10 Things I'm Loving Lately | July '18
Y'all thought I forgot about 10TILL this month, didn't you? Well, joke's on you, because I (totally did but I remembered right at the last minute and) made it at the buzzer.
Without further ado, 10 things I'm loving lately:
After months of stocking away paycheck leftovers and scrolling C2C websites, I finally invested in a Fujifilm X-T20 camera and a 35mm lens. It’s the first “real” camera I’ve owned since high school, and I’ve so loved getting to know it. There’s just something about that shutter click that is the most satisfying thing in the world.
After spending the past few years in Virginia full-time, my mom’s parents just moved back to Wimberley. They had a ranch there while I was growing up, and as much of my childhood took place there as it did in Austin. I love that town and I love the land there. (In fact — this is a bold claim, but I think I’m ready to make it, I don’t know — Wimberley might be my favorite spot in the entire state of Texas. Seriously.) Now that they're back in driving distance, I visited a couple weekends ago and sat on their porch and ate enchiladas and soaked up the hill country. It was good for the soul.
My room has a pretty large northeast-facing window that lets in the best morning light every sunrise. I’ve gotten into the habit of opening my blinds right before I go to bed so that I wake up to it spilled all over my walls. It makes me a better person that day, I think.
The marketing/design and software development teams at RightNow work in a big, collaborative workspace we call The Lab. For the past three months, someone — not sure who, but shoutout to them — started monthly Lab cornhole tournaments. We get an email at the start of the month that lets you sign up if you want to take part, randomly assigns partners, and then we compete against each other, bracket-style, on our breaks throughout the day. Someone procured a trophy for the winning team, and our IT director started a Twitter account to document the action. It’s quickly become one of my favorite things.
I made a vehicle switch at the beginning of the year, and for the first time in my life — probably because I’m now paying my own car-related bills, let’s be real — I’ve made a concerted effort to stay super on top of car maintenance. It turns out that actually getting oil changes and tire rotations and getting your brakes checked occasionally and things like that make for a much happier car that you don’t constantly have issues with and wonder if it will break down on some highway in Lampasas or the like. Who knew?! Not me! This is wonderful! (So I guess basically what I’m loving is being more responsible? Yeah.)
I’ve been camped out in the book of Isaiah for the past month. The first half is all about the failures of and subsequent consequences for the Israelites, and it's the worst, mostly because of how much you relate to it. The second half, though. The second half. It’s the best. It’s the promise of all the redemption to come; and then you realize, on this side of the story, a lot of it has. It gives me goosebumps. It gets me fired up. It reminds me who I am, all the faithfulness fulfilled, all the undeserved promises I get to live in. Scrawled in the margin at one point: “SECOND-HALF ISAIAH GETS ME STOKED."
When I’m working on a longform writing piece like I currently am, I try to avoid entertainment that might strongly influence my own piece and give my brain a break. The Popcast has been perfect for that. I don't even care about pop culture, but they’re hilarious. If you need something mindless and funny, 10/10 would recommend.
Marco Polo. I know, I’m the last person in the world to download this app, but my cousins talked me into it last month and it’s been fun to chat back and forth with them where I can see their faces. And it’s easier than FaceTime because you don’t have to coordinate schedules! Guess I should have listened to the bajillion people who told me about it before. Whoops.
Maybe only Texas people will fully appreciate this, but I threw down eleven dollars at Walmart a few weeks ago to finally get some sun shades for my car. Best money I’ve spent all summer. You think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.
I randomly started watching Fearless, which is a Netflix documentary series on PBR, a few weeks ago. Why, I don't know, but I got sucked into it to a truly disturbing degree. I almost never take the time to watch shows, and yet there was a solid week of my life in which every day I was genuinely excited to get off work so I could go home and watch my bull riding show. In my defense, the series is incredibly well-produced, and it specifically follows the Brazilian riders on the circuit, which gave it a really unique perspective. The day I realized there were only six episodes and I’d watched all of them was terrible. I was so upset. I was upset that the show was over, and I was upset that I was upset about a bull riding show being over. I coped by going down a very deep PBR YouTube rabbit hole and promising myself that I would try to go see the tour live in Austin in September and all of this is very embarrassing but I'm sharing it as further proof that this show is very good and I am very serious about you going and watching it. Thank you.
That's my 10TILL for the past couple months. What are yours?
