welcome to the new year

"one learns that the world, though made, is yet being made; that this is still the morning of creation; that mountains long conceived are now being born, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes; that moraine soil is being ground and outspread for coming plants,—coarse boulders and gravel for forests, finer soil for grasses and flowers,—while the finest part of the grist, seen hastening out to sea in the draining streams, is being stored away in darkness and builded particle on particle, cementing and crystallizing, to make the mountains and valleys and plains of other predestined landscapes, to be followed by still others in endless rhythm and beauty." - john muir

2013 was a big year for me, not least based on the fact that i'm tempted to write "2013 was a big year for us."

ok, so maybe it's that steve and i made our commitment a bit more official, maybe it's the fact that we're living together so the concept of me and mine is different.  but i think it might be more than that.  because 2013 wasn't just a big year for me and steve; 2013 was a big year for all of us.

my grandfather passed away, my sister and two cousins also celebrated engagements, my cousin and her husband welcomed in the newest member of the family, and so, so many of our friends made huge changes and steps in their own varied lives.

2013 was a big year for us.

if i could choose to give the past year a slogan, i might choose to call it 'the great collide.'  if i could say one thing about 2013 it is that the entire year was marked by an enormous and constant experience of everything joining together; people, places, ideas, experiences... things just seem much more closely connected this year.  it's rare that i feel i can look back on a given point in time and find that it's knitted together so neatly.  families and friends and acquaintances; places and memories and ideas and experiences, all of it feels pulled into one, in ways that have never happened before.

i could fill up the entire internet, attempting to share with everyone the utterly miraculous experiences we've had in the past twelve months.  but even though it feels like we've packed a lifetime into 2013, it's not the things that have happened to me this last year that make it so special in my mind.  it is the things that i learned, and the new opportunities i have gained for understanding, that make this year of intersections the most monumentally positive one i have ever had in my life.

it would take more letters than my fingers can type to put the lessons of 2013 into words, but here are the easiest ones for me to share:

1.  failure for its own sake is dangerous and foolish to fear.  the fear of failure for failure's sake is the fear of one's own inadequacies; we are afraid that who we are will not meet the arbitrary qualifications of "enough" to be successful.  but in truth, there is no such thing as enough.  we could always do, have, be more.  we can only know the definition of 'enough' retrospectively.  failure is a part of life; it is ineffable.  it is a necessary condition of living one's life, and that is nothing to fear.

2.  evil is a product of in-admirable choices made by those whose experiences have taught them inaccurate things about others and the world.  just as we have a responsibility not to foster and teach each other hatred, we have a responsibility to empathize with and learn from the lives of those who have the misfortune of such a destructive worldview.

3.  every other human being is having a human experience that is exactly as real, genuine, and important as your own experience is to you.  if you are fortunate enough to believe in the value of your own life, you have no right to judge the worth of another.

4.  time is simply one additional dimension through which human beings experience reality.  the reality of what has been, is, and will be never changes, comes about, or goes away; its existence is eternal.  we understand ideas like past, present, and future based on our limited human ability to physically experience reality in a linear fashion.

anyway, we're sure looking forward to 2014.  if we thought this past year was a big one, we truly haven't seen anything yet.  weddings, vacations, and a cross-country move.  crazy as it may be next year, i truly can't believe how lucky steve and i are to have so many wonderful people who care about us, and to have so many fortunate plans on our horizon.

wishing everyone the best and then some in 2014!

mr. mcqueen

i try to avoid too much fashion blogging on loose from the zoo, because that is not really what this blog is about.  but this post is more about art in my opinion.  have you seen alexander mcqueen's fall 2013 line?  sweet mustache and willikers it is gorgeous.  (p.s. if you get the "sweet mustache" reference you are probably my eternal hero).

happy monday everyone!

milestones are getting thrown at us from all directions

who is looking forward to memorial day weekend?

hope you all are getting geared up for a relaxing extra day off too!

if you didn't get enough graduation fun from the pictures i posted a week or so ago, we have more!  steve's little bro graduated from high school last night and we swung back to the zoo to watch the festivities.  we arrived about 10 minutes after the start of the ceremony (and had to scoot in front of a bunch of different people cloaked in our tardy shame).

apparently the new grad trend is bedazzling the f&%! out of your mortarboard with the emblem of your future college.  holy sparkles huskies.  it was surreal listening to my 9th grade math teacher retell the same dreadful joke he did in advanced algebra and hearing familiar last names of the younger siblings of alumni i knew.  as the youngest child of 3 and a former member of the choir (they sing at every graduation) i thought the 8th husky graduation i attended would finally be the last, but i have to say it was fun getting to watch with the new eyes of a semi-grown up.  perhaps #9 is the charm?  congratulations paul!

but mother of god tell me we weren't so tone deaf in 2008...  cringe.

fixing the hippie hair.  p.s. is steve's tie the best or is steve's tie the best?

grandparents!  yay!

and in case you are wondering why steve and i would be so rude as to show up halfway through the first faculty member's speech (didn't know who she was... feeling old)....

we were busy signing the lease to our new home!  we will be spending yet another year in ann arbor!  and though i can't say i wouldn't have been up for another adventure in another place, we've got lots of time for that in the future!  right now we are both just completely stoked to be getting ready to move in together!  a walk in closet, washer drying in unit, and a fireplace?  we don't feel too shabby.  grown ups ahoy!  check out our cute little one bedroom floorplan!

hope everyone has a very happy friday and a very lovely long weekend!

big huge happy weekend

i can't decide what i should say about this past weekend other than:

it was AWESOME!

saturday i met up with steve's family and we all watched him graduate from college!  (ok maybe we watched thousands of little black specs graduate college, but one of them was steve!)  the weather was beautiful so we spent the afternoon picnicking at steve's house with his roommates and their families.

 sunday, after we both caught up on some much needed sleep, steve and i headed over to the west side of the state and spent a few hours enjoying the sunshine by lake michigan.

i don't think we could have asked for a better weekend!  it really feels like the end of an era, but it definitely went out with a bang and we couldn't be more excited to start the next chapter!

congratulations stevedor!  

hope everyone has a lovely week!