The Super Bowl will be here Sunday- This weekend was beautiful- but starting tomorrow night an "arctic front" is moving in.  Looks like it will be a wintery Super Bowl this year.  Snow, sleet, ice and temperatures in the teens.  Ah Texas- if I were feeling more creative I'd write an ode to your wacky weather. 

I don't understand where all my time goes.  Thank you Jesus that I don't have a 9-5 type job.  How would I accomplish anything?  Not that I accomplish much now.  It's bed time already and I only accomplished one thing off my "to do" list! 

Pooh.

I'm going through some old work emails- I seem to forget that I actually have a work email address most of the time:  I found this little jem.

"Hi Shannon Petrson

I wish you and your family
hoppy knew year
with my best wishes
Rashed"

I Love It.

About a year ago I started making a baby blanket.  It's not for anyone- I wanted to try out a pattern, and I happened to have 8 balls of baby yarn that someone gave me.  I would never have picked this yarn.  It's sort of old fashioned looking, and a little bit scratchy.  Maybe the scratchiness will go away when it's washed the first time.  It's baby blue and white variegated with a silky thread running through it. 
The pattern is called a pin wheel blanket.  It's a circular blanket with ten sections radiating out from the center.  I've made several mistakes, but I figured this my practice.  I think I'll try again with yarn that I really like.  I saw some at the store the other day- I want it, it's cheap, but I told myself "Don't buy it!  You don't have any more space for yarn in you closet!"  I might have to buy it anyway.  I hate it when I see a yarn I like, I don't buy it because I don't need any more yarn, but later, when I want to buy for something specific, it's gone. 
The blanket is almost finished!  I'm working on the border now.  It will take a while, but I think it will look pretty cool.  That's a 1+ year baby blanket.  I must be the slowest knitter in history!  Finally finishing up has put me in the mind to buy more needles to make another one. (A bigger one.)  Of course the needles I want cost $140.  They seem to be made out of gold . . .  No just kidding, it is an interchangeable set of 8 or 10 pairs of needles and cables that hook them together to make big things like circular blankets. Some day . . . It will be me and a mountain of yarn and my fancy needles.

I only want a little vengeance.  And maybe to scratch my eyes out for the dramatic quality of the performance.  No lasting effects please.

Sadly, my purse smells like a fish.  One of my fish oil caplets burst in there and now I feel like I'm carrying around an aquarium each time I look in my purse.

Resolution 1: Make some good resolutions
Resolution 2:  Finish Bible Study before Monday each week
Resloution 3:  Prepare for classes before they start :)  (Me?  Unprepared? No, I'm just spontaneous!)

I'll keep thinking- it's a start.

I just finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  When I started it everyone said, "you won't like that!"  "It's so violent, so graphic . . ."  blah blah- terrible, horrible, no good, very bad . . .  Well, I finished it for the same reason I started it, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.  It seemed like every one was reading it, talking about it, talking about the movie about it . . . so I read it.  It was ok.  Not horrible, not terrific- just ok.  I wonder what got everyone so worked up.  I understand that there are two more books that continue the story and that there is some mystery as to the fate of the author and the manner of this death . . .  I suppose I'll read the other two just to see what the fuss is all about.

In other news, no classes tomorrow!  Yeah MLK Jr!

Someday I'd like to have a kitchen big enough to accommodate both a toaster oven and a conventional toaster.

I haven't made my new year resolutions yet.  Some times it takes a while to think of something I might really want to commit to.  I'm considering one to be Finishing my unfinished projects- but there has to be more, I mean I have a lot of unfinished projects.  I finished two of them today (Yeah for me!)  There's another on my dinning room table, two on my sofa, two on my chair, about 6 in my foot stool and three or four in my closet.  Those are just yarn projects,  I have fabric projects, photo projects, drawing projects, writing projects, work projects, etc.  I expect that if I became agoraphobic and could never leave my apartment again it would not be a problem at all since I probably have enough projects to keep my busy for the rest of my days.

Time for bed.  I've been very tired this weekend.  I've been sleeping 10 hours in the night (and morning) and getting up, not because I felt refreshed., but because there is some shame attached to staying in bed all day for no good reason at all.  I've clearly overcome any stigma attached to staying in the house and wearing my pjs all day- but with out any clear health reasons, I feel like I really should get out of bed.

I hope to finish my weekend project tomorrow, which is a brain bag.  It's a little make-up sized bag with brain wrinkles all over it.  I'll post a picture.  I hope it will make me happy, as I'm making it for myself.  I saw a picture of one someone made on line and I decided I could make that too.  The wrinkles are mostly done.  Now I just have to figure out how to put a zipper in a lined bag.  I can do it.

This will be the year of the rabbit (on February 3) according to the Chinese Zodiac.  For me, however, this will be the year of the sea creatures!  SEA CREATURES!! Kracken- a fearsome monster of old.  Leviathan- again fearsome- monster- old.  The  Lock Ness Monster . . .  Yes, lock monsters too.  Not just monsters though, fish and crustaceans  and  octopuses etc. which sometimes look like monsters, but are in fact just homely.  Yeah!

I'm reading Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy.  I have always really enjoyed Hardy in the past, but honestly, reading this book is like punishment.  It's so bland and preachy.  It's one of those books you want to know what the story is without actually having to read it.  I only have about 120 pages left, so I'll finish. It is a very forward (for the the late 1800s) indictment against church and the institution of marriage.

To console myself on this punishment of bad Hardy, I've also started reading Coraline.  I watched the moving thinking it was going to be a cute kid's movie.  It was actually pretty creepy.  The book somehow seems less creepy, but I'm not yet half way through and I don't really remember all the movie.  It is interesting to me that the title character is never physically described.  A few times the author has described her clothes in detail, but not her person.  I like it.

I got a Kindle for my birthday and have really enjoyed it.  I didn't have a complaint until last night when I couldn't read it because the battery was dead.  Well, it is true, a real book never needs to be charged up.  It is also true that I can't carry around 50 paperbacks like I can in a Kindle.  I could probably carry around 800 paper backs in my Kindle- but I don't want to brag.   :)

Santa, Yoseph and me!

Was it only yesterday that I went to the closing ceremony for the Fall semester 2010?  It's been a good semester.  Easiest semester ever.  Starting in January I'll have real classes to teach and real prep work to do.  For the closing ceremony D dressed up like Santa and I dressed up like Santa's fiancée.  (I didn't have the time or resources to prepare a costume for "Mrs. Claus" so I was some kind of elf or consort or something.  I don't know.




I decorated for Christmas today.  It's pretty minimal.  While I love Christmas and Christmas decorations, I'm sort of lazy about decorating.  I'm usually not where I live for actual Christmas, and I don't usually have many visitors.  I don't really have that many decorations, and I have so much other junk that would need to be put away . . .  I just scatter a few of my favorites around and call it done.

One of my favorites is the 'Elf on the shelf.'   Although I always thought of him as the 'Elf in the Tree.'  We had one when I was a kid, and he always sat right in the middle of our 3 foot tree.  A few years ago I saw one just like the one we used to have and I bought it.  A few years after that I saw the book Elf on a Shelf.  Apparently this little guy is a spy in a network of Santa's spies letting him know who's been naughty and nice. Yes, he's sitting between pumpkins and near a crazy-eyed Santa.

One of my new favorites is this Mexican nativity.  I bought it a few years ago on a trip pk and I took to visit uncle bk.  I hadn't put it out before so it was still wrapped in it's Mexican newspaper wrapping.  I was surprised to find a tiny plate of tacos included in the package.  Ummmm . . . a gift from a Mexican wiseman?

Plate of tacos on left.

The set seems to include four wisemen and one wisewoman or maybe it's three wisemen, and a well-to-do shepherding couple.  I divided them into groups of the latter description.  I like how the shepherd guy on the near right looks like a Conquistador.

Military dining halls with bible quotes on the walls? Beyond inappropriate. I still don't understand how this happens in a nation in which church and state are supposed to separate. How do they get away with this?

Where Did God Go in Afghanistan? An Atheist Writes. | Project Reason

I saw this on a facebook post.  After I read the link, my first thought was, "Ah, life is hard, then you go to hell."  I know, beyond inappropriate!  This is why I keep a blog.  I suppose there's no way to deny this blog is mine at this point.  :0)

1001

So a few weeks ago D go stung on the head by a wasp in the kitchen.  Strange, but I didn't have alot of sympathy- I mean, it was just a sting.  He said it hurt alot.  I thought he was being a baby.  I also thought it was kind of funny that he had a wasp problem in his kitchen.

Turns out there is a sizable nest in the wall between the brick and the drywall.  This is bad news, as it's pretty hard to get to them.  Additionally, every time anyone opens the cabinet under the sink or the dishwasher an angry wasp flies out.  I was cooking a few days ago while D was doing the dishes.  He likes to use the dish washer as a drying rack.  Every time he opened the dish washer another wasp would fly out.  Usually they go straight for the light and get stuck in the fixture.  I didn't worry about them.  I hadn't been stung by a wasp since I was about 9.  Daniel, however, was quick to get out of the way when the wasps got close to him.

When we were finished in the kitchen we took our food and went out to the living room to watch baseball.  After my second bite I felt something prickly in my shirt.  I wacked it through my shirt, but not hard enough, the wasp which had sneaked into my shirt stung me about two inches below my collar bone just under my neck.  Maybe it stung me a few times, or maybe I'm slightly allergic to wasp stings.

First the sting well, it stung; then it was sort of sore and swollen.  I expected it to hurt some, but it hurt all evening and I even took some pain killers to tame it.  The next morning it was very red and about 2 inches in diameter and slightly raised and VERY itchy.  I tried not to scratch it because it was still a bit tender, but I had to rub it sometimes it was so itchy.

That afternoon D told me he had been out spraying the wasps and he got stung again on the back.  He told me how big and sore his sting was.  I told him mine was big and sore too.  He said it wasn't like his, that his was terrible.  I thought that must be pretty bad so I said, "let me see."  His sting looked like a large mosquito bite, red and about the size of the tip of a pinky finger.  So I showed him my giant, inflamed, crazy itchy sting site.  He said, "Well, at least it's not swollen like mine."  If I had a stinger I would have stung him myself for that remark.

Today the tenderness is gone, but the itchiness is full on.  In my last apartment I used to get 'mystery bites.'  I would get very similar looking marks on my legs, they weren't tender, but they were big and super itchy, but I never knew how I got them.  I figured it was a spider near my bed or something.  Maybe I was getting bit in my sleep.

These bites are so itchy that sometimes when I scratch them I feel like I know how dogs feel when you scratch them and they start thumping their legs and get that dazed look . . . like they are high or something.  Some times I scratch and it feel so good I almost don't mind how annoying the itchiness is.

This is my 1000th post!

10/10/10

A few weeks ago Daniel said, “You want to go to the pumpkin patch and get a pumpkin this year?” 

That was a strange suggestion from him, but I DID want to go to the pumpkin patch and get a pumpkin, so I decided to roll with it. On Thursday or Friday Daniel said, “Are we still on for the pumpkin patch? You want to do it Sunday after lunch?” I said, “sure.”

After lunch we headed just down the street to Gnismer Farms to pick my pumpkin. As soon as we pulled in I could see there was a problem. The pumpkin field was barren, desolate, plowed under, not a darn pumpkin in sight.

“What!? No Pumpkins!?"

This was a serious let down because for real, I wanted a pumpkin. Daniel said, “Well, let's go talk to the farmer and see if he has another field.”

The farmer said, “Oh yeah, sorry- all the pumpkins are gone. We had caterpillar problems this year, and what we did get in were all bought up the first weekend we opened.”

Blasted  caterpillars . . . 

Then Farmer Gnismer helpfully suggested we explore the corn field maze. I grumbled about it for a while. “I don’t know, maybe we should just go find another pumpkin field . . ."   

Daniel said, “Well, let’s try it, since we are here.” 

I said, “Fine.”

The farmer's wife was very encouraging about the corn field maze. 

She said, “Oh yeah, it will be fun, you’ll love it! We’ve hidden clues all over the field, you need to find all of them, then when you come out we’ll give you a quiz.”

So- in we went to the corn maze, the maize maze. The corn stalks were tall, but there wasn’t any actual corn on them. We started walking and finding clues- and if I have to take a quiz, I’m writing the answers down, so I got out my pen and my note pad and started my list: “Corn, sorgum, green chilli, Illinois, night shade, grass, curcubic, green” when we got to “Ichabod Crane” I saw we were near the exit and I said, “We can’t go out yet! I don’t have all the clues!” 

Daniel said, “OK! But at least get these clues and we’ll turn around and go back in.” 

So I went to the next “clue” which was on a bigger tag than the rest of the clues and read, “Shannon"  I thought that was funny, but I got out my pen anyway, then I read the rest of the sentence, “Will you marry me. – Daniel” By the time I’d figured that out Daniel had moved in front of me and had knelt  down with the ring box. 

He asked some question and I said “YES!” He asked another question, I said, “YES!” to that one too.

I only vaguely remember that the questions were something like, “Will you be my pumpkin for ever?” and “Will you marry me?” Whatever- I already had the question in writing in my hand- YES! (He had planned on being in a pumpkin patch and asking me to be his 'corn on the cob for ever' doesn't have the same ring to it, so he stuck to the pumpkin plan- of course I had no idea at the time.)

When I looked up there was the farmer with his camera and all the people who had gone through the maze ahead of us. They had seen the sign and were hanging around to see what would happen next.

Someone asked if I cried; I didn’t because- a proposal in a corn field was a bit surreal . . . on the way in I was thinking about Children of the Corn, and that scene in X-files where they are running through the corn fields .. . . not about rings and proposals.

The farmer was super excited and after he had taken the pictures he cut off my “clue” and gave it to me. Then he cut off the top of a corn stalk and gave it to me as a memento- he also asked if I wanted a corn bouquet- but I declined.

Daniel had planned on writing his message on a pumpkin so that I could find it in the field. But when he went to the farm on Friday he found out about the caterpillars and the lack of pumpkins, so he and the farmer and the farmer’s wife made this plan . . . 

Daniel said he thought I was going to figure out what was going on because he had the ring box in his pocket and he thought I’d ask him about it (because I’m pretty curious) but I never noticed- I was concentrating on the pumpkins, and the corn clues. 

 The only strange thing I really noticed was that had tucked in his t-shirt and was wearing a belt to go to the pumpkin patch. Sort of formal for a pumpkin patch, I was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Zombie chick.”

I told him later that I should have known he was up to something because the date was 10/10/10 and he’s all about the numbers. He said he had originally planned to wait until Halloween, but he couldn’t pass up 10/10/10 as a once in a life time date.  Also apparently 101010 in binary code = 42.  42 is the answer to the question to of "Life, the universe, and everything."  42

My ring is custom designed and made. Daniel bought the opal 10 years ago thinking to use it as an engagement ring. It has 4 round white diamonds and 3 marquee blue diamonds. The third blue diamond is on the palm side of the band. There is a scrolled heart and our initials on each side of the back diamond. There are 8 stones all together because we met 8 years ago.

behold

the weinermobile

I was feeling sad today- so far the week has been going poorly.  Monday I forgot to go to work, Tuesday I called to see if the agreement that I didn't have to go to work today was still on in light of Monday- to be informed that I had that wrong too- that I was supposed to come to work today for sure because the Assistant Director had the 14th and the 21st on her calendar while I had the 5th and the 28th on my calendar for days off.  Strange . . . it doesn't seem like me to schedule days off so close to each other- I usually try to spread them out.

The more I thought about why I would have chosen those dates and written other dates on my calendar the more irritated I was with the situation.  I decided to look up the email to see what went wrong.  I learned I had said the 5th and the 28th- I don't know where the 14th and the 21st came in.  Uhg- clearly none of  us has very good memories.

Witch shoes

It looks like I have long legs (and cute shoes!)

Anyway, on account of being upset about Monday and Irritated about today I did what any sensible woman would do- I went shopping.  I also did what any poor-sensible person would do- I went to the thrift store.  I didn't expect to find anything good, but I found two pairs of shoes and a jacket that made me happy.  One pair of shoes is for Halloween.  I'm going to be the Good Witch Glenda.  I've got the dress, shoes, wand, jewelry and the glitter, but I can't find what I need to make the crown.  The crown is the best part- I'll look for the rest of this week for the plastic sheeting I need, but I might just have to buy a crown.  That would be too bad, but a girl needs a crown to be a good witch.  The shoes I got are pink-low-healed-pointy-toed-mules with  buckle!  I would never buy such shoes for real purposes, but as I already have them for Halloween, they may grow on me.  It's hard to explain.

The other pair of shoes are red Mary Janes with a gold buckle and tiny heals.  So cute!

The jig up at work- they're on to me!  I had the easiest job in ever, for about 8 weeks.  Well, take them as they come, I say.  Easy come easy go.

For the past 6 weeks I've just had to show up for the majority of my work hours- ok there was some button pushing, some watching students push buttons, and a little bit of reading involved, but nothing outside of the work hours, which in absolutely heavenly as a teacher.

They just put it all together and decided that it doesn't take someone with a master's degree to push buttons and do a little bit of reading. (ie they don't have to pay the amount of money they are paying me to push buttons and watch students push buttons.)  Bother.

To top it off I forgot to come to work this morning.  Dang it all!  I was supposed to fill in for the Assistant Director this morning, but I TOTALLY forgot.  I showed up 20 minutes before my class, looked at my calendar and realized I was 40 minutes late for the class I was supposed to fill in for.  I went to the class and all the students were just sitting there, at the computeres- watching Youtube, writing emails, etc.  One said, "We have been alone."  So I went in and told the Director that I'd messed up.  He said, "Well, that just goes to prove that we don't really need anyone for that time slot, none of the students even came to the office to ask where their teacher was."   SNAP!  The students don't even care!

Uh- what does this mean for me?  Well, it could mean far few hours at work.  It could mean that I'll actually have to do "work" at work.  I hope it's the second.  I could stand do some work at work, but no work and no money would be so sad for me.

That dratted Sharpie liquid pencil is mocking and taunting me!

note: Sharpie pencil has terrible reviews on Amazon (where I get all my reviews)  Maybe it's better that we have not found each other.

Alas

I got my teacher evaluations for the Summer.  Generally they are good, of course there are always a few students who could apparently live without me.  I get the feeling they won't be so good for the Fall semester on account of the class I'm teaching is  . . . well . . . sort of boring . . . sometimes.  There's a lot of repetition, and for those of us with the minute attention spans- I can see why they are frustrated with the program.

My favorite comment in Summer evaluations: 
Q:  Did the instructor teach the class in a way that helped you learn?  Please explain. 
A:  Yes.  She did.  She explained the grammar that we didn't pay attention to.

Thank you very much.

Today at the grocery store a guy totally "How YOU doin'"-ed me.  My first thought was "I've been Joey Tribbiani-ed!"  But of course it wasn't a goofy Italian American New Yorker, it was a very large African American Fort Wother- Worthian- Worthite?  Don't know.  Whatever- as always, the brown men love me.  Thank you for your support brown men.