Could it Be? Is it Spring?!

This is a morning that dreams are made of! Our patio door is open, the balmy breeze is blowing in, the sunshine is filtering softly through the clouds, the birds are singing, and the frogs are just going crazy in the pond next to our building!

Ah. Spring time at last.

I hope.

For all I know we could have a few inches of snow again tomorrow. This weather has been anything but predictable of late. But, whatever the forecast is for tomorrow or even later in the day, I'm determined to enjoy this little interlude of divine spring time.

As it happens, this week was my spring break from school. I did still have to work, but it was quite nice to be able to sleep in a few mornings and to spend my evenings reading for fun instead of poring over the intricacies of Excel and Litigation. I could have worked ahead but I decided that I needed a break. In that vein, I haven't popped open a school book or even logged into BlackBoard to check my grades. I've absolutely refused.

Excitingly, I received my letter from school this week, confirming that my application for graduation has been accepted and that the date for the ceremony will be May 14! I can't remember if I've said this before, but I had not originally planned on walking in the ceremony. However, as the date draws nearer, I've decided that I am going to participate in the ceremony. This is quite possibly one of the biggest and longest time coming accomplishments of my life. I want to savor every single moment of it because I have worked SO hard for it.

In other randomness, my cousin turned me on to a group called 2Cellos. As my faithful readers, ya'll should know by now that I LOVE cello music. Add to that the fact that these guys are playing one of my absolute favorite Michael Jackson songs...and well...Epic-ness  has been achieved and I can die a happy woman. Teehee.

Anywho. Enjoy this awesome rendition of this song and then get outside and enjoy this beautiful spring day!

Eide Nooroz

This week's Trifecta Challenge was to incorporate the word doctor into a piece of writing, using the following definition...a : material added (as to food) to produce a desired effect b : a blade (as of metal) for spreading a coating or scraping a surface. 



The busy executive started as the intercom beeped and the voice of his whiny
secretary came across.

"Sir" she said, " the cook from your house called. She said that either your wife didn't leave all of the appropriate ingredients for the khoresht bademjoon, or it needs it bit of something else for flavor. She said she's not that great at making Persian dishes."

"Thank you, tell the cook I will call my wife and have her do something about it."

The exectuive sat back in his chair and gave a long exasperated sigh. Why didn't the cook simply call his wife? Oh yes. That's right, she belonged even less in a kitchen than he did. Had she ever even been inside of it? Hmm. Maybe once.

Must he juggle the problems of Wall Street and culinary problems at home as well?

But this was important. It was Eide Norooz. Persian New Year. Half of the Persian community of the town would be at their house for a dinner. Heaven forbid if this traditional stew was lacking in flavor! How the old biddies would gossip! "These Americanized Persian women" they'd cluck their tongues and say.

The executive typed a hurried text message to his wife.

"Cook says khoresht bland. Not Persian. Says she doesn't know how to doctor it."

 There. She could see to it that the cook got the proper ingredients.

That crisis solved, he went back to the world of Wall Street.

One hour later at the executive's mansion. 

Cook was in the kitchen when she heard the doorbell ring. Oh thank the Lord! Perhaps that was the boss's assistant with the turmeric for the khoresht!

The door bell rang again. Where was that butler? As if she didn't have enough to do with cooking a full Persian feast for 300 people without having to stop to answer the door!

Cook jerked at the strings to her apron, wiped her hands on it, and then threw it onto the counter. It slid off into the open trash can.

She ran as fast her knobby knees would carry her to the side delivery door.

She jerked it open, "I'm glad to see you! Have you got the turme-".

She stopped and stared.

The gentleman started talking. " I don't usually make house calls, but Mrs. Executive insisted that there was an emergency."

Cook's jaw dropped. The ditzy lady of the house had called an doctor.

An actual doctor to flavor the stew.

Falling Trees and Itchies

Since the end of last year and the beginning of this new one, it feels like all I do is apologize for the time that has lapsed between posts. Once again, citizens of Blog Land, I must apologize...and hope that I can find the time to start posting regularly again. I won't bore you with the details of school life (which is boring, even to me), money problems, single-hood problems, ....blah, blah, blah...I will simply say that life in Wonderland is as cRaZy as ever.

This week, Little Sis was on winter break from school. Strike anyone else as odd? Winter break? In February? Weird. Anyway, it reminded me that as much as I love the little booger and hope for kids of my own one day, I am NOT ready for that just yet. Since her brother now goes to a different school, it was left completely to me to entertain her. From 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Oh heavenly Father.

By body was in shock from having to wake up at 6 a.m. Now, I know that this is normal for most people, but I'm a woman who doesn't go into work until around 2 p.m. Needless to say, going from working a 4 hour day to an 11 1/2 hour day is enough to leave even the most rested person reeling. I didn't get anything done around the house all week and I think the dog was beginning to think I had abandoned him. By the time I got home each night I didn't want to do anything but eat and go straight to bed. Which is what I did.

Now, I don't know if I was just slap happy from the long hours, but by Thursday afternoon, everything the kids were saying was hilarious. Little Sis randomly started crying at the doctor's office because it started to rain and she didn't want her favorite tree at the bus stop to get knocked over. Mind you, it wasn't storming...just raining. I had to bite my lip to keep the giggles inside. She had real tears in her eyes. Then her brother reminded her that it was just a tree...like any other tree in the whole world...."Besides" he said, "do you even KNOW that tree?" I was through. I was glad we were alone in the waiting room because an obnoxious snort flew from my nose and a peal of laughter straight from my gut ripped through my mouth. Little Sis just looked at me with an expression that said, "traitor". I couldn't help it! After all, this wasn't a tree in their yard...this was a random tree at a bus stop!

Later, when we were in the car on the way home, and I was sufficiently recovered from my giggle attack, Little Sis says randomly, "My butt is itchy". My jaw dropped and Big Bro says, "Eeeeewww!" and then bursts into giggles. Once again, I'm trying to hold the giggles in, because really...that's gross. I asked her why her butt was itchy and if she had had a shower the night before. She said no, but that she thought it was because of the huge poo poo that came out of it earlier. Big Bro and I were undone. I was laughing so hard I was crying, and once again Little Sis couldn't understand what was so very funny. Really, I guess it wasn't that funny. Then she said, "Well it was a really big poop". We laughed all the way home.

Oh Mercy.

Of That Which Cleopatra Speaks

The Trifecta Challenge for the weekend is a simple one: to take 33 words from one of your favorite piece of literature and give the best 33 words you can find. A seemingly simple task...but quite huge when you consider the fact that I LOVE books and so many of my favorites contain words that are all just about as equally profound. How can I choose just 33 from just 1 book?!

Sigh.

After quite a bit of thinking I decided to choose a quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George. Ms. George is by far, one of my favorite authors as she does my favorite genre, historical fiction, the justice that few others can. She takes the facts that history  provides us with and then weaves it so perfectly with human emotion and feeling that it becomes so believable and relatable that the seam between what is fiction and what is history becomes invisible, making for a perfect piece of writing.

"Words, once spoken, linger forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish" 

 

Waylaid Best Laid Plans & Trifecta

Greetings and Salutations citizens of the Blogospere!

Despite my best laid plans to write more often, I am suffering from what appears to be be a beginning of the year tradition: writer's block. 

It's not that there aren't any interesting things going on in Wonderland...there are always interesting, weird, and crazy things happening. It's just that for some reason, of late, I've lacked the wherewithal to record them. 

I do confess that school, particularly my writing class has been consuming quite a bit of my creative energies. That should not, however, stop the flow of creative juices, but should in fact enhance them. What can I do, though? It is what it is. I am once again suffering from writer's block. Boo. 

As such, I am stealing an idea from my friend and fellow blogger, Mike. I am joining the Trifecta Challenge. This challenge provides 2 writing prompts per week. One for the week and another for the weekend. It requires a minimum of 33 words and cannot exceed 333. You're supposed to post the completed work within a certain amount of time. I'm not sure if I will do this. I may just use the prompt for the sake of my own blog, not necessarily to receive possible recognition from the editors of Trifecta. I'm hoping that as I respond to each prompt it will kick start the rusty gears of my writers mind and enable me to hop back on the blog wagon. 

The prompt for this weekend's challenge is personification...that is, the assigning of human traits and characteristics to inanimate objects, phenomena, and animals. 

Deep breath! Here goes....

She passed it every time she went in to do her business. Sometimes she could ignore it. At other times, even when she closed her eyes she could still see it. The small, light white square. It's small window vacant and blank. Seemingly harmless. As she sat on the porcelain seat, she heard a light whisper. Thinking she was imagining things she cracked open one eye. The square seemed closer now. It's window which had just moments before stared at her blankly, now winked it's single eye at her. It flashed a harmless set of numbers: 0.00. "It's been so long", the little square whispered to her. Just months ago we were the best of friends. The girl closed her eyes again and thought to herself, "But I don't want to be your friend anymore". And with good reason. Her little square with it's one eye had been both her motivator and her abuser. Now it whispered to her, kindly enough. It cajoled her...flattering her with memories of goals met. Driving out of her mind the bitterness of disappointment, doubt, and self-hatred it had also inflicted. "Ok. Just this once" She stepped onto the square. The benign little creature sputtered to life. She held her breath and waited. She heard a laugh. Friendly enough at first. Then the welcoming little eye turned on her, glaring up at her as red as the cheeks of a child suffering from severe embarrassment. The girl's breath released in a horrified whoosh, and the little white scale screamed with maniacal laughter at the number it showed to it's very best friend. 

Now Trending in Wonderland

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the inhabitants of the blogosphere!

After the end of the semester, I decided to take a much needed sabbatical from writing. However, with the new semester less than a week away, I figured it was about time to get back into the swing of things. With any luck, this will be my last semester. Of course, as is the usual way of things, financially speaking, this semester has already proven to be difficult since my student aid has decreased and during the last 2 weeks in December I found myself, quite unexpectedly, not working. Needless to say, my careful budgeting was ruined. What can a girl do? God has always provided for my needs, sometimes quite miraculously, and I have faith that He will continue to do so.

Besides my nervousness about money, I'm really excited about this semester and I'm determined to make it the best yet. I will be taking 3 classes and only one of them is a paralegal course. The other two are gen-ed  classes that I've put off for the last few years. In short, this semester should be a breeze. I hope.

I have had quite  a few questions over the holidays regarding my love life and so I'll just answer this once and for all....I don't have one, neither am I interested in anyone. LoL. I admit that I'm completely ok with this. I think it's funny that whenever anyone asks me if I'm dating anyone and I say no, they always get this pity look on their face and feel the need to pat my shoulder and say something to the effect of, "there there, don't worry, it will happen eventually". Haha. Yes, I'm sure it will. But at the moment, that's probably about the furthest thing from my mind. I never thought I would get to the place where I was actually 100% ok with being single, but whaddya know? By God's mercy and grace, I finally arrived!

Anyhow, I think that sufficiently updates you, Blog Land citizens.

Happy Wednesday!!

Jammin' to a little Dubstep....

The End and Christmas

Let the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus commence! The semester is officially over! I got an A on the Civil Procedure final and a B on the Tort Final. Not too shabby!

It's an enormous relief. Looking back, the semester seems to have flown by. But while I was in the midst of it, it seemed like it would never end. The most exciting thing is that when the next semester starts in January, it will be the beginning of the end! My last semester ever! Hallelujah indeed!

It's now exactly one week before Christmas and I feel like I can finally get into the Christmas spirit. In honor of the end of the semester and Christmas, I present for your consideration, one of my my favorite Christmas songs...It always makes me cry every time I hear it.