Crazy (Married) Cat Lady

I am kicking this month's butt!

2012-01-28T20:47:00.000-08:00

Life is looking pretty splendid these days. I'll give ya the quick and dirty version of my week:

Went back to work: Kids are awesome and full of inspiring little things.
Love my new co-workers.
My mom turned 60! We had some yummy Italian food to celebrate.
Went back to school: my classes are going to rock.
I'm taking a painting class! WOOOOHOOO! Love it so far.
One of my favorite people moved back to town, after several months of being gone.
I am being kept busy with Relay for Life. I'm 1/3 of the way done making them a quilt.
I discovered a milkshake attachment for my blender, so that's been happening.

I just can't bring myself to complain. :)

Last semester!

2012-01-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

On Monday I begin my very last semester as an undergrad. I can hardly even stand thinking about how terrifying and/or exciting this is. Life is going to be changing pretty drastically in August, and I kind of want to throw up.

Today I had finished up my 2 day work training, which earned me a small raise! I like raises, even though I am only going to be working in this position for the next 17 weeks. Yikes! I have been upgraded from 23 students to 25 students. That's kind of ridiculous, considering I only had 10 when I first started two years ago. I have been given a very, very challenging high school as well. Two of my high schools are the same as before, but the third was swapped for the mega-hard one. The new school has me a little panicked because they have such strict rules about when I can meet with my students, but everyone has been assuring me that the students are really awesome so it's worth the trouble.

I also have a handful of classes that begin next week, and you are not going to believe how amazingly easy my schedule for school will be. Four online classes (!), and one painting class for three hours, twice a week. Of course, all of that time I won't be in class is going to be spent working on my online classes, and, of course, working.

Also, rain has finally come to California, after a dry spell that started in like...September? My sparkle Uggs have been keeping my feet warm!

I'm a little sad to see winter break end, but also, I feel ready to take on this very important section of my life. I have so much to do, and so many opportunities coming my way. I usually hate change, but I think I'm ready. I'm a little bit tired of the student life (gasp!), and I look forward to the journey towards a real career.

We're going to visit the inlaws this weekend, so fingers crossed it doesn't snow up there! Hate the snow!

A list of 50

2012-01-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the glory of the internet, I have found a website that caters to the crazy need in me to make lists: www.dayzeroproject.com. It's a website...that helps you make lists. I was kind of in awe for a while, and then I looked at something called "25 Lists You Want To Make", and realized, heck yeah, I DO want to make these lists!!

We'll start with....

My 50 Favorite Movies

in the order that I think of them

Elf
When Harry Met Sally
What Dreams May Come
Sylvia
The Princess Bride
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Pulp Fiction
Amelie
Toy Story
Almost Famous
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Dirty Dancing
Moulin Rouge
Kill Bill (vol 1 & 2)
The Kids Are Alright
Frida
Evita
Bad Santa
The Reader
Friends With Money
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Junebug
Little Miss Sunshine
Interview With A Vampire
Hounddog
The Notebook
Burn After Reading
Grease
The Little Mermaid
13 Going on 30
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Shutter Island
Up
How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Ponyo
Sister Act
American History X
Forrest Gump
I Am Legend
Bed knobs and Broomsticks
Mary Poppins
Le Miserables
Little Shop of Horrors
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Office Space
Clerks
The Princess Diaries
Fight Club
The Mexican
Gangs of New York

Okay, you're turn! Ready? GO!

Staying positive

2012-01-12T17:52:00.000-08:00

Today I got a little mad at myself.

There is $2.77 in my checking account, and I was sad about it. Then, I got mad at myself because money should have nothing to do with my happiness. I'm perfectly capable of being happy without money.

(We're okay, really--Nick's medical bills have just been a little difficult)

I decided to spent the day with my family, because it seemed like exactly the kind of thing to do when proving that money doesn't matter. I picked my mom up, and we went to see her uncle-my great uncle. My great uncle is a wonderful man. He's been blind most of his life, but he has the most vivid memory. I sat in his living room with my laptop and typed away as he told us story after story about his parents, cousins, aunts, and grandparents. I'm entering all of his stories into the family tree that I'm making.

After Uncle got tired (he is 76 after all), we sat at my mom's house and looked through all of the old black and white photos, trying to put names to faces. It was amazing how many times I saw my mother's face in the old pictures, even though it wasn't her's, it was her grandmother's. My mom had never seen the resemblance between herself and her grandmother until I handed her a bunch of photos and said, "It's you!"

I apologize for all this genealogy writing. I know that my family history is really most interesting to, well, my family, but it's pretty much all I have been doing. School starts in 2 weeks, and I want to get as much of this done as possible before then.

It turned out to be a perfectly good day, even though all it cost me was a little gas.

January is flying by!

2012-01-08T20:36:00.000-08:00

Week 1 of my meal planning effort didn't go so badly! We managed to eat 5 of the 7 planned meals, which I feel like is a huge accomplishment!

We would have eaten all 7, but my nephew and his friend surprised us by coming over on Friday and staying the night so that the guys could play video games. And you know, feeding 2 teenage boys was really not part of my meal plan, so I ended up making biscuits and gravy one night, and pasta the other. Not too shabby, Patty!

Making a plan for this week is stumping me so far. I kind of like how organized it forces me to be. A friend of mine was recently telling me how her friend meal plans and how shopping with her is a breeze because of how organized she is. I doubt I'll ever be that put together, but it's been nice sitting down to a home cooked meal every night.

In my genealogy news, I am having a blast. I totally feel like a detective when I sit here trying to read old census records. So far I have recorded 12 generations on my mom's side, with the help of some personal recollections (my mom, her uncle), and with all of the amazing data on ancestry.com. I was even able to show my mom the WWII Navy muster roll from when her father was sent to Honolulu, HI. She was so excited!

Clearly, I have been enjoying my time off of school and work. The vacation will be ending soon, though, which is bittersweet. I haven't done any of the things I had planned to do during my break, and I feel a little worried about some pressing deadlines, but I am still having just a wonderful break.

Let me leave you with a picture of my most scary relative, my "4th great grand uncle", Milo Andrus Sr.:

(click the link! You won't be disappointed!)

Genealogy

2012-01-07T09:34:00.000-08:00

You all know that I'm sort of obsessive, right? I get a hobby or an idea and then I just go all nutso on it. Examples: decorating my new apartment, organizing my office supplies, getting the perfect curl in my bangs, and going all gluten free. Oh, and we can't forget sewing! That hobby has taken up so much time, money, and space that I have to have a room called the "The Craft/Guest Room" in order to house all my stuff.

Yesterday I got a new hobby. I had been talking to my husband's grandmother about genealogy. She's really interested in it, and she wanted some info from my family so that she could add me to the tree she had been making. In 1990, someone in my family had made a very primitive attempt to research and document some family tree information, so I brought that over to Grammy.

2 hours later I was hooked. We found all these documents for my grandfather being in the Navy and rebuilding Pear Harbor. We found census records of my great grandparents. I was just enthralled, so right then and there, Grammy gave me a spare copy of Family Tree Maker that she had. I took it home and got it installed, and it came with a 14 day free trial to ancestory.com.

You have no idea the pandora's box I am in. Once things were installed, I sat here for 8 hours. EIGHT HOURS, you guys. Nick was off doing nerdy things with his friends, and I just sat here plugging away. I can't even describe right now all the cool stuff I have found, but I plan to show you some tidbits when I get things a little more complete.

So, if you need a huge time-suck, I totally recommend this.

New Year, New Food

2012-01-03T15:33:00.000-08:00

The new year seems like the perfect time to make some food commitments. Remember last year? January 2011 was my month of vegetarian eating. This January? The beginning of my "Don't Eat Out So Much" initiative.

Not eating out has gotten easier since Nick's diet became so limited, but I have a confession: half of the time, we eat separate dinners because we're both just too tired/lazy to deal with it. Like, Nick will want to have pesto (which I hate), so he will have that and I'll have cereal. Or I will act like a pain in the rump and refuse to name anything that sounds good, so Nick will go whip himself something up, and eat without me. I'm not proud of this, but it happens.

So, we're going to knock that off. Eat together like grown ups who love each other.

We started with a gigantic grocery shopping trip. Then came the list.

Don't laugh. I'm still pretty new at this whole planning thing (thus the ellipses).

It can be really tough to come up with 100% gluten free meals for 7 days in a row (which is kind of why Nick eats so much freaking pesto, because there seems to be nothing else).
Without further rambles, our weekly menu:

Monday: Sweet onion chicken burgers, roasted potatoes, and peas. We got the burgers at Costco. They're full of Gouda. I was expecting them to be sweeter, but they're pretty savory.

Tuesday: Pizza casserole. This is Nick's favorite food that I make, and I made it gluten free by using special pasta that is made from brown rice.

Wednesday: Ham Steak, apparently. I have no idea what to serve with ham. Ideas?

Thursday: Roast. This one is sort of up in the air. It will really depend on how much left overs we have from the rest of the week. We may end up eating left over pizza casserole and making the roast next week.

Friday: Gluten free pancakes, eggs, and bacon. We got some really tasty gluten free pancake mix, and we love to eat breakfast for dinner. Or lunch. Or anytime really.

Saturday: Split pea soup. We're going to use some of the ham from Wednesday in this. We're also going to remember to wash the split peas really well before cooking, unlike last time.

Sunday: BBQ trip tip. Nick got a new gas grill for Christmas, so of course we need to have some steak. The trip tip is in a pre-made marinade of wine and garlic. We've never had it before, so hopefully it's not gross.

2012's Promises

2012-01-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

I'm writing the fourth New Years post for this blog. I just kind of have to gape at that for a second--four years! I started this blog right after Nick and I got married (hence the URL, which I intend to change someday). I started it because I wanted to post pictures of my wedding and little updates to our newlywed life somewhere, so that our families could see if they wanted.

This blog has become a lot more to me. It's the place I go to when I have big news to share, and it makes me feel better about sharing, even though I am aware that it's a possibility no one will read it. This blog is where I found the most support during all of the times my dad was sick, and then when he died. This is where I have gone for the last four years when I needed to wrestle with things outside of my brain.

I've "met" a lot of people through this blog, too, which is pretty amazing. I don't even need to elaborate on that, because you know who you are.

When I welcomed in 2011, I was praying for a good year. A year where things didn't go horribly; truly--I did get that year. But I've learned that everything is temporary. Things were bad, and then they were good. Things were good, and then they were great. Life was hard, and then it was easy. I was depressed, and then I wasn't. I was homeless, and then I had a home. I loved and then I loved even more.

2012 is going to be just as good, if not better. I have the California State Educational Tests for Elementary Educators coming up soon (hopefully this month). I'm applying to the post-grad credential program on March 1. I'm graduating on May 19. I'm crossing my fingers and toes that I'll get the promotion at work for which I applied (but even if I don't, I still love my job). I'll be crossing several things off of my 30 by 30 list.

I'm expecting great things from you, 2012.

Oh, and if you're into that sort of thing: I'm resolving to eliminate the swear words in my diction. It's time, you know, since I'm trying to get a job working with small children and all.

The end of '11

2011-12-31T14:21:00.000-08:00

2011 was a pretty decent year. There were highs and lows, but we really did realize how blessed we are. It could have been just a rock-bottom, terrible year, but the people that surround us helped us make it a good year. Let's reminsce, shall we?

2011 started with a beautiful snow storm. Nick and I had busy, busy schedules that made life difficult...and we may continue to do that in 2012, actually... Tom designed a new look for my blog, which I still love. I told you a bit about what I was like as a child. My mom had some health problems, but ended up okay. Nick turned 28 (but I guess we were too busy celebrating at the steak house for me to blog about it).

I discovered gray hairs in my hair, and developed a 6 month long eye twitch. I remembered just how much I want to be a teacher. I discovered my latex allergy, and Nick discovered his gluten allergy.

We moved out of Magalia and down to Chico, finally getting us off the mountain and into the valley. Our roommate went kind of crazy, which screwed things up for quite a while. But, we had some amazing family members help us out, and we learned to be positive again. The Career Fair that I spent ~6 months organizing went off without problem, and I got a ton of praise at work for it.

I did a lot of crafty things around our new (2nd) apartment, like making coasters and painting canvas. But, I also had a few failed crafts. I started my senior year of college, which turned out to be a great first semester. I became momentarily obsessed with decorating my apartment. We got our new bikes, which we still adore and ride all the time.

Nick got a job at an auction house, which launched us into crazy busy people (as if we weren't that already). I was given additional responsibilities at work, which made me fall in love with ESL students all over again.

We celebrated my dad's would-be 74th birthday. Nick and I celebrated 6 years of being together, and 4 years of marriage (promise to write about that next year, since I guess I missed it this year).

I dressed up as Belle for Halloween, with my bestie Snow White. I joined Relay for Life for my Daddy, which has made me feel so much better. I turned 24, and prepared myself for 25. We had a really wonderful Christmas, and we remembered again just how blessed we are.

Gluten is the devil.

2011-12-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

I keep writing this post over and over, but every time it comes out sounding like I am a giant jerk that complains too much. I can't help it. I'm kind of outspoken, and I'm passionate about this topic. Also, I ramble a lot. The previous two posts were like 6000 words. I'll try to summarize the points I keep trying to make.

Gluten is bad. If Nick has it, he gets very, very ill.
It doesn't have to be a gluten ingredient. Gluten cross contamination is just as bad as gluten ingredients.
Don't you dare tell me that we can eat out but we have to be careful. I know that, but until a 100% gluten free restaurant opens up, the cross contamination issues in restaurant kitchens give Nick about a 30% chance of not having a reaction.
Trader Joe's has tons of gluten free options, but about half of them have notes on the back about the food being processed in a factory with wheat--which makes the gluten free label moot.
Do you know anyone severely allergic to peanuts? It's similar to that. If you brush some butter on your toast, then put the knife in the butter again for more, you have contaminated the butter. Just the smallest amount can leave Nick ill for 48 hours.
We made split pea soup from scratch, but forgot to wash the split peas really well before cooking, and Nick had a reaction. Lesson: if possible, wash your ingredients really well. Most factories dust their machines in flour to keep things from sticking.
I'm actually considering paying $12/month to start a "meetup" group on meetup.com because the closest Celiac's group is 2 hours away.

I think that about sums up what I was going for.

Our Holidays (picture heavy)

2011-12-26T16:50:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a very merry, wonderful holiday. We have a really nice one, and I am going to share a ton of photos.

The first thing is that I dyed my hair. It's been this weird reddish-black color for a while, and it was growing in weird. Here I am sans makeup with my "before" hair.

And here is the new color.

I know...pretty much the same, huh? Oh well.

We spent Christmas Eve at Nick's parents' house. We ended up curled up on a sofa watching Captain America. Later, lots of people came over and it was time for Apples to Apples and margaritas, which is quite the mix...

I love their tree. They always cut down a cedar from their property, which is just so unique looking.

Such a sweet ornament of my mother and father in law.

Then, on Christmas Day, we headed over to my mom and step dad's house. Here is Nick and my nephew, James.

My parents' Christmas tree had to go on top of the bird cage, because anywhere else would have left it toppled over thanks to the cats and dogs.

There's Miss Big Bird herself. She is an African Gray.

Poppy can't sit for her Christmas treat. She just has to stand. Things are just too exciting.

Two Bits can sit pretty though.

My step dad with the shirt that James gave him.

James and Nick playing a card game.

Here is Nick showing my mom how to use her new Kindle.

These are the Ugg Sequin boots that I posted about on my wishlist. SO CUTE. But don't worry, I refuse to tuck my pants into them, and I'll never wear them with anything except pants. And I would never own a normal pair of Uggs, so relax, you judgmentally stylish people.

For Christmas, my grammy got me a really nice curling iron. It's a Hot Tools brand, and has a 1 1/4" barrel, which is awesome. Today I decided to use it tame my crazy hair. Also, I'm wearing the beautiful sweater that my mom got me for Christmas.

Last night, James came over to hang out with Nick. Here he is holding Miss Daisy.

10 (more) Silly Confessions

2011-12-22T10:20:00.000-08:00

I love candles, and always sniff every scent before purchasing, but I always buy Vanilla. Always. I currently have 3 "vanilla cupcake" candles burning at the same time. I'm crazzy!
I listen to Adelle while doing housework, and have since I first heard her music a few years ago. Some people prefer upbeat, get your butt moving music, but I prefer music that I can absolutely belt out while washing dishes, like I'm some kind of jazz singer.
When I am home alone, every single stranger that walks by outside is a potential home invader, and I keep my pepper spray near.
Syrup is like an amazing sauce to make everything taste good. I don't like bacon or left-over meat loaf without syrup.
Every single craft I found on pinterest, and actually attempted, has gone wrong. See: spray painted shoes (those lasted about a day), and leaf paining, to name two. There's been more, though.
I am obsessively worried about my pumpkin tattoo fading, so I wear sunscreen on it even if it will barely be exposed. I also rub copious amounts of lotion on it. Lookin' good so far. ;)
I own no less than 25 bottles of nail polish. I believe there are more in a drawer somewhere, too.
Nick has bought me slippers pretty much every Christmas, and yet I still wear his all year long.
The years before I grew into myself were awful, which is why I don't have any of my yearbooks. I found them a while back and promptly chucked them (all grades 6 and up). Remembering my pimpley, fat face and all the people that I am no longer friends with? No thanks.
I like to play "My Spanish Coach" on the Nintendo DS because I am so darn good at it (hello 6 years of Spanish classes...), and it feels good to have the little game give me points.

More silly confessions here.

I'm free til January 23! Woohoo!

2011-12-17T15:57:00.000-08:00

Merry December, every one!

Today I am feeling some kind of jubilant and sad. I am thrilled because finals are over (and I rocked them), I have vacation from work until the new semester begins (end of January), and I have not one ounce of stress. I'm a little sad because when I'm not busy, I realize how lonely it can be. Nick has been working non stop, which is wonderful for us financially, but it's leaving me home alone a lot. So far I have contented myself with finding How I Met Your Mother on Netflix Instant Watch (why didn't anyone ever tell me how dang funny that show is?! I have watched like 35 episodes!), and trying my hand at gluten-free baking.

The baking is going pretty well. I made some gluten free chocolate chip cookies, and Nick inhaled them. It's been so long since he could have sweets that I think even if they had turned out awful, he would have inhaled them just the same. It's kind of pain, though, because I literally spent 30 minutes reading labels before I could begin mixing ingredients. Thankfully, my Costco "pure vanilla" is gluten free, as is my baking powder. I did have get to out the bags of brown rice flour and xanthum gum that my mother-in-law gave us, which is pretty much what allowed the baking to happen at all. Last time we saw her, she gave us a bag of special gluten-free oats, so I think I'm going to try oatmeal cookies next. (Cue Nick's gleeful squeal here)

But back to the lonely thing. When I am busy, I miss my friends, and usually end up staying out too late or skipping some study time just so I can see them. But the as soon as the semester ends and I have tons of free time, I can't even beg people to hang out with me. Maybe I smell badly. I pretty much sent out an SOS of sorts this morning; I texted 6 different people telling them about my free time and how I missed them, etc. etc. I have only gotten 1 response, and it was of the "I'll let you know" variety. Their loss, because I'm awesome. Duh.

Anyway, I plan to have a really wonderful holiday next week, complete with many different family gatherings, and I'm quite excited. I hope you all have a great holiday, too!

This is not in the Christmas Spirit, Not one bit.

2011-12-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty irritated this morning. Nick had to be at work at 7AM, but I am off of work until January (wooo!), so I was sleeping in when Nick came in and woke me up at some ungodly hour (6:30AM) to tell me the lights on both of our bikes had been stolen. I mean, my first thought was how glad I am that they didn't steal the whole bike! But then I laid in bed and thought about how totally rude it is to steal!

I mean, our bikes are not in some public bike lock. They're secured to a pole next to my front door, under the stairs for the upstairs neighbors. Literally the only people have reason to walk anywhere near our bikes are us and the neighbors right across from us. I doubt our neighbors would steal them, just because I know those girls are just ridiculously dim witted (but that is neither here nor now). The fact is that sometime between 5PM yesterday and 6AM today, someone specifically came over to my apartment, under the stairs, and went through the trouble of taking 4 separate lights. And not just the lights, but the mechanisms that hold the lights to the bike. I mean, really? We need those to ride our bike in the evening or early morning, so it's not like those were going unused. Now we'll have to go pay about $70 to get new ones, and start remembering to take them off every time we get off our bikes. Stupid.

I didn't mean to rant quite so much about that. It just bugs me that people steal. This time it was just some $70 bike lights, but why did they do it? Because they could? It reminds me of about 4 years ago when Nick dropped me off at a friend's house for the day so he could do some Christmas shopping. He spent the whole day out, buying things for me and for friends and family, spending pretty much his whole Christmas budget. After, he picked me up and we went out to a cheap little diner for some grub. Sometime between picking me up from a friends, eating out, and getting back home all of the items had been stolen out of the trunk of our car. And not just the Christmas gift items, also Nick's winter coat, a GPS that we had borrowed from the in-laws and stored in the trunk to be safe, and several bags of food. I mean, who does that? How do you even break into the trunk of a car? It's just so lame.

You know the family that I hate? Those inbred idiots on my mom's side of the family? They're the kind of people who do this. I remember a few years ago hearing about my aunt's friend getting arrested for stealing things out of cars in a shopping center parking lot in December.

Anyway, I don't mean to be so Scrooge like. I truly do love Christmas and this time of year. I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to remember all of the good things I have in my life.

(By the way--almost done with finals! Woohoo!)

Painting with Leaves

2011-12-10T15:01:00.000-08:00

Today I was sitting in my bathrobe bored to tears. It's Saturday, I am procrastinating on my finals studying, and Nick is at work. The obvious thing to do is arts and crafts. I turned to this tutorial I had seen a while back: Big Leaf Prints.

I started by collecting some leaves outside, and then getting out my drawer of paints.

You're supposed to spread some paint out (I used a tupperware lid for mixing) and then press the leaves into the paint, then transfer to the paper. It was supposed to look like this:

You know what it actually looked like?

Yeah, that was a big fail.
Maybe my leaves were just all wrong.

None the less, I should go study since pre-school crafts are apparently beyond me.

A la Virginia Woolf

2011-12-07T21:54:00.000-08:00

I have said it before, and I feel the need to reiterate: my life is a constant spiral of stress. Stress is my normal, actually. When I'm not stressed, I worry about that too. I function pretty well, actually, but this week is just burning me out.

It goes in cycles.

Week 1: O.M.G. I have so much to do. Apply to grad school. Do it! Now! Wait, that costs $100. Where will I get $100?! Okay okay we'll figure it out. Bust out the savings. Eat ramen. GO GET YOUR FINGERPRINTING DONE. That costs money too. No worries, just do some baking. OMG Baking is messy! My kitchen is thrashed! I hate life!

Week 2: Pssh, whatever. Who needs grad school? I could spend the rest of my life on this sofa with this cat and my cup of tea and be perfectly happy. I love everything, and everyone.

Week 3: WHY didn't I get my crap done last week? Now I have so much to do this week! Can I die from anxiety?! Must google that later. I need a smartphone so I can get the WebMD app! But that costs money! And I already need money for the CSETS! And the grad school app! And the fingerprinting! Why didn't Nick take out the trash yesterday? Doesn't he realize that ALL I can think about is the trash piling up in there?! Where's my melatonin?

Week 4: Nothing matters except my husband and me. We're fine. Life is beautiful. We should get some kind of award for being awesome at life.

And that, my dears, is a typical month for me.

Sometimes I worry that I expose far too much of my crazy on the interwebs, and then I post anyway. I should change my URL.
Bonus points if you totally understand my posting title. :)

It's Dead Week again!

2011-12-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

Have I told ya'll about Dead Week? It's a mythical thing, and I am sure I have blogged about it before, because I have been colleges for 76021239 semesters, and it bugs me each time.

Dead Week is this week, where nothing new is assigned, and you just prep for finals. Except that only 1 in 20 professors believe in it.

This week is Dead Week. Which means that next week is Finals Week. Which means I hate college. That was a logical progression, right?

I'm pretty sure it's called Dead Week because it is meant to kill me. As in, I'm dying, you guys.

Tonight I am writing a massive paper called a school report. It's where I write a report about all of the effing demographics, statistics, and other stuff about a specific school. Then I take all that data, and apply it to the textbook. Plus, I go observe the school, interview an official, and analyze all that in relation to the data. It's projected length so far is 8 pages, single spaced. But it might be more, because I have a lot to say.

I'm also trying to revise this other paper I wrote for the English Class That Will Not Be Named--you know, the one with the teacher I'm pretty sure talks about me to his wife? That paper was 15 pages long, and when he read it, he asked me to revise and include "6-10 more pages with details".

I have this online final for my Kinesiology class, but that should be cake since it's open note. It's just going to take forever, because it's matching terms for 90 minutes.

Oh, and my Linguistics final is approaching, which is cumulative. I'm more than just sort of concerned about the implications this final will have on my grade. I enjoy the class, but I am so, so challenged by it, that I am going to need to dedicate many days of cramming next week. Since you know, I have no time to study for it during Dead Week. Because we're still learning new material.

Oh, we set up a Christmas tree yesterday. I remembered because I am frantically typing by the light of the Christmas tree. I have got to get back to my School Study. MUST FINISH.

Happy Friday!

2011-12-02T12:25:00.001-08:00

24

2011-12-01T18:07:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty interesting start to my 24th year.

First of all, I had my alarm set for 7:15. It was the glorious Wednesday where I get to sleep in, because I am not due to be working at the museum until 9. At 6:45, my mom called. That was all well and good, and I promptly fell right asleep after she and my step dad serenaded me. Then at 6:57, my best friend texted me. The buzzing was annoying, but I squeezed my eyes tighter. Then at 7:05, my brother called me and also sang his rendition of Happy Birthday. At that point, I gave up and got in the shower.

While I was in the shower, Nick's phone began ringing nonstop. The emergency alert system had been activated, and there was a bomb threat on campus. Not really surprising; since since the age of Animal Farm, annoyed students have made bomb threats near finals week in hopes of getting classes cancelled. None the less, it was really annoying. Most of campus was closed, but classes were not cancelled.

I went to the museum and had a great time with a group of 5th graders, but towards the end of the tour, the power went out (thank goodness the museum has emergency lights). There were campus wide blackouts all day.

The museum was really awesome, though. My professor, Dr. Julie, had a big gourmet cupcake waiting for me when I got there, and all the other docents wrote messages on the white board for me.

After the cupcake and the campus wide blackouts, the biggest building on campus (and officially the tallest building in the city of Chico, at a whopping 7 stories) was evacuated because fire alarms were going off.

While K and I were trying to navigate through the madness of the bomb threat/squad team/K-9 unit, police tape everywhere, and people being evacuated, we saw something that just made the whole day better:

Someone dressed up as a vagina.

It was a full on, could be nothing else, vagina costume. He was handing out flyers for a cupcake sale. I have no idea what the correlation was.

Throughout the day, my phone buzzed and let me know, on 64 different occasions, that someone was saying Happy Birthday to me on FB. Gotta love hearing from people that haven't spoken to me since the exact same day last year, right? ;)

When I finally got home, Nick and my parents and I all headed to Applebee's for some gluten-free riblets. It was an odd, but fun day!

(For those interested, I was given a blender, a laminating machine, and a heated throw as gifts, as well as some gift cards. I'm a lucky girl!)

Holiday Shopping 2011

2011-11-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

I am not going to pretend to know what kinds of people you are buying gifts for this year. I mean, I always get pretty annoyed by those headings that say things like "For the food lover", "For the techie", and "For him/her".

What I am going to do is post some of the most awesome things I have found online lately, and call it a gift guide. Perhaps you're shopping "For someone like Patty". ;) See what I did there?

These UGG boots can be found on Amazon. Can we all please just jump on the sparkle/glitter loving bandwagon of the season and make some oohs, ahhs about these babies?! Amazing.

This is the chair of my dreams. Literally. I saw it at TJ Maxx today for $80 and drooled. I kept trying to walk away, but I couldn't. Then I spent the rest of the day dreaming about having it in front of my lovely sewing machine, Roxie. When I came home, I found it for $120 at World Market. Definitely on my wish list, ya know? Perfect vintagey pink goodness.

Are you kidding? How amazingly cute is this "Catula"?!

Barnes and Nobel has these great leather-bound editions of classic literature, and I love the fun take they have! They also have To Kill A Mockingbird in a beautiful binding, which is one of my favorite books ever. Only $20!

He's called "The Ex". I have no words. Just...amazing. $50

I literally despise Katy Perry, but I can't help but be smitten with OPI's "Teenage Dream" glitter polish, from the Katy Perry collection. OPI is some high quality nail polish, by the way. I would love to upgrade all of my $2 polishes to OPI brand polishes, because they last forever. $5 (usually 8)

These IKEA curtains are only $15, and they scream all sorts of cute in my face.

I love things that are kind of quirky and weird, and this hot air balloon necklace is exactly that. $16.

I don't know why exactly, but I love this wall hook with a mason jar vase. It's kind of rustic, but also really sweet. A good balance. $32

If you're still stuck and need some more help shopping for the Patty in your life, check out my wishlist here.

So more people can hear "you're cured"

2011-11-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

I would love to draw your attention to the right hand side of my blog, where I have added a button for my Relay for Life fundraising.

I have joined the Chico State Relay for Life team for my dad. I want to make a difference in cancer research, and I think that I have some amazing people in my life that want that same thing. Even if you can only afford $5, I encourage you to click my link on the right and donate.

The American Cancer Society is an amazing organization. They are responsible for all of the leading cancer research today. Because of their research, my father's life was prolonged several years thanks to radiation and the lifesaving orchiectomy.

Cancer touches most people, unfortunately. When I sat down and really thought about it, I realized that my dad was not the first person that cancer has taken from me. Breast cancer took my grandma Dorothy. Lung cancer took my grandpa John and my step-dad's father. Ovarian cancer took Nick's grandmother, Elaine. Throat cancer took my uncle Harold. Esophagus cancer took my childhood mentor, Bud. Brain cancer took a friend's husband, Jason. Skin cancer has taken over my husband's aunt's face, and it killed a dear friend of the family, Sherry, and my father also had skin cancer at some point, in addition to his prostate cancer.

How has it affected you?

I was in the cafe at school a few weeks ago when a girl from one of my classes joined me for lunch. She started openly telling me her story. She's 30, and is a two time cancer survivor of Hodgkin Lymphoma. She told me how isolated she felt while she had cancer, and how Relay for Life gave her a community. She invited me to the November meeting, and I joined on the spot.

Throughout the year I will be raising funds individually, and participating in many team fundraising events. In June, we combine our funds and donate to the ACS. Last year this team raised something like $30,000, and I am really excited to be a part of something so amazing.

So, please consider donating if you haven't already. List your loved one's name in the donation field, and honor their memory when their name appears on the team page.

Decisions.

2011-11-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

I make my living by counseling high school students to follow their dreams. I help them fill out the tough applications to places like UCLA and Stanford. I edit their admissions essays, double check their FAFSAs, and jump up and down with them when the admission letters arrive to anxious hands.

Then, when all of the excitement settles, the tough part begins. We sit and make pro/con lists about colleges. We make theoretical budgets, and discuss financial responsibility. The biggest, worst, most upsetting thing to hear my students say is, "I can't afford to go to my dream school." I hear it a lot, and I wish that I didn't. My students work so hard to get those acceptance letters, and then get crushed when they realize just how much debt would be required to go to their dream school. A good amount of them end up going to our local State college (my college), and give up dreams of the fancy schools.

I spend a lot of time telling students that student loans are the best debt you can have. I tell them that if you have some bad luck, the bank can repossess your car or house, but no one can ever take your degree away. Last year, a student asked me if their parents would have to pay their loans back if they died. If they died, you guys. My sweet seventeen year old student was worried he would die and leave college debt on his poor family. This job tears me up sometimes.

But here I am today. I have about 4 months to get my stuff together. I'm applying to the credential program. Everything has to be turned in by March 1. I have three more state tests to take, and paperwork to file, and fingerprints to be done. I'm waffling. You see, there's two programs I am considering.

Option 1 is the safe option. It's the normal program, with student teaching for 12 months. It starts in the Fall and ends the following Fall, and then I would have a teaching credential.

Option 2 is the freaky, terrifying option. It starts in the summer, and has me co-teaching as an actual teacher (no student teacher business) in a residency for 18 months. At the end of the 18 months, I would have a teaching credential, as well as a Masters Degree in Education.

Why am I even hesitating? Of course I want an MA in Education. Of course I want to experience a residency, which has higher job-hire rates because it is a lot more experience than student teaching.

The drawbacks are heavy for me:

I would be unable to work over the summer. I already have a job lined up, and I would be letting a lot of people down if I backed out of this job.

I need the money from working over the summer. If I don't work this summer, that is 18 full months without a paycheck. In option 1, there are already 12 months without one.

The program is rigorous. Writing a Masters thesis, defending it, and having it published in 18 months, along with teaching full time, AND with classes at night and on the weekends? We're talking 18-21 units per semester of night and weekend classes.

Honestly? I don't know if I could do it. I keep scolding myself for hesitating because of money, because I spend so much time with my students telling them that it's okay to be a broke student. The thing is, I have already been doing the broke student thing for quite a few years. I am tired of living penny to penny. I want to just get DONE already and go get a job (as if it's that easy).

But aside from the money aspect...I just don't know. The workload is so heavy, and my sanity is so important. I knew a girl who went into this crazy option 2 program last summer, and I haven't seen or heard from her since. I am starting to think she may have lost her mind and disappeared.

I've been toying with this stuff for a while now. You see, when I first heard about the program, I decided that it was right for me. I told everyone I was going to do it, but lately I have been learning the ins and outs of the program, and I am having second thoughts. I don't want to get involved in this just because I told everyone I was going to. I don't want to put Nick in charge of supporting us financially for so long.

So that's why I haven't been posting. Because I am freaking out a little bit, and also these damn fake nails have made my typing skills sloppy and annoying.

Just a good day

2011-11-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

I thought I was just taking my mom to meet my lovely hairdresser, Hilda, today. It turned out, however, that my mom had other things in mind.

She treated me to a delicious lunch and a set of nails after her hair cut! Later on, her household came over for dinner at my apartment. I roasted my second turkey--which, like the first, was amazingly delicious--and we played Apples to Apples. It was a great evening. I miss having people to play games with. Last night Nick and I were feeling pretty depressed that we never have friends that want to come over, but spending time with family tonight boosted both of our moods.

This is my mom's hair before the cut. It was so long and thick, and always just clipped to the top of her head.
My hairdresser kept remarking that she saw where I got my thick locks from. My mom likes low maintenance hair, and since she hadn't had it cut in 4 years, she went kind of drastic.

Here's the new 'do! So cute.

Here she is showing off her nails.

I got glittery pink tips. I decided I wanted to be bold. I'm not sure how I feel about this fake nail business, but I think I achieved the uhh, boldness.

My nephew, thoroughly embarrassed that I was taking his picture!

Celiac Update

2011-11-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

I suppose it's time to answer the question that Cassie asked me a few days ago when I posted about all of our recent food trauma. If you haven't been following, the short of it is that Nick is allergic to gluten (so says the $600 blood test...), and I'm allergic to latex (which lives in all fruits and veggies).

So, what do we eat?

Not out, that's for sure. Eating out has become a glorious luxury that I am allowed to do when Nick is not around because he can't eat anything in a restaurant. I mean, if the man's steak was even prepped anywhere near some flour, he's sick for hours. A few weeks ago we had hamburgers and the buns made him so sick he stayed in bed for 24 hours. Yeah, it's gotten kind of extreme.

Having just spent the last cents in our bank account on gluten and latex friendly food, let's talk about what we eat:

(the following is a mix of things we both can eat...keeping in mind that I can eat pasta while he can't, and he can eat fruits while I can't)

Dennison's Canned Chili, or home made chili if I am very careful about what spices I use (because even some spices have gluten contamination).
Rick or Corn Chex, the cereal. For snacking on and covered in milk, these babies are safe. Also safe are Honey Nut Chex, Cinnamon Chex, and Chocolate Chex. Obviously, wheat chex are out.
Dry roasted almonds and peanuts.
Peanut butter.
Sea Salt or Chocolate flavored rice cakes.
Kirkland brand (Costco) jarred pesto.
Eggs.
Potatoes (I have been roasting potatoes a lot lately, but I love 'em so I'm not complaining!).
Carrots.
Yoplait yogurts. The fun flavors make us miss the good life a little less. I just had Lemon Burst flavor, which contains no latex even though lemons contain latex, and I feel pretty happy.
Milk. Also, chocolate silk milk, because, well, yum!
Chicken, Beef, Pork, and Turkey. We can both eat as much meat as we please, though I sort of hate eating meat. The compromise has been that we mostly eat poultry. I roasted my first turkey breast the other day, and it was a damn fine turkey breast.
Garbanzo beans. I am obsessed with these babies, though Nick won't touch 'em.
Tortilla Chips. Nick has been eating far too many tortilla chips.
Edamame.

I would love any more suggestions people have! Nick read that in the first month or so of gluten-free living, he should avoid gluten substitutes like xanthan gum so that his intestines can heal. Once we pass that mark, I'll begin the crazy stuff like gluten free cornbread and gluten free pizza dough!

A Thanksgiving Rant

2011-11-04T21:02:00.000-07:00

Every year my family gathers around a table for Thanksgiving and makes everyone say something they are thankful for. The circle usually begins with some mushy comments, then some comments about weather and good cheer come, and then the awkward humorous ones about having time off of work and another glass of wine.

I hate this tradition.

It's probably the only tradition I have ever hated. Or at least hated so much that I actually sat down to write about it.

How awkward does it sound to have like 12 people looking at you and expecting you to tell them all how much you love and cherish them? There's so much pressure! What if they think what I say is lame? What if I can't come up with anything better than the last person who spoke? And I have to top whatever I said the year before! I can remember every single thing I have blurted out since I joined my husband's family and got subjected to this bullcrap.

I would love to tell everyone what I'm thankful for every single day of the year, but don't force me! My usual M.O. is that if you force me to do something, I HATE IT.

Let's brainstorm some possible winners for this year's moment of Turkey Day Terror
This year, I'm thankful for _____________________________.

Black Friday sales.
Cranberry sauce shaped like a can.
Food Network Shows
Stickers
My husband
(most of) My cats
A non-drama lifestyle
Not having terrible B.O.
Turkey sandwiches
Costco
My job
Lemons

Clearly, when I'm uncomfortable I resort to making people smirk. It's all I've got, people.

So, don't use RSC Properties or AT&T, k?

2011-11-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

The last month has really made me appreciate how wonderful my husband is at taking care of business.

We got a letter at the beginning of last month from our former apartment complex. They stated that we owed them quite a bit of rent, as well as money for repairs on the apartment. This was impossible since they had released from the lease a full two months before the letter was claiming we owed money. We moved out with their approval in July, and they wanted rent for August, September, and October. They also said we had 10 days to pay or they were sending us to collections. But, they sent the letter to the address we had while we lived in their apartment (and yes-they had a forwarding address for us on file), so the letter had to go through the postal system.

When we finally got the letter, we had 3 days until we were being sent to collections over rent for an apartment that we did not live in. I mean, the situation was pretty ridiculous, and just brought up all the bad memories that came with all that drama. Nick's father worked in real estate for many years, and he works for the county as kind of a big shot. We talked to him, and Nick and his dad went in to see the lady. They brought all our documentation and told the lady that if she didn't fix her error right then and there, we would sue her and her boss for harassment and have the board of realtors take her license under review.

And then it all went away. Because they were in the wrong, clearly, but were just kind of hoping we would roll over and let them send us to collections so they would get their money somehow. Remember how they wouldn't evict the crazy roommate? Letting him stay cost them thousands of dollars and they were just hoping we would give it to them. Thankfully all of that got resolved, but oh my gosh, I would have lost it if I had had to deal with that by myself.

Then yesterday I came in with a stack of mail and on top was a letter from collections. For some reason, AT&T, who we do not even have a service through, sent us to collections. If we back up many months, I can explain that we used to have DSL with AT&T, but the service never worked properly, so we canceled. We paid our bill and switched to Comcast. But AT&T is never just content to leave you alone; they started sending us letters asking for money. But we didn't owe them any money--a fact that was confirmed by AT&T on NINE DIFFERENT OCCASIONS. That's right-- every time they sent us a letter, Nick called and they apologized and said it was a mistake.

And then, out of the blue, we're being sent to collections. For a nonexistent bill. The collections people were not even sure what they were supposed to collect from us, if you can believe that. But Nick handled everything. Now we're probably going to sue for defamation of character (because our credit now has a collections mark on it for no reason) unless they agree to fix our credit.

I'm so thankful that my husband is able to deal with this stuff, because I just lose it. I don't mean to set feminism back 30 years or anything, but if someone flips me off on the freeway, my blood boils. Someone sending me to collections over money I do not owe them? I saw red.

Also, I'm sick of people trying to take advantage of others. The real estate company trying to recoup their losses by harassing us, AT&T trying to get money out of us even though technically they owed us $5 (and our account reflected that). Just...ugh. I hate everyone sometimes.

Belle & Snow

2011-11-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

I sincerely wish that I had not forgotten my camera last night. Nick was dressed up like Indiana Jones and it was amazing. Someone took pictures though, so as soon as I acquire those from lovely old facebook, I'll share.

For now, all I have is me and my bestie, K. We were princesses. Can you believe some people actually asked who we were supposed to be?!

The Most Annoying Couple Ever

2011-10-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

Food wise, no one likes us. We're literally zero fun to be around when anyone brings up eating. Hanging out with friends and suddenly everyone wants to go eat? We will kill the joy. Call and invite me over for dinner? I will probably cringe and apologize. We suck.

In addition to all of the ridiculous food issues I have posted about in the past, including my latex allergy, now Nick has celiacs disease. You know, that one that everyone and their brother suddenly has that makes you allergic to gluten? And by the way, gluten is in flour. And thickeners. And flavorings. It's even peskier than latex has been.

We spent $120 today on groceries that are supposed to keep Nick from having stomach spasms. So that was awesome. It's making eating out virtually impossible. Nick's sister and mother are also pretty sensitive to gluten, so they're full of information about it.

Just so we are clear: I can't eat fruit (except berries), I can't eat vegetables (except lettuce and carrots), Nick can't eat anything that was made with flour (unless specifically rice flour), flavorings unless they were individually packaged from your cupboard and not a packet, anything that might use thickener like salad dressings or sauces, Nick doesn't drink alcohol, and I hate most meat.

We are The Most Annoying Couple Ever.

the last 24 hours

2011-10-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of those epically long days that seemed like it would never end. It started at 6AM when I got up for work. I was out the door by 7, and then had a 45 minute drive with my boss to one of my high schools.

We finished up and got back into Chico around 12:30. Then I rode my bike 2 miles to campus and did some studying before my class at 2. Class got out at 3 and then I headed to my internship to tutor writing until 5.

At 5, I rode my bike the 2 miles back home (the bike riding thing is actually part of my every day routine) and almost immediately headed out the door with Nick on our way to my parents' new home in Chico. We then worked until 8:30 unloading their U-Haul and rearranging furniture. At 9 I collapsed into bed.

At about 11, one of my students called. I'm not sure what she wanted, but I remember waking up and slamming my fist down on the phone and yelling at Nick, "Don't set alarms!!", but then I woke up enough to see it was only 11PM and I fell back into blissful sleep.

Until 5AM, when I woke up with a start because my subconsious remembered that I had a lesson plan to write, a learning module to do, a research paper draft to churn out, and an article response to scribble out. I tried to fight my brain for a while, but I'm up and working.

It's 7:30AM now, and I need to get all of that done before 9AM, when I am supposed to go help load the U-Haul for its second run.

But tonight there's a Halloween party that promises to be amazing, so at least there's that to look forward to! And yes, there will be pictures. Of me. In costume. I bet you can hardly contain your excitement!

I was supposed to write a paper. Instead, I wrote a blog.

2011-10-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

Stress is my normal. I've said that before, no? Sometimes I think I'm one of those girls who just can't get no satisfaction, because it seems like I am always complaining one way or the other: either life is too stressful and I am tired of being run down, or I am bored to tears and miss having things to do. I really do not know how moderate things. I wish I knew how to achieve that perfect middle balance of having things to do but also having the freedom to relax without worrying that I am getting behind on things.

Some people have commented that I am the busiest person they know. Can that be true? I don't even have kids. I'm rambling, clearly. Stick with me.

Today I wrote a proposal for a paper. I've never had to do something like that before. It's for that awful Writing Theory class. Basically, we have all chose topics to do inquiry based research on. We've gathered sources and for our proposal we had to write a paper analyzing each source and pretty much convincing my professor that our topics are worthy and that my sources are relevant. I felt so defeated before I even began writing because the idea of the paper was so daunting. And it's just the beginning--once my proposal is accepted, I'll have to write the actual research paper. That's when the real blood will be shed.

At work a few days ago I was chatting with a student when I said, "Well, at my other job...." and they thought I was crazy. I was, of course, just referring to one of my internships. Then at one of my internships, I started saying, "At work, I..." and they all thought I was nuts too. Everyone keeps looking at me like I am a nut job for having as many things going on as I do. But you know what I really realized from all this? I talk about work too much. I have no other interesting things to talk about besides these jobs that occupy all of my free time and brain power. I should get back into crafts soon, or something.

I passed my CBEST, finally. I totally screwed up the math portion the first time, which made me feel like a loser because everyone kept telling me how easy the test was. So I buckled down and studied really hard and it paid off. Now I just have 3 CSETS and the RICA. Oh, standardized testing. Each test is $90. Can you believe that? I think there is a secret plan to try to do everything possible to convince future teachers to change their mind and NOT become teachers, like raising prices on things like our tests and adding new requirements that don't even make sense and making the processes so confusing. And you know what? It's working really well. I know so many people that are in the same major as me but have decided not get their credential after all. Less competition for me, right?

My apartment is a disaster. I've doing my laundry at my mom's house but not bothering to put it away after. Nick and I just have this giant blob of clean clothing we keep shifting back and forth between a laundry basket and the bed, and I guess I'm assuming it will at some point get smaller and smaller and be gone and I'll have to do laundry again. What's actually happening though is I keep wearing more stuff from my closet and not the pile and pretty soon I will just have clothes everywhere and empty closet and it'll be like I just moved in again. I'm also not cleaning the kitchen regularly, since we haven't been eating regularly. Unless you count cans of raviolis, boxes of rice a roni, and bowls of cereal as eating regularly. They make quite a mess when you don't clean up after them, but I still just let it sit. Let the mess get bigger and bigger, little by little. It's not like we ever have company, anyway. My friends either live out of town, are allergic to my cats, or can't fit into my busy schedule.

Thanksgiving break is coming. I'll probably do a deep clean of this sty then.

One of my nieces turns 18 next week. And she's not even the oldest niece. My oldest niece is already 20. Or maybe she's 21. I can't remember. Anyway, this niece lives in New Jersey and she and my sister and her brother, my nephew, are all coming for a visit next summer. We're going to Oregon for a week and we're also going down to SF for a while. It will be just a few months after I graduate college and she graduates high school. It will be a blast, I'm sure. It'll also cross something off of that list over on the left.

Speaking of that list, I'm enrolled in a painting class for next semester, so I will be able to cross that off after I complete it. I'm quite looking forward to having that as a fun thing to do that isn't going to be highly demanding. I hope.

This was really just a bunch of blabbering, wasn't it? I've had 3 cokes and I still have another paper to write tonight, and yet somehow I'm blogging. Aye yi yi.

Amazing.

2011-10-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

74

2011-10-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

I am genuinely confused that it is already October 18. It was just September, no?

My dad would have been 74 today. I made chocolate cupcakes in his honor, and ate some ice cream too. It was lovely.

If Daddy were alive today, we would have gone to either Olive Garden or Italian Cottage. He would ordered ziti and I would have had to whisper to the waiter to add sausage to the plate, because if my Dad knew the a plate of ziti didn't come with sausage automatically, he would have had a fit (and he did, once, in an Olive Garden). He would have reminisced about the old days when he was a hooligan and hung out with people called Spider. We would have drank decaf coffee and looked at photo albums and gone to sleep happy, happy, happy...

I am much less sad today than last year. I miss him every single day, multiple times a day, but the guilt and sadness is finally easing up. I wish I could tell him about all the amazing things going on in my life, and in the world, but I think he already knows.

I hope you're staying out of trouble up there, old man.

23 Students and Counting

2011-10-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

I wish I could go back in time and smack myself for being such a go getter. 2 internships was really not necessary. I should have spread them out over the last 2 years instead of saving them for the end.

Today I left the house at 7AM and just returned at 7:35PM. I'm so tired that I could cry, but instead I am sitting here looking up directions to Willows, CA because I am starting work there tomorrow for another school, bringing my student count up to 23 (and possibly growing in a few weeks).

I mean, I still love my job. It's just about the only thing I do all week that I wouldn't cut out if I could. I would cut at least half of my classes and both internships, but never work. I love those freaking kids.

For example, the other day:

Student: "Patty, I was wondering if you had made a judgement on my character and felt you knew me well enough to maybe please take into consideration being a reference on my resume?" Adorable. I die.

Or today:
Student: "I love math so much, and reading! Reading makes me learn to be a better citizen!" (coming from a teenage student that has only been in the US for a few years)

These kids, man. I seriously want to scoop a few of them up and bring them home because they are so adorable and sweet and kind and appreciative.

end.

A vent, apartment style

2011-10-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

Let's preface this with saying just how incredibly lucky and happy I am here. It's a pretty sweet apartment. No college kids (besides us), really cheap rent, a big patio, nice layout...it's a good, happy apartment.

However, I'm genuinely annoyed that I have upstairs neighbors. I know it is just the price we have to pay right now for needing to live downstairs (Nick has a very bad knee), and the price that comes with being unable to just go buy/rent an actual house instead of an apartment, but SWEETBABYJESUS these people are annoying.

My upstairs neighbors are a Mexican family with no less than 6 kids in a 2 bedroom apartment, so I absolutely have to feel sympathy for them. In my multicultural sensitivity courses, we have learned so much about the plight of minority races. I do feel bad for them. I know that it must be crowded up there, which is why I am never bothered by the kids that run around screaming outside while playing. But the last three days has been nothing but people running around upstairs, slamming doors, and blasting polka music.

I like to sit at my dining room table to do homework, and the wall next to the table is just in constant peril. Always vibrating. Doors being slammed makes the wall shake. Kids stampeding though the kitchen and kids screaming their heads off in the bathtub above mine. Music blasting for hours at a time. I'm so irritated. Earlier I was about to go there and ask them to turn the music down, but they turned he music off first and instead began running around.

I don't know how to talk to them. My Spanish is weak, as is their English. Plus, they've been kind of rude to me on several occasions. I don't want to make anyone mad, but I am going to lose my shit if they turn that music on again. My in-laws are coming over for dinner tonight, and if the upstairs neighbors make a ruckus over our heads while we eat, you can bet that I am going up there and talking to somebody in the morning.

I'm thankful my problems are this small, really.

Celebrities at Chico State

2011-09-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am great with faces. I can still visualize the face of my sixth grade math teacher, and I'm always recognizing people around town. Thus, my lot in life is to see celebrity doppelgangers in the faces of my peers. I don't want to be alone in this, so I thought I'd share.

It is my pleasure to tell you what certain celebrities would be doing if they were students at Chico State (the way that their long lost twins are).

Quentin Tarantino, the famous and oddly attractive director of some of my favorite movies, is living as an rag-a-muffin college student with an undecided major. He took a Physical Science class with my husband and me about two years ago, where I made it my duty to make sure everyone around me saw that we had a celebrity in the class.

Hillary Swank, the beautiful actress from that one movie, is a very annoying presence in my Monday night English class. She is a Buddhist, has a much higher pitched voice than I realized, and likes to wear her hair in pig tails. She's also one of those English majors that loves the sound of her own voice.

Ed Norton, of my dreams, is a Physics major and wants to teach high school science. He was in my linguistics class for a whole day before he realized he was in the wrong place. He is very friendly, and chatted me up quite a bit before realizing his mistake and booking it.

Patty's Fashion Rules part 1

2011-09-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Since I live for lists (you'll get used to it):

Patty's Fashion Rules

1. Black and Brown: the verdict is no. This is one of those fashion rules that everyone knows and everyone loves to break because they disagree with it. When I was looking online for info about this, I ran into at least 10 blogs by women talking about how they mixed black and brown all the time and it's amazing and eff the rules, etc.

I hate it. This sweater is from Ann Taylor, and may the fashion gods forgive this sin. It makes me want to throw up in my mouth.

2. Never wear anything as pants except actual pants. The other night I was driving home when I had to wait for a woman to cross the street. She was in her twenties and very pretty. But she was wearing a pair of leggings with her t-shirt. I have heard some say that if the shirt covers your butt, you can wear leggings as pants, and even though I disagree with that statement, her t-shirt was not covering her butt even. They were the kind of leggings that even had little straps to go under your foot, like these:

Terrible. You could see her underwear line clear as day (they looked bunchy, too), and she had flip flops on so you could see her foot straps. The whole sight burned my retinas.

3. Headbands should not actually band your head up. I like headbands generally. I have a few with big flowers on the side that look pretty cute when my hair is big and curly. My problem with headbands are those weird ones that seem to have come from the 70's and are insisting on going on your head like a hat. They literally do nothing but leave a mark on your forehead and a crease in your hair.

Headbands done correctly:

Headbands that are wrong, wrong, wrong:

It's like one step away from wearing an epileptic helmet.

4. Wear clothes that fit you. You have to dress yourself well, because no one is going to do it for you. If you are in a dressing room and trying to decide whether or not to buy that sort of too tight pair of jeans: don't. They will not be inspiration jeans, like you're telling yourself. You will not lose 10lbs just because you really want to wear those jeans. What will happen is you will lose maybe 4lbs and get crazy excited because the jeans fit better than last time, but you are making a terrible mistake.

Don't let yourself become a delicious baked good because you are obsessed with the numbers on the pair of jeans. Muffin tops are a serious problem. Just buy and wear the clothes that actually fit you.

Muffin top is 100% preventable.

5.Don't dress up your sweats. This is something I am constantly trying to avert my eyes from. In college, specifically, women seem to have this misconception that sweatpants are fashionable if you do your hair and makeup before putting them on. This look makes me embarrassed for the people wearing it. They have obviously been misinformed.

If you're going to put your sweatpants and put literally no effort into your clothes, why would you spend time doing your hair and makeup? If you don't care, then fully do not care. Wear your sweats and pony tails proudly, don't act like you woke up looking this way.

Mondays make me crazy.

2011-09-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Continuing my theme of telling you about my classes (just like I tend to do every semester), let's move on to English 431: Theory and Practice of Tutoring Composition.

This class is the root of everything that is wrong with my week. It meets on Mondays, from 3-6. The class I have MWF meets in the same room, so on Mondays I end up sitting in the same chair from 2-6. It's just grand.

The class is heavy on the "theory" part of its name. Have you ever studied the theory of writing? Of learning? We have been so wrapped up in talking about theory I have no idea what's going on. They throw around phrases like "negotiating meaning", and "legitimate learning", and "peripheral participation". I read the first four chapters of the text and felt like I had been run over by a bread truck. Nothing in it made sense to me.

The room is full of graduate TESOL students. Graduate TESOL students are usually much older than me (most of them seem to be at least 30), and are getting an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. They work as instructors at the University as part of the Graduate program. They are intimidating, is what I mean to say.

So when the room of grad students gets excited and happily discusses these terms and theories that I don't understand, I am left very quiet. I try to make up for my lack of participation when we do group work. I end up dominating the group discussion with my complaints about my confusion, which doesn't go well.

In fact, right now I am supposed to be writing a paper for this class. It's due on Monday, and even though I have many pages typed, I feel like I am doing it wrong. So I decided to blog about it.

The professor of this course has a PhD in Rhetoric. When I was 16, I thought I wanted a degree in rhetoric, but then I went to college and aborted that major (I know that was your major, Cassie, and you amaze me!). He speaks in sentences that make me feel like I am a six year old and know nothing and have not been in college for the last five years. He also sounds a lot like Ira Glass, the wonderful radio host of This American Life, so I can't hold much against him.

The worst is that the professor with his fancy PhD is also the husband of one of my former professors--AND that former professor is the head professor of my writing tutoring internship (all of that by coincidence--it's a fairly small English Department). I have these horrible daydreams of the two of them complaining about me over spaghetti.

"Patty didn't understand the text again."
"Oh, that girl. She's a terrible writing tutor, too."
"Pass the parm?"

I'm sure they don't, actually. It's illogical that a professional couple with two children (I know way too much about them...) would actually spend any of their precious free time discussing an undergrad with an anxiety problem. I KNOW THIS. But I still worry.

The woman professor actually wrote me an amazing letter of recommendation last year. And she is always so nice to me. And because I adore her, it would fit that she adores me as well. Clearly, I am a terrible writer and this post should warrant someone taking my blog away.

Go ahead, do it. I won't put up a fight.

Apartment: Dining Room Before

2011-09-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Again, I'm sorry, but this is a "before" picture. I have done some work on it, and I hope to have it finished in winter.

I would like to add window treatments, and spruce up that corner trundle shelf thing I've got. It's a dark green, and I want to spray paint it black.

Those white book shelves had no other home (are we seeing a bookshelf trend, here?) and ended up in the dining room, with their backs against the couch (remember when I used wrapping paper on the back of them?). I want to construct a little fabric curtain on string to attach to the front of these. That will keep the mess out. The problem I have had with this is finding a coordinating fabric.

Also, does that wall look totally blank and silly with just the one painting on it? It seems so big in life, but appears small and weird in pictures. Hmm...

This isn't really the dining room, it's the hallway/side of the living room. But I thought I'd give you a sneak peek...

Apartment: Bedroom Before

2011-09-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

The fact is that I may not be able to give you an "after" of the bedroom until sometime this winter, but I figured that it's about time I just get real and show you where I've been living, even if it's not perfectly decorated yet.

When we first moved in to our two bedroom apartment, we set up our room in the small bedroom and the craft/guest room in the larger room. We figured that we spend very little time in the bedroom so it wouldn't matter. Unfortunately, what happened is that we ended up using the craft/guest room as a kind of storage room. Everything just got pushed into there, and I ended up irritated that we were wasting so much good space.

Last weekend Nick helped me rearrange things to the way they should have been all along. We put our bedroom into the larger room and the craft/guest room into the small room. Duh.

The rooms are still a disaster, to be frank. I have done absolutely no decorating either room because I focused on the living room and dining room over the summer. Now that school is in, I haven't had time to do much else in the decor arena. But oh, do I have plans...

Our Bedroom

The bedding is from Ikea, and I love it. The bookshelves used to be in our living room at the old apartment, but this new living room is just too small for them. Then they were in this room when it was a craft room, but there just wasn't room for them in the new, smaller craft room. So here they sit. Ah, apartment life.

Keeping it real. This is my messy closet area.

The plan for the room involves window treatments, art over the bed, throw pillows, and some de-cluttering.

Welcome to the Gateway Science Museum!

2011-09-21T15:45:00.000-07:00

These past few weeks I have been interning as a "docent" at the Gateway Science Museum, also known as the Children's Science Museum. Because this internship is for university credits towards becoming a teacher, my job is a little more than just showing the kids around. I, along with 7 others, worked on creating an activity that went along with the current exhibit that we would teach the visiting children.

The children that come visit are on school field trips and the museum is closed for them, so they have the place all to themselves. My partner and I take 8 kids and lead them around. We start in the Education Station (where we do our activity), then the Discovery Room (which is like a room full of cool science toys), then the Small Exhibit, then the Big Exhibit, then the Valley Gallery (which is another exhibit but extra small). The other docents also work in pairs with kids each. It's some sort of chaos, I tell you.

If you want to read about the specific exhibits, you can do so here: http://www.csuchico.edu/gateway/explore/Current%20Exhibits.shtml

Today I had 5th grade students and it went so well. They were inquisitive, interested, and smart. They knew so much already that I loved getting to add on to their knowledge base. We talked about metal detectors used in the deep sea, the reason the needle of a compass always points towards Magnetic North, why opposite ends of magnets attract but like sides repel, and so much more. At the end the kids were really excited to take home their newly made compass (which is the activity we designed--making compasses), and couldn't wait to come back.

It was a very different experience from the 6th grade kids we had the week before. I love getting to see the different grade levels in action. I used to think that the younger grades were really where I belonged, but I can totally see myself teaching 4th or 5th now.

I finished up the day by taking a midterm in my Language Acquisition class (and I'll save you the story of the class for another post!). I felt really good after turning it in. I finished it in 15 minutes and was totally confident of my answers. Love that feeling!

Our Life Right Now

2011-09-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

I've begun this post twice before now, each of those starting out like a letter I was writing to friends. But something kept happening towards the middle of the letter, where my tone changed from informative and kind to rude and irritated. I think you'll understand more in a moment.

You see, Nick and I are busy people. We are the definitions of busy people. When someone says they are busy, that usually means they are not free right at that moment you are talking about, but Nick and I are truly just busy in life every single day.

We are both serious full time college students. Not college students that take 12 units and get Cs--we are the ones who take 15 units and put every bit of effort in needed to get As. We're not happy coasting through college. I know someone that is always trying to skip classes because they just want to be done, but that's not us, either. We want to be done, sure, but we also want our degrees to mean that we really and truly did acquire all the knowledge that goes with having that degree. This is why we spend our free time reading textbooks and studying even when there is no homework due at the moment.

Also regarding college, we are just sort of people that like to learn. We have often said that if we ever won the lottery, we would just earn degree after degree because we enjoy acquiring knowledge.

I've been having a hard time lately because people don't really understand that this kind of college student exists. They get offended when I can't hang out with them because I'm studying. They have these notions that studying can happen at any time so I should hang out with friends when they're available. People also roll their eyes a lot. Like they don't believe us when we say we are too busy for certain things.

In addition to school, we have jobs. Nick only works at his job two days a week but still ends up working 20-25 hours in a week (did I mention that is in just two days?). My job requires more than just going to it. I travel out of town for my job three days a week, and when I get back home, I have to sit and do paperwork for several hours to wrap up the day. I also have two internships. One day per week I intern at the children's science museum, and another day a week I am a writing tutor.

And then, after all the jobs and internships and classes, there's the fact that the deadline for Grad School and the Credential Program is March 1. Which means that I am running around in a state of mental chaos while I prepare for that, which includes studying for and passing all of the state tests.

It kind of breaks down like this:

15 units + Patty's Job + Internship 1 + Internship 2 +15 units + Nick's job + Studying + Homework + Marriage + Meals + Sleep = no social life

My hope is that this clears up some of the eye rolling and general lack of understanding people have about our life. I'm tired of feeling guilty about saying that I am busy. It's the truth, people. This is our life. There's not time for much else right now. When we do fit social activities into it, that's awesome, but it's rare.

The criticism that I anticipate is people suggesting that we take ourselves too seriously and don't enjoy life. We do enjoy life, though. It's just not enjoyed the same way as most of our peers. We spend time together in the evenings and we see our family on the weekends and life is what we want it to be right now.

The reason we let this be our life right now?
Easy.

Because we know where we're going. We know what we want out of future. We want the Peace Corps, Master Degrees, awesome jobs that we absolutely adore, children. This is the route we're taking to get those things. And usually the route makes us busy.

This is what I was talking about in my first paragraph, about my tone changing. It's easy for me to start getting mad right about here.

So instead of telling you about all the times lately where I have wanted to punch people in the face for not understanding where we're coming from, I'm just going to end it. We're busy.

Seasonal

2011-09-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

Summer in Chico is disgusting. Truly terrible in so many ways. 100+ degrees every day of dry, dry heat that doesn't cool off until well into the wee hours of the morning. Lately it has stayed in the low 90s/ high 80s until at least 9PM. It's the kind of weather where you hear people saying things like, "I am so sick of being sweaty!" because you truly can not help but become sweaty as hell if you spend more than 4 minutes outdoors. The other day I had to walk, at a leisurely pace, from one building on campus to another. It took maybe 7 minutes. I was sunburned by the time I got to my destination!

Riding my bike in this heat has been nothing short of murderous. I begin pedaling at 7:30AM and only ride 2 miles, but by the time I get to class I am drenched in sweat. And it's not just me--everyone who rides their bike to campus (which is actually like 70% of students) complains about this.My hair goes flat, my makeup runs, and my clothes get clingy. I actually spend quite a bit of time in the bathroom before classes just trying to mop the sweat off of myself. Aren't you glad you tuned in to read this lovely entry?

My point is that I am ready for fall. I love fall. It's my absolute favorite season, which is why Nick and I had an autumn wedding.

There is so much good coming up this fall:

Our 4th wedding anniversary
My 24th birthday
The Rocky Horror Show Live at the Cabaret (we're going the day after our anniversary, which is becoming a tradition)
Getting to wear my lovely pea coats
Bathing suits go out of season (hallelujah!)
Nick's parents celebrate 29 years of marriage
Thanksgiving break-which is an entire week off of school
Pumpkin flavored things!
My beautiful niece turns 18
I can donate blood because it's finally been a year since my tattoo

I'm sure there's more, which I'll add some other time when I think of them. For now all I can say is, BRING ON FALL!

Crash Landing

2011-09-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

I am not a great driver. My friend Fal and I love to talk about how we are usually mediocre but become terrible, awful drivers when we have passengers. It's true. I just suck.

Thankfully, this is not a post about crashing my car.

Today I was cruising along on my cruiser (who still needs a name, by the way!), when I turned my head to see if someone was behind me--because I am terribly slow. People on their bikes are constantly passing me. At first this was insulting, but I've come to terms with it. At least I am riding at all, right?

Anyway, there I was on my polka dot beauty, when I turned my head. And then BAM! I ran right into a wall.

Yeah, a wall.

No permanent damage was done.There isn't a scratch on my lovey, but I'm pretty darn bruised all over my arms and my knuckles. It was bound to happen. I'm not graceful by any means. One time I sprained my ankle two different times in the same weekend, doing the exact same thing (stepping off of curbs). I step on my own cat's tails more often than I step around them, and I am always hitting my head on my car on my way in or out of it. So crashing my bike into a wall? Totally expected business.

Let's just hope I can stick to walls and not run into any people!

Do we have any nominations for names for my pretty?

Perfect Labor Day

2011-09-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

Today has been the perfect Labor Day.

Instead of 8 hours of classes, we slept in very late and then went over to the bike store with my mother-in-law. Nick's grandfather passed away last year, and apparently he left us money for new bikes. Which is amazing, because Nick and I have been riding our bikes to and from campus every day that we have been able (omg did my butt hurt).

This is officially the first new bike I have ever had. I have only ever owned two bikes, and both came from yard sales and were not right for my body. I have been riding a mountain bike that was made for someone at least 5 inches shorter than I am. I chose a beach cruiser style, because I love the upright posistion and all the cute patterns and designs they come in. Nick chose a "commuter" comfort style bike, which is a heavier duty street bike that has upright position.

Yeah, that's a bell. Love it! I like to "ding ding" at Nick!

Pink rims and spokes. Amazing.

Nick's bike!

Once we got home with the beauties, we immediately hopped on and rode to the park. It was such a great ride! I can't wait to ride to campus tomorrow!

Revision

2011-09-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has taken an English class knows that revision is an important part of the writing process. Lately I have been feeling the need to revise something in particular: My 30 before 30 list.

It's not set in stone, right? There are just a couple things that I feel need to change.

Original list here.

Revised List

Receive my Bachelor's Degree
Become a credentialed teacher.
Feel comfortable in my own skin.
Visit Ireland and the home my dad's family came from.
Ride in a hot air balloon*
Create and stick to a household budget*
See a major production of a play.
Apply for the Peace Corps.
Make a quilt for our bed.
~~Eat vegetarian for a month.~~
Take a painting class.
Wear high heels at least once a week.
Spend a weekend in Oregon.
Register to be a bone marrow donor.
Sky dive.
~~Move.~~
Be more outgoing and make more friends.
Volunteer more.
Take boudoir photos.
Camp in the Redwoods.
Throw an awesome Halloween party.
Send out Holiday cards.
Road-trip across country.
Write 5 short stories.
Order Mexican food in Spanish.
Say YES to something I normally wouldn't.
Walk across the Golden Gate.
Campaign for marriage equality (again and always 'til we have it).
Purchase domain name and spruce up this blog.
Make a will*

* #5 used to read "Purchase a fancy camera". I've changed it because I feel like that was something really frivolous that didn't need to be there. Owning something should not determine how I feel about myself. I switched it to something still kind of frivolous, but something that I think will be a good experience that will mean more to me: riding in a hot air balloon.

* #6 used to say "Sing karaoke in a bar". I have been wanting to change this for a while. For as long as I have legally been allowed in bars, I've never liked them. Back in April I also decided to stop drinking alcohol for good, so now I really don't feel like any part of this item belongs in my life. And besides, I have sang karaoke with my friends at home plenty of times. I changed to something that goes with the giving up alcohol, which is to say something more responsible: making and sticking with a budget. Nick and I have never really mapped out our expenses, we just keep an eye on our checking account and go with the flow. But, doing things that way has never really allowed us to create savings. I want to budget things so that we can afford to start saving money for a new car, and so that we can have some cushioning for the debt of grad school next year.

* #30 used to say "Milk a cow". I have always thought this would be a cool thing to do, but it's really not important. Though I am leaving a lot of fun things on the list, I felt that this was the least important-to-me fun thing, and I switched it for something I have begun to feel strongly about: making a will. Not that I am rolling in the bank or anything, but it's good to be prepared.

The Apartment List

2011-08-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

I love lists. This one is the list I have been keeping in a composition book on the coffee table. It's of the things I want to do to this apartment in terms of decorating. When a good chunk of the list has been crossed off, I'll be happy to take my readers on a virtual tour! Exciting, yes? I might even use the video function of my camera. I know, your jaws are dropped.

Photo wall in the hall way In progress. I had the wall done but decided it looked incomplete, so I got some more frames and will be rearranging things very soon.
Floating shelves in living room
Large mirror or art for wall between living and dining room
~~Buy coffee table~~
~~Get extra seating~~
~~Repaint my flower canvases and hang~~
~~Reupholster arm chair~~
Hang curtains in all four rooms
Make curtains
~~Make pillows for living room~~
Art for kitchen wall
Repaint the dressers in the craft room In progress. The dressers are done except for one stupid drawer that the old hardware is so rusted into, I can't remove. I may have to just work around this soon.
Organize the craft supplies
~~Get shoe rack~~
Make the guest bed cute
~~Hallway entry piece~~
Get rug for living room
Get new, cute dishes
~~Fix the tear on the couch~~
Get bed or build headboard for our bedroom
~~Hang my jewelry thing~~
Get table and chairs for patio
Begin planting things outside

Re: this cooking business

2011-08-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

I have discovered something pretty phenomenal.

Despite my complete distress when asked to prepare dinner, I am pretty a-okay at dessert. Granted, I have to have a recipe IN MY HAND the entire time, but the product is always edible (which isn't something I can brag about with my dinner entrees).

Nick recently had a nerdy gathering of sorts (a.k.a. his Dungeons & Dragons parties) and I baked up a storm. Cookies of two varieties, brownies, short bread, and cupcakes. I felt like a goddamn domestic diva!

That's a rack from my microwave (fancy microwave!). The next day Karin and I went out and bought real cooling racks. I'm practically a pro now.

To the left you will notice a silver doodad. That would be my pantry flash flight, because it is dark in there! It took me 10 minutes to find that darn flour.

There's another geek fest happening tomorrow and get this: I'm doing it again. Baking. (you hear what you're missing out on, Tom?)

Because I feel a tad bit cocky with my new skill, I'm attempting some sort of sandwich wrap. I looked at some recipes online and am going to throw something together tonight. There isn't any actual cooking involved in this, so I think I'm going to kick ass at it as well.

So you know, cheers to baking!

Proud

2011-08-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my step-father and nephew finished their first week of college. It's been a very big thing for us.

My step-father, also known as Daddy 2, never went to college. He went to 19 different schools before finally just dropping out. He did earn his GED and was a successful locksmith and baker for many years. A serious back injury ended his career though, and he has spent the last several years in a state of unhappiness because of it. His brothers were able to join the military and receive some schooling there, but Daddy 2 was forced to stay at home with his father and do everything but get an education.

I have this really worthless piece of crap sister that had an amazing son, my nephew. My nephew has lived with my mom and Daddy 2 since he was just a baby. He's practically been my little brother, not my nephew. He graduated from high school in June, which was a huge feat for him. He's struggled with learning disabilities (brought on by his horrible mother's drinking issues during her pregnancy) and has always had a hard time with reading, writing, and math. He's a great young man. He loves animals and computers and club sandwiches. He's a sweet, sweet guy. You should see him all cuddled up with his cat, Kiki.

This week my Daddy 2 and my nephew both went to community college together. It's an amazing thing to see them excited about learning and having one another to depend on. They had their first homework assignments this week: autobiographical papers. Hearing them read to me made tears well up in my eyes. I am so proud of them. They have had such a hard time with the education system--being pushed through grades when they weren't ready, getting low test scores because no one taught them what they needed to know--and I am so thankful they are going to college now and are in classes that are actually appropriate for their skill levels. I love knowing that I am no longer the only one in my family trying to become educated. My nephew is breaking all traditions by being the first one in his generation of the family to enroll in college. He's setting an example for his cousins that have let their opportunities waste away. My Daddy 2 is saying NO to the generalization that there is nothing for him to do with his bad back. They are making a difference in this world, whether they understand it or not.

I am just so proud. I love you guys.

Week One: Senior Year

2011-08-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

College is an interesting thing. I went back to campus yesterday to begin my senior year, and it was like seeing the place for the first time.

The campus was beautiful, as always.

But there were just so many people. It felt like Disneyland, minus all the fun rides (the over priced food was definitely there, though). I had to do the dodge walk, where you take a step and then pivot to the right for the next step, back to left for the next, and so on--just to get from one building to the next. Who are all these people? I swear there were not as many people last Fall. The newspapers have been shouting that enrollment is down, not up!

Anyway, let's talk about my classes.

Foundations of Childhood Physical Education. This is basically learning how to teach children P.E. I'm finding out it is more complicated than one would believe. There's all kinds of theories and do's and don'ts. As tedious as the class seems like it is going to be, I think I am going to learn a lot of important things here.

Intensive Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition. Um, what? I know. The word intensive scared me at first. In fact, what am I saying? I'm still scared. On the first day we began by learning a new alphabet. The Sound Alphabet or something. It's full of weird symbols and strange names and I have no idea what it is used for, or what the goal of this class is. Actually, I have my syllabus right here... "The academic objective of this course is to provide an intensive course in second language acquisition which meets the state requirements for teaching." Well, that was just as helpful as the name of the course. Oh, and my instructor is Polish. It's going to be interesting.

Theory and Practice of Tutoring Writing. Major emphasis on "theory". We'll basically be reading all of these crazy "theory" books and dissecting them, or so I gather from yesterday's introduction. It was a little hard to focus on what was being said, since my instructor speaks exactly like Ira Glass. It's insane. Can you imagine being taught by Mr. Glass? Distracting. In addition to the three hour class (yes--three hours!), we had to sign up for unpaid internships as writing tutors. Because you know, doing that for a living isn't enough. What little free time I had has been filled up with internship hours.

Museum Docent Training. I haven't actually attended this class yet, since it's a three hour Wednesdays class, but I have spoken with the professor many times since I had her last fall. My understanding is that we will be designing exhibits for the Children's Science Museum and acting as tour guides. All know is that I get to wear a cute little tour guide vest.

Access & Equity in Education. Yeah, I think I may have blogged about this one last semester since I was supposed to take it back then, but I dropped it because I was struggling with all those units. I'm trying it out again, and so far it's not so bad. It's entirely online. We'll focus on topics about equality in the classroom and education. I hate online classes as a rule, but I can never seem to find an in-class version of this class that doesn't conflict with other things.

That's all for classes.

In other exciting news, I spoke with my boss yesterday and got the great news that I will be working more hours than I did last semester and I even get one of my same schools. I'll be sad to not go back to one of the schools I worked with so much last semester, but I'm happy to be able to meet so many new and awesome students this way. I'm much more excited to go back to work than to my classes, but I think it'll be an okay semester.

I was talking with Nick recently about how I think I have hit my educational peak. Last semester was amazing. I loved my classes and feel like I learned SO MUCH. My schedule was even really awesome, with perfectly times breaks. I did amazing with my grades and now I feel like nothing will compare with Spring 2011. I'm staying positive though. One of the cool things about this new schedule is that I have something different every day. One class is online, and three classes only meet once a week. That leaves just one class that I go to on MWF. It's kind of exciting getting to expect something different every day.

Oh, and fair warning...my crafting and home decor projects may take a break until I get myself settled into this semester. I am planning an Ikea trip this Saturday though, so we'll see.

Enjoy your week!

Back to School

2011-08-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of my last year of college (second to last semester, darn it). Woo! I'll blog about my exciting new classes later this week, but for now, I just had to share my new school supplies.

Because I'm sort of an office supply junkie.

My adorable new pink ribbon backpack. I lovvvve it. I used a gift card (yeah-instead of getting the sparkly shoes or snow cone machine), so it was basically free. I love that.

Behold my Lisa Frank binders. Yeah, I finally found some. And I am freakin' stoked. I'm just positive I will be the coolest kid in college.

Spray Paint Magic

2011-08-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Magic, I tell you!

A few weeks ago I was browsing the gloriousness that is Pinterest when I saw something that sort of blew my mind. Spray painted shoes. I thought, Holy Guacamole, what is this?!

As I followed the link to this blog article, I realized it was totally do-able. In fact, with a little googling, I found myself surrounded with a ton of pretty flat shoes that had been spray painted.

I dug out an old pair of black flats. I love them, but I never really wore them anymore because I had another black pair I liked more. They seemed the perfect candidate.

I am kind of lazy compared to the other bloggers. I have no use for painter's tape, so I just stuffed some bags inside and hoped for the best.

I am pretty happy with the result. Here is my advice:

A fabric base may work better than a leather or fake leather. I say this because mine are a fake leather and since they're a few years old, there were a couple spots where the leather had rubbed off. Those spots did not take well to the paint.
Stand back and do slow, even coats. I did mine quick and up close because I have no patience to speak of, and some spots got a little sloppy looking.

School starts on Monday, and these may be my welcome back flats!

True Love

2011-08-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Me: What would I do without you?
Nick: (pause) Punch people.
Me: What? You think I'd punch people?!
Nick: Well, yeah. You would just go around punching people. All people. Especially the annoying ones.
Me: Are you saying you are the only reason that I act rationally?
Nick: Yep.

He's not wrong.

My Corner

2011-08-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

One very small portion of our living room is finished. It's the corner between our TV wall and our sliding glass door. The other sides of these walls are not finished, as I am waiting on being able to hang my pretty curtain rod and curtains over the sliding glass door, and to hang my floating shelves over the TV.

In any case, here is my corner:

It's not actually as crooked as it appears, but my hand defaults to spazzed out.

Below, my Ikea lamp shade that was meant for the bird-lamp that didn't work so well.

See how it's in the corner? But it's a very cozy corner.

Coffee Table

2011-08-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I never blogged about my trip to Ikea a few weekends ago. You have seen some of the glorious fruits of that trip with my lampshade, but what we really got was a coffee table.

We're just college students, you know? We're living in apartment that is about a quarter of the size of some people's houses. We don't have money for fancy things, so we were perfectly okay spending only $20 on a coffee table. Sure, it won't last 10 years. It may only last one year. But it's what we need for now, and it matches the color of our TV stand. I like it.

It was also my first trip to Ikea, and holy cow. I had no idea I was going to be so overwhelmed. If you have never been, it's not quite a store. It's a giant warehouse/showroom. There are not aisles you wander up and down, but rather just huge rooms with arrows on the floor in case you get lost. I was kind of frazzled, so I am already planning another trip down to get all of the things that I got home and wished I had gotten (like more picture frames).

The first thing we did after Nick assembled it was, of course, eat pizza. Ikea is hard work. It was a 2 hour drive and a 2 hour shopping experience, plus a 2 hour drive home and then the assembly of furniture. Phew!

Also, there's a new frying pan I got from Ikea. $5!

This place is shaping up! Please note the Craigslist couch, DIY coasters, and classy platos de papel.

Thriftin'

2011-08-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

On Thursday my mother and I stopped by my favorite thrift store, The Arcrc. I love them. Seriously, I know it might be weird to be all lovey about a second-hand store, but they are so wonderful. Not only is the store super clean and organized, but the profits all go to developmentally disabled adults and special needs children. It's wonderful. I did some volunteer work with their children center four or five years ago and I was so impressed with them.

I seriously scored on my finds, though. For a whopping total of $11, I scored:

a cat carrier (a nice one with a sun roof!)
two hand made scarves: one knit and one crochet
a cat bed
twenty hangers (what? they were 50 cents a bundle and I am always running out!)
a leather portfolio that has my soon-to-be alama mater name and old logo on it

Burnt orange knitted scarf, which will be great for this fall. Also a light pink one is behind it.

I feel like this will be kick ass for putting copies of my resume in.

Lucy is gonna love the sun roof. She's sort of spoiled.

10 Silly Confessions

2011-08-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

I don't "get" the phenomenon that is Nutella. I know so many people that are obsessed with this stuff, and I just think it is gross.
Chevron is not a pretty pattern. It's the logo for a gas station.
I have a $42 credit on Amazon, which has been causing me to spend to spend an incredible number of hours on the website browsing. So far my possible purchases are: sparkly high heels, snow cone machine, make-up brush cleaner, and a teeth whitening system. All of them are very probable. Oh, the suspense!
Sometimes I wish I could "hide" people in my real life the same way I do on facebook. Seriously. People annoy the crap out of me lately.
I feed my cats bits of cheese any time that I use the cheese grater.
I hate the gym. It makes me want to cry every time I get up and go, and usually while I am there too. Results, already! Come on!
Nick and I have separate closets. Having a two bedroom apartment for just the two of us is like a dream come true. I even have a shoe rack now!
I'm a fabric hoarder. If I had unlimited funds, I would stock my craft room til it burst. Thank goodness for the economist inside my husband.
I really want to be an awesome party thrower, but I don't really like people enough to want them to be all in my house at the same time. So instead I just talk about throwing parties.
One of my biggest irritations about being a girl is the week before my period (this week) where I want to absolutely murder everything. I almost punched a mirror for having water spots on it. Then I sniffled a little bit and continued putting my make up on. Crazzyy shit, womanhood.

Cheer up, Sleepy Jean.

2011-08-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Normal for me is stress, and it always has been.

In high school I took all advanced placement classes, foreign language courses, and joined so many extra curricular activities that my parents couldn't keep up. I was in Academic Decathlon (and won medals in Speech and English), California Scholarship Federation (I was a tutor for them), Youth Nexus (I sat on a board of youth philanthropists), and UB (the organization that I now work for). I didn't get home on weekdays until well after 5 PM, and sometimes later depending on whether I had to tutor. Once home I would do homework until I crashed. My weekends were all about homework and projects and my clubs. I was stressed out all four years of high school, so when I entered college it really came as no surprise that I have done the same thing to myself.

During the academic year I work myself into a stupor. Last semester I balanced 21 units with 20 hours of work per week. I'll be doing something very similar this semester, as well as getting things in order to wrap up my degree and enter a professional program.

On Tuesday, while contemplating everything I have coming up, I just had to sit down and cry. I bawled my eyes out. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until things felt better. And then they did.

You know what it is? I am terrified. I have been a student since I was five years old. I'm now approaching 24 and have never spent more than a couple of months out of the classroom. I'm about to be tossed into the professional world of teaching, where jobs are scarce and competitive. Where I will have to explain to principals my “teaching philosophy” and my ten year plan in hopes they will hire me. And then what? Once I get hired—praying to God I get hired—I am rewarded with 30 kids and a classroom. A pack of standardized tests, a list of school rules, and 30 parents of kids that will be ready to rip me a new one if I am not a perfect replica of them and their model of teachers.

It's so daunting. I feel like I have been working since I was 14 years old to get to this very moment—all that stress I put myself under, all the extra curricular activities I wanted on my resume—they have all been to help me be a teacher. Now I am almost there and feel like crying every time I think about actually graduating.

Don't get me wrong. I want to teach. More than anything, I want to have those “ah ha!” moments with kids. I want to show them how to connect symbols with words and words with stories. I want to sing songs with them about the seasons and grammar and geography. I know I can do this, and I can do it well.

(http://www.spoon-river.k12.il.us/ShelliHarrisons_Web_Page/classtour.htm)

It's just scary. I'm just being a big baby right now. Nick got a new job, which is awesome, but it's been leaving me home alone with nothing but my thoughts, and my thoughts seem to keep turning to hysteria when I sit still too long. I need to keep thinking positive. Everything will fine. Maybe not today, but eventually. And it'll be worth it.

Small Projects: Armchair

2011-08-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

My mother-in-law has had this old green checkerboard print armchair in her bedroom for quite a while. When we moved, she let us take it with us for living room seating. Problem? I hate checkerboard print. Blech. Plus, it had many rips and exposed wood on the bottom, and the fabric was quite dirty.

Solution? My bestie Karin. She took a King size sheet and made a new cushion for the middle. She then cut the sheet up and hand stitched it to the chair, creating some sort of custom slip covered/re-upholstery job. I chose a grey colored sheet, and I am in love.

A trip to the fabric store inspired me to make some pillows, and the next thing you know my living room is edging closer and closer to being finished!

I forgot to take a before picture of the chair, so these will have to give you an idea of what I had:

And now the finished chair and pillows!

It's hard to see, but in the grey pillows I did a bunch of free-motion stitching with blue thread. I think it gives them a certain...expensive look.

Things left to do in my living room:

Make curtains
Get rug
Hang photos on walls
Hang floating shelves

Don't bother me, I'm pinning!

2011-08-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

If you still haven't checked out Pinterest, shame on you! It is where all things beautiful and creative gather on the internet to induce eye-gasms. I have so many freaking "pins"--which means I like a lot of things. Which got me thinking about how easy it is for me to like things.

My tastes are not complex, actually. I think they can be summed up nicely with a list (which is also something I like--lists).

Birds. Anything with birds, usually. Every since my Field Biology class, I have adored the little buggers. But not pet birds. That's just weird.
Pumpkins. You know.
Teal/Turquoise. And pink. And purple.
Buttons. Love me some button art, especially.
Things that you might use the word "glam" to describe.
Also things you might use the word "kitsch" to describe, but in small quantities only.

Sometimes you fail.

2011-08-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

It's time I shared some of the Fail Projects I have had lately. The one that was the most colossal fail is The Lamp.

I purchased an old lamp at a yard sale a while back for $2. It was ugly. Shuddering worthy ugly. My friend that was at the yard sale with me begged me not to get it, but I guess I was feeling a little of my daddy's Irish blood, because I stuck out my chin and forked over the $2.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the color was more of a pale yellow than a white. I convinced myself that I liked the shape enough to Make It Work (love you, Mr. Gunn!). I felt that the possibilities were endless. After some googling around, I learned that spray paint would hold up really well as long as I sanded first. My trusty craft buddy, Karin, and I headed to Michael's.

The problem with Michael's is that there are just too many options sometimes. I had the spray paint in my hand and oh, how I wish I had bought it. Instead, I listened to Karin's argument for special glass/ceramic paint. $3.99 for a little tiny bottle, vs. $2.99 for my big can of spray paint. And to top it off--the glass paint is a 3 step process, so I actually had 3 little bottles at $3.99 each. Ugh.

So I buy the little bottles of Delta Perm-Enamel black paint, steps 1-3. Then Karin and I begin cutting out bird shapes with contact paper. We had this plan that we'll paint over the shapes, peel up, and then have a lovely bird lamp.

Flawless, right?
Wrong.

That paint works like ass, excuse the language. You had two options: either paint straight across and have big blank spots because the paint is so watery that it was slipping and sliding all over the place, or dab it on to make sure it covered everything but then deal with a strange bubbled effect.

Sigh.

The contact paper birds were also not a very well thought out plan. A lot of paint got under the paper, so we had streaky birds. We ended up using rubbing alcohol to try to clean the birds off, but you know when you're doing something and you suddenly realize that even if what you are doing that moment works, the whole thing will still look awful? Had that kind of a moment and finally gave up.

Eventually the paint was dry enough that I figured I would throw my new Ikea lampshade on it. I was so excited for this lamp shade, but was skeptical on how it would look on such a god awful disaster of a project.

A problem arose, however. There was just no way that my new $13 Ikea lampshade was going to work on my old $2 yard sale lamp. The parts just did not line up. They were mortal enemies, these parts were. Karin and I tried and tried and it just wasn't happening. The best we could manage was to sort of prop the lampshade up on it.

Disgusted, I put the lamp in the bedroom to serve as light until I could find something better. Today it stopped worked. My damn lamp just up and died, having had enough of my craft experiments.

The picture I am about to show you does the lamp much more justice than it deserves. I hate this lamp. Hate hate hate.

But you know, sometimes you just fail.

And that's okay.

Small Projects: Cooking

2011-08-03T16:27:00.000-07:00

If you have read my blog or known me for even just a few weeks, you should know that I am no cook. I try like hell, but I just suck at everything in the kitchen. I understand that cooking is just a matter of following instructions, but there are so many other factors that go wrong for me.

Usually the problem is that I just don't want to do it. I hate being hot, and the kitchen is always hot. I hate not being instantly gratified, and cooking doesn't do that for me either. Thankfully I married a man that doesn't mind being the main preparer of foods, but now and again I will feel bad about that.

And then I'll cook.
And then things do not go quite...as planned.

Let me chronicle for you my last three attempts at dealing with food.

Attempt #1: Blackberries

Nick and I head to a friend's apartment that has the infamous Himalayan Blackberry bushes growing all over the place. I took Field Biology. I know my shit when it comes to identifying plans (not so much growing them...). We braved the thorns and bloodied our fingers so that we could get some yummy fresh blackberries.

Someone please notice his very nerdy Math T-shirt. It's an equation for the normal curve, or something.

I was so excited! I rinsed them and put them back in a bowl. I thought, there is no reason to refrigerate these because they are in the heat on the bush, so they'll be fine on the counter.
I left them sitting there, popping one in my mouth a few times a day, for just ~~five~~ a few days. Next thing I know, I have blackberry wine.

Okay, not wine probably. But they were fermenting. Things were smelling very...alcoholic...when I went to crush them up and make blackberry tea. Sigh.

Attempt #2: Corn Dogs
I have this cook book problem. I really like them, so I have several, despite my lack of cooking know-how. One of them is Rachel Ray's "365 No Repeats", which has a bunch of 30 minute meals. One of them is for home-made corn dogs in the oven. Seemed pretty freaking simple!

The recipe calls for some stuff, hot dogs, and corn bread mix. I just knew I could do this!

That's actually a really nice photo of how it turned out. And yes, Nick is using a spoon to eat it. In the pan, it became a sort of corn dog soup, where hot dogs peeked meekly above a plethora of yellow corn bread. So that didn't work out (thought it's worth mentioning that it tasted fine if you could get past how disgusting it looked).

Oh, and if anyone is hungry, I still have a ton of that mix in my fridge! Come on over!

Attempt #3: Fried Eggs
I have actually made fried eggs before, and it was successful. Problem is, I have no idea how I did this. It was probably over a year ago.

Our aunt gives us farm fresh organic eggs every once in a while, and my mom was staying the night last night for a girls evening of watching movies, so I thought the best way to start our Saturday morning was with a big breakfast of bacon and eggs.

I threw the bacon in the oven, which actually worked wonderfully. So there's that.

The eggs were another story.

My mom felt sorry for me and tried to step in and help.

Clearly, cooking skills do not run in my family. I made her eat that one. It was some kind of scrambled egg that lacked the whole...add milk and whisk part of the job.

Solution?
My husband.

I married a good man. He was not phased by any of this. Instead, he told me to start getting recipes online and he will cook them.

Which is how I ended up with this on our grocery list (written by Nick):

I am now in charge of buying "meals". But not cooking them. Never, never cook them (we'll see about that).

Apartment Life

2011-07-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

The new apartment has been, for the most part, wonderful. It seems like once I made a conscious decision to stop focusing on the bad, the bad stopped focusing on me (I know, cheesy). Things really did just start falling into place.

There have been a few times where the positive thinking has been difficult, but I am working on it. Let me show you:

Things that could be bad about this apartment but aren't:

Our neighbors smoke on their patio right above us. Oh well! We just keep the sliding door closed and, therefore, don't have to worry about traffic noise either.
The living room and dining rooms are smaller. Maybe cramped. Pfft, less to clean. Vacuuming is a breeze now.
We live in "the ghetto". Whatevs. Rent is cheap!
We are very close to campus, and therefore, a lot of college students. We can now bike to campus in 5-10 minutes, or drive in 2 minutes. This sure beats when it was a 20 minute drive from the last apartment, or the 45 minute drive from the apartment before that one!
The counter tops in the kitchen and bathroom are yellow. Compliments my skin tone?

Okay, so it's still a bit of a stretch for me. But overall, we're really enjoying living roommate-free.

Lucy is enjoying things too. Moving time is great because it comes with boxes.

Nick and I having our very first home cooked meal at the new place: pulled chicken sandwiches on biscuits. Yum!

Small Projects: Making Art

2011-07-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

About three years ago I picked up a set of paintings at the Salvation Army thrift store for a whopping total of $2. They were pretty big canvas pieces, but I just like flowers, so I figured I would find a place. They hung on my old living room walls for a while, and I tried to decorate around their muted colors, but never really loved them. Then they sat in storage for a year.

I recently pulled them back out and became obsessed with finding a way to love them. My ingenious friend Karin looked at them and said, "Why don't you just paint them?" And that is what I did.

Since my new living room is quite small, I realized they would no longer be a set. I can only reasonably fit one canvas painting of this size in my living room, which is why I decided to paint them with two different color schemes.

Since I am a California girl through and through, I chose to make the first one an orange California Golden Poppy.

Here is the first attempt:

After staring at it for a few days, I decided that the yellow was just too much. Here is the finished version:

For the second one, I wanted to use pink. Because I love pink. I also wanted blue.

Ultimately, this blue was just too dull for me. I like things bold.

I am going to hang the pink/blue beauties in the living room, and the orange poppy in the dining room.

What do you think? Would you hang these in your home?

I'm pretty pleased with myself. I love the way they turned out, and I have even been inspired to go buy blank canvas to try painting on.

Small Projects: Coasters

2011-07-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

I recently found a tutorial to make Tile Coasters, and I thought, "why the hell not?"

If you're looking for an easy project, that takes virtually no time, this is the project for you. I seriously made these four coasters in about 5 minutes.

You start with ceramic tiles from the hardware store. I got these four at Home Depot for 16 cents each. You take some scrap book paper and cut it a little smaller than the tile, glue it on with some Mod Podge, then put more Mod Podge on top of that, sealing it down and making it waterproof. If you don't put a ton of that weird gluey mixture on the first time, you may need to give it another coat in a few hours.

Once the Mod Podge is dry, you take squares of felt and glue it on to the bottom. Felt is sold at craft stores for 34 cents a sheet. The bottle of Mod Podge was $7, but it will last forever. My friend, Karin, was there with me and made herself a pink set. Mine are the green ones.

There you go. You now have the easiest, cheapest, cutest holiday gift ever. You're welcome.

Small Projects: Shelves

2011-07-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

The living room in our new apartment is much smaller than our last one. At first I was irritated by this and felt cramped, but then my awesome friend K reminded me how to think positive. She convinced me that it is the perfect size for just two people. Our last living room was so big that we didn't have enough furniture and I didn't know how to decorate it. This one is perfect.

I have had to come up with some creative ways of decorating it, though. We needed somewhere to store our DVDs, so we put two small Target $10 special book shelves behind the couch. We figure it could double as a sofa table-type thing, as well as a little divider between the living room and dining area. The problem was that the shelves were taller than the couch, and the ugly particle board was exposed on the back.

See? Ugly.

Solution: Wrapping paper.

Staying busy

2011-07-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

Life has been super busy lately.

Remember how we packed and moved our entire apartment in one day? We moved it into the new place in two days. It's been crazy.

Things are mostly unpacked. There are still some things that need organizing, but I am working on that and some new projects.

This is one of two paintings that I got from the Salvation Army for $3. The colors are just a little muted for me. I am just really into bright, bold colors. I have begun repainting these and adding more color. I'll share what I end up with soon.

This is the cabinet that my mom gave me (sorry, took the drawers out before I thought to take a picture). I repainted it with a fresh coat of white paint and am going to get new hardware for it. It's going in my craft room. Yes, you read that right. My craft room.

I'll keep you posted on my projects!

I can't resist bragging about my students. It's impossible.

2011-07-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember that I went to court re: the restraining order yesterday. But we're just going to ignore that. Talking about The Drama only makes me get all agitated again, and I am realizing that it is really time I make an effort to move on. So let's focus on the other thing that is going on in my life: work.

This is the last week of my summer internship. It's been so amazing. I'm even friends with 70% of my students on facebook, which is adorable. I just have to brag about these kids. They are awe-inspiring.

They're fifteen and sixteen years old, bilingual, low-income, and absolutely driven beyond anything to go college. They want to be things like nurses, fire fighters, engineers, and teachers (!). I was supposed to teach them basic computer skills, public speaking skills, and professional communication skills. I've done all that, but they have taught me as well. They've shown me how to just throw my lesson plans out the window and instead teach to their needs. I have learned to be patient and kind with students that aren't ready to open up, and to rejoice without freaking them out when they finally get comfortable with me. My students have made me laugh until I cried, made me smile until my cheeks hurt, and glow with so much pride that I thought I'd burst. I adore these students.

We have this big presentation coming up. The students have to present in front of 300 people a ten minute long power point/speech that explains what we did all summer. The kids have been super nervous. I am supposed to be learning how to edit video so that we can close the presentation with a video that was recorded. When the video is finished, I'll probably share with their permission.

My last week of work is as follows:

Today: normal day
Wednesday: Practice for our presentation, have goodbye party, award ceremony in the evening
Thursday: Presentation at 8AM.

End.

Decorating Inspirations, part 1

2011-07-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

We get the keys to our new apartment on July 20. As our third apartment in two years, I have been feeling irritated. Why do we move so much? Why can't we just find our happy place? But in an effort to keep a positive mental attitude about things, I have decided I am going decorate the shit out of this place, excuse the language.

I have tried this decorating thing before and failed pretty terribly. Our really teeny tiny apartment that we lived in right after we stopped living with my dad was supposed to be decorated. I got as fair as donating a bunch of stuff to goodwill and painting the cat door turquoise. This last apartment was also supposed to be cute, which didn't work out since we moved in the middle of the semester and I was busy as hell, and by the time summer came and my free time returned, the place was just overwhelming to me. It took me four months to hang pictures there, and even then I hated the way they looked.

So the new place will be beautiful. You hear me, universe? Goddamn beautiful.

I picked this couch up via Craigslist last night. $50. It's microfiber and a loveseat, which means it will be small enough to not over crowd the small living room of an apartment. It has a small rip on the cushion that has been sewn and I plan on re-stitching to perfection. It's the first couch I have ever had that I like.

I feel like white is a good color. Harder to keep clean, yes, but easier to decorate around. I can do brightly colored throw pillows and quilts. This is also my first couch in a long time that doesn't have an ugly pattern to it.

Here are some of my other decor inspirations:

These are cabinet knobs. My mom has an old shabby chic white dresser that we are going to put in the spare bedroom (did I tell you there is a spare bedroom?!) and I want to put some cute knobs on it.

How cute would this look over our bed?

Career Fair

2011-07-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

July 13 was a big day for me, and for my students. It was the culminating event of my internship with these kids. I worked with six high school students for four weeks to plan, organize, and execute a Career Fair for 165 high school students. The actual Career Fair was yesterday.

It went amazingly well. Last year's event only had about 15 professionals there, but this year we had about 50. It was my job to round up all the potential professionals and to teach the students how to make professional cold calls. They contacted over 200 different professionals and invited them to participate in our fair. They got a lot of "no"s and a lot of hang ups. No one really likes cold calls. We were stuck at the number 20 for quite a while, and were all kind of disheartened about how small the event would be.

But we kept going. I kept making them call, and suddenly people were interested. We had so many careers represented, and some college offices as well! In addition to getting the people to agree to come, we had to fax them registration forms and make sure they were turned in, create gift bags for each professional, create 15 different brochures from scratch about the education required for various careers, make DIY decorations for the venue, rearrange the venue's tables to squeeze 50 tables in there without it being too much of cluster to move around, make a floor plan, order catering and linens, confirm with each professional before the big day, and then actually host the event.

That doesn't even count all the soft skills I was also responsible for teaching the students. I have had to teach them public speaking skills, phone etiquette, computer skills, and organizational skills. We were very busy!

Now that it is over, our task is to create a 10 minute presentation about our experience. The presentation will be given to the entire program I work for (about 300 people). I am hoping to learn how to edit video this weekend.

For fun, here are some of the organizations that my students contacted and had come to the fair:

Peace Corps
US Senator Barbara Boxer's Office
University of California, Davis
An Optometrist
Fire Fighters
Engineers
Social Workers
Many government offices like Water Conservation, Public Health, Emergency Preparedness, etc.
County Supervisor
Mayor of Chico
Desert Farms & Berberian Nut Company
CSUC Departments like Nursing, Teaching, Art, Music
A Geologist

The event was a roaring success, and I am so glad it is over. My feet are killing me today--I wore my highest high heels for 5 hours of walking around. I didn't have the chance to take any photos of the event, but I will share my video when I am finished editing.

Positivity

2011-07-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine is always preaching positivity. He believes that if you have a positive mental attitude, good things will eventually happen. That being negative isn't going to get you anywhere. I used to think this was just a saying he had that helped him cope with bad stuff. And then really good stuff started happening to him. I mean, imagine someone with just shit luck for the last year or more, who begins this journey of positive mental attitude, and good things begin falling into his lap.

Thrilled as I am for him (and you know I am, buddy), I am ready to give his "PMI" idea a chance. I'm thinking positive.

Yesterday was a packing party. We had six people and 2 vehicles join us at our old apartment. It took somewhere between 8 and 9 hours of non-stop work, but we managed to get my entire apartment packed and moved into storage. The day before this, we got an official piece of paper, all signed and fancy, stating that we were off of the lease. It's amazing. Four days ago I thought that we were going to be stuck living with, or at least close by Captain CrazyPants, and now here we are totally off of the lease and moved out.

We're staying with my amazing in-laws until we can find a new place. We have already applied for a new apartment and are waiting to hear back. I have no doubt we'll get it, but then again, even if we don't for some reason, we have a bed at the in-laws and our stuff is safely in storage. There isn't a huge rush anymore. And as for the money situation? We'll sue him. No biggie.

In light of my new positive attitude, I have been eagerly browsing the web for inspirations for our new place. Third apartment in two years--I think this one deserves to be decorated exactly the way I want it to be. I'm going to make a new post soon with all of the beautiful ideas I have for our new digs.

Thank you all for sticking with me through this.

Proceeding With Caution

2011-07-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

If our management company refuses to evict J, and forces us to continue to stay on the lease with the person we have a restraining order against, they are liable in court if J causes harm to me or Nick.

This means: we are getting out of our lease. And we don't have to stay there in their complex, like we originally thought.

Tomorrow we begin searching for the perfect 1 bedroom apartment that will let us move in ASAP.
And we never look down the road of roommates again. Ever.

And we probably take J to small claims court, as planned, unless he pays the eff up.

The Price of Bad Decisions

2011-07-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

Blogging about the stuff that has been going on has been very helpful. Being able to lay out exactly what is happening does a lot for my mental health. Even though the things I type are not great, getting them out of my head and onto something else helps. Does that make sense?

Today we found out that J will not be evicted, because that would make him homeless. And the apartment complex just can't have that. They will be keeping him on the lease and giving us a transfer to a new unit without him. But we have to pay a new deposit and sign over that he can keep the original deposit we left for the place. And we have to pay for July rent at the new place, even though we just paid it at the old place. The rent stays with the unit, even though the check was written by two people leaving the unit.

I was in shock about all of this at first, because it is completely opposite of what we were told originally. But we have learned a new lesson: never trust the manager. She doesn't know anything and can't make any decisions. Only her boss can. There is always someone higher up.Then I was mad, because how were we going to come up with all of this extra money? They are essentially asking us to pay July rent for two units, pay a new deposit AND give up the old one (originally the told us we would get it back because J was being evicted, but since they had a change of heart about J....). Thankfully, my shock and anger has been replaced by fear. Fear is actually much easier to deal with than anger. When I'm angry, I get migraines and can't focus. The fear, though? I go to work in fear. It's becoming my new normal.

I feel so defeated, honestly. Nick and I worked so hard at our jobs and at our budgeting to be able to move to Chico. We had SO MUCH MONEY saved up in our account. We were supposed to be able to pay rent all summer long and into the school year without supplementing from my internship. It was our cushion for the fact that Nick might have a hard time getting a new job. But now? All of it is gone. Every single penny.

My amazing family is helping us financially. Well, Nick's family, really. But they're mine now. I officially claim them because they have been taking care of us so much that I can hardly verbalize it all without crying.

So, in case you are thinking of finding a roommate on craigslist, or you are considering moving in with anyone that you have not done extensive background checks on, let me break down the price of making a bad roommate decision:

$550 for the car vandalism
$725 July rent for old unit
$725 July rent for new unit
$500 pet deposit for new unit
$400 regular deposit for new unit
$900 deposit for old place
--------------------------------
$3,800

The next steps are as follows:

Find him.
Ask him to pay us for July's rent, and for our car damages.

If he refuses, take him to small claims court.

Serve him with restraining order
Have our old lease terminated
Sign new lease

Nick and I can use all the prayers you can muster that we get those things taken care of before the weekend. Please, please, please let us get this straightened out ASAP. Please.

Side Effects.

2011-07-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

I have been hesitant to post this, but if I don't, there is the chance that I might forget how severe this feels right now. I might forget a little bit someday and actually consider forgiveness, and we can't have that.

I'm all about holding grudges. If I didn't, the walls would come down and people I want nothing to do with might worm their ways back in my life. I haven't spoken to one of my sisters in 2 years, and one of my aunts in even longer, because they're trash that have no place in my life. If I forgive them, I might forget what horrible people they are and allow them to come in and screw me up again. So no, I will never forgive J for what he's done.

There have been a few people that haven't understood. They think it's crazy that we don't just go home and call the police if he shows up again (even though calling the police would solve nothing since he is legally still allowed in the residence since the restraining order hasn't been served). Some people ask, "What are you afraid he will do?"

Honestly, that kind of talk just leaves me speechless. What am I not afraid he will do? The man went violent on my car, busting it up so badly that even the glass repair people were shocked. He talked in crazy gibberish about wanting to make me disappear. He got crazy eyes when I told the cops we were pressing charges. His own parents are scared of him.

Just because he didn't attack me with a knife doesn't mean I shouldn't be afraid he won't. I understand this American idea of innocent until proven guilty, but the man confessed. He admitted to doing all of this. Because voices told him to. Am I really supposed to go home and pray the voices don't tell him to come kill me?

What the hell kind of life is this? I have been living out of a suitcase for the last five days. FIVE DAYS. I have one pair of jeans, 2 tops, and a dress. Deodorant. A hair brush and toothbrush. My lap top and phone.

Nick can't leave me alone, because every time he does I have panic attack. Yesterday he left me alone in a room for about an hour and came back to find me in fetal position crying on the floor. Because I was afraid J was coming to get me. I tried some clothes on in a store today (because I have nothing to wear to work tomorrow) and nearly hyperventilated in the changing room.

I keep dreaming that J is sitting in the back seat of my car with his skateboard, ready to bash my skull in as soon as I sit in the driver's seat. My throat gets tight when I think about going to work and facing these students, whom I love, but feel incapable of teaching or helping right now. My left eye has begun twitching and aching non-stop, with a new straining feeling that travels from the twitching eye to my inner ear. I feel nauseated whenever I even think of going home.

I feel like my life has been permanently changed. How can I ever be okay again? Someone I trusted--someone I lived with--has made me so scared I have to take medication to be able to sleep at night. Someone that I shared meals with and watched TV with has left me so afraid of being alone that my husband has had to forfeit his own engagements so that he can be there to keep me from losing it.

So, that is what J has done. To some people it is just some broken glass and mental illness, but to me it's my life turned upside down. It's the difference between me being a functioning, normal person, and me being a hysterical, panic attack driven person.

I hate him. I hate him so much.

And the worst part? I feel like it's not over. Like we'll go to court and he'll convince a judge that he is normal enough to not need a restraining order against him. Like he'll be let into the apartment to get his stuff and end up thrashing our stuff in the process. Like I will never feel like my life is my own again.

The Drama, so far.

2011-07-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

I suppose it is time to fill you all in on what has been happening. If we are facebook friends, you have a pretty good idea of what's happening, and if we're just twitter friends, you're probably wondering what is with my stress lately. I have some time, so let's rewind to April.

April 2011: Our housing plans fall through and we are desperate to move. We post ad on craigslist. The ad says things about being a married couple looking for a drug/alcohol/smoking free roommate. Someone that is drama-free and party-free and will respect us and our cats. A few hits, but nothing really works out. Then we meet this guy, J. He has money and swears he can do everything we ask for in the ad. I am skeptical. He has green hair and facial piercings and is fidgety. I get a bad feeling about it, but we are really desperate to live in Chico. We hang out a few times and eventually decide to sign a lease.

First Day of Living Together: We find out he smokes. The lease has been signed and he swore when we met him that he didn't smoke. But he does. Frequently. He agrees to do it outside only.

April-June 28, 2011: Everything goes smoothly. Nick I do all the cleaning and keep things very tidy. We give J a bed because he was sleeping on the floor. We eat dinner together many times. J pays all bills, etc on time with no complaint. Nick and I discuss renewing our lease with J in October and decide that things should be fine.

June 29, 2011: I drop Nick off at his Chico State Orientations and head to the gym. After the gym, I come home and sit at the dining room table working. J is in his room with the door closed and begins playing very, very loud death metal music. It was so loud I went outside to see if someone was sitting in the parking lot near our window with their car stereo blasting. J eventually comes out and sees me. He says that he didn't know I was home and turns the music down a tad.

Later, I head to work. Around 5PM, Nick and I get home from our days and sit on the couch to watch TV. J storms out of his bedroom and announces to us that, "Something really mean happened on the Internet and I don't want to talk about it." Not that we asked, or really even looked in his direction. J goes and sits in his car in the parking area (right next to the living room window) and revs his engine while in place for 2 minutes straight. It is so loud that we can't hear the TV. He then drives away and returns in about 10 minutes. Oh, and he was shirtless for all of this. He then spends the rest of the evening coming inside to his bedroom and then back outside to sit in his car. At one point when he comes in I ask J if he is alright. He says yes and continues with his weird behavior.

Nick and I go to bed. At around 11:00PM, there is a knock on our door. It's a police officer. They ask Nick if he owns xxx model of car. We do. He tells us that it has been vandalized and asks if our roommate is home. We let the officer in and go outside to see the damage. In the parking lot, all of our neighbors are standing around. They tell us that they all witnessed J use a skateboard to bash the front and back windshields of our car in. Several of them tried to confront him and J was verbally abusive and downright scary. After he was finished, J went inside to his bedroom.

I stay in the apartment while the officers question J. J tells them that the voices in his computer told him to do it. That there is this big hacking group that monitors his computer and knew that he would be good for this job. J says that the hacking group promised him "so much money that it would be rude to say out loud" if he would just go beat up a car with a skateboard. J tells the police that the victims would get reimbursed, and that he was doing the victims a favor.

The officers take J outside. I stay inside with my cats, freaked out. J eventually says he will pay for the damages and the officers leave when Nick agrees to not press charges. Nick gets a broom to sweep up all the glass in the parking lot, and J goes back to his room. Then, out of nowhere, J opens his bedroom door and begins pacing from the bedroom to the bathroom talking loudly to himself. Things like, "My roommates are jerk offs that lie about everything. Lied about names, addresses, heights, weights, and I know he lied about his social security number because I checked that." He also says something about wanting to make us disappear.

Upset and freaked out by his behavior, I run outside and Nick calls 911. I tell the dispatcher what he is saying and the officers return. J is sat down outside. The officer asks why he is treating us this way and J says that we pushed him psychologically to do this. That we had it coming.

J's parents are called. They refuse to come until J has been arrested. They are scared of him.

Nick and I sit on the couch awake all night, terrified that he is going to come back.

June 30, 2011: Morning finally comes. We call AAA. Turns out we don't have glass coverage. All we can do is pay out of pocket to have it fixed and see about taking him to small claims court. We go talk to our apartment manager and property managers.

Managers tell us that all they can do is warn him and give him a second chance, since it was just vandalism.

I head to the court to get a temporary restraining order (my mother in law drives me, because my only car is disabled now). They tell me it will cost $400 to file the petition and hand me a HUGE stack of papers. The overwhelm is immediate. I suddenly understand why people don't go through with these things. I grab a brochure for a place called SHARP, which helps people with legal documents for free.

SHARP separates the packet out into papers I actually have to fill out. I fill those out, and then they review them to make sure everything is done properly. I check the box stating that this is a violent person and hope like hell they waive the $400 fee.

Meanwhile, back at the apartment, a phone call comes in telling everyone that J has escaped from the mental health place and to call the police if he comes back. Nick leaves the manager's office to see J has broken the window of our living room and broken back into the apartment. (we later learn that he spent that time posting strange and confusing things on facebook). The police are called and J is arrested again, and J goes peacefully as if nothing is wrong.

I add all this into my restraining order papers.

My mother in law brings me to work, though I am 30 minutes late. My students were given busy work to do my saintly boss, and I am able to get my mind off of things for a few hours. After work, I have a huge panic attack. I have no car and am going to be forced to ride the bus. I get short of breath and am overwhelmed with a sense of panic about being on the bus with strangers. My good friend comes and picks me up. We then pick up Nick as well and head to his grandmother's house.

It is at Grammy's house that we eat our first meal (at 8pm) since dinner the previous day. Grammy takes us to Nick's aunt's house, who happens to have an empty bed because her children are out of town for the weekend. We get our first nights sleep since Tuesday.

July 1, 2011: We wake bright and early to go meet the Glass Repair company. The estimate is $500+, well over the amount that labels the crime a felony. Nick's amazing mother agrees to pay for it.

I spend the entire day going from one panic attack to the next. I eventually am able to find out that the judge has ruled on the petition and I can come get it. Nick's aunt lets us borrow a car and we drive over to the court.

The temporary restraining order has been granted. J is no longer allowed within 100 yards of me, Nick, our apartment, or our car. Our manager at the apartment lets us know they are going to do a "Three Days to Quit" and evict him on Tuesday. This means that even if the restraining order was not granted, he will be evicted and banned from the entire complex. We find out that the restraining order is only good once it is served, but we have no idea where he is.

His mother has turned off her cell phone and refused to return calls. J is missing, and we have no idea where he is or how to find him so that we can have him served. We talk to our manager, and she assures us that no matter what, he is being evicted and will have 3 days from Tuesday to move out. If we manage to get him served BEFORE those three days, he will have to have an officer escort him into the property to get his stuff.

We get a court day for mid July. On that date, we all show up and a Judge will decide whether or not to extend the order for up to 3 years.

We find out from the police that J is on medications and has either been off of them or has been taking too many. We find a huge bag of marijuana on his bed (the bed we freaking gave him out of the kindness in our hearts). We also find out from his mom that he has done this sort of thing before and can be dangerous.

We head to the police station and leave a voicemail for the officer in charge of our case. We tell him that the damage was over $400 and we want him charged with a felony count of destruction of property.

Meanwhile, the Holiday weekend is beginning. Nothing can be done until Tuesday.

So...right now we are staying with some amazing family and periodically going back to the apartment to see if he shows up. If he does show up, we can ask a neighbor or our manager to serve him the restraining orders. We are also planning to move away and eventually buy a different car, so that he can not know where we are or what we drive.

It's sort of a waiting game now.

The worst part of all of this is the panic attacks. I am going through such intense emotional distress over this that I can't eat and have to take medication to be able to fall asleep. I have intense nausea, panic, and migraines. And I'm terrified. When we found out there was no Deputy on duty that could try to track J down and serve him the papers today, and that we would have to wait until Tuesday, I nearly threw up. I began crying the first tears I have shed since this whole thing started. I honestly had trouble breathing and began visualizing J coming to murder us.

Oh, and I think I left out the part about our cats being safe. Nick's mother took them home with her.

There you have it. My first restraining order to go with my first craigslist roommate. Voila!

Thank you all so much for your love, prayers, and support. I mean that. THANK YOU.

Be Happy

2011-06-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

Here are some random things from my life that should make you feel happy. Because everyone knows, I'm sort of a picture-maniac. My friend Emily even rolled her eyes at me recently when I tried to take pictures of her water coloring. Sheesh!

Karin, Emily, and I made tissue paper pom-poms at our most recent craft party. For the hell of it. What?

We also water colored some coffee filters, added pipe cleaners, and made butterflies.

Then we made some felt-flowers.

Emily got bored and had to make a picture.

Here is my lap top. I know you were dying to see how it's decorated.

Isn't it just awesome?

That's what he said.

Clearly, I have too many Klean Kanteens. Nick has one, and I have three. I wouldn't mind a few more.

My amazing $1 bird decor.

My awesome friend, Fallon, made me this pink jeweled bracelet.

Hey, look! I found my very favorite earrings (the owls) after they had been lost from the move!

That is my super favorite skirt. Prettiest thing in my closet.

My $10 Old Navy swim suit. I'm a bargain hunter. It's more of a hot pink than photographed.

Lucy had a lot to say, she wouldn't hold still for a photo.

This is why my students love me. I bring them treats every day.

Daisy is skeptical of you.

I miss fruit.

2011-06-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

I don't know how this happened, but out of nowhere I have become a picky eater.
Maybe I know a little bit how it happened. Let's back up.

I have always had really sensitive skin and a really sensitive stomach. My stomach can't handle greasy things or very acidic things, which cuts out a lot of things. When I was young I would cry after walking outside barefoot because it felt like my feet were burning afterwards. Some shampoos always made my scalp itch and others didn't. It was just a fact. A few months ago my skin took a really strange turn. I began getting hives almost every day. They would appear on my face, my arms, my stomach, my back, my neck...pretty much everywhere.

I tried first switching soaps, shave creams, face washes, and even laundry soap. Nothing helped. Then I started doing some research about what could cause this and you know what? I'm allergic to latex.

I've always been highly allergic to avocados, but apparently that allergy has developed into a full blow latex allergy (avocados are extremely high in latex). As it turns out, latex is in EVERYTHING. Apples, bananas, mangoes, plums, peaches, lettuce, pineapple, fruit juices, raw tomato, raw potato...the list keeps going. Latex is also used in most clothing, but that's a story for another day.

Since cutting those things out of my diet, my skin is perfect. No hives in forever. Occasionally I will go to Costco and accidentally try a free sample and end up with a stinging or tingle in my lips, but that is always a good learning experience (chocolate covered acai berries caused a reaction).

Taking away all of my favorite foods, combined with the fact that I am just not a huge fan of meat, and I have turned into a picky eater. Every night I come home from work and the Dinner Battle begins. My husband tries to find things to cook us and I just miserably sit here and say no. Absolutely nothing sounds appealing anymore.
Except dessert. And soda. Neither of which I allow myself to have.

Honestly, I am at a loss. I'm not eating much, which isn't good because I am working out quite a bit. I'm also not losing weight, which is related I guess. I get these migraines and feel weak and faint, but I honestly feel like I hate every single food available to me.

Am I just going through a phase? I feel like a picky toddler.

I just want to eat a goddamn apple again.

She wears her heart on her sleeve.

2011-06-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

Last time I talked about how great it can feel to teach, and I stand by that. However, sometimes it feels really rough.

When I am around people--any people really: children, teens, adults--I feel like I want to help them. It's just my nature. Some of my friends might even say that I try to help too much and can be annoying, but I never mean any harm.

This is why it sucks so much when I can't help someone, especially a student. Friday/Today has turned into one of those long extended rough moments in teaching. I can't go into details, but a young girl that I care about and have a good relationship with decided to drop out of the program. There is more background to the story and none of it is good. I'm left feeling so defeated, like I failed at helping her. I know I didn't and that it was ultimately her choice and this whole thing should really not affect me at all, but I am just so heart-sick over it.

In another related tough moment, a former student of mine has been contacting me with a lot of distress about their upcoming college choice. They have already been accepted to an amazing university and will be heading there this summer, but they are stressed and confused and keep turning to me to help. I'm thrilled that they are asking me for help, but I just haven't been able to succeed. Nothing I say has been helpful. I feel like one more piece of advice from me that sucks and they are going to stop turning to me.

I think I take on too much with students. I love them all so much, but the fact is that I am just a passing person in their lives. When they ask me for help and I am unable to provide it, I need to accept it. I can't fill all the voids in these students' lives, no matter how much I try. I have to be careful or I may burn out.

Sometimes I think I'd like to get a tattoo of a heart on my wrist. You know, because I just wear on my damn sleeve all the time.

Teacher Moments

2011-06-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

The anxiety over teaching has begun to lessen. I still get butterflies in my stomach right before I go to work, but getting to know my students has done wonders for me. I feel like they're my buddies (buddies with whom I am still the authority figure, of course) and haven't had as much panic over it.

I am in a unique position with these students. I have been in their exact shoes. I have been in the program they are currently in that places them in my class (I am alumni of the program). Aside from that though, I have one student whom I know from being her tutor last semester at her high school. Last semester, every Wednesday, I drove to Red Bluff and tutored her, and now here she is my in my classroom.

Because we had/have such a great relationship, she presented me with this:

She made me a ring tray/jewelry thing in her ceramics class. It's my first Teacher Gift, you guys!
I'm lucky. Lucky lucky lucky. I'm lucky to have such amazing students, to have such a fulfilling job, and to feel so deep inside me that this is right. I am supposed to teach. I would be dissatisfied with my life if I weren't, in some capacity, working with (anxiety-inducing) youth.

This internship is almost enough to make me want to switch my concentration from elementary age children to high school age. Almost.

Back to work (sort of)

2011-06-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first day of my summer internship. It's an internship with the same company I work for during the academic year. This summer I will be the supervisor of 6 high school students who are organizing a Career Fair. My job is really about teaching them public speaking skills, inter personal skills, and guiding them in the right directions to get everything for the fair completed.

The only big event I have ever planned was my wedding, and something tells me this Career Fair is going to be bigger than that, minus the cake and white dress. It's still a formal event though, with more people than were at my wedding, and with a lot less planning. My wedding took 10 months to execute, the students and I only have 5 weeks. And not even a full 5 weeks, but 4 hours/day for 4 days/week. Yikes!

The first day was a bit hectic. There was an orientation at the beginning of our 4 hours that took a good hour out of our time. I felt like I was rushing the rest of the afternoon to get through everything, but I don't think I could have slowed it down that much--which tells me that I need to plan more things. My timeline is 11 pages long already, I don't know how I am going to fit more stuff in there!

My body has been a wreck from all of this, however. I have been getting really terrible anxiety right before I go in to teach, which is hard for me to deal with. I'm studying to be a teacher. My heart calls to being a teacher. I have to get over this. My personal trainer keeps warning me that stress will cause me to not lose weight no matter how hard I work myself at the gym and dieting, but I don't know what to do. I have no health insurance and the clinic on campus for the students is not free. I thought they would be free to students, but they just offered to sell me some subsidized insurance that was 1/3 of my rent each month.

3 hours until I go to my second day of work! Fingers crossed that today goes much better than yesterday.

Learning How To Live

2011-06-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday and I have wound up another solid week of gym and healthy eating. K and I have recruited our friend, Emily, to join us at the gym and it's been great having that extra person to keep us motivated. I have found that making a commitment to go with people keeps me accountable. If I don't feel like going, I have my buddies texting me at 6:30AM saying things like, "Ready to get your butt whooped?" and it gets me up and moving.

Working with our personal trainer (we go to see her in a group--also kills some of the self consciousness!) has taught me so, so much. First we learned that our posture on the elliptical machines was wrong. Apparently you are supposed to keep your knees "soft" the entire time, never letting them extend all the way out because it can cause knee problems. Changing that has turned our workouts upside down! You wouldn't believe how much more work it is to maintain the new posture. We have gone down from 60 minutes on the elliptical to just 40 but are getting the same amount of work done. Brooke (our personal trainer) has also given us a lot of weight training advice. We have learned how to properly do squats and lunges and how to do some amazing triceps workouts (all of which we can do at home if we choose).

Really, though, the most valuable thing I am learning is how to eat. I grew up in a house where the only meat we ever ate was 1.) from McDonald's or 2.) pan fried. We also never ate vegetables unless they were out of a can. There was never such a thing as healthy snacking, either. Growing up, the only snacks I even knew about were chips or cookies. I have amended most of these habits as an adult out of my mother's house, but Brooke has been taking it a step further. She is showing me how to eat to nourish my body, not just for the sake of eating.

Here are some of the things I am being instructed to do:

Eat 1500 calories per day
Track my food using sparkpeople.com to make sure I get enough protein
Eat within 30 minutes of waking up and within 60 minutes of working out
Eat every 3 hours to keep my metabolism from crashing
Don't stop eating at 6PM like so many diets tell you to, eat at 9 if you are hungry and still have calories left for the day. It's a simple equation of calories in vs. calories burned; weight loss has nothing to do with what time of day it is
Avoid foods that are pre-packaged, eat fresh whenever possible
Eliminate drinking anything that isn't water or nonfat milk
Cut back (eventually eliminate) cheese
Burn at LEAST 500 calories per day (I aim for 1000 calories so that I can take weekends off)
Weight train every two days
Lift enough weight that you can only lift it 40 reps total (if you can do more than 2 sets of 20 it's too little weight to make a difference)

They're small, kind of common sense changes, but they're making a difference. I'm already down one jean size and in general, I feel better. At first I hated every minute of gym time, but now I find myself zoning out and de-stressing while I am exercising. Even my husband has noticed that on days I don't work out I am easily stressed out and more irritable.

I am trying to maintain my optimism that this is going to be a lifestyle change. I am going to change. I am going to be happy with my body. I am going to be healthy.

TGIF: Good News

2011-06-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

I know you love good news as much as me, so let's all sit criss cross applesauce and share our news. I'll begin.

I won a scholarship! It's not a huge one, but I am so excited and thankful. I worked really hard on the essay and was blessed to be given some really amazing letters of recommendation from professors, and apparently it was all worth it. I will be able to use 100% of the scholarship for my state testing, which I need to be taking this year.

I lost 2 lbs! Not a huge amount, but it's about time I started to see that scale drop. K. and I have been going to the gym for three weeks now. We did five full days this week! This week we bumped our total cardio from 45 minutes to 80 (combined 60 mins on elliptical and 20 on bike). We have also been doing weight training, which is great.

K and I met with a personal trainer! We have another appointment on Tuesday. She was really kind and is going to work with us to plan out personalized weights routines. She is also really accessible so we can drop by her office (it's right next to the cardio machines) and ask her any questions we have. She also volunteered to help us with nutrition planning and meeting our long term goals. It was really great to feel support from the staff. I love that part of my tuition covers all this!

My nephew graduated high school! I can't believe he's grown up. James grew up as my little brother, because his piece of crap mother couldn't be bothered to actually be a mom. My mom and step Dad raised him and he's turned into such a kind young man. Although I HATE graduation ceremonies, it was nice to see him celebrated.

It has been noted that my husband looks like Indiana Jones here. I'll have you know that is a bonafide Indiana Jones hat from our trip to Disneyland.

I have been sewing again! My sewing machine finally got pulled from its oppressive box and has a home in our new apartment. My first act of business was to cover my machine in Lisa Frank stickers. My next act was to finish a quilt that has been sitting in the 1/4 way done stage for over a year. You know what this means, don't you? A certain quilting blog with a catchy title just may start getting updated on a regular basis again. (Don't worry, I'll alert you when this starts happening.)

So pretty much, life's good. I am trying to work on my anxiety overall. Even though life is fabulous right now, I have a hard time not getting worked up over little things. The personal trainer today told me that this stress creates hormones that make it difficult to lose weight, so I really need to focus on relaxing.

Now it's your turn. What good news do you have to share, being that you're already criss cross applesauce and all.

I'm a little late on this...

2011-05-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

As usual, I'm late on the bandwagon.
Have you guys heard of pineterest? It's a mix of really stupid and of awesome.
It's like a virtual pin-board of images you like on the web. It keeps track of where you found the images too, so it's also a bit like bookmarking or favoriting but just with images.

You can have different boards according to what you like and you follow your friends' boards also. You can "repin" or "like" the images they post.
Here is my profile: http://pinterest.com/misspattycake/
You need an invite to join, so let me know if you'd like one. It's kind of addicting, though, so be warned.

'Cause if you liked it, then you shoulda put a ring on it.

2011-05-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

Today has been over the top, out of control, ridiculously productive, and it's only 11AM.

I got up at the crack of dawn and went to the gym (4 days this week so far!) and worked my butt off. Well, not literally off, but that would be fantastic. Seriously. It was weights day so we did weights and then so much cardio I thought I would puke, but I did not puke! Victory!

When I came home Nick and I began Spring Cleaning. We have kicked some dirty apartment ass. I even mopped. Next I may even hang some things on the walls (finally).

And for fun, here was this week's Work Out Playlist

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun -Cyndi Lauper

Bad Romance -Lady Gaga

Bang Bang -Melanie Fiona

Dance in the Dark -Lady Gaga

Express Yourself -Madonna

Gasoline -Britney Spears

Heart of Glass -Blondie

Hey Mama -BEP

Holding Out For A Hero -Bonnie Tyler

Hound Dog -Elvis Presley

I'm A Slave 4 U -Britney Spears

Love Is A Battlefield -Pat Benatar

Night of the Dancing Flame -Roisin Murphy

Hold It Against Me -Britney Spears

Satellite -Strung Out

Pocketful of Sunshine -Natasha Bedingfield

Single Ladies -Beyonce

Wake Me Up Before You Go Go -Wham!

Wannabe -Spice Girls

Your Honor -Regina Spektor

Who Do You Think You Are -Spice Girls

Changes -Tupac

Just Dance -Lady Gaga

Here I talk about my hair a bit, and also some things I bought. Riveting.

2011-05-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

I just got back from getting a trim and oh my goodness, I feel so much happier with life. I went through some pretty funky hair phases during my teens, and it feels good to have a nice, normal, adult hair style now.

(I made that face just for you, bloggers. You're welcome.)

Since I had the car and some free time before my hair appointment today, I went to my favorite bargain clothing store (because at the end of the day I am one cheap lady), Ross. I was really excited to get a dress and a few bras for less than $30. I almost posted pictures of the bras, because they are freaking adorable, but decided against it. Darn you, judgement.

(You can't really see, but the bottom ruffle is black and it hits just below the knee.)

We had a tornado here yesterday, which was ridiculously out of character for our area, but today it was blue skies and I got to wear my favorite new summer sandals:

And this concludes my most narcissistic post of the month. Have you gotten anything adorable lately?

The Eye Twitch & Finals Week

2011-05-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

I am sure that by now many of you are sick of hearing about my twitching eye, but I am going to write about it anyway.

It's been twitching for over a week. Just a little flicker every few minutes in the corner of my left eye. And it's starting to hurt! Combine this with the grey hair issues and I am sure you can see I am stressed out beyond belief.

I have a cumulative final at 2PM today. 120 terms to study, writing at least a half page for each one.

Also, Nick needs a job.

This is the hardest semester I have had in years. This week I also have a 15 minute presentation and a giant cumulative math test.

Thankfully Spring Semester 2011 will be complete by Thursday evening.

Addictions

2011-05-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

It's a known fact that I have an addictive personality.
My childhood collections of Care Bears, NSYNC memorabilia, and plucking my eyebrows are proof enough of that. Thankfully I overcame those obsessions.

Lately I have had 2 new such frantic desires: to shop and to stick(er).

Having exhausted my Lisa Frank options for the time being (the shopping function of their website is broken!), Amazon appeased my need for stickers with this collection. I have been stickering things to my heart's content. Nick actually handed me some money the other day and said, "Try not to spend it all on stickers." Isn't he adorable?

The shopping has been a little harder to appease. I've tried to keep this under control by not going to any stores lately. Internet shopping is much easier for me to handle. I can fill my entire online basket up and then sit and carefully ponder what I do and don't need.

Old Navy.com and I have such a love/hate relationship.

And then Payless and I...

Also, nail polish...

Sigh.
I'm hopeless.
But it feels so good (most of the time).

A last day of work

2011-05-13T16:26:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day of working in high schools for the semester. I don't have a job again until June when my internship starts. It was kind of bittersweet. I adore my kids, but I am so glad to have some time off.

One of my students totally made my day by bringing me in a huge piece of white cake with fresh strawberry filling. I brought in graduation gifts for my seniors (Dr. Seuss style, you know the one), and fake mustaches and stickers for my younger students.

Life is hectic right now, to be honest. Nick is on the job hunt pretty seriously. He needs employment right away or us and the kitties will be packing our hobo bags (you know--the sack on a stick over the shoulder?). I have finals next week, which compliments the numerous finals I already had this week. My eye has been twitching quite a bit.

I think it's about time I start planning all the fun things I am going to do this summer. Books, sewing, painting!

Major Crisis

2011-05-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

Notice anything?

I'm going grey (gray?), you guys.

A year ago it was just one or two that I plucked out.
Obviously that was a mistake.
I'm 23 and my scalp is speckled in silver.
And it's pretty noticeable when the sun hits it.
What do you think, time to dye?

Mother's Day Entry

2011-05-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

A big Happy Mother's Day!! to all of the mothers who read this.

There is my own mother, of course, but so many of my friends are mothers as well. I can't even name all of you, but about 90% of the blogs I read (on the right hand side over there...) are written by mothers.

Every time I read them I am inspired by you and your strength. I am encouraged by your patience, your kindness, and your love. And most of all, I am encouraged that one day I will get to be a mother as well.

I am blessed to have my mother in my life. She has been there for me through some awful and some amazing times. In honor of her, I am going to share some of my favorite memories of her.

Walking to the Dollar Store in Vallejo together so that I could go spend my four quarters on a bean-bag clown doll thing (don't ask, I had weird interests).
Sitting in her lap while we rode the bus and her letting me pull the little string for our stop.
Watching I Love Lucy marathons on that old floral couch.
Her teaching me how to write my name on a magna-doodle.
Taking me when I was 15 to get my hair dyed black and red (no, I will not be sharing pictures)
Hugs after my first heart break
Her taking pictures (which I *might* share) of my best friend and me dying my hair pink.
Taking me a year later to get a big girl Farrah Faucet hair cut.
Shopping for wedding dresses together
Doing her make up before my wedding
Watching movies together as adults on my cramped couch in my old cramped apartment
Shopping together. We love to shop.
Sorting through pictures together to find all the ones of my dad.
Taking her to the pet store to pick out sweaters for her dog.
Singing Bonnie Raitt together.
Marine World, watching the Bird Show
Her helping me clean and pack for the new apartment
Going to the movies together
The way she pronounces gnocchi as "knotty".

Let's see if I can pack even more things into next weekend!

2011-05-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend was full of both awesome and terrible.
I attended Diversity Day at one of the high schools I work at, and it was fantastic. I tried Hmong food and saw lots of cool danced.

I also attended the 37th annual International Festival at Chico State, which was pretty disappointing. I spent a lot of money on food that ended up being disgusting. (spring rolls are NOT the same as egg rolls!)

I went to a farmer's market and loaded my fridge up with fresh veggies.

I had girl's night out and attended a really awful, fugly fashion show.

I spent $200 on a new vacuum with the hopes this one actually works.

There's your summary. Here are your pictures of all of that, plus my new place. (note: no pictures of the fashion show because I was too busy throwing up in my mouth at the ugly clothing and models to actually photograph it. Plus, I can't be responsible for showing you images that might burn your retinas).

spring rolls. Yucko!

That bun thing was called "Chicken Bun". It was not as good as it promised to be.

I love to dress up!

Here, have a list.

2011-04-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Packing sucks. You get to that point where you just throw everything into boxes to get it done, and then you move and start UNpacking and realize how much crap you just threw in there. So basically, I have several half-unpacked boxes of junk.
Laundry mats kind of suck, but it's the only place I have use of the internet for now. Dryer #2 is making a horrible racket. Like, so bad I wish I could record the noise and share it with you so you could all suffer with me.
This town and its pollen effing suck. I can't stop sneezing.
I have been cooking again! It's nice having a real kitchen.
I should have bought a vacuum when I had the money. For now I am stuck sweeping the carpet.
It's amazing being able to hang out with my friends so frequently.
What? Natural light? Holy crap, I don't live in a hole anymore!
I have a new (rekindled) obsession with Lisa Frank. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, except that I have been scouring the internet looking for one of those big plastic Lisa Frank binders and can't find one. Anyone have one they wanna sell me?
I just noticed that my zebra print bra is spinning around in the dryer right next to the glass so everyone can see. Obviously I need to start hand washing my delicates like a normal woman.As I said, laundry mats suck.
I registered for my classes next semester, and holy crap does my schedule suck. I'm not even going to mention it yet, since I need to find out my work schedule for the Fall before anything is final.
Decorating isn't fun until all the boxes are unpacked.
Free couches are not always cute couches. In fact, they never are.

Just checking in...

2011-04-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

Hi!

I'm just checking in. We don't have our internet set up at the new place, so I'm blogging from the laundry room.

Thank you for all the prayers for my mom. She's back home and doing fine. There is a grocery list of health problems, but for right now she is fine. Thank you again.

I am loving my new apartment, but not loving un-packing and moving stuff very much. I finally got the kitchen unpacked, now I just need to get to work on the rest of the place!

Pictures soon! <3

Good/Bad Things

2011-04-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

The good news is that we got the call about our apartment yesterday, drove over after work, signed the lease and paid the deposit and got the keys. We officially have a Chico address.

The bad news is that I also got a call from my Daddy 2. My mom is in the hospital. She hasn't been breathing well, and the doctor suggested she go to the ER. They went to the ER and she was admitted on suspicions of congestive heart failure. She's okay right now, but this is some really serious business and I'm just so heart broken. I don't feel strong enough to go through this again so soon after losing my Daddy.

Good thoughts and prayers would be really appreciated right now. Thank you all.

Once, I was a Chinese Dancer, and other stories.

2011-04-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

Last November I asked readers what they would like to see me blog about, and my dear friend Cassie wanted to know what I was like as a child. Since I am avoiding my homework and housework like a bad case of pneumonia, here we go.

When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I often replied with "blonde".
In an effort to avoid hurt feelings, I decided that I would call my dad "Daddy 1" and my step-dad "Daddy 2". It stuck, and has been their nicknames since. I still call my step-dad "Daddy 2" even though Daddy 1 has passed.
My mom used to dress me in horrible things. Photos of me ages 0-13 have me in things like black/white leopard print, western dresses with tennis shoes, hot pink spandex shorts, and acid wash denim vests.
After spending one measly summer on the East coast visiting relatives, I started telling all of my friends I had lived in New York.
I honestly did have a New York accent all through 2nd grade, though. It was thanks to my dad. They put me in speech class.
Barbies were the best thing in the world. I had hundreds of them, complete with dream houses and yachts and RVs.
Speaking of Barbies, my favorite Barbie dolls were my Ariel the Little Mermaid (no tail) doll and my ballerina doll, complete with painted on ballet slippers.
I played a "Chinese Dancer" in my 2nd grade production of the "The Nutcracker". It was exciting because I got to wear red lipstick.
Because my parents were 38 and 50 years old when I was born, I had nightmares all through 5th grade that they would both be dead before I graduated high school.
I went to Bible Camp a few summers in a row. I mostly liked it because it was as close to a summer vacation as my family could afford, but I hated all the actual Christian stuff.
Speaking of church, when I was very young I would "get saved" at least once a month. I always raised my hand when it was time, let people cry and pray over me, all so that they would give me candy at the end. Being saved for your sins=candy.
When I was 5 I had this cat named Mog. He was the best cat ever. He was my first and only pet until I got much older.
I used to write a lot of poetry. Like, a lot a lot. I would copy it on to paper in nice handwriting, put it in a page protector, and put it in this one giant binder. I still have that binder somewhere, packed full of nearly 500 poems.
I learned every single word to "Baby Got Back" because it impressed my friends in middle school.

Oh, April.

2011-04-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

The plan is to stay busy every single day in April. I will go to work, go to classes, do my homework, study for tests, pack my apartment up, job hunt for the summer, plan my schedule for next semester, clean my bathroom from top to bottom, study for and take the CBEST, and focus on the future.

I will not sit down and cry my eyes out every day.
The 21st will be 1 year since my daddy died.
And I'm still here. I'm okay. I'm going to keep being okay.

LOOK!

2011-04-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

Look at what Tom did to my blog! He drew all of that! And that's my face and my cat Lucy! YAY!

I bet you want your blog to be so cute and fantastic. I can hook you up. ;)

Also, I felt the need to have rainbow toes:

My new facial accessory

2011-03-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

New glasses! They have pink on the sides. Not as fantastic as my last pair, but I couldn't find exactly what I wanted and I was tired of not being able to see, so I settled. Excuse the hair, it was a long Monday.

And for giggles, here is what I do in my limited free time:

But in the end she just wanted to play with the camera cord.

Also exciting is that my friend Tom is designing a new look for this blog. It's going to be amazing, trust me. As for the pink new stuff that's here right now? Some of you wanted to know and it's just from the "template designer" on blogger.

Have a good week!

Today is kind of a big deal

2011-03-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

In 3 hours I am applying for graduation.

Holy cow. This time next year will be my last semester as an undergrad. I'll be getting my BA.

I think I'm going to puke now.

Housing Drama

2011-03-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

Do you ever notice that the ideas you have about yourself are rarely true? Like, you think you're a good house keeper until you have company and notice how dirty things are, or you feel like you're great at math until someone asks you how much that sweater will be with the 15% off coupon?

That happens to me a lot. Maybe I am just not very good at seeing myself. Because in my mind's eye, I am a drama-free woman who avoids conflicts and keeps the peace. But lately I have been feeling like I am just a great big drama queen.

It started with my best friend. Like, very best friend. Maid of honor in my wedding kind of friend. Who was going to be a roommate with Nick and I and was excited and helped me plan things for months in advance. But then changed her mind last minute and let me know via a text message that didn't even explain her reasons for changing her mind. I don't think I have to really go into just how much drama there was from that. We're still not talking, 2 weeks later.

Then we had this other friend we were going to live with. Everything was awesome with that, except that some uncontrollable circumstances forced him to back out of living with us literally the day after we submitted an application for a place. There was no drama with him, but there was a lot of drama of my own: crying, cursing, feet stamping.

Then I resorted to craigslist. I posted an ad explaining things. Telling people who we are and what we are looking for. And I got a reply. And we this couple for coffee and they were great and we were so excited. We went home and looked up places and exchanged emails with different apartment websites. And then today they changed their mind. They decided they didn't want to worry about roommates.

Honestly, I feel defeated. No dramatics this time. No feelings of huge disappointments. Just utter defeat. Nick and I work ourselves to exhaustion all week long and still don't make enough money to be able to afford a one bedroom in town, so the only way we are going to get there is by having roommates, which is apparently impossible. I feel stuck. We're going to be living in this wretched apartment until we're both credentialed teachers, but then watch--we won't be able to find work so we'll still have to stay here.

Did I mention that our apartment flooded yesterday? Or that it's snowing again, which renders our car useless? Or that our sink keeps backing up, ants keep crawling out of the grout in the shower, spiders have infested every crevice of the living room, the fluorescent lighting in every room gives me migraines, or that my face is covered in stress acne? How about the $4.00/gallon gas prices we are paying for our various commutes because this place is at least 45 minutes away from everywhere we need to be? Or the creepy guy on the bus that makes me afraid of the public transit that is essential to getting me to class? Or that I kept track of my mileage last week and honest to goodness: drove 200 miles in one and a half days?

I just want to sleep until June.

Wait, I was on vacation? I had no idea. (and hair pictures)

2011-03-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

This week has been Spring Break and to be honest, I hardly noticed. The lack of classes was negated by the fact that I was running around just as busy every day. Most of this can be contributed to apartment hunting, which, to make a long story short, has been largely unsuccessful. A place was applied for but we had to withdraw our application thanks to some unfortunate uncontrollable circumstances. Now we're going to (not so) patiently stay where we are and try to save more money up in case an awesome 1 bedroom or fantastic roommate becomes available.

I've also been working a lot. Spring Break opened my days up for going to work and actually having time to do my job without yawning in all the of the student's faces, so that was good. And I could use the money, to be frank.

Some fun things have occurred: I got a hair cut and I spent some time with a good friend. Here are some pictures:

Before:

After:

I'm having that problem where I can't quite make it look like this again, though. It's just these pesky bangs. I'm so bad at remembering what the stylist did to make them like that. Oh well. I'll learn I'm sure.