Wishes

I wish a lot of things. ONE of these wishes will come true tomorrow: I will be done with my poetry class. :) Hopefully, one of my wishes will come true today: I will be brave enough to read an original poem aloud for extra credit.

I wish either Paul or I (or ideally both) could find a job.

I wish some other things that I probably shouldn't put up on a public blog, because last time I did that I ended up making a ton of people mad at me. And some of it is just kinda personal.

What do YOU wish for today?

Speaking of food...

Today our new ward had its infrequent-but-wonderful-when-it-happens break-the-fast after church. I just have to say, I love Fast Sundays. I love to fast (shocking) because I know it helps. Our ward had a special fast for the unemployed in our ward and area, and really all that are having financial strain, and since we fall into that boat, we were extra grateful to fast today. I also love testimony meetings, even those with the big lulls, because I love to think about all the blessings I have because I was blessed enough to be born into the gospel.

But I also really, really love not having to cook much, especially on a Sunday. I think potluck dinners are just about inspired--can you imagine if we had them every day? You'd eat until you were stuffed, and hardly have to do a thing for it. Everyone wins. And it would probably be cheaper.

This brought my mind back to my days at BYU...in our apartment, the six of us used to eat together on Sundays, and once a month or so we'd invite other apartments in the ward over and we would all eat and chat and get to know one another. It was stressful sometimes, but it was fun, too. And since I'm not all that great at making new friends, it forced me to interact with people on a smaller and more intimate scale and helped a lot.

I think Paul & I are going to start up a little dinner group for the occasional Sundays...anyone else interested?

A yummy dinner

I was in charge of dinner last night (Paul & switch off right now), and I was stuck as to what I could make that wasn't pasta or stir fry (my usual fallbacks). (Paul's meals are always WAY better than mine, p.s...I married a man who can COOK! The pressure's on!)

I wanted meat, not in something but on its own. And then I remembered that we had pineapple. Problem solved! I made teriyaki chicken & pineapple kabobs--they grill on our indoor grill in 4 minutes! But that wasn't the most yummy part (it was good, but you gotta try this:)

We have a few mango leftover from the huge bagfull my mother-in-law gave us last week (thanks, Paulette!), and I knew it had to be eaten soon. So I cut one up into cubes and put in some coconut and a few chopped up strawberries. It was SO DELICIOUS! We ended up mixing that with the rice more than the kabobs, and let me tell you, mango and coconut and rice are meant for each other! It was sooooo good. We ended up with very few leftovers.

The best part is, we fed ourselves fat and happy and altogether it took one chicken breast, half a can of chunk pineapple, a mango, a couple of strawberries, some rice, and a handful of shredded coconut...all of which we almost always have around the house. And we cooked, ate, and cleaned it all up in an hour. That's MY kind of meal! :)

I wish I had a picture to share with you. This is closest thing I could find, although it's missing the strawberries and kabobs...but you get the picture:

I love happy accidents!

Sometimes you just gotta laugh!

A few days ago, we found a beautiful black piano on Ebay that was located in what we thought was Frankfort, Indiana (a hop, skip, and a jump from here). It wasn't selling for much, but there were several days left and Paul & I knew that the action really happens in the last 12 hours of the bid, anyway. So we figured out how much money we could spare (a measley $30) and bid on it, thinking there was no way in Haides we'd possibly win. And so, of course, we won. We have a Wurlitzer black piano waiting for us in Frankfort, ILLINOIS (about 2 hours' drive from here), that we got for $25. The only obstacle: we have no truck. :)

It'll be okay. We're hoping to enlist a friend or two, take 'em out for fast food and pay for gas in exchange for manpower and the use of their truck. But we're enjoying the fact that we won what we thought we wouldn't and it's where we thought it wasn't and now we are stuck figuring it all out. :) Sometimes, friends, you just gotta laugh!

But it's going to look great in our living room!

Intro to Poetry

Of all the paintings I've seen of poets, I appreciate (if not understand) Chagall's "The Poet" best: I'm taking an intro to poetry class this summer, and I thought I should finally get around to sharing some of my own thoughts and things I have learned this summer.

(1) A lot of poetry, especially the contemporary stuff, I either do not get or do not like, and no 200-level course is really going to change that. And that's okay. I'm at peace with my being at odds with it.
(2) I still love words.
(3) My professor, an old and large lady who grew up in Oklahoma and swears like a sailor, who taught third grade and was a lawyer by trade, thinks I "would be a good English major, if (I) didn't want a job."
(4) There is still a huge part of me that wishes I had time and talent enough to write. Not only do I love a good story, and not only do I love the penumbra of bits of language, but it's a cathartic process for me, and I need to start doing it again--even if it means writing bad poetry in the corners of my room and never letting another soul see it.
(5) You really read different things into poetry and have different opinions about it depending on your own life experience and the mood you're in while you're reading it. For example, I'm in a bad mood today. And going to class was the two longest hours of my life. And I didn't say a word. And the poets sucked. And they were too transparent. And their subject matter hit too close to home or was too far off base for me to enjoy the experience. But other days are not like that at all.
(6) I had no idea what "Ars Poetica" really meant until I had to compare four poets, and now I don't know where I stand on the issue myself.
(7) I will never give participation points in my class. It's lame.

Some pics of our apartment

We finished setting it all up a few weeks ago, but I just got around to taking pictures for another project I'm working on. Just thought I'd show off all our hard work.

our bathroom colors--green, gold, and brown
we've got a French thing going on, hence the French Family Proclamation on the back of the toilet. :)
Thanks to Johanne for making it all possible! (She gave us pretty much everything we needed.)

Our favorite room in the house--the study!

more of it...

our dining room (the chest on the right has all of our board games in it)

a close-up of the dining room table

our red-and-white (and black) kitchen

our living room, my second favorite room in the house!

the bedroom (kinda sparse, but we're still working on the decoration)

That's it! Bienvenue chez nous...come any time! :)

While we're on the topic of flowers...

If you need a little inspiration of things to do with flowers (especially the real, dried ones)...
http://www.make-stuff.com/gardening/dried_flowers.html

AND...

I'm not sure what to name my someday-business. Should I stick with something clear and traditional, like "Flowers by Celeste," or go cutesie and call it "Celeste's Best Buds"...or, as my husband jokingly offered last night, go the funny route and stick with "Bud-Wiser"? :D Any suggestions using my first or last name and something related to flowers I'd be happy to hear!

I know what I want to do with my life

Teach, yes. Wife & mother, yes. Write, yes. Travel the world and learn new languages, yes. Prepare for missions, yes. And now, I have a new dream to dream--I want to own my own silk floral business. I learned a lot in making the flowers for my own wedding (9 bouquets in four shapes, plus boutonnieres/corsages, plus 3 different floral arrangements for various tables and other decorative needs) and I did a dang fine job. I have a flourish for the artistic and the personal, both of which come in handy.

Think about it. We use flowers to celebrate or communicate in every major anything we do...weddings, funerals, graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, parties, dinner, saying "I'm sorry" or "Get well" or "Thank you." Holidays like Mother's Day or Valentine's Day. Prom. Award nights. And always a "just because." Flowers are our way of bringing the mysteriously simple and beautiful and natural into our world.

"But wait. Didn't she say silk flowers?" you are thinking. Well, yes. Because real flowers, when you cut them at the stem, die. And they are increasingly expensive. And then you have to pay EXTRA money just to preserve them. Silk flower arrangements, on the other hand, allow you to not only make things in advance and keep them as long as you like, but to tear them apart and turn them into something else entirely once you're done with them. And they are just as beautiful if you know where to find the good ones. And I do. :) Of course if we had the choice between freshly cut, once-alive flowers and some synthetic flower, we would go with the former. But sometimes that's not the choice. And that's where I come in.

And it wouldn't just be bouquets, no. Flower pen vases in every color, hair clips, bookmarks, shadow boxes, dolls, and the promise that if you bring it to me to be floralized, it can and will be done--bags, baskets, flip-flops, favors, clothing, and more! Corsages. Centerpieces. And I'll bet I can think of more if I try. Of course springtime would be the premiere time for business, but sometimes a lovely bouquet in purples and blues and whites is exactly what you need in the middle of winter. And I would learn how to do it all. And on the website that my husband would make me would be a link to the stories I've written and contact info in case they needed a tutor, which would give me the chance to do everything I love all at once and mostly from home and at my convenience.

My dream world is rich and good. What is yours?

Game of 21

Twenty-one things that four small children at the bus stop got excited about this morning:

(1-10) I'm not sure, I wasn't privileged to be there for this part of the game.
(11) A "cherry" fallen from a tree (really just a dried-up bud)
(12) A spider web
(13) A "piece of pie" later determined by one to be an old PB&J
(14) A roly poly
(15) Another roly poly
(16) A "puppy--no--kitty!" crossing the far street
(17) A piece of paper tossed by the sidewalk--it was determined after much deliberation that the person must either have thought it was a cookie (part of the PB&J lunch) or maybe they just didn't have a garbage can at home to throw anything away in ('cause no one would litter unless they made a mistake or had no choice!)
(18) An ant that chased one of them around
(19) Matching outfits
(20) Half an orange peel sitting in the grass
(21) Getting a ride to the park on "the SubWay bus"

Small and simple things, my dears...

I live in a world of crazies, and I love it...mostly. :)

Without internet, or cable, and finally having moved everything into our lovely new apartment (address below), Paul & I have taken the last few days as a break from the hustle and bustle, reading and playing board games and generally enjoying ourselves. There is still MUCH to do, but mostly until my class starts next week and we have to come back to real life we are enjoying the chance to breathe a little. But, of course, being me, things are hectic anyway:

(1) I'm drifting between two identities as I slowly get my name changed with every little business and such...today's list is the bank and the BMV.

(2) My step-mom got called up suddenly to Iraq (again). She leaves Monday, for a year. We children who never know about anything until the last minute found out about this Sunday afternoon, which was surprisingly early for us except that:

(3) Since my dad works as a consultant for IBM and is currently heading up a project in California, he's taking my two brothers to the west coast for at least the next year. They won't be back to Indiana even after that, since they are selling everything they have and driving out to find a furnished apartment in the Anaheim area. If dad's project ends early, they'll all just move to the next venue.

(4) They were going to take my niece with them, too, but the sister who is her mother fought and won custody back. (Duh, of course she wouldn't want to be on opposite sides of the country from her, and you can't just do this without discussing it with her...but they did, 'cause what else would my parents do?) So tonight my mom is bringing my niece over to say goodbye, and tomorrow she and my other sister drive her out to my sister's place in North Carolina.

(5) Paul has to reapply for admittance to Purdue, because he was on academic probation last semester and didn't do so hot...so in the meantime, he gets to work and take a few classes at the community college (maybe), and his graduation date was pushed back to December 2010, which means we'll be here for another 2 years. Which means I also am not student teaching in Chicago. But I am oddly okay with that, especially since that means that next summer we won't have to move!!! I haven't NOT moved at least once a year since I came home from Utah...5 years ago. I'm ecstatic to stay in one place for a while.

Whirlwind, I know. I may be in denial about some things, and I certainly have some strong opinions about some of it that other people do not want to hear, so I keep my mouth shut like a good girl. But Paul & I have an amazing home and we're gonna be okay, and nothing else really matters to me anymore. Isn't that amazing?

Our address for the next two years:
2501 Soldiers Home Road #64A
West Lafayette, IN 47906