Monday, January 26, 2009

16+9 Things

I was tagged on Facebook by Carter to post 16 random things about myself. I started, but never finished. Then, I was tagged by Cathy to post 25 things random things about myself....yeah didn't get to start that one seeing as I never finished the 16. So, I decided to do it here and then just post it on Facebook later tonight. (Can't get on Facebook at work)

16+9 Things about me...

1. I miss being pregnant. I'm crazy. I don't even know why I miss it. Aside from the fact that I was making my baby, I was pretty miserable the entire time. I puked for 40 weeks and had serious back pain for the last monthish. I just wanted her OUT! But now that it is said and I done....I miss it. Will someone please remind me of this next time around when I am sitting on the floor of a public restroom tossing my cookies?

2. I am a horribly jealous person. It's probably my worst character flaw. I'm jealous of Alicia's exes, people who love their jobs, people who don't have jobs other than raising their kids, people with a bigger house than me, people thinner than me, people with more money than me, people with less money than me but who make it work anyway, people younger than me, people older than me....Well, you get the picture. I hate this about myself and I am constantly trying to come to peace with all the blessings I have (for which I am grateful, don't get me wrong), but then I start dreaming of being a stay-at-home mom in a house with a basement and I get jealous. Sigh.

3. I have a love/hate relationship with marching band. In high school and college, I loved it. I looked forward to rehearsals, games, trips everything. My entire social network stemmed from marching band. Heck, it's where I met Alicia. As an adult, I despise it. I don't feel like there is much musical value in it. (It has tons of value, just not in terms of musical education.) I dread every rehearsal, game, parade and performance. I think this has two main causes: 1) I am an adult and my social/personal life lies outside marching band and I hate it when I have to leave my family for a football game. 2) I have never taught students who really enjoyed marching band. So, we are all just sitting there doing something we don't want to do. As much as I fake cheerlead, I'm sure that they know I'm not having a good time either.

4. One of my favorite childhood memories comes from when my family lived in Alabama. We had this gigantic house with 2 rooms on either end of the 2nd floor. They were literally the size of the garage. One of these was my bedroom. My brothers and sister and I would line our dressers up in a row, run across the top and "fly" across to the bed we had strategically placed at the end. I have pictures of each of my siblings horizontal in the air. It makes me laugh every time. I have no idea what my mom was doing while we moved all that furniture! :)

5. I love Christmas socks. Silly, yes, but I just find them so festive. I was very sad this year to discover that several pairs had holes in them. Luckily, I told Santa and he brought me more!

6. I have an additicion to sweets. I know that many people say this, but I really think it's true for me. Alicia brought me a bag of chocolate home from NY. I ate it all in one sitting. I just couldn't stop. I knew I would get sick - I could even feel it coming on, but I just couldn't stop. I just shouldn't start. Which leads me to.......

7. I'm currently mad at myself regarding my weight loss. I have been a fat girl my entire life (well, not so much the toddler years, but I don't remember those.) I have always struggled to lose weight. The only time I was successful was my freshmen year in college. I wasn't even trying then. I think it waas just that I was walking a lot, was too shy to make friends early on and refused to go to dinner by myself. Then, when I finally did make a couple friends, I didn't want to eat like the fat girl in front of everyone, so I ate Capn Crunch and cookies my entire Freshmen year. (Not really sure how that's not eating like the fat girl, but my 18 year old logic escapes me now....) Not a great diet, but only 1 bowl of cereal and 1 cookie for breakfast and lunch does not add up to lots of calories. Anyway, since leaving college, I got fat again. I am now trying to lose weight for real. I have lost 20lbs, which is good, but my motivation is waning. I haven't really exercised in 3 weeks and I'm not as careful about what I eat. I have tons more poundage to shed so I need to really kick it in to gear and get myself together again.

8. I am going to, once again, try playing in BGB. (That's Big Gay Band for all y'all who don't know.) Alicia and I stopped going once we had Parker, partly because community band and a newborn don't mix well and partly because we were frustrated with the state of the band. However, after some amount of begging and deciding that I missed playing, we are going to try returning. I hope that I am not disappointed. I don't need anything else to frustrate me right now.

9. I miss being a really good musician. I worked my butt off in college to become the best flute player I could be and I think that I was actually pretty good for awhile. Now, I'll look at something and think "That's easy," but my fingers or tongue won't be able to hack it. I also miss my breath support and tone. I'm not sure where they went, (I must have left them at Butler)but I certainly don't have them anymore. I wish I had the time, energy and resources to get good again.

10. Secretly, I really like musicals. I know they are hokey and not "good" but I really like playing for them and directing them. I'm pretty excited/nervous to do the University Musical this spring. Oh - and if by chance any of the "regulars" for that pit are reading this, I need you to play. I'm not exactly sure on the details yet, but I believe the performance dates are 4/30-5/2. I'll be contacting you as soon as I get the stuff from Damien.

11. My idea of an awesome Saturday is sitting on the couch with Alicia eating too much fatty food and watching movies or entire seasons of bad tv shows. It's pretty hard to get that right now with Parker.

12. I can't seem to reconcile my life as a mom and my other life. For example, we are invited to a friend's house Saturday night for her birthday. I really want to go, but part of me feels horrible because we would have to leave P at home and I leave her at home all week. I'm returning to the BGB, which means that on every other Tuesday, I will only see her for 2 hours. It makes me feel like a bad mom. I feel even worse, when I do finally get home and I want to spend time with her, but I also want to check my e-mail, work out, load the pictures, read a book etc. I feel like I should WANT to spend every waking second with her since I no longer see her during the day. I just haven't worked this out internally yet.

13. I feel burnt out as a band director. There are lots of things about music education that get me excited, but my current position is not one of them. I never really wanted to be a high school band director. Originally, I wanted to do middle school band. My first job was at a jr/sr high, so that wasn't too bad. Then we moved to NH and I had to take what I could get....HS band. We moved back and I got a middle and high school job. I thought it was what I wanted - all band all the time..... 3 years later, I realized that this was not what I wanted. I missed the Music Appreciation, the middle school general music. There were so many things I wanted to do with my bands, but I felt so much pressure to perform that there wasn't enough time. I guess this is one of the main things I don't really like about HS band - you have so many performance expectations that there seems to be very little time for creative projects or learning about music outside of how to play the saxophone. There is a possibility that I may get to teach K-8 general music (excuse me "Exploring Music") next year. I'm pretty psyched that I may get to focus on teaching kids about music instead of how to play "Smoke on the Water" so that we can survive the next football game. I feel like such a hypocrit because I never wanted to be that person, but I feel like my entire worth as a teacher is currently based on what the band sounds like at the sporting events, so instead of learning the things that we are supposed to be learning, we learn to do what we have to to get by. I hate it.

14. I am a recovering slob. I'm never going to be a neat and tidy person, but I am getting much better. In my last college apartment, you couldn't even walk into the closet because there was a mound of dirty clothes on the floor that was so huge, I thought it might be growing things. Now, I actually load and run the dishwasher AND pick up Parker's toys every night. My dirty clothes are still on the floor though. At least Alicia makes us do laundry every weekend.

15. Sometimes at work (like today) I eat my lunch at 9am. I'm not sure what makes a turkey sandwich sound so yummy at 9am, but it just sounds good and I'm a little bored, so I eat it. Then I'm really hungry by dinner!

16. I have worn a toga and a headress at the same time. High School was such a stupid time!

17. I really want a new house, but I'm also sad about moving. We just did the floors and put up the fence....yeah....I'm just conflicted.

18. Parker spit up on my shirt this morning and I was running late so I didn't even bother to change it. I don't think you can see it, but I smell like sour milk....kinda reminds me of her.... :(

19. I need instant gratification. I like dusting because you can instantly see that things are cleaner. I just don't have a lot of patience for some things (cleaning being one of them) and seeing instant results helps!

20. I used to LOVE beets. I liked them so much that I would tuck them in my cheeks so that I could eat them later. GROSS!!!! I loathe beets now.

21. Speaking of food, I won't eat anything that has lived in the water. I do make an exception for tuna in a can, but that doesn't taste anything like real tuna so I don't think that it counts. I hate seafood. YUK!

22. Sometimes I can't really believe that I am an adult. I have a job, a house, a partner, a kid. That's pretty grown-up, but I still feel like I'm 16. (Well, except for my knees.....they feel pretty old!) Alicia and I were talking last night about what Parker will be like when she's 10 and then I thought "Holy Crap! I'll be 40!" Yikes.

23. I'm paranoid that Parker is never going to move. She hates laying on her stomach and when she is on her back, she doesn't really have a need to go anywhere. I'm pretty convinced that I'm going to be carrying her around when she is 3. She is pretty close to sitting up though. She can go for about 5 or so seconds before falling over.

24. I'm a major procrastinator. Take right now for example. I have to copy some things before my class comes. Instead of doing it right now, I am writing this. I will wait until 10 minutes before class to do it. Luckily, there is a machine in my room. Phew.

25. I have no inner monologue. I am much better than I used to be, but pretty much everything I think comes out my mouth. I have to work really hard at school because I often think some things that I definitely should not say. When I'm not at school though....I get myself in trouble alot.

1 comment:

amypfan said...

You also hate tubular meat. I feel like that needs to make the random list somewhere. :) But really, I liked this a lot. I may actually get motivated to do one now.