A Thankful Bookshelf

This year was Ally and I's first time to ever host a big holiday event, the great Turkey Bash of 2011, and with all the joy and goodness of having family and good food in your home, an unknown nuisance appeared, CLEANING. We are by no means dirty people, but the cleanliness, tidiness, and expectations that come with hosting were slightly foreign to us. Our biggest problem: old school books piled high against the guest bedroom wall. Our solution: You guessed it baby, Bookshelf Time!

We thought it would be more fun to build one ourselves, so with the help of our friends (they aren't aware that we call them this) at www.instructables.com we found a bookshelf design that required an minimal amount of tools, which is exactly what we needed since we don't own a home or garage. After a longer than usual stop at the home depot we were ready to rock.

The overnight stain job

Ranger suprevising

And Voila!! The completed project!

Stanley Donwood

My Hippie Parents would be so proud of me right now.

My Own Image

I've been thinking a lot about image lately. I feel that it has become a much more important term over my lifetime than it was years and years ago. Everything now has an image now, from corporations to individuals, and I find the world at large, myself included, spends an incredible amount of energy controlling the image's perception. Today Question 300 passed in Fort Collins banning the sale of medical marijuana via medical marijuana dispensaries. I don't have a particular vested interest in this vote (pardon me as I wipe the cheetos from my fingers), however everything I read from the people that proposed this law talked about the city's image and how the sale of marijuana tarnished its image, which is fine and fair..... I do this very thing when I am getting dressed in the morning, or when I decide what app's to download, or when I intentionally avoid facebook, because I am stubborn and want to be in complete control of how I am percieved, Julian Metz must be brand controlled. But what if.... just for a day...... I could let all of that go and just focus on who I am..... Who I was made to be.... what if I stopped just long enough to see what's really going on with me, and not what I want to be going on with me? Then maybe I could finally work on what really needs to be worked on, far far below the surface.

Lets begin, shall we?

After a failed attempt at creating my own blog (a look into my inner mind is, I'm sure, a leaping into untethered "quirkiness"), I thought we'd be better off starting a family blog, where the two of us can contribute to content, and nudge each other lightly (loose interpretation here), when we become lazy or too far-fetched. Maybe after almost 2 years of marriage we felt that it was time to venture into the world of blogging; terrifying, luminous, ridiculous, though it may be; perhaps to update unsuspecting or suspecting readers on our daily, well mostly likely weekly, existence in our current home. Readers may expect to encounter anything related to family updates (whatever that may entail), excursions, happenings, interests, joys, sorrows, fears, inner musings, our delight in life and our connection to the stars and the stuff of the universe, to you. Well, plenty of tangents, too, as you may well have just witnessed. In any case, we wanted to include more of you into our life (whoever you may be, those we see on a daily basis, or monthly, or yearly, or haven't seen in years). And so, it is with deep gratitude of the connection we may have with you, however strong or tenuous, that I write this now, we are eternally grateful for your existence. I am ever confronted with the astounding fact that people have souls, are alive, teeming with joys and loves and fears, are not just warm bodies milling this way and that. They have feelings. They are each of them creating some small footprint on this earth. Sometimes I forget there's more than just me, and Julian, and maybe my family. I am selfish and I am sorry. But more importantly, although what can be more important than souls?, I am realizing that we are all formed out of similar matter, from the beginning of the universe; we are a part of the star dust swirling out there in space! We were or are, I suppose, dust; boring, useless, terribly irritating; until light was breathed unto us, and life was birthed.

I'm not too sure where I was going there, but I do know I should probably not write while listening to this:

Vespers I & II

On a relatively similar note, Everyday Joes, our favorite coffeehouse and community here in town, is hosting Aaron Strumple (as heard above) with full band in December. Joy abounds, we will be there! For a glimpse into what will be occurring:

Birds

It's magical. It's love.

Come see for yourself.

Now it's off to the store for me to buy salt so people don't die on our icy front steps of doom! Enjoy your weekend, do something wildly exciting, like pumpkin carving or dressing up like a monster (see below)!