Category Archives: personal

on nighttime insights and clementines

Hi, people. I’m having issues. I lie in bed at night thinking of great blog posts in my head (for real) but then when I’m sitting at the computer the next morning…nothing. Not a single thing seems worth writing about.

I remember my dad telling me once that as he fell asleep, he would have brilliant insights to computer programming problems he was working on. But he could never remember them the next day. He started keeping a notepad next to his bed so he could write down the solutions that he was coming up with in these moments. Only instead of waking up to clever solutions he’d brainstormed the night before, he woke up to notes that were complete gibberish. It was like his mind needed to *think* it had solved these problems before it could rest enough for him to get to sleep, so it tricked him to thinking he’d solved them.

I guess my mind needs to trick me into thinking I’m a good writer so I can sleep at night.

I love these two pictures that I took at the park last week. Lyle rode his tricycle to the playground and I brought along snacks because he always gets hungry playing outside. (So do I.) We’ve been going through a lot of clementines lately.

And this one from today…I love how hard he’s laughing as he’s yelling for me to push him “higher, higher, highest!”

snow + spa

This weekend I went to Dallas to sit in a 170-degree sauna. It’s the fire sudatorium at the Korean spa, and it’s totally amazing. They have several other saunas that are not as hot but that all claim to be good for your health in various ways. I just know that after spending all day sweating and soaking and napping and eating Korean food, I feel the most relaxed I’ve been in a long time. And if I get a body scrub? Where you lay on a table and get scrubbed by a woman with scrubby mitts over and over and over until you have no more dead skin left anywhere on your entire body? Then I feel the cleanest I’ve ever been. Love this place.

The building itself is set back off the road behind some self-storage units, and you drive underneath some giraffe statues to get there. (So random.) My favorite is the sign that says, “RIGHT ON.” Korean spa…right on.

Also, Dallas got 12 inches of snow last Thursday, which is a record and a crazy amount of snow for Dallas. It doesn’t usually last long once it’s on the ground there, but there were still a couple inches on the ground when we got there Friday night. Lyle spent Saturday morning playing in it.

happy valentine’s day

May your days all be filled with love….

cupcakes!

I have a new blog design! It’s not necessarily in its finished and final state so you may still see things change here and there over the next couple of weeks, but at least I’m going to let go of my perfectionist tendencies and stop fiddling over every little aspect of it and just get back to writing actual posts. The main difference is obvious–bigger pictures! Yay. And please let me know if you see anything weird about the design or how it’s rendered in your browser.

Yesterday was my birthday. I love my birthday. I love having an excuse to do something fun with friends. To celebrate I took Lyle out for cupcakes when I picked him up from school. I don’t even care much about cupcakes, but Lyle does, and it’s a cute shop, so I knew we’d have fun.

He talked the whole way there about how he wanted a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. “Do they have that, Mommy?” I told him they did, but he wasn’t so sure. Until we walked in and he spotted them immediately…some even had sprinkles. He was in heaven.

so I can check off “blog” on my to-do list

I got a lot of things done that had been on my to-do list for a while, so I can’t let the productive day end without blogging again. (This is one of the things that has been pushed off…oops.)

My favorite thing about New York is just how much there is. How much energy, how many different things are going on at once, how many different shows, how many places to get street food, how many little hidden gems there are right in the middle of everything. I love how walkable everything is.

I also love that there are things like the cupcake truck. Cupcake. Truck.