"I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma."- Eartha Kitt 9:48 PM

"I must learn to love the fool in me--the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool." -- Theodore I. Rubin, MD

"Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom." Plato 7:51 PM

If I was president, my style would be similar too Obama.(president/foreign leader).

My first project would be to improve our relationship with TheWorld!. (country/region)


The first concert at the White House would be Rilo Kiley. (musician/artist)


The White House pet would be an Irish Wolfhound.


My weekend retreat would be in London, England.


I would take Bill Oreilly off the air

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity." Voltaire 8:53 PM

The best thing about San Diego is the multitude of independent business. When it came time for Guy and me to pick out a place to have our rehearsal dinner everyone had something to say about it but no one trusted the local restaurants to know how to handle a party of thirty people. Guy's parents really pushed for Cheesecake Factory but we insisted that if people were coming from all over the world to our beloved San Diego they should get a taste of what our locals had to offer, not something they could get in any medium sized plus city in the US. We decided that the very best place to showcase our local cuisine would be the Parkhouse Eatery, which also happens to be out very favorite restaurant. They serve new American/California cuisine. Basically your mom and pop favorites with a twist. I love the pork chop and anything on their breakfast menu. Guy's favorites are the breakfast pizza and the raspberry mimosas.

We found Parkhouse completely by accident. In an attempt to widen our perceptions of our fair city on a multiple levels we decided the best place was to start with one of the biological needs, edible sustenance. Guy bought me a ton of random gift certificates for Christmas, one of which just happened to be this cute quirky homey place on Park Boulevard, from which you can see our the church we ended up getting married in. We went, I had blackberry pancakes, he had a lamb burger and we've been going back ever since. We recommend everything.




Our rehearsal dinner went off without a hitch. The food was great and the service was amazing. They even allowed us to bring in our own wine and desserts. They plated and served and poured. Now I hear friends recommending this place to other people or we find ourselves being invited out to our favorite place.
Besides being really busy on the weekends there are no unpleasant things that come to mind in regards to this quaint house turned restaurant.

"The torment that so many young women know, bound hand and foot by love and motherhood, without having forgotten their former dreams."SimoneDeBeauvoir 8:32 PM

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law
By Adrienne Rich
1
You, once a belle in Shreveport,
with henna-colored hair, skin like a peachbud,
still have your dresses copied from that time,
and play a Chopin prelude
called by Cortot: "Delicious recollections
float like perfume through the memory."

Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake,
heavy with useless experience, rich
with suspicion, rumor, fantasy,
crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge
of mere fact. In the prime of your life.

Nervy, glowering, your daughter
wipes the teaspoons, grows another way.

2
Banging the coffee-pot into the sink
she hears the angels chiding, and looks out
past the raked gardens to the sloppy sky.
Only a week since They said: Have no patience.

The next time it was: Be insatiable.
Then: Save yourself; others you cannot save.
Sometimes she's let the tapstream scald her arm,
a match burn to her thumbnail,

or held her hand above the kettle's snout
right inthe woolly steam. They are probably angels,
since nothing hurts her anymore, except
each morning's grit blowing into her eyes.

3
A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.
The beak that grips her, she becomes. And Nature,
that sprung-lidded, still commodious
steamer-trunk of tempora and mores
gets stuffed with it all: the mildewed orange-flowers,
the female pills, the terrible breasts
of Boadicea beneath flat foxes' heads and orchids.
Two handsome women, gripped in argument,
each proud, acute, subtle, I hear scream
across the cut glass and majolica
like Furies cornered from their prey:
The argument ad feminam, all the old knives
that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours,
ma semblable, ma soeur!

4
Knowing themselves too well in one another:
their gifts no pure fruition, but a thorn,
the prick filed sharp against a hint of scorn...
Reading while waiting
for the iron to heat,
writing, My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun--
in that Amherst pantry while the jellies boil and scum,
or, more often,
iron-eyed and beaked and purposed as a bird,
dusting everything on the whatnot every day of life.

5
Dulce ridens, dulce loquens,
she shaves her legs until they gleam
like petrified mammoth-tusk.

6
When to her lute Corinna sings
neither words nor music are her own;
only the long hair dipping
over her cheek, only the song
of silk against her knees
and these
adjusted in reflections of an eye.

Poised, trembling and unsatisfied, before
an unlocked door, that cage of cages,
tell us, you bird, you tragical machine--
is this fertillisante douleur? Pinned down
by love, for you the only natural action,
are you edged more keen
to prise the secrets of the vault? has Nature shown
her household books to you, daughter-in-law,
that her sons never saw?

7
"To have in this uncertain world some stay
which cannot be undermined, is
of the utmost consequence."
Thus wrote
a woman, partly brave and partly good,
who fought with what she partly understood.
Few men about her would or could do more,
hence she was labeled harpy, shrew and whore.

8
"You all die at fifteen," said Diderot,
and turn part legend, part convention.
Still, eyes inaccurately dream
behind closed windows blankening with steam.
Deliciously, all that we might have been,
all that we were--fire, tears,
wit, taste, martyred ambition--
stirs like the memory of refused adultery
the drained and flagging bosom of our middle years.

9
Not that it is done well, but
that it is done at all? Yes, think
of the odds! or shrug them off forever.
This luxury of the precocious child,
Time's precious chronic invalid,--
would we, darlings, resign it if we could?
Our blight has been our sinecure:
mere talent was enough for us--
glitter in fragments and rough drafts.

Sigh no more, ladies.
Time is male
and in his cups drinks to the fair.
Bemused by gallantry, we hear
our mediocrities over-praised,
indolence read as abnegation,
slattern thought styled intuition,
every lapse forgiven, our crime
only to cast too bold a shadow
or smash the mold straight off.
For that, solitary confinement,
tear gas, attrition shelling.
Few applicants for that honor.

10
Well,
she's long about her coming, who must be
more merciless to herself than history.
Her mind full to the wind, I see her plunge
breasted and glancing through the currents,
taking the light upon her
at least as beautiful as any boy
or helicopter,
poised, still coming,
her fine blades making the air wince

but her cargo
no promise then:
delivered
palpable
ours.

"Serendipity. It's one of my favorite words." 7:45 PM

I was looking though my bookmarks and stumbled upon this video. I find it so charming and cute and serendipitous that I was compelled to post it here in hopes that it will make someone else's day as it did mine. And it is my true and honest hope that that day is yours.

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." George Eliot 4:08 PM

Things I love about fall

• The prospect of rain
• Leaves
• Reading in the fading light
• Hot tea
• Mugs
• Sweaters
• Hoodies
• Long Sleeves

Edited to Add...

• Apple Cider
• Pumpkin flavored everything (thanks for the reminder Michael)
• Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

"There are three things I've learned to never discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin"-Linus Van Pelt 7:45 PM

Happy Halloween!

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."Oscar Wilde 2:27 PM

Every once in a while I go through a shopping fever phase. Rarely, very rarely, do I give in but if I decided to splurge these would be the first things in my cart. (Click on the pictures to be taken to the detailed information about each item)

This perfectly adorable Charlie Brown Christmas tree is making me look forward to the holidays already. ($20 @ FredFlare.com)


This fun Where the Wild Things Are inspired hoodie ($44 @ TeesForAll.com)


The beautiful handmade messenger bag ($35 @ Etsy.com)

The Where the Wild Things Are Sountrack. ($13.99 @ Target.com)

Electrolux Frontloading Washer and Gas Dryer (Washer $1699.00 and Gas Dryer $1,799.00 @ BestBuy.com)

"My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet."-Edith Wharton 10:18 PM

I spent at least half of my day checking to make sure my dog was pulling life supporting oxygen into her lungs and expelling carbon dioxide into the air around her. Scout spent at least half of her day sleeping on my chest, providing me with the warm weight of her twelve pound body as aconstant reminder of what we could be missing.

Last night, after spending a fairly nice afternoon in the company of some good friends and charming acquaintances moving into our new home, we found ourselves shocked as Scout collapsed in my arms and stopped breathing while everyone sat amongst boxes and misplaced furniture, contemplating dinner options. Guy and I sprinted out of the door, our limp dog in his arms. As we charged through our little neighbor hood with frightened abandon, our friends searched for a veterinarian who would be open after 7pm on a Sunday. When we arrived at the hospital her eyes had rolled into the back of her head, her gums were white, and her tongue was turning blue and had shriveled up in the back of her mouth. I couldn't feel her breathing ; terrified, I held her chest to my ear hoping to hear at least a faint palpitation. To my surprise her heart was beating wildly against her ribcage but she still wasn't taking in any air and her extremities were cold to the touch. I was beginning to wonder if she would have brain damage from the lack of oxygen but to my surprise less than 7 minutes had passed by the time we bounded into the waiting room and handed the receptionist what looked and felt like a dead dog.

Later, after confirming that Scout was indeed alive and had been stabilized, we were told that she had spiraled into anaphylactic shock after presumably ingesting or being stung by a bee. Her blood pressure dropped to an unhealthy low and her airways were severely constricted. Case in point, she almost died. She would have to stay the night for observation.

We picked her up this morning and took her home and hand fed her white rice and cottage cheese. I lovingly doused her little pink antihistamine pills in crunchy peanut butter and let her lick my hand until she had eradicated every oily molecule, leaving warm kisses instead. And now I am laying in bed with my sweet girl and trying to not to think of a world where I could never smell her little popcorn feet or bury my nose in her tortilla chip ears or wake up with her pressed against the crook of my knee.

"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. "Jane Austen 8:06 PM

Alright so truth be told, the new place isn't exactly the most comfortable place yet but we are already working hard to make it as ours as we can. We have finally made the move from apartment to house. Its a cute little 2 bedroom 1 bathroom number with a tiny tiny quaint backyard. This weekend was full of painting and cleaning and packing and more cleaning and breathing in toxic paint fumes. Quite exciting really. We are considering it a move in the right direction and are happy to rent for the time being, until we decide where we really want to live. I am most excited about the "backyard" which is literally a complete mess as of now, but we have plans to put in a patch of grass and plant some herbs back there, maybe even find some patio furniture.

The house from the front


Guy painting the "master" bedroom





Cooper and Scout enjoying the tarp.