Committed, written by author of Eat, Pray, Love, takes off where Eat, Pray, Love ended. Elizabeth Gilbert is in a committed relationship with that sexy Brazilian she met in Bali. Homeland Security deported her sexy Brazilian and for them to live in the states together, they had to consider marriage. This book is Gilbert considering marriage, in the context of her own personal life. She drops in a few historical anecdotes here and there, but mostly she pulls from her own journey. Memories from her parents’ marriage, her friends’ marriage, her first marriage, and interviews with Southeast Asian people on their take. (Southeast Asia is where she and Felipe spent most of their time as they waited for his visa.)

After about 50 pages in, I stopped reading for months. It was a slow start. I just wasn’t interested in her story. In between books, I picked it up again and I’m glad I did.

I really enjoyed two things in particular. One was an analogy she stumbled on by psychologist, Shirley Glass regarding infidelity. She touches on friendships cultivated with people with whom one is attracted. Usually these friendships house innocent intentions. However, when marriages go through strife, as it inevitably will, it’s tempting to divulge intimate secrets in the spirit of venting. However, when one does this, he or she is not only allowing someone an intimate glimpse into his or her marriage, but is also shutting out the spouse in the process. There’s now a window where a wall should have been and a wall between husband and wife (or husband/husband, wife/wife). This may not lead to infidelity, but a house is being built for it. I loved this analogy.

The second thing I enjoyed was her open resentment against impossible societal pressures on women. My best friend has turned me into a budding feminist. As a budding feminist, my relationship with feminism consist of a lot of unsorted raw feelings. Eloquence escapes me when I try to give my thoughts and feelings a voice. I find myself leaning for the time being on what I read to help sort myself out.

All in all, I’m so glad I didn’t fully abandon this book.

Favorite Excerpts from Committed

… Nothing is wrong with a married person launching a friendship outside of matrimony – so long as the “walls and windows” of the relationship remain in the correct places. It was Glass’s theory that every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relationships that are open to the world – that is, the necessary gaps through which you interact with family and friends; the walls are the barriers of trust behind which you guard the most intimate secrets of your marriage.

And this is my beef, by the way, with social conservatives who are always harping about how the most nourishing home for a child is a two-parent household with a mother in the kitchen. If I – as a beneficiary of that exact formula – will concede that my own life was indeed enriched by that precise familial structure, will the social conservatives please (for once!) concede that this arrangement has always put a disproportionately cumbersome burden on women? Such a system demands that mothers become selfless to the point of near invisibility in order to construct these exemplary environments for their families. And might those same social conservatives – instead of just praising mothers as “sacred” and “noble”- be willing to someday join a larger conversation about how we might work together as a society to construct a world where healthy children can be raised and healthy families can prosper without women having to scape bare the walls of their own souls to do it?

P.S. Please consider using the book links to purchase books from Amazon. Not only is Amazon usually cheaper but I earn a measly referral fee. ;)

I’ve posted yearly recaps since 2008. I’m a stickler for tradition so here’s my recap for 2011.

Previous years: 2008, 2009, 2010

I had a good year.

Note: All links open in a new window.

January

• Rang in the New Year at Speakeasy with Alan, Jennifer, and company.
• Had girls’ night in with crepes.
• Battled an eye infection for a full month. It was gross.

February

• It snowed.
• I didn’t see Alan often because of his work.
• BDF (Best Dudie Friend) visited Austin! This ended up being the only time I saw him this year.
• BDF surprised me with cookies. His note gets me Google search hits that make me a little sad.
• Sent out Valentine cards and socks to my girlfriends.

Alan and I hanging out

March

• Alan took me to my first NBA game, Heat vs. Spurs.
• BFF had cake balls delivered to me at work.
• My solemate (deliberate misspelling) visited Austin.
• Went to Austin’s 2nd Annual Bacon Takedown.
• Went to Sketchbook Project 2011 tour stop in Austin.
• Hosted my first giveaway on the blog.
• Attended a free screening and Q&A with director of Meaning of Tea, a fantastic documentary about tea. Really!
• Alan and I had a two part dinner to celebrate our three year anniversary at Haddington’s and Uchiko (my favorite restaurant).
• Attended Austin Food Blogger’s Alliance Launch Party and applied for membership.
• March was a turning point in my life. I faced myself in therapy. I’m still reaping the benefits.

At Sketchbook Project event

April

• Visited Houston for dad’s birthday.
• Did a month of video blogging everyday in April (VEDA).
• Had a pillow fight in Ikea.
• Puppet showed a conversation between my parents for VEDA.
• Alex, Hillary, and I met up in San Angelo, Texas for a girls’ weekend.
• Took my little (Big Brothers and Big Sisters) to see a presentation about being a teen parent.
• Alan and I went to a drive-in theater for the first time and saw Back to the Future. Drive-in was on my life list!
• Joined Austin Food Blogger’s Alliance.

Hillary, Alex, and Me at the San Angelo Library

May

• I got bangs impulsively, changing my do for the first time in 5 years.
• Took a canoe trip with coworkers, facing a handful of irrational fears very reluctantly. Obviously, I survived.
• I participated in Leo’s Habit Course and developed a palate for vegetables by eating one serving a day for 30 days.
• Flew to Boston to see BFF. We drove to New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island, all three were states I’ve never visited.
• Read 8 books this month.
• Totes Awesome Channel was founded.

June

• Went home to Houston for Father’s Day.
• Rolled down a hill inside of a ball.
• I hit a boulder with my car. I always hit non-moving objects. Anyway, this was the start of a chain of bumper problems during the rest of the year.
• I hemmed my first dress! As part of my new year’s resolutions, I wanted to do 10 learning tasks with sewing. This was my first major lesson.
• Went to third Annual Cupcake Smackdown

July

• Met Ashley D, Ashley, and Nicole of Totes Awesome Channel and recorded a vlog.
• Celebrated my 28th birthday simply with a dinner with Alan and then a movie and drinks with friends.
• Made my favorite video: 28 Life Lessons from 28 People (for my 28th birthday).
• I caught up to 2007 and got my first smart phone!
• My friend, Naz surprised me with a vlog from my dad.
• I got really cozy with Tennessee Williams and his movies. Cat on Hot Tin Roof is excellent!

Celebrating my birthday

August

• Successfully completed VEDA despite being out of town twice and moving!
• Met up Hillary and Alex in Dallas for our second girls’ weekend of the year.
• Moved in with Alan.
• Used my passport for the first time since renewing it 2007. Alan and I took a vacation to Vancouver, Canada, my new favorite city.
• Saw the bats in Austin for the first time.

In front of the Vancouver Aquarium

September

• Adopted Bob from a shelter.
• I went to some of my Ten Year Reunion and was pleased to see all my classmates have blossomed to beautiful women.
• Brandi and I attended Jessica’s wedding.
• With a lot of conscious effort, I averaged 6 hours of sleep in the month of September! (I’m usually sleep deprived.)

Class of 2001

October

• I had a fluffy cable TV show debut.
• Had my first blogger date with Treavor.
• Donned a borrowed construction hat and went as Heidi in Home Improvement for Halloween.
• Cindy visited Austin!

November

• Posted a blog post everyday in November.
• Ran two blocks of a 5k for Race for the Cure and raised 460 dollars. Thanks to a lot of you!
• Went to Texas Renaissance Festival with Brandi and Jessica. It was our third year going and we decided to only do new things. We threw knives, shot bow and arrows, and had our face painted. It was the first time I’ve ever had my face painted!
• Had my second blogger date with Treavor.
• Attended a We Are Girls conference with my little. It was incredibly insightful.
• Had a Thanksgiving picnic with friends at the park. We threw a whole cooler’s worth of ice cubes into an enormous fountain, to create ripples, to help push a soccer ball to a sad toddler across the fountain. We were successful.
• Had a progressive meal day with Kim, Thomas, and friends.
• During breaks between eats, we made paper cranes for Kim’s tree.
• My bumper nearly killed Kim and me and got us murdered in the woods.
• Made our sparkly tattoos dance.

December

• I decide to like Christmas. I discovered it took more energy disliking it than it does to give into the cheer.
• Partcipated in Austin Food Blogger’s food swap.
• I was without a car the whole time I was in Houston for Christmas (the bumper needed to be replaced) and was touched to have friends pick me up for dates.
• Sewed couch pillows with help from mom.
• Hosting a “Never Have We Ever” dinner party tonight. Post to come!

Bob hanging out with snowman

In writing this post, I realized this year was really sweet for relationships. It may have a lot to do with my prioritizing close friends over acquaintances and then learning to set boundaries. Recently, I’ve been in a funk about not having a life’s calling but I have to say, I’m really content with my tribe. Word on the street is that it’s the relationships that really matter.

Wishing you a terrific end of year celebration! Lots of love!

Making friends with people I routinely see is easy. Be along side someone everyday of the week and the chances of stumbling on some awesome commonalities go up. I think that’s why people label friends in their lives by venue. High school friend, college friend, neighbor friend, church friend, work friend, camp friend, Internet friend. We pay homage to the chapters and locations of our lives that made these friendships possible. As I’ve grown older and became more keen of life’s patterns, I recognized that most friendships don’t survive the ending of proximity. Most people I meet aren’t still in touch with their high school friends (My tiny high school and the friendships I see still fostered on Facebook are an aberration.) I’ve adored many coworkers but have managed to only keep 4-5 as friends after holding 10 jobs in my life time. I’m always saddened when I leave chapters not only because I know that life will be uncertain until I find my next groove, but also because I have to leave the people behind. There’s just not enough time and room for everyone you meet and share french fries with to continue on in your life.

My college friend, Deesh likes to remind me of that one time we took a final in our final semester in 2005 of college together. I had asked him if he thought we’d still be friends after college. He laughed because he couldn’t imagine it otherwise. Cynical, I just thought he was being a bit naive. Maybe he was, but it’s now been over 5 years since graduation and I’m having dinner with him Thursday. In September, I blogged that I was sad that Jessica moved away and got married and I mourned the loss of our friendship. Just a couple months later, we reunited for a weekend. Last year for VEDA, I watched 20-30 people post a vlog everyday for the month of August. It was our first year doing it and at the end, I thought, “Man, another chapter done. I probably won’t keep in touch with most of these awesome people.” Now I share a collab channel with four of the girls I met and tweet at a slew of them still. We make plans to meet each other even.

I wanted to take a moment and marvel at some of these friendships. My college friend Kym and I really just spent one summer together 5 years ago and yet I email her weekly. Kim and I met in 2001 in college and I email her DAILY and see her when I’m in Houston. Cindy and I only really shared a few months of living in the same town when we first met. I respect the importance and fond memories of friends whom life physically moved away and with them the friendship dissipated, but the friendships I managed to keep alive with emails, phone calls, chats, letters, and care packages, they really have a special place in my heart. You can say there’s no closer proximity than the friendships you carry with you.

This post is written in dedication to my BFF, a high school life friend.

The majority of my weekend was spent with Totes Awesome Channel’s Ashley, AshleyD, and Nicole. It was the sort of weekend that leaves you dazed (the good kind of dazed) on Monday morning.

I’m was honored and grateful to not only meet these girls, but see how close and sweet on each other they are. I have a soft spot for very close group friendships and love watching from the outside like the nosy voyeur that I am, but what stunned me even more is that these girls met online! They have this sisterhood that spans more than just the three of them, and they see each other sometimes more than they see their family members, and know secret stories that don’t broadcast on their blogs. I’m just amazed by their dynamic. It’s a joy to be around and I was thankful to share some of these moments with them.

We caught a performance of Footloose at Zilker Park (my new thing last week.)

We blogged, baked, and tweeted. Made a dessert mountain that was chocolate chip cookie layered under Oreos, layered under brownie, layered under hot fudge sauce. Yes. Here’s the link for recipe.

We brunched.

I also managed to squeeze in a coffee reading date with my friend Davey.

Not pictured from this weekend but too special not to mention are a dinner with Alan’s family celebrating my birthday early and 7 straight hours of Dawson’s Creek.

If I were to describe my weekend in one word, I’d say “special.”

It’s my mom’s birthday this weekend. I don’t often blog about her because my dad’s stories are so much easier. Mom has great stories too.

My mom puts a lot of emphasis on packaging and in having things perfectly just so. At times this has embarrassed me greatly. In high school, she’d triple-wrapped my sandwiches. Once in cellophane, then in wax paper, and then once again in foil. In high school, my P.E. shirts were not only ironed, but starched. My college roommates used to marvel at how perfectly square she folded my trash bag liners that she’s recycled from Walmart. They loved watching me unpack my luggage every time I came back from a trip home. The socks evened out the bottom of my luggage. My undies were perfectly flat and stacked. There wasn’t a bump or ridge in sight, everything was absolutely even. She still sends me back to Austin with coolers of food. Each box of fried rice is literally weighed so that not one box weighs less or more than another. I see her with the food scale and plead that she doesn’t have to be that meticulous but she can’t help herself.

She loves really hard and it’s the tiny details that speak volumes. She really listens to you and commits everything to memory. She runs a convenience store with my dad in Houston and if she sees a regular pull up in the parking lot, she giggles in delight as she places out their routine purchase neatly on the counter. She pouts a little to herself if a customer changes his routine but then commits the changes to memory too. When my friends meet me at the store, I have to warn them, “hey, uh, whatever you like that she sells, maybe don’t tell her, but do take something.” She will kill your preference. My ex-boyfriend got cases of mangoes every time she saw him just because he told her he loved them. My friend, Alex mentioned once in passing how much she likes Airheads, and mom made me hand over a wholesale size box of Airheads. I couldn’t eat cheddar Goldfish and Milano cookies for years after she sent them up to the dorms by the cases.

She’s so accomodating. She cooks me three meals at a time so that I can have options. She called me crying once because she gave me a giant cooler of food, and thought it better had she given me two smaller coolers because they would be easier to lift. Sometimes I get so frustrated with her for being so giving of herself and or I blame her for my own shortcomings (namely, I can be too giving sometimes too). It took me a long time to realize that her inability to limit her love and expressions of love might be a strength and a joy and not just an embarrassment. Some of the very best pieces of me were passed on through her and I should be so lucky to be half as sweet as her.

I hope she has many more healthy birthdays and that I continue to learn from her. She has so much to give.

I celebrated Father’s Day by having dim sum with my dad yesterday morning. I thought I’d pay public tribute to him with this list of 25 life lessons he has taught me.

1. If you don’t know something, don’t be shy to ask questions.
2. You’re extremely lucky if you have one true friend to last you through life.
3. Nothing lasts. Spouses will die.
4. Don’t cry about people who don’t cry about you.
5. People are not their jobs.
6. There’s a lot to learn. Don’t be smug.
7. Don’t fixate on the things that are out of your control.
8. Books are friends.
9. The human spirit is resilient, capable of withstanding war and loss.
10. Persistence solves problems.
11. Improvising solves problems.
12. When you lose everything, start over.
13. When you fail, start over.
14. Pay your credit card bill in full every month.
15. Don’t rush. Walk at a leisurely pace. Dot your i’s and cross your t’s.
16. Sometimes we forget to breathe. Breathe.
17. Don’t take for granted your mother’s love. Endure the nagging. It’s evidence of motherly love. (He grew up without a mom.)
18. Protect your family.
19. People’s perception of you doesn’t change who you are.
20. Not everyone will feel and think the same way as you. Remember this when you’re angry or hurt.


21. Marvel at small things.
22. A good education should be prioritized over having your own room, having a nice car, going on nice vacations, having awesome toys, having a nice house, and many other things.
23. Things can always be a lot worse. Be grateful for what you have.
24. Be fearless. (He’s pushed for me to be fearless numerously in regards to bugs and snakes and toxic relationships.)
25. Take care of and pride in what you have.

Originally, this VEDA entry was suppose to be a 1 to 3 ratio of sad story to funny stories. Unfortunately, I underestimated how long the sad story would take me to tell so I’ll have to lace in more happy entries for VEDA in the future. Tonight, I vlogged about my mom’s first birthday as my dad’s wife.