As long as life endures...

I sort of feel like falling over from all the stuff I'm doing this week. I'll encapsulate later, but the hallmarks:

Thursday: Club Bellydance BDSS show
Friday: nick's school musical (oh yay, middle schoolers)
Today: hiking at Starved Rock with the family except for Tobin, which makes me sad.
Tomorrow: Soup's On Fundraiser, again with the family except for Tobin, which also makes me sad.

Eventually, I need to get out of bed and get dress and packed for heading to Starved Rock and then Naperville.

I'm a teacher's wife! Nick got a job!
I also reported a coworker for inappropriate comments today!

As you can tell, today has just been highs and lows.

After a drop in my mood yesterday that threatened to become one of those horrible depressive episodes, Becky came over and helped me through my weekend chores. I am so grateful that she moved down here to Bloomington.

And then I made dinner. I love roasting chickens. I seasoned with onion and garlic powders, paprika, honey and brown sugar, stuffing it with lemon and onions. And then I made fudge and things got even better. Sometimes I think I should buy a slightly better camera and start taking pictures. But then I might have to work on that whole presentation thing.

I'm feeling a good bit better, too. I seriously don't know what broke in my head yesterday, but I am so thankful that I know what steps to take to stop it from getting worse.

In other news, nick had another interview this week, I'm trying to get a friend from the BRC into my current department, I discovered text to speech on my kindle and the house is a mess.

I spent this weekend, again, doing work around the house. No real big adventures, just maintence cleaning and washing the bedding.

The big work was fixing up the shrines. Since I wanted to be able to move the small TV into the bedroom so that I could use it to work on dance DVDs and such, I needed space on the dresser to do so. The shrines needed to go. I spent a week trying to figure out if it was right to simplify down shrine peices and condense three or four shrines into one place.

In addition to my altar, I keep 3 other shrines: Hera, Aphrodite, Hermes and Marriage. I split up the pieces in the Marriage shrine, some staying on the dresser as decor, and the rest (which I want to make into a shadowbox) on the lefthand side of one of our bookcases. On the right hand side, I arrange my Hera shrine.

Aphrodite got the biggest change.

For years I've been using this big, lush red candle I got as a gift as a centerpiece for the shrine. I actually HATED this candle. It didn't smell good, and while the fabric it came on was nice, it really dominated everything. So out it went (saving the fabric for other uses), along with some shells that a student gave me.

I kept a tiger shell I bought in Florida and a delicate glass perfume holder as the two pieces of her shrine that really meant something. I think it works much better now. I love how thematic the shrine is, all Love and Marriage.

And that of course means I moved the Hermes bits completly. He doesn't have much, a candle wrapped with a coin and a big key I've had since I was a kid. I placed it on top of my jewelry box for now.

One of my roommates gave me a GIANT bouquet of uncut, straight from the bird, peacock feathers. I've put them behind my main altar for now while I try to figure out what to do with the things. I know I adore peacocks in all their glory, but what does one do with this many when you aren't very crafty.

Besides annoy my husband, because I've already done that. And he's only been home for a couple of hours.

I need to locate my camera, and then I'll take photos of the shrines and altar.

(Also, I have shit-tons of crap that needs to go to goodwill or put up on craigslist. But I have no will to do so. This is almost distressing)


1. I'm not worried about dancing true to my "authentic self", I am dancing in all of my parts. There is no authentic true self, there is just me. 



2. Dancing is not serious bizness. Dancing is fun. While I might get serious about my dancing and my community, when it's not fun, it's time to step back and find the fun again. Fun comes in many forms  and sometime the thinky-bits are the most fun.



3. My real hobby is dress up. Bellydancing is just another expression of that. Just a lot more active.



4. As with the rest of my life as I try to engage in a simpler life; I chose to dance. It is a fun, engaging hobby and an outlet for my creativity. It is good to my body, it is good to my brain, and it is always a challenge.



Current Dance Goals:



1. Performance Quality: I want to get my confidence and performance skills to a point where I could dance outside of student shows. I'm going to work on this by performing when I can at student haflas and shows, and work on not shutting down while dancing. I think my technique is there, but I'm too inside myself while performing to engage with the audience

2. No more t-rex arms. Arms need to exhibit grace and intention, even at rest. This is difficult for me, not being the most body aware person.



3. Enjoy and expand my improv skills. I enjoy improv right now, but I feel like I do just one thing at a time, I want to work on pulling together pieces to make something coherent.



4. Practice, practice, practice. Do something almost every day. I can take one day a week off. Even if I just improv for 5 minutes, I can engage myself and improve.



5. Physical challenges to break down: floorwork, going into plie (and figure out where the issue is, cause it's not my hip at all), adding additional layering (footwork, body and arms!), endurance. These will be targeted during my morning sessions, and hopefully during class and informal drilling sessions.




....I think I may be more apphrensive about Nick's job interview that he had today than he is. His was the last interview, and they said they will probably decide Friday for the two positions. If nick gets the call, he's taking it, doesn't want to deal with any more applications.

So cross your fingers, say a prayer, send good thoughts into the universe and all that shit. Nick needs a job that isn't planting trees.

Nick, by the way, is off at Geddon. Where apparently it has once again flooded. Springwars may have wacky weather, but Armageddon seems to enjoy making swimming pools out of the fighting field.

Also-- LANDLORD FINALLY GOT THE OVEN FIXED. I am planning epic baking Saturday and Sunday. It's been too long without my usually weekly Hestia devotional.

I've been married to my wonderful husband for 4 years. He's a grumpy asshole, who can't find the hamper ever, is secretly an idealist -- but incredibly sweet and smart. He loves me and shows it just about every day. We fight and argue, but pfft, I love him and we work well.

Here's to many many more years with the love of my fucking life.

(here's the extent of my love, no yoga this morning so that I could cuddle, and I'll probably skip my daily dance practice I'm trying to do this month to do the same.)

and for the first time, we didn't have to put our anniversery dinner on the credit card. Things are looking up!

I got called into my supervisors office yesterday. I hate that, because it always gets me worried. But I didn't need to be, because she called me in to say that I'm being promoted up to a PA2. Nothing really changes, since she believes I've been working at that level this whole time, but I got a 7% raise and a pretty awesome letter of my accomplishments thus far.

And it makes it easier to move around and do things at this level.

The best part though, was when she stopped to give me the paperwork for the raise and told me that they don't usually consider people for promotion until they've been in the department for a year. I've been there 7 months.

Apparently, I'm awesome. Take that imposter syndrome!

yadda yadda brothers wedding, yadda yadda. Had a blast, excepting friday night because the lots of loud people in a small space got to me in a bad way (as in, if I left the hotel room for quiet, there would have been a breakdown, it was actually better to stay in the bad enviroment than to leave it in the circumstances) mostly because I forgot an out.

But the wedding, despite murphy's law and the bitchiest wedding coordinator ever, was wonderful. And I got to hang out with some awesome girls, get my hairs did, AND see one of my best friends and my brother get married.

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But seriously, today. Somehow, Sprint always calls me first wanting to talk to my mother about the phone lines. They don't seem to grasp the concept that I am not able to make any changes. AT ALL. She kept asking me things and I kept telling her to call either of the other numbers. EITHER OF THEM!

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Work is work. I haven't gotten too many Catastrophe Claims yet, and the ones I am getting are easy. I am, however, getting new hours as of the 31st. Which is awesome. Getting closer to real people hours. If only we weren't so busy and about a day behind our turn around time.

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Our oven still doesn't work, and the dog is still here. I'd like to see our landlord soon...