Yellow Wallpaper

1. I finally decided to go to the bookstore and get the version of Don Quijote that we are using for my class because it is a great bargain, much smaller than the one we already have, and has footnotes. But, all the copies there were completely gone so I had to wait until I got home tonight to do my reading. 2. Then, after trekking all the way down to the Key Office to get the key to my office, I got back to the JKB and found that it did not work. How can I effectively do homework anywhere else? 3. I decided to try doing my reading while sitting in the basement of the JFSB, but was distracted by a very annoying conversation near me: Freshmeat girl: "So, like, are you an RM?" RM: "Yeah, I went to Brazil. I speak Portuguese." Freshmeat: "Wow, that is, like, so cool. I totally want to go on a mission because I think it would be so cool and stuff. I'm praying for my dad to be, um, you know, RM: "A mission president?" Freshmeat: "Yeah, so I can go...

I went to school today and I survived it pretty well. My first class is a contemporary Spanish literature class. Cool teacher, cool subject, and we are even working some film in since we are looking at film noir and its influence on literature. I don't like the fact that the class is so big (about 30 people or so), but I can live with that. Oh, and I remembered again that I am really annoyed by the guys who sit around before literature classes begin and talk about how they "hope they can read all these stupid books and do all right so they can get into business/medical/law school". Pooh! Pooh on them! Between classes on Monday and Wednesday I have a break of a few hours, so first I braved the hell that is the bookstore on the first day of class (waited in line for 25 minutes and paid way too much for one stupid book). I also went to the counseling center and got an appointment for later this week. For some reason filling out their paperwork was kind of difficult and made ...

This morning I went into the kitchen to get breakfast and I heard a cat crying outside. I opened the back door to see what was going on and a little orange kitten came streaking into the house through the open door! S-Boogie was extremely delighted, and I thought he was pretty cute too. He was obviously wild, hungry, and desperate for a home (but not for human contact, which I learned when I tried to pick him up). I love animals and was very tempted to keep him around, but we had several problems: Master Fob is allergic to animal hair, the cat was not potty trained and would pee all over the house, also it was obviously not neutered or immunized, and I was worried that it might pass some disease on to S-Boogie. So I took him out back and tried to put him down at the edge of the parking lot by the grass. But, a few minutes later he was outside crying by our window (it's at ground level) and trying to get me to let him in. I called the animal shelter and got a recording stating that ...

I have recently discovered what a "Brazilian wax" really is, and I am horrified. There is a bulletin board for LDS women that I frequent and for some reason the subject of what to do with your "hair down there" came up (it's amazing what people talk about online that they would never, ever discuss in real life). Anyways, I was shocked at the number of women who admitted that they shave or wax it off, on a regular basis. Some are even willing to pay money to have a total stranger apply hot wax to their private areas! I am partly shocked that people do this, and also shocked to realize that I am apparently one of the few women left on this planet that has no desire to get rid of her pubic hair. And, many of them said that their husbands approved and actually encouraged this sort of thing. I was discussing this this evening with Master Fob and I was greatly relieved to note that he seemed even more horrified than I was by the whole thing, and so I am eternally gra...

...you realize that the child on your lap not only has a reeking diaper, but that is soaking through both their pants and yours, and then when you take it off you are actually happy that the wetness is "only pee" and not something worse. Oh, and then you put bright pink pants on her that clash badly with the yellow shirt because it's only a few more hours until bedtime and there's no point in wasting the cute clothes for so short a time (at least I did put pants back on, I was seriously contemplating letting her run around pantless). Even worse--I don't feel like changing my pants because they are drying out already

My mom called last night to ask me to do her a favor. The school she is teaching at now has a large population of children whose parents only speak Spanish, so anything they send home must be in both English and Spanish. Apparently they have a translator/interpreter who works for the school that can do those kinds of things, but they are really busy with the new school year starting. So she wanted me to translate a letter for the parents into Spanish for her. And of course, I said yes. The thing is, I did major in Spanish Translation as an undergraduate, and I think that I have fairly good abilities in the language. But, I also learned several things in my class that really mean that I should say no to any translation requests. In the first place, one of the biggest rules in translation is that you should generally only work going into your native language. Thus, I should only translate things from Spanish into English. I know why this is so, because I have a really hard time being abl...

Thank you for pointing that out, S-Boogie.

Warning: this post is about reproduction, so feel free to ignore it if you want As much as I have lived the last two years in fear of getting pregnant before I'm ready (like 2 months after I have a baby), I've decided that the whole accidental pregnancy thing is probably much less stressful than the deliberately trying thing. The problem is, there are only one or two days out of the entire month where it is physically possible to get pregnant. That's it--your only chance. So, you have to monitor your body very carefully and then try to figure out when those special days are. Then you have to do what it takes to get pregnant on those days, and generally the hormones will make you want it, but not always (and there's always all the other life factors that get in the way too...). On top of all that, you won't know if what you did worked or not for at least another two weeks or so, and if it didn't then you have wait a few more weeks to try again! I don't know w...

That is how I've been feeling for the last few days: fragile. Most of the time I feel OK, but underneath my skin I seem to have some kind of tension, like the world is just too much and I'm going to fall apart at any moment. I know a big part of it is the lack of sleep. The last few nights have not gone well at all. I'm still trying to recover from arriving home from out trip at 2 AM the other day. Both last night and the night before I felt like I was too exhausted to actually fall asleep. My body kept doing this weird thing where I would start to drop off and then jerk myself awake. Last night I had taken a sleeping pill, so I never came back to full wakefulness but was in a weird irritable state. I hope that doesn't happen again, it was freaky and not a lot of fun. It's also not a great point in the monthly cycle and I've got all kinds of weird hormones swirling around inside right now. I have been trying to keep track of my menstrual cycle and chart it so I ...

I haven't posted for a week because we have been gone on a wild and crazy vacation in the land of cold and fog, otherwise known as San Francisco. We drove over there to visit our friends, the Thteed family. They actually live elsewhere in California, but were visiting Lady Steed's parents who live near San Francisco, so we were kind of crashing their family vacation, but apparently it was cool. Last week: Sunday: We left after church (5 pm) and drove to Reno. Nothing really exciting happened. We found a surprisingly nice park in Wendover and ate dinner there. The best part of the day was when we arrived in Reno at midnight and had to wake S-Boogie up to bring her into the hotel. She looked like she was having a bad trip from all the lights and noise in the casino. Monday: Took our sweet time driving to San Francisco. Stopped at the Jelly Belly factory for their tour and loaded up on free samples. If you are ever driving across northern California on I--80, it is definitely wort...

Yesterday my two year old said the word "sex" for the first time. I'm not sure if I should be amused or frightened.

Onions and celery frying in margarine: being a little kid and waiting for dinner Vaseline Intensive Care lotion (yellow bottle): reminds me of my mom Hand cleaner and engine grease: reminds me of dad Wet dirt: more little kid stuff (once in Madrid we walked by some guy hosing down the sidewalk and there was this powerful wet dirt smell mixed with oleander flowers and I could swear I was standing on the sidewalk outside our house on Paradise Street) Rain on sagebrush: living in Mountain Home Manure and alfalfa: Grandma's house Seaweed: going to the beach, especially stopping by on a winter evening to watch the sun set Warm green onions: working at Taco Bell Cucumber melon lotion: our honeymoon (!)

Let me start by saying that I generally like the Spanish department and I am enjoying being a graduate student quite a bit. But, I am really frustrated by the whole teaching process and it drives me nuts every semester. For one thing, there is just too much politics involved and all that usual junk, but I'm not even going to go into that here. As part of being a "student instructor" (we are not TAs in case you are wondering) you are required to attend a workshop during the week before school beings. So far there is no information available about the workshop. Like when it starts and ends each day, etc. That makes it kind of hard to coordinate my schedule and Master Fob's schedule, plus I will probably have to arrange some sort of child care for parts of the week (yeah, some of us students actually have lives besides school--imagine that). I still don't know which classes I will be teaching or when they will be, and I probably won't find out until partway throu...

I got nearly 9 hours of sleep last night. I felt like an almost normal person today. I tried the sleeping pill one more time, and I guess the third time is the charm. Yesterday was a good day and very relaxing, plus I had a nice little neck and back massage before I went to sleep, and I managed to drift off rather painlessly into dreamland. I hope this is the beginning of a new trend in sleeping for me, but if it's not then at least I will always remember last night as a wonderful night for sleep.

Most Sundays I end up coming home from church feeling worse than when I did before I went. My calling is really stressful and sacrament meeting with a two year old is just plain torture. But, today was actually a really nice day at church. Maybe it's because I woke up feeling like total crap so the day had to get better from there because there was nothing else it could do. I really didn't sleep well last night, and I was also beset by "female troubles". Ugh. I started feeling a little better after I watched "Music and the Spoken Word" this morning. I've gotten into watching it lately and I'm finally starting to like the Tabernacle Choir. Today they sang a really cool arrangement of Lead Kindly Light and they also sang How Firm a Foundation , both of which are favorite hymns of mine. Then we got to sing Come, Oh Thou King of Kings and Lead Kindly Light in sacrament meeting, which made me very happy. The testimonies were pretty uplifting today and S...

This is my favorite picture of S-Boogie as a baby; it was taken shortly after she was born, and she just has such a wise little look on her face. I can't believe it's been 2 years already and that she is so much more grown up now. They really do get big so fast. I still don't quite feel like a "mom", but I am so glad to have S-Boogie in our family and I have a hard time remembering life without her. Happy birthday little one!

I'm beginning to think that the ancient belief in the wheel of Fortune was correct after all, and for some reason we keep ending up on the bottom lately. I really don't think that God micromanages our lives and is sending us all these "trials" (and I don't think that they are necessarily all really trials). I generally hate to use the word "trial" because I think it implies something really large and monumental that might never go away. Personally I think too many people use it too lightly these days. For some reason life seems to think that we should never have any money at all and the minute we get any it must be taken away to pay for stupid things like a new battery for the car or putting our child in the hospital. Sigh. Oh, and I went to Target and bought some sleeping pills today. I have been unable to fall asleep before 1 AM for nearly a week and now I'm getting desperate. Despite a lifetime of sleep problems this is the first time I have taken...

1 year ago: I was getting ready for S-Boogie's birthday party and trying to finish all of my homework for my teaching methods class. 2 years ago: It was Sunday and I had to go to church and explain to everyone why I was still pregnant 3 days past my due date and that I had a c-section scheduled for later that week. I think I wore my striped orange shirt that made me look like a beach ball. 3 years ago: It was a Saturday, we probably just hung out and stuff. We were both working full time all summer and didn't do a lot else. It was exactly a week before my brother-in-law died, but we had no idea that that was going to happen. It was three days after the funeral of my former roommate and her husband, so I was still feeling down about that. 4 years ago: The week before my brother's wedding and my parents were here visiting. I was taking two classes that term, including a marriage preparation one. We were also trying to find an apartment for me to move into for Fall semester....

Yesterday was a better day, even if I was in a brain fog from going to bed so late. I did some chores around the house, and even cleaned my refrigerator (I know it's been at least six months since I last did that). I also took a little walk with S-Boogie and made some banana chocolate chip cookies. Also, I checked out some books on depression from the library. I've started with the one from Deseret Book and it's really not too bad at all. It was published a few years ago and is directed primarily towards women. The coauthors have both dealt with depression and one is a therapist, so it's not just a "pray harder and serve others" type of book at all. Actually, they keep pointing out that "depression is a physical illness and not a spiritual defect". I already knew that, but there are plenty of people out there who don't. Last night I was reading the chapter on triggers of depressive episodes and brain chemistry that makes you vulnerable to being ...

I've been trying to decide for the last little while if I really do have a problem or if I just need to try harder to get my life together. I found this list of symptoms for depression on the BYU counseling center website and am not sure if they apply or not: 1. Loss of interest or pleasure in activities. Well, I dropped my classes because I couldn't get myself to enjoy them at all. Then again, Cuban poetry isn't that interesting to many people. But, I really have been feeling "flat" lately and I often feel bored, like nothing is interesting or worth doing. Even cooking or reading don't interest me as much as they used to. 2. Significant change in appetite, or change in body weight when not dieting. Not sure about this one, because I've been overweight for a while. But, I have been having weird issues with food. Certain types of foods will totally gross me out just by their texture or smell or strange stuff like that. I will start eating and be unable to ...