Metamorphosis - My journey to Soccer Mommyhood

Doesn't Metamorphosis sound like the name of a very glittery perfume? A cloying mixture of cotton candy and something "floral" that isn't actually found in nature, housed in a plastic purple bottle bejeweled with pink and blue plastic crystals. It'd probably come with a free Lisa Frank pencil. 

I've decided to express my emotions via pictures [haha myspace-style...or was it livejournal?]. This is how I am feeling about not being in Germany yet:

Frustrated

jipped

i don't know what this emotion is, but i think i am feeling it

I am so aggravated and grumpy and bummed, and I don't understand why things are the way they are right now, but all I can say is I trust God. I know that I know that I know that He has plans for my summer, even though right now things are looking bleak. All things work for the good...(Romans 8:28).

I spent most of my day in my jammies on the couch [hats off to you, Bruno Mars], and then I felt a little [a lot] pathetic, so I tried to clean a bit, and then I went and worked out, and I wrote some letters and tried to pretend to be a big kid. Who does responsible things.

It's kind of like this. I'm in the self-congratulatory phase. And tomorrow all the things need to be done. Shopping for a camera, more cleaning, unpacking stuff, working out.

I figure that as long as I am temporarily unemployed and avoiding shopping for business casual clothing, I might as well get my bippy in shape. And the rest of me. I haven't worked out for the past two month, but I had really good reasons: first I was busy finishing/starting semester projects, then [not] beasting finals, then recuperating from finals [that's valid].  um.

So I went and got my sweat on today. I look incrediGross when I work out. Kind of like this, but generally worse:

Every time I get off a machine, I'm dripping with sweat, and I guess I stink, and I start to get really nervous and self-conscious and apologetic.

I wish I had some succinct means of apologizing to everyone in the gym, maybe something like this?

a much-needed t-shirt

But then would people think I'm bragging? Like - ooh la la, look how hardcore I am. I sweat and you get to swim in the puddles. I'm pretty sure that's what Chuck Norris says when he works out.

Tomorrow I've decided to get up before 11am and get my group work-out on at a cardio karate/judochopping/ninja arts class or something. Oh, and a spin class.

A spin class. Between my group workouts and my CR-V and my highlights [I got my hair dyed redder again, and the lady went crazy with the highlights], I think I'm morphing into a soccer mom.

If I just had some Sheryl Crow on my workout playlist, a tennis skirt for my workouts, and an extensive George Clooney movie collection, I'd be a perfect soccer mammy. Except I don't have kidlings. I can work around that.

OH - ps, I decided I'm not a fan of the words post. After about three unrelated quotes on a page, I get bored and decide to go do something else [online boggle]. Assuming you operate even remotely similarly, you probably didn't even read that whole post, did you?

I don't blame you. I'll pass on verses and quotes some other way.

-Soccer-Mom bRob

Words.

So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.

-Dead Poet's Society

Language certainly woos.

Weareglitter

Oh, Will.




In the way of righteousness is life,
And in its pathway there is no death.

-Proverbs 12:28

via images i <3 stolen from the internet
source?

waiting.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

-Abraham Lincoln

Fridge Door pdq

semicolons.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

-John 8:32

developing a heart for Home

convicting

via pretty books [i think]

True story: In tenth grade I had a crush on this adorable boy in my gym class. Of all the guys in my school, he was among the 3% that actually talked to me. He was sweet, funny, and complimented my ferocity during floor hockey.

One day, during our warm-ups, he began a sentence with "I seen a ..." And with that atrocious grammatical error, our young  [one-sided] love was over. It broke me...at least for the week.

Also he had hair down to his shoulders. 

GeeZees via life-love-laughter

right on time.






That is why He warned people to 'count the cost' before becoming Christians. 'Make no mistake,' He says, 'if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect - until My Father can say without reservation that He is well-pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.

- C.S. Lewis

nothing less

keri smith via Candace Rose

take heart - you aren't.

Go back...knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. 

- Martin Luther King Jr. 

design*sponge [picture]

 not possible.

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.

- Alan Bennett

it always amazes me, and i love it.

Images I <3 stolen from the internet

a beautiful new word.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of 

things not seen.

- Hebrews 11:1

faith and hope.

-----------------------------

I think this words post might be a new series? Sort of like the wordy version of the techniColor posts? 

Hm?

Also - citation concerns: 

Many of the images were found via pinterest [if you're interested, you can view mine here] - and while I was able to hunt down [most] of the original sources, I'm not sure how citing works with images first discovered via pinterest. Let me know if you know =)

Last thing - one blogger cites where she first finds external [ex: from a movie or book] quotes, generally from another blog. I didn't do that on the relevant quotes, mostly because I don't deem it necessary?
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Whew.

-bRob

Toilet Brushes

I don't understand why toilet brushes don't have longer handles.

   
          Or aren't ergonomic.

                     Or  are so splashy.    .

moving on.

"Colorado bRob" - what my Dad dubbed my post-Colorado can-do-anything persona

Once upon a time, I worked in Colorado. I learned a lot that summer - about people and how to deal with them, 

how to backpack 

 how to hide in the best hiding places  where little children can't find you

                   

           
                how to negotiate with seven-year-olds

how to sweet-talk little girls into not crying

 how to properly climb up a mini-glacier

how to repel & belay 

how to get the leisurely [slow] group, including one ornery 10-year-old cuss, up a mountain

and how to be hardcore.

Having been completely engrossed in the world of academia for the past three years since, I forgot that I can do things besides accidentally get papercuts while opening textbooks and drink insane amounts of coffee.

But when I had to move my  bookshelf down three flights of stairs last week in the sweltering heat with only the help of my little grandma, I was reminded that I can still be hardcore.
[that never-ending, multi-claused sentence looks German]

I carted heavy rafts and obnoxious children around for a summer - 

I can do difficult, taxing things now, too.

God makes us to be these dynamic, multi-faceted and capable creatures, 

but sometimes I put myself in a weak and nerdy academic box.


Moral of this soliloquy: 

bRob = 1, bookshelf = owned.

- Colorado bRob

TechniColor: Desolation and Renewal

So many photographers and artists are capturing the eerie remains of failed cities and abandoned structures, and since I've come across so many this week, I thought I'd share a lot of them with my good friend InterWebs.

And then there's all the other stuff I've been waiting to show you interspersed throughout.

mab-ken via gadling


An abandoned mining island in Nagasaki, Japan.

French By Design

Oh I would sing and sing and sing in this beautiful shower.

Probably at my someday vacation home in...somewhere tropical-ish.

I got bored and wondered why the QWERTY keyboard is laid out the way it is.

There. I wiki'd it for you.

via the coolest

An abandoned Ukrainian Submarine base













Dad: "Aw, my tomato plant is dying." [sigh] "Evolution."
No, Dad, not evolution.

ohdeedoh

An adorable and creative setup for fitting three children in one room.

design*sponge

Inflatable 70's stools.
I like them in a kind of quirky way...

after the final curtain via  buzzfeed



Abandoned theater and scaffolding in Newark, NJ

 via Industrial Design Served


Francois Hurtaud designed Eva as a means of waste recycling.  Though it appears minimalistic and sleek, the system has eight major components...one of which is an aquarium! 

Read  about how it works.

















 Tiffany Arment via  green wedding shoes


Rainbow wedding.
















 via colossal


Ransom Riggs documents the creation of desolation surrounding the Salton Sea - an accident. 
An abandoned city.
















Images of the Voila Gallery via apartment therapy

None of that should work but it all kind of does, you know?

yeowatzup via  gadling

Abandoned vacation resort in New Taipei, Taiwan.

Photographer Ocvirk Kus Danica in loftlife via apartment therapy

A former stable converted into a loft. Check out the other sweet pictures.

This song is so very stuck in my head right now.
When it comes on and I'm in my car, I break it down like the whitest kid you know.

anthropologie



Aw I would wear this dress and its delicate hem every single day.
In my room. While I twirl in front of the mirror.














Am I Wearing Pants?
Avoid the pants-less pandemic. This is important.

brown dress with white dots via dwellings

A dockside dinner.

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre via Time

Abandoned Spanish Gothic theater in Detroit 
Spooky, eh?

Self-portrait with my grandmother

 via my modern metropolis

Anna Di Prospero is the artist behind this beautiful series of self-portraits. 

They are emotive and touching, and so well-done.

Self-portrait with my father

via hiphipgingin

If only I had the patience [and that beautiful hair].

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre via Time

Abandoned dentist chair in the David Broderick Tower in Detroit

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

All your health questions and more answered in a very reliable Health Question & Answer Session.

Gordon Wiltisie via The Telegraph

Camping off the side of a 4000 ft cliff.
A small part of me wants to try it.

via the coolist

Abandoned Russian water park.

decopeques

I love this loft - the basic bedframe, the dark brick wall, the high high window. 

It looks like a magical little space...

Things Organized Neatly

A dismantled Volkswagen golf, piece by piece.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

-Emerson

I went to a workout class with my parents. It was miserable - I have no sense of rhythm. Even the 70+ year old ladies beside me got their groove on...while I kind of walked around in circles and looked embarrassed.
Skip to 25 seconds to see what I look like in exercise class.
PS - sorry - you'll have to go to youtube to see it.






------------------------------------------------------------


Encouragement


Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being,
And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.
Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me to hear joy and gladness,
Let the bones which You have broken rejoice.


Psalm 51:6-8


God renews. 

-bRob