curling up in a warm, blanket-covered bed.

it's the small things that make days better.

i'm growing tired of the activity of bundling up and delayering. and i realized today it's a little exhausting to walk in the snow. have you ever noticed this? snow was clumping together on the bottom of my boots, i was blinking like 5 times a second because of the snowy wind, and the concentration of trying to not slip at any second==all of these amount to too much spent energy.

just my little rave and rant for the day. comfy blankets>yay. below freezing winter>nay.

as a follow-up to my post about writersblok journals and the org. they support 826nyc, here's an editorial from the new york times about the book thanks and have fun running the country: a collection of kids' letters to president obama. it's a compilation of advice letters that kids from various 826 centers throughout america wrote to the new pres. it'll put a smile on your face for sure.

yesterday 3:48: volunteering at the mustard seed, a fair trade store in downtown columbia. one of my favorite places to spend friday afternoons.

i found my new journals.

they're called writersblok. or what i like to call, the cheaper (colorful) moleskine.

they come with sticky tags to put in the middle spot for a label.

and what's great is that 2% of sales goes to literacy-related programs around the country. like 826NYC in new york city, "a non-profit organization helping students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills and helping teachers inspire their students to write." (modeled after one in san francisco founded by dave eggers :) )

i'm in love. and want to visit 826NYC.

i'm writing a reflective essay on the inauguration for a class and i realized the images of yesterday are what stick out in my mind. and if i could have taken a picture yesterday (instead of [insert historical photograph here]) this would be it.

the capitol building just looks beautiful and majestic here. i realized how little worth i give to the gems of architecture and history we have in this country because of my obsession with more historical art. but i want to visit d.c. so badly now. i have an itch to appreciate the monuments, memorials and art america has to offer.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009: The Inauguration of President Obama

[insert historical moment picture here.]

11:22: that's the picture i wish i could have captured today.

i think i had goosebumps several times today, or at least pure joy and pride.

pride to look around and see others so prideful of our country, a new chapter.

it was a day full of me thinking "i want to remember everything about these hours".

the places i watched the inauguration. the people i was surrounded by. the things i felt.

2nd semester started today. and my second class was at 11 but our teacher told us "i didn't realize this class would be during the inauguration. and i think we all need to be watching history. so here's your syllabus. go." more or less. we have to write a reflective essay for the class (intermediate magazine writing) about the inauguration and media coverage.

today was the first time that the WOWness of this history in the making hit me. "brought me to teary eyes" kind of hit me.

and now: we wait. we watch. we pray. we hope.

2:42: at capen park on my first geocaching experience. 

6:04: (this is not weird colored mush) after buying welcome back groceries, i took the opportunity to make a batch of bolognese pasta sauce--while i still have the time. it was a piece of home.

4:08: done packing.

5:07: coffee (or salted caramel hot chocolate) at starbucks with laura, leslie and sunny for a final farewell. and shreveport had legitimate colder weather today (silent "yay!") so warm beverages were a must.

i love watching american idol auditions.

don't judge me. especially if you're simon.

5:55: i noticed bare trees in my back yard. they're kind of an obsession of mine.

4:29: christine informed me there is a valeria, iowa.

6:09: i made apple, brie & prosciutto bruschetta for our golden globe watching night

4:20 when we returned from starbucks, we saw that tipton was not pleased that he was not invited 

5:15: beautiful shreveport evening sky after seeing bride wars with mom.

i came across this blog the other day:

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

first, i love the name (apparently it's a quote by jean-paul sartre). i think my 'too late/too early' time would be closer to 4, but to each his own.

secondly, i love the concept of the blog: for 1 year 4 photographers and friends took a picture at 3 o'clock (their local time) and compiled the 4 for a daily post. they did this for the entire year of 2008.

which inspired me to steal the idea (but give it its rightful credit) and try it myself.

but i know myself, and i know how i start things with all this excitement, and then lose track of things/the excitement. so i'm not making any promises. but i'd like to start a miniature project like this of my own.

i may start today, but my camera cord was left at school by mistake, so the photos won't be up and going til next week. but we'll see.

i hope that blog inspires others to try it out for themselves too. i think it's a neat way to keep track of what your day-to-day life looks like.

in honor of many "best of" and "top 10" lists I have read and heard recently, I'm doing my rendition of a list of favorites. here are some of my favorite scenes in movies or musicals : )

*The end of Love Actually.

*The scene in Beauty and the Beast with "Something There" when they are playing in the snow.

*The scene in Elizabethtown when Drew and Claire spend all night
talking on the phone and finally decide to meet up.

*The beginning car scene in When Harry Met Sally.

*The trolley ride in Meet Me in St. Louis.

*The end of Defying Gravity in Wicked.

---sorry for the lack of consistency with YouTube embedding and links,
it decided to work for me once, then never again.

I wrote these as they came to me so I may return to this at a later date.

what do john mayer, a bread knife, christina aguilera, and a trolley car have in common?

i won't make it a habit to blog about my dreams (cause i have ultra weird ones at times, friends can attest to that) but this one from last night was entertaining, i think.

...i was at a john mayer concert. it took place in an indoor pool. 

the concert ended and as i was swimming out of the pool, i saw john mayer blocking a door in the pool (acting like a body guard to keep you from going backstage or something). 

i told him 'good show' and he said thanks in a self-deprecating, woe-is-me kind of way.

i start leaving the venue and he catches up with me outside and walks with me. 

he hands me these cassette tapes, says 'we like to give these out at some concerts' and i'm thinking 'oh cool, secret john mayer releases.' wrong: they're really old christina aguilera tapes. mmm, ok. so he keeps walking with me (i'm going home, in an unknown city though). 

we get to a corner where a trolley car is stopped. a man gets out and grabs john by the collar and asks him for money. he does this in a kind of half-joking way so we don't get too freaked out. john says he doesn't have anything, as do i (while i'm holding my blackberry in one hand and thinking 'put your blackberry away, you're not making a very good case for yourself that you don't have money'). so he lets him go and as i'm trying to get john's attention to say 'hey, please keep walking with me cause now i'm a little scared,' the guy pulls out a bread knife and holds us at 'knife' point and demands money again. 

neither of us really have money so he makes us promise we'll take him to someone we know who does have money. so we start walking, and he says 'will smith, you know where he lives, right? take me there'. and apparently, in my dream, i knew where will smith lived. so we agree (yes, john mayer and i were terrible accomplices to a robbery in my dream). so we keep walking, feeling guilty in all fairness. i decide to have us cut through this apartment building lobby. i try to get the attention of the doorman to make him understand 'the guy with us is NOT ok, call the cops.' but happy doorman doesn't pick up on the facial clues.

so we come across a convenience store and ask the guy if that's good enough. he says that's fine. so we walk in, he now switches from knife to gun and holds it up to this guy paying. everyone else in the store is totally calm, like 'oh he's not robbing us, we're ok.' the cashier gives him the money and the robber man goes on his way, thanking us in the process. 

for the record, dream john mayer and i felt really guilty for our contribution to this man's robbing spree. 

tonight i was told i am going to have good karma this year.

my friends leslie and deborah and i went out for dinner tonight. it was a lovely time, i don't get to see them much (i hadn't seen deborah in a year!) and it was just a good time of catching up.

well we paid and the waitress came back with our change and i did the math and realized she had given me $4 extra. we redid the math to make sure i wasn't crazy, but sure enough it was too much money. we didn't really know how big of a deal it was for the cash register to be missing that much at the end of the night (leslie said a few cents was ok but $1 or more makes it seem like someone stole money) so we finally got our waitress's attention to give her back the money. she thanked me a bunch for letting her know and told me it means i'm going to have good karma the rest of the year.

i felt like it was a moment in a movie when a waitress is really insightful and gives you life advice or something.

i'll keep you posted on the good karma.