One man's trash...

Ever since I can remember, I've had virtually no money to buy people gifts, at Christmas or otherwise. Comes with the territory of assuming a career as a student, I suppose. So I've had to get creative with presents, and often those presents have come out of some sort of junk-ish item. For instance, there was the clock made out of an old record; the end table made from an old cable spool, a gallon of grout, and a few bagfulls of glass scrap from a nice stained glass maker; the $5 garage sale dresser decopauged with free rave flyers from Little 5 Points. (Actually, it's starting to sound like I only give this crap to my husband, who was the recipient of the three gifts mentioned above...should he be concerned?) Anyway, this Christmas is no exception to my trash-to-treasure (well, I can call it treasure, anyway) gifts. But I'm sooo proud of this one! My littlest brother is a huge car nut, and clearly, I can't buy him a lamborghini. He's getting ready to graduate and move out on his own, so I decided to make him a wall clock out of an old hubcap. My husband and I went to the car junkyard the other day and spent 2 hours walking around in the rain to find the "perfect" (meaning: intact, not too heavy, not from a minivan, and not too shiny) hubcap from which to make this clock. By the way, this is a pretty fun and cheap date...it's amazing what things people leave in their cars, and it's equally amazing what other people will pry off of those cars to take home with them. Anyway, I'm so stoked about this clock; almost as stoked as I am that I get to go home for Christmas (cue Michael Buble singing in the background) and give it to my bro. In fact, when I told him his gift was coming from a junkyard, he told me that was just like telling a woman her gift was coming from Tiffany's. Man, I love that boy. Hopefully this "treasure" will last longer than Mark's did (the record clock and the end table never made it out of his hell hole of a bachelor pad, but the dresser...drumroll...now has a happy home in our closet).

Christmas Surprises

Christmas never fails to bring surprises, but this year may top them all. my boyfriend's back. javier lopez has returned to the braves, and i couldn't be happier. i know that he's just been given a chance in spring training, but believe you me, javy will perform. and with any luck, he'll be given his old number so that i can once again wear my javy shirt to the games and little kids won't wonder who this "lopez" guy is. who knows what awesome changes are in store for the bravos now that my javy has returned? the glory days are back, baby! they're back!!

How to Shmooze

I recently asked a good friend what the most influential books in his life had been, and he responded with Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People." As I know this guy pretty well and respect his opinions, I completely thought he was joking. He wasn't. I had always thought of this book as a way that salesmen, politicians, and those hokey televangelists with the big pink hair could put some more notches in their belts and fifties in their pockets, a kind of brown-nosers' guide to life at the top. Having never read the book myself, though, I'm pretty sure that my perception was based entirely on the title alone. And by the way--I still do hold to the fact that it is an abysmal title. But, because my friend doesn't fit in any of the fake, money-grubbing, despicable categories I've mentioned here, I've decided that I should read the book for myself. I see this thing ending in one of three ways. One, I realize my friend for what he truly is: a sad, false little man with such little regard for himself that he relies on the number of "friends" on his myspace page for his only source of self worth. (As I created the page for him because he refused to resign himself to cyber-relations, I think this outcome is highly unlikely). Two, the book changes my life, as well, and consequently my relationships become much healthier and much more fulfilling for all involved. And three, I realize that the sway I have held over people in the past has been a drop in the bucket compared to the influence I could have, and I end up ruling the universe and "persuading" everyone to do the things that I think are necessary for life (eating ice cream at every opportunity; bringing home Christmas trees the day after Thanksgiving, no earlier, no later; refusing to wear orange no matter the cost, etc.). If only I had more friends to give me their opinion on the book...oh, wait...that's outcome number four! Stay tuned...

Blessings from Heaven

"Consider the sparrows of the field, they neither sow nor reap, but God takes care of them.”
I'm not sure about how much reaping and sowing go on in our lives, but God sure does take care of us. Lately I've tried to be aware of all of the ways God blesses us. There are the little ways, like how we'll just oddly decide to take an alternate driving route to our friends' house, only to miss an incredible wreck that we would've been stuck in for hours if we had gone the other way. Or how I often get e-mails or phone calls from friends/family just when I need them most. Or how it seemed that we would be alone for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year because of Mark's work but, without any doing on our part, it turns out that both holidays will bring family closer to us so that we can spend them with the people we love most. But just this past week, 2 huge blessings fell upon us and I feel like I'll burst if I don't tell everyone! Mark and I, as everyone knows, are pretty low on funds right now. Even though we are really strict in how we spend our money, it's a challenge every month to stay in the black (or is it in the red? in the white? I really shouldn't use phrases like this if I'm not sure how to use them correctly. I mean to say: in the whatever color means no debt). This is especially hard as the holidays approach because our friends and family are so giving and we really love to reciprocate that sentiment. So Mark comes home on Monday night and says that the people at work love him so much that they are giving him a promotion and a raise...to start at the beginning of December. Perfect timing or what? And then to top the blessing cup right off, this week we are down to the bare bones in our pantry and I can't go to the grocery until this weekend when I get paid. So I'm getting pretty creative in our meals this week, but even creativity runs out. Just as I was wondering what Mark could eat for lunch since all of our bread was gone, and wondering what we could eat for dinner since all of our everything else was gone, Mark gets a free lunch at work that was brought in for a meeting he wasn't a part of. And then, best of the best, our friend calls and invites us to celebrate his 30th birthday at one of the fanciest restaurants I've ever been to, courtesy of his father-in-law, who wanted to treat him to a birthday dinner and asked him to invite 2 friends. It was fabulous (although I think 5 choices of water is overdoing it a little bit)! All this to say, God is so good to us and we are so undeserving. I think the verse "Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself" is such an awesome encouragement and always proves to be so true. Thanks, God!

Wish List: Chi and Dragons

This past weekend brought two new items into my life that were immediately moved to the very top of my wish list: a Chi hair straightener and a dragon.
I'll start with the Chi. My sister-in-law came up to visit. We were getting ready to go out and she asked me if I wanted to use her hair straightener (a "Chi"). As anybody knows, because I had my hair up in a ponytail all day (from straight-out-of-the-shower-wet), I told her that no straightener could tame my hair well enough to wear it down that night. But she convinced me to try it, so I released my hair from its rubberbanded knot, revealing cascades of all kinds of wonky waves, and set to straighten. It was as if I had a magic wand in my hand and was secretly issuing some kind of ancient spell from my mind as I passed the wand over my hair. It was incredible. I have fairly crazy hair, so rarely do I ever talk about how pretty it is. Not this night. I couldn't STOP talking about it, touching it, brushing it, swooshing it back and forth. Glorious. It could've been angel hair, but it was MY hair. So now I just have to save up $85 to purchase it. Eighty-five dollars, you say, for a styling tool? Honestly, I would've been willing to pay five times that amount. It's that good.
Yesterday Mark and I watched Eragon and I fell in love. I want a dragon. I really want a dragon. In fact, I want a specific dragon, Saphira. But if I can't have her (which, clearly, I can't, because she has chosen another rider), I'll settle for whichever one chooses me. I wonder how long one must wait? I've heard that some dragons wait thousands of years to hatch until they feel the presence of their rider. That means that somewhere, maybe on a ranch in Nashville, maybe in a bar in Stockholm, maybe in a fune in Okinawa (where Mr. Miagi also waits for me), my dragon sits in his/her egg just hoping to soon fulfill her destiny with me, her rider. How exciting! Plus, how much more awesome of a dragon rider will I look like when I'm fighting evil from the tail of my beast with gorgeous, shiny, stick-straight hair?

Volume: 12

Lately I've been thinking about people's quirks, specifically those of my close friends and family...I think I have way more than people realize. Actually, I'm pretty sure that my friends could come up with a much worse list, but I'm giving it a go...

I have to keep my car radio volume level on an even number.

I can't stand for people to scrape their plates with their silverware, but I could listen to nails on a chalkboard all day with no effect.

I love the words: fantastic, shimmer, dessert, deep, grace

I hate the words: unpack, leakage, zeitgeist, parse, merge

I have to wear matching bras and panties every day as much as laundry allows, and I get a bonus if I can match them to my clothes.

When I make a to-do list and then I do something that isn’t on the list, I will often write it on the list anyway and immediately cross it off.

If I use the bathroom during a football game and my team has a bad play while I’m gone, I can’t use that bathroom again until after the game.

After I put chapstick on, I rub my lips together so often that the chapstick only lasts for like 30 minutes.

I refuse to eat brussel sprouts.

I have to sleep on my husband’s left side from now on because that’s the side I slept on when we were first married.

I have to do all my shower processes in the same order or I forget what I’ve washed and what I haven’t.

When my husband jumps on the couch with the dog and it moves a quarter of an inch, I freak out. How will I ever find the exact indentation in the carpet again, and what travesty will occur if I can't?

If I’m reading a good book, I have to cover up every word on the current page and the next page except for the sentence I am on, because I don’t want to accidentally read something that hasn’t happened yet.

I believe that if I wish upon a star, as long as I say in my head “Starlight, starbright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight” first, my wish will eventually come true.

I have to have turkey at Thanksgiving.

I have to have ham at Easter.

Every morning I leave the house, I have to say to my dog, “OK, girl. I love you. See you this afternoon” and then make a kiss sound twice, or else I am sure that she will be upset and do something destructive while I’m gone, despite the fact that she hasn’t done anything bad in like 4 years. Probably because I’ve been saying my morning routine to her every day.

I worry about letting a car with a UT license plate out in front of me…does that mean that they will beat us because we’re suckers, or that we will beat them because we’re nicer?

I wonder what my dog’s voice sounds like inside her head. And oh yeah, I’m sure she has one.

So much more to come…

Waxing Alabama...by me

tyrone prothro, brodie croyle,
juwan, kenneth, and tim,
every time i think of you,
a tear also falls for him.
he, the coach, the lamb of a man,
the tender-hearted doll.
oh what i wouldn't give for him
to come back to bama ball.
but alas, the bama fans are nuts
and demand a higher rank,
and rest assured, coach nick saban
laughs all the way to the bank.
but this season does offer us
a glint of shining hope,
that saban, wilson, grant, and hall,
and tiffin (he's no dope),
can ride the wave of crimson tide
right to old auburn's door,
shut down the farmer battle cry
and add to bama lore.
could this be it, number 13?
i think it's a little fast,
but God willing, our redneck rivals
will feel the BAMA BLAST!

Lament to a Nose Ring

I had it for 6 years and now it's gone. There were no long goodbyes, no tearful partings. It was there, and then it wasn't. And I miss it and I don't. I miss the feeling it gave me, the sense of badassishness that it provided in a world where so often I'm not so badassish. I do not, however, miss worrying about losing it every time I blew my nose. In our time together, we became virtually inseparable. It never left my side (er, nose). In the end I suppose it decided it was time for a different path, as so many of life's pairings inevitably separate. Either that, or it was the constant wiping of sweat off of my face in our last game of 110-degree-weather golf. Either way, it's gone and I've decided that I will let it go. Actually, I decided that after several failed attempts to replace it. Apparently my nose had grown so accustomed to that particular stud that it had no eyes for any other. So, as my mother whispers silent prayers of thanks, I will go on, sans facial piercing. I wonder who this new person will be. I wonder where my need for the occasional feeling of badassishness will be satiated. Perhaps it is time for my first tattoo (sorry, Mom)?

WTF?

They say that you learn something new every day. Today I learned a new fact about one of my favorite American clans...sorority girls. I had heard (and seen movies with wonderful depictions) of the trials of sorority rush; about how you must wear the right clothes, ask the right questions, respond like a Miss America finalist, sit with your legs crossed just-so, party just the right amount (not so much that you're a drunk, but enough to make you fun at a House party), be adequately promiscuous (not so much that you're a raging slut, but enough to make you sufficiently wanted by the frat boys), etc. What I hadn't heard, however, is that some girls actually take classes (it was referred to as rush school) to learn how to be in the A-list sorority echelon. Such classes train you to shine during rush with your most brilliant Kappa Delta-ish sparkle. They polish you until you can rush with the best of them, and be accepted into your top pick. Not directly exposed to the Greek system myself, thankfully, I can only hope that some glimmer of your original personality will still lie latent somewhere inside yourself after the process is over. It's astonishing how much people, especially girls, will try their damndest to become a person wanted by the throng of mostly blonde, mostly white, mostly there on their parents dollar with plenty of dough to spare, sorority girl. Thank God for Berry College.

Wherefore ART thou?

We went to several art galleries this past weekend, and I am struck with the question of when a piece of art really shouldn't be considered art. I understand that people have their own unique interpretations and tastes and visions and blah blah blah. I fail to see how a photograph of a fuse box, regardless of the incredible lighting or the nouveaux angle, can not only be called art but be sold for $500. I don't expect everybody, or really anybody, to necessarily like the "art" that I own, and I certainly don't expect one single person besides my husband to appreciate the hideous oil-mounded-on-canvas "painting" of a dungeon hallway that looks like it belongs in The Haunted Mansion that he so cherishes. But I think some people just so strongly feel the need to be creative but so deeply lack the talent that such adjectives demand that they just throw whatever they can on a canvas or photo paper and call it art. And it isn't. I'll just warn you that if I walk into your house and you have "art" covering the walls that consists of paintings of decapitated babydolls, two-headed roosters, skeleton heads on Dali-knock off drawer bodies, and/or oversized plain white mailing envelopes, I will promptly leave, whether you have guacamole or not.