Well, I had a birthday so that was fun. We went to Washington DC for the weekend and saw all the things (or at least tried to!), walking up and down the mall, through most of the Smithsonian museums and amongst many cherry blossoms.
Booking Mexico for Matt’s birthday and he booked the Oregon Coast for our anniversary, so that is some nice beachy R&R in our future. But first DC for my birthday and then Vancouver for my dad’s birthday.
The man is full of joy.
Trying to cut down on plastic and cans but I’m also trying to cut down on drinking and I have developed a powerful LaCroix habit.
Studying all the (psych) things, painting the entire house. And now also the garden is coming up so weeding in between things too.
It’s in your pockets and behind your eyelids, it shares your clothes and has its hands wrapped around your throat. It’s dripping down the walls and yelling from the trees, it whispers and sings and dances and sobs, all day every day and your one and only job is to pay close attention
Really just more of the same – work, study, dance, walk the dogs – and it’s unlikely to change until mid-April, but we did have a lot of visitors over the weekend and that was fun.
What was beautiful:
Springtime in Cascadia!
First buds and blossoms of spring and the equinox full moon
Still studying, working, dancing but I have now made it back to yoga and running (hooray!) and working on painting the basement in my downtime. I think I’ve been holding it together ok without turning into too much of a stress case (although I am still pretty behind) but this morning my dog walked under my desk and got tangled in the power cable, pulled my computer into my coffee mug and dumped coffee all over my notes, notebook, art supplies, and leg. I jumped up and yelled, causing her to run into the cat, who then attacked my leg and much crying ensued. The irony of this is that I was writing an article on the benefits of pet ownership, which is now going to be even more late. I hope my tutor gets the joke.
Posts about orca deaths – Kayla and Tillicum – at Sea World. I thought everyone knew they were evil but it seems like I stepped down from my soapbox too soon.
So much! I started school so am now busy cramming all kinds of psych knowledge into my brain and basically jettisoning anything I don’t need.
Frida Kahlo’s House
but then I also went to Cuba and Mexico City with my sister, checked off several life list items, chilled out on the beach and ate many tacos.
Cuba
I saw enough of the snow to love playing with the dogs but then swapped to turquoise waters and sunshine – and am loving the winter sunshine in Seattle these days as well.
What was beautiful:
So many artifacts at the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City
Colors of Cuba
Lynda Lowe’s exhibit at the Patricia Rozvar gallery
This videoThis door, by Architect: Ernest Delune 📸 Manda on Flickr via Streetart Globe
Had a great time taking the train to Portland for a few days…shopping, wine-tasting, eating and wandering.
And then I painted the top floor of the house, went to Vancouver to check out Adler University and got back into running, yoga, flamenco, and eating well.
What was beautiful:
Murals, street art and old neon in Portland.
An updated description for “degan” in the Urban Dictionary prompted a bit of a deeper search that sounds like a poem:
Earth, grain. Little fish Dagger, a thrust-oriented dueling sword – on a black-haired degenerate dean
From the Old High German, from the Proto-Germanic, from Proto-Indo-European Cognate with Dutch degen, English thane, Icelandic þegn, Ancient.
Someone who will help you out through tuff times, a loveable person, a person you can count on.
Degan, I need help, what do you need
Degan, can you do something for me, yea what you need. ##keepyourheadup
(Don’t) put hos before bros,
ditch friends. John deganed out on us
“What a “pussywhippedassclown”
A fucking idiot who copies people’s words and drives an Accord. From the 17th century, degan contains Metoclopramide hydrochloride in Bulgaria and – a town in Ethiopia.
After 2 years of not being able to wear my wedding ring after I broke my hand, we got my stone set into a new setting and it is so pretty.
We spent a quiet Christmas at a cabin in Skykomish, watching the snow fall on the river and listening to the wood stove crackle in between walking the dogs, and doing very little else. It was blissful.
And then we spent a busy weekend visiting family rounded it off with some bubbles on the couch.
Last month I also had a couple of really special dinner parties (and brunch!) with some amazing people in spectacular locales that I am still relishing, went roller-skating a bunch of times and of course worked on my goals for 2019.
What was beautiful:
Some beautiful pieces of artwork, vintage pinball machines, wintry PNW landscapes, and my hair!
In October I re-posted an image on Instagram that read, “2018 is almost over and all I gotta say is what the fuck was that”. It felt like Matt was working all the time and between my work, canceledyoga retreat in Hawaii and most especially the news, I was bitter and resentful and frustrated a lot of the time. And tired. We were so tired.
But then Matt released his product (hooray!) and I got to go to Morocco, and I realized that while it was largely about connecting dots, introspecting and doing the daily work to shore up parts of life, it was also pretty special and amazing.
My niece was born in the last days of December so I got to meet her in January, I got a new motorcycle, I got to go to Morocco and back to Spain, rode in a hot air balloon, did the altMBA, was a maid of honor, dyed my hair blue, and immersed myself in flamenco.
Onwards and upwards in 2019! It’s going to be a big plot-twist year and I’m really excited.
