Scintillation

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

A Simple Reminder

things to learn from Matt Edgar on Vimeo.

One Great Thing Friday

If you haven't seen this video yet, it's time. This makes me pretty emotional, and I typically pride myself on being uninfluenced by trend youtube vids. Enjoy, I think this is immensely creative and quite beautiful. It's an interpretation of Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.
Also, not that it would matter who created the sand art, but how outrageously gorgeous is the woman performing too?
Shown to me by my good friend Blake, thanks for always sending me inspiration snacks!



The words at the end mean "always near," as in always remembered/close at heart. (Not that I speak Ukranian, but I looked it up.)

One Month

One month left of residency in California. How I will miss it.

Head's up; might not be posting as much due to living it up in my beautiful city. Or, conversely, perhaps I will need to post more to cope...we'll see.

Sending love from La Jolla.

One Great Thing Friday

You simply must visit FreeRice.com!

Free Rice is a cure for:
a) boredom
b) ignorance in a variety of subjects
c) hunger
d) all the above

Visit and find out. Whatever you do, don't miss the fact that there are a variety of sujects you can answer questions about. My favorites are Spanish, Famous Paintings, Identify Countries on a Map, French, and Italian. There's math too, but I would never...
Free Rice donates a certain number of grains of rice for every correct answer you get—watch the rice collect in the bowl while you learn!

Thanks for introducing me to this site last year, Gina!

Show Me a Day

"Show me a day when the world wasn't new." Sister Barbara Hance (1928-1993)

I stole my aunt's new year's resolution.
"I resolve to be more playful and spontaneous...now that I'm turning X years old, I don't want to lose that," Aunt Sarah said.
Little did she know that this exact sentence would be my new motto for 2010 inserting my age for hers (no, I won't tell you how old she is, suffice it to say that she looks about 30).

Another dear friend, Laura, sent me a very spontaneous Web site in and of itself: stumbleupon.com—I could spend a week "stumbling" upon new Web sites that remind me that, indeed, "everything you can imagine is possible." (Thank you Pablo Picasso.)

Here are some AMAZING things that stumbleupon found for me:

Hilarious

A reminder that we have seen so little of what can be seen in this world

Play

Create (speaking of Picasso...)

Work with what you've got

Beautify (I like the wheelbarrow best.)

Makes Me Happy

I've been feeling down since January 3. At 7:35 p.m. PST, I flew over the beautifully lit, downtown skyline and the gently curving Coronado bridge and felt a pang as I realized it was the last time I would fly into San Diego as my home. I will leave here in a Penske and a VW Jetta on February 20th; a month and a week from tomorrow. I've been mourning the thought all last week and spent most of my weekend in my apartment cleaning, sorting, and sulking. I'm relearning the lesson I was taught when I moved out here; just because you're making the right decision doesn't mean you're making the easy one.

Getting back to church last night helped significantly; the sermon wasn't tailored to my situation or anything, but it was the first time in a month I'd attended. It made a big difference just because it was church; it injected me with a shot of optimism I truly needed and today, I'm reminded of things that make me happy even when the big stuff changes:

—Wild Sweet Orange Tea
—Shopping for cheese at Trader Joe's
—The new Vampire Weekend album
—Silhouetted palm trees
—Warm from the dryer, clean bedding and going to bed with a wet head in January and not freezing
—The Fresh Ink section at Hallmark and picking out cards for friends and family
—A new red dress
—Seeing my growth group girls tomorrow and anticipating serious discussion and funny stories during the same hour or two we spend together
—Reading a good book after discontinuing the reading of a bad one
—Watching The Tudors online
—Wearing a scarf from a friend (Alison, I'm wearing the black one you gave us bridesmaids today)
—Having perfectly plucked eyebrows (so what if it took 15 minutes to do it last night?)