The Thing About A Dog

Leave a comment

I don’t remember when I first fell in love with dogs.

I remember when a neighbors Bassett Hound got out while she was at work and I begged my dad to cut up the front door of our house so I could keep it in memory of him being returned to his owner.

And I remember sitting in a cage full of black and white fluffy puppies at the pound only to cry out “This one is mine!” Staking claim on the little tan mutt that would become my childhood gal. She really only liked my dad.

I don’t remember when I first fell in love with dogs. But I have always loved them. And I always will.

When it came time for me to get one of my own it was of no question that I would go to the pound, find the biggest – craziest pup in town, and love him until he fell to pieces. It was quickly pointed out to me that heels and big dogs do not mix, and perhaps a smaller animal was the way to go.

So my search began.

And went on.

And on.

And on.

I looked daily for 4 months to find Baxter. The drive to San Antonio was long and anxiety filled. Was I ready for a dog? Everyone told me no. Was he even actually a dog? Most people I had encountered on CraigsList at this point were fake or selling rats with painted on noses…

The moment they pulled him out of that car and my eyes locked onto his big ears and beady eyes, I knew a dog was the best thing I could have ever done.

Baxter has become my happiness. He is the first thing I see every morning… Him and all the paint that is no longer on my door due to his incessant scratching. And he is the last thing I pet before bed. More than that he has becoming our office mate, and the fat rolls we have all chosen to cry on at one time or another (though, don’t tell him we said that… he is sensitive). He is there when we have a rough day, and when we need an extra laugh. He loves to greet clients when they come over, and sometimes over whelm them with licks and jumps. he is a little bit ridiculous, and a lot a bit crazy. But we love him all the same.

He is our pup, and SLM would not be what it is without our little assistant!

SHELBY WRITES A BLOG

Leave a comment

Here is the thing. Every year, around this exact time (not always on purpose) I write a blog. And then I proceed to go 365ish more days without writing anything at all. Usually it is because I’m turning a year older and I am freaking out. This time it is because my business is in the midst of getting organized and this is one of the things my Project Manager, Connor, said I needed to do.

So here I am. Almost 27, and writing a blog.

I am still a mess. I still buy too many shoes and eat french-fries as the main course of most my meals. I still cry when I don’t get picked for a job. Something only my mom had the pleasure of experiencing until I started hiring people. My company is still growing, but after five years I finally feel like I’m getting a grasp on not being able to hold on.

And right now, right now I am listening to Ben Rectors “Old Friends” on repeat getting a very healthy dose of reality.

So why do I tell you all of this? Maybe because I don’t remember what I was supposed to write about. And a little because I forgot how good it feels to write. To sum up my ramble I will leave you with three things that you probably should not take to heart, but that I do:

 

  1. I don’t believe in chasing your passion. I believe in working hard and making your parents proud.
  2. I think you get one form of luck in life. My did not come in fortune or brains… It came in the people I get to walk beside.
  3. I think the success of a business comes from their logo, their sense of work, and how closely to the heart they hold their dreams.

 

In the weeks, and months to come– if we make it that far, this blog will be filled with helpful tips on marketing. A few stories about life. And a ton of info I’ve learned over the past five years. What it won’t have is definitive answers to success, because I just don’t know those. Until then… Please enjoy the photo of baby boss Shelby more than likely celebrating a victory of the toy (or dog) I just talked my dad into getting me.

BONUS TIP: Don’t underestimate the power of an accessory. This bow helped seal the deal on my childhood dog Sandy for sureeee.

25 Is Tough

1 Comment

My birthday is in a few weeks, and honestly I could vomit. In all seriousness turning 25 is really kind of freaking me out. And the more I say it the more people seem to be rolling their eyes. But in more honesty, why do I feel like the only one not holding it together?

Looking around I see two very distinct groups of people: There are those who are securely in their second or third year of a career, and those who have packed a suite case to run around the world.

Then there is me. In the corner, scratching my hives because I should have been so much further by now. In my mind 25 was always a time where I would have paid in cash for a car, have my career down pat, probably published a book, and own at least four pairs of heels with red soles.

None of these things have happened. And I’m not really sure why…

Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for where I’m at. To have a business that lets me work with creative people, and people in my life who love me to my flawed core. To have a head over my roof and all the vegan chili a girl could need. I take none of this for granted.

But there is a part of me that wonders where the rest of it goes. Where do the big dreams go? How do we work them into our present life? And at the end of it all, do we float or do we sink?

When I was 12 I wanted to be a professional singer. I even recorded a demo in the local mall. I begged and pleaded to move across the country. The passion was as clear as a pimple. And the only thing stopping it from happening were my parents realistic mindsets. As an adult though, they aren’t the ones stopping you. Nothing is stopping you.

I hear that the days go faster as you get older, but most of the time it already feels like I’m waking up to the night. Life is a really cool thing, and we get some really great opportunities. It’s just the not being able to lay out all the options and stare at them meticulously for days on end to ensure you choose the correct one that scares me.

 

But really though. When do we get the book of answers?

Do It Through Love

Leave a comment

There was this single moment a while back in which I did not have any work to do or any calls to return. Of course that meant my mind began to reel. Clouded by the thoughts of my past and the circumstance of my present life, I began to wonder why I can’t do more out of love. Why does my mind still run to disclosure? Still fault to defeat? Why can’t I simply love? Why can’t we all?

Wood Pushers Know Best

Leave a comment

This weekend I attended the X-Games. By attended I mean I purchased two new outfits and fretted up until the moment we entered the gates that I was wasting valuable work time. At that point I knew nothing about these hardcore sports, except that they closed off many streets in downtown Austin causing me to loose my shit. From that point on however, my shit became all about this thing we once called wood pushing.

I watched as skateboarders dropped in on monstrous ramps and turned tricks through a fabricated skate park. These were normal things. But there were also quite a few unusual things going on. Perhaps as trippy as the high many spectators were most likely experiencing. Like the fact that most of them busted at least five times. Even more unusual was that not one of them was upset by it. And they showed genuine excitement for those competing against them.

All of the sudden things felt much like the time I thought I was watching the basketball finale but really it was the first game of 500 games to qualify a team for the final bracket which could eventually place them in the championship game. So like… it wasn’t even called the finale after all.

Being a cheerleader (shocking, I know) my perception on competing has always been that of a more harsh tone. Our motto was more like: If you weren’t first you should just quit. We HATED any other gym that would be in our category. We even some times hated the girls on other teams in our own gym. We cried the moment a stunt dropped or someone busted in a tumbling pass. And worst of all, we had crazy cheer moms breathing down our necks.

Skating doesn’t. They look to have compassion for the others in their sport. They seem to understand that it isn’t about failure not being an option, but instead knowing failure can be overcome. And most of all they weren’t competing to win, they were producing a masterpiece.

Skating is like the smart girl in your math class. Really cool and pretty under the glasses, but usually looked over because of them too.

It’s safe to say I have a new found respect for the Van wearing fellas that once roamed those middle school halls. And kind of wish I would have taken more seriously the meaning behind that pink studded belt purchased in bulk from PacSun. Wood Pushers really know where it’s at.

After The One

Leave a comment

They tell you life is cut and dry. As if things work or they don’t. As if we still live in the vein existence of a black and white television coated with accurate simplicity. They tell you about princesses and the princes that carry them away. They speak on the importance of obtaining a degree, or two, or three. They suggest you fold to the pressures of our societal norms: save money, vacation with a purpose, find the one who makes your heart seep like sand through the cracks of your hands only to coat the exposed skin. Or if nothing else, pay your bills. They tell us all of these things in hopes of guiding our decision into a practical conundrum. They tell us these things in hope to spare an ounce or two of lung puncturing pain.

Of nauseating thought.

Of stomach wrenching sadness.

There was this point after college where life seemed set. In a relationship with a breathtaking man, a ground breaking career on the horizon, and a handful of close friends to lean on in lack luster times of need.

Then all of it came to an end. Came slowly breaking down onto the floor of a 400 square foot efficiency.

My career became spent through the decision to move home. My heart physically sickened by lost love. And a gaping hole pushing any ounce of security out of the world so precisely planned. The life of a washed up 20-something was starring at a sunken cheeked, black eyed, outline of the person I could never be.

It took three months to go a day without crying. Five months to let go of social stipulation. Ten to go a day without thinking of him. And twelve to understand the universe had placed me in the exact right position.

They tell you all of these things that seem great in theory though neglect to tell you pain-stakingly plausible outcomes. Perhaps it is a cover, or perhaps a constant fault of the generations before. The only problem with it, they never tell you what happens after the one.

But There Is Peace

Leave a comment

This weekend I pulled up my shorts, tied a shirt around my waist, and traded in heels for Keds. It all felt very unfamiliar. But I bit my upper lip and drug the hipster print wagon piled high with floppy hats, laptops and Fossil bags across a dirt filled camp sight.

I was in Marfa, and all I could really think was how this wasn’t Hawaii.

We walked streets with out seeing a single soul but our own. We viewed mind changing art installations that consist of only cement blocks in a field. Looked up to a sky full of bright beaming stars which might have actually plucked out a piece of my heart. And met people. People who had just finished law school. People that have an every day life of simplicity. And people who were biking across the country. Everyone was doing things. Everyone was living.

I watched out of the car window as dirt turned into hills, which crawled up into mountains. I noticed the definition of the sky. Shocking what one can see when their head isn’t parallel to a computer screen. I did this thing that someone once told me was the only way to live. I saw through eyes and not a phone screen.

It was a trip full of good conversation, overflowing hearts, and one incredibly awkward photo in which I hope my hap hazard stance will be something to bind us for years to come. My heart felt a burst much like the one my stomach did while eating the most bomb grilled cheese sandwich one mouth has ever met.

And while I experienced these feelings so hard to put into words, all around us was pain. Pain being construed by us. We, the bodies that carry us through life, were destroying things.

To the angry and the sad, the mistreated and misused. To the hateful and the hurt. To those who hold pride in something which is not fueled by positivity. To you I am no one. Just a girl who sucked up her city life style for one weekend to tromp around in dirt. But I am one of you. We are all one of each other.

We can choose to fight or choose to hug. It sounds simple and mildly pathetic to say in context not associated to two kids on a playground with scraped knees produced by pushing. But at the end of the day they both hold the same outcome. To choose love brings us together hand-in-hand. To choose hate brings us together in the end.

No matter what you believe in, we are all buried in the same exact ground. Our hands are laid across our chest in the same exact manner. Our bodies covered with the same exact dirt. And our loved ones grieve in the same exact way.

By killing we are only crossing paths more quickly. By hating we are only dropping others off to hold our space in line. I wish for someone, anyone, to answer this one simple thing: Is it truly worth your heart beating anger until you become part of an earth that can form nothing but love?

Save

I Am Irrational

Leave a comment

They say the answer to living a happy life is finding your passion and making that your career. I don’t know which “they” people are referring to, and I am also not sure that this is the answer. Of course, if you can find your passion and successfully make a good standard of living over night all the power. But if you are in any way a normal human being this takes time, and life doesn’t wait for you to pay bills.

Personally, I think the secret to being happy comes from a different place. I believe it comes from the place of irrational thought.

My life has been made up of only irrational gestures. From ditching my college degree’s given field of work to move home to my childhood desk, to learning every Kings Of Leon song in hopes to impress a boy I was too awe-struck to speak too. Frankly the only difference from me and someone in an insane asylum is that white is not my color, so I would never wear a straight jacket. That, and I put my irrational thoughts into action.

It is in the most insane of moments I have learned we live in a field of hope. It is in the times that we fear the most, and others fear the most for us, that great things happen.

I decided to leave an incredibly well esteemed university that was a mere hour from my parental dwellings to treck into a land of dust storms and physically pressing winds. No, Texas Tech did not hold a candle to Baylor in academia, number of students who’s parents made in the millions, and dorm room space, but it did give me the opportunity to work an internship that turned into a job and realize my future all by the mere age of 21.

Another great instance in which I used irrational behavior to shape my life was in August, when I moved from a 400 square foot efficiency into a down town apartment. My mom was less than thrilled as I packed up boxes and checked my band account once last time. It made no sense in my mind why she was so worried, the remaining $2 balance in no way concerned me.

See, irrationality is great in both life changing, and life threatening experiences.

In neither sense was it understandable for me to make the moves I did, but in both the outcome was just. I wasn’t acting on irrational impulse in hopes to make something happen, I was doing it because inside I knew my life was changing for the better. Yes, I could have easily gotten into an apartment in which my rent check would have bounced, I’m sure both my parents were stashing their credit cards for the moment I came running. But I knew that by putting myself in a position of irrationality I would be forced to do more, and take one step closer to my passion.

Save

Where I Wasn’t 6 Months Ago

Leave a comment

Here is the thing about life: I know nothing about life. But what I do know is that time moves on wether we like it or not. No human can physically stop in a moment, we can only remember to take moments as they come and capture a mental picture for those times that seem too good to be true.

The other thing I know about humans is that we are really good at focusing on the bad. when I look in the mirror every morning I am not saying how awesome my eyelashes are, or how not washing my hair but once a week has allowed it to grow into a frame fitting cut. No, I look at the fact that I could lose a few more pounds, and that my legs don’t have one of those odd gaps that might not actually exist.

So when I look back at where I was six months ago it is only fair to start thinking of all the things I have yet to accomplish. Like where is my million follower blog, and coinciding book deal? What about those 5 more clients I wanted to have? None of these things are sitting at the front of my silver platter.

Then I catch myself.

Sure, we are not where we want to be, but we have got to stop thinking that way. Not that I’m asking to neglect our condescending mentalities. Just simply put a spin on them. Like  the spin I put on the story of me crashing my car into a tree the day before senior year. It wasn’t a bad thing that little Susie was mangled into pieces. It was clearly meant to happen and invite the option for me to get the dream Jeep I always wanted. Of course that came a year after driving around a horrid bench seat Pontiac that was older than I. We simply can’t win them all.

Six months ago I wasn’t able to get through a full day without crying. I also wasn’t nine months out of a life changing break up. Six months ago I wasn’t able to go into a bar without getting crazy eyes and fearing my survival. Now I can drink a whole drink with ease. I wasn’t able to confidently smile at a stranger, or hold a conversation with someone I hadn’t known for at least 10 years.

You would have never caught me stepping foot onto the grounds of ACL, let alone running to retrieve passes. Six months ago I wouldn’t have put down my computer for even the most perfect pair of Manolo Blahnik’s, and now I can spend an entire day (minus a few hours before others wake) only mildly panicking that I will miss something.

But most of all, 180 days ago I would have never been able to tell you just how lucky I am. How taking six months to open my eyes would inevitably shed light on this thing I call life. Where in times I used to think I had no one to relate too I had these people who have been there all along. I wouldn’t have been sitting at a brunch table laughing to tears, so full of love I couldn’t even manage to eat the brunch food. I wouldn’t have understood that I am so much more than myself. I am my family. My friends. Those who have stolen my heart and don’t even know it.

We are all so much more than the things we have or have not accomplished and we so rarely understand that. When you surround yourself with the right people, and the right work, you begin to understand yourself. But until then we will think of the negative in a bad way, when really it is the best thing that ever happened to us.

And I think  that is pretty awesome.

 

I Choose Neither

Leave a comment

Perhaps my number one talent in life is watching TV. For a long time I kept my talent under wraps. People tend to get jealous of those who have an innate ability to keep their eyes pointed in one direction for hours at a time. For me TV is more than just a way to pass the time. It is a life lived from the comfort of my couch (or bed as this mornings work regime has it).

With each new show comes a new adventure. I take time is immerse myself in the latest shows, and breathe in the characters story lines. My latest obsession, and a rather long winded one, has been captivated in How I Met Your Mother. Not to ruin anything for those who have not seen it, and to join the masses on this statement, but I absolutely HATED the ending. And here is why:

For me the journey of HIMYM was a very real one. As those around Ted grew into lives of marriage and career changes he grew into nothing. Time after time he was left with a crushed spirit and no understanding of why life wouldn’t present his better half. He did everything right, yet was the only one who seemed to always get it wrong.

But that is just the thing about life, we don’t get the opportunity to chose. We can’t pull our careers or our love lives out of the closet like a winter coat or a yellow umbrella. We must roll with the punches and take things as they come. We can notice the good, but we can’t shield ourselves from any of the bad either.

We don’t get to decide which of our ex’s will get married before us, or how many of them wont decide they want us back. We can’t get up each morning and tell our bosses they can’t yell at us today. We can however, go through our entire lives only to think we made the wrong choice, or we can let life guide us to the right ones.

In the end I think HIMYM taught me that we don’t actually get to chose. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Save