An update for the weary

25 May

It has been brought to my attention that it has been more than two months since I updated.  Truth be told I have nothing to update.  I have not created in God knows when.  So really it just comes down to this:

I still love bubble baths after football.  Especially with dirty toes.

I still love bloody marys, and more than that I love them with amazing food.

This is Sproles…he’s the newest rescue.  This is after a “run” because we are both trying to get in tip top shape for some kickball…

…as seen here.  Sproles is still unsure of kickball…or maybe me.  The world may never know.

Kickball is serious business! Do not make the mistake of underestimating what it means to Ball So Hard!

With that said my dears, this is my life.  Work, puppies, bloody marys, playground sports, and attempting to get in shape.  Till next time my loves…

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

best advice given

21 Mar

So let me start by saying I am 29 years old.  In July I will hit the big 30. I have been given a lot of advice in this lifetime. Some of it I followed, like when my mom said, “Make sure you date someone who is a good kisser!” This may seem trivial, but trust me, it was some of my favorite advice and has saved me a lot of broken heart I am sure.  Some of it I should have followed. Like when my mom told me to wait to get a dog till I was out of college. There was always advice on the broken hearts, dating, school, job, and so on and so on.  I must admit at 29 years old I was pretty sure I had heard all the advice I needed to in this lifetime.  I now just needed to start applying it.  In my own little head my 20′s is a time to make mistakes and take advice and my 30′s will be a time to apply the advice I got in my 20′s.  Who knows what the 40′s would be for…way to far away.  I have a point.  I was sitting on a bench on Sunday, March 18th. I was telling one of my bests all about my confusion, my crush, my night prior.  As we recapped like girls do, I said what I really didn’t want to say, but had been thinking. ”What if this is all in my head? What if I lose all the awesome that exists now?” She told me very calmly, “You have to appreciate that you have it now. You have to appreciate that you are learning what you want. You have to appreciate the here and now.”

I let it marinate and mocked her for a few.  It wasn’t that I thought she was wrong, but it seemed like such an unnatural thing to do.  I mean, I want what I want. Why in the world would I not focus on getting it and focus on the appreciation. Today I learned why.

I ran into the most precious little girl I have every had the pleasure of meeting. I was lucky enough to be a part of her life for years and she taught me more about magic and what it means to love and how to get what you want than I have learned from adults 10 times her age.  Today she gave me a hug and told me about school. She asked me how my dog was.  She high-fived me. She let me hug her again.  She waved at me as I pulled out of the parking spot and until I drove away.  It was in that moment I knew why the most important thing I could do was appreciate that this little grasshopper of a girl exists in my life.

It has been a rough two weeks.  Things haven’t really gone according to my plan and this week started out fairly odd. When I drove that car away, I found myself wanting to cry, but instantly remembering the advice given just days before, “Appreciate the here and now.” In changing one little mindset from sad to drive away into appreciating that I got to hug and learn about the magic of recess, changed my entire attitude.  I smiled. My weeks were suddenly pushed back into alignment. She was my paper rainbow and I am so appreciative of that.

The simplest and best advice, appreciate.

Appreciate the job you have.

Appreciate thaoutcome.t you got to play the game.

Appreciate that you get to spend time with him/her now.

Appreciate the here/now, don’t dwell on the outcome.

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

Lagniappe: Thanks for the advice Olivia

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Balance

1 Mar
I am not a balanced person. I can barely, scratch that, can’t balance a checkbook.  No really I never passed accounting 101. I rarely can walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time. I am a very excited and passionate person.  Chances are if you are excited, I will get excited with you.  I am an idea girl. I am a girl that rarely balances rational and idealism.  I say yes much more than I say no, thus causing a long to-do list.  I am a lot of things. I am excited, happy, stressed, trusting, hopeful, faithful, sometimes pissy, but balanced, yeah that word doesn’t fit into my description.
Each new year we make a list of things that we are going to do.  A list that usually consists of lose weight, save money, stop drinking coke, etcetera. I have made these very same resolutions.  This year I decided to just tell myself to do things.  I would say, “Yo, gah, run a 5K.” or “Stop whining and dance.” or “Forgive, silly.  Just forgive.” and “Yo! I told you to forgive, that includes yourself.” Somewhere on those list of things to tell myself, which I call my 2012 Manifesto I wrote, “Learn to walk the tightrope.” I am going to let that marinate a bit.  Has it marinated? This is not a deep seeded task of balancing the different aspects of our lives. This is a very cut and dry goal. I will learn to walk a rope that is about 2″ wide. I call it tightroping (or on any given day, let’s watch Whit bust her ass), but the pros call it slack lining. I promised y’all last month I would update and I keep my word.
You will notice 2 things:
1. I have decided I want to be able to jump on the rope, stick the landing, and arms up….right now this just happens in my mind.
2. I have learned that a crash pad is best.
Tip I have learned: Keep a slight bend in your hips and knees.
Happy Balancing.
lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

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I want…

16 Feb

I must warn you, this is the dreaded open letter. Feel free to stop reading now, however, know that if you do, I will know.  I will then assume that you hate me, then I will proceed to crawl under a rock and die. Thus setting all my facebook friends into a frenzy as their dear friend Whit died a tragic death of a broken heart and starving under a rock.  

Dear Waitress,

I can only assume when you were expressing your opinions in such a vulgar manor in the back of your restaurant that you intended for all patrons in the front to hear and drop their jaws in amazement that you are very disillusioned and also need to have your mouth washed out with soap at the lack of your class and disrespect you showed for your job, your patrons, and your opinions.  Let’s first address your statement, paraphrased without the vulgarity as it is not appropriate for this site.

“Every woman just wants to get married and have babies and not have to work.  Any girl that tells you otherwise is lying to themselves because of society. I am just so lucky that my boo supports me and i don’t have to work.”

I respect that this is your opinion, but please do not confuse this with respect for you.  The fact that you make the assumption that this is every woman’s view because it is yours is both sad and infuriating as a human being and a woman. The fact that you feel it was neccessary to share your opinion littered with the explicatives and in such a loud manner in your place of work tells me one thing: you better hope you never have to work, as that little respect for your job means you will be in and out of them for a lifetime till you develop such a reputation for yourself that no one will want to hire you.  At the end of the day, my goal of this letter is not to insult you or damn you, but it has inspired me to share my opinion and observation.

I am only one person. I want to find my best friend, teammate, and partner. If finding that in a man leads to marriage, I am okay with that, if it leads to no wedding or change of name, I am okay with that too.  You see what I want is happiness.  It has been my observation that is what most of us, man or woman is searching for. Happiness doesn’t tend to be a gender specific thing. It is a human emotion that is a choice.  I have seen in many that it is a choice and emotion that is not one size fits all.  I have seen the childless be over joyed with their life.  I have seen the single be over joyed. I have seen the married be miserable. I have seen the married be overjoyed.  Happiness doesn’t seem to be something that automatically comes with either.  To say that one is lying to themselves for societies sake is, well, for lack of better word, absurd.  I am not saying that people do not lie for the approval of the status quo, I am saying that I have met a very low number that have made decisions as important as children and marriage for the sole reason of society.  Please do not make the generalization that ALL do and I will stop making the assumption that you are an uneducated drain on my tax dollars.

Now for the job aspect.  I am a fortunate little girl. I have  a job that excites me everyday.  I go home and feel like I can be proud of the job I have done, the people I have helped.  I feel blessed that it allows me to work with other passions like art, food, and pound puppies.  I feel fortunate that I work everyday in an environment that is inspiring and growing. I am humbled by the simple fact that this is not the case for everyone.  For that reason I aim to show my job respect, my clients respect, my employers respect.  I aim to show myself respect.  I want to work everyday, so much so that when I am not working at the job that pays my bills and taxes, I find work in other aforementioned passions.  The job I want to work pays my rent, my electricity, and the taxes that pay for your roads, education, and more.  I WANT to do that.  I WANT to support my neighbor.  I WANT to because this society that you say guilted me into it, means something to me, and this is how I have CHOSEN to make my mark on it.  I respect all the choices women in our society have made.  I am quite convinced being a stay at home mom is a much more difficult job than mine and in that feel one again humbled. It is in the different choices that happy women have made through time, I am personally reminded how lucky we are that we live in a society that allows us these choices.

Should you truly believe that society doesn’t allow women to choose a life of no kids or no jobs or gasp, no marriage, I invite you to open your eyes.  Learn to listen to people.  Allow your neighbors to tell you their stories.  I invite you to see that littered among the close-minded there is a plethora of amazingly supporting and happy women and men that are happy to support women in whatever decision they make in their life.

Sincerely,

Whit the first booth to the right, that incidentally had to get up and come to you while you were sitting at a table spouting off your opinions and not allowing people to talk to pay her lunch tab.

Little Lagniappe: I want to get married. I want to have a child.  I want to work.  I guess 2 out of 3 in societies standards are okay right?!

Perfect Gumbo…

16 Feb

I have thought about this post over and over again.  Is there such a thing as the perfect gumbo?  Many moons ago I wrote this little post about my first gumbo experience.  I cooked for 20. It turned out spectacular and I was able to eat the gumbo for weeks later in frozen portion packs. The next time I made gumbo for 6, this was a much more achievable feat.  Each time the gumbo was a bit better.  I have whipped up gumbo only two times in my little southern life. Each time a long adventure that takes hours of simmering and at least a day of planning.  Sunday I decided to change it up a little bit.

I had some leftover chicken, a little bit of roux and gravy. Of course I had the holy trinity in my freezer chopped and pre-portioned.  I had chicken stock.  I had rice.  I had cayenne, paprika, and all the other essentials.  The only thing I was missing was andouille sausage, but I had some chicken sausage. By golly I was going to make some make-shift gumbo!

This time I did it by feel, smell, and taste.  I decided to break the rules of my past two gumbo experiences and not use a recipe.  Skip ahead four hours, it was amazing!

I really couldn’t tell you how I made it, I just started throwing things in a pot.  If I felt like it was too thin I whipped up some more roux.  I let it simmer for about 3 hours once all ingredients were in pot and just enjoyed the smell.  It was my favorite kitchen crEATion and Sunday Funday to date.  Till next time.

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

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sharing love

14 Feb

Human kindness is over flowing today.  Where as I wish it would overflow each and everyday, alas, we are not there yet.  Today is not a day about being coupled up, despite what you may think.  It’s a day about loving who you are, what you do, and where you are going.  It’s about loving your neighbor as you want to be loved.  It’s a day about doing the things you believe in, that you have faith in.  Go forth, have faith, love, and stand tall!

Je t’adore…W

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Pinterest – inspired

11 Feb

I set up and got invited to pinterest long ago.  I was an awful “pinner,” almost as awful and consistent as my blogging.  I wonder if there is a right and a wrong way to pin.  I always want to link up with the original and sometimes things have been repinned, so many times i am not really sure where they came from.  Then there is the fact that I get “inspired” to create so much, that my ADD is kicked into overdrive.  Today I learned why people pin, why people scour the internet for hours.  We are all looking for information and inspiration.  Today on @kal‘s pinterest wall I found it.  I needed to hear it and I think it applies to everything we do in this life.  I think it is a lesson for creators of art, architecture, businesses, and so on.  It was my paper rainbow this morning. For you non-pinterest followers:

Go. Keep Creating. Inspire others.

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

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You have the right to educate

1 Feb

I am going to go a little bit crazy here…I am going to talk politics. Really I got some questions regarding politics, but first of course a back story. 

I used to go to my grandparents in Houma.  I remember as my cousins and I played hide and seek around the house and running past the living room I would see my Popsi with all his friends discussing all the things that now seem to be so easy to avoid, religion and politics.  They would get loud and fuss at each other.  I would sit on the stairs and listen sometimes.  I was sure they would not come back to visit my Popsi when all was said and done, but each week, they did.  They would discuss again.  They would raise their voice and you could feel the passion course through the house.  They would end the night laughing finishing their coffee and off they would go to come back and do it again. 

What happen to that?

It is like somewhere along the way we, as a generation and myself included, decided it was easier to either A) follow the popular media for our decisions and values or B) avoid discussing all together or C) fight over the issues as that was surely a promising way to better our society (after all the loudest voice wins right?).  In the spirit of sharing and opening up the forum, for better or worse, I have some things to start:

I am starting with something I wrote November 5, 2008

I think we all know people who have let the race, sex, etc…come in the way of decisions they are making. By no means am I accusing any of you of being racist, close minded, or anything.

Unfortunately on both sides this election and the results have caused a lot of name calling. It is disheartening. We all believe in different issues, and to each of us there is another issue that is important. Issues like the economy, abortion, death penalty, gun control, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Foreign Policy, and the list goes on. But for better or worse in your eyes we live in a democracy, majority rules. If yours or my candidate did not win this time there is only one thing each of us can do. Unite with your neighbor, your friend, etc, and help our country to become something great. No president can single handily create nor destroy greatness. We can not blame one person for a demise, just as we can not blame them for a rise. As a country, as citizens, as children of God, and as friends we can make this country great!

We have a new president. He not only is the first black president(which is simply heart warming), but more importantly, he is OUR(white, black, purple, green) new president. It is time to rally behind him as a citizens for a better place as our new commander-in-chief of our government. The commander and chief of our heart and soul is not for the rest of the world to judge, question, or decide for us. It is a choice that God has given each of us individually. But like the song says, “Jesus loves the little children, All the little children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his light.”

Let the issues be the issues. Let us educate ourselves on the issues and continue to make heartfelt and educated decisions in each or our life! Each of us voted with our hearts and head that is more than we could have ever asked for.

I think this post stands true as much today as it did that day.  We are in election year. That means it is time to reevaluate where we are, were we want to be.  If you don’t like where we have been the past 4 years, this is your chance to educate yourself and RESPECTFULLY educate others.  It’s time to look at what our leaders have done and not what they say.  It’s time to talk to each other and come together and stand as one. 

If you have a great reasource you use to evaluate your canidates, please share in the comments!

Let’s do this.  Let’s get educated and let’s start talking.  Geaux!

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

Lagniappe: The return of peace art soon. 

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Call the dogs!!!

25 Jan

So many times we look for something amazing to do, a passion, a way to give back. I found mine in a pup named apple. She was my foster dog and now in a forever home. She changed the way I looked at pets, their story, their life.

On May 26th I will help host a benefit. I will update the page Appelez les Chein on here and on Facebook

The benefit will have games, space walk, food, silent auction, raffle, and more! If you in the blog world would like to donate your art/creations please email me. If you want to donate gift certificates, unique gifts, etc, email me. You will be heavily advertised in all programs and banners and on social media. Not to mention, you are helping save the life of a fur-friend!

Most importantly, we hope to see you there. Remember to be the paper rainbow to a furry friend, adopt!

Lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

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Conquering the Tight Rope

22 Jan

Here we are a little bit more than halfway done with January 2012.  I mentioned last week that I wrote out my manifesto.  Part of my manifesto was to walk the tight rope.  Let me explain. 

My friends opened a boot camp gym.  The trainer Justin put this rope across it.  I was intrigued.  He informed me that balancing on it works your core and balance.  It takes a lot of balance and core strength to start walking.  It also as I quickly learned takes a lot of mental strength.  I find myself repeating in my head over and over as I try to stand, “You are a balanced person. You are a balanced person.”  This of course isn’t the case nine times out of ten, but none the less, for those minutes I can feel what it is like to attempt balance. This is the month 1 video.  I intend on recording my attempts to see how far I have come.  As you can see in the last frame…I stood for about 5 seconds. Oh-my-awesomeness

 

Tips:

I find it is easier barefoot.  Others say with shoes.  I say this means I need a pair of Vibrams.

Keep your chest up.  DO NOT lean forward.

Find a focal point. Focus.

Music helps.  I like to put on the Jason Mraz Pandora station…it is the perfect tight rope combo: calm, fun, balanced.

Use your entire body to balance. 

Start with pushing the rope down and keeping it still and unwavering, then try to pick your other leg up.

Alternate legs.  Don’t want one being stronger than the other.

Now go forth and be balanced.

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

 

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