6:04 PM

My Fair Lady

"with a little bit of luck" profundity:

"they're always throwing goodness at you,
but with a little bit of luck
a man can duck"

interesting to think about in terms of common grace...

1:14 AM

A Gem from Agatha Christie

Nemesis, p. 158

speaker: archdeacon brabazon, a minor character

"I know when a couple are really in love with each other. And by that I do not just mean sexually attracted. There is too much talk about sex, too much attention is paid to it. I do not mean that anything about sex is wrong. That is nonsense. But sex cannot take the place of love, it goes with love, but it cannot succeed by itself. To love means the words of the marriage service. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. That is what you take on if you love and wish to marry. Those two loved each other. To love and to cherish till death do us part."

10:47 AM

I can't believe I'm such a slacker

it's been AGES since i last posted!

well, let's see, what have you missed?

i have read a lot of books.

i have hung out with a lot of students.

i have made serious progress on my Pauline epistles class

i have attended a derek webb tweet-up - with about 250 other twitter fans.

i have gotten sick. and gotten better. several times. (they say your immune system gets stronger after a while. i'm hoping it's been a while.)

(it was never swine flu.)

i have to a taylor swift concert with my brother and his friend ryan in dallas.

i have been rained on a lot.

good stuff, right?

11:47 PM

this is what i like to call...


freaking awesome. dad and i saw the most glorious rainbows - two of them - on our drive from atlanta to charlotte (post-RUF training, pre-move-stuff-to-dallas). i have never seen such vibrant rainbows, or such complete ones. you could see almost the entire arc!

dad took a lot of pictures (since i was driving), but i like this one the best, even though the apparent sky-color-change is actually due to the tinting on my windshield. ;)

rainbows are such great reminders that God keeps His promises, and that He has decided to take the blow for us, His people. after all, who do you think that arrow is aimed at, given the direction the bow is pointing?

1:42 AM

andrew peterson plug

...i believe He is the Christ
Son of the living God

all i know is that i was blind and now i see
that though i kick and scream, love is leading me
and every step of the way His grace is making me,
every breath i breathe, He is saving me...

resurrection letters, volume II is a brilliant piece of work - the songs are good (some of them are better than good), but together the album is stunning. lyrical and musical motifs are woven throughout (as andy p is wont to weave). right now, this portion of "I Believe (The Good Confession)" is what is stuck in my head, especially the line "every breath i breathe, He is saving me." knowing andy p's body of work like i do, i think what he is getting at here is not that Jesus needs to keep saving me all the time, but that my need for Him and His grace is ongoing. i need Him now as much as i did at 5 years old when i "prayed the prayer," but i also HAVE Him now as much as i ever have or will.

we never stop needing Jesus. we never outgrow the Gospel.

[also, i just bought north! or be eaten today and started it. looks to be even better than it's predecessor.]

7:50 PM

a bit of excitement


so a few days ago my poor car nearly missed being taken out by a toyota. so did the house. thank you, random rock in the yard.

not so lucky: a tree.

some poor girl who a) is new to the country, b) is living away from her family, c) had just recently lost her brother, and d) had only gotten her license to drive a week ago wound up getting herself into quite a crash in the yard of the house i am staying at.

i feel dreadful for the poor girl, but am very grateful that shelly is still in one piece.

8:20 PM

i'm on my way, just set me free, home sweet home

so the summer has been positively loco, but not in a bad way. just in a crazy way. i am kinda ready for it to be over, and to be in one city for more than a month!

RUF staff training was last week, and it was most excellent. i really enjoyed getting to catch up with the other folks in my intern class and learned some extremely helpful things in the sessions. i also got to meet a bunch of other interns and campus ministers and got to spend some great time with billy and ashley, my new campus minister and his wife. they are pretty much fantastic.

next week (on the 12th, to be precise) i will be moving to houston!!!!!! freshmen show up on the 16th. here we go - i can hardly wait! i even got a necklace with an owl on it to get into "rice mode."

i am so excited to be moving to a ginormous city with fantastic food and old trees and an awesome home church that is so close to home. i know, i know - 4 hours isn't exactly around the corner, but it beats 17 any day!

we had this crazy adventure when we moved my stuff out of charlotte and to dallas that i will have to tell you about later. suffice it to say, none of the four of us (mom, dad, me, and kj) got a complete REM cycle in that night.

in other news, i seem to have entered a new life stage. a few years ago, it seemed like my facebook newsfeed was full of weddings. now it's full of babies.

sorry it's been so long! now that my life will be normalizing some, i expect i will be posting much more regularly.

8:36 PM

My Parents' Printer Makes Weird Noises

it sounds like it needs some oil in the wheels. it makes such distressed noises and works so hard. unfortunately, it totally screws up at the whole printing-labels thing more often than not, and that is a trifle annoying when you need return address stickers to save your hand from FALLING OFF because you have already addressed more than 100 postcards!!!!!!!

the point is, the printer is weird. and i am raising support. and it is hot in texas.

12:10 PM

This Year's Incoming College Freshman...

saw the entire high school musical phenomenon unfold during their own high school years.

for some reason, that is weird to me.

5:58 PM

And So It Begins...

well, folks, i am officially living the dream. i mean, i'm not THERE yet, but we had new intern orientation last week in atlanta for RUF, and y'all, i am SO excited about all this! and i'm officially an RUF employee as of last monday! and now, in addition to taking 2 classes this summer (i'm on the tail end of one right now, and next week i'll be in dc taking the other one), my job = raising support! that way i can actually move to Houston and work with students!!!!!!!!!!!!!


ok, so i am a little excited. anyway. if you think of it, pray for me and that God will bring in the money i need to do this crazy-awesome thing He has called me to.


way more updates coming soon, but i wanted to give the quick one.


(ps - if you are so inclined, you may follow the link in my sidebar now to donate money to my work with RUF at rice.)

10:20 PM

Irony

my used copy of the glorious body of Christ smells of smoke. and by "smells" i mean "reeks to high heaven."

can you count the ways?

12:59 AM

I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so, after sheer insanity, i finally am emerging from radio silence and giving you some pictures from my life for the last few weeks. they aren't very exciting. ;)

my sister came to visit in the middle of my paper writing. we had fun, despite the fact that i was working like a dog quite a bit of the time and sick as a dog for more of the time.

not sure which roommate brought home these flowers, but they are beautiful, aren't they?

ruf support letters! lots of them!

studying is hard work! old exams help.


katie and i went out for a fancy seafood dinner. :)

we have had LOADS of storms and rain and craziness. beautiful, isn't it?

paper writing - this one was on the reasons for the differences between the blessings of the 12 tribes in genesis 49 and deuteronomy 33. sounds like it wouldn't be fascinating, but it so was.

went to visit friends at wake. this advert for the lilting banshees comedy troupe made me laugh and brought back memories from times gone by.

this is what my bed looked like an awful lot during the past few weeks. lots and lots of books. can you tell facebook is up and there's an agatha christie book in the back? a girl's gotta have some breaks or her brain will fry.

1:52 AM

hi!

it's crazy paper-writing time, so i'm snapping pics and will add them sometime, probably after i write another 40 pages but before i take four exams, two of which are supposed to be the hardest of my life. we'll see which one makes me cry first. ;)

just wanted to say hi. i know i've left unfinished business - like an argument for the authority and inerrancy of Scripture - but i'm working like a mad woman.

i'll be back.

11:01 PM

This is my left ear

it has hurt really bad all day. ergo, this photograph appropriately captures my day.

11:09 PM

mascara

and people say blonde eyelashes don't make you look lashless....

11:06 PM

See This?


this is a married man's phone number. on my hand. (it's blurry on purpose.)

i wish i could say there is a good reason for this, but i can't. we're having a women's conference at RTS this weekend (speaker: carolyn custis james, who thus far has been utterly fabulous), and there was some trouble with the sound system, so i was charged with calling a friend to get another friend's number in hopes that friend #2 would know what to do. i wrote the number on my hand - we were in a rush - only to discover that, in fact, someone else already had his number and had called repeatedly to no avail.

so i wrote it on my hand for nothing.

at least it's fading.

11:19 PM

Multitalented, He Is

use the force, he must.

of gravity, that is:



this is my friend josh. he does magic with everyday household items!

10:38 PM

My Roomies

watching L O S T.


sadly, just a clip episode this week.

2:50 PM

Does It Matter If We Call God "He" or "She?

check out this great post from aron's blog, wherein he quotes CS Lewis on this issue.

12:09 AM

guess what was in here before i ate it?

11:33 AM

FINALLY!

there's going to be a black disney princess (must say i like including mulan and wendy and all the other heroines), tiana. it's about dang time.

11:31 PM

RTS Is Pretty!



11:56 PM

Sometimes I think my life might look like this


except for the book ends - i'm not really french.

11:52 PM

Don't Waste Your Life

11:27 PM

Today Was Excellent!

i spent relatively little time here today:



i went on a walk, i went to the pool and laid out with a friend, i did homework, i got sun, i felt great. yay!

(disclaimer: i am actually sitting there now, despite what the picture would have you think. working on a paper. :)

3:12 AM

New Template

i'm trying it out... what do you think?

props to bloggertricks for the gorgeousness.

8:49 PM

Photo of the Day

i love this stuff. let's face it - i am truly a texas girl. :) when i used to want to be a professor of scottish history in scotland (which is kinda a weird thing to want to do for an american, admittedly - who is going to hire an american to teach scottish history in scotland?!?), i had it all planned that i would have dr pepper shipped to me regularly. cause i was a strange child like that.

11:12 AM

Well DUH

this story is not surprising at all, but people are acting like it's demonstrating that Gov. Perry spoke out of turn. i LOVE the USA and, like Perry, think "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that? But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

the point is not "Peace out, America - we're ready to leave!" - it never was. the point is "If things pass the point of no return, we can secede. And we very well may."

but we aren't there yet, and hopefully we never will be. i really do love this great country of ours, and one of my favorite things about us is that we are a nation that holds the federal government at bay to some degree simply because we CAN object to the point of pulling out - hello, American Revolution! but our union is great, and while there is much that needs to be redeemed and set right and redirected, i'm proud to be an American.

12:46 AM

Pj Pants Come in Cool Patterns

for example:

12:47 PM

Open Line Thursday (So to Speak)

this is pretty much for anyone who wants to talk religion from the 4815162342.com forums.

let's get it on, folks!

12:11 AM

Who Wants Some Tea???

We had a tea party here in the Queen City today.

This was my favorite sign.

Everybody loves Ben Franklin. Lots of other founding fathers made "appearances" as well.

And we had some wonderful veterans show up.

And a few cute shout-outs to Sarah Palin.

"Don't tread on me" was a common theme.

I think the best estimate we had was about 3000 people turning out. It was so peaceful and fun and happy - we sang America the Beautiful and O Say Can You See, said the pledge a couple of times, and laughed a lot.

I mean, yeah, we're clearly peeved about the stimulus package and the exponentially increasing size of the government, which is trying to do all kinds of stuff the Constitution left to the states.

And about the fact that our babies and their babies will be paying for this bailout stuff.

And about the rise of Socialist policies.

But we love this country. And we love that we can gather peacefully here and say, "Hey, Raleigh! Hey, Washington! This is not ok!"

12:09 AM

Sorry About Yesterday...

i just completely forgot to take a picture!

this lovely group of hydrangeas came home with kristen this evening. i love flowers. :)

yay spring!

10:36 PM

I Am His and He Is Mine, Bought with the Precious Blood of Christ

last night, sarah processed down the aisle to that verse of "In Christ Alone" (the third), and about half the bridal party lost it. it was a beautiful precursor to that amazing sermon i mentioned.

jean larroux, the minister who performed the ceremony, opened with the story of a time he was outside the sanctuary doors with a groom waiting for their turn to come in. the groom turned to jean and said, "you know why the bride wears white and the groom wears black at a wedding?" jean thought that was weird, but he said, "no, why?" and the groom responded, "because it's her wedding and his funeral."

we laughed.

jean said, "it's funny and all, but the thing is that it's true."

i panicked a little inside - what in the world???? is he going to be all down on marriage? that's SO weird!!!

jean said, "the husband is commanded to love his wife as Christ loved the church - to DIE for her."

to say the sermon only got better after that is an understatement. it acknowledged the passion and faithfulness of marriage, the beauty of a husband leading well and a wife submitting well, the importance of marriage to the kingdom of God. but most importantly, and most centrally, jean focused on the picture that marriage is for us of Christ's relationship with the church - the eagerness of the Bridegroom to receive His bride; the purity of the bride (yay for wearing white, like the robes of the saints in revelation!); the sacrifice demanded of the Groom if He is to love His bride.

let me tell you, it packed quite a whallop and said all the stuff you want said in a wedding sermon, but in less time and with more punch.

of course, the crazy thing about this is that Jesus, our Bridegroom, did die for us in a way that no normal husband ever could, but then He rose again, defeating all our enemies and claiming us for His own!

He is risen!

10:34 PM

Spring Has Sprung!


and that's my excuse for wearing shirts with applique flowers on them.

1:33 AM

from this moment on...

sarah denton is sarah niemitz!


it was an absolutely delightful wedding - SO much fun with so many friends! plus the best wedding sermon i have ever heard. i'll post about that tomorrow.

congratulations, mr. and mrs. ben niemitz!!!!

1:48 AM

Who Doesn't Love an All-Girl Party?

my friend sarah is getting married tomorrow. we have been friends since we were six, when we started first grade in the same class, and in fourth grade my family started attending her church. we graduated high school together (class of 13! whoohoo!) and i am SO excited that she is getting married! i kinda thought this was it when she went on and on about how he is her best friend and she couldn't imagine life without him at christmas, and it looks like i was right. :)

tonight i went to a little "last night sarah is single" sort of party for her, and it was a blast. here is my one, admittedly unimpressive shot.

there will be TONS of pictures from the wedding tomorrow though. it's going to be hard to narrow it down to one for the day.

1:09 AM

A Bit Otherworldly

i went to watch the double-Office episodes that aired tonight (which were hilarious) at the Cozarts' house. they also put up with me on monday nights for heroes/24 (i don't really care that much about 24, but it's fun time with friends). anyway, they have a number of LOTR items on display in their living room. including this ent:

aren't you eternally grateful that i've shared him with you?

they also have a map of narnia over their fireplace. you could say they are inklings fans.

10:44 PM

A Few Shots with the New Camera

my new camera has this awesome setting where you can choose one color and all the others turn black and white. obviously, this picture showcases the purple in my wardrobe.

this picture shows the same setting with blue. you can see me and my friend chris, who has the same camera and was helping me figure it out, in the reflection.

and again - this is kristen and the color red in our kitchen. she made our LOST-watching regulars a fancy and delicious dinner tonight.

this is erin, without any crazy effects.

and our dining room table, 1/2 set for our amazing dinner. we had a great time hanging out and having fun, in addition to eating well. :)

and then we watched LOST. and it was gooooooooood.

11:13 PM

IT CAME!!!!!!!!!

my new camera is here! it's super-awesome looking.


i also happen to think it can take a good picture. it will take me a while to figure it out - it's very different from my last camera.

edit: the weird stuff on the picture is from my mirror. i guess i need to clean it?

1:09 AM

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Back from Dallas...

and it really took us a while of looking on both ends to figure it out. but it's pretty certain at this point that someone stole my camera when they were doing the security search of checked baggage at the airport. i've been using my roommate's camera for pictures thus far, but my new baby should be arriving in the mail on tuesday, and until then we are going to have to put the project on hold.

in other news, high school musical 3 apparently promoted a very complementarian view of romantic relationships. i am shocked. shocked, i say.

11:58 PM

Day 2 - Two Pics (cause i couldn't pick between them)



this is a part of one of my pillows. i think it looks cool.

not to beat a dead horse, but i am just a little excited about the whole MOVING BACK TO TEXAS thing... this old license plate is over my door here, and it makes me feel more rooted. which maybe is silly, but whatever.

1:56 AM

Day 1 (& an Announcement)

so one of my roommates, erin, told me about this cool challenge where you take one picture every day for a year - at the end of the year, you get a collection of pics that commemorate the year PLUS you are hopefully a lot better at taking pictures. i decided to do it, and to post them all on here (let's be honest, it's gonna be way more fun this way), but thought i would wait to start till april 1. the original plan was to take a picture of my left hand with a giant fake diamond on the fourth finger and also make it a joke.... BUT i now have a way better plan. and there is no joking involved.*

i have been told where RUF is placing me for the internship. may i have a drumroll...



ladies and gentlemen, i am headed back to texas. specifically, to houston, to work for the RUF at Rice University.

i am ECSTATIC!



*that is how i'm excusing the fact that it is technically april 2....

9:48 PM

The Other Kind of Bookie...

it's kinda like a "foodie..."

(got this from kari)

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Agatha Christie, hands down. She's so addictive, so relaxing, and she wrote SO much!

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Pride and Prejudice. And that's AFTER throwing out like 3 copies.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No. I don't really believe in that rule anymore.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Good heavens, that's hard to pin down. There are so many fabulous heroes.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
I'm not sure whether Kay Arthur's Israel, My Beloved wins or Francine Rivers' Redeeming Love - I read both of them multiple times a year for several years in middle and high school.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
I was really into this Zion Chronicles series by Brock and Bodie Thoene back then. Probably my favorite was the first, The Gates of Zion.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Usually, if I really don't like a book, I quit reading it. The only one that I can remember the name of is Bag of Bones by Stephen King, which I read some of last week and decided I didn't like. I know that is terribly uncool of me to say.

8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
That is soooooooooooo hard. How about in the past month? That would be Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
I will be nice and choose a fictional work, since those seem to be the most universal. And I'm going to go with The Odyssey - translated by Robert Fagles. And if you absolutely refuse, you can read Howard Pyle's The Story of the Champions of the Round Table. I think we all need a little more in the way of the heroic epic.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
I have no idea.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Rick Riordian's The Lightning Thief. It'd be a really cool - and not cheesy - way to bring Mt. Olympus into the 21st century. (Yay YA fiction!)

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis. The book (and the others in the series) have an old-school PI hero.... but it's set in ancient Rome. It would be absolutely absurd and not fun at all on film.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I mean, once I dreamed that Jesus was a biker-hippie who rescued me from a kidnapping by throwing grenades at the would-be kidnapper, but He's real... That should count though. He's in lots of books, and it is a REALLY weird dream.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
I think probably The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. Sorry, Lauren Willig...

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
The first time (in high school) The Sound and the Fury was pretty dang hard. I was all kinds of confused. But Faulkner made much more sense in college.

16) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Oh the Russians.

18) Roth or Updike?
I plead ignorance, since I couldn't make it through The Plot Against America and haven't read any Updike.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Sedaris. But I am basing that off a reading he did on The Late Show.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare for sure.

21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Probably that I haven't read the entire LOTR trilogy - and barely made it through the first 60 pages of The Hobbit.

23) What is your favorite novel?
Pride and Prejudice. Although I have to say that

24) Play?
A Midsummer Night's Dream is tied with Henry V.

27) Short story?
"The Fall of the House of Usher."

28) Work of non-fiction?
John Piper's The Pleasures of God.

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Too many... we'll go with the living ones:
Fiction - Deanna Raybourn, Dianne Setterfield, JK Rowling, Jane Yolen
Memoirs, etc. - Lauren Winner
Theology - Elisabeth Elliot, John Currid, John Piper, Paul David Tripp

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
David Baldacci. Good gosh, but The Camel Club was an experiment in hilariously bad fiction.

31) What is your desert island book?
Probably The Pleasures of God.

32) And … what are you reading right now?
The Lightning Thief, Get Married, and the Bible.

Now tagging.... whoever wants to be tagged.

6:02 PM

On Making Decisions

i think it's interesting that we - people in general, not just Christian people - often don't like being told what to do in general. sure, we can usually handle "don't murder" without throwing a hissy fit, but when God presumes to dictate how we spend our sundays or when and with whom we have sex, we feel encroached upon.

yet, despite this, we want to know what we are supposed to do in specific instances - should i go to this concert with a friend or should i go to this other birthday party? should i marry this man? should i take this job offer? sometimes those are moral questions, but more often they are wisdom questions i think - and sometimes they are matters of preference.

i mean, obviously you shouldn't take the job offer if the job description involves swindling people out of their money. but most of our decisions don't look like that. it probably doesn't make much of a difference whether you go to the birthday party or to the concert - just pick one! so many women (and presumably men) are looking for "the One" when instead we should be looking for a certain sort of mate. i'm not advocating marrying someone just because they fit your little check-list, but i also think that the idealized idea of "the One" is poppycock and balderdash.

i think we have this tendency because it is much easier to just be told what to do than it is to become the sort of person who will make those decisions well. i'm not saying we shouldn't wrestle with decisions, or that they aren't hard, but that we should be about the business of growing wise and knowing Christ. the better we know Him, the more we will instinctively as well as thoughtfully know His heart - perhaps you should have gone to that birthday party out of love, because the honoree is having a rough time and you know being there will mean much to him. i still think that it's not a moral decision between good and bad, but that doesn't mean it's an irrelevant decision.

as Christians, we live beyond the law in a way - not that the law isn't important, but that there is much freedom in decisions that are beyond the pale of black and white. paige brown, one of my favorite speakers of all time, says it this way. say you are talking to a friend you haven't seen in a while, and you ask her how her marriage is going. she says, with great self-satisfaction, "great! you know, i haven't had sex with anyone else since we got married! i haven't done drugs, or stolen anything, or killed his mother!" you would look at her very oddly.

and you should. it's a good thing that she hasn't killed her mother-in-law, but the fact that her focus is there shows that something is seriously off with this woman. her obsession with her keeping of the law is depriving her of LIFE.

we aren't so different, i think.

11:37 PM

Spring Break

i've been in dallas since last sunday, and i'm flying back to north carolina tomorrow. it is really nice out here - not even a little bit cold, but not unreasonably hot. it's amazing. i love it. i've been hanging out with my brother and my parents, seeing friends, getting ahead on homework, eating frozen grapes. it's been lovely.

i had surgery on friday, which has made yesterday and today weird. i am really glad to have been home - REALLY glad. hopefully this will take care of a ton of my medical problems from the last year. i am so relieved. i just hope the rest of my recovery is easier than the first 36 or whatever hours have been.

i love frozen grapes.

my brother rented me six movies to watch while recuperating - most of them are decidedly children's films, like bolt and horton hears a who. (both of those were fabulous, btw.) he has been looking after me too, not just my parents. it is nice to be cared for when you feel awful and are kinda helpless and a mess.

1:22 AM

Toothbrush

i have been known to forget my toothbrush on occasion. for example, almost every time i spent the night at someone's house growing up. in fact, when i went to college and had my first "hall meeting," our RA had us bring our favorite things from home. i brought my bible and my toothbrush, and announced how incredibly glad i was that i had remembered that toothbrush this time i left home.

i flew home to dallas for spring break on sunday and - you guessed it - forgot my toothbrush. my ever-resourceful mother found a fresh one, still packaged, lying around the house somewhere, and now i am using it. apparently it makes my teeth very white (yay!).

that said, it is really strange. there's this bumpy thing on the back of the brush part that rubs against your gums and the inside of your cheek and all that and it feels very weird. invigorating, i suppose, but who needs the inside of their teeth invigorated?

what i'm trying to say is that i have no clue what this thing is supposed to do. i tried scrubbing my tongue with it this morning - it's definitely not intended for that. i mean, it's squeaky! what is the deal?!?

1:55 PM

Pet Peeve

i wish people would stop talking about how nestor carbonell (who plays richard alpert on LOST) is wearing eyeliner. HE'S NOT. HE JUST LOOKS LIKE THAT.

that is all.

8:11 PM

Wanna Know What I've Been Pondering?

you have to click the picture to see the whole thing... but if you're a LOSTie and haven't seen this week's episode, this might count as a spoiler.... not the part you can see right now, but the whole picture.

7:03 PM

Shoe Binge

i have large feet - size 11, which is not an easy size to find. (it's not as hard as 12s though, not by a long shot. of course, that is what my mom and sister wear.) once i got to this size, the options were limited - crazy lime-green-with-rhinestones sandals (hello, i'm like 13!) and old lady shoes for the most part. i had to buy men's tennis shoes. you get the idea.

there was one place that wasn't SO bad in the mall, and a DSW that i got to where i could look down an entire aisle for the yellow "11" sticker and figure out whether it was worth it to even look. but it was pretty hit or miss.

then this beautiful and amazing thing happened to dallas. we got a nordstrom.

nordstrom is known for (1) excellent customer service and (2) carrying really bizarre shoe sizes, not just 6s-10s. and lemme tell you, they brought both in a major way. MAJOR.

their shoes are fantastic. i love them. and it seems that wherever they plant their roots, other stores in the area start broadening the sizes they carry - not as much as nordstrom, where you can get a 13 in women's shoes sometimes! it's like suddenly someone realized, gee, there's this huge untapped market, especially as women are getting taller.

all this is an introduction/excuse for my shoe binge. :-D nordstrom was having a sale. what can i say? and i ordered a couple of other pairs from zappos (one works and i love it; one doesn't) on account of all the weddings, etc. on my horizon. the thing is, i wear through shoes a lot - i get a few pairs that i wear all the time, and 3 years later (max) they are dead as doornails - either the heel breaks or the cushion stops cushioning or the bow starts looking like antennae.... you get the idea. the point is, i wear my shoes OUT.

so here are my recent conquests purchases.

i had to chuck my brown flats last fall because i kept slipping in them. and now that my beloved but very worn cheetah print shoes are getting close to the end of their lives, i really needed something brown. so i got these:









these are just fun and comfortable, and they cost less than $30! "what can you possibly wear hot pink shoes with?" you ask? EVERYTHING. except red.













These are the zappos shoes. They are BCBGirls and they are really comfortable and really fun and I want to wear them with a black dress to a friend's wedding - you know, channel a little Angelina.
These are my new favorites. They are ADORABLE and fun and by Linea Paolo, one of my favorite shoe lines. (Only Nordstrom carries LP.) Again, I think they will go with pretty much everything I own (except navy). I expect to get a lot of wear out of these babies. And you probably can't tell this from the picture, but that black-and-tan patch definitely sparkles.