This just in... President Obama is an American citizen.

How did we not already know this? I mean come on, how many times has this been laid to rest? GET OVER IT.

That's all I'm saying about that.

What I really want to talk about is what I can't talk about. Or at least where I draw the line of personal but still public enough to share and too personal. Because right now I'm kinda stuck in limbo. I have things that I'm talking about in my personal life but sharing online is too personal. (And because I know someone out there is thinking it, still not pregnant. Just so we're clear.) So I kind of don't have a lot to talk about, but I do. It leaves me with writers block.

I know I've always been compelled to write, and I mainly write poetry apart from this blog. Although I don't write as much as I used to. I've been told I'm a really good poet who should seriously consider publishing, but I know a lot of poets are told that. I also remember in high school junior French class our teacher (Madame Case if you really want to know) asked all of us impromptu to write a short poem in English on the back of one of our pop quizzes. Our names were not on the pop quizzes as it was simply an exercise, nothing we were being graded on. And she drew mine out and read it after they were all passed to the front of the class. I only remember I wrote about how I could hear the mourning dove. She asked who wrote it and I raised my hand rather embarrassed as I don't like public attention. And I learned she loved it which made me happy despite the embarrassment. I tend to write sad poetry but I guess I think most all poetry is sad, so perhaps it's just my perception. Below is an unfinished poem that I love so far. Most poems I write fast, they just flow out but this one I know I want to get right, and it's taking its time.

Discipline

This is a practice of discipline

But I smell of a strange wind

Is this discipline inbounds?

A luminescent ray sloping down

This is a practice of discipline

But I feel like an unfound land to you

Umber and canary

Sights you’ve never gleaned

But my discipline is key

Necessitating cadence in hooves and sharps

The sun plays

On the burnt hills

Rolling and burning new pathways

While I am in a practice of discipline

Trying to wire myself back to you

I remember laughing at your complexity

Under arching my discipline

Becoming this strange wind

Losing the connection

Finding that you were across seas

Mistaken that you were in my beating chest

If you don't like Roller Derby, I don't know you.

So this weekend we went down and visited Isaac's parents whom we hadn't seen in quite a while. We stayed with Grandma like always and Susie Grandma and I went and got pedicures. This is one of the things I love the most. Whenever I go down Susie always treats us to pedicures and I love a French pedicure.

And then? Then that night we went to Roller Derby. Which is so much fun. Isaac's brother is one of the announcers for the Portland Rose City Rollers league.

My hometown team (apparently are the Rat City Rollergirls, which I knew, thankyouverymuch) was visiting and we had the privileged of watching four bouts between the two leagues.

I love the names, the costumes and the fun of it all. And it was a great time. If I remember correctly each league won two bouts and so they matched off evenly. I rooted for the Portland league (we were on their turf and Isaac's brother is one of their announcers) and Isaac rooted for Rat City. I tried to keep him quiet as we were sitting in the Portland section. He of course (and why I love him) didn't listen. Thankfully we didn't get beaten up.

If you need a good introduction to Roller Derby I would suggest the movie Whip It. Loved that movie.

And then we came home and crashed. We did all the little mundane things yesterday, you know cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, etc. Tired today and my left hip hurts. Apparently I'm old.

Random Thought

So you know how you think random things and then once you have your idea fully formed you think "that has to have happened to someone."

Like someone super gluing their hands to the bottom of a tray of cupcakes and going into the ER to get it removed and everyone eating the cupcakes. And the person getting the tray taken off their hands getting really mad that all their hard work just went to waste. Because they made those cupcakes.

Have these thoughts ever happened to you? Yeah, I didn't think so. ;)

Something good

I was going to write about honesty today but instead for now, something good. Because I always look forward to the positive.

I want these:

They (nervous system, they're also on etsy) said they would be available through their website in April. Well April's almost over and I can't find them but they're trivets. Love.

Phoning it in.

I'm sorry about such lame posting lately and I promise it will get better... But not yet. For today, a quote from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution last night.

"Sometimes in life you meet people that inspire you, sometimes you meet people that you want to inspire, and sometimes, you just want to stab yourself."

It makes sense in context. And also how I feel today. Friday should be better.

Also I have no happy pictures to post.

This post is a fail. LOL

Late

So today did not go at all how expected, but I'm okay with that. I'm reconciling.

I was told this morning by two different outside entities how to do my job... even though I did my job, in both cases. I had my trust betrayed today so I'm not sharing anything so close at work anymore. Well, I'm going to try really hard. I'm one of those people that is open and honest, almost to a fault and I assume everyone else is the same unless they blatantly aren't. I can forget that I shouldn't be so trusting. I had to take my computer in today because the imbedded camera stopped working, in a way and I found out last night. But I had to reschedule because the drama at work and too much work to do.

I eventually made it into the computer store today and even though I had two employees completely ignore me the three guys that helped me afterwards totally made up for it. Also my built in camera was an easy and cheap (read free) fix!

And some fun to make the evening better. Rainbows, cherry blossoms and daffodils.

Things I've learned

"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention". - Author Unknown

For some reason this quote popped into my head today. When I was younger (yes I know I'm not old yet, lest you point it out to me) I used to think this phrase was cool and spot on. But the older I get I realize that it's not. I'm not saying that I don't get outraged (tailgating me or when we're stopped in traffic practically kiss my bumper with yours, it ain't pretty) but I've learned to mitigate my responses.

I can thank my mother for this but I'm guessing also age. I think when we're all younger we tend to jump in with our emotions and only with age do we learn to wait and see.

I know that there are terrible things in this world and things that are amazing horrible going on. But I work on making the change I can. Being outraged isn't going to get me anything but high blood pressure and possibly a stroke. Also who is it helping if I'm walking around all the time pissed off about all the bad things in the world?

I think that we need to model the type of behavior we want to see in the world because how else are we going to get there? How else are we going to pass it on?

I'm not saying that I'm not pissy sometimes or pessimistic but this is why I make jokes. To help myself turn things around. The difference I try to make is a mitigated response, a better solution because I've thought about what I'm going to say and how everyone can benefit.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

Aaaannnnndddd, completely unrelated. Go check this out it is hi-larious.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/381487/april-12-2011/threat-level--rainbow

The No Good, Very Bad Day

So yesterday sucked. Not that there was anything catastrophic that happened just a lot of little obstacles that made my day much more difficult and they added up. (I'm writing this last night and therefore phrasing it in the past tense. Make sense? Moving on.) But we're not going to dwell on it because I already had a melt down last night at the grocery store and while getting gas. I called my mother in law (she said that it wasn't a meltdown) to help make it through. God, I love that woman.

So we're focusing on the good. Like this:

Which arrived yesterday (still talking in the past tense and it's still weird) on my front porch and made me a very happy girl. I've loved the smell and taste of watermelon jolly ranchers since I was a wee thing. And this is exactly like it.


And this:

Which is a dish I love and when I give myself into the process, cooking is relaxing. Whenever I buy scallops Isaac knows exactly what I'm going to make. :) So looking forward to lunch today.


And these:

Which helps me through on quiet days and rough evenings sometimes. And I have to confess that I finally made an honest woman of myself and bought them last night and stopped listening to her just on grooveshark. I don't know why I'm drawn to Christian music to lift me up but sometimes I am. I'm definitely spiritual and while I lean on Christianity because that's how I was raised I don't have any affiliations. But let me shatter your illusions because sometimes it's Britney Spears or Katy Perry that does the trick, but who's counting?

To settle a disagreement

So yesterday Noop (my coworker) and I were having a discussion as to which sport the term "box your ears" comes from because I was offering to give him cauliflower ears (I know, so generous of me, right?) due to the fact that he was sleepy at work and I knew that's just what he needed to wake up. I often offer to punch him in the kidney too (this is all in good fun which he also knows, because I'm not a violent person, really). I was lobbying for boxing because boxing is in the phrase, duh. He was adamant it was wrestling. We decided on a draw because I wouldn't concede because boxing is in the phrase, duh. So then I went back to my desk and Wikipediaed it and apparently he's right, damn it.

Boxing is in the phrase. This. Makes. No. Sense. So I need someone to appoint themselves the lobbyist to get this phrase changed. I don't care how old it is (the phrase that is), it needs to make sense. And because I'm too busy with working and too lazy other times to actually commit to it. Okay, I'll correct myself whom ever this person is needs to lobby for two phrases "wrestle your ears" and "rugby your ears", because apparently it also happens in rugby, NOT IN BOXING THOUGH.

If whom ever this person is is victorious in having the phrase changed I myself will change it on Wikipedia and thus prove I am right. Long after I'm sure, when we won't work together anymore and my point is so moot because he doesn't even remember the conversation. But I however, clung on just to prove I'm right. Because I'm like that. Tenacious. :)

So go tell someone you're going to rugby their ears and see what response you get. Let me know.

So weird I'm unique or so unique I'm weird... Which one is it?

Okay so I admit it, I'm kinda quirky. Weird crap makes me really happy. Like at work I have to make up charts from time to time and I have to use prong sets (see below if you have no idea what that means). Normally I get the cheapo's which are fine and it saves the company money, which is good. But sometimes? Sometimes Office Max runs out of the cheapo sets and then has to send us the safety prong sets at no extra cost. That makes this girl so freakin' happy that I horde them. No really, it's okay I'm also the only person who uses them. I just don't want them in the line of sight of others who see something nice and shiny and just want to take them for themselves just to have something nice and shiny. Yes I know I'm weird and no one else thinks like this. I'm okay with that.

I went to Target this weekend for some socks but they didn't have the ones I want but they had some mints I was looking for. So not disappointed. They remind me of the old Velamints once you get through the rough outer coating.

This weekend was hard because I didn't really get a break. I worked a Farmer's Market on Saturday and was so tired when I got home at 4pm I slept on the couch until Isaac woke me up to go to bed at 8pm. I was still so tired I slept until 9am Sunday morning. And then yesterday was just chores, but at least the house is clean and mostly put away. I think next weekend I'm just sitting on the couch, and this week I'm going to go to bed on time.

Ole!

So probably one of my favorite memories of playing with my brother Bryce when he was little was when we would play what we termed "Matador". (Sorry, Corey I don't know why we didn't play it with you. Maybe we did and you didn't like it. I don't think you've suffered much from all the other times we played with you though.) I have told this story to Bryce so many times that the memories that he has of it are my own.

I believe he was 4 or 5 and we had this really big living room (for some reason we would always play this in the living room even though we had a huge playroom downstairs) where we would stand him next to a wall. We would give him a cape or a small blanket that he could hold (and he was so willing to hold it every time, all grins and giggles) exactly like a Matador. Then Carrie Lindsay or I would get on all fours a little ways away from him (like a bull) and charge him. I believe we made bull sounds, but maybe not, it was a long time ago. As soon as we would charge, Bryce would drop what ever it was we gave him to hold and run away laughing. Only to immediately come back and ask us to do it again. I am mentioning this because occasionally it crosses my mind and it did last night so I thought "why not blog about it". Because you too if you have small children and are willing to play the bull can play this game. I know I will with my own children when I finally have them.

And as a side note, another game that I loved to play was when I was in high school and worked at a daycare after school was heads up 7-up. I watched 2-4 year olds and I loved every second of it. Teaching them to play heads up 7-up was quite possibly one of the funniest afternoons I've ever had. I think we kept at it for about an hour and a half (because they had the attention span for it, apparently they really wanted to learn it) and they still hadn't gotten it right by the time we ended. But in their defense they had majorly progressed to not peeking when someone touched their thumbs.

Okay so there you go. Good childhood memories and fun games to play with little ones.

Random Musings

So what do you call a Reuben with turkey? A Rachel.
What do you call a Rachel with Cheddar cheese? I don't know, and it was that or Muenster because I didn't have any Havarti or Swiss. It was really good even though I had some trepidation.

Just learned why trepidacious is not a word, because that's the word I was going to use.

I've watched two new (to me) movies lately. Eat, Pray, Love and Love and Other Drugs. Just realized and found it funny that they both have Love in the title.

Eat, Pray, Love made me kind of introspective and want to start meditation to help my anxiety. I'm kind of still thinking about starting the meditation and I saw it on Sunday. I'm thinking that's a good sign.

Love and Other Drugs I watched last night. It was really good, I'm contemplating watching it again tonight. Although if you've seen it did you find the part about her saying that she told a cat I love you kinda odd? I mean it was funny I know it's a joke but obviously I'm still musing as to how it pertains. Yup, I know I'm over thinking it but do you ever find moments in movies do that to you too?

Colo-ray-do

Yay! I went to go visit my parents and it was fantastic. It was so nice to spend time with them and play with Scout! Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of Scout. I don't really know how I forgot that...

I helped Lori learn how to knit in the round, assemble and put her project board up in her sewing room, and create some quilting square projects. We all watched the KU game where they were beaten (ugh, next year), skyped with Carrie, Keith and Eamon, and spent time together in the evenings (Dad had to work during the day). Lori and I went to Ouray for a day (pronounced you-ray) and for the last day I was there we drove up through the Colorado National Monument for which the weather was perfect. Lori and I tried to make 3(!) angel food cakes, none of which turned out. I made one last night at home just to prove I still could (it worked out just fine, dang elevation).

And now I'm obsessed with knitting ballband dishcloths. Lori was showing me all the dishcloths she has knit and I've always wanted to make ballband ones, so we both started that. And by obsessed I really mean it. I bought enough to make at least 5 but maybe 6? They go really fast. Picture below I just pulled off flickr to give a representation of what they look like.