Monday, January 29, 2007

Say what? I just found a bundle'o'presents attached to my front door. Inside are all sorts of tiny goodies that are making me all giggly. Icy Hot? Mini crayons? A 50% adorable picture of my dear dear darling and I at her wedding (which is negative points for me trying to not look like a drowned ferrett in the humidity)? And let me just say, BEAUTIFUL necklace. I am the luckiest gal in the world.

And Bumblebee, you are not an asshole, not in any way. You are a little muffin that is full of tasty morsels. You are in reading overload, and if osmosis really worked, I'd say sleep on the books you need for the exam, but it doesn't really work that way. You need to do this, because in a couple of months, we will be free to enjoy the sunshine with our fat dogs and your silly hubby. That is, if I can find time in my busy schedule of becoming anorexic and work out addicted, oh and avoiding finishing gallery submissions at all costs.

Chai?

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Let me tell you a little story that just popped in my head this weekend.

It was my 11th birthday, I was not very excited for it. My mom had made me invite a bunch of girls that I was not friends with. I think it was a slightly misguided attempt at making me become more popular. Well, all that did was make me throw a truly phenomenal hissy fit at my party. This is especially embarrassing, since all these girls had really and truly tried to make a go at having fun at my party. I'd gotten nice presents, and instead of being grateful I ran off to the upstairs to cry my eyes out. It's my party, I can cry if I want to.

I was sitting on the edge of the tub in the bathroom when someone knocked on the door and came in. One of the girls came in and sat down next to me. I don't really remember what she said to me, but I know that she was being incredibly kind. Someone had given me a magic 8 ball as a gift, and she had brought it with her and we played at making predictions. She made me laugh, made me stop crying and got me to come back to the party and start having fun. Sadly, the rest of the evening was slightly ruined by the weather... as it has pretty much always snowed on my birthday it was no surprise... but it was a particularly heinous snow storm which stopped us from completing the festivities at Round Table Pizza.

I've remembered that kindness all through the years, even though I never made any overtures towards friendship with that girl after that. She had really tried to reach out to me, and I was too self conscious to allow it to happen. But I always appreciated it.

I have been lucky enough to reconnect with this girl in the past year. She now works with me and we've been slowly getting to know each other. I think she is a real treasure and would be very proud and honored to be her friend. I think she is kind, and funny. And in my new founded spirit of gratitude, I wanted to thank her for this kindness as I come up on another birthday (17 years later).

Thank you Katie.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

My new gung-ho attitude towards getting healthy is certainly becoming an interesting experience. Coming from a past of being very athletic and into a present of being... the opposite... I think that I might be pushing myself a little harder than is warranted.

Yoga on Thursday with Justin was awesome. The teacher is hard, but supportive. The poses are fairly elementary, but she moves through them so quickly, you're really getting a work out. I was dripping sweat, something I haven't done for a long time. I could barely stay on my yoga pad I was so slippery. Eww. I know. But I was very pleased with the fact that I was able to keep up with all the poses a lot better than I'd expected. My wrist didn't even trouble me, considering we were in downward dog for most of the class. I feel supercharged afterwards.

Yesterday was a tad rough cause I was starting to feel the exertion more. Then last night I went and had my first one on one session with the personal trainer. She is very nice and funny, and totally non-judgmental. We spent the first half of the session getting all of my information in, no surprises there, I'm in the "unhealthy" range. But she helped me put together a realistic and totally normal meal plan, and set an exercise regime that is not too frightening. She thinks that for me to achieve my goal weight loss (in a healthy way) will take me about 8 months. All in all, that's not a long time, especially when I think of how long it took me to become this sedentary.

But this morning, I felt like I'd moved two apartments and then gone for a jog. So I took a nice hot bath today for about two hours. :)

And now my mom is on her way to pick me up and take me to look at some new houses for sale. It's down in the kind of Glendale area, but the houses are just built and reasonably priced. So, we're going to see if it might be worth the effort. Especially if SarahJo moves out here at the end of February, then she could move in with me. We'd have a nice place for all the dogs and cats to run rampant. How would it be to own my own place and not have to deal with asshole neighbor anymore? Not have to deal with an apartment so drafty it's the same temperature as the outside all year round? Heaven.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

I have received an invitation to my 10 year school reunion. They created a website for the gathering, and I keep watching it in morbid fascination. I didn't actually graduate from Skyline, I only spent my sophomore year there, and the first two months of my junior year before I went screaming into the warm embrace of Realms of Inquiry (yeah, my hippie high school). To be technical, I graduated through night school, since my senior year consisted of a 1/2 a credit of English... 6 hours of classes and I graduated...

But I digress, to go or not to go. I am flip flopping like a gasping fish on this. While I'm intrigued to see how my classmates turned out, and I have known quite a few of them since elementary school, I'm also completely horrified by the idea of them seeing me. I was by no means popular, and in fact a little bit, well.... mocked and terrorized by some of the jocks. Typical high school experience, though, I'm none too affected by it any more. But most of my friends were older students, a year or two older than me.

But mostly, 10 years is a long time, and it seems to have gone by rather quickly. And I'm looking at these photos thinking, they all look so old! I look so old. And since I'm not married and don't have 2-4 children like the majority of them, I feel even more detached from the whole thing.

Dear God.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Body Found in Weber County Waste Transfer Station:

CSI has nothing on Utah's waste management specialists.

They saw blood, they found body, death considered "suspicious".

That is all.

-(Updated with link!)
Dear Ira Glass,

How sad I am that I missed you today! You were so close, yet so far away. I wish you'd given me more advance notice, and I would have totally been there. Lunch was included? Why didn't you say so?

Have I ever told you how much I love you? It's true! You're an inspiration to me, and I look up to you very much. Besides you have that adorable little voice that just makes me get all giddy. But now I'm just getting off track.

What I wanted to say is, when are you going to hire me?

Love,
Mindy

Monday, January 22, 2007

Eww. Medium pulp orange juice is not meant to be chugged.
Things I love right now:

-Walking around town, music just sounds better when you're walking with your giant headphones.
-Oh, giant headphones.
-The smell of peppermint, can't get enough of it.
-Tea. Any way I can get it.
-Re-reading trashy novels from my youth.
-Watching the sun come up over the mountain from my desk with a cup of coffee, this is becoming habitual.
-Stereolab, but when don't I love them?
-John Fluevog shoes. My $150 investment twelve years ago pays for itself over and over every winter, when I'm not sliding the entire way down 4th south. God bless you Fluevog, and your Angelic Soles.
-Cough drops, even though I'm eating so many it's making my tummy hurt. But at least I'm not getting dirty looks for coughing all day.
-Pearls, I could walk around wearing nothing but strands of pearls and feel like a real class act.
-Cat toys and the hypnotic hold they have over Yeti and Rufus. Without them, I would never sleep.
-Senor Tuber on Toothpicks, aka; tiny body, big head, aka; Mr. Burns. His fatness amazes me, but I won't say no to the cuddlyness.
-Big plans for the future, suddenly they seem so possible.
-Speaking of plans, ooooooh the ideas.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Guilty pleasures from the sickbed of Mindy:

Watching old favorite movies and allowing myself to be overcome by emotion. A Room with a View, when George kisses Lucy on the hillside in Florence? Where was he when I was there? I was too busy getting my heart broken by the assistant director of the boys choir from Sydney, Australia... Of course I can't remember his name, but that isn't the point.

Sleeping in my new comfy bed with my nice new sheets and comforter. Although I did get to puppysit my brothers dog and that always adds strain on the dynamic of my little family. Burns gets really protective of him, especially since Sammy and Yeti fight all the time. Burns and Yeti are best friends, unless Sammy is here. Then it's all barking and hissing. Meanwhile poor Rufus gets molested by Sammy repeatedly, I had to pull him off poor Roo's back three times today alone! And then it takes a few days for everyone to find their equilibrim again. It doesn't help that I managed to forget I'd let the puppies outside and they were out in the freezing cold for a half hour while I was dozing, luckily they yipped loud enough for the asshole neighbor to notice and let them in the laundry room, which woke me up... I thought they were behaving a little too well.

I'm rereading trashy books from my youth, nothing is more healing to me than reading Anne McCaffrey... let's not talk about it, I don't want to cheapen the moment. Especially since Kelly was so kind to give me five books over Christmas that I haven't finished...

Ordering pizza and not feeling too guilty about it. I needed to get soda for my sore throat somehow, and I'm not about to walk to the Indian-mart in freezing temperatures, no ma'am or sir. I'm going to make some college student do the work for me.

Having a decent excuse for not working on either of the prints I have coming due soon. I need to finish a lino carving in the next week or so, and start playing with my new watercolor technique idea for the gallery submissions. But, it seems like a lot of work, especially since I woke up to a house full of snotty tissue that had been lovingly pulled from the trash and distributed by my adoring pets. That Yeti, he's a natural born dumpster diver. If it weren't for his good looks, that hobo would be out on the street...

Last but not least. Heat. I'm going to have the biggest gas bill just from the past two days alone, hot baths and the heater on full blast... but it is such a nice change of pace from the beginning of winter. And now that I have the landlord finally paying half of the gas (since he attached an appliance illegally to my gas line, it's the least he can do) I finally feel like actually turning the heat up for a while.

Alright, it's time to go climb back into bed, read my trashy book and let my now Sammy deprived pets calm down.

xo-M
Ah, I love the smell of a fresh new blog. Take a deep breath!

So, I'm timing this new blog to coincide with my need to get a little motivation in my life. I've been *cough* a little lazy lately... and by lately I mean the past five years. But no more!

I'm planning big things, people... big things...

First of all, Operation Salt is coming along, we're planning on submitting to galleries soon.

I may be starting a Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School group here in ol'Salt Lake City, thanks Molly!

The job has moved back to the main lab, which will be a nice change (can you believe, a corner window?! Who cares if it overlooks a heating vent and is an interior corner, if you squint you can see the mountains!)

School?

Yes sir, the times, they are a changin'.

Did I mention I'll be 28 in three weeks?