Reverb!

Trying this out:

WELCOME TO #REVERB10

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. The end of the year is an opportunity to reflect on what's happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead. With Reverb 10, we'll do both.

This December we invite you to share your story and join us in reflection.

How to participate

Prompt Starting December 1, check in here for daily creative prompts (some of which will be from published authors). You can also subscribe for complimentary inbox delivery, and watch for updates on Twitter.

Create Respond to the prompt. In a post on your blog, through a tweet, with photography, or however else you desire.

Share Participate and share your reverberations using the #reverb10 hashtag (on Twitter, Delicious or Flickr). Learn from the reverberations of fellow participants.

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

2010: BEN. He became the reason for everything that I was happy, sad, frustrated, thrilled, and amazed by this year. Sure, he was born in 2009, but in 2010 is when he developed a huge personality, a toothy grin, and the uncanny ability to make us giggle at any time. He is why Keith and I fight, why we fall in love minutes later, why I am finishing graduate school, why I hate that I'm finishing school. He's why I get up every single day, and he's why we can't wait for Saturday morning family-snuggles. This year was all about him, as it should be.

2011: FAMILY. This upcoming year, I'd like to spend more time focusing on the THREE of us. Plus, in 2011, we'll finally all share a last time. :)

Art and tree

I think it's interesting how art history students are encouraged to know what era a piece of work is from based on what style it's in. I think they all could earn an A by arguing that any piece of work could have been made today, going on inspiration from the past. Right?

PS: My tree is growing rapidly. Keith's is dead. I think this calls for a simple nanny nanny boo boo. So, nanny nanny boo boo.

Seaside

Like so many people this time of year (oh, prom season), my skin has darkened. Mine, though, unlike more of theirs, is not the result of a too-bright closet with lights strong enough to do in six to ten minutes what it takes the sun to do in a similar numbers of hours. Nope, my suntan (okay, sunburn) was earned the old-fashioned way: sun on bare skin (except for the swipe or two of SPF 4 on my back and shoulders).

I think it stinks how a suntan makes everybody look so healthy but is really just your skin cells going crazy. I also think it stinks that I know this, but I'll continue to do it anyway, spending my summer timing my flips from stomach to back with never a higher SPF than fifteen, because as trite as it may be, there is absolutely nothing that can make me feel the same way as a Jersey shore day can. Which brings me to my next point: my very first 2009 beach day (and the scene of the burn-earning)!

Not just a sunburn, I got all the good parts of a mid-July beach day. There were french fries, salt water taffy, lemon-filled lemonade, and the piece-de-resistance: a ferris wheel ride! Keith even bought board-walk sunglasses. The only thing missing was some fudge.

But I won't fret: it's only April. There's plenty of time for fudge.

As promised.

Some facts: 

1. I promised with what was deemed a very solid, serious, and unbreakable handshake (it was slow motion, after all) that I'd post a blog tonight. 

2. Even though it's incredibly bizarre, I would love the wardrobe of Carrie Bradshaw. Particularly the shoe and coat wardrobe. I also wouldn't mind, believe it or not, her hairstylist. 

3. I'm having a really wonderful week. It seems like everything is aligning just right and besides that, my cat Einstein was lost and then found. 

4. On our pizza box, the pizza guys wrote, "Comer" instead of Conor. Yes, Comer. Weird. Whose name is Comer? I think maybe they were going for Conner. Also weird.

5. I'm glad OnDemand in my house exists only on the sunporch, where my dad tends to be the sole occupant. Because even though I'm not much of a TV watcher, I can almost guarantee that I'd become quickly and completely addicted.

6. I reread A Separate Peace this week. I'd forgotten most of it, and definitely how fantastic and surprising it is. Go read it, please. 

Can

I do not enjoy soda. I don't like how it makes my teeth or mouth feel (sort of like the entire thing is dissolving, bubble by bubble), it gives me a weird headache, and it makes my insides feel like mush. Regardless of the way I know it will make me feel mere moments after enjoying it, I get a more-than-mild hankering for a few sips every few months. Usually this can be satisfied with a few sucks on someone else's straw at the movie theater or a sneak sip from my dad's glass at dinner. Friday, though, this was not the case. I wanted a can of Coke. Only a can. And only Coke.

First of all, Coke beats all of the other cola drinks. It's silly to say, because I sound like a commercial, but it's a much more classic taste than Pepsi. And don't even get me started on the supermarket varieties. I think I feel this way mostly because Coke was what my dad drank (and still does) when I was a kid; any sips we had were special treats, and always had to be either dad-approved or very sneaky (still the case).

Next, whatever the brand, cola is always tastier from a can. Bottles don't allow it to be as crisp, plus they create more bubbles and don't make the can-opening crack that makes can-drinking so satisfying.

So Friday night (after some not-so-sneaky dodging), standing outside of the local AMC 24, I had my Coke-in-a-can. As usual, even though I didn't want it anymore after the first sip, I forced down two or three more, then handed over the rest.

It's a pretty good song

This weekend was Gaslight Anthem weekend! And by Gaslight Anthem weekend, I mean Keith and I made use of my Valentine's Day present and saw their show at the Troc. I also mean that they moved to number one on the list of Kristin's favorite bands. I have this rule that I can't call a band a favorite until I see them live. (There are a handful of exceptions to this rule, but I'm working on them.) Obviously, Gaslight passed to the max. Keith I were standing between another pair of couples. Throughout the entire show, I'm fairly sure there wasn't a moment where at least one of us three girls wasn't looking over her shoulder saying to her boyfriend, "sorry, I'm in love. With Brian Fallon." I giggled every single time. And, seriously. How could you not be? If Bruce were our age right now and making music, it'd be this. And everybody loves Bruce.

I'm obviously still swooning. I can't think of a better show I've seen (save maybe a Bruce show or two).

PS: No, the trees are still not planted.

The first snow of spring.

Today was supposed to be tree-planting day. Instead, the first words out of my mouth this morning were, "WHAT IS THAT?" For some reason, my brain refused to compute the fact that "THAT" white fluffy stuff falling from the sky and sticking to the grass and the car I'd soon by cleaning off was snow. Snow! Today is the first day of spring! March is supposed to come IN like a lion and go OUT like a lamb, not the other way around! What the heck is going on here, Mother Nature?? Baby redwoods do not do well in snow!! So now we'll have to wait until the ground warms up which will, I think, be by tomorrow. Whew. The second day of spring is not so bad for tree-planting (everytime I type "planting," (even that time) my fingers instead write, "playing.").

This blog has become a tree-blog. I think that makes me a little weird. I'm okay with it.