egg-actly.

so i've been buying the brown eggs at the store lately and every single time i crack open one of those suckers i expect the "white" of the egg to be brown. and it's not. and i'm surprised.

also they're shockingly difficult to crack.

but maybe the bigger lesson has to do with expectations. i'm struggling with knowing what are reasonable things i can expect out of my day. otherwise i don't feel as though i'm living up to my fullest potential and in the non-profit world, we all know there is never a shortage of people to serve.

realistic expectations. i'll start with the eggs.

ms 150

last weekend i went to see my friend henry cross the finish line for his bike ride from houston to austin to raise money for MS. it was such an amazing experience to witness. i stood at the last turn before the finish line and got to watch the riders round the bend and see the finish line with the capital building in the background after two full day of riding.

i watched work groups wait for each other so they could cross together. i saw families crossing hand in hand. i saw people with health problems fighting to finish strong. i watched children, classmates, and mother cheering for everyone who passed by.

and it was beautiful.

west and allison.

so i just watched a movie called all the days before tomorrow. in it's description, it claims to be a "quirky episodic tale." how could one refuse such a plot line? i think i enjoyed it mainly because it felt like a series of snap shots of real life. no huge crisis or turning point. musical score was there but more often than not, it was the silence of reality.

for some reason, it really captured me. it's nice to enter into someone else's life for 100 minutes. simple. no emotional energy. it doesn't really matter if people turn out happy or not because they do not exist.

all in all, a nice break this afternoon.

sometimes.

sometimes the weight of responsibility feels too heavy to bear. sometimes i wonder why i am so unbelievably blessed and why i feel so called to turn that back to others.

sometimes i think too much.

where do they have book events in austin?

every time i go to the bank after work, i pass by the alamo drafthouse on w. anderson ln. under the list of currently playing movies is always the phrase "book events here." until this afternoon, i always wondered why they would consistently  publicize with such generalities. if a famous author was in town, wouldn't they advertise him or her by name?

then i realized that "book" in this statement was a verb and not an adjective.

aaaaand i'm off to garden.

a fan of the enneagram

it's funny. i don't like to be put into boxes, but i'm fascinated with personality tests. a seeming inconsistancy. but when i read myself on the test i feel as though i'm somehow more normal.

observe. on the enneagram test, i'm a type fiv3:

Whatever the sources of their anxieties may be—relationships, lack of physical strength, inability to gain employment, and so forth—average Fives tend not to deal with these issues. Rather, they find something else to do that will make them feel more competent. The irony is that no matter what degree of mastery they develop in their area of expertise, this cannot solve their more basic insecurities about functioning in the world. For example, as a marine biologist, a Five could learn everything there is to know about a type of shellfish, but if her fear is that she is never going to be able to run her own household adequately, she will not have solved her underlying anxiety.

and that, friends, is exactly what i'm doing with my life. read more about my personality here.

and i don't even really like parsley.

so i got home from work today feeling kind of sluggish. early morning staff meeting on to my self-imposed last day at the soup kitchen with the tuesday crew i've come to really love on to managing and updating calibration records at the infant incubator company i'm working for part time.

i went outside to check on my new tomato transplant that i lovingly have named roger and lo and behold the parsley seeds i'd planted last week had begun to sprout. i literally jumped for joy! what a wonderful and surprising surprise!

moral of the story: gardening makes me happy and it could make you happy too.

the end.