My first hike up a mountain + ski down.

TWO Thanksgivings. Amazing friends in Aspen.

Sewing my ripped basketball sweats. I don’t know why I waited so long to do that, because having them not let in cold air is amazing.

This video:

Whole Foods Parking Lot video dude is a GENIUS. Literally some of the best rhymes I’ve ever heard.

Seeing two of my besties, who are dating, who I set up. Love love!!

Emily’s Chocolate Covered Cherries. Got me through the three-hour drive back from Steamboat seeing those crazy kids.

Snow Queen B&B.

See last week’s Feel Goods (Thanksgiving edition) here.

1. My amazing, supportive, happy family
2. PLPs of both sexes in Aspen, Austin, Arizona, D.C., Cali, and all around the world.
3. Denali’s 5th birthday and her new off-leash walking skills
4. All four of my grandparents are still alive
5. Texas
6. Being raised in Texas (You Know You’re a Texan When …)
7. Hymeadow
8. Pumpkin
9. My adventure to Aspen
10. Knowing what Love Is and loving it
11. Learning to ski and snowboard
    

    Yep, those are still dumpster poles

12. Blake Lively, for constant style inspiration and a huge girl crush
13. The colors teal and orange together
14. Wool socks
15. Airplanes, for visits to and from friends
16. Washington D.C., for being a wonderful home to my fb gf and my second fall home
17. My many friends who have found true love
18. Pickup basketball
19. Hot tubs
20. My new skis, which are long, fat, and badass
21. Pigeon pose, for eliminating IT band pain
22. Glitter nail polish pens
23. Confidence and grace, gifted to me by my parents and their raising of me
24. Press trips
25. My blog and her loyal followers, who read even when I don’t write about Austin
26. Football
27. Rekindled romance with reading
28. Learning how to curl my hair with a straightener (again)
29. Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Kate, Voegle, and Taylor Swift
30. Wine
31. My new travelin’ buddy, the iPad2
32. Gossip Girl, Hawaii Five-O, Hart of Dixie, 90210, Covert Affairs, Ringer, and Pan Am
33. Deep Hip & Leg Stretch yoga class
34. My life experiences
35. Lowered blood sugar
36. My new mittens, which are teal and warm
37. Pinterest
38. Pinterest
39. Pinterest
40. Handwritten notes and cards
41. Hot pink temporary hair dye
42. The Pitkin County Library and its incredible inter-library loan system
43. My hand-me-down down jacket (again … seriously, I would die without it)
44. The ocean
45. The internets
46. Adobe Creative Suite, I’m still holding on to the pirated version from my first-ever job (shhh don’t tell)
47. Kale
48. Newfound photography obsessionand friends who happen to have closeted photography interests
    

    Polar bear!

49. Twitter
50. The blow dryers with the nozzle attachments at Aspen Club
51. Ashley Turner
52. Bubble baths (with non-toxic bubbles, obvi)
53. Free Pints of Ben & Jerry’s
54. Free Pints of Ben & Jerry’s for Ripples of Hope for Children (more details coming soon)
55. US Weekly
56. Change … as in life, not coins
57. Drake
58. My mobile storage unit (aka yellow land rover)
59. Blogs and the bloggers who write them
60. Aspen Extreme friends who force me to do things I never thought I would do
61. Theme parties
62. Jhorts
63. Denali’s reflective collar so I can find her in the snow
64. Bubbly water
65. CrossFit
66. The Blind Side, it never gets old
67. The knowledge that you can hard-boil eggs in a toaster oven
68. ViX bikinis
69. A spiritual, open-minded family
70. Sunshine + Vitamin D + warmth
71. Cold-brewed coffee
72. Love … luv … lurve … loooove … I love all love
73. That the proliferation of infographics and cute pinterest sayings makes me think at the end of this post that I should have probably made it a graphic in Illustrator, and made it pretty. Instead of a list. Then people might have pinned it. PIN ALL THE THINGS!!

Classic Pass! Let the skiing and snowboarding commence!

Matsu Mondays … I ate FOUR handrolls. Is that a new record?

Elk burgers. Holy yum.

Impromptu pilates when “deep leg and hip stretch” class was cancelled … tiny micro-movement was NOT what my hips wanted but giggling throughout class with Nikita was worth every minute. All 45 of them.

Not one but TWO photo shoots! Juice and fashion, my two faves?

My health. My strength. My family. My faith. Optimism.

Carl’s annual Thanksgiving Wine Sale. 4 bottles of 2007 Buena Vista Carneros Pinot Noir? Yes please.

Robi landed in Aspen today! Watch out, town! Epic weekend ahead.

See last week’s Feel Goods here.

It’s a lucky day, right? 11-11-11!

QT with my Houston cousins

Suede protector! I tweeted asking for recs and found out there are suede brushes AND sealants! Now all of my suede shoes are protected from the intense weather that is an Aspen winter.

who knew I had so many suede shoes??

Kale, dried cherries, and parmesan cheese

Pickup basketball is back in swing! I’ve missed playing

A stellar surprise phone call leading to an impromptu visit from a bestie next week! So excited.

This monkey is asking the same questions as me: How does this thing work??

See last week’s Feel Goods here.

… we all know about Things We Forget by now, right? This and this are my other fave post-its, but today I’m loving, and missing, my friends. Also, as both of my parents are therapists, I do want to add that there is a time for therapy. But there is also a very important time for friends. They are awesome.

And thankfully, I get my therapy for free. Often over a home-cooked meal. So here’s to friends!

… and you gave me a Ralph Lauren down jacket. I have worn it every single day I have been in cold weather since.

I cannot thank you enough!

Friends are awesome

Love,

Me

We get on the topic of making friends in Austin. Both of the strangers (not me and Alexandra) say it’s hard to make friends in Austin. For the record, Alexandra and I met randomly at an event and have forged a friendship out of that, emailing regularly and meeting up every so often. She’s GREAT at keeping in touch. I don’t think she finds it hard to make friends, and I’ve often said Austin makes it easy to make friends. More on that in a minute.

So we started talking about HOW you make friends, and Alexandra declares that there are three groups of people who find it easy to make friends: people who are into live music, people who are into sports, and people who are hippie-ish or granola-y. I think this over. When I moved back to Austin (I’m a native but was away for school), I immediately sought out sports leagues, not only because I love sports, but also because I figured it’d be a great way to make friends (thank you, Austin Sports & Social Club, and I discuss this more here). I also went out quite a bit, but not to listen live music. And while I shop at Wheatsville, only eat free-range meat, recycle, and have a very active compost at the house, I don’t really consider myself a hippie. Nonetheless, I apparently had 1/3 of the advantages for making friends.

But I don’t think it’s just about what activities you do. It’s about the intention you approach anything in your life with. I moved home and said, “I have to make new friends now.” I didn’t hang out with my high school friends, and I looked at every event where there’d be new people as a chance to make friends. Always open-minded and open-hearted. It certainly wasn’t an immediate process, but I’m picky and I still found an amazing group of friends that continues to grow and expand to this day. I always credited my ability to find awesome new friends to Austin itself, for having a young, intelligent, diverse population of laid-back people. But if this isn’t true for 2/4 girls in the coffeeshop, where’s the disconnect?

So I’m curious … how did you make friends in Austin? If you’re from somewhere else or lived somewhere else, was it easier or harder to make friends? Where do you think we fall on the Easiness-of-Making-Friends Scale?

I’ve tried to explain Crossfit before and never been able to. I tried that Women’s-Only workout and it was fun; but I still couldn’t eloquently explain. So I’ll let my friend opening the Crossfit Austin gym do the talking:

These three pieces of explanation from the website sum Crossfit up the best:

• “Crossfit consists of short, intense workouts involving total body (compound) movements and constant variation.”

• ” … strength and conditioning system that is built on constantly varied, if not randomized, functional movements executed at high intensity. Our goal is to increase work capacity over broad time and modal domains. We train for efficiency and optimal performance in each of ten recognized fitness domains: Cardiovascular and Respiratory Endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.”

• “You will be trained in many fundamental functional movements.  You will participate in constantly changing workouts that combine body weight exercises, weightlifting, and other high-intensity drills that integrate cardio and strength challenges at the appropriate level.”

Basically, it’s a quick, tough workout designed to challenge different muscle groups with relatively simple exercises. The program is run by a Workout of the Day – WOD. You can do it solo or with the group, and until their gym opens, the fellas of Crossfit Austin (both attractive and single, BTW) are offering free workouts Monday through Friday (some mornings, some evenings) at Town Lake (under the bridge on S. First, just South of Town Lake, meet by the water fountains).

Schedule

Tonight, 7-9:30pm @ Six Lounge (4th & Colorado)

Tomorrow: Texas Exes Austin Young Alumni Group Happy Hour

Wednesday, October 15 from 5-8pm at Sherlock’s Baker Street Pub (9012 Research Blvd)

Come with friends to meet new people and hang out with fellow Longhorn fans! There will be drink specials and a live performance by LC Rocks, the 80s cover band, at 9:30. Everyone is welcome – Texas Exes members, non-members, and guests.
Click here for more information and to see who’s going.

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Well, perhaps an online community of runners? Daily Mile is a training website started by a cool local guy for logging workouts, talking about workouts, interacting with other runners, posting messages and encouragement, and more. It’s kind of amazing: a few weeks ago a friend pointed me to this site and there was a handful of users actively posting; now, it’s full of people talking, sharing, exploring, questioning, answering. It’s awesome! And it’s all from an Austin dude.

So no events. Go run. And then Rlog about it. Rog about it? Tlog about it? Trog about it? Training Log! Trog! Trog about it!