K is for...

S'mee gave me this lovely assignment, which is to share 10 things that are important to me that start with the letter 'K.'

If you'd like to play too, leave me a comment and I'll assign you a letter. In your blog you'll write 10 things that start with that letter that are important to you and explain why. Easy!

Here goes mine:

Keepsakes – I’m very bad at printing photographs and displaying them, but because of recent events where our hard drive was destroyed along with many photos, I’m going to change my ways!

Kissing – Well, who doesn’t like kissing? But I like it even more. :) Good thing John is such a good kisser. Hee!

Kin – What can I say? My family is my life.

Kids – I’ve always felt a special bond with kids. We just relate. I love holding babies, playing with kids, reading to them, and generally hanging out.

Kittens – There’s not much cuter than a baby kitty. Or a baby anything.

Kites – Kites are fun to fly. It’s also fun to be at the park on a perfect, sunny day with someone you love. Kite is optional.

Kindness – I would like to be as kind and loving as most people believe I am. I don't think kindness can ever be overemphasized.

Knowledge – I love learning new things. I love school so much I’m still going! I always joked to my mom that I would be a professional student. I guess I wasn’t really joking.

Kicks – I’m known for saying “I’ll kick him in the head (or other body part best not named)” when I’m mad at someone. So three cheers for kicks!

Knitting – After trying to learn to knit for a year in Bulgaria, I realize that it’s much easier to learn in English. I finally know how. Of course, I actually like crocheting more, but that doesn’t begin with ‘K’, does it?

i think i'm right

This was in the Ariozona Republic on April 8th, and it makes me mad:

Biodesign chief sets challenges

As a drug-company executive for 17 years, George Poste knew the perils of slumping sales: less money for research, slower growth and possible layoffs. Now, as head of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, Poste wants his staff to face the same consequences. Under him, each researcher must generate $225 in federal or private grants for each square foot of space he or she occupies or lose lab space and maybe points in a performance review. It's not the typical accountability measure in academe, but Poste makes no apologies.

"That is tragically the Darwinian model," Poste said. Those who can't compete shouldn't be carried by other researchers or the university, he said. "(Otherwise) it's a form of academic welfare. Dispense with it."

So basically, if your research makes lots of money, you’re good, but if it doesn’t, you’re gone. This is exactly the type of corporate crap that I think will be the downfall of universities. Researching everything (even the non-money makers) is important, but I think it’s even more important in the medical field.

What this means is that potentially important medical discoveries may never be made because they aren’t going to make millions of dollars for the university.

This is good for ASU’s budget. Not so very good for humanity.

this post is dedicated to the one i love

My husband graduates with his MPA today, and I'm so proud of him. I just had to post and say congrats to him! He won the award for best scholar-citizen in Public Affairs, AND he's at the top of his class GPA-wise. Not only do I think he's extraordinary, but so do all the professors in the School of Public Affairs.

I married one brilliant, accomplished, scholarly man! Which makes me smart as well for marrying him. :)

Yay John-John! Congratulations on your amazing achievements so far. This is just one small stepping stone toward many, many more amazing and wonderful things. Know that I couldn't be prouder of you, your accomplishments, or who you are.

love,
HJ

hallelujah

We have air conditioning again; finally! No more hanging out at the mall for us. We can sit around in our own living room on a Friday evening and not lose five pounds of sweat.

Thanks to my husband's latest post, I am now craving Mexican food in a big way. As John knows, though, it doesn't take much to get me craving Mexican food. But it's Cinco de Mayo, so there's no way you're going to find me in a Mexican restuarant tonight...too bad.

Have a lovely weekend, all.

evil empire strikes back

You are not going to believe this. I can hardly belive it myself. We went to Wal-Mart two days in A ROW this week! I'd offer excuses, but...the truth is, we're guilty. We patronized Wal-Mart twice in one week. Feel free to throw stones (if you are without sin yourself!).

i feel good

The other day my husband told me I have good shoulders. No one has ever told me that before.

And I'm not sure why, but the compliment has really stuck with me. It makes me happy every time I think of it. I'm smiling right now, as a matter of fact.

more down than up

Today is somewhat of a down day.

Maybe it's because we came back from my parents' house yesterday after spending time with all the siblings at my sister's wedding. I love and miss my family. I wish we all lived closer to each other.

Maybe it's because I feel (again; this happens periodically) that I have no purpose in life. The things I think about on a daily basis: exercising, eating healthy, what I'm going to make for dinner, what part of the house I'm going to clean, building my relationship with my husband, improving my spirituality, making new friends and building the friendships I already have.

That's a pretty good list of what I think about during any given day. But you know what? It's boring! Where are the grand plans for changing the world or at least making a difference in the world? Where, in the midst of cleaning house, making dinner, and exercising, is ME?

Am I making any sense? My life is a checklist, and sometimes I'm pretty good at getting all the checks done in one day, but it doesn't really fulfill me in the long term. What the heck am I looking for? Why am I not content?

Sorry. Just venting. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

you're fired!

I had a dream last night that I was on The Apprenctice, only it wasn't Donald Trump on the show, it was ASU President . We were all competing as we worked on the 'task' in order to win favor with him.

All I know is, I was terrified of him! He notices every detail, every little flaw. He expects nothing less than perfection. (I should know; in a round about way, I work for him.) I just find it funny that subconsciously I put our president in the position of Donald Trump. (I can see him saying to me, "You're fired!") I think that image would only be funny to someone who currently goes to ASU.

I'm sure he won't read my blog and find out what his employee is saying about him. Why would he? Though he seems to have time for EVERYTHING under the sun including googling himself on the internet, he surely wouldn't care what people think of him. Andf he does care, he has to know already that people are intimidated by him.

(If you're reading this, please don't fire me.)

new career path

A while back my career goal was to become a librarian. In fact, I even went to the trouble to get a master's degree in library science. But that was before a year's worth of rejection from all the library jobs I applied to. (With the exception of one offer, which I rejected. So I guess it wasn't unilateral rejection.)

But anyway, lately I've been rethinking my career choice. The appeal of being a librarian grows dimmer and dimmer as I see cities slash library budgets right and left. The "shushing" librarian stereotype is alive and well. And libraries, instead of being at the forefront of knowledge and the heart of the community (as I believe they should be), are being rendered obsolete by Borders bookstore and the world wide web.

I can see the writing on the wall. Do I think libraries will ever dissapear permanently? No. But I do think they need a major overhaul to make them more relevant in this day and age. Some libraries are doing a pretty good job of that, but so many of them are as traditional as ever.

Where does this leave me? So far, without a job that I can wake up every day and be excited about. The last few days I've done some serious soul searching. What do I really want to do with my life?

You know what I came up with? Please do not laugh, because I'm serious. Personal trainer. I had actually thought about this career in the past, but it was more of a fleeting thought that didn't last long because I didn't think I could do it, especially because I really didn't have any experience in it. But in the last few weeks as I've been doing SparkPeople, I've learned a few things. 1. With motivation and desire, I can accomplish a whole lot. 2. I love exercise. 3. I love getting other people excited about exercise and eating right.

Maybe that's not much of a reason to embark on a brand new career path. I'm not sure yet. But I'm serious enough about it that I enrolled in two ASU courses this summer -- a nutrition course and an exercise science course. I just want to get a feel for what I might be getting into if my life veered off in this new direction. Oh, plus I'm taking a bellydancing class and a yoga/pilates class. Fun? Absolutely.

The best thing of all is that John supports me in this 100%. He always does. He doesn't laugh at my random career plans or complain about the fact that I might have to get yet another degree. (Maybe that's because I support him 100% in his desire to get yet another degree. But his will be a PhD while mine would most likely be a BS or at the most an MS degree.)

But right now this is all a what if. I don't know for sure WHAT I'm going to be doing in the next while. But I do know that I can't continue working at my current job without at least a goal and a plan for getting there. I feel that even if becoming a personal trainer isn't in the stars for me, at least I'm exploring and trying new things, and I know I'll stumble across the right career for me. Maybe I already have. It's worth exploring.

--H

think about it

The Karate Kid. Has a better movie ever been made? I dare you to think of one.

deathly sick but getting better

I went to the Dr. on monday and found out what is wrong with me -- I have pneumonia. Yikes. And, I gave it to my husband. :( So while I'm finally on the upswing and getting better, my husband is coughing and wheezing at home.

The worst of it was when we were in Nevada this weekend with my family. John started showing symptoms on Friday, and we slept most of the weekend instead of doing much with the family. :( Then on Sunday, when we were supposed to drive back to AZ, neither of us could do it. So I called in sick on Monday and we drove back then. We still felt crappy, but somehow John managed to get us back home.

Now I'm feeling a little better. I went on a 15 minute walk today and felt pretty okay afterward. By next week I should be back to my normal self.

Oh, and for anyone wondering, I didn't get the library job. I'm feeling pretty discouraged about that, so that's pretty much all I'm going to say about it at this point.

i'm sort of alive

I'm alive, but only barely. I got sick again. Yes, again.

Coughing, high fever, achy, sleepy. This time I went to my doctor and asked for blood tests to be done to figure out what's going on. I mean, first I get bronchitis, then the fake strep throat thing, then the rash, and now this.
I usually have a healthy immune system, getting sick maybe once a year. But this is three times in little over a month. Something is definitely going on here.

To top it all off, I still don't have a handle on my depression. Maybe the sickness is making it worse, or maybe the depression is lowering the defeneses of my immune system. Either way, I'm tired of being sick, and I'm tired of being sad.

In other news, we already got part of our tax return back -- and the tax deadline hasn't even happened yet! What?!!! What's going on here? Usually I'm in the line of cars trying to drop off my tax envelope at the Post Office before midnight hits on tax day. But, thanks to my husband, he did it all for us over a week ago. Yay!

This weekend we're off to Nevada to see my sister go through the temple for the first time and then have her bridal shower. Two weeks later we'll be going back for her wedding. Then all of us will be married but the youngest, who turns 17 today!

Okay, time to go sleep off some of this sickness.

Happy Easter everyone.

striped lobster

I’ll bet you are dying to know how the tanning salon went, aren’t you?

Well, imagine the whitest, ghostly person you can think of, and that’s me. I entered the tanning salon and found myself amongst bronze beauties. Boy did I feel out of place! The tan girl in front of me was assigned to a tanning bed for 12 minutes. The very tan attendant (whose ample bosoms, not adequately covered, were also very bronze) took one look at me and set the timer for 5 minutes.

It was weird. I felt entombed with a death ray that was slowly adding years to my skin. But that’s just me being overdramatic. I’ve always been opposed to tanning, especially tanning beds. My reasons are pretty shallow – I don’t ever want my skin to look leathery and old. It was news to me that tanning is used for medical purposes!

Anyway, after two sessions at 5 minutes, they felt I had moved up in the world and could handle 6 minutes. No problem, right? Ha! Let’s just say that certain parts of my body that never see the light of day are now bright red. I’m a lobster; actually, a striped lobster! The tanning light bulbs gave me a nice stripe on my…rear.

i'm off to the tanning bed!

I went to the doctor today because I had these weird red splotches all over my stomach. She says they were caused by the antibiotics I was taking for my strep throat. But guess what the remedy is? Sunlight. I have to expose the rash to sunlight. What the heck? Have you ever heard of that?

But she showed me the picture in a book, and the guy in the picture had a stomach that looked an awfully lot like mine. And I read in the book that the cure is sunlight. So now…I’m going to go to a tanning salon for the first time in my life. (I don’t really want to expose my stomach to the light of day…yet.)

Guess what, though? While at the doctor’s office I weighed in, and I’ve lost two more pounds! I've been eating healthy as well as exercising five times a week, and it's paying off. My praise of SparkPeople grows and grows. I’m so very proud of myself and I feel so much better. Yay for me.

what if i found my dream job?

Advil has become my new best friend. When I was sick (about 5 days) I took an Advil every 5 hours or so to keep my temperature down. Now that’s past, but a sinus headache has taken its place. So every time I lie down, a pain hits me in the eye. It’s like somebody is stabbing me in the eye with a pencil. So it’s either not lie down and get no sleep, or take an Advil at night. Then I wake up in the middle of the night after the medicine wears off with more stabbing pains…so I hit the Advil yet again. One of these days I won’t be taking a million pills a day, I hope. I’d tell you how many I’m taking right now, but you wouldn’t believe me—or you’d think I was dying of something. Surely.

Anyway, IN OTHER NEWS: I interviewed this morning for my perfect job. It couldn’t be more made for me, and I hope I conveyed that in the interview. The job would be as a children/youth librarian at the local public library. Totally me! I would work at the children’s reference desk, plan and carry out story time and other activities, create brochures & other promotional stuff. And not only that, the position would include creating and maintaining web pages. I would be in heaven doing this. The salary is pretty good, too.

I didn’t want to talk about it or post about it beforehand, because I didn’t want to jinx it. I still don’t. But I did my best at the interview, and that’s really all I can do. I came out of the interview feeling pretty good. The scary part of the interview? The first thing they made me do was pick a book and a finger puppet and do an impromptu story time in front of the three interviewers. Yikes! But I did okay…probably not the best story time they’ve ever seen, because I’ve never actually done one before, but okay.

Even if I don’t get this job I feel more hopeful now. I can and will find the right job for me. If I had my way it would have happened a long time ago, but I’ll accept what comes my way and be thankful when it does happen.

out sick yet again

My blog has been seriously neglected lately, but for good reason. I got sick again. Maybe it was strep throat, but maybe not. Whatever it was, it kicked my butt. I’m still trying to fight off a horrible cough, but at least I can go to work and exercise again.

That’s right, I said exercise! I have been doing at least 10 minutes or more of exercise every weekday (until I got sick). Now I’m back at it. This week I’m moving up to 20-30 minutes of exercise. I’m still going strong on SparkPeople. I got a few of my family members to do it with me, and we’ve created quite a team. We race each other for points, but mostly we encourage each other to make small healthy changes in our lifestyle. It’s great.

And you know what? I’ve lost two pounds so far. My clothing already looks less bad on me. I feel very empowered to accomplish this goal and many others.

At the same time, some of my goals are pretty tough to accomplish. So much so that I get discouraged sometimes. And sometimes I wish I weren’t so goal oriented; that I could live and enjoy and just be. But everything turns into a goal for me, and I get tired of my life being one long checklist. Sigh. I guess I’m a little down today. It happens. Thanks for listening.

found a spark

I came to a dramatic conclusion the other day. I'm tired of looking bad in my clothing, and I decided to do something about it. I've thought that a million times before, but this time I was serious.

So I joined SparkPeople. Ever heard of it? It's really the most awesome tool to come along for weight loss, exercise, healthy lifestyle, and goal setting. I love it. If you are thinking about losing weight, finding and sticking to lifestyle changes, or wanting to set up exercise into your schedule, join SparkPeople.
First off, it's free, and it offers awesome tools and helps for achieving your goals. I've only been a member for three days, but already I can tell a huge difference in my attitude and motivation. The guy who created this site truly wants to help people. His story is inspiring. I probably sound like an infomercial, but I can't help it. I'm inspired and I want to pass on the love!

Anyway, I am planning to lose 15 pounds in the next four months. It's not a lot of weight, but it's enough that I had to get serious in order to get into a healthy mindset. I'm making life changes and I am dang proud of myself for doing it.

I'll probably update on my progress from time to time.

Okay, I'm off to get ready to go to Tucson to celebrate my anniversary! Happy St. Patrick's day, and have a great weekend...

love lives here

Today marks the first day of our second year of marriage.

Our first anniversary was yesterday, and it was nice. It was Sunday, so we woke up late, went to church, and then ate a low-key meal and watched Back to the Beach together. Not exciting, I suppose. But it was nice to spend time together, knowing that we’ve been married a year, and that more great years are coming.

We didn’t have our frozen wedding cake to eat (it’s in my parents’ freezer, alas), so we took two Reese’s peanut butter cups, said cheers, and ate them up.

We’re also planning to go spend a night at a hotel on the 17th, which will be the day when we celebrate a little more; possibly going out of town, definitely lounging in a hotel and visiting museums and such.

But even if we don’t do that, yesterday was enough. I am blessed. I found my true love and I’ve had him for a year. Year two begins today.

tagged

Wow, S’mee tagged me for this fun little questionaire. Thanks!!!

Four Jobs I Have Had in My Life:

1) Recreation counselor – One of the funnest jobs I’ve ever had. I just played games and made crafts with kids. I became the Battleship and Connect Four champion.
2) Hostess at the coffee shop at the Virgin River Casino in Mesquite, NV – Oh my, how I hated that job and the black pants and pink shirt. And the evil waitresses. Let’s not forget the time I spilled an entire pitcher of water on my mother!
3) Server at Denny’s – Boy, was I moving up in the world! From hostess to server. Let’s just say that my boss was Ghengis Khan and never bought new food supplies until they were all gone and customers were complaining. What?!!!
4) Janitor/Custodian at the BYU – I had to get up at 4 in the morning for this job. I slept through many a class and got my worst grade ever during this time period.

Four Movies I Watch Over and Over:

1) What about Bob? – This movie is a classic, but it doesn’t explain why my husband and I can watch it so many times.
2) Napoleon Dynamite – But my lips hurt real bad!
3) Parent Trap I-IV – My husband doesn’t share the love, but my sisters do!
4) Gidget – I love this movie.

Four Places I've Lived:

1) Overton, Nevada – For the first 18 years of my life.
2) Provo, Utah – The college years.
3) Sofia and Burgas, Bulgaria – LDS Mission.
4) Bejing, China – Taught English there for a short time after getting my degree and not having any direction whatsoever.

Four TV shows you love to watch:

I don’t love TV much, but…
1) Everwood – Before it got trashy, like everything does. Yeah, it’s on the WB, but it used to be good.
2) 24 – I’ve only watched this one once, if you can believe it. But I liked it.
3) The Biggest Loser – Saw this one a couple of times. Pretty good.
4) The Great Race – Watched it once. I’d watch it again.

Four Websites you visit daily:

Geez, I don’t have any interesting ones…hotmail, yahoo, people’s blogs…
1) asu.edu – Yeah, I have to.
2) Maybe I’m a nerd, but I go here a lot. I love the public libraries.
3) I don’t visit it daily, but it’s fun: readymademag.com
4) Used to visit but don’t anymore: ericdsnider.com

Four of My Favorite Foods:

1) Bread – There is no food I love more than good bread. I could eat it all day, every day.
2) Hummus – Though it seems to be the most gas causing substance known to humankind (TMI?), I love it.
3) Feta cheese – On salads, pizza, and bread; in my favorite Bulgarian food banitsa; feta cheese is worth its weight in gold.
4) Prosciutto and melon – Hey, it sounds weird, but my husband introduced me to it, and it’s good. Actually, I like any Italian food he makes.

Four Places I'd rather be right now:

1) Home in bed with my sweet husband. :)
2) In NV with the whole family.
3) In Europe with the husband, visiting Italy, Albania, and Bulgaria.
4) On a cruise (to anywhere but Alaska) with the husband.

Four folks to pass this on to:

1) Johnny, the husband.
2) TK, the friend.
3) penguinconqueso, another friend.
4) Eden, friend from way back.

Thanks! And have fun.

i want to feel like myself again

Okay, TK and kimbo! You are right—a week is too long to go without writing. Thanks for caring. :) The truth is, I was a zombie all last week. And that’s not much of an exaggeration.

I’m on new medications, and they are making me so tired that I can hardly function. One of the medications is for allergies, and sleepiness is one of the symptoms. So I finally stopped taking that. But guess what? The allergy symptoms came back full force, and surprisingly are EVEN WORSE than being tired all the time. So I went back on the medicine and made an appointment to see my doctor.

I just want to feel normal again. If that’s even possible. My husband says he doesn’t think I’ve been myself for at least nine months, and I don’t know that I can disagree…