dear bravo,

Dear Bravo,

I would like to humbly ask that you do not actually have the season finale of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills next Monday as originally scheduled. The problem is, I might die of a broken heart if I don't get to hang out with my girls from the 90210 every week. I'm going to have to insist that you immediately get back to filming them and subsequently filling up my DVR with the best hour of television a girl could hope for every week. I laugh, I cry-- I can't let you end this season. I really can't. 

Please reconsider.

Love Always,

Erika

PS. Please also consider making me wealthy, moving me to Beverly Hills, and casting me for the next season.

PPS. Anyone have any suggestions of shows that can fill the void in my heart until RHBH comes back?

blah (and a farm photo shoot)

So apparently I've decided to neglect my poor little blog in 2012. Unintentionally, but alas...it appears I have.

I am so tired and blah right now. I have a lofty goal of overcoming this in the next hour and twenty minutes and going to Zumba...we'll see how it goes.

We went on a little "retreat" this weekend (leadership team at church annual planning retreat) to a farm in a nearby town. The same farm where the Chili Cook-off is each year, if you recall. The house can best be described as "it looks like Pinterest exploded in there." And it was built in 1790. And it's awesome. So anyway, we spent the weekend out there and it was very peaceful and farm-animal-filled.

It was also OMG OMG BEING SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE 24/7 OMG OMG. Although on this blog I probably sound like I'm the life of every party, in real life that is basically the opposite of the truth and I much prefer to spend my time curled up alone or with Matt on a couch, PRETENDING to be social, versus actually being surrounded by people all the time. I like my people in small to medium-sized doses. So going on retreats is a very stretching experience for Matt and I. 

  See? PEOPLE, PEOPLE EVERYWHERE! And food. Lots of it. Yummy.

 And then we can pause for a little reflection on America. Or something.

Wanna know about a really horrible and miserable game I play in my head that I'm getting really good at? This is a True Life Glimpse into the mind of someone who is probably not the best example of Dealing Gracefully with Infertility and Childlessness. OK, here's how the game works. Find a group of people. Listen to them talk. Guess how long it will take for the conversation to turn to pregnancy/childbirth/child rearing. If you guess 5 minutes, you lose, because in my experience it's usually closer to 30 seconds. Of course, once the conversation has made The Turn, your options as a miserable infertile person are limited. Pretend to be interested? Run off crying? Try to find another conversation to lurk in and start the game over?  Who knows, all of the options are as bad as the next. 

[Necessary addendum: Don't feel bad if you like to talk about your kids or your pregnancy/childbirth. I would, too. It's not you, it's me. Probably if there were a group of infertile girls all hanging out, every conversation would turn to infertility within 30 seconds. I just need to find a better way of coping with life as it is. Especially when I'm sleep-deprived.]

Now that you know about my sick mind games, let's move on to a brighter topic: Farm Photography!

Naturally, every girl with a non-famous blog dreams of being like Pioneer Woman. Fame, fortune, and a chaps-wearing husband? Sign me up. To get me started on the path, I figured I'd better get good at taking pictures of cows, since that's what got Ree started.

Behold, my first ever COW PHOTO SHOOT (with some people thrown in for good measure, just so that you know I do actually LIKE people, despite what it probably sounds like).

 Hello, big ol' cow! (Note: I was using a zoom lens. Although I would have gotten this close if they'd let me)

Mollyanne is a fan of the cows slash a fellow cow-whisperer (they would let us get pretty close to them, since they knew we were friends and not foe. Probably because I loudly declared that I was a vegetarian (a lie)).

 These people were not so much cow whisperers to start with. (Jonathon, Derek, Holly, Matt)

 Then Matt embraced his inner "Matt"ador. (HAHAHAHA I am so funny. Matador? Get it?)

 Awwww...presh.

 Jonathon eventually got in touch with his inner cow lover.

But these two are just not cut out for farm life. I entitled the above picture "Two City People on a Farm." Holly talks on the phone, Derek inspects his shoe for cow poo. Or does an Irish jig. One of these.

 I very much enjoyed our cow-hunting expedition, and after that we spent some more of our free time playing games and chatting. And riding recumbent bikes?

 You just never know WHAT you might find on a farm. Apparently riding them is harder than it appears (I didn't try...SOMEONE has to be the designated photographer.)

 Look at the concentration required!! Hilarious.


So all in all it was a good weekend, but there wasn't a whole lot of sleep involved. Immediately upon arriving home this afternoon, I slept for 2 hours, and have spent the next several hours catching up on important reality TV and blogging. And now I have 30 minutes with which to put on correct apparel and get myself to the gym...as Matt hollers the countdown every 5 minutes: "We're leaving for the gym in 20 minutes!" "We're leaving for the gym in 15 minutes!" Blah. Men.


PS. Question for people who know stuff: I've filled up my first camera memory card. I have plenty more, but my question is...isn't it okay to just delete all the pictures off the current one and use it again? All the pics are uploaded onto the computer and backed up on my external hard drive. Is there any reason to not delete and reuse the card? Is there anything special I need to do other than hit "delete", like reformat the card or something?

PPS. Anyone have any good salmon recipes? Particularly ones that make salmon not taste like salmon, since I don't like how salmon tastes? Feel free to share...

the brokedown knee saga

Way Back When-sday—woohoo!

Did you know I had knee surgery?

Yep, it’s true. Back in y2k (for real: the year 2000), I had some pretty serious surgery reconstructing my ACL and meniscus in my right knee. In case you were thinking about going in for some knee surgery just for giggles sometime soon, let me be the first to warn me: you should not do that. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Not even slightly. And in case you still aren’t convinced, then I was thinking that maybe a little photographic limp  walk down Memory Lane just might do the trick.

Maybe it will help to know that this surgery took place on August 15, right before my senior year of high school started. This meant I’d spent the previous 3 months enjoying nothing but sun and fun and weeks and weeks of band camps. Hence the killer tan. See it and weep.

Here I am right after surgery (judging by my hospital gown…). Ahh…the delicious drug-induced post-surgery sleep…

This is me attempting to look awake. And mostly failing. And awkwardly grasping a stuffed cat someone brought me in the hospital.

Look, my friends came!! These should be some familiar faces if you paid any attention to my picture a few weeks ago: Chris and Jessica are sharing the chair, Patrick is all lonely, sitting alone. (Please note the Sonic Route 44 slushie on my tray. Looking through these photos made me realize I could play a “Where’s Waldo?” type game with slushie cups. Apparently I was a fan.)

After 2 days in the hospital, they let me go home. There I proceeded to live on a couch downstairs for the next long while. Apparently I wasn’t much better at not-passing-out, though. (Note: in another picture of basically this same shot, you can spy a slushie cup on the floor next to me)

BOOM!! Fatty cankle! Thanks to my mother for the “1 week & 1 day” sign so that we realize that my leg actually looked and felt way worse AFTER surgery than it ever did before. OMG THE SWELLING.

Did you ever wonder how people with massive leg braces and brokedown knees got their hair washed? Now you won’t have to wonder anymore.

Gaining my independence again. Crutches, aka the WORST THING THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN TO YOUR ARMPITS. Forget the leg pain, all I remember about the weeks on crutches was OMG THE ARMPITS. Raw. Swollen. Bloody. Armpits. You’re welcome.

And we’ll end on a positive note with the BEST thing about brokedown knees and huge leg braces:

 Yes, they are as fun as you might imagine. (Did you see the Sonic cup in the basket?) Fun fact: several years later, while home on break from college (and obviously my knee was completely rehabbed), my friend Dustin and I would take the ol’ knee brace out to various stores, slap ‘er on, and go for rides on motorized grocery carts. Yep. We’re just that exciting.

Come to think of it, I STILL have the brace. If you’re ever looking for a rip-roarin’ Friday night, just let me know…

So, what inspired me think of this fun and exciting period of my life as fodder for today’s post? Oh, maybe the fact that at some point on Saturday, my knee started hurting. And swelling. And not being stable. And call me a hypochondriac if you will, but I immediately diagnosed that probably my knee is busted again and I will probably have to have surgery again and only now it is 11.5 years later and it will probably be way worse, the recovery way longer, and I won’t even have a tan. Not to mention we’d be footing the (considerable) bills ourselves. So I’ve been semi-limping around, NOT going to Zumba, and just generally feeling sadsies for my poor broken knee (still slightly swollen, still not stable).

And on THAT happy note, I’m off to watch The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia, prop up my knee, massage my phantom-pain-feeling-armpits, and try to con Matt into getting me a Sonic slushie. (Does it help to know I’m actually typing this on Tuesday night?) Later! 

something beautiful

Yeah, that's right. I'm calling this post the same thing as my blog TITLE. Betcha didn't know you could do that. But I just did.

I'd like to think of it like this: you know how sometimes an artist will name their CD the same thing as one of the tracks? (Tangent: do they even make CDs anymore?) This is kinda like that. Only I named the CD 4 years ago, and today I'm writing the title track.

Today my friend Diana came over to craft. Being a good houseguest and friend, she came bearing gifts. Gifts of the crafty persuasion. Like vintage postcards. Some random scrapbook circles in 'my colors.' A fabric tree project she'd given up on but thought I might like to rescue. And some hymnals.

 Hymnals, you see, are quite the crafter's dream. This crafter, anyway. The uses for those beautiful pages of music and timeless poetry are endless. And it turns out that she brought the very same hymnals that I grew up using (The United Methodist Hymnal, anyone?)...so this, in my opinion, is THE hymnal. At least I know where to find things. Ya know, before I cut them up and decoupage the crap out of them. (Note: I saved one of the hymnals to actually like, set on the piano and use. I have been wanting one of these for my own home for years! Then I felt less guilty tearing up the other one.)

And that's exactly what I did today.  

 A lot of tearing and Mod Podge-ing.

We're messy crafters, I guess. Look at that dining room. At one point I made the mistake of referring to it as the "craft room," and Matt let me know-- in no uncertain terms-- that it was a dining room and is not and will never be a craft room. Duly noted.

My craft isn't finished yet, so there are no pictures of a final project to brag on. But you can see what I was doing. Now I have a hymn-covered canvas.

But in order to make said canvas, I first had to find a bunch of suitable hymns to tear up. Sure, I could have just used the first 20 pages or whatever. But I'm going to be hanging this on the wall (or something). I wanted them to be hymns that I particularly love. So I hunted them down.

Which meant a lot of time spent flipping through the 962 page hymnal. And as I flipped, guess what I found?

JUST GUESS!!!!

Yep, yep it is!!

A hymn named after my blog!!!!!

Who knew?!!

Wanna know the lyrics? (Can you call the words to a hymn 'lyrics'? It sounds disrespectful.)

Something beautiful, something good;
all my confusion he understood;
all I had to offer him was brokenness and strife,
but he made something beautiful of my life.

That's it. The whole song. And also, ya know, my hope and my prayer. That's all.

To say I was slightly excited when I found this would be quite the understatement. Luckily, Diana was equally jazzed at my find.

And no, I did not tear that one up. That one's a framer. Or something. Something...beautiful, dare I say? Haha.

Anyway. And don't you fret-- of COURSE I am going to learn to play it on the piano and then make a music video of myself. And never post it here. You can just imagine how awesome it will be.

So, that's my happy story for the day. In addition to discovering the Best Hymn Ever, I did some Quality Crafting, enjoyed Hanging With a Friend (not to be confused with the game app of the almost-same name, which I also enjoyed), and successfully repainted (okay, watched Matt repaint) the laundry room. I'd call it a good day. And now...good night!