A running jump at Infinity

Light as a feather

2010-01-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

I am and have always been a petite person. But I got into the habit of weighing myself every morning when my roommates had a scale in the bathroom. And also having read somewhere that people who weight themselves regularly are more likely to maintain a healthy weight, I wanted my own scale.

But I am cheap so I put it on my ginormous list of things I’d like but am not currently willing to spend money on. I also asked around the family and lo and behold when I was home around Christmas my Aunt brought me over an old bathroom scale that no one was using.

After haven eaten much delicious food at home as is appropriate I figured I might actually be up above my normal 105lbs. So when I stood on it and it showed a number sub-100 I was a bit startled. Running and stepping on my parents scale revealed that I was above 100, but not by much. So the thing was off by 3 or 4 pounds.

Since being home I have continued to use my slightly skewed scale most mornings. And well I’ve settled in around 95-96. So even if I add in the missing weight it seems entirely possible that I may be weighing in under 100 pounds. [Or its also possible that I’ve managed to find many skewed scales, one never knows.]

Now I also happen to be quite short. So my current weight is actually just about on the line of normal/underweight. And I feel perfectly fine. I’m quite capable of being physically active. I have my ballet class and am a relatively decent biker when the weather cooperates. Frequently I surprise people with my lifting capabilities. Most importantly I’m perfectly happy with the way I look.

But really now, it is just weird to have to worry about not weighing enough….sheesh.

Do not call. Please?

2010-01-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Recently I had to RSVP for a friends bridal shower. I absolutely hate/dread making phone calls so I put it off and put it off.

Before I knew it I had put it off too long and I had to call. Even that day I put it off and put it off for a number of hours. I went over what I could/should say in my head dozens of times. Eventually I dialed.

The phone rang a few times. Is someone there or has it been long enough will the voice mail pick up? Something clicked on. Voice mail. Oh thank goodness.

I muddle through my somewhat prepared message. All of the calling I have to do at work, which I have gotten relatively decent at, makes me sound very professional on the phone. I leave my message, name, and number. Very clearly, I think. It may have also been rather softly. Oops.

After the call I was rather subtly shaking.

Now I just heard that in attempting to arrange for car pooling I must call someone else.

Death on a stick.

It was a beginning.

2010-01-20T18:00:00.000-05:00

I started re-reading the first of the Wheel of Time Books: The Eye of the World.

The first night I think I must have been quite tired. Such as I really have no idea why I thought it appropriate to read before bed, but nevertheless I did and only got through the prologue. It was not all bad however as the prologue is pretty awesome and made me a bit excited for when things start really rolling later in the series.

On another night I picked it up and only got about 20 pages in or so. I’m thinking my recent yarn craft obsession is really cutting into my reading.

But then finally on Sunday I had a mostly all free day. So after accomplishing much crafting in the afternoon I devoted a few hours of the evening to my book.

Closing the book I was over 100 pages in and quite proud of myself. Until I realized that I am reading a ridiculously large book/series and so still have at least 600 pages of The Eye of the World to go.

I have a feeling this series re-read may be a love/hate task.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long pass, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."

Too cute.

2010-01-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

I hadn’t crocheted for years. But I kept drooling over the ridiculously cute Amigurumi patterns I found online. And the fact that there were Penguin patterns was eventually more than I could resist.

So I took this free Lion Brand pattern and decided that it couldn’t hurt to try.

I like him.

Sometimes my own abilities to do pretty much anything amaze me.

is reading better than tv

2010-01-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

The other day I read an online article titled “Watching TV shortens life span, study finds”. Now the idea that watching television is a (relatively) unhealthy activity is nothing at all new. But it got me thinking…what about all of the other sedentary activities found in our lives.

Most specifically I wondered about reading. When reading one is distinctly physically non-active. And yet this activity has absolutely none of the stigma that television does. Perhaps because too many people don’t do it? Or it’s quite likely that there are other correlations that exist between the variables. For example: reading is considered to be a higher level thinking type activity and better educated people are typically healthier.

I wonder as to which activity has taken up more time in my life? For most people I’m sure the answer is TV. But luckily for me I am highly abnormal. As a child my parents would only allow us to watch a very limited amount of TV. And as a child I was a ridiculously voracious reader. These days I’m sure that my tube viewing hours dominate by far. I like to try and justify this as also being in correlation with my craft time (unless I am absolutely exhausted or hanging out with the boy I never watch TV without a craft or sometimes a meal). But just knowing how much I read when I still had those empty hours (before high school) I really have no idea which activity would win out.

Moral of the story: I really ought to be more physically active but I'm really not too concerned about it.

Being square

2010-01-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure where or how I first heard about it (probably my craft geekyness) but I’ve been a member of Ravelry for maybe a year now. Ravelry is an online community for knitters, crocheters, and spinners. It’s awesome.

Mostly I like to use it as a place to find patterns and keep a list of what I would like to make in the future. Plus I can keep track of everything I’ve made in the past. But the site also has a large number of groups and forums.

Having completed my holiday knitting I went on ravelry to decide what to do next. They have groups called “alongs” where the idea is that a pattern is posted and everyone goes off on their own and makes it. If you need help you can always ask, and once you finish you can share it with everyone. I quite enjoy the idea but have never given it a try….until now.

First I found the “Knit a Block a Month KAL” (KAL=knit along). The idea is to knit up 12 different 12 inch squares, one for each month, which are then sewn together to make an afgan. The patterns are progressive and designed for the beginning knitter who will learn something new each month. I am not a beginner and some of the patterns are really really easy. But some of them have color work which will be new for me.

Often times, as with the Holiday crafting, projects will quickly loose their luster when I’m working on them. And so I thought the block a month idea would be an excellent idea. I went hunting for more….

Quite happily, although somewhat cautiously, I found a Crochet a Block a Month group. Same deal, different yarn craft. Years and years ago I taught myself to crochet. But I never did much with it. And only just a few months ago did I again pick up a crochet hook to make a cute amigurumi penguin. This group will hopefully help me to get into crocheting!

It’s very excited and I’ve made quite a bit of progress which I shall save for another post.

He went to the chimney and stuffed the tree up!

2010-01-14T18:00:00.000-05:00

This year for the holiday's I got a real Christmas Tree.

I absolutely love the holidays and it wouldn't feel like Christmas with out a real tree. But I did learn some things.

Firstly the watering of the tree is very important. By the time I was taking the lights off of the tree on this Tuesday just leaning into the tree would cause bunches of needles to embed themselves in my shirt and pull right off of the tree. Needless (but much emphasis on needles) to say this resulted in ridiculously large quantities of needles being shed upon my carpet.

After managing to move the tree outside (this involved untying it from the ceiling as it had fallen over sometime early December). I was very impressed with myself and feeling good. I figured I ought to try at needle removal with the vacuum cleaner.

This was a mistake as after 2 minutes or so of more or less futility….*zzzt* everything went dark.
I have now learned many things about fuses, crazy old ones in particular. While rather ridiculously inconvenient the generation of this knowledge I feel will definitely be useful later in life.

I strongly recommend shop- vacs for needle removal.

well oiled machine

2010-01-14T15:32:00.000-05:00

I am turning into a yarn crafting machine.

Crafting burn out.

2010-01-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

As has happened to me now for many years I went and had some big ideas for my holiday crafting. This year it was all about the hand-spun (by me of course) alpaca yarn being used to knit stuff for people. Needless to say I bit off way more than I could chew and even having only 3 projects just finished knitting a gift last evening.

It’s some crafting burn out. Mainly the problem is I feel like I must devote all of my free time to these projects which tend to be not the most exciting or something that I’m really into. Plus all while I’m (theoretically) furiously knitting or spinning I’ll be drooling over all of the other things I could be doing instead. Very sad.

But the holiday’s are over! And I even managed to make a big push to finish the one "IOU" project that remained.

Here's what I made:

All three of course started as raw wool and so required: carding, spinning, plying, washing, then finally the knitting. So overall I suppose only having gotten through 3 is ok.

But I'm really looking forward to all the new and exciting projects I can tackle!

Simple Delights.

2010-01-07T20:39:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I decided I wanted croutons for a lunch salad. The debate was then should I buy a box/bag or should I try making them.

Quick research indicated $2-$3 for store bought. Then I found this recipe for homemade. And as I actually had all of the ingredients it was the obvious winner.

At some point I decided that trying to eat a whole loaf of bread on my own was ridiculous and so I have a loaf of sliced wheat bread in the freezer. I pulled out two slices. Frozen bread is awesome in its ability to thaw in absolutely no time. I chopped up the bread (crust and all).

Then I melted probably 2 tablespoons of butter. I suspect that this was overkill. However I started with a smaller amount and it just disappeared when I mixed it with the cubes so I was afraid some of them and soaked up nothing. Even when I added more it still seemed iffy.

Having inherited garlic salt from the pantry of my old shared residence I made the first use of it in what I suspect has been a few years when I sprinkled it liberally over the cubes.

I spread everything out onto a foil lined pan and popped them into the toaster oven. When the cubes had reached some varying degrees of brownness I pulled everything out and gave them a taste.

Best. Croutons. Ever.

Utilities

2010-01-07T17:30:00.000-05:00

So since moving into my very own apartment which I don’t share with anyone else I’ve quite loved it. But this winter the utilities costs may be the death of me.

When I first moved in things were pretty ok, with the exception of evil Comcast ridiculous charges. My first electric bill was like $19. I was being pretty ridiculous about not having anything on and come to think of it I also didn’t have much stuff for some of the time.

Things have changed.

Mainly I blame the cold weather. I knew the cold factor was pretty much going to be the demise of my thriftyness. To combat this I set the thermostat originally at 65 but soon down to 60. Then sometimes I’d turn it up to 65 if I were home for the entire day (weekend). But now even if I’m home I tend to leave it at 60. I survive mainly by more or less sitting on top of a space heater when I’m at home in the evening. And to sleep I typically wear: socks, pajama bottoms, 1 or 2 shirts, and a sweatshirt. Plus on the bed is: a sheet, a velour blanket, 2 comforters, a decorative fleece blanket, and a seriously retro (probably from the 70’s) electric blanket (donated by Mother) which I try to turn on 30 minutes or so before bed and then turn off while I’m sleeping. I most always wake up toasty and it is awesome.

But attempts to save/conserve are only getting me so far. The electric bill is around $40 now and I’m dreading what it will be now that the rate caps have expired. For me the uncertainty is worse than anything.

The oil is the heavy hitter however. Early December I almost ran the tank dry (which is very bad). So to fill it was 214 gallons. It was 2.60 something per gallon I think. That hurt, a lot. But I hoped it would last me a good while. Then when I looked at the tank gauge approximately 2 weeks after it was filled there was already ¼ of the tank gone. Doom!

Just yesterday I arrived home and found that they’d come and filled the tank again (I signed up for automatic delivery so I don’t almost run the tank dry again). And even though it was a little under 100 gallons thankfully, the price was up to 2.90 something. More Doom!

The carnage (so far):
12/12 – $557.06
1/6 - $274.95
Total: 832.01

I predict things will be getting a bit worse before they get better on this front.

Witty T-shirts make me smile.

2009-12-30T15:50:00.000-05:00

Stumbled across these gem's today:

Most awesome ever?

Reading into the future.

2009-12-26T22:43:00.000-05:00

I fell off the bandwagon for quite a while again. Oops.

So without further ado back into the randomness that is my brain:

In 2009 I decided that I wanted to read at least 1 book a week. For a while it was really easy. Then it got more difficult. I latched onto a boyfriend and gee-wiz all of my free time was gone.

But I still did it. Mostly because I got ahead of schedule early on and cheated by counting audio books (it's a very different experience but my primary goal was to acquire the knowledge of a story so it didn't matter through what means to me).

Currently I stand at 53 books. I anticipate finishing 2 more before the end of the year. Yay me.

But now as I stand on the cusp of the year looking into 2010 I'm having difficulties deciding what to read. For a normal person this would seem a very strange thing. But I am odd and here's my situation:

In November a new book was published that I have been waiting for years for. It's the first part of the last book of the Wheel of Time series. The whole story of the series is a long one so to try and be concise: Really long books, really long series, author died a few years ago (when I heard the news I actually yelled "no!" in desperation), series being completed by someone else.

I was thinking I would re-read the books before consuming the new awesomeness. However it's a huge undertaking: think over 10,000 pages. So that's why I didn't include it in the 2009 book a week deal (even I know 800 pages in a week is a bit much).

So in the meantime I've gotten very good about finding books that look interesting and adding them to my "to read" list on the website Goodreads. And well if I read through all of the Wheel of Time I don't get to read the other new stuff. As a general rule I don't re-read (or re-watch etc.). I always go for something new.

This is quite the conundrum. I'm thinking maybe I'll alternate. One WoT, one new book. I kinda doubt that I'll make it to the new book in a year (especially since the boy is still in the picture and well I kinda have a life - weird), but one can't have everything.

Plus it's entirely possible that if I'm too slow the next book (part 2 of "book 12" the final book) will be out. Or if I'm really really slow the 'final' (I kinda almost don't believe them) book will be released.

Choices...choices...

We just had to forgive ourselves.

2009-10-21T07:50:00.000-04:00

In the past couple of years I’ve occasionally been hit with things that make me realize that I am growing up. At first they were more passive: friends being engaged, married even, myself buying ‘adult’ things like a bed, and generally paying for all of the things that one takes for granted as a youth.

Lately may things have been happening lately that make me realize much more actively that I myself am becoming an adult. I’ve found my own apartment, procured furniture (albeit mostly donated by the family), trying to budget my own utilities (it’ll be a while before I really know), and I’ve met a guy I could actually picture spending the rest of my life with (not to get ahead of anything however).

It’s crazy and hard to believe sometimes. But then in some ways it is also exciting I suppose.

"Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what's to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn't have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves... for growing up."

Open my closet.

2009-09-29T18:00:00.000-04:00

So I am currently displaced. I have no home. It’s de-friggin-lightful.

On Saturday when I was packing my suitcase I put together 5 outfits for work. It’s a slightly tricky kind of year because it’s just now starting to get cold. But even knowing it wasn’t a very smart idea I went and put together mostly a selection of not so terribly warm outfits.

Inevitably one of the many many many downfalls of women’s fashion is that it does not work particularly well in conjunction with staying warm. As someone who is always cold, this stinks.

When I was packing I also did not realize that I’d left my fall-appropriate jacket at home at my parents house. Ouch. And so on Sunday I went back into my temporary storage facility (old neighbor’s garage) and pulled out another sweater and fleece.

This morning it was on the chilly side so I went with a nice layered (all-be-it ¾ length sleeved) outfit. I’m slightly concerned it’ll just get colder in the week and then I’ll wish I’d waited, but so it goes. Then I also put on my fleece as a jacket type thing.

When I arrived at work it was, as always, cold. So I just left the fleece on. And of course turned on my space heater.

Around 10:30 I went to the bathroom and realized the fleece was still on. So returning to my desk I removed the layer. Life was much more sad.

It’s amazing how much more comfy work would be if I could wear absolutely whatever I wanted.

“If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits.”

Too much of a good thing.

2009-09-29T07:30:00.000-04:00

8/20: Send message in response to a guy’s online post.
8/21-8/30: Many long emails.
8/24: Exchange phone numbers.
8/24-present: Many text messages.
8/30(? ): First AIM conversation.
8/31-present: Many AIM conversations typically running quite late (who needs sleep?).
9/7ish: Schedule date for Hershey park on 9/12.
9/8: First brief phone call in-between house hunting.
9/8-9/9: Schedule date for 9/11.
9/11 afternoon: Scrap Hershey park for free tickets to the Baltimore Symphony opening night concert gala plus bus trip.
9/11 evening: 1st date. Appleby’s, Ice Cream, Bowling.
9/12: Free trip to Baltimore, dinner at Cheesecake Factory, hear Lang Lang. Best Date Ever.
9/17: Spontaneous “3rd Date”.
9/18: Made dinner at ‘home’ and Harry Potter in iMax.
9/19: Ridiculously gorgeous weather for Hershey Park.
9/26: Lunch and then he helped pack and move all of my stuff to the neighbor’s garage.
9/26 evening: Officially apply boyfriend/girlfriend titles.
9/27: Early evening walk in the park and dinner after.

"Too much of a good thing is never enough"

Relief and deathly fear.

2009-09-10T09:03:00.000-04:00

Yesterday in the comments of one of the blogs I read (Indexed) I found this gem:

"Is there a word for the mixture of smugness, relief and deathly fear of losing jobs that those of us who got into employment in 2007 feel?"

Oh heavens too true.

Anchors away my boys, Anchors away

2009-09-03T12:14:00.000-04:00

Jo is joining the Navy.

This is 100% uncool.

Firstly: I need a new place to live. Gah

Secondly: She's my only friend in Harrisburg.

I hate change.

Starting Christmas Presents

2009-08-21T22:30:00.000-04:00

I've started knitting my first Christmas present!

Yup, I intend to be prepared this year (finally). And so I've started this scarf using my very own handspun alpaca:

The problem is I have approximately 122 yards of the yarn. And I'm pretty sure that it's going to take over 700. *sigh*

The color is not great but it's a view of the back side and my progress so far (about 5 days of occasional work).

By the glare of life.

2009-08-18T19:54:00.000-04:00

I finally did another decent ride this past weekend. It’s quite sad but I’ve been suffering from severe lack of motivation and drive this summer. And cycling is one of those things that has been dramatically affected.

A good bit of it has to do with the fact that I’m completely on my own now really for any rides. Every time I ask Jo if she wants to do a ride, be it around town or a sponsored ride, it’s not worked out. Really quite a bummer.

However one of my father’s co-workers, who happens to be close to my own age, has taken up biking. And so she was kind enough to invite me to a ride earlier this summer and then to a second ride which was this weekend.

It was a metric century. So 100KM, or 62 miles. When I signed up for the ride I figured that I had plenty of time to go riding more and get back in shape. This never really happened. A week before the ride I was fairly desperate and pushed myself on two good rides totaling 50 miles. And then I started to feel more and more off. By Thursday I was downright sick. Go figure. Luckily really only hit me that one day and so despite large quantities of gunk in my head and trepidation about my ability to survive the course, I went anyways.

This ride is not a fundraising one in that I had to ask people for money, yay, but it is a fundraiser for the group because they get so many riders. It was rather crazy. Like traffic jam off of the highway to get to the event. That and I got up at like 5am to make it in time. And then waited for my riding buddies to show up.

We left the start at about 8:30. The weather was nice but promised to get hot. Which it did. It was ridiculously hot by the end. And the route is such that there’s barely any shade. It wasn’t particularly bad when we were moving. But when you stopped at a rest stop you felt completely encased in heat and could just feel the sweat building.

This is actually from a previous ride, but same people and same area!

This was not so good for me with my complexion. I think because I pretty much never go outside during the day and especially not for long periods of time I half forgot how evil the sun is. Although I did have a little travel size one with me that I put some on my nose and back of neck and such at some rest stops. But I think the sun is just too evil because my nose is still a bit red. Then I also got burn in a few places where I either missed or didn't reapply enough like the side of my neck, thin bands on either side of my watch, and bands just below the shorts line. If I tanned I would most certainly have a distinct bike tan. Very annoying.

Stand out moments from the ride for me include: Sometime around mile 6 I think I must have zoned out going down a hill. But I was doing probably 20+ miles and I went off the road…oops. Somehow I managed to just continue down the hill on the field/rocks for probably 100 yards or so and then regained the hill. Whoa.

Also it is notable that I was mildly sick. Got some kind of a cold or allergies or something. It was at it's worst on Thursday when I actually left work early and slept. But I was blowing my nose through the ride. Maybe that's why my nose still burnt. And anyways I had just blown my nose (while riding, no easy feat) when I was informed that bee had flown into my pocket. This was a bit disconcerting because I didn’t want to be stung through my shirt (is that even possible). So after a bit of jiggling around I was informed that the bee was out of the pocket and then it proceeded to crawl around my back up near my shoulder then under my arm etc. And all of this narrated by my fellow bikers being as I have no way while riding of turning and seeing my own back. It was amusing.

It was 62 miles and I came in strong. I felt like I could have done more. And yet it's rather odd because I do still in my mind think it was a good ride, and yet when I think about it all of these painful things come to mind...ah well.

“He, in his developed manhood, stood, a little sunburnt by the glare of life.”

Don't count your owls.

2009-08-07T19:00:00.000-04:00

Occasionally I go blog hunting. I’ll pull up a search engine and try to find keywords for things that interest me. Quite a while back while hunting for “Scherenschnitte” I found Cindy’s blog which is appropriately named Scherenschnitte. Quickly I became a dedicated lurker.

As a paper cutter who fails at designing my own things I am absolutely amazed by her delightful designs.

Things got even more exciting when in February she introduced “Template Tuesday’s” with this amazing Queen of Hearts design. Firstly the design is awesome. Secondly I have personal ties to anything that can be Alice in Wonderland related.

I told myself a million times that I would cut one of her designs, but I just never got around to it….until now.

In tribute to the release of the most recent Harry Potter movie Cindy posted a H.P. themed paper cut. And I finally took the initiative and did up this quick easy and fun paper cut:

A string quartet without violins.

2009-08-06T17:30:00.000-04:00

My garden this year is pretty awesome. In my humble opinion of course. Yesterday using homegrown tomatoes I made homemade tomato sauce.

Whoa.

The non-cooking type person that I am, and having grown up with busy parents who had to suffer from having two picky little girls to feed, I view tomato sauce as something which comes from a jar. Homemade is just much too advanced.

Last year however I helped J (former roommate, still landlord, friend, person whose description is as convoluted as everything else that I describe in my life) make ginormouse (that’s giant and enormous as one word) batches of tomato sauce from an old family recipe. So there was that. But I still didn’t view it as something that one does for any old meal.

Then I had a bunch of tomatoes from my garden and was determined to consume them somehow. First I used one in a recipe for avocado chicken salad (quite good but definitely scale back the scallions) that I found on Cheap Healthy Good. This left me with 5 tomatoes.

My entirely non-creative thought was, obviously, tomato sauce. I turned to Alton Brown because his show Good Eats with all of the sciency stuff involved is great. Then I did more or less whatever I wanted anyway using the recipe as a rough guide.

Really it was quite simple. I chopped the tomatoes, put a bunch of stuff on them, roasted them for like 2 hours, hunted down my foley mill, ran the tomatoes through, and voila I had tomato sauce!

w00t

"A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins."

Doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit.

2009-08-05T18:54:00.000-04:00

Sometime last week or maybe this past weekend I finally finished the scarf I’ve been knitting. Seems like I’ve been working on it for just about ever, but looking at the calendar it was begun sometime mid-April. Ok, not forever, but still quite rather slow.

Here’s the finished product:

And here’s the scarf’s story:

One of my close h.s. friends’ families (well its all because of her mom specifically) has alpacas. Facts about alpacas: They, by necessity, are sheared every year. Alpaca fiber is considered an exotic fiber and is quite expensive.

Now these alpacas are pets and so their fiber isn’t necessary of the best quality or anything like that. But for Mrs. D it has particularly sentimental value. And so she’s kept all of the shearings from each year while on and off searching for something to be done with it.

At some point she somehow connected with someone the result of which was three skeins of yarn. This is progress, but no one in the D household is much of crafters. And then someone recalled little ‘ol crafty me.

I happily accepted the task, excited to use quality yarn (my normal is the cheapest non-yucky yarn I can find). And I set about trying to figure out what Mrs. D would like for me to make for her. At first the answer was “whatever”, but after a bit she picked out the scarf pattern.

Given the weight of the yarn (quite thin) my thought had been something lacey. The flaw was that I’ve never knit lace before. So when Mrs. D liked the cable pattern, I’ve cabled often before, I went for it.

I neglected to consider the relative volume of cabling involved in this pattern. And it wasn’t so simple that I ever managed to have it memorized. So I’ll blame that for my slowness. Although the associated revelation of spinning my own yarn plus everything else I’m doing lately ought to be included.

Now I have my eye on dozens of other knitting projects, so quick and easy to pick out awesome things, yet so slow to actually realize. Ah well. I’ve already started a glove (my first glove ever!), the intent being to at some point make a pair of gloves to match the scarf.

I think I must be a glutton for punishment.

“Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit, either.”

Grocery Shopping: It's fun.

2009-08-03T21:46:00.000-04:00

Way back when....I started to blog, it was my intent to have a personal finance blog. This stems from my obsession with personal finance. Then I pretty much ignored this premesis and wrote about whatever I wanted, well at least when I wrote at all.

But with that in mind I wanted to post about my grocery trip yesterday. When J moved out probably a month or two ago now I was rather excited with regards to food. You see I was completely spoiled in that she did all of the shopping and cooking really. It was kind of ridiculous. But it was also no where near as frugal as I am with myself. Also probably not necessarily as healthy.

And so with that in mind I give you yesterday's groceries:

Cucumber: .50 - Easy to eat vegetable. Sold per cucumber so I looked for a good sized one.

2 Ears of White Corn: .50 - Half vegetable half starch. I was looking for medium sized ones because if they're too big they don't fit in my pot but they were all pretty large. I leave the husks on because I won't get to eating them for a few days.

Green Pepper: .46 - So I got this more or less because it was on sale and recipes keep calling for peppers. We'll see how long it lasts and if I use it or not.

Asparagus: 1.61 - A particularly tasty vegetable I've recently discovered.

Eggplant: 1.08 - This was an experiment. I've never really eaten egg plant but it was on sale so I went for it. I'd forgotten from my produce day's how huge the suckers are. Tonight I cut off two good slices. Gave them a bit of olive oil and salt then grilled them. Put a bit of parmesean cheese on after grilling and it was half decent. Now we'll see how the rest of the thing keeps now that it's cut.

2 Bartlett Pears: 1.71 - Fruit of the week it seems. Too bad these suckers weigh a good bit. Relatively expensive which is sad.

Orange Juice: 1.50 - Not quite sure how this will be as it's non name-brand. But for the price I'm sure I'll drink it anyways.

Pretzels: 2.50 - I take a calculator with me and I could see that I was doing quite well and I knew that I'd pretty much run out of snacks in the house so I splurged on these puppies.

Wheat Bread: .99 - Generally I don't get bread. It's difficult for one person to eat a whole loaf before it goes bad and I'm not a fan of the freezer/fridge idea. But I wanted bread for lunches this week and this turned out quite cheaper than budgeted. Yay. Maybe I'll freeze some anyways just because recently I'd think of something to eat and then realize I have bread. I did this for like so many different things. Kinda lame.

2 Powerades: 2.00 - For after biking purposes only. It seems that either these or gatorades (my norms) are always on sale 10/$10.

Tomato Soup: .97 - One of two items that was not on sale. But since I was under budget I figured this shall work well for when I can't figure out what to eat.

Pea Soup Mix: 1.00 - A complete random find. But I love pea soup and so far I've been too lazy to make it. If this turns out well the company has all kinds of different types of soups. I'm not quite sure when I'll make it however being as normally soup is a lunch thing for me and I'd already planned for chicken salad sandwitches all week. Ah well. It also happened to be on sale - w00t.

Brown Sugar: 1.39 - The second and final non-sale item. Randomly useful and I only have like 1/4 cup left.

Macaroni and Cheese: 1.25 - This was in fact a planned item. Mostly with the reasoning being that last week I kinda sucked at meals so I kept being at a loss for what to eat and this type of thing is useful in such situations. And in fact I already made it tonight. I also tried a random brand that had a nicer looking picture than most (yay marketing). It happened to be organic - weird. The result was mediocre at best.

Apple Juice: 1.25 - Being as I don't like water, I drink juice. Specifically this shall be for my lunches. Really it would be so much easier if I would just drink water. Ah well.

The grand total: 10.70

Just about everything was on sale. That's how I generate my shopping list, browsing the sales circular. The "bonuscard savings" on this trip were 7.14.

I go shopping basically once a week. With the only exception really being milk. The problem with the milk is that I seem to vary from week to week with my consumption so I can't figure if a gallon or half gallon is appropriate.

It's ridiculous, and it's awesome.

The sweet, gracious discourses.

2009-07-21T18:00:00.000-04:00

Way back when this year started I believe I was feeling a bit at odds. I do believe I must have had way too much free time back then because for whatever reason I decided it would be a good idea to read at least a book a week for 2009.

For a time this was easy. But by mid-spring things were rather busy and it was becoming difficult. I have allowed myself a bit of cheating by counting any audio books that I consume. Realistically they take significantly longer to get through the book, but I can get in ‘reading’ hours while driving or when I’ve not finished the book after the drive I’ll listen and do crafts.

This is the 30th week of 2009. I’ve more or less been tracking what I read through www.goodreads.com but it’s been a while since I actually calculated how I was doing. And so here is an exhaustive, hopefully, list of books which I have consumed:

Across the Nightingale Floor - Hearn, Lian
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Haddon, Mark
Children of Dune - Herbert, Frank
Dancing On My Grave - Kirkland, Gelsey
The Kite Runner - Hosseini, Khaled
Holding on to the air: An Autobiography - Farrell, Suzanne
Shaman’s Crossing - Hobb, Robin
The Friday Night Knitting Club - Jacobs, Kate
All the King’s Men - Warren, Robert Penn
My Sister’s Keeper - Picoult Jodi
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia - Gilbert, Elizabeth
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - See, Lisa
Animal Farm - Orwell, George
Brisingr - Paolini, Christopher
Anansi Boys - Gaiman, Neil
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Hosseini, Khaled
Artemis Fowl - Colfer, Eoin
Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident - Colfer, Eoin
The Children of Hurin - Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Secret Life Of CeeCee Wilkes - Chamberlain, Diane
Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code - Colfer, Eoin
Fellowship of the Ring - Tolkien, J.R.R.
Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception - Colfer, Eoin
Invisible Man - Ellison, Ralph
The Fellowship of the Ring - Tolkien, J.R.R.
Dragonflight - McCaffrey, Anne
Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony - Colfer, Eoin
God Emperor of Dune - Herbert, Frank
Dragonquest - McCaffrey, Anne
New Spring - Jordan, Robert
The World According to Garp - Irving, John
The History of Love - Krauss, Nicole
Odd Hours - Koontz, Dean
The White Dragon - McCaffrey, Anne

And the grand total is: 34!

Yay I’m actually a bit ahead.

“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.”

Hydrant Hysteria: Part II

2009-06-27T20:00:00.000-04:00

On May 20th the fates changed in my favor. I was going through the mail at the office I noticed something from the Downtown Improvement District (sponsors of this whole shebang). I immediately opened it and then ran to my co-worker/partner in design’s office to show her the good news. We then proceeded to inform every other staff member of our success.

She recommended going home to see if I’d heard about my other designs. But I come to work at 8:30 and leave at 4:30, none of this in between crap. So by the time I left for home I’d pretty much forgotten about it. And then remembering, soon found myself delighted to be have had ALL 3 of my designs selected! Whoa.

Unfortunately Jo supposedly sent in a design of her own that was not selected (she never showed it to me). So I felt a bit bad being so excited about mine. But all 3….wow that’s crazy.

There was a reception for all of the artists on June 3rd. I tried to find someone to go with me, but to no avail. I steeled myself for the awkwardness that is me at socializing type events.

This also meant that I had to drive downtown. As a general rule I don’t go downtown. The exception being for concerts. So I have my well established route down to the Forum and back home. I also occastional go to one other performing arts venue, but I park in the parking garage (and lose my car) every time.

Downtown I went. And I even found street parking! It was pretty spectacular. I procured my materials including the locations of my hydrants. One of my former co-workers was there so I stood around awkwardly for a while hoping he would finish the conversation he was in then I could talk to him. It was to avail and after a bit I determined that I’d had enough and went to leave. However he had seen me and so quickly caught up with me and we chatted a bit before I returned home.

The materials I received there gave me the locations of the hydrants.

They seemed good. I was excited.

[to be continued.....this is a long story]

Hydrant Hysteria

2009-06-25T17:00:00.000-04:00

Sometime in April I came across some publicity that my city was having what they called “Hydrant Hysteria”. There were 58 hydrants in the downtown district that would be available to be painted. Artists and community members were invited to submit design proposals for the hydrants.

I thought it would be the most awesome thing ever to paint something, in the public, that is more or less permanent. And so my idea was to make as many designs as possible and submit them thereby giving us (I sucked Jo in) a better chance of being selected.

However as a good many of my plans go, this one fell to the wayside. The deadline (May 1) approached and designs had not been made. Then in a rather last ditch effort I spent an evening making two designs.

The first was my original idea: a penguin. I have a mild obsession with penguins, but as a card carrying member of the Secret Society of Penguins, I feel this is perfectly acceptable. Also it should be noted that “we were penguins before it was cool”. This was the result:

SSO Penguin (see how I snuck in my SSOP reference)
A bit lame but it’s mostly just an inside joke with me and my h.s. friends.

Then I worked on my awesome idea that had suddenly struck me that day or the day before. I had been trying to think of something that would tie into the city itself somehow. And I noticed this picture:

Supreme Court Dome
My city is the state capitol and that is the Supreme Court Dome in the capitol building. I’m a big fan of slightly abstract repetitive patterns and so I went for it:

Supreme Cournt Dome

I loved it.

Now I was torn as to what I should submit. The penguin had significantly more personal value to me, but the dome was just a lot better looking and I liked it as well. So I decided that decisions were no fun and submitted both a day or two before the deadline.

A few weeks prior to the deadline I had mentioned to one of my co-workers about the whole thing. She had heard about it from another co-worker and the concensus was that the Symphony should submit a design. However spring is a ridiculously busy time here and so nothing ever became of it….until April 30.

That evening I once again stayed up late with my random drawing supplies and used the ideas that she and I had bounced back and forth to create a 3rd design:

Symphony Under the Stars

It turned out well. And I mailed it the next day.

All in all I was nervous. I couldn’t decide if I thought that no one would hear about it and I’d have a really good chance of being chosen or if my hurried attempts at being an artist would be in vain. Although I did have high hopes for the Symphony as the design turned out well and frankly we are a fairly major institution in this town.

Anxiously I waited for the listed May 15th deadline of when artists would be informed of success. The 15th came and went and I heard nothing. In fact that weekend I was downtown working the last concert of the season. There was a primed hydrant right outside of the venue that just sat there taunting me. I was sad.

[to be continued]

Re-invigorate

2009-06-08T16:03:00.000-04:00

I have decided to once again attempt to revitalize this blog.

Recent things I want to post on:
Hydrant Hysteria
Biking
Food
Spinning

Wish me luck.

Each of us knows all.

2009-05-26T22:03:00.002-04:00

I just got back from seeing the movie Angels and Demons. It was a good movie, but rather than talk about the movie I was more amused with my relationship with the story.

At some point between approximately 2003 and now I read the book. In thinking on it I believe that my father may have gotten the book from the library and with it being around the house I then decided to read it. However that particular instance could also have been the book The Da Vinici Code and then because I liked the Code so much I went and got Angels and Demons on my own. I'm not sure. But I do definitely recall that my father had read the book and so he knew how it ended and I did not.

So in theory the movie could be good, but I knew how it ended. Except that my mind is at times rather equivalent to a sieve. I went in knowing that while I remembered a few things, for the most part I didn't remember what happened.

In the theater the credits started rolling and I turned and said to TRM (who has also read the book of course), "well that stuck to the book rather well". Her responce "kinda, except for the missing big plot lines at the end." "Oh really?"

It was pretty awesome how I really don't remember. And it amuses me. And it most likely pointless to everyone else.

Ah well your loss.

"Each of us is a god. Each of us knows all. We need only to open our minds to hear our own wisdom."

Things fall apart.

2009-05-09T00:29:00.002-04:00

My life has been depressing me lately.

It started with me doing nothing but working. We had two concerts in a row and so for those of us who didn't take any days off (turns out only being 2 of us) we worked 19 days in a row with no days off. That includes 3 days that ran somewhere around 12 hours between time left house for work and time returned from work to go to bed. It's freaking crazy.

So that really made me feel like my life was pretty pathetic. Then to add to the stress of the situation I've hardly seen TRM. She was nearly living over at her boyfriends house. And being as she is the only friend that I have within a 30 minute drive, and only friend that I ever hung out with like ever recently - it was kinda sad that she wasn't around so much.

Then she took the cats over there too. And like didn't bring them back like she had done before. No friends in the house for me at all. Therefore for the few hours that I actually was home I was pathetically alone. *sigh*

This Tuesday the bomb was dropped. I talk to her on googles chat thing during the work day. We like to complain to each other. It helps us from not killing our respective patrons/customers and or co-workers. She wanted to know if it would be ok if we no longer did the 'the house spilts the cost of groceries' thing anymore. Before now she did all of the shopping and cooking - it was kind of insane but as far as I can figure she enjoyed it, so I wasn't going to argue. It makes sense because she was buying, paying a portion of, and preparing stuff and then wasn't around to eat it. I'd just been going along with it and not questioning it. Plus really I think that her non-aroundness wasn't nearly so intense as it became in the last 2 weeks. So anyways I said that would be ok because fair things are only logical to me.

But it started me on the path of 'holy crap' this is the beginning of a progression of events that very much changes how I've been living the past two years. I asked if she was planning on moving out "yes". Now thats all well in good except that she owns this freaking house. "Planning on selling the house?" Well not anytime soon, but eventually. *double sigh*

I also asked her if she was going to marry him. Because well sometimes I'm subtle like that, and hey it's how I think.

me: indeedi was going to say 'are you gonna marry him?'
TRM: I think so me: holy crap
TRM: no guarantees
but
me: damn all of you peoples

Seriously I'm quite familar with the idea that I need to be happy for her. But gosh darn it it bothers me whenever I see friends/people my age actually like getting married and all that jazz. I totally can't come to terms with it yet.

There are actually at least a dozen topics that roll through my mind as "ought to be explained further" as I write this. But I suppose it works for a readers digest type version.

Things, they are a'changing. Now if only I can convince myself that change is not bad...

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold"

Complaining

2009-05-02T13:10:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was a concert weekend and it’s finally the new weekend. Normally this means I get this sudden rush of productivity and I accomplish long lists of stuffs that I didn’t have the time or energy to accomplish in the previous week.

But not this weekend, nope. Instead there is another freaking concert. So I am at work, again. And I’m bitter about it. Plus I have this itch to be doing the things I would be doing at home. Namely cleaning, crafts, gardening, biking, etc. Plus when I left to come into my windowless hell hole it was shaping up to be another ridiculously georgeous day.

Last weekend we had ridiculously crazy downright hot weather (hit the 90’s). Most people around here bemoaned it as being “too hot”. Myself, being a warm weather creature, loved it. And I missed it because I was working.

Here we go again.

Really this is getting ridiculous.

Hydrant Hysteria - part II

2009-04-30T10:41:00.003-04:00

The deadline for submission of sketches is May 1. So obviously I came up with a great idea just yesterday, and then proceeded to stay up way to late last night working on it (think 2am bedtime). It was rather reminiscent of college, or better yet high school....college was too easy. But I digress.

My design is based on a design that is on my little desk calendar for May. It's also from my city and being as this whole thing is part of some kind of city beautification project my hope is that my subject matter will add an extra edge to the design.

Original stained glass dome (use the link to see a much larger picture:

And this is my translation onto a Fire Hydrant:

I'm quite convinced that I am not a particularly good artist (at least for drawing and similar type arts). But I am quite the copyist.

I also made a penguin, because that's how I roll:

I'm going to title it "SSO Penguin". Which actually stands for Secret Society of Penguins, but I figure SSO is much safer. :-)

Sorry about this formatting - it is fighting back and I can't be bothered fixing it.

Hydrant Hysteria

2009-04-25T13:49:00.003-04:00

I want to paint a Fire Hydrant.

It all started sometime earlier this week. My city has some funny little organization that send around a Things to Do list. And I think they also run some kind of downtown revitalization program maybe. But the first thing listed in the email was "Hydrant Hysteria".

They are having a thing where there are 48 fire hydrants around downtown to be painted. They are asking for submissions with designs and they will choose people to paint each of the hydrants.

I have always wanted to do something like this.

Does that make me a huge dork?

Every smallest stroke.

2009-04-25T13:21:00.002-04:00

That to be continued was significantly longer than I had intended. But at least I'm finally continuing now.

I arrived back at my house around 5 o'clock on Sunday with my treasure. I unloaded the car, pretty much just dumping everything in piles in appropriate rooms. And then determined that the next appropriate course of action was to gather spinning supplies. Unfourtionately I don't have many spinning supplies and my learn to spin kit hadn't even arrived yet :-(

So I gathered supplies to make my own spindle:
The wooden dowel was too long, and we use it to keep the window open so I figured shortening it was not a good idea. The knitting needle seemed to be missing it's mate anyway, plus I rarely ever use needles above size 6 lately, and it was the right length. I wanted to add some weight to the spindle without using tons of CD's so I taped some pennies to the CD's, used duct tape to attach the CD/penny sandwich onto the needle, and then duct taped a bent paper clip onto the tip to form a nice hook. Voila:

After that I went ahead and based on the dozens of 'how to spin using a drop spindle' sites that I've read and or videos watched online I spun out some yearn. It was rather crazy - mostly owing to me putting way too much twist in the yarn I do believe. Then unable to find very helpful instructions I created my own method of plying.

I divided up what was on my spindle into two by wrapping each bunch around a spontaneously chosen object: the points of my detachable circular needles. And then I again used the spindle and some brute force to ply them into one "yarn" that ended up being between 2 and 3 yards long and looks more like rope than yarn. But I'm still quite proud of it.

:-)

“We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar.”

We are spinning our own fates.

2009-04-21T18:00:00.000-04:00

Hi, my name is Carlin. I’m 23 years old and I’m already a spinster.

As referenced before I had the idea in my head that I was going to learn to spin yarn. I journeyed back home for the weekend to visit with relatives who were visiting from NH. That in and of itself is a separate blog worthy event, but for now I digress. On the route back home (as in the house that I live in on a daily basis these days) I had arranged to stop in and visit Mrs. D. She is my friends, Bananas, mother. She has five pet alpacas.

She is also crazy. Having visited and having listened to stories a number of times during our high school years and even a few times during college I knew she was crazy. But sometimes time makes one forget things, like how odd some people are. Not to knock her or anything. She’s an exceptionally nice and kind individual. Just happens to also be crazy.

I pulled into the driveway and Mr. D happened to be out in the yard and went to go and get her. Laid out in the garage (they have a big garage) were, oh probably 40-50 medium size plastic garbage bags of alpaca fleece. Holy crap how much did she think I was going to take.

She eventually came out and so began the chatting. We were rather focused around alpacas and hand crafts. But at least at one point we dabbled very briefly on personal spirituality. All in all I barely got a word in edge wise.

To begin with I was feeling a bit iffy about just taking all of her fleece. The stuff really does actually have value, but no worries there anymore. She just wants to see something done with it. From Banana she had heard that I’m considering going back to school. And somehow she suggested that I could sell the fleece and use the money for school. The naivety of the idea makes me laugh. Yet it does show the point. She had also given thought to the prospects of us starting a business together. Both of our names have good C sounds so she was combining that with some form of Create. Actually rather catchy. Tempting, maybe someday, I can always hope.

I left her house with a bag of fleece for each Alpaca. And big dreams.

At home I weighed my new treasure: approximately 15 lbs. For comparison sake, one will typically sell fiber by the ounce. 15 lbs at 16 oz to 1 lb = 240 ounces. A slightly researched conservative estimate of $2.50 per ounce from an individual alpaca farm = $600.

*Reaches down to pick jaw up from the floor*

That is ridiculous, even if you reduce the number in speculation that one would receive a bulk discount.

My goodness.

This story of my transition into spinsterhood to be continued…

“We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar.”

Every once in a while.

2009-04-15T22:16:00.002-04:00

One of my good friends families has a small herd of alpacas as pets. They keep all of the wool from shearing and at some point found someone to spin the first years fleece into yarn. Her mom really wanted to have something made from the yarn but doesn't knit and it didn't occur to anyone that I knit until recently it seems. So I have been working on a scarf for her. It's currently at about 8 inches. The pattern she choose is rather small so I'm hoping to make it extra long.

More importantly this exercise has instilled within me a desire to learn to spin yarn. Supposedly they have each years shearing up in their attic. And have I ever been able to resist a new craft?

If only crafts were less expensive I would be much more happy.

From e-bay I procured a set of carders that I'm really just hoping will work. And after much research and holding off I finally actually put in the order for this drop spindle kit. I can't wait for it to come so that I can actually stop the drooling over online video and instructions and actually try it for myself.

Let us just hope I don't fail spectacularly. That would be sad.

In other news I am working diligently towards a way to make popcorn in the microwave. The hitch being that this is not those silly microwave bags. Now you may be saying "put the kernals in a paper bag, close it, and microwave. But you see I have no paper bags. Improvisation was required.

Attempt one:
Idea:Kernels in one of our Tupperware containers with the lid not fully attached so as to serve as a vent.
Observation: somewhat soggy popcorn and over cooked popcorn, and when I got to the bottom of the bowl I discovered some unpopped kernels imbedded in the plastic, there were also some melt holes. Oops.
Result: Failure.

Attempt two:
Idea: Kernels in a glass bowl with a paper towel rubber banded on top.
Research: Are rubberbands microwave safe? Do they give off anything toxic? Findings were inconclusive.
Observation: Popcorn seemed overcooked and yet some kernels still unpopped.
Result: Failure of less epic proportions. Oh and I don't seem to be dead from any toxic fumes or anything either. Although I think my applesauce at lunch today (homemade and canned) may have given me a bit of food poisoning. I suppose that is another story.

Lastly today at band (which is still driving me completely nuts with its awfulness yet I still go nevertheless) some new kid showed up like 20 minutes into rehearsal. Normally this would not merit comment however he bore remarkable resemblance to my first boyfriend. Although not quite a tall and lanky he could have been A squashed down a bit so as to be a bit more plump and also seemed a bit less socially awkward (no offense intended, I have nothing against you [finally - yea I know I'm pathetic], but it is true at least from when I knew you well).

"Every once in a while, someone will mail me a single popcorn kernel that didn't pop. I'll get out a fresh kernel, tape it to a piece of paper and mail it back to them."

The trick is not to get frightened.

2009-04-14T18:08:00.002-04:00

For any number of reasons this evening I am in quite a 'lonely' mood. And while it is, as one might typically imagine bothersome, I'm actually rather at peace with it.

"No matter how lonely you get or how many birth announcements you receive, the trick is not to get frightened. There's nothing wrong with being alone."

Marshmallow Peeps

2009-04-07T12:20:00.000-04:00

Today, spontaneously, in the office, my coworkers put two marshmallow peeps in the microwave to see how large they would get. Upon taking it out and allowing it to cool they then ate it like a delicacy.

These people are all how much older than I am?

In other work related news last week I lost it at 4:15 on Wednesday. A co-worker came because she’s like my friend in the office and she’d heard the un-pleasant phone call which was the straw that broke the camels back. Trying to talk to her made me break down sobbing. Then our boss showed up looking for her. The hysterics continued. De-lightful. He didn’t know what to do and recommended taking days off. I have no time for days off.

Two nights ago I had a bad dream/nightmare about printing off and brining the wrong tickets to the concert.

Conclusion: this job is slowly killing me.

Oh and I have another first date tonight. *sigh*

A sense of belonging.

2009-03-31T00:07:00.004-04:00

In the 3 months of 2009 I feel like I have accomplished quite a few crafts. And since I like to show them off:

My hat with cables. The first time I've ever knit in the round. It came out too long, but w/e it's an awesome hat with cables.

I found an amazing craft website with tons of projects with instructions. This was one of them that I couldn't help but doing. And it turned out wonderfully! I recently gave them to a friend whom I thought could use some cheering up.

Around my birthday time TRM and I played with fondant and made these mini cakes. this is the one which I am most proud of. Although really I wasn't much good at the actual fondant covering part.

This, obviously, is not an actual craft. But I love it! You see I accidentally wore my green sweater on the day before St. Patty's day, so I had to improvise. And this is what I came up with. Basically I have ridiculous amounts of hair and am kind of ridiculous myself. I wore it with light tan pants, a white sweater shirt/v-neck with just a bit of a green tank top peaking out. I am way too proud of myself.

For some reason I have a bit of an obsession with Raphael's Cherubs. So I just had to make them into a paper cut. And it came out rather well I think.

"Crafts make us feel rooted, give us a sense of belonging and connect us with our history. Our ancestors used to create these crafts out of necessity, and now we do them for fun, to make money and to express ourselves."

Learned ones make efforts.

2009-03-29T21:48:00.003-04:00

I had an idea yesterday. Or maybe today. I'm not sure. Concert days blend together.

So I seem to be paying off student loan #1 quite quickly. Right now I think I'll be done with it by July. Possibly sooner if I keep throwing dollars at it randomly. Then I was trying to figure out what I would do with my extra dollars once the loan was done.

I considered many things: pay off more student loans, plump the emergency fund, add to the vacation fund, take more lessons, invest, save for a house.

My current idea is that I can save for a house. But I can just keep it in either a CD or plain old in a savings account. Then if bad things happened and I needed to use my emergency fund I could raid it and it wouldn't do any harm.

Yay.

"During emergencies learned ones make efforts using their intelligence."

For a moment, nothing happened.

2009-03-28T12:53:00.002-04:00

So I have very obviously been a complete slacker about posting here. And in fact I'm feeling quite a bit like I've been a complete slacker about quite many things in my life recently. But I'm afraid work is completely overwhelming me and beating down my psyche into mush.

Rather unpleasant.

Plus it's always to get started on something again I find because I never know where to start. It's a problem. So here goes nothing.

I've missed a few bike rides this month (still too chilly to get out very often):

3/5:
DST: 7.795
AVS: 11.4
TM: 41:05

3/7:
DST: 27.503
AVS: 11.9
TM: 21:18:35

Something is wrong here, I was not out for 21 hours, more like 3 or 4 max. Although it was a gorgeous day and TRM plotted a route that was new and I quite enjoyed. Well at least enjoyed until we turned around and were going uphill with a head wind - that was annoying. This may become the new 'long trip' route I'm thinking.

3/17:
DST: 13.431
AVS: 11.6
TM: 1:09:36

3/27:
DST: 12.939
AVS: 12.5
TM: 1:02:15

That was yesterday. I was kind of upset with myself because after 4 miles I started feeling really really crappy. And I was trying to push myself so that I can become not so slow, but I still felt slow. Although now that I compare them I think I'm just out of shape because I've not been in the 12's for a while. That and next time I won't eat a bowl of frosted mini-wheats and some orange juice before I go out.

Now I shall attempt to go and update my sidebar thingy's. If I can remember how that is.

I've also been dumping quite a bit of money into my student loan. It's pretty awesome. I got a ridiculous tax refund, $1200, which normally would be a bad sign, but actually it's not so bad of me. You see last year when the economic stimulus cash thing hit I had still been declared a minor on my parent's tax return being as I was in school the first half of the year. So I didn't get any of that money. But apparently they're still giving it out and this time I qualified!

Well that is a start. Hopefully I'll be back soon.

"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."

Popous joy.

2009-03-07T13:59:00.002-05:00

On March 1 there was a big snow storm. Out here we really didn't get hit by much of it at all. Around an inch or so I think that didn't stick around very far.

This weekend it is in the 60's. Maybe even 70's. I love it.

First TRM and went out for the first 'real' ride of the year. It was a very good ride. I felt quite strong and was very happy.

So then we got back and I decided that I really needed to continue to enjoy the gloriousness. Enter in the magic of the laptop and wireless internet (that and I also took out my book and knitting).

But my amazing awesome plan has been foiled. I'm sitting here squinting at the screen and mostly just seeing my reflection.

Damn modern technology and the awesome screen that is so crisp and great but also acts as mirror. Nuts.

"March is the month of expectation,
The things we do not know,
The Persons of Prognostication
Are coming now.
We try to sham becoming firmness,
But pompous joy
Betrays us, as his first betrothal
Betrays a boy."

Knitted socks.

2009-03-04T23:05:00.003-05:00

It's been a while. I apologize to you, my one faithful reader.

Alas work is stressing me out like whoa. And well I don't really have much of anything worth much of a life outside of work/personal life. So when one puts the two together it means I'm trying to deal with lots of stress but I don't actually have much that can function in a way to properly enable my life to balance itself into a happy medium. And so I find myself falling further and further into my own pity party.

Ah well. So it goes.

Some random highlights which follow no logical order or purpose:

Our end of row neighbor randomly asked me to cat-sit. She has 3 cats and they're all crazy in their own way. My favorite is Gigi. Shes a smaller long haired cat. It was impossible to figure her out because she would be skittish and then beg for attention. In 5 second variances. Like seriously I should have made a video of her. It is the most bizarre thing when a cat comes over looking for attention and then the next moment looks up at you like you're an ax murderer. I have a theory however. One day I noticed, as I was petting her which was having the results that I couldn't figure out of pain/disdain or pleasure, but anyways I noticed that she seemed to have a good bit of static owing to her long fur. So my figuring is that basically she's more or less constantly receiving static shocks, kinda like mild electo therapy, constantly. This is what has caused her to be completely off her rocker. Good times.

I seem to have developed a mild e-bay addition over the past 2 days. In the past I have been known to randomly start tracking a million things on ebay to see what the average and low prices one can score. For some reason on this most recent wave I was focused on bike gear. Specifically pedals. Next thing I know I'm the proud highest bidder of a new (well new to me) pair of SPD's. $13.50. Rock on. Now the ultimate test will be if they go on my bike (really not much of a concern), if they are compadible with the shoes I got when I purchased the bike (questionable, all research indicates they should, but for some reason the instructions with the shoes [yea my shoes have instructions] has some crazy line about not working with spd pedals, i don't get it), and most importantly but the thing I've thought least about is me actually learning and liking clipless. Ah well 13.50 is what a good many people might spend on lunch. Alas that logic is flawed because I'm not other people and never will be so its practically pointless to say. The whole train of thought is much more indepth as to why this is flawed but I digress. Today on ebay I scored 2 pairs of shorts for ballet for $9.75. I've been eyeing up all kinds of various dance-wear for quite a while now but can never justify the expense. Seriously I'm becoming like a spend-a-holic in my depression. I'm quite tempted by a number of other things currently. Most notibly being a pair of bike shorts that are not tight so would make me look less silly commuting or what not. And an orange/floral bike seat which would (in theory) match my orange bike but the listing has no brand so I know I really shouldn't waste $25 on a decorative idem. But it's pretty!

I bought a bed a few weeks ago. It was an adventure and a half getting the thing home. But we made it and did not loose it along side the highway - yay. I went from a twin to a queen in one fell swoop. I love having bed space!

I made some pretty awesome paper flowers based on instructions I found online. I ought to take a picture and post it. Seriously they're adorable.

I read a book that tied knitting into the story. It made me want to knit amazing awesome stuffs. Then mother randomly brought me this random sock knitting catalouge that seems to have been sent to father. Luckily I don't ask questions. Instead I went to JoAnn's yesterday and now I am knitting a crazy bright blue sock. I question what a hand knitted sock shall come out looking like, but can't hurt to try. The best part is how amazing it is to work with this crazy tiny yarn and crazy tiny needles. Why do I seem to love small things so much?

Tomorrow at work I really really really need to go and talk/call out my boss on something. It's scary but doing it should help me learn to stick up for myself and help point out the fact that he is clueless about management. Poor guy.

"It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up."

Blargh.

2009-02-24T13:45:00.002-05:00

Work of fiction.

2009-02-13T13:59:00.000-05:00

In today’s thinking and poking around the thought struck me: how cool would it be to write a book. Like a for real at least 200 page novel. It would be awesome.

Unfortunately I feel utterly incapable of conceptualizing a whole plot/story/world. Just much too difficult and my ideas are so rarely original.

Keeping this in mind I’ve struck upon two more abstract ideas:

First as I was eating my two clementines with my lunch I was reminded of JM’s short story for a creative writing class. I don’t recall if it was about an orange or if there was just somehow an orange that was prominent within the story. But I considered stealing and writing a story about being an orange. However I then realized that the difficulty of the orange being consumed could be avoided by instead writing a story about being an inanimate object. One of those could stick around for much longer. Or maybe what about writing a story about being a cat. Oh! It could be a story with a twist! If one managed to write about the life and times of this non-human in a very human way would it may be possible to basically ‘trick’ people and create this very interesting slightly-off feeling.

I had a second and then even a third idea but I got excited about idea one there and forgot the others. Blast.

Do what you can.

2009-02-13T11:30:00.000-05:00

I have a three day weekend beginning at 4:30PM today. This makes me very happy.

During my time not at work I am feeling like I really really want to accomplish something good. Some kind of awesome craft comes most to mind. So I’m trying to plan for this.

Unfortunately I have absolutely no motivation and nothing sounds like I actually want to go through with it.

Uncool.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

62 and sunny - or not

2009-02-11T15:41:00.003-05:00

Supposedly it is gorgeous here today. The whole idea of it makes me very bitter. Not that that is very difficult to do or anything.

63 and sunny says weather.com. And people who come in keep informing me about the amazingness. Or as a fun alternative one coworker said I should leave early because it was so freaking nice.

But instead I am choosing to remain ignorant. I knew it was going to be amazing but I'm pretending it's normal. And being as I have no windows or outside doors this is easy enough to do.

I suppose I could (have) left early, but for some reason I felt the need to actually work my 8 hours. This makes particularly little sense being as I'm on day 10 in a row right now. Maybe I'm just staying to be 'hardcore.' Or maybe that post I wrote yesterday got to me. Difficult to say.

If it stayed light past 6 I could still make at least half an effort at still getting out and enjoying the unseasonable awesomeness.

Instead I am an office-potato slacker.

When spring hits for real I am so going to try bike commuting. [I may die crossing the roads but I've said this before].

Demoralized slaves.

2009-02-09T16:34:00.002-05:00

I was reading an article over at The Brazen Careerist. She was actually posting a letter by a 20-something investment banker that was his response to Obama’s proposed salary caps for companies that receive bail out dollars. The letter was kind of stupid the main premise being ‘why not cap hours worked?’ It went on to talk about the French system and generally wasn’t well done or written at all.

But it did get me thinking.

Particularly there was a comment left by someone in the medical profession about how resident doctors were being limited to 30 hour shifts and 80 hours max and that some said this was too low. Wow.

The normal work week, my own included, is 40 hours. Some weeks, concerts, I’ll hit around 60. But doing 80 seemed impossibly large.

So I broke out the calculator:

-24 hours in a day 7 days in a week and holy-moly there are 168 hours in a week. Whoa now my 40 seems like nothing.

Well maybe it’s because so much of it is lost sleeping?

-24 hours in a day less 8 hours of sleep still 7 days. Still 112 usable hours in a week.

Ok so I’m generally not at all very productive right after I wake up, it takes time to attack the week. And things like eating can take time.

- 24 hours in a day less 8 hours of sleep less an hour in the morning less an hour and a half for other mundane things times 7 days. 94.5 hours left to occupy.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain about working my 40 or 60 hours so much.

If the workers do not fight for higher wages, if they do not fight for a shorter workday, if they do not fight for, let us say it in a provocative way, day-to-day economic issues, they become demoralized slaves.

23

2009-02-08T22:20:00.002-05:00

I am now 23. In fact I have been so for a few days even. But I did have a good birthday.

Although realistically there were some downer thoughts. However I think I decided that for some reason just the idea of it being my birthday puts me in a positive mindset and so it's just going to be a good day no matter what. I recall the same sense of feeling from other years. I'm just a good bit more happy mellow on my birthday.

There were however some definite random occurrences that definitely added to the awesomeness of my birthday:

First and foremost sometime early but not to early that morning I'm sitting at my desk at work when P walks in. She's a middle aged woman (one child in college other in h.s.) who does quite a bit for the Symphony. I know she's quite involved in the symphony society and their functions plus she does quite a bit with the education committee and she often comes out when we ask for volunteers to help with random office tasks (generally large mailings). And she's really just a very nice person. But she had been in helping with a mailing the day prior but today she says "I just was in the area and wanted to stop by and give you this *hands me a card* and these *hands me flowers*".

!

Like holy crap where'd that come from? It was amazing. I have no idea how she knew it was my birthday. I figure one of my co-workers must have said something (we celebrate birthdays with cake in the office). But the georgeous flowers (purple iris' and smallish white roses) were so random and just so awesome. I could totally actually enjoy these (verses the last flowers I recieved if you recall).

And then the whole day there were lots of 'happy birthdays' and it was a fairly busy day so people were in and out that aren't all normal staff then most all of them would somehow hear it was my birthday and many gave me compliments. Or it was always fun to see jaws drop when I told them I was 23.

One awesome quote from my boss. "So how old are you now? 24, 25, 26?" Seriously I seem to have them trained to forget how young I am anymore. It's good stuff.

Overall the impression the day left on me was that I really can't imagine how I deserve such nice things. Particularly the flowers. Seriously people you're too good to me.

Purest of all experiences.

2009-02-03T15:14:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I had a bit of a profound moment. I am now seriously considering contemplating and researching the possibility of attaining a Masters in Library Science and embarking upon a new career path.

All in all it's pretty crazy and makes me very unsure of myself.

"Believers and doers are what we need -- faithful librarians who are humble in the presence of books.... To be in a library is one of the purest of all experiences. This awareness of library's unique, even sacred nature, is what should be instilled in our neophites."

When it snows.

2009-02-02T15:02:00.005-05:00

Yesterday the temperature made it up to the 40's so off I went. The weather was great and it was sunny, and there was snow on the ground.

Down the road I went and when I got to the start of my normal trail it was completely covered in snow. Well that's a no go. So I reconsidered my options and went back out to the main road and up a good hill. I figured that I could take that road out to where it eventually meets up with my normal trail across a college campus. Except that plan involves getting across 6 lanes or so of a busy road. There's a traffic light so in theory it's entirely doable, but not exactly ideal.

So instead I decided to try something that I thought might work. A time or two ago when I was out it seemed like normal traffic was moving along what looks like not much more than a service road but it would work. So off I went and instead of my path I took this road instead. I'd always known of the road but didn't think through that it connected out to the road. It was an exciting find. But I knew that the road ended at a bit of a field/park before the underpass that gets me across the busy road.

I got there and my path was covered in snow with one other bike track and some foot prints. Being hardcore as I am onto the snow I went. My bike is not made for snow. You see I have a street bike. It's not an overly serious racing bike so my tires aren't completely bare. But they don't really have much tread either. I figure the picture I found is a decent approximation of them.

I made it approximately 30 feet I figure before I gave up. It went something like this. I'd petal move forward crunch down through the snow (it was a layer of powder with a crust on top) then have to regain my balance as I almost fall over. Repeat. Every movement was the same. It was torture. In someways it reminded me of the mountain biking when I felt like I was off balance so often. But this time I was not even moving because given the lack of tread each push was getting me nowhere. So I walked a bit then the snow was softer so I got back on and it was much nicer. I continued out to my normal turn around point with only minor modifications.

On the way back I decided that I really didn't want to go back over the snow. But I speculated that there may be a way around. You see the service road that I took is a part of a big old complex. It's called the "state hospital" it used to be a big old insane person facility. Now the state government uses it for some kind of offices I think. I'd seen bits of it once or twice. But the place is freaking huge!

Half randomly guessing I wound around all of these buildings and miraculously enough I made it back out where I wanted. It was exciting.

Distance: 13.071 miles
Average Speed: 11.2 mph
Time Moving: 1 hour 10 minutes 8 seconds

"When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels."

Rock Paper Scissors

2009-01-29T16:29:00.005-05:00

Today in the mail I received my newest pair of scissors. Here is my collection. I am immensely proud of it:

1. This is my newest pair (the ones I just received today). They are Gingher 8 inch dress making shears. Pretty much awesome indestructible amazingness. Mother had a pair when we were growing up (and still does) they are the best for any kind of fabric cutting.

2. Random walmart scissors. They work.

3. 2nd pair of random walmart scissors because I frequently misplace or leave my sissors in many different places.

4. In theory these could be paper cutting scissors but I recieved them second hand from someone and already had better pairs. I use them for thread cutting and what not in random crafting.

5. For a while these were my premier paper cutting scissors. They work well enough but sadly they're not exactly true, as you can see in the picture they don't close fully without pressure because the blades are curved towards each other somehow, so they're most certainly not perfect. I think they were also second hand along with the embroidery scissors.

6. These beauties are my treasure. Hoffer gold's from Switzerland (via paper cutting by Alison), my parents gave them to me for Christmas a few years ago. And now I am a compete scissor snob. Nothing else will do. No one is allowed to touch these scissors and they are only for paper cutting only on mid to light weigh paper - and even the midweight can be questionable (I'd not be so keen on using regular computer paper).

7. Here we have my first pair of scissors. Well first specifically personally owned ones. My father got them from the gift shop at his library/museum along with a Scherenschnitte book and thats what started me off on my scissor obsession. Now I can't believe that I ever used those brutes for much of anything. So it goes.

[Not pictured: A pair of 2 inch emroidery scissors matching 4. Last seen in with my cross stitch project. Current location: unknown.]

Rock on
Paper Cutting
Scissors

The quietest and most constant of friends.

2009-01-29T16:27:00.000-05:00

I am behind on my book reviews. And I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading. I’ve fallen into a very nice pattern of going to the library every two weeks (that’s the length of their check out period with no renewals) where I pick up 2 books and 4 or 5 CD’s. It’s pretty sweet. And now I’m wondering if I might be able to keep up this book a week trend all year. It would make me feel accomplished.

Library trip 1 (most likely on December 29)
The curious incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – While it’s accuracy has been called into question the story is told from such an interesting perspective/mind set that I’d definitely recommend the book.

Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, Book 1) – A fairly new fantasy series set in an asian world/mentality. Amusing but nothing special.

Dvorak: Symphony #9, Serenade for Winds: Eugene Ormandy; London Symphony Orchestra – Recently I’ve begun collecting Dvorak 9 (its quite possibly my favorite) and while the recording quality left me wanting more at first I soon got over it and realized how amazingly balanced this recording was. Spectacular.

Bernstein Symphony No. 3, Chichester Psalms – I’m a big Berstein fan but just didn’t take the time to really listen to this one. The whole choir/symphony thing makes me a bit standoffish.

Under The Corkwood Tree: Fall Out Boy – They’re just a fun group. I didn’t realize this album contained so many singles.

Library trip 2, 1/12
Children of Dune (interlibrary loan) – I have now completed the full original Dune trilogy – yay! CoD was definitely back to the amazingly amazing quality of the first. The second is definitely the weak link.

Dancing on my Grave, an autobiography of Gelsey Kirkland – If you’re not at least familiar with dance/ballet I would not recommend this book. However if you are and have an interest I definitely recommend it. Her story is crazy and it’s fascinating to be able to see ‘behind the scenes’.
Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix: Nicholas Hooper – Quite different than the other Harry Potter movie music. It’s not nearly as catchy which I easily attribute to the heavily lesser use of themes and motifs. But most certainly some great music. Also interesting to note is that the tracks are not arranged chronologically based on the movie (as most movie score music is) but rather arranged to form its own cohesive album.

Mahler Symphony # 6 – I totally was aiming for 3 or 4. How did I end up with 6? I’ve not listened to it yet.

Why Should the Fire Die?: Nickel Creek – This is my newest and best recent music find. Its this awesome folky but not just folk music. The harmonies are rich and complex. No two songs are so alike, yet they still have an overall sound. Multiple vocalists are featured and there are also instrumental tracks. A definite must listen.

Library trip 3, 1/26
Kite Runner – A poinent and phenomenal story of love loss and honor in a society we have heard about but rarely comprehend. Chances are you’ve heard it recommended else where or have already read it. There’s a reason for this I now see.

Holding onto the Air: Suzanne Farrell autobiography – TBA (I’m on page 20 or something).
Schindler’s List: Itzhak Perlman, John Williams – One of my new most favorite movie scores. I already knew the main theme but seeing how that is carried through the whole score is amazing. John Williams is less one sided than some of his other block busters indicate. And Perlman shows you why he is a classical music superstar and other musicians are mere mortals.

Superman: The Movie: John Williams – We played one of the songs in marching band. I am a marching band geek. Rock on.

Rutter: Gloria: Choir of King’s College – We sang Rutter’s Gloria in college choir. This choir does it a million times better. *oh that’s what it’s supposed to sound like*. And the treble parts are sung by boys. Unfair.

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”

An adult on a bicycle.

2009-01-25T14:13:00.002-05:00

The weather here has been cold recently. I do not like it. But on Friday we had a day of respite as temperatures made it up to the 40's. Also recently I'd been noting that it's stayed light a bit later in the evening (all the way to 5:30). Putting these factors together and I wanted to get out on my bike again. So, with a bit of encouragement from a co-worker, i left work early, around 3:15, and went home to go out for a nice ride.

Temperature wise it was quite amazing. I was acclimated before I headed off even. Although it was still quite cool whenever there was a breeze (like every downhill). And there's one part of the trail that is down in the valley of a stream and mostly in shade. That part was definitely cooler than the rest. Plus there were even some patches of snow/slush there. I was slightly concerned that that could be detrimental to my health. The first danger being sudden lost of traction and fall off bikeage the second being tire spray and getting wet. But I survived the perils without notice. I did almost spill one time but that was owing to cinders that had built up on the side of the road. Fun fun.

Here are my stats:

Distance: 12.958 miles
Average Speed: 11.7 mph
Time Moving: 1:06:22

Rock on.

"When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race."

A bed may show of human bliss to human woe.

2009-01-21T23:11:00.002-05:00

On Wednesday I received an email from my Mother. It's opening text was pretty standard in it's "hey it's been a while and I figured I ought to check that you were still alive." This is not a direct quote but rather an inferred summation. Me and my parental units are cool like that. She then proceeded to inform me of various random things about some assorted family members. Then she mentioned that my birthday was coming up and instead of my prior plan of bringing out my old bed from home sometime someday I should just buy myself a new bed and they'd reimburse me.

I. Freaked. Out.

Like seriously? Me, buy a bed? For serious?

A few months ago I bought myself a pillow and it made me feel like all grown up. A bed might kill me.

I have no idea how to go about buying a bed. What the heck am I supposed to look for?

Well it's expensive. I'm quite bad at expensive things. Even if it's not my money I have a hard time spending it without hours and hours and hours of thinking and planning.

And since it's not a trivial expense one needs to get something good and decent that will last a while. But I don't even know where I'm going to be in a very short while with my life. So how will I figure out what kind/type of bed to purchase.

Obviously I have issues. My mother comes up with a very good and beneficial idea that is quite quite generous of her and I can't help but wonder why she couldn't be more mundane and send a CD, or a book, or a tent, or a gift certificate, or a check?

Alas I am crazy.

But sometime within the next few weeks maybe I'll be a crazy person with a new bed.

"In bed we laugh, in bed we cry, and born in bed, in bed we die; the near approach a bed may show of human bliss to human woe"

Any fool can.

2009-01-21T22:56:00.002-05:00

Today was the first rehearsal of the year for my new Community Band. It's great to be playing again. Although I really was not playing well. Firstly I kept having notes not sound, which is just odd. I attribute it to being way out of shape. And secondly I'm reading way too many ledger lines in thirds. Non-ideal.

Unfortunately the group really really sucks. The worst is probably the conductor. I have no idea how she ended up directing this group. Possibly something to do with living in the area forever and having no other respectable jobs. Their music choices are incredibly lame. It's bad seriously bad. Quite a bit of the stuff I played in high school. And really my high school band was not good at all. And judging by what I saw today it looks like the band may not buy new music. Ouch. Lastly the players are mostly bad. There are a few mediocre ones, but they are easily drowned out by the bad ones. And seriously there ought to be someone in some section that I'd be impressed by. But no (oh well maybe the bassoons stand a chance actually). Most dreadfully for me is the fact that all of the first flute players are bad. Again I exaggerate I think two of them may have the potential to be decent. But none have impressed me at all.

And it just makes me sad because I know nothing will ever improve. And within my own section there is little to no chance that I'll ever move from my last stand position except for the possibility of other players leaving (or more likely dying).

"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do."

My reactions

2009-01-20T13:40:00.000-05:00

My thoughts during the inauguration:

The internet here at work was not-cooperating. But right around 11:30 I managed to get an audio stream from NPR. It’s incredibly exciting.

It’s true that our system is special in the easy and smooth peaceful transfer of power. We are so lucky.

I had to answer a phone call, wrong number, during the opening prayer.

With this whole deal I don’t like the emphasis on the fact that he’s African American. Why should that matter? Or maybe I’m saying that as one who never had/has to suffer under the struggle of prejudices.

Aretha Franklin – the choice is incredibly intriguing to me. I support the “integration” of the various ethnic backgrounds here. OMG WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE ANSWERING PHONES. Ok I wasn’t a huge fan of her version at first but I’ve warmed up to it. Now if only they’d do the Jimi Hendrick’s National Anthem. Still I liked it, gotta love soul music.

I like how someone introduced someone who introduced someone else.

Itzhak Perlman and YoYo Ma!!!!!! And by John Williams. OMG. And it’s unheard. I need to look up the name of this again. I love Simple Gifts. Ever since my first hearing of Copeland’s. It’s hard to hear it now without thinking of Appalachian spring. I need to get a copy of this music. It is gorgeous and those two string players are incredible. To use a song like this that everyone knows a certain set of words to (gift to be simple, gift to be free) it’s quite an interesting statement both on hopes for our nation and hopes for our new leader. “Air on Simple Gifts” I caught the name now.

Did he just mess up the words? He’s human too!

He makes it sound too easy, it’s not. “All our free, All deserve a chance” are we back to race again?

“The doers the makers” – makes me think of Ayn Rand.

Ooo I’ve been called out as a naysayer. Ok, point to you President Obama.

Ok so the national anthem at the end was rather anticlimactic. They weren’t bad, but it was absolutely not compelling. I suppose people would freak out if they did any kind of an arrangement (such things happened once to my H.S. band – it was interesting).

Stars and Stripes! Oh how it’s been much too long since I played that blasted piece. But the Marine Band is awesome.

Potholes in the road of life.

2009-01-19T15:37:00.000-05:00

Today is Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. [Actually the whole concept is a marketing ploy, read the Wiki.] And I’m definitely feeling it this year.

Or well actually I’m feeling exhaustified. My body has been acting oddly for quite a while now. At first I just attributed it to my not-unheard of poor eating habits. But seems like I should have balanced back out by now, yet I’m still feeling iffy. I’ve actually been about 2lbs down from what I consider my “normal” weight since like before Christmas now. Weird.

But inevitably the prime suspect of my exhaustification is reading Children of Dune. I keep staying up too late. Ooops. Seriously the last time I went to bed before like 12:30am was maybe Thursday.

Some people are addicted to easily categorized ‘bad things’, For example alcohol or drugs. Me? Well I’m addicted to books and they still manage to have bad effects on my physical health.

*shrug* Can’t be perfect.

“Mondays are the potholes in the road of life.”

Productivity

2009-01-18T23:03:00.002-05:00

So last weekend was a concert weekend. And a concert weekend means 12 days of often stressful work in a row. In fact last weekend was particularly bad because of the possibility of snow. People here freak out if they even see the word. The end result of those 12 days is always without fail me being ridiculously excited to finally reach the weekend.

I'd started planning things I wanted to do with my marvelous days off before Friday and so by the time I arrived home at approximately 4:40 I was able to begin putting together a list of things to do which later grew into this beauty:

Things to do now that I finally have 2 whole days off!:
1. Clean room
2. Read Dune
3. Knit at least 5 inches of arm warmers
4. Beat another level in Guitar Hero 2
5. Beat another song in Guitar Hero 3
6. do laundry
7. wash sheets and towels
8. find and mail Nicole's christmas present
9. start new budget in Microsoft Money
10. re-memorize Raindrop Prelude
11. learn tricky part of Prelude 4
12. send random letter
13. find subscription order forms to use as examples
14. make some form of meal food
15. teach TRM to double knit
16. lunch with a stalker
17. make iced tea with good tea bags
18. clean kitchen

The results were as follows:
1. Cleaning my room was easy. Really things just end up getting piled up during the week so all I needed to do was put stuff away.
2. I probably should have put a page restriction on this. I did make it through quite a bit of the book but there are still about 80 pages to go.
3. I also made some decent progress here, it's definately looking like something tubular now, but I think I only made about 3.5 more inches.
4. Check, beating another level on GH2 was easy.
5. Sadly I didn't even attempt passing a song on GH3. I have been stuck on this one level forever. I'm playing on hard now and it's gotten seriously hard. Maybe I can make it a goal of the week or something.
6. Laundry is one of those obvious and easy weekend things. Double check.
7. Easy peasy. And bonus now my bed is all neat and nicely tucked in again. Inevitably during the week it somehow starts shifting and drives me nuts (even though I make my bed every morning).
8. So Nicole's Christmas Present is definitely MIA. I'm really questioning my sanity and wondering if I actually mailed it to her in a more timely fashion already.
9. So this budget is really rather insignificant. And I'd just like to do it for the graphs and charts that Money can generate. So maybe during the week I'll un-slack off. I'd also like to enter in everything from like the second half of 2008 sometime maybe.
10. At first I was quite frustrated with my inability to play Raindrop anymore. But I'm just rusty and things started clicking on Saturday. I think I could perform it passibly enough. Most people might even be impressed.
11. As my piano skills returned this became easier. Not performable yet, but good progress.
12. I ended up writing 3 postcards to 3 of my friends. I like the random factor of the idea. That and getting stuff in the snail mail is always fun.
13. This task I think I had finished before 6 on Friday. Now I can take them into work tomorrow!
14. Saturday for Dinner I made myself some Tilapia. It was a pretty pathetic attempt at cooking, but hey gotta start somewhere, and hey it really didn't taste half bad imho.
15. TRM was envying a phone case that I recently whipped up so I had to teach her to double knit so she could make one.
16. So adding this to the list was a direct quote from him. And it needs to be noted that stalker is not flower boy. It definately ended up being possibly the longest first date ever. The jury is still out.
17. This was random, I had a sudden urge for good iced tea. And indeed it was tasty.
18. There were many dirty dishes. But I always feel so accomplished after I clean up the kitchen, so completing this made me happy.

Takes the taste out of peanut butter.

2009-01-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

Many times in the past few days have I thought of things that I wanted to write about on here. And yet I never did it. It was a concert weekend. And as always those always shoot my motivation to hell. Plus they went and forecasted snow (most of which didn’t come) for the weekend which was a really really good way to stress me out because all of our patrons start freaking out. But it actually went rather well, it was a miracle.

Then on Tuesday I received flowers at work from some random kid that I’d be talking to online. Like holy freaking crap. I love flowers and they are totally a very good way to win my heart. But the whole getting them from someone that I’ve not even met – not cool. It ruined the flowers completely plus because it was at work people asked about them. And I didn’t want to tell the truth so I lied. And then I just hated having to keep lying again and again. Plus now I really don’t know what to do about this guy. He’s perfectly nice and sweet, and for gosh shakes he sent me flowers. How many times have I wished I had a significant other that’d do that. But still…really no interest in dating this guy. Yet I really don’t want to have to tell him. I could go the way of A and just *poof* (disappear) but that is rather cruel to do to someone.

On my non personal life front so far me and the New Years Resolutions are iffy. I’m doing quite well about my new blog. In fact I’m sure it contributed to my not posting over here so much. The extra $ and biking are really not at all everyday goals. And well I’m failing, unfortunately as I predicted, at the stretching. I have excuses! It gets hard when the days are stressful and there are concerts and I end up exhausted. And then I go to ballet and end up sore the next couple of days. Here’s hoping I kick myself out of it and get back on the horse.

In other news the economy is becoming more and more scary. Big name classical arts organizations are floundering: The Baltimore Symphony laid off a number of staff, and today the Met announced top staff took 10% pay cuts and are asking lower staff members to do the same. Wish me luck in this environment.

“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.” - Charlie Brown (Charles Schutz)

A single step.

2009-01-08T15:38:00.002-05:00

As you can see my blog has been prettified. Hooray for new beginnings.

I think that I should modify things so that my new year really didn't start at midnight on January 1. Because well bad things happened then. But things like my new pretty blog give me hope.

As you admire the amazing color/design also take note of the progress bars to the right. After a good bit of messing around with some code that I don't actually understand but managed to work by trial and error I consider them to be quite the sucess.

Please also also take note that there is even some reported progress!

3. I forgot to mention in my Beginnings post but I've found another small trickle of additional income. Sometime in December one of the blogs I read posted a link to join Pinecone research! And if you've ever researched anything about being paid for online survey's you'll know that Pinecone is the place to sign up with. So I did. For each of the survey's you complete they mail you a $3 check within days. It's awesome. So far I've received $6. Rock on.

4. Yesterday was my first day of stretching. Rather incorrectly I went and did it cold. And really I must say there is a huge difference. Most of the serious stretching that I've done lately has been towards the end of ballet class when I'm obviously quite warmed up. Ah well, live and learn. And one additional 'interesting' effect was that it seems to have bothered my left knee which hurt some this morning. I've been having knee issues when doing some strenuous stuff (running or serious hiking) but I can't remember which one. Yup, I'm that awesome. Something to watch out for. Also I need to think of a better way to track my progress on this one for it's sidebar.

5. New Blog! http://musicaincipit.blogspot.com/ I also made this one pretty. But still tried to be sophisticated about it. Plus I have a list of topics to write up posts on. Sweetness.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Beginnings

2009-01-07T15:31:00.003-05:00

I resolve in 2009 that I shall accomplish the following things:

1. Pay off 1 student loan ($2,510.03).
2. Ride my bike 1200 miles.
3. Generate $300 beyond my salary.
4. Stretch. Have at least one solid split.
5. Create and maintain a “professional” blog.

When I first came up with number one my initial reaction was ‘that should be easy’. However in considering it further and re-evaluating my budget, I’m rethinking a bit and have decided that this could be a challenge. But really these resolutions are not supposed to be easy as pie things that do nothing for my personal growth so I intend to have quite a go at it. Previously I was budgeting $100 per month for my student loan, this was based on the $99 and some odd change requirement over the 10 year period. Before I even thought this up as a resolution I had increased that amount to a barely significant $120 per month. Now it is my intent to throw my entire extra paycheck (January’s a 3 pay period month) at it. That will be exciting (I’m not being sarcastic I’m a huge dork and this excites me).

Number two initially was 1000 miles. Mostly because that’s a nice even round number. But I decided that it would be too easy to attain. This past year I probably hit 800, and that includes not starting until like June and being a beginner who was afraid that the whole 20 mile loop would be difficult.

The resolution that I am most concerned about is number three. This is something that I’ve seen many other pf bloggers do, generally in much larger amounts. And while it’s something that I’ve considered many times I’ve never actively set any goals. Some current thoughts on how to accomplish this are: interest which is kind of cheating but I still think it fits, sell crafts (most likely paper cuttings) on Etsy, find occasional handy jobs on Craigslist, or maybe even try and sell some things that I no longer use or need. It could be very exciting if I am able to do these things and generate a bit of extra cash in my pocket.

Number four is something that I’ve tried to convince myself to do a million other times. And as of yet have never gotten very close to accomplishing. I think my best run is probably stretching about 3 days in a row. How shameful. My side split is dismal and I have little to know hope for it. But right now my right is somewhere around 6 inches up I'd imagine. The left is a bit behind it. So if I'm persistent a few months could see some good progress.

Five should actually be some fun. Blogs are big now not only in the random completely personal sense that I am posting now. Hopefully I can put out some good ideas, and maybe eventually I’ll even generate some readership.

Now I shall endeavor to overhaul the design of this site and add *gasp* progress bars!

Reflections

2009-01-06T16:12:00.001-05:00

2008, you were a year. That, by any means, is the truth.

I think what most stands out about the recently passed year was its being a year of settling and coming into my own. It was the first year of my 100% legal (and nearly all financial [I think the only real exception is the cell phone my parents pay for]) independence. Way back in 2007 I was still a student for the first half of the year and then spent the second half pretty much doing nothing with my new life.

When I made my somewhat ridiculous list of 'resolutions' on the eve of 2007 part of it was out of the need to fill my life with something, anything. I wasn't joking when I say I was doing nothing in the fall of 2007. I went to work, I came home. Repeat.

But even then I was on the edge of new things. TRM and I had started dating in December of 07. We were together through June of 2008. That was my first adult relationship. And as bitter as I was from the breakup I'm really very thankful for the growth and learning that the experience provided me. Plus all in all he was and is a great guy, albeit not the perfect one for me.
In June I was handed the experience of going to a big national conference for the arts. It was great to see so many ideas and new things presented. Plus just the ability to almost (although not quite) go off on a trip on my own. Not to mention that it was done on the company dime.

2008 saw the beginning of my new obsession, biking. I blame Jo for it’s origins, but I’ve definitely taken it to a farther level than her now. It all started with the $30 yard sale bike. I logged somewhere around 800 miles I figure. I’d be half tempted to say the best $30 I spent all year. Although unfortunately the obsession did spur additional spending. My bike gear now abounds. Plus I went way out on a limb and made the $800 purchase of my new beauty. I didn’t even budget for it. In the end however I can afford it. Plus I’m pretty sure it’s totally worth it. I got a ridiculously good deal. My $30 bike was a $30 bike, and it was too big for me. Orange (as I have spontaneously decided to call my new bike) actually fits me and cause me to do less damage to my body. And over all the whole bike riding this is incredibly beneficial to my heath and well being. Plus I’m somewhat determined to, once the weather hits spring, use it instead of my car whenever possible.

In conjunction with the bike obsession I participated in two pretty serious rides. First I rode a ridiculously hot and way too hilly 100 miles. Then later a sweet and speedy flat 150 across NJ. I’d definitely say that those are my accomplishments of the year.

And those are the things that stand out to me when I think back upon my year.

Happy New Year

2009-01-05T14:13:00.003-05:00

2009 rolled in by emotionally kicking my ass. Things have not improved since then.

*my previously mentioned and more uplifting posts may yet be still forthcoming*

Preparations

2008-12-30T14:38:00.002-05:00

In keeping with the approaching New Year Holiday I would like to present a series of posts. They shall go as follows: Preparations, Reflections, Beginnings. I'm pretty sure this should all be quite self explanatory.

Last year things were very different. I'm not going to go into it so much because that's the next installment, but last year I made myself a "New Years Resolutions" list that I promptly ignored because my situation changed and it no longer felt right.

This year I'm thinking much more about it and want to establish some good goals for myself. I want them to be things that I'll actually be motivated to follow through with. And even more awesomely I want them to be things that will generate self improvement.

I only have a few ideas so far:

Firstly I turn back to my old financial obsession and I intend to pay off one of my student loans. Way back during the college enrollment and preparations my father decided that my having a student loan was a good way to build credit (and also probably a good way to not have them completely hand life to me on a platter). So he had me, rather haphazardly, just sign up for the amount that we qualified for under the AES rules. I've been paying back the minimum required amount for about a year now. And a commonly held school of thought indicates that it is not financially viable to pay off student loans early, because of their favorable terms (ask me if you want to know the full logic), but I'm ignoring that. I figure that I should be able to without much problem at all pay off my 3 loans (one for each year of school) one per year. [bonus I totally found a new awesome blog that gives a link to specific directions for setting up sidebars - yay!].

Secondly I want to log 1000 miles on my bike. Quite simple and straight forward. Shouldn't be a problem given the amounts I was doing by the end of the summer this year.

And that's actually all that I've come up with. I'm trying to think of more awesome things becuase I'm pretty sure those two should be easy. But everything else I think of seems questionable:
Having a goal of the month - would I actually follow through?
Trying to accomplish the larger significant other thing - seems to important of a matter to be trivializing down into a list of goals.
And in general I don't want to list out silly little things like I did last year.

Ah well.

maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

2008-12-25T21:52:00.002-05:00

I love Christmas. As with most things I couldn't honestly tell you exactly why. There are many things that make the whole Holiday Season bright. The festive decorations, multitude of crafts, general good cheer, time off, time for family, time for traditions, oh how I love traditions, carols, music, singing in German, candle light, and tasty food. All very good reasons. I'm sure there are more.

Opening presents this year I was excited to find that my parents had taken my list and followed it quite well. And so I received some particularly useful things that I have been itching for: an Entertainment coupon book, a long sleeved leotard (in blue!), penguin skate dishware, a knitting needle set. And as an added bonus I even received a purely fun and superfluous gift of Guitar Hero II. Woohoo. I'm excited.

But in the end I hate focusing on the presents. I was a bit on the anti social side. I'm the only 'youth' of the family that's around for these shin-digs these days. And it can get lonely. Special events always make me long for that one special significant other.

Luckily enough for me at some point A called and left a message (my battery had died) and said that he'd been thinking about me and missed me. I heard this and melted. I like him so much and it's freaking me out to no end because it makes me paranoid. But he left me a sweet message.

It is indeed a Merry Christmas.

Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mt. Crumpit, He rode with his load to the tiptop to dump it! "Pooh-Pooh to the Whos!" he was grinch-ish-ly humming. "They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming!" "They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!" "Their mouths will hang open a minute or two Then the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry Boo-Hoo!"
"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch, "That I simply MUST hear!" So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear. And he did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low. Then it started to grow...

But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry! It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!

He stared down at Who-ville! The Grinch popped his eyes! Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME! Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?" "It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!" "It came without packages, boxes or bags!" And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store." "Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

Water for Elephants

2008-12-18T14:53:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago I had a hankering to hear a good bell choir. There are many reasons why this most likely came about, but they are insignificant. So after doing some research I determined that there was going to be a Free Bell choir and Harp concert at a somewhat nearby library. And as a bonus I've had it on my checklist to check out this library for quite a while. On the calendar it went.

Wait this is a book review, where's the book?

Quite randomly I was browsing the stacks and happened upon Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I'd heard of it and knew it was on some lists and all so decided to go for it. I started reading it before the concert began. And basically couldn't put it down then. There was definately some loss of sleep. But I finished it in 2 or 3 days.

The story is delightful. For me there wasn't any serious contemplation or brain things about it. It was just a marvelous and well written story.

And on a random note a random coincidence occurred. I was home over the Christmas week and what should be on the coffee table there but the same book! My father's co-worker likes to give him books to read apparently and he'd started Water for Elephants the day before. I think it took him 2 days tops (but he cheated by having more free time than I).

Therefore I can say that this book is awesome and support it with additional outside evidence! Read it.

Piqué Piqué Pas de bourrée Pas de chat Relevé en fifth

2008-12-15T13:28:00.002-05:00

One of the things that gets me about Ballet is that every single move has a name. Which wouldn't be so bad except that it's all French. Ouch. Not to mention the whole body doing crazy contortion/strength things. But in the end I still enjoy it.

On Saturday I had my very first Ballet performance. That string of French up there is the opening pass that we used to get onstage for the Coda of the Pas de Deux from The Nutcracker. The performance was entitled "Our Very own Nutcracker". That it was indeed.

My teacher is completely crazy and really a modern dancer. But she's managed to piece together this studio which now I think has 4 resident 'companies' and I use that term very lightly. But our spectacular nutcracker started off with live musicians performing The Overture.

I was one of the musicians. When she started talking about it I quickly volunteered to play anything. I am so much better at playing than dancing. They did a similar performance last year and so had used piano and 2 violins I think (based on the music we used). So this year I replaced one of the violin players who moved to piano, and therefore my teachers husband was off the hook for playing.

Next up were some entrance/party scenes. Marvelously danced by little girls most of whom don't come up past my waist. Always adorable.

Then, just for some contrast or something, we had our sweets (or the nationalities as I know them more as). These were danced by some older girls that are probably intermediate to low advanced ballet students. Two of the 4 were on pointe. And one of the most spectacular things was one of the older (probably older than me I'm guessing) one's extension. She brought her leg up into passe and extended it so that her knee was somewhere between 6 and 12 inches from the side of her face. Ridiculous.

Slightly not so cool, but w/e, me and my fellow musicians musiced again. In preparing for the whole playing something deal I had looked up Nutcracker music, and managed to find a full score for the suite. And so when I saw that I had myself and 2 violin players I thought of Dance of the Reed Flutes which is scored featuring a melody line of almost entirely a flute trio. So being the crazy overachiever that I occasionally I am I transcribed the whole thing (including some non-flute parts) for our group. Miraculously it worked. I was so proud, although I don't know that anyone beyond like TRM knew about my excitement.

After that was another entirely funny group of medium aged chilluns doing ballet? (running around more so), and hip-hop. Then I really neat African dance by a multi-aged group.

Lastly performing the Coda were 4 ballet students more or less around my age. And most specifically including me. The 11 word title of this post is our 8 count entrance. But somehow I still managed to learn everything quite well. Possibly because I was the only one of us who actually attended every single rehersal. Also aiding my memorization was the fact that it was around 80 seconds tops. It went by in a giant blurr. After the fact I was just like 'omg all that work for something that fast'.

In the end though I've been living for those fleeting moments all my life.

Live the questions now.

2008-12-08T15:05:00.000-05:00

Most people who know me don’t realize this but I am a very cynical person. I flat out don’t believe in the whole one true love thing or the myth of love at first sight. I barely can convince myself to believe in a romantic notion of love. Like seriously people, get real.

But leave it to life to try and trip me up. You see I’m more or less head over heels for date #2, let’s call him A. It’s freaking me out.

Firstly he picked me up for our date. I’m actually pretty sure that this is the first time that this has ever happened for me. I liked it, it was somewhat chivalrous like.

Secondly he took me to a nice restaurant. It hit the spot of being fancy but not too fancy just right. In fact I think that may describe A altogether.

Thirdly he took and held my hand going into and out of the restaurant. Then when we were back at home watching a movie he immediately cuddled with me. Quite a bit. Later he kissed me. I don’t kiss on the first date. Fortunately (or is it Unfortunately?) myself had vacated the premises for the evening. Hate to kiss and tell but I’m inclined to put it out somewhere. He’s a pretty bad kisser. There is the potential for asphyxiation concerns in my future. But I don’t mind.

Fourthly part a he’s at least decently intelligent. He was a linguist for the army and reportedly speaks Korean. He was going to school for International Studies and is almost through with the degree but situations caused him to move up here, he will be completing the degree however on top of the full time job and part b. Which is working administratively for the VA. Rock on non-profit.

Fifthly he’s hot.

Sixthly he actually likes me. This is supported by such things as the fact that he kissed me and probably would have slept on my couch if I didn’t kick him out around 1:30. Additional evidence can be found in conversations snippits such as “ you can spend your free time with me”, “I had a good time”, and somewhat inconclusively “I like you.”

That all being said I am indeed freaking out. Good freaking out obviously with all that stuff, but also bad freaking out. I don’t want to get hurt and seems like letting myself get my hopes all up would be a really good way to do that.

Kinda like Mr. Fling whom I’m making light of in order to not let it get to me.

Normally I am an incredibly patient person and I like to do things slowly. This feels like it’s just rushing right at me. I only met him once. And our few phone calls were all brief and somehow felt slightly awkward. I don’t know how I can possibly like him so much.

Only time will tell. Wish me luck. Maybe life will teach me to believe.

"...be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now."

DNR

2008-12-07T21:34:00.002-05:00

I am, and have been for a while, a faithful Grey’s watcher. Now there have most certainly been times when I miss episodes, but ABC is pretty awesome about posting old episodes online. And so I have been able to keep up. In fact now that I watch it TRM has ended up being drawn in…..the explanations of some of the back stories are pretty much awesome. They display how ridiculous the show is – gotta love it.

But anyways last night’s episode got me thinking about some things:

First and foremost I’d say the dominant theme of the hour was taking the emotion out of thought. A new character, a Doctor, has Asperger’s. And so when a 16 year old girl is left brain dead from a car accident she experiences none of the emotional agony shared by everyone else, particularly the girl’s family. Instead she focuses on the benefit that the girl’s young healthy organs have the potential to save many other lives.

For most people this seems incredibly cold and callous. In fact TRM reacted in such a way. Personally, I definitely felt the shock, but it’s the facts. Dr. Dixon has the special ability to not get caught up in the emotional tangle that might halt the rest of us. For her she could immediately see past what was done and move on to what was best for the future.

Personally I know that if I was ever “the body” in such a situation I would want them to use my body in such a way to do the most good for other people. I’ve always believed that a body is just a body, some bits of organic matter strung together in such a way to propel me through life.

Actually if you really want to get into the matter I’m not particularly beholden to tying myself to life. Everyone knows Hamlet’s “To be or not to be”. And hopefully you know that the speech is debate on suiside and the will to live or to cast oneself to death. Hamlet’s hand is stayed because “To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come”. Most people are afraid of death because it is the unknown. Personally I am much more of the mind that “To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd.” But I’m pretty sure I’m quite abnormal.

Really what ties me to life is the emotional connections with others. I do love my family in my friends. Quite a bit in fact. It would, and has, hurt a lot to loose any of them. And given that my own experiences are the only way that I can truly anticipate things existing, I assume that if I were to die those I love would feel the same. Now given that I’d never want to hurt those I care for I’m perfectly willing to “suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. Plus there are some perfectly good and enjoyable things about life that I can take in.

Looking back at the story line from last night they put the girl on life support so that her family could have a chance to say goodbye. And being as it is a television show they had to make it even more bitterly tragic. See the girl was, irresponsibly, driving herself and her little sister when they got into the accident. So they came into the hospital arguing furiously with each other. As they discovered there was trauma and wheeled her away for urgent care her sister called out in frustration “I hope you die.”

Ouch, that sucks. And so the poor girl was agonizing over it. Not to mention the parents who I’m sure pretty much just wanted to die themselves instead of having to make the decision to let her body die.

So that inspired to here in make the following known. If I am ever in anything of a similar situation I don’t want anyone to have any of that agony. Inevitably there will be the pain of loss, don’t make it worse by wondering about the “what if’s”. Just let me go.

Instead I want everyone that ever meant anything in my life to know how incredibly appreciative for what you've contributed to my life. Those experiences are most of what makes life worth living.

But most importantly I want to leave behind the message not to mourn. It's basically a stupid thing to say because when you loose someone you can't help but feel it. Yet I am not concerned about death so no need to fret on my behalf. And as for the loss you feel, well I wish I had a better answer for that one. But in the end please just know that no matter what I loved you, I love you, and nothing, not even death, can change that.

Us, the most fleeting of all.

2008-12-02T14:57:00.002-05:00

For my trip to Arizona I wanted to take an audio book to use as an entertainment device for all of the travel time. My first choice was Children of Dune, but alas I couldn’t play it anywhere buy my computer. So instead I found a book that I’d seen pop up here and there and thought numerous times about consuming. It was The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. And I loved it.

The story is a love story. And Nifengger does a beautiful job of creating the delicate and intricate web of romance. But that wasn’t the amazing part of the book.

What was so spectacular about this story was the antagonist, Time. You see Henry, by a flaw of genetics, is a time traveler. A time traveler who has no control over his position in time. Niffenegger treats his condition so realistically it makes it totally believable.

The thing I loved most however is her ability to comprehend the complexities of time. Clair, described in the title, maintains a simple linear life. But Henry is constantly moving about from the here and now into the past, or sometimes the future. And it is not always, but quite frequently he interacts with his own life, even his own self. So in the end the story line is basically unfolding in complex entangled layers. It’s enough to fill my brain for days.

Really it was quite an amazing book. And as an added bonus it had numerous quotations from the Duino Elegies which I am now exploring and loving.

Oh not because happiness exists, that too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss.

…………….

But because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.

……………..

…Ah, but what can we take along into that other realm? Not the art of looking, which is learned so slowly, and nothing that happened here. Nothing. The sufferings, then. And, above all, the heaviness, and the long experience of love, - just what is wholly unsayable.

-from The Ninth Duino Elegy,
Rainer Maria Rilke,
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

When it rains it pours.

2008-11-30T23:05:00.002-05:00

It's actually raining outside...my title has triple meanings! And now we bring you our regularly (and or previously planned) post.

So a few weeks ago fling boy was doing things to make me not like him very much again. You see I didn't go into the relationship intending for a fling. Seriously that's not me. I liked the guy quite a bit in many ways. But those other ways won out in the end. And so I now call it my fling. For some reason I'm hooked on my terminology, it amuses me. But that all is off track. Things were not going well so I was not so happy about that and decided to try some other outlets: a new dating site (I am such a dork).

But this new site has the most horrible interface ever which made me not like it. However I got like tons of messages. Most of them were from idiots. And I'm a stupid sucker and respond to too many of them, which is a flaw. However I've gotten much better at turning them away which is helpful. And even more better is the fact that a few are not complete morons.

So a couple of the guys I've been exchanging aim messages with. One in particular I've been talking with a good bit. On Friday he asked if I'd like to get together. Now at first I wasn't particularly keen on him. But we had some decent aim conversations and he seemed nice so I accepted. Yesterday we solidified plans for Tuesday.

So before that guy surfaced there was another guy. This one's profile for some reason quite appealed to me. He asked for my phone number fairly early on and I obliged. Since then there have been a few phone conversations that all somehow seem awkward. Yet for whatever reason I didn't want to give up hope. Yesterday he called and asked if I was free anytime. We're going out Friday, no definite plans are set.

It's ridiculous and I don't think I can handle it. Pathetically enough I'm hoping that Tuesday really doesn't go that well, but then we hit it off on Friday.

But all in all I think I may die.

....

And on a side note. TRM has herself a guy. They've been together for like 2 months now. And yesterday I realized that they're saying "I love you" to each other. Call me a cold hearted -um person- but really: in love?

He did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low. Then it started to grow.

2008-11-25T12:42:00.003-05:00

I like Christmas music. In college I was lucky enough to have a roommate of similar mind. It was not uncommon for us to start up the old carols in October. My figuring is that this stuff is only seasonally appropriate once a year. So I have to start early!

This year I've actually been fairly calm about it. I tuned in a bit in early November, but I've really waited until now to lay it on thick. I have a decent, but not spectacular, selection of holiday music on my computer. And I know and can sing along to pretty much every song of it. Actually at least once or twice because we're geeks like that at school we played a game of "who can name that tune first". The others didn't stand a chance really.

But anyways I also enjoy the fact that Christmas music is such that I can play it at work. Normally I have to limit myself to Classical stuff. Although last year at first I tried to find Classical Christmas music before just playing anything really.

This year I'm quite in the holiday mood and have had Christmas music on once or twice before now using pandora. Yesterday, on my first day back, I was definately ready for music and opted for finding a new station online. Miraculously I quickly found this gem: http://www.accuradio.com/holidays/

I immediately honed in on the Holiday Classical station and listened to it all day. Today I pulled it up but having not been overly impressed with the Classical decided to go with their xmas station: "Our main channel: The best of the best in holiday music!". Later as I was scanning the website I had an idea.

My idea is that each day I'll listen to a different one of their genre stations and then I can review them. This idea amuses me to no end :-)

Pooh-pooh to the Whos! he was grinch-ish-ly humming.
They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming!
They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!
Their mouths will hang open a minute or two
The all the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry BOO-HOO!

That's a noise, grinned the Grinch,
That I simply must hear!
So he paused. And the Grinch put a hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow...

But the sound wasn't sad!
Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn't be so!
But it WAS merry! VERY!

He stared down at Who-ville!
The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook!
What he saw was a shocking surprise!

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

Mountan versus Road

2008-11-20T22:25:00.003-05:00

We are in Sedona AZ today and I decided that I wanted to go biking. And being as mountain biking is a big thing around here I figured it'd be a good opportunity to give it a try. I'm a pretty decent road biker (if I do say so myself) so I figured I ought to stand a chance on the dirt.

I talked to the guy at the bike shop, said I was a road biker, and asked what trails he recommended. They had a map so he showed me the main trail that started right across the street. But that trail wasn't particularly long so he recommended going about half way up it and then taking this other trail. That sounded good to be so off I went.

I discovered fairly quickly that my rental had the most squeaky brakes ever, that was annoying, but so it goes. All in all the thing was harder to propel. That's to be expected though given the weight and the fact that it wasn't necessarily so properly fitted to me.

Once I hit the dirt and all of its numerous accompanying rocks I discovered the joy of the mountain bike design. I felt those obstacles but all in all the ride was no where near as jarring as my road bike (particularly my awesome new road bike which is partially carbon and lets me feel every bump in the road).

I also discovered that mountain biking can be scary. For me it was alot like skiing. They can be totally awesome and I'm sure I'd love them. But I'm also not at all very practiced in the sports so I spend much too much time concerned that I'm going to fall over. And on a mountain bike this falling over involves falling onto hard dirt (which is also dirty) and rocks. Not exactly so ideal. It seems to require a lot more control on a mountain bike to keep it going where you want.

It also seemed to take quite a bit more power (although my being winded could also be because I'm not nearly as in shape as I was this summer), and I found it nearly impossible to maintain any speed.

But enough of that back to my story!

So I went down the main trail. Went the wrong way once, hit a parking lot figured I must be wrong went back found the main trail again and managed to keep it this time. When I got to the other trail he had recommended I was speculative that it was actually a trail. It looked more like a narrow washed out portion down the hill. But there were bike tracks, down I went.

Before that I was of the mind that I was capable of this mountain bike thing. I'd gone up and down and over and around rocks. Some of the stuff was even like crazy jagged rocks and ledges that would be a few inches up and what not. I quickly realized that I had been on the "nice" trail and that this new devilry is most likely 'real' mountain biking. It was something similar to somewhat loose jagged rock in a significant downgrade with some curves thrown in for good measure.

Going down I would stop probably ever 25 feet because I either thought I was going to or actually did nearly fall off. At least once I definately executed a jump off the bike because I'm falling but try to make it look like I meant to do that maneuver. It was impressive.

I got down to the bottom of the mess and it really didn't look like the trail was anything more trail like after that. And so I conceded. Back up the craziness I went. And somehow I was actually able to ride the whole way up (albeit granny gear).

And off on my nice trail like trail I went again all the way to the end. On this one part there was some kind of mound running across the trail, I don't know the purpose. But it was on a down hill so I had a bit of speed and on a whim I pulled up the front to become airborne. Such things are actually possible on mountain bikes, and I must say they really are quite a bit of fun.

All in all good times. I'm definately not ready to give up my road bike (especially since it's awesome, shiny, light, new, and awesome). But it really would be cool to have the opportunity to do more mountain biking and learn to be able to handle some of the tougher stuff. Inevitably this is such awesome mountain biking territory here, I'm not sure that they have such cool places at home.

What you take.

2008-11-20T22:16:00.002-05:00

So the bad part about being on vacation is that it makes me think about how much I wish I had a significant other to be with me, or just to miss me. And it gives me plenty of time to think about it.

“Vacation is what you take when you can't take what you've been taking any longer.”

So close...

2008-11-11T23:59:00.004-05:00

I was on a mission tonight.

After purchasing my laptop I immediately purchased a bag/carrying case so that I'd be able to take it places. So far I've used it to take my laptop to work for the concerts so that I can remotely access the office. It's been good. But I also wanted a smaller 'form fitting' cover if you will, that word work so that I can put the laptop in a larger bag safely with other stuff.

Specifically I intend to take it with me when I leave on Saturday for Arizona (w00t).

But rather than spend the $20 or $30 for a store bought skin I decided to make my own. So today I finally got to the newly opened Jo-Ann store (georgeous) and picked out my fabrics. I wanted to try for a cute/bohemian look if possible and so choose 4 different fabrics that all have the same colors.

We got back home around 8:15 and I got to work pretty quickly. Inevitably such projects are not the most speedy. Especially when I'm making things (including methods) up as I go (and watching dancing with the stars). But around 11:30 I was pretty close to finished and it was looking amazing. Somehow things had come together.

(yup, it's even reversible)

And then the pouch was about 1/4-1/2 inch too small. I can get the laptop in with a lot of effort, but it's definately not something that should require effort. Drats.

I think I may try to go back to J0-Ann's pick up new fabrics and probably new colors (I like these but think I could do better) and try again. Luckily it only cost around $10. So in the end it'll be about like buying a pre-made one....*sigh*

....and yet so far.

Please have snow and mistletoe.

2008-11-11T15:31:00.002-05:00

I have been looking up Christmas ideas today :-)

A few times I have seen the idea come up of having an album of Christmas memories that you put out and can add to every year. I think that's something that I'd love to do.

At first I was thinking that it could be something that I'd start when (or if) I actually have a family of my own (which I'd deem as beginning with a significant other). But now I'm thinking maybe I'll just start it now. After all, why not?

Maybe I'll even see how much old stuff I can find at my parents.

Dead and alive.

2008-11-11T09:31:00.000-05:00

Fluting again (hopefully).

2008-11-06T16:30:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday evening, while I was busy being glued to the election coverage, the choir director from back home (it shall always be home) sent me an email inviting me “and my flute” to come back to participate in our churches Christmas Eve Cantata.

I have many years of that cantata under my belt now. At first I was only in the Senior Bell Choir and so our norm was just playing a prelude. Then I was playing an additional prelude on flute as well. By high school I’d joined the Senior Singing Choir and so sang alto/second soprano in the Cantata. The choir director was also beginning to use me as the go-to for accompaniment so I’d jump over to flute for specific parts. For a year or two of college I still predominately sang as well as doing a bit of fluting for the cantata, I think it may have been assisted by a lack of altos. However most recently I’ve been kicked out of singing and left with a whole book of the C accompaniment parts. And let me tell you some of that stuff is actually tricky.

But anyways I’m torn about playing this year. The thing of it is that I love playing, have always played, and would be happy to continue. But I haven’t lived in, around, or near that zip code for a year and a half now, and that’s not even counting the three college years when I was really only half there anyways.

I guess I feel like maybe I should be moving on. It’s tricky.

Interestingly enough yesterday I was perusing Craigslist, because it provides a rather endless source of entertainment for me. But I saw posting under musicians for “Concert Band Musicians.” Holy crap.

If you are familiar with the musicians page on Craigslist you’ll know that 90% of the stuff is people wanting to be rock stars or something close. Concert Band’s don’t so much fit in that category.

There it was, a shining light in my night sky. It beckoned me, and I clicked. My heart raced as I saw a listing of instruments. It started with low brass, damn, then a 3rd trumpet, gah, 2nd clarinet, warmer, French horn, gosh darn it there are too many flute players in the world!, and lastly, miracle of all miracles, flute. Break out the Hallelujah chorus, or maybe the finale of Beethoven’s 9th – it’s better.

I spent the next hour or two pouring over an eloquently written email about how I’d played before but haven’t found anywhere here. My college experience. And most of all how I treasured the 6 years I’d spent with my old community band. I could’ve brought a tear to your eye with my description of the joys of providing music to people. Yes, I’m a dork.

I also dusted off my “musical resume” which actually makes me look pretty durn good. Rock on being the only flute major in my year in college. That’s definitely probably cheating, but hey I did do it all. And actually I was pretty good 2 years ago.

A response was received this afternoon. The director was impressed (crap shes a flute player, which I knew from the website, and I’m going to have to live up to something) and I am to call her. She has some kind of crazy hours and so now I’ve got to sort them out. Then if I can convince the phone not to eat me I shall call.

:-)

Box Office Battlefield

2008-11-06T15:36:00.004-05:00

Patron Services Manager. That's my title, for all it's worth. But I'll have you know that I am a kick ass Patron Services Manager. Like whoa.

You may have realized this already for yourself but let it be known: People are idiots. And for some reason when people are idiots they like to come to us(which means me) and think that I'm duty bound to fix it.

Frequently I do fix it, I'm a good fixer, no one else here seem to be able to figure this stuff out. Although I will admit I like to let them know that I am doing them a very huge big special favor that I shouldn't actually do but just this once just for them I will. In my mind that's so that I'm not encouraging them on their path of idiocy.

Today I received a fun (aka infuriating) email from a woman. It was sent based on the pretense that she wanted to know how long the concert would last. However the majority of it was filled with this pity plea complaining about her personal situation in relation to our ticket exchange policy.

I crafted a spiffy responce to her. First I simply answered her question. And then I poured, seriously heaped, in apologies. Spinning it like there was nothing I could (yea I'm kinda a liar) do I expressed a heartfelt commiseration for her pain. In my devious mind I came up with the idea of proposing using her story as a motiviation for change and revision.

Ok, so actually I'm not so double faced as I'm putting forth there. I do want to change the policy, and it would allow her a way to do what she wanted even. The truth is that this morning my boss ticked me off by ignoring my ticket exchange policy and so I'd spent a good bit of the morning researching what other organizations do (I then lost all of my research when I accidentally closed the document....this morning kinda kicked my ass, I wanted to cry 3 times). And I do want to change our policy. But I want to charge people, bwahahaha. All's fair in love and war (I should write a book called Box Office Battlefield, how sweet would that be, *changes post title*).

I recieved a responce back from her to the tune of:

Thanks for the info. If my story can change things I'm glad. It was my fault after all. I will enjoy the concert.

One million points to me.

Interwebs

2008-11-04T15:28:00.002-05:00

I spend an alarming large portion of my life browsing the vast spaces of the Interweb, basking in its unending depths of stuff. Sometimes I even find good thought provoking articles (they are my favorites).

The Cult of Clean
We've become a nation of grime fighters, and there's growing evidence that we're sacrificing our safety and our sanity to sanitization.
By Carlin Flora, PsychologyToday.com

From that article my favorite quote is:

Significantly, our dreams of disinfection parallel the rise of anxiety in our culture. After analyzing anxiety levels measured among young people in 1952 and 1993, psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego State University concluded that levels of anxiety in today's average teenager are equivalent to those in patients treated for a psychiatric disorder 50 years ago. Other studies have documented the rise of anxiety among college students and adults.

It was definitely not the focus of the article, but led me many more thoughts and observations.

A few days ago I found this:

Red Sex, Blue Sex
Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant?
by Margaret Talbot

And there I focused in on this:

Some of these differences in sexual behavior come down to class and education. Regnerus and Carbone and Cahn all see a new and distinct “middle-class morality” taking shape among economically and socially advantaged families who are not social conservatives. In Regnerus’s survey, the teen-agers who espouse this new morality are tolerant of premarital sex (and of contraception and abortion) but are themselves cautious about pursuing it. Regnerus writes, “They are interested in remaining free from the burden of teenage pregnancy and the sorrows and embarrassments of sexually transmitted diseases. They perceive a bright future for themselves, one with college, advanced degrees, a career, and a family. Simply put, too much seems at stake. Sexual intercourse is not worth the risks.” These are the kids who tend to score high on measures of “strategic orientation”—how analytical, methodical, and fact-seeking they are when making decisions. Because these teen-agers see abstinence as unrealistic, they are not opposed in principle to sex before marriage—just careful about it. Accordingly, they might delay intercourse in favor of oral sex, not because they cherish the idea of remaining “technical virgins” but because they assess it as a safer option. “Solidly middle- or upper-middle-class adolescents have considerable socioeconomic and educational expectations, courtesy of their parents and their communities’ lifestyles,” Regnerus writes. “They are happy with their direction, generally not rebellious, tend to get along with their parents, and have few moral qualms about expressing their nascent sexuality.” They might have loved Ellen Page in “Juno,” but in real life they’d see having a baby at the wrong time as a tragic derailment of their life plans. For this group, Regnerus says, unprotected sex has become “a moral issue like smoking or driving a car without a seatbelt. It’s not just unwise anymore; it’s wrong.

Sorry that was so long. But it’s a long article that I found quite interesting. And that quote there I liked it because I’ve been trying to puzzle together my own psychology for years. And frankly, it’s not going so well. However that quote led to some insight.

Happy reading.

I used a #3

2008-11-04T15:05:00.002-05:00

I have lived the alt tag.

Although I did become a bit more speedy with all of the AP test drilling.

iVote

2008-11-04T14:59:00.000-05:00

I am ashamed to admit that this morning was the first time that I have ever placed a vote in this our governmental system.

I was smart about it and when I went at 11 there was only a 20 minute line vs. the 1.5 hour line that TRM was kind enough to call and tell me about (she also warned me to dress warmly, the line was outside).

Now I feel all tingly or something. As much as I suck at doing new things after I manage to do them I feel very accomplished.

Almost anyone will believe almost anything.

2008-11-02T22:21:00.002-05:00

I just finished watching the pilot episodes of Legend of the Seeker.

I'd not heard anything about it at all until Friday. I went out for a bike ride, had to leave quickly to keep the daylight so left before anyone was home, and arrived home to find no one at home. It was kind of depressing cuz TRM has a boyfriend now and she's over there quite a bit. I guess I've gotten used to having someone around all the time again. But then just as I was cookin myself some stir fry for dinner she walked in the door, having gone out only to the grocery store. Yay.

But anyways she told me that apparantly she had heard from her friend J that there was a new TV series that was based on Terry Goodkinds Sword of Truth Series. And that J and his girlfriend were coming over the next evening, Saturday, to watch it. And that her boy would be there. Conveniently enough my fling was already scheduled to come out that day so it worked out pretty awesomely. The plan was to get pizza, and TRM and I figured on getting some chips and pizza as well.

And being as we are losers and have no friends this was a total party. I was all excited.

According to J the episode aired at 6 (kinda weird for a pilot to air at 6 on a Saturday, but knowing the books I expected it to flop too). So people were supposed to show up at 5:30 although TRM's guy, B, was coming earlier.

So there we were Saturday evening, B had arrived but everyone else was late. Being paranoid, as I always am, I told Jo that she best DVR it just in case they didn't arrive in time. She went over to the computer and I guessed had to look it up online to check the channel or something, but anyways we then learned that there were in fact 2 episodes the first of which started at 5. Good job J. But that plan went out the door. Other activities commenced instead so the party kinda wasn't what it should have been, and in general wasn't as good as I might have wished. But then I get big ideas in my head that very rarely come true.

This all really is nothing near my point. Just wanted to keep ya'll uptodate on nearly everymoment of my life cuz I'm a nut like that.

Luckily for us the episodes were re-airing quite a few times this week, the first being this evening starting at 8. Dutifly I watched.

And as a fan of the books I'm dissapointed. Seriously tho in any kind of book/movie/tv situation how can one not be dissapointed. They changed quite a bit of stuff.

It was kind of funny because right in the opening scene I got all excited because I thought it was the completely correct opening scene and said something to that extent to TRM. She told me I was wrong being as she had just started re-reading the first book that weekend (apparantly she never read the whole series dispite owning all the books, like seriously?, although I'll admit they are not the most compelling reading. In a review I read this evening someone brought up Goodkind going all Ayn Rand, and I must say that was a very good way of describing it). So then I thought a bit more and realized that the opening sequence I was thinking of was from Eragon, not Sword of Truth....oops. Then just like a minute or two later I promptly called the main character Rand. His name is Richard, Rand is the main character (well as main as it gets with the billions of important characters) in Jordan's Wheel of Time. So all in all 2 strikes right of the bat. The show was not particularly adherant to the book at all.

And taking it aside from the book I don't know that I'd be much inclined to watch it as good television either. Good fantasy takes good money. And this thing had some decent stuff, but all in all I didn't really buy the world.

All that being said of course I shall continue to watch it. It's a fantasy series and I'm a fantasy girl (or wish I was) :-)

Ah well I suppose I'll just read my book and go to bed, the time change thing (plus too much junk food and too little sleep - with all pleasure comes pain) really killed me today. I'm currently reading this random series thats decent but not amazing by Robin D Owens. What I'd really like to read is the next Dune book, but the stupid librarys don't seem to have it - it's frustrating.

"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."

The breaking wave and the muscle.

2008-10-31T18:36:00.003-04:00

So despite the frost on my car this morning, it was actually a fairly mild day weather wise. It's also the last day that I'll have any daylight after work hours, owing to daylight savings time, until the spring. And since I'm turning into a lazy bum I had decided before that I must must must get out riding today.

So off I went as soon as I could manage after work. I still could only get about 13 miles because of not wanting to be out past dusk. But it wasn't at all the most chilly of rides so I was quite happy. Plus I was surprised that I'd not lost as much as I could have in the way of riding ability.

Back at the house I was changing out of my biking stuff. I'd worn a new top thats all special sporty like and supposed to be good about moisture management and keep me warm and dry and all. I got a few things cuz TRM's dad works for a tennis gear supplier so we could get stuff cheap. Seriously the tags list MSRP of like $40+ and I paid less than $10. But anyways its a form fitting tank top so I was like hey this thing seems to work and it looks half decent.

Then I particularly noticed that I've this ridiculously defined muscle in my upper arm. Seriously it's huge. (Now this is really quite realative, I'm pretty small and have never topped 110, but generally not much in the way of musculature just the general skinnyishness).

Yup, I'm buff.

Although it makes sense. At work today I'm pretty sure I must have moved probably a half ton (seriously if you do the math I know I moved at least 30 of these boxes that were like filled with paper that was just the accounting stuff. I estimate they averaged at 20lbs. So thats 600lbs right there and that was just a portion of everything that I moved, it was ridiculous).

Go me.

Now if only I had someone to show. My fling lives nearly an hour away and TRM got a boyfriend and so isn't around much anymore :-/

“The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law. Delicate line gathers the body's total strength in a bold balance. Shall my soul meet so severe a curve, journeying on its way to form?”

Paper cutting me.

2008-10-29T22:12:00.007-04:00

So I've been wanting to get more into my Scherenschnitte recently. The idea is maybe if I get my butt in gear I could actually sell some of my work. So then I was looking up good paper because I don't care much for most of what I have. And so while I was randomly searching around I changed upon this amazing tip:

-To make patterns for cutting take any image. Change it to black and white. And then increase the contrast-

At first I was sceptical. I tried it out on a bunch of different pictures and it never came out so nice as I wanted. But then I probably just got used to seeing the reliefs and things started looking better. So I took a picture that I have followed those steps using GimpShop, which btw I love (mostly because it's free). And then proceeded to doctor it a bit for my purposes.

This evening I printed it out and went at it. Here is the result:

The Great Epic Film Scores.

2008-10-25T23:32:00.002-04:00

Tonight was the first POPS Concert of the season. I already have TRM roped in so she works the box office for me at least one day of each concert weekend, but I had another opening. So Little One came up, she wanted the $30.

But she also wanted to watch the concert to meet some requirements for school. So I got all excited and, after inquiring with TRM, got us 3 seats on a convenient aisle.

I think this is only the 2nd time in the year that I've worked at the symphony that I've actually taken a seat for the concert. There's just too much going on. If I want to hear something I'll just sneak into the stairs and watch from there. Sitting in an actual seat is a totally different, and worlds better, experience.

I sat there and I was actually swept up by the music. This is uncommon for me. I love music but audiences tend to distract me. I think that's a lot of why I think I'll always love playing [god do I miss playing] more than viewing it. It felt so good to just be there and feel the music, and feel the atmosphere. It reminded me of why my job really is not quite the hell that it's felt like for the past week.

Somewhat almost not really related I've come up with a new way to deal with angry people. Instead of just sitting there and taking their abuse and maybe trying to explain the reasoning behind our policies I should just burst into tears. It would be awesome.

I totally wasn't supposed to bitter in this post. Oops.

All growed up.

2008-10-25T00:07:00.002-04:00

So last weekend I was in the final stages of my laptop hunting and so I wanted to make a trip to BestBuy to look at what they had there. And of course I took TRM with me.

She wanted to visit the nearby Linens and Things store because it's going out of business and so having a 'whole store' kinda sale going on (although seriously the stuff still wasn't particularly cheap, the real world is much to expensive for my tastes). So we stopped there first.

While we were walking around with no real goal in mind it occured to me that quite a few months back I had put a new pillow on my list of things to buy sometime. I had 3 pillows all which were quite squashed and not so awesome anymore. And then I thought I had solved the problem when I absconded with a pillow from Grandma's house as she was moving out. Sadly though it was only a small step above what I only had.

So there I was browsing the pillow section of the store. And seriously who buys pillows that cost over $100 - that's crazily crazy. I found myself a nice $15 one. I'll admit the expensive ones are better than it I'm sure. But definately not like 10X better. But I digress.

The interesting thing about the whole experiance was that it just made me feel quite particularly like I was an adult now. As a child pillows were just there. They materialized of their own accord I'm pretty sure. Probably with some parental assistance, but I most certainly did not ever have anything to do with the matter.

And there I was walking out of the store with the pillow that I just spent my hard earned income on.

I suppose maybe eventually I'll become a bit more accustomed to the whole on my own, not a child thing.

Or maybe it's better to maintain this innocent fascination with the silly little things in life.

I finally did it.

2008-10-24T23:41:00.002-04:00

Towards the end of my last year of college I started to notice that my computer seemed to be slowing down some. Inevitably 3 years of hard use was taking it's toll. I easily admit that I'm not particularly easy on computers. Running 3 programs (an internet explorer, aim, and a music player) is about the minimum of what I will ever have up. And I like to find new things and play with them: new picture managers, cool programs like Gimp, etc. So invariably the dell was decent enough when I first got it, but given what I wanted to be doing not quite so up to snuff.

So that spring I actually started researching laptops, mostly as an idle dream. Then around graduation time (of year, not when I actually graduated myself) my parents said that they'd buy me a laptop as a graduation present - yippie! So the old computer chugged along into the summer quite well enough (I thought it was questionable then, but I now know better) through the summer as I contemplated my options.

Memorial day weekend hit and the good old Taurus met it's demise in spectacular fashion alongside the highway (good pictures that car fire did make). And as fate would have it my parents decided to contribute $1000 towards the purchase of a new vehicle. Have I ever mentioned that I hate cars. Because seriously I do. They just suck the fun out of life as I see it.

But I never gave up browsing the computer sites and dreaming of the day when I would have a shiny new bit of technology for my very own. I continued on with the old monster of a desktop. For a time it served well enough. But by last fall it was showing its age a bit too much. I stopped using it for much of anything involving new programs. And I even tried to avoid any non-vital program updates as much as possible. By this summer just trying to surf the internet while chatting with a friend could be difficult.

However I am a thrifty little bugger. During the first few months of my job I was seriously not spending any money outside of basic necessities. And so by the time I hit January when I started to seriously investigate my finances I had saved up quite the neat little safety cushion. And so when I prepared my budget spreadsheet the computer column was born. Dilligently I saved.

And as I saved I continued to ogle and drool over all of the pretty laptops on the interwebs.

My little pile of cash grew, and the goal was getting quite near. At last I finally decided to make a decision and go through with it.

I suck at decisions. By my logic my ridiculous hair is a perfect example of this. I'll just make do with what I have instead of having to decide something. Personality flaw number 83 maybe.

But last Saturday I seriously and for real when through with it.

For under $975.21 (including tax and shipping) I purchaed, from Best Buy. A Dell Studio 15. It has some pretty sweet specs. 2.1 processer, 4G RAM, 320 HD, WXGA+, bluetooth, webcam, much much shinyness.

After much waiting with bated breath and a literal recreation of this: online package tracking , my laptop arrived on Wednesday evening. Since then pretty much all of my non-work and non-sleep time has been spent with the laptop within arms reach. Yup, I'm that much of a dork.

There is just so much awesomeness to discover.

There are also a few potentially serious flaws. But I'm avoiding that.

Right now at this very moment. I have open Mozilla where I am typing this, AIM where I am chatting with Little One, I have Ruckus open and playing music, and iTunes is also open because I'm running some other little crazy program (that is a serious ram hog btw) that is supposed to be eliminating duplicates from iTunes, because after the transfer of songs onto here (plus a transfer from an external onto the old computer a few months back when we had to re-format the drive because of a battle between the old computer and something mean presumibly from the internet, and really the poor old thing didn't stand a chance) my iTunes library is pretty bad form. A bit ago I was not typing this or listening to Ruckus but I was watching the Dancing With The Stars that I missed from this week. It ran without a hitch, and even looked pretty durn good. [Although seriously I can't believe Cloris is still on the show - wtf people!]

I still can't believe I spent all that money on something so superfilous. So weird.

Oh that reminds me of another post I wanted to make last weekend.....

Every so often.

2008-10-24T12:15:00.003-04:00

So ever so often, and really it is a fairly frequent so often, I think of a topic that I should like to write a blog on. However I am, obviously, a slacking blogger, and so not much comes of it.

Here are the topics from recent life that are in my head that I want to write about:
Parking in the Garage/Frost
Computer
Bike
Spending too much money
Ballet
Keeping in contact
Symphony Blogs
Blogging
Soup
Boys

-ok that list started to get a bit random as ideas popped into my head. Therein lies the danger.

I shall start with the first, and easiest. This was a random post that popped into my head.

It first occurred yesterday. There was frost on the windshield of my car. It's been getting rather cool now, but I'm still not willing to concede that the nice weather is done. Gosh durn it I want summer back.

And this frost was not the easy flick of the wipers and its gone kind. I had to actually go and find my ice scrapers and for the first time this year, clear my windows. Luckily I had been thinking ahead and found them in the garage a day or two before.

So I hastily scraped off my car and proceeded to work. Inevitably I was more hasty than I ought to be and my windshield had an odd haze to it for the first .5 miles. Seriously you'd think that I'd be more cautious given my history.

Fast forward to today!

TRM decided that we ought to actually use the garage to hold a car instead of random junk. So she cleaned it all up. She managed to get all of our bikes (there are 4 in total now) hung up on the ceiling.

However there are always some issues with using the garage. Namely, it is a 1 car garage, and there are 3 of us. It is reached by traveling through our driveway space which fits 2 cars in a line. And we are all journeying to and fro according to our own schedules. And so we are not unfamiliar with the fun of the car shuffle. Plus there was only one button thinger for the door. And really who is going to park in the drive way, get out of the car and go into the house, open the garage door, start the car back up, and park in the garage.

But then Jo came home with a button thinger for me. It's not particularly consistant but sometimes I am the first person home. And I am always the last person to leave. Whoa.

Yesterday when I got home I parked in the garage. Actually I parked very poorly in the garage. It's a pretty tight fit to begin with. And I'd not parked in it since she hung up all 4 bikes. So I was a bit curious to see if my car would hit them. Therefore as I got close to the bike I kept inching forwards. In the end I was pretty durn close, but the bike does actually clear, and I was much to far inside the garage so when I got out of the car I didn't have room to get to the door. Oops.

This morning when I drove to work it was amazing. There was no going out in the cold at all. Now the car wasn't toasty or anything close. But still - not freezing at all.

Delightful.

Hot Date

2008-10-13T15:59:00.002-04:00

Yup you read right. I went on a ‘hot date’. Though what constitutes a date being ‘hot’? Basically I used the term to humorous ends. So it’s much safer to say that I just had a date actually.

It was good. We talked for nearly 4 hours straight and never seemed to run out of things to say. I’m pretty sure I don’t talk, like ever. How does that work. I’m thinking positive sign maybe?

But I’m not going to be spilling any details here. I’ve other outlets for that if I so desire. I want to know what is with guys and paying for things? Seriously.

We went out for dinner and he handily grabbed the check and took care of it. Ok all well and good. Not that I require it, I’d happily split the bill, but the in the old guy/girl standards that some people still live by it’s expected. Then since dinner didn’t take very long we went to a coffee shop where he also picked up the tab. Also fine ok he’s a guy and being manly like, whatever floats your boat.

The interesting thing was later I asked if he’d be willing to go to the opera with me. He was agreeable enough to the idea. So then when I said ok so long as the date and time works for you I’ll get the tickets, he said I’ll go so long as I can pay for the tickets…..Wait a minute what the heck is that? It was my slightly out there proposition and for a few other reasons in my mind it only makes sense that I’ll pay for them. But he was sitting there arguing with me.

I suppose in a way it’s cute and endearing, wanting to take care of or something like that? But in the end, seriously, what gives?

....maybe I ought to find myself a dragon to be kidnapped by or something....

"Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth."

Check!

2008-10-13T15:44:00.001-04:00

After working 12 straight days I always go a bit nutty and can’t wait for the weekend. Last week was no different. This time I seemed to have hit the weekend with a bit more emphasis than normal.

I had all these thoughts of things I wanted to do whirling through my head. And so rather promptly after arriving home from work on Friday I sat down and typed out the following list on my aim where I updated it as I completed things:

Clean car (inside and out)
Finish laundry – whites
Do laundry – darks
Clean room
Clean kitchen (after apple madness)
Make apple sauce
Make apple butter
Start abstract Christmas tree paper cutting
Complete at least 1 window office art things
Complete at least 1 vase Christmas present
Learn to double knit, start Christmas present
Take out winter clothes, put away summer clothes
Sort canning jars

I later added “hike 6 miles, and go on hot date with a watchmaker” when said date asked why it wasn’t on the list (cuz it was the fun activities not the at home chores).

But of that all I completed the following:
Cleaned my car inside and out
Finished laundry darks and whites
Cleaned my room
Made 7 quarts of applesauce
Made approximately 3.5 quarts of apple butter
Finished the abstract Christmas tree paper cutting
Completely refinished and painted my window art
Finished 1 vase Christmas present
Learned to double knit and got the yarn to start the present
Swapped my seasonal clothing
Sorted our canning jars and even cleaned most of them
Hiked 3-4 miles (seriously up a mountain)
Went on a hot date with a watchmaker

All in all I am ridiculously proud of myself I did a freaking lot this weekend. It’s awesome feeling. Except that I’m also feeling way too tired at work today. *sigh* Can’t win them all.

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange.

2008-10-09T15:39:00.002-04:00

So I was really just sitting here just minding my own business but some of my co-workers were moving random office furniture around (we're completing some office renovations).

We have a good bit of stuff that's old and we don't want anymore and the question has been what to do with it all. Apparantly one of my co-workers went across the hall to the non-profit there (lukemia and lymphoma) and asked if they might be interested in any of it.

After a bit of looking and checking they were indeed interested in one desk, so over it went.

And then their executive director brought us a box of twizzlers in trade.

Oh good times....

"The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals."

Sailing the celestial spaces.

2008-10-09T15:38:00.003-04:00

Yesterday TRM and I drove an hour down into Maryland to go to a REI store there that was having a "Backpacking 101" seminar/class thing.

I was a bit anxious as it was my idea and I was worried that it'd be stupid and that's alot of driving for something stupid.

But good news! it wasn't stupid and quite worthwhile.

First of all REI is an outdoors enthusiast mecca. Seriously the place freaking rocks. Tons and tons of camping stuff. Oodles of biking things. Spiffy clothes, etc. And as an awesomely awesome bonus the workers actually know what they're talking about and can like help you out with what to get. Sweetness.

The seminar itself was rather interesting. The presenter was an employee/avid hiker. Basically he talked just a bit about general things like planning and leave no trace, but then just tried to go through all the stuff you need for backpacking. He explained it all and told us what he uses and stories about absolutely everything. He knocked somethings down, talked others up. It was pretty freaking good.

So now I'm all psyced to go backpacking again.

I don't know if I've ever brought it up here before but TRM and I are planning next summer to go on a Sierra Club Beginner Backpacking trip. I came up with the idea last year and she was into it as well. So the thought was to start saving money now. The cost of the trip is $500ish with the Club. Then there's whatever (significant) cost to get out there (most of these trips are out on the West Coast) and possibly stay somewhere before/after. And last but most certainly not least is all of the gear.

Backpacking requires alot of gear. The thing last night reinforced this. Actually the whole experiance really left my head spinning, so much to think about.

Today I sat down and using the REI website put together a tentative list/budget of everything I need (well I suppose it really is more of a want) to aquire. I came up with $700 as a basic get the stuff I pretty much really need generally at a rather low price. Stuff that it would be nice to have/can be gathered over a longer period of time (although things like having not just 1 but 2 shirts are in this now as well as good to have but not necessary things like treking poles) are an extra $400.

Ouch. That is definately over my initial estimate of $500 for gear. Ah well in theory this stuff will last me for years. And shall provide years of awesomeness.

TRM and I are actually going out for our first hike this weekend. It's off to a bit of the Appalachian trail that is quite close to us. I'm thinking we'll do about 6 miles. And I'm excited.

In writing this I also found an amazing quote that just mentally 'took my breath away' if that makes any sense to you:

"How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make - leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone - we all dwell in a house of one room - the world with the firmament for its roof - and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track." ~John Muir

Bel Canto

2008-10-06T22:33:00.002-04:00

I just finished Bel Canto by Ann Patchett and I strongly recommend it. Especially for any music lovers.

She beautifully entwines romance, music, and even some ideas on human nature into an engrossing story that I didn't want to put down. Plus the ending leaves you a bit off. Which I frequently find to be a trait of the best stuff.

This is a short and sweet one.

Happy Gedächtnestag

2008-09-25T15:52:00.001-04:00

Actually I’m a day late. And realistically Gedächtnestag was celebrated back on Sunday so I’m even more late. But I am writing today….so deal with it.

Now if you are a normal person you are probably sitting there confused. You could most likely care less what day Gedächtnestag is and are wondering more about how the heck one pronounces it, or more importantly what the heck it is….good question.

Let me start this story by informing you that I am a Schwenkfelder. And I’m proud of it.

What is a Schwenkfelder you may ask? Well a Schwenkfelder is a follower of the religious teachings of Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossig. He lived way back in the 1500’s and one of his contemporaries was Martin Luther (whom hopefully you’ve heard of and know something about him and his 95 Theses and all). Schwenkfeld lived within the Holy Roman Empire in a place called Silesia (which is now round abouts where Poland is located) and he not only questioned Catholic practices, but also formed his own ideas that were outside of the Lutheran realm as well. His big teachings were thinking for ones self and coming to your own conclusions as well as following a “Middle Way.”

However inevitably Silesia (and most of the populated European world) were not so keen on the individual ideas thing and Schwenkfeld was labeled a heretic – ouch. He though did manage to gather a following, they called themselves Confessors of the Glory of Christ, luckly for me the name didn’t stick and these people would eventually become known just as Schwenkfelders. Those people continued to follow Schwenkfeld’s teachings despite a harsh political environment. Back then religion and politics were pretty much one in the same. And at that time in history the Holy Roman Empire, while ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor, was more like a bunch of smaller fiefdoms. And so an agreement had been made between the Emperor and all of the provincial rulers that each ruler could choose for himself if his lands would be Catholic or Lutheran. Unfourtionately Schwenkfelder was not an option, and so the valiant Confessors were persecuted.

By the early 1700’s it was getting pretty bad and the Schwenkfelder’s were seriously considering escaping their native lands to find religious freedom. After a temporary respite while staying on the lands of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendof, a pretty awesome and unbelievably liberal guy for the day, in Saxony their freedom was again in question and their thoughts turned to moving to the new world. Specifically they picked Pennsylvania where there people spoke of religious freedom, plus there was already a good contingent of German folk.

There were a few different migration groups however the largest set sail in 1734 and arrived in Philadelphia on September 22. Two days later on September 24th the Schwenkfelders held a day of Thanksgiving for having made the grueling journey to begin their new lives in the new world.

Each year, from then on, Schwenkfelders gather together on the Sunday closest to September 24 and together celebrate Gedächtnestag, or as we also call it Day of Remembrance. It is the oldest continually celebrated day of thanksgiving in the US (our claim to fame!).

On that day we take the opportunity to reflect upon our past. There is a traditional meal of bread, apple butter, and water. When I was younger I understood that we did that because when those pilgrims first landed that simple meal of fresh food was a feast. I now know that this is most likely not at all true, and I’m not sure if it’s a common misconception by everyone, or a child’s error. But it’s the tradition and we love us some apple butter. Some people even call it Apple Butter day.

Most importantly however is that we are remembering. The part that I love most about being a Schwenkfelder is our rich and vibrant history. What can I say, it makes me feel special. I love telling the story or even just teaching other people to pronounce the name.

I haven’t regularly attended church for over 4 years now having moved away most of the first 3 years for school and now having moved away for my job. And of all the reasons why I miss home being a practicing Schwenkfelder is probably what gets me the most.

But I still remember. And I figure that so long as I remember I’ll always be a Schwenkfelder at heart.

Happy Gedächtnestag!

Clause: The historical parts of this entry may not be 100% accurate as I was mostly just telling it from my own memory.

Adagio For Strings

2008-09-15T16:19:00.004-04:00

Please hit play:

Last Thursday, the same day that we remembered the tragic events of seven years ago, a new loss entered my life.

At approximately 3 o'clock we learned that our co-worker, William Schmieding, had passed away.

Poor Man's Tax

2008-09-10T13:27:00.003-04:00

Today one of my co-workers came up and asked if I wanted to participate in the 'office pool' that would be going to try and win the PowerBall Lottery. But she precursed it by saying "I don't think if you'll be interested because you're thrifty." Actually I don't think the word was thrifty but I can't recall the specific term used. My tight-fisted attitude precedes me.

Each person could contribute as much as they liked. And then "when" they won (she was thinking positively) the prize would be split as a percentage of what they had contributed. I guess that the Powerball prize was up high enough that it must have come up as a topic of conversation yesterday.

In accordance with my long standing principles, I did not participate. I was the only person in the office (there's a whole 8 of us) who did not participate.

Green eyed monster.

2008-09-03T23:26:00.002-04:00

8/31/08, 6:04 PM

I am envious of anyone else who is in a relationship. My cousins boyfriend came here today. Somehow they've been together for 4 years or something, at least. We've never actually met him before, aside from my aunt, her mother, and Grandma. But even just from what I'd heard I wasn't impressed. He's definitely not the brightest tool in the shed. Didn't go to college, maybe for financial reasons but then just doesn't seem the type. Reminds me more of the rather stereo-typed red-neck ideas.

God I am such a snob in my thinking.

Be here now.

2008-09-03T23:22:00.002-04:00

8/31/08 5:37 PM

This afternoon I pulled on a long sleeved shirt, dug out my hat, searched out an appropriate blanket and spread it out on the lawn so I could bask in the sun. 100% of my skin covered of course. Go figure. But it was, with a breeze, too cool to sit out in the shade, and the out doors is so much better than holing up inside, dispute the burn issues.

But stretched out there enjoying the opportunity to be lazy and carefree in between my reading my mind drifted off. I started thinking on formulation my own perfect little scene. One of many no doubt.

It consisted of myself and my significant other, a handsome and dashing example of masculine beauty no doubt. And in the picture we are both just laying there. Not necessarily actively together, or maybe one head resting on the others lap. But together there we are each reading.
Each in our own space, our own little worlds, drawn up through the words on the pages. And yet so completely together in the quiet comfort and easy gentleness of the scene.

Do you think such a thing could ever be possible? I don't know. To be so still in this world where it feels like when we are together we must be moving. Plus I'm finding more and more my love of reading is somewhat an anomaly.

Maybe someday.