Back to, well, normal...

The speech tourney was great! The hospitality room, although they did serve lasagna, was awesome! They had so many desserts, I actually stood there staring, trying to choose. Key lime pie? Cobbler? Brownies? Cheesecake (pumpkin, NY and regular)?
I had bits of the pie and brownie.

And due to an error the coordinators made, we actually got paid more than what we were originally quoted! Yes!

The bad things: Several high schoolers, in the final round of extempt (which is a current event/speech writing and giving competition where you pick a topic, have 30 minutes to research it from magazines, newspapers, etc that you bring with you and put it into a speech), made several, grave mistakes.

One young lady got Pakistan confused with Palistine. And when asked to described the changing politics in Pakistan, starting talking about the gaza strip and rockets and Israel, etc...she also tried to compare Bhutto to darkness.

Groan.

Another young lady thought Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were at war with eath other and the Roadmap to Peace was about them.

Another young man had a topic about biofuels and whether it helps or hurt the fight against global warming. He said it hurts because a friend of his had a truck with biodiesel and his little girl got sick, sick in her lungs and had to have surgery, but nothing too major, but she still had to go to the hospital...etc...


But the poetry finals round was awesome and really hard to decide who should go on or not. One read Margaret Atwood's "Half-Hanged Mary". It's a long poem to read, but if you have time, go ahead and read it. It's great. It's even better performed as one young lady did an excellent job. I gave her 1st but since there were 2 other judges, she eventually got 2nd. But she is still going to regionals and I hope she does really well!

Half Hanged Mary
Margaret Atwood

7 p.m.

Rumour was loose in the air,
hunting for some neck to land on.
I was milking the cow,
the barn door open to the sunset.

I didn’t feel the aimed word hit
and go on in like a soft bullet.
I didn’t feel the smashed flesh
closing over it like water
over a thrown stone.

I was hanged for living alone,
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name,
and a surefire cure for warts.

Oh yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there’s talk of demons
these come in handy.


8 p.m.

The rope was an improvisation.
With time they’d have thought of axes.

Up I go like a windfall in reverse,
a blackened apple stuck back onto the tree.

Trussed hands, rag in my mouth,
a flag raised to salute the moon,

old bone-faced goddess, old original,
who once took blood in return for food.

The men of the town stalk homeward,
excited by their show of hate,
their own evil turned inside out like a glove,
and me wearing it.

9 p.m.

The bonnets come to stare,
the dark skirts also,
the upturned faces in between,
mouths closed so tight they’re lipless.
I can see down into their eyeholes
and nostrils. I can see their fear.

You were my friend, you too,
I cured your baby, Mrs.,
and flushed yours out of you,
Non-wife, to save your life.

Help me down? You don’t dare.
I might rub off on you,
like soot or gossip. Birds
of a feather burn together,
though as a rule ravens are singular.

In a gathering like this one
the safe place is the background,
pretending you can’t dance,
the safe stance pointing a finger.

I understand. You can’t spare
anything, a hand, a piece of bread, a shawl
against the cold,
a good word. Lord
knows there isn’t much
to go around. You need it all.

10 p.m.

Well God, now that I’m up here,
with maybe some time to kill,
away from the daily
fingerwork, legwork, work
at the hen level,
we can continue our quarrel,
the one about free will.

Is it my choice that I’m dangling
like a turkey’s wattle from this
more than indifferent tree?
If Nature is Your alphabet,
what letter is this rope?

Does my twisting body spell out Grace?
I hurt, therefore I am.
Faith, Charity, and Hope
are three dead angels
falling like meteors or
burning owls across
the profound blank sky of Your face.

12 midnight

My throat is taut against the rope
choking off words and air;
I’m reduced to knotted muscle.
Blood bulges in my skull,
my clenched teeth hold it in;
I bite down on despair.

Death sits on my shoulder like a crow
waiting for my squeezed beet
of a heart to burst
so he can eat my eyes

or like a judge
muttering about sluts and punishment
and licking his lips

or like a dark angel
insidious in his glossy feathers
whispering to me to be easy
on myself. To breathe out finally.
Trust me, he says, caressing
me. Why suffer?

A temptation, to sink down
onto these definitions.
To become a martyr in reverse,
or food, or trash.

To give up my own words for myself,
my own refusals.
To give up knowing.
To give up pain.
To let go.

2 a.m.

Out of my mouths is coming, at some
distance from me, a thin gnawing sound
which you could confuse with prayer except that
praying is not constrained.

Or is it, Lord?
Maybe it’s more like being strangled
than I once thought. Maybe it’s
a gasp for air, prayer.
Did those men at Pentecost
want flames to shoot out of their heads?
Did they ask to be tossed
on the ground, gabbling like holy poultry,
eyeballs bulging?

As mine are, as mine are.
There is only one prayer; it is not
the knees in the clean nightgown
on the hooked rug.
I want this, I want that.
Oh far beyond.
Call it Please. Call it Mercy.
Call it Not yet, not yet,
as Heaven threatens to explode
inwards in fire and shredded flesh, and the angels caw.

3 a.m.

wind seethes in the leaves around
me the trees exude night
birds night birds yell inside
my ears like stabbed hearts my heart
stutters in my fluttering cloth
body I dangle with strength
going out of the wind seethes
in my body tattering
the words I clench
my fists hold No
talisman or silver disc my lungs
flail as if drowning I call
on you as witness I did
no crime I was born I have borne I
bear I will be born this is
a crime I will not
acknowledge leaves and wind
hold on to me
I will not give in

6 a.m.

Sun comes up, huge and blaring,
no longer a simile for God.
Wrong address. I’ve been out there.

Time is relative, let me tell you
I have lived a millennium.

I would like to say my hair turned white
overnight, but it didn’t.
Instead it was my heart;
bleached out like meat in water.

Also, I’m about three inches taller.
This is what happens when you drift in space
listening to the gospel
of the red hot stars.
Pinpoints of infinity riddle my brain,
a revelation of deafness.

At the end of my rope
I testify to silence.
Don’t say I’m not grateful.

Most will only have one death.
I will have two.

8 a.m.

When they came to harvest my corpse
(open your mouth, close your eyes)
cut my body from the rope,
surprise, surprise,
I was still alive.

Tough luck, folkds,
I know the law:
you can’t execute me twice
for the same thing. How nice.

I fell to the clover, breathed it in,
and bared my teeth at them
in a filthy grin.
You can imagine how that went over.

Now I only need to look
out at them through my sky-blue eyes.
They see their own ill will
staring them in the forehead
and turn tail.

Before, I was not a withc.
But now I am one.

Later

My body of skin waxes and wanes
around my true body,
a tender nimbus.
I skitter over the paths and fields,
mumbling to myself like crazy,
mouth full of juicy adjectives
and purple berries.
The townsfolk dive headfirst into the bushes
to get out of my way.

My first death orbits my head,
an ambiguous nimbus,
medallion of my ordeal.
No one crosses that circle.

Having been hanged for something
I never said,
I can now say anything I can say.

Holiness gleams on my dirty fingers,
I eat flowers and dung,,
two forms of the same thing, I eat mice
and give thanks, blasphemies
gleam and burst in my wake
like lovely bubbles.
I speak in tongues,
my audience is owls.

My audience is God,
because who the hell else could understand me?

The words boil out of me,
coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravels from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.

***********************************************************************************

Powerful, no?

Anyways, I finally found some moisturizer stuff to use. I found it at my parent's house. I don't really care about wrinkles, especially if they were crow's feet, because then one would know I smile a lot. But mine are underneath my eyes, with dark circles.

And part of my trying to be good to myself is not just about working out and eating healthy. It's about brushing every day and flossing every night. It's about washing my face and putting on moisturizer. It's about changing my sheets, picking up after myself, cleaning the kitchen. It's about being organized and returning borrowed items.

For me, it's about being at peace in all parts of my life. From physical to mental to spiritual.

When I move back to Austin, I might join Yoga Yoga. I have been wanting to make Yoga apart of my life for a while now but only discovered that after we had decided to move. Now that I am moving back, I can do it. Plus, they have classes especially designed for plus-sized folks. Yoga can be very hard for me since I have so much around my middle and in the chest area.

I hope everyone has a great Monday and a wonderful week ahead of you!
Michelle

Friday. Yes.

Yay it's Friday. Which means I get two days where I don't have to get up at 4am. Or at least, where I don't wake up at 4am, get up at 430am, run around like a chicken with no head and rush to work.

Instead we are doing a whirlwind trip to the Hill Country this weekend.

Business.

Chris and I are judging in a speech tournament in Comfort.

It's their 2A District UIL competition.

Most of you probably don't know, but I have been judging in speech tournaments pretty much since I graduated high school. Some district tournaments, but mainly invitationals.

Most of you also probably don't know (here is where I brag) but I also went to State UIL my senior year in Prose. I got 6th overall. It was pretty awesome.

Anyways, it's a fun way to make some money and help out. It's really easy too. I mean, there are some hard contests to decide but it's not like it's the Olympics or anything. You get free food from the hospitality room, although most of the time it's highly processed, highly carbed food like doughnuts and coffee for breakfast and lasagna for lunch. Ugh. But I can't really complain.

Most of the time, I get to see my old high school speech/theatre teacher, Ms. Miller. (Yes, that's me with Lydia and Gary, Wimberley's renowned theatre team and Mercury McCall. I directed a Shakespeare play with Wimberley's Shakespeare under the Stars at the Emily Ann Theatre back in 2002...I was in way over my head.)

Anywho! She is awesome. And totes crazy. She makes the funniest gestures and facial expressions. This time she won't be there though.

It'll be me and Chris and whoever else I usually run into at these events.


On a different note: I had the craziest dream last night. Of course I don't remember all of it, but here's what I do remember:
Chris and I were taking a bag full of food and blankets to this loading area where all these people were being taken away. I think they were being taken to a prison-like camp or to an institution somewhere. Anyways, Chris' ex was in the back of one of the trucks as well as some other people from his past, some of whom I have met when we go back to Tyler and go to church with his parents.

Anyways, we saw one of the guys from Chris' parent's church, who I think leads worship or something and we talked to him for a while. Chris introduced me, which was weird because I already knew him. As soon as Chris spoke, though, his ex who had her back to us, turned and saw me.

I walked over to her and introduced myself. It just felt like the proper thing to do, ya know? I handed her the bag and wished her the best.

I have never, in the five years we have been together and in the almost ten years we have known each other, dreamed about Chris' ex before. So it was a bit surreal.

I think it stems from a great conversation Chris and I were having over a few beers at the pub the other day. We talked about the breakup, the effects of it on his family and peeps from their church. We talked about a lot of stuff that we might have skirted around before, but never discussed.

So I guess I had that on the brain and bam, she just popped into my dream. I hope she doesn't stay there like my ex has. He is always there, just waiting to surprise me in some dream and provoke me.

Issues much? Why yes, I am not ashamed to say so.

I wish everyone a great weekend and I will be back to post on Monday!

No egg timer yet

I ended up not buying that egg timer yesterday. I actually worked from 445am to 1pm, the girl that works the 10-1 shift had to take her little girl to the doctor. I couldn't refuse to cover her shift, you could hear the little girl crying in the background when she called. Heartbreaking, fever-based cry.

So, basically, I went straight from work to picking up Chris to having an early dinner to doing laundry to watching Battlestar Galactica.

I did take out the recycling though and Chris called the property management place to get our dishwasher fixed! We suspect the garbage disposal line is backing up into the dishwasher.Ew. I know! The dishes are coming out covered in little particles and we were practically washing the dishes beforehand because we just thought the dishwasher didn't drain very well. Anyways, that will be a big help in the keeping things clean area. Because otherwise we have to do it by hand, which is fine and how we did it in Austin, but at least in Austin we had a drain stopper thingy and the kitchen wasn't laid out where if you are standing at the sink, your elbow hits the fridge. Seriously.

So. What's new?

I have been having slight, minor anxiety attacks when I think of the presidential race. It's just gonna get uglier. Not only between Hil and Barack, but between whoever wins and McCain. And I just don't wanna see it play out. But at the same time, I do. I don't know where this is going except to say, I gotta get ready for some serious cringe action in the upcoming months.

I think I might buy the egg timer today.

Laziness

I think that is what it comes down to. I think Chris and I motivate each other in the area of laziness. We get home and the only thing we want to do is sit on the couch together. It doesn't help, either, that when one of us gets the cleaning bug, the other one is very tired and unmotivated.

Today, though, I am going to try something new. I think I might buy an egg timer and when we get home, set it for 15 or 20 minutes and pick one area to work on. When the timer is up, then we can go back to being lazy. But for those 15 minutes, we will have to clean. Do dishes, put away clothes, take out the trash. And really, when you think about it, 15 minutes is not that long of a time. The trick will be to do it right when we get home, BEFORE we sit on the couch. Once we sit on that stupid futon (which makes you sink lower and lower, horrible for the posture) we are gone. Gone into the land of I-just-wanna-sit-here-and-stare land.

And if we do 15 minutes of cleaning, picking up every day, then our mess will be lighter and lighter until we are just spot cleaning, right?

I will let you know how it goes tomorrow. Of course it is 630 in the morning and I might very well forget by tonight. Oh, you make me...promises, promises...

How do you get stuff done when you are feeling lazy? Maybe you don't feel lazy? Maybe you are already super neat to begin with and in that case, I stick my tongue out at you.

I would love some tips, encouragement and rude gestures if you got some!

Six word sentence

From a healthy living blog, I saw this challenge: create a 6 word sentence for yourself describing your life as of now.

I thought of mine and it's great:
I'm on the right path now.

It does it all: motivation, reassurance, calming and looks toward the future. I can keep walking forward, I can keep moving because I am on the right path!

Yesterday was a rough day. I wonder if I set myself up for it by posting a sad, melancholy blog. I know it didn't seem that sad as I was just reminiscing, but it felt so sad to me. It felt heavy on my heart.

I went home after work and slept. I read all sorts of articles on the computer. I waited for Chris to get home. Then we ate dinner and we sat around more. So, I am trying to view yesterday as a recovery from the weekend day. A recovery from the energy-sucking drama that is going on at the winery, WHERE I NO LONGER WORK!

Saturday was my last day!
And some of my favorite people made a cake for me and came to wish me farewell! It was so sweet, I wanted to cry. The cake was yummy but I had to give most of it away because I knew if we took it home, I would eat the whole thing and that would be bad. Crisis avoided, whew.

But, like I said, I am trying to not feel guilty about not doing any schoolwork, housework or bodywork yesterday. It was a recovery day.

And today! Today I feel strong, I feel confident and productive. I will work towards getting caught up at school. I will work out. I will eat healthier. I will smile!

Eleven years and still it breaks my heart.

On a gorgeous Sunday day, eleven years ago, my grandfather passed away.

I can't believe it has been 11 years.

Ten years seemed like a huge milestone. Did I think it would stop at ten? Did I not realize that there would be an 11, 15, 25, 53, etc...

It's funny how time fragments and breaks itself up in our minds.

But a part of me will always be 16, on that clear and bright spring day, saying good-bye to papa, watching my family break down and wondering how we will ever be the same.

While the actual day he died was gorgeous, the funeral was misty and cold. Unusually cold for the end of March. I had the UIL contest play that morning and someone, I don't remember who it was, drove me from Burnet right after the performance for the funeral. It was a late in the day funeral and I made it just in time. Walking up to the open casket in front of a church packed with people was a mistake. Open caskets, in my view, are mistakes. Maybe they are just mistakes for the young who can't imagine being old, let alone lifeless.

I don't remember much afterwards about the funeral. I remember my brother, who was about 8 ot 9, sobbing loudly in the church. I remember my friend Devon, who I saw after the service, wearing a short sleeve red dress and thinking "She must be freezing". I remember some guy from my school playing taps on his trumpets.

But I remember Papa most of all and that is good. I remember the fishing hook he wore in his hat. I remember his crude humor, flippin' his false teeth out at us. I remember how when I went to town with him, it seemed like everybody knew him and talked to him. I remember mornings before school, hanging out with my dad at Papa's office (he was the Justice of the Peace) with Papa's cronies and the smell of coffee.

And I have wishes too. I wish he could have met my husband, Chris. I think he would have enjoyed Chris' humor and probably would have found some endearing (and offensive for those who don't know him) nickname.

Sorry this post seems so sad. Really it is just nostalgic which at times can be very sad.

************************************************************************************

On a different note, I have some friends putting on a play that has received rave reviews. The play is called Penetrator and is playing at the Hideout Theatre.

The really cool thing? It's only 15 dollars to see a critically acclaimed, intense, thought-provoking play.

Sleepy head

Although this job has been great for me since I am off by 10am everyday, the getting up at 4am is really beginning to get to me. I work best mid-morning to late afternoon and then have another energy burst from 5pm to at least 10pm. So it's hard for me to get to sleep and take short naps after I get off from work.

One really awesome thing though, getting up at 6am will be a piece of cake after I leave this job in April. Why 6am? Because I need to get on some sort of schedule so I will be ready when I start my internship and plus, while I am in Austin, I will still have homework to do and working out to do. Those two actually take up a lot of time. Working out takes at least an hour (and that's if I hurry) and studying at least takes me to two and that is a brief study session.

I went through pictures from my past yesterday. I thought I had more, but apparently not. I was hoping to see more pictures of my early 20s but I didn't have a camera and digitals I think were just coming out, so there are few photos from that time of my life. Which makes me sad and relieved. Sad because from 19-21 I looked hot. Relieved because from 21-23 I was in hell and probably it would have reflected it in the pictures.

But I did find some awesome ones from my high school days that I intend to scan this weekend, so I can not only send them to my WHS Class of 99 myspace but also can post them on here for you. If you are lucky, you can see pictures from when I was a little girl. I was super cute.

There's something about pictures. I love! looking through people's photo albums. I think it says a lot of where people have been with people they love and how they have transformed over the years. Plus, I love the physical transformations people go through and seeing if they have changed a lot from their younger years.

I wonder, if we had digital cameras in high school, would I have more pictures or would they have been lost on some computer somewhere?

Um.

Hello.

Well, I am at a loss today.

Nothing really interesting going on.

Well...there is some drama at the winery I work at sometimes here in north Texas, but since I work there ever once in a while and this is officially my last week to help out there, I am not concerned.

I do feel sorry for some of the employees there because they work so hard and they are getting screwed. Basically, the boss has set up this cash drawer count down system that punishes you for little mistakes. It doesn't matter if it's your first mistake either.

Look. Let me tell you, from the experience of 6 years of working as a cashier at Whole Foods, everybody will make a mistake at one point. And if there is a problem, then you track the problems and deal with them as they arise. You don't punish your loyal employees by making them take cash from their own pocket to balance the till.

If you are that concerned about it, Mr. Winery Owner, then you need to 1)actually train your employees that you hire; 2)have someone who will be held responsible for the drawer the only one messing with the register and 3) treat your employees with respect.

That's right. I said it. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Like the song. Com'on, you know how it goes, I see your shoulder starting to move to the rhythm.

Anyways, because of the pressure and hostile work environment he has created, there is now conflict between some of the employees. But that was bound to happen since some of them are just waiting for drama. Some are just drawn into it as well. They like repeating things, they like texting instead of dealing issues face to face. What can I say? We all know people like that.

But I am not involved! Yay! And by blogging about it here does not mean I am talking about people behind their back, I would say all these things to anybody if they asked or really ticked me off. But for this week, my last week there, I am going to keep my mouth shut, enjoy the quaintness of the downtown McKinney square and serve the wine I really don't like very much.

There and back again

So, I took the train down to Austin last Wednesday. I meant to take my camera so I could chronicle the journey and post them here, but guess what I forgot at home? That's right, the camera! Augh!

So the trip down was long. Basically, most of the time, freight trains have the right-of-way over passenger trains in America. So, if you meet one on the tracks when there is only one line, the passenger trains waits, sometimes for an hour, for the freight train to go by. Lame! I think passengers, ie humans, should take precedent over cargo. If the train was faster and more on time, maybe people would ride it more often and then Amtrak wouldn't be in such financial trouble. But I don't know all the details, so I can't give any theories on how this problem should be solved yet.

Anyways, I arrived in Austin and worked at Whole Foods from Thursday to Sunday. Thursday was my one SXSW music festival fun night. I rode downtown with Ginny and we met up with Joy G and Molly at a Dewar's sponsored event in a parking garage. There was free dewars/ginger brew drinks and you know I was all over that. But we were there for a while and rode back home, so basically I was only dehydrated when I got home that night. (It didn't help that I ran that morning at town lake, worked over 8 hours at whole foods and then rode downtown! Hello! Bring on the water, please)

Friday night was girl's night with Bethany and Amelia. And we had fun! Tired and very, very low-key fun.

Saturday I tried to re-create Thursday night but I was dependent upon other people and all my plans fell through. At one point, I was standing with my bike at the corner of 6th and Red River, watching all the punk, hipster, emo, goth, and preppies go to their designated places. Seriously, who dresses in a short dress with high heels downtown during SXSW?

Anyways, I ended up taking the bus home Sat night because I couldn't meet up with my friends. I was a little annoyed at first, but I should have planned better so I wouldn't have had to rely on them when they didn't know about it to begin with. So I got over it.

It was good I went home early on Sat because I had to work at 730am at Whole Foods the next day. Afterwards, I met up with mom and sister at the Y and we worked out for a bit before going to my parent's house for a family dinner. It was me, my siblings and my parents. I can't remember the last time we all sat down to a dinner together. It was fun!

I got to meet my brother's new pup, Jesi, who is so adorable and well behaved! I wanted to steal her, but it was obvious from the way she was staring lovingly at my brother who she really wanted to go home with.

So the train ride home was awesome! We didn't have to wait for any freight trains and we actually arrived 10 minutes early in Dallas, where Chris was waiting for me.

I missed that guy.

Official

After this semester, I technically just have one more class I have to take at Grayson County College, my internship.

I sent my resume off to several wineries, mainly in the Hill Country since we are planning on moving back to Austin. I sent resumes to Becker, Texas Hills Vineyards, Driftwood Vineyards and finally, to Mandola's Estate Winery.

I talked to Mark Penna yesterday. He said I could do my internship there!

YES!

Now let me tell you how much this rocks.

(goodlifemag.com)

First, Mark Penna is one of the top winemakers in the state of Texas. This man knows what he is doing, especially after working at St. Genevieve.

He also works with the college I am attending in teaching some of their outreach seminars.

Second: Mandola's Estate Winery.


It's a young winery and vineyard out near my beloved hometown of Wimberley.


Since the vines are young, I will get good training in pruning and trellising of young vines. The cellar operation is huge as well. I can't tell you how big this place is, you will have to come and see it. Everything looks to be state of the art and it has a very clean, fancy laboratory where I will be spending a lot of time as well doing analyses.

The building is gorgeous! The winery is right next to the restaurant, which serves Italian food, of course.



In the meantime, I am planning on increasing the weight training part of my workouts. I have been doing a lot of cardio but when I start my internship, I will be starting during harvest and almost during the hottest part of the year. So I will need to be able to lift heavy loads and a lot of them. I will also need to be able to stand for long periods without being able to stop and eat. I found these energy gel packs that would do perfectly in helping me to get by on little to no food for a while.

I also need to get some serious, heavy duty pants. Probably something like Carhartt pants.

You know, something that's all cotton. I can't have any polyester in it because it wouldn't be breathable. But it also needs to be durable enough to withstand a lot as I will be working with chemicals, cutting equipment, tractors, etc...Hopefully, they will have something in my size.

Anyways, so here's the plan thus far:
I am going into Austin tomorrow via Amtrak. I am excited about taking the train, I plan on reading and doing some crocheting (I am so far behind). Then I am going to a play when I arrive, I hope my train is not late!

I will be in Austin until Monday and I take the train back into Dallas.

Then I will work for four more weeks here at the gym before moving back to Austin and working at Whole Foods for the last two weeks in April and all through May and June. Chris will be moving to Austin in June as soon as his school gets out. Since I will be going back to Sherman every weekend in April because of classes and workshops, we will probably be moving in increments.

Then, sometime in July, I will start my job at Mandola's.

Hopefully, Chris will find a job either at a school or otherwise.

So, of course, this is likely to change, but this is what it looks like right now.

I am so excited to be coming home soon.

Snowplay

This happened on Monday night:



















By Wednesday, we were back in short pants and ready for spring.

THEN...


...the MOTHER LOAD...

Thursday, during the day, snow flakes fell down as big as a mermacrabicorn's
eye.

I was at the gym when the snowfall started. By the time I got out to my car, the snow had piled up about an inch on my windshield and roof. I jumped in the car, frantic because I had never seen snow this big before or coming down this hard before. It really freaked me out. I called my mom "I think I am in a blizzard!" I yelled into the phone. Before long, I was on the road, carefully driving through slush and getting to know the grinding noise of my brakes when they clogged with ice. I peeled out, I swerved, and after making a circle around Albertson's, I pulled in to buy the essentials on a snowy-movie-snuggle-with-the-husband night: wine and pizza.

I wrapped my new shawl around my head (so my hair wouldn't get snowed upon and therefore, wet) and ran inside and out in less than 5 minutes. It was still snowing heavily when I started the car again, already covered in snow that I had to knock off the windows.

This time, I barely made it home in under an hour even though I was only 2 miles away. Cars were slipping and sliding all over the place and it seems like if they got stuck, they would spin their tires for a while and then give up. I got home just as the traffic outside our house was really piling up. You see, we are on a hill. So manymanymany cars would make it halfway up only to stop because of intersecting traffic and then not get the momentum to start back up again.

Well, I got home and called Chris, who had ridden his bike to work. "Are you dressed warm?"

"yes"

"Good, don't get a ride you won't be home for hours. Walk home. I will meet you halfway."

So I bundled up. I put on my new jeans, thick wooly socks, a long sleeved shirt, a wool sweater, Chris' army jacket with a thick lining he got from his dad, my thick red scarf, a hat, my arm warmers and big thick gloves.

I didn't get cold at all. My legs were a little cold as my jeans got soaked from the snow, but I was so warm everywhere else, i didn't feel them.

On the way to meet him, I stopped at a gazebo near a middle school to rest and it looked like a good sheltered place to wait for Chris. There were about 5 middle school kids also hanging out there.

You guys, middle school kids crack me up. They are loud, obnoxious, don't have any manners, but they are cute nonetheless! They, of course, were all underdressed for the weather. It was only in the 50s when they went to school. And since I was sweating, I loaned one my gloves, another my hat and my scarf to another little thing. I waited for about 20 minutes and after most of the little freezing balls of energy left (I got my accessories back), I started again to meet with Chris.

And I busted it. Like I slipped on a banana peel, one leg went up and I landed right on my ass. I laughed. It was fun.

Chris was right up the road and we went home.

After eating the pizza and warming back up with some wine, we put on the ski clothes my parents had loaned us with some hats and scarves and went back out to play in the snow.

First, though, we introduced Lucy to the snow.








She was not impressed.






We got Brandy and went out with the intentions to build a snowman...except our gloves were wet from the walk and we weren't wearing any.

You guys! Snow is cold! After about 30 seconds we abandoned the snowman idea because I couldn't feel my hands.

We had a snowball fight, with breaks to warm our hands, and we pranced around with Brandy, she is totally built for the snow. I mean, we know she is part Husky, but the reason why she trots makes sense now.











Now we are drinking dark chocolate cocoa and will be searching the internet for movies/shows to watch. Sigh, I wish I had my Battlestar Galactica...

Book reviews and movie castings

I listened to this book during one of my trips to Austin and several trips to McKinney.

It's a weird story to summarize so I am using someone else's description:

A novel by Audrey Niffenegger, it is an unconventional love story that centers on a man with a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time-travel and his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. In this book, unlike many other time travel stories, it is not possible to change the past or future.
(from Wikipedia)

That's the simple explanation. It's a love story. Or as one customer said to me at Whole Foods a long time ago when I told him I like Kingsolver, "Oh, chick books". At first, I was offended when he said that but then I thought, "Yeah, chick books! Of course, HE would scorn it. He's a guy! There's no way he'd understand!" and then I felt like I was apart of a secret club and that made me feel better.

I digress.

During the first half of the book, I couldn't stop thinking about it! I loved it. I laughed, cried, laughed and then cried some more.

Then the rhythm changed. Some of the characters started acting differently without explaining why. Then we find out more about certain character's past and future, actually, and it's mind boggling and not in a good way. More like a WTF? sort of way.

It did end on a nice, hopeful note...if not a little sad.

I was totally let down by the first 1/3 of the last half, then it got a little better towards the very end. But it still pulled at my heart strings and made me a bit mad in the way it ended, which some people (ahem, Audrey) might have wanted.

I guess in certain books I want to escape. I mean, that's why I read fiction right? If I wanted depressing, sad stories I would read some non-fiction or poetry, right? Or I would stay away from Nicholas Sparks, who likes to end all his books with a "ohhh...no!" moment. But I know to stay away from certain authors when I don't want something depressing.

But I didn't know with TTW! It said love story. It started off so strong and loving!

Then it reached in, Simpsons style, and pulled out my heart. "Oh you won't be needing this!" (After a long time searching, I am sorry to say I couldn't find a picture of that moment...)

And that made me kind of mad.

So, then I find out they are making the book into a movie! And now that I have been forewarned and have already survived the first telling of the story, I am looking forward to the Hollywood version of it!

Except for one thing:


I don't think Rachel McAdams is right for the part. She's too cute. Clare is sophisticated and grace embodied. Clare has to deal with major emotional drama of falling in love with her husband when she was a little girl, meeting him in her 20s (and his first time meeting her) and then waiting for him each time he time travels. Not only that but this character really wants a baby which is hard to do when your husband has a genetic dis-order that causes him to time-travel (meaning it's passed on to the baby). I am afraid McAdams, although cute and a decent actress, won't be able to portray the subtleties Clare discusses in the book, which is hard anyways to translate to the screen.

But I found a Clare!


Behold. Mirando Otto.

Also, if it were up to me, I would totally make this film end happier and I would cast Mirando Otto as Clare. I mean, just look at this woman! And I should know who to cast since I have done nothing but think about that book since I finished it a month ago.


So, I would recomend this book, but be warned! It will make you cry! And it's true, it IS a love story, but a freakin' SAD love story!

A letter to my body

So through one of my favorite blogs, poshdeluxe.com, I found another one: comradegogo. And through comradegogo.com I found numerous other blogs about getting and staying in shape. Most of them are about life-changing weight loss and that person's struggle in achieving it, maintaining it and the emotional aspects of going from overweight to in shape. They are all really great and motivating!

At one, Back in Skinny Jeans, it recommended writing a letter to your body. As a way of discovering and getting in touch with what might be holding you back.

So,(deep breath) here goes:

Hi Bod,

Thank you. Thank you so much for putting up with the emotional ups and downs I take you on. Thank you for not having my back give out completely from all the time I spent in bed under the covers. Thank you for keeping my cholesterol and blood pressure at a healthy level even as I stuffed you full of bad food and barely got my heart rate beyond resting at all.

That's a tremendous feat, now that I look at it from that point of view. I ingested sweets, pasta, lots of alcohol, cigarettes, other drugs and still you stayed reasonably healthy. Kudos to you, bod!

On that note, I am sorry. I truly am sorry for doing all those things to you, when all you wanted was to be taken care of with the respect and attention you deserve.

As I said to you the other day, I'm trying. It's going to take a little while because sometimes you get cranky at me when I get all gung-ho about working out and eating healthy. I understand. It's my fault, I trained you for almost 4 years to expect a certain kind of treatment from me.

So, I understand why my right knee hurts when I run. I would hurt too if someone forced me to live in an un-healthy manner and then run with too much weight on my back. I understand.

I also understand why sometimes you just crave to eat a whole pint of ice cream. I rarely give it to you anymore and it doesn't help that our skinny, high-metabolism husband needs to eat fattening foods and usually around us. I want our skinny, high-metabolism husband to eat more. I will try. But you gotta try too, no more of this low blood sugar act you have been doing the past year. I promise I will try to react to those moments with good snacks, apples and peanut butter...I know you like the sound of that snack, right?

Let's make a pact. I will try to take care of you and you will support me. I will buy new jogging shoes to help with the knee pain, I will try to cut out the sweets that only make you crave more (hey I understand! It's chemistry!), I will try to be encouraging and make sure your heart beats strong and true and you get at least 15 minutes of sunshine (with sunscreen on you, of course!).

You, in return, will try to heal the knee like I know you can. You will also relax at night and sleep better. You will remain calm and in control during stressful or low blood sugar moments.

I think we both know that we're in this together. Everything I do, helps you to help me to help you...etc...

Thank you again for hanging in there with me, bod. You are gorgeous, strong and loved.

Love,
Me