Enjoy ;)

The Soul of It

I sent this picture that I took to my mom a couple of mornings ago and she wrote me back saying,

"When I look at the beauty of this flower ( Gerbera Daisy ) I am drawn to all the various colors of pink on the petals but I am most interested in the center of the flower....the soul of it. "

Wild Heart

Difficult & Awesome

Meg. Some 34-year-old pitcher. Me

^just kidding^

(that's my um 21-year-old baseball star brother...?!)

Purple & white flowers

A special cake for a special lady

A fallen peach balloon

A perfect pair

Some weekends are extremely difficult and extremely awesome all at once. And sometimes the difficult and awesome moments can be the same thing. They can happen within seconds of one another. Sometimes all it takes is a moment to shift your perception.  To re-frame the situation with new eyes. Or as Gabrielle Bernstein (the Spirit Junkie) says,

 "It's the moment you choose to perceive your life with love. It's the moment you choose to forgive someone. It's the moment you choose to shift your mind and therefore change your experience. And when your experience changes, a miraculous outcome occurs."

It's the moment you choose honesty and openness over shutting down. When you choose connecting over competing. When you choose love over fear. When you choose acceptance over judgement, feeling over numbing out, gentle discovery over slapping a hear-no-evil-see-no-evil blindfold on your face. When you choose warm compassion over frozen rigidity, When you get out of your head and into your heart. A moment of total vulnerability and emotional nakedness.

What I've found: honesty is a valiant act of courage and love. Honesty is an offering, a hand outstretched to another in love. It is difficult and awesome and it makes you a fucking diva. 

Rainbow Sherbert

Jacket & Shorts: c/o Zara

Gerbera Daisies: c/o Mother Nature

When my siblings and I were little, our parents would take us out for icecream every once in a while after dinner on the weekend. The place we went to was fun because half of the store was a Baskin Robbins (or 31 flavors as we used to call it) and the other half was... wait for it... a movie rental store. Can you imagine a better Friday night hotspot for a gradeschooler? They might as well have had a pizza place in there. And a Nickelodeon "All That" marathon running on a giant projector screen. Sadly, what was once the childhood utopia of my youth is now a Mattress Giant. *le sigh*

I bring this up because the colors of the coral tweed zara blazer and pink shorts (and the two gerbera daisies I found next to my sister's apartment building) remind me of what I always ordered at Baskin Robbins: rainbow sherbert in a cup - or sugarcone - with rainbow sprinkles. I was never a huge fan of dairy as a kid, and when I chose sweets I always opted for the tangy, sour, citrus flavored ones (such as giant sweet tarts, sour patch kids or nerds.) These days, however, my tongue never meets a sweet it doesn't like - or Italian word for that matter. 

Last night my friend Katie and I went on an icecream date to Baskin Robbins. And guess what I ordered?

 delizioso !

Music Videos Worth Watching

Hey, remember when MTV used to play music videos? Yeah, neither do I...

But lucky for you (and me), there is youtube. Enjoy! 

Lao Tzu

Spring in the City

Art Museum

Peony bud . Peony bloom

Frost's "early leaves"

Me & Lisa

This photo made me laugh out loud. Doesn't this encapsulate everything about what it feels like to be four years old? In my mind, this girl walks onto the beach anyway, goes frolicking in the forbidden dunes, lets her pup run free and wild, makes drip castles and "sand pancakes" in the wet sand, screams when the cold waves come rolling over her little legs, eats a sand-covered italian hoagie while squinting into the sunshine, makes friends with the older kids who are boogie boarding (how cool!) and gets a kick out of the seagulls eating her leftover scraps of pepperoni, capicola, salami and mortadella (she was really only looking to eat the bread and cheese anyway...)

P.S. - this girl is me.

P.P.S. - summer, come soon!

Petunias

No, I am not referring to Petunia Dursley. Although, some could argue she is just as dark and fascinating ;)

I am referring to this black velvet rarity that I found at the farmer's market on Saturday. While surveying the rows of mouth-watering bubblegum pink and lemon yellow tulips, my eyes landed on a small pot of these and drank in all of their sexy-seductive-inky-stellar-cosmic majesty. I couldn't peel my eyes away from them. Something about delicate trumpet petals coated in silky, dark, midnight black made my eyes scream "YES!"

I may also be referring to two other petunias (who too have their own sexy-seductive-inky-stellar-cosmic majesty, *cough* steph and emily *cough*) with whom I got to spend Friday night attending the Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education Court of Dreams Annual Benefit auction/dinner. It was a really cool event that showcased all of the awesomely radical stuff the foundation does for kids. I think that any organization that supports healthy movement, provides motivation and inspires kids towards a goal is fantastic.

On our way out, a little girl in a fluorescent neon colored tutu handed us goodie bags. I told her how much I loved her tutu, and she batted her little downcast eyes to the right and peeped out a shy "thank you." I realized she had probably been hearing that all night and after reading this article, I figuired I would engage her in another way that didn't involve what she looked like or what she was wearing. Instead, I asked her whether or not she played tennis. Her eyes lit up like a christmas tree and her whole body became animated, "Yes!" she exclaimed. I asked her if she liked playing tennis and I told her she could probably beat me since every time I play tennis I get hit in the nose. (Mostly true.) I gave her a high-five and told her "That is so cool! Good for you!" With hope, our brief encounter will instill in both her (and myself) that what she does and who she is, is way more important than what she looks like or what she is wearing.

Here's to all of the beautiful petunias out there: deep, bold, different... and yet also soft and delicate. It's a truly dynamite and powerful combination.