Welp, it's Christmas week! I cannot believe it's already here. I'm just ACHING to get in the car and get to my parents house on Thursday. As I sit here with Christmas tunes in my ears, I was thinking about all the good times I've had with my family over the last 25 Christmas's... Christmas past's / Christmas present and I thought I would share. The magic of Christmas as a child is one of those feelings you never forget. I'm so thankful for my parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles {the adults in my life}, for making the holidays such a special & unforgettable time. I hope to someday recreate them for the kiddos in my life.
Tonight I have a shopping / baking / wrapping / take out / home alone marathon date tonight with my boyf. I need this festive night: cozy & holiday-ish. It's going to be a wonderful one! My dad has requested fudge, peanut brittle, and snicker doodles, so I will be hitting up the store for all the makings for such delicious treats. Believe it or not, I do not own sugar, flour, or baking soda... {yay! for betty crocker pre-mixed treats!} and I am going to purchase those items today. I have no doubt I will feel very grown-up for having those essentials in my kitchen.
safe travels.....merry christmas, happy hanukkah, etc... & happy new year!!
Dang, it's been a while. I'm slacking... too much going on I suppose. But, I am back! I hope whoever reads this is doing greatly & enjoying life.
Let's see... Thanksgiving was fantastic. Spent it up in the mountains of Colorado with my family. We mostly hung out inside watching movies and watching the snow fall with our baby lady {her first snow!}. She thought is was pretty exciting... :) It's not everyday that you get to experience or see something you've never heard of or seen before... pretty magical for a little baby.
So, after Thanksgiving there's been lots of hanging out with friends, friends moving to New York City, fun dinner date nights, movies, and music. This weekend was cold, rainy and full of the cozy / warm indoors, music, movies, plays (the nutcracker!), taco trucks, and other food. Some friends and I watched two Nashville folks {Rayland Baxter and Odessa} play some very beautiful tunes at a cafe one night and the next night saw an old music love, Rachael Yamagata, play at one of my favorite venues in town. It was QUITE a DELIGHT.
Since I last posted...
Okay, so...........caaaaaaaaaan we just talk about how I get serious heart flutters when I see the combination of jeans/cords, flannel shirts, beards, sweaters/pullovers, and cold weather? My o MAN! I know many manly men & a main man in my life that do dress like this and it makes me SO HAPPY. Here are some examples of some PERFECT combo's for fall / winter {or if you live somewhere cold...}.
& FOR US LADIES.... I'm all about the perfect scarf, chunky sweaters, layers, booties, pattern mixing, deep romantic colors {like my new burgundy heels!}, and pretty lip blast. :)
I hope everyone is in good spirits and is enjoying some fall weather. I sure am. I had a DELIGHTFUL Fall evening with one of my best girlfriends last night -- she got me tickets {for my birthday} to FEIST at this really antique/swank theater downtown. We had a total blast. Leslie Feist and the Mountain Men {who are actually woman} kicked some vocal and lyrical bootay. OBVS! It was a true combination of magical + dreamy + gorgeous + entertaining. I made a few videos... they are too big to email but I have them on the facebook. So if that interests you at all... go for it. Here is a taste. ;)
Literally a dollop of a taste. Ugh. You get the idea though.
I also have some adorably cute new photos of my baby niece. SURSLY cannot get enough. I love her sooo sooo mucho. This first photo is so jazzy its ridiculous... I want those pants... I wonder where her mama got them... {sister?!?!} This next photo is of her and her daddy - also just too too cute. {Brett, I obviously took this from your facebook... thx bro!}
piggy tails!
Over the weekend I also had my dear dear dear Robs in town from the Arkansas state! We had a fantastic time. I miss them and I wish they lived closer. love these two! We dined, watched football, baked, and made bfast.
Monday it rained and it provided the base of complete happiness for a monday night. I took this birthday gentleman to a yummy / cozy dinner at fireside pies for some wine, bruschetta, & pizza. We sat outside under the tin porch cover while it poured rain. It was really dreamy. Thanks mother nature for setting that up. :) Happy Birthday to you!
Lots of celebrations happening! Happy Birthday to all my November babies! Scorpio's rule. :)
Next up on the schedule happens TONIGHT. LIKE CRAZY will be viewed by myself and some of my girlfriends. Today I've been convincing myself I won't cry because I WANT to cry. I love a good sappy chick flick. I learned my lesson when I went to see The Notebook in the theaters and was all prepared to bawl my eyes out and my friends and I worked it up so much that when the time came for the tears to start flowing I just couldn't get it going. UGH. What a disappointment. So, I am going in blind. Cannot wait.
A little musical gem update.
This fella is coming back to Dallas - to the All Good Cafe Dec. 3rd {I'm going! You should too!} Rayland Baxter is a beautifully talented musician out of Nashville and he is just a top notch guy... so friendly and cool. I have no doubt you would like him. Yeeeeewwooozza!
random alert! I want this pup someday... when I live in a house.
I hope everyone is doing greatly. I've had a pretty stellar couple weeks. I've been halloweening, concert going, birthday celebrating, wining & dining, having company and getting excited for the upcoming holiday season! Lots and lots and lots to look forward to and be thankful for. Today I officially started listening to Christmas music. Mariah Carey's pandora station to be specific. It's the way to go. Sets you up with all kinds of good tunes by some of my personal holiday album staples like NSYNC, Hanson, 98 degrees, etc. {you know those albums are fantastic!} ha! Anyways, in true xmas music form... it has made me think of all the greatness that comes around this time of year... so I've made a short list of a lot {not all} of the things I look forward to this upcoming season. I'm thinking if I write it out I won't let them pass me by and I'll make a point to really soak them in. :)
Hanson was OBVIOUSLY played....
As was the fellows of NSYNC!
ANYWAYS, my point is.... IT'S ON. In full swing. It's time to get festive. :)
It's been a while! I've been a busy Fall person these days.... lots & lots going on these days. I went to LA LA land to meet up with some of my best friends from college a couple weeks ago... had an absolute blast with them. It was my first time to California (EVER) and they really showed me the sights and the beach and it was just too much fun. Here is a video I took while me and my lovely ladies were soakin up that good good life at Point Dume in Malibu.
and sadly, while in LA, I did not run into Ryan Gosling....
.... clearly he is just as upset {if not more} as me .... :(
But still had lots of fun with these fine folks....
Then the next week was sort of a whirlwind of events.... my sweet grandpa passed away last Wed the 19th. My dads dad. He was 93! They had a very, very nice service and it was wonderful to see family and some of my dads best friends from growing up. Now my gpa is reunited with my gma :) Very happy for them both.
Lets see.... I have been seeing LOTS of my sweet little baby lady and sister and BIL lately. I love seeing my sister and just being around her.... she's the coolest - and she is such a sweet and amazing mom. Ava just stares at her all the time. It is the sweetest thing. It melts my heart. :)
She is my love. So kissable.... :)
ALSO: I had the nicest surprise in my mailbox yesterday when I got home from work! My friend Christine all the way from England sent me this sweet bday package! I mean... that is just too nice. I still can't get over it. Thanks so much, sweet friend!!! :))
Christine & I with the Scherm fellas at Retro New Years party last year.
Tomorrow night some of my girlies and I are going to see Fitz and the Tantrums.... I'm anticipating a FANTASTIC show. If you haven't checked them out... you must. Very cool tunes.
Yeah, that's happening.
So that is that! And now the week of Halloween festivities begins!!! Two of my BEST girlfriends are coming to Dallas this weekend!! All the way from LA and Chicago to see me and LAHA!! I am SOOOOOOO excited I can hardly stand it! They get in Friday afternoon.... then it is FUNFUNFUN for a few days. Halloween party, brunch, laughs, loves, drinks, new friends. I seriously just cannot wait.
REUNITED!
AND THEN...... OCT 31ST.
BASSNECTAR
HOLLA! ha. It's going to be a great week. oh yeah and....................
A true sadness has spread across the world with the news of Mr. Jobs passing away yesterday. I wanted to share this speech on my blog, which some of you have probably already heard {since its from 2005}, but I suggest you read it again. I read it from time to time when I really feel like I need a pick me up. What a TRULY inspirational man he was.
This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
We've made it halfway through the week.... who's excited?! I am because I have a show to go to tonight......!! JUNIOR BOYS! Going with my giiiirl Laha. ssgooonnaa be fun. :)
On a more serious note, my friend Kurt's friend Sunday Ibok {who my friends and I had the absolute pleasure of meeting just 8 days ago, (he came to town from NYC to see friends and to be here for his buddies wedding)}, had a brain aneurism on Sunday night and was declared brain dead at 5:50 pm on Monday evening and is still on life support. His 31st birthday was last week.
It's heartbreaking to even think about and I tear up every time I do. To know that this guy who walked in to my friend's apartment to hang out with us all for dinner a week ago, greeted us with this giant pearly white smile and his infectious personality, is now on life support. We drank wine, chatted, watched youtube videos and laughed, and just enjoyed each others company. We all felt like Sunday had been in our group of friends for as long as any of us had. He's that kind of person. And now, he's laying in a hospital bed, brain dead, surrounded by his mom and siblings, who are just hoping and praying for a miracle. I just cannot imagine. Please pray for him and his family.
This is it, ya'll. This is your life and these are the people in it. Be thankful and be gracious for EVERYTHING. Be thankful for everyone you meet and really try and figure out why they were put in your path. Even if the meeting is brief, think why. I personally believe no meeting is an accident. I know some people won't agree with me... but I think that makes life so much more romantic. Everything and everyone has a purpose. I think Sunday was put in my path to remind me that there are genuinely wonderful people out there and to always be yourself, even when you are around a new group of people you've just met and you may feel more comfortable shying away. It was very inspiring and refreshing to see how he just walked in and greeted everyone and was just immediately so at ease and fit right in.
I won't go on, because with life stuff and meaning, etc.... I could write all day, so I won't bore you. :) I will just leave you with a quote... thanks for finding this, Seth. :)
Also, I have to throw these in because, well, she's my baby lady and my sister just sent these. Every time I see this sweet booger she reminds me of what I want out of life and what's important. Babies love you and they don't even know your name, who you are, what you do, how much money you make, etc. They are just here to make you smile, feel appreciated and melt your heart.
My little squeezy bee....
Well friendlies, have a wonderful day. I hope that even though you may not know Sunday, you think of him, his family and friends and today is a little different for you. A little more reflective and gracious. I know these last few days have been for me. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who pops over to my blog and reads my posts. I'm truly flattered. Have a great one.
