Thursday, December 30, 2010

on: 2010.

2010 was a great year. It really, really was. Inspired by an article on NPR, and my spectacular ability to forget things instantly, I decided to make a list of the 50 things that made me happiest this year. So, in no particular order:


1. Movies:
a. Inception,
b. Harry Potter,
c. Voyage of the Dawn Treader
d. Date Night

2. Quiet time for reading, looking over the snowy mountains of Colorado. (Feb)

3. Upgraded from my trusty point-and-shoot to a Nikon D80, thanks to Danielle Larson. (Sept)

4. Loren digging my sister’s car out of the snow at midnight. (Jan)

5. Old Spice commercial at the superbowl. (Feb)

6. English garden roses from Saipua in New York. (July)

7. Seeing the Lion King on Broadway, in which my friend Ben plays Pumba, AND getting the backstage tour. Simply magical. (July)

8. Seeing that a cohesive, supportive community really can beat out bad people, when Weston, MO ran the Westboro Baptist folks out of town. (Nov)

9. Baby animals. My blog is very nearly a baby animal blog. But this year, I discovered that is in fact possible to in fact pet a baby panda in a remote panda sanctuary in China. Add that one the bucket list. (Oct)

10. Three trips to the Zoo, D.C., St. Louis and Kansas City. And in Kansas City, THEY LET THE KANGAROOS RUN FREE(ISH). I was six feet from a baby kangaroo. (Jan, Aug, Nov)

11. I love places ripe for redemption. Thus, I did a lot of my graduate research on the city of Detroit. While there for Thanksgiving, the Eplers took me on a tour. It was something profound for me to experience a place written on my mind and heart first-hand. (Nov)

12. I have loved pandas my whole life. I finally saw a live one for the first time at the National Zoo in D.C. (Jan)

13. Visiting Loren’s favorite restaurant in Ann Arbour: Zingerman’s. We split an asparagus and goat cheese sandwich. And yes, it was every bit as good as Loren had hyped it up to be. (Apr)

14. The R Bar for my birthday. It might have been the best meal of my life. (Aug)

15. Alaska! (Aug)
a. Salmon, salmon, salmon, and crab bisque.
b. Kayaking next to Mendenhall Glacier. And it calved while we were on the lake. Amazing!
c. Hike to Echo Cove. It was nearly too beautiful for language.
d. Climbing Mount Roberts with Loren and Sean. Even if I was on the verge of a panic attack for the latter half of the hike. Somehow, I always manage to forget how much I hate heights. But the view made it absolutely worth it.

16. Getting to eat lunches at home sometimes.

17. Four-day workweeks. I’m so, so fortunate.

18. Handing out flower flats with Front Porch Alliance. And as a bonus, I got sent home with a leftover flat of zinnias. (June)

19. Dancing with glow sticks at Greg and Jool’s wedding; taco’s on the BLVD beforehand. (July)

20. Starting our photo-blog project with Kimmer, “gratitude,” before her return to Korea. (Aug)

21. Camping on my grandparents’ property at Roots n’ Blues n’ BBQ. And of course, the huge quantities of kettlecorn I ate. (Oct)

22. Rachel Maddow’s commentary on the closed-loop nature of the Republican media- and information machine. With a nod to the rumors of her being a lesbian vampire. (Nov)

23. Trying to figure out what to do with all of our crazy vegetables from our CSA. (Summer)

24. Sufjan Stevens playing “Seven Swans” as the opening of his show. (Oct)

25. Time with Stacey and Aaron and Zach in Dallas. (Nov)

26. Breakfast and m. henry’s in Chicago. Berry bread pudding, and crab cake eggs benedict. Another top ten meal. (Sept)

27. Wii bowling with Grandma on Christmas.

28. First Annual Brookside Porch Crawl. (June)

29. Keeping my first garden alive. (Summer)

30. Parkville Beer Fest. (Apr)

31. French macarons from Natasha’s Mulberry and Mott.

32. Painted nails: orange, neon pinks, charcoal gray- yep, I’m still loving it.

33. Walks to Crestwood.

34. Flowers from Flower’s by Design.

35. Homemade peanut butter cups.

36. My professor telling me that I should pursue publishing one of my papers. And just like that, I realized I had found my ‘something’ to be passionate about. (May)

37. A bike Ride to Shakespeare in the Park with a picnic. (July)

38. Dessert with Mom at Café Europa. (May)

39. Surprising my Dad at the airport. (Sept)

40. Christmas with the whole family for the first time in the better part of a decade.

41. Danielle marrying an all-around great guy, and throwing one spectacular party. (Oct)

42. How the dining room looks with the christmas lights and all the candles lit.

43. Roommate holiday. (Oct)

44. Toffee stout from McCoys. What’s not to love: coffee? Good. Toffee? Good. Stout? GOOD. (Nov)

45. Tennessee Gubernatorial candidate, Basil Marceaux. (Sept)

46. An oldie that I was only recently introduced to: Carl Lewis singing the National Anthem at a Bull’s Game in the early nineties. OH-OH!

47. David Hasselhoff’s MESS of a drunk cheeseburger incident. I will laugh every.single.time I think about it.

48. A spontaneous decision to see Conan O’Brien when he was in town. It was a good decision. (Oct)

49. Aaron Moss’ stories about his dad (and mom, too). The second hardest I laughed all year. (Dec)

50. The hardest I laughed all year: Jon Mark having to push Aaron's car out of the snow after we had made fun of him for walking. "Jon Maaaarrrk! Jon Mark help! Jon Mark, push us!" (Jan)

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

on: neglect.

Oh, hey, blog.

Yeah, I know it's been a really long time. Four months? Really. Geesh. Sorry about that.


Here's a picture of a baby pandas to make it up to you.