The Last Day

The last day of NaBloPoMo! Thank God! I don't really have anything to write- work is nuts and I'm tired and trying to eat better (or less), which just makes me more tired, and hungry to boot! Not a smart idea...
Posting every day has been fun, but now I can go for quality and not quantity. I like that better.

New Dress!

So after finding out that MHM's office Christmas party is slightly more dressy than I am prepared for, I did a little shopping today at lunch. And what do I find? The perfect dress. The dress that makes me feel fantastic when I wear it. A pair of heels, some dangly earrings, and I am done. For once in my life I have a good outfit that is actually just something you throw on and go. YAY!

Now, for the hair. Hmmmm.... This might require more work than shampoo and a brush....

My secret goal is to look better than him. Is that evil or what? He's always dressed like he's put together and I feel like I just pick up whichever jeans aren't walking on their own and some raggedy t-shirt. :)

No Time!

I love it when I'm at work and I'm completely in the puzzle of what I'm doing. Time flies. Then I look at the clock and realize my computer at home is still jacked up, and I have exactly 28 minutes to post something. So here ya go. I'm busy. :)

Read this.

Sigh

Last night MHM and I had a conversation that really should have been had months ago. I went to sleep waaaayyyy too late, and was up waaaaaaaaay too early this morning and now the day is seriously dragging. I can't see out of the haze to figure out what to blog about.

#17,000 why he rocks

So lately I've been feeling really down on myself. I've gained some weight and feel really unattractive and not-so-sexy. Well MHM and I had a conversation about it today, and he said, you know what? You need some sexy shoes. And bless his heart, he came with me to Shoe Carnival and Rack Room Shoes (and then back to Shoe Carnival), and watched me try on tons of shoes, and helped me look for my difficult size (11) and gave his opinions. The man has very good taste, if I didn't know better I'd think he was a gay stylist. It was so much fun, and I got one pair of black heels, and another pair of really cute fun platform shoes. I felt so much better. Thank you sweetie!

Long Weekend!

I woke up this morning thinking, WOW, it must be Sunday, I've been off work for so long now. But it's still only Saturday, and my day feels FILLED with possibilities. What will I do? Where will I go? I almost can't STAND the excitement.

Of course, I might just hang out here and keep reading "The Bronte Project", which is turning out to be waaaayyyy better than I expected it to be. And watch the House that I taped on Tuesday and haven't had a chance to see yet. Or I might go hang out with my Dad and see a movie or something. Who KNOWS? But right now I need to go get MHM out of bed before he sleeps the day away.

Still thinking of a topic for a better post.... Any suggestions?

Cars

Cars is a very cute movie. Sitting around at MHM's family's house, not much to do, and all the adults are sitting in the living room watching cars. It has a slooooow start, but by the end you're like YEAH! This movie is hilarious. And very VERY cute. It's got the Shrek-esque (one of my very favoritist movies is Shrek 2) percentage of adult humor that I love in cartoons like this.

Anyway, now we're watching last Monday's Studio 60, which is a good one. I'm going to go pay attention to that. I'm ready for NaBloPoMo to be over a little....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I hope everyone is happy and healthy and stuffed with food.

:) Tomorrow is the official beginning of Christmas madness. Hide me.

More Frivolous Crap

I would like to have nice fingernails. I just can't seem to stop biting them. And the biting over the years has really migrated from the actual nail to the cuticles around the nails and that's nasty. I will never be a hand model. :(

This realization has really put a damper on the day. My dream career as a hand model is shot. I guess I'll have to drag out the old hynosis tapes. They worked... when I used them.

Waiting around....

I am soooooo ready for a break! I can't wait to get out of here tomorrow, drive down to see my sweetie, hang out, eat until I want to explode, have fun, relax, and calm down. This has been a rough couple of weeks. Tonight I'll go teach my **incredible shrinking class!** (it's Thanksgiving, I don't expect much of anyone to be there), and pack. Then I'll work for a few hours in the morning, get in the car, and hit to road. I hope it's pretty tomorrow and I hope the traffic doesn't completely suck.

My computer is still destroyed and I think it is showing great perseverance to still be doing NaBloPoMo when I have to post from random places every time. Sometimes from work, sometimes from slightly stolen wireless internet, sometimes from MHM's computer, sometimes from school. Or any combination thereof. I hope it gets fixed soon. I even bought better Anti-Virus software for a present for when it feels better.

Okay, it's not vacation yet. Back to work. These are some of the saddest little posts.

Thoughts.... really important ones

I don't know what to write tonight, so here are some of the thoughts going through my head this evening:

Is it an oxymoron to advertise books on TV?

Why is Law and Order SO addictive?

How can My Handsome Man NOT like lasagne?

WHY do I not have the body of a Bond Girl?

Will I ever get over my love for Lays Natural potato chips? (I think I've found the answer to the previous question....)

Can I eat the food from Iron Chef one day? (Ditto)

What do I have to do to get a Rafe handbag from Target?

Is there a way to make it NOT so dark so early? Like, maybe giant lights suspended from airplanes?

What are the odds of my winning the lotterty?

What is the deal with me liking serious movies and books less the older I get?

Bond, James Bond

I had my doubts, but Daniel Craig ROCKS as James Bond. When I first heard he was going to be the new one, I was dismayed. A blond Bond? Oh no no no. Bond has be handsome and sauve and cool under pressure, not some rugged looking dude who isn't exactly handsome. But it turns out that rugged works just fine for Bond, actually better than the ones I've seen so far (and let make it clear that I'm not anything like some James Bond afficianado, I can't even remember the plots and certainly can't connect the plots with the titles). There was just enough humor, just enough realistic violence, and some good plot twists and stunts that I did not see coming. I give it an A+.

Woooo, the stuffed-ness

Stuffed. To the gills. I don't think I can breathe for all the food I just ate at our Thanksgiving lunch at work. There's more than enough for for another entire meal for 80, and people are taking plates home. I don't think I can look at all that food for long enough to pack it all on a plate and slap some tinfoil on it. The best stuff today was the turkey (obviously), cranberry stuffing, sweet potato casserole, peach cobbler, pumpkin cheesecake, garlic & cheese smashed potatoes, cranberry relish, and gravy. Oh my god it was so good.

And now I think I'm going to crawl under my desk and sleep until it is time to go home.

Small Spaces

I was reading this article in the New York Times today, and as with anything I see about small spaces and simple living, it really appealed to me. I have always loved small spaces, even when I was a kid and I surrounded my top bunk with a blanket hung from the ceiling so I could have a cave. I've almost always had the smallest bedroom in the house growing up, and in my apartments since I have moved out. I feel more peaceful in a small area I guess. But eventually my belongings have increased and the ability to keep things small has decreased, but not with any flair. At least when I had very small apartments I could afford to have the nice storage and the tricks that go with making it livable. But now I feel like I have so much stuff scattered around that it isn't soothing or a good place to come home too. I don't feel the inviting calm my old places had, I just feel a receptacle for STUFF.

Part of my affinity for small places came after my first apartment was broken into. I moved into a smaller place that was in a much safer location, but the best thing was that I could hear what was going on in the kitchen when I was in the bedroom. Everything was small and compact, and the apartment was old so it had a lot of character, but I knew what was going on around me. When I moved here I looked at houses for a while but they were just too big. I've never wanted a palatial space, just somewhere big enough to keep me and my belongings in some sort of organized chaos. The smaller the place, the more comfortable I am (and the less stuff I have, the more comfortable I am), as long as I'm not knocking things over.

One of my favorite books: Not So Big House. It is all about how to create a smaller home that utilizes space efficiently. Then you can build a smaller house that is made of finer materials and ingenious design features (a Quiet Room, a centralized location for thermostat, lighting, and security systems, storage spaces tucked into areas you wouldn't think to use). I would love a house like that- one made with thought and not just some huge mansion that doesn't bring people closer together, but forces them to spread out just because of the shear size of the thing.

So maybe my project this weekend will be to find a way to make things work better around my apartment, so I feel like I'm living in a home instead of a box. For as little money as possible.

DUCKS!

So today started out pretty crappy. I woke up with a headache, and it was POURING rain. I mean, buckets and buckets. In case you don't watch the weather channel, The South is being inundated with, well, rain. So, I went to work with the plan to go do some Christmas shopping at lunch, but it was storming like crazy, so I'm going to have to do that tomorrow. THEN I get a call from school, and I left my planner there last night. That planner has somehow turned into my life- if I don't have it I don't have a clue as to what is going on. So now I need to brave the weather and drive 1/2 an hour to get the thing, come back to work, finish all these projects... and do some grocery shopping for our big work Thanksgiving extravaganza on Friday. Oh, and did I mention that my computer has gotten a virus that has rendered it inoperable until I get the system recovery disk on Friday? Yes, it just gets better and better.

So naturally as I drove home for lunch I was in a pretty bad mood. Fuming about this and that, cursing the gods. Then when I got to my apartment complex the roads were fairly flooded and what do I see in front of my car? About 6 ducks! They seemed to think that the pond had just expanded and now they had new parts to explore. How can you be in a bad mood when there are DUCKS??? It is all much better now. My friend got a good report on her very premature baby, and now I've remembered that yes, things may not be all that great for me but put it in perspective and I have nothing to whine about.

I need to try to foster a more positive attitude.

Class time

So, yes, I'm in class and I'm supposed to be teaching but it's a work class so I'm not too concerned if I take two seconds to drop a blog. Gotta do a post a day!!! (Really not that hard as long as there's a computer around.)

My home computer is acting WEIRD, giving me all sorts of error messages and making me crazy. I am super-paranoid since my old computer got a gruesome virus two years ago and after some serious trial and error it worked again, but never the same. This one is so new, I'd be really upset if something happened to it. SIGH. We shall see what happens. This is why my fiance is an IT dude- it's going to be a marriage of convenience.
I'M KIDDING!

Happiness is....

After a very (VERY) long day of driving, work, driving, presentations, driving, and more driving, happiness is 3 hours of good TV (taped House from last week, Heroes, and Studio 60), Pizza, a Royal Flush (Cranberry juice, Crown Royal, Peach Schnapps, Raspberry Liqueor), and rest. All without guilt. Because I've earned it.

Sunday Night Sucks

Sunday nights really REALLY suck, because My Handsome Man and I sit around and know that tomorrow one of us has to leave the other before dawn, and then we don't see each other again until Friday. I guess in a way it's good- absence makes the heart grow fonder and we appreciate our time together more blah blah BLAH, but really it's just gotten to that point of annoying.

Maybe in 15 years I'll be glad to have an overnight break on a business trip or something. But that's a one time thing and this is 4 nights out of every single week. It's sad.

He's just the best guy out there. We giggle and get completely silly together (tonight we were talking to each other through tubes of contact paper). We also have serious talks about politics and science and the raising of future children. We sit on the couch and watch Iron Chef America (a regular Sunday night tradition now), and we also read in bed before we go to sleep. He makes me calm and feel good about who I am. He's also exceptionally good at seeing me through panic attacks, which all on its own is really impressive. I can't say for sure what I do to his personality when I'm around, obviously I can't observe it when I'm not with him. :) But I think he has fun with me. We're a good team. And tomorrow morning at 5:30 am I'm going to have to kiss him goodbye when he's all warm and asleep and tucked into bed, get in the car, and battle the traffic back home.

I'm not all that good a person though- it's a good thing we trade off weekends or I'd be resenting the early wake up. At least it's fair! But somebody's going to have to move soon. A hell of a lot easier said than done.

Healthiness

I bought this book today, and I'm really excited about starting yoga again. I have half-heartedly done it in the past, and really liked it, but then sort of stopped. I don't know why- I really liked how I felt when I did it. Strong and powerful and calm and like I'd done something good for myself, which technically I had but it was so enjoyable it didn't seem like I should be so happy with it. I've never really been good at the whole gym thing (especially classes) so knowing I can start this again is great.

I saw Stranger Than Fiction today, which you'll like if you thought Being John Malkovich or Adaptation were good (I did). It had a good mix of funny and sad (comedy and tragedy). I recommend it.

Meatloaf is in the oven and we're hanging out watching TV, so that's my post for the day.

Friday

I'm glad it's Friday. It has been one hell of a week. I'm tired and ready for a break.

After watching Grey's Anatomy last night, I'm not sure I could ever handle being a parent. Or, rather, a potential parent. One friend of mine had her baby three months early, and every day is a waiting game. Another friend is six months pregnant but has started having issues that require lots of rest and relaxation and very little stress. I witnessed my first of the legendary pregnant woman, hormone induced crazy crying jags the other day, which was amusing and sad all at the same time. Could I ever go through that? Probably I will one day, but it all makes adoption a really attractive option.

Then we went to see MHM's neices and nephews tonight and I realize that they're an insane brand of birth control but also really cute and fun. So who knows, I'll probably be a mom one day one way or another.

That's what on my mind tonight. I'm too tired for any more. :)

Why Movie Theaters Are Disgusting

I love movies, I really do. I love the big screen, and I love the big dark room where you and 200 of your best strangers hang out and watch in rapt silence as Harry meets Voldemort or whatever. (Why do I even try to make references when I don't know how to spell the names of the characters?) But lately I've been thinking a lot about my years of employment at a movie theater here in The South, and it sort of grosses me out that people go to see movies.

I was 17 when I began my first job as a uniformed movie theater employee behind a concession stand. After making the humiliating mistake of wearing a black bra under a white t-shirt on my first day of work (nicely planned!), I learned the first and most important task a consessionista will ever know: how to make the popcorn.

The popcorn machine was a double kettle monster that held at least 5 tall kitchen trash bags of popcorn at a time, and cranked it out at an alarming rate. It was also one of the most dangerous things I ever worked around. The popcorn would come pouring out all on it's own, but when it slowed down the whole top of the popper had to be dumped so that the bottom wouldn't turn into a scorched mass of peanut oil and seeds. The thing weighed around 30 lbs, and the only part you could grab without giving yourself 2nd degree burns was a badly placed lever with a plastic handle. Hot oil and popping seeds would coming flying out, and I swear that eye protection should have been a requirement of that job, for obvious reasons. It was not. The employees had an average age of 17 and made around $4.25 an hour. We were in highschool and never even heard of OSHA.

The other really horrible thing about the popcorn maker was cleaning it. It was all clear plastic and stainless steel, and usually everything was hosed down with a good coat of degreaser and left alone. But the kettle was a different story. Usually 2 people were put on cleanup for the entire contraption: one on the kettle, and the other on everything else.

This should give you some idea of what a bitch that thing was to clean.

The process would usually start with a good dousing of Easy-Off. Yes, the oven cleaner. Then, without gloves or breathing masks you would take an SOS pad and srub at the scorched oily mess, the metal still hot enough to burn. Think about that: metal hot enough to burn human flesh, and Easy-Off. What a great combination. What happened was that the cleaner would evaporate straight into the air and go straight into your lungs. And probably your eyes. You couldn't really breathe. And some sadistic manager would come along and tell you that you needed to get going, your shift was ending soon and they didn't want to pay overtime.

I'm not even going to get into the cleansing of the "butter" machines, drink machines, and storage room. Or how many days the hotdogs and nachos sat in their warmers. Or the pickles in a bag. That's another layer of grossness. Only part I remember hating when I actually did the job was the floor. You had to wear non-slip shoes for a reason, that reason being the oil from the popcorn that would get all over the floor to the point where after a month I would just slide from the register to the popcorn machine to the drink dispenser.

So, go to the movies and don't eat. Check. But what about the theaters themselves? YUCK. Typically girls weren't allowed to be ticket takers or theater cleaners, partly because guys were more threatening to the middle-schoolers trying to sneak in, and partly because of the horrors that had to be cleaned up (again, without gloves or anything) after NC-17 movies. Eeeeew!

Eventually I got promoted to the best job in the place, other than projectionist. I was the chick in the box office, who just took money, handed out tickets, talked to customers through an inch of bullet proof glass, and stayed in a locked room for hours. It was GREAT. I could bring my homework to work for the hour and a half between crowds. I was too niave at the time to care about the fact that it was just me between potential criminals and anywhere up to, oh, say $6,000, but so what? Nothing bad ever happened to me working in the box office. I really loved that job. Free movies (and Easy-Off laden popcorn, if I wanted it) and the power to decide which teenagers got to see the R-rated ones? The POWER!!!!

My favorite story about ticket sales was when a couple came up to the box office to get tickets to something R-rated, probably Scream. They were on a date and being all cute and luvvy-duvvy and it was getting on my nerves. I asked to see their ID. She was 18. He non-chalantly handed his over.
"Hmmm, you're 15. You can't get in to see this movie."
"WHAAAT!??" screamed the girl, "You told me you're in COLLEGE!"
"Baby! Wait! I can explain!"

Yes, the POWER!

What I have learned today....

Unfortunately, getting excited about politics when you are definitely on one side of the fence attracts a certain kind of asshole to leave rude comments. Therefore I have had to turn on comment moderation. Don't be offended. I just want this blog to be good instead of another place where I get all worked up over something.

The End.

Have a good day everybody!

Election Night

The excitement! I get weirdly wound up on election night, listening to the returns and the analysis and mostly just hoping PLEASE OH PLEASE LET THE DEMOCRATS WIN EVERYTHING! It hasn't happened since I started voting. Maybe this is the lucky year.

I gotta go glue my eyes to CNN and my ears to NPR.

May the best people win.

Soooo Noble

I love when I wake up early and actually FEEL like doing it. My Handsome Man left for home this morning after a really nice weekend of food and TV and walks and drives and general cuddly nestingness, which was lovely. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I was up at 5:45, cleaning up, making coffee, and generally enjoying the state of the world. I did some yoga (too cloudy for any S.A.D. benefit in my opinion, so I opened the blinds), caught up on some blog reading, and took a shower. I was wide awake and ready to GO! I love mornings like that.

I'm hoping I can carry that through to tomorrow morning as well. I want to get the voting over with early. I know who I'm voting for, and what issues I'm for and against. It'll be fun. I'm bringing the crossword puzzle book or something to get me through the interminable line. Early voting last week brought lines that I'd never experienced before, so I decided to just suck it up and vote along with everyone else.

I find it funny that the republican nominee for senate is putting out ads bashing the democrat, but the ads and just hardening my resolve to vote for the other guy. Less spending on missiles? Check. Abortion rights? Check. A good exit strategy for Iraq? Great. Gay marriage? Let's get on with it. It's going to be an interesting evening tomorrow. We'll have to see where DC is going....

So what's so noble about all that? Yoga at 6:30 in the morning, that's what!

Irritating

I sell books on Amazon.com from time to time, and today I was looking at my feedback scores. Why is it that when someone has a problem with my books or shipping they don't CONTACT ME and instead leave a not-so-nice review? It would have been simple to remedy the situation but no, they had to leave a bad score. That's so aggrevating!

Art Is About Making Connections, Not Distinctions

I miss being creative. Back when I was in school creativity was practically shoved down my throat. There were sewing and pattern making classes, design classes, historic costume projects, papers, research, tear-sheets, and illustration. I remember when I got to my 3rd year in fashion design and opened to a random page in Vogue and finally UNDERSTOOD what Tom Ford was trying to do. It was a big day. There was a time when turning in my inspiration notebook every 2 weeks was mandatory and there had better be something in it when my professor took a look. Once reading fashion magazines was actually homework, not just some light reading in the bathtub. I had to do an entire project comparing current fashion to historic influences, and I LOVED it. I wrote about how a tunic length top was inspired by medieval menswear, and how an entire Ralph Lauren spread was directly inspired by 16th century England. Why am I not in research?

My time in school made me realize for the first time that every creative process is connected. I say for the first time because it will hit me every now and then like it is a brand new concept. A few months ago it was layers. I was working on a textile collage and I was teaching myself to understand how the layers talked to each other. It was amazing how the colors and textures played together. And the same time My Handsome Man was talking about character development for a book in his head- all of the background. All of those layers. And then I bought a CD of Haydn symphonies and again, it was all layers.

Lately I have been forgetting to be creative, and I think it is part of why I get so stressed out. When I'm in a project, not just looking at it but living it, I forget the worries and the tensions of the day. Usually this happens when I'm writing or doing Sudoku puzzles (addict!), sewing or drawing, anything that takes up a whole concentrated section of my brain. When I was a teenager I would go through phases of writing, reading, sewing, viola, knitting, spinning... whatever it was, I was usually only focused on one thing for weeks at a time. Then I'd move on to something else. Now I supposed it feels like work takes up all of that energy, but that's not how it should be. What I do isn't really creative anyway, I think I just use it as an excuse to sit on the couch and watch TV.

I can't ignore the creativity, just like I can't ignore the daily walks. It is a part of me, and it's a part that has to be honored and respected, or I get grouchy and feel out of sorts. Nobody likes me when I'm like that- especially me.

Walked today! YAY!

Splooged On It

This is my fiance's quote of the night. Isn't he charming? ::Said with MUCH sarcasm::

So I didn't walk this morning. Whatever. I'll do it tomorrow, because, well, it's the weekend. And I'll have time. But who am I kidding? I'll probably stay in bed until noon catching up on sleep I can't ever seem to get. I like to say that I have insomnia but really I think I just read too much. :)

Look to the left and you will notice that the NaBloPoMo Yoda is actually there and LINKED. So the fiance is good for something- he has saved me yet again from the confusion of the internet and all it's potential pitfalls. Thank you!

Tonight we watched Battlestar Gallactica and I swear that show is getting more and more surreal. It's keeping me guessing, which is good. But at the same time I get confused whenever the Cylons get into the picture, particularly with Baltar and Six (whose name I can NEVER REMEMBER). I get when it's dream/fantasy sequences, because she's all hot and stuff, but I can never tell whose side she's on. Duh Heather, probably the whole point.

Not a heck of a lot to write about tonight really. More tomorrow, I need to come up with some good topics.

Fending off the SAD!

Today has been a much better day than yesterday. Yesterday was dark and foggy and rainy, which probably didn't help my mood at all. Today was sunny and clear and COLD, yow! But on the whole a much better day. Went to a faculty meeting, bonded with my boss, knocked out projects at work, and went shopping. I came home thinking, "Hey! This was a good day!" Tonight just happens to be Papa John's Night at my apartment complex ($6 for a large) so I have a pizza on the counter and I'm going to sit on the couch and ignore the world so I can watch Grey's Anatomy and basically veg. It's a good night for that.

Tomorrow morning I'm getting up early to walk. I'm supposed to be walking in the sun every morning to ward off the SAD (and I should have been doing it for the past 3 weeks, but the time change has caught me off guard this year). I learned this 4 years ago when I was seeing a therapist at school because I felt so blah and pressured and the panic attacks were averaging one every 2 or 3 days. I didn't want to live like that. I was terrified and all by myself and felt like I was dying. So the grad student I was working with helped me put together a few things which I still find valuable, even though I'm out of school and in a much more relaxed work environment.

#1 Change my self-talk to be kinder. I was really good at beating my self up (and MHM will tell you I'm still good at it) but I've gotten a whole lot better.
#2 If I stress out, things will get done. If I don't stress out, things will get done. The only difference is that one way I'll be calm and the other way I'll be miserable. I get to pick how I'll go about it.
#3 Make a list of things I can do when I feel panicked/overwhelmed. Take a bubble-bath, do my toenails, drive around in the car blasting the music, watch movies I love, read (anything), write, journal, sew, draw, design, play music (this was back when I still played), make something delicious. Just take it easy.
#4 Take a walk every morning in the sun before I go to work.
#5 Do things for me, not to please others.

It really helped then, and it will really help now. I just have to be reminded. HELLO HEATHER! Time to get into defense mode. Maybe since I have to blog every day this month I'll log the walks too.

(#6 Oh yeah, hitting the Bath and Body Works sale doesn't hurt either- has anyone tried the Brown Sugar and Fig body splash? I smell downright edible! Happiness for $5!)

PS Does anyone find it funny that the word "Blog" isn't in spellcheck on Blogger???

November

Hmmm... the time change is getting to me this year. I've always had a teensy (not so teensy) depression problem in the winter, but this week I seem to be having positively manic periods followed by lethargy and sadness. Fantastic.

It might be more to do with what is going on in my life rather than the weather and light/dark ratio.

The leaves on the road next to my office have turned amazing shades of orange and red and yellow. I always think I should take pictures of them, and somehow never remember the camera. I even find THAT depressing.

I need a tropical vacation. For the next 5 months. But I'd like to come home for Christmas.