For sanity's sake

In case you missed the themes of last week’s posts, here they are again in plain English: bored out of my mind, running on fumes, and desperate for some time away from my big girl job. As luck would have it, my vacation to the Texas Deutschland this past weekend was exactly what I needed—I ate (too much), I drank (wine varietals that I cannot pronounce), I shopped (for vintage treasures that I could not afford), and I relaxed (as much as one can when one’s fiancé is prone to waging tickle attacks). Inspired by my renewed joie de vivre, I’ve decided to tackle some new (and some not-so-new) challenges that’ll hopefully help keep my spirits aloft until my next day off:

Get reacquainted with ye olde wedmill. Ok, so we’ve only been unacquainted for, like, five days, but three of those days were coded in schnitzel, flourished with ice cream, and heavily punctuated with Orange Moscato and Viognier. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve already taken in more calories than I should have for the month of September, and I’ve only seen the wedmill twice so far.

Learn how to sew. I took Home Ec. in seventh grade, y’all, so technically I know how to sew—and I’ve got a pair of cow pajama pants and a lumpy accent pillow to prove it. Still, I’ve been experimenting with a few mini sewing projects lately (think five-minute fabric brooches) and now I’d love to try my hand at skirts and dresses (and maybe a jacket if I get cocky). And wouldn’t you know it—McCalls’ patterns are on sale today! Guess it’s time to break out the old Kenmore and the twenty pound box of thread and start a-stitchin’.

Get creative. Sewing’s one way to go, but what about writing? Cooking? Painting? Photography? Since I spend eight hours of every day staring blankly into a computer screen, I’m loath to fritter away my precious evenings doing more of the same. Working on creative projects is a great way to be productive on my own time without the unpleasant side effects (boredom, sense of obligation, gray hair) of being productive.

Put my bride hat back on. I typed up my wedding to-do list a couple of days ago and ho boy is it a doozy! Most of what needs to be done cannot be done until I’ve done booked the venue (read: set an official date), and the venue that I’m leaning toward cannot be booked more than a year in advance. But guess what—“a year in advance” is now only a month or so away (hooray!), and all of a sudden alarm bells are screaming “Finish the website!” “Pick out a dress!” “Update the registries!” “Take pictures!” and so on and so forth. Ok, ok, I’ll visit the venue tomorrow, go dress shopping next weekend, and take a few pictures at the end of the month. In other words: SNOOZE BUTTON! SNOOZE BUTTON! SNOOZE BUTTON!

Working for the weekend

Don’t you just love Thursday? It’s so close to the weekend that it tastes strongly of free time, but not quite close enough to reek of Monday morning (I’m looking—mostly sympathetically—at you, Sunday). This Thursday is a particularly welcome one, as it brings with it the promise of nuptial nirvana and plenty of quality mother/daughter time, as my dad and brother will be out of town, and my fiancé will be counting lug nuts, or whatever it is he does at Saturday inventories.

Tonight: I came home and embarked on my usual wedmill routine (See what I did there? “Wedmill” sounds so much more friendly and goal-oriented than the dreary “dreadmill.”) consisting of a 3.5-mile (or 400 calorie) run, The Next Food Network Star, and buckets of sweat. Afterward, I poured over an old issue of Brides in search of helpful articles and pretty dresses that I may have missed when I was still just a girlfriend, while riding a football-induced high. (Know what was better than the start of the preseason last weekend? Absolutely nothing.)

Friday: I’ll don my casual best and drift through the workday on fumes of motivation, long conversations with Florence, and the inevitable company-wide feeling of ecstasy that is always so prevalent at the end of each week. Then I’ll go home, hop on the wedmill, and spend the rest of the evening either A) mindlessly channel surfing with my mom, B) mindlessly web browsing, or C) finishing my mindless book. Whatever activity (or combination of activities) I choose, it will be (you guessed it) mindless.

Saturday: I’ll get out of bed early to hit the wedmill if I feel so inspired, or later if I hit the snooze button. Then I’ll curl my hair all nice and bridal, collect my momma and a couple of my lady friends, and have my first go at dress shopping!

Before I got engaged, dress shopping almost never crossed my mind. I knew what I liked and definitely what I didn’t, but the idea of standing on a pedestal in front of a mirror in a white (or, you know, ivory) dress, smiling and wiping away runny mascara was pretty foreign to me. Until Sean popped the question. Since then, I’ve been wondering how soon was too soon to hit up the bridal shops. Ultimately, I decided that now was as good a time as any to at least get an idea of what looks good on me.

After we’ve had our fill of satin and lace, the four of us’ll go out to lunch before we go our separate ways. After running some necessary errands (car wash, laundry, jeweler) mom and I will go to church and then return home for dinner and The Wedding Planner.  

Sunday: Never one to tire of weddings, I’ll pop out of bed and head to a bridal show with my mom, my partner in wedding planning crime (whose nuptials are but six months before mine), and her momma. Now, I’ve been to a bridal show once before, and by the end of it I was ready to punch every single vendor who tried to harangue me into “signing up to receive spam win $100 worth of free votive candles!” However, I also walked away with a boat load of brochures, a tummy full of cake and hors d’oeuvres, and a free t-shirt. This time, I’m hoping for more of that. And I’m going armed with a taser.

Finally, it’ll be off to spend the last few glorious hours of the weekend relaxing and watching Mad Men with my one and only.                  

How about you, blog faithful? Any big weekend plans?

No one's going to say "congratulations" when you get engaged

...They're going to say, "it's about time!" This is probably true--when you've chosen your wedding party, made a guest list, planned the seating arrangements, fallen in love with a gown designer, compiled a play list, and set a date, most people figure an engagement ring is just an after-thought.

But oh, that damned date! For the past year and a half people have been asking "Why October of 2011 and not October of 2010?" and today Sean and I finally came up with a good answer, which is this: Because we are complete idiots.

Sean and I had little use for the get-to-know-you stage of our relationship. We started dating at the end of January 2008, were using the the "L" word by the middle of May, and had picked a date for our wedding (albeit in a round-about sort of way) by the end of June. Let me say that again: Sean and I picked October 15, 2011 when I was planning on finishing grad school in May of 2011 and Sean had dreams of going to Washington and working for a senator AND WE NEVER CHANGED IT. Sean says it's like this--when you're in college, the words "three years" actually mean "six semesters," which is code for "a cake walk on vodka that mom and dad are buying," and when you look at it that way, the gap between graduation and wedding seems relatively small. But then you hit the real world and all of a sudden the gap between graduation and wedding seems like the Grand Canyon, because six semesters of drinking and sleeping until noon on Monday is NOT the same as three years of working five days a week and sleeping until 8:30(!) on Saturday. Put another way, the date that we picked when we were full of youthful ignorance now feels like an eternity away.

Sean and I discussed things today and determined that we've had enough of living separately and only seeing each other on the weekends (and those rare weeknights that crop up three or four times a month). We're ready to greet each other after work, eat dinner together in the evenings, go to bed together at night, and fight over sink access in the morning until death do us part. So we've started looking at ways we could move the date up. Unfortunately, we don't see ourselves as a spring or summer couple, which doesn't give us much of a window. Anyway, the point is that we've received permission from the financiers (read: mom and dad) to move the date up and proceed with wedding plans at warp speed if possible. (I wish we'd moved our date up last April because warp speed makes me nauseous.) Don't quote me on this, friends--I dream big and execute WAAAAAAY smaller--but we'll see what happens when we go venue shopping this weekend.

Travelin' woman

This time last year, I was embarking on an epic tour of New Orleans, Louisiana. This year I'll be keeping it local-ish but no less epic (in terms of mileage I mean; I doubt any vacation destination will ever match the epic-osity of NOLA). The plan goes like this:

Saturday: Travel to Huntspatch, TX for grandma's birthday early in the AM.
Sunday: Travel to Waco, TX for bed in the PM.
Monday: Travel to Fredericksburg, TX for German food and antiques early in the AM.
Tuesday: Travel to San Antonio, TX for SeaWorld and the Riverwalk in the AM.
Wednesday: Travel to Dallas, TX for a return to the grind in the PM.
Thursday: Travel around the hometown for meetings from 8AM-3PM. Travel to Sean's for engagement ring shopping in the PM.
Friday: Travel to Texarkana, TX for a visit with the future in-laws (and hopefully to collect Sean's baby pics so I can get an early start on the wedding slide show).

And, thanks to my sweetheart, the soundtrack for this busy week will be provided by this musical team who produced this song that has been suck in my head since I heard it on the Late Show on Tuesday (team Letterman forever, by the way):


Hey, come to think of it, I should probably pack.

On the agenda

This overcast Sunday is the perfect day for brunch at The Original Pancake House and a Mad Men; New York, I Love You; and Match Point marathon (side note: Sean has hijacked the Netflix account). I do solemnly swear that by the end of the day Sean's couch will be permanently marked by my 200-pound butt.

2009 in Memoriam

Many people are inclined to lavish a year with praise or write it off as a loss as it's on its way out. I am not usually one of those people--one year ends, another begins, and life continues on its merry way--but 2009 was such a special year that I'm going to make an exception. You see, in 2009 life wandered off its merry course and into very unfamiliar territory (also known, by those of us for whom change is a fate worse than death, as hell). So for you, 2009, a swift kick in the pants for catapulting me into a fetid cesspool of uncertainty. And for you, 2010, a prayer that life will get back on track.

Of course, last year wasn't all bad, and it would be unfair for me to judge it based on one event (however dreadful) so I present to you a list of the 15 most influential occurrences of 2009. Can you spot the highest high? The lowest low? The biggest "What Was I Thinking!?" moment?

15. January: Said goodbye to my paternal grandfather.
14. January: Welcomed Sean's niece into the world.
13. January: Visited Texarkana for the first time.
12. February: Tried to touch up my own roots with atrocious results.
11. March: Roadtripped to amazing New Orleans.
10. April: Found out at 2AM that my bestie was engaged.
9. May: Saw Death Cab live.
8. May: Graduated from college.
7. June: Moved out of my sweet home in College Station and back into my parents' house.
6. June: Got my current job (albeit with far fewer responsibilities).
5. July: Backed my car into a tree.
4. August: Moved Sean to Dallas.
3. August: Visited Las Vegas.
2. September: Had to make my first ever major investment in my decade old car.
1. October: Dyed my forever blonde hair brown.

And in the spirit of ending on a high note: In 2010, I hope to watch more movies, read more books, write more fiction, save more money, and find more purpose in an effort to become a more satisfied former student.

Happy New Year, one and all!

Destination. Wedding.

One of Sean's old amigos is getting hitched next October and called last night to ask Sean to be one of his groomsmen. In Sacramento. We were just trying to decide where our next vacation spot would be and lo! California, here we come! We were considering an east coast destination--Boston, Philly, and NYC all at once, perhaps--and well, NoCal is about as opposite as we could get without leaving the 48 contiguous. It's ok though, because NoCal means wine country and San Francisco and cool weather ALL THE TIME. Sean's so excited that he looked up airfare (totally reasonable) and Silicon Valley ("We have to visit Google! Or Apple!") as soon as he hung up the phone.

I mentioned the trip to my mom and she was all, "Well, I guess it's a good thing you and Sean aren't getting married next October!" Right mom, good thing. I can still dream in wedding, and when I do, it's about the centerpiece (notice the fiddlehead ferns!) and the chandelier here and here:

[Classic Bride]

The gorgeous macaron cake here:

[Flights of Fancy]

And the future Junior Bridesmaid here:

She'll only be nine come wedding time, and I've said over and over (out loud, this is the first you're hearing of it) that I don't want little ones in the wedding, but she's just such a doll that I can't leave her out. Plus, she'll be the token member of the wedding party who'll have to toast with Diet Coke, so at least we know one of them will still have the dexterity to catch the bouquet at the end of the night.

Winner winner, chicken dinner

ATTENTION READERS: If you are Facebook friends with my sweet beau and are not yet privy to his current status, I pray thee look at it before you read my post. Pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top (and those pretty silver dragées too, if anyone can tell me where in the heck I can find them). I'm not interested in stealing his thunder, I merely want to express how outrageously thrilled I am that--you've read the status, yes? And left a comment (or at least a "like")? Ok--how outrageously thrilled I am that, after one-and-a-half years of heavy hunting, he finally found a job in Big D and will be working/living within 30 miles of my house by the beginning of September! That's right, folks, long distance no more! Imagine all the dinners we'll share in the middle of the week! And the lunches we'll meet up for during the work-day! And oh, what's that you hear? Why, it's the Earth rejoicing over how much gas we'll save now that our commute to see one another has experienced a 90% decrease. Sing, ye birdies!

The first order of business is to find a fabulous one-bedroom oasis for Sean that's near a park, in a good area, equipped with a fireplace for roasting marshmallows, and not terribly expensive. The next is to furnish said oasis with second-hand wares that we won't mind discarding should we find something better when we get hitched. I, of course, have embraced both of the challenges with so much gusto. I'm excited to be involved in the hunt because I know I'll be spending an inordinate amount of time in the oasis, so I want it to be awesome. And I'm especially excited about the furnishings because I've been itching to put all of my new HGTV knowledge to use for the past six months and this is my chance oh dear Sean PLEASE LET ME PAINT AT LEAST ONE WALL!

The third (and perhaps most important) order of business is to celebrate this exciting new chapter in Sean's life. And where else should we opt to go but the one city in the world that's always game for a celebration--Vegas, baby! As soon as Sean's tenure is up with his current employer, we're hitting the strip. Maybe we'll come back so rich that Sean won't even have to start his new job. Or maybe we'll come back married. Who knows? The only things of which I am certain are that we will eat at In-And-Out Burger, we will see Cirque Du Soleil, and we will, for once in our lives, enjoy Fabulous August!

Weekends and wedding planning

As most of you know, I live a mere hop, skip, and jump away from a sprawling metropolis, which means that I'm surrounded by hidden opportunities to broaden my cultural horizons. Fewer of you know that my boyfriend is terribly fond of films, particularly of the indie persuasion. Unfortunately, he lives in a smallish town whose culture only varies from one coffee shop to another (the historic downtown area and gay bar notwithstanding). It follows, then, that said boyfriend would leap at the opportunity to catch a movie that is (for now) only in limited release when he is in a city large enough to accommodate different tastes. So last Saturday night we went to this indie theater that is only 45 minutes from my house:



to see this movie:



It was sort of fabulous and oh my gosh, if any of you want to know what my boyfriend is like in real life, go see this movie when it comes to a theater near you and just imagine all of John Kransinski's lines coming out Sean's pretty face. Seriously.

We had a lovely weekend together and then I spent my Monday moping over losing Sean to the work week once again. I think that this long-distance stuff is making me a little wedding crazy (it couldn't be that we're smack dab in the middle of wedding season and that television is chock-a-block full of wedding programming, no sir) because I pretty much spent all of last week planning (in earnest) a wedding that's still two-and-a-half years away. I've chosen my colors and I know what I want my dress to look like and I know what flavor of cake I want and I'm working out like the wedding's next month and I know how I want the reception to feel and I know how we're going to coordinate the honeymoon around a teacher's schedule and I know where we're going to live afterward. And in an attempt to get myself out of the doldrums today, I Googled "reception venues fort worth, tx" and now have a whole slew of places to check out once I get a ring. My brother somewhat-wisely pointed out that I might want something completely different when that time comes, but if not at least I'll be pretty prepared. I guess I just cope with being work-a-day single in the city by planning for an event that will ensure that I never have to don that dreadful title again.

Raindrops and recipes

Summer is such a tedious season--it's so hot and sweaty and lazy and the only holiday of any importance in the midst of it all pretty much requires its participants to endure the mucky outdoors for an entire day. It's not at all like the fall, which is cool, doesn't smell like a gymnasium, and is chock-a-block full of opportunities for intimate family gatherings. As such, summer doesn't do much to inspire many blog posts, and for that I am sorry. Perhaps I should start a second blog with a theme ("calorie conscious foodie" leaps to mind) so that I can update more regularly. Ponder this, dear readers, as I regale you with tales of limited significance.

I had planned on blogging about the terrible storm that hit us last week, but I got so carried away with cleaning up my room and working on long overdue thank-you cards that that post fell by the wayside. I managed to snap a few pictures of the house and the damage after the power outage left my family with nothing to do but sit in the dark living room and fall asleep at 9:30, so I hope those suffice:


Behold, the mantle in the family room from which our only source of light was emitted.


The wind tore this limb from our neighbor's oak tree and set it down smack dab in the middle of our driveway, thus rendering us unable to entertain ourselves with a drive around the battered neighborhood.

My mom and some of her friends have decided to make dinner for the directors of the Vacation Bible School program that's going on at church this week, and she volunteered to be in charge of the desserts for my sake (because the SoCo brownies and blueberry pie that I made last week did nothing to quell my urge to bake). While flipping through an old cookbook for ideas, I came across a recipe for Mock Apple Pie that doesn't actually call for apples, but instead requires a whole sleeve of Ritz crackers. What was more interesting than the ingredients list, however, was the background information that the author included on the page: who knew that the name "Nabisco" was not coined accidentally? National Biscuit Company=NaBisCo! That's genius.

Moseying to the chapel

This long-distance relationship business really is the pits. I only left my love in College Station 30 hours ago, but I'm so excited for my return trip this weekend (to move my brother into my old apartment) that I can't even fathom going to bed. I've started to think of this time apart as just an inconvenient hiatus between graduation and marriage and so I started looking into wedding venues, dresses, and centerpieces in earnest today. It doesn't help that TLC and the Style Network are flooding their line-ups with wedding-themed shows during this season of getting hitched. Every time I change the dadgum channel I see some bride cutting a cake or trying on a dress and the wheels in my mind start turning. Nevertheless, did you know that you can often get better deals on caterers and venues if you have your wedding during the "off-season" (October-April)? Glad Sean and I detest this miserable season and set our hearts on mid-October almost a year ago!

I took a quiz about the type of groom I have and it turns out that he's a "Planner Extraordinaire--thoughtful, strong, compassionate, and researches right along with the bride" (I already knew this). Luckily, Sean and I have VERY similar taste and are usually happy to hear each other out when our opinions do differ, so we aren't likely to come to blows over many of the details: "I think a fireplace in the reception venue would be just lovely in the fall." "Why, yes, darling, that idea is absolutely splendid!"; "I'm not at all attached to a particular floral arrangement, all they do is cost a fortune and then die straight away. How would you feel about centerpieces made out of candles and other fall vegetation?" "That sounds brilliant, love. We really ought to save as much as we can on the wedding so we can afford to reno our house afterward." "I heartily agree: granite countertops mean so much more to me than a dress that I will only wear once."; "I'm afraid, sweetie, that I will be a DIY-bride--save the dates, invites, programs, none will escape my creative touch." "Oh I am sure of this, but I look forward to seeing what you come up with!" I figure that it's never too early to start having these tough conversations.

The bad influence

I recently received the following email from the woman I will be living with for the next two years:

Do you have feelings of inadequacy?
Do you suffer from shyness?
Do you sometimes wish you were more assertive?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist about Margaritas.
Margaritas are the safe, natural way to feel better and more confident about yourself and your actions.
Margaritas can help ease you out of your shyness and let you tell the world that you're ready and willing to do just about anything.
You will notice the benefits of Margaritas almost immediately and with a regimen of regular doses you can overcome any obstacles that prevent you from living the life you want to live.
Shyness and awkwardness will be a thing of the past and you will discover many talents you never knew you had.

Stop hiding and start living, with Margaritas.

Margaritas may not be right for everyone. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not use Margaritas. However, women who wouldn't mind nursing or becoming pregnant are encouraged to try it.

Side effects may include: Dizziness, nausea, vomiting, incarceration, loss of motor control, loss of clothing, loss of money, table dancing, headache, dehydration, dry mouth, and a desire to sing karaoke.

WARNING: The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you are whispering when you are not.
WARNING: The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to tell your friends over and over again that you love them.
WARNING: The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to think you can sing.
WARNING: The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you can logically converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting.

Careful research has proven that red wine and champagne may be interchangeable with the product, Margaritas.

Please pass this on to your friends. Don't let that inner shyness and low self-esteem go untreated.

Try Margaritas, with a little salt and lime!

Sort of puts all of those "Oh my gaw! I could NEVER live with my parents after graduation!" comments to rest, doesn't it?

Take finals, retire, eat cake

Tomorrow (today) is final exam day, dun dun DUN! And yet here I am, blogging rather than studying for the nutrition final that I'll be taking in 12 hours. I'm not at all motivated to read about vitamins and minerals when at least half of the test questions are coming from old tests, on which I have received nary a grade lower than 96%. Besides, seeing as my tenure at The University technically ends tomorrow at 5:00PM, I'm a mite more concerned about the distant future than I am about the test.

I worked from 9-5 on Monday and Tuesday of this week, and from 9-2 on Wednesday. A typical day (at a job I like!) consists of entering data into a computer, filing, answering phones, and glancing at the clock every three minutes desperate for the end of my workday. I figure I ought not to go through life this way, so I've told Sean that I'd eventually like to just be a stay-at-home mom, please and thank you. BUT THEN I had today off and spent all of my free time decorating a cake and glancing at the clock every three minutes desperate for the end of Sean's workday so I could spend time with him. At least when I'm at work and waiting for 5:00 I'm getting something out of it (albeit not very much)! I think what I want to do after I graduate is retire with my future hubs and travel around the U.S. in a motor home. That way, I won't have to work and I won't have to miss him. It's win-win.

Two weeks from now it's going to be totally lose-lose, however, because I'm moving away from my beloved AND I'm still going to have to work. All I'll have to look forward to at the end of my workday for the next two years will be my parents (both of whom I adore, don't get me wrong) and my cat. (Well, maybe my cat. My mom told me today that she wanted Miss Layla to stay in my apartment with my brother rather than move home with me. Trey didn't want her either, though. Too bad, wicked grandmother, too bad!) Remind me again why I'm not getting married in June like everyone else who graduates next weekend? Oh yeah, because neither one of us like the summer. And because I don't have a job. Or any money.

What I do have, dear readers, is a final project due tomorrow. A final project that involves lots and lots of cake. Observe:


This is my codex (which I've renamed "cake-dex"). It's basically an accordion-style book of symbols that Aztecs and other South American native people used to keep records and tell stories once upon a time. My codex tells the story of my cakes with symbols that represent when I made them, who I made them for, and the occasions for which I made them.


And hey, it's the happy couple! Also it's an idea of what the book looks like inside. Voila! A+, methinks (mehopes).

I spent so much time working on the cake-dex and accompanying cake, nutrition final, and Mother's Day cake today that I had to deny the beau our daily dose of The O.C. (Like nicotine, that show.) I've promised to make it up to him one night next week with a bottle of wine and a full-on marathon because what else will I have to do? Not one solitary thing. Oh good gracious...

Food and Link

Readers, it's time I changed my eating habits. According to pretty much all of the diet literature that I've read, the ideal way to navigate a grocery store is by shopping on the outside edges and staying the heck out of the middle aisles. Why? Because every. single. grocery. store. period. puts their fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy along the outside edge and stocks all the processed stuff in the middle and it's so much more food pyramid friendly to eat the outside things. And since I recently discovered that eating junk (ie: granola bars and cereal) just makes me even hungrier, I've decided to limit my shopping to the outside edges (for the most part). The few exceptions are high-fiber tortillas, canned and frozen vegetables, and herbs and spices. Thankfully, all of the ingredients for the black bean salad that I've been craving for the past week fall within those boundaries.

In unrelated news, the job hunting process is terribly tiresome. I used to be so in love with my major, so excited about my career choice, and so proud of my GPA, but now I'm feeling dumb and worthless because I can't find employment. And oh yeah, going through two portions of a very lengthy interview process and then calling to set up a time to complete the third portion only to be told that (WOOPS!) I was unqualified wasn't any fun either. But then I found this while I was reading my favorite blog whose author is super successful and pretty much my idol:
"After graduating college with a degree in English and enough of a GPA to have the terribly misleading phrase 'cum laude' stamped on the diploma, I used my impressive four-year education to land a job taking phone reservations for Delta Airlines."
And suddenly I'm not the only cum laude English major who's fumbling into the job market. Thanks, Dooce!

Freelance!

When it comes to grammar, I'm the kind of fan who paints herself Team Grammar's colors, drinks too much beer, and ends up heckling so many opposing fans that someone eventually dumps nachos into her lap. So, not surprisingly, I love it when I get requests like the following, "Will you look over my paper/application/cover letter and make sure everything sounds ok?"

More recently, I've been getting different requests along the lines of, "Would you be able to decorate a cake for my friend's birthday/cousin's baby shower/sister's wedding?" The first time someone asked me that my immediate response was "no freaking way, cakes are just something I do for fun." Since that that time though, I've accepted one unpaid job (for my mom) and two paid jobs that are both due within a month. I figure I should spend the weeks leading up to graduation exercising my piping hands and building a portfolio, because even when stocks are plummeting, people still like buttercream.

Yo no lo puedo evitar

This past week in my clase de espanol, we watched a movie about the Cuban band Buena Vista Social Club. Even though their music sort of makes me want chips and queso (and maybe an illegal cigar), I've decided that I love it. Especially this one song called Chan Chan, which is so absolutely fabulous that it's been repeating on iTunes for the past hour.

The biggest problem with enjoying the music of Cuba is that now I want to visit Cuba, which might be a bit of a challenge. I also want to visit Argentina, Peru, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and maybe even Honduras because of the Hispanic Civ and Culture Since 1870(?) class that I took last semester, and those countries might be more accessible.

I get really excited about my Spanish abilities when I'm in class, and then I get upset when I realize that I might lose what knowledge I have after graduation and I start to reconsider my career path (big surprise). This doesn't happen all of the time, just 99% of it. My love of Spanish coupled with these trying economic times and utterly stagnant technical communication sector have inspired me to add a few more career options to my very short list:
1) Elementary/middle school Spanish teacher - I wouldn't have to speak Spanish fluently, but I'd still get to use it regularly. Unfortunately, I also wouldn't have any contact with English literature or grammar.
2) Middle school English teacher - I'd get to teach most of what I love, but not all of it.
3) ESL teacher - I'd get to beat English grammar into kids while still using Spanish from time to time. This one's sort of a win-win, but also could be the hardest.

All of these would require that I get certified, so in the meantime I'd probably try to get a job at one of the bajillion cakeries in my hometown. Or I could just declare a second major in Spanish real quick before I'm forced into the real world. Dios mio, quien sabe.

A zoo over there

I mentioned before that I live across the street from a very busy daycare center. The two playgrounds (Sean calls them "the cages") that house the littlest ones are about 15 feet from my windows, so every day when I get home I love to watch the babies interact and toddle around precariously. My favorite resident is one that Sean and I call "the little red-haired boy," who looks conspicuously like another baby who just so happens to be the future father of my children:

But I digress. As much as I enjoy having 45 darling kids as neighbors between the hours of 6:30AM and 6:30PM, my experience with the daycare center has only confirmed a notion that I adopted a long time ago, which is this: I absolutely will not let my babies grow up in a daycare center. Ideally, I'll be able to stay home with them and raise them myself, but if that's not an option then a babysitter is the only alternative. Before my parents moved from Houston to Dallas, I had a babysitter named Clara who started teaching me to read before I was three and who used to scratch my back whenever I asked (a comforting, loving gesture that my poor boyfriend will now be obligated to perform until the end of time). I got to play with my own toys, nap on my own bed, run in my own backyard, eat in my own kitchen, and interact with an adult when mom and dad were working.

I feel so sorry for the little ones across the street who spend 8-12 hours a day (that's 40-60 hours per week!) in small building with minimal supervision. Theoretically, the babies who are dropped off at 6:30 in the morning and picked up at 6:30 at night only have about two hours per weekday to spend at home with mom and dad. What's the point?

I appreciate that my sweet future hubs:

shares my opinion (which is kind of a trend with us, except when it comes to NASA, about which he is dead wrong) and will allow me to stay at home and mold our future little red-headed kids into food-loving, travel-appreciating, indie/alt. rock-jamming, book-devouring individuals who will suit our lifestyles.