merry new year

I had a lovely Christmas and I hope everyone else did too!  The highlight was having my brother visit from Washington, and my Aunt and her boyfriend visit from Oregon.  I restarted a family tradition of setting out a puzzle for everyone to put together.  (It was a hit.)  Mr. Man did lots of good cooking (we finally finished leftovers) and I wanted to share a cool gift he gave me in case it inspires any other gift giving:

Feed the children of the world bag provides a year of school lunches to a hungry child in a developing nation.  There are a number of other items you can purchase as part of a donation including a cute teddy bear.

There are plenty of other stories (including honest to goodness SNOW in California!) but a girl has to ease gently back into the blogging world.  See you soon!

Who’s There?

So, I am half-way through a paper that is due tomorrow and I think to myself, huh, I should go check my blog.  (This is perfectly rational and reasonable.  Especially at 11: 58 pm.)  And I see that this blog had 17 views on the 5th–when I haven’t written or commented anywhere in foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  I know nothing about these so-called “views” so they are probably spambots (?), but in the interest of running a highly scientific survey I thought I would ask…”Who’s there?”  Leave me a comment so I have a tiny, sunshiny ray of a reminder that in a few short weeks I will be able to return to art and crafting and blogging (between semesters at least).

You can tell me what kind of person puts red crepe paper in a pickle jar and takes (multiple) pictures of it.

It makes me think of brains.  Now canned for the discerning zombie owner.

goodness

I know this isn’t supposed to be a cat blog (do those exist?), but I couldn’t help but share this sweet little hug between our kitties.  Awwww…  (They were sleeping in one small little cat bed.)  And it seemed to perfectly illustrate two feel good things I discovered today:

Gives Me Hope (sweet, funny, and touching moments of kindness in the world)

God Grew Tired of Us (documentary about the Lost Boys of Sudan coming to America)

once in a lifetime

Even my camera download cord is smiling at me!  (Do you see it?)

My one-and-only 28th birthday was yesterday and today my family came over to celebrate my brother’s birthday and mine with a BBQ.  Chris surprised me with FRONT ROW tickets to Wicked, the musical in SF for next Friday!!!  Eeeeeeee!  Are you jumping up and down in excitement for me?!   And to top that off, my parents gave me a gorgeous brown pearl necklace.  I feel so grown-up and classy.

Feeling completely spoiled right now.

life

I’m a pretty boring gal, but lately life has been shaken up a little.

Quick catch-up in bulleted format because I like bulleted lists:

• First semester of second degree done.  Whee!  (Only two more!)
• Birth of my beautiful, happy niece.
• Moved to another (nearby) city, into a house with a raised deck overlooking an oak tree-filled ravine.

And here is a Suspicious Kitty Picture for your enjoyment.

fun chow

So.  On occasion I get grocery store Chinese food for lunch.  Not so great, but really good if you know what I mean.  And whenever I get Chinese food, I look forward to busting open the fortune cookie at the end.  But not with this Chinese food.  I don’t know who their fortune cookie vendor is, but they are the absolute worst!  They aren’t even fortunes.  There is no “You will travel soon” or “Success is right around the corner” in these little cookies.  They are more “statement cookies.”  Things like, “You know many people.”  And I was getting awfully peeved about the un-fortunes until yesterday when I got this one:

You are a happy man.

…?

Huh?

Just in case you don’t know me (or do know me, but are still confused), I am not a man.

But oh, did I laugh.  And I have it next to my ergonomically positioned monitor at work.  To remind me that if I am a man, at least I am a happy man.

From a rainy-day walk I took with friends to visit an art exhibit.

this is why we can’t have nice things

This is what you get when you stumble into dumb luck and find a great husband:

(A bouquet of sunshine goodness.)

And this is what you get when you don’t put them on the mantle:

(A bouquet of poor, decapitated flowers.)

“What?  It’s not my fault you left them where I could reach them with my teeny little teeth-of-death.”

I saved the flower heads and floated them in giant green margarita glasses.  I would say I learned my lesson, but I’m not quite that smart.  Plus I always think she has reformed her ways.

[Now: a pop quiz.  How many homework assignments am I putting off by writing this post?]

25 things (sorry)

Technically I am supposed to post this list of 25 random facts on Facebook with some sort of note on it because several people put me in their notes even though they should know that I am too lazy busy expanding my mind to figure out how to do that.  So here.  If you have a blog please write your own list so I can read it!

1. I am totally behind the cool-kids curve and decided to finally do this 25 Things meme from Facebook because I love ridiculous self-focused lists (count that as fact #1) and I am posting it on my blog first because…
2. I HATE Facebook. Hate it. It looks ugly. (Well, maybe I don’t completely hate it but I may have to learn HTML just so I can make Facebook look/work better.)
3. For a full 11 seconds I considered writing these 25 things about my cat. Seriously—that cat is far more interesting than I am.  (Not because I am in any way becoming a crazy cat lady.  Crazy squirrel lady, maybe.)
4. I have stitches on both knees and my left index finger. Left knee when I was 4, right knee when I was 8, and left finger when I was 23.
5. I have met and spoken (very very briefly) with both Tyra Banks and Patton Oswalt.
6. I met Mr. Man when we both worked on/in our university production of Dracula.
7. My arch nemesis is Paul Schaefer. (The band leader for David Letterman.) I’m sure the man is actually very nice and pleasant, but something about his on-air persona and the game-show intro songs THAT ARE ALL THE SAME drive me batty.
8. I have a favorite freckle. It is on the top of my right foot and it is so cute.
9. In third grade making mazes on graph paper was considered the cool thing to do.  A few friends and I thought we might even be able to make a living off of it.
10. In kindergarten I wrote that I was going to be a teacher when I grew up. 22 years later I am now five weeks into getting my teaching certificate.
11. In the eighth grade my aptitude test said I should be a cinematographer. 14 years later I don’t think it is unreasonable that I still believe I will make a movie someday.
12. I keep a list of pet peeves. It helps me keep the irrational irritation under control.
13. I think Jim Henson was a genius. Like Leonardo DaVinci level of genius.
14. I really like cheese. Except not cheddar so much.
15. I love the way that ducks “mutter” to themselves. You know that little qwek-qwek-qwek sound they make as they waddle around. (That one is for Kat!)
16. I used to hate wearing clothing around my neck (i.e. turtleneck sweaters), but now I think scarves are one of man’s crowning achievements. (Thank you Jolie!)
17. Mr. Man once said that I have little pig feet and I still laugh uncontrollably when I tell the story.  (Don’t worry–I don’t really have little cloven feet.)
18. As a child I desperately wanted to come up with a clever April Fool’s joke that wouldn’t be mean or get me in trouble. My solution was to tear off two squares of toilet paper and carefully lay them back over the end of the toilet paper roll so it looked like it was still connected. That way when somebody went to yank some TP out they would end up with just two squares. I thought it was painfully brilliant, but nobody in my family ever mentioned it. I still think it is brilliant. (That one is for Jen.)
19. My earliest memory is from my third birthday, of an old lady holding my Smurf puzzle on the brick ledge outside our house.
20. I have an intense fear of getting a person’s name wrong. I may know their name, but then I second guess myself and don’t say anything. If this has happened to you, I’m not a rude snob, I promise!  I’m just a lunatic.
21. I have 6 email addresses. Don’t ask.
22. If you give me a bag of popcorn I will eat the whole thing, no matter how big it is, or if I’ve already eaten, and then still be hungry.
23. I think the absolute cutest thing in the whole world is when babies chew on their own feet.  Nom nom nom.
24. I used to practice describing books in case I ever got to go on Reading Rainbow.
25. I think that we should call multiple sheep “sheeps.”

HI!!!

It’s me!  Do you remember me?  You know, Tanya, the crazy girl who went back to school and sits in university classrooms full of obnoxious, texting 18-year old girls until 8pm several nights a week?  Uh-oh, I may have accidentally become the angry mature student who sits in the front of class and answers all the questions.  (Not really, but it is getting awfully close.)

Anyway, I have been away from the internet-that-sucks-up-all-my-time in pursuit early Shakespeare, fairy tales (!), short stories from 1889, and New Wave French films.  I am attempting to stay ahead on homework so I can visit with you lovey people and respond to emails.  Really–I’m not (intentionally) ignoring anyone who has posted or emailed or commented.

Outside of school I have continued to do my one-a-day (photo, sketch, & paragraph) EXCEPT FOR ONE FATEFUL DAY LAST WEEKEND!  Ack.  And on that only slightly related note I am going to leave you with a photo out my front window that I think is hilarious.  (But it also totally deserves one of those black bars of modesty, so if you are sensitive to animal nudity you might want to avert your eyes.)

This dude has been living in our front tree for several years.  One year included a lady-squirrel friend, but I think she ditched him for a less pretentious squirrel boyfriend with bigger biceps.  Anyway, this guy likes to taunt our cats and this is his “put-em up” pose.  (Actually, I think he was looking for walnuts, but I imagine him wearing teeny little red boxing gloves.)  I’m fairly adept at naming inanimate objects, but I need help with him.  Any suggestions?