buzz words

Joie de Vivre

2006-07-26T09:49:00.000-05:00

A Random Mind has started a meme:

If you could pick one photo that epitomizes joie de vivre, or quote one short piece of prose or poetry, or write one, what would it be?

Above you'll find my contribution... my dear hubby showing off the fruits of his snorkeling expedition. I love this man.

Overheard

2006-07-18T09:08:00.000-05:00

From Overheard in the Office:

Blocked writer: Do you know how hard it is to write a useful, edifying sermon when you've got "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me" stuck in your head?

1701 Delancey
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Overheard by: Anne-Cara

Who wants to bet this was a Westminster student?

Beach!

2006-07-10T17:38:00.000-05:00

The hubby and I have just returned from a beautiful few days on Gasparilla Island, off the gulf coast of Florida. As you can tell from the photo (compliments of hubby), the sky was gray but the ocean was beautiful. We had one day of sunshine, which we used to full advantage: sunning, snorkeling, spotting dolphins and manatees, collecting shells, and flying an armada of brightly colored kites with my extended family. My dragon kite decided to perch in a palm tree, but was rescued by a knight in shining armor (ok, so it was my uncle in swim trunks), who climbed onto the roof of the condo to save it.

Friday was mostly rainy, but after Thursday's adventures, I actually enjoyed getting out of the sun for awhile and indulging in some of our odd family habits, like singing along to the soundtrack of The Happiest Millionaire (while recreating as best we could some of the movie's original choreography), and weaving potholders from cotton loops. For some reason, my sister, my cousin, and I were obsessed with making these potholders when we were kids. Seriously, we'd stay up to all hours of the night churning out potholders, our own little self-managed sweat shop. This time, we introduced our younger cousins to the tradition. Our potholder empire grows...

Davisonshire

2006-06-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

My husband is a much more reliable blogger than I am. For updates on the world's dorkiest rabbit (that would be Boo, and we have photos to prove it), my husband's beard, our recent car accident (no one was hurt), our new scooter, and various other odds and ends, visit the recently updated Davisonshire blog.

If you visit, please leave him a comment. He loves comments.

Bunnies and the Glory of God

2006-05-10T14:42:00.000-05:00

A Velveteen Apologetic

"To us, rabbits embody divine whimsy. When God created the rabbit, it couldn't have been with a straight face."

Bunnies

2006-02-16T11:34:00.000-06:00

One of the benefits of being married is that you have someone to help keep you level-headed when you're tempted to make an impulsive purchase. Sometimes, however, something comes along that is so irresistably adorable, so criminally cute, that it breaks the will of both husband and wife and results in the purchase of not one but two 8-week-old bunny rabbits.

Meet the latest additions to the Davison household, Scout and Boo. They like to run around the apartment, chew on books, carpet, pant legs, and anything else at rabbit level, hide under the couch, and make us late for work, and we think they're the greatest. They're also very playful and inquisitive, surprisingly affectionate, and litter-trained. And aren't they adorable?!

Camping

2006-01-03T16:04:00.000-06:00

Much to my mom's delight (and perhaps surprise), Thomas and I have returned from our camping trip to Big Bend National Park with nary a bite, sting, or scrape. We weren't attacked by mountain lions, bears, javelinas, scorpions, tarantulas, or even mosquitos. We didn't have to use the snake bite kit she bought us before we left, or the mosquito head nets, or the bee sting ointment. We didn't fall off of any cliffs or tumble over any precipices. We didn't freeze to death, and we weren't set upon by marauding desert pirates in the middle of the night. (My mom, who by her own admission would rather have a stick poked in her eye than go camping, was a little concerned about us.)

But we survived, and we had a wonderful time. This was our first trip to west Texas, which included our first roadrunner and tumbleweed sightings. The tumbleweed really does tumble right across the road, just like it does in the movies! (The roadrunners, on the other hand, weren't quite like the one I'm most familiar with on T.V.)

We spent our first night in Marfa, Texas, an interesting little town that's partly small-town Texas and partly hip artist community. An odd mix. I'd be interested to spend a few more days there to get a better feel for what the town is really like. While we were there, we checked out the Marfa Mystery Lights, an allegedly unexplained phenomenon of lights appearing in the desert. Thomas found them very mysterious. I, on the other hand, think the Marfa Chamber of Commerce has found a creative way to capitalize on car headlights viewed from a distance.

The next three nights were spent camping in Big Bend National Park. It's really a beautiful park with a wide variety of landscapes. Our first night, we stayed at a campground in the Chisos Mountains (see photo above). Our next two nights were spent at a campground on the Rio Grande. During our days there, we took several hikes through these areas, as well as through the Chihuahuan Desert that makes up the rest of the park. We saw lots of birds and other wildlife -- turkeys, vermillion flycatchers, Mexican jays, cardinals, a family of javelinas (small pig-like animals), rabbits, chipmunks, deer, and a bobcat. We heard a lot of coyotes but never spotted one.

We did have a couple of minor adventures. We took a day hike in the mountains that turned into a dusk hike, which apparently is prime mountain lion prowling time in prime mountain lion prowling territory. I was pretty nervous on the trip back, especially when I noticed some movement on the trail ahead of us. Turns out it was a family group of about eight or ten javelina, with two baby javelinas in tow. I was still a little nervous, but these just crossed the trail one at a time, each one stopping to look at us and then scampering on its way when Thomas skittered a stone in its direction.

We also woke up one morning to find that our car had a flat tire. A fellow camper came to our rescue when we couldn't get the lug nuts off of the tire, and a park volunteer rescued us again when we discovered that our spare tire was flat. We finally managed to get the spare (fully inflated) on the car and drive to the nearest service station, about an hour's drive from our camp. They fixed it quickly and we were back on the trail by that afternoon.

All in all, a great camping trip. We're already trying to figure out when we can go back. You can see more photos at our Flickr site.

Weather

2005-12-12T14:32:00.000-06:00

I know there are lots of localities that claim the phrase, "If you don't like the weather in [your city, state, or region here], just wait a few minutes," but the past week's weather has convinced me that Austin might qualify. On Saturday, Dec. 3, we were enjoying a record high of 82 degrees. By Wednesday, UT was closing early due to an impending ice storm and remained closed all day Thursday. Ok, granted, the Canadians and Montanans among you would get a good laugh at the "ice storm" that shut down the city for a day and a half, but a temperature drop of 60 degrees over the course of four days still seems pretty impressive to me.

An interesting side note: A quick Google search revealed that if you don't like the weather in Alberta, Arkansas, Baltimore, Boston, Calgary, Chicago, Chile, Cleveland, Colorado, Connecticut, Denver, England, Florida, Houston, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ireland, Ithaca, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Melbourne, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Moscow, Nebraska, New England, New Mexico, New Orleans, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Patagonia, Portugal, Quito, Reno, Texas, Scotland, Seattle, South Dakota, Tasmania, Tennessee, Utah, Vancouver, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, or Wyoming, just wait anywhere from one to thirty minutes and, yes, it will change.

Best variations on the phrase:
"If you don't like the weather in Southern California, just wait a decade"*
"If you don't like the weather in Rochester, just wait a minute. Then you'll probably complain about that too."*

Lama

2005-11-07T09:54:00.000-06:00

So yes, I did in fact see the Dalai Lama, live and in person, when he gave a lecture at UT a month or so ago. He reminded me a lot of Yoda, speaking in good but sometimes rearranged English and giggling at his own jokes.

The overriding impression that I came away with was that he was a nice guy who would probably be fun to hang out with. He was very laid back. When he came out onto the stage, the first thing he did was take off his shoes so that he could sit cross-legged in his chair. Then he pulled out a bright red visor so that the stagelights wouldn't blind him. He laughed and said he was a little nervous to see so many people there, because he didn't really have anything very important to tell us.

That much was true. His message was basically that we should all be kind to each other because it will lower our blood pressure and make us happier people. (Really, he cited scientific studies about the health benefits of being kind.) All in all, a pretty selfish motivation for being kind, and I'm not so sure it's even true. Sometimes being kind -- in any meaningful sense -- hurts. It's hard. It requires forgiving, cancelling debts (emotional and otherwise), dying to yourself, putting another before yourself. Why should we bother? Because we are made in the image of God, and so is everyone else who we encounter in all our daily interactions.

For Christians, we have an additional motivation; we are being remade in the image of Christ, who died for us.

Novice

2005-10-06T09:38:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm not very good at this blogging thing. In the almost three months of blog silence, I have (in no particular order):

1) Celebrated my first wedding anniversary
2) Had a birthday
3) Had a visit from my family to celebrate said birthday
4) Received a pair of cowgirl boots from said family for said birthday (and yes, I always refer to them as "cowgirl boots"). My husband is learning to accept them. I think.
5) Gotten a promotion
6) Beaten my husband at Scrabble every time we've played (my best word so far: "czarina")
7) Refused to play chess with my husband because I always lose
8) Spent an entire day redecorating Copper's fish bowl - new rocks, new play fort, new fake plant. Yeah, he's living in high style these days.
9) Seen the Dalai Lama (yes, in person)
10) Contemplated blogging about all of the above but never got around to it

So instead you get this abbreviated list, which might be a good thing, depending on how interesting you think any of the above topics might have been.

Personality

2005-07-12T11:40:00.000-05:00

You are happy, driven, and status conscious.
You want everyone to know how successful you are.
Very logical, you see life as a game of strategy.

A bit of a loner, you prefer to depend on yourself.
You always keep your cool and your composure.
You are a born leader and business person.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Hmm... could this be true? Happy, yes. Driven? Not so sure about that one. Status conscious, I don't think so (but maybe I am more than I'd like to think).

I think I just liked the colors in this picture.

Popsicle

2005-06-23T11:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday after work, my husband and I discovered that we had each visited the CNN website, and that the only article either of us had read was about a 35,000 pound popsicle.

Pride

2005-06-20T16:45:00.000-05:00

Before the Saturday matinee presentation of Howl's Moving Castle, Thomas and I caught a preview of the new Pride and Prejudice, scheduled for release this September. As much as my husband would like for me to find a feature-length replacement for the five-hour BBC miniseries that I love, I don't think it's gonna happen. From the preview, it looks like they've tried to turn Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy's story into some kind of passionate affair. But it's not a passionate affair, and that's the beauty of it.

I hope that they just "spiced up" the preview, and not the movie itself.

Austin

2005-06-16T14:53:00.000-05:00

Last week I went to the grocery store wearing lime green gym shorts, clashing turquoise flip-flops, and the off-white T-shirt I had slept in the night before. I said to my husband as we were leaving the apartment, "I love Austin." I grew up in a small town in Alabama, where you are expected to make yourself presentable before going out in public, for fear that you might see someone you know. Here, I don't hesitate to go to the grocery store in whatever I happen to be wearing, not because I won't see anyone I know, but because no one I know would care what I happened to be wearing. It's very freeing. I told this story to my boss and described what I had been wearing, and she responded, "Heck, you could wear that out to dinner." Yep, I love Austin.

Fish

2005-06-09T15:36:00.000-05:00

Buzz was a fish, a beautiful yellow betta who would rip your fins off as soon as look at you. He was a good fish. All those who knew Buzz will be saddened to learn that he has passed away. I cried. I didn't expect to; he was, after all, just a fish, and I, after all, had always thought that fish were pretty lame pets. But then I got Buzz and his arch-enemy Copper (who's still alive and swimming), and they were so beautiful and funny and nice to have around. I was sad to see that pass away - a little reminder that this beautiful world is broken and that everything isn't as it should be. But also a little reminder to hope for what's to come.

Peer Pressure: The Inaugural Post

2005-06-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

It's a good thing all my friends are blogging and not jumping off of roofs.