Randomness. . .A Disorganized Update

I don't know where to begin, as I feel like there's so much I want to say.  And, of course, being a writing teacher and all that, I'm supposed to be able to do this really well.  Quite honestly, I don't really have the energy to work on a decent piece of writing.  So here goes:

I'm feeling like a real mess lately:  fat, lazy.  Work is good.  I've been teaching summer school for a week now, and it's great.  But it takes up most of my energy.  I guess I'm discouraged because I'm just not getting as much done as I'd like (story of my life!).  I'm feeling both fed up and run down (love those phrasal verbs!).  I mean, this kind of malaise is, sadly, kinda typical of me.  But I'm feeling especially in a slump lately, and I don't know why.  Or maybe I'm just in denial about the why.  Difficult to say.

Yesterday, Zee took me to the best fabric stores ever.  Well, maybe not ever.  Because the best ever could be F&M in Bakersfield, which is super cheap and has many, many apparel-type fabrics, which is appealing.  But yesterday, we went to Country Treasures in Chester, VT.  At Country Treasures, I drolled over tons of calicos and quilting fabrics.  The best part, IMO, is that they have tons of 30s and 40s reproduction fabrics.  I'm totally in love with a line called Aunt Grace.  Once I've finished a project, I'll try to post pics.  Then, we went to the Waterwheel House quilt store, where we found bolts and bolts of Amy Butler fabrics.  Increasingly, I'm just in love with anything Amy Butler designs.  Seriously.  I mean it:  if you aren't familiar with Amy Butler, please check out her website here.  She has the most lovely colors and designs in her textiles.  And her patterns and projects are lovely too.  I don't know that I've ever disliked anything I've seen from Amy Butler.  Wow!  I make it sound like she's underwriting my blog.  But, sadly, she isn't.  But this brings me to a larger point:  I am discouraged because I cannot seem to get any sewing or crafting done.  And I don't understand why.  It should be easy, shouldn't it?  I don't have a spouse or little ones to worry about:  my time is essentially my own.  So why do the sewing projects never seem to happen?  And I feel this way about so many things:  why does writing never seem to happen?  I understand why laundry and mopping and dusting don't happen too often:  they are such dreary chores.  But sewing and writing are things I feel passionate about (or at least I think I do); they are things I enjoy; they are rewarding activites.  So why am I such a lump / slug all the time?

On a related note, I'm disturbed by what I perceive as an increasing lack of discipline in my life.  Partly, this bothers me because I used to think of myself as a disciplined person.  In high school, I graduated a year early because I did tons of independent study, self-motivated classes (you know, fun stuff like Algebra II).  I finished a doctoral dissertation; if that doesn't take discipline and motivation, I don't know what does.  And yet, I cannot seem to control the food I put into my mouth daily.  I cannot seem to get motivated to exercise more than about twice a week (and yet, I tell myself that twice a week is two times more than not at all).  I just lack discipline is some specific, important areas of my life, and I don't quite know what to do about it.

Maybe the worst part of it all is this:  I so quickly descend into what some would term negative self-talk.  I obsess about what a "failure" I am, how "worthless" I am.  I feel like such a joke, like my life is a farce.  And I feel like, with very few exceptions, everyone I've really, really loved has treated me like I'm basically worthless--if you know much about my personal life, my history with relationships, you know which names to insert here.  And no matter what anyone says or what I know intellectually, at some deep level, I believe that I am somehow worthless, that I deserve to be treated this way.  Goodness--do you know how hard this is to actually admit?  I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter in some ways how others may have treated me.  I tell myself that all life is valuable, is meaningful.  I tell myself that the important thing is that God loves me, no matter how all these crappy men may have treated me.  And yet, it's so hard to actually believe these things, you know?

So yeah, I keep feeling like if only I could or would do this or that--lose weight, write, exercise, create--I'd be a happier, more fulfilled person.  And maybe I would be.  But all I can see most days are my shortcomings. 

The Good News and the Bad News

Ok, so cliche, but there's good news and there's bad news.  I'll start with the bad.  Late this morning, I decided I'd do some work in the yard.  Increasingly, this is something I really enjoy.  I was feeling a bit depressed and decided I'd make myself get out and dig and weed and plant, partly in hopes that it would make me feel better.  But there was certainly work that needed to get done too.  Anyway, as I rounded the corner, I heard something ruseling in the shrubbery near the garage.  I figured it was probably a frog or toad, as there always seem to be lots of them about.  When I walked by a second and third time, however, I saw something scurrying away into the shrubbery, something with a tail.  Now, if you know me at all, you probably are well aware that I'm positively terrified of snakes.  Some would even call it phobic.  I mean, I have nightmares about snakes--had one last night, in fact.  I don't even like to see them on TV.  Well, I decided that this thing with a tail was probably a lizard; lizards I can handle.  But I was starting to freak out.  So I did what I often do in a near-crisis:  I called my dad.  I say something like this, "Dad, I know that this isn't a great time, and this is going to sound silly, but there's something in my yard, something with a tail, and I think it's a lizard, but what if it's a snake, what do I do?"  And we talk for a second and decided it's probably a lizard.  Just about then I look over and see it.  It's looking right at me.  And guess what--it's not a lizard.  It's a snake.  Just a small one, black with coral colored stripes running the length of it.  And so I'm saying to dad, "Oh my goodness.  It IS a snake.  It's looking at me."  Well, apparently there's not a whole lot I can do about this snake living in my garden.  I guess that knowing he's there is good; I can't be totally as surprised by him if I know he's there, right?  Anyway, the first bit of good news is this:  I didn't have a full-blown panic attack, which happened the last time I saw a snake in the wild.  Wait.  Is my parent's yard the wild?  They live on a golf course.  I wasn't happy, and I kept checking to see where he was, but I didn't have a total freak out over the snake.  I even decided to call him Ernie, in hopes that naming him will make him seem less threatening.  Really, he'd be kinda cute if I weren't positively terrified of any snake.

But the real good news is this:  I planted four rose bushes that I bought yesterday.  That gives me six in one corner of my yard.  Six is enough that I feel like I can now say that I have a rose garden.  I still need to do more work in my rose garden; I want to put up some sort of border to set it off from the rest of the yard, and then I want to put in some cedar mulch.  But for now, it's good enough.  Oh, one of the roses is called Creme Brule, which just makes me happy.

If you follow me on Facebook, you may know that I've been redecorating my bathroom.  There was nothing wrong with the bathroom; it was just really, really boring.  It sorta felt like Motel 6 bathroom.  That's maybe an exaggeration; it felt like the Red Roof Inn bathroom.  But over the last week, I've painted the bathroom.  I'll post some pics when the whole thing is done.  I'm just so excited!  I painted a couple walls a rich chocolate brown and the rest I've painted a bright turquoise.  It's like a pool blue.  I have new towles which incorporate both colors.  And I also have new decor that has cupcakes.  And the whole thing feels chocolatey / ice cream shoppy, if that makes sense.  I don't know--it's like the bathroom is suddenly this cheerful place, which is exactly what I wanted. 

I'm still wanting to put up some shelves, probably painted bright pink.  And I have some stuff to hang on the wall still.  But when it's done, I'll post a couple of pics.

Update on Summer Reading

So I thought it would be of benefit to post a quick update on my summer reading.  Again, it's the whole thing about having goals (see post dated 17 May).  This morning, I finished _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_.  For those of you not in the know, that's the second of seven in the Harry Potter Series.  I've also read about 2/3 of Wilkie Collins's _The Woman in White_.  With my mom here for two weeks, I didn't get as much reading done as I might have liked, and that's OK because spending time with mom was so great.  I do have in my possession most of the books I'd like to get to this summer.  I've refined and prioritized my list a bit.  So here's the revised list in the order in which I think I'll be reading.

1.  Finish _Woman in White_.

2.  Mrs. Dalloway

3 and 4.  Start the Old Curiosity Shop and An Abundance of Katherines (Dickens requires being broken up by light reading)

5.  To the Lighthouse

6.  Vanity Fair

7.  The Waves

8.  Trollope's The Warden

9.  Till We Have Faces

10.  Eliot's Middlemarch

11.  Gaiman's The Graveyard Book

12.  Anna Karenina

13.  Intersperse the rest of the Harry Potter Series with the above, just to break things up

14.  Intersperse a variety of feminist literary theory, which I'm reading in part for an independent study.  I need to get started on deBeauvior's The Second Sex.  I'm really not feeling up for this.

I'm enjoying revisiting the Harry Potter series.  I've been watching the movies on DVD too, partly in anticipation of The Half-Blood Prince opening this summer.  I do not think that the Harry Potter series is great literature.  But I do think it's clever and interesting.  And clearly, what Rowling does speaks to our culture in a way that few literary works seem to have done.  I could go on and on about it, but I'll spare you that.

I'm not feeling so enthusiastic about the theory I think I'm supposed to be reading.  I mean, it's just feeling a little depressing at the moment.  And what I really want to be reading is fun stuff, mostly from the YA section at the library.  And just because I have this whole list going does not mean that I can't and won't be reading fun stuff from the YA section.

One more observation about summer reading.  I really enjoy sitting on the deck and reading.  So completely relaxing.  It's supposed to rain later, or I might be tempted to spend the day reading outside.  But I also like getting up early (this morning, Fen woke me at 5:15) and reading all morning, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the couch.  There's something peaceful about the quiet early mornings around here.

On an unrelated but exciting note, bears have been seen in my neighborhood the past two days.  And by "neighborhood," I mean within 1/8 of a mile of my home.  I don't know why, but I find that very exciting!  For those of you who don't know, Guinnie is a little bit nervous of bears, but she figures she could outrun a bear or at least run faster than Polly.

An Update

Hey Kids!  I haven't posted in a long, long time.  Yesterday, I took my mom to the airport--she had been here for two weeks.  And between hanging out with her, traveling with her, and home improving with her, I just didn't have time to post.  Here, quickly, are a few hilights from her visit.

1.  The grave with a veiw.  This is this early 20th century grave with a window on top, looking up at the sky.  Apparently, the deceased wanted a window incase he wasn't really dead--that way he could look out.  There was much condescation on the window, preventing me from seeing the dead guy from outside :(

2.  Robert Frost's grave in Bennington, VT.  We were taken on a tour by the resident tabby cat.

3.  Painting my bathroom.  This is still a work in progress--I'll post pics once it's done.

4.  Watching hours and hours of BritCom, especially the Black Adder.  Especially love the episodes with Hugh Laurie.

5.  Food, food, and more food.  We had some especially super breakfasts out!

6.  Saturday morning farmer's market.

7.  Putting a new bed / area in my yard.  The entire yard looks fab, by the way, thanks to mom.