tickets and tickets

Believe it or not, I actually do spend up to 60 seconds thinking up a title! Really!

Tickets: I finished reading Twilight around 8:30 last night, and was very grateful that I have the second book, New Moon, here already! So I started the beginning of book two last night. Then today I went to see the movie Twilight. Often on Sundays at 11:30 I go to brunch at Blue Willow. The thing is, sometimes it’s canceled and many times it’s been canceled without anyone telling me. I show up and no one else does. So I texted Del last night to see if there was breakfast today, but by the time I heard back I’d already decided to go see the movie instead (since I didn’t think I’d manage to do both in my limited time). I contacted one of the teachers from school and she said she had too much to do, so I went anyway.

I loved the movie. I would have sat through it twice. Like the books, it has Cult Classic written all over it. The funny thing is, I expected the audience to be me and a bunch of preteens. There was one preteen there with her mother. Everyone else in the theater was an adult man or woman, like 30+ age range!

Ticket: And on my way home, I got pulled over. Now I have been known to drive faster than I should since I got here, and I have slid through yellow lights, but I saw this guy and I was very careful. He still pulled me over. Apparently my left tail-light is out, so I got a fix-it ticket. I have 30 days to get it fixed and validated. He was very nice, and patiently explained to me what I needed to do even though a call came over while he was finishing up.

After I got home I tried to do a load of laundry. By the time it was finished, I was sound asleep. I slept for over two hours. I don’t know why exactly, but I don’t really know what time I went to bed last night either. Oh, well.

Back to school tomorrow, so I have to get all that stuff ready tonight, plus remember that I have a paper due tomorrow night!

shoes, vampires

When I want to buy pants, I go to a store and buy pants. I don’t know of any store that sells pants my size in which I couldn’t just go in, pick out a pair, try them on, pay, and leave. If they’re old fart elastic waist pants from WalMart or KMart, I even get to skip the trying on part. Sweaters? Any ordinary department store, and I’m fine. I can buy socks in the grocery store and live happily ever after.

Shoes? I’ve been looking off and on since I got here — in June 2007. I am totally impossible to buy shoes for. One problem is that on a good day I get to sit for 20 minutes at lunch — but not usually. So I need shoes that I can stand in all day. I did manage to find one totally awesome pair, but they are sandals — the sort you wear with panty hose. They’re great if I want to wear a skirt, but it’s in the 40s in the morning! I want warm feet!

I found a pair I love, when I was out shopping with Dottie: http://tinyurl.com/5zllt9. The problem is the only pair that store had was size nine. So I looked on-line to find other stores and drove across town today to discover they had none at all of that kind. I will have to order them online or do without. Still, I needed a pair of shoes for work. I finally got rid of the ones that I bought at Land’s End when I went shopping with Lea — before she moved from Jefferson, which was at least a year or two before I moved from Jefferson. So I got these http://tinyurl.com/6bf9uw today in black. They’re comfy and I can wear them to work. I just hope I can stand in them all day!

I think I wrote about Twilight when Betty was here. Since I got her a copy of the second book to borrow, I figured I might as well buy the first one and read it in the meantime. Those who pay attention to these things know that the movie came out last weekend, and it’s a winner from what I’ve heard. So now I’m trying to finish up the first book so I can go see the movie. The problem is that I wimp out. When there’s a rough part I put the book down, but unlike movies the rough part waits for you to pick the book back up. Lucky for me, though, I get to call a middle schooler who tells me it will all work out! Besides — there are three more books after this one! So obviously it doesn’t all end here! But when I last talked to Betty, she said there was one Big Thing in this book. That’s where I am now — in the middle of the Big Thing. But I’m up to page 427! And you know it’s a good book when I’m back to reading instead of playing on the computer!

Thanksgiving 2008

The short version is that we pigged out and then went on a hike to Sabino Canyon, at the end of which it poured!

There were puddles at Sabino because it had rained. Earlier Jaeden had on a shark tee shirt so as he neared the puddles I said “Watch out for sharks!” So we were careful of sharks for the rest of the walk. Then at one point I threw a couple pebbles in the puddles to feed the sharks. Hey, if it weren’t for people like me, psychologists would be unemployed! I’m good for the economy!

(the rest will be scenery)



The little squarish thing in the center of the above pic is a waterfall.

Old Pics

When I was going through the photo albums, I found pics from various times that I liked.

I think of this as my “before” picture. When I left Tucson, I spent a little time (5-10 days)with John and his family in Wisconsin on my way to Syracuse. This was taken of me there, and I think it’s the last picture of me before I entered the convent. It may have been taken the day of Anthony’s baptism, as wearing a dress wasn’t my biggest joy then any more than it is now. I did always like that dress, though, as far as dresses go!

John sent me this one — I think it’s priceless!

These were taken at the zoo in 2006. Half the point of the second one was to get the flamingos, because my friend Sue likes them (unless she’s thoroughly sick of them by now because people keep giving her flamingo stuff!).

These are two different Christmases, as you can tell by the number of front teeth one of the people in the picture has!

Donna is four months old here.

This is me with my maternal grandmother. I was 8 weeks old. What a cute I was! OK, you can’t tell from the picture, so you just have to take my word for it!

This is Carina, Raina, and Cherissa in November of 1996. I love getting photos or photo cards every year!

This is from a visit to Skokie when I lived in Syracuse. I think it was around 1995. Ray and I have been friends since seventh grade (1969-70) and Mary and I have been friends since sophomore year (I met her when I got back to school after having mono — November 1972).

NunPics

I want to put a bunch of photo albums in my storage room, so I went through them first to see if there were any pics I wanted to share. This post is some of my nunly pics.

I went apple picking with the senior sisters. This is the same place Dottie and my father and I had gone. You just fill up a bag and they weigh it and that’s that. It was a nice little outing.

When I was a novice, we went to Greymoor twice a year for a week each. It was just for novices and their novice directors. This is us doing the Macarena, so you get an idea when this was taken. Notice whose bright clothing stands out? Yeah, that’d be me! Pat turned 50 during one of the trips to Greymoor. That was so ooooooooooold at the time!

This is the first place I lived in Syracuse: Spirit House Convent, with JP and Dollie. No clue what Nuclear Free Zone means. They told me but it didn’t make sense at the time, either.

This is JP (Sr. James Peter). I thought I scanned a pic of Dollie (Sr. Dolores), but I don’t see it.

This is the bell choir in concert. I included this picture because at some point it was much bigger, and I was in it. I played lower C and D bells. Those things were heavy!

After Spirit House, I spent two years in the Formation House. The first year I lived with Marise, Pat, and Dot. Pat was the Formation Director. The second year I lived with Helen, Pat, and Fely (on the end). The other person in the picture is a sister from Peru who was also in formation and stayed with us for a little while. I totally forget her name, though!

While I was in Syracuse, for a while I helped out at the Brady Faith Center. Susan and I did Vacation Bible School a couple years I think. One year we made a quilt for the podium. I got the fabric, cut it out, and we taught the kids to sew. They each picked out the cross they wanted, sewed it on, and signed it. The thing is, I don’t know what the priest did with it afterwards!!

I also made a lot of dolls. That was great fun. One of the dolls I gave to a family I was close to from the day care center. Mom took pictures of Mary opening it on Christmas for me! She said Mary loved it, especially knowing that one was made just for her!

one of the dolls (not sure who got this one)

Welcome!

This began as a blog of my Adventures In Moving & Living. I moved across the country and it was a way to keep in touch with friends and family without sending out massive e-mails. It began at a different blog site, so earlier posts are in a weird order. Often posts with photos will have the photos at the beginning. This makes it easier for you to know when you get to posts that you’ve already read, although most of the posts actually have no photos at all.

This blog format isn’t pretty at all, but it’s the only one that allows the entire photo to show. When I use other versions, people in the right half of the photos are cut off. On wide screen monitors, everything is just right. On narrower monitors, the photos spill over onto the sidebar. That’s still easier than going through and shrinking all the photos.

For those unfamiliar with Weather Pixies, this weather pixie shows the temp/weather where I am.

Good Thumb, Bad Thumb, and other stuff

Note on the good thumb the two very nice horizontal lines. That is how thumbs should look.

Not so on the bad thumb. That area that’s pinker — that’s all new skin. That’s how wide the hole in my thumb was. Lovely. I still haven’t tried to bend it all the way, but the doctor thinks that it might not actually do that anyway. I figure I’ll wait until it’s really all the way healed.

In door news (door news??) I got a notice last weekend saying that they were replacing the screens and some of the doors. A few months ago they said they were simply going to remove all the screens, which would be very bad. In my case, the door itself had to be replaced. It was one of those hollow plywood doors that an angry third grader could kick it, so I wasn’t that sad to see it go. However this was going to take at least three hours because they had to replace the frame as well. On a school day. So that meant cats escaping and not getting back in until I got home. They seem to survive that fairly well. I have a chair in the back patio that’s generally Donna’s Chair, and I had a quilt on it. When I got home, Ginny was sitting there facing the door and looking pretty much like a comfy queen. I guess once you survive an airplane trip, everything after that is anticlimactic! So I opened the door, picked her up, and brought her in. Harry appeared looking like nothing had happened at all.

The new screen doesn’t hide you like before (the old one, no one could see it), but it’s a wrought iron security screen. By the way, the white fence that you can barely see in the right of the picture is the pool.

In school, one of the fourth grade teachers is out for a long time due to surgery. This past week was her second week out. They said she had to have lesson plans done, even though they were hiring a long-term sub and long-term subs are supposed to write plans. She had the first week done, but I told her I’d give her sub my writing plans. Her sub lasted the first week and the first three days of this one and was fired. I don’t know if he did my plans or not, so I told the new sub to find out and then gave him options for Friday — he could do those plans or two other options. The thing is, those were a lot of work. Each was a 2-page lesson plan, plus an overhead for two of them, and handouts for each pair of students, plus another handout for their writing notebooks.

More later … I gotta get stuff done!

reality vs. expectations

Expectation: I will go to Urgent Care, they will quickly remove my stitches in a painless manner, and I will live happily ever after.

Reality: OMG MY FINGER HURTS!! Yes, it hurts way more than it did the entire time, from the moment it got cut until right now. She (same doctor) had a heck of a time getting the stitches out, and one was stubborn. I saw blood on the finger — my own, since I didn’t bite her or anything. And so I have a bandaid on my thumb and it hurts!!! On the plus side, it does remove any doubt about nerve damage. Yes, those nerves are apparently alive and well!

Last Weekend

Yes, things are now down to a dull roar. I’ve learned to function with 9 out of 10 fingers, it’s Saturday morning and I’m eating hot bread from the bread machine, so all must be right with the world. More or less.

So last weekend started Thursday, actually, and it was awesome. First was the telephone tag marathon with my sister. I don’t know why I thought she was coming Friday. But if I remember correctly, we both got to my house around the same time. I had to stay late because of tutoring, but it all worked out. Then we went to Dad’s where eventually we saw (in addition to Dad and Dottie) John, Lisa, Anthony, and Betty. The pictures from the weekend are below; I posted them a while ago.

Things we did included going to Sabino Canyon (where pics of Lisa, Betty, and Anthony were taken), lots of swimming (I’ll get back to that!), shopping, Halloween, chess … lots of good stuff.

This was the first time I’d been to Sabino since I moved back. It was … weird to point out that this spot of very dry sand here is where the water rushes down in the rainy season and creates a waterfall right there! I was using my father’s camera because mine still doesn’t work, but I also took some with my phone. I started taking pictures with my phone because I realized that my NaNoWriMo novel has all these regions/areas in it, but no desert region! What was I thinking? For the other regions I’d gone on-like and googled (for example) river scenery. Then I made a file with a bunch of those photos. I did that for various areas so that when the time came, they’d be helpful for describing or at least creating the right images in my mind. So I will take the desert photos from my phone and add them to that file, for desert scenery!

Another nice thing about going to Sabino was that it’s a walking experience, so there’s plenty of time to be alone with different people and talk to them. I got to find out how much Anthony has changed since summer and since I moved. It’s nice to see that he’s level-headed and focused (unlike our family at that age) and to hear his future plans.

Swimming for wimps: For some of us, water needs to be nice and warm to swim, and the air outside the water needs to be nice and warm. The water was chilly on Friday, but the air was nice enough and the sun was out, so I could stay in the sunny spots and then get in the hot tub when I got too cold. On Saturday, though, we didn’t get to the pool until the sun could no longer touch the water. I froze. Totally. I got in the hot tub a couple times and then just gave up on the whole thing. The kids had a blast, and I know if Sue’s family was here they would be in the water wondering what was wrong with me! They’ve had colder pool parties than this! I’m such a wimp! But I’m OK with my wimp-hood!

I had no intention of dressing up for Halloween. But as you can see in the pictures, I did end up dressing up just for a very brief period of trick-or-treating. We told Jemma that we’d be at her neighborhood’s pot luck party and then go trick-or-treating with them, but Dottie decided to cook supper instead so we missed that. We ended up going maybe half-way down the block and back again. I’m telling you — getting ready took longer than the trick-or-treating part! But Betty and Donna had fun, and I got pictures for the blog, so it was good. After trick-or-treating, we hung out at Buz’s for a while until Dottie was ready to go home. One fun thing was after a while of trick-or-treating, Betty and Jaeden started racing each other to doors to get there first and get to ring the bells. Poor Jaeden was too short to reach some of the doorbells!! It’s rough being three!

We went shopping a few times, including to book stores. Betty finished reading Twilight and had the second book at home. So I said I’d buy her the second one to read here if she gives it back to me when she’s done. Then I figured I might as well get the first one if I’m going to have the second one! It really is a decent book. The main character is a little annoying, but the story is interesting and moves right along. I ended up using it as an example in class. The students are supposed to be writing me a persuasive essay convincing me to read their favorite book or watch their favorite television show. So I make good and bad examples of reasons using Twilight.

I loved our reading time (once I had a decent book to read!). Library time, I think Betty calls it. We’d go stretch out on Dottie’s bed and read. The only hard part is there were so many people I wanted to spend time with and not enough time to go around. But that’s just how vacations always are anyway, no matter how long they last. And summer’s coming eventually!

Shopping rocks, of course. Betty and Donna have matching tee shirts, Betty and Lisa got some nice clothes, I loved the book store, etc. I didn’t look at clothes because I haven’t gotten out my cold weather clothes yet. I really have no clue what I have! I know what I have had various years, but not what I still have (as opposed to what I’ve given away).

I did manage to beat Anthony at chess, but that’s only because we were also watching Field of Dreams on television. Now I know! Next time we play chess, I’ll make sure a good movie is on!

Opposable Thumbs

I’ll never take them for granted again! I discovered this morning how critical it is to have two thumbs when you button a shirt! Who knew?

This is the bandaged version. The gross version that shows the stitches is here: http://s65.photobucket.com/albums/h208/reader1107/?action=view&current=110508_17271.jpg

I stayed up last night until Obama’s speech. I was VERY happy!! So were nearly all the students at the school, as well as the teachers. The students voted and while I don’t remember the exact count, it was something like 735 to 45. It was that sort of landslide. So we talked about it today, and I took the newspaper pages apart and put them up on the chalkboard so kids could look at them when they finished their work. They had tons of questions about the presidency, and we talked about the inauguration, etc.

I didn’t get any writing done on my NaNoNovel since Saturday or Sunday, but I did decide to combine it with the story from 2006. That year I only got 5340 words done (partially because I spent so much time on-line talking to someone). I also got … stuck. But it goes very well with the prewriting things I did. I loved the potential of that story and this new stuff adds such a nice conflict and contrast.

I miss the 80s. No, not the years. We went from the 90s over the weekend and last week to the 70s. The 80s are my favorite temperature range! I know that those of you staring at snow are ever so sympathetic! It’s been in the 50s in the mornings but tonight it will be in the 30s. I guess summer is over now.