My excuses this week...

Basically this is my to-do list for the next two weeks, which I'm sharing with you in hopes of justifying the fact that I probably won't post again any time before mid-May.

In the next two weeks, on top of my regular classes, I have to complete two final projects for my two metals classes (Forming and Enameling). I have to run four Habitat fundraising sales. I have to organize and run the Metals Jewelry Sale (also make jewelry for it), on the same day as one of my Habitat Sales. I have to write a final essay for my education class. I have to study for my History of Jazz final. I have to glaze everything I've made in Ceramics in the last month. I have to go shopping for, then make hundreds of bagged lunches for, and then participate in Midnight Run through Habitat for Humanity. I will be spending next weekend with my Habitat group on a retreat. I will be moving out of my apartment the weekend after that. I have to make a Mother's Day gift for my mom, I have to make a birthday gift for my brother. I have to figure out my work schedule for the summer. I have to finish festival applications and processes for the summer.

I maintain that I am not a negligent blogger just because I'm too busy actually living life to find time to write about it.

Home at last...

Just in time to start up classes again in the AM. I've just waded through over 50 e-mails, and I've got 120+ blog posts to browse. I promise that journal entries and photos are forthcoming, and until then here's a sample! I still can't believe we made it all happen!

Woohoo!!! 101!

This is my 101st post in this blog. Yay me!

I thought the image was fitting, since I'm a farmer's daughter, and I found it here.

As it happens I did a lot today! I woke up at the unreasonable (for a Saturday) hour of 6:30 to ride into Newburgh with my dearest Habitat crew for a freezing cold morning of demolition and organizing. I've never been to a build in Newburgh because I'm usually working, but I had a great time! The volunteers are clearly a tight group, and there are certainly a lot of characters! I spent the better part of the morning sorting through a warehouse full of old and new donated building supplies and taking inventory. My toes were good and frozen by the end of it all, but we got a lot done.

From Newburgh I went straight to the studio and it's from there I just returned. I cleaned the hell out of my space, and I'm wishing that I had the energy to do the same to my apartment, but I'm pooped!

Another bit of very important news is that I've just finished the last bite of the best chocolate I've ever eaten. Messico, by Maglio of Italy is the BEST. It also retails at $10 a bar. That's $10 more than I have available to spend on chocolate, so if anyone is wondering what to get me for my birthday, now you know!! I'm also not opposed to trying their dark chocolate varieties. Hint, hint.

In other, other news I just had some of Progresso's Hearty Black Bean soup for dinner, and I think it's a new favorite! Especially with grilled cheese...yum!

I've finished two books in the past week, and I'll post about them separately, and then I'm off to knit!

Nose to the Grindstone

I'm back at school, and being a silly girl I left my computer home when I moved back into my apartment. People are saying I did it on purpose so that I would have an excuse to go home again. Needless to say I'd rather be home than here, and people know it.

For the most part my classes seem good, I've got some really, really heavy reading courses, and we'll see how long that lasts. At least they don't start out easy on us!

I think I won't have a lot of time for making jewelry, but I'm hoping that my Enameling class really pushes me forward in that area. Right now I'm making small things, mostly to benefit New Paltz Habitat for Humanity. We're fundraising for a trip down to New Orleans to rebuild over our spring break. It's challenging and frustrating and exciting all at once!

I'm reading:
Take a Thief by Mercedes Lackey for the YA Challenge
Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol for Sociological and Philosophical Foundations of Education
This Land Was Theirs by Wendell H. Oswalt for Indians of North America
The History and Tradition of Jazz by Thomas Larson for History of Jazz
The Art of Enameling by Linda Darty for Enameling

As my thoughts return to New Orleans...

I'm not really the type to revisit old journal entries, but I was looking for early images of my dreadlocks, and came across this post of a journal entry I wrote while doing relief work in New Orleans in 2006. It seems like centuries ago, and I look at these images and can't believe I took them. As I may have mentioned before, as of recently I'm the fund raising chair for the New Paltz chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and our spring Collegiate Challenge is in New Orleans.

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Originially posted on Robin Reads in February 2006, upon my return from New Orleans:

Note: This is my personal journal. Typically I wouldn't share writing like this with you all, so please keep that in mind. I've typed it up exactly as I wrote it. I feel like this is something I'm obligated to share with you all, it's an experience that needs to be shared.

January 23rd, 2006
Lakeview-

“What others have said is incomplete.” (Writing prompt) Their stories lacked the tangible disbelief one must feel upon viewing this catastrophe. Part of me is angry, feeling foolish for not being prepared, angry no one told me what to expect. I understand that they tried, even now I can’t put to words the horror and disgust I felt watching my classmates rooting about, exclaiming over something they’d found, surrounded by people’s scattered, broken lives, yet still able to laugh and interact. All I could do was cry. I didn’t want to; I wanted to be able to look on this situation as one looks on to a car accident, with morbid curiosity. I wanted the blessing of being able to distance myself from these people, these sights. I was granted no such thing. Instead photos were peeled apart, salvaged, though destroyed, from a heap of mud and scattered memories. “My grandchildren” she said, bringing me back to an earlier conversation with a 4th grade girl. “Where’s your favorite place in the city?” I asked. “My grandmother’s house, before it was destroyed.”


I’m finding it difficult to hold on to thoughts. I can’t keep my mind still long enough to capture what I think and feel, and writing about it takes the mental strength of a wrestler, pinning words to the page. I lack the graceful ability to mold prose into exactly the phrases I mean to express. It is a terrifying experience to be completely at the mercy of my emotions.

Hundreds of unoccupied FEMA trailers: Bureaucracy at its best.

Flood Damage as far as the eye can see.

Dirt and rubble piled along the streets.

Crushed by debris and water.

Crippled...

It isn't stress....

And this post is not professional, it's just honest. Really this blog isn't professional, because if it was I'd never write in it because I'm a human being, not a corporation.

I'm extremely busy. Unforgivably so, I think, though there's no one to forgive but myself. I've taken on the roll of Fundraising Chair for the New Paltz chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and we've just purchased 15 spring break plane tickets to New Orleans. The total was a bit over $5000, which really isn't bad until you realize that I've just signed myself up to figure out how to fundraise some $6000 total by early February or else we're all going to get stuck with the bill. And 14 other people are depending on it.

This on top of a whole lot of school work that came up quite suddenly. (None of us, professors and students alike, quite realized it was midterm)

I love projects, and generally I'm thrilled to be busy and not have time to think about my emotions but this week they're creeping in when there's nothing I can do to stop them. I'd forgotten how it felt to be lonely, and now, surrounded by people ending relationships (seriously, 5 in the last week and a half) the reality of it is coming back pretty quick. On one hand I'm wishing I could lock myself away and not face it, cry a lot and mope about, but on the other I know that I'm too devoted to my life to stop doing what I love, and I would only hate myself more if I neglected myself.

What's getting me is the anxiety. Am I capable of another relationship any time in the near future? Will I ever stop being anxious about being capable of another relationship? Will my anxiety about being anxious about being capable of another relationship prevent me from being capable of another relationship and thus will I forever be anxious about my abilities? Is Caleb okay? Will I always be scared of men? Why do I care if Caleb's okay? Realistically I know that it will all be okay, but anxiety doesn't work that way, it doesn't follow logic, nor does it respond to it.

Where do you find energy in a time like this? How does one overcome anxiety without the meds? That's the point of this post. Not to angst and whine, I just genuinely need some advice.

Here's looking at you, kid...

I always kind of had trouble with having people in my house. It felt invasive. But my goodness, when it's the right group and the right number it's wonderful. Tonight was fabulous. Everything fell together perfectly! I love to be a little hostess when everyone is laughing and eating and having a good time.

It was girls' night, you see, and the girls, Amanda, Elizabeth, Sara and Joanna, were over, and I set up a little picnic-like area in the living room with our fabulously square coffee table, and served cheese fondue with fresh veggies and bread, and the most stellar chocolate fondue with fresh fruit! Despite New Paltz's supreme inability to sell Fondue forks anywhere it was delish, and we topped it all off with some yummy wine, fabulous conversation, and Casablanca.

This is to become a tradition, we have decided, and since I made such an excessive amount of chocolate fondue we'll be eating sundaes next time! Old movies and classic games, topped with good food. We'll be experimenting with different recipes and having a blast! If anyone has any recommendations we welcome them!

I could gush all night long about how happy I am to have really wonderful friends and such good company, but I have to get up hella early for a Habitat for Humanity build, so I'm signing off!