A Little Rambling

Oh, my poor blog, how I have neglected you! Today was such a lovely day that I decided to drive home the long way.  When you remember that I work 30 miles from home, you realize that the long way is really long.  But it was so worth it!  The sky was that lovely autumnal shade of blue.  Maybe it's just me, but I see the sky differently during different seasons, and there's a special hue for both sky and clouds that just means it's fall.  Anyways, the weather was so gorgeous that I didn't want to waste a drive on the freeway.  Since I work so far away, the "wild desert" is only two miles north of my normal route.  Not terribly wild, but you can drive without stoplights or seeing houses for quite some time.  It was a great choice. So, student teaching and working and job hunting and trying to sleep, eat, and have a life have kept me rather insane.  I'm really looking forward to three days off next week for Thanksgiving!  I realized durin...

I would like to start by saying how I am always resistant to changes in social media.  I've adjusted grudgingly to Timeline on facebook, but...Blogger, you have been the same since I started with you 5 years ago, why did you suddenly change?  I do not like this unfamiliar territory.  I feel out of place as a I write, having to reconfigure where everything is and how to do all the little things that once came so easily. This was not the point of my post, since it was unexpected when I logged on.  It hijacked my train of thought. Today is the first day of my last summer break as a college student!  I am done with classes and finals and whatnot forever!  Next semester holds only student teaching, choir, and voice lessons (finally with a faculty member).  I have fantastic plans to enjoy my summer.  In a little more than a week I am headed for the Bahamas for my first-ever cruise with 7 of my favorite people.  What a way to kick off the break!...

The best way to celebrate Leap Day is to remember Gilbert and Sullivan's lovely bit of recit: "For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I've no desire to be disloyal, some person in authority; I don't know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal, has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February, 28 days as a rule are plenty, one year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty. Through some singular coincidence, I shouldn't be surprised if it were owing to the agency of an ill-natured fairy, you are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap year on the 29th of February. And so by a simple arithmetical process, you'll easily discover that though you've lived 21 years, yet if we go by birthdays you're only 5 and a little bit over." Anyways, as another way to celebrate, Rebekah and I are kicking off a new blogging challenge! (tomorrow!) It's been almost a year since the last...

Timed free-write*...go! I don't know why, but I've been fixating on the idea of a blog about shoelaces. I think at some point I had somewhere to go with it, but I've long since lost that train of thought. Unlike missing a real train, though, there are no major consequences, as this is something I can just pick up whenever. Missing a real train seems to throw off a lot of other things further down the line - but I digress. Back to shoelaces. They seem to be going out of style - shoes have buckles, or zippers, or velcro. And so many of them are SO SHINY. I laugh at most of the shoes little girls come into my studio with. Very few have laces. I think I prefer the word shoestrings, though. It sounds sillier. It also conjures up thoughts that make my heart warm - like apron strings. Apron strings makes me think of cooking, and I know I've mentioned how much I love to be in the kitchen cooking up food for as many people as possible. Shoestrings also makes me thin...

I am normally what one would call a grammar nazi, were the term even remotely politically correct. I don't slaughter people over incorrect grammar or spelling, but I have many a friend who will testify that I have jumped down their throat over their minor tweaking of the English language. I value correct pronunciation, punctuation, and spelling. This may be a good portion of why I so dearly love Rebekah in all her linguistics major glory. This is also why I just LOVE to edit people's papers - if you are ever in need of a peer review, please come to me! However, as I'm sure you've noticed, I tend to stretch those rules to their limits - and often break them. I definitely overuse the hyphen, and the comma...and the ellipse. It galls me at times. But! (Oh yeah, and the whole starting sentences with 'but' and 'and,' and having sentences that don't end, aren't enough words, or run on and on, or lack an actual verb...or subject...). Sigh. ...

I think I'm neurotic. Only mildly, mind you. But every now and then I catch myself thinking particularly OCD thoughts and I have to take a step back and examine myself. For example: tomorrow I'm going to see a play, Judy: the Musical . I'm driving three of my friends there, and as I was going about my day (by which I mean sitting around at work staring at the wall), I realized that means these friends will be in my car. My thought process went a little like this. Hey, there are gonna be people in my car tomorrow! It's a mess! I need to clean out the seats...heck, I should clean the car. Is there a car wash I can get to before my next lesson? No. Well, I could still vacuum it when I get home. Or I can sit here and hand pick up every speck of everything that doesn't belong. I need to take out the trash. I really should dust it. No, overkill. No one cares, right? But they're gonna be in my car! This is an impression of me! I should clean ...

Today was a good day! Much better than yesterday. I must say, though, I look forward to the far-off Someday when I don't find myself eating dinner at 10 o'clock at night. On to the challenge! (This is a good procrastination break from studying for the ear training/dictation test, theory test, and music history test I have coming up Thursday/Friday.) Well, this is my second blog. The last one ( Across the Atlantic/German Faery Tales ) was easy to name, because it was fairly self-explanatory. However, once I was home 'for good,' it felt odd continuing to write on that blog, so I decided I needed a new one. Not having a clue what exactly I'd be writing about, I decided that A Little Rambling just about summed it up. As for the tagline, 'homemade, homegrown, and homeward bound," that has a little more explanation. Homemade: Confession time: I admit, I kind of want to be a mommy-blogger. Living in the military community, I was surrounded by young moms...

Well, this should be interesting, given my track record for inconsistency in blogging adventures. But my new friend Rebekah has inspired me to try - mostly because I thoroughly enjoyed reading her entire challenge to date this evening. A good way to spend the last day of Spring Break! So anyways, in this 30 + 1 day blogging idea, there are different, largely me-centric topics to be discussed each day. This would have been wise to start over spring break, before the insanity of my school/work/choir schedule took back over, but hey. What's one more thing on my plate? At least this one will be enjoyable for me and the none of you who actually read this. We'll see if it lasts longer than the 1000 gifts/Multitudes on Mondays idea did. Mondays were just too hectic! Anyhoo, the topics (as edited by Reb) are.... Day 0: The 30-Day Challenge Explanation and Description Day 1: Introduction, Recent Picture of Myself, and 15 Facts Day 2: Meaning of My Blog Name Day 3: My First Love...

Oh my. I am a terrible blogger. Last post in September?! Oh dear. Well, life is continuing on. Finished my semester of community college (or at least, I will be finished if my professor figures out how to get our final online...more than 3 hours late, currently...) and have been accepted into ASU's music education program. !!!! That's HUGEly exciting for me. :) :) :) I'm also in the process of buying a house, also hugely exciting! Only a little while left in the apartment. But I'll almost miss this place, as it looks so cute for Christmas. Being me, I've got my lights up and I now have 2 trees! With the lights, decorations, candles, and Christmas music, it's just delightful. And while that may not be what Christmas is all about, it sure is a lot of fun! So yeah, not a whole lot important to say, but I'm trying to get back into the habit of doing this. So, back to waiting for my final to be posted and enjoying the rain in the meantime!

So, I've decided that I really feel like blogging again. However, it feels weird to use Across the Atlantic , since it's all for Germany, and I am reluctantly stuck in Arizona again. Thus, a new (& domestic) blog is born. Here's to a lot more rambling! Or, in the interest of promoting my own title, and preserving your interest, only a little rambling.