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I am an artist & teacher with a ❤ for visual expression, educational methodology, homesteading, & Jesus. My geek-love is The Joshua and we have three peanut-butters: Caleb, Jack, & Louritta.

My House is HOT!

07/11/2005

Seriously, it’s like a greenhouse in here lately. As Josh points out, I’m way sensitive to heat. I get all tired and sick feeling, I don’t want to eat anything, and just get generally lethargic and lazy. Basically, the hotter the temperature, the more reruns of Cops and Judge Judy I watch. It’s pretty sad. Although, today I must have been especially desperate because I watched a documentary on volcanoes then took a nap. “Must not move… might break sweat,” I repeated to myself.
So, I looked online for air conditioning units and realized that it just wasn’t gonna work. The ones that are affordable are little crappy in-window ones that only cool like 12′ X 12′. The other ones are way more expensive and I wonder how I could get the air to actually circulate through my house. It’s a long house with lots of walls separating the rooms, so there’s really no good way to circulate air without nine-kajillion fans everywhere. I considered getting a couple of the smaller units and putting them in different rooms. But, then I don’t get to look out of windows anymore. Plus there’s the cost of electricity for running all of those babies. Sigh. Just not going to happen.
I tried to remember what I did last year. Oh yeah, when hot go to Starbucks, Target, the mall, the Library…anywhere but here! But, trouble is, I LIKE to be at home. I shouldn’t have to avoid my home.
So, I’m trying to consider ways to keep the house cool that doesn’t involve a large financial investment in metal air-sucking boxes. I think we’ll invest in some GILA films to put on the West-side windows and block heat. Also, do a nightly super-ventilation of the house, followed by an everything-closed policy during the day.
I wish we had some good trees to shade the place. But alas, just a palm and the ugly tree. They don’t shade much.
Maybe I should just forget about cooling the house and get a body cooling system. I could fit lots of useful stuff in all them there pockets. 🙂

Her Heart, With Love

07/10/2005

I recently found out that a dear friend of mine lost her spouse in a car accident. It’s one of those moments where there are no words to comfort or to express the ache. I have to believe in God’s greater plan, that He is who He says He is, and that He still continues to love us zealously. And that He will work out the details of our lives despite our fears and desires and hurts.
In church this morning I was singing with the worship team and most of our songs related to God’s holiness. With my friend heavy on my heart I cried out to God, wanting to intervene on her behalf somehow. Wanting Him to reach out and heal her heart and restore her to the joyful bride I know her to be. Wanting for Him to fill the distance between us that I am not capable of filling.
When we were singing Come Thou Fount, I flubbed up on the words for the whole congregation to hear (oops), but it was the prayer of my heart. Instead of singing about “my” heart, I sang about hers.
Here’s her heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.
Much love to you, my dear blessing and joy.
“Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.” Psalm 71:20-21

VB

07/10/2005

Played outdoor volley with some buds today at the park for about 2 1/2 hours. I served at maybe 70%. Not as good as I’d like it to be, but definitely improved from my recent serving freeze (yuck). I think I’m getting much better at hitting and timing a good spike. I didn’t have any blocks today, but we were playing with a men’s height net (not the usual coed I’m used to). Met some new people I got to play with too, which is always cool!
I’m hoping to get some of my former Jr. High small group girls out playing one of these days! That’d rock!
P.S. I forgot to mention in my last H&F blog my trip to the Klamath River where I river rafted and hiked many miles up and down nature’s glorious trails. If that doesn’t give you some serious muscle crampage, I don’t know what will.

Surf Cramps

07/09/2005

Dude, I’m a blogging machine today!
Anyway, this dude named Serginho Laus surfed the longest wave ever on 6/24/05 and is now in the Guinness Book of World Records. He rode it for 10.1 KM (6.3 miles). The magic happened on Brazil’s river bore wave, the Pororoca. The article says he “went to bed with very sore thighs.” You think?
Man…I can’t stay on a wave for longer than like 10 seconds. But, I’m really really really good at wiping out. I bet I could win a wipe-out contest. Gotta respect a dude that can stay on a wave for six freaking miles!

Do You Do Netflix?

07/09/2005

I love Netflix. Do you? Part of the membership is that you can add “friends” to your profile. Then, you can see movie recommendations based on your friends’ ratings of movies, as well as the movies they have out and are at the top of their rental queue. So far, I have Neal on my friend list. Anyone else want to be my Netflix friend? If so, e-mail me and let me know!

Summer Lovin’

07/09/2005

I LOVE SUMMER! I’ve been doing lots of cool stuff with my time and I’m totally diggin’ it. I could SO get used to this.
I’ve been playing volleyball at least twice a week and am totally loving doing drills and playing and stuff. It’s so cool to see how my body reacts to the strain of physical training and to be able to do it with a team of cool people. I just got a book on training your body for volleyball and some of the exercises are totally weird. I was trying some of them in my driveway yesterday and I think people thought I was totally stupid. It involves jumping on and off of boxes, quick lounges and drops to the front/side/back, repeated jumps while holding balls, and other stuff. It was fun and totally got me breathing hard! We’ve been slowly putting together our team for leagues this fall and I think we’ll be pretty good. We’re going to be in the advanced league so it requires more training and practice and stuff. It’s so fun!
Also, I planted a bunch of new plants in the front and back and have been growing some new herbs. I also figured out how to get my catnip plant to grow like crazy, and the animals love chewing on that thing! I was able to train them to only eat that plant by squirting them with water whenever they went near my other plants. Heh heh.
I’ve been working on a few different paintings that are all very different. It’s good though, because then I can work in my studio with many different moods and shift from project to project as I see fit. I’ve also decided that I totally love my Prismacolor colored pencils and want to get their super dooper pack of colors eventually. Those babies are awesome. I’d like to get more of their markers too, but they’re so darn expensive!
Also, I’m teaching summer school right now. My class is 6th grade core for students who either failed or need remedial help. It has 21 boys and five girls in it! The class dynamics are quite interesting for that group, but I’m having lots of fun with it. We’re reading The Day My Butt Went Psycho. I put together some different activities we’re doing with plot analysis, journaling, cartooning (SOOOOO FUN!), and vocabulary that make it a gas to read!
Hmmm…anything else? Can’t think of anything. Gotta go and finish coloring some pictures for a special secret project Josh and I are doing…to be released soon! 😉

Lately…

07/09/2005

I haven’t been posting stuff lately. Here’s the low-down of what I’ve been up to:

  • Volleyball on Wednesday nights
  • Volleyball on Sunday afternoons
  • Sit-ups/Crunches & Push-ups daily (amount varies)
  • Running 2-3 miles at least once a week

Unfortunately, I haven’t been surfing for awhile. I just sold my board and am waiting for the transfer of funds so I can go buy my new board. I’m totally pumped because I feel like God totally provided for this new board. Josh said I could get one, but that I needed to come up with the funds outside of my regular salary. I just felt confident that they would come in somehow and they did. I got paid $200 for managing an art contest this past year. I said that I’d do it not knowing that I’d get paid for it, so that was a cool surprise. One of my students won a nationwide art contest, and I got $50 for being their teacher. And, I sold my board for $200. So, that adds up to my swell $450 for my new board. Hopefully I’ll buy it and get to try it out this week!

Ahhh! Oxygen!

07/07/2005

I found out a year ago that I have asthma. My current guess is that it has something to do with working with clay way too much. Anyhoo, it’s been difficult to breathe sometimes as a result. This summer it’s been bad, with me having attacks five minutes in to exercise. I’ve been a trooper though, and use my inhaler when I need it and still continue regular exercise. It’s been extra hard to breathe lately though. So, I went to the doctor and she measured some breathing stuff and I found out that even my resting breathing has been shallow. I guess it has something to do with the combo of allergies & asthma. She gave me a new inhaler that’s used as a preventative.
So…yesterday played volleyball and didn’t have one asthma attack or any difficulty breathing. I was even chasing balls all over the place. It was kind of funny because practically every time I took a breath I wanted to shout out some kind of praise or wa-hoo or something because it’s been a long time since I was able to really breathe deeply. I love oxygen!

So Damn Lucky or Hell Yes

06/25/2005

Well, Josh has noted this summer as the “Summer of the Music.” We got Beck tickets awhile back and are pumped to go to that concert at the end of July. It’s going to be in Universal City, CA, so we’ll get to take a little trip and stay down there. Beck is Josh’s favorite musician so that totally rocks.
But, then I found out that Dave Matthews is playing in San Francisco in mid-August. I wanted to go, but we didn’t have the cash to buy the tickets, and they were crappy seats anyway. Then, my buddy ended up having to sell his tickets because he forgot about something going on that weekend. He’s one of the season ticket holders of PacBell park, so got them at a discount & got good seats. HE SO SOLD THEM TO US! YEAH! Talk about being So Damn Lucky…
So, Josh and I both get to see our favorite musicians this summer. Rock on.

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