You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
For one, I attained the long-awaited status of leaving the world of the 20-somethings. I have turned 30 and as much as it's JUST a number, I feel like I'm more of an adult now. I really can't say much more about being 30, except that I am yet another year closer to my dreams, my hopes, and my death. Not to be morbid, but I always grew up with a very intimate knowledge of my mortality. Anyways, I was wished a happy birthday by more people than have ever wished me such before and it really was quite a happy birthday, though I would like to have a few words with the owner of the restaurant my mother and I visited for lunch. I would like to also offer them the loan of How Clean Is Your House, open to the page about cleaning the grill. Nasty. But I got quite a few nice things, including a new camera and a book from my sister (Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, if you're curious). A friend sent me a large package with plentiful goodies. All in all, a very good day.
And then, fun and interest, I changed the colors of my blog. Now it's all purple and the little girl up on the bubbles is a little more appropriately dressed. I didn't realize that the fleshy part was not a blouse, it was her flesh. No, I'm not always very sharp. So I raised the collar, added a sleeve, and tried to fix her hair and face just a little. I may not have been too successful. Please don't look too closely.
I don't have pictures at the moment so instead, I offer a YouTube. Don't pay so much to the Kingdom Hearts II, it's the song that I love, performed by Moosebutter out of Utah. A good friend of mine has a brother in that group.
I dare you not to get this song stuck in your head for days after.
I won't make another rant, I'll just say that how I feel about Mother's Day is how I feel about Father's Day.
But I will say that my dad has always been a really good one. He always says that he's glad that I "came to his house", grateful that I was born to him and that has always stuck with me, even during the most troubled of times when I've seriously questioned my self-worth.
Being only human, we don't always get along, but I never question the fact that he loves me. To have a dad like him makes me one of the luckiest people in the world.
10 Ways the World Has Changed Since You’ve Been in School
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
1. Internet! When I started college, I got an email account on KU Telnet. It was kind of awesome and exciting and I had to use mom's office to access it.
2. Cellphones - I never had one until after my second kidney transplant. I had a pager up until before then and I would set it on vibrate and when it would go off, I'd always squeak because it felt just like a hamster digging in my pocket.
3. iPods - I had a tape player in high school, a CD player in college and then a MP3 CD player for a good while. I loved them all but my iPod has been the most awesome thing in the world. :D
4. TV - It used to be local channels. Then it was cable. Now it's satellite and flat-screens.
5. Grocery stores - Is it me or do most every one of them have a health food department now? Full of stuff made of soy and oatmeal and raisins and fake chocolate. I check it out for the sake of the tea.
6. Animated movies - I guess it's all CG'd now. Not that I dislike CG but there's something I like about cels and such.
7. Media in general - Increased violence and sexuality. I am pretty dang desensitized but even I get sick of seeing bedroom eyes and blood everywhere.
8. Kitchens - Flat top stoves SUCK. They just don't get hot enough. I like the ol' gas stoves. And then so many gizmos and gadgets! There's no room for half of these things I'm supposed to have to live day to day.
9. Health - It's all about being slender and no one thinks about the consequences of all these diet fads and how some of them just tear your body apart. Anything for the sake of "looking good", right? WRONG! Seriously, what on earth is up with this destructive attitude?
10. Cars - They're getting smaller and sleeker and give off water for exhaust. Neat!
...a friend who is willing to make sure your house doesn't burn to the ground/fly away to land on a witch while you're away. Thanks, Mary! You have no idea how often I will have little daymares of coming home and there's nothing left but smoke, sheetrock, and detritus. Or a pair of curled up stripey-socked feet under a corner, ew.
It's also-- A near-completed set of socks the day before the new and final Sock Madness sock pattern comes in. Ooh, Entrelac. P.S. Renji likes to snatch my knitting at times and work on it when I get lazy. He disapproves of projects going stale. I guess he's one for project monogamy. He does not approve of my other projects currently hibernating until Sock Madness II ends. But then again, he doesn't approve of much. Anyways, since it's gotten hotter, I have had less and less desire to actually knit. IN fact, I haven't been doing much other than running early in the morning, then studying my Continuing Education so I can renew my nursing license so I can get a job as a nurse again. I'll have to see if ol' Pioneer Ridge will take me back again. It wasn't a bad job and I liked the people, even if some of them got a little crazy-paranoid at the end. It was the management, though, that I took issue with. Like how the med-aides complained to me about someone making med-errors left and right with the narcs (it was just paper-errors, they were getting to the right people at the right time at the right dose and so on, it just wasn't getting documented properly). So I let my 'boss' know and she said I would have to address it with the person making the errors. I looked at her funny and said "But, isn't that *your* department?" Nope. I guess it was up to me to take this woman with a HUGE FRIGGIN' CHIP ON HER SHOULDER aside and tell her she needs to document her meds properly. Oh man, that was a drama. But she did straighten up on her narcs. Some people's children, though. Oy.
Oh yes, the other socks. The ones that I haven't Ravelried or documented.
There's the Hippy Dippy whateveritis socks that were done in STR Lightweight - Olive Garden and as I was knitting them IN CHURCH (hahaha I'm going to hell), I noticed something. Yeah, how on earth did I manage to coordinate my church skirt with my socks? WEIRD!
Shh, they are hiding!
And finally, the pretty leafy-type socks that got named Everything But The Kitchen Sink because it included many different techniques, including an afterthought heel, which I thought was quite clever and will have to use again. But there are no pictures because I used the wrong program to resize and pretty up the pictures and they went poof.
I was posting these on my Facebook but realized that this blog is getting dusty so I might as well enlighten you all as to the Marvel behind the Mask:
10 Favorite Time Wasters
1. Roleplaying with Briana. I could and have done it for hours and hours.
2. Knitting. Though I can't knit into the night, my attention span and focus slip away.
3. Reading manga online. Yes, I'm an anime/manga geek. Too bad.
4. Watching stuff. I found streaming MST3K, I'll watch that for a while. Or anime online because it's there. Or YouTube, or rain or Deadliest Catch or Iron Chef. Just...watching.
5. DeviantArt. I love seeing everyone else's talent unfold.
6. Facebook. Yup.
7. Writing, though I need to get back in the habit.
8. Reading - as I told Briana, I read like the books have an expiration date (though if they're library books, they actually do).
9. Messing with my hand/finger blisters. They're not zits but they're not burn blisters and I like to poke them because they itch.
