Blog Challenge Day 24

Okay guys, I know these are getting old by now, but we only have 5 more after this.  Never give up, never surrender!


Something that makes you cry.


Well, since I am a girl there are a lot of things that make me cry.  I cry at movies, I cry when I am really angry, I cry when I hear a sappy song, I cry at weddings, I cry at funerals...the list goes on.


There are some movies that I refuse to watch because they make me cry so much.  The number one offender would be "P.S. I Love You."  Mom and I watched that in my bedroom when my cousins Patrick and Jonathan were up at our house and they must have thought we were mental.  We practically went through a whole box of Kleenex.  I also haven't bought the last Pixar movie "Up" because I literally cried 3 times in the theater when I saw it.  It's kind of embarrassing to bawl in a movie theater watching a cartoon.  So yeah, movies make me cry.


When I am super angry and I have so much emotion bottled up inside me I'll cry.  There are times that I almost can't stop the crying when anger is flowing out of me in buckets.  This is usually hormonally induced, so don't worry I won't lash out irrationally unless you piss me off in a perfect alignment of hormones and aggravation.


There are some songs that'll make me cry.  The ones that take you back to certain moments that were sad in your life are hard to break.  There was a song that we sung at my Grammy's funeral that we sing from time to time in church and for quite a while I wasn't able to sing it.  I'd just stand there and let the tears flow down my cheeks.  It's gotten better with time, but there's always a point where you wonder if you are going to make it through this one.


Weddings and funerals are good candidates for crying.  I don't often cry too much at weddings, except a few happy tears when emotions are high.  Funerals on the other hand are terrible.  Mom and I say that we could be professional mourners.  There hasn't been a single funeral or memorial service that I have been to when I haven't cried.


With all this talk you'd think I'd be able to make myself cry at the drop of a hat, but it doesn't work that way.  I'm not one of those people that'd be a great actor because they can tear up on demand.  Truthfully most of the time I am a happy, positive person and I don't have a lot of reasons to break down regularly.  But to keep your sanity I think everybody needs a good cry every now and then.

Blog Challenge Day 23

Something that makes you feel better.


There are lots of things that make me feel better, it just depends on the situation for what will work.


If I'm sick, or have been sick, then my bed is what makes me feel better.  I have a water-bed that doesn't look like the old 80's style water-bed.  It has a head-board and foot-board and looks close to the same as a regular bed until you sit on it.  It is warm and soft and always make me feel better when I'm sick...or even really tired for that matter.  At the end of the day I'm always more than happy to crawl in it.


If I am really stressed out, like say after a hard day at work, then playing some relaxing music and knitting makes me feel better.  I have a couple of favorite CD mixes that I put in the stereo in the hall that fills up the house with great music.  A couple of those would be any Josh Groban CD/ Sarah Brightman CD/ Andrea Bocelli CD.  The current ones in there are Closer (Josh Groban), Symphony (Sarah Brightman) and Incanto (Andrea Bocelli).  If it is summer, or I really want to feel like I'm in Hawaii, then the CD's are usually a mix of Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole (usually Facing Future), Keali'i Reichel (always Ke'Alaokamaile), and Leokane Pryor (always Home Malanai).  It's a great mix to feel that island spirit and relaxation after a stressful day.


Speaking of Hawaii, that always makes me feel better.  I love going whenever I can, though it's been a while since Mom and I had enough money to go.  To make up for that I enjoy going to the Duke Kahanamoku Statue web-cam, which is very close to where Mom and I always go swimming in Waikiki.  I could sit there for hours watching the trees sway in the breeze.  The other new thing Kiersten recently showed me is the Google Maps street-view guy.  I just type in Waikiki and drop the little orange guy wherever I want to go.  You can make the street-view cover almost the whole screen and just use the arrows on the computer to go walking wherever you want.  I'm usually walking down Kalakaua Ave right along the beach.  I walk the route we take from our hotel to the big banyan tree in Kuhio Beach park where we swim.  It's about as good as I can get to going.

Blog Challenge Day 22

Something that upsets you.

People not posting on their blogs regularly! Oh, wait...that's me ;)

Hmmmm. Something that upsets me? That I'd wanna post on here? That won't get me fired from work? (I'm kidding...fist bump to all those in the trenches with me!)

There are all the usual things that probably upset everybody. The things we hear in the news that make our stomachs turn and agree that the world will end tomorrow because it seems like everything has gone to Sodom and Gomorrah. (Side thought in this microbiologist's head.... Gomorrah looks a lot like gonorrhoea, think they might be related?) But that would be a typical response and one that I would expect every person in their right mind would agree with.

Another thing could be when the television networks decide to move your favorite show to a different day/time/cancel it and not tell you. But with my DVR that's not so much of a problem anymore...except the cancelling part.

I would say the thing that upsets me the most is............................life. The daily stresses, the fact that I feel like a slave to my job at times, the fact that there's never enough time and never will be. The thought of paying bills and managing money, the depressing truth that at some point your life will become rutted and boring, the thought that you aren't doing what your destined to do. The grass is always greener syndrome, looking at someone else's life and thinking they have it better (probably not). The changes that you aren't ready for, deaths, loss. All that really upsets me at times. I get depressed and worry like there's no tomorrow. But as I read in a book once, that is also what makes life amazing. Sometimes it takes the really low lows to appreciate and truly experience the really high highs of life. There can be no good without the bad. And so to not end this on a sour note, some pictures of my recent trip to a place that makes me feel better. (More to come in later posts ;)

Blog Challenge Day 21

Another moment.

So the last time I gave you my daydreaming moments during the day. This time I will give you my uber-planning moments.

These planning moments often involve lots of drawing, writing, computer generating and other Type-A activities. It can happen at work when during the later weeks of a student who is doing well, I pull out a scrap paper and draw up where I want to plant my vegetables this year, a schematic for an A frame for cucumbers and zucchini to grow on, or a calculation of how many more stitches I will need to add to a mitten pattern because my hands are manly sized, all while the student expertly navigates a culture with small hints or questions answered from myself. Many a student that has been through their Microbiology rotation can confirm these habits. This probably all ultimately is daydreaming again, but the kind that can be actually realized.

Some of these activities are also in my long term plan notebook. I have drawings for future flower gardens with the placement of all the plants in aesthetically pleasing arrangement (with some help from a Sunset flower garden plan book). I have a plan for our front porch, complete with addition, wider stairs centered on the deck, brick path and lighting. I have my vegetable garden layout from last year with what I planted where so that I can move the beds for this year and not plant the same thing in the same place (it could be bad for the plants, transmitting diseases and encouraging pests). This goes with the word document that I typed last year as my seedlings grew, so I would know what worked and what didn't. This year's layout for the veggie garden is on the computer in an Excel file and has the varieties of plants I'm putting in with the days to maturity for each, so I know when they should be harvested. I told you I was a planner.

The planning problem all comes down to two things...being overly rational and exceptionally idealistic. You see I want things perfect and sometimes that involves making mistakes. I can't always remember the mistakes and as Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So to preclude the insanity I make notes to be able to see all the mistakes and make it better the next time. The rational part of me loves the detailed notes and the idealist side of me loves the perfection and the imagining.

So, that's my uber-planning habit. And if you know me or have lived with me you know it's all true. I'm only upset when it doesn't work out ;)

Blog Challenge Day 20

This month.

Has already started to slip away from me! Crap it's the 14th and I've only made 2 posts!!

Actually this month is the best of all months. It's my birth month, the month that thawing starts to occur on the east side of the Cascades, the month that I can start my vegetables from seeds to plant into the garden in May, the month that the sun is finally back in noticeable amounts to even out the nights from the days, the month that people start to whisper and SHOUT about Spring!

All those really relate ultimately to change, which is something I am not usually very good at. Growing another year older, the ground going from frozen to soggy, seeds going from dormancy to life, the sun returning from it's southern journey, Spring and all the new and returning life after the winter. I always seem to feel crappy around my birthday, like the world has it out for me. It's probably ultimately the change.

No...not menopause. Life and the fact that things are speeding out of control. That all that time I saw myself holding is just sand through my fingertips. 29. That's how old I'll be this year. I'm still young enough to admit it, but really I must be looking pretty old 'cause I didn't get carded the last time I bought an alcoholic drink at a restaurant... I'm not 39 1/2... I'm only (almost) 29.

Things are changing at work too. We might be losing a couple of people to new jobs in different cities. Really great people who do their job well and we'll be short until someone great comes along again.

Wow...this is a downer of a post!

Okay. Something positive about this month. It makes me start looking forward to all the summer things that are coming. Quick weekends down to the beach. Eating outdoors with candles hanging in the trees. Projects around the house and eating fresh produce from the garden. Knitting my fingers to the bone trying to get Christmas projects done before the holiday eats up my time...was that too far forward?

So I hope everyone enjoys this month as much as I do. Hold onto your hats, it's going to be windy and it'll fly by!

Blog Challenge Day 19

Something you regret.

Heck some of these are super hard...

I can say that there are few things I regret about my life. I am quite lucky for all that I have and changing anything in the past would have meant I missed out on the blessings I have now. So let's see...regrets....regrets....

I would say a good regret I have is not going to Italy when our church got together and did a trip. Nicole went with her parents and that would have been a blast vacationing with Nicole in Europe. Mom and I have really wanted to go to Tuscany for the past 3 years and we can never get the money together. That and we always find more places we want to see....the Amalfi coast, Florence, Assisi, Pompeii, Bellagio and Lake Como...the list goes on. We would love to do a Rick Steves tour because they stop for a couple of days in the places they visit. If we had done the tour through the church there wouldn't have been so many choices!

Blog Challenge Day 18

Your Favorite Birthday.

Yeah...some of you all know the one...where I licked the wall....

So for clarification my favorite birthday would be my 23rd. It started awfully. Mom and Gram and I were supposed to go over to Seattle and eat at my favorite restaurant, The Old Spaghetti Factory, and stop in North Bend and do some shopping. Well, that was the year that Gram passed away and she was feeling rotten. We had all gotten ready and she said she just couldn't do it. So I put on some pajama pants and went to my computer and cried a bit. It was selfish mostly, but this isn't about my most unselfish birthday. Mom asked if I still wanted to go shopping in town and I said sure. It had been a while since it was just her and I off shopping and I didn't know how soon it would become permanent. In the meantime I think Nicole had called and asked if we were still on for going out to Jacksons' and drinking and dancing later and said it was on for sure. She said she knew that a few of our other friends from high school were in town and decided to invite everyone out, since she heard I was having a bad day. Mom and I went to the mall and I found a really cute black halter with pink sparkles on it and some nice jewelery to set it off. I drove over to her place and she had a friend that had volunteered to be our designated driver. Nicole had also made me a crocheted blanket in my favorite blue/sea green colors. I was awed by the gift (it still lays on the back of my chair) and ready to go party. Nicole told me she had gotten all sorts of people together, Paul, Jayne-Leigh, Thomas and was Megan there? She also invited a bunch of her newer friends and I invited my fellow students from the Med Tech program I was in at the time. So we got a big table at Jacksons' and slowly everyone showed up. There was drinking (Alabama Slammer!!) and shots and just one pic of my "Birthday Shot".

Fully inebriated we moved to the dance floor in the back. Everyone was buying me drinks and shots. There was lots and lots of drunk dancing. Eventually I became completely plowed and started telling people how much I loved them. Then I bit Nicole....I told her it was a love bite. Then I bit Paul. I don't know what I told him. Eventually no one would dance with me and I started dancing with the divider between the booths in the back between my Med Tech friends and high-school friends. I was really working that divider and it was being a really good partner....so I licked it. That's right semi-pole dancing and licking it like a whore makes for a great birthday. At that point I think Nicole pushed me into one of the booths and I pouted while she told me I was cut-off and gave me water. I'm not sure if it was closing time, or if it was just time to leave, but my designated driver and Nicole linked my arms and helped me stumble-walk out of the bar. I kept telling the other girl that she was my designated driver and laughing at how funny that sounded and she told me to snap out of it as we walked past the cops that are always outside Jacksons'. Nicole got me back to her place, into my pajamas and made me sit there and watch television drinking water and eating cinnamon toast until I was semi-sober so that my hangover wouldn't be horrendous in the morning. And that was my favorite birthday.