pottamus! where?!

man vs food

2010-09-08T21:03:00.003-04:00

How is that man not 90000 pounds??? Have you seen this show? Gross. I love me some tasty treats, but some of the stuff he eats is just disgusting!!!

Clearly it's a rollicking wild evening in the Ominous house hold.

I have been largely absent from the blogging world because I typically blog on my lunch break at work, and pretty much since the last time I've blogged I've been working through lunch or not getting lunch at all. Our office is so incredibly busy this summer. Orientation about wore us into the ground. We processed nearly 20% of OSU's first year students through our office in the last 2 months. That breaks down to roughly 200 students per advisor plus all our other students who are sophomores, transfer students and international students. Soooo much talking. At the end of the day I don't even want to think in complete sentences let alone type anything!

Since I've been absent from blogging, I have done a little more than just wokr, I went to Lousiana to visit my friend "chuck". Her husband Lt.Baby is currently in Iraq w/the Army National Guard and she lives in this house that was built in the 1800s with Lt. Baby's father who is pretty much wheel chair bound. Her family is all in the Natti (shout out to Serendipitous) and can't visit right now so I went to go hango out for a long weekend and help her get some stuff done that she couldn't do alone. Lt.Baby's family is down there, but sadly though they clearly love Chuck, they dont....help the situation sometimes. You see Baby's mother died about 3 years ago and the family is very reluctant to change anything. Chuck lived in the house for nearly 2 years before she even felt comfortable putting some of her own wedding dishes in the cupboards. Prior to that they had just been using the mom's. I totally totally get respecting those who have passed away and sentimental value, but at the same time I don't think that I would ever feel at home without having any of my personal belongings spread around and all of Chuck's is STILL in storage because there's simply just not enough room in the house for everything. SO while I was in Natchitoches (Nack Uh Dish) I helped her clean out and empty the sun room of most of the boxed items that could go in the attic and shed and turned it into a liveable room she can eat in and study in rather than use as storage for the mom's stuff. We also cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned. We snuck in some shopping and definitely went out to eat and one night had dairy queen blizzards for dinner like we used to in college. It was fun. I really missed hanging out wiht her alot. We haven't really had the chance to spend a long period of time together in years. It's fun how we just kind of fell back into our old patterns of talking and doing things together. Friendships like that are kind of like your most favorite pair of worn in shoes...you can not wear them for a year, and slip them back on and not have to worry about blisters. One of the things I most appreciate about Chuck is that she puts the same amount of effort into our friendship that I put into it. She will always reach out to try to stay in touch whether it's throughe emails, cards, texts or phone calls. It's an equal friendship if that makes sense?
I feel bad for her because she's in a really difficult situation down there...she gave up SO much to move to Natchitoches. Her career...being close to her family...everything and as is typical in her life, she is getting taken for granted frequently. She is one of those people who is just constantly underappreciated and even sometimes laughed at because she's different. But really she's a fantastic friend and an even better person. I hope that things start getting better for her when Lt. Baby gets home in December.
I'm sure we all know someone like that..that WE feel is just amazing and want life to be better for. Hanging out with her for a few days has renewed my determination to make sure that the people in my life know how much I appreciate their presence whether it's letting people at work know that I recognize what they're doing to help our "team" or my husband to let him know how very much I adore him every day or my friends to let them know how big a part of my life they are.

blessings

2 way friendships
bomb pops-- i love popsicles
FOOTBALL SEASON IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Summer Summary?

2010-07-23T08:28:00.011-04:00

I know it's not over yet...but here are my highlights...other than riding a horse again anyway (one of the ladies at the barn has been letting me borrow her horse while she's on vacation).

There was camping and Hiking in 100% humidity...

There were fireworks and friends

There were weird Ohio Storms and dogs

There was a trip to Tampa, Florida

And there's been a lot of love :-)

blessings:
Kind friends who let me borrow their furry lumps of horse :-)
Trusting that I will NOT melt in the wedding I have to go to tomorrow that's being held in the Franklin Park Conservatory Green House
being healthy :-)

yes...i'm alive.

2010-06-24T08:58:00.002-04:00

Well, May ended...Thank God.
Thank you for your kind words on my last post as well. It was so sweet of you to comment.

June has gone better than the last few months. P and I went to Florida. He had a conference in Tampa and I chose to go with him to hang out on the beach and relax. It was fairly glorious! I ate too much, drank a little, sunned a lot and prayed that the oil would stay away. It was nice. P got a little bit of time to himself and we managed to go to the beach together twice and out to dinner a bunch. I'll post pictures sometime soon. I went to the Tampa Zoo by myself one really hot day and hung out watching the animals. I had a great time! It was really funny though because apparently it's zebra mating season and the male zebra was ummmm let's say rambunctious. I counted 5 children who got a rapid lesson in the birds and the bees courtesy of the Africa section of the zoo. It was quite funny.

And before I make myself sound like a zebra voyeur or something... I took a book with me to the zoo and found a little shaded overhang that happened to be across from the rhino and zebra habitat. I naturally gravitate toward the four legged animals and thought it would be a great place to sit and read and sip my soda. The R-rated activity just HAPPENED to be there at the same time. I didn't sit down and watch on purpose. :-) What kind of creeper do you think I am :-).

What else has been going on....summer orientation at work commences today. It's going to be fun to see all the new first year students. They're always so bright and shiny and excited to be here. It's refreshing after the burn out of spring where all the students are just counting down the days til the summer gets here.

OH! most fun thing ever. I'm doing this community agriculture thing with 2 of the people in my office. We're splitting a full share of vegetables. I am thoroughly in love with it. Last week we got real English Shell Peas which I haven't had since the last time I was in England and Kohlrabi. Have you ever had kohlrabi?? You must try it. I love it. It's forcing me to be creative in my cooking. I made a Japanese Noodle bowl for dinner the other night with sugar snap peas...it was SO good. This week I got a bunch of beets and have to figure out what to do with them since the hubster wont eat them.

So..that's my disjointed but slightly more positive update. I'll post Florida Pics soon.

3 blessings:
Kind people
rain for my flowers
sun for my face

ready for May to be over....

2010-05-17T21:58:00.002-04:00

This has been a terrible spring. April sucked for various stupid and trivial reasons...and we thought it was over, but then came May.

My horse died.

He colicked on Derby saturday while I was in Kentucky...the vet did everything he could, but when I got home we weren't sure how things were going to go. The vet told me to wait before I made any decisions so we tried to wait it out. Then around 7 pm on Sunday, he took a turn for the worse and we called the vet to come out....but it was too late.

Death is not graceful. The body shutting down is clearly a systematic and slow process. Well...20 minutes....but that felt like forever at the time while we stood in the rain waiting for the vet to get there to ease what was inevitable.
Disney really skews your perception on what death looks like...it isn't like the movies.

However, here is the lesson that I was able to see clearly despite my tears. One, there will never ever be a time in my life where I doubt whether people are inherently good. My dad and mom came up...my mom knelt by his head and patted him until he was gone, my dad put his arm around me and held me while I sobbed and couldn't watch, my husband...he wouldn't leave my side while I said goodbye.

The people who own the barn that I kept Colors at did absolutely everything they could. They walked him, they brushed him, they called the vet out 3 times in 24 hours...They stood with me and my family and cried with us...and they let me bury him there. On their property, with his friends....and they're making him a headstone and have left their door open so that I can visit whenever I want. I have no words for how grateful I am for this. They had no NEED to be as kind as they have been...they've known me just under a year. But they did. I have no words.

Secondly, I've always questioned whether or not the body and soul are really two separate things. Like one was dependent on the other...or that when there is death it's all gone at the same time. Before Colors passed...he whinnied at the horses in the barn like he was saying goodbye, and then just before he lay down in the field, he looked at me....and I could see...that whatever used to be in his eyes that made him Aware, Alive...it was gone. That's when I knew. The whole time his body was shutting down, his eyes were vacant. He wasn't in pain (we had him pretty well drugged up against the colic pain but this was even deeper) he wasn't scared, his eyes weren't rolling in his head like when he used to get frightened. It was just a body shutting down. I think that there were moments when he was uncomfortable...breathing was hard, but he was accepting it. It worries me that he was sad...can animals feel sadness?

I think I put too much "people thought" into his brain...too much of my feelings projected onto him.I am afraid that he was upset, that he was scared...his body language didn't really show it that I could see and that is comforting, but I still worry that maybe....maybe he did.

My feelings are heartbreaking sadness, he was my friend, my secret keeper, my freedom for 19 years. Sadness because I would have so much preferred a Disney Movie death where he laid down in all his beauty and just fell asleep. Not in the rain, not with chaffed skin from rolling to try to relieve the colic pain before the drugs started working. Fear because I am afraid that a little piece of me died with him... the Ann with a horse...the Ann with a place to go when she was stressed...the Ann with something that was just hers and no one else's. And frustration for that part of my life being temporarily closed and not knowing when it will open again. And tiredness. I'm so tired of feeling these things...I want to have it all back again. And worry...if it hurts this much to lose a horse...what on earth will I do when people I love pass?

Colors was an amazing companion for 19 years. I can only hope that I provided him with a life that he enjoyed. That's every owner's hope when their pet passes away...but he saved my life when I was a sad, lonely teen. I truly pray that I was a good owner. I shouldn't even really say "own"...there's a quote that I once heard that said to ride a horse is to borrow freedom, and that's truly it. We are graced with the presence of these animals for just a moment, we can't ever fully tame the spirit or capture the freedom forever.

He was a good horse. Despite his anxiety...his fear of being away from 'the herd' and his high strung nature, he always did what I asked. He trusted me. Even on the last day, he kept walking around the field with me. He'd try to lie down (bad for horses with colic) and I'd give him a tug and say 'please please walk' and he'd keep going. It worries me that I should have let him rest.

Ultimately, I trust that there really was nothing that could have been differently. I asked the vet if I made the right choice to let him try to beat the illness...and he thought for a good five minutes before he told me that Yes, I made the right decision. Vets dont sugarcoat things...they wont try to keep an animal alive if it's suffering and the owner is prepared t omake the decision to put them down. They are practical and pragmatic and I trust them. But dear sweet Lord...it doesn't make it hurt any less.

Some of you will probably read this and think I'm a little crazy to be so upset about an animal...don't judge me too harshly. Horses are incredible creatures and I had this one for 19 years. I miss him.

The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears. ~Arabian Proverb

A horse is the projection of peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence. ~Pam Brown

God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses. ~R.B. Cunninghame Graham, letter to Theodore Roosevelt, 1917

God forbid I should ever go to a heaven in which there are no horses...

more labels

2010-04-23T21:29:00.002-04:00

I am clearly a slow blogger....my 10 groups that i put people in kind of stopped at 5. I promised 10 and thus here are a few more....

The Empaths---the empaths are fairly similar to the comforters/fixers. The difference is that the Empaths don't try to fix your feelings...they just understand them. it's very comforting to know an empath because you can fumble through your words and verbal vomit all over them and they know exactly what you're really feeling. they listen for what you mean, not what you say. they also call you out...because they can see through your self righteous anger and get at the insecurity you really feel because they have felt it too.

The chronically unhappy- CUPS (chronically unhappy people) think that it's everyone else but really it's them. it doesn't matter what situation they find themselves in , or who they are friends with, they'll always be unhappy. the saddest thing about CUPS is that they wont ever realize that they have control of the situation. They can change their outlook, they can be more positive....they just are so externally focused they can't even begin to imagine that their unhappiness might come from within.

The smarties-- smarties are fun. I like the smarties. They're a little quirky, they just kind of live on a slightly different level than the rest of the 'normal' folk. They understand things and things come easily for them. Math is no problem, They get science, and they're a little dreamy. I like to be friends with smarties. The way they think fascinates me.

and that's all ya get for a friday night ;-) cut me some slack, my husband is cute, it's friday night and there's a fire pit outside with my name on it.

blessings:

getting to see my sister this weekend
that life worked out for my husband's job this week--nothin huge, just a policy disagreement with someone he supervises
my friend from elementary school...i'm glad we re-found eachother.

who are you?

2010-03-06T22:34:00.002-05:00

so for most of my life i've classified people into different "groups". I think that it's pretty much part of human nature to do so. Sure, most of the time, when you think of "groups" you think of the negative sterotypes that everyone categorizes others with. For a PG example, think "jock" "cheerleader" "band dweeb".

These are not the groups of which I speak today. I have always put people into these types...I wonder where you would place yourself? I've got about 10 different groups that I categorize people in at any given time. Here are the first 5 for your thinking pleasure.

Watchers:

This is the group that I put myself in. We are the people who...notice things. We're frequently first to notice when two people are flirting.We pick up on the little things like eye rolls and sighs that the impatient person doesnt think anyone notices. We tend to be a little more withdrawn from the rest of the group because we prefer to watch than to do. We are frequently introverts by choice. We hear things, we see things, when you think that you're hiding them. We pick up on the little cues that are around us and make decisions based on them. We don't rely a lot on our gut instinct, we pay attention to what's going on and anticipate how our action will be received. We eavesdrop, not going to lie. It's not intentionally being nosy...it's just..that you're talking and you're sitting in the booth behind me and quite honestly, I have a hard time tuning you out because you're so...noticeable. People sometimes feel like they're under a microscope around us which is bad, but then at the same time, we catch the moments when you're struggling a lot sooner than others might.

The Jellyfishers:

These are my least favorite people in the world. I got the term from one of the Bridget Jones books... There you are swimming along and you think everything's fine and all of a sudden you're stung and searching for someone to pee on your leg. Jellyfishers are the people who seem friendly and nice but really they're just waiting until you least expect it to sting you with a potentially venomous bite. They are ugly and spineless and I find them revolting.

The Room Lighters:

Oh the room lighters. They are the people that other people want to be around. They are light and beautiful and attract others without even trying. I don't mean like, attract like 'damn baby you're hot'. I mean...people just want so much to have these people like them because they are so gosh darn fun. They are open and approachable and when you're at a party you can tell who they are because they are the ones that everyone else is smiling around. They make other people happier just by being there. I try to have room lighters in my life because no matter how dark your day is, when a room lighter walks into it...there's an invariable lightening.

The Perfect:

I am in awe of these people. They are the people who everything just seems to come naturally for. Everything is easy. They are impeccably dressed at walmart prices. They can articulate every thought without ever sounding like a babbling moron. They can be the perfect hostess and yet still chill with their friends and drink a natty light. They even have the audacity to have perfect eyebrows that don't need waxed or tweezed. (sometimes ;-) ) When you see their houses, they're perfectly decorated, never dirty and usually have white carpet. They don't sweat when they work out, they glisten. They're cool, confident and can eat spaghetti sauce in a white sweater without spilling a drop. How? How do you do it??? I don't get it.

The Comforters aka the Fixers:

The comforters are just nice people. They want to fix and to make it all better. I love these people but only in small doses because this is the category I like to put myself in 2nd after "watcher" and I think that when a comforter gets comforted it can be awkward because the comforter usually doesn't like to appear vulnerable. They can be a little frustrating because they want so badly for you to feel better that sometimes they stop listening and just try to fix the problem.

The Bulldozers:

Bulldozers are the doers. They just go go go all the time and break down any barrier in their way. Sometimes they can run over you because they're so worried about getting what they're thinking about accomplished. You want to be around these people when you want something done. Especially if you aren't happy with something. The bulldozers have no fear of throwing their weight around to get a better result. UNLIKE me who would rather avoid frustrating the waitress than sending back her boneless wings if they have the wrong flavor of sauce on them. I've seen Waiting one too many times, don't judge me. When a bulldozer is also a jellyfisher...that's when you REALLY gotta watch out.

3 things:

the sun has made a triumphant return
big lots! great deals on garden supplies!
waking up this morning and knowing spring is almost here before i even opened my eyes.

wow. i'm a bad blogger.

2010-02-25T20:35:00.005-05:00

it's been a while! i just haven't really had a whole lot to say i guess. nothing has really been going on. plus, it's winter, and i kind of become a hermit in winter. i really dislike how cold it is so i get anti social and apparently that extends to blogging. however, for your viewing pleasure i am fiiiiiiiiiiiinally posting some rose bowl pics! So in no particular order becasue I think Blogger is stupid how you have to move things around....

This I believe is in Santa Monica on New Years Eve. We were walking and watching the sun set.

I am clearly spatially challenged as I point the wrong direction at the sign :-)

I took this myself. I think I look a little frightening but we were just goofing off in between races at one of the coolest places on earth.

SANTA ANITA RACETRACK!!! SOOOO FREAKING COOL!

so we went to this hotdog place that has been on Food Network. I will spare you the pictures of our food. It was.....awesome, but so bad for you. You might gain weight just looking at the pictures.

I made him pose in front of the ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier

This was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

THIS is drunky mcdrunkerson. She was easily in her 40s, as was her blood alcohol. She climbed over the back of my seat, pushed me, climbed back over to her seat and passed out for the 2nd quarter, halftime and part of the third. Her boyfriend called me Babe and tried to steal my nachos. They are why people dont like ohio state fans.

O-H!

The rose bowl float!

P and I spent a day in Orange County visiting his little sister. It was really pretty and the weather was gorgeous. I on the other hand had a touch of the stomach bug. It was NOT an alcohol induced stomach bug, it was the glorious stabbing pain in the stomach please god let there be a bathroom near by stomach bug. this is why there are no pictures of me in Orange County :-) I was a pretty princess.

great movie lines that apply to my life

2010-01-25T12:51:00.006-05:00

"i am disinclined to acquiesce to your request"

i feel that my students say this to me whenever they read an email from me requesting them to do something. today, i sent an important email out to 54 of my students requesting them to contact me. just for fun, i added a 'read receipt' so that i could track who actually read my email. So far, 7 have read it...0 have responded.

“Oh, but anyway, Toto, we're home! Home! And this is my room - and you're all here! And I'm not gonna leave here ever, ever again because I love you all! - And oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home.”

i am a homebody. i love my family to no end and wherever my husband and my family are...that's home. and rarely do i ever want to leave it :-)

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
I'm one of the rarer people in the world who believe that humanity as a whole...despite it's bad apples, has more good people in it than bad. I think people are misguided...but at their very core, they are inherently good. I think that is evidenced by the kindness that comes when you least expect it...when beauty blooms out of horror. Take this story for instance... http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2002/10/strangers.html

"We all go a little mad sometimes... Haven't you?

Let's be honest...who hasn't wondered if they could benefit from counseling at some point in their lives? whether it's anxiety, depression or just needing someone to bounce ideas off of...i think counseling is not something that should be looked down upon. i also really firmly believe that everyone has to fall apart at some point, to put themselves back together stronger and better than before. recognizing that you may be a little 'crazy' at times isn't a sign of weakness...but a sign of strength that you can say 'yea, you know what...i can be vulnerable, i can need help, i can't fix this on my own.'

"Sanctuary!"

I believe that everyone regardless of who they are, what they believe needs, deserves, has to have a "safe space". Whether that means that i put my personal beliefs on hold, to make myself approachable to a student or a friend in crisis so that i can be that safe space for them...or that when my husband holds me, i feel like nothing in the world can hurt me... sanctuary is vital.

“I guarantee that we’ll have tough times. And I guarantee that at some point, one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I don’t ask you to be mine, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. Because I know in my heart you are the only one for me.”

why does this apply to my life? well,because i really believe that marriage is forever. i'm not one of those people who thinks that people who have successful marriages are 100% in love with eachother all the time...but they LOVE eachother, and they stick it out through the hard times. a friend of mine had a great quote at her wedding that said "love is not an island, love is the tide..it ebbs and flows...but marriage, marriage is the island, the committment to be together through the ebb and the flow and make a firm solid life together is constant." I believe this because my parents have been married for 36 years...and i know, one hundred percent, that they haven't always liked eachother very much. but, they are committed to eachother, bound to eachothers hearts... and that to me speaks volumes about what love really means.

and lastly...on that note about love...
You know, that moment when you kiss someone and everything around you becomes hazy. And the only thing in focus is you and that person. And you realize that that person is the only person that you're supposed to kiss for the rest of your life. And for one moment you get this gift. And you want to laugh and you want to cry because you feel so lucky that you found it and so scared that it will go away all at the same time.

he's not goin anywhere...but i sure am lucky :-)

oh! he got me photoshop...here are my attempts so far.

where i'm spending the new year

2009-12-31T06:51:00.001-05:00

here

more to follow later :-)

3 blessings:
safe travel
generosity
love

Not a Creature was Stirring not Even a .....

2009-12-24T14:01:00.002-05:00

Happy Holidays and a Blessed New Year to all :-)

3 things:
my family
p's family
our friends

But baby it's cold outside...

2009-12-21T10:11:00.008-05:00

Even in the snow, life is beautiful

Lady, the 'boss mom' of the herd

Baron and Buster

Beautiful Miss Adria...my horse's favorite 'girlfriend'

Colors, my 23 year old big baby and his friend Ace in the background

*** clearly, i have been playing with free photoshop.com

all you need is loooove

2009-12-15T20:49:00.003-05:00

love is all you need

the holidays are fast approaching and p and i have done ALMOST all our christmas shopping. we've got one more gift card to buy and one gift card to send to his sister. we've spent hundreds of dollars (that we budgeted for! go us!) and haven't yet spent a dime on eachother. why? well...because.

you see, both of us look forward to christmas...we look forward to going to my parents house for the giant celebration of presents and food and love and we look forward to going to his house for the post-christmas relaxation, the gift exchange and the walks in the park by his house....but with all that, comes the realization that we don't really do christmas by ourselves until January. So p finally asked me today what I wanted for christmas when we finally get to celebrate after the new year....and my immediate answer was PHOTOSHOP. I covet photoshop. I lust for photoshop. I WANT it BAD.

but the thing is...he could get me nothing and my christmas with him would be perfect. he doesn't need to take me to dinner...to do anything special. because all I need...is love. and I know so well that i have that. I have his love. what greater gift could he give me?

9 days out of 10 i'm a normal rational human being...but that 10th day, damn can i be a basketcase. my anxiety will rear up and kick me in the butt...and of course i take it out on him. my worrying about things that might never happen make me fuss and fret and snarl...i can be bossy and i can be demanding and moody and in general just a sasspants. and...he still loves me.

i can have total meltdowns over my lack of confidence and fears and sulk and cry..and he still loves me.

i can be jealous and a jerk....and he loves me because of it.

that, my husband, is all i ever need from you.

i am SUCH a lucky girl.

so...just to keep this from being nauseatingly sappy.....i still reaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllly WANT photoshop. hint hint husband...hint hint!

blessings: this face is worth all 3

giving thanks

2009-11-23T11:20:00.003-05:00

I figured that after my horrendously snark-filled post from the other day, I should get back on the track of being thankful for all that I have. And, internet,truly, I am thankful. I am thankful for all of my students, no matter how cranky they are, because as much as I sometimes hate them, I am so very grateful for the opportunity to play a part in their lives. I know without a doubt that some of my students are going to be the people that find cures for cancer, bring peace to the world and create the next great novel. I am thankful for my friends and my colleagues because they keep me going and keep me grounded. I am incredibly thankful for my family...I don't think I even need to say why. And, I am so very grateful for my husband. 3 years of marriage later, and I still look at him and think to myself, Thank you GOD for putting this man in my life.

So, our lineup for Thanksgiving is this...we're going up to Massillon for the traditional big family get together with turkey and stuffing and whatever else P's step mom whips up. Then I have to work at bbw on Black Friday for a few hours late at night. Then Saturday, I will be doing some cooking for my family and P's mom and her boyfriend. I am very much lookingforward to seeing my parents and my sister. It's just nice to be able to sit down together and eat a fancy shmancy dinner...but still be relaxed and have fun.

I'm planning on taking some fun pictures of my dog for our christmas card this year...so you will be my guinea pigs on which picture to actually send. Expect that post soon.

Oh, and last week...yeah, it was just a really really crappy week. I'm fine now. I have regained my cool that I temporarily lost. There's not much I can do when I've apologized, when I've explained, and when I've tried my best. So, at some point, I have to learn to let it go and not let other people's reactions bother me so much. I'm not very good at that though. I am so afraid of not being good enough, that when I get criticism, I tend to over-react. It hurts particularly most when I know in my heart that I've tried the absolute best that I could and still made a mistake, or still get disagreement over my decisions. It's like, I just want to shout "don't you SEE how hard I'm working to be a A) good advisor B)good friend C) good teacher, why can't you just UNDERSTAND that and not critique me!!" But, I know that that's not going to happen...and I know that criticism is how we grow. Doesn't mean I like it though.

Blessings:
BMW
MKA
CNM
LNF
SEP
BLA
RMA
EMH
SAS

in which Mt.St. Ann explodes

2009-11-20T15:50:00.002-05:00

Here's the thing. I am a GOOD person. I am a NICE person. I try my absolute damndest do be a CARING person.

and yet, some weeks, it feels like the world is poo-ing on my head.

I don't understand how some people get a pass for their behaviors and are just able to act however they want whenever they want and nobody bothers to correct them.

Really...in whose world is it okay to send an anonymous scathing email telling me how much I pretty much suck because I wont cancel classes the day before Thanksgiving when THE WHOLE UNIVERSITY does not observe that wednesday AND your student's class got LAST WEDNESDAY off?

In what world is it okay to yell at me because your schedule is inflexible??

Why are other people allowed to flake out and make stupid mistakes and I'm expected to be understanding and kind and yet if I make a mistake I'm a terrible person who doesn't care?

Why do social rules apply to me and not to other people? I just don't get it. It's not that I don't think that I've stuck my foot in my mouth before and no one has said anything...I Know that I have inadvertently hurt people's feelings and no one has said anything because they 'understood' I was having a bad day... What I'm talking about is the situation where someone KNOWS how mean they are being, KNOWS that what they are saying is just not acceptable or appropriate and they just go right ahead and do it anyway. What is WRONG with them??? Never in my life EVER EVER EVER in my life have I blatantly just treated someone who was trying to HELP ME like they were dirt beneath my feet. If anything, I'm the one who goes back to secretly leave an extra tip when other people in my party are rude.

Seriously world....wtf.

*sigh*

pity party is over...thanks for listening. back to the line of disgruntled and angry asshats.

blessings:

my sister is the new Chi Omega president for her sorority
my mom loves being retired
my dad hasn't spontaneously combusted from the 2nd blessing :-)

O-H

2009-11-14T22:56:00.004-05:00

we may not have the best quarterback

our coach may be a 90 year old conservative play calling man trapped in a younger man's sweatervest

but

WE'RE GOING TO THE ROSE BOWL

AND

I WAS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right. After the game, I went onto the field and stood on the block O, the 50 on the 50 yard line and sat in the endzone....

Word's can't describe. It seems a little silly to the rational and logical girl in me, to be SO very excited about touching the turf where a bunch of 20 year olds play a game...but, in reality, I'll openly admit, I was a little misty eyed :-)

GO BUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

helllooo red?

2009-10-28T09:56:00.002-04:00

not real sure what possessed me.....
given that i have to go to P's reunion in 2 weeks i'm thinking this was poor timing to lose my mind
i do feel a bit feistier...
wanna box?
i'll blame the amoxicillin that i'm taking for the plague that i've had for 2 weeks. stupid fall. stupid bronchitis.
perhaps i'll start speaking in an irish accent today.... me hair suggests it...

I WON SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-10-12T16:50:00.003-04:00

NO FREAKING WAY!!!!!!! I WON SOMETHING!
I <3 THE COTTON WIFE
I <3 the pioneer woman!!!

I am so excited!!! By sharing a story of a family member who dresses in innapropriate garments, I have won...wait for it...WAIIIIIIIIIT FOR IT. A coveted copy of The Pioneer Woman Cooks

I do not think that if you have not visited Pioneer Woman's blog that you can begin to understand how thrilling this is. The woman, can seriously cook. And her cookbook has STEP BY STEP PICTURES. STEP...BY STEP!

Do you know what this means to me??? This means that I will KNOW what the recipe means when it says "stir eggs til thick" (this apparently means til they are consistently yellow) and what "stiff peaks" mean when making meringue!! OHHHHH it is a culinary guide for the gourmet inside all who have less than stellar kitchen techniques and need STRUCTURE and GUIDELINES to make the meal look the way it's supposed to.

On top of that Pioneer Woman is a fabulous photographer and I am learning to properly use my camera thanks to her.

The Cotton Wife is also a fantabulous photographer and has the most beauifulest blog ever. I envy her farm life and really mostly the farm house...Ohhhh to live in a beautiful farm house... I bet it's shower wouldn't be leaking incessantly despite repeated attempts to fix it. Why do I say that? Because a farm house is my dream house and despite its age, a dream house wouldn't leak. It would know better.

If you would like to visit these women's blogs, I highly recommend. In the meantime, I'm off to count my blessings...

3 blessings:
the Pig will be visiting me in t minus 6 days
my dad is turning 72 on the 18th and is still doing fantastically 2 years post heart surgery
my aunt from England is coming to visit on the 14th!

100 Blessings

2009-10-05T09:41:00.005-04:00

It's my 100th Blog! Thus, 100 blessings that I'm grateful for.

1. my husband who loves me more than i could ever imagine being loved by anyone
2. my mom, she brings p and i soup and dinners so we dont have to cook when they come to visit. she is extraordinarily generous to both of us
3. my dad, he walks me through unclogging sinks on the phone, and still says a prayer with me before i go to bed when i stay at their house
4. my sister, my shining star, who never fails to make me laugh
5. mojomom, she challenges me to grow personally, professionally and spiritually and also for our "am i being a good wife?" checks...
6. llama, her sense of humor
7. chuck, she's just always been there for me
8. cornelia marie, everyone needs a friend with whom they can drink in excess and then pretend to be a crab boat on the bering sea with. at age 29.
9. that i got to rekindle my friendship with my childhood best friend and that she is on her way to becoming a mom after years of trying and i get to be a part of that now. i would have missed it had we not decided to be friends again...
10. that my family, friends and i all appear to enjoy good health despite my worrying that disaster will strike.
11. that i 100% without feeling like i'm "supposed" to say it because that's how marriage is supposed to be can say that i married my best friend.
12. that Colors, while expensive, is still alive at age 23
13. Sonford Q. McSquigglebottoms. Best.Dog.Ever. yours will not win this argument.
14. That i have a job that i love
15. That i work with people i like
16. That i feel like personally, i am where i'm supposed to be at age 31
17. that even though i wish we made more $$, p and i can live well on what we have
18. finding my grandmothers recipes, handwritten on scraps of paper, and framing them
19. that i'm slowly learning to eat healthier and lose weight
20. that its currently football season, i love the festivities and school spirit
21. that the students i work with genuinely love their school and i get to help them have the best possible experience they can
22. red.wine.
23. dark chocolate.
24. that my father in law and his wife make me feel like part of their family.
25. that my family has passed on to me a love for cooking and that i can successfully make recipes that i remember my grandmother cooking
26. i get to see my sister in 2 weeks
27. through the wonders of the internet i can talk to my cousins in England and 'befriend them' as adults.
28. picking pumpkins out with my husband and playing football with him in a park on our annual 'fall date'.
29. the monday night football chimes... buh buh buh buh BUH BUH BUH!
30. books. any kind of book. well,except for sleazy romance...
31. shared memories with people i love
32. all my internet bloggy friends who i've met through blogger
33. for having lived in athens, oh for three years...i think i became a better person there.
34. for people who are allies
35. for the lonely trees that you see from the highway. they're out there all alone , but they're beautiful
36. for the way the leaves change colors in the fall
37. for the way that the air feels from october to december
38. mountains, even though i hadn't seen a "real" one until my honeymoon.
39. for this place
40. salmon.
41. for pine tree scented candles
42. christmas trees in general
43. the traditional family christmas that we always have, complete with reading Twas the Night Before Christmas before bed on Christmas Eve, waking up and going downstairs to find presents, christmas breakfast, christmas dinner and reading the christmas story in the Bible that night.
44. the noises my parents make at night and in the morning when i'm laying in bed. no matter what house it is, they're always the same...cupboard doors closing, checking the locks, winding the grandfather clock...they are ingrained in my memory.
41. comfortable underwear
42. joy in simple things, like when you slice cheese and find out that you have exactly the right amount to go on the crackers you grabbed out of the bag or finding out that a coworker already made the coffee when you really need some
43. starry nights
44. dick francis horse racing mysteries
45. my education. i never had to fight for it...and i always took the access i had for granted until i got to college and met people who werent as lucky as i.
46. for that matter, all of the priveleges that i have been granted my whole life...
47. for the awareness that they are priveleges...and that not everyone has them, and for people who try to lessen the gap.
48. Ye Olde Trail Tavern in Yellow Springs, OH- best juke box ever
49. how blue and green our world is
50. roses and poppies my two favorite flowers in the world
51. bed knobs and broom sticks
52. M*A*S*H- something that my sister, my dad and i all can share
53. beatrix potter and enid blyton- they helped me learn to imagine
54. the way the horse barn smells
55. sports stadiums
56. ohio state football
57. stadium hotdogs with stadium mustard
58. firepits
59. that P has introduced me to so many things that I may never have experienced without him, massillon football, hobo pies, camping
60. that fundamentally, p and i work well together and share values and beliefs.
61. that my parents tried to bring me up to love God and to have faith, but that I had to learn on my own what that really meant.
62. for that day in the horsebarn where i pleaded with God to send me a sign that he was listening and cared about my family and suddenly at the end of my prayer all the horses went from standing still to galloping across the field kicking their heels up in sheer joy of being alive.
63. that signs exist if you pay attention to them.
64. that many things in the world are spoken in whispers which makes them all the more special when you hear them
65. being comfortable being alone
66. honestly being able to say at 31 that i like who i am
67. how when you lay on your back sometimes the sky looks curved. i used to think that it was entirely possible that we were a 'snow globe' for someone out there
68. bad keanu reeves movies
69. hybrid cars
70. that people are still trying to scientifically prove the existance of aliens and bigfoot. i appreciate a world that refuses to let go of Possibility.
71. that i have gotten to travel to 8 different countries already in my life
72. my family crest is an oak tree and the phrase on it says "Stand Sure" which is something that i feel is an integral part of my life...
73. bagel sandwiches
74. nutella
75. that my little sister is much 'healthier' than i ever was at her age, mind body and soul.
76. for my parents 35 years of marriage
77. for our third year of marriage 11.11.09
78. for people who openly show their feelings, they make the world a more interesting place. think about what our lives would be like if there were a "no celebration rule" on life.
79. optimists- those of you in my life keep me hopeful
80. realists- those of you in my life keep me grounded
81. that no matter what happens, i know that i will always have Hope.
82. my grandparents...the good and bad memories, they're all part of life.
83. making stone soup with my Amma
84. my moms soup recipes and how making a bowl of her chilli instantly takes me back to being about 8 years old
85. that i am so very incredibly loved by such wonderful people
86. that i have so many people that I can love in my life
87. the smell of tomatoes in the garden
88. my grandmothers ring that i wear every day
89. never ever having had to have braces
90. the roof over my head and the home that p and i have created
91. being healthier now than i was at this point last year
92. that my friends in the military have so far, all come home safely
93. that my anxiety has pretty much gone away...or that i've learned to manage it to the point that it seems to not bother me anymore
94. that i can send my sister random nonesense that very few people would understand and she knows exactly what i'm talking about and will respond. For exmaple: "if mom's hyacinth and i'm daisy, does that make you rose or violet?" "definitely violet" (our last text messages) bonus points to the person who knows what we're talking about.
95. my husbands green eyes
96. that he loves me no matter what weight i am and thinks i'm beautiful no matter what.
97. random acts of kindness, doing them, seeing them, experiencing them
98. being able to take pretty pictures of people's lives...it makes me smile to show them how i see them.
99. knowing without a doubt that i am blessed
100. that my life is amazing

phew...i could go on...but 100 i think is enough for now. it was actaully harder than i thought to list 100 because so many of them seem silly...but it's true, they are blessings no matter how small.

what are some of yours? top 10 anybody?

proof that God has a sense of humor

2009-09-22T13:45:00.003-04:00

So Today, I have had just an epic fail kind of day. Nothing major, just little annoyances of which the culmination was my microwaveable soup practically doing a back flip 2 minutes in to its heating time and exploding in the microwave in a tomatoey alphabetty tsunami.

as i sat down with my now hot but slightly less than full alphabet soup, i sighed and said to myself, "somebody thinks my life is funny today".

I spooned out a mouthful and looked down to see that my soup spelled

"HA"

wish i'd had a camera. this for real happened.

3 blessings:
that i have soup
that i have a job
that i have friends

98 blogs of text on the wall...98 bottles of text....

2009-09-16T20:40:00.003-04:00

Write one more and put it up next and there will be 99 blogs of text on the walll....

ahahahahahahahahaha I am hilarious.

Actually, not. This week has blown goats, let me tell you. Yes, that's right. I said it, blown.goats. We have been super busy at work which is...fine, but abnormal for this time of year. We usually do not see students SO much before the quarter starts. I don't know if it's because we're a little short staffed since we have 2 new people who are not quite yet seeing students full time or what, it just seems like 8-5 goes by in a blink and I barely have time to breathe. I usually don't mind the busyness as I really love meeting with the students, but this week I have just had some doozies. I'm kind of unraveled from listening to their complicated issues. It boggles my mind how an 18 year old can have SO MUCH going ON. In addition to the craziness, one of my favorite colleagues left to go to another university...today was her last day and it was just kind of sad. She was the person in the office who was always willing to just shoot the breeze and take a 5 minute break with me to just be...goofy, y'know? Look at other people's wedding pictures or look at bridal magazines since she's HOPEFULLY getting engaged soon. I'll miss her and a little bit of the 'glitter and sparkle' left the office when she closed her office door that one last time. We werent really friends outside of work, I'm not really friends with anyone outside of work...it's just not how life works out with me really. But we were friends AT work. *Sigh* Life goes on, and I know we'll keep in touch, she's moving up by P's hometown so when P and I go up I'll give her a call. It's just...I don't like change and our little office has had quite enough of it. We need a couple months of sedentary life to regroup.

On the other hand, my absolute favorite time of year is fast approaching. On Monday the students will officially be on campus. They will have moved into their new residence halls and apartments and will be starting a new year at Ohio State. For many, fall signifies the beginning of the end...end of summer, end of life. For me, it's always been the rebirth. The new freshmen come in, people are energized and ready for the next step in their lives. They've had summer break and reconnected with their families and their high school friends and they're ready to come back and see everyone from their "other life" that they missed. Football season is in session and people are decked out in scarlet and grey no matter what day of the week it is. The air is crisp and cool and the leaves start to change. Campus is gorgeous in the fall. It's vibrant and just so alive. It's easily the BEST thing about working on campus.

I have hopes for this year...I hope that the swine flu pandemic doesn't affect us too much because outbreaks on campus are frightening no matter whether it's a bed bug or a bacteria. These are people's babies and they are trusting us to keep them safe and healthy. It's frightening when you think how fragile the 'ecosystem' of a college campus is. I hope that we go another year without any on campus tragedies, we have been lucky. I hope that the new freshmen love the university as much as I do and that they find their true calling while they are in our program and that I can help them find their way there. I hope that I can maintain my enthusiasm and love for my job so that I can serve the students to the best of my abilities. They are young, and though they are bright and independent, they need advisors and personnel on campus that love their jobs and are dedicated to doing their jobs 100%. They may drive me crazy on a regular basis...but they still need help.

3 blessings:
my friend llama is starting to heal after the tragic loss of her grandmother
my friend chuckface is strong beyond her own knowledge and she will be okay when her husband deploys for the middle east, i know her strength even if she's unsure
my husband who continually supports me and cheers me on every single day no matter how grumpy i am and how down i get, he is truly my heart and soul.

i am a slow blogger

2009-09-10T11:42:00.002-04:00

so it's my 97th post today...i really thought that i'd perhaps be past 100 by now, I think that i probably would be but there are times that i'll write a post and 'crumple it up into a ball and toss it in the trash' or as we do in the internet world...hit delete.

i'm thinking of doing a give away for my 100th post like everyone else does...but i might wait til my 113th since 13 is really my lucky number.

i have been working out with a personal trainer in the attempt to lose some of the millions of pounds that i gained over the course of the last 2 years. i have lost inches...but not much weight which is depressing. i know it's only been a month, but i kind of want it to magically fall off in one giant lump.i do enjoy that i am stronger and that the things that i could barely do when i started, i can now do much more easily.

i am looking forward to the OSU v USC game on saturday, but i'll be honest, i'm not rael hopeful. i just wish that i could wipe the smarmy smirk off pete carroll's face. ugh. he just irks me. i'm sure that he's in actuality a very nice man...but seriously dude....your quasi-richard gere look bothers me.

i really wish that i did not have to be at work today on this gorgeous gorgeous ohio day...so i'm just going to write some random fun stuff about myself for your viewing enjoyment

1. when i was a kid i would frequently pretend to be a horse with my friend elizabeth. we were always really cool horses that could talk and solve crime. my name was frequently Black Gem because we would play this game while swimming and I had a black swimsuit with little gems on it. Yes. we were horses and we lived in the water.
2. in 9th grade i had really bad allergies and they made me really cranky. the boy who had his locker next to me used to make fun of me and my allergies. one day in a fit of allergy induced rage, i waited til he bent over and then i moved the top locker door directly over his head. he stood up and nearly gave himself a concussion. i pretended like i didn't have any idea what happened. i've secretly felt guilty about this since then.
3. the same boy tried to cheat off me in health class when we were taking a quiz in which we had to label all the parts of the male reproductive system. i purposely labelled all of them wrong and waited til he turned in his paper to switch them to the right answers. i have never felt guilty about this as it's ridiculous that a BOY would have to cheat off my 9th grade blushing virgin self for the answers.
4. my personal trainer is beginning to think i'm 'special'. i have no muscle memory or coordination. he demonstrates something while facing me and it takes me at least 40 seconds to figure out how to reverse the mirror image and do it myself.
5. i have lists of words i dont like. i seriously have to restrain myself from telling people not to use some of them. or from curling my lip and saying 'ew'.
6. i could eat rice every day of the week. my favorite ways to eat rice are to saute tomatos and dump it on top of rice w/soy sauce or to steam broccoli and put it on rice with a little butter and parmesan.
7. similarly, i could eat bread with tomatos and salt every day of the week and be perfectly happy.
8. 6&7 are why i need #4.
9. my husband has 2 webbed toes on each foot and i think it's really fun to stick things in between them. blades of grass. pennies. whatever i can find.
10. i rarely, if ever, feel overwhelmed. even when i have a trillion things going on. i do not think this is healthy because i'm pretty sure it leaks out in other ways. perhaps in my obsession w/bread and rice.
11. my friend mojo mom could probably add at least 10 more weird things that i do to this list...perhaps she will leave an anonymous comment.
:-)

3 blessings:
webbed toes
gorgeous weather
my mom sent me home w/chicken salad so i wouldn't have to pack my lunch this week.

greetings dahlings

2009-08-28T13:17:00.002-04:00

'Twas the best of times....'Twas the worst of times.

Well, perhaps I should say 'twas the okay-est of times was the grossest of times...
The last couple weeks have been kind of "meh". P and i have been driving to Dayton on a weekendly basis to paint my parents' deck and sand my parents' deck and spray wasps and kill them on my parents' deck and run screaming from the wasps and make my brave strong husband kill them on my parents' deck...not necessarily in that order.

The screaming might have been first.

The parents remain in England though they are returning on Monday. The Pig is back at school where she turned 21 but due to her sororities rules about RUSH she is not allowed to drink legally or illegally until September. So, it was really kind of an 'un'birthday for her.

She had the first day of her biology class today...the professor let them out early so he could go home to tend the pig he was smoking for his bbq this weekend.

Have I mentioned that she goes to school in Kentucky?

Due to the deck painting I have had aches and pains and bruises and scrapes like a 5 year old learning to rollerblade. coincidentally the Weather Gods decided to inflict a plague of ragweed on us the like of which has scarce been seen before. I take prescription drugs for this people...and yesterday, yesterday, it was like I hadn't taken anything at all. I was one constant leaky faucet of crystal clear pollen laden snot.

That's right. crystal.clear.pollen.laden.snot.

*shudder* I'm surprised it was not draining out of my ears as well.

Today, thanks to the glorious,soaking,drenching,beautiful rain that we had last night. I am back in the land of the dry and only slightly itchy. I'm hoping the drugs keep working so that I can get out to the horsebarn to see Colors...poor thing hasn't seen me for weeks.

Part of the absence from the horsebarn has been allergies, and then the other part has been because 2 nights of every week have been reserved for my new Personal Trainer. I hate him. Well, I love to hate him. I love that I'm actually seeing weight loss (5lbs in 1 month and a total of 7 inches have disappeared from various parts of my anatomy and NO i will not tell you how many inches from what parts). However, I'm pleased with this progress. I feel good about it. This is good. Also, though I loathe, despise and want to kick him in the g'nads sometimes...Personal Trainer clearly knows what he's doing and as much as I hate stepping up onto his stupid foot tall stool and kneeing a punching bag 10 times....ON EACH LEG....I guess I'm okay with the loss of inches.

Has anyone ever noticed how very very slowly Fridays go? I swear I have been here for 10 hours already. I would pay THEM to let me leave right now.

On a side note, I wrote this for a friend of mine who should know who she is when she reads this...

To have hope...
even the smallest grain of it
means that you have something
so when you feel that you have nothing
remember Hope.

To have faith
even the faintest whisper of it
means that He loves you
so when you feel that you are unloveable
remember Faith

To have friends
even far far away
means that you have someone
so when you feel that you are alone
remember me.

3 blessings:
for all the kiddies going back to school and our neighborhood being quiet in the evenings
for sunsets on the lake
for movie night with P tonight...love him.

flamly

2009-08-19T08:41:00.003-04:00

Flamly: (n) That's what my sister and I always call our Family...it stems from her inability to pronounce the word right when she was younger.

My parents and sister have been in England since August 1st. My parents are staying there until the 31st but Pig had to come back Monday so that she can leave for school on the 21st. I picked her up from the airport Monday evening and then took Tuesday off so that we could go to lunch and I could take her shopping for her 21st birthday present (she got some killer silver shoes and a gorgeous haircut). Monday night while P was at the gym, Pig and I sat out by the fire pit and roasted marshmallows and talked about her trip and our parents and the amusing things that they do, their habits and idiosyncracies.

I love those inside jokes that you can only have with your family. Only someone who grew up in your house gets them and laughs with you. It's a different level of understanding when you're with your family. Your friends may "get you" and they may be able to comprehend who you are...but your family, they understand. It's understanding born of shared experience, both good and bad. It's always refreshing when I get to spend time with Pig because she and I are very much alike, and despite our age difference (I'm the big sister by 10 years) have SO much fun together.

Often, even with my best friends, I feel like I have to worry about whether they understand where I'm coming from. I feel like I worry alot about whether they interpet what I say a certain way, or that they're looking for a subtext that isn't there. I check myself before I say things and I second guess myself when I do say something because I've always felt awkward, like people are prone to misinterpreting me. It's a huge challenge for me because at heart I want nothing more than to just say "look, this is how it is." and be 100% straightfoward and upfront with people. But the thing is...when you do that, people get mad. And I hate, hate, hate, having to run around and try to make amends for something that I didn't even say or mean..they just interpreted. Oh, I know that I'm at fault here too... I do know that at times I can be insensitive. At times, I can be too blunt and too impatient and too sarcastic...but not all the time. Not most of the time. I mean the kind of thing where I'll put up a facebook status and I get 5 individual messages asking if it was directed at friend a, b, or c.... when really, I was just quoting a line from a movie or a song.

Family's different...there's no awkward second guessing of what you can say. You can lay your feelings on the table,bare for them to see and they don't look for anything that's not there. Perhaps I shouldn't generalize and say 'family', perhaps I should just say "sisters". Lord knows, my mom looks for what's not there :-). But that's what makes her Mom.

Sisters, Family...they know you. They know what you're trying to say, they know the feeling behind what you've said. I know that not every family is like that...and I know that even my own family isn't like this 100% of the time. No one's perfect. But I do consider myself exceedingly blessed in this aspect of life. My husband and my sister, my two kindred spirits, they get me. They understand me. I'm extremely lucky in that my husband is caring enough to have taken the time when we were dating to really find out how I work, to understand my motivations, to listen to what I was trying to say and to hear the unspoken reasons behind the words. I think when you love someone, you do that...because you want to understand them the way that their families do. He's a listener and a senser, my husband. He's extraordinarily in tune to the way that I feel...he can read my face like he can read a map of our city. He knows when I'm worried, when I've had a bad day...before I ever open my mouth. People ask me all the time why P and I have such an obviously happy marriage... the easy answer is, because my husband's amazingly kind and TRULY understands me.

My dad can tell when I'm having a bad day just by how I say hello when I call home. My mom can tell when I've been crying from 60 miles away. My sister knows that when I say I'm mad about A...it's really because I'm hurt by B. She knows that I don't like to be vulnerable so I get mad instead. And, she calls me on it. Lucky...so Lucky.

I laugh alot with my family. To the point where I cry I am laughing so hard...I love that SO much. It's that kind of laughter where you're not worried about whether you're going to snort because they'll all snort with you. It's unfettered and free. It's easy and comfortable like that broken down sweatshirt that you got your freshman year in college and just can't part with. Man do i love that faded scarlet hoodie.

Do you readers ever feel that way with your friends? Being totally completely relaxed and comfortable without ever having to second guess what you say? Or are you like me...do you mostly feel that with your immediate family? I dont know why this was on my mind so much this morning...I think, it's just because when I spend time with P and pig, the next day, I realize how very relaxed I am and how much fun I had. With Pig being in college, and my parents being in Dayton , it's easy to forget how amazing they are, and how comfortable I am with them...and then I'm reminded and it sticks out in my mind. Anyone who reads this blog knows how much I love my friends and consider them blessings in my life, but anyone who reads this blog also knows how much I struggle with feeling like I dont fully fit in with anyone but my family and my husband and my horse. It's the paranoid introverted nerdy little girl inside my head poking and prodding and saying "what if they don't REALLY like you...." So that's why I asked how you all feel with your friends...be honest. Do you check yourself too?

check: (v) to make a sudden stop; pause: The horse checked before he jumped.
to restrain; hold in restraint or control: They built a high wall to check the tides.

3 Blessings:

Being accepted for who I am
My friends whom I do love so very much
My flamly

(In)courage

2009-08-11T10:49:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite writers introduced me to a new website today. She is a phenomenally heartfelt and encouraging writer in her own...right. But she found this new site called (In)Courage. I think it's great. Everyone needs a little inspiration and hope in their day and this is just the place to find it. She asked, in her post, what (in)courages us...and I left her a lengthy comment that I'll use as a post for now...

My (In)couragements...

holding my husband after a long day and how he rests his hand on the small of my back.

the earthy smells of the horse barn

how no matter how much you screw up or think you are having an EPIC FAIL kind of day...dogs,cats and horses don't judge you, they accept you for yourself.

simple things like the smell of tomatoes and evergreens

thinking 'i can't do it' and finding out that 'i can..i am...i did' whether it's running a mile or being patient.

That's where i find hope...where i find love and encouragement. In those simple things.

are we ever really in control?

2009-07-20T08:18:00.005-04:00

So, long time no see!

I got a little caught up in the beauty that is an Ohio summer and haven't posted anything in a while. Surprisingly, in that absence, nothing much has been going on. I have been horseback riding a few times which is amazing andwonderful and great. The horse is starting to settle down in his new barn and is creating less problems for the barn owners. He has been suprisingly good under saddle considering that I have not ridden him in years and years.

I think this shows the importance of training them well when they are young. It's not quite enough to just break them, and then hop on and hope they figure it out...you really need to have patience and teach them all the little steps in between. My cousin in England, who I admire greatly spent 2 years working with her baby horse on the GROUND before she ever sat on her back. Without patience and proper lessons....they wont ever be fully trained! So, to whomever trained Colors before I got him...thank you thank you thank you for training him carefully and diligently so that when I finally got back on him after a 4 year hiatus...he behaves like a gentleman. Ground work and patience are very very important people!

Don't you think the same could be said for many aspects of our lives? I mean think about it. Before you enter into a marriage....you have to do the groundwork first. Just like you have to teach a young horse what "whoa" means. You have to learn your partners limits and needs. Before you enter into a long term friendship...you have to figure out just where you can rely on her and just how she needs to rely on you. With your children, you have to decide what rules you will have total control of and what rules are up for negotiation, you have to be able to say 'baby's ready to fly' and let go, but you have to know when it's okay to do that. With your family, you have to learn to trust them, but also to know that sometimes there are going to be rough patches that you have to forgive and learn from.

With horses, you're never fully in control. A horse doesnt submit to what you want him to do because he's totally domesticated. Watch horses in a field sometime. You'll get it, you aren't in control. They let you ride them because they want to please you, because they trust that you're not going to hurt them. Similarly, a well trained horse will look out for you on a trail ride. The lady who owns the barn I'm boarding Colors at has this horse named Baron. He is "the boss" in the field and when you're on the ground next to him, you can just sense that he is the dominant personality. He's got just a little bit of a wild streak...but when Mel rides him on the trail...she has no fear. None, at all. Even though she is terrified of heights, she will ride him on a cliff trail with a drop off on the side with no qualms because he is brave and he will take care of his rider. Similarly, he knows that she will never ask him to go anywhere that could be dangerous to either of them. He trusts her too. She has spent a lot of time developing that relationship with him.

I guess my point is...we don't control our marriages, our families, our friends, any more than we control a wild creature. They do what we ask because we have mutual respect, because we have understanding. They do what we ask because we take the time to lay down the groundwork...to say "this is where I won't budge, can't compromise, this is when you have to do what I need you to." We take the time to listen to them too...to understand that perhaps they're afraid to go through that last gate, or over that last jump, and we let them face it head on, and give them reassurance that it WILL be okay, and we don't force them into it with no concern for their fears. We LISTEN to what they're saying to us, and they in turn listen to our subltest signals. When I ride Colors, I watch his ears...they're constantly swiveling back and forth to hear what's going on around him, but they also turn toward me, so that he can hear my little reassurances, my little commands. I know when he hears something scary because he'll turn his ears, then his head so he can get a better look at it. I learned to anticipate those moments and to talk him through them.

I don't think that people are so different than animals...our basic instincts are pretty much the same. We need reassurance in all aspects of our relationship. We need direction, we need to know we belong and that we can trust those we belong with. Additionally, it's a never ending process. Just because Colors seems to be doing well, doesn't mean I can just say 'it's perfect!' and quit working with him. I still need to exercise him before I ride...I still need to practice halting and backing and changing direction. We can't get complacent in our relationships with friends and loved ones....we can always challenge ourselves and eachother to grow.

So, I guess what I'm getting at is...think about your relationships, have you done the groundwork? have you earned trust? how does this make your relationships more successful? most importantly, do you have the patience to keep working on them even when they're not being the easiest "ride". Can you keep a cool head, calm hands and warm heart even when you hit the dirt? It's my goal to try that this week in all aspects of my life....family vacation to Asheville, North Carolina looms and we all know that my family, though wonderful, does not always agree on everything and is not always very nice to eachother. Cool head, calm hands, warm hearts will prevail though...I hope!

For the record, all is well in my life ;-) Just a little self reflection and analogy in general for a Monday morning.

3 Blessings:

Simple weekends with my husband
Lunches with good friends
Unconditional love from my family

This picture is of Colors the first week that he lived at his new stable. He was standing off to the side watching the rest of the horses in the herd. You could almost read his thoughts, "I want to join....can I please? Where do I fit in????"

a horse is a horse of course of course and

2009-06-21T15:14:00.003-04:00

no one can talk to a horse of course
unless that horse of course of course is

the wonderful misterrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ed

well. i do talk to mine... despite his not being mr.ed...but more importantly...

I GOT TO RIDE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i can't tell you how long it has been since a saddle was on that horse. I am SO incredibly excited. We didn't do much but walk in a circle in the round pen. but OH MY GOSH. it was incredible.

now....if only i could get him to stop freaking out when the other horses leave their stalls and he's left alone.

anyone got suggestions?

ann ominous and the week from helllllll

2009-06-18T15:35:00.002-04:00

i make it a rule absolutely not to blog about "real work"

I may blog about stupid things my students say

Or how awesome I think my coworkers are...

but I can't say what I really want to right now

which is...this week was the week from hell and I really hope that my work place returns to it's usual state of happiness, glitter and rainbow sprinkles.

it's been very sad :-(

3 blessings:
that i still have a job
that those of us who work here are strong people
that we will adapt.

random thoughts...

2009-06-08T13:33:00.002-04:00

It's raining. After a gorgeous, beautiful,simply wonderful weekend the advent of Monday brought with it rain, humidity and general hair frizziness causing weather. Kind of like Nature's way of saying "well, you have to go to work...so it might as well suck outside."

Weekend Recap: P and I ended up dogsitting for MojoDog since his original dog-sitters decided they could not handle him vomiting on their Pergo floor. Well, I ask you, if you allow MojoDog to eat 2 rawhide bones and consume 2 gallons of water all at once...what exactly do you THINK will happen? The Mojos are on vacation in Florida and called us in a panic thinking their dog would be roaming the streets til they got home. Like we would let that happen. Ah well, it's good for our dog to have some company. That being said, we took the dogs on a 5 mile hike and let them swim in a lake on Saturday and then Sunday we went down to Lake Hope and went kayaking...I'm crispy. Forgot the sunscreen whoops... It was a great, relaxing weekend and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Switching Gears: How do you know when you're reading someone correctly? I will be the first person to admit that my facial expressions don't always mirror what I'm internally thinking or feeling. I THINK that I've gotten a lot better at this in the last few years but, I used to have problems with people thinking that I was very cold and aloof because I didn't ever look happy or inviting... Additionally, I have always had a terrible poker face for when I think something is stupid or if I'm annoyed. I think that I'm doing a slightly better job on both counts as no one has commented on them recently...although, perhaps that just means that people are too polite to now? Well anyway, I have always been able to read people very well. I am fairly observant and can easily pick up on people's emotions and little facial cues to what they are thinking. In part, this is what makes me a good friend and a good student affairs professional...I hear what people are really saying and what they really mean. Is it any coincidence that one of my favorite new tv shows is Fox's Lie To Me? Most of the time this "talent" (hah) is fun because I usually know who is crushing on whom and when someone's hiding a good secret (like engagement or babies). Sometimes though...it's the bad stuff.
That being said...I catch people's eye rolls, their sighs and their little looks that they don't conciously know they're exhibiting fairly often. Most of the time, I just try to ignore them because despite my straight forwardness, I really dislike confronting people.I would rather be uncomfortable than make a situation worse. This unwillingness is usually a good thing because though I'm observant, I'm also a little paranoid. I will frequently assume that your eye roll or sigh is related to me or something that I've done. It's a HORRIBLE habit and frame of mind to have because I spend a lot of my time, on guard, thinking "oh gosh...is his/her mood about me? did I do something???" My parents, friends, sister, colleagues...all of them are subject to my scrutiny because I'm really afraid that I've offended, annoyed, bothered and generally pissed them off.

I know. I'm trying to learn to not take everything personally, to not assume that someone's 'aloofness' or 'eye rolls' are directed at me. Because, as I stated before...I'm the queen of those things, or at least I was in the past, so Lord knows how many people I made feel like I was annoyed with them or whatever. Karma you certainly do come around don't you? You are a b....

Anyway, I guess the point is that along with counting my blessings, I'm trying to more accurately represent how I'm really feeling and remembering that my non-verbals can be just as loud as my voice. The reason? Well, because I want people to really know where they stand with me. To know when I respect them, to know when I enjoy them. I don't want to be remembered as the girl who was "aloof" like I was in college and high school. I want to be remembered as being warm, and caring and kind. I'm not really planning on GOING anywhere...I kind of made this sound like I'm thinking of my legacy after I die... I just mean, that I want people to associate me with a good feeling rather than of questioning where they stand with me. Isn't that a better way to live? It's such an easy thing to control too...I mean, we all struggle with controlling our weight, our grey hair our age lines, our health...what about controlling the image that you leave behind?

Think about it...I'm sure you can pinpoint some people from your past that left good memories and those who left bad memories for the way that they presented themselves. I know I've got at least 4 that I could name off the top of my head. I wont though ;-)

Now I'm not saying that I'm leaving my happy introverted, hermit crab shell. That's not what I mean at all.. I love it in here, it's nice and safe and warm. But there are times when I think we can all be open and inviting and caring toward others while still maintaining our quiet, calm, and introverted nature. It's not easy for me...but I think I can do it. So, Goal: appropriately display feelings and emotions while maintaining sanity and understanding that while one has baggage and bad days ones face and actions do not have to alienate people on a regular basis. Ready Set Go. I'll work on the paranoia later. stop rolling your eyes at me! hahahah.

So anyway, that's my random thought for the week...

Blessings:
that it's raining so I don't have to raise my water bill watering my plants
fresh peaches and strawberries from the farmers market
the chicken and asparagus that is calling my name for dinner tonight.

livin for the weeeeekennnnnd

2009-06-03T16:00:00.002-04:00

It dawned on me today as I was sitting in my chair fidgeting and wishing that it were the weekend that as of tomorrow, I will have been at this job for one year. So let's recount shall I? One year's worth of reflection on the big moments in this year...

I started this job just after my dad had heart surgery...he is doing well, though cranky as ever.
My mom has made the decision to retire and her last day is...ummm....August 1st?
My sister has successfully completed her sophomore year in college and is going to be a camp counselor at a camp for children with autism.
My husband has also completed one year at his new job and has grown and matured so much in that year, despite managing to P**** of one of the college president's by not introducing her first at a sports banquet. I maintain the arguement that her secretary told him she would not be coming and he didn't know any better really since none of the admins have ever come to anything before.
I learned to successfully (most of the time) manage my anxiety w/o medication *whoohoo!*
I stopped worrying so much about whether I fit in in my new office and have found that the women (and 2 gentlemen) that I work with are quite fantastic, wonderful and friendly...and...shock of all shocks, they actually seem to enjoy my company unlike the last crazy place where I felt like I was an alien from another planet.
My self esteem has rebounded for the most part from the afforementioned horrendous experience.
I have learned to keep count of these small blessings and to be thankful for the simple little things in life because they are what really matter.
I found that I love love love my job because of the little moments when, even though they don't say it, you know you helped a student find their way.
I refound my confidence that I'm good at my job.
I learned that I am not good at parking in parking garages.
or driving on the highway in the winter.
I learned that I have road rage for people who get to close to me on the highway in the winter.
I started caring more about the environment.
I started caring less about whether I was home alone in the evenings when P had to work.
I bought a pair of green pants.
I still get mad when people poke the tomatoes in the store and leave fingernail marks...so I'm growing my own unpoked tomatoes for the summer.
Mojokid started walking.
Mojomom realized how great a parent she is.
We bought a Prius...and a reel mower.
We planted flowers
I moved my horse to Columbus
We learned to be truly "WE" as a husband and wife team.

I think that out of all of those, family aside, the three biggest highlights are:

learning to actively count my blessings
finding that i work with a truly gifted set of colleagues who help me grow professionally and personally and helped me restore my confidence in myself as an employee and colleague.
Further cementing that P and I have a solid foundation in our marriage, that we have gotten through bad times together and he still loves me, and I still utterly adore and love him.

What are your 3 biggest highlights from June 2008 to now?

here horsie horsie horsie......

2009-05-29T13:33:00.007-04:00

Well, I've been talking for quite a while about how I was going to be moving my horse to where I live and it's FINALLY happened. Memorial Day weekend, P and I drove down to Dayton and with the assistance of the farrier (guy who trims his hooves) we got him into the trailer. It was...not traumatic, but not easy either. The farrier had some, umm...let's call them "techniques" that he used to "inspire" Colors to go forward into the trailer rather than backwards over the fence and back into the field.

The drive took almost 2 hours because there were so many police out and well, you just can't go 70 with a 20 foot trailer w/a horse in it. By the time we got him to the new stable, Colors was drenched in sweat, his eyes were rolling wildly and he was terrified of everything. He practically fell out of the trailer...it was so sad. After he calmed down sufficiently to get him into the barn, we put him in his new stall and kind of cleaned him up a little and then after it got cooler he got put out into the field with 2 of the mares from the "herd."

Here's where I insert nerdy animal behavior observations...please don't feel obligated to read.

Horses are herd animals. Their instinct is NOT to be alone. They want to belong, but like any large group, the herd has a heirarchy. It doesn't matter how big the boss is, only that there is a boss. Horses will fight to keep that hierarchy and they will protect the ones they feel need protected. So, you really can't just put a brand new horse into a field full of 11 other horses.

SO, like I said, Colors was put into a field w/two of the mares. Their names are Lady and Abria. Lady is the boss mare. She was none too pleased with Colors arrival and immediately herded Abria away from Colors and into a corner and then went back to show Colors that she wasn't going to be having any nonesense out of him. She chased him off and anytime he tried to come near, she would lay her ears back and bare her teeth. Poor Colors just stood there after a while and looked wistfully at them like "please please please just let me be your friend!"

Lady came into heat the other day and finally decided that my pretty boy Colors was worth her time and is now allowing him to join her and Abria. I think Colors feels pretty studly and they spent a lot of time together now.

Since they seemed to be getting along better, the lady that owns the barn decided to put the mares and Colors into the other field with a couple of the other horses. There's a little mare with one eye named Lexie, a retired old man named Wendell and another Mare named Sindell. They were all fine with Colors, but one horse who apparently is not very nice to anyone decided to corner Colors and beat the **** out of him. He's got some nice teeth marks, but the barn owner "Harmony" rescued Colors and put him back in the other field to try again later.

So that's where we stand right now...it's been fascinating to watch their behavior and how they communicate with eachother. It's been a little painful emotionally and physically. It was hard to separate Colors from the other 2 that he was with in Dayton, they'd been together for 15 years and the little girl that lives there now was SO upset that I was taking Colors. And well, the physical part, he definitely stomped on my foot.

3 blessings:
That my rose bushes exploded into a riot of color this week

That he's settling in

That it's not broken

fields gardens and beaches

2009-05-26T21:03:00.002-04:00

summer sun and grubby knees
send me straight back to my childhood
there's a certain peace to be found
sitting in the dirt
with grass tickling your legs
and the smell of healthy salty sweat
mingling with the fresh sweet breeze
makes me remember being small
and thinking that life didn't get better than
that minute right there
it got better each year
but it gets perfect sitting in the dirt
in the summer sun
with grubby knees.

perfect weekend...

2009-05-25T21:06:00.004-04:00

off work a few minutes early friday
home to dayton to a delicious steak dinner grilled by my parents
i got to see my parents and sister
moving my HORSE TO COLUMBUS went SO much better than expected
P helped and supported me through the whole move
Lake Hope in Southeast Ohio to swim and relax by the lake
Ice Cream for Dinner
The horse settling in despite getting the $#%# beat out of him by a horse named Griffin.
Grilling bratwurst early in the evening
Godiva Cheesecake and 2 glasses of red wine by Buckeye Lake at sunset.

with...the best husband ever.

3 questions

what was perfect about your weekend
who did you spend it with
what are you remembering this memorial day?

speechless...

2009-05-15T15:47:00.003-04:00

Wishing Snickollet much luck and many blessings in her journey.

I love fate.

It is proof that life works in very mysterious ways. Who would think that by posting a random comment on a blog...I could help someone's life? I am honored.

blessings:

being able to return the favor for someone who helped me more than she knows.
that anonymous strangers can touch eachothers lives
for all my blog friends that i've made.

My husband found out my dirty little secret....

2009-05-06T09:01:00.002-04:00

I tried to keep it from him...I really did. I mean, who wants to bare every dirty little secret from your past???? Not this girl. Some things are best kept hidden. But, as fate would have it, I let the secret slip. And now he knows my horrible horrible truth and I will have to deal with it as best I can.

Since the secret's out, I might as well tell you all how my marriage changed forever in the blink of an eye because of my careless, careless tongue.

There we were lying in bed late at night watching t.v. **** and a commercial came on. In my sleepy state, I wasn't watching what I was saying and I idly said. You know, I've never understood the cult following that the Terminator Movies have. I mean what's so great about them? Arnold's a bad guy and he's sent to kill some kid right?

P just kind of looked at me like I was a complete stranger to him. Then....he asked the question I've been avoiding for the 6 years that I've known him. "You haven't ever seen any of the Terminator movies have you....?"

I couldn't lie! That would be wrong!

He was shocked. Apparently, I have been walking around Life missing some vital component of American Culture. I never felt as if I was missing anything, but according to him and all of the male gender (he says) I have. Now that my dirty little secret's out, I fear that I'm going to have to pay the consequences. He says that our next 3? (are there really three???) date nights are going to be renting Terminator 1, 2 and 3. *sigh*

Dear GOD people do you know what this means????

THREE. NIGHTS.OF.MY.LIFE watching ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER dressed up like a ROBOT from OUTER SPACE!!!!! OMG.

My future looks bleak.

God help me if he finds out that I haven't seen all the Rocky movies, That movie where Tom Cruise drives a race car and Nightmare on Elm Street.

So readers ;-) now that you know my dirty little secret, why don't you share yours? What CLASSICS have you been avoiding for the past 10,20 or 50 years?

Blessings:
gracious friends who tell me fun things and take me to spontaneous lunches when I was feeling "blah"
teeny bopper music- you should check out "dirty little secret" by the all-american rejects
how cute my husband looks when he gets his hair cut.

**** (don't judge me, we have a t.v. in the bedroom. I like watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and M*A*S*H) before bed)

backyard updates

2009-05-04T08:57:00.011-04:00

Well, we spent the whole weekend power washing the house which was oh-so-very-much-fun. I'm tired and my thumb hurts from holding the trigger! Thus, I shall just put up some simple picture posts....If you would like to refresh in your mind what the backyard looked like before... please visit HERE. I'd say we're ALMOST at the halfway point in this new post...So much More to do. *SIGH*

3 Blessings:

The smell of marigolds and tomato plants instantly takes me back to being about 4 years old.

My amazing husband who goes up onto the roof to power wash parts of the house that no one would even notice.

That so far the swine flu in the US seems to be...not so scary.

sometimes sunday is the best day of the week

2009-04-26T19:00:00.034-04:00

This weekend was absolutely gorgeous. P's mom came down and though she may not be my favorite person in the world, this weekend was still fun. I think I ate more this weekend than in the last week. Let's run through the culinary experience real quick.
Friday night we stopped by an art exhibit in Bexley where the daughter of a friend of P's family was having an exhibit. She is an AMAZING artist. She's P's age, 28 , and is infinitely better at art than I will ever be at anything. One of her drawings brought tears to my eyes because it reminded me so much of one of my own experiences. She has been selected to exhibit her art at the National Portrait Gallery in London for a full year...The drawing I liked sold for 1760. I am envious of those with talent. *sigh* While at the exhibit I was peer pressured by the wine porter to drink 2 free glasses of icy cold pinot grigio. Yum.

We took the MIL to Schmidt's Sausage Haus down in German Village after the exhibit.
This is an historic site in Columbus and German Village is exceptionally beautiful. It has cobblestone roads and ancient houses that sell for, and I kid you not, 799,000 dollars. We waited for probably 45 minutes to get a seat and when we finally did it was RIGHT next to the German band.

It was loud but SO funny. I will admit that the hilarity of it may have been influenced by this.
Don't judge me. My mother in law was staying with us for the whole weekend!!!
Saturday we slept in as much as we were able with the gorgeous sun shining into the bedroom. We got up and waited for MIL to finish getting ready and then took her to a diner in PickTown for brunch. I had what was probably the largest omelette known to mankind. It was "healthy" though! It had tons of veggies in it! Post gargantuan breakfast we drove out to Nurk so P could work his baseball game. I helped the student worker keep score while P entertained his mom a little bit and then I watched the game and got gloriously tan/burned. It was loooovely. They lost, but sometimes sitting outside watching people have fun is the most fun ever.

After the loss, we drove MIL around Buckeye Lake and showed her some of the gorgeous but uber expensive homes that P wants to one day live in and then went to Papa Boos for dinner and relaxation by the water.

While there we saw

and

AND

I get excited by the little things...like giant CARP!

After dinner we went to another historic site called Weldon's for ice cream.

P's mom left this morning and I spent the entire day outside. I got the rest of the flowers and veggies that I'm able to plant right now, came home and planted them. Then, I scrubbed down the back deck and put back our patio furniture. I shall post some pictures of the "halfway point" of our backyard construction later this week.
I have to say....today was The.Best.Day.Ever. I absolutely LOVE the sunshine and warmth. I feel like I have been fully dosed with Vitamin D and happiness :-)

3 blessings:
sun
sunshine
sunny days

What I'd Like To Say....

2009-04-20T21:04:00.003-04:00

In which Ann Ominous writes about her inner monologue.

I'd like to say, that unless you call me, I'm not going to call you.
I'd like to say, that when I leave a voicemail, I'm not going to call again until you call me back.
When you do call...if you only tell me about all the bad things in your life, be prepared for me to tell you that your life is what you make it.
If you visit me...it's polite to act like you want to be here.
I'd like to say that if you feel obligated to invite me to go with you and your other friends...you should feel obligated to act like you're interested in me being there.
I'd like to say that you shouldn't feel obligated.

I'd like to say that I found your friend incredibly shallow and incredibly mean.
I understand that people think that those who don't care what other people think are funny.
But I'd like to say that people should care what other people think. It's called being kind.
Making fun of someone who had a stroke isn't kind. It isn't funny.

That's what I'd like to say. What I'd really really like to say.

What I will say....

I'll keep calling you because I care about how you're doing out there.
I'll leave you a voicemail and I'll probably call back because I value our friendship.
When you call me and tell me that your life's not going well, I won't say anything...I'll try to listen, try to help, because I know you need me to.
I'll say that you can visit me and still see your other friends, because I know you care about them and that they see you less often than I do.
If you invite me out with your other friends, I might still go...but I will tell you in the future that it's okay, I don't mind staying home with my husband. I like it here.
You really shouldn't feel obligated.

I won't provoke your friend, I won't tell you I don't like him....but I don't think he's funny and when he crosses the line, I will tell him.

I will not let people make fun of stroke survivors. My father is one. I love him and count my blessings every day that I didn't lose him 10 years ago.

I will continue to say that people should care what others think;that it is important to be kind. I will always care what you think and about how you feel. You are my friend. That is what friends do.

I'm aware that like most things, friendship is a two way street, and that there are things you probably don't say to me. Friendship isn't perfect, I don't expect it to be.

3 blessings:
my husband stands beside me when he knows i'm uncomfortable
my dad, a 10 year stroke survivor
my friends

angry

2009-04-20T12:25:00.002-04:00

THIS makes me SO angry. If someone did inject those horses with something that killed them...that's just unbelievably cruel. Why?

One of my favorite authors said this once about his writing

I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs. ~Alf Wight aka James Herriot

Clearly...not everyone has read his books.

*outraged* and hoping that no one actually did this.

compassion and karma

2009-04-15T09:46:00.003-04:00

I have been thinking alot lately about people in general. It seems that there are so many people who are dissatisfied with their lives, their looks, their everything. This dissatisfcation is everywhere, it has seeped into my friends lives, into the students I see...everywhere. I'm not talking about the people who are heartbreakingly depressed or anything. I just mean the regular people who just...aren't happy. Sure, everyone's got drama in their lives, but some people 'bounce' with it better than others. Others seem to just inwardly collapse into a steaming pile of disgruntlement. I won't lie, I've been there...it's a craptastic place to be.

The thing is though, we can do something about it. We can count the ways that we are beautiful, the ways our lives are blessed. Rather than remembering every single thing that's bad, start remembering the good. Rather than obsessing about why our lives aren't going the way they're supposed to, we can be thankful that we have a life to live the best we can. It's making a concious decision to be happy. That's the only thing that will clean up that steaming pile of disgruntlement that you may have fallen into. Drinks won't fix it, church won't fix it,your friends can't fix it, the gym won't fix it. Unless you change your internal behavior , the way you think...you're going to be stuck. Don't get me wrong, those things can help...especially friends and church, but you can listen to your friends and the Bible all day and if it doesn't sink in, if you don't change, you'll walk out the doors the same person.

I think one of the most important things is to learn kindness and compassion. When your life is low...start trying to be kind to others, find ways to show compassion for people and you'll find that you are lifted up. Find ways to be kind to yourself and show some compassion for yourself and what you're feeling and you feel better. One of the bloggers I stalk just had a quote posted that I love. This is the full text of it :

For Attractive lips, speak words of kindness, For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people, For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry, For Beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day, For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others." — audrey hepburn

I did not used to be so happy with my life. I changed. Learning to be kind, learning to show compassion for others, learning to stop obsessing over what I thought my life should look like helped. Learning to look at what my life was really like and what it could have been like really helped. Learning that Life doesn't just happen to you, that you can be an active participant in its course really helped. I love my life now. At nearly 31, I have found that I finally feel like I am where I'm supposed to be and it is not where I thought I would be when I was 21. But, I belong here, with my friends, my husband, my family.

So rather than posting 3 blessings today, i'm going to post 3 challenges for you...

1. take 5 minutes to day to look around at all of the simple things in your life that you may usually take for granted.
2. find a way to be kind to someone else today
3. make a concious decision not to worry about something that's on your mind for at least an hour. stick to it, and practice thinking of something else.

rain rain go away

2009-04-14T12:31:00.002-04:00

Hello there! I hope you all had great weekends and spent some time with family and friends. We had a very nontraditional Easter Weekend at the Ominous Household. Friday night, P and I rented The Day The Earth Stood Still. It was interesting. Note, that I did not say "GOOD." It was an interesting concept, that our planet is vital and that it doesnt belong to us and that we're 'killing it'. A little farfetched in that the aliens come to eradicate humans in order to save the planet...but, who knows, maybe it isnt so far fetched after all. It would have been a better movie if it hadn't been so flat through the whole thing. You kind of wait and wait and wait for a surprising moment or that moment when the music gets real loud and things start happening fast. Yeah...that never happened. Even the ending was just like "oh...is it over?" Despite being kind of boring, P and I had a really good time watching the movie and eating good food that I cooked. It was very relaxing to just lay there and cuddle and watch a movie. We don't do that often. Saturday we got up and went out to Nurk (Newark) so P could do his athletic directoring at the softball game and then we drove straight to Dayton for Easter. It was a very nontraditional Easter weekend like I said. My parents were in Chicago celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary with some friends of theirs and P's dad and step mom were in St.Thomas for spring break. We were kind of left w/o family other than Ps mom and so since my little sister was also 'orphaned' we decided to spend Saturday with her. We met up in Dayton and we took her to our favorite ribs restaurant and then went to the Dayton Dragons home opener. It was different, but fun and it was so good to spend time with the Pig. She's hilarious and it's really runny when P gives her a hard time. He treats her like his own little sister and picks at her and teases her. She gets so frustrated because she can't retaliate :-) I laughed a lot.
Sunday P and I drove back, went to the gym and worked in the gardens. Some of my plants aren't looking so hot...i'm hoping the garden center was right when they said I could plant perennials now.... We'll see.

We took an extra day off yesterday and despite the rain hiked a 5 mile trail around a lake in one of the state parks near our house. It was SO MUCH FUN. It was rainy, but not really cold since we were moving and the view was pretty and the trail was just perfect...not too hard and not too easy. We ate lunch, went to the grocery and relaxed all evening. It was fantastic, add that to hanging out by the fire pit for hours Sunday night and our 'nontraditional Easter' and it was probably the best weekend that I've had in a long time.

I am a little sad that we didn't get to go to Church...but, neither my sister and I feel any ties to the Church my parents attend unless the parents are there. It turns into more of an awkward situation than a chance to worship because the pastor's a little odd and lots of the people know us, but we don't know them. So....we opted not to go but, it was good that despite not going, there are still things that remind you of the reason for the holiday. Christ is in us in our family and our friends and it was really a great weekend to remind me of how very much my life has been blessed.

3 blessings:

my sister is turning into a very poised and outstanding young lady.
my parents who, though it hasn't always been easy, are outstanding role models for what a marriage should be
taking the time to connect w/my husband and really talk about life while hiking and sitting around a campfire.

april showers bring....april flowers?

2009-04-10T09:15:00.004-04:00

Last night, P and I took advantage of the gorgeous evening and worked in the yard. It's a good thing that we did since today is another miserably rainy, gloomy day in Ohio. I would say that overall it was a fantastic evening. P had another go with the hippie mower. He mowed the front yard, picked up dog droppings (yeuck..that's a boy job) in the back yard and then mowed. If he got the weed wacker out to do some trimming, our yard would look pretty nice...crabgrass and all.
While he mowed, I planted some perennials in our new flower beds out back. I think it's still a little early to be doing any planting, but, the lady at the garden center (a different garden center than the one that told me to buy the hardwood mulch that would later sprout fungus) assured me that they would be okay as long as I paid attention to frost. I also realized that I didn't buy enough of one plant and had to run to the Home Depot to get a couple more. One of my mother-in-laws says that one should always buy ones plants at a garden center or nursery because they are better quality. But here's the thing, Home Depot is like 5 minutes from my house, the nursery is like 30 minutes away. Home Depot sold me 6 plants for $35, the nursery sold me 4 for $40. I'm thinking that I like Home Depot. Just how superior can a nursery plant be anyway? It's a plant! We'll see.
So, here are the cutie pies that are growing in my yard right now...these aren't my pics, I just stole them off the internet because it was too dark to take pics by the time I finished planting last night. Not so much an exciting post today...but, it was just a nice relaxing evening, I wish you all the same thing today!

I'm beginning to think that our yard has more crabgrass than real grass... If you squint it's kind of pretty? Right?

Raspberry Swirl Dianthus (pinks)

Firewitch Dianthus

Tickseed! Yeah...I kind of bought these because I like the name. It makese me laugh.

3 things:
After 6 years of dating and being married, my husband still tells me I'm "cute"
For random sunny days in April
I get to see my sister this weekend :-)

The Curse

2009-04-06T11:24:00.004-04:00

It's ironic that on Friday I was discussing with my sister the subject of our family curse. What? Cursed you say?? Yes. Cursed. **disclaimer** what you are about to read is an account of true incidents, but actual curse may be overdramatized for theatrical effect.

You see, my family has a long history of having random weird things happen to them that are just pure and simple bad luck. We have come to determine that it's really Karma's way of protecting the rest of the world population. You see, if it happens to us, it wont happen to you. We serve as the guardians of all other people's luck, because the bad luck bestows itself on us.

Case in Point: This weekend.

You all know that my husband and I dug out and rebuilt a flower bed last fall and after careful consultation with the garden center, we decided to use a particular brand of hardwood mulch that is designed to cut down on weed growth. Well, it's looked beautiful for the last few months and then all of a sudden on Friday, husband noticed these funny brown puffball looking fungi. Not just in a couple spots. All. Over. The. Mulch. We thought, Hmm...that's weird. I wonder what those are...and other random things. We went to the garden center on Saturday and bought some plants and went to put them in the flower garden and that's when I noticed it....the front of our house has all these little itty bitty black dots all over it. They look like this . Just like that little period...exactly that size though some are a little larger. WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!? SO, I head inside and check my trusty google website and find that more than likely the fungus is the culprit. WHAT??? SERIOUSLY??? The fungus is shooting polka dots at my siding.

You may read more about said fungus here: http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/d/d/ddd2/ I have not tried the Mr.Clean Magic Eraser yet, the soft scrub with bleach and scrubby sponge worked fairly well. We scooped up the areas of the mulch that contained fungus and threw it away. I am really disinclined to replace all the mulch as it is such a waste of $$. We shall see how the next few weeks progress with the fungus attacking our siding.

Sunday the curse continued in full and angry force. P and I slept in Sunday and got up and read the paper, ate cereal and drank coffee. It started off to be a great day. We went and bought some crabgrass preventer because the people who formerly lived in our house apparently never touched the yard and it's going to be a years long project to rid ourselves of all the crabgrass. We planted the new plants and then I went and showered and got ready to go do a floor set at Bath and Body works. I came outside to eat my lunch and talk to P who was still pottering about in the garden. He went around the side of the house and got the hose out and watered the new plants. Then he went back around the side of the house to untangle the hose. I saw him kind of.....shake the hose to try to work out a kink. And then I heard him yell "OH SHIT"....and then there was this funny noise...and some silence from him. Then he yells a few more expletives that I wont print and I ran over to see what had happened. The faucet, my friends, was pulled about 4 inches out of the side of the house and water was GUSHING, FLOODING, POURING down the inside of the wall straight into the basement. You know, the basement that we just finished. Thank GOD that P knows how to turn the water off to the house because if I had been home alone while it happened, it's quite possible that I would be treading water in my kitchen at this point.

It turns out that whoever "fixed" the pipes before we moved in, thought that it would be okay to just "make it fit". Long story short, you should never try to stretch a 90 degree angled pvc pipe to fit a slightly larger than 90 degree angle bend. Years of stress on said stretched angle and my husband's shaking the hose cracked the stressed angle right in two.

So, the family curse continues despite changing my name when I got married. It's too smart for us, it must have access to my social security number or something because it definitely is still present in my life.

The curse touches us in a multitude of ways, horses getting loose, mom falling into a 5 foot hole while walking through a field, my sister falling up the stairs in front of the entire Greek community of her college, dad burning a hole in the counter and backing the car into the garage door of the house they JUST BOUGHT that week....it's those random little "Slim to None chance" things that happen to us so that the rest of you can live awkward free and lucky lives.

I accept flowers, candy and credit cards as thank you gifts.

3 things:

That my husband knew how to turn the water off
That we own a wet/dry vac
That the rescue plumber was really nice and in a really good mood because his alma mater is in the championship game. I might have to be a UNC fan today.

suhhhweet.....

2009-04-03T22:32:00.002-04:00

It's going to snow again. I am so very very over gross weather. I am tired of being inside. I want out. I am hoping that tomorrow will be nice enough that we can go outside after P comes back from golfing with his buddy from work. P did spend part of tonight and yesterday mowing the grass for the first time with our new hippie lawn mower. It's pretty cool...it doesn't cut quite as cleanly as the old gas powered one, but it's nice to know we're not killing the environment, relying on foreign oil and saving room in our garage at the same time ;-) I'll let you guess which one of those three things I'm most excited about.

I worked today til 3 and then took off early to drive to Dayton to meet with my horse's vet and update his vaccines and draw blood for the Coggins test. The people who bought my parents house are nice....but it's true what they say, you can't ever go home again because it won't be the same. The yard's a mess and they have unfinished projects all over the barn yard. They are first time horse owners and I'm trying very tactfully to show them how to do some things....like make sure the halter's not on so tight that it's rubbing the poor thing's face. They need to get their daughter in some riding lessons this summer and she'll learn how to do things properly...but geez. It hurts my heart to see the things that I used to take care of so well be so...haphazard.

Next step with the horse is to see if the old family friend will still help me move him up here....and then, the heartbreaking process of separating Colors from his little friends until he gets used to the new horses at the new stable. I will probably cry. It's going to be awful. Somebody tell me that I'm anthropomorphosizing (totallys pelled that wrong) human feelings into the horse and that he'll miss his friends but it's not going to break his heart???

***subject change before i cry***

Today at work was fun, we did a presentation for a large group and it was fun to see everyone's personalities come out in the way they present their pieces. We work well together and complement eachother well, I think. The rest of the day I chit chatted with my boss and told her that I'd like an additional assignment if she has any floating around...most of the other people in the office have something "else" that they do besides advise, so they have more to work on than just their allocated students. My 'appointment' doesn't come with any other projects, so I would like to either create one or be given one now that I feel like I know what the heck I'm doing. I may pick up more presentations this summer since I really do love public speaking. I may also help revamp survey class, though, I'm not sure that I'm really the most qualified to do this as I think I'm a TERRIBLE teacher. We shall see. She seemed positive about giving me more to do so that's good.

I also chatted with one of the other advisors about being at that age when you realize "oh crap...at some point I'm going to be the one that has to make big decisions for my parents" and questioning my ability to "be a real grown up." Sometimes I feel like I'm just 'playing' being an adult. I know P feels the same way sometimes though he wouldn't really make a big deal out of it like I do. I over react. Totally. Over.React. I get a thought in my head and let it spiral until it's this huge worst case scenario that there's no solution for and is all doom and destruction. It was really nice to hear from the other girl that I'm not a total nutcase and that she feels the same way sometimes.

Well, this was a random post and now that it's 11:00 and I do not have to get up in the morning, I am going to go upstairs and crack the windows to let a little cold air in, snuggle under my comforter and read Sherlock Holmes. I am toasty full of the delicious dinner my amazing wonderful parents brought me when they surprised me by meeting me at the horse barn, and a cadbury's hot chocolate with the new vanilla caramel swirl marshmallows on top. My husband just kissed the top of my head and I'm not alone in my neurosis and anxiety. I got to see my horse, my parents and I love my job. I'm pretty sure that that makes for a perfect day :-)

3 things:

Getting my horse to columbus is getting nearer and nearer
Classic Literature that makes me read slowly and absorb what I'm reading
I really do have the best parents in the entire world

before before

2009-04-01T14:40:00.010-04:00

One of the amazing girls at work (She of the new link on the side of my page Blood Sweat and Beers...)told me that my realtor might still have the pictures from our house's listing back when we bought it. I emailed them, and sure enough they did!

Take a look...this is what Casa d'Ominous looked like before I got my paint brush and went color happy all over the walls...

This is now the office upstairs...eventually it might turn into a nursery again, but let's not get hasty. The basement was also this color....only worse because they didn't fully cover any of the walls so it was patchy and weird.
This is the guest bedroom. Those blue squares were painted on and they left the tape on the wall. Have I shown you what this room looks like now? My sister decorated it as she's the only one who really stays there and it's turquoise and black.
The backyard...asyou can see...nothing has really been done.
Kitchen
Living room...The living room had these giant window coverings. The wooden box kind with big heavy drapes. Does anyone know what they're actually called?
Master bedroom.
Front yard. This is where the bulk of our changes have come in...that tree is no logner there, neither are the bushes, the flowerbed was extended and shaped about 5 feet and we now have roses, a lilac tree and azaleas...I'm planning on planting more there when it gets a bit warmer.

This is the after....or the in progress.. can you see this link? http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2522520&id=12415426&l=4ce81fabbd

Chuckles.

2009-03-31T21:10:00.003-04:00

I want to write a post really quickly because I just got off the phone with my friend from college and this whole blog was really started for me to write down what I'm grateful for so that when I feel down...I can look at all the things that I have in my life and not take them for granted.

Back to my friend...I've called her Chuck forever....that's nowhere close to her real name. It started because when I met her, her screenname on AOL was buttchuck and some numbers.

ButtChuck. Yes.

Chuck and I were on a staff together and when I first met her, I had a suspicion that she was not quite...umm...normal. She used "chuck" as a verb, an adjective and a noun. Someone could be a "chuck" as a term of endearment for her. If you were acting "chuckley," you were possibly in trouble. And, of course, someone could "chuck something" by throwing it. If you were exhibiting exceptionally poor behavior, you were being a "buttchuck."

She was an honors student and with that came a love of history, a slight air of being smarter than everyone else and a quirky sense of humor. I was older and had 'my own circle' of friends and didn't really try to get to know her. To make a long story short, Chuck and I got off to a pretty rocky start. We ended up having a verbal argument in the middle of a dining hall on campus and then she proceeded to push every button with me that she could. She officially "Mommed" me. Only my mother can push my buttons like Chuck did that day. Ironically, rather than making me angrier...I grew to respect her. It took guts to stand up to me and put me in my place and make me see her side of things. I appreciated that.

Chuck and I soon became good friends. Best friends. She's one of the 4 or 5 women in my life that I would do absolutely anything for.

Many of our mutual accquaintances still think that she's a little odd. Offbeat...kind of awkward. But, few, have any idea how much I absolutely admire her ability to take risks and how strong she is.

After she graduated, she took out a loan that I suspect is somewhere near 15k to take an internship in Washington D.C with an internationally ranked PR firm. She left her familiy in Ohio, and moved to DC to live with a stranger. She worked 80 hour weeks for a year with no guarantee that she would get anything out of this arrangement. She excelled because she's brilliant and she's got a kind of fierce drive and determination that I will never have. She got a full time position with this firm and worked with them for a year. I'm fairly certain that she was on the fast track to move up in the company, but, on a company trip to Lousiana she met a friend of a friend's for dinner. They started a long distance relationship shortly thereafter and she fell in love and married him a little over a year after they met. Her husband is 17 years older than she is and an officer in the National Guard...He seeks out active deployment, yet another risk that I would never ever take. But, she makes it work. They currently live with her husband's father in a beautiful old home on the family's ancient property.

Yes, you heard right....she moved to a town in Louisiana that is over an hour away from any PR company. She just trusted that everything would be okay. And it is...she may not like her current job much, but she has people calling her and offering her freelance work because she marketed herself and put herself out there as an expert. And she is one.

Another thing that I truly admire about her is that she has done the ultimate healthy life change. When she moved to DC she felt that she was getting very unhealthy and she started running. If you knew her in college, you would know that physical activity was anathema to this girl. She would play racquetball...and that was about it. Sweat? NO WAY. But, she started running. She built herself up and ran a 5k, then a 10k. She now has 6 marathons under her belt and is becoming active in a national marathon training program sponsored by Jeff Galloway the olympian. She's even oranizing her own marathon in her town.

I don't do risk well. I don't do the shaky little limb on the smallest branch of the tree well. But Chuck does...and I hope that I can take little steps to be more like her. I'm very proud to be her friend and I hope that she knows that.

I still don't REALLY think she's normal...but, sometimes, I think that we could all be a little less normal and a little more "Chuckley."

3 Things:
Chuck's kind of teaching me how to actually run more than a mile....no marathons for this girl, but, anything's better than nothing
When I do take a risk....I have an amazing support network of friends and family as a safety net.
That I'm learning to take risks and not completely freak out when I feel the limb start to shake.

Love.

2009-03-29T18:15:00.003-04:00

I love being his wife.

Sonford Q. McSquigglebottoms

2009-03-26T19:31:00.002-04:00

This is an ode to the pooch who has taken over my house. When I moved to Athens, I found out that they had a pet policy at Ohio University and Hall Directors could own "smaller dogs" or cats. I talked to P about it and he told me how much he'd always wanted a dog and was SO excited that I could possibly get a pooch. So, while he was living in Columbus we'd chat on the phone and look at Petfinder.org the most fabulous website for finding rescue dogs and other animals in need of love. One day he came across this picture of a puppy that was a lovely reddish color with white tipped toes. I think that moment, my then boyfriend may have been more in love with a picture of a dog than he was with me! LOL!

We investigated the dog and decided that it was quite probable that we wanted to adopt him. This was a big step for us! MUTUAL DOG OWNERSHIP! That was like...a commitment or something *mwahhahahaha*
We drove up to Mt.Gilead, OH one day to check him out. He was living with the county rescue agent and her 30 other dogs. No. That's not a typo. 30.Other.Dogs. She let him in the house and he came running straight to us like he knew we were there for him. He was a little lighter in color than we'd thought he would be and he had a small cherry eye in his left eye. A cherry eye is mostly a cosmetic deformity in most dogs....in some it can cause eye problems because it interferes with the way the dog makes tears. Sonneigh's doesnt give him any problems and is minor so doesn't need any surgery. The rescue agent was worried though that people would be turned off by this little imperfection. We didn't care and took him home with us that day.

Have you ever transported a dog in a car that had never been in one? We hadn't. Let me tell you, we learned very quickly in the 3 hour drive back to Athens that it results in CARSICKNESS. ALL OVER. We had to pull over 3 times to clean out the car. It was A-W-F-U-L. I do not do vomit well. I nearly lost everything I ate that week the 3rd time it happened.

Despite the vomit and the chewed up dvds and the 3 foot tall stuffed dragon that ended up gutted all over my living room floor...Sonneigh is the absolute best dog in the entire world. He doesn't bark hardly ever and loves nothing more than a cuddle in the evening. He also likes comfort....as you can see in the pictures below.

I came downstairs one day this fall and found him sitting on top of the chair cushions that I had put on the patio table to dry out.

please pay no attention to the rip in the curtain....P got the dog excited and the dog stepped on the curtain and tore it. I haven't been able to find a replacement that matches the others yet!

3 Things:

The joy animals can bring to your life
That there are good people in the world that care about the welfare of animals
Petfinder.org

Before...more will follow in a few months

2009-03-23T08:23:00.005-04:00

So, last post, I shared my to-do list, so for this post, I thought I'd share my back yard. Here's the before pictures for what I hope will some day be a beautiful after.

This picture is of the back yard and the back of the house...I don't think we're changing much there other than putting our patio table umbrella back up. We are going to re-paint the deck...possibly a slightly darker shade than it is now so there's a little more contrast with the house and the fence. I dont know yet. Also, on either side of the steps, a big purple butterfly bush grows. If it grows back after I over-pruned it last fall :-\

This is from the deck looking down. You can quite plainly see the bumpy yard and that the whole yard is really boring and plain.

This is the one part of the yard I like right now...we're pretty much done with the fire pit circle. I kind of wish our chairs matched, but I'm not sure that I'm really invested in repainting them with that plastic chair paint. We also probably should have dug the rocks into the ground...but we didn't want to make it quite so "permanent" yet. Our goal is for the grass to grow up around the rocks and in between the cracks so it looks more like you're camping on a cute little mountain plateau ;-).

This is the weird coffin sized dirt patch that was here when we moved in. This will be remade into a flower bed. The other corner of the yard behind the fire pit will be a matching flower bed. If only I can figure out what to do with the giant grass plant that currently hides the stupid cable box thingy.

Hello All

2009-03-19T10:11:00.003-04:00

I am loving this warmer weather...thought it brings with it the reminder of just how much work P and I have to do outside this year. Let me share with you our to-do-list for Spring/Summer.

1. Get trim of house repainted. Should we do this ourselves....probably, but neither of us are very keen on balancing ladder and paint bucket on our bumpy lawn.
2. Fix bumpy lawn.
3. Power Wash House and Deck
4. Paint garage door and mailbox
5. repaint deck
6. carpet upstairs
7. cut out flower beds in back yard and clean up flower beds around deck
8. plant flowers in said beds
9. plant remaining flowers in front of house.
10. buy flower pots for my birthday present in which i will plant vegetables
11. plant birthday vegetables

I'm pretty sure there are some more things in there, but I can't quite remember them all. I will be SO SO excited to work on them though.

We made the first steps on tuesday, we went out to Lowes and bought a reel lawn mower. Yes, you know, the old fashioned kind that run on your sweat and not on gasoline? I think it goes nicely with our hybrid car and fits much much better in our garage than the big honking one that we broke last year. We also bought more paving stones for our fire pit circle and set that up. As soon as they settle into the ground and the grass grows, I think it will be a super fun location for us to sit and relax in the evenings! I am going to take some before, during and after shots of our backyard so that you all can see what I'm putting my poor husband through :-) mwahhahahahaah.

What are all of you planning for the warm weather?

3 Things:
That my computer training session was cancelled today!!!!
That my dad's cataract surgery went well this week
That my mom is officially retiring this summer

and a bonus:

my sister actually got an A on her math quiz....*cross your fingers folks...she needs a C- in the class to pass.* The Ominous gene pool is historically awful at math.

starving.

2009-03-13T12:36:00.000-04:00

i'm not really starving. but oh my gosh am i hungry. we are going on a staff lunch and we have to wait til 130 and my tummy says feed me now! i have no students til 330 so nothing to take my mind off of fooooooooooooood. it doesn't help that the restaurant has a menu online and i'm drooling over my choices of mexican food.

nom nom nom.

home to dayton this weekend for "easter dinner" since my parents are going to be out of town on "real easter."

got my hair cut yesterday....people are SO complimentary about it...I'm thinking that's a good sign but ama little worried about how it used to look!

ass hat

2009-02-18T11:58:00.003-05:00

definition of an AssHat: n. student who yells at me after class in front of 15 other students because, I the instructor (noun) went by the clock on the computer and on the wall in the classroom to start class at 10:30 and then counted him as late at 10:37 when HIS CELL PHONE told him it was 10:35 when he walked into the room.

My response: "D--- I understand that you disagree with the time, but I have always gone by the computer clock and the classroom clock and to my knowledge that is what time it is. Class starts at 1030 and the 5 minute grace period is designed for students who get lost on this large campus in their first quarter and it had expired by the time you came in."

My inner monologue: "how the hell am i supposed to know what time it is on your cell phone and why the hell do you think i should go by IT instead of the classroom clock? Everyone else was here on time oh and BY THE WAY you are a 2nd quarter freshman and this is the SECOND TIME YOU HAVE TAKEN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY SO STOP EFFING YELLING AT ME ASSHAT!!!!"

high school

2009-02-18T07:49:00.003-05:00

i caught glimpse of death last night
his cold bones were gleaming white
his grinning face leered down at me
an omen of what was yet to come
of what could cease to be

A golden watch he held in his skeletal grasp
He opened the face and it creaked on its rusted clasp
He looked at my face and lifted back his tattered hood
and in his empty eyes I saw all my life, the bad and good.

He reached for me and touched my face
He whispered "not now, not this place"
and then he turned into the night and fled
and so ends my brief encounter with
the master of the dead.

owie

2009-02-16T08:11:00.003-05:00

= very dangerous piece of kitchen equipment.

no stitches required, but my typing might be worse than usual.

good news! Have found a location to board the horse!!!!! Now i just have to make all the arrangements, get his vaccines updated and all that jazz. I am not looking forward to trying to get him in a trailer...he hates them. I am not looking forward to separating him and the little minaiture horse he's lived with for the last 10 years. He neighs when they're in different fields...I'm kind of afraid he'll go into mourning w/o him. Hopefully being with 10 other horses will be okay...but, i'm a little nervous. :-( I'm looking to move him in May. So that will be an exciting month!!!

3 things:
making my husband happy by agreeing to do his 'boy stuff' on Valentines day
apples!
my parents coming up for lunch yesterday.

I.Love.My.Husband.

2009-02-13T23:44:00.003-05:00

SO MUCH

I took him to see Friday the 13th.

I am writing this from under the covers in my bedroom behind a locked door.

If there's a noise. I will be moving underneath the bed.

I will NOT be taking him to see a Haunting in Conneticut. The preview was terrifying.

If you don't hear from me in the next few days...assume that Jason Voorhees has taken my head.

**tremble**

a-fraud

2009-02-10T07:43:00.002-05:00

seriously. the sports radio stations have been taken over by the latest breaking sh0cking report of yet another great american hero using steroids. i would like to bestow upon them the "just shut up award."

here is why:

first, does it SERIOUSLY shock you that this incredibly vain and notoriously prima donnaesque man would use steroids to stay at the top of his game? second, why does everyone seem so shocked but yet willing to believe that he 'suffered' from insecurity and the pressure to perform and live up to his giant multi-million dollar contract? why is the guy from the texas rangers so 'personally hurt' that a-fraud would have done such a thing while employed by him?

SERIOUSLY. SHUTTUP.

This is not something new. We all know that baseball is riffe with steroid use. I would be more shocked if you could have 100% infallible documentation that a baseball player had never used a performance enhancing drug of any kind legal or not! from redbull to anabolics, come on!

I love sports. LOVE them. I have never really played a sport competitively though unless you count my brief junior high stint as a bad ass volleyball player. My husband has though and I know that in his home town, it is not uncommon for parents to hold their children back from going on to 7th grade so that they can get one more year of size and 'maturity' before getting into the real tackle football. it's not illegal...so why not give them an advantage? 5 hour energy isn't illegal...and it gives an advantage according to osi umenyura (spelling?) the 5 hour energy guru on tv. well, steroids weren't really routinely tested for, so why wouldn't a baseball player take that advantage. it's our culture! must be the best, must be the thinnest, must be this must be that.

The emphasis on being bigger, better,faster, stronger is nearly as dangerous for men as the emphasis for women on being thinner, thinner and thinner. In baseball and football you have steroids, in football you also have concussion syndrome from playing through repeated injuries, you have seriously dangerous weight gain for the linemen... gorging themselves to make it to college ball or the pros. because they NEED to be so large.

And to me...it really seems like most of this pressure to be the best comes from both their own competitiveness to set records, but also from our desire to see the home run rather than the close game, to make our Pros into celebrity superstars. They get MILLIONS to play a game. MILLIONS. and the problem with this is that there doesn't seem to be any public support. Look at Vince Young from the Tennessee Titans, Brady Leaf, Michael Phelps and others...they get to the pros fresh out of college, and can't handle the pressure. They flake out, they use drugs, they can't handle criticism and the ridiculous expectations that their fans and the owners place on them....and they turn to steroids, they turn to anger, they turn to running away and talking about suicide. How about we put a counseling system in place for these young men? A better one that what's there, one that takes the stigma away from feeling pressured to be the best and not being able to handle it gracefully. And better yet, how about changing culture so it's okay for these guys to talk about it.

Will I stop buying football tickets or baseball tickets to try to end this cycle? No...I'll continue to pay exorbitant prices for my "American Pasttimes." Because I truly do love sports and i truly do enjoy watching the close games, sneaky wins and even the excitement of a blow out....but if my quarterback throws 6 interceptions on his birthday during the playoffs...I'm not going to really mind. I also wont be surprised or shocked if next year it turns out that good old Grady Sizemore's dabbled in some performance enhancers...There are 103 players on that list that they found Rodriguez's name on...i'd venture to say there's twice that that have used.

So seriously people....just shut up...or at least...quit acting like you're SO surprised.

3 things:
being able to watch sports and enjoy them for being a game
that my husband has no unrealistic expectations for our future children that might someday play sports
that there are some sports 'heros' that are clean, and are still talented.

welcome to the ominous house!

2009-01-29T20:11:00.012-05:00

Welcome to the Ominous House!! This is the best picture of the front of our house that I currently have, we decorated the outside for MojoKid's first birthday. Would you like to come in for the tour?
As you come in our itty bitty entryway, you can hang your coat on P's awful old coat rack that I hide behind the door. Hopefully, you'll just notice the pictures of our honeymoon that we have hanging on the wall beside the door.

After you finish looking at those pictures, you can see my favorite thing in the whole main level....our wedding photo frame. I got the frame at Target when we first moved in and put a bunch of the proofs from our wedding in it. I love it and lay on the couch and stare at it frequently.

If you'd like to have a seat you can sit on the worst decision I ever made...The white couch from Sofa Express. A) the stain protector they said they put on doesn't work AT ALL B) we have a dog we can't keep off the couch. C) sofa express in columbus went out of business D) the back rest cushions are only filled with that cotton batting type stuff and not real pillows or foam. They suck. If anyone has ANY suggestions, I would love you forever. I can't even really put a slip cover over it because the cushions are ridiculous. The pink blanket isn't usually there....it's just cold.

Our little fireplace and our map of places we've been. On it you can see my 2nd favorite thing in the living room...the little horses that P got me for Valentines day one year.

Our Kitchen adjoins the living room...it's a small house. This is our kitchen table which was our 1 yr anniversary present to eachother...we got it on a trip to North Carolina at a British Antique store and had it shipped back to the OH-IO.

Table top...and P's Squirt salt shakers that he loves.

This is my little art project that I stole from Imperfect. I framed a bunch of my grandmothers old handwritten recipes. I don't really like how the 2 are haning on the wall, but I don't have enough room to put them all on a shelf. Suggestions?

This is the part I actually really like, and a little closer look at the recipes.

My bakers rack that I'll eventually replace with something that matches the table...for now though, it's what you gotta kinda watch your hip on as you walk into the kitchen. I get more bruises by not paying attention to it! You can also see the coupon book that I made after Imperfect inspired me yet once again! I don't know how to be cool and link to her entries :-(

Last thing I want to show you before we head upstairs tomorrow are my cool antique candy jars. If you're like me, most of the time you can't find canisters for flour,sugar,coffee AND Brown sugar and powdered sugar and self rising flour. Staples of the cooking world....anyway, I think that antique candy jars make GREAT substitutes! They are airtight and DEFINITELY hold a 5 pound bag with plenty of room for a scoop! Plus, the labels are just super cute.

So...got any suggestions for my couch or for my collage??? I got nothin.

the great ice storm of 2009 and how I spent the day

2009-01-28T19:02:00.014-05:00

So, today was awesome. Yes we were pretty much Iced into the house despite one short trip to the Gym, but it was so much fun to be home with the Husband and the dog.

Let's begin with the beginning shall we? I got up at 530 a.m. to check the email, found that campus was closed and broke the news to the hubster that we were going to be off all day. I then went back to sleep until 930!! SO AWESOME. We got up, I ate nutella on toast as a special treat for the day, drank a coffee and hung out for a bit. We then went to the gym, it was EMPTY except for a couple die hard lifters. Post workout, I showered and began my favorite tradition of the snow days. I cooked. I cooked alllll day. I made Southwest cornbread from a mix (you just add beer). Then, I made homeade Chicken Black Bean Chili
Clearly I'm not showing all the steps...but here are my chicken chunks and shallots and onions and garlic sauteed and simmering in chili powder.

Here's the secret ingredient.

And here is the DELICIOUS end result.

I made a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting too...I wont post pictures of that, it's too fattening and gross :-)

Whilst I was cooking my little heart out, my super wonderful P chipped off the driveway. Yes, I do mean chipped off...not shoveled. He said it was like 3 inches of snow, 2 inches of ice and then another 3 inches of snow all packed down under a crust of ice.

After cooking, we ate, and now P is waiting impatiently for me to take the dog on a walk. Tomorrow, I plan on posting some pictures of the house. I always get intimidated when I do this because while I absolutely adore and am really proud of our first house...there are SOOOO many more people out there in blogland who are amazingly talented and coordinated!!!

Here are just a couple more pics of the ice storm til tomorrow!

ice ice everywhere

2009-01-28T10:04:00.003-05:00

so buckeyetown is covered in a giant sheet of ice that is rapidly being covered by a giant sheet of fat snow flakes. i was SUPER worried about driving to work, my supervisor told us all to come in late rather than wait 2 hours on the highway. we've all been praying for campus to close because driving to campus in bad weather is a nightmare. everyone panics and it's less of a "snow" problem and more of a "people" problem. SO, i set my alarm for 530 a.m. so I could get up and check my email to see if there was ANY chance that OSU would close. I looked outside first and saw that everything was shiny!!! SHINY! from the roof to the street everything was glowing in the lamplight. It was odd and beautiful. I logged on to the old email and found to my delight TWO notifications that campus was closed for the day!!!! WHOOOHOOO!!!!!

So far today, I have gone back to bed. Taken some pictures of the snow outside. Toasted some Great Harvest Cinnamon Chip bread and slathered it liberally with warm gooey Nutella and sipped my coffee. I think I will spend the day cooking and taking pictures of the home.

I am SO thankful that neither P or I had to drive to work....my drive is normally 25 minutes tops, but with the weather it would turn into 2.5 hours. P drives all these hilly backroads to work and I have nightmares of him sliding into a ditch and being out of cell phone service.

How're you all spending the snowy weather? Or, for those of you in the south, could you send a little sun our way?

3 things:
Nutella. It is the food of the Heavens. MMMMMMMMMMMM
My dog who spent all last night curled up into my side.
That I did NOT have to go to work today :-)

too lazy to finish typing the word Lazzzzzzzzz.....

2009-01-26T16:12:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted in ages and I feel guilty. So, I am copying a note that I posted on the good old Facebook acct. I got tagged to do it the other day, and thought it would make an interesting Blog Post as well....so without further ado, 26 random facts about myself.

[Instructions: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 26 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 26 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.]
1. This is my first real facebook note ever...I just watched the first episode of this season's LOST and I'm too in awe to go to bed.
2. I used to wish that I would get swept up into a mystery like getting stranded on an island, or being part of some secret espionage or having to save the world. Now, I don't wish that those things would happen to me...I just obsessively watch them on tv.
3. I have 2 facebook accounts because I didn't realize that you could change networks when I moved to Athens. Now I have different friends on both accounts and am afraid that if I ask one set to move to the other acct, they wont.
4. I used to cry when my parents sold our van or our washing machine died. I felt sorry for them.
5. I genuinely love British food and really like heinz baked beans on toast.
6. If I could have any job in the world i would be either a wedding photographer or a home decorator. I wouldn't want to go to school to do these things though. I just want to be talented enough to have people come ask me to do it.
7. I also used to cry when it was my birthday because I was afraid of getting to double digits. I turned 10 in England and sobbed for hours.
8. Once when I was little, I went through a phase where I pretended I was a cat. I got into a really bad habit of saying "meow" after every sentence.
9. My family has a history of anxiety, I didn't know this until I started having anxiety attacks after moving from Athens and buying a house.
10. I discovered that a lot of my anxiety was a result of wanting to control everything in my life. and hating my job. I have since quit that job, gotten one I love and stopped trying to control everything that happens. I've also stopped worrying about being able to control things. anxiety is gone. (most of the time)
11. My 5th anniversary with my husband will be 11-11-11. 12. I re-read books to the point where I can "play them" in my head like a movie. I can often tell you what side of the page a paragraph is on.
13. My first name is Leigh. My parents didn't like how Danielle Leigh sounded (Danielley) and couldn't decide whether to call me Leigh or Danielle so they left the decision up to the color of my hair when I was born. Had I been born a blonde, I would have been called Leigh. I was born in the 70s....you make your own decision about whether my parents did any drugs.
14. I had been to Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales and Mexico as well as 14 trips to England before I turned 22. However, I hadn't seen a real mountain until my honeymoon when I was 28.
15. My sister is 10 years younger than me, but is my absolute best friend and sometimes my role model.
16. I am usually nervous around other women because I'm afraid they will judge me and find me not as good as they are.
17. I used to really want to be sophisticated and elitest. I wanted a job where I would work in designer suits every day and then go to the theatre in the evenings. In grad school I did a 180 because I finally realized that I was truly happiest working with students and drinking beer in pubs or sports bars. I still like the theatre though :-)
18. I don't believe in love at first sight, but I believe that Fate/God arranged for me and my husband to meet
19. My dog is practically a person.
20. I went to 1 school dance in junior high and high school. I did not go to any prom. I thought the boy who asked me was joking.
21.One of the Columbine gunmen went to my elementary school and was a year behind me. I truly believe that if his family had stayed in Beavercreek, it would have been my high school on tv. It makes me regret how judgemental I was back then.
22. I have very vivid and very realisitic dreams that often are so real I can smell in n them.
23. I am Christian and have very deep feelings about my religion, but I get very frustrated by people who try to 'convert' others or make you feel like you're not good enough. I also believe in prayer, but believe that God is very hands off because he gave us free will. I don't believe that he will tell you which decision is the right one, but I believe that if you make the wrong choice, I believe that one of the greatest gifts he gave us was that he will be with us while we struggle with the decision. This is why faith and hope are two of the things that I will always hang on to. 24. I think that my husband is the best thing to happen to me in the world. He's the only person that can calm me down when I'm anxious, make me laugh when I'm sad, and be my strength when I allow myself to be vulnerable.
25.I hope to one day go to Iceland, Greenland and the Galapagos Islands.
26. I often feel like I'm not particularly good at anything. I tend to think that I'm just kind of the average girl. BUT, even on my worst, lowest self esteem day, I am completely confident that my one great strength is to help others find their own strengths and talents. I will tell you exactly how great I think you are, and I can convince you that I am right.

num num num num

2009-01-18T19:41:00.002-05:00

mmmmmmmmm potroast.

So it's a beautiful long weekend in Columbus. We have had a lot of fun actually being social for a change. We went out with P's friend from high school and his wife. I'll call them The Hasselhoffs. G. Hasselhoff and H. Hasselhoff just bought a house so we met them at a restaurant up near their home and then went over to see the new digs. Ladies, H.Hasselhoff has in her bedroom a walk in closet that is probably the size of most people's guest bedrooms. It's not a huge house...but they have this amazing walk in closet of which I am completely envious.
The restaurant we went to was allright...it was kind of chilly and it was a microbrewery which although I know they are trendy, I just can't get into. I don't really like microbrewery beers. I prefer my generic Killians, Bass and Guiness and Coors Light. Micro brew beers always taste sour to me. I dont know why...might just be in my head.

Saturday we slept in and then went to the gym. I rode the bike for an hour and felt quite happy with myself. We also drove out to Millersport where Buckeye Lake is to see the high school. P has decided that he's going to volunteer coach with the football team out there because it's "kind of" on the way home from work and they have so few people that they were really excited to have some free help. I have mixed feelings about this endeavor. I will be sad to have him occupied in the evenings after work and have to devote 10 of my friday nights to football...BUT, he is SOOOO excited and I really do like football and it will be really fun to see my cute husband coaching highschoolers and being a mentor. I just wonder how many people I can sucker into going and watching with me. We did a little grocery shopping and stopped at the bread company and got a loaf of Cinnamon Chip and a loaf of Honey Wheat. MMMM freshbaked bread!
After all that we came home and sat around for a little bit, but then we kind of decided that it was high time that we get some of our pictures into frames and hang them. I mean, we've lived here for a year and haven't hung anything other than stuff we've gotten as gifts. No personal pics, except our wedding collage. We decided to go to Hobby Lobby to see if they had any good deals on frames. OH MY GOSH DID THEY EVER!!!! I am now in love with the Hobby Lobby. We got two great frames that go with our bedroom decor for two pictures that we bought when we were living in Athens. They were taken by a local artist of a couple of the places that we used to go. We got a set of coasters that go with our living room. We got a little side table to go by our accent chair. We got 2 jersey frames for P's autographed Jerseys. We got ALL OF THAT for $250!!!!!! I know that seems like a TON but if you think that to get the 2 jerseys professionally framed would have cost me nearly that amount by themselves, that is awesome! When we got home I cooked up some dinner, potatoes and tuna steak with steamed veggies and then we framed the two Athens pictures, put the jersies in frames and then P watched some UFO documentary (he's obsessed) and I dug out some of my grandmother's old hand written recipes and framed them in some matching black frames that I got for Christmas from my mom and dad.
Post decorating, I chopped up veggies and threw them in the crock pot with a roast on top to cook overnight for tonight's dinner with the Mojos. Please don't judge me....but I'm going to confess something terrible right now. The recipe said to cut the fat off the meat. So I did...and the dog was eyeing me the whole time, licking his chops. So I asked P, what would it hurt to give him some of the fat with the meat on it?? We decided it wouldn't hurt anything at all....and gave him a few chunks. BIG. BIG. BIG MISTAKE!!! The dog woke us up whining 2xs last night and has had the squirts all day. I DIDN'T KNOWW!!!!!!! I HAD NO IDEA!!!! I feel like a terrible dog mother. His poor little arse has to be raw. And it's so cold outside!!! :-( I feel so bad!!!

Today we went to the gym again and lifted, P made me do the bench press which is a testament to how much I love him because really, there isn't anyone else in the world that I would trust not to let a metal bar fall on my face when my muscles give out. After the gym we came home and cleaned up. I dusted a little and P swept the floors, we watched the Cardinals beat the Eagles and then the Mojos came over for dinner. P and Mojodad watched more football while Mojomom and I played with Mojokid. I mashed the taters and then we had Potroast, taters, honey wheat bread and cookies and cream ice cream for dessert. MMMM. YUM. I feel fat and lethargic now, but mmmm was it delicious. The Mojos have left and P and I are curled up on the couch, my head on his lap (danger zone given the potroast and potatoes have made him gassy) and are watching the Steelers/Ravens game. Tomorrow, on our day off we are going to go hike for a bit and then I have to get a cavity filled. Yuck.

We don't often go out and socialize a lot. It's not that we're antisocial or anything. It's just that all of our friends have very busy schedules and we dont seem to ever coordinate our calendars very well. So, this weekend has been nice. We've had quite a bit of alone time too which I particularly enjoy. I think that all weekends should be three day weekends.

Next time I post, I think I'm going to put up pictures of our house...I've made quite a few decorating updates since the last time I put any up.

3 things:
Hobby Lobby and its plethora of decorating goodness
Pictures that bring back memories of happy times and happy places
Good friends and good food

one hour and forty five minutes

2009-01-15T15:10:00.004-05:00

is how long it took me to get home from work last night.

i work 21 miles away from my house.

i.hate.snow.

correction. i love snow. I.hate.driving.in.snow.on.the.highway.

not much to report tonight other than i'm hoping that everyone is staying safe and warm in this weather. i get to go help P run a cornhole tournament at OSU-Newark (pronounced Nurk) tonight since he's short staffed. Last time they had about 80 people show up...hopefully they'll have about as many again tonight.

I didn't really answer my own questions the other day...so here are my answers.

1) what is the one thing in the world that is most guaranteed to make you laugh even when you're having a really really crappy day? P and my dog. and the Simpsons. I'm lame.
2) if you could bring one t.v. show back from the archives, which one would it be and why? MASH, my first crush (as a 4 year old) was on Alan Alda's Hawkeye Pierce.
3) if I could help make one thing in your life easier, what would you want me to do...assume that I'm multi-talented, and possibly have super powers.Hmmm....If I could do anything...it would be being more organized and organizing my house...if YOU were doing something for me it would be magically zapping 20 pounds off me or being my own personal trainer :-)
4) do you say you are going to the Grocery or that you are going to the Grocery Store?GET IT RIGHT PEOPLE...IT IS THE GROCERY. GROCERY STORE IS REDUNDANT! You don't say you're going to the Mall Store do you?????lol
5) What three things are you the most thankful for today?that the snow stopped, that P and I both got home safe last night, that my doggy is donating blood today and I saw a dog that had it's leg amputated while I was dropping him off and the amputee was walking around just fine....animals are amazing and it makese me happy to know that Sonneigh might have helped him.

all the pretty horsies...

2009-01-12T20:59:00.009-05:00

So, now that P and I have a functioning computer, I can put more posts with pictures up. Given that opportunity, the very first real picture laden post should be about my horses. Well, my horse and my sister's.

This is Cinnamon. Cinammon is the only horse that has ever thrown me. He used to be my sister's and I still think of him as one of mine even though we're not really paying for him anymore. He has hated me since day one...always was fine for my sister, but would walk up behind me and take a bite just for kicks. He's a non-gaited Tennessee Walker.

This is the barn at my parents house where the horses live. The parents dont live there anymore, but the people that moved in are friends of the family. They bought Cinnamon and let me board Colors there for a minimal price.

This is my big dopey sweetheart Colors. He's an American Saddlebred and he's the best horse ever. I got him when I was 14. The day we went out to see him, I rode him for a while and then stood and brushed him while my parents talked to the owner. Colors laid his head down on my shoulder and fell asleep. It was a done deal. He always greets me by blowing down his nostrils at me. :-) It's horse speak for Hey there friend.

Colors' friend is Mackie. We got him when my sister was too young to ride, and Colors needed a friend. I couldn't get a really good picture of him because he doesn't like the camera. He's super furry right now and he's a recovering laminitis patient (from before we got him). He's got all kinds of problems, he has allergies, curved hooves and he's fat. However...he's a dollface and a sweet old man.

SOOO those are my babies... I wish that they could be in Columbus with me. I think I found a place to pasture board Colors that's not TERRIBLE....but, we'll see. I'm going to see how things go this winter and see about maybe moving him in the fall. *fingers crossed*

picture tagged!? oh no!!!

2009-01-12T09:18:00.004-05:00

Wolf has TERRIBLE timing.... P and I just got a new computer and I have not transferred all of my pictures over to it, so I'm doing this picture tag from work. Thus, I have a really poor selection of pictures on my computer....the 4th picture from the 4th album of my photo stash is....

drum roll....

more drums......

This picture was taken at Lake Codorous in Pennsylvania. We went there this past summer on a mini-vacation after we'd started our new jobs. It was the very first time that I have ever been camping, and the first time that we used the beautiful tent that the East Green staff from OU got us for our wedding.

Have I told you that story? It's pretty funny... you have to keep in mind that I worked for Residence Life at one of the historically liberal institutions in the state. That means, in short, that I was part of, and enjoyed working with some of the most diverse, open and accepting people in the world. We had all kinds of different people on staff. Gay, Lesbian, Transgender...Tatooed and bizarre, overweight, underweight,whatever, didn't matter, there was pretty much universal acceptance in our little cohort of staff members. Anyway, my best friend in Athens, the Cornelia Marie, and I were both on the same "Green" (how the department divided up the residence halls on campus.) There was West Green, South Green and then where we were, East Green. The Cornelia Marie had gotten engaged October 2005 in and I had gotten engaged in March of 2006. Through some weird coincidence, either our fiances have similar taste or Cornelia and I have similar taste and our respective fiances know us very well. Anyway, despite the time difference between when we got engaged, both our fiances picked out THE EXACT SAME ENGAGEMENT RING. Neither of us had any part in picking out the ring, we were both totally surprised (at seperate times) when we got the most beautiful ring in the world.

Anyway, Cornelia and I started being friends sometime after she got engaged and before I got engaged. Once I got engaged, she kicked up her wedding planning and we did alot of our planning together...shopped for dresses together, bitched and moaned and compared mothers together etc. We also decided on wedding dates very close together. Mine was November 11 and hers was Dec. 2 of 2006.

Long story short, apparently a lot of the student staff were aware that we were both getting married, and since our respective fiances were not part of the Residence Life department and were both very busy, hardly anyone had ever SEEN P or Cornelia's fiance D.

The East Green senior staff (the other hall directors and graduate students) threw us a surprise double wedding shower one morning when we were having a staff meeting. Cornelia and I walked into a room with fun party favors, streamers and all kinds of gag gifts. My amazing staff members had chipped in to get me the great tent that you see above in the picture, and they had gotten Cornelia a mountain bike so that she and D could go be sporty together.

The absolute BEST part of the wedding shower however, was the sign that one of the student workers had made...In giant block letters it said

" CORNELIA AND ANN CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR WEDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!WE LOVE YOU! THE EAST GREEN STAFF"

Perhaps that was a sign that Cornelia and I were spending too much time together...or that maybe our fiances were anti-social and we needed to start introducing them to the world...or perhaps it was a sign that there are some really great students at Ohio University who believe that love can be between anyone, not just a man and a women....whatever it was,it is definitely a memory that will live forever.

****************** edit***********************

it's true, wolf does NOT have terrible timing. retelling that story made my day and made me smile :-) thanks wolf!

3 THINGS:
the cornelia marie and the time bandit...friends through stormy weather and leaky plumbing
that i've been priveleged to meet people who are so warm and accepting
that the roads werent bad on my drive to work.

yuck.

2009-01-08T18:41:00.003-05:00

remember the plague that wouldn't go away? then it finally went away? well it came back. i was up all night coughing and finally went to the dr. for antibiotic. yaaaaaay bronchitis. he gave me the dreaded z-pac, the one that kills every germ in a 2000 mile radius but also makes my stomach feel like something is trying to stab it's way out with a dull knife. or a spork. bah.

my husband is sweet and wonderful and amazing and he took me to the doctor at 750 this morning and then decided since i was so sad and pathetic curled in the fetal position going "oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow" that he stayed home from work and cuddled me. he just left to go to the gym and I noticed this note on the desktop "I love you Mus, you are beautiful even when you're sick." *grin* He loves me. He really loves me.

I'm planning on watching the national championship game tonight, taking my knock out cough medicine that the Dr. gave me and sleep like the dead tonight. I think that we're going to eat leftover homeade chicken soup. Mmmmm.....soup.

So, since I'm sick and bored and really really really really bored, let's play "pop quiz." that's right, i'm sick, you guys need to entertain me!

1) what is the one thing in the world that is most guaranteed to make you laugh even when you're having a really really crappy day?
2) if you could bring one t.v. show back from the archives, which one would it be and why?
3) if I could help make one thing in your life easier, what would you want me to do...assume that I'm multi-talented, and possibly have super powers.
4) do you say you are going to the Grocery or that you are going to the Grocery Store?
5) What three things are you the most thankful for today?

3 things:
that my dr. is awesome
that even though i was home sick today it let me get some things done, like take the christmas tree down.
that my duvet is warm and soft and makes the same crinkly sound that comforters in nice hotels make...if i close my eyes, i can pretend i'm on vacation

well....we lost.

2009-01-06T09:46:00.005-05:00

but at least we showed up to play! unlike the last 2 years when i spent most of the game with my head down going "oh man...they're not even MOVING! I COULD RUN FASTER THAN THAT!"

This year...they played. Still lost, but oh well. At least it wasn't completely embarassing.

Today is a typical Ohio January day. It was crapping...what I call the wintery mix of snow/rain/sleet. People don't know whether to use umbrellas or just stay in bed. I had some real doozies in my office yesterday and today starting at noon, I have back to back appointments until time to go home. SIGH...should not have stayed up so late to watch us lose! lol!

We picked up our new laptop and printer last night, I'm soooo excited. I can put my camera's memory card directly into the printer and print my pictures! I might actually hang some things in the living room now. I just kept avoiding taking them to Cord. It's so expensive for the amt. of frames that I have. Blah!

This is my living room...

3 things:

the space heater that is warming my toes
the cool people in the blog world whose lives i get to peer at through my little internet window
how fun it is to cheer on people that you hardly know and how awesome it is to get little snippets of cheer for you in your comment box

it's the half

2009-01-05T21:56:00.001-05:00

and we're winning!!!!!!!!!!!

new look on the blog

2009-01-05T12:17:00.002-05:00

A couple of you have said that my blog background is pretty and I wanted to say "thanks!" I got it from the Little Window Shoppe whose link is on the right underneath SITS. They have a couple freebies.

The picture is from Buckeye Lake which is just east of where P and I live. There's a little bar called Papa Boos where the boats pull up and you can chill and drink crappy beer and eat wings while the sun sets. It's our summer go-to spot for when we just want to relax and don't want to get dressed up. It's fun, we play 'count the mullets' while we're there. Millersport, OH is a funny little town :-)

Buckeye Lake is really cool though, it's got a lot of history. Back in the day it was an amusement park of sorts and you could take a train in to the lake and go to hotels and the amusement park and restaurants. On the sad side of history the KKK would have summer conferences there! The amusement park, and hopefully the KKK are no longer there but the lake is and so is Cranberry Bog which is the only one of its kind in Ohio. It's a floating bog and it's the home to some carniverous plants and very rare orchids. It used to be much bigger but the alkalinity of the water is kind of eroding it. You can take tours of the bog a couple times a year if you sign up through the nature preserve's website. It's really interesting if you like nature :-)

Other cool things at the lake are the Wolfe Family Island...the Wolfes pretty much own all of Columbus, and then you can also see where Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's used to spend his summers. He had an island house as well :-) It's gorgeous and someday when I'm a multi-millionare (ahhahahaha) i might buy it :-).

Anyway...just wanted to post a quick note about where I got the background. Have a beautiful week!

3 things:
the fiesta bowl is on tonight EVEN THOUGH my buckeyes probably will lose.
the weather outside is fairly beautiful for the first week in january
my little sister who i got to spend all weekend with.

sometimes it's nice

2009-01-02T18:28:00.003-05:00

When you feel like you really helped someone.

I had a student come in today in tears because she'd been dismissed from the program that she was trying to go for because her gpa dropped below what they require. She was stressed and unhappy and crying. I told her that we'd be able to make things better and listened to her describe why she wanted that program to begin with. While she was describing what she was passionate about, I was able to see that the program she was in wasn't actually the best one for the direction she wants to go. I talked to her a lot about grad schools and what she needed to do to get to the career she wants and by the time she left 40 minutes later, she was laughing and excited about the classes she would be taking this quarter.

Sometimes I have a hard time explaining what exactly I do to other people. I have a hard time articulating why I want to work what is essentially a desk job...Sometimes, like yesterday, I would rather be absolutely anywhere else but stuck in my office when I'd rather be outside or at home...but then there are days like today when I can say that I helped 'rescue' 'counsel' 'fix' 'heal' and 'give hope to' someone who really needed it.

3 Things:

college football even though none of my teams other than Oregon are winning
homeade turkey soup and pulled pork sandwiches that make my house smell like home
having the opportunity to help others every day

happy new year!

2008-12-31T13:35:00.003-05:00

happy new year my bloggy friends.

today is the slowest day of work EVER.

i just want to go hooooome. i want to be with my husband and cuddle and watch tv.

i swear it's 5 o'clock and my computer clock is just stuck.

SIGH!!!!!!!!

3 things:

b
m
w

those are my husband's real initials :-)

Fear Not...

2008-12-29T08:29:00.008-05:00

So, I usually don't post about my religious views...but this struck a chord with my heart this Christmas and I thought it post-worthy. I think that for all of us in bloggyland...at least those whose blogs I read frequently...it's a reminder that we need.

The back story: very long with personal details. skip if you just want the message.

2007-2008 for the most part completely totally sucked. Granted a lot of really wonderful things happened to me. I left the job I was to burned out to do anymore and moved back to Columbus, which is the city of my heart. P and I bought a house. I started a new job that looked promising and wonderful. Before we bought the house, we lived with our friends the Mojos. While living with the Mojos we house-hunted and I started my new job. I got about a month and a half into it and started feeling "off". Like, there were times when I felt light-headed...dizzy. My stomach would roll and I'd feel like I had to sit down before I fell down. I went my usual route of ignoring things because if you ignore them, they'll go away. My heart rate was ridiculous, I mean...it's always fast (apparently I run on a different speed than everyone else...blood pressure is extremely low, but my resting pulse is rarely lower than 77 but resting it was still around 100 beats per minute. When we moved into the new house, P was working in the evenings, and I was there by myself until 11:30 p.m. a lot...and that's when it got really bad. The job wasn't going well at all, my boss was a nightmare and the people I worked with were the kind of people who are ignorant and prejudiced about many of the things that I consider myself an ally for. I was pretty much miserable and had only been there for 3 months. Anyway, I would be unpacking boxes and would have to stop and go lie down. I was terrified and thought I was dying. Finally, one night, I went to the gym...feeling off and ran for a long time. I checked my pulse and it was hovering around 200 beats per minute. GASP! SHOCK! TERROR! So, i went to urgent care. They checked everything and said "go home, you're fine, it's normal." I wasn't convinced and went home and cried. About a week later, I was putting stuff away (again, P wasn't home) and my chest got tight and I got dizzy and lightheaded again. I took myself back to urgent care and burst into tears in front of the nurse. She brought in the on-call doctor and he listened to my heart and said, "You know...I don't want to seem forward...but have you had a lot of change in the last couple of months?" YES!!!!!! I said. YES!!!! Then he asked, "Are you usually the type of person who just 'handles stress?'. YES! I said, thinking where is this crazy man going with this?? He then said...I think you're having anxiety attacks. WHAT????

Yes...and so began the year long journey through anxiety. I tried to tough it out for a couple of months...I made it through September before I caved and decided that I couldn't deal with it on my own anymore. I was stressing my parents out and poor P would come home to find me crying on the bed because I just couldn't breathe...couldn't get my heart to slow down. He would hold me and make me breathe with him until I could get it under control. I finally came to the realization that this was one thing that I was not going to be able to just 'handle.' I took myself to a counselor and got myself a prescription for some anti-anxiety meds. My urgent care doctor became my regular doctor. He addressed all my medical concerns and proved to me that there wasn't actually anything physically wrong with me. The counselor was wonderful, she quickly realized that I was not the type of person who would just take her word for things and gave me journal articles to read. She encouraged me when I was down and talked me through a lot of things where I really thought I was crazy. She helped bring my confidence back when between my boss and my anxiety...it had all but disappeared. We found that I am much more of a "bottler" than I had ever thought. That all the times when I would say I wasn't stressed out, planning a wedding, grad school, my dad's stroke, my grandparents deaths...I just didn't let myself grieve. Didn't let myself feel anything. I was far too afraid to feel vulnerable to let myself actually get rid of those emotions the way that normal people do.

Then along came March 2008. I was still seeing the counselor, still on the anxiety meds. My mom called and my worst nightmare came true...my dad was in the hospital again. There was something wrong with his heart. This is one of my biggest fears in the world, I am terrified of the day that I lose my dad. It's because he's older...he's 71. He's always been really healthy other than having "major things" happen. Diabetes, mismanaged diabetes, a mini-stroke. Other than that, he's hardly ever been sick in the entire time that I can remember. But my dad...my daddy, the person who'd always been my rock...was in the hospital. I felt like every worry I'd ever had about him dying was coming true. I was terrified. P was wonderful, he showed me that no matter what happens...he can be my 'rock' too. That he can be my strength when I'm not strong. But I was still scared. I had to be strong for my mom and my little sister especially, but inside I didn't know if I could handle it...not with everything else that had happened this year. But I did...and I did it differently than I had in the past. I let P see me cry. I prayed. Oh... how I prayed. I prayed not that God wouldn't let my dad die...but that he would do what he felt was right. I trusted Him. I trusted that IF he did pass...my family would still be okay. My dad's surgery went fine and he's doing amazingly well. I still worry. There's a part of me that every day wonders how people do it when their parents die. How long does the hurt last before it becomes manageable...How long will I ache and feel that emptiness. (I don't REALLY want an answer.)

After my dad's surgery, I decided that where I was working was really a major contributor to my unhappiness and started searching for a new job on the sly. I hated doing it, but was left with no choice. The end of May, I found a new job at OSU. I started working at my dream job 2 weeks later.

I gradually took myself off meds and stopped seeing the counselor. I've learned to effectively manage the anxiety...though I wish I could just never worry...I know that it's always going to be a part of me and I just have to not let it affect everything. This is the real reason that I started this blog to help me not let anxiety and fear turn everything bad, to help remind myself of all the reasons I have in life to be strong, to be confident and to be happy. This leads us to the Christmas Eve Sermon.

The Message: From Rev.Mcquire.

The title of the sermon was "Fear Not." It was a reminder of just how many times in the Bible God speaks to us and says "Fear not...for I am with you." It's actually true that the command not to fear is repeated more times than the command to feel love. Luke tells us of how the shepherds quaked in the field when the angels came to tell them of Christ’s birth. Luke tells us" And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

It is such a strong message throughout the Bible. FEAR NOT. Live your life In Him. TRUST. Do not be afraid...He is there.

Do not be afraid of the sad economy, do not be afraid of failure or of success, do not be afraid of your own mortality...do not be afraid of Loss...of sadness. He makes no promises that those things will not happen...but He loves us. He promises repeatedly that He is there. That He will take care of us always. If we trust. If we remember that message first told to the shepherds... Fear NOT...there is joy. We will see those we love again, we will be okay. Unequivocally...He tells us, He is there. You will be fine.

I have always wondered how my dad, my strong safe dad, has never been afraid. How he has never appeared to worry. Perhaps he just doesn't have the "worry gene" that the rest of us do. Or perhaps it's because he actually listens...listens to what God tells us so many times. My dad has always told me "everything will be okay...there's no need to worry." I used to laugh to myself and say 'how do you know.' But he does...and I believe I'm beginning to understand. How can I not trust what's repeated more times than the command to love? How can I assume to know better than God himself? Humbling thought huh?

So dear readers...here's my paraphrased message as we all begin the New Year together. Our generation (those of us in our late 20s, early 30s) are worriers. We are a caretaker generation...we fix things. We control things. We are strong and do not like to feel vulnerable. But we are human. We are just frail creatures in the greater scheme of Life. I plan to embrace my humanity...to stop trying to pretend that I can handle everything all the time. I hope not to fear so much this year. To remember that when I think that I'm about to plummet off a cliff onto the crashing rocks below, I have an invisible safety net. A giant warm loving safety net. HE is there, My God. As we continue in our new marriages, plan new weddings, hope for children (not me yet!!!!!), wish for good health for all those we love, fail, succeed, and dream....remember that no matter what the outcome, we need not fear.

This is my favorite reminder of one of the 75 or so times that God tells us not to be afraid.

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Psalms 27-1, KJ

3 things. Three reasons not to be afraid.

mothers in law....

2008-12-18T09:19:00.002-05:00

dinner with the mother in law and her boyfriend tonight...

plusses- free food at Ruths Chris steakhouse
minuses- i resent that she feels she can demand time with us after she ignored her son for the better part of his life. i dislike that in the 6 years that P and I have been together she has only supported him when she feels its convenient and that he feels compelled to say "it's just how she is...you can't expect anything else from her" Why should any son have to say that about his mother?

grrr.

perhaps i shall order filet. or lobster. or perhaps both. that will make me feel better :-)

oooooh i hear a big BAH HUMBUG in the room!

3 things:

my parents who have always, ALWAYS been there for me no matter what
my husband who deserves the best from everyone because he unconditionally loves them
that people in the world are finding holiday cheer in the little things like goofy ornaments and tinny musical cards and old christmas specials.

twas the night before christmas......or wishful thinking?!

2008-12-16T19:53:00.003-05:00

i wish it was the night before christmas! i wish that my cough would go away. it hurts!

where have i been since my last post? well let's see...

P and I went down to Dayton for my mom's birthday but that was when my dad and I were both still really sick so rather than go to Lebanon for the Parade of Horses that we go to every year I laid on the couch and snotted my brains out watching football with my dad while P and my sister and mom brought us hot drinks and blankets. I mustered enough energy to go with my mom and sister to pick up ribs from our favorite restaurant in Dayton (Hickory BBQ on Brown Street) and on the way home we were following a truck down I-35 and it spun out in front of us, missed us by maybe 5 feet and crashed into the wall. I hate winter weather driving.

Everyone was okay and the ribs were worth the journey!

I got to see my horses which was great...I wish that I could find somewhere close to my house that isn't 300+ a month. I really miss Colors even if I haven't ridden him in over a year. I would love to get back into riding regularly. Even just being able to be around the horse would be great. Horses center me and bring me back to earth when I get stressed. They are completely non judgemental and I truly believe they are telepathic and can sense your feelings and help heal your heart.

After Dayton we came home and went back to the daily grind. We went Christmas shopping a couple evenings and I did a floor-set at Bath and Body Works one night. That was a nightmare. I enjoy the floor sets because it's mindless work and the girls are really nice and it's fun to set up the store and make it all pretty for the holidays but when 3 people bail out at 11 and leave the manager and I there until 230 a.m. when i have to go to my real job at 730 the next morning....ooooh that hurts!

OSU's been OSU. The kiddies are all done with finals and have gone home for break so the campus is very very empty. It's kind of creepy because right during finals a girl was raped in broad daylight outside the building that's like 2 building's down from mine. Well, she was grabbed outside the building and dragged into the basement. We're all being really careful trying not to walk anywhere alone.

On a happier OSU note, it's nice to be done with my first "real" quarter of work at a new job. I have absolutely loved it and I'm starting to feel a little more confident...more like my old self before my last disasterous job with the crazy evil boss that destroyed my confidence in myself.(yeah...anywhere that makese you so miserable you go to counseling about it is NOT a good place to work.)

So that takes us to this last weekend...we went up to Michigan and spent the weekend in Ann Arbor with my friend Cornelia Maria and her husband Dr.Neuropsych. He's doing his internship at U of M and she's working for Concordia which is highly entertaining as Concordia is EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE LUTHERAN and Cornelia, while Catholic, is a feminist who worked with me in very liberal Athens for 4 years. She's pretty much doing it for the free housing, but I think I probably would have died by now. She's not even allowed to say "so if you were spending the night at your boyfriends" as a hypothetical scenario example. They are in complete denial that there is pre-marital sex. Highly entertaining.

Anyway, we visited them and then went up to Detroit for the OASIS concert! OH MY GOD IT WAS AMAZINGLY FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love Oasis and we had several of their songs in our wedding (Wonderwall, She is Love) and then we danced to Noel Gallagher's cover of This Guy's In Love with You. It was a great "rock" concert....I was even pleasantly surprised by Ryan Adams and his band the Cardinals. They are edgier than just plain Ryan Adams who I find to be kind of whiney and boring. If you dont' know who Oasis is, then I highly suggest that you go HERE and listen to some of their songs. The videos are a little strange but I recommend listening to Let There Be Love, Whatever, Live Forever and Champagne Supernova.

It's been a busy last ten days or so...but, lots of fun.

I shall leave you with a slightly less than thought provoking but still very true couple of lines from "The Masterplan"

Then dance if you wanna dance
Please brother take a cahnce
You know they're gonna go
which way they wanna go
All we know is that we don't know
How it's goinna be, please brother let it be
Life on the other hand wont let us understand
we're all part of the master plan

3 things:
tylenol nightime cough medicine
that my dog somehow remembers where he left his purple squirrel and he'll run and go get it and play with it on his own
that i live in Ohio and not Michigan :-)

dear sweet cold medicine

2008-12-08T14:59:00.003-05:00

dear sweet 9 pound 4 oz baby jesus (talladega nights anyone?)

i have been SOOOOO sick! i got the cold from hell and have spent the last 5 days trying to snuffle,sneeze and cough my way through work, family, and all kinds of other stuff.

So what have I not told you, now that I'm starting to feel better?

Thanksgiving was a mixed bag. Left work early on Wednesday, spent the evening at home getting ready to go on the whirlwind tour of Ohio. Went to P's mom's house in the morning on Thursday and hung out with her awful boyfriend. This was freezing cold and uncomfortable and miserable. P's mom and dad got divorced when P was 8 or so and MIL moved to California when P was about 11 I think. MIL was largely absent from Ps life. From when I started dating P to when we got married, she'd sent him maybe 3 cards and called him a handful of times and he'd gone out to visit her once. Anyway, I have a little bit of resentment toward her because she now tries to make P feel guilty for not spending much time with her now that she's moved back to Ohio with her latest boyfriend. Thanksgiving was fairly similar. Little comments from her and her bf about spending more time with them rather than going straight to Ps dad's house (sidebar: we weren't INVITED to her house...we invited ourselves to stop by for a couple hours). It's whatever.

That afternoon we spent a wonderful wine and food filled afternoon and evening with Ps dad and step mom and step mom's family. There was tons of food, football and friends. I always feel like the frumpy oddball with the step mom's daughters because they're all drop dead gorgeous, put together out of a magazine, dark Italian looking women. I'm short, chubby and frizzy. They are very warm and welcoming to me, I sometimes think that they think I'm like the special kid on the bus. Oh well ;) I'm much more comfortable with their husbands where I can watch football and talk about Ohio State etc.

We played Euchre late into the night and then went to bed. The next morning P and I drove down to Columbus and I worked at Bath and Body Works helping them with Black Friday. It was pretty fun and not as busy as I thought it would have been.

Saturday my family came up and I cooked a huge meal of lamb and potatoes and veggies and dessert. My sister brought her boyfriend and it was just awkward and uncomfortable and awful because he's SO nice and she was being such a brat. I don't know if he'll last long. I would like them to break up and then get back together in a few years when she's ready to "settle down". My mom had the plague and ended up passing that on to me so I stayed home Monday and then faked my way through 4 days of work while trying not to drown in my own snot and phlegm. I know, I'm a pretty princess.

We decorated our Christmas tree and mantle and put a few decorations outside. As soon as I'm home, I'll put up a few more outside and we'll be done. I hope to post some pics soon!

3 things:
my mom putting her hand on my forehead to see if I had a fever, simple gestures let me know I'm loved.
my husband being SO nice to me when i've been such a crab pants for the last week
going to the oasis concert next saturday

I'M STILL THANKFUL....#%$@#%#%$#%#%

2008-12-01T21:06:00.002-05:00

MORE ABOUT THANKSGIVING LATER....

but here's the thing. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO thankful for my wonderful sister.

BUT

there are times when I would like to knock her silly for her 20 year old mean snake in the grass attitude.

OOOOOOOOOH MADNESS.

*breathe in* *breathe out*

I'm her older sister. We could brawl but nooo I will keep my mouth shut. I will just let her work it through her system and I will just assume she has PMS.

thanksgiving run down

2008-11-26T19:36:00.002-05:00

this blog is dedicated to all that i'm thankful for...but i wanted to remind the Internet, just how important it is that we REALLY count our blessings no matter how few or small they seem be to be. even if there's someone out there who feels like they have nothing or that nothing is going well....there is Life, there is beauty in simplicity, there is Hope.

that's a lot to be thankful for.

tonight: husband's at work, i'm eating a fantastic meal of mac'n'sneeze and merlot GOD I LOVE SIMPLE THINGS

tomorrow: bret's parents house and his stepmom's amazing thanksgiving meal straight out of better homes and gardens and the foodnetwork. I kid you not this woman's cooking is amazing. 25 family members I barely know all of whom look like tall dark Italian women with gorgeous straight brown hair and MAYBE the largest is a size 3. but they are all wonderfully warm and kind and accepting of my frizzy, tomboy, goofballness.

Friday: drivin home, bath and body works to help out during the Black Friday craziness and a sweet night with Husband

Saturday: roast lamb, velvet mashed potatoes, root vegetables au gratin, pumpkin cheesecake chocolate pie, pear and apple tart, green beans.

RIGHT NOW....oh crap the pies burning....no time to proofread!!!!

happy holidays all.

3 things:

that i found my dog on top of our patio table this afternoon...it appears that i've lost all control and i love it

my husband swept the house so i dont have to

my amazing amazing life and all those in it. including you.

conformity?

2008-11-20T08:50:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was the last class for my Wednesday sections. Thank goodness, two down, 3 more to go!

I noticed yesterday though, that I did a much better job learning the male students names than I did with the female students. I thought about that for a while and this is the conclusion that I came to. The men...look significantly different from eachother. The women...they tend to wear the same styles, have the same hair colors, same make up etc. The young women whose names I did get to know, are the ones that either fall outside the norm (the emo-girl, the girl with the lip piercing, the one who dyed her hair pink)or they are the ones that made an effort to come in to see me and let me know who they were.

I feel bad for not being able to separate out blonde girl number one from blonde girl number two. And I definitely don't mean that they SHOULDN'T dress how they are, or wear their hair the way they do....It's just interesting to me that in a class of 175 people, so many of them look similar enough that I can't remember which is which.

I know there's fashion fads and trends, there are classes on that here :-) But, when is it too much? When everyone's starting to look like Carrie Underwood? I didn't pick her name randomly...she's got the same kind of "look" that alot of my female students have. Interesting how we pick our styles to define ourselves...and then inadvertently define an entire class of women.

ramble ramble rah.

whoopsies...made a puddle.

2008-11-12T22:20:00.002-05:00

so last night...i was dead to the world asleep and somehow i rolled myself over and as i often do, laid my head on P's chest.

at about 4 a.m. I woke up because my face felt wet.

I had drooled so much that I made a puddle on poor P's chest.

i am such a pretty pretty princess.

oops.

3 things:

1.Mojokid is crawling forward now :-) :-) he's freakin adorable
2.I made a coupon book like Imperfect and am excited to start saving
3. meatloaf and mashed potatoes on a cold day with a good friend in a warm house.

2 years

2008-11-11T19:10:00.003-05:00

Dear P,

We have been married for two years today. At risk of sounding cliche I have to tell you that it's been the most wonderful two years of my life. People always say that they "know" when they find their soul mate. You and I both agree that we did not just "know". Both of us were happy in our lives and didn't know what we were missing with out eachother. You have filled a part of my soul that I didn't know I was missing before I met you. You have brought into my life, things that I never would have considered...and now love so very much. Friday night high school football, Oasis Concerts, the mountains...I have so many great memories that would never exist had we not started dating, fell in love and got married.

I think to myself how many things had to take place for us to even meet. You had to make the decision to stay at Ohio State and not go to Toledo to go the Pharmacy Program your sophomore year. I had to decide to go to grad school and get placed in Stradley for my assistantship. Aimee had to be on my staff when she SHOULD have gone on to another building by then. You still had to keep in touch with her and be willing to come help her staff the office til she could hire freshmen. I had to just happen to be in the office the day you were giving her a hard time and you, quiet, shy, reserved, introverted you...had to ask Aimee for my information so that after you quit working there, you could stay in touch. That's a lot of "chance" that could have never happened. I think our choices in the past brought us together for our future. Once we started dating and you got deployed to England, you could have gone out with the guys...and you didn't. You were so committed to me that they started calling me "wifey". Perhaps your Guard Buddies knew then, what we hadn't realized yet.

When you came back and I was working for OU, you had a choice to come to Athens, or stay in Columbus for grad school. It was just chance that you got offered an assistantship in Athens. It was around then that I really started to "know." You kept showing me how very much you wanted to be in my life...whether it was hanging out on my couch waiting for me to come home from late meetings. Or "rescuing" the dog when my residents set off the fire alarms at 3 a.m.

I am so sorry that I doubted your commitment to me and our life together and had that meltdown the night before you proposed. I just wanted so very much to KNOW that we were going to be together. I'm not a patient person and I appreciate how you held me and kept saying 'just trust me, everything will be okay'. That's such an important role that you play in my life. I'm a doubter, a worrier...and you remind me that I just have to trust Him, trust Fate, trust You...everything will be okay.

Throughout my sister's anxiety and depression when she was so unhappy in high school, when I was so worried for her...you said she'd be okay. She is. Through my job searching, my miserable year at THAT one college, through my own anxiety attacks. You are the only one that can hold me and tell me to breathe with you because everything WILL be okay. You have NO idea how very much I appreciate that steadiness and that compassion. I know how lucky I am as a woman, to be loved by a man that can connect with me when I'm scared and vulnerable. Through my dad's heart surgery and my mom's meltdowns..when I had to be strong for them, you were there. I know that you always will be. That's one area of my life where I do know that everything will always be okay. With you.

As mad as you can make me. As mad as I can make you (sorry). I love you with every ounce of my soul, with every cell of my being and with my whole heart.

I am so proud of you and the work that you do as athletic coordinator for osu-n/cotc. The kids you work with need you and you give them such great experiences. You are an amazingly talented man and my heart swells up with pride when I sit in the stands and watch you run around cheering them on and making sure that their games run smoothly. I know they're a pain, but you do SUCH a good job. You will be great. Your "84 year old man" in the back of your head will be very very happy when he looks back at his life.

I can't wait to see what this year brings for us. What you and I will do and experience together. I know that no matter what happens we will be better than 'okay.' It's been 2 years, I look forward to 2 million more.

All of my love, always.

yours.

oh my gosh i've been tagged!

2008-11-06T08:23:00.005-05:00

This is the first time I've ever been tagged...what to say what to say...

Here are 7 random tidbits about me:

1. I have several nicknames, Curly, Pottamus, Mus and Time Bandit or TB. The only nickname that is actually truly descriptive of me is Curly. The others come from my obsession with the show the Deadliest Catch and my undying love for how cute baby hippopottamuses pottami? are.
2. I have traveled outside of the country 17 times. 14 of those times were to England. Yeah....my dad's family is still over there and my parents are not real creative when vacation planning ;-) :-)
3. I had never seen a real mountain until I went on my honeymoon 2 years ago.
4. I actually go by my middle name and not my first name which confuses everyone. Neither of those two names is really Ann.
5. The ring tone that I have for my mom on my cell phone is the chorus of Handel's Messiah that goes "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, HAAAALLEEEEEEEEEEELUUUUUJAH" and she has called me more than once at incredibly inopportune times that have led to much embarassment and I still don't remember to turn my cell phone off.
6. I grew up reading beatrix potter and enid blyton...I can never thank my parents enough for introducing me to the world of British Literature at an early age.
7. I used to really want to be the girl that everyone admired for being sophisticated and worldly...but I've come to realize that I'm so much more comfortable with a coors light and a football game. Now I hope that if I touch someone's life it's because they know they can be real with me and be accepted for who they are at heart.

And now I tag:
My new favorite photographer because I'm pretty sure she's got fascinating things to say

another super funny lady who may just respond to the tag after she gets back from shopping for super fun christmas stuff

love this

2008-11-05T12:27:00.000-05:00

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is
within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~Written by Marianne Williamson (Speech by Nelson Mandela)

happy halloween!!!

2008-10-31T11:06:00.002-04:00

I am so excited for this weekend....just a great opportunity to relax and hang out with the Husband.

This will be a short post as I'm still marathon-advising *aaarrrgh!* but I wanted to do a little public service announcement.

Everybody knows that people can donate blood...not everyone knows that animals can too and that it is really a great thing to do if you are an animal lover and your cat/dog is a universal donor. It's absolutely safe and not painful or anything for the animals and your pet may be saving countless doggy/kitty lives. You can read more about it here...

http://www.vet.ohio-state.edu/bloodbank.htm

So, take a look around your state...see if your pet could save lives.

marathoning and GO TIGERS!

2008-10-29T20:10:00.003-04:00

good.sweet.lord

scheduling for winter quarter is upon us and all of the advisors in the office are quite literally booked from 8-5 solid. i feel like i've run a marathon. thus, my lack of posting.

*wipes sweat from brow* pheewwwwwwwwwww.....................

I have spent the last couple of hours helping P catch up on laundry, fixing a potluck dinner out of all the leftovers in our fridge, eating said dinner and now chilling on the couch watching repeats of 2 and a half men. Oh charlie sheen...how you make me laugh.

I've gotten to spend a lot of time with my family the last couple of weekends. This past weekend we went up to Massillon where P is from for the Massillon v. McKinley football game. It was so so much fun.

When I was in highschool, it was not fun. I wasn't involved, I had my little circle of friends, nobody really cared about the school, the community or the people. It was pretty standard. When we graduated...we all went our seperate ways. Even those of us that went to the same college didn't stay in touch. It's only recently, because of facebook and myspace that I've really started reconnecting with some of them. This was NOT P's experience. Massillon is it's own special community. Some people look at them like they're crazy, but the town rallies around the football team. They get excited, they cheer, they are proud to be from Massillon. P still talks to a lot of the people in his graduating class. Nearly all of them go back to go to games and to spend time in the community every year. I can't imagine what growing up in that atmosphere was like. Massillon is in the middle of the rust belt. It doesn't have a lot of money. It's not all that special for anything other than football. It's such a fun place though...I love it.

We took my parents to the game, it was their first Massillon game and it was definitely a good one. My mom (a teacher in my old school system)was amazed that the town rallies around the school the way it does. Football may be at the heart of it...but how great is that for the kids?

I know that the football team is only 70, 80 guys, the band is there and the cheerleaders...but can you imagine what that experience is like? To be in highschool and play in front of 18 thousand people? To for one friday night have the whole community's attention on you? How fun would that have been if it were your experience?

More importantly than getting to show my parents the game was to let them see the part of P that I've gotten to know and love. We took them to his favorite places, the the little restaurant that has the best wings and potato soup ever. We took a little tour so he could show them the Walgreens he worked at in highschool and the candy company that his dad always gets chocolates from every Christmas. They got to see the town that made him who he is. They got to see the house he grew up in, the one his dad tore apart and rebuilt with his stepmom. They got to see how Stepmom and FIL are straight out of a Pier 1 catalogue and everything is organized just so. They got to see how the town doesn't have a lot, but the people in it work hard...just like P. They got to see his dad's stubborness and his generosity...the qualities that P inherited. It was neat. I think they understand him better and they really enjoyed themselves in his world. For me it was especially fun to hear him tell them the stories that I've already heard a thousand times.

I wouldn't mind someday moving to Massillon so that our kids could live in a community that comes together on Friday nights to support the school and the kids in it. Even if they didn't play on the team or have any part in it...I think that kind of experience can be really meaningful.

3 things:

Ben Heggy's candy
friday night lights
family

instinct

2008-10-20T11:29:00.002-04:00

So, I had a student in my office the other day that just creeped the absolute **** out of me. I felt the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up and got the goose pimples and queasy stomach as soon as he walked in my office. I hate that. How do you know when to believe that instinct and when to just ...pass it off as an overactive imagination?

I've had that feeling before when I worked at Ohio U. I had this student who really never did anything bad, although I'm pretty sure he was supplying alcohol to underagers. I just couldn't help but feel confrontational when I saw him. He brought out this icky squicky feeling in me that was either fight or flee. I thought perhaps it was just me, that I was judgemental because he had that 'cocky, popped collar, frat guy attitude'. Then one halloween my grad student, JS, and I were sitting at the front desk watching the drunk kids stumble back in. My grad was chit chatting away and this student walked in and she got very quiet, very still, very ....tense. I watched her reaction to his presence and when he left I asked her if she knew him. She said no and then said "he's not a good person." I asked what she meant and she said, "i dont know. I can just tell. He's NOT a good person."

So what is it? What made both of us feel like that? Does he have some kind of negative energy that surrounds him like a black cloud trailing in after him? What caused that instinct to arise?

Most of my friends who work with college students have a student that stands out in their minds. My best friend from OU, the Cornelia Marie, had a student her first year that she to this day swears had no soul. She was gut-instinct-FRIGHTENED by him. He never did anything to her...he wasn't even the guy that threw the George Foreman grille at her. He was scarier than that guy. It was just instinct that something was not quite right with this young man.

It isn't even as if it's just the male students and we're feeling "vulnerable' as women. I have had female students that creeped me out just the same. I had one woman who I swear would have pulled the wings off butterflies had she been given the chance. I had to call the police once to have her removed from my office. After she was removed from my building, I felt like I had to check over my shoulder when walking past her new home because she might just be crazy enough to do something to retaliate.

It's different than the instinct that you just really dont like someone. That you know you'll never be friends. I worked with a guy, a grad student, who I just always thought was a smarmy bastard. He was always doing things that made him seem like suuuuuuuuuuch a great guy. He was an advocate for preventing sexual assault and all kinds of great stuff. But, I just couldn't like him...always felt guilty about it because everyone else seemed to think he was "fab." This instinct is different though.It's not just recognizing smarminess or even recognizing that someone is troubled or going through a lot or maybe they would be better off in counseling with meds. It's scarier than that.

After the Virginia Tech tragedy, a professor came out saying that she had always felt that there was something wrong with the student who would become that campus shooter. "I know we're talking about a troubled youngster and crap like that, but troubled youngsters get drunk and jump off buildings; troubled youngsters drink and drive," Giovanni said. "I've taught troubled youngsters. I've taught crazy people. It was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."

She knew. She said she would have been shocked if it wasn't that student when she heard on the news about the tragedy.

So, when do you believe your instinct? It's not like there's some magic folder in a vault on campus that we can put our notes in that says "dude could be crazy mean, no proof...just a feeling." It bothers me.

I know that little that I do will prevent anything in the world from happening. I can hope and I can pray for the safety of all my friends and colleagues, and I can be vigilant where I can. But there's always the "sleeper." That you never saw coming. Did you know Jeffrey Dahmer once attended Ohio State? He lived in a residence hall. I wonder what people's instincts told them about him.

Conversely, I'm incredibly glad that my life to date has been so untouched by tragedy. I am glad that my sister is at a school that has emergency text messaging and that her residence hall is very safe and secure. I am glad that my university has plans and protocol for the What Ifs. I feel safe here. My office is great and we look out for eachother. We even have a 'code word' for when we might need help. It makes me feel a little bit better about those students that make me feel vulnerable.

That was a depressing post...I just needed to get it off my chest. Since that student was in, I hadn't been able to really stop thinking about him. Blah.

Creepers.

3 things:

that the girls in my office look out for eachother and walk to the garage together at night
that the weather is beautiful and it feels as if nothing could go wrong today
for feeling secure and comfortable where i am.

pumpkins!!!

2008-10-16T16:43:00.002-04:00

Going to the pumpkin festival this evening!!!!!YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!

They have pumpkin everything.
Pumpkin burgerpumpkincheesecakepumpkinicecreampumpkinwafflespumpkindonutspumpkin!!!!

Where else can you see a 1500 pound pumpkin??

Can't wait to spend some time with P and walk through the streets people watching and enjoying togetherness. I will be exhausted tomorrow, but that's okay, it's FRIDAY!

I woke up last night to the wind blowing like something out of a Halloween movie. Our windows were open and it was chilly crisp. I snuggled back down in my blankets and hugged P tight. I love nights like that.

3 things:

the roof over my head
the roots i've planted
the dreams i have.

gaaaaaaaah

2008-10-15T21:14:00.004-04:00

*thunk thunk thunk*

yes. that's the sound of my head hitting the desk.

my BESTEST friend, Llama has had a REALLY rough year. She's the one that was dating a guy who lived in England. They got engaged in December and then in June he decided that he wasn't going to be able to keep his promises and move to the US (for 5 years til she finished grad school and got her career started) like he said he would the whole time they were together.. (yeah. long story. lots of bitterness and if anyone wants to go to England to yell at him with me, let's get tickets tomorrow.)

SO they tried to work things out until probably the middle of September. Then he decided it just wasn't going to work and broke things off completely.

Llama has gone on a date since then (yay!) but she somehow feels that she is completely awkward and destined to be alone forever.

Let me give you the run down on this girl.

She's brilliant, she's in her last year of grad school as a physical therapist.

She's the nicest person I know.

She is HILARIOUS and can hang with any guy and talk sports, quote Monty Python and still be a girly girl all at the same time.

Oh, and did I mention she is 5'8, 120 pounds and drop dead gorgeous?

WHY CAN PEOPLE NOT SEE THEMSELVES LIKE I SEE THEM??????? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD??

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

i dont CARE that she joined Match. I think Match is great for people. I do care that she joined Match because she's convinced that she might never meet anyone who will like her!

I understand she's busy and that Match is easy....but come ON just look at yourself and see how beautiful you are!!!!! *thunk thunk thunk*

okay. i got it off my chest. i'm better now. promise.

One of the girls in this pics is Llama, One is MojoMom and one is Chuck and one is me. I wouldn't be friends with them if they weren't wonderful. Do ANY of them look like they would be alone for ever?????

amazing idea!

2008-10-14T08:26:00.003-04:00

So, consider me shallow...but I get really excited when I see that someone has taken the time to read my blog and leave me a comment. I love posting, just as a way to get what I'm thinking out there, no matter how trivial or mundane but it's even more fun when you get a comment back that says "Me TOO!!!" or "YES! I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!"

I have been wondering how all these amazing people whose blogs I read get comments from all over the world. I'll be honest, I was a little jealous. And then one of my favorite bloggers Beautifully Imperfect posted this blog about The Secret's In The Sauce.

A whole new world opened right before my eyes! A blog to blog about! WOW!

Since I only discovered SITS today, I can really only say that I have read Imperfect's blog. So I shall tell you what I think of hers....

I love to read her blog because she is such a gentle person. You can just tell that she's one of those people who makes others smile because she's always trying to do good. She is SO in love with her new husband, which I appreciate very much because I absolutely Love love. Nothing makes me happier than hearing about people's love for another person. I enjoy seeing her decorating ideas come to life and listening to her ideas on Faith and Christianity.

So anyway, if you haven't found SITS, I hope that you do! It seems pretty cool!

Thanks Imperfect!

the Pig.

2008-10-13T15:02:00.005-04:00

I'd like to introduce you to my little sister. She is an amazing young woman who I admire and respect SO much despite and probably partly because of our ten year age difference. Pig is 20 years old and a first year student at Smaller School in Another State University.

I did not always love her. In fact, when my poor parents told me that they were expecting an surprise baby, I was furious. You see I was a very very spoiled 9 year old. My grandfather was in the hospital dying and my parents were already stretched thin. I did not want to share their already limited time. I threw a book at my dad and made him cry....one of the 2 times in my life that I've ever seen him with tears in my eyes. It didn't phase me then, but now I wish that I had accepted the impending birth with a little more grace.

I generally do not love babies. I am not a very maternal person. I hope to one day have a couple of my own, but to be perfectly honest, I adore them once they can talk, when they can reason and when they are their own little people. The same holds true for Pig. The very first time I held her she pooped. I'm relatively sure that this was a sign that she was as unimpressed with me as I was with her.

Gradually, I grew to love her because she was my sister and you love your family. But then, as I matured and she grew up, I came to love her for the amazing human being and best friend that she is.

Some of the qualities that I appreciate the most about her are her compassion, her sense of humor and her ability to be herself when so many of her peers are more concerned with being part of the crowd.

She wants to teach special education and work with students with autism. She is GOOD at this. She truly has a gift. She is quiet and patient and calm even when being screamed at, kicked or bitten. She sticks up for their rights and is always the first to tell someone when they are being cruel to someone with no defense. And she does this in a kind way without making someone feel that they are stupid or ignorant. Smaller School in Another State University has a very strong Greek Life population and she did end up joining a sorority. She loves the sisterhood and the friendships, but she is quick to advocate for diversity and service when some of her less open minded sisters argue against it.

She is FUNNY. She has an ability to point out the humor in any situation. She considers herself to be socially 'awkward' and rather than hiding those 'awkward' qualities, she hams them up to make people laugh. She isn't funny because she tries to be...she just IS. For example, at a party, a guy she was casually friends with came up to her with this 'line.'

"Pig, we gottstaa get outta here"
"Why do we gotsta get outta here Robadoo?" -pig
"Cuz we can't have S-E-X here Pig."
"Robadoo....we can't have S-E-X anywhere. EVER." -pig
you might not find this as funny as I do...but I find it hilarious, if you could hear her tone of voice.

She doesnt make excuses for who she is or what her foibles might be. She knows full well that she is shy. She knows that she will never been the 'most popular' or the 'party girl' and she would never try to be. If she doesn't want to do something whether it's get wasted, have sex or get high...she doesn't. She explains her respect for herself to her friends, and gains their respect rather than their laughter. Her guy friends call her "the real girl." The one that they feel they always know she's being herself around them. I hope that she learned that from me because if there is one thing that I hope that I've taught her, it is that she is an amazing person. An amazing beautiful soul who doesnt need to try to be anything else.

When she was running track in her junior year, she started dry heaving before races. At the same time her grades were really slipping and I kept trying to convince my parents that this was not normal, that the two were combined. Finally they listened to me, and took a good look at her and took her to a counselor. He assessed that she was mildly depressed and had extreme performance anxiety. It came out that for most of her academic life she had felt that it's always been a little bit easier for everyone else. That she always had a little more weight to carry, some sort of self imposed care-taker issue. I see that so very much in myself and hate that she struggled with it on her own for so long. She is doing better now, after counseling, but still has to remind herself that she is successful, that she is intelligent, that she CAN pass math. I know from my own experience that this is not something you can teach someone and that confidence whether academic or emotional is born from within. But oh how I hope that some day she does realize just how special and smart she really is.

When i was struggling with my own anxiety issues, I found the most comfort from my 10 year younger sister because she was the only one outside of my husband who truly listened to what I was really saying. Who understood what the fear really was. I am so grateful for that compassion.

I know that her strength comes from our shared experiences and from the experiences that she is having on her own now that she is an adult and independent. She has, in her short life, watched her grandparents die from cancer, had a father old enough to be her grandfather, watched her father recover from a mini-stroke, watched him recover from open heart surgery AND was his chaperone and driver for a summer. She has dealt with a mother who though she is a wonderful person, is not an EASY person. She has torn her ACL and recovered faster than surgeons expected through incredible work ethic and personal commitment to her own health and not giving up when it hurt. She has travelled outside the country and within and this summer is spending 6 weeks at a camp for children with Autism. She has been the personal care giver for a handicapped 20 year old for 2 summers. She has been a sister and a friend. In her short 20 years, she has more life experience than some 50 year olds that I know.

This is my sister...I hope that you enjoyed meeting her :-)

lunch break

2008-10-10T12:09:00.002-04:00

Are you single? that would be a giant NEGATIVE. I am very much married to my lovely wonderful husband.
Who is are favorite band/artist? The Beatles, though my favorite to actually see perform is Oasis.

How is your day going? slowly. my sutdents keep cancelling their appointments.

What were you doing at 3:00pm? yesterday...ummm i think that's when we were getting ready to go to the gym.

Have any siblings? 1 and and she's my favorite

What movie did you last see? Pig and I watched Dodgeball while we did her laundry

What kind of phone service do you use? Sprint PCS

Do you have a favorite pair of shoes? my sperry topsiders
What is your favorite breakfast meal? scrambled eggs with tomato, onion and worcestishire sauce.

Would you rather be at the beach or be in the snow? snow!

Do you like anyone? the people who read my blog :-)

Would you rather eat or sleep? i think probably sleep.

Do you like long car rides? depends how long and what the purpose is. If we're going somewhere then no because i hate waiting. If we're just driving to drive then yes!

Wanna go for a walk? sure

Rain or sunshine? sunshine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is your favorite drink? the devils juice....diet coke.

Plans for the weekend? tailgate with the mojos, parents coming, etc.

Ever been out of the state? not as many times as i've been out of the country. Though it's catching up.

Out of the country? France, Scotland,Wales,England many times, Mexico, Canada

Who is the best band to see in concert? Oasis.

How much money do you have on you? i have no cash. maybe 5 cents.

Next concert you will attend? Oasis in december

What is your favorite dessert? let's be honest. i love them all.

Anything exciting happening soon? taking my parents to Ps hometown

Text or call? Text. I HATE the phone.

Are you a morning person? not really.

What is the most recent thing you have smoked? salmon? I have never smoked anything in my life.

How many times have you been on a plane? not as many as Blue!

Favorite vacation spot? Tofino, BC

What kind of pancakes do you like? drowned in maple syrup

What elementry school did you attend? Valley Elementary

How tall are you? 5'4

Are you close to your parents? sometimes too close. cut the apron strings y'all!

Do you like to hold hands in public? of course.

Would you have sex in aisle five at Wal-Mart if you could? what is in aisle five of walmart???

Do you like cotton candy? love it.

Do you own a hula-hoop? no

What kind of car do you drive? dodge caliber

Can you do the "Soldier Boy"? i can't do any dance. i am rythmically impaired

Do you own a pair of "boots with the fur? absolutely not.

What color is your umbrella? One is black with multi-colored dots.

How many times a day do your brush your teeth? usually 2 when i'm at work. more when i am home.

What brand of toilet paper do you use? P likes to buy the really cheap 1 ply.

How far have you traveled from your home? far but i always go back

Do you own a waffle iron? No but i have a quesadilla maker

Have you ever been in a wedding? Yes my friend Chuck's

Do you know your mailman's name? Mail....man?

Do you like to bet on horse or dog races? i dont but i would bet on the hossies.

Would you go to the moon if you could? Probably not but i might take the elevator to the stars that was in the news the other day.

What is the highlight of your day, so far? it's gorgeous outside.

What type of alcoholic drink do you order at the bar? i'm a beer girl.
Do you think senior citizens have sex? ever heard of viagra?

Have you ever shot anything and killed it? absolutely not.

Would you eat a live spider if somebody was going to pay you 5000 dollars to do it? probably.

Have you ever had a pedicure? yes, but i always feel sorry for the person who has to touch my feet. i hate feet.

What's your favorite part of the body to look at? definitely not feet. eyes probably and then that little muscular indentation thingy by the hip and lower ab. mmmm.....

"sick" day

2008-10-09T21:05:00.005-04:00

so....maybe i'm not sick. but i was so so tired. and P was home.

so. I stayed home from work today.

It was a wonderful day, we had so much fun and got soooo much accomplished.

Here's the list:

Took the Prius to get its oil changed
Went to Waffle House for eggs and waffle
Got prescriptions filled at Walgreens
Went to the garden place and bought
a burgundy mum
a giant blue ceramic flower pot
a dwarf lilac bush/tree thing that will be delivered on 10/18 to make
my front garden complete for the season.
P mowed the grass
I planted my burgundy mum in my giant flower pot
I split out some of the giant grass bush from the back yard and seperated the split into 3 new little plants and planted them on the side of the house to hide the utility thingy.
went to the gym
went to on our annual pumpkin getting trip
got 4 pumpkins
got 1 spaghetti squash for dinner tomorrow
got one jar of apple butter
played football in the park near Pigeon Roost Farm
Came home and grilled Hot Dogs for dinner. Yes. we were very healthy today.
Watched Thursday Night football.
Blogged.

3 things:

pumpkins
apple butter
sales at the garden center

:-) What a fantastic day.

The Wickanninish Inn

2008-10-07T08:21:00.004-04:00

I guess I did forget to say where those pics were from. Sorry!! It's quite possibly the most beautiful place in the entire world. Not warm though :-)

Taken from www.wickinn.com

The Wickaninnish Inn, Tofino Canada, has become a landmark - the enchanting and critically acclaimed destination on the awesome western edge of beautiful British Columbia. No trip to BC - and indeed, Canada - should be made without experiencing this remarkable Tofino destination.

October in Tofino is all about our new fall menu, romantic beach walks, and Thanksgiving - with oceanfront seats! Lounge on your balcony with a glass of red wine, or stroll to our cozy Driftwood Café for some hot chocolate by the wood-burning fireplace and picture windows.

If you're longing for some fall spa time, use our convenient spa treatment request form to inquire about your Ancient Cedars Spa treatments now.

While most of Canada lives winter under a blanket of white, the West Coast of Vancouver Island grows green, green, green as it witnesses the fury of howling gales, 20-foot breakers, and enough rainfall to keep our pristine temperate rainforest alive and well. All this drama is courtesy of the Gulf of Alaska’s Aleutian Low, formed from the growing contrast between the warm air over the North Pacific and the cooler landmasses of Asia and America . The ensuing natural furor is a spectacular site for the newly initiated, or for the “seasoned” winter storm watching enthusiast.

Since 1996, the Wickaninnish Inn has been the original winter storm watching destination on Canada’s West Coast (see our aptly-named Storm Watchers package) but how, oh how, did we even come up with this concept? Leave it up to the McDiarmid family for originality, but long before plans for the Wickaninnish Inn were even inked on blueprints, the family hiked a rugged shoreline trail to their cabin built on the first point west past the Inn. When a winter storm hit, a frequent occurrence from November through February, the McDiarmid kids would sit by the fire and watch the waves explode against the rocky shore – so much better than television! Some thirty years later, The Inn was designed so that every single room, suite and public space would allow for a view of the ocean – and that all guests would live the excitement of viewing our legendary West Coast winter storms from luxurious comfort inside. For a closeup of the storm action, reserve a couples massage in Ancient Cedars Spa's Cedar Sanctuary, our hand-adzed cedar cabin right out on the ocean’s edge.

Of course, we encourage you to don your Wickaninnish Inn raingear (handily hanging in your closet) and venture out for your own taste of storm season! One of our favorite pastimes is beachcombing along Chesterman Beach, but really, all beaches in the area can prove very rewarding with nature’s bounty. If you’re lucky -very lucky- you may just end up with a Japanese glass float. These hand blown pieces, looking much like big glass bubbles, were once used by fisherman to keep their nets afloat. It’s rumored that millions of these popular collectors’ items are swirling around with the Pacific currents, so happy hunting! Once your beach walk is done and your camera (or spouse) is begging for mercy, you can retreat to the Driftwood Lounge for a hot beverage while your raingear hangs in our custom boot drying closet – Yes, there is such a thing, after all, we’re on the West Coast!

Another recommended activity during winter storm season is spending the day at Hot Springs Cove, waves permitting. These mineral hot springs are located within the Maquinna Provincial Park (read: no “I visited Hot Springs Cove t-shirts” for sale here), and accessible only by air (a 25 minute flight) or boat (about 70 minutes, give or take some potential nature sightings). We’re happy to pack you a delicious lunch, arrange for your transportation, and off you go for some therapeutic soaking.

Of course, with Tofino’s reputation as “Surf City, Canada”, we must pay homage to the winter surf. A Tofino winter is true surfing paradise, with giant waves breaking on seemingly deserted beaches. Tofino is home to a number of professional surfers, and this is their time to take advantage of prime conditions. Novice surfers will want to enlist the aid of one of our local surf schools, whose experienced instructors will help you select the right size wetsuit and ensure you catch that first wave. If your high school track & field injury is still acting up (no, no, we believe you), you can always watch your loved ones take their surf lesson on Chesterman Beach – right from your table at The Pointe Restaurant.

Now that we’ve told you all about this winter storm season, it’s only natural that you travel to the Inn expecting tempestuous skies and the wail of a powerful wind, but we must warn you that Tofino winters also bring days of brilliant sunshine – yes, sunshine peeking in between winter storms! That’s the magic of our rugged coast and its temperate rainforest: Mother Nature runs the show, and she does it on a whim! In other words, don’t forget to pack your sunglasses.

There’s so much to see and do –or not do, if your wish is to curl up by your fireplace- in and around the Wickaninnish Inn during winter storm watching season. Be our guest during this most unique of Canadian winters – and experience the original winter storm watching destination, the Wickaninnish Inn.

peacefullness.

2008-10-06T20:50:00.013-04:00

Do you ever just really wish you could go back to somewhere that you've been before? I don't mean in the metaphorical sense like you wish you could change time or right a wrong. I mean very physically, all of a sudden you just really long to be somewhere specific. I love to be here again. Raw, cold, peaceful...beautiful.

this is where i go when i picture my happy place!

sleepy

2008-10-06T12:47:00.003-04:00

great weekend this weekend. had soooo much fun with the Pig.

however, am seriously lacking sleep and this Monday is NOT GOING QUICCCCCCCKLY.

i did however re-read one of my favorite children's books this weekend. Enid Blyton's the Enchanted Wood. Blyton wrote over 800 titles, mostly children's adventures. She has been criticized for various things, overly simplistic writing, gender bias, race bias etc. in some of her books...but if you look at the time period in which she was writing, i think that becomes fairly self explainatory. anyway...i loved her stories when i was growing up and it's been really fun to re-read them as an adult.

this is a list of some of her recurring characters in the Faraway Tree series...to give you an idea of the creativity and fun :-) (taken from wikipedia)

Characters
The first house the reader encounters is that of the Angry Pixie. It is a house with a tiny window. You might feel curious to look inside, but you dare not unless you want a bucket of ink or water thrown at you.
The owl, who lives in the home after the Angry Pixie's and before Silky's, is a normal nocturnal owl. He is a friend of Silky's.
The next house belongs to Silky, the fairy. It has a small yellow colored door, a tiny knocker with a shiny bell. She is called Silky because of her long, silky, golden hair.
You can always hear Mr.Whatzisname snoring all the time, he sounds like an aeroplane.
The next eccentric neighbour is Dame Washalot. She spends her time washing her clothes and throwing the dirty wash water down the tree.
The last house,which is round, belongs to Moonface. There is a slippery-slip in his house, a slide which runs down to the bottom of the tree. You will always have to slide down on a cushion; you don't want to get your clothes worn out.
The Saucepan Man lives with Mr. Watzisname. He is tied down with all his saucepans and kettles. Sometimes, he cannot understand what his friends are saying because of all the noise from the pans tied to his body.
The Saucepan Man's mother lives with Dame Washalot. She runs a cake shop.
The main characters are Jo, Bessie and Fanny. Fanny is the youngest, Bessie is the elder and Jo is their big brother. They live near the Enchanted Wood and are friends of the residents of the Faraway Tree.

anyway...what was your favorite children's book? My 2nd favorite is Beatrix Potter. I love her paintings as well.

3 things:

my beautiful husband
my simply gorgeous sister
my parents

helllllo lovely

2008-10-03T12:32:00.003-04:00

all i have to say is that my sister's coming to visit me this weekend and she and i are going to a soccer game. for this reason and this reason only....

oh yes my friends. i am going to go watch beckham play soccer.

my sister and i are pretty convinced that he will see us in the crowd and come over to say hi.

yeah. that's right. we're going to go ogle the pretty man.

dont judge me.

i can be married and ogle.

hopefully he wont talk as his voice is disappointingly high and squeaky.

uuuummmmm i want to be a doctor....but can i drop chem 101?

2008-09-30T21:09:00.003-04:00

I have not been eaten by freshmen. Though, if one more tells me "i have to drop my math class. i can't understand my professor. shouldn't it be a rule that they speak English?" I may eat THEM.

dude. seriously.

yes. they have driven me to resorting to "dude."

funny moments so far:

"do you define plagiarism as using 5 exact words in a row? I mean, is it okay if I use 3 exact words?" -- seriously over-worried boy

"ummmmmmmmmmmm.....like...........i want to be a doctor." very spacey young woman who came in to drop chem 101 (not the chem she needs for med school as it is the chem for non-science majors) because it was too hard and she doesn't like chemistry in response to my question about what she wanted to be when she graduated.

"can i take all my math and science at a community college where it's easier so i can pass?" another possible doctor.

"i don't understand why I'm in the exploration program, i already have a major."- very confused student
"oh? what major do you think you declared?"-me
"pre-med"-student
"umm....pre med is not an actual major.....you kind of have to major in something before you get to med school."-me.
"oh. crap.guess i'm in the right place then." - student.

"i can't wake up before 10, so i need all my classes to be in the afternoon."
**how the hell are you going to get a job and how did you survive high school????***-my inner monologue.

"i'll do anything to get back into engineering....can't you just back date the paperwork so that it looks like i dropped the class before the deadline?"

"can my mom just talk to you? she explains things much better than me." -phone appointment.

these, my friends, are the children of the future. those upon whom our hopes and dreams hang. our future doctors, engineers and politicians.

i think i may move to Canada.

i still love them. they crack me up.

3 things:

1-my amazing wonderful husband who hugs me in the grocery store
2- Catfish Biffs pizza.
3- Imperfect's post and her question about favorite dinner time memories. What a warm happy feeling to go to bed thinking about :-)

school days school days

2008-09-24T19:24:00.003-04:00

Oh the freshmen are SO freaking adorable!!!!! I absolutely adore them. The are all wandering around campus with folded up and dog eared campus maps that they try to hide in the palms of their hands JUST IN CASE any upperclassmen might see them and give them grief. You can see the kids that are 'too cool for school' (my 830 a.m. class is like that) and then you have the kids that are just so very very very excited to be there (my 330 class is like that.) Now granted, the 330 class could just be a little more awake, but it seemed to go much much better. Also, the computer in my classroom for my 330 class did not eat my disk like the CD drive in the 830 class did. I hate technology. I'm pretty sure I lost a little credibility when my students could hear me say "oh crap" from behind the giant multimedia tower.

I digress. Back to the Freshmen.

They come in all shapes and sizes...some of them look like models and movie stars and have more outward sophistication than I could ever hope to have. Some of the girls are coiffed, gelled, teased and blow dried into perfection with designer name short shorts and mile long legs. Some of them are chubby and pierced and picked their clothes very carefully trying to look like they're not trying too hard. Some of the boys look like they're 15 years old with stress pimples, ball caps and shirts that they think are "cool" (have safe lunch...use condiments). Some of the guys make me feel like a dirty old women when I gawk because, dear sweet lord they didn't make'em like that when i was 18!! Clearly they spend more time in the gym than those of my generation. They are SO excited to see someone that they know in their classes or to hear the name of a town that's somewhere close to their hometown.

Some of them are very clearly used to being the smart kid with the tough academic schedule. They think their arts and humanities and literature classes are going to be too easy of a schedule and they think they should only be in organic chem, immunology and microphysicalbioastronautology. Then there are some that are just overwhelmed by the new-ness of it all and are filing into my office panicking afraid they wont succeed.

I love my job :-)

I made them do an ice breaker where they had to stand up and introduce themselves and answer a question from my zobmondo question book.

how would you have answered?

would you rather be clumsy or forgetful?
would you rather lick under the fridge or under the toilet?
would you rather drink a gallon of hot dog water or a shot of foot sweat?
would you rather be abducted by aliens frequently and have no proof or have your best friend be invisible?
would you rather eat a teaspoonful of wasabi or crushed red pepper?

PS. the picture is from the presidents convocation in St.John's the old basketball arena.

dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

2008-09-23T19:21:00.002-04:00

survey classes start tomorrow.....

*quakes*

i hope they dont eat me alive.

Holland Typology

2008-09-17T21:03:00.003-04:00

So for my survey classes, I have to prepare an activity that will help illustrate John Holland's Career Codes.

Basically Holland's theory was that there are 6 main types and any number of combinations of those types. The types are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic,Social, Enterprising and Conventional (RIASEC). Based on how you score yourself on the assessment, you end up being Realistic/Investigative, Artistic/Social, etc. etc. The core of Holland's theory that people of like personalities or career types find themselves in similar careers. Similar to other personality tests, each "TYPE" has lists of characteristics that are common to the type and thus have suggested careers that people with those characteristics may excel in.

So...before I get to my REAL question, let me ask this....What type are you? I'm not going to make you go through the assessment...but take a look at the descriptions and see which fits you best.

REALISTIC people are characterized by competitive/assertive behavior and by interest in activities that require motor coordination, skill, and physical strength. People oriented toward this role prefer situations involving "action solutions" rather than tasks involving verbal or interpersonal skills. They like to take a concrete approach to problem-solving rather than relying on abstract theory. They tend to be interested in scientific or mechanical rather than cultural and aesthetic areas.
INVESTIGATIVE people prefer to think rather than to act, to organize and understand rather than to persuade. They are not apt to be very "people oriented."
ARTISTIC people value self-expression and relationships with others through artistic expression. They dislike structure, prefer tasks involving personal or physical skills, and are more prone to expression of emotion than others. They are similar to investigative people, but are more interested in the cultural-aesthetic than the scientific. SOCIAL people seem to satisfy their needs in teaching or helping situations. In contrast to investigative and realistic people, social types are drawn more to seek close interpersonal relationships and are less apt to engage in intellectual or extensive physical activity.
SOCIAL people have high interest in other people and are sensitive to the needs of others. They perceive themselves as liking to help others, understanding others, and having teaching abilities. Social people value social activities, social problems, and interpersonal relationships. They use their verbal and social skills to change other people’s behavior. They are generally cheerful, scholarly, and verbally oriented.
ENTERPRISING people are verbally skilled and use this skill in persuasion rather than support of others. They also value prestige and status and are more apt to pursue it than conventional people.
CONVENTIONAL people don't mind rules and regulations and emphasize self-control. They prefer structure and order to ambiguity in work and interpersonal situations. They place value on prestige or status.

I tend to be Social/Enterprising which stands to reason given the satisfaction that I've found in the helping profession of student affairs. I do think that the social and enterprising are slightly conflicting and I've found that to be true in my daily interactions with my students. For example, the social side of me wants very much to be able to help someone figure out their life...the enterprising side of me wants to convince the student that i'm right about what they should be doing. Most of the women in my office fall under the same primary category of Social with smatterings of the other 5 types as secondaries.

So here's my REAL question. My idea for an activity to illustrate these types is to use movies and tv show characters and play clips and have the student guess what type that character might be.

So far, I have Dwight Shrute from The Office as Conventional. I could use Tim the Tool Man Taylor from Home Improvement for Realistic....but I'd like to find a more modern character. So, based on the descriptions above...what characters stand out in your minds that would fit the definitions of the Holland Types??

windy week

2008-09-16T09:32:00.002-04:00

The remnants of Ike blew over Ohio and knocked out powerlines all across the state. Trees are down everywhere. It looks like a tornado passed through. Good news though! My roses that were in pots in the front yard did not blow away and the tree outside my office window is intact! I can't imagine living in a hurricane or tornado prone area. The wind was bad enough for me! My thoughts really go out to those who have had their lives turned upside down by the storms.

I am busy at work prepping for the 5 survey courses that I have to teach, making sure that I have all my supplies and syllabi updated and prepared. I got everything into a binder and made some lists yesterday so I feel a little more organized. I can't wait to get the first week over with. P's about going nuts with his job. It's the first time he's ever really worked in a student affairs type job and it's hard for him to get accustomed to the fact that you have to really sit down and think through each step of each event in a logical order rather than just doing it all at once. He is so anxious to do a good job that he's having a hard time understanding that it's okay to block out some office time on the calendar to sit down and make a list of things to do or something for yourself. He feels like any time the phone rings, he HAS to answer it...even though he has a perfectly good voicemail system. So essentially what's happening is, he sits down to work on a project, the phone rings, someone walks in and he gets 10 emails. I told him he needs to start laying some ground rules for his staff and trying to get people onto his schedule a little bit more rather than him running around on 20 different people's schedules. He is, afterall, the director. I think it's funny that the things that now come naturally to me, after working in the haphazard student affairs environment for so long are not second nature to him because usually he is FAR more organized and logical than I am. His prior jobs have really been positions where he had so much autonomy and so little contact with others that he was able to just blast through projects and work on them with little to no interruption. It's quite the culture shock for him I think. I helped him organize his thoughts a little bit last night by taking each event that he has coming up and making a to-do list for them. Then we sat down and looked at what his two student assistants could have delegated to them. That's another area that P is having difficulty with....delegating. Ohhhh my love, it WILL get easier...I promise, I promise!!!
I'm kind of bummed because next week is going to stink. We're hardly going to see eachother because he has an event each night of the week and I'm going to be going to bed early so i can get up and be fresh for survey class and the craziness that is apparently our Autumn Quarter Start.

I bought bright green pants at Old Navy to wear with a navy blue shirt...and while I really liked it in the store, I'm not so much thinking I like it in my office. I'm feeling more self concious! They are REALLY green.

Ah well, time to go to staff meeting....be well all!

Hello, my name is Ann and I'm a buckeye-holic.

2008-09-13T22:06:00.009-04:00

It's now 5 minutes into the 3rd quarter....and it's getting worse. How depressing.

This is the extent of my obsession...and the reason for the frantic posting from 10 minutes ago. My husband and I are "that" couple. You know, the cheesy ones that incorporate their favorite football team into their wedding? The ones that everyone shakes their heads over and goes "oh my.....well, they ARE unique." Yep. That's us. Check it out.

In no particular order....

my aunt made our cakes.

We changed into jerseys for the reception.
Please note, he did not actually smash the cake into my face. :-) good boy.

Our colors were indeed scarlet and grey.

The grooms cake was the stadium.

We had pictures taken at the stadium after the wedding. The handsome and studly boys.

and the girls... weren't my bridesmaids gorgeous? The one on the left is P's sister. Then there's Chuck, the one who married the guy in the LA national guard, then Llama...she's the amazing one who just had her heart broken, and then my sister, The Pig. You can see why I call her Pig. She's such a fatty ;-)

That nickname actually came about because on occasion she snorts.

pa-freakin-thetic

2008-09-13T21:49:00.004-04:00

it's half time...this is what my QB looks like.

i mean...he's just standing there! waiting for the giant pulverizing semi truck of a d-line to flatten him into road kill! what the HELL Sweatervest!?! you're killing me!!!!!!!! i THOUGHT we'd lose. I did NOT THINK that at HALF TIME i'd need PROZAC!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh freaking freaking bad.

unless the 2nd half is better.....tomorrow's gonna be rough.

OH and why does Brent Musberger have to sound so damn condescending????? At least kirk herbstreit's looking good today.