words words words, and some other stuff too

may 15th 2006

2006-07-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

a good friend gave me a quote that i need to post here..if you want to see a rainbow you have to stand a little rain.he said its from a country song but doesn't remember the artist, so it is now credited to Anonymous.but i'm trying to make it part of my philosophy.i was called as the Relief Society Secretary just recently and i have to admit that i am terrified. but if this is where heavenly father wants me, and if he'll show me what to do, then i'm game for it.next quote of the day..learn to walk from the light into the darkness and then the light will come. boyd k packer. my in laws are here. and it has been driving me crazy. granted i'm private by nature and even moreso with people that I dont know well or am still unsure of. i had to explain it to my love like this... its not that i dont like them.. its like a bottle of jack daniels. no one can sit down and drink the entire bottle on their first go with alcohol and not get sick, puke out their guts or whatever. its just not common and safe. you have to start them off with a few sips or beer, or wine on speical occassions.. build up to it. then after years of conditioning, they cans it down and drink a bottle of jack and not die.my in laws are like that bottle of jack daniels. i cant just sit and drink the entire bottle at one sitting. i'd die. i have to have small doses, do shots, or put it in mixers... or tiny sips... then i can build up to it.(this is not to endorse the consumption of entire bottle of jack daniels at one sitting. this is not to endorse alcoholism or underage drinking.. it was just one of the most obvious htings people have to build up tolerances for that i could think of..)and then he understood.i saw my husband hold our littlest neice this weekend. and i have to say that seeing him hold her made me fall in love with him all over again. ust seeing his interaction with her,t he way he cradled her... it was perfect. i look forward to that someday being us and him holding one of our babies...i finished my first sweater last wek and i have been wearing it this weekd. its been damp enough. i love it and works well. if i ever get a digital camera i'll post pics of it. until then its out of the stitch n *itch.. the cable sweater. in Noro yarn, kureyon color 128. its pretty cool. MY BOY GRADUATED COLLEGE SATURDAY!!!!! YAYAYAYAYAY!!!all for today.listening to sacred harp singers from the cold mountain soundtrack. how very cool..... check it out. Current Mood: gratefulCurrent Music: i'm going home - sacred harp singers from cold mountain..

2006-05-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

its been a while again.

the semester is over. i'm getting ready to post grades. that will be nice to be completely finished. deep sigh of relief.

i have made my brother a quilt. well a top. the rest will happen another day. there isn't a rush on it as he wont be availablet o receive it for a while yet. but its my wish for him that he gets better that he learns from his mistakes, that he makes somethign of his life. no one knows i did it, save you folks who do or dont read this. i am not sure how mu family would react. some would probaly think it was so sweet, and want to get involved and crowd me out as has happened before. others may not be happy about, may still be mad at him, which they have every right to be. because i made him a quilt doesn't mean i'm still not disappointed or mad at him. i'm not mad anymore. sad and disappointed are more appropriate terms here. i just hope he makes something of himself.

i finished my first sweater! its gorgeous! lovely, entirely made by me to my specifications so it fits me and i love it. today i started the blocking process. it will be done tomorow. i'm all excited. i used the noro kureyon yarn, and did the cable sweater in the Stitch n *itch by toller. the first one not the SnB nation. andi love it.

this is the week when my husband's parents arrive. sigh. we shall see how it turns out. his twin sister is also coming this weekend with her family. i am looking forward tot hat as we get along fairly well. but its just going to be weird having his parents here.
but... my father has made an apartment available for them to stay in. its beautiful. all the amenities of home. larger than a hotel room would be, and more homey. i am sograteful that my father made this available for them to stay in and for my sanity to be preserved. they my husband's parents are lovely people. i just dont know them. and that is the hard part. i need space, i need to be able to on my own, not always someone over mys houlder or staring at me. and that was what happened last time. so yeah. we are trying to plan out some activities for them. they dont come with agendas which can be nice, but can be tiresome and irritating to those they are staying with. but as they are in the apartment they can do nothing as much as they want and it wont bother me in the least.

and oh my gosh michael killed ana lucia on LOST! i really think he's gone tot he dark side there.....

2006-04-21T04:55:00.000-07:00

last night we had dinner with some dear friends of ours. i went to high school with john and we've just always been very dear friends. we were at his wedding, with eight other people. we went out with him and his wife, another good friend of ours..it has been so wonderfult os ee them again. they live in texas, he's in the airforce. we got word that he may be sent over soon to some political quagmire that we've gotten ourselves into and my heart just sank. i'm not patriotic, but the thuoght of my friend in such dangerous places stunned me into silence. i couldn't believe that he was ready to do this, that his wife was willing to let it happen. i know being in a military relationshp changes alot of things and you expectations... but wow.so the morning after as cliche as that sounds, my head and heart are still reeling. and all i can hope and pray for is that when he goes, he'll be protected. and that we can do all we can for his wife to take care of her and support her while he's away... my husband had a job interview yesterday. fingers crossed.... we should start hearing in a few weeks on the other job interview...the semester ends in a few weeks, and then everything else seems to begin...we've been in college or grad school for so long, its frightening to not be in that lifestyle anymore i guess. its comfortable.i am antsy to write again. antsy to be doing something creative. john requested a quilt. part of me wants to start it right now...all for now.

its been too long

2006-04-10T07:38:00.000-07:00

its been too long it seems. but thats ok. its been a good thing to think and not be open to the public, though no one looks at this anyway :)
the challenges haven't changed. church still has good days and bad days. there are still days when i leave early or i dont want to be there and i just tune everythign out in order to keep my mouth closed so i dont say something inappropriate.

the ward is still very cliqueish. rylan said we need to be the peopel that we would like to associate with or be friends with. and i think we are. i am to apoint though that i dont trust a lot of people in the ward anymore. people think they know me, but they dont. they know what they see. but the people there dont see me except for in church when i'm not always very happy. so they dont know me. and many make no attempt to get to know me. so i dont. i kee to myself. i think though if someone made the effort to get to know me, or get to know us, then they'd be pleasantly surprised. i just dont know that many people take the time.

the ward does a monthly temple day tot he palmyra temple. we were asked yesterday if we were going and i said probably not. we usually attend the manhattan temple. and the man who had come in kinda gave a little lecture and almost a guilt trip. he went into saying that temple attendance is important and that we have 16 seats reserved every month for the next 6 months in tha temple. that there are enough members in the ward who are elegibile or who will soon be eligible to go to the temple... then they should be. and that there are blessings that come from attending the temple. he also went into saying that they decided to do the ward temple day as a way to build unity among the ward. and that we should all make an effort to attend the temple if we can. and did another pitch for the ward temple day.
i understand that temple attendace is important. thats no question for me. but we also can't often make our schedules fit that weekend every month. we often can't treat it as an ironclad appointment. and as to the ward attendance, i prefer to attend the temple with people i dont know. then i can focus on the experience rather than everyone being there. its not a social hour to me, so i dont reallyc are about attending with people i know or not. i won't be talking to them or dealing with them. and its such a private experience for me, i dont like sharing it with many poeple, again, the reason i like being anonymous.
i think its more important that we go where we are comfortable going... it just felt a little like a guilt trip and a lecture. i wasn't pleased. neither was rylan.
we're planning on going to manhattan this weekend anyway.....

i dont want to be the person that does everything that people expects me to do. i want to live my own life and not what people just expect me to. its my private rebellion, my private rage against everything...

i was reading in sacrament meeting (i do that more often than not) and my book mark for my scriptures, my friend anna from scotland had written the words, know this that every soul is free to choose his life and what he'll be..... a nd it just rang in my ears for so long. to choose his life and what he'll be... and then comes the iron giant's line :Choose.

so we're choosing. i'm choosing, trying to figure out what we are to do, what we should be. who we want to be. thinking about what, where when all of that...

i sent out two articles to MormonChic. it's an online lds newsletter. it's aimed at the Sisters (hence the Chic part) but its also geared towards a younger generation of RS sisters. that's one reason i like it. i feel i fit in better with it then what happens in relief society. they've received the articles and are reviewing them. they said that they'd be in touch. if they like them, they'll publish them, and i may end up writing for them. it could be interesting.

my grandmother continues to clean out her house.

spring has psrung. the daffodills are up. the snow drops have ushered in the season. yesterday rylan and i went for a walk and found ducks and geese all in the pond, swimming, very happily. it is a beautiful place we live in here.

i'm working on the sleeves for my sweater. :)

i am feeling at peace. it's unusual for me. but i like it.

3/27/06

2006-03-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

i'm sitting in work, in my office and i just dont know what to do. i really dont want to be here. i'd much rather be out, or home, or writing, or working on something.
and i'm here.
i have just having a hard time, figuring out whats going on anymore. but i just know i want to be home.

i quilted last ngiht. and i know i say it every time. but i dont know what can be more relxaing and therepeutic than handquilting. clears my mind, calms thigns down. the scartching sound of the needle against the fabric, the gentle pop went it forces its way through and then the sigh as the thread is pulled through the fabric, tightening it together.

am slowly training for a 5k. i'd like to do one. i'm working on it.

aol is down so i can't im my friends who i usually do, sorry folks..

and thats about all.

a newspaper clipping

2006-03-24T08:18:00.000-08:00

i saw this on another website i go to.. on Livejournal,. so i lifted and am posting it here. who knows if anyone will read it. but here you go.

Mormons accepting MormonsAn article from today's Daily Universe, opinion section (BYU's newspaper).Viewpoint: Mormons Accepting MormonsBy Lisa Ruefenacht - 21 Mar 2006

I'm a Mormon.You might not guess it by looking at me, with my short purple black hair, penchant for dark eye makeup and extreme dislike for most things preppy, but I am.I believe in this church. I might even serve a mission. But since I came to BYU two-and-a-half years ago, I realize more and more that I do not fit the Mormon norm.My parents, lifelong Latter-day Saints, raised my four siblings and me in the heart of Bay Area suburbs, Walnut Creek. We stood out for that. Five kids in six years may pale in comparison to some Utah families, but in California it made us a mini circus.In elementary school, other kids on the playground started swearing, using words my parents taught were bad and unnecessary in everyday speech. Junior high behavior worsened, as my peers' sexual awareness heightened and weed and cigarettes were easily accessible. High school reached the climax. At least a quarter of my graduating class snorted coke on a regular basis. Sex was commonplace. Underage drinking was a weekly activity for some, nightly for others. For a few girls, lingerie became an acceptable form of clothing. Needless to say, I was happy to escape it all and come to BYU, where everyone would be accepted, and I would feel a kinship and instant camaraderie with half the people I met.I never expected to struggle so much with my identity as a Mormon and in defining what Mormon actually means once I started school at BYU. Uniformity in appearance and mentality seemed rampant among the student body, and oftentimes I found people regarded those who dressed differently, even people from other races, as freaks. At home, being Mormon unified us, regardless of race, type of car, hair color and other superficial judgment tools people use. A girl could have three ear piercings and still be respected; a boy could have dreadlocks and be regarded the same way as the clean-cut returned missionary. Our ward was comprised of Asians, Democrats, Caucasians, Republicans, Hispanics - an endless gamut of diversity.This leads me to a question; How are we, as members of the Lord's church, going to fortify Zion without open-minded and loving acceptance of everyone who considers themselves Mormon?The other night I was at a friend's apartment with her and her sister, when my friend's roommate came home complaining about a construction worker who was hitting on her in an inappropriate and downright creepy way at her work. As soon as she said "construction worker," my friend's sister blurted out, "Oh my gosh, was he Hispanic?" I doubt she even realized the underlying gravity of what she said.More church members live outside the United States than within, presently, with Hispanics as the fastest growing demographic. Because of their highly religious background, these people embrace the truthfulness of the gospel faster and more intensely than any other group. Generalizations like that girl's might ultimately keep church members from unreservedly embracing everyone as "Mormon." Neglecting the elimination of mindsets such as this girl's promote physical and emotional segregation from our brothers and sisters both in the church and out.Similarly, church members in our community now feel alienated, even though they identify with the religion 100 percent, because they simply do not mentally align with traditional Mormon culture. Some people regard those not married at a young age (say 23 or younger) as "old maids" or unmarriageable. Are these people any less Mormon because they don't marry until they're a little older, even as "old" as 30? Is Sheri Dew any less Mormon because she's never been married? How about people who drink caffeinated soda? Can we shun these people for such a measly choice?This is fact. A few years ago when a friend of mine from California moved into the dorms, her roommate's mother requested a roommate change, merely because my friend was from California and must have been one of those liberal Mormons. Whether or not these allegations were true, my friend was hurt from being judged so prematurely, naively and (I am asking for it by adding) immaturely.I'm not sure why people are this way. Perhaps stereotyping and judging people on shallow characteristics is something innate in everyone. Nevertheless, our religion should unify us while our cultural differences enhance our abilities to love unconditionally.

3/20/06

2006-03-20T07:57:00.000-08:00

am watching sections from A Mighty Wind... i am going to probably show a scene from it in my one class. we'll see. theres some really fun and pretty music in it. When I'm next to you.. and the other one that mitch and mickey sing together. the cool thing is that they sang it at the scars when it was nominated. very cool.

i am 27 now. this weekend was my birthday. i finally feel comfortable in my skin. not entirely mind you but certainly feeling better.

this weekend we went to a maple syrup farm with kyla and mum and saw the horses and the alpacas that sort of thing. it was nice. but it got so cold that we had to leave early, kyla was just a little icicle.

and the weirdestt hing.. things are good. things are fine. no major crises. bills are paid. rylan's applied for two jobs that are in his field and look very promising. we are stillt hinking if we want to be here permanently or not... but things are good.

for my birthday my husband gave me the whole first season of X files on Dvd. (yes i had a crazy crush on David Duchovny.. still do..) and the dvd Millions. fantastic film. if you havent seen it go and watch it right now. and a giant bag of cadbury mini eggs. happiness in a bag
kyla made me a quilt. very cool :) i'm goingt of ind a place to hang it on the wall.
my parents gave me some beautiful earrings.. and a lesson or class at the manning farm in spinning. very cool stuff..
rylan and ia re still figurig out what we want to do. where we want to end up. but things feel good. part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. but who knows. why wait for the bad when there's good around.

saint pats

2006-03-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

this isnt' even about saint pats. jus t aquick note.
i havent forgotten my scripture challenge and that shall probably show up tonight.

this past spring break i made a quilt. all out of denims and flannel shirts from my friend bob (dr alden's husband). i started it the 6th and i finished it entirely and put it on the bed last night.
it was done by machine, hand tied and the binding was hand sewn, but those are both because they have to. it's a queen size and it looks awesome.

this has been a good week. beautiful weather, good driving. just lovely...

so all is well.

1 nephi 19-22

2006-03-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

19:1-3 nephi tals about being commanded to include ome parts of his father's records on his own plates and not knowing why. later we now that martin harris lost the book of lehi. if nephi had not included that which he was commanded to, we'd not have allof that.
vs 10 nephi speaking messiancially. in vs 10 he mentions other prophets who have spoken messiaically but we dont have their records.
in vs 6 he says that these records (there's two) one shall contain that which is spiritual and sacred, and one shall contain the secular. he then says that often people trample under their feet that which is sacred, those things of god. then if you look at it, he mentions those propehts who have spoekn messincially - zeons, zenock, neum. nephi quotes zeons quite a bit. where else in the world would we have mention of their names, or of their revelations? the allegory of the olive tree comes from zenos or zenock (I will correct when i get there).. things that were trampled under the feet of men? things that men did not see as being sacred? things excised?
vs 18 nephi says he writes thesethings that they mnight remember them.... that they are of great worth... that includes zenos and zenock etc... so more records to come forth? article of faith 9? i think of when joseph smith returned the plates to cumorah, in the hill the cave that opened up and the stack of plates and lates that were all around the room that would some day come forth...

chapter 20-21 nephi teaching out of isiah to try to soften his brothers' hearts.

22:8-9 restoration of the gospel.
vs 11 gospel must go forth among all the world.
vs 31 ye need not suppose that only my father and i have prophesied of these things... nephi right there saying there have been other prohets, other records...

1nephi 12-16

2006-03-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

1 nephi 12: vision continued.
nephi sees his descendants, and wars between the people of the lamanties and the nephites.
vs 6 sees coming of christ, 12 apostles and 12 disciples. purposes in judgement.

vs 16-18 direct decoding of some specific parts of the tree of life vision.
there's a loit of abrahamaic covenant stuff or language like that in this chapter.

1 nephi 13: vs 5 we are introduced to the agreat and abominable church.
vs 12: columbus' voyage
vs 13 age of exploration.
vs 13-16 pilgrims
vs 17 england
vs 18 revolutionary war
vs 19 usa established
vs 20 the bible shows up
vs 24-29 more on the bible. it once contained the fulness of the gospelm, but it has been altered and many plain and simple things were removed from the text. in vs 29 it says without these plain and precious things, many STUMBLE. i liked the word chouce there of stumble, its how we travle in the dark, the trus dark, not the dark int he city where there is stilllight from the buildings or street lampos. but the dark out int he woods, or out in the middle of nowhere... we stumble around desperate to find a lightswitch, a match, flashlight and thin of our relief when we find that match or flashlight. we gather around it, we bask in the little light we have. so without those plain trusth many stumble, wandering in the dark...
vs 34-36 purpose of tha plates is made clear. book of mormon
vs 39-42 book of mormon and other books of forthcoming revelations? article of faith number 9, check it out.

1 nephi 14:25-26 the vision is being continued, . The angel speaks of jophn the revelator, and how when john wrote the revelation downi t was easy to understand. this would indicate that it was altered, meddled with and changed. rarely do you ever hear that revelation ise asy to understand.
vs 25 nephi is shown the same revelation but told not to write it down.
then in 26 the angel says that others have seen the same revelation and have been commanded to write their visions to maintain its purity truth and to be revealed at a laterlter time.

1 nephi 15:9 laman andlemuel are complaining because they dont understand a revelation or a lesson given by their father (about an olive tree) and Nephi asks them, Have you asked? and they reply, NO he makes no such things known unto us.
doubting that God would even reveal to them what it means, doubting god's ability or willingness to guide them. Why wouldn't he make such things known?

vs 12-18 note the similarities to the allegory of the olive tree in jacob 5.

1 nephi chapter 16
vs 1-3 nephi is teaching his elder brothers. they took the words to be hard. the wicked take them to be hard things.
but then in vs 3... nephi comments that if only you were able or willling to righteous and willing to hearken to the truth you would not take them to be hard.. so righteousness is in our attitudes. in our humility.... in our willngness to be gentle.. someties wethink that somene is just righteous but we dontthink that is an active thing, we are tryign to be righteous or not being righteous in our attitude. think back tot he saints who had to go through such trials, those were hard things one could say, but to others, theyw ere willing, it was because they wanted to be righteous.

vs 5 nephi had had a vision of the wickedess of his brother's seed, but even here he still had hope.

vs. 10 the liahona shows up. refer back to 1nephi 3:7. how does the liahona work? and we see that God will make certain there is a way to get those things accomplished as he needs. observe how it worked.

vs 16. liahona directed them where to hunt. if it is important to uis, the spirit will guide us. hunting mays eem like a little thing, but if it is important for whatever reason, we can be guided....

vs 18-25 nephi and his brothersgo hunting for food for the families. nephi's steel bow breaks. his brothers' bow strings have lost their spring. everyone save nephi complains. this includes lehi. nephi goes and gets a straight stick tio make into an arrow and then he makes a bow. then he goes to lehi his father (who'd just been complaining mind you) and says, ask the lord wher ei hsould go to find food. that shows humility in nephi, it als shows that even prophets have bad days. nephi woulc have asked god himself, but he knew the hierarchy. he shows respect to lehi by asking him to ask for him... it also remindslehi of his calling and of the humility he needs to have.

first nephi chapters 1-11

2006-03-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

These are just brief notes.. (lack of proper capitalization is not meant in any way shape or form to offend or show disrespect..)

1nephi 1:1 - right off the bat, nephi says, 'having been born of goodly parents i was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father....' it talks immediately about the importance of parents teaching their children, from languages, to the teachings of the gospel. how important is it now that we see how hard satan is working to destroy the family.

1neph1 1:8-10 - note the level of descenscion.. brightness of noon day and then brightness of the stars being the apostles.

1nephi 2:2-4 - lehi and family leave jerusalem. talks about what they left behind. they were a wealthy family. and lehi left it all. to go dwell in tents. how willing would we be to do the same? because lehi was obedient to the lord he dod what was commanded of him.

1 nephi 2:7 - they're out int he wilderness and lehi builds an altar and offers sacrifices of thanksgiving. they just left allth eir welath and worldly possessions back in jerusalem. and he's thankful? shows how humble he was, and how intune with the lord's will he was.

1nephi 2:15 dwelt in a tent. shows humility.

1 nephi 2:16 - nephi's heart was softened that he did believe in all the words of his father.... nephi had to pray for that, he had to work on that belief. he didn't have it from the get go. his heart was softened. could he have had doubts up until this point? nephi gaining a testimony.

1 neohi 3:5 lehi says, your brothers say it is a hard thing that i have required of them, but it is not i that require it, but the lord has commanded it.... how often do we look at our own bishopric or leaders and not necessarily think of them as instruments in the lord's hands.. but as joe the mailman, not as a servant of the lord. nephi's response is the epitome of sustaining our leaders, i will go and do..... do we support and sustain our leaders with the same dedication? or do we let the humanity the person whose dirty laundry we know get in the way?

1 nephi 3:19-20 the importance of the the plates is three fold: 1. geneolgy 2. scriptures 3. language of their fathers (a teaching tool)

1 nephi 3:31 - lack of faith, relying on the arm of man. how often do we have this same response?

1nephi 4:2 i just watched discovery channel's Ramses wrath of God or man program. it was very cool and interesting. in it is posed the question, did moses really part the red sea? it is suggested as an option that perhaps the Red sea is a mistranslation from the Reed sea, indicating some sort of marsh. thinking on this, i looked to the book of mormon, which has only been translated once, unlike the bible.... and in it nephi makes reference to moses parting the Red Sea, indicating that he (nephi) knew about it, or of the accounts. If it had been a mistranslation, it's a lot further back than anyone expected. but i dont think so. if it was meant to be the reed sea, it hink here would have been the place for it to be. and it's not. it's defintely the red sea. by a second and a third witness shall these things be made known?

1 nephi 4:6 - showing trust in the spirit to guide.

1nephi 4:10-18 even nephi had a hard time following the spirit and counsels of god sometimes.

1 nephi 4: 32-35 - shows the cultural importance of oaths.

1nephi 5"3-5 shows how to properly resolve a conflict. sariah was upst and murmuring.. and lehi said, yes i am a visionary man..... but the three steps he took to comfort her were: 1. agree with her (yes I am a visionary man) 2. to explain (he went into what was going on) 3. and then to teach and tesitify. he did all those things and helped to calm her.

1nephi 7:14 - here we find a direct reference to jeremiah, the prophet of the old testament, and a contemporary of lehi.

1 nephi 11:7 - after lehi's done the tree of life vision, nephi desires to see it as well and to understand it. so he prays and all of that. and the spirit of the lord speaks to him in the form of a man, but nephi says that he knows it is the spirit speaking to him... and the spirit mentions something in verse 7 this shall ye have for a sign, that after you see the tree, a man shall decend out of heaven.. and then shall you witness that it is the son of god.
then in vs 14, after nephi has seen the tree, a man descends and starts talking to nephi. the scripture refers to him as an angel. no name is ever given. but if you look at verse 7, this angel would line up with being jesus christ. this is the one that teaches nephi about the condescension of god, about the crucifixion.. all of that.... the vision goes on for a few chapters.
so the angel is christ. (because we know the spirit testifies of christ, and it is a truthful spirit.. it's not going to lie, it follows the pattern mentioned in verse 7....)

so another challenge

2006-03-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

i have given myself another challenge. i write it here, i dont know why but i am.

last year president hinkley challenged us to read the book of mormon before the end of the year. I read it twice by the deadline. one of those times i used the actual book. the other time i used a website called www.readthescriptures.com and they would email me my reading assignment every day.
the latter way worked well; i got through the book of mormon in about a month.
well after that i read the pearl of great price that way and that was lovely. but then i hit a wall. i didn't know what to read after that. i tried the doctrine and covenants and i just couldn't get into it. i know that sounds awful, but i think it's something that needs to be taken with a church history course. it doesn't do well just by itelf, or it didn't for me.
i did the gospel doctrine reading assignments for a while, but then i just kinda stopped caring. i wouldn't catch up and i just discontinued the sendings. (see previous posting on gospel opinion class)
so i didn't read for a while, and it's been bugging me a bit. i read every night with my rylan. we're doing the pearl of great price together and that's cool.
but tonight i just really felt the need to read. i saw a quote somewhere in another blog service in an lds community there, that said 'do you know jesus christ?' and it made me think... there's knowing about jesus christ and then there's knowing jesus christ.
so i started reading again tonight. thinking that if this book is the most perfect book on the face of the earth, translated once by divine guidance, and we've been promised that this book is relevant to our day, that it will help us draw closer to god and jesus christ than any other book, then i should read it again.
so i started reading it again tonight, but i have done somethign different than i have done so far. i am keeping a scripture journal. it's just little notes of things i come across while i read; jot them down and all of that.
i hope by doing this i will gain a better understading of the gospel. i want to be one of those gospel scholars, who just know their stuff, but also who just glow. the glow isn't just understanding the material, it's a deeper udnerstanding, a deeper testimony of it. it's the spirit working there. and that's what i want.
i may put some it online here too, i'm not sure how to do that seperately. but i might. or i just might label it as a scripture note session and if you want to check it you can. and if you want to comment on it, then go crazy.

on another note.. yesterday eylan, sara, tom and i all went to check out a a maple syrup operation at a local farm. very cool stuff.
boys are out camping.
and allt his week ihave been working on a denim quilt. i started it monday out of old jeans and my friend Bob's ol flannel shirts. i finsihed the top wednesday. took yesterday off. and today i added the borders and bought the batting, backing and safety pins to baste the whole things together. it woudl be fab if it would be able to be done by sunday but i dont know about that. but who knows. the entire t ime i quilted, i watched the lord of the rings trilogy, extended edition. very cool.
i shall have to post a picture of the quilt up here when it's all done.

geese

2006-03-09T06:37:00.000-08:00

this morning is gray and rainy.
rylan has been tapping maple trees to make syrup. this weekend he'll start boiling his second batch of sap. possibly his last depending on the temperatures.

went for a walk with ellie this morning to the very very old barn foundation on the property. all that's left are a few low stone pillars semi mortared together, and the outline of the walls in rock. right int he middle of it is this magnificent tree. it reminds me of the tree and the great owl from the secret of NIMH, very gnarled, very old, lots of branches, some high, some low. it has always been one of my favorite places on the entire property.

on the way back to the house, i heard something and looked up. there above me was a huge V of canadian geese flying north.
spring is coming.

i have always loved the migration of the geese. i track the seasons by them. and whenever i see them coming back north, i am filled with hope. winter will be ending soon, spring will come.

it never fails to make me smile and cheer my spirit.

favorite scripture

2006-03-06T09:56:00.000-08:00

i saw this on my start page, as a thought for the day... and it's one of my all time favorite scriptures. so here you go.

If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea;If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can'tyou stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb; And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands ofmurderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son,that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
Doctrine & Covenants 122:5-7

the weekend/movie review/deep questions

2006-03-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

so this weekend was a trip to new hampshire to see rylan's twin sister, her new baby, erin's husband brian and to see rylan's parents. sunday was the blessing and rylan was invited to participate.
the drive is crazy. as much as i like the area, i am afraid i'd have a heart attack with the driving. just absolutely crazy. but the scenery is beautiful, and we made good time.
erin and brian are both very cool and we get on very well. it was lovely to see them again and visit :) the baby is sweet and darling.
things were smooth and calm, even though it is still a little odd that my in laws are just happy sitting around on vacation at someone's house. just weirds me out a bit.
they brought out a film called mobsters and mormons (rylan's parents) and said it was so funny and great and that they laughed every time they watched it. so they popped it in and we watched some of it. (we lost power a couple times thankfully..)
and i have to say, i couldn't find many things terribly funny about it. a couple spots were funny, when Rick picks up the paintball gun and shoots the wall with no problem while the adult is trying to explain techniques of holding the gun. ok that was funny.
but what i thought about as i watched it was that all it was was stereotypes of mormons. the lead family is the first counselor in the bishopric. he works at a Lowes type of place, his wife is young and pretty, and pregnant, blonde hair, cute and sweet as a tablespoon of maple syrup. the first counselor/husband's little sister lives with them because their dad is mission president in someplace.
there's the gossip who also happen to be the chorister, who thinks every meeting is a performance, and does a very overdone version of Families can be together forever in sacrament meeting...
the whole thing just seemed to be nothing but stereotypes about mormons and an underhanded way of teaching the gospel. the first thing out of someone's mouth when the 'mobster fmaliy' arrives in utah is "how many wives do you have?" and the agent goes into a history lesson about plural marriage. and then when the young couple (the counselor and his wife) go to 'friendship' the new family into the area and neighborhood you get the word of wisdom lesson "While although some members of our church choose to drink cola drinks, we have chosen not to...."
the scene in sacrament meeting with the counsleor ripping off the pulpit head and hitting the speaker int he head... no one would do that. it was irreverant and completely rude. the catholic church service scene was more reverant.
the characters were very naive, and a bit toothachingly sweet.
and what kept going through my mind was, is this the image we want to be portraying? this whole movie is full of inside jokes. it is very isolationist. these companies have carved a niche for themselves, catering to lds viewers, but at what cost? for us to allow these stereotypes to be reinforced? even to ourselves? between the stereotypes and the veiled church lessons/missionary tactics, who is this film for?
if this is meant to be a missionary tool, or for non members, then why are we reinforcing stereotypes and adding new ones? wouldn't it be better to have a well written script, without portraying characters as nothing more than caricatures, cut outs that can be filled by any person? caricatures are dangerous things. they are nothing more than stereotypes walking across a screen. they are everything that a good writer (play, film, author etc) strives against. these are not kind depictions; no stereotype is.

so my questions, why the stereotypes in the film, caricatures, what should we do about this? and why do we let this happen? why should we patronize a company that produces this type of material?
I have seen LDS films before. Rigoletto is still a beautiful film. It's not pulitzer prize winning material. music is beautiful, good moral. the writing is good. the questions don't come up because we believe in the world of the film. that suspension of disbelief was never present in Mobsters and Mormons.
I saw Mr. Krugers Christmas. i own it as pretty much every other Ensign Subscriber. And although you could almost boil it down to nothing more than a glorified music video, we believe the world of the film. It doesn't portray stereotypes. It's simple, poignant and not overly complicated.
So why is there such a market for material that is poorly written or done, for the lds community? why is there such a return to stereotypes, that aren't accurate and things we should be trying to dispel?
The Other Side of Heaven, which i was a little scared about and very skeptical about, handled allt hose issues well. handled the deal about no sex for misionaries. what their jobs were, all of that, in such a manner that it was palatable to everyone. that film could easily be seen as a missionary tool. I would not be embarassed to hand that movie out, or to recommend it. I would never recommend mobsters and mormons. ever.

The reason this impacts me is that one of my stories that i am thinking about writing is LDS. not based on the gospel but employing LDS characters and LDS setting. i want to avoid all of these things. It's not going to be a sweet toothachingly saccharine piece. so it makes me a little nervous to see what will happen when the piece is done and how will it be received?
i think of a quote by Orson Whitney in 1888, "We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own. God's ammunition is not yet exhausted."
I think we should be holding ourselves to a higher quality and standard. Just because it's LDS doesn't mean it has to be dumbed down, or strictly religious, saccahraine or sweet. There must needs be opposition in all things....

Input?

the blessing on sunday went wonderfully well.
i got to hold melanie, the baby at the house and she fell asleep in my arms. it is such a cool feeling. so peaceful. i taught her mother a lullabye that melanie seemed to like. put her to sleep or calmed her at least.
Cameron, Brian's son, and i got to hang out. we became quick pals.
i started another sweater because i ran out of yarn for my purple cardigan. so i'm making a big oversized comfy sweater with a cable up the front. Noro yarn. stripes, but very cool.

rylan's making maple syrup. very very good stuff.

And so is the first day of Spring break!!!!!

recipe

2006-02-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

so somethign good from the past few days. i got to cook! and since i'm always torturing James with my really quick miscellanous recipes, here's a good one. so life isn't all doom and gloom when i can be in the kitchen and enjoying the smells and feel of what's going on around me.

tonight was salmon rolls with crab meat filling (didn't make them, bought from grocery store.. just baked them. so don't get ultra impressed though they were lovely...)

but here you go.

this originally came from the silver palate cookbook, so i can't take full responsibility for it. but we've modified it slightly.

1 lb of raw aspargus, washed
1 package of cream cheese, slightly warmed (only to make stirring easier)
1 lb of bacon
garlic powder, black pepper and italian seasonings to taste.

preheat oven to 35o F.
take warmed cream cheese, stir in seasonings to your taste.
after having washed asparagus spears, break the bottom ends off, roughly the bottom inch. you'll feel the spear bend or give there.
naturally.

take a strip of raw bacon, smear the cream cheese mixture on it. maybe a tablespoon? maybe more. take about three spears, lay them on top of one end of the smeared bacon and roll the bacon around the group of spears. place on baking sheet.

a one pound bunch of asparagus will do roughly 8 rolls. there's usually some bacon left over. you can bake it int he oven as bacon or smear that with creame cheese too and just roll it without the asparagus.

bake the rolls on baking sheet for about 15 minutes until the bacon is cooked. (it won't be crispy, but you'll be able to tell.)

take out and serve directly. it's a great dish, rich though. it's hard to eat more than two. if they cool warm them up again because these don't do well cold.

rant, beware.

2006-02-26T11:41:00.000-08:00

so you may or may not know that i dont handle houseguests very well. i dont handle houseguests well if i dont know them well. i have gotten better since my best friend came and visited for three days when were fourteen and we almost ended up killing each other. let it be said that i like my space and my privacy. some people i am comfortable enough to have with me and not have anys ort of problem with. some i'm not.

my in laws are coming for two weeks in may. and i want nothing more than to not be here when they are here. even if they dont stay here, which they aren't. thats' been made clear. they will stay in one of the apartments. they won't be here in the house.
rylan told me it'd be a week. a week. well today, it's now two weeks. and i ant nothing to do with it.
yeah whatever, you should get to know the,. yeah whatever, you should let them stay with you so you can get to know them. that's nice. good for you. gold stars all round. how will they get tok now you if you dint let them stay with you? again gold stars for you. how will you ge tot know them if you don't let them stay with you again gold stars for everyone. and i'll take the big black marks in my book. (what everyone has said to me.. and i hate it.) i prefer to get to know people from a distance. establish a relationship form there and maybe then go from there.
i dont take kindly to being stared at. thats what happened when they were here. they stared at me. didn't say a word. just stared at me. or changing chairs was the highlight of the day. so i put on my headphones and played my computer or did my work and didn't interact. i said i had work to do and i did it. i did my writing.. harry potter was a break thing. and there you go.
but what makes me more mad is that because they're coming right at that time is there's no chance of scotland. absolutely bloody none. rylan and i made a deal. that if he went to utah for the conference, we were going to scotland. so he went. and i have been hoping and planning and preparing and because of this, it's defunct. i feel betrayed. like he renegged on a deal. and yeah finances are tight. but it could be done. but he's just being a wet blanket on this. i am so close to going ahead and booking tickets for me and leaving him here while i go on holiday. because his parents being here is not going to be any sort of holiday or anything mildly enjoyable for me.
the trip to scotland has beent he one thing that has kept me going in allt he horrible times. the one thing that has kept my spirits up when i felt likeic ouldn't go on. i kept holding on to scotland. those few days of seeing my friends i havent seen in six years...or being ina place where i truly felt at home and where i felt i belonged... and it's been shot down.
and i hate it.

it costs money to move away. it takes money to survive. so for the time being we're stuck here until he gets a better job. or i get a better job. and my parents want me to stay here. because they'd miss us. and yeah i'd miss them ot. but this place, this town and the mentality frighten me. scares the crap out of me. i do not want ot get stuck in a place that i loathe, because i'll end up loathing myself. and then that will just become an awful thing.....

2/25/06

2006-02-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

rylan's off to meetings and classes all day. comes with the territory i guess.

so i am here to clean the house. it's driving me crazy all the clutter and stuff. so. i'm doign that today. cleaning, doing somew riting, knitting maybe, quilting. maybe start on the new denim quilt too. who knows.
have dsicovered a ghreat gorup called freecycle. you post your unwanted items and usually someone wants them. so you give it to them and it gets out of your hair. it keeps it from going in the dump and wasting a perfectly usable or easily repairable thing. i have gotten rid of a breadmaker and an old cabinet stereo that way. and if you're skint or short on cash you can list something you're looking for and maybe someone will have it and is willing to part with it. it's a good thing.

listening to James.. here's a snippet:
got to tell the world we've all been dreaming,. this is not the end a new beginning. i no longer feel my god is watching over me. break the curse, concentrate let the door swing open see through all my walls all my flaws now i'm in deeper than sleep. got to keep awake to what is happening. i can't see a thing to my ambition, i no longer feel my god is watching over me. got to tell the world we've all been dreaming.. when you let me fly on my own wings, nowi'm as tall as the skies, when you left me drown, i grew gills and fins now i'm as deep as the sea. when you let me die my spirit's free, there's nothing challenging me. (ring the bells..)

so maybe today i'll just put up random snippets of songs i'm listening to at this moment since between the dog and the music it's all the company i've got today..

(from sit down, by james)
if i hadn't seen such riches i could live with being poor. oh sit down next to me. sit down down down down down, in sympathy.those who feel the breath of sadness sit down next to me, those who find they're touched by madness sit down next to me, those who find themselves ridiculous sit down next to me, in love in fear in hate and tears.. down. oh sit down next to me. down sit down in sympathy...

fare thee well my bright star. then as a brief brilliant miracle dies and that which i had looked up to and clung to for dear life had to burn itself out to make itself alive and nd i caught you then in your moment of glory, your last dramatic scene against a night sky stage with thte memories so clear its as if you're still before me, my once in a lifetime, my star of an age. fare thee well my bright star. last night the tongues of fire circled me around. and this strange season of pain will come to pass and the healing hands of autumn cool me down... (indigo girls)

witches can be right. giants can be good. you decide what's right, you decide what's good. someone is on you side, some one else is not. while yo're seeing our side, maybe you forgot they are not alone. no one is alone. hard to see the light now, just don't let it go. things will turn out right now. we can make it so. someone is on your side. no one is alone. (from into the woods.)

all for the moment.

update
spent yesterday (now writing on the 26th) after having written the blog entry with mom, kyla and my grandmother at grandmother's house. lots of interesting stressful things there.
more on that later when i feel up to it.

2/22/06

2006-02-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

sitting waiting for my class to start. i am soing sentence diagramming. sounds a bit elementary but it needs to be done. it's amazing what some students dont know.
so rylan's parents are coming in may, possibly bringing his youngest sister. still dont know what i think of it. and as it looks grandmother may be living in the apartment by the end of summer. i dont know about possibly ealier, but if it is earlier, that means that rylan'sfamily will have to stay with us. i dont know. i just dont do houseguests very well. i do all in my power to be a good houseguest, to make as little impact on lifer as possible, to not be in the way. that sort of thing. but i just dont do guests in our home well. at least not for long periods of time. i dont etnertain people well. i dont always want to feel like i'm on,' so to speak. being a teacher, i'm on enough as it is.
we are going to new hampshire soon toi see rylan's twin and her family. his prents will be there. our ellie has been invited. we shall make sure she is on her best behavior. generally she does well.
i'm antsy to get to scotland. who knows if it will happen this may. who knows. i dont.
am getting antsy to write too.

the other night i sat our wedding quilt, the quilt frame and worked. it was the most calming thing of all day to just let everything else go but to focus n this quilt. it is such a soothing motion and act.
i am already planning the next quilt, a denim quilt with flannel, a roman coins pattern.

ok class soon. i'm away.

2006-02-21T07:16:00.000-08:00

got a phone call last night from my sister. grandmother was taken to the emergency room (up at tyler hospital of all places... they seem questionable at best). she's had a severe case of diarrhea (pleasant isn't it?) since arizona and it's just really gotten worse. they pumped her full of fluids to try to stave of dehydration. there was talk of sending her for a CAT scan as one side of her face was 'drawn' or pulled. sara asked if it was possibly a stroke and dad said the docotors weren't saying that but it was getting implied. the hospital; decided not to admit her. she spent last night up at mom and dad's. and as it sounds she may very well be moving up here from dalton. she's kinda getting resigned to the fact of that, that she can't take care of herself a whole lot anymore...
it makes me sad. she's always had such independance. she's always had such a fiery attitude, and to see her forced to leave her home and live nearer her daughter and all of that... yes i udnerstand the pros of the situation. thirty minutes is a life time in a situation like that could mean life or death... i just want to make sure she's not being forced against her will. i still remember poppa when he had to go into the nursing home. how bad it was, the feeling of betrayal, and hurt and how much he resented it... but yeah he had to go there, he couldn't take care of himself...
she said she'd never been in love with such a spot of earth as her home in dalton. and i just hate to see her have to lose it. have to leave it.
sitting in a class proctering another professor's class. hoping our ellie is ok. hoping that things will be ok in the future...hoping for jobs...hoping and prayinh my rylan's ok that his knee isn't hurting him that he will find a job that he loves and that can support us.. i'm not always sure how many more of these 8ams i can take.
i came home yesterday form work absolutely shattered. could barely function. and i wondered how a single mother handles it, working taking care of kids all of that on her own...i could barely string words together last night. i dont think i want to be doing that when the time comes to have a family...
looked more at folklore and folkculture. and it's really piquing my interest. am debating or thinking, considering doing an iformal study of the mormon culture. i always hear about it, green jello and mini vans.. but no one understands why... maybe this could be of interest...
will keep posted on all of those things...

2/18/06

2006-02-18T09:15:00.000-08:00

rylan had surgery yesterday and all went well! *sigh of relief* they had to remove some scar tissue between his knee and femur, and reepair a torn miniscus in his knee. The surgeryt ook less than an hour. Rylan hadnled the anesthesia well. he has a hard time with it, just being really groggy, sleeping a lot longer... all of that. yesterday he knew who i was, he wasn't really really groggy.. and he was coherent.

this week has been a bad week. bad thoughts got into my head, i guess into rylan's too. it's hard being married you know. the idea of his parents coming out in may to spend a week with us just really upset the cart. (long story....we'll just say i dont do well with houseguests I dont know well or who take over my kitchen. it's small enough to begin with that two pepople can barely choregraph a meal preparation there. And i say choregraph because every move has to be made aware to the other person so as not to bump into each other or whatever..)
and with allt he deathsi n our family and friends... it's just been a bad week. marylynn was hard to see go. hildy, a friend of mine said, marylynn was what we all ove about tunkhannock. her elegance, her kindness, generosity, friendship, style, sense of humor... all of that. the tpwn shall be a little less bright with her gone out of it. and it is true to a T.
so it's been bad. and when is at next to rylan's bed, waiting for him to go into surgery, all of the bad thoughts, frustrations, annoyed self and all of that, went away. it still boiled down to, i love this person more than anything else in the world. i love him and would do anything for him, even go through this surgery for him if they could do it on me and give him the results. i just sat, holding his hand, or touching his chest, or whatever. always in contact with him...

but he is doing great. surgery was a success, and he's walking around... yay! huge sighs of relief, prayers answered.... prayers of thanksgiving offered... we talked last night about what happened this week. about the bad thoughts we'd had, the fears and all of that. things will be ok.

it snowed here. windy and flurries.

am thinking of my phd again. and the best fit so far feels like it'd be folklore. it incoprorates the indigineous music, languages and stories of a people.. the beliefs and all of that. not many places off the degree. but at least i have a pssible starting off point.

put in for a promotion at work. we'll see. it didn't make sense to not throw my hat in the ring. i'm just as qualified as anyone else. might as well.

have taken to keeping a notebook or pad of paper net to my bed, so when i have a dream and i ake up from it, i can write it down. i have gotten some good stories that way. another good one came early this morning. :) hailers and james i'll have tos ee what you think of it.

this past week, my mom gave me something. my earliest memory of my aunt billie june (she died in early january) is falling out of the bed at her house and looking under it and seeing all of these 'jewels' under the bed on some sort of tray. i believed they were making jewelry or they were rich and they hid all their money or and precious things unde the bed. keep in mind i was four at the time.
mom has always told me that it was a christmas tree. well i dont remember that. i remember jewels on a tray.
with billie june's daughter's permission, they gave me the christmas tree. it came this week in grandmother's car.. mom called me up and i went up to get it.
it's on 'velvet' (what you'd get at a craft store) in a large woodeen frame. a christmas tree made out of jewelry. beads, bracelets, earrings, pins and brooches.. everything.. i leaned down so i'd be level with it and tilted my head to the side as if i were lying ont he floor next to it and looked. and it looked how i reemmbered it. a tray full of jewels.
i hung it up today, and i can't help but smile whenever i look at it. and yes it is a christmas tree, but it will stay up year round i think. because it is so cool, and it is such an important memory of my childhood. and because it makes me smile. it hink of my fmaoil and howd ifferent we alla re, how some don't even look like we should be long todather. our friends too. we dont make sense on paper. but when you put us together, we make a beautiful sight...

thats all for now.

deaths come in threes

2006-02-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

it is something i have started to belive. maybe because i like superstitions. maybe not. but it is something that i have noticed. deaths or major things, happen in threes.

first was my great aunt in early janury. then was grandaddy end of january. then was my dear friend marylynn sunday night.

six weeks three deaths. kinda hard....

tomorrow night is the viewing and we'll be going as we can't attend the funeral. i'll miss her.

another post maybe tonight. but maybe. on a different perhaps better topic... who knows..

hmm

2006-02-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

so i realized that this is turning out to be farily unpositive and growling. i figured i'd try to change that.
taking lead from my one friend....
some stuff about me. so you can all get to know me better... (all three who read this)

favorite restraunts:

Bombay house in Salt Lake City, Utah (great indian food andlovely mago ice cream..i love their lamb korma)
Tea and Sympathy in New York City (in the village past St. Vincent's Hosptial) It's a bit of home when i really need some good food, scones, and just a trip back to the uk but can't afford the airfare. I adore their brunches (eggs with salmon, chammomile and lavender tea..)
Mamasita's up near Elk Mountain in Pa. Great Mexican food, all made from scratch. it's not a fast food place, go when you have time, but it's worth the wait.
Jack's in Millersville Pa for their amazing french fry dishes.
Sugar Bowl in Millersville for their spinach stromboli.
Baby's in State College Pa, just for fun and atmosphere.
Gin's in Factoryville is good.
add to this list, generally Starbucks (or a nice coffee house, Tunk. doesn't have one..) Ruby Tuesdays or Applebees, or Olive Garden.

Favorite movies:

Goonies
waking ned devine
best of show
a mighty wind
persuasion
mansfield park
the green mile
shawshank redemption
finding nverland
LOTR trilogy
King Kong
Jaws
Narnia
spaceballs...

Favorite books:

farewell miss julie logan - by jm barrie
reading lolita in tehran - azar nafisi
the prime of miss jean brodie
the city of god - doctorow
dracula - bram stoker
standing for something - gordon b hinckley
brave new world - aldous huxley
lost - gregory maguire
wicked - same author
poe
sherlock holmes - all of it.. by doyle
chuck wachtel's poetry and essays and short stories
lots more

favorite songs/bands

out to get you - by James
origin of love - hedwig and the angry inch
ragtime and wheels of a dream - from ragtime
hell - squirrel nut zippers
beethoven's 9th symphony
schubert's ave maria
be still my soul
rhapsody in blue - gershwin
song for whoever and beautiful eyes - beautiful south
laura cortese
stuff by maleki
james
barenaked ladies
dave matthews band
david gray
dixie chics (yes i did just say that)
moby
loreena mckennitt
squirrel nut zippers
any sort of indigineous music - sacred harp singers, african drumming, aboriginal music... that whole ethnic music thing
the beetles
and way too many more..anything that is interesting, will move me and catch my attention... hopefully that will give you a good over view.

i would desperately love to move back to the uk. i want to travel. want to see italy, greece, australia, russia, china, japan, lots of places. have no desire to see germany. france is not that much higher than germany. just little interest.

dream jobs: director in films or theatre; make up or costume designing with films or plays; writer; teacher; doctor (pediatrics, or delivering babies) boarding school or university president/headmaster; working with roses; musician

what sound do i love: my husband laughing, ot my neice's laughter, or the jingle of ellie's dog tags when she comes to say hi to me.. or the sound that she makes when she licks my face. thunder. a piano played well.. good music.

sounds i hate: a piano played badly; crying; screeching brakes; arguing; ignorant parents yelling at their kids and talking down to them

what scares me most: ignorance; hatred; lack of jobs and health insurance; lack of money for basic living;

what i look forward to most: being a mom; being out of debt; having our own place and doing what we love in life; rose gardens; living life on our own terms. eternity with my family. enough money to be ok.

so there's a bit. lots more i'm sure. but there you go.

2/8/06

2006-02-08T16:21:00.000-08:00

i havent written in a while. not sure why. just havent had the drive to.
i had a good chat with my friend james today about the feeling of being stuckl and not knowing what to do about it.
listening to simpsons. and i just want to be wrapped up in my boy's arms and not have to go anywhere.
have started planning the gardens kinda. at least in my dream gardens.

classes are going. am trying to stay positive. i have a class full of boys and it's a lot of fun. they're probably my favorite. they're loud and unruly and raucus and fun. it's a good time for all.

i still have a love hate relationship witht his town. i love the area. the mentality frightens me. i am frightened for jobs for the future..

grandmother didn't know who she was today.....

my sister has introduced me to the world of jane austen movies. and i love them! it makes me want to go back and i live in that time era. i guess it s not good to wish of things like that...
i kinda wonder why i was born here and in this time....dopnt have an answer to it. just a wonder.

back home

2006-02-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

my mom and grandmother came home this week. they got back tuesday night. i have been counting down the days til they got back.
today i cancelled classes to spend it with my grandmother. last night was her first night all by herself. and i didn't get the chance to see her yesterday. it seemed like everyone saw her yesterday, all but me. but i was at school all day. so i thought i should be spend some time with her today. i am not going to have a chance to really grieve i guess. cause grandaddy died out there, and there's no service happening out here. people are just moving on and getting rid of things. so yeah...
so i spent today with my grandmother, rylan and i did. just helping her clean things up, organize things. she kept trying to give me things. even tot he point where she gave me a packet of broccoli soup mix.... and i made a deal with her, that if there was somethign i really wanted, or desperately needed or admired... i would tell her. that made her really happy, so she didn't have to worry about it, or baout trying to p ush things on me. we went into the other room.. and i went over tot he table with the little wooden buddha that she has always had (we always had to go rub buddha's belly for luck). and i reminded her of the pinky promise we had just made, pointing out the buddha. s he smiled and said "take it.." i made sure she was sure, and she insisted. he's nothign extravagent or elaborate or even really valuable. it's just something that i have always loved and admired, and have very fond memories of.
all in all it was quite worth cancelling classes for.

i keep thinking of scotland, of rose gardens, or where we may end up. who knows.

i have gotten to a point on my sweater that i screwed it up. so i have to start over on part ofit. grr.... i was close to giving up on it, but i dont want to give up yet. maybe just take a breather? or give it some time until i can go back and figure it out.

read a really interesting article in newsweek, about the problem with boys in schools. why and how they are failing at every leve lof education adn why... and what people should do. hmmm..

Thursdays are hard

2006-01-26T10:04:00.000-08:00

So to qualify the above statement.... Tuesdays and Thursdays I am at one of my schools.. I have an 8 am and a 2pm. with nothing in between. thats hard. i find myself going stir crazy and justgetting bored. i fall asleep in between classes and hope no one has come into peek on me....

but the semester is going fine. it's already feeling like it's too long. but that will change i am sure.

mom is hoping to be coming home in a week or two. will have to see how that goes. grandaddy's memorial service i thinkis either this saturday coming up or they just had it on this past saturday. not sure.

rylan is feeling better.

and all i can htink of is how much i want to go home right now...

thats the latest and greatest.

that and how awesome is LOST although at night wasn't the best episode,. it was still a good one...

ta

the latest update on grandaddy

2006-01-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

so the latest grandaddy update... a few days after he was taken off the respirator, he was put back on becuase they felt he was working too hard ot breathe. he consented to be put back on the respirator and feeding tube.
they found the specific virus that was causing allsorts of problems so they found the specific medicine to kill that virus. so hopefully he would be off the respirator in a few days.
few days passed. and they couldn't get the white blood cells to stop doubling. so his body still felt the need to fight and call in reinforcements. they flew him to phoenix from payson.
when they got to phoenix they did some work but basically told mom and grandmother to say goodbye. it might not happen that night but it would happen soon.
my sister called with the phone number into the hospital and what room he was in. within about half an hour? grandaddy died. mom and grandmother were there at his side. that was the 19th of january
they determined the germ that set in motion the pneumonia, was the same flu germ from the epidemic of 1918.
uncle randy and aunt betsy flew in form salt lake to phoenix and probably drove from phoenix to tonto. grandaddy's being cremated. he should be odne and ready to pick up tomorrow. billie june is done too, so they'll pick them both up. right now what everyone is doing is packing the house. grandmother wants to come home NOW. she is ready. billie june is gone. grandaddy is gone. she wants to go back to dalton. it sounds like the house in arizona is just going to be sold along with billie june's house.
they plan on being on their way in about ten days. pack the car full to the gills of stuff then have someone ship it out to dalton pa. mom and grandmother will fly to philadelphia or scranton from phoenix...

it just hit us hard. and to those who have been so kind to keep us in their prayers, thank you. you have no idea how much it means. my friend emailed me and let me know that she hadnt forgotten us or ignored us.. but that she had been in london for a few days, and prayed for us in westminster abbey... to quote her, "i know catholic isn't your religion or mine, but God is God no matter where you find him."

here at home everyone is still sick. rylan has influenza B. but he is making great strides. his fever has been gone for a few days... i have a sinus infection that came back for an encore, but antibiotics are good. tom may have to go back to the doctor because he is stll sick and can't shake the cough. but it's going to be ok.
but all in all, things are ok. classes are going well. i have one class full of guys so it's fun. i think all of them will be a lot of fun. so i have high hopes.

tree came down yesterday. we upt the room back together. i have been getting antsy about cleaning and tidying up and just eliminating unneccessaries..

unusually warm weather... i dream of a rose garden...

1/14/05

2006-01-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

latest update on arizona:

grandaddy is off the respirator, breathing on his own. they took him off three days early. :)

grandmother was diagnosed with dementia three years ago and no one ever told us. mom has been in contact with grandmother's doctor out here and now knows what's going on... she's taking her meds again (grandmother) so things are doing better.

sara is working back at shadowbrook? no one is uite sure what's happening.. maybe they realized just how screwed they'd be if both their amazing MODs walked. but she is looking elsewhere.

not sure when mom is coming home. she has to be there to make sure grandaddy is ok to drive home and all. if grnadmother is taking care of gandaddy that's a bad thing... grandaddy has to be able to take care of her...

we start classes monday and tuesday. farewell to our beloved christmas break. and our tree is still up.

we had our neice here overnight. and today she wan't feeling wel. our fantastic dog, ellie, just laid in bed with kyla all day, keeping her company and making sure she was ok... all until kyla went home. she knew the little girl needed someone to love on.. i am amazed at the senstivity of our ellie and of dogs in general...

1/11/06

2006-01-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

so the update on my mum. funeral/memorial service went fine.
monday the 9th my grandfather startd having toruble breathing. he has had emphysema for as long as i have known him and had lung cancer a while back.
the ambulance rushed him to the hospital in payson, and they immediately put him in ICU, on a respirator. Critical but stable condition.
during which time, my grandmother, who has always been a bit of the person who will tell you the same story three times in 30 minutes and not remember a lick of it (the doctors say it is in't alzheimers.. maybe just aging>? old age dementia?) has lost all of her short term memroy. probably by the stress of losing her sister and her husband getting sos ick so suddenly.
they found out also that while grandaddy was on the repsirator, yesterday, that he had a heart attack. they could tell by the enzymes in his blood.
and today was the day that everyone who came out for the funeral and memorial services, they all flew home. so my mom is holding down the fort with two sick parents, one very very ill, and one just worrisome...
she's out there all by herself and i just wish i could hug her and help her as much i could...

my sister lost her job today. they fired her because the place is basically going belly up. it just sucks for her and for them... she gave up some really lucrative positions to work where she has, and they just screwed her over.

i dont know about this area for jobs. i really dont.. it scares me more and more and i count my blessings each daythat I have a job that i love and i am good at. i pray that my husband will find a good job when he graduates and that things will go well...

thats all for today...

for james...

2006-01-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

this is for james who moved away and can't remember what i look like.

:)

sad sounds

2006-01-04T12:37:00.000-08:00

it has been alovely new years eve, new years day..

today rylan and i cleaned in the kitchensomemore. not just doing dishes type of stuff. reorganizing cabinets, cleaning things out, making it more user friendly.. all of that. thats part of our goal for the christmas break, to go through the house and clean, organize, simplify, all of that.

got a phone call yesterday morning. w oke us up actually. my great aunt billie june in arizona passed away very unexpectedly. massive heart attack. mom just talked to her on saturday and she was fine. monday she just hadn't beenf eeling very good, so she staye din bed. and my grandmother (billie june's sister) hung out with her, crocheted, tlaked all of that. and that night things got worse so they called the ambulance. the helicopter came to pick her up (in the desert when the closest hospital is over 90 miles away over the mountains, they come for you in a chopper and fly you there). billie june smiled and waved to grandmother as they strapped her to the board. and she never made it tot he phoenix hospital.
she had the heart attack in the helicopter and that was that.

billie june was always home base for everyone out west. she just always was. a stylish individualistic woman, with her own mind. one of the coolest ladies i have ever known. so it's really hard that she is gone so unexpectedly. and everyone in that family has gone that way: billie june and grandmother's brother had a massive heart attack. their father had a massive heart attack..,. i dont know about uncle george (billie june's husband).. but that's just the way it has gone.

so yesterday was also spent, aside form hanging out with mom and trying to comfort her, trying to find airfare for her tog et to phoenix for the memorial service and to help take care of things. finally found some and by some miracle, answer to a prayer, someone from the family called up mom and said "you're charging your place tickets to my credit card. here is the information." no questions asked. the same person is flying out cousin amy from colorado. same story. amy and mom arrive in phoenix within an hour of each other. its amazing how heavenly father works.

i talked mom through buying her tickets online last night. she read to me what the screen and web site said and i told her what to do. by midnight she had her ticket information and all of that.

i have defintely gotten hooked on using the readthe scriptures.com website for my daily reading material and the gospel doctrine lesson material. so i reccommend that to anyone looking for an alternative..

my boy is off to work. i am off to finish the kitchen, do some quilting and knitting (i am working on my first sweater) and do some writing... the snow is melting off.... and its a happy thing.

december 28

2005-12-28T17:09:00.000-08:00

i feel so lonely. i dont know why. i just do. christmas break is always hard for me: rylan's working, and i'm not. so i just end upw atching garbage on tv (vh1, or E!) or being online for no reason...i noticed a tingling sensation down my one arm... and it had me worrid about it possibly being relate to my heart (have a mild heart murmur). so i went to the doctor and thas what she told me. either arthritis or carpal tunnel. i'm 26 yrs old and might have carpal tunnel syndrome. part of me wishes i hadn't gone. grrrrr. what the heck!
i feel stuck. i dont know why. but i feel stuck. i think i say this a lot and feel this way a lot. grr. and i dont know what to do.
went to take kyla home tonight. mum is having surgery tomorrow so she couldn't take kyla back tonight, so she (kyla) was upset. i was called in.. and the minute i got int eh car kyla took my hand and nuzzled it under her chin and against her neck... i leaned over to her car seat and sang to her.. and we just we together. she's my girl. i love her so.

christmas surprise

2005-12-26T08:49:00.000-08:00

just a quick posting.

dad loved his belt buckle (shaped like waffles with two slabs of butter on it)
mom loved her bath stuff (some bath bombs and body butters that smell like various ice creams) and her LOTR puzzle book
tom loved his naked homer pj pants
sara loved her 'dinner will be ready when the smoke alarm goes off' apron
sara and tom loved the triplets of belleville dvd and soundtrack
kyla loved the fun bath foam
rylan loved his slippers and shaver

and oh my...

my parents gave my sister and i a spinning wheel. yeah an actual spinning wheel. like sleeping beauty. sara and tom are getting sheep in the spring for the farm with a llama. so we'll be able to spin the wools. sara wants to get into dying the yarn and so forth. wow.
sara and tom gave me a shortbread dish, with the scottish thistle imprinted in it. gorgeous. made in england.
rylan gave me a car stereo for nessie the nissan, and a short that says 'i Is a kollege stoodent' on it. and an SNL best of JOhn Belushi collection.

wow.

ellie is feeling better. she had us scared for a little while.
rylan is feeling better too.
dad's still sick and so is sara. and tom's back is still sore from pulling it at work.

thats the update for now.

christmas eve

2005-12-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

it's christmas eve and it doesn't feel like christmas. it just doesn't. i dont know why but this whole season has not felt at all christmas-ey. and i hate it. christmas is supposed to be about giving, and kindness and all of that stuff. but its so empty right now. it feels like just another day and it's not.
everyone in my family is sick. i've recovered. but dad is sick, sara is sick, rylan is sick. even our beloved ellie puppy dog is sick!!! and i dont know how to help her. she whimpers like her hips are hurting her. and she's been holding her poop. so a little constipation there, but we're working on that. but she's even hidden from me. a true indication that she doesn't feel well. i've had to carry her more than often than usual (i usually never have to carry her), and she's in pain. we gave her some baby aspirin, half a dose to help ease the pain. and then we're going to call the vet monday morning and get an appointment made. huge sad faces and worried mommy expressions now.
i have to wrap rylan's gifts yet.
i dont know whats going to happen tomorrow. part of me just wants it to pass and be gone. the whole family part of it is just strained like that. so yeah.
i wonder where we will end up when rylan graduates. i really dont know what to expect. and it just makes me feel uncomfortable. for lack of a better term, uncomfortable.
part of me feels like i'm waiting for my life to get going. for thigns to tart happening. but i dont know what to do about it. so i'm stuck. i'm stuck in tunkhannock, a town that is pretty but scares the heck out of me. i dont want to stay here or end up here. i want to get out of here. i'm clammering. i want to move out of state perhaps. out of country perhaps. i want to find a great job, get published, rylan get a great job.. have us get health insurance.. pay off our loans. be able to have our rose gardens, and herb gardens and not have them get eaten by critters, or by anything else or stumped from growing..
i guess that's where i always seem to stand lately. i guess...

maybe the new year will bring better options and ideas than the ones i have right now.

things i am grateful for

2005-12-15T08:39:00.000-08:00

to avoid just having a rant everytime i am here.. things i am grateful for/blessings:

1. my rylan (words can't express how grateful i am for him, and everything he does for me and for us..)
2. the gospel and my testimony
3. my jobs that i love/rylan's jobs
4. being able to pay our bills
5. tithing
6. rylan getting a deer in deer season - we have food in the freezer
7. our new (to us) nissan sentra - nessie the nissan -to replace our beloved Goldie the Honda..... we had almost given up on finding a car more in our price range, when we happened to stop someplace and they sai they had just bought a car - it wasn't even home yet from the auction.. we stopped on the way home from our erands, drove it and told them not to sell it. it was in our price range - insurance paid for it almost entirely save 86 dollars as opposed to the saturn which would have been a thousand or more out of our range....talk about a blessing!
8. our warm home.
9. our families, blood and better than blood, kith and kin.
10. educations
11. food on the table
12. ELLIE! (not in any order, because she should go WAY up there at the top)
13. our knowledge of being able to do things for ourselves. we will never be cold because i can make quilts, scarves, hats and working on mittens.. and we will never be hungry because rylan can hunt well and we can garden, and we can both cook..
14. dayquil/nyquil and chloroseptic cough drops...(i'm sick right now with a killer head cold transforming into a chest cold.)

thats all for now...

semester is OVER!

2005-12-09T06:24:00.000-08:00

yep thats right. the semester is over! Thank heavens! I got all my grading done yesterday. ALL of it. so i just have to send in grades and i'm so done. :) it is such a relief. I loved the two schools, and I loved the challenge, but it was hard. I am on board for next term, again doing two sections at both schools. I told luzerne if theyw ere desperate I'd do three, but my first choice would be two. The money would be nice, but I worry about burning out. that would have me grading about 100 papers every week to two weeks. I want to make sure I can be a good teacher, and not jeopardize the quality of my classes.... And i'm just a little hesitant.
It snowed last night. and this morning. we're looking at about ten inches of snow. Most of the schools around here are closed. my love was still going to go into school to hand in some papers. he's one of those peopel who mocks the weather, and has since he's gotten here. "i've seen worse in utah..." "This is nothing..." all of that. he'll go running with his track teacm or cross country team in a blizzard and think its ok. (we had a long discussion that night.) so he was going to go into school, even though the roads weren't touched and still havent been touched. i was trying to persuade him not to. youknow the roads are stills now covered. and it's not safe. he's not hearing any of it.. then i look over tot he tv for school closings and his school had just closed! HA HA! yo're not going to school today! i was quite happy... he stil has to go to work this evening, but at least by then the roads will have been treated and cleared.

so i am looking at music cds... just sampling new ones. i have heard James Blunt on vh1 or mtv a couple times, and in a restraunt an wow.... so i'm all looking for stuff like him, or things that might be related and finding some good stuff. Christmas is coming... :)

car search still happening though we have a few prospects that are more in our price range. and with the semester being over the commute isn't happening every day, so the car isn't as pressing right now, but it is still needed...

rylan and i have a habit of cooking or baking late at night, just before bed... i dont know why but we do. so we've cleaned the kitchen and all of that just to mes it up again before bedtime. it coes with really enjoying cooking and baking. th kitchen's always in turmoil from the last project. and yes, you might say, 'if you were a real cook, y'd make sure it was spotless..' and i'd say well if you were really perfect, you'd have wings right now and not touching the ground... so stowe it. :) with all kindness and charity.

so off to do snow day stuff.. work on a nativity quilt block, clean the kitchen. yoga! (can't /wont run in this) and that sort of thing. :) mayeb make some soup? we used up the leftover salmon in the scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast (had it at tea and sympathy in new york once and it became a favorite of mie.. one of the only ways i'll eat eggs willingly.) (www.teaandsympathynewyork.com)

where does the line go

2005-12-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

so today is sunday and i am home from church earlier than usual. in all honesty i left church.
sacrament meeting was fine. cuddled with kyla during the hymns, singing and helping her read.
then i went to gospel doctrine/sunday school. and today's lesson is on the churcha nd the government. why as members of the church we should be active in the government blah blah blah.. how we choose our leaders...
it could be an ok lesson, a lesson appropriate and good. all of that. keep in mind that i dont have the typical mormon views. i am more liberal than most. i am someone that doesn't necessarily think byu is the greates school ever. i am someone that doesn't always feel that religion has a place in education. and the idea of a theocracy sometimes scares me. which is why i am anti church involvement in government because id ont want something i love so much and feel so strongly about the be pulled through the mud and to become corrupted. and yeah i know that it is the church of christ and it is perfect.. the kicker is the church is perfect - but the people are not. some people are trying, but people are imperfect. it would be ideal if everyone was doing everything they could and everything they should but we all know that there are people who aren't. so i am hesitant to vote for someone just because they are LDS....
so it started off good, talking about what the government is for. why it is good.. it set up to protect people etc... in the back of my mind i am thinking, it is good and allof that when it is run by righteous people, but we know that the government has become corrupted. we know that it is not as perfect as it could be. gone are the days of noblemen like washington, jefferson, loncoln. yes they weren't perfect. we know thomas jefferson and his slave sallie hooked up and had posterity. yeah whatever. but it was the idea that the men were patriots. i dont know that we have any left. and that bothers me. i dont know that i have a government that i believe in.
so we had class.. and immediately someone started talking about how the government is there to punish the criminals... but then there's a mopb of 100 men who kills people and nothing is done..what about that? and it was just irritating. (the murders of joseph and hyrum smith are recorded int he doctrine and covenants section 135. today's lesson on the government was in doctrine and covenants section 134.)
we talked about how do we get involved with the government. do we tryt og et out of jury duty or do we serve? the righ answer is 'we should serve'. my answer is i get out of it because my brother is felon, he was the defendant in a court case, my father in law is a fire chief, and we know police officers and MPS. all enough to get you excused from jury duty.
then we get intot he point of how do you choose your next candidate? someoen brought in well you should get to know them, listen to them... that sort of thing. and i started laughing out loud. and the teacher looked at me. i siad, 'its all well and good to listen to them, but we come into a problem when someoen can't string two words together.. i watched the debates, and neither one of them, ever, EVER answered a question. they allsmoke screened, dropped names and evaded the questions.. the biggest thing we have to rely on is we have to study it out in our minds, pray about it and follow the promptings. and if you dont feel you can vote for either one, then write in, or leave it blank...' i didn't tell them i voted thatw e should returnt o britain and a monacrhy with a parliament and all of that because i think we screwed up so miserably over here.
and then th class started getting more into, wel should we run for governor.. and how one man, a state rep form PA actually resignd because he oculdn't stay in his job and maintain his honesty.. and someone said 'wellt hat didn't accomlish anything..' and i wanted to smack them. so i walked out of the class.
i went out and sat in the hall way and read my scriptures and came home from church when mum took my sister home. the answer i gave as to why i was out int he hallwas i didn't feel like getting into a governmental debate in gospel doctrine class. and thenin the car, i appreciate sara's advice, was well you are responsible for your spiritual experiences. you are responsible for that class too, . but i had heard it all before.. i appreciate the advice, and i know its sara's job as the big sister, i just had heard it word for word before.. and i just wanted to go home. i felt that my objection by leaving was enough.. but i guess iw as supposed ot stay there and endure it and all of that. i dont see a point to it.
i know my general opinions about the government are different than others. i also dont see why if someoen should protest at BYU theys hould be arested. save for the fact that it's BYU and private property and a religious institution? i just chock it up to being BYU and you just dont do those things at church. therefore you dont do them at byu? i dont know..
i just really think government should be discussed carefully in church if at all...

i guess i know i'm different. i can discuss the bible and book of mormon as pieces of literature. i have respect for and appreciation for other religions. my favorite saint is st jude (and mother theresa though she's not been cannonized, yet...) i think judaism is gorgeous and i think there is so much to learn from the buddha and all of that. i'm very open minded about a LOT of things. and it seems there are a lot of people around me who aren't. it seems like it gets me in toruble, or mixing the pot... it just gets hard.

but on a happy note.. we looked at a car yesterday - it is official our goldie is going to the happy honda hunting grounds tomorrow... the car we looked at is a saturn sc 2 coupe, 1997... a little racer. and rylan really likes it. i like it too. so we're thinking about it and praying about it and making sure before we do anything. but we'll make a decision very soon.

and i just got to chat with one of my dearest and best friends online who i miss desperately. and it was nice.. :) he and his wife moved away for the military.. but they are still very very dear to us...

11/28

2005-11-28T09:56:00.000-08:00

so i feel the need to apologize for whati said. thanksgiving was irritating and weird. but i love my fmaily. it was just weird. and i'd love to have a holiday that you see on tv. playing games, everyone participating, no one sitting out because they dont like games.. or whatever... in florida every night everyoone played games. even my dad played the silly games like racko or nine hole golf, or flinch or rook. silly dumb games - not as dumb as screw your neighbor introduced to me by a brother in law whose name isn't tom - but just played games. and we were togetehr and having fun. or the nights of watchingjeopardy or the Wheel of fortune...
i guess i just really wanted that toegtherness, none of the splintering off and feeling left out or whatever...

a few days later, maybe even the next day? sara came came over to do some laundry and after she leaves, i get this frantic phone call, from her out by her chicken coop. a hawk had taken one of the large cornish hens and all thelittle chiclkens were allaround her cause she's the Momma chicken... and she needed help to get everyone back in the coop. And for the next hour and a half, sara, mom and i all rounded up chickens. and it made me smile. i am grateful that we were able to help each other. i'll remember that day more than i'll remember thanksgiving.

so family can be irritating..

found a great website. www.bomtoons.com

aw the new harrypotter and holy cow its awesome.
also saw a movie called the triplets of bellville. great film. go watch it.

two weeks left of the semester, and we're out one car until insurance figures out what they want to do. had my first car accident a week ago today. fender bender, but more damage to ours than what we expected. and she's not safe to drive until they fix her. so pray for us that they fix her and are able to fix her and insurance will cover it... and they wont total her and make us buy a new one because i dont know where we're going to find one....
or if anyoneknows of a beater or not a beater but for very inexpesive proces, let us know?

thanksgiving grrrs

2005-11-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

our house is cold. and i'm a little tired and cold.. and my boy is out camping with the stupid boyscouts - BSA = assinine beaurocracy = dumb red tape peelers who think they are soooo important... and yesterday's stuffing isn't tasting as good as i thought it would the day after. and still no luck on the car front.

so thanksgiving started out good. i had gotten all the cooking done wednesday. all of the bread, all the rolls and the all holy necessary sweet potato casserole (to those who think of not having it, i laugh at them...)
that was all good. rylan and i watched the movie 'the triplets of bellville.' it's a foreign film, animated and won oscars when it was up for them. fantastic film! dont worrya bout it being foreign because there's very little dialogue. most of it is through music. definitely take the chance to watch it. blockbuster, netflix (which we're trying out right now) you will absolutely not be disappointed.
so that was great. got a phone call from my girl chrystal who i absolutely love. we talked a bit. yay. i miss her so much... she is just so strong and it amazes me. it was one of the highpoints of the day...
so we went up a little early for thanksgiving. not much, about ten minutes. each year, rylan and i make ornaments - very cool ornaments if i do say so myself - and give them to the thankgiving guests. it's a way to open up the whole season and something kinda special.
in addition to that, this year we made a Thankful Tree. We drew a tree on posterpaper, and didn't draw in any leaves. We made leaves and the idea was to write what you're thankful for on the tree and put leaves on the tree. sinmple concept but kinda cool, and a poignant way to see how we are all so blessed.
we got up to my parents' house. and my sister was in the kitchen as was her husband. ok. cool whatever. tom was cooking the leg of lamb - we're non-traditionalists. and sara was being her usual stressful person trying to run the whole thing and orchestrate the universe. she's great, but i hate to be in her way because then you are DEFINITELY in her way and there's no escaping her. i dont enjoy working with her because i dont enjoy being bossed around like a five year old. she's very take charge which is good, but along with that goes very high stress and high strung and high anxiety.with her jobs it's great and needed... but i'm the opposite usually, so it can get awkward.
so we dropped off our rolls, bread and casserole and went into the other room, started setting the table because mom got sidetracked from setting the table, and just tried to stay out of the way. the missionaries arrived a few minutes later to eat with us.
we had dinner. didn't talk a whole lot. we just ate. passing food or reaching across the table, and people's plates (which drives me CRAZY, up there with chewing with your mouth open or talking with your mouth full.. shudder...) when people did talk, it was just weird and awkward. ever get the feeling that you're being talked around, or behind or above? that was it the entire meal with both rylan and i. i dont think we actually participated in one conversation. and when or if we did (i know we tried to speak to people later) we were told we were wrong, and immediately corrected.. and then we never got to finish what we were saying.
and then people finished, and everyone left the missionaries to do the dishes. I am not sure how that happened. but i felt bad for them.
and then everyone went home. no games. no movies. nothing. do the dishes and let's not stay any longer than we have to and associate with anyone. it was awful. i hated it. so then we left and it was just terrible.
thanksgiving is supposed to be about being together as a family.. about enjoying each other's company, about playing games, or watching movies or watching - shudder - football or something like that. but nope. it was nothing else. tom fell asleep in fron of the football game while the elders washed the dishes and everyone went off and did their own things.
i even asked mom earlier this week what her plans for after dinner were. and she insisted that she wanted no pressure, just let people do their ownt hing. 'maybe well do family history.' which i just shuddered at. i dont have that desire to do family history with them. they are all just far too high stress and uptight. it's repeating the same information a dozen million times and of course somehow i'm going to be wrong... it's also all somethign that's already been done. it's not really a two person job by any means. i'd rather do it by myself or with rylan.
so thanksgiving was crap. sorry folks whoever reads this. the effort was nice and the food was good but lacking in the family togetherness department. i almost wished we had gone somewhere for vacation now, just to avoid it all. there weren't even any decorations. the 'good china' was used and that was fine. but then we had paper napkins. and absolutely no decorations save the thankful tree which didn't get used as much as i had hoped. but at leats it didn't end up naked.
holidays just seem to be weird with my family and us. we end up feeling ignored, belittled, condescended to, talked over, or constantly being corrected so we dont speak because we're just going to be wrong again. so why make the effort? (even with the apron i made for kyla's birthday, immediately peopelwere saying that i should have made it differently, or made it wrong... and that they'll just fix it later on. it's a bit upsetting to be told that after you put that much work into something that its wrong and we'll fix it...) id rather just let them do everything themselves then...
i desperately love my family. they are very interesing and dear people. but i get tired of being told how to live my life, how to run everythig or what i should. i want to live our own lives, and get things sussed out... i dont always want to be in their shadows.
i was in a car accident this week. long story short - fender bender, dumb mistake but i did what i thought i should have been doing, but it wasn't obviously, or else there wouldn't have been an accident.. no one was hurt. like i said, fender bender, for the otehr party. our little goldie will most likely have to go to the happy honda hunting grounds. the damage appeared superficial at first but when id rove her home i could feel there was something wrong with her. dad didn't believe me but he agreed to drive behind me in case something happened. got home. Rylan wasn't mad! but understanding an amazing like rylan is.. he took it for a short drive the next morning and he reaffirmed what i had said. There is something definitely wrong... and it wasn't just superficial.
but its that feeling of always being doubted, always being second guessed.
we're looking for a car now, and dad said well,. drive the beetle. (you have no idea how much i would love to drive the beetle. but she's a standard and for as much as i have tried, i really dont feel comfortable driving her at all. i would rather not drive a car im not comfortable driving. i know i could cause an accident that way.) i told dad no, and rylan said how uncomfortable i was about it.. and dad just gave me that look of, 'wimp..' and i know its a silly joking thing, but i dont like being made fun of laughed at because of my decisions or what i want to do. even earlier, we stopped and looked at a car.. and the man said ' are you a Lane?" i said yeah. and we asked about the car. it was a standard and i grumbled. and the guy said, "hold on, you're a lane. you're supposed to be able to drive anything..." i told him by the time i learned, my parents only had automatics and because my siblings were bad drivers, the insurance company balked at me getting my license....
somedays i just want to get away from that. that whole thing of 'well you're a lane...' or whatever. i love them i just get tired of it all...
rylann and i are just very very different from both of our families. and i'm not sure how we fit in.
so that was thanksgiving. i have alrady pondered having it here next year, if we are here. who knows. but do i want that stress? maybe who knows...maybe we coudla rrange it so it wasn't stressful.
oh forgot. then i got a phone call from rylan's mom and learn, through random conversation (asking how everyone is, as is polite custom with the in-laws) that his eldest sister is in the hospital with a blood clot in her leg and has been there for two days. this is rylans dearest sister. she always included him and made him feel welcome. and she has a clot in her leg. the meds arent working yet. so we're crossing our fingers and saying prayers - keep us in yours too would you? they think that it may have come from the birth control pills she was on. the same ones i used to be on. ortho tricyclin lo..... and it just amde me shiver... and then ilearned she had other problems and i had to wonder what doctor would give her birth control pills with her other ailments. bad bad things...
so that was our thanksgiving. i hope yours as better.
but i am grateful and thankful for all of you who read this, all what three of you guys? and our friends andfamilies, jobs and the gospel and so many things. this stuff is just temporary isn't it?

between classes listening to the bbc

2005-11-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

i am sitting in my office listening to the bbc radio scotland on the computer. i am between classes.
i am tired and exhausted yet soemhow alive somewhere. i dont always know how that works somedays.
i have recently discovered the joys of eddie bauer, clothes made for real people. that look nice and don't make you feel like a hoochy mama. or like you're twelve going on hooker.
the semester is almost over. wow. i have been able to juggle two schools and i have loved it. i love the exposure to different situations, new ideas, new students.. and all of that. my passion and love for teaching havent failed yet though i am tired. thuogh sometimes the students drive me crazy., it's all for just a short while. we shall see where things go.
my puppy has a habit now. she's my girl to begin with. my shadow and very attached tome. dont know why but she is. on the days when i have to get up early and go to work, she has started to stagger out of bed, to come find me and give me kisses and get her belly rubbed before i go. and then we walk back to bed and i tuck her back in with my boy. it's all very sweet. somedays i can almost hear what she's thinking.
so LOST killed off shannon last night. not sure what i think of it. eh.... but now i really want sayid to open up his bag of torture tricks on ana lucia and just smack her down and kill her. she's irritating and just a schmuck.
kyla turns 6 next week. which means i have been away from scotland for six years..... may. may we're going over.

i guess thats all. nothing terribly fascinating today...

aids quilt part 2

2005-11-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

tonight i went to the aids quilt to work my shift and listen to cleve jones speak.
cleve jones is the man who founded the quilt. it was his idea, and everyone told him it was an awful, stupid idea. but he stuck with it.. and he eventually did start the quilt.
to listen to this man speak... oh my gosh. there's so much there that we didn't know obviously. all about harvey milk,the assassinations of harvey milk and the mayor of san fransisco... he was one of the ones to discover harvey's body, minutes after the assassination.
i wish everyone could hear him speak. could listen to his stories and could feel his outrage about this. this is a man who is now immune to almost every single aids drug there is. there is one he has not tried yet. his survival is dependant on what is coming down the research machinery pipe. ALL of his friends are dead.
go watch "Common Threads: stories from the quilt" go watch "And the band played on" or better yet read the book of the same title by randy shilts. Go read/watch "the life and times of harvey milk."
oh my..... i wish you could feel this. could have listened to him....

aids quilt

2005-11-02T15:16:00.000-08:00

this morning the aids quilt display at keystone college opened. my rylan and i were there before even the workers were there. i had tried to explain to him what it was all about, and why if they were going to open the quilt, i wanted to be there for it. (There's kinda a ritual or ceremony in opening the quilt that is beautifula nd iw anted to witness it if they did it. they didn't.) so rather than trying to explain it, i just showed him the excerpt from the film common threads. by the end, the last ten, maybe fifteen minutes of the film, i was crying.
so we went to the display. no one was there. we were the only people who went, even there before the workers got there.
at first i was disappointed. it was only 6 blocks, and the display wasn't the greatest. there's a lot more that could have been done with the space, and all of that (being a theatre person, and a quilter, and having done this before..) but even with just the 6 blocks, we went and read every panel, the messages written there, and not even half way through, i was choking up, crying quietly.
two panels were local - one from carbondale pennsylvania, and one from clarks summit pennsylvania. and one of them was pedro zamora's (from Mtv's the real world, back before it was just sex and alcohol.. back when the show actually was a social experiement. the season with Puck)
i was so gratefyl to be able to share this with rylan, something so deeply personal and somethign i am passionate about.. i wish everyone in the world could see it. could experience the quilt....
tomorow after school, i am working at it. will post about that probably.

a poem and a little more about halloween

2005-10-31T05:11:00.000-08:00

i subscribe to the writers almanac. everyday on NPR garrison keillor reads a poem and some interesting historical/literary bios/info. here is todays. hope you enjoy.

Poem: "My November Guest" by Robert Frost from Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays.© Library of America.

My November Guest My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
For they are better for her praise.

Literary and Historical Notes:
Today is Halloween, one of the oldest holidays in the Western European tradition.
Today, 70 percent of American households will open their doors and offer candy to strangers, most of them children; 50 percent of Americans will take photographs of family or friends in costume; and the nation as a whole will spend more than six billion dollars. In terms of dollars spent, it is the second most popular holiday of the year in this country, after Christmas.
For the Celtic people of Northeastern Europe, November 1st was New Year's Day, and October 31 was the last night of the year. Celts believed it was the night that spirits, ghosts, fairies and goblins freely walked the earth. Archaeologists aren't entirely sure what all the traditions were, but they believe the holiday involved bonfires, dressing up in costumes to scare away evil spirits, and offering food and drink to the spirits of family members who had come back to visit the home.
It was Pope Gregory III in the eighth century A.D. who tried to turn Halloween into a Christian holiday to divert Northern Europeans from celebrating an old pagan ritual. He made November 1st All Saints Day, and October 31 became All Hallows Eve. Instead of providing food and drink to the spirits, Christians were encouraged to provide food and drink to the poor. And instead of dressing up like animals and ghosts, Christians were encouraged to dress up like their favorite saints.
In the United States, Puritans tried to outlaw Halloween, in part because of its association with Catholicism. So it was the Irish Catholics who brought Halloween to this country, when they immigrated here in great numbers after the potato famine in the 1840's. Since the Irish were largely poor and oppressed, Halloween became a holiday for them to let off steam by pulling pranks, hoisting wagons onto barn roofs, releasing cows from their pastures, and committing all kinds of mischief involving outhouses. Treats evolved as a way to bribe the vandals and protect homes.
But by the late 1800's, Victorian women's magazines began to offer suggestions for celebrating Halloween in wholesome ways, with barn dancing and apple bobbing. And by the early 20th Century, it became a holiday for children more than adults. In 1920, the Ladies' Home Journal made the first known reference to children going door to door for candy, and by the 1950's it was a universal practice in this country. By 1999, 92 percent of America's children were trick-or-treating.
What's interesting about Halloween is that it has no real connection to the majority religion of this country, it does not celebrate an event in our nation's past, it does not involve traveling to visit family, and it doesn't even give us a day off work. But it gives us the chance to try out other identities. For one day, people can feel free to dress as the opposite gender, as criminals, as superheroes, celebrities, animals, or even inanimate objects. But Halloween retailers report that the most popular costumes remain some variation on witches, ghosts, and devils.

It's the birthday of English poet John Keats, (books by this author) born in London (1795). Keats's short life was marked by the deaths of friends and family members. His father died when he was nine, and one year later his grandfather died. When he was fifteen, his mother died of tuberculosis, the disease that eventually killed his brother and, later, Keats himself. Keats said he felt "a personal soreness which the world has exacerbated."
He began writing poetry after he had started his career as an apothecary in London. He published the sonnet "O Solitude" (1816), which called the city a "jumbled heap of murky buildings." His first book, Poems (1817), was not well received. His publishers dropped him, but other poets saw promise in his work. His breakthrough poem was a sonnet called "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." Keats had stayed up all night reading George Chapman's translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey with a friend. They stopped reading at 6:00 a.m., and by 10:00, Keats had written the poem and set it on the breakfast table for his friend.
Keats wrote most of the poetry for which he is famous in one twelve-month period, from September 1818 to September 1819. He wrote "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on Melancholy," "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," and "To Autumn."

happy halloween and happy birthday keats!

October 29, 2005

2005-10-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

i know my titles aren't very interesting but oh well.

i have a dear friend of mine who lives in scotland. he is a professional storyteller, and does wondrous things telling stories, and scholarship programs in russia, just on the edge of siberia. (I have been ableto be involved with his scholarship program in russia via written submissions sent for translation. I have been the most complex for the past two years.. this year I got t hank you letters from the students and some board members and it meant the world to me.) he and i have corresponded since i came back tot he states after my time there. i get a poem every day from the writers almanac (NPR all the way baby!) and he is one of the ones i send it on to. if i dont send it on, he lets me know about it.(WHERES MA POEM?!?!) and usually he sends me his response to the poem, whether or not he thought it was rubbish, that sort of thing. we keep each ot her involved int he other's life. when we (rylan and i) got married, he was invited. his response was "I have never not wanted to be in italy before in my life..."
well he was just on the radio yesterday, on the bbc live cafe show, telling a story and talking about russia. I was not bale to listen to it live because we were out at a cross country thing last night. but I just listened to it this morning. and just wow. i havent heard his voice in five years. but it still rings true in my mind. i can still hear it. and to be able to hear him talking and telling a story :) it just makes me smile.. isn't technology wonderful?

it is almost time for halloween and i have ot say i cannot wait! i am so excited. i have alays loved the holiday. dressing up, or tellign scary stories, trick or treating, all the ghosts and goblins, witches all of that. but it seems my hometown does not share my love for it. it seems a lot of places don't share my love for the holiday. the whole misconception that it is a satanic or the devil's holiday.... I shake my head.... i will go find information on the basis of halloween and post it.. just to make me feel better. i just think people take things a bit too far and a bit literally and extremist sometimes. (banning harry potter because of witches and wizards..) it's a lot much somedays. and i'll leave it there.

next week is the AIDS quilt show. i'm working the thursday night and friday morning.

this week kyla who you have all read about, she and i went for our walk like we do every week. we went to the store where the poodle lives (mary go round. the owner has a little toy poodle named tralee. kyla loves tralee.) and we went tothe dress shop (the florists and the bridal store). in the window of the store was this little dress, a flower girl dress, perfect size for kyla. and we went in, we have admired it for a while..michelle, the woman who helps to run the shop, was working there. she is the one who helped me with my wedding dress. (They actually had my dress there so kyla got to see it!) and she said that she had a pink version of the flower girl dress upstairs. so we went up and kyla got to try on her pretty dress on. we walked over to the mirrors and she just beamed and giggled. :) it was beautiful. then we got to try on veils. it was very cool.
and then i think about how quickly she's growing up. and i think about all of those things and go wow. probably one day i'll be doing this for real with her or our daughters... it was one of those moments in time i just wanted to stop everything and freeze it right there.

i guess thats about all for now. i will include the halloween history links at the bottom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Lemures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larvae
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain (on that one if you want, skip down a little if you can't stomach the words break down..)

rain snow and freakish storms

2005-10-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

october 25th. the forecasters are alreadyc alling for the firsts nowfall of the season. i havent seen any yet i dont think but its probably on its way.
today has been a day of students and colleagues being on my last nerve. *deep breath!*

but its ok. i can deal.

rylan brough t home a huge box of cortland apples yesterday. tonight we're making applesauce. which makes this third time we've made sauce this autumn. and so we'll be happily set for applesauce. yay :)

am fighting getting sick. and fighting with everything.
determined that i wont go for my phd right now. every time i think ofit, i just get more and more tired. so maybe later. but not now.

but things are going according to the status quo. we're on a fairly even keel. pray for us, that rylan will figure out what he wants to do after graduation, where we should go and all of that. that would be helpful, thank you. he's just thinking about a lot of options and never really sure. and we're not sure where we shall end up, or any ideas. we have some dieas, but nothing really more than an idea.

am eating my lunch, and listening to music between classes trying to get rejuvenated and all of that... teaching is llikebeign on stage for how many hours a day... and then you have the hecklers or the students who just drive you/me crazy.. the ones who backtalk, who whine, who talk under their breath... so its imporant to have down time.

next week is the AIDS Quilt at Keystone. yay for that.. i am looking forward to working that show.

and i was invited to a dragshow :) it made my day.

i guess thats all for now. nothing terribly deep.. just here. wanting to go to bed.. and wake up and find myself, husband and dog all in scotland with millions of dollars and happily settled there, with jobs, publication contracts and a couple kids....

so maybe not a pickett fence.. but a stone one could be cool..

ta

lessons from a five year old.

2005-10-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

today is day two of rylan being off to his conference in salt lake. and i have been surrounded by love these past two days. it has been very cool. ihave not been looking forward to it. i hate being alone and apart from my rylan. but this is important so off he went.
but yesterday, which i was expecting ot be really hard, i was surrounded by people who loved me. My friend Leslee and I did lunch and talked and visited for a couple of hous. Before that, I wentot a little store in town, whose owner I know and justa dore. We visited some and all of that. In the store I ran into some of our neighbors who are just darlings and big hugs were exchanged.
then last night a friend of mine from high school called and we talked for almost two hours, just catching up.
and through all this has been our dog. i love our dog.

today, a really beautiful touching thing happened to me. Kyla, all five years old that she is, is a gem, and the jewel of my eye. as any of you know who read this already knows, she is just brilliant and awesome. well we were having a snuggle fest. just hugging, hanging out, reading stories, running aorund. Grandpa - my dad - decided to tickle me. I am horribly ticklish. awful. have been since I was little. And he decided to tickle me something fierce. so of course, i start to laugh and scream and kick (carefully so I don't set a bad example to kyla as to kicking people, or to show violence like that and upset her for me kicking her grandpa..) and i'm just suffering, partially gasping for air.. and kyla starts to yell, "Grandpa you leave my Becca alone! You leave my Becca alone! I'll take her tickles, Grandpa, I'll take her tickles....Tickle me instead!"
and it struck e as seet and endearing then, but it also struck me as such an act of love. that she would take my tickles for me so Iwouldn't have to have them.
and it made me think of the savior. who took all my sins and sorrows, everything, for me, so I wouldn't have to deal with the results.

that little girl never ceases to amaze me and I count myself blessed to be in her life, and her in mine.

october 12

2005-10-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

its a cold and rainy day here in the northeast. gray, and dreary.

i have been thinking about PhD programs. If i want to go for one, where and what for.. what the ultimate goal is going to be. and i miss my chrystal cause i so want to talk this over with her! or with elizabeth, one of my profs from millersville. ideally it'd be all three of us meeting for coffee, steamers and biscotti and talking about this. just thinking you know. One program is at University of Strathclyde in glasgow, where I did my year abroad.. but that doesn't feel right. as wonderful as it would be. i guess i can always hope to do conferences over there, or classes, or something in the summer there...i still want my stone cottage withe nglish gardens and roses around it, the dogs and the hills.. a kettle on the stove, and a room full of books, comfy chairs, and lots of windows.

i just keep getting more and more homesick. looking for a place i feel i belong. and it doesn't always feel like i belong here. icould belong here, but i'd still stick out, i'd still be so different, and it'd stil lack the things I want ultimately. at least some of them...

something happened the other night. was talking on the phone with someone and they proceeded to start lecturing me on the history of someplace or other, but it was a place i was more familiar with than they were and i have never felt such indignation rise up in me at this person. and i wanted to say something, scream something maybe, about a conversation doesn't equal being lectured to on the hostory of blah blah blah.. it's a discussion, a conversation, give and take.. and it drove me crazy. and part of me resolved to try to know everything about that particular subject.. but it's ridiculous isn't it.. silly and impossible isn't it... i just hated that feeling of being spoken down to, when i had more credibility to the subject than they did.... of being lectured to in quasi subject 101.. when indeed i've progressed beyond that point... grrr.

my colleague once asked me, we share ano ffice so it was between classes, how do you get fired frmot his job? i just want to mke sure I dont do it. we have ap retty nice job here. and we do. it's lovely. it's great for the resume, part time college profs, all of that. and something rose up iin me today, does it ever feel like you're pretending? like yoh're afraid someone's going to find you out? that you really aren't the all knowing and all powerful Oz but the man behind the curtain, a few steps ahead of the rest of the group? anyone else ever feel that way?

dang i need chocolate. and a steamer. possibly carmel hazlenut steamer.. but probably not. maybe i'll stop on the way home and grab somethignmake a steamer with..a nd somethign warm to eat for dinner. who knows.
off to class. ta

chocolate fix

2005-10-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

i have justdiscovered possibly a great chocolate fix for all the girls and guys out there who need it daily to survive..
make instant choclate pudding with only half the milk suggested int he directions. the result will be thicker, richer and just darn lovely... will take care of that fix in a jiffy.
ta

october 8th

2005-10-08T06:03:00.000-07:00

(listening to Dave Matthews Band "Long Black Veil.")

it's a rainy october day. the leaves are changing and they are marvellous. If ihad a digital camera, i'd take picture and post it, but i dont. so imagine all the autumn pictures of the North East you've ever seen, all the bits in films, in tv shows, in other photos, and all of that, and that's what I'm seeing out my windows. just when i think its reached it's peak, it changes and surprises me.

this week has been a long week for work. lots of funs tress. i have somestudent plagiarising a paper. and i just dont want to have to deal with it. but i have to. whats making it worse is he has stopped coming to class, will not return emails or phone calls. his parents think he is going to class. i called his home from my office on thursday and his mother said that he was at school and he had class that day. I didn't tell her he hasn't been there the past few classes. so he's just digging himself a deeper hole as he moves on. Kings (one of the schools I teach at) has a policy. If a student misses more than two classes you have to report them. then some office at the college will intervene, call and schedule an appointment with the student to see what's happening. then they'll get back to me. so we shall see what happens.

i have been fighting writers block. i hate writers block. it makes me feel so small and so incapable of ever writing. but my mind has started to dream stories again. when i'm sleeping it's started composing sections of my novel. so it's nice to know that my mind is already making progress agaist the block. that i just have to have the will and belief to get through it. so i am looking forward to this. :) am getting antsy to write creepier stuff than I have in the past. I guess my roots are showing.

we have tried to keep the prophet's advice, challenge actually to have the book of mormon read by the end of the year. I have less than a hundred pages left. in reading with rylan, we have little more but we're defintely trying and going for it. but i noticed something intresting. the more i read, and as much as i am enjoying it and gaining from it.. etc.. the tv is on less. we are more choosy in what we watch or listen to. which in turn makes the spirit in the house stronger, and more at peace. the feeling of being so inadequate isn't there as much.
we still watch tv, certainly. but its not like it used to be. we watch lost on wednesdays, supernatural on tuesdays, and i end up watching alias on thursdays sometimes (i'm taping it for my sister). but thats roughly the jist of it. i caught a couple things, but no where near as much. i didn't have that desire to do that. by no means am i saying tv is evil. but i keep hearing the quote (from tv ironically) of "my dad says TV is important. it keeps people from seeing what's really going on.." and yeah i am starting to think it's right. it blocks and jams our signals to ourselves, to what we need, or want, what we should be, what we want to be, to the spirit and all of that..
and the professor docotorow (the man who wrote Ragtime, and the new book The March) said if you watch Tv you'll write for Tv. If you want to write literature, you need to read literature. he challenged us to not watch tv for the entire semester. i did fairly well. so that comes to my mind as well.
rylan is off (apparently) running in a cross country meet. We'll see what happens with the rain. I've been half expecting him to return because where they are running on the course, there's a whole slope they have to run, but there's no grass on it. which equals mudslide and danger. so i'm wondering. but i guess they're running cause he's not home yet.

i guess thats all for now.

while listening to survivor far too loud

2005-09-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

i have been doing a lot of thinking lately. i get in those moods every now and then. and i was reflecting on past relationships and i realized, some of them, some of my former boyfriends, i barely knew. there was one i didn't know well enough to buy him a suitable holiday gift. it made me wonder just what causes us to do things like that. he was the only one like that i didn't know well, but i was with him for more than a few weeks. which leads me to reflect even moreso, and think what did we ever do together? hung out, watched movies (he got me into some very cool art films) and stuff like that.
what is it about someone, romantically, or personally (non romantic to put it in an easier way) that draws us to get to know them? how do we just end up feeling like we've known them foreve, and others that we're never quite sure if we do or how well?
i have certain friends who i have met online (you know who i'm talking about) but it feels like i've known them forever. i've actually kown them longer than i have my husband. and when we finally did get to meet in person (this all sounds so cliche and very bad lifetime movie-ish) we stood there and cried and hugged each other. nothing had changed.
i have other friends who i haven't seen in years but we're still good friends and can pick up right where we left off last time we talked or spoke or whatever.

any ideas or opinions from the peanut gallery?

currently plahing in the background is survivor guatamala. my parents are watching it. and i can hear it clearly all the way down the hall. i am here waiting for some of our friends to arrive and the soon to follow giant lovefest to commence.

just had a chocolate milk that wasn't hershey's, or leigh valley, and i was badly disappointed. how can someone screw up chocolate that badly....it should be made into a crime.

September 29th

2005-09-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my friend and I had tea. Had brunch actually. Complete with scones, shortbread and tea. and like she said, there's just something very civilized about it. we visited for over two hours. just catching up, talking about britain (she was born and raised in england), families, life, all of that.
tomorrow the mannings, my family of little brothers and little sisters are coming up (actually it's tonight) for barret (the youngest)'s baptism.
the mannings came into my life at a time when i absolutely hated the world. completely and utterly didn't trust anyone (or very very few) outside my immediate family. and they just showed up and loved on me. and ever since then they've been all my little brothers and sisters.. and my unlce bill and aunt brenda. one of my brothers, burke is coming up. he's just home from his mission i'm guessing and i can't wait to see him. and then katie! my ophelia! i can't wait to see her either.. :) we are so having a giant love fest.
it has been a quiet week. papers getting graded. decisions about writing. i have decided i need to revise my novel and do some more work to it.. and then maybe i'll get t hrough the second book. it feels like the characters from the first book have more to say. maybe that's it. that and fighting writers block.... i shall write through it...
i finished my first cable. (I knit.) i have been working on a cable scarf and i finished it last night. it's rylans and it looks quite smashing on him. :)
for now that has to be it. i have class in a few minutes, and although they hold the show for the teacher, they only hold it so long...

sept 24th

2005-09-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

so this has been an interesting week.

first off, i have been teaching an introduction to the use of examples or illustrations in writing in my classes. to make the point that they aren't al simply personal stories, i showed the film "common threads; stories from the quilt.' it's following five panels from the AIDS Quilt, telling the stories behind each panel. (on an interesting point, each panel is three foot by six foot = the size of a human grave... makes you think doesn't it?)
by showing the stories behind each panel, we see different facets of the disease, those who are afflicted by it, bigotry that they may or may not have faced. all of that. the film was made in 1989, so it is dated. the AIDS quilt began in 1987 and was displayed i think in 88 or 89 for the first time...
Each time i watch the film i cry. it is something dear to my heart. a personal cause or project so to speak. so i have watched the film four times this past week. it took all week to watch it, half on each day of class accordingly. as my students watched the film, i could see theyw ere also affected. they were thinking. they were silent. they talked about it afterwards in discussions. and for some of m students, that says alot. (It's an important and beautiful film. Watch it if you get the chance. it's available via amazon.)
but what one of them said caught me off guard a bit. i guess i just thought we were past bigotry, and being close minded and stupid. after the film was over, in my last class (one of my favorite classes too!) we weret laking abot our impressions, the examples we saw, just discussing how it affected us, if it made its point etc.. and one of my students in the back said, but not loudly, 'they should have thought about it before they engaged in their practices.' and i asked him to repeat it. i wasn't sure i had heard him correctly. he repeated and i asked him to elaborate on it.. he declined. and it just struck me. they should have thought about AIDS before they decided to be homosexual. my students put him in his place a bit. at the time of the film and the stories being told, it was 1981. the very beginning of AIDS. no one knew what it was, no one knew it existed. so in that time frame, that's not a very legitimate question. Perhaps today it might be? i dont know. i dont think people are thinking about long term STDS when they decide to engage in their sexual practices.. it was kind aon the same level as saying about the kid who had hemophelia and got AIDS that way, as saying, "well he should have thought about AIDS before he decided to be a hemopheliac.."

so the AIDS quilt, or a portion of it, is coming to Keystone College. I am encouraging all of my students to go. I am hoping to work a few shifts at the quilt. I did when i was in high school and the experience has stuck with me. check out the quilt here: www.aidsquilt.org

what else. my boy is going to utah for a conference for school. hoping also he'll find some great job leads out there. (pray for us.) and i told him that we're going to scotland then in the spring or summer. we've gone out to utah almost every year we've been married. and for as lovely as it is, i get tired of it to a point. we get to go to his home every year. and i haven't been back to mine in almost 6 years. i came back June first 2000. so we're going. i dont know when specifically when we're going, but we're going. so help me.. i'm homesick like no body's business. am looking forward to it.

have been operating on a level just being knackered and exhausted. i could almost sleep through my dad's chainsaw cutting just outside our bedroom window.

working on my first sweater: for our dog. :) she better like it. *chuckle.* stocked up on yarn as our yarn store closes tomorrow.

that and watching the world go by.

a letter from Sharon Olds to Laura Bush

2005-09-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

I got this via the nyu creative writing program alumni of which i am a part. Sharon olds is a PHENOMENAL poet and teacher there. (So this is not urban legend).

I read it and it struck a chord with me. and as i cannot email evryone in the world with it, i shall post it here, and tell people to come see it.

here you go.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/olds
Laura Bush, First Lady The White House

Dear Mrs. Bush,
I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.
In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.
And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women's prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and their students--long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.
When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving, spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit--and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person's unique story and song.
So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.
I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.
But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration. What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.
So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.
Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS

i love our dog

2005-09-15T18:54:00.000-07:00

it's sept. 15th. One friend of mine is on his way to Moscow to tell stories from moscow to Perm Russia/Siberia. My other friend is preparing for her temple marriage, in the DC Temple tomorrow.

today has been quiet. it's nice to get those days. at school there was a fire in my building, so we all had to file out, and that sort of hting. no actual fire, but not a planned drill either. someone pulled the alarm. but all went well.

our puppy - she's actually about 3 years old, but she'll always be our puppy - is lying on the floor waiting for me to be done so i can go hang out with her on the couch. knit, chill with ellie - our puppy's name -, channel surf and wait for my boy to come home from work. i have to say it is wonderful having a dog. i'd never had a dog before her and she is perfect and lovely. she's sad when i have to go to work, thrilled when i come home, looks for me when she can't find me... when ic ome back to bed for a few minutes before i go to work, i hear her tail slapping against the sheets in bed, even though she's half asleep, she's happy i'm back. there's something comforting about waking up and feeling her pressed into my back, or belly, or behind the crook of my knees. she has to be touching you (the person she's with) somehow. always. it's just comforting to me..

so i have been thinking about my anorexia a bit this week. i revealed to a friend of mine about it. they hadn't known and they were stunned to learn it. i went to a website a friend of mine sent on to me: www.somethingfishy.org and looked around. it's all about eating disorders, how to deal with them, how to recover and repair, and all sorts of things. and i realized how far i have come to a point, but how far i still need to go. but it's all progress. one thing of progress for me is i refuse to own a scale. i will not own one. if i go to the dr's and they weigh me, i'm furious if they let me see it, because i will be traumatized for weeks. i know that i am maintaining my weight. i am still wearing the same clothes, same sizes, all of that. so that is how i tell.

but something that came up in the site was you have to learn to love yourself. and i realized what a hard time i have with that. just really truly loving myself for who i am. i dont think about myself a whole lot, i dont consider myself. so i dont focus on my good points, or strengths, or th ings i like about myself. and i need to more. so if anyone has any ideas as to how to do that, or any goodpounts to get me started, cause i'm stumped, let me know. (not pandering for compliments...honestly..)

thats all. hope everyone is well. ta

September 9th

2005-09-09T10:47:00.000-07:00

It is Friday morning, and i am still sitting in my pajamas, writing here, try ing to stay somewhat current, listening to the playlist for Chrystal, and scanning the Ebay acutions looking for old 16mm films for an old projector. We were thinking of having a party, pulling out the film projector and showing the film on the barn. If i could only find a complete reel set of Bedknobs and Broomsticks! I found the soccer match in 8mm but not 16. so if anyone finds one at a decent price pick it up and i'll pay you back!

Classes are going better. I still have one clss that just doesn't speak. grr..
but all in all things are good.

I read a challenge this week on an LDS site i help to moderate and it said, to genuinely pray to have the spirit with you, to make a concerted effort with it and see what happened. and maybe it's propoganda, but i have noticed a difference this week, just a bit more peaceful. a little less angry, or worried or stressful, more grateful.
For some reason I feel more inspired to do things for my work, for my writing and for figuring things out for us, for classes, for everything else. That somehow, I dont know how or why or in what ways yet, everything is going to be ok.

(listening to RENT's La Vie Boeheme!)

Wednesday rylan gave me a terrible fright. i came home from work, had dinner ready. he was due to be home about 5:30 from practice. i waited. and waited.. and waited.. around 6:48 i finally jumped in the car and went off to look for him. i actually ended up passing him on his way home. his coach and he just ende dup talking and they lost track of time. I was so upset. not mad, just upset that he didn't call and let me know he was so late.. when he talked to his coach that night (yes, he talks to his coach at least once, somtimes twice a day) rylan gave me the phone.. and the coach said "whatever it takes to make you happy.." as in they will call if they are late.. all of that.. gave him a gentle lashing, jesting lashing.. and that maybe he should have called his own wife and let her know that he woudl be late. wives like that, cause you know we worry.. but their apologies meant a lot...

I found an old tape made by a guy who i knew in high school. I guess we were dating but I didn't know until afterwards. (I was a bit in the awkward oblivious stage in high school) and was listening to it. He is the one who introduced me to Janice Joplin, the Cheiftains (before I knew who they were, i just knew their voices disembodied from any names..). On it is this piece of African music, in a language i dont understand but i have to say, it gives me chills and thrills me to the bone every time i hear it. I just love it. it wakes up something in me that i dont know the name of yet but it is something very integral. i get the same feelings when i hear good international music. not the cheesey stuff, but good stuff.. authentic music. It is followed by a song called 'my husband's got no courage in him..' i'll let you figure out what that one's about.

So I keep talking about Chrystals' play list.. so here you go.

Moving Right Along – Kermit and Fozzie Muppet.
Lumberjack Song – Monty Python.
Defying Gravity – From the Wicked Soundtrack.
I Say a Little Prayer for you – My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Send me On my Way – Rusted Root. Gladiator Movie Quote –
Cottleston Pie – Rowlf The Dog (Muppets)
La Vie Boheme – RENT –
Faces La La La (I wish that I knew what I know now..) - i wish that i knew what i know now
Drum Trip – Rusted root –
Come On Eileen – Save Ferris.
African Alphabet – Kermit and an African Choir from Sesame Street – No Rain – Blind Melon –
We Are Family – Sister Sledge
The Origin of Love – Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Pure Imagination – Willy Wonka, Sung by Gene wilder
Good Mother – Jann Arden –.
Everybody Rejoice – The Wiz,
The Lottery Song – Fat Handsome. Kung fu Fighting – Jefferson Airplane
Sister Song – Rachel Sage and Ani DiFranco –
Bring on the Men – Linda Eder from Jekyll and Hyde
I cover the Waterfront – from Joe Vs. the Volcano
the Cowboy Song – Tom Hanks from Joe vs. the Volcano
Man of La Mancha – Linda eder –
Wheels of a Dream – from Ragtime
Ain’t no Mountain High Enough – from Step-Mom, I don’t know the original artists.. – The Highwayman – put to music by Loreena Mckennitt, but it’s an actual old poem
Handel’s Dream – Michael Mclean, from the Forgotten Carols
I’d like to visit the moon – Ernie from sesame Street
Harriet – Mike Myers from So I married an Axe Murderer
Natural Blues – Moby Sirens Singing – Oh Brother Where Art Thou
Istanbul – They Might Be Giants
You’ve got a Friend in Me – toy Story, Randy Newman
Inspiration – Fat Handsome –
One by One – The (Broadway) Lion King Soundtrack
Animal House Quote pep Talks –
Peace Train – Natalie Merchant –
One Song Glory – RENT –
Elmer Fudd sings Fire – robin Williams –
Conjunction Junction – School House Rocks, new Version
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – Eric Idle from Monty Python –
This Year’s Love – David Gray – live somewhere in ireland.

i listen to it so much because it makes me smile, it give me hope and inspiration. its long cause she and her mom were driving to california from pa. so i figured i'd give her a lot to listen to...
i challenge you to listen to any one of these songs or tracks and not be movedb y them, not be affected by them. especially any of the lion king on broadway - the non disney-esque pieces. listen tot hemand not get goosebumps, or hold your breath..

so random question? what are the opinons of anyone reading this about the problem witheducation now? a re private schools the answer? charter schools? homeschooling? being in the education field and teaching at two colleges, is ee the problems coming up. ihad a student (no word of lie i swear!) who didn't know he was supposed to use a paragraph when he wrote. it hink i actualyl asked him "Where did you come from?!" just shocked that he could actually get to a college and not know that.
how do we keep the standards up for students to actually try, to be responsible, but also like anythign else, deal with the fact that not everyone is cut out for college. just like we aren't all made to be mathematicians, postal workers, or brick layers, not everyone is made or geared to be in college and academia. so how do we deal with it, and not lower the standards, but then not make it something for only the elite and go back a few hundred years in educational rights for everyone...? what are your plans for your children? i have a colleague who says when/if he has kids, they're being homeschooled. I figure its not because he's a crazy psycho person, but because the schools are falling short on their jobs...
just a random question for anyone.. for everyone..
have a brilliant day.

sept 2

2005-09-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

it is official - summer is just about over. not meterologically, most certainly not. but for families and children, it's just about done. this monday is labor day, the unofficial end of summer. but ours came earlier - we started school this week. All Keystone College, Kings College, and Luzerne County Community College started classes this week.
things are going all right there. the drives are getting easier for me, parking is no longer the extreme headache it has been,t hough it will always be one, as there is so little parking at kings. Rylan's doing well. His first cross country meet is tomorrow at Misericordia i think? I am still amazed at what he does. he goes and runs eight mikles like it's not a problem and i just go DANG. I can run, but i never said iw as amazing. I do it cause i enjoy it..and it's all good, and i dont want to die. (just a few of the reasons.)

our local yarn store is closing. very very very sad face. so today i went and bought on sale yarn, knowing the ones i boght today wouldn't be there next time i went. that's how i rationalized going and doing it. so if anyoen wants good yarns and yo're inthe tunkhannocka rea, hit endless mountain quilt works before september 26th! after that they yarn store is no more. now i have to drive to clarks summit or buy the non wool yarns at wal mart..

but i think this week, like everyone else in the country and perhaps the world, i am just glued tot he hurricane damage and the fact that New Orleans is basically drowning. It's been days and days. I wanna say a week, but it's been days... no food, no drinkable non contaminated wont burn out your esophogus if you drink it water.... no clue as to how to even gett o where its safe. I am just stunned by what i see on tv, what oi hear on the radio. Anderson Cooper with CNN was saying that there were rats eating bodies in the streets. a dead body had ben inthe streets for 48 hours and the rats went to it.

Another story was strangly Faulkner-esque - having echoes to As I lay Dying.. A woman stayed in her house with her husband who was on oxygen. And as he started to run out, she went out to the streets to try to find someone to help, ambulance, something, anything. She found nothing. came back and he'd already passed away. So she wrapped him up, fashioned a small raft out of plywood and some debris-planks.. and floated him in the flood waters, trying to find anywhere to take him to be taken care of, to be stored, morgues, anything. One person helped her to bear this burden. There were times when the raft almost tipped and she had to rescue him.
I can't imagine that, having to bear the body of my beloved, having to float someone down a flood to find a place to bury or whatever... it just breaks my heart.

How can we as a country say we are so wonderful that our politicians are so in our favor and helpful, practically high fiving each other over their bravery, and the need for vacations.. when there were (and possibly still are!) 25,000-50,000 people in the convention center -aside from the Stadium (the Super dome? not the one in Texas where they have sent some, but where they went when they could leave New Orleans.. the dome in Texas has since gotten filled up and is turning people away...) that people didn't know about, that had no food, or water, or help. and that no one knew were there?
The broadcaster on NPR when he spoke to the guy from Homeland Security? or FEMA or something like that, on the radio yesterday, kept asking the offical about the convention center, asking whentheyw oudl ave water or food. The official kept referring to the refugees in the Dome.. and when the broadcaster corrected him, the official went asf ar as to say "I do not want to purport rumors... i have no knowledge of that so i dont want to start any rumors.." The broadcaster had their journalist on the other line in the convention center who was giving the broadcaster information. And again the offical said, they were rumors....

How can we support our government that is so proud of themselves for getting some food around.. when there's tens of thousands of people dying from neglect, starvation, lack of water... people being raped, murdered, places being looted. I think that the government has a bit of skewed vision of themselves right now. There seems to be so little being done on the government's part. The Red Cross is fantastic. Salvation Army! I am sure the LDS Church is doing something.. (I haven't heard yet, i haven't checked the website yet but we're good for that)
it is just so terribly sad.

And what about GAS??? how can we afford to go to work??? it jumped fifty cents yesterday. DANG.

rainy

2005-08-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

so it's raining. like everywhere else in the eastern states because of the dying katrina.

school started this week. i was terrified. i couldn't sleep at all sunday night into monday morning. around 3am i finally was able to doze off. up then around 7-8am. I had classes at 2, but had to make sure i had to get lost time.

so the basic thing is, i am relearning how to drive. for whatever reason or reasons, i didn't drive a whole lot growing up. i wasn't allowed to get my license until i was 18 years old. not through any wrong doing of my own mind you. i never stole the car, or snuck out at night and drove to vegas for quixkie weddings and divorces. it was somethign much less interesting but more powerful. i think it was something around insurance rates, and the fact that my brother sank one of our cars in a swamp soon after he got his license, and that my sister had a speeding ticket. so for whatever reason, i didn't get my license til i was 18. then i didn't drive until i was about 20. again, i dont know why, just that i wasn't allowed to. so then i drove for a summer, and then i moved to scotland. where i didn't drive again, and they drive on the other side of the road. so i got in the habit of looking the opposite directions when crossing the street, or when driving. i gues sit frightened my parents when i came back and looked the wrong ways before crossing the streets.

again, either way, i didn't drive again, almost until i got married. all said and done, it kinda feels like i was shoved off on everyone else by my parents some days when it came to driving. so i have been relearning how to drive since we got married.

i'm doing well and it's all good, but i'm still nervous and not terribly comfortable with some situations. i have been driving to luzerne county community college , which is 42.5 miles away, for over a year, and that has gone well. trial by fire so to speak. dealing with wind, rain and snow, and sleet. but it still is backroads. not terribly difficult, a straight shot on rt 29, either way. some really good S curves and stuff like that.
but kings is in wilkes barre. int he city, with some good congested traffic. it's not as far, but more congested and more crazy people, and problems like possible parallell parking. (I didn't learn it. it wasn't on the drivers test when i took it.)

so i think i was just really scared of the driving. and then the whole 'will they like me..' nerves like a little girl before her first day of school. i hated it. so i didn't sleep well worying between the drive, and finding out where i was parking.. and the new classes.

it ended up being a rough day. almost got into a crash. got lost trying to find the parking spot. i spent almost 40 minutes trying to find the parking spot.. and it was just crazy. then driving home was just a pain.. th whole time i was driving to school, i was repeating the next step in the directions so i wouldnt forget them. just angrya nd stressful. by the time i parked i was choking back tears and nerves, and had to fight the urge ti run away and just not go.

but it went ok. got into my office. got lunch, made copies.. that sort of thing. class was class. it's the first day. so everyone was quiet and still checking things out. i am hoping tomorrow goes better.
today's classes all went well. it felt good. today's the first day i had to drive from lccc to kings for my afternoon classes. so again, a little nervous.. but directions went well and all was happy.

i heard today on the radio that the train from scranton to new york city is in the definite go stage. still going to be five or six years. but it's a possibilty. it'd be nice if there was train service from scranton to wilkes barre. or from the smaller towns to the larger towns. gas is just getting too expensive. it'd be less stressful.
so that is all here today. a good day. yay. lots of rain. and i can sleep tonight. :) don't have to be up at 5:45 am.

oh i saw a cool website that is defintely somehting i want to do. eventually when i do my phd i would love to get involved with this project. or if i can get involved a head of time or now, anyone has any ideas, let me know! check out the site. it's pretty cool.

www.neh.gov/news/archive/20050505/html

no title

2005-08-24T13:55:00.001-07:00

august 24th. *music playing in the background is the playlist i made for my friend chrystal when she moved to california. i knew she'd be driving for hours on end so i made her a good set of cds.. Tom hanks was just singing the cow boy song from joe vs the volcano. a little silly and guilty pleasure movie but entirely underappreciated.. like comfort foods. like mac and cheese, or mashed potatoes with lots of gravy.

today i became official at kings college. got my id and parking permit. everyone thought i was a student. sometimes its ok. soemtimes it's a little irritating.

and then the picture didn't help.. i just kept thinking that my face looked fat. that my hair made me look fatter.. with my eating issues it just gets worse, some stupid things just trigger it. it doesn't help that it's been a struggle lately. it always is. comes and goes. its not nice when you loathe your body. it's a love hate relationship some days. i know i'm not built be to tiny. but i have to say there is something of a rush, of a thrill, even in a perverse way, when you see the scale tip under 100, under 90 pounds. and something in my mind, says look, i take up so little space. i can't bother anyone. i can fit anywhere... some sort of thrill, when you know that everyone envies you. that you can still where the tiniest clothes, shop in the young teen section of the store.. look at all the self control i have. look at how i can control everyting in my small world. i dont have to eat like you..

yeah it's pretty screwed up. but yeah that's also what goes on inside my head. anorexia sucks. eating disorders suck. but it's something i have. and i dont know all the time what to do with it. some days are better than others. and if i'm already having a bad day or a little uneasy or uncertain, then it just is an automtic. i eat now. and that is a big thing that i eat and i cook. and i try to take my frustration and control issues and allthat rubbish out in positive means like running or writing or yoga... i have been lucky to have only lapsed into bulimia once. so yeah. there you have it.

but today i became offical at kings. kinda exciting. i'm nervous about the drive and all of that. i'm stilld riving the honda. i was hoping to drive the beetle by this time but i just havent gotten it down yet. driving a standard, i still get flustered and nervous, and a little panicky. the stop and go traffic has me alittle worried. i worry that i would panick on the freeway and make some stupid mistake. and the beetle is supposed to be my car. the honda is rylan's. and i know he misses driving it. but i just dont feel comfortable driving the beetle yet. it's frustrating. grr.

did you hear that there are some scientists who want to import the cheetah, and the elephant and lion intot he american great plains? what the heck is that about?! i think they are forgetting that the climate is drastically different.

so today was a good day but frustrating. so there is some of my day today.
and in the midst of all this frustation walks in my 5 year old neice who just gave me a hug and brightened up my day. it's amazing how she does that. :) yay for neices..

the wrap up music: "Into the Woods Prologue" from themusical. swing music has been heavily in rotation, and i really want to to learn how to dance.. :)

tomatoes

2005-08-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

so i am not too good at keeping this thing current. i'll have to work on that.
so since the last entry... rylan and i ran two more races. he ran the christy matthewson 6K and took first in his age group. just so you know, a 6K = 3.75 miles. i ran the mile run and beat my time. even without the fire engine and marching band behind me!

we also endeavored to make tomato sauce last week. and it was a disatser. we scorched the bottoms of the tomatoes, thereby making the sauce taste like and smell like cigarette smoke. so we had to toss the entire batch. it was sad. and frustrating.

since then, we celebrated our third wedding anniversary. yay us! we ate chinese food and watched the Village. it stil gives us goosebumps.
had a meeting at the college where i'll be teaching in the fall and met with teh otehr new teachers. i think it will be a really good experience. and i have an office!!! with a key! and a desk! and bookshelves!!!! yay! at the other school i carry everything around with me like pack mule. i need a chiropractor so badly.

but made tomatoes today. actually canned tomaotes today. we knew we we're going to lsoe them if we didn't do it soon.. our friend christine and her son hunter came over and we spent all day canning, she, rylan and i. and you know, they look awfully pretty in their jars afterwards. (after the all day process..) it takes a while. but it's good to know they will be put aside for the winter, for when we need them. one less thing we will need to buy. another way we can save up our garden and preserve it for later use. so that's a happy thing.

tomorrow, we leave to go to dc, to the temple there. i always look forward to going to that temple. it is where we were married and sealed for eternity. the feeling of peace that exists there is beyond belief.
am still reading les miserables. still loving it.

in the ensign this past month, maybe this months? presidnet hinckley has challeneged everyone to finish reading the book of mormon by the end of the year. he said if you read a chapter and a half a day, you can do it. so we're going to do our best to achieve that.

not much else going on here. perhaps that's why i haven't written much.
ta

race reviews - August 5th

2005-08-05T04:39:00.000-07:00

last night i ran my race. thanks to folks who kept me in your thoughts and gave me the metaphysical push. or those that i imagined did. it was the Jack Daniel's mile, in memory of a student at the high school who drowned a few years ago, i think his name was John, but everyone called him Jack. His father I think may still teach there.

I know a mile may not sound like much, but when it's 95 degrees Farenheit, and grossly muggy, and everyone around you has that sleek tight tanned runners physique that screams "I can do this in my sleep," it feels a little longer. it was my first race in a very long time. I just wanted to do it to prove to myself that i could, to give myself a goal. Running is one of those things when I set out for my run, I have no clue how it's going to end, if i'll make it entirely or i'll end up turning around quitting. I haven't quite on any of my runs yet. I love the way it feels and the sense of accomlishment. The few minutes of torture and adrenaline that i survived. all of that. I just have to build up to everything, run more train more. I ultimately, I dont know when, would love to do a marathon, but that will take few years to train for. I need to conquer the mile run and the 5K first.

So last night was my start.
I was worried when no one was there that I knew. I felt so out classed and, didn't no one anyone on the streets, no cheering sections. I almost thought about giving my ten dollars at registration and leaving. I came for the T shirt. but i really came for the bragging rights, the T shirt and to prove something to myself. so i talked myself into staying, dealt with the butterflies and got ready to run.

i met a woman whose first race it was as well and we determined we'd run together so that was nice. a friendly face and all. that helped.
when the race finally started, we got lined up and someone shot the starting pistol. We were in the far far back, the last row actually. I set my pace, or tried to, and kept up with julie, my running partner i'd just met. She looked behind us and and so "oh my!" the parade was RIGHT behind us. So we picked it up a little. Nothing like a large fire engine and a marching band to put a little extra zing in your step.

i never realized the hills in town, until I had to run them. We began down hill, and then turned left at the red light, up past the post office, up harrison, then into the bus lane at the middle school. There were at least two hills that I don't remember ever being there before, and i think they stretched the pavement out a little longer for us.

Now i said earlier there wasn't anyone i recognised in the crowds. And there wasn't really. But everyone was cheering on all the runners. Even me, who as one of the last three in the race. (I still finished with a respectable time, just everyone else is a lot faster than I am.) Kids and their families who were out for the parade cheered us on the entire way. Some little boy had his garden hose spraying into the field of runners to cool us down. (I saw it on the race route map before we started) I was so grateful for that little spray of water, I ran right through it and it felt so good.

when i got to the middle school and saw the flags, one of the workers said something like 50 more yards (or whatever. he gave a distance that I dont remember), and I thought for a second, 50 yards has never looked so far in my life. but i kept going and made it. crossed the finish line, hugged my running partner julie who had gone ahead (at my consent,) and my friends who were holding my car keys and t shirt. I checked my time and ended up taking off about two minutes off my normal time.

So i had a real sense of accomplishment there. i felt like i was in the club, the runners club, maybe a junior member, but still in a little bit. the crazy runners who run in all sorts of heat, and weather and who like it. Cause i did. for as hot and hard as it was (yeah I know a mile isn't far. but we are all different..) i loved it. I loved the pushing myself to succeed, to at least survive and all of that.

So that was my race story. woke up this morning and my legs feel fine, and am already thinking of going out for another run or out for at least a good walk, or a good yoga session.

today is friday, which means last night alone. my love comes home tomorrow. :) not sure what time but he comes home tomorrow. much hapiness there :)

august 3, and its too hot

2005-08-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

august third, wednesday and it's too hot. i have been one of those people who gets too cold and sick of winter, one of those people that wishes for a bit of warmth in January.. but I can tell you now, i'm already sick of it. I think i will have to think twice before i start to complain about the cold and start wishing for a heat wave. it's too hot for the dogs to play. it's too hot to do anything outside.. i will say it. i hate summer. humidity, and mugginess, and heat and grossness all round.. I'll take autumn or spring any day. there's a theory that the weather change, the more violent hurricanes and all are due to global warming. i stll wonder what people can do to change that, to make thigns better. i am really glad to see the hybrid cars. i think it's a great step in the right direction.. or at least to buy more fuel economic cars right now, especially with the price of fuel right now.

day three of scout camp. i survived my second night alone. my dog is wonderful. she sleeps in the bed with me, so i dont feel so lonely. but the thing is i still feel lonely. i at least know (or have delusions) that if something is wrong in the house, she'll wake up and let me know. she has in the past. she can tell when someone is at the house before i can. she knows when something isnt right. so generally, if she can sleep i can sleep.

well last night, there were sounds. yep, sounds. it's a big old house. and it's going to make sounds. you'd think that after living here for three years, i'd have gotten used to the sounds. but i haven't and i dont. last night, in the midst of saying my prayers, i heard the lock on the bedroom door slide. just a metallic click. but enough tos tir me from my reverance to stare at the door, and pray a little faster and more fervent - please don't let the boogeyman get me.. please dont let there be anyone or anything in the house...i locked all the doors.. it didn't help that ellie our dog couldn't sleep or get comfortable. every time she would start to settle down, suddenly she'd be up and alert and looking around. finally we slept. and when we woke, the house was intact, no boogeymen and the monsters all went away for the day. (at least the ones under the bed.)
i have spent the day writing. a very nice alternative to grading papers. i am trying to finish this story, at least a rough ugly draft of it today. maybe i can get it done entirely by the end of the week. maybe.
i am listening to the harry potter book the most recent one) on cd. borrowed it from my mum.

i find myself counting down the days till my love gets home. half way there...
thats all for now. perhaps i'll add more later.

so random questions

2005-08-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

as i dont know how to make a poll yet or anything else like that, whoever reads this leave a note (hailers... girl i luv ya)

greatest books you've ever read?

greatest movies you've ever seen?

if there's any charities you could support or would support, what ones?

what would you like to do to change the world around us, around you?

i'm thinking about these too, so i'll try to answer when i think of it..

new days - august 1, 2005

2005-08-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

so today is the first day with my very own little blog... someone once said i needed a website, and so here it is. years down the road, but voila! nothing grand to look at, but a start perhaps. i'll work the bugs out as i get more used to this thing.

today also begins a ritual i'm not always terribly fond of, i have to say. scout camp. i know it's important for my love to go and do the scoutmaster thing, and i know he has a good time. heck with a giant homemade catapult and a couple huge bags of water balloons, how could he not?!

but i just end up missing him. maybe i sound silly, clingy, needy whatever. i just end up missing him and wondering what i'm going to do with my time to fill it up. i wonder if anyone else ever has this problem...
today began reading week for my classes. so i dont have to get up any more (or at least for this week) at half past five in the morning. so that's nice. i can spend more time working on my writing, which is one of the reasons i started this. a website i frequent will be changing to blogs or a lot of it, so in order to have a venue for my work, i chose to do this, until random house comes knocking a thousand times over *chuckle.. yeah i know..* or at least until i land an agent....until then i may just have to use this as a gallery as well. (if you know of any agents looking specifically, let me know and i'll remember you in my speeches...)

so today is obviously a day of lots of different starts. reading week, a blog, and just all in all, a new day to do with what i see fit. so far i have felt to take a nap, and check my eail after coming home from work and struggling to stay awake while driving the hour commute home. i think i'll write some more and eat something eventually (something besides breakfast cereal bars - which are not as tasty as theyw ould make you think they are... and i am a little frightened to know what the center thing is. they say it is "made with real milk." yeah but so is any number of things. that doesn't mean it should be eaten frequently or a staple of the diet. - and frozen cupcakes..)

so welcome to my little corner of the world. drop a note if you fancy. cheers.