Giveaway

This blog I read has what looks like an awesome giveaway going:

http://lachapstickfanatique.blogspot.com/2011/02/monday-giveaway-boots-review-and.html

I've just started thinking I need to do something about my skin because it is not pretty right now.  Perfect timing!  I hope I win, so...I'm telling you guys about it so I get an extra entry, but you really shouldn't enter.  Really.  :P

Letter to a friend

Dear Kris,

I want to make sure I say all the things I want to say to you before you're gone.  It's scary to actually write that you're going to be gone.  Nobody likes to say it out loud.  Or...write it, as the case is here.  We think by saying it, we'll make it true.  I know you and your family have tried so hard to stay positive throughout this whole thing but after a while you did start to admit that it was a possibility things wouldn't work out.  Somehow you still managed to keep most of your positive energy even after that realization.  I can't say enough how much you have amazed me and impressed me since you got diagnosed.

Well, it really started way before that, actually.  I'm sure everyone who knows you thinks that way.  You have been impressing people your entire life, from the comments I've read on your blog.  As for me, I just want to let you know how much you truly have meant to me.  I know I'm not one of the most important people in your life - I'm not a family member or a really close friend - but you have left a mark on me.

You were my favorite person to work with at Fraser.  I loved that you also thought that we had a connection and we just naturally understood each other.  So often I feel like I have those feelings toward someone and they're not reciprocated (or at least verbalized).  It felt so good every time you said we were in sync.  I've never really had a supervisor-type person take me under their wing the way you did, and support me the way you did.  You understood and supported me at a place where I didn't always feel understood or supported by other people, and I didn't always fit very well into the job I had.  You let me know that I had value when I wasn't sure I did.

You helped me grow up and trust myself more.  I became more confident in my work because of your reassurance.  It hasn't often been my experience that someone I think is super cool, someone I look up to and admire, also thinks I'm cool and wants to talk to me or spend time with me.  You make everyone around you feel good with the way you talk to them, your energy, positivity, determination, wisdom and caring.  No wonder so many people read your blog or have reached out to help you and your family.

It sucks that this is happening to you.  It seems like it always happens to the most wrong people.  It's never someone people think is a jerk, it's always the most wonderful people with the most to live for.  Or maybe those are just the ones we remember because it sticks out as such an awful contrast - for this horrible thing to happen to someone so great. 

I wish I could be there right now to at least come see you but I just happened to buy a plane ticket to MN last night for April 17th.  It'd be great if I could see you then but I also don't want you to spend a lot of time in horrible pain.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I mostly just wanted to make sure I at least tried to find the words to say what an impression you've made on me, and that I'm going to miss you.  You'll never be forgotten.  If we get to talk again that'll be great but I wanted to make sure I got this all said, just in case.  I can't believe this is actually happening and I'm trying to wrap my brain around it but it's really hard.  I can't imagine what it's like for you and your family.

I'm very grateful I have gotten to count you as a friend, and know you count me as one too.

Love always,
Erin

This apartment is so eclectic

These pictures were found here.

I love the plants inside the table, I love the floors and I love how big the room is. I love that there's so much random stuff, but it all goes together somehow.

I would never gravitate toward this hippo myself, if I saw it in a store, but it's actually very cool.  It's so unique.  I love how the art goes with it.  I keep thinking I want to open up my eyes and tastes to items I wouldn't normally choose because I think that's what's going to enliven my surroundings.  My rooms always end up looking the same.

This makes me feel better about my cluttered bookshelf.  Although mine doesn't look quite this cool. 

So pretty.

I want that wall of shoes...

I've only recently gotten my first two shoe racks (with my long term love of shoes and the amount I have, Mark was like, "you've never had a shoe rack before??")

So want.  WANT.  It's like my dream jewelry drawer.  To have a jewelry drawer in the first place...

I love that she loves her dog so much she got a bronze sculpture made of him.  They have a Lego one too, in another room, but I am not as into Legos as I am into bronze, so I didn't include that picture.

She commented in the original post that this dish is one of the most practical things she's ever been given.  They really are - I have several little dishes/containers, a few of which I made myself and a few I have bought at random pottery sales.  They're the kind of thing that seems like useless clutter, but they really are lovely for collecting little items that would otherwise just lay around in the way.

I hope I don't get in trouble by posting pictures from around the internet.  I feel like if I credit where I'm getting them from, no biggie, right?  I wonder what the real rules for that are...

I'm in love, and a bit sad at the same time

I think my font ends up being slightly varying shades of purple...

Anyway, I just tweeted something I had more thoughts about, so I thought I would write a blog entry.  I don't have any pictures although I wish I did, but I just don't think they would turn out very well.  I'd be taking a picture of the inside of a mug, and my camera is not that good.  I wonder if Mark's iPhone...ah, well.  I don't have the energy or the motivation to go to all that trouble right now.  I just wanted to get these thoughts out.

So, I've been having some stomach troubles lately and tonight Mark suggested something his mom used to make for him.  He said she had a mint plant out in the backyard, and she would just grab some leaves, throw them in the bottom of a mug, pour boiling water over it, and ta-daaah...you have mint tea.  I mean, duh, right?  He said she would put a spoonful of sugar (makes the medicine go down, oh man, now that's gonna be stuck in my head all night) in it so it wasn't overwhelmingly minty.

It's sad that this is such a revelatory discovery for me.  I mean, I never would've thought of doing that.  It's a very obvious, simple thing to do, but this just shows how far removed I am from the origins of things.  That was part of my tweet.  I don't even put mint and mint together to make tea.

Although I did, because it just so happens that I bought some organic mint leaves (in those little plastic boxes in the produce section, you know?) at Safeway yesterday.  We never have mint in the house but we do right now.  So I did it.  And it's wonderful.

I put a teaspoon of honey in mine.  :)

I can't help myself

So, through this lady: http://blog.piajanebijkerk.com/WordPress/
I have been enlightened to the island of Langkawi.  It's in her latest post, about her island retreat.  I had no idea it existed and since I'm always getting ahead of myself, I'm always trying to think of things that I'd like to have for my wedding. 

This looks like the perfect honeymoon spot.
Of course, last week I wanted to go to southern Italy. 

Maybe I should just make us quit our jobs and travel around the world for a year?  I'm sure anywhere I end up going on my honeymoon is going to be wonderful though.
Anyway.  Even if it's not for a honeymoon, I just want to go.

Here's another article about it: http://www.thetravelhavenonline.com/blog/langkawi-luxury-vacation/
I'm sure since I'm hearing about it, it's becoming more popular and will soon be ruined because I'm not cool enough to know about things when they're still diamonds in the rough, undiscovered gems.  I sure hope it's still wonderful by the time I have the means to get there though.

 All these pictures were just found by doing a Google search so I'm not going to credit them all.  Anyone else could easily find them if they Google "Langkawi" or "southern Italy."  Turns out that picture of Italy is Positano.  Who knew that was a town?  Remember the lyric from "Cinema Italiano" in Nine, where Kate Hudson sings, "women in Positano!"  I always thought she was singing about a designer.
Maybe it's a designer too, who knows.

And yes, it's possible that I had decided I wanted to go to southern Italy because I was watching Nine.  What of it.

A song lyric, a smoothie, and a book

So, first, I always get chills (and possibly slightly choked up if I'm really in the right mood) when I hear (i.e., sing along with at the top of my lungs) a certain line in a certain song:

"Day 18, 253: well honey, that's fifty years - yeah, here's to you and me!"

Anyone know what song that is?  Probably not because my friends don't listen to country, but we'll see if anybody random comes up with the title.  If this was a cool blog there'd be some sort of giveaway to go along with it but I'm just a regular gal with nothin' to give away.  :)

Also, I made myself a smoothie this morning with a scoop of vanilla SlimFast, a cup of milk, 1/2 a cup of ice cubes, a banana and a handful of frozen blueberries and let me tell you: it is good.  Plus it's really pretty.  I have it in a water bottle and every time I take a drink and set it back down again, the lighter frothy part on top swirls in with the darker blue bottom part and it just looks really pretty.  :)  I was going to try to take a picture but I didn't think it would capture it.

Last but not least, I just finished this book a couple days ago:

                                                               (from goodreads.com)

It blew my mind a little bit.  Please read it.  It's so good.  The characters are just so...precious.  And I don't mean that in a cutesy sort of way, I mean that almost immediately I felt like I really loved them.  Like in an honest to goodness, I-love-my-best-friend sort of way, not like where you see a cute purse and squeal, "oh, I LOVE that!"  Reading this book was like wrapping myself up in tea and honey while my grandmother (who for some reason in this little fantasy image of mine is Jamaican) reads to me in the background.  Well, I guess imagining my grandmother as Jamaican isn't that strange because there's a Jamaican character in this book.

It's just such a wonderful, sort of bittersweet, combination of hope and beauty and fear and danger.  And I tell you what, it created a lot more sympathy in me for the plight of refugees. 

Read it.

Debated about posting this

Hey guys.  So, a bit of a serious entry today.  I heard about this guy on another blog (http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/) and have since found information about him on several websites (it's easy enough if you start with Penelope's link or just Google him) and I ended up reading this letter that he wrote.  It's a suicide letter.  It seems more natural to write "suicide note" but it's definitely not a note.  It's pretty long.
Anyway, he succeeded in killing himself about a week and a half ago, and even if he hadn't this would be a tragic story because of the pain he endured for so long.  I think I'm posting the link to his letter and writing about it because it's a very poignant, insightful look into what depression can be like, as well as possible effects of child abuse.  If anything maybe it will stir more people up into working to help people affected by these awful things, and encourage us all to try to be more alert to what's going on with the people around us.  Of course, being the future counselor that I am, throughout the whole letter I was just wishing I could've helped him, but he's also very clear about his reasons for not seeking more help.

Anyway, it's quite a read and after some deliberation, I think it could be beneficial for people to experience it.  Just be warned about its disturbing content beforehand.  If you are curious about what's in it but are afraid it might be too upsetting for you to read, feel free to ask me about it.

http://documents.from.bz/note.txt

His name was Bill Zeller.  If anything hopefully it will give you an appreciation for how good you have it - assuming you are not going through something similar.  And if you are going through something similar, please don't do what he did.  No matter what he thought, there is help out there.  As you can see from the comments on Penelope Trunk's entry, so many people have gone through similar experiences and have overcome them.