2012, I Salute You

2012, The Year of 30 Days.  It’s such a cliché, but the older I get (I know, I know…  I’m only 28, but 30 is right around the corner, folks), the more quickly time seems to pass.   I swear I was *just* doing the ‘take a picture every day’ challenge.  Like, yesterday.  How did we go from that to 2013?  Boggles the mind I tell you.  Boggles.

In hindsight, I might have bit off more than I can chew (that's what she said) with this year-long challenge.  I was full steam ahead at the beginning of '12, but that slowly dissipated as we got into the colder months.  (Can I blame it on that?   Being cold?  Yeah, totally.  I was super cold.)

At first I was all, "whee" and then I was all "ugh."

With all of the regular life stuff going on (the life of a social butterfly is quite busy, I’ll have you know), I found it difficult to keep the challenges (and therefore, blog) in focus; eventually, they became more of an afterthought.  "Oh.  I have a blog.  I should write something.  About the challenges I'm doing.  Shit.  What is the challenge I'm supposed to be doing?  Dancing.  Right.  I should be dancing."

Making panties drop.

I was hoping this year would break me of this habit of not always seeing things through: "I'm going to lose 1,000 pounds!  "I'm going to become super-duper fit!"  "I'm going to learn a programming language!"  Etc.  It didn't.  But I did come to accept that that pattern is more of a Human Behavior than a Heather Behavior.  I am not a unique snowflake; I am not alone in the I AM GOING TO DO ALL THE THINGS (and then not do all the things) camp.  That doesn’t make it ok, but I feel better knowing that I am not a crap person simply because things didn't quite work out as planned.  Tomorrow's another day.  Or some shit.  I also realized that I would likely be more successful in achieving my goals if I break them into smaller, more manageable pieces.  Baby steps, people... baby steps.  One small step for man, one achievable goal for Heather.

It also reminded that I can find an excuse for absolutely anything, which I believe I have already written about on here.  I can reason away any old thing that seems hard or not fun.  Go ahead, try me.  Give me a problem and I bet I can find a way to justify your way around it.  ZOMG!  THAT IS MY SUPER POWER!!!  I have the Power of Justification. 

I will save you from the things you don't want to do!

Hm.  Reading over this, it sounds a bit negative.  I’m too lazy to erase it and start over, so let me touch on the highlights, the good stuff.  My favorite challenge of the year was hands-down ‘get rid of something every day’.  Holy moly, was that cathartic as fuck.  I have managed to continue that practice throughout the year – if I bring something new into the house, I get rid of something old, useless or unnecessary (wish I could include my cat in that category).  End the Cycle of Crap.  Rock on. 

My favorite picture of the year:

To infinity and beyond!

My favorite art project of the year:

An obvious choice, I know.

My favorite first day of a new month:

Meat!  I can eat meat again!
Yeah, get it in there.  Get that meat in there.

Party in my mouth.

Equal parts frustrating (as fuck) and funny, the ‘no swearing’ challenge surprised me with its obscene difficultly.  I truly believed I would sail through that month like a rockstar, with nary a swear word in site.  Silly Heather.  Silly, silly Heather.

Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about this experiment of mine.  Part of me feels like I could have done it “better”.  Whatever that means.  Some months I feel like I was going through the motions (no TV) and others I completely gave up on (meditation?  Bite me, introspection).   Maybe I could have been more creative with how I interpreted some of the challenges (did I need so many pictures of clouds?) and I certainly could have upped the frequency of my blog posts.  But I am often hard on myself and if I look at it more objectively, it was a great year, I had fantastic experiences, met fabulous new people, went on some amazing vacations, tried new stuff and things and learned a little about myself in the process (I love collared greens, rabbit, and swearing; do not love duck or meditation).

Did it change me in any grand, fundamental way?  Probably not.  I’d like to think I’m a little more self-aware and a bit more forgiving and accepting of my quirks and foibles.  I hope to be forever on the hunt to find ways to become a better version of myself.  I think this year I did that.  Good job, me.  I’m going to do something similar for 2013, so be on the lookout for a new blog name (same URL to make it easy) (you’re easy) and new posts for 2013.  WOO.

Shirlington Ho s

In today's blog post, I am going to share my Saturday adventures with you.  My seester came to visit for the weekend and much fun was had by all.  Shenanigans galore (I'm going to skip the telling of the "shenanigans" that involved laying on the couch in baggy sweatpants and stick to the fun bits).  This tale will largely be told in picture form, because we took a lot of damn pictures.

We began the day's adventures with a late breakfast at Busboys & Poets.  I had chili, Kristy had mimosas.

Ok, I had mimosas too.

Happy, in a mild mimosa fugue state, we camped out in a local Starbucks (the mild, mimosa fugue state only lasts so long before the extreme post-mimosa sleepy state settles in), where Kristy did some homework (about five minutes worth, as a matter of fact) and I did a hours and hours wee bit of work-work.   I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that we didn't get much actual work done, but our grand intentions should count for something.  We did enjoy each other's company, as well as the many silly things we found on Reddit.

As our breakfast was more of a brunch we didn't have an actual lunch, and after exhausting ourselves with all the hard work and whatnot, we were starving by 5ish.  We headed off to Jaleo -- a spectacular Spanish tapas place in Crystal City -- at 5:30 to have dinner.  With the rest of the geriatrics.

Our first course was sparkling white sangria.

According to Kristy:  "This tastes like heaven."
Also, "It looks like we're drinking vegetables.  There's a lot of green."

Next came the tiny cheese with tiny breads with tiny spreads.  And more sangria.

Heather says, "This cheese is the most disgusting thing I have ever put in my mouth."

(says Kristy)

Needing meat (*wink*) in addition to the sangria (and mostly just to expel the horror that was the taste of goat cheese out of my mouth forever), I ordered spicy chorizo wrapped in potatoes and my oh-so-very-favorite, fried dates wrapped in bacon (why yes, they are as amazing as they sound).

I look the same in every single picture ever, so here, the important things:
booze and fried bacony goodness.

In honor of my I WILL TRY LOTS OF NEW THINGS month, I threw caution to the wind and ordered Conejo En Salmorego Con Pure De Albaricoques, or Canary Island-style (tiny, fluffly, adorable) rabbit confit with apricot puree.

Skeptical Heather is skeptical.

But Heather, the charming and graceful eater that she is, dug in with gusto.  (Why do I keep referring to myself in the third person?)

Does my mouth need to be open that wide?

And you know what?  Cute, sweet, fluffy little bunnies ARE DELICIOUS!

On the outside I looked like this...

... but on the inside, my mouth and tummy were doing this.

Dessert seemed like the next course of action (see what I did there?), but looking at the dessert menu, we were flummoxed.

Kristy:  I DON'T UNDERSTAND ANY OF THE WORDS HERE.

Truth be told, we were in such a happy, blissful sangria state, it didn't matter much what we ordered.  We had something with apples in some kind of sauce in some kind of magical bread pouch-thing and it was scrum-diddly-umptious.

And finally we were done and full and happy and in need of HOOKAH.  Off to Andalusia we went.  A tea and hookah joint, to be precise.  Hookah.  Tea.  Hm, I see hookah, and tea, but... but... where's the WINE?!  Alas, wine was not to be had at Andalusia, but I will say the hookah was top-notch, as were the random friends we made while sitting outside, enjoying the night and our shisha.  (Or however you spell that.)

Still, we were sad to lose our sangria-induced happiness and being the classy ladies we are, we (we being "I") popped over to the 7-11 and bought a few small bottles of wine, which we sipped surreptitiously throughout the evening.   All class, my friends, all class.

We rounded out the evening with yet more wine at Capital City Brewery in Shirlington and had grand plans to head back to the homestead after finishing our drinks and end our evening with a rousing bout of Dance Central on the XBox, but instead, we went immediately to sleep.  Immediately.  I don't think we could have managed to turn on the XBox, much less rustle up enough coordination to play any sort of game.  Unless it was a sleeping game; that we would have rocked at.

Shit, we couldn't even manage a decent self-portrait.

"Kristy, why can't you get your head in there?"

....alllllmost.

"Kriiisty, I don't want a solo picture."

"Here, I'll take the picture."
See, perfect.

As good as it's going to get.  At least that night.

(OHFORTHELOVEOFGODANDALLTHATISHOLY!  It should not be this difficult to format multiple pictures at once.  Make this better, Google!)

And that was our very fun Saturday.  Our Sunday involved the couch, the television and not much else.  Totally worth it.

To go back to the challenge a bit, here are some other things I have tried this month:  a new chili recipe, duck (at a Peking Duck place -- I'm glad I had the experience, but I find it perfectly acceptable to never eat duck again.  Bring on the wabbit!), chocolate covered edamame (do not want again).  Um, shit.  Wait, no, I didn't eat shit.  I meant "Shit!" in an exclamatory fashion because I can't remember any of the other things I've tried this month.  Next post... (which will be a less boozey post).

This is where I live and would now, and forever more, like to be known as a "Shirlington Ho" (..s).

Mulligan

Yesterday's reintroduction to meat was a rousing success, if I do say so myself.  Jeff the Troll (remember him?) wasn't quite sure what to make of it all...

At first he was all, "Yay!  Meat party!"

"Why yes, that is a half-smoke and a bucket of bacon I'm carrying around.
Why do you ask?"

But then he was all, "I'm melting into a puddle of fat and grease. What are you doing up there?"

I would have colored him in, but that seemed hard.

Thankfully, he's got himself sorted out and today we're getting along like gangbusters.

In addition to the meat-o-rama, yesterday was also the start of a new challenge:  no swearing AND do something active/physical every day.  Let's start with the swearing.  The rules are pretty simple:  don't curse.  Yup.  Pretty much sums it up.  I get one mulligan and once that's gone, I have a charming list of punishments to choose from:

Minor infractions:
- I cannot sleep with socks
- No PHONE for a day!
- No REDDIT for a day! (eeeeek!)
- $5

Major infractions:
- I take over all chores for a week
- I wash my mouth out with soap, video the reaction and post it on the blog
- Cat Daddy!  Or an equally embarrassing activity that I record and post
- $10

There's no incentive in paying myself when this month is all said and done; instead, I'll slide those cool dolla-dolla bills over to my siblings.  (You're welcome siblings.)  My cousin, Amy, also suggested I do a cartwheel every time I swear, regardless of where I am.  I kind of love that idea EXCEPT, I can't do a cartwheel to save my life.  Seriously.  A somersault is the best I could do.  I am not nearly graceful enough for twirls.

So that's the plan.  You might be wondering how day one went....  let me tell you, my tens of readers, it did not go well.  My mulligan?  Used up within the first eight hours.  And do you want to know why I swore?  (Dropping an f-bomb no less.)  There wasn't a box of tissues where I expected a box of tissues to be.  Obviously a rage-inducing experience.  Goodbye, mulligan.

Yeah, I don't know.  I was going for a golf ball or something.
I don't know what the Fuji apple a mulligan looks like.

Later there was more swearing over equally unnecessary things (cheese, Internet outage) and as I am not quite ready for the Cat Daddy, especially after having practiced a bit in the mirror (all I can say is, "Fuuuuuuuuuu....dgesicle, I am white!"), below is a video of me very, very drunk in Afreeeca a couple of years ago.

Backstory:  I didn't train quite as well as I could have before we climbed Kilimanjaro and as such, I was a bit on the wheezy side.  (But I totally made it to the top so whatevs!)  The last day of the hike we were sitting around chatting with our guide and he asked if I had trained beforehand and mentioned my "breathiness."  Here's me telling that story after a flagon of wine:

Next up, the physical part of the challenge.

Ray's Hell Burger (MEAT-O-LICIOUS)

These will likely be the only words you'll read in this post because I believe the pictures will speak for themselves.

.... and scene.

Caution! Something Blatantly Obvious is Directly in Front of You.

To continue the weekend of "Let's do fun things before you go back to school!", Kristy and I brunched (shuddup, it's a verb) with the lovely couple, Jennie and Ari, somewhere on U St Sunday morning.  I had french toast and bacon (and yes, I absolutely dipped my bacon in the syrup.  Why wouldn't you?).  It was amazing.

After stuffing our faces with sugary, fatty awesomeness, and chatting with J & A for a bit, we drove over to Arlington National Cemetery to walk around and enjoy the pretty day (and maybe walk off a bit of said sugary, fatty awesomeness).

The cemetery has incredibly helpful signage throughout:  "Tomb of The Unknowns this way", "John F. Kennedy this way".  This little gem was particularly helpful: 

"CAUTION.  TOURISTS ARE STUPID."

It smacks of, "We don't want a lawsuit."  Seriously though, why is this sign here?  Did they have a sudden outbreak of tripping incidents?  Did they form a committee to discuss ways to address the "stair problem"?  And why is the sign only on these particular stairs?  Now granted, we didn't cover the entire cemetery on Sunday, but I didn't see this sign warning tourists of impending stair doom anywhere else we wandered that afternoon.  I just want to understand.

Since it's not likely I will ever understand, here is a picture of a remarkable (remarkably creepy?) tree.

Tree of Doom?