Year of the Ram

A new year has just begun, and even though we aren't quite in the Chinese new year when the Year of the Ram begins, I thought I'd make a blog celebrating this cultural zodiac. Mostly because I was born in the year of a Ram, oh so many years ago, and even though my husband treats it as his year as well, he was technically a Horse if you're dealing in the Chinese calendar as opposed to our Western calendar.  But, he seems to fit the Ram better, so I don't argue the technicalities.

I realized after my last post that I was being rather bleak, and perhaps I'll take that last post down as though even if it does represent my feelings at the time, I think it's rambling nature doesn't seem to hit a specific point.  Perhaps it's a good thing that I labeled it "randomness" because you really don't know what you are going to get when I put something under that label.

I'm hoping this year that things will be better than last year.  This isn't to say that 2014 was a bad year necessarily.  I had some good things happen in 2014.  Let's see, I got a raise in the summer after my review.  I went to Pittsburgh for the first time.  Somewhat started a new fandom of Hatsune Miku, although my My Little Pony fandom is still in effect.  My husband built me a brand new computer.  Almost finished the interior of our garage, but at least got most of it organized.  Had my 5 year anniversary.  Learned the word "oppai".  Haha haa.

Unfortunately, this year also hasn't been super fantastic either.  I didn't get to go on an "official" vacation anywhere, which made me rather sad, although my Mom enjoyed having me visit her this summer instead.  Our one couple we were friends with got a divorce, and even though it turned out to be the best thing that happened to the wife (in my opinion), it opened our eyes on the husband which made things awkward for my husband who was friends with him.  Then we got into a falling out with some friends through out convention in a similar circumstance which also turned into lots of awkwardness and as my husband's best friend stated, "emptied our emotional bank accounts," during September.  Two of my cats had to go in to get teeth pulled as they were starting to rot and fall out.  The spring came and the neighborhood boys started pelting our house with cement blocks - and then once Christmas break started, did it again, putting rather large holes into our siding now.  My district manager seems to have it out for my boss which in turns puts us all into a fowl mood.

And then throw into the equation the fact that I turned 35 and keep having problems with my body breaking down from sore knees when it gets cold, allergies, and other more disgusting intestinal tract problems I'm not going to go into.  Then there's my emotional balance that keeps getting thrown out of whack.  It feels as though either I'm over-emotional and I get really stressed out and feel like a mess, or I shut down my emotions completely and then I can't enjoy things like holidays and special events.  Maybe I have a touch of bipolar disorder, although I've never been diagnosed with it, and it doesn't go to extremes (as I've rarely ever go to extreme joy mode and never get to must kill myself mode either - thank God!) - it still feels like there's rarely times where I feel completely balanced with the two extremes.  A day like today, where I feel something of a clarity is about as close as I can get, and seeing as though today is the first day of the new year, I believe I should be feeling something about it being the new year, but I don't.  But I do feel somewhat content, so that's a plus.

So what do I hope for from 2015?  Well, I do hope that I can find some kind of balance.  Maybe find some kind of reason to continue on and maybe start setting some goals for myself.  I thought about perhaps really going after learning Japanese.  Thought about starting an exercise regime.  Maybe trying to write more.  Maybe I need to make some sort of other change with my life.  I'm just not sure.  My friend who got the divorce is pursuing a ton of goals that she had basically written off for herself when she got married (or her husband made her, I'm not even sure she's sure of that) and for that, I'm super proud of her.  I think, what are the goals that I had before I got married?  Maybe there are some that I've let slip to the side over these last 5 years or more that I've known my husband.  

I had hoped to become a writer.  Then I learned what that entails.  I thought about doing some artwork and then I realized that I don't have the ambition to follow through with it as I want.  Maybe my true goal for 2015 is to find a passion for something.  Maybe finding that passion will help me feel content.  The problem is, I'm a Jack of all trades but a master of none.  I find so many things that I enjoy doing but there isn't a single one that stands out and says, "Pick Me!"  Well, except perhaps writing.  But it's such a difficult career to get into.  First there has to be good writing.  Then there has to be someone to believe in your good writing.  That's where my career came to a stand still.  I write, but if I can't even get my own family or friends to read my writing, then why would complete strangers read it?  Perhaps I should make "How-to" manuals...would people read them then?  I do enjoy telling people what to do!  (ahahaha!)

So, that's where the problem lies.  I need to have someone believe in my writing so that I could get an agent that would sell me.  When I get someone who could sell me they could set up jobs for me to write and before long maybe I could actually make money doing it.  Of course there's always the route of self-publishing.  But then I'd be at step two again - find someone who wants to read what I have to say.  If I put $1,000 into publishing a book, I'd have to go and find someone to sell that book, someone who wants to read it, and someone who is excited to pay some money for reading about me.  I've met self-publishers before and I've met some who are so extremely outgoing that they have done a great job selling themselves.  Then I've met some who just fail and have a stack of books in their basement because they can't find anyone to buy it.

But again, maybe if I have the ambition...or rather, the passion to do something I really believe in, then I'll have the passion to sell myself as well.  It's hard though, as I've found out over the years, fans come and go, and unless I have a lot of them, when they go, it's like they've taken a piece out of me.  It feels like every time I've lost a reader that some part of my love of writing has disappeared with them.  They have taken the parts of my soul that I opened up to them and then threw them away and went onto bigger and better things.  Maybe that's why I still blog, I do it for myself and I rather think that I enjoy doing it, but no one's taken this part of my writing away from me.  My original stories and my fanfiction are almost all gone now that all of my fans are gone, and that part of me feels lonely and sad and unwilling to get to the place where I used to enjoy writing those fantasies.  Maybe someday I can do that for myself again, but it does seem rather a waste of time to write things that no one is going to read, at least, my older, more boring self believes that.

Oh well, my blog has become rather a downer again, now hasn't it?  So maybe I'll try to leave this at a brighter note.  It's supposedly the Year of the Ram, and thus should be a lucky year for me.  Things are looking up a bit at my job, or rather, they've settled down a bit and at least our inventory isn't around my anniversary again this year.  Things should be bigger and better at our convention this year and maybe I'll be more on top of things this year.  I plan to plant more prickly pine trees on the side of my house to try to keep neighbor boys out (I hope).  I'm going to try to focus on being more positive and find a focus.  Even if that focus is just cleaning up my computer area and my library.  Maybe find a new series to watch on TV.  Perhaps keep some plants alive through the winter.  Maybe finally get new hardwood flooring in my living room finally, and be able to redecorate to get a sense of 'this place is new' - at least, I hope all those things.

I hope you have a good new year.  Maybe yours will be better than 2014 too. 

The Holiday Problem

I'm not sure if it's depression or the simple fact that I work in retail, but I have noticed a distinct shift in how I feel about holidays.  I don't actually feel anything about holidays lately.  I can remember back on how I felt on holidays previously, but this year it's been distinctly not magical and not special and I felt rather numb throughout the entire holiday season.  Much like I was going through the motions.  Don't get me wrong, on Halloween, I did feel rather happy with all of the children coming up and loving the display we put together.  However, this year at Thanksgiving I felt rather empty since we didn't have family up but for my mom.  And then come Christmas I was excited to go to Michigan to see snow...no snow.  It didn't feel like the holiday at all.

In fact, as I was getting excited to give my mom a Chromebook so we could finally start conversing with her via email and chats... she put off opening presents until we had a half hour left to go to my Aunt's dinner and we had only about enough time to show her how to turn the thing on and play a game of solitaire before having to pack up everything to leave.

I only got presents for a handful of people and I thought maybe I'd feel happier by giving away those presents, but they didn't seem to enjoy them all that much.  Then I turn around and don't really care if I got anything myself.  It felt strange not to be excited about it.

The Christmas dinner was more about the routine then actually seeing people.  We ate our dinner, watched our cousins yell at their children for not eating food or running around or not being obedient while we were praying... then we ate and opened presents and the little ones whined and cried because they only got one gift each, but last year I was told not to get them anything so I didn't get them anything at all either.  

Then someone burned a plastic container on the stove and things just sort of degraded and I realized that I didn't feel at home there anymore.  I just felt sort of on the outside watching it all happen.  I didn't take photos and didn't really get involved in any of the conversations happening.  I just wanted to eat and leave.

Maybe working retail has made it hard for me to enjoy consumerism.  And no, I don't just believe that's what the holiday is about, but when we bow our heads to say a quick prayer over supper and the children fidget and giggle and their parents haven't taught them to respect it, and they cry over not getting presents - well, didn't that just turn the holiday over to little consumers?  

I think I would have had a better holiday had I stayed home with my cats and just enjoyed being in the comfort of my own company and I didn't need any presents or anything special to have enjoyed a good holiday.

It's hard to describe this to people, so I'm just basically throwing this out there as I want to still get excited about the new year.  I want to be able to celebrate the ball drop, so who knows?  I did enjoy seeing an old friend while I was up in Michigan that I hadn't seen in years.  It was nice to touch base with people again after so long.  Maybe seeing my friends at New Year's will make things nice too.

Well...I hope.  I don't want to be writing another bummed out blog again any time soon!

Autumn Ends

As Autumn comes to an end, I think of all the fun that I had this year.  Especially when it comes to going up to Michigan to visit St. John's and the pumpkin patch by the cider mill there.

I may have written about this before, but if you've never been to Michigan, or at least the Northeast corner of the country, then you've probably been missing out on apple orchards, cider mills, donuts and pumpkin picking, usually all under the same roof, or at least on the same farm.  Growing up where I did, I was exposed early to going out and getting cider and fresh cider, pumpkin, buttermilk and cinnamon sugar donuts.  And then after scarfing down all of that awesome stuff, going out into the chilly, sometimes muddy fields, and searching for that all elusive pumpkin that I had to take home and carve on Halloween.  (Mind you, at least the day before or on Halloween, because if you do it too early it rots and then it's just not pretty by the time the Trick-or-Treaters come up).

This year I went with a friend of mine to the orchards, and with my Mom, of course, since she lives up there.  But my friend Jon and I took the wagon out to the pumpkin patch and took a sharp right over into the far field where none of the others were treading.  This is the best way to go when you're searching for pumpkins.  Nearly all the patches I've ever been to, they'll have the one that's nearly all picked over by the staff and all of the people who have come to the farm, but there'll be one where no one wants to go because to bring the pumpkins back from there will be quite a hall.  However, what's awesome about John's is that they have wagons if you're lucky enough to get them.  So we headed out into, surprisingly, a very weedy field where you really didn't see the pumpkins right away.

However - if you pulled back the tall, dead grass, deep down in it all there were pumpkins.  And not just pumpkins, but squash and gourds too.  It was still a hunt, mind you, because many of these pumpkins weren't set upright like in the more popular field, and some had a bit of frost bite, or maybe a bug bite or two (and one looked like someone's butt...it was sort of gross but pretty fascinating).

These hidden gems are what makes coming to a pumpkin patch worth it.  You dig around until you find something golden orange buried, and then you pull it out, brush it off, and try to see if it'll sit up right or if it's been eaten by worms or something stepped on it.

I tend to spend a long time looking at pumpkins, it's just the way I am.  I think I always annoyed my parents with how picky I was, even as a kid, because I always had to look closely at the pumpkin, turn it around and find just that perfect specimen.

However, this year, I decided that the digging was the adventure.  In those tall grasses I found three pumpkins that I just adored, even though they weren't perfect.  They had smooshed sides and long stems and cuts or warts here and there.  And yet, I took them home with me.  They carved into some really nice Jack'o'lanterns too.

But I'm not here to talk about the carving, I'm just talking about a feeling that I get every time I go and drink a half gallon of cider, eat a half dozen donuts and then wear it all off trudging through a farm looking for that golden orange treasure.

And if you've never done it yourself, then next year, when things get a bit cooler and you start thinking about Autumn and Halloween, do yourself a favor and head up North to experience it for yourself.

Notes on Valentine's Day

Most years in the past my husband and I have made plans for Valentine's Day, and it's usually a few weeks out by the time we'd secured reservations.  It's usually for PFChang's or some other kind of restaurant where we'll do the whole three course meal thing with appetizers, main course and dessert, but this year I haven't even looked to see what my schedule is going to be.  Knowing my luck when I finally go to write it down I'll probably be doing the closing shift or some other shift that wouldn't be very conducive to getting a night out with my hubby.

What's odd about this is that even though I've decorated some of the house with the mandatory hearts and such, I really haven't been in much of a mood to do the Valentine thing.  Heck, I bought My Little Pony valentines just because I had a friend who used to mail out cute little kid valentines to all of her friends and I always thought that was a unique way to celebrate the holiday even when you're over 20.  But here they sit next to me and I have only opened the box.  It's exactly a week a way and I haven't even looked at cards for my hubby or anything.

I'm actually kind of glad that the American version of Valentine's day isn't like the Japanese version (although I've heard that it's been changing in more recent years), because I would be horrible at sharing chocolates with guys on this day.  It's odd that in Japan it's supposed to be that girls give guys chocolates they make, and then guys turn around on "White Day" which is March 14 and give girls gifts in return for those chocolates.  Interesting way of looking at things, but I'd definitely have failed in more recent years to do something of the sort. Now, back in my teenage years...I betcha I would have done the chocolate thing and probably would have never gotten anything in return...mainly because I was friends with a whole bunch of guys I had crushes on - but if the idea was really anything like in the anime, those guys probably would have been loaded down with chocolates and I would have just been one among many.

Rather glad that I'm married and don't have to worry about the ups and downs of Valentine's day.  Maybe it's a selfish way to think about it, but I'm rather happy that I'm no longer alone.  Or maybe, rather, I just don't worry about it anymore.  Just like any holiday recently I don't have the time to spend fretting over everything.


Hope you aren't fretting over it either.  ^_^

New Year's Repairs

Instead of writing a list of New Year's Resolutions, I thought I'd make a list of repairs that I'm going to be working on this year.  I believe I started this blog after buying our house, well after we got settled in, in fact, so that most of the initial problems were solved long before I started writing about life.  And for quite awhile, we didn't have many problems crop up, just the usual cleaning and daily care.  But the house was in pretty bad shape when we first bought it since it was a bank owned property where the owners were obviously not happy to have left their home.

I think I might first tell you about the state of the house, at least briefly, because from what I've heard it was originally owned by a couple, and you can kind of tell that things were going well.  They'd painted the downstairs, installed various shelving units in the garage and basement, put up wallpaper borders in the kitchen (bleck - first thing to go!) and at least for awhile, I think they had a pretty good home.  Somewhere in there, according to a neighbor, they moved to another town, allowing one of their children's families move in with their two young children.  You can tell that one room had been 'loved' to death by the sheer amount of dirt and crayon drawings on the walls.  Then another room must have had a special painting day with the kids helping because it was painted fuchsia pink and there were tracks and fingerprints of it everywhere throughout the house.  I'm still finding spots on the stairways, outside on the back doors, you get the picture.  They must have thought that the bright paint was a good idea because part of it was also in the second bath, but they ran out of paint and used a bright orange to finish it up.  I figured this room was for a pre-teen because every square inch of the pink space was pin-holed with, what I assumed were posters of some sort.

There was also candle wax everywhere.  This was a rather new addition to the house before we got it because over time the spots I was unable to get out of the carpet have turned black with dirt buildup and then I have to spend time repairing these spots on the floors.  There were also nailpolish spots and smoke damage in the master bedroom where I suspected mom or dad smoked under the bathroom fan, staining the counter with nicotine as they put out their butts, burning the floor's linoleum multiple times.

Almost every light switch cover was damaged or removed, all of the light fixtures and fans were gone, nearly all of the appliances were gone and so too all the blinds and even one of the doors was removed from its hinges.

Mind you, this wasn't the worst house that we'd looked at during our house-hunt a year ago (goodness, it's almost been a year since we started looking!) but it took me a good week to get all of those repairs completed, and the bank had to fix a gas leak too.  We had other problems over time, like bad lightbulbs and beeping smoke detectors, a garage door that we had to get openers for, and a back porch that I had to pound into submission so it wouldn't fall apart on us the first year.

During the summer months we'd pretty much solved most of our problems, except perhaps for the leaking sub-pump, which was thankfully a very easy fix.  Leaky sinks that my father-in-law repaired.  But overall, this house has treated us pretty well.

And then...

There's a leak in the basement.  We've been working on fixing it for half a week now, but it's leaking from a t-joint under the washing machine, and no matter what we've tried, nothing has stopped the leak.  Tape, epoxy, rubber sealant...  So that's number one.

The calk that I thought I'd repaired in the bathrooms is now cracking, so obviously I did that wrong in the first place.

The soap dispenser in the kitchen stopped working so we need to get a stopper for the hole and just stop using that all together.

The pretty wood floors in the kitchen I thought had been there awhile?  I think they were actually put in to sell the house because they're starting to fade already.

Not to mention all of the nasty holes in the linoleum floor in the master bath which needs a new coating.

The subpump pipe next to the house needs a better repair than the duck tape we used at the beginning of the year...

Well, you get the picture I think.



And yet, you're probably wondering, why am I sitting here blogging instead of getting on some of these problems now?  Well, it's because I spent a few hours putting up all of the Christmas decorations, and that is enough work for me!

Christmas Card Time

It's always been one of those debated subjects in my family when it comes to Christmas cards.  I remember as a little girl watching my Mom pull out the big box of cards, the roll-a-dex, pens, stamps and address labels.  She'd then proceed to use up an entire book or two of stamps (which back then were lick and stick so I got to help) as she wrote out each and every envelope, signed our names inside of the cards and then sent them off to various friends, neighbors, family members and everyone Mom could think of.

At first we'd get so many cards back that we'd have an entire door plastered with them, some hanging onto the wall next to it.  That was, of course, before the internet really caught on with the masses.

Then, people started to die and people just didn't do Christmas cards any more.  So when we received a card from someone, Mom put a little symbol next to their names in the address book (she got rid of the roll-a-dex), changing the symbol from year to year so the next year she'd know who to send Christmas cards.

After awhile, those numbers dwindled and I think Mom got by with just using cards from previous years and sending out a handful here and there as she received them.  And actually, shortly before I moved out, I was helping her with the few cards because I put in my friends and associates as well.

When I moved out of state, I was fired up!  Time to send out a bunch of Christmas cards so everyone knew where I lived and I'd print out pictures of me and my (at the time boyfriend) husband who I was living with.

I received about 10 cards that year.

The next year, only about 5.

This year, so far, only 1.

I'm debating on whether to send everyone Christmas cards this year since we just moved and yes, I have a new address that maybe not everyone knows about... but it's this personal debate of whether it's worth the time and effort.  Even in a technological age, much of my family doesn't keep in touch with me through the internet or even Facebook.  So you'd think that even once a year they'd want to hear from me through a card.  Say "hey, how you doin'?  We're still alive" or something to that extent.  But when we're only 15 days out from Christmas, just two short weeks away...you think I'd have more to show for it.

It's not that I'm expecting presents, visits, fruitcakes, or even a phone call.  But a card?  Is it REALLY so hard to send cards now in this age of texts and emails?  Why is it so hard to WRITE more than two-three words?  People don't want to call when they can text, and they don't want to write because they can text...and yet if I don't get even a text, are you even alive out there?

Maybe that's why the Christmas spirit is so hard to come by anymore.  It's hard to receive it when no one is giving.

'Nuff said from Scrooge.  ^_^;

It's Christmas Time Again

The holidays for me have changed a lot since I was a little kid.  Maybe I have to clarify that to the year 1999, just as the New Year had rolled in, because I remember very distinctly playing one of the Legend of Zelda games and fishing, showing my Dad how cool it was, very shortly before he died.

When you lose a parent at the age of 19, things can get pretty weird very fast.  Luckily I was still in college and even though I had an on-campus job, it wasn't a real job by any means so there wasn't a big disturbance from being gone for awhile.  My mom told me I needed to stay in college and that summer I picked up my first job where I'd put up a Christmas tree on Halloween, find myself in a mall on the day after Thanksgiving and find only one parking spot at the far edge of the property, and I had a Mom who didn't want to decorate for the holidays anymore.

My brother and I took it upon ourselves to pick up the holidays.  That was the first year that I made an effort (in the freezing cold and rain) to string lights up outside my house, to decorate the Christmas tree, and to get my Mom going when it came to making Thanksgiving dinner.  In fact, not too many years later, I'd started doing Thanksgiving all by myself (with a few helpful tips now and then) and eventually Mom even started decorating and getting into the spirit again.

But ever since that first Christmas in retail, I've been there, putting up trees around Halloween and not being able to enjoy a Christmas carol or tune because it's been played 50 Million times before December even hits.  Being one of the retail people can really suck any fun that Christmas once held for a person.  I try not to get into the spirit some years because I worry that I'll just wear out too quickly, and I usually do.  I wait until the last week or so before Christmas to shop, wrap presents, mail cards, etc. just so I don't get burned out.  It's hard being the numb one when everyone is having parties and exchanging gifts.  But I guess that's just the person I've turned out to be since my Dad died.

Maybe it would be different if we had a big family.  In fact, our family is so small now, at least the amount that can travel, we can sit around our little kitchen table.  I made Thanksgiving dinner in such a blur this year that I'm not sure how it all came together at exactly the same time, or how it was over so quickly.  I even got to watch the parade this year, albeit, mostly on the TiVo, fast-forwarding through commercials  Basically just my Mom, my husband's parent and grandmother, and besides a few aunts and uncles who all live out of state, it's a pretty small family, so holidays are rather brief I guess.

This year I decorated as I always do.  I think I get more enjoyment out of the process of decorating than I actually do enjoying the decorations.  Mind you, I do like looking at decorations I only see once a year, and maybe that's the reason I deck the walls like I do.  But we have very few people over to enjoy them, and when I mention 'oh, I should take a picture to show you', even my Mom shrugs and says, 'that's okay'.

But, even without people enjoying my decorations, at least I know that the cats are enjoying them.  They enjoy playing with the strings of lights in the windows...they enjoy chewing on the Christmas tree, they enjoy the copious amounts of treats that I've been giving them randomly...you know, the Christmas spirit and all.  They even have a stocking of their own we're working on putting stuff in.  It's the little things that count you know.

Boy....this really makes me sound pathetic.

I guess I should go work on Christmas cards.