Author: heather

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My Struggle

heather

In writing this blog, I continually struggle with myself regarding what to share and what not to share.  Blog-writing is all about honesty and openness; that is what attracts readers – the ability to see inside someone else.  At least, that’s what I’ve read blogs should be about.  But, ANYONE can read blogs, which necessarily induces reticence.

By the way, I HATE the word “blog.”  It’s a very unattractive, fat word.  It lacks elegance.  I spent a whole 40 minute trip to work one day trying to create a better word for this online posting stuff.  The best I could come up with was “journlectic,” as in, an eclectic journal.  Tim was not impressed, deservedly I guess.  Journlectic doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.  What else to call it?  I guess I’ll have to consider that on another trip to work.

Ah, work, that is what I am struggling writing about, to get back to my opening point.  I recently changed jobs – moved from Treasury to Accounting.  The whole job-changing (and in my case career-changing) move is fraught with all sorts of writing-inducing feelings and thoughts.  Changing jobs/changing careers is not for the faint of heart.  You feel stupid and overwhelmed pretty much constantly, and just when you feel as if you are catching on, you post a journal entry in the wrong period and your boss can’t close the books until you fix it.  Or you fumble-finger an entry and do it for an amount 10 times larger than it should be.  Ah, my employer is so lucky to have me.

I just read a post this morning on Zen Habits with the catchy title of “The Insidious Perfidiousness of Doubts.”  And, yes, I did have to look up perfidiousness.  It was nice to know that I’m not the only one who has thoughts like this (quoted from the post):

“I can’t do it. I’m not good enough. I’d never make it. I’d only fail and embarrass myself. Why should I dare dream?”

These thoughts plague me daily, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute.  Objectively, I know I’m an intelligent person.  If I ran across myself in the world, I would think to myself, “That girl is smart.  She can do whatever she wants and will be successful.  I wish I was her.”  But looking from the inside out, it’s a totally different story.  I have the above mentioned thoughts running through my head in a constant refrain and wonder if maybe I should go apply at Target for a cashier position.  I like helping people.  I could wear red every day.  I might be okay at that.

How to marry this external proof with the internal doubt, that is the real question.  Even though I’m very stressed about my current life change, I think that taking on this new challenge will be good for me in the long run.  If I am successful in this new endeavor, it will add more weight to the “external proof” bucket and weaken the internal doubt mantra.  I need to persevere and give it time.  I’ve caved in to my doubts too often, which is why I’m 30-something and still don’t have an encyclopedia page (I graduated from high school before Wikipedia existed) written about me, as my high-school classmates voted I would.  Giving in to doubt, I’ve not pursued many challenges and experiences.  The more I held myself back, the more power the internal voice got and the more I listened.

I do have to say though, that not listening to that voice is S T R E S S F U L.  I need to manage that better.  I know that the worst case scenario is not that bad and completely manageable (even if I did have to get a job at Target, we would still have enough money to eat and to make the house payment), but tell that to the feeling in the pit of my stomach when Lucent wakes me up at 4AM, and my mind starts racing about all the stuff I don’t know how to do and don’t yet understand.

I’m just trying to sort this all out and deduce if I’m making good decisions and living the life I want to live.  I haven’t been writing lately because I’ve been working so much, and writing about accounting is not that interesting.  But, I need to make my life about something besides work, so I need to write.  That’s a step in the right direction at least.

Books, Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Beauty and reconnection on the weekends

heather

Work has been really busy lately.  I know that millions around the world work 50+ hours every week without a second thought, but I’m not used to it.  Not used to it yet.  I feel as if I wake up, drive to work, work, drive home, eat supper, read for 15 minutes and fall asleep.  That is my week-day life.  So, like everyone, I really look forward to the weekend.  I get to see my husband again.  I get to see what my house looks like in the daylight.  I get to spend time thinking about things that don’t involve numbers.  It’s quite pleasant.

On Saturday Tim and I finally made it back to the gym.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned this in the blog, but Tim came down with an “acute viral infection” a couple of weeks ago that landed him in the ER for 6 hours (his family practicioner was worried Tim had menningitis).  It took several days before Tim felt well enough to go back to the gym.  I was off my normal schedule due to the NY trip and the long work-days, so I didn’t go all last week.

It felt great to go back to the gym.  I did my leg weights and the Precor.  I could tell I was out-of-practice because I was sooo tired afterwards.  I have reverted back to the fitness level where working out exhausts you instead of giving you energy.  But I know it’ll get better.

After the gym we headed to 11th Street Precinct for some grilled pork T’s, which were delicious as always.  It was a beautiful, weird fall warm day, so we took a walk along the bike path after lunch, admiring the river, the geese, the lily-pads, and the mansions overlooking River Drive.  We crossed River Drive, so that we could get a better look at the houses on the way back.  They are so huge and beautiful.  One even has an English telephone booth (it looks like the Tartis) on the front patio.

The rich and privileged even get better moths on their grounds than do us lowly peons.  Tim and I saw the most beautiful moth.  Its wings had blue ovals on them that looked as if they had sunsets hidden in them.  This is the closest picture I can find on Google.  It was the most beautiful thing I have seen in weeks.  I don’t know how people can truly believe there is no God, when beauty like that exists in the world.

Today Tim and I have been warding off the back-to-work blues.  So we are making the ultimate comfort food – autumn harvest soup and double corn corn bread.  Cutting up vegetables while listening to a Tim-engineered mix of Modeselektor, Radiohead, and Nightmare Revisited is my  idea of a perfect Sunday.

For desert we bought some Banquet fruit pies.  They were only $ 0.60, so even if they are extremely terrible, it won’t be devastating.  The ingredients actually look fairly good – fruit, wheat flour, brown sugar – heck, these might even be good for us!  Tim and I figure these are the perfect pies for us.  We can never eat a whole pie, nor should we.  These should be perfect for one piece each.

While it’s back to work tomorrow, at least we have next Saturday and Sunday to look forward to.  We have no plans yet.  Maybe I’ll finish my Mom painting.  Maybe we’ll start on our novels.  November is National Novel Writing Month. I’ve read that one should write about what one knows.  Since I know very little and lead a quite, unassuming life, I’ve always believed that my life provides little fodder for writing.  However, I’ve been listening to Romancing Miss Bronte on my way to work, and it’s helped me realize that having an active imagination and un-lazy mind is more important than living an adventurous life.  Emily and Charlotte Bronte grew up in a parsonage and traveled very little, yet they wrote two amazing books that shattered the literary world of their time.  If they could write books out of minds that were raised on fecal-laced water and rotten rice pudding, I should be able to write something worth reading on a mind raised on Iowa goodness and autumn harvest soup.  Unfortunately, I lack inspiration.  I enjoy the actual physical act of writing – of scratching a pen across paper, of filling up pages and pages in cool notebooks.  I just need a good idea…  I have 7 days to think of something.

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Art

heather

Art.  What is it?  What is it not, might be a better question.  I think art can mean anything and everything, depending on the observer.

My Moms and I traveled to NYC last weekend to visit my bros.  We did tons of awesome stuff, including viewing some very interesting art.

The first piece that we viewed was The New York Earth Room, which is an art installation that’s been on display for 30 years.  We ventured off of Houston a block or two, entered a nondescript door, climbed the narrowest, steepest stairs you have ever seen, and arrived in a white room that is covered in 250 cubic yards of earth.  Dark, black, earthy earth.  Earth that looks like it came straight out of an Iowa field.  It smelled exactly like my high school art room.  In other words, it smelled delicious.  While viewing the room, I was like, “Huh, why is this “art?”  But it’s strange, looking back on our trip, it was one of the neatest things we saw/experienced.  It personified that fact that we were in New York City.  To me, NYC has always seemed like a zillion small towns packed into a small place – everyone on the block knows each other, goes to the same restaurants, shops at the same bodegas, etc., especially in the area of Brooklyn in which my brothers live.  Seeing an art installation like the Earth Room really helps you realize that you are in a unique place.  No small town would ever commission a room full of dirt.  Well, they might, but not for artistic reasons.

We saw another piece by the same artist, Walter De Maria.  The other piece was the Broken Kilometer.  De Maria laid out 500 brass rods in 5 parallel rows of 100 rows each.  Click on the link to see what I am talking about.  It was an interesting display, too, but not as cool as the Earth Room.

That evening we attended an art show in Brooklyn.  It was held in a old abbey, full of interesting rooms and windows and more hipsters than I have ever seen in one place.  I felt very alien there, with my non-skinny jeans and grey hoodie.  There was some really amazing artwork and some really, really terrible artwork.  At least, terrible to me.  In listening to my brother’s explanation of “conceptual art” I’ve decided I’m probably more traditional in my tastes.  I appreciate art that takes skill and imagination.  So much of what we saw there and in many other galleries and art museums is what to me, seems so uninspired.  What was the artist who punched perfectly circular holes in a sheet of paper trying to say?  Was he really trying to say something, or was he just trying to get something done for the opening?  Is the story an artist attaches to a piece of work more important than the work itself?

Not that I should be judging artists.  At least these people are trying to create something new to this world.  I say I want to create art, and then I just end up watching Season 2 of Veronica Mars, which isn’t even that good.

What does art mean to me, personally?  What do I consider to be art?  I appreciate art that takes skill to produce, that is creative, that is beautiful to look upon.  Art can be a really great outfit (for example, black leather Vans, faded black Levis, and a grey long-sleeved t-shirt, which is the outfit I’m rocking today), an interesting hair style, or a beautifully crafted desk.  I suppose anything that makes you think twice is art – something that arrests your attention.  That is the kind of art I find interesting and inspiring.

Cooking/Recipes, Uncategorized

I’m baking a chicken

heather

And it smells delicious.  Timmy Tee is fighting a cold, and I had a weird almost-fainting spell whilst bicycling this afternoon, so we need some comfort food.  I’m using a recipe I got from Real Simple years ago.  You basically cut up 2 lemons and 1/2 a head of garlic, shove it into the chicken’s innards, rub down the whole thing with olive oil, salt and pepper the hell of out it, and then toss it in the oven.  It’s super easy, and the skin turns out crispy and delicious.  I’m surprised no one has tried to sell oiled and baked chicken skin by the bag.

It’s been another excellent weekend in the Longoria household.  Tim and I haven’t seen much of each other, since I was in NYC last weekend and in Lakeville Wed – Thursday, and Tim was doing trips the other nights.  So on Saturday Tim drove me to Iowa City where I had lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen forever (ate tapas for the first time ever at Devotay), and then we did a little shopping at Coral Ridge.  Tim found 3 pairs of chinos at Banana Republic for $7 to $20!  I didn’t find much, but it was so nice just hanging out with Tim, spending time together, laughing together, drinking strawberry smoothies together.

We made it back to Dport in time to feed the dee oh gee and then headed to Biaggis for our favorite meal combo – messina salad and chicken piccante pizza.  It was delicious.  The crowd in the joint was pretty interesting – it was full of a bunch of elderly folk and teenagers.  Apparently it was some school’s homecoming, so the place was chock-full of high heels, tans, and awkward hair cuts.  I wonder if we were that annoying at that age?

Today after reading the morning news, we headed out for bike ride.  I don’t know if it was the 3 cups of coffee or the cold wind on my hot face, but once we reached Emeis Park, I felt really not good.  I had to lay down for about 10 minutes while I decided if I was going to throw up or pass out or both.  I didn’t do either, fortunately.  I was able to bike home, albeit at a much slower pace.  It was really weird.  I hate it that my body is so temperature sensitive.  It makes me panic in situations where I get too warm.  Pass Out City, man.

Anyway, it was a great weekend – exactly what I needed after a stressful week of work.  Now, only five more days before the weekend comes again…

Health & Fitness

Ugh

heather

So, how did I do?  I got, what, two posts into the 30 posts in 30 days thing?  I started out with good intentions; I really did.  As usual, life and laziness got in the way.

I am making myself post tonight, though, because I need to get myself back on track before I get to out-of-control.  And by “out-of-control” I mean coming home from work, sitting on the couch and watching 2 hours of television while eating supper chased with some Doritos.  Not good.

Life has been extra busy lately.  I started a new job today, but I’m still doing my old job too, at least until they hire a replacement.  I’ve been working on a couple of projects and also trying to update all of my notes/standard work instructions and trying to train my 2 coworkers in a few weeks what has taken me 3 years to learn thoroughly.  We’ll get there; it’ll just be a busy October.

And when I’m busy at work, I tend to let other parts of life slide.  I don’t exercise as much.  I eat worse food and more of it, and I watch more TV.  I feel as if I’ve “earned” it, even though “earning” a tasty, unhealthy meal won’t lessen its bad effects on the body at all.

I need to get back to where I was last winter, before our Spring break trip – working out 3-5 days per week, doing yoga every Saturday, and eating healthy food in proper portions.  I felt so much better, I had more energy, and my skin was so much better. I actually had some ab definition!

So, tomorrow morning I am going to get up and go to the gym.  Unlike today, I’m not going to eat 2 cups (was it really 2 cups?  eesh) of Tim’s delicious home-made mac & cheese for lunch.  Perhaps I’ll have a PB&J on whole wheat bread with a Honeycrisp.  Whatever I do, I need to get back on the healthy wagon.

I absolutely have to exercise Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week.  Thursday afternoon Mom and I are flying out to NYC to visit my bros.  That is about 10 delicious meals that I need to prepare my body for with some preemptive exercise.

So, I better head to my tea and my bed, so I can get to sleep and get up at 4:30AM.  Good luck to everyone else out there who is trying to maintain a healthy life style.  Laura – I saw you’re doing Zumba tonight.  I hope you had fun.  You’re looking great!

Movies

Post Dos – My Favorite Movie

heather

This is going to be harder than I thought.  I returned home from getting my hair done, ate some supper (delicious scramby eggs rolled into a burrito with red pepper flakes, jalapeno slices, and extra sharp cheddar), watched 7 minutes of Modern Family (I don’t see what all the fuss is about), and now it’s 8:41, and I still need to write a post before retiring to bed by 9PM!  Whew, best get started.

Favorite movie.  Again, this is a tough one.  I think I can narrow it down to two this time, however.

1.  Serenity.  Tim and I had never heard of Firefly when we went to some random movie and saw the trailer for Serenity.  We thought that it looked like a cheesy movie, but it looked like it could be good.  So we saw it in the theater.  I LOVED it.  It was such a perfect mix of adventure, laughter, love, and loss.  Amazing.  I have seen the movie at least 5 times, and we’re watching it again Friday night.  One of my friends FINALLY broke down and watched all of the Firefly episodes, so I am making him come over to watch Serenity with us.  I’m going to stare at him through the whole movie to make sure he is reacting appropriately and appreciating this marvel of a movie. If he isn’t, so help me.

Soon after seeing the movie, I had my wisdom teeth removed, so Tim and I moved our mattress into the living room in front of the TV, and watched the whole season in two days while I recovered.  We capped off the weekend with Serenity, of course.  I almost regret having seen them, only because it means that I can’t watch them for the first time ever again.  They are that good.

2.  The other movie that I watch all the time, whenever I can’t figure out what I really want to watch or if I’m feeling blue or if I’m just feeling chill, is the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice.  Don’t get me wrong, I also love the 4 hour BBC production.  In fact, I would have called that one of my favorite movies prior to falling in love with the new version.  Actually, if I think back, when I first saw the new P&P, I wasn’t sure that it compared that favorably to the BBC version (case in point – the awkward, tacked on ending scene).  Much like Mr. Darcy, it improves upon further acquaintance. I love the setting, the beautiful English countryside, Keira’s beauty and perfect delivery, Mr. Darcy walking through the misty fields, meeting Elizabeth and realizing he still has a chance.  Ah, so good.  It’s the ultimate feel-good movie.  It’s so relaxing and peaceful to watch.  The scene where Darcy meets Elizabeth after the church service, during which Elizabeth discovers that Darcy is the reason Jane & Bingley were separated, is pure gold.  They so passionately despise each other that they can barely resist each other.  It makes my heart skip a beat every time I watch it.

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Pant Rant

heather

Is anyone else annoyed by all the spandex in pants these days?  If spandex had a predictable effect on pants, I could handle its inclusion in almost everything.  I would buy pants one size too small, knowing that they will stretch out and fit perfectly.  However, sometimes they stretch out 2 sizes bigger; sometimes they don’t stretch out all.  Sometimes in the wash they don’t shrink; sometimes they shrink a couple of sizes.  Sometimes they don’t shrink the first few times you wash them, only to shrink inexplicably the 5th time you wash them, which leaves you wondering if they truly did shrink or if you got suddenly much fatter in the course of 2 days.  It’s very annoying.

On that note, I better go to bed, so I can wake up and go to the gym tomorrow to compensate for the unreliableness of stretchy, man-made materials.

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My Favorite Song – Post #1

heather

I’ve decided to take my friend Laura up on her challenge to all her “bloggy” friends -the challenge is to write 30 posts in 30 days.  Her post includes a list of 30 topics, so that will help.  Oh, and “bloggy” is a really gross adjective – kinda makes the skin crawl.

Number one on the list is “Your Favorite Song.”  I love music, and I have been blessed first with 2 brothers who are fiendishly into music and now with a husband who also is a huge music lover.  So, my whole life I have had the pleasure of listening to really excellent music without putting forth any effort whatsoever.  It’s awesome.

It’s really difficult to narrow down my favorites into a single song.  Really, really hard.  I don’t like really, really hard things, so instead  I’ll narrow it down to a collection of some of my favorite bands and/or songs:

Oh yeah, and I like Evanescence.  DON’T JUDGE ME!!  Or, at least I like the lead singer’s voice.  It’s pretty.  That’s the BAD thing about being associated with with well-informed appreciators of music.  They mock me when I like Evanescence and random songs by Katy Perry.  For some reason it’s okay for them to like Robyn, but I get all sorts of eyes rolled at me if I like “Poker Face.”

Obviously, I can’t narrow it down to one, favorite song.  That’s a list of a few songs that readily come to mind however.  I tried scrolling through our music library to remind myself of others, but we have 2307 artists in our libraray and 94.5 Gee Bees of music.  I gave up before I got out of the As.  I really need to update my iPod though. I wonder if Media Monkey could make me a 15 GB random play list.  That’s the only way I’m ever going to listen to some of that obscure stuff in there.

Any music recommendations for me?  Benny, this is your turn to speak up.  I’m sure you could name 20 artists I would totally love and of whom I’ve never heard.

Books, Health & Fitness, Uncategorized

Catsup? No, Catch Up

heather

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything.  Not sure why, precisely – probably a combo of being busy at work, not doing anything super exciting, and just generally being lazy.  I talked to my dad today on my way home from work.  He is 60-some years old yet somehow still finds the energy to actually get stuff done on the weekends.  I am proud of myself if, on a Saturday, I make it to the gym and read a chapter of a book not written on a 10th grade reading level.  He spends his Saturday mowing and fertilizing the yard, insulating barns, replacing basement windows, and chopping up 15-foot stacks of hardwood.  He’s fueled by copious amounts of sugar, though.  Maybe that’s his secret.  Anyway, his activity really accentuates my lack of it.

But over the past couple of weeks, however, I have started taking some strides in the right direction.  First of all, I read a book that required some mental effort, Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty.  It’s not a deep book, really.  Or maybe it is, and I just wasn’t getting it.  But the style of writing takes a lot of focus to slog through.  Maybe the book is written in a Southern style, and what with me being born and bred inIowa and all, I just cannot comprehend  the winding, obtuse prose.  I’ve never lived on a bayou or with folks named Bluet and Pinchy and women named Jim Allen.  I just don’t get it.  I prefer precision in my language.  I get annoyed when I have to figure out what is being said.  But, I finished it!  I persevered and didn’t give up.

After finishing Delta Wedding, I jumped in on The Singularity is Near, right where I left off.  This book I also find hard to understand, but only because I’m not a futurist, not because I’m an Iowan.  The book is super interesting – all about the combined evolution of man and machine.  I can’t wait to see where that takes us.

I also did a little art last weekend – nothing fancy, just a little somethingto get back on the saddle again.  I used my favorite drawing subject again, Mr. Lucent Longoria:

I was just playing around, so it’s pretty quick and dirty, but it was also fun, which is really what counts.

While Tim was making delicious burritos for supper, I also worked on my Mom sketch:

I’m going to paint it with watercolors.  I think it will look smashing when it’s done.  I need to work on my spacing, though.  I ran out of room for Mom’s hair, but oh well.  These are really practice pieces anyway.

At least I’ve been a little productive lately.  I haven’t holed myself up to re-watch all of the Firefly episodes again or anything.  It’s been tempting to do that, too, with all this annoying rain we’ve been having.  Tim and I couldn’t bike at all weekend before last, and we only made it out on Sunday last weekend, and then only for a super quick ride to Emeis Park and back.  I was trying to show off for Tim and burnt up all my energy in one little, fast burst.  I need to start training on my own, sans Tim, so that I can keep up with him when we ride together.

Hope you all had a pleasant, fruitful weekend!

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Wind in the leaves

heather

Today was a very productive day for many reasons.  As previously mentioned, I jogged.  I also did a little yoga.  I tried to find a good hatha yoga video on Youtube, but the ones I found were either too hard or too new-agey.  I found a great one 2 weeks ago, but I neglected to bookmark it, so I must start the search anew.

Before heading out to run, however, I did a little quick house cleansing.  I say “cleansing” and not “cleaning” for a reason.  I didn’t clean anything, I just went through some book shelves, closet shelves, and bins in the basement and sent Tim off to Salvation Army with about 4 bags/boxes of old board games, books, and clothes.  Lightening our material load just feels so nice – at least until we get a hankering for The Simpsons Trivia, and we cannot play it.

I also attempted to cut Tim’s hair.  As I was putting on the 1/2″ clip guard it went and broke right in half.  After lunch we headed to Sally’s to pick up a replacement guard.  Once at the store, we couldn’t remember, for sure, which kind of clippers we have.  Tim swore up and down that we have a Wahl clipper, but I was 99% certain it was an Oster.  Tim was so certain that he bet me $20 that we had a Wahl.  Ha!  I am now $20 richer with absolutely no effort.  I should gamble more often.

We also, finally, went to Michaels and ordered a frame for the awesome Aphex Twin painting that has been chilling out in our computer room for years now.  I won’t say it’s “our” painting per say.  It technically belongs to Benny, but I think we’re legally married to it under common law.  So we’re getting it framed.  It will soon be placed prominently in our computer room/guest bedroom to creep out any and all guests.

We returned home, took the Luce out for a poop-inducing walk, and then retired to the back lawn for some lounging, reading, beer-drinking (Great River Roller Dam Red), and pretzel-eating.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  Totally perfect.  It was shady, breezy, cool, and sunny, musical and peaceful.  So beautiful.  It’s hard to believe in the existence of evil, on an afternoon like that.

I am still wading through Delta Wedding.  I’m sure Eudora Welty is brilliant, but she exhausts me.  Quit dancing around the subject and speak plainly.  It’s like reading paragraphs of poetry.  I’ve never really been into poetry (unless it’s my own, because then I can actually figure out what it’s trying to say).  One big book of it is just too much.  I will finish it, however, because I am slightly interested in what is happening with these damn Fairchilds.  Why write a book about a family that is super self-absorbed?  To be fair and punish them, they should be the LAST family to write a book about.  Show them how truly uninteresting they truly are.  Man.

I also got some laundry done and 2 or 3 rows of Benny’s blanket.  I’m working on the heather grey section, and it is just really pretty.

Back to work tomorrow.  No more sunshine, lounge chairs, and mind-stretching books for me.  At least not for another 5 days.