You dropped your skull!

So, I read the following post on Craigs List.

I laughed so hard I woke up the baby from her nap!


I just wanted to let you know I wasn't a crazy lady. Here's what happened: A guy was running for a train. I saw something go flying off the end of his cane (yes, he was running with a cane). After a few seconds of me and other waiting passengers looking around stupidly at each other, I decided to be a Good Samaritan. I picked it up and saw that it was a small, polished replica of a human skull. I looked to the old man standing next to me and said "It's a skull". He shrugged his shoulders. I didn't want it, but I have such a particular hatred of littering, that I didn't want to drop it back on the floor lest someone think I was a dirty skull litterer. I decided the proper thing to do would be to give it back to whoever dropped the thing. So, I jumped in the door of the L train and saw you with what I thought was a cane. So I said, "Here's your skull" and handed it to you. You were shocked, I thought because you didn't realize it was lost. But as I backed off the train as the doors closed I saw that it wasn't a cane you had but an umbrella. And luggage. And you clearly weren't the person who dropped the skull. I can't imagine how weird it must have been to have some woman run onto a train, shove a skull in your hand and tell you it's yours. So I'm just writing this to let you know it wasn't a voodoo ritual, an ominous mafia warning, a gang initiation, or a misguided attempt at getting to know you better. I truly thought you dropped your skull.

Julia Child I am not

I would like to give a "shoutout" (am I too old for those??) to my sister Joy and friend Jill. I was in a cookng quandry and since I had already called my sister the gourmet chef about 349 times that day - I called my mommy friend Jill. (aka barefoot Carrellessa) I made a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies! YUMM! But, after getting everything mixed together my batter looked to sticky. SO I thought about adding flour but wanted a second opininon. Enter Jill. She confirmed my diagnosis and so I added more flour little by little.

But like everything else in my life I got too impatient and I ended up with concrete batter. I made just one batch - for pity's sake and they were like little cake hockey pucks. (Steve indulged me by eating one - bless him) When I told my sister they were too tall. She said, "Are you using self -rising cake flour?" *DUH* I remember grabbing a thing of flour and I'd bet my leg on it....that I bought rising flour. STUPID ME!!! Oh well, at least I know the problem for next time round! ~sigh~ Oh, and if anyone needs some mortar for their house...

The upside of not making cookies means, I can't eat them all in one day. (Ok, so maybe it takes me 2 days) I still have BABY WEIGHT that is making it clear to me has no intention of leaving anytime soon. (could it be my diet and lack of exercise?)

It kind of annoys me that because I hide my baby weight well (big roomy shirts!), or because I don't have like 900 pounds of babyweight to lose, that people just think I'm being a pain about it. "Oh Erin, you're so skinny" Well, yes I may look skinny to you - but you can't see the 7 pair of Spankx I have on, or realize that I haven't breathed in the last half hour. I'm still insecure about my baby weight. Whether it's 5 pounds or 50 pounds, I have a right not to like it. Right?




Our Town quote:
"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being."

Spare Change

Sometimes, when I'm up to my armpits in babydom - I stop and tdhink about my crazy life and how much it's changed.

I found my Senior yearbook and it said my goals were to become a Shrink. ha ha! i remember when that's what I wanted. I didn't always know I wanted to be a teacher - it was really one AMAZING teacher that inspired me into the profession. Don't get me wrong, I had a host of English teachers that I loved. My high school Englis teacher was young and hip and tried to make literature applicable to us. A prof I had at IUPUI found out we had a similar love of transcendentalist writers. We've stayed in touch since I took his class in 1999. But when I met Becky - my creative writing teacher - she immediatly nspired something inside me. She believed in my from the getgo and I went out of my way to take every class she taught. I remember the COUNTLESS hours she spent with me helping me diagram Compound-complex sentences. We've stayed in really good contact over the years. She really is the reason I became a teacher. I told myself that if I could impact one person the way she impacted me - I would die content. I had a lot of students that I felt I connected with - but there were a few that I felt I had really touched - and who touched me as well.

I even have one former student who just graduated a week ago with a degree in English Education. She is going to be a fantastic teacher and I couldn't be more proud of her. I was able to have an impact on her life because another teacher had an impact on mine. It's amazing to be a part of that chain.

Now, I have the opportnity to impact someone waaaay more than I did with my students.
That's wicked scary. I constantly feel like I'm failing - yet I want to act like I have it all together - even when no one is around. It's almost like I'm afraid she's going to figure out that I don't know what I'm doing.

I hope someday to go back to teaching - it's just in my blood - too much a part of me to completly leave behind.


~~~WHEW~~~ deep stuff....

Let's lighten it up.... I am in LOVE with the Hillshire Farms commercials. you know - the GO MEAT ones?! I'm like saying that whenever I'm happy. Steve keeps saying "Why are you saying go meat?" So I showed him the commercial online. I would love a shirt that said "Go meat!" Maybe I shall write the HF people and ask them for one. I'd be a walking billboard.

Let's have an OUR TOWN moment..... I was thinking this one whilest picking strawberries from our garden tonight.

"Some people just aren't meant for small town life."

I used to think this...ha ha - one more thing that's changed.

Notes on Notes

Have you ever noticed how certain music just makes you stop in your tracks. There are certain pieces of music that, if I hear....I can barely keep doing what I'm doing.

One - is Ave Maria (which I am listening to right now - the Shubert) which is interesting considering I'm not Catholic. I used to HATE HATE HATE this song as a kid. I would complain to my mom if ever I heard it. THEN I heard Yo Yo Ma play it....and it changed everything.

Speaking of Yo Yo - that bring me to number

Two - Bach's Prélude from Suite No. 1 in G Major for Cello
I don't remember the first time I heard this - but I remember noticing it on an episode of the West Wing when Yo Yo Ma played for a Congressional dinner - he played this and it just brought tears to my eyes. It's quick and light - but so amazing. Yo Yo Ma is seriously the most amazing cellist in the world! Yo Yo Ma Rules! (Ohhhh that would be so cool on a t-shirt!)

Three - Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto - first movement
I remember the first time I heard this tune I was so obsessed with it I sat down at my piano until I could pick it out. It took forever-ever.

There's more that I love....but these are the ones that just enrapture me. And OF COURSE I like other genres as well...in fact - THE song that makes me the most ecstatic is.... "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds. :)

Summertime, and the livin' is easy

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't really like nature.

Don't get me wrong, I mean I'm not saying we should tear down the rainforests or anything - but I don't really care to be outside if i don't have to be. Personally - I lOVE the city. Give me NYC or London ANY day of the week. If I never saw another tree - it wouldn't bother me. When I see the city it affects me like when most people see the mountains. You know how John Denver used to sit in front of a lake or something and sing? That would be me - in front of the Crysler song singing "Downtown."

So - knowing this - why am I LOVING working outside this summer? I begged Steve to show me how to mow on the tractor and use the weed wacker. I've been outside pulling weeds from the front rockbeds almost every other day. I even spent about 3 hours in the Strawberry patch over the last few weekends pulling horrible prickly weeds. ( Scientific name - prickliess planutuss) The Strawberries are really starting to look good and should be "pickable" in a week or two!!! We got 2 pounds last year - I can't wait. There is nothing NOTHING like strawberries from your own garden.

We also planted raspberries, onions, watermelon, green and red peppers, every kind of tomatoes, jalepenos, cayenne, and habenero. :) I hope they work out!!!

I am actually super jazzed about our little garden and hope it works out. Who knew - me - livin' the Green Acres life!

"Darling I love you, but give me Park Avenue"

Next thing you know, I'll be rasinging sheep and chickens!!

Summertime, and the livin

Grovers Corners Here I Come!

OH BABY!!!! Anyone who knows me know I love adore worship obsess over Thornton Wilder's Our Town. It is THE best play ever written (yes even better than Shakespeare - if you believe he wrote them ha ha) I have driven of 100 miles at times just to see this play. I even directed it at my old school. WELL- I just got my sneak peak from IRT and.......the FIRST play they are putting on is OUR TOWN! I said "uh oh" as soon as i opened the flyer. My husband thinking something was wrong - came rushing into the kitchen. Although, there is reason for him to still be concerned. I could drain our bank account seeing that play. It opens in September and I'm going to call my connection over there and see how early and how often I can see it! heee heee

AND

right after Our Town they are putting on a 90 minute rendition of Hamlet. (WHO HO!)

I need to start a countdown until OUR TOWN starts.

"That's what it was like to be alive....to spend and waste time as if it were a million years..."