"Give them hell, honey."

This past Sunday, the world lost the biggest spitfire I've ever had the luck of getting to know. 

Good-bye Great Aunt Syble. You will be immensely missed.

I hope that you keep those boys in line up in heaven and that you continue to be as glamorous and beautiful as I remember. You advised me to give 'em hell and look good doing it. You were the epitome of humor, grace and put-up-with-no-one's-crap.

Syble and the boys

I will always remember what you taught me:

1. Keep my man in line, but make him think he's in charge
2. If you quit doing something you love you won't live longer, it'll just seem longer
3. If you should be doing something but you could be having fun, go with fun
4. Screw what everyone else thinks
5. The answer is always one more drink

     ...her genius goes on and on.

Uncle Cal, Aunt Syble, my beautiful mom and my baby head

I'll never forget the first time she and Uncle Cal picked me up from the Dallas airport in their 1970's olive green Oldsmobile boat of a car. We drove 35 miles an hour down the interstate with Syble randomly yelling "oh hush", "damn heathens" and "let's go Cal" while smoking her cigarettes she kept in a sequined pouch through her foot long cigarette holder. She always wore sunglasses and lipstick, always smelled of perfume. 

She loved that car. It was in mint condition and she told me that she often was asked in the Wal-Mart parking lot if she'd sell it but "no one is making my car into one of those damn low-riders".

Uncle Cal & I

I hope you are up in heaven dancing with Uncle Cal, laughing with Aunt Oneva and still putting my hard-ass papa, Coy, in his place. 

Drink a Colorado Bulldog or three, I'll share one with you from down below.

Pure attitude

I only hope that I can be the woman you represented to me. 

"Give them hell, honey."

Oh, I will. You did it for 90 years, it's my turn now.

Be the Match

Recently my heart was broken.

I reluctantly returned to my home town in July to spend some time with my parents. I have realized as I have gotten older that I enjoy their friendship and it's worth a weekend in Amarillo to get to see them. It just so happened that the same weekend was a 60th anniversary party for some close family members woven into a wedding for a distant cousin. We made the trek down to lovely Hereford, Texas, where the smell of money fills the air, on that Saturday afternoon for the festivities. For those of you not from West Texas, Hereford is a cow town. I assume you can figure out what the smell of money is.

We had a good time - sat through the longest catholic wedding and service imaginable, ate dinner, had a few beers and glasses of wine, ran into the anniversary couple (who, by the way, are still so incredibly in love it's quite endearing) and then unexpectedly I ran into my cousin Julie. Julie is my surprise cousin, you see. I worked at a trust company in Texas and overheard one of my new coworkers talking about his girlfriend and when he mentioned her unique last name, I knew she was related even though I had never met her. I already thought the world of him, so when the two of them got engaged, then married, then had their first child, Luke, I got to know and love both of them.

Julie is the girl who walks into a room and everyone smiles. The girl who is so bubbly that if you are in a bad mood, you can only not smile in her presence for a matter of minutes. Her joy and faith is just simply contagious. She's purely amazing and I love her heart to pieces. When I saw her at the wedding, I was elated. I hadn't seen either of them in quite a while and I even got to meet their new baby Anna. It was definitely the cherry on top of the night to catch up with them and hug their necks.

Then a week later I got the news. Julie is sick. Leukemia. They found it while she was pregnant with Anna. The day I saw her, the day she was so chipper and beautiful and happy, she was told she had 6 weeks to live. I was crushed. My heart broke. She's got a 2 year old and a 4 month old and she has been given such devastating news. And Thomas, such a sweet, stand-up, strong guy. All I wanted to do was help, but I felt so helpless.

I have followed Julie's blog ever since I found out about her illness. She's been documenting her treatments and daily life. Then there it was one day - my opportunity to help. Julie needs a bone marrow match in order for a transplant to take place. She's had trouble finding one, but she wrote about Be the Match a national marrow donor program. It's fairly simple on the front end, fill out the information online then they mail you a kit and you take mouth swabs and mail it back. I read through everything online, thought seriously about it, then sent in for my kit.



Once I got it, the enormity of it hit me. I hate needles. Like pass out hate. I'm not sending this in with the hope that I'm blindly attempting to help, but secretly hope to not get matched, I want to get matched. I had to sit with it for a solid week and prepare myself in knowing that sending this off could mean lots of needles or even surgery. But it also means something else - the possibility to greatly improve someone's life. The chance to truly help someone. I'll take a few needles for that.

So I swabbed my mouth, said a little prayer, and am mailing it off in the morning.

Please say a little prayer, a few words of encouragement, cross your fingers, send good vibes and lend positive karma to Julie. She's doing amazing and still just as cheerful as ever through all of this. I wish my heart was as big as hers.

Also, if you feel the desire, check out Be the Match. Maybe it'll pull your heart strings as it did mine.

July Wrap-up

Yeah, I now. July was over ten days ago and yet I am just now writing my wrap-up. I'm perpetually late SO in Jennifer time, I'm early.

July closed out with a fervor of activity. I wrote my monthly stipend of note cards and read one new book pictured above. I highly recommend this quick, easy read in which I stole my new motto: "Mary Poppins in Silk Stockings".

The day after my awesome, but headache and dehydration inducing birthday party, B and I rode in a sixteen mile, obstacle course laden bike ride. Yeah - that hurt. The New Belgium Urban Assault Race included such things as slip and slides into mud pits, bobbing for beers in a giant pool and adult size tricycles. I hated life for about the first twelve miles, but then we gave up and retorted to the free beers and food trucks allotted to us. I'm hard core. On that note: if you have a chance to try Stick it to Me go for the Korean BBQ. You will thank me. I even met a new friend while waiting for our snacks. Her name is Jeanne, she's a doctor from Wisconsin, and she's totally down to earth and cool!

Afterwards we hit up Rock & Roll Sunday at one of our favorite brunch places Japoix, whom never fails to impress (more on this in a later post), then on to the worlds shortest concert. Sister Hazel playing at Hudson Gardens for a mere $20 sounded amazing. Little did we know that they would only play for about an hour. It was odd, but I was too exhausted to be disappointed.

After my monthly travel to Oklahoma the next week, yeah, be jealous, I closed out the week with an amazing tweet-up at the Brown Palace Hotel including many drinks, delicious hors d'oeuvres, mini massages and some of my favorite people.

Friday was O.A.R. day at Red Rocks and I was a dancing mess singing at the top of my lungs. That was definitely my favorite concert so far. B had a blast, too!

The month ended with a bang: beer brewing! Denver Craft Ninjas held the event at Beer at Home in Englewood. We labored and sweated (literally) all day over, but not into, our concoctions, drank beer, learned and laughed. My group made the Jasmine IPA shown above, the Belgian Wit another group made is pictured beside it. I even made another new friend, Josh, and I'm joining his soccer team!

Anyone have a clever name for our beer? We are on the hunt...

So as you can see it was a busy couple of weeks. I'm definitely living up to my desire to get out more. August is already looking like it'll blow July out of the water. I hope to see your lovely faces along this journey!