the world of k*spice

The happiest place on earth

2009-07-06T18:12:00.014-10:00

Well. Life got a little hairy again and I stopped blogging for a couple of months. But I'm back.

Right now, life is grand. We're on summer break right now and have about three more glorious weeks of freedom before we have to go back. Lance and I celebrated the well deserved break by flying out to California as soon as school ended. We had a fantastic week at Universal Studios, the LA Zoo, the Griffith Observatory, Knott's Berry Farm, and California Adventure. And of course, no trip to the area is complete without a couple of days at the happiest place on earth, Disneyland. It was Lance's first trip to the world of Disney and he was not disappointed. He's already ready to go back. :) Anyway, some highlights from our trip:
So as I said, we flew out of Hawaii as soon as we possibly could. We actually were in California by 5 am on the first official day of vacation. We busted ass at work before we left because we knew that absolutely everything had to be finished before we left and we both didn't sleep well on the plane so we were pretty exhausted by the time we got there. Unfortunately, we weren't able to check into our hotel until 3 and oddly enough, not many places were open at 5 am. We ended up eating breakfast at McDonald's and driving around LA. We also decided to get our trip to Trader Joe's out of the way since it was one of the few places open before 11 am. We bought some omiyage and much to my delight, found one of the yarn stores that I wanted to go to. The people here were really friendly and helpful and I had tons of fun poking around their yarn. Lance took a short nap on one of their comfy chairs while I shopped. We ended up going to a mall to kill the last few hours before we could check into our hotel.
On our second day, we went to Universal Studios. We had decided to pay a little extra for front of line passes and it was totally worth it. The passes allowed us to jump to the head of line for the attractions and gave us the opportunity for behind the scenes access for many of the shows. We went pretty early in the season and the area schools weren't on summer break yet so the crowds weren't too bad. The new Simpsons ride was pretty awesome and the tram tour was just as enjoyable as I remembered it. I got soaked on the Jurassic Park ride and as Lance was pretty dry, he found this immensely funny. Between the wetness and the looking of terror on my face as we plunged towards our death, the picture came out pretty funny so Lance purchased it. For some reason I managed to get soaked on all the rides on our trip where getting wet was remotely possible.
On day three, we went to the LA Zoo and Griffith Observatory. The LA Zoo was humangous and I'm glad we decided to visit it. The habitats were so much more natural than the Honolulu Zoo habitats and the way they have it set up allows visitors to really get a good look at the animals. They have this alligator there named Reggie that they actually got from a lake...in a California park. We also had fun distinguishing the nannies in the zoo from the mothers/grandmothers.
We switched hotels on Day 4 and were pleased that the hotel's promise of being right across the street of Disneyland was most definitely true. We dropped off our car at the new hotel and went to California Adventure. We had planned our California Adventure/Disneyland days before we left using Ride Max and our planning really paid off. Using the itinerary from Ride Max and taking advantage of as many Fast Passes as possible, our ride wait times were minimal. The longest wait we had was at the Toy Story ride and there was little we could do about it since it was a relatively new ride and Fast Passes weren't available here. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go on the Tower of Terror and I was contemplating making a run for it the entire time that we were in line. But you know what? It was an awesome ride. We followed a poor little 6 year old girl who was sobbing as we left the ride. We actually saw this kind of thing quite a bit where kids were taken on inappropriate rides and ended up sobbing as they left the ride. Lance took quite a bit of video on our trip and we have one that he took on California Screamin' which was the hugest rollercoaster. One of the coolest rides was Soarin' Over California were you "hang-glided" over California. It was really realistic and I found myself lifting my foot a few times so I wouldn't hit the virtual mountains.
I was really looking to Day 5 of our trip - Knott's Berry Farm. I love Knott's. I love the historic feel of the park and I love that the crowds aren't nearly as bad as they are at the Disney parks. When we first got there, we were able to ride the log ride three times before the line started to get a little long (we were trying to take the best picture possible). I convinced Lance that we had to pan for gold and $7 and 20 minutes later, we each had discovered gold! Hopefully we can retire on our riches.
We spent days 6 and 7 at Disneyland. Lance got his first pair of Mickey ears and I got another pair since I got my last pair when I was four. We also picked up a "1st Visit" button for him from the Town Hall and he proudly wore both throughout the park. We had developed itineraries using Ride Max and used as many Fast Passes as possible for Disneyland as well and like at California Adventure, we were glad we did. I highly recommend downloading Ride Max to anyone who's planning to visit the Disney parks. We had to zoom around the park to meet our itinerary on the first day but our wait times were minimal and we got to slow down on the second day. There are no words to describe the greatness of Disney. They really go above and beyond to make it seem like you're not just in an amusement park but in a completely different world. What I love about Disney is that they do everything better than everyone else. They really have created the happiest place on earth.

American Idol Top 6, well, no, Top 7

2009-04-21T19:29:00.005-10:00

First off, I don't know why the judges chose to save Matt Giraud. He's not going to win and the judges will be kicking themselves if Adam, Kris, or Allison have a crappy night. This so should be the Top 6 instead of the Top 7. And hello, it's disco night. Bad things happen on disco night. Let's see if they can at least manage to keep the show to the hour...haha, okay, I guess they're dealing with it by eliminating the video introductions. Let's hope that means they're letting all of the judges speak tonight.

Lil Rounds: Wow, this was a great karaoke version of I'm Every Woman. Did she change the song at all? For real, Lil Rounds is the biggest disappointment for me. She's not as bad as some of the other contestants but I had high hopes for her. Time for her to go home, yes? Oh look, the judges agree with me. Thank goodness they're all speaking tonight. Haha, she doesn't look sad, she looks like she's gonna flip out again. No itunes purchase.

Kris Allen: Wow, I really liked this arrangement. He actually managed to turn this song into something contemporary. itunes purchase.

Danny Gokey: He sounded really off in the beginning. I like Danny Gokey and he sang this song decently enough, but eh. It didn't excite me. I just don't think I'm going to remember this in the morning. And at the end of everything, I just don't think he's going to win. He's just missing...something. No itunes purchase.

Allison Iraheta: WTH is Allison wearing? Who's dressing her? Seriously, whoever's in charge of making these people look decent needs to be fired. Wow, I didn't even recognize this song until she got to the chorus. I loved how she managed to make this song more rock-y. It's funny how I forget how old she is until she's done singing. I really loved the performance, minus the outfit and the, well, the song itself. No itunes purchase.

Adam Lambert: Okay, Adam's back to the clean cut look. Oh, Paula, dry your eyes, it wasn't fantabulousy good. It was good, but cry your eyes out good? No. No itunes purchase.

Matt Giraud: Haha, what an appropriate song for Matt - Staying Alive. Is he purposely trying to be like Justin Timberlake? Did he change the song at all? I can't watch him, he reminds me of a werewolf. Oh, Simon's right. It reeked of desperation. No itunes purchase.

Anoop Dawg: Ahh...another person who needs to go home this week. What's up with the facial hair tonight? He reminds me of a teenage boy who's all proud that he's a big boy and can grow facial hair. Good lord, he sounds really bad tonight. Is he even trying anymore? What is Randy talking about? It sounded totally off. I actually liked the arrangement and I would buy it if Anoop was able to sing it better. What in the world are these judges talking about? Are my ears off tonight? I feel like I've been disagreeing with them all night. Oh, nevermind. Simon agrees with me so it must not be me. No itunes purchase.

All in all, disco night wasn't as bad as it had the potential to be. Did anyone else notice that the host dude who loves to hear himself speak, crap, I can't remember his name...oh. Did anyone else notice that Ryan Seacrest didn't sit down to chat with all of the contestants. That's not cool. Some of the contestants are getting way more airtime, giving them more of an opportunity to connect with the fans. Seriously, what is up with the production of this season? Someone needs to be fired.

Well, since the judges decided to give us the Top 7 again, I think we should have the bottom three people again - Lil, Matt, Anoop. I'm fine with seeing all three of them leave.

10 and 4

2009-04-14T20:16:00.002-10:00

Lance and I celebrated two big events this spring break. Well, they're actually very related but I count them as two events. Our ten year "together" anniversary and our four year wedding anniversary. This is not gonna be a mushy mushy post about how fantabulous my husband is. He is, but let's face it. No one wants to read mush, right?

We started dating during spring break of my senior year of high school. Back then it was a fairly big deal. Partly because I had a fairly short attention span when it came to boys during my sophomore, junior, and senior years and partly because Lance was a lot older than me. The age difference isn't a big deal now but it definitely was then. When my friend found out, she was supportive to my face and then immediately marched herself over to my class advisor's room and asked, "Did you hear what she did during spring break?!?" It was funny.

Lance really snuck up on me. We worked together for months at a Kumon center and I while I was aware that he was there, I wasn't smitten with him and I wasn't crushing on him. Eventually, my friend, Diana accused me of being attracted to him but I thought she was crazy. I did like talking to him but I liked talking to lots of people (that hasn't changed). He was just Mr. Lance. It wasn't until we actually went out that I fell for him. Still, I was 18 and never thought that ten years later we'd be married. I mean, he was allergic to cats, for pete's sake. But here we (and our dog) are. It's been a great ten years.

American Idol Top 7

2009-04-14T19:22:00.002-10:00

And here we go again. I wasn't able to blog about (or really watch) last week's Idol as it was TheConvention week and I was "playing" at the hotel. I was really bummed because I missed Adam Lambert's performance last week since Idol went overtime. It sucks that only two judges are going to be allowed to share their opinions because I think Simon is the only one who's consistently spot on. Man, what's up with Idol this year? Do they have new people running the show? Are they TRYING to kill the show?

Hmmm...movie week. I'm really interested to see what Adam Lambert does tonight. The only way this theme would be better for him is if it was Broadway night.

Allison Iraheta: Oh, I loved this song in high school. It was one of those songs that I played repeatedly. I didn't really care for the beginning of the song but I really liked the ending when she started belting it out. In general, I love Allison. itunes purchase.
Anoop Dawg: Huh, he's still in it? Odd, because I think he's reached as far as he can get in the competition but let's see how he does. Okay, it was just eh. It was boring. He should have taken Quentin Tarantino's advice and grunged it up. The vocals were nice but it was boring. Boring. Boring. No itunes purchase.
Adam Lambert: Well, he certainly had fun with that performance. I don't really know how I feel about this performance. A part of me likes it. Another part of me hates it. Even if you're not an Adam-lover (ahem, Matt), you have to admit that he really knows how to make each performance his own. No itunes purchase.
Matt Giraud: Is he trying to sound like Justin Timberlake? Ooh, I did not like that. Part of it sounded like he was putting so much energy into making his voice gravelly that he completely lost some of the notes. Hahaha, Simon's face was fantastic. His jaw actually dropped and he just stared at Matt and it looked like it was killing him that he couldn't say anything. No itunes purchase.
Danny Gokey: I always wanted to learn to play the harp. Okay, I loved the soul of his voice but I agree with Simon. It was a good performance but he didn't change it around that much. Lionel Richie also had a real soul to his voice when he sang the song and I don't need a version of the song that is fairly close to his so no itunes purchase.
Kris Allen: Okay, now, see! This is why you need more than two judges speaking. WTH? One judge completely loved it and one judge completely hated it?!? Hmm...it would be nice to get a THIRD opinion, wouldn't it? Anyway, I really liked parts of this song and I think he put a lot of emotion into it but it was pitchy in some parts. itunes purchase but I'm getting the original.
Lil Rounds: WTH is up with her face tonight? Who did her makeup tonight? Yes, Paula, you're right. She couldn't have sang a lovelier song but hello, she COULD'VE sang it a lot better. Haha, Paula actually said nothing constructive. And I totally agree with Simon, Lil is not turning into the artist that I thought she was going to be. I think I am most disappointed with the way she's turning out. I had high hopes for her. I don't even care that she is my "person", it is time for her to leave. No itunes purchase.

I don't know how it happened...

2009-04-10T14:08:00.003-10:00

Ahhh...another convention done. Well, almost. I'm taking the weekend off and then I need to send out invoices and finish up some stuff. But for the most part I'm done and I can breathe again. It was easier and more fun this year with the exception of the times that well, that just weren't. Those parts were not fun enough that Jen and I had decided that we were done after this convention. We were determined that we were not gonna be in charge after June and we were turning over the reins to someone else. As the convention got closer and I had to deal with unreasonable people day after day after day, I became more determined that I was sticking to my decision and I was done. I told everyone around me that I was done and they all applauded my decision. They all didn't believe me but I was insistent that I knew myself better than they did and by golly I was not gonna go back on my word.

Jen and I (and really Bruce) are doing it again. How did this happen?

American Idol Top 9

2009-04-01T19:09:00.006-10:00

Okay, we decided to watch Marley and Me last night instead of American Idol so my post is late again. Yea, for DVR. Here we go...

WTH? itunes top download week? For real? Oh for heaven's sake. Well, at least we'll (probably) hear current music. Ha, I'm sure I'll probably find some music that I want to download, though it may be the originals instead.

Anoop Dawg: Eh. Once again, boring. Anoop is starting to lose his appeal for me. This song was a poor choice and is Anoop getting more boring every week? Wow, Kara's comment was Simon-esque, wasn't it? Funny, though. Yes, perhaps frat guys dared him to sing Usher. Simon's right. It was a "complete and utter mess." No itunes purchase.

Megan Joy: Oh, this song should be good for her. Oh...I was wrong. This was not a good song for her. Maybe if she sped it up a bit? What is up with her pronunciation? That's not how she talks normally, is it? Yeah, I can't watch her perform. She needs to not dance and her mouth looks funny. That was horrible. Let's see what the judges say...haha, Kara's starting to grow on me. She's right. All these boo-ers should go ahead and try and be a judge. Oh wow, the judges have a mean streak to them tonight, don't they? Like "watching paint dry?" Yes, it's time for her to go home already. No itunes purchase.

Danny Gokey: Alright, it's about time someone performed well. Wow, I really liked the quality of his voice. Haha, I like how Simon is able to compliment Danny while simultaneously insulting Anoop and Megan Joy. itunes purchase.

Allison Iraheta: Ahh, I love Don't Speak. I used to play this album over and over and over again in high school. Oh my, the hair. And the outfit. I had a halloween costume like it when I was younger. I liked the beginning of the song and I thought I would like the faster part better, but hmm. It wasn't bad but it definitely was not her best performance. I still love her, though. I don't know whether or not I'll buy the song. There were good parts, maybe the recording will be better. But for now, no itunes purchase.

Scott Macintyre: Wow, he's sporting a very early 90s hair style, isn't he? Didn't Patrick Swayze have this haircut in Ghost? Although it is better than his original hair style. The performance was good, but something about it bored me. The judges liked it though so maybe I'm just not easily amused tonight. Haha, Simon's right, I'm glad that Scott didn't listen to Paula's ridiculous advice. No itunes purchase.

Matt Giraud: Oh, he should not have changed this song this way, especially since it's such a current song. Changing the key actually just makes him sound like he's messing up. Wow, how many guys dream about being surrounded by adoring screaming girls? No itunes purchase.

Lil Rounds: Wow, I hated her entire performance. From the hair to the makeup to the dress to the actual singing, I disliked it all. I am getting increasingly annoyed that I picked her as one of my people. No itunes purchase.

Adam Lambert: Uh oh. He's gonna do the complete opposite from last week? I'm scared already. What is up with his hair and outfit? He looks completely different from the beginning of the competition. Who's dressing him? He's really good at being shrieky. I actually really like his shrieky (how do you spell that?). Crap, why do I like Adam so much? I was surprised he even made it to the Top 13 and now I like him. I liked the performance but I don't think I will purchase it. No itunes purchase.

Kris Allen: Ooh, I like this song. Wow, I liked his performance a lot. That was definitely his best performance and for me it was the best of the night. And he's a lot easier to watch when he's in back of the piano because his weird mouth isn't as noticeable. itunes purchase.

Alright, overall, I did not care too much for this week's performances. In addition to Allison and Danny, I think (and I'm embarrassed to admit this) that Adam is becoming one of my favorites. Crap.

American Idol Top 10

2009-03-25T21:09:00.005-10:00

I had to take notes again since I wasn't able to use the computer while watching American Idol tonight. And I couldn't find a pad of paper quickly enough. But I found a bunch of used empty envelopes. From convention registrations. Grr, it's convention time again. I'm amazed at how difficult it is for some people to fill out a simple registration form. Wait, that's another post for another day. Anyway, here we go.

Matt Giraud: Okay, I missed his performance last week because I was counting stitches so I made sure to pay attention this week...well, sort of. I paid attention to his vocals but I was busy painting a closet door so I didn't actually watch. Anyway, I initially thought his song choice was really stupid. But then I heard it and I really liked it. He's growing on me. But no itunes purchase.

Kris Allen: Gah, I do not like looking at his mouth. But I liked it. It was fun and different from the original. This was one of the first songs that I've liked from him in quite awhile. itunes purchase.

Scott Macintyre: Okay, I hope he ignores Paula's dumb advice from last week and keeps the piano in. Oh good grief, what in the world is he wearing? Are they dressing him like he's a motown singer? What horrid pants. Oh good, he ignored Paula's dumb advice from last week and he kept the piano. Interesting, the background singers are by the piano this week. Haha, he "moved it closer." Oh good stuff, I love this song and I loved his interpretation even though it was quite different from the original. Hahahaha, Paula's being dumb again. She thought that Randy was agreeing with her even though he obviously wasn't. She actually said, "Oh, you're agreeing?" And Simon tells Paula to "answer the question, answer the question, answer the question, answer the question" at least once a week. Her presentation of crayons and coloring books was funny but it was funny how she pulled it out and managed to avoid answering the question. Anyway, itunes purchase.

Megan Joy: Did she drop the Corkey from her name? Why don't they have it anymore? What in the world in she wearing? She looks like the ocean. Haha, Lance said she looks like she should be on the Love Boat. Yikes, she's really off and parts of it were really shouty. Oh, yes, My Guy would've been better. It's funny how Paula tells these contestants how great they look when she has nothing nice to say about their performance. Aww, she looks like she's going to cry. No itunes purchase.

Anoop Dawg: Was this the same guy who sang My Prerogative? How boring. Did he change the song at all? Yawn. No itunes purchase.

Michael Sarver: Something's weird about this performance? What is it? Yes, the notes were off but something else was weird. Oh, I know. The whole performance! I really liked him during the early auditions but I think it's time for Michael to go. No itunes purchase.

Lil Rounds: Wow, that dress looks like it would be fun to wear. Are they dressing them like motown singers on purpose? Well, her voice doesn't sound like Fantasia's tonight so I like this performance better than her other recent performances but she sounds a little shouty tonight. This was an interesting song choice for her...oh, yeah, I Heard it through the Grapevine would've been way better. No itunes purchase.

Adam Lambert: What the hell is up with his look tonight? He looks like Elvis (the young, good looking one, not the fat one). Haha, maybe he's trying to make up for the creepiness of last week. I thought I knew what kind of performer Adam was but now I'm not so sure. Huh, that was really good. Crap, I really liked his performance. I really didn't like Adam before the Top 13 began and it's really bugging me that I've liked his last three weeks of performances. itunes purchase.

Danny Gokey: Oh, he should've listened to Smokey Robinson. I liked that he danced with the background singers because it was very motowny and he looked like he was having a lot of fun. Overall it was alright but it was not his best performance. No itunes purchase.

Allison Iraheta: I wish they would stop showing the mentor videos right before the performance. I think I would freak out if I had to hear Smokey Robinson worrying about whether or not I was going to forget the lyrics right before I performed. Anyway, Allison was awesome again and I keep forgetting that she's only 16. Why the hell did Paula let Simon draw on her face?!? It's like that Above the Influence commercial that has the kid lying on the couch with marks all over his face, saying that he let people draw on him when he was all high. Oh. Haha. I wonder if Simon realized how appropriately funny his drawing was? Anyway, itunes purchase.

Obsession

2009-03-24T23:23:00.009-10:00

Lance woke up early on the first official day of spring vacation to go to Walmart. Why? To get me this!Yup! My most awesome husband went to buy me Twilight early Saturday morning. I am a happy, happy camper. What a fabulous way to begin a much deserved (and anticipated!) break.

My obsession with Twilight first began at the beginning of February. I had been wanting to read the series for awhile but resisted until the day that I read Matt's blog. He's not a big reader but loved the book (and then went out to buy the next three books...) so when he said that he loved them, I knew I had to read them. I do not have anything resembling self-control when it comes to books so I didn't open the book (I borrowed his) until after the holidays. Well, it was all downhill after that. I flew through the book and then sent him an emergency text the night that I finished it, begging for the second book. Even though I was really sick that day, I stopped by his school to pick the book up and was thrilled that Matt, being the saint that he is, had the remaining three books with him. By the end of the night, I had read New Moon and had started reading Eclipse. I forced myself to slow down during Eclipse and Breaking Dawn and managed to drag out both books a bit.

One of the things that I noticed about myself is that I can be a wee bit obsessive when it comes to my interests. And I know this about myself and accept it but even I have to admit that I've really gone off the deep end with this Twilight thing. For awhile all I thought about was Twilight. I woke up and thought "Edward". In the video game that I was playing I named my cows "Bells" and "Alice." My co-worker was working with a kid and he said "push". And I immediately thought, "La Push?" I've read all the books, reread Twilight, reread Breaking Dawn, and reread my favorite parts in New Moon and Eclipse. I'm tempted to completely reread the other two books but I'm trying to wean myself off.

There were many reasons for my (admitted) insanity but I've narrowed it down to three:

1) The series was just awesome. Stephenie Meyer has such a strong voice and you can really tell that she really knows her characters. The fact that it's written in the first person also really puts you in her characters' shoes as well. I can't really describe how fantastic the series is but if you haven't read them, then I strongly suggest that you do.

2) Stephenie Meyer's website. I've never seen such a fantastic website for an author. In addition to FAQs, she's also posted stuff that was left out during editing as well as extra stuff that she's written in addition to the books. She's even posted pictures of the cars that were in the books.

3) I entered the Twilight world when Popo was in the hospital. It was a lot easier (although perhaps a little unhealthier) to immerse myself in the world of Bella and Edward. I thought I would pass the time in the ICU waiting room knitting but I discovered that knitting left too much time for thinking. Playing video games while waiting was also a good distraction, which was a strategy that many of my family members employed (the first night that Popo was in ICU, my cousins, aunties and uncles, and I all played Mario Kart on our DSes).

Now if you excuse me, it's almost 12:30 and time for bed...or some special features on the DVD...or another reading of New Moon...

American Idol Top 11 Rewind

2009-03-20T19:55:00.004-10:00

Yes, this post is a few days late. We were to a friend's house for St. Patty's Day dinner Tuesday night so we DVRed American Idol and were too tired to watch it when we came home. So we watched it on Wednesday night, but we were eating dinner while watching so I couldn't blog during the show. So like a dork, I took notes so that I could blog later and compare my assessment of the show with Matt's. I was out again Thursday night so unfortunately my assessment's a little late. Yeah, that was a long and unnecessary explanation. Anyway, here we go!
Michael Sarver: Why would he pick this song? It had so many words in it that it was virtually unintelligible! I'm a speech-language pathologist and I'm used to listening to people who are unintelligible and even I had no idea what he was singing. Additionally, it was like the same note throughout the song so it really didn't show off his talent. I really liked him in the early auditions but not so much now. No itunes purchase.
Allison Iraheta: How old is she again? She carries herself so well that I forget that she's a teenager. Crap, I really wish that I had picked her. I didn't like the song, though, so no itunes purchase.
Kris Allen: Why was his leg shaking the whole time? That's just weird. And what is up with his mouth? Well, he did do much better than last week but still, no itunes purchase.
Lil Rounds: Huh, Carrie Underwood did this song, didn't she? I hope she does better this week because I'm disappointed that she's starting to have the Fantasia tone to her voice. What's up with her look tonight? The hair/dress/jewelry combo makes her look like 40. Okay, she started out with that gross Fantasia-like quality to her voice but she got better near the end. She looked a little uncomfortable, kind of like when Jason Castro had to sing Memory last year. No itunes purhcase.
Adam Lambert: Could his pants BE any tighter? This song wasn't actually all that bad, although disturbing to say the least. It would actually be pretty good on a movie soundtrack for a weird movie like Romeo and Juliet. Good grief, there are probably tons of country singers and fans having a fit right now. No itunes purchase.
Scott Macintyre: Wow, how would you like to hear a video of Randy Travis saying that he didn't know about how well you were gonna do right before you started singing? I really liked his performance, though. Paula's an idiot. I think he's connecting with his audience just fine. What does she want him to do? On the itunes fence, but leaning towards yes.
Alexis Grace: I really liked the song, but she sounded really off in some parts. And she's another one that looks weird tonight. She looks like she belongs in a bar with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Haha, Lance thinks she looks like a Pink Lady from Grease. No itunes purchase.
Danny Gokey: Well, I wasn't thrilled that he chose this song. Everyone who's tried to sing this Carrie song has sucked. Huh, I actually thought it was pretty awesome. Oh, now what did Paula say? Gibberish as usual. itunes purchase.
Anoop Dawg: Oh yeah, Anoop can sing! This was a really smart choice for Anoop. I forgot that he really is able to sing. Hahaha, the way Paula announced that Anoop was "back" made it sound like she really thought that was physically gone. itunes purchase.
Megan Joy Corkey: Wow, her dress really accentuates her "assets", doesn't it? I actually can't stop looking at them swing to and fro. She sounds a little weird, though. Nasal and...something else but I can't put my finger on it. What's with the wiggling? How did she manage to work that in? Ohhh, she's nasal b/c she's sick! Although something else in her singing sounded weird that probably couldn't be attributed to her illness...No itunes purchase.
Matt Giraud: I really wasn't paying attention to this performance b/c I was too busy counting stitches for a hat I'm making. I'm gonna say it was boring since it couldn't capture my attention. Oh, the judges are saying it was the best of the night. Maybe I should rewind...nope, don't care enough to have Lance rewind it. Oh well. No itunes purchase.

And that's the end of my American Idol commentary for this week's show. Overall, country week wasn't as horrendous as I thought it was going to be. A few last thoughts: Paula's getting wackier and don't you think Randy Travis would make a really good action figure? Like if you stuck a cowboy hat on him then he could be like Woody from Toy Story?

30 days

2009-03-14T22:01:00.006-10:00

I don't usually post anything too personal on my blog. Even when I got initially got engaged, I didn't really blog about it. I just posted a bunch of bouncing happy faces. Things that touch me too emotionally I generally keep to myself, I guess. Which is why I originally wasn't going to post this. In the end, though, I realized that I couldn't not post it.

My family and I just finished our 30 days of mourning. Popo, who just turned 90 in October, past away on February 9. It was hard. Harder than when we lost Kung Kung because we kind of expected his passing but I don't think anyone expected Popo's. Although she was 90, she was still fairly healthy. She still lived alone and still volunteered at Senior Citizen. And although she would always forget our names (she ran through two or three cousins' names before saying the right one), she was still cognitively sharp. She fell the day before the Chinese New Year and had to be hospitalized but initially seemed not too bad considering her age. She past away two weeks later.

I was lucky enough to live with popo during my first year of grad school. We drove each other absolutely crazy. I studied so much that I didn't relax or sleep as much as she thought I should. I was in my 20s, but she wanted to still take care of me. She wouldn't let me cook. Wait, I take it back. She did let me make won ton soup once (I just had to boil water, throw in the frozen won ton, heat up chicken broth), but that was because she had badly sprained her ankle. Even then she sat in the kitchen to make sure I wasn't going to burn down the house. We eventually compromised. She finally agreed that I would be in charge of washing the dishes.

We are a relatively tight knit family and a large part of that is due to popo. One of her sisters once expressed that she was a little jealous how close my family was. We went to popo's house every week for dinner. We're going to try to continue this tradition. Popo would be disappointed if we didn't.

As is Chinese tradition, my family and I mourned for 30 days. We didn't participate in any celebrations, including my birthday. Truth be told, it was nice to have an excuse to not celebrate it. I just wasn't up to it this year. I feel like I was walking under a cloud but I expected it to get better after the funeral. I avoided anyone not in my family or that I needed to interact with because of work. And when I was at work, I wasn't really there. It's a good thing that I took data while I was testing and doing therapy because I have no idea what happened in those weeks. We were all busy preparing for the funeral, especially since everything was done very traditional, so I thought that maybe the problem was that I hadn't properly mourned. It wasn't. In the week following the funeral, I felt the same. Interestingly enough, now that the 30 days are over, I do feel better. We went to the temple for the ceremony on Wednesday and I feel better. Maybe there's a reason why the Chinese mourn for 30 days.

Anyway, on a lighter note, here's a picture that Joy sent me during this time:She gave me permission to post it on the blog, but I forgot to ask if I could use his real name. Oh well, I don't even use M*Bark's real name here. Anyway, let's call him LB ('Lil Brad) since he looks just like his father. :) Anyway, here's LB in his fish sweater that I knit him for Christmas.

American Idol Top 13

2009-03-10T20:05:00.004-10:00

[Note: So I was going to write my first blog back after the dark tomorrow but tonight's American Idol and I thought I'd take a chapter out of Matt's book and bore people with my take on the contestants. It'll be fun to compare our opinions on tonight's performance as I'm sure he'll have a post on it tomorrow. I don't really vote much, though, so I changed his vote/no vote comment to itunes purchase/no itunes purchase because I will probably do that.]

It's Michael Jackson night and I couldn't be more thrilled. It's about time that American Idol has a Michael Jackson night, because, hello, Michael Jackson is music. Lance and I "drafted" our contestants before tonight's show, with each of his picking two people to win. Like a sports draft, I picked first, Lance picked second and third, and then I picked fourth. Even though I really want Danny Gokey to win, I picked Lil Rounds because she will probably go far. Lance got Danny and Anoop Desai and I finished off the draft with Scott Macintyre (though I originally picked lots of other people first).

Yikes, what is up with this stupid introduction and entrance of Ryan and the judges? Dumb. Anyway, here we go:

Lil Rounds: Gah! What a horrible song for her to pick! She sounded like she was shouting throughout the entire song. The judges have compared her to Fantasia in the past but I never understood that comparison. I actually liked Lil Rounds's voice and I hated the shriekiness of Fantasia's. But I finally heard the similarities tonight and all I can say is gah! No itunes purchase.
Scott MacIntyre: I like Scott's voice. I think I've been working with special education kids for too long, though, because I actually look at him and immediately think of him as one of my people. I loved the video they had of him and I loved his performance. Scott and his piano were awesome. I don't remember this Michael song and I didn't like it much. Michael has so many wonderful songs that Scott could have chosen and this wasn't one of them. Once again, Simon was spot on. I'm gonna go look for my album (on a good 'ole audiocassette) at my mom's house because maybe the original sounds better. No itunes purchase.
Danny Gokey: I love Danny Gokey and I've loved him from his first audition. When he began the song, I wanted to cry...because it sounded like crap and I was scared that the rest of his song was going to be crap. I loved his performance tonight and I totally agree with Randy. Simon was right and the dancing was hideous but it was awesome because it totally looked like he was having a blast. On the itunes fence.
Michael Sarver: I actually liked Michael's Sarver's version of this song way better than Michael Jackson's. I'm a Michael Jackson fan but I do think that Michael Sarver's version was less creepy than Michael Jackson's. On the itunes fence.
Jasmine Murray: What do I think of this performance? Um...eh. That's it. Just eh. It was okay but it was boring and she sounded a little off in some parts. I'm surprised that she picked this song, though, because not only does she run the risk of being compared to Michael, but she also runs the risk of being compared to Mariah. What are Randy and Kara saying?!? Guys, she did okay, but it was boring! Oh, wait! Paula's actually saying something constructive and I actually agree with her! And of course Simon is brilliant, as usual. No itunes purchase.
Kris Allen: Well, this is interesting. Remember the Time with an acoustic guitar. Yikes, this whole performance was just weird. The combination of the outfit, the guitar, the song, and the off notes just made for a weird total package. Oh, and Paula just reminded all of us that she's a little wonky with her "adorable sexy" comments. Yeah, I did not like this performance but he is cute. No itunes purchase.
Allison Iraheta: What did she do to her hair? It makes her look older and more polished but there was something appealing about her long hair. I loved her performance! I love her voice and I love how she's all rock. itunes purchase.
Anoop Desai: Only children unite! Yes, Beat It! This should be fun, but why would you pick this if you wanted to show off that you could sing? Plus this is so Michael's song and it's one of those that can't be performed by anyone else unless the artist completely changed the arrangement. Granted, this is the dude who sang My Prerogative last week (though that was totally awesome). Yikes, that was horrible. It was almost painful to watch. He actually made Beat It...well, boring. Oh look, the judges agree with me. No itunes purchase.
Jorge Nunez: What song is this? Is this a Jackson 5 song? And what is up with his creepy smile tonight? Yikes, this was almost as painful as Anoop's. How unfortunate because I really like his voice and I really liked him last week. No itunes purchase.
Megan Corkey: What a hideous dress. What is up with those straps? It looks like someone found their grandma's old doilies in the attic, cut them up, and added them in. Hmm...interesting song choice, let's see how she does...hmm...not bad...not good, either. I like her tone, but it was kind of like watching a performance at the county fair. Ooh, Gordon Ramsay! I think I really like Gordon Ramsay. No itunes purchase.
Adam Lambert: Oh, let's just vote this guy off already. He should just go be in a musical already. Huh, amazing, I actually kind of liked his performance. Well, I liked his performance as long as I didn't have to look at him. I even liked his interpretation of Black or White. I'm surprised to admit it, but, itunes purchase.
Matt Giraud: Wow, Matt is pretty good with his piano. I liked it. Yeah, not much more to say. Ha, Paula's keeping it short, I wonder if the producers told her to hurry the hell up because they're running out of time? Oh, must be because Simon was kind of short too. Or maybe they were like me and thought it was good but don't have too much more to say. No itunes purchase.
Alexis Grace: I don't know if it's this outfit or what, but she looks unhealthy. Like she would really benefit from a good doughnut. She looks way skinnier than she did a few weeks ago. Haha, Lance thinks that her outfit would be complete with a little cotton ball on her butt. Then it would be a playboy bunny outfit. Yeah, not a fan of this performance. No itunes purchase.

Aftermath

2009-01-19T15:20:00.005-10:00

Well, the storm is over and we're all still standing. Luckily, it wasn't nearly as bad as we all anticipated so Friday actually turned out to be a pretty good day. We got the day off from work and my house is still standing. The half of one of my backyard trees fell down, but it was actually a good thing because we were starting to cut down that tree since it's ugly, it attracts bees, and it's pushing out our wall.Here's Lance breaking it down the next morning:The one yucky consequence of the storm was that this little guy somehow managed to work his way into our house and up our wall. Of course, I spotted him first and then let Lance deal with him.M*Bark was glad that the storm wasn't as bad as we had anticipated because she doesn't like storms. When it was all over, she passed out with her pillow.

The world is ending

2009-01-16T10:40:00.002-10:00

I, along with a good portion of the state, have an unexpected and unprecedented day off. Since the first week back to school after vacation is always hard, this day off is very appreciated. I'd like to thank the storm that is moving through the state.

It seems like we've been having way more emergency-like days and inclement weather in the past three years or so. Let's see, there was the time where it poured for weeks and weeks and then there was the earthquake that shut everything down for a weekend. In 2007, there was another storm that brought high winds with it that knocked down trees (huge ones, too) and knocked out the power and (the best part) shut down a lot of schools. The funny thing about that one was that the day before it happened, my friend from New York was grumbling because the weather was so horrible and she had just been told by us that Hawaii never has "snow days" unless there's a hurricane. And just the other month, it was raining so hard that rain in come through my sky light, parts of the island flooded, and some schools were closed.

So the reason I think the world is ending this time is because during all of these events, this is the first time that the public schools have actually been shut down the day before. Every other time they waited until it was very clear that having classes would be unsafe. Even when Hurricane Iniki hit in 1992, the state waited until that morning to close the schools. In addition to the schools being closed, they actually decided yesterday to also shut down the UH campuses and give all non-essential state and city workers the day off. This is crazy. I don't think its ever happened before, at least not that I can remember. I'm amazed that the state is actually taking precautions early for once.

We put everything outside away and tied down the outside furniture yesterday so all we can do now is huddle under some blankets and enjoy the ride. Thankfully the electricity's up and running.

On the last day of vacation I...

2009-01-16T10:21:00.005-10:00

played Animal Crossing played with M*Barkate a yummy lunch from Ninja'sand knitWhy, oh why is it over?!?!?

The scary one

2009-01-07T15:30:00.004-10:00

My head hurts, my blood pressure's up, and I am mighty pissed. I just got off the phone after dealing with...guess. MACY'S. Again. Even though my account is closed. WTF. And I need to call them back tomorrow morning because apparently the office that has the authorization to fix their screw up is closed. That is unfortunate because I really don't want to deal with this company yet again, especially since I was so mad this time around that I actually used the phrase, "I shouldn't be screwed over just because you guys f***ed up." Yes, I am ashamed to admit that I used such foul language but I've never been more frustrated nor more furious with one company in my life.

In our relationship, Lance is the more logic/spatial person and I am definitely the more verbal person. But I am also starting to suspect that I am also the scary one. And that maybe Lance thinks that I'm the scary one. I got my first clue a few months ago when we bought something from a local pet shop. When we went home we discovered that a key piece was missing. We went back to the store and Lance told me to "yell at them." I didn't because they quickly apologized and replaced the item but the fact that he told me to yell at them was my first clue. And then last week we got a notice from our mortgage company that was a concern and Lance told me to "get em" (everything was actually fine). And now that I think about it, everytime we have to deal with stupid companies, he tells me to "get em." Hmm. Yes, I think I'm right. He thinks that I'm the scary one.

Macy's better fix their screw up tomorrow.

Missed Blogs

2009-01-06T23:01:00.011-10:00

There were many bloggable events the last 2 1/2 months and for the last 2 1/2 months I kept thinking, "Oh, I'm gonna blog about that." Sadly, all I did was think it, not actually do it. So now that 2009's here, I'm gonna clean up some stuff from 2008. I now present the titles for the "Missed Blogs."

1. A new family member

2. Happy Birthday, Popo!

3. A wonderful opportunity and a decision to make...

4. Welcome, new friend

5. Halloween Fun

6. Haircut

7. Yes we can

8. Spending time with an old friend

9. Surprise birthday party

10. I love 2nd Quarter

11. I learned!

12. The sky is falling!

13. The craziness is starting...

14. I didn't sign up for this

15. Thank goodness for vacation

16. Mahjong fun - I wish Brandi lived in Hawaii

17. Merry Christmas but I think I'll skip this one this year

18. Christmas kicked my arse...again

19. 2008 in Review

Wow, I didn't realize that I had 19 blogs taking up space in my head. No wonder I sometimes forget stuff...

Randomness

2008-10-21T13:47:00.002-10:00

-Debates are fun. During the last debate, Senator Obama made a lot of interesting points, especially about the federal's involvement in public education. In regards to No Child Left Behind, he said "unfortunately though, they left the money behind for No Child Left Behind." He also said that although he supports local control of the schools, they do need the support of the federal government. The government can't continue with these federal mandates without federal money.

-M*Bark needs a bath. She's lying here next to me on the couch, all calm and unsuspecting. Heh.

-We have a new member in our family. He's green and has a hard shell. He and M*Bark are still getting acquainted.

-I'm hungry. I need to eat lunch.

-My head hurts. I'm home sick today. Pretty good because I haven't been sick since May.

Why I Hate Macy's

2008-10-09T22:04:00.002-10:00

Month 1: Receive credit card statement. All looks good and going to Pearlridge so decide to pay bill in store. Tell sales clerk to credit Macy's account.
Month 2: Receive credit card statement. Weird, because no purchase made during the month. Also receive joint Visa statement. Weird, because Visa portion of card is never used. Realize that salesclerk hit the wrong bloody button on the cash register and credited Visa account and not Macy's account. Call credit card company, explain situation, refuse to pay late fees for something that was never late to begin with. Company apologizes and fixes mistake.
Month 3: Receive credit card statement. Weird, because again, no purchase made during the month. Receive threatening letter saying the payment is two months late. Call credit card company, yell at representative. Representative credits account, tries to say still need to pay late fee. Explain again that payment not late, use phrase "absolutely refuse to pay for something that was not late to begin with", voice gets increasingly louder. Company apologizes and fixes mistake. Decide to close account and cut up bloody credit card.
Month 4: Receive credit card statement. Weird, because again, no purchase made during the month and account supposedly closed previous month. Receive threatening letter saying that payment is three months late. Call credit card company, ask to speak to supervisor because starting to feel bad about yelling at so many people. Wait ten minutes to be transferred to supervisor. Supervisor comes on, refuses to listen to explanation of problem, refers repeatedly to a Mrs. Something-Not-My-Name. Finally get a word in edgewise, ask him who he thinks he's talking to. Supervisor explains that the whole problem due to that I have the wrong name on account. Get even madder, tell supervisor that I know my own name and that he's looking at the wrong account. Suggest he shut up for a minute and listen to my problem. Give account number again, wait five minutes. Supervisor credits account, tries to explain that late fee still needs to be paid. Explain again that there's no way in hell that they're getting a late fee for something that was not late. Supervisor agrees. Close account again.

The original charge was less than $50.

Ahhhh....

2008-10-09T11:33:00.002-10:00

Ahhhh....

2008-10-09T11:00:00.005-10:00

Ahhhh...vacation...I love vacation. I don't know how I'd be able to do my job without the promise of a vacation every three months or so. And I really needed this vacation. The first quarter was rough, with interesting parents, really interesting kids, and no Joy. That last week of school was the worst, but because of my second "job" and not my actual job. We're working hard on this year's convention and a lot of crap happened last week that's really causing us to pause before deciding whether or not we're planning next year's as well. Some other stuff happened last week that elevated my blood pressure a bunch, but everything's calmed down now. Anyway.

We're spending this vacation doing a lot of house stuff. We (and by we I mean Lance) replaced our hideous lights upstairs with new prettier ones, put a motion detector prettier light outside, and is testing out new solar lights for the yard. We also started working on the yard and pulled out most of the plants on the side of the backyard and it already looks a lot better. We were going to make a dirt plot for me to start a vegetable garden, extend and replace the grass area, and put in a little pond for a turtle. Our yard plans got put on hold, however, as we have more pressing stuff to do. We're turning the future kid's room into the yarn/exercise room and the current yarn room into the future kid's room. Sadly, my yarn room is gonna become a yarn/exercise room but now that I'm used to the idea, I'm kinda excited. Lance has this large weight set at his mom's house but it needs to come to our house now hence our new exercise room. I'll post new renovation pictures when the time comes (I think I'm behind on those...).

Oh, and I'm posting the video of my new favorite song. I love Pink and I was excited to hear her new album's being released at the end of October. I love the first single but I'm not purchasing it because I'm waiting for the entire album to be released. Meanwhile, I've been watching/listening to it several times a day. The last week of school I listened to the song over and over and over again.

For the last time

2008-09-23T10:26:00.003-10:00

Alright, I thought I was pretty clear but apparently not. Once again, I do NOT care that she is 19 and that she does not have the POLITICAL experience. If I agreed with the difference that she wanted to make or if I felt she would have adequately represented my community's needs, then I would have voted for her, regardless of her age or political experience. I did not vote for her because I did not AGREE with her nor did I feel that she had enough experience WITHIN THE COMMUNITY to know us or what we value. She made that very clear in her public statements. Obviously my community agreed with me because she was not even close to getting enough votes to be elected. Our community is such that taking away THE CHOICE TO WORK is not an idea that would sit well with us. I did not attack HER CHARACTER OR INTEGRITY because I do not know her as a person. However, it does concern me that she makes PUBLIC STATEMENTS implying that gas guzzling vehicles and the environment is important to her and yet she rents GAS GUZZLING SUV LIMOS to campaign. Most politicians will at least wait until they are elected TO SAY ONE THING AND DO ANOTHER. In addition, her remarks concerning public education made it clear that she did not take the time to do her RESEARCH before making her comments. You claim that Resa Tsuneyoshi will have the "ability to listen." Her statements made it clear that she obviously does not since she did not know the community that she wanted to represent. I do not care that you feel that she is a nice person. Yes, I would if I was looking for "boyfriends or friends" but not when I'm looking for a political leader. Anonymous, if you choose to respond, fine, but this is the last time that I will be addressing this issue.

09/19/08 Revisted

2008-09-22T19:24:00.003-10:00

Well, it looks like I offended someone with September 19's blog about the election and Resa Tsuneyoshi:
Anonymous said...
at least she took a chance and TRIED to make a difference rather than just blogging and complaining.
Let's clear some things up. This comment implies that I've been complaining about my community and have done nothing about it. 1) I was not complaining nor have I ever complained about my community, 2) I have done more than "complained." By voting, I too made a difference, and 3) I did not say that Resa Tsuneyoshi did not try to make a difference nor did I complain about her trying to do so. I just disagreed with the difference that she wanted to make. Apparently, so did the thousands of voters in her district who chose to vote for someone else.

I find it interesting that I managed to offend this person so much that he/she felt the need to leave an anonymous comment, which is fine because I started this blog with the understanding that I would receive the occasional anonymous comment. Those who choose to run for office also open themselves up to public scrutiny.

Election 2008 and Resa Tsuneyoshi

2008-09-19T19:51:00.004-10:00

[Note: I'm back! Sorry for the long absence. No, Dawn and Matt, I'm not telling you why I hate Macy's just yet. I'll post that eventually. Let's just say I no longer have a credit card there.]

Ahh...it's election time. I love election time. I don't know why. I've loved election time from when I was a wee little Kat even though I wasn't old enough to vote. I think the process is fascinating and I really feel that every American citizen over the age of 18 should participate. I used to get into arguments with some of my high school friends over this, as they viewed Election Day as merely a day off of school/work. Sure, Election Day can be a day at the beach. But why not take a few minutes to stop by your local polling place and cast your vote first? And really, as a woman, you owe it to the women who came before you to vote. They weren't given the priviledge of being equal to a man and had to fight for their right to vote.

Anyway, I haven't been paying as much attention to local politics lately and didn't know who I'd choose for my mayoral candidate. Luckily, I managed to catch the televised debate last week. It helped clear a few things up (though I still haven't decided who I'm voting for) but it was way more entertaining than I thought it'd be. I particularly loved the way Mufi Hannemann and Ann Kobayashi regressed to being elementary school students. I think the low point was when they each said that the other one was a meanie and that his/her mommy and daddy were mad. Good times. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard during a debate before.

I know the primary is tomorrow, but if you haven't made up your mind yet the Honolulu Advertier has a Voters' Guide that is very helpful. You can compare the candidates and see where they stand on a various issues. I had no intention of voting for Resa Tsuneyoshi for Senate but had no strong feelings about her in any way. After reading the Voters' Guide, I am extremely glad that she is not running unopposed.
-Reason 1: She's 19. I've been seeing her quite a few mornings with her bloody signs on my way to work and I wondered how she was able to spend so many mornings campaigning. Now I know why. She was on bloody summer vacation as UH wasn't in session. She's a kid. I would actually have no problems with her age if she wasn't so very 19. Her views (and frankly her website) make it painfully obvious that she has very little life experience and doesn't and will not understand the people she's supposed to represent.
-Reason 2: Her answer to this question: What's the No. 1 thing needed to improve Hawai'i public schools?
Hawaii's public schools need a stronger relationship between teachers, parents, and administration. Parents must volunteer in schools, teachers must keep up with current teaching standards, and administration must create a set of standards and continuously enforce the standards. Um, yeah. A part of me thinks, "No sh*t." Another part of me thinks, "Hello, steps are already being taken throughout the school system to implement this." Another part of me thinks, "Have you heard of NCLB and HCPS?" And yet another part of me thinks, "Do you even know what the problem with Hawaii public schools is?"
-Reason 3: Her answer to this question: What steps should the state take to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuel?
--Implementing an even/odd driving schedule according to license plate numbers which limits car on the road. --tax breaks to individuals who utilize public transportation. --additional taxes to individuals who decide to purchase gas-guzzling vehicles. Um, what?!? Do you know who you represent? Do you know where you live and its relation to Honolulu? Are you for real? Oh, and by the way...wasn't that your SUV limo that I was driving next to on my way home from work today? I thought it was...there was an obnoxiously large sign plastered on the side of it with your name on it.
-Reason 4 (and this is a good one): Her answer to this question: What is the No. 1 quality-of-life issue facing Hawai'i, and what would you do about it?
It should be mandatory for one parent to stay home with the children. This parent would be in charge of instilling values and disciplining the children; at the same time, more parents would be available to volunteer in the schools. In return, the parent would receive a tax credit according to the working parent's to offset any loss income. As was my reaction to much of what she said: "Um, what?!?" There are so many things wrong with this statement that I scarcely know where to begin. You want to take away a parent's right to go to work?!? Okay, a) What decade are you living in? What an antiquated way of thinking!, and b) When I become a mother, I will definitely continue to work. Not because I have to (though I do), but because I want to. And quite frankly, I think many members of my community feel the same way. Yes, we value family. However, we also value hard work and you really do not know the people you represent. And you want one parent to be in charge of "instilling values and disciplining the children?" When we have kids, those children will definitely be the product of mom and dad. If one is working all the fricking time, those children will not be the product of mom and dad. That child will be the product of mom or dad. And "the parent will receive a tax credit...to offset any loss income?" Um, that's a pretty big tax credit that will have to be given. As in most families, we each contribute a fairly large portion to our joint income. One person not receiving a paycheck would be a huge financial hardship that no tax credit would lessen that hardship enough that the one parent allowed to work wouldn't have to take a second and a third job. I, like most of my friends, am the product of both a working mom and dad. We all came out fine. We value family and hard work. My parents did not raise me to be a stay at home mom, nor did I work my arse off getting an advanced degree to become one. The same goes for my husband. I have nothing against parents who choose to stay home with their kids. I think it's the right decision for them. It is not a decision that should be imposed upon those of us unwilling and uninterested in doing so.
-Reason 5 (yep, there's more): The fact that I was driving home from work next to a limo SUV with a huge Resa Tsuneyoshi sign on it. I've never had the greater huge to roll down my window and flip someone the bird before (I also resisted the urge to pull over yesterday morning to tell all of this to the girl herself. Yeah, I'm proud of me, too).

Go out and vote tomorrow!

I. Hate. Macy's.

2008-07-20T22:18:00.003-10:00

Explanation to come later. I want to finish the San Francisco Series first, but not tonight because I am tired and grouchy and I am obviously in a snit about Macy's.

I think I'm in love...

2008-07-18T09:43:00.002-10:00

[Note: I was gonna post this earlier but I didn't want to interrupt my San Francisco Series. However, I'm just so excited that I'm pausing the series to share the happy news.]
A new boy has entered my life. I think I'm in love with him. He's possibly the cutest boy that I've ever met. He's only two days old but already he has won my heart. It's been a hectic week. My best friend went into labor on Tuesday evening and her son arrived on Wednesday morning so Lance and I have been at the hospital a few times this week. But yes, I love him. I came home from the hospital on Wednesday and realized that I didn't just think he was cute but that I loved him. I want to buy him stuff and knit him stuff and teach him stuff and provide him with lots of language opportunities. In fact, I plan to teach him to say, "No, mommy, I think Aunty Kat's right," as soon as possible.

San Francisco Series: Episode 4

2008-07-17T15:29:00.014-10:00

On day 4 of our journey, we had another early start and another long drive. This time we drove down to Monterey so that we could go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.The town of Monterey was a pretty cool place, both literally and figuratively. Because it was by the water, it was freezing cold like San Francisco but I really liked the small town feel of it. I would've liked to have more time there to just walk around and explore but there was no time for that. We were able to check out a store or two by the aquarium and I bought a really cute magnetic dragonfly bookmark. What was neat about Monterey was that you could actually see sea animals without actually having to go the aquarium because these were just hanging out on a rock in the ocean:We also saw some kayakers out there who were just sitting and staring at parts of the ocean at either more seals or perhaps the sea otters that are supposed to be hanging out in the kelp in the bay. Anyway, we loved the aquarium! It was humangous and was by far the best aquarium that I've visited. Sea World in San Diego was awesome, too, but I do not consider that an aquarium. Anyway, so the Monterey Bay Aquarium was packed with awesome exhibits and fabulous water related creatures, including gorgeous jelly fish and fun penguins. I was particularly enthralled by:Really cute and fun otters! I love otters! I stayed and stared a long time at the otters. But it made me a little homesick because they reminded me of M*Bark. Admittedly I had M*Bark on the brain for a good portion of our trip and called my parents more than once a day to check on her. In my defense though, some of those times Lance was actually the one who suggested that we call. Anyway, this was one of the most disgusting exhibits:It's called a fat innkeeper worm and it's found in the mud of the wetlands. This picture looks yucky, but it didn't capture the true disgustingness of the animal. We should've taken a video of it moving because that made it even more icky. Anyway, doesn't it look like a certain male body part? And to add to the awesomeness of the aquarium, they also had a really yummy restaurant there. I had this:

and the best cup of clam chowder that I've ever had. If anyone is traveling to the Bay area, I'd definitely recommend that you visit this aquarium. Not only did they have the coolest exhibits, but they also had fabulous food. It was totally worth the two hour drive from San Francisco.

After the aquarium, we stopped by the Monterey Trader Joe's. I love Trader Joe's and it's definitely one of the places I'd frequent if I lived on the mainland. Too bad there's no plans (well, that I know of anyway) to have one in Hawaii. One of the workers said that he had heard that the owner had looked into opening one, but that it would cost too much money and be too much of a hassle since the closest warehouse is an ocean away.

After Monterey, we drove to Gilroy because the MIL wanted to visit the outlet mall there. The outlet mall was very large and then we picked up dinner from an In-N-Out Burger and ate it on the ride home. Lance and I ate our first In-N-Out burger when we were in Vegas and getting another one while we were in San Francisco was on his list of things to do. I love their burgers and Lance was a happy camper on our long ride back.

San Francisco Series: Episode 3b

2008-07-14T15:47:00.011-10:00

So on the last episode, we ended with our travelers departing Sacramento and heading back to San Francisco. Two hours, one toll booth, and one bridge later, we returned to the hotel, dropped the MIL off, and changed into warmer clothes. Lance and I headed to Oakland to catch the Oakland A's play the Philadelphia Phillies. We were concerned about the traffic and it looked like we were gonna make it just in the nick of time but suddenly the traffic cleared and we were there! Lance actually clapped his hands, he was so excited. We had more than enough time to buy food, souvenirs, look around, and find our seats.We had pretty good seats for the game. We were behind home plate and were pretty close to the action. We were so close that we had that net/screen thing that stops foul balls from smacking you hard and so close that Lance felt it was necessary to tell me to duck if I saw people around me ducking.

It was a good game for us to go to since Hawaii boys (I almost said "local boys" and then realized that I wasn't cool enough to say "local boys") Kurt Suzuki and Shane Victorino were both playing. I always try to pay attention to Lance's interests and I can watch a lot of his sports now and I enjoy them. I admit, though, paying attention to baseball takes more effort though I admit that going to a major league game is way more interesting and fun than watching it at home. In any case, I was amused by many things during this game, none of which actually had to do with the game (though I was also pleased because this game moved along at a nice pace). Perhaps the most amusing was:

The mess of vendors moving up and down the aisles! They were selling peanuts, churros, pizza, ice cream, soda, candy, and souvenirs. They even had vendors walking around with huge hot chocolate and Starbucks coffee canisters on their back that had a hose connected to it. It was super freezing so I ended up buying a Starbucks coffee from one of them near the end of the game. He got his little hose, pumped the coffee into a cup, gave me cream and sugar, and continued on his merry way. There were a lot of vendors where we were sitting and they all moved super fast. I had a lot of fun watching these vendors but I really was paying attention to the game though my view was blocked a bit at times:

I was also amused but also irritated at times by these obnoxious girls sitting next to me. They drank a lot during the game and got louder and louder as the game progressed. I think one of them may have come in drunk already, though, because she was obnoxious from the beginning and her friends were laughing that she was an alcoholic. They were alternating between cheering on the A's, dissing our section for not being spirited enough, and screaming crap at the Phillies and anyone who might be fans of them. Their highest point was either when they repeatedly screamed "douche bag" at the opposing team or when they yelled at a little eight year old boy who was cheering for the Phillies.The funny thing about this picture was not that a picture of a group of strangers who were obviously sitting right next to me was taken. The funny thing is that Lance was the one who took the picture. After one of the girls' more obnoxious comments, I asked Lance to hand me the camera so that I could take a picture of them. Instead, he told me to wait, scrolled through the pictures already taken, said "Is this what you want?", and handed me the camera with the already taken picture. Ha, ha, I couldn't stop laughing. He knows me so well. All in all, it was a fun evening at the ballpark.

San Francisco Series: Episode 3a

2008-07-13T13:12:00.011-10:00

[Note: We did so much on Day 3 that I've broken it up into two parts. The night of our third day will be Episode 3b.]
On day 3 of our San Francisco adventure, we started out our day with a drive out to Fairfield. We were led by Mandy, who assisted me with my navigational responsibilities for the entire trip. She's also helped me out quite a bit here at home, but she's a lot easier to use when someone else is helping her navigate.

To get to Fairfield, we had to cross the Oakland Bay Bridge, which I thought was pretty cool. There's two levels to the bridge and you exit San Francisco on the bottom level and return from the top. We also passed our first toll booth, which amused me to no end. Granted I wasn't as amused by the toll booths as our trip wore on as they can become costly.

After about an hour, we arrived at Fairfield and at one of the most exciting places of the trip for me. Yup, we went to the Jelly Belly factory! Jelly Bellies are my most favorite candy and going to the factory was on my "San Francisco Must Do" list. The tour was really cool but we weren't allowed to take pictures during the tour. They were doing maintenance this day so we didn't get to see them make candy, but we were able to see them build the layers of the bean and see them package them. At the end of the tour, we also got a fairly decent size bag of Jelly Belly beans. The factory also had a store with lots of merchandise and of course their entire line of candy. They even had a sampling bar where you could taste individual flavors. We purchased a lot here for omiyage and bought four pounds of Belly Flops, which were the reject beans that didn't meet the high quality standards of Jelly Belly. They taste the same, but they are either misshapen, too small, too large, or stuck together. Oh, and they also had these really neat Jelly Belly art all over the place that were actually made out of Jelly Bellies. There were a lot of Ronald Reagan pieces, since his love of the Jelly Belly bean helped with their success. His favorite flavor was licorice.After Jelly Belly, we did a geocache (which I found, yea me) and then drove another hour out to Citrus Heights (outside of Sacramento) to visit one of Lance's former colleagues that moved to California after he retired. We got to see their house, which I enjoyed a lot because I like seeing the non-touristy areas of the places we visit. The best part of their house that I was super jealous of was their apple tree. The tree fruits in the fall so there weren't any apples on it, but they said they get a lot of apples when it does fruit. Having an apple tree would definitely be a reason why I'd want to move to the mainland. How cool would it be to be able to pick your own apples and make all the goodness that comes from the apple? Applesauce, apple pie, jam and jellies? Fantastic. They took us to eat lunch at this really fantastic but casual restaurant, Booyah. I had a fabulous portobello mushroom sandwich which I'm going to try and make before I have to return to school. We had to leave to return to the hotel relatively early in the afternoon so that we could make the two hour drive back to drop off the MIL before Lance and I headed out again to the Oakland-Phillies game. We didn't have time to visit a yarn store in Sacramento but that was okay as I was still on a high from the bento excursion the day before.

San Francisco Series: Episode 2

2008-07-12T22:28:00.013-10:00

On the second day (and first day that we could really do anything), we woke up bright and early, ate breakfast (our motel provided a complimentary continental breakfast), and headed down to Pier 39 of Fisherman's Wharf. The parking rates here were pretty steep, but we discovered that most parking rates in San Francisco were pretty steep and a lot of the stores didn't have a free parking lot. Anyway, Pier 39 had some pretty cool touristy stores, including The Candy Baron, which was a fantastic candy store that had tons of taffy and some cool old fashioned candy.Pier 39 also some pretty good food (I loved all the fantastic seafood available in San Francisco) and some good views. There was also an area were a bunch of sea lions were just hanging out and that was really cool to see.After a few hours there, we left Pier 39 and went to Japantown. Japantown was one of the places that I was super excited to visit because 1) I like Japanese stuff, and 2) I wanted to buy lots of bento stuff and I had read that Ichiban Kan had a lot of cool, inexpensive stuff. Japantown did not disappoint. There were cool Japanese sculptures, cute signs, and a pagoda:

I ended up purchasing a set of three flower vegetable cutters, which is good because I wanted a smaller set than the one I currently have. I also bought a lot of bento gear from Ichiban Kan, which was as fantastic as I had envisioned. I purchased a couple of bento boxes, some cute chopsticks, chopstick holders, bento straps, food picks, food dividers, sauce bottles, and a tamagoyaki pan. Oh, and facial cleanser to replace the one that I had to mail home. After Japantown, we drove to Daly City to look for a Target because the MIL really wanted to find The Spiderwick Chronicles and it was being released on DVD this day. She decided that it was too expensive and that it would be cheaper to have someone purchase it at home, but I didn't mind the extra drive because Target was right next to Daiso, a Japanese dollar store (well, more like $1.50 store. We went to one when we were in Vancouver and it was humangous and amazing but it was closing right when we got there. I was disappointed then so I was thrilled to discover that there was a Daiso nearby. The Daly City Daiso was no where near as thrilling as the Vancouver one and I was disappointed with the craft selection but I bought more bento stuff here. All in all it was a good day and I was happy because getting some cool bento gear was on my list of things that I really wanted to do while on my trip. And good grief, did I get bento gear:

San Francisco Series: Episode 1

2008-07-07T16:58:00.003-10:00

Before our trip, I was all stressed because we had so many things to do before we could even think about packing. As a result, no packing actually occurred until the day before our departure and we were up till the wee hours of the morning the morning of. Our trip began when my dad picked up me, Lance, and M*Bark and took us to his house. We dropped M*Bark and all of her stuff off at my parents house. It was the first time that we've been away since we got her and the house so our anxiety level was a little higher than it usually is before a trip. We then picked up the MIL and went to the airport. Right before we checked our luggage in, I noticed that the MIL had a bottle of water sticking out of her carry on. I told her that she to either throw it away or pack it in her luggage and then we checked the rest of her bag to make sure she didn't have any more forbidden items. Feeling proud of myself for catching the liquid in her bag, we moved quickly through the check in and then went to the security line. We moved through in the security line but were told to wait for someone to come and checkmy backpack. No biggie, my carry on frequently gets checked because of my knitting needles. And so we waited. And waited. And waited. I started to get grouchy. I mean, geez, they were just knitting needles. Finally someone came by to check my bag and as he unzipped my backpack he asked if I had any liquid in it. I answered no because I had been careful when I had packed and I managed to catch the MIL's mistake so obviously I didn't have any liquid myself. Yeah, he found liquid in my bag. I had mistakenly packed my facial cleanser in my carry on. Luckily there was an area next to the security line to mail packages so I was able to mail my cleanser home since it was a brand new bottle of Arbonne. The plane ride was uneventful and it was almost enjoyable. Lance and I watched Juno on my ipod, played 2-player Meteos on our DSes, and I read a bit. I wanted to knit the sock I was working on, but I had dropped a needle early in the flight. The man behind me was nice about picking it up but I didn't want to risk dropping it again. We arrived around 9 pm San Francisco time, used the really cool airport Air Tram to the car rental place, and picked up our car.Lance and I have had really good experiences staying at small motels. The motels generally aren't spectacular and you definitely wouldn't stay at them for the ambiance but we always get really good service and plus they have the added advantage of being relatively inexpensive. So we picked another small motel and we weren't disappointed. The MIL forgot her toothbrush (though she actually did find it later) and the front desk actually provided one for her free of charge. The front desk guy also took the time to provide us with possible food options and recommended us with one that had free delivery and amazing food. Since it was kinda late, we decided to just order food in and settled in. We needed our rest for the rest of our trip. But first, Lance decided to entertain himself a bit:

The Return of the Blog

2008-07-02T13:41:00.010-10:00

I know I haven't been very consistent with this blog, with recent blogging 3-4 times a month. But still, even for me, a month and a half between blogs is long. My apologies and I am pleased to announce The Return of the Blog. Well, that is my intention anyway. I'll try, as I really do enjoy blogging. Anyway, here's a brief recap of the past month:

1) Sick. I had a nasty bout of bronchitis in mid-late May that really knocked me down for a bit. I missed a lot of fun stuff during this time, as well as a day and a half of work. Yes, I should've missed more work but the end of the school year is not the best time to miss work. I was lucky, though. My communication aide was with me for one of my sick days at work and she really helped me out by doing some of my therapy for me while I did paperwork. Oh, and I did manage to laugh a bit during this time. I was so sick one day that I lay on the floor in between kids. While I was lying down, my kid walked in, saw me, and exclaimed, "Mrs. XXX, what happened?!?"

2) Parties. We're finally enjoying our house and sharing it with others. For awhile we were having people over every week and it was getting a little tiring. Lance is getting really good at giving the tour, though. And more than once, we were told that our house should be the new party house for the family/department/group.

3) Bentos. I had a lot of fun making bentos near the end of the school year and I'm starting to get some fun bento gear. This bento has fried rice, chinese style chicken, a strawberry, and an egg. Where's the egg, you ask? Ha, ha, the car is the egg. I also have a bottle of salt tucked in for the egg.

4) Hats, hats, and more hats. For some reason, I've been knitting a bunch of hats. It all started with this watermelon hat that I knit for my cousin's baby's first birthday. And then my friend wanted a (regular) hat for her birthday. And then my MIL wanted a hat for our San Francisco trip. And then came the really cool frog hat for Joy's future baby.

5) Vacay. The best part that happened in the last month and a half? The school year ended and I'm on summer vacation. Aww yeah. I still need to go in for meetings and to evaluate kids but that's not very much. Sorry, there's no picture for this one, but I figured there's enough pictures in this post to keep y'all happy.

6) M*Bark's 2nd birthday. M*Bark turned 2 in June. She was sleepy when I took this picture and I just realized how weird she looks in it. Anyway, she plucked the hat off the coffee table the following day and ripped it to shreds.

7) Weddings. We went to two weddings, including the one that Lance was in the party for. Sadly we forgot to take pictures with the happy couples.

8) San Francisco. We went to San Francisco with the MIL and just came home earlier this week. There's no picture for this one because we did so much there and we have so many pictures to share. I'll share our trip in future posts and will begin the "San Francisco Series" within the next few days.

Big Red

2008-05-21T18:05:00.003-10:00

Look what just came off the needles! I just finished my mom's birthday blanket and I've affectionately named it "Big Red". It was actually supposed to be her present for last year's birthday but it obviously didn't get finished no where near its due date. Last year I started it a few days before her birthday because my disillusioned mind thought that it would only take a few days to finish. I'm not sure what planet I was living on last year, as the blanket took a year to finish. Okay, okay, I worked on it sporadically and I finished several projects in between, but a blanket can be a hard thing to work on for various reasons: 1) It is humangous so it is not a portable project that I could really work on outside of the house; 2) It is humangous so working on it can make a person hot especially since it's wool and if you work with it on your lap then it's like wearing a wool blanket and who wants to wear a wool blanket when it's hot in Hawaii?; and 3) It is humangous so working just one row on it can be time consuming. Don't feel too sorry for my mom, though. She got a scarf while she was waiting. Anyway, here's another picture of Big Red without the flash. You can see the cables running through it better.

First party

2008-05-12T21:12:00.003-10:00

I'm exhausted. Lance is exhausted. We had our families over for Mother's Day last night (and my mom's birthday) and the preparation involved tuckered us out a bit. We've been working like crazy to renovate and clean up the house, but it all paid off because I'm pretty pleased as to how our house looks now. This was our first party here and actually it was our first family party ever since our townhouse was too small to hold everyone. For various reasons, I was worried that we weren't going to have enough food so I made kind of a lot (Lance thought I was crazy), but my family all brought a lot of food so we were all very well fed. It was funny because hosting a family party seemed very adult-like, which my mom realized early in the evening and apparently looking at her adult daughter left her speechless. As I refilled the tray of spinach rolls, my cousin (who's only a year younger than me, for heaven's sakes) teased that I had become one of the "moms" to which I responded with my traditional "bite me." Me, an adult?

The picture was taken last night and is of my popo, dad, uncle, and aunty.

Bento #3

2008-04-23T17:53:00.003-10:00

Bento #3: Onigiri with ume, kim chee, edamame, crab cakes (2)

This was today's lunch. I'm sick but I had a hankering for crab cakes because 1) Someone else had frozen crab cakes from Costco on their blog, and 2) I haven't set a date for a housewarming party but I find myself mentally planning the menu. I thought about these crab cakes as one of the pupus, but they came out a little funny when I first made them. I first made them within a few months of getting married and I wasn't as comfortable in the kitchen as I am now so I decided to give them another go. They turned out fantastic and I didn't have to reheat them today. Right before I left the house I thought about taking some of that Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce with them and filled a little sauce bottle at the last minute. There's no picture of the sauce bottle because I packed my lunch last night and didn't leave enough room for it.

My first bentos

2008-04-19T20:47:00.013-10:00

A few weeks ago I followed a link on Brandi's blog to Adventures in Bentomaking and I was fascinated with the really cool bentos that were posted and I got it into my head that it would be fun to bring bentos to work. One of the benefits to making and taking bentos to work is that it saves money and is healthier because you don't have to buy lunch. I usually bring home lunch anyway because I'm not a fan of school lunch (and geez, the price went up!) and I don't have enough time to drive down the bloody hill to the nearest food place (which is McDonald's so really not the healthiest choice) so I wouldn't save money or reap any health benefits by bringing a bento to work. However, I would waste a lot of precious sleeping time, as bentos are generally made in the morning. I'm really really not a morning person and I have a hard time getting myself to work on time as it is. So bringing bentos wouldn't save me any money, wouldn't be any healthier for me, and would cost me precious sleeping time. So why was I suddenly obsessed with the idea of bringing bentos to work? Because they were pretty. Yes, that's right. Because they were pretty.

So here I was, obsessed with the idea of bringing bentos, but knowing full well what my limitations are in the morning. And then I discovered Lunch in a Box. I really liked this blog because it was interesting, the writer's pretty good, and I really liked the writer's view on bento. The writer makes bentos for her son but doesn't like spending a lot of time on them. Her bentos are appealing without the time consuming stuff. After reading a few of her entries, I decided that I too could manage to make bentos without killing myself. I've been obsessing about making bentos for weeks now and now that the convention's finally over, I can finally devote some brain power to figuring them out. I took a bento to work twice this week. The first one was sort of an experiment. I wanted to see if I could pack most of the bento the night before because I wasn't exaggerating when I said I wasn't a morning person. It turns out that most of it can be packed the night before so that's really good for me. Anyway, the first bento has onigiri with ume inside and little shoyu hot dogs that my dad made. In the blue silicone cups there's shelled edamame and pickled radish (the one that the Curry House sells). There's also three shrimp shumai, which was the only thing that I had to heat up in the morning. I was really concerned that the onigiri was gonna taste yucky since it spent the night in the fridge, but it was still really good. I think as long as I pack it fresh the night before it'll be okay. The second bento has another onigiri with ume and left over chicken from the oyako donburi I made the night before. I put kim chee in the silicone cup and popped in a couple of grape tomatoes as fillers. I actually packed the whole thing the night before and it was fine when I ate it for lunch.

I'm not planning to bring bento everyday because I do still love sandwiches and leftovers and I don't think I have enough energy to pack a cool lunch everyday, but I'm gonna try and bring them at least once a week. As I said, they're pretty (well, they will be once I get the hang of it) and I really love typical bento food like onigiri and pickled vegetables. And to be honest, sometimes I just need something to look forward to at work. Don't get me wrong, I love my job...most of the time. But sometimes the kids (and sometimes their parents), the other adults, and just the overall nature of my job can get to me. I admit, sometimes lunch is the highlight of my day.

Pau

2008-04-13T12:05:00.008-10:00

I'm exhausted. We finally had our convention on Thursday and Friday. It went fairly well and ran fairly smoothly. We had a few minor snags, but it all worked out in the end. And it's the snags that help you learn and we've already started jotting down notes for next year. We had a lot of good feedback from our members, which is rare. We had big plans for this year's convention, but we didn't want to make too many changes too fast. As new chairs and as young chairs, we knew had something to prove to the board and to our members before we started implementing some of the bigger changes. So we made small changes that we think made a big difference. Hopefully now that we have one successful convention under our belt, we won't run into too much resistance from the board next year. Planning the convention wasn't as stressful as I thought it'd be. I had an awesome co-chair who moves a mile a minute, a fantastic committee (who were some my wonderful friends from grad school), and a whole bunch of other people who were just so willing to help. The one damper to the convention was that the person who convinced me and my friend to be the convention chairs was not very, um, pleasant during the convention. She's generally not a pleasant person to begin with and I understand that she may be upset we did so much better than the last two conventions, but it would've been nice to have her support. I understand that I cannot change the person that she is, but I can't help but be a little disappointed. I don't understand why she doesn't get that it reflects well upon her if we do well.

Anyway, my co-chair and I have a few more things to take care to finish up this year's convention. Once we get that stuff done, we're taking a break until the end of April. We'll start working again in May but first we'll have a much deserved break. Now that it's almost done, I don't quite know what to do with myself. The convention has taken so much of my time and energy and now it's over. What to do, what to do. I'm kinda excited. I wish that spring break didn't already happen so that I could really have a break. I ended up working a lot on the convention and on the house and on the wedding, so I didn't have too much of a spring break. That's okay because the break from work was still nice and I did manage to get some breaks in during spring break:

Lance was invited to participate in a boat tour of Pearl Harbor because he school works with a lot of military families. It was cool to see everything from the harbor and I enjoyed going to the Arizona Memorial again. I haven't been there in years. During the break I also:

Went with Lance to our annual trip to the zoo. We went to the Honolulu Zoo on our first date and we return there every year for our anniversary. We also:Went to the Polynesian Cultural Center to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I mentioned last year that I wanted to go to PCC because I only went once when I was young and trust him to remember.

So I didn't just work during my spring break, but there was some other stuff that I wanted to do but didn't get get to. Now that this year's convention's more or less done, here's the list of stuff I have planned to fill up my now free time:
1) Knit (big surprise here).
2) Clean my house. With the renovations and my recent busy-ness, my house is a mess and it's driving me crazy. Must. Clean.
3) Party. We've lived here for a year now and haven't had a house warming party yet because we immediately started working on renovations. I really want to have a house warming party though I don't know when it's gonna be. Maybe I'll have a small barbeque as a test run. Heh, I guess Matt's on the guest list regardless of what kind of party I have. He's a wee bit bitter that he hasn't seen my house yet.

Regardless of what I end up doing, I'm gonna enjoy myself while doing it. I've always been a bit of a work horse but as I stated earlier, I'm trying to live a more stress reduced life. I'm so not good at relaxing, but darnit, I'm gonna try.

April 1

2008-04-01T21:01:00.002-10:00

This day used to be one of my favorite days of the year. When I was younger, I was the proud owner of fake bugs, funny glasses, a whoopie cushion, and of course, the good 'ole snake in a can. Ahh, the fun I used to have. My sixth grade teacher was a smart one and she prided herself on being "unfoolable." She was on to my snake can so one day I switched out the snake and put a bag of peanuts in. I offered it to her and of course she declined. So I opened it, ate some peanuts, and walked away. I quietly switched the snake back in and got her to open it later that day. Good times.

In high school, I made up elaborate plans to trick my friends. They always fell for whatever April Fool's Day joke I had cooked up and it got to the point where none of my friends believed anything that came out of my mouth on April 1st. My senior year in high school I actually resorted to playing my April Fool's Day joke on April 2nd.

So what did I do this April 1st? What grand joke did I play on my students/colleagues/husband/dog. Absolutely nothing. I completely forgot about this day. Sadly, it's not the first year that I've forgotten to play a prank. Sure, I've had "fun" with people on other days of the year, but I've been forgetting to celebrate this day for years now. I just get so caught up with life that days like April Fool's Day and St. Patrick's Day and Girl's Day just get forgotten. It's sad. I need to remember to not get so caught up in the everyday stuff and make more time to mess with people...

Finished objects

2008-03-29T21:38:00.003-10:00

I love to knit. It's definitely evolved from hobby to obsession. I've really been knitting a lot lately, though a lot of it has been because I was on a deadline. I often knit for other people and I often forget to take pictures of my finished objects before I give them away. I need to get better at taking pictures of them because I put a lot of time into my projects and I'd like to have pictures of them.

My mom and my aunty recently went to Alaska and my mother requested these scarves after she saw me knitting this one during Thanksgiving. I knit the two of them hats when they went to Vegas one winter and my aunty wanted her scarf to match her hat. Her hat was grey so the black/grey/white one is her's and was done out of di.ve yarn. My mom's hat was purpley-pink but she didn't care about matching her hat. She just wanted it pink. The pink one was made with a Debbie Bliss yarn that I think was an alpaca/silk blend. The yarn was really nice to work with, felt great through my fingers, and was delightfully springy. Oh, and the pink scarf was the scarf that M*Bark attacked.

I also finished Lance's socks! Poor guy's been waiting for these socks since August 2006, when he picked out the yarn when we went to Seattle. These socks were such a pain but I don't know why they were so difficult. They weren't any different from the other socks that I have knit but they were the most painful socks ever. I frogged the first one twice and had to rip out parts of it to get it right. All was well after that and I was almost done with the second half of the pair when I started celebrating prematurely. Of course I was punished for being cocky and screwed up. Thankfully I was able to correct my mistake without having to rip out too much, but I tread carefully after that. These socks have been on my needles for so long and they kept being pushed on the side when I had to knit other stuff for other people. I did knit Lance a pair of clogs while he waited for his socks, though. After all the trouble that these socks caused, I totally love the way they finally turned out. I knit them on size 1 needles and I love how tight the stitches are. They fit the best out of all the other socks and they fit both Lance and I perfectly. In fact, these are Lance's socks, but this picture was taken with them on my feet. Although Lance tried them on and let me take a picture of them, he got suspicious (though rightfully so) and grouchy about his feet ending up on my blog.

Renovation Update #4

2008-03-28T19:38:00.008-10:00

Spring break is here but it has been a little bit less than restful. Granted, any day not actually at work is bloody fantastic. Anyway, we've been working a lot on our house this break and it occurred to me that although I intended to post a renovation update and never actually did post one. Anyway, from our last update, Lance and I finished the floor in the entryway and laundry room and painted the laundry room yellow. It took longer than expected to paint because we had to also paint the shoe shelf as well. The shelf was previously grey and even though we primed it, it took a few coats for the yellow to really come through. The whole area looks great and I'm starting to feel really great about our house. The best part of it is that the disgusting black plastic is gone and we have a proper entryway. I hated greeting people on the plastic.

We also got new furniture from Inspiration during the big New Year's sale. One of the things that we purchased was a really cool futon couch. The back folds down into a bed and the sides fold up to make a pillow. With the new furniture, we rearranged our living room and now we have a nice seating area for people to converse should we ever get around to having people over. This picture doesn't show it, but we also got rid of the dark curtains covering the patio door and the horrendous curtains covering the picture window. We put up horizontal blinds over the picture window and vertical blinds over the patio door. The whole room looks a lot better and and I love the view, especially if the blinds are already open when I first enter the house.

In addition to our couch, we also bought a new bed and dresser for our bedroom. I love the new bed. It's low enough that when I get up, all I have to do is put my feet on the floor and stand up instead of sliding off, which is what I had to do with our other bed. It also have a nice headboard so sitting up in bed is a lot more comfy. The new bed and dresser also makes our room look cozier, which is good because our master bedroom is fairly large. Oh, and my piano was delivered! I love having the opportunity to play again.

We made a lot of progress on the house during this break, but it's not done yet and I don't want to provide an update/pictures until we do a little more on it. I have the convention coming up in a couple of weeks, though, so it'll be a little while before Renovation Update #5. Here's a hint, though:

Top 12

2008-03-11T21:24:00.004-10:00

Yea, American Idol has moved into the Top 12 stage. I mentioned earlier that Lance and I had a bet going and that I was about to lose the first part of it. After the Top 12 was announced, there was a lot of gloating in the house that night and sadly, I wasn't the one doing it. I hate when that happens.

Anyway, I'm moving on and hoping to at least win the second half of the bet. The second half is the most important part anyway, since it means correctly picking the next American Idol. I won the Taylor Hicks year and no one won last year because we did it a little differently and had an elaborate point system for the last half of the wager. Of course the ridiculousness of Sanjaya messed it up and no one won.

Anyway, this year Lance and I both selected two people that we thought could win the whole thing. I have David Archuleta and Jason Castro while Lance has David Cook and Brooke White. I was torn between Jason Castro and Brooke White, but Lance picked Brooke first so the decision became easy. Anyway, wish me luck.

River of Life

2008-03-10T19:40:00.002-10:00

I'm exhausted. It's been a crazy couple of days and I think it's only gonna get crazier the closer it gets to April 10th. Between work, weddings, and the convention, it's a busy time of year. It doesn't help that I've had a lot of knitting deadlines lately, either. In fact, I'm running on very little sleep right now and am a little loopier than usual.

With all the craziness, adding the River of Life Mission to my schedule wasn't in my best interest. The complex that my school belongs to is big on character education. I personally feel that although building our kids to be good people is important, ultimately the responsibility for this should lie with the parent. I've always felt this way, even when I was an elementary school student myself. I actually remember coming home in sixth grade and telling my mom what a waste of time "character education" was. Anyway, so we always push the importance of the 6 character traits but some of our teachers felt that we as a faculty did not always demonstrate these desirable characteristics. This led to us going to serve the homeless at the River of Life Mission in Chinatown. And although my current schedule is hectic, I went ahead and signed up.

Serving the homeless is something that I've always wanted to do, but I didn't know how to go about doing it. And to be honest, I cared little about demonstrating good "citizenship" to my students because I felt that my students would be far more affected if their parents were volunteering versus their teachers. A friend of mine questioned the "why" of what we were doing and joked that I must still be in high school trying to get community service hours for a scholarship. I didn't know how to explain to her why I was going. I think I figured it out. Thus far, I've been blessed to never really know hardship and I currently work in a, um, privileged community where my kids' main problem is whether or not their parents will buy them a DS/PSP/cell phone. I wanted to go to feed the homeless just to give something back. The reason was simple: I just wanted to do some good.

It was an amazing experience. The people who run the mission have really managed to create a wonderful, safe place for those unfortunate enough to live on the streets. They distribute clothing and food and provide a safe place for people to take a shower. They even have created a homey, clean, and safe place for women to live and learn so that they can get off the streets. The mission serves three meals a day to their guests. What's more, the mission provides friendship to those in need. Yes, some of the guests are homeless because of drugs, alcohol, and mental illness, but others are just hard working people who are having a difficult time making ends meet. And they are nice people, friendly people. I can't even really explain how amazing the experience was. It's just something that I want to do again and something that I want my own (future) children to do. Of course I want to raise children who do well in life, but I also want to raise children who do good.

Mavid?

2008-02-28T21:02:00.002-10:00

Another week as come and gone on American Idol. All four of the contestants who left tonight were mine. Lance is gloating and has annoyingly pointed out that in order for me to not lose (ahem, tie) this stage of our bet, I can't lose anyone next week. In the past couple of years, I've come to some realizations about, well, me. One of these realizations is that I'm a wee bit competitive and much more so when it comes to Lance. I do not want to lose this bet, frankly I don't even want to tie. I want to win outright, though I know at this point the most I can hope for is to tie now and win at the end. [Note: I was playing checkers with one of my third graders on Tuesday and I really wanted to crush him.]

Anyway, as I mentioned, another week of American Idol has come and gone. David Archuleta's still my favorite but there is one thing that has bothered me about him. I figured it out on Tuesday and had a good laugh. His mannerisms when he's not singing reminds me of a friend of mine from school. It's funny because as I was thinking this, Lance said the same thing. This kid could be a younger version of my friend. My friend reads my blog and posting his name is probably the kind of thing that would make him mad. Let's just say that I secretly refer to David Archuleta as Mavid Archuleta.

Birthday fun

2008-02-24T20:44:00.004-10:00

I celebrated another birthday two weeks ago and last night I was fortunate enough to celebrate another passing year with my friends. We had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and had a fantastic time karaoking at HMC. I haven't seen too much of my high school friends recently as for some reason life keeps getting in the way so it was great celebrating with them and my work friends. Matt gave me the best gift of the night, though. Brandi was home for an unexpected visit so I got a Brandi surprise for my birthday. :) Lance even agreed to wear the "matching" shirts that we bought last week at Ward after our birthday/Valentine's dinner. There was only a little complaining. For some reason, though, Lance and Brandi both thought that I should've been wearing the Decepticon shirt instead.

American Idol Picks

2008-02-22T19:53:00.002-10:00

Before the destruction of my knitting, last night's blog was going to be about American Idol and my Top 6 picks. Anyway, here they are:
1) David Archuleta
2) Jason Castro
3) Michael Johns
4) Alaina Whitaker
5) Amanda Overmyer
6) Ramiele Malubay
Lance and I have a bet going as to who's going to make the Top 12. We both lost a boy and a girl from our lists last night, but I wasn't too attached to the ones that left. Not all of the people on my Top 6 list are on the list that I have with Lance because we choose people in draft format. I also like Danny Noriega, but he didn't make my Top 6 list because he didn't do very well during this week's performance. After last year's abysmal Sanjaya performances, I decided not to formulate my list until after the first week of Top 24 performances. Amanda Overmyer didn't very well either but she still made my list because she's cool and because I don't really have strong preferences when it comes to the girl performers.

M*Bark vs. Yarn

2008-02-21T20:54:00.004-10:00

I walked out of the bathroom this morning and discovered that M*Bark had discovered the "secret" yarn hiding place in our bedroom. The scarf that I'm knitting for my mother's upcoming trip to Alaska was spread across the floor, the yarn lying in a tangled mess. Frantic, I picked up my needle and was relieved to see that none of my work had unraveled. As always, I was in a rush to go to work so I scooped the whole thing up and put it in a bag to take with me. I had wanted to work on it during whatever breaks I managed to have during the day, but resigned myself to a day of untangling. It was a fairly busy day so I had to just untangle and rewind in parts and I finally finished in the afternoon. In the picture, you should note three things: 1) Newly wound ball; 2) Needle and needle end, separated from each other and with bite marks; and 3) My arm protecting the whole thing. Why did I have to protect it? Because as I tried to take the picture, M*Bark came by and tried to repeat the whole fiasco:
M*Bark: 1 Yarn: 0

Current Favorite Music

2008-02-20T19:30:00.001-10:00

I know I said this before, but I love music. And so I have added a new addition to the sidebar of my blog: Current Favorite Music. I shamelessly stole the idea from Brandi's blog. Matt also stole the idea for his blog so it looks like it's a popular idea. I have a bunch of "favorite" songs, but I decided to limit the list to twelve because the list was getting long. I was thinking about changing it to a "Currently listening to" list instead, though, because most of the songs on my Top 12 list are old so it's gonna take a really great song to knock one of them off the list and I really wanted to make it a list that changes frequently. Hmm...maybe I'll make another list.

Pain in the neck

2008-02-19T20:36:00.004-10:00

My neck hurts. At least my head no longer hurts. At least the room's not spinning anymore. I was supposed to go to tennis tonight, but I'm in a wee bit of pain. How did I get hurt, you ask? Was it from doing something exciting? Rock climbing maybe? Bungee jumping perhaps? Well, I'll tell you. The thrilling, risky activity that I engaged in today was...wait for it...wait for it...walking across The Oval.

Yep, I managed to get hurt walking while in school today. The Oval is this large concrete area that connects the buildings at my school. It serves as an extremely large sidewalk, a gathering area, and, unfortunately for me, a recess area. I hate walking across The Oval during recess as there is often kids running, jump ropes swinging, and balls flying. The flying balls terrify me the most and today I discovered why they are so scary. They are scary because when basketball-like balls are kicked they can cause damage if they should happen to squarely hit the back of someone's neck and head.

Bloody hell, anybody got an advil?

Time flies

2008-02-11T21:06:00.000-10:00

This weekend Matt and I participated in a friend's career day. We've all been friends since intermediate school, but this was the first time that I'd seen her at work. Before it was our turn to speak, I watched her address her students and give them instructions. She was dressed all professional-like, with her glasses and her hair pulled back and everything. As I watched her tell her students to be respectful and not to embarrass her, it suddenly dawned on me how old she looked. She looked and acted like an adult.

I don't know why this was so mind-boggling to me. We've all been adults for quite awhile now. It's funny how adulthood just kinda sneaks up on you. Sometimes I'll be doing something small like cooking dinner and it just amazes me that I'm old enough to be responsible for my own dinner. Once in awhile it hits me at work too. I'll be writing an evaluation report and it'll suddenly amaze me that writing reports is no longer just an exercise. It's my job, I get paid to do it, and people actually trust me with their child's communication. And I admit, sometimes I think, "For real? I'm not old enough to do this." And then I remember that I am.

After Matt and I spoke, our friend showed us around her office. I couldn't believe that she actually had an office. When did we all get to be adults? Why did no one warn us? It feels like it was only yesterday that we were signing yearbooks and chuckling over how many guys she flirted with and now she has an office? I know it's a cliche, but it's true - it's funny how time flies.

Somebody stop me

2008-01-22T19:35:00.000-10:00

Folks, it's that time again. The time where many in the United States are spend 2-3 nights a week in front of the tv cheering and booing hopeful singers. Yes, that's right. It's American Idol time. The season just began last week so we're still at the early audition/crappy singer stage. Some of the singers are amazing and I look forward to seeing how they do. Others are either in it for the attention and the five minutes of fame or are horribly disillusioned.

I had this dream a few years ago. I was at the American Idol auditions and I had agreed to audition to support a friend. My audition was only to be supportive because I, unlike some of the auditioners, was fully aware of my limitations and I knew that singing was not one of my strengths (incidentally, that's true in real life as well). So imagine my surprise that I had made it past the first two rounds of auditions! And that's when the confusion set in. I knew that I had no vocal talent whatsoever, so how did I make it to the Paula/Simon/Randy round? And then it hit me. I had made it to the third round because I sucked so badly that they put me through so that all of America could make fun of me.

And so I have a request to make. Should I ever have the misfortune of having something happen to me that would make me forget that I do not sing well, please, please, please stop me from auditioning for American Idol. It will not end well.

I. Am. Pissed.

2008-01-07T11:26:00.000-10:00

I often talk on my cell phone while I drive. Yes, not the best of habits, but I at least always use a hands free device when I do it. In August 2006, I got a new cell phone. It came with a wired hands free device so it was adequate to use in the car, but I wanted a bluetooth headset. So in October 2006, I went to Honolulu Wireless after eating at the Pearl City Genki Sushi and purchased a Samsung WEP200 because the person who worked there (I think it was actually the proprietor) told me that it was a popular model. I usually like to research these kind of purchases before I buy them, but I really wanted it so I impulsively bought it. When I got home, I tried it out and was dismayed to discover that the sound quality was horrible. I could hear the person on the other end of the phone fine, but the person I was talking to complained that I was difficult to hear and understand when I used the device. I wasn't happy, but it wasn't that big of a deal because I still had my wired device.

Sam recently changed service providers so he got a new phone. He gave me his old phone (though it's pretty new) and I love it, love it, love it. But I needed a hands free device. So I dug up the bluetooth that I had purchased because I read online that bluetooth devices perform differently with different phones. It paired easily with my phone but it didn't work at all. So I tried it with Lance's phone. It worked, but the sound quality was pretty crappy even though we were at home. Frustrated, I turned to the internet and was surprised to find out that the Samsung WEP200 actually rated pretty high on cnet.com and it got a lot of good feedback from other users. I was pretty grouchy already so Lance took over the computer to search online forums for troubleshooting information. As I contemplated chucking the device across the room, I watched him pick up the box and snort. He told me to look carefully at the box. So I did and saw that on the silver authentic looking sticker it said, "Samsing Official Accessory." Samsing? WTF?

I was sold a knockoff. I'm pissed. It's not like I bought the item from the Swap Meet. At least there I would expect to go home with a knockoff. And it would've been priced like a knockoff, instead of the going rate of a bluetooth device. I bought the device from a bloody "reputable" store. I had every intention of marching myself into the store and telling the owner off and contacting the Better Business Bureau, but the fact of the matter is that I bought the device over a year ago and I don't know if I even want to deal with it. I'm trying to live a more stress reduced life and I feel as though dealing with an issue that I should have dealt with over a year ago is not conducive towards that goal. We'll see.

Renovation Update #3

2008-01-05T11:21:00.000-10:00

Upstairs air conditioner in? Check (sure, it was sitting on the bedroom floor for 2-3 months, but whatever). Last of bedroom stuff unpacked? Check. Living room coffee table cleared? Check. Disgusting laundry room tile removed? Check. Scraping in laundry room/entry way completed? Check. We're moving along quite nicely here at Hale Spice. The most exciting part was when the final crap was scraped from the front area and the horrible, disgusting black plastic sheet (think heavy duty garbage bag material) was finally removed. My uncle came over yesterday to help us install the tile in the front of the house. I'm feeling quite handy right now. Lance and I finished it up yesterday afternoon and we're giving the thin set a couple of more hours to set before we venture into our first grouting experience. I don't know what my favorite part of this project was. Perhaps it was when we initially tried to remove the tile and discovered that whoever had installed the original ugliness used a particularly strong bond in the front area. Or maybe it was the lovely entryway of bumpy concrete covered with black plastic that we lived with for six months. Or maybe it was when Lance and I tried to cover the area with self leveling concrete but discovered it came out crappy and had to re-scrape the laundry room. Or maybe my favorite part was when they had to re-do part of the tile because they discovered that it wasn't straight. I don't know, there's been so many "favorites" during this project. All I know is that my body is ridiculously sore and I hope it feels better in the next hour or so because I'm getting back down on my hands and knees soon to do the grout. I must admit, however, that it is looking pretty snazzy. M*Bark wants us to hurry up and finish. This was her tethered to the stairs landing while we worked:
Next up: The Bathroom

2007: A Look Back

2008-01-02T22:00:00.000-10:00

I can't believe the new year's here already. As we entered 2008, I took some time to reflect back upon the last year. Like any other year, 2007 had its share of good times and bad, but all in all, it was a good year. Here's my Top 10 experiences from 2007 (in no particular order):

Number 1

The selling of our first house: Lance and I loved our first house. We had a lot of happy memories there. Our townhouse was pretty and comfy and was the perfect place to start our life together. However, we decided to sell it in order to buy a single family home. Which brings us to:

Number 2

The purchase of our new home: After we had our townhome listed, Lance and I started looking at properties to purchase. We found one that we loved but needed to accept an offer on our first home first. And it was meant to be. Our dream house had other offers on it that fell through and although that wasn't good for the sellers, we were thrilled as it was like the house was waiting for us. When we were finally ready to put an offer in, we were dismayed to discover that we were a few hours too late, as the sellers had just accepted an offer. Our offer was stronger and I don't know how it happened, but the sellers accepted our offer and we were blessed to purchase our single family home. There's a lot of cosmetic work to be done but the layout and the location was perfect. I love looking out of my living room windows and seeing nothing but green.

Number 3

M*Bark: With the move to our new house, we were able to bring M*Bark home. I am notoriously a cat person, though because of Lance, I've grown to love dogs as well. But still. I always imagined my first "adult" pet to be a cat, despite the fact that my husband is a wee bit allergic to them. But M*Bark has been an absolute joy (okay, most of the time). I think it helps that she's smart and is a little bit cat-like.Number 4

Weddings: 2007 was the Year of the Weddings. Lance and I went to 9 weddings this year. We were supposed to have 10, but let's not discuss that. 2007 saw many of our friends and family united. Note: I love the Willows food.

Number 5

Spice Girls: Yes, 2007 also saw the reunion of the Spice Girls. A reunion tour, a best hits CD, and a new single? Girl Power. I entered online for the opportunity to purchase tickets to one of their concerts and was thrilled that I was picked to purchase tickets for their Vegas show. Unfortunately, as I was about to purchase them, my personality got in the way. The show was right before Winter Break and we were supposed to be saving money to renovate the house and to go to San Francisco with the MIL. So of course, Good Kat overwhelmed Bad Kat and I missed my opportunity to see the Spice Girls. I'm starting to think this practical side of me is really a character flaw.

Number 6

12-0: The University of Hawaii football team had an amazing, undefeated season. We were fortunate enough to have tickets to the last regular season game against Washington and it was an amazing game. Trailing 21 points, UH came back to win it. A perfect season. For the first time ever, UH was selected to play in a BCS bowl game. Although they eventually lost to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl (and wow, lost they did), the Warriors gave Hawaii an unbelievable season. Colt Brennan, June Jones, and the rest of the Warriors: We believe.

Number 7

Little people: 2007 also brought the arrival of new little people. Kiyomi and Alli both had wonderful little girls. And now that Alli's brought a great-grandchild to popo, she's leaving me alone. Well, sort of. And I got to feed Alli's baby on Christmas Eve, which is a first for me. I had to hold her while I did it (I also waited until she was old enough to not be so scary...) and guess what! She didn't break! I wanted to post pictures of both Kiyomi's and Alli's babies, but I don't believe in posting pictures of young people without permission. But trust me. They're cute.

Number 8

Harry Potter: 2007 also brought upon the moment that I had been looking forward to for two years - the completion of the Harry Potter series. Of course I joined the throngs of "crazy" people at Borders at midnight to pick up my reserved copy. And of course I started reading at soon as I got home. I read until 4 am and I only went to bed because I knew I had to get up relatively early the next day. I admit, I had to remind myself to be a good matron of honor and not tell the bride-to-be that bridesmaid dress shopping was occurring on Harry Potter weekend. Truth be told, there's not many people that I would've stopped reading Harry Potter for. Sadly, she was one of them. In 2005, I had to put down Book #6 to attend my cousin's graduation and graduation dinner. She's another one that Harry Potter went down for. Anyway, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows did not disappoint and it was the most satisfying conclusion to a series that I've ever experienced. J. K. Rowling? Genius.

Number 9

Knitting Club: I taught Melissa and Vera and finally convinced Joy to learn to knit this year and the knitting club was born. It was a small knitting club (it was really just me, Joy, and Melissa), but it was a knitting club nonetheless. And then Jodi wanted to learn. And then Doreen wanted to learn. And yes folks, we have a knitting club! The best part was when I found out that three of them were knitting together at a complex wide meeting (I didn't have to go). Most of the time knitting relaxes me and I love the feeling of creating something. I also find it an effective way to pay attention in boring meetings. I always take a project that doesn't demand too much of my attention and keeping my hands moving keeps me awake and attentive during the inevitably long presentation. I love knitting and I'm glad I was able to share the joys of it with others this year.

Number 10

Rock Band: Lance and I looked forward to the release of Rock Band ever since we heard rumours of its development. The game was not a disappointment. There's drums, a mic, and a lead and bass guitar. I'm finally realizing my dream of playing the drums and it's awesome. And Rock Band's delivering on their promise to have lots of downloadable songs to expand the game's offerings even further. The game's been out for less than two months and there's already quite a few selections to purchase and download. We just got Buddy Holly. :) However, playing the game has really made me realize how much I miss playing music so I'm planning to get my piano from my parents' house in the coming months.

2007 was a fantastic year and I have no regrets. I'm looking forward to see what 2008 will bring. I'm sure it was be a fantastic ride.

Ahh...it's here...

2007-12-30T00:09:00.000-10:00

Ahh...I love winter break. Well, I love it once we get past Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. I just don't particularly care for the craziness of the last minute have-to-dos. I think I did better keeping my wits about me this year, than I did last, though. Baby steps to sanity.

So I love winter break, heck, I love all breaks. I love them way more now than I did when I was a student. I feel that breaks should be a time of relaxation and rejuvenation but my teachers never seemed to agree with me. Many of my high school teachers felt that vacations were just a time for us to work on lengthy, time-consuming projects so throughout high school a little part of me dreaded vacations just because I knew what was coming. It got better in college because at least winter break was stress free. But now that I'm working, all vacations are wonderful. There are things to do when I go back to work, but they can all wait until I get back to work. I am planning to enjoy this break because I suspect that I will not be able to enjoy spring break as much since it is the week before the convention. On my list for Winter Break 2007-2008:
1) Knit - I knit like crazy in the beginning but that was Christmas knitting. Now it's time for more relaxing knitting. I have some unfinished objects to work on and my mother has requested scarves for her and my aunty for their upcoming trip.
2) Read.
3) Work on the house - We actually plan to do quite a bit of this. Lance has been scraping away at the floors and we've been organizing and putting stuff away. I cleaned a bit and we've been working on getting some of our decorative stuff up. We just bought some stuff from Inspiration today and although it won't be delivered for a few weeks, we do have to prepare for the delivery. Hopefully we get a significant portion of our floor done during vacation. We still need to have a house warming party.
4) Relax.

Oh Christmas Tree

2007-12-19T00:17:00.001-10:00

Two years ago, Lance and I celebrated our first Christmas together. We brought the tree home and learned that a Leatherman is a poor replacement for a saw. No matter, it was our first Christmas. Last year, we didn't get a tree. I was bummed but we were trying to sell our townhouse so no tree. This year was our second tree together. I thought it'd be easier than the first year since we had a little experience under our belt, but alas, an easy time it was not:

1) First weekend of December: Want a tree, but husband thinks it's too early to get one. Husband promises to get tree following weekend.
2) Second weekend of December: Too busy to get tree. Bummed.
3) December 10: Concern sets in that all of the trees are gone.
4) December 10: Drive by Star on the way home. Panic sets when no trees are spotted. Hopes Husband realizes that his Christmas will be unpleasant if there is no tree in house on Christmas morning.
5) December 10: Continue driving past Wal-Mart. Thrilled to see big white tree tent.
6) December 10: Husband arrives home and the tree hunt begins.
7) December 10: Go to Wal-Mart, only tree left is 9 feet tall. Proceed to Daiei.
8) December 10: Get distracted by Home Depot, end up buying tree. Strange woman approaches M*Bark to coo at her, impedes tree progress.
9) December 10: Arrive home w/ tree, stick it in large bucket outside.
10) December 11: Gear up to set up tree, realize that if tree is set up with no skirt around the stand, M*Bark will probably drink the water. No tree skirt found, remember that the skirt was thrown out two years earlier. Decide to put off tree decorating until tomorrow.
11) December 12: Buy new tree skirt, go home to set up tree.
12) December 12: Husband arrives home and brings tree in. Tries to put tree into stand, realize that stand is way too small for tree. Decide to put off tree decorating until tomorrow.
13) December 13: Buy new tree stand. Husband comes home.
14) December 13: Husband brings tree in. Tree goes into stand and doesn't fall. Rejoice.
15) December 13: Tree looks thirsty. Realize that forgot to cut off the base of the tree. Very quietly tells husband.
16) December 13: Realize that still do not have adequate saw. Go to dad's house to borrow one.
17) December 13: Take tree out of stand, saw off base.
18) December 13: Tree refuses to stand in base, realize that bottom branches must now be cut off.
19) December 13: Cut off bottom branches. Tree stands nicely. Rejoice.
20) December 13: Put up lights and ornaments.
21) December 13: Realize that there is no star/angel for the top of the tree. Realize that amount of ornaments too small for size of tree.

Oh Christmas tree.

I love my ipod

2007-12-12T20:27:00.000-10:00

Wednesdays are my testing/paperwork/catch up day. Today I didn't have to test so I used my day to catch up on some stuff and to do some paperwork. As usual, I reached into my bag and extracted my ipod. I also use my ipod in the car and at home (Lance got me a iHome so I can wake up to the Spice Girls), so it's not unusual that my earphones were not connected to my ipod. I looked in my purse/bag but no earphones. I didn't panic because I thought surely they were in my backpack. They were not in my backpack. Panicking, I re-searched each bag twice and finally resigned myself to a musicless day. No music = Grouchy Kathleen. Near the end of the day my friend found a pair of extra earphones in her classroom so at least the last hour of my day had music in it, but still it was a pretty grouchy day.

Music's always been an important part of my life. I don't know why, it just always has been. I'm not one of those people who is a music critic. I generally won't pick apart a piece and talk about it. I just like what I like. I had a friend who considered himself a music critic. Actually, he thought he was a critic about everything. Music, movies, restaurants, he had an opinion about it (and annoyingly he felt the need to pompously share his opinion, regardless of whether or not you cared to hear it...). He couldn't help but share when he thought that what you liked sucked. It would've been okay if he could've just left it to a "I don't like it," but he felt the need to tell you exactly why he didn't like it. He never understood why people got offended but I never understood why he couldn't understand.

Anyway, I love my ipod. After only a year and a half my first ipod died. I was so devastated that I felt a little piece of me died with it. It was a horrible couple of days as I desperately tried to revive it. No such luck and I ended up replacing it. The newer model was sleeker and had video but I was still sad that I had to get rid of my first one. It took me days to re-add my library. My ipod's with me nearly every day. I wake up to it in the morning, I listen to it on the way to work, and I listen to it during work whenever I can. It keeps me sane. There are days at work when I get stressed having to deal with stupid adults but once they leave I put my earphones in. I feel better when Pink's coursing through my head.

I'm going to bed now. What should I wake up to tomorrow morning?

One project pau

2007-11-30T20:11:00.001-10:00

The scarf that I have to deliver tomorrow is pau! Yea! All I need to do is tuck in the ends and wrap it and I'll be all set to deliver it. Even though it'll be given on December 1, I still like to think of it as a Christmas present. It makes me feel better to think that I've already finished one of my presents. :) It's for one of my former grad school professors. She's probably the only one of my professors that I'd ever knit for. Because as much as much as I've admitted that some parts of grad school were great, it truly was a horrid time in my life. We all agree that most of the people who were responsible for teaching and guiding us (ahem, otherwise known as the faculty) only made that stressful time worse than it had to be. However, the professor that I made this for was one of the few that I thought really gave a damn about what happened to us. Anyway, here it is:
I really enjoyed working on this scarf. The stitch was interesting enough to keep me going but was mindless enough that I could work on it wherever I went. And after working on the blanket, it felt like a quick knit. I found the yarn at Aloha Yarn and at the same time discovered that Aloha Yarn was an awesome yarn store. Here's a close up of the stitch pattern:
I'm delivering the scarf tomorrow at a meeting that to be quite honest, I'm not too thrilled to be attending because afterward is the UH and Washington game. We have tickets to the sold out event. It should be awesome.

A disappointment

2007-11-29T22:35:00.001-10:00

The week's not over yet and already I feel drained. There have been times in my life where I have moved, touched, and pleasantly surprised by the people who surround me and in life in general. Unfortunately, there have also been times when I am reminded that the weather isn't always sunny and the air doesn't always smell sweet.

I am not an optimist. I am not a pessimist. I am a realist. And this week reality really sucked. I had a setback involving an event that I had agreed to participate in. I had to deal with disappointment and someone's abandon ship attitude, but that part of my week could not compare with the week of a friend of mine. She's had a horrible week, one of those weeks where really all you can say is that sometimes life sucks. And it doesn't matter who you think people are. No profession, even those in the education field, are immune from crappy people.

Thanksgiving weekend

2007-11-25T21:33:00.000-10:00

So this Thanksgiving was a little different than recent Thanksgivings. Sure, we did the traditional, way-too-tiring relative thing on Thursday, but other than that it was odder than usual. Why?
1) While baking on Wednesday night, I discovered that our monthly payment to our security company is money well spent. When the smoke detector goes off, they really do check to make sure you're okay.
2) As usual, Lance and I examined Black Friday's sales. Oddly, there were very few things that we were interested in.
3) We didn't really partake in any of the sales. Joy and Brad went to Hilo and I dropped them off at the airport and once again, the sales weren't very good.
4) Lance was sick all weekend, which is actually probably why the rest of the weekend was weird.
5) I did not go to either the Okinawan Center craft fair or the Blaisdell craft fair, both of which are Thanksgiving weekend traditions.
6) I spent most of the weekend in the kitchen. I'm actually fairly domestic, but it's odd that I spent that much time cooking/baking. Wednesday night I worked on the overnight layered salad, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin squares. Friday I made a yummy loaf of bread. Saturday I made ziti. And today I made cinnamon rolls.

I also did my normal weekend chores (i.e. laundry) and made some progress on my knitting. The scarf that I'm working on now was actually started so that I could have some nice mindless knitting for my "knitting club", but it occurred to me this weekend that scarf delivery day is approaching quickly (umm...like, Saturday...) so I really need to finish it up. It shouldn't be a problem, it's almost done. It also occurred to me that I really need to focus on that Christmas knitting. I have quite a few projects to complete before Christmas. Yikes.

Oh, and I got to rock out to Rock Band today. I didn't play much this weekend because Lance was sick and I didn't think me banging on drums would help him feel better. Thankfully he's feeling better so I played for quite awhile today. Oh, and of course I'm just happy that he's feeling better. :)

Thanksgiving

2007-11-21T22:20:00.000-10:00

Ahh...Thanksgiving weekend. Fantastic. I just finished cooking and baking for tomorrow and I'm just waiting for the cranberry sauce and pumpkin squares to cool so that I can go to bed. I'm glad the overnight layered salad is not a third thing that I need to cool because I'm exhausted. Lance and M*Bark both went to bed without me and I'm jealous. So tired. I blame my "boss" for the late finish as she was the stupid one who scheduled a training for the afternoon before Thanksgiving. I also blame myself for going to the stupid training. It was a big waste of time, the speaker was fairly boring and didn't quite seem to know what she was talking about, and I disagreed with many of the things that she said.

Anyway, so we have Lance's cousin's house tomorrow day and my aunty's house at night. I hope to relax this weekend, but I also have a list of things I want to get done. My desire to relax often gets overshadowed by my need to do stuff. Anyway, no matter how busy this weekend turns out to be, I'm definitely going to make time to play with our new toy. Rock Band is perhaps the most awesome game ever. I love Guitar Hero as well, but with Rock Band I finally get to fulfill my dream of being a drummer. Thank goodness this game came out after we moved out of our townhouse and in to a single family house. My poor neighbors.

I just realized that this post is a little different from the typical Thanksgiving titled blog. I didn't say anything about what I'm thankful for or anything like that. It's not that I'm not thankful for everything I have. I realize how blessed I am but honestly, I'm just a little too tired and grouchy right now.

A belated Halloween post

2007-11-09T21:58:00.001-10:00

I tried to post this on Halloween, but blogger didn't want to cooperate so now you get a belated (but quick b/c I have stuff to do) Halloween blog. This year, Lance and I turned our pumpkin into a Transformers pumpkin. I don't know if the picture does it justice, but it turned out awesome. We decided to stay home and pass out candy b/c it was our first Halloween in our new home and we wanted to see how many trick or treaters we would get. We got quite a few and way more than we ever had at our old house. If it wasn't raining so hard, we probably would've gotten a lot more. It was neat because they all loved our pumpkin and the kids couldn't stop talking about it. Oh, and for those of you wondering, no, M*Bark did not dress up.

A finished object

2007-10-29T18:38:00.000-10:00

Well, I finally finished The Blanket. I started this blanket last year and it was to be a present for my popo. It was the present that I was frantically trying to finish on Christmas Eve. I managed to finish her lap blanket, like two seconds before I gave it to her. She didn't know what it was because it was so small. I explained it was a lap blanket and she was happy. I also asked her if she wanted it bigger because I wasn't sure if it was big enough to comfortably cover her lap. She said no but then changed her mind three months later. She wanted it long enough to cover her shoulders when it got chilly. Of course by then I had already moved on to my next project, which was a set of colorful bibs for my cousin's first child. And so the blanket sat, untouched in my house. Truth be told, I wasn't looking forward to working on the blanket again. It was knit in garter stitch so it was quite boring but it was too large for me to take to places that I normally knit boring pieces at (i.e. the dentist's office). And it was knit in relatively small needles and in long rows so it took forever to make any noticeable progress. Anyway, I recently realized that it was almost Christmas time again and I still had this blanket in my house. I forced myself to work on it and it's finally done! Of course, M*Bark discovered it:

The great pumpkin

2007-10-22T17:21:00.001-10:00

Isn't The Great Pumpkin a beaut? This weekend, we went to the pumpkin patch to pick this year's pumpkins. It was the first public weekend of the patch and it was crazy busy. There were so many people there and so many cars in the lot that people were parking out on the street. In the end, I had three pumpkins that went home with me. Two medium size ones (the kine you can't you really carve) and this beauty of a pumpkin. I also ended up purchasing a small pumpkin from Safeway. As you can see, M*Bark had to check out the newest addition to our house. The pumpkins are going with me to school tomorrow because I'm going to have some of my kids talk about small, medium, and large and what better way to illustrate that than with pumpkins?

It starts...

2007-10-17T22:07:00.000-10:00

Look what arrived today!
Yup, this year's Christmas yarn arrived today in the mail! I'm glad, I needed a little pick me up. The only thing bad about the Christmas yarn arriving is that it means that Christmas is quickly approaching. I really need to get started soon. We (and by we, I mean me and everyone around me who will put up with the craziness until Christmas) don't want a repeat of Christmas 2006. It was Christmas Eve and I was frantically trying to finish a present. I wanted to...well, what I wanted to do isn't important. It wasn't pretty. The junk thing is, I have two fairly large items to finish in addition to my Christmas presents. And me, being me, had to talk myself out of adding two more items to my already long list (they were a pumpkin hat and a pair of bee booties, in case you were interested). Anyway, here's M*Bark checking my the yarn pyramid:I promptly put the yarn away after taking the picture. I suspected that she wanted to knock the pyramid over and take a ball to play with. We've been having little spats over my yarn lately. I'm having a hard time knitting one of my projects right now because she's fond of the yarn.

Random things

2007-10-16T22:46:00.001-10:00

Fall break has come and gone. I'm making myself feel better by reminding myself that the second quarter always seems to go by quickly. I think all of those lovely holidays help. Anyway, Joy and Brad got married! She looks great, huh? Anyway, I learned that I enjoy bossing people around and maybe I'll become an event coordinator person if this whole speech thing doesn't work out.
We also did more home renovation stuff this break. We painted our master bedroom and although it was a hassle to paint it two different colors, it really came out fantastic. We're getting closer and closer to having the house of our dreams.
M*Bark discovered a fun new game. Apparently Lance puts his dirty clothes on the bathroom floor while he's taking a shower. He's really good about picking them up when he's done and putting them in the hamper, so I didn't realize that he did this until M*Bark started sticking her paws under the bathroom door. She's pulling his clothes out from the bathroom and into the bedroom.

WTF

2007-09-25T13:12:00.000-10:00

It is 1:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. Any guesses as to where I am right now? I'm at home. I'm bloody sick again. The past month I've been on a nasty cycle where I'm sick for one week (see the blog w/ the orange juice) and then healthy for the next week and then sick for the next week. So I was healthy last week and lo and behold the cycle held up and now I'm sick again. The best part is that these illnesses have gotten progressively worse. This time around I have a fever and at times it feels as though my head is gonna explode, it's so sore. I actually gave in and went to the doctor yesterday and I have a sinus infection. Oh, I actually went to an adult doctor. Yes, I now have an adult doctor. My previous doctor was a pediatrician/adolescent doctor whose cutoff age was 26. Anyway, as Joy so rudely pointed out yesterday, I now have my big girl pants.

J is for Joy

2007-09-13T17:54:00.000-10:00

Yawn, I'm tired. Joy and Brad are getting married in two (yikes!) weeks so some of the girls spent a weekend in Waikiki. It was a pretty good definition of a bachelorette party. We spent the night in a hotel, had a yummy lunch, went shopping, someone got a tattoo, ate a yummy dinner, went dancing, went to a bar, had breakfast, and then spent the morning at a spa. It was fun but I'm still trying to recover. Anyway, here's a picture of Joy eating her first escargot. :)

Germy little people

2007-08-28T14:10:00.000-10:00

I'm home sick...again. Actually, I haven't been sick for awhile. Anyway, germy little kids should stay home from school. They have a difficult time focusing and learning when they're sick and THEY INFECT OTHER PEOPLE. I think I should have the right to refuse services to anyone with stuff coming out of their nose. I've been feeling under the weather for a week now and finally decided to give in and stay home today and rest. See, I've been feeling sick but other than drinking orange juice, I haven't done much to make myself better. I should've been resting all week but life's just been too busy lately. Some of the adults at work have been driving me crazy and what with planning the convention and general social obligations, I just haven't had too much time to rest. Anyway, I drank some orange juice, took a nap, and forced myself to eat some saimin for lunch. I think it's time for another nap. I hope M*Bark doesn't mind shoving over so that I can have a bit of the couch.

I Win

2007-08-26T16:30:00.001-10:00

After three years of offering to teach Joy to knit, she finally gave in! Okay, maybe I didn't really offer to teach her. The first year I offered (I didn't know her very well...), the second year I nagged (I knew her much better by then...), and the third year I left her alone (but not really...). The third year I stopped bugging her about knitting because I suspected that her unwillingness to knit had become more of stubborn mule thing rather than a lack of interest. She just didn't want to give in to me. So instead of openly bugging her, I left my knitted items laying about. Y'know, an ipod case in my car, a beanie on my head, my knitting sticking out of my bag, that sort of thing. And then I knit in front of her and taught someone else. And then someone else wanted to learn. And ahh, finally Joy gave in and agreed to knit. She pretended to be reluctant and tried to convince me that she was only giving in to shut me up, but I know she was really excited on the inside. And y'know, she did pretty well for her first time.

Lance is disappointed in her.

Feeling clever

2007-08-26T16:20:00.000-10:00

How funny that Matt commented about felting when I had these pictures to post. Anyway, I recently completed my first felting project. And I must say, I'm feeling pretty clever. It's cool that by knitting this:

You can make this:
With felting, you do indeed knit an item extra big and then throw it in the washer using hot water. The agitation and the hot water felt the wool. The item shrinks and the yarn fuses together, creating a pretty strong fabric. And what's extra cool is that you can shape the item while it's still wet and it'll keep its shape when it's dry. These are a pair of clogs for Lance. I need to add something to the bottom, though, b/c I think they're a little slippery for our wood floors.

I like knitting

2007-08-19T10:05:00.000-10:00

I like knitting, I really do. But this bloody sock has been kicking my arse. I started it a year ago and have had to frog it twice. The first time I got confused and didn't decrease enough at the gusset. I had a feeling it was way too big for Lance's feet, but I was scared to find out so I put it aside for several months. I finally got the nerve to make him put it on and it was way too wide. The only way it would have fit was if he was a clown. Dismayed, I frogged it and put the yarn aside for awhile. The second time I started it I had gauge problems and had to frog it again. I just cast it on for a third time a few weeks ago because my other projects are huge blankets and I desperately needed some immediate reinforcement and socks are relatively quick projects. Plus I needed a travel project because the blankets were just too huge to be lugging around. Anyway, so I cast on this cursed sock for a third time, but this time I changed to smaller needles because I hoped the new needles would break the curse. So far I've had to rip out parts of it but at least I haven't had to resort to ripping the whole thing out. I don't know what's with this sock. It's not the first sock that I've knitted and it's not a fancy sock. In the year that I initially cast on these socks, I've knitted a bunch of other projects, including another pair of socks.

Anyhow, I found out that knitting actually helps me pay attention during long presentations. At big conferences, I can sit in the back and knit under the table. I always choose a project that's fairly mindless so I can listen to the speaker and having my hands move constantly really helps me stay alert and awake. Anyway, while I was working on this sock the other night, I came to a horrible realization. I've been hoping that my realization was wrong so I've been asking other people. Sadly, they all agree with me. Is it bad form to knit at a conference that you're in charge of?

Fair is not Equal

2007-08-05T22:24:00.000-10:00

This week I was reminded that equal and fair are not the same things. It was a good reminder. Do all kids get the opportunity to learn in a small group environment? No. Do all kids have an adult following them around, helping them throughout their day? No. Do all kids have the same amount of money spent on them? No. But for some all of this extra help is necessary to learn the material that other kids are able to pick up with just a teacher's guidance. Fair is not equal and equal is not fair. That's the whole premise behind special education. Our kids are not lazy but need something extra in order to succeed in the classroom. But although we special education providers embody and demonstrate this everyday, we sometimes forget that this applies outside of the classroom as well. Our kids will turn into adults, adults who will be able to one day contribute to society but may continue to need that something extra to be successful at doing so. We may one day be working with them as adults and we shouldn't begrudge them the extra help that they're given in order to do the same job as us. Having a learning disability is a life long struggle. They're not lazy, they need extra help. Fair is not equal.

Spider Dog

2007-07-29T17:36:00.000-10:00

Spider Dog, Spider Dog,
Does whatever a Spider Dog does
Can she swing from a web
No, she can't, she's a dog
Look out
Here comes Spider Dog

2 down, way too many more to go...

2007-07-27T22:15:00.000-10:00

I've now officially been back at work for 2 days.

They were a...let's just say they were "rough." Alright, so this was this crappiest beginning of the year that I've had since I started working.

Sometimes I don't want to play nicely and I'm waiting for my infamous temper to flare up enough so that I explode.

It can only get better from here, right? Good grief, how many more days until fall break?

Year 4

2007-07-24T17:59:00.001-10:00

I got a very unpleasant call from work today. I wasn't supposed to officially go back to work until Thursday, but now I have a meeting early tomorrow morning. Boo. I was also told that I have an other early meeting the following day, but at least that day is an official work day. Sure, my meeting tomorrow won't last more than an hour, but I'm still bummed.

Lance and I went back to school shopping today. He bought a snazzy new pair of shoes and I got myself a new backpack. I've always had a thing for bags and backpacks and I used to get new backpacks quite frequently. When I first started working, I carried my backpack from grad school but I eventually felt self-conscious about it. Everyone around me had over-the-shoulder bags that looked professional looking (or they had those plastic rolling crates but that's not a look that I want to be sporting anytime soon). The only people who had backpacks were under five feet tall. I eventually swapped my beloved backpack for an over-the-shoulder bag in order to fit in a little better with my colleagues. I was already the youngest member of the faculty and I didn't want my choice of bag to make me look even younger than I was.

When I was younger, there was a period of my life where I had over-the-shoulder bag as my school bag. I had two denim bags and one black bag and none of them lasted very long. They also weren't as easy to carry as they took a little more effort to hold on my shoulder than a backpack. The straps would occasionally fall and it was a lot harder to carry additional stuff. So I switched to Jansport backpacks. They were a lot easier to carry and to hold on to and the Jansport bags were incredibly sturdy.

Quite frequently last year, I arrived on campus with arms laden down with stuff, my over-the-shoulder bag, my lunch bag, my coffee, and my computer bag. My over-the-shoulder bag made getting to my room quite difficult, as the straps would constantly fall off my shoulder. The struggle to get to my room each morning made me cranky. In addition to this, M*Bark had discovered how much fun it was to poke her head in my bag and find something to pull out and lay in the middle of the floor. That didn't make me cranky, I actually thought it was funny but I did worry that she was pulling stuff out that I would need for the day.

And so, as I approached Year 4, I decided that I needed a new bag. I hadn't really thought about what kind of bag I wanted, but I started looking at the backpacks today while we were at Sports Authority and suddenly decided that I wanted a backpack again. So, just like the good ole days, I dragged Lance around to lovingly fondle the various backpacks. I finally decided upon this Nike backpack. It was on sale and had some good pockets and had a fun mesh pocket in the front. I thought I could maybe put my umbrella and hat in there for easy access when it rained (which, is like every other day up there), but Lance pointed out that it would make a good knitting pocket. Well, the idea of a handy pocket for taking my knitting to work pretty much sold the bag for me and now it's sitting next to me, waiting for me to fill it up.

The one thing that made me second guess this backpack was the fact that it was a backpack. If it was unprofessional of me to have it three years ago, then why did I think it was okay for me to have it now? Well, the answer to that is: I just don't care. As I enter Year 4, I realize that I don't give a damn what my colleagues may or may not think about me. I think that I have more than proven myself to be professional and to actually know what I'm doing, despite my age. And for those of my colleagues who still question me because of my age...well, I really just don't care.

At long last...

2007-07-22T16:36:00.000-10:00

I had been looking forward to Friday's events all summer. Friday morning I woke up early and hightailed it to Borders. I was a little dismayed when I got there that I wasn't early enough to be one of the first ten in line, but I was pleased that I was within the first 50. I ran into Starbucks, grabbed some coffee and some breakfast, and joined the line of excited people. To pass the time, I knit on Lance's clog. Borders was nice enough to let us check in before the store's official opening time and I was back at home with my bracelet by 10:00.
That night, my bracelet and I went to back to Borders and joined the crowd. There were witches, wizards, and even a walking Whomping Willow. At midnight, the crowd started counting down and let out a huge cheer as the boxes were opened and the first person got his copy of this:
I finished the book yesterday and I am speechless. It was more awesome than I think anyone could have imagined it would be and I think J. K. Rowling is a genius. I'm sad because this was the last Potter book, but wow, what a way to end the series.

I have to go back to the book now. I re-read some of my favorite bits of the book this morning and now I'm just re-reading the whole thing.

Renovation Update #2

2007-07-18T11:42:00.000-10:00

We finally finished laying down our laminate. It looks fantastic and M*Bark's enjoying having space to run around again. She's still getting used to how slippery it is and she'll occasionally slip, which is a wee bit entertaining for me. We just gotta put the trim in and we'll be done.
Unfortunately, the beautifulness of our new laminate makes the tile remaining in our entryway, kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms makes the ugliness of it really stand out. In fact, it makes me want to change it though I thought we'd take a break from flooring for the rest of the break. Y'know, like actually relax a bit before school starts up again. The only thing is...we can't put in the trim for the laminate without changing the adjacent tile. I mean, I guess we could, but then we'd just have to redo it when we eventually changed our tile. My uncle pointed this out on Sunday and I actually felt a little teary at the prospect of ripping out more tile. Oh well, it has to be done and we'll have a nice house once we get it done.

Look Who Graduated!

2007-07-14T22:21:00.000-10:00

M*Bark graduated today! We had a wedding last week so she had to miss class and we were a little concerned how she'd do with a week off, but she went through the obstacle course brilliantly! Her instructor was really pleased with her and offered some suggestions for furthering her education. We can either continue on to the intermediate course or repeat the beginner course and try to get her good citizen certified. I don't really understand it, but the certification's supposed to be a really big deal and our instructor thinks M*Bark would be able to do it since she's smart and well behaved. We don't know want we're going to do yet, since we went into this course with the intention of stopping after the beginner course. All we really wanted was for our dog to sit and stay, which she can now do. But I don't know, I'm kinda enticed by the idea of certification. It's hard to explain, but I realized that my desire to have my dog certified is rather typical of how I've led my life so far and probably how I'm going to raise my future children. Anyway, here's M*Bark with Lance and her diploma. I also made her a little graduation cap which, in case you were wondering, I only made her wear at home for my amusement.
Apparently M*Bark was not too thrilled with her cap. Look what she did when left alone with it for a few minutes:
Ha, well behaved, right? Just like a kid, M*Bark often behaves better at school than at home.

Renovation Update

2007-07-08T16:01:00.000-10:00

Look what we did on the fourth of July:
Yes, goodbye, ugly tile. Demo was fun in the beginning, as there's something therapeutic about taking a sledgehammer to tile but I realized that my body is not cut out for hard labor and that perhaps there is a reason why I chose not to have a career in construction. I also discovered that I really hate scraping tile glue (yes, I know that's not it's real name) off a concrete floor. Not fun.
But my uncle helped us lay out the hallway and taught us how to install it ourselves. Looks pretty snazzy, huh?
We also got new room darkening blinds for the game room so that Lance can finally play his games during the day. It was too light to project and play them during the day. He's a happy camper. We also got a security system installed in our house, but for obvious reasons there's no picture of that.

Summertime

2007-07-01T15:49:00.001-10:00

Summertime's here and it feels great! Alright, I've officially been on summer break for three weeks but I've had to work so I didn't count these weeks as break. But now I'm done providing ESY therapy services so now it's time for fun! My agenda for summertime fun:1) Knitting. I've been looking at sock yarn for the past several months online but I haven't bought anything because I knew we were supposed to be saving money. I finally purchased this lovely sock yarn and size 1 bamboo needles online two weeks ago as my "good job for getting through the school year without killing anyone" present. This was the first time that I've purchased anything from this store and I definitely would purchase from them again. They have great yarn, decent prices, and fantabulous customer service. My order arrived within a week and came with a few extras that didn't cost a lot but made me happy. The best thing about the order was that it also came with a handwritten note. Little things make a big difference.2) Ripsticking. I tried a waveboard during Christmas break at a craft fair. The guy selling it tried to teach me but I wasn't able to learn how to use it within five minutes in the parking lot so I didn't buy it. But I recently found out that a friend of mine has a ripstick (which is pretty much the same thing as a waveboard). My friend took me to the inline hockey rink and taught me on her's on the nice smooth surface of the rink. It's fun but I still pretty much suck at it. After 1/2 an hour of playing on it, Lance came to meet us and in true Lance form, learned how to ride it within a few minutes. And in true Kat form, I got obsessed about owning one and promptly tried to buy one after work that day. The first place I went to had them on sale but were sold out. Devastated, I tried a different store. They had the waveboard, but it was $30 more than the ripstick. So then I went to Wal-Mart, confident that they would have them in stock since I had passed by the display for several days. No luck at Wal-Mart, as they were sold out. Being obsessed, I spoke to one of the sales associates who told me that they were due to get a new shipment and they were maybe unloading them at that moment. She advised me to call at 11:00 that night to check. Lance thought I was nuts (but seriously, this is very typical of me so he shouldn't have been surprised), but I drank coffee to stay awake and then called them at 11:00. They had it, I ran out to get at and was home by 11:30 with my new ripstick. I had my first fall off it yesterday. My bum's still a little sore. 3) Book buying. Yup, it's that time of year again. The huge library book sale. We went yesterday and got some books, magazines, and CDs and we're planning to go again before the end of the sale. We managed to get two of the Pidgin to Da Max books and Lance thinks I should study this summer. Maybe then Joy will stop laughing at me when pidgin slips out of my mouth. It's not my fault it sounds unnatural. Look where I grew up.

4) Home renovating (whoops, picture's sideways, forgot to flip it). We've painted the living room, dining room, game room, and yarn room and the house is finally starting to really feel like home. We have a few more rooms to paint (all lots of other stuff to work on), but our main project right now is our floors. We got a pretty good price on some koa laminate and we're installing it in our living room, dining room, entry way, kitchen, and hallway. We just busted up our hallway floor today. We're still prepping it and good grief is it hard work. I did discover that busting up a floor is a good stress reliever though and I kinda wish we had started it before the school year ended. There's something therapeutic about busting the crap outta a floor. We still have a lot of work to as we still have to finish prepping the hallway, start prepping the rest of the rooms, and figure out how to actually install the laminate, but it's kinda fun because we're doing it together. Everything's more fun with Lance.

Celebrations

2007-06-29T21:54:00.002-10:00

A very dear friend of mine got married last weekend to a fantabulous fella who's perfect for her. He's smart, funny, and I know he'll take care of her. Oh, and he's extremely tall. My friend and I have been friends for nearly fourteen years now and of course she's brought other guys around. But there was something about this guy that made me think, "He's the one." The first time we met him, my husband actually turned to me and said, "Tell her he's a keeper." I was blessed enough to be a part of her bridal party and this picture was taken during her rehearsal dinner. Tell me the truth, isn't she the most gorgeous bride ever (she's the one making the face)? I had other pictures of the wedding but I felt that this picture really captured who she is. :)

The husband and I are at that age where attending weddings are a large part of our lives. We had three in June and one more in July. We'll have at least two more in the fall. Anyway, since we've been going to so many weddings in the past two years, I've noticed something interesting. The way the wedding turns out is really reflective of the couple's personalities. A lot of times it's just really reflective of the bride, but sometimes it's both. Anyway, so my friend who just got married last week is a fun loving kind of girl who likes to laugh and her laugh is quite distinctive and well known. Anyway, her wedding ceremony turned out to be filled with laughter and was just well, the wedding ceremony was just her. Another wedding we went to was nice but it was disorganized and well, apparently this was also reflective of the bride. Another friend of mine had a wedding that was simple and elegant, and that's probably how I would describe her as well.

Geez, after weddings come first baby parties. Getting old.

I Can Quit!

2007-06-12T20:47:00.000-10:00

The day that I've been waiting for for three years has finally come. I can quit. My employer paid for my Master's Degree with the stipulation that I work for them for three years. I have fulfilled my obligation. This year was the roughest for me so far. Crazy parents, crazy colleagues, crazy caseload, and I seriously contemplated finding employment elsewhere at the end of the school year. However, I also realized this year that I also have wonderful parents, wonderful colleagues, and, hmm, well, still crazy caseload. Like the rest of life, with the lows also came the highs and the good far outweighed the bad. Alright, the pay raises that we've been getting also helped with the decision. Anyway, I'm not leaving anytime soon, but it's nice knowing that I now have options.

Megan's wedding was this weekend and so I got to spend some time with some of my friends from grad school. Grad school was the toughest two years of my life and I often refer to that time as my dark period. And it was, it most definitely was. However, a lot of good came out of it (okay, well, other than the whole Master's Degree, career thing). I met and became friends with a bunch of fantastic people that I probably would never have met otherwise. During those years, these people were my family. We all had our own families and friends outside of school, but we all spent a good deal of time with each other. At the time, we were the only ones who understood each other. Everyone else around us tried, but we were really the only ones who understood that 3 year olds could be terrifying and that comps was not just another test. Now that grad school is over, we have all returned to our outside friends and family and we don't get to see each other very often. We're all so different but still, after all this time has past, I still have so much fun when I see them. Whether it's sharing hilarious stories from work or playing pass the baby, I'm always entertained when I see them. Huh, never thought I'd find something positive about my dark period.

Happy Birthday, M*Bark!

2007-06-11T13:57:00.001-10:00

M*Bark turned 1 on Saturday! Well, we think she's 1. There was a wee bit of discrepancy regarding her actual birthdate. When we got her, we were told that her birthday was in May. But when we looked at her paperwork from the vet, it said it was in June. We figured that they must of gotten that date from the paperwork from the previous vet, so it looks like her birthday's in June.Here's M*Bark checking out her presents. The carrot is from the MIL and it makes a fun noise when shaken. We got her the football cookie, but broke in half b/c it was a little big for her. She chomped it right down and we'll give her the other half tonight.

Graduating

2007-06-08T00:04:00.000-10:00

It's the end of the year and my kids are leaving. Some of them are just leaving for the summer, while other ones are leaving for the next chapter of their lives.

Yesterday was preschool graduation. All of the kids who graduated made such huge gains since they entered our program. I laugh when I read their old initial evaluation reports and think back to where they were when they entered our program. Some of them were horribly unintelligible. Others of them had extremely poor receptive language. And others of them weren't talking at all. And looking at them now, you wouldn't even think they were the same kids. Many of our kids graduating have caught up to their chronological age peers and can start elementary school just like any other child. They don't need us anymore. They are intelligible, they can understand what you're saying, and boy, can some of them talk. I love it when a parent grumbles to me that their child talks too much because that means that I've done my job.

My fifth graders also graduated today. Their graduation was harder for me than yesterday's graduation. At least I'll be able to see my preschoolers walking around on campus next year and I'll be working with some of them. But my fifth graders are leaving elementary school and although I'm sad that they're leaving me, I understand that they're heading to bigger and better things. These are the kids that I started with, the kids that I have spent my days with for the past three years. There were days when I wanted to strangle them and there were days when I wanted to hug them. These were my kids and it was hard to say goodbye.

I tell people that it is my job to work myself out of a job. All of my kids either graduate from our school and move on or they improve so much that they no longer need me. And while my job is rewarding and I love it when my kids don't need me any longer, it's still hard to say goodbye.

M*Bark, The Yarn, and Doggy School

2007-06-02T21:45:00.000-10:00

Last weekend as I was working on the yarn room, I heard a clacking sound coming from the living room. Realizing that this sound probably meant that M*Bark was up to something, I went to investigate and found this:
She had discovered my knitting on the coffee table and had decided that it was interesting. The clacking sound that I heard was the sound of my knitting needles being moved around. Thankfully she left my project on the table. So I walked into the living room and found my project lying on the table, my ball of yarn clear across the room, and yarn connecting the two throughout the room. It was an inexpensive ball of cotton so I was more amused than annoyed. I think she has a thing for yarn/hand knits b/c I've also found my ipod (in its knitted case) on the stairs and she keeps plucking my knitted hat from my school bag.

Respecting the yarn isn't one of the lessons that they directly teach, but M*Bark's been going to Doggy School on the weekends. She's doing well and likes going. She's already made some friends. It's weird, though, b/c I think my 10th grade student council advisor is in the class. One of these days I'm going to go talk to her and find out for sure. Here's Lance working on the "stay" command:
Here's M*Bark at "recess" checking out the contents of my bag. That's probably how she looks when shes plucking hand knits out of my school bag.
Doggy School is tiring and M*Bark's pretty wiped out at the end of class. Mmm...comfy pillow...

Changes

2007-05-08T18:43:00.000-10:00

Changes, changes, changes. Lots has happened since my last post. In March, Lance and I celebrated both our eight year anniversary and our two year wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe that so much time has past and every day I feel blessed that we found each other. Anyway, we combined our anniversaries into one and spent the day at the zoo and ate a delicious lunch at the Oceanarium. It was bloody hot at the zoo, but it was nice spending time at the site of our first date.

After my last post, the Big Pack really took off. We packed and packed and packed. I can't believe we accumulated so much stuff over the past two years. This move was a lot harder than my first move. The first time individual people moved in, this time a married couple moved out, along with all the stuff that a home has. Bed, couch, desks, kitchen stuff, kitchen stuff, kitchen stuff. Thank goodness we had so many people helping us -- we have amazing family and friends. It also helped a lot that my parents were able to store some of our stuff for a bit so we were able to move a lot out during the week. [Note: If you move and have people who can help you move, renting a U-Haul is a fantastic deal. Their website even has tips to make your move easier. No, I don't work for them.]

When we moved, we were also able to bring our dog home from my mother-in-law's house. In retrospect, perhaps it wasn't the wisest idea to bring her home on the same day of our big move. She was able to transition rather well from owner to owner, but we discovered that she had some separation anxiety in the beginning of her move. We found this out during our first weekend when one of our neighbors kindly left a note on our door about our dog's barking. Ironic, isn't it? I, who have been notoriously intolerant of my neighbors, suddenly found myself as the annoying neighbor next door. Thankfully, it all worked out in the end. Her barking led us to take her around the neighborhood to apologize and we got to meet our neighbors. Most of them were understanding and the neighbor who left the note was actually the friendliest. We desensitized her and taught her that us leaving the house was not a big deal and now all is good. We decided to wait to get a cat and although I'm a little disappointed, I realize that getting a cat right now is not a good idea. And besides, with a dog as cute as her, how can I really be sad? :) Anyway, meet M*Bark. Don't worry, that's not her real name.

It's been crazy busy with our new house and our new dog and we're pretty much walking around in a constant state of exhaustion. There's a lot of work to put into our new home, some of which we didn't anticipate. It's funny how some of the stuff that didn't bother me at all when we bought the house bug me now. I loved our townhouse and the newness of it and it's hard going from brand new to not brand new, but I love the fact that the home we're creating is the home that we're going to be in, well, pretty much forever. The townhouse is where we started our life together and this house is where we'll start a family and grow old together. [Note: No, we're not starting that family right now.] With the circumstances surrounding our purchase of our house, we've been saying that this house was meant for us. As an additional sign, check out the light that's in the yard. Dragonflies!

Test

2007-04-19T08:59:00.000-10:00

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing.

Huh, I guess I can blog at work. I'm afraid, too, though. One because Big Brother's always watching (my friend "accidentally" chatted while in school and got an email busting her for it). And two because I don't want Big Brother to figure out that blogger exists and block it. I have some interesting blogs that I read at lunch and I'd be sad if they were blocked. Okay, the second reason is really why I'm scared to blog at work. Not so much the getting in trouble part.

Better go, they're watching...

Spring Break 2007 - Week 1

2007-03-22T15:42:00.000-10:00

It's spring break. So what have I been doing?

1) Work. Bloody work. Our database was supposed to switch over to another system during the break so most of us busted ass to get everything in before the switch. Because let's face it. We all knew that the new system was gonna suck for at least the first six months of operation. Anyway, so for the first few days of break I worked and what happened? The people who were stupid enough to decide to switch us over during the busiest time of the year exercised some common sense (amazing...) and decided that the system wasn't ready and postponed it indefinitely. So I worked my ass off for nothing. Well, maybe not nothing. At least it won't be so crazy when I go back after the break...though I do get paid to do work after the break and not during the break, but whatever. Trying to find the positive here.

2) Packing. We're preparing for our big move in a couple of weeks and we need to have most of our stuff out next week. We haven't done much yet, but I'm sure Week 2 will be more productive.

3) House Stuff. Termite inspection, house insurance, paint colors (still working on it), and procurement of some new comfy chairs.

4) Cat-sitting. I spent a good portion of this week cat-sitting/house watching/plant watering at my parents' house. I had a great deal of fun playing with my parents' cat. Her name is Callie and she's about a year old so she is quite entertaining. I can't wait to get a cat when we move in to our new house. I'm also looking forward to bringing home our dog from the mother-in-law's house. Hopefully they'll get along and be great friends.

Messy, Messy

2007-03-12T21:49:00.000-10:00

It's been a stressful couple of months. It's not completely over yet, but at least I can stop cleaning my house every other day. And I can stop worrying (hopefully!) that I'm gonna have to run home in the middle of the day to pick up dirty laundry. I've never had a house so clean before. The counters and kitchen sink were cleaned and scrubbed more times in the last couple of months than they have been in the last two years. We even removed the hamper from our house and have been stuffing dirty laundry into laundry/grocery bags and shoving them in our cars until I did the laundry. We're not slobs, but we're also not compulsively clean either. Anyway, we're really enjoying having a hamper again and, judging from the current state of my house, we're also enjoying not having to be super clean. I think we're taking it to the extreme, though, because my house is quite messy right now. I was using this tissue as a book mark. I finished the book a week ago and the tissue ended up falling to the floor. So I dropped the tissue last week and I just took a picture of it now....so therefore this tissue has been on my floor for a week. Yep, I've been looking at this tissue for a week. It's in the area between my bed and the window and since I also sleep on that side of the bed, I don't think my husband has seen it yet. I'm guessing that he hasn't b/c he probably would have picked it up by now. I kinda want to leave it there. It's like this tissue represents my frustration with cleaning every other bloody day and it's rebelling for me. I also want to see how long it will stay there before Lance picks it up. Yes, I'll leave it there, I don't want to pick it up.

I'm gonna go pick it up.

Touching a Neuron

2007-03-07T21:18:00.000-10:00

Like many Americans tonight, Lance and I watched American Idol. When I was single, I watched Seasons 3 & 4, but not fanatically and I really didn't care if I missed an episode. Now American Idol is DVRed. Watching it as a married couple is a lot more fun for me. I don't know why. Maybe because Lance is a captive audience for whatever comments come out of my mouth as we watch it. Or maybe because we "draft" contestants at the beginning and bet a cookie on the outcome.

Watching tonight's episode, I started thinking about the first time I watched American Idol which then led to thinking about the first time I saw one of the Season Finales. My "boss" often uses the phrase "touching a neuron." And although I'm not really using it in the same context as she does, I think the phrase still applies to what I was feeling tonight. As I heard the familiar theme song tonight, it was like "bing!" and my mind immediately went to Cheree and my memory of her insisting that we take a study break to watch the show. And then I heard the theme song again and it was like "bing!" and my mind wandered back to the first time that I ever saw a season finale for the show. We had just arrived at one of the Vegas hotels on our post-grad school trip and Cheree had insisted that we watch the finale in our hotel room before we went to get dinner. Isn't life interesting? All of our experiences either touch a neuron and connect us to our memories or they are neurons waiting to be touched in the future.

On a side note, I really rooting for Lakisha and Melinda.

Resurrection

2007-03-06T08:40:00.000-10:00

[Side note: I changed the look of my blog, but now my archive list is screwy. The year for the blogs is wrong. It says that I wrote it a year and a month before I actually did. So...2005=2006, 2006=2007, January=February, February=March. Don't know what's going on, hopefully it'll be fixed soon.]

After months of silence, I'm back. Not sure where I went to, but back I am. Oddly enough, I'm resurrecting my blog because I am currently unable to comfortably talk. I've been sick for more than a week and although I'm feeling better, my asthma's acting up. So now I can't talk without coughing. Ha, ha, a speech pathologist that can't talk. Anyhow, I'm taking 1/2 day since I do need to go in this afternoon.

A lot has happened since my last blog. A lot of frustration and anger, but a lot of good as well. The good has far outweighed the bad. There were times where I wanted to rip my hair out, but through it all I knew it would all work out in the end. I'm a fairly cynical person, but I do believe that things do have a way of working themselves out and that things happen for a reason. Life continues to reaffirm this belief.

Anywho, the last time I posted, I promised pictures from Seattle. Seattle was a long time ago but here's a couple of pictures anyway.

There's No Place Like Home

2006-09-04T22:05:00.000-10:00

What a crazy couple of weeks. I enjoy traveling and all, but it's good to be home and it's nice knowing that I'll be staying put for a few months. Mid-August took me to Kathleen's wedding and to Seattle for a week. I was home for a week and then was off to Kyle's wedding and to Maui. Fall break is in a few weeks and I have big plans for it. Thankfully, none of my break plans involve an airplane.

Pictures? I'll get to it. I have a lot of pictures from Seattle and not too much from Maui. The weddings were quite different, but they were both totally worth the trip. Mijares...uh...Balagtas' ceremony was the longest that I've been to and Kyle's was by far the shortest. Picture/trip posting will have to wait as I sense that I am in a kind of rambling kind of mood. I'll save it for when my brain returns from wherever it happens to be right now.

Need to shower, check on Lance, and knit before bed. Over and out.

Procrastination

2006-08-16T23:34:00.000-10:00

[Note: This picture has absolutely nothing to do with tonight's blog, although I'm sure I could center my rambling's on the pair of socks that I completed last spring. They were the first pair of what I hope will be many more to come. See, I told you I could write about my sock and I could go on, but I'll spare you. Anyway, the sock's making an appearance because I felt like having a picture to accompany the blog. However, I didn't have an appropriate picture and decided to take the opportunity to show off my sock. Sorry, back to the blog.]

So when I first switched to blogging on Blogger after a few years with Xanga (and a few good months of regular blogging), I noticed that I was having a difficult time blogging regularly. My blogging was sporadic, at best. At the time, I speculated that my inconsistent blogging was due to one of two reasons:
1) I had begun to associate the computer with being at work and therefore did not want to turn on the computer at home, or
2) I had really been using blogging as a way to avoid studying during grad school and now that I had graduated, I didn't have anything to avoid so I therefore didn't blog.
Well, tonight I discovered the answer to that question. My sporadic blogging was due to Reason Number 2. When I was consistent with blogging, I was really just avoiding the unpleasantness of studying. I was procrastinating. And since after grad school I didn't have anything to put off, I didn't blog.

So how did I come to this conclusion? Because as I write this, I'm supposed to be writing a letter of recommendation. My evening was filled with laundry, cooking, and packing, and I'm bloody tired and would love to go to bed, especially since tomorrow's gonna be a doozy. So am I being responsible and writing the letter? No. I'm having a difficult time with it, to be honest. It's not like I don't want to recommend the person that I'm writing the letter for. It's just that I'm a little stuck right now. And what was the first thing I thought of (other than "Dear god, I'd love to go to bed.")? I thought, "I know! I'll blog!" So tonight's blog is brought to you by our dear friend and enemy, Procrastination.

Y'know, my sophomore year in high school my english teacher kept harping about the honors kids being procrasinators...what a pain...crap, it's almost midnight...

Not Phallic

2006-08-12T10:21:00.000-10:00

Yes, the ginormous jar of pickles has returned to my house. All hail Costco! I love these pickles, they're so large and juicy and yummy. And this huge jar is actually cheaper than some of the smaller jars. Granted, some of those smaller jars are worth the price. For instance, Vlasic has some deliciously spicy pickles. However, there are also a bunch out there that my pickle critical taste buds find inferior to the yumminess of this large jar from Farman's. This jar has actually been sitting on my shelf for quite awhile. I told myself that I was not allowed to enjoy these pickles until I finished the two jars of not so scrumptious Safeway pickles that I bought when my husband suggested that my big pickle jar took up too much space in the fridge. I didn't want to buy the Safeway pickles, but for some reason I just couldn't find any other pickles when I was at Safeway that day. Anyway, so it took me awhile to finish those Safeway pickles, because they just weren't yummy enough to eat as a snack so I actually had to pair them up with a pickle friendly meal (i.e. a sandwich). It also didn't help that I was secretly purchasing the Big Papa whenever Safeway had them in stock. But yes, I finally finished the Safeway pickles and now my Farman's Home Style Kosher Dills are hanging out in my fridge until one by one they are plucked out of the jar and onto my plate. In fact, I think I'll have one right now...

And yes, I did find that the return of the big pickle jar to my fridge was exciting and important enough to blog. :)

The Last Day

2006-07-24T10:25:00.000-10:00

I have sad news to report. Very sad news. Today is my last day of summer vacation. The kids don't come back until Friday, but I return tomorrow. Where did my vacation go? It went by so quickly. I didn't do nearly as many things as I wanted to do. In fact, what did I do? Oh yeah...I worked. Yes, I worked during my vacation. Does anyone else see how wrong that statement is? It's like being back in high school and having evil AP teachers assigning huge massive projects to do over the break. One year, my class walked into our AP history classroom to see "Vacation Homework" written on the board with several time consuming junk for us to do. We tried to point out to our teacher the oxymoron behind "Vacation Homework." She laughed long and hard. Anyway, I digress. I worked this summer and worked and worked and worked. Why did I work? Long story short -- I'm a damn fool. I covered for three (well, four if you count me) speech pathologists and for some reason every single family in my school's district decided to refer their kids over the summer.

Nah, I guess my summer wasn't so bad, well other than I didn't really have any days off. I did have most afternoons off to play with Lance. And there were some fun things this summer. Joseph got married and now he has someone to keep him in line. Oh, the picture is from the wedding. The pictures that I tried to take of Joe and Rahel during the reception and stuff didn't come out. Anyway, so that was one fun thing this summer. Oh, and Girls' Night was fun. We just made yummy pizzas and talked but it was quality girl time with none of those troublesome boys around.

Anyway, now the summer's almost over. I'm spending my last day off with Lance. We're going to the movies, Wal-Mart, and the library. And then it's back to school tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to going back, but I am excited to see what the new year will bring. We have a lot of new teachers and I'll, of course, have new students. Oh and Matt will be a part of my complex this year so that should be fun. I also noticed that work was more fun last year than my first year so hopefully it'll be even more fun this year. I think it's because I more or less know what I'm doing, I'm comfortable with the people that I work with, and I've finally discovered the secret to therapy. Although it is important that the kids have fun and that they learn during therapy sessions, it's just as important that I have fun, too. So I feel like playing Go Fish, then we're playing Go Fish.

Here we go again...

The Library

2006-07-07T11:46:00.000-10:00

I love the library. The people who invented the public library system are genuises. A system that allows people of all socioeconomic classes access to books, music, movies, and even the internet for free? Brilliant.

While I was waiting for a librarian to find my CDs and books earlier this week, I entertained myself by watching a mother and her two young children. She was inquiring about getting a library card for her son and the librarian who was helping her explained that her son couldn't get a card until he was able to write his full name on the card. He was able to write his first name but couldn't yet write his last name so he didn't get a card that day, but watching them brought back memories of my first library card.

My parents introduced me to the library at a young age. I spent many days in the cool, air conditioned building with my parents, looking for books to take home. I really wanted my own library card so I learned to write my name for the sole purpose of getting my library card. My dad taught me and I practiced and practiced. As soon as I was able to write my name in the little box on the card, I went to the library and happily received my own green card to borrow books on. I was still really young, so all of the letters on the card were really shaky and not at all straight. And while I was able to write the letters of my name, many of them were formed incorrectly -- the "a" was formed with a circle and a line that weren't quite connected and the "n" didn't have the initial line, just the curvy part. I even put a hyphen between my first and last names. The red library card came out when I was a teenager. As I signed my name in grown up cursive, I was really sad. Luckily the librarian let me keep my old, green card and I still have it in my room at my mom's house.

Woo hoo!

2006-07-05T22:38:00.000-10:00

Look what came in the mail today! Woo hoo! I was hoping that it'd come when Lance was gone because I knew I'd need a pick me up to get me through the week. I just ordered it on Friday and it's already here. Yea!

The Power of the Ring

2006-06-29T21:37:00.000-10:00

Over the years, I think I've been fairly tolerant and open to Lance's interests. I've played basketball with him, went hiking and geocaching with him, and have embraced his video games. And while I've been open and willing to participate in his interests, the one thing that I haven't taken a liking to is ESPN Radio. I'll watch sports with him and I'll be interested enough in it to ask questions, but I just have not understood the fascination with ESPN Radio. Why in the world would you want to listen to bunch of men (there really aren't that many women on this station, I've noticed) pratter on endlessly about sports? Why in the world would you want to analyze a player's performance and then argue about it for hours on end? When Lance turns it on, I usually protest. Since he's generally the one driving, I generally lose the battle and am forced to listen to babble. I try my best to tune it out, but sometimes it seeps in and I feel like I'm being tortured. It is perhaps the one thing that we have an ongoing "discussion" about.

Now a few months ago, Lance left a copy of his ESPN Magazine on the couch. We were about to go out and I was sitting on the couch waiting for him. Bored, I picked up his magazine and started flipping through it. I came across an article promoting Michael Greenburg's book. Now for those of you fortunate enough to not know this, Michael Greenburg is the co-host of the popular morning ESPN radio show, Mike and Mike in the Morning. Remembering that Lance used to listen to this show years ago when he was up studying at midnight (it airs from the East Coast), I decided to read the article. I am ashamed to admit that I was entertained by the article. A few days later, Lance and I were browsing in Borders and he decided to go look for the book. Thrilled that Lance wanted to read a book, I bought it. We came home and over the next few days I was amused at the sight of my husband reading, laughing, and (I kid you not) tabbing funny portions of the book. I was also a little jealous. That stupid article was really funny and I really wanted to read the book. I eventually got my chance at the book and am sad to report that I really enjoyed it.

It was also around this time that Lance discovered that podcasts for Mike and Mike in the morning were being posted on the ESPN website right before he left for work in the morning. He got really excited and began downloading the podcasts to listen on the drive to and from work. One day he came home, excited to share a portion of the broadcast that he thought I'd enjoy. I listened to it and couldn't stop myself from laughing. Was it possible that I actually enjoyed a program on ESPN Radio? It was a fluke.

Now that it's summer, Lance has been staying up later and listening to the first part of Mike and Mike in the morning. Some nights I'm up with him (I'd be up with him more if I wasn't working ESY but that's a blog to save for later), so I listen to it with him. And gosh darn it, I enjoy it. A lot of times I don't know what they're talking about so I have to ask Lance but darnnit, I like listening to it.

For the last few months, I've suspected that my wedding ring has magical powers and is brainwashing me into believing that sports are fantastic. Now don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed casually watching sports in the past. However, my interest has generally been limited to UH sports and to whatever Lance was making me watch at the time. But this morning I actually contemplated downloading Mike and Mike in the Morning to listen to at work. Somebody help me, the Ring is brainwashing me. Over the past year and a half it has convinced me that not all Jack in the Box food is disgusting and that some video games are worthy of being obsessed over. And I've been alright with that. But now it has gone too far. It is conspiring with Lance to trick me into thinking that ESPN Radio is something to be listened to instead of something to be turned off. The only way to combat its powers is to summon all of my k*spiciness. Where are my knitting needles?

My First Sweater

2006-06-27T22:52:00.000-10:00

Okay, so it has no sleeves. Alright, it's not a sweater. It's a tank top. But I'm calling it a sweater b/c anything that's knit is a sweater in my head and calling it a sweater makes me feel accomplished. Anyway, the purple tank top is finally done! Hurray! I've been working on this sweater off and on for a little under a year. It would've been done sooner, but other projects kept calling out to me. In between starting the sweater and finishing it, I think I finished three hats, three scarves, and a pair of socks. Is that it? Oh, and

I'm also deep in the middle of Lance's blanket and I was (I just finished yesterday) at the tail end of a fourth scarf. I think that's it...

Anyway, after finishing the sweater, I immediately put it on and danced around the house. The bloody hot house in the bloody hot sweater. I thought I was smart for choosing to knit a tank top b/c I figured that it'd be cool since it's a tank top and it has no sleeves. I failed to account for the thick yarn. Good grief. Wearing a sweater in Hawaii in the summer when it's humid b/c it's gonna rain is a bad, bad idea. Dancing around in it is an even stupidier idea. Anyway, I'm telling you this to account for the (ahem) horrendous picture of me. Also, my photographer was not focusing on taking the picture b/c he was too busy thinking that he married a crazy person. Oh and he was busy thinking about how he was gonna imitate my happy knitting dance when we went to Popo's the next night. He got rave reviews from the relatives. I sometimes suspect that he's just using me as material for a future stand up comedy act.

Finally

2006-05-26T18:09:00.000-10:00

Okay, okay, I'm sorry. That was a long time of blog neglect. I finally posted the second day of our DC/Penn trip. I kept doing it in parts so I actually started the blog a long time ago. I posted the pictures on April 1, which is why the date for that blog is April 1. Whoops. :)

I'm sad to report that our desktop has fizzed out. We lost everything, including all of our pictures that we hadn't had the chance to print out which were, sadly, most of them. Anyway, that's it for the trip posting, I guess, until Lance takes our computer to someone to see if we can retrieve our pictures. That's his summer homework.

DC and Penn: Day Two

2006-04-01T08:04:00.000-10:00

Day 2 started way too early in the morning with breakfast at 6:45. We were on the road by 7:30 and started our day by sitting in traffic. Traffic into DC from Maryland was not so fun, but I passed the time by sleeping. Thankfully, I didn't miss too much, as the scenery was not great. It was weird to see so many trees without their leaves. Where was spring? Lance took this beautiful picture of the Washington Memorial. We saw this memorial so many times during the trip, but oddly enough we didn't actually visit it. Oh, an interesting bit of information about the Washington Memorial: The Masons started building the Washington Memorial, but they ran out of money about a third of the way into it. The government took over and you can actually see the point on the memorial when the building of it changed hands.