Feeling crafty plus planning for future free time.

I am getting excited. For a while now I've been considering getting back into sewing clothing. This is something I used to do in high school because I have long legs and nobody made long inseam lounge pants (now they do, but it took a while for them to figure out that some chicks have long legs and prefer to not have to have highwater pants in gym class or when going to the Y.) Anyway, I've been sneaking around on blogs looking at sewing patterns and the end result of people's patterns and they look cuuuuute. I have unproven confidence in my ability to make clothing. I've only ever made pants...but a skirt should be doable, right? There's no legs to sew... I think this is going to be okay. I tend to reconstruct a lot of shirts that I buy or am given and turn them into other things. So, I plan to have a blast with this whole thing.

And anyway, in a few weeks I'll be faced with more time and no homework or assignments. Just work. I'm planning to join a healthplex in town to try to have a place to work out. I'll be losing my student rec status at MU. I'd rather have a place to work out in JC rather than up in Como, anyway. I don't really enjoy having to go work out right after working on campus. Plus, I've been asked to help with an afterschool running organization in the spring, as well, so it will be nice to have a place in town that I can workout at on weekends rather than only in Como during the week. The afterschool organization sounds interesting and I'm considering doing that, because I'd be all for trying to help girls boost their self-confidence and stay healthy.

I'm watching Baylor beat Texas Tech. I'm proud of those Bears.

Introducing Beatrix to Watson was a disaster. Watson tried to attack her. He's been pretty grumpy ever since he figured out she was in the house. Bea is a really sweet cat who is really interested in Watson, but it's going to take some time before Watsy is calm enough to handle being in a room with her without charging/attacking her, which just means that then I have to shout really loudly and quickly chase/herd a nearly 20 pound hissing and puffy-tailed cat down the hall and into a guest bedroom. It's about as dramatic as it sounds. Last night was dramalicious in my dad's house.

Live and learn.

For now: Go Baylor. And I'm off to eat meatloaf leftovers from Thanksgiving. Yum.

Kitteh is here. And other news.

New kitteh in the howwwse.

Name: Beatrix
Age: ehhh, just under a year?
Energy level: through the roof.
How she handles meeting an 11 year old nearly 20 pound male cat?: We shall see today.


Also! Insurance says I totaled my car and they're giving me more money than I expected, so I might have a new (to me) car come December. Got my eye on another Subaru in a car lot in town.


I had begun the week determined to throw off the awful of last week and have an awesome week. So far, so good! But still could get better if my godmother would get released from the hospital. She is still in ICU (boo). She might not get to go home for Thanksgiving now and they won't let us bring our T-giving dinner to her (although, actually, we're just having meatloaf...so, perhaps hospital mystery meat is not really that different. Happy Thanksgiving?).

No matter. Send good thoughts up yonder regarding those stuck in hospitals over the holidays, si?

Tweety tweet blog.

Lesson of the Weekend: Caves + wine sounds great, but give it one more thought before you do it.

I am glad to see the end of this week. There has been a ridiculous amount of crap in a incredibly short amount of time. Sometimes, I guess it's just your time to deal with the bad stuff. I've noticed that it's been a rough time for a lot of people. People seem to just be going through some crazy bad stuff lately. Not just me, either. Yesterday I went to the lake to hang out with my dad, my godmother, and my godmother's sister. We went to a winery and drank wine in a cave. There's neat winery that has these steps that lead down to a cave that has some tables in it and you can sit in there and they'll bring you pizza and you hang out and laugh and have a good time. Caves + wine sounds like fun (and it is), but getting out of a cave after drinking is less fun. It did not end well. Yesterday's cave adventure ended with my godmother being life-flighted to University Hospital in Columbia. She's doing well. Quite sore, but well. In fact, I think she's kind of the darling of the ICU up there. They don't really get very lively, funny people in that unit... She's both (thank goodness!). But it's been a rough weekend for her. Her sister is a nurse and did a truly outstanding job during the craziness of yesterday. I know EMTs and nurses and doctors are trained to handle emergencies and have to be ready for anything, but when it's your own family and you have to do what you're trained to do, it's extraordinary. And she did an amazing job keeping her composure during it all and doing what she knew she had to do. I was really impressed by the people who stepped up yesterday. There happened to be an ICU nurse from Joplin at the winery who helped out a lot, too. It kind of makes you think that sometimes people are all in the same place for a reason, you know? Anyway, things are much better today than yesterday and my godmother is going to be a-okay. For now, she's entertaining the ICU nurses at Mizzou, but she'll probably be home for Thanksgiving. As an aside: I'd never been so close to a helicopter before. What a debris machine, those are. I was standing near an old machine shop in a pasture where it landed and the amount of dirt and machine dust and junk in the air around me was kind of crazy. I wasn't a huge fan of the helicopter. It was interesting to see it land, and I was happy that it could land there in an emergency to get someone to a good hospital quickly, but I don't think I'm interested in riding in one. My godmother was not awake for the ride, but she's been told she can now check 'helicopter ride' off of her bucket list.

Tomorrow I hope to find out what's the deal with my automobile. If I had to guess, I'd say that the insurance company will total it out, but if they decide they want to pay to fix it, I'm awesome with that plan, too. I have been doing a little more looking around at cars and seeing what is in my area, and there are some possibilities. We'll see. I'm currently trying to take a 'What kind of car is right for you?' internet quiz. It's uber-scientific and accurate, I'm sure.

After yesterday's fiasco, I decided last night to do yoga again. It relaxes me and I sleep like a log if I do yoga at night. It was actually really nice. I used to do it every night and then got out of the habit of it, but I might try to get back into that routine. I really do sleep much better... And clearly, if life is going to continue on this anxiety-riddled trajectory, I need my sleep.
----------------
p.s. This was my #1 recommended car for everything I told the quiz that I want in a car:

2012 Hyundai Elantra

(Interestingly enough, this is one of the cars I've been doing some research on! My Subaru Impreza came in #5 on my recommended cars in the quiz results.)

Anne Frank

If your sky is falling, take my hand and hold it.

Blargh. I totaled my car tonight. When I have a bad week, I don't do it half-heartedly. Hell, no. I go all out. All is well though... In the big scheme of things, everything is fine. I am minus one cat and one car than I was a week ago, but I am fine and I still have a house and a job and family and friends and three seasons of "Designing Women" and a bag of those awesome cinnamon imperials candies to eat. So, there's really not a whole lot to complain about.

I'm looking at cars online and I am completely overwhelmed. I have no idea what is a good car versus what is not? I would like good mileage and good safety. I know I'll be buying a used car, but I have a lot of research to do suddenly in the auto world. I haven't ever had the luxury of choosing a car for myself. I had a Nissan Sentra that I bought in college and it was good. It served me well through my Texas adventures. I bought it because it was cheap and the only thing I could afford, not because it was necessarily fantastically reviewed or anything. But I ended up loving it. It was a good little car with the most kickass sound system a gal could want. I mean, people could hear me coming down the streets in Waco like you wouldn't believe. And then I sold Luna the Sentra after I kind of inherited my mom's Subaru (named Tinker). I had no car payments on and it served me well, also. Tonight, especially. I am sold on the safety of Subarus. I would definitely get another one if I could somehow afford it. That cashflow thing seems to be where my hiccup is. I had thought to get a new car but not yet. I was thinking maybe next year sometime after I actually was working for a while and saved up some moolah. My dad offered me his Subaru (named Pilgrim) to commute back and forth for a while. I might do that for a bit. Pilgrim is bigger and I'm not as comfortable with it as I was with Tinker, but I'd feel safe driving it.

Let's end this on a high note: Tomorrow is my neighboring old folks home annual cookie sale! Yuuuuum. Oatmeal scotchies, iced sugar cookies, and chocolate m&m cookies: come to mama.

Oh, and another high note: Tonight after my dad came and found me on the highway and the first wrecker man showed up, my dad took me to Steak and Shake for hot chocolate and an awesome cookie sundae thing. When the waitress came and asked us how we were doing tonight, my dad said I totaled my car and that I had a bad week and after we ate and went to pay for our food, the cashier said it had already been taken care of! How sweet is that? I love random acts of kindness from total strangers...especially when I am the recipient of it. Steak and shake waitress, I wish I could remember your name because I would write to the restaurant headquarters about how nice you all are, but since I can't remember: you are awesome and fantastic and I hope you have a wonderful life!

My boy builds coffins.

Boo. I'm feeling down in the dumps. The house feels big and lonely without that little cat in it when I get home. Last night I sat around at home. My class decided to meet online instead of in the classroom, so I was stuck sitting around the house more than I normally would on a Tuesday evening. I cleaned a little bit more around the house, and I started listening to music, which is a constant in my life normally, but when I get really sad, I don't listen so much. So, I tried to listen to some music. But I woke up this morning with "My Boy Builds Coffins" stuck in my head, and I realized my choice in music last night was probably not the healthiest. I should probably throw on something a little less maudlin.

Class was interesting last night, even though it was online. I stuffed my face with goldfish crackers the whole time and nearly choked once when the teacher suddenly asked me a question about censorship in libraries and I had to respond quickly. That's one of my issues with online classes: I become a multi-tasker and I'm not really the best at multi-tasking. It's hard for me to sit in front of the computer and just listen to a voice come through the speakers. So, I tend to snack or halfway watch a movie or surf the internet while listening. It just doesn't work out for me because I just don't pay attention. But, since I find this class really interesting and I didn't really want to focus on my empty house around me, I was paying more attention than usual last night. We got into quite the censorship discussion, although it was mostly on the topic of challenged books, I guess. The removal of books from libraries because of a patron complaint. It's going on right now in Blue Springs, Missouri, where a high school freshman read the book "Hold Still" and she shared the story with her parents, who then got upset and challenged the library, and the book has been removed. I think that fight is not over, because librarians in general have a problem with removing books because of a parent's challenge. Or any challenge, for that matter.  I looked that book up on Goodreads and it seems like everyone liked the book, there was nothing on there by those who had read it to say it wasn't a good book or that they found it offensive in any way. I have a personal opinion that many times, the challenges come from people who never read the book that they're requesting be removed. In schools, especially. Maybe the parents just overhear what the kids say the story is about, or maybe they read one or two pages in the middle somewhere and decide it's not suitable for their child. It's not the librarian's fault that a child is reading a book that the parent doesn't want the child to read. It is part of a parent's job to watch what their kids are reading, but requesting that no child be allowed to read a book that you don't want your child reading always makes me queasy. There are better ways to handle your child reading and sharing a book with you that you feel uncomfortable talking about than deciding that you want to deny this book to all children.

I am totally against the removal of a book in a library that is in the collection if it falls within the collection development parameters of that library, and is often circulated, etc. But last night my teacher made a point that I had never really thought of before and that is that librarians are often so into protecting the right to read and immediately want to throw down with any patron who dares to challenge any book in the library, that we can get pretty high and mighty about it. Most patron challenges in a public library are not taken all that seriously. Librarians provide forms for patrons to fill out when they want a book to be removed for whatever reason. Often though, this a total front to just pacify the angry patron. It also serves as fodder for jokes. My professor last night brought up this point to show that these challenges do need to be taken seriously because librarians are always removing books from the collection. Always. Weeding is a constant chore for librarians, but we want to be the ones to choose what is removed, we don't want to bow down to a patron request for removal. But, maybe the challenged book doesn't actually fit with the collection development policy in place. Maybe it really shouldn't be in the collection. It is a good point. You don't want to give in to someone who wants to censor reading in a public library, or a school library, or anywhere. Just as a matter of pride, you don't want to give in to that person. You don't want to remove a book that is popular because one person finds it offensive. It's a public library for a reason and it can't become the library of Joe Smith, who doesn't want anything on witchcraft or homosexuality in his library. And despite the fact that most public libraries are supported by tax dollars that are paid by the patrons who use it, that doesn't mean that the patrons have the right to decide what is in it or not. It really doesn't...Sorry. However, challenges should be taken seriously and actually looked at and reviewed to make sure that book was selected following the policies in place. (It would still really gall me, though, to have to remove a book from a library if the challenge was something that I completely thought was ridiculous. I would probably want to write some sort of Librarian's Rebuttal or something in response to the challenge. Kind of like the dissenting opinion in a Supreme Court case.)

So, that discussion at least got me thinking of things other than how lonely my house is. I did think of all the things I can do now though. Like cook or do yoga. Those were always a little tough with Iris around. She was my [messy] shadow and being the kitchen was her domain and you had to watch your step. Yoga was difficult because she LOVED it when you were on the floor because suddenly she could be all over you because she couldn't jump up on things, so suddenly she had free reign to headbutt you while you were trying to do yoga and hold some pose. It didn't work so well. 

Rest in peace, baby girl.

This morning Iris was euthanized. This was a really rough weekend. She hadn't been eating for much of the week, she refused to drink water, and got so weak that she couldn't walk. She would fall over and try to drag herself from one place to another. It was heartbreaking. She was frustrated at how she couldn't get around, but she had lost the will to fight any longer. She was exhausted and wasn't going to come back from this. It's sad and lonely with out her around, even though I know the decision to put her down was the right one. And I know that she had a good life and that I did what I could for her and that she was a happy cat who impressed a lot of people with her courage and her strength. I'm proud of her and, although she had a short life, I'm thankful for the privilege to have had her share her short life with me.

So long, little one.

On the day I adopted her in 2007. So tiny.

Sort of discovering the great outdoors while on vacation at my Dad's house in 2009.

My darling Iris. Even though she was never healthy like an ordinary cat, she was always sweet and loving.