So I'm a little SLOW...

I know it is been, well a LONG time since I posted. But here I am with a photo gallery of our recent trip to Vegas to see Jimmy Buffett. OK, so what if it was in October?...it really wasn't THAT long ago! At least I'm trying...that has to count for something. Most of you out there (hem hem..Shel, Brooke, Chris, Shannon & my FAMILY) have not updated your blogs since the last ice age! So get with it already!

Enjoy the pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/skcollins1977/VegasBaby

There Will Come a Day

There will come a day when we realize that most of the things we spend our energy and resources on don’t really matter at all. I don’t know when, but I know this day will come. A family member will get cancer, a loved one will die, a child will get sick, a natural disaster will shake our world...and in the midst of something we don’t think we can handle, we will catch a brief glimpse of another world; one in which priorities are based on eternity, not on temporary comfort or gain. Why, in our “civilized” world does it always take a tragedy to shake us in to being AWAKE to life? Why can we not just CHOOSE to adopt that perspective each day?

We take so much for granted in this society. Clean water, health, safety, peace, abundance of food, education...the list goes on and on and is made up of things that the majority of the population of this world does NOT have. However, since we have to worry about something, we use our energy to combat cellulite on our bodies, depletion of our bank accounts, weeds in our yards, dirt on our cars and boredom in our lives. We have eradicated all “natural” causes of death in our society that other countries in the world are plagued (literally) by – there is no polio, malaria, small pox, wide-spread starvation here. So we’ve replaced those too with “lifestyle” causes of death – heart disease from eating processed, fatty foods and not being physically active or lung cancer from continuing to smoke when we are 100% sure that it will result in death. We create a crisis when none actually exist.

I do it too. Every day. The things I spend my time and energy on are seldom things that have any eternal value. If I could get back every minute of time and ounce of emotional energy I spent worrying about being “fat” or go back and do all the things I chose not to do because of that, I’d probably be living a quarter of my life over again. Couple that with all the time I have spent fretting over my house being clean, the laundry being done and who knows how much time I’d have to spend on things that REALLY matter: loving my family, following GOD’s plan for my life, making this world a better place to live and ENJOYING this life while I have it.

There is SO MUCH to do in this world – life to be lived and enjoyed and work to be done. God put all this beauty here for us to enjoy and yet we sit in our climate controlled houses and watch other people travel on TV. We have been given the resources, as individuals and as a nation, to help people and help the world and yet the most involved we ever get is reading the news and saying “how sad, someone should do something”.

Well, what ELSE are you doing with your time and energy and resources that is so important? Why not US? Why not NOW? I know I am not going to get to the end of my life and wish I would have done more laundry, been a size 6, pulled more weeds or had a nicer house. I am going to wish with all my soul that I would have told my family I loved them more, been out in God’s nature as often as I could have, given more to help those in need, and left the planet a better place then I found it.

I want to believe that the choice is ours and that we CAN live this way with out waiting for something terrible to shake our core. It is about making the best possible choice you can at every moment. Not just the “best” for you, but the best for the world. One question can be your guide: Is this the best use of the resources I have been given? Resources like time, energy, money, strength, love, compassion...are not to be wasted. If I chose to spend my morning being depressed about being what I think is overweight - is that solving ANYHTING? If I see a story about global warming and think “oh well, I can’t do anything to help” – are things ever going to change?

I was reading a book by the Dali Lama recently and he spoke to the issue of worry and problems. He said, “If the solution to the problem is such that it can be remedied, then there is no need to worry about it.” The appropriate action is to seek solution. To me this means if I am faced with a problem and I know there is a solution, I am to take action – take the next logical step towards resolution. Alternately, the Dali Lama said, “if there is not way out, no solution, no possibility of resolution, then there is also no point in being worried about it, because you can’t do anything about it anyway.” Simple, right? Sure it is...until you TRY IT.

Most of the problems we face, personally or collectively, have a solution. That is what is amazing about us humans – we have been given the ability to effect our world. Unfortunately, this means our impact may be positive OR negative. Either way, we are powerful and must use the resources given us to do the most good. DO THE MOST GOOD. Try it. With each choice you make ask yourself if you are using the resources you have been given to do the most good – for your self, your family, your community, the planet. I think you’ll find that there is much, much less to worry about.

(I’ll try it too)

May the Force be with you...

I know it is such a silly picture and pretty much anyone with an email address has seen it...but it makes me laugh EVERY time so I had to post it. Something about the teeny tiny Light Sabers is hilarious to me. I wonder if they make the same noise and the real ones?

We recently had a Star Wars watching marathon at our house in honor of the 30th anniversary of A New Hope. It amazes me how timeless those movies are. Classic stories, familiar archetypes and enduring lessons. They may very well end up being the fairy tales and mythology of our modern era; they are certainly a cross-generational, cross- cultural common language. An interesting phenomenon to be sure.

And squirrels with teeny Light Sabers? Classic. :)

It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere

Not here...but SOMEWHERE. I wish I were there. Being stuck at work during the summer is just horrible to me. It is as if the world outside the window is going on with out me. There is wind, and sun, and water, and smells, and sounds…in here there is nothing. It is always the same temperature and all I hear is the humming of the air conditioner and buzzing of the florescent lights. It smells like mildew and stale coffee and old ladies. I bought a tropical breeze plug-in, but it doesn’t help and I am certainly not fooled into thinking I am in Belize somewhere.

Some days (oh, like TODAY) I feel I’m just sitting here in this chair getting older and fatter and my life is not making a difference at all. Do other people feel like this or is there something wrong with just me? I keep reminding myself to be thankful I have a job, live in a safe place, have food and shelter, people who love me and every resource available to me to live a wonderful life. And I am truly grateful for that. I don’t want to be the Ugly American here and complain about living this easy life. I know that life is a hardship I can not even begin to imagine for most of the people in this world. But does that honestly make me change my perspective? A little I guess, but I still can’t help questioning the authenticity and value of the life I am living. I was born a white American woman because that is what God wanted me to be. I have all of these things because if Him. I just don’t know what the heck I am supposed to be doing with it all. Sometimes when I read the news I feel guilty for my state in life. So many people have so little and here I am getting FAT from eating organic food and complaining about being in a safe air-conditioned building working a job at which I am in no danger (if you don’t count the asbestos in this old building).

So why do I live for 5:00? Why can I think of nothing more then what I'd be doing if I were not HERE? Ugh.

Well, this was depressing to write...so I am sure it was ever so much fun to READ. Sorry about that. If you need a smile, just go back to the post with the Jimmy Buffett pics. I'll come around and write something witty soon.

Changes in Latitudes...

The Jimmy Buffett concert on Saturday in Frisco was great!!

Who is 30??

Who says that 30 year olds can't have any fun? Since my birthday falls on Spring Break, the girls at work gave me an early party today...complete with Harry Potter plates, tablecloths and cups! I even got my own wizard hat, glasses and a light-up wand! It was a little funny explaining all this to our superintendent...but hey, if you are a true Potterphile, you embrace it and move on with life! Here is a pic for your amusement.

Even Charlie Knows!

I wish I could give credit to who ever created this...but I can't. It was forwarded to me via email. However, it was way too funny not to post. I love the social commentary it touches on...the inferences to the absurdity of pop culture. I love that even Charlie Brown is "bringing sexy back" and that our beloved Snoopy is now a pseudo-gangsta.

And the fact that it is just damn funny sure doesn't hurt.

...And Life Moved On

Excerpt from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson

"San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time -- and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights -- or very early mornings -- when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

That passage is always beautiful to me -- the imagery is timeless. It stands out on this particular day for a lot of reasons. First of all because today is the anniversary of Thompson's death. Something I still find very sad. I guess I just wish he'd had more to say. I am for anyone who stirs the pot of conventional thinking and makes people question. This segment always speaks to me when I think about the passage of time. Things that are so real and so true at one moment...and then are over the next. The temporary nature of life is sometimes overwhelming while at the same time acting as inspiration to live each day as authentically as possible. Life is going to keep moving -- regardless if we are on board or not. So we might as well buy the ticket ...and take the ride.

The Tyranny of Size

This was just worth posting the whole article rather then just a link. I think of the battles I fight with myself daily over these issues and can NOT imagine what girls growing up today will have to deal with they are in their twenties. It reminds me that every single woman needs to work against this with every single word they say to the girls in their lives. They ARE listening and it is our responsibility to send right and true messages about beauty.

Why Skinny Models Could Be Making Us Fat
We know that the trend toward super-thin models is pushing some of them to go on potentially deadly diets. What's it doing to the rest of us?
WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Jessica Bennett, Sarah Childress and Susanna Schrobsdorff
Newsweek

Feb. 8, 2007 - The specter of dangerously thin models has raised its beautiful, lolling head once again, this time at New York's Fashion Week, which ends Friday. Stung by negative publicity about boney apparitions on the catwalks, the fashion industry invited eating-disorder experts to an unprecedented symposium on the subject in the tents at Bryant Park. It was quite a spectacle. The press was regaled with tales of models living on lethally small amounts of lettuce and Diet Coke. The fashionistas declared that super thin was now "out" and promised to keep a better eye on the young waifs. But no one in the U.S. clothing biz seems eager to impose minimum weight guidelines on models, as some European shows have done. Diane von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), added fuel to the fire when she recently told a reporter that model weigh-ins in New York would happen "over my dead body."
While the travails of the thin and beautiful almost always make for good copy, we should remember that only about 1 percent of the American population is anorexic, while nearly two thirds of adults are overweight or obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So it's not as if skinny models have inspired an epidemic of slimness. In fact, the real danger may be that the contrast between the girls on the catwalks and the girls at the mall is creating an atmosphere ripe for binge dieting and the kind of unhealthy eating habits that ultimately result in weight gain, not loss. "You always [have to] look at the discrepancy between the real and the ideal," says Cynthia Bulik, a clinical psychologist who heads the eating-disorders program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "If [kids] see themselves gaining weight and then they see these ultra-thin models, the discrepancy between how they see themselves in the mirror and how they feel they have to look is bigger. And that can prompt more extreme behaviors."
Unfortunately, that gap between the ordinary and the elite is growing rapidly. As American women have gotten heavier, models have gotten thinner and taller. Twenty-five years ago, the average female model weighed 8 percent less than the average American woman, according to researchers. Today, models weigh about 23 percent less than the average woman. Models are also leggier than before. Usually about 5 feet 10 inches tall, they are a good five inches taller than they were 10 years ago. Meanwhile, a typical woman is about 5 feet 4 inches and weighs 155 pounds, according to a 2004 SizeUSA study. The trend is enough to make any woman feel like a hobbit in comparison to what they're seeing in magazines.
But here's the rub: thanks to technology, often not even the models themselves can compare to their portfolios. Increasingly, photos for print are enhanced and perfected to an astonishing degree. Not only are moles, acne and subtle facial hair erased from already pretty faces, but retouchers are routinely asked by editors and advertisers to enlarge eyes, trim normal-size ears, fill in hairlines, straighten teeth and lengthen the already-narrow necks, waists and legs of 18-year-old beauties. "We're always stretching the models' legs and slimming their thighs," says a photo retoucher who works for a high-end Manhattan agency. In some cases, hands, feet or even legs are replaced in photos when the subject's parts don't add up to a perfect whole.
"Sometimes I feel a little like Frankenstein," says the retoucher, who would only speak anonymously because of the potential for professional backlash. The irony, she adds, is that the models and actresses pictured have usually have already been through hours of hair styling and makeup - including body makeup - to remove the slightest blemish. Yes, you heard that right, even after all of that, a 5-foot-10, 110-pound model still does not have legs that are long or skinny enough to suit some advertisers and fashion editrixes.
One might argue that photo alteration has been around for eons, but what is new is the industry shift from film to digital media about four years ago. Now it's easier, faster and more routine to clean up and "perfect" faces and figures. The doctored images are so pervasive that our eyes are perhaps becoming too accustomed to them. "The result is a culture of kids who are being socialized to unrealistic images, who need to learn to separate the real from the fabricated," says Cornell University historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg, the author of "The Body Project" (Vintage), which looks at the diaries of teenage girls from the 1820s through the 1980s. "Girls internalize this form of self- criticism and say, 'I don't look like that.' But in reality, nobody looks like that."
How do these unrealistic portrayals affect the number of people with eating disorders? It's hard to say. The statistics are notoriously difficult to track because of the shame surrounding these diseases. Experts say that sufferers are influenced by a combination of genetics and environmental triggers. But even if no one factor is to blame, for some of the 10 million women and one million men in the United States who struggle with anorexia and bulimia (and the 25 million more who suffer from binge-eating disorder), what they see in the media can, in some cases, have a pivotal impact. "Genes load the gun, environment pulls the trigger, and right now the fashion industry has their finger on the trigger," says Bulik.
Particularly disturbing are indications that the quest for perfection is reaching into younger age groups. Kids form their body images almost as soon as they can form words, and girls are now thinking negatively about their shapes in grammar school. Today, 42 percent of first- to third-grade girls want to be thinner, while 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of getting fat, according to a 2004 global study by the Dove "Real Beauty" campaign. "What we've seen more and more is an increasingly narrow image of beauty, not just completely defined by physical appearance, but a particular body type "tall, thin, maybe blond, with very little diversity," says Nancy Etcoff, a Harvard psychology professor and author of "Survival of the Prettiest" (Random House). The effects of that are striking. The Dove study found that just 2 percent of women and girls said they would describe themselves as beautiful, while two thirds said they avoided basic activities on days they felt unattractive. Those activities ranged from going to the beach or a party to showing up for work or school -- even voicing an opinion.
The fact that we're making the body the central focus of our lives is no accident, says Brumberg. Rather, it's "a symptom of historical changes that are only now beginning to be understood," she writes. So what are those changes? To start, there has been a centurylong shift from concern for good work to concern for good looks, says Brumberg. And while in the 1920s, for example, girls started becoming conscious of celebrity culture -- and, she says, for the first time using the word "image" -- today's obsession with personal appearance is largely a result of the technology that allows us to focus on it. "[Technological] inventions increased our level of self-scrutiny," she says. "Mirrors, movies, scales, the modern bathroom. You have to have a certain environment for that obsessive concern."
Of course, environment affects each woman differently. Influences on body image range from our families and school to our peer groups or media consumption -- even whether or not we take part in sports. For longtime model Carre Otis, that environment was fashion and the pressure it placed on her to be thin encouraged a nearly two-decade battle with a host of unhealthy habits. Now 38 and healthy, Otis (who is 5-foot-10 and at times weighed as little as 100 pounds) says she worries about the pressures her young daughter will someday face. "We're living in a culture that's so physically oriented," she says. "It's really dangerous for young girls to operate under the assumption that models, in general, are the majority."
But the majority image isn't what the public wants these days, according to the fashion elites. "Fat doesn't sell fashion," says Imogen Edwards-Jones, a journalist and author of "Fashion Babylon," an insider's look at the industry. "People don't fantasize about being a size 16 -- they fantasize about being a size 8." So even if the public can't fit into (much less afford) a size 0 designer dress, they'll probably buy a magazine with a size 0 model wearing that dress. "It's a presentation of this fantasy, and you buy into that," says Steven Kolb, the executive director of CFDA.
Of course, that can always change. Curves were cool in the '80s (remember Cindy Crawford?) and 90s (Anna Nicole Smith). And the industry will likely swing back around to embrace them again. Already, the faces on the catwalks in New York this week are looking somewhat less gaunt. But it doesn't look like it's going to get any easier for women to convince themselves, or their daughters, to stop looking for the model in the mirror.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17051511/site/newsweek/

Best Week Ever

Other than a tribute to the fun & kicky VH1 instant pop-culture history show...that is what I am having! The best week ever. There has been a winter storm moving across the country this week that has managed (gasp!) to make it all the way down to Texas. AND as of today, it does not look like it is over (more on the way!). First of all, it is important to note how infrequently there is any sort of frozen or even half-frozen precipitation in Central Texas. It is like the proverbial hen’s teeth...very rare and most difficult to come across. So when it DOES happen not only are we ill-prepared personally (“Coats!? What for?”), but our cities are not the best at getting out the sand to make the roads passable. In fact I think the sum total of sand for this type of occasion is in the mayor’s grandson’s sandbox – we weren’t using it anyway, right? Couple that with the fact that the way some people look at porn is the way Texans watch inclimate weather and you, my friend, have the makings for a truly wonderful week.

I am not sure what it is, but around here if there is a storm, we put the kids to bed, turn off the lights and turn the volume way down on the TV to watch the Weather Channel. It’s erotic. All those colors on the screen that we never see, the anticipation and excitement surrounding a front... it is almost more then the typical Texan can stand!

On top of all this hedonistic goodness is the crowning jewel of a Texas winter storm: school closings. Texas ISD’s will close school for even the slightest hint of a flurry in the air. Sure, there is the concern of safety of all the kiddos on buses. It is a known fact that our roads will inevitably suck and that NO ONE here knows how to drive when it is like this. No, not even people who move form the north and think we are over-reacting. They can keep it together until they see what looks like a street with snow on it – “no problem, I’m from Cleveland” – only to realize too late that we do EVERYTING better in Texas and that pretty patch of snow is only there to mask a big ole’ mess of sleet and frozen rain that is all but impassable. So yes, we are concerned about keeping people safe and THAT is why the schools are closed. That...and everyone has to get home and watch weather porn. It’s a beautiful thing.

So that has been my week – no work and lots of erotic weather. During the times over the last few days in which we actually had POWER (another story) we were glued to the Doppler. Sad? Perhaps. Strange? Sure. But very, very FUN.

That that is what I am having...the BEST WEEK EVER!

January

I am not sure where December went, but it sure as hell disappeared faster then I wanted it to and darned if it didn’t take my two-week vacation with it. Yet somehow, in spite of all that mind-blowing activity, the mile-long to-do list I had for “the holidays” is still loitering round my desk…not joined, once again, by a work to-do list. Ugh.

I assume since it is the beginning of a new year I should make some sort of resolutions, right? I mean, I see all these people from my office hoofing it around the block at lunch time in their shiny new walking shoes and feel a twinge of guilt for skipping my workout yesterday in favor of a 2000 Bordeaux. Although the wine was marginal at best and I am sure I had a much more enjoyable time then the lunch-walkers, I still feel the need to recognize this year of our Lord, 2007, with some sort of list. So here goes:

1.) Put more stuff on my cat
2.) Wear comfortable shoes
3.) Write more
4.) Eat less (of the unhealthy stuff)
5.) Have more sex (tee hee hee)
6.) Spend less money

Sounds ambiguous enough to be achievable doesn’t it?