New Week, New Year, New Me

Sometimes I like to imagine that I actually have the soul of a brooding and cynical artist, and that I would be most at home smoking cigars in a shadowy salon, lamenting the state of the world, and pronouncing my embittered words with a slight French accent.

However, brooding and cynical people do not watch High School Musical and Hairspray in standard and/or extended versions, they do not buy OK! magazine, and they do not make resolutions for self-and-world-improvement every January 1. I have taken great pleasure in all of these activities in the past week, shattering my illusions of melancholy once and for all.

So here are my sunny and optimistic resolutions for 2008:

1. Cook at home more often.
Game Plan: I have compiled a list of my favorite easy meals. I will cycle through the list, except on the rare occasions when I feel like trying something new. I'll grocery shop twice a week, getting groceries for meals no more than three days in advance.

2. Stick to an exercise plan.
Game Plan: Trying lots of different methods of exercise is so 2007. I will walk at least three times a week for muscle development and heart health. I have created a fun Power Playlist on my iPod to motivate me to walk by myself when necessary. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I will attend Pilates class for muscle toning and flexibility.

3. Keep up with grading.
Game Plan: Online gradebook must be up-to-date every Tuesday. This is Stephen's night out, so I can devote as many hours as necessary to keeping this resolution.

4. Develop friendships with co-workers.
Game Plan: Initiate bonding activities outside of school.

5. Purchase good-fitting pair of jeans.
Game Plan: Go shopping regularly. Before outings, remind self that inner beauty is most important. Plan trip to Houston to try on jeans in new stores with fashion consultant Laurashmaura.

6. Be organized.
Game Plan: Never go to sleep with a messy house. Break habit of throwing once-worn clothes across chair in bedroom. Keep kitchen counter clear. Use calendar.

7. Keep resolutions.

Nails Anonymous

While Stephen is back in school and while the primary benefits of my career remain "intangible" (as it was explained to me in my job interview), we've been trying especially hard to keep our frivolous spending to a minimum. I pared down pretty admirably, but ultimately I proved to be the weakest link.

I feel very vain and high-maintenance by admitting this, but this blog has functioned as a public confessional before, so I'll go ahead and spill. As I have perused my credit card statement, looking for places to trim more for next month, there is one very obvious frivolity that I insist on overlooking: regular charges to Escape Nails Spa.

I try to justify this expense: I wait three weeks between visits instead of the recommended ten days. I take myself to the low-grade salon that only charges $15 a visit, subjecting myself to chatter in a language I don't speak and the possibility of nail fungus every time. My current salon is running a 20% off sale until after Christmas. But the fact of the matter is that I can't bear the thought of attending holiday parties and visiting family with my nubby, mangled fingers in their natural state, undisguised by the lovely smooth layer of acrylic and polish. It would be as bad as the classic dream of arriving to class in my underwear.

People have asked me why I don't just stop biting my fingernails, as if it's as simple as a matter of willpower. It's as ludicrous as asking a compulsive gambler why he doesn't just stop playing slots. Nail biting is a harder habit to stop than smoking, because there are no patches. I can't even get rid of all temptation without cutting off my fingers all together, and that would be no good, for then how could I blog?

I can trace my nail biting goes back to a traumatic incident in my childhood--the time my parents made me stop sucking my thumb. Dr. Freud would say I must have experienced some trauma during my oral development phase to have such a strong fixation. (Think what you will about Freud, but this would explain my irrational attraction to the idea of smoking. Besides, Freud was a genius.) But unfortunately for this theory, my childhood was basically trauma-free.

I've tried bitter nail polishes, latex gloves, sheer willpower, self-bribery, band-aids, prayer, and basically every other home remedy I could get my hands on. Nothing works, except putting on fake nails. And that only lasts as long as the nails.

I don't know what my long-term solution will be. For now, my compromise is to keep my nails through the holidays, which happens to be as long as the sale continues at my nail salon. In January I will let them go natural, and I will be hoping for lots of opportunities to wear mittens.

Tag

The Rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog (about their 8 things) and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Disclaimer: Thinking about this assignment made me realize I am not a woman of mystery. Most of these facts won't come as a surprise to anyone.

1. In case you haven't noticed, I am extremely paranoid. Last night we went to the movies and there were some noisy people sitting behind me. I got all freaked out thinking about how if they got really peeved at me, they could probably take a belt or a strong scarf and strangle me before anyone in the loud, dark, theater noticed. Needless to say, I did not turn around and shush them. (It didn't help that we were watching Live Free or Die Hard, which was full of innovative killing techniques.) Speaking of movie theater paranoia, I also try never to lean back against the seat, out of fear of contracting lice. And I always worry that I'm going to sit on a needle that has been infected with HIV.

2. I hate birds. I do not find their chirping to be melodious or pleasant; Cinderella is totally misleading about nature.

3. One time my friend Abbey told me that the last drink out of a can or bottle is backwash. So I never drink anything down to the bottom. Usually I leave about four drinks, just to be sure.

4. I love to wear bangs because they help to minimize my large head. However, I have trouble keeping them looking nice because I have a cowlick at either corner of my forehead along the hairline. Usually a straightening iron does the trick; if you see my bangs pinned back with bobby pins, you can be sure it's a bad cowlick day.

5. I am fascinated with celebrities. I love to read People and trashy celeb gossip blogs. My favorite famous people are all the Friends, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant. I love the Friends because their show is so funny. I love Colin because he is Mr. Darcy. I love Hugh for his booty.

6. I realized in our most recent move how important I am to myself. It is hard for me to get rid of anything that represents a significant amount of my time and/or effort, even if the end product is ugly and/or non-functioning. I forced myself to overcome this attachment by throwing away old school projects, ugly hand-painted pottery, and worksheets made for classes I will never teach again. There's a fine line between sentimentality and narcissism.

7. Highlights of my year include: Start of school, end of school, Christmas, and the day I buy a calendar for the new year.

8. I read compulsively. I love books, magazines, mail, blogs, and articles of all kinds. Even cereal boxes and nutritional information on wrappers will suffice in a pinch. I have a very low tolerance for nonfiction, though. Unless it's a really entertaining narrative, I usually can't get past a few chapters in a story that I know is true. (This is how I can still enjoy magazines and blogs, even though most of those are true. They don't require too long of an attention span. It's also why I can read a million articles on Jennifer Aniston but would never read a biography of her. It would be too long, and it would be lame.)

If you have not done this yet, I tag you.

Slump Day

I'm not going to therapy because I want to believe that this happens to everyone. I had a bad self-esteem day. Actually, it was two days.

Day 1: It all began when I tried to put on my favorite pair of khakis, (the ones I bought last year because my old khakis were too small, the ones with the baggy fit) and they were so tight the pocket seams made big distinct rectangle shapes on my thighs. It continued when we went to my in-laws' house and I weighed myself on their hospital scale. They have the brutal kind with the sliding weights, so there is no room for fudging about which tiny line the arrow is pointing to, and no excuses about alignment and scale differences. Anyway, the weight was my all-time high.

(I do realize that people who obsess about their weight are obnoxious to those well-adjusted people who have come to happy terms with their body image. But I have not been able to contain my neurosis, and I've asked around to selected diplomatic family members and friends if they can tell a difference. Everyone has diplomatically informed me that I am not visibly larger, except for my mom, who said she thought I looked more "healthy." Whatever.)

Day 2: the scale incident had been enough to shock me into action. I bought Slim-Fast shakes at the grocery store and ordered a salad at Panera rather than my favorite potato soup. I was excited to be taking action, but still in a self-esteem slump. It didn't help that all of my clothes had turned ugly in the closet while I slept, and that I happen to hate my new haircut. (The only redeeming factor was that my freshly cut bangs did sweep low enough to cover the new zit on my forehead--seriously, I couldn't catch a break on this day.)

So anyway, I did the stupidest possible thing on a day like this- I went clothes shopping. I was with my mom and sister, who wanted to walk around the Marketplace. I happen to be on a long-time search for a cute white shirt, and so I tried on a few items.

Big mistake! Everyone knows that the Devil installs the lighting in dressing rooms, and that there is no worse image than your own body clad in underwear and socks in a full-length mirror. And of course, all the shirts I tried on made me look/feel dumpy.

The dressing-room employee makes his way down the row, checking up on all of us. A little chirpy wisp next door is disappointed that the size zeros hang a little loose on her. The employee knocks on my door and wants to know if I need anything in a different size.

I wish I could hand over my rear end and thighs. "Can you get me some of these in a Small? You should be able to find them somewhere around 2004."

Summer Lent

I have decided that I care too much about comments. I crave them, I check obsessively for them, and I choose topics that I hope will generate more of them.

Enough.

I am going to try an experiment to break my comment craze: I'm turning off that feature on the blog for the rest of the summer. I will continue to write, and I hope you will continue to read. If you really want to talk to me about something I've said, you can talk to me in person, send me an e-mail, or message me on Facebook.

What do you think of my bold move? Well...I guess I'll never know.

My Stats

I took the personality test that was posted on Margie's blog a while back. Here are my results...many of them sad but true, I'm afraid.

Stability results were moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.

Orderliness results were very high which suggests you are overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense too often of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.

Extraversion results were medium which suggests you are moderately talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting.

In other words...
neat freak, organized, worrying, phobic, fears the unknown, irritable, pessimistic, emotionally sensitive, fears chaos, risk averse, fragile, unadventurous, depressed, frequently second guesses self, likes to fit in, does not like to stand out, perfectionist, hard working, does not like to be alone, clingy, dependent, practical, ordinary, cautious, takes precautions, good at saving money, suspicious, heart over mind, busy, altruistic

Here is the test.

The Ghost of Valentines Past

I am grateful that my dad didn't stop sending me Valentine packages just because I got married. They're always a great combination of gifts both sophisticated (this year, a nice Starbucks mug and gift card) and whimsical (a red pen with a topper of troll hair and giant plastic lips). This year, however, the gift medley also included a blast from my past which Mom must have discovered and printed out when she was cleaning out the document files on her computer. I cringe a little bit when I imagine the laughs that she and Dad must have gotten at my expense.

It was basically a blog...a slightly humorous attempt at pithy, insightful nonfiction. I had written it on Valentine's Day of 1998, which meant that I was 15. I observed that Taylor Hanson (made famous by "Mmm-bop"), who was my same age, had made a lot more money than I had that year. The writing was not very clever, my arguments were cliche, and other than a nice closing line, the overall effect was unremarkable.

I can dismiss this particular piece of writing (and the boxes of similiar material stashed in my garage) as being the product of a immature and inexperienced mind with illusions of greatness (the essay was written under the letterhead of "CrossWords Publishing," of which I was president). But what is much more disturbing than my high-school fantasies or even my parents laughing at me is this nagging fear that not much has changed, except that now my pithy nonfictional thoughts are posted in a very public forum and archived in cyberspace.

Reading old things I've written is always a reality check. I actually remember writing the Hanson money piece, and I remember the satisfaction and awe I felt when I re-read my finished product. It's the same sort of feeling I get when I skim over my favorite blogs on this website. It's humbling to admit that the self-expression that I now find to be so witty and poignant represent a self that I will condescendingly pity ten years from now. It is also helpful to remember that the issues that seem so stressful and urgent to me now will only make me laugh in the not-so-distant future. It's a little bit sobering to recognize the ways that I am still very much like the dorky girl writing essays to nobody on Valentine's Day.

One of these days, when I am fifty and too big for my britches, I am sure that my parents or one of my siblings will be happy to pull up Cum Grano Salis and remind me of all the silly ways I used take myself so seriously. So...hello, middle-aged Lindsey. Laugh all you want, but at least be grateful that I'm doing Pilates for you.

List Mania

We've had a lot of stuff going on lately, but as most of it concerns crumminess at church and my continued resentment of the cold weather, I've got nothing too blog-worthy. So I'm going to fall back on this fun thing, which went around the blog circles a few months ago.

10 Random Things About Me
10. My closet is organized by color
9. I won't eat the the crust of sandwiches...or cookies...or brownies...or crackers...
8. I want to name my children after literary characters
7. I am my mother
6. I de-stress by cleaning
5. My childhood nickname was Leonard
4. Seventh grade was my favorite year in school
3. In high school, I won a pair of free concert tickets off of the radio
2. I have wanted to be a teacher since before I started first grade
1. I used to have a crush on Dean Butler, who played Almanzo on Little House

9 Things I Love
9. My family
8. My friends
7. My job
6. My dogs
5. Chocolate
4. 24
3. *F*r*i*e*n*d*s* (not to be confused with #8)
2. E-mail
1. Magazines

8 Things that Annoy Me
8. When no one is listening
7. Drivers who go faster than me
6. Needing to get gas
5. Radio deejays
4. When the shower curtain billows into my space and sticks to my leg
3. the rooster across the street who crows in the morning
2. Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, etc.
1. Politicians

7 Favorite Foods
7. Chips and dip, incl. salsa
6. Chicken
5. Potatoes
4. Cheesecake
3. Corn Pops
2. Steak
1. Chocolate

6 Stores I Love
6. GAP
5. Starbucks
4. Barnes & Noble
3. Old Navy
2. Pay Less
1. Target (despite my boycott)

5 Things to Do Before I Die
5. Write a book
4. Have kids
3. Travel
2. Ride in the big swing at Six Flags
1. Read everything that's good

4 Favorite Quotes
4. "You think that, Jane, if it makes you feel better."
3. "If you really love Christmas, come on and let it snow."
2. "I truly believe that happiness is possible... even when you're thirty-three and have a bottom the size of two bowling balls."
1. " Shelves in the closet...Happy thought indeed!"

3 Favorite Authors
3. Jennifer Weiner
2. Bodie Thoene (old stuff)
1. Barbara Kingsolver
1. Donald Miller
1. Jane Austen
1. Brian McLaren
1. Colleen McCullough
1. Chaim Potok
1. Tracy Chevalier
1. John Grisham
1. Robert Frost

Oh wait...just 3?

2 Places I Love to Go
2. Starbucks
1. to sleep

1 Thing I Say A Lot
"Do I have any new comments?"

Turn It Up

Just about everyone believes in the power of music, so I won't really go into much of an argument here, except to share my own experience from back in the days when I had all the free music that I wanted at my fingertips, courtesy of the Original Napster. I loved making playlists for all occasions, from "Girl Power!!" to "8AM Classes" to "Clay is my American Idol." I endured a breakup during my freshman year of college thanks to the great song by Sister Hazel called "Thank You" (chorus: You were the one/who taught me what I don't need/and I thank you for that/Now just leave me alone).

I hadn't tapped into to the power of music lately, until I bought the January issue of Real Simple for my plane trip to Florida. One of the articles made the case that everyone should have a "theme song" that they can sing at times when they need reassurance, such as on the way to a job interview or in preparing for a difficult conversation. The idea is that you choose a song that makes you feel energized and confident, and helps you to put your best foot forward, like listening to Jock Jams in the locker room. The author had chosen "I Will Survive," and she also suggested such songs as "Footloose," "Let's Get it Started," and "Life is a Highway." It can either be just a peppy song, or a song that reminds you of a particularly powerful moment in your life.

So I've been trying to think of my own theme song. I think I can use one especially now, where I'm facing going back to work after a holiday, significant personal transition, plus the regular January blahs. Here are some of the contenders, along with audio tracks if they were available:

"I Have Confidence in Me" from the Sound of Music

"Tub Thumping" by Chumbawumba (high school classic, mainly for the chorus)


"Ode to Joy" from Sister Act II


"Jump (for my love)" by the Pointer Sisters
(if you've ever seen Hugh Grant shake his booty to this one, you know why this makes the list)



See? It's working! I'm energized already.

New Year's Non-Post

We have had a great post-holiday week, but we have really been on the run. Not counting sleeping hours, I am pretty sure that I have logged at least twice as many hours in the car as I have in my own home this week. I have actually had several great ideas for blog posts, but I haven't been home long enough to write them out! Now I'm all backed up and about to leave town, and by the time I get around to thinking through these holiday insights, they will be old news. So here you go: all
my thoughts.

1. I am a huge fan of New Year's resolutions. I love the occasion for self-evaluation, and to make promises to myself that I will do better. Obviously, some resolutions stick better than others, but as long as I keep a couple each year, I'm heading in the right direction.

2. One of the things that I admired the most about the musicians at the TSO concert was their complete lack of inhibition. At one point, there was a girl singer on a mini-stage way back in the audience, and she was dancing all by herself, and not even doing a very good job. But she kept at it, even though she was in the spotlight and a thousand eyes were on her. I have always wanted to be a little less self-conscious, and I had my first taste on Christmas Eve. My brother-in-law Tom got a karaoke machine for Christmas, and we had a girls versus boys karaoke competition. I took my turn every round, despite my lack of confidence in my singing, regaling the family with such classics as "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?," "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and "Crocodile Rock." It was very fun, and the overall success of the game further proved my theory that every human being has a secret desire to be a rock star.

3. I got a temporary promotion at my parking job on Saturday. I got to drive the courtesy golf cart around the parking lot, offering rides to the unfortunate people who got stuck way out in the back lots. It was very fun, and I was much appreciated.

4. When I found out that my charming brother drew my name for my family's sibling gift exchange, I decided not to offer any gift-buying suggestions. Alan has great taste, and knows how to treat a girl, and I wanted to see what he'd come up with. Well, he came through with a gift certificate for a pedicure at a highly-recommended shop in T****e. Mom and I went together, and enjoyed the pampering. But, as usual, our pedicurists chattered away almost the whole time in what I think was Chinese. The last time this happened, Mom asked right out if they are actually talking about customers the whole time, and they basically said yes. "Wouldn't you?" one pointed out. We sat quietly the whole time, trying not to provide the ladies with any fodder for their discussion. Oh wait, I guess this defeats my lose-the-self-consciousness resolution.

5. We've finally joined the rest of the world in iMadness. Stephen bought an iPod with his Christmas money, and I am having lots of fun with it.

6. I got the new Josh Groban CD, and it is excellent. Maybe my favorite so far, even though there are not as many foreign-language songs. Speaking of Josh Groban, I had gotten my heart all set on going to hear him when he came to D****s in March. But when I looked more closely, I learned that the concert is on a Monday night, the week after spring break. Bummer! I'm thinking about going anyway.

7. I'm leaving at 3:45 on Tuesday morning for Florida with my mom, sister, and a bunch of cheerleaders and their moms. I'm looking forward to some fun and relaxing time to read and take naps, and enjoy some quality time with Mom and Leslie. Unless there's unusually good computer access, I won't blog until I come back, and then I will write panicky blogs about how I should have done more school work over the break so that I would be prepared to go back to work! Resolution: stop procrastinating!!

See you all in 2007...

Christmas Joys

This is my favorite time of year. Here are some reasons why:

1. New Christmas carols, especially "Winter Wonderland" by Jason Mraz, "Manger Throne" by Third Day, and "Christmas is All Around" by a fictional artist named Billy Mack. And, of course, anything by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
2. Great friends who offer to take me to hear the TSO in concert this Saturday in Dallas.
3. Old Christmas carols, especially "O Holy Night," O Come, O Come Emmanuel," and "O Come, All Ye Faithful." And "Carol of the Bells" in every variety.
4. Wassail.
5. Beautiful and nutrient-free snacks, and lots of excuses to eat them.
6. The Advent Wreath
7. Christmas cards with pictures in them.
8. Christmas gifts from students.
9. Christmas gifts from everybody else.10. Online shopping.
11. Two and a half weeks off.
12. How clean my house is right before a party, and about an hour after.
13. My tree, finally finished and with gifts underneath.
14. Finding the perfect gift for someone else.
15. Parties with friends.
16. Parties with family.

A few things I don't like about this season, just to keep this from getting too warm and fuzzy:

1. Classic Christmas movies such as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "White Christmas." Yawn!
2. Going back to school after a long break.
3. Standing outside in the sleet parking cars to make some Christmas gift bucks.
4. Saying thank you for gifts that aren't really my style.
5. Still eating leftovers after three days of eating leftovers.
6. Taking down decorations.

Swinging Single

Stephen left to speak at a youth retreat yesterday while I was at work and is not getting back until tonight. While of course I enjoy it when he is around, I have been looking forward to a weekend with the house to myself. He understands the appeal of solitude as well as I do, but he still had to protest when I admitted my excitement.
Me: I'm looking forward to some time alone.
Stephen: What are you going to to?
Me: Oh, you know...sleep late, clean the house, read, maybe do some work for school.
Stephen: Those are the same things that you do when I am here.
Me: Well...

And we both know that it's just not the same. Yesterday I celebrated by having coffee with a friend after work, going shopping at the mall, and renting the ultimate girl movie, Girl With a Pearl Earring. (What is it about? Well...this artist paints his servant girl. That's it? Yeah, basically. Is there any action? Well, she has to pierce her ear. Do the artist and the servant hook up in the end? No, she marries the butcher's son. Who? Never mind...). I ate a Hershey's bar for dinner, and after the movie I fell asleep laying diagonally across the bed.

Today I am, technically, doing all of the things that I always do on a Saturday. The difference is, I can clean while listening to the music that energizes me but grates on Stephen's ears: The Essential Santana and the soundtrack to Moulin Rouge. At top volume, I can sing the parts of both Christian and Satine in the Elephant Love Medley. I'll enjoy having the computer all to myself, and I'll read a whole book in one sitting. And by tonight, I'll be happy to see my husband again.

You can't beat good times like that.

L'Love my L'Legs

I think that I am the only person in my school who still wears panty hose (even among the middle-aged Talbot's women I have talked about before). Hose have been made into symbols of feminine oppression by many, but I cannot ditch them completely. Here is why:
1. When it is cold outside and I want to wear a skirt, I like some covering on my legs. Yes, even if the covering is only a scanty layer of sheer nylon.
2. When by "oppression" you mean sucking in my tummy with a control top, I'm all about it.
3. When I want to wear a knee-length skirt but have not shaved my legs in a couple of days, hose still gives my legs a smooth, presentable texture.
4. When it is REALLY cold outside, I even like to wear hose under my jeans or slacks for an extra layer of warmth. It's not just the placebo effect, either; it helps!
5. It just looks WRONG to go bare-legged with certain skirts and shoes. Yes, it does...Yes, it does.

The one thing that I will concede is that hose seem to be about as durable as tissue paper (oh wait, I can use that more than once). It ticks me off when I get dressed and get out my favorite pair of hose and discover as I am putting them on (three seconds before I need to be rushing out the door) that they have a giant run in the leg. This happened to me this morning, but I refused to change because I was in my special Open House professional outfit. Hose were essential, and I didn't have another pair. And besides, the run is just barely peeking out. It's 4:00 and no one has noticed yet...Unless some pervy dads show up and show unnecessary attention to my knees (unlikely), I think that I am home free.

To Do

"A Happy Life Begins with a To-Do List"
-Charlie Brown

(Reasonable)
1. Learn to play the piano
2. Stop biting fingernails
3. Have babies
4. Become well-read
5. Become an expert in something
6. Take more pictures
7. Learn to cook more meals
8. Learn to mix and match a few classic wardrobe pieces and accessorize with bright and fun jewelry
9. Pay attention to current events
10. Use bread maker, ice cream maker, and fondue pot


(Less likely)
1. Write a novel
2. Have novel top the NYT Bestseller chart
3. Write and direct my own movie
4. Take a year to travel interesting parts of the world
5. Learn to speak another language
6. Have twins
7. Be invited to be a guest on both the Tonight Show and LIVE with Regis and Kelly
8. Win American Idol
9. Ride a horse across the prairie
10. Get Makeover-Story advice on hairstyle, wardrobe, and makeup


Please feel welcome to share your own goals and dreams on the comments page.

Confessions of a Reforming Packrat

There is nothing like moving to make me really evaluate the stuff that I consider to be worthy to be stored in my home. As I have been packing, I have tried to clean out my non-essential possessions even more than ever. This is very difficult for me, as I am the rattiest of all packrats. I keep a pretty tidy house, most of the time, so the fact that I have this disorder may come as a surprise to some.

My latest attempt at curbing my saving habits was to buy one big Rubbermaid bin to hold all of my memorabilia. If it didn't fit in the bin, I couldn't keep it! This forced me to get rid of tons of my school-days souvenirs, from my first grade math papers to most of my college notes and course packs. I found all sorts of things I'd forgotten about, from the nostalgic (my GT and the Halo Express tapes) to the hilarious (the notes I received in high school...you know the kind...they're written in marker, folded in a triangle, and contain profundities like "Hey what's up? I am sitting in Spanish right now and I am so bored!"), to the scary (school pictures from 9th grade). I think I have now sorted through the LAST box of memories, and it is all in the bin. Yes, Stephen, it is okay if I have to sit on it to get the lid to latch.

Anyway, I call myself a "reforming" packrat because I have been compulsively reading organizational magazines ever since I considered the reality of our new, slightly smaller house (I figure, if I pack the house to the gills when I move in, there is no room for a baby later on! Although I'm not pregnant (Clint!), there's nothing like the thought of little Junior to motivate me). So I'm kind of getting attached to the idea of being such an organizational maven that I never have to go through a purging project again. Here is my vision:

I will only touch mail once. Junk goes in the trash, sentimental letters go in my "save" bin, and bills go in my organized red expandable file folder.

If I happen to walk past a decorative item that no longer brings me pleasure or fulfills a practical function, I will get rid of it immediately.

I will always hang up my clothes when I am finished wearing them.

Everything that I need daily will be in a very accessible space. Everything that I need often will be barely out of my way. Things that I only need once a year will be stored in the attic or in cleverly disguised storage such as my coffee-table trunk.

If I do not enjoy wearing an item of clothing, I will give it away to charity immediately. I will not keep it, hoping that later on it will fit better, and I will not give into guilt feelings because I remember the person who gave said item to me.

I will be able to have all open cabinets in my kitchen because all of the shelves are storing my necessary items in a way that is efficient and also aesthetically pleasing.

I will view my childhood memorabilia in an objective manner. I will be considerate of my offspring who will have to sort through my belongings after I have died (since, apparently, I can't take ANY of it with me).

That's all for now. I don't want to get too ambitious and set myself up for discouragement later. After all, I am reforming, not rehabilitated...yet.

Pet Peeves and Simple Pleasures

So...teachers in the summertime technically have no griping rights. But this is my blog and I'd like to vent my "beefs," as they're called on Fridays on The Morning Ritual (listen to News/Talk 1230). This is a great interactive moment where you can comment to agree or to add to this list.

1. People who drive in the middle lane and then cut across two or three lanes of traffic to make their turn.
2. The fact that Crestview Elementary still makes drivers slow down for a school zone in the morning, afternoon, and at random times throughout the day.
3. The red light at Colcord and New Road.
4. Arctic temperatures in the Baylor Starbucks. (Why? Why? Why?)
5. The way that the packing tape keeps sticking to itself, even though I invested in one of those dispensers. Then, the way that it shreds into thirty pieces when I try to peel it back up.
6. 18 Wheelers.
7. Junk mail.
8. Neighborhood kids who mosey in the middle of the road, even when there is a car coming.
9. The sign at Starbucks: "Employee's Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work." (Do you see it?)
10. You'd think that if I have packed away 15 boxes worth of household stuff, that there would be less junk around the house. But, no, there seems to be more.


To avoid becoming a cynical and never-contented person, I will balance out my gripes with 10 simple pleasures. Cue the music.

1. Callie or Phoebe begging.
2. Getting mail.
3. Waking up before the alarm (and getting to go back to sleep).
4. The smell of crayons.
5. Finding the CD that goes in the empty box.
6. Having a craving for a meal, and having all of the ingredients for it already in the kitchen.
7. Going through the (many) souvenirs that I kept from childhood. Nothing makes me laugh harder than finding old notes from high school friends.
8. Knowing the answers to Jeopardy! questions.
9. Magazines.
10. The slide at Kiddieland.