Rodeo

Garrett is in Utah visiting cousin Morgan and I'm seeing a steady steam of photos that make me want to pack up my car and move in next door to one of these little rascals.


Weasels.

Fairy

I have been sort of "meh" about the royal wedding all week but today I found myself one hundred percent SUCKED IN.

It sort of started because duh, the wedding dress. I just wanted to see that and how she did her hair. And then I needed to see what her sister wore, and then there were all those hats, and cute kidlets and it's a slippery slope from there to recap blogs, YouTube clips and extended news magazine coverage.

Honestly though, what really got me today wasn't the breathtaking dress (I really did love it) or the crowds or fancy cars-it was all those tiny adorable moments between Kate and William, or William and Harry, or Kate and her Dad. At the center of all the fabulousness, it just seemed like a real sincere love story.

And the good news is, I 100% believe that every single couple gets to look at each other the way Kate and William did. Those little glances during the ceremony, the easiness of the way they interact-you don't have to marry the future King of England to feel that way. I've been Pippa Middleton close at the weddings of four of my siblings now and I've absolutely seen that same glow on mere commoners.

So maybe I'll fantasize a little bit tonight about designer gowns and balcony kisses but mostly I'll feel confident in the knowledge that today wasn't any more meaningful for the Windsors and Middletons than it will be for me and some dashing fellow someday : )

Bragtown

Several years ago I got a pretty fabulous opportunity to sit in a room with our little staff at RYKA and explain to Kelly Ripa why she should sign on as our spokeswoman. I think we were all just a little bit stunned when she heard us out and then said, "I'm in!". It still ranks as one of my all time favorite professional wins. I only stuck around a few months after Kelly's contract was finished up but had several chances to interact with her and found her to be 100% delightful.

RYKA took up a good portion of my 20's and I sure learned a lot there. I got to work with some super talented women over those years who were constantly pushing our parent company to invest in what they knew to be a little brand with a ton of potential. I watched a lot of those women then give up in frustration when that pushing didn't amount to much. So I was pretty surprised and delighted when I found out that THIS happened! A real live commercial! And a really cute one at that! It may be a few years later than I was hoping but I'm pretty thrilled to have laid the foundation for what I hope is a new life for a brand that sure means a lot to me.

Body Count

Proof positive that there was a weird but lucky star in the sky that evening of October 14, 1976 when I slipped into this world...

*I left my wallet at LAX last Sunday night. I called Lost and Found Monday morning and someone had turned it in, all cash, cards and gift certificates intact. My friend Beckie picked it up Friday and it's on it's way back. For those keeping track at home, that is the second time in 2011 that I have lost my ID and gotten it back before I had to replace it.

*Losing my wallet meant I had no cash to get out of the parking lot at midnight at DIA when I landed. An incredibly kind woman heard me explaining my plight to the flight attendant and loaned me as much as she had in her purse. It didn't turn out to be quite enough and the parking lot attendant had to take down all my information in order to bill me. It was late, I was tired and must have left my registration in the booth. I only realized this when I got an envelope in the mail from DIA with my registration inside.

*I always keep my parking card in the same spot in my car. Wednesday it wasn't there when I came to work. I spent fifteen minutes in a skirt searching my car that morning-nowhere to be found. I went to get it replaced and the only person who can replace cards was out for two days. Digging in my purse two days later, guess what I found? Literally right before I shelled out $15 for a new one.

See? Weird stuff but it all came back to me.

Lessons learned?

*People are awesome. The wallet turner inner, my kind wallet picker upper friend, the money loaning lady who is getting a check and some Olympic swag as we speak, the folks at DIA...people are good.

*Freaking out is useless. You cancel your cards, you mourn your sparkly wallet and you move on. Nothing is unfixable. Worrying accomplishes nothing. And I have this theory that the universe can sense when you are chilling out and it will reward you. You know, with your own items that at 34, you can't seem to keep track of.

And I'm taking that $15 I didn't spend on a new parking card and going to see Damien Jurado tomorrow night.

He Lives

I love Easter. I love new beginnings and I love celebrating the Resurrection. I probably don't talk about it often enough but my relationship with God is pretty much the foundation of my life. This is my all-time favorite hymn and a version of it that I adore.

Happy Easter friends. I hope it's a lovely day for all.

Fresh Starts

3/5 of my siblings are making brave and exciting changes in the next couple of months and I'm awfully excited for them. New jobs, new cities, new houses-watching all of them do interesting things with their lives is maybe one of my favorite parts of being in a family. It's kind of like you get to live vicariously through all the cool things they do. And I secretly also love it when they call to ask what I think and I get to encourage the hell out of their dreams.

Speaking of fresh starts, my pal Heather has posted her spring mix by the sam name over on "I Am Fuel, You Are Friends" and it's a must listen. I'm sort of a sucker for anything "ft. Timbaland" so allow me to present my favorite.

Centered

I really like to observe people who love what they do. And I don't think I know anyone who loves being a mom more than my friend Jane. I went to college with Jane and her husband Dusty and then lost track of them for years until Facebook reconnected us. I started reading her blog and quickly fell in love with their family. One late night last spring Jane was kind enough to answer a somewhat nosy question I asked and explained to me about the dreams she had as a little girl of the family she would one day get to make. I will confess that I get a little bit exhausted by the mommy blogs out there with their endless "isn't our life perfect??" entries, but I keep coming back to Jane's because at the core of every post-she is a connection creator. She takes absolutely every opportunity she can to build and strengthen connections. The woman throws one hell of a party but it's always in the name of bringing people together. It's a quality I so admire and one I wish I was better at emulating in my own life.

I've been on poor Jane's case to submit a Dear Me letter ever since I started the project and she graciously found some time in between soccer/dance/golf/tennis/carpool/school and the other demands of four active kids and a husband busy running a transcontinental business to write one. I love it. It's so Jane and so wise. I think you'll love her too.

**btw dear readers...I KNOW there are lots of you lurking out there who should be writing letters. So get on it.

Salvaged

The Knocks show got cancelled, I left my wallet in Los Angeles and my flight got super delayed last night.

And yet somehow, the weekend was a complete success. It is becoming increasingly clear that the life for which I would be most suited is hippie commune. All I really want to do is live in a beautiful place with all the people I love where we can eat good food and do fitness and talk until our jaws grow weary. It was a bummer not to see the show but since I DID see manage to squeeze in just over a dozen faces I adore in 48 hours all while eating at some of my favorite places, shopping at some of my favorite places and doing this basically all day saturday, a lost wallet and a cancelled show are simply no. big. deal.





All these family/friend weekends the last few months have got me thinking even more than I normally do about the idea of connection. Complain all you want about how social networking and the way technology changes the way we interact with each other-the more I connect with people online the more driven I feel to interact with them in person. Facebook is never going to be better than sitting at Rubio's for four hours debating the pros and cons of singles conferences with my smart and funny friends. But if it keeps me connected to those people in the times in between when we all have to be adults and go to our jobs and not live together in that giant hippie house, I say, implant that iPhone right into my brain.

Speaking of FB, my friend Danielle posted this TED Talk last week and it made me sob my way through the ironing of my duvet cover (yes, I iron my duvet covers. I've become my grandmother). It's about connection, and remaining vulnerable even in the face of disappointment or heartache. I could have listened to her speak for another ten hours on the subject but this is nice and to the point and was on my mind while I was enjoying every one of my 2,880 minutes in California.

Degree

Text from my friend Emily in HB...

"Tomorrow is 80 degrees and clear."

Swoooooon. I'm headed out of town, happy weekend y'all. Here's a little get ready for Friday night for you.

Good Call

Just Like Honey

One of the reasons I think I have grown up to be a relatively confident, well-adjusted female without a tattoo on my lower back is the abundance of good men in my life pretty much since birth.

I have a father who has supported and encouraged pretty much every move I've ever made. When I brought a boy to family dinner once and said boy mentioned I should wear my hair curly not straight because he liked it better, my dad chimed in-nonchalantly and not to embarrass the kid-that probably I should just wear my hair however I preferred. Our relationship has had it's bumps but my dad is a good man and he raised good kids which means I also had pretty terrific brothers who have grown up to be great husbands and dads. (My brothers are dads! Sometimes that still sounds so weird!) I have a grandfather who is as legitimately proud of his career girl grandaughter as he is of the one who has produced four great-grandkids.

And then I am just almost embarrassed at the amount of solid male influences I've had at work and at school and in my social circle. It's always been easy to weed out the dirtbags because I have an abundance of examples of what a good guy should be.

All of this to say that I was very pleased when an old friend I have long admired sent a Dear Me letter this morning. He's responsible for introducing me to Ryan Adams, Iron & Wine and a whole slew of other fabulous musicians, but mostly he's someone I've watched just try really hard to be a good man. He's a dad and a husband now and I think that makes his contribution all the sweeter-these are the kind of guys who should be raising up our next generation of dads and husbands. His letter is here.

Experiment

I'm trying this new game where I say, "if I can get a ticket under $x, I'll go." So I found a ticket under $x for Friday which means this girl will be running along the beach in Huntington on Saturday morning and trying to catch Ellie Goulding one more time in San Diego later than night.

I like this game.

Late

I was on my way to the Incline this morning for the first time in almost two months when a friend I haven't seen in ages called to say he was in town and did I want to come climb the Incline with him and some friends. I met up with the little group which included his dad, who then proceeded to not only smoke all of us the way up AND down, but then talked us into an additional and slightly treacherous hike on the way back to the house. His mother had laid out all manner of post-workout snacks and somehow the afternoon and early evening managed to slip away in a haze of good conversation and catching up. I didn't really get to any of the errands I was planning but it was an awfully nice way to kill a saturday.

I've been trying to pick up my workouts a little this week in anticipation of things like swimsuit season and my fifth (!) Wasatch Back Relay in two months. So I was worn out after two plus hours of hiking and running and decided to stay in and watch a couple of movies tonight.

Aaaand now it's almost 1 and little night owl me is wide awake. So I do what I often do late at night which is hop on iTunes and listen to things I haven't listened to in ages. Tonight I was thinking about college for some reason and so of course, because I am a female in her thirties who went to college in the nineties-that means plenty of Sarah McLachlan. I bought Fumbling Towards Ecstasy after my first breakup (I know, I know, be a bigger cliche please) my sophomore year and then bought Surfacing on my way down to school my senior year. Maybe now that she's a little bit adult contemporary-esque this will sound silly-but when I was 19 she was actually kind of edgy. You didn't really hear her on the radio and I felt like a grown-up for liking her. Seniors listened to Sarah McLachlan. And you know, when you are 19, senior girls are pretty much the epitome of cool.

This is one of my favorites.

Overdose

Tuesday night I bought the fifth and final season of Friday Night Lights on DVD. Last night at 1:30 I finished the fifth and final season of Friday Night Lights. There was a LOT of what I'm sure was really ugly crying. For those of you who haven't watched it yet-you are in for a real treat.

This song was in one of the episodes last night and it felt like exactly what I wanted to hear when saying goodbye to a bunch of characters that I wanted to know in real life.

The music was always such a terrific part of this show-my friend Heather did a great interview awhile back with the music supervisor, Liza Richardson here.

I will really, really, really miss this show.

Perfect

A couple of weeks ago I was innocently trying to sneak out of church early when a woman in the Primary Presidency caught me and asked if I could fill in last minute for a sick teacher. I didn't have a great way to make, "I was going to go home and watch Baby Mama and take a nap," sound legitimate so I said of course.

Let me just say that although I have been a Mormon since birth, I have never, ever taught a Primary class. I think the last time I was even IN a Primary room was maybe college? And probably to watch my little sister give a talk or say a prayer. I'll confess, I was a little nervous. Kidlets generally like me but I had no idea how many I was dealing with and how many of the remaining two hours I would be alone with them. It's a funny thing to be an adult whose nephews and friends with children all live far away-I'm just never around little people. I am an oldest child and was a superstar babysitter all during the late eighties and early nineties. I nannied for a family with 8 children for crying out loud but these days, I'm more of the wind-them-up-and-give-them-back style of adult.

I went in and found my class of four year olds sitting very, very reverently at the front. I took my seat and immediately, this adorable little blonde with big blue eyes and bows in her hair looked up at me and asked if I was the teacher. You could just tell that this was the kind of child who loves teachers. And probably baby-sitters and crossing guards too. She was very clearly a well-mannered little thing and I was instantly charmed. Her name was Lucy which she whispered to me before going back to folding her arms and trying to pay attention. I was wearing red heels, a big sparkly ring and flashy earrings and I could feel her stealing little glances at me but the desire to be good was strong enough to keep her mostly paying attention. Simon, the fellow next to her, was also terribly well behaved. And not terribly interested in me. At the end of the row was Anaya. She had long, thick black hair, big brown eyes and beautiful olive skin. She didn't even attempt to pay attention, just played with her hair, stared at me, and smiled shyly every time I looked over.

I think I've mentioned before that my baby-hunger gene must have malfunctioned because even though I think kids are pretty great, and having nephews has opened my eyes even more to the joys of children, I don't have this overwhelming desire to actually have one yet (for the record, there have been a couple of guys over the last few years that have made me think-we'll if HE was the dad then yes...so maybe I'm not totally broken). But these three were KILLING ME that day. I kept getting all weepy and I'm sure I broke some kind of rule when I took every single one of them to the bathroom when they asked-don't underestimate even a well behaved four year old, if she catches on that the adult doesn't really seem to know how things go, she will take FULL advantage.

For the second hour we were combined with another group of four year olds since I didn't have a chance to prepare a lesson. We got into the classroom and the regular teacher taught a quick lesson on how to tell when you are feeling the spirit. It was a good lesson that held their attention for the most part, although I spent half the class with one sort of uncontrollable little girl who only stopped laying on the back of her chair when I gave her my ring to play with. Which made all the other little girls want to play with my jewelry. Frankly, if big chunky jewelry can count as toys, maybe I'm more ready for this than I think.

The whole experience was terribly interesting. True confession: it's not super easy to be a single lady in a family congregation. In some ways I think they are just glad we're still showing up and they'll deal with us for real when we have a spouse. And some of that is on me as well, I'm sure I could engage more, but with a busy job and social life, it can be easier to just log my three Sunday hours and go back to my role as token Mormon in my regular life. But being with the kids was so. much. fun. An adult is an adult to them so don't care about marital status. They listen! Even when they aren't going to do what you asked them to do, they are totally listening and observing-it's disconcerting at the same time as being kind of awesome. They are very small so I felt very tall. Do you know that a four year old has no trouble telling you that you are "very pretty"? Other people's kids are the single greatest self-esteem boost ever, better than a cat.

I told the Primary President to for sure put me on the substitute list-I mean, I don't need to commit full-time right?

Exhibit A

These two items were racing through single Mormondom yesterday.




They are funny, but if you want to know why dating in this community is rough, this is how we talk about each other.

Roast.

Something I Can Dance To

After a few years of going to every show that came to town and then a few years of being a little burned out on crowded venues and being tired at work the next day, I decided to focus on quality not quantity and see what happened. Being a little more selective has turned out to mean I'm enjoying live music more than ever. Just in the last three months I've been five feet away from Langhorne Slim and the Old 97's, gotten the chills from Gregory Alan Isakov, fallen deeply in love with Devotchka, been surprised and delighted by El Bronx Mariachi, gotten a contact high at George Clinton, and enjoyed an unplugged evening of song and Q&A with David Bazan that continued into my friend Heather's kitchen.

So Saturday afternoon when my friend Al called to say he'd found us tickets to the sold out Ellie Goulding/The Knocks show we'd been sad to miss. I was just back from a pretty great bike ride so I jumped in the shower, listened to the afternoon session of conference and then headed up to Denver to pick up Al and get to Boulder.

I fell for Ellie Goulding last October when my sister Elizabeth played her cover of "Sleepyhead" for me. When I met Al a few weeks later, we bonded over her and he introduced me to a whole bunch of artists who were using her on mixes and samples. He put a song by The Knocks on a CD for me and well, that was love at first listen. I posted Dancing with the DJ back in February and it's rarely left my playlist in the last couple of months. So needless to say, I was pretty excited about the show. And any excuse to go to Boulder is one I'll take. It's got it's quirks but it has such a fun, healthy, interesting vibe to it I love to go there.

The Fox Theater is pretty small so even a sold out crowd wasn't overwhelming. The Knocks came out and the first thing they said was "we just want to have a dance party here if that's cool with you guys?" Which is pretty much what I wish everyone would say to me every single day. And then they launched into this



and dance we did. Honestly, what's a better theme song for me than a song called "Something I Can Dance To"?



And then my technology loving heart loved getting this Twitter message later

theknockz That ruled RT @replikate: @theknockz pretty much destroying at The Fox http://twitpic.com/4gcndt



Ellie was fantastic too, the audience was probably 75% female-she writes songs with titles like "This Love Will Be Your Downfall" and "Your Biggest Mistake", I guess it's not hard to see why. Here is one of my favorites



I saw a quote by Aldous Huxley recently that said, "after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

Amen dude.

Gracias

Oh hey Pandora, thanks for sending me a song that pierces right to the heart of single ladies.



If I don't stand out like a star among the moons
If I am always late and he always backs away too soon
I walk the world with a skin so thin
I can wear no adequate protection
Everything comes crashing in.
If I'm too wide open for this place
But not enough for him to recognize my face
How will he find me
With no one's arms to gather me together?

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/d/deb_talan/#share