My eye has been hurting most of the weekend, eyeball is red and itchy, and I thought it was allergies. I’ve been sneezing, eyes watery, the whole gamut this past week. But sometime during the weekend, my upper and then lower lid became swollen and painful with each blink. I took out my contacts immediately and put in a fresh pair, but even that made things icky. Ive been wearing my glasses…this morning it’s not much better. I’m wondering if I can go to the clinic on campus or if I should call my eye doctor and try to get in this week…UGH.

Had a great weekend, spending time with friends. We gathered at the Ghouls Gone Wild Halloween parade on Saturday, but were greatly disappointed. No candy for the kids. No skeletons with torches. The parade route was changed so we scrambled to find another place to meet, which turned out to be right next to the stand where the judges and announcers were and they were HORRIBLE. So…we hope that next year it will be better. Afterwards I went back to Scott and Beckys and we built a fire in the fire pit and hung out and roasted weenies and smores and had a night of laughing. It was good. As Becks said, My love bucket is full again. Yes. Mine too.

Bonusmom called me on Saturday to say that the choir director had asked her to ask me if I would consider singing their Christmas Cantata with them. Rehearsals are on Sunday nights at 7pm and the Cantata will have two performances on Sunday, December 18th. One at 10am and one at the 11am service. It’s been years since I’ve sung in a choir, since I’ve sung in harmony, since I’ve learned any music, and the thought of jumping into something new freaked me out a bit, and I worried about the time commitment…so of course I said OK! I’ll DO IT! First rehearsal was yesterday and it was fine. I’m excited about the whole thing!

I’ve got a big big text this week, so that will take my brain juice from now till Thursday. I found some good books for my papers, so that a step in the right direction. My homework is finished for tonight, other than finding a stapler and getting to school early to meet with my professor to discuss my grad paper in the YA Lit class. I have my meeting with my advisor on Wednesday, to work on my plan of study and get that filed as well as get enrolled for the Spring semester.

It’s going to be a busy week…I’d better get up and giddyup.

I don’t remember how to write a research paper.

I know basic stuff, develop your thesis, bla bla bla, but I’ve got 3 that should be pretty easy to bang out…and for whatever reason…I’m stymied.

Maybe I’ll google, “how to write a research paper.”

The more I’m on campus and in class, the more I miss my USAO professors.

It’s cold and rainy here today, 44 degrees right now. All the livestock are inside, the coffee is hot and strong, I’ve got an apple cider pork roast in the crock pot with veggies. Class today, then I’ve got clients until 8pm tonight. Long day. It’ll be nice to come home to warm food.

I’ve got some reading to finish before class this morning and the professor announced that we’ll be having a text next tuesday, so I’ve got LOTS of studying to do over the weekend. I haven’t watched football since opening day. Oh well. My Colts are having a brutal season anyway. I’m better off at the library.

Have a fabulous Thursday, ya’ll.

 

Do you Pinterest?

My friends have been agog for weeks and weeks. . . I just haven’t had the time to even look at it until lately. I have to admit…it’s pretty awesome. The recipes. The style and hair and fashion ideas…it’s like a virtual place for all of those pictures and recipes and things you’ve cut out of magazines and saved in a file.

Pretty pictures.

I made a few boards last night, just random stuff, some recipes, pictures of cute boys.

School was frustrating yesterday…I made a B+ on my midterm. Whatever. For the total class I’m about three points away from an A…I’ll bring it up. Then I realized that I didn’t cite three things in my bibliography correctly, but my professor let me bring the corrected copy today and won’t count it late. It’s like I’m making freshman mistakes. But it’s a new day, fresh week, forward march.

I made the Hungry Girl chicken pot pie yesterday. Have you ever tried it? Super easy, and lowerfat and 6 points per serving. Good stuff. I have to say, I’ve been inspired by Pinterest to try some new recipes soon!

Ok, time to get up and get some reading done before class this morning. Library work and research time then grocery stop then home to read more. That’s my day.

Peace.

It’s the last week in October.

How in the world did that happen?

Is it going fast for you, too? Faster even than before?

I have no trepidation going into the final weeks of the semester. I know I’ve got a lot of research and writing ahead of me. But for the first time in awhile…I have no anxiety sitting on my shoulders. So that’s something.

My homework is finished for today. I’ve got reading to do for tomorrow. There are a few house chores that need doing and some errands that need running and perhaps a car that needs cleaning.

How’s your Monday?

Fall Break did me a world of good.

I slept in. I stayed up late watching West Wing. After the first part of the week I didn’t do any homework, didn’t work ahead. I worked at the salon, hard. Saw a lot of clients who were taking advantage of their own Fall Break.

Friday night was Fall Fest. . . And because it was such a wonky year, schedules so busy I didn’t get to do anything with Bonusmom to help. We have a tradition. Lunch, then farmers market for pumpkins, then Sam’s for the food. She got it done with help from friends, and it was a fabulous success…and I know it’s my own life that kept me from participating fully…but I was sad about it. We’ve been off our game, Bonusmom and I. We didn’t do RFTC, now this. Flop. But getting to see her this weekend was goodgoodgood.

Fall Fest was as it always is, awesome. We sit around the fire. We roast hotdogs. We drink and laugh and tell stories and burn things. The burning of things is our favorite part. The night was perfect, clear skys, cool temps, lots of stars. Darci and Delb and Audra and Co. . . so good to have facetime with them. All of the kids had fun…they’re growing up so fast. This year I do believe there was a game of truth or dare happening. Sheesh. Next year, I’ll be better about getting invites out to everyone…it’s something that shouldn’t be missed.

As usual, after fall fest, I’m geared up to have more fire nights at my own house. I love so much, sitting by the fire at night. It’s healing.

Yesterday the fam came into the salon after I was finished for the day and we did some minor cleaning up of cuts. We headed to the mall where the boys and Bonusmom headed to the Leggo store and Godiva Chocolates (they have a routine!) and Sis and I headed to the pedi place. We both got the pedicure and added the reflexology. Lord it felt good. My back has been killing me this week and that chair was a Godsend. We picked up some salad at Olive Garden then came back here to sup and play with leggos and chill out. I love just getting to hang out with the family. We looked at some of sis’ new clothes and put together some shoe ideas. We watched part of Home Alone 3 and I figured out that the chick that played Jake Ryan’s girlfriend in Sixteen Candles grew up to play the mom in that movie. We loaded everything up and said goodbyes with tentative plans for breakfast today…I’m so happy that they made the drive for the weekend. It’s a long exhausting haul, but it does my soul good.

Today…today is back to business. Today is bibliography. Today is the project that I have spent zero time on…all getting finished today. I probably should have been using the time given previously to work on this, and I’ve done tons of online research at home. But there is work to be done at the library, and after I finish this coffee and wash my face and do some laundry…that’s where I’ll be today.

But I’ll go full. Full of friends and full of family.

Hope your weekend was just as filling.

I grew up, from the time I was five years old, watching Days of Our Lives with MeMe and PaPa. It used to come on at 12:30 and we’d watch it with our bologna and cheese sandwichs and chips ahoy cookies and lemonade after I would come home from swimming lessons.

When I was in my Tweens, I spent summers with family. My other Meme and Papa in Granite where I roamed the streets with a cherry limeade from the pharmacy across from Pryor’s Department Store. With Auntie Dedo in OKC, who would take me to the bookstore in the mall on the first day and I would spend all of my money and then read the rest of the time (she really had the smarts that one) and with Auntie Carla and Uncle Bryan down in Freeport, Texas.

Auntie Carla and Uncle Bryan would drive me around in their blue Volkswagon Bug singing to Buddy Holly. We’d go get homemade rootbeer from the dude on the corner, we would go to the beach and fish for crab, we’d have ginormous salads with blue cheese dressing for lunch. While we made lunch, we would watch All My Children. Liza and Tad. Jenny and Greg. Angie and Jessie. and Erica. Ohhhh Erica.

Clearly I was born with a flair for the dramatic. Soaps were just this beautiful outlet for all of the crazy, overthedge, romantic and adventurous I had only thought about. Coming home, and apparently this was a good summer because it was the summer I got fat, or so my mother has said numerous times, I guess I mentioned something about “so and so is sleeping with so and so’s husband and he’s going to leave her for so and so…”

Well. My mother freaked and put an immediate moratorium on all things Soap Opera. (I also didn’t get to see a concert that wasn’t based in Jesus until I was a sophomore in high school…seriously. It’s no wonder my 20’s were what they were!—not really but it’s nice to have something to blame them on)

SO I don’t remember really when I got to start watching them again…but when I did it came back with a vengance. I don’t think there was a day in the 80’s that I didn’t watch one, read about one or talk about one. All of them. Days of our Lives. All My Children. Another World. As The World Turns. General Hospital on the Rick Springfield days.  What I didn’t watch, I read about in Soap Opera Digest.

The hair. The clothes. The jewelry. The location shoots. The mystery and adventure. The summer romances. The Super Couples. The theme songs. Don’t think I didn’t have a Peabo Bryson/Roberta Flack cassette in my bedroom player. I loved the soaps. I wanted to be on one. I wanted to be a psychiatrist like Marlena Evans Brady Black. I mean, why not? Hot Mess Stacy told me in the 4th grade that I was really easy to tell problems to, so it made perfect sense.

Some years later, junior high and high school, my mom and sister and I would race home and get to the vcr with it’s remote control that had a cord. We would have chips and Pace picante sauce and Little Debbie peanut butter snack bars. And we would watch. All three of us. Sitting in the floor (because that’s as far as the corded remote control would reach) and for an hour we would have just girl time. We would lose ourselves with Pete and Melissa and Jack and Jennifer and Anna and Tony and Roman and Marlena. We would root root root for Bo and Hope and we would have a moment of bliss. . . Bliss before dad would come home and the bullshit would rain down.  We would laugh and we would cry and on Friday’s we would scream NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Those Friday episodes were a bitch.

This time of year is my power time. It’s my favorite. I am lost in emotion and nostalgia and even more aware of how fast it all goes by. Last night, I got sucked into some Youtube clips of vintage Days moments. I watched for an hour before I started posting on my FB wall. Turns out, I’m not the only one that likes a trip down memory lane. The comments were flowing, I was laughing. Trish and I decided we need a sleep over with Days of our Lives, Bacon Chocolate Chip cookies and scotch.

With most of the genre dying off, there are only a handfull of soaps still on the air right now, I feel an even stronger urgency to hold on, to remember. It’s a nice little connector… the conduit of memories of a time that maybe wasn’t full of all great stuff…but for an hour a day it was bliss.

Here’s to bliss. If you get an hour a day…well that day in your life is a pretty good one.

For Kizz…

Now, you all know how I cook. I don’t do a lot of measuring. I use what’s in my pantry and freezer and dump it in my crockpot. You can use your basic chili recipe, the spices you like to taste.

I cut up two big honkin sweet potatos in cubes. I didn’t peal them first.

I dumped a can of crushed tomatos and a can of diced. I added some fresh tomatos that I’d put in the freezer last summer.

Chopped up four cloves of garlic, and one jalapeno pepper seeds and all.

One can of black beans drained and a can of chili beans not drained

One onion chopped

One yellow bell pepper course chopped

I added (because I needed to use it before it went bad) a lb of lean ground turkey

Salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, cayenne, crushed red pepper

and a cup or two of water

I dumped the turkey and tomatos in frozen solid, added the canned stuff and veg and spices and turned on the crockpot and left.

Stupidgood.

After class yesterday, I gave myself the day off from homework.

I ran a few errands, I went and worked out, and I came home and nested.

I made sweet potato/black bean/turkey chili.  It was a crockpot thing. I just dumped stuff out of the freezer, chopped up the veg and done.

I made brown buttered chocolate chip cookies with BACON!

They were labor intensive. I bought new cookie sheets. About one batch came out perfect and I cooked them for HALF the time the recipe said. Other pans came out a little too toasty. I think next time I make them…more bacon. At the end of the day, it’s a homemade chocolate chip cookie.

I bought a new Yankee Candle while at the store. Autumn Wreath.

Lord, but I love a house that has the smells of a home…simmering soup, cookies, candles.

I took a little time to re-figure my grade in YA Lit. I’m sitting on a high B right now. Hopefully the midterm will have brought that up. Way up. The test was good. The teacher is a little batty so I don’t know how she’ll grade the long answer/essay portions. It took me a little over 2 hours to take it. I feel confidant.

Today is a new hair day.

I’ve had the same high lift blonde for several SEVERAL years. I don’t change my hair that often as far as the color goes. Today, that changes. I’m going darker. Still blonde pieces, but my overall base color will be a dark blonde/light brown…I’ll make sure to post pictures after.

Once that’s finished I’m heading up to school and logging in some library time. The bibliography is due Monday. The library is closed Friday for fall break, and that’s fine because that’s Fall Fest and Taryn & Co are coming in for that. Saturday is a stupid busy day at work. so, it’s today, maybe tomorrow night and Sunday for the info I have to get FROM the library. It’ll be fine. (crossing fingers)

Time for one more cuppa. Have a great day, won’t you? It’s humpday, afterall.

This morning is my last class of the week.

The weather has changed, a cold front has blown through and the highs are in the 60’s.

Sweatshirts! Boots! (I know. I know NYC girls are rolling eyes. Sorry…but kind of not sorry!)

A light freeze is coming mid week. I went out to the garden that I had pretty much abandoned during the 115 degree summer, and I’ll be damned if it’s not flourishing. There’s tomato blooms out there that, if I cover it with a sheet at night, just might explode into tomatos for a final harvest! So that’s something.

I’m making a B in my Young Adult Fiction class. I have the midterm, a project and a grad paper along with 8 more weeks of daily grades, to bring it up to an A.

I’m making this for supper tonight. Sweet Potato Chili. So good. I can’t wait. Jalapeno cornbread to go with it.

As I was looking at the recipe…I started perusing the entire blog. The author has had her own struggle with weight.

Mine is at a place right now…my body is out of control. I can feel it. I can’t wait until my doctor’s appointment in a few weeks. There’s something else going on here that is more than emotional eating. . . but that’s the majority of it and the emotions and hormones and crazy voices. . . there’s got to be an endgame.  These posts resonated with me, go read. 

Ok, I’ve got a list of things today after class and time at the library.

Peaceout, ya’ll.

 

 

 

 

Midterm exam today.

I feel good. I feel ready.

I left the house once this weekend, all other moments were in the house, cleaning, studying, watching West Wing, napping, Studying, snacking, reading, STUDYING.

Today. Test.

No class tonight. Major Author assignment due a week from today.

Class tomorrow. Paper thesis due.

Fall Break.

Fall FEST! Yes! It’s time for Fall Fest again. Friday night~my sis and the boys are coming. The usual suspects will show up perhaps.

I know I’m completely slammed at work on Saturday so it won’t be a long night for me.

Keeping the balls in the air, juggling…juggling…trying to be what I need to be for everyone…learning to say yes…learning to say no…compartmentalizing…risking.

A reminder why I’m doing this