Curious Notions

14 more days til my favorite holiday. I had my first celebration tonight with roommate.

I bought some ready to bake Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies. I got two packages to be exact. Baked 1/2 of one tonight almost as soon as I got home from my weekend in Houston.

My roommate made a Strawberry Poke Cake. Those pink stripes were made possible by poking the cake with a fork and then pouring strawberry jello onto the cake, letting it seep and set in the refridgerator. Tasted so light and delicious!

I’ve always celebrated Valentine’s day as long as I can remember. It is my absolute favorite holiday. It didn’t matter if I didn’t have a boyfriend or if I was dating someone who cared enough to acknowledge it with me (I lived and learned!). Anyway, in 2007 as a single girl, I spent the day at a Single’s Mingle with my roommate at the time and my current roommate Brandi. After, I went home and baked Valentine’s cookies! The thing is, it ended up being a Vday misadventure. Read further to see. As taken from my xanga on February 14, 2007.

After my Roomie, Brandi and I mingled at a single’s mingle tonight (very fun by the way), we decided to end Valentine on a sweet and cute note by making those ready-to-bake sugar cookies. They were so so cute in the package I decided to take a picture of it. Still in it’s wax-paper package.

I lined the cookie sheet with wax paper instead of cookie paper. Roomie walked by and paused. “Linda, you sure wax paper is okay to bake?” I thought to myself a little. “Hmm. You’re right. Wax melts. Not good.”

Roomie read the box.. and here’s another phone camera picture. In case you can’t read it since it is poor quality, says “good for lining pans for baking.” or some shit like that.

5 minutes of the 8, things got a bit smoky in our apartment. Wax paper BAD idea. I acted without thinking and just pulled the wax paper out from under the undercooked cookies.

:( broken hearts.

We tried to fix them…

We couldn’t stop laughing…

We put the best looking ones on top.

This post still makes me giggle. This year, I’ve decided to relive this memory. I bought TWO packages of these same very cookies. You know, to account for any possible missteps.

Hello. I’m feeling pretty blue. Two things always happens to me when I’m feeling this blue. 1. I lose my blog voice. 2. Food doesn’t taste good no matter what I eat (THE HORROR!!). Tomorrow, I’m going to Houston to surround myself with some friends and loving people and eat some good food. I’m praying the food adventures will jump start my palate and the company will chase away my melancholy. Even if it’s just enough for me to get a clearer view of that rainbow waiting for me. I hope to come back Sunday evening with my blog voice back and my appetite. In the mean time, my BFF/FFB (Best Friends Forever!/Friend From Boston) will be sharing a guest post. She’s lending me her blog voice. -Linda

Wow. Posting for Linda is a big responsibility. Also, probably suicide for her blog traffic today. Please all her regular readers, do not leave her just because she allowed me babble at y’all. I’m actually all flushed. Ok! Sorry. Getting to the point now!

My brain is completely house consumed. Not that any of you check my blog, (You totally shouldn’t. I WRITE it and I’m pretty aware that if you aren’t me, my husband or Linda, you probably will find it boring and I’m extremely erratic.) but my husband and I are closing on our first house on Monday (OMG).

Oh. TOPIC. House. I wanted to ask people, what’s one thing you absolutely love about where you live? Now that my husband and I have found that perfect house, my husband is planning all of these renovations and every time he talks about something else that he wants to change, my chest gets all tight. I thought we picked this house because it was SO GOOD! And now he’s changing stuff! I don’t understand it. The stress (and grading stupid undergrad homeworks) has gotten to the point where for the next week he’s not allowed to tell me any more of his plans. I can’t take it. So since Linda is giving me free reign on her blog…

Tell me, what do you love about where you live. What would you never change at all even if you had all the money in the world or what you wish you could keep if you are renting?

For me, its our new brook in our backyard!

Yes that is ACTUALLY a tiny piece of our backyard. The brook runs down the street cutting across the backs of the lots. We have plans to clean up the trash that neighbors and previous owners have allowed to accumulate in the brook.

Please help my sanity and share awesome living spaces and design details and stuff about where you live?

I saw this tweet from Ryan today and it reminded me of an interaction I had with someone in my life this weekend. This prompted me to share my list of three questions to ask yourself before you ask someone a favor.

How close are you to your friend?

I use the term friend to mean whomever you are asking a favor of. Hopefully you should know better than to rely on an enemy.

If I’m asking a favor of Mary Ellen or another super close friend, I wouldn’t feel out of line if I just jumped right into it and asked for the favor. We are close enough to stay in communication routinely so I hope that she understands that her friendship is valuable to me and I do not see her as just an end to my means. If you’re not close to this friend and haven’t talked to them in a while, please approach with more care and tact. Realize that you’ve neglected this relationship for whatever reason and to not at the very least inquire about his or her life is off putting.

Did you ask for a favor the last time you talked to your friend?

There is someone in my life right now who texted me this weekend. Before even reading her text I knew she needed something and groaned. I think I even put off opening her text message. I came to this accurate prediction because she has developed a consistent pattern of only speaking to me when she needed something. I cannot remember the last time we hung out and caught up on each other’s lives that was not initiated by me. I ended up texting back an avoidance of her favor. It worked out that I was honestly busy and am working both my jobs this week. However, I doubt I’d honor her favor even if I did have the time.

There’s an analogy in Stephen R. Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that I think is pertinent. View your relationships with people as individual bank accounts. Have you made deposits in the relationships? Cashing in a favor is withdrawing from your bank account. Doing a favor or being a friend is equivalent to depositing. Is your relationship account balanced? Are you overdrawn? Ask yourself this before making your request.

Are you abreast more or less with your friend’s life?

Do you know what’s going on with your friend’s life? Do you know how his work/personal/extracurricular life is going? What did he do over the weekend? If you haven’t the slightest clue what he’s up to in the last 6 months, you probably have no business trying to cash in a favor. Again, if this person has no idea what’s going on with you and the first thing you do is ask if he or she can fix your router or debug your website’s php code, more than likely, you’re watering some of his resentment.

Question: How do you handle feeling used?

Where the Sidewalk Ends There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends. Shel Silverstein Brandi and I went on a walk around our neighborhood today. Something we’ve never done. We found 3 random sidewalks and followed them each to where they end. I brought my camera just in case we find something fantastic. You never know. Well, the only thing extraordinary we came upon was the remains of a crayfish on a little bridge. How utterly random. Poor little crayfish.

Drawn without training, a no 2. pencil and Crayola colored penciles.

I’d like to formally explore drawing “rules” and techniques one day. You can tell I’m very untrained. Proportions are off. Look at her boots. Sigh, so many things to explore in this life and not enough time.

My dad drew. I remember as a child, I snooped through his letters and paperwork, wishing I knew how to read Vietnamese. I wanted to read the letters he used to write to my maternal grandfather. I liked the stationary and running my fingers over the ridges of imprinted words. (I also like running my fingers over the ridges of completed jigsaw puzzles.) While snooping one day, I found some drawings he drew while in a reeducation camp in Vietnam. They were drawn on pieces of cardboard and they were BEAUTIFUL. I think that’s painfully romantic. Drawing pictures of your wife while imprisioned. I can imagine him admiring his drawings with deep longing every night before bed. I should write myself a reminder to ask him if he’s tucked these drawings anywhere…

I work a night job 2.5 weeks a month. Originally, it was a part time job to hold me over til my next full time position. After I found a new position in December, I realized I enjoyed my night time gig so much that I’m going to keep it and see what happens. It’s pretty draining. I started up the night time job for the month of January (it usually starts midway through a month and ends before the first week of the following month is over) this week. I started my new day time job beginning of December so really this is just my 2nd month of doing two jobs back to back. I wake up between 6 and 7am on these days and leave my day time job between 4 and 5pm. Get to my night time job between 5 and 6 and then get home at around 11pm. If I’m good, I’m in bed by 1am. December was brutal for me adjusting but this week wasn’t so bad. I unwind by listening to an audio book on my commute or call long distance friends to catch up. (I watched an Oprah episode yesterday about cell phone usage and how it affects your driving so I’m seriously going to cut down the car conversations.) If it’s a night I make it over to Alan’s, we usually catch up on a show (this week it’s been American Idol) and then I shower, crash, and start over.

This of course isn’t a permanent lifestyle but this is me hustling for now. Upon reflection, I do not regret resigning as a clinical research coordinator in May in the midst of a full throttle recession. I may not sleep much, but I sleep more than I did and more peacefully. I’m almost half way through rebuilding the emergency fund, and this night time gig makes me savour the weekday nights I have remaining.

Maybe I’ll live vicariously through ya’ll.

How do you spend your week day nights?

Martin from This Rugged Life emailed me a response to my blog entry about organizing my bookshelves. He said he spent a whole Friday night in to rearrange. He did a pretty decent job! You can tell a lot about someone by the books they have… It’s almost like peeking in their underwear drawer. He was brave enough to let me share his collection! It’s an impressive one. If I didn’t know him (which I kind of don’t), I’d guess that he’s a well traveled, boxing, social-justice-and-politically-aware guy who enjoys Stephen King and knows how to cook. I wonder how far off I am? I especially love his nonbook artifacts that are also displayed.

Biographies, Politics, and a Hammer for his Gong

Fiction

More Fiction

Boxing Books

More Politics, Sociology, Philosophy

Sociology, Philosophy and a Piece of Corral from Thailand.

Travel Books, Backpacking, Survival and Topographical Maps

Cook Books, Reference and an Opium Pipe

Photo Albums

Comics (per Martin: “Don’t judge”), Boxing Magazines, and his Grandfather’s Bayonet

It isn’t very often when a group of people blows me away and humbles me with a grand demonstration of generosity, kindness, and empathy. So when these moments come I cherish the reminder that there are handful of good people still left in the world with bleeding hearts. I’ve recently started stalking a few bloggers and on the periphery saw a band of them pull together, gave up their blogs for a day to post a prayer request from Brandy, a blogger whose boyfriend was recently diagnosed with myeloma. Not only did they give up their blogs for a day, Lilu rallied 50 bloggers around the world to make a very cute music video and was in cahoots to start the Love Harder fund raising money for The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. Seriously, right? I’m grateful that I get to be a witness to this act of kindness. Click on the banner above to donate to the fund. Whatever you can. Here’s the cute video.

And finally, the prayer request that started it all.

My name is Brandy. And I have a blog.

And a plea.

I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach, and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds.

Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog– as personal as the dude that I adore. But I need your help. And it involves my dude.

He’s a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He’s the guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job.

He’s the guy who sent flowers to me at school– dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He’s a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred.

He’s made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He’s listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.

I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making– but this is life. Right now. And I’m throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you.

This isn’t a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It’s just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next.

Thank you for reading this, and if you haven’t already? Please tell someone you love them today.

I did.