just for me

In my life, so often, there are stretches of time that pass in a blur. I spend each moment focused only on "getting it done" in order to move on to the next task before me. It leaves me unfulfilled and, quite frankly, miserable. I dread what is, in all reality, the things that make up my life. And it is no way to live.

Today, the past several days, really, have been "one of those days". I've felt unsettled and downright depressed. A colorless grey seems to fill me up inside. It has been something more than a simple case of the winter blues, I've felt myself trudging--merely surviving each day with some small hope that it would pass.

Today, however, something nudged me to watch some Mormon Messages on youtube instead of grading as I ate my lunch. Oh, how glad I am to have come across this:



Life is worth enjoying. Life is good. Life is made of moments. It is so important for me to remember that. I felt like, today, this message was just for me. I hope you watch it and feel that way too.

if i were a rich (wo)man. LaDiDaDiDaDiDaDiDa...

I'd shop at Whole Foods for just about everything in my cupboards and fridge. I'd probably own more shoes and a nicer camera with a slew (yes, a slew) of nice lenses. I'd globe trot. A lot. I'd probably retire Rosy (my car) for something newer, fancier, shinier, and black-er (don't tell Rosy, please). I'd buy my dream home and decorate it and re-decorate it some more. I'd start a scholarship foundation for underprivileged kids.

But that's about all that would change. Because I'd still teach. I'd still have this girl for a best friend (she'd just travel more too--with me, naturally). I'd still believe in this with all I have in me. I'd still have my amazing family. I'd still remain smitten with the written word. I'd still use coupons (because paying full price is for the birds). And this is how I know my life is good. Because even if I had more money, it wouldn't make anything better than it already is.

On Cooking, Booking, and Other Good Things

Recently I read this:

Not only did Bard's sweet and simple gem convince me that I don't REALLY have what it takes to live abroad--other than in my imagination (let's face it: American convenience can be nice), but it made me want to cook. It made me want to cook and be really good at it. It made me desire to share recipes I've mastered. I've long enjoyed watching Food Network--especially that Hampton Yuppy, Ina Garten. But this gem of a memoir made me long to walk to the farmer's market hosted at my local park and let its wares create my week's menu. It was entirely entertaining and I can't wait to try some of its recipes.

I warn you: if you do read it, please do so on a full stomach (or at the very least with a full refrigerator)!

Next on the docket:

Major Ernest Pettigrew is that old fashioned sort of British curmudgeon that brings me nothing but delight. Simonson's novel is witty, sharp, perceptive, and includes a bit of romance. (C'mon--who doesn't like a little romance?) Pettigrew's inner-monologue won me over. He's human through and through. Read it. The end.

And, finally, this fun escape:
I love rockin' book sales. The Borders near my house went out of business recently and this cover caught me--it was one of my lucky sale finds. Beginner's Greek is chick lit at its very heart, but chick lit with decent prose. Peter and Holly and their delayed love made me swoon and ache and long just a bit. The plot has moments of shock but the main characters' story remains delightfully predictable. I argue that sometimes this isn't a bad thing: these well-carved rivers of story are necessary, comfortable, and entirely entertaining. Even as an English teacher who forces the tragic on my students (Cold Mountain, anyone?), I like a happy ending as much as the next gal.

In other mediums of loveliness--

I've fallen hard for some new (to me) cosmetics & beauty products:

ULTA makes a mean eye shadow.

I love the shade "Twilight" and, on my flashier days, a shimmer of "Envy":

(as an aside, I want the job in which you name the various hues of cosmetics)

Next up:

Shellac nailpolish is pretty much amazing. I've long adored a crimson splash or shocking shade on my nails, but longer loathed the chipping and purely craptastic appearance it gets after one day of teaching or a single load of dishes. My life doesn't allow for upkeep of such things. But along came a solution: gelish, shellac, call it what you may. This stuff is a hybrid of gel and nail polish. It lasts up to 14 days (though I can't handle the length my nails get to by then). Alice and I tested it out when we went to Cancun. It made it the entire trip and then some. It has altered my world for the better.The roomie got a "little" kit with UV light and the rest of the products for her upcoming birthday from her rather awesome momsy. Life is good when one's polish plays permanent. (And when one's best buddy come with polish perks!)

As a teaser: I also "re-did" my bedroom. Photos to come soon. I hope. No, really.

School's out next Wednesday. I'm back. Promise.

Happy Sweater Season

Autumn is officially here, friends.
I have acquired four new cardigans in the past month to prove it.

Oh, how I love this season!
I keep thinking of the Keats poem
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness..."

On Tuesday evening I drove up the canyon with a friend and walked around a lake rimmed with golden aspen groves. The air was fresh and crisp and perfect. Each of us kept stopping mid-sentence to simply gasp at the brilliance of it all.
I kicked myself for not bringing my camera.
I also realize that sometimes this is a blessing.
We also caught sight of a moose family
(momma, papa, and their kiddo).

Enjoy watching the world turn vibrant. I most definitely am.

Safe/Celebrating

(for Melissa, who, at this very moment, is in a Kindergarten classroom student teaching)

I've forgotten what it is like, that first year of teaching, first year in "the big city" (that, I know, isn't all that big). I've forgotten what it is to rush that way, to create lesson plans the day before teaching them and make copies during the first five minutes of class while they read or write or just-do-something to give me a minute to finish preparing, to get my head on straight, to read what we're reading before they do.

Yeah, the first year (or more) in your own classroom is like that. Exhausting and panicked. Riddled with an unceasing sense of failure.

The first, second, even third year, you question whether or not you're really cut out for it.

And then you survive it. You get better. You know what is coming up next. No shooting from the hip, you've been here before. Once, twice, three times.

Last night I dreamed about moving classrooms--again. But this time I knew it wouldn't happen--somewhere in the conscious part of my brain I knew I was settled. Safe. This year, in my perfect classroom with the tables--not desks--like I wanted, the view of the western mountains and the city and the now-naked trees, it felt permanent. I threw a rug down in my office in mid-August. I brought a better chair from home. I put my college degree on the bookshelf. I brought boxes of my life from home into school--things I wanted to have here.

I'm turning 29 next month and have finally realized that this, here as I sit at my desk, this is my life. I've fully succumbed--given myself over to it. It was gradual, but I've eased into this place where I'm neither rookie nor novice. I started first period today and acknowledged it: I know exactly what I am doing.

There are few things better

than getting rid of faded, ill-fitting clothes you just don't wear anymore. My closet (and all those stuffed-between-all-the-stuff-I-don't-wear-gems I've re-discovered) thank me.

I've My Work Cut Out for Me

Only three weeks left of summer and I haven't cleared time for lazing about and watching some of my favorites. Am I missing anything?

The Liar. The Cynic. The Mascara.

Last night my sister, mother and I had an interesting conversation about life and happiness and selfishness and living authentically and, well, stuff. The conversation stemmed from a certain movie we'd all seen at various times over the past few months. We all had very different reactions and interpretations of the film which led us into the territory in which we asked ourselves what it means to live authentically. (Now, before you go thinking "Whoa, freaky pseudo-intellectuals at Rookie's house," know that 20 minutes prior bowel movements might or might not have been our conversation's focus.)

When it comes to my attitude about life, I dwell in the camp of endurance. In my experience and opinion, life offers us moments of joy interspersed with legs of endurance. Life, as I've known it, isn't some exciting and entertaining experience in which we're happy 100% of the time (despite what TAMN at Seriously So Blessed might say). And I'm okay with that. I'm fine looking for the small and simple pleasures of life. The moment you put the key in the door at the end of the work day. The clean smell of lemons. Holding a sleeping infant after the bath, after the final feeding. The sound of rain on a tin roof. The smooth resonance of an acoustic guitar. Seeing and understanding another human being entirely and having that understanding reciprocated. These small pleasures can be lush oases in what is otherwise a desert of endurance: boring meetings, difficult trials, challenges, frustrations, mundane responsibilities.

And I told my family I thought this was living authentically: living an ethical and giving life, seeking out--stopping to recognize and appreciate--those simple pleasures. And when life is not at an enjoyable point, you wait. You endure. My sister disagreed with me, or she was playing devil's advocate, I never know. She shared a statistic about happy marriages and their correlation to a suspended sense of reality. She stretched this into a philosophy that we're all lying to ourselves about how happy we really are in order to endure. I could see her point, but hated to think I might be lying to myself about my own satisfaction in life.

We left each other in disagreement. My sister, the cynic. Me, the liar. Me, the optimist. My sister, the denier. I've been thinking about it ever since. Which one of us is being honest? And I came back to what I know about myself. The joy I feel when I open a new tube of mascara is a tangible, concrete piece of joy. You might choose to say this demonstrates just how unhappy I am, that something so simple and meaningless shouldn't impact me in such a way. But I choose to believe that I've stopped to notice the details. And that is what breaks up the endurance for me.

Letters Addressed to Undeterminable Destinations

One of my favorite bloggers, Jen at Rowena's Rants, often writes letters. Letters of ranting. Letters of complaint. Letters of praise. Always succinct and sassy, Jen writes exactly what needs to be said. So I'm following suit in today's post because there are a few letters I need written, though I don't know what address to send them to.

Dear Spring,

I love you. You make me happy whether your skies are grey or blue. Stick around a while longer. You are a welcome guest in my life.

Signed,
Not Ready for Summer's Scorching


Dear Aunt Flo,

Either arrive and continue to "flo" or don't. Don't slow your "flo" to near-nothing early in the weekend, making me think all is well in lady-land, only to surprise me in the middle of the school day Monday with an adolescent embarrassment.

Signed,
Unafraid of Publicly Sharing the Facts of Her Life


Dear Alarm Clock,

I hate you. Were you not also my phone I would kill you daily.

Signed,
Peeved and Drowsy


Dear Construction on My Way to Work,

Stop making me late. Or else.

Signed,
A Despiser of Orange Cones


Dear End of School Year,

Any time now. We're all waiting.

Signed,
Anxious for the 2 1/2 Month Death of Her Alarm Clock


And now, in the comments section, it is time for your letters to undeterminable destinations.

It's the Little Things

The little things are what get me through winter. These simple pleasures let me know this season I spend buried beneath snow and sweaters will eventually end. 

Today I smiled because...

these:

with some of these:

and a few "choppings" of this:

mixed with a squeeze of this:

and a small dash of this:

makes me feel like winter has disappeared just a little bit, 

and I'm living like this again: