Infinite Arms and more

On Friday night, Nate and I went with some friends to see Band of Horses at the Greek Theater in Berkeley.  Not only was it an amazing venue and an amazing, amazing show, but they are also just a bunch of really nice guys.  I would wholeheartedly recommend seeing them next time they come to your area and definitely if they're performing at an outdoor venue (you wouldn't think it would make a difference, but listening to songs like "Blue Beard" and "Evening Kitchen" while looking up at the stars?  Sort of priceless.).

(I don't own any of these vids -- you can find them on YouTube by doing a simple search.)

Go Purple. Be Gold.

As if I weren't already a big enough supporter of my alma mater, meet our mascot, Dubs.

Sure, he's a bit bigger now, but he's still pretty darn cute.  He even has a blog!  And as football season rolls along, I like looking for him on the sidelines at home games on TV.

There really is nothing like college football in the fall.  Especially -- for me at least -- at UW.

A Stressless Weekend

I'm sort of obsessed with Women's Health Magazine.  It, along with Sunset, are the only two magazines I really ever read, and are definitely the only ones I read cover to cover. 

This months issue included a great article about using your weekend downtime as (gasp!) actual downtime.  The article, called "Take Back Your Weekends," points out our tendency to live our lives like a seven-day workweek because we try to use our weekends to catch up on all of the things we didn't have enough time to do during the week (i.e. laundry, grocery shopping, paying bills, etc.).  Not only does this cause the obvious sort of stress when we realize we have no free time, but it also causes some unhealthy trends in both our adrenaline and cortisol levels that prevent our bodies from being able to recoup and recharge, as well as ailments like fatigue and headaches.  I know this may not sound like news to some, and it sort of does seem like common sense to me too, but I can't imagine we're all aware of what our habits are doing to us.  There has to be a reason why as a culture we Americans tend to be sleep-deprived, over-worked and generally just stressed out.

I've actually been noticing this about myself as well: I typically want to pack every single minute of my weekends with new and exciting things to do because I worry that by not doing, I'm wasting.  But in the end all of that doing just prevented me from resting and appreciating the downtime I so look forward to.  Additionally, trying to think up all of those weekend adventures is just plain exhausting.  So I've destroyed my weekends because I'm not prepared to function with free time.

Isn't that sad?

It was sad to me, so I decided to take the advice given in the article and give it a shot this past weekend.  What was the worst thing that could happen?  I would lazy ass around, no big deal. 

I'll leave you to check out the article tips on your own, but here's what I took from it and how it worked out:

• I planned no more than 3 activities this entire weekend.  Nate and I had dinner and drinks with friends on Friday night, dinner with Nate's mom on Saturday night, and I scheduled in some much needed alone time for late Saturday night while I ushered the boyfriend off to a party.  
• I set aside time to do chores and if I didn't finish in that allotted time, the chores were not going to be done this weekend.  What I did do: grocery shopped, a load of laundry.  What I didn't do: the other load of laundry, clean the house.  Those things will fit themselves in either during the week, or as part of next weekends chore time.
• I didn't look at my phone even once on Sunday.  Taking a break from my phone (which I usually check frequently obsessively for email, tweets, Facebook updates, texts from my sisters, phone calls, etc.) was such an interesting and welcome treat that I'm thinking of making every Sunday my "unplug day".
• Nate and I planned something for Sunday night.  What usually happens on Sunday is that, while Nate catches up on his never-ending stream of work, I spend most of the night moping around the apartment and dreading going to bed because it means morning will be here soon and I'll have to go to work.  To ward this off, we instead put away all thoughts of the workweek and made a great Sunday dinner together, then curled up on the couch and watched a movie.  As a result, I went to bed sleepy and relaxed.  We've decided to make Sunday night our stay-at-home date night.

Overall, my weekend was much less stress-filled than it generally is, and I began this week feeling more prepared and rested than I have in a while.  It was really nice to be able to just shut everything off for a while and know that that was exactly what I should be doing.  I'm not saying I don't want to do things -- I love day trips and weekend activities way too much to do nothing all the time -- but maybe I won't do as many things as usual.  Resting doesn't mean wasting and, while that's a whole new concept for me, I'm looking forward to putting it in practice.

Of course, Mondays still suck and I still dislike my job, so chances are I'll be stressed to the brim by the end of the day anyway.  What can you do?

I've been dreaming lately

I'm not the kind of girl who has a lot of crushes.  In fact, between high school and now I've probably had only four, including Nate.  My friends always said that, while I didn't fall easy, when I did I fell hard.  So up until Nate, I hadn't ever really dated anyone (though admittedly there were a few drunken mistakes...it was college after all) and, before him, none of my crushes mattered to me quite as much as my High School Crush did.

He is the boy I've previously said we will never mention.  Ever.  I learned long ago that every single time his name crossed my lips it was apparently a clear signal that my brain could stop all rational thinking.  I babbled and said ridiculous things that left me cringing hours later.  I stared.  I probably drooled.  So the day I graduated from high school was the day I stopped saying his name out loud, stopped letting my emotions get the better of me when it comes to men, stopped dissecting words and actions like they were body parts.  HS crush was no longer in my vocabulary, and the way I acted when I was around him was no longer acceptable in my new and improved life.

So there.

I'm only breaking my silence now because something strange has been happening lately.  I've been dreaming about him.  I've probably had five dreams about him in the past six months.  That's more than I've had in the past six years.  The dreams mimic different parts of the relationship we had (which wasn't an actual relationship at all) as well as the relationship I'd wanted.  In the dreams we flirt like we did, he makes the same gestures he always made, we laugh at the same old jokes and I get the same butterflies every time he speaks.  Sometimes, we kiss.  I've never kissed him but I think I've kissed enough now to know that these are good kisses.

I wake up missing him and wondering what his life has been like since the last time I saw him, the morning after my self-imposed HS crush hiatus.

I wake up feeling seventeen again.

He never thought of me in the same way I thought of him.  I actually think he thought of one of my best friends the way I wanted him to think of me.  So like any self-respecting teenage girl, I completely blew everything having to do with him out of proportion until it reached suitable gargantuan levels of lunacy and drama.  But I left HS crush behind knowing that he'd always been that guy.  The guy that I would write about eight years later (God, has it really been eight years?), the guy I would surreptitiously ask questions about from friends I know who know him.  The guy I would search for every so often on Facebook.

The guy who got away.

Having these dreams makes me feel disloyal to Nate and our relationship.  It's stupid I know, but I feel that way in the morning when I wake up.  I shouldn't be having dreams of other boys, you know?

But I still wonder, and I still ask around.  I can't seem to help it.  He's just that guy.

Point Taken

My best friend posted this on her blog yesterday and I loved it almost immediately.  I usually think these posters are sort of corny, but this one stuck with me for some reason.  Maybe because I know that these are all ideas I used to live by and have somehow gotten away from over the years (I say that like I'm 50 or something, don't I?).  Anyhow, I thought it would be a nice reminder for us all, and a great way to start this short week.

Go out and enjoy your life!

Hawaii.Love.Forever

This past weekend, on the anniversary of their 10th year of marriage, my sister and brother-in-law renewed their vows (they eloped the first time around) on a small beach in my hometown.  Despite all the fuss and stress that went into creating this day, the event itself was intimate and beautiful, with less than 30 people in attendance at a sunrise ceremony overlooking the ocean and mountains.

I can only hope my own wedding one day is as wonderful as this one was!