Tennessee sucks, in the summer

Memphis is under a heat advisory for several days. When I got into my car at lunch yesterday the temperature gauge said this:  

       

This is why Tennessee sucks in the summer (not sure if that's what Ryan Adams meant though).

My co-worker and I were all alone in the office (our bosses were out of town) so I went over to YoLo after lunch and got frozen yogurt for us. Mine was white chocolate with strawberries, chocolate granola & mochi.

I'm currently obsessed with this song. I especially like to turn it up really loud in my car.

I think we're going to the beach in three weeks, which means I'll be using up some of my precious vacation time but it might be worth it to spend a week doing almost nothing. 

 Doug and I have become addicted to Buffy (the tv series). One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago we got caught up in a marathon of it and couldn't stop watching. Luckily my friend Kenan has let us borrow seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. Yesterday we watched five episodes.

We bought a Kindle and I'm trying to get used to it. I bought Bossypants, A Visit from the Goon Squad and Under the Banner of Heaven on it but I find it a little harder to sit down and use. Part of that could be my reluctance to put down my knitting. 

I got a really short haircut. I used to have short hair. The first time I cut my hair short was junior/senior year of high school. It was not quite cutting edge and more suburban mom than high school student. Eventually I grew it out. The second time I cut my hair short was about a year into dating Doug. I kept it short for several years and started growing it out after we got married. Over the last year I've been hemming and hawing about cutting it again but couldn't decide. Then the other week I got tired of blow-drying and frizzy hairs so I made an appointment and got it all snipped off on Saturday. I love it so much. There are no frizzy hairs and the blow-dryer is put away for a bit. Plus since it's 104 degrees outside there's no hair sticking to the back of my neck. I'm hoping the new 'do doesn't make me look too much older.  

The great time suck

Lately I haven't been able to blog as much or have the time to do things to blog about. The reason? Algebra. This summer I'm taking an algebra class online, through the University of Memphis, so I can hopefully finish up my BS degree over the next two years. Algebra has been the bane of my existence forever, really the entire study of math. I started going to 'special' math when I was in the second grade. The trouble has persisted throughout my educational career. I have taken this particular class at the UofM at least twice before, without passing. Really. Thus, almost all my free time (the time when I'm not at my 8-5 job) is spent on my laptop trying to navigate the distributive property and rational expressions and linear graphing. Algebra is currently my great time suck. It's hard, especially since it's online and it's the summer semester, which is more condensed than the spring or fall. But the end will come shortly and (fingers crossed) hopefully I can eke out a passing grade.

2-9

Today is my birthday, somewhere around 11:40pm-ish I'll officially be entering the last year of my twenties. I know it's not 'old' or anywhere near 'old' but I can't help but be a little freaked out. Where the hell did the last ten years go? Each year seems to go by more rapidly than the last, yikes.

I am happy, really, really happy, with my life right now and I'm also thankful for the family and friends and husband I have that support me and love me and eat my baked goods.

For the next 12 months I plan on work on my 30-by-30 list, 30 things I want to do by the time I leap into my thirties this time next year. I was inspired by folks like Andrea of Hula Seventy and Maggie Mason's (Mighty Girl) Mighty Life List. My list is here on Listography and it isn't full of life-altering, impossible things, but hopefully things I'll do and enjoy or hate or whatever, but I know I'll be richer for the experience. There's something from a Kurt Vonnegut book I think about whenever I'm feeling apprehensive or unmotivated.

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." - from "Player Piano"

In celebration of my birthday here are some pictures from birthdays of the past.

Being the decider

When I think too much I start to get panicky, my mind wanders into all sorts of tiny places that make me overly emotional and generally freaked out. I am the queen of avoidance, if I don't see it/think about it/read about it - that means it won't happen/doesn't exist. This is a character flaw of mine that I really need to work on.

The reason I bring this up is I'm hitting this fork in the road of nearing the end of my 20's, coming to a stagnant place in my worklife, which is in-turn leading me to think about what I want for my career/future, making some major life decisions about kids, which isn't made any easier by our IF issues, blah blah blah. For awhile now I've been in the mindset of "if I don't think about it, it'll go away" but now everything is coming to the point where decisions will need to be made soon. I have done an excellent job of pushing everything hard and uncomfortable over in the corner, not addressing any of it and just baking cookies instead. Add to that the feelings I have lately of wanting to change something in my life, whether it be where I live or where I work or just my hair, and I think I'm working on the beginnings of some sort of weird 'I'm-almost-29-what-have-I-done-with-my-life?!-crisis'. I'm trying not to completely lose my mind though, I'm making lists and taking a lot of deep breaths and talking to people I trust and I know that eventually it will work out. I just hope I don't talk myself into a blond bob before that happens...

A hat, a cake & keeping warm

I finished my first knit-object of 2010, I started it right after Christmas but didn't finish it until last Thursday. I blocked and washed it over the weekend and ta-da! It's the Ripple Hat from Knit and Tonic (the worsted version) knit up in Dream in Color Classy I bought in Seattle. The colorway is called Strange Harvest and it's a weird mustard-y color that I really like. I really love this hat because almost every hat I've knit has a ribbed band but this one has a garter stitch band instead. It's a super easy pattern and pretty quick too.A couple of weeks ago I was catching up on my blog-reading and found this recipe from goodLife{eats}. It's a Cardamon Citrus Coffee Cake and it's really good. I have a large baggie of cardamon I bought last year and I'm trying to find recipe that call for it. Plus by making this cake I got to use my shiny new bundt pan. Easy recipe, I almost forgot to put the filling though so my filling/sugar swirl sit almost at the bottom of the cake. I just dusted the top with powdered sugar but I think it might be nice with a thin orange juice glaze too.It's been unusually cold here the past week, we even got a tiny dusting of snow last Thursday. Nothing to write home about though, the thing about being an adult is there are no snow days (at least no where I've worked in the past nine years). Yesterday I was worried our heating system was working too hard so I turned the heat down and Doug brought in the electric heater from his shop so we could run it while we were in the living room. When our cat Ed figured out that the heater was putting out warmth he plopped himself down in front of it and stayed there. Happiest cat ever.Oh and here are the paperwhites, week four. I took this picture yesterday and this morning when I woke up the tallest one has started to bud.

Done in 2009, To Do in 2010

I have had a really great year, I have done a lot of things I wanted to do. I got to go on four 'big' trips and a couple of smaller ones. I finally used my sewing machine. I got closer to a wonderful group of women whom I positively adore. I made the newspaper. I used more sticks of butter, dozens of eggs and cups of sugar than I care to think about. Most importantly, I become more comfortable with myself and who I am. In 2010 I want to:

• Walk outside more often
• Take liberties (with what I don't know yet)
• Bake something extravagant
• Visit another country
• Decide what I want to be when I grow up
• Go to Graceland
• Start practicing yoga again
• Knit a sweater that’s outside my comfort zone (seaming! eek!)
• Read Ulysses
• Make a family tree
• Write a short story
• Be a better person

Tonight I'm ringing in the new year with friends and going to a late night yarn sale. Hope your New Year is happy!