Ahh...change

Well, what an eventful week is has been. I can't even express how excited I am about the next four years in this country. I hope that President-elect Obama will be able to continue to inspire people the way he did during his campaign. I'm also very glad that the election was uneventful. No replay of the 2000 election or anything. I was a supply judge for my local precinct. That meant I was an election judge, but sort of the judge in charge. Overall it was pretty uneventful. Most people in Colorado had either voted by mail or voted early, so we didn't have a lot of turn out at the polls. That was nice. No one had to wait in line and we had very few problems. Though first thing in the morning there was an altercation between a poll checker and a security guard. It was so ridiculous. Why can't we all just get along? I don't understand why people have to be negative about things. I've felt this way a lot in the last few days as I read friends' and family's negative comments about Obama winning. Regardless of who won, we're going to have to work together to get anywhere and a negative attitude isn't going to help anything. Anyway, I'll get off of my soap box now and get back to my regularly schedule blogging. :) 

Reading: Well, because we had such a slow election day, I was able to get a couple of books finished. I finished Paula, by Isabel Allende. I always love her writing. It is just so beautiful, lyrical and real. It sounds like she's sitting next to you telling you a story. This book was no differnt. The story of it is quite sad. Allende's daughter, Paula, has fallen into a coma because of a rare illness and Allende write the book as a letter to her daughter so "she doesn't feel lost when she wakes up." It's a beautiful story of Allende's life and a really gripping account of South American history, which many of us American's don't know much about. The poignency of Allende finally coming to terms with her daughter's condition is heart-wrenching and the love of their family will make anyone want to be an Allende. Truely beautiful, as always. 

I also finished Warrior of the Light, by Paulo Coelho. Coelho is so inspiring and I usually feel as if I'm not quite getting to the depths of his novels. I enjoyed Warrior very much, but feel like I'll need to read it again and again before the deep meaning really sinks into my life. Given it's format, short one page stories and reflections, I believe that it would be a good book to read just one page a day and really meditate on the meaning of Coelho's words in my life. Sometimes I feel like my brain just isn't quite ready to learn things. Still, a lovely book. 

So, I'm currently in a bit of limbo with my books. I've been keeping a more "spiritual" book on the shelf to read as well as something that I think can help me with my writing. I've picked upOpen Mind, Open Heart, by Thomas Keating as my "spiritual" book. I've been taking a contemplative prayer class at church, and this is the book that goes with it. However, I'm not sure what to read next for my other book. I had started Catch-22 quite a while ago, but haven't been able to bring myself back to it yet, and I don't know if it would be a good influence on my writing right now. We'll have to see. I'd like to read something that I think my own book would sit in the shelf next to... not sure what that is though. 

Writing: Well... the writing has actually been going much better. As I said earlier, I signed up to do NaNoWriMo. I'm currently behind in my word count, (I'm not counting anything that I wrote before Nov 1st) but it is coming along and the pressure of churning out 50,000 words in a month has helped me somewhat to let go of the perfection that I had been seeking. I can't say that what I've been writing is any kind of good, but it's at least out and on the page. I figure I just need to get a first draft done and then I can go back and spend years revising. :) At some point I might get the courage to post bits of the novel here, but we'll have to see. 

Knitting: Well, somthing has to fall of the deep end doesn't it? I haven't been knitting much at all. I worked on my pink prayer shawl some on Tuesday and Wednesday, but just haven't been motivated. Andrew's socks are still confounding me. I think I might have to frog them and start over. It's justnot working to try to double the bottom of the sock. The Mystery Shawl 4, which I now know all the clues to, is also still languishing in the bottom of my knitting bad. I just haven' t had the attention span to work with lace and beads. I'm also working on an angora scarf, which I'm starting to think may be completely impractical as it sheds ridiculously and I think I'll have bunny fur up my nose constantly. We shall see though. I have a deep hankering to make myself a sweater, but am not sure that I have the time or money to currently contribute to such a project. I also don't want to get into more startitis than I already have. I don't need 12 million projects on the  needeles sitting unfinished. I need to get some done before I start any more. 

Panic: I did have some close call panic attacks on Tuesday morning. I was so worried that something was going to go tragically wrong with the election and it would some how be my fault. All went smoothly, except the checker/gaurd thing, and the outcome makes me happy as well. So, it hasn't been too panicky a week. I did get an email from an old professor asking if I would be interesting in applying for an elementary literacy coach job. Not sure how I feel about that. I don't know if I really want to go back to teaching. But I decided that I'd inqure about the application process and see where we go from there. I haven't heard back from anyone yet, so maybe I won't have to worry about making a decision at all. :) The job front still sucks though. Maybe some day someone will call me back. I just keep trying to have faith that everything will work out in the end and that it all happens for a reason... sometimes it's just so hard to keep trekking through the dark though. :/

Voting

Well, at least it's every other day... or just less than a month in between posts for now. :) Here's the current status.

Reading: Not much has changed here. I actually haven't read anything since Monday. Special, I know. I have bene sick, which means that my normal before bed reading hasn't happened because I've been so tired. I also haven't been reading because I've been staying up late with Andrew while he works on his Halloween costume. It's turned into quite the project. I really have no good excuses though. I did however, just sign up to be a reviewer for Thomas Nelson. Basically you sign up, choose a book and they send you a preview copy. You agree to review the book (at least 200 words) on your blog and on Amazon. Fine by me. :) I think it should be an interesting project if nothing else. My first book, In the Shadow of the Sun King, by Golden Keyes Parsons, is on it's way. I have hopes that it will be good. I'd rather not write a bad review for my first one. 

Writing: Mmmm... yes, much the same as the reading. I've done nothing. I might be able to get something in today, but I just don't currently have the inspiration. I'm still trying to decide between continuing work on the current book or starting a new one for NaNoWriMo. We'll see... I'm just not feeling inspired or motivated recently. I'm hoping that some WriMo pressure might help, but I have my doubts. 

Knitting: Haven't been knitting either. I know... seriously. What have I been doing? Cleaning the house mostly and running errands. I don't understand how I can have "all the time in the world" to do things, and still not get anything done. I did buy some more shawl yarn at Walmart yesterday though. Not that I need any more yarn for shawls, but it was all on sale and I can never pass up a good sale. 

Panic: Well.. I'm actually feeling less anxious than usual today. And I VOTED! Yay! I still need to go turn in my ballot (it's a mail-in) but I figure I can do that tomorrow. I have to go to the cleark and recorder anyway to get some extra training since I am now not just an election judge, but a supply judge. Yeah, that means I'm in charge at the precinct. Honestly... that just seems like a bad idea, but we'll see. 

Voting did take forever though. I did actually read the blue book and do some research on all the issues, which definitely added time, but the ballot is huge! I STRONGLY encourage everyone to either vote early or by mail so you don't have to be stuck in line on election day. Filling out these ballots is going to take a while. And if you do vote on Election Day, please review your ballot beforehand (you can find them online) and bring a cheat-sheet so it doesn't take you forever to read everything. 

Anyway, that is all for now... I think I might go take a nap. To the rest of you-- GO VOTE!!!!!

back again...

Well, it's been a while, as usual. I've determined that what holds me back from blogging the most is that I never have pictures to post. I always have the intention of taking lots of pictures of my knitting and other things, but I just never get around to it. So, I've decided that I'll just write my posts as they are sans photos. I doubt anyone will notice.

So, at any rate. The blog... in order. :)

Reading: I've been bouncing between a lot of novels. Paula, by Isabel Allende and Warrior of the Light, by Paulo Coelho mostly. Diary of Anais Ninn, A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, and Catch-22 are all still sitting on the bedside shelf. Someday I might get back to them, we'll have to see. I've really enjoyed Paula so far. That book has been me trying to immerse myself int he idea of a memoir. I had hoped that it would help me with my own novel; give me some inspiration. You'll see how well that's turned out in the writing section. Allende's writing is, as always, amazing however and the stories in the novel are simply stunning.

Writing: Well, on the good side, I am an officially published author now. I had an article published in a local magazine. Got paid for it even! So that was fantastic. I have another article coming out in the same magazine in November and hopefully a third in December. So, my non-fiction writing career is getting some feet I suppose. The fiction side however... well, I'm in a bit of a rut. I've just been really struggling with finding the motivation to work on my novel. I keep getting parts of it written, but none of it seems to be flowing and I get stuck very easily. It's definitely been hard. I did sign up for NaNoWriMo but I'm not sure if I want to continue working on my current novel (which would sort of be cheating) or if I want to start a new one to finish in November. We'll have to see. I guess I have a few days to decide. Part of me thinks I might need a break from my current book, but I don't want to get distracted and not finish the stupid thing. Decisions, decisions.

Knitting: Lots of things on the knitting front. I finished a pair of socks- Wendy Knits' Cabletini, My So-Called Scarf (which is AWESOME!) a couple of mini-sock ornaments for the "Creepy Christmas" Halloween party that our friends are having this Friday. I'm also still working on Mystery Stole 4-though I know what it looks like. I'm just a little behind on that one. Making some socks for Andrew. He wants a doubled bottom, which is proving to be quite difficult. We'll see if I can make it through those. I finished a pink prayer shawl, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, and am making a second. I'm also working on a lovely ruffled scarf in baby blue angora. It's SO soft! I think I need to actually finish some projects here soon, rather than continually starting them. ;)

Panic: Oh... so much going on in life in general. I'm not sure how my days are so busy. I still don't have a job, haven't been writing much, and yet there still aren't enough hours in the day. Whatever. I'm ready for the election to be over. I'm sick of nasty political ads. Though if Obama doesn't win, I'm not really sure how I'll feel about the future of our nation. I'll be an election judge for the election and I hope that goes smoothly.
I've been subbing more, which in general is nice. It's definitely nice to not have to plan, grade and deal with parents. I would still rather have a steady paycheck, but we'll have to see how it turns out. I'm still holding out that I'll be published and making millions by next summer. I can dream right?
In other news, we got a cat. He's a lynx point Himalayan- or at least a mix of something quite like that. We got him at our local Petsmart. They bring in cats from overcrowded shelters. He's pretty freaking adorable. Really sweet, loving and pretty independent.
Otherwise... life has been going on. I'm sick as all get out this week and feeling like crap. Less motivation to get some writing done... but I have hope. Maybe NaNoWriMo will inspire me. Until then...

insanity...

Oy... good thing I decided to stop pursuing jobs as a full time blogger... I would have been fired within a week. Anyway, here's a brief (very brief) reacap of life for the past few weeks.
-school started, I didn't go back. It was great.
-Have been subbing. I like it, but it's a mixed bag. Overall I've come to realize that the public school system is even more screwed than I thought it was.
-Read a bunch... Million Little Pieces, My Invented Country, Three Weeks with My Brother, probably a couple of others I'm forgetting.
-Knit a bunch.. two pairs of socks, working on my third. Finished a prayer shawl. Starting the Mystery Shawl 4 knit-a-long. Pictures later.
-Went to California with Andrew. He worked; I tooled around San Francisco. Took a bay cruise, saw the wharf and the bridge, went to the art museum, saw the City Lights book store, bought yarn at Artfibers and a variety of other things. We went to the Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival. It was meh. We went to Sonoma. It was great. I saw a family friend and went out to Capitola. Quite fun. Pictures later.
-Andrew had PRK... that was... special. Luckily he can see now and my life might be getting back to normal.

Overall, I've felt supremely busy. Not actually getting anything done though. My writing is especially lacking. I will have my first published article coming out in a few days. It's not amazing, but it's published. I've also decided that I will have some form of my book done by the end of the year. 100 days. That's what I've got. I even made myself a chart. :) We shall see. That's the goal at least.
We've been seeing a personal trainer. He's been kicking my ass on a regular basis, but it's good for me.
I'm really hoping that I can take a breath this week and maybe get caught up. Not likely, but it's a nice thought. Until then...

OLYMPICS! and whatever else...

Now, I'll be the first to say that I am a bit of a TV junkie. There isn't much I like more than sitting and watching a good show, or a terribly bad show, but I can usually restrain myself. For the past week however, no such luck. It has been all Olympics all the time around our house. I'm not quite sure what it is about the Olympics that makes them so hard to stop watching, but I just can't quit. I was up until three in the morning last night watching synchronized swimming. Which, by the way, looks ridiculously hard. Loved the pretty suits though.:) I haven't gotten any writing done because I've been completely engrossed with Olympic action. I have knit some- more posts on that to come, but mainly I've been cheering on whoever is on the screen. Gymnastics, swimming (I love Phelps, he seems so nice), rowing, tennis, badminton, diving, synchronized swimming, table tennis, cycling, volleyball- indoor and outdoor, weightlifting, track, dressage, I have watched anything and everything that is on. I LOVE it! Granted, I haven't really slept or cleaned the house or anything else, but it's been worth it. The tremendous human spirit makes me want to cry constantly. Phelps winning number eight; Dara Torres holding up the race so another swimmer could get her suit fixed; any time the national anthem is played. It's so touching. I don't know what it is that makes me so emotional about all of these things, but I can barely keep it together when all of those Morgan Freeman commercials come on, and if it's the one with Bella Caroli- forget it. Tears abound. Anyway, only a few more days of Olympic action and then maybe life can get back to normal. : )

In other news- well there is no other news. :) Schools went back today. I didn't. Which, was alright overall. I'm actually subbing on Wednesday, so I won't be out of the classroom for long. :) I had an interview at an athletic club, but haven't heard anything back from them yet. So we'll have to see. Went to the wedding of a childhood friend last Wednesday. It was nice, quite beautiful and interestingly enough I learned that I used to be baby-sat by the mother-in-law of one of my best friends from Sunset. The world is quite a funny place. Always too small. It was also nice to catch up with some of my mother's old friends. They are all such lovely women.
I finished my sun ray shawl, while being an election judge for the primaries. That was pretty painfully boring, we had about no one show up to vote. Not that they really needed to, they had mail in ballots and only one contested race. I also finished and blocked the 2008 Summer of Socks socks and am working on another Wendy Knits pair. I am thoroughly addicted to her sock patterns. Quick, cute, and just the right amount of effort. I really love tow up socks now too. I don't know if I'll manage to go back to cuff down socks.
If you are a knitter and don't read Wendy's blog- well shame on you. :) And the book.... well I have about four different beginnings now. Two of them may be viable. We'll have to see. I'll be taking them to my writing group this week for some critique.

Anyway, I'm off to have some dinner with friends. My friend Emma is also struggling with finding a job... we're going to commiserate over some margs at the Rio. :)
Until... well... whenever I get back to this.

Oh... and I believe I know who wrote my first and only comment. :) I'll miss you too E.R. maybe I'll get to see you when I sub.

beginnings...

Why is it that starting something is always harder than finishing it? Ugh... again, no posts in a while and this one will be sans pictures. Maybe tomorrow I'll post some of the knitting that I've finished, but right now it's beginnings that are on my mind. I've been struggling for the past couple of weeks with the beginning of my book. Nothing seems to be working right. It originally started with me waking up, but that seemed too cliche, plus it didn't really get the theme of the book going quickly enough, so I wasn't sure if my readers would stick with me. I tried another beginning. It sucked. I'm working on a third one right now (well... I'm actually procrastinating from working on a third one) and I'm not sure if it's going to work or not. I like it better than the first two, but I don't now if it's there yet. It's just so difficult to get the whole thing going. I have the ending planned. It's going to be great. If I can ever get there. I see now why George Lucas started with the last three Star Wars. Beginnings just suck.

In related news, applying for jobs also sucks. I've applied for a ton of jobs, and heard nothing back. Seriously? I'm well educated, hard worker... blah, blah, blah. I can't ever get a call back? I don't know. I just hate being in limbo. I just want things to be set and on their way. Book beginning set...job set... things are so much easier to work with when they're already in motion.

Anyway... I'll stop complaining and go work on my book some more. If anyone wants to employ me, let me know. :) I'm up for just about anything at this point.

Viva Las Vegas

Well, not quite as soon as I'd hoped, but whatever. I just got back from beautiful Las Vegas where Andrew and I were on vacation for our one year (!) anniversary. It was a great trip. I always love Vegas, it's just so... much. We had a great time there, as usual, so here's the recap:

Accommodations: We stayed at the Tropicana Hotel. Now, I like the Trop, it's classic old school Vegas. But, it is old. It's definitely starting to fall apart at the seams a little bit. I've heard rumors that it's going to be torn down soon and rebuilt, but who know. No one can seem to confirm that. The rooms aren't fantastic, and ours smelled like BO sometimes, but overall we don't stay in the room that much and they are super cheap, so it doesn't really matter. The best part of the Tropicana is the pool. They have something like 5 acres of gardens and pool. It is quite fantastic.

Shows: We only got to one show on this trip, but we went to see Penn and Teller. We always go down to the Tickets 4 Tonight place next to the MGM to see what kind of discounted tickets we can get. Penn and Teller was great. I really liked that they showed you how some of the tricks were done. It still amazed me, even when they showed us what was happening. The slight of hand was awesome. Very fun show, and not terribly priced.

Food: My favorite part of Vegas. :) I found out about a day in that I am NOT actually allergic to Gluten, so I went a little hog wild. :) Turns out I should probably still avoid it, but whatever. Vacation food doesn't count right? We rarely got up in time for breakfast, but did make it to the Tropicana's Island Buffet for breaky one morning. It was... well... it was okay. The food wasn't fantastic and there wasn't a whole lot of variety, but they kept the champagne flowing and the omelettes were good.
Lunch- We ate at La Salsa, great food and wicked good margaritas (yard margs nonethless). I think there are a few around. We went to the one by the MGM. We got a coupon from the Tickets 4 Tonight place (apparently they do dinner discounts too) but it wasn't super worth it.
Planet Hollywood at Caesars- totally not worth it. We got a coupon for this place too, but there actually wasn't that much memorabilia and the food wasn't anything exciting. The service was only so-so as well. My one tip here... Andrew had a "LA Lasagna" it was pretty darn good. It's basically lasagna that has been wrapped in an egg roll wrapper and deep fried. Just make it at home... it was delicious.
Pizza at the NYNY- I honestly don't remember the name, but it's in the back corner by the roller coaster and is wicked good.
Sherwood Forest Cafe at the Excalibur- decent enough, nice big burgers and waffle cut fries. Seriously... who doesn't love a waffle cut fry. :)

Dinner- the dinners were for the most part great. We got reservations and some discount coupons (50% off entrees for some of them) through Tickets 4 Tonight. They try to get people into the restaurants either early or late (like 6:30 and before or after 9) but it was worth it for the most part.
Buffet at Mandalay Bay- I don't remember the name, but it was pretty good. Not terribly priced and our server was nice.
Carnival World Buffet at the Rio- This was great. It really is the best buffet on the strip. Granted, I'm not a buffet connoisseur, but it's huge. Lots of great food and endless gelato. Again... who doesn't love gelato?
Pampas at Planet Hollywood. This is a Brazillian Steakhouse, which was great. We did the Rodizio where they just bring you endless meats on swords. Quite good. The sides and salads were decent, but the meat was great. Definitely try the filet mignon, ham and pineapple and the lamb. All fantastic.
Enoteca San Marco at the Venetian- so... I have to temper this review with the fact that we didn't entirely know what we were getting into. When we were at the Tickets 4 Tonight place, the guy just told us this is Mario Batali's restaurant. I thought- sweet, Italian Iron Chef's Restaurant, sign me up. Now, we missed our initial reservation and so had to come back at 9:30- no biggie, we went and had some drinks and didn't worry about it. Well, turns out an Enoteca is basically a wine bar where they use argon gas to preserve wines so they can dole out small pours of expensive wines for people to try. Had we know this, we might have saved our money and really focused on the wine. We didn't know and the $15-45 for a 4 ounce glass of the wines was quite steep. We ended up trying a couple of tastes, 2 ounce pours, but those were still about $13 each. A bit much for a taste. The sommelier, actually I think it was just a steward, was quite unhelpful and a little rude when he realized that we weren't' going to be dropping a few hundred dollars on a bottle of wine. Whatever... our regular waitress was quite nice and I was excited for the food. Overall though, disappointing. Andrew had a Carbonara. It really wasn't great. I had some veal and ricotta meatballs, they were quite good, but not what I expected from Batali's restaurant. Overall it was pretty meh.
However... because we missed our reservation we did find a fantastic Mexican place also at the Venetian. The Taqueria Canonita was FANTASTIC! We had great service (ask for Martin if you go there). Martin recommended some great tequila for our margaritas, and a fantastic appetizer (ceviche). The food and drink was excellent. Andrew did a tasting of some tequila and I had some tequila liquor. It was wonderful Martin ever brought us out a sample of the house made pineapple infused tequila, which was amazing and when we inquired about purchasing a bottle, directed us to the website where we can get the recipe for free. He was so nice and the food was wonderful, so it made up for the ridiculousness over at Enoteca.
Our final dinner was for our anniversary and we went to Les Artistes at the Paris. It was another great meal. John Wayne was our server and he was wonderful, helpful, funny and had an amazing singing voice. We got a great bottle of wine, some foie gras (which was meh) fantastic lobster bisque and wonderful steaks. Plus I had the absolute best chocolate souffle I have ever eaten in my life. It might have been the best dessert ever. Period. Really a wonderful time.

Anyway... that's the quick recap. Oh... and we lost money. :) But who doesn't in Vegas. I got just about no knitting and reading done and absolutely no writing... But tomorrow is another day. :)