this cool thing i found

yesterday i was clicking around instagram and found a company that looks really cool.  they're called cotopaxi, and they're one of those organizations that donates back to the world when you purchase something from them (their website lists helping educate a child in peru and providing clean water to a person in india - aight then).  they've got a llama thing going on, which, who doesn't love llamas (some people don't love llamas.  i hear they spit and bite.  but have you ever seen a shaved llama?  hilarious.) but besides their solid mission and llama theme, their gear is just really nice looking.  they got pretty packs.  i am particularly swooning over the volta backpack and the kpong satchel.  think of all the things one could carry!

BUT THEN I HAVEN'T EVEN SAID THE BEST PART.

what i am excited about more than llamas and backpacks is the questival.  i saw it and thought YUP.  i don't even completely understand it but it's a 24-hour competition that sounds like a scavenger hunt but with activities instead of finding things which i am 100% down for and you get to be in a team and my team is obvi gonna be the sarahs and one of the challenge categories is eating?!?  and the others are hiking, service, camping, and social media-ing, all of which we love!  winners are selected by judges based on core values so you don't even have to be like fastest or strongest or anything like that.  they mention scrappiness a lot.  i think we're gonna win.  and even if we don't win, we win, because there's a concert at the end of everything and we get free backpacks which is like a participant medal but way better. 

stay tuned, people.  this is gonna be epic.

weekend deets, and a picture of bixby wearing a backpack (round two)

oh christmas tree.  this is my short but very chubby dude, all lit up and decorated to the nines.  while i was at work, bixby ate four of the ornaments straight off the tree like apples.  the one he didn't demolish into smithereens had several tooth-sized holes in it.  c'est la vie.

 the road trip queens climbed aboard my trusty hyundai (renamed george, because he is now missing a side mirror - get it?!?) for a 24-hour stint in the mountains.  december 12 was national onesie day and we are not ones to pass up such an opportunity, so we got decked out and ate fettuccine at macaroni grill.  you know what's never a bad choice?  wearing onesies and eating fettuccine at macaroni grill.  they gave us free chocolate cake, and we did not hate it.  not one bit.

in the morning, danielle introduced us to stick boy kitchen.  in turn, we introduced her to ain't gonna pee pee my bed tonight.  fair trade?  unsure.

it was freezing, and we went to blowing rock and swang on the swings and got warm drinks from kojay's and flirted with the fudge boys at kilwin's and stopped in a couple of cute stores to contemplate christmas presents and generally had a lovely blowing rocky time.

wall art.

that's about where the pictures ended for the weekend (oops) but after blowing rock we got takeout from coyote kitchen and went to the graduation.  that was the only time we got to spend with the boys, but i'm glad we at least got to see them some.  danielle picked us back up after the ceremony and we watched harry potter el seis (they watched, i crashed on the couch) and then takeout round two (hoorayyyyy hokkaido!!!!) and three episodes of svu and then sarah and i got in the car and wished we could stay longer and said goodbye to danielle (who is really the most wonderful host) and road trip queened it right back down the mountain with the help of some caffeine, several mix cds, and a pack of sugar wafers.

i spent some quality time in the pottery studio yesterday, i'm finding my niche of what i like to do and it is PLAY WITH GLAZES and also MAKE DESIGNS IN SLIP.  merry christmas errbody, you get a mug with no handle but it's twelve different colors and probably has mountains drawn in it.

and then bix and i got to explore the eno with my new friend will contra!  i brought snacks and will contra led the way (despite bix's best efforts).  it's good to have bixby out on the trail.  i loaded his backpack down with two cans of soup, plus all the snacks and my water bottle, for practice, and he was EXHAUSTED when we got back home but he's such a happy little trail dog.  i've got to keep beefing him up for next summer's adventure.

after we got home, even though i didn't mean to, i took a three and a half ish hour nap and woke up at 9 fairly confused but deadset on cleaning the house.  i mopped the whole living room!  i washed the sheets!  i set off the smoke alarm accidentally sweeping dog hair into the heater!  so all in all the nap didn't turn out so bad...but now i want another one because i didn't actually go to sleep until 1am.

so that was my weekend, start to finish.

au revoir.

a girl i knew when i was younger, i think maybe we had advanced reading in third grade together or something, we're facebook friends now, and today she posted an article she'd written.  it's funny how you can start off in the same classroom as someone, reading a cricket in times square, but fifteen years from then you can be in entirely different places with very different stories and skills.  the whole article is here, and all of it is stunning, but the paragraph below is the section where i saw bits of myself reflected.

There’s something in our eyes, though, that’s a little harder to place. Maybe it’s the Pavlovian training that young girls of a certain make and model receive as soon as they’re pushed in the grocery store buggy, clad in pink: we’re here to please, pale and all-American as the Coppertone kid. Smile, close-lipped, and widen those eyes until they’re blank enough to be adoring or penitent or charmingly unsure. We can read a face and mirror back the very thing it wants, flirtation or adoration or shyness or deference. We could be anything, as long as it wasn’t ourselves.

god bless us, every one.

kaitlin came over last night for a christmasy evening.  we made hot chocolate and put marshmallows and whipped cream and peppermint sticks in it and watched white christmas, a movie i'd never seen before but love love loved.  danny kaye killed it, bing crosby...was not always an old man? and the girls' dresses/waists - i would like it all.  i put lights and ornaments on the tree, including a gorgeous one kaitlin gave me that you can see in the picture but only if you know where to look.  bixby looked on longingly while i strung cranberries and popcorn onto thread and hung it across the wall (the weirdo likes cranberries - who'da thought?).  it hadn't felt like the holiday season this year - maybe something to do with spending thanksgiving in miami, maybe the fact that i haven't made it out to southpoint yet for shopping - but last night it started dawning on me that yes, tis the season for cozy sweaters and sweet presents and kisses under the mistletoe.  (i should get some mistletoe.)  happy christmas, all, and now who wants to do a harry potter marathon with me?

hooray for pots! hooray for beans and rice!

remember my super great bowl?  well i took it through the rest of the pottery process and did not smush it or break it or put holes in it (not the case for all my pots... rip cute mug, i should never have put slip on you).  and then i took it all the way home and STILL haven't broken it - knock on wood - and thar she sits, chock full of beans and rice and salsa and cheese and avocado and sweet potatoes and everything nice.  (it's bigger than the picture makes it look - that is not a small portion.)

update on the bix

this rascal.  he woke me up at 6:30 whining and whining and whining and when i finally dragged myself out of bed to walk him, he didn't pee until we were half a mile from home.

last night i brought him outside and he barked at/jumped on the boy neighbors.  he LOVES the boy neighbors.  they love him.  (i love everybody.)  i don't know what his deal is.

it's been a week since we started doing the alpha walks - me in front, him strictly behind or beside me.  and i see improvement, especially when i make him wear his coat or his backpack full of beans.  we go long stretches now where he doesn't pull at all, which is an incredible change.  the other day we crossed a street and i caught him looking up at me, watching to see where i would go, and my heart melted.  squirrels are still a challenge for him, and other dogs, and mornings are worse than afternoons because apparently i accidentally wound up with a morning dog (help), but he's been really good around people, including joggers which is a HUGE deal.  he forgets a lot, but i do see him trying.  trying to navigate what i want and what he wants and where he fits in our pack of two.

i hope this works.  i hope we can get to the point where he looks up to me and i can snuggle him and nobody pulls on the leash ever, because i think that is when we will both be happiest.  and he'll be the perfect little shiny (albeit talkative) yellow dog i came home with back in july.

a snapshot of the three of us lined up on the couch, six feet resting on the coffee table, a plate of frozen pizza in each of our laps.  the cabin has high, high ceilings and always smells a little like fire.  i wish there was a way to photograph the moment authentically, to have a visual preservation of that perfect hour of us watching muppet's christmas carol and passing a bag of marshmallows back and forth, but the effort of getting off the couch to find an iphone and snap a picture would have made the moment disingenuous.  and so we basked in it, delighted in our childish saturday evening, while the christmas tree lit up the room and i finally started feeling like we'd reached the holiday season.

marsala??

the last eight years of my wardrobe now make sense, except i'm still kinda hung up on 2010.

vizcaya

oh my gosh vizcaya.  this one of my absolute favorite parts of the miami trip.  there was an unplanned afternoon, so i decided to venture out on my own and find out what exactly vizcaya was - i'd always seen the stone archways and wondered what was inside.  and i was not disappointed.  maybe old mansions turned museums are kind of my thing, there's something sacred and mysterious about them but also something that makes me want to run around and have pretend sword fights.  and this particular old mansion was top notch.  right on biscayne bay, art on every ceiling, spiraling staircases, quotes from guests who'd stayed there.  all the cool old stuff you could possibly want, on top of not too crowded and absolutely gorgeous weather.  i wanted to basil e frankweiler it - and oh there could be some GOOD hiding spots - but i refrained.  until next time.

this is a butt.  i'm sure the front of the statue was much more... appropriate (no guarantees though), but the butt was funnier.  the butt and its massive wedgie.

had this delightful mangrove all to myself, except there was probably an alligator back here and i just missed him. 

before i left, some people started setting stuff up.  there was an amp and two wooden structures and a coffee cart and tables and i asked the coffee cart guy what was going on, and he told me someone was getting MARRIED on the steps of vizcaya which was just about the best idea i'd ever heard.  that and these golden chairs.

i took a lot of feet pictures.  no photos allowed (inside anyway) so i had to be stealthy.  plus the floors looked like this - win-win.

this isn't even the main building.  it's not even super near the main building.  it's like... the garden house.  or something.

so there was this chick named leda according to the statues of her and she evidently had a goose boyfriend but it looks like they might have broken up or something.

not a real ship, just a fake ship made of stone to have outdoor parties on, in sort of a gatsby way.

derpiest lion ever.

just, you know, the office.

overall the orchidarium was underwhelming, but on an individual basis the flowers were nice.

the pool!

that's all folks!

because i want to have this available for my viewing pleasure as long as i can.