up north...

happy birthday jesus!

they don't call it brrr-midji for nothing.

midnight bowling. never have i heard so much 80's music since, well, the 1980s. (by the way, my score never left the 80s either.)

mimi's tree.

a local hot spot. one of many.
it is northern minnesota, after all.

happy birthday jesus!

years ago, before i was even born, my mom made a nativity scene in a ceramics class. today, i have that nativity scene. she sent it to me in the mail, having replaced it with a more up-to-date version.

i like hers best-it holds a lot of pleasant memories for me, as i'm sure it does for her too. i love to flip the pieces over and look at her initials hand-carved on the bottom of each one.

i think jesus would have been very proud.

your fired!

yes, if the donald were in charge of my future as a blogger, he'd have me hitting the road, jack. so it's been a month and a half since my last (extremely short and boring) entry, i've been busy!

so busy, in fact, that i finished school. yes, i completed my student teaching on the 30th of november and attended my last class on the 7th, last friday. wow. i finally have that illusive b.a. i've been trying to get for the last 15 years. ouch. nothing like laying all out.

but it's mine. not to jinx myself - i don't actually know if i passed yet - but i should be receiving my degree in the mail any day. now i just sit and wait...wait to see if i passed the state test, wait for my license and certification. then i can start subbing. well, after i get fingerprinted - can't have any criminals roaming the classrooms.

so i've been busy. and when i'd have a moment where i wasn't commuting, or working, or teaching, or lesson planning, or writing reflections, or making my peanut butter sandwiches for the next day's lunch...well, i just didn't feel like blogging. forgive me.

now it's the christmas season, and i'd almost rather be doing all of that over again rather than brave the malls to buy gifts. especially when i have no idea what to get anyone. any suggestions? my husbands family just draws names every year so everyone is only buying for one person. i like that (though not everyone sticks to it. i will, stickler for the rules and all...) this year i have one of his sister's names and so far i know she wants socks and bland recipe cards. whoo hoo. i can't wait to see the look on her face this year when she gets tan, black and grey! imagine the outfit possibilities!

this is the first year that my husband and i will actually spend christmas together. up until now we had gone our separate ways, neither of us willing to part with our own family's christmas traditions (christmas eve horsdevours at my house are gift enough, mom!). but now we're married so we have to act like we want to become a part of our spouses family's christmas. and it's not that we think the other's sucks, we just love ours so much...anyway, we probably would've gone our separate ways again, but our families feel that since we're married now, we should probably start acting like it.

we thought maybe when kids came, we could send one with one family, the other with the other. trade every other year...

anyway, glad to be back and all. happy to have survived the last three months.

i love sunday mornings...

moving day!

today is a very big day for the folks--moving day! after over 23 years in beautiful estes park, colorado, the sunny mountain oasis where much of my formative years occurred, my parents have made the very big decision to move off of the mountain, leave the bears and bobcats behind, and make a new life for themselves about 45 minutes down the canyon. eventually they will call loveland, colorado, their home...for now, a little town between loveland and denver is where they'll lay down stakes until they find the perfect dream home.

i'm excited for them, even though my mom is totally nervous, to be sure--she's not a fan of change and if it were up to her, we'd probably still be living on andrew's avenue (yep, now you get the name) in detroit lakes, minnesota, the place where i was born (to everyone's joy and amazement, i'm sure) a mere thirty-*ahem* years ago. but no, she married the traveling nomad, and so about eight or nine homes later, starting anew. i'm excited for them.

there are things i and they will miss--as mentioned before, it was always exhilarating to look out the window of the house and see a bear or a deer or a bobcat roaming through the yard, or pressing it's nose against the glass. the woods are a beautiful and beguiling place to settle down, and nothing beats a silent winter walk through the trees.

that being said, to be 45 minutes closer to the grandson and 5 minutes from a target ain't all that bad either.

i talked to my mom this morning, about 6:45 a.m. their time, and of course she was up. she'd probably been up for three hours.

i know it'll all go fine. i wish i were there to help and i can't wait to hear how things go. i'm totally excited to see the new place...there's a little nomad in me too.

president sheen.

oh, the pride i feel for my better half; it must be a sin. he always knows how to act around dignitaries.

slacker.

i have been hoooooorible about writing anything for my blog, not that my fan base reaches beyond my husband and parents (who check it religiously so you'll never see anything too juicy on here...). i'm at work right now and they must have the security temporarily down on our computers because usually i can't do anything with my blog here. the higher-ups don't want us having any fun after all. god forbid.

today we had parent-teacher conferences at the school where i am student teaching. it was very interesting and eye-opening, to say the least. we learned a lot about our students, and sometimes our parents (a little too much, in some cases...). sadly, not even half of the students' parents even showed up, which says to me "i care this much about my parents school life and education" (said while holding up their fingers to form the number zero). some might disagree, saying that parents are busy, busy people and it's not always so easy to steal away for a conference with their child's teacher. to that i say a big, fat ya right. your kid spends every monday through friday at this place for 9 months out of the year and you can't be bothered to show up for twenty minutes on one day out of that? i don't buy it. not to mention the fact that times were offered both last night and all day today. sad.

on another note, i have found a new blog i like. six until me is a blog i discovered while trying to find anything about other people with diabetes. i need to find other people who have and find out what they are doing. i've been type 1 for 12 years now, and still don't have things under control. i mean, my legs aren't about to fall off or anything, but i need to start makin' babies, and i can't do that with an A1c of 8%. technically it needs to be below 7%, which may not sound like a lot, but it's kind of like that lat 10 pounds you just can lose...very frustrating...

stupid, germy kids.

i just started my third week of student teaching and though things are going pretty well, i've managed to get what i'm sure will be the first of many killer colds. schools are germ factories and with my schedule what it is, i'm just totally run down. hoping to get over this quick...right now i'm drinking cold care p.m. tea and digesting a capful of nyquil. my head just hit my fingers as i typed from the sheer wiping out power of the combo, which is good considering i haven't had a decent nights sleep in weeks.

ok, enough belly-aching. last friday was tony's birthday (yay!!!) but he and i both worked, which kind of sucked. however, i did make a sneaky stop at target (thank you to my supervising teacher for letting me flee the building early to do so) and picked up a bunch of cool stuff to deck the place out. when he got home at one in the morning, a beautiful banana cream pie (a favorite) was sitting on the coffee table ablaze with candles, surrounded by bowls of his fave chips, bday presents and a cheery happy birthday themed room. he was pleased to say the least which makes me happier than i can even say. it's all wanted, for him to be somewhat happy on his birthday. normally that's not too much to ask, but this year is different...

ok. must go to bed now. nyquil really kicking in, snot dripping from my nose (tmi?) and head throbbing like it was just kicked by a donkey. i think my lymph nodes are the size of cherry bombs about to pop. and no, mom, if you're reading this, i am NOT going to the doctor. for one thing, when would i? and for another, this too shall pass.

goodnight.

life.

my husband has returned home and i'm so glad. trying to get life back to normal around here, whatever that might be. found a few moments this past weekend to take some pictures.
everything's so busy right now, for both of us. it's nice to stop and just look around once in a while. tomorrow is my mom's birthday. happy birthday a day early, mom. i won't tell how old you are, that's my gift to you.

missing my better half.

silence.

my mother-in-law had so many friends. at her visitation, person after person, both friends and family, stood and spoke into a microphone to share their stories and memories about mimi. they were funny and heartfelt and each one brought tears to my eyes.

the next day at the funeral, hundreds attended to say goodbye to mimi. the funeral was really the most beautiful i'd ever been to, if i can say such a thing. my in-laws are a very musical family, and the "family choir" sang edelweiss, the notes reverberating against the high church ceiling. i get goosebumps just writing about it.

even more difficult to think about is the eulogy my husband delivered, acknowledging the woman who'd had such a profound affect on his life; on the man he'd become. never have i been so proud of him, not like this. never have i been more sure of my commitment to him and of how grateful i am to be his wife.

the day following the funeral, the family, both immediate and extended (which is all immediate in this clan) gathered at the family farm, far in the woods around a campfire where they have gathered many times before. they go there to celebrate life and loss, to celebrate the changing of the leaves, the beginning of deer hunting season, and just about any other reason you can come up with.

always when they are there, eventually the music begins. i'm so jealous of their family, because even the "worst" of the bunch musically, are many times better than myself, and they harmonize better than any singing group i've ever heard. i've had the pleasure to be witness to this beautiful family's musicality many times and have always enjoyed being a part of it all.

this time there was no singing...there was laughter, and sadness; remembrance and fun...but no singing. i think it's because mimi wasn't there. she seems to always be the one to get the music going. it seemed very quiet out there in the woods that day.

mimi.

how on earth do you sum up somebody's life in just an hour long funeral and a few hundred pictures. especially someone with so much of a story, so much life to tell about. i never knew my mother-in-law mimi when she was young, when she was a teen, or when she was a young wife and mother. but i did get to know her very well over the past four years and i can say, without a doubt, that i am a better person for having done so.

mimi taught me so much about living life for the moment and not sweating the small stuff, which, i know sounds like a cliche since so many people say it's sage advice, but rarely does anyone really live by it. mimi did. she always said i say "i'm sorry" too much, and my husband tells me the same. i'm going to stop being sorry so dang much, stop feeling regret, because as i learned in the past couple weeks, life is so very, very short.

after living, and i do mean LIVING, with cancer for the last six years, mimi passed away saturday morning, the 25th of august. i think she's at peace with it, i really do, and if anyone is going to go out on their own terms, it would be mimi. tony and i, his sisters and their families, all headed to bemidji to bid a fond farewell to a woman so many people loved, cherished, learned from and believed in. it will be hard to get used to life without her around.

we will keep her in our hearts and honor her by showing each other love, by fighting for what we believe in and for never, ever, taking for granted any moment of any day.

today it was so sunny and beautiful. she would have loved it. at the end of her life, mimi lost her vision, but where she is now i believe her sight has been returned and was able to enjoy that same beautiful sunset i watched tonight.

i will miss her very much.

dysfunctional. d-y-s-f-u-n-c-t-i-o-n-a-l.

my parents bring a smile to my face, even in a sad time such as this, when we are all trying to move forward after losing sadie. i sent the link for my blog to them today; until now they never knew it existed (and i'm still not sure dad knows what a blog is...).

i called them tonight on my way home from work and they both told me that the last entry, the one about losing our sadie, brought them both to puddles of tears just as it did for me as i wrote it. dad swears his keyboard is officially waterlogged.

now, something you should know...after sadie, i am the most perfect one in the family. at least in my parents eyes. even when i mess up, they are proud of how i recover from my mistakes. so of course, after reading the blog entry about sadie, they decided i am a brilliant writer and probably should be published. they forwarded it on to the relatives so that they may also get a brief glimpse at moi, the rising star. (remember, i'm speaking for my folks people, i really do have the slightest bit of modesty...)

anyway, i told them not to make such a big deal about the blog, that it's just an online diary and, to quote bridgette jones, everyone knows diaries are filled with crap. too true. but the more i said don't make a big deal about it, the bigger deal it became and so on, to the point were my mom was calling my aunt to make sure she didn't read any other entries, and my dad asking if my brother knows about it and, if not, should he not say anything?

yowza. we know how to make things complicated. long story short, this is my blog and it goes out to millions of people, if they so choose to view it, so obviously i'm not going to say anything too incriminating or embarrassing, etc. (not that there is anything like that; remember, i'm perfect). i don't care who reads it. love it or leave it, i say.

personally, i think my parents will love it.

the last thing i said to my mom was that i had to go now so i could make fun of my parents in my latest blog entry. she said, "do you know how to spell dysfunctional?" and i said yes, i'm planning to use the word at least three times.

one more just for luck...dysfunctional.

love you mom & dad.

loss.

Just after midnight on Monday August 20th, my favorite dog in the whole world, Sadie, had to be put to sleep. She had an enlarged heart and was experiencing arrhythmia and constant seizures. Once she got sick and had her first horrifying seizure last Thursday, things progressed from bad to worse very quickly and at the advice of the vet, she went to sleep forever, lying in the laps of her (my) mom and dad, her tail still wagging until the very end.

sadie loved to fish, loved to swim and was the smartest dog i'd ever met. she loved her biscuits and putting on her "jewelry" (collar) so she could show it off to everyone. she was more human than any human being i've met except that, unlike humans, sadie loved us all unconditionally. i will never forget her and neither will anyone else who's life she touched, i know that for sure.

i am crying as i write this, i have been since i found out about her death and probably will cry many more times to come. she is being cremated and i believe we will scatter her remains at the lake, her favorite place. mom and dad can't even bring themselves to look at the dock, let alone walk down there.

there's a very big empty place in our lives that sadie once filled. i miss her so much.

goodbye for now, sadie girl...

oh sadie girl...

i'm soooo tired tonight; i've been cleaning all evening and doing like, i don't know, eighty loads of laundry?! at least it feels that way. i have been so busy with homework and other things that i've taken little time to stop and smell the roses. but i think i'll try to do that a little more. so much can happen so quickly! i think a lot of us have learned that lesson lately.

this past thursday night my favorite little puppy (ok, she's 12 years old but she'll always be a puppy to me...) had to be rushed to the animal emergency room after a very scary seizure. i wasn't there, but as far as i could tell from my dad's very accurate description and my mom's sobbing, it was very scary. sadie's legs went right out from under her and she shook and stiffened and lost control of everything...

turns out she's got heart disease, an arrhythmia and now they have to figure out what to do next. she ended up having to stay in the hospital two nights because her heart raced at 200 bpm! but she's back at the cabin now, resting. sleeping a lot from what my folks have told me. she'll have an echo cardiogram on monday and i guess we'll know more then. i'm scared and worried and my mom and dad sound very concerned and sad. i wish i were there. sadie is a big part of our family.

i will hope for the best. she's got a really good spirit and loves fishing for sunnies too much to say goodbye. i love her very much and hope she's dreaming of eating cheese and doggie paddling around the dock right now. xoxo. love you saiders...

ok, i have goossebumps.

i LOVE the coen brothers and tommy lee jones. i totally can't wait to see this...

not even remotely interesting to anyone but me.

here are pictures that make me smile. but i am posting them purely for my own enjoyment. sorry. i can be a bit egocentric at times...



i took this one on our honeymoon in aruba. tony likes it a lot and thinks i should send it to the shoe company and ask them to use it in one of their ads. he has a very good eye for quality, to be sure.

this is also from the honeymoon (and yes, we pretty much spent every moment at the private island owned by the resort we stayed at, i highly recommend it). there are flamingos everywhere, kind of like the squirrels in the parks here in the cities, and at first it's very cool and you can't get enough snapshots and you feed them your extra fries from lunch. big mistake. after a while, these buggers follow you every where and if you are innocently laying on your beach chair and happened to point at something with your finger, they will bite it in the off chance that it's a flesh colored french fry. moochers.














this picture is for my good friend rose and her main man erich. for our wedding, they gave us this awesome portable dvd player on which we watched episodes of the sopranos all the way to and from aruba. it rocked and hopefully the thumbs up expresses that. by the way, this is obviously on the trip home, as i actually have a tan. usually, i'm pasty white. very attractive. easy, i'm taken fellas.

ok, enough for now. i should be doing homework (as usual). i am a slave to school and resent that. which is ironic considering i'm graduating with a degree in education. i love to torture myself.

yikes!

if my parents dog could watch this, she might not be so quick to "chase the munks"...

(definitely view with sound)

bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do?

we live in a suburb of minneapolis and, granted, our place is on a busy road so we see a lot of strange stuff. but in the past five months i've had to call 911 three different times. doesn't that seem like a lot?

and i'm not overreacting, either. the first time, i woke up at 3:30am to use the bathroom and there were tail lights shining in on me. keep in mind, right outside the bathroom window IS THE YARD, not the driveway or road. i kept the lights out and went to a better vantage point to inspect. oh, by the way, my husband (boyfriend at the time!) was out of town and i was home alone.

when i looked outside, i saw an suv stuck in our front yard, spinning their wheels in the muddy mess it had recently become with all the snow melting, while a couple other people were madly pushing to get the vehicle going. at the same time, another person came walking out of my garage toward the suv and i'm thinking, "holy shit, these freaks are here to rob and rape me and when they saw the light go on in the bathroom, they tried to high-tail it and got stuck"!

needless to say, that was my first 911 call.

as it turned out, it was the star tribune paper delivery person and they mistook our yard for our driveway. a rocket scientist, i'm sure, considering they'd been delivering papers without driving through our yard for like two months prior. here's what they left after the tow truck had to drag them out (and believe me, the picture, as usual, does not do it justice)...


the next get together with the police happened just about a week ago when we realized that somebody had waltzed into our unlocked (at the time) breezeway between the garage and home and stole hundreds of dollars worth of tools, not to mention tennis rackets (not that either of us has played in the last year). it's true, maybe we shouldn't have been keeping them out there, but the scary part is that that the cop said whoever did it probably just came in a grabbed the stuff while i was home alone! youch. that one hurts. not feeling quite as safe lately, needless to say...

and speaking of youch!, my most recent 911 call was to report domestic violence on the sidewalk in front of my house. look, if you don't want me to call the cops on you, then don't stand 20 feet in front of my picture window and punch your girlfriend (or whatever) in the face.

on the one hand, i'm hoping my mom never sees this or she will lock me an attic somewhere to keep all the evil in life away from me, and on the other hand, i'm hoping she sees this so that she understands that no matter where you live-city or suburbs-shit happens.

i used to live right in the city and when my brownstone caught on fire and was a blaze at three 'o' clock in the morning, the only thing that woke me up and got me out and saved my life was a local homeless woman running back and forth outside my bedroom window on the sidewalk screaming "the building's on fire! get out, get out!". after the whole incident happened, and the smoke was clearing (literally and figuratively) my cats and i even got to be interviewed for the evening news. i still have the tape and watch it once in a while.

i think i felt safer there. at least i had someone watching out for me. here in the burbs, it's every man for himself...

history...

thanks to my husband for taking this picture from his vantage point at work...

disaster.

i feel blessed to have been far from harm's way when this devastating bridge collapse occurred this evening in downtown minneapolis...as far as i know, all of my loved ones are safe as well. THANK GOD for that.

to say, however, that the incident does not have an affect on me would be so very wrong. i feel sick to my stomach with grief and concern.

my prayers go out to everyone tonight. and i do mean everyone.

hug and kiss the ones you love while you still can. it can all be taken away so quickly.

are you feeling philisophical?

because i'm not. and that's what i'm supposed to be writing my 8-10 page paper about for my current class; school and society: my educational philosophy. at the beginning of the course, all the students took a "test". i compare it to something you might find at tickle.com, like "what's your cat's true identity" or my favorite, "who's your hollywood match" (though i haven't actually taken that one since the late 90's and at the time it was will smith. my guess is that it may have changed somewhat since then...)

anyway, this is not to belittle my professor, as i think he's quite interesting and might be on the brilliant side. just for the record, he is, among his many other degrees, phd's, and assorted other impressive whats-its, a therapist as well. if he weren't my teacher, i might make an appointment with him to work out some obvious issues. but this test was so cryptic and had 90 questions all of which were sooo ambiguous, and i know your supposed to read fast and answer with the first thing that comes to your mind, but come on! when the first half of the statement or question is saying the opposite of the second half, how can you really give one response to it?

needless to say, in the end enlightenment did not come. there are five educational philosophies to "choose" from: idealism, essentialism, pragmatism, existentialism and behaviorism. after i completed this torturous test, which was supposed to reveal my true philosophical outlook, and added up the points it turns out (surprise, surprise) that it didn't really tell me jack shit.

i scored equally lowest in the first two (idealism and essentialism) and equally highest in the next two (pragmatism and existentialism). i scored, as you may have guessed, right in the middle of the two with behaviorism, which makes sense because it is a newer philosophy that easily "blends" with all of the others. blah. i know you must be bored reading this (i'm bored writing it) but i don't care. i have to share this misery with someone.

all this really tells me is that i am a young, inexperienced teacher just starting out in the world of public education and have not yet developed my own, personal educational philosophy. so how the heck am i supposed to ramble on for 8-10 pages, with conviction and multiple citations, about an educational philosophy i'm not even sure about yet?

oh. i guess i just kind of did that, in a smaller, rough draft kind of way.

ok then. back to my homework. if anyone has any suggestions along these lines, i'm more than willing to listen. for the time being, i'm calling myself a pragmatic existentialist. sounds fancy and interesting. like i should be debating and hypothesizing at my local coffee shop with my peers. god that sounds horrible at the moment. isn't there a scrubs re-run on right about now?

it's late.

as i lie awake in bed with my husband sleeping soundly next to me (snoring, i might add) i am thinking about how hard this whole marriage thing can be. not that it's not worth it, all the hard work, because it is. but i may need to resort to some outside help to get a handle on it all.

nothing is really so bad. i just can't figure out how to smooth out the rough parts of our relationship. when my husband and i first started dating, my friends, even he and i, commented on how very different we were from one another. he is a totally social animal to the max; i am very happy right here at home most every night of every week. he has oh, i don't know, something like a million close friends. i have enough to count on about one hand. he thrives on unpredictability and fast paced situations; i am a worrier who is not terribly fond of change and one of my favorite things to do is just curl up with a good book and a fat cat.

not that we don't have things in common. we do. and the things we do have in common are really important. goals. we want so many of the same things out of life, we just have slightly different ways of wanting to get there.

in a way, the things that make us so different are the things that attract me to him. but they can also be the things that lead to fighting or passive-aggressive feelings about a weekly golf league that involves 27 holes of golf and i can't even imagine how many pint of beer.

but we're settling into this whole marriage thing. it will take time and probably a few more nights where i will have to sit here and ramble aimlessly about something to bring on the zzz's. not unlike those nights where he watches endless infomercials on the couch in the living room so the little t.v. in our bedroom won't keep me awake. (though his sleepless nights are a teensy more risky considering the last time that happened i woke him on the couch at around five in the morning asking him to come to bed and sleepily, and proudly, confessed to me that he had just called and ordered a windsor pilates dvd ala daisy fuentes and that i'll be able to drop a dress size in just ten days when it arrives.) he does have his charming moments...

long story short, i'm totally committed to this man; my best friend. my wedding was, by far, the best day of my life. and not just because it went off without a hitch (when does that happen anyway?!) but also because he swore that he would always love and keep me, till death do us part, and because i swore the same. and we both meant it.

even if he does smell like beer and wet dog after a day of golf with the guys. maybe tomorrow i'll try some windsor pilates. after all, it did come with the official windsor pilates sculpting circle for free-a $30 value.

wow, i am a lucky girl.

five weeks post op.

you know your life is nothing to write home about when you spend a half hour trying to find the best hairstyle and outfit for your yahoo! avatar. for those of you who aren't as lame as me, the avatar is the little illustrated person that appears when you open your mail. it's supposed to represent you, so i take that very seriously. there are dozens of faces, hairstyles, hair colors, backgrounds, clothes, etc to choose from and why would anyone care in the first place? most probably wouldn't but i hate to be misrepresented (and i've got nothing better to do at the moment...)

actually, that's not totally true. i have a huge paper to write for my last class and though it's not due for a few weeks, it took me about two hours just to make the outline so... i guess i could be working on that. but this is more fun.

i just got back from my "five weeks post operative" appointment at the neurosurgeon. my surgery (re-exploration of a hemi-laminectomy aka: my second back surgery) went well and i guess i'm healing "normally", though normally means i'm in pain most of the time, can't exercise, and may die of boredom within, oh, hours. i know, i'm sounding a bit whiny, but my hubby didn't have time to listen to it, so you all get to. sorry.

i got the word today that i will be returning to work starting in just under a week (part time at first) so that will be a change of scenery. a bad change. not that i don't like my job, it's ok. and i love the people i work with, but the fact is that there are no windows in our small and cubicle-cramped workspace and the florescent lights make my head hurt. wah.

on a happy note, one of my sis-in-law's just had a baby (their third girl! oh how i pity them just for the teenage years alone...) and she's adorable, of course. it's exciting because this is the first one of all the babies born to my sis-in-laws that i was officially an aunt (because of the whole being married into the family and all). so that's neat. i have a nephew on my side of the family, but he's my brother's kid (and is beyond perfect in every way, in case you were wondering) so i was automatically his auntie whether he liked it or not. lucky kid.

he's coming through this way in august to visit (with my brother and his wife of course, but come on, who am i really going to give all my love and attention to...) and i can't wait to spoil him and smother him in smooches.

at least today my neuro guy loosened up on my weight lifting restrictions, so on this visit i'll be able to pick him up. yay for me! hope he can run fast or i might end up like that old bugs bunny cartoon where the abominable snowman squeezes daffy & bugs tightly with love... "and i will call him george and i will hug him and pet him..." a total classic. ya, that's pretty much me.

slacker.

i had back surgery in june and really can't do much, even though it's been a few weeks. this is the second one i've had and the recovery is a bit more challenging (and painful!). i have many restrictions about what i can and can't do having to do with things like how much weight i can lift, how long i can walk or sit or lie down, etc. i can't really exercise, not in a "burning calories" kind of way, more of a "let's walk around the block once or twice and then eat an ice cream sandwich" kind of way. on top of it, i can't work go back to work yet. i am taking a summer course at school, my last one before sudent teaching starts, so that keeps me a little busy.

but i'm getting pretty bored and am feeling very worthless.

with all of that being said, you'd think i'd be typing away on my blog daily, maybe even hourly, passing the time telling stories or posting pictures or gossiping about people you may or may not know.

but no. i have not posted a thing in days, many days. and for that, i apologize. (not to assume anyone's been missing me, but i feel kind of responsible to keep this thing slightly interesting now i've started it.)

ok. speaking of exciting, my very awesome friend jay, and his total cutie of a fiance sam, have recently returned from a fun trip to the big easy. there are lot's of pictures posted on jay's blog and so i've been passing the time looking at them. you should see the size of the gators! not to mentinon the spiders down there! ewwww! i would love to visit new orleans someday. jay and sam went with jay's grandma, who is soooo cool (i've never even met her in person, imagine how smitten with her i'd be if i did meet her!)

i'm pretty jealous. i need a vacation. a vacation from lying around my house.

by the way, i started a book that i really can't put down (i'm actually typing as fast as possible in order to finish this post so i can go read some more...) it's the glass castle by jeanette walls. an amazing memoir. read it and it will be a long time before you stand in front of your kitchen cupboard complaining that you have nothing to eat...

making biscuits...

tonight i was sitting in our "guest room" (which is our guest/computer/junk/extra clothes that don't fit in our closet/crafting and all things fantasy football related room...) and i was watching you tube because i have to clean the house and would rather be wasting quality time instead.

my husband walked in while i was watching this video and he said, "oh my god, you are the only person i know who can sit for hours watching videos of kittens and laugh hysterically because of it". then he rolled his eyes and left the room.

now i ask you, is there something so crazy about what i am doing? is it wrong that cute overload is one of my favorite websites EVER and that i when i am feeling the need for unconditional love i just go lie on the be with my cats? please, tell me if i'm crazy. i won't change at all, but i'd still like to know...

p.s. tony also says i'm "all puppies and rainbows". i take that as a compliment, thank you very much.

did you hear that?

ok, so this will only mean something to those who were lucky enough to see "the grudge" (the first one, not the second, the second one was stooooopid, but according to the clerk at movie gallery, so was the first. anyway...)

we have a window air conditioner in our bedroom. it's not bad, unless a) you run it on low instead of high because it rattles and makes all kinds of loud interesting noises or b) you are one inch or more away from the bedroom because then the house is a friggin' sauna. i digress. last night at about 3-ish a.m. i woke from a dead sleep to hear a strange noise coming from my window a.c. unit. usually i sleep through the noises because, as i said, many a noise it makes. but this noise was new and distinct and i instantly recognized it as the same noise the scary, black-haired, dead and strangled girl makes in the "the grudge". now if you have seen the movie, you are currently peeing your pants with fear and excitement. please excuse yourself and move on to the next paragraph.

upon hearing the noise, i got out of bed and ran to the a.c. unit to stop the scary dead girl from crawling out of the vents, as any rational person would do. no care for the comfort of my loved one's sleep, only for his safety and mine, i turned the various knobs on the a.c. and tried to make the noise stop. eventually, it did seem to quiet and i dozed to sleep with my pillow over my head, afraid to shower in the morning for a fear that a pair of hands would would wiggle forth from the back of my head... (again, had to see the movie).

i called my brother this morning to share my horrifying story with him, i knew he would totally appreciate it. he has a wife and a toddler and he said my story is nothing. he said, "try being alone in a house where most of the inanimate objects talk or giggle when they feel like it". last night, he was home alone watching t.v. in the basement den. when he came upstairs to turn in, it was completely dark, all the lights off. he walked by the fridge and a small child's voice giggled "hi there!". he said he expected a small rubber ball to come rolling slowly down the hallway toward him. turns out it was one of his my nephew's toys that hangs magnetically on the fridge. i'm sure it's very cute by day, but don't these toy companies think of the poor, overworked adults who watch movies like "the changeling" and then have to live their lives like they will never have to deal with the living dead? i mean really...

p.s. i have this far avoided taking a shower this morning as my a.c. unit seems to be looking at me funny.

thanks for the memories...

while i sat reading sam's latest blog entry, i was reminded of two things. the first, and most important, is that no matter how much time you spend with your family, never take them for granted - they won't always be there.

my parents were just here in the twin cities, staying at my house with me, my husband and the two cats, for oh, about ten days. it was a long time but i needed the help. after all, i'd just had major back surgery and my tony (the hubby) is only one man, after all. but by their last day here, i'll admit that i was helping them pack up the roof rack.

now that they're gone, of course i'm sad and replaying all the awful ways i mistreated them. not thanking my mom for repotting a plant that needed it, getting frustrated that my dad can't hear, AT ALL, not even with his hearing aids turned up all the way, snapping at them because i was in pain, not because they did anything wrong. etc etc etc. they take it all in stride, of course, cuz i'm their kid and they totally love me.

my point is, i love them. and even if they sometimes get on my last nerve, they are my life's blood, i would be no where without them and i owe them my life. i hope that they know that. thanks, sam, for reminding me. sometimes it takes a friend...

oh ya, the second thing sam's post reminded me of: I MISS PROJECT RUNWAY. god help me, i really miss it! i can live without cable, in fact i do, everyday. but some things are just irreplaceable...oh andre, what did happen to andre?

ok, so it's been many days since i've posted a single thing and that's not a very good start. but A LOT has happened since my last entry, including but not limited to major surgery and college graduation. so now that i'll be recovering for a few weeks, i figure i'll have plenty of time to bore everyone with the little details of my life. for now, i'm going to play trivial pursuit with my husband, my mom and my dad, who were kind enough to drive a thousand miles to help with my recovery (as if i could stop them). i'll end this short post with one of my most favorite pictures taken on a very happy, if not physically painful day (graduation was three days after my release from the hospital...) it's a picture of me and my biggest fan, the love of my life. i am so lucky...

butter houdini

i went ahead an bought my cats harnesses and leashes, the 15 foot long variety, so they could go outside without running off and getting hit by a car, or being dragged off by wild dingos.

needless to say, they are not a big hit. actually, my little tabby, ramona, doesn't mind it too much because if the had to throw on a top hat and saddle shoes and tap a little jig just to go outside for three minutes, she'd do it.

but my big orange fur ball, butter, feels differently. in the past, we've let him outside and he just kind of lingers by the door for a while before he dares to feel the grass with his little tootsies. before long he's back at the door meowing for a rubdown and a slice of lasagna. but dammit, i want him to act like the big twenty pound male cat that he is! i want him out there standing on the nearest fence, singing to the moon and getting shoes thrown at him (under my watchful eye, of course).

so i put the harness on him, fitted it as best i could, and this was the end result:

he lied there, with the 15 feet of nylon rope stretched just as far as it would go, and pouted. no stalking birds, no eating grass, no rubbing his back on tree, nothing of the sort. he just lay there, too busy being pissed off to worship the sun. every once in a while he made a little grumbling noise just to remind us all that he was none too happy.

i tried it again another day... we tied him to a post in the backyard thinking if he were surrounded on all sides by grass and nature that he'd have more fun. we turned our backs for like a minute and when we turned back, the empty harness was laying on the ground at the end of the nylon rope, and butter was sitting on the bottom step leading the the deck. he looked at me as if to say, "i can't believe you make me work this hard..."

the best day of my life...

you can try, but you will probably not find any person on the face of the planet who is happier about being married than me. just ask my friends, they'll confirm it. i totally love my husband and i love being his wife. my wedding day was, by far, the best day of my life and i relive it over and over in my daydreams. even though the month or two (or six) leading up to the big day were torture (sorry hon, but you know it's true) it was worth every minute and we're stronger for having gotten through it together. did i mention i love being married?

that's why i think it's total crap that gay marriage has not been legalized. why should people be deprived of their right to wedded bliss just for loving a person that you wouldn't? how self-centered do you have to be to think that's ok? i don't like celery. does that mean no one should be allowed to eat "ants on a log"? i don't like rush limbaugh (duh), does that mean nobody should be allowed to listen to him? (but really, nobody should, it's for their own good. sorry, i digress...) it just makes me sad, i can't imagine if i were not allowed to marry my husband. it would be like a huge part of me would be missing. like my heart or my lungs. would you really want to take away a person's heart and lungs? they would die. but i guess that just doesn't bother some people...

oh, is it noticable? (you idiot...)

on the heels of a riveting post written by our good friend sam, let me ask a question... why is it that i am the ONLY PERSON at target who is required to move their cart out of the way for others? or the ONLY PERSON who has to wait patiently while a bunch of oblivious butt heads cut in front of me to rush off to grab the latest office supplies. whatever. in the parking lot i waited for ten minutes with my reverse lights on while car after car drove passed me; come on! show some common courtesy! i know your life is much more important than mine, but throw me a crumb here so i don't end up hating the entire human race...

also, in case anyone out there doesn't know...usually if a person is limping, they don't need it pointed out to them. it's RUDE to do so. especially if you don't know this person from a hole in the wall. i limp. i have degenerative disc disease and it causes my discs to herniate. i'm actually having back surgery this coming tuesday (again-it's my second one) so i am obviously aware that i walk like lurch from the addams family. ok? no need to point it out to me, thank you very much. i swear, who raises these people?! wild animals? probably not, i actually like wild animals.

i think i dated alfie...

this is by far one of my most favorite songs currently. and why can't i look like lily allen? (because with that much cuteness to support, the world would implode on itself and i can't be responsible for that.) did i mention that she reminds me of a disney character who smokes cigarettes a swears a lot? awesome.

careful, it's contagious...

is it just me or does this kid's laugh sound like he starts the day with a smoke and a jigger of scotch?

somewhere in the not-so-distant future...

i love flea markets and second hand stores. the old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" could not be more true! i also love to decorate, or should i say, daydream and scheme about decorating. i don't have the extra money or time right now, and even if i did, we don't own a house, but someday we will. when that day comes, my husband has generously agreed to let me decorate the entire thing, sans one room which he will call his own (and undoubtedly line the walls with beer steins and minnesota twins memorabilia). more power to him.

my style is more of a shabby chic, big on shabby, small on chic. i like junk, but not just any junk, cool and vintage junk is the best. i like old stuff, i like stuff period. i'm kind of a pack rat, but not in that creepy "the-paramedics-had-trouble-getting-to-the-body" kind. i like to search magazines for ideas and clip them out and save them in a file. i like to search the internet for ideas and save them to my "favorites" in order to access them with ease. i like websites about decorating and crafting stuff. if i had my way, i would spend half my days at flea markets and second hand stores (with kids in tow, of course) and the other half at home decorating, crafting and playing games with the children. my house would be so homey and awesome. (i'm also under the illusion that i will eventually be talented enough to sew all of my kids' clothes. i'm sure they'll love that when they are teenagers.)

till then, i will continue to clip and save my ideas. some of them i'll share with you. this is one of my favorites:

some smarty decided to cover a fridge in magnetic chalkboard paint. how awesome is that? magnetic chalkboard paint! you could jot down phone numbers and grocery lists all while proudly displaying your children's latest van gogh with your favorite vacation themed magnet! i am definitely going to do this if i ever have my own kitchen, though it'll take some wrestling with the mr. he seems to think the entire house would be covered in chalk dust and we would be walking around with our lips sticking to our teeth and blowing dust from our noses ("cough, cough, i think i've got the black lung..." ala zoolander). is it just me or does that seem a little overly dramatic?

on the subject of decorating...here are a couple of my most favorite "idea" books.

i'd love to hear about your decorating styles. what kind of ideas do you have?

name that tree...

does anyone know what kind of tree this is? it's very tall and full and has these gorgeous flowers all over it. it's growing in my very own backyard and since i look at it everyday, i'd kind of like to know what to call it. my own personal master gardener japhiel was stumped (and he knows almost everything there is to know about flora). anyone?

another brick in the wall...

so does anyone remember the scene in pink floyd's "the wall" where pink is sitting in the hotel room kind of comatose looking, and the groupie is there and she keeps talking and he says nothing and she keeps asking him if he's ok? and then suddenly he freaks out and starts yelling and trashing the place and she scared and screaming and he acts like he's going to kill someone?

change location: from hotel room to vet clinic. change main character: from bob geldof to my cat, the most psycho little tabby on the planet. i'm pretty sure if she weren't declawed in the front there would be a lawsuit in action. by the way, i know declawing cats is horrible and inhumane and all i can say is when i did it twelve years ago i was very naive and if i had it to do again, i wouldn't. so get off my case. anyway, having her declawed twelve years ago probably saved a couple of lives today.

she had been vomiting for the basically the entire week, which sounds very bad except that she's a regular puker anyway. at least once week i step in a cold, wet pile of something (and if i don't, my husband does, and that goes less well). i watched her for a few days and when there was no improvement, i made an appointment, which of course caused her to be completely cured. so i cancelled the appointment, which caused her to start barfing again. i really, really love my cats and watching her hurl and walk around looking embarrassed about it was breaking my heart, so today i bit the bullet, called the vet and brought her in.

about five casualties and a hundred bucks later, we have concluded she had a particularly nasty hairball. yes. i said hairball. now mind you, were just guessing because if anyone knows anything about cats it's that you will never truly know anything about a cat. so were assuming her little innards were irritated by the hairball from hell and are treating it symptomatically. bland food, hairball gel, pepcid and some smelly liquid that i have to shoot into her mouth with a syringe. ya. that went well. haven't even tried pilling her yet, though i did have a nightmare about it during a fitful nap this afternoon.

tonight she seems perfectly fine and our other cat can't figure out why he doesn't get the "special" food. i said i'd give him some for a hundred bucks.

and so it begins...

i'm always threatening to start a blog and now i've gone and done it. i'm not sure why i think people would be interested in reading about my life, though stranger things have happened. for the most part, this blog will be a way to get some of the thoughts out of my head that are taking up much needed space, although i'm hoping magical things will happen as well (ie: people will discuss my whitty stories and commentary amongst their friends at cocktail parties). at the very least, my friends (hi japhiel!) will read it once in a while and post feel-good comments (who doesn't need that!) and maybe i'll elicit an eyeroll from my hubby that doesn't have to do with the cats (aka my fur children). anyway...

a couple of things you will quickly realize. 1) i'm lazy and don't like to capitalize or worry about proper punctuation. which is a teensy bit scary considering i'm a teacher (or will be once i finish student teaching in the fall). but i can kick it into high gear when it matters most and won't let this bad habit rub off on the children, they are the future. 2) if this bad habit of non-capitalization and non-proper punctuation bothers you, I DON'T CARE. this is my blog and i get to do what i want. sorry. that was my inner child and she's hard to shut up. maybe that's number 3. no wait, 3) i love my husband and my cats. i will probably talk about them too much.

that's it, for now. welcome to andrews avenue.