Observations

Tonight I have a smattering of observations floating around my mind.  They are unrelated and haphazard, but so is my brain most of the time so it's an accurate rendering of what's going on of late.  That said, let the observations begin!

Observation #1. I recently started my 29th semester of college.  Long about the time I was stressing over yet another Finals week in December, I suddenly wondered how many times I had faced the daunting-ness of proving my knowledge for yet another set of professors.  So, I counted.  Twenty-nine semesters.  I haven't yet decided if I find this revelation disturbing or amazing.  It is a good thing that I enjoy school, 'cause if I didn't - I'd have spent a lot of time doing something I dislike.  And, as we know, life is too short to do that.

Observation #2.  My mom has Nutella in her pantry and in her food storage.  

Oh, Nutella.  Be still, my heart.

While I was home between semesters, I indulged in said Nutella and was reminded why it is on the no-can-buy list at my house.  I love Nutella.  Love. It.  Someone once asked me, "But, what do you put it on?"  Um...a spoon.  YUM.  Incidentally, something else on the no-can-buy list? Mint oreos.  They say that too much of something will make you dislike it.  I have yet to find that threshold with either Nutella or mint oreos.  Hence, the no-can-buy list.

Observation #3. I was recently introduced to a fantastic little BBC Masterpiece Classics series called Downton Abbey.  

 It came highly recommended to me via several reputable sources, including my sister.  From episode 1, I was totally hooked to this story that chronicles the upstairs/downstairs livelihood of a British Manor in the early 1900's.    As I have watched this series, I find that I identify far more with The Help serving the aristocratic family than the Masters and Ladies that lord over all.  It has made me wonder if I am the only one that seems to intuitively know which social class I would likely have been in, were I living out the reality of Downton Abbey.  

On a semi-related note, I don't ever remember pretending to be a Princess or a Queen when I was a little girl.  My pretend play consisted almost exclusively of scenarios that involved me, as an orphan usually, in some dire situation that may or may not have included the hard-knock orphanage life, having to fend for myself in the wilderness with my siblings, or a really strict boarding school (I was kind of a strange little kid, I fear...). Is there a relationship between who I identify with in an aristocratic society and my constantly pretending to be an orphan as a child? Who knows, but as a scientist-in-training, I can't help but feel the need to draw connections between things.  Forgive me.

Mr. Bates and Anna - fabulous characters...

Observation #4.  Speaking of princesses, have you ever played the game Pretty, Pretty Princess?  The whole objective of the game is to earn jewelry and a crown to wear so that you, too, can dress like a princess.  I have a 3-year-old niece who is totally into Princesses and, let's just say, this game truly made all of her dreams come true. 

One very pretty, pretty princess.

On New Year's Eve, we played this game together no less than 37 times and she was thrilled every. single. time.  It was, in short, a fabulous New Year's Eve.

Observation #5.  Speaking of dreams coming true - I know they actually do.  Let me tell you of my evidence of this.  For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be in and/or direct a whistling choir.  It just sounds like so much fun!  This Christmas, it happened.  Behold, the evidence. 

Note that none of us are looking at each other.  This is intentional.  Because when you look at each other, it is very difficult not to laugh.  And laughing and whistling cannot happen at the same time.  Just sayin'.

It was everything I imagined it to be which is, to say, AWESOME.  I can't wait to do it again.

Observation #6. I mentioned once upon a time that I love going to festivals.  While I have been privileged to play outsider at a number of festivals with people who were not my people (The International Accordion Festival, Renaissance Faires, etc), over the holidays I had the amazing experience of going to a "festival" where I  was one of the in-crowd: The Sound of Music Singalong.  While it wasn't a formal festival per se, it was a place where I, in my shameless knowledge of all things Sound of Music, was celebrated.  I felt such camaraderie with 2,000 of my closest friends who love The Sound of Music as much as I do as we sang to our hearts content, hissed at the Baroness Von Schraeder, and "ahhhhhh'd" everytime Gretl said anything. It was incredible.  I would go again, in a heartbeat.

Observation #7.  A couple of months ago, I joined a gym for the first time ever.  I have long had a general repulsion to exercising with people (I just don't like public displays of pseudo-athleticism) and have much preferred my steady habit of solo trail-walking/jogging that I have maintained for several years.  Perhaps the sub-zero Nebraska winters are finally getting to me and/or perhaps it was the bruised ribs I suffered after falling on the ice two winters ago, but something finally nudged me into coming up with an alternative to my trail-walking/jogging exercise program when the weather does not cooperate.  So, I joined a gym.  A rinky-dink $10/month gym that has a smattering of treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, and weights.  I could never have predicted that I would actually enjoy it.  Wonders never cease, my friends.  I don't even know who I am anymore.

Observation #8.  I got a Sonicare toothbrush as a gift last summer from my parents.  Every once in awhile, I forget to charge it back up and the battery runs out and I have to use a regular toothbrush.  It is always a sad day.  My teeth just do not feel as clean. 

Observation #9.  I have shared an apartment with my current roommate for two and a half years now.  When the holidays rolled around for the first time after we moved in, we hung Christmas lights all around the living room.  It was very festive and very Christmas-y.

Christmas-y.

We have never taken them down.  Sometime over this past summer, half the lights went out and no amount of bulb-checking could revive them.  When Christmas rolled around, we replaced the lights.  Two days ago, the other half of the lights went out.  Sheesh.

Observation #10.  A week before I left to fly home for the holidays in December, I began to notice something was awry with my left ear.  To make a very long story short, three visits to the campus health center later with no diagnosis followed by a burst eardrum, I headed home.  With continued pain and loss of hearing in that ear, I saw an ear doctor at home and learned I had a fungus in my ear, y'all.  Two rounds of ear drops later, all was well.  But, I cannot deny that even now, I'll feel a tingling in my ear and get the heebiejeebies all over again.  I had a fungus IN MY EAR.  Still totally grosses me out.  

(I googled "ear fungus" pictures to have a visual aid, but opted to forego the image so that you will all be able to sleep at night.  You're welcome.)

End of observations.

Pinterest

Have you played around on Pinterest at all yet?  I had no idea how interesting, addicting, and eye-opening it would be.  An endless and forever-updating source for all things crafty, recipe-y, travel-y, decorating-y, etc-y.   It is amazingly fun, but also a huge time-sucker.  I first joined Pinterest a couple of months ago and after a week and a half of spending a ridiculous amount of time pinning...and pinning...and pinning, I implemented some self-imposed guidelines for my pinteresting.  Because I do actually have other stuff that I am supposed to be doing (read:  a dissertation), I now primarily limit my Pinterest perusals to Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening which is, coincidentally, my self-imposed no-homework day.

(Tangent:  when I was in graduate school, the first time around, my sister-in-law challenged me to consider avoiding doing any schoolwork on Sundays.  She extolled the amazing things that had happened in her life after she made the choice to not study on Sundays - understanding the material came easier, her grades stayed where she wanted them to despite one less day of study, she recognized God's influence in her academic success, etc.  I informed her that, as a graduate student I couldn't afford to not study on Sundays.  She informed me that, as a nursing student, she found she couldn't afford to study on Sundays.  She ended the conversation by saying that maybe I ought to try it out, see if I was blessed for keeping the Sabbath day holy, yadda yadda yadda.  At the time, I was annoyed.  But, after a few weeks of her suggestion gnawing at the back of my mind, I decided to give it a whirl.  And I have never turned back.  Try it out.  Amazing things will happen.  AND you will have one whole day a week that you have permission NOT to do schoolwork. So thank you, Arianne, for helping preserve my sanity with that decision.  Seriously, thank you.  Okay, end of tangent.)

So, Pinterest.  One of my goals with it is that I hope I don't just spend all my time pinning, pinning, pinning instead of actually doing, doing, doing the things I discover there.  So far, some of my favorite things have been (in no particular order):  salt and vinegar potatoes, homemade potato chips, an awesome pillow and, the latest adventure - this bad boy:

 Yes, that is a clementine orange transformed into a candle. 

 Here it is after it had been burning for a good hour or so.  It smelled heavenly.

 I seriously love stuff like this.  Quirky, fun stuff to try.  Pinterest is, in my opinion, delightful.

Here's the tutorial on the Clementine Candle.

What awesome things have you found on Pinterest?  Please share!

And On a Lighter Note...

Once upon a time, I wrangled a snake out of my apartment.  Long about the time I was flinging his writhing body over the balcony I thought, "This is why I need a big, burly man in my life. So that I'm not the one wrestling vermin out of my house."  

(Note:  This is not me.  Thank you Google Images for perfectly conveying my feelings about snake-wrangling)

 

It was a Sunday morning, the one day in which I unabashedly allow myself to sleep until my body is done sleeping.  And I was.  Sleeping, that is.  Peacefully, soundly, unaware of the world when a knock pulled me out of my slumber.

As I mumbled a croaking/throat-clearing/I-sound-like-a-dude, "yeah?", I heard my roommate say she needed help and asked to open the door.

Forever etched in my brain, her words rang out, "There is a snake in my bathroom.  I'm not kidding, there is a snake in my bathroom."

There are a few facts that I think are worth mentioning.  Firstly, I live on the third floor of an apartment building.  I have to climb 42 stairs to get to my front door. Secondly, when I say I was sleeping, I mean that I was SLEEPING, as in I was not lazily dozing, I was not laying with my eyes closed while avoiding getting out of bed, I was conked out sleeping.  Jumpstarting your brain from sawing logs to fight-or-flight-let's-deal-with-a-snake mode is not an easy feat.  Thirdly, I live on the third floor.  Fourthly, my roommate was standing in my doorway with wet hair and clutching her bathrobe around her body.  Even in my sleepy haze, I knew she was in no state to wrangle a snake.  And lastly, we live on the third floor! What in tarnation was a snake doing way the heck up there???  One of the perks of climbing 42 stairs to get to my living space is that insects/rodents/reptiles should not be there!

But, I digress.

Jarred out of my slumber, I sat up in bed and had one and only one thing on my mind, "We need to get the snake out of the apartment."  I do believe I said this, very Rainman-like, no less than 17 times as I paced around quickly gathering my snake-wrangling equipment.

When I was a teenager, I went to Girls' Camp every summer.  This week-long camping adventure with the other youth-aged girls at my church was designed to teach us how to survive in the wilderness. Such skills involved starting a campfire with a tampon (name-brand works better than off-brand, by the way), mastering the four-legged race with Melissa and Audriana (the trick is to number the legs), and learning to blow snot rockets while choreographing synchronized swimming routines (thanks goes to Melissa for that one).  At no time in this wilderness preparation did I learn how to wrangle a snake.

Convinced I was faced with mortal peril if I did not, as stated previously, "get the snake out of the apartment", I prepared myself for battle.  For your own future reference, I will tell you that you only need 3 things to abscond with a snake.  They are, in no particular order:

Item #1:  A hoodie.

It helps if you put the hood up (I did.).  Also, sleeves that cinch tightly around your wrists are preferable to loosey-goosey sleeves up which a snake could slither.  Because, as I'm sure you know, the only thing worse than a snake in your apartment is a snake in your shirt.  So, tightly-cuffed hoodie.  With the hood up.

Item #2:  One single gardening glove.

Of course, in your dash to "get the snake out of the apartment", you may be so lucky to find the other gardening glove, which would be preferred.  But, I am here to witness that one will work just fine.  You will want to put your single gardening glove on your non-dominant hand, because you'll need your other hand to operate....

Item #3:  Barbeque tongs.

Now, I know it seems crazy that you would use tongs to wrestle a snake.  You are not picking up the snake with the tongs, silly, you're using the tongs to pick up the toiletry bag that your roommate has told you is harboring the snake.  Per the story she has been telling you as you've been dashing about the apartment gathering your supplies, you learn that she stepped out of the shower to come face to face with a snake coiling up out of her bag.  You are hoping against all hope that the snake was just as startled to see her as she was to see it in nothing but the skin the good Lord gave her, and is still in the bag.

That's it.  That's all you need.  A hoodie, one single gardening glove, and barbeque tongs.

Battle gear assembled, I stepped into the bathroom.  Sure enough, the snake was slithering it's scaly little head back out of her bag.  Knowing I had .7 seconds to make my move before that snake slithered out of its temporary home (read:  it would no longer be contained!), I looped those tongs through the handle of her bag, supported it with my gloved hand, and had that thing out of the bathroom, through the living room and out onto the balcony in no less than 2 seconds.  By the time the snake and I had gotten to the balcony, it was slithering up my arm (now do you see the importance of those tight cuffs???) and in one fell swoop I flinged it (flung it?  flang it?) right over the railing and watched it land on the grass below. (Now, don't worry, all you PETA people, it slithered away - I saw it.  It was fine, I'm sure.)

Because I know you're dying to know...No, we have no idea how the snake got into the apartment and no, we have not (thank heavens!) seen another one.

Seriously, thank heavens.

And while I am certain this informative tutorial regarding snake-wrangling preparation would help with all of your snake-absconding needs, may you never have need of it.  Amen.

p.s. Lest I deceive you, this was not a snake like unto a 30-foot python.  It was but a little snake, probably a garter or garden snake.  This does not, however, in any way lessen the ickiness at having to deal with it.  Someday, someday, I hope my big, burly man will take care of all these things.  I hope.

One Year

A year ago today, a friend, classmate, and colleague completely and totally unexpectedly passed away.  It has been an immensely difficult year for my friends, for our department, and me.

I didn't have a context to understand the true impact of suicide before November 5, 2010.  I now know that I hate it.  Everything about it is wretched and terribly, terribly sad.

I will miss him, always.  But, I know that I have been forever changed by this tragic experience, and in this way, his death has very much not been in vain.  I find that I am a little kinder, seek to be a little more in tune with those around me, and never, ever take small (or large) cries for help for granted.  I have become well-acquainted with the anguish of grief and have learned that it is okay to acknowledge things are hard and not going so well.  It is hard to be humble in that way, but grief manages to circumscribe your desire to be humble, and forces you to be humble anyway.  Which is good, because I have learned that humility is exactly what helps ease it.

I would have liked to have learned these things in another way.  And it is my prayer I will never land in this particular crash-course-of-life again.  Mostly because I would rather have learned these things with him instead of just because of him.

Life does go on, but this week in particular, the remembering has been powerful and often.

But, it will be okay. I have been freshly reminded that none of us are so insignificant and alone that we don't have influence on countless others around us.  And while it is something I wish he had fully understood, it is my opportunity to remember it and live accordingly.

Finding delight

This is a picture of my parents, er....my Mom and Santa Claus...circa 1993.  

  (Don't let my mom's rockin' sweater fool you.  That sucker is straight outta the 80's and a castoff of my sister's.  My mom was way too practical to let a perfectly good sweater with giant snowflakes plastered across the front of it go to waste.  But, I digress.)

This is a picture of my parents circa 1993.

I love this picture.

My parents have been married for 38 1/2 years and they like each other a lot.  I have seen evidence of that fact countless times throughout my life.  He opens the door for her, always.  She puts brown sugar and marshmallows on the sweet potatoes at Christmas because, though she does not like sweet potatoes that way, he does.  He brings home cashew caramel clusters on ordinary days that are not a special occasion at all, and they are just for her.  She mows the lawn every week so he can putter in the garage after work, instead of cutting the grass.

Etcetera.

I know there is no one on earth they'd rather be with than each other.

Now, this is not to say that they don't love being with their children and grandchildren.  I know they completely delight in us.

But, I love more that they delight in each other. I feel so fortunate to have parents who like each other that much.

And this picture managed to capture the essence of that delight perfectly.

I hope we can all be so lucky.

Sometimes you feel like a nut

And sometimes you don't, apparently.

I've been running subjects through a little pre-dissertation experiment this past week.  Just a quick little study that undergraduate students have been coming into the lab to complete for me.  Sitting on the table, all week, has been The Cabbage out of which I have invited all to take a treat after they're finished, if they so desire.

Yesterday, I noted the state of The Cabbage.

(Yes, that is a melamine Cabbage bowl. Hands down the best thing I've ever found at a Value Village.)

Apparently, no one has any love for the Almond Joy anymore.

This is something I cannot understand.  Almond Joys are delicious!  Coconutty, chocolately, almondy, YUM.  Because I know you're dying to know, the Almond Joys were up against Reese's peanut butter cups, Kit kat bars, and plain ol' hershey's chocolate in this particular smorgasboard.  Now, Reese's peanut butter cups are clearly the heavyweight in this mix, but Almond Joys lost to Kit Kat bars?  And Hershey's milk chocolate bars???

Granted, most of these students were young undergraduates who possibly have not honed an affinity for coconut.  While Almond Joys are not at the top of my favorite sweet treat list (that honor goes to Twix, I feel), it is definitely in the top five.


What about you?  Which funsize treat is at the top of your list?  Is there anyone besides me who enjoys the coconutty goodness of Almond Joys anymore???

To be a Cornhusker

When I decided to move to Nebraska to get a doctoral degree just some few short years ago, I got in touch with a former of professor of mine to share the news.  She congratulated me, offered some sage thoughts to get me through the tough times ahead and then casually observed that she'd heard you had to be crazy into college football to be at Nebraska.

In that moment, I think I stared at her and said something along the lines of, "Um, what?"

 This same sentiment was offered so many times, "Ooooh, Nebraska, well...hope you like football!", "Have fun in the land of corn and football", "football, football, football".

I even remember one interchange not long before I moved where I put it together that the "Cornhuskers" my father watched on New Years Day more than once while I was growing up were indeed the same

Cornhuskers I was about to join. 

In that moment, I think I stared ahead and said something along the lines of, "They're those Cornhuskers?!"

I went to my first Nebraska football game on a whim when a friend texted me an hour before the 300th consecutive sellout game and asked if I was interested in going.  I happened to be on campus tailgating with a group from church (which, I need a whole different post to discuss the ridiculousness of a bunch of Mormons tailgating before a huge football game) and opted to tag along.

It is not an understatement to say that nothing could have prepared me for the experience of watching a Nebraska football game.  Live.  With 89,000 of my closest friends.

The energy is palpable.  It gets inside of you.  You can't help but smile dopily and stand on your seat and cheer wildly and wiggle your spirit fingers everytime the kicker gets ready to punt the ball (you would be hardpressed to convince me that there is no correlation between my spirit fingers and the quality of that kick.  Just sayin' is all).  

Not only did the spirit of Nebraska football embed its way into my innocent little heart at that game, Shari stood there beside me and answered every question I had about football, the game, the players, the cheers.  Did you know that there is actually a rhyme or reason to this game?  There is strategy.  You can predict what players are going to do.  It is not just a tousle of huge guys randomly ramming into each other.  There is a point to it all.  I literally had no idea.

We are now halfway through my second year of being a card-carrying-member-of-the-season-ticket-holders club.  I go to every game.  I look up NCAA ratings at the beginning of each week.  I read up on our opponents. I read game summaries and game predictions...on a weekly basis.

Good heavens, I don't even know who I am anymore.

 Everybody now:  GO BIG RED!