10 posts tagged “family”

My husband is not a morning person, and he'd never be mistaken for a vegetarian.

After three whole nights of not having red meat as part of our supper (I'm so cruel!), I decided this morning that I'd go ahead and start up the slow cooker with some beef stew ingredients. It would be a nice little surprise for Matt because I feared he was going through red meat withdrawal symptoms.

I typically wake up at least an hour or so before Matt, and then when he does wake up, he takes a really long time to actually make it out of the bedroom. Waking up is quite a process for him, which I don't completely understand, but I do know he's easier to deal with when he wakes up in his own time, so I give him lots of space in the mornings. It's actually nice for me as well because I get my own private time while he's waking up.

So I'm up and about this morning, and I start browning the beef for the stew. Within about 10 minutes, I heard Matt moving around in the bedroom, which is a little early for him. About 5 minutes after that, he was in the kitchen going on and on about how good something smelled. The power of beef drastically reduced his waking-up process.

He looked a little disappointed when he realized he was smelling supper and not breakfast, so I surprised him with steak and eggs for breakfast when he got out of the shower. He practically bounced out the door on his way to work with some steak already in his system and the promise of more beef waiting for him when he comes home.

My grandfather, who raised Angus cattle, died before I met Matt, but I know he is looking down and giving me the thumbs-up for picking a steak-lover. My own bout with vegetarianism as a teenager had him a little concerned that I'd end up with one of those crazy hippies. ;)

I've gotten up at 5am two days in a row, and it feels incredible to have so much done before I even eat lunch! Seriously, my mom and the pope could invite themselves over for afternoon tea, and I wouldn't panic a bit. The apartment is the cleanest it's been in months, and I walked to the store this morning to stock up on all the items I need for this week's meals.

I'm back to doing a weekly meal plan, and it's kind of crazy how happy that makes me even when we don't stick to it 100%. Structure is such a good thing for me. I know it suffocates some people, but having structure gives me a nice solid base from which I can do the things I want to do without so much worrying. Knowing that the basic things are definitely taken care of is such a nice feeling, and it keeps my afternoons free for all my other projects like organizing all my domains, putting together a portfolio for my grad program, and adding the rest of our books to LibraryThing.

We're also planning a couple of trips in the next month or so. One is just a short trip to hang out with my grandmother and give my mom and dad a chance to take a breather from spending so much time at her house. Her health is actually fairly good, but she gets a little nervous when she's by herself, so she likes having company. She likes card games, so I'm taking my Star Trek Uno and Fluxx to try those out with her, and we'll definitely be playing a lot of rummy because that's her favorite. Then next month, we're going somewhere for our anniversary. We're trying to decide between somewhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway and Charleston, SC.

And I'm also finishing up my second summer session course and looking forward to my fall schedule. I'm signed up for courses in human-computer interface design, multimedia instructional development, and a seminar on virtual reality and education right now. I might add a media literacy class in there too, but that depends on if my advisor can get it added to the schedule this week. Lots of good stuff going on!

Kristine shared a library meme a few days ago, and I've had it on my list of things I want to do since I read it. Yay libraries!

1. How old were you when you got your first library card?

My mom loves to tell this story for some reason, so I guess this is for her. My family went to the library at least once a week, and I got it in my head when I was four years old that I needed to have a library card of my own. I asked the librarian at our local library, which was a small country library that was absolutely wonderful with the most awesome librarians, how I could get my own library card. She told me that I needed to be able to write my name on the little paper card.

I could write parts of my name but it was in that big scrawl that kids have, and that wouldn't fit on the library card. I went back to my mom and told her that I was going to get my library card the next time we were at the library. Over the next few days, she and my dad must have helped me write my name hundreds of times, and each time, it got a little clearer and a little smaller. And I did get my own library card the next week.

It ended up being a little embarrassing because the librarians put up a little display with my photo as the youngest person in the county with a library card. (I did mention that it was a tiny little country library, right? LOL) I probably still have that little yellow card in my one of my keepsake boxes at my parents' house.

2. What’s the first book you can remember reading from a library?

Wow, I honestly don't know. I was really into kids' books from the 1940s and 50s for a while like the Betsy, Tacy, and Tib books by Maud Hart Lovelace that Kristine mentioned along with the Eddie and Betsy books by Carolyn Haywood and the Borrowers series by Mary Norton. I loved series (and still do) because I liked going back and seeing all my friends again, and I probably got hooked on older books because my library had a lot of those.

3. Did you ever participate in a summer reading program or other kids’ event at a library growing up?

Of course! I participated every summer I was eligible. We had a limit of 20 books per person out at a time, and I was checking out and reading 20 every week, which made some people think I was lying to get to the top of the list of participants, which really upset me, so then I really did start lying and halved my weekly totals. The librarians caught on to what I was doing and were so sweet in talking with me and letting me know that they knew I really was reading those books and that it wasn't anything I needed to be worried about.

4. Do you remember when card catalogues weren’t computerized?

Yep! Sometimes I miss digging through that big cabinet with the little stepladder that I had to pull out in order to be able to reach the top row of drawers. And related to that, I loved seeing the history of all the names that had checked out a book before me on the card inside the book. I kind of miss that too even though I love being able to browse and reserve books online like we can do now.

5. When was the last time you went to the library?

This is really sad to me, but it's been a long time. The libraries closest to us have some funky hours that seem to change all the time, and they're not that convenient to where we live. The last couple of times that Matt and I have seriously looked at buying a house, I've been focused on neighborhoods within walking distance of one of the good libraries. Heck, it wouldn't even need to be one of the nice ones with all the inter-library loans you can do now. I could sign in online and request whatever I wanted and then just walk to the library when I got the email saying they were ready for me. That sounds like a little slice of heaven right now.

6. How many books do you usually check out of the library at one time?

It varies, but I usually get a good stack of maybe 5-10 books at least.

7. Name one great author you’ve discovered at your library.

I became really hooked on the Castle series by John DeChancie years ago because those were shelved near the Charles de Lint books, and one of his covers caught my eye. I read the whole series in a week or so, and then decided it was one of those series that I really needed to own, so I spent a few months looking for them at used bookstores to find just the ones I wanted. Some of the editions had better covers than others, and I wanted ones in good condition that looked like they belonged together. I'm a little obsessed with details at times.

8. What was the librarian at your elementary school like?

I could never ever in a thousand years say enough good things about Ms. Wilma Greene. She was seriously like another grandmother to me, and she always had book suggestions for me. She talked to me about books like she really cared what I thought and what I liked. As I entered the upper grades of our school (4th and 5th grades), she let me help her select books for the younger classes, and I'd write up reviews to share with teachers and parents. I felt like such an important person! She did wonderful things for my self-esteem, and I just loved her.

I saw her for the last time right before Matt and I were married in 1996, and we had a huge love fest because we each had some happy memories of the other. I heard that she died a few years ago, and I've looked for confirmation of that here and there, but I've never been able to find out for sure. She was one of the most influential people in my life as a little girl, and I was so lucky to have known her for all those years.

9. How many times a year do you go to the library?

As I mentioned before, we don't go nearly as often as I'd like, but we usally make it there 15-20 times a year.

10. If you could change one thing about your library, what would it be and why?

I'd pull it a few miles closer! :D

Thanks to Krissy, Phisch, and Amy for playing along with my "two truths and a lie" post.

Item #1 that I was kicked out of children's choir for noting that ewes and rams are different is technically true though oversimplified a bit. We were doing a program called something something like All We Like Sheep, which was a strange children's musical with talking animals learning about forgiveness if I recall correctly. All I really remember is that the two main characters were a ram named Ramsey and an ewe named Eunice. The ram had the biggest speaking/singing part and I was one of the better ones in the choir for memorizing parts, so they decided to make the character a girl by changing the name to Ramona in order for me to play the part .

I pointed out that it was silly to change the name to Ramona since Ramsey and Eunice were supposed to be playing off "ram" and "ewe". I suggested either leaving it a boy part with me still doing it or coming up with another "ewe" name. The director had a meltdown and kicked me out of choir for "trying to shame an authority figure". I was overjoyed because my mom had been "encouraging" me to stay in the choir even though I didn't want to be there. They later tried to get me to come back to the choir, but my mom gave them a piece of her mind about the whole silly situation, and that was the end of children's choir for me! The next year I was able to join youth choir because I started middle school, and that was much better.

The second item about never being a vegetarian because I could never give up steak is definitely a lie, which Krissy correctly guessed. I'm actually not a big fan of steak. During my years as a vegetarian, the only non-vegetarian item I really missed were bacon cheeseburgers. I'm a simple girl.

I also really hate raw meat, so cooking with meat is a little bit of a hurdle for me. (And that aversion is something I still don't really understand because I dealt with a lot worse than a little raw meat on my grandparents' farm.) If Matt were willing to give up meat, we'd definitely be vegetarians at home at least. Oh, I also said in that item that I don't like most vegetables, and that's a lie too. At the moment, I can't think of any vegetable I don't like unless you count tomatoes as a vegetable. I do not like tomatoes at all.

Then there's the third item about wanting 26 children. That was actually a reduction from the number I mentioned when I was really young. My earliest opinion on the matter was that I wanted to adopt a boy and a girl from every country in the world. I think I was fixated on my coloring book with all the little kids dressed in native costumes.

Then I realized there were a lot of countries, so I cut that number by half and said I'd just adopt one child from each country. I got a little older and came up with the coolness of using the alphabet to name my 26 children. At one point, I had all the names picked out with A-Z for the first names and Z-A for the middle names in the style of Abigail Zinnia to Zoe Amalia or Andrew Zane to Zachary Asher. Then I decided an even dozen would be a good number.

Matt was thankful that I'd dropped down to wanting four kids by the time we got married. Now I'm 31, and we've been married for close to 11 years with no kids and no kids planned for the future. It's funny how plans change over the years. Sometimes, that makes me sad, and other times, I don't even think about it one way or the other.

I've never seen Dancing with the Stars, but now I'm thinking it might be kind of cool. I never would have thought of mixing a tango with the Star Wars theme like Joey Fatone and his partner did, but I thought it worked really well.

But the coolest thing about this is that my mom sent it to me from YouTube. I love that she's playing around with stuff like that now, and it's really handy for when she wants to tell me about some TV show I don't watch.

This is like a mashup of my childhood in some ways with those great late nights watching Monty Python and StarTrek with my dad after everyone else had gone to bed. It's silly, and I love it. You'll have to click through to YouTube to watch it because the creator doesn't allow embedding.

Through the magic of Last.fm, a little brother can continue to give his sister grief about her musical selections from hundreds of miles away. Doesn't that just warm your heart? :D

This month has completely flown by, which makes me kind of sad because January is my favorite month. I feel like I haven't gotten a chance to enjoy it. Maybe it's just because we haven't had much of a winter. At least the best part of the month is still ahead. I'll turn 31 Saturday, and I'm still enough of a little kid (even at my advanced age! *grin*) to really enjoy birthdays.

My grandmother's birthday is today, and she's 89 now. My family is filled with little Energizer bunnies like her, so I've got some good genes. :)

On a smaller note, today is also the 10th anniversary of my first post in my first online journal. I started it on Geocities to keep in touch with my family after Matt and I married and I moved to Alaska to be with him. In some ways, I feel like one of those "walked uphill in the snow both ways" kind of people, but I really never imagined I'd go from coding every little thing in Notepad to using something so automated like Vox. It's amazing how much more accessible online journals and blogs have become for people, and I enjoy getting to be a small part of that now.

The more I thought about the whole deal with the museum, the angrier I got. I decided to email the volunteer coordinator because I like her and thought she would be receptive to the problem I had with the workshop people. She called me about half an hour after I sent the email, and she was livid.

She thought the whole thing was stupid, and actually said, "Well, I'm going to sign up for every damn workshop they offer, and I'd just like to see them try to keep me out." She also said she'd never heard anything about a family requirement for the workshops, and if there were such a thing, she was sure the museum wouldn't mandate the definition of family. It was nice to hear a museum employee agree that the whole thing was stupid.

An hour or so after that call, the original person I spoke with this morning called to apologize, which was nice in a way. She had obviously been told to apologize by someone who had some influence on her, and I don't know if that was the volunteer coordinator or someone the volunteer coordinator contacted. She didn't offer to sign me up for the workshops, and I didn't ask because I'm not interested now. I'd be going just to make a point, and I have better things to do with 4 hours on a a Saturday.

I've already made plans to get together with some scrapbookers this weekend, so I'll get my art fix there with people I already know I like. :)

I'm a bit irritated this morning. Our local art museum is starting weekly Saturday art workshops, and they're free with admission. Through Matt's job, we can visit all state museums for free, so I called to check if the workshops would still be free because free plus free equals a happy artsy Brandy.

The museum confirmed that the workshops would be free for us too, so I told them I wanted to sign up for all of them for the month of November because they all sounded great. She asked how many seats I needed, and I said it would just be me. There was a pause, and then she said that they were family workshops, so one person couldn't sign up. I said that was kind of strange but maybe I could get my husband to attend a couple, so I'd call back later to make reservations.

She made this weird clucking sound and informed me that to be a family, I needed to have children. I said if the workshops were for children, then they should be called children's art workshops.

"They're not for children. They're for families."
"So my husband and I aren't a family? That's news to us. What if it was me and my mom? Would that count?"
"No, to be a family, you need an adult and at least one child younger than 13."

So I guess I have no family and no fun art workshops now. Grr.