+ Free inspirational wallpapers (a new one every day!) at sentense.me. I love how minimalistic the designs are & I am currently using the February calender with the quote “the way to get started is to quit talking & start doing” on it.
+This mantra me desktop is also really cool-especially if you need a reminder to keep on track with your New Years Resolutions!
+ Can I tell you how excited i am to make GARLIC SOUP??
+ Create your own crossword puzzle! Real Simple suggests making a Valentine’s Day themed crossword for someone you love, using clues about your relationship to solve the puzzle (“Example: 3 Down: What you hate to take out. Answer: Garbage.”) I think it’s a brilliantly cute idea!
+ Clean eating is one of my new lifestyle choices. Yesterday marked the official start of my resolution (a month or so late!) and I even cleaned out my cupboards and went shopping for new appropriate food. It feels so good to know I am going to be putting pronounceable substances into my body! Clean Eating Club & Eating Clean Works are two great sites on the subject, if you want to know more.
There is a difference between “radical self-love” and “self-acceptance.”
Yes, radical self-love is more than merely self-acceptance. True love, no matter if it is the love someone else has for you, or the love you (should) have for yourself, inspires change. Love wants you to grow and evolve and blossom into a beautiful wild crazy supernova who meets challenges with a smile. Acceptance merely says, “Hey, you’ve got along fine just the way you are for years now, you know. You must love yourself, just look at how much ice cream you eat and how many episodes of TV you’ve just watched” (not that there is anything wrong with watching a favorite TV show or eating ice cream–love wants you to enjoy these things–but, acceptance breeds apathy & apathy can be self-sabotaging. Love wants happiness through action)!
True love wants your pure self to shine through all the bullshit of the world & pressures of your family, the media, and the monotony of daily life. Acceptance has blinded you into believing that your life leads you, when really, YOU LEAD YOUR LIFE.
And the real secret to making an incredible change? How can you turn a 180 on the path you’ve started to carve for yourself? Well, it sounds easy, but we might meet some bumps along the way. What is the secret to truly loving the world around you and becoming an awe-inspiring, accomplished, mega-beacon of radiance?
Love yourself.
Love yourself by realizing that “love” does not always accept things the way they are, but love will be patient changing them. Realize that true love wants what is best for you–in fact, love wants you to be exactly the way you have always dreamed of. Love knows that you will not get there overnight and true love has already acknowledged that you are still going to get down on yourself, that there will be days where it seems that you have made no progress, but it will not give up. Failure is not a language love speaks, although there will be days where you feel like giving up on love, love will never give up on you. You hold the key to choose–radical self-love or decidedly un-radical “self-acceptance”.
I know which one I’ve picked.
xx
(Radical Self-Love is an already-amazing month long event hosted by blogging supa-star [and all-around nice person] Gala Darling. For more information on participating, get your little truffle-butts over to her website stat by clicking on the “love” banner in the side bar or the links in this article. You can also follow the radical self-love movement on Twitter by using the hashtag #radicalselflove )
i don’t really know WHY i even postulate such questions to myself. on the surface, there are (somewhat) concrete answers to both, however:
first, what am i doing? well, tomorrow i have another full day at work (i just got home–the only thing i did today besides go to work was snarf a krispy kreme donut [] and attend church).
ooo, guess what? yesterday i found a glow in the dark vibrator box on the floor by the country section & today we found an actual pair of panties right in the doorway. i am thrilled to see what kind of kinky surprise i will stumble across tomorrow.
also, tomorrow i have to pack for our road trip [which answers "where am i going?"]. we just got great news that one of our friends is going to bring his van over to the meeting point & we’ll be driving that for 9 hrs north instead of trying to squeeze 6 people in our bitty Honda! i am planning on taking plenty of pictures because…OH WAIT, MORE GOOD NEWS!! we just got a new camera charger!! so expect to see lots more photos on this blog. i want to strive to be a better blogger by sharing bits and pieces of my world with you all : ) the first set of pictures will include magnificent ice sculptures, old friends, and some amazing scenery, i can promise you that. i am also planning on taking pictures of my favorite restaurant in the whole wide world…
other miscellany:
-i’ve been considering lots of songs for my first wedding dance song lately. what did you/do you think you would look for in a wedding song? for some reason, i find myself drawn to country songs even thought that is normally not the kind of music i listen to on a daily basis. i think it’s because the lyrics speak to me more than caring about the genre (lyrics are way more important to me than the tune)…
imagine two hours have passed:
i got distracted from writing this blog post by the enticing concepts of “dinner” and “putting food in my belly”…i made stroganoff with lots of portabella mushrooms. we were out of butter. maybe i also drank a couple labatt blues while i cooked because they were left over from the past weekend. then i watched a few episodes of Arrested Development with the fiance. and then we engaged in rated R activity impulsively…good night, huh? : )
love to my trufflettes…xx
P.S. someone is jacking the content of my blog & if any of you have any advice on how to stop it…well, i’d appreciate it. otherwise i may be forced to delete the blog. this is the second time it has happened.
asiago cheese bread pigtails my life, summed up in one photo new comfy work pants vanilla sugar lotion band of skulls leaving for my most favorite place on earth in LESS THAN A WEEK!! (AND the fact that absolutely everyone is going to be there & we are going to party straight for four days & it will be like a giant reunion of all my friends, some who I haven’t seen since last may when i graduated!!) things getting straightened out at work taking care of insurance stuff FINALLY deciding that we want to go get massages together for Valentine’s day tastespotting kristen stewart cute text messages learning you are not the only one feeling a particular way iloveyoumorethanblank.com
hiss:
crying during TV shows (someone important died, someone else has alzheimers, and another guy just got scammed out of his lifes savings) something crunchy in my prosciutto not being able to sleep the smushed banana incident leg cramps the daunting task of losing weight the ipad…i seriously don’t get it nausea
BONUS:
I received this amazing spam comment yesterday & just had to post it. I laughed so hard I almost choked:
“What the… you will not belief this. Our mindless kitty simply farted on my arm!? I mean what’s the matter with this!? I nourish this thing and I receive that in return. I even now can not really belief that…”
+ I made M a card yesterday while watching TV. He likes dogs. I like coloring. You can tell I don’t attempt to draw very often:
+ Did you know Danny DeVito voice acted for the My Little Pony movie? And just when I thought I couldn’t appreciate the absurdness of this man anymore…On top of that, the Friends episode he guest starred in was on TV this weekend and I had totally forgotten about his “special” appearance. I laughed until I cried:
+ In wedding related news, NEVERgo to David’s Bridal for anything. I have had bad experiences both times I went. The second time, I went in only because I had saw a dress in their new catalog that I liked & I wanted to know if the store had one in for me to try on. They didn’t. The lady couldn’t even tell me when they were going to get any in and she told me she couldn’t contact me if they did get one in. What a bitch! I guess I don’t understand WHY your company would put something in a recent catelog that you don’t sell in your stores or online? THEN to top it off, I learned why I have been getting all sorts of weird phone calls from numbers I don’t know lately. Apparently, David’s Bridal sells yourphone numberto third parties. UMM…YEAH, THAT’S REAL GREAT. In short, I would advise not doing business with them.
+ In happier wedding news, we started our first registry this weekend! I thought it was a lot of fun, especially slowly breaking M down in order to get him to say “yes” to the china I picked out (In all fairness, he picked out the silverware). Although, in retrospect, I should not have worn heels out that day.
+ I’ve picked out a photographer. She is the wife of my high school math teacher (who probably didn’t care for me because I hated math & had to take the “easy” math class twice after I failed the first time for passing notes with a girl named Sarah about our crushes and how much we despised math. He also would not let me wear my gloves during class because they “made me look me like Michael Jackson” [the school was cold, okay?!]).
+ A banana exploded in my pocket yesterday. This is a very good example of how absent minded I can be. At about 8am, I had stuck a banana in the inner pocket of my jacket lining. Why did I do this? Well, the bananas were on their last leg and we needed to finish them, so I thought I would take one with me to work. Work started at 5pm. The banana has become so warm from my body heat & the drive to work that when I stuck my hand into the pocket for my lipbalm, I was greeted with the stickiest, gooiest sludge covering my hand. It did not please me. I still have to wash the coat.
We’ve gone too far now. I actually thought that was an interesting story…*ashamed*
+ I remember when I was young and I thought that people without bangs just cut them off. I used to ask the hairdresser to cut off my bangs. “Growing them out” seemed like it would take too long. I’ve always been impatient. My bangs need to grow out already!
+ Kristen Stewart conflicts me. I really liked her in Adventureland (which I just watched this weekend & enjoyed immensly, since it made me nostalgic for being young and the friendship I shared with someone who the main character reminded me of) but I do not like Twilight and I don’t know if I think she’d be a good actress in anything else? At any rate, if she asked me to be her girlfriend, I think I would say yes.
+ Oh? You want to see some cat photos? I know you do:
Jose: Man cat around house, likes to hide in my closet for hours on end, nibble on houseplants, got stuck behind our dryer for up to 24 hours while we were away for Christmas, adopted from a gay man who runs a clothing shop downtown, smelled like incense and grease until after his first three baths, “cat who acts like a dog” (which explains why he is M’s favorite), sweet fat fluffy underbelly & long gorgeous whiskers.
Echo: My fluff-baby, always willing to cuddle, likes to hit Jose in the face some days but walks around sniffing his behind on others, crazy over chasing lazer pointers, adopted from a shelter where we learned she had been born there & then adopted when she was two and then later returned (ugh!), very tiny underneath all that beautiful fur, reminds me of my childhood cat, protests being groomed fiercely, i spend a lot of time thinking about what sort of person she must have been in her past life…p.s. I promise she’s not a hunchback when she’s out of her bed.
$10 black skinny jeans texting during work ignoring people if the moment (and your sanity) calls for it “what is more important: love or silliness?” animal crackers tangled bed hair all day neurotic energy erotic energy tall cans of labatts the frock of love dress getting renewed for a free subscription to a certain sexy website Rescue Me (i think Denis Leary is super attractive. we’ll probably talk about that later at some point) androgynous girls retelling your favorite old stories MIKA new washer & dryer the concept of a sushi tattoo (but all the pictures i see of them online are utter crap) her unique voices–especially scratchy or raspy ones my fiance making up nonsensical songs about me to sing randomly when i get grumpy fun. taking the Jeopardy try-out test next Tuesday (!!!!) Madonna’s eyebrows back in 1987 zzzz
hiss:
STILL not having a camera charger and thus, not being able to take photos for the blog the crazy lady who comes into my work at least three times a day & gives us incredible grief the insurance company–what a f’ing pain dumb arguements over bottles of wine people who are calling Christina Hendricks “big” (“You don’t put a big girl in a big dress. That’s rule number one.” UH WHAT?!) the apartment’s gym being too warm not losing weight, no matter how little or much i eat/exercise acne–i haven’t had breakouts this bad since i was 14-15 Video Phone
1. Doing something because you want to. Regardless of how popular it is. Independence is fiercely beautiful.
2. Rolling with the punches. The ability to be spontaneous is beautiful.
3. Having the grace to be humble. The beauty of someone who is not self-absorbed is immediately apparent.
4. Embracing your differences and letting them shine. Uniqueness is inspiring and beautiful.
5. Recognizing that you are always evolving and mutating into a new version of yourself. Realizing you have the potential to shape yourself and your destiny is beautiful.
6. “The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.” Having a manta (or ten). People with focused goals and codes of living are beautiful
7. Refusing to accept the world for what it is is beautiful, because hope and longing are things of beauty.
8. Taking the time to truly listen, observe, and reflect. Having empathy & understanding is crucial to being beautiful.
9. Being able to find the beauty in others–even if it is something small. Your beauty will show in your kindness and acceptance.
10. Acting in a genuine way. Beauty shines through the brightest when you are simply being yourself.
“Look, I come from a culture of hockey players. If a guy can throw down, it’s somewhat way hot. And scars, hello! If a guy’s got a scar, he’s got a Robin. And if he’s missing teeth? I’m missing my pants.”
Last night was the best night I have had in a very long time. M and I ate a few rolls of sushi at a nearby sushi bar & then headed downtown because we had tickets to see the Blue Jackets play (That’s hockey, for those of you who don’t know). He got the tickets through a guy at work & what were originally good tickets ended up being great tickets because it was “free upgrade” night for season ticket holders!! So we had amazing seats in the lower bowl, close to the action. And our team won, 4-2. We were really close to seeing a hat trick, but sadly, that didn’t happen (M was happy–he didn’t want to part with his beloved hat).
Anyway, it was just such a nice evening & I think part of the reason was that we didn’t have to talk about the wedding or any other responsibilities. I’m really getting burned out on this whole wedding planning thing. People seem to think that it is all I am supposed to be spending my energy and time on–the fact that I am planning a wedding suddenly makes me exciting. I hate that. I’m an overall fun & somewhat quirky person who just happens to be planning a wedding at the moment (quite poorly perhaps, but whatevs). There is more to me than this, you know?
This guy is so odd! Like, I am very sure this video had no choreographer because Mika just kind of bounds around like a hyperactive bunny rabbit with absolutely no direction whatsoever. I suppose this is slightly endearing. I think it works so well because he has this kind of smirky smile on his face the entire time like, “So what if you are not enjoying it? I’m having a hell of a time…woo hoo, party in my pink bowler hat!”
But, lack of focus and fourth grade dance moves aside, what a video…the colors scheme, the outfits (suit/dresses!!), and especially the ribbons toward the end are so much fun!
Edited to add: Okay, I just read that he’s a Leo. It all makes so much more sense now! Agreed? You just have to love our flamboyancy : )
22 years crazy, self-described vagabond, autodidact, and sushi connoisseur.
likes: libraries, my cats, manicures, fresh fruit, trivia games, innuendo, picking at things, writing lists, black coffee, owls, playing pool, over analyzing, being in/near water, kitschy things, owls, citrus smells, cooking, reading everything, slackers, gin & tonics, guys who wear aviators, black hair & pale skin, arcade games, adventures, music, & of course, the internet.
