Where is the rewind button?

I so wish life had a rewind button. There are many things i'd undo, but right now,  I'd love to 'undo' my whole day. My day started out with a car accident, totaling my car, and really hasn't gotten much better. Just when I think I am about to have life sorted out, it seems like disaster strikes and I'm back and square one. At the same time, I have plenty I really need to remember to be grateful for - to not take for granted. My cousin has been in the hospital, in a coma for perhapse a week now. We have all been praying in our own ways. And today did not bring good news. What is truly hard is to read the updates posted by his children. They are in their early twenties and their lives are on standby, undergoing the awful waiting, waiting for news that very well could be bad. I can't imagine loosing my dad at that age. I wish them all the love and strength I could offer. I may have had a huge setback myself today, and I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to climb back up out of this slide down the hill, but I am so lucky to have the people around me, wonderful family who will hugs, and encouraging, a shoulder to cry on, and even a ride when I'm desperate. And I wouldn't trade that for any rewind button...

Art and Stuff

So I've had art on the brain lately, nice change from all the math (math nightmares suck, believe me!) I decided to try to sell some of my older clay stuff that has been sitting around in boxes so I made an etsy site: www.etsy.com/shop/maevinwren. Of course that makes me want to make new things - after I've already packed most of my art supplies. Guh.

One of the most defining attributes of a true artist is not talent...its passion! A need to create art. Its an essential part of their being. How do I know this? Sadly not from experience so much as from knowing truly impressive artists. I may have been gifted some measure of talent, but I lack the driving passion that makes great artists great. Good thing I can do math! ^^ Occasionally though I do go into art mode and suddenly have the need to create something - anything really. This need isn't just satisfied with painting - usually I turn to clay or jewelry supplies, or cloth. Something other then a work of 'fine art' that will be tossed in a closet or hung someone out of the way on my already cramped walls. I think that is what in part discourages me about art. Its only purpose is to be art - which is not so much something to complain about, but with my limited time and space, I tend to make things I can use, gift, or sell. I suppose I could gift/sell paintings, but that really is quite the tricky adventure in itself. Well unless you are painting pretty pictures of faeries or children. (no disrespect intended for painters of faeries and children!) But sadly the purchasing of paintings usually is determined based on what matches the couch, not what ideas or messages the work is trying to convey.

And so I fall back on my pretty clay glasses and boxes and jewelry. They are fun and cathartic to create, if a bet repetitive and non-challenging. Speaking of claywork - I have been lax in renewing websites, and so lost most of my domains. I haven't touched the sites in well over a year, but it turns out you don't appreciate what you have until its gone. I really want the maevinwren site back. The domain name is up, but for some reason my host doesn't have access to purchasing it. Weird. I could buy it through another host, then transfer it, but that would cost extra. Bla. So I contacted doteasy (my host) and asked if there was a way for them to get it. We'll see what happens. Luckly there is not so much of line waiting to snap up the name "maevinwren".

And another art thought - I was meandering about the internet when the sudden thought to look up my old art teacher from Reedley popped into my head. Yay found her, she even has a nifty site with some really nice work displayed. And she is on blogger too - so I 'followed' her. Wonder where she is and what she is up to. Neither website nor class blog mentions a location nor institution. Ah well, I'll endeavor not to pester her overly much - just see if she posts new class information for the fall semester =).

Back to websites. I do have one left, recently purchased for the purpose of my resume. Perhaps i'll move all my art sites to it. I was previously using flickr to host my images and then embed slideshows. But I sorta don't feel like paying for their services. (I'm cheap ><) I can either limit my number of portfolio images to 200, or go looking for another service that is as well organized. I wonder if I can embed as nifty of slide show with picassawebs. I'll have to go look. And I suppose I should go put some effort into my one remaining webpage. *Sigh* Or I could play WoW with mom. Decisions, decisions...

Yaay full day off

Woke up early (7:30), puttered around the internet, then went back to sleep around 10 for a few hours. Jen was coming to town around 3, figured we could do lunch. Woke at 2, had a wonderful long kinda cold shower. Nice to be able to take your time, instead of rushing because you are late for work.

I have tons of body lotion sitting about - especially the little trial bottles from bath and bodyworks. I decided to work on using one of those, Black Cherry Current or something like that. I always remember that I don't like it for some reason, but then months later I pick it up, smell it and ask "whats wrong with it? Smells lovely!" Then I put it on. It smells good for maybe 5-10 mins, but as soon as I sweat even a tiny bit and it mixes with my body chemistry the scent changes. I've long known that scents do that, change with body chemistry, but this is the first one for which its been such a noticeable change, and for the worse. Instead of being a rich dark slightly incense-y smell with a hint of sweet cherry, it starts to stink like cheap old lady drugstore perfume. That's the only way I can think to describe it. Or maybe kinda like the smell of bunch of magazines all with different perfume samples in them mixed together. Anyways, its not particularly pleasant. I seem to work best with vanilla scents, best stick with those.

Lunch was really good today, the curry was nice and strong. Jen didn't feel like soup so I had the whole half order to myself = too much food. Ah well, that just means dinner is arranged for. Afterwards went to Heart Village for frozen yogurt. They finally had pistachio again. Mom will be thrilled. They had it once about a year ago and mom couldn't stop talking about it. We ended up not stopping back in till the next week, by which time they'd already changed it. Mom was so sad. About every other week since she has asked about it. Today was the first time I've ever seen it. It was good =) So was another new one I tried: graham cracker - yum! And of course pomegranate sorbet. Was a surprisingly good combination, not that i mixed them or anything. Heh that would probably make an awful color.

Anyways, am back home. Jen and T are at CVAAS. I'm enjoying my very expensive air-conditioning and the dark. Maybe i'll try playing wow.

Lots of heat=lots of sleep

Slept a lot. Had one student, she is nice - pleasant to teach. So i didn't mind Saturday work that much. Wanted to go out for chili's soup, but decided i should just go home and eat my leftover noodles. Sat in art room and crocheted and listened to my audiobook with a fan on me. Was deliciously relaxing and comfy, so of course i fell asleep. Woke later and found a wow server. I like it, Eternity wow. Much bigger population then we are use to. I picked it mainly for the Cata server, but it turns out they have a WotLK PvE server. It looks super nice, only 10x exp but still, no pvp is awesome. So mom and I are both downloading Cata, but I am still undecided, no PvE Cata - just WotLK. I already changed our realmlist from Phoenix wow to Eternity's PvE. Mom and I started new toons. We may just stay, even though I want flying mounts in Azeroth. Anyways, after mom got off I went to bed and listened to an audiobook.

Pajama day

Woke rather late, just enough time to take a shower, and realize I had no clean clothes. Ah well, didn't feel like getting dressed anyhow - so wore pajamas. Well presentable ones anyways. Had three students. Stayed around for a while afterwards to enjoy cool air and also format some books. Came home and got distracted by organizing my audiobooks on my laptop. Really need to find wow server, mom was asking about it again. I forgot how much I like the book Belladonna. I keep having the phrase "Heart's Hope lies within Belladonna" tuning through my head, sometimes I even find myself saying it to the silence. Good thing that hasn't happened around people, I get enough weird looks as it is when I act normal ^^.

Not my week for getting up it seems. Or rather I seem to get up around 8, then decide to try for more sleep, then end up sleeping too long. Guh. Only had an hour for lunch. Thought I'd be meeting Mom and Nathan for lunch, but turned out to be mom Zack and Lacey. Nifty. Went to Chili's - had yummy soup. Had a bit of a debate/conversation on abortion, a much for lunch conversation, partially my bad. But I couldn't help it. I don't feel like going into details of what transpired, but maybe I'll come back and add them in later. I really have a love hate relationship with religion. I love religions, I find them fascinating, and at their core, I greatly appreciate what they offer their followers. However in real/daily life its hard to get past all the negative things that occurs due to religion. I hate to see people, especially young people who are just forming their ability to think and rationalize for themselves, hold to beliefs handed to them by their church - particularly non-religious beliefs passed off as 'christian'. I have no problem if people truly look into these beliefs and find that their own opinions, thoughts, ideals correspond to their church's, but don't just adhere to some stand on a topic simply because someone in your church said so - that someone of your faith should believe this way or that. If we must take a religious approach consider this - God gave you a highly advanced brain, capable of critical thinking and reasoning. He must have done this for a reason, ie to USE it. Go learn, research all the aspects of the topic, and make sure you come to the conclusion based on your own reasoning and feelings, not based on something someone else told you to think. So anyways I got a bit on my soap box. Poor niece and nephew. At least they know how i am, and sat there and smiled politely till I talked myself out. Mom got a little defensive, i think that's the closest i have ever gotten to debating my mother. It was a bit unpleasant. I much prefer it when we are on the same side of an argument/topic.

Had to tutor in Clovis, remembered my laptop cord this time. Came home, was rather early. Planned on doing some sewing. I have a skirt and a shirt idea floating around in my head - I've be meaning to manifest it for some time, but I ended up falling asleep on the couch. Around 11 I stumbled off to bed. Then David and Corwin showed up. We ended up watching a movie David just bought called TomCats, was pretty darn funny. Now i'm debating if i should sleep or do that sewing. After all new cloths would mean I can put of laundry for one more day - I don't know if i have anything clean to wear tomorrow otherwise. Ah decisions decisions...

Long day!

Was a long day. Worked at 11 again. Morning was nice though - still cool and breezy - was hoping for more rain, but not so much. Very pleasant weather for the morning though. For lunch Patricia and I went to starbucks and then each ordered take out to bring back to the office. Mmmmm Flower City's Kung Pow chicken. They have my order memorized ^^. Had super awful allergies all day. Not feeling so great today. Very sleepy =( I hate feeling really sleeping while trying to tutor.

One of my hour and a half students didn't show, which I was kinda grateful for, got to rest for a bit, clean my desk. Last student was preparing for a stats test. We'd already covered everything - just decided kinda last minute to turn some of the more tedious calculator steps into a program for her, so I got to spend the hour programming a TI-83 which is surprisingly fun. Made a cute little program that does binomial and poisson distributions by prompting n,p, x and then selecting which inequality sign is needed. No going 1-binomcdf stuff. Also made one that helped with contingency tables, and one for finding the mean and standard deviation of a binomial distribution - it even reminds you to move the decimal if given a percent.

I've really been needing to do some shopping, so went to winco after work. I have a little app on my phone called shopping cart. Spent the whole trip tap tapping prices and product names and quantities into my phone. Its a nifty little program, next time I'm somewhere bored I'll clean up all my typos and add the rest of the info for each product.

Was super tired when I got home, barely had time to get stuff put away before i started falling asleep. Oh i forgot, our wow server was shut down, mom called earlier today to ask what was wrong, why she couldn't get on. I went to the website which featured an announcement that the server was permanently shut down. darn it. I really liked this server, and i don't want to look for a new one. Maybe we'll try a Cata server next.

11 is soooo early...

Gosh 11 am is early for me! Had student at 11, then had lunch with lacey and katie at sweet tomatoes. Found good coupons online yaay. Long day at work, had students in clovis, and I didn't bring laptop chord, so no computer =(. Started getting real windy. Was hungry and thought paneras sounded good, while driving saw T walking on road, called him and invited to paneras. Took some time there, read some of my book. When we left dark clouds had rolled in and there was a glorious strong wind. Arrived home to find David and Alex waiting for me. They invited me to dinner. Went so chili's. Not very hungry so had soup. They were out of chicken enchilada, but after some pouting they made a fresh batch and david ordered some too. I ordered extra 'crunchies'. As I eat my soup I usually add some. They didn't bring a much as i'd like, but I figured i'd make due. Til david got interested in them. Reaching for the little cup of crunchies he asked 'what do you do with all these?' Before he could touch my cup of crunches I snatched up the little cup and dumped the entire contents into my soup, then proceeded to spoon my soup as if nothing happened. Meanwhile David sat with his hand frozen midair blinking at me in amazement. Muhaha no one lays a finger on my crunchies! Leaving the restaurant it started to sprinkle. The wind was lovely, a nice cool change to the heat. After coming home I put some audiobooks on Alex's mp3 player, which annoyed my computer at one point - and i had to restart the darn thing twice before it got its act back into gear. Silly computers. Started raining harder, sooo nice to listen to rain while going to sleep....

ah mondays....

could not wake up this morning, kept thinking I might go to thai for lunch but body just would not wake up. Lacey texted to know if grandma was coming down. Nope =(. My 1:30 student cancelled, slept longer then went and got soup, then work. After work came home, then to thai, was yummy. Meant to clean but didn't happen, guh.

Testing

Lets test this....

Restful Weekend....

Lacey's Grad party was nice and uneventful yesterday. Zack and I made rice crispy treats, regular and cocoa ones, yum. Lisa bought $20 worth of mexican sweet breads and we put out all kinds of snacky foods. I sat by the pool and read Dawn Cook's Decoy Princess while the kids splashed around - I managed to avoid getting wet but they soaked Lisa, lol. Lisa pouted a bit more about the Janet Evanovich books I still haven't gotten around to getting to her. She needs from book 10 on. I went ahead and got them set up on her phone. Turns out a LG Lotus is a real pain in the neck to find programs for and get them to work. I ended up just using the built in Document Viewer. She was a bit anti phone book reading at first, but after I got it done and explained how now she could read anywhere - since she always has her phone with her - even while waiting in line at the bank. Main problem with this: no bookmarks. She'll have to remember her page numbers.

Sleep was not my friend last night - I slept for a few hours then woke, and could not get back to sleep. Read ebook on my phone till the sun came up, then around 7:30 ish was able to sleep. Woke again at 3pm. Gee, well there goes my day! I have been wanting a pizza bread with cashews for a few days now - I even tried to stop at the pizza factory in west Fresno when i went to pick up Zack from hockey before the party, only to find the building empty! Darn! Only pizza factory in Fresno is gone now =(. So today I took a trip to Madera to their pizza factory - and ordered extra to take home. yes today was the pizza bread feast day mmmmmmm.... Afterward took a bit of a road trip, enjoying the car air conditioning and my new breaks (thanks to my awesome brother!!). Drove up to the mountains, saw the dollar store that I think the Sa's opened up - mom mentioned that Mr. Sa opened a dollar store. Its called DJ's but I think that's theirs, and the name refers to the initials of their first names. Cute =). Mom said Rory works there sometimes, hope he is doing well. He really should write more, its always a pleasure to read his articles, nice wit. Perhapse he does and I just haven't run across anything.

Came home and cleaned the art room, had wrapping paper and supplies everywhere. Its nice and picked up now, in fact that's where I'm typing from now. My easel is set up in the corner now, blocking the door to the back yard. I did a little painting, just background prep. Going to do a few things for work I think, then read my book in bed. I really need to look for some more CSET stuff, but not tonight I think. Well off to work with me....

Car stuff

Bit of a crazy day today - neighbor calling about rides to hospital, Andrea's tires were slashed, oil change and new breaks. Car was in desperate need of breaks, today making horrendous noise, even when i was not actively breaking. Mike agreed to change them for me (yaaay for super awesome brothers!!) But first i had to get an oil change. Last time Mike looked at my breaks he noticed i was overdue for an oil change. So he gave me a bit of a lecture. And he told dad. Who gave me a lecture. Who also told mom, who didn't give me a lecture, but who told sis. And of course she gave me a lecture, as well as telling Matt, who also gave me a lecture. Sooooo. Oil changes, yeah yeah i know must do them in a timely fashion. And I'm so bad at keeping track. I use all kinds of online calender stuff- i don't know why i haven't set a reminder for myself. Suppose i'll go do that now....ok done. So anyways, got oil change, a free one thanks to mom's freebie card. After work drove up to Mikes. Taking the road down burrough valley was soo not fun without good breaks, coasted down it in 2nd gear.

Was nice to see my brother, Mandy was out riding the horse, and Mike had Mark with him, the other kids were at Mandy's moms. I had to try to keep Mark happy while Mike worked. I really have little to no maternal instinct. As in the instinctual ability to figure out what to do with a baby. I think they can sense it too. Kinda like how some animals can sense fear. Makes babies cry when you just look at them. Anyways, he was content for the most part as long as i pushed him around the drive way in his little stroller thing. Well not like a stroller, thing had like bicycle wheels, good for bumpy mountain dirt driveways. Eventually Mandy came back up and took the beastie from me - which was good since rolling him in circles had begun to lose its appeal to him apparently.

Mandy's mom drove up and the kids jumped out, Mac in just his underwear, he looked at me and said: "look what i'm wearing! My underwear!" I responded: "Yes i see that, what happened to your clothes?" He said: "I tooks them off!" then he ran off to his bike and took off down the drive way riding his bike in his super hero underpants. Ha silly beastie. Mike finished my breaks, soooo nice to have them working. He even sent me a cute email. Yay for nifty brothers.