The last four days in review

Of course, it's ridiculous. Love is ridiculous. But love is also wonderful. And powerful.
-The Tale of Desperaux

I've caught my breath. I feel ready to reflect.

Saturday:
It was an odd-feeling day. It was the first Saturday of my winter break, also therefore, the first Saturday where the library was closed. I kept forgetting what day it was, but set out to have a productive day. It was also the day that Zac was flying to Baltimore to visit his family. Unfortunately, it was also a terribly overcast and foggy day.

His flight was supposed to leave Madison at 7pm, fly into Chicago and a second flight was supposed to leave Chicago at 9. The 7 o'clock flight out of Madison was canceled right away in the day. The journey began! I spent a good chunk of my day sitting in front of the computer checking on weather, flight status updates and bumming around passing the time. I did get to go to the gym and take a shower, though, and felt quite accomplished for that. Around 3 or so, we found out that the earlier flight out of Madison had also been canceled. I insisted on driving Zac to Chicago so that he'd be able to get on his flight leaving there, as long as that wasn't canceled.

When we left Madison at 4:30 or so, the flight was still on. We stopped on the way to grab some dinner and just went. I knew that if he didn't get out of town Saturday that there was no way, with the insanity of the holiday traveling season and all of the delays from the weather, that Zac would get out of town before Christmas. That just didn't seem right. The drive wasn't bad at all-- pretty foggy, but it seemed short. It was also the first time I'd driven to Chicago from Madison-- always an adventure. Zac's flight was still on when we got there, and I drove back to my parents' house in Milwaukee.

His flight left about an hour late, but he made it back. Whew. It was a good end to the day.

Sunday:
I had agreed to look after Veronica while Zac was gone, but I hadn't had a chance to get over to feed her before we left on Saturday, so I knew I'd have to head back to Madison on Sunday to check in on her. I left, with Anna in tow, around 8am to head off to Madison to check in on her. The fog from Saturday night had cleared and the day was just cold.

Outside of Delafield, some asshole decided to not pay attention while driving and started coming over into my lane. As I was next to him. I hit my brakes and moved over a bit on the road to avoid being sideswiped by the guy. And hit a patch of ice. The car started spinning immediately, I believe I screamed out something like, "Fucking asshole!" and tried to regain control of my car. Instead, I ended up in a ditch. Oh yes. I was one of those people. Humiliating.

I spent several minutes trying to reach my parents, who were in church with their phones turned off. Great. I tried calling 411 to get the number for the church and they connected me to some random residential line. I looked through my address book to find someone who could get me somewhere. I felt kind of guilty calling Zac, as it was early in the morning and I knew he'd gotten into Baltimore late the night before. I called him and woke him up and he got me the number, though. It was a relief.

I called my parents at church, got a hold of some dude who wouldn't get them for me because the congregation was praying and told him that it was kind of an emergency and they should call me back as soon as possible. They called me back, started looking up the phone number for the Waukesha County sheriff's department for me and a sheriff pulled up to my car! Saved! He'd already called a tow truck for us and told us to stay in the car and stay warm.

Several people pulled over to offer help. It was kind of frightening, but touching every time. I really didn't want to interact with random people who could easily murder me, but felt inspired by their kindness at the same time. The only scary people were the pushy ones, to whom I had to insist the sheriff said that a tow truck was en route and wouldn't leave until I insisted several times that we were fine.

The tow truck showed up around 9:45. It was a flat bed. The driver got out, asked if we were told he was coming and pondered at the ordering of a flatbed for my car, which looked like it just needed to be pulled out of the ditch. He had me start the car, put it in neutral and occasionally adjust the wheel to help with the process of getting out of the icy ditch. Oh. So that's why they ordered the flatbed. I had two flat tires. Passenger side. Shit. He pulled us out, got us on the flatbed and drove us to Tires Plus. The day was wearing on me, but there was no way I could be anything but amazingly pleasant, as I had a 16 year old in tow that I was very responsible for. And there was no point in being a baby about things anyway.

I only broke down once. I was talking to my mom on the phone, asking her to come get us, take us to Madison to finish the process of going to take care of the cat and then take us to my great aunt Maggie's house for that side of the family's get together. She started to complain to me about how much of a hassle this was going to be. And I started crying. I think I said something about how I didn't really have any other choice and that I wanted to go to Madison so I could get some clean clothes, because I didn't have any and I wanted to take a shower and wear clean clothes. My sweater that I was wearing definitely had drool on it from when I'd slept in it the night before. I think I made her feel bad. She agreed to have my dad come get us, and I hung up and went into the bathroom to cry for awhile.

Deciding that the crying wasn't going to further help the situation, I left the bathroom and returned to being pleasant.

The good news: My dad picked us up, took us to Madison. I fed and played with Veronica, got some clean clothes, came back to pick up my car and made it to the family get together. My car's tires had just had the seal broken when I hit the ice, and all they needed was some air. I was exhausted by the end of the day, but okay.

The not so good news: I need to have my tires realigned, as my car feels like a spaceship taking off when I drive over 40mph. I also have an appointment for tomorrow morning to have my windshield washer fluid stuff looked at, as it's leaking. Hopefully it'll be easy to fix. My bumper's dented, and my car's trade-in value continues to plummet. Whatever. I also ate way too much that day, as a result of the stress.

Monday:
I decided to again venture to Madison to take care of Veronica. This time, TJ and Essie accompanied me and we made it there without a hitch. The roads were clear, the weather was nicer and it was, aside from the dirty windshield and spaceship-like vibrations, a pleasant drive. We got to Madison and stopped into Walmart so we could pick up something for them to get my mom for Christmas.

I feel like it's really important for kids to learn the joy of giving things to other people. There's so much materialism around this time of the year, but it really feels great to give people things. And 7 and 8's not too young to learn such things, right? They whined about me not getting them things they wanted, but we did end up picking up some things for my mom that I thought she'd be happy with.

We went by Zac's and hung out there for about an hour. TJ was enamored with the cookie cake I made for Zac's birthday and Essie was smitten with Veronica. Caleb stopped by to pick up his Rock Band guitar and gave TJ and Essie candy canes, courtesy of Monica. Very sweet. Kids love candy! It's true! TJ and Essie also loved Zac's transformers. They found Zac's place to be very fun-- I think more fun than my apartment's ever been to visit. I mean, geez, I don't have so many toys! What am I thinking, lacking toys in my apartment?

Essie asked me if, when she grows up, she could live with Zac and me and the cat. It was very cute.

We got home, I went with my family to their church to watch the kids sing in the choir and came home and we ate the homemade vegetable soup that TJ and I made together. Essie said the most hilarious thing at dinner. "I was born special," she stated very matter-of-factly. "Because I can do this," she finished, as she pulled her ears very far away from her head. It was hilarious. She said it so seriously, like she'd really been thinking about it for a long time. I'm also quite certain that she's spent a long time in the bathroom, examining her face with her ears pulled far away from her head.

Christmas Eve ended with the annual gift grabbing. The kids went to bed and we brought the commercial symbols of the season up from their hiding places in the basement and placed them under the tree. I went to bed, exhausted again.

Oh, I also spent a lot of time throughout the day singing very loudly. It was enjoyable. I danced, too.

Tuesday:
Hey, that's today! Christmas went well.

The highlights of the day: Anna's letter to Mario, stating that she didn't get him a present, but that hey, presents weren't the reason that we have Christmas anyway. My jaw dropped. I saved the letter. It might be better than the time she shaved off her eyebrows or "highlighted" her hair with a highlighter. Maybe.

TJ and Essie's toothbrushes were the other highlight of the early part of the day. They got them as gifts from my parents, and were supposed to play music as you brushed your teeth. We spent a long time trying to figure out how to get it to work. Then I pushed a button and noticed that you really could hear "YMCA" playing really quietly. How sucky, though, as you certainly wouldn't be able to hear the music over the teeth brushing. But oh, a discovery! The box read something about sound waves being enhanced by the liquid of your mouth and your teeth. I placed Essie's toothbrush under water and onto my teeth and YMCA blasted through the room. I danced around the kitchen with the toothbrush and made my mom giggle. It was nice.

I felt kind of sick this afternoon. Four days of over-eating and having it be largely junk food finally caught up with me. I went for a nice long walk after relatives left today, and then gave my mom's new treadmill a whirl. My stomach just growled for the first time today and I'm going to savor that feeling and feed it nothing but water for the rest of the night. I'm going to take it easy tomorrow, too, and hopefully feel less disgusting before long.

I got to talk to Zac tonight. My goodness, I miss him. I'm grateful that he left during such a busy time of the year, though, as I haven't had much time to sit around and think about how much I miss him while he's gone. I have a feeling that the lack of his presence will be more pronounced tomorrow when I head back to Madison after my car's done at the shop. I'm glad he got to go, as he doesn't get to see his family back east very often, but I really do miss him a lot. Love is ridiculous. And wonderful and powerful.

The pictures. They're all courtesy of Essence and her new kid-proof digital camera. Pretty bad quality, but she's not a bad photographer. The pigs really cracked me up, too. They spent a long time posing them.

End personal log.

Shut your eyes and think of somewhere

I don't like how the background color looks on the computer at work. It looks like green poop. Poop! (One of my favorite quotes from the semester, after my science teacher read us a book about poop and asked us why she would read us such a book... Amanda V. says, "Because... kids like poop?" And yes, kids do like poop!)

Instead of making a grocery list at work, I decided to make a blog entry. I don't really have anything prolific or profound to say, though, unfortunately. So instead, some ramblings that have crossed my mind.

It's become habitual to say "salud" instead of "bless you" or some alternative whenever anyone sneezes. Why do I do this? I used to watch The Sopranos and noticed that they used "salud" instead of blessing things. Salud means health! When toasting, they'd toast to salud. And in Spanish class whenever anyone sneezed, that was the preferred response.

I've become increasingly contemptuous of organized religion over the past five years, and asking for god to bless someone when they show a symptom of ill health seems hypocritical to me. And I have to be cooler than saying "gesundheit," because I can't even spell that without looking it up. So "salud" it is for me. I enjoy it.

In other news, I'm done with school for the semester. I got my first grade back, an A. Yay? I've been working a lot in preparation for paying my rent and credit card bill for the month, as I still stubbornly refuse to carry a balance on my bill. I can't destroy my amazing credit. It's going to be tight, but I'm going to be good. Without school, I've checked out half a dozen books to keep me occupied. At work, it's a little too easy to just sit on the internet and bum around all day, though. Making copious amounts of money. :)

I have a feeling that the next week is going to fly by. Zac's going to be back east visiting his family for the holiday, and although I'm going to miss him while he's gone, I know that the time between when he leaves and when he comes back on the 27th is going to pass in the blink of an eye. Things are good with that, though. Really good.

Life is good.

A tentative plan to complete my life's goals

I checked out some books from the library. I want to read as much as possible now that I've got six weeks off. I think I'll get an audio book or two for my drive to Missouri in January. That'll be lovely. Maybe something that I wouldn't be able to get through myself like some Jane Austen or something. Or maybe something lighter. I've been wanting to pick up some of Amy Sedaris' books.

I think that the things on my life list are quite accomplishable. I'm going to revisit my list:

Knitting - There are online guides for how to do the basics, and I know people who said that's how they ended up learning. Or for $50, plus supplies, I could take a Union Mini Course on knitting. Three sessions. Maybe worth it.

Canning - I know people who can, and there must be guides online as well. I love jars. This could be good.

• applesauce - I've heard that this is incredibly easy to make
  
• salsa - I already know how to make
  
• jam - This one I'd have to look up
  
• fruits and veg - I've heard canned blueberries are good. Maybe I'd rather freeze stuff, though, unless I get an endless supply of fruit and veg sometime.
  

Make rock candy - I'm not as excited about this as I was when the idea occurred to me. It's more of something to do with a group of kids who are learning about crystals and want to eat some pure sugar. I don't really know what I'd do with it, but it'd be interesting to try at least once before doing it with kids.

Make chocolate - There are candy making classes that I could take through the Union as well! Mini courses are expensive, but seem so cool! I've decided that I want to take as many cooking classes as I can come across (as long as they aren't super expensive) and I suppose that just trying new things in general will increase my cooking skillz.

Make spice mixes (a la Martha) - Martha Stewart Living has a guide for doing this. All I'd have to do is gather the ingredients and find cool things to put the mixes in.

Train for a half marathon - Kind of a joke, but maybe I'll get motivated. :)

Make pie (that's not liquid!) (and cookies) - I'm really excited about baking right now. I blame the holidays. I want to work on making some more cookies, pies and cakes, and maybe learning more about cake decorating. I discovered that my issue with my last pie was a cornstarch deficit. Easily remedied. I told Amanda a few weeks ago that if I had endless amounts of free time and no need to worry about money, I'd spend my time making pies and traveling. Staying home and making stuff would be lovely, in general. I don't even need to go anywhere. (Although, I couldn't stay home and do this forever-- I'd get too bored. Teaching will be a lovely career.)

Make candles - This one's a little trickier. I'm sure there are guides online, but I have a feeling, after seeing Fight Club, that this whole process is a lot more complex than one would initially think. I'll have to look further into this.

Ceramic-making (mugs, plates, bowls) - The Union has classes with pottery wheels as well. I think the only way that I can get into this is by taking a class, as it would be madness for me to just buy a wheel without at least trying to make something first. I'll have to talk to Erin-- I'm sure she could give me some advice on this.

Gardening (containers on porch-- see DNR's website) - This summer, I'd like to set something up on the porch where I'd grow fruit and veg (zucchini, rhubarb, tomatoes, strawberries, maybe some peppers, other berries) in containers or window boxes. Carrots! And potatoes, as well! Maybe. :P It might be nice to have a few flowers, too, but I have a feeling that they'd end up neglected as do many of my plants. I want to get some more plants for my apartment, too. Maybe a hanging basket or two and a tree as well. Yes, I said a tree. In a pot.

Composting - This one might have to wait until I have a yard, although I know you can buy composting supplies to keep on a porch. I have a feeling it'd get kind of gross if I neglected it, though. And if I wanted to use it as soil, it'd have to be spun. Still a nice idea, though. When I have a yard.

Build bookshelves and other stuff - My bookshelf space is dwindling. Maybe I'll find some plans for bookshelves and find some time to use my dad's tools. I want to figure out what kind of stain or paint I want to carry across a cohesive theme, as my stains are all over the place at this point. I learn towards darker woods, but my parents lean towards lighter and since most of my stuff used to be theirs or is from them (my coffee table and dresser are their old things and my dad built my bookshelf and stained it to their preferences) I have a lot of light wood. I want cohesive! I suppose that can wait until I'm in a more permanent location with more permanent things.

Learn to play chess - Zac says he'll teach me! This goal kind of stemmed from my general love of games. I want to play more games, too. In general. They're happy.

Yoga (and kid-friendly yoga for school) - I could take Yoga from the SERF, as I already paid the $30 to take whatever classes I want to. My time's kind of limited, though, but I believe they have a Saturday morning yoga class that I could take before work. I'm also thinking that when I graduate I should join a real gym, and hopefully they'll have some yoga classes. Otherwise, books and videos and the internet wouldn't fail me either.

Learn to play piano and guitar - Someday. Lessons might not be required, but having the instruments would be. I want to buy a piano at some point (or maybe find one for free on Craigslist that just needs tuning) and have any future kids of mine take piano lessons at least for awhile. Give them a base for music, and let them choose if they want to continue. So I'll need a piano then.

Picture boxes - Martha Stewart had something in Living about creating picture boxes and picture frames, and I feel like a lot of my pictures get neglected. I'd like to have some around.

Write, tape, be creative - I'm writing right now, foo'. Someday I'll put my firewire port into my computer at home and then I can check out camcorders from the library and do whatever I want. Sometimes I think of the movies that Maggie and I used to make and I think that I could do something like that again. It'd be fun.

Learn more html, CSS - DoIT's got classes, but they've also got manuals online for free. When I'm ready, I'll peruse them and see if I can get enough out of it to do that on my own.

Paint a room - I think I could paint my apartment right now, but I'd probably have to paint it back before moving and I don't know how long I'm going to be there. Paint's also expensive. I do love colors, though. My apartment's so white. My bathroom could do with a really pale seafoam green, the kitchen with a nice sunny yellow, and my bedroom with a deeper purpley/blue, as that's supposed to be the most tranquil color for sleeping. I don't know what I'd do with the living room. Maybe just one wall to match the connecting walls. Coordinating!

Ahh, goals for life. I'm at work today for a long time. I got here at 7:45 to work in circ until 10. Now I've set up post in the computer lab to liason. Today and tomorrow are the last days of the semester that I can liason, and I haven't reached my 30 hour maximum yet. I wanted to get closer to that, so the plan (the tentative, but hopefully doable plan) is to stay here until 8 tonight. That'd be 10 hours. And then three hours tomorrow, and I'd be up to 27 or 28 for the semester. Not too shabby. No one's even asking me any questions anyway-- I just spent an uninterrupted 45 minutes writing this out, eating free cookies, drinking a Diet Cherry Coke and talking to Beth. I'll spend the rest of my day eating free pizza, reading books, making a grocery list and maybe if I'm productive enough, working on my e-portfolio or resume.

Don't be surprised if another blog post or two crops up, either.

Keli told me last week that she likes me much better when I'm mellow. I do too. I'm sitting here, listening to music, thinking about a cd that I could put together. I just finished a Coke Zero (which I'm starting to get used to, but I don't think I like as much as DC), and I'm cutting out my rasterbation pictures that I printed up of Dwight. Everything's quite lovely.

My apartment's clean.

I'm ready for adventure. Let's go.

Everything's lovely in the morning, especially in a cleaner apartment.

When I'm feeling as I was last night, I should just go right to bed. There's nothing that some sleep and sunshine won't fix.

Life's pretty amazing. I shouldn't forget that. Ever. Especially now that it's better than it's been.

Oh, it's what you do to me.

Hey There, Delilah came on the radio. I'd forgotten. Holy nostalgia, Batman. It's almost as mentionable as Unwritten.

I am more complex than a cat. It's a shame.

I look forward to reading books over my break. And building towers, of the Sim variety. Maybe a rollercoaster park or a zoo as well. I miss building things.

I've been quite productive today. I like it. Work and working on things that actually matter to me are better than being a student. Someday I'll clean my apartment, too. Maybe tonight after work. We'll see.

My mom mentioned the possibility of anti-anxiety medication. I'm kind of curious. It's not a constant problem, but when it does crop up when I'd rather it didn't.

Dawn's Life List

Of Projects to Randomly Pursue for Limited Periods of Time

Knitting
Canning

• applesauce
• salsa
• jam
• fruits and veg

Make rock candy
Make chocolate
Make spice mixes (a la Martha)
Train for a half marathon
Make pie (that's not liquid!) (and cookies)
Make candles
Ceramic-making (mugs, plates, bowls)
Gardening (containers on porch-- see DNR's website)
Composting
Build bookshelves and other stuff
Learn to play chess
Yoga (and kid-friendly yoga for school)
Learn to play piano and guitar
Picture boxes
Write, tape, be creative
Learn more html, CSS
Paint a room

Games to buy: Apples to Apples, Would You Rather?, Trivial Pursuit, Balderdash, Cranium, Battle of the Sexes, Jenga

I'd better get busy.

Well, here I am again. It's Monday afternoon . . . 1:06pm . . . I'm at the hospital volunteering, there are no kids, and I'm out of file folder stuff to cut out. I'm glad that I brought a book today, and that this computer doesn't block gmail and blogger or I'd be sitting here staring at the wall until the supervisor comes back from her weekly meeting.

I've finished everything that I need to get done for school and a good number of my classes this week have been cancelled. It's kind of amazing. I've got work tonight, science tomorrow (for five hours!), as well as practicum seminar and PE. I'll get my final exam at PE, finish it sometime before the 17th and then just have music on Wednesday. However, I've still got a ton of stuff to prepare for other things. I've picked up a lot of hours at jobs 2 and 3, and I've got two potlucks to prepare food for. Still, kind of amazing, though.

Where am I going with this? (Rhetorical question-- there's no answer for it.)

Ooh, a kid came!