project

my cousin made this and posted it on her blog, so i decided to try one.  other than the fact that i am incompetent with a staple gun (and we should have gotten shorter staples so they didn't go through), i think it turned out pretty cute.  definitely a more polished look than dorm-room-chic in our office.  sorry for the poor photo quality, it was an iphone snapshot before work.

a letter...

dear goat cheese,

you are so delicious in my mouth.  thank you for spreading so nicely on bread but also crumbling delightfully into salads and becoming a creamy delight in pasta.  i love how you can be so sweet when paired with dried cranberries.  i love your fiery side when you complement jalapenos.  nothing else can make toasted walnuts or pecans or almonds taste so toasty and wonderful.  i treasure the time we've spent together, and look forward to each chance meeting we may have.  thank you, goat cheese, you really know how to push my buttons.

love,
piper.

and the winner is...

i completely forgot to mention that ollie won a holiday photo contest for the picture we took for our christmas card this year.  the contest was through earthdog, which is a fabulous place to get earth-friendly gear for your pup.  ollie's signature blue collar and leash are from there.
anyway, the prize was a donation of $100 to a pet charity of my choice, so of course i chose blue dog.  they do great work and have given us two awesome pups.  clearly, ollie's cuteness speaks for itself.
oh, click on the title of this post to see the announcement.

why puppies are awesome

so Etta is a climber...

doing yoga with dogs.

in my attempts to sort of try to get back into something that resembles decent shape, i decided to do yoga this morning.  i used to practice ashtanga semi-regularly back before jb and i started dating seriously, but when i started running more, i fell off the yoga wagon...and even when i wasn't running so much, i didn't really pick the yoga back up.  anyway, it's something i really really enjoy, but it's an expensive hobby to have, so i downloaded a practice on itunes and tried to follow the instructor's verbal directions.  it was moderately successful - i can certainly do the vinyasas and warrior pose, etc.  the practice was from a studio i've never been to, so there were definitely some series in there that i wasn't familiar with.
in addition to my general out-of-shapeness and my lack of familiarity with some of the yoga business, i also had the dogs inside.  they were very interested in participating in yoga, particularly young etta james.  ollie kept trying to share his bone with me and my mat.  hilarious.  it's not super easy to focus on your breath when you're laughing because a dog is laying on your face while you prepare for a backbend.  good dogs.

um.

i am tinkering with the way this whole thing looks. please excuse the baby poop colors. this will be normal again soon.

little engine

when i was a kid, my parents read the little engine that could to me, frequently. i think it was partially because the author is watty piper, and partially because the message is great for a little kid who's trying to learn to do so many new and challenging things. the world is daunting and disappointing, but a positive attitude and a belief that you can do it will combat anything, right? so says watty.

fast forward to my adult life. i do actually still think i can, believe it or not. i am 5'4" (this is the truth, though i add 1-2 inches for posterity) but i think i can reach the stuff on the high shelves. i am klutzy, but i think i can run and exercise and take care of myself in a way that is satisfying, if not on the level of a naturally gifted athlete. i am busy and overcommitted and stressed most of the time, but i think i can be a good friend/wife/daughter/eventual mother/citizen. i think i can have and do and be it all. i really think i can. even if sometimes i flip out and get overrun by fear and negative thoughts, at the heart of it....i think i can. haha.

i guess all this positive energy and can-do attitude has permeated my behaviour in some way. so much so that at some untraceable point over the course of our marriage, jb has started calling me little engine, sort of as a pet name. he calls me this when i try to lift 80-lb bags of concrete on my own even though he's standing right there, and when i ask him to reach something for me as i'm crawling onto a counter to reach it myself anyway. he calls me that when i stretch myself too thin and overcommit and refuse to drop anything or let anyone down.

it's my favorite nickname ever.

new year, new leaf.

new years always bring out a pile of lists and endeavors to be better at things. things like organizing and eating healthily and taking care of body mind spirit intellect. i'm a little slow on endeavoring so far this year, but i'll get there.

this weekend was my last free weekend before my last semester of grad school. i'm going to louisiana solo this weekend to see the parents and pick up a couple of christmas gifts that couldn't fit into our overly-stuffed, dog-filled car during the holiday trek. anyway...we managed to get several things done this weekend. i cleaned out all the bathroom cabinets and organized all of that, as well as the desk drawer. then jb hung book shelves high up in the office and the bedroom and we got rid of this massive ikea bookshelf that was taking up half the office. geez i have a crap load of books. so, things are somewhat more organized, or at least on their way to being so.

etta james is getting bigger ever minute and is the sweetest and most precocious little pup. she loves ollie and follows him around, eagerly awaiting his attention. he's adjusting well to her presence, though he's not 100% back to normal yet. i think we need to get on a more disciplined pattern with both dogs, but it's been fun nevertheless.

the past week was insanely cold - a low of 16 one night, in the twenties the others. we put the chickens into a rubbermaid container and brought them inside because we thought they might not make it huddled in their coop along. hopefully it's a tad warmer this week so i can run a few times....

holidays on ice (and snow).

well, it's 2010. we've made it. i don't really know what that means, but there are lots of cool things to anticipate this year. my graduation, some friends having babies, projects, trips, jb turning 30....it's going to be a fun year, i think.

the vacation time this year was different, but still really good. we passed on louisiana - only my second non-louisiana christmas ever. instead, we drove to my uncle's in dallas, where my family met us (me, jb, and the 2 pups). we spent 3 days 2 nights there, mostly eating a ton of some crazy delicious food and watching the snow dump. first white christmas ever! it was beautiful, if ridiculously cold. all in all, a very fun gathering with the fam. nice gifts, good chats, and a few quality board game throw downs. my uncle also happens to live on a lake (his suburb is called the colony) and there is a sweet path all around it that was awesome for morning walks with ollie.

we left christmas night to drive to wichita to hang with jb's family, hoping to miss traffic and be rested for family picture day on saturday. bad idea jeans. the weather was bad all over i-35, apparently, and okc had been absolutely blasted by snow and ice on christmas eve. there were several very treacherous stretches of road, but jb's remarkable driving skills pulled through again, and we made it safely to the cozy basement at his mom's house. nevermind that it took 7 hours instead of 4....

anyway, wichita was a good time. the little dog and the big dog liked romping through all the snow in the parks near jb's house. freaking precious. we ate tons more good food, and got to spend some quality time with the crew, including our nephew maddox.

we made it home in (slightly) better weather and buckled down to get the house ready for our first new years eve party. lots of work, lots of fun, and i think we're going to pass on hosting another one next year. i also mixed a few too many types of cocktails, so new years day was a very rough experience for me. not the best way to start a new decade, but what can you do?

we are full of high hopes and aspirations for 2010: more vegetables, more running, less t.v., less clutter. lots of other ideas and resolutions too, but...that somewhat sums it up.