Old live oaks, good music and barbeque

Butternut squash and carmelized onion galette from Smitten Kitchen

2011-11-15T12:57:00.004-05:00

I have a friend from Michigan coming to visit me this weekend. I tried this recipe out last night and oh my was it good. It is again from Smitten Kitchen, and as usual I have tweeked it a bit for my purposes. Here is the origional recipe. I have said it before and I will say it again Smitten Kitchen has some mighty fine and super good recipes, go check her out!

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette

For the pastry:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut intopieces *To make the crust flakier I freeze the butter then at the last minute use a large hole cheese grater to cut up the frozen butter.*

1/4 cup sour cream, *I didn't have sour cream and used plain yogurt and it turned out fine.

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice *No fresh lemons so I just used the squeeze kind to no ill effect.

1/4 cup ice water

For the filling:

1 small butternut squash (about one pound)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 to 2 tablespoons butter (if you have only non-stick, the smaller amount will do)

1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced in half-moons * It turns out much better if you make the slices very, very thin. I made sure my knife was Kill Bill sharp and it worked well.

1 teaspoon salt

Pinch of sugar

1/4 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste *I used 1/2 t because I like it hot

3/4 cup fontina cheese (about 2 1/2 ounces), grated or cut into small bits *No fontina cheese at my grocer so I used gouda, and it turned out well

1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage leaves *No fresh sage leaves, but the ground ones work fine, I used 1/2 t of dried. The rule of thumb for converting fresh to dried is 1 teaspoon of dried = 1 tablespoon of fresh.

1. Make pastry:

In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Place the butter in another bowl. Place both bowls in the freezer for 1 hour. Remove the bowls from the freezer and make a well in the center of the flour. Add the butter to the well and, using a pastry blender, cut it in until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Make another well in the center. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice and water and add half of this mixture to the well. With your fingertips, mix in the liquid until large lumps form. Remove the large lumps and repeat with the remaining liquid and flour-butter mixture. Pat the lumps into a ball; do not overwork the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Prepare squash:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Peel squash, then halve and scoop out seeds. Cut into a 1/2-inch dice. Toss pieces with olive oil and a half-teaspoon of the salt and roast on foil lined (for neatness sake) sheet for 30 minutes or until pieces are tender, turning it midway if your oven bakes unevenly. Set aside to cool slightly.

3. Caramelize onions:

While squash is roasting, melt butter in a heavy skillet and cook onion over low heat with the remaining half-teaspoon of salt and pinch of sugar, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly golden brown, about 20 minutes. Stir in cayenne.

4. Raise the oven temperature to 400 degrees.

Mix squash, caramelized onions, cheese and herbs together in a bowl

5. Assemble galette:

On a floured work surface, roll the dough out into a 12-inch round. Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet. Spread squash, onions, cheese and herb mixture over the dough, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border. Fold the border over the squash, onion and cheese mixture, pleating the edge to make it fit. The center will be open.

6. Bake until golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then slide the galette onto a serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve hot, warm or at room temperature. Serves 6.

Ratatouille

2011-11-15T12:43:00.003-05:00

This weekend I busted out my mandolin (the slicer not the instrument) and made ratatouille, yes the like in the movie. I was a bit sceptical but it turned out great! The issue was that I am a bit of a perfectionist and it took me FOREVER to lay out the pieces of zucchini, eggplant, red pepper and yellow squash so they matched. If I forgo my OCD ways this dish would be super fast to make.

I made some substitutions from the original recipe found here at the Smitten Kitchen website. I LOVE her recipes, check her out, she has some FINE food and with clear easy to follow instructions. The Smitten Kitchen has a cookbook coming out soon and I will definitely buy it. Anyway back to my version of her recipe. . .

Ingredients

1/2 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced

2 cans diced tomato with garlic and onion

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 small eggplant*

1 smallish zucchini

1 smallish yellow squash

1 longish red bell pepper**

Few sprigs fresh thyme***

Salt and pepper

Few tablespoons sour cream****

I used a 11X13 cake pan but you can adjust the size of the pan to fit the amount of veggies.

Slice the veggies into 1/16 in slices (if you have a mandolin) or slice thinly with a knife if you don't. The ideal width is about as thick as a slice of pepperoni.

Drain the tomatoes and put in the bottom of the pan, mash slightly with a fork then stir in 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, spread evenly over the pan's surface .

Scatter the chopped onions and sliced garlic evenly across the tomatoes and olive oil mixture

Salt and pepper generously

On top of the tomato mixture arrange the slices of zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant and red pepper moving concentrically toward the center. (See illustration at the top of this page for clarification)

Drizzle with olive oil

Sprinkle thyme, salt and pepper

Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper (I used waxed paper to no ill effect)

Bake for 45-55 min until the vegetables have released their liquid but their structure is still intact.

I am not a fan of the mushy veggie so I cooked mine for 45 min and it was perfect.

Dish onto plates and top with a blob of sour cream.

I served this with french bread sprinkled with parmasan cheese and toasted under the broiler.

General note: If I were in a hurry I suppose I could just chop up the veggies and toss them with the tomatoes, onions and garlic, bake it and call it dinner but I like the way this looks.

*Eggplant note:I understand that there is a small rather cylindrical eggplant called an "Italian Eggplant" I couldn't find one of these at my local grocery so I just got a small one and then sliced the slices in thirds using the outside edged ones and freezing the center part for some other dish later.

**Red Pepper note: I didn't have a red pepper so I used some chopped red, yellow and green pepper I had in the freezer, it turned out just fine and looked pretty.

***Thyme note: I only had dried and it worked out just fine

****Sour Cream note: Origional recipe calls for goat cheese which I am sure is FANTASTIC but it was not in the budget this week and sour cream turned out yummy.

Random thoughts

2011-11-07T21:55:00.003-05:00

1. I think I am going to make ginger snaps this weekend. I have a good recipe that is originally from the early 1900s. It still formulates delicious ginger cookies 100ish years later. If I make them this weekend I will post about it and give the recipe.

2. Yesterday on the way home I burst into singing Christmas carols. I sang 7-8 of them, all the verses I know (which is quite a few). I felt a surge of Christmas spirit. Shocking as Christmas is my least favorite holiday and I am usually decidedly bah humbug. Perhaps this therapy of having the entire week off between Christmas and New Year is working to melt my Scrooge's heart.

3. I need a hair cut. I always struggle with my hair and now that I am doing presentations and some public speaking I really need to get it together. I am thinking about getting a cut like Kathy Bates in "Harry's Law". I think it would look cute and professional at the same time. She has a double chin, I have a double chin, she has a roundish face, I have a roundish face. I think it will work.

4. I need to buy some suits if I am going to be doing this pubic speaking stuff. I think I am going to use Kathy Bates again for that, (she is somewhat round and I am round). She wears simple dark suits with beautiful shirts or dark trousers and a dark shirt with beautiful jackets. Simple, attractive, professional. Best of all I can take just a few pieces of clothing and rearrange them so as to have several outfits.

5. I need more sleep.

6. I really want to go dancing. When I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago I almost got to go Contra dancing but it didn't work out. I want to go dancing, specifically folk dancing, like reels and schottisches, Irish, English, Swedish and what have you country dancing.

7. Things went just fine with my talk on Saturday. The participants seemed to really like it and I certainly enjoyed it. It was fantastic to watch them catch on to coding ICD-10 and see them succeed at it. I am looking forward to doing another one.

NaBloPoMo Day 3, well sort of

2011-11-03T20:37:00.002-04:00

Today I am not using the tickler because it feels lame to depend on it every day and I have other stuff to talk about...

Somehow by bonne chance I was invited to assist at a symposium for my professional organization on the subject of ICD-10. For those of you who do not live and breathe health care like I do, ICD-10 is a big change to the way we indicate that something is medically necessary and we communicate this to insurance companies so doctors and other health professionals can get paid for the work they do as well as keeping track of stuff like why people get sick and die. This is such a huge change I often compare it to the sky switching from blue to say purple.

Anywho, I am extensively trained in this new system and looking for opportunities to use it so I don't loose it. Which brings us to the symposium. When the opportunity was presented to me to help out it sounded like I would be facilitating discussion on this huge impending change and what it will mean to all of us in health care. Just making sure the conversation flows along nicely and we hit the talking points that the symposium organizer would like to cover. Easy peazy

Then Monday happens

On Monday I find out that I am actually going to be presenting formally at this occasion AND nothing too big just EVERYONE WHO IS ANYONE in Houston health care is going to be there, about 200 people worth. No pressure or anything. And of course I need a hair cut, I don't have business cards and WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR!!!! I am confident about the content, I can talk about that all day. I am confident in my ability to teach the content, it is my pleasure to teach. The issue is the things that I find tricky like clothes and hair. Oh and I don't have business cards so I am going to have to find a way to make some up pretty much for free because I am broke.

This is a fantastic opportunity for me to show my chops to the health care community of Houston and to really make great contacts for myself and for my students. I just need to remember to breathe and it will be okay. This chance thrust itself into my hands without any prompting from me and I am grateful. I am also (mostly) secure in the knowledge that this would not have come my way if I was not ready for it. I think that once I start talking and interacting with the audience that my initial fear of how not looking professional enough will dissipate and I will forget myself and just let it flow.

In other news, my fence is getting repaired, oh joy, oh delight, oh playing with my dogs off leash in my back yard. Also my neighbor's dog won't come over and bark at me in my own yard.

My fence came down in Ike and I have missed it sorely, or rather I have missed being able to play with my dogs off leash outside. I love my landlord.

I am off to work on my presentation, give it a little polish. The symposium is this Saturday morning, send me good thoughts.

NaBloPoMo day 2, so far so good

2011-11-02T12:53:00.004-04:00

NaBloPoMo tickler 2. . .

"If you knew that whatever you ate next would be your last meal, what would you want it to be?"

One cooked with people I love for people I love. Cooking food then eating it is such a wonderful sensual pleasure to share. Some of the most fun I have had in my life involved too many people in the kitchen while chatting, cooking, and drinking wine. I love that laughing, close, jostile, bumping hips, touching each other, tasting, smelling ah lovely. Then of course there is the reward of sitting down at the laden table and eating together while talking about everything, preferably outdoors with wine flowing, kids playing, easy relaxation and all of us being ourselves. This would be a perfect last meal.

The meal we would be making, that is a hard choice. If it were my last then I will go with something classic. . .

Roasted garlic with goat cheese, tiny tomatoes, and basil leaves on crunchy toast rounds ,

Spinach salad with red onions, walnuts, and apple with chunky blue cheese dressing,

Grilled bloody, rare steak, baked potato, grilled asparagus and a nice Pinot Noir

Chocolate cheesecake with a shot of espresso with a lemon twist

and after all that a fine cigar and some really carmely mellow burbon.

NaBlPoMo and away we go

2011-11-01T19:09:00.006-04:00

Well here we are, November, time of Thanksgiving and good intentioned blog posting for NaBloPoMo aka National Blog Posting Month. I want prizes!

The tickler for today is "What is your favorite part about writing?"

I have not written fiction in a very long time, probably about 3 years. I write a lot of non fiction in the form of acedemic papers. I miss writing fiction. One of the things I am looking forward to if I ever finish school is writing for pleasure. My favorite part of writing for pleasure is creating characters. I enjoy inventing interesting people and breathing life into them. I also enjoy finding the perfect word, the word that conveys exactly what I want to say no more, no less.

I often have a hard time paring down my writing. I read an excellent book on concise writing called "Writing Down the Bones" By Natalie Goldberg and it has helped me make my writing more spare. My natural resting place, however, is verbose. I like the idea of making my writing be the minimum most clean it can be, practice however, eh.

I like writing metered poetry, I like the constraint and the creativity it encourages.

I will leave you with one of my favorite poems of all time, not mine but Pablo Neruda's

I love it not just for the beauty of the words but also the perfect way it speaks to a love I have experienced, simply elegently perfectly described:

Sonnet 17

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be
loved,in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

The above is a salt rose

Old faithful Day Book, how I love ye

2011-10-27T20:08:00.007-04:00

We are about to enter into November which is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and I am planning to give it a grand effort again this year. In the little quiet that remains of October I thought I would rely on my old friend the Day Book for this month's last (and only) entry. . .

Outside my window:

As people say here in Texas, it is fixin' to rain. A cold front is moving in and with it comes rain.

I am thinking:

I am feeling frustrated about working so many hours. I love my job but it is stealing my life. I believe that I am finally to the point where action on this front is impending.

I am thankful for:

Today I am thankful for a friend of mine who paid back part of some money I loaned her. I was flat broke and worried about making it home with the fumes in my tank. Her small repayment means that I can get home tonight without worry. The best thing is I forgot that she owed me money so it was a delightful surprise.

From the kitchen:

This weekend is a celebration of my friend Ellen's wonderful recipes, I am making her Monterey Beans and Cheese as well as her Tuna Turnovers and her absolutely fantastic Carrot Cheddar Soup (sorry I don't have a link from Ellen's site for it). I am also making a roasted chicken and some jambalaya. (I cook on the weekend for the week ahead)

I am wearing:

A dazzling Marlene Dietrichesque tailored suit with tomato red high heels that match my lipstick, I am wearing white gloves and I have a top hat and swagger stick. Oh and my hair is done in finger waves and marceled. . . or possibly I am wearing navy blue scrubs and white nurse clogs with my hair in a french braid.

I am creating:

Cells and carbon dioxide.

I am going:

Into the frey that is Houston traffic in the morning, I have a doctor's appointment, ugh.

I am reading:

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I am hoping:

That the part time remote coding gig I applied for works out.

I am hearing:

My students diligently working on their assignment.

Around the house:

A pit as usual, it is a comfortable and happy pit, but a pit none the less. I also have absolutely no plans on cleaning this weekend other than the kitchen.

One of my favorite things:

I had a gourmet push-up the other day. Remember those little paper tubes with orange sorbet inside with the plunger to push up the sorbet. This was made with orange gelato topped with a chocolate ganache but still wrapped up on a plunger...wonderful

A few plans for the rest of the week:

Meeting with the president of the Houston chapter of the AAPC (one of my professional organizations) to discuss my speaking at a symposium on ICD-10 next week.

Words I am pondering:

"Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present
experience. It isn't more complicated that that. It is opening to or
recieving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without
either clinging to it or rejecting it."

Sylvia Boorstein

Here is a picture I am sharing:

I know I usually share pictures of my dog but this time here is a picture of an owl, well actually a painting. I think I am going to have this tattooed on my shoulder. . .

Day book ramblings. . .

2011-09-29T10:39:00.005-04:00

Outside my window:
Earlier this morning the sky was grey and it looked like rain, but now the sun is out and it is just partly cloudy. I wonder when this drought is going to break. It can’t last forever, right?

I am thinking:
A lot about how busy I am and how I need to SLOW the hell DOWN. I have to find a way to change how I live my life. This 5 hours of sleep a night 4 days a week is taking a toll on my body and if that were not enough this working 18 hours a day 4 days a week aint makin’ me any younger either. I want time to sleep 8 hours in a row, to cook daily instead of doing it all for the week in one day, to read and think and stare into space, to paint and write. I know that this is for a short time but it has been 3 years and I am starting to feel a little resentful and like my life is passing too quickly to be spending it working constantly.

I am thankful for:
That the job I have to work so long and hard at is one I absolutely love, even if it is stealing my life away.

From the kitchen:
This weekend I am going camping. One of the things I am going to be making is hobo pie. I have a hobo pie maker. For the uninitiated a hobo pie maker is a little cast iron box on a long metal stick that you put in the camp fire to cook various things. I have 2 favorites. 1. Rye bread, sharp cheddar, spicy mustard and little smokies and 2. White bread, apple slices (or berries), cinnamon, brown sugar, oatmeal and a little bit of butter. See the picture right for a better view of the pie maker.

I am wearing:
A bun cage on my hair, it is a little metal cage with beads on it held in place by 2 silver pins. It captures my hair and keeps it together. (see picture for an example)

I am creating:
I am working on a paper on ROI for EHR implementation for small physician practices and the implications for compliance to the HITECH act and HIPAA.

I am going:
Camping this weekend! Oh I need the woods so much right now.

I am reading:
Bullfinch’s Greek and Roman Mythology

I am hoping:
For rain and that I will get some of the scholarships I have applied for.

I am hearing:
My students working on their test

Around the house:
As usual I need to clean it before I go camping this weekend. I have a friend house and pet sitting and I don’t want them to see what a complete slob I am. (Partial slob is fine though)

One of my favorite things:
Dramatically reading stories to little kids, even adults really

A few plans for the rest of the week:
Did I mention I am going camping?

Words I am pondering: I had never heard of this poem or this poet before yesterday and I love this poem:

Basket of Figs
Bring me your pain, love. Spread
it out like fine rugs, silk sashes,
warm eggs, cinnamon
and cloves in burlap sacks. Show me

the detail, the intricate embroidery
on the collar, tiny shell buttons,
the hem stitched the way you were taught,
pricking just a thread, almost invisible.

Unclasp it like jewels, the gold
still hot from your body. Empty
your basket of figs. Spill your wine.

That hard nugget of pain, I would suck it,
cradling it on my tongue like the slick
seed of pomegranate. I would lift it

tenderly, as a great animal might
carry a small one in the private
cave of the mouth.
Ellen Bass

Here is a picture I am sharing:

This is a pic of Ms Lily and me posing in a hamish way (sorry it is so dark, I couldn't get it brighter)

Cleansing the palate from woe

2011-09-09T11:57:00.002-04:00

I have been feeling kind of blue and stressed lately so I decided to cleanse my palate and make a short list of 7 things I am grateful for/love . . .

1. I love it when my dog dreams and barks in her sleep, those funny, squeaky, quiet woofs always make me smile. I also really love my dog, Lily, she is an American Bulldog and is quite smart, and I also think she may have a sense of humor. In addition to all that, Lily is a world class spooner.

2. I love it when my house mate, who is a total owl, randomly makes me breakfast in the morning. My day starts at 5:30 AM while his is just ending and to not have to navigate fire and appliances in my semi comatose pre tea state is lovely.

3. I love my car, yes it has cost me a lot of money in the last year what with a new engine and transmission BUT it is practically a new car now. I like the color- bronze, it is delightfully fast, handles wonderfully, and looks deceptively lady like. By the way, it is a Dodge Intrepid in case you were wondering.

4. I seriously love my job. Every day there is something fun or delightful I get to do, every day I get to make a difference in people’s lives, every day I feel respected, liked and valued. It is awesome. I have the pleasure of teaching something I am passionate about and find endlessly fascinating. I also get to write papers and articles as well as speak at seminars.

5. I enjoy being immersed in academia, I teach for a living and I attend school. I love the conversations, the reading, the research and even the paper writing and how it all meshes together with my career enriching the classes I take, and the classes I take enriching my career.

6. I love my house. I have a beautiful comfortable bed. I have finally discovered the joys of sheets with thread counts higher than 12 grit. I have 9 pillows of various qualities, a very firm mattress and cozy rug on the floor. My room is full of bookshelves with an embarrassment of riches of books as well as little oddments I have collected. I have a great vintage velvet couch and love seat in my living room and 3 large fish tanks with interesting creatures leading their fishy lives.
I have a kitchen that is easy to cook in and I have food in my fridge and pantry. My yard is huge and I have flowers growing, lizards creeping and hummingbirds humming.

7. Most important of all, I have people I love who love me back. Even though we are far apart we still are connected to each other and that is a wonderful thing.

No rest for the wicked. . .

2011-08-03T20:56:00.012-04:00

I am feeling stretched very thin. In the last 4 weeks I have. . .

Finished my externship for the school I attend

Created a lengthy power point, with sound and speakers notes, (ugh I really hate power point) presentation on my experience in my externship as well as a written summary.

Taken 2 practice exams (5 hrs each) for the certification I will be sitting
for probably next month.

Taken a final exam

Traveled 3000 miles (I am not exaggerating) with a friend my age, 2 very elderly people (88 & 90), and a 1 eyed dog in a minivan with dubious AC in the middle of a heat wave

Worked something like 17 16 hour days

Completed 2 online courses for my ICD-10 trainer certification

Attended a 3 day intensive training on becoming a certified ICD-10 trainer (it was like trying to drink from a fire hose although somehow I managed to do it)

Updated the lesson plan for the class I am teaching because at the very last minute I found out that we have a NEW EDITON of the book I use and all my page number and exercises are off.

Planned a review class for a national certification my students need to take

Planned a career seminar for graduates at the school I teach at

Received a $406.00 electric bill, a $100.00 water bill and a $230.00 phone bill, oh and I need to pay my professional organization $215.00 to retain my credential (insert manical laughter here)

Still need to come up with $500.00 to fix my car

I am sure that there is more but frankly I can’t take it.

Oh and this weekend I have to go to a pine box derby for the boy scouts and attend a party for 2 people’s birthdays.

In happy magic fantasy land I want to super clean my house, then spend the next couple days completely alone and sleep at least 8 hours in a row, listen to whatever music I want at an immodest volume, cook and eat interesting tasty food, nap, read a lot, perhaps watch a movie or 3 and think nothing about my career, my future career, my exams, how my future is riding on the outcome of my certification exams, and nothing more strenuous than should the dog and I play in the yard or go for a walk in the woods. I think the odds of that happening are rather small but it would be fantastic if it could happen.

Coming up in the next 4 weeks. . . I have to sit for 2 certification exams and I really need to brush up before I take them. They both have a high fail rate for the first attempt and I would like to beat the odds and pass on the 1st go round.

I am staying positive and attempting to stay in some state close to perpetual motion until everything is done. Just a little bit more, just a little more and I will be able to move on to my next thing . . . finding a job teaching in healthcare that pays enough to pay my student loans as well as living expenses.

Of course if you asked me right this minute when I am so tired I could cry and kinda freaked out about money, I want to be a kept woman, lazing about and not worrying her pretty little head about rent, careers, cars and other important things like that. Oh and I want marabou fuzzy slippers, damn it.

5 random thoughts

2011-06-22T20:19:00.000-04:00

1. I am pretty excited; I am getting a real bed for the first time in my adult life. Not to say that right now I do not have a bed. The bed I have now is just a queen sized mattress on one of those little metal frames with wheels, no headboard and no footboard. My new bed is a sleigh bed, queen size so my mattress will fit. One of my coworkers is selling it and I got it for little more than a song.

2. After 6 months of drought it is finally raining today. We normally have more than 24 inches of precipitation by this time of year and this year we barely have 6 inches. It is so bad that ranchers have to sell off their cattle because they cannot afford to feed them hay since the pasture land has dried up.

3. I am going to be visiting Michigan and Indiana in the middle of July and I am really looking forward to it. The plan is to do a tour of both Detroit and South Bend focusing on the auto industry. I will be accompanied by my friend Jana and her 90 year old father who has always wanted to see Detroit. The dad is car crazy and has been his whole life; of course I think that translates to being horse crazy in his early years. I am really looking forward to showing him around my cities and showing him the attractions. South Bend is under recognized as a car city. Studebaker and Avanti were both produced in South Bend and were fine automobiles.

4. I only have 2 more weeks of my externship. I have learned a bit on this ride but mostly I am tired. I have been working 18 hour days for several weeks now and only getting 5 hours of sleep a night for the duration with no afternoon nap. I have been trying hard not to be too exhausted, whiney, & crabby but I think those who love me and have to deal with me will breathe a collective sigh of relief when my schedule clears up a bit.

5. I am feeling tired and thinned out, I need about 3 days alone in the woods with my dog to cure what ails me. Too bad it is too hot to camp here in TX for about another 3 months.

2011-06-01T13:18:00.007-04:00

It has been a couplish months and so I decided to fall back on my old friend the Simple Woman's Day book, I love that thing!

Outside my window
It is hot hot hot, the high today is to be 100 at least and even on into the weekend and next week it is in the 90s. It looks like the blast furnace door has opened, I mean that summer is here.

I am thinking
I really would like some cinnamon coffee. The hospital I am doing my externship at has a staff coffee room and they have giant thermoses of the most delicious coffee. My favorite is the cinnamon, it reminds me of the coffee at Union Street in Detroit. I am very tired as this is my 3rd day in a row only getting 5 hours of sleep and no nap.

I am thankful for

The people I am discussing issues of class and socioeconomic levels with. They are not only providing me with insight but also helping me work through some of my apprehensions about my upcoming entry into a higher level in my career field.

From the kitchen

I found this recipe for home made fudge Popsicles. I am SO going to make these this weekend.

I am wearing

HAH! not the usual scrubs, I had to go to my externship site today and had to wear corporate drag, I am wearing black Sanita clogs, black trousers, a black, white, and grey shirt, a black suit jacket, gunmetal grey pearl earrings and a greyish blueish mother of pearl necklace that matches the earrings. I am also wearing 3 silver rings.

I am creating
Not feeling super creative at the moment so I will go with carbon dioxide.

I am going

To lunch with a friend today and I am so looking forward to it

I am reading

The Blue Book of Fairy Tales by Andrew Lang

I am hoping

I will be able to get my O2 sensors fixed soon on my car. The heat is causing my gas mixture to be off and since my O2 sensors are down my injectors are not compensating

I am hearing
The A/C struggling to keep it cool

Around the house

I am getting a new to me couch for my office. It is small, beautiful and free!

One of my favorite things

I really love going to the beach at night. I am so pale that I catch on fire in the sun so at night is the only time I really get to enjoy the beach. I love the sound of the ocean, the quiet dark and the occasional sea turtle or iridescent algae.

A few plans for the rest of the week
Work on my presentation for school and review my lesson plans for next week.

Words I am pondering
“I must learn to love the fool in me- the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries, it alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility and dignity but for my fool." Theodore Rubin

Here is a picture I am sharing, I love elephants and am fascinated by India so here are the 2 in one spot. . .

2011-03-28T10:44:00.008-04:00

Outside my window:

It is cloudy and in the low 70s. My lawn needs to be mowed and my wonderful lawn guy Eric is not coming until next weekend. Yes friends it is March and I need to mow weekly.

I am thinking:

Even though I just whined about my yard I am so very happy to be out of the Michigan winters.

I am thankful for:

That I am able to grow and expand even when it feels like I can't go on another step, somehow I am able to go on and as a result I change and become better.

From the kitchen:

This weekend I am going to smoke a rack of ribs for the first time ever. Barbeque is sort of a religion here in Texas and I am generally not a devotee. My plan is to rub em down with some rub bought from my favorite rib joint, Cattle Drive, and then sloooowwww cook em. I am serving the ribs with home made coleslaw, corn on the cob, ranch black beans, and some sort of delicious cobbler or boy bait for dessert. To drink some good cold beer, wine and iced tea for those non booze hounds in my guests.

I am wearing:

The usual, scrubs

I am creating:

Plans for a grand Texas barbeque dinner this weekend, I am even going to decorate the yard with cute little lanterns and set up a table outside. I love dinner parties and as long as the pesky outside bugs stay outside of my screen gazabo, we should be good.

I am going:

To go to a giant Volkswagen rally in Fredricksburg in a couple weeks. I am looking forward to it for sure. This will probably be the last camping trip before the blast furnace of summer opens and I have to wait until fall to camp again.

I am reading:

A book of Japanese myths and folk tales

I am hoping:

My new neighbors tone it down so I don't have to call the cops on them. They have been boozing it up VERY loudly in the front yard all weekend. I am hoping it is just the whoo-hoo-we-just- moved-in celebrating. I hate to be a cranky curmudgeon but dang, 3am and I have to be up at 5:30am, it is too much. Why don' t they do this in the BACK yard.

I am hearing:

My students working on their test

Around the house:

I am the worst housekeeper in the world, I have decided. My house looks like a bomb went off in it, school stuff all over the dining room table, an abandoned project in the livingroom, the kitchen looks like am 8 year old was cooking, it is not pretty at all. It is a good thing I am going to have company this weekend so I have to clean. If it were not for company I am convinced I would live in a space that is a cross between an absent minded professor's office and a Disney bumbling wizard's cottage.

One of my favorite things

I really love the sound for trains blowing their whistles in the distance. I live about 3 blocks away from train tracks and I hear the train blow every night as I am going to sleep. It makes me feel good and sleepy to hear it.

A few plans for the rest of the week

Clean my house, do everything I can ahead for the food prep for the weekend, do partial water changes on my fish tanks, put up my weather proof decorations for the party.

Words I am pondering

“I must learn to love the fool in me- the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries, it alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility and dignity but for my fool. Theodore Rubin

Here is a picture I am sharing

I went to walk around the Johnson Space Center at lunch a couple days ago and here is the picture I took of the shuttle, it is HUGE. I tried to climb on it but for some reason they take offence to that, go figure.

2011-01-25T20:28:00.007-05:00

Outside my window: The sun is just setting and it is still pretty warm out (around 60), tonight and every night this week it supposed to get into the high 30s. It is so strange to be in the winter and have days in the mid to upper 60s and nights in the high 30s. I keep waiting for the snow shoe to drop.

I am thinking: About intuitive eating and being in touch with food that nourishes my body and makes me feel good. Culture is so full of messages about not trusting one’s body and that certain foods have moral value. It pisses me off.

I am thankful for: Starting up my gratitude journal again. About a week ago I was just an angry miserable injured grizzly bear wreck (part of the residual holiday joy) and I decided to write down all the little things I was thankful for. I felt BETTER! So now I am trying every day to write in my journal at least one thing I am thankful for. It makes a huge difference in my outlook to avoid the whiny minutia and focus on all the good big love in my life.

From the kitchen: As I type this 2 crock pots are busy cooking my dinner. I am making pulled pork and chocolate mess. Both recipes are from the Hillbilly Housewife site. I love this website it is written by a woman who takes frugal living seriously and has fantastic tips.

I am wearing: A sequined copper ball gown with gold opera length gloves, a pheasant feather boa, and a tiara, or more likely I am wearing navy blue scrubs and nurse shoes

I am creating: A teacher tool book based on a class I am taking right now. The class is about learning styles and brain dominances. I am trying to integrate the information from the class into my teaching for this class and my next one.

I am going: to go to the ocean tomorrow to eat my lunch. It is supposed to be clear and warm tomorrow so I am packing up and heading to sit with the jelly fish, crabs, urchins and pelicans and eat my left-overs. It should be mah-velous.

I am reading: “Thinking in the Shadow of Feelings” by Dr Reuven Bar-Levav. It is about what it takes to freely feel while remaining logically sound. Something I have a hard time with, actually. I tend to turn my feelings off completely or at least put them on a long delay. This is proving to be very interesting and applicable reading for dealing with that lag. For fun I am reading “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” by JK Rowling. I am rereading the series in light of the events of the “Deathly Hallows” book, it is a much better series now knowing what I didn’t know then (then being when I first read it).

I am hoping: That my tax return will get here quickly so I can fix my breaks, my oxygen sensors and get a new inspection sticker before I get pulled over.

Note to add: Why the hell are o2 sensors so frickin expensive, I notice no difference in the way my car runs and in fact I am currently enjoying a period of increased gas mileage. To replace these phantoms it is going to cost me $350.00, insane. Oh and of course these useless pieces of gadgetry on my car not working means I cannot pass my inspection grumble grumble grumble.

I am hearing: The air handlers and the teacher in the classroom next to mine teaching

Around the house: My room needs a serious overhaul. I got a new dresser and I need to find a place to put it and reorganize everything, seriously it is looking like I am a bag lady, or rather a piles of clothing and box lady.

One of my favorite things: My friend's cat has a litter of kittens and last week I went over to visit and all 5 of the little kittahs climbed all over me and purred in my ear, they are so cute. Several of them fell asleep on my neck and chest- it was like having a live fur collar on my shirt.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Finish part 2 of the class I am taking and get ready to take the assessment.

Words I am pondering: “Eat foods you like, as much as you want” from a blog post by the fat nutritionist, click to check out her page.

Here is a picture I am sharing: This cracked me up. . .

7 quick takes

2010-12-03T09:42:00.000-05:00

1. Today is the 2nd day of December and NaBlPoMo has been over for a couple of days. I was feeling a bit inadequate (as these damn self imposed goals of blogging often make me feel) and I realized I posted 5, yes FIVE, times in one month. If you view my previous months of blogging since the last NaBlMoPo you will see the standard is once a month. I posted five times my usual output; I refuse to feel like a failure over this, HA!

2. Today is my birthday and I am sad to leave 42 behind. I loved being 42. Last year I declared it the year of “the meaning of life the universe and everything” and it gave me a little jolt of geeky delight every time I told someone how old I was. I carried around a towel in my car and I Note to add: I am still about 10 years old on the inside so I purposely told people how old I was just so I could tell them I was 42, strange I know.

3. Thanksgiving falls on the last Friday of the month of November. My school makes us make up the day off for Thanksgiving on the following Friday. This means that I will not have a day off for my birthday until 2012 and it will fall on a Sunday, then it I will have to wait until 2017 to get it off again. I am not happy about this. Hopefully by 2017 I will be done with school and teaching at a proper University and have the day off because we don’t have to make up the time. (the real reason I want a master’s degree, my birthday off)

4. I got an Archos 5 internet tablet palm PC for my birthday and I think I want to marry it. Not only is it WAAAAAYY less expensive than an IPad or even a Kindle but also it has expandable memory, it runs on the Android platform, it has a built in reader program so I can use it like a Kindle, it has a speaker, a microphone, a camera and I can access the internet. Oh and there are apps which I can download AND there is a fun game called Angry Birds that I believe I am addicted to. Oh, I can also do work stuff from it and keep my calendar on it and it will even sync with my PC. It must be love, love, looooovvveee.

5. I have started drinking hot tea again. I love tea, especially hot tea but here in Texas it is just too darn hot in the spring, summer and early autumn to think about drinking something hot. Now that the temps have dropped to the 60s and 70s I am back in business. I really like Constant Comment and Darjeeling teas, what kind do you like?

6. I am going to Austin to visit my friend Phil this weekend. He and I have been friends for years and years and he moved to Texas about a year and a half before I did. Even though we only live about 3 hours apart we don’t get to visit nearly enough. I am really looking forward to this.

7. I read an interesting article on a technique used to treat post traumatic stress disorder called “Tapping”. It deals with the hippocampus and creating a disassociation with the event and emotions that caused the trauma similar to” when one wakes up from a nightmare and realized that one is safe in bed”. The technique calls for tapping certain parts of the face, hands and body while dealing with the emotional arousal of the remembered incident. It has a lot of success in treating post war PTSD. Pretty interesting, if you want to know more check out this website: http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/PTSD_Trauma_Treatments.htm there are others but this one is rather concise.

2010-11-09T10:32:00.004-05:00

I am thinking about moving to a new house. My landlord has another house that I can rent at the same rent as I currently pay so that she can rent my current house at a much higher rent than I am currently paying, which is good for her and would be great for me because the other house is on a bayou. Yes, at the end of my future long sloping yard is an arm of "Little Vince Bayou". This is exciting to me because of the wildlife that will be coming by, of course there are fish in the water but also there are nutrias (see image at the top left), which look like very large muskrats (they can weigh as much as 20 pounds) and have deep orange front incisor teeth. They build their burrows on the banks of rivers and are generally interesting to watch.
Also there are turtles, great blue herons, snowy egrets, some roseate spoon bills, and some other water fowl that I am unfamiliar with.

The most exciting thing to me is that in theory I could have some ducks. I would love to get a few of these babies (see image left) they are called Runner Ducks and they are just as cute as a bug's ear. The neighborhood has a flock of exotic waterfowl that the neighborhood feeds and maintains and that wander the bayou. I think that Runner Ducks would make a great contribution to the flock. I am a little worried about alligators eating them but the other waterfowl seem alright so perhaps it isn't much of a problem.

I don't know if everything will work out with the new house, my landlord will let me know in January if it is available. Until then I am going to be doing research on ducks to see if it is feasible.

Gratitude for frugality

2010-11-04T20:11:00.004-04:00

I am feeling so grateful for the people in my life who have taught me and modeled for me frugality. When I was growing up we were rather poor and we were way ahead of the trendy recycle curve, I have been making do, reusing and recycling my whole life.

When I was a kid my grandma (who raised me) was not what one would call domestic and I eschewed all things I perceived as “woman’s work”, so learn cooking and meal planning at my grandma’ s frugal knee, I did not. My grandma’s version of home-made food was to recombine processed products into a new thing. Her best dish was to take minute steaks roll them around Stove Top stuffing and stick a tooth pick through them then cover the whole thing with cream of mushroom soup and bake. Quite tasty, but not exactly from scratch nor without sodium count to give a blue whale hypertension. She had a lot going on in her life and she tried her best but Julia Child she was not.

When I was 18 I went to live with my ex-fiancé’s brother and sister-in-law. Not only did they change my life simply by the way they lived truly Christ like lives but also Ellen taught me about meal planning, grocery shopping, and generally living within my means while still living well. To this day I use the lessons she taught me about stretching my food budget, household management and living well. I am so thankful to her for giving me that gift (plus she is the only other person I know besides me who reads in the shower). Thanks to the Internet I have been able to reconnect with Ellen and wonder of wonders she posts the recipes I remember from those halcyon days of my life that I have great nostalgia for. As a wonderful extra added value the recipes are completely within my food budget, whoo hoo!

I try to share frugal living tips with my students. Most of them are single moms with minuscule incomes. Whenever I am feeling constrained by my budget I think about them and their struggles. I have one student who has 2 children under 5 and lives on slightly more than minimum wage. When she finishes the program and gets her certification she will be able to make more than 3 times what she makes now. Many of my students are in the same boat. By passing along frugal tips I am hoping I can help them deal with the increase in their incomes and to help them pay off their student loans by living well within their means. Not only that but I think that by providing positive reinforcement for frugal living I help normalize it. Our culture is so consumption driven and people feel bad if they are not rolling in expensive crap, I am hoping that by my speaking about ways to live within one’s means it will make it seem not less than but a better alternative to the consumer culture. At least I can hope.

Navel gazing/whining about my acedemic career (try to restrain you excitement)

2010-11-03T20:10:00.003-04:00

I am the first woman in my family to complete high school and (when I finally finish in the summer) will be the first person in my family to get a bachelor’s degree. In the fall I will then be starting my master’s program, a double master’s a MBA in health care management and a MS in public health education. I am pretty damn excited about the idea of getting a master’s but I am feeling a little alone in the world with it. I wish I had someone who could hold my hand through what has been a somewhat arduous process of selecting and then getting accepted to a program.

As the end of my bachelor’s and the beginning of my master’s get nearer I swing from excited anticipation to anxiety and back. Can I do the work? Will I be able to swing working full time in a demanding career with a master’s program? Will writer’s block return and kick my ass? I find that daily I have to release desire and release expectations with all this. I have to relax and be in the idea that I will have sufficient grace to do what must be done.

I tend to be a planner, a worrier and a perfectionist at times. These traits have actually served me but sometimes they can rise to a rather neurotic level and it is a pisser to make them shut the hell up.

I am finding that exercise has been a balm to my agonizing. There is something about working up a sweat that calms me down. It seems to take all that nervous energy and focus it on something which, for a little while at least, drains it of energy and makes me feel so much better.

Taking action and list making are soothing. I have done everything I can to do with what must be done between now and then and now I just need to walk in the plan. This is comforting as well.

I find I do best when I quit focusing on myself and my problems. When I am able to look outward instead of inward, to talk to my friends (several of whom have master’s degrees) and to believe what they tell me that I will do just fine.

What wonder is this. . .warning:rambling post

2010-11-02T20:51:00.005-04:00

This Friday I get to go to a teacher training. I absolutely love these things. I get to hob knob with seasoned teacher and they are SO amazingly generous with their advice. I carry around a little note book so I can jot notes after conversations because they just casually spout pure teaching gold. Coming into teaching in a rather backwards way has resulted in some odd learning curve bumps for me. I worked in the health care industry for nearly 20 years before I started teaching. The HC industry is VERY different from the teaching industry.
When I started teaching I decided to stop with the corporate climbing, the press for power and just relax and be with the moment of teaching. Now, after 2.5 years of it I am amazed at the personal transformation that has been wrought in me from this powering down. I am so much more relaxed and happy. (Of course it really doesn't hurt that I love what I do and by in large most every day is a fun adventure in magic joy land) I enjoyed being an auditor for compliance and I enjoyed performing physician and staff education I did, I actually thought I loved it. Compared to teaching however, it is a pale, pale love.

I am going to have to leave teaching temporarily rather soon and this really makes me very sad. Once I finish my certification I need to get a job and make some serious money for awhile so I can fund my master's degree and not be in some super crazy amount of debt from student loans (like nearly $100,000 of debt).
I know it sounds dramatic but the thought of leaving teaching makes me want to cry. The thing is that if I go back into the health care industry I will make more than double what I make as a teacher, yes friends that's right MORE than double. The plan is to pay for my master's degree as I go and not get any additional student loans while also paying down what I owe on my undergrad loans because they will be in deferment and I can pay against the principle. Fortunately I have no debt other than the student loans. It all makes just great sense on paper, it seems like the logical and rational thing to do but honestly it just feels dreadful. I also really need the master's degree, if I want to teach at the university level it is essential. ::deep resigned sigh::

I am hoping that I can find a job in the industry working at a teaching hospital or working in a training department that pays as well as my usual position as an administrator or an auditor. That way I could be well paid enough to do what I need to do financially and still be teaching. Here's hoping.

Are you alright, I noticed you just fainted from getting 2 blogs in 2 days, woah yah scared me there.

NaBlPoMo Welcome to November

2010-11-01T22:08:00.004-04:00

It is November already and never you mind that I didn’t post at all in October, I was busy procrastinating, shhhhhhhhhh.

So November is National Blog Posting Month and now for the second year in a row I am taking a stab at it. The idea is to post daily; I am shooting for at least weekly.

Thoughts for today:
Tomorrow is the election and I am, as usual, wishing for candidates who I genuinely like as opposed to having to pick the lesser of 2 evils. I really want to have representation that appreciates the little things like oh, say THE CONSTITUTION and THE BILL OF RIGHTS, ahem. Let’s not even get started on my general dismay over elected officials who want to abandon due process simply because they are outraged by the crime committed (the exact time when due process is MOST needed IMHO). My further dismay at those politicians who want to make their version of Christianity the state religion and work on building a theocracy, not based on Christ like love but on some distorted view of crusade mentality. My horror over those fear mongering bigoted reactionary politicians who build consensus not based on the shining light of reason, moderation and equality but on fear, xenophobia and EMOTIONAL knee jerk hatred. Alright, deep breath. . .
I dream of the day when I can find a true Jeffersonian republican or a politician who can be both one who values life and freedom, who is moderate, respectful, honorable, honest, scholarly and in possession of integrity.
I know, I know . . . dream on little dreamer.

My old friend the Day Book

2010-09-30T10:29:00.006-04:00

Outside my window
The sun is shining the humidity is low and the temp is a wonderful 70 degrees, this is the part of the year when Texas starts calming down the oven like temperatures and we get great weather for about 7 months. Oh joy oh bliss oh going outside without dying of heat exhaustion!
I am thinking
Lately I have been thinking about endurance and what makes people persevere. Internal motivation and intention seems to give the grit and guts to keep the faith and keep going. Engagement in the world, caring about the work passionately, focus -all these things help but without the internal will to keep going, to dust off and start again they mean nothing but nice ideas.
I am thankful for
The beautiful weather, the lessons my students teach me again and again, compassion, good coffee, long hugs, napping, that my hard work over the last 3 months lowerd my bad cholesterol and raised my good cholesterol, I am almost in the healthy range for the bad!
From the kitchen
This weekend I am making boudin (pronounced boo-dan) in honor of the rice festival I am attending. For those not in the know (which was me up to about a year ago) boudin is a Cajun sausage made with rice, meat and spicy seasonings squished together and stuffed into a casing using a cow horn with the tip cut off. (This is the recipe I am using) I am also omitting the cow horn for a sausage stuffer made of plastic (which I might add looks rather like a cow horn with the end cut off).
I am wearing
I should just omit this question, from Monday –Thursday for 18 hours each day I wear scrubs. I was initially so excited to not worry about what to wear for work, think of the laundry I won’t have to do, think of the time I will save. Now I am tired of looking like a blue stuffed animal in my white marshmallow shoes. At least I am comfortable in sensible footwear, right, bright side to everything.
I am creating
Anxiety, my students are working on a rather hard test as I type
I am going
To Winnie, TX this weekend to attend the Rice Festival, there is a parade with not 1 but 2 combines AND they will crown some lucky young lady the Rice Queen and she will ride forth with her court on said combines wearing a rather large tiara a sparkly gown, white opera length gloves, holding a scepter and with enough hair spray to personally have her own ozone hole. I love Texas
I am reading
“The Four Agreements” I am not too happy with this book and am seriously considering abandoning it, it actually recommends putting away rational though and critical thinking. . . riiiigggghhhtttttt.
The four agreements are 1. Be impeccable with your word, 2. Don’t take anything personally, 3. Don’t make assumptions, and 4. Always do your best . I can get behind the agreements, they sound good, but the methods of obtaining these agreements, eh not so much for me I am thinking. I will try to keep an open mind as my boss’s boss recommended it and says he bases his management style on it, ugh
I am hoping
That all my hard work will result in a substantial increase in my salary.
I am hearing
Pages turning on reference manuals, furious writing, and deep sighing. . . the sounds of test taking
Around the house
My house is TRASHED. I haven’t cleaned in like 2 weeks and it is getting a little out of hand. If I don’t clean soon I am worried about sleeping and the dust bunnies carrying me off.
One of my favorite things
Other than not cleaning my house I enjoy napping, walks on the beach just as the sun is coming up or in the middle of the night on a full moon.
A few plans for the rest of the week
Tomorrow, laundry and house cleaning, Saturday is the rice festival and Sunday I think I shall read, nap and perhaps watch a movie or 2
Words I am pondering
“If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes.” Corrie Tenboom
“Endurance is patience concentrated.” Thomas Carlyle

Here is a picture I am sharing : I just want to snuzzle their tummies!

They are young flying squirrels by the way.

Day Book

2010-08-16T12:52:00.003-04:00

Outside my window
It is HOT HOT HOT, according to the weather service it is 105.4 outside and with the heat index it feels like 108 it is also very sunny and clear with a tiny breeze.

I am thinking
About myth and archetype, to paraphrase Carl Jung, archetypes are organs of the psyche as the stomach and intestines are organs of the body, just as often when someone is sick there is a problem with the function of an organ so it is when an individual has a psychological disturbance it is related to issues with the archetypes

I am thankful for
Time alone, without it I would get cagey, odd and crankier than normal

From the kitchen
This weekend I cooked Monterey beans and cheese taken from SalomeEllen. One taste and it made me miss my old friends in Port Huron horribly.

I am wearing
Let’s not talk about today because I have on my de rigor scrubs. . . this weekend I wore a long black skirt with purple flowers on it, a black tank top and a purple over shirt, black clogs and an amethyst necklace and silver rings.

I am creating
A document for my students that is a short hand guide to diagnosis sequencing for both in and outpatient care

I am going
To have the whole house to myself for 2 days- my house mate is going to Broken Arrow, OK to pick up a car.

I am reading
“The Origin and History of Consciousness” by Eric Neumann and “The Silver Chair” by CS Lewis as well as a very lengthy article called “Recombinant human erythropoietin counteracts secondary injury and markedly enhances neurological recovery from experimental spinal cord trauma” by A. Gorio et al From the 2002 National Academy of Sciences meeting

I am hoping
I will keep finding my time at the gym fun. The weather is miserable out and the gym is nice and cool, also when I can go mid day it is full of interesting old people

I am hearing
The CPR training going on next door for the new students

Around the house
There has been a dramatic increase in dust and fur on my floor. I don’t know what the cleaning fairies are up to but sweeping has not been on the list.

One of my favorite things
Waking up before my alarm and lying in bed half awake and half asleep listening to the train whistle in the distance

A few plans for the rest of the week
I have so much grading to do it isn’t even funny. I believe if I spend every spare moment grading between now and Thursday I should finish in time. Why do I assign so much work again?

Words I am pondering
“The shadow, which is in conflict with the acknowledged values, cannot be accepted as a negative part of one's own psyche and is therefore projected--that is, it is transferred to the outside world and experienced as an outside object. It is combated, punished, and exterminated as 'the alien out there' instead of being dealt with as one's own inner problem” Eric Neumann

Here is a picture I am sharing:

2010-07-28T10:07:00.006-04:00

Outside my window:
It is raining to beat the band. There is a tropical depression in the Gulf and this means buckets of rain for me. The good news is that if I survive the flooding the next few days (which I have off) will be beautiful, sunny and low humidity (for Texas that is).

I am thinking:
Due to a problem with my financial aid I may be having a hard time paying for my last semester this fall. This has caused a crisis of confidence (not to mention a potential delay in grad school). It has made me realize that I am getting far too much of my value from the external (my education and job) and not enough from the internal. I really wish I could learn these lessons in a less dramatic way. This looming doubt about my future has put me in a funk and brought up all sorts of pleasant issues like my value and worth. I wish that when things go wrong I would not turn on myself like a pack of rabid dogs. It really would make life better. The funny thing is that for “real” crises like those that threaten my physical safety or basic needs I feel completely empowered but for non critical crisis (like this one) I immediately become super hard on myself and engage in unhealthy hypercritical behavior and thoughts. Being aware of it certainly helps but it doesn’t always change it. The way I am dealing with it is to go into super self care mode, you know, eat right, sleep, drink water, exercise daily, and avoid caffeine and sugar. I also try to replace the negative with positive but at the moment it feels like a losing battle. Oh joy.

I am thankful for:
A job I LOVE that I am fortunate enough to be good at. A curious mind, the willingness and discipline to self educate.

From the kitchen:
It has been so hot here that the kitchen is pretty closed except for salad and pasta. This weekend I am stuffing a pork loin with cherries and goat cheese and grilling it.

I am wearing:
My usual uniform: navy blue scrubs, white socks, white orthopedic clogs, silver rings and earrings

I am creating:
I am decorating my room in the British Colonial India style. I have never really had a decorating theme before and this is proving to be fun.

I am going:
To go to my first yoga class this weekend. According to the handout for the class it is the best thing since sliced enlightenment and will make me as flexible as a 12 year old Circ du Soleil contortionist. I remain skeptical.

I am reading:
“The Origins and History of Consciousness” by Erich Neumann (a student of CG Jung)

I am hoping:
My financial aid woe will work out and the start for my masters program will not be delayed

I am hearing:
Ravi Shankar “Bridges”

Around the house:
The dust bunnies have mutated into horrible beasts with a vicious streak a mile wide and big nasty pointy teeth

One of my favorite things:
Going to the ocean at dawn with my dog, sun just rising and the beach to myself

A few plans for the rest of the week:
This weekend I am going to finish my deep clean/organization of my room. I am going to take a nice long steam and sauna after my yoga class and perhaps go for a swim after.

Words I am pondering:
“There are 2 kinds of people, those who love you and those who don’t. Those who love you won’t care and those who don’t, don’t matter” John Thomas

Here is a picture I am sharing:

This was taken at my goddaughter's baptism

Left to right

Rae: the adoptive mom

Shirly (in the wheelchair): Rae's mom

Paul: (guy with grey at the temple) Tony's godfather

Tony: (boy to the right of Shirley) Soleil's brother

Me (Christina):(chick with the white shirt) godmother

Tristan: (man with the pink shirt) he is a friend of Shirley

2010-06-28T14:01:00.004-04:00

Outside my window:
Everyone is up in arms about hurricane Alex but outside the sky is blue and there are just a few towering fluffy clouds. It is only 86 degrees with 66% humidity; veritably mild for Houston this time of year.
I am thinking:
I am wondering where I am going to put all the stuff that was in my spare room, now my guest room. When I moved to Texas from Michigan I got rid of pretty much anything extraneous, how is it that I have a TON of stuff that I don’t know what to do with that I don’t use all the time, has it bred, did I secretly buy stuff with money I stole from someone while I was sleeping, how could this be. Hurumph
I am thankful for:
People who love me
From the kitchen:
This weekend I made dark chocolate malt-o-meal and it was amazingly good. It tasted like dark chocolate brownies.
I am wearing:
The usual, scrubs
I am creating:
A guide to the NCCI for my students with information on modifiers and CMS and their wily ways.
I am going:
Nowhere in particular for many days
I am reading:
The Magician’s Nephew by CS Lewis
I am hoping:
I will be able to recover from the disaster of needing a new engine for my car. I have had it less than 2 years and I just (4 months ago) put a transmission in the darn thing, now it needs a new engine. After this I will have a new car.
I am hearing:
The air handlers humming and the sound of some of my students talking in the hall (class got out an hour ago and they are still hanging about)
Around the house:
I need to do a deep clean and reorganization of my room, before the corner dust monsters get me
One of my favorite things:
When I feel deeply pleased with myself or have accomplished something of note I love to go to a swanky hotel bar and drink really fine bourbon and smoke a cigar all alone.
A few plans for the rest of the week:
Marinate and grill chicken thighs that I ran out of time for on Sunday
Words I am pondering:
“What good is a magic ring that lets you see other worlds if you are too afraid to look at them when you get there” CS Lewis “The Magician’s Nephew”
Here is a picture I am sharing:

I went kite flying and here is the kite

My summer as a slacker

2010-06-17T11:08:00.004-04:00

Today is my last day of school for awhile. I have decided to take the summer off from the school I attend. Shocking, isn’t it? I have been going to college now for 6 years, year round nonstop. Why is this taking so long, you may wonder, the answer is that pesky thing called work. For several years I could only take 1 or 2 classes at a time. This period was seriously slow going for my education. For the last little while I have been going to school full time and now as I am almost done, I am taking the summer off. For the next 3 months there will be no crazed studying, no cranking out of 18 essays a week, no mass undertakings of writing about the minutia (with great zeal I might add) of health care and the business of medicine.
What am I going to do with myself? How will I cope not being constantly under a deadline, not having to produce hundreds of pages of writing? I don’t know but my guess is it will involve napping, reading , painting and with a little luck some travel. Who knows, I may get all wild and crazy and write some short stories.
Unlike public school teachers I do have to work over the summer. I may revamp some of my lesson plans in my spare time, or I may do no such thing. I like having the option.

There are so many things I WANT to do they are in no particular order:

1. I really want to do some in depth reading on Germanic myths and about the cult of Odin.

2. I want to refresh my Latin and translate at least 2 chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (yes I am that much of a geek that I have a few of the Harry Potter books in Latin),

3. I want to reread the Silmarillion (after reading about the Germanic myths to see how they are related),

4. I want to paint- I have been so busy I haven’t made a single painting since I started school full time.

5. I want to cook and try out new recipes.

6. I want to reorganize and deep clean my room and perhaps paint one of the walls a good color.

7. I want to tighten up Lily’s training.

8. I want to go camping.

9. I want to get some IT certifications so I can make some money doing tech support for roll outs.

More than all that though I want to have the weekend open before me to do whatever I want or nothing at all. I don’t want to think about schedules and plans and breaking down larger tasks. I want to be kid like (as least for 1 day a week) and just be. I hope I can be still enough to enjoy that.

Day Book

2010-05-04T21:32:00.005-04:00

Outside my window:
It is hot out tonight, in the mid to upper 80s and very clear. The moon is a sliver and the air smells salty.

I am thinking:
I am really frustrated with my health insurance and my benefits administrator at my job. I need to get my credit repaired so I can get loan to cover a procedure that I need to have done but my insurance plan specifically excludes, even if medically necessary, bastids.

I am thankful for:
I am thankful that my grandma raised me to be tenacious of spirit and that I am willing to change. I am thankful that I have been accepted into 2 masters programs. I am thankful that I love my job and that Texas is such an interesting place. I am thankful that I finally feel at home somewhere in the world, it has been a very long time since I have felt that way.

From the kitchen:
I made chicken enchiladas this Saturday and they were quite good and plentiful enough to give me lunch through Wednesday

I am wearing:
Navy blue scrubs, white Dansko shoes, white support socks, my usual uniform.

I am creating:
My 75g fish tank is coming together. I need to do some rearranging and gather some materials from nature to toss in the tank. My female Apistogramma are coming to me next weekend, if all goes well I should have fry within a month.

I am going:
To die of a heart attack if I don't get a grip on my triglyceride level.

I am reading:
"Elevated plasma glucose and lowered triglyceride levels from omega-3 fatty acid supplementation in type II diabetes" Friday, KE; Childs, MT; Tsunehara, CT; et al
Created for the National Diabetes Association

I am hoping:
That I will be straightening out my crazy financial melt down soon and things will return to budgeting normalcy.

I am hearing:
The air conditioner humming and my students talking about the project they are working on.

Around the house:
I need to clean my room this weekend, a deep cleaning the dog fur is getting a bit intense.

One of my favorite things:
Having the whole house to myself

A few plans for the rest of the week:
Writing a letter to my goddaughter in Spanish, writing letters to a couple of people who are due for some real mail in their lives, figuring out what to give my mom for mother's day

This weekend:
I am going to visit Jana's Aunt Peen who is 96 years old and can whip your butt at gin and is still quite sassy, love her

I am pondering:
"It isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me" Ayn Rand

Here is a picture I am sharing:
Another picture of my Lily dog. She always wants to lick the camera or, as in this picture, seems to want to give me a dubious look:

Loosely connected thoughts from my brain to yours

2010-04-26T23:39:00.010-04:00

Image credit Ram Dass

I just got back from a visit to Detroit to see my lovies there. I miss them all so much it makes me ache. I find that although I miss the people mightily I do not so much miss the place.
When did Detroit become so ugly and when did strangers start looking so sad and angry at the same time, has everyone always been that rude or has something changed or have I gone soft on Southern manners and sunshiny winters?

Part of my trip was a drive Rae and I took from Detroit to South Bend to visit my mom. I really love that drive, it is through small towns with Victorian houses and long expanses filled with corn, soybean and hay fields cut by a curvy 2 lane highway. That drive always fills me with a peaceful alertness that is often hard to find elsewhere.

My mom and I have a challenging relationship sometimes and this visit was no exception. This time however, instead of letting her usual anxiety venting method of attempting to control and manipulate me upset me I just let it roll off. I tried to embrace her and recognize her outburst as a sign of her anxiety and her attempt to cope with it. It honestly made the whole visit better. Rae also made a perfectly timed comment that completely lightened the mood and set it all in perspective. I love it when that happens.

Lately I have been thinking about the 3rd noble truth of Buddhism, that says, (pardon my paraphrase Buddhists), the way to end suffering is to release desire. I find that by living in the present moment, without anxious thoughts to the future and without being chained to the past I am the most at peace with myself and those around me. It is very hard to do this releasing of desire. I keep opening my hand whenever I am aware of myself grasping but it is a tricky business. Back in the prehistoric reaches of my youth I had an acid trip that taught me to "let it go and just be". The unpacking of this is an ongoing process even now, some 20+ years later. I tend to live in my head and I find that by doing that my poor overworked brain keeps ruminating on the past and the future. If I can center myself in my body it is much easier to be in the present. What works for me is when I am spinning on recriminations and or possibilities, worries and doubts is I try to focus on my breathing. To feel the air moving in and out of my lungs, my diaphragm, coastal and diacostal muscles moving. It also helps to press my feet into the ground and feel my toes moving to keep my balance. By focusing on my body and my breath it slows down my mind and allows me to be in the present a bit more clearly. Another exercise that helps is to become sensually aware of my surroundings to ask myself, what am I smelling, hearing, touching, etc.

A great benefit of being present in the moment is that time neither drags or flies by. I see the end of my life is closer than the beginning and am determined to do whatever techniques I can in order to savor and use the time I have left.

Random blogging miscellanea while my students take their finals

2010-03-18T20:38:00.005-04:00

I love to cook. The last couple weekends I have been a cooking fiend thanks to my students. We got into a conversation about balance of life, school and work and I encouraged them to find one thing that they love that they don’t think they have time for and to do it for themselves even if it is only for a short time. After we discussed this for awhile a student said to me Ms O you are a student and you work full time what do you love that you are not doing? So I told them about cooking and they challenged me to practice what I preach (I also think they are hoping on scoring baked goods). I have cooked all sorts of things since then, stuffed green peppers, meatloaf, cardiac referral potatoes, lemon bars, spicy fried chicken thighs; oven fried chicken breasts, Spanish rice, green beans. This weekend I am planning on making pumpkin cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and pork roast with baked sweet potato fries. Next thing I need to do is make some friends down here so I can invite them over for dinner, ‘cause I really love to throw dinner parties.

Hello, my name is Christina and I am addicted to audiobooks. For the past several weeks I have been listening to the audiobook of “Atlas Shrugged” as read by Scott Brick. Before that it was “Jane Eyre” as read by a woman with a lovely English accent who’s name escapes me at the moment. I listen to it every day, on my dive, before I fall asleep, when I take a nap, I am strung out I tell yah. When I was a kid I loved being read to, as an adult I find a distinct lack of people willing to read to me, so enter the audiobook, now if only I could get it to rub my back.

I have finally decided what I am going to put into my 75 gallon acrylic fish tank. I have been agonizing over this for weeks. I use agonizing but really I have been delighted to do the research on the fish I am considering and their individual requirements. I am setting up a biotope tank. A biotope tank is one that mimics a little slice of the natural environment where your inhabitants come from, everything from the same sort of dirt and rock to water parameters to fellow tankmates. I am going with a Brazil Amazon river tank. I am going with Geophagus Brasiliensis, Geophagus Jurupari, Red Heros Severum, perhaps some apistogramma I really haven’t decided on the exact species yet. I am getting excited though. The next step is setting up all the driftwood and plants then letting the tank run for a few weeks and then FISH, whoo hoo!

I need to go out dancing soon; I think I forgot how it has been so long.

Alright, my students are finishing and the brain smoke is clearing, bye for now!

Because I always have to throw in a picture, here is a look at my very empty fish tank

Day book

2010-03-09T19:56:00.006-05:00

My friend @ http://salomeellen.blogspot.com/ got this from a couple other places and I since I am too obsessed at the moment with my school writing I thought I would give it a try...

Outside my window:

It is a warm (high 60s) balmy evening the sky is pink and the warm breeze smells like salt, the palm trees are swaying, the little green parrots are squawking and wheeling in flocks and in general it is the sort of night that makes me want to be outside and not trapped in my classroom.

I am thinking:
That I need to get busy and start calling people for our "Professional Advising Committee" meeting coming up in early April. I wish my great grand boss would get me the time for the meeting so I can let people know for sure when they are needed.

I am thankful for:
So much, my friends whom I love, my job that brings me joy daily, my car that runs, my house with a big yard and nice kitchen, my fireplace, my fish tanks all found cheap, the wonderful weather, that I have food in my fridge, that at my age I am getting good at acceptance, at how damn happy I am etc etc ad gaudium

From the kitchen:
I made this recipe for spicy fried chicken thighs this weekend and they were FANTASTIC. Seriously outstanding, try em if you like spicy chicken. It also works by the way with pounded chicken breasts.

I am wearing:
Navy blue scrubs, white Dansko shoes, white support socks . . . a virtual fashion plate I tell yah

I am creating:
At this exact moment a new blog post for the first time in months, at home I am plotting my new 75 gallon fish tank, how it should be planted, what kind of lighting, what sort of fish etc

I am going:
To visit my lovies in Detroit in just 37 days

I am reading:
"The influence of tumor size and pre-treatment staging on outcome following radiation therapy alone for stage I non-small cell lung cancer."Sandler, Curran and Turrisi Department of Radiation Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

I am hoping:
That the current class on business will not kill me with paper writing and that my lack of interest will not be a problem.

I am hearing:
My students working on their test

Around the house:
Just got 2 beautiful used couches for dirt cheap ($150 bucks), I have not had couches for the 18 months I have lived here in Texas because I didn’t want to schlep them 1900 miles. I didn’t realize it would be so long before I could find something that I liked that would be affordable

One of my favorite things:
Soaking in the bathtub while sipping good red wine, reading a book, and eating super dark chocolate with fruit.

A few plans for the rest of the week:
Beginning to revise my lesson plans for the next class I am teaching - Introduction to Hospital Billing to reflect some new ideas I have to make it more interesting.
This weekend I want to go see the new Magic exhibit at the Museum of Natural History

Words I am pondering:
"In the cicada's cry there is no sign of how soon it will die" Basho

Here is a picture I am sharing:

This is my dog Lily . . .

AHIMA will require CEUs to reflect ICD-10 proficiency

2010-01-27T12:58:00.002-05:00

This post is a link discussing AHIMA's current policy on recertification for credential holders for when the new ICD-10 comes into law in October of 2013. Although AHIMA has not listed the total required number of hours of continuing education in ICD-10 to maintain one's credential it is very very advisable to begin now with gathering CEUs so it will not be such a daunting task in whatever amount of time is remaining. Follow the link below for the full article.
AHIMA will require CEUs to reflect ICD-10 proficiency

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2009-12-16T21:27:00.004-05:00

Today is the birthday of my Queen Mom, the regal, royal, brilliant, handsome, fabulous, alluring, tempting, witty, charming, nurturing, elegant, wonderful, did I mention gorgeous, Dutchess.

My heart is better for loving you, my mind is quicker for speaking to you, and I love you from the bottom of my tarsus, which is like my heart only deeper.

Happy 25th birthday, you hunk of burnin' love you

The world is what you make it

2009-11-12T14:13:00.014-05:00

Paul Brady has rapidly graying red curly hair pale skin with freckles and pronounced jowls; he is also an Irish folk singer. This man wrote a song that changed my life, here is the story. . .

I just I stepped out of the foyer at the answering service (one of my 3 jobs) into the dark winter morning, the slush sloshed into my shoes and the snow squeaked as I walked across the parking lot to my car. Ah my car, a white 1977 Granada, it had served me well, I had lived in that car for a few weeks the previous spring. It was a cranky old man of a car in its twilight years. Something had happened to the engine that required me to hop out at lights and put a clothes pin on the butterfly valve so that it wouldn’t stall out and as an added bonus occasionally flames would shoot out of the carburetor and it would backfire. I became an expert at timing lights which was a good thing because the brake lights were out. With a loud shriek of metal the dented driver side door opened and a mountain of snow fell down on me from the roof. With a pair of sweat socks on my hands in lieu of mittens I began the process of brooming snow off the car. The snow wasn’t all bad because it piled up around the license plate and hid the fact that the registration was expired. I slid behind the whore red wheel (the interior was entirely a deep red). I turned the key and a startled flock of pigeons took to wing when pre dawn silence was broken with a snarl and a giant roar, the muffler had a hole in it. I began the process of scraping the inside of the windows (the heater was sporadic at best) and waiting for the engine to warm up.
I was finally going to get to sleep, if I could just make it home. I had the next 12 hours off and was running on 6 hours of sleep from 36 hours ago. I just had to make it through the rich suburb of Birmingham to get to the highway then to my house in Oak Park. This trek was complicated by the fact that my car was, shall we say, not a desirable vehicle to pass through the toney Birmingham neighborhood and the cops extended the love. I was also driving on a suspended license because the afore mentioned cops caught me with my tabs expired and of course I couldn't’t afford to get the insurance and plates and pay the ticket.
I roared out onto the road, stomach clenched and quaking. I had recently left the warm bosom of a quasi commune I was living on and I felt lonely, empty and nothing felt right since I left. I was feeling lost and miserable like my life was just a pathetic run on a half frozen treadmill helpless and trapped in my poverty inherited from my family. To distract myself from my anxiety and the roar of the holey muffler I turned on the radio (at least that worked well). As I was coasting along a song came on the and somehow the jumpin’ guitar and classical references pierced my cocoon of helpless misery and I really heard the lyrics. . .

I knew this African called Hannibal

Rock it roll it send it down the avenue

Went out to see the Roman Empire fall Uh huh? uh huh?

Two thousand elephants in gold chain-mail

Take it, shake it, make it what you wanna be

Them Roman legionnaires they hit the trail Uh huh?

The world is what you make it The world is what you make it

When Cleopatra ruled in Egypt's land

Jump down, turn around, look at what the monkey did

She went to find herself a mighty man Uh huh? uh huh?

In come Antonio from Italy

Haul it, ball it, drag it up the pyramid,

He never knew how hot a girl could be Uh huh?

The world is what you make it

The world is what you make it baby

The world is what you make it

Don't start to hit me with your "no can do

" Bluesin', losin', workin' up an attitude

Clean up them windows let the sun shine through Uh huh? uh huh?

There ain't no happy time without no pain

heartbreak, new date, move on up the alleyway

Pick up them pieces hit the road again Uh huh?

The world is what you make it

The world is what you make it baby

The world is what you make it

At that moment, I had an epiphany, the world IS what I make it, I don’t have to be this miserable, impoverished, sad heap, I can make my world what I want it to be. Hell, if Hannibal can take frickin’ elephants over the alps what is a little poverty and sadness compared to that feat.

It was a turning point. That very day I changed my mind and changed my life.

2009-11-09T20:52:00.003-05:00

Oh the pressure to produce meaningful content, oh the guilt for not writing, to hell with it I say!!! I am not going to blog every day darn it, I am going to try to do it pretty often in honor of NABLOPOMO but I am not going to stress over it. Take that NABLOPOMO.

The problem with a blog is that it is so public, do I want my students reading this, do I want my friends and relatives reading this? This public nature tends to rob me of content or make me feel self conscious. My introvert nature rears its lovely back and says, hmmm perhaps not.

I always think of things to blog about when I am away from my computer and pen and paper, I say it out loud hoping to remember "I should write a blog about that" but what usually happens when I sit down to write is that I remember saying the words and the exact quality of the light glinting off my friend's glasses that I said the comment to or who originated the conversation that led the the exclamation but what I want to write about. . . gone.

I like to think of those topics as being on the back burner of my mind, gathering momentum and content while my more conscious self worries about things like working on my paper on medications that will kill you if the disease doesn't get you first, or on pharmacological applications of bacteria cytotoxins or some such catchy stuff.

I write a lot, every day. When it comes to writing for pleasure, which my intent is that my blog will be pleasure writing, I find my dance card filled with the more practical, medical writing that is my education and profession. I am quite often tempted to write about my pursuits in health care but it is so specialized and to the non-medical person boring or incomprehensible that I make the choice not to talk about it here. The other thing that is my somewhat obsession is teaching. I think probably 6/10 blog posts are about teaching and how much I love it so I should probably cut y'all a break and not talk about that.

I enjoy academic writing, don't get me wrong but because I produce so much work that I MUST do the delightful flower in the field of writing that is fiction, or essay just really gets mowed under. I hope it is there waiting for me when I finish school, I hope I have not killed it dead with the stodgy stylings of academia (although I must confess I tend to push the envelope of academic style when it is wedded to my personal writing style). I have not written a short story since I started back to college and as for an essay they have pretty much all been either related to teaching, health care, teaching health care, politics or gender theory.

Here are the thoughts of the day that I had my students do a timed writing on. . .

1. 90% of life is attitude, no matter how much or how little one has to start with, one's attitude toward the world will shape how one ends up.

2. Better to do something imperfectly than nothing perfectly

Ta for now dolls, I have another post brewing and I need to stir the pot

PS I have included the above painting of "St George and the Dragon" by Paolo Ucello 1456 because I love it.

PPS When I was a little girl it made me sad because I thought St George was killing the woman's pet dragon.

Resorting to observations of the natural world

2009-11-04T21:35:00.004-05:00

Today as I was sitting outside a flock of wild Quaker parakeets came swooping into the nearby tree.
Quaker parakeets are cute birds a little larger than a budgie. Folklore says that sometime during the 1970s a large shipment came into Galveston harbor to be sent on across the country to waiting pet shops. The crate the Quakers were in somehow got dropped and smashed and hundreds of birds escaped resulting in the colony here.
They build HUGE nests, like the size of a Buick, I kid you not. The nests are built out of sticks by the colony and the pairs then add on and arrange their own 3 chambered “apartments” in the community nest. The individual nests have a room for the babies, a room for the parents and a look out porch room of sorts.
Quakers are excellent mimics, the ones by my school imitate various car noises and it sure sounds like they imitate the distinctive laugh of one of the teachers who smokes outside.
As I was sitting outside they were waddling around on the ground by me, relatively fearless. They also gladly took the grapes I tossed to them. For being an invasive species they sure are cute.

Last weekend

2009-11-03T13:49:00.009-05:00

I had high hopes of posting a blog about my recent vacation to northern California but I realized if I waited until I got my act together with editing the pictures I would have another set of vacation pictures to post. Therefore, I decided to write something anyway.

Did you know that the month of November is national blog posting month, damn it. I found out 2 days into the month so alas I am already behind for the ideal of blogging every day in honor of NABLOPOMO or whatever the snappy abbreviation really is. (I personally like the way NABLOPOMO rolls off the tongue) I guess I will have to write 2 posts in one da bwahahahahahaha sorry; I couldn’t even get through THAT sentence.

This past Halloween weekend here in loverly TX we had an entire host of events going on. . .

There was the rally, the Lone Star Rally, in which 300,000 motorcycles converged on Galveston Island, on Halloween, none the less. I understand that there was a temporary topless trailer bar, classy.

Also last weekend was the air show,” Wings Over Houston”. Cheapskate that I am I decided to creep as close as I could to the air field on back roads and watch for free, I am so wily. It was pretty awesome, I love air shows, especially free air shows. The Blue Angles were amazing and death defying, which I think may be their unofficial slogan,

Of course Saturday was also Kelly’s birthday, he turned 25. . . .: long pregnant pause with arched eyebrow: -look, it’s his story and he is sticking to it, what can I say. We spent his birthday at a great little hole in the wall biker bar called Down on Main Street in Baytown, TX. The people were super friendly, very fun and generally all around welcoming. Kelly and I will definitely be back. Oh and the live band was pretty good to, Overdrive, the bass guitar chick did a couple of mean Joan Jett songs.

All in all I had a great time and amazingly didn't spend too much money, always good.

I hope to have my vacation pictures and blog up soon, considering I am trying to blog something every day despiration should drive me to get it together. Bye for now loves

2009-09-21T18:42:00.002-04:00

Since I haven’t blogged in awhile I thought I would just share some random stuff on my mind. .

I believe I have found my vocation in teaching. This is a wonderful thing and a terrible thing. Wonderful because I practically skip to work every day and LOVE what I do. Teaching fills me up and empties me out in a way very few things have done in my life let alone a job. Every day I am challenged to pour myself out for my students, to stand in the gap for them so they may bridge the gap between ignorance and knowledge, between success and failure. Teaching has cracked open my soul the way falling in love for the first time does. Wonderful, right? Here is the terrible part; I am not even half as good as I want to be more than half of the time. I want to reach my students, to inspire them, to do what it takes to make the information that will be so vital to their professional lives stick. Yet so many things pull them, their lovers, their children, their previous disastrous attempts at education, the miniscule amount of self esteem and self confidence so many of them have, the poverty, exhaustion and the apathy. My plan to improve myself as a teacher has been to learn everything I can about my craft but what it seems to come down to is to care about my students and, to quote Dorey from Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimmin’”
Which brings me to the second though; teaching is a type of performance. I really had never thought about this before when I taught my physicians or fellow employees. Day in and day out I am putting on a floor show for my students to teach them something. No matter how I feel or what I personally think I must hit the boards with a positive attitude and focused communication. I would really like to team up with a theatre department somewhere and create a seminar for teachers to give them theatrical training that will help in class. Information and training on things like voice projection and modulation prop work, scripting, stage movement, all things that inform teaching that can be taken from theatre.

For my last tidbit I will stray away from the teaching obsession and talk about the birds. Where I lived in Michigan, even before that in Indiana this is the time of year that the birds are leaving and heading south, we say good bye to geese and robins, hummingbirds and oriels and our feeders become filled with chick-a-dees and song sparrows. Here bird things are just starting to heat up, the early Canadian geese are just arriving and the humming birds from all over the northern US are stopping off here for a rest and a sip of nectar from the blooming trees and the feeders in my yard. Hummingbirds, by the way, are vicious little swordsmen who beat the crap out of each other.
My students are arriving for my night class so I bid you adieu until next time. . . C

Boiled shrimp and friendliness in Texas

2009-08-11T12:48:00.009-04:00

As ya’ll know I am in the midst of love affair with Texas. This past weekend I found yet another thing I love about where I live. I attended the annual shrimp boil for “The Rose”. The Rose is the local breast cancer fundraising/treatment organization. A shrimp boil, for my dear ones in the north, is when you boil up a mess of shrimp, potatoes, and corn on the cob in a big ole pot with Old Bay seasoning and some other secret spices to create a potent potion of palatable pleasure. In addition to the shrimp boil there was a bake sale of note with various pies, cakes, cookies and the best damn fudge brownies I have ever had. These pillows of chocolate bliss had cinnamon and chili peppers in them and super dark chocolate chips, oh bliss, oh ecstasy.
There was an auction, a real live “hey give me 75 do I here 75” auction. The auction was presided over by a big ole beard havin’, cowboy hat wearin’, biker belly sportin’, giant belt buckle flashin’ man named Bear. Among other things auctioned was a quilt in the shape of Texas with each panel being something relevant to Texas life and culture that went for $2,000 and a Yorkshire terrier puppy and a year’s worth of vet care for $5,000. All in all the auction and shrimp boil raised $50,000 for The Rose which provides breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and early treatment to women, regardless of their ability to pay. The Rose also helps women diagnosed with breast cancer navigate through the options in the community for assistance. The thing that made me love the whole thing was the absolute kindness and friendliness of everyone attending and involved. While I was perusing the silent auction items and waiting in line I fell into easy conversation with several people and even got invited to lunch because the woman I was speaking with realized I was from somewhere else and “needed to meet some friends”. To add even further delight to the afternoon I won the 50/50 raffle and got a t-shirt and a beer cozy. I love Texas.

2009-07-27T22:49:00.003-04:00

Alright, I am not dead just emerging from my finals, my student’s finals and a week of vacation.
As for my finals, I did well even if it almost killed me. For my student’s finals they did well, exceptionally well, I am so proud.

My vacation was to Galveston Island, which sounds exotic but is actually only about a 20 min drive from my work.

I stayed at a hotel about 50 feet or so from the beach. The hotel “The Commodore on the Beach” and although it was a bit down on it’s heels it was clean and the staff was very nice. It is also the cheapest hotel on the ocean. If you are looking for a cheap, no frills clean room with a great view of the ocean and a really nice swimming pool, this is your place.

The Houston birding society held a lecture on Roseate Spoonbills with a guided visit to their nesting grounds. They are very odd looking birds and in addition their nesting ground is infested with huge alligators with very pink mouths, perhaps from all the spoonbills they eat.

Image credit: Roseate Spoonbill, Fort DeSoto Park, Tierra Verde, FL
Image copyright 2005: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

The big excitement of my trip was going to a beach in a state park and while I was admiring the storm coming in over the ocean noticed that my hair was standing on end, no small feat as I have a lot of hair. I didn’t really think much of it and returned to my car after nonchalantly taking some pictures and looking for shells. Come to find out right before lightening strikes, one of the indications, is one’s hair standing on end. Years and years of college, 41 years of living and I am too oblivious to notice that I am the tallest thing on the beach and a STORM is coming in, egads.

I am back to teaching today after having a week off and am so glad to be back. I have the new students this time instead of my usual advanced students. I am looking forward to getting to know them.

In many of the blogs I read regularly people are talking about rereading Jane Eyre, this is one of my favorite books and I may leap gleefully on the band wagon here and reread it just for kicks.

One of my favorite lines from the book:
Mr. Rochester is speaking to Jane who has just told him she is going to take a position in Ireland…
"Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"I could risk no sort of answer by this time; my heart was full."Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you — especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly."

My favorite movie of Jane Eyre is the one with Timothy Dalton as Mr. Rochester he is oh so swoony.

Well loves, ta for now, I promise to write more soon.

Gluteus Helios or a quick 15 min between classes

2009-06-23T18:49:00.004-04:00

I have a coworker who hates or is persecuted by everything and everyone. If I gave her a diamond encrusted rose that magically made her young again she would cut her nose on the diamonds, get some horrible infection and it would instead of putting her out of her misery cause her some protracted misfortune that would make her car break down and cause her to get fired. I mean seriously everything she comes in contact with sucks AND she attempts with great determination to suck the joy from those around her. Today she told me I was too happy and that it irritated her, I take this as a compliment.

Attitude is everything, I always tell my students that the only way out is through and you get a choice you can be dragged through life in chains or you can dance through, it is up to you. I know that this sounds a bit like I am trying to shoot sunshine out my butt but it is my firm belief that no matter what the circumstance one can make it better or worse by making a choice how to deal with it.
I have had some pretty horrible things happen to me in my life, I have had some pretty fantastic things happen to me in my life. I think I will focus on the joy cause honestly I would rather remember that than the shitty parts.

There is a parlor trick where in one person puts his or her arm out to the side, parallel with the ground and another person uses 2 fingers on the wrist of the out thrust arm and tries to push it down. The first time you do it the person with the arm out thinks of the saddest or worst day they can think of and blamo the arm goes down without even a fight. Then you do it again and tell the person with the arm outstretched to think of best day they can remember or something great and what do you know the same amount of resistance results in the arm staying up. This is not a scientific test by any stretch. Be that as it may I believe I will choose to dance through whatever comes my way rather than be dragged through in chains; cause the only way out is through.

2009-06-18T23:12:00.013-04:00

When I read The Hobbit in the 4th grade 2 things struck me the first was I thought I must be a related to hobbits because I had hair on my feet and the second was wanted a hobbit hole of my very own.
Just the description of them is enough to make me dreamy . . .

“. . . it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with paneled walls and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats--the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill--The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it--and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river” The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

Although in my Christinaland the door is red but I digress.

So today I was dreamily contemplating building my very own hobbit hole and I started browsing around the internet as I am wont to do and voila some fantastic Hobbit holes appeared

The first is in Wales (the picture above and below)

The second (and my favorite) was built to house a very valuable collection of Tolkien manuscripts and other miscellanea and is in Pennsylvania.

I wonder how long I will need to save on my teacher’s salary to have one of these puppies made. I guess if I really want one than going after my PhD is not longer merely an option (pout). It doesn’t quite go with the prehistoric garden exactly but I think a good bunch of ancient ferns and old growth forest would pacify me.

If you are interested in finding out more about these houses here are the links. .

Welsh House: http://www.simondale.net/house/

Collector House: http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/how-to/articles/inside-hobbit-house.aspx

Prehistoric gardening

2009-06-16T11:58:00.022-04:00

I went to the Houston Garden Center this weekend because they are having a half off sale. I got the COOLEST plant since my stag fern; it is called a rabbit foot fern (Davallia fejeensis). It looks like an ordinary fern except it has little furry rhizomes that snake out of the dirt and cover the pot entirely and look very much like little rabbit or squirrel feet. The cheap white plastic hanging basket this plant is in is completely covered by the rhizomes, can’t see it at all. It looks like a ball of furry roots with fern fronds shooting out of it hanging from my porch ceiling.

While at the garden center I found a new plant for my backyard garden, called Australian Tree Fern (Cyathea Cooperi) . It is a Cyanth which is one of the oldest types of trees in the world, virtually unchanged since the Paleolithic period. It grows well in subtropical areas (whoo hoo that’s me with my zone 9b butt), it gets to be 40-50 feet tall with individual fern fronds approximately 6-8 feet long and fiddle heads the size of my FIST! I can also grow orchids, tillandsia (air plants) and other small ferns in the scars where the fronds break off .

It just so happens that where my AC water drains is perfect for horsetail ferns (Equisetum hyemale), also at the garden center and also 50% off. They are cool for several reasons- one can snap off each segment with a satisfying pop and even put them back together, they make attractive dried specimens AND they are a natural soap. My favorite thing about them is the satisfying snap they make when I pull the sections apart, sort of like an organic bubble wrap.

I want to make my back yard look like a raptor could hop out of the undergrowth at any moment. One of the really grand things about creating a prehistoric subtropical garden is that almost all the plants are very hardy and once established need very little care. I am also planning to put in an outside aquarium/pond where I will grow water lily and the odd pond fish.

I am so excited about gardening here, it is completely different than in Michigan- I can grown my own bananas for Pete's sake. Michigan is zone 4, four as in -30 to -24 for the coldest winter temperatures (good GOD!) and now I am in zone 9b as in 30 to 25 for the coldest winter temperatures, staggering that I survived in zone 4, let alone my plants.

Focus, work and irises

2009-06-09T20:11:00.008-04:00

I have the pleasure of shepherding 38 single mothers who, for the most part, are living in or coming from dire circumstances to a diploma in medical coding and insurance. They almost all have had bad educational experiences before coming to me. Many of them don't read very well. Most of them get up at some god awful hour take their children to daycare then either come to class then go to work or go to work then come to class. Very few of them can afford child care so a family member usually provides the care. This system is usually fraught with difficulty that only a family can bring. I have had students come to take a final with a small child or 2 and have one student watch the children while the mom takes the final. The thing that amazes me is that they are thriving. I can see the change that this academic success is creating in them. I see them standing up straighter, putting up with less crap, stating their needs in a calm and polite manner and making choices that are moving them closer and closer to their goals of financial independence. I am honored to be the individual who gets show them what they need to know to be outstanding in their field. I am excited that they are going to be going out into the industry to make their fortunes. I particularly like it when I can recommend a student to go on for her bachelor’s degree. I love meeting their children and family and I am full of pride at their progress and where they are headed. In a world where so many people are full of lazy ennui and entitlement blasé my students are in a full hammer and tong forward motion to their goals, despite all their hardships, despite their exhaustion, despite the statistics.

Once I lived in a small house in Indiana. The back yard was full of trash and junk. My grandma and I cleared out the old shingles and boards, removed years upon years of trash, trimmed back the bushes and mowed the grass. A few months later we had hundred of irises coming up; they were gorgeous and had been hidden under all those old boards the entire time. I hope that I can bring as much to the teaching as they do to the learning.

Dr Wicked, rambling, my students and throwing perfection to the wind

2009-06-09T11:15:00.001-04:00

Several of the people whose blogs I frequently read are singing the praises of not only the 15 min timed writing but "Dr Wicked" as a tool for writing. Well, I decided to give it a whirl. . .

Intellectually I really want to blog, to share my keen (snort) insights with the world and also offer a sort of ongoing letter to the people I know and love. I find the prospect of having something meaningful to say daunting at least when the ideal is to regularly produce something. Academic writing I can do all day, give me a subject and point me in a direction and blamo 15 pages for you, meticulously researched but to write formlessly or worse yet to have to decide on something “meaningful” to write about, ekes.
If I were writing a letter on paper to my friends I would have no trouble rambling on about this and that odd minutia in my life, why should this be different?

Today I am thinking about how difficult it can be to deal with the people I love in my life. I have 2 very close friends who absolutely despise each other with a purple passion. Normally it is possible for me to avoid this area with them but lately they just can't shut up about each other and I am tired of hearing it so I am avoiding both of them as much as possible. This solution is not working so well because even though they are in a cold war with plenty of propaganda I love both of them and want to see them. This ugliness is poisoning not only them but my relationship with them.

Also today I find that I am craving more free time, aren’t we all. I work a strange schedule, Monday - Thursday I teach from 8:00 am until 10:50 pm with a break in the middle for office hours and if I am lucky a nap. I do not make the trek home because gas is just too expensive. What it boils down to is that I am gone from my house from Monday until Thursday all day and most of the night. I have to sleep biphasically or I will die, (in my twenties 5 hours sleep a night was all good but now in my 40s it just seems mean). I have no time during the week for anything other than the school I teach and the school I attend. It seems to be working out, my students are happy and I have excellent grades. I am pining however for just a nice evening after work when I can lounge about and chat with friends or have a leisurely dinner that I get to cook. I miss cooking. The upside to this is that I have a 3 day weekend. I love having 3 days off in a row, and to some extent it makes up for being gone 4 days a week. I am right now, however, craving a less feast and famine approach and more of a steady stream. I feel a bit ungrateful to be complaining at all as many people don't even have a job. I just miss my house, my dog and my front porch during the week. Sigh

I am running out of stuff to talk about and Dr Wicked is reminding me to keep going, this sure seems like a long 15 min. I could always talk about how much I love Texas and how happy I am to have left Michigan but that will become repetitive soon enough in inspired posts so I think I will leave that off for now.

Ugh pink screen, this is kinda tricky. I am so touched by my students. Most of them are single moms trying to make changes in their lives and they are so inspiring. They have kids, usually more than one. I have 2 students who have twins under the age of 3. They work all day or all night and come to class. Most of them get good grades, all of them are trying very hard to become more than what people have called them all their lives. Most of my students have had bad experiences with education, most of my students had to drop out of regular high school and go to an alternative high school because they were pregnant. Most of my students have never been taught critical thought or even had a formal introduction to grammar. Most of them come from bad neighborhoods and poor schools where they were lucky to have textbooks. Somehow they have made it to me from their myriad of paths through violence, bad teachers, divorce, single motherhood, and poverty. They have arrived on the shores of my class ready to learn and change. I have 9 months to instill in them what I can. To teach them about simple things like code switching, dressing for success, how to write relatively well, as well as all the curriculum I can squeeze in. More importantly they learn that they can do it. They learn that they are valuable and worthy, that they deserve to be proud, happy and treated with respect and dignity. That with work and dedication they can make a life for themselves and their children that doesn’t involve waiting on a welfare check or being dependant on spotty child support.
I think I need to come back and write a real blog about my students as my 15 min are up.

How my Gran and Pop Met

2009-06-02T17:33:00.002-04:00

http://www.bethlamie.com/

Yes Ma'am

2009-06-02T09:47:00.002-04:00

On my way to work I drive down the main street of my town that is actually a ‘main street’ (think Frank Capra movie version of “Main Street” and bingo yah got it). There is any sort of store you would want and not the big homogenized chains but odd little thriving shops that are actually owned by people who live in my town, everything from coffee shops to batting cages to an archery range to a bakery. My town has a street named Beauty Shop and there is, amazingly enough, a beauty shop at the end of the street with a sign that reads “The higher the hair, the closer to God”. I see my neighbors in the grocery store and we chat, I see the people who own the shops in town at the free concerts in the park and they wave. My neighbor is a single fella, a paramedic, and people frequently bring him casseroles so he doesn’t starve on his 24 hour on call shifts.

The other day I was coming out of the grocery store and I needed to pick up a bag of ice from the giant freezer outside the store. I am short and the freezer is tall and I was struggling to hold my groceries and deal with the door and the ice and a man came running up and with a smile said “Excuse me, ma’am, let me help you with that” and got my ice for me AND insisted on carrying my groceries and walked me to my car while chatting pleasantly with me, apparently without ulterior motive.

Today I turned off my main street onto Space Center Blvd, which takes me right by the Sony Carter Training Center for astronauts and right behind the Johnson Space Center. Just past the intersection big glossy cows with clear brown eyes and calm dispositions were being lead by large men in cowboy hats and dusty boots at a cattle auction in the field behind the bank, there were petite oil drills working in the back of the field and the smell of sweet grass from the freshly mowed median was in the air.

I feel like a refugee from a harsh world coming here after Detroit. It feels like I can finally breathe free and relax. In Detroit I felt beset and tenacious and proud of my staying power and ability to navigate safely in a hostile environment and thrive in spite of the world around me. Not since I lived in Port Huron have I felt this sense of comfort. Here I feel like I am home, I am in a place where I fit, where my roots are suited to the soil.