Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock...

This is probably more a request for prayers than a plain ol' blog entry. I am in the process of studying for my doctoral comprehensive general exams. They are next week, 9/4-6...4th is foreign language diction testing, 5th is song and operatic literature, and the 6th day is for my minor area of linguistics. I have pretty much all of the information I'm going to compile stuffed into one big fat notebook, and from time to time, I'll actually look at it and study.

The remainder of my time is being spent on a paper that is to be written in lieu of a linguistics exam on the third day. It needs to be submitted by/on Saturday, 9/1...though my professor would probably be more appreciative if it found its way to him on Friday instead.

So here's the "issue" for me...So far, the minor area linguistics paper has come out of my head...very little research (though there has been some, and those few sources will be cited, of course) other than checking my textbooks/notes/etc. to verify correct terms, to spur example ideas, etc. He's given me a lot of wiggle room, but as a result I'm feeling quite tentative and not sure what I'm supposed to do if I have few outside sources and research other than my textbooks and notes, especially considering this is supposed to be representative of doctoral level work. So, I'm a little bit afraid right now that my general knowledge on paper won't be adequate, and my professor (though he's really a nice man and wouldn't purposefully require additional work just for his own amusement) will require some down and dirty research to substantiate my knowledge that will need to be done in the last few days that I am hoping to use for concentrated preparation for the other exams.

Anyway, please say little prayers for my paper, for my studies, and for my exams. I'm going to need them at this point. Thank you SO much...and God bless you!!

Doing My Part for the Blog-Go-Round

“Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings,
these are a few of my favorite things”

(Funny, but my first non-paid "professional" musical experience
was a result of auditioning with the song "My Favorite Things". :)
I was the only child in the adults' chorus of HCLO's Brigadoon.)

Sound - my cats purring or my husband laughing
Late night snack - anything mushy/carby like StoveTop stuffing or pudding
Smell - something baked with cinnamon
Color combination - red and black
Nut - pine nuts
Time of the year - early spring or late fall
Author - don't have one
Books - Memoirs of a Geisha, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harry Potter's
Vegetable - Cauliflower
Male Actor - Anthony Hopkins
Flower - the palest pink roses
Vacation spot - what does "vacation" mean?
Pizza - thin crust anything from Pizza Hut
Sport to play - racquetball
Subject in school - anything besides history
TV channel - any channel currently playing CSI: Las Vegas
Radio station - anything playing soft rock or classic rock
Holiday - Christmas
Perfume - Chanel No.5
Shoes - lately, my Crocs, but I definitely prefer my feet bare
Candy - chocolate caramel turtles
City to shop - New York City
Female actress - Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts
Beauty products - mostly Mary Kay
Item to shop for - beads & findings to make jewelry

Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes

I have recently adopted the practice of counting Weight Watchers points. I'm doing pretty well, I think. After following the plan for about a month, I'm down 12 pounds. I believe in my heart and head that this is a plan I can stick with. This is a "good thing", Martha.

As a part of my grand plan, I have added the counter to the top of my blog to post my progress. As you can see, I have quite a ways to go. (It's amazing how the pounds can find you when you're not looking for them...sleeping must cause weight gain.) I guess posting my progress is falling under the 'accountability' category.

Surely you've heard the same story as mine...I was big all my life, yo-yo'd for years, and gained more weight each time. I was tired of having trouble moving, tired of settling for whatever fit instead of something really cute, tired of skipping social events in favor of watching TV, and tired of being tired all the time. I knew that something had to change, and I knew I'd better do it soon before I was confronted with some major health issue that required a change. (At present, I am SO grateful to be able to say that I have no malady for which medication is necessary.) The catalyst for my change was probably a combination of feeling icky and depressed and seeing recent pictures of myself next to thinner people...I just had no idea I was THAT big...my mind thought my body was smaller than it actually is....soon to be "was".

This is not a commercial for Weight Watchers. I believe that if something works for you, then it works, and no one single plan is for everyone. For me, though, I love the fact that I can eat whatever I want within certain parameters. (And I'm ever thankful for Slim-A-Bear's!) I'm finding, however, that instead of gorging myself on the usual junk til my points are gone, I'm making better choices...eating healthier options, getting 4-5 servings of fruits/veggies in a day - something I NEVER did before, drinking my water, staying within my points, moving more, not using my activity points most days, and choosing wisely how I'm going to use my flex points, if I use them at all. This is not the old me anymore. There's this, well, it's almost a fear of eating poorly again. The best part is that I can see myself thinner and healthier down the road, and I feel my confidence creeping back in.

So, enough of this. I mainly just wanted to explain the counter. Please keep me in your prayers, though. I've been blessed with generally pretty good health so far, despite my weight, and I hope and pray it stays that way years from now because of the choices I'm making now.

Knock, Knock...Who's There?

We had an interesting night last night. In fact, we've been having interesting nights randomly for the past few months.

Background...We have three cats, and apparently they are making "friends" we don't approve of. They like to fight each other through the windows, and this includes knocks and bangs from both sides of the window as well as lots of growling, hissing and screaming that, at 3:00a.m., frankly, scares the poot out of me when I'm in a dead sleep.

Well, last night, the visitor arrived while my husband was just about to go to sleep. (I was still up cleaning the kitchen if memory serves.) All of a sudden, I hear this loud thump and the sound of breaking glass! I quietly stick my head in the bedroom, hoping it's coming from another apartment, but no. I find my husband hanging halfway out of the bed looking towards the window.

You see, it's been our practice to slap or knock on the window to scare the visiting cat away, but this time the window had had enough. Yep, my husband broke the window. This precipitated a big clean-up and window-taping session, and God only knows how long it took my husband to fall back asleep.

Thankfully, we were able to find someone to replace the glass today, but truthfully, a part of me would've loved to see the look on that stray cat's face when it jumped up on the layers of sticky-side-out packing tape that were there last night, and its paws were momentarily frozen in that "time to get frisked for doing something bad" pose.

Oh no! I'm "it"!

It seems that I've been 'tagged' and must answer the following "questions" with one word. This is my first list like this on my blog (Thanks Christie....) so here I go. (Don't panic. I won't be tagging anyone in return. :) )

Yourself: Content
Your partner: Stoic
Your hair: Plain
Your mother: Amazing
Your father: Cuddly
Your favorite item: Ring
Your dream last night: Absent
Your favorite drink: Margarita (I'm assuming alcoholic here...)
Your dream car: Fuel-efficient
Dream home: Built
The room you are in: Den
Your fear: Abandonment
What you are great at: Singing
Where you want to be in 10 years: Chez-moi
Who you hung out with last night: WalMart
You're not: Scratching
One of your wish list items: Diploma
The last thing you did: Read
You are wearing: Undies
Your favorite weather: Precipitous
Your favorite book: Memoirs...
Last thing you ate: Cake
Your life: Blessed
Your mood: Semi-frantic
Your best friend: Harvey
What are you thinking about right now: Saturday
Your car: Explorer
What are you doing at the moment: Proofreading
Relationship status: Married
What is on your t.v: Infomercial
When is the last time you laughed: Tonight

When will it end...

I was in an auto accident on 1/26/07. I was rear-ended while stopped on the interstate, causing me to hit the person in front of me. The person hitting me didn't see that traffic had stopped, so she was going quite fast. I have injuries that I'm still getting treated for and will expect to received treatment for, for the remainder of my adult life. Today, several months later, I discovered that my medical bills haven't been paid. The problem was that, somewhere in my pea brain, I thought that the insurance of the person who hit me was going to pay for it, and I had all my bills sent to their insurance claims department. Wrong. My med-pay was supposed to do the paying. So, God willing, as of today, all that has been fixed. Thank goodness for patient payees.

I'm not sure why insurance has to be so dang complicated, though. I mean, if you throw a baseball through a neighbor's window, your parents pay for it...if you knock over a glass vase, you replace it...you know how it works - "you break it, you buy it." Why doesn't insurance work that way? No, with insurance, you have to pay for it yourself, THEN go through the hassle of requesting a reimbursement. I suppose this gives them room to argue charges and validity of it all. And in my case, they are going to want to argue why they should pay when a woman was going at highway speeds while the traffic in front of her was STOPPED. Erg. God, grant me the serenity...

"...but we've always done it that way..."

Isn't it amusing how so many of the classic mystery books are titled in the following way:
"The" + adjective + noun
Strange. I want to get to a point in my listening-reading where I can name authors that I like instead of titles of books. Being literarily inclined has only recently been an addition to my long-term-goals list.

Second blog posting in almost a year, all on one night. I guess I'm in a mood to write/type tonight. Or, I need therapy and don't want to pay for it.

Oopsie-loopsie

Unfortunately, I wasn't a good friend on my birthday last year...I did not appropriately acknowledge that my husband was indeed here with me to participate in any type of celebration I chose. (Sometimes "party of two" is a good thing...other times, well...) And, it's been too long since I've written anything...it's almost my birthday again. I feel like I'm starting over completely.

Does anyone really care about typos in their blog? I'm finding myself correcting mine...and wondering what happened to my excellent typing skills from my legal secretary days.

There was a very bad thunder/lightning storm here this evening. I think we got about 2 inches of rain in about that many minutes. Also, Miss Cleo peed on the couch. This was following about 3 days of TomTom screaming at the top of his lungs, day AND night, anytime another of the cats came near him. (He apparently thought he was being chased by both the other cats as they were running in the door...he got skeered...for three days.)

I am the self-designated "Reine de l'Elipse"...just do your best to move past it. Thanks, dear.

"You Say It's Your Birthday..."

So, today is my birthday....but I'm feelin' kinda poopy for some reason. It's definitely a milestone birthday, but that's not the "issue". I'm doing my best trying to hold onto those "it's going to be a great day" thoughts, but they aren't wanting to hang onto me. Oh, well. Maybe it WON'T be a great day, and that's okay.

I think PART of what's getting me down is that many of my good friends and all my family are away from me...either out of town temporarily (surely they didn't vacate today on purpose!) or they just live too far away to join me for lunch. Don't get me wrong, I have good friends around me, people who want good things for me and would never wish ill winds to blow upon me, and for them, I am MOST grateful. Simply put, there are others that I want near me, too, and it 'ain't gonna happen'.

I have come to discover in my 40 years now (as of 2:13pm according to my mother) that friends make the world go 'round. I used to think that I could make it on my own, just me and my cats, content as the proverbial pig in slop. Life doesn't work when you're alone, though. I mean, think about it...when I need to go out of town, who's going to feed the cats for me? :)

One of my latest discoveries, however, is that in order to have friends, one must BE a friend...they aren't just magically thrown at you as the earth turns. One must call in order to receive calls...one must visit before one is visited...one must gift before one is gifted - well, you know what I mean. (In other words, one must feed the cats of others out of town before ones cats get fed.)

I think the crux of the poopiness, or a big part, at least, is that I have realized I've not been as good a friend as I want to have. No one wants to realize they aren't as 'good' as they think they are...especially on their birthday...so here I am, wishing I'd have been a better friend and thinking that the world would have served me up a little different kharma today if it were true. Maybe so, maybe not...I certainly can't go back and change things now. But, there is the future...and God willing, I'll figure it all out before I am divinely called back for overhaulin'.

My Cats

The best in the world that one can hope for is to be understood...or at least intently listened to. I suppose that's why I enjoy the company of my cats so much. I have no idea if they understand me - though I know they know the words "bird" and "eat" - but I have most definitely convinced myself that they hang onto every word I speak. And this self-convincing has ultimately led to my acceptance that they understand me better and more often than most "other people". Any idiot can let fly a random string of words that works for him/her, but this idiot lives for those truly golden moments when my random chains of brilliance are linked together within someone else.