Valentine's Day!

So my sweetie DH got me a whole slew of stuff for v-day! I got him a Coldplay CD (X&Y) and a leather valet tray for his pocket contents at the end of the day. Not that exciting,, but I was low on inspiration this year.

He gave me the DVD of Sense and Sensibility, a movie that I LOVE, plus Weekend Knitting (squeee!!), a pound of Mackinac Island fudge (yum yum!), and a bunch of stuff from GapBody. Unfortunately, none of it looked good on me! Let's just say that the "low rise teeny bikinis" are also made for teeny behinds. I'm not a big girl by any stretch of the imagination, but these must be intended for 12 year olds with no hips. So we have to return all of it. He felt bad that his present made me feel fat. I told him that sometimes even if stuff is the right size, that doesn't mean it will look good on me. Alas. I love GapBody, though, so I'm happy to get something else from there, and everything else is terrific.

He's making a big fancy dinner tonight- I gave him an out of the restaurant craziness that happens on Valentine's day. I'm teaching tonight anyway, so I'd be getting home kind of lateish for us to go out.

I promise I will post Knitting Olympic pictures soon. I have done so much tinking on this project (tinking= unknitting, stitch by stitch) it is ridiculous. I keep screwing up. And it's not a hard pattern, either.

Insomnia

I got 3 hours of sleep last night. Why? Because I started taking Lexapro yesterday. I took it way too late in the day (around 4:30), and it kept me up all night. This happened when I started taking Celexa a few years ago. I'll start taking it in the morning, and the situation should resolve itself.

I finally decided to go back on antidepressants because I can't change anything that is bothering me about my life until either DH or I leaves grad school. I am not ready to quit (although I am always wishing that I had never started).

We will see how the meds go. Celexa worked great, except for gaining 10 lbs and losing my libido. Lexapro is just another form of Celexa, so I am wary of these side effects again, and will not hesitate to ask the psychiatrist to put me on something else if either of these side effects show up.

Started my project for the Knitting Olympics last night. I frogged it this morning, and I'm starting over, though. I'm doing the Midwest Moonlight scarf from Scarf Style in KnitPicks Elegance. I think the pattern as stated is too wide, given this yarn. So I'm making it narrower.

Thank you, Knittyboard Secret Pal!!!

I got my first package from my Knittyboard Secret Pal today!!! Squeeee!!!! Check it out!



Man, is she ever fast! The round technically started on Wednesday, although we got our matches on Sunday.

My sweet SP sent me a huge load of goodies- lots of great, soft (non-itchy!) yarn, the Summer 2005 issue of Interweave (yay!), a beautiful desk set, peppermint lotion, and a thread cutter pendant! Love that retro girl tin and matching notecard, too!

Thank you so much, Knittyboard Secret Pal!! I am thrilled!

Busy Busy Busy

I haven't updated in a few days, mostly b/c I've been so busy! Teaching an undergrad class sucks up more time than I ever imagined. More later. I don't even have time to read for fun! Or do much knitting!

Secret Pal!

I got my Knittyboard Secret Pal today! I am really excited- we have a bunch of preferences in common. Our "dream occupations" are remarkably similar, even. I'm going to try hard to spoil her with things that she will like.

DH got home last night. I ended up being pretty excited about it, which was good. I knew I was excited when I found myself making a blackberry crumble, because I knew he would like it. :) It's good to have him home.

Five Days of Solitude

I had the apartment to myself this week. DH went to his university on Sunday, so he could see all the job talks this week, meet with professors, etc. I admit, it's been nice to get a little "alone time" this week. I've always liked having alone time, and it is really hard when DH and I are both working in the same office at home all day, every day. If we're not together, it's because I'm out doing something like teaching class or going to knitting. It's been especially nice to get the break from cooking! He should be coming back today.

So I've tried to do things that are difficult for me to do when he's here, but are fun for me. I went to see Brokeback Mountain (GREAT movie, btw). I didn't cook AT ALL. Didn't worry about tidiness (got to make up for that today, though!).

Two more for the blogroll

I'm adding two new blogs to my links on the right- the first one is PsycGirl, and the second is The PhD Explosion. Let me just say that I feel their pain.

Hey, Kool-Aid!

Tonight, I am going to make my first foray into dying yarn with kool-aid. I spent $15 on Kool-aid at the store today- got WAY too much. WAY too much. I figure I can always send the extras to an international person from the knittyboard as a random act of kindness. I'm testing it out on some peach superwash merino DK weight yarn that I have left over from a scarf I made my mom a few years ago. I went to a couple of different craft stores looking for Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (to tide me over until I make a knitpicks order), but the Joann's and Michael's that are closest to me didn't have them. So I went to my LYS, but they were CLOSED today! The nerve! I was going to get some natural colored NatureSpun.

When I got home, I remembered that I had an orphan skein. Peach isn't really my color, and I only have one skein, so I didn't really know what I was going to do with it anyway. I think overdying is fine for my initial foray into kool-aid dying. I'm going to do a bunch of different reds/maroons with a touch of grape, and maybe, MAYBE a smidge of blue. maybe. The peach is pretty light, so I think it won't interfere with the colors too much.

One of my good friends got engaged a few days ago! Best wishes to her, and congrats to her fiance! I know she's excited about it. They're trying to figure out where to have their wedding. It could be anywhere! (seriously.)

Progress on Resolutions

So in a recent post, I listed four goals I have for myself this year.

1. Flylady
2. Run a 5K by June
3. Get my act together with regards to school
4. Spend less money on groceries

So how am I doing?

Flylady: I just can't bring myself to subscribe to the emails! However, I am working through the babysteps to make a control journal. So far, I have a morning routine and an evening routine, which I am, more or less, sticking to. I think the morning routine may be a little extensive for me, but I think they're all things I need to do, so I don't know what to cut out. Evening routine is easy, although I am resistant, for some reason, to laying out my clothing in advance. So far, so good. Next step is to try to get some kind of afternoon/evening routine that involves doing Kelly's Missions and doing the 15 minutes of tidying/decluttering.

5K: Not going so well, because my knees have been killing me. I think I overdid it on the elliptical. I'm not due for new shoes yet, and have been running on incredibly soft surfaces (indoor track, athletic fields). I think it's been almost a week since I've done any running? I've run twice in the last week and a half. Not great, but I will just try to be nicer to myself in the future so I'm not laid up for so long!

School: Oy. Not so much. This is a huge source of anxiety. I was hoping that teaching this semester would help me with prioritizing, but that hasn't happened yet. I think I need to do what my advisor says and "ignore the cracks in the ceiling." This may mean ditching more of Flylady. We'll see. I also need to work more efficiently with regards to prepping for my class.

Groceries: No clue, although we have been doing decent meal planning. We spent a lot of money last week on eating out b/c of the flooding and general turmoil associated with pretty heavy duty maintenance. So obviously, we'll have spent less on groceries but a lot more on eating out. Not great, but a good effort so far.

In other news, I signed up for the knittyboard's Secret Pal 6 round. This is kind of exciting!

Greetings, gentle readers!

I apologize for not updating in a while- I've been really busy recently. First, we arrived in our other apartment to find the carpet soaking wet, the result of a plumbing backup next door. Fun! We've spent the last week dealing with this. DH has been a total gem dealing with all the university housing folks, who have been resistant to doing pretty much anything related to fixing the situation. DH had to convince them that yes, they needed to replace the carpet pad that had been soaked with untreated waste water, and yes, they needed to clean the carpets. Our neighbors next door have had it much worse- the particleboard in their cabinets soaked up the waste water, so the stench has lingered in their apartment. The University refuses to replace all the cabinets, and the neighbors, who have two kids under the age of 3, are living in "emergency housing" right now, and trying to get the university to give them another apartment. Our oriental rug got wet too, so we had to send that out for cleaning, and DH also convinced the university to reimburse us for it. You can't use a rug doctor or regular carpet cleaner on an oriental rug; it will ruin it.

Second, I started teaching my class! I think this will be fun for me, although stressful and time-consuming. I think it will force me to be more efficient with my research time too. I FINALLY, finally, finally did the IRB revisions that I've been putting off for WAY too long. They actually sent me an email today saying that they hadn't heard from me, even though I sent my revisions off yesterday. I'll call them on Tuesday to try to clear it up.

I have a lot to learn with teaching, though- I went WAY too fast for my first lecture. WAY too fast. I finished what should have been an hour and a half lecture in one hour. Students came up to me afterwards to ask me to slow down! I am not used to talking slow enough to allow for note-taking, and I didn't have a whiteboard to slow me down (I was using powerpoint slides).

So goals for this weekend: do research work, plus my first lecture for next week. The other professor teaching this class has kindly allowed me to use her slides, so I don't have to develop major content, only filling in the (rather large) cracks.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! We celebrated last night by making roast duck (using the recipe from Barefoot in Paris- Ina Garten, you haven't failed us yet!!) and drinking the delightfully declasse Sofia champagne from the cans. Well, we did pour them into our snooty Vera Wang flutes before drinking, but still. Today, following tradition, I made black eyed pea salsa and will be making greens to go with our pot roast tonight. All in all, 2005 was a pretty good year for us, and we did black eyed peas and greens last year, so who are we to mess with superstition?

DH and I are finally back from our trip back to my hometown for Christmas. The trip went fairly well- no screaming temper tantrums from my mom this year. There were a few major events, though.

First, my parents started demolition on part of their house as Phase I of their big remodeling project. A few years ago, they moved to a nice neighborhood in the city where the houses were old and tiny and the lots were huge (my parents have a 3/4 acre lot!). It's the kind of neighborhood where developers will buy the old, tiny houses, knock them down and put up McMansions.

My mom has always been scared of the stock market, although they do have a little money there, and she has felt most comfortable in real estate. This would explain why my parents have moved seven times in my lifetime! That doesn't even count a few more moves they made in the five years before I was born. Some of these places were temporary, while they were looking for a new place to live (stays might last anywhere from 2 weeks to a year and a half- there have been three places that I would consider temporary). They're not flippers, exactly, but they don't get sentimental about houses. When they think a neighborhood has peaked, they get out before the property values have a chance to deflate. They've done this twice now, successfully. This is really the fourth REAL house that they've had in my lifetime (I'm not counting a house they bought for my sister to live in, which was a HUGE debacle. That's another post for another time, but that is technically a fifth house). Contrast that with DH's parents, who have moved ONCE since they came to the US when he was 6 months old. He thinks the amount of times my parents have moved (twice since we've been together, which has been... 5.5 years!! Wow.) is ridiculous, and thinks that moving once is perfect.

The response in my head is, "Please." My thinking on this is that he will see once we actually start buying property that we will want to move after a few years, just because we'll want to move up. We won't be able to afford what we want right away, so we'll have to build up to it. He will learn this for himself, though, so I see no need to tell him at this point.

Anyway. With all the big house building in my parents' neighborhood, they want to keep up and increase their resale value. These renovations have been in the works since they bought the house 3.5 years ago, but with my wedding and my sister's wedding back-to-back, they've delayed starting construction. Until now. DH was so excited about it- my dad got a dirt guy to come in with his huge, industrial-strength backhoe to knock down the crappy addition the former owners put on the house, tear up the back patio, and grade the back yard. DH took movies with his digital camera. He was so excited. Even my brother-in-law was sad that we didn't call him to tell him to come over.

Second, my dad got a job! This was a huge shocker for all of us. This job just fell into his lap. The wife of a friend of his called my dad to tell him about it. They had closed the position, but couldn't find a qualified candidate (apparently it's hard to find someone who does construction who also has a college degree in engineering), so they opened it back up for my dad to apply. My mom is ecstatic, because it means my dad will have these awesome state benefits (it's a job at the local public university), and she isn't trapped at her job now. Plus, Dad will be bringing in a steady paycheck, which is something that he hasn't done in 25 years (he has been working for himself). Mom is also uber-excited about that. My dad is less excited about the job. He can see the logical reasons why it is good (benefits, retirement account, it's not hard physically like normal construction work, and considering my dad turned 59 last week, these are all big plusses), but he hasn't worked for someone else for 25 years. He likes the autonomy, the setting own hours, working at his own pace, setting his own rules. 2005 was a banner year for my dad professionally- he got his plumber's license (passing the test on the FIRST TRY), and now this new job. Crazy.

Now for the less than good.

My mom's best friend's daughter finally told her that she is a lesbian. This came as a surprise to nobody except her mother. Of course, this isn't bad news, but my mom's best friend is quite conservative, and disapproves of homosexuality. She's taking the news very, very hard. Friend's daughter just left her think-tank job in DC to take an assistant professorship at the local public university so she could be near her mom. They're close. She loves her daughter very much, and she's not going to disown her (thank goodness), so she has a big fat worldview adjustment ahead of her. She also blames herself, because she has made a lot of bad choices in men. She feels that she didn't set a good example for her daughter, and that's why she's a lesbian. Of course, this is totally ridiculous, but at least it means that she's not being as judgmental as she could be (if that makes sense). She'll get over it, but it's going to be tough for a little while. My mom is way more liberal than her friend when it comes to homosexuality, so she's going to be the voice of reason for a little while, as compassionately as she can.

Even worse was my dad's best friend having a stroke. Oy. His girlfriend called up my parents in the middle of the night so my dad could rush over there (the girlfriend lives 45 minutes out in the boonies; my parents live 15 minutes away) and wait for the ambulance... which didn't come! There are some serious city/county issues in my hometown. Lots of bickering. The girlfriend lives in the county, so when she called 911, she got the county dispatcher, who didn't send the ambulance because my dad's best friend lives in the city. Not too long ago, someone who lived on the border DIED because both the city and the county were claiming that his house was in the territory of the other. My dad had to call 911 again when he got to the house. His friend seemed okay then, but seemed to keep having these ministrokes after getting to the hospital. My dad went to see him the next day and said he was much worse. Poor guy. It was kind of nerve-wracking for all of us.

Today, I've been trying to get my teaching all straightened up. I've been trying to get access to do the course website, etc. First productive thing I've done since my symposium got accepted.

I have a few New Year's Resolutions. I am pretty much a "make a change if it needs to be changed, don't worry about the new year" kind of girl, but I think it's nice to have goals. My goals for this year are:

• Get back on track with FlyLady, and really try to do it FOR REAL this time instead of half-a$$ed. I will never be a shined sink/ugly laceup shoes in the house kind of person, but I think her system should be flexible enough to include people like me, who aren't concerned with our dull sink as long as it's empty of dirty dishes and like to wear slippers around the house. I dread getting all those emails, but darn it if I'm not going to sign up for them again.
• Run a 5K race by June. Run the WHOLE THING. All 3.1 miles of it. I've been pretty good about running kind of regularly (at least once a week- we ran three times while we were home, twice in the big park with nice trails and American bison!!), and I've been improving. Next semester, I'll be at my university full time with its nice gym, so I'll probably work out more often. This is usually what happens when I'm down there. In theory, I would like to have more fitness goals (eat less sugar, do more weight training, etc.), but I want to keep it realistic and make one change at a time.
• Get my act together with regards to school. Seriously. I want to make it out in five years. I can still make this happen but I have to work hard, and I have to work fast.
• Finally, I want to spend less money at the grocery store. We spend SO much on food. It's ridiculous. We're two people. I know my DH eats enough for three, but still.

I guess that's about it from the holiday front. I'll write about knitting tomorrow, I promise. Maybe my presents, too.

Feeling better

All right, the pissiness in my last post has dissipated, mostly, although the underlying sentiment is still there. I was the bigger person and apologized to DH for being so difficult, esp. since I knew he was trying hard.

Did I mention I was on vicodin when I wrote that last post? I had a root canal on Wednesday, and ibuprofen just wasn't working on the pain yesterday. I called the endodontist, and he phoned in a prescription for vicodin. I was on vicodin all yesterday afternoon and last night. Good stuff. I can see why it's addictive. I'm making a point of not taking it today, since the ibuprofen actually is working on the pain now. The vicodin did mean that I had a hard time keeping my eyes open when DH and I went to see The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe. I managed it, but it was tough.

That movie was pretty meh, though. I felt like the moviemakers had ripped so much of the battle scenes from Lord of the Rings, not to mention the White Witch's mutant/trollish army, which looked kind of like orcs, if you ask me. There also was no ambiguousness about good and evil in the story, and the feminist in me was asking, "Why is it that Peter, the oldest boy, is basically the top king/warrior/etc. of them all? And why is it that the bad character is female?" I haven't read the book in ages, but my friend mentioned that C.S. Lewis refers to the Queen as a "daughter of Lilith," which opens up a whole other feminist can of worms. Sigh. Since I haven't read the book in so long, it's hard for me to tell whether the flaws in the movie were actually from the movie, or if they were there in the book too. I suspect the latter, personally.

I also learned that my DH seriously, SERIOUSLY knows nothing about Christianity, despite whatever his mom did in taking him to church when he was little. I had to explain to him last night what Jesus's death and resurrection really meant, and how yes, in Christian tradition, this vanquished evil b/c Jesus conquered death. In a nutshell. Sigh. I seriously need to get him a "Christianity for Dummies" book that will spell everything out to him. I am far from a Bible scholar, but I could see how the story of Aslan had a few more parallels than just Aslan dying/coming back to life. Susan and Lucy, for instance, were the parallel of Mary and Martha.

I also thought there were some vague similarities between LW&W and Harry Potter, although I think that may be b/c LW&W, Harry Potter, and LOTR all have similar grounding in archetypal mythology (just like Star Wars, although from what I remember, Lucas was very, very specific in following Joseph Campbell's description of the typical hero story), so in that sense, the stories are going to be similar, at minimum.

Next on my list of movies to see is Memoirs of a Geisha. I hear it's also meh, but I liked the book a lot. We're going to see Walk the Line first, though. Tomorrow, in fact. I've heard so many people say how much they loved that movie... and then there was my mom, who said, "That story is just SO trashy!" LOL. My mom has no patience for drug abuse, violence, or infidelity, so it's no wonder she thinks that people like Johnny Cash and Elvis were trashy.

Also, on the subject of John Spencer's death, which I mentioned in my last post-

I've been reading a lot of Television Without Pity's West Wing boards today, just to see the reaction. There are a lot of really, really sad people out there today. John Spencer was only 58 years old- too young, in my opinion. (younger than my dad!) What I didn't know until I read the New York Times obituary was that John Spencer, like his character Leo, was a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Sadly, alcohol and drug abuse really take a lasting toll on your system, and I'm sure that it contributed to his too-early demise. I'm not really shaken up by his death like some are, because I've experienced the death of a close loved one, so the death of a television actor that I didn't feel that passionately about doesn't affect me much. I was neutral on the character of Leo- I prefer C.J. and Toby, myself, but even I can see that if there was any question that this was the last season of West Wing, this has pretty much answered it. When The Powers That Be make the decision to put a major character in what I think is the extremely unrealistic position of vice presidential candidate, it's because they are saying "The future of this show lies with this character." And now he's gone. I think it's safe to say that the show will be too, after this season.

Husband vent

[ super cranky post deleted ]

Great news!!!

I found out last night that my symposium got accepted to the conference. This is so exciting for me. Really. I am thrilled beyond belief. I finally feel like I'm making good. What is extra exciting is that this acceptance was formal- the decision-makers aren't making me go through the rest of the process that I talked about in my last post. Yeah! No January deadline hanging over my head over the Christmas holiday!

Ordered DH's Christmas presents yesterday. I'm having them shipped to my parents' house. Some of it won't be a surprise, but others will be! Muahahahaha! I am getting a new purse for Christmas. I have mixed feelings about this. I would have liked DH to work a little harder coming up with something nice for me with less input from me. However, I loathe my current purse, which is a crappy Nine West hobo bag that started looking really ratty within a few months of purchase. The real kicker, though, is that it's hard to find anything in it b/c of the unstructured body style of the hobo.

Finding a purse has been tough, though. So many of the purses out there right now are so, so fugly and trendy. If I'm going to spend money on something that's going out of style in a couple of years, the amount had better be less than $50. We finally found a Furla purse at Nordstrom's that was simple and classic, but didn't look like something an old lady would carry around. I wanted it in black or dark brown, though! So DH called every Nordstrom's in a 50 mile radius to find a store that had it in one of those colors. He bought it over the phone, and they're shipping it to us. Yeah! I admit, I'm excited to get rid of the crappy hobo.

On the knitting front, I've been working on a pair of Fuzzy Feet (from Knitty) to take home and felt in my parents' washing machine when I'm home. I'll give one to my sister and maybe the other to my mom, if she wants it. She probably won't.

WIP ADD

I think I have ADD. Well, not really. Sort of. I keep seeing knitting projects that I really want to do, and buying the yarn and needles for them. Meanwhile, I have three projects on the needles already. Scratch that. Four. Three scarves and a Christmas stocking.

And, Local Yarn Store, you are NOT HELPING by having a 20% off EVERYTHING sale this month. I bought 5 hanks of Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille in two shades of pink and size 6 16" Addi Turbos so I could do the flower washcloths from Weekend Knitting. Not with all 5 hanks- I'll probably do them with the 2 light pink skeins, and do another scarf (another??? I think I may be getting sick of scarves) with the 3 darker pink skeins. Not sure yet. Then, today, I went back to the LYS of Destruction (of my wallet) and bought 2 skeins of Brown Sheep Wildfoote sock yarn in periwinkle for the lacy petticoat socks from Weekend Knitting (I have that book out from the library- can you tell??? I might have to buy a copy of it!), plus DPNs in size 2 and size 3 (G-d help me when I start knitting with those tiny wee needles!). I also bought size 10.5 DPNs so I could do Fuzzy Feet for my sister. This will help me get rid of some of my scratchy Cascade 220 that I have in my stash. It was the first yarn I ever bought, but it is just so scratchy and itchy for me. Can't handle it.

To top it all off, there's a new Knitty this week, with a couple of intriguing patterns.

I really want to work on designing my own sweater. I want one that is knit mostly in the round, with minimal seaming. I figure I can handle sewing the shoulders up, and attaching the sleeves to the body if I have to (maybe I could pick up stitches and do it that way?), but there is just no reason to sew a rectangle into a tube if I don't have to. I would much rather knit on double pointed needles than sew something up. Come on. I am not going to let myself design my own sweater until I manage to finish all the projects I have in the pipeline. If I have the yarn for it, I'm going to do it before I work on any kind of sweater. So I'll probably be doing sweaters in August!

Speaking of knitting, one of my friends sent me a really sweet Christmas present- Melanie Falick had a book signing in her town recently, and my friend bought me the knitting journal that Melanie Falick put out, and had it autographed for me! It says my name and everything. So sweet of her. I love thoughtful presents. I just wrote a long rant about generic presents with almost no thought put into them, but thought it sounded ungracious and got rid of it. Anyway, I think the knitting journal will come in handy when I start working on designing the sweater. I was really touched that my friend thought of me- I love books that are autographed by the author. I like to give them as presents too, although I haven't done that in a while.

Sick

I've caught DH's cold. Had a 99-100 degree fever all day, and now I am headachy. Ugh. Must sleep a lot, but I really want to work on my symposium proposal. It's hard to think about it, though.

I finished the scarf for my friend. I'll post pics of it later.

Thanksgiving

DH and I had a successful Thanksgiving. We invited a foreign student friend of DH's who would otherwise be spending the holiday alone. All our food turned out well, although it took longer than expected to get everything ready- still, we ate only an hour late (7 PM instead of 6 PM). We made HUGE amounts of food. Yay! Love those leftovers.

DH and I spent a few minutes earlier in the day talking about what we were thankful for, and we were very conscious that we should be darn grateful for the sheer availability of food, as well as our ability to buy way more than enough for ourselves. As DH says, "We won the birth lottery just by being born in a highly developed country." So many people around the world (and in our own country) don't have what we have (meaning basic needs like food, clothing, basic human rights, etc. We are also thankful for each other. It's really nice to know that you married a nice person upon whom you can count when you are in need. DH has been sick for the last week or so, and I know he appreciates my efforts to take care of him.

On a knitting note, this weekend I frogged my Ugg scarf. I had doubled up the JoAnn's Beautiful (what is standing in for the shearling) on the first stripe of it, and I hated it. Rather than live with it, I decided to go back and start over. Good decision, I think. I'm also still working on my Agate & Lace scarf for my friend- it's coming along nicely. It's really long now, which I am particularly proud of!

And even though I have another Agate & Lace scarf in progress (using double-stranded Shimmer lace yarn from KnitPicks), and yarn for another TWO scarves, not to mention my Ugg scarf WIP, I keep looking for more yarn and projects! I checked out the book Weekend Knitting from the library, and there are several projects in there that look interesting. I'm also eyeing the recycled sari yarn on ebay... has anyone out there bought some? If so, how did you like it?

Good News, plus other updates

I got a Revise & Resubmit on my symposium proposal. The organizers sent me this really long email, and I just kept scrolling and scrolling to get to the decision. It was one of those messages where they say stuff like, "We've gotten so many good proposals this year..." and go on and on about what purpose they want the symposia to serve. I'm scrolling/skimming thinking, "Oh crap!" but then they said that they wanted me to try to explain more about certain points that they were interested in and then resubmit it.

I'm thinking, "Well, that's good, I think. It's not a "no," anyway! I didn't know they'd let you revise and resubmit!"

So I told my advisor about it, and her reaction was almost exactly the same. "That's good- I guess. I didn't know they did that."

It adds another step to the process (I think they don't do R&Rs very often at this stage, which is basically a proposal to do a proposal!! I think they do usually give straight up yes, submit the full proposal or no, this isn't appropriate for the theme we're going for.), but that is fine with me. I'm just glad I didn't get rejected, and I'm sure that it is, in part, due to the Big Names who have agreed to participate. Next is to revise and resubmit by Dec. 10th. I will then get a yes/no decision about whether I can keep going forward with this. If it's a yes, then I submit the full proposal in the middle of January. I'm nervous! But it's a good nervous. I'm really glad I pushed myself to do this. I think it's really good for me to stretch like this. The easy thing would have been to chicken out and not do it. I thought this was the road that I would take, but then I changed my mind.

Thanksgiving

DH and I are planning Thanksgiving. We're doing it at our apartment- the two of us, plus DH's office mate, who is not from the US. We're making a ton of food! Yay! Last year, we spent T'giving with my in-laws, and they just didn't make enough food. It's sad when you think, "Gosh, I've already had 12 green beans... if I take any more, there won't be any left for the rest of the family!"

I don't like turkey, so we're having a standing rib roast. I figure since we don't have to pay $800+ for plane tickets home, we can splurge on our meat. MMM.

Knitting and Other Stuff

I'm working on my Christmas present for one of my friends. I'm doing the Agate and Lace scarf in Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille- a yarn I love! I am pretty sure I haven't posted a picture- it's a lot longer than this now (about double the length, maybe a little more), and I have one more ball to go.



I'm undecided about whether or not I'm going to do beads on the end of it. I've had a hard time finding beads that I like that aren't uber-expensive.

I'm also knitting an Ugg scarf, based on the one done by Kay. I'm only using one color of Lion Brand Suede, though, and my fleecy yarn is JoAnn's Sensations Beautiful in Off-White, which does a darn good impersonation of shearling, for yarn. The other change I'm going to make is to do the ends as a ruffle. I've never knit real ruffles (aside from the Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style, which is done with short rows instead of doing lots of increasing on each row), so this will be a first! I'm really liking my scarf break- they're pretty easy, and fun.

Yoga

Went to a kick-butt Iyengar Yoga class on Wednesday night. Wow. It was hard! It was only a level 1-2 class, which I should totally be able to do, but it was pretty strenuous. I like that, though. We did handstands and headstands (I can only do them with the instructor's help!), and I must have worked pretty hard, b/c I have these tiny red pinprick-looking things around my eyes. I think I was straining so hard that I broke some capillaries- this is what some of my online friends think, anyway. This past week, I've been alternating yoga with running, and I like that mix a lot. I need the cardio of running, but there's nothing like yoga.

I've been running using an interval method of alternating running and walking. I started out running 3 minutes, walking 4 minutes, and then upped my running time by 30 seconds and decreasing my walking time by 30 seconds, so I was doing a 3:30/3:30 split (split isn't the right term, I know, but it makes sense to me here). Then, yesterday, I cut my walking time by 30 seconds, but left the running time alone, so it's now 3:30/3:00. Next step is to increase my running time. I try to do 5 intervals (so 5 running segments), and I succeed most of the time. Not always, but most of the time. I want to run a 5K at some point in the near future, and it is really important to me that I actually run the whole way. I could almost certainly do one now doing my run/walk system, but I want to run it! Seriously!

My running pace is at about 10 min/mile, which is pretty good for me! I'm starting to try to push myself a tiny bit during the first interval by raising my knees a couple inches higher- this makes you go faster with less effort, says my husband (who ran cross country and track in high school and cross country). It does make it harder, though! I don't care what he says!

Positive thinking at work!

I had a great experience today that really emphasized the learning that I've done with Your Best Life Now.

I have been working to organize a symposium for the annual conference for my field. I have to submit a brief application, due tomorrow. One of the keys to getting accepted is to have Big Names agree to participate. I had emailed three Big Names. One said he didn't think that he would be able to go to the conference, so he referred me to one of his former students who is just starting out. She's not well known (yet) but does interesting work. One Big Name accepted. The third Big Name expressed interest, but didn't commit. This whole time, I was thinking really positively, and making my declarations about the favor of G-d and my ability to succeed, a la YBLN.

BigName #3 didn't get back to me, despite a couple of emails. I had a mild freakout this weekend, and settled on a couple of backups. Both of them turned me down. Then, at the last minute, BigName #3 got in touch with me. He's going to do it! I am really excited. He does very interesting work, and is very well known. Yeah!

I really feel that I'm starting to reap the benefits of positive thinking, and believing that G-d will come through for me.

Your Best Life Now

For the past several months, I have been working on the Your Best Life Now Journal by Joel Osteen. This is a companion book to his best-seller Your Best Life Now. I remember seeing YBLN in the bookstore and rolling my eyes at it. Oh, another Christian self-help book that pretends it can fix everything in our lives. Please.

Then, a bunch of my online friends started talking about doing the Journal, which is kind of a workbook. I read reviews of YBLN on amazon.com, thought about it, and decided to go for it.

I used to be a very positive person, always looking for the good in a situation. I eventually kind of had this beaten out of me (metaphorically). College was a really, really hard time for me socially. I felt like no matter what group I tried to join, no matter how many auditions I went on, it just wasn't working. I felt like I didn't have any friends, and if I only tried harder I could remedy this. I couldn't. To this day, I only have a couple of friends from college (well, I did meet my husband at college- I guess he counts too!), and aside from my husband, only one of them is really a close friend. Intellectually, I knew I could make and keep friends- I had a terrific group of friends in high school (most of them are still my friends!), so I didn't think it was all me. I don't know what it was, but it was just a very discouraging time in my life.

Things looked up after graduating from college, until my friend died, which was a huge, huge setback. Then I made the crazy decision of going to grad school and moving thousands of miles away, had a crazy horrible roommate with a cat that didn't like to use the litter box, and on top of all of that (not to mention being poor), I had this stressful incident where an epileptic with a suspended driver's license had a seizure and slammed into my parked car. Almost totalled it. Nice. (that situation worked out fine in the end, but was really stressful and awful).

So the combination of all these things over a 5 year period really got to me. I had been so disappointed on so many levels, that I just lowered my expectations to nothing, just to protect myself.

Recently, I have been feeling that I am ready to get back to who I used to be- the positive, upbeat QueenBee who was convinced that everything would work out in the end, and usually did.

Despite my initial skepticism of YBLN, it is really working! The journal is helping me look at the world in a more positive manner. It is helping me to expect positive outcomes from the world, and it is helping me to believe I can succeed. It's terrific!

I recently bought the book, as well as the YBLN devotional book. One of my complaints about the journal is that it seems so simplistic. The book really helps to clarify issues I was struggling with, and the devotional book is helping me understand the Biblical basis of what Joel Osteen is saying. I had originally thought that the book would be kind of "Name it and Claim it" (i.e. "prosperity gospel"), which I don't agree with, but it really isn't.

I highly recommend it. It's terrific.