7 Beautiful Women I Just Can't Stop Looking At These Days

Beyonce! Because, well...duh!

Cat Power (aka Charlyn Marshall)
Devine singer with devine style.

Kat Dennings.
Hilarious and Hot.
And the star of her very own mediocre and slightly raunchy sitcom, 2 Broke Girls.

Aubrey Plaza.
Another hilarious brunette.
Check her out on Parks and Recreation  being snarky and awesome.

Zoe Deschanel.
She's adorkable.
She can sing.
And she has bangs every girl would kill for.

Christina Hendricks.
Or Joanie,  the saucy, indispensable secretary as you may know her from Mad Men.
Curves for days.

Oh, and myself of course!
Not in an arrogant way.
But ladies, it's important to love yourself and find beauty in you.
Especially when we're bombarded with media images of "perfect" women as I've presented above.

Power Animal

Right now, I think I'd be a sea turtle.

I'd swim fast sometimes, like if a shark was chasing me.
But other times, I'd just float or chill on the beach.
I'd even hide out in a little coral cave thingy sometimes, and watch the schools of fish swim by.

What's your power animal?

Spruce up

It's been a while. I decided to give my blog a little layout/template spruce up.

Hope you like.

No-Things

I love doing nothing.

Like, seriously. I really like when I have nothing to do.

I suppose this is why people love the weekend, vacations, and the like.  But I think those people like to do nothing for a bit, and then get back to doing stuff. Those people say things like "I'd go crazy if I had nothing to do".

I wouldn't.

I suppose that makes me lazy, directionless, and destined for failure.
Oh well...

Exhibit A- me doing nothing in a hammock at the lake a year ago.

Enlightenment

I'll tell you, it comes at the randomest of times.




Have you ever heard that saying about how if you're looking for love, as soon as you stop looking for it, it will come? Well, it's the same for enlightenment. Dare I say it, could enlightenment and love be the same thing?

That's how it happens, folks.

Stop looking.

and yes, I've had 2 glasses if* wine
and yes, I like commas.
and yes, that's a creepy-ass picture to represent enlightenment

* why does the iphone always auto-correct "of" for "if" or vice versa?

"Floating the River"

It's a thing people do here in Oregon in the summer. All year long, you hear people talking about this "floating the river" thing.

You might be at the grocery store and hear:

"Yeah, man. We floated the river"

OR, you might be in class and here:

"Yeah, like, floating the river is really fun"

I've been intrigued and in need of some "summer" fun. So we we did it! All you do is go to a sports store, buy some tubes, stop by the groc on the way for some beers, and go to the river with some friends. The one slightly complicated part is shuttling a car from your start to finish point, so that when you finish there's a car there to take you back to the start to get your car. But, you do it and it's done and then you're having fun!

Picture credit (all lifted from his blog) goes to Jason, who brought along his waterproof camera and lots of beers. I lost my first beer in a baby rapid, so Jason drank them all!

Needless to say, fun was had by all and we will definitely be "floating the river"again very soon.

Getting started...it was cold!

mini cooler bungeed to Jason's raft

"I hear rapids"

Enjoying the sun and water. That stick served as good protection.

The rapid on which I lost my beer

Nate gettin' his chill on

Celeste and I enjoying the float

Jason gives new meaning to "redneck" :)

If you want to...

Have a stuffy nose
itchy watery eyes
and sneeze A LOT

in May, June, and July (the only sunny months)

Just come to Oregon.

Creek swimming, my birthday, Portland, and other fun things

In my typical not-proud-of-myself fashion, I have neglected my blog for yet another week.
So, here's some stuff I've been doing for the last week:

Fall Creek Swimming

Rock Lounging

Wearing bathing suits in 70 degree weather...we can pretend, right?

Hammock up!

Baby beers!

My Birthday Pressie to myself, a birthday romper!

I'm now 31, she's going to be 9!

Birthday Wine Tasting at Sweet Cheeks Winery

Pretty lands and yummy wines

Cheers!

He's a pittbull. He could snap at any moment!

Running to the top of Spencer's Butte. Stop looking at my butt, Celeste.

Summit with Celeste. Got to make this a regular thing!

Shadow yoga

Yep, just what it says: Portland and Sangria: a great combo

We braved the line at Screen Door for this Portland Southern cuisine. It'll put a hurtin' on ya!

Jason's sister, Jessica and Bryce are engaged! And, I'm going to be a bridesmaid!

Get ready, Jess! Just kidding...or am I?

July 10

It's the day before my birthday and I'm going to eat a mini cupcake for breakfast.

Don't try to stop me.

Smile!

In exactly a week, it will be July 11, my birthday and favorite day of the year! I suspect that "favorite day" stuff will soon go away, as I hear that the older you get the more you like to pretend that your birthday never happened.

I'll be 31 this year, which officially means I'm no spring chicken anymore. This is reason for my new vow to myself: I'm going to smile more. I think I smile a fair amount already, but there's also those very confused or concentrated faces that I make too. Or the "I'm looking at my phone very intensely" face. The faces that I make are slowly etching lines into my face, so why not smile more...like, all-the-time-ridiculous-style?
So when I'm old and gray I can look like this




You can tell that this woman has had a happy life. Her wrinkles tell the tale of many laughs.
We all get wrinkles, so get the good ones. Not to mention, we all take things way too seriously anyway, and need to smile more regardless of our age or wrinkle status.


Smile!

Off it goes

I just mailed in my Bikram Yoga Teacher Training Application! Among many other forms, letters, and proofs of who I am, it included these:










Now I just need to get a scholarship and memorize the dialogue. No big deal...

Western States Newbie

Sometimes I'm a super-awesome, supportive wife and I spend my 48 hour weekend riding in a car for 20 hours, sleeping for 8 hours, and standing around in 102 degree weather staring at emaciated runners for 20 hours.

Thats just what I did this past weekend at the Western States 100. Yes, some people are crazy enough to run 100 miles in 100 degree weather. And yes, other people are crazy enough to give of themselves enough to support those crazies in their crazy endeavor. That's just what jason did this weekend as he paced and supported Megan Arbogast, trail running queen. I tagged along for the heat, the rattlesnakes, and a chance to get out of Eugene for a couple of days

Rattlesnake warning sign at the dog park

Winner Timmy Tim Olsen with the ripped shoulders at mile 48

It might be nice have people pour cold stuff on you and put food in your mouth for you

My ultra runner crush, Hal Koener looking sweaty and gross as he comes through the aid station

Here he is in a green cat shirt with some trophies. 

Here's Jason after supporting Meghan Arbogast. He can be seen here on irunfar's twitter media gallery. Hello, famous husband!

19 hours later they come in and Meghan takes 4th place

The pacers 

Would you believe that runners were coming in all night and we were camping on the field behind the track? Very little sleep had by all.

I guess when you run 100 miles in 19 hours people want to interview you

I know how you feel, Viktor