hrm

So the check in with the Dr went well. She reminded me of some things I already know, and she knows I know, but I don't know why I haven't been doing them. Refined a few points. I forgot to ask some questions (which always seems to happen to me in Dr offices! I just blank!) but nothing that I came away with feeling urgent about. And my cranky mood of the few days previous really lifted after. Go figure.

.5lbs and I will hit the 25lbs lost mark. That's exciting. I'm getting back clothes I haven't worn in a few years, also exciting. I sort of got rid of a bunch of stuff in the past year that I didn't really think I'd wear again, and I'm suddenly wishing I still had. Really only a few things though. I was pretty good about evaluating if I really liked the items even when they did fit, and only hanging on to stuff I actually liked.

Still have a few ups and downs, but generally better.

Thought I was going to get a raise at one of my jobs and found out that I'm already being paid at the rate they wanted to raise me to! ha! I really thought I was getting less but it must just be the stuff they have to withhold. I'm glad they thought I was worth it, and they did say they would try to bring it up later if they can.

Did find out that the money situation at my other job is actually better than I thought and everyone involved was happy about that, so good deal there.

Bought a hip-hop exercise video to try out at home. It was $9 so I figure even if I only ever do it 3 times I will have gotten my money's worth since it's $4 to go to the gym. Tried it out the other day and had fun even though I felt a bit like a doofus and the rug was slipping around. Next time I will roll up the rug, and having done the moves once, they should be easier. And in any case I broke a sweat and enjoyed myself which are really my main personal requirements for exercise these days.

I CANNOT WAIT until it's warm and dry enough to do stuff outside like walk and bike!! The time is approaching! The snow has melted and that teeny, tiny bit of green is creeping up through the dead grass.

Did some lovely work with my mom on ancestors. Learned a lot there, and we'll do more in the coming weeks.

Repotted a bunch of houseplants and they are SO happy! New leaves already!

Brother has started putting cardboard out in the garden to keep the weeds/grass from growing up, hopefully sparing us some digging/tilling headaches. We'll need to start our seeds soon!

Realizing I need to try and sort out my summer plans pretty soon here. Funds are in serious short supply and as a caretaker I don't take leaving the person who needs my help lightly! Plus since I don't have any paid vacation, when I don't work, I'm not only spending money, I'm missing out on making it. (A neglected fact that slightly tripped us up after Peru, sigh.)

Found out today a cousin in CA is getting married in May. Have known for a while that one of my best friends from college is graduating in May in Portland, which will also be the time when the other girls (who can) from that group will gather. Best friend since grade school is getting married in August and I am IN that wedding, which beautifully dovetails both time and location-wise with my trip to Song School in CO. At least 3 if not 5 of my family are going to the CO wedding. Not sure who can afford what and how long everyone can stay, and the cabins we're suggested to rent require a 4 night minimum. And then I'm staying for an extra week after that for Song School and Folks Fest. So yes, transportation, lodging, logistics, people to cover for me while I'm gone all need to be figured out. Ay yi yi.

Have a few writing projects that I volunteered for, plus homework still to catch up on. All of it at once is kind of freaking me out and leading to procrastination. argh. Nothing new, just nerve-wracking since now it's not only me who wants the things done but others as well! eek! And some of it is to promote shows coming through, people I'm sort of sponsoring/supporting and I really want the shows to be successful! And I know I'll feel so personally responsible if they're not! wahhh.

Deep breath, time to sleep.

oh crap... daylight savings. what time is it really now? yikes. I WAS doing better with bedtime for a couple days there.

Peru Slideshow

Peru was amazing. So many, many things, I think I am still processing. It was not your typical tourist trip, our guide took us to many spiritually/energetically significant places, little power points within the ruins and temples that are crawling with tourists. Many of those points were also documented scientifically with little round metal plates. I wish I remembered what those were called, maybe I will later. But it's like, "oh, I'm walking around a bunch of old rocks, how did they get them to stick together like that?" and then suddenly, "Whoa, I feel something when I stand in front of this one..." Stuff like that. Wild. Machu Picchu had a deja vu type feeling of returning, when clearly I haven't been there before in this lifetime.

Here is a slideshow of some pictures from Peru. Believe it or not, this is only part of what we did, I have more that I haven't taken off my camera and I really did try to just pick the best pictures, there was just so much!!! But it's plenty enough to start with and that way maybe it won't be enormously overwhelming to look at everything in one go.




Here is a link to see it big: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hum97/sets/72157622929256804/show/

Or if you click through on flickr you'll see the titles and descriptions, although I put in a bunch that didn't save for some reason and I was so cranky about that I didn't do it over, maybe later:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hum97/sets/72157622929256804/

Half-assed Catch Up

Cuz I don't have time for a proper post, exerpts from a letter to the girls:


Talking about the economy and tenuous jobs
I think a big thing is to be practical and realistic while not buying into the fear and freak out that so many are feeling. I know some people have doubts about Obama being able to fix everything that's gone so wrong, but I think the positive attitude he instills alone is a huge benefit to the country to pull people in the right direction. I also love that it's not just a mood-making attitude, it's a "there's hard work to be done and WE have to do it, but we CAN do it, so let's stop complaining and take action." thing. Seems healthy, grounded and productive. And all the things he has already done seem to show he's walking his talk.

Hawaii was awesome and nourishing. I really wanted to see dolphins but our last two days there the waves were REALLY choppy so we weren't able to go to the places where they usually swim.

Coming home to birthday celebrations, a radio show and to add a mess of suitcases to the mess we left behind (both literally and just a long to-do list) and the jet lag has been overwhelming. I don't actually feel bad or groggy, but my schedule is still somewhat on Hawaii time especially since I don't have a job to get up for in the morning.

As usual, I have some Christmas present ideas that I haven't been able to work on yet. So we'll see how long that takes.

I started taking a 12 week Lyric Writing class online while in Hawaii. It's pretty amazing to learn the techniques, but the class takes a lot of time as we are expected to write something every day (no more than 1/2 of writing) AND our grade is also dependant on reading our classmates work and commenting on it as well. I'm excited to see what comes out of the class though, I feel like it could be really powerful.

The Saga of the Teeth

(Excerpt from a letter to the girls)

Apologies to everyone if I'm slacking in responses and also Christmas-y type stuff in general. This end of work wrap-up is taking so much out of me! Just yesterday I was on the phone crying to my mom because usually Christmas is one of my favorite times of year and this year I just don't have the energy to do everything I usually love to do. She encouraged me to look at the stuff I usually do and see if I can do a less intensive version of them or something. G said today we'd work on finally unpacking from our Thanksgiving trip so we can get a tree, I think that will help a lot.

Our last day at the office is the 21st, and I'm taking the week of Christmas off, so maybe then I'll have some time to do more, even if it's after Christmas, although I may spend a lot of time sleeping, which is what has been happening on my weekends!

I just got NINE cavities filled in 2 days!!! My friend at work encouraged me to use my dental insurance before it ran out on Dec 31st. The closest dentist to take our insurance plan is in Ottumwa. So I went in for a cleaning and found out I needed a lot of fillings. Unfortunately, they did not have any openings until January, so I asked them to put me on the list to call if there were any cancellations. Then we had an ice storm and lots of people were canceling! The big roads to get to Ottumwa were pretty clear, but people were iced into their driveways and such. So I got 3 done one day, and the the next day I went back for 3 more. They said they'd been having a lot of no-shows, so they could probably just keep going and finish up the rest if I wanted. So I spent from about 2:30 - 4:45 in the dentist chair, and had 3 sides of my mouth numbed and 6 cavities filled. argh. But at least it's done. Except I'm a little worried about my bite, when I first got home the left side was hitting before the right side. A couple days later it seems to be settling, so maybe my jaw just had to get back to normal after being cranked open for so long... If anyone has any tips for recovering from the stress of dental work, I'm all ears!

Blogging from Dublin - New Travel Blog

Our Days Inn had internet access, hooray!

I've started a travel blog for my two week journey, check it out here: http://celtichum.blogspot.com/

Very stream of consciousness, so forgive the roughness, but I thought it was better to just get it down than to lose it all together.

I feel like I'm getting away with something...

So the payoff to the whole daylight-savings, tired at work, hungry at the wrong times, couldn't fall asleep last night even though I was really tired and tried to go early so I'd get my full 8 hours thing is - leaving work when it's still super light out!!!

I totally felt like I'd escaped early or something, and had to remind myself that just because it was light like it was 4 in the afternoon, it did not mean that several local places I might want to go check out were actually open - they were in fact closed as it was already 5:30pm. But wow. It felt pretty awesome. Like I had a day left ahead of me to DO stuff, especially cuz I already did my swimming in the morning. Whoo-hoo! I mean, here it is almost 7:30 and there's pretty pink sunset clouds out out the west window still! Thank goodness!

In other good news, I finally got my external hard drive, which means I now have plenty of space on my laptop for recording songs and adding new pictures and the like. Stuff I've had to put off for a while. Although I still need to figure out what I want to put back ON my laptop. For example ALL my music is currently on the hard drive, which means I have nothing to listen to over here in the other room where I am not currently connected to the hard drive. Small price to pay though! :) Kudos to my techie husband who made sure that all my stuff was backed up to CD and formatted the hard drive and re-installed Mac OSX for me! I probably could have done most of it on my own, but it would have taken a LOT more time and tears and research, so I am eternally grateful!

He also got his travel visa to go to the UK, so now I can stop trying not to get excited about the trip and start realizing that it can happen and get planning! Which includes asking for time off work. eeps. If I do it now it should be enough notice. Things have been going pretty smoothly, so I don't think it will be a problem.

This place is awesome

Huge windows all looking out on to the ocean, palm trees, cutesy shops in their downtown. They even had an Art Walk last night!! It was wild to see all the same elements of ours, but with the local flavors/laws of nature. I bet Stacey H got the idea for ours somewhere out here...

So good to cook and eat together, just chat and catch up, do the occasional artsy type project, and just generally have no schedule! wheeeeeeeee!

Oh, and I keep seeing all the plants that we sell pictures of for work, for reals. And I have to admit, seeing my friends last night in the moonlight on the beach, I suddenly saw the appeal of Vettriano's beach-y dancing scenes...

On my way!

Had dinner at my cousin's, watched a little TV, heard stories about the animals. Have to get up hella early. Need to re-pack stuff so it fits in the right places... Sigh. So excited though! I was all silly at work today. Luckily I didn't have any super nusty big projects to finish, so I didn't really have that stress hanging over my head!

Trying to decide if I should take a shower now or tomorrow. Gotta leave around 5:20am. argh. I don't sleep well on planes either. Ah well. It'll be good.

Better go re-pack.