Hallo-weenie

For a social misfit, like myself, holidays like Halloween are pretty much a nightmare (no pun intended).  The expectations are to go out, get dressed up and have a jolly good time.  I believe there are only 3 1/2 times in my 32 years (yes....3 1/2...and each one had to do with a boy) that I've accomplished such a feat, and it's quite possible that these were all flukes.  This Halloween is no exception for me.  I am dreading it more and more as the day approaches.  I am without a costume, I am without a solid plan and I am left with a feeling of ... well ... feeling left out.  And there's nothing specific that I am being left out of, but more in general this brings up all of these feelings for me and then everything is just magnified from there.  I can't figure out how such silly days of the year (I put New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July into this same category) can cause me such internal drama.  But they definitely make me feel like a weenie!

Baby Steps

Today, I experienced two forms of baby steps:

The first was when I took my longest walk since my surgery. At a pace that even a tortoise could beat, I marched into the neighborhood and walked just under 1.4 miles. It took me 34 minutes, but I did it. Now, if only I could do this daily, my recovery might be that much more successful.

The second was when I signed up for two different Ed.D. information sessions. The thought has been creeping through my head more frequently in recent years, but over these past few weeks, as I've had plenty of time to sit around and think about my future, I think I've realized that the time is now. And if I want to make this happen for Fall 2011, I need to move. Hopefully a 23 minute mile is fast enough, because clearly that's all I can muster right now.

So, baby steps. Ironically, one of the things I can eat right now while I'm healing is baby food. Maybe this is all connected somehow!

Daylight Makes it Less Scary

So, in the light of day, and after a good night's sleep, I realize that my pumpkin carving skills aren't so bad after all. Maybe there's hope for me yet!

In the Clouds

Last night, I started to go back and add labels to all of my blog posts. I only got through 75 of 250, but I still feel pretty good about the progress. See, I added a label cloud to the bottom of the blog, so now I can see (and you can too) my topic trends. I am saddened to report that I blog a lot about...well...my blog. Seriously?! Of all the things that constantly spin through my head, when I sit down to blog, my blog is what comes to mind? I almost didn't post this rant because I knew I would have to, in good faith, label is 'blog,' only adding to my blogs about the blog. Geez...pathetic much?

The plus side of this little activity is that I've been able to revisit my previous pontifications, which is so interesting for me. There were things I had completely forgotten and some that are still so painful to reread. It's amazing the range of emotions humans are capable of, and particularly those of us who are better able at identifying and being honest about these emotions (at least to our blogger community).

And since the whole reason I started a blog (five long years ago) was to document my travels around the world, this only means my reading will get more exciting from here as I revisit so many exciting places via my rambling.

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight, I learned that I am a terrible pumpkin carver. This is a sad, but true fact about me. AJ came home the other night with two pumpkins as a surprise. Knowing that pumpkin carving is not my forte, I was nervous at first. But when we sat down to carve tonight, I got excited searching for ideas on the internet. I should have known that ideas don't always come to fruition the way you would want them to, but this didn't stop me. Instead, I jumped hands first into mountains of seeds and pumpkin pieces. Sadly, I didn't even get to finish; AJ had to jump in and save me from myself. But, in fairness, I did do at least half of it before I needed saving. And now, both of our pumpkins are displayed in the living room, candles and all! I'm going to work on my skills so that next year I can be more successful. But, in the mean time, it is decided that when I havekids, I am shipping them to Uncle AJ's for Halloween festivities. I think it's best that we leave me in charge of Thanksgiving and Christmas, both of which I know I can rock!

Can you guess who did which pumpkin? I even think AJ's looks like him. Wouldn't you agree?

Creatively Frustrated

I'm obsessed with my blog and its design. Seriously...I watch YouTube videos to teach me techniques using software that I can't teach myself. This is apparently how I am going to spend my medical leave: teaching myself to be an amateur webmaster. I'm not sure if it's working, but I as hell am committed to torturing myself with the project.

Need for Perfection

I'm beginning to question the negative impacts that my need for perfection may have had on my life thus far. For weeks, I've been playing around with the header to this blog. Taking a picture I like, combining it with pretty fonts and clever mirror effects. I have this vision in my head, and I know what I want it to look like, but it has been more difficult than expected to make this happen. And the more problems I have had getting it to look the way I want, the less inspired I have been to write. Why? Well, the only logical answer is because I am crazy. That's right...probably close to certifiable. Because I can't figure out how to create the site that I have in my head (damn my lack of CSS and other programming language skills), I have abandoned a site that has otherwise been quite good to me for many years. And to this, I say, "What?!" It's making me sit here and wonder what else I've walked away from because I couldn't get it to be the "perfect" vision of what I have in my head. See? Crazy.

I Get by With a Little Help From My Friends

AJ: "I just had this mental image of you in a giant hamster wheel with one of those animal drinking bottles. We should have had your mom construct one."

Me: "Well I'm going to shower now. If I promise to march in place and sip from the shower head, does that count?"

AJ: "Yeah...now you're thinking! Just don't swallow any shampoo...unless it's protein enriched."

Still Weighing...

I was just glancing back at some of this year's posts, and came across one from the end of January called, "Weighing a Decision." Ironically, that decision has been made and is full steam ahead, but more relevantly, today I spent a lot of time thinking about support systems. And clearly, back on the day of this original post, I was doing the same. Sometimes it's frightening how eight months can pass and I can still be pondering the same things. But apparently I am. Still pondering...