Overall note
I know that my posts are long. I can’t seem to stop writing once I start; my stories have always been lengthy.
But I think that you know this about me already. 
Fitting into a smaller size of jeans!
As I mentioned previously, I became more concerned about my size when I realized that I no longer fit into a pair of shorts that I wore two years ago. And the pair that I fit into last summer was rather tight too. That realization, plus Texas Seestor’s efforts to lose all the weight she gained from being pregnant and giving birth to my two nieces inspired me to adopt a weight-watcher’s-like method of food intake.
(do you like that? “food intake”? I couldn’t resist geeking out by using a science phrase)
Anyway, I’ve gone into much detail about my altered food choices and how week-by-week I’m losing about a pound or more until my pants have become hopelessly baggy.
I went pants shopping on Sunday. I had also hoped to find the skirts at Target (or other store) that Texas Seestor found at her Target in TX to substitute for shorts sometimes. take-home message: it wasn’t a total success, but I did have some excitement too!
The order of stores was somewhat dependent upon location and the most reasonable path of driving.
I started at Chico’s to check out their clearance rack. No pants with pockets. Note: I have to keep my office door locked even when I step out to get water or go to the bathroom. There have been thefts from offices that were open even just for a minute or two AND in the past, there were thefts from offices that were locked! If I don’t have a pocket for my keys, I forget to bring them with me and I lock myself out.
Also at Chico’s one skirt made me look bad (i.e. chubby).
I moved on to Target to try to find the skirts. No decent skirts. Has anyone else noticed that they are selling skirts that are about a foot long! eek! They are clearly intended for either teens with small butts or very petite women (with small butts). I did fall-back, unintentionally, on my usual shopping pattern which is to buy tops when I really went out shopping for pants…
… but they were too cute to resist! And now that my stomach isn’t so poochy, I wanted a couple that were just a hair more fitted.
Next was Dress Barn. This is the place where I purchased my last set of dressy pants for teaching. However, there is a problem with Dress Barn right now. For one thing, it is dress season! The whole front half (or more) of their store is taken up by dresses. I didn’t really want to buy a dress, not that I wasn’t tempted. I was on a mission for pants!
Again, they sold ONE style of pants with pockets – they were cut waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too tight. Or at least, that was my take on the lack of a good fit.
BUT I did find two more tops! (see the aforementioned pattern) One of them is dressy enough for teaching. The other just fulfills my need to have something new and pretty to wear.
I almost bought a jacket too (on clearance) until I realized that I wouldn’t be able to lift my arm comfortably to write up on a chalkboard. I have to remember to check these things when I buy clothes now. I also always have to lean over and see if my bra shows too (cut too low), since I’m constantly leaning over lab tables too when I explain things to students in lab. The last thing I need is for a group of guys sitting on the opposite side of the table to see down my shirt.
Next was Kohl’s. As I was going there, I started thinking about how I also really need at least one new pair of jeans that also don’t bag off of me hopelessly. I can pull out my current pair and probably fit at least one of Diana Gabaldon’s newer hardback books in the front waistband. (and maybe one of her Lord John books too!) Note, I do not say this to indicate they would be great for shoplifting! Far from it. I’m just trying to find something that is sort of a standard size. And I know that many of you have read her books. For those of you who do not know her books, I could fit one of those big containers of lysol wipes in the front of my pants when I’m wearing jeans that I wore the day before (i.e. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too baggy).
Anyway, I found my standard pair of relaxed fit Lee jeans (straight leg) – and here is the excitement – drumroll please!
I fit into the next size smaller!!!! And they looked good!!!
Of course, they didn’t have any more. Of any color. Again, wrong season for buying jeans.
I know Penny’s carries Lee too, so I’ll have to venture over there and try to get a second pair. I can’t imagine that I’ll go down one more size, so I might as well buy them. Note that the more fitted styles of jeans continued to look tight. One pair had promise, but I had a bit of a muffin-top going on with that one, which made me pull them off in disgust. I would say that I ripped them off, but you know, part of the problem with pants shopping is those little plastic T-bar things that hold the tags in the waistband. Those things scratch and HURT when they go over my hips and thighs! I realized that the tag fasteners are part of what makes me hate pants-shopping!
Retailers – take note!!
I think I tried on about 20 pairs of pants (lots of scratching). I’m sure the fitting room people loved me at having to fold them all and put them back. I did my best to sort of put them back the way they started.
I also tried on their version of dressy pants. Again they don’t sell much that is dressing; it is mainly the Vera Wang line which are far too fitted. So, I continue to wear black jeans for teaching. At this point, no one cares – including me. We are all starting to wear more jeans than pants to teach.
Texas Seestor DID tell me after I relayed this shopping expedition to her that she has been seeing ads for a new style of Lee jeans that is supposed to be more generously cut in the hips and thighs with a slightly tighter waist. I guess I’ll just have to keep an eye out for them to arrive in stores.
In the meantime, can you believe that I have jeans of four different sizes in my closet now???
Take the size that is sort of standard for you. Now, go up two sizes. Doesn’t that make you gasp?! THAT was my size when I finished writing my thesis. Now, go down one size. For me, I can’t even remember when I was last this size…
… maybe undergrad?
That is my current size. At least in the style of jeans that I’ve been buying for about 20 years.
This deserves a cheer!
The sad part about this is that my first thought was: I deserve a brownie or cupcake for this!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
And that, right there, folks, is what I battle.
I’m trying to change my reward to bouquets of flowers. Or just a few flowers even. But it is hard to alter decades of thinking that a reward means a chocolate dessert.
I sigh.
I’ve also caught myself thinking about little goodbye gatherings at school or church. And of course, the first thing that crosses my mind is that it should be a lunch party, or an afternoon snack party. And I start thinking about the food I would bring. Invariably, I start envisioning the Ghirardelli double-chocolate brownie mix that I love or maybe cheese and crackers. Doesn’t the blue cheese ball sound good?
I suppose that I could make those things and have a tiny amount of it. I know that part of changing my food habits is to still allow myself to splurge sometimes. But honestly, right now, I’m still working at this really hard. And I sort of feel like a crack in the dam is going to make it burst. Right now, it is easier for me to eliminate it entirely than to limit myself to a small amount. With one bite, I’m lost.
Eventually, I expect to get to the point where I can go ahead and have small amounts of desserts and stop at a few bites. But it is going to take time for me to get to that point.
And in the meantime, I have to keep thinking about that size of jeans that is smaller than anything I’ve worn in years. And that makes me happy.
I think it is time to go buy a bouquet of flowers, don’t you?
;-D
Sunrises
Kalki wrote a beautiful post about hiking in the early morning to be able to see a sunrise. It really touched me, and I realized that if it were Flickr, I would “favorite” it. Consequently, I decided to link to it here instead.
Her post brought back memories of our family trip to Port Aransas, TX last summer. It is on the eastern coast of Texas; it is farther east than Corpus Christi.
During the school year, I was getting up every day around 5:00. Even after school was over and we were into the latter part of summer, I continued to naturally wake up that early. This certainly has its pros and cons, because the morning is so peaceful. But this also means that I fall asleep around 9:00 most nights.
One morning I ventured outside; We had a balcony on the ocean. It was pitch dark out and I don’t know why I went out there that first time except that maybe it was that I was a little too cold from the air conditioning to read my book on the couch.
When I first opened the door, it was so dark that instead of being so attuned to my surroundings with my visual senses, the sound, temperature, and smell were what I noticed the most. I heard the sound of the waves rushing into shore with their rhythmic timing. I felt the warmth of the air on my face and the chill on my back as I crossed the threshold. I breathed in the humidity and tasted and smelled the salt that is so distinctive of the ocean.
And then I sat down in one of the chairs, my eyes adjusted and I began to notice the flickering lights on the oil rigs off shore.
I know, it sounds like such a disruptive break in this beautiful scene, but in actuality, they had a relaxed rhythm of blinking on and off, and it was actually peaceful and somewhat entertaining.
As some time passed, a glimmer of color appeared on the horizon and I realized that I could try to take photos to capture some small memory of those moments.
I took photos, struggling some with my camera settings, but in the end trying not to become so fixated on documenting that I stopped experiencing.
As the earth continued to rotate, the light on the horizon increased and suddenly there were silent birds flying and floating in the air currents coming off of the ocean. I could just barely see them; they were almost like silent shadows.
As the light continued to increase, the seagulls started calling. Other shorebirds were communicating too. I could see them more distinctly.
And then, the sun was present.
In the end, I watched the sunrise and took photos on four separate days. They are all in a set on Flickr. Each sunrise was very distinct which was amazing to me.
This one is my favorite, because it looks like a combination of a rainbow at the horizon and those astounding pink rays emanating from the sun which is still below the horizon.
Here is the link to the large size.
We are making plans to go back there this summer. We won’t have an ocean view this time, but I can still go down to the dock if I want and watch the sun rise.
I imagine that I will.
More reflections on our relationship and also random issues with divorce
I loved reading the comments on the last post about losing weight. It is fantastic to know that I am not alone in the way I detest shopping for pants. It is also exciting to hear that a lot of you have been losing weight recently (Texas Seestor, Amber, Honestyrain) or have been very successful with weight watcher/changing your eating habits in the past (Ern).
I’m also more in the mood to go pants shopping with the idea that maybe going to the tailor to have the waist taken in won’t be quite such an issue; thanks for making that process sound less painfully expensive, Ern!
Amber’s suggestion of going out and buying a skirt is something that Texas Seestor told me she did recently. She told me that Target has a bunch of neat skirts right now that are casual. She was thinking that she would wear them sometimes at times when she normally would have just worn shorts (ex. going out to a casual supper place). I might start doing that too. MN weather is not exactly conducive to exposed legs right now, but it will be soon.
Maybe I will go today to buy a pair of pants and some skirts.
Today, HB is driving me in his SUV to pick up (free) boxes from Atlas. I had decided that I’d rather not drive his relatively new vehicle if he was willing to drive me there, and he is willing. I drive a little Honda Civic Hybrid, so driving an SUV always feels really weird to me. His willingness to help me is just another example, I suppose, of how ending our relationship isn’t quite as difficult as it is for some people.
We also had two good suppers together this week. Lately, he has been out of town so much that I’ve barely had supper with him. But this week, we had some good conversations. When that happens, there is a part of me that questions if we are doing the right thing by getting divorced. But that question is very brief, because, in the end, I know that it is the right thing for us. I also think that some of our friendliness is due to knowing that this is it. Not only do we need to enjoy this while we have it, but I think that not having to work at fixing the annoying moments makes it easier too. Don’t get me wrong, a couple of times a week we still end up getting…
…. hmmm…. how to describe it…
… well, I’m not sure how to describe our moods, lets just say that at those moments the thought that runs through my head is “and this is a perfect example of why we are getting divorced.” And I always think that he must be thinking the same thing at those moments. Neither of us actually say it. I think that would be too hurtful and mean, but I sure as heck think it.
In other small news. I spent about 45 min on the phone this week dealing with my new checking/savings account and setting up a credit card account. It is supposed to be really easy to do it online. I set it up with our current bank who ALSO holds our mortgage, so you’d think it would be particularly simple. Well, I’d received an email about how I should have received my PIN in the mail 10 d after opening it online, and how I should call if I hadn’t. I decided to give them a couple of extra days because of the mail probably being deluged with tax forms. In the end, I called on Wednesday. And get this: their little menu options tell you that you can “speak to a banker by pressing 4 (or whatever number)” and I’m all “oooooooooo this is good, this will be really fast!.” But BEFORE you can speak to a real person, you have to type in your account number – fine, they did manage to send me that part in the mail correctly. But THEN it says to enter a PIN! Hellooooo? That is the whole reason I’m calling. In the end I didn’t enter anything, and of course the voice comes on to tell me that it couldn’t tell what I’d typed and how I’d have to retype it. blah blah blah. In the end, it finally transferred me over to a real person and we discovered that no one had ever put in a request to have a new debit card ordered for me (with a PIN). Evidently, since I already had accounts with them, they didn’t seem to think I needed one even though I entered it under my new last name??? (FYI: non-hyphenated for those of you who know my real last name)
grrrrrrrrrrrr
So, she is the one who transferred me to the banker who spent a while dealing with my checking/savings account. Of course, they tried to get me to sign up for this new credit card that has some sort of rebate system for your home – which is completely useless to me since I’m not going to be on the mortgage anymore. However, I did want just a normal credit card and he was able to set one up for me – which I wasn’t going to be able to do online until my checking was all finalized. etc. etc.
It ended up being worth the time, but it was so annoying that they hadn’t just ordered the card like they were supposed to.
I know. This really is small potatoes, and I should probably get used to spending lots of time with customer service since I’m going to have to set up some of the utilities at my aptmt. soon. And I will have lots of details to deal with in regards to our divorce, mortgage, and getting my name changed on things. But hey, my life during the week is pretty much get up, drive to school, teach or prepare to teach or grade, drive home, eat, prepare to teach or grade, fall asleep and press repeat. So, this is some of the “random issues with divorce” that I mentioned in my title.
I did have music practice with church on Wed night. It was really good to be there again. I sang at Easter but haven’t in the past couple of weeks. At this point, I sing every Sunday until I leave, because I’m trying to pack in as much time with everyone as possible. Plus, it really is rejuvenating. And while I would be going to church anyway, actually being up front singing seems to give me more balance for the week somehow.
I did also watch Glee, which made me really happy. I like the new character (Rachel’s boyfriend from Vocal Adrenaline). I like that new storyline.
Of course Will’s storyline is really pertinent to me (in ways) right now. He has been married to a person whom he started dating in high school, and he is now getting divorced. Music plays a big part in his life. The part last week about how he needs to spend some time alone getting to know himself is what I feel I’ve been doing for the last 2-3 years. Our counseling sessions revealed that I needed to just be willing to go out and do more stuff on my own and be more independent of HB. As I think you’ve realized, I been going to movies alone and to shows like So You Think You Can Dance and a Christian concert alone. I always would like to go with friends, but right now, my one friend who lives about 30 min away is not into that kind of stuff. My friends at church are all tied up with family activities with their kids. And my friends at school all live 1.5 h away. So I’ve become a lot more comfortable with myself within the last few years. However, HB is obviously still my friend and I still turn to him a lot for advice when I need to make important decisions (i.e. the whole banking thing or moving thing). And I won’t have that anymore, and I’ll have to get used to not having that.
In the end, Will’s story causes me to reflect upon my life some. Consequently, the show is a good blend of reflection, fun, and memories.
And I just realized it is sort of raining. This may not be so good for driving to a warehouse to pick up boxes. Well, it wasn’t like I was going to start packing. I just wanted to claim them before it gets into May when everyone and their brother is moving.
And looking out the window also reminds me that I need to orient HB to the plants in the front flower bed that are not weeds. He is going to have to start being responsible for it. I mentioned to the neighbor that he may want to hire their kids to do the weeding. We currently hire their older son to do the mowing and trimming So, hey, why not pay him or one of their younger kids to weed? But I should at least give HB the knowledge about it so that he doesn’t pull out the perennials by accident!
Well, such is my life. I have a ton of grading to do this weekend. The last week of lectures is upon us, so this is my last chance to give them back assignments. The following week is the final, grading it, calculating final grades and then PACKING! eeeek!
losing weight
I mentioned in my logistics post that I have lost weight. Believe me, it has required great intention and willpower on my part.
Here is what happened. Now that Texas Seestor gave birth to a second daughter, she decided to go to weight watchers to lose all of the weight she has gained. She told me about the whole point thing, and quite honestly, cutting back on what I eat sounded very tough to me at the time. But then she started losing lbs, and it started sounded really worthwhile.
Well, as I was preparing to pack for my trip to TX for Spring Break, I decided that I should take at least one pair of shorts with me. As I was trying on the ones from last summer, I discovered that they were quite a bit tighter than I prefer. And last summer, I couldn’t fit into one of my favorite pairs that I’d been able to wear for years.
Knowing all of this, when I was visiting my sister, I decided to get more details on the whole weight watchers thing. I didn’t exactly start when I was down there, because we were going out to restaurants for supper a lot, and there was no way I was going to give up my favorite meals at the Mexican place. But when I got back, I bought those 100 cal deli thins (instead of buns for sandwiches), and 1% cottage cheese (instead of having slices of colby as an accompaniment to my supper), and I looked at my ghirardelli chocolate chips and decided to try these chocolate mousse cups instead. Well, that was where I drew the line. The mousse cups were not very satisfying, AT ALL. I decided that I would count out 10 chocolate chips for my post supper chocolate instead of just making a little pile.
I also started counting out #’s of baked chips and slices of lean meat for sandwiches, and I tried that awful weight watchers cheese. OMG is it awful. I decided that I’d rather eat one slice of real cheese than that crap. And I could go on and on. I haven’t had fries since I started, but I will probably have some tonight. I know, this is getting to be dull.
The end result is that I didn’t buy a weight watchers subscription, and I don’t have a set of points that I aim for each day, I’ve just cut back on how much and what I eat for snacks, supper, and weekend lunches (I already eat lean cuisines/smart ones and no fat yogurt for lunch every day).
I started weighing myself using my Wii on Sundays before supper. I been losing between 1.3 and 2.6 lbs a week (mostly 1.8-2). I set my Wii goal for 10 lbs less and I hit it pretty fast (about 5 weeks). I’ve set it for another 10 lbs and we’ll see what happens. I’m not exercising, which is the next thing I need to add to my routine. But with my 1.5 hour commute each way, I just can’t find the time.
Right now, I’m in kind of a jam, because I don’t have any pants that are small enough for teaching, and I absolutely hate buying pants. It usually takes me 4 stores and about 40 pairs of pants to find a single pair that fit adequately. Sometimes I think it would be faster to learn how to sew them for myself! My body shape is all goofy. I’m a pear. So, my butt is big, my waist is small, and my thighs are big. It seems like every pair of pants is designed to hug your thighs and that just drives me crazy. And in order to not have pants be super tight on my butt, the waistband is totally gaping open. *ugh*
Belts just don’t work. When I was a teen, my mom used to dart the waistband for me and it always seemed to look good. But I can’t seem to do it. I suppose I should just suck it up and take them to a tailor. It just always seems odd to have a $20-40 pair of pants and pay $20 for tailoring. But I suppose it is worth it.
Anyway, once again, I’m droning on. I guess it is because I’m excited about losing weight. And I know so many people want to lose weight, but it seems like whatever they try it just doesn’t work. It is exciting and makes it feel worth it to not be eating fries or various types of take-out food when HB is out of town, or cheese, or mayo. They had cake and various banana breads/poppyseed breads etc. at school this week. Ignoring it was a bit challenging. Also, I have to almost entirely avoid the bakery section at our grocery. I loooooooooove their cupcakes and artisan breads. They have brought in and started selling scones from a local tea place too that is known for its scones. At Easter, I bought a scone and just cut it into 4 pieces and had a little piece each day with breakfast.
Oh, and a woman at work who used to do weight watchers had a little extra sliding chart thing that she gave to me so that if I know the calories, fat grams, and fiber content of something, I can figure out the points. That is the coolest little thing. I used it yesterday when I was at the grocery and debating about buying dried apricots. (I bought them)
I also know that with real weight watchers, they give you “splurge” points each week. And I really don’t do too much splurging at this point. But tonight for example, I’m going out to eat with a friend. And I’ll probably pretty much just get whatever I want (including fries – if we go to a place with fries).
And now you know waaaaaaaaaaaay too much detail about my losing weight.
Oh, and Texas Seestor? Well, she has lost a ton of weight, and I’m so proud of her! I’m going to let her decide if she wants to say how much she has lost or not. 
And she deserves the credit for getting me started on this. Yay for Texas Seestor!
logistics of moving
Thank you to all of you for your kind comments and support on my “Changes afoot” post. Since I wrote that, there are several things about which I’ve debated blogging. One of them is dealing with plagiarism at school in a group science paper in Intro Bio. However, right now, I feel less inclined to blog about school stuff and more inclined to blog about home stuff.
For the past couple of weeks, beginning Easter weekend (or maybe even going back about 6 weeks to Spring Break), I’ve been dealing with moving logistics. Can I just say up front that trying to find the right way to move for my particular needs has been filled with frustration, angst, and now relief?
Jenski very kindly talked to me on the phone to describe her experience with using a pod-based system for moving. I went looking online and thus began the frustration. One place would say that my move would be $1500, another $2000, another $2500 and another $3000. Some of those differences were from the same company depending on whether I used their generic “2 bedroom apartment” worth of furniture or if I actually filled out a checklist of stuff! It varied by $1000!!! How can I make a decision based on that? Part of it was that some of the checklists wanted me to estimate cubic feet of stuff. And yes, I’m in science, and I have a pretty good sense of volume. But honestly, I don’t know how many cubic feet of linens I will take with me. Or cubic feet of clothes. Or books. Heaven help me with regards to my books. I figured out that I have 22 hard back (pleasure reading) and 120 paperbacks. And I’ve got about 12 feet of science textbooks and lecture material. TWELVE FEET. egads. That stuff is heavy. I can tell you from trying to lug home 4 or 5 when I need to prepare a lecture.
I’ve also got to get all of that from my office to my house too. Thank goodness for carts. I may have to take it in stages or my poor car will drag on the ground!
In the end, the only way I finalized my method of moving was to have a couple of traditional moving companies come to our house and look at my stuff and give me an honest-to-goodness estimate.
End result: I am going to accept an offer from one of those companies to have them load up a truck on May 21. I’m going to have them pack my breakables so that if something is broken, they have to replace it. But I’ll pack the rest myself.
Yes, May 21. very soon. and a bit scary. But in order to get the most optimal apartment, my lease starts on May 7. And I’m trying to not totally waste the money I’m spending on an apartment for May.
And I suppose I didn’t mention it, but in order to do all of these moving estimations, I had to first inventory our stuff and discuss with HB who would keep which things. The discussion itself was very easy. Doing the inventory was actually harder. Initially, it made me very, very sad to actually start doing it and to do it. And then after I had started and had only done part of the house, I stopped. I had been doing it from memory when I was down in TX for Spring Break, and I reached a point where it was just getting too hard. Then I ran into the situation where the thought of doing it made me very blue. What this means is that I started doing it on Spring Break and it sort of took me 2 more weeks to get up the oooomph to finish it. But I did – finish it.
Just this week, we assigned values to things. That caused me lots of anxiety beforehand, partly because some of the stuff is hard to put a price-tag on. And we had to debate a little bit about which stuff we would skip in putting a price-tag on. But again, the actual discussion was simple; it just took a while (because of the price-tag issue).
I’m glad that my church is having a massive garage sale the weekend before I move. I can just dump my stuff off at the church, get a donation receipt, and let them deal with it. I’m NOT a garage sale kind of person. The stuff I am getting rid of is pretty much all clothes, and there was no way I was going to waste part of a weekend trying to sell my clothes that don’t fit anymore (I’ve lost weight! (more on that some other time)). I was just going to take it all to a local Goodwill, but I’d rather it start out at church. If they can’t sell it, it will end up at Goodwill anyway.
Do you even want to hear this? Probably not. But like I’ve said before, sometimes my blog is a bit like a diary for myself. Also, the process of writing it out can help me quit dwelling on it.
And now, I suppose I ought to either write my lecture for Monday or deal with more logistics. At this point, I’m not sure which will “win.” Probably the logistics. It is somewhat satisfying to check off something on my mental checklist. Again, it allows me to quit doing the “oh yeah, I’ve got to deal with that” on my drive to and from school.
Changes afoot
I’ve been delaying posting this, because it never quite seemed like the right time. But I am at a point now, where I feel comfortable saying it, and there never seems to be a good time anyway.
HB and I are getting divorced in July. By the time our divorce is final, we will have been married 14 years (or 1-2 weeks shy of our anniversary). That also means that we will have been together for 18.5 years.
18 years is half of my life. It is hard to fathom that I have had him in my life for longer than I’ve lived without him. For just a moment, think of a friend that you’ve had for 18 years. Now, think about never seeing that person again.
Doesn’t that seem hard to imagine? We are parting on good terms. So, maybe I’ll see him at high school reunions or at other times, and it won’t be that I never see him again. But who knows how it will be? I sure don’t.
We started going to marriage counseling 3 years ago. I never said anything about it then, and I don’t want to say a whole lot about it here, because when I started blogging 5+ years ago, I made a promise to him that I wouldn’t discuss our relationship. Suffice to say that when we started going to counseling, we were at a point where we had really wounded our relationship. Counseling brought us back to the point of being good, platonic friends. But the wounds were too deep to fully heal. And while I had hoped that we just needed enough time to go beyond being friends, I have come to realize that it just isn’t happening. Both of us would like our marriage to be more than that, and we have finally come to terms with it.
At this point, we are dealing with lots of logistics. I will move to an apartment in TX in late May in order to have as much time with Texas Seestor, Trainwreck, and my two nieces this summer before the school year ramps up. Mom and Dad may be there by the end of summer too. Their timing is a little bit less certain; they are retiring there, and it could be late summer/early fall – we’ll just have to see.
But with the good, comes the bad. Leaving in late May also means that I don’t have much time left with HB and with all of my other friends that I know from school, church, or from my previous job here. It makes my stomach sort of knot up thinking about that part of it.
The thoughts running through my head right now are these:
We are both headed for bright things. Very bright.
We just won’t be going toward them together.
But I’m okay with that; it just makes me sad…
…and I cry a little bit at unexpected times when I think about that.
Note: if you read this and are at a loss for words, I understand. But if you could just tell me you read this, so that I know that you know, that would be nice.
Flowers purchased for Easter Break
These are not the traditional kinds of flowers that I usually get for Easter, but I saw the purple astromedia and knew that I had to get that! I’ve never seen such a dark purple astromedia before. It was a little bruised, but they still bring me joy when I see them.
In addition, I’ve never seen gerbera daisies that were multicolored. And if you’ve been around here for a while, you know how I love flowers that have different colors on the same petal.
I still have plans to take more shots; but just in case I don’t get to it, I wanted to post these now.
Happy Easter!
Happy Easter! Photos of flowers later today! Right now, I need to focus on eating breakfast and getting ready for a full morning of singing.
Right now, I’m really thankful that I do not have HBs cold that is making his voice hoarse!
My thoughts on “How to Train a Dragon (3-D)”
Jenski asked for my thoughts on the movie that I saw yesterday (Saturday before Easter); so here goes.
I really, really enjoyed this movie, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the Harry Potter Movies, Shrek, fairy tales or stories about dragons.
I don’t know if you know the gist of the story – I really didn’t, because the previews didn’t say very much other than just show lots of dragon images. There is a Viking village at the edge of the sea, and it is constantly having sheep stolen by dragons. Everyone in the village is trained to kill dragons. The story if from the point of view of a teenager who is a bit of a misfit; he has more brains and engineering skills and less brawn. (can you already see why I liked it?)
I don’t want to give away too much, but suffice to say that he ends up having the opportunity to work with and train a dragon.
Here were some things that really stood out for me:
1. I got chills multiple times in the flying scenes. That is the comment I heard on the radio that made me want to see it. I love flying scenes in fantasy movies. I don’t know how they do it. I think it is a combination of music, visuals, and just the emotion of the moment; they were really special.
2. The other surprise was that it was really funny. The main character has very dry humor. He makes these little side comments which are fantastic.
3. The dragons are unlike any other dragons that you see in fairy tales and movies. There are a bunch of different species with very distinct characteristics. It was very creative of the writer/art director/director (I’m not sure who comes up with these idea) to have this in the story. It made it really fun.
4. I saw it in 3-D. Absolutely see it in 3-D. Of course, I’ve been in love with 3-D since we went to Disney World when I was a pre-teen and saw a movie with the muppets in 3-D. So, if there is an option, I’d always watch 3-D over 2-D. Yes, it cost $3 more. But it will always be worth it. And get there early enough to see the 3-D previews. It a) helps your eyes get adjusted and b) is part of the fun of going to see a 3-D movie.
Let me know if you see it!