Rain

it’s a tea kind of day

You know those days where you just want to take your time, sip your drinks, nibble your food, lounge, leisurely stroll, and really just do things on your own time? I’m definitely in that kind of mood today. I made some black peach tea, and I’m working on my blog while still in bed. I should shower soon, and it will probably turn into a long one where you spend forever washing and rinsing your hair, just standing there as the water cascades down your scalp, lovely. The only potential problem with what could be a wonderful “tea day” is work, but I’m scheduled about everywhere today so I should be able to maintain my own speed. I might work some more on the dress I started on Monday, I don’t really like how it turned out so I need to fix it. I’d like to read some more too, I’m very into this new book I picked up from work, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson. It’s incredibly funny, and it’s just so “out there” and “weird” that it makes perfect sense to me, most of the time I mean I’m not that crazy right? It’s the kind of book I really enjoy, because it’s a whole new perspective on life and people and humanity. And it makes me laugh, and I mean all the variations of laughter: I’ve giggled, snickered, guffawed, gone into hysterics, and cried I’ve laughed so hard. Wonderful, wonderful book. I highly recommend it.

;

I fixed the dress. Now it is much nicer.

Sorry, I’m lost and drowning in my own sea of thoughts

What do I want to do?  I posted earlier about being ready for the next thing, and then all the crap that went down being an opportunity for that next thing to happen, so now I’ve come to the fork in the road where I must figure out what it is I want from this opportunity.  There has been a job opportunity that I haven’t looked into totally but has really gotten me thinking.  I’ve been at my current job for four years now, I enjoy it most of the time and I feel that I do my job well and I could have plenty of room for advancement if I so choose.  Mainly I love the people I work with, that makes the job for me.  This new opportunity would be more of what I like about myself and more of what I like about our society and people in general, kind of, that last part is a loose “like”.  I feel the corporate retail world is slowly eating away at my soul and I’m turning into an even more bitter and angry person.  But at the same time all this “damage” done by working away at my soul-less retail corporate job might be the one thing that keeps me from getting the new opportunity that would hopefully help redeem my soul and faith in humanity.  I might be giving these things a more dramatic emphasis then they deserve in reality, but in my mind it’s exactly how I’m seeing it.  Yesterday after hearing about the new opportunity I went to work as usual and immediately fell into a sad funk, I rang people up for, in my opinion, books that don’t help people get smarter.  Don’t get me wrong, I strongly feel that people have every right to read whatever they like, but some of the “crap” that is published and literally consumes their readers is just wrong.  There is so much good writing out there, intelligent writing, great stories, good morals and lessons to learn, wonderful and unforgettable characters to fall in love with.  But instead the literary world has turned into a cheap whore, pushing out as many cheap copies of the latest craze that will be swallowed up without a second glance.  I’m really not trying to sound like a book snob, and it’s not like I have the next great classic in my head somewhere, but I really do worry about the future of our society based on it’s reading habits.  This worries me that I won’t be good enough for the new opportunity, that my fours years of slaving away to the corporate tools, always trying to please the ever increasing ignorance of it’s customer base, will diminish my chances of what could be a better suit for me.  I know, I know, worrying is silly and useless, just go for it and give it your best.  I intend to, but it doesn’t help me from worrying.  It does start my mind racing on alternate life fantasies and other avenues not experienced.  For instance having time to delve into an ambition to have a garden, join a farmer’s market collective, make my own things, find a sustainable lifestyle that suits me, give back to the earth, and learn new things that have always interested me.

Picture if you will a sample scenario;

I’d start my new workday by waking early and taking Max for a brisk walk, then getting ready for the day and having my coffee of course.  Then I would drop off Max and my Grandparents as if he was a child spending time with his great-grandparents while I head to work.  This new opportunity is only part time, which is kind of wonderful in a liberating way in which it gives me the rest of the day to toil in my garden.  I’d pick weeds and water, and talk/sing to all the plants.  I’d get to work while Max gets much attention and love while returning that in spades, and then I’d get to be outside in the earth, using my hands to create life.  Plus all the time spent with my grandparents, and knowledge gained from them.  After my second “job” I would return home to make dinner and spend time with my sister and brother.  The second “job” would eventually turn into a way to make some extra money by selling the veggies and fruits of my love-labor, and hopefully branching out into organic home made soaps and candles, and any other products I could make for others to enjoy.  All of this would then lead to the inevitable opening of my own business, which would be a cafe, and offer very good simple coffee and tea, and very delicious self-made pastries from my own or local growers’ goods, and there would be shelves and shelves of my own books for people to browse and read, and there would be a patio for dogs, and of course Max would come to work with me everyday.  It would be my life’s ambition.  It would be me.

fail

I woke up this morning with motivation and potential pouring out of me like sweat.  We walked the dogs, I paid some bills, and took a shower.  My mom and I had some errands to run so we did those, and then I hit the energy wall.  I came home and took a two hour nap.  After I woke up and I thought I’d stitch together a dress I’ve been talking about and meaning to do for a while now.  I wanted to use up some fabric scraps instead of buying new fabric, bad idea.  I forgot I’m not much of a quilter, so when I had all my fabric scraps laid out and situated I realized two things; one being there wasn’t enough fabric there for the length dress I wanted and two, I suck at quilting and would never be able to sew all these pieces together into anything remotely resembling a dress.  So it got put aside again, until I buy fabric, which might be tomorrow, or next Monday.  Still wanting to do something with my time and not just sit around doing nothing, I started stapling together paper hearts from strips of paper I ripped out of an old book.  Then I ran out of staples.  I sat that aside until I could locate more staples and tried to upload some pictures to be printed and picked up for my mom.  The website wouldn’t acknowledge my location and bring up a list of places for pick up.  I logged out and went about trying to look up rental houses in a couple of places.  Obviously I was not meant to find out anything useful on the internet today because every site I visited refused to tell me anything of what I was looking for.  Anger shoved me away from those unhelpful websites and back to the photos, where finally I was successful in ordering my mom’s prints for pick up.  As far as crafting any more today, nah.  I think I’ll watch some Justified and/or Mad Men with my mom.

 

movie day

Most of my day was spent at the movie theater today. Which was awesome, a great way to escape my mind for a bit. I saw “The Cabin in the Woods” and an advanced screening of “The Five Year Engagement”. Joss Whedon is a genius and can do no wrong, and I don’t do scary or horror flicks, but I liked this. As far as rom-coms go “The Five Year Engagement” is fresh and original, great casting!
There was very delicious sushi and beer in between, making for a great trip to the movies. I think tomorrow is going to be a craft day, I want to sew a dress together!

Stress, Quiche, Cinnamon Rolls

When I’m stressed I bake.
And that’s my new gnome that my mom made me!

summer

Summer is here.  Not technically, or at least not according to the calendar.  But it’s here.  It will hit triple digits by the weekend.  People around the neighborhood are getting their campers and RVs out, cleaning them up, airing them out.  I get excited for them.  I remember summer vacation from school, being so ready for anything and everything.  We always took a trip, usually to Florida.  We drove.  It was great fun.  Wonderful memories of my family at the beach, in the ocean, freezing in the car because my dad had the air conditioning up real high so as not to fall asleep, and just all being together.

Summer also used to mean bonfires.  We’d have friends over every weekend, collect the trimmings from a recently fallen down tree, and sit out eating, drinking and talking all night over the fire.  Most of these would be impromptu and informal, others would be all out shin-digs.  We’d utilize our contraband road signs with flashing lights to mark the path to the bonfire pit behind the barns, we’d shake up enough bullfrogs to fill a five gallon orange plastic igloo cooler, and we’d have hot dogs, chips, and smores.

Summer vacation now, or have been for the last couple of years are still an event, just not as highly anticipated or a cherished one.  Since my family is broken up in two parts of the country our summer trip is a 1800 mile trek back home.  It’s fun in a crazy way.  We pack my parents, three dogs, and I in a vehicle and shove that full of suitcases and gifts (usually just thing that we’ve crafted or have collected throughout the year that’s been too big to mail) and drive out into middle America.  The homecoming is always fun but stressful and hectic.  Then we all just fall right back into our old swing of things, typical family time, as if half of us don’t live in the other part of the country and we only see each other once a year.  It’s reassuring and makes me feel grounded, like it’s where I belong more than anywhere else, with my family.  We fight and bicker and bitch, laugh and cry and smile, we are all comfortable and ourselves.

This summer will probably be different.  With the recent events that have pushed my family into making some complicated decisions our trip home might be one of necessity instead of leisure.  However it turns out to be, it will still be a great family memory of another summer vacation.

thoughts

My nail polish is chipping off. The whites of my nails are visible, reminds me of fingerless gloves.
The movie “The Descendants” isn’t as good as the book, but it was still really good. The book is just amazing.
I want to read.
I want to sleep.
I want to craft.
I want to fix things.
I want to solve the problems.
I typed have instead of want before, was I trying to tell myself something?
I want my hair to grow longer.
I want customers at work to stop being jerks.
Manners
Politeness
Courtesy
Things need to be thought out.
I need to act, now, do something, move forward.
Check on houses for rent.
Check on job opportunities.
Finances
Debt
Work
Family
Family
Family
Family
Family
Family
I love my family.
Family

jinx?

So you know how I was talking about being ready for that next big thing, and knowing that the universe or whatever will make it available when it’s time?  Well I either jump started it, or jinxed it, unless I’m having premonitions now or something, because the time for big, big, big decisions are coming upon us.  And when I say us, I am referring to my family.  Yesterday something major happened to my sister and it’s going to be the catalyst for some big changes, nothing is decided or has been put in motion as of now, but soon something will have to be done.  The end result will be a move.  A big move.  It was a terrible, terrible, horribly unfair and unjust thing that happened, and it’s hard not to be bitter and angry and want to exact my own justice right now.  But I do firmly believe that something great will come out of this.  That is the only thing that is keeping my family from spiraling right now.  So for that I’m very thankful.  I would like to say, to the universe, ‘hey, thanks for listening.  Um, maybe next time don’t punish my family in order to make change possible.  Thanks.’

Also my foamy toothpaste spit from brushing my teeth this morning left a silhouette of a heart in my sink 🙂 thanks again universe!

Quotes

I’m trying to narrow down my favorites quotes to two, for my first go round with the mixed media art projects.  I’m fairly certain I will use my favorite love quote:

“Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.”- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Now I just need to pick one other quote.  Some competitors are:

“If she was beautiful at rest she was doubly so awake.  Asleep she was a painting of fire.  Awake she was the fire itself.”- Patrick Rothfuss,The Wise Man’s Fear

“I was on the front porch, drowning a mouse in a bucket when this van pulled up, which was strange.”- David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

“Her voice was full of the frazzle and crackle of music.”- Rob Sheffield, love is a mix tape

 

An original quote would be perfect.  Maybe I should work on that.  I never feel as if anything I say is really that poignant, enough to create a quote out of it.  I’ll try that today, I jot down anything poetic or worthwhile that pops in my head.  Look out!