Gratitute

I feel so amazingly grateful for everything in my life right now. I feel like I have to share some of this happiness, or it will come bursting out of me.

Things I am grateful for:

- this Christmas season. I have tried to make a more diligent effort to invite the spirit of Christmas into my life this year. I've been pondering what that first Christmas must have been like, and I just have to say, I'm kind of glad I wasn't Mary. :) It's just so amazing, if you think about it. The Son of God, choosing to be born as a baby in such a dismal, humble place. He could have been born in a palace, surrounded by adoring subjects. He could have had a queen or an empress for a mother. Instead, he was born into the most humble of circumstances. It boggles my mind. And makes me grateful.
- The snow. I don't love snow, and I'm traveling tomorrow and want the snow to go away quickly. But today it's beautiful.
- My wonderful warm house, with all the windows for letting in natural winter light.
- My fantastic and (occasionally) eccentric family. I love all of you guys. Thanks for being such an excellent support group, and letting me share this mortal journey with you.
- the opportunities I've been given. As crazy as I have been with school and Steve's work, and all that, it has been so great. Despite the rocky path that led me to where I am right now, I am so grateful that Heavenly Father is letting me do what I am doing. I love it. I know it's going to change soon, and that's great too, but right now I am happy.
- a functioning car. I still am amazed at how great it is to get in the car, turn it on, and start driving somewhere. We have not once had this car in the shop for anything more than an oil change. Considering the problems we had with my last car, this is like a miracle.
- Most of all, my wonderful, hard-working, handsome, unselfish, patient, eternal husband. I love him more at this moment than I could have imagined when we got married. It is so wonderful to have someone I can trust so much, that brings so much happiness and peace into our home. I love you, babe!

The end.

P.S., I am also about to go to the library for the first time in months. Color me excited!

the end ... of the semester ...

Several words come to my mind, but when I try to articulate them, they just come out blegh. I'd forgotten the level of stress associated with the end of a semester, and it is much worse as a grad student than an undergrad.

I think I'll go drown my sorrows in a glass of milk before I embark on today's projects.

We are sitting here trying to decide what to say ...

We've been gone a lot. Steve says we had a whirling dervish of a Thanksgiving. Last weekend we spent in Logan with my sister and Steve's brothers, celebrating with ham and a delicious blackberry cobbler. We came back on Sunday so that Steve could go to work on Monday. I was off school all week, which should have meant lots of homework, but instead meant lots of goofing off. On Thursday (Thanksgiving) we drove out to my parents' house to eat dinner with them. It was very quiet, but nice. Friday my sister came with her four children, and suddenly it became less quiet (but no less nice). We stayed until Saturday evening.

Today we spent a couple hours putting up the Christmas tree and lights. I love having a Christmas tree in my house. There's something so . . . festive and jolly about it. Now if only my kitchen were clean so I could feel relaxed.

I am reading the Book Thief. Has anyone read it? It seems like the kind of book where I will need to discuss it when I'm done.

Anyway, that's probably all. Live long.

A couple of poems

I have been writing farm poetry.

I know, that's a little weird. But I got the ideas in my head and I can't get them out without putting them on paper. As they are turning out kind of fun, I thought I would post two on here.

Here's #1:

Barn, Just Outside the North Door, January, 3 A.M.

If . . .

you open the refrigerator

(shield your eyes, the light is blinding)

and crawl inside, scoop up your limbs

and deposit them

right next to the half-full gallon

of raw milk, rest

with your head pillowed on leftover potato salad,

dip your fingers one by one

into the ranch dressing

(lick them quickly, don’t make a mess)

If you stay there until the roast beef starts to smell and the cheddar is

bemolded . . .

You will still never be as cold as this.

And #2:

Cat Poem

My father is a cat.

Nocturnal –

out at night, bringing home

dead mice and too-large pidgeons.

Sleepy –

sunbeam yellow, moves when the sun moves,

a twitch, a twist.

Musical –

bass voice, yowls on the fence with perfect pitch and perfect rhythm.

Itchy –

head scratching, asks us to dig in a little deeper, a little higher.

Solitary –

Works alone. Likes it.

I sigh in the warmth

of his purr,

his careful

compliments

(so different

from my

mother’s

radiant

tongue,

dripping

a pool

of love

for me

to rest in)

run their

tails

across

my knees,

shiver

me

like

whi-

ske-

rs.

What do you think?

Monthly Update

Many times I tell myself I'm going to blog more often, but it just doesn't happen. There you go, I guess.

Now that I'm here, I don't even know what to say. I guess I could write an update of my weirdo life. I have two weeks of school left, which is bizarre. Still have to write two mondo papers, but other than that, I'm feeling fairly comfortable in my standing.

I am also doing a bunch of music stuff. I played for the Messiah sing-in solo auditions (all the bass arias). I have one voice student I am currently accompanying for, and I am going to add at least one instrumentalist as well. I love accompanying, and it's nice to have something besides English to do. I've also been invited to play for Into the Woods, ISU's spring musical, starting in January, and I'm very excited about that. It will keep me busy like you can't believe, with that, the class I'm teaching, and my own coursework. Oh, yeah, and that little becoming-foster-parents thing. But it will be good. All of it.

I have so much I could say, but I really just want to get something posted, and I need to leave in about a minute for a German study group. So this is it for now.

from my office

I'm writing this from an office space I share with five other TAs. Two of them are here right now, being much more productive than I. But that's okay. I have done an alarming amount of homework this week, and I still have so much to do this semester. Scary, really, how much I have to do. I gues that's the price of not having to go to work every day.

Steve has been in Minnesota or Utah for almost a week now. I begin to forget what he looks like! But he will be home tomorrow and that makes me so happy. It will actually be a little weird having another person in the house. I have gotten used to talking to myself and Frank, the mouse that lives in our kitchen.

Last weekend I got to go to the Jackson Arts Festival, where I passed out wine, sold posters, and played Vanna White by showing artwork at an auction. It was so much fun to hobnob with some professional artists. They were interesting, and their artwork was fantastic. They only had 90 minutes to draw/paint/sculpt the works they auctioned off. So cool! I hope to do it again next year too.

a Short Post

Just wanted to let everyone know we are alive!

I started grad school last Monday and so far it is pretty fun. Lots of work. Lots and lots of work. Also Steved has been transferred to the Preston branch of his office, so he commutes down there and stays in Logan a couple days a week. It has been weird to be apart. We're not accustomed to spending much time apart. But I am spending so much time doing homework, and he is working such long days, it's actually okay.

Anyway, that's all

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A Thousand Words

(If you don't get the title, look at the title from the last entry)

I have so much on my mind today, and I keep trying to find a place to get rid of it. I suppose that place is my blog. If you get bogged down and don't finish reading, I don't blame you. That may even happen to me. :)

My life is changing quite dramatically in the next couple weeks, and I feel a little freaked out by it. I haven't been in school in more than 3 years (with the exception of one online class). I also am at a point where I love my job. Really love my job. My troublesome coworker is gone, and everyone else is just amazing. I love the patients, I love my boss, I love getting to feel like I'm doing something important. I have four days of work left, about 20 hours, and I honestly feel like crying. I don't want to leave. Isn't that weird? I mean, it's not like it was a career. Some days I hated it. But it's just going so darn well right now.

I have learned something about myself while working here, though. You know how they have those things where you make a list of what's important to you professionally? Like, is it important to make a lot of money or stay in a particular location. Whatever makes you happy about the work you're doing. So here's mine: I have to be doing work that helps other people, and I have to be able to improve upon what I'm doing. If I have those two criteria, I can be happy at my job.

That said, I am super excited about school. I have 18 more days, which doesn't feel like very much. I am nervous to be starting graduate work. In fact, I dreamed last night that my first graduate course was actually a high school level English class, and the kids didn't like me and my teacher was angry to have a graduate student in his class. As I'm doubting that's actually how it's going to go, I will ignore that dream. I am excited to be back among my own kind (that is, the all-I-do-all-day-is-read variety). I'm excited to be accompanying again over in the music department, and I'm excited to be back in the writing center. I really hope I like teaching college, because otherwise this whole going-back-to-school thing is going to work out rather poorly.

Yesterda, I also received yet another rejection from an agent for my book. The first one just about killed me. I moped for days. But now it's fine. My goal is to get 188 rejections. So I only have 183 left to go!

I'm also writing a song! I've never written a song from scratch before. It's not very easy, I've discovered. It is written from the point of view of one of the Roman soldiers who crucified Christ. Steve and I sat down and wrote the lyrics one long Sunday afternoon, and now I'm in the middle of writing the accompaniment. The melody is done. When I finish it, I will try to record it and put it up here.

And I'm working on editing a couple of projects. One is Mom Yerka's book, which I promise I'm working on! The other is my friend Jess's. Both are great, but I am excessively slow. Sorry. Someday soon you'll both get some notes from me.

To top all this off, my little brother is getting married next week. I am so proud of him, and I just love my almost-sister-in-law. But it is weird to think of him with a wife. We are hoping to go camping after the wedding day for a couple days, but we're having a hard time finding anyone who can join us. If you're free that weekend, let us know!

Anyway, love to all!

P.S. Only 660 words. :)

Fifteen thousand (plus) words to describe a few weeks

An anniversary display for my parents. I made the bunnies.

This has a funny story to it, but don't worry, no one was hurt, and the motorcycle survived.

Steve's awesome scrabble game. Do you see that score? It's amazing.

Hiking up City Creek in Pocatello. We ended up with some spectacular sunburns.

Standing at the brink of Lower Falls in Yellowstone. Hopefully you can't see the fear in our faces. Neither of us likes heights. :)

Baby buffalo! They were so cute, in a humpbacked sort of way.

Lake Altura in Sun Valley, Idaho. This is where we stayed on Sunday night. Just us and two other campers, and all this beautiful lake.

Hiking up 4th of July Trail in Sun Valley.

There was a lot of snow up the trail still, which turned out to be good, because we didn't bring enough water.

The closest I've ever been to a deer. It was very exciting.

At 4th of July lake. We look awful, but we had just hiked a ways on almost no sleep. ;)

This tree was awesome. It was impossible to pass up sitting on it.

Piano Teaching Blog

Please check out my piano teaching blog: pocatellopianoteacher.blogspot.com. I am hoping to get a few students here, as I miss teaching piano! Thanks.

Pictures (at last)

My bunny! I made the whole thing, including the dress. Check out the puffy sleeves, because they were by far the hardest part.



Our garden plot! We dug the whole thing by hand with shovels, rakes and a hoe. Now we will both have blisters on our hands for a few days. But hopefully we'll get some good vegetables out of it.

A Hobby Spree

For the last couple of months I have been working on a sewing project that is almost done. Honestly, I could have finished the whole thing in a week, but I have to take lots of time to agonize over my lack of skill and the difficulty of the project. Once I get done agonizing, the projects usually go pretty fast. With any luck, I will finish this tomorrow and get pictures up here. It has been very fun to do. I don't, as a general rule, consider myself a crafty person. I'm better with words and food then sewing and color-coordination and stuff. But my mother is beginning to rub off on me, I guess, because I found myself spending too much time deciding between colors of fabric. And I liked it!

So how many hobbies does this make for me? Let's see . . . writing, reading, computer games, cooking, yard work, games, movies, organizing, traveling . . .

Well, huh. I just don't have time for a job! Any great suggestions on how to quit my job but still bring in just as much (or more) income? Oh, right, get my book sold. Working on it . . . Sometimes . . .

Enough rambling. Time to go start planning my garden.

Recent Happenings Part 2

I received my Idaho Social Work License


Diane and I went cross country skiing.

Recent Happenings

We have been busy with the puzzles!


This puzzle is a 3D hologram, so it was quite challenging. It is also the reason for the "foggy" look.

Yesterday

I sewed my very first piece of clothing: a jumper for an 18 inch doll. Now if only I had an 18 inch doll to put it on . . .

One more new thing

My first rejection letter. Sadness!

New Things

Here's what's new:
-Writing 2011. It looks weird. I spent a whole afternoon writing 1-11-11 over and over again. Strange. (In my defense, it was for work, not just randomly.)
-Interacting with some wonderful older people who make me excited to be old even while I'm terrified of all the medical conditions I see all the time.
-Applying to graduate school. Okay, so it's not really new, since I did this a couple years ago and Steve did it three years ago. But I hope to actually get accepted this time, which will be new for me!
-Submitting my writing. I have three short stories I'm submitting to writing contests, and a completed novel I'm trying to find an agent for. Scary, exciting, and, with any luck, potentially lucrative. (Just kidding, I'm not quitting my day job. But hey! Any profit is better than no profit.)
-Steve making dinner (chicken enchiladas!).

I found a great quote in a conference talk this morning. "We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day." So I'm trying it today. It's working well. I have no guarantees about tomorrow.