Dear Minnesota,

You've treated me bad and you've treated me good. You're reliable in your chilly, snowy, Ijustwanttostayinsidesomedaysandforgetthattheworldexists ways. You've also tested my patience this winter, though I always pass those silly tests with high marks; it's a joke that I'm even quizzed on such frivolities.

I must say, we are a rather smashing duo this season, dear Minnesota. I'm adorable in my winter coat and boots and I have more gloves, arm warmers, hats and scarves to choose from than anyone I know...I'm learning to accessorize. And I kind-of like it.

With access to my friend's car every weekend this month, I've learned what it means to live on a Snow Emergency route, how to either drive in silence or accept what's on the radio, what it feels like to spin nearly three hundred and sixty degrees after catching a patch of ice, and though I knew how to do it, I got first-hand experience changing a blown-out tire.

Besides all my new driving experiences, I've perfected winter bus riding. I now know precisely how fast I have to jog-walk two blocks in four inches of snow in order to catch the early bus to get to work a half hour before my shift starts in the morning so I can recline comfortably in the back room reading the tabloids I'd never touch if anyone was around.

And I'd been so looking forward to living in Texas with the warmth, the sun, the dry ground: biking weather. But I've discovered you can definitely bike here any time of year (though I haven't done so myself because I'm not really that much of a badass...yet). What sane people can actually survive living in a world with only two seasons? People who don't get to live through four complete seasons are without.

So really, why would I choose to be anywhere but here*, dear Minnesota, when you are so adaptable? I've learned to share my twin bed with two body pillows as a barrier between my naked body and the naked wind outside. My towels always stay nice and toasty resting atop my radiator and baths wouldn't ever be as satisfactory without the nip in the air before submerging in the hot, bath bomb and bubble bar'd water.

I had been so ready to rid myself of you, Minnesota, to think of you as a high school friend, someone I could glance at in a yearbook and see every five or ten years. I was ready to box you right up and stuff you away. I was ready to move to somewhere new and exciting, but I forgot something incredibly important: Every day is new and exciting. I can be an adventurer every day despite where I live and thus, I am pleased to be here.


* Marquette, Michigan or Grand Marais, Minnesota are the only other places I'd consider living right now

Arguably Agreeable

Tonight, a friend thanked me for being the nicest person ever. "I know nicer," was my response, though no one specifically came to mind. I mean, I know some incredibly nice people, but the people who are on the same shelf others seem to place me, those nice people are no longer a part of my daily life. They live elsewhere and their lives have little to nothing to do with mine apart from the air we breathe and the resources we use, though it's safe to say, I use less.* After hearing me reject such a simple statement, a compliment for which I could have easily responded: "You're welcome," my friend told me to stop bullshitting her.

Okay, so I'm the nicest person ever, but that comes with a very heavy burden because I'm the nicest person ever to all other people I encounter, but I save few nice things for myself. Even in the things I create/draw/write...they're all for someone else's eye. I give so much of my self and my things and that's why people think I'm the nicest person they've ever met. I'm so accommodating I'm surprised it doesn't sicken people. It sure as hell sickens me sometimes. To save myself from sounding like a martyr, I'll just say: I LOVE helping people, I just wish I knew how to say: "I need to help myself right now, instead, sorry." Sometimes helping others does help me in a roundabout way but more often than not, I convince myself that the pleasure I'll gain from helping a friend is enough to sustain my needs.

It's because I learned and believed that you should always treat others the way you'd want to be treated that I've gotten myself into this mess. I've just been living a golden rule.



* That is, unless they've become more environmentally conscious.

Plans Have Changed

Artsy Kendra

I got my sketchbook in the mail yesterday and squeed myself crazy until I was able to drop all my goods from the co-op onto the kitchen table. What a pretty, pretty book. Crisp blue cover, thin and fragile pages, oh how I want to devour you. I already had plans for the evening and thus I wasn't going to start my sketchbook right away. Thankfully, the sketchbook arrived in time for two days off!

Now, I have a theme (Boys and Girls) and I have many ideas of what I'd like to do with my sketchbook, but I don't want to start before I'm officially ready. Do I want to re-bind my book with thicker paper? What will I use for a cover then? Do I want pages to unfold so there's more room to play? Lalalala, so many things to think about!

If I would have discovered The Sketchbook Project even a month ago, I would have thought it interesting but in no way would I have agreed to participate. My inner critic was mean and nasty to me, I didn't give myself to play on paper. Thankfully, I've been introduced to the world that is SARK and I am now the proud owner of SARK's Journal and Play!book. To sweeten the deal, I've created a Creativity Fort to hold my happy art supplies and it's an escape place from the blah-icks of the world.




Since building the fort, I've found out just how much I love painting. I have two brushes and I think only six paints (acrylic) and still, I'm able to create some pretty exciting things. With the exception of the past week when I was nearly six feet under the weather, I've been in my Fort every day, tinkering around. I bring my Play!book to work on days that I have forty-five minute breaks. I'm all about being crafty, artsy, etc.

Last Saturday we had a party at work. LUSH has released four new bath bombs that are pretty fantastic, definitely unique, and really do create a whole new "art of bathing." In honor of this exciting event, we decided to get a little artsy in the store as well.



I don't look all that great with a mustache, in fact, I think I look an awful lot like my father in the series of pictures that were taken in store, oh well. Thankfully, when I'm getting messy in my Fort, I look really cute and I make cute things, too:






So, that's what's been going on 'round these parts...I'll post pictures of my Sketchbook progress, don't worry!

Texas

The state is roughly the same size as France. Crazy.

I can honestly say that I never in my life thought about the possibility of ever possessing even the slightest inkling of desire to visit Texas let alone live there. Well all that changed when I met Mere. I knew before our first date that she was planning to move back to Texas at the end of the summer, that we probably wouldn't have a long-term relationship mainly because of that factor, but then we met and it just didn't make any sense for me to not join her down there.

I pay month-to-month rent and I can leave at any time.
I'm not in school so I don't have to worry about transferring credits, applications, blah blah blah.
I have a happy job, but everyone there will survive without me.
I can get up and go whenever.

We gave it a lot of thought. I'll stay here through the Holiday season so I can visit my family, pack all my belongings, and we'll hopefully bonus at work and I'll bring home some hefty chunks of change. We'll have some time to perfect the long-distance thing (though she's been traveling a little bit each month I've known her) and the absence will make our hearts grow fonder. Some people think we're pretty bold for trying the long-distance thing, but we easily point out that a few decades ago, couples maintained long-distance relationships and stayed together through thick and thin. Why should our situation be any different? AND: we have the added bonus of the lovely thing called the internet: Skype, emailing, instant messages, Facebook...we'll be fine.

Stubbornness and Determination

I made the most delicious smoothie this morning. Though places like Jamba Juice, Surf City Squeeze, and non-chain coffee shops provide really tasty fruity blended drinks to perfection, there's nothing more gratifying that doing it yourself. I should also mention, when making ANYTHING at home, you get to choose what goes into what you're making. This morning's smoothie was the most satisfying because I cracked a coconut open and used the milk as the base for my strawberry-banana smoothie. I've been known to down a smoothie nearly as fast as I'm capable of downing a glass of water after a long bike ride, but today I savored it. I gave Abbi a bit to taste since she helped me open the coconut and she agreed: pretty damn delicious.

After a few sips of my smoothie, I looked at the shell of the coconut and wondered just how I'd get the meat from the fruit. I went to YouTube, my trusty ally in most how-to scenarios. Unfortunately, my impatience and excitement won over reason and I decided that I'd just figure it out as I went. I started by scraping the meat with a fork. I certainly was getting shaved coconut, my desired outcome but at the rate I was going it would take me the full two hours I had before leaving for work to finish. Other ideas came to me and I messed around (quite literally: the table, counter and sink were covered in hairy shavings and coconut scraped bits) until I had some semblance of order. My technique helped me produce the most amount of edible coconut bits and the least amount of waste (that I could manage with the tools I was using).

As I used a spoon to pry parts of the coconut from it's shell, I thought: "This probably isn't the way anyone else would do this" "If someone saw me right know they'd laugh to high heaven" ... I was grateful that Abbi had left for the day and Jenny and James had decided to take a mid-morning nap; I was able to do whatever I pleased without anyone leaning over my shoulder. It was almost therapeutic, my method. It reminded me of how I choose to de-seed pomegranates. Certainly there are easier ways with less potential of staining various surfaces in the process, but I still choose to pull each individual seed away from it's skin, it's connection to the whole.

I'm reading The Fountainhead right now and I couldn't help but compare my fruit disassembling processes to the sketch assembly process Roark is known for. He's takes pride in his work even if it's not popular or liked at all. He refuses to do work that he knows he would be ashamed of. I like those ideals, they're quite similar to what I learned at a young age. When we had chores to do, my sister and I would often cut corners to get things done faster so we'd be able to head outside to play with our friends. When Mom would check to see what we'd done we'd often times have to re-do our task simply because it wasn't done up to her expectations. As a ten-year-old it was annoying to have to do something to someone else's standards; I didn't understand why Mom wouldn't just do the vacuuming herself if she had a particular way she wanted it done, but unlike my sister, after a bunch of times having to re-do my chores, I started doing them well, meticulously well.

Later I learned that nearly every task I'd have to accomplish would have to be done (in some way or another) to please and sometimes appease another. That realization sucked, but I'm glad that I was raised to accomplish a task that I'd want to sign my name to. There's no reward in doing things the easy way simply because it's the easiest. Tasks should be accomplished in a manner that produces the most satisfaction, the most gratification. Rarely, if ever are the two one and the same and I don't really mind that at all. I like challenges, I like to push myself and I don't mind getting dirty to get the job done.

So anyway, I've got some really strange looking coconut "shavings" and bits in a container that I'll bring to work today. I'll have what Gramps calls a "shit-eating" grin on my face while I snack on my coconut as I read more of The Fountainhead during my break.

The best way for me to get something done that I've been putting off is to stop saying: "I'll get to it" or "someday, I'll do that" and actually say, "I'm going to do this!"

Example:

Last Saturday, I was chatting with one of my co-workers about all sorts of things and somehow the topic of running came up. She told me about the Couch to 5k and how she's about to start it, planning on running in a 5k race in October. She suggested I look into it. I did and it sounded like a great way for me to ease into running instead of just deciding to pick up my pace one day.

On Sunday I mentioned to Mere and Mikey that I was thinking about training for a 5k, but I didn't go into any detail, just put it out there. On Monday I thought about it some more and decided: "For sure, I'm gonna do this!" Tuesday morning, when I was making a bacon quiche with Mikey, I made up my mind: "I am so doing this. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow."

On Tuesday afternoon, my grandmother called me to let me know that she was at Ikea. Her and Grandpa rarely make it to the Cities because they both can't sit for too long at a time, but uncle Tim drove them to the Cities for Grandpa's VA Medical Center appointment and afterwards, they wanted to check out Ikea. Thankfully, Abbi was able to give me a ride (in her beep-beep Jeep with the top down!) to Ikea on her way to work. Minutes after I met up with my family, they were joking about my shoes. I've had my Vibram KSOs for about three months now and rarely take them off. I realize that I look like I have gorilla feet, but I don't care in the least bit. I mentioned various reasons why the shoes are great and then I said: "This week I'm going to start training for a 5k." Before I went to bed that night, I decided: "Tomorrow night."

At work yesterday, I told Lauren that I was going to do my first workout that evening when I got home from work. It effortlessly floated out of my mouth and I didn't feel the need to change my mind. I was going to do it. And I did. And it felt great. And I can't wait until tomorrow night to do it again.

I'm going to keep a progress journal on Tumblr, so if you're at all interested, check it out here.