hellz yeah

Well, I'm leaving for the Outer Banks tomorrow and I'm soooooo happy about it. I hope everyone enjoys their ID4 as much as I will!

from Veeb to shining Veeb

VB is a pretty diverse place, when examined from the right point of view.





For example, last night friends gathered from all corners of 264: Hilltop, Newtown Rd, Birdneck Acres, Alanton, the North End and Granby St at a lone shopping center off Holland Rd.

All Around Pizza is full of Kempsville Charm, creamy cinder block walls, white linoleum floor and two coolers full of an impressively cheap and broad beer list. I don't see why Bone and I are getting crap for dreaming of raising our family in the Wide Open Spaces of Suburban Pungo when these people will travel all the way to Holland Rd to get some spicy pizza and a $1.50 BBL?

true love with find you in the end

I love what they do with the mini projected movie in this video.

The more times I watch this video the more I love it. It reminds me of a movie I saw a few weeks ago called "Timer". Has anyone else seen it?



I really liked it, but Tommy didn't... and he loves all movies so that says something. It's cute and a tiny bit dopey just like any respectable rom-com should be.

Click through to watch the trailer.

the therapeutic setting

I spend more time looking for artwork to hang in my future office than beefing up my resume to get that imagined office.



There's a lot of literature to be read on different ideas of what makes the most therapeutic setting. For example, creating a safe and comfortable place for people who are dealing with trauma. There are opinions about having paintings of nature that don't show people and maybe a little plug-in waterfall. I like these face paintings. Sure they show human emotion, but... isn't that why we'd be there anyway?

Click to enter Anders Oinonen's website and view more of his rad paintings.

And I'll proudly stand up next to her

In my lifetime there are only been a handful of times that I was really "allowed" to say "I'm proud to be an American": the Persian Gulf, September 11th, Obama's Inauguration and this futbol goal.

I'm just so happy that it happened a week and a half from my fav holiday, 4th of July. I can't wait to wear my stars and stripes bikini!

i h e A R T

I strongly believe that nothing gives life to a room like colorful and surprising artwork. Here's some paintings by Alejandra Knoll that I would love to hang in my fantasy home or office.


found via booooooom!

I love team spirit.

Wow, I wish I were at this party. Aren't the colors in this video gorgeous? I especially love that thing in Shakira's hair. The song title reminds me a bit of Fozzie Bear...wocka wocka wocka!

Errr Sure's got the beat

Man! It has been a long 5 years since the summer of 2005 when Usher and his abs dominated the charts and my mind. I have often stopped short in my tracks over the past few years and wondered: "Um, Where is Usher?"

Well, he's back! The world is right once more.

Ok, so today is June 18th and Usher already has two hits: 1) OMG and 2) Someone to Love. How many hits do you want to guess he'll have before the summer's up? Four? Six?? Hot damn, a girl can dream.

Not only is Usher back with the hits, but he's also brought us The Bieb. So thank you, Usher Raymond, for discovering Justin Bieber on Youtube. I mean, who hasn't belted out all of Usher's singles? How come Justin got so lucky?

Before:



After:





Oh, and while we're at it:



This is gonna be a good summer.

crap, I missed "Bloomsday"...

Have you ever read "Ulysses" by James Joyce? Wow, it is an incredible, daunting, confusing and inspiring book. I took an entire seminar dedicated to reading and digesting this piece of literature. I love it. Joyce's novel takes place in a single day and loosely follows the structure of The Odyssey (as far as I can explain it).

June 16, the day the novel takes place, is traditionally celebrated as "Bloomsday". In honor of the day, authors of the graphic novel "Ulysses Seen" wanted it released as a free iPad app, as Apple had agreed. Well there was a censorship issue about some nude cartoons and the comic got edited. This caused an uproar, but really, this is the kinda controversy Ulysses was made for.

My point is that you have to check out the comic. It is gorgeous and painstakingly detailed. I really want to have a copy so I can actually wrap my mind around the book. But I'm afraid it only exists in an online format.



You know, I am continually inspired by obsessive and creative people. I just can't get over the fact that someone has taken the time to complete this project. Good for them!

more like sea NICE!

Last week I wrote a letter to Greg who is currently in Naval Officer training. This is his first big step in becoming a Naval Pilot. In my letter I gave him some bullet point updates on my life this summer:

-I'm afraid of the sun.
-I'm busy doing my Practicum in Community Mental Health, which is a saucer-eyed experience to say the least...
-I've become a surfer.

If anyone would read that last statement and not doubt me or laugh at me, it would be Greg. Actually, I know for a fact that Greg would say something very fatherly such as,

"Well Ruthie, I knew you had it in you! You're making me proud."

Thanks Greg. Tonight (at roughly 10:25pm when Oceana sends out their fleet for late night practice over VB) I will salute you.


(I read this Vogue Editorial with Blake Lively ironically while I was sitting in the waiting room at the dermatologist. This little tshirt-bikini bottom combo really stuck with me. If Blake can surf and wear SPF 100, so can I. Except I would never wear Merino wool in the ocean. That sounds just as bad as when I got sea lice stuck in my one piece in the 5th grade. Yeah, "sea lice" are just as horrific as they sound.)


Oh, one more thing. If you are a lady and want to go surfing with me, let's go. Yes, it is intimidating and yes, the lifeguards are judging you. But I had forgotten how much fun it is to actually play in the ocean.

a great moment on my twitter thingy:

1) click to enlarge
2) read to from bottom to top
3) understand that this round robin went on for a few pages, but I don't have enough hands (or right-click option) to capture the entire convo in a single screen shot.





BTW, Twitter has just gotten so much better since @cbadanes started to chime in a couple times a work day.

babies, puppies and polaroids.

Foo and Bobito



Addie and I



Just a couple of freaks at Tyler's wedding



Check out my new favorite iPhone App creatively titled "Shakeit". Turns a regular photo phone pic into a polaroid. And the world questions once more why they shut down that instant film factory.

I love this song.

I've loved this song, "The Curse" by Josh Ritter, since the first time I heard it. I just discovered this music video made by his drummer Liam Hurley who is also a puppeteer.

The Hunger Games

Do you know anything about obsessions? The Weigleins do.

Memorial Day Weekend was plain awesome. We went to Jacksonville, FL to celebrate Davis and Kelly's wedding. We also shacked up 9 deep in a hotel suite on this great resort. We were fed watermelon poolside by tennis shoe wearing attendants. Pregnant Noof wore a maternity bathing suit. I had a great time with some of my favorite people.

But I was distracted. Every chance I got a stole off by myself to read this book:



Tommy read the first 2 books in the Hunger Games series in two days. He ran to Borders (literally, remember we live next door to it) to buy the third, only to find it doesn't come out till August. Ahh!

To pass the time I am looking up trailers for the upcoming movie. By the looks of the comments, these videos are fan-made. WHAT? I love how crazed people are already! I haven't seen this kind of dedication since my freshman roommate wrote her own Harry Potter novel where Hermine and Snape were secret lovers and had a child together.



Wow... in watching this again I realize that it is a bunch of shots from other movies spliced together. Did I not see a bloody Bella and Edward in there? Oh man oh man, even better baby.

So, have you read it?

Academia and Modernity

Man, all my professors love Incorporating Youtube in The Classroom. Well, done and done. I have to do a presentation in my Social and Cultural Issues in Counseling and Education class next week on Latin Americans. Can't wait to open the discussion on discomfort and stereotypes with this clip.

Are we still coming of age?

Like students of literature, counseling students are taught to pick up on themes. During my first week at my practicum I heard multiple young adult clients says that they felt that somehow along the way, everyone else grew up and they got left behind. Two different clients in their early 20s said they still feel 14 or 15. "I don't know how to act, I don't know how to be an adult" they both said in different sessions.

Well, sure. Welcome to your twenties. Haven't we all felt something along those lines at some point?

I loved that line from my friend Will's poem the first time I heard it. It has become a question that I ask myself over and over again when I'm feeling inadequate: Am I still coming of age?

I use to think that being an adult was as simple as wearing a watch. That the watch itself was a signal you gave the rest of the adults that you were grown up, that you didn't keep time by a cell phone or Tamagatchi. I use to worry that I could never have children because I didn't know what to teach them to believe. But I was, and am, still coming of age: in my faith, in my identity, in my steadfastness.

It's cool though, I love youth and I love maturity. I will continue to teeter between the two until I quit getting carded. Or until my clients quit asking me, "How old are YOU? You better say older than 25." Aye dios...



video via booooooom

I pledged to myself that I wouldn't worship the sun until after I had my first dermatologist appointment. This is a tough promise to keep since the other pledge I had made was to go to the beach every day. Well, that dermatologist yanked a handful of moles off of me last week and I have been whimpering ever since. For someone who placed her dream home on the sandy land, this experience has made the thought of moving to the New Suburbia of Pungo all the more appealing.

In other news, I'm looking for a poster to put on my laundry room door. I like this one by TheBigHarumph, although its not nearly as large as I would like it.