High-school Never Ends.

I was walking into DSW to check out their clearance rack when someone in the parking lot made a pretty loud moaning sound.  I realized when I looked that this person was laughing at something with a friend so I went on my merry way.  While I was going on my merry way her friend - or her, I'm not sure which - said, "she's wearing that skirt," in the most sarcastic tone she could muster it seemed.  I'm not sure if they were trying to pick a fight with me, but they were certainly being responsible adults.  I didn't give the lady a funny look or anything; her loud noise made me look over impulsively, an instant reaction, because something about it made me wonder if everything was okay.
So I spent some time being offended.  The five-year-old me crossed her arms and stuck out her pouty lip saying, "that wasn't very nice..."

I don't think race had anything to do with that, but it reminded me of something that happened to me a long time ago:
It was near midnight on a Friday and I was sitting at a stop light enjoying some rather loud techno on channel 93.3's Eleven program (before they started playing crappy techno) when a white car pulled up next to me.  This car was full of drunk girls (that is giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don't know if they were actually drunk).  The passenger got my attention and had me lower my music.  What she proceeded to do was fling racial slurs at me.  She looked so proud of herself while she did it too.
I don't remember what she said, or what I did because the whole thing was so surreal, but I'm pretty sure I did something dumb like say, "uh, okay," and roll up my window.  She laughed and laughed and laughed at my reaction though.
I spent a good deal of time being offended over that one, and it still irks me to think about it.  The five-year-old me wanted to throw something and cry, and she still kind of pouts about it.
This happened in at least 2008, maybe 2009.  So a while ago.

In high-school I spent a week being physically ill because when I turned down one of my classmates for a date he decided that he, and all of his friends, would spread rumours about having slept with me.  He had a lot of friends.
When I turned him down he said, "it's because I'm black, isn't it?"
I wasn't clever enough at the time, but I should have said, "no, but now it's because you pulled the race card."

In middle school I also spent some time feeling physically ill when girls I thought were my friends started spreading a rumour that I had gotten a favourite teacher of the class suspended and/or fired (I can't remember which) for reading out of the bible.  The ring leader for this one was Jewish and I was Christian.  It was her father who had gotten him in trouble, but for whatever reason she decided I should take the fall.
The whole thing was pretty ridiculous, seeing as nothing needed to be said about it.  I was kind of sad the teacher was gone, but it wasn't the end of the world to me.  I guess other people thought it was really important though.

Things like these tend to just happen to me, and I'm not fast enough on the uptake to really respond properly.  It takes me a moment to process events and decide how I feel about them.  In the mean time, I usually end up doing something stupid that I look back on and facepalm.

They do say that hindsight is 20/20.

The original point of this is that I think it's ridiculous that people who are supposed to be full-grown adults can be so spiteful and immature.

FAIR WARNING: do not read past this point if you are easily traumatized.

On a related note of losing faith in the human race: There's a case of a man raping his girlfriend's 6-month-old daughter to death.  He was convicted, and sentenced to the death penalty but now his attorneys are saying that the sentence is too much because the man was so drunk he wasn't in control of his actions.  They say that while he intended to rape the child he did not intend to kill her.
I heard about this on Monday I think and I'm still traumatized by it.  Maybe it's because I have an 8-month-old, I don't know.

I just want to live in my little bubble of not ever knowing about a man who is capable of raping a 6-month-old child.
Now is the time for science to come up with some sort of selective memory erasing device.
Get on it science!

Tipping.

There's a story going around about a pastor writing a snarky remark on a receipt instead of a tip:

"I give God 10% why do you get 18?"

So.
Uh.
Yeah...
*awkward shuffle here*

I didn't know it was a woman who wrote it - I assumed the pastor was male - but I'm going to take a guess and say she was having a bad day.  That might just be me projecting myself onto the situation; maybe she's just a jerk.

In my opinion, it really doesn't matter that she is a pastor.  What matters is that she pulled what one might call a "dick move."  Stuff like this happens to servers all the time.  I heard a story of a waitress who got stiffed on a huge dinner bill by a woman who wrote, "sorry, I'm a single mom," or something similar on her ticket.  The two situations are very similar.

What irritates me about this woman is that she clearly has no idea what it's like to practice Christianity.  Or maybe she slipped up this one time.  Either way, she set a terrible example.
What also irritates me is the waitress posting it online.  I don't think that was really called for.

Anyway, as a general rule, I give a dollar on every five, about 20% (if the bill is $22 I give $4), unless the service is pretty bad.

Because waitressing sucks, and I know it sucks from working as a busser at Gunther Toody's.  Why would someone go and make a crappy job worse by being a general tool?

The Root of the Evil End.

I was trying to figure out why it's so hard for me to keep a schedule on this blog.  It's certainly not because I don't have the time to write, that is just an excuse I use because I'm loading my time into other things...like staring at facebook urging it to entertain me when I log off of World of Warcraft (WoW) at night.  That last sentence explains exactly how good I am at wasting my time.
So, then, why am I so suck-tastic at posting new entries regularly?

After some thought, and a lot of staring at a blank "new post" box it struck me that the reason I don't write more frequently is because I don't feel like I have anything to say.
I feel a lot like a youtuber I sort of follow whose channel is called Crabstickz:

He mentions in this video that there's sort of a pressure to making new content on youtube, which is sort of how I feel about this blog.  Namely the bit about there already being other awesome youtubers (bloggers) out there, so why post?

The whole problem is I started this blog with a purpose.  I knew, when I started it, that I wasn't going to be in convert instructions forever.  There would come a day that I would actually be Catholic and that day would mean finding things to post about relating to actual life.
The assumption was that life would be amazingly different.

Life as a convert is not really all that different.  I view the world differently and I process things differently, but in terms of actual day-to-day life nothing exciting really happens.  I spend a lot of my time cleaning (a lot, like every day of my life except Sunday - hubby made a rule that I'm not allowed to clean on Sundays, lol), a lot of time chasing down a puppy, and the majority of my time caring for the wee one.  Let it be noted that I am not complaining.  All of that being said, my time for reflection and having revelations about things is a bit limited.
Only because I choose to limit it.
If I have thirty minutes to myself I spend it cleaning, or online in some fashion.  Wasting it away on facebook or youtube...or WoW.  I could choose to spend that time drawing, or crafting, or writing.  Or otherwise being generally productive.

Anyway, the whole point is that I don't post because I don't feel like I have anything to say, and/or I feel like no one is interested in my random/stupid musings.

Maybe I'll try to start posting anyways.  I've been talking to hubs about making a schedule for us, like, so many hours for family time, cleaning, etc.  So maybe I'll schedule some writing time for myself.

I'd like to try and wean myself off of facebook and youtube, and the interwebs in general because I have this crazy idea that it won't be around forever and that I should get used to not having it.
I dunno where that came from but it's here, prodding at the back of my mind...making me feel like a crazy person.

Yep.

End of Christmas Musings.

One of my major, major flaws is that I go and go and go until I just can't go anymore.  I drive until I break down.  Sometimes when I break down I'm a minor wreck, sometimes I'm a major catastrophe.
A beautiful example of this behavior in myself has been this holiday season - and, to some extent, getting the puppy.  We had company starting the 17th of December.  They left Christmas day and my parents arrived the 26th.  My parents only stayed a few days, then hubby went on night shift.  Then I got sick.  Now we're here.
During this time it seems like I had multiple "holy shit, I can't handle all of this" moments.  The biggest of these was this morning before mass.  This one was triggered by a specific innocent phrase hubby said to me before leaving for work last night, but I had been teetering on the edge for a bit while I was sick.

God bless my husband.  He deals with this particular fault very well, and I am enormously grateful for that.

I call this flaw/fault my boomerang flaw because it keeps coming back.

In my nature I am a doer.  I like to get things done efficiently, sometimes to a fault.  My ex roommate calls me the tetris master for how I load things into a car when moving (I've moved her two, maybe three times now); also for the way I load the dishwasher.  I'm weird about the dishwasher.  I hate to run it if there is any empty space, and I like to cram as many dirty dishes as physically possible into it before using the dish detergent.
Anywho.
Because I am a doer, I tend to be impatient about things not getting done.  This is unfortunate, because I do things faster than most other people and I tend to expect someone to respond promptly to something like a full trash can.  Other people just don't care as much about these things, and that's okay.
What I need to work on is being okay with it.

So I guess this fault is really two faults: going and going and going until I cannot possibly go any more mixed with being impatient.

When I was pregnant I was somehow able to turn this off in my head.  I was okay with a fairly messy kitchen, and clutter on the breakfast bar.
I wish I had been able to retain that.

So, back to work I go.  Hopefully I'll have some luck fixing this; I've tried so many times I've lost track.  Although, I think I'm better than I was even last year.


Another thing I've been thinking about is how incredibly blessed I am to have sort of stumbled into my current life.
I love the family I married into, I don't have any weirdness with my own parents, I married the man of my dreams, and we have a beautiful baby boy.
I have no idea what I did right, or if I did anything right, really.  It humbles me in an odd way to think about it.

I can say that I think my life is finally coming together, that I've finally figured out the right fork to take at the crossroads.  It took some learning and some scars, but I think I may have got it together now (aside from the aforementioned flaw).  Not to imply that I'm totally put together, because I'm not.  As a side note: anyone who says they are should be carefully observed for signs of mental instability (i.e. living in la-la-land).

That's another topic: the situations and manners in which my scars reveal themselves continue to surprise me.  That's maybe a story for another day.

~~~

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!
Also, merry Christmas (late), happy new year (late), and happy Epiphany! (late)

heh...better late than never?

A Note on Language.

My midwife said something that struck me at one of our visits.  She said that she felt bad whenever someone called a baby a "good" baby because the use of the word "good" to describe an easy baby implied that all other babies were bad babies.
She has a point, and now, whenever someone asks me if our little one is a "good" baby I tell them that he is an easy baby.  Because now I feel sad for the more difficult babies that are being labeled as "bad" by default.  I know that this isn't what people are saying when they ask if he's a "good" baby, but I can't get it out of my head.

This line of thought was provocative; I started thinking about the words we use and how it affects our perception of people, places, and objects.  To use another baby example, hubby referred to the little one as pathetic one night while we were driving home and he was crying in his car-seat.  I got defensive because I associate "pathetic" with negative connotations.  Hubby was using the word for it's actual definition, and he had to explain that to me.
But, how many times have you heard someone use the word "pathetic" to paint another person or thing in a bad light?  How many times have you used it in that way?

Another thing this makes me think about is the way words can lose their meaning a little over time and use.  The word "awesome" has been sort of dulled over the years for me because of how frequently it's used.  Awesome is supposed to mean that something leaves you in awe, like mouth gaping, speechless, awe.  I hardly ever hear it used this way and so it has sort of lost the potency of its meaning.

And then I start thinking about my own language.  I can sometimes have strange diction, or sentence structure when I'm speaking (or writing for that matter).  This leads to bad impressions, or that face-tingling embarrassed me that can't do anything but say the wrong thing - occasionally it leads to hilarity and good times.  For this reason, I don't mix well with people who offend easily.  I generally spend most of my time with them backtracking, trying - in vain - to explain what it was I meant to say when I said whatever asinine thing that actually came out of my mouth.

So the station at which my train of thought arrives is this: my language use is something that I should pay more attention to, but I like the weird things that I say sometimes.  Even if they get me into trouble, which they do. 
I guess it makes for good stories later?

Time Sinks and Money Pits.

Hubby and I play video games; sometimes too much.  We were playing one called League of Legends (LoL) which is free to play, but you can purchase points with which you can get things like skins for the character (champion) you like to play, or buy a champion outright if you're too impatient to collect the different points you earn for playing games.  Have I lost you yet?  I'm not very good at explaining things.
Anyhow, in theory you can play this game for a nominal fee of nothing (except your time).  That is if you don't want any of the skins or you have the patience to save up your second set of points for champion purchases.  In reality, we sometimes ended up spending $50 to $100 a month on this game.  What happened is we fell victim to impatience.

So now, we're playing World of Warcraft (WoW).  The expansion - Mists of Pandaria - was just released in September and let me just say that it's pretty awesome.  Let me also say that I'm trying really hard not to start off on a nerdy rambling of everything I like about this game.
I've been playing WoW off and on since 2005/6.  I started with what is now called "Vanilla WoW."  Then came Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and now Mists of Pandaria.
With each expansion Blizzard (the company who produces this game) added and took away (nerfed) things.
This expansion, something called "Battle Pets" has been introduced.  This is essentially Pokémon with the non-combat pets that exist in the world.  This feature alone is a force to be reckoned with for me: I loved the Pokémon games when I was a kid, and I'm sure if I picked up my Nintendo DS again and loaded up whatever the new Pokémon game is called, I could still spend hours on it.
Instead, I spend hours trying to level my non-combat pets in WoW so I can go battle the next "boss."

What this means is that not only is WoW a time sink, it's also a money pit.  Whereas you can theoretically play LoL for free, there is no such thing as free WoW because WoW is a pay to play game.  For $15 a month you can have an active account (there are other payment plans as well).  It's kind of like our substitution for cable television.  It could be argued which is better than the other.

Anyway, the main point of this is that the reason I haven't been posting is because I've been sinking my time and money into this game.  And now we have a two month old puppy, so I don't expect to have any time for WoW, or blogging.

Because we decided our baby was too easy.

Always Wear Protection.

Life lesson 2491: Wear gloves when preparing something containing Capsaicin.
On Wednesday I made green chile.  I did not wear gloves while cutting the jalapeño peppers the recipe called for.  All was fine, I washed my hands and got ready for bed.  Before bed I put lotion on my feet.  Thursday my hands were on fire, Friday my feet were on fire.  Today is okay pain wise, but my feet are still recovering.  I literally could not walk like a normal person yesterday (or today, although I'm better now).  I was a cripple.
I never, ever want to be sprayed with pepper spray.
So that is why I am posting a day late: pain.

Anywho.

I realized the other day that the opinions I held before becoming Catholic (or pregnant for that matter) were things I had heard from others, or came across in some form of media.  These are usually not reliable ways to form opinions.
Some examples of this are as follows:

I used to be pro-choice.  I had never looked into exactly how an abortion is done or how a baby develops in the womb.  After finding those things out my opinion was changed.

My old roommate purchase infant ibuprofen for my cat when he was injured (by her cat).  It turns out that it could have killed him if I had given him any more than I felt slightly comfortable giving him.  I will now always ask a veterinarian first.
She also told me that cod liver oil is something you shouldn't take during pregnancy.  This is very similar to people who tell you not to drink chamomile tea or have a foot rub while you're pregnant.

I am now way more distrustful of the medical industry.

What I came to find was that the opinions that had no research behind them were easy to change.  Those opinions formed from sensationalized news stories that I was too blind to identify as hyped, and those that I just heard from a friend and took to be true.  Those are the ones that are most often altered.
Sometimes, though, I thought things that were wrong but still hard to change.  Generally I had formed some sort of attachment to these because for some of them, changing my opinion meant that I had spent X amount of time doing something that I now viewed in a negative way.  These opinions were the slowest to change for the reason that I had a sort of inner battle with myself.  It usually took me realizing that I wasn't happy while doing those things to get past the hurdle.

I'm still changing.
Expecting a baby changes you.  As our baby has grown, so have I.  In an effort to make the best decision for this child and myself I have discovered a lot of new things, my priorities have shifted, and I've learned some valuable skills (like learning how to not care about frivolous things).
I'm still me, but a new me...if that makes any sense.

I'm Alive!...I Swear...

Happy Monday everyone!  I'm sorry I've been dead for longer than I anticipated, it takes a bit to recover from two full workweeks and a weekend of work when you're pregnant.  Also, I've been busy with house sitting, dog walking, and visiting my parents in Grand Junction.

Alright, first thing's first: Comic Con.  It was pretty fun.  I ended up losing money, but that's alright.  Now I know what to do for next year.
The majority of my business was commissions, and I got a couple of interesting ones.  It was a lot of fun to draw other people's random musings.  I think that was the best part, really, just sitting at the table and drawing.

Walking the dogs we were watching made me really want a dog, but I think it's best to wait until Baby arrives to go looking at the Dumb Friends League for a pooch.  I don't particularly want a puppy (sooo much work), so I'd rather not take the risk that an adult dog would not react to a small person in a friendly manner.

Grand Junction was a nice break from the routine.  It's nice to wake up and have someone else already cooking breakfast once in a while.  Not that I don't like to cook breakfast (because I do, cooking for hubby is pretty awesome), it's just pleasant to have a break from it.

After spending all this time away from home, it's good to be back.
I may have shot myself in the foot though.  On the drive home I was thinking I'd boot up The Sims and recreate our house to give me a visual aid with arranging furniture and the bathroom remodel we're sort of planning.  What ended up happening was I created two sims that looked somewhat like hubby and I and played for three hours...
They have a baby boy and they're preggo again.
I'm a little hopeless.  I had forgotten how addicting that game is.

Denver Comic Con

Small hiatus to allow for work and the impending con this weekend.

I have a table in the artist alley for the first Denver Comic Con!

So, you can find me there this weekend, sitting and peddling my wares in case you're interested.

Counting Blessings.

It's so hot today, so I came home and opened our last milk stout.
Holy cheezits I'm a light-weight.  I've taken maybe ten sips since opening it an hour ago and I can feel it.
Nevertheless, it's delicious, and nice on a hot day like this.

Anyhow.

Today, as I was taking the trash out at work, I was thinking about how grateful I am for the life I have.  Not everyone has a husband/partner who is as supportive as hubby.  He's been a wonderful help to me as I struggle through the changes happening to my body during pregnancy.  I'm extremely grateful for all of the enduring of not-so-nice me he has done, all the excitement he has for the baby, and - not the least of all - the help he's given me with my own body image issues.  He has truly helped me embrace pregnancy for what it is: a beautiful, life-changing journey.

I'd really like to convey this to everyone:
Pregnancy is beautiful.
Yeah, it sucks...sometimes a lot.  There were nights in my first trimester that I felt like death.  But nothing as profound as creating a new life should be viewed with such fear and scorn as some of society would view it.

Which brings me to my next point.
I think our medical system is fucked.  Sorry for the language, but that's the best word I have for it.
That's not to say that I'm not grateful for the option of going to the hospital when I need to.  Having doctors I can call to ask questions is pretty awesome too.  The system largely needs reform, but I don't think that gives me a right to not consider the good things it does.

I can say that I'm unhappy about a lot of things in this country.  But I can also say that I am grateful to live in a place where information is readily available to me (all I need to do is look).  A place where I have options, even if my choices are met with skepticism and downright belligerence by others.  It's pretty nice here, to be honest, even with the bad; if I were to live somewhere else, I'm sure I'd have complaints there too.

The point of all this is I've decided to try and see something good in everything.  I'm going to try and be better about optimism and actually taking the time to be appreciative of little things like running hot water for a shower, or cats who don't misbehave.

And now, because my attention span is failing me pretty effectively, have a recipe for Chicken Alfredo:

1/2 cup bone broth (chicken)
1/4 cup butter
2-3 small leaves fresh basil, ripped or chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tbs. flour
3 mushrooms
1 cup shredded chicken
1/2 cup half and half (or to taste)
1/2 tsp. granulated onion
pepper and salt to taste.

In a medium saucepan combine broth and butter.  Cook until butter is melted on medium heat.  Once butter is melted, whisk in flour.  Add basil and garlic.  Let cook for a bit then add mushrooms and chicken and let this cook a bit more.  Add half and half, onion, pepper, and salt.  Cook until bubbly.  Pour over noodles or rice and enjoy.

I hope I remembered that right.  This is something I threw together without consulting an actual recipe first and it turned out pretty delicious so I thought I'd share.

I also thought that a few sips of beer would calm this baby down, but I guess I was wrong.  I'm growing a brute!

Books!

Recently I've read:
Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis
The Ghost - Danielle Steel
Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis
Perelandra - C.S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength - C.S. Lewis
The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
Rant - Chuck Palahniuk
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding - La Leche League
The Magicians Nephew - C.S. Lewis
The Code of the Woosters - P.G. Wodehouse
Special Delivery - Rahima Baldwin Dancy

Currently I'm reading:
The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth - Henci Goer

I have in my possession these books to read next:
The Pregnancy Book - William Sears, M.D., and Martha Sears, R.N.
Homebirth - Sheila Kitzinger
Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic Church - Uta Ranke-Heimann
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis

Books on my "to acquire soon" list:
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth - Ina May Gaskin
The Baby Book - William Sears M.D.
The next book club book (I don't have the list handy)
A Cooperative Method of Natural Birth Control - Margaret Nofzinger
Pregnant Feelings: Developing Trust in Birth - Rahima Baldwin Dancy, Terra Palmarini

Books of the above lists I recommend:
 Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis.  A retelling of a myth I'd never heard before.  I got very involved with the characters and though it was not necessarily an easy read, it was a pleasurable one.
Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis.  The first in his science fiction series.

Perelandra - C.S. Lewis.  Second in the science fiction trilogy.  I think this one is my favorite. 
That Hideous Strength - C.S. Lewis.  Final book of the science fiction trilogy.  It starts very slowly, but it's very worth slugging through the beginning bits. 
The Magicians Nephew - C.S. Lewis.  First of the Narnia series.  It was quite interesting to read, as I thought The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was first.

The Code of the Woosters - P.G. Wodehouse.  Very amusing.  I think it's book three of a series.  I'm going to have to get my hands on more of this series.  I liked this one a lot.

The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster.  A good book for kids I think.

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding - La Leche League.  This book contains very good information on breastfeeding including advice for potential complications.

Special Delivery - Rahima Baldwin Dancy.  Very good, slightly bias book about home/hospital birth.  It outlines the potential complications one can run into while birthing and steps to take if they happen.  This book also has sections in it addressed to the husband/partner that I think might prove helpful to a father who is uncertain about birth.

The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth - Henci Goer.  I haven't finished this one yet, but I like it so far.  It's a collection of information regarding the procedures they do in the medical world of birth.  The author herself holds a bias - she says so in the introduction  - but she still presents the information in a fair manner.  I'd say that anyone looking to make an informed decision (regardless of location of birth) should read this book as it contains information you don't necessarily find easily on your own.  The only thing I'd say against it is she hasn't yet explained that women should refuse Misoprostol (Cytotec) because it poses a fairly significant risk to mother and baby if used for induction of labor.

~~~

There you have it.  That was what occupied my time at work during May (and maybe a bit of April).

Kitty Update and More.

Vincent went to the vet yesterday.  I lost the battle with the abscess(es)... The day before I took him hubby found a second abscess on the wound under his arm, the one that had already healed.  I guess I just don't understand how abscesses work.  Anyhow, poor kitty has a plastic cone and he was real loopy for a couple of hours after the visit on account of being sedated.  He hates the pain meds they sent home, which is sort of a given whenever you're dealing with treating animals: they hate the meds.
The vet sedated him, reopened the abscess on his outer arm and stitched the opening that had appeared overnight on his inner arm.  She also tested him for Feline Leukemia and FIV, and gave him an antibiotic shot.  Apparently she also clipped his nails (something I just now noticed as he's sitting on me).
I was told to keep doing the Epsom compresses and to clean the outer arm wound with hydrogen peroxide.
Contrary to what my roommate says, I am not to give him any infant ibuprofen; cats do not process any of the human painkillers well at all.  It can be fatal if given in too high of a dosage (says the vet).

In other news:
The second appointment with our midwife was yesterday also.  I came away with four more books to read, a Chinese Gender Chart (I'm having a girl according to it), some handouts on useful topics, and an assignment to create a food journal for at least five days including a weekend.  I got to hear Baby's heartbeat through a stethoscope which is infinitely more awesome than an ultrasound in my opinion.  And she taught me how to feel where Baby is with my hands.
This is a pretty awesome (to be redundant) experience.
I was sad that hubby couldn't make it, so I tried to schedule next time for a day he'll be able to come.

I rediscovered the public library a month or so ago.  A week or two after that I figured I'd see if they have the books I'm trying to find in circulation.  It turns out they have only one: Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic Church - Ranke-Heinemann.  It should be a gem: "[Catholic moral theology] is a folly that invokes God and pretends to be religious.  It has warped the consciences of many men and women.  It has burdened them with hairsplitting nonsense and striven to train them as moral acrobats instead of making them more humane and kinder to their fellow human beings." -Ranke-Heinemann
That's on the back cover.
So we'll see how it goes.

Kitty Drama

Recently my cat was injured in a fight with my roommate's cat.
He left with a puncture wound (the size of a pea) in his underarm and what appeared to be a small cut on the outside of the same arm.
I am determined not to go to the vet for it.

A friend of mine and I tried to stitch it up to no avail, but the puncture wound is healing nicely.
The small scratch on his outer arm is proving to be the problem now.  A couple days ago the skin around it filled with liquid and when hubby pushed on it, Vincent growled.  He then proceeded the lick the crap out of it and the next time I saw him he had a set of puncture marks on the outside of his arm and it had drained.
This means the wound is trying really hard to get infected.
So now, I'm doing warm/hot Epsom Salt compresses and keeping it super clean in hopes that I won't need to kill our pocketbook to help fix him up.  It seems to be working.

I am keeping a very close eye on it to make sure it doesn't get any worse.  If it gets worse he is certainly going to the vet, but I'm hoping he won't need to.  He's handling it very well when I torture him with soapy water and sticky bandages (which I'm pretty much wasting).  I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm the one doing it and he's in his own territory.
I'm hoping to keep it that way.


So now you know how stubborn I am about any sort of medical system.  I'm determined to find another way, until there is not other way.
On the same note, I'm not insanely stubborn.  I'm capable of recognizing when I cannot possibly do anything else; when outside intervention is necessary.

I'm just of the opinion that outside help is less necessary than people perceive.

Go Fish.

I buy fish like this:

1. Open all three sales papers I get (one at a time)
2. Look for anything Wild Caught.
3. Go to the store with the cheapest Wild Caught fish.

Last week the cheapest Wild Caught fish (aside from Cod) was Seabass at Sprouts.  This was fortuitous because I prefer Sprouts eggs to Sunflower Market eggs - there's a reason Sunflower is cheaper - so I picked up a little over a pound and then froze it.  I purchased it on the weekend and I planned to cook it today (Friday).

Uh...
How do you cook Seabass?

I have no idea.  So I turned to Live Search while I was at work (the security guard lends me her computer sometimes) and I came up with this:

Marinated Grilled Seabass

6 pieces sea bass, thawed if frozen
Marinade:
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1-2 tsp. lemon zest (grated lemon peel)
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
3 T. small capers, rinsed
1 T. fresh garlic puree or garlic powder
2 T. dried shallots (or use dried onions or chopped fresh shallots)
1 T. dried parsley
1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1-2 lemons sliced, for serving (optional)

Step 1: Mix marinade ingredients together. Put fish in single layer in ziploc bag, pour marinade over and marinate 2-3 hours in refrigerator. (Don\’t increase the marinating time much more than this or the lemon juice will start to \”cook\” the fish.)

Step 2: To cook, oil grill grates with olive oil, then preheat grill to medium high. Grill fish until firm to the touch and slightly browned, about 4-5 minutes per side. Serve fish with sliced lemons

I only had two pieces of Seabass, but I used the full 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice...and that was about the only thing I measured really accurately.  I didn't have 1/2 cup olive oil, so I used what was left in the jar, I couldn't say how much that was.  I also couldn't tell you if I used the correct amount of garlic, and I certainly didn't puree it, I chopped it finely.  And I only zested one lemon, so who knows if that was the correct measurement.
Yeah, that's right, that's how I cook: like a lazy person.

It turns out this recipe is fantastic.
I popped the fillets on the grill after marinating (room temperature) for a little under two hours.  I kept them brushed with marinade the whole time (even the bottoms when I flipped them) and I have to say it was really freakin' tasty served with some wild rice.
It took longer than the 4-5 minutes a side, but the fillets were pretty thick, so that was probably why.

My grill is a wood burning grill (which explains why I failed so hard when I tried to use charcoal in it) so I filled it with old wood and I used maple seeds/pine cones/pine needles/tree bark as a starter - basically all the dead stuff from the front yard.  I have to recommend this over newspaper; it works worlds better and you don't have all the paper bits fluttering about while you're trying to grill.
And now you know I don't have a clue when it comes to grilling either.  I basically treat it like a raised camp fire.
Trial and error for the win!


I liked this recipe so much that I wanted to share it.  It really makes an excellent summer dinner although I didn't put any greens with it (we're low on veggies currently).
Try it out and see what you think!

Blueberries!

Today I bought plants and potting soil.  I'm very excited about these things.  I bought four heirloom tomatoes, Anaheim and jalapeno peppers (one each), some columbine, and a blueberry plant.
I'm just going to plant the blueberry plant and hope for the best.  The tag said hardy to -40° so we shall see.

Today was also the big ultrasound to make sure baby is growing in the proper fashion.  Everything is fine.  It was cute to see the little feet and hands and things.  Also, amazing what the technology shows.

It would appear that on sitting down I have forgotten what I was going to write about.  Hm...

So..here's a list of ways I'm thrifty?

• I buy the vast majority of my clothing and household items from Goodwill: I got a changing station there for $20, a nice wood one with two shelves below the padded top (exciting!).
• When it comes to organic cleaners, if I can't clean it with vinegar water I buy whatever cleaner is on sale that meets my standards.  Less than five ingredients, etc.
• Organic produce I purchase in much the same way as the cleaners: I scavenge the sale papers.
• I make nearly everything from scratch.  I'll be looking into making cereal here very soon.
• I save the produce bags from the store: they make a great substitute for plastic wrap.
• I shop around, keeping a loose price inventory (honey went up $3!!) on things I buy most to make sure I get them the cheapest I can.

Also, random tip:
If you think you don't have time for baking a cake from scratch there's a nifty trick you can do.  One day, when you have five minutes, mix all the dry ingredients together and put them in a tupperware/bag.  Stow away for later use.  When you need to actually bake the cake, take out the tupperware/bag and add the wet ingredients.  Viola!  You made your very own "box cake."  Note: it's helpful to keep the recipe on hand.

Honey Bees and Projection Screens.

Bee Love (redbud tree)

Hubby and I went to Grand Junction for Easter weekend and it was pretty awesome to be out of town.  The weather was beautiful (it was also beautiful in Denver) and we spent some time driving around doing various things.  On Saturday the honey bees found the tree in the front of my parents yard.  Their tree is very similar to the one pictured, but has slightly darker blossoms.  The honey bees love it; they were working from late morning to early evening collecting goodies to take back to their hive.  There were so many of them!  Almost the entire top of the tree was covered in honey bees with about three to four blossoms between each of them.  And the sound.  The sound they made was amazing.  All of those bees working on a single tree created a fantastic hum.  You could hear it form inside the screen door, but if you walked outside it was much louder, and much cooler.  It was an experience, to say the least.

At any rate, today I'm writing about projecting yourself onto others: what I was supposed to write about yesterday, had I not been up at three in the morning.

How many times have you caught yourself expecting others to behave the way you behave?  If you're a parent, your answer is most likely higher than those of us without children.
I catch myself doing this a lot.  I mean, a lot.  I slip into the foolish expectation that someone else will treat me the way I would treat them, or have habits similar to mine.  This is easy to do with a lot of things.  I forget that world view is different for everyone.  Sometimes I think, "well it was easy for me, it'll be easy for you."
I feel like this is an error that a lot of people make.  And I do try to correct myself, though sometimes it's quite a long time after the fact that I realize that's what I was doing.
The mistake of projecting something onto another person is simple to make, and it's hard to understand that this is what's happening in a multitude of situations.  The problem is the difficulty level of thinking like someone else.  Thinking like someone else is next to impossible for most people because you can't turn off the you in your brain (at least I can't).  It's extremely difficult not to perceive something with your own special bias (I'm not using this word negatively here).  Because of this we come upon the fallacy of Relativism. In some respects this theory is true, and in some respects it is false; like anything else, it cannot be blanketed over everything the way people seem to want to use it.

People also project onto animals.
This is why you see dogs that are ill-trained, or animal hoarders.  Someone has projected their emotional distress in some form onto the animal present, and the result is sometimes disastrous.  This is true of projecting onto other people as well.

I'm not saying projecting yourself onto someone else is particularly a terrible thing; what I'm saying is that it can cause problems.

The most frequent example I have of this in myself is my lack of understanding for others misunderstanding.  It is so clear to me why I joined Catholicism and why I'm preparing to embark upon the journey into WAPF, it should also be clear to you, the person I am speaking with.
But it is not always so clear to everyone else.  And in my limitations I get frustrated with those who refuse to even acknowledge that perhaps my choices are right, though different from theirs (I am also guilty of not understanding someone's choice, but I try to be nice about it).  In my frustration I find my articulation suffers and I become somewhat stubborn, sometimes very stubborn.  In the end (if the discussion is particularly irritating) I wonder, "why can't they just see my side of things?"  But who's to say they're not thinking the exact same thing about me?
I have my reasons and I try to explain them, but I rely a lot on the assumption that since they were logical to me, they will be logical to someone else.
The common error of projecting my logic process onto the person I'm speaking with.

It's also irritating to realize that someone else has been making assumptions about you based on their own emotional baggage.  The kind of assumptions that are totally out of left field and really don't make any sense if they actually knew you (or were actually observant).
The "up" side is called rose colored glasses and is a term applied to people who are blindly in love with someone, or just intentionally ignoring their faults.  The "down" side doesn't have a name to the best of my knowledge - I might call it seeing red or something similar - and is the opposite end of the spectrum where someone refuses to see any good qualities in someone.

~~~

I'm sorry for the lack of activity last week.  I'm trying to write when possible, but this eye strain is really kicking my ass.  I should make an eye appointment but I can't do that until after September, when I'm not a pregnant lady any more.  At least that's what they tell me.
Until then I'm going to make my best effort to obtain Hubby's glasses so I can sit and stare at the screen for a while.  The difficult part is he doesn't get home from work until around 7:30 p.m., then we eat dinner, then I'm tired and I want to go to bed so I can get up at 5:30 a.m. the next day to work for 9 hours.  It's a viscous cycle, but I don't think I'd change it.  I'll just have to try and work around it.
And try I shall!
I apologize for the potentially sporadic updates that may follow.

~~~

I leave you with this.  Enjoy.

Nearing the End...

As we near the final catechism post I've started thinking of what to write about in the future.  Of course I will be writing about my faith, but probably less so.  I would like for this blog to be of some use to readers in a practical way, so I was thinking of writing of my journey into traditional eating (Weston A. Price style).  Perhaps I could write about art, or related things like crafting.
Either way, it will become something with a little more variation.

In the meantime, we proudly present;

Things I'm Bad At.

• Baking puff pastries - they just never taste good.  Sure, they're puffy, but they taste like crap.
• Talking to a large group of people.  Not in the public speaking sense, in the group of friends sense.  If there are more than three people there, I tend to just listen.
• Knowing when to interject.  This is a new one for me, recently I've begun to interrupt people to add things.  It's annoying.
• Being patient.
• Weeding the garden.  I have no idea what is a weed and what is a sprouting flower.
• Giving a speech.  No matter how well-written it is I sound like I'm twelve.
• Crossing myself in public.  I'm still embarrassed to cross more than once before a meal.
• Memorizing things, particularly numbers.  I still haven't fully memorized the Act of Contrition.
• Remembering birthdays.
• Debating articulately when faced with wall opposition, especially when said opposition gets aggressive and loud.
• Debating at all, for that matter.
• Not posting emo things on facebook on occasion.
• Praying daily.
• Staying concentrated.  The only thing I can stay concentrated on for very long periods of time is cleaning.
• Doing yoga regularly.  I should really be better at this...
• Buying things for me.  I will logic myself out of anything I consider frivolous, which generally includes purchasing any kind of gift for myself (like that jar of nutella that looks so delicious sitting in the baking aisle).
• Not being a cheapskate.  I am notoriously frugal.  I stared at the chickens at Sprouts for a good ten minutes talking myself into buying the organic, free range, sustainably farmed one which was at least $10 more expensive than the other one.  The argument went something like, "sustainably farmed, organic, good for me but it's so expensive! But, good for me. Expensive!"  Obviously the argument was internal, although...
• ...talking to myself in public.  I do this a lot, particularly in the grocery store.  I get lots of strange looks.

Yep.  I could go on, but my eyes are starting to get strained from too much laptop usage and not enough carrots.
Laptop usage > carrot consumption.
Actually, it's quite skewed.

lulz.


What would you like to see me write about?

FAQ and Miscellanious Musings.

Random story:
This morning, while opening the shop, I grabbed the airpot full of warm water to brew coffee and set it in the sink as usual - I brew a pot of water before leaving to keep the pot warm, thus keeping the coffee hotter for longer during the day.  I measured the grounds into the filter, loading them into the brewer and proceeded to empty the airpot into the sink.  Today there was some sort of spider, about the size of a dollar coin, in the sink.  I watched him as he struggled to avoid the flood, which he did successfully all the way up until the very end when he seemed to just give up.  He curled into a ball and followed the last trickling stream down the drain.
I wanted to save him, but I'm afraid of spiders.
I was so sad that he went down the drain.  I even said, "I'm sorry spider."  I felt bad that I had potentially killed him for almost an hour, and even recounting the story just now I still feel bad.
And that's my random story.

Some of these questions are off topic; I just decided I wanted to write about what it is I get asked the most as a blogger and as a barista.

Wasabi Con.

Animeland Wasabi Con is next weekend.

This is relevant because I have a table in the Artist Alley and will be selling my work there.  I am putting my blog on hiatus until the week after the convention to work on art and only art (I have no new product since two years ago).

The convention runs March 9th through March 11th.
I will be returning March 12th.

If you are in the area and you'd like to drop by to say hello, here is the address of the hotel:

3200 S. Parker Road
Aurora, CO 80014

Fair warning:
This is an anime convention which means there will be people who are scantily clad (whether they have the appropriate figure or not <3).  So if you're easily offended by things of that nature I would advise against visiting.


For those of you interested:
My Art

You are What You Eat.

Today, as I sit at work, I'm thinking about how wonderfully depressing facebook is.  I'm on facebook for the majority of my work days (when I have my laptop with me) because there is simply nothing else to do.  I finish all of my usual online maintenance - as I call it - and I just leave the webpage open in case someone who is online decides to make my day slightly less boring by messaging me.  Before I've gotten to this point I've already slogged through the Denver Post, done the puzzles (the best part), read something from a book, started a grocery list, etc.
I have been struck by the incredible amount of political garbage that is propagated in my news feed.  Some of it is conservative, and some of it is liberal; but all of it is garbage.  Well, most of it.
I come across more bigoted liberal political hoo-ha on facebook than anywhere else.  And I come across a large amount of bigoted conservative hoo-ha as well.  It's pretty equal.
My problem with the liberal hoo-ha is it is generally insulting by implication.  Liberals always bash bigots but in turn are bigoted themselves; saying things like, "(#3:) Politicians believe telepathically communicating with extra-terrestrials (angels) is more important than keeping our oceans, rivers, and lakes free from pollution" listed under "Five unmistakable signs we are re-entering the dark ages," OR things like, "choose reality, it will be better for all of us," is not exactly indicative of an open mind.
Yes, conservatives say stupid things like this too.  

I suppose what I'm really trying to get at is that I am continually (for some reason) surprised at the amount of hate that is lobbed at religion.  Any religion, really.  Man is amazingly prone to hate, in general it seems.  
I had not identified my own perspective with bigotry either, until I began to "cross over."  Now that I am on the other side of the fence I can see where my errors were.  And how stupidly insistent I was about not thinking.
I see this in others.  A lot.  And I know there's nothing I can do to alter it; it takes a certain realization on the behalf of the individual to see your own mistakes.

What I can do is try my very best to be less annoyed with the garbage online, and understand that the people who post it are not filled with hate, but more often are not thinking in a three-dimensional manner.
For example, I cut off an argument with my roommate concerning the legal obligation of religious organizations to pay for contraceptives to get to my point (which had been that there were no women on the panel regarding birth control).  The argument that stemmed from my original point was that it was not okay for the government to force religious organizations to pay for something they viewed as morally wrong.  She felt otherwise, saying that people needed birth control and it was wrong to deprive them of something they needed.  I could have gotten her original point wrong, because I got frustrated with her when she was adamant that forcing someone to go against their morals was okay.  To justify it, she told me a story of a Christian man who worked for a Jewish company.  Said company laid him off two years before retirement so they wouldn't have to pay it.  In my opinion, this is a case of douche-baggery, not a case for oppression of religious freedom.  But we didn't get into a deeper discussion about it because, of late, I've been testy and not in a good place for conversations.  And, after some repetition of the words "the original point of this was" which got a little louder than normal volume (not quite yelling), I dropped it.
Some days I just don't have a fight in me; the energy to defend or explain does not come, nor can I will it to do so.
What I can learn from this is if I am not generally feeling good, I am not a good conversationalist.  I should improve in that respect.


The point of today's post is that people often don't think from both perspectives before making a judgement.  I am guilty of this too, I'm pretty sure everyone is.  I just think we should make an effort to step back and take another look at things before giving them a label.