Old news

So a few weeks ago, I cut a bunch of my hair off. Here are two before shots and one after. I'm still not sure which I prefer. It's possible that I have a little cutter's remorse. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love, love, love my new hair, but now that I'm looking at the pictures, I kind of miss my pretty long hair, too.

Awesome things from last week

Awesome Thing 1: My Birthday! Ok, so I may be stretching the definition of week a little tiny bit here. However, it was lovely and low-key and involved several of my favorite people, including my mama!! Success, I say!
Awesome Thing 2: Amy came to town!! Yay! She was here to interview for a fellowship, which she got. Congrats, Ames! So... now she gets to come back to town in a little over a week. Whoo-hoo! Lots of Amy doses. Plus, she reminded me that they are supposed to be relocated to Georgia this fall, which means much easier Amy-dose-procurement. Yippity!
Awesome Thing 3: We saw a dog walking down the street beside its owner carrying its own bag from Pawticulars. That was awesome.
Awesome Thing 4: So, I was thinking the dog bag-carrying trick was pretty cool until later that night when I got to meet Sebastian - Colleen and Nathaniel's brand, new shiny baby. Ok, maybe not shiny, but definitely new and a-dor-a-ble! We've all been waiting so long to meet him that it was just so cool to finally see him. Double-yay for new family members!

I'm all out of awesome things for now.

A Day Charged, A Penny Saved

So, I thought my old-school phone had finally bit the dust. I couldn't seem to get it to charge during the day yesterday so I wrote it off and figured I would be without a phone for a few days until I could replace it. However! When I got home I was able to fanangle my charger to start pouring some resuscitating life back into my phone.
In the words of my astute frolleague: "A Day Charge, A Penny Saved"

Lessons Learned from Impoundment

So, apparently, last Thursday night, my car insisted on being parked in front of some guy's driveway. As a result, it got a three-day vacation in a special resort lot, aka DC tow lot. But, I did learn a few things:
1 - When you're parallel parking and think you should have hit the curb, you probably should have.
2 - D.C. suddenly gets all Christian on Easter weekend and closes up their tow lots.
3 - Sometimes menial, even annoying tasks end up being absolutely joyous. Tonight, I was cleaning the proliferation of waxy chalk numbers and letters on my car's windshield when a neighborhood guy walked by and said, "Lucky you have something like that to do tonight." It struck me as odd, but then I started to think about it. There I was, cleaning the windshield, somewhat begrudging the fact that I was out there undoing my marks of shame all by myself without anyone to help me or keep me company. But, this guy was just taking in the beautiful evening, enjoying a conversation with his buddy, and in the process showed me that there was joy to be found in that task. And, with each of the remaining letters and numbers I erased, I tried to soak in the rhythm of the task, the feel of the warm spring night, and the neighborhood sounds... conversations, buses, bikes, dogs. That task could have been a punishment, but instead, it was a rewarding experience in which I felt I was really "living".