The daily card, week 15

So I am currently in Mauritania and still making daily cards. But because my card-posting schedule is behind my card-making schedule, these are from a couple weeks before I left.

The "Ouch!" card is the fruit of messing up my back. I don't know exactly why it started - it hurt after I ran five miles on Saturday and so, like a totally sane person making good choices about her body, I ran another five miles on Sunday and it hurt after that too. (#humblebrag) I went to Bar Method the next morning and felt okay, but after I got out of the shower it hurt so badly that just blow-drying my hair made me wince in pain. So listen to your body was a major lesson learned that week. I made the card at the end of my sick day, inspired by pain and by Daredevil on Netflix.

A couple Sundays ago, my parents took us to see a play about Justice Scalia at the Arena Theater (only in DC, right?) The play starts with the actor walking out on stage humming along to an opera and, since I wasn't yet immersed in the story, the flicker of a thought crossed my mind that he looked silly. And then immediately after I admired the bravery and vulnerability of risking looking silly in front of a packed house. I realized he was Teddy Roosevelt's, and more recently Brene Brown's, man in the arena. For this card, I thought about using stamps or basically anything that would let me avoid freehand drawing, but decided that sketching - loosely, imperfectly, even a bit cartoonishly - was the best way to get the idea across. Made me think about what I can do to spend more time "in the arena" myself. 

I'm off!

May is going to be super crazy and super fun. On Monday, I'm flying out to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania for work. (I work in democratic development in North Africa.) I haven't been in just about two years now so I'm so thrilled to be headed back. Photos are from my last trip in April 2013. I'm excited to hang out at the port de pêche, to drink camel milk, and to support our programs with political parties and civil society - this time with two more years of professional experience under my belt and slightly less rusty French. These work trips can be intense but are definitely a huge perk of my job.

I'll be in Nouakchott for about ten days, then I'll fly from Paris to Houston for a long weekend with the fam. (Luckily the climates of Mauritania and Texas are very similar so packing will be a cinch. I'm excited for some serious beach time.) Then I'll have about ten days in DC - long enough to check on my new backyard garden, run a 10k I am bound to be unprepared for, and get things in order at work before heading off for a ten-day adventure in Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico. (I.e. more beach time. It's a tough life.) I'm so excited to explore a new-to-me part of the world and I think I'll definitely be ready for a vacation at that point.

So that's all to say, posting is going to be a bit irregular here for the next month - though I'll still try to get daily cards up on Wednesdays since I'll still be making daily cards. But I will hopefully be able to pop in occasionally with pictures and thoughts from my travels. I think it'll be a good chance to step back a bit and write a bit more off-the-cuff.

Here's to adventure!

The daily card, week 14

I am not really a closed book. (Sharing thoughts with strangers on the Internet is probably a spoiler alert.) But I am not a completely open book either. And aphorisms aside, most everyone else exists somewhere in the middle between the two. I think it's endlessly fascinating, what people share and what they keep to themselves, and the lines are different for everyone. This was one of those phrases that got stuck in my head one day - we often refer to ourselves or to others as open books, but never the opposite - and so it made its way onto a card.

Other highlights: the last of the 30 Rock cards and Cleveland Dyngus. And speaking of what we share and what we keep to ourselves... that card is blurred because some things that happen at happy hour should stay at happy hour. :)