I’ve gotten a ridiculous amount of compliments on the photo I’ve started using for my icon on Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’m not an ugly person, but I’m not a serious contender for Miss America either, so getting this much attention over my photo is kinda weird. You’d think I’d bathed in buttermilk and hired a stylist or something, but all I really did was hire my friend Kyle Hepp, who’s a professional photographer, to take my picture. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank her and pimp her services.

Kyle is a girl (with a boy’s name, yes, she knows) who I met through our blogs. She is a US expatriate who lives in Chile for most of the year with her husband, Seba, who she met there during school. When I heard she’d be in Nashville last summer, I decided to trek down I-65 to meet her. I hired her to do a photo shoot too for several reasons.

I needed new promotional images of myself because everyone thought my hair was much shorter [...]

• Continue reading "The time I was shot (with a camera, not bullets)"

I always knew Drew Barrymore was prettier than me, but according to People magazine she’s more beautiful than everyone else too. She landed the top spot on their annual 100 Most Beautiful People list. And she has some awesome things to say about beauty:

“I just think happiness is what makes you pretty. Period,” she tells the magazine. “Happy people are beautiful. They become like a mirror, and they reflect that happiness.”

I second that, anyone want to third it?

When do you feel most beautiful?

Right after I’ve worked out and I’m sweating all over the place and my face is two different colors of white and red and my hair is half wet, half dry and I look like I’m about to have a heart attack. I feel like I’ve changed the shape of my body temporarily into something more flexible and strong.

I know lots of people feel embarrassed at the gym when their face gets red, but Drew makes a great point that exercise can be empowering.

“The only fundamental rule for me is to just [...]

• Continue reading "Let your freak-flag fly"