i LOVE this movie.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
This is what happens when I can't sleep.
This is my "Mosaic of Me," which I happily stumbled upon at the SCOOP. Want one do ya?
Answer the following 12 questions about yourself
(my answers are in parentheses after each question):
(my answers are in parentheses after each question):
1. What is your first name? (erin)
2. What is your favorite food? (pasta)
3. What high school did you attend? (hanna)
4. What is your favorite color? (leaf green)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (cary ann hearst)
6. Favorite drink? (coffee)
7. Dream vacation? (new zealand)
8. Favorite dessert? (chocolate)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (happy)
10. What do you love most in life? (laughter)
11. One word to describe you? (learning)
12. Your Flickr name? (each good rain)
Type your answer to each of the above questions into Flickr's search. Using only the images that appear on the first page, choose your favorite and copy and paste each of the URL’s into the Mosaic Maker.
This is going to seem like a great use of time when my alarm wakes me up a few hours from now...but so pretty, right?
photo creds:
Monday, January 5, 2009
The disposal of a year.
Copying birthdays, throwing out old notes, reliving the year in 52 short flips. The shiny new 09 calendar seems to laugh at my worn and bulky 08 calendar as they lay side by side. But as the weeks pass from page to page, 08 begins to stand a little taller, realizing the crucial experience it has that the newcomer does not. 2009, so far, is all business, while 2008 may be bulky and worn, but is bulky with laughter, worn with emotion. A tough year, no doubt, but with beauty tucked in if you know where to look. And then, in late July, a simple scrawl claiming the weekend for "excitement!" I still can't quite remember what the excitement was, but in that moment I realize that despite our disagreements, power struggles, and disappointments in each other, 2008 and I had an alright run after all.
Oh 2009. I've got my coffeepot (resolve #1: no more diet coke), fancy new pens (resolve #2: keep writing writing writing), and a few jokes up my sleeve (resolve #3: stop taking everything so daggum seriously). Perhaps a bit of glamour will find its way in as well...
Oh 2009. I've got my coffeepot (resolve #1: no more diet coke), fancy new pens (resolve #2: keep writing writing writing), and a few jokes up my sleeve (resolve #3: stop taking everything so daggum seriously). Perhaps a bit of glamour will find its way in as well...
Thursday, December 4, 2008
My name is Erin. And I have hips.
"Hi Erin."
Let's talk for a second about curves. In our current world, curves on the road in a fast fancy car commercial? Good. Curves on the girl driving (or, more likely, riding in) said fun fancy car commercial? Not so good.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the role body image plays, in my life and beyond. This is largely (no pun intended) on my mind because I, who used to be the stick-thin, long-legged, gangly girl am...well, no longer stick thin and gangly. I've grown up, in some sense of the phrase, and have recently had to accept that the body I inhabit has also grown up, changed, and perhaps doesn't WANT to fit into those jeans from college. That realization alone is enough to send you straight to the pint (of Ben and Jerry's, that is). However, recognizing this shift and dealing with this change is not what upset me. What really gets to me is that my first reaction to this whole situation was guilt. How could I let this happen to me? I'm going to have to *gasp* go up a size! How dare I allow my body to mature past the age of 18!
A look at art throughout the ages is often used as an illustration that heavier women were once the ideal shape in the Western world, and how bodily ideals change as a result of the current societal and cultural views. And to an extent, I agree. A part of me is convinced that the "ideal" body shape is dictated only by the shape for which current fashion designers create clothing (Can't find a blouse that fits? Your body must be the wrong shape). But don't you also have to take into account that artists from the Renaissance and beyond painted many different shapes of women, not to mention they all had patrons who dictated the image they were to create? Ideal, schmideal.
A recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune reported that neither the hourglass figure, nor any figure for that matter, are "ideal" as once was thought, stating that all body shapes have their trade-offs ("the human body is a compromise"). It goes on to remind people, "In the past, women were their bodies. Now it is about what we're doing in our lives and who we are as people." So yes, bigger hips may mean scientifically more fertile, which at one point in time may have been an "ideal" way for women to be. And maybe now, as an assertion of our independence from that mode of thinking, we somehow managed to create a culture that worships straightness, flatness.
My bottom line with all this? Beauty doesn't have to be (and SHOULDN'T be) curves or no curves or some magic ratio in the middle. Why is there so much importance placed on what size we are and not how healthy or happy we are? If we actually are the strong, independent and no-nonsense women we claim so loudly to be, why do we let the number on the tags of our clothes dictate how we feel and treat ourselves?
Let's talk for a second about curves. In our current world, curves on the road in a fast fancy car commercial? Good. Curves on the girl driving (or, more likely, riding in) said fun fancy car commercial? Not so good.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the role body image plays, in my life and beyond. This is largely (no pun intended) on my mind because I, who used to be the stick-thin, long-legged, gangly girl am...well, no longer stick thin and gangly. I've grown up, in some sense of the phrase, and have recently had to accept that the body I inhabit has also grown up, changed, and perhaps doesn't WANT to fit into those jeans from college. That realization alone is enough to send you straight to the pint (of Ben and Jerry's, that is). However, recognizing this shift and dealing with this change is not what upset me. What really gets to me is that my first reaction to this whole situation was guilt. How could I let this happen to me? I'm going to have to *gasp* go up a size! How dare I allow my body to mature past the age of 18!
A look at art throughout the ages is often used as an illustration that heavier women were once the ideal shape in the Western world, and how bodily ideals change as a result of the current societal and cultural views. And to an extent, I agree. A part of me is convinced that the "ideal" body shape is dictated only by the shape for which current fashion designers create clothing (Can't find a blouse that fits? Your body must be the wrong shape). But don't you also have to take into account that artists from the Renaissance and beyond painted many different shapes of women, not to mention they all had patrons who dictated the image they were to create? Ideal, schmideal.
A recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune reported that neither the hourglass figure, nor any figure for that matter, are "ideal" as once was thought, stating that all body shapes have their trade-offs ("the human body is a compromise"). It goes on to remind people, "In the past, women were their bodies. Now it is about what we're doing in our lives and who we are as people." So yes, bigger hips may mean scientifically more fertile, which at one point in time may have been an "ideal" way for women to be. And maybe now, as an assertion of our independence from that mode of thinking, we somehow managed to create a culture that worships straightness, flatness.
My bottom line with all this? Beauty doesn't have to be (and SHOULDN'T be) curves or no curves or some magic ratio in the middle. Why is there so much importance placed on what size we are and not how healthy or happy we are? If we actually are the strong, independent and no-nonsense women we claim so loudly to be, why do we let the number on the tags of our clothes dictate how we feel and treat ourselves?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A little help?
Untie my brain that it may be drop kicked into clarity;
fuse open my eyes that they may always see;
unclench my heart that it may absorb the incoming;
reprimand my negotiator for serving negativity over easy,
like an elegant Sunday brunch.*
fuse open my eyes that they may always see;
unclench my heart that it may absorb the incoming;
reprimand my negotiator for serving negativity over easy,
like an elegant Sunday brunch.*
Monday, December 1, 2008
A dash of ambition...
I prepared the entire Thanksgiving feast this year for my family. I know what you're thinking. Isn't this the Erin that subsisted solely off of mac n' cheese, special k, and takeout during college? The same Erin that was terrified at the sight of uncooked chicken until a few short years ago? And yes, you are correct. My mother (who, by they way, is the oldest of seven children and has always held a not so secret grudge against me for my lack of cooking, sewing, and other domestic skills) has been threatening me for years with the prospect of taking the lead on this most important culinary day. And this year, I was ready.
I am, by no means, an excellent cook. But I began preparing for the big day weeks in advance, planning my menu, scheduling dishes that could be made in advance. The preparing began on Monday last week with the baking of pumpkin bread and continued through Thursday, the day when roasting, mashing, stuffing, peeling, chopping, and simmering took up a solid 8 hours(!) of my day. And by 5:00, the 26 pounder came out of the oven, and dinner was served.
I didn't get pictures of all my tasty sides (like this butternut squash soup- SO delicious), and they didn't stick around for long after we sat down, but I did snag a look at my maple sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. The meal was lovely, and I was asleep by 9 pm, full, exhausted and a little bit proud that a frozen pizza kind of girl can evolve so much in just one short year.
Important lessons my mother wanted me to learn from this experience: that she is a saint for having made Thanksgiving dinner for our family for over 25 years; that we all owe her for the rest of our lives; and that her methods of cooking are the best ever employed.
Lessons I learned all on my own: I will never marry a man/have children that don't help me cook (they don't peel potatoes, they don't eat potatoes); cooking is WORK and you shouldn't have to clean up (luckily my lovely father already knows this); spending all day working with your hands, not listening to tv or answering your phone, and actually having a real conversation with your extremely wise mother is a beautiful way to spend the holiday.
I am, by no means, an excellent cook. But I began preparing for the big day weeks in advance, planning my menu, scheduling dishes that could be made in advance. The preparing began on Monday last week with the baking of pumpkin bread and continued through Thursday, the day when roasting, mashing, stuffing, peeling, chopping, and simmering took up a solid 8 hours(!) of my day. And by 5:00, the 26 pounder came out of the oven, and dinner was served.
I didn't get pictures of all my tasty sides (like this butternut squash soup- SO delicious), and they didn't stick around for long after we sat down, but I did snag a look at my maple sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. The meal was lovely, and I was asleep by 9 pm, full, exhausted and a little bit proud that a frozen pizza kind of girl can evolve so much in just one short year.
Important lessons my mother wanted me to learn from this experience: that she is a saint for having made Thanksgiving dinner for our family for over 25 years; that we all owe her for the rest of our lives; and that her methods of cooking are the best ever employed.
Lessons I learned all on my own: I will never marry a man/have children that don't help me cook (they don't peel potatoes, they don't eat potatoes); cooking is WORK and you shouldn't have to clean up (luckily my lovely father already knows this); spending all day working with your hands, not listening to tv or answering your phone, and actually having a real conversation with your extremely wise mother is a beautiful way to spend the holiday.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Relief.
"I loved that he cleaned up after himself before leaving an ice cream shop in Wapello, Iowa. He didn't have to. The event was over and the press had left. He is used to taking care of things himself and I think this is one of the qualities that makes Obama different from so many other political candidates I've encountered."
My new President cleans up after his tasty cone. And I think that says a lot. These incredible photos taken by Callie Shell throughout the campaign cause the goosebumps that began the moment "Barack Obama elected 44th President" appeared on my TV screen to continue, two days later, and allow me to fully realize that I am part of something so big, so exciting, and so important that I will be proud of this week for as long as I breathe.
America, welcome back!
My new President cleans up after his tasty cone. And I think that says a lot. These incredible photos taken by Callie Shell throughout the campaign cause the goosebumps that began the moment "Barack Obama elected 44th President" appeared on my TV screen to continue, two days later, and allow me to fully realize that I am part of something so big, so exciting, and so important that I will be proud of this week for as long as I breathe.
America, welcome back!
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