End of the Week Roundup

This week has been crazy busy, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's nice that the time flies by, but it's not so fun when you need to take a break. 

1. My printer at my desk randomly printed this Friday. It really creeped me out. 

The mystery of the rando print was discovered on Monday when we discovered that the IT department was just testing stuff. Still creepy though. 

2. I snapped this pic while taking a quick break at work. I love the bright colors of fall. 

3. I finished another bear this week! I was really worried that when school started I wouldn't have time to sew, but I've been able to find time to do it consistently each week. 

4. I've had this song stuck in my head all week. 

5. I was going through pictures on my computer and found this gem. I love my babies!

How Pinterest Made Me Miserable

I used to pin on Pinterest like crazy. Like come home and spend all night and have 80 ga-jillion tabs up to the point where my computer was warning me about high memory usage crazy. 

Then one day I had to force myself to stop. 

Pinterest was making me miserable. Depressed, unappreciative of what I had miserable. Why, you ask? It was what I was pinning, specifically of house things. I pinned decadent kitchens and gorgeous, massive laundry rooms. 

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I pinned rooms with high ceilings and large mirrors, closets bigger than the entire upstairs of my house. 

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I pinned open expansive staircases, leading to even more open and expansive rooms. 

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I pinned man caves, movie theater rooms, and massive, yet creatively designed basements. 

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And it all made me sad because I didn't have the room or the house for all these gorgeous pins, and quite frankly I don't think Dave and I will ever make enough money to live in extravagant houses with thunderstorm rooms. I ended up despising my house. I felt like it wasn't good enough. 

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Life was no longer good enough, I needed more. I didn't appreciate the nice little home I have, because it wasn't pin-worthy. So I stopped pinning and my quaint little house became home again and I started appreciating what I have.

I started pinning again recently, but I've been careful to avoid the over the top house pins because the point of pinning (at least my pins) have been to hang on to ideas that I can actually use someday down the road. And as enticing as a thunderstorm room sounds, I doubt I'll be using that anytime soon.

What kind of things do you pin?

Redemption Song

Tomorrow it will be four years since I lost my first cat, Buddy. It feels like it's been so much longer. The anniversary of his death reminds me of his favorite song, and I felt it was appropriate to share today. I won't delve into how I lost him again, you can read about that here if you want to catch up. 

Buddy was your typical cat in the sense that he was aloof to people, even me. Sure, he'd cuddle the crap out of me at night, when no one knew about it, but the minute I woke up, he'd be sure to be out of arms reach. In fact the only person that he would cuddle with openly was Dave. Buddy loved to play, though. We used to joke that he was the dog I always wanted but could never have in an apartment. He played fetch (which Squish does now), he loved walking on a leash, he would "bark" at the door when I would come home from work. 

But he was also a typical cat in many ways. He hated the car and the vet. The very first time I took him to the vet, he got out of the crate and ran underneath a couch the vet had in the office at the time. One hour later, the vet got him out using those long poles that animal control uses to catch animals. Buddy was branded as "difficult" at the vet after that day. But he wasn't difficult, he just knew what he liked and what he didn't like. 

One of his favorite things in the world was Bob Marley's "Redemption Song". I would play the song while on car rides, it was the only thing that would quiet his cries. The minute he began to hear the guitar, he would stop crying and listen. Then, when the song was over, he'd start back up. I don't know what it was but he just loved hearing it. 

Back when I was taking guitar lessons, I begged the instructor to teach me how to play the song. The minute I got home the day I learned it, I started to practice the song on the guitar and Buddy ran into the room, sat across from me and quietly watched me play the song.

The day that we lost him, we rushed him to the hospital in my car. I could tell he was in a lot of pain, I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. When we got into the car, Dave immediately put the song on repeat. We drove the half hour to the emergency vet listening to it over and over. He would let out a feeble cry here and there, but for the most part he just laid there, in my arms, listening to the song. 

I can't listen to the song anymore, without thinking of him. I have conflicted feelings over losing him. I miss him dearly, and still shed tears over his loss; but if I hadn't lost him, I would never have adopted Nibbler and Squishee. I can't imagine a life without them, and I shudder to think that they may have been adopted separately and would have lead a life without each other. 

Obviously this song is so much more than just a cat loving it, and by no means do I mean to diminish the message of the song. It just has so much more meaning to me now because of Buddy's love for the song. 

End of the Week Roundup

This has been a crazy, busy week, but a good one. I can't ask for anything more when it comes to good weeks.

1. I spent all day holed up in my sewing room on Sunday and finished a Dr. Seuss quilt for a friend...

2. ...and made a weekender bag that I plan on selling as soon as I clean up a few things on it. I've always had a passion for sewing but I've really gotten back into it over the past few months and I find myself looking forward to coming home so I can spend time sewing. 

P.S. You can check out more pictures of the bag, as well as all the other sewing projects I've completed on my Facebook page, Quilts by Nicole. 

3. I started observing in a classroom this week, which is one of my requirements for one of my grad classes and my teaching certification. It was so much fun, and to top it off, the teacher whose classroom I was in had this posted on his back wall. If you need a reminder about how much I love The Simpsons, check this post out. 

Funny side story...one of the lines on this poster says "I will stop talking about the twelve inch pianist". I was reading this poster before school started and there were just two girls in the room chatting, waiting for class to start. I read that line and literally laughed out loud, and then realized how that may look to the girls...you know some random chick that they don't know quietly sitting in the corner laughing out loud out of nowhere. Anyway, I immediately turned around and said, "I'm so sorry that was really creepy of me" and they laughed...and then proceeded to talk about me under their breath. Oh well, that's teens for ya. 

4. Dave surprised me with flowers on Tuesday, which is my long day of the week (between work and class). The picture is a bit over saturated due to the dim lighting in my kitchen...

5. Is it weird to anyone else that a.) Aziz Ansari is photobombing Squish and b.) that Squish and Aziz have the same look going on?

How was your week?

Eleanor and Park

It's that time again for Bon's book club! This month the reading selection was Eleanor and Park. 

I really enjoyed this book, however there were some parts where I disliked it enough I didn't think I was going to like it. Most of the time, I was irked when Eleanor would cause drama and unnecessarily whine at Park. Then I remembered that she was a teenager, and while I don't recall being that annoyingly desperate for attention, I'm sure I was. 

Rainbow Rowell wrote from the teenage perspective perfectly. She got every nuance, every bit of self consciousness, and every insecurity. I loved her style of writing. I've never read about hand holding being more beautiful or romantic in my life. In fact, the hand holding was probably more romantic than the last romantic scene I've read, in such an innocent way too. 

The language was a bit much, but Rowell explained why she added it in in an interview. She said that it's what the main characters environments are all about. Eleanor and Park never curse, but Eleanor is in a tough home situation enough that she's exposed to it. 

All in all, I think it was a great story, and I definitely would recommend it. 

Now on to Bon's questions!

Did you find their ill fated relationship to be sweet?  Believable?  

I think  their relationship is very believable for a high school romance. Not many high school romances actually end up being "forever", but teens always think they do. I think R0well did a great job portraying teen romance.

Did the language bother you? 

Kinda, yeah. If it weren't for the language in this book, I would definitely give it to the teens in my book club to read, but because of it, I can't. As I mentioned above, it does make sense once Rowell explained why, but it did bother me a bit. 

Do you agree with me that f words in YA books are unnecessary?  

This is a tough question to answer. To assume that teens NEVER curse is ridiculously naive. That isn't to say that all teens curse, but majority of them do. To say that YA books should never have curse words is also naive, but I think there is a limit to how much and the context that it's in. If a character in a book screams to the sky 'F YOU WORLD!" after a friend dies, it makes sense. To add in the F word after every other word really changes the tone of the book from YA to something more adult.