Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

I saw a rainbow on my way to work this morning. It was a weak one, but it reflected my mood. I woke up in an amazingly good mood.Maybe it’s because I went shopping yesterday and bought clothes in smaller sizes, and it was ALL ON SALE! Maybe because of the contract in my purse signing my life away to a personal trainer for the next 9 weeks, and knowing what that’ll do for me. Maybe because I knew I was going to put on the new smaller clothes. I don’t know, but I got dressed, and felt really good. And I was just… happy. All day. It’s a nice change fron feeling like my life is chaotic.
I had this exchange with Caryn around 2pm:
(I had said earlier that my new boots hurt a bit)
me: back. armed with salad and a double espresso. taking the hurty boots off
caryn: lol
(time goes by)
me: it’s sad how bad my mocha is. I can’t let it ruin my GOOD day though
me: (or the boots. hurty-but-non-day-ruining-boots)
caryn: 🙁
caryn: so are you just trying to think positive? or is there something making it a good day?
me: have you seen this?

caryn: wow. cool!
me: yeah
me: it’s a GOOD day
caryn: 🙂
me: i’m wearing a lot of that stuff today
me: that sweater (the oatmeal colored one) is deceptively warm and cozy
me: happy day
It’s the end of the day, and today was just… Good. Nevermind that the freaking sharks lost again. It’s still good.
*Beautiful Day – U2

I didn’t say a whole lot about it at the time, but over Thanksgiving, while up in Oregon, there was a hospital stay. The hospital had recently undergone a remodel/upgrade, and the patient rooms were fantastic. Comfortable for visitors, with amenities meant to make stays easier for patients, including a DVD/VCR combo in each room. My sister, managing a video store as she does, has the rockin’ video collection you’d expect of someone with that job, so we brought a bag full of movies to help pass the time.
When we got there to visit, my friend was meeting with the doctor and so my sister and I could not go into the room. We sat out in the waiting area on the floor, and given that it was a quiet-ish morning, a few of the nurses struck up a conversation with us. They saw the bag of movies we had brought with us and said that they were trying to start a lending library of movies for patients to watch, and that they only had about 5 titles. Both my sister and I voiced that we had certain movies in two formats, having replaced our VHS copies with DVD. I said I’d be happy to send them to the hospital.
When I was leaving on the last day, one of the nurses I had talked to approached me and handed me two business cards for the hospital and said simply “In case you still want to send us those movies.”
Here we are three months later and I see that card on my bathroom counter almost daily. But now I can look at it and smile, because several points in the universe converged over the weekend and enabled something great to happen.
A few weeks ago, my friend Dee told me that she and her husband had gone through and gotten rid of all of their VHS movies. I asked what she was going to do with them, and she said she didn’t really have a plan, that she’d probably give them to a thrift store or put them on Freecycle. I asked if she’d give them to me instead, and explained about the hospital. She said yes, absolutely, and when I was over at her place and she gave me two boxes of movies, one fairly large box and one smaller box. As we carried them to the car, I remembered that my sister and her husband had driven down from Bend for the weekend, and would be returning Monday. They needed to come by my house anyway to return something they had borrowed, so I called her up and asked if she remembered about the hospital and the movies, and if she’d mind driving the box home and taking it to the hospital.
I spent the early part of Sunday indexing all the movies into an Excel spreadsheet. I pulled out all the anime and the home recordings, but was still left with a good 55 movies. I added the movies I had duplicates of, and the Ice Age DVD that I bought but don’t like and never watch. I also dusted the boxes because my hands felt sticky and gritty after handling them all, and isn’t that just what a hospital needs- dusty video cases. All in all my sister picked up 62 videos to be taken up to the hospital.
I feel really good. When my friend was in the hospital, I felt really helpless. The nurses and the hospital staff were so wonderful to me, and to my friend and my family. It feels good to be able to give something back to the staff there, but also to give something to the patients and their friends in the future to maybe make their experiences a little bit more bearable.

image copyright Jason Sho Green

Chris over at Rude Cactus has declared today to be Stick Stuff On Your Head Day! As I am already known to be one to stick random things on my head, of course I was totally up for the challenge. I decided to do it before work since I’ll be out late tonight and the camera and cables and computer were already all in the same room, so viola! here you go.

There are a few more on my flickr if you feel like clickety-clicking your way over there. And here is a bonus shot of my bridesmaid rehearsal bouquet on my head from Ben and Laura’s wedding back in October.

It’s Brad’s birthday… Go on over and wish him a happy one.
I hope your day holds everything you hope for my friend.

I had two eggs and a muffin for breakfast at about 10:30. I’m busily working away, and I just noticed that it is 4:07 and my turkey with sprouts on wheat that I bought an hour ago is still sitting on my desk wrapped in its paper. Do I even bother eating it at this point?

I just got off the phone with my mom, who told me I have a new cousin. He’s not really my “cousin”, I don’t think. He’s one of those relations involving second or third and three times removed and a voodoo curse involving a chicken’s foot or some such. There’s a weird dynamic with the cousins on that side due the ages of the generations, so we don’t call anyone by what their actual relation is, maybe I’ll go into it sometime. (okay, you tell me what he is. His father is my mother’s first cousin.) His name is Christopher, he was born yesterday, and that’s all I know. I’ll probably go up to see the family in a few weeks when things settle down. My mom and her aunt (Christopher’s grandmother) are going to the hospital this evening but I’m still fighting this head cold so I turned down the invitation to join them.
Then she asked me about some things she’s come across in the house that once belonged to me. Now, I’m a bit of an insane sentimentalist. Some call it being a pack-rat, and I guess that fits too, but whatever. I’ve gotten loads better in recent years at getting rid of stuff I really just don’t need, and saying no to my mom when she tries to give me stuff that I’m sure I once saved for whatever sentimental reason or just because it was cool. Today the old sentimental side clashed with the newer more practical “you don’t need it” side, and it’s an odd feeling.
Mom: Do you remember that sleigh you brought home from shop class?
Me: Uh. No?
Mom: Well, do you want it?
Me: Is it nice? (I don’t think I made it, I think it was in the room of abandoned projects and I thought it was cool- see above)
Mom: It’s just plywood, but it’s nice. It has a broken runner, but I have the piece and can fix it.
Me: Oh. Um, no thanks.
Mom: What about your German tapes? Do you want those?
Me: Yes, I do want those. I actually know where my German book is (Deutsch, Na Klar!).
Mom: You can give yourself a refresher.
Me: That’s the plan. (I took German in college, and at the moment all I can remember is counting, the alphabet and how to conjugate the phrase “I am”)
Mom: Do you remember that scotty dog candle that came from Grandma’s?
Me: Gertrude?
Mom: It has a name?
Me: Well, Dad would never let us call it Gertrude, but yeah, it has a name (give me a break, I was 7).
Mom: Do you want it?
Me: Yes. No. Yes. Wait, which Grandma? (I was pretty sure I knew but wanted to make sure)
Mom: Grandma D.
Me: Yeah, I want it.
I don’t need this candle. I don’t know what I’d do with this candle other than put it on a shelf and let it gather dust like it has at my parents’ house for the last 23 years, yet I still want it. It’s the thing that my seven year old self chose from the house when she died, and I’m not sure how to let go of that. I was so young when she died that I only have flickers of memories of her. I already know that that candle is just going to be one of those things that down the line my kids (should I have any) will roll their eyes at me wanting to keep- I know because I’ve done it to my own mother enough times. But that candle is my tangible memory of my grandmother, just like the box of owl stationery is my tangible memory of my grandfather (even though it is currently lost in a box and has been since I was 11, but my dad swears he brought it home for me). Is it crazy to keep items you’ll never use because they’re tied to memories that grew dusty a long time ago? Do you have anything like that?

How awesome is this new design? It was Brad‘s idea to do a full redesign instead of just redoing the header. He put in so much hard work on this that I just can’t thank him enough. Seriously, Brad, THANK YOU. He handled me and my indecisions and multiple change requests and “what if we…”s with considerable grace, which is just another reason he is so fab.
Also contributing to this was the great base design by Caz, and the amazing photo in the header by Flickr user Erika Verg.
There are still a few kinks to be worked out on the back end, but isn’t it pretty??

The Couch to 5k starts tomorrow. My running clothes are laid out on top of the box containing my running shoes. My ipod is charged and filled with upbeat tunes. My phone is next to my bed ready for my wakeup call, and hopefully tomorrow I will not attempt to answer my DVD remote like I did this morning. It’s 11pm and I need to go to sleep- 2 hours before I normally close my eyes- because 6am is freeekin *early*.
*UPDATE* 7:18 am: Well, some systems were go. The ipod had no juice this morning, but I managed. Now, I think I’m going to curl into a ball and die.