That title should be sung to the tune of The Frankenmuth Polka, which you can hear here. Watch out though, you hear it once and you immediately love it...if by love it you mean hate it/get it stuck in your head.This weekend was a study in family interaction (between the sister, mom and I). We crack each other up, we bicker, we encourage bad behaviors (altogether we purchased 33 donuts this weekend) and we love Christmas.
Case in point. Christmas on my head (Mom cut out of picture to preserve her anonymity on the internets). Little Bavaria Michigan is fun to visit for a day (or really less than a day) but not so much fun to sleep in (I got very little sleep). Bronner's (the CHRISTmas superstore) can make the grinchiest grinch feel Christmas spirit (and the non-religious feel a little ill at all of the preachiness...lest we not remember that" It's HIS Birthday, It's HIS way"). But we had fun, we laughed an awful lot and we ate Chicken and donuts.
Now if only it were Christmastime and I could utilize my newly purchased goods...
So in honor of Banned Books week, I chose to read 4 banned books. One of them is for a book club though, so you won't hear about it here. "Book reports" follow:The first book I read was "Agony of Alice". And while it was an OK kids book (not even YA) I could not figure out why it was banned. Alice was pretty tame. Besides getting her period, having a brother who drinks beer and being raised by a single father (because her mother died), Alice was like any other kid. Except maybe a little more annoying. She annoyed me through most of the book.It turns out, the series of Alice is banned...because of some of the later books...the high school books (Alice was in 6th grade in Agony). She probably has sex (gasp) or tries drugs or something. Either way, I was pretty neutral about the book I did read..mainly because Alice annoyed me so much.Banned book number 2 is The Outsiders. I really enjoyed this book. And this one was pretty easy to see why it was banned. Death, violence, "hoods" and "greasers", rumbles (big, multi-person fights), switchblades, guns...etc. The main character questions all of this stuff constantly and in the end, we're sort of led to believe that he is going to make something of himself. Uplifting - a boy who has nothing and comes from nothing who can make it because he has brains - what a great lesson for kids. Also, there's a great subplot about family - family as the most important support system a kid could have (even if that family isn't typical, even if sometimes that family is made of friends).I see why it was banned, but I think it is superficial to ban a book for death and violence. You'd have to ban the TV too. And the newspaper. Especially this book, which in the end is more about the triumph of a boy who to many adults would seem like a lost cause. Would recommend this book to anyone who is coming of age.As a side note, I watched the movie for The Outsiders and wasn't all that impressed. Book is better.
Sometimes when I'm bored in my class I do long division.The truth is, I get so bored that I feel like I might go slowly insane, so I figure out what percentage of the class I've completed. Excerpts from my notes from last week:.65128205128.676923076.71794871.73333.74358974.7641025I usually complete the division until it repeats (and it always repeats). I wonder what this says about me...I should be doing long division right now, but I'm watching the Office instead. Because every quarter I care less and less about school..
I have recently acquired a love of baked potatoes (recently as in...yesterday). I think I may eat a baked potato a few times a week now. Totally delicious. Why did I never bake myself a potato before this (and it's so easy too!)? Mmmm potatoes.Let's see...what to say...a lot of my recent blog posts have been kind of downers, huh? I'm mostly cheerful lately, so it's a bit sad that I'm taking it out on the blog readers. It seems to be my tendency to want to get out my frustrations blog-style.School is chugging along. I haven't done much homework-wise and plan to continue along that vein. I have done a fair bit of reading for my participation oriented class, but I may stop that now. I'm sure I'll pass my classes, I"m going to try to worry less.I recently actually donated money to politics. Yuck, right? I don't know why but I just heart Obama. I have for a while. I think our country will be better off if he's the one who gets the Democratic nomination...so I put in a few bucks to pretend to do my part to make that happen. Sort of random post you have there...
Something weird is going on with my body. Ignoring the fact that I may be allergic to being a woman (uncontrollably sneezy Saturdays exactly one month apart during my period? Allergic to womanhood), weird stuff is going on over here.This weekend I somehow accidentally (for real - both yesterday and this morning I woke up in the morning and was SHOCKED by the time on the clock) slept for almost 20 hours. I rarely sleep in. Mine is the kind of routine where I wake up before my alarm goes off most days (and on the weekend I usually wake up at that time as well). I've also been having headaches and some minor facial tingling (if I was super worried I'd have made an appointment with my doctor. But I don't think I'm dying, I just think something is up...which leads to...) So what the hell is going on here?I think I'm not going to work out this week. I know it's not a solution - but I want to try to figure out what the hell is up here. And part of me suspects nutrition. So I'm going to take this week and get my diet together (not diet as in "lose weight" but diet as in "what I eat everyday"). Then I think I'm not going to work out again until I can get a fitness assessment/personal trainer session. And if something doesn't change and I keep tingling and snoozing, I may have to go to the doctor....Here's your picture Sunday for you...my amazing new bag....
And the inside...
A plane slowly banking right directly over the expressway. Very low. Taking off to Possibly Maybe by Bjork. A good moment (but one that I will admit was immediately followed by "What if that plane crashed" crazy Katie thoughts...).My picture Saturday is kind of lame, but I'm super excited about my new green cleaning products (thanks Dad!):
And, they even came with a handy dandy organizer caddy thing (that's all of the stuff below unpacked from the box - Mom, may this picture be proof that I do indeed have parquet flooring):
I was a little apprehensive about some stuff (for example: I admit to having a love for cleaning wipes and figured - no way are green products going to include cleaning wipes - but they did! And there are even two different kinds!). But I can't wait to try it all out. And by buying this all instead of normal cleaning products my Dad kept 108 pounds of waste out of landfills and eliminated 248 pounds of greenhouse gas. Ah green-ness...I might do picture Sunday too....
Things I'm loving lately...- Almost all of the rest of my coworkers. "Gassy cubicle wall sharer" is the lone wolf in that unhappy coworker category.
- The artist Jen Stark. I absolutely would love to have something like that on my wall some day (if you hit her site, I'm talking the "sculpture" section). I wonder how much that stuff costs? Because of course the one I love best is "Production Line" and I feel like I would desperately want all 3 (that's the sculpture picture on page 15). But to be honest, I love most of them...
- My family.
- The cooler weather that was here about a week ago. Today? This past week? Not so much. But I know it's coming....I can feel it. Ha ha you hot weather lovers, fall is coming...suck it!
- Big paychecks, no longer paying for individual healthcare (hell yeah!) and tuition waivers.
- Scrabulous! Although I don't love that nearly every time I go in to play, that terrible Glamorous song by Fergie goes through my head (but of course, it is: It's Scrabulous, scrabulous, scrabulous. It's scrabulous. Foxy, foxy....)
- One of my professors seems absolutely worthwhile and I think I might learn something! Rejoice!
- And on that same note, watching (listening) to my class while tooling around on the Internet or knitting (or writing a blog post), on the comfort of my own couch. Ah distance learning...I embrace you.
- Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays....
Hope you all have a good weekend. I'm thinking of trying to get another picture Saturday up tomorrow...
Take cover.It has not been the best day. It started badly with the alarm jarring me from a truly desperate and hopeless dream. I cannot explain it without it sounding funny. So giggle if you want, but it was truly frightening and sad. I woke up with a feeling of utter despair. Quick synopsis:I was living at my Mom's. Something terrifying was in the basement (murderer? monster?). The cat, Allie, who sadly is no longer around in real life, was totally funky and I suspected, in the dream, beaten/terrorized by scary basement lurker. The Mom then told me she'd been lying to me and listed off a number of family deaths I didn't know about. At which point I decided to run away from my family and never speak to them again (this is where I felt despair). On a bike. A pink and purple bike from my youth. And I prepared by packing cookies and goldfish and trying to figure out exactly how I was going to sleep during my journey. The sleeping situation again brought about a feeling of despair. It was horrible.Then, I got to work. I have a coworker whom I am having a hard time working next to more and more each week. His cubicle is behind me. We share a cube wall. One day last week he clipped his nails for 10 minutes (I can't imagine that he didn't do his toes. He had to have. How can it take you 10 minutes to clip your finger nails?). The sound of clipping makes me nauseous unless it's my own. I've had this argument with my brother before when I was living at home actually. Today...today he went a step farther and had very loud, smelly gas. Quite a few times. Audibly. And this wasn't just generic fart smell, this was: something is wrong with my stomach and I am rotting inside fart smell. It was horrible.Realized in the middle of the day that the case analysis I wrote, which I thought had to be two pages, had to be 3. Didn't do anything about it and expect a grade reflecting my half a page shortcoming. Got home to cat puke.Now I'm going to bed.
I wasn't going to blog today because I am super tired, have a hint of a headache and really have a lot of schoolwork to do (my first report is due Thursday and I haven't started it. That's a problem).However, I just had a delightful time learning more about apples here. It skews a little Missouri, but overall I think you will enjoy it if you like apples...or learning...This is the time of year where I go a little bonkers with the apples (and the cider donuts...but I try to keep that insanity down as much as I can). This apple in particular is my love:
Ah, honey crisp. I adore you.
The good:- Two really solid work-outs
The bad:- Excuse for not working out on Monday (it was a pretty good excuse though...one which involved a stomach issue and air pollution at the gym. Was that too much information or too subtle...or did I hit it just right?)
The good:- Two classes but...NOT ONE TEST.
- And the kicker, the light of my life...NOT ONE GROUP PROJECT. Yippee!! (Picture me jumping up and clicking my heels together).
The bad:- A class that is very discussion based, with 12 total people (including myself), 2 of which had done the reading and could therefore participate in discussion (including myself). It was like pulling teeth.
The bad:- Cute new shoes (super cute - my pattern, if you go to that link is Dots White/Pewter) possibly ruined by cute new jeans (apparently, dark, dark jeans need more than one washing before worn over whitish shoes. Because now my shoes are semi-blue)
The good:- New dark jeans that I feel kick ass in
The bad:- Blowdryer broke mid-use on Wednesday morning culminating in an iffy-hair day, a rushed work out and a trip to Ulta. Pain in the ass.
The good:- My new blowdryer made my hair look AMAZING. Or I just had a good hair day. But hey - I had a good hair day!
Was that annoying with all the goods and bads? Today on the walk home from work I blogged (in my head...does that make me crazy?) about my non-existent purchase of a non-existent condo. Now that makes me crazy...
So part of the reason I am enjoying my workouts right now is because of the music. I love some poppy happy music (right now the three "go-to" songs that I sometimes just skip the shuffle for are: Do It - Nelly Furtado; Stronger - Kanye; What You Waiting For - Gwen Stefani). I look forward to listening to that stuff and "moving to the beat."Because somewhere, deep down, I like to believe I have a little dancer in me. I love to dance. And I love to watch people dance. Obviously this is what draws me to music with a beat [and Justin Timberlake...because watching him dance is like dirty, sexy eye candy. And if you haven't seen his little dance bit in the final number of the VMA's, you should watch it. There's this weird slow-mo thing, and then he...I can't describe it, but he kicks it up a notch and does this weird hand body twitch and its absolutely stunningly mesmerizing. Go here to see it (you can skip the boring Nelly Furtado part, although that is the song I work out to...without the boring slow intro part.)].And to be completely honest, this is why I love musicals so much. I really enjoy going to shows for the story and atmosphere too, and I obviously like when the singing is super strong...but when there is a good dance number, I instantly feel like I perk up. Like in Color Purple, the Africa part...that was kick ass. And while my sister remembers Sweet Charity as not so enjoyable, I remember being fairly delighted with the dancing. Anyway...if you ever see me working out on the elliptical or bike, it's most likely I'll be mouthing the words and bobbing along to the beat (and I know I look stupid, because I've seen another person doing it and he looked dumb. Yes, only 1 other person enjoying his music in my 3 weeks working out).
Two giant leaping steps back.Those two leaps back are:- Grandma's Mini Cookie Bites - Vanilla Creme.
- Oreo Blizzard.
Up until dinner tonight, the only things I had eaten all day were 1, 2 and a granola bar. Not shitting you. I had the granola bar before I went to work. Accidentally put $1 into the vending machine and ate number 1 before 10am. Then around Noon I had number 2...as my lunch.Yes. That is supremely unhealthy.You know how people always say "well, when you're an adult you can do or eat whatever you want? You can have cookies for dinner!" I'm possibly the only 25 year old I know that actually literally does that. Or maybe everyone else does it every now and again and no one will admit it.My one step forward? My work-outs have been going rather brilliantly. I'm getting noticeably stronger with each workout. I'm doing the same program on the elliptical but slowly gaining more distance (and I can actually handle the "ramp" that it pushes me up to and the resistance level, whereas at the beginning I used to have to decrease both of those levels). Don't get me wrong, I still struggle with that program. My thighs burn...I huff and puff...but it's starting to feel like I'm making headway. Now I just have to tackle my dread and fear of those blasted weight machines....Oh yeah, and stop eating sugar all day...
I'm not sure why I continue to watch the VMA's. I was intrigued by what Britney would do (the answer? NOTHING. Her whole little number was very half-assed. She looked like she was just wandering around onstage. And her lip-syncing? Amazingly bad. At least she used to pretend to SING. This time she was pretending to...talk. I could lip-sync better. It was just so amazingly bad I can't believe I watched it.). And I do have an issue where Justin is concerned..he was involved, so I tuned in.Here are my thoughts on the show as a whole...um, everyone on the main stage is lip-syncing. Badly. And doing a little bit of dancing. The whole "music in the suites" thing is cool (because you know, people are actually playing music)...but there is no coverage of those suites....so....how does that help the show. I think 2 awards have been given (but I can't remember) and it's been an hour...stupid ass show.Blargh. You should all remind me how horrible this is if I try to watch it next year.
Although...as a footnote...watching the show and reading Best Week Ever's play-by-play has been enjoyable. Perfectly sums up my feelings about the show here.
I just wrote a whole blog post and managed to delete it in one stroke.
The gist of the post is that my brain is rotting. I think my idiocy in deleting the post just proves my point.
Watching the VMA's sets it in stone. Off to embrace my brainlessness.
You know that feeling when you're sitting in a public restroom stall, another stall unexpectedly bangs closed and your stall door pops open? And you pause, stricken, trying to figure out which is worse:- Possible pee drips all over the place
- Strangers seeing your cootchie
Sometimes a feat of stunning acrobatics is possible while you stay on the toilet, stretch and extend your leg, your toe holding the door shut.Sometimes not.Yeah, that's the worst.
Back at the beginning of the summer, I stated that I was going to "grow" a habit. Instead of smoking or drinking, I buy flowers. And with that extra money (pack of cigs less the cost of flowers)...charity!I thought I would take this moment to declare where I am going to put my money. I've actually mentioned this charity more than once on this blog. It's one of my favorites, because I feel like I get to truly choose where the money goes. I can't find those old posts (they are really old) now, but I promise I've mentioned it.DonorsChoose.org. But this time, I actually know (and love) one of the teacher's requesting items for her classroom. Teacher (I am having a hard time deciding if I should give her name out...and I'm leaning towards no) is going to be in charge of her first classroom this year (yay!). So yes, I am going to plug her requests here. I don't really care if you all think its shameless or annoying. Hopefully some of you will take a look. If all of us gave $5, it would go a loooong way.Teacher has her preference for which she wants most...but I don't feel like I want to put that here (but Teachy, feel free to comment). I sort of thought that, since one of the things I like the most about the donorschoose site is that freedom of choice, I should leave the "preferences" out of it. So if you feel like you might want to give...you can take a look at the comments and see if Teacher gave a preference or you can just visit and choose which you like best:(in alphabetical order based on subject)Request #1Request #2Request #3I'm having some indecision (sort of like unwanted indigestion) as to which I'm going to give my habit money to....
