Finally -

- grades in.
I feel like I can put this away now.

at least until August.

to quote one of my school friends -
"thank heavens the semester from hell is over."

One of My Favorites...

I love this episode:

Funny

sorry about the language that needs to be bleeped...

Welcome to the World Little One (again)

It's been a busy week!

Mae Callister
23 April, 2010
('auntie em' for the 18th time!)

Seems Fitting

- the the semester that caused almost daily migraines for a while ended with a migraine yesterday.

But I'm done. I survived.

Thank goodness.

Welcome to the World Little One

Rosalie Jane Anderson
21 April, 2010
('auntie em' for the 17th time!)

The Beauty of Early Morning Hours

I love waking up early. I do. That doesn't mean I actually wake up early. Most the time I going to sleep 'early.' Last night was no exception. I turned off the light at 1:30. This morning, however, was an exception. Especially exceptional for a weekend.

I woke up at 6:30 with zero sleep hangover. In fact, I was so wide awake that I could have been waking up at noon after a long relaxing beautiful night of sleep.

This was not the case.

The case was this.

My smoke detector was going off. Not only was my smoke detector going off, but multiple smoke detectors were going off. There was all sorts of chirping, squawking, squealing, and wailing going on that I was sure the house was going to crumble around me.

It didn't.

I jumped out of bed and ran to the door. Before I opened the door, however, I remembered to check the handle for heat. If there was a blazing inferno outside my room, I wanted to know about it. (grade school fire safety really stayed with me :) Feeling a cool handle, I opened the door and went into the hallway. Not sure if it was early morning hazy, or smoke, I ventured out slowly (somehow forgetting that if there was smoke I would most likely be able to smell it...) keeping Dingo from running ahead. After trying to turn on a light and failing, I walked down toward the kitchen to see if anything was wrong there. Nothing. I went downstairs in time to meet up with my brother-in-law who was coming out to see what was going on.

After courageously staying with me (hovering close behind me, never really next to me) - and me having a few images of 'I Am Legend' running through my head - Dingo ran off somewhere to avoid all the noise. After things were taken care of I found him in my parents bathroom - one of the quieter places available to him at the time. I was kind of surprised he wasn't hiding in their closet, except that it was dark in there and brave beast that he is...

Best we could figure it, the power went off, and since one or two of the smoke detectors had a low or no battery - and since they're all wired into the same system - they started blaring. I wish I had recorded just a bit of the screeching going on. Oh well. You'll just have to imagine it.

So, that was my Sunday morning.

But I wasn't lying. I really do love the early morning.

And I also love the house not being on fire.

now I know why my parents
went to Hawaii this week

I Smell Spring

For the first time this year I smelled freshly mowed grass.
I love the smell of freshly mowed grass.

a fat little sparrow outside my window a few weeks ago

Right now I'm hearing the birds chirp outside my window.
I wish I could have them as background noise all the time.
I don't think I'd ever get sick of their pleasing little chirps.

I Must Have Been Tired

Yesterday I got home around 4:30.
Yesterday I fell asleep around 5:30.
This morning I woke up around 3:30.
This morning I fell asleep around 4:30.
This morning I woke up around 8:30.

You do the math.

I must have been exhausted.

Midnight Fishbowl Cleanings

--no fish were harmed in the making of this post--

image found here

I have this fear that my fish will die when their bowls are dirty.

This doesn't necessarily mean that I keep their bowls really clean.

Quite the contrary.

One reason I love bettas is that they can survive me.

I really feel like I need to give them credit for that.

However, one of my bettas' bowls gets dirty a lot faster than the other one, and he'll start looking lethargic. I feel like if he dies before I clean out the bowl then it's my fault he died.

I also have a small two-gallon aquarium that I put three tetras in. Two black neon tetras, and one black skirt tetra.

This past Friday, the bigger of the neons was at the bottom of the aquarium kind of spazzing around. It was like he (she? it?) wanted to swim, but couldn't. Almost like some kind of seizure. I felt bad because there's really nothing you can do for a dying fish, and I thought about just flushing it to get it out of it's misery. But I don't feel good about flushing a living fish, even if it is spazzing (I just tried to link to a story that I thought my sister put on her blog about flushing a fish, but maybe she never put it there. Either way, she knows who she is... :). Rather than flushing it I decided it would be worth it to clean out the whole tank and put in new treated water. Just in case. I did that sometime between 11:30 and midnight.

Saturday it was sitting at the bottom of the tank with it's mouth moving constantly - open, close, open, close - but nothing else was really moving. Again, I was wondering if I should flush it. Again, I didn't.

Sunday, I checked on the fish. I was looking for it somewhere on the bottom, or on the top (floating belly up), and when my eyes were in the middle of the tank, it swam right past my line of sight. I quickly did a count to make sure it wasn't the small neon, and it wasn't. All three fish were swimming around just fine.

This as-of-yet unnamed fish has earned itself the name of "Easter" or "Miracle." Or maybe perhaps "Easter Miracle." Not sure yet...

Back to the bettas - last night (after I got home at 11:30) I saw that Gilbert (yes, I named my betta Gilbert - and sometimes I call him Gil) was looking pretty lethargic. His bowl was filthy. I couldn't go another day without cleaning out his bowl, so I cleaned it. At midnight. I also cleaned the other one out while I was at it since it really doesn't take that long.

As expected, Gilbert perked right up. I've had him for close to two years I think. Maybe even more than two years. I can't remember when I got him...

I think I do my best fish-habitat cleaning at midnight.
This could be a problem.

Dreams

Night before last I dreamed that I had long hair.
Long.
More than halfway down my back.
I woke up.
My hair wasn't long.
I was disappointed.

My Body Likes it When I Eat Good Things

- and why do I always forget this?

Remember when I said that I was cutting out sugar, white flour, and not eating after 8 pm for a week?

I did it.
Completely.
Didn't cheat once.
My body responded immediately, and very well.

Last week I slipped right back into not eating healthy things. Not that I think you need to eat perfectly 100% of the time, but I was not making fruits/vegetables a priority at all last week.

Bad things happened.
My body responded immediately, and not very well.

It's incredible how what you eat can influence ~so much~ the way you feel.

I need to remember this.

in case you're wondering, yesterday I made it a point to eat healthy foods again. on purpose. already I'm feeling better than I did last week.

Done

I normally don't get nervous over presenting in class (or giving talks in church). I guess I always feel some measure of anxiety, but it's never too bad. Today, before my presentation, I was nervous and felt sick to my stomach. I told my teacher that he had managed to scare me to death over this presentation.

It's over. Finito. Terminado.

I'm so glad.

Based on the feedback I was given, I wasn't half bad either.
Though (nice*) people are never going to tell you 'you stink' to your face...

*and the people in my cohort all qualify as nice

I used this video at the beginning of my presentation:

If I Could Go Back and Do It Over Again...

... I'd have entertainment like this at my first birthday party:

Powerful

click to enlarge