moonlight musings

somewhat settled in, but still trying to make the nest a home

2006-06-19T02:54:00.000-06:00

The long move has finally come to an end and for the most part we are moved in to my brother-in-law's spacious home. Though I find myself still rather unsettled, I have yet to find a new job, and so we are just barely getting by, thank goodness for a rent free abode with a plenty of free ameneties.
Still it sucks having such a low balance on my bank account. I had a couple of good job prospects, one especially nice one at barnes & noble but apparently I did not meet their high standards. You would think over 7 years working at a library would be qualification enough...I mean selling books can't be any different than renting them out. Oh well, the search continues for some kind of clean desk job, maybe I don't look appealing on paper...who knows, I just hope the call comes soon, a part time coffee attendent is even looking good right now.
But enough about that, in other news, the journey to get to this point was rather stressful, I am in no rush to go through it again. It's amazing how even the simplest plans go awry, I had planned to quit my previous job April 29,two weeks before the move, to get the Burrow all packed up, but of course, being that I apparently, had the most stressful job in Moscow, my replacement quit after two weeks of training. So they managed to find lucky replacement number 2 April 24th, but she was still working 2 part time jobs so she couldn't even start until the second week of May, the second week of may also being my original 2nd week of packing plan. So because I am too nice I offered to stay on until she started to keep the office afloat and to do some training. Which led to nearly four days of 12 hour shifts leading up to my final work day on the 11th of May, just a day before the invasion of my in-laws.
Not a happy time for me to the say the least, I was so tired, and my natural ability to gather & store things away was not something I was proud of at that time, because come to find out we had a lot of crap squirreled away in that small rental, admitedly it was close to 4 years worth of stuff but still it was daunting to witness it all being boxed up.
Than to top it all off, on the 13th of May, my husband finally walked across the stage in his cap & gown, along with my closest friend. I had hoped that this would have been a happier day for me, but it was just draining. In the midst of all the packing I had to sit through some boring speeches & try to locate my husband in the stream of other black capped graduates. Than I had to run across campus moments after my husband's graduation to see my friend's graduation, which was very sad to witness, because she was also moving away to Montana with her husband & kids. So it was really our last outing together. She even sat with me during Big Nose's graduation.
And of course we will still talk online & on the phone and her parents live in Twin Falls (where we relocated to) so she will be visiting at some point. But still it sucks to know that I can't just call her up to meet for coffee whenever.
I have discovered over the years that I don't make for a very good long distant friend. The task of trying to communicate all the little daily details that are so easy to say in person just don't translate well in writing or over the phone for me. I just end up missing the person more, hating the fact that we are not right next to each. I feel like I'm talking to ghosts that I don't always believe are there. Probably why my relationship with God is so faded, you just need to see who you are talking to now & again.
Anywho, after parting with my best friend, I went back to my soon to be former home, to see it being speedily emptied. I should be thankful that my in-laws were so kind to come up all the way from southern Idaho to see BN's graduation and help us move, but the fact that, for whatever reasons, it had to be all done in one day was just too much for me to witness. It seemed all my plans were thrown out the window, I had planned to make dinner for everyone that day & had bought all the ingredients and even started some of the prep work only to find out minutes before that it was no longer needed because they wanted to pack up everything & it just made more sense to them to eat out.
Which ultimately was fine, but I just hated wasting so much time preparing for that final dinner in my old house only to be told to scrap it at the last minute.
The same thing actually happened today/yesterday. My in-laws had a father's day BBQ & I offered to make a dish, I ended up choosing to do a chinese steamed rice, I stayed up all morning prepping ingredients because I also had a lunch BBQ with my family to attend, so I planned to put the rice together just before my in-laws BBQ, but by the time it was ready they had already ate & were on to eating dessert. Less than a hour after the party was suppose to start. I didn't even go to the dinner party, BN was already there with our car & I was home alone (my mom had dropped me off) without a car to even go back to family's party which was still going on. It just felt like a such a wasted effort for nothing. Sure I could have called BN to come pick me up, but since the party seemed over it just didn't make sense to show up so late & hear all the teasing comments. And what's the point in bringing a sidedish (a perfectly turned out sidedish too no less) when everyone had eaten already. I just would have felt like tardy loser.
But back to the move where I didn't end up feeling that way, instead I felt worse, so much was happening so quickly and there was so many people packed into our little place, I felt like I couldn't really relax with them all there. And at some point I realized I really needed to just be alone & cry, which is what I did minus the alone part. Fortunately, only my husband & my mother-in-law were witness's to my breakdown. One person less would have been nicer, because my mom-in-law though nice is just someone I don't like being emotional around, actually I don't like being emotional around anyone, it's just too personal of an experience. Most people (my mlaw included) instantly want to know the reason why, they want to be able to place blame somewhere (my mlaw guessed it was the change in dinner plans & tried to console me by saying how we could do it some other time, like I wanted to think about planning out another dinner at that moment) and I find I just want to be alone to get over it on my own, usually I blame it on a personal weakness. Like if I didn't care so much about such situations I could just be okay about it....
Eventually all of our apartment was packed up onto my inlaw's trailer and we waved it goodbye on the 14th. We stayed an extra day to clean up and turn our keys in. It was nice to finally deal with one thing at our pace and know that there wasn't much need for rushing. Our stuff made it down intaked, and after a very hot, long drive, (an air conditioner would have been a good investment) we made it down in our little car, Pez. I doubt we will ever take it on that long of a trip again, but it definitly proved it's worth.
So after much unpacking I find myself at this point staring out my bedroom window at a darkened pre-dawn canyon, hearing the snores of my husband whose been on a 12-20 hour study schedule the last few weeks preparing for the bar next month.
We had a nice few weeks getting rested, celebrating our 2nd wedding aniversary, visiting family and such. We got to witness the drama of my brother-in-law's divorce up close, which I have to say is worthy of a soap opera. We reside in his house, which also feels the pain of the divorce, since almost every room is in mid-remolding.
I have also had many eyewitness encounters with the wildlife of this area. Deer walk calmly across our driveway & front lawn routinely. Small insect eating bats fly above the canyon in our back yard at dusk every night. Owls seem to be house hunting now in the area, much like the many Californians that have migrated to our state over the last couple years.
I can see a bit of sun coming up and the sugar from my ice tea is starting to wear off. Sleep is calling, stay tuned for further headlines.

Captured by slippery walks & phlegm

2006-04-02T22:14:00.000-06:00

I believe I'm finally free of my captors. My former snot filled body appears to now be back to normal. The beginning of spring always seems to bring about a good congestion for me but this season I also had the pleasure of a tumble out at my front door. It all occurred on the 14th, the full moon no less, when I was headed off to work. During the previous night of sleep I kept noticing how my throat was getting more & more sore, so it was no real shock upon waking to discover I not only had a sore throat but I also had some severe congestion forming. Not a very great way to start my work week, but I got ready anyway & after taking only five steps outside to my car, my left foot slipped off the walkway and my ankle twisted underneath me. Somehow I managed to fall forward, smacking my right knee right into the cement walkway. And while I was in mid-fall my right arm tossed my coffee mug through the air, it also landed rather hard, but more in the grass than the cement. Still I only mention this point to say that in my then condition, watching my beloved instant coffee, which I had not even taken one sip of yet, fly through air and slowly drizzle out onto the lawn was the final blow to my morning. Especially since for a second I thought I had done permanent damage to my ankle. I had a moment of panic thinking I would not be able to pull myself up & there was no one around to get help from. I even called out in a rather feeble voice to my husband who was inside the house busily writing his senior paper. Of course he could not hear me & my cell phone was charging in the office so I couldn't even call him. Around this time I decided I was not going to work that day.
fortunately, I could hobble back into the house, but I'm afraid to say I couldn't help but cry a little, I just felt too miserable for words, my cream pants were all muddy & my coffee undrinkable & you know every inch of me feeling sore now. Big nose heard me trying to unlock our door through the sobs & at first just thinking I had forgot something he was quite surprised to see me standing there like a lost puppy. He went instantly into alert mode thinking something much more serious had happened. And of course when he heard that I had fallen he did all the right things, checking/bandaging my wounds & helping me back to bed. He even got me a walkie talkie to use to call him on in case I needed anything.
so now here I am back safe & sound.

2006-02-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

Just Us Together

2006-02-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Big Nose wearing my glasses,and the expression he uses to look at menus.

My Darling Big Nose

2006-02-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

My daily routine is rather simple...I try to sleep as late as possible and than I make a mad dash around the burrow getting ready for work. I spend about nine hours or more at work just trying to stay below the rader, so that my managers don't find a reason to start snarling at me, which is difficult because it's a rather small office with the stress level for at least one general at time being at red alert.
I am literally counting the days until May when my husband will graduate from law school & we will move to our hometown in Southern Idaho, at which point I may take a part time job, but only if it's something stress free.
Which I know that is hard to find, but basically I would just prefer a job where I didn't have to interact much with anyone. I dream of those jobs where you could literally be dead at your cubicle for days before someone even finds your smelly corpse. I mean honestly, it isn't that I'm a unsocial person, I am actually quite charming, but I just hate having people dump their drama on me when I'm clearly not the source of their problems. Like I as a clerk have any control over price rates or the fact that one person is being overworked. People at work or as customers are never the same people you know as friends, the whole element of money just makes most people way too tense.
So anywho once I escape the timeclock everyday, I then just spend my evening with my darling husband, Big Nose. He is the midst of the toil that is law school, so he doesn't really have much time to actually spend with me, but we found a way to get around this. While he works on his homework on the loveseat, I nest on the full size couch and we enjoy our evening tv shows together. We both take turns cooking dinner, BN is actually the one who most often cooks, while I often end up cleaning up. Most nights we than enjoy the luxury of going to bed together at the same time.
This is my quiet life these days, but somehow it doesn't feel quiet, I mean yes we don't really do much outside our little burrow. But we manage to still fill up our days with activity, whether it be cleaning, making up silly stories, (like the reason why Dick Cheney was such a perfect name for the laptop that BN was fixing for a friend....it's secretive and shifty, with a very bad aim when it comes to searching for things) watching movies, giving each other back massages, or me just giggling all day about the recent slapstick maneuver BN has fallen into. Our lives feel very much in limbo right now just seems like we are waiting for all the big stuff to begin: getting our own home, starting a family, starting a career, even getting a puppy. It's all just on hold for now, or at least for just a few more months.

Austen, forgive me for being so blind to your beauty.

2006-02-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

Well I finally got my Pride & Prejudice fix satisfied. I just procured the new version with Keira Knightly as Elizabeth Bennet, which though more condensed than the BBC miniseries, is still quite lovely.
Keira is just so enchanting and I just love the empire waist garments. Soon I hope to have more time & space to practice my sewing, so that I can start making my own Austen wardrobe.
But the thing I love most about this new version of P & P is that the actors all look closer in age to the characters from the book, I mean don't get me wrong Colin Firth & Jennifer Ehle are perfect together, but I do think that Matthew Macfadyen & Keira Knightly just have a more youthful quality about them. Or maybe it's just they are closer to my age versus the former.
At least they are closer in age to the characters than Emma Thompson & Kate Winslet were in Sense & Sensibility, which is still a wonderful movie, but I have never really seen Emma Thompson as a romantic lead. She just always seemed too matronly to me and the character was only suppose to be 19, while Kate Winslet was good in the role, but it wouldn't have hurt to have a teenage actress playing the part, since that overly romantic spirit that makes up Mary Ann's character does come from the inexperience of a teenager with little responsibility. I do think Emma Thompson did a wonderful job adapting the story, but I think she shouldn't have put herself as one of the sisters. Maybe that's just me.
Anywho, I still love the films. I mean how could one not love Austen's perfect storytelling? I am such a big fan of clever romantic comedies, I mean I know they all have that general boy meet girl formula, but that doesn't mean they aren't still great to watch and Austen is really the foundation of romantic comedies.
I can't believe it took me so long to discover her. I was in college when I started really watching the films, and it was just this last year that I started reading the books. I had such a bad experience with old English writers, especially Henry James's Portrait of a Lady, which was so tedious & frustrating.
I blame it on academia just sucking all the joy out of reading the classics or having you only read things so full of metaphorical symbolism that you just want to drink heavily to get your head straight again. So I just figured that Jane Austen would have the same tedious dry language & never really bothered with her.
That was until seeing the miniseries and being told it was so closely based off the book and loving the miniseries. So, thereby I just had to read the book to see how it compared and I was so impressed with the narrative style that I just had to start reading all her works. So now I'm in the process of reading Sense & Sensibility which still continues Austen's brilliant writing capability, I mean it's funny because she isn't portraying any real dramatic situations or complex plots, it's all just ordinary daily life. They are the grown up version of those trashy historical paperback romances that I use to read as adolescent.
So now that I got my costume romance fix, I should be good for at least another 6 months or so, though I am now starting to get an itch for some Anne of Green Gables romance.....aaah the sweet beauty of costumes, love, & rain.

Good Evening

2006-02-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

For my first post, I will try to keep it short & simple. Not too much to report today, I have not ventured outside yet because it is my day off and I consider it one of the luxuries of my life that I can stay in pjs all day and do very little in the way of real work. Though of course I did spend quite a bit of time setting up this blog, so I feel that should count for something.
My whole theory on having this blog is that it will be less stress than trying to keep a journal, I mean I actually spend a lot of time with Spike (the name of my computer, I like giving names to inanimate objects, it makes me feel more invested in them, like if Spike were to die tomorrow I would be really sad, like we had this whole history together.... "and we just started that blog together yesterday, he was so excited to be working on a new project" "I just spent all day playing bingo with Spike" you know that sort of history) so I figure what better place to document my day.
Also this will make for a good venue for updating my pals around the globe as to what I am doing when I'm not returning very nice emails that I really intend on responding to.
And another hope for this exercise in writing is that it will inspire me to write more fiction which is something I use to do quite a bit of but sense graduating college and getting married I just can't seem to find the enthusiam for writing that I once had. So let's get this experiment started....

2006-02-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

my first halloween & my favorite picture of myself