In Dreams

Matt and I started watching his Lord of the Rings extended edition bonus features two years ago, right around the time we got engaged.

(credit)

On July 24, 2010, we finally finished all six discs of bonus features.

Now it kinda feels like I've said goodbye to an old friend...

The bonus features are beautiful, hilarious, and eye-opening.
I highly recommend it!

Babies

So, I've never been one to be really obsessed with babies or small children.
But last Sunday, the kids I work with at church were being so cute,
and then we visited some friends who had a baby that was so cute,
and I came home and couldn't stop talking about babies the whole night.

And I know I'm just asking for it now,
"So when are you having kids?"
And the answer is still, "Not for a long time"
But I just thought it was a significant milestone,
this affection for babies,
like a sign that my maternal instincts aren't broken.
It makes me happy.

(*credit)

Quarter-asian babies are adorable.
It's kinda weird knowing that my babies will be more Italian than asian,
but that's the way it goes, huh?

Consequently, I am way excited to see my nieces next month.
Also way excited to see California again.
I've been really California-hungry lately.
I miss koi ponds.
:3


* Does anyone know who this photo's by? I got it off Flickr a long time ago but now I can't find it to credit! :C

Cormorant

4th of July weekend felt a lot longer and a lot more epic than it seemed 2 days could hold. I am still recovering from the epicness, just barely touched my to-do list for the first time in 4 days. I didn't even watch any fireworks, except for the one that someone lit off behind our house which fizzled out as soon as it reached its height. I have really nice in-laws. The house is always so quiet after they leave.
I took my passport photos yesterday, and they are quite bomb, if I do say so myself. I was comparing my old passport photo to my new one. My old one was from 2002, so I would have been 12 or 13. I remember it was a hot day, we had driven to San Francisco for some reason and I was super sweaty and not excited to find out that I was having my picture taken. And of all colors, I was wearing powder blue. Powder blue! The bane of my existence, for some reason I always seem to have important articles of clothing in powder blue, one of the top 10 colors to un-flatter my skin tone. I looked terribly disgruntled, as evidenced by my half-smile in the picture.
Yesterday, instead of driving to a ritzy office in a big city, I took my picture at a Walgreens, in front of a pull-down screen in the chip aisle. But I was confident, prepared-grown up. And the picture turned-out great. Putting the pictures side by side, I couldn't help but wonder if my 12 year-old self saw me turning into the person I am today, and if she would be happy.
I think yes.
Anyways, I'm really happy with the picture that is going to represent me to all the customs offices I come into contact with for the next 10 years. Now, let's see if I can get my Driver's License picture better the second time around...

Marmot

Recent obsessions:
-Baking cupcakes
-Growing my hair out
-Breton folk music

Recent struggles:
-Neck sprain
-Not sleeping well
-Strained and watery eyes
-How to be antisocial and not have people hate you
-Not enough hours in a day

Recent joys:
-Spontaneous days
-Wearing flip-flops
-Long conversations with Matt
-My CD coming in the mail
-Trying a cool new recipe
-http://www.gothsinhotweather.com/

Blur

Yesterday was a complete blur to me. I have a bad habit of catastrophically upsetting my sleep schedule on my weekends, resulting in dazed wanderings and forgetful mumblings and other general silliness. I don't even remember falling asleep, just that I had gone to lay down on the foot of the bed, and then next thing I know Matt is smiling at me and tucking me in and I sleep on my stomach and dream about attacking a giant turtle in my backyard.
Ugh.
I have yet to figure out my attack plan for the day, but playing violin for 3 hours sounds like a good plan, right? I need one of those days.

Can I have ears like that?

A few nights ago I dreamt about phoenix down and floating leaves in a grove filled with sunlight. In the same dream I played in a band with elves, who, being elves, had extra-sensitive hearing and could hear sound frequencies that us humans couldn't. They would use sounds with those frequencies in our music, because they were "so cool," and I would just have to keep grooving even though I couldn't hear what they were playing. It was pretty cool.
Last night I had a nightmare about still being at that Battle of the Bands we played two nights ago. We were there for six hours, and it was way past my bedtime. I had been awake for 22 hours by the time I finally got home and went to bed. But I dreamt that the last band was still playing and we were still there, waiting for them to finish. Oh. The horror! I can't.

The madness has finally ended, we will not be playing any more shows for the rest of the summer! I'm excited to write, and have normal weekends again. I will, however, miss having an excuse to slather my eyelids with black gel and wear heavy boots in the summer. Fun times, fun times!

Smoothie Making Season

Thus begins smoothie-making season: aka the time of the year when I start sweating all through work, and come home to a house that has no air conditioning and a broken swamp-cooler. Who would have thought that the skills I learned at Jamba Juice would one day come back and save my life?
On the other hand, the heat helped my fingers move more freely tonight for an hour of blissful violin playing. The neighbors had their door open while watching sports. There was a group of four guys in my kitchen playing D&D amiss the noise of the fan. No one could hear me, therefore, my playing was fantastic. Cause, you know, we all play amazingly when no one is listening, right? We're all secretly virtuoso players.
Recently I've been thinking about California. I saw some ducklings by the bell tower the other day, and I thought of how many more ducklings there would be back in the Shores, and, how many more goslings there would be, small and awkward and grey, with their mothers hissing at you and/or stopping traffic and being generally obnoxious so you really can't enjoy their cute babies. But I love them. Then I decided my car air filter smelled like the Caltrain. (is that good or bad...?)
I guess I write about the seasons a lot >_< I love it though. I know it's so hippie of me, but I really just want to be in tune with nature. Wake up when the sun comes up, go to bed a few hours after it goes down. Be outside, take naps outside, read and write under a tree, something like that. Something. Where is my tree, now?