%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  "Clean cup! Move down!" ~~the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney cartoon |
|
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Sometimes in life, you have to pick up and move down the table. A regroup, a fresh start. A clean slate. |
| I've realized recently that I lead a different life than the life I "think" I lead. Let me give you some examples: In my head, I read literature from people like Tolstoy, Bronte and other classic authors. In real life, I read trashy fantasy romance books. Alot of them.  In my head, I eat healthy veggies and fruits with every meal. In real life, I eat donuts for breakfast at least twice a week and I'm sitting here struggling to remember the last time a green vegetable passed my lips. In my head, I still fit into my wedding dress. In real life, I couldn't put that sucker on even if you slathered me in Crisco and I got a running start to jump into it. (Probably it's the donuts. )In my head, I plan ahead and am never rushed. In real life, I'm an eleventh hour panicker who rushes around like a chicken with her head chopped off trying to make things happen on time or at least not too terribly late. In my head, I study all semester so that when finals roll around, I'm good to go. In real life, finals are next week and I'm sitting here and I haven't even read the books this semester. I'd rather be playing WoW, anyway.  Why can't more of life happen virtually? I'm great at virtual reality!  |
| It seems that falls always means more work. I used to think summer was when I had the most work, and was at my busiest, but now I know it's really the fall months when that happens. But I amuse myself at the things I'm "busy" with. For instance I spent quite some time yesterday absorbed in putting the winter bedding on (flannel sheets, heated mattress pad, warmer comforter) and in finding and outfitting the basement with a new air freshner system. Simply earth shattering tasks that could NOT wait.Today I've puttered around the house taking care of silly tasks that also "can't wait." None of them are even on my to do list. I am the world's worst procrastinator. I'm horrible! The sad thing is I fill my day with useless "important" tasks that if I review them or defend them, they do seem like useful things. It's simply a matter of prioritizing. Take for instance the homework that's due say...tomorrow. I should be doing that. But no. Instead I'm going to wash yesterday's bedding because that simply HAS to be done. I'm ridiculous.The thing that kills me is that while I'm vacuuming my dining room baseboards instead of reading my Planetary Geoscience book to study for the midterm next week, I know I'm procrastinating. I just bullshit myself about balancing the workload or some such thing. Oh, well. At least the kitchen floor is clean this week. ~sigh~ |
| These last couple of years as I head into the cooler months, I notice that I change that I change my MO for the weekends and evenings. I retreat to my sewing room and putter around for hours and days at a time. Working on various projects; sometimes finishing them, sometimes not. I used to worry about the fact that I have a dozen or more unfinished projects all started at the same time, but over the years I've gotten more philosophical about it. Now I've decided that life is more about the journey. I try to choose a "main" project and finish it, while still working on my various other works in process. While I work on my projects, I also listen to books on tape or watch old TV series on Netflix. I'm a pretty serious Sci-Fi and Mystery fan and my tastes are pretty eclectic. Right now I'm cycling through series I used to watch and series I always meant to watch but for whatever reason didn't. Things like Buffy, Angel, Highlander, Midsommer Murders, Dr. Who (the new series), all of the Star Trek (original, TNG, Enterprise and the others) and others. Winter is also sports time. Hubby watches football and basketball while I'm sewing and puzzling and watching my series. It's a nice time for us to spend time apart. I can't understand marriages where people don't get alone time like that. I live in my head alot and that time I spend alone is when I get to understand the things running around in my head. I like this time of year. It helps me put the rest of the year into perspective.  |
| My business partner and I were supposed to be at the Farmer's Market right now, but we wimped out. It got down to freezing last night and is only 65 with a rather cool breeze right now. It's supposed to get down to 30 again. We just weren't up to sitting in the cold reading tarot. Last week it was so cold no one came out to the market and we barely broke even. We rationalized that it would be the same this week. That and we just didn't want to sit around in 40 degree weather sniffling and telling people they need better love lives. (Lonely hearts are our bread and butter.) It's so cool this week, my aspen leaves have started turning. Right on schedule. Friday is the Equinox. I sent SIL and new BIL off this morning with hugs and four giant zuchs to gift to the cousins in Wisconsin where they are headed next. What with the hard freeze last night I've got to start getting serious about giving these things out. I've been pretty half hearted up til now, but a couple more hard freezes and the plants will die and these things will rot. Or I will have to come up with more places to store them. One neat thing is that people have dusted off all sorts of new zuch recipes for me to try. I've modified my fabulous muffin recipe to a completly organic one now by tinkering with two or three other recipes and coming up with one I really enjoy. (So does everyone else! I've been making it in double batches. ) It uses yogurt, whole wheat and honey with just a little agave syrup for the sweetner. These things are to die for! I'd be happy to provide it to anyone who is interested.I had a co-worker give me one for Lemon-Zucchini Pound Cake out of one of those small Betty Crocker cookbooks you get at the magazine stand at the grocery store. It looks pretty good, I'm going to give it a try this week. I'll let you know how it is. I'm a little worried though, it has 315 calories and 15 fat grams per slice. Perhaps I can jigger it so that it's not quite so bad.  I think it's the cup of butter and two cups of powdered sugar in it. Yikes! Since I didn't go to the market today, I've been cleaning. Sometimes when I have guests, I notice all the filth I live in on a daily basis. And the funny thing is, I know it's stuff that nobody but me notices. But, sometimes I spend more time cleaning after people leave than before they came. How dumb is that? I have a vase collection from all the flowers Hubby has given me over the years. (Actually I thinned it out a few years ago and pared it down to just a handful of the really pretty ones.) But I store/display them on top of my kitchen cabinets. It's a nice use of the space and dresses it up a little without it looking cluttered. I also collect teapots and teacups so I have some of those stored up high out of the way of animals, too. While my guests were here for some reason I kept looking at them and realizing how long it's been since I washed the vases. They were filthy! So today I pulled them down and stuck them in the dishwasher and then attacked the tops of the cabinets with wood cleaner.  I try to do it at least twice a year, but Holy Cow was it gross up there. There is nothing as pervasive as greasy kitchen dust. While I was doing it I turned on my iPod with a little external speaker and played Loreena McKennitt. I love her stuff. I'll link one of my favs here for those who've never heard her. Most of it is fun and wild and reminds me of gypsy music. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
Lots of stuff has happened, so I'll provide a short summation here rather than ramble: Summer school was good AND it sucked. Physics went well (I got a B), but once again Calculus sucked.  I stuck it out until the end because it almost sorta looked like I could pass it this time if I hung in there and got at least an 80 on the final.Yeah.....that didn't happen. So I failed Calculus. It KIIIIILLLLLED my GPA. I had a long talk with Hubby and on Friday I changed my major. I WAS 30 credits away from finishing with a degree in Geology. NOW, I'm 45 credits away from finishing with a degree in Geography. It seems they don't care if Geographers can do the fancy calculus. Besides classes for the major, all I have to take to finish is a couple of easy Stats for Dummies classes and a year of some foreign language. I'm thinking this is where those half remembered two years of high school Spanish are going to come in handy. Como se yama? My cool sister in law and her new husband will be here tomorrow to visit for a while. Excited to see them, haven't seen them since their wedding last Sept. Planted too many zucchini plants this year. And Hubby used Elephant-gro on the garden. I have a TON of zucchini the size of my thigh that I can't give away fast enough. I can't pick them find them fast enough under the pumpkin which are also going gonzo. These things are so big, one put through the food processer makes over 12 cups of shredded zucchini.  I'm shredding them and freezing them as fast as I can. I don't know what's going to give first, the space in my freezer or the motor on my Cuisinart. OK, Scarlett, that's a list of six, just to drive you bonkers.  I'll leave it there and try to post more often. |
| Summer is dwindling fast. My arm is feeling much better, now. I have almost my full range of motion back, even if I still can't lift any weight with it. They gave me a brace for my knee and it's doing better, too, as long as I don't walk a long way, turn suddenly, or stand for long periods on it. The fluid all drained off the joint and came down the front of my shin and pooled in my ankle so the front of my leg and ankle are all that horrible sickly yellow old bruise color. (Which is super sexy because all I wear in the summer are sun dresses and sandals. )Aside from healing, I've been working at my summer semester Calculus class. It's a rocky road, but so far I'm passing. One more test and then the final. Wish me luck.  Next week, Monilad is coming to visit. Really excited about that. She's staying a week and we are going to the Sweet Pea festival here in Bozeman. It's an Art festival held every year where local (and some not so local!) artisans can sell their wares and they have performers on different stages throughout the weekend. Shawn Mullins will be there Sunday afternoon. Montana Shakespeare in the Parks also performs a play Friday night to open and Sunday night to close and we always go to both every year as a family. (We all love Shakespeare.) This year they are performing Much Ado About Nothing and The Merchant of Venice. They also have a children's area and every year they have a storyteller perform. The one they got this year is supposed to be excellent. I hope Monilad wants to go see her with me. I love having stories told to me. They also have some Celtic musicians this year. I think Hubby will go see them with me. If not, I'll go alone. I love Celtic music. I'm really looking forward to this. It's going to be a great way to celebrate Monilad being here to visit and to celebrate me finishing Calculus. |
| It's been 41 days since my last blog. It's hard for me to blog in the summer because I take summer classes, which are the same as regular school year classes but taught by grad students at chipmonk speed. That and there is a major test each week. I got through the first semester of Physics ok with a B. It was actually a cool class. But there is lots of math, dreaded, dreaded math. Right now I'm taking....*deep breath* Calculus. ~dun dun DUN~ I know. Right? Fourth? Fifth? time's the charm? I've lost count how many times I've attempted this class. It sucks. But I have to get through it before next spring or I'm behind by a year for school again. Good news, bad news. I got a job! Yea!!! Data entry position. It's interesting work and I'm good at it. The pay is great and they work with me on my school hours. Bad news? I fell July 1st on a concrete floor and broke my elbow and injured my knee. It was owie, owie, owie. I cried.....a lot. I broke the head on the humerus (one of the round knobby bits on the upper arm bone) and they don't cast for that. So I'm just walking around with an unprotected broken arm. I hate doctors. They should invent a flexible cast so that I'll stop bumping it. It makes me want to wet myself every time I bump it or one of the cats or dogs jumps on it. Last night a cat jumped on it while I was sound asleep and I woke Hubby up screaming and crying. It wasn't pretty. In the meantime, I'm slow to type, this has basically taken forever to do... and my arm starts to ache while I'm typing. So I gotta save up for my job. Which is all typing. I'll try to read more, though. And I'll write more when I'm feeling better. PS....Hubby didn't get strip searched once on our trip! Maybe his days as a terrorist are over. I got pulled aside and sent through the little body scanner in TX, though. So perhaps he's passing the torch to me. Time will tell. |
| For some reason, my husband fits one of the TSA terrorist profiles. But wait, you say, the TSA doesn't profile terrorists. They pick random people to do body searches on. Oh yeah? That's a big fat lie. How do I know? Because every single time we've flown since 9/11 my husband has been pulled aside and searched. Wait.....that's not true. The good folk in Kauai didn't search him, they searched me. But TSA agents in airports across the continental US have all searched my husband. Big airports (DFW, Denver, Vegas); little airports (Bozeman, Gunnison). You name a location, my husband's been searched there. They also search his luggage. Something about his computer looks bomb-ish, I think. But usually the body search comes before the computer bomb search, so I don't think they are related. We fly this week. Hubby is looking forward to the customary groping. Not. He says he's just going to start flying in a Speedo to hurry things along. He says they'll still probably want to grope him, though. I like groping him, but I'm his wife, so it's understandable. He usually is nice about it unless some big hairy man or some even bigger hairy-er woman gropes him. That freaks him out a little. His optimum groper is a nice petite blonde or brunette female. He's got a thing for the blondes. I'll let you know when we get back if I got groped, too. I think friends should share fun little life details like that. |
| Men and some women always talk about women and their shoe fetishes. They act like women, ALL women, can be bribed or bought off or distracted by shoes. When I read in books about women with shoe fetishes, I get put out or put off of that character because I simply don't understand that kind of behavior. Except for my twenty year search for the perfect pair of summer sandals. Every summer I embark on the search full of hope. I throw open my closet doors and rummage around in the dusty, cat hair strewn corners of it and pull out all the myriad of disappointments from seasons past. Oh, they all seemed promising at the outset. Each pair in its humble little way. This pair with its darling strappy, jeweled thong that sadly pinched. That pair of understated brown suede knockouts that rubbed an awful blister on the top of my foot. Oh the list of the cuteness and their failure to live up to expectations could fill pages. I've tried cheap, I've tried pricey, I've tried everything in between. But each season....alas, I reach season's end poorer, sadder and saddled with failures. I pack the ones that aren't too, too horrible up onto the shoe shelves in hopes I can make do with them next year. The rest go to the thrift store. In the spring of 1996, my husband bought a pair of Naot sandals for me on a whim in a little boot repair shop in Loveland, CO. I get a little misty when I think of these sandals. I still wear them. They are quite simply the perfect sandal. If I could, I'd have a shoe maker reproduce them exactly. As they are, they are worn out from almost fifteen years of daily summer wear. I've tried buying a replacement pair of Naot's (after five years of looking for them I found some in a sporting good store in Billings), but they are a different model, of course, and sadly, they rub a blister on the ball of my foot.  So.....the search continues. |
| It rained/snowed the last two days. Mostly rained, but it was an icy snow mix part of the time. I turned off our heat last week refusing to pay the heating bill into May. So, even though temps dipped into the 40s, we just sucked it up. Tea cozies (Snuggies), blankies, and a small electric heater I used in my sewing room were what got us through. Today, though, today is beautiful. Sunny and 70s. Tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same. Hubby is making lawn-mowing noises for the weekend. First mowing of the year. But first he'll have to take the snow-plow off the lawn tractor and put the blades back on it. That reminds me....I need to go get new blades for the lawn mower. He mentioned it in September when he took them off. It's hard to remember to do stuff like that with the white stuff on the ground.I listen to John Tesh when I'm driving around during the day. I like him. He has a lot of good life tips. His music is not my fav, but he's an upbeat guy. I enjoy that bit of positive in my day. Today he was talking about how daydreaming is good for you. Writers know that of course, but it's good to hear. Sort of positive reinforcement. You get in trouble for daydreaming as a kid. At least I did. But daydreaming is one of my favorite things. Just staring off into the distance thinking thoughts, making random mental connections. A bit of low-key meditation. Meditation without trying, really. Meditation-lite, if you will. Some of my favorite daydreaming activities include: staring at snowfall, staring at rain, staring at clouds, staring at rivers/streams, staring at wind in the trees, watching birds at birdfeeders, watching my husband do any kind of manual labor, putting my mind on auto pilot while mowing/cleaning the kitchen/vacuuming/biking/weeding/etc. I have a hard time being Zen because being Zen means being fully present in the moment. I'm almost never fully present in the moment. Even now as I type this, I have to keep pulling my attention back to what I'm doing. It keeps wandering. Wandering over stories, what if's, inventions, random ideas, possibilities, you name it. My husband says I'm difficult to talk to sometimes because he has trouble making me concentrate on the conversation we are having my mind being else where. It's especially hard for me to concentrate if there is something else going on like the TV is on or a radio is on. I'm not ADD, I'm just....preoccupied. I'm at the library and I'm supposed to be editing my novel...but right now, I'm watching the birds at the feeder next to the creek in the park that runs behind the library. Too many of my favorite daydreaming things happening all at once. So many ideas.So...since John Tesh says it's no only OK to daydream, it's actually good for you, I think I'll sit here and dream awhile. If that's ok with you guys. |
| I think spring is finally here. It's beautiful here today. There are birds out, the snow is melting, the sun is shining and the trees and shrubs are starting to green up. Woot! It's 51 whole degrees out there, people!!!I think I'm gonna go soak up some D today. There is a group that meets at the library every Monday night called the Gypsy Rythym Writer's Group. In my new found spirit of working on my novel, I'm going to attend tonight and check them out. I've also been re-reading my books on writing. Stephen King's "On Writing" is a particular favorite. I've also found a new one by Kelly Stone called "Thinking Write." It's extremely helpful when you hit a block. Well, I've dallied long enough....time to edit/rewrite. And a big thanks to the US Military, especially the Navy Seals for my wonderful birthday present. Not a bad way to turn forty...with the end of bin Laden! Woot! |
| Lately I've got a story stuck in my head. Only, this story is part of a story arc/novel/world that I started back in 2006 as part of NaNo and then haven't touched since. It's the same worldscape. (Fantasy) While I was thinking about this story fragment that's rummaging around in my head, I started trying to remember my novel. It's finished, it's just not....you know.....finished. What I mean is I completed the story, I just never went back and did any editing or anything. I just finished telling the story and basically walked away. For, you know, five years. I do however  the wonderful goodness that is Writing.com. Because I had it saved on my computer and that computer crashed. Dead. Died. Buried. Never to resurrect. No more story. However.....I had uploaded a copy here onsite. Yea, me! Yea, WdC!So, I didn't lose my novel. I reread it today. And you know what? It's not total crap.  Do you ever read fiction and think, "I could write a better story than this drivel."? I think that all the time. And I think, after five years of a cooling off period to forget about the story and step back and look at it with new eyes, that I DID write a better story. Now I just need to clean it up. A lot. So....new project. I'm working on my book again. If done right, it has the potential to be a trilogy or series as well, so, bonus there. I know I want to tell other stories in the same world, sort of a la Mercedes Lackey or Tamara Pierce. Different perspective, same scenery. I'm actually pretty stoked about it. Now I just have to carry through. That's the tough bit. |
| Sometimes I get overstressed and channel my energy into supercleaning my house. Then we live in a squeaky clean house for a week or so. Sometimes, though, it goes the other way and I do the bare minimum and instead throw all my energy into meaningless projects. Right now I'm putting a puzzle together and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning. I finished the entire Stargate series (except this season of Stargate Universe which ends next week, I think.) The ENTIRE Stargate series. All ten seasons of SG-1, all five seasons of Atlantis and the first season of SGU. Oh, and two of the movies. I guess I still have one of the movies to watch, too. It's taken me something like two years to finish them all. I really pressed through them this winter. Depression is a wonderful thing. I love Hulu and Netflix. I already finished one puzzle and laminated it. I'm going to put it in a poster frame and hang it on my bare sewing room walls. That's where my new puzzle is going, too. I've been powering through my sewing projects, too. I'm behind on them, but I'm making some progress. School's out this Friday. Then I have one final next Wednesday. Then two weeks off before summer session starts. Yay, physics.  It's nice when Hubby just kind of leaves me alone to do my thing when I'm like this. He goes downstairs and flies. (He has a flight simulator program.) When he plays Call of Duty: Black Ops, I can't watch Netflix because it makes his game choppy. We live in the boondocks and our internet connection can't support simultaneous downloads without lag time. It's not dialup, thank gawd, but it's the slowest, thinnest high speed you can get. If three people are on the internet at the same time, none of them can be watching video. It won't support it. If two people are on, only one can stream video and then it's choppy. Luckily (?) for me, Sony got hacked this last week and the Playstation Network was offline all weekend. So I was able to have my mental weekend. I did my presentation for my discussion class this morning to a stunned and silent room. I guess sometimes I forget the impact some of my life story has. It's kind of common place for me. I read "Invalid Entry"  , "Invalid Item" , "Invalid Entry" and "Invalid Entry" for the presentation. I included those and two others in my paper along with quotes and explanations of how the semesters readings pertained to my poetry. It was good. Kind of cathartic.I feel a little drained now from it all, though. I guess in a way, it's hard to put that much of yourself out like that in such a public forum. |
| I think it's time to discuss a serious topic: The untimely demise of Blogville. I heard the sharp intakes of breath, the gasps of horror when I said it out loud, so bluntly, so rudely. But it's true. We all know it. Some of us have been wandering around the empty neighborhood like geezers in the projects, "I remember when...." Well, I'm moving on. I changed blogs at the beginning of the year, and now I've found some new people to blog with. And I'd like to take the last few hold out citizens with me as I leave the wasteland Blogville has become. I've found a group of bloggers in "The Talent Pond" . The bloggers there dock at a place they call "Talent Pond Blog Harbor MOVED TO 1700829" . To join up, you first join "The Talent Pond" . (Which is easy....they took me, after all. ) Then you fill out a short survey to get your blog moored at "Talent Pond Blog Harbor MOVED TO 1700829" . Easy-Peasy! New readers, a new community. A new home for those of us wandering around Blogville longing for those days back when.....I'll still show up on the blog page and I'll be around, but I'm tired of wishing for days past. I've been onsite for almost six years. Lots of changes in that time. This is one more. Bloggers should support one another--not that we haven't done a great job, there are just so few of us left! I think the remnant bloggers in Blogville could bring a lot to "Talent Pond Blog Harbor MOVED TO 1700829" . So load up your belongings and set sail with me. There's plenty of room and new friends to make. Just think.....it's a whole new reading demographic! |
| Bahahahahahahaha! Yes. This is an excellent summation of why I will never be an adult. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.htm... |
| I am taking a class this semester that everyone who attends MSU must take. It's called "Ways and Knowing" and it's sort of a hybrid philosophy/discussion class. The classes are small (15-20 students) and are taught in rotation by professors across diciplines. You might get an Ag Prof teaching you; you might get a Native American Studies Prof teaching you. It's a crap shoot. The class is set up so that each week you read a selection of works and then discuss them during class. The prof is there basically to referee and facilitate discussions--there is no actual teaching that occurs. This semester, some of the things we have read are: selections from Plato, Atal Gawande's Better, Franz De Waal's Age of Empathy, Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain and Myles Horton's The Long Haul. We have also read various essays and selections of poetry. For each reading we have to write short essays discussing our reactions to the readings. For mid-terms we had to write a full paper and give a short presentation about our take them. Now finals are coming up and we have to give a longer paper drawing on at least two of the readings and then we have to give a presentation based on same. Alan, the prof for my class who teaches writing (and is a published author), has encouraged us to think outside the box throughout the semester. So, for my final, I'm going to present a cross-section of my writings which have been at least in part drawn from the reading I've done over the semester. I'm not sure if any of you have read Gawande's Better, but in it he talks of becoming a "positive deviant." He gives a list of five traits that we can all strive for to become better people.  Ask an unscripted question. This one is basically about making personal connections to the people around you. Don't complain. Pretty self explanatory. Count something. He's saying here be a scientist. Find out why things are the way they are. Don't go through life blindly, engage in the world around you. Write about something. Ok...pretty easy for us. Change. Don't be static in life. Be willing to adapt and move with circumstances.We also read selections from Native American poets Joy Harjo and Laura Tohe. Their poetry is very gritty and honest. Tohe's especially is very personally honest. She pulls no punches. Pulling from these selections, I have compiled a selection of my work that reflects my journey over the last few months. I will be presenting it for my final. I've never really put myself out in front of live strangers like this before, certainly never read my poetry in front of them. But, for all that, I'm kind of excited. Even though we don't have to have it ready for a week and a half, I have mine done now. Maybe this will be good for me. |
| I am forty-eight credits away from graduating from college. OK. That's a big fat lie. I'm forty-eight credits, two semesters of calculus and summer field camp away from graduating from college. That puts me, hopefully, graduating December 2012. That's, like, right around the corner! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!! We had group advising on Wednesday night. See, the Earth Sciences department is kind of on the largish side for the number of students advised per available professor, so they do one large group gig with pizza and soda for us to prevent each prof from having to schedule forty or so individual conferences. In one two hour session, boom, 95% of the department is advised and signed off on. We get pizza; everybody goes home happy. I'm pretty stoked though. Emotionally this has been the hardest semester for me to get through. I hadn't really sat down and calculated how much longer I would be in school (the semester off and the bottleneck with the calculus have been messing with my original timeline) so it seemed kind of nebulous and undoable to me until I sat and figured out I'm only 13 classes away from graduating. Actually I'm only 12 classes and forty-five credits....I just WANT to take Oceanography. (It doesn't add more time, it's a 100 level class with a prof I LOVE and I need the extra credits to be a full time student in the fall. ) I have to add a class my final semester, too, to hit full time status. I'm looking into Underwater Basketweaving for Beginners. I have made some overtures to the MSU-Billings campus about taking my calculus online through them. The admin assistant for the Earth Sciences department (who coincientally used to be my husband's secretary and is a friend of mine---I love small town connections!) recommended doing it that way. She says there are several students every year who can't pass the calculus at MSU Bozeman, so they take the online classes through Billings. The problem is that the calculus classes at the Bozeman campus are for Math and Engineering majors. Those kids have to go on and take higher level math classes. They have to do harder, more abstract math, so, they teach the classes at those levels, period. Which is great, grand, wonderful, but I think they need to take into consideration that they have students in there that AREN'T Math and Engineering majors. But, what the hell do I know? Between now and next summer I have to get into serious shape because I'm taking Field Camp. That's just what it sounds like. They take you out in the field and you are expected to put your education to work in a real world environment. You hike and sketch and break rocks with your little hammer and play geologist. It's the hiking up to ten miles a day that has me a bit concerned. I'm not talking ten mile ambles either. These are ten miles a day of mountain hiking. Perhaps Party can come do Field Camp for me. He likes hiking in the mountains. What do you say, Party? I'll loan you my little hammer. So, I'm getting excited and scared and nervous and....I don't know what. It seems sort of surreal. In a little over a year and a half, I could, finally, finally, be a college graduate. |
| Today I did something I've been putting off for three months. Take THAT you spring cleaning, anti-procrastination nuts. There is a professional conference one of my professors went to this week, so I have no class today or Thursday. It's like an extension of Spring Break. (Actually there was an optional class I could have attended today at the library where a librarian taught us to research professional journals, etc. But I already know how to do that, so I ditched.) So instead I caught up on my DVR'd programs and undertook a truly time consuming project I've been dragging my feet about. I sync'd my iPod. I know. It was so bad, I had to charge it first. I'd let it get completely dead. It had to charge overnight! You guys are probably rolling your eyes at my iPod sync'ing woes, but let me explain why it's such a big freaking deal at our house. See, we share an iPod account. All three of us. We sync them on the same computer. So everytime you want to sync your iPod, you have to uncheck all of everyone else's music and check all of your music or you wind up with absolute CRAP on your playlists.  You have no idea how annoying it is to be be-bopping along, in your groove, and then some totally idiodic Bob Marley song comes on and ruins it. Or worse Ke$ha. Who the hell is Ke$ha anyway? I'll tell you who, some chick who sings like a little breathless baby doll. Even worse than either of those is to be rockin' out to Metallica or Ozzy and then the Judds come twanging on! Seriously?! My family listens to the Judds?!?Also, because our music library is so huge, you can't just select everything and weed through it in personalized playlists, either. All the music won't fit on the iPod. So, it's a forty five minute ordeal of checking and unchecking each song you want on the dang thing. I have to uncheck all of my husband's country collection. All of my daughter's Eminem (ok, not all of the Eminem goes....just most of it. ). All of my Yanni has to get back on. Yeah, I listen to both Yanni and Ozzy, what of it?! I have to weed out the random songs my husband buys....like all the Warrant and the Billy Gilman  (WTH? He's even more eclectic than I am.). I have to take off the Andrea Boccelli that they both listen to.  And THEN, finally THEN, I have to wait ten minutes for it to sync everything back up. And it will all be for naught the next time Hubby wants to sync his iPod. ~sigh~ Here's the real kicker, though. I have $35 in iTunes gift cards I need to use, but I haven't because it's all such an ordeal. By the time I finish sync'ing the crap I already own, I just don't have the patience and fortitude to go buy more! Monilad always has a list of more and more music she wants to own. I can't even deal with what I've already got! That's it. When I win the lottery, I'm going to hire someone just to deal with my music. |
| It's Spring Break, Campers! Do you know where your chore list is? No? Me either. ~sigh~ Actually I do. It's sitting on the corner of my desk. Mocking me. Mocking me with it's zillion and one uncrossed, unchecked items. It's Tuesday afternoon of Spring Break and the only thing of substance I've done on my list is get my chin waxed. Now there's a real accomplishment. My closets look like rabid weasels nest in them, but at least I don't look like Strega Nona anymore. What else is on the list that I put on there in a fit of.....I don't know......mad ambition, that's probably never going to happen? Let's see.... Item #9 "Clean out kitchen cabinets" Pffft. Yeah, like that'll happen. It looks like a family of racoons took up residence in them. No way I'm going in there. Who wants to spend four hours sorting through Tupperware to see if you actually still own the bowls all those lids go to. What's with that anyway? I've never actually counted, but I think the lid to bowl ratio is off in those packets of Gladware that you buy. It's like the hot dog to bun ratio. No one knows why they come ten dogs to eight buns. It's some kind of conspiracy to drive housewives nutty and clutter up our cabinets. Besides which, at some point the dogs and/or cats probably chewed up the corresponding bowl/lid to further screw up the ratio. Now I'm left with what at a glance looks like 47 large lids, 14 small lids and 26 medium bowls. And the six requisite Cool Whip containers (and seven lids) I must own or I'd have my housewife card revoked. What other madness did I aspire to this week? Item #11 "Shampoo carpets" ! Yeah......not.Oh, well. At least I'm getting the pets groomed Friday. That's item #15. |
| I've been having a couple of weeks of depression. Not severe depression, just....where is spring and I'm-tired-of looking-at-glaring-white-snow-and-freezing-my-tookus-off kind of depression. I get it around this time of year every year. Living in Montana, it's hard not to. In fact, if you look around up here, you notice a sort of familiar feral gleam in your fellow man's eyes. It's that same feeling all around. It's that "we are headed into March and scurvy is setting in it's been so long since we've seen green" look. The men around town have all grown out their winter beards and they've stopped grooming them, so they all have that gone to seed, mountain-man, homeless look to them. Everyone's hair is permanently mussed from the constant pulling on and off of stocking caps and knit hats all winter. At the start of winter you try to comb those snarls out; when you get to March, you just stop caring, because right about now, everyone looks like they style their hair with a Cuisinart. We've stopped judging one another. Now we are in it together. Now we don't care how you look. Because, deep down, we know we have that same feral look in our eyes, too. The sad part of it is, next week is Spring Break. Today we are having freezing temps, but the sun is out. I want to put on my bathing suit and go lie on a lawn chair in a snowbank and soak up the sun. Intellectually I understand it's only 26 degrees. But my primal brain sees the sun after so long and it says, "Sun. Sun equals warm. Sun equals spring! Yea! Spring is here." Stupid primal brain. My intellectual brain says, "No, dumbass. We live in Montana. This is just FALSE spring." That's right. False spring means we will have more snow and ice and freezing rain, etc., right up until May. This is just to tease my primal brain and trick the fruit trees into blooming early so the blossoms get killed by a hard freeze in April. But, I'm on to you, Spring. You don't fool me. Sure, Primal Brain is all fired up and I may do some cleaning on your behalf and I may lose some of my feral winter look, but Intellectual Brain knows your wily ways. Anyway. That stupid groundhog saw its shadow. We've got weeks left of winter. I have to go now. Primal Brain says it's time to comb my hair for Spring. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
