I bleed gold

It’s been a looong, painful week. I spent Sunday night battling it out on the softball field to claim a league championship for our team, TBD. By the time this champ got home and cleaned up (you don’t want to know how much one girl can sweat playing back-to-back championship softball games in 90+ degree heat), it was well past midnight.

Monday night found me fighting my way through a finance chapter for my last undergrad class, math. Two o’clock a.m. found me walking in my door and almost passing out on the stairs from exhaustion.

Tuesday was, um, interesting. I went to a conference for work and was vastly entertained and somewhat offended by my fellow conference-goers (PSA: please do not, at a professional conference, close every contribution to the discussion with “Praise the Lord” nor should one advertise how they are “woefully underemployed” in the field for which the conference is dedicated). However, the conference was also in my old stomping grounds and I drove through a neighborhood of houses that I have long dreamed about. I was relaxed and mellow on the way home only to check my Blackberry as I was pulling in to my driveway to find an email from my math professor notifying that my work was incomplete and, unless I completed an entire chapter of work by noon the next day, I would not pass. By not passing, I would not graduate. This, my friends, wasn’t an option. Plane tickets have been purchased, reservations made, announcements mailed.

So, I did what any rational woman would do…I had a massive – though short-lived – come apart, pulled up my big girl panties and headed in to campus to force my way through another math chapter. I reached my breaking point about 2 a.m. and decided, “it is what it is” and called it a night…or morning.

Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon. Grades were posted. Screams were heard. Tears were shed.

And honor cords were picked up.

It’s such a relief to know I’m done. I passed. I will have a degree conferred upon me in one week and I will walk across the stage at Wells Fargo arena in nine days and snatch that diploma cover (sans the diploma) right out of the my dean’s hands.

This was a hard-won victory, 18 years in the making. The endless hours of studying, the tears, the screams, the fights with professors and classmates…all worth it, in the end. This was my goal, my dream. Something I did for no one else but myself. It’s an accomplishment that no one can take away and one that, when I really think about it, makes me hold my head high knowing I fought for something so hard…

and won.

Curious

I’m a collector, I confess. Some of the things I horde collect have been life-long interests, such as my obsession with glass bottles (I’ll have to post sometime about the dream I had as a girl that led me to this obsession). Others are random objects I come across in shops or museums or my parent’s garage. Wherever the object might come from, it usually ends up relegated to the dusty corners of the Word Room because I simply don’t have the time or imagination or space to display it. Plus, as contradictory as this may seem, I prefer the majority of my living space to be “clean & clear”, a rather peculiar trait for a collector such as myself.

Last fall I took one of the coolest, most enjoyable classes I’ve had so far at ASU: Dimensions of Liberal Studies. It’s a required course for my degree but, much to my surprise, I found it completely compelling and invigorating. One of the many stimulating projects we had to complete was to a) pick a modern device/concept/ trend and add it to a virtual cabinet of curiosities, and b) create a concept for a museum of our choosing and what such a museum would focus on and showcase.

Yes, I was in heaven.

As I worked through the project, I became inspired by many different objects and aspects and time periods. And I realized that many of the objects I collect, if displayed, could tell someone a great deal about me. I began to daydream of creating a real “cabinet of curiosities” in my home. Then got busy and promptly forgot all about the idea.

Until today, when I was over at One Lucky Day and saw this:

I drooled. I enlarged the image. I began to get ideas. Ideas of how I could display all my favorite curiosities in a cabinet such as this.

And I revisited previous images of other cabinets I love. Like this one:

(Sadly I have no idea where I got this one.)

(This belongs to Sheryl Crow.)

So maybe, just maybe, I need to talk one of my amazingly skilled friends into creating me a cabinet for the Word Room that could showcase all my treasures. That would display all the odd things I love that just don’t seem to have a place in my home. A place to really illustrate my personality.

Sans skulls.

Just Around the Corner

In less than five months, I will have a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies from Arizona State University. Yes, I’ve taken quite a bit of teasing about my program of study, but at the time I enrolled it was the best fit for me.  Either way, I’m graduating magna cum laude…how many people can say that?

It’s a bit surreal, to be honest. And unnerving. For so long, the focus in my personal life has been my education. The reason for staying at my job (which I do love but isn’t what I want to be doing for the rest of my life) has been to get my degree. I always said that when I graduated I’d make decisions. I’d choose a path. I’d move. I’d start living the life I really wanted.

Now that graduation is just around the corner, it’s scary. What do I want to be when I grow up? Where do I want to live? What is my true passion in life and how can I parlay that into a lucrative career.

And now, five months from graduation, I’m not any closer to those answers than I was five years ago when I started this journey. Older? Yes. Wiser? Most definitely. But closer to the answer? Not even close.

Taking Chances

When it comes to taking chances with anything but my heart, I’m in. I have no qualms about bungee jumping or cliff diving or looking like a fool. I’m the all-in, go big or go home kinda girl. But ask me to put my heart on the line, to open myself up, and I’m absolutely terrified.

Two years ago I took an enormous leap of faith. I risked my heart and a deep friendship and ended up losing both: the first for a little while and the second for forever. But looking back I don’t regret it nor could I have not taken that risk and let things keeping going they way there were. I did what I needed to do in order to have no ‘what ifs’ about the situation. It hurt (sometimes it still does) but I know I’m in a better place because of it.

And now, almost two years to the date, I find myself desperately wanting to take such a risk again. To offer my heart to a man and risk him rejecting it. To make myself, gulp, vulnerable. To say, “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” There’s a lot on the line, not the least of which is a pretty good friendship. I think my gut is telling me there is something between us but I’m not sure it’s my instincts of just wishful thinking.

Why can’t I just pass a note that says ‘check yes or no’?

Me @ 35

Yesterday I celebrated my decent into spinsterhood 35th birthday. The day, to put it bluntly, sucked. I won’t go into detail, let’s just say I’ve had better day. Today sucks to. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t post my annual “note to self” about what my favorites are at this point in time. Some change from year to year, others are steadfast companions.

blue * baseball * Hawaii * fall * family & friends * Lucky Brand accessories * full moons * babies * Kindle * Discovery of Witches * spiced cider * curly hair * Crystal Light raspberry Ice * Sheryl Crow * Paradise Bakery * thunderstorms * rain * leather * mountains * surfing * Kings of Leon * stars * boots * pearls * softball * Pinterest * glass jars * Harry Potter * anything vintage * pumpkin-flavored anything * clocks * fall leaves * Tetons * kayaking * farmhouses

Those Darned Westerns

On my recent 18-day vacation to the homeland (read: Wyoming), I indulged in the reading of several western “romances” to pass the time. (I say “romances” ’cause the books were borrowed from my granny and were either LDS or Christian novels so romance was confined to “smoldering looks” across the fire.) What really stuck out in my mind was the limited amount of personal possessions people had way back when. Now, I’m not a novice to the old west, but I’m always taken aback when I read about a woman’s excitement with getting a new dress so she now has three to wear. Then I feel guilty thinking of my chock-full closet of which I wear maybe 10% of the clothes. People had so little and were relatively happy.

Why?

My thought is because they didn’t know any better. Well, perhaps better is the wrong word. Differently would be more appropriate. There were no glossy magazines, no television or movies, no million-dollar homes and Targets and Walmarts on every corner. There wasn’t the excess of worldly goods that plaques our society today. The Jones were, more than likely, just simple country-folk who didn’t care if anyone kept up with them.

How I would love to live such a simple, honest life. Unfortunately, despite my country upbringing, I’ve come of age in the consumer age. My senses have been inundated with pretty, sparkly things that I covet. I wouldn’t know how in the world to survive on so little. But what if I were to try?

My family lives in a small, beautiful, rural valley. There is no Walmart or Target for more than a hundred miles. While there, I had limited Internet time and really no shopping. And I saved a lot of money. But, the more important thing was that I wasn’t missing what consumer goods were out there because I wasn’t exposed to them. I was happy and content in my little corner of the world. I’m sure, if I were to have stayed, the vacation haze would have burned off eventually. But perhaps my limit of exposure to stuff would have led to a more simple life; a more down-home, homemade existence.

And that’s what I want.

all over the place

* Entering the theater to see Cars 2 on Saturday morning, I saw this movie poster:

As soon as we got home, I Googled and found the website and trailer. I’m already enchanted with this film and it doesn’t come out for another year (June 22, 2012). Oh, and Billy Connolly (the father on The Boondock Saints) is the voice of the king. I swoon at his Scottish accent.

* Have you been on Pinterest? Are you addicted? I am.

* After several marathon reading sessions during which I completely ignored my school work, I finished A Discovery of Witches. Amazing book. Entertainment Weekly called it “Twilight for the tweedy set” and I can see that. I love, and I mean love, the history and science in the book. It will be interesting to see how the author moves the trilogy forward in book two.

* I broke down and bought a Kindle. I love it. And I’m going to go broke purchasing ebooks for the darn device. I also want this Kate Spade cover but can’t quite -at all- bring myself to pay the $85 for it.

* You know how, every once in a while, you find the perfect bag? The bag you could have designed yourself? I found mine last weekend at Dillard’s. The Fossil Hathaway tote in Marine.

*I’m seriously considering taking Soul Restoration 1 presented by the Brave Girls Club. It looks like an amazing class to help me refocus, regroup and rededicate.

* Speaking of the soul, I saw Soul Surfer at the urging of the receptionist at my PT office and loved it. Very inspirational (which was exactly what I needed at the moment when I was frustrated with my ankle and PT and thinking it -the ankle- would never bend again). It comes out on DVD August 2nd, I believe.

I think that’s enough randomness. For today, anyway.