Cranberries and Cheese

I'm still alive!

2012-01-05T21:29:00.002-06:00

I kind of hate blogging right now. Perhaps it's because of my unpredictable internet connection. However, I thought I could at least give you a few updates with projects I'm working on or have completed. And because a blog about projects without pictures is really boring, here they are!

Finished my color wheel project. Here are the first six. The blue and purple one is along the lines of the orange and yellow one.

My dishwasher broke and they left behind one of the shelves. Naturally this became a hanging collage. I call it the Magpie Nest. Basically anything shiny or interesting goes up there.


I'm experimenting with art. This is an illustration from The Six Swans. It's supposed to reflect the transformation moment. Still a piece I'm working on.

So, this is my couch. It is actually the couch my mother used for her first apartment. She and her mom found it at a flea market and my grandmother made the cushions. Yes, these cushions are over 30 years old. I already got rid of the rocking chair cushions but needed to save some $$ to make cushions for the couch. Upholstery foam is expensive! As is upholstery fabric. On January 2, I grabbed my Joann Fabric app on my phone and went to town. Foam was 50% off, and I used a 40% off coupon for the fabric.

I could only really afford one cushion, but still. I have enough fabric for another cushion, and I'm going to make some throw pillows out of some other fabrics I fell in love with at the store. If I use my coupons wisely, I won't have to pay full price once! Also, in a testament to my insanity and sheer hatred of measuring and fear of sewing machines (we're working on it), I hand-sewed this bad boy. Eventually I'll probably pull out the stitches and put in a zipper.

My open letter to Ann M Martin

2011-12-20T22:18:00.001-06:00

Dear Ms Martin,
As a child, I loved being read to but really didn't get into reading. The books that my school offered were boring for the bright second grader that I was, and it seemed like I would never get hooked. That is, until I stayed late at Children's Courtyard and pulled out "The Ghost at Dawn's House."
I was so enthralled that at eight years old I stayed up until 11:30 reading My parents ended up making me go to sleep and not letting me finish the book because it scared me so much (I showed them, though, I read the last page!). But I had found the series and I was hooked.
Kristy's Great Idea, Claudia and the Bad Joke, The Truth about Stacy, I read all I could get ahold of. Babysitting became my main goal. My dad made a deal with me: since the babysitters' club sitters were 11-13, I could start sitting at 12. I read the tips for sitters two years before that, and I became fascinated with the way kids act.
Furthermore, I began reading. Not just reading, devouring books. I read all sorts of series and some junk books, but also read and fell in love with Greek Mythology, the Ramayana (at 10!), and The Chronicles of Narnia. I also decided I would be a famous...what? Poet? Novelist? Both? Either way, I started writing.

As a babysitter, I was exposed to all sorts of parenting styles (and some abusive parents) and became interested in parenting and child development. As I planned for college, some part of my goal to be a counselor was to help children like those in my care as a sitter.
I continued writing. I took college classes in high school (just like Janine!) and was second in my senior English class. By now I was reading Bronte, Austen, Robin Mckinley, Juliette Marillier, and in love with Tennyson.
In college, I majored in psychology. I wrote one of my final papers, my theory of psychology, stating that everything comes down to development. Throughout this time, I continued babysitting and nannying. I also began writing a novel.
After college, I took a year to figure out what exactly I wanted to do. I worked in child care and became a nanny for another family.
As I pursued my graduate career, I realized my heart still sided with children. I wanted so badly to make their environments safe and supportive. With this in mind, I focused on parent education.
In May, I received my Master's Degree in Family and Child Studies. I am currently working at a preschool that focuses on parent education. I hope to eventually work as a doula, childbirth and parenting educator, and general facilitator of family empowerment and problem-solving.
In addition, I have kept writing my novel. I also started writing short stories and re-tellings of my favorite folk tales. I tell stories whenever possible, and hope someday to have my work published to other young readers.
So, as strange as it seems, I owe a lot to you, Ms Martin. Maybe without your books I may have started reading and writing. Maybe without the stories of your seven sitters I would have become interested in child development on my own. Maybe, but I choose today to recognize the part you have held in my life. Maybe someday you will google search yourself and this blog will come up. Maybe you will never see it. Either way, thank you for your impact on my life and the lives of others.
Very sincerely yours,
Skatej

2011-11-20T11:18:00.001-06:00

You know, I've been thinking about it, and you can't really call it "the one that got away" if you just looked over the edge of the boat and said "that's a nice looking fish."

Farm box again

2011-09-28T20:11:00.001-05:00

Today, I got swiss chard again, some sort of greens (thai? I think?), sweet potatoes, some hot peppers, some sweet peppers, a very long cucumber, a very short zucchini (or is it the other way around?), a cantaloupe, about a billion roma tomatoes, and some APPLES! It's fall!
I see a lot of italian food in my future. What am I going to do with these greens?

I have a new blog!

2011-09-26T21:56:00.004-05:00

I know, a bit excessive, right? It's not necessarily a new blog, but an additional one. Let me explain.
Today is my 25th birthday. Birthdays usually come and go uneventfully and a lot of people ask me if I feel any different and I say no.
This year, though, I feel different. I feel older, but in a good way. And I've decided this year is my year. Not only that, but I'm going to prove it.
Hop over to This is my year...and I'm going to prove it and journey through the year with me.

Never quite mermaid-like

2011-09-18T21:28:00.002-05:00

This weekend, I was taken with the unshakable urge to do something different, something drastic with my hair.

I've long known that my very fine, very thin curly hair will never be quite mermaid-like. However, I've suddenly realized how much I like short curly cuts.
Looook at the wonderfulness:
I just love all of these. I think my curl patterns more closely fit the lower right hand picture. My dear friend Catia is smitten with the upper right hand cut, and I really appreciate the lower left.
I hope soon to get a proper chopping from a good stylist who understands curly hair and how to cut it (a rarity). This time, in particular, I plan to go in for consultations instead of just showing up somewhere for a cut. I'm so tired of that feeling of dismay as soon as I see the stylist (the "curl expert") pick up a fine-toothed comb and drag out my drenched curls into straight lines (the carnage!), saying something like "It'll be fun to see how much they shrink up!"
I'll be sure to keep all of you posted, because I'm sure you have nothing better to do than wonder about your bloggy friend's hair.

Oh well

2011-09-10T20:17:00.000-05:00

So, I got my master's degree in May.

It was pretty spectacular.

I got to see some dear ones.

The only thing was, my cap was on backwards the entire time.


	Photobomb courtesy Benjo

And no one told me.

Farm box take 2

2011-08-31T19:56:00.002-05:00

this week, I got:
A butternut squash
A couple zucchini
limes
peaches
pears
corn
swiss chard
a bag of peppers
a bag of lima beans

I'm so excited about this week! I'm going to make a modified version of Mexican street corn, and I think I'm going to do something combining the limes, pears, and peaches (jam? bread?), and maybe something involving the peaches and the peppers. What do you do with swiss chard? What about butternut squash?

Farm Boxin' it up!

2011-08-17T17:23:00.002-05:00

So, I recently joined (because I had a groupon) a service which provides fresh local produce to your door every other week. Today, my first-ever farm box arrived!
I was so very excited!
Within were:
A head of butter lettuce
a bag of lima beans
a bag of okra
three tomatoes
four pears
a canteloupe
two acorn squashes
two zucchinis
two yellow summer squashes
two cucumbers

Basically, I'm stoked. I quickly read up a few recipes. The lima beans will probably be my dinner for tonight and lunch tomorrow. For the rest, I have great plans! My friend Emma is visiting for dinner Friday so I am making acorn squash with chile-lime vinaigrette, canteloupe sorbet (that's actually in the works right now), vanilla roasted pears (I kind of don't want to wait until Emma gets here to make these...but then they would be gone before she came. Not so hospitable.) and cucumber melon salsa.

I'm super excited to see Emma as she's been away at camp all summer and I've not seen her since I first moved in around the week of July 4.
I was going to post some pictures but my internet connection is precarious. We'll try again with the finished products, which I'm sure will look much prettier.

Would this be considered emotional constipation?

2011-08-11T22:03:00.002-05:00

I feel like there is so much inside of me that I can't get out. I feel like I'm one of these:

Only with all the shapes inside. And I don't know what they look like. And I don't know what the holes look like. There are so many feelings I can't name swirling around. I have no idea how to release them. I don't even know if I could label them.
Dance was the closest thing to getting all that out I ever had. A physical, intellectual, and emotional release. I'm going to have to start using that outlet soon. I don't think the neighbors would take lightly to some primal scream therapy.

Wanted to talk about one other thing. This Sunday, I hadn't planned on checking out churches yet. But I woke up early and thought "Why not?" so I got dressed and took Penny out, and then it was time to leave for Sunday school and I just couldn't make it out the door. No problem, I thought, I can just go to service. But again, I just couldn't go. I've never been that crippled by social anxiety. That afraid that I wouldn't meet anyone. And I let that fear keep me from meeting anyone, nice, mean, judgmental or otherwise. Fail.

Only the Lonely...

2011-07-28T22:17:00.003-05:00

So, I am loving the place where I work. On Monday, I officially start paid work wherever that may be, but these two weeks have been an awesome growth experience.

But my post right now is to sigh a little bit. Summers since grad school started are kind of lonely. My grad school best friend goes to a camp all summer long, and while I had a wonderful lunch with her and she helped me unload my first car load into the new apartment, I haven't seen her since and I miss her.
Furthermore, I am now having to make NEW friends. It's strange how hard that is. I mean, my personality can be very extroverted. I want to be with people. But my extroversion is complicated by the fact that I want to be around small groups of people who are like-minded and have strong relationships with them.
That's great because one of my favorite married couples lives in the city, but I haven't even seen them in awhile. I was supposed to see them tonight but I had a work thing.
I guess that cup is feeling empty right now. Loneliness is a particular goblet which for me can only be filled with quality time with close friends. I just don't have a lot of those here yet!
(PS, thinking of what word to use for a cup just now put this scene from The Court Jester in my head. Another movie on my wish list!)

2011-07-24T09:25:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I moved into my apartment about ten days ago. It was insanity. Brother and Father did pretty much all of the heavy lifting and I basically stood in the room and told them where to put things. I felt like such a stereotypical girl.
I had met one guy already in the complex who awkwardly introduced himself (every time I see him it's like he pops out from behind something and startles me) as Alex.
Then while walking Penny I ran into another upstairs neighbor named Kenny. He was nice and mentioned he would definitely remember my dog's name because it rhymed with his.
So then the next day I was late for my first day of work, so I was running out the door when I saw Kenny sitting out by the pool juggling. Like with juggling balls. I had just enough time to think whaaaaaaat? and wave hi back before I ran off to my car. That night he saw me coming out of the apartment with Penny and waved me over. I met one of his friends and he invited me to go to dinner with them and another one of his friends. Sure, why not?
I found out that he is a circus arts enthusiast but a plumber by trade. Crazy!
At this point in the story while relating it to my friend Catia, she asked "Are you going to marry him?" No. No no no.
At dinner, he was talking about one of the other neighbors who is just insane, and I stopped him. "It's not Alex, is it??"
"How do you know Alex? Oh, Kate, please steer clear of him. He's crazy."
He went on to detail the insanity of Alex. This guy was arrested on the fourth of July because he had his friend tape a lead pipe on his back as a concealed weapon and then tore up a guy's car or something. It seems he has a drinking problem and he gets very violent. "If he ever knocks on your door after dark, don't open the door, just call me."
So then a few days later I heard loud loud loud music upstairs. It wasn't over my bedroom so I figured I could sleep anyway. Then I heard pounding on the door across from me. LOUD pounding. And Alex yelling something about "Pounding on the f***ing ceiling" and "open the door!"
Penny didn't like that one bit. (I'm so grateful for her intimidating big girl bark.)
That morning, I saw that he had left a note on my neighbor's door explaining that he was a very calm person and they could have been friends if she had come up and knocked on his door and politely asked him to turn the music down.
I related all of this to Kenny when I ran into him on the way to work the next morning and I guess all he heard was that Alex was playing loud music.
So then I saw Alex again and he apologized for playing music so loudly. I told him that was okay, it was the pounding on the neighbor's door that scared me. He didn't seem to hear that part. I think he was already drunk.
I ran into Kenny (he's always by the pool) and he said he had talked to Alex and told him it was unacceptable to play his music that loudly because now they had neighbors and he had to be considerate, so I would probably be hearing from him.
My mother is in town for a conference and is helping me get everything set up. I did a quick run into the apartment and Alex stopped me.
"Hey, can I ask you a question really quickly?"
ohnoohnoohno
"Sure, what's up?"
"Have you heard my music since that last time it was really loud?"
"No, and really what scared me that night was you pounding on the neighbor's door."
"I'm sorry about that. I have tried to talk to her about it but she won't open the door."
And just because I have a death wish or something
"Well, I think yelling obscenities through the door probably isn't the best way to get a girl to answer."
"Yeah, you're probably right. I'm sorry. I left a note on her door apologizing."
"Oh okay. I get the feeling she doesn't really want to make friends. I have to go, my mom is waiting for me."

Ah, neighbors...

Anyway, apartment is coming together. You will not see pictures until it is all set up. Work is going well and I'm having a great time with these little kids in my training period before I start for-real work on the first (A week from tomorrow!). I have a weird homework assignment from them and I'm going to have a bit of trouble with it because I don't know how to build lesson plans yet. I think it's pretty straightforward with toddlers, but still, I don't know how it is supposed to look.

On top of all of that, my sink or my dishwasher or both are leaking. The maintenance guy told me that it was leaking from the backsplash, but I don't believe it. Kenny is going to come fix it for me sometime today. Hooray for connections.

Quickly, quickly...

2011-07-17T11:37:00.002-05:00

Okay, friends!
I have a JOB now! I'll start working on the first, but am going to intern for the two weeks before that so they can determine the position they want for me. It's at a preschool as a toddler teacher (either lead or associate).
I'm writing this from my new apartment! A nice one bedroom in the southern part of town with good rent overlooking the pool. Pictures to come.
I am so sorry but I really don't feel like writing lately. I need to get back to unpacking!
Kate

In the works

2011-06-29T22:01:00.002-05:00

I PROMISE I haven't forgotten about the blog. And actually, a lot is happening in my life right now. I just don't feel like writing about it. It's not bad, actually it's quite exciting. But it's all in the works right now, so there isn't a lot to tell.
I had an interview today, which went well.
I have an interview tomorrow, which should also go well.
I am HOPEFULLY going to begin searching for apartments this week and next week, and move ASAP (I must be out of this crazy house by July 15, but that's another blog entry [sidebar: always get everything in writing. Always.])
I went to a birth doula workshop last week and it was amazing and affirming and exciting and I am totally interested at some point in only being a doula. We shall see.
North Carolina was beautiful, but Blogger's picture uploading system bugs me so much that I can't be bothered to upload any. At some point I may try.
For now, though, there's not a lot to tell.

A compendium of nicknames

2011-06-12T22:44:00.002-05:00

Thanks to certain creative friends of mine, I have many many nicknames. Through pursuit of purely my own enjoyment and with no thought to my reader (because really, how many of you could there be?), I present a list of these and their etymology, in no particular order.

1. Freakyknees: This was given to me in high school after the revelation that my knees turn purple when they are cold. This, apparently, was an unusual enough phenomenon to label it appropriately.
2. Sherlock Jones: I often stated the obvious, but I think this came from remembering where we parked the car after a Target run.
3. Kate Scissorhands: At the same trip, someone needed nail clippers, which I readily provided. They were not, however, attached to my hands.
4. No Fun Jones: I refused to sneak into the school building to play hide-and-seek on a Saturday, but instead went to my car (I was the ride) and waited for those hiding to realize they would not be sought. I thought it was rather hilarious, but the others decided I was no fun. This was my name whenever I decried something as dangerous or a bad idea in general. At times, it was shortened to a form of, "Awww, No-fun...!"
5. Katushka: After protesting that I was no china doll and not fragile at all, one friend said "NO! You're one of those Russian dolls with a bunch of little dolls inside of you! You are Katushka!" This was usually followed by someone grabbing me around the shoulders, then another grabbing my ankles, then trying to "pull me open" so that they could see all the "little kates." Usually this happened late at night after much soda and candy.
6. Pickle: My dear Catia was a fan of calling me random names. At one point she giggled and turned to me, asking "Can I call you Pickle?" and thus a name was born.
7. Muffles (pronounced "MOOOFuls"): See #6
8. Kate (Pronounced the Spanish way: "Kah-tay"): I took Spanish all through high school and had a total of 10 years of instruction. My dear friend Carrie and I loved it so much that we spoke Spanish to each other to the best of our abilities outside of class. Therefore, she became Carrita, and I became "Kahtay."
9. Kat (pronounced Kaht): This was a shortening of the above nickname and was usually only used by Catia (who was my room mate in college).
10. Jones: one of my friends, Julie, and I came up with a silly bit where we would greet each other "Julie!" "Jones!" "Julie and Jones!" "Jones and Julie!" "Going to ____!" It was hilarious to us, and a few people ended up calling me "Jones" exclusively.
11. The Cool Nerd: This lovely gem was given to me by my after school kids. They realized that yes, I was super nerdy. I taught them about natural science and read and did arts and crafts with them, but at the same time they realized they kind of liked all of that stuff, too.
12. Kato: Also "Kato Malato." My dad gave me this name. He said it was after Kato, the sidekick of the Green Hornet. I think he just added an "o" at the end of my name.
13. Lil Kate: I'm a very small person, and people in college found this quite a novelty. It was kind of strange though because suddenly, and for the first time in my life, my stature was used to explain my behavior. I disagreed with it and I wasn't very fond of the name because, for lack of a better word, it was a "diminutive," as I feel many pet names are.
14. Bette: This is probably the most embarrassing of the nicknames. In eighth grade, I decided I wanted to be the next Bette Midler. I succeeded in getting a few of my friends and the principal of my school to call me Bette. Ah, youth.
15. Kate the Bald: This joke is so inside it would break the bonds of a sacred sisterhood to explain.
16. Squire Lurdane, Bete Noire of the Deep and Mysterious: See #15

Well, that was entertaining! I think at some point I'll update you guys on my life, my trip, and my goings-on, but currently I'll leave you with that. What is the weirdest nickname you've ever had?

10 reasons to revisit a book

2011-05-19T12:36:00.004-05:00

One of my most favorite blogs, The Book Spy, recently came up with a top ten list of reasons why books make us angry. It got me thinking about books that merit a revisit or re-read. Now, I'm not going to pretend I'm as well read as TBS, but there are a few times I've finally gone back and given a book a second chance. This is a RARE occurrence, because my memory is such that I sometimes get bored rereading old favorites. Here, though are ten reasons to give a book a second (or third or fourth or seventh) read.

1. It's your favorite. I love Spindle's End by Robin McKinley. The world she created, the characterization of the animals, the language, the story in general. I love it soo much.

2. You couldn't get through it years ago. I started reading Jane Eyre when I was about twelve and eventually gave up. When I was eighteen I tried again, loved it, and then ended up writing my senior paper about the aspects of Gothic Romance in the book. Describing the purple, bloated figure appearing in Jane's room was quite the crowd pleaser.

3. It made you feel deeply. Any emotion. I read and loved Daughter of the Forest by Juliette Marillier when I was seventeen. So much pain. So much sacrifice. So much beauty. The Six Swans remains one of my favorite folktales (if that says anything about me). Parts of it pretty much make me break down into a blubbering mass of sadness, but it's beautiful. Catia and I differ in our preferences in the trilogy. She likes the second book where the heroine does a lot of disobedience and making her own way, but I prefer the story of one woman's sacrifice for her brothers, at extreme expense to herself. Every now and then, I have the need to just feel those feelings again.

4. You know you liked it but can't remember any of the details. Some of the Chronicles of Narnia books are like this. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, for example, I can't remember anything about. A lot of the books in that series leave me hazy (Apart from The Horse and His Boy, because it is my favorite). It's a series I return to every few years.

5. Tradition. Every year at Christmas, I read Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I have it spaced out so that I finish one stave every five days, ending on Christmas Day with the final "God Bless us, every one." The cliche is true here, I get something new out of it every year. I love the way Dickens wrote this book.

6. The subtext went over your head when you first read it, but now you are older, wiser, and appreciate the message behind it. I loved A Wrinkle in Time as a child, but I know now that it's about so much more. After I'm finished with Sense and Sensibility (which I'm LOVING) I'll give it another peruse.

7. The library only had the abridged version. I read the abridged version of Les Miserables when I was in high school. Again, loved it. I remember reading it during English class while the rest of the students studied for the final from which I was exempt. The bell rang and my teacher came over and jokingly slammed the book closed. I looked up at her with the saddest eyes and said "But Eponine's dying!" Really it was excellent and the abridged version did give the gist of the story, but I want to try again. I'm also working through Don Quixote, so perhaps I'll just have to give it a glance when I get through it. Or juggle two humongous books at the same time. Yes, I think that's what will happen. This also applies to reading the children's version.

8. You read it, didn't like it, but LOVED everything else you read by that author. Emma falls under this category. I read Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and am in the middle of Sense and Sensibility. Love them all. But Emma was a bit of a slog for me back when I was 17 (I read a LOT of books that year, which is funny because I was dancing six days a week, taking a dual credit course, taking an AP course, taking Chemistry, and involved in drama competitions. No wonder I never slept). I know Austen's goal in writing Emma was to create an unlikeable heroine, but I've liked the story (especially in the latest BBC version) and hopefully I'll appreciate it more now!

9. You miss the characters/world/story. Another reason why I re-read Spindle's End so often. I feel like they're my friends.

10. You didn't like it, but people whose taste you trust loved it. This has convinced me to consider giving certain books another try. Perhaps I was in a bad mood or distracted, and that's not the book's fault. They deserve a second chance. Never Bartleby the Scrivener, though. I prefer not to.

What do you think? What different reasons do you have for revisiting a book?

Bye bye, peekaboo buddy.

2011-05-06T19:57:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was my last day at work. After a year and a half working with these amazing children, I cleaned out my office, distributed my goodbye letter, and bid farewell to the teachers, and hugged as many of the children as I could goodbye.
My peekaboo buddy gave me such a hug. He hugged me, then he put his knees on mine and before I knew it, he was wrapped around me and refused to let go. I got to do my favorite thing, hugging him and then bending over so his hair ALMOST touched the floor, then bringing him back up and spinning. Toddlers are precious. His mom hugged me (she's not a touchy feely person) and thanked me for everything I'd done for him. I was deeply sincere when I looked her in the eyes and said "It was my pleasure."
My toddlers (well, not MINE, but yes, mine) made a tote bag for me with their hand prints on it. And I got to spend a lot of time with them that day, with them coming up and tapping me on the shoulder, saying "Hi, Kate!" So proud of themselves, some of them, that they could say my name.

Two of the teachers offered to give me references. I got so many hugs. So many words of advice and encouragement. "You'll find your way." "You'll be so successful in whatever you do!" So much love and encouragement.

Goodbyes are the hardest things for me. I am great at moving in, adjusting, becoming happy with my "now," but goodbyes are the hardest. I spent the whole day going in and out of tears. One of the moms saw that as I was leaving and she said "Well, one chapter ends and another begins." I'm not sure if that helped at all...because I started crying again.

The new beginning had better start soon.

Open letter to choreographers

2011-05-05T22:21:00.002-05:00

Please please please someone choreograph an artful routine to Songbird by Fleetwood Mac. And then put it on Youtube so I can watch it whenever I want. Little sixteen year olds showing off their technique does not count as art. Do the music justice. (This goes for all dances.)

oooommmmmggggggg

2011-05-01T22:42:00.002-05:00

Pray HARD for this application going out if you are a praying person. This job is exactly what I want to do.

My life in pictures...in random order.

2011-04-25T18:09:00.005-05:00

I realize it's been a while since I last posted. A lot of my life is documented on my iphone camera and then made so interesting and beautiful through the instagram application. I thought I'd share a few bits of my life over the past two months. I was invited to Lady G's home for their family Easter feast. I love that family so much and I was so honored to be there. Her children put together an Easter egg hunt for us in the living room. Perfection. I also got to go to my church's Easter egg hunt the Saturday before Easter. Like good Methodists, we had an amazing potluck spread. I say that if it's a holiday, it's not considered gluttony. So, I found out that my department gives awards to students. I found this out because I was selected to receive one! I find out what it's for on Thursday at the Italian Feast! I made one of the best parking jobs ever in my life, and had to commemorate it with a victory note. (No, I left before they returned, so if someone got keyed, it wasn't my car!) Sometimes I like to sit in the driveway and listen to the radio with the engine off just for a little bit. It's getting too hot to do that now. My church remembered I was graduating and put me in the prayer bulletin. I'd like it if they prayed for me to get a job, too...Relaxing in my room. I love this room. This is my graduation dress. You might remember it from my dye day I stole a rose (it smelled so wonderful) and the Beast let me pass. Penny officially tested heartworm-free! She likes to sit in the chair at the vet's office. One of my favorite things about Texas in the Spring: The Bluebonnets came! I had the most amazing lunch of my life followed by the most amazing dessert of my life. Penny and I went home for spring break and got to spend some quality laziness time. Brother, Father and I went to the zoo and I got to see my friends the otters. Using my key at home for the first time since JANUARY! I went to the Save Texas Schools rally at the capital. Also attended the Austin Kite Festival. By myself, but still good. Snuggled with my pup while writing the last big paper of my graduate career.

Would you believe it? This is my last real week of school stuff and then I graduate in less than 20 days. I feel like I just started this madness and now it's over! Yes, I'm looking for jobs, but no I have no real leads yet. Fingers crossed, friends!

Too much exposition...

2011-04-10T20:54:00.004-05:00

Sometimes I imagine that I'm in a movie. I have the voiceover and background music in my head as I open my door, put the dishes away, and begin to make tuna salad. Great opening for a movie, right? It would probably have some peppy music in the background, like "Unwritten" by Natasha Beddingfield, or whatever the popular equivalent of the day happens to be. Of course I'd have to put in some random kicky dance moves to make myself appealing to the audience and let them know that this is a happy movie. Alternately, "Right as Rain" by Adele could play to show that this is an empowering movie and I'm a little less naive than I would be with the previous song. In fact, if this blog entry were the voiceover for the opening scene in my movie, I'd switch right there, and then probably switch back to show that yes, I'm strong, but mostly upbeat.

And then there would be a lot of scenes with no music at all. These would be hilariously mundane, like when I was in the library and discovered I was too short for the books on the shelf. I found the little stool thing and kicked it in short bursts across the aisle until I could reach and get them.

Random scenes like that. Like at church were I'm sitting next to the new guy and trying not to look interested. Or when I come in to the toddler room and they all yell "KAAAAATE!!!" Penny would probably be in a lot of them, probably for comedic relief or to serve as an outside observer making commentary on my actions through her eye rolls.

These are all scenes that build appreciation and understanding of the main character. These are all scenes that take place before something big happens, before the plot line starts turning up. Before the main character is swept up on some adventure or meets that special/interesting/horrible person who makes life wonderful/a new experience/just awful, leading the character to live life differently.

I haven't exactly had that yet in my movie. My initial incident hasn't happened, there is no rising action or subplot. Just a lot of exposition right now.

Or is it all 'initial incidents'? Is it all rising actions, a series of climaxes and subplots and denouements. Will I only know the story of the movie of my life when it's all over, in like 65, 70 years? I'd like to know at least what genre it is.

Whoa...

2011-04-07T15:25:00.003-05:00

So, I just applied for two jobs in Hawai'i. Yeah, THAT Hawai'i. I think that's the first out of state application I've filled out so far. I could definitely do Hawai'i.
The thing is, I'd apply for these jobs if they were anywhere, so I really would like to get one of them. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Also, I got 19 pageviews from Iran today. Feel free to make your presence known!

Delving into minutiae

2011-04-03T00:40:00.004-05:00

Whenever I am faced with a big life change or lots of duties and decisions to be made, I tend to pick one tiny detail and devote an insane amount of attention to it. For graduation, it's the outfit, and in particular the shoes.
I did this exact same thing with my undergrad and high school graduations. The shoes are the only things visible other than the required regalia and I think that is an excellent opportunity for whimsy. For my undergrad, I chose some turquoise kitten heels because they could be seen pretty well from a distance and they were really just fun (unfortunately, they also rubbed blisters all over my feet and the paint peeled off them in several places, hence the new search).
This year, I want to pay homage to my alma mater by wearing purple shoes. Sadly, many purple shoes I have admired in the past are long since gone. It seems purple is a color relegated to the hookers and clubbers of the shoe world, with disgustingly high platforms and velvet and skinny, skinny heels, so my search is entertaining but in vain.
I have gone so far as to consider buying character shoes and dyeing the leather (which I read can be done), which might be a good choice anyway because who can tell the difference and they should be rather comfortable. (Plus, just imagine, "Hey! I LOVE your shoes!" "Thanks, I dyed them myself!")
Nevermind the fact that I still don't know where I'm going to work or live in just about five weeks' time, those shoes are the top priority! (insert eyeroll here) Maybe it's because I can definitely control this aspect of the insane changes my life is about to go through.

Every one.

2011-03-24T23:37:00.003-05:00

I know I've said this before. I am so in love with the kids at work. They are all amazing and fun and hilarious. One of them, my peek-a-boo buddy, just melts my heart every time. One day this week I left work at the same time as he and his dad, and watching them laugh and run around made me smile. I walked off feeling nostalgic for something that hasn't happened yet (is there a word for that?).
Someday, I will walk hand-in-hand with my toddler. We will walk slowly and laugh and talk about what we see. And I will relish every step.

Dye another day... (see what I did there?)

2011-03-22T23:44:00.006-05:00

So, last week was spring break for me, in fact it was my last one. It was glorious. I went home, had thai food with my friend Carrita, went to the zoo with my brother and dad, and also met up with my friend Catia on Thursday for what we called our "Dyeing Day" so we could experiment with various dyes! Here's what came out of the leftover tie dye I had in the garage: I'm really really proud of the dress! I love it soo much and I think it'll work out really well for a wedding coming up. The white one I couldn't bear to dye. I'm going to change the buttons and perhaps wear it for MY GRADUATION in May! The orange shirt is a special order for my brother. I think it was the most successful tie dye of the night! Then I decided to dye this beautiful alpaca lace yarn using natural dye methods. First I mordanted it in an alum/cream of tartar mixture, then I tried to dye it using wild onions and dandelions. That didn't work. So then I tried spinach and dandelions. With modest results. So I tried to use black tea to do a sun dye. With more modest results. Finally I decided to hang the natural aspect of the dye day and used food coloring: a proven method.
I mixed up some greens and blues and made some beautiful color. Then put it in the microwave in 30 second bursts until the water was clear. This is how it ended up. I decided to call it "Mermaid Hair." I loved it in the skein but it's not very pretty in the ball or knit up. I think all knit objects will get some more dye experience with some more blues and a little bit more green.
Center pull skein!

I'm not at all pleased with the lime-jello-ness of this guy. I think I've found the perfect project for it, but I'll have to wait because the pattern is $15. It will have to wait at least until pay day.

Anyone been doing craftiness lately?

It doesn't.

2011-03-14T21:43:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking a bit about unrequited love lately.
Growing up, I looked at figures like Eponine, Quasimodo, and Cyrano de Bergerac and thought how romantic, how beautiful their loves were. How amazing it was they devoted themselves and sacrificed in their love for those who did not love in return. And then it happened to me.
All throughout college I was in love with a man who I believed I would marry.
We supported each other through trials, and talked often. He was my friend but I felt a bond much closer to him. And for the first time in my life I fell in love with someone. The kind of love where you cannot sleep because you are so happy thinking about him.
I was so sure that one day he would look at me and see me, really see me. I began praying for him nightly. I wanted so badly to stand with him as he faced his difficulties.
He supported me as well. When something was wrong, he could tell, and he gently sat with me and talked with me so that I would feel better, or at least comforted.
And then I realized we wanted different things in our lives. I decided we would not be together. But I still loved him. No matter how hard I tried not to, I loved him. And I hated him for that.
I hadn't seen him in quite some time my last year in college and invited him to my graduation party. He said he would try but he could not come.
Then we did not speak for ages.
He married a woman who is perfect for him, who wants the same things, and who is just the sweetest woman ever.
They have a beautiful daughter together.

I saw him in January for the first time in over a year at a wedding of mutual friends. And all those old feelings were still there. And I couldn't do anything about it. And of course he didn't know, so he talked to me like the old friend I was and asked me about school. I asked about his family. And then he followed me to the reception. As soon as my friends got there, I stuck with them, though we both could see each other clearly from across the room. I told one of my friends and she checked on me the whole night, even stood next to me when he said goodbye.

And it just hurt. And I was angry. I had no need of these feelings for him; in fact they only caused me pain. Throughout the rest of the month and into February I could not stop thinking about him and then being angry at myself for thinking of him.

I am alright now. I don't think I should see him again.

And now I see that unrequited love is not beautiful. It isn't romantic. It's sad. And painful. And it doesn't stop.

les prometo!

2011-03-14T00:21:00.003-05:00

Another new favorite:

I'm often surprised at the artists who sing songs I really love. This is Private Conversation by Lyle Lovett. I typically don't like country music, but I'll make an exception...this time.

Tomorrow begins my spring break, which up until last Christmas I thought would be spent in North Carolina doing pottery. I am, however, more than content to go home and see my family for the first time all semester. I am ready to rest. I am SO excited to see the new Jane Eyre movie with Catia and experiment with natural plant dyes (photos to come, les prometo!), and have a game night with her and Carrita, and I am beyond excited about going to the zoo with my dad.

Dad taught me how to use my first SLR camera at the zoo, and it was always our go-to. I remember the magical years we got the season passes and would go after school for a little bit on a whim. Now we'll both be going in with one camera and I'll bring along my sketchpad to continue with my creativity assignments. I'm so glad I didn't try to do one every week because this semester has been insane. No time or energy for anything!

I'm also applying for jobs right now, which scares the heck out of me. It's so funny that I'm afraid to apply but also afraid that I won't get a job. Kind of paints me into a corner, eh?

I've found this amazing web site called livemocha.com. It's for language learners to connect and help each other learn. I am using it to work on my Spanish skills but you can use it for just about any language in the world. Plus, you get to help people who are trying to learn your language. Amazing.

Alright. Off to bed. I have one day in my practicum for spring break (why did I do that??) and then I get to go home! It's an amazing feeling knowing I don't have to worry about any assignments due this week!

big dresses, big music

2011-03-05T01:36:00.003-06:00

Today I took my comprehensive exams. I think I totally rocked them. First was child development, and they asked to pick an area of development and explain the interaction of nature and nurture on this area. I picked language development and wrote about 3-4 pages in less than an hour. Go me!
Second was program administration. This one was about the problem solving process which I had just reviewed with others out in the hall. Done and done.
I was SO scared about comps and the feeling of relief I had when I left was amazing. I had that level of wonderful feeling that is so big you feel like exploding or turning yourself inside out because there is just too much happy and relief inside you.
After running over to work to tell my boss how things went, I went to the park with my current reading obsession, Sense and Sensibility. I grew tired of the Nesbit novel (unhappily. I really wanted to love it).
I sat there watching the river, reading, watching people play fetch with their dog, reading some more, and then an old Hispanic man walked up and greeted me. We talked about how beautiful the park was, and he told me about how he goes there early in the morning when the mist is rising off the water and no one is there. He really seemed to love it when there aren't many people there.
He asked me if I was going to school at the university and I told him that I was graduating with my Master's degree in the spring. He did a double take because he thought I was a freshman, and did another when I told him I'm 24.
Then he asked if he could sit on the bench with me.

Now, let me just preface this with my intense level of discomfort. I don't talk to strangers. As a former cop's daughter, I'm on constant alert. So, I kept an exit strategy in mind the whole time and quickly assessed him to see if I could maybe disarm him in a fight.

I told him of course he could sit on the bench with me. He started asking me various questions which led to him telling long stories about his life.
"Do you dance?"
"Not really now, but I used to dance ballet."
"OH! Ballet! I used to dance folklorico [ballet folklorico is a native dance in Mexico. I loooove watching it]."
He pulled from his wallet pictures of himself as a child dressed in the traditional mariachi style clothing, quite young. I am still trying to figure out why he had pictures of himself as a child in his wallet.
He also used to teach various forms of ballroom dancing:
"The WALTZ! I love the waltz!" he put his hands out and swayed as if he was waltzing sitting there with me on the bench. "The music is so BIG with the big dresses and the movement...laa da dah laaa da dah..."
He said he will go to the bars in San Antonio (because they start dancing at noon) and dance from bar to bar "BAR HOPPING! I love to go BAR HOPPING! I dance eight hours and then go home by 9! And do you know why I can dance so much?"
"Why?"
"Because I don't DRINK!"
This caught my interest. I thought this whole time I was listening to a randy old barfly with a bit of character. No, this guy went to the bars just for the dancing.
Then he told me he used to be an alcoholic. He used to weigh 250 pounds (he was probably about 5'6" if I was generous), would drink a bottle of liquor every night, and took medicine for just about everything that could go wrong with someone. One night he landed in the hospital dying. He said the people in the hospital "pumped all the stuff out of him" and he lost 150 pounds in five days (I'm guessing liposuction but I don't know). The doctor told him that he thought all his problems came from the liquor, so he said not to take any of his medicine but also not to drink any alcohol. The man felt completely brand new after this.
"You know what? That stuff is expensive!" he started saving the money he would have spent on the nightly bottle of liquor and bought a truck. Then he saved more and bought a mustang. He drove back and forth between Austin and San Antonio dancing.
"When I go dancing with a beautiful young woman in my arms holding her close, I am just cursing myself! 'You used to be sloppy laid out on your front porch drunk and you could have been dancing with beautiful women your whole life! All that time -- wasted!'"
I was truly amazed. I don't know how much of his story was true, but I did love every bit of it. We departed, saying maybe we would see each other in the park again someday.
I think talking to a stranger alone in the park counts as being daring! Hooray for resolutions!

Spread the Word!

2011-03-01T22:38:00.004-06:00

There is a word that, from its inception, has been used as an insult for an entire group of people.
It is a hurtful, derogatory, and discriminatory word.
And kindergarten children use it.
In fact, adults use it. I have heard people of every age and creed use it.
The word is "retarded."
I can hear you now:
"When I say it I don't mean actually retarded people!"
"I'm not insulting anyone! Do you see any retarded people here?"

The issue is, it's a matter of respect. Respect for a people group which has been discriminated against since the dawn of time. It's a matter of realizing that saying the r-word as an insult makes intellectually disabled people feel that they are worthless and stupid. It's a slap in the face to friends and family of these people.

As a reasonable person, how can you not justify being respectful of other fellow human beings?

March 2, 2011, is national Spread the Word to End the Word day. Please consider taking the pledge to eliminate the derogatory use of this word from your vocabulary and asking others to as well. I am respectfully asking you to Spread the Word to End the Word.
Spread the Word

I cannot wait.

2011-02-27T23:43:00.002-06:00

I cannot wait until I can give Penny full reign and let her just run to her heart's content. I want to see her go crazy and chase room mate #1's dog all around the house. I want to take her back to the river and "swim" with her. I want her to almost pull me off the dam because she found children she wants to greet. I want to take her back to Petsmart and let them dote on her (they all knew us pretty well over there). I want her to be a normal level of excited about food (to the point where maybe she doesn't wake me up a full hour early because she's so hungry). I want to walk her the two mile trip to our mail box and back. I want to take her to the dog park and have adventures with her again.
I am so ready to have my dog back to normal.
That being said, I'm really grateful for the treatment saving her life.
And I'm down to her getting me up only once during the night, and usually it's only the hour before we wake up because she's hungry.
We've gone through so much. And I am so proud of her. Wherever we are, I know we'll have an awesome summer.

When it rains...

2011-02-19T22:53:00.002-06:00

So, the very DAY I was to switch to giving Penny her steroids every other night and get some sleep, I realized I was super exhausted and had little functioning abilities. I emailed my professor and let her know I was missing class (and was very honest about why) and then I commenced to coughing. And feeling worse. And feeling worse. And wouldn't you know it? By that night, I had a fever. The next morning I went to the doctor and turns out I have an upper respiratory infection that's going around a la black death. She had already treated two people for the exact same thing that morning and had seen only that condition on Monday. Loverly.
So I commenced coughing, sneezing, and feeling congested, and having the stomach problems Z-packs normally induce, all while still waking up at least twice in the night to let Penny out (I really do love my dog). My fever reached 101.7 at its highest, I believe, which is about four degrees higher than my normal body temp. Delicious.
I have run through all my tissues, a roll of toilet paper used as tissues, and another roll that was going to be used as tissues but Penny decided to eat instead (I really do love my dog).
Thankfully, the doctor was right; she said I'd probably turn the corner on Saturday and I have, but I'm still super weak. Tomorrow is my final day of antibiotic and I can focus on writing the paper that's due Tuesday (five pages on a policy that affects adult education...and her format is REALLY confusing) that I've had the whole semester to write (except no I haven't because I really haven't slept since the beginning of February) so no need to ask for an extension...especially for a matter of five pages. That's silly.

I'm left with a lingering cough that feels like I'm trying to...I don't know, cleanse my entire soul, not just my lungs, clean out every impurity down to my toes, and my chest HURTS from the effort.
Buuut then yesterday room mate #1 mentioned she was feeling poorly. She thought maybe I had gotten her sick. I told her I hoped not but if I did then she should brace herself. Well, she went to the doctor today and she has the flu and pneumonia. Wow. Room mate #3 has been gone all week it seems but last I heard she was feeling poorly as well. Room mate #2 seems to be the only healthy one of us, though she did go to class drunk on Friday so perhaps that's a relative term.
I almost think we need to quarantine the house!

2011-02-12T21:33:00.003-06:00

So, I figure it's about time I write about this. I wanted to wait and make sure that my puppy was alright and I was over the hysteria.

Penny was diagnosed with a mild case of heartworms about three weeks ago. After researching the treatment options and keeping in mind her age and health, I decided to go with the Immiticide treatment, which is an arsenic injection in the lumbar muscles. I dropped her off on Wednesday the 2nd, and got her back on Friday the 4th. Those two nights without her were nerve wracking to say the least. The rolling blackouts had me worried there would be no heat in the kennels, the snow made me worry there would be no one to take care of her, and of course above all I was scared there would be a mistake or she would be one of the less than 1% of dogs who died as an immediate result of the injection.
She wasn't.
Now she is home, and I have to keep her quiet so that she does not have an elevated heart rate. If she does, she runs the risk of a pulmonary thromboembolism, which basically means the dead worms would get lodged in a blood vessel in her lungs (I think?) and then cause her to stop breathing and die. So there's that. I'm managing that by keeping her on a leash when she is around the other dog in the house or in stimulating situations like company.
In addition, she is on a steroid and an antibiotic for a month.
The steroid makes her thirsty, hungry, and restless. So Penny has been waking me up every two hours all night for the past week and a half. I am so very tired and wish I had someone to help me with it, but at the same time it's alright. This will pass. Penny is fine for now and I am so thankful for that.
Life is life. And life is okay.

Your mission this week.

2011-02-11T20:38:00.002-06:00

I've decided to set weekly missions. This is purely for my own enjoyment.
Your mission this week takes place in a restaurant containing a bar or just a bar.
Send a random object to a stranger sitting at the bar by way of waitstaff. Tell the waitstaff the person will know what it's about.

The first person to complete this mission and verify it by some sort of media (photo, video would be best) will receive a polymer clay animal made by me. (So you'll have to be comfortable sending me your address.)
Leave your response with links to proof in the comments.

Can we skip the 14th?

2011-02-07T21:01:00.003-06:00

I don't know what it is about this year (I'm lying, I know exactly what it is) but I really don't want to deal with anymore pink or red or chocolate or gooshiness. I think we should skip Valentine's day. Who's with me?
Nevermind the fact that the only valentine I'm getting this year is from Disney Movie Rewards. I'm doing this for all of us. I say we go straight from the 13th to the 15th and make the former 28th the 29th. It'll be like the tacky decorations and the pointlessness of a lovey dovey day in the worst month of the year (Minus the second day of it, because we love Miss Willow) based on, among other things, slapping young women with bloody goat hide never happened.
It may just be the overuse of decorations and emails offering recipes for 'romantic dinners for two' but I'm just done with it. And February. Let's get to March and 80 degree weather. The end.

the exception

2011-02-04T17:41:00.003-06:00

Yesterday at work we were talking about being sick and still having to run errands. I mentioned that I don't have anyone to take care of me when I'm sick (room mates? HA!) so many times I just have to suck it up, drive to the store myself and hang onto the cart while I struggle through the store.
Then, JOKINGLY again, I said "See, this is why I need a husband! So he can take care of me when I'm sick!"
And then something really disheartening happened. They all started talking about how, no, he can have a cold and it's the end of the world but if you get sick you are still expected to cook, clean, and go to the grocery store. And how he will not take one ounce of care of you if you are sick because he probably won't notice.
And that made me really sad for them.
Because that's not the kind of man my father is. My dad was so anxious to take care of us when we were sick that he would wake me up to see if I needed anything. He would do his best to make sure we ate if mom was sick. Yes, sometimes it was pizza or cereal, but we were fed. And he would protect Mom from our craziness when we she was sick.
And he would go buy feminine products for us if we were out. And he would get the right kind. He would volunteer to do it, too.

On my way home, I called him and thanked him for being the exception. Because when my co-workers entreat me not to settle, I know I won't. I have wonderful measuring stick. Not a perfect one, but a really good one. And better than many.

"And we are oookaaaaaay."

2011-02-02T18:35:00.004-06:00

So, I don't know if anyone else has been feeling a bit chilly lately, but here in central Texas it's the coldest it's been in about 20 years. And in my neck of the woods, it's just cold. No snow. And lots of wind.
Texas has used up SO much energy on heat that today it had to resort to a series of rolling blackouts so we didn't result in mass electricity loss. Or at least that's how I understand it.
SO, cut to this morning. I called in to work to make sure everything was okay, and one of the teachers answered the phone. The power was out, and had been out since 7:30 that morning. We had to delay drop-off until it went back on around 9. Yeah.
So everyone was off schedule and we were all trying to just get through the day.
Then, just before lunch, the power went out again.
We had 3 emergency lanterns. No elevator. And about 60-70 kids. And because of the way licensing operates, we were required to feed all of them lunch. So, the front desk worker and I grabbed a lantern and walked up and down the stairs several times, talking about how cool it was to eat in the dark, how we were going to be safe walking up and down the stairs by being careful and holding the rail (especially after the emergency light in the stairs went out).
And only two of the children cried.
And only one of the crying fits was about the dark.
When the lights first went out, my favorite class, the toddlers, were already in the cafeteria. I came in to check on them and they were all eating quietly. I sat down and said "Oh wow, everyone's having a good time eating in the dark!"
The teacher looked at me and said, in her talking-to-the-kids voice "Yep, and we are oooookaaaay."
And we were.
Isn't the power of suggestion amazing?

Savannah, Georgia.

2011-01-29T18:02:00.001-06:00

I. Want. To. Live. Here.

Travel advice?

2011-01-24T22:51:00.001-06:00

Wow. So I'm going to Savannah for a conference. Anything I really need to see while there?

off to china in a packing crate...

2011-01-12T21:28:00.004-06:00

So, judging by the overwhelming response to my resolutions post, I'm sure you're wondering how I'm doing so far!
Well, I'll tell you.
I've eased into my resolutions, keeping them in mind and looking for opportunities. I walked Penny to the mailbox a few times (which is a 2 mile round trip because this housing development is...well, evil), and this is only made more interesting by my dog's crippling fear of storm drains.
I've looked into the rock gyms, but it's really expensive ($15 per visit plus $10 for equipment OR a $60/month membership plus equipment...eep), and the one on campus MIGHT be a good option, but just for bouldering. I really don't trust the safety regulations they have for belay climbing (belayers aren't anchored to the floor, no safety stops on the ropes, and while the floors are padded, they're hardly the two feet of shredded tires I'm used to), however my lack of climbing partner makes bouldering (climbing below an eight foot level without a rope and with mats beneath to focus on flexibility and holds) perfect for me (plus I'm kind of good at it...or I was when I climbed regularly).
I was beginning to despair when on a whim I decided to record a few shows from FitTV. Let me say now and forever more: I. LOVE. Namaste Yoga. It's a show. And it's awesome. I've only taken one session of yoga before and the room was hot, filled with old people (who were BETTER at it than me), and the instructor's breathing instructions made me lightheaded. This made so much sense, was only 30 minutes long (and had commercial breaks!), and was pretty fun to do! Plus, it was an added challenge trying to do yoga with this little lady getting in my face:

(Yes, old picture. But I likes it!)

Yoga. Yes. I love it. I used to be very very limber and I'm thinking it will come back quickly if I make an effort to work out with that program regularly. I also recorded a Zumba and Bollywood show. Let's see if I can get room mates in on it!

Speaking of the lovely puppy, Penny and I celebrated our one year anniversary about four days ago. Yes, I have had this girl for a whole year, and she has changed so much! I plan on doing a little video about her story once we get our Canine Good Citizen certificate. To go from a crazy dog on her way to death (that people refused to believe could be a good dog), who would growl and snap if you got near her, to a snugglepuppy who lets me hug her, puts her head on top of my legs when we sleep, and LISTENS to me (most of the time) when I give her a command is an awesome thing. I am beyond proud of her and beyond grateful to the folks at Petsmart for their amazing training system. Seriously, I will point anyone and everyone there.

As far as creativity goes, I've done the first exercise in my book: draw 30 cats while lying in bed. Since my scanner is old and has no driver software compatible with Windows 7 and I DON'T feel like trying to take a picture of a drawing again (project 365: you were awwwfuulllll), you'll have to trust that I did it. I actually really liked a few of them! The object was to just let yourself go and focus on expressive lines.
This week's exercise: blind contour drawings of giraffes. Yup. Isn't this fun??? Don't you want to go get one and do one along with me??

And then the reading: I've been working on Sailing Around the Room by Billy Collins (poet extraordinaire) and also Five Children and It by E. Nesbit. I know, I know, Nesbit=children's author, but look her up sometime. She lead a scandalous life and even adopted and raised both of her husband's children with his mistress while letting the mistress live in the house as their maid. Crazy crazy crazy. If my husband was a philanderer and had children with some floozy I would send her off to china in a packing crate (on a cargo barge if I was feeling REALLY charitable) and then I'd get him a house arrest anklet. Maybe not. What's even worse, Nesbit was really good friends with this mistress. She also at one point, in order to seek revenge, had a brief affair with George Bernard Shaw (philanderer as well...he wrote well but he was not exactly a boy scout). She was a feminist before it was popular (the FIRST time) and she used her pen to support her WHOLE family because her husband was almost perpetually out of work. Plus, her prose is full of little jabs at society that would go over the little one's heads.

Anyway, that's what's been going on. How are you guys going?

Resolutions

2010-12-31T20:05:00.003-06:00

Resolved:
In 2011, I will
Read more. For school and for fun. I got a few Dickens novels and some poetry with my Christmas gift card, I'm still working on Don Quixote and want to add more of Jane Austen to my repertoire.

Write more. Some of you may know that I've been writing a book for several years. It is nowhere near finished, and it is not in any form that I would show someone I didn't know yet (rewrites ahoy!), and so I want to go further with it. Maybe not finish it, just work on it more. Also, I want to really dive into my last semester of schooling (!) and write what I need to write well. Perhaps I will even try for extra opportunities!

Be more active. I am going to try to go to the rock climbing gym in town once a week. I might also do a pay-per-class for dance and I'm hoping to walk Penny more often. I have NO energy at all and on the few times I am active I tire so quickly it's embarrassing.

Be more creative. I have a new book called Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists by Carla Sonheim which has 52 exercises for boosting creativity. I was looking for something less along the lines of a "how to draw" book and more like a creativity guide. This fits the bill! I'm not going to force myself to use it on a weekly basis, but I will try! This also will force me to face a few fears, as one section asks that I go to a live drawing class for a few sessions (with nude models! EEP!) which I will do, because I am extra-bad at drawing people and this will help me to figure out the form (I really want to figure out how to draw backs, I think the upper part of the back is so very beautiful!). I may or may not blog some of the assignments, so look for some original Kate art coming to a screen near you! The first section is "inspired by animals" which I am much more comfortable drawing, so you will definitely see some of them!
I also got Squiggles: A REALLY GIANT Drawing and Painting Book by Taro Gomi. It has hundreds of pages to fill in! I want to get everyone to fill in one page. Perhaps I'll share scans of that.

Be more daring. And no, that doesn't mean going bungee jumping or skydiving (pointed cyber-glances at Carrita and Catia). It means not being afraid of things like asking people if they want to hang out, going somewhere and trying something new. I guess it fits in nicely with my other resolutions.

Graduate. That's right, this May I am planning to graduate! To do that I need to pass the Program Administration and Child Development content areas of my Comprehensive Exams. I passed the Theories section last semester and got conditional passes for Research&Evaluation and for Child Development, but the flu prevented me from re-writing both. Basically, this means studying (and we all know how good I am at THAT!). Beyond that, I am only taking TWO classes this semester and one of them is a practicum. I am super excited about this.

Get a job in my field. Wow. So, starting in January I'm updating my resume and sending it out to various organizations. I'm thinking something with United Way sounds good, but I'm exploring every option. My main trouble is getting the courage to put myself out there, so again this falls in line with being more daring. If any of you have connections to nonprofit orgs. that do family education and outreach, let me know! I am not going to limit myself geographically (which is SCARY! where will I be this time next year???), so even my Canadian and European friends can suggest something. Exactly HOW cold does it get there?

Get my own place. I am almost more excited about my first apartment/town home/rent house than I am about my first real job. And no, I'm not considering anywhere I've lived these past two years as my first apartments because I'm still in school and they aren't MINE (meaning I don't get to decorate outside of my bedroom). My main goal for graduation: NOT to move back home!

Help people more. Simple.

I think these are a bit easier to follow than really specific resolutions, so I'm hoping I will stick with them! We'll see. I hope 2011 is a good year for all of us, no matter where we are and what we may be doing.

Billy Collins is my new favorite.

2010-12-29T02:04:00.001-06:00

Another addiction

2010-12-18T23:33:00.002-06:00

I've just discovered a spectacular radio station. It is introducing me to all sorts of beautiful music and it's local (which means that I get it in my practicum but I don't get it at school. Ah well). If I don't get a job in this city, I will miss this radio station like none other. Thank goodness they have an iphone app!

yaaay, apps!

2010-12-16T21:53:00.003-06:00

I love my iPhone. Specifically, I love the creativity I can express through the applications. My new favorite application is LiveSketch, and here are two of the drawings I did by fingertip with them. I think this is a moose. And these, of course, are some flowers.
It's like I'm drawing with charcoal, only I don't have to take off a layer of skin to get it out of my hands.
I really really miss drawing and sculpting and especially metalworking. I'm hoping I have time and space for that post-grad school.

Feeling poorly, so I will say goodnight. I have to finish my practicum hours tomorrow and then this semester is officially in the bag.

Go. Become addicted.

2010-12-11T22:47:00.003-06:00

I have recently discovered this:The Book Spy
And I LOVE it. Bibliophilism meets Voyeurism (In an only slightly creepy way). It's amazing. Go, my chickadees, go and be addicted.
In addition, I'm ALMOST done with the first lace shawl I will keep for myself (out of baby alpaca wool that I dyed myself!). This sounds selfish, but first consider these:
1) the last two things I knitted were lace shawls I made as gifts.
2) those took my whole summer and the first part of the semester (not that I didn't enjoy it, because I did!)
3) My last knitting projects before those were all baby things for one of my friends
4) I'm facing an extreme lack of warm & pretty!

Also:

Fall in love!

Furthermore, my beloved brother is coming this week to stay with me for a whole week! Hooray! This is the FIRST time he has come on his own to see me ever. He came once for pageant when I was in college and visited for my birthday this year. I don't think it will be the two of us on the town or anything, but it will be good to see him! He's taking the train down here and then he will ride home with me when I go HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS! Yes, that's right, friends, I am going to go home! I have not been home since labor day, and I get to be with my family and friends back home for two whole weeks! I'm almost surprised how very much I miss home (not because I never miss people, because I do, but I'm usually pretty good at being "all there" and focusing on where I am). I'm also looking forward to not having to WORK for two weeks. That will be very nice.

To those of you who will be in town, I can't wait to see you! To those of you in the grad-school area, I will see you when I get back! I don't think you read this, though!

RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

2010-12-08T20:08:00.002-06:00

Ever turn in a final paper that was so stressful it feels like you just had a baby? I don't know how else to describe that.
This final I just turned in is one of those papers. It was for my grant writing class and it was all of two pages long because it was a grant proposal. We have no idea what our class standing is, and up until class time last Wednesday we did not know what our final was. A lesson in flexibility? Yes. A lesson in how many times I can hyperventilate without causing brain damage? A little bit, yeah. A lesson in Kate's hyperbolic skills? A little bit, yeah.
I freaked out for about ten minutes when he gave us the prompt: propose a program, project, or initiative which will benefit the graduate students in your particular field. Then I figured out what I wanted to do: a mini-research conference which teams professors with students who present posters. Members of the community who are professionals in our field will judge the event (science fair style) and award the winning group with a scholarship ($2,500 for the next semester, which is all but $500 of a semester's tuition). Hooray! Encourage research? Check. Encourage student-faculty relations? Check. Encourage inter-cohort relations? Check. Encourage community involvement? Check. Encourage networking and future employment? Check. Awesome.
I got to the computer and totally lost confidence in the program. All these new issues popped up. All these insecurities about how the program would look if it needed a mini-research conference to get people involved (it does). About how silly the whole thing was. But I stuck with it because it was too late. I had no other ideas. And I really had been psyched about it until I sat down to write the proposal.
So now, yes, I feel like I just went through labor. For that tiny tiny thing. I hope I don't fail, I hope I get an A in the class, but there is really no way of telling because we don't know any of our grades. ANY of them. This is the problem with laid-back professors. They drive their students insane.

To everyone else completing your finals, remember there is an end in sight! So soon! We can do it!
I'm still not sure I did the right thing, but everything he said needed to be there was there.

Charlie Brown Sigh

2010-12-02T17:32:00.004-06:00

So, last October, I really hated the newsletter my workplace put out. It was disgusting. It was disorganized. It was twelve pages long. We had to print out copies for all the parents and teachers of the center. Something had to be done.
(Hi, I'm back)
So, on a day where I didn't have a lot going on, I took my copy of the newsletter and plugged it into a publisher template. I got it down to three pages front and back. It sounded like someone who speaks English wrote it. It was beautiful.
Showed it to my boss.
"This part needs to be changed. But you're right, it does make it more readable."
That was it until yesterday.
"Kate, here are the submissions for the newsletter. You did such a good job with making it more concise last time I thought you could do the same thing."
Sure.
Typed everything up. Shortened it so it would all fit on three pages. Perfect. Showed it to someone who suggested I make the font size smaller, cut out all this old information, take one reminder all the teachers put in their sections out and just put a big reminder on the front. Done and done. Excellent.
Showed it to my boss:
"Font size is too small. I don't think I want that on the front. Don't cut anything the teachers say because the others don't write anything."
Frustrated. Changed it back. One class takes up almost a whole page of three columns telling us what they did in each and every center. I even leave in their stupid poem. Surely the teacher who got bumped to the back page won't be mad. Filled the empty space with a very VERY generic "happy holidays" message. Done. Printed off 103 copies. Put them in every single mailbox in the center. Hooray. It's OVER.
About to get in the elevator and go down to my office to leave finally after a long week. Run into a teacher who looks upset. Asks if one of the admin is here. No. Why? She's holding the newsletter. My beautiful newsletter. She starts crying. She is offended because her employers spelled her name with an "ie" instead of a "y" and that means that they still don't respect her after all these years.
Apologize to her repeatedly. My fault. Didn't mean to. It wasn't my boss at all.
Took all the newsletters out of her classroom, changed the ONE place where her name was, reprinted it and redistributed.
Have I ever mentioned that I go by my middle name and many people I have known for YEARS call me by my first name on accident all the time? And it really doesn't bother me now because I'm an adult? but no, We have to get upset about everything all the time because "ie" really is so very very different from "y"
*Charlie Brown sigh*

Apologies

2010-11-01T21:07:00.002-05:00

I think it's best to be honest with you:
I have so much reading to do, so many other things vying for my time, and so many things I would rather do right now than write a blog entry. I know. That hurts. I mean, I was out sick with the flu (in spite of flu shot!) this past week and all I could do really was sit with the computer in front of me, but I decided NOT to blog. Crazy.
Anyway, it's the height of the semester, I have about 70 pages to read about parents coping with the death of a child (seriously considering skipping this one!), I am congested and sleepy, and I just wanted to say, this site closed until American Thanksgiving. See you in three weeks. Maybe.

on roots

2010-10-14T00:11:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about roots lately. When I graduated from college and found myself back at my parent's house for a year I was determined not to put down roots. I didn't want to meet anyone new, I didn't want to form new relationships, because I was so sure I would leave very soon and start my own life. I visited the university often and talked with those people constantly to stay in touch. I still had roots there. But then I got a job at the church, a minor childcare job which turned into something I loved beyond words. I made friends with my co-workers and my boss. I fell in LOVE with my two year olds (who are now turning five). I set down roots against my will.
When I came to grad school, I didn't think I'd make friends (I don't quite remember why). I thought I would be rather alone and just sort of "lift out." But now, again, I am SO in LOVE with my Sunday School kids (this time pre-teens) and the children at the center where I work. Seeing them smile when they see me and come running to wave, high-five, or hug me just lights up my day. I love seeing them learn new things. My pre-teens are hilarious (one of them draws bunnies with jet packs at any chance he gets) and challenging and a joy to be around.
And then there are my friends. A friend of mine who went to college with me lives just 45 minutes away with her brand-new husband, and they have meant so much to me during this time. Another college friend just started grad school at the same university and we commiserate on occasion. This school is so different from our undergrads and it is refreshing to have a little of that back.
My point is, it's like I'm a plant that's been uprooted several times. When you pick up a plant, a lot of their tiny roots stay in place and are removed from the plant. The plant also carries a bit of soil from the place they were, well, planted. When you re-plant it, it goes through shock and then sets down roots until you decide to transplant it again. I've put down roots and left a piece of me there in every place I have lived and with every friend I have made, and I still have a little piece of them going around with me. I'm rooted in so many places right now, and so many people have a piece of me with them.
I guess that's all. Maybe someday I'll try to draw it.

baby in tow

2010-10-04T22:53:00.004-05:00

Today I saw a dear friend from college. We talked about life and changes and babies and school and everything else.
Then she walked me to the car, baby in tow, and said "I just wanted to say, you have changed since college and it's good. I think you're more...grounded now."
I am. And I'm happier. And I'm more comfortable. And I believe people when they say they like me. And I may not know exactly where my life is going, but I like what I've seen so far.

hmm...

2010-09-23T23:52:00.001-05:00

I find it interesting when people describe something as "verdant green," because all they're really saying is "greenish green." Good job.

gulp

2010-09-21T21:04:00.001-05:00

I have comps. Next week. As in comprehensive exams. Next week. As in "fail and your two years in school mean nothing." Next week.

But, you know, no pressure or anything. Right?

when they exist.

2010-09-10T23:09:00.003-05:00

Things I Love
Seeing people act silly in public for the benefit of their children
Let's be honest, there's nothing cuter than seeing a parent play along with their kid in public. Usually it's dads with their young kids. Most of the moms I see with their kids seem stressed and preoccupied. Discussing it with other people, the consensus is that moms feel more obligation and that the dads can leave any time they want. I don't think that is it though.
I think society has put pressure on us, as women, to be constantly poised, put together, and composed. However, guys are allowed to be goofy (men, if you read this, feel free to object to this theory). So it's totally great for men to make rocket ship noises and run around aisles pretending to be transformers or something, but women feel they don't get that chance or something?
I, for one, have absolutely NO problem acting silly, especially for the benefit of children (oftentimes children I don't even know). I am excited beyond belief about the day when my kids and I march proudly into the doors of Target or some other store and spend the entire time playing "puppies" and contributing to their dramatic play. All you proper, stiff, poised women out there, you can sit on it. My kids and I have playing to do. Or we will. When they exist.

feels like her

2010-09-08T21:53:00.002-05:00

Things I Love

Seeing friends find their match

I know that sounds weird. I am definitely not of the school that there is only one person for each of us. I do believe that two people can be so well fit for each other that they seem like they should not exist apart from each other. I've seen it.
A few of my friends who are getting married soon are like that. It's amazing, reading their "how we met" stories, how fit they are for each other, how his story feels like her.
Do you ever meet people like that, where you say "those two, they are meant for each other"? Do you ever see people and think "these people make me believe"? Do you ever say to someone, "you two are going to get married. I just know it"?

Thank you.

2010-09-05T20:52:00.004-05:00

Things I Love
Safety
What you're looking at right now is the car I learned to drive in. We got it brand new with about 16 miles on it in 2001. This car saved my brother's life today.
I'm not exactly sure what happened. He was so sure he had a green arrow, but regardless, he turned left when it wasn't quite clear to do so. When I got there, the suburban was smashed into the traffic light pole. The other car was a truck, so if he was driving the lumina (my mom's car) he would have been in much worse shape. He was on his way to work. I had told him I would take him, but Mom ended up letting him take the suburban for the day. He took a different route than he normally takes, even. All these different things in my head keep saying how odd this was. No matter what, though, I'm so thankful that he took that car instead of my mom's car, that everyone is fine, that we have car insurance, and that he is here with us. He has some really gross stuff from the airbag and bumping around in the car but for the most part he's okay, which is a blessing. The suburban is probably gone for good, but I'm so glad that the last thing it did was keep my brother safe.

I think I've filled my quota for today...

2010-09-02T23:21:00.002-05:00

Things I love
moments that keep me humble...and laughing
So, today at the center life was crazy. I ended up subbing in the baby room until the student worker came in (our schedule had her coming in at noon, then we thought she was supposed to be in at one, and she thought she was supposed to come in at two). We are super understaffed right now and it's not helping when people come in, spend one day in a room, and we never hear from them again, but I digress.
Because my job isn't supposed to place me in rooms, I stopped taking some precautions I definitely took in the summer, such as making sure my clothes were layered and secure and okay to get dirty.
So today I was just wearing a loose v-neck t-shirt, a cardigan, and jeans.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Probably, but I don't think you've thought far enough yet.
The student worker finally came in and I was introducing her to the babies. I sat down facing her and one of the babies crawled up to me and grabbed the neckline of my shirt and pulled, CATCHING MY BRA ON THE WAY DOWN. Yeah. After that I pried her hand off my clothes, set my clothing to rights, and said "well, that was my breast. I think I've filled my quota for today. And now I'm off to the front desk!"
I'm just glad the two male student workers were upstairs.

I've always been partial to it...

2010-08-27T18:40:00.002-05:00

Things I love
What happened Thursday
Thursday I was doing some observation in the lunchroom at work. One of the new little girls turned and waved at me.
Girl: "That's the girl I like!"
Teacher: "That's Miss Kate."
Another boy at the table looked up
Boy: "I like Miss Kate!"
Girl: "That's a pretty name!"
Teacher: "Yes, it is a pretty name, isn't it?"
Then the whole table erupted in a chorus of "I like Miss Kate" "She comes and watches us sometimes" and "She's nice"
Awesome.

that's altogether too much hygiene for me

2010-08-22T23:43:00.004-05:00

Things I Love
Cooking

Oh. My. Goodness. I can't believe it took until now for me to realize I love to cook. And not just regular "let's find a recipe and follow it to the letter" cooking, either. I LOVE to cook with whatever I have on hand and make something that sounds good to me. In fact, I have chosen to share my two favorites so far:
Chicken Stir Fry (serves one)
One section of a package of King Soba Sweet Potato Buckwheat noodles
One boneless skinless chicken breast cut into chunks
grapeseed oil
coconut oil
Worcestershire sauce
any frozen or fresh veg you have on hand.

prepare the noodles. Combine grapeseed and coconut oils in a skillet and cook the chicken. Add the veggies and noodles and cook it together. Splash on the Worcestershire sauce enough to cover the mixture

I have not gotten the oil proportions right yet and have ended up with some oily noodles, but for the most part this is pretty good. However, this next one blows the other out of the water!

Really awesome artichoke chicken
1 jar artichoke hearts
1 chicken breast cut into chunks
Green beans
1 half of a medium lime
2 tbsp butter
Worcestershire Sauce
Cookwell & Company Olive and Lemon Vinaigrette

Combine butter, lime, worchestershire sauce, and salad dressing in a skillet and simmer together. Then cook the chicken breast until it is done. Add the artichoke hearts and green beans and simmer it for about 10 minutes. Serve hot!

Again, I have absolutely no idea on proportions. I would do enough vinaigrette to coat the chicken and chokes and enough Worcestershire sauce to brown the chicken, and I think this would be extra great with some linguini and and some sort of cream base for the sauce, though the butter base is good! This had a sweet aftertaste which I think had something to do with the vinaigrette or the artichoke juice.

No pictures this post. I really really hate taking in-progress shots because 1) I have to stop in the middle and wash my hands and then take the picture and then wash my hands again and that's altogether too much hygiene for me; 2) my dear dear camera, Sylvia, might get food on her; and 3) Penny might take the opportunity to help herself to my noms!

Today I roasted bell peppers and then packed them into a jar with some garlic salt, Italian seasonings, and olive oil and then put it in the fridge. This will keep for a week or so, and since I am in LOVE with red bell peppers this won't be an issue. They were on sale today so I bought four to roast and four to freeze for later. I try not to buy them over $1/pc and they've been almost two dollars/pc for a few months! I was in pepper withdrawal. The grocery also was celebrating the new hatch peppers with a sale but I didn't bite. I might try it later though!

Got any delicious recipes of your very own design? Have improvements or suggestions for these recipes? Try them and let me know what you think!

And perhaps even a flower stand!

2010-08-17T23:00:00.004-05:00

Things I Love

My Mail Wall

When I get personal mail or invitations or just something really pretty that I like, I post it on my mail wall. I think it's a nice little collage of all sorts of wonderful things. Most of them are from the one, the only, Carrita, which is totally fine by me. I'm a bit sentimental. I even sometimes keep thank-you notes. Penny's diploma is up there too (and soon will be joined by another!). Soooo....if you want to make my wall, send me some mail! If I don't know you in person, sorry, you don't get to join, unless you want to make me something, scan it, and email it to me. MAYBE it'll make the wall.

My Tiny, Tiny Desk

I found this guy when I was looking for a wardrobe or dresser. This desk is my size! It's been redone, restained, had more patch-jobs and repairs than I can even count. When I bought it, it had a whole bunch of water damage and deterioration, which is gone, but I'm waiting for my uncle to help me finish the rest as I currently lack the proper power tools. When it's finished, I'll be able to completely use it as an actual desk. I also need to find the perfect chair for it as my current one is too wide to fit it.
Yes, it looks cluttered. This will change when the drawers have bottoms.

Farmers' Markets

I've gone to my local farmer's market for the past two weeks to get my bread and honey. These people sell organic, local, in-season veg, local raw organic honey (strange the way honey is treated, filtered, etc., as it's a natural antiseptic), grass-fed beef and even bison! I got a loaf of sourdough for my sandwiches and might get some bison jerky next week. We'll see. When I move to a larger city, I'm excited about the variety of the stalls and perhaps even a flower stall!

Things I Don't Love
Being Accident ProneLast week I walked barefoot out to the driveway and stepped on some glass. I thought, "ow, but no big deal, I'll just get it out" however, I couldn't. I soaked it for ages in a hot hot hot tub, but the next morning I could barely walk on it. So I called my doctor, who said I had to go to a surgeon, who was booked and suggested I go to a podiatrist. They fit me in between appointments and were the very nicest people I have ever dealt with. As I was getting ready to leave, the lady at the front desk asked if I'd gotten a pen and a magnet and a card, because she was SO excited about giving them out, and then she was almost crestfallen when she realized they were out of magnets. Among the diplomas and certificates this doctor had displayed on his wall was an award from his medical association for "Nicest Doctor". I was SUCH a baby when he numbed up my foot. He had to lean my chair all the way back so I didn't faint, I started getting nauseous, and I cried a lot. All the while I apologized for being such a baby!He got two pieces of glass out from the ball of my foot just below my little toes and told me not to get it wet for a few days (which I managed until I went glass bottomed kayaking with my dad that Saturday).

Saying Goodbye

My dear friend Miss Willow is moving several states away tomorrow. I got a great short visit from her a couple weeks ago and we had a grand time. Grandest of grand. She is such an awesome lady, so encouraging, and I know that she is going to do wonderfully in the frozen tundra, but I am going to miss her. Even though she wasn't close enough to see very often, I had the security of knowing that when I went home to see my family I could possibly see her. I love you, Heath! And I am absolutely certain that the frozen tundra will be a little warmer having you in it!

Your eyes will be delighted

2010-07-30T22:26:00.005-05:00

Things I Love

Hexagons

For some strange reason, my favorite number has always been six. Maybe it's because my birthday is on the 26th, maybe it's because I just like the number, but I think the three sets of twos that make it up are just lovely, and the two sets of three are rather dashing as well. I like the number six. Pair that with an unnatural love for honey and then a documentary I saw about bees in the fifth grade that stated the honeycomb is the most efficient shape in nature, and I'm hooked on hexagons. I don't understand it. Octagons, fare the well. Squares, you know what you are: square. Hexagons are where it's at. Forever and ever, amen. I love circles, too, of course, but right now I really love hexagons.

Druzy Druzy is formed when water forces itself inside an already formed crystal, creating a cavity and then a new crystal on top of that cavity. The result is intense sparkle and color and strangeness. I am so amazed by the pictures I see. Jewelry made with druse or druzy or however you choose to spell it is creative and interesting when done well, when the entire point is celebration of the stone itself. This one is from Free People and it's just beautiful! Search flickr and etsy for them, your eyes will be delighted.

Getting to know a knitting pattern

I've been knitting for seven years (wow! Seven years!) and one of the great parts of knitting a project is learning the pattern so well that it makes sense to you. Each time I look at it and say "ah, this requires a ssk, not a k2tog" and with the sage wisdom of something akin to a knitting Yoda, I proceed to ssk my heart out (followed by a yo). Granted, there are times when my confidence causes me to stumble, and I have several, several mistakes in this current project, but I still like knowing the basic movement of the pattern.

Things I Don't Love

Chores

It seems I've just finished doing laundry when all of a sudden all my clothes are dirty again. I've just cleaned and now there's a mess. I JUST bought groceries but suddenly my clothing is all gone. How is it that these things constantly have to be done? Please!

Honestly, I can't think of anything else right now.

Sweet and Sagey

2010-07-18T01:22:00.006-05:00

Things I love

This Lady

Bynney and I have been pals since about 2007. We were RAs together and lived across the hall from each other for a semester. I lived above her when we were RAs. She got married today and was absolutely stunning, as usual.

The Dutchman's Hidden Valley

This is a store on highway 281 in Hamilton, Texas. We used to stop at it on road trips, and it's just a fun place with good food and candy and gifts. It's practically in the middle of nowhere, too, so it's a welcome stop.

I got a peppered beef sandwich on rye.

Highway 281/Texas roadways in general

I LOVE this drive. Everything was green and the air smelled sweet and sagey. I definitely took a lot of pictures like this, many through my bug-smeared windshield.

Stopped at this roadstop to finish my sandwich and enjoy the green.

Sweet Charity

Watched this on Netflix, and I fell in love with it. I love the character of Charity Hope Valentine, and I love the ending. Dancing's not bad either. ;) I loves me some Fosse, Vereen, and Rivera!

I think a lot of the songs are rather ingenious, too...

Things I Don't Love
The Pajama Game
I watched this on Netflix just before Sweet Charity and decided to watch Sweet Charity just to redeem the night. I don't like Doris Day very much, felt that even for a musical the plot was very ill-formed, and that the performances lacked...well...performance.
Watch the movie version:

and the stage version in the tribute musical Fosse:

Maybe Meg Gillentine (from the second video) just has more sparkle. The love story also was pretty forced...bad acting all around. Sad.

Driving all the way home from Stephenville and realizing I left my shampoo, conditioner, and razor at the hotel.
*Headdesk*
Store tomorrow.

we're peek-a-boo buds

2010-07-08T00:02:00.004-05:00

Things I Love
Erickson
That's right, I love a developmental theorist. I love the wonder and beauty he gave to childhood. I love that he extended development throughout the lifespan, that someone finally decided that life doesn't stop changing at the end of adolescence! I love that he started out as an artist. I think that's why his theories are so beautiful, and why the sciencey people in psychology and development get so frustrated with him.

Piaget
That's right, I love TWO developmental theorists! Piaget cared SO MUCH about education, and not about how we're concerned now, about keeping the children up to pace, but about developing children who love to learn who are curious!

Seriously. I want that on a poster in every office I work in and in my room and in my car and written in the sky. If we focus only on gaining the knowledge that everyone already has on a strict schedule, where are we going to improve and develop as a society? Piaget is a guy whose descendants I would marry just so I could tell my children that they are related to a great great man. Is that weird to say? I think it might be.

Alpaca yarn

I'm knitting a project right now using it. It might be the first time I haven't gotten a bit of a string burn on my fingers. It's that soft. I'd post pictures, but it's a surpriiiiiiiise!

These Ladies

I've been friends with these ladies for 8-19 years respectively (Carrita! Next year marks year 20 of our friendship! We should celebrate!). They are truly my dearest friends. They are the people I want to see, the people I want to be around, and the people I want to tell about my life. We are each going into completely disparate careers that are totally fitting to each of us. Ladies, I know that you all read this blog, so know that I think of you all the time and I miss you like CRAZY.
Look how beautiful they all are! I love my ladies!

My Job
Oh man, I know I complain about this a lot. And it can get SO overwhelming at times knowing I have no way to control the activity in a room. But today I was helping out in the baby room and this little boy I've been bonding with (we're peek-a-boo buds) came up to me smiling and touched his forehead to mine and said 'boo.'
I love to see how they grow and develop and learn, especially right at the preverbal stage. They want so badly to communicate that they'll do anything, motions, crying, articulate gibberish, all so they're understood. I love helping them stretch and grow. One girl in the room needs to sit next to people (it's a step down from sitting in laps, which we've only just gotten her away from) and then points at what she wants. Today whenever she pointed I said "Go get it!" And she got upset. She wanted me to go get it. However, I know she's a crawler, I know she can walk a few steps even, so I said "go get it" and she went and got it each time. I even saw her take one step before she got scared and sat down to crawl.
In the fall, my position will give me all sorts of new responsibility and new challenges and new opportunities. I'm so excited about the opportunity to learn and contribute. This semester is going to be CRAZY but I think it's going to be good. And then I'll have only one or two classes left to finish my degree. Which is insane. This time next year I'll have a master's degree and HOPEFULLY working in a job I love.

Things I don't love
scratch that -- THINGS I HATE
Uneducated people who develop "therapies" without any research background and ultimately harm the helpless -- their patients

I am not sure how widespread the use of this "therapy" is. With my limited knowledge of attachment and of child development, I can say that this is detrimental to the future health of the child. Attachment theory states that a child is securely attached when a caregiver is responsive and sensitive. The child knows that their person is there for them, so the child feels free to go out and explore their world and eventually leave. Being forceful and authoritarian and physically aggressive is NOT the way to instill a "this person is safe, I can trust them" attitude in the child.

It has also led to the death of at least one child that I can confirm.

There is a website for the survivors of this "therapy" which to my knowledge is loosely compiled of bits and pieces of Bowlby's attachment theory and not on any scientific data. Here is where empirical evidence is crucial. In the realm of theory, it's fine to wax philosophical, however in the realm of treatment, just as in medial treatment, we had better be absolutely certain of the efficacy of an intervention before administering it to our most precious charges, our children.

Here is an organization searching for survivors of holding therapy and attachment therapy.

What I'm going to do to change it
Be a voice. The most powerful thing I know to do of my own volition is provide people with information. To warn them, to make them aware. To empower people to think about what their therapist is suggesting they do. To STOP if they feel uncomfortable. To feel like they have the right to put off and later research procedures they are suggested to take. This goes for medication as well. If I can let enough people know about this and the dangers of it, perhaps one person who comes in contact with this will be able to recognize this for what it is and refuse to have it done to their child.

Quick rant

2010-07-05T02:43:00.002-05:00

And then back to normal formatting
Dear World (and in particular, a certain friend of Roommate #2)
You are not in any way, shape, or form in charge of me or in authority over me or over the way I choose to raise my dog. Therefore, every single lecture you give me on how to train her will be politely refused. And in increments less politely. And finally one day I will snap and tell you right to your face that you are NOT my boss and I will NOT be spoken to in such a way. I am in no way beholden to you and I do not appreciate your judgement. If I decide that an old shoe that doesn't smell like me and I was going to throw away anyway is okay as a toy for the night before I throw it away, then I don't want to hear about how I'm forever dooming her to think that every shoe is fun to chew on. If dogs can be taught to differentiate between different toys and tools, they can be taught that some things are okay and some things are not. In fact, just after you left she made a move for Roommate #1's shoes but moved away from them when I said to leave it and happily picked up the shoe. Now she's done with it and I threw it away.

I am SO tired of how she acts in general and in particular how she feels she knows so much more about training and behavior and about how to raise my dog. We are making slow but steady improvement unaided by the fact that the room mates are somewhat causing roadblocks in training and I feel we'd be more successful if we lived alone right now. We are doing the best we can. I am doing my best. Next time I will very firmly yet as politely as possible point out that Penny is MY dog and I am doing what I feel works. If she feels differently that's fine, but I'm not going to change due to her advice, so I would appreciate it if she keeps her thoughts to herself. Since she recently lost her job due in part to not keeping her opinions to herself, I doubt this will do any good, but at least I'll know that she knows my position.

Next post will be back to the things I love/things I don't love/How I'm going to change it format.
End rant.

Heroes in a Half Shell (On a STICK!)

2010-07-04T00:07:00.005-05:00

Things I Love

The Ice Cream Truck

When I was very young, likely before Brother was in the picture or at least before he was three, my dad and I would play outside, fly kites, etc., and he and Mom and I would take walks and almost ALWAYS bought something from the ice cream truck. After I was older, we'd save money for summer days when we could chase the ice cream truck (they never stopped in the right spot) to get something. Some of my neighbors even chased it several blocks on rollerblades!

A few years ago I got a huge craving for ice cream truck ice cream. No matter what happened, I could never catch them when I had cash in my wallet. This went on until early May of this year, believe it or not, when I was at the park with a few friends and the truck came by. I got my first ninja turtle of the millenium. Since then I've specially kept ice cream money in my wallet, and last time we went to tube the river I handed two soggy dollar bills to the lady in the truck.

Well anyway, today I was watching TV with my pup when I heard the familiar chimes of "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" passing by the house. Without hesitating, I grabbed my wallet and ran out the door -- barefoot -- and sprinted down to the end of the block where the truck sat waiting. I got another ninja turtle...I've decided I prefer them.

I realize I could probably buy these at a store and have the Heros in a Half Shell any time I want, however I think the thrill of the hunt is worth a little extra money, and the unpredictability makes it extra special.

Grilled Apricots

I made dinner today, and by that I mean a baked sweet potato and grilled apricots with almonds. Grilled apricots are Ah-MAZING. I dipped them in a little bit of melted butter and brown sugar and grilled them for only a few minutes, flipping them frequently. Then I threw them in a bowl and drizzled honey (raw local honey!), extra brown sugar, and some of my roasted almonds on them. I saved the almonds for last and had a lovely syrup to drizzle them in at the bottom of the bowl. I think they could have taken a little more time on the grill but flipped them more often.

I also love baked sweet potatoes, but I think that a picture of it would be rather boring.

Things I don't Love

Being Disorganized

People who know me will likely roll their eyes at this. I have always struggled with organization. And I'm not alone. People with ADHD have a lot of trouble getting organized. We'll get as far as neat piles in various locations that then get scattered when we need to find something. I have several piles going right now actually.

How I'm going to fix it

I honestly don't know how to do this. I recently spoke with a professor who advised me to stick to what works and not punish myself for systems I'm not successful with. My trouble is that I'll find a place for everything and then get something that doesn't fit into a category! OR I'll put something down and completely forget where. And then I'll get to a point of wanting to do something about it, but because I can handle big picture things but not necessarily all the details that make up the idea, I get overwhelmed with the scope of the task and simply don't do it. Again, this is true of most people with ADHD and was the same when I was medicated. When I realized that difficulty organizing was part of ADHD I understood why no matter how hard I tried growing up I couldn't keep a clean room, and why friendly admonitions to "just do it" caused me so much anxiety. It also explained why I was so strict about the systems I did have in place, such as my CD collection, my books, and my movies (Movies, for example, are all in the same telephone stand and arranged first by genre and then by title) I'm looking at various organization tips and recently got a special folder just for financial documents, however I'm still not sure how to go about this. Anyone have some helpful suggestions?

Coconuttylimestrawberrylicious

2010-07-01T00:02:00.003-05:00

Things I Love:

Cupcakes

My room mate and I made awesome cupcakes yesterday. We made the cupcakes from this recipe and the icing from this recipe
and added the stuffed strawberries. We stayed up until 1 AM making them. Totally worth it. Penny enjoyed one of them...grr. Here they are pre-baking, the fluffiest batter I've ever seen. And here they are after baking! Coconuttylimestrawberrylicious. Room mate #2 iced them, I might have done it differently.

Texas Thunderstorms in Summer

I love love love the way clouds change the way colors look.

I love the way concrete smells when it rains, when it's so hot outside that the steam rises from the pavement.

I love the sound of thunder. I love the few days I get the chance to actually drink a cup of hot tea and sit by a window with a book watching the rain. When I have my own place I have to have a chair by a window.

Being treated like an expert

I babysat last week for an 11 month old. Her parents gave her a push-pull cart for her upcoming birthday. The dad said "What do you think about the length of that rope? Is that a safety hazard?" I looked up to see that he was asking ME! And then the mom asked me about transitioning from a bottle to a cup. I felt like looking behind me to see who they were really asking. They couldn't be asking this 23 year old grad student about parenting and child safety. Really?

It was amazing. I loved it. And I had answers. And I was listened to. I was an adult who had information, not some child they hired so they could run out of the house for a few hours. They trusted me and valued my opinions. And when I work in caregiver education I will be able to do that all the time.

Things I Don't Love:

My dog can get into my new trash can

The one I replaced my old trash can that I got for my very first dorm room with. I figured she shouldn't be able to get into it, but she keeps bringing me stuff from it.

What I'm going to do about it: My trainer said that if we keep putting non-exciting things in it, making sure there's no food or tissues in it. The problem is that this dog finds EVERYTHING exciting. She will bring me a clothes tag or a twist tie. I might have to bitter apple the whole thing or get a harder-to-open trash can.

My puppy is so smart!

hmm, revamp

2010-06-29T00:14:00.005-05:00

My blog has lacked structure lately. And photos. I have decided, therefore, to change my format. Because a lot of my posts are complaints, I have decided that I'm going to focus on things I love. I will also mention things I don't love, but I'm also going to post how I'm going to change it. All of this should have at least one to three photos because, well, I think that will make things better all around and more entertaining (as a certain Disney villain once said, "How can you read this? There aren't any pictures!"). There will be messiness, because I, being a person who has ADHD (and has had it her whole life), am very bad at being organized and sticking to a system. But I will try. And maybe you readers can help me!
So, on to the first post!
Things I love:

Had to include Penny! As you can see, I've decided to forego the whole "no dog on the bed" rule. It lasted awhile, though!

This corner of the room. Let me point out the particulars. That blanket I crocheted in my last year at college (the year I started this blog!) and even though I didn't weave in the ends properly, I love wrapping myself in my gypsy blanket.

And of course, who could miss George Seraut's Sunday Afternoon on the Island de la Grande Jatte? A mild obsession with Sunday in the Park With George has secured my love for this painting and it has hung in every dorm room and apartment I've lived in since college (except for when I moved back home last year).

I took a trip to Austin for the day a couple weeks ago and strolled down South Congress (another "things I love" post for another day). I passed by a couple who were shadily leaning against a wall offering for people to look at their art. Most of it wasn't my thing, but then I saw this: and I really couldn't stop looking at it. This is an original and they gave it to me for $10. The next day I found a frame for it and put it on the wall. The artist is Levi Glassrock and he and his wife Sarah have a character called "stitchlip." They are on myspace, zazzle, youtube
and all sorts of things!

Oh my! It seems the Puppeh really likes to get into my pictures. I love this dog!

Probably among my favorite purchases was my bird sticker. I got this tree and a billion birds at Target. The flying birds are all heading over my window and the perching birds are hanging out on top of various pictures and frames in my room. Can you find the perched bird in this picture?

Now, things I don't love:

I tend to spread out clothes to dry on Penny's crate. And then I just drop stuff on it. And then the books on the top shelf get knocked over and I never put them back up because I'm too short to reach it without putting myself in danger.

What I'm doing to fix it:

I cleaned. Simple.

I don't know how long I'm going to format it like this; feedback would be great! For now, however, I think this is a nice change.

On Unwanted Suitors

2010-06-16T22:30:00.003-05:00

Umm, I'm having a bit of a situation. Without revealing too much in case by some miracle of the interwebs they find this, I THINK I'm being pursued. By two men. In whom I have absolutely no interest. One is the first person I met in my program and he is a very nice person but I don't feel that we would be good for each other. And I think that he would see that fairly quickly were we to become involved. But it seems that he's been pursuing me -- unbeknownst to me -- since close to the beginning of the school year.
And on top of that, one of the men in the storytelling group I attend has been making overtures quite out of the blue. He called me sweetie and walked me to my car and gave me what I will deem the most awkward hug in the history of my life. This morning he started texting me and again texted me tonight asking how my day had been, where before I really don't think he had shown much interest.
My issue in both these situations is that I am not interested in dating these guys but also I have no experience letting people down easy (or rejecting them in general to be truthful). And they are both being a little vague about their intentions as well. I will see both of these people at gatherings over the course of the next year and I don't want to make things difficult or uncomfortable for either of us or the people in the group. Any tips people?

That does it!

2010-06-15T02:28:00.000-05:00

Somebody get me a tapestry needle. I'm changing my name to Penelope.

Reliving nostalgia

2010-06-12T03:02:00.002-05:00

Recently, I received a free subscription to netflix. I quickly stocked my queue and began watching whatever I could on demand. This led me to Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre. I watched a few episodes and came to one I recognized immediately, Sleeping Beauty. I must have seen it at a babysitter's house or something. Those of you who have seen this know that it's set in Russia and uses Tchaikovsky's original score from the ballet, and also that it features, among others, a young Christopher Reeve. I was not yet ten when the horseback riding accident robbed him of his mobility and I did not see many of his films or appearances. The minute he turned around his handsome head and played the humble, smiling, eager "squire" to the "significantly more handsome" "prince", I fell in love in a way I fell in love with Kevin Kline the first time I saw Pirates of Penzance and they way I fell for Kevin Kline again when I saw him in Cyrano de Bergerac. And I began to mourn for real the loss of this beautiful man. Mourn for his wife, widowed only a short time before she, too, left this world, leaving her son to walk the world alone.
I wish he was still here to lend his comedic turn to the stage today. I wonder what the world might be like if we were still graced with his presence.

I'm sorry.

2010-06-03T01:04:00.002-05:00

I'm sure things are fine, and I can remember other posts I want to write at the present, but I'm really not in the mood to write anything, or at least anything too uplifting. I'm lonely and feeling a bit friendless and bemoaning the absence of someone to come home to (Penny only barely counts). The absence of someone who wants to hear about my day, of someone who cares. I'm sure another day and another time I won't feel this way, but for now I wish I had a companion.

well

2010-05-26T00:00:00.001-05:00

I ate three meals today again too! And I did all last week as well. Sunday and Monday I wasn't feeling well and only managed I think two each day, however, each meal has been well-balanced (except for Saturday) and contained not only fruit but leafy green vegetables. And meat. Yes, it's kind of been the same meals over and over again, but I still say that's progress.

I love Texas Summers

2010-05-24T00:09:00.003-05:00

I'm not joking. I LOVE Texas in the summertime. Maybe I just love summer. I love it when it rains and steam comes off the cement. In summer, the air looks different. The sun is different. Sunsets in Texas in the summer are awesome. Heck, I even like the occasional Texas sunrise (when I happen to see one). I love road trips with vinyl seats and peeling your leg off to take a rest stop. I love memories of driving out to the ranch and watching the buttes spring up from the ground. I so want to take a long road trip down one of the winding country roads (I35 may be convenient but it made us bypass some awesome scenery.
I love sitting outside on the porch watching fireflies until I can't take the mosquitoes anymore, and grilling corn right on the cob (even if corn is so overproduced and over-modified that it has almost no nutritional content) and cooking out with ANYTHING. I love toad hunts (just find them, catch them, and after looking at them a lot and wondering at finding them, let them go.
I love how music seems different in the summer. I want to make mixes of all my favorite happy tunes and just drive forever. I want to lay out on a blanket and stare at the sky until I fall asleep in the warmth of the afternoon sun. I want to roll down the windows as I cruise down the highway on my way to yet another awesome event in my favorite city. I want to leave my windows open and read in the patch of sunlight that hits my room in the mid afternoon. I want to go to the river and freeze at the cold of the water only to crawl out onto the rocks and air dry. I want to go waterskiing (which is the skiing I think of whenever someone just says "skiing") for the first time since last year. I want to go to the zoo. I want to watch a play in an outdoor amphitheatre.
And I get to do them all and more.
I love Texas summers.

houseguests.

2010-05-23T02:17:00.003-05:00

This weekend one of my room mates got married. I was not invited (I think) but got to stay at the house alone while about six other people came and stayed over. One is a major creeper. He and one of the others got drunk, and one of them had stomach troubles in my bathroom. He used all my toilet paper.
Tonight, it is 2:20, and they are loudly and drunkenly talking downstairs. I will not sleep for awhile I think.
Houseguests, I know this is hard, but think about the proximity to bedrooms when you are speaking rather loudly. And think about the amount of alcohol you've consumed and MAYBE cut yourself off when you find you can't...um...think. Or function. Or perhaps don't drink at all if you're rather creepy to begin with. And ask if we recycle the BILLIONS of bottles you put in our trash can. Because we do.
In addition, homeowners, think about your room mates when you have house guests. If you know that your guests will get blindingly drunk and creep her out, suggest she go elsewhere for the weekend. I would have.
I already have been told that the weekend one of my room mates turns 21 is a good weekend to be absent. I think Penny and I might go to the beach or something. Gulf of Mexico KIND of passes for the beach. There's sand, there's water, there's a point where the two meet. There'll be drunk people there, too, though, I warrant. Nowhere is safe from the drunkards.
Also, I got an email my mom forwarded from her cousin. This cousin lives in western North Carolina (beautiful) and owns a pottery shop. Since I found out they had one (at a very young age) and especially after I decided to minor in art, I have wanted to ask if I could spend a summer with them and learn the wheel. Mom had been talking to her about something else and happened to send her some pictures of a few of my pieces. I now have a standing invitation to stay with them and work on pottery. In addition, I am invited to volunteer at/just go to their pottery festival, and she said she would love to see what I'd do if they set me loose with their resources. Now, of course, a lot of this could just be familial placation ("oh, you are so right. your child is SOOO talented...) but still, a standing invitation is a standing invitation and I'm eagerly searching for a date that might allow me to stay with them. I may be able to make it work in August. If not, I know where I'm spending Spring Break 2011!

sorry!

2010-05-19T01:12:00.003-05:00

I know you are all reeling from the dearth of blog updates I've been doing lately. I mean, I must have clogged your readers or something with ALL the updates and posts I've done in the past few days! Whew! No? Strangely silent? Yes.
Because I don't really know what to write.
Yeah, things are going on but what I right at night time isn't true in the morning. I'm trying so hard to figure out how to deal with this whole ADHD business and frankly I'm not doing a spectacular job, but I'm making at least mental to-do lists if not hard copies, and I'm accomplishing at least some of the goals on the list. And I'm not completely organized yet but I have a shredder to forever get rid of some papers, and I got a new trash can to keep Penny from digging through it, and I got some of that Snapware stuff to organize my pantry shelf (it looks awesome) and I got and prepared some fruit and berries so all I have to do is pull them out of the fridge for a snack. And today I had three meals. I know that sounds like nothing special, but remembering to eat three separate meals is a huge deal for me. And apart from breakfast (greek yogurt with honey in it), it contained portions from all the food groups (a turkey sandwich with cheese, spinach and arugula, cantaloupe, strawberries and blackberries for lunch and dinner because I have limited fridge space). So that's a good start. And I made some awesome bookshelves all by myself, finished them, and mounted them on the wall. THEN I actually put things on them and organized the remaining books on the other shelf. I finished a project I started where the only stakeholder was me! In two days!
In addition, I took Penny back to the river. This time, we were in a shallow spot and it was just the two of us. Penny got in and walked around in it and even started trying to catch the plants that floated by (the river plants with lots of leaves? what are those?). At parts her feet swept out from under her because the current was kind of strong, and she actually GRABBED onto her leash, pulled herself to a less strong area, went to the bank of the river and started trying to pull ME out of the river. I told her she wasn't done yet and she did SO well. She was taking treats and everything. I want to do it again soon but my schedule would have me doing it early in the morning or rushing home after work for MAYBE an hour of sunlight, then send us back to the car in the dark through a park that is already secluded enough to lend itself to prowlers.
Anyway, class being out has been so great but I truly would have preferred a proper break from work as well. I don't really get a vacation of any sort except maybe national holidays and then the summer semester ends only a week before classes, meaning I would start my other Graduate Assistantship (whichever I may get) the following week. No rest for the weary, eh?

nevermind.

2010-05-13T01:06:00.001-05:00

sad.

Wish me luck

2010-05-07T00:15:00.001-05:00

Just luck.
More later. :)

can't keep a good (wo)man down

2010-05-02T23:39:00.002-05:00

So, today was going to be important: the first day back in two weeks absence from teaching Sunday School to the fourth and fifth graders. I got up early, left with plenty of time to spare, and arrived at 9:30. Only to slam my finger in my car door. For a few seconds I just stared at it dumbly, wondering how to get it out. Then I opened my car door. I got it right at the base of my nail and it started bruising up. And bleeding.I crumpled to the ground for a bit holding my finger. It HURT! I realized I needed to do something and that no one was going to see me out there. I went into my car and found the blue shop towels (paper towels but stronger) I got when my car was considering a mold farming career and applied pressure while walking into the church. There, the first person to notice I was hurt was Irwin, probably one of the most awesome old men I've ever met. He got the head pastor and she took me to her office and personally applied a band aid. Then Irwin took me to the kitchen and got me a bag of ice. One of my kids was in there and asked if he could see my finger, and I told him if I changed the bandage he could take a look at it. Then I headed to the Sunday School room. My co-teacher was there and when he saw the ice and heard what happened and I started crying again, he sent me home.
I got back to my car and it started hurting in earnest. I ran a redlight because for some reason I thought it was a stop sign and drove myself to...you guessed it...the emergency room. For the second time in two weeks. Only this was a better hospital. They drained my fingernail and gave me a tetanus shot, x-rayed my finger (it isn't broken) and sent me home.
And I have a paper due at 9 AM tomorrow. Dumb timing. I'm figuring out nine-fingered typing (which is made more interesting by the fact that my computer likes to click randomly, moving my line of type to another line). On Wednesday this horrible semester will be done and I will have four and a half weeks to recover from it. I'd go somewhere but my job has me working through the summer.
I'm shooting for 175 points out of 200 on this paper. Fingers crossed, everyone! My working goal for the next two weeks is to avoid going to the ER a third time. If I'm there again this time on the 17th it'll be really ridiculous and I'll no doubt begin entertaining theories that I'm under some sort of curse.

Oh, yeah, I have ADHD...

2010-04-28T23:55:00.002-05:00

I had SUCH a hard time focusing this week. I actually stayed up until five AM working on a paper today. Then I woke up late for work and made a power point presentation at work, went to class and presented my paper, then wrote another paper (which was a page too short) went to that class and came home. I couldn't focus, had trouble staying on task, and kept doing other things.
I came home and read an article on adult ADHD.
I remember when I came to grad school I was doing so well when I made sure I had a normal sleep pattern and ate regular meals. In addition, I need to manage my time with that awesome day planner I spent forever looking for and really organize myself.
A girl I work with was talking to me the other day when I mentioned my problems with ADHD and she said 'ADHD, is that really real?' Let me be the first to say, for every single one of you who might ask the same questions:
I am not just lazy, unintelligent, unmotivated, or any other excuse you have for ADHD. I have a condition which causes me to have difficulty focusing and controling impulses. When I work on something, a million new ideas and other tasks are flowing through my mind at once. Half the time I stay up late it's because I think "hey, I always wondered about [insert obscure thing here], let's research this!" or "Hey, I want to look at some pictures of puppies, let's go to flickr!" It's something called hyperfocus. This is when people with ADHD are working on a task and get extremely focused on a minor detail, like when I was putting up the sticky notes for my paper and was concerned with aligning them perfectly, or when cleaning my room I decide to meticulously arrange and go through the beads in my bead box. It's compulsive behavior that is terribly hard to pull myself away from. While working on something in hyperfocus, I often think "this is not big picture, I need to move on to something else" but I don't.
My mother's answer to this problem is more meds, which may work for other people. For me, I want to learn to control these impulses myself. I was medicated for most of my life and it involved not only remembering to take a pill every day and sometimes twice a day but also frequent check-ups with a psychiatrist to maintain dosage, EKGs to make sure the medicine wasn't messing up my heart, and exhorbitant amounts of money for all of these. In addition, the last medication I was on (when I was eighteen) made me feel foggy, tired, and slur my words when I didn't get enough sleep. I am trying to simplify my life and take the minimum amount of medication possible (which, with allergies, asthma, and an iron defficiency is still a lot), so I am trying to keep from going on meds.
The thing is, it is SO hard to take care of myself when I constantly have to justify that 1) ADHD exists and 2) I have it. I guess the inattentive component is harder to identify.
So yes, I know this is a hot-button issue, and I know it's overdiagnosed, but know that many people like me do have it, it's real, it's NOT an excuse, and we have to develop all new strategies for performing tasks that you can do without a second thought.
The End.

Being sick is dumb

2010-04-23T21:39:00.002-05:00

I really really REALLY want to move my bed right now. I want to rearrange that whole area. But I KNOW that would just kill my energy level. Really would. And my room mates would come home to all my stuff in the middle of the house with me collapsed on the floor asleep. Right? Electrolytes aren't THAT effective, right? I'm just so BORED and when I get up to do something I get tired. And I have all these great ideas when I really need to be working on the paper my professor so generously gave me an extension on. Or the presentation over that paper that I'm supposed to give on Wednesday. Or the peer review of the 27 page long paper that is due Tuesday. Or the final draft of MY version of that paper, which is definitely not 27 pages long. Or the project in another course which is due Wednesday. All of these would be a better idea to work on. Look, now I'm tired again.

Get to know the people you stick.

2010-04-19T23:15:00.003-05:00

Today I left work feeling sick and ended up going to the emergency room to get checked out. I'm fine, everyone, I promise. And to those friends who perhaps might have been upset at not being called, if it was anything at all, I would have told you. It seems I was sick this weekend and getting over it kind of threw me over.

Anyway, the nurse I had was particularly awesome. Seriously. She was easy to talk to, started off by asking if I knew that I didn't look like I was 23. I laughed and told her it wasn't the first time I heard it. We talked about that, then she told me I looked smart. I said it was the glasses, and she said no, it was the way I carry myself, the way I talk. I said it was something you learn when you are 23 and look fifteen, but she said it was more than that.
Then we talked about getting stuck for IVs, and it turns out she is a breast cancer survivor. She said she tries so hard to make sure that she does a good job when she has to draw blood so that she causes as little pain as possible. She was just amazing. When she left, my friend who came to stay with me turned to me and said "she needs to teach other nurses how to interact with patients."
I totally agree.
Get to know the people you stick. Even if you don't literally stick them. Get to know the people who come to the cash register, who enter your office, who buy ice cream from your truck. Get to know the people you stick. It makes a difference.

The little things.

2010-04-16T11:58:00.002-05:00

Last week the after school program (ASP) and I tested our little twig boats in the recreation pool. Then I had a bit of a disagreement with one of the girls about obedience (not running off ahead when I'm the only caregiver present, for one), and we had to go talk to her mom. She then proceeded to pout the rest of the day, at one point picking up a stick and a big block of cedar and rubbing them together, saying that she was going to make a fire and throw it on me. I ignored the behavior, assuming that she had some pent-up agression and needed to release it through imaginative play. I knew she wasn't ACTUALLY going to start a fire. Nevertheless, I told her mother about it the next day, and she was very upset. She told me to tell the girl that it was not appropriate, and the next time she did something like that to immediately call her.
It seems that day she gave her daughter a lecture about it before dropping her off with me, because she wouldn't speak to me. She spent most of this week ignoring or trying to be disobedient in one way or another.
Then yesterday she and her brother were the only ones present for ASP. Her brother was tired and slept the whole time, leaving just the two of us to play and talk. We were playing "Sorry" (the board game based on Parchisi) when she all of a sudden said "I'm sorry, Kate."
I thought she was talking about the game, so I asked what for.
"For being mean to you."
Unbidden. We hadn't even discussed it. I was so proud of her! I am still so proud of her! I told her that I'm a safe person to be mad at because I'm not just going to up and leave because she says something mean to me, and that it was alright. Then she invited me to her spelling bee.
This child is used to having all the attention and then suddenly her little cousin is taking all of it, staying at their house a lot, and she's not getting her way in everything. Learning this lesson at nine years old is hard, much harder than learning it at four, and I know that she is making progress in learning to think about how other people feel. And that is awesome.

Penny likes to roll the windows down...

2010-04-14T00:18:00.002-05:00

Some days I don't know if I can handle this dog anymore. Some days I can't get anything done because she jumps on me at the computer until I pay attention to her. Some days she gets my leather sketch journal and chews on the cord I use to tie it closed. Some days I catch her "feasting on the Word", and there's a corner missing from the cover of my study Bible. Some days she runs and runs and runs and barks and jumps.
And then we have a day like today.
I came home from studying for my exam expecting Penny to be ultra hyper. Unresponsive. Disobedient. But no, she listened to me! She had one time out to calm down when we had a guest come, but she DID calm down. And then we went through her commands just because, and I didn't have to say it more than once. And now she is chewing on one of HER toys and hasn't bothered me once since I got on the computer (which was only about twenty minutes ago). And I remember she has a few weeks until our intermediate obedience class starts, and that I'm not afraid to bring her around other dogs, and that I trust her more now, and am in tune with her, and I realize how beautiful owning and raising a dog can be. Especially one who may not have had the greatest of pasts.

We DID have a kind of crazy Saturday though. I took her to the river and wore my swimsuit so that we could get in the water together. Penny is scared of deep water so I have a life jacket for her. (She's also overweight and the river has a current, so I feel better having one on her. I've gotten A TON of comments and I am getting a tiny taste of people telling others how to raise their children, and I don't like it. No, dogs do not automatically take to the water. You have to condition them to it. I have read a bit of this. And also, just because something CAN swim doesn't mean they can swim as long as I want to be in the river, where I can touch the bottom. Rant over.)
We got to the river. I jumped in. Penny braced herself on the bank. I called, I cajoled, I pulled with the leash, but she would not come. Then I made a bad decision. I grabbed the handle on her life jacket and pulled her in with me. She gave the most distressed panting sound I have ever seen. She frantically paddled over to me and tried to climb onto me, leaving scratch marks on my torso and thighs. She swam back over to the bank and held onto the roots, panting like crazy. I couldn't get her off of them. The families watching me were yelling "ohh! Pobre perrito! Tiene miedo!". I got out of the water, helped her out of the river, and we walked back to the car.
The pre-vet club was holding a fund-raiser dog wash so I went over there to get the mud off of her. It took all four of us to hold her in the kiddie pool and wash her down.
I took her to Petsmart (which I think might be her favorite place) as a reward/apology for the rest of the day. Then we went to Chick Fil A. I got a meal, Penny got a cup of ice, and we sat on the porch and ate our treats. Poor thing.
I am NOT giving up on this water thing, but I am going to change my tactics. We'll get this beat!

My beloved monster and me...

2010-04-06T23:44:00.003-05:00

I took a pay-as-you-go contemporary dance course today. It was the first dance class I'd visited since clogging over two years ago. And the last class I took like this was six years ago. I danced barefoot. I think I have a blister on my big toe. Not on top of, but under, where I walk. And I definitely got confused by really really simple combinations (I may have been a bit dehydrated). I'm not on the same level I was six years ago (was it really six years??? I can't believe it!) but I'm doing it! And I'm going to get more in shape! It felt so good to break a sweat and have my mind challenged at the same time. I hope next week is even better! I'm bringing tape in case the studio doesn't have the shoes again.
My dance instructor was this old, slightly overweight woman and she danced right alongside us. We did a pretty ridiculous routine to "my beloved monster" from Shrek. But we still danced. And--get this, dancer people-- we did pirouettes across the floor BACKWARDS! I've never done that before! She said it was in preparation for going both forwards and backwards so dancers practice direction changes. I need to practice that majorly! And I think I might even practice the combination.

But, it did kind of piss me off that I could only do a single pirouette when six years ago I was working on my triple. I blame the bare feet.

Harrumph...

2010-03-31T21:08:00.002-05:00

I talked to my professor about switching to a thesis program. I looked it over and I'm still not sure. I'm also not sure about doing a doctoral program. My professor said a good way to decide would be to talk to other professors and ask them about their research projects. Then if anything made me shout "I MUST be a part of this research!" I should write a thesis. At this point, the only project I can think of that would be really interesting would be the peer conflict study one of my professors is working on. She's observing at the child development center and watching how the children resolve their own conflicts.
I'm just so tired right now, and I'm ready to get to my practicum so I can have some hands-on experience educating caregivers.
My next year will be very different. This summer I will take two classes. Then in the fall I have my practicum and two electives. Then when spring comes I will only have my second practicum to do. I will take two other courses to maintain full-time status so I can work as a GA still. I'm thinking about taking another metals class and a course on children's literature. Since I will have completed my other requirements, I think it should be okay. And then I'll be free to work on comps. Ah, comps.

Life is so...strange. I don't remember ever being the girl who had a different plan every week. I thought this is what college was for, not grad school! I stuck with the whole counseling almost to the very end of college, and before that I was going to be an actress on broadway for almost my entire high school career. (Miss Willow will roll her eyes at this, remembering the time she had to stand in front of my car until I calmed down on the day I finally realized that I wasn't cut out for the great white way. Thanks for that, by the way.) At the same time, I envisioned this safe place for children to come and feel loved, feel secure, feel free. And I guess this is what I'm doing. Yes, parent education is a big deal for me, but I also want to take part in an after school program, an educational outreach. I LOVE watching kids learn. Those lightbulb moments are just awesome, and then watching them get interested in something is amazing. Last week at work (I lead an after school program for a few children) we were outside and I heard a mockingbird. They didn't know that the mockingbird is the state bird of Texas (gasp!) and they didn't know anything about how a mockingbird takes the tunes of other birds or other sounds he hears (like car alarms) and reproduces them to find a mate. Then on Monday when we were on our weekly trip to the library we saw a mockingbird and one of the kids told me all he remembered about them. It was awesome.
And under the right conditions (like we actually had funding and I didn't have to pay out of pocket for any activities we chose), with more children, in an established center, where I KNEW who was going to be there every day and could actually plan activities, I would absolutely love to do something like this for quite some time. The hours are a little dumb, but I have so much fun with these kids.
I can't quite wrap my head around the prospect of being grown up. I definitely feel older than these ridiculous college kids, but I think that five years ago when I entered college I would have felt older than them. This school is so very different than my alma mater. I felt so young last summer. And I STILL feel very young. But maybe I'm feeling not quite as young as I felt last year. Progress. Not sure how I feel about it.

My life is about to get complicated...

2010-03-27T12:47:00.002-05:00

Or maybe not. I should explain.
Last Wednesday I was talking to one of my professors about how I was to work for Sesame Workshop. Then she said "as you work toward your doctorate..."
My WHAT????
I don't know if I am smart enough to make it to my masters some days and here she is talking about getting my doctorate! In addition,she told me to look for a school that is associated with research in that area. Well that's fine, except the university paired with Sesame is a little place known as Harvard. I couldn't get into Wake Forest, even though my GPA and test scores are fairly above average, much less Harvard, and even then I wouldn't be able to pay for it.
Then I looked at the staff list for the Joan Gantz Cooney research center and the only person who doesn't have their doctorate is the administrative coordinator, who still has a degree in child development. Okay, I need that extra degree if I want to work for Sesame.
So, I started thinking about that idea, going to school for even longer. Writing a dissertation. All that work. I'm not sure if I could do it.
Then a dear friend told me wonderful things about my being able to conquer the world and I felt a little better.
So, I have decided to start working after graduate school as planned and if in a while that aching yearn to work for Sesame is still there, if I absolutely cannot picture anything else, I'll go for it. If not, I will be content with where I am.
However, I will probably need to change to the thesis track. That's frightening but probably doable.

So yes, lots of decisions.
Also, I got my practicum nailed down for the fall. I will be working with my local chapter of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children! I get to go around visiting child care centers and foster homes and educate them about safety! It's an amazing opportunity, and I'm so excited to get the chance to do hands-on outreach and education, my big love. And I'll be doing that at the same time I'm taking my Adult Education course. Perfect!

Science AND Knitting???? Amazing!

2010-03-22T02:33:00.002-05:00

I had NO idea that there was such a thing as conductive thread, much less that it could be used to develop a light-up, coded knitting pattern bag! Simply amazing.
Find the pattern and instructions for this in the spring edition of Knitty Magazine.

oh, THERE you are...

2010-03-20T23:17:00.002-05:00

This scene never fails to make me tear up.

How hard do you have to look?

Well....

2010-03-17T00:11:00.002-05:00

Since I had an overwhelming response to the "Who is your Book Woman?" question...I thought I'd go with an easier one. What was your first book? That is to say, which book got you into reading for fun? Like I mentioned before, the first book I remember reading and getting hooked on was "The Ghost at Dawn's House" from the Babysitters' Club series by Ann M. Martin. What was yours?

Who is your book woman?

2010-03-14T05:00:00.003-05:00

My mom and I went on a shopping expedition today. We started at Borders because I was dead-set on getting a better, more in-depth study Bible than my Zondervan, another devotional/reading guide (that was more reading guide less self help book and went more into the historical and linguistic context...which I didn't find, because apparently the reading public is more concerned with gaining their Best Life Now *shudder* than truly understanding biblical texts, but I digress), and a book called Curly Girl, which is a guide to the care and cutting of curly hair (really a good reference, btw, but that's for another post).
My problem is, whenever I go to a book store, for whatever purpose, I always end up in the children's book section. Always. I LOVE children's literature (though I am ashamed to say that my much loved Borders has become more of a half-toy-infested-half-literature take on children's sections), and I especially love books that are different and surprising (Ricky Gervais, for example, just wrote a pop up book of such hilarity that I am thinking of getting myself a copy just for when I need a laugh). So when I turned and saw "That Book Woman" by Heather Henson and illustrated by David Small, I knew I needed to give it a look. The cover was intriguing as the title.
The book basically tells the story of the Pack Horse Librarians hired to bring books up into the Appalachian Mountains (a program founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, relative to my favorite president, Theodore Roosevelt). It also tells the story of developing the love of reading. It was so moving that I actually cried, right there in the bookstore. I was so embarrassed I slammed the book shut and carried it with me to another part of the store so I could be alone.

I thought about it and I don't know that I had a book woman. I had trouble reading, more really because I didn't like the material I was assigned ("But WHY is Jill rid of Tim? What did he do? Why is the rat on the mat? The book says the dog is sad but the picture has him smiling! What is going on? This is a dumb book!") and though I learned to read in Kindergarden (when my classmates learned in Preschool), I don't remember devouring books whole until the second grade, and that was quite by accident. I was in after school care at a large daycare facility. So large, in fact, that I often felt overwhelmed with all the children there and I was quite isolated (except for one ne'er-do-well who taught me to spit on people who took your swing, which got me beaten up the only time in my life-by a boyscout). One day I was very bored and I went up into the loft to check the book shelves. I found one of the Babysitters' Club books, "The Ghost at Dawn's House", by Ann M. Martin. I am not a scary story reader. It kept me up LATE and my parents had to come in and tell me to turn off the lights, that it was just a book (and not an incredibly scary one at that), and I would be fine. I was hooked. I proceded to read almost every BSC book, The Saddle Club books, random children's books we ordered through the Scholastic Book Club (back when they, too, sold more books than toys, hmph), any other series I could find about horses, The Sleepover Club, and a Christian series called The Twelve Candles. I read "Just As Long as We're Together" by THE GREAT Judy Blume, I read a somewhat children's version of the Ramayana, I was teased because I would rather read at recess than run around and play with the other children (well, I really assumed they didn't want me to play), and I kept going.
When I really look at it though, my father was always ready to buy another book, be it from Half Price Books or Barnes and Nobel, because he wanted me to read. And he didn't limit my selection by quality. Never pointed out that Babysitter's Club didn't exactly have much literary merit. I think one time I was reading a series that depressed me a LOT and he suggested I stop reading them, but otherwise I was FREE to choose whatever I wanted, free to explore the worlds. So, in a big way, I guess my father was my "book woman."
Who was yours?

Spring break...why?

2010-03-11T20:34:00.002-06:00

It is Thursday. My spring break is almost over. What have I done with it? I'll tell you: nothing!
I went home on Tuesday (with a several hours long stop at my alma mater)and woke up the next day with an earache. I thought little of it and took Penny for a walk and then went shopping, got some shoes, took her to the park, and then realized I was running a slight fever. Yup, sick on spring break! I'm a little better now but haven't gotten to do anything I wanted! Sigh! Tomorrow, though, I hope I can bring Penny to the dog park before spending time with my friends (for the first time all week! How does this happen?). I was going to go to the Tejas Storytelling Festival but none of the workshops were too appealing. However, Grapevine has a chocolate festival going on Friday and Saturday, and I must say that one thing I love just as much as a good story is good chocolate. At the very least, I didn't have to work this week and I didn't have huge assignments due. And I have just ten weeks until classes are over.

I learned something today...

2010-03-06T21:32:00.002-06:00

I'm just as bad as my father when it comes to being overprotective.

Went to the river with Penny and I was so proud of her! I got her to get her feet wet and while she wouldn't go into the deeper water, she would lie down in the more shallow water. Later she saw a REAL golden retriever (not a mix like her) and ran around with her for a bit, including following her into the water! She didn't go all the way out where she couldn't touch, but all in good time! I will have to get her a retractable leash so I don't break the law and take her leash off for me to stay dry! I definitely got to use my ballet leap skills when she dragged me across a small creek. Not a drop on me...there. The other time when we were both in the water (me just up to my shins) and a dog distracted Penny into pulling me so she could say hi, I just barely excaped soakdom. Bad day to wear white shorts, I say.

After that, we decided it would be best to have an experience at the groomer's at our Petsmart. While we waited for our appointment, we ate lunch (I ate lunch, Penny ate ice) outside of the brand new Chick-Fil-A and bonded with the lady who was working the front door. I learned all about her husband's former dog, an untrainable Jack Russel, and her mom's dog, a stubborn Basset, and she repeatedly spoke of how beautiful and sweet my Penny is. Penny behaved like a perfect lady and, after accepting a Chick-Fil-A cow toy and finishing her ice, laid down politely and let me finish my meal.

Then we went to the groomer. I had to hand my dog off to someone else and let her alone for hours! I watched through the window as they took her in the room and she looked a little scared. That was all it took, really, for me to be nervous about these strangers trying to bathe, brush, clean her teeth, and trim her nails. I perused a few shops but didn't leave the general vicinity, and ended up sitting in my car in the parking lot watching tv on my iPhone. I got a call from the groomer and one of the first things I heard was "I just want to give you an update on Penny..." Oh dear. Turns out my pup does NOT like any form of air dryer. At all. She tried to bite the hose one and didn't like the other she tried, either. She told me I could wait a little longer with her in the dryer kennel (a kennel with a dryer in the room, much less anxiety inducing) or I could come get her. That was enough. I told her I was on my way and basically shot through to the groomer at the other end. Yup, I don't like leaving my dog alone in a strange place. And I was worried about her the whole time. I'm kind of ridiculous. On the up side, Penny smells like Sweet Peas.

"I'll just throw something together"

2010-03-04T23:23:00.003-06:00

Apparently when I say that it means spaghetti and chicken with bell peppers and spinach in a lemon butter sauce.
Next time: more cream, more lemon. Maybe some garlic. And I won't overcook the pasta (you can really tell with whole wheat spaghetti...)
Otherwise, it's quite edible!

Does anyone know how to sing this song?

2010-03-03T21:54:00.000-06:00

I can find lyrics but no music!

The flowers are all sleeping
Safe in their starlit beds,
And as the moon comes creeping
They nod their fragrant heads.
The drowsy, budding branch lets fall
An air that seems to call:
Sleep a while, sleep a while,
My children, sleep a while.

The birds that sang so bravely
Are silent in the nest,
The sun itself has gravely
Found pillows in the west.
The cricket as he grinds away
Works all night long to say:
Sleep a while, sleep a while,
My children, sleep a while.

The Sandman comes in gliding
Up to each sleepyhead
To see if someone's hiding
Who should have gone to bed
And when a yawning child he spies,
He drops sand in his eyes.
Sleep a while, sleep a while,
My children, sleep a while.

Poll (of sorts)

2010-03-01T02:54:00.002-06:00

I'm trying to decide what tales to retell in my retellings journal next. So far I've Maid Maleen and the Selkie. I will of course do the Allerlairauh type retelling and a Six Swans/Three Ravens type. What else? What stories (that are not the usual Disney overdone and overculturalized [seriously, Cinderella is not the best story in the world. I hope I do NOT randomly have to marry some rich guy simply because my shoe is sort of loose]) do you want to hear again and again and again?

Retellings

2010-02-24T00:03:00.002-06:00

I have decided to use one of the journals a dear friend gave me to write my fairy/folk tale retellings. When I'm thinking of a tale a lot I write it in my journal (usually instead of studying or sleeping, but hey, the muse works when the muse works). So far I have my version of Maid Maleen and of The Selkie. It's really been nice to work on something shorter than my big book that I've been writing for years and also to know that I may incorporate some of these into it (since my main character has a penchant for storytelling as well). And on top of that, the storytelling guild I meet with is making "Mother Ireland" the theme for March, so I get to use my Selkie story! I'm so glad I have an outlet for nontechnical writing. I'm about to pull my hair out with all the annotated bibliographies and citations and lit reviews that litter my to-do list here in graduate school.
(Miss Willow and CarrieHammie, if you want to read them when I see you this weekend you are more than welcome! I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE YOU!)

On waiting

2010-02-23T00:28:00.003-06:00

It is so strange to be at this place in my life. I thought when I started grad school I would be just constantly moving, eternally fixed at the goal of adding that hood to my regalia. The thing is I have so much time right now to myself, to think, to listen, to watch. I feel so much older than these people in college (and really, four years makes a difference) but I still feel very young (because I am). And truly, I am mostly content with my life as it is. I am drenched with schoolwork in classes I really am not excited about and I have a job that is a far second from what I really wanted, a job I had to take and must stick with until the end of the summer (which is not too too far away in the grand scheme of things) and even with Penny I feel lonely, like something is missing.
I feel so strange being at a place in my life where I think that I really actually am ready to think about getting married (but not ready at the same time). I wish right now that I had that confidante, that when I left my phone in the other room I had at least one missed call or text message from a special someone wanting to talk about our days (or really from any someone! I don't get a lot of calls or text messages). I am so happy with who I am right now. I really am. I think, though, that I might be ready for more. And because that "more" isn't really apparent at the moment, that means I must wait. And watch. And listen. And be content with that for the time being.

NOT hypothyroidism!

2010-02-19T02:35:00.003-06:00

You heard me! It seems that I have an iron defficiency and not hypothyroidism. This is so easy to fix I'm almost laughing. Taking iron. That's it. That's all I need to do, supposedly, to make sure that my energy level is back up and I am not having scary stroke-like symptoms.
So yes, this is good.

Cooking for one?

2010-02-16T01:21:00.002-06:00

Why were we never prepared for this? I grew up helping prepare family meals, which were always for four. Even if all of us weren't at dinner we cooked for the whole family. Now...cooking for one? What is the point of cooking for just one person? How do I shop for myself? How do I put together a grocery list of necessities (especially since I don't drink milk and cannot possibly go through a dozen eggs before the expiration date). How do I cook for myself, have everything I need, and not hog all the room in our very small refridgerator? (Those side-by-side refridgerators just don't have enough shelf space in my opinion.) How do I plan to cook in advance when I don't know how much energy I will have on any given day or if I will even have an appetite? I'm down to about one and a half meals a day simply because I am not hungry and I don't know what to eat when I am!
You wiser people who may read my blog, lead me! Give me advice! Tell me what to do!

:)

2010-02-13T21:08:00.004-06:00

So, I drove to my undergrad and back for a baby shower for my dear dear friend (who is due in just over a month!). Then I grabbed Penny and we went to Petsmart to go get her food and weigh her. Guess what? In the little over a month I've had her on a diet, she's gone down about a pound! I know that's not a whole lot but getting a dog to lose weight (especially in a house where there's another dog who leaves her food lying around AND I'm training her right now) takes a long time. I'm hoping we can get her down to her proper weight soon! Maybe by summer time or sooner. I need her to lose about nine pounds to get down to 50 lbs, and now she's at 58.2!
After doing all that driving and going to petsmart, we both were exhausted. I definitely spent the past hour going in and out of sleep. I'm not letting myself sleep for good, though, until I finish the tiny assignment that's due tonight.

My energy has not been up to par at all lately and I know it's more than lack of sleep. Hopefully my appointment on Wednesday will shed some light on the situation.

I am SO JEALOUS of my family back in North Texas right now! We got record snowfall (more than ever recorded in the whole history of North Texas!) and I am stuck here. I want to see that snow and make a fort and a snowman twice my size! I want to see Penny go crazy in the snow (as much as she likes ice she is bound to have a ball in that). Ah well. I have set a friend up there with the mission of sending me a snowball. It will be interesting to see what she does!

Just because...

2010-02-11T02:35:00.003-06:00

I think if I ever had to name a daughter after a relative, I would name her after my great great aunt Lily. Lily is famous in our family for one thing. At one point in time she was engaged to three men at once. She even had trouble keeping all the rings straight. I don't know what she was going to do about this but she didn't have to do anything, because Uncle Roy, a handsome stranger, came into that West Texas town, swept Lily off her feet, and I believe they eloped soon after! I think it would be absolutely hilarious to have a child with that kind of "how I got my name" story.

On cyber bullying

2010-02-07T23:45:00.002-06:00

I just read one of those random posts AOL decides is important enough for us to read and lures us there with misleading headlines. It was about how mothers tend to cyber-bully other mothers, telling them what they should and should not do and berating them for choices that seem in poor taste.
I scrolled down to the comments section (always a bad choice but a morbid curiousity) and the first comment mentioned how ironic this article was posted on this blog, as the women who comment on the blog are particularly mean and ugly.
Really, people, how hard is it to remember that these screen names have fingers attached to the keyboard, fingers leading to hands and arms and brains that have emotions that FEEL and HURT. Is it merely literary exercise to berate a faceless internet screen name? I see it time and time again, people posting character judgements, eviscerating remarks, and general unkindness about the most innoculous things and it hurts ME to read them. How can people be so petty, so perverse, so unthinking and inconsiderate as to take the time out of their lives to try to hurt another person? I truly do not understand how the argument that we have a certain freedom of speech entitles me to intentionally hurt a fellow human being, regardless of their choices or the nature of their character.
Is life not difficult enough without this added stress? Is it not full of enough disappointment that we must ridicule teenage girls until they feel the only escape is suicide? And what purpose does this serve?
The internet can be used for such higher purposes than spreading hatred and ridicule. It can be used for such better reasons than to hurt our fellow man.
This week, spread love online and offline. May your days be full of laughter, and may petty differences be left alone.