A story to make you go "Awwwwwww"

There, I was: Fifth grade Jessica. I had been selected from my elementary school to represent the entire fifth grade at the local storytelling festival.

My book: The Rainbow Fish -- "A long way out, in the deep blue sea, there lived a fish. Not just an ordinary fish, but the most beautiful fish in the entire ocean." (Ahem. I didn't even have to Google that ish .. I still remember it.)


So I had been selected. On the day of the festival, I dressed in my flowered, gauzy blue dress, and arrived to the conference center, and received a kelly green ribbon proudly displaying the word "Storyteller" in embossed gold. I pinned the ribbon to my chest -- nervous, but proud.

To take my mind off my nerves, I sat with some of my classmates who had came for the performances, and watched the other chosen children weave their memorized tales together.

I don't remember any of the performances, except for one boy. He was dressed in a polo shirt, and he wore a hat on stage. He recited "The True Story of The Three Little Pigs." His performance was marked not just by good storytelling, but he literally became every character. He would flip his hat around, the brim facing in different directions, for every character in the story. And his voice changed too!

This boy was the coolest. He was the epitome of story telling. I felt both greatly entertained and simultaneously terrified -- my turn was coming soon, and I had no hat to spin or character voices.

But I got up on stage, and I performed. It wasn't as fantastic as that brown-haired boy's, but it worked.

Fast foward a decade or so later, and I'm 18, and sitting at my new boyfriend, Kelly's house. (Spoiler alert: that's my husband.) We are rifling through his school papers and old photos, laughing over his aviator glasses and awkward '90's fashion.

Then I see a familiar program: Storytelling Festival 1997 -- the same year I told "The Rainbow Fish."

"Did you go see the Storytelling Festival," I ask with a laugh, "I have this same program. I'll show you my name."
"I told a story!" he exclaimed. "I thought I was so cool. I told the 'True Story of the Three Little Pigs' and I had this hat that I spun around for each character. It was great."

COMPLETELY TRUE STORY.

Babies!

I went over to my dear friend Danielle's house last night for a little game night double date, plus, I wanted to see her little one -- a three-month old girl named Belle. I've seen her pictures on Facebook, and for some reason, I look at that kid's perfectly shaped head and think: "I WANT ONE!"

I was a bit nervous to go to their house, because I was worried that Belle's cuteness would leave me wanting nothing more than to have babies myself. I'd like to not cause myself unnecessary heartache, seeing as this may just be the worst time ever to be pining for le babies because of school, work, finances and blah blah blah life plan blah blah blah.

Weellll, that didn't happen.

I walk in and am like "GIVE ME YOUR BABY!" So, naturally, Danielle hands over the little lady, and of course, the adorable little thing starts crying. and CRYING. and CRYING.

And this basically sums up my feelings at the time:

I've unrealistically thought in the past that  I was somewhat of a baby whisperer. OK, not really, but I remember my nephew Christian really liking me a lot -- that was FOUR years ago -- and I was the only person that he would stay still for to cut his nails. So, naturally, I think I am a baby guru.

Four years is a long time, and every ounce of baby knowledge is pushed out of the window once little Belle looks up at me with the "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?" eyes. And then she starts crying. And I'm thinking, "How old is this baby? Can she hold her head up? Should I hold her head up? Oh, no, she's still crying. Aaaand, here you can have her back now."

So. Lesson learned. I think I can still wait a few more years for the kids. If I ever forget again, I'll just find the nearest three-month-old and hold it until it cries.

My rant about women who aren't even real

Maybe I just need to read different sorts of books, but I have noticed a character flaw in several books I've read recently that just irks me.

If I have to read another paragraph about a main female character that is having trouble walking in heels, I may give up reading books forever.

It seems that many of the books I have read lately classify females characters as 'awkward,' 'shy,' 'clumsy,' 'boyish,' etc. The Twilight books are a perfect example of this, and are so over-analyzed, if you don't make this connection with those books, just google it.

I read a free book from Kindle the other day called "Here Have a Husband." It wasn't the worst book I've read, but I definitely wouldn't have paid money for it. It was overall kind of a guilty pleasure read, but the main character, an "independent woman," was stifled by high heels and ball gowns, and felt it awkward to be dressed up and feminine-looking.

Now, I started reading Hunger Games, which ironically enough, I thought the main character was a male for most of the first chapter. She was identically the same, she had this tomboy streak of hunting, so naturally, when she was sent to the Hunger Games, she wobbled around on heels and was taken back by her fancy dress.

Why do authors create these similar female characters -- they are strong, they are independent -- but they lack femininity? Perhaps this makes her more easy to relate to, compared to a woman who can hunt her own meal, and strut around in heels like a boss?

I wouldn't consider myself to overtly feminine, but dammit, I know how to put makeup on like a decent human, and I can wear high heels. I see plenty of other normal women do it every day. Why can't we read more books about actual normal women?

Resolution

When I look back on 2011, I should remember it as the year I got a new job and started graduate school! Instead, I will remember it as the year we became really poor and I became OK with it. 

In the latter half of 2010, I was somewhat angsty about our financial conditions. I was kind of angry, kind of stressed, and kind of feeling trapped in my current situations. So I decided to go back to school, to make myself the most appealing-looking journalism prospect the world has ever seen. And then, I decided to apply for a job at the Tribune and now here I am. Still poor, but at least the ends are meeting, or they aren't so distant from one another.

But, one of the biggest lessons that I learned in 2011 was that there is no sense being stressed over something you can't control. And to not try to control everything. I needed to learn that it was not my job to get Kelly get a job. I needed to learn to give up life's luxuries, and really be OK with that. I needed to learn that even though I took home a paycheck, it doesn't entitle me to anything more than the other person in my family. 

But, now, it is nearly 2012, and we are armed with all the right things. I feel good about my employment. I feel good about continuing school. Kelly is licensed and searching for jobs. He is also finishing up school, and earning his bachelor's. 

So we made the resolution in 2012 to work on getting out of debt and managing money better. (But student loans/house doesn't count.) Since I hope to God that 2012 will inevitable bring Kelly a higher paying job than I have, we can really aggressively target the credit cards, the little loans we've had to borrow from family, and pay off my car. Hopefully that won't take too long (we don't really have that much debt, but it will be a relieving feeling) and then we can focus on building our savings so that we can buy a second car, (the green machine finally died) add the concrete porch to our yard that we dug out last year, and maybe even go on a vacation. 

I can just feel it -- 2012 is going to be a better, brighter year for the Millers!

So you're telling me I eat a lot

A couple of my coworkers have approached me lately and asked how it is that they always walk past my desk and see me eating all day long, but I manage to stay so slim. How do I do it?

Of course, they believe they are complimenting me on my figure. But, my ears hear, "YOU EAT SO MUCH." Because, I have to be honest, I'm kind of self-conscious about my eating habits. I am not a snacker out of boredom, or anything like that, (at least not at work anyway) I genuinely get hungry every two to three hours. If I eat breakfast before I get on the train, I have to snack before lunch, then eat lunch, then eat an afternoon snack. Then I am super hungry by the time I come home. 

And I sit at my desk, eating all this food, and internally wondering, "Does anyone here notice that I eat all the time?"

YUP. THEY DO. And then I'm embarrassed because they called me out for eating constantly, that I just murmer some crap about how I go to the gym and eat a lot of fruits and nuts. Those are all true things, so I guess  it's not so bad, but I wonder if the key to me being able to eat so much is that I am in the habit of eating so much. Like, my body finds no need to store all the food I just ate, because I'm just going to eat more again soon! Probably not. I don't share that theory with others. But it's worked for me so far.

Downside of no cable

Living without cable has made me pretty happy with life, as mentioned here.

But I have come to realize at least one downfall of relying on Kelly's XBox for television entertainment:

I have to rely on an XBox for entertainment. So Kelly wants to play video games? I have to read or clean or do some other kind of crap that isn't watching television. I guess I could watch stuff on my laptop, but 99 percent of the time, I will watch on my laptop in the bed and end up falling asleep not long after the opening credits roll.

Yesterday, Kelly went to go to a friend's house to play video games. I was a little excited about this, because it meant I could continue my Mad Men marathon watching and finish wrapping my Christmas gifts in peace and no snoopy eyes. However, the downfall is that for some non-incriminating reason *cough, cough* we can only stream Netflix (where Mad Men lives!) on the XBox, not the Playstation 3. (There's only so many devices you can have logged into Netflix on one account)

But we do have the HuluPlus, so I can watch that on the PS3. 

Conversation last night:

Kelly: "I am going to take my hard drive for the Xbox. So it will still be here, but you can't watch Netflix."

Me: "WHAT."

Kelly: "Yeah, sorry you will have to watch another show on Hulu."

Me: "I don't WANT to watch another show. I want to watch Don Draper have sex with random women and drinking all day long."

Alas, he won out, and I spent the night watching the latest Desperate Housewives. Which the cliffhanger on the last episode (WILL BRE KILL HERSELF??!!) actually made me mildly interested in the show again.

Wait! Is that a light I see?

Biggest news of our current lives, people.

NO. NO BABIES.





























KELLY PASSED HIS NURSING BOARDS!! hgdigh;rieoh]ieojg'w yaycelebrationtime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This not only means that my love can begin working and perhaps we will live above the poverty line (SWEET!) but more importantly, that he can finally work in the field that he has worked the last 5-6 years of his life to get into.

Oh, and I failed to mention this, but he had been working at a local grocery store, where my brother works because things were getting terribly tight around these parts. So, now, he gets the satisfaction of quitting a job stocking shelves so he can go save lives. (Or something like that.)

Last night, after I had gone to bed, Kelly comes into our room:

Kelly: "Jess, wake up. Come here, I want to show you something."
Me: "grumbleygrumblegrumble, NO I AM SLEEPING"
Kelly: "Seriously, I want to show you something, you have to come see."
Me: "FINE. But if this is one of those stupid videos with the scary lady that jumps out at you, I'm going to be pissed."

So I hobble my sleepy self from bed, rub my eyes, and look at the computer screen.

KELLY MILLER -- STATUS -- ACTIVE NURSE

And then I woke up, and literally jumped up and down. And hugged him. Then went back to sleep.

So, I guess, technically, he hasn't got the letter declaring his boards passing. So I could just delete this post eventually. But it would seem damn near impossible for him to be considered an active RN and not pass the boards.

So, drinks are on me tonight (ha! the Internet is a funny place where you can promise things like that, and never actually do it.) But we're celebrating!!