Mixed Holidays

A couple of days ago it was really cold. It was one of those crisp cold days, with a brilliant blue sky. I was in the study working on the computer and I smelled the sweet scent of orchids lingering in the air as my husband gently typed on his computer. The combination of the cold air, my husband being home, and the scent of the orchid all felt like Christmas! I felt the need to sing the song from the Muppet's Christmas Carol "It Feels Like Christmas" for pretty much the rest of the day, and my husband joined in as well. I tried watching Halloween movies. I tried thinking about Halloween, but no matter what I did I could not shake the Christmas feeling. To make matters worse, my husband thought it would be fun to make some cinnamon rolls. Every Christmas morning growing up his family would have homemade cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate for Christmas breakfast. It's a tradition we have tried to incorporate in our own marriage, which is kind of hard because my family would always have bread and gravy every Christmas morning. We have tried to switch meals each year, or have even tried having one on the day before and one on the day of. We'll figure it out one of these days. We made the cinnamon rolls and they were so good! However, by the time they were done baking it had warmed up considerably in our house and didn't feel so much like Christmas anymore.

In an effort to make sure I stayed focused on the current holiday, I decided to put together a Halloween puzzle. I bought the puzzle a number of years ago for my mom on her birthday, but she was never able to get around to putting it together (and I don't know if she's much of a puzzle lover anyway). It is the coolest Halloween puzzle I have seen and that's the reason I got it for her. She loved Halloween, so I thought it would be great. She liked the gift, but since she wasn't able to put it together she gave it to me a few weeks ago in the hopes that I would be able to.

The puzzle is 765 pieces and it is shaped like a witch. After the cinnamon rolls were completed, I decided to pull it out and work on it. I figured I had a about a week before Halloween, so I should have been able to get it done. I think I worked on it for about 30 minutes before I had to do something else, so I ended up putting it back in the box without ever really getting to work on it. Two days ago I took it back out and worked on it again. This time, I completed it. Here is the finished result.

The Witch Halloween Puzzle - My husband cut out a piece of foam board before I started the puzzle, and when it was done I put Mod Podge all over it (a couple of layers) to glue it all together so it wouldn't fall apart.

Detail of the puzzle

It was fun putting it together and it definitely got me back in the spirit of Halloween. I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween!!

Unknowingly Busy

This past week we have been busy getting the house straightened up and finished decorating (my mom gave me some more Halloween decorations) in preparation of James' little brother coming to spend the weekend with us. It's been pretty fun so far. We picked up Little Z around 11am and since then we have watched the Mummy, the Mummy Returns, and now the Hulk (the second one that was much better).

We are also getting ready for a little get together that we are having tonight. We made pumpkin cake pops (cake pops in the shape of little pumpkins - pictures to be posted later), jello salad in the shape of a brain (it's SO cool), and now we are going to go and order sandwiches and have a good time tonight. I love this time of year!! Hope you all have a good Saturday night! :)

So Fragile

We humans. We are so fragile, so frail. We have so many emotions that it's hard to tell them apart sometimes. Don't you think we beat ourselves up enough?

You all know by now that I am into music. It's hard for me to go a day without listening to some kind, and lately I've been poking around the internet looking for new music...well, at least new to me. There are so many things I have never heard of before and what usually happens is I find a song that hits just the right note, just the right spot and it causes me to close my eyes and just breathe it in. I put it on repeat and then I turn the volume up or down, according to the part of the song. The bridge is almost always turned up as loud as I can possibly get it, without getting into trouble from my neighbors or my husband. They just don't understand the need for me to absorb every note, every orchestration, every pause...

Music has a way of evoking so much emotion from me, and the type of emotion is truly dependent on two things 1. My mood and 2. The type of song. Right now I am listening to a piece that leaves me breathless. The song is an instrumental one, but I know the words to it, and that makes it even better. The lyrics touch my spirit causing a soft smile to come to my face.

More often than not, music can make me cry. I'm not afraid to admit that either, though you wouldn't know it from seeing me listen to music. I save my strongest emotions for when I am alone. And that can be really difficult sometimes. I think there are two primary reasons why some music can make me cry. It's either because it is a song that the singer sings with such emotion that I can feel it to my very bones, or because the music is so beautiful that it makes me feel guilty. That last one is kind of weird, huh? But it brings me to the beginning of this entry. I beat myself up a lot, and I exhaust myself. My dad has always said "You are your own worst critic." and it's entirely true. I tend to be my own worst critic about every. little. thing.

So when I listen to music sometimes, it makes me feel guilty and then I have to take a moment and think about what it is I feel so guilty about. I could list them all here, but I don't want to. I already think about them on a constant basis, and if by some small miracle I tend to forget them, I don't want to be reminded of them by re-reading this post some day in the future. I'm ok, don't get me wrong. I just think that sometimes we humans put so much pressure on ourselves to be practically perfect in every way, and it almost always results in feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and sadness. Why do we continue to do that to ourselves, and more importantly, how do we stop it? How do we see ourselves the way others see us? I would love to be able to see myself from my husband's point of view.

Perhaps that is something you can all think about. Take it with you and ponder it when you hear a song that takes you back to a time you had hoped to forget, or a song that makes you put your head in your hands and cry. There is music out there that can uplift you and people out there who can do the same. Eventually the music fades, the feelings die down, the memories leave, and you feel empty. But soon another song begins that makes us relive another time in another place, so we don't feel so alone.

Letting Myself Be

I try not to get caught up in my current troubles, because I know it can only result in sadness, heartache, and frustration. But sometimes I let myself be sad, I let myself taste the heartache in the hope of finding some sort of understanding.

When I go through tough things, complicated things, troubling things, I internalize at first. I take it all in and think. I think about how it happened and where it started. I think about what could have gone better or what I could have done to prevent it. At first there are plenty of tears, millions of times where I shake my head in misunderstanding, thousands of sighs, hundreds of eyerolls, and quite often a red mark right above my right eyebrow where I keep rubbing my head over and over again. I don't know why I do that.

After I internalize I tend to talk it out with one of two people who know me so intimately, and I know they would never judge me but listen and honestly try their best to help me come to terms with whatever it is I am going through. One of those two people is my dear, sweet husband. He is the best friend I have ever had, the only person who holds my entire heart in his hands, the person I do not ever want to be away from, and my first, and only, true love. James listens. He holds me. He helps me feel better. I quite often become overwhelmed with emotions when I speak of him. He means so much to me.

After I get everything out, I then proceed to continue talking. In fact, sometimes I make myself sick and tired of my own voice and thoughts and try exceptionally hard to focus my attention on something, anything, else to calm the storm of anxiety, frustration, and stress inside me. It's much harder than you would think.

I know it seems like I talk about my issues a lot, and I do apologize for that. I would hate to think that I lose readers because I'm too fixated on something that is not very uplifting. When I go through tough times I can almost always come up with a solution, and then I set my sights toward the day when I am done going through it. When it's over I can most often look back and see the things I needed to learn from it, and then prepare myself better for the next time. The difference with this one is that I can't seem to find an answer. I can't set my sights on the day when this is over because I can't see it.

I heard a story once about a kid who had to run miles in PE when he was in middle school. He hated running miles. Laps were one of the most boring things to him, and if truth be told, he wasn't that good at it anyway. All the other kids in the class would run past him, seemingly becoming faster and faster while he became farther and farther behind. He had a system he used to get him through this torturous time and complete the task he was given. He would run the straight sections of the track field and walk the rounded sections on the ends. Instead of focusing on how many laps he had left, or how many kids had passed him, or how long he was taking to run he would focus on the section that he was on and only focus on that. He would pick out a pebble and tell himself that he would just make it to that point and then he would rest, and when he came to the pebble he would pick out another one farther off and do the same thing. His theory was that if he focused on the here and now he could get through; if he did it bit by bit he would ultimately finish the mile. He did this every week. He always got passed by others, he often got made fun of for being so slow, and he was always the last person to finish.

I don't know how many laps I've run. I don't know how much farther I have to go before I finish this mile. I can't tell, sometimes, if I am on the straight section or the rounded one so I don't know whether to run or walk. Sometimes I can't see a pebble with which to say "just get to that spot and then you can rest", so I keep going thinking that maybe one will come up. I keep going hoping to find out where I am. I keep going.

This is one of the hardest things I have had to deal with, and I think the reason why I feel that way is because I feel like everything has changed. I'm not myself anymore, or at least I don't feel like myself. It's been almost a year since I had to resign from a position that I really enjoyed. I miss the interaction, the work, the camaraderie, and the fun we had. I miss being able to do things that I used to do before. I miss singing. There is a crack in my soul where my song used to be. I keep trying to heal it, to repair it, but nothing is working. It may never heal properly. For now, I have a borrowed song, one that is not mine and does not feel familiar on my tongue. I keep hoping my voice will come back, but a part of me is trying to resign itself to the fact that it may never. Isn't that just sad? Someday, when we are all in heaven, listen for my voice. I won't stop singing. I won't.

I think for today I'm just letting myself be heard. Thanks for reading.

A Fear Relived

A few days ago my husband and I went on a bike ride. It was late morning and the weather was perfect so he got the bikes, I got the helmets, and we were on our way. There is a nice, scenic trail next to our house that we decided to go on. We grabbed the camera in the hopes of taking some pictures of fall and the changing trees.

All seemed to be going well as we hopped on our bikes and headed down the path. The cool breeze blowing through my hair, and the quietness of the ride made me smile and think of why I didn't ride my bike during that time of day every day. I began to notice some little insects fluttering away as we rode by them. As the bike ride continued, I started to really pay attention to those insects, and realized that they were getting bigger and bigger. It was only after we had been riding for about five minutes did I really comprehend what they were.

Grasshoppers.

Lots of them.

Big ones.

And they were getting bigger.

Once I recognized what the insects were, I began to panic a bit. You see, I had a really bad experience with grasshoppers when I was a kid. I had asked my mom if I could ride my bike around the block. She said I could, so I jumped on and began riding around. I didn't expect to be gone for very long. It was just around the block after all. About halfway around I noticed a dirt road that seemed to go on for miles. I remembered riding past that spot on numerous occassions, and never once had I seen that trail before. I decided I had some time so I would ride down it to see what I could see. I felt like an explorer who finds new land for the first time. It was thrilling!

That thrill was short lived, however, as not more than five minutes down the trail grasshoppers began jumping all over the place. Within seconds I had them all over me. It was a struggle to bat them away, maintain balance on my bike, and not crash. I kept riding thinking I must have just ridden into a small patch of them, but my thoughts were so completely wrong. They kept coming. More and more of them. I couldn't fight it. At one point I looked over my shoulder to try and turn around and came face to face with one of the largest grasshoppers I had ever seen. I screamed bloody murder, and I swear for a split second the grasshopper screamed too. I threw my bike down right where it was and ran back down the trail, back around the block, and straight back home. I was a complete mess when I got home. Dirty, shaking, crying. It was horrific. I managed to explain to my mom what happened and she had one of my brothers go get the bike and bring it back home. Looking back now I can imagine my mom telling my dad what happened to me that day and both of them quietly chuckling about it. I'm not sure if that's actually what they did or not, but I can imagine it.

Since that day I have been freaked out by grasshoppers, so the bike ride my husband and I were on was fast becoming a fear relived. Suddenly the "grasshopper trail" was becoming real again and I did not like where it was headed. I called to my husband that there were a lot of grasshoppers and he tried to scare them away as he rode in front so they would be gone while I rode behind him. That didn't really work as planned because he kept riding into the grass on the side of the trail and that just made more and more of them come out. It was terrifying!

The path winds down behind a middle and an elementary school (both right next to each other) and I realized there were a lot of kids on the playground for lunch time. We thought the trail would be better there, but found out that it wasn't. The grasshoppers just kept getting bigger and seemed to multiply. My screams could be heard by all within a five mile radius, but I tried so hard to stiffle them. It just wasn't working. Finally, through giggles of his own, my husband decided we should stick to the roads and sidewalks in the neighborhood rather than take the trail.

I'm happy to report that once we got onto the road and rode our bikes through the neighborhood, all was well. We had a nice lengthy bike ride and then stopped to take pictures at a little park we found, only to find out that we forgot to grab the memory card. I will still go on bike rides, but have learned that taking the trails during the fall is probably not the best of ideas for someone like me who has a fear of grasshoppers.

Thanks for the Memories

The other day, for some random reason that I can't quite remember, my husband and I were talking about Trapper Keepers. How many of you remember them? How many of you actually used them? I remember being so envious of those kids who had them, and wished so badly that I could get one, but they were insanely expensive and we just didn't have the money for that sort of luxury.

Trapper Keepers were so cool and so organized! They had a three ring binder to hold your Trapper Keeper folders, and a pad of paper fastened to a small clip on the back. It was all held together by a vinyl covered folder that closed using velcro. Totally bodacious!!

I also remember having a tin lunch box. They were so fantastic! My oldest sister had a Rose-Petal Place lunch box.

My other older sister had a Gremlin lunch box that she just loved. On one side was Gizmo in a car with the scary Gremlin lurking around in the back, and the other side was just Gizmo with his owner.

I had a Care Bears lunch box. It was pretty cool.

When I was in grade school (or elementary school) I carried this to school every day. After I was done eating my lunch, I would go out to the playground. We weren't allowed to have our lunch boxes on the actual playground, so we had to put them next to the fence that everyone had to line up at to go back to class. I grew up in Southern California where there really was no such thing as an inside school. Everything was outside, except for the classes of course. So once we walked out of the cafeteria we were outside and we had to walk this strip of asphalt to get to the playground. The rage during that time was to slide your lunch box all the way across the strip of asphalt from the cafeteria and land it right next to the fence. It was the cool thing to do. So I joined in, and let me tell you, I used to make that thing SPARK! It was so awesome to see my lunch box sliding down the ground, sparks flying, and slam into the fence. It never broke. it was one of the good lunch boxes. It was one of my favorite things to do. It did get quite scuffed up, but it was worth it.

I love thinking about things like this from the past. What sort of memories do you have from your childhood?

Autumn

The sun shines down from an azure sky

as colors sweep through the earth

on wings of wind and light.

© James Loveday 2010 - No reproductions or copying

Breaking free, they twist and turn

to escape their solid home

and oh, so proudly take flight.

© James Loveday 2010 - No reproductions or copying

Summer's blaze has ended now.

A cool breeze is ushered in

by the golden leaves of fall.

© James Loveday 2010 - No reproductions or copying

Tapping across the ground

they express their joy

in a dance put on for all.

© James Loveday 2010 - No reproductions or copying

They slow down only for

a minute before rushing

once more out of sight

© James Loveday 2010 - No reproductions or copying

leaving behind the echoes

of their joyful retreat

lingering throughout the night.

© Crystal Loveday 2010

Bad Hair Days

Sometimes, I have bad hair days. When that happens I feel the need to express my sadness in song, and this is the song I always sing.

Most people don't remember this show, but my sister and I used to watch it and we loved it. When I sing this song now nobody knows where it came from and they think I made it up myself. I wish I would have though. It's awesome.

This One's For Jane

Dear Jane:

Thank you so much for checking in on me. I appreciate that more than you know. Even though we have never met and you are on the other side of the country from me, it still brings a smile to my face when I see your comments and inquiries on my behalf. Thank you for thinking of me. :) Now, let me explain what has been going on.

Oh, what a whirlwind life has been lately! You know, let me stop right there and take a minute to really think about that last word lately. My life has been a whirlwind for the past couple of years, so I don't know why I'm so fixated on saying lately. But I have been especially busy these past few weeks, which explains my lack of posting. Sadly enough it hasn't been busy with things that I would consider even remotely interesting enough to share via blog post, so I haven't posted anything. I'm sorry about that. I know you've been worried, and I will try to be better.

I have high hopes for October and through to the rest of the year. I love this time of year and I am especially excited about Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Be prepared for plenty of posts about all sorts of fun and intriguing stuff (I hope you celebrate - and like - the holidays. Otherwise they might not be that exciting for you! :) )

I thought about you this morning as I was driving down the road. It was early; really early and I'm not going to bore you with the details of why I was up that early in the first place. Anyway, I was thinking about your comments as I glanced out the car window and saw something truly breathtaking. The sun was started to poke out of the horizon and the first few bright rays were splashed across the mountains, casting a pinking-orange glow that could only be described as mesmerizing. I thought about pulling over and taking a few minutes to truly appreciate the magic I was witnessing, but I was on the freeway, so it wasn't possible for me. However, I did keep stealing glances as the sun continued to rise higher in the sky, and then I would quickly look over to the mountains to see what new colors I would find. I made myself a little dizzy, but it was totally worth it.

Have you seen a sunrise in New Jersey? What does it look like? I like sunrises and am sad to admit that I have not seen too many of them in my life. I have seen quite a few sunsets, and living in Colorado they are simply beautiful. Here is a picture my husband took of one. I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you, again, for posting a comment on my blog and providing a gentle reminder that there are more people out there who read my blog than I think there are, and I need to post more stuff. Thanks for being a friend. I hope you look forward to more posts, so definitely keep reading. And if I go a long time between posts again, feel free to send me another reminder...only this time you certainly don't have to be so gentle if you don't want to be. :):) Take care!

Crystal