that a peanut butter and jelly sammich is just moments away makes me want to chop, dice, mix, puree and (this one in particular) stir.  Stirring veggie ragouts or brownie batter makes no difference, I just like to stir things.  I'm starting to think that this is a genetic predisposition because my sister has the same affinity, as was proved by the cranberry sauce debacle of 2005. 

I've been setting a lot of a goals lately. Most of these goals are small, they are tangible and they are so far from earth shattering that at face value they are a little pathetic but they are achievable.  The hope is when these small and slightly pathetic goals have been met, I can set more small and slightly pathetic goals and one step at a time I'll get closer to being the person that I want to be and living the kind of life that I want to live.

One of these goals is to cook three meals a week.  It's nothing compared to what some of my friends do even in a single day, but this is me and in my life, cooking three healthy, tasty, veggie filled meals a week is something that doesn't happen right now but with a little bit of effort, could.  So on tap this week:

Bean and Hominy PotPie (courtesy of Eating Well magazine)

Greek Zucchini Fritters with Tzatziki Sauce and green salad.

Cilantro Lime Chicken with avocado salsa. (Pictures to come.)

Happy Papa's Day

I started looking for colleges when I was 16.  I looked at UCLA and the University of Iowa. I probably looked other places that I don't even remember anymore but I do know that I didn't look anywhere within four hours of home. I remember so many of my girlfriends dads were telling them to stay close to home, that they would be safer and happier if they could come home on weekends.  My Papa told me find schools that taught what I wanted to learn and that wherever that was, home was only a plane ride away.

In the months leading up to my leaving for the University of Iowa I was asked again and again by teachers, coaches and friends parents, how did my dad feel about my going so far away for school.  I didn't really get the question because honestly, my Papa seemed fine with it.  I didn't really get at the time that they were asking this question, in part, because I was a girl. 

I don't have any brothers so I don't know if there would have been a difference in how we were raised, but I do know that my Papa raised me to take care of myself, to not depend on other people and while it went unspoken, that being a girl was not an excuse for, well, anything.

My sister and I drove stick-shifts, changed our own flat tires, used power tools, did yard work and were expected to do as well in science and math classes as we did in english and history classes.  We watched Monday Night Football, well, I didn't actually watch but I did sit in the same room reading a book while he, my sister and my mom watched Monday Night Football. :-)  We had to speak up at the dinner table if we wanted to be heard because when you have an opinion, you won't get an engraved invitation to share it.

He taught me one of the most useful things I've ever come across, that when something is broken, look at it and then see if you can fix it.  It is so simple but I can't even count the number of times in my life that I've done just that, and in doing so impressed the pants off of whoever else was in the room.  Broken ceiling fans, clogged drains, broken coffee pots and tripped fuses have all fallen in the face of the Carl Kukulka fix-it method. 

I'm pretty sure that my Papa does not consider himself a feminist, but I do know that he is a huge part of why I am one. In a society that (often) unconsciously expects women to be weaker and rely on a man, be it father, husband or boyfriend, to take care of her, my Papa (and Mom for that matter) made sure that my sister and I could take care of ourselves.

Feminism doesn't really have a place in my family because it's just how things are and I am grateful for that.  So let me be clear when I say that it wasn't until the you've-got-a-brain-so-use-it attitude that I was raised with, ran full steam into the but-you're-a-girl-shouldn't-you-call-someone-for-help? attitude of the rest of the world that I became a feminist.

You don't get to pick your family and I've been beyond blessed with the one's I was given.  So, just another long-winded way of saying that when I comes to my Papa, I think he's the best in the biz and I am beyond grateful for him.  I love you Papa, Happy Papa's Day.

some of the greatest friends...

...are the one's who will call you on your shit. 



Friends getting married

Love you ladies :) 

Quote of the Day: Friends are warm fuzzies edition

"Friendship is like peeing on yourself. Everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings." 

Bahamian Friends :)

Super Fancy Friends

Friends who dress up

 "I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends."

- Walt Whitman 

Friends who form Fun Clubs

Friends who won't ever be forgotten

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."
- C. S. Lewis

 

Political Friends

Drinking friends!

  "Friends: people who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them." 

- Edwin Arlington Robinson

Sister Friend

Boy-Friend

Fabulous Friend

"I get by with a little help from my friends."
- John Lennon

Quote of the Day: God-I-wish-I were-that-balanced edition

"In all the years that you've ever undressed in front of a gentleman, has he ever asked you to leave?  Has he ever walked out?  No. That's because he doesn't care, he's in a room with a naked girl, he's won the lottery.  I'm so tired of saying no and then waking up in the morning and recalling every single thing I ate the day before.  Recalling every calorie that I consumed so that I know exactly how much self loathing to take into the shower with me.  I'm going for it, I've no interest in being obese, I'm just through with the guilt."

--Eat, Pray, Love

Quote of the Day: Keep your wiener in your pants edition

"I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you don't want people to see your wiener, don't send wiener texts."

- J Lyb