Sunday afternoon/evening. Myra is sleeping, Sam is snoozing on the couch. And the creative urges I have been sitting on, keeping them locked down, need to break free. I need to paint and draw and write, I feel like I won't feel settled today unless I do. I started creative writing Friday night, and like always, once I open the door a little, everything creative wants to come out.

I don't know why sometimes I feel afraid of being creative. It soothes me, it makes me happy. It makes me feel...good. Alive. And yet, I sit on it a lot. I'm trying to work on that.





With Sam asleep, I figured it would be a good time to start playing. He didn't bother me while I was drawing a tree with hot pink flowers that is everywhere down here, or when I was drawing my favorite foot bridge that I see on my way to work every day.

But Sam is apparently a painter. He had to help, check out my paints, see how I was mixing colors.





I haven't picked up paints in a very long time. I decided it was more important to play and put colors to paper instead of worrying it's not good. I think that is part of why I don't paint much. I love it, but I don't really know how to do it, or I don't know how to do it the way other people do. But just playing with colors, blending white into my swirly blues and greens, trying to make my heart have wings, it felt really good. So I guess I shouldn't worry about not doing it right.






It says: Let your soul and spirit fly free.

Painting, drawing and writing seem to do that for me.

Hrm. The painting is actually much more vibrant, and the photos in iphoto look brighter and richer. Not sure why they seem flatter on the blog.

mermaid, reborn

Picture from high school graduation trip to Aruba. I never wanted to come out of the water.

I have always described myself as a mermaid. I love being in the water. It feels like home to me. I grew up on the Massachusetts coast and spend most days on the beach in some way. I have no problem swimming in what other people consider really cold water (we were on the upper side of Mass, so we didn't get the tail end of the gulf current). As long as the water didn't cause me pain, I could happily swim and play in the waves sometimes for over an hour at a time. I used to only come out when I was little when my lips were purple and I was shivering and my mother insisted. And even today, when I go to the beach, no matter what the weather, I have to put my feet in the water. I just don't feel fully part of the beach and the ocean until I am splashing in the water.

Since moving to Portland a few years ago, I've had to get used to not living near water, and having to plan to go to the beach.

Now that we're in NC, we are no closer to the ocean than we were in Portland, but at least we are near lakes.

We went to a lake in North Raleigh today, and just being in water made me feel so happy and free, and like yes...ok, now it is summer.

I am still, and will always be, an ocean mermaid. Lakes just aren't the same, no waves, no tides, and the water was brown from the silt. But it was still nice to play in the water again. My mermaid self hadn't been out to play since my birthday weekend at the beginning of July. Far too long to be on landlegs.

A weekend with Harry Potter

*No spoilers, I promise*

We went to our first (and last, sniff) Harry Potter release party Friday night, and had fun checking out all the costumes, and getting spells and such. T got a spell to make people's pants split at the seams, I got one to encourage positive energy....

We saw Dobby, Lucius and Draco Malfoy, Luna, Tonks, a Quidditch team, and obviously lots of Harrys and such. It was amazing to see the whole bookstore filled with people, and know that they were all there for the same book.

We didn't get home till around 1:30, I managed to stay up till 3:30 reading (quite a feat for me!). The next day was spent almost exclusively reading, minus a visit to meet a kitty, and playing with Myrapup. T finished Sat. night, I didn't finish till Sun. afternoon. For those of you who know me and know how I read books....I didn't read the end at all!!!! This is another big accomplishment, although with this book I really wasn't tempted. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't ask questions to T, and there were a lot of times where he would say he wouldn't tell me, but he did confirm that my theories I was completely certain of, were in fact true.

I cried. I laughed. I cried more. I was completely and utterly enthralled in that world. It reminded me of how much I loved her books in the first place (been sort of disenchanted the past two books). I was cheering, I was shouting "I KNEW it" at different points. It was a fabulous end to an amazing series, and of course the fact that it was the end of the series was really sad. I don't know when another series will come along that captures me so much, or that becomes a common thread that you can talk about with people of all types and ages.

Well done JK Rowling. And Thank you.

Traveling!

We will be back in Mass tomorrow night, for the first time since Christmas, and we are both more than ready. One of the many cool parts: we only have a two hour flight to get there!!

Other cool parts: My parents are flying us up

We're having a cookout at my parents on Saturday, and I will get to see almost everyone I really care about all in one place.

I get to go to my beach, one of my favorite places in the world.

And oh yeah, I turn 30 on Sunday. That's not too bad either.

Signs, everywhere

"Compliments accepted"















"Insight, freedom, wisdom, compassion, attitudinal healing"















"Gates lead anywhere"

Friends, movies, and homophobia

It's been a movie-filled couple of days.

Thursday night, we went to see the Mark Wahlberg film, Shooter. A good action film, with JFK and 9/11 conspiracy theories peppered throughout. At one point in the movie, they showed a building sign for the Department of Justice, and I think it is rather sad and telling that my thought was "Justice for whom?" As much as I've tried to not pay attention or ignore things going on in our country, and in the world, I really can't. And I know that there is a lot of corruption. That the rich can buy their freedom. The government can label anyone a terrorist and send them off to detainment with no proof and hold them indefinitely. The government bullies people into not questioning things that don't necessarily add up. I love this country, I love the ideals it can and should represent. It makes me sad but I guess the only thing we can do is be aware and speak out against things like that.

Last night, we went to dinner with Lisa and Steve and then went to see Blades of Glory. Parts of it were very silly, parts disgusting in a funny way. But Tim and I both said the same thing after the movie...when did it become acceptable to use homophobia for comedy? If it were two women skating as a pair, it probably would've been marketed as soft core porn, but two men was seen as disgusting/weird/controversial. And one of the previews we saw was for "I pronounce you Chuck and Larry," a dumb looking comedy that has Adam Sandler and Kevin James getting married to get pensions from the fire department. It just seems like it is acceptable to use gay people as a punchline.

perfect saturday

Woke up, went to my outdoor exercise class, where I had a good run in the rain. It was quietly raining, and everything smelled green and clean and earthy. In between running loops, we did a lot of strength training stuff, planks, high steps/squats, all sorts of good things. I felt great at the end.

Came home, went to the produce stand and got all my fresh fruit and veggies for the week.

We had planned on going to the Chinese garden, but it was raining fairly steadily, and it just didn't seem like it would be as much fun in the rain. So instead, I talked to a friend for an hour (Hi Savannah!) and then journaled a ton. Read some, napped some, made spelt bread french toast for dinner, then we watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith again, the movie is just funny and fun.

A great way to spend a rainy, mellow saturday.

Let's go kill some birds. I'm psyched

Just watched Wedding crashers.

Several things:

The parts that were funny, were really funny, although it felt draggy in a lot of places. But some great lines!

I hate Will Ferrell.

I LOVE Rachel McAdams. She is WAY up there on my girl crush list. And the girl who played her sister, also way up there.

It reminded me a little of the Wedding Singer meets Meet the Fockers (or the first movie there, I know there were two).

Even if the general story was predictable, and the pacing of the movie was a bit weird sometimes, I'm definitely glad we watched it :)

laZy day

We went to the 10:45 showing of 300 last night, and as a result didn't get to bed till after 1 a.m. I got up with Myra at 6:30, set my alarm to see if I could go to class, promptly shut it off when it went off, climbed back into bed and slept till 10:30. Then the three of us proceeded to take a family nap for about three hours after we took Myra to the school to play for a while.

So...let me recap...sleep, more sleep, playing with myra, more sleep.

Yeah, that counts as lazy.

300 and being a snob

We went to see 300 last night...holy shit it was intense and awesome! Totally deserving of the hype, it was probably the biggest movie to have come out recently. We were cheering, we were cringing, and totally hoping that somehow the 300 would live in the end...

"THIS.IS.SPARTA!!!!!!!"

And the fact that there is a Legolas/Gimli type of relationship between two of the fighters was great.

As for being a snob, we went to one theater out on the Rt.1 kind of street (SE 82nd...walmarts, lots of RV places, just kind of...tacky). The show was sold out there, but we felt kind of dirty with the people who were there, and didn't really want to watch it there anyway. So, I think we are officially snobs, because we left that theater and went to the chi-chi, swanky theater at the swanky, yuppy outdoor shopping place and much preferred it.

Out of Portland!

We had one night left on Myra's boarding package from our Christmas trip, so we dropped her off yesterday to be boarded and then drove out to Astoria.

We haven't been out of Portland for a long time, so it was nice to go on a little road trip. We wandered around Astoria for a little bit (very small town, doesn't take much time to see what's there). I told Tim we needed to yell "Heyyyyy yoouuuu guyyyyyyys," when we drove into town, a la Goonies. Astoria is cute, but we definitely prefer Cannon Beach, the beach is prettier and the town is nicer.

But just having a change of scenery was really nice. Between football season (We really don't get out at all on weekends during football season), and working from home, we just haven't left the house, let alone Portland for very much lately. It helped my stir craziness go away :)

overall, a quiet weekend

Yesterday was class, then shopping at the Paper Zone for Christmas card making supplies (wheee! Love that store), then almost two frickkin hours grocery shopping. I am thinking strongly about grocery delivery, going to the two or three stores I need to go to is just too time consuming.

Today was my mellow, lounge, crafty day. Made my first batch of christmas cards, and I'm really pleased with how they came out. Read some of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, third in the Narnia series, and generally lounged about in jammies for most of the day. To my mind, that is exactly how a Sunday should be spent.

Now for some exercising, dinner and then maybe watch a movie with the boy. Purrrrr.

The joy of playing hooky

Tim convinced me to play hooky on Friday, saying I was going to lose my sick time anyway when I left (2 weeks whoohooo!!). I lounged around all morning reading, we went to one of our favorite places for breakfast (Genie's, right around the corner)-- I had a wonderful vegetarian eggs benedict, tim had cinnamon honey french toast that was divine. We had planned to go down to the outlets and go shopping, but by the time we picked up Myra from school, we only would have had a little under 2 hours there before we had to head home.

We went to the Lloyd mall instead (I never feel as white I do when I'm at this mall) and I bought some new sweaters. I bought them from this Mom store, and in fact there were a lot of older women shopping in there. Despite that, they had some decent prices on basic things and the sweaters I got were cute. How sad is that that I did better in the mom clothing store than in Forever 21, where there wasn't anything I would ever wear? Oh well.

I still need to go shopping for more fall and winter clothes, but I'm waiting to hear about the Umpqua bank job first, because if I'm just going to be freelancing, I need more play clothes, but If I get a job there, I need more dress clothes.

Friday night, Annette came over for dinnner. She was the temp who took over for Danielle while Danielle was in Scotland for two weeks. Annette is a cool older lady (she's my mom's age). She lived in Paris for 12 years, she's a professional jazz singer and has worked with a lot of big name jazz people. She's very outspoken. We had a nice dinner, although she is incredibly chatty. But still, it was a nice evening. It felt great having a hooky day with Tim, since he watches football all day on Sundays now, I miss these kind of days with him.

Saturday was such a great day

Woke up tired and feeling blah-ish, and not wanting to meet a friend for our Saturday morning run in the woods. But I ended up going, with another friend, and several other women from our Saturday outdoors exercise class joined us (the instructor is travelling, but we decided to meet anyway).

Had a great workout. Ran in the woods for almost an hour. Did a bunch of plies and lunges and squats and standing push ups and stretching and felt alive and clean and healthy. It was longer than we normally run, and there were quite a few hills, but it felt so good to know I can still run for that long and that far.

Went for coffee with my friend after our workout, and had fun catching up with her.

The boy vaccuumed and folded laundry. Love him!

Later, we went back to the park where I ran in the morning and had a nice walk. Went to the mall where I got very yummy smelling cranberry body butter from The Body Shop. I love fall scents.

Then we went to Powells. I just absolutely love this bookstore, it makes me so excited to go there. Four floors. An entire city block. Bookshelves up to the ceiling on every floor. Used books right next to new books on the shelves. I've lived in Portland for over a year and I still haven't come close to seeing all of this bookstore. Sheer book heaven. I bought the complete chronicles of narnia, the sisterhood of the travelling pants, and a fun fantasy book. Hooray!

After Powells, I dragged the boy to the gelato place across the street. mmmm. droool.

hear that sucking sound?

That would be the giant vacuum that sucks up my weekends. I don't know exactly what I do, because I never seem to do what I plan on doing, but somehow, I get through the weekend without really knowing how the time disappeared. Did some journalling, played online, played with the pup, but it doesn't seem enough to eat my whole weekend. Oh well, at least it was pretty relaxing. lol

my food yesterday

Protein shake. 3 donuts (from this place in NE that makes the best donuts in the entire world, fresh, light, not greasy, not heavy-- but still, three??). Salad of mostly lettuce. Several cut pieces of pita and hummus.

NOT a good way to feed my body, especially since I went for a trail run yesterday morning. I don't know why I never seem to eat on weekends. Well, the fact that I never went grocery shopping last weekend and when I went during the week, I only bought enough food for a few days might have something to do with yesterday.

Oh well. Getting back on track today!

bizzee weekend

Friday night, Patrick and Sarah came over and we went to a moroccan restaurant, the first time I've been to one. You walk in, and the walls are dark red, with a curtain over the door, oriental rugs on the floor, and low tables with low purple couches and low red stools. The atmosphere was great. There was even a belly dancer, who was very sensual. I would have loved to watch her more, but it was hard while trying to have a conversation. Unfortunately, the food was the worst part of it. It wasn't bad, I just didn't care for it all that much. Tim said he's had better moroccan food.

Saturday morning, Amy came by and we went to my outdoor exercise class. We did hill repeats and lots of pushups off the bridges and lunges up the hills. Great workout. I slept horribly Friday night, so came home and slept for about three hours before roller derby. Yesterday, the day just disappeared, even though I only did grocery shopping and laundry. I really wish weekends were three days instead of two, it just seems like two is never enough.

roller derby!!

We went to our first roller derby match last night, it's fairly popular in Portland, and it was soo much fun. It's all women teams, everyone has great, crazy stage names -- Sharon Hate, Soul Train, Madame Bumps a lot, Fire Crotch, Apocolipstick, etc. It was the grand championship, with the High Rollers going up against the Break Neck Betties, and the Guns N' Rollers facing the Heartless Heathers.

We went with Lisa and Steve, and it was such a party. It attracted everyone from parents with kids to people who dress up in trashy roller derby costumes to everything in between. The first match, between the High Rollers and the Break-neck Betties was kind of lame, it was slow and not well played. And then when the other teams started, it got so much better. These girls are great skaters, we ended up rooting for the Heartless Heathers, who won, but they only had a few point lead throughout the entire match. Everyone goes crazy when their team scores, and we were all in the stands screaming and cheering for the Jammer, the girl who scores the points, to skate faster, and cheering more when they hit girls from the other team. Such a riot.

www.rosecityrollers.com

They are having tryouts in the middle of the month, for the Fresh Meat team. I totally want to try out!