last weekend we celebrated the coming arrival of baby norah with a shower for soon to be mom, and one of my great friends, rebecca.  i'm so excited for norah to be here, which will be this week and i can't wait!!

rebecca looked so good and everyone had a great time with some games, (non-alcoholic) mimosas, and brunch.  i'm mad at myself for not taking pictures while she was opening presents, but she got some pretty cool baby things :)

 one of the girls brought her baby and she was passed around a lot with hopes of giving everyone baby fever.  it might have worked!  but she also might have been the easiest super cutie ever.

the countdown has begun to meet little baby norah :)

dog shaming: the belle and bella edition

i came home yesterday to a lovely mess of 4 boxes of mostly eaten cereal, a sticky/cereal-covered floor, and two very thirsty girls with fat fat bellies.  oh and they also ripped off the cabinet door :)

they were bad girls and they knew it.

dog days is back!  every end of summer, the arlington county pools stay open for an extra weekend for dogs to come swim and play.  it's one of my absolute favorite things to do all year long.

last year was so much fun, the girls had a blast.  and this year was no different :)

bella did her usual thing of chasing other dogs, avoiding the water, and meeting everyone should could. 

yalla, who went camping with us a few weeks ago, was also there and had a great time splashing around with any dog that would play with her.

meanwhile, belle's lab instincts were out in rare form; she was in and out of that water like a fish!

eric would throw the tennis ball in and belle would leap in after it, but she would leap SO high.  you could hear people say "whoa! did you see that dog jump?!"  "man, that dog just got some air!"

it was a proud moment!  she's air belle. 

and because dogs are hilarious, here are two other funny pics i got of dogs being dogs.

last week was my birthday, and not just any birthday, this girl is 30!

i'm 30 years old, i'm not one of those gals whose afraid to tell her real age, and i like to kick! stretch! and kick! ... i'm 30!

i've always thought women at 30 are their most beautiful. if this is true for me, it's because of happiness, gratitude for my life, love, and family and friends. i don't know how i got so lucky.

 

i think a lot of people have a hard time with big birthdays: 30, 40, 50, 60. it's easy to compare your age to others in society and to reflect back on the times that you were youger.
 

the biggest lesson i've learned about looking back and feeling envious of those younger than me came from a paragraph in tuesdays with morrie by mitch albom.  if you haven't read it, morrie is an older man dying of ALS giving a class about life to a former student of his (mitch albom).  at one point mitch asks morrie if he's envious of him sitting there, young in his thirties, with full use of his body and a life ahead of him.  and morrie responds:

“Mitch, it is impossible for the old not to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that. This is your time to be in your thirties. I had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight. You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue. The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age up to my own. Do you understand? How can I be envious of where you are – when I’ve been there myself?”

 

 it's such a perfect perspective because it gives you so much power over your own age.  why would i wish to be twenty when i can own twelve, and nineteen, and any age until my age of 30?  i can be all of those numbers anytime i choose!  but a twenty year old can't be thirty.  and i can't be sixty-three.  (well hopefully someday)  and we can all have our own numbers and our own experiences to go with those numbers.  so what is there to be jealous of?  "age is not a competitive issue".

 

and man there is such a great list of things to associate with the thirtieth year.

- we got married!

- went to fiji and swam with manta rays

- eric got his phd

- we both got exciting new jobs

- we spent our summer hanging out with dolphins in australia

 

i'm so excited to be thirty.  right now, in this moment, eric and i have our new marriage, our families, our health, our dogs, and a plan for an exciting life.  thirty = happy.

 

i started working at the national endowment for the arts a couple of weeks ago, and so far i've learned a ton and am really enjoying my work.  aside from the job itself, it's been very novel to be working downtown.  during lunch one day of my first week, i walked to the natural history museum to check out a photography exhibit, oh you know, natural history museum, just during my lunch break :)  i can see the capitol from my building and everyhing is literally a 5 minute walk away.  if you're going to move to dc, you may as well work for the government right in the middle of everything, right?!

this past week we had a very cool field trip to the national gallery of art's east building (modern art).  they have an exhibit going on until october 6th called Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music.  the show tells the story of the original russian ballet under the leadership of Serge Diaghilev.  i knew of the russian ballet and their performance of stravinsky's rite of spring, and i knew they were known for using contemporary music in their shows.  i had absolutely no idea how inclusive they were of music and art contemporaries in their performances, and that they were so forward thinking in all of thier costuming and dance techniques.

just look at the artists that collaborated with diaghilev and the ballet over only ten years: stravinsky, prokofiev, erik satie, debussy, rimsky-korsakov, picasso, matisse, coco chanel (ha!)

^^original rite of spring costumes!^^ (via)

 ^^costumes for the blue train by chanel^^ (via)

^^costume for the song of the nightingale by matisse^^ (via)

a co-worker in my division is friends with one of the curators of this exibit and she met up with us to give us a behind the scenes guided tour.  i loved hearing about everything from the preservation of the original costumes to who decided to paint a big blue wave on the wall of the space.  overall, i have to say they did a beautiful job with the presentation.  if you have any interest at all in the history of dance, ballet, music, theatre, or visual arts (or history in general), i would make sure to check out this exhibit. it's so well done and so entertaining that you don't even realize how much you've learned until you leave.

my favorite video installations were of baryshnikov dancing (i could watch him dance all day long) and rudolph nureyev playing the faun in the afternoon of a faun. (video here)

^^original costume design for the faun by bakst^^ (via)

^^because yes^^

the museum has set up a small, temporary shop right as you exit the exhibit.  i die for museum shops and couldn't resist this little hand-painted turkish bowl. 

loved this exhibit and highly recommend it!

note: any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity.