Here’s a Slice of Senioritis

Posted on by Sierra

I legitimately have a list of things to do that is taller than me, and before you insert a short joke here, consider how daunting 5’3″ tall To Do list would look, even if it was written in a big font.

I have A LOT to do. So I scripted my To Do list, which was enjoyably stressful, as always, and I planned on going to the store to start our crock pot dinner, and then start the crock pot dinner and then get started on my 27,000 list of things to do. I was feeling as optimistic as a bright young cherry might if a cherry knew how to feel. I was planning on conquering the world tonight. I saved myself a Dr. Pepper, which I try to only drink now when the world needs conquering.

It looks worse in person, if you’ll believe it.

But you see, I got derailed. First, I had to find out who went home on The Bachelor, and now I think Ben is an idiot. So I had to mourn for a minute about who went home on The Bachelor. And then I thought I should get started on my homework, but instead, I took a nap, watched this Ellen video about fifteen times, got hungry, ate instant soup, tried to start my homework, showed my husband the Ellen clip, took another nap, cuddled with my husband, and then made a Lean Cuisine (which, I don’t even like, and didn’t really eat). This whole procrastination process took six hours. I have become a procrastination expert. 


I am choosing to blame Super-Senioritis, which is what happens to you when you were supposed to graduate a year ago, but then you had to stay even longer, and your brain is so addled that if you ever have to read another poem or critical essay again, you might decide to intentionally run over a trashcan with your car just because you’re horribly fried, and for some reason, that sounds like a good idea, and also use run on sentences because that also sounds like a good idea. That’s what Super-Senioritis does to all your thoughts and sentences that used to be neatly organized inside your brain and out.

I don’t remember having Senioritis this badly before. Certainly not senior year of high school, although admittedly my senior high school teachers were quite obliging; you’d get an A for participation if you said “Bless You” when the teacher sneezed. But in college, I still have 16 grueling credits, all of which would be totally awesome if I had taken them any semester except for this one.

And here’s the thing. My To Do list is still 5’3″ and this blog did little to help (though I think I will count it as a Slice of Life to make myself feel better).  I think it might actually be time to start on my homework.


After I watch that hilarious Ellen video one more time. 

Brace yourselves. It’s world-conquering time.
My poor untouched backpack, casually flung
 and disregarded on the floor

Animal Therapy

Posted on by Sierra

When I was a little girl, I opened the door to go outside and play, and found that my front porch had become the resting ground of a baby bird who had flown the nest much too early. I closed the door and broke into sobs, so devastated by the crumpled wings. Later, when I’d gathered my emotions, I went out to give the baby a birdie burial. But I heard my dad on the other side of the door.
            “Uh oh,” he said to someone, I think my brother. “We better take care of this before Sierra finds it.”
            He knew about my tender nature. He knew that my first love, before I loved writing, or theatre, or movies, or hanging out with friends, I first loved animals. I even wanted to become a vet before I realized that I had no brain for science whatsoever.
            I still think that the very saddest day of my life was the day my dog died. Now, you might say that I haven’t had a very hard life, which might be true, but I tell you that to illustrate that really, I have a deep and profound love for animals.
            The love lay dormant for a few years. Once I got into college, I didn’t have time to think about pets or animals of any sort. But a little over a year ago, my friend asked me to pet/house sit their dog, Sadi, and it was easy to remember why I love dogs so much. I was having a sad day, and Sadi got up onto the couch with me (I assume that was allowed) and very intuitively placed her paw in my open hand. I didn’t ask for it or prompt it. The dog was just a good. And it made my whole day better.
            Our current apartment is not conducive to any sort of critter, and Jeremy doesn’t have paws, but he has found a way to help me through sad days.
Today, I was having a bad day. He sent me this:
            

My Thoughts on “The Bachelor”

Posted on by Sierra

I have learned the secret to happiness, or a secret to happiness, anyways. And while you may not believe me because of the title of this blog, I implore you to hear me out. The secret is: Don’t take life too seriously! I mean it! I know I am not the world champion at this, but I am learning that if you can just learn to laugh about life rather than nosing to the grindstone all the time, life can be a little bit more fun. I mean, if you have to move FHE to Tuesday night, life is still ok. If you don’t finish a reading assignment for a class, you are probably a still good person. You are allowed to have a little fun in life.
Image Source
            This is why I wholeheartedly defend my weekly decision to watch The Bachelor, and I fervently encourage you to do the same. Many “show snobs” will look at this decision with disdain, and I don’t blame them, but I do think they need a change of attitude. It’s like those people who refused to watch Twilight, because they didn’t want to “condescend.” I’m sad to inform you that you missed the most hilarious cinematic moment of 2011 where a pack of poorly animated werewolves huddled in a circle to growl telepathically to one another in English. You also missed the gloriously bad acting of Taylor Lautner as he “imprinted” (whatever that means) on baby Renesme. If the movie had been an hour of these scenes on repeat, my eight dollars would have still been well spent! I loved it! But NOT because I took it seriously.

            It’s the same with The Bachelor. You don’t watch The Bachelor because you believe in the longevity of Ali and Roberto (although, secretly, I did… a little). You watch The Bachelor with the attitude of mocking. You watch The Bachelor because the drama is sublime. You watch The Bachelor because, though there is no telepathy, there is still a lot of wolfish females growling in huddles at each other. You don’t watch The Bachelor with a grain of salt, but a pound of sugar! You watch it to watch the drama implode, and you invariably end up feeling better about yourself afterwards. It’s a total confidence boost. (Plus, it’s a little fun to plot out what your undoubtedly winning strategy would be if you were stupid enough to go on the show yourself.)
            So for all you Show Snobs who are tilting your nose upward at me, I tell you, I feel sorry for you! This season, you’ve missed a schizophrenic blogger talking to herself in a bathroom, a surprise visit from Chantal N. (whom I love), a girl passing out during the rose ceremony, and lots of girl-growl circles.
 Grrrr! Grrrrr!

Also: I’m totally rooting for :

Jennifer and Kaycie B.
What about you??

SOL: And No One Knows, Tiddly Pom, How Cold My Toes, Tiddly Pom, Are Growing

Posted on by Sierra

I am typing (my 100th post!) in gloves. I am letting my hands recover from the cold. They feel like they’ve been holding dry ice for a couple of seconds—literally burned by the cold.
When I was a kid, I was the kind that would hang out in the door wells during recess in the winter. The recess aids, Mrs. Pemperton (whom the students spitefully called Mrs. “Temperton”) specifically, would come and pull me from my safe haven of extra warm, and scoot me back into the cold. I’m still not sure why they made the rule about not hanging out in the door wells. I wasn’t doing any harm… besides maybe a pagan indoor dance or something (not really. I was probably reading a book). 
Anyways. Whenever Mrs. Pemperton escorted me back to the playground, she always added advice to her rebuke. 

“Go run around like a normal kid. It will warm you up!”

15 years later, I am here to debunk this childhood myth, like the ones parents tell you about your bread crust being good for you, etc etc. I can now attest that there are some colds that body heat just cannot compete with. That was the cold of this morning. I know this because I was walking very briskly today and that still didn’t stop my boogers from turning into icicles and my ears becoming hard enough that you could chisel them from the side of my head like a sculpture. That didn’t stop the furious pinking of my cheeks—in fact, it probably only augmented it.(I’ve taken my gloves off now, in case you were wondering) Walking briskly did little, in fact, it was so cold this morning that my joints started to freeze up as I was ascending the RB stairs, and my brisk walk turned more to the pace of a dying praying mantis.
Image Credit 
I’m the kind of person who hates waking up in the morning, not because of the early hour, but because I hate getting out of my igloo of blankets, my carefully constructed heat dome of happiness. But I’d gladly wake up early to beat the dancer kids to the parking spaces outside the RB, if only to stay a little bit warmer-longer on my morning walk to campus.
*Ten Blogger Points if you catch the literary reference in my title. 

This Really Happened

Posted on by Sierra

The elevator in the JFSB opened within 30 seconds of having pushed the button (which never happens, as you English-Languagey people might note, but that is not what really happened). I got on the elevator with a friend of mine, and we were busily discussing our futures that hung in the balance while the English Teaching department was close to announcing whether or not we’d be getting internships.
A man entered the elevator. A kindly man with a warm smile, approachable wrinkles and a plateau of nicely white hair. Also, where a right arm usually hangs, he had a silver hook—a real one, with a little clampy thingy that surely helped him be… dextrous (not a real word, but you know what I mean). But the armlessness seemed almost an afterthought next to his pleasant grin, and I merely pressed the 4 button and watched the door close.
That was when we heard the slightly exasperated gasp of two people on the other side of the elevator, who were trying to beat the doors before they closed them out and sentenced them to the stairs. I, being near the button station, clicked the open door symbol before the elevator began to lift, and the doors opened again with little hesitation.
“Oh! Thank you so much!” said the man, clambering onto the lift and into the back, “I was going to try and stop it myself, but I really didn’t want to lose an arm or something.”
The man with the hook just grinned privately to himself, and made no attempt to cover his missing appendage. 

Slice of Life: Turbulence

Posted on by Sierra

*For my usual readers, you may notice “SOL” placed in some of my blog titles over the semester. This means that they are a “slice of life,” an assignment given my writing class to, make the seemingly mundane moments of life take on a life of their own. It shouldn’t be terribly different from my regular blog posts, so I invite all to read. However, I must warn you about the contents of this specific entry.
Are you ready for this particular slice of life, dear readers?
Here are the quick stats of the last 24 hours:
Hours Slept: Total? You mean, combining all of those little mini-sleeps caught here and there on the way to the bathroom? About 3 composite hours of sleep.
Times I (attempt to quaintly say) Rid My Stomach’s Contents: We lost count after 10.
Hours Spent in the Hospital: 3 1/2
Needles That Went Into My Body: 3, and several to look forward to tomorrow
Times I Cried Like a Little Wussy Girl: Like, 7.
In short, I’ve been throwing myself a right pity party for the last 24 hours because I have had the stomach bug that Lucifer, himself, concocted in his special misery pot, and sent up straight from Hades, just for me.
            And yet, while I have made plenty of time to feel miserable, this nasty experience has also produced one of the most tender moments of my life. It was around 4:00 AM. My stomach was finally starting to settle down, and after hours of escorting me back and forth to my couch (I got too weak to walk around 1:00), after hours of back rubs, and holding my hair back, and grabbing things at my every need, after hours, sleepless hours, I asked Jeremy to go to bed—he had 9:00 AM class. And as I finally felt myself drifting off to sleep, a thankful pull into oblivion from Heaven above, I expected Jeremy to go and do the same. I wantedhim to do the same. But as I opened my eyes in my final moments of consciousness, Jeremy was there. And when I woke up a half an hour later, Jeremy was still there, my ever-vigilant watch dog. He sat in a stiff chair while I took over the couch. I could only make out the dark outline of his body, his exhausted, sleep-deprived body, but I could tell he wasn’t asleep. He was checking on me. Above everything else, he gave me his worry, and honestly, sometimes that’s a nice present. He couldn’t have served me any more, and yet somehow he found a way. He was my knight in shining armor all night, and then some more all day.
Marriage is good like that. Even when you feel like you are in the depths of hell, you can fall in love all over again. I hope everyone marries a husband like mine. 

Sierra Version 2.12

Posted on by Sierra

This semester I find myself “marginally employed,” meaning that since I was a TA, but now have an unmovable class during the class I TA-ed for, I am now a mere Writing Fellow. I’ve never gone into a semester of school without a job. I’ve been able to provide for myself, I think, exceptionally well since I started college, so now I find it a little bit humbling that Jeremy is doing such a good job providing for me.

I admit, I’ve gotten to that place where I am having a college-life crisis: I am realizing just how much work household maintenance requires, and Jeremy and I both agreed that it might be nice this semester if I just focused on school work and keeping the house sane. While some might welcome the break, one of the hallmarks of my character is how hard I push myself. I like to work hard. I love to work hard. And admittedly, I like making money.
But today, as I’m New Years Resolutioning all over the place, I have learned that there is great joy in channelling my hard work energy into being a wife for a little bit. And here are the fruits of my efforts:
 1. I packed away all our Christmas Decorations. We don’t have a lot yet, but I still felt cool wrapping my ornaments in bubble wrap. 

2. I proudly made THIS mess of the kitchen while making a MARTHA STEWART healthy meal. 

 3. I did cutesy crap like the above. I’m a little disgusted with myself for this one, but at least Jeremy will eat tomorrow. Maybe next time I will do it without the heart.
4. Self Explanatory. 
5. This is a picture of an empty laundry machine, which symbolizes the fact that I did three loads of laundry, but didn’t take pictures of it in the process because whoever thought doing the laundry was blog worthy.

6. I organized the CHRISTMAS CANDY. We have two more jars full on the other shelf.

7. I organized the shelves. Top = Dinner Shelf. Middle = Lunch Shelf. Bottom= Dessert Shelf
8. I put all new pictures in our crazy frame. 

9. I accomplished about a third of my before-school starts To Do List.

10. I even wore this.
So the scary thing about all these accomplishments is that I am boring myself (and probably you too) just writing about them. Yet I feel accomplished at the same time. Maybe that’s the life of a housewife? I need to start listening to books on tape for this semester. And then I need to get an awesome job for the summer.
*Fear not. I am now officially scared that my blog has become a Mormon Housewife Blog, and I will henceforth begin the process of… not making it so.

Today I was Grumpy.

Posted on by Sierra
Today was one of those days where, even though nothing is wrong, everything is wrong! Not in a real way, just in a make-believe, I’m sorta grumpy way. My friend Elly put it nicely last night when she said that, Autocorrect is her second most enemy. She then showed me, with pictorial evidence what her first most nemesis was, which was the garbage truck.  I was too tired to ask why, but it did get me thinking today about the things that have been my nemeses today.
They are as follows:
The fact that wearing jackets backwards is no longer socially acceptable, so I have to take off my backpack, set it down, put on my jacket for the three minute walk to the Wilk, pick my heavy backpack back up and put it on, only to repeat the process as soon as I get inside the wilk.
The fact that everyone seemed to have a Jamba Juice or a Panda Express today except for me.

People who bring their boats to campus.
“Rolling in the Deep” by Adele
Vague Teachers
People that are grumpy when I am grumpy
People that are happy when I am grumpy
Reading things that aren’t fun to read, but would be fun to read if they weren’t assigned to me.
The fact that all my cool Colorado-ness that I spent years acquiring seems to deplete because of my new license plates.
People who cough on me when I’m about to go to a niece and nephew hugging place.
People who tell me “It will be ok” even when I don’t want it to be.

Alright, dear readers, my list of first world problems ends here for now. Tell me you have some Nemeses too?
Also, just a reminder to all you other grump frumps out there.

Your Daily Intake of OverShare

Posted on by Sierra

   I know about fiber, so I should have known about fiber. I first heard about fiber and its ills my freshman year of college. Laden with Jamba Juice, courtesy of our Dining Plus Meal Plans, I was enjoying a pleasant walk back to the dorms with Chloe Skidmore.  Our friendship was still a young spring chicken newly hatching—I didn’t know her well, but she trusted me wholly and lovingly enough to stop us dead in our tracks, double over in front of me, and let out a cavernous moan.

 Chloe confided in me—on a streak of nobility, she’d opted for a fiber boost in her Jamba Juice, and its effect was immediate. After several minutes of stomach-clutching, we were able to move forward. But I was forewarned. And I’ve never even been tempted by a Fiber Boost ever in my life. Plus it was a defining moment for mine and Chloe’s friendship—I saw her through her gas, and I liked her still.
However, four years later, I recently found myself the possessor of a package of Fiber One bars. And it looked just like an innocent granola bar should—yellow packaging, chocolate chips, peanut butter, and joy.
 I packed one in my lunch, but got so excited about it that I ate it on my way to school. And the taste was better than any Nutrigrain I’ve ever tasted. It was candy! And I was wild about it.
Several hours later, I started having abdominal pain. I have a lingering fear about a rupturing appendix, so I was fairly sure that was my mere little problem.
If Only, Friends. If Only.
By 1:00 PM, my pain had become severe, but I recognized a variable. Whenever I would… how you say…pass wind… things felt better. Yet, you can obtain no reprieve when you’re sitting in the middle of your relatively silent Modern Literature class. You have two options: Sit and suffer in pain, or sit and allow others to suffer, if you catch my meaning.
But by 3:00 PM, inflicting suffering on others had become involuntary. The fiber had worked its way through my system and was wreaking its havoc.
I told my friend about my plight and she exclaimed, “Fiber Bars! I only eat those around my sisters!”
And then I remembered, with horror, that I had distributed one other fiber bar earlier that morning. My husband was travelling to Chicago for a big time interview for an internship that will basically determine the rest of our lives. In an attempt to show love and support, I had packed a little care package for Jeremy, complete with Fiber One.
Frantically I sent Jeremya text to warn him not to partake! But it was too late. Jeremy had been “Passing Wind” in his interview all day long.
So…we won’t be offended if Jeremy doesn’t get the job. It will have been all my fault.

Better than the Liger, The Golden Retriger

Posted on by Sierra

My husband knows me well. Recently, when I experienced a surprisingly severe strain of anxiety, rather than telling me to calm down, he simply pulled up google and searched for “Cute Pugs.”  This is not something he ever would have done before he met me, so I am grateful for this. This led us to a discussion about our future dog. Now I’ve been flexible in the past, and willing to get any sort of dog minus any sort of dog with curly hair or a whiney face. But we have been mulling over the idea of a golden retriever eventually, and I have say, I’m warming to it.

So when we googled Golden Retrievers, THIS popped up!

Apparently it’s all the rage in China to dye your dog to look like another animal. I think this looks legit! But I have to wonder if this is dog abuse, or dog awesomeifcation.

This however, there is no question:

It’s called the Teenage Mutant Ninja Poodle. 
That poor, poor animal. But a Golden Retriger…. That could work for me.