This Week in Friends

Also in family and school.

Monday

Friends - Fabulous as always with the added benefit of studying this time around.

Tuesday

Friends - Brando got home early so we went to a friend's house to play in the snow on the golf course by their house. Then to IHOP for free pancake day with a big group of us for good conversation, yummy pancakes and more snow.

Wednesday

Friends - Met up with Li for happy hour to drink to a better day the next day for her. Decided we weren't going back to the particular restaurant we went to because of the douche bag waiter who gave us free drinks the first time we came, and went on and on about really stupid topics this time. Annoying. We can avoid that place until he no longer works there. Had a blast any way!

Thursday

Friends - Went to a grand opening party with my bl*g girls and got a goodie bag full of hair accessories, earring, chocolate bourbon fudge and more. The boys made screen-printed ties with an owl and tree branches before Brando picked them up for boy sc*uts. Almost made it to a comedy show with Li and M and was depressed I didn't. Then, I opened my goodie bag and was happy again. Had a tough conversation with KT that I'm not sure is over. I'm just over making plans with people who flake. Much as I loooooove her, if nine times out of ten, she's backing out I don't want to bother. I don't think she realizes it either which is why I called her out on it. So we'll see.

This Week in Family

Also in friends and school.

Monday

Family - SNOWWWWWW dayyyyyyy!!!! Picked up the boys from school after my class at 10:35am and played in the snow all day. They built an army of snowmen in the frontyard.

Wednesday

Family - Had a snowball fight in 56 degree weather using up the army of snowmen.

Thursday

Family - Oh, also, had a parent teacher conference with Shawner's teachers to discuss the fact that he's come home talking about his friends and him calling each other gay, sex, and drunkenness the last week. Not fun. I'm actually taking it all in stride which is surprising me. I think the hope that we'll be in a better position next year and seeing this as another opportunity to deal with life is the foundation.

Friday

Family - Boys c*b sc*ut banquet tonight!!! Actually, I guess it's only Shawners, because Justinbustin is officially a boy sc*ut now. Craziness.

This Week in School

Also in family and friends.

Monday

School - Studied for my art history test all day. Went to girls night with thirty pieces of art with their cities and dates still unmemorized. One of my girls sat down with me and helped me memorize all thirty pieces with cities and dates.

Tuesday

School - Killed the art history test.

Wednesday

School - Turned in my second English paper, yay.

Thursday

School - Found my art history professor wrote "Wow" on two out of three of my essays for the exam. Awesomeness.

Favorite Memories of Today

*My sister offering to take the boys for a few hours, then offering to take them the whole day

*Farmer's market coffee

*Beautiful, sunny 75 degree weather

*Photo shoot at the farmer's market with Brando

*C*ssi's Market cocoa tiramisu with Brando

*More photos with Brando against a rusted metal wall

*Went to a maternity photo shoot at a home with Brando

*Dinner and dessert at Home Sl*ce with Brando

*Picking up the boys from a day with their aunt and cousins

*Discovering the boys had a lesson in archery from a certified archer instructor

Oh holy heck

The shit has hit the fan.

Brando is being inv*stigated at work for a bunch of acc*unts he opened that have nothing to do with what they are asking him about, nonetheless secur*ty sat in his office all day yesterday and making last night h-e-double-l. Fortunately we had a birthday dinner to go to distract us.

Why does it always seem like when it rains it pours? Is it because the little things are already so bothersome that when the big stuff it's duck and cover time?

On a brighter note, I've recently gotten excited about our trip coming up. I'm going to try local food! That's my interest lately here in Aust*n, any way, and we didn't get to do it last time we went, so I'm super excited about it. And you know what? Now that I'm excited I'm a little more resilient to this shit hitting the fan. Oh you hit alright. I'm wearing a poncho and I've got a shower in the bathroom next door. Sorry for that visual picture.

Girlfriends

Last Friday I went to see Valentine's Day with my girlies. Originally it was the girls from girls night who were supposed to go, but three out of the five of us couldn't make it. So at the last minute it ended up being me, Li from girls night, Jaqi - a girl I go to events with, and KT my best girl. The 8pm movie was sold out so we bought tickets for 9:45pm then headed to late happy hour at Iron Cactus. As I sat there enjoying the conversation, the laughter, and looking around at all the smiling faces I wondered how I had gotten there to have so many different girlfriends from so many different groups all hanging out together smiling, laughing, and having a blast. What an incredible feeling to know I have such wonderful girls in my life that we would all be able to come together and actually have an amazing time with each other, even with some of them hardly knowing each other.

Quite a Day

The events that have unfolded today have left me reeling.

Today, a man from A*stin flew a pl*ne into a building in A*stin because he was upset at the eye are s. He wrote a long note explaining his life story and what brought him to make this decision. Reading the note is intense, sad, and completely hopeless. His conclusion brings him to v*olence. I am only grateful that no one else besides the pilot was killed.

How can one get to this point? How can one be so broken, and distressed that they give up on life? How can one so educated not look at the past and realize the freedoms we DO have today. Yes, his life sucked in certain areas, and sucked hard, but hurting others is supposed to fix it? This is basically a su*cide note, one that could've killed others. I'm glad it didn't. But I'm still reeling from the aftershock.

A few thoughts

*It seems that people who had to move around a lot as kids are more happy, confident, and adaptable as adults.

*I love accessible big bloggers. The ones who get a million comments on their blogs and would never need to visit your (ahem, my) puny little blog for a second, but do any way, and leave their trail of love. Those are the people I want to meet, besides all of us living in the non celebrity world of bloggers.

*A college degree is a paper of commitment that you completed a goal. A goal that took four plus years to complete.

*Clothes, hair, and makeup don't make me, but they have a power all their own. When I look styled and put together, people are drawn to them. I definitely feel more confident when I am dressed the part, but I am always who I am regardless.

In other news

I feel like my Comp II class is throwing off my writing! I hate it! I had such a good handle there on my writing for the last eight months, knowing exactly what I wanted to put down and smiling when it was done. Now a big question mark floats in my head.

There are different styles of writing, and I feel like I am just getting a grasp on it. I wish I could separate my styles more clearly already. One for analysis, and one for enjoyment. This is my writing for enjoyment. But I feel like the analytical technical side is leaking in as I'm concentrating on trying to cover all the evaluation points in the professor's grading sheet.

My Comp I professor wanted things INTERESTING, and really, that was all she required. I LOVEd it because I was able to write interesting and at the same time had to make sure it was good. If it was interesting she loved it, it was that easy. Even still it was challenging covering the new points and keeping it interesting, but that's what I loved. I'm finding I'm falling back on my notes from that class to keep things interesting in this class and crossing my fingers this professor will think I'm covering her points technically even though it's an interesting read.

My first paper for this Comp II was completely technical, so it will be interesting to see what my professor thinks of that. This next paper that is due, I am going for a more interesting approach, because seriously writing that first paper bored me to fucking tears. This second one I wrote in an hour or so and makes me smile when I look at it. Hopefully she smiles when she looks at it too instead of stabbing it with a red pen.

Wow

Where has time gone? Valentine's day and exam week has sucked up my reserves. So many thoughts running through my head, but not long enough to put them down on paper.

Life is cracking right now, some moments are sky high, the others are ground low. I wish we didn't have to deal with the debt that we have, and the house that we are in, but we do. When I'm not overwhelmed thinking about that, Brando and I are enjoying each other immensely. In the meantime, we're surviving!

Loving Life!

And hating it! Insert laughing out loud here.

This week started out great, turned to shit, then got better.

Monday was great until I got a text from Brando saying this week is going to suck. Of course I try to cheer him up so I don't get stressed. Worked for him a little, but I ended up feeling down.

Tuesday blew. I dove headfirst into panic mode because we decided to take our house off the market to be rented since it's been on the market for 90 days, plus we don't really want to move until closer to summer at this point. Nevertheless, it feels like we're in stalemate.

Wednesday blew harder. I overslept a class.

Thursday got a little better. I made up for the overslept class. Discovered I'm taking a Native American literature class instead of Comp II (not for reals, but the way the teacher is teaching it), which isn't so hot. Had a date with my handsome man which ended up being a back and forth about the house situation, but still had a blast.

And... I start my period today. Ahhhhh. THAT explains the week. Especially when I ran out of my calcium, magnesium, boron mixture last week that keeps my mood tempered. Here's to a better weekend! I hope? Although so much for that night long sex night in the hotel. At least we made up for it last night ; ) .

English Class

is SO boring this semester. Comp I was fabulous. My professor was amazing. My group of friends was amazing. Comp II this semester, not so much. This morning the professor spent an hour and ten minutes telling us Native Americans have federal reserves where they don't have to abide by state law, and state reserves where they do have to abide by state law. And their stories tell their history. She spent AN HOUR telling us that. I understand why she would do that if we were in a Native American class, but we're not. We're in a Comp II class.

I did appreciate hearing the interesting information, but it wasn't something I couldn't have looked up and researched in ten minutes. In fact, I could probably find out more information in those ten minutes than she gave us in a whole hour.

The other thing is she doesn't seem to be expanding on the actual textbook, which is a really great book. If anything she seems to be minimizing all the extra information it gives you, and not in a good way. In a overly simple, let's repeat this one thing over and over until it's beaten like a dead horse way.

Breathe. *vent over*

Yes indeed it's sun time, sun time

Just got home from an exhausting, but delicious and fun Austin trailer (aka food cart) tour. One unexpected aspect - we all ended up sunburnt! We did find a bunch of delicious new places to eat that are inexpensive because their overhead is so low. The nice thing is each trailer creates their own fabulous outdoor atmosphere, and several may share one atmosphere. One of my favorite had a fire pit that overlooked a creek. Can't wait to write about it over at PSD!

A couple thoughts for next year before I forget. One, a two day event might be beneficial. We didn't get to try all the trailers today as we were too full to continue after the first five or so. Second, WARN the trailers that we are coming. Most did well with this, but one wasn't aware of the expected volume. They actually were refunding money because the wait was too long, and personally told me they had only expected a group of 15. Had they checked the facebook page they would've seen 351 confirmed guests. That's only the ones that bothered to RSVP on facebook. Hopefully that particular trailer will take me up on my suggestion of offering their trailer tour prices to customers for another day, since a lot of people ended up not being able to try them even after waiting half an hour like we did. Third, remind to people to bring sunscreen! I'm going to be saying ouch quite a bit the next few days. Fourth, have a map at the check in point. It would actually be inexpensive to create with each trailer contributing a little to have their advertisement on it as well. It also would serve as a GREAT future reference to attend the trailers again or try the ones you might've missed.

A house

has never kept a family from divorce.

*not in reference to me, but in reference to my frame of mind about owning and/or living in a house.

SkinnyGirl

I am in LOVE with the SkinnyGirl books by Bethenny Frankel. So far I own two of her books, SkinnyGirl Dish and Naturally Thin. I'm not sure if she has any more, but these two I absolutely ADORE. They are EVERYthing I used to know internally about healthy food and healthy eating, and everything I promptly forgot during one semester of high stress full-time college courses and keeping together a marriage and family. Starbucks in the morning? Yes, please. Need to eat to keep up my brain power. Out to lunch with friends? Sure! Got to socialize, and what's another $8 bucks and a whole sandwich? Dinner? I looove dinner, it's my favorite meal. Can't skip that.

Yeah, so, my healthy eating habits went to shit that semester. Then, I totally forgot them! So I am SOOO excited that somebody else had internalized them and actually had the foresight to write them down in Naturally Thin. My favorite's so far:

*Your diet is a bank account: Make huge withdrawals if you want, just make sure to balance it with a deposit.

*You can have it all, just not at once: Pick your splurges. Instead of having the bread, cheese, pasta, desert, and wine, pick one or two. Or, just have a bite or two to satisfy your craving without making a huge withdrawal.

*Balance your meals: If you have carbs for breakfast, have protein and veggies for lunch. If you have eggs for breakfast, have some whole grain bread for lunch.

I love the general idea she presents that we are ALL naturally thin, we just need to to THINK thin, and stop beating ourselves up for our cravings and indulgences. We are, after all, human.

In Skinnygirl Dish, Frankel teaches you how to cook the way she cooks - by instinct. I used to know how to do that, too. When I stopped cooking four years ago, I had neglected to write down exactly how I did that. While the Fat Flush Plan got me started with what ingredients and simple recipes to use, Skinnygirl Dish has helped me continue with cooking techniques and essential kitchen utensils. My favorite's so far:

*Cook eggs on medium heat, not high heat. She actually does a different version than this, but it didn't work for me, so I modified it to medium heat. Makes delicious fried eggs for the boys, and perfect scrambled eggs for me.

*Buy a silicone baster. Works for EVERYthing. And so easy to clean.

*She gives proportions to create your own cookies. Haven't tried this yet, but am excited to.

*She has listed the spices to create different types of ethnic cuisines. What an excellent reference when I want to change things up!

*Most of all, she emphasizes adjusting to fit your needs and not being afraid to try something new and being okay if it doesn't work out.

That's all I can think of for now that I definitely don't want to forget.

Edit: Two new rules I've learned and love:

*Avoid food commercials. They can make you want food you don't need.

*Taste your food. Really taste your food.

*Don't eat while distracted i.e. watching tv, standing up, driving. Food isn't as satisfying this way and you end up feeling like you didn't eat.

*Take the few extra seconds to dress up your food. For example, tonight we had Bluebell ice cream. Instead of Hershey's syrup I took an extra few seconds to throw raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries (all frozen) with local honey into the blender and made an amazing raspberry dessert sauce that tasted like we were eating at a five star restaurant. So fun!

Being a Journallist

Hopefully there's no journalists that read this. If you do, I'm sorry. But have you ever noticed how journalist's writing seems to be dry? No emotion. Mostly informational. I've noticed it carries over into their personal writing as well. Just the facts. I don't really feel one way or another when I read it, if I read it at all. Becoming a journalist totally intrigues me, but because of this one fact, I don't think it will be an avenue or opportunity I will pursue. I would love to be a writer, yes, a journalist, no. If I'm being over stereotypical I wish I knew. Maybe there are some journalists out there who can write their personal musings with flavor and feeling. I just haven't noticed any. And so it keeps me from going there.

On a side note the ones who DO have interesting writing have led totally full lives of other intriguing things. People who aren't trained to write about it, they just experience it. Maybe this is what makes a good writer. A life full of experiences with real people and real friends. I can get on board with that.

Meditation

I realized the other day why meditation works so well. Not that I would personally know, since I've never been able to calm myself down and "breathe" long enough to actually call it such a thing. But, taking a shower the other day and having a million and one brilliant thoughts race through my head that I feel the need to immediately share like normal - I only wish I had a recorder in the shower - I realized taking a shower is a sort of meditation in and of itself. Your body is doing something that's completely routine. There's nothing new about it, and your mind is free to relax and pay attention to thoughts from your subconscious and come up with things you'd never thought of before. I swear I've become a millionaire in there. Now I just have to figure out how to get it out of the shower.

Best Friends

The difference between best friends and friends is friends come and go, but best friends stay forever. You can drift apart, get upset with each other, but in the end you always come back together and and have that easy, enjoyable, laugh your ass off time with each other. Best friends just feel like family and in turn they become like family. When I look at it in that light, I have a lot of best friends. There's really only a few though that I truly call best friend on a day to day basis. This is coming from someone who used to never call anyone best friends because each friend fits a different need in my life, and I in theirs.

But I had a tough conversation with one of my best friends the other day. I had to tell her something I wasn't sure she would like. She was putting boys above friends, even to the point where nobody could count on her anymore to be where she said she would be when she said she would. If a boy issue came up she would flake. Well, any way, I talked to her and told her no boy that asks you to ditch your girlfriend on her birthday is worth your time, and even if you gave him or them a ride (which she did) to ditch his ass and tell him to take a taxi home if he's not going to go along with you to the plans she ALREADY made. Any way, she cried at the end and told me she'd been depressed lately, and hadn't been venting to anyone. I had assumed she was venting to her mom and sister since she'd been spending a lot of time with them as well, but I didn't realize she can't vent everything to them. She thanked me for caring enough to tell her what she NEEDED to hear, then called and apologized to the friend of ours she had ditched on her birthday. Then she texted and said I feel like I have a little bit of me back. Yay! Whew for happy endings!

The friend whose birthday it was described me to her friend as the most genuinely nice person she has ever met, almost too nice. I replied, "I try not to be." I can be too nice. To a friend's detriment even instead of telling them to buck up and do what they need to do. I was glad she made that comment because it reminded me I had been too nice with my other friend and it was time to tell her she needed to cut it out. As a result? We went to a movie last night and I FINALLY met her sister yesterday who's been in town for two weeks and I haven't met due to aforementioned issues. Probably the first time I've hung out with her since then, too.