Saccharine Thoughts

This past fall, I had acheived the best physical shape I’d been in many years, down nearly two dress sizes and up five pounds from the time I started training in martial arts 16 months prior. This combined with some major personal and life choices had me aligned with who I wanted to be; and I felt confident, strong, capable, and happy. Ten weeks ago, I sustained a gnarly training injury. Though it was a blessing in disguise (more on that later), it has put me out of training for two months. While my feet still worked, my elbow most certainly did not after a full dislocation and minor fracture, and that is a surprisingly hard thing to work around. I tried to join in classes where I could and heavily modify a yoga practice to keep me in the game, but it just didn’t work and my attempts became less confident and less enthusiastic, as my body started to revert back to its old softness. After ten weeks of physical therapy and rest, I’ve been medically released to train again with my doc...

I’ll be spending the next few weeks culling through old posts, removing some that were contrived, forced, posted for the sake of posting something. In the meantime, I think it’s important to make some introductions. Six years and all. Meet Frankie and Sasha. These girls currently live with me part-time, as a matter of custody arrangements (more on that later), and I get the joy of spending every other week spoiling them with hikes, swims, and way too many baby carrots. My sweet, loyal, neurotic, too-smart Carmen passed away in November 2013 at 5½ years old due to kidney disease, which she had battled most of her too-short life. Just three weeks later, I came across a scraggly, injured, smelly black puppy aimlessly wandering the mean streets of Beaumont, TX. She was worse for the wear and looked like spare parts, but she was the epitome of friendly. We wrapped her in a towel and she promptly fell asleep in my arms. I dubbed her Frankenstein’s dog, which was shortened to Franki...

It’s been over six years since my last visit here. What can happen in six years? So much. You can end a relationship. Begin a new one. Finish a degree. Change careers. Lose a dog. Find a dog. Get engaged. Get another degree. Get another dog. Buy a house. You can turn 30. Go to therapy. Work through trauma. Pursue another degree. End an engagement. Lose a house. Find a home. I’ve missed writing here, but the idea of returning has loomed, intimidating, ever on the horizon of next month, next year, when I have time, when I have purpose. I’d like to try again, if you’ll have me. Six years ago, I asked for change. I asked to be brought “the new, the challenging, the adventurous. Give me opportunities to grow, to learn, and demand more from me than I’ve ever put forth.” I don’t remember writing those words, but regardless of my faulty memory, the universe has delivered. Having now gone back to read through the planned posts that never made it publishing, I realize that some things ...

The winds of change have blown hard this season. Wafts of good, gusts of bad, and tempests of whatthefff...?? Change can be tough, especially for a planner like me. I like to follow my self-made maps and timelines; I make to-do lists for the sake of checking things off, one, two, three. If I am not working toward something, I’m just not happy. This, by and large, is why I haven’t written anything in months, and nothing worthwhile in over a year. 2011 – you have been what we call a rut. Yet, when significant changes come about all at once, I find it easier to just let go and drift a bit on the breeze. A lack of control over changes can in turn be met with a lack of a plan: no productivity toward a nonexistent goal equals no stress. Uncaring, unanchored, unfeeling; merely existing. For a little while, anyway. Change is hard because it forces us out of a planned, comfortable normalcy. By this logic, change is really the best catalyst for growth. After having drifted aimlessly for a...

or: In Which I Realize I'm Getting Old. 25 years ago today, Jim Henson and George Lucas released unto the world the masterpiece that is Labyrinth. I have a very specific soft spot for this movie and all its whimsy, puppetry and overuse of a codpiece. I think tonight will consist of complaining about how unfair life is while dancing the magic dance. Won't you join me? Also, should you ever want me to love you/fear you/serve you forever, feel free to buy me this .

Just want to share this article by one foul-mouthed badass via another . It's aptly-time, not because I'm blogging teary-eyed from a Kmart parking lot (I'm not) but because today I did reach the end of my rope. Tolerance for bullshit is shot, patience and resources waning, and faith in people at an all-time low because lately, they've proven to be a royally disappointing bunch.

In the angstier periods of my life, I revert to listening to a Slacker station which I've titled 14-year-old self . As you may imagine, it consists of the scream-y pop-punk that I listened to in high school. I've been rather embarrassed lately to find that my 25-year-old self still really, really likes The Used .

via Newspaper Blackout , local writer/artist.

Swarms of Mormons, showgirls, sailors, dancing boys and nuns? Count me in!

I wrote a bit last week on defining love , and subsequently suffered a minor epiphany. A Runaway Bride moment, if you will (humor me here, and I promise to never reference a crappy late 90’s Julia Roberts movie again) . While I know how I like my eggs and all that - over easy with cheddar and avocado, thankyouverymuch - it occurred to me that some people I consider near and dear to me, may not.

When it rains, it pours, right? And the past month or so? Well it hasn't exactly been sunny around these parts. Here is my tried and true recipe for surviving these downpours:

Oh, how I have missed writing here. No excuses or apologies, blogging has just not been at the top of my to-do list. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it hasn't made the list at all in a while; just been floating around my planner on a neon post-it along with last week's grocery list and a flirty barista's phone number.

We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It’s easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven’t even met yet, probably. They all count.

Apparently decision-making skills are not the only things to develop in the 25th year. Whether this is due the ripening of my grown-up taste buds or a decline in my dietary discrimination, I have come across several food that I have never cared for that I now want all. the. time.

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning." -J.B. Priestley

Hot dog, look who made Apartment Therapy this fine Wednesday! Well I'll be, that's us ! Super cool!

...to my Dude. Here's to another kick-ass year to come! I'm awfully fond of you, darlin'.

From Dress to Kill: When people from the same genetic group intermarry... Hello-oo? Cousins marrying equals IQ down the toilet. Hitler was trying this. The first generation of Nazis - "Sieg heil!" The second generation - "Sieg heil." The third generation. "Er...Sieg... "Er...