I’m psyched. Why? Because I just spent the last fifteen minutes consuming a website that just launched.

Wait – what? Yes, consuming.

It’s no secret that I have a love of words and language. And we all know that a picture says a thousand words. But what happens when the two marry and words create an image?

Meet TEKST Artist

TEKST is a 366-day experiment where each piece is a one-of-a-kind create made up completely of words.

Like this one he created for the band, Pepper, with the lyrics to their song, Wake Up; this video is the official music video for this song. And this one he created for Apple fans everywhere using the text from Steve Jobs’ opening keynote in 1983.

He creates each piece by doing what you and I do every day on our blogs, on Twitter, Facebook, and even the archaic action of ‘forwarding’ an email – by “remixing” ideas. In TEKST’s words:

This “remixing” of ideas can even be seen in each and every art piece. I use quotes, audio tracks, even imagery originally created by others. I have gone to great lengths to credit each source along the way. I believe that every facet of each piece has been created under what would be considered “fair use”. At no point was/is it my intention to outright steal content that doesn’t belong to me. I will happily add/adjust proper credit that is found to be incorrect or missing.

366 One-of-a-Kind Works of Art for Sale

Want to know the best part? He’s selling each TEKST art project for the price of the day of the calendar – that’s $1 on January 1, $2 on January 2, $3 on January 3, etc. with original text-inspired artwork that he’s already created for the first half of the year and artwork commissioned by you the second half of the year.

Why I dig TEKST

TEKST Artist is a dear friend of mine. When we met last March, this project was an idea and didn’t even have a name yet. I love how it’s evolved over the past year and I admire TEKST’s decision to launch this project and invest everything he has into it:

Leaving a steady job to “shoot for the moon” and pursue a career as an artist (especially after almost a decade away from the craft) is something else entirely.  I decided there was only 1 way to get up to speed- I’m going to make and sell art for 365 days straight in 2012, create a video for each one, and feature it right here on the homepage.

But as with most successful people, he didn’t do it alone. Art Alternatives sponsored every single one of his canvases and made the 366-TEKSTs possible. He also has an amazing wife, mentors, and friends. We’re all bought into this project when it was still an idea. And now that it’s launched, we’re all glad we did.

Time to get your TEKST on

Seriously, go check out the calendar. January 1 to June 15 are pieces of artwork that he already created. And starting June 16, you can commission TEKST to create your own piece for $168 – which is a pretty amazing price for a commissioned art piece!

Go, before the entire calendar has been purchased.

You can purchase the classic Macintosh piece that was created in the video linked above on June 15 or a modern “Fail Whale” ala Twitter on May 19.

I just chose and purchased my TEKSTs, have you?

This year, like every year, has been one filled with ups and downs, events that went down as planned and events that went awry, things that happened for a reason and surprises that revealed themselves at the most opportune times.

Today was perhaps the most perfect Thanksgiving ever. It started by John and I going out last night to the 10pm showing of The Muppets and coming home to finish making Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (thanks to a delicious recipe from Bill the Butcher). Then this morning started by going to CrossFit and doing a team WOD with two of my best CrossFit friends. Participating in today’s WOD was a big deal since I’ve been doing solo workouts and rehabbing my shoulder due to tendonitis and bursitis that I’ve had for a year and a half.

For Thanksgiving dinner, we went to my in-laws’ house. They were the hosts and we dined with them, my sister-in-law, her fiancé, John, my parents, and a family friend. The feast was complimented by laughter and now I’m home on the couch, blogging, while John and I are watching Harry Potter, which is kind of a tradition in this house.

It was the perfect Thanksgiving Day.

Thirty Reasons to be Thankful

In the tradition of last year, here is what I am thankful for this year:

• John – my support, my rock, my heart
• Building strength, physical and psychological
• New friends
• Old friends
• Friends who have moved from professional to personal friends
• Twitter BFFs and blogging buddies
• You, my reader
• My blog
• My new job
• My old job
• Mentors
• My family – my parents, my in-laws, my sisters, my brothers, my nephew
• Going to celebrate my nephew’s first birthday next week.
• Having control over my own schedule
• CrossFit
• My acupuncturist and my chiropractor
• Celebrating hump day
• Being a writer
• Mustaches
• Hipsters and the hipster-way-of-life
• Dancing, just because we can
• Cooking and baking at home
• Cuddling (even though my husband has dropped 50 pounds in the past year thanks to CrossFit, his hipbones are still fun to cuddle with)
• Listening to my gut
• Putting things in motion
• Not settling
• The ability, drive, and ambition to fix things that aren’t right
• Big ideas, implemented
• Do-ers
• Being comfortable in my own skin and appreciating who I am.

That last one is probably the biggest way to summarize all that has happened so far this year. 2011 has been a “building” year – personally, professionally, physically, and psychologically.

Thank you – for reading and being here; lamiki.com would not be what it is without you.

Thank you.

Now, I’m going to do what I told you not to do yesterday and log off to spend time with the first item on this list.

Last night I cheated, twice. This first was by not posting a blog when I’m participating in National Blog Posting Month (and at this time I’m trying to figure out if I’m going to back-date this post or just make up for it later). The second was I ate non-paleo food and drinks.

But I have a good reason why – John and I spent the evening at a friends house helping them choose their signature cocktail for their wedding this spring.

And while I could have chosen a paleo-friendly drink recipe, what good would my taste buds have been if I didn’t taste all the other cocktails and vote for my favorite? And then, what kind of friend would I have been?

That’s right, I cheated last night because I was being a good friend. And when we came home past the stroke of midnight, I was in no place to be blogging.

Mojito Mixology

Earlier this year, I decided to make homemade mojitos for the annual BBQ we host for our CrossFit friends. What I didn’t know was how impressive this skill would be until I posted a photo from the ‘dress rehearsal’ on Facebook and received a ton of comments about how hard it was to make a mojito at home and awe that I took on such a challenge.

I’ll let you in on a little secret – all I did was crack open a bar book that I received as a gift for my 21st birthday and choose the mojito recipe that was the easiest to make. I bought key lime and mint from the corner produce market, a gallon of Bicardi Rum at the liquor store, and everything else at the grocery store. Turns out that the key limes were key in making the drink sweet and not sour (which would have been the case if I used regular limes).

The recipe (parenthetic commentary are my own)…

Mojito

1 ounce fresh lime juice (fresh squeezed from key limes is best)
1 tablespoon superfine sugar
6 to 8 fresh mint leaves (roll each mint leaf in your fingers before dropping into the glass)
2 ounces light rum
3 to 4 ounces chilled club soda
Fresh mint sprig

Shaken, not stirred – Shake the lime juice, sugar, mint leaves, and rum vigorously with ice. Without straining, pour the entire contents of the shaker into a highball glass flamingo glass, and top with club soda. Garnish with the mint sprig. Complete with a straw.

Other than the mint sprigs, measure out each of the ingredients to keep the ratio (and taste) perfect.

Recipe adapted from the The Ultimate Bar Book: The Comprehensive Guide to Over 1,000 Cocktails (link to recipe).

The Secret to Impressing Your Friends

The thing that surprised me the most about serving about a gallon’s worth of mojitos at my party was how much people are in awe of special skills like cooking or following a recipe. I experience this whenever I bring a homemade pie to a dinner party.

From what some of my friends tell me, it’s like this – people who can follow a recipe usually can because someone showed them how to at one point in their life. And as I’ve learned from making pies and now cocktails from scratch, if you want to learn how to do something, all you need to do is find the directions and learn how to do it.

Violà! Instant party trick!

What’s the best cocktail you’ve mixed at home? And what’s the recipe?

One night recently, a friend asked a group of us a question that I didn’t have an answer for. It was one of those questions that you ask when getting to know someone and it’s one of those questions that you either know the answer to right away or you don’t. And while everyone in our group shared, one by one, I was scared that by the time it was my turn, I wouldn’t have an answer to share myself.

The question was: Who inspires you?

It’s a simple question, one that you can easily answer by choosing someone close to you who’s made an impact in your life or someone throughout history who has a quote that’s listed on a mug they sell at Barnes & Noble.

But sharing the name of someone who inspires you is like revealing the recipe to your secret sauce. It tells your audience—who honestly may be your best friends—who makes you tick, who motivates you, and who kicks you in the ass and tells you to get the fuck moving forward. And it gives your enemies the plans for how they can take you down.

So here’s another way to think about answering that question. My friend, Mouyyad Abdulhadi of Magic Carpet Blog, gave a talk at IgniteDallas about this subject. His talk is called “24 Years, 24 People, 24 Lessons” and is a snippet from his Ebook of the same name. The premise is he shares stories about 24 people in his life who have taught him something and inspire him daily.

The difference about how Mouyyad answered this question is that he found inspiration from a place that we all know but we always undercut – those we know in our daily, real lives. He also helps bring the question of “Who inspires you?” down from the podium that question has been cast upon. He shows that you can find inspiration not only from one person, but also from multiple people, and each can provide their own kernel that can move you.

I like this. I like that I don’t have to search for one person for all of my strength. I like that I can look to people in my real, every day life and I can admire things that they have done as a way to challenge myself.

If you ask me that question today, I will answer it differently than how I will answer it tomorrow, because inspiration has the ability to change, just like my goals, thoughts, and fears.

So now I turn the question to you, who inspires you? Or how do you see inspiration?

Photo Credit: Louwuselchen

Everyone knows the saying, “Behind every successful man is a woman.” And then I see an article that one of my friends shared on Facebook about the 10 women who secretly control the Internet (aka “the world”), and I have to ask – what’s with all the secrecy here, people?

The answer is obvious and it has to do with which pair of pants we put on in the morning and how we conduct ourselves in a room full of strangers. It’s the way we shake hands in public and how we introduce ourselves using only our first names. It’s the question of whether our actions are dictated by society or if it’s from the very nature of the “g” word – gender.

Learning “F”

I was 17 when I learned the “F” word. I had heard the “F” word before, but I never really understood what it meant and especially what it meant to me.

It came to me from the most obvious of places; a class called Introduction to Women’s History at the community college. I was still in high school and especially impressionable. So I did what every teenager did and I shared it with my best friend.

My best friend and I were revolutionaries without a revolution. We were like every single teenager on the planet who was looking to be a part of something but we weren’t too sure what that ‘something’ was. (This was also before Facebook.)

To us, feminism was an identity that we could wear proudly on our arm and let it stand that it stood for being who we as it is true to ourselves. It stands for knowing that we are strong, represents the gutsy, and tells us it’s not only okay to strive for what we want out of life, it’s required.

How this Feminist celebrates International Women’s Day

As a girl and a woman growing up in the U.S., a glass ceiling has never prevented me from achieving what I want to accomplish in life. But I know that’s not the case for everyone.

The role of women and girls in the world is constantly on my mind. I am fortunate to work for an organization that holds these values close to the core of their business. But there is so much left to be done and so much to do. Which is why today, on the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day, I’m proud to help power the launch of Give 2 Girls, a campaign that turns activism into action by empowering the women of tomorrow by giving to the girls of today.

Seriously, you should check it out the campaign and see how the Jolkona community is supporting this movement.

So as I clean up my desk, load this blog, and head to one of the few celebrations of International Women’s Day in Seattle, I need to send a few text messages to the women in my life who helped inspire and support me throughout my budding “F” word years. These are women who share their strength, knowledge, and beauty when I needed and when I didn’t know we needed it.

Happy International Women’s Day, Feminist Coming Out Day, and good ol’ Tuesday!

I’m going to celebrate with 100+ ladies and gents in Seattle. What are you doing to celebrate this momentous day?

Photo Credit: ego technique