Things to do & Things I am doing

Things I should be doing

1. Laundry

2. Mopping my concrete floors

3. Working on the class I start teaching in 12 days

4. Looking over the Bible study training I’m helping present in 10 days

5. Grading papers

6. Exercising

7. Writing the meaningful blog post that’s in my head

8. Reading the book that was chosen for book club that meets in 8 days

9. Sleeping

 

Things I’m doing

1. Driving all the way over to World Market to take advantage of their Nutella sale (no joke. Nutella was 40% off there today) only to find out that they are sold out of Nutella.

2. Reading tweets

3. Checking Ramin Karimloo’s tour dates every other day to make sure he hasn’t snuck Nashville in there when I wasn’t looking

4. Eating ice cream

5. Listening to my lovely neighbor play the piano (this happens every other night and I love it.)

6. Watching this video on YouTube and laughing hysterically.  Why am I just now seeing this?

(You’re welcome.)

the Liebster

I realize that this post risks being both pedestrian and self-centered after the exciting events of the last few months.  My stats saw quite a spike, probably because I haven’t been talking about where I ate dinner last night.  So just when I was getting into the groove of blogging about things other than myself, here we go.  A post about me.

You can blame Martha, who “nominated” me for this “award.”  And my cousin Theresa, who thought about nominating me but spared the world. : )

How Liebster works:

Thank the person who nominated you and link your post to their blog.
List 11 facts about yourself then answer the 11 questions given to you.
Create 11 more questions for your 9 nominees, all of whom have 200 or less followers.
Comment on their blogs informing them of their Liebster Award nomination.

Thank you, Martha, for nominating me for this award.  :)

Facts about myself:

1. I am shy in large social settings.  Torture for me is walking into a room where I don’t know anyone and everyone is standing around talking.  On the flip side, I can talk your ear off and I have no trouble teaching groups of 200+ adults.  I rarely even get nervous before talking in front of large groups anymore.  But small talk with no wing man?  Scared.to.death

2. Looking back over the first third of my life, one of the things for which I’m most grateful is the incredible people I’ve met.  Despite my fear of social situations, I have had the opportunity to meet and experience some amazing people, mostly in the Catholic world.  Some of them I’ve kept in touch with, some of them I haven’t, but all of them have made a difference in my life somehow.  I think if I could make a resume up of all the people I’ve encountered at some time or another, it’d be a very rich list.  And I know they’ve all been complete gifts.

3. My favorite color is orange.  Pretty much everyone who knows me knows this. What they might not know is that my friend Mary and I felt sorry for orange when we were in junior high because no one ever said orange was their favorite color, so we made it our favorite color.  And pity for it aside, I really do love it.  It’s so… happy.

4. I recently made the National Anthem of Vatican City my ringtone. It was partly because everyone seems to have the same iPhone ring (“old phone”) and so I never knew whether it was my phone or someone else’s.  I’ve yet to be in the grocery store and have someone else’s phone ring with the Pontifical Anthem. I actually got the idea from a story Lino Rulli told – his uncle is a papal nuncio for some country, and it’s his ringtone.  One day when he was meeting with Pope Benedict, his cell phone went off (how embarrassing!) and the Pope noted, “That should be my ringtone.” I don’t know if it’s a true story, but I thought it was hilarious.

5. I love to write and like to say things in eight words that could probably be said in four.  Which is why this Liebster thing is going to take me forever.  Let’s cut to the chase…

6. At various points in my life I’ve taken Spanish, Latin, German, and Italian.  I only know English.

7. That being said, if I could have knowledge of anything instantaneously infused into my brain, it would be languages.

8. My favorite current TV shows are White Collar and Person of Interest.

9. I can quote Win A Date With Tad Hamilton better than I’d like to admit.

10. If I could win a date with any single, straight actor, it would be Richard Armitage.

11. My confirmation saint is Clare.

Questions from Martha:

1. What was the last thing you ate?
A spinach salad.

2. List the three songs you are currently listening to the most.
This one is hard for me, because I’m doing a lot of Pandora listening lately, so it’s been a mix.

1. The Vatican National Anthem… because it plays every time my phone rings (see #4 above)
2. Anything by the Sheytoons (mostly Broken)
3. My sister’s Michael Buble Pandora channel

3. What was your first concert?
I would like to say Tom Petty. Or the Everly Brothers.  Or Herman’s Hermits.  But sadly… I think it was Yanni.  Tom Petty was in high school, the other two were in junior high.  And Yanni was when I was in middle school.  My mother corrupted me early, apparently.  So I went from Yanni to Tom Petty.  What does that say?

4. Who is your favorite spiritual/faith figure?
Pope Benedict- for his writing, the way he celebrated the Mass, and the impact he’s had on my life.

5. Do you have a strange habit that you could divulge to the internet world?
I sleepwalk.  Is that strange enough?

6. Why did you begin blogging?
I originally started blogging under a pen name, thinking that my brilliance and insight would propel me to fame and then I could say, “Hey, it’s been me this whole time!”  That fantasy didn’t last long.  I really fell in love with blogging when I was in Rome, with my JoaninRome blog.  Returning to the States was bittersweet in so many ways, but one of the things I really missed was blogging.

7. Name a pet peeve.
Wow, there are so many.  If I had to just choose one, I’d say those people who fly past a long line of cars just to merge at the very end.  I used to have to deal with this every day on my commute.  We’d all be lined up to get on the interstate, and people would fly past us on the left just to want to merge at the very end.  I never let them in.  And I never felt guilty about it.  Do you think I’m not in a hurry, too?  Don’t you realize you’re making this insane back up even worse?

8. Your first car.
A blue Pontiac Grand Am.  I still miss her.

9. Where would you like to be on vacation right now?
Rome and Assisi

10. What do you do when you can’t fall asleep?
I can’t remember the last time I had trouble falling asleep.  But I usually pray the rosary or read.

11. What luxury do you wish you could indulge in on a regular basis?
Travel.  If I had a more flexible work schedule, I’d travel all the time.  My  to-do list is long.  (Ironically, I travel all over the state for work.)

My Turn

Here are my 11 questions:

1. If you could be a fictional character for a day, who would you be?

2. What is your favorite book of the Bible?

3. What is your favorite thing to cook or bake?

4. What’s your favorite Christmas movie?

5. Do you subscribe to any magazines?

6. Mac or PC?

7. What is your favorite city in the United States?

8. What is your go-to meal for Fridays in Lent?

9.  If you could spend the day with someone in history, what date in history would you spend with whom?

10. If you could have a superpower, what would you want and why?

11. Winter or Summer?

My disclaimers before nominating:

1) I’m sorry if any of you have over 200 followers and I’m insulting you by nominating you. It’s not intentional.

2) You don’t have to do this.  Really.  My nominator told me that, so I’m telling you that too.

3) I’m sorry if you’ve already been nominated and posted this and I somehow missed it.

Jill

Trena

Sarah D.

Annie

Laura

Anne

Amy

Liza

Sarah A.

 

Freshly Pressed

Welcome to all my new followers.

The editor of wordpress emailed me a few days ago and told me my blog post on Rembrandt was chosen to be amongst their “Freshly Pressed” blogs that appear on the WordPress homepage.

So yesterday was the day — first it was on the top row of blogs, but now it’s dropped down.  What does it mean?  Suddenly my blog got a lot of traffic.  I was getting email after email that so-and-so “liked” my post, and comments were flowing in from people other than my mother, my sister, or my friend Amy. ; )

On average, I get about 40-50 hits a day, depending on whether I post.  On days that the Pope retires to The Villages to play golf with Archbishop Ganswein, I get over 100.  Yesterday I got 363 and today I’m still going strong at about 250.

I’m honored to be chosen, although I’m still not sure how I feel about it all.  I think I would rather some Catholic site “re-blog” me, but beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.

Anyway, maybe my new followers will soon jump ship when they realize I talk about Catholic stuff more often than art.  We’ll see.

Dressing up

A fellow female Catholic blogger has lamented on a few occasions that men have lost the art of dressing well.  She recently pointed out that while Downton Abbey is said to be affecting fashion, it means that Ralph Lauren’s fall women’s line has more tweed.  But isn’t it the men of Downton that wear tweed?  She lamented the lack of “smartly dressed men.”

I have to second that lament.  Of course, the men I work with do wear ties every day.  After all, they’re in academia.  But have you been to a Catholic church on a Sunday morning lately?  I could count the number of men in suit coats on one hand.  And this is January!  It’s cold out there.  Why not wear a tie and suit coat?

I’ve been spoiled my whole life by my father.  I can’t remember the last time Dad didn’t wear a suit coat to Mass on a Sunday.  Maybe when we were traveling abroad.  But he wore a coat even in our un-airconditioned church in the middle of July.  In fact, I think he often even wore long-sleeved shirts under his suit coats in July.

That’s something our society has definitely lost.

I don’t think that clothes make the man, and I’m not advocating that we should all start judging people by the way they dress.  Not everyone can afford a Tom Ford suit.  And honestly, I can think of a lot better ways to spend thousands of dollars than on a Tom Ford suit.  (although they are terribly nice.)  But I know men who don’t make six-figure salaries but still make an effort to look nice.

When I sigh over bow ties, three piece suits, and pinstripes, it’s not just the shallow boy-crazy side of me coming out.  Perhaps it’s a bit of a longing for days gone by, when men and women dressed up…. even men surveying a road.

that’s my greatgrandpa on the left : )

And even if clothes don’t make the man, taking time to look put-together shows respect for yourself and those around you. Why do we dress up for job interviews?  Why do we dress up for weddings or funerals?

But before this post becomes philosophical, I want to get to the point: Do guys realize how handsome they are when they’re dressed up?

We used to joke that the number of Christendom students who dated and got married was so high because everyone looked so nice all the time.  Sure, guys wore plaid ties with checked shirts or ugly ties or ugly sportcoats.  They didn’t always look like JCrew models.  But compared to some guys you see at Mass, they looked pretty darn sharp.

I know sometimes it’s a pain to dress up.  After all, I have to wear a skirt every day and I complain about it plenty.  But it seems that if guys knew how much they could make a girl’s heart pitter patter just by putting a tie on … I think they’d do it a lot more often.

Okay, so maybe a vest too.

I was arguing with a friend over bow ties and how they’re wonderful (he didn’t think so), and he finally asked, “What’s the point of a tie, anyway?  They serve no purpose.”

At first I didn’t know what to say.  But then I realized — they do serve a purpose.  They make you look nice.  I don’t know who decided that a strip of material made you look nice, but it’s true.

And so maybe they don’t serve any other purpose but that.  But we aren’t utilitarian.  They don’t need to serve any other purpose.  They tell the world, “I’m a classy person and I care enough about you and me to put this uncomfortable thing around my neck and look awesome.”

And while I may seem to be partial to Neal Caffrey’s slim fitting suits and ties, I’m okay with Windsor knots and wide lapels, too.

I’m very open-minded.

 

 

 

Why make cookies today?

1. It’s Sunday.

2. The first reading told us, “Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks… for today is holy to our LORD. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!”

3. I survived the first two weeks of a unexpected transition at work.

I didn’t have chocolate chips. That didn’t stop me.

4. I should be packing for my move.

5. Downton Abbey is on tonight.

6. My goddaughter was at a kindergarten open house today. That is impossible, because her mother and I were just in kindergarten ten years ago.

7. One of my good friends is returning to Poland in a few weeks. And the first reading told me not to be sad but to eat good food instead.

8. If I didn’t do something else, I would sit on my couch and watch old episodes of White Collar again and again.

9. This article was slightly depressing.

10. I wanted to.

11. It’s better to consume baking ingredients rather than move them, even if it is only a move of a few floors in the same building.

I wondered if I went overboard on chips/chunks. I didn’t.

12. They’re called “I Want to Marry You” cookies… and since there’s no one around here whom I want to hear that from, maybe if I bake them a straight Matt Bomer will knock on my door out of the blue.

13. Today is the 200th birthday of Pride & Prejudice.

14. I needed something to eat while I drank Coole Swan tonight.  Adult milk and cookies.

15. Tomorrow is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.

 

Perfect. I wish this blog was scratch and sniff.

A few things

I don’t know when the “7 Quick Takes” Day is, because I never can think of quick takes on that day.  But I need to update this thing, and the only brain power I have right now is to randomly state various things about my life in no particular order.  There may be 7.  There may not be.  So this is not 7 Quick Takes, but “A few things.”

1. My life is starting to stop spinning.  Have I mentioned I’m busy?  Have I mentioned that I’ve wanted to teach more and now God answered that prayer by dumping into my lap probably more than I should be handling right now?  One of my classes ended and another one is about to, so pretty soon I will just be teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  But the days of being prepped for class before the day before are long gone (I haven’t seen those days since the second week of class), so every waking moment that’s not at work is still spent reading and trying to get ready for the next class.  I’ve resigned myself to having no life for three more weeks.

2. Tonight’s topic was the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.  We read Voltaire and Hume and Robespierre.  I think we all miss the days of reading St Patrick or King St Louis or the Rule of St. Benedict.

3. I also spoke to some of the girls at the local all-girls Catholic academy this morning before work.  So I left my apartment at 6:45 to go speak, went to work from 8-4, prepped for class from 4-6:45, taught from 7-9, and was back home at 9:30. That’s my life.

4. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my sister Jill. Contrary to her wonderings, I never wished I had made other plans.  I did miss my other siblings and Mom and Dad, but I was definitely glad I spent the holiday with P & J and the boys.  Even if I’m now sick. ; )  It was worth it.

5. On my late night flight back, there were 8 guitars on the flight.  And one man wearing a cowboy hat.  I wonder what city we were headed to, hm?

6. My apartment is an absolute wreck.  (see #1)  It’s in the state where you desperately pray no one stops by for a surprise visit, especially your mother.  It’s so bad I’m kind of going nuts — which is big for me.  Piles everywhere.  Ugh.  I realized that I haven’t had friends over since before Labor Day (why?  see #1) and I really want to clean up and decorate for Christmas and have people over.  Maybe after December 18.

7. Sister was planning the calendar for the office today and she asked me to look over the dates to make sure she wasn’t missing anything.  We teach on Saturdays, and we have to plan pretty far out.  So we’re not talking about the 2013 calendar.  We’re talking about the 2013-2014 school calendar.  Which means I was looking at Saturdays in 2014.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t have many conflicts in April of 2014 yet.  When I went into her office, though, she said something about, “So that first Saturday in April, what do you think about teaching in Nashville that weekend?”  I joked, “What if I’m getting married that weekend?!”

She told me I could have off for my wedding.  But I pointed out that I would want her to come.  So she put a note in the email to the superintendent of schools and the diocesan coordinator in Knoxville, “Dates for Spring 2014 (unless Joan decides to get married on one of these days)”  I have a feeling I’m going to get some questions from them. : )

8. I saw Vince Gill two weeks ago.  I was waiting for a friend outside a fast casual restaurant right down the street from work (to eat dinner before- guess what- teaching) and he came out and walked right by me.  I would have missed him except that my friend walked up at that moment and said, “Did you see who just walked by you?”  I probably wouldn’t have noticed him otherwise — he doesn’t stand out like Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman when they walk into Mass.  I’m thinking I’ve probably seen him or Amy Grant before and not even really noticed.  If I ever do run into Amy Grant, and I recognize her, I hope I have the guts to go thank her for giving me the soundtrack for endless hours rollerskating in my garage circa 1992.

8. I realized I have several things I never blogged about, like Goo Goo Cluster Month.  So stay tuned.

More photo randomness

Here are some more random pictures from my phone.

I’m pretty sure Gigi’s Cupcakes were around before cupcakes were in.  Well, at least before cupcakes had their own reality show on TLC.  While it started here, Gigi’s is now all over the country.

This is a pretty old picture — taken when my friend Sarah was in town and had a craving for a cupcake (it’s a good place to have a craving!).  There is a bit too much icing on their cupcakes even for my taste (and I love icing), but their flavor combinations are so incredible, I don’t let a little too much icing stop me.

I got in trouble right after taking this picture.  This is at the taping of the finale of the reality show “CMT’s Next Superstar,” which is supposed to be country music’s version of American Idol, I guess?  (Although given that Kelly Pickler and Carrie Underwood are both from American Idol…)  The difference (among many, I’m sure) between the shows is that for this, America didn’t vote until this last finale show.  For the other shows, the winners were chosen by polling the live audience present.  But the finale was taped at the Ryman, and my friends and I were “seat fillers.”  Since we attended the taping several months before the show even aired, it was all top secret and we were specifically told not to blog or tweet about it.  So while America those people who followed the show watched the contestants go from ten (maybe?  I don’t know, I never watched it) to two, we knew the whole time who those two were going to be.

No magazine came and offered me lots of money for spoilers.  Or for the photo above.  But that’s why I got in trouble for taking it, even though you can’t see anything in the picture.  You can barely see the platform and desk where the judges sat (there’s a sound guy sitting there in the picture– it’s in the middle of the picture).  The highlight of the taping (which lasted an eternity because they kept retaping everything, giving me a new appreciation for those “live” voting shows) was seeing Trace Adkins, who was one of the judges.  He filled the whole Ryman by his presence.  He’s tall and broad and has the lowest, deepest voice I’ve ever heard.    And he propped up his cowboy boots on the judges’ desk during our down times and kept me thoroughly entertained as I waited to see if he’d fall out of his chair.

I warned you- these pictures are random.  This is a floral arrangement my friend Liza created for something — maybe our book club?  Or, knowing Liza, simply because she felt like it and because she’s that cool.  Anyway, I fell in love with the wild look of this and decided she would help me pick out my flowers for my wedding someday.

Remember a few weeks ago, I talked about getting stuck in traffic because an accident closed the stretch of highway I was driving on at the time?  This is a picture from that.  You take funny pictures of things when you have a blog in mind.

And this is me during that time, trying to stay cheerful and sane.

On our way to a Carbon Leaf concert downtown, we had this nice little present as we headed into the venue.  I don’t think the golden arches are really the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Hey, my friend is famous!  Father Jacek, not the Pope.  (Although I like to think of him as my friend, too.)  We had a special showing of the Nine Days that Changed the World documentary at a local theatre, and Father spoke ahead of time about his experience living in Poland during the time.  Not only did the showing sell out, they had to turn people away at the door!  It was a great success (although I hate to see people turned away), and it was a gift to have Father present and share his experience.

Okay, that’s it.  Enough randomness for quite some time.

Rodent Randomness

I was going through some pictures on my phone and decided to have a few random posts where I shared happy random things.

This one has a bit of a theme.

The whole wall of my living room is floor-to-ceiling windows, which look out to a patio that’s connected to the condo complex’s “party room.”   There is a variety of wildlife outside my window — okay, maybe not a “variety” — not like my sister’s bear and deer and foxes– but things like lizards and squirrels.  This guy came right up to my window the other day and wasn’t scared until I got just as close to the window as he was.  And then he scampered away.

I didn’t dare get as close to this guy.  A skunk was sighted around campus, always hanging around our building. We decided he probably lived underneath us… and we were right!  It wasn’t long before he was caught.  I was the first to come upon him in his trap– I thought for sure he would be ticked off and would spray us all.  But we came and went without any trouble– the guy who trapped him for us said that he’s never been sprayed by a skunk in a trap.  I guess they’re pretty content, and since they don’t have intellects, they don’t realize that they’re about to get shot.

We named him Joe, after our building, but since it was the day before St. Rose of Lima’s feast day (a good Dominican) and he was black and white, I pointed out that maybe Joe was a girl and was actually Rose?  Everyone said that was a silly name for a skunk.

Isn’t this such a nice, cozy picture?  As I mentioned last summer, when we don’t have Mass on campus I try to make a habit of going to Mass before work.  And if I do that, I usually treat myself to breakfast at Bruegger’s.   My good friend Annie made me this great cup cozy for Christmas, and I can’t use it without smiling.  So much better than a paper one.

 And that’s how I prefer my rodents.  Depicted, not alive.

flash Friday

Have you ever seen a flash mob on YouTube and wished you had been a witness?  Wouldn’t that be a fun story to tell your friends and family?  ”So, I was just shopping at the mall the other day, and this music came on and all of a sudden…”

It perhaps the story loses some of its oomph if you knew it was going to happen ahead of time.  But let’s face it, it would still be fun… right?

Well, a friend of mine from work was in a flash mob yesterday.  So my friends and I knew it was going to happen, and we decided to check it out.  Since he had been to practice and everything, we knew exactly when and where it was going down, how it was going to unfold, etc.  The only thing we didn’t know was if it was really going to happen… because the plan was for them to do it in the middle of a street.

I’ve seen videos of flash mobs in malls and train stations, which are a little safer than the middle of the street!  (My favorite ones are the singing ones… like this one.)  So we weren’t sure how this was safely going to unfold.  There had been some talk of cars stopping in the middle of the street to shut down the road, but that seemed a little hard to pull off.

When we got downtown, there were lots of policemen hanging around, so it was clear that they knew  something was up.  And then the news showed up.   This being my first flash mob, I’m not sure whether that’s standard procedure or not!  And the other flash mobs I had seen on YouTube  seemed to be more random — people seem to be bystanders, and then jump in to join the fun.  For this one, a large group began to gather just before seven, and it was pretty clear something was about to happen.

Just after seven, the cars were still coming, and there was no sign of the street suddenly shutting down.  Then the music began and the lead dancer stepped out — right into the street, where the cars were still coming.  The news reported that police shut the street down, but that makes it sound like there were no cars… and there were.  They maybe shut down two lanes, but where we were standing, there was definitely still traffic — it just had to come to a standstill as the crowd of onlookers spilled out on to the street to get a better look.

Here’s my video of it — my apologies at the amateur camera work.  I was using my phone (hence the bad sound quality) held above my head, and towards the end my friends waved into the street to get closer, so you get a nice shot of the sky for a minute as I walked into the street.

And here is the news story.  My friends make a quick appearance towards the middle.  http://www.newschannel5.com/story/14932695/flash-mob-takes-over-downtown-nashville-street

I have to admit– I was a doubter.  Our friend mentioned that not many people had come to practice, but seemed hopeful that more people had watched the online tutorial and would be ready to make their debut.  I had low expectations.  And I’m glad I was proven wrong!   It was a really fun, random moment!  Even if it wasn’t so random for us. : )

irony

I just looked up “synonymous” in the thesaurus for an article I’m writing.

There were no entries.