August

August is my favorite month for many reasons: it is the month my parents were married, the month I was born, I love St. Augustine and I love the season, the end of summer.

My parent's celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary yesterday, the 21st of August. They are the most amazing people in the world!

I love my birthday :) Every year until I went to college I celebrated my birthday with my two best friends, Shannon and Elizabeth. They would come over and we would camp out in my backyard and the next day we would go apple picking. We would pick bags and bags of apples. The following week my mom and I would bake apple pies!
Since college my birthday's have not been as sentimental, while in college I still went apple picking, on my 19th birthday I got a piercing and tried chewing tobacco (no idea why) and threw up. My 20th birthday I went out with my friends. My 21st birthday I had just returned from a trip to Ireland and no one knew I was home so my roommate and I went out to celebrate :) My 22nd I had a hawaiian themed birthday party and made my own lei. My 23rd I spent with my brother in law at the Fireside and got a huge blister on the walk home. My 24th I helped my friend David move. My 25th Kevin sent me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers because I had never recieved proper flowers and my sister made me a birthday spaghetti pie. My roommate and I went out downtown and danced all night. 

This year I decided that I am going to celebrate my birthday for the entire month. I have been making myself get out and do stuff. We kicked it off with Arctic Monkey's at stubbs. It was so hot and dusty but it was a lot of fun. I already feel older because we couldnt even make it the whole night, we were tired and left early. I helped Kevin move and I had a blast riding the moving equipment around the storage unit. I got a massage and mani/pedi. My sister and went to flix brewhouse for a movie and I am looking forward to my birthday dinner :) My big birthday present to myself is a helicopter lesson which I will take in September.

St. Augustine: First of all he was born in Numidia, so he rocks! He did not become a Chrsitian until his 30s, but began his philosophical studies in his 20s....while writing this I have gone off on a tangent and am currently confusing myself trying to understand heretics of the early church. Anyways, I grew up learning about St. Augustine, and I most identify with his love of church music.

Season: I love the end of summer heat. It is always the warmest in August and I love it, everything seems brighter and I like hanging on to the last few days of summer. I love New England in August, especially fishing at 4:00 in the morning. 

On a side note - In Texas it is death heat and I have stopped running and am using the crappy eliptical machine for a cardio workout. I also keep my apartment at 85 degrees now and am going to freeze this fall when it is 75 rather than 105 which is just absurd!

All in all it has been a great August and I look forward to these last two weeks :)

A Shorter Perspective

While trying to figure out how to adjust chairs this afternoon, my chair got put on the lowest setting. Being one of the tallest of my friends and family for my whole life this is a new view for me and I have made the following observations:

- I had to push my computer monitor down all the way and it now looks like a mushroom from mario
- The counter is a lot closer and people are a lot farther away
- It is a further reach to answer the phone
- It is a little easier to write things because of the closeness of the counter and objects upon said counter
- It is a little cluttered in here and I will spend tomorrow cleaning up and sorting the desk area
- My chair looks funny being so low to the ground

This is a very interesting height, there is a lot going on whereas when I am at my normal height it is very clear and open. I am not sure exactly how to explain it but it is very different, I think that if I were short all the time I would go crazy because I would see a lot more clutter than I do being tall. Hmmm.

Tennessee

Recently I took a trip to the great state of Tennessee, home of Davey Crockett, Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston to name a few; also filled with great places like various battlefields, the Smokey Mountains and Dollywood. It was an interesting experience, going to the south. I must admit I was a little nervous about going Honkey Tonkin in Nashville. It was a lot of fun and a nice relaxing weekend.

Highlights of my trip included:

- Seeing the lights of Nashville
- Seeing but not going in to a nude karaoke bar!!
- Going to my first Civil War Battlefield
- Sushi!

What's New

I am new to the blogging world and I am already failing miserably and have not blogged regularly. For this I apologize and about to get everyone up to date on me.

In June I attended the pageant at the St. Michael's conference Southwest. As I recall there were a few good beards in attendance as well. After this my friend Ginni and I road tripped back to Austin to begin the new phase of her life, which lasted about two weeks. I hope that these two weeks were ones that she enjoyed because I know I did!

It was fun to have someone to show around Austin and get lost with. Yes I got us lost one night and ended up at Barton Springs, miles away from my car. Luckily Kari came to our rescue and came to pick us up. We then spent an hour looking for where I parked my car. Lesson learned: learn more about Austin before venturing out unaccompanied; especially because Kari is no longer here!

I have been incredibly busy with work. I work three jobs and yesterday took on a fourth so I will be quitting two soon. But I think the biggest news has been my acceptance into my graduate program, I am very excited and cannot wait to start this fall!

I apologize for the lameness of the entry, I have many random thoughts but cannot express them without getting more sleep....

I have a new goal: blog weekly :)

Bearded Man Interview #1

This morning I had my first interview with a bearded man of Austin, the chaplain at my hospital; here are my findings:

Reason for beard:
1. he gets lazy and does not feel like shaving every day.
2. His wife likes it.

Identity:
He does not identify himself with his beard and answered "hell no" when asked if he has a name for his beard.

Weezer Beards

On 27 May 2011 I went to stubs to see Cage the Elephant. My friends and I were amazed but the beards that we saw there. So much so that we started taking pictures of all of the bearded men.

Last night, 7 June, 2011 I went to the Weezer concert, I must admit somewhat excited about the prospect of seeing more of Austin's bearded community. I must say that Weezer does not have as big a bearded following. There was a pleasantly plump bearded man directly in from of me the entire show who seemed to be enjoying himself. I only saw a handful of bearded men the entire night.

My search to understand the bearded men of Austin continues.....

What inspires them to grow these beards in a place that gets so warm?
What do the beards mean to them?
Do they identify themselves differently with or without the beard?
Do they name their beards?
etc...

My First Blog

I have started a blog. I never took myself for a "blogger" but I am exploring a new chapter in my life (once again) and I thought, why not? I participate in numerous random activities and someone somewhere may be entertained by my life....so enjoy!