Tall Tara

When people ask about my honeymoon, words fail me. Thoughts and images must suffice as complete sentences are lacking.

pineapple, papayas, plantains, Placencia and pina coladas

scuba-diving with nurse sharks, moray eels and sea turtles

no work, no laptops, no email, no phone

traveling from island to jungle to mountaintop to peninsula

bug bites, chest acne, coral reef rash & sunburns

biking with a forest fire on the left

trekking on San Pedro with a golf cart and a dead battery

climbing to the top of Mayan ruins

boosting him up to grab a coconut out of a tree

more champagne than necessary

hiking, napping & never knowing how much to tip

renewing vows, setting goals, making plans

drinking Belikin beer and striking up conversations with locals

speaking in accents and making fun of Jimmy Buffett cover bands

outdoor showers, hammocks and the beauty of an island breeze

taking part in San Pedro’s famous chicken drop

swimming through a Mayan cave filled with sacrificial human remains

realizing that drum lines, cole slaw and Bob Marley all hold global appeal

learning, laughing, lounging, loving

soaking up places too schmancy for us

embracing the fact that our honeymoon is only just beginning

thanks to all our friends and family who made this trip possible

(we love you all)

belize honeymoon/one-year anniversary trip 2010

Happy anniversary my love. It’s been a wonderful year…

but can we go on our honeymoon now?

(Not that we’re that excited about it or anything…)

Many thanks to Shane Rich and his oncemany project for this amazing anniversary shoot. I love what he’s doing and if you’d like to find out more, be sure to check out his site for more info.

(Also look for us in Boulder’s Daily Camera on March 15th to see pictures of Shane taking pictures of us. Totally meta.)

Bye.

Off to Belize…

My birthday weekend retreat is over…as is my six-week Paleo challenge. Thanks to a thoughtful friend, I didn’t need no stinkin’ cake in order to celebrate my birthday Paleo-style. Just some pomegrante seeds and a candle.

Over the last three days, my birthday celebration has been rejuvenating.  Amazing how spending time with friends old and new, doing more jumping lunges than I can count, skiing long powdery tree runs, baking Paleo-friendly muffins, hanging with the big dogs and ending it all with a soak in the hot springs can really make a girl feel refreshed.

I spent a lot of my birthday weekend alone and there was one thought, in particular, that made me smile. I’m happier, stronger, healthier, more in love and more confident than I was ten years ago.

Take that 34.

I’m a baker. Mixing ingredients and turning them into an edible treat…it’s something I’ve always loved doing. And I don’t discriminate. I’ll make cookies, cupcakes or sweet bars of any kind. Just as long as a warm oven is involved.

However, during the past two weeks of my Paleo challenge, I’ve had to deny that part of myself.

Until yesterday.

I baked a little something special for my good friend’s bachelorette party–brownies in the shape of penises.

Classy, I know.

But why was it so difficult for me to bake something without being able to eat it?

Because I’m a batter-eater and spoon-licker.

Because I’m a first-one-out-of-the-oven taste-tester.

Because I’m a look-that-one’s-broken-and-can’t-possibly-be-served-to-guests kind of girl.

Because I’m someone with a sweet tooth bigger than the state of Alaska.

So while the baked goods looked and smelled delicious, I wasn’t able to give the chocolate cock my seal of approval. All of the foreplay of mixing the ingredients with none of the satisfaction afterwards…it was like the worst case of blue balls ever. (I’m guessing.)

Another interesting lesson learned while baking the bachelorette brownies: you have to be careful when using a penis mold. A few from the early batch were hard to get out of the mold and I ended up with some mashed-up scrotums.

I simply called those the Lance Armstrongs of the batch and figured the ladies could make do.

And with their mouths full of cock…I heard no complaints.

Sorry Ingrid. You knew it was coming, right?

I officially met Elaine in 2008. And for the life of me, I can’t remember where we were…probably at some meetup or another. But that doesn’t really matter since it wasn’t until this year that we became good friends.

From my bachelorette party in February…

To my wedding reception in June…

Elaine Eleanor Ellis rocked my world this year.

With her charmingly awkward ways and her ability to pierce ear drums with a high-pitched “Ummmmm…”, Elaine made me laugh a lot.

She also helped me pick out a wedding dress. Without hitting anything in her car.

Thanks to Chicks who Click, Elaine and I shared hotel rooms in two different states. In one, I drifted off to sleep making fun of the fact that she had to check Twitter before she could go to sleep.

“Goodnight @ElaineEllis.”

In the other hotel room we shared, Elaine promptly fell asleep within two minutes of scoring us a free movie from hotel  management.

Of course, she was probably really tired from all that chalk-art drawing she had done earlier that evening.

The highlight of my friendship with Elaine this year was sharing the stage with her at Ignite 5. The beauty of doing a presentation about beer is that you have to hang out and drink beer while planning your talk. Our hard work paid off and we schooled the geeks with our knowledge of Colorado microbrews.

But the thing I love most about Elaine is that two months ago she did something most of us only dream about: she quit her job to travel. And on top of that, she did it all by herself.

I couldn’t be prouder of my friend. Judging from her blog posts and tweets, Elaine is doing a wonderful job of traveling solo and seems to be succeeding in the goal of spreading her special brand of awkward all over Europe.

Thanks for all the fun this year Elaine. Here’s to more Rio margs together in 2010! ¹

Photo credits: highfireDANGER, greeblemonkey, and kitseeborg

I have Micah to thank for this one. In addition to being the #1 douchebag, he also knows art.

For Christmas a few years back, he gave me a gift certificate to 20×200. His present allowed me to purchase a beautiful print for my husband’s new office and more importantly, changed how I viewed buying art.

It could be affordable. It could be fun. It didn’t have to be intimidating. Or pretentious.

(Is it terribly obvious that I don’t come from a world where people buy art?)

So this…

to me, is like a concert ticket that you want to save and put in your scrapbook. I bought a few new pieces of art this year and highly recommend the 20×200 site…even if you’re just in the mood for some virtual window-shopping.

20×200 is much more than an online store. It’s an experience.

And they make it extremely easy to live with art.

I agree with Gwen that the way we listen to, discover and acquire music is monumentally different these days.

The fact that my father-in-law knows what Pandora is and streams it on his boat amazes me.

And 2009 is the year that I realized that Gen Y really is good for something: music recommendations. (I kid. Sort of.)

But with all that said, there was one album that stuck out for me as the best. The album I couldn’t get enough of, that put a smile on my face and made me dance around my living room–all my qualifications for awesomeness.

Oh Jack.

There’s that thing about him being totally adorable.

This is just a gratuitous picture of Jack being adorable. I rest my case.

But then there’s also that thing where he incorporates sounds and influences from all over the world into his music…a dash of Fela Kuti, some disco throwback and a healthy dose of Brazilian Tropicalia…reminding us that like his album’s name, Everything is New.

Not bad for a young kid out of England. Who was your Jack this year?

(Hat tip to Bossy’s Ear Worm…a wonderful source of music recommendations from many different time periods. And definitely NOT a Gen Yer.)

My reading interests are varied, to say the least.

Here are my runners-up for best nonfiction book (that I read) this year…

All really amazing, each in their own way. But there was one book that gave me loads more to think about…a book with plenty to digest…full of potty humor and a topic that no one likes to discuss…

That’s right. This masterpiece about poop was informative, humorous and a little scary–what to do with human waste is a growing global health issue and one that often gets buried, burned or flushed away.

I also read a few fictional tales that I also enjoyed…one of them being Twilight. (I felt like I had to understand what the frenzy was all about. Now that I have, I don’t really have any desire to read the rest of the series.) Interesting that two of my three favorite pieces of fiction have already been turned into movies.  The third is a moving collection of short stories by Miranda July, causing me to fall even more in love with the talented Ms. July and to rekindle my passion for the art of telling short stories.

But the best novel I read this year was one that surprised me a bit. Written by an author living in a small town in Wyoming, this book was recommended to me by my father and is the first in a whole murder-mystery series. I gave this one a (skeptical) try and am very glad I did. Craig Johnson writes about Wyoming better than anyone I’ve encountered. He nails it from the descriptions of the landscape to the characters of the people. And he crafted a mighty good yarn surrounding a mysterious death…

Those are my votes but I need some recommendations for 2010. What were some of your favorites?

I saw a disturbing trend forming in my junk folder. And in it…glimpses of humor and the glimmer of a post.

It’s common knowledge that no one actually looks at the contents of their email junk folder so the spammers have to be more clever than ever to get our attention. They must have heard about the importance of subject lines because I’m now receiving many junk emails asking me questions.

I was looking for pictures of junk when I remembered this gem.

Since there were so many of these junk emails, I thought it only right to pick the ten best and share them. Because what else is a junk folder good for, if not content creation.

Separated? Considering Divorce? Been Served Divorce Papers??

Um. No. No. And no.

Do you have what it takes to be a CSI??

Probably. But this email is coming from the CSI Forensics School, which sounds like an un-accredited institution that doesn’t really exist. Kinda like Trial Lawyer School. Or Heart Surgeon School.

Considering a Nursing Degree??

God. Doesn’t my mother wish? No seriously. How many times did my mom ask me this very same question growing up?

Looking for a Handy Reference Guide to the Remote Monitoring Industry??

Christmas is right around the corner.

How good is Microsoft Dynamics ERP, really??

I ask myself that everyday.

Going “Paperless”…Buzz Word or Reality??

Don’t even get me started on this one. I get all riled up.

Can you donate an item to our auction??

I’m sorry. You must have mistaken me for someone who owns anything of value.

Suffering from chronic back and neck pain??

Who isn’t?

Wanna Hookup??

No, Amber, I don’t.

Wanna hookup for this weekend??

Well, since you put it that way…and this comes from the BeNaughty Team, we’re not ruling it out just yet. Plus, we all know what a team player I am.

Big thanks to Hotmail, for actually being good for something. Your email junk  folder has provided me with the opportunity to think about different careers and new ways of living my life.

And in case little Stacey Ferguson is reading this, that’s what I’m doing with all that junk.

Sometimes my husband gets a little carried away with making up abbreviations for things. He still insists that he coined FoCo for Fort Collins years before others started saying it.

I’m not sure why he likes it so much,  but if he can make a word shorter, he will.

The other night, our dinner got completely out of hand. It all started when he asked what else we should eat with his green chili stew.

Digging around in the refrigerator, he proclaimed, “I’ll finish off these torts.”

(Short for tortillas.)

Next, he suggested we “make some burritz”.

(Short for burritos.)

Not a picture of my husband's pork green chili. But it is a picture of his famous pork pockets. Or pork vaginas. Whatever you want to call them.

I offer to help prepare dinner, as I always do. He tells me that there’s not much to do and that he’s “just going to cut the cilant.”

(Short for cilantro.)

He’s definitely stepping up his game with this one. Way to save yourself a syllable’s worth of work dude. I’m laughing to myself at this point and just hoping that he can throw one more out. Four in a row…was it possible?

We eat a delicious dinner and then, when we’re full and happy, I get up to clear the table. He motions for my plate and offers to finish what  I haven’t.

“Let me help with that resid.”

Excuse me?

(Short for residual.)

As in the rest of the burrito on my plate.

Good one darling. Way to knock it out of the par.