i am learning to look.
i’m hoping to register for classes soooon! Anna and Kels made me a list, so if my advisor is agreeable i’ll be taking some wonderfully fun classes next semester. i’m trying not to get too excited, because i don’t want to be disappointed… but …. African history! Sculpture! History of film! all this and more. yes. and maybe no english or math this time? if i can talk myself into it.
that would be awesome.
i think i’m an adrenaline junkie, in a big way.
i was pretty disappointed to read that Hulu is going to be charging for their service by 2010.
since i’m a person who doesn’t have a lot time to watch TV except a million episodes of House and the office when i’m sick or avoiding homework, hulu has been a great option. now i have to stop thinking of it as permanent. 
bad news. argh.
the nice thing is that netflix is putting more and more of their seasons of tv shows online, and i do have a membership there. but still. pout.
i can’t see too good.. is that Mr. Tom Waits down there? Twice?
(thanks to Shaina for the pic on the left.. thanks to google for the pic on the right.)
i have the broke computer syndrome. and the throwing up syndrome. but i’ll try to blog soon.
i’m cuddled on a striped couch right now, lights off with an open window, curtains pulled back.
i’m trying to pull the curtains back in other ways, too. This week has been really hard, as far as hardness goes. going to school is hard, and it takes a lot of energy. having kids is hard, and it takes a lot of energy. having friends is hard, and so is being married, retaining inner peace, caring about the poor, and having a job. and let’s not even talk about cleaning. or cooking.
i know for sure that i’m doing the right things with my life, and as i look over the list, none of them can be eliminated. Parenting and wifing and school take up the biggest chunks, but they’re all non-negotiables.
this means i just have to figure out how to live this way, for this period of time. it’s not forever, i keep telling myself. in the scheme of things, it’s not very long at all.
Part of figuring it out is figuring out how to find peace and rest. i don’t want to end up some sort of workaholic and learn my lesson by having a terrible mental break or something. it happens. i’m told. so, yes, peace. i have so much trouble relaxing at home, because i always see something i need to do. essentially, wherever i am i think about what i need to do next. nature of the busy beast, i guess.
anyway, last night i relaxed! my school friends and i had a leetle halloween get together at Kelsey’s swanky apartment. She made Montecristos and fancy tomato soup with little sour cream cobwebs on top, and the cutest dessert of all time* (note the scary gravestones). and we all just sat and ate good food and held a teeny puppy and made fun of drew and talked about our costumes. and watched Shawn of the Dead, a favorite.
*yum
We all have our roles in the group, and it’s funny how we settle into them so comfortably. We all give little sister Tommi relationship advice. I do motherly things, like putting in kels’ earrings or encouraging haircuts. Anna makes us all crack up. Kelsey does housewifey things, like arriving on time and cooking for us. Man, i’m blessed.
And i rested! I didn’t worry about my paper that was due today, i let my phone die and didn’t try to get my messages or check my email. i have no regrets, only a desire to do it again.
Moral of the story: i am happiest when people for cook me in clean houses.
i have been promised that living this way is sustainable
This weekend i was pretty stressed about a looming art history test for most of it. Yesterday i spent nearly every waking hour at the library, which helped with the stress a bit, but also made me very aware of how little i know about the Baroque, Rococo, Romanticism, and The Enlightenment, which is what the exam is about, along with 40+ images.
The hardest part of the test, for me, is that the professor also shows us a piece we’ve never seen, and we have to guess where and when, and give evidence. I’ve never been right, so far, but i want to be right. i study like a maniac. thus, yesterday. i love leaving a test and feeling like i DID it.
when i was finally ready to retire from studying, around 130, i got in bed, snuggled up under the quilt, pushed my cold toes up against knox’s warm legs, and…couldn’t sleep. for hours. there was too much thinking to do.
i know it was a combination of the caffeine and the over-studying (and maybe the universe punishing me for going to starbucks), but it reminded me so much of when i was a little girl. i used to worry, a lot. even as a teenager i would bolt through dark rooms and refuse to look out the window at night. when i would get into bed and try to sleep, i couldn’t. sometimes i would get up and write lists of things i needed to think about, and then lay down and try to sleep again.
getting married changed that. knox makes me feel safe, and he was around for me to talk to at night. Going to sleep is a lot easier with the day’s events off my mind.
But last night K was sleeping, and for the aforementioned reasons, i was not.
Anyway, that’s just another reason i love him.
-Here’s another: how many mothers-of-two get to go to college full time and follow their dreams to an occupation that isn’t necessarily extremely profitable? One. Me.
-(Another, related:) I haven’t cooked a meal since August. (i do make breakfasts for shiloh, and lunches. that is all.)
-He worked all week, and then spent saturday doing the same thing he does at work for free, so a refugee can have a livable, affordable apartment. and had a good time while doing it.
-As Amanda says, who needs tv with Knox around?
it makes my stomach hurt when people don’t like me.
