myretroperspective

Well as you may have heard it's election day.  I'm expecting less people to read this post than any other post because social media is FLOODED with everyone's personal accounts of their voting experience.  I'm not sure if it's because I was out of the country living in a dorm in a remote part of Asia last election season, the fact that we're living in such a politically charged area, or just the uptick in social media in the last 4 years, but I am sooooo over it.  So you will not find my account of voting here.  I'm not even going to tell you whether I voted, let alone who for.   The increased focus on politics that happens every 4 years seems to be just another platform for people to feel good about themselves and tell everyone about it. I voted! I voted for so & so! I voted against such & such! I'm so informed! I'm so progressive! I'm so conservative! Look at me!  It did my heart well to advise a friend yesterday who was stressing about...

Tom Petty was right- the waiting truly is the hardest part.  Summer feels a lot like biding time to me which I don't really like.  I've always been a proponent of enjoying the season you're in and practicing gratitude for the gifts of the day and all of that.  I'm definitely no Ann Voskamp , but I feel like I have learned to love where I'm at and the people I'm with, even if I didn't choose it. And really what's not to LOVE about Atlanta?  We'll probably never live somewhere with this much character and quite this adorable.  We've got some solid friends and a church we love.  We've both got meaningful work where we're beyond appreciated and challenged.  We are pictures of health save some allergies.  The everyday luxuries I missed most living in Asia seem to be at our fingertips. We are settled. But the strong possibility of change and adventure is on the horizon, and I so desperately want to know if what I hope is coming next, comes.*  H...

Until I dated a varsity (high school that is) basketball player, I had little interest in the sport of basketball. I remember my first Florida basketball game in Gainesville hosting the Auburn Tigers. Steve (Spurrier) was in his 2nd-to-last season and Billy Donovan had just begun to make a name for himself in the Southeast. Florida was still just "a football school" in the spring of 2000, but not for long. With the pending arrival of Ron Zook, basketball stood a chance to gain an audience. I had been in the Swamp for Gator football and the environment was incredible- the O'dome offered something quite different, yet quite wonderful. The electricity that mounted during such a fast-paced game was contagious. I screamed my heart out, and lost my voice in the rowdy reptiles section. It was a BLOW OUT- 88-59. The gators would go on to lose to Auburn in the SEC tournament, but then after a buzzer beater finger-roll by Mike Miller against Butler, march all the way to th...

In the great blog-o-sphere and now on Pinterest, it seems popular to tell others to "make a plan". Whether it's a 30-day meal plan, a christmas attack plan, a plan for how to decorate your home perfectly, someone is always telling me, "things in your life would be better if you just had a plan". It's tempting to buy into honestly, because I want things to be "better", "easier" and for others to think I've got it together. Now some of you will think I'm crazy when I say this, but this is why I do not like the magazine Real Simple. It is designed to make life "real complicated". It claims that your life will be simple if you implement all these plans but seldom is that the case. Recently I did one of the many personality tests out there and have come back to one line repeatedly in my "sanguine-melancholy" description said, " There is an interesting conflict in this blend – the weakness of the Sanguin...