shake me up

i recently stumbled upon a blog. okay, so these days, i tend to stumble on blogs daily. but this one was more of a shake-me-up stumble. a makes-you-think stumble. happyyolks combines a couple's love for food and words. their new perspectives and particularly introspective excerpts welcome self-analysis, pose huge questions, and give readers a chance to take a second to simply wonder. i came upon this passage while jotting down a killer recipe for thai carrot soup and i couldn't help but share. kelsey begins with a piece of Cheryl Strayed's book Tiny Beautiful Things:

I stood there, in the cold of the morning, hunched over the kitchen sink with my hands gripping the counters ledge watching the leaves fall and collect on the deck. Trying to count my breaths, I silently beg each one to play it’s reverse card and go back to the tree, the life-force, that created it earlier in the spring. They do not stop. With each yellow sliver that drops, I feel myself being pulled down to the ground with them. Pieces of my heart and understanding lay there, wilting, disentigrating back to the earth. I wished for Autumn all summer long — for it’s first snow, cold sheets, fires in the living room. Now that it’s here, I’m not sure I’m ready to dig through the “basement” for all that needs supporting it. Things have settled, and suddenly the stillness I asked for has arrived with a pretty bow and a painful but necessary awareness to all that has really taken place from January to October.

"I’ve highlighted and bookmarked Tiny Beautiful Things to shreds during this phase. Is it a phase? Can we call it that when it hasn’t yet passed? Anyway, Cheryl Strayed’s words are both comfort and a total slap in the face right now. In one particular letter, a young woman writes to Cheryl asking 'WTF, WTF, WTF?' She responds in sharing the bone chilling history of sexual abuse from her father’s father and how she came to realize that pressing against the wound, tackling it straight on, was the only way to get a grip on her life. She ends her response to the young woman, 'Ask better questions, sweet pea. The fuck is your life. Answer it.'"

I share this passage not because I stood there staring at the leaves thinking, like the young woman who wrote Cheryl, 'WTF, WTF, WTF.' But I realize that the leaves falling is my life. I need to answer it. Simple as that. I need to ask better questions about the why. Ask questions that shed light on what needs adjusting. So you’re feeling like 'x' you’re acting like 'y' and it’s causing a sour, hollow feeling in your gut. It’s not WTF. It’s your life. Dig deeper. Lean in. Throw yourself down the basement stairs and scavenge for as much as you can. You’re going to need all of it, everything you got, to make it to winter."

- Kelsey Brown {happyyolks}

TROUBLES

right now 

i'd like 

all my troubles 

to stand 

in front of me 

in a straight line, 

and 

one by one 

i'd give each 

a black eye

(shannon hale, the goose girl)

to the zenith

the rise and set of sun and moon - 

supernatural.

we doubt which of these was under a celestial guardianship.

it could only be a symptom of secret pain, the whole expanse of nature -

no more than his soul.

beheld there in dull red light, burning duskily

such shape gave it so little definiteness.

he gazed upward, perfectly aware.

at no great distance from the miraculous.

motherhood

i am not a mother. i am not planning to become a mother anytime soon, if ever. if i am destined to feel it, i have yet to encounter the inexplicable desire for motherhood so often explained, albeit insufficiently, by my mommy friends, my own mother, grandmother, aunts...

although p and i have made the decision to wait forever now to start a family, it seems as if my world has somehow filled up with new life nonetheless. with my first niece/nephew on the way, and many of our close friends beginning their families, i am enjoying all of the lovely pregnant women in my life, their bun-in-oven beauty, and the delight that these new, tiny people are already bringing to the world. 

last week, i had the pleasure of capturing one of the most unique and heartwarming relationships i think i've ever experienced. although katie's sweet babe still has a few weeks before she greets the world, the connection that katie has made with her little girl is already so apparent. what a joy it was to see the gentleness and peace with which she interacted with her daughter.

love

love is dynamic.

do it justice and use it differently every time.

well, hello

dear friends,
after a few surprising requests to "bring back the blog!" here i am.
maybe the theme of this thing should really be *biannual updates of my life, since i always forget to post things*. apologies for waiting so long to post are literally in every blurb. ah, well.
man, have things changed since i was eating pizza muffins in a cold and snowy arnold in october. (OCTOBER?! sheesh...)
well, first and foremost, the biggest change in the last 5 months:
in the midst of the holidays and my seemingly endless and unsuccessful job hunt, i landed an interview! in san diego! after exhausting the local options (all 3 of them), and being unsure of where p and i might want to settle down, i started hunting in all the least expected places. i had applied to about 30 jobs in the san diego area, so when i got the call for the interview, i had to do some backwards research and remember which one it was (don't tell my boss... :)). considering my luck, i was expecting it to be the 10 hour/week $8/hour receptionist position. but i lucked out! full time writing job with a marketing company.
i took a trip down for the interview just before christmas, and after a second interview the next day, they offered me the position! so, three days after christmas, i loaded up two giant suitcases, patted wilson on the head, and drove away to start the mcjob. since everything happened so quickly, i had no place to live, so it was even better luck that the sweet george clan was so close and so willing to take me under their wings and onto their couch until i could find a house.
long story short, i landed some pretty sweet digs and slept on the floor for another week until my dad, anna, and wilson made the journey down south in a uhaul with all my stuff. (forever grateful is an understatement).
so - that's how i got here! it took my first weekend here and one jog along the beachfront sidewalk before i was hooked.
the job has been good, it's a great jump start to finding a more creative position, but i really enjoy my small but mighty writing posse, they make it easy to laugh at all the miserable things going on around us :) (what can i say, it's a job...)

wilson is loving his new home too. we've taken our friends jon and stazia's dog, harley in for a couple of weeks while they sort through some medical/military madness. she and wilson are pretty much best friends, and they just play all day long, wear each other out, and snore through the night. it really is a win-win :)

best part of this post...WE'RE DAYS AWAY FROM PATRICK'S HOMECOMING! oh man, this is where my giddiness really gets out of control. husband.home.forever.and.ever.and...yup. just can't wait. he's getting incredibly antsy to get home, and i, of course, can't sit still. we're so ready to be on the same continent again, and to finally say we don't have to say goodbye again! it's pretty fantastic.


i think i should stop now, so it doesn't feel so much like i'm writing in a diary, but i wanted to say hello, and so did wilson (rosalee, if you're reading this, i promise he'll show up for a guest appearance soon)

xxo

pizza muffins!

well, i've done it again - pinterest has really egged me on to bake some new, fun, and totally unhealthy things. tonight, it was homemade pizza rolls. which really just turned into pizza muffins. (am i complaining?). they were delicious, however they were also the second recipe i've tried in the last two days that has left me wishing for more. (in this case, i don't really mean more pizza muffins, just something more complex). they were pretty irresistible, nonetheless, and now i've got something to snack on while wilson and i snuggle up to watch sister wives (strange addiction). if these looks tasty enough to try, here's the recipe! 

pizza roll/ball/muffins!

i know how he's feelin'

<3