the april update

Is it just me or is the year starting to pick up pace in terms of sprinting by?  Maybe that's because of these updates (for me) in which it just seems like yesterday I was whining about the difficulties of life in the March update.  As such, I am currently sitting in my office (where else) in shorts and a t-shirt, sweating like a fat girl writing her first love letter.  Thanks for that one Paula Dean.

Maybe April should be the new contender for March's "in like a lion, out like a lamb"?  Just a thought.

I usually like April, not just for it being the prelude to summer but because it is when things start to shift and turn around.  Maybe that's only psychogically but who cares?  It's normally the time of year when you can slough off the winter doldrums and say hello to buds on trees and the brightening of green in the fields so prevalent in this place we call the Midwest.  This year was a little different as there was still snow on the ground two weeks ago and today it hit 88 degrees but that's alright.  If the ends justify the means so be it.  The buds on the trees are finally popping out of the branches though and less by eyes deceive me, the grass is indeed growing rapidly.

I had my first real round of bills this month (compared to last month when everything was split up and awkward.)  First full month of paying rent, utilities, etc. etc.  I came out better than I thought I would and that's never a bad thing, and when I say better I just mean I have $40 more than I had planned on.  The first week or two of living in the apartment was a little unsettling because I kept thinking I was going to hate it.  The cats were never going to calm the hell down, I would be woken up by sounds every night outside, the neighbors would piss me off by being loud.  But no... I hardly if ever hear the people next door or underneath me, the cats have settled into a bit of normalcy (for them) but continue to tip over the water bowl.  I suppose moving from the country where you hardly ever hear anything outside your window and to the city would illicit some sort of response in my subconcious, but it hasn't been bad.  And now it's fine.

But that fat fuck with the motorcycle that comes and goes ALL day long is gonna get it pretty soon.  I'm thinking a broom handle through his spoke would suffice.

I've been painting a lot lately and I forgot how much I enjoy doing that.  I'm working on some new projects that sort-of tie into the lyric paintings I used to do.  Some are my own versions of some great things I've seen through Pinterest and a couple are fantastic quotes that I've been holding on to for a long time.  Slowly they are adorning the walls and the aprtment is becoming cozier than I could have anticipated, and that's worth it.

I've always wanted a painting like this.  My brother has a really neat one in his bedroom in Texas that I fell in love with and I've been obsessed with the idea ever since.  It was a different technique than I'm used to, doing a wash with the colors instead of using a brush (it was an old rag,) but I'm pleased with the result.  Free-handed the branch, and had @klreynol help me with the heights of the jars suspended from the ceiling.  "Helped" as in she stood across the room and I pranced across my dining table screwing things into the ceiling.

This is in my bedroom... I just think there's something special about it.  I hope you know what book it's from; if not, that's on your shoulders.  Just the whimsical/simple nature and the swirls make me smile (c:

Looking back on the duplexes I've lived in they always felt kind of cold.  Sterile.  Almost like they weren't lived in.  I don't think I have Pottery Barn to thank for that, but maybe I do.  Who knows?  I've certainly learned a thing or two about interior decorating since starting there.  At this time last year I had just had my first interview with Courtney and our (former) District Manager Suzanne.  Doesn't seem like it was that long ago.

Aside from all that I'm eating healthier and a bit smarter; I think that was to be expected with moving out and being responsible for buying my own food but it's still a good thing worth mentioning.  Today I blew the rest of my budget on fruit and vegetables.  Don't want to end up with scurvy, obviously.

So what else happened in April?  My ankle got a lot better, I started exercising again, continued flexing my strength at cooking, got kissed by a boy and had it mean something, and overall allowed things to start rolling off my shoulders again instead of holding on to them.  Ain't nothin' wrong with that!

Now I'm going to go and paint, maybe take a shower first, and of course listen to some music.  Fiona Apple has been on a lot lately.  Make sure you check out the blog if I haven't been posting, there might be one or two I decided not to share on Facebook.  I'm very tricky that (c:

Ciao for now kiddos!

my own spring

I want you to imagine your heart as if it were a field.  On any given day that field is just a sort of green grass.  Maybe some of you are picturing some trees, maybe some bushes.  For all I know you could toss in a small lake or even a river running through it.  But please at least picture a field.

In 2011 someone lit a fire in my field.  Like a spark riding the wind, it spread wildly through me and left hardly anything alive in its wake.  Charred earth, whispers of life, but really not much else.  A sky dotted with dark clouds and more often than not a bit of thunder and lighting just to remind me of what had happened.

In 2012 the sky over my field started to clear up a little.  The dark clouds gradually lightened and moved away and, after a few good rains, the charred ground that had once been so ugly started to dissolve and show the naked earth.  For a time it stayed bare.  As the year wore on, grass started to grow again.  Vivid and green it was quickly unkempt and unruly in its nature.  Bending with the wind instead of beneath it and always, continuously, showing it knew it how to stand back up on its own.

In the beginning of 2013 something different happened.  A figure appeared in my field but he wasn't really much of anything more than shadow.  He gradually walked around, setting some sort of objects amidst the grass and occasionally acknowledging the flowers that had so noticeably started dimpling the ground.  I didn't know what the objects were that he was setting down but it didn't really matter at the time.  I liked not asking the hard-hitting questions of him, letting the months go by slowly and surely instead.  Gradually he began to take more of a shape before me.  The green of his eyes made the ground seem to thump and the genuine smile on his lips caused the stars to shine in a brilliant night sky that seemed to fall so suddenly.

It wasn't until tonight that I realized what he was setting down.  In the midst of the grassy field resembling my heart, warm and comfortable with a slight haze rolling above what felt like a meadow of contentment, he quickly struck his hands together.

There was a spark.

For a brief moment I thought that maybe it was happening again.  For a brief instant I thought I had made a mistake, wandering so willingly into something that was going to hurt me again.  That maybe my field was going to get torched and that I would retreat once more to hiding, never willing to return.

But no.

The spark hit the objects he had placed and in a glorious display of light and sound, fireworks jumped into that starry sky.  Exploding in a world of color and energy so brilliant that all sight and sound seemed to melt together.  Fireworks I've been waiting so long for... that I took into my hand and somehow absorbed back into myself.

And then we kissed.

to be bored and thinking

I'm really bored.  SURPRISE!

I didn't mean to write that in caps but I hit it and I guess found it immediately fitting, lol.  I had today off and tried to make it super productive but then that awkward moment came along and sorta stopped me. You know the one: "I've got so much to do, this is crazy!  Where do I start?  Why with a nap of course."  My version of a nap today came in the form of watching "Matilda" on Netflix so... there you have it.  I did get a few things done though; I ran a bunch of errands this morning and then went to the grocery store and loaded up on vegetables because apparently my fridge is never stocked enough for certain individuals.

And I bought some ice-cream.  Deal with it.

After the movie was finished I grabbed a fresh book off the shelf (third new-to-me book since moving out, I'm on a roll!) but my mind has been wandering back and forth a lot lately on a few topics and I needed to just sit down and write some of them out.  Bear with me.

I talk a lot about wanting to change and trying to inspire change in others but sometimes I have to wonder if we ever change at all when it comes to our sheer will.  Can people change?  Certainly.  Do people want to change?  I would assume so, yes.  When do people stop changing?  I can't really answer that if even for myself.  Maybe it stops the day you become so set in your ways so as to not be open to anything else... or maybe it keeps going forever.

Sometimes I look back on things with a certain twinge of regret.  And maybe regret isn't the right word but it popped in my head first so I think I'll leave it.  The right word be more along the lines of it being a twinge of nostalgia.  I was looking at pictures of a former friend and I feeling that small kick of jealousy/anger/happiness/wonder/inspiration that sometimes pops up as well.  I can't help but wonder why I feel that when it has been coming up on a year since we could be considered friends.

Maybe it lies in the fact that things only really change when you decide to look away?

What was that quote, something about looking so longingly upon a door that has closed that you don't see the others that have opened?  Blahblahblah?  It's probably true in most circumstances but in ones such as these I'm not so sure.  It's not like cancelling out one peson in your life leaves room for a dozen more, we can always expand our social circles to accomodate whoever we want and it doesn't take the absence of one to reveal the opportunity for another.  None of this is to say that I miss said person enough to go wandering back, because that door/book/chapter/movie is pretty fucking closed.  It's just interesting to look back.

In regards to things only changing once you've looked away... that is something that's been spinning and revolving pretty constantly in my mind the past few days.  As a personal relationship I have with someone develops into something a little wider reaching and a bit more profound I'm realizing once more what it felt like to be interested in someone so much.  How much I like it and consequently how much I hate it.

I love reading that.  Being single again after such a long time of dating (and a long relationship to boot,) was a great thing.  And I did learn a lot about myself in the interim since then.  If I hadn't learned anything in two years then I would really have to worry about myself, lol.  As that time goes by however, you begin to forget about the many details that occupied your mind-space while you were in a relationship/dating/whatever.  Most of the time they are details I'd rather forget forever and never have to feel again.  But that would mean life is fair and we all know how THAT one goes.

I'm still changing and usually I think it's for the better, but there are brief and often fleeting moments of time that I wish I could be the way I once was.  A little bit more innocent or maybe a little bit nicer.  Teachers in elementary school and all the way through high school used to say how sweet and polite I was but no one really ever says that anymore.  I think I'm still as polite now as I was before but I also think something wonderful called a "personality" has developed since then.  I dunno.  "We are who we choose to be," to quote the Green Goblin.

It's getting to be dinner time now so I suppose I should wander off and start working on that.  It's fun to get back in the kitchen and start experimenting again, that was something I didn't really realize I missed so much.  It's nothing fancy tonight, just a batch of fried rice and chicken stir-fry I found a recipe for on 'ye old Pinterest.  If you need me you can find me chopping onions and flinging shit around in the wok I went and purchased today.

Ciao for now, toodles gang, and all that comes with it.  Til we meet again (c;

the solo life

I never wanted to have a roommate.  That's a fact right there.  Aside from living with someone you love dearly or maybe a family member, the very idea of having a roommate just turned me off.  I'm a selfish person when it comes to my things, I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to decorating... so to share a space with someone who I obviously would have to split things 50/50 just seemed like a poop-poor idea right from the off.  What I'm trying to get at is that moving out on my own was a no-brainer.

It took me a while to do it, admittedly.  After my breakup in 2011 I moved back in with my parents, reneging on a previous statement that I would never move out in the first place if there was a chance I would have to move back in.  That can just get chalked up to love being blind, I suppose.  So I moved home after being on my own for a few months at my duplex in Wrightstown and it was ok for the most part.  I was able to stop hemorrhaging money toward astronomical electric and water bills (largely due to the 90 gallon salt water fish tank that contributed to said bills) and start paying down some of the debt incurred over the prior two years.

Living with my parents had never been a bad thing.  I didn't grow up in a household that imprinted the idea of "Oh my GOD I've got to get out of here as soon as I can!"  I wasn't much of a rule breaker and always respected my parents worries and fears, so adhering to the few rules they had instilled was never a problem.  As I got older those rules obviously fell away (like a curfew) and they turned more into "respect our feelings and we'll respect yours."  So you can see that going back to that wasn't a death sentence by any means, just a sort of "hang your head in shame" moment that my grand plans hadn't worked out like I thought they would.

It sucked at first because that first month and a half or so was spent living out of boxes.  We would be moving to the new house (Parker Manor, as I dubbed it) and there was really no point in unpacking to have to do it again so soon.  The original plan had been to be out of the house maybe by the fall, and then that was pushed back to the spring of 2012.  But things happen and I kicked off the 26 Golden Things project and the amount of money THAT required meant I couldn't afford to move out in conjunction with it.  It was an easy excuse.

I won't go into the FULL story of getting my apartment because it's not very interesting, suffice to say there was a quick one-week turn around between living at home/looking at places to finding one/actually moving into it.  I was looking at moving out like it was a bandaid, and if I didn't do it quick I wouldn't do it at all.  It's easy to stay somewhere cushy rather than move forward toward something unknown (kinda unknown.)  The first week or two weren't wonderful because I wasn't able to get things unpacked and put away as quickly as I am accustomed to.  That all had to do with my ankle hurting like a fool and a tricky little thing called "Wisconsin in spring" i.e. stupid snow and ice storms.

As of now, things are good and I'm mostly unpacked.  The interesting behavior in me is starting to emerge once again (like the things that I do when I live alone.)  I of course won't announce ALL of those things here but they include a lot of talking to myself, talking to the cats, empty threats to the cats for getting on the counter, and of course my OCD at cleaning things.  When you live with your parents and your mom cleans everything for you, these tendencies fall by the waysuide.  But on my own now they snap back into focus and suddenly I can't leave a dish in the sink for more than a few hours or go a couple days without wiping all surfaces down with Clorox wipes.

There are worse things in the world.

It has been great though, after those first couple weeks especially.  As more and more pieces come out of storage and their respective cardboard boxes I start to feel more like I am at home.  I had forgotten about many of the things I had packed away so in a lot of ways it has been exciting to go through my things and be reminded.  I did find a few pictures and letters I had stored for some reason from my previous relationship and instead of panicking and tearing them apart like I had in the past, I just looked at them with a certain fondness and then put them away again.  Maybe that's the sign of someone who has finally let go?  I think so.  And I think it's a good thing, too.  Leaves more room for the next one (c;

I live four miles from work now... which shaves off about 52 minutes roundtrip from what my commute to work had been.  That's never a bad thing.  It's still kind of hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I live in Appleton now and I assume it'll get easier once the weather really starts turning the other way and I am able to venture around without a car or a jacket (especially that last part (that reminds me, I need a bike (preferably a cheaper one (like free.)))

I said I'd start writing more and I mean to do so, I just need to get some roadblocks out of the way first. Do you guys mind the cheapie blogs such as this one?  Because I can write these until I turn blue in the face, I just feel like you're not really getting a meaty story as usual.  Which denotes I write meaty stories and I don't think that's always true, lol.  But until I have some meatier ones... maybe I'll drop a few more of these.  After all, it is my blog and I'm a big girl so I can do what I want.  Wait that's not right.

Until then, I bid you adieu with a song I've been listening to on repeat.  PS, something kinda great might be happening in my life and maybe I'll be able to share that with you soon.  Watch for my owl!