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January 27, 2004
new photos!
New photos are up from Christmas and other random events.
Click Here for photos from christmas and IZZY!
Click Here for random photos with friends!
and Click Here to see wee Laney -- my new niece!
Posted by heidijanet at 02:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 26, 2004
Rule #2
so my father posted some sage, if a bit chiding, advice for his short-sighted, garage-tumbling daughter in the comments section of a recent post.
as a result inquiring minds have emailed me to find out what rule#2 is. my dad graciously responded to the request:
Rule #2
Never, NEVER pull anything off of a shelf if you can't see the top of the
box!
so there you have it.
Posted by heidijanet at 03:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2004
disrupting the peace
did you know that if you go to msn.com and search for "disrupting the peace" that the second result...is this website?
hilarious.
Posted by heidijanet at 03:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
i'm an auntie - part deux!
after 18 hours of labor and precisely on her due date, my baby sister welcomed my new niece into the world this morning at 2:51am!
welcome wee laney!
Posted by heidijanet at 01:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 21, 2004
knit one, purl uh knit another
i spent my monday holiday, with my mother and my step-grandmother florence. mother wanted to go to a store called the "yarn lady", thinking that with florence being the farm-raised, wholly domesticated woman that she is, she'd be tickled. of course mother didn't bother to ask if florence had ever even picked up a knitting needle. she hadn't.
what she didn't count on, was that her 32-year old unmarried childless workaholic urbanite of a daughter, who considers the coffee machine her only useful appliance and take-out food cooking at home, would walk into the yarn lady, let out a little squeal of glee at the hand-loomed, hand-dyed nobby yummy yarn and subsequently rush the crowd of greying ladies to snatch a knitting for beginners tutorial, a pair of #36 needles and 2 skeins of fantastic merino wool and plop down her credit card.
i've been knitting since monday, my fingers are sore and i've had to redo the scarf once already [damn tie off!] and i love it.
and i just know that somewhere there is a spate of exes, girlfriends and family members that are slack-jawed in shock convinced that surely the fourth horse of the apocalypse has, in fact, arrived.
Posted by heidijanet at 02:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 20, 2004
logjam
okay so my long absence from entries has created a log jam in my mind, so much has happened over the last few weeks...christmas parties, celebrations, visits and photos with family, new years, excessive consumption, unbelievable workload, travel to vegas, spectacular lapses in judgement and complete lack of sleep...i could go on and on...but it's just too overwhelming to try.
so i'll just recant my most recent lapse in judgement, mostly because the others [as usual] are not fit for print.
so i'm in the garage, digging out the christmas decoration boxes having finally decided to pack away my fabulous, if a little excessive, christmas lights and my precious charlie brown tree. i crane my neck and spy the ones i need at the top of the "box stack", towering 10 feet above my head. so i decide to scale the inevitable jumble that lives in every garage (isn't there? if you don't have a garage jumble, then give me a ring, you're hired) in front of the stack of boxes. with my right foot on the back of my grandmother's old puke-green wingchair that i refuse to get rid of, and my left on top of the dresser that holds all my childhood clothing, i reach way up to pull down the boxes. as i pull backward on the second box [you can see where this is headed can't you?] i stupidly try to do some sort of jerky pull so i don't bring the box lid down. because, you know it's far more important to _not_ lose the box lid.
at the second jerky pull [heh. no pun intended], i lose my balance, drop the box, do the slow cartoon-esque clockwise motion of my hands... "whoa...oh...no...fuck!", i reach back and grab the edge of the open door behind me, which promptly swings shut bringing me and the jumble down hard with excellent commotion on the concrete, cushioned only by my fortunately [for once in my life] ample behind. i also managed to jam the front fender of my bright-yellow low-rider bicycle into the lower left of my back. *oof* so now i have a knot bruise the size of texas in the middle of my back and my left ass feels permanently clenched.
i swear to god, i need supervision.
sigh.
Posted by heidijanet at 02:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 11, 2004
dog days
in case anyone wonders if i've been hit by a truck...i've worked over 100 hours at work this week.
and counting...
that's a new record.
Posted by heidijanet at 12:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 04, 2004
pursuit of happiness
i've had several conversations with friends about the pursuit of happiness lately. i had the luxury of meeting up with my friend ariel recently and we ended up in a discussion about her writings and how they might be organized, which led to an exchange how her perspective tends to be misinterpreted as overly positive. if there is such a thing.
the conversation subsequently turned toward the observation about how we live our lives and experience joy, in direct correlation to our understanding of suffering.
she described a woman she knows that has led a fairly positive life, great family, fulfilling marriage, financial stability, and yet this woman still manages to infuse her daily life with a tremendous amount of self-inflicted worry, complaining and unhappiness. the assertion was that we, have a need to "balance" our lives with a corresponding level of unhappiness to compensate for our good fortune. and vice versa.
while i believe that this is fundamentally true, i also suspect that in this assertion the element of choice has been left out. ultimately, i believe that as humans we are incapable of a sustained state of happiness. we hope, we strive for something better. something more than what we have. this is what drives us on a daily basis to overcome the shit that life throws our way, and also creates our common sense of "if this is good, then more is better" mentality.
a friend forwarded an article to me today about a psychologist that studies "happiness" and our pursuit of such. i found this article interesting, but also (like many "studies") predictable.
it suggests that we are, as humans, capable of extraordinary adaptability. that when asked to choose between some kind of hypothetical misfortune and another, we not only make incredibly short-sighted selections, we grossly underestimate our capacity to survive, and in fact thrive, in the face of a particular adversity.
anyone who has experienced great hardship, learns that we are far more capable of surviving than we might have ever imagined. and through this adversity, often find that happiness is not in what we achieve, nor in what we posess, but in our capacity to appreciate what we have at this very moment.
i had another friend who told me once that he would never place his faith in anything that could be lost easily. to never count on money, looks, security, health or the "bright and shiny shit" to offer lasting contentedness. and i found this to be sage advice, until i learned that just about anything can be lost in an instant.
through the last few years, through a bit of rough treatment by the universe, i found that the only thing we can control, is our reaction to any given event. that we have a choice. our happiness directly correlates to our understanding of suffering. but that this happiness is also a choice. how we intrerpret and learn from our experience. i suspect that the only thing that might offer lasting satisfaction is borne of our ability to choose who and what we love. how we spend our time and the value we accord it.
and if we mistakenly expect that there is someone, or something, that will fill this void, or become a salve for our dissatisfaction, then we are ultimately doomed to a lifetime of misery.
but more importantly, i suspect that because we are naturally inclined to balance our suffering or good fortune with its natural counterpart, it becomes more important to understand the element of choice in this equation.
i'm not sure that i've totally made up my mind on this, because perhaps in the face of great hardship we can only adapt and survive because we have no choice. but i'm not sure this thinking accounts for all of the miserable, depressed folks that have given over to their hardship nor the incredibly happy, seemingly oblivous, people i've run across over the years.
either way, i'll continue to plod on in my pursuit.
Posted by heidijanet at 11:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 02, 2004
i resolve - 2004
ok, in line with last year's resolution, to resolve things more often, so here we go:
1. i resolve to learn to play the drums this year. properly.
2. i resolve to strengthen my poor post-injury body to that next year i'll be able to go skiing at least once.
3. i resolve to expand my social network to include more folks with something to say, and more grownup activities. i'm a little tired of waking up on sunday with a hangover and a foggy recollection of discussions about haircuts, second dates and where did you get those shoes?!
4. i resolve to travel. this is a long term resolution, but i specifically resolve to go to italy this year. or paris. whichever housing situation works out.
5. i resolve to be less cynical about love.
okay, another year down. another to go. happy new year!
Posted by heidijanet at 09:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack