Birthday

I had a party! My first one in years! We went to Outback and had a great time! Evidence of fun:

Not a good picture of Ted, but the other ones weren't great of Tara (Sorry Ted).

Cutest picture of Jeremy and Denise! They were able to come at the last minute due to a cancellation of his family's Christmas (bad weather).

Eric and Nicky. We're losing more friends to far away places. They're moving to India in February!

I have to post this because it happens to be a pretty good picture of me; Jon is not smiling because he's swallowing--whoops! (Notice the beautiful sapphire necklace that Jon got me!)

I'm pretty happy at this point--with a tummy full of steak!

Part of my birthday present from Ted and Tara. I figured I'd model it while they sang "Happy Birthday" to me. Stylish.

Ted's operatic "Happy Birthday."

We had a wonderful cake from Arnie's while sipping my favorite champagne and a great late harvest reisling. I didn't expect the champagne to taste so wonderful with the chocolate cake; perhaps it was just the birthday euphoria. Perhaps not.

In our thirties

Jon pointed this out to me yesterday. One of his seminary professors has a link to this guy's blog on his blog (Mike Wittmer's link to Zach Bartel's blog). I almost cried by the end when I realized how true I find the statements. I've added a few of my own to the end of the list.

It's quite poignant, especially as I consider my impending birthday.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Getting older...
I'm thirty. No, that's not old in years. It's still pretty young. But old has several definitions and one of them indicates a state of mind. Some people, at thirty, are still more or less like they were in college (and still living more or less the same kind of life). Others are consumed with the daily grind or raising a couple of tweens.

Now, I haven't much thought about it, but in the back of my mind, I think I've always just assumed that I'm on the "younger" end of things for a thirty-year-old. I mean, I still listen to hip hop and punk music from time to time. I watch a lot of movies and can follow most pop culture references. But upon further inspection, these are not nearly enough to hold me back from my relentless and apparently passionate pursuit of boring-old-guy-ness.So what are the signs? Well, here are a few:

• My favorite cereal is no longer Cinnamon Toast Crunch or even Honey Nut Cheerios. It's Special K. That's right; if I could have any cereal on a given morning, I'd always choose Special K.
  
• When I go to a concert, I don't want to mosh. I don't want to dance. I don't even want to stand. I paid good money to sit here and listen and that's what I want to do, thank you. Down in front.
  
• When I read Calvin and Hobbes, I get a far bigger kick out of Calvin's dad (heck, I am Calvin's dad) than I do out of Calvin himself.
  
• I think of ten-year-old songs that were popular during my college years as being more or less "new." (I seriously can't believe that Time of Your Life and Iris are actually a decade old; heck, the Coolio song in my last entry--the one that Erin and I used to crank in my car--is thirteen years old. How did that happen?).
  
• In addition, I couldn't name one song that's on the top forty right now (if there even is still such a thing) and when I happen to hear said current pop music, I hate it 95% of the time.
  
• So I pretty much just listen to podcasts of financial and theological radio shows. Wow, when I write that out, it's just... man, I'm old.
  
• I frown when someone tells a dirty joke.
  
• I wear a tie just about every day. And I like it that way.
  
• I'm far more excited about watching everyone else open Christmas presents that I bought than actually opening presents myself.
  
• I'd rather play Pac Man on my Palm than learn how to play some new photo-real, adrenaline rush video game. On second thought, I'd rather play cribbage or backgammon than any of that stuff.
  
• When I employ slang whilst talking to the youth of my church, I can see them exchanging sidelong glances and trying not to snicker.
  
• More often than not, the thought of going to a party drains me, rather than exciting me.
  If the subject of music, television, fiction, newspaper funnies, shopping malls, etc. comes up, my first instinct is to begin a diatribe about how it used to be so much better.
  
• I don't yet have the old-guy-up-at-dawn-ready-to-go thing down just yet, but I want it more than anything.
  
• And here's the real nail in the coffin of my youth (at least by this particular definition)...I drink decaf at night now. Decaf. If my 19-year-old self could have a meeting with me, he'd beat the tar out of me for my own good.

Beth's additions:

• Jon and I have a regular Saturday morning breakfast place. We've been going for about 3 1/2 years, our waitress knows us so well she got us a housewarming present, and she can generally put Jon's order in without having to talk to him about it. Oh, and we prefer to be there before 7:00--our waitress arrives around 6:00, and we like to be there when there are virtually no other patrons present.
• I'm leasing a "practical car" rather than a "kick ass" car.
• I don't text. I don't send picture messages. I don't IM. Hell, I don't answer the phone if I don't absolutely have to.
• I think the mailman has delivered more bills than Christmas cards this year.
• We eat dinner at 5:00 pm, sometimes a little earlier. If we go out, we're frequently the youngest people in the restaurant by about 20 years.

Anyone have anything equally or more pathetic? (Please!?!?)

Boo!

Exam week was not all I had hoped for here. I played not a single game with our students. Instead of going through 11 bags of popcorn in the circus style popcorn machine like we did last semester, we went through 4 (and most of that batch is sitting there, stale, in the machine. It was a week of long meetings, tons of snow, and alternating extremes of maddeningly boring spells mixed with serious job responsibilities. Eek! The college closes down on Wednesday for the holiday break, and I seem to be the only one here for these first two days of the week. The rest of my department is full time staff, and they have each accumulated copious amounts of vacation time. I, part time peon that I am, accumulate none. Two long, boring days are in store for me.

On a different note, I reread Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy in the last several months (it's long and I'm busy!). It's my third time reading the fictional biography of Michelangelo. I found new things during this reading and was able to correct things I just plain remembered wrong, and I discovered that I still enjoy it and find it to be insightfully and engrossingly written. It's well worth reading every 7 or 8 years!

On the other hand, I started (and am about half way finished) with another novel. I had lent a book to a student of mine, and she returned the favor. I'm now reading The Last Templar, by Raymond Khoury. I wish I could say that I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying having something to read, but the novel is so poorly and awkwardly written, it's actually a bit painful. I try to console myself with the idea that "at least it's an interesting story," but I'm just kidding myself. It's predictable in that I'm not surprised by anything that I think I'm supposed to be surprised by. But I'll keep reading it because I tend to finish books I start and because, even though I'm reading it half braindead, I still don't have to go back and reread the parts I was totally braindead while reading. I'm not expecting greatness in the second half, but I suppose anything is possible.

I know I'm just fooling myself again.

Exam week

I love exam week here at Aquinas!

Food, games, and talking--that's about all I do during our exam week hours. We are a "Stress Free Zone" for students this week, which happens to mean that my job is virtually stress free as well! My 8 hour Monday has felt more like 2. Wonderful!
If only I didn't have those essays to grade for my class!

Holiday Shopping Trip

I volunteered last night for the GR Jaycee's Holiday Shopping Tour and brought a big group of students from my department at Aquinas (and then assembled into a bigger group with students from GVSU and GRCC). The Jaycees take underprivileged kids shopping for Christmas gifts for their families, and then the children meet Santa and get a present for themselves. I was a personal shopper last year and did it again this year. This is bit problematic for me because this involves shopping... with children.
I'd heard that there were going to be local celebrities helping out yesterday, but I didn't really think much of it. But I saw Mary Ellen Murphey, a DJ; Antoinette, a spokesperson who I see on tv who promotes GRCC; Gerry Barnaby, a tv news guy; and John Gonzalez, a reporter for the Grand Rapids Press. I was paired up with someone to shop with because, for a little while, there were more volunteers than kids. My partner was Dr. Bernard Taylor, superintendent for Grand Rapids Public Schools, a fairly influencial fellow. It was really cool to see television and radio personalities, but when I talked to my students about these people, they had no idea who I was talking about. I suddenly realized how long I've lived in Grand Rapids and how damn old I am. I'm all excited about seeing and meeting local celebrities--this is not what many people, especially college students, give a crap about.
However, I'm still damn impressed.

plow service

We decided to hire a plow service for our driveway, in this first winter in our house. It's hard enough to do all of the other crap around the house for the first time, we really didn't feel like buying a snow blower and then having to snow blow every day or every other day. We'd be playing a lot of rock, paper, scissors to see who had to go out in freezing temps to do it. Okay, that comment is not fair to Jon--I'd want to help out, but I doubt he'd ever make me do it.
Back to my complaint--yes, how could I complain about it, you ask? The plow guy will come at, like, 2:00 a.m. A lot of snow can fall between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. when Jon leaves for work. And a lot more can fall between 8 a.m. when I leave for work and when we get home in the afternoon. Our driveway still has a crapload of snow on it! It's snowed all of 3 or 4 times this winter, and I'm already wondering why we didn't just bite the bullet and buy a dang snow blower!

New favorite site:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

For example:

work weekend

"On tap for next weekend: trimming back about a dozen lilacs, rototilling my future garden area(s), painting windows, raking leaves, killing (more) weeds, spreading grass seed, moving a crab apple tree, spreading mulch." That's what I wanted to get done. Ha.

Friday was beautiful!!! Saturday, work day, was awful. Rain and sleet, mud and grime. We hired two guys Jon works with, had his friend Matt and Matt's dad over, had my hard working husband, and ... me. Thankfully I had raked the front yard Friday afternoon, when the weather was lovely, but since we didn't have any yard waste bags, they just sat in piles on the front lawn getting wet Saturday morning. There was no way in hell I was going to try to tackle the back yard. It took me 45 minutes just to rake the front!

So what did we get done? Basically nothing on my list. I did have some help bagging the leaves and I spread grass seed in the front and back yard--in the sleety wetness--right before my back gave out. I knew it was going to happen, I just didn't know when. Jon and company did crazy stuff in the back yard. They moved a whole bunch of really big concrete blocks and rocks to our ever expanding "random rocks, blocks, and landscaping paraphernalia" region in the backyard. Also, there were these railroad ties being used as rudimentary landscape timbers that were removed and chopped up into burnable pieces for our fire pit. There was also a set of bars installed by the original owners to use for hanging clothes lines--cemented into the ground starting at about 18"-24" and ending at least 2' below that! These things were installed to stay! But they needed to come out so that we can move the shed from its present inconvenient location to right behind the garage (where the railroad ties and laundry poles were). Now we have even more DIRT lying around from where everything was dug up! Well, with the appearance of the snow this morning, I can maintain a blissful ignorance about the appalling state of my back yard. Yay snow?

winterizing

This being the first year we've owned a house, we're trying to figure out all that we have to do to winterize--and get help doing it. Our yard is a disaster--that backyard anyway. There are huge patches of dirt all over the place from where we've had "extra" from other projects and dumped it in a low patch in the back. And there are a lot of low patches. There are still a lot of low patches. It's looking pretty bare back there, but I knew that this was going to be a year of removal and hoped that next year would be a year of planting. It looks like grass seed will be essential to the plan of improving the yard to make our 1/2 acre more "Edenic." It'll take a few years, but it will look wonderful.

On tap for next weekend: trimming back about a dozen lilacs, rototilling my future garden area(s), painting windows, raking leaves, killing (more) weeds, spreading grass seed, moving a crab apple tree, spreading mulch.

No problem.

driveway expansion

So I promised Jon I'd get these pictures posted--they're of his hard work last weekend.

Here's what it looked like just after he got started. Grass, dirt, and pebbles.

Phase 2: remove the landscaping fabric and pebbles.

And the end result: a driveway that will be considerably easier to shovel and snow blow!! Yea!

Facebook???

So, I'm on Facebook now. I don't know exactly how it happened, since I said 3 years ago that I would never join. If I'd gotten in on the ground floor many years ago it would be different, but I figured it would be really lame for someone my age to get in on it so late. Who joins when they're 30? Well, I do, apparently. What's surprising is how much I'm enjoying it. As of today, I have 22 friends, including a couple of people who I've been trying to find for years! Now, many people would say, "ONLY 22 friends?! How sad!" And I say, holy cow, 22 people claim they know me?!?! That's frickin' fantastic! I may just have a heart attack if I reach 25!

Irksome!

For those of you out of state and/or who don't give a crap about Tiger's baseball, I'll tell you that this was a disappointing season, well a disappointing END of season. The Tigers (stupidly) traded away veteran, All Star catcher Pudge Rodriguez on the trade deadline in July to the Yankees and acquired a (crappy) relief pitcher, Kyle Farnsworth. This trade was bad (idiotic) enough, but after their season has ended I read this:


C[atcher] Dusty Ryan has shown enough that Detroit feels he could at least open the 2009 season on the major league roster, but the Tigers prefer to have a veteran to at least split time with the rookie. “Do I think we could get by (with Ryan)?” Leyland said. “Probably. Would it be the best thing? Probably not.”


They need a veteran catcher? Damn straight they need a veteran catcher, after they (moronically) traded away the best catcher in the league. But, hey, Pudge is with the Yankees now, so we couldn't get him back anyway, right?

Wrong. The Yankees won't be renewing Pudge's contract, which means he's up for grabs. But will the Tigers bring back our beloved Pudge? Heck no. Dave Dombrowski has done some fantastic things for the Tigers (including bringing Pudge here in the first place to anchor the struggling team in 2004) and some pretty dumb ones (most notably trading Pudge, but also the acquiring of Gary Sheffield, 2006, and Edgar Renteria, 2007). But even though we need a catcher, and one of the best catchers in the league (I don't care if he's 36) is available, this match up seems unlikely to occur. I suppose it would be a little embarrassing to bring back a player who was so recently traded away, but heck, the fans don't care. We just want our Pudge back!!!

Sarah Palin/Tina Fay?

I know virtually nothing about Sarah Palin, except that she and Tina Fay share a striking reseblance to one another. Here's an enlightening view courtesy of SNL.

America

I really hate to get political, partly because I'm not the most qualified individual and partly because I don't like the arguments that inevitably ensue, but I just can't keep my take on this presidential campaign to myself anymore.



I saw an Obama ad a couple of nights ago, the longest ad I've seen, in which he is talking about how he wants people to check out his website where he details his "plan." Yes, his "plan;" now you know the direction I lean. He wants to impose a tax surcharge on oil profits and give some of that money back to Americans. Though I like the idea of free money (which, by the way, Bush already did this year, which, by the way, Obama opposed), the source of the funds troubles me. Taking away profits from companies is decidedly in contention with the greatest of American ideals: capitalism. The United States is not a socialist or communist country. This leads to my second "plan" problem: reforming Wall Street to protect investments. Investments have been protected about as much as a capitalist society can. There are even safeguards in place so that the market cannot crash like it did in 1929. If one wants investment security, use a savings account or a CD. If one wants to make money in an investment, one must take a certain amount of risk. Limiting that risk limits one's potential earnings. Warren Buffett did not get rich by purchasing CDs. He made some money; he lost a little; he made some more; he lost a little; he made a crap load; he lost a little. Just because everyone happens to be losing a little right now does not mean that the system is flawed. Barack Obama cannot fix this system without changing the foundations of American capitalism, which cannot be done by anyone. By proposing such changes he is either showing that he lacks knowledge of the foundations of the American economic system (which I find unlikely) or that he thinks that the American public will actually believe that he can and will make these impossible changes. Stop believing politicians' promises!!! Think first: is this even possible?

Ginny

Okay, we got another cat. Jon fell in love with this little Humane Society tabby at the pet store last weekend. He/we filled out an adoption form so that we could get her out of the cage (that's about the only way they'll let you play with them), and we were told that there were already two applications in for "Lucy." I breathed a secret sigh of relief--we already have two hard to manage cats, why get a third. Plus, we just tried introducing a new cat here just a few weeks ago, and it didn't go well.

So, when we/Jon got the screening call from the Humane Society Friday night, I was a little concerned. Apparently, the other two applications for her adoption were denied--they failed the screening process. "Lucy" was offered to us if we were still interested. We went to visit her on Saturday and brought her home. She's about 7 pounds, less than half Bailey's size. I was a little worried about her, considering how poorly things went with Zoey, but we followed similar procedures (keeping her isolated, giving her extra attention, etc). The newly dubbed "Ginny" had other ideas, though. Within 3 hours she had escaped from the guest room and had begun exploring the house. She sniffed Bailey and got as close as Remy would allow, and that was her adjustment period.

She came to the Humane Society a few months ago as a pregnant stray. We were warned that "mama cats" don't always do well in their new homes, but we weren't sure why that was. I'm guessing it's because they're pretty ballsy (for lack of a better term). She's holding her own quite well!

Since there are no other pictures of Remy and Bailey, I'll start with them.

Remy

Bailey

The cats in the box Jon's mandolin came in.

I call this one "Bad Cats at Christmas." Yes, they're eating the tree.

Here's Ginny! This was snapped this morning before I left for work. At first glance she looks a lot like Bailey--only she's half his size!

This was taken within 8 hours of bringing her home. Clearly, she's having a rough period of adjustment. Poor thing.

SNAKE

I just killed another snake. So, we're up to 5 total snakes, removed dead or alive, from the property, and up to 3 that I've killed with my snake-killing shovel. Phew!

moving day--last year

I was thinking, a year ago today, we were moving to our second townhouse after living in the first one for three years. Three years! We were very sad to be leaving and probably would have stayed for much longer than we should have, but we had a lot of space, a good view, and a great location. But, bad neighbors have a way of ruining things, just when one least expects it. I found some of the pics from what townhouse #2 looked like at move-in.


Entrance: stairs right in front, kitchen and dining on left, living room on right. The kitchen was very small: Jon complained about its size at least once per day.


The master bedroom had a half bath attached to it on the left of where the picture is being taken.



Bedroom 2 was tiny, at least by Townhouse #1 standards where all of the rooms were huge (much larger than we appreciated at the time).


We traded "up" to a slightly worse location, more neighbors (we had neighbors attached behind us as well as to the left and right of us), more money, a shared parking lot, and at least 400 sq ft less space. However, with some finagling, and a payment, we were able to get out of the lease three months early, which was a real blessing. We wouldn't have been able to buy our house if we'd had to make two payments each month.


Jon and Jeremy will be working on expanding our driveway today (what a way to spend Labor Day!). We should be able to fit both cars side by side when the day is done!

Cat herding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmgLtg1Izw

I really don't spend that much time watching videos online, but I can't seem to stop posting them here! I am so cat obsessed! Maybe we should just have kids. People don't think you're crazy when you talk about your kids all the time, but they sure get uncomfortable when I talk about my cats as if they're my children. Go figure.

Tigers!

So we went to see the Detroit Tigers last Sunday at Comerica Park. I've been wanting to go all season, and I was finally able to get tickets--at auction. They started losing the day I won the tickets, and Sunday was no exception to the sad new rule. 8-16. How humiliating.

Curtis Granderson posing with his glove on his head. (This one's for Tara!)

Here we have Zach Miner being (blessedly) taken out of the game in the second inning, after more than 50 pitches and allowing 5 runs. Way to go.

Ted and Tara

Jon and me. A picture of me? Who knew one existed?

We still had a good time, despite the absurd heat and the devastating loss. I sure hope they can pull off a win for us if we have another chance to get down there. As we headed back to the car, the same homeless guy who'd joked with us on the way in was still there, so I gave him some money and received a much needed and appreciated, "God bless you," in return.

Olympics

In the spirit of the Olympic Games, I came upon this and found it too funny not to share. It's just a couple of minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woYG6Uq6OVU

GVSU

GVSU called to retract the adjunct offer I accepted 3 weeks ago. A tenured professor needed another course, and he decided he wanted my Thursday night Brit Lit. Super.

Yipee!

I finally got the contracts for both the Grand Valley gig and the Aquinas gig! There are adjunct orientations next week, and I'm probably the only person on staff who is actually pretty excited to go to them. I don't have access to either GVSU's Blackboard or Aquinas' Course Connect yet, though I suppose it wouldn't much matter if I did; I don't know how to use either them (though I have a much better idea of how to use Blackboard, even if it was 7 years ago!).

One of Jon's coworkers (and formerly one of my coworkers from the dry cleaners) has had issues with her cat, Zoey. Ever since they moved into their new house, she (the cat, not LeAnn) has been peeing on their carpet. So... LeAnn dropped Zoey off at our house yesterday--as if a house with cats is going to make her feel more comfortable, but I figured we'd give it a try. I feel like we're making very little progress. She's holed up in the guest room. We haven't introduced her to Remy and Bailey yet--everything we've read says not to do that for the first few days. I haven't been able to pet her yet. I've spent several hours in the room, just so she can get used to me, and we played with a stick for a little while earlier. Ah, well.

Kitchen

Time for some before and after photos!

It's time

Not that I have that much interesting stuff to say, but I figured I'd check in. Though, as I write that I realize that I really do have stuff to write.
I received the free copies of my book yesterday. They're very skinny, but they look pretty darn cool. And they have my picture on the back, a sign of a truly great author, no?
I was offered a teaching position at Grand Valley State University last weekend. Not that HR has contacted me yet, but the head of the English department called me, we talked, and it seems pretty settled. What course? A literature course!!! Brit lit I. Holy cow! So I feel like I'm madly trying to prepare for two courses, but in reality, I'm moving pretty slowly. It's a daunting task, and I'm pretty nervous (freaked out, actually), but I'm also incredibly excited. I've wanted this for soooo long. I'll keep my job at Student Support Services at Aquinas while teaching a writing class for their gen ed dept (and conducting a math lab for SSS). Boy, I feel pretty multi talented right now. Fame and fortune are sure to follow.

Discogram (This is NOT a "musical message from John Travolta" or some other clever word play, so no more jokes!)

Discogram: painful procedure in which needles containing a special dye are injected into discs in the spine in an effort to reproduce the patient's normal pain. The patient must be awake and aware for this procedure. And it sucks.

This is what I had performed yesterday morning--3 hours late. I was hungry; I was nervous; I was annoyed. I'd nearly cancelled the test several times in the days leading up to it because every source I'd read in trying to figure out more about it talked about the pain involved during and after the test. The pain, The Pain, THE PAIN!

I can say that it wasn't AS BAD as I had feared--no screaming out in pain on the table. We'll see what the results have to say in a week or so. Yesterday I felt pretty bad and stayed in bed most of the day (blessed sleep!), and today there's a lot of muscle pain--I realized this would be because they stuck three large needles through muscles in the bottom left quadrant of my back into the discs in my spine! Of course it still hurts! I've had so many tests done (X-rays, MRI, bone scan, CAT scan, and now Discogram), and there still isn't a solid diagnosis (or prognosis).

cats

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my cats. I really do, despite what you may have heard to the contrary. They're often big pains in the butt, but they're adorable and they're funny. This clip is one of the funniest things about cats that I've seen in a long time (besides clips of cats falling off t.v.s and such). It's about 6-7 minutes and it MUST be listened to, not just watched, so be armed with some time and speakers/headphones before you click the link. It's an engineer's guide to cats: http://www.youtube.com/user/klusmanp

I have a newfound love for my cats--even though they don't yodel.

# 2

I just killed snake # 2 in 2 days. Phew! This is nerve racking!

On being published....

Wow, searching for my book on Amazon just isn't getting old. Even Target.com has it for sale. It's published under Elizabeth Westbrook Shelley and the ISBN is: 3836493187. It even comes up if searching for Shakespeare Richard III. Jon keeps joking that I'm now an internationally recognized Shakespeare scholar. Sure wish I had the Ph.D. to back it up.

Day 5

It's a great day. It's day 5 in our new house, I found out yesterday that my book is now on Amazon.com, and I killed a snake in the back yard.

1.) Yes, we bought a house! After renting for almost 4 years, we've bought a house--about a mile from our last townhouse. We bought the house from our friends, Jeremy and Denise, who have recently outgrown the home they'd owned for about 10 years after the arrival of child # 3 in less than 3 1/2 years. We're still working on it and are still putting stuff away, but things are going well and we're making progress. I'll post pictures.

2.) My thesis advisor was contacted a few months ago by a German publishing house who was interested in speaking with me about publishing my thesis. I went through their process, and it was approved for publication! I checked yesterday, and it's now for sale! For $64. $64? Yep.

3.) I pulled weeds today and was taking a load to the backyard when I saw our snake. To say Jon is terrified of snakes would be an understatement. He's a wonderful man with many, many amazing qualities, but his fear of snakes is debilitating. He called our pest control guy who declined to come out here. Jerk. I was feeling brave (VERY brave), so I went out there, tracked it down and bludgeoned it with my newly christened snake-bludgeoning shovel. What does it feel like to be a hero? Well, I wouldn't call myself a hero... yes I would!!! And it feels pretty darn good!