black kids come to town

you likey our new blog design? me, too.

let it be known that i do not understand st. patrick's day. furthermore, green washes me out. so this is not a blog about the "holiday" going on, but just to show you this video that i can't stop watching and or laughing over. poor tripp. he is going to want to off us one day.

Friday / Funko / Foprah

the waiting is over. it has arrived. i thought it was just an urban myth, or some mean joke the american idol judges were playing on us with the "vitamin water zero" cups they used during auditions. could it be true that vitamin water is going to come out with a zero-calorie drink sweetened with none other than TRUVIA?!?!

for weeks i have been scouring the shelves at the grocery store, even asking a manager at randall's the other day when on earth i could expect it... he had not a clue what i was referring to. but isn't the saying so true: "you'll find it when you least expect it"? checking out and zoning out at target last night, i look to my right and there it was. so i drank it today and must say VITAMIN WATER ZERO is good! i have absolutely no idea what it does for you or what vitamin concoction is surged into this water, but it's something different and i am a solid supporter of anything with stevia in it. so, go get you some. if you need to know what it looks like, i placed it among my office decor today and took a photo just for you.

and guess what else. i played bunko for the first time last night and won a prize for rolling the most funkos! (don't even ask.) my prize was this really cute SUMMER SCARF from gap! look how happy i am about it:

this is what happens when you have too much alone time in the office. i'm pretty sure it's friday.

so i couldn't neglect to pass on a noteworthy quote from mama O herself. straight from the pages of march's O magazine... in the article "what i know for sure" by oprah winfrey:

"here we are in the spring of a brand new decade. i've heard so many people say they feel this will be their best year yet. i feel that way, too. there's something about 2010 that makes us hopeful. we sense an invitation to begin this next decade of the millennium with more conscious attention to our lives."

she goes onto say life is all about an energy exchange... clean out old shoes out of your closet... and eat foods that love you back. whatever. the most important thing to note is that oprah and i are like THIS when it comes to sensing the great things that are ahead for us this year. armed with our vitamin waters and summer scarfs this weekend... let's go make something happen.

much love!

sem

big news

i just realized i never told my massive amounts of blog followers about my momentous occasion last week. for starters, i finally figured out twitter. still don't fully know how to use the "RTs" and "#s" and "@s" but i know how to follow fun, famous, sometimes influential people and i am addicted. i don't ever want to miss one, single tweet! so that means i lay awake for about 45 minutes every night going through all these 140-character updates, and i gotta tell ya... i'm sleepin like a baby afterwards.

but this is not my momentous occasion.

the day i decided to put my thinking cap on and dive into the world of tweets, i of course went straight on over to find and follow donald miller. you might have heard me talk about him. or maybe you've heard me detail out our wedding ceremony. either way, i looked at his twitter page and you are never going to believe me when i tell you: HE WAS IN AUSTIN AT THAT VERY MOMENT. yes. yes, friends, he was. so after frantic calls to babs and z, getting them to explain to me how to contact him to tell him he was in my city and that it was destiny that we meet, i finally got a "direct message" to him and told him how much i adored him and... get ready... he... tweeted me back :)

You have a new direct message:

donmilleris: Thanks so much!

that's what he said. directly back to me. no one else. isn't that just the BEST?!

what? did you think we would actually end up meeting each other and talking into the night about stories, and being who God created us to be, and when should i move to portland? no, i had a date to watch idol at the lea's and he, well, apparently he had to go to san antonio to meet max lucado for dinner. (at least that was what his next tweet said.)

so, baby steps. do not awaken love until it pleases, right? november: first sighting with what can only be described as intense eye contact held for 20 seconds at a book signing. march: first direct tweet. who knows what could be next during 2012!!!

all that leads me to say that yesterday my dear, close, personal friend don (i like to call him don) miller tweeted that he was listening to matt wertz's new cd for free on aol.com. what good, little baylor girl doesn't love matt wertz?? (and COULD don and i have more similar musical tastes?!?!) i clicked on over and listened through mister wertz's new stuff for a little while, which made me re-fall in love with this sweet singer/songwriter all over again. took me right back to bagby and bear trails and dr.pepper hour! and then naturally i created a matt wertz station on pandora and have been jamming to it all day and one of my favorites of his has been playing and i thought i'd share it with you all because it is just so SPRINGY outside today and after a long, dreary winter straight from the pits below, this song makes me want to go peruse target for some new pool floats. so, enjoy. i would love to give you the link to listen to his new cd, but they have already taken it down. sorry, charlie. maybe you should join twitter. you would know a lot more than you do now.

p.s. is that little lucas boto in some of the polaroid pictures?!?!? what in the what??

annie are you ok?

many awards will be given out this sunday night. some deserved, some maybe not, but one thing is for sure... if i sat on the board of whatever movie makers of america society guild of all cinema, or whoever decides the oscars, my vote for every category would be the same:

have ya'll seen this?! i spent the weekend in dallas with jenny torrey, where she happens to have a movie room and i could think of no better movie to take full advantage of that huge screen and surround sound. for all wondering... yes- wacko jacko literally orbited around another planet full of jellybeans and tickle monsters. yes- his nose will freak you out the entire time. and no- we couldn't decide if he was creepier with or without his sunglasses on when he was out and about. but put all that aside and trust me... it was one of the most entertaining two hours of my life. honestly and truly. redbox it tonight!

and i couldn't not post this little nugget of tripp singing his new favorite song that is apparently played in the car on repeat. i taped it with jen's phone after we picked him up from school on friday. oh and when we got to his classroom, the teacher told us he had been telling everyone all day that his aunt say was coming to visit!! muffin! thanks for a fun (and slightly exhausting) weekend, jen... had so much fun with you and the kiddies!!!!

peace + love = me

look who i got to spend v-day with :) :) :) :)

blakey girl is such a giggle box!!!

i love valentine's day. i love it because there are chocolate covered strawberries as far as the eye can see and buying a 4-pack to eat in the car on the way home from h-e-b isn't weird on that one, special day. and i love it because it is a reminder at how much love is around me. it doesn't have to be some cliche, red roses, only romantic couples need apply event. i went to sleep last night being overwhelmingly grateful because i know what love is. i feel it and see it every day. in my friends whose voluntary presence in my life humbles me and makes me who i am. and in my parents who show me what unconditional love means and what it does when it supports you in ways nothing else can. and in my brother and sister and new sister who know who i am at my very core and keep my feet on the ground with their love and friendship that is dearer to me than just about anything else. and in my church whose pastor just began a new sermon series on BIBLICAL MANHOOD that i'm pretty sure every man (especially single, from the ages of 25-35) needs to go ahead and d-load. i've provided the link right here just in case you wanted to go ahead and start listening now.

so here is to the hope of MORE LOVE from now to the next february 14th. MUAH!

guess i'll go on living afterall...

NBC SET TO AIR "FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS" in April

By WSJ Staff

Everett Collection

“Friday Night Lights” fans, rejoice.

The critically-acclaimed but low-rated sports drama currently airing on DirecTV will make its return to NBC on April 30 a couple months ahead of schedule. Originally slated to air on NBC during the summer, the show — which stars Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton and is based on the 2004 movie (itself based on a 1990 non-fiction book by Buzz Bissinger) — is currently in its fourth season.

The move was announced today, as NBC revealed its post-Winter Olympics line-up. Since the network announced it was canceling the ill-fated “Jay Leno Show,” sideliners have wondered how they would fill the additional five hours of primetime programming.

The solution? Pretty much as critics had predicted, with “Law & Order” episodes all over the new schedule. Plus, new drama “Parenthood,” which is based on the Ron Howard movie, will premiere at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, March 2, following “The Biggest Loser” and Jerry Seinfeld’s reality show “The Marriage Ref” will premiere at 10 p.m on Thursday, March 4.

NBC’s new line-up, as seen below, begins March 1.

top ten

here are the top ten reasons why i should not, for any reason, run long distances or races of any kind:

10. i have heavy bones. not easy to carry around for miles on end.
9. the idea of a "runner's high" is completely lost on me. i have, however, experienced several water break highs and walking break highs.
8. these things typically start before the sun comes up.
7. i find gu disgusting. just seeing used packages laying on the ground makes my gag reflex set in.
6. the "optimal" running gear involves a LOT of spandex. no thanks.
5. hills make me break out.
4. there is a greater than 50% chance of my toenails turning black and falling off due to the constant pavement pounding.
3. summers are too hot; winters too cold.
2. i never know which side of the road is the correct side to be on and am so over "elite runners" snubbing my ignorance.

1. runner's trots. need i say more?

and the one and only reason i will continue to run and sign up for these events that push me physically, mentally, spiritually and in every other way possible...

let me just tell you... i love these crazy liz-adies. never ever ever ever would i ever think i would want to be apart of a freaking athleticly-based anything, but here i am, two halfsies in, and it is ALL because of them.

i love the fact that we HAVE to train and there's no way we're doing it alone, so we keep each other accountable, adjust schedules as needed, and make the time. we therefore find ourselves with hours on end to catch up and untangle the webs our lives get into simply by running and talking it out. training with these precious friends of mine makes me better. period paragraph.

so after an hour delay... wind... sweat... up hills, down hills... bright spots of PETIKEI and others waving along the route... a little tik tok and a lot of serious prayer... we ALL crossed that finish line on sunday morning. we did it and we did it together.

there were definitely some times over the past three months that i would have rather watched the food network from 9am saturday to 9pm sunday and skipped a few of those dreadful, never-ending town lake expeditions. or skip a run after work because i wanted to go to happy hour without being a sweaty, hot mess. or told the girls, "you go ahead and do it this time; i'll just be the loudest cheerleader for you at the finish line!" it would have been really easy to do that.

but i just flat would have missed out.

donald miller wrote a book last year called "a million miles in a thousand years." i would be shocked if i haven't mentioned it before now, because this book has changed how i view every aspect of my life. the book essentially tells us that our lives are supposed to look like movies that we'd like to sit down and watch, not a boring, monotonous, anti-climatic, waste of time. one of his major bullet points is to purposefully create "inciting incidences" to make your story what God designed it to be. he says "...humans naturally seek comfort and stability. without an inciting incident that disrupts their comfort, they won't enter into a story. they have to get fired from their job or be forced to sign up for a marathon. a ring has to be purchased. a home has to be sold. the character has to jump into the story, into the discomfort and the fear, otherwise the story will never happen."

the word picture of our lives being a series of stories, woven together with ups and downs and memorable situations and people we'd never know or places we'd never go if we hadn't been intentional in making sure we pushed ourselves gets me all kinds of warm and mushy inside.

so, in conclusion: i had a great 3M halfsie with my girls and can't wait to do it again next year. oh and i hate this but two of us didn't make the picture above and that would be amy "powerhouse" chapman and little kitchen! how we didn't get a full group pic, i'll never know. i also just came across this quote from the book that you must get (like now) and it was one of my favorites:

"if i have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, enjoy your place in my story. the beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as i have created you."

preach it, donald. xoxo, sem