Bits and Bobs

I don't tweet but I have had lots of thoughts recently that I then thought would make good twitters (tweets? twits? chirps?). These are some of them:

I heard The Young and the Restless theme song (also known as "Nadia's Theme") just now. I cannot stand Y&R plus I am usually at work at this time of day, so it has been years and years since I heard it. I had forgotten what a pretty song it is.



Honeycrisp apples - yum!!

My parents were here this weekend. Good visit but it didn't go completely unmarred. Friday night, my mother said, "I am proud of you for cleaning the kitchen before you go to bed." Yes, she really did. *sigh*

Looks like I will start a temp job very soon. I want to get back to work - I need to make money and I need to fill my days - but part of me is sorry this "empty" time is coming to an end.

I love to read but I also love books themselves.

I found a little article in Midwest Living about cake balls. I am inspired to try new flavor combinations!

What's in your head today?

Meet my bestie

This is my BFF, the fabulous Mary Alice:

She just started her own blog. She has decided to chronicle her weight loss journey as a way to stay focused and strong.

I'd love it if you would drop by her blog and leave a comment. I know how wonderful your encouraging comments are - and I know she would be tickled by them, too.

If you never hear from me again it's because Mary Alice murdered me for posting this picture. It was worth it - I have no remorse.

Goodbye, old friends

Today I say a sad, fond goodbye to Carly, Jack, Lisa, Tom, Margo, Lucinda, Lily, Holden, Luke, Noah, Katie, Henry, Nancy, Kim, Bob and so many others.

Today marks the end of As the World Turns, one of the longest-running soap operas in television history.

I am a third generation ATWT fan. My Grammie and my mom watched ATWT from the first episode, when Nancy Hughes said "Good morning, dear" to her beloved husband, Chris. Mom was ironing and watching the show in 1963 when it was interrupted for Walter Cronkite's announcement to the world that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. As the World Turns is part of my memory as far back as I can remember. I remember how exciting it was when ATWT expanded from 30 minutes to an hour. Mom and I used to talk about the show's characters as if they were real friends or family members.

There were so many storylines that captured me: Tom and Margo's battle of the mind against Mr. Big...James Stenbeck's seemingly infinite rebirths (rock solid soap opera rule: if there is no body, there is no death)...Marcy's marriage to a prince...Lily and Holden's roller coaster romance from teenage first love to happily married couple to divorced parents and everything in between...Lisa and Kim's many marriages and their own catfights...Lucinda's boardroom machinations...Craig's repeated choices to do the wrong things for the right reasons...Steve and Betsy's star-crossed romance...John and Bob's heroic efforts to cure any and all ailments that befell a resident of Oakdale, Illinois...Barbara's shift from beleagured victim to vengeful shrew to wise mother.

(Growing up in central Illinois as I did, it always amused me when the show referred to its location. There is a real Oakdale, Illinois - a tiny little town deep in southern Illinois, much closer to St. Louis than Chicago. The fictitious Oakdale is only an hour or so from downtown Chicago, boasts a world-class hospital, an international airport, and a thriving corporate environment.)

My favorite couple has always been Carly and Jack. I don't know why but I identified with Carly from the very beginning, even though she was a bad girl who loved to scheme (so not me). She loved Jack from the moment she saw him and Jack loved her just as deeply. He was her G-Man and her True North even though their natures were often at odds and repeatedly tore them apart. Recently, their story has paralleled my own life in a strange way.

I rarely watched any other soap (I did flirt with General Hospital in 1983 - I had to find out why all the other girls were swooning over Luke and Laura), but I didn't need another one. As the World Turns was over the top and fantastic, sure, but it always seemed to keep one foot on the ground so that everything that happened seemed *almost* possible.

One of my favorite things about ATWT was that the story never ended - there was always more, always something new, always another adventure, romance, intrigue, or disaster around the corner. I never had to close the book or click the remote, sigh, and wish I had more time with the characters I had come to love.

Today, the story ends...and I will sigh, and cry a little, but As the World Turns will never stop turning in my heart.

Bright spots

1. the view from my balcony at dusk this evening

2.

The temp agency woman who interviewed me today said I have an engaging personality. I am probably inordinately pleased by that. Hey, I'll take what I can get! (Now, put me and my personality to work!)

3.

A BIG storm blew through Monday evening. I was standing on my balcony, watching the clouds roll in. A neighbor - who I had not met or even seen before - parked her car and walked toward the building. She called up to me, "Looks like a wild night." I replied, "Sure does!" She said, "I'm in 113 - come on down if it gets bad and you would feel safer on the first floor." How nice is that?

This day

New life in suspension

• I moved 35 days ago.
  
  
• Mary Alice left 31 days ago.
  
  
• In the time since, with the exception of two lovely visits from Himself (ah, what a complicated situation that is!) I have not seen anyone I know. That’s an odd thing to consider, isn’t it? When was the last time you went for any length of time without setting eyes on someone who cares about you?
  
  
• For the most part, I have been contentedly alone and not lonely.
  
  
• I watch too much tv, which is a real feat considering it is summer and the cable listings are a collection of 17,000 channels full of nothing.
  
  
• I am madly in love with Weeds.
  
  
• I have applied for at least one job a day.
  
  
• I have gone on three interviews and turned down one. ($10.50 an hour for a position with supervisory responsibility?? You gotta be kidding me.)
  
  
• Organization #1 did not select me. Most likely because I am WAY overqualified for the job but it still irks me to see the big “come work for us!” sign on the side of their building.
  
  
• Organization #2 closed the search “due to unforeseen circumstances.” I tried really hard not to, but I wanted that job. I would have been great at it.
  
  
• I hope to hear from Organization #3 soon. I just interviewed with them yesterday. It is temp work but that’s cool for now.
  
  
• My interest in quilting is coming back. It's about time.
  
  
• I have not had pizza. (Tombstone doesn’t count.) (Tombstone hasn't been the same since Kraft bought the company, but that's a rant for another day.)
  
  
• I have not had Chinese food. (Frozen P.F. Chang’s doesn’t count. It’s pretty tasty, by the way.)
  
  
• I just had Mexican yesterday for the first time since the move. (Fish tacos from D’Leon’s, which were yummy.)
  
  
• I have eaten more eggs in the last month than probably in the last year. I am having a crazy love affair with eggs over-easy.
  
  
• Good thing my cholesterol is quite low.
  
  
• I couldn’t have chosen a location farther from everything in Lincoln. Everything I want and/or need is on the other side of town.
  
  
• A thousand blessings on the person who invented Mapquest.
  
  
• Good thing I enjoy driving.
  
  
• I need to work because I am running out of money.
  
  
• I also need to work because I am (very slowly) running out of contented aloneness.
  
  
• Neither of those things is causing any real anxiety. I have no idea why.
  
  
• My apartment faces west and that makes me very happy. I like watching the weather come.
  
  
• And if someone can make the guy upstairs stop stomping around every. damn. night. between 10 p.m. and midnight, I will make cake balls for you.

Greener

I think I have mentioned that I LOVE recycling. It makes me feel all virtuous, I know I am doing a little bit for the earth and future generations, and I get a ginormous small thrill kick out of greatly reducing the amount of garbage I send to the landfill.

When I lived in Illinois, recycling was easy. The city gave me a huge (bigger than the allowed garbage can size) bin on wheels. I parked it in the garage just outside the kitchen door, where it was convenient to chuck all my recyclables, unsorted, into it. At the end of the week, I just rolled that behemoth to the end of the driveway. Easy-peasy. Loved it.

Recycling is not so simple here in Lincoln. I live in an apartment complex, so curb-side recycling is out. The complex doesn't pay for recycling pick up, so there are no recycling bins of any kind. The city does have a recycling program and there are many drop-off sites. They don't make it easy even then - everything has to be separated: cardboard from newspaper from "miscellaneous household paper", glass from plastic from aluminum. Perhaps I was spoiled in Illinois but this degree of separation seems likely to discourage people from recycling. "I not only have to cart my recycling away from my house myself, I have to divide it into 17,000 different categories?"

Being inclined to laziness, I initially resigned myself to not recycling. I couldn't imagine lugging those hard, blue containers out to my car each week, not to mention trying to find a place to keep them in the apartment. But the volume of my garbage is so much more than it was when I was recycling - in Illinois, I usually had one bag of garbage each week and often that bag wasn't completely full; here, I have been taking a stuffed-full bag of garbage to the dumpster about twice a week. Not cool. And it causes me severe mental pain each time I put a cereal box or soda bottle in the garbage can.

So. I am going to give remote recycling a go. When I get a job and feel comfortable spending money on things that are not absolutely essential, I am going to buy a set (or two, considering the sorting) of these:Aren't they cute? I think they will be very convenient to lug down the stairs, stow in the trunk, and tip into the bins at the drop-off site (which is, luckily, just a couple of blocks away). In the meantime, I will use my reusable grocery bags. I'm feeling better already. I am doing something small to make the world a better place...and also selfishly satisfying myself.

Green is good.