Like I have nothing better to do this month...

http://nanowrimo.org

Im trying my hand at this crazy write-a-novel thing.  Im about 4,500 words in so far, the goal is 50,000 by the end of the month.  A ton of those words are actually in an outline, which I am not sure counts but it means there is space between that outline to add paragraphs.  Of course its high fantasy, because if I try to write anything else it comes out like nuclear hunger-games (think the road and the hungergames combined - not pretty).  I have another story bouncing around in my head, so I figure if I can get this one on paper then it will be easier to write the second one, right??

Anyway, once its done, I'll give everyone an update.  Wish me luck!!

Typical recap post

It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last.

And, because I am the laziest person in the universe today (I'm wearing my pjs & slippers still and it's 2 in the afternoon!) I thought I would fill out a quick survey about my year, and vow to do better next time...

2013 Recap – Year in Review Survey

1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?

I held a brand new baby (she didn't even cry!)

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

HA.  I have no idea what my resolutions were, but this year, at least I am going to write them down!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

YES!  My boss, another co-worker, & a close friend - seriously baby central at work these days

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, lucky year.

5. Did you visit anywhere exciting?

I went to Utah to see my cousin & ski, to North Carolina for a friends birthday (complete with tattoos!) and to NASH-VEGAS to visit my best friend and drive home with her.

6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?

Better relationships with my friends.  Cool neighbors.  Back yard BBQs

7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The Day of the Doctor

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I fought for, and got, a change in my work responsibilities, and am actually doing design work now, which is what I have a degree in!

9. What was your biggest mistake?

Not wearing enough bug spray - see below...

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I had 26 tick nymphs on me (at once) this summer.  Antibiotics for more than a MONTH!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A whole ton of music & movies :)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
There are too many.  Seriously, people are becoming mean, cruel and ridiculous.

14. Where did most of your money go in 2013?

RENT.  seriously.  

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The teen leadership school I help to run, and will run in 2015 & 2016!  Our 2013 school is going to be hard to top!

16. What song will always remind you of 2013?

Little Lion Man & the Little Lion Man/Wrecking Ball Mash-up!

17. Compared to this time last year, you are:

About the same

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Gone on more dates!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Wanting what I cant have.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

With my family and my brother's new fiance and her family!

21. Did you fall in love in 2013?

nope

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Doctor Who, Arrow and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Hate is too strong of a word

24. What was the best book you read?

Too many to choose!

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

City and Colour - really digging them now

26. What did you want and get?

New Monitors, a promotion & a new coffee maker!

27. What did you want and not get?

I didn't get to see all the movies I wanted to see.  Also, I didn't get a haircut and I REALLY need one. 

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Turned 30, had a ridiculous party at a local bar, saw les miz at midnight and my friends sang happy birthday to me while Javier was committing suicide (sorry, spoilers)

29. What’s one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Some one to share it with.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?

Does it fit?  Also, bringing back flannel

31. What kept you sane?

Really comfy yoga pants lol

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

DUH.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?

Marriage equality in NJ!  Also Boy Scouts letting gay youth join!  

34. Who do you miss the most?

I miss my friend Pete, I miss my rugby team in college

35. Who was the best new person you met?

I have some new kids in my program that are seriously amazing.  

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013?

Never give up. 

37. What are your new years resolutions for 2014? 

Take better care of myself.
To never give up.
To do my best.

Now for 10 years we've been on our own

 
12/14/82 - 9/29/03

 

Now for ten years we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin' stone
But that's not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me

Oh, and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned

And while Lenin read a book on Marx
A quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died

Don McLean - American Pie

Help Prevent Suicide 

I miss you.  Everyday.

Lets Get this PARTY STARTED!

Donating online is probably the most simple way to help a cause. Type in a few numbers, click a few links, and you're done. You might not realize, however, the deep and lasting impact that your clicks, numbers and time will make in the fight against cancer. The research is in progress. Breakthroughs have already begun to change the lives of thousands of patients; treatments that can manage a person's condition with a daily pill, therapies that seek out cancer cells and kill them, and the use of a patient's own immune system to eradicate cancer are not science fiction, but happening today.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light The Night Walk funds those treatments.

Please make a donation and check back see my progress.

Click to Donate

Thank you!!

Stumble Upon Poetry

I can't say this out loud.

 

You probably understand. Or maybe you don't, after all. Either way, it is jumping around inside me and if I don't let it out soon all my carbonation will fizz up and run over the side of my glass and I don't want to waste all that sweetness.

I want to kiss you underwater.

I want that kiss to be the only thing keeping us alive. Down there we are foreigners, aliens. Grasping, I want to feel your flesh in stark contrast to the smooth wetness all around me, like a secret.

All that life where we cannot live. Exotic, forbidden, so lovely. I am sick with love.


- Amanda Jerry

South Mountain

Little Bench

Last week, I went on an adventure to find waterfalls with some friends.  After walking around a lot, we discovered that the waterfalls were much closer than we thought.  Unfortunately, the area is fairly close to an urban area, and there is a lot of graffiti (which looks cool) and a ton of broken glass (which sucks for the dogs who walk here a lot).  If you live in NJ I highly recommend this as a fun little escape.  We hiked around for only a couple of hours, and it was very pretty.   

Heart

Reflection

Easy as 1,2,3

My friend Erin over at and her heart it is in ireland posted a nice little survey, so I thought I would share!  Thanks Speedy!!

Age: 30
Bed size: Full
Chore you hate: doing laundry
Drink of choice: Coffee  Coke and Zero
Essential start to your day item: Coffee!!!
Favorite color: Orange Gold or silver: Both - I actually like how gold looks with my skin tone
Height: 5'9.5"
Instrument(s) you play: I try to play the piano
Job: Youth and Teen Director at a Y
Kids: None.
Living arrangements: I have a great one bedroom apartment down the street from my job
Mom's name: Marnee
Nicknames: Em, Emmers, Bear and Mac
Overnight hospital stay other than birth:  Appendectomy
Pet Peeve: Parents who dont watch their children
Quote: "If your actions inpire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader" - John Quincy Adams
Right or left handed: Right
Siblings: Older half brother (Joe), Younger Brother (Jay), basically my little brother (Jack)
Time you wake up: 8am
Underwear: comfortable?
Vegetable you hate: Squash
What makes you run late: getting distracted by my cat, and good tv
Xrays you've had: ok, regular x-ray: teeth, knees, hip, back, shoulder, neck, ankle, elbow;  MRI: both knees, hip; CT Scan: neck, head and abdomen
Yummy food you make: Spaghetti sauce
Zoo favorite: PANDA BEARS (finally saw them in San Diego last summer!) Flamingos, Tigers

Oh Deer

This ones called "Expecto Patronum" ;)

This ones called "The Birches" or "Boring Brown Buck"

 I've been doodling a bunch lately.  Tonight, it was a stag, which I scanned and made into a coloring page :)  So now I can put him where ever I want!  My insomnia had been pretty terrible lately, so I have been trying to stay off the computer (failing miserably) and drawing instead.  Unfortunately, I have had a bad headache every night this week, which has made drawing, reading, and (of course) sleeping difficult.  Doctor said it was from my sinuses so I am on a lot more allergy meds than I was before.  Hopefully, this will clear up in the next few days so I can get some good sleep & be more comfortable at night!

For anyone out there who reads this (both of you, anyway) any requests on what I should doodle next time I can't sleep?  Leave me a comment, I'll dedicate it to you! ;)

I need this on every computer in the teen center.

Click Me.

photo dump

Dogwood flower that never made it up in 2011 or 2012...

Another 2011 beauty that was just chillin' on my computer.

It was 60 degrees out, and raining.  I need some summer, not another wet, weird winter.

Last night of the last week of camp.  I am going to try to make it a goal to take a picture of something beautiful every day this summer.

Hugging them a little bit tighter

Working with kids, sometimes I get the random hug.  They want to feel connected and loved and express their apprecation of whatever we are doing.  Sometimes its a hug from one of the kids who takes my Lego classes, other times, one of my teens will randomly get excited and hug.  I always give them the one arm, side hug that lasts only for a few seconds.  Don't want someone thinking that the hug I give back means something a little more.

Yesterday was a little different.  I got three hugs, and while I still did the side arm hug, I did squeeze a little more.  I gave it a few more seconds, held on a little bit tighter.  Because what if.  Newtown isn't that much different from any other town in the northeast.  Sandy Hook Elementary isnt that much different than my elementary school, or any of the other schools in my area.  They were getting ready for holiday break; teachers finishing up lessons, making holiday crafts, teaching songs, decorating the class rooms.  These could have easily been my kids.  They could have come to my classes or my programs, they could be the younger siblings of my teens.  It breaks my heart.

I've never been more hopeful about our future

"And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future.


I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.
America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.

I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America."

- President Barack Obama

November 6, 2012

Sandy Blows

8 days ago I shut off my computer here at work, turned out all the lights in the teen center & locked the doors.  I had no idea it would be 8 days before I was able to sit down and actually get work done again.  All in all, my family has survived the hurricaine.  My parents house (last year's storm was a disaster) is still without power, but this year at least, we had fewer leaves and no snow! 

Once of the biggest problems is that there is no gas.  Which is a wierd concept, considering that there is practically a gas station on every corner in these towns.  But they are empty.  Or they dont have power so the pumps are off.  We have a gas rationing system that no one seems to understand (I've heard like 6 explenations of the licence plate rules, all contradicting each other).  I retreated up to PA for the weekend, so I filled up before I left, and brought back 10 gallons of gas for my dad.  There are also, unfortunatly, people taking advantage of this fact, and price gouging like you woulding believe (200% increase overnight for fuel...wtf)  Unfortunatly, with the disaster affecting SO much of the state, most of the attention has (rightly) gone to the ravaged shore.  Its a good learning expereince for the northern counties, how to carpool, plan trips, ride your bike etc.  My co-worker and I set a good example by walking to DD for lunch, and I think we are going to make a thing of it from now on.  We drive way too much (I promise I dont usually drive to work unless I am leaving from work to go somewhere that requires a car.  I live about 100 yards from the building...)

If you are looking to help out NY & NJ, I recommend donating to the American Red Cross.  We are going to start a food and clothing drive here, so send me a message if you would like to contribute to that :)

A Permanent Solution to a Temporary Problem

I don't miss anyone more than I miss him.  Rest Easy, Pete

 I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again
-- James Taylor

If you or a friend are struggling, say something to someone.  Here is a great resource for those suffering from depression & thinking about taking their own life. HopeLine 

Super Nerd

For those of you who know me in real life, you probably have realized that I have an extremely nerdy side.  I like science, dinosaurs, post-apocolyptic survival, an recently have developed a new and ULTRA-GEEKY obsession...

DOCTOR WHO

Man, its geeky.  But its fun.  Its all about friendship - the Doctor is a space & time traveling Time Lord (nearly immortal humanoid with 2 hearts and a British accent).  He travels in a TARDIS (his is broken and always looks like a blue police call box).  He has some companions with him (usually cute girls, although currently he has a young married couple who are adorable). And they travel space and time solving problems, fighting really weird alliens and saving the Earth (over and over again!). 

The show is very clever.  The companions can be dropped off back home, (or get lost in an alternate universe - sorry Rose Tyler!) and then the doctor picks up new ones (or they can search for him and then fall in love with his doppelganger - Rose Tyler!!).  The Doctor himself is "nearly immortal" meaning that if he is mortally wounded (aka absorbs a bunch of atomic energy or something silly) he can regenerate and a new actor takes over.  Currently they are on Doctor #11 (the series started in the 60s). 

Photo Credit - what a great artist!

Anyway, I'm obsessed with the show.  Its on Netflix... you should watch it.

Confessions of an almost 30 year old

 "What's wrong with your face?" Oh the innocent questions of a second grade boy... No I was not mauled by a bear nor did I have any especially large pimples protruding from my forehead... I was wearing makeup. Obviously by my student's reaction, you can conclude that I don't wear it very often. I was assured by my coworkers that I did look nice, but the boys were CONVINCED that my sudden cover girl impersonation was because "I had a date". Oh ok, when was that date fellas? At 11 am? Or I was "on a date", which was weirder because I was in a classroom of 9 K-3 boys and a giant bin of Legos. Nope guys, we are not on a date all together.

 I actually didn't start really wearing makeup until this year. As a kid I was not forbidden to wear it, I just was always in a pool or lake and it seemed like more trouble than it was worth.


 Not me, but how I picture I look in makeup...
photo credit



I pictured tubes, brushes, compacts, and movie scenes where the female lead is either crying or caught in a downpour (or both) and her eyeliner and mascara have run down her face and she resembles a raccoon. I read Cosmo Girl and Seventeen magazines faithfully with my friends, taking surveys to see what kind of kisser I was, ogling heart-throbs and gleaning makeup tips from the glossy pages. But I never really bought makeup until a few years ago, and that was reserved for times when I wore dresses (so basically never). This year, I am attempting to look like I am somewhat professional (I do teach Lego classes and play video games for a large chunk of my day, so maybe professional isn't quite the right word)... I think maybe it's just mature or in charge or not in high school... I get asked a lot if I have chosen a college yet (yes, did that in 2001).

Me at work... obviously.

 Me in make-up.  And I would like to say that the dress I am wearing in this photo is now WAY to big on me!  :)

Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Yesterday I went and picked up my brother's turtles and goldfish from his school - they are now the newest residents of 60 Keep Street!  The turtles are both young red-eared sliders, and the fish is a BIG ASS GOLDFISH.  Seriously, he's a big mamba-jamba.  Currently they are named "Leopard" for her/his spotted belly, "Harry Potter" the gold fish, and "Kelly"... because my brother's students are the worst pet namers ever.  So I am looking for another name for the second turtle.

I am thinking Leopard and Tiberius, or Leo & Tibs for short.  I am a little paranoid that Leopard is super stressed from the move.  She/he is very skiddish, whereas Tibs/Kelly will just eye me suspiciously when I get near the tank.  Neither have been basking yet, and they should be spending a lot of time in the light, so hopefully they just need to relax from the trip.  
Harry Potter is just fine.  Symon, resident fat ketteh, could care less that there are new friends in the house, and instead woke me up at 5:45 this morning for snacks.  SYMON ITS SATURDAY!

Somebody

That good thing I had going for a while... well this song pretty much sums up how it ended.

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad that it was over

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough

No you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done
And I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough

And you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Somebody
(I used to know)
Somebody
(Now you're just somebody that I used to know)

Location, Location, Location

Location, Location, Location

I could have kissed you
under cherry blossoms,
pale petals drifting down
like the trees wanted to
pretend they could be
snowclouds.

I could have kissed you
in the rain, drenched to
our bones and not even
caring that the skies
opened up above us
and tried to wash us out.

I could have kissed you
in a clearing in the most
secluded woods, with
just the sound of wind
rustling through the leaves
and a few voyeuristic
finches peeping at us.

Instead, I kissed you
in the parking lot of a
Waffle House, just shy
of 2 a.m. in the middle
of a hectic week, with
our waitress grinning
at us from the other
side of the window,
because, honestly,
how could I not?

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published May 11, 2011

http://gabrielgadfly.com/poetry/location-location-location

Jockey Hollow, NJ 1/1/12

Today, I convinced my friend Vivian to put on her New Years Eve gown and wander around an orchard and woods in Jockey Hollow, NJ.  I am trying out a new lens (Canon 50MM) and I needed a willing subject.  Vivian was a good sport (I did not include the photos of her scowling at me, or laughing at me haha).  Hopefully I can find some other victims subjects since Vivian is headed back to Nashville next week :(

All images featured on this blog are the property of Emily Galbraith.  

Any use without permission will be considered copyright violation, and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  Have a nice day!!