Going Places

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:23:00 +0000

hola, madrid!

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”
~ Maya Angelou

...and it's more than enough.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:52:00 +0000

I have a few thoughts left rattling around in this head of mine. In the meantime, here's a quote for your reading pleasure:

You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.
-William Blake

Both positive and negative connotations there, huh?

For those of you faithful readers (all two of you - hi Mom! hi Cousin!) I hope to be back soon and finish up a few draft posts.

it's starving.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:17:00 +0000

There is an old Cherokee tale tells of a grandfather teaching life principles to his grandson. The wise old Cherokee said,

"Son, on the inside of every person the battle is raging between two wolves. One wolf is evil. It’s angry, jealous, unforgiving, proud, and lazy. The other wolf is good. It is filled with love, kindness, humility, and encouragement. These two wolves are constantly fighting."

The little boy thought about it and said,

"Grandfather, which wolf is going to win?"

The grandfather smiled and said,

"The one you feed."

story first seen here.

oh, zark!

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:36:00 +0000

Arkansas sunsets really do it for me.

boom!

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:40:00 +0000

I just paid off my credit card debt. holy guacamole, that felt good :)

Now it's time to put my money to good use and put my career to even better use! Pretty excited about 2012. Pretty much.

staple gun fun

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:28:00 +0000

please pay no attention to the cat-butt indentation on the couch cushion.

I found this little ditty at goodwill outlet for a whopping $2. Yes, $2. I was out of town for a long time, and couldn't be bothered for awhile, so I left it sitting in the back seat of my car until this weekend I realized there would be weekend sales going on.

For $5 (50% off) I picked up 5/8 yard of creamy white vinyl (it's less plastic-y and more leather-y) at Hancock fabrics in Kirkland, then tore up the original '90s teal-green nasty fabric and went at it with a staple gun. Now I have a cute, clean, COMFORTABLE task chair for sewing and doing my arts & crafts at home (aka, entering expenses for work) and it only cost me $7 + 1.5 hrs of effort!

Dad says he preferred the original. Mom rolled her eyes. What do you think?

new year

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:06:00 +0000

Where did 2011 go? It felt like once I made the decision to leave my job and join my current firm, time sped up exponentially. And now in December, I'm feeling like 2011 left a lot to be desired. I don't feel like I did much on a personal level.

I've been mulling over goals and next steps. I want to make 2012 one of my best years, ever, right up there with 2010 and 2008. Maybe there's something about the even numbered years? I found an old vision / brainstorm diagram from when I spent new year's in Austin with my friend N, and found a few half-started one note notebooks about goals and resolutions and personal development. It got me excited about potential. True to form, I started thinking about programs and strategies and experts... and then I read a blog post that helped me level set and cut through the noise.

Until you quiet the resistance and commit to actually shipping things that matter, all the productivity tips in the world aren't going to make a real difference. And, it turns out, once you do make the commitment, the productivity tips aren't that needed.

You don't need a new plan for next year. You need a commitment.

-Seth Godin

So, here's to 2012. And here's what I commit to accomplishing, however it happens to take shape. I commit to living my year:

well-read (a healthy mix of genres, a healthy number of books and blogs)
well-fed (clean eating, not too little, not too much)
well-traveled (both domestic and international)
well-spent (within my means, debt free, excepting the condo, by 2013)
well-lived (reduced wasted time, busy work, out and about, healthy mix of physical activity and brainpower)
well-loved (quality time with family and friends, share more of myself with those I hold dear)

xoxo,

Rachel

the cure

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:48:00 +0000

‎"The cure for anything is salt water-sweat, tears, or the sea."

-Isak Dinesen

a friend posted this on facebook today. so true! i love it.

crystal bridges

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:12:00 +0000

last week, i didn't peace out of ar-Kansas until saturday. by friday afternoon, i was pooped. long work week, long days. i decided to visit crystal bridges. holy cow, that place is incredible. blows my mind that this place is in smalltown arkansas. i wandered through the museum by myself, sans headphones or tour guides, and left feeling oddly calm & relaxed. i know some of you get to hear me sarcastically refer to the time i spend in the ozarks, but i honestly do like it here.

taking my favorite muppets to see the muppets.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:50:00 +0000

a coupla weekends ago i decided to forego (forewent?) my flight home and visited the acceptable children instead. I am not ashamed to admit I'm a huge fan of the muppets, and while I'm not sure their adoration is quite on par with mine, it's nice to have the acceptable children as an excuse to go see things like this exhibit at EMP and the Muppet Movie.

cameron couldn't be bothered :)

Then we hit up the church christmas party. i recommend only attending these sorts of things with the entertainment of small acceptable children.

still couldn't be bothered...

until dad started teasing him...

and he decided this little game wasn't so bad..

...after all.

took awhile to "prime the pump" but
once he got some food in his system, he was back to being pleasant.

this NEVER happens.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:01:00 +0000

how we do.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:19:00 +0000

yesterday, at my account team's monthly planning meeting, we ended with an "are you a wine snob?" tasting party and white elephant gift exchange. well, i'm (luckily) allergic to sulfites, so i used that as my excuse to bow out of the brown-bag red wine tasting, but you better believe i participated in the white elephant!

my gift (we had a $10 limit) consisted of:

a tshirt in this print,
with the message "arkansas: where you were born to hunt" emblazoned on the chest. $2

a huge slim jim + processed cheese. $2.

Hand warmer. $2

Arkansas repreSENT!

{30 day photo challenge} day 6: from a low angle

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:52:00 +0000

I left my badge at home and haven't gotten a replacement ID badge. In the meantime, I'm relegated to the supplier collaboration rooms and have been sitting below this gentleman for 12 hour days. It's awesome.

epic australia.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:42:00 +0000

so.... the trip.

first, i spent a few days with bro and SIL down south, working from "home" (their home, anyway) and getting things at work all wrapped up and ready for vacation. oh, PS: may i just say, i LOVED spending time with my SIL. she is somebody i would want to be friends with even without being my SIL. we went shopping together, she took me to a freaking cheap (it's how i do) nail salon for mani/pedi.

the night before i left for AU, i decided we should celebrate bro's birthday, since i guess technically for me it'd never happen (taking off on 11/16, losing 11/17, landing on 11/18) so i treated him to dinner. we visited the redondo beach pier and met a friendly little guy:

yeah, that would be a legit taxidermied great white shark. probably not the best pre-great barrier reef sight....

then i met up with my travel companion cousin in LAX and we caught our flight together to brisbane/cairns. i figured with the int'l date line and time change, i'd be best off staying awake for a few hours, then getting a legit 8 hours' sleep and just pretending that day never happened. it was super cold on the plane and not the comfiest in economy, but luckily nobody sat in between us and with curling up in fetal position and taking over that middle seat for my feet, i got a legit 8-9 hours and wasn't very jetlagged at all.

we landed around 7am, took the next flight to cairns, and luckily since my cousin did not have any pork loin with her (what the?! seriously, this is the question they've deemed of utmost importance? not meat in general, but pork loin specifically?)

we got to palm cove a little after 1 or so.

after a couple of little initial snafus, our time in cairns was just what the doctor ordered.

we visited a few touristy sights (rainforest canopy hike, tropical zoo, an epic/nauseating drive along the coast),

enjoyed the hotels

and esplanade,

and went on a FANTASTIC scuba/snorkeling adventure in the great barrier reef (we went with quicksilver and it was an all day deal with over 3 hours in the water) SO GREAT. i will update this post to include the underwater pictures once i bust out the CD we caved and bought from the underwater photographer Wing Ding (no, no, i am not kidding. that's his name.)

but anyway, yes, we saw nemo. and the big ol' clams like unto the little mermaid. and big huge ugly maori something or other fish with nasty teeth and a penchant for loudly chomping down on coral mere centimeters from my face..... it was, by far, my best sightseeing adventure to date.

then we headed down to sydney for the remainder of the trip.

but oh, it raiiiined.

and rained.

and rained.

soooo, we went to lots of museums and indoor things. my souvenir ended up being an umbrella instead of a shoe-venir, i wore the same jeans and sweater (aka, the only "warm" clothes i'd packed) for most of those days, and my favorite travel shoes became a soggy stinky mess and if i can't get the musty smell out of them, i'm sadly going to toss the ol' workhorses and send 'em to the glue factory.

oh, but i totally recommend the convict sydney exhibit. it was probably my favorite tourist thing we did there.

so was the aquarium.

by day 3 of feeling like i'd traveled all the way around the world just to visit...well, seattle, i was so ready to throw in the towel. i was cold and soggy, my flat iron didn't work with the voltage adapter so my hair was epically frizzy and yuck, i was tired.... anyway, we checked into the marriott (thank you, platinum points!) for saturday night. that morning in the executive lounge over pastries and reading material, i looked out the window, snapped this shot:

and then set down the camera, looked over at my cousin and told her i just wasn't sure i could stand another day schlepping around in the soggy city. she told me she would will the sunshine back. and lo and behold! she did! i kid you not, within 30 minutes the sun had returned.

you look good in blue, sydney.

we booked it back downstairs, changed clothes, and took a ferry over to manly, where the beach was closed to swimmers and beginning surfers due to pollution from all the inclement weather or sumsing. that's ok.

it was nice to warm up, dry out, people-watch and partake of some delicious food.

aussie pie. mmm.

at around 6pm we decided to book it over to bondi to squeeze out every last remaining drop of sunshine enjoyment we could. unfortunately i stupidly got off the bus and followed who i thought were asian tourist beachgoers. not so, unless they were lost, too. sooooo, we started walking in the general direction of the water........ through a park... through a... neighborhood.... stopped a man out on a walk (yes,yes he did laugh at us when i asked "so, um, where's the beach?!" not unlike mr. bean) and finally (precious daylight waning) just hailed a cab driven by a shaky-handed old man and arrived at bondi an hour after we'd left the hotel. gah.

once we got there.... it didn't disappoint.**

**ok, maybe the slightly chilly breeze disappointed a little. maybe.

sunday after sleeping in a tiny bit and a delicious breakfast, we took the opera house tour in the morning.

then we rented a car and drove out through the blue mountains. again, did not disappoint, especially since for this leg of the trip my cousin did the driving (who as it turns out LOVES to drive, whereas I most definitely do not).

hey, so did you know there's a three sisters in the blue mountains in oregon, and another three sisters in australia? yep.

we wanted to take one of the cableways along the cliff, but it was closed waiting for parts, so we took the world's steepest railway instead. apparently the world's steepest railway is just a caged-in car that drives right up and down along the cliff. um, it was basically awesome. and a wee bit terrifying. they didn't strap you in or anything, so i kind of got a decent little leg workout in for the whopping 60 second "ride".

we drove back to a sydney suburb for our last night. since we were leaving at the crack of dawn, we opted to stay at a courtyard marriott for only 15k points. that was a nice plan and all, but attempting to find an open restaurant in suburbia on a sunday night? nooooot fun. we finally did, though, and when we got back to the hotel, wing ding's cousin was randomly dancing in a parking space. sans music. for.... over 20 minutes. by himself. did i mention sans music? seriously. yes, i'm a creeper who takes video of some random stranger dancing alone in the dark in a chain hotel parking lot. yes. i'm the creeper who uploads it for your viewing pleasure.

the flight back was much more painful then the flight out. of the 17 hour flight, i think i eked out about 3 hours of restless rest. we were on a behemoth of an airbus jet, it was huuuge. the in seat entertainment had a cool feature called "skycam" that showed streaming video from the tail of the plane.

again, we landed around 6-7am. here's where my cousin and i parted ways - her to continue home to dallas and me to kick around LA for awhile longer. i went to breakfast with brother, again, went out and about shopping with SIL. i bought a really pretty pair of blinged out earrings kinda like my kid sister's from her trip to LA in august. anyway, we were on our way to the beach when she turned to me at a stoplight and said, "um, rachel, your eyes look like you've been crying. and you're really quiet...." so yeah, i caved and told her i was just too tired for hermosa. instead of the beach, we went back to their apt, where i took a shower, stood under the water in a sleep-deprived stupor for a very long time, repacked my suitcase to include my work laptop and the good stuff I bought in LA, and then caught my final flight to seattle.

and now here i am... exactly one week later in 32 degree northwest arkansas weather, still (sadly) fairly uncertain what time zone i'm living in, brain-dead and trying to dig myself out from underneath the work email and home chaos.

but honestly, i wouldn't have it any other way.

shout out to my cousin for helping me experience epic australia!

Austria? Put another shrimp on the barbie!

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:04:00 +0000

The countdown to our Australia trip is on! Eeeeeeeeee!

We'll be spending the first chunk of time in Cairns, and the second in Sydney, so two sorta different types of trips rolled in one.

The idea:

The hope:

since i'm going to go for open water dives in chilly puget sound to hopefully get certified before the trip, and will see more of this:

I think this is a very real possibility:

Anyway, we'll see. However things go, I'm kind of excited. And since I'm currently 115% billable on top of a time consuming travel schedule, I think it's well deserved.

allergies

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:29:00 +0000

here's what i think i may possibly have allergies/intolerance:

the high volumed music selection at XNA airport
shellfish / iodine
any laundry detergent besides the stuff at my house
mineral makeup
cats
my phone
non-aveeno lotion
towneplace suites
cigarette smoke
dating
the "second shift" at my job
ombligo
estrogen

i wouild really love to figure out what's giving me hives and then get rid of it. problem is, i'm pretty sure i'm allergic to my life. and not about to get rid of that.

{30 day photo challenge} day 5: from a high angle

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:29:00 +0000

Click here to learn why I'm doing this little project.

grand tetons're down there.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:08:00 +0000

courtesy cookus interruptus

Worse than a bachelor.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Gross, right? Even worse? I took a look, then decided I didn't want to a) smell it as it glugged down the kitchen sink and b) walk it up the stairs, then down the stairs to the dumpster, so instead I snapped this pic and shut the door.
Its waiting for me when I get home.

In 2 more weeks.

Ew.

{30 day photo challenge} day 4: something green

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:49:00 +0000

{Click here to learn why I'm doing this little project.}

yup. it really is THAT green up in here.

{30 day photo challenge} day 3: clouds

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:05:00 +0000

{Click here to learn why I'm doing this little project.}

Above the rain

Just try

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:46:00 +0000

Waking to 80s rock without a smile. Impossible. (Even at 530am)

I recommend "take me home tonight" by Eddie money. Wah oh oh oh oh!

{30 day photo challenge} day 2: what you wore today

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:24:00 +0000

{Click here to learn why I'm doing this little project.}

courtesy anthropologie from a bajillion years ago.
i still get compliments on it though, so it stays in heavy rotation.

{30 day photo challenge} day 1: self portrait

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:50:00 +0000

{Click here to learn why I'm doing this little project.}

ugh.

(sigh.) Would you believe the big holdup to getting this stupid thing started was my intense dislike of self portraits? So here ya go, self portrait via camera phone, in the windowless conference room that is my second home, straight into the blogger app. And boom goes the dynamite.

Now I can move on to prettier photo subjects in the challenge.

this is why.

noreply@blogger.com (R*) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:44:00 +0000

This weekend is precisely why I opt for the soul-sucking, time intensive jobs. I was able to opt for east coast travel instead of my normal flight home to seattle, and spend good quality family time with SIL, bro and the acceptable children.

Yep, they continue to be acceptable. Surprising them was the high point. OG (that's original gangsta) acceptable child was literally shocked speechless when wendi pulled up to me at the airport drive. the next morning when cameron and mike came home from their campout, cameron walked into the kitchen, stopped in his tracks, tried not to smile and then, "aunt waychow. you're... you're heowww..." then just sorta flopped into my lap (as a hug?) and punched my hand (as hello?). julie, on the other hand, was totally cool with it all. just greeted me right along everyone else like it was no different. "mommy!!!!!!! daddyyyyyyy! rachellllllll!"

gratuitous kid pics:

apple orchard.

shortly after taking this picture, i was attacked by killer tropical storm mosquitos and
received a massive mosquito bite tumor on my entire forehead.
this is no exaggeration. it could be seen from the kitchen window.

she likes changing up her perspective sometimes.

i've finally experienced the ah-ah voice in person.

rocking her "superhero cate!" that aunt rachel "made" yeah, so maybe i only facilitated. ok, so "strongly encouraged" wendi to make it while i was still around. hey. i know how to secure favorite aunt status!

10 bucks says she doesn't take it off all week.

Love them!