happy birthday to me

First birthday.
6th Birthday...I loved that puffalump!
An ugly doll from Brooke and Will :-)
My favorite college birthday consisted of a beer pong championship.
My first birthday spent with Dirk he took me to see Mofro at Zydeco. Fun times!
Who can forget the flaming birthday cupcake?! I spent #26 in Asheville, dancing to Railroad Earth, hiking, and eating scrum-diddly-umptious food!
We celebrated my birthday this past weekend in Nashville. Dirk got us 10th row seats at the Ryman Auditorium, to see one of my favorite performers, Trey Anastasio (the lead guitarist/vocalist from Phish.) We spent Sunday walking around and taking silly pictures. It was great!

Traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony

First, we all knelt and rinsed our hands in this rock.
Then, we took off our shoes and crawled through this.
We ate these sweeties before the ceremony.
Natsuko performed an intricate dance to prepare each bowl of tea.
After bowing and thanking the tea, you place it in your left hand and turn it clockwise twice.
You're supposed to finish your bowl in three and a half sips. On the last sip you can make a big slurping sound.
It was delicious!
Thank you, Natsuko!
Then I slid the door open and this is what I saw :-)

groovin' to the grooviness

"My" yoga studio :-)

I am on a complete and total yoga high right now! I'm at this amazing green retreat center outside of Santa Fe, and the instructor didn't show up for our yoga class this morning, so I taught the class. It felt so relaxing and natural! I wasn't at all nervous, and I knew exactly what to do. I got tons of compliments and a round of applause afterwards. Maybe I should pursue yoga instruction? Hmmmmm......

New Mexico is amazing. Soaring at 7000 feet above sea level near Santa Fe, with people who are not called "groovy" or "hippies" for having natural spiritual thoughts. I mean, last night when we were having dinner (all organic, locally grown cuisine) and talking about our relationships, the spa director was telling the story of how she met her husband and she actually said, "The first time we hugged, my chakras went wild, and I just KNEW he was the man I'd spend the rest of my life with." They took a roadtrip and had a private, spiritual wedding ceremony, just the two of them, and they came back married. I don't know if they're legally married, or just spiritually married, but it did not seem the least bit strange considering our surroundings. This place is so steeped in spiritual culture, history, and creativity, that describing that FEELING you get when you meet someone you feel you've known your entire life in terms of chakras seemed the most logical description of said phenomenon.

My casita at Sunrise Springs Retreat

Ramblings. I'm about to have a cranialsacral therapy, which will realign my central nervous system and heal me from the inside out for at least three weeks. The transformative therapy will work with the patterns my body was formed around. The theory holds that in the womb we are all perfect beings, and then we suffer bodily trauma as we get older, first at childbirth, then through normal things like crossing our legs, running, wiping out on our bikes, etc. So this session will work at restoring my body to it's perfect form. Might be difficult considering the scoliosis, but people that have undergone the treatment come out two inches taller. Here's to being 5'8" in a few hours :-)

The spa at Sunrise Springs is going to be unlike any other spa I've visited. It's a completely natural surrounding. There's no music, no smells, and even the water comes straight from the natural spring (no cucumber or lemon slices, darn!) They want patrons to focus on their surroundings, hear the birds sing, the bugs buzz, the wind through the 150 year-old tree limbs. All the products used are grown and made on site. All organic, all natural.

So yeah, this place is pretty freaking sweet.

off to school, off to school

One of the best things about visiting in Asheville was dressing Taylor up in five different outfits every day and taking photos. This picture might just be my favorite. Doesn't she look like she's dressed for her first day of kindergarten? Either that or school pictures?

baby breakdown....

One of the greatest things about my goddaughter are her mood swings. Seriously. She's a sensitive soul, and will be smiling and happy one minute, and if you start laughing or giggling at how cute she is, she'll start screaming the next. Because she's still too young to draw the distinction between laughing WITH and laughing AT. And, as opposed to Brooke, I blame this ALL on her genetics. She's exactly like a few other people in her family, and her baby bingo moments made for some fun photo opportunities:

pickin' and a grinnin'

I've spent the weekend with my five-year-old friend, Goodwin. I started babysitting for Goodwin's family when I moved to Birmingham five years ago (he was four months old.) I went to work at St. Luke's preschool and Goodwin was in my class two of the three years I was there. I've continued to sit for his family at LEAST once a week for the entire time, so G is pretty much a huge part of my life. And I am so thankful. Cause he is such a cool kid. His current favorite past-time is music. He has numerous toy guitars, and recently got a mandolin and a banjo. This kid performs concerts for me with songs he makes up on the spot. He rattles on about John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and how sad he is that Jerry died. Yesterday after a trip to the zoo, we headed to my house, so he could pick on the item that makes me the "cool" babysitter. My bamjo.

there is a season....

I've been on the Barack Obama bandwagon for awhile now, but as of Wednesday I'm taking it to a new level. I am fully embracing and living his mantra: "The Change We Need," except I'm adapting it to "The Change I Need." And while I'm not scared to embrace the next chapter of my life and career, I could use all the encouraging words the blogosphere has to offer! Wish me luck!

innovation

I found this leash in Fish Creek, Wisconsin, and I thought it was so funny I just had to buy it for Sipsey. There were others like, "One of us is a bitch," "One of us eats grass," and my personal favorite, "One of us has no balls." Another plus, the leash fits perfectly wrapped around my waist as a belt while we're hiking.

savage for savage's

Mama's obsession with Savage's Bakery (www.savagesbakery.net) is a running joke amongst our extended family. Sarah Graffeo loves to tell about the time she was personally responsible for transporting an entire box of cookies from Birmingham all the way to Iowa and Mama nibbled on ONE cookie and then threw the rest away.

I have to hand it to my mother, though, she DOES have incredible taste. Not only does Savage's make signature cookies such as the smiley face cookies, sand tarts, and gingerbread men, they also make amazing breakfast pastries and petit fours. Then there's their amazingly decorated, delicious cakes. One year they even made a cake shaped like the torso of a heavily endowed bikini-clad female for my grandfather.

While I rarely endulge in my Savage's cravings (the line to the register is always about a half a mile long), I get hot flashes whenever I spy their signature white box with distinct maroon logo (whether it's at a house where I'm babysitting or the company break room.) I almost puked I was so excited when Jorge brought this cheesecake for Aimee's birthday celebration down to the lake:

rounding off a fun summer...

We started out the summer by spending Memorial Day Weekend at Lay Lake with our friends Aimee and Jorge, and we ended up the summer spending Labor Day weekend at the same lake and house with most of the same people. Except Dirk didn't drink a bottle of Maker's Mark and I didn't spend an entire night taking care of him. Which was fabulous.We celebrated Aimee's birthday, ate tons and tons of yummy food, drank caparini's to our heart's content, swam, slept, and kept a close watch on Gustav, which was heading straight towards Aimee and Katie's family's home in Franklin, Louisiana. Thankfully Dirk had brought bunny ears for the television (God forbid he miss the first Alabama game of the season!) I have to hand it to him, though, ever since he bought ME a plasma television in December (just what I wanted, right?) he has been counting down the days to Alabama football. He was even going to stay at home and drive down separately after the game, but the antenna was the wise decision. Plus, it enabled us to get hurricane coverage in an otherwise remote area (no cell phone service.)One must never forget one's alcoholic beverage when floating around the lake.
We all enjoyed watching our two lesbian dogs make out.
Sipsey and I floated around on the raft....someone failed to tell me that sunscreen EXPIRES (I blame my mother)! I applied 30spf TWICE that day and STILL got a horrible burn!
Enjoying the sunset on the dock.