Thing Number Three | Reading

I read books and magazines and newspapers and blogs and e-books and PDFs and e-mails and websites and manuals and booklets and posters and signs and the back of the cereal box.

I read anything and everything. I read voraciously. It’s both a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because it is my absolute favorite thing to do. I don’t just read a good book, I inhabit it. I reread favorite books over and over again because it’s like visiting old family friends. A part of me is even surprised because nothing ever changes in books. It’s almost as if I think that, if I sneak up on a beloved story, if I catch it unaware, something will have changed. A bad thing because sometimes reading gets in the way of real life. When invited to hang out with friends or family, I may think “But I’m reading.” If Jon wants to go do something, even something fun, I may think “Maybe when I finish this chapter.” I almost always have the corner of a book shoved under the microwave to hold it open, so I can read while I cook. This has lead to some catastrophic cooking failures and some injuries. Both to cooking utensils and to me.

Books are my favorite but I subscribe to the local paper and several magazines. For years and years, I’ve read the paper with breakfast and I cannot fly without magazines. I read my favorite blogs almost daily. I am a recent convert to e-books. Oh, sure, I held out for quite a while. I love the feel and, yes, even the smell of books. Reading a physical book is a sensory experience. I absent-mindedly flip the pages of my book while I’m reading (which drives Jon crazy), because I love the way they feel. Jon offered to get me an e-reader but I wasn’t really interested. He actually bought himself a Kindle but neither of us was that into it, so he sent it back. Then he won a Kindle at ASHA, which was so cool that both of us felt that we kind of had to be into it. And that was the turning point for me. Because to be able to read Stephen King’s 11/22/63 (an excellent but enormous book) on a tiny little Kindle, rather than having to tote around an enormous hardback was revolutionary. When I found out that the Banning Library was going to be part of the Southern California Digital Library and I would be able to check out e-books, that was the icing on the e-cake. I was officially a convert. Later, we got the iPad which was also a revelation because now I could read magazines to which I already subscribe on the iPad. My Kindle books are also on the iPad (but I still love the Kindle because it’s smaller and lighter and I’m less afraid of losing it).

Probably my greatest fear is that someday I will lose my sight and, with it, my ability to read.

Here are a few of the things I'm reading lately:  the June issues of all the magazines to which I subscribe, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (which has me baking yeast bread!!!), Spindle's End (a novelization of "Sleeping Beauty"), blogs on the iPad, and An Ice-Cold Grave on the Kindle (a So Cal Digital Library loan)

Thing Number Two | Morning Routine

5AM by the clock (4:50AM real time):  first alarm  |  5:30AM by the clock (5:20AM real time):  second alarm—get up  |  Go to the bathroom  |  Pack lunch (unusual because I didn’t have to pack Jon’s lunch—he was going to an SLP meeting/luncheon at work)  |  Start the fire under the kettle and dump the cocoa packet in Jon’s mug  |  Water the plants  (a pot of basil and some kind of tree-ish plant that we grew from a cutting that Jon’s mom gave us)  | change the light bulb in the pub table lamp  |  Check e-mail on the iPad  |  Get the newspaper from the driveway  |  5:40AM real time:  Wake up Jon  (because it was a Friday he was in a good mood, so I got a cuddle and a kiss)  |  Iron work clothes  |  Pluck eyebrows, wash face with Neutrogena Acne Wash, and put in contact lenses (I’m too scared to get Lasik)  |  Read for a bit  |  6:10AM Take a photo of my breakfast (chocolate milk in a glass and a scoop of dry Cheerios in a tea cup—Jon kind of hates my breakfast) and then eat it while reading the paper  |  Start the dishwasher  |  Write a note to Robin Ann (we write to each other weekly; I usually write on Saturday mornings but I had time to write on this Friday)  |  7AM Pray for Jon, hand him his lunch, and kiss him good-bye  |  Write “Jewelry” journaling for the Ali Edwards’ “31 Things” class I’m taking  |  7:40AM Do my arm weights exercise routine while watching a DVR-ed episode of “The Big Bang Theory” which takes me almost exactly 20 minutes, since I fast forward through the commercials (TBBT is a guilty pleasure that I only allow myself to watch when I’m working out)  |  Brush teeth and apply lotions  |  Get dressed  |  Curl hair and do make-up  |  8:20AM Leave for work

Thing Number One | Jewelry

I wear three rings. Funny thing, whenever I get a new student clinician from Loma Linda University, I skim through the list of things required of LLU student clinicians and grin when I see that such students are to wear rings on one finger of one hand only. And even that was a concession from a Seventh Day Adventist institution that doesn’t really approve of wedding rings at all. Strong SDA brides and grooms exchange watches on their wedding days.

But I’m not SDA and I’m not a student clinician, even though I’m an LLU alum, and I wear three rings:  two on the ring finger of my left hand and one on the middle finger of my right hand. All three are from Jon (who, by the way, was compliant with this requirement when he was an LLU student clinician and wore just the one ring on the ring finger of his left hand and that one ring was from me).

First ring | My engagement ring. Jon gave me this ring the day after my twenty-second birthday. I was kind of expecting it but, as always, he made me wait and took me through a fabulous day of driving up PCH, stopping at Mission Santa Barbara and Mission San Luis Obispo, eating lunch at an adorable restaurant, and finally ending up on beautiful Moonstone Beach in Cambria with me crying in the car because I thought I’d gotten it all wrong and he wasn’t really going to propose. You’d think I’d be used to this kind of behavior, almost eighteen years later, but I almost ended up in tears last Christmas Day because the diamond and sapphire bar pin I’d been mooning over for months was the very last gift he gave me and I’d given up hope of its appearing.

Second ring | My wedding ring. Dad took Jon to the Jewelry District in Los Angeles to buy my engagement and wedding rings (so sweet). Jon picked out the diamond (a little over three-quarters of a carat) and two bands. One of the bands was used as the base for my engagement ring and the other was my wedding ring. Both rings are white gold. My mother’s wedding set is white gold and I’ve always thought diamonds looked better in white gold than in yellow gold. Jon and I got our rings engraved as our first anniversary gift to each other:  engagement ring “JDP to MJB 9/24/94”, my wedding ring “JDP to MJP 8/19/95”, and his wedding ring “ MJP to JDP 8/19/95”.

Third ring | My tenth anniversary diamond band. We spent our tenth anniversary at Huntington Gardens in San Marino and Jon gave me this ring at the end of the day, of course, while we were at dinner. See? I should be used to this. This ring is precious to me because it symbolizes ten years of choosing to stay together and love each other even after the sweetness of young love and the magic of the wedding has worn off. We’d gone through career struggles, health issues, and the non-appearance of the baby we’d thought we’d already have. But every day, we chose to draw together and love each other. Almost seven years since he gave me my anniversary ring and almost seventeen years since he gave me my wedding ring and we are still choosing to love each other. And I wear my rings as the symbol of that daily choice.

31 Things

I'm taking Ali Edwards' "31 Things" over at Big Picture Classes. Yes, it's a scrapbooking class but I haven't done any scrapbooking. I've been writing about 31 things in my life, starting with "Jewelry" and up to today's topic "Conversation". So far, I'm liking it. I'm liking that it's got me thinking about some of the stuff in my life and asking questions like "Why do I have this?" or "Why do I do this?" I turn 40 this year. If changes need to made, if I need to get rid of some things or start doing some things differently, I'd like to make them now.

Winter? Hello, Winter?

So, I hear that Groundhog's Day came and went and apparently Punxsutawney (yep, I googled that; nobody knows how to spell Punxsutawney cold, not even the inhabitants of Punxsutawney) Phil saw his shadow and the whole Northern Hemisphere will be experiencing six more weeks of winter.

Um, that is so not a problem because my area of the No Hem has yet to experience six weeks of winter, six days of winter, maybe not even six hours of winter.

Yeah, yeah, I know I shouldn't complain. That when it's pouring rain later this month or sometime in March, I will regret regretting the lack of winter.

But my skin is so dry! The grass in my yard is so brown! The rain didn't come so the wind stayed, instead!

Darn La Nina years. Now we'll be hearing about the drought crisis for the rest of 2012. On the plus side, however, my husband, a confirmed summer-lover who could live his entire life outside in the sun, is a happier camper.

5 Years

Robin Ann gave me a 5 year diary for Christmas. Five years! She said she's into her second year and it's worth it because now she can look back and see where she was at this time last year and this is a fun thing to do.

Five years! I can't even faithfully keep up this blog! And now I'm supposed to write something down every, single day for five years?!?

Five years. I mean, really.

Being me, I decided to not only do this 5 year diary thing but also get a SECOND 5 year diary called Q & A a Day, in which I will answer the same question on the same date for five years.

Yes, when given a crazy project, I have to make it even crazier.

Now I kinda want to get one for all my girlfriends and make them join me in the craziness.

Welcome, 2012

Ohhhhhh, 2011 was so not my favorite year. Beasley died. Jon 's job is driving him crazy. We didn't get the house. The car. Harlows moved to Chicago. Back on birth control; gave up on the baby-dream.

Nope, not the year I'd play on repeat.

But that's ok.

There was some good stuff, too. The trip to DisneyWorld. Lots of date nights. Our sixteenth wedding anniversary. Books, movies, and tv shows. Good food. Time with family. Time with friends. Our twentieth December together.

And that's that. 2011 is in the can.

I am so ready for 2012.

And my one little word for 2012 is "peace". I've given up on contentment and I know full well that happy comes and goes. I'm going for peace. For a calm spirit even when things get crazy. Even when I'm not content. Even when I'm not happy.

In 2012, I'm choosing peace.