Sunday, July 12, 2009
allow me to mesmerize you daily
I should also say that it is funny that I apologized for not posting yesterday, without explaining that I had decided to post every day. Which is something that I only committed to two people over email. I think blogging every day might help me get in the habit of writing every day. Plus, it's fun, most of the time. Plus, my life is fascinating. Tonight I watched 45 minutes of The Parent Trap.
grorry
I forgot to post yesterday! But posting so very early on a weekend morning should make up for it. I have a lot of readers clamoring for my posts. Anyway, this will be short. I didn't blog yesterday because I am sick! With a cold. In July. It is so lame. Plus, it was about 8 billion degrees in our house last night and I could hardly breathe out my nose and it was practically impossible to sleep, plus I didn't want to take any cold medicine because I had to get up at 5:15 this morning to take Brad to the airport. I knew from past experience that I would have still felt drugged and grorry, a.k.a. groggy, when I woke up, which is bad for driving. So now I'm just sitting here like a zombie eating cereal and trying to lower the temperature in the house. Each degree lower is a victory. I've made it from 78 to 75, so that's three small groggy celebrations so far.
One topic I forgot to include on my list of essay ideas is the elements of story, and what makes us interested in those particular elements. For example, foreshadowing. What makes readers look for foreshadowing in stories (consciously or not)? The more I read and really study writing, the more I notice that even in the most diverse writing, the same elements are there again and again. So, why? I've got some ideas.
One topic I forgot to include on my list of essay ideas is the elements of story, and what makes us interested in those particular elements. For example, foreshadowing. What makes readers look for foreshadowing in stories (consciously or not)? The more I read and really study writing, the more I notice that even in the most diverse writing, the same elements are there again and again. So, why? I've got some ideas.
Friday, July 10, 2009
getting down to business
My goal this summer was to lounge a lot and to work a little and to write most of my thesis, or at least a draft of most of the essays that will be in it. I am good at lounging and working but I suck at writing. In the first couple of weeks of summer I wrote an article for Spokane Coeur d'Alene Living magazine about rodeos, which I knew nothing about going in and which required tons of research. Doing the article was a great experience but it burned me out on writing for a while, because I had just finished my first year of grad school before I started the article and was already feeling pretty tired. I didn't write much at all for a little while after that.
And regarding lounging: I've learned that I'm probably never going to be someone who has long unmarked spans of time stretching out ahead. Being interested in lots of things and liking lots of people and wanting to go to lots of places will always keep something out ahead of me. This summer, so far, has been good and relaxing and full of fun people and time to read magazines and ride my bike to The Scoop for ice cream. But it's also been full of work projects and article writing and people visiting and mission trip planning and traveling. I say yes to doing lots of things, and every week there's something going on, and it makes it hard to find some sort of routine to do any real writing.
So, while I was walking Emmy tonight, I had an idea: I should set a deadline for my next essay. I should give myself two weeks, which is how long I had to write my rodeo article, which was fairly long and very research intensive, so I know it's doable. And to keep myself accountable, I'll let you read it. If you read this blog and want to read my essay two weeks from now, post a comment telling me so, and I'll email it to you when it's finished. It probably won't be a perfect flawless gem like me, but it will at least be a pretty good draft.
And, as another attempt to help myself stay on track, here are some of the topics I'm hoping to write about this summer, in the form of personal essays, profiles, and research-based pieces. The list is kind of cryptic, but not to worry; I know what it all means.
And regarding lounging: I've learned that I'm probably never going to be someone who has long unmarked spans of time stretching out ahead. Being interested in lots of things and liking lots of people and wanting to go to lots of places will always keep something out ahead of me. This summer, so far, has been good and relaxing and full of fun people and time to read magazines and ride my bike to The Scoop for ice cream. But it's also been full of work projects and article writing and people visiting and mission trip planning and traveling. I say yes to doing lots of things, and every week there's something going on, and it makes it hard to find some sort of routine to do any real writing.
So, while I was walking Emmy tonight, I had an idea: I should set a deadline for my next essay. I should give myself two weeks, which is how long I had to write my rodeo article, which was fairly long and very research intensive, so I know it's doable. And to keep myself accountable, I'll let you read it. If you read this blog and want to read my essay two weeks from now, post a comment telling me so, and I'll email it to you when it's finished. It probably won't be a perfect flawless gem like me, but it will at least be a pretty good draft.
And, as another attempt to help myself stay on track, here are some of the topics I'm hoping to write about this summer, in the form of personal essays, profiles, and research-based pieces. The list is kind of cryptic, but not to worry; I know what it all means.
- serial hobbyism
- vegetarianism, and my growing numbers of vegetarian friends
- movement and thought, and how they're connected
- working at a bank
- working at a church
- piano lessons
- longtime friends (and maybe high school reunions)
- writing about the secret world of rodeo
- the moment I knew I'd become an adult
Thursday, July 09, 2009
silent stalking
This is where Emmy spends about 50 to 75 percent of her waking hours, usually looking out the window. Often peering intently into pitch blackness in hopes of spying a kitty.
Last week we caught Emmy out in the backyard, very still and statue-like, clearly stalking something. She was staring at the neighbor's hedge, where a neighborhood cat likes to lounge around. This particular cat and Emmy are bigtime frenemies. The cat drives Emmy crazy, and she either silently prepares to hunt it or screeches and cries and runs around, devastated that they can't be together (or that she can't hold the kitty oh so gently in her little dog fangs). On this particular night, she was focused on very still, intense stalking. I looked at the cat, and it was also focused on still, intense stalking. There are birds living in the hedge where the cat was. Lots and lots and lots of birds that usually poop on our car. The cat fixed its eyes on the depths of bird land, in the center of the hedge, and Emmy fixed her eyes on the cat. And I fixed my eyes on Jesus. Just kidding. I mean Emmy.
And then! The cat leaped into the air, landed on the on the hedge, and then vanished into the neighbor's backyard. Emmy went berserk and screamed and cried and shrieked and ran into the house to see if the cat was perchance now just casually sitting outside a different window. But the cat wasn't, because THEN it came silently strolling out from the bottom of the hedge, with a small bird in its mouth. Emmy panicked (maybe nervous for her bird friend?) and knocked over the fan pictured above. It made a ginormous crash, but Emmy was not bothered by that one bit.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
series finale
I love Gilmore Girls, and I own most of the seasons -- but not season 7, a.k.a. the final season, a.k.a. the season where the show's creators left the show because they couldn't negotiate a contract for the rest of the series, a.k.a. where everything got kinda ridiculous.
Spoiler alert!
Spoiler alert!
- Lorelei marries Christopher and they get divorced!
- Suki gets pregnant because Jackson never told her he didn't actually get the vasectomy he'd promised! And Lorelai talks her into being excited about the baby!
- Logan proposes to Rory at a fancy pants graduation party Richard and Emily throw for her. After Richard and Emily sing a duet (which is awesome--no complaints). Rory agonizes over what to do and finally decides she's not ready to get married. Logan says he won't do long distance. And all of the sudden they are broken up and we never see Logan again! Ever! He's out of there! No arguing, no pleading, no crying. So professional, those two.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Ideal Day
Recently I made a list of everything I'd do in my ideal (but normal, a.k.a. not a vacation or something wonderful like that) day. I love making lists and this one was extra delightful because it's all stuff I like. Obviously. My ideal day (in no particular order) includes:
I didn't have to work on Tuesday and had a super quaint little morning. I got up and read for a while, then went running with Emmy, then came back and got my computer and drove to Luna for their summer latte hour or whatever it's called. Luna is a restaurant not far from my house and it is so adorable that it makes me want to die, or just live there or eat there every day. I bought coffee and a scone and sat outside at the cutest table on the nicest and most foliage-covered outdoor patio area. I was in love with it. And while I was there I wrote a draft of a whole essay! That's right. So many things on my list were happening all at once. I was the master of my own plan. I stopped by the library to turn in books and check out a few more, and went home and ate a delicious salad I made myself, and vacuumed, and made some ultra boring but necessary calls to our insurance provider. I was the most productive and most pleased woman in the world.
Then, I went to the Department of Licensing. We are going to Victoria in six weeks and I need to get an enhanced driver's license because my passport says my maiden name and I won't be able to get that fixed in time. So I brought my passport and marriage license and my driver's license and a billion utility bills with my married name, my maiden name, Brad's name, everything. I drove for half an hour through super gross traffic, got in line to get my number, and then the guy told me he couldn't help me! Apparently, although it would be enough to fix the name on my passport, the DOL won't take a marriage license/passport combo to give you an enhanced driver's license. I was enraged, but I tried to be very subtle about. The guy said I'd need to bring in my birth certificate so they'd have "a paper trail" and that I should go to the courthouse to request it.
But I didn't have my checkbook with me, so I needed cash for the birth certificate business. So I drove to a credit union downtown. I accidentally drove through their teller window area backward. Not in reverse; I went around the building counter-clockwise, and it was supposed to be clockwise. Awesome. A little embarrassment always helps me when I'm feeling enraged. I got $20 for the birth certificate, and drove to REI because they are close to the courthouse and have free parking. For customers only. So, to feel less like a parking space thief, I stopped into REI for a minute and priced out metal water bottles. It was ridiculous but it made me feel less guilty.
Then, on to the courthouse. However, contrary to what my buddy at the DOL told me, the courthouse does not provide birth certificates! No, no, no. Those are from some other building a couple of blocks south of the courthouse. So I wandered down there, and it was getting hot and miserable, and I was carrying around my laptop because I was supposed to meet some friends for a writing date at a coffee shop at that exact moment, and it was digging into my shoulder and making me feel off-balance. I filled out the paperwork and got my birth certificate and hiked back to my car (which was now kind of far away). And I was tired and sweaty and running late, I didn't have an enhanced driver's license, and I only wanted to go home. So I did. My ideal day disintegrated into a very unsuccessful and grouchy afternoon.
And on Thursday, instead of going back to Luna, I went back to the DOL. I waited for more than four hours, then spent about 10 minutes filling out paperwork, answering questions, getting my eyes checked, and having my picture taken. Driver's license, consider yourself enhanced. Ideal day list, consider yourself thwarted by normal life.
- running or some exercise something
- music (listening to, playing)
- being quiet (reading, praying, writing, thinking)
- being with people in a meaningful way, definitely Brad, probably friends/family/etc.
- taking Emmy for a walk
- being productive, a.k.a. cleaning, organizing, gardening, working
- cooking or baking, or eating things I've prepared myself
- watching something really good on TV, or a good movie; being entertained by non-garbage
- using email and Facebook to stay in contact with people I like, not to just spy mindlessly
- laughing. A lot.
- going somewhere: a coffee shop, the library, work, someone's house, etc. In other words, not being at home all day.
- learning something new
- writing
- reading
I didn't have to work on Tuesday and had a super quaint little morning. I got up and read for a while, then went running with Emmy, then came back and got my computer and drove to Luna for their summer latte hour or whatever it's called. Luna is a restaurant not far from my house and it is so adorable that it makes me want to die, or just live there or eat there every day. I bought coffee and a scone and sat outside at the cutest table on the nicest and most foliage-covered outdoor patio area. I was in love with it. And while I was there I wrote a draft of a whole essay! That's right. So many things on my list were happening all at once. I was the master of my own plan. I stopped by the library to turn in books and check out a few more, and went home and ate a delicious salad I made myself, and vacuumed, and made some ultra boring but necessary calls to our insurance provider. I was the most productive and most pleased woman in the world.
Then, I went to the Department of Licensing. We are going to Victoria in six weeks and I need to get an enhanced driver's license because my passport says my maiden name and I won't be able to get that fixed in time. So I brought my passport and marriage license and my driver's license and a billion utility bills with my married name, my maiden name, Brad's name, everything. I drove for half an hour through super gross traffic, got in line to get my number, and then the guy told me he couldn't help me! Apparently, although it would be enough to fix the name on my passport, the DOL won't take a marriage license/passport combo to give you an enhanced driver's license. I was enraged, but I tried to be very subtle about. The guy said I'd need to bring in my birth certificate so they'd have "a paper trail" and that I should go to the courthouse to request it.
But I didn't have my checkbook with me, so I needed cash for the birth certificate business. So I drove to a credit union downtown. I accidentally drove through their teller window area backward. Not in reverse; I went around the building counter-clockwise, and it was supposed to be clockwise. Awesome. A little embarrassment always helps me when I'm feeling enraged. I got $20 for the birth certificate, and drove to REI because they are close to the courthouse and have free parking. For customers only. So, to feel less like a parking space thief, I stopped into REI for a minute and priced out metal water bottles. It was ridiculous but it made me feel less guilty.
Then, on to the courthouse. However, contrary to what my buddy at the DOL told me, the courthouse does not provide birth certificates! No, no, no. Those are from some other building a couple of blocks south of the courthouse. So I wandered down there, and it was getting hot and miserable, and I was carrying around my laptop because I was supposed to meet some friends for a writing date at a coffee shop at that exact moment, and it was digging into my shoulder and making me feel off-balance. I filled out the paperwork and got my birth certificate and hiked back to my car (which was now kind of far away). And I was tired and sweaty and running late, I didn't have an enhanced driver's license, and I only wanted to go home. So I did. My ideal day disintegrated into a very unsuccessful and grouchy afternoon.
And on Thursday, instead of going back to Luna, I went back to the DOL. I waited for more than four hours, then spent about 10 minutes filling out paperwork, answering questions, getting my eyes checked, and having my picture taken. Driver's license, consider yourself enhanced. Ideal day list, consider yourself thwarted by normal life.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Books! Books! Books!
I still exist. Does anybody care? I really abandoned my blog for a while.
This quiz has been all over Facebook lately and I've been dying to fill it out but, for some reason, feel like Facebook isn't the appropriate venue. I'm acting like a Facebook snob, but I am neurotic and contradictory because I am on Facebook reading other people's quizzes all the time. Whatev!
The BBC says most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Book List:
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x...despite my love/hate relationship with Jane Austen, I've read a lot of her books)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x+)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (*)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x+ and Little Men! and Jo's Boys!)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (x)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (x)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (*)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (? Who can remember something like that?)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (I'm not even marking this as "to-read." Scandal!)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x+++)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (*)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (*)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (x+)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x+)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (*)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (*)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (x--number one source of unintentional sleeping spring of my senior year of high school.)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (*)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (*)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (x)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (*)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (*--some, not all...I should get back to these)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (x)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (Bella Bambina, 2 o'clock! Have not read!)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (x)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (*--why didn't I have to read this in high school? Didn't everybody else?)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (*)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (*)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (x+...I have the Anne of Green Gables complete boxed set in my basement. I have read all eight books multiple times. I have a Word document I once created indicating the full name and birth year of each of Anne's seven children--and the age she was when each one was born. Nerd alert! Slash awesome??)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (x)
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (*)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (*)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (x)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (x)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (x+)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (*)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (x+)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (*)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (x)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (x...I wrote my senior thesis on this book)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (*--does Oliver and Company count? Then xxxxxxxxxxxx)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (*)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (*)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (*)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (*)
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (*)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (*)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (x)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albot
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (x)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint (*)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (x)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (x)
I've read 43 -- and I want to read a lot more. I have read Bridget Jones's Diary but hardly any Dickens. I'm awesome.
Share your list -- Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.
5) Put in a note with your total in the title line.
This quiz has been all over Facebook lately and I've been dying to fill it out but, for some reason, feel like Facebook isn't the appropriate venue. I'm acting like a Facebook snob, but I am neurotic and contradictory because I am on Facebook reading other people's quizzes all the time. Whatev!
The BBC says most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Book List:
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x...despite my love/hate relationship with Jane Austen, I've read a lot of her books)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x+)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (*)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x+ and Little Men! and Jo's Boys!)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (x)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (x)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (*)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (? Who can remember something like that?)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (I'm not even marking this as "to-read." Scandal!)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x+++)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (*)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (*)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (x+)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x+)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (*)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (*)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (x--number one source of unintentional sleeping spring of my senior year of high school.)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (*)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (*)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (x)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (*)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (*--some, not all...I should get back to these)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (x)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (Bella Bambina, 2 o'clock! Have not read!)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (x)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (*--why didn't I have to read this in high school? Didn't everybody else?)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (*)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (*)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (x+...I have the Anne of Green Gables complete boxed set in my basement. I have read all eight books multiple times. I have a Word document I once created indicating the full name and birth year of each of Anne's seven children--and the age she was when each one was born. Nerd alert! Slash awesome??)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (x)
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (*)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (*)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (x)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (x)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (x+)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (*)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (x+)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (*)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (x)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (x...I wrote my senior thesis on this book)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (*--does Oliver and Company count? Then xxxxxxxxxxxx)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (*)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (*)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (*)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (*)
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (*)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (*)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (x)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albot
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (x)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint (*)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (x)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (x)
I've read 43 -- and I want to read a lot more. I have read Bridget Jones's Diary but hardly any Dickens. I'm awesome.
Share your list -- Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.
5) Put in a note with your total in the title line.
Monday, September 29, 2008
I knew something was weird
How do I know I have too much going on right now? I know because I found out this morning that I have been washing my hair with conditioner instead of shampoo for about a month. I knew something was weird with my hair and it didn't occur to me until this morning to look carefully at the shampoo bottle, only to discover it's not shampoo at all.
Monday, August 25, 2008
brief week of freedom
Brad and I were at Priest Lake for a few days and just got back last night. It was very fun and relaxing and beautiful, and I still feel a little bit like I'm sitting on a gently rocking dock.
We took our dog Emmy with us, and it was pretty fun. It was the first time she'd gotten to come with us on real vacation, and she loved being out in the woods, running up to the very edge of the water but not getting in, and roaming the neighborhood (until a mean neighbor lady yelled at us to "get that dog on a leash!!!"-yikes).
I think Emmy got used to her brief week of freedom. Yesterday, on our way home, we stopped at Priest River for gas. When Brad came back to the driver's side door, Emmy jumped from the back of the car into the front seat. When he opened the door, she leaped out and darted into the convenience store.
Brad went running after her, both of them charging straight through the store and out its back door. I ran around the other side of the building (leaving the car doors wide open with all of our possessions temporarily up for grabs) hoping to cut Emmy off in the parking lot before she headed out into traffic. But, once I reached the back, she had already run back INTO the store. I ran back around to the car, Brad embarrassedly ran back through the store, and Emmy ran up to the car and jumped straight into the driver's seat once again, as if the whole thing had never happened.
We took our dog Emmy with us, and it was pretty fun. It was the first time she'd gotten to come with us on real vacation, and she loved being out in the woods, running up to the very edge of the water but not getting in, and roaming the neighborhood (until a mean neighbor lady yelled at us to "get that dog on a leash!!!"-yikes).
I think Emmy got used to her brief week of freedom. Yesterday, on our way home, we stopped at Priest River for gas. When Brad came back to the driver's side door, Emmy jumped from the back of the car into the front seat. When he opened the door, she leaped out and darted into the convenience store.
Brad went running after her, both of them charging straight through the store and out its back door. I ran around the other side of the building (leaving the car doors wide open with all of our possessions temporarily up for grabs) hoping to cut Emmy off in the parking lot before she headed out into traffic. But, once I reached the back, she had already run back INTO the store. I ran back around to the car, Brad embarrassedly ran back through the store, and Emmy ran up to the car and jumped straight into the driver's seat once again, as if the whole thing had never happened.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
satisfactorily uncomfortable
So here's a little life tragedy. A while ago I posted about someone who called here on the phone and asked "Is mama home?" when I answered, which I could only assume meant she thought I had a dainty and childlike voice. I mentioned that I was glad this didn't happen in person.
Well...it happened. There was this financial planner guy passing out information door to door and when I answered ours he said, "Hi! Is your mom or dad home?" I was so embarrassed! I know I look young but jeez. And the thing is, he really was not satisfactorily uncomfortable when I replied, "Actually, I'm the homeowner." He proceeded--far too easily and unabashedly--to make all sorts of small talk that I did not want any part in while my friend Kathleen hid around the corner laughing. Boo. Boo!
Well...it happened. There was this financial planner guy passing out information door to door and when I answered ours he said, "Hi! Is your mom or dad home?" I was so embarrassed! I know I look young but jeez. And the thing is, he really was not satisfactorily uncomfortable when I replied, "Actually, I'm the homeowner." He proceeded--far too easily and unabashedly--to make all sorts of small talk that I did not want any part in while my friend Kathleen hid around the corner laughing. Boo. Boo!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Affirmation
I'm at Starbucks doing my "Sunday thing." I say that in quotes not because it's not Sunday--it is--but because I don't have a need for a Sunday thing anymore. I used to go to a coffee shop on Sunday afternoons with a book and my journal because I dreaded going back to work on Monday so much that I started to hate Sundays and needed to escape. I don't dread Mondays now. I don't even work then, or on Fridays. Brad and I slept in on Friday (7:40--look who's living now!), and I went on a very long run, and we went to Costco (glamorous!) and got Frosties on the way home. Life isn't fancy and it's still not all that I want it to be, but there's a sense of freedom and spontaneity that's been lacking since college, minus vacations and weeks spent in Mexico.
I always knew, since my days at Adams Temporaries, that an office environment wasn't for me. I knew since my first month living in Spokane that a set 8-to-5 schedule was wrong for me, that the jam-packed days at Western were full but varied and that it was good for who I am--I loved bouncing between nannying and going to class and writing papers and hanging out with Brad and friends and roommates, going to the INN, playing music--the unpredictable but often familiar rhythm of that life suited me. I wrote and read. I listened. I laughed a lot.
The last five years have been quite good and I have learned a lot about myself--who I am in a new place, what it means to be a wife, who I am in Christ (or at least a little part of that), what some of my strengths are, and what some of my weaknesses are too. I've developed new hobbies--loves, really--and built relationships and learned how much I love being a leader for youth ministry. But much of the last five years has simply confirmed things I've known about myself for a long time. I don't want to work in a corporate environment. I want a flexible schedule. I want to write. I'm organized and productive and can do a lot within a routine, but I'm also deeply creative.
I found some old journal entries from about 3 years ago that list what at the time I considered to be possible future careers: writer, editor, nutritionist, entrepreneur, ministry-related job. Essentially the same list I came up with this year when I decided to get serious about myself future-wise. God has shown me and reminded me, again and again, who I am and what I love and don't love--what makes me more and less myself or, as good old Oprah would say, what makes me my best self. All that's different now is that I'm using that knowledge to decide what to do with my time. Doing that has been surprisingly natural and good.
The very day I started work at First Pres, the end of my brief no-work hiatus, I received an email from the editor of a local publication asking me if I'd be interested in freelancing for them. Brad and I have an ongoing joke about the phrase "It's a God thing", because people often use it in such cheeseball ways, or about such trivial things that I just don't believe God would intercede in--anything from getting out of a traffic ticket to being at Wal-Mart at the very moment a new shipment of Mario Kart arrives. So, I semi jokingly asked Brad if he thought the email from the editor might, in fact, be a God thing--receiving it on the first working day of the new me seemed like more than total coincidence. Brad suggested that it might be better described as an affirmation, which I find really fitting. God has patiently and faithfully reminded me of who I am, and now that I'm taking some risks to become more like that person, he's affirming me, via the email, via the freedom I feel. I did hear his still, small voice over the years, often in myself, and since I heard it in myself I often ignored it. But now that I'm responding, so is God. It's nice.
I always knew, since my days at Adams Temporaries, that an office environment wasn't for me. I knew since my first month living in Spokane that a set 8-to-5 schedule was wrong for me, that the jam-packed days at Western were full but varied and that it was good for who I am--I loved bouncing between nannying and going to class and writing papers and hanging out with Brad and friends and roommates, going to the INN, playing music--the unpredictable but often familiar rhythm of that life suited me. I wrote and read. I listened. I laughed a lot.
The last five years have been quite good and I have learned a lot about myself--who I am in a new place, what it means to be a wife, who I am in Christ (or at least a little part of that), what some of my strengths are, and what some of my weaknesses are too. I've developed new hobbies--loves, really--and built relationships and learned how much I love being a leader for youth ministry. But much of the last five years has simply confirmed things I've known about myself for a long time. I don't want to work in a corporate environment. I want a flexible schedule. I want to write. I'm organized and productive and can do a lot within a routine, but I'm also deeply creative.
I found some old journal entries from about 3 years ago that list what at the time I considered to be possible future careers: writer, editor, nutritionist, entrepreneur, ministry-related job. Essentially the same list I came up with this year when I decided to get serious about myself future-wise. God has shown me and reminded me, again and again, who I am and what I love and don't love--what makes me more and less myself or, as good old Oprah would say, what makes me my best self. All that's different now is that I'm using that knowledge to decide what to do with my time. Doing that has been surprisingly natural and good.
The very day I started work at First Pres, the end of my brief no-work hiatus, I received an email from the editor of a local publication asking me if I'd be interested in freelancing for them. Brad and I have an ongoing joke about the phrase "It's a God thing", because people often use it in such cheeseball ways, or about such trivial things that I just don't believe God would intercede in--anything from getting out of a traffic ticket to being at Wal-Mart at the very moment a new shipment of Mario Kart arrives. So, I semi jokingly asked Brad if he thought the email from the editor might, in fact, be a God thing--receiving it on the first working day of the new me seemed like more than total coincidence. Brad suggested that it might be better described as an affirmation, which I find really fitting. God has patiently and faithfully reminded me of who I am, and now that I'm taking some risks to become more like that person, he's affirming me, via the email, via the freedom I feel. I did hear his still, small voice over the years, often in myself, and since I heard it in myself I often ignored it. But now that I'm responding, so is God. It's nice.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
unemployed
I'm officially unemployed! I just got home from my last-ever day at the bank and it is SO WEIRD I can't even explain it. Who would have thought that leaving this job could leave me feeling so melancholy?
So it's on to the next thing...a couple of days at home, then a trip to Tijuana to build a house, then a few more days at home, then the new job. It's kind of crazy. I don't know how it's going to feel to not have to be anywhere at 8 a.m. anymore. I hope it will feel nice and not just bizarre, which is how it seems right this second.
So I'm off to decide on my first official summertime activity...maybe I'll ride my bike to get some lunch or coffee while I read a book. Or maybe I'll take a nap, or work in the garden, or just lounge around at home, or call a friend...it seems that now, the possibilities are endless.
So it's on to the next thing...a couple of days at home, then a trip to Tijuana to build a house, then a few more days at home, then the new job. It's kind of crazy. I don't know how it's going to feel to not have to be anywhere at 8 a.m. anymore. I hope it will feel nice and not just bizarre, which is how it seems right this second.
So I'm off to decide on my first official summertime activity...maybe I'll ride my bike to get some lunch or coffee while I read a book. Or maybe I'll take a nap, or work in the garden, or just lounge around at home, or call a friend...it seems that now, the possibilities are endless.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
summertime
In keeping with my love of lists and my upcoming summer of part-time work, I've been thinking of some summer goals. Of course. I love lists of goals. So here they are (thanks, Kathleen, for reminding me of how fun it is to post these).
Start journaling
I used to journal daily and have completely stopped. I have a couple of little notebooks where I jot things down from time to time but I miss real, concentrated journaling. I'm very excited to start this habit again and think it will make me a better person and writer.
Bake bread
I've never baked a slow-rising bread that requires more than one punching-down, and I would like to try it this summer in the early morning hours (the only time it won't be too hot in my house to consider turning on the oven). Something about baking bread seems really soothing to me. We'll see. Maybe I'm romanticizing it.
Keep my garden alive
Every year I plant a garden--vegetables in the back, flowers in the front. Every year I forget to water the vegetables and everything dies except the tomatoes. This year, I want everything to LIVE. Garden, I love you and I want you to live! (Anybody know what that's from?) I'd like to keep the flowers alive too.
Do more yoga
I've started doing some yoga videos and I really like them. They're short and relaxing and encourage me to spend time on things like my desk-warped back and tight hip flexors that I'd normally ignore.
Submit some piece of writing for publication
What piece, you ask? I don't know. What publication, you ask? I don't know. But I'd like to submit something before summer is over. I've got one idea brewing...
Spend time with my middle school girls
There is a rapidly growing number of middle school girls in our youth group, and I want to spend more time with them over the summer. I'm thinking of coffee trips, dessert parties, Bible studies or book groups...who knows? But I'd like to get to know them better and to become more cohesive and supportive as a group.
Sleep
I choose a lot of things before I choose sleep, and maybe it means I get more done in a day but it also makes me grouchy and slug-like on some days (like right this very instant). Sleep is good. And important. I should act like it.
Turn our basement bedroom into my summertime office
I want to turn our guest room into my unofficial "office". There's already a desk there, but the whole room is massively disorganized and undecorated, and I would be way too distracted by its current state to get anything done. So, I'm hoping to spend some time buying paint and putting up shelves. Anybody want to help me? It could be fun....I'll give you some fresh-baked romanticized bread!
Bike more, and swim
I'm going to try to bike places as much as possible instead of driving. This will require a bicycle basket, because I'm not good at hanging onto things like grocery baskets or my purse while riding. I'm barely confident enough to let go with one hand to signal a left turn. I've been mentioning bike baskets to Brad almost constantly. I'd also like to swim this summer--it seems like such a good complement to running, and it's so freaking hot out that submerging my whole self in water is practically a necessity. (By the way--I just learned about two months ago that "compliment" and "complement" are two separate words with two separate meanings! Thanks a lot, English degree.)
Start journaling
I used to journal daily and have completely stopped. I have a couple of little notebooks where I jot things down from time to time but I miss real, concentrated journaling. I'm very excited to start this habit again and think it will make me a better person and writer.
Bake bread
I've never baked a slow-rising bread that requires more than one punching-down, and I would like to try it this summer in the early morning hours (the only time it won't be too hot in my house to consider turning on the oven). Something about baking bread seems really soothing to me. We'll see. Maybe I'm romanticizing it.
Keep my garden alive
Every year I plant a garden--vegetables in the back, flowers in the front. Every year I forget to water the vegetables and everything dies except the tomatoes. This year, I want everything to LIVE. Garden, I love you and I want you to live! (Anybody know what that's from?) I'd like to keep the flowers alive too.
Do more yoga
I've started doing some yoga videos and I really like them. They're short and relaxing and encourage me to spend time on things like my desk-warped back and tight hip flexors that I'd normally ignore.
Submit some piece of writing for publication
What piece, you ask? I don't know. What publication, you ask? I don't know. But I'd like to submit something before summer is over. I've got one idea brewing...
Spend time with my middle school girls
There is a rapidly growing number of middle school girls in our youth group, and I want to spend more time with them over the summer. I'm thinking of coffee trips, dessert parties, Bible studies or book groups...who knows? But I'd like to get to know them better and to become more cohesive and supportive as a group.
Sleep
I choose a lot of things before I choose sleep, and maybe it means I get more done in a day but it also makes me grouchy and slug-like on some days (like right this very instant). Sleep is good. And important. I should act like it.
Turn our basement bedroom into my summertime office
I want to turn our guest room into my unofficial "office". There's already a desk there, but the whole room is massively disorganized and undecorated, and I would be way too distracted by its current state to get anything done. So, I'm hoping to spend some time buying paint and putting up shelves. Anybody want to help me? It could be fun....I'll give you some fresh-baked romanticized bread!
Bike more, and swim
I'm going to try to bike places as much as possible instead of driving. This will require a bicycle basket, because I'm not good at hanging onto things like grocery baskets or my purse while riding. I'm barely confident enough to let go with one hand to signal a left turn. I've been mentioning bike baskets to Brad almost constantly. I'd also like to swim this summer--it seems like such a good complement to running, and it's so freaking hot out that submerging my whole self in water is practically a necessity. (By the way--I just learned about two months ago that "compliment" and "complement" are two separate words with two separate meanings! Thanks a lot, English degree.)
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Jacob
I'm back! I've been holding off on the blog posts in the midst of my inner turmoil about what to do with my life. I am pleased to say that I have finally made a decision: I'm quitting my job at the bank, starting a new part-time job as the communications coordinator for my church, and going back to school in the fall to get my MFA in creative writing. I'm excited but nervous and more than a little uncertain of what the future holds...but pretty convicted that this is the right thing to be doing.
I actually have written a couple of blog posts that I never published during the last few months, so I'm including one of them below.
***
For the past few weeks my whole self has been a big jumble of worry, anxiety (are those different?), conviction, questions, dread, uncertainty, certainty, and shallow breaths. I'm thinking about quitting my job, a nice, stable, pretty high-paying IT job at a bank, a corporate 8-5 job, a job I've had for 5 years and been promoted through, to start what seems almost like a new life. Working half time for a church as their communications coordinator without medical benefits, for lower pay but great hours, great job, creativity, and a flexible schedule, while I go back to school to get my MFA in creative writing. I feel so....great about that option. It's the flexible schedule I've wanted for years, the creativity I've yearned for, the meaningful purpose behind the workplace I know I'm never going to find at my bank. With the new job I can read and write and edit and highlight ways people can get involved with ministry or connect with each other. With school I can get my masters and learn to be a better writer and take some steps toward future opportunities. But I don't know exactly what those opportunities are and it really really really really scares me.
I'm afraid of what I'll give up when I quit. I feel like I need that paycheck, that the stability it gives is everything, that IT is such a smart place to be right now, that changing careers, at least the way I want to change them, is kind of a step down the economic chain that no American or responsible, budget-weary wife should be willing to make.
But this job does not help me become who I want to be. I want to be happy. I want to be creative. I want to do something that helps people, that uses my skills, that allows me to laugh and learn new things and wear tennis shoes and work from my house or an office or a park bench or a coffee shop or Brad's office. I want to not feel like a sellout.
God has told me very clearly that my job isn't right for me. I understand that it is his Holy Spirit working in me that has given me that conviction, that has been working in me through the internal discontent that's battled for years against the lure of stability. This job isn't right for me. Staying is practical, and smart, and worldly. It's what my parents would do. It's what my boss would do and has done. But for me staying is settling, and making a decision based on fear, and based on the messed up standards of this world we live in instead of what I'm being told by God about myself. When I think about it like that, I know I have to go. I have to take the risk and choose the thing that's scary but right.
I know I'm going to have these anxieties and uncertainties and second-guessings repeatedly over the next few months. I know I'm in many ways wrestling with God right now. But I think those things we really struggle through define us. And if I struggle with this and then make the decision that's right I believe it will mark me and my life, just like when Jacob wrestled with God and came out of it with both a blessing and a limp. God tells him, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." The fact that I have to struggle to follow through with this decision says a lot about who I am and how I think and what I've been taught is the 'right way' to live. But the struggle is defining--the limp may be there, but the knowledge that I've wrestled with God and with men and yet chosen the thing that is best and bravest and right will be with me, blessing me in my life to come.
I actually have written a couple of blog posts that I never published during the last few months, so I'm including one of them below.
***
For the past few weeks my whole self has been a big jumble of worry, anxiety (are those different?), conviction, questions, dread, uncertainty, certainty, and shallow breaths. I'm thinking about quitting my job, a nice, stable, pretty high-paying IT job at a bank, a corporate 8-5 job, a job I've had for 5 years and been promoted through, to start what seems almost like a new life. Working half time for a church as their communications coordinator without medical benefits, for lower pay but great hours, great job, creativity, and a flexible schedule, while I go back to school to get my MFA in creative writing. I feel so....great about that option. It's the flexible schedule I've wanted for years, the creativity I've yearned for, the meaningful purpose behind the workplace I know I'm never going to find at my bank. With the new job I can read and write and edit and highlight ways people can get involved with ministry or connect with each other. With school I can get my masters and learn to be a better writer and take some steps toward future opportunities. But I don't know exactly what those opportunities are and it really really really really scares me.
I'm afraid of what I'll give up when I quit. I feel like I need that paycheck, that the stability it gives is everything, that IT is such a smart place to be right now, that changing careers, at least the way I want to change them, is kind of a step down the economic chain that no American or responsible, budget-weary wife should be willing to make.
But this job does not help me become who I want to be. I want to be happy. I want to be creative. I want to do something that helps people, that uses my skills, that allows me to laugh and learn new things and wear tennis shoes and work from my house or an office or a park bench or a coffee shop or Brad's office. I want to not feel like a sellout.
God has told me very clearly that my job isn't right for me. I understand that it is his Holy Spirit working in me that has given me that conviction, that has been working in me through the internal discontent that's battled for years against the lure of stability. This job isn't right for me. Staying is practical, and smart, and worldly. It's what my parents would do. It's what my boss would do and has done. But for me staying is settling, and making a decision based on fear, and based on the messed up standards of this world we live in instead of what I'm being told by God about myself. When I think about it like that, I know I have to go. I have to take the risk and choose the thing that's scary but right.
I know I'm going to have these anxieties and uncertainties and second-guessings repeatedly over the next few months. I know I'm in many ways wrestling with God right now. But I think those things we really struggle through define us. And if I struggle with this and then make the decision that's right I believe it will mark me and my life, just like when Jacob wrestled with God and came out of it with both a blessing and a limp. God tells him, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." The fact that I have to struggle to follow through with this decision says a lot about who I am and how I think and what I've been taught is the 'right way' to live. But the struggle is defining--the limp may be there, but the knowledge that I've wrestled with God and with men and yet chosen the thing that is best and bravest and right will be with me, blessing me in my life to come.
Monday, April 07, 2008
I like TV
I like TV. I know there are a lot of people who think that TV is a wasteland and watching it is a shameful waste of time, but I'm not one of them. There are some excellent, well thought out, inspiring/mysterious/hilarious/true-to-love/heart-pounding/character-driven shows out there that are certainly NOT a waste of my time at all. But I watch too much TV. It's too easy to turn it on when I get home and have it as background noise throughout the evening, to pass several Sunday afternoon hours watching back-to-back episodes of Flip This House or the Barefoot Contessa or America's Next Top Model and end the afternoon feeling like a slug because they have slowly sucked me in, from half-listening in the other room to plopped down on the couch, frantically flipping to something else during the commercials so I don't have to endure one TV-free minute.
So I decided this morning that I should start doing what people sometimes do to stop overeating: I'm going to go to the heart of the problem and address WHY I overeat (in this case, overwatch). Am I bored? Am I lonely? Am I tired? If the reason I watch is for something other than the intrinsic qualities of the show itself, then I am going to turn the TV off. Unless Brad is watching sports, because although that likely does mean I'm feeling bored, lonely, and tired, his sports commitment is out of my hands.
I don't want to be a TV-free minimalist, and I don't want to stop watching the shows I like. But I want to be sure that I'm watching them because they are good in some way, and worthwhile for me at that moment. Maybe instead of Flip That House I'll start tackling some of our house projects, or instead of The Barefoot Contessa I'll start cooking more, or instead of America's Next Top Model, I'll start modeling. Or reading and writing more. There are just too many days where the time flies by and I end them feeling unaccomplished and unsatisfied, and I want to see if paying more attention to what I watch helps me to live a little more and a little better.
So I decided this morning that I should start doing what people sometimes do to stop overeating: I'm going to go to the heart of the problem and address WHY I overeat (in this case, overwatch). Am I bored? Am I lonely? Am I tired? If the reason I watch is for something other than the intrinsic qualities of the show itself, then I am going to turn the TV off. Unless Brad is watching sports, because although that likely does mean I'm feeling bored, lonely, and tired, his sports commitment is out of my hands.
I don't want to be a TV-free minimalist, and I don't want to stop watching the shows I like. But I want to be sure that I'm watching them because they are good in some way, and worthwhile for me at that moment. Maybe instead of Flip That House I'll start tackling some of our house projects, or instead of The Barefoot Contessa I'll start cooking more, or instead of America's Next Top Model, I'll start modeling. Or reading and writing more. There are just too many days where the time flies by and I end them feeling unaccomplished and unsatisfied, and I want to see if paying more attention to what I watch helps me to live a little more and a little better.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
one big stir-fry
Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. I appreciate all of your insights! I'm continuing to research possibilities, talk to people who actually do the things I'm interested in, etc...we'll see what happens.
But in the meantime...I'm practically drowning in produce. I researched a bit about CSAs and signed up to receive a weekly box of produce (the weekly variety box, to be exact) from Fresh Abundance. The first delivery came on Friday and let me tell you...it contains a lot vegetables for a person living in a single vegetable-eater household. Brad has partaken of some lettuce, the avocado, and a couple of tomatoes...but I have spinach, baby bok choi, pea pods, daikon (I don't even know what that IS!), mixed greens, asparagus, two HUGE zucchinis, ginger, scallions, broccoli, and some assorted fruits that I really want to consume before the next delivery comes on Friday. My insides are basically one big stir-fry right now, which is probably not such a bad thing.
You can buy lots and lots of regular (organic) grocery store items from Fresh Abundance, either in the store or online. There are vast amounts of products on the site. However, I have not yet been inside the store itself because, best of all, there is FREE DELIVERY for all purchases $35 or over. I hate going to the grocery store (and there is one literally three houses away from me), so although I'm only on my first week of this new experiment, it might be tough to get me to quit. Free delivery! Can you believe it? It's probably hidden away in the cost of the produce but I don't even care. Maybe I'm going to turn into a locavore on top of everything else...I'm so of-the-moment. Anyhow, I'm planning to write up a little article going into more details on my produce extravaganza, and perhaps a recipe or two, so I'm sure there is more to come on this topic.
But in the meantime...I'm practically drowning in produce. I researched a bit about CSAs and signed up to receive a weekly box of produce (the weekly variety box, to be exact) from Fresh Abundance. The first delivery came on Friday and let me tell you...it contains a lot vegetables for a person living in a single vegetable-eater household. Brad has partaken of some lettuce, the avocado, and a couple of tomatoes...but I have spinach, baby bok choi, pea pods, daikon (I don't even know what that IS!), mixed greens, asparagus, two HUGE zucchinis, ginger, scallions, broccoli, and some assorted fruits that I really want to consume before the next delivery comes on Friday. My insides are basically one big stir-fry right now, which is probably not such a bad thing.
You can buy lots and lots of regular (organic) grocery store items from Fresh Abundance, either in the store or online. There are vast amounts of products on the site. However, I have not yet been inside the store itself because, best of all, there is FREE DELIVERY for all purchases $35 or over. I hate going to the grocery store (and there is one literally three houses away from me), so although I'm only on my first week of this new experiment, it might be tough to get me to quit. Free delivery! Can you believe it? It's probably hidden away in the cost of the produce but I don't even care. Maybe I'm going to turn into a locavore on top of everything else...I'm so of-the-moment. Anyhow, I'm planning to write up a little article going into more details on my produce extravaganza, and perhaps a recipe or two, so I'm sure there is more to come on this topic.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
basket case
As noted in my New Year's resolution post...I really want this to be the year when I figure out what I want to do for a career. Some might say that I have a career already, which is true, but it's ultimately not the career I want. I've started to feel a pretty big sense of urgency to quit being complacent and start really, seriously considering what I'm interested in and then do what I have to do-go back to school, start saving money, sell all my possessions and move to Disneyland...whatever.
I'm really starting to feel overwhelmed with possibilities, because I have a lot of interests, I take to things quickly, and I have a hard time distinguishing what is best kept as a hobby or volunteer work from what would be a good career. Some contenders include writer, editor, entrepreneur with some kind of food-based business like a coffee shop, entrepreneur with some other kind of job, dietitian, teacher of some sort, counselor of some sort, ministry job, or non-profit work.
I'm seriously looking into my options right now as far as writing, editing, and the dietitian thing go. But I would appreciate any insights anyone has for me. Do you do something you love, or are you in school for something now? What is it, and how did you make your decision on what to pursue? Is there something you can really see me doing that you would like to share? Did anyone recently have a prophetic dream about my future that is the answer to all of my problems?
I want to be very diligent about figuring this out, but I have several shortcomings that make this difficult. For starters, I don't like to try things I won't succeed in. Also, I worry too much. Plus, I try to make responsible choices, sometimes at the expense of pursuing my passions. So...I hope I'll figure some things out soon without becoming a basket case in the process. We will see.
I'm really starting to feel overwhelmed with possibilities, because I have a lot of interests, I take to things quickly, and I have a hard time distinguishing what is best kept as a hobby or volunteer work from what would be a good career. Some contenders include writer, editor, entrepreneur with some kind of food-based business like a coffee shop, entrepreneur with some other kind of job, dietitian, teacher of some sort, counselor of some sort, ministry job, or non-profit work.
I'm seriously looking into my options right now as far as writing, editing, and the dietitian thing go. But I would appreciate any insights anyone has for me. Do you do something you love, or are you in school for something now? What is it, and how did you make your decision on what to pursue? Is there something you can really see me doing that you would like to share? Did anyone recently have a prophetic dream about my future that is the answer to all of my problems?
I want to be very diligent about figuring this out, but I have several shortcomings that make this difficult. For starters, I don't like to try things I won't succeed in. Also, I worry too much. Plus, I try to make responsible choices, sometimes at the expense of pursuing my passions. So...I hope I'll figure some things out soon without becoming a basket case in the process. We will see.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
tell me this
I have been home sick with aches/chills/fever/sore throat/congestion/etc. all week. I finally went to the doctor today and got some antibiotics since it appears whatever virus I had originally has become an upper respiratory infection of sorts. I'm hoping to go back to work tomorrow, which is kind of shocking, because I always think not going to work is better than going...but I've learned that, despite my previously held beliefs to the contrary, The Today Show is best viewed irregularly, my couch DOES get uncomfortable after a 72-hour sit-in, and my poor dog is exhausted from having to "nurse" me (basically, just check on me whenever I move, or stand, or groan in discomfort). A few other things I've learned:
No more "Quil"s
I will no longer be taking full doses of anything that ends in "Quil". NyQuil, DayQuil, knockoff generic DayQuil--that means you. I spent the first several hours this morning trying to get over the NyQuil-induced grogginess that lingered from the dose I took last night at 10. Then, I took DayQuil and spent the whole next SIX HOURS in a foggy, dizzy, almost-fainty haze--although I was not feverish or stuffy. But should I have to trade my ability to think coherently and stand steadily for clear nasal passages? No thanks.
I hate 'The View'
The View is a horrible show, and I don't want to listen to those ladies banter anymore. I do like Whoopi Goldberg for hosting in a sweatshirt yesterday.
Tea can be good
I don't really like tea. Not at all. Every so often I make a vow to try to start liking it because I know it's good for me and so many people swear by tea. But I always end up turning away from tea in the end, because it just doesn't taste good enough to be worth it. But, the combination of my intensely sore throat and the wonderful blend of tea my friend Janeen offered me last night may have finally done it--the tea was some sort of caffeine-free spearmint/peppermint/citrus/something and it was SO GOOD and wonderfully soothing. I even asked Brad to go buy me more last night. Once the sore throat goes the tea might too...but it stands a chance this time.
Staying home by yourself is boring
Maybe everyone else knows this already. I always look forward to time home alone, because I'm a private person and an introvert and time alone refreshes me. Plus, there are plenty of things I don't like trying to get done when other people are here. Like cleaning. Or eating things that contain vegetables. But when you're home alone and you are sick, that is a different story. I have been bored out of my brains, ready to blow up the TV and my couch, but unable to because of the aforementioned dizzy aches. I am ready to interact with the world again.
So tell me this: what are your favorite things to do when you're home sick? What kind of tea do you like, and what would you recommend for me? (note: I think I really like minty teas) What do you find lovable about Joy Behar?
No more "Quil"s
I will no longer be taking full doses of anything that ends in "Quil". NyQuil, DayQuil, knockoff generic DayQuil--that means you. I spent the first several hours this morning trying to get over the NyQuil-induced grogginess that lingered from the dose I took last night at 10. Then, I took DayQuil and spent the whole next SIX HOURS in a foggy, dizzy, almost-fainty haze--although I was not feverish or stuffy. But should I have to trade my ability to think coherently and stand steadily for clear nasal passages? No thanks.
I hate 'The View'
The View is a horrible show, and I don't want to listen to those ladies banter anymore. I do like Whoopi Goldberg for hosting in a sweatshirt yesterday.
Tea can be good
I don't really like tea. Not at all. Every so often I make a vow to try to start liking it because I know it's good for me and so many people swear by tea. But I always end up turning away from tea in the end, because it just doesn't taste good enough to be worth it. But, the combination of my intensely sore throat and the wonderful blend of tea my friend Janeen offered me last night may have finally done it--the tea was some sort of caffeine-free spearmint/peppermint/citrus/something and it was SO GOOD and wonderfully soothing. I even asked Brad to go buy me more last night. Once the sore throat goes the tea might too...but it stands a chance this time.
Staying home by yourself is boring
Maybe everyone else knows this already. I always look forward to time home alone, because I'm a private person and an introvert and time alone refreshes me. Plus, there are plenty of things I don't like trying to get done when other people are here. Like cleaning. Or eating things that contain vegetables. But when you're home alone and you are sick, that is a different story. I have been bored out of my brains, ready to blow up the TV and my couch, but unable to because of the aforementioned dizzy aches. I am ready to interact with the world again.
So tell me this: what are your favorite things to do when you're home sick? What kind of tea do you like, and what would you recommend for me? (note: I think I really like minty teas) What do you find lovable about Joy Behar?
Sunday, February 17, 2008
What am I doing?!
I am normally a pretty big fan of the snow, and I love it that Spokane has four distinct seasons--it's one of my favorite things about living here. But the weather is gray again today, and we got another inch of snow a couple of days ago, and the old snow still isn't gone yet but instead is constantly oscillating between melt and re-freeze. Yuck.
I have fallen three times in the last month, all on Wednesdays. The first time I can't really blame on the snow, although right now I would like to be able to. I was running on the treadmill at the gym and I wanted to adjust the fan. But I hate stopping and restarting the treadmill, so what I always do is lift myself up with my arms, put my feet on the edges of the treadmill so that they're no longer on the actual conveyor, and then jump off. No problem. Then I do whatever it is I got off for, like have a drink of water, tie my shoe, move a fan, etc., and jump back on the same way.
Well, I got off the treadmill without incident, and adjusted the fan, but then it was like my whole mind went completely blank (and stupid) and the next thing I remember, my foot is just inches away from stepping directly on the moving treadmill--I'm trying to get on it the same way I would if the conveyor were motionless. I had one split second to think, "What am I doing?! I am going to fall! This is so stupid!" and then I did. One foot down, one huge fall off the back of the treadmill, three undesirable spectators, and two huge gashes of skin missing. I didn't get very hurt, but I think I might get out of this with two nice scars. It must have looked so funny, because it really was just the stupidest thing in the world. It clearly wasn't a balance issue, a speed issue, or any of the other things that contribute to most falls off treadmills (and that, in fact, contributed when I fell off once before...), just pure unadulterated idiocy.
Two Wednesdays later, I fell in a parking lot after youth group. I was just walking to the car, not taking any foolish chances, and then I was lying on the ground. I think I escaped that one without a single scrape or injury though, and only had two witnesses that time.
But then...I fell when I was running last week. There's a foot bridge that goes over Hamilton and I run over it quite a bit. I was out for a run with someone I work with and two guys she is friends with who I don't really know. Going over this bridge right now means essentially running down a hill covered in a sheet of ice, so we had just slowed down to walk, and then, right at the very moment I started walking instead of running, down I went. Five witnesses this time: the three people I was running with, plus a homeless man WHO HAD ALSO FALLEN right there and was still lying on the ground, plus the EMT who was there to rescue him!
The fortunate thing for me is that I have been able to get back up on my feet and soldier on after each of my embarrassing falls, because the only thing that has been really hurt is my pride. I have seen other falls though...one particularly funny/tragic one about two weeks ago. A large middle-aged lady and what looked to be her much smaller but equally middle-aged spouse were crossing the street downtown, and they walked onto one of those vast sheets of ice that you can never get any traction on. So the lady goes down, and she's frantically reaching out to her husband to try to catch her balance, and she drags him down with her. So there they are, both lying flat on the sheet of ice He manages to get up, and he's trying to help her, but she can't move! And since she can't get her feet down on anything that's not icy, he starts DRAGGING her across the sheet of ice to a clearer part of the sidewalk. She didn't seem to be hurt at all so it was mostly just a tragically comedic moment for me...one I think I deserved after all of the fall-related entertainment I've been providing others with recently.
(Note: I've also fallen twice in Albertsons, but those falls weren't on Wednesdays and were more than a month ago so I'm not going to share those embarrassing details here.)
I have fallen three times in the last month, all on Wednesdays. The first time I can't really blame on the snow, although right now I would like to be able to. I was running on the treadmill at the gym and I wanted to adjust the fan. But I hate stopping and restarting the treadmill, so what I always do is lift myself up with my arms, put my feet on the edges of the treadmill so that they're no longer on the actual conveyor, and then jump off. No problem. Then I do whatever it is I got off for, like have a drink of water, tie my shoe, move a fan, etc., and jump back on the same way.
Well, I got off the treadmill without incident, and adjusted the fan, but then it was like my whole mind went completely blank (and stupid) and the next thing I remember, my foot is just inches away from stepping directly on the moving treadmill--I'm trying to get on it the same way I would if the conveyor were motionless. I had one split second to think, "What am I doing?! I am going to fall! This is so stupid!" and then I did. One foot down, one huge fall off the back of the treadmill, three undesirable spectators, and two huge gashes of skin missing. I didn't get very hurt, but I think I might get out of this with two nice scars. It must have looked so funny, because it really was just the stupidest thing in the world. It clearly wasn't a balance issue, a speed issue, or any of the other things that contribute to most falls off treadmills (and that, in fact, contributed when I fell off once before...), just pure unadulterated idiocy.
Two Wednesdays later, I fell in a parking lot after youth group. I was just walking to the car, not taking any foolish chances, and then I was lying on the ground. I think I escaped that one without a single scrape or injury though, and only had two witnesses that time.
But then...I fell when I was running last week. There's a foot bridge that goes over Hamilton and I run over it quite a bit. I was out for a run with someone I work with and two guys she is friends with who I don't really know. Going over this bridge right now means essentially running down a hill covered in a sheet of ice, so we had just slowed down to walk, and then, right at the very moment I started walking instead of running, down I went. Five witnesses this time: the three people I was running with, plus a homeless man WHO HAD ALSO FALLEN right there and was still lying on the ground, plus the EMT who was there to rescue him!
The fortunate thing for me is that I have been able to get back up on my feet and soldier on after each of my embarrassing falls, because the only thing that has been really hurt is my pride. I have seen other falls though...one particularly funny/tragic one about two weeks ago. A large middle-aged lady and what looked to be her much smaller but equally middle-aged spouse were crossing the street downtown, and they walked onto one of those vast sheets of ice that you can never get any traction on. So the lady goes down, and she's frantically reaching out to her husband to try to catch her balance, and she drags him down with her. So there they are, both lying flat on the sheet of ice He manages to get up, and he's trying to help her, but she can't move! And since she can't get her feet down on anything that's not icy, he starts DRAGGING her across the sheet of ice to a clearer part of the sidewalk. She didn't seem to be hurt at all so it was mostly just a tragically comedic moment for me...one I think I deserved after all of the fall-related entertainment I've been providing others with recently.
(Note: I've also fallen twice in Albertsons, but those falls weren't on Wednesdays and were more than a month ago so I'm not going to share those embarrassing details here.)
Saturday, February 09, 2008
caucus today
I am going to caucus today for the first time ever and I'm a little nervous about it! But excited. Obama '08, right everybody? I'm preparing myself by drinking about 12 cups of coffee. We had a sleepover at our house with Autumn and Ross last night and Brad made a whole bunch of coffee this morning, but no one drank much of it so I'm making up the difference. Also, I'm going to run to the caucus, which I think is funny. We're pretty much down to one car, which Brad has to take to work today, because Brad's red Nissan is lost, lost, lost in the snow--it's almost invisible, totally covered in snow, actually, and plowed in, and even if it wasn't it does not drive well in the icy, snowy winter at all. Our caucus location is only two miles away so running seemed like a good alternative mode of transportation. So there I will be at 1:00 today at Ferris High School, sweaty, jittery, and probably mildly to moderately confused. But excited about an election and a candidate for the first time in my life.
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