Thoughts for a Wednesday

1 - Ladies and Gentlemen, Oceanic Flight 815 is about to make it's final descent.  Last night's episode, "Happily Ever After" was my favorite of the season thus far (only equaled by Richard Alpert's backstory - oh Richard, how I love thee).  But any episode with my future husband, Mr. Desmond David Hume,  is guaranteed to be a great one - did you catch all the nuisances and lines from previous episodes and seasons that were uttered?  I'm glad to see that finally the Sideways world and the Island world merging and coming to a conclusion.  It's like "Yes, please tell me the end!!" intermingled with "No, I don't want it to end!!" I find myself living in between two worlds! (And apologies to all those who read this blog and that paragraph just made utterly no sense to you).

2 - I was driving today back from lunch and had this epiphany (I have a lot of epiphanies while driving) that I feel like I am finally growing up and becoming my own person, my own woman.  I feel like I'm beginning to finally understand "who" I am and what I want.  And I can't put this feeling into any concrete words other than just this general feeling of latent confidence.  I read all these quotes from fashion designers or stylists or magazine writers that say that confidence is the sexiest part of a woman, or as Nina Garcia says, "Confidence is captivating, it is powerful, and it does not fade - and that is endlessly more interesting than beauty."  I don't think I've ever understood what that means, to have confidence.  But I'm beginning to think that it's an attitude that understands who you are and accepts and loves yourself for who you are.  I can count on my hand the numbers of times that I've felt that way - most of them as a result of traveling somewhere by myself - but I'm beginning to feel this way in my everyday life.  It feels good to begin to understand who you are.

3 - If you read this blog at all, you know my love of dance.  Well this weekend I had the pleasure of watching another dance performance, this dedicated to the art of tango.  It is a beautiful, sexy dance that makes me wish I could move my feet with any kind of rhythm (in my Sideways world life maybe?).  But what is even more fun to have a tango attitude - overly dramatic, sexy, stalking-esque, and lots of pointed toes.  And when you try tangoing inanimate objects, life becomes very fun.  Point in case, this photo of me "tangoing" my wall, or as my friend said, my self-timer - either way, a tango attitude brings a lot of sexy to a moment.

4 - You know how they say it takes a village to raise a child?  I would like to coin a new saying, "It takes a village to take care of a single woman."  Because without the generosity and love of my family and friends, I wonder how I would eat or exist and live the amazing, wonderful life I am blessed with.  The only reason I can begin to have confidence in who I am is because of being loved by all the wonderful people who I am lucky to call family and friends.

5 - I hope everyone had a wonderful, blissful, and blessed Easter this past weekend!  I was blessed to spend the entire day with my family (minus my sister who is living Down Under) and most of that day was spent outside on my parents' new screened in porch and patio that they added to the house right before winter came.  This was the first weekend that we all got to sit out there and it was so lovely.  My parents even got a fire pit and we got to toast marshmallows (or actually, as my mom and prefer them, marshmallow a flambeau) and sit around the fire pit enjoying each other's company and the beautiful night time sky.  It was the perfect day and a memory that I will always treasure.

6 - WWWWWAAAAAAHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!  Yes, folks, I did indeed triumph and win my office's NCAA pool!!!  After 5 1/2 years and coming close a few of those years, I finally won!! Unreal.  It marks the second time in my life that I have won an NCAA pool and so awesome.  The ironic thing is that I missed the entire tournament - I did not watch one single game, not even the championship game.  Yes, seriously.  Hey, what can I say - I'm a busy girl?

7 - And Hallelujah, Baseball is back!!!!!! A piece of my life that was missing is finally back.  Long summer nights, dramatic games, every pitch meaning something, the entire pace of a game switching in a heartbeat - there is nothing more excitedly boring to watch than baseball.  My goal is to make it to a Yankees game this year, as well as more than one Nationals game.  I probably have a better chance of succeeding at making it to a Nats game than the Yanks, but who knows?

8 - And spring is officially here!  Really and truly, my heart was rejoicing this morning as I was driving into my office.  There is nothing more beautiful than seeing the trees blossom into amazing green goodness and beauty, interspersed with flowers everywhere - pink, white, yellow, purple - all these amazing gorgeous colors.  The beauty of spring truly makes my heart sing.  Allelulia - the long winter is over and the promise and hope of resurrection yet again bursts forth with song and beauty.

Only 2 Posts...

*Sigh*

I wish I could say that I foresee more time for blogging in the future, but next month is going to be a whirlwind of chaos with seemingly everything happening all at once.  But I am sad that I have only gotten to this forum twice in the entire month.  So much has been happening within my life and my thoughts and heart and I wish I had some time to chronicle it, but oh well.  It is what it is.  Now is not the season for blogging.

But, just to run through a few of the things on my mind lately....

1 - THE YANKEES ARE IN THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!  And all is right with the world.  I can hardly watch the games from fear that I will have a heart attack/jinx my team from winning.  Every single pitch is a tense moment - on both sides!  And this is probably the best baseball that I have watched in a long, long, long time.  Good pitching will always prevail over amazing hitting.  And blown umpire calls are a part of the game - always have been, always will be - as long as both sides get blown calls evenly!

2 - Afghanistan and Pakistan - Every single day this situation gets worse and worse.  My heart breaks for the people living there, caught in the middle of this conflict.  And there are no easy answers on how to deal with either nation.  Half of Pakistan and Afghanistan want to be ruled by the Taliban again.  But the fact that the State Department and the White House would consider this an acceptable resolution (letting the Taliban become the governing body) is sickening from a human rights standpoint.  Not that what is currently happening is not sickening as well though.  There are no easy answers here and historically speaking, there is no way to win a guerrilla war when the population in general wants you gone.

3 - I am so excited for this coming November!  I am going to get to experience so many amazing things from concerts with classical music masters, alternative rock concerts, the premiere b-boy hip-hop dance event of the year, and a few plays here and there.  The creative part of my brain doesn't even know how to process all of these coming awesome events!

4 - The leaves are gorgeous right now, though there are a lot of trees that are now bare!! It makes me sad that the dark winter months of bare trees and cold are ahead - though there can be beauty found within them as well - but you have to look really hard for it.  For now, I will revel in the ending of fall as these particular last days are a showcase of God's creation in all of its glory.  Hopefully, as I age and grow closer to death my life will be a reflection of the beauty of God's creation in all of its glory as well.

5 - A family reunited is a beautiful thing.  My sister is home from Australia for the next few months and I wish I could put into words the completeness there is in having her home.  There really aren't words.

There is more, much more that is also going on, including the restoration of my heart and soul after a particularly hard summer.  I hope that at some point I get to process and digest in further detail, but I can say that I know - truly, deeply know - that God loves me.  His love is more profound than I can even describe and I am so grateful that He has blessed the eyes of my heart to see that realization.

Again, there really aren't words.

Baseball Sadness

Last week saw the conclusion of Major League Baseball's World Series, the Fall Classic. This year, even though my beloved Yankees didn't even make it to the playoffs, I thoroughly enjoyed watching both the American and National League Championship Series, as well as the World Series itself. And in the baseball world, the World Series concluded in a dramatic and convoluted fashion - which is fitting, considering the political environment we find ourselves in.


I found it so ironic that the officiating during the World Series was about on par with the officiating that I see day in and day out for two months during the summer - absolutely terrible. We expect perfection from umpires, who are only human in the end, and hate it when they blow calls. There is no other game that has such subjective officiating, especially in terms of calling strikes or balls, and that in and of itself makes the game that much more dramatic. The strike zones of the officials in Philadelphia were ridiculous - the Rays' pitchers totally were hosed by the calls that the umpires made and that wasn't cool. It should have been a much tighter series than it was, but all being said, with the exception of the blowout of Game 4, each game was only decided by one or two runs - which speaks to the level of quality baseball being played by both teams.

I wish the Rays had found a way, but that Cole Hamels was lights out. And I love it when I see a well-pitched game. I wish Cole Hamels had pitched a complete game in the Series, much like Josh Beckett did when he was on the Marlins against the Yankees five years ago (seriously - five years - ugh, I'm so old).

It does make me sad that baseball is over - though it truly was over for me at the beginning of August. The end of baseball is always the harbinger of my Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder kicking in for the cold months, dark nights, and limited light of the day. At least spring training is not too far away. :)