May 2009 Be the Year of the Artichoke

I suppose since it's the end of the year, I'm expected to review the year and list expectations for the new year? Well, here's at least an attempt at that.

Needless to say, this year has been a crazy one! Luckily we went through no major deaths like last year but there was lots of healing to be done this year from hardships that have occured in the recent past. Not completely healed but on the way :)

Let's see, this year several things have occured: I got MARRIED for one :) This is wildly important because I'm the type of person to never have a realy relationship, to never allow myself to be loved by someone else and here I am, happily married to my best friend. Truly. Knowing we'll always be each other's side kicks makes me happy every which way possible. We celebrated having our 80lb puppy for over a year now. Never thought I was a dog person and never thought I'd have a big dog but look at me now! I love our beast love having him as part of our lives. I completed an internship in Hungary focusing on English teaching practices in the country. I did this a little less than a month after being married and left the mister at home due to money constraints. I missed him terribly but find comfort in the fact that we can survive away from each other from time to time if needed. The trip was an amazing experience and I fell in love with the country. Perhaps one day I'll return :) What else? Well, this was the year that my father had an argument with a large firework and ended up in the ICU burn unit on a ventilator for three days. That was a tad bit stressful. But all turned out fine and became a reminder of how lucky we are to have each other, near or far. The mister, the beast and I took an 11 hour road trip across country for a wedding days after I returned from Hungary - it was the longest time the beast had been in the car which he did wonderfully with! The mister and I amazingly do very well on the roadtrips if I can keep my anxious little mouth shut about my car fears :) It was a great trip and is always nice to get away. Of course we all know that this was the year that I completed my comprehensive exams and graduated with my Masters in TESL! NEVER thought I would finish any type of schooling let alone a MASTERS! I must say, I'm pretty proud of myself for completing that endeavor :) What else, what else? On a lighter note, I cut off over a foot of hair again, was recognized for my jewelry work, met Pharrell Williams (who I'm secretly in love with), finished my first year of teaching, rearranged a few rooms, discovered my husband is a master juggler (seriously) and discovered that artichokes and brusselsprouts are long lost friends of mine. So there's my year in a nutshell.

What do I expect for 2009? Nothing really. I do hope to overcome some of my fears through having my thyroid regulated again - I haven't been proactive with working with it in years and am VERY suspicious that regulating that will help many of my anxieties...I hope, I hope. I hope to continue to be a successful teacher and continue to learn from my students while learning what works best for them. I hope that our marriage continues to be as enjoyable as it has been and that we become better partners than we already are. I hope the jewelry biz keeps kickin like it has been. I hope my family all finds the happiness they are seeking. I just hope for good and to be able to see the good.

So a New Year's Resolution? Not sure that I have any. Just want to continue taking care of myself and raising the best beast, mister and fuzzbuckets that I can. And I'd like to learn how to prepare artichokes from scratch. I suppose that's my resolution.

Unwrapping Emotional Packages

Christmas is over. Sigh. It was a whirlwind and it was a heavy holiday this year but it was nonetheless a good one. We were all over the state to visit all the appropriate holiday festivities and were well exhausted by the end of it. We even had family to our small abode Christmas evening!

I read, as I'm sure many of you did, about the Santa Shooter. It disturbed me so very very much. The main item of disturbance was the fact that this man, dressed as Santa, shot an eight year old girl in the face. She answered the door to see Santa and he shot her. How cruel. He truly stole her innocence and her family. Makes me downright sick. I'm so glad she survived and hope it doesn't plague her the rest of her life. Stories like these make me sometimes scared to be alive; scared that I may be in one of those terrible situations someday. It's of course the media that makes these type of stories more prevalent though. I need to take a break from media I believe.

During this time, I was down and thought much about how poorly I look upon American society. I've always been intrigued by the idea of picking up and relying on nothing but my senses to get me by. I'm sure I'll never do this but the idea of it is so romantic and appealing to me. This Christmas I acquired three new remote controls for three new plug-in gifts. I also received many new things to keep my jewelry habit alive and kicking. Combining these two acquisitions, I was forced to watch many movies over the break while working on jewelry. One of the movies I watched was called Into the Wild which is based off of a true story about an affluent young man who had just finished college and left to live off of the land with the ultimate goal of reaching and surviving in Alaska. It was such an appropriate film to me to watch at the time and it fulfilled something in me I needed to vicariously live through someone else.

I feel like I'm often battling an internal war between wanting to assimilate better into my culture and functioning normally versus wanting to run away and live a life without plans, without goals, without rules. When I assess my life and all that I have in it though, my drive to remain home with my family and what I'm familiar with wins. This Christmas, through heavy conversations, stark realizations, missing those no longer with us, I experienced extreme feelings of love, contentment, pride and perfection with life. It amazes me sometimes the depths we must go to realize how wonderful we have it, to realize that what matters in life is right in front of us.

This season I am grateful for:

Communication
Tears
Disabled Alarm Clocks
Family from afar
El Caminos
Friends who dig through the muck to find the gems
Family dinners eaten by those not technically family
Honesty
Working Toilets
Hot Tea
You

This Goes Here, That Goes There

so i've had LOTS of free time on my hands since the semester is over with and that i'm officially a graduate of graduate school! YEAH! that being said, i've found other things to fill my time :) the other day, i inventoried ALL of the jewelry that my jewelry partner and i have on the market. took about four hours but i believe will be totally worth it. everything has a code number which notes who made it, what year it was made and what order it was made...a simple 5 digit code :) in the midst of all of this, my mother and sister have found it entertaining to discuss my organization skills which, i must say, are quite stellar and are far from a problem as far as i am concerned.

Two of the examples discussed will now be discussed here. When I was probably about 10 or so, I decided to catalogue all of our family's VHS tapes. each started with a letter - K for Kid, A for Adult, F for family, H for home video and so on. Then, a number was assigned to each. I then made an inventory sheet so when we wanted to watch something, all we would need to do is look on the sheet, take into account who all were going to be watching and choose from the appropriate category as opposed to thumbing through all of the cumbersome tapes. made sense to me! when my mom and i reminded my sister of that, she did not remember BUT still has some of the tapes with my numbering on them and now knows what they are there for!

The second example was one that I had forgotten! My sister reminded me today. At my Granny and Papa's house, we had a plethora of puzzles with lots of grandkids to work on them and to lose the pieces. I took it upon myself to number the bottom of each puzzle box, complete each puzzle, turn them over and number the pieces to match the box so puzzles could be easily kept together. I found this sooooo funny to be reminded of. Sometimes I'm amazed as to how far back my organizing obsession goes!

Growing up, I was paid by my parents and my friends parents to clean and organize closets and cupboards in their homes. I'm talking from age 7 and up I was many peoples' organizer....and i loved it. I often thought for years growing up that I would perhaps just clean houses for a living! My childhood best friend, her sister and my sister would play what we called 'Townspeople' where we would all create businesses for ourselves, make storefronts in doorways and conduct business just as adults would do in the real world. There was the banker, the postman (always my sister since she was the youngest and nobody else wanted the task), a daycare and other odds and ends. I ALWAYS had BB's Beauty and would do people's hair and Classic Maids where I would come to organize and clean your business. *I recently drove past a business the other day actually called Classic Maids and about shat myself when I saw it! - That was my company first! ;) * So it's in my blood I suppose.

I wonder why some people are this way and others are not. I'm SO glad I am this way though! I can't imagine living in a chaotic, disorganized way. I just wish I could organize my thoughts as I organize the tangible things in life.....

Gratitude

i'm posting immediately after another post :) i'm on a roll today.

so when i was in college, i saw an oprah show that talked about gratitude journals. a young girl had somehow lost her life and her mother had found her gratitude journal which was full of all the things her daughter gave thanks for at some point in her life. the story was very touching but was touched me more was the idea of giving thanks for everyday occurences. shortly after, i purchased a small journal and began my own gratitude journal which i continued for about four years. i LOVE to read back through it and read what i had written. often, it takes me back to that very day or reminds me of a trip i was on. that little journal has been many places. then one day i quit. i've no clue why. and i miss it. and i'm resurrecting it. here. today.

so today i give thanks for:
dancing with my dad
laughing while getting ready in the mornings
having heat
impending holiday excitement
writing
reconnecting
hot tea and a well balanced breakfast
trucks that take two to drive them

i plan to keep it up this time.

Death Boxes

cars are deathboxes to me. here's yet another issue i have. i despise cars. everything about them. i used to LOVE driving around and listening to music. i couldn't wait to turn 16 to be able to drive! i thrived on shifting into gears and racing away from all my worries. now, my worries sit on four wheels in driveways and on roadways. i hate to drive. i hate to be a passenger. i hate that cars are such horrible pollutants. i'm lucky as my husband and i carpool together thus one car stays at home so we're not creating as much toxins as we could be but we are still contributing nonetheless. i miss driving a standard. i miss not being scared of cars.

i also have a few weather issues. my driving issues are intensified HORRIBLY when bad weather is thrown into the mix. it's debilitating honestly. i rode with my father today to a dance lesson to a suburb about 30 minutes from where we are located. it was misty and foggy and i thought my lunch would soon be on my lap from the nerves. not to mention we were on the highway which i don't even care for on sunny days!

my driving and weather issues are about to send me back into therapy. truly.

tonight i am supposed to attend a girls' night ornament exchange in the same aforementioned suburb but after my experience earlier, i called the host, explained the situation and have bowed out. she's been in the car with me during some of my 'moments' and understands. it sucks though, for lack of a better word. it just sucks. i HATE that i let these fears get the best of me. i figure though, it's better for me to stay at home rather than be scared and jumpy and endangering not only myself but other motorists on the roadways. as for being a passenger with someone else, i trust very few people behind the wheel. my father is one of those few and if i was such a wreck with him, i don't believe anyone else will be much better.

it's time for me to live in a city with amazing public transportation; where i need no car; where my weather fears only involve what type of shoes to wear. but for now, i'm here and i must deal.

*sigh*

i wish everyday was fall-like weather. i wish i had a teletranporter. i wish i could fly like i do in my dreams. running start and i'm off.....

Spinning and Learning

this post should prove to be a bit more upbeat than last :)

so i dance. i think dancing is great medicine for the soul. i refused to even move my feet to music in my teen years yet one night at church camp, of all places, i decided to truly shake a tail feather to 'come on eileen' and i've not been the same since. i've clubbed all over the world. i actually find it incredibly interesting to examine different countries club cultures and make it a point to hit night life spots when in different countries - i've been to clubs in mexico, all over germany, prague, mumbai, hungary, switzerland, and england. out of all of those, the clubs i visited in acapulco, mx were by far the most elaborate, best music, and overall the best club experiences i've yet to have.

when i was younger, i used to enjoy choreographing dances for my sister and i to perform for our parents. the ones i recall were done to prince's 'batdance', weird al's 'like a surgeon' and a mix of all sorts of songs i cut and pasted together. oh! and baby got back :) i also recall attempting to choreograph some synchronized swimming in our pool as well. in addition to the dancing, i'd also arrange for my sister to sing into our little blue and yellow microphone while i played piano and we scripted out newscasts and commericials to perform as well. we've been little entertainers for a while. i'm now getting off subject.

though i love to dance, i've had no formal introduction to dance aside from participating in a tap dance class when i was 6 or 7. i can now say though, that i'm experiencing some formal introduction.

i was married in march and a month or so before that, my father, who loves to do 'the peguin' dance or spin around like james brown, decided that he was going to take private dance lessons to razzle and dazzle all those in attendance when we did our father daughter dance. he started learning 'west coast swing' at the beginning of the year and apparently now has an addiction. i attended one of his private lessons, learned a bit and completely forgot what i learned promptly after the wedding. recently though, he's started attending group dances of west coast swingers (the dancers, not the partner sharers) at a community center near my home. he asked me to go and i agreed. simple as that. my mother is beyond tired of his dancing and him trying to get her to dance with him which i don't understand at all. at least he's not drinking his arse off and beating her or attending the topless lady establishments in town! all the man wants to do is dance and have his wife dance with him. i see no harm in that. that being said though, my husband isn't all too into the dancing craze either although i have taught him a few steps while our beast of a dog barked at us. i digress.

so two weeks ago, i accompanied my father to the group dance at the community center. we dance in a gym for an hour and pay $4 for the experience. i'm lightyears younger than the rest of the crowd and i wouldn't be suprised to find that one or two of them to be serial killers. i say that lightheartedly and only to accentuate the interesting folk who have left their homes to learn to dance. we are first split into male and female appropriate groups and learn our 1-2-3 and 4 5 and 6 steps and then are partnered with a male. we dance with each man for about 30 seconds and then switch to the next while the instructors pass through and tell us to tighten our arms, watch our feet and so on. what do i have the most trouble with you ask? following. i can't help but lead and that is true for every aspect of my life. i have control issues and want to control it all. it's a bittersweet curse. i love taking responsibility for things but hate that i'm always responsible for something.

in last week's class we learned spins with our partners. i had the hardest time with this. some of the men you dance with are terrible leaders but others teach me more than the instructor does. one in particular last week told me, in the midst of the spinning, to not do any of the work, let the man do all of the work on the spins. and i did. and it was liberating. i got it! i did the spin! but it was more that that, i let go of my control and let someone else take the wheel. it was a small (dance) step for mankind but a huge leap for me. perhaps i can learn to let go of control periodically and can continue to feel that release i felt while spinning.

tonight i will spin some more and will pass under some serial killers arms and i can't wait.

Patting Myself on the Back

ok, i'm going to let a little cat out of the bag...a cat covered in lots and lots of jewelry :) my 'creative industry' i have mentioned before is my jewelry making addiction. i've always done something here and there. i look back at pictures from when i was much much younger and see myself wearing a necklace i made out of seed beads when i was a wee tike or wearing a bracelet i weaved on a loom - it is then that i realize that i've been destined to make jewelry. when i entered college, i lived with a dear old friend of mine in the female dorms and we started creating pieces together. we made a little movie area and began frequenting the bead shops in the town we were studying and BAM! a little jewelry business began in the dorms which, i must say, is a great place to sell jewelry :) sorority girls love a new necklace to wear to the upcoming frat party :) we would hang out necklaces on the corkboard meant to hang mementos of home and put signs in the elevator to encourage the ladies to come by and buy...and they did! our sales list from that year is pretty funny: hemp $5, beaded $10 and so on. i think our most expensive sale at that time was a $12 necklace. we thought we were millionaires. time moved on and we each continued to create pieces for gifts, for ourselves and for sales here and there all the while feeding off of each other's excitement for creating and learning new tricks. after college we each moved back to our hometown at separate times and began a life without college; one filled with 8-5 shifts, rent, bills, partying and many newfound responsibilities. it was within those first few years back home that we got the idea of setting up our stuff at the local flea market to see if we could make a sell! we got together with a couple of other friends who made their own brand of goods and did that very thing. sold a little bit but caught the fire of putting our goods in a public forum. we were hooked on another thing. the original two toughed it out and forever stuck through it all and created more goods, created a name - SheezKrafty -, created a logo, sought out shows and began filling some of our weekends with shows and sales. we gained confidence in ourselves and our creations and suddenly turned around and realized that we had been at the jewelry gig for ten years!!! our quality is wonderful, our imagination amazes me sometimes and our fire to do what we do have never gone away. people love what we do but most importanly, WE love what we do. this past summer, we acquired a tax id number and became an organized money making machine in the eyes of government.

fast foward. last saturday i did a show in a nearby town and it was great! sales were great, the booth looked great and had lots of people come through. it was probably my favorite show so far. wednesday night i checked our jewelry email which i don't check everyday (but totally should) and we had received and email from www.oklatravelnet.com who wants to showcase us as local jewelry artists for their christmas show! they would film and interview us and the segment would air from 3-4 minutes. we screamed and danced around a bit and then settled ourselves to reply to her email. we've yet to hear back but are hopeful that she hasn't found another jewelry artisian to do the piece. if she has, that's fine, we are just grateful to be recognized in such a manner! it makes me so proud of all of the work we have done for so many years and it shows me that it is really starting to pay off :)

dreary day, dreary heart

i wish so dearly that this blog could be filled with flowers, hearts, rainbows and fluffy things that smell good but it's not. i've been emotionally going through a rough journey for a while and manage to deal with the things that plague me most of the time but yesterday i had an unfortunate resurgence of those sad feelings. i'm going to back track a few years.

march 2006. my mother had not flown in 10 years and i had convinced her to fly to phoenix arizona to visit my younger sister who had just moved there for school. we had a nice time traveling there and a good first day on the trip. later that evening at my sister's apt, my mom kept trying to contact my dad on his cell phone. she had forgotten that he was attending a 50th bday party for an old classmate of his. finally, her phone rang back and my dad was on the other line. immediately, the color fell from her face and she started screaming and crying. at this suprise b-day party, the woman who was responsible for my parents being together and who would have been mine and my sister's caregiver if something had happened to our parents had collapsed at the party and died after having a massive heart attack. her husband was there, my dad was there and all of the people that they had grown up with. her husband is a fire fighter and immediately went into rescue mode to try and save her but could do nothing. i'm fighting back tears right now remembering my dad telling me this story and him not being able to fight his. this was my mother's best friend, a woman i've known my entire life, a woman who was a character and a half and someone who is terribly, terribly missed. after decided to stay with my sister for a few more days so at least we all could be together while my dad helped their family, my mom and i flew home to immediately drive to the church to attend a funeral. the whole chain of events still makes me sick to relive, even two years later. while we were in arizona, i never had a moment alone to deal with this. i was either with my mom, with my sister or with both of them. i believe we were meant to be there when this tragedy occured. i don't think my mom could have handled it here, i don't think my sister would have coped well alone and well, i'm not sure about myself. i believe i was there to be the rock for both of them. so i returned, attended the funeral and never dealt with her death appropriately.

may 2006. our dog we had had since i was in middle school passed away. now, some of you may not be animal people but myself and my family consider animals to be a part of our family. this grouchy, overweight little crank of a dog was family and had been sick for a long time. she passed on her own, fortunately, and has never ever been forgotten. i helped my dad bury her in the backyard that day after watching him hold her in his arms and sob. it still breaks my heart. i try and remember the good memories with her and we still joke about her stinky farts and attacking the birds but i'll always have that sad day stuck with me.

july 2006. i met the man i married. the weekend following that, my granny passed away in a nursing home with my mom by her side after ten years of slowly dying of emphysema. we flew my sister home and buried her a few days later. my granny was the most awesome woman. her 'i don't give a sh*t about what anybody else thinks' attitude was something i've always admired. i miss her more than i let on. she was one of the few in my family that i truly felt i could tell anything to. i heard a woman a while back walking past and starting coughing as my granny had for so many years. it was so bittersweet. i miss that cough but that cough is what took her away so early. my papa is one of the most tenderhearted men i have EVER encounted. just as we all are, he is still grieving so much. in his little house, all he had left of his wife, my granny, was her devil cat, peaches.

fast forward. lots. after the barrage of death, i went into therapy but quit too early i believe. i got caught up in the middle of love - something i'd never truly experienced. i began cohabitation and within a year and a half, was married to a gem of a man. six months after falling in love with him, his mother unexpectedly passed away a story i can't emotionally afford to dredge up today. again, i became a rock and never dealt. and i'm now in a position where these unresolved feelings of grievance and saddness are coming back to haunt me. esp since yesterday.

yesterday morning at work my mom's cell phone rang and the screen read 'daddy'. now, she calls her dad daddy (i call him papa) and i call my daddy (her husband) daddy so i wasn't quite sure which daddy was calling but i answered since she was in the back of the office. it was my papa and i could barely understand what he was saying he was crying so much. i asked if everything was ok and he just replied 'no' and cried harder. i was so frightened and saddened to hear him crying like he was. it broke my heart into a million pieces just hearing him like that. turns out, the reason for his outburst of heartache was that he had to put down peaches, the one thing still linking him to granny. papa is more of an animal lover than anyone i know combined. he is now alone in his house. truly alone. it makes me so sad. and it has made us all relive losing granny and now that one (even if it was demonic) connection left to her is gone.

last night i had a terrible, terrible dream. all i really remember was that one set of my grandparents was renewing wedding vows (each set has one deceased partner in real life) so there was much commotion and excitement in the air. i then was informed that in three separate instances that day, my mom, my husband and someone else (whom i remembered in the dream and was very upset about but can't recall who now) had all died in car accidents. the day was so important though that there was no time for worrying about the deaths or feelings and we had to brush that aside to finish preparing for the day's events. towards the end of the dream, i was walking towards a door and came upon my granny and my papa sitting in a couple of chairs. granny saw my pained face and i went to her and we had a very long, and very needed embrace. i smelt her. i felt her. she wasn't sick. there was no oxygen tank. she looked healthy. she felt healthy. and she was alive. i woke up shortly after.

my life is wonderful. i'm happily married, have a masters degree now (!), teach at a wonderful place, have lovely animals, work with my family, am successful in my mind with my creations but deep down i'm sad and depressed. i'm sad because life changed for me in the blink of an eye. i lost very important figures in my life quickly together, i live a partnered life now thus my one-on-one relationships seem to have suffered and i often feel like i rarely make the right decisions in regards to friendships which are wildly important to me. why am i whining so much today? because i can. because i don't feel like i have many that i can do this to face to face. everyone is busy with their own lives, they don't have time to listen to old stories that i can't get over. i'm sure some select few would take the time but they've heard it all before. i need to get it all out without verbal interruption, without someone nodding and sympathizing - i just need to say it to me. the weather is crap so perhaps that also has something to do with this onset of saddness. whatever it is, i'm ready for the seasons to change, for my heart to heal and for life to show me the good and happy that will outweigh the bad and sad.

Time is Money?

here's a semi funny story for you followed with some reflection. my dad is a man who's paid all of his dues in the construction industry and has done quite well for himself due to endless years of working his tail off. my mother (and now myself and husband) works for my dad and has since day one. side note - i have learned so very much from watching my parents work together, live together, travel together and still love each other after so many years. anywho. so when i was a young child i spent many of my days going to work with my parents before i started school or during school breaks. one day in particular, my dad took me in the field with him and taught me multiple life lessons as is his fashion. this day my dad decided it was time to truly teach me the golden rule: time is money. that's right, i was taught that the golden rule was time is money. that day he would take me to supply houses and would ask me what the golden rule was in front of the workers and i would reply with what i had learned. they would all hee haw and commend me for my newfound knowledge and we would go on to the next place to showcase my talent.

a little while passed and a sunday came around and i found myself as a small child sitting in a sunday school class. our teacher decided that this sunday, we would focus on the golden rule. well, i was already too knowledgable about this topic, as we all know, so i chose to share that i already knew quite well what the golden rule was: time is money. i will never forget the look on my teacher's face and how confused i was when i learned that that was NOT the golden rule.

so i fast forward to now. i'm near 30 years old and i feel sometimes that the first golden rule i learned is forever engrained into my being. it is virtually impossible for me to sit and just sit without having to be doing something with my hands. i am constantly making something or scheming in my head how to make a dime or perfect my craft or designing a new piece of my creations in my head. it goes back to that obsessive state that i'm constantly in. i can't stop it. i enjoy being productive though and am glad that i am this way. i live to create and to embetter myself and to constantly grow and change throughout my life. but, is the phrase 'time is money' my driving force for that? i may never know.

time is money, though, is generally a phrase used to describe americans and their lifestyles. i attended a faculty meeting the other day and another teacher discussed the importance of integrating cultural knowledge into the classroom. she had come across a website noting ten general cultural rules to america and one of them was 'time is money'. we are constantly on the go, forever evolving, progressing, moving, being, eating, talking, buying, fighting, loving and so forth. is this such a horrible thing? if i look at it from my cultural perspective, no it's not. but if i step outside of my bubble and view our time is money mentality from another cultural perspective, it could be viewed as horribly negative. we don't take the time to breathe, to love appropriately, to cherish a sunrise or sunset, to walk outside. or do we? it all depends on your perspective, your experiences and your priorities.

but what do i know?