The Decade in Review

Last post of 2009 :-) Between Blogger, Wordpress and Tumblr, I totaled 168 posts for the year. All in all, not bad, considering my long slump in the middle of the year.

A couple weeks ago Steve posted a blog entry titled "Decade in Review", which briefly chronicled his (mis)adventures throughout the last 10 years. I thought it was neat, and a much broader spin on the typical "Year in Review", so I thought I'd give it a shot, too... well, assuming I can remember enough details from that far back.

2000: spent New Year's Eve... laying down carpet tiles in my apartment! Still living in Mannheim, Germany. Started serving my "dream job" in the Army, as the Battalion Adjutant (S-1), and loved it.

2001: got out of the Army, did an overseas separation and used up my accumulated leave time to tour Europe the last couple months there before returning stateside. I planned to pick up my car from the Los Angeles port... on 9/11. Had to reschedule. Moved into bedroom in Lien's house. Started first quarter at UCSB that Fall.

2002: Summer school classes at Cal State Long Beach, met most of the "Geeks" (including Allan) when they arrived at UCSB. Moved into bedroom in Margaret's house.

2003: Uncle passed away. So Cal Bioinformatics Summer Institute at Cal State LA followed by internship at USC. Started working as Lead TA at UCSB. Got married. Went to Minneapolis, MN in the dead of winter for our honeymoon, freezing our lungs out and visiting Mall of America. Picked up favorite stuffed Rottweiler, Rocky, there. Moved to brand new studio apartment above Mike and Corrie's house.

2004: Moved to 2-bedroom in Storke FSH. Todd born. Spent the summer working on research instead of doing an internship. Flew to Germany with my grad advisor (his home country), met with his German colleagues and collaborated on research project.

2005: Finally graduated from UCSB. Started working at Amgen. Moved back in with my parents and Todd, and visited Allan on weekends. Started blogging on Grab.com. Mom underwent surgery to remove colon cancer.

2006: Rang in the New Year with a Yahoo chat party involving online friends from ALL over the world-- US, Canada, UK, Australia! Geronimo, the first of the stuffed sea turtles, arrives from Hawaii. Moved to 1-bedroom in West Campus FSH. Todd started preschool and began socializing more.

2007: Lisa visited the US. I turned the big 3-0, and went to California Adventure with the boys to celebrate. Summer family road trip! Flew to Vancouver, stayed for a week, then drove down West Coast, visiting friends and sights along the way: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco. Grandma passed away. Beloved Neon conked out after all the heavy commutes to/from Thousand Oaks. Started blogging on Myspace. Laid off from Amgen. Mom underwent surgery to remove metastasized cancer in lung. Brought Todd to SB full-time. Pistachio, the next sea turtle, joins the family on Christmas.

2008: Started working at Citrix alongside Allan. Todd started preschool here, didn't like it. Moved to 1-bedroom in Willow Springs. Started blogging on Blogger. Todd began kindergarten. Traveled to Indonesia with my parents to visit huge extended family I'd never met before!

2009: Spent the summer singing karaoke online on Myspace. Moved to 2-bedroom in Willow Springs. Had a foray into the real estate world. Started blogging on Wordpress. Discovered how fun it is to travel to Vegas at Christmastime.

So that's the decade in review. I'm probably forgetting an important item here and there-- feel free to refresh my memory if I left something out, so I can edit!

Looks like 2007 was quite the busy year! I am amused that, as many times as I moved physically throughout the decade, I moved blogging services almost as many times ;-) I feel a bit like a flea-- always jumping around. One of these days we'll settle somewhere, for good, and actually stay longer than 2 years in one place ;-P (Funny-- 2 years is my record on one blogging service (Grab) and 2 years is our record for staying in any one place (the 1-bedroom West Campus apartment)). Let's see how 2010 and the next decade shape up!

And how was your decade?

New haircut

It's been 6 months since my last haircut, and I was definitely due for another one. I had finally found a stylist that wasn't afraid to really thin out my hair, since she herself had thick hair. When I visited her at the beginning of summer (intent on losing the shag so I'd have an easier time washing my hair after swimming), she cautioned me against getting layers on top of the thinning. However, when she was done with the thinning, I wasn't wholly satisfied with how the hair looked, and asked for layers anyway, which she did, without complaint. It didn't take long for her prediction to come true-- as the thinned-out hair grew in, it pushed the layers outward (my hair also has a natural wave that causes shorter hair to flip outward) as the rest of the hair grew long and straight underneath it. I had a tough time taming it!

So I decided to go back to her, since she was obviously the type of stylist who would listen to her client, offer her opinion, but not insist on it if the client disagreed. It's been the most trying part of finding a good stylist-- many were too afraid of thinning my hair "too much", and some even insisted I shouldn't thin it and be glad I had such thick hair. But I ranted enough about that here: http://blogs.grab.com/hellykwee/105612

Anyway, last night she trimmed my hair and then explained what would happen if she thinned it more-- basically the same as what happened with the ill-fated layers. This time I decided to take her advice and stop right there. Even then, she gave me the option of returning within a month if I truly wanted to thin it more, and she'd do it at no charge-- basically completing this haircut. I think I'll be fine till my next salon visit :-)

Here's some shots of my hair today. First pic was taken by Allan on his phone this morning at the office, the hair showed up well but I didn't like the look on my face, I thought I looked too sleepy. Ah well, here it is anyway:



When I got home tonight I decided to give my own phone's camera a try, and here's the result:



And finally, I thought I'd try a side view. Kinda hard holding the phone at an awkward angle to the side, not knowing if you're even in the frame, but I thought I'd give it a whirl anyway:



All in all, I'm pleased with the haircut. Now that I've discovered a good conditioner for my hair (back to good ol' Pantene), it's a lot easier to tame even the thickest and unruliest of the tresses, so thinning isn't as important as it used to be. I can go a year between good thinnings just fine :-)

Friendly Game Show Help

Brief holiday update, first: Christmas came and went, another year gone by. As Todd gets older, they become more fun. The older he gets, the less shy he is, and this year you could tell he really looked forward to playing with Uncle Ron again-- even following him around and calling out "Uncle Ron! Let's build something else!" while carrying the new erector set he got from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Ron this year :-) He enjoyed teasing Uncle Ron (much to Aunt Debbie's delight!) as they played together, and even mustered up the courage to try to sneak up on him and Aunt Debbie to administer tickles. No belly kisses yet-- maybe next year. He's come a long way from the little baby who sat on their dining table and did nothing but stare at the ceiling fan going round and round and round and...

Today's lighthearted post comes again courtesy of Plinky.com:

If you were on a game show where you got to choose a few friends to call for help, who would you pick?

Assuming they'll allow me to place long distance calls outside the country, the first person that comes to mind is our family friend Ingrid, from Germany. I remember once watching the German version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" with her once. I swear if she'd been on the show, she'd be a millionaire right now. She got every question right, without hesitation.

I'd also pick Allan, because there's nothing sadder than the sight of a pouting, left-out husband ;-) Okay, there are real reasons, too-- he knows plenty about geeky stuff, sports and WWII history. A good mix, especially since game show questions tend to draw from all sorts of random subjects. I know next to nothing about sports, so Allan would come in handy there. Otherwise I'd be one of those embarrassed fools that struck out of the game at the $200 level because I couldn't answer a simple sports question!

I'd pick my dad, because even though he's the quiet type, he's pretty up-to-date on current events, and knows a lot about all sorts of little things, especially when it comes to things more scientific/mechanical/technical.

I'd have to also pick Scot, because I know of no bigger movie buff than him. He's guaranteed to be able to help me out of a pinch on a movie-related question!

Okay, just exactly how many people are we allowed? ;-)

How about you? Who would you pick?

Las Vegas, Day 3

Checkout day! At long last our car, well-rested in the parking garage all week, got to start driving again :-) Rather than eating before we left, we decided to head out at around 11am and then hit a buffet for brunch at one of the hotels in Primm, some 40 minutes away. Unfortunately, our plans went awry. We first went to Buffalo Bill's, which we discovered was closed for a few weeks! Tried going across the way to Whiskey Pete's, only to discover that their buffet wasn't open (though their cafe was). Our minds still set on a buffet, after the wonderful experience with one that got mediocre reviews in Vegas, we went to Primm Valley Resort, which charged more for a much smaller selection. The service was terrible, to boot. It took us ages to get silverware and drinks, and by the time we got knives, our meat was cold and tough. The food wasn't that great either, although they did have a delicious spaghetti sauce with whole chunks of vegetables. That was its only redeeming factor. We're definitely never going there again!

I guess this wasn't much of a post, as the rest of the day was spent driving home, settling back in, wrapping Christmas presents in preparation for Friday, and enjoying sleeping in our own beds and showering in our own showers. Back to work on Thursday, et voila! Our vacation is over and we had an immensely good time.

As you can tell from all the previous posts outlining our trip, I've included a tiny smattering of photos to accompany the writing, but I've uploaded most of the pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2440729&id=3605072

And for this post, I thought I'd share a couple shots from our hotel room, such as the mirror on the ceiling:



and the views from our balcony:





Again, scroll down to read the rest of the blog entries, and click here to see the rest of the photos :-)

Las Vegas, Day 2

Tuesday begin with some serious sleeping in. We wound up staying up till 2am watching "Law and Order" and "Cold Case" on TV. I guess we were making up for not having cable for so long ;-)

We nourished ourselves with a second trip to Toby Keith's Bar and Grill, this time trying out the pulled-pork sandwiches-- yum! After seeing the turtles, ducks, koi and flamingos in the habitat outside the Flamingo, we decided to head north and stopped by places like the Casino Royale and the Palazzo-- which, in my opinion, had more of an Italian flavor in its decor and atmosphere than the Venetian did. One of my favorite sights in the Palazzo was the pool of cranberries, set against a waterfall:



We also found Humpty Dumpty, all in one piece (for now):



We visited the Wynn, which had been built since the last time I was in Vegas, and crossed the street to the Fashion Mall, where I sat on a couch to rest my aching feet while Allan looked at geeky toy stores. As luck would have it, the spot I sat down in was right smack dab in the middle of a show that took place every hour. Nothing special-- just Santa and some girl elves dancing to several favorite Christmas tunes, but it was fun to watch and a pleasant diversion, and again, nice to hear familiar Christmas tunes because we're here during the season! :-)

A few hotels later, and the wind was really starting to bear down on us! We made a quick stop by Caesar's Forums yet again to pick up a couple things for Christmas gifts that we'd spied while we were there earlier. As we stopped at a cafe for a quick snack and rest stop, I noticed that it was feeding time at the aquarium, and got to watch the diver swarmed by fish as she handed out food. Cutest of all were the little stingrays, who nibbled along her arm until they reached her hand, where she hand-fed them a piece of shrimp, petting them as they swam off. What a cool job!

We were blown straight back across the street to our hotel, where we rested and washed up for dinner. Guess who we saw on the way up to our room, in the elevator: yup, our elevator friend. Guess who we saw on our way down to head to dinner? Yup, you guessed it-- seven times! We introduced ourselves at long last and mused at how wild it was that in a tourist city as large as this, we ran into the same people multiple times!

Anyway, coupon in hand, we intended to go to the buffet at Paris, having heard good things about it. Unfortunately, we were just a little too late-- the buffet was so full they closed the line off. Bummer! None of the other restaurants looked appealing, so we stopped by Bill's Gambling Hall & Saloon, having seen signs all over the place for its "$9.99 all-you-can-eat Chinese menu". Of course there was a catch-- you could order your entree and get unlimited refills-- but only of that particular entree. So I ordered a veggie dish while Allan ordered a meat dish, and we ate contentedly: 2 servings! Even if we hadn't gotten the refill, it would've been well worth the price, it was so delicious and filling!

Another great way to end the day :-)

Las Vegas, Day 1

Well, our mini-vacation got off to a rather eventful start, didn't it!

The drive to Vegas wasn't bad at all. Hit a bit of traffic in/around LA, but it wasn't too bad, and we arrived in time for dinner. We checked into the Imperial Palace, right smack dab in the middle of the Strip. This was the first time I'd ever stayed ON the Strip-- all my previous trips involved staying either off-Strip or in downtown Vegas, as those were the most cost-effective. I managed to find great prices on rooms at the IP, which is without question the least glitzy of all the hotels on the Strip. Little did I realize just HOW convenient staying on the Strip would turn out to be! We booked a room with a hot tub (complete with mirrors on the ceiling), and wound up on the 15th floor. Our view consisted mostly of the inner courtyard of the hotel, but at least it didn't face outward toward any other hotels, as I'd read that those rooms were the noisiest (because of the nightclub noises from neighboring properties). We also got a coupon book full of goodies such as free admissions to various attractions, discounts on buffets, and 2-for-1 show deals... not just at our hotel, but all of its sister Harrah's properties.

When we checked in, we wound up riding the elevator with a couple of other guys who had also checked in around the same time. When we went back downstairs to retrieve our stuff from the car, we ran into them again in the elevator going down. And after we'd washed up and unpacked and headed downstairs and through the casino to go next door for dinner, who do you suppose we passed by at the bar? Our elevator friends!

We started out with dinner at Toby Keith's Bar and Grill (mostly just to see what it was like and say that I'd been there), where I discovered the most scrumptious thing I'd ever eaten: honey butter! Drinks came in Mason jars, and after the football game was over, we got treated to live country music. Yee-haw! :-D We browsed a few of the shops at Caesar's Forums across the street before retiring for the night, dead tired from being up so early this morning. Sleep was elusive, since this was the first time in... a couple of years? that Allan and I slept the same bed, and quite frankly, we just weren't used to sharing the actual bed with another person-- every little movement from him woke me up, and vice versa.

Next morning (Monday), we got up for our first crack at the hotel's buffet, and bought an all-day-long pass-- visit as often as you like, for only $25. Our first attraction, since we had free tickets, was the Auto Collections, right in the same hotel-- a museum full of a couple hundred classic and vintage cars. Allan loved it in there! I spied a military Jeep from 1941-- obviously, little has changed in the design over the years since then ;-)



Guess who we ran into twice this morning, once in the elevator and once in the street outside our hotel? Yup-- our elevator friends. 5 times in the span of 14 hours, how about that!

We ventured across the street to Caesar's Palace to catch the Atlantis show and have fun with the stuffed animals at FAO Schwarz. This picture was taken for Joe as proof that there ARE penguins much cuter than Tux out there:



After lunch, a nap, and a post-nap snack, we headed south toward Paris, free tickets to the Eiffel Tower experience in hand. Unfortunately, we were immediately turned off by the long line, and decided to just wander around and see some other hotels. We went through the Flamingo, where the overpowering scent of coconut was enough to make me decide that you couldn't PAY me enough to stay at the Flamingo-- I'll take the smokey smell alone, thank you. The Bellagio's conservatory was nicely decked out with a Christmas theme, and when we watched the fountain show, it was done to the tune of one of our favorite Christmas tunes-- Johnny Mathis's "We Need a Little Christmas". Vegas during Christmastime is really nice :-)

After a delicious dinner at our buffet again, we went next door to Harrah's to catch a show: Legends in Concert. We enjoyed watching tributes to Jerry Lee Lewis (the guy didn't look or sound that much like Jerry Lee, but his piano playing was AMAZING), Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson, Bette Midler, Tina Turner and Elvis Presley. Equally amazing were the two main backup singers-- they had truly gorgeous voices and the mix was beautiful. Each performer did 3-4 songs the original performer was famous for, including a Christmas song. See, Vegas in Christmastime is so neat! And I was thrilled that, at long last, I'd finally gotten to take in a show at Vegas-- for half the price! :-) Great way to end the day!

Hit and Run vacation starters

Getting ready for vacations can always be stressful. You worry about packing everything, you wind up missing something (sometimes, even a whole kid, a la "Home Alone"), you oversleep, you get a late start, you hit unexpected traffic getting there, your flight gets delayed, etc, etc... Seems like travel plans are ripe arenas for Murphy's Law to work its magic.

Today (Sunday) was no exception.

At roughly 6:30 in the morning, a drunk driver came barreling down the quiet street that winds through our apartment complex, slamming into a couple of cars in the process-- including Allan's. 20 minutes later, Allan headed out the door, his car keys in hand, and stopped in his tracks, puzzled by the crookedness of his car. "That's funny," he thought to himself, "I don't remember parking so badly last night!". It was only when he approached the car that he noticed something was amiss with his bumper, and a trip around to the back of the car revealed the extent of the damage. He came back upstairs to exchange his keys for my car keys and took my car (which was parked safely in our carport, away from the main traffic road). All traces of sleep gone by now, I got up, got dressed, and phoned the police to file a report.

The sheriff arrived in 10 minutes and took down my information. That's when the drama really started to unfold as pieces started to be put together. Initially, the sheriff and one of my neighbors traipsed through the remainder of the parking lot, examining cars, when they came upon one with a smashed driver's side front. Less than an hour later, after all my info had been taken and the sheriff and his colleagues were taking photos and other measurements of the "crime scene", that very car came driving along the street! As I watched from the living room window, the cops stopped the car and pulled the driver out, putting his hands behind his back as they frisked him. He seemed cooperative, they got his info, and after a while, they let him go. I later learned (especially after seeing his car myself) that this wasn't our guy, as initially thought. The damage on his car did not match that of the back of Allan's car, it was clearly very old-- the exposed metal was rusted. But it made for an interesting morning!

Throughout the morning, as the rest of the neighbors started waking up and going about their day, the car got plenty of gawkers. And no wonder-- if you've seen the photos, you'll see how far the debris from the crash stretched along the rest of the parking spaces! Then I noticed one guy in particular taking a keen interest in Allan's car, even taking pictures. A neighbor joined him, and, figuring out whose car it was, came up to our apartment to let us know. Turns out this highly interested guy ALSO had his car smashed into this morning, apparently not only damaging the back, but pushing it forward into a pole! I passed on the name of the sheriff I had spoken to this morning, and the guy evidently contacted him.

Just as we were getting ready to leave for our trip, the same sheriff dropped by again, with an update: they had found the guy they were very sure did this, but didn't have anything concrete to be able to tie him to our car yet, since there were no eyewitnesses. But since the guy had a history of DUIs and wrecking things in his path (such as the electrical boxes in his own apartment complex), they took away his car. And they evidently not only knew this guy's rap sheet, but knew him "personally", as the cop we spoke with told us he had an idea of who in our apartment complex this guy was visiting.

And so, with 4 hours of sleep and plenty of adrenaline from the morning's activities, we started our long drive to Vegas. What a way to start a vacation!

If you haven't yet seen the pictures, click here.

Holiday Party Silliness

Picture post for today, as it's been an incredibly long day. The usual work (and lunch break taken up scrambling for Christmas cards for Todd's teachers), karate class with promotion ceremony-- yay, yellow belt! -- and school Christmas concert where the kids were hyped up on sugary pastries and wore each other out playing tag.

Last Friday Allan and I attended a work holiday party, with just our department. It was nice to be in the company of people we actually knew, it wasn't as anonymizing (is that a word? It is now ;-) ) as the whole-company party, where we felt lost amongst a sea of faces from other departments we never interact with. It was outdoors at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, where tents and heaters protected us from the rain and cold. There was no formal set of courses for dinner-- just tons of tasty and filling appetizers and mini-meals, including such delicacies as bacon-wrapped shrimp! Drinks were free, too, so I tried a pomegranate martini (yum) and a regular margarita before washing everything else down with plain water.

The entertainment of the evening consisted of a musical chairs + scavenger hunt combo game with a flip camera prize at stake, a video put together by various members of the department, and a camera that was hooked up to a projector, instantly putting up pics the moment you take them, for all to see. Here are the ones Allan and I snapped when we took our turn:

We were forewarned that Allan standing at his full height would wind up out of the picture, so he scrunched down... wayyy down. It's not often I'm taller than him ;-)



Now that I could actually see over the top of his head, I decided to have some fun with our snapshots:



And finally, we decided to showcase exactly what effect having kids has on the average couple. After a long week, this was how we felt... even though it was barely 8:30pm!

Sleep habits and internal alarm clocks

As I shake off the sleep from a little nap I took while putting the little man to bad, I started thinking about my sleep habits lately, and how they contrast to my sleep habits of the past.

All my life I've used some sort of alarm clock. When I was younger, it was my dad tapping me upside the head with one of my stuffed animals to get me out of bed. When I started college and my working life, I used real alarm clocks-- and hit the snooze alarm so often that I had to set the alarm nearly an hour before the actual time to get up. Even my dad came with a snooze alarm-- I'd brush him off, and he'd be back in my room within 10 minutes, whopping me with the stuffed animals more insistently each time. Every once in a while I'd actually awaken a little before my alarm went off, and I felt a bit more refreshed. More often, however, the alarm would jolt me out of a deep sleep, and you know how that feels.

Two years ago, however, I stopped using alarm clocks. First, I got laid off and had no reason to be up at a certain hour anymore. But when I started working at Citrix, with its flexible schedule, I started relying on the noise of Allan and Todd getting ready for school in the morning, to wake me up. With my earplugs on, it was definitely a much smoother transition into waking up than being jolted by a blaring noise. After a while, when we moved into the larger 1-bedroom apartment, got Todd his own bed, and I started sleeping in the bedroom again, I rarely ever heard the boys getting up in the morning. Instead, I discovered that my own internal alarm clock worked quite well! I could go to sleep, telling myself to wake up at a certain hour, and sure enough, I'd awaken at the determined time. This was great! No more alarm clocks, and even the few times in the past 2 years I've set one *just in case*, I've either already been awake, or just on the surface of awakening, when the alarm went off. As a result, I feel more refreshed when I wake up, being allowed to awaken at my own natural pace/cycle. The only time my internal alarm clock doesn't really work is when I'm dead tired from lack of/poor sleep the night before, and the allotted sleep time is less than 2 hours-- and then I overshoot by 1 hour.

Wait a minute. Less than 2 hours? What's THAT all about!?

That's another thing that's changed with my sleep patterns. Before I had Todd, I'd sleep for long stretches of time. Sure, I'd awaken in the middle of the night, as everyone does, but most of the time I was unaware of it-- or if I *was* aware of it, only hazily so. But when I got pregnant, I found myself getting up more and more in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. After Todd was born, this trend persisted. Now I'd sleep 3-4 hours (sometimes a solid 5, on a good day), awaken, do a bathroom shuffle, check on Todd, and go back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. Lather, rinse, repeat. With the cycle getting shorter (to about 1 hour at a time) as the morning approaches. Even when Todd is not here, and I don't have to worry about checking on him, I've fallen into this pattern. The nights that I get a solid 5-hour chunk before the first awakening aren't so bad. But the nights I sleep in 2-3 hour bursts have more of a negative impact the next day. Even though I slept for 7-8 hours total, it's different when it's in 3 or 4 two-hour chunks, and oftentimes even LESS restful than if I *only* got a solid, uninterrupted 5 hours, nothing more.

At least, I'm lucky that when I *do* wake up, and even get up in the middle of the night, I typically don't have much trouble falling back asleep. So even a series of sequential 2-hour bursts of sleep is much better than tossing and turning and lying awake in the middle of the night after having only slept a couple hours, and then having to get up by the time you start falling back asleep!

As I wrap up this blog post and it approaches midnight, I anticipate going to sleep around 1:00-1:30am, by the time I get my teeth brushed, Todd changed, and myself settled into bed with a bit of reading. With any luck, I'll sleep uninterrupted till 6:00am, put my earplugs and eyeshades on, and settle back into a dream-filled sleep till 8:00-8:30am.

And so, dear readers, I shall bid you a fond good night... even though it will be morning by the time most of you read this, in which case-- good morning! :-)

Upcoming week

No post yesterday, as I was busy working. Gotta love being able to work remotely from home :-) I was anxious to finish some work that I had wanted to finish last Friday, but got delayed by unexpected difficulties with the code. Stayed up till nearly midnight, but got a lot cranked out, and was able to finish everything at work today (though I had to pick up Todd and then zip right back to the office with him to wrap things up). Why the rush? Because I want to tackle some other work that's remaining on our backlog, before I take some last-minute time off next week. Destination? Vegas!

I'm about to break out a spreadsheet and start mapping out our itinerary. Already got the room booked-- for the first time in my half-dozen or so trips to Vegas, I'll be staying ON the Strip. Not off-Strip. Not downtown Las Vegas. But right smack-dab in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard :-) Now we just gotta figure out what we want to see and do while we're there for 3 days-- hence, the spreadsheet, which will track venues, costs and times :-)

The week will end with a variety of end-of-year activities, with Todd's karate promotion ceremony, his school Christmas concert, and a party with gift exchange (why, oh why do school personnel deem this a necessary activity?) Plenty to keep us busy, and now I have to foist my poor giftwrapping skills upon an innocent present. Thank goodness its recipient is a 5-year-old who really won't notice such things ;-)

Friday evening Todd and I will head back to LA, where he will spend the next 2 weeks of winter vacation with them. On Sunday Allan and I will head to Vegas. In the meantime, the upcoming week will be a blur of chores alongside the usual after-school activities for Todd, since we need clean clothes for our trip and we want the house to be nice and clean, as we'll be gone this weekend and would like a nice clean place to come back to afterward.

Speaking of which... better get the dishes done right now...!

Living Spaces

In the 8 years I've lived in Santa Barbara, I've moved a total of 7 times (including the initial move upon my arrival). That's roughly one move per year ;-) Since Allan and I have been married, we've moved a total of 5 times:

1. A 350-square-foot studio (brand new)
2. An 800-sq-ft 2BR/1BA apartment in family student housing (built in the '70s)
3. A 450-sq-ft 1BR/1BA apartment in family student housing (built in the '50s)
4. A 750-sq-ft 1BR/1BA apartment built in 2003
5. A 1000-sq-ft 2BR/2BA apartment -- our current one.

So as you can see, our current apartment is the largest place we've lived in to date. I can still remember our cleaning endeavors in the previous apartments. The studio, while being the smallest, was the hardest to maintain because it was so cramped. The next apartment, I only lived in for a total of 10 months, because Todd was born around then, I spent the summer at my parents' house, graduated the following school year, and lived with my parents again while working at Amgen. The third apartment was again small and cramped, especially when Todd began living with us full-time a year after we moved in. The next apartment was a welcome breath of fresh air, but as Todd got bigger and we eventually had to get him his own bed, things started feeling crowded once more. Especially since we couldn't, as we had in all our previous residences, store our extra stuff on the patio.

When we moved into our current apartment, I mused that if we had trouble keeping a 450 and 750 square foot living space clean, how were we going to fare with something even larger? To my surprise, we've been doing better at the upkeep of this place than we have in the others. I realized it's precisely *because* we have so much more space to store things (one of the walk-in closets is large enough to use as a micro-room-- it has a window, you can stick a twin mattress in it, and still have plenty of room to move about and reach all the shelves). Now there is a place for everything, and stuff isn't just stashed willy-nilly into closets, or left lying around because said closets are too full. Because no matter how neatly you arrange things on table and countertops, too much stuff still gives a cluttered, untidy appearance.

I think the other factor is that the apartment IS so much more spacious, it *looks* so much nicer when it's cleaned up (that sounds like a self-evident statement, but I'm comparing our clean 1-BR with the clean 2-BR, there's a difference!) -- even the tiniest bit of clutter is contrasts sharply and turns into such an eyesore, motivating me that much more to tidy up.

Well, so far, I'm enjoying a neat and clean living space. Then again, we've only been living here 3 weeks. Let's see how things fare in the coming months! ;-)

And if you haven't already seen it, I've finally, after 5 moves, managed to take before and after pictures of the apartment:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2436941&id=3605072

Reading memories

I've gotten into the routine of going to the library every week with Todd to select an armload of new books to tide him over the week. While I was busy looking for selections in the children's section, I also wandered off into the youth section and came across many old, familiar titles of books I had read and enjoyed as a child. Since it had been well over 20 years since I'd read many of these, I thought I'd relive my childhood and re-read them. And I must say-- what a difference a couple of decades makes! It made me realize how much my worldview has changed since I was a child. Back then, my limited life experience painted completely different pictures in my mind of the stories I read. This was especially true of the "Little House" series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, because her writing was always so descriptive of the minutiae of her surroundings. In the eyes of a little girl (Laura Ingalls, and little Helly as a reader), the world and even the little houses seemed so vast and big. As I got older, those same mental pictures were colored with the perspective of an older, bigger person-- an adult.

My most recent forays into childhood favorites included the Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary. I remembered snapshots of parts of each story in my head, so memories came flooding back when I re-read the stories again for the first time in 20+ years. Again, the mental pictures the stories evoked now were a little different from the ones that developed when I was little. And now that I have a little kid of my own, the stories, which always expressed Ramona's point of view, really take on a new dimension.

I enjoyed "The Incredible Journey" even more now because my love of animals has grown so much since then. I now marveled at the ingenuity and resourcefulness of "The Boxcar Children", whereas years ago I simply got lost in the details of their day-to-day living: the food, the furniture, the scavenged dishes.

I even decided to try a classic that I hadn't read at all before: "Caddie Woodlawn", contemporary to Laura Ingalls. And while the Little House series will remain a perennial favorite, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Caddie. It wasn't, as I expected, another version of Laura Ingalls, it was completely different, and both stories are enjoyable in their own right.

While the memories of what exactly I read were only piecemeal until now, the things that certain books evoked are long-lasting:
"The Babysitters Club" series inspired me to try to start my own babysitting club in my neighborhood.
Ramona Quimby's campaign to stop her father from smoking in "Ramona and her Father" inspired me to do the same with my uncle, who was visiting around the time I read the book. Some of the ideas were drawn from the book, as well-- such as putting up "no smoking" signs all over the house.
"Bread and Butter Indian" started my love affair with eating bread with white sugar on top, as it sounded so savory when the girl in the story enjoyed it as a treat.
In high school my best friend and I were avid readers of Nancy Drew, and she and I would devise our own mystery stories, starring ourselves (with different names, of course) as the protagonists.

I've been taking many strolls back into memory lane this past few weeks, thanks to the selections at our local library. It's been a blast having old memories resurface and become refreshed with a new point of view. I have a feeling I'll be making more visits to the library even while Todd is away during winter break!

What are some of your childhood favorites?

Childbirth Memories

The first of the babies in our small group has arrived, a little earlier than expected. We got an email update from the father, and I got to read about the details of their experiences over the past several days at the hospital. It reminded me of my own experience with childbirth 5 years ago. I remember that not long after Todd was born, I'd written out a long essay documenting the minutiae of the experience, down to the exact times that things happened. It spanned 2 pages, single-spaced, in Word, and I intended to keep it as a private memory. Alas, my computer crashed sometime later that year and I lost the document. Reading about my friend's experience made me decide to jot down some of the details I can still remember, before I completely forget them. I'll skip some of the gorier details, though, since this is now a public rather than private memory ;-)

It began at 7am on Wednesday, May 19, 2004. Todd was due in 2 weeks, and I was ready to enjoy being able to sleep on my back again. I got up and sleepily shuffled to the bathroom, where I noticed that my mucous plug had come out. I thought nothing of it and went back to bed, except that I couldn't really sleep because I was starting to feel contractions. They were extremely mild-- contractions feel like really really bad gas pains, and this was more like uncomfortable gas pains. Not painful, but uncomfortable enough to keep me from sleeping. And they were very far apart.

So we decided to get up and go about our day. We went shopping, and a contraction hit while we were at the checkout line. I simply leaned over the counter and pretended to be interested in the items behind it, until it subsided. The rest of the day was pretty low-key. I took a shower and washed my hair (thinking that if I had to go to the hospital soon, it'd be a few days before I could wash it again). I even managed a nap in the afternoon. As evening approached, the contractions started coming more frequently. 30 minutes. 20 minutes. 10 minutes. I remember we were in the middle of watching a "Law and Order" episode on NBC when the contractions finally achieved regularity at 5-minute intervals. So at 10:30 pm, we loaded up our stuff (suitcase of clothes and hygiene things for me, plus a cooler of snacks and drinks for both of us) into the car and headed to the hospital.

We checked in leisurely and settled down for the night. The contractions started becoming more and more painful until, several hours in, I requested some pain medication. The nurse administered a dose of Fentanyl, which dulled things, so even though I could still feel my tummy bulging and contorting with each contraction, it didn't bother me enough to prevent sleep. Allan and I napped in the wee hours of the dawn. In the morning, things were the same-- hard contractions, yet no improvements in dilation. At around 11:30am, my Ob/Gyn stopped by to see how I was doing. No different from 12 hours ago. So he decided to manually break my water. I asked him how long it would take after that, and he figured a couple of hours. He left, and that's when the contractions started coming fast and furious. Thinking I'd have a 2-hour stretch of this ahead of me, I requested another dose of Fentanyl. The nurse checked my dilation before she gave it to me, and was shocked to discover that it went from 3cm to 8cm almost instantaneously! She couldn't give it to me, and rushed off to call the doctor back.

In the meantime, I was given my anesthetic options: it was too late to hook me up to an epidural, but they offered a spinal, which is similar, but is injected directly in and lasts only 2 hours. I said yes, and then had to wait while they located an anesthesiologist. Meantime, I had to suppress the urge to push the baby out, as I wasn't fully ready yet. This is when all those breathing techniques we learned in childbirth class came in handy-- breathing in rapid puffs (like you see on TV) while focusing on a single point (I stared at the warning labels on one of the machines) really worked, to my great surprise! I remember the contractions, which were about a minute apart, causing a Jekyll-and-Hyde effect. One minute I'd be flipped over on my hands and knees, cursing at the world, and the next minute I'd be calmly sitting back down, chatting with the nurse and Allan as though we were having a tranquil cup of tea together. That's how much of a difference there was between the troughs and the peaks.

At last the anesthesiologist came in, administered the spinal, and went on his way, but not before I called out "I love you!" after it took effect ;-) I'm sure he gets that all the time from women in labor.

Since I could no longer feel the contractions, the nurses had to rely on the fetal monitor printouts to see when contractions were coming. No need-- even though I didn't feel any pain, the contractions would cause my belly to bulge and distort in odd shapes, pushing hard against the fetal monitor belt wrapped around it. All I had to do was look at my belly to figure out when a contraction was coming, and hence when to start pushing again.

And so at 12:31pm, on Thursday, May 20, 2004, Todd entered the world, hollering from here to eternity.

The only thing I remember after that was how HUNGRY I was! After getting me and Todd cleaned up, it was past 1pm, and past lunchtime! We spent a couple days at the hospital, where I was treated to visits by a lactation consultant that can only be described as a lactation Nazi. Clearly this woman either had no kids of her own, or was one of the lucky ones for whom breastfeeding was such a breeze, she assumed it would be the same for everyone. When it was time to try to nurse Todd, he refused to latch on. She kept trying to force him to, which only mad matters worse. And after a day, I decided I couldn't let my baby go hungry, and gave him a bottle of formula, despite her insistence that I shouldn't. No thanks, I'm not letting my poor little guy starve. I mean, I wholeheartedly endorse breastfeeding when possible-- there is no question that breastmilk is superior to formula, but that doesn't make formula akin to poison. Many babies have been raised just fine and healthy with only formula. She kept insisting I keep trying to force Todd to latch on. I eventually just brushed her off with a "sure, sure" just to get her to leave me alone. Which she did-- until the day I left the hospital. As I was being wheeled out, baby in arms, she passed by us in the corridor and actually STOPPED us to ask if I'd tried to latch Todd on again. Of course I said yes, and turned around, hoping to never see her again. As it turned out, Todd never did manage to latch on, BUT I was able to start a really strong milk supply with a breastpump, which we fed Todd in a bottle (and froze the excess for future use). He wound up getting breastmilk for the first 6 months of his life, and though I would've liked to have done it longer, circumstances didn't allow, and 6 months is better than none at all, right?

To this day I still get rankled when I think about that lactation nurse. She had to have been the most rude, insensitive person I'd ever met. When a woman is frustrated by her failed attempts to nurse her baby, the answer is not to respond with brusqueness, but with kindness. The new mother is already feeling bad enough about not being able to feed her baby-- why compound it? It just turns people off. I hope that my friend who is there now, and had a more difficult birthing process than I did, doesn't encounter this epitome of the term "boob Nazi".

I have no regrets about the way I did things w.r.t. feeding Todd. And I feel very fortunate that my pregnancy and delivery were both very uneventful. Probably my only regret is not having arranged to videotape the birth. At the time, I thought, "who would want to see that?", not realizing that as time went on, *I* would become curious to see the events unfold that I was unable to see myself at the time-- things Allan had the privilege of witnessing. I really wish we had done that. I'd recommend it for all expecting moms. If, for the rest of your life, you never want to see it, that video can remain tucked away in storage. Thrown away, even. But if, like me, you change your mind years later, you'll be glad to have it available.

But for me, this long post will have to suffice for "memories" :-) As if having a rambunctious 5-year-old running around isn't enough to remind me that this event took place! ;-)

Retail therapy... conservatively!

Retail therapy. Ah, there's something you hear about every so often. Boyfriend dumped you? Retail therapy! Rotten day at work? Retail therapy! Creditors hounding you? Retail... oh, wait.

I've never been much for that sort of extravagance-- the word "therapy" is probably the most amusing euphemism I've ever heard to downplay flagrant shopping sprees. My idea of "splurging" is most people's idea of normal shopping. Still, I get the euphoria that comes with treating yourself to something nice. I just don't think you have to shell out of lots of dough to accomplish that. Therefore, Wal-mart and the dollar store are my playground. Some would call me cheap, but when it comes to the important things, I'll spend wisely. Everything else is just a nice-to-have instead of a real need.

This week has been a week of splurging, Helly-style :-)

It began with an upgrade to my phone. It's been nearly 3 years since I upgraded from a standard Samsung bar phone to my beloved RAZR phone with the dragon tattoo. Yesterday the UPS guy delivered by brand-new T-Mobile (HTC) Shadow. It's amazingly lightweight and, in closed form, not much bulkier than my ultra-slim RAZR. It cost me $50, so I figured this was my Christmas gift to myself :-)



Last night I went to K-Mart with Todd and treated myself to a pair of nice, soft, fleece pajamas (last week they were 40% off, this week it was 50% :-D) to help keep me warm in this cold weather. The apartment can turn into an icebox at night and I knew it was time for something warmer when I woke up one morning, wearing flannel pajamas and snuggled deep under a thick comforter... shivering! I'm looking forward to snuggling in my new fleece pj's tonight!


I also got a bottle of Garnier Fructis leave-in conditioner. Normally I don't fuss much with hair products, and care even less about brand names, but with my trying to grow out my bangs and grow out a haircut (note to self: Helly cannot wear layers well!) I figured I needed a little help. And it's still cheaper than going to a salon! My hair's unruly, but it's not really in such bad shape.



I'm having fun with all of my new purchases, and yet they are all still practical things. I suppose retail therapy has its uses... and can be very enjoyable, when partaken of in moderation! :-)

Le Festin

See, I knew I shouldn't have let a day go by between postings... now it's been 2 days, and I don't want to start that slippery slide down into infrequent posting again. I do have a post in mind that I've been mulling over in my head since Sunday, but just haven't had time to properly write. So rather than put it off another day because of that, I'm getting the juices flowing with a short post on a different topic today. Nothing of substance, but fun to share nonetheless.

Ever have days where the same song just runs through your head all day long, for days at a time? Of course you have.
Given how many times I've watched "Wall-E", it's no surprise that for the longest time that song was "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from "Hello Dolly". But since I never really heard all the words, it was more of an idle tune to hum.

Recently we watched "Ratatouille", where the French song "Le Festin" really caught my... ears? It stuck in my head and I resolved to find it online, where listening to the song in its entirety (instead of interspersed between scenes) made me enjoy it even more. So I went even further and resolved to find the lyrics to it, since my French, rudimentary to begin with, is extremely rusty, not having touched it since high school. I found variations of the lyrics in a couple of different places, and after listening to the song long and hard, I pieced together the correct lyrics (which, of course, was a combination of the various sources). And then I set about learning it by heart. All I can say is-- good thing WMP has a "repeat" function ;-) It's a really cute song and I am enjoying mastering it.

Because this song is in French, it also reminds me of two people-- Amal and Jenna. Amal because the first time I met her was in Mme. Kampe's French class, sophomore year of high school. And Jenna because she, as a Canadian, speaks it.

Anyway, I thought I'd spread the wealth and maybe put the tune in your head as well (cue evil cackle):

Mini Reunion

... and so endeth my streak of blogging every single day. But at least I've only skipped one day, so I'm not *too* off the habit. Besides, I think I had a valid excuse-- yesterday was a fun-filled, jam-packed day :-)

It started off with a trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo. Aside from a baby shower that afternoon and the usual chores/errands, I didn't have any plans for Saturday until I spied a friend's FB status about going there for snow day. Snow! The little man has been clamoring for snow since, oh, I don't even know when. He wants to drive up to the mountains where Daddy used to live, to play in the snow. He is convinced that it would be ultra cool to move to a place with snowy climes. So when I learned that the zoo was having snow that day, I decided it would not only be fun to go, but a great opportunity to see an old high school friend I haven't seen since graduation 16 years ago.

After getting turned around several times due to construction closing off the normal freeway ramps, and then struggling to find parking, we finally arrived at the long-awaited snow and worked up a surprising sweat throwing snowballs at each other and building mini snowmen. And after playing some phone tag, we finally met up with her, her husband, and their little daughter, who is every bit as adorable as I've seen in their photos. It was great seeing her after all these years (and I don't think she's changed a bit!). It felt a bit surreal to see ourselves as wives and mothers now. And it was amusing to find out that Todd isn't the only one who throws the whole "I don't like you" pout at his parents when he doesn't want to do something that's asked of him ;-)

The morning and early afternoon flew by fast, and I had to head out to a baby shower at the Four Seasons Biltmore between Santa Barbara and Montecito. It was so near the zoo (which itself is about 13 miles south of our place) that Allan and I took separate cars so I could just head straight there from the zoo. When I arrived I was greeted with the splendor that is typical of such an upscale hotel. We had afternoon tea (the expectant mother's sister, who arranged the shower, lives in the UK), where I decided to try the peaches-and-ginger infused black tea. We started off with finger sandwiches and then moved to scones and other assorted, delicious pastries. It was all very fancy. Even the bathrooms had me confused a bit when I washed my hands and couldn't find paper towels with which to dry them-- instead there were trays of rolled-up washcloths for our use. It felt like such a waste to use one just to dry my hands and throw it into the hamper for washing. Knowing that I would be returning to the bathroom again during the course of the shower (and I did, considering I downed the entire pot of tea), I felt like I should be taking the towel with me to reuse until my last bathroom visit ;-)

The shower itself was a lot of fun, and definitely a first experience for me-- such luxury! The games were fun, the company was great, and even the gift-opening was amusing, as the mom-to-be received TWO baby bathtubs and 4-5 packages of baby toiletries. If nothing else, she'll certainly have a very clean baby!

So, that was shower #2 done with-- only one more to go in January :-)

By the time I arrived back home that evening, I had just enough energy to nibble on some pizza and watch movies with my boys before beginning the daily get-ready-for-bed routine. Speaking of bed, it's high time I finished this and headed there, myself, now! Good night!

Holiday Parade 2009

Every year for the past 57 years Santa Barbara has held a holiday parade. I've never gone. Not a single time. Shivering in the cold while battling crowds and traffic and fighting for parking just did not appeal to me. Until this year, that is. This year, Todd participated in the parade with his karate class, and I was one of dozens of parent volunteers helping to keep the kids organized as we walked down State Street.

I was a bit anxious about the cold and being out there for so long, so I made sure to bundle up Todd and myself as snugly as we could. We left later than planned, hit traffic everywhere, and had Allan drop us off near the parade start point-- 10 minutes before the 6:30 parade start time. Luckily, they were still forming the lines when we arrived, and Todd was whisked off to the front of the line. And even more luckily, most of the parent volunteers stationed themselves at the line their kids were in, so I took my place right next to Todd, who was on the far left side of the first row. Great opportunity to keep an eye on him while helping to keep the rest of the line in order.

We wound up staying where we were for a long time before we finally started marching-- it wasn't until about 7:10 that we finally started making our way down the street. I started getting cold, but it wasn't too bad. My extremities were chilled but the rest of me was warm. Better still was the fact that when I grabbed Todd's gloved hand, I could feel the heat radiating through both his glove and my glove, so I was heartened by the fact that he was clearly nice and warm.

Then we finally started moving! That helped keep everyone really warm-- walking. We strode briskly for several blocks before we finally started stopping about every half block so the kids could perform some of their moves for the crowd.

I tried to scan the vast sea of faces in the crowds on the sidelines to see if I could find anyone I recognized, but no. There were just too many people and most of the time I was too busy keeping an eye on the line, anyway.

Before we knew it, we'd reached the end of the parade line and dispersed. It was over surprisingly quickly, although you could tell the kids were getting tired by then. By the time we made our way to the car and I sank in my seat, I, too, was surprised to discover how tired I actually was. It was a lot more work than I imagined, even though I couldn't feel it at the time. At the same time, it was also a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and I was certainly glad that being able to walk kept me nice and warm in the biting, chilly air.

Here's to next year's parade! :-)

Not at home

By the way, if anyone is still visiting this site and isn't aware, I've moved yet again. You know where to find me. And if not, you know how to contact me for the new address :-) And those of you subscribed by email should've been getting the posts from the new site all week-- let me know if you haven't.

See you around!

On Commutes

When it rains, it pours. I've mentioned in previous posts about how 3 of our friends from church are all pregnant and due simultaneously. Three couples (including 2 of the expecting ones) are also in various stages of home-buying-- all in Buellton, a small town about 35 miles away. It made me think of my work colleagues, many of whom live in Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo (one even as far away as Moorpark). Long commutes either way. The trade-off is cheaper housing. Santa Barbara is *expensive*, even with recently falling home prices.

I'm also reminded of my own commuting challenges throughout my life.

When I was an undergrad, I lived with my parents in the north San Fernando Valley while commuting to and from UCLA. The campus was only about 20 miles from my parents' house, but it meant commuting on the 405, and fighting traffic every day, turning it into a nearly hour-long commute one way. But since I grew up in sprawling metropolitan LA, I was used to heavy traffic and long commutes, and it didn't really faze me-- it was part of life, the only life I knew.

Then I graduated and spent 4 years in Germany, where I lived on base and had a short 4-minute drive to and from work every day. Thus began my becoming accustomed to short commutes to work and short drives to places I needed to be.

When I returned from my stint in the Army, I moved to Santa Barbara and began grad school at UCSB. Although I have moved a total of 7 times since I arrived here in September 2001, it has always been within town (and mostly in Goleta-- the furthest south I ever lived was off Turnpike Rd) and never more than a 10-minute drive to school. Downtown Santa Barbara, a mere 10-12 miles away, suddenly seemed "far away". Interesting how your perspective changes! 10 miles is nothing in LA.

Then there was the 2 years after I graduated from UCSB, when I got a job at Amgen in Thousand Oaks and wound up living with my parents again (who were taking care of the little man) and commuting from their home to Thousand Oaks every day. In the meantime, Allan remained in Santa Barbara, as he was still in school. We'd see each other on weekends. Either way, it was a hellish commute for me, and I was fortunate enough that I was allowed to work a 10am-7pm schedule, allowing me to avoid most of the rush hour gridlock, and making the commute only 45 minutes instead of 1+ hour each way. At the time, thinking that I would remain there long term, we began thinking about where we wanted to live, and considered getting an apartment in Oxnard or Ventura, which would mean that Allan would bear the brunt of the heavy commute to and from SB every day.

As luck would have it, I got laid off and soon found a job here. We are once more living about a 7-minute WALK to work, and a 7-minute drive to Todd's school.

And I see my friends and co-workers making such long treks to and from work every day, and I can't fathom returning to that sort of drudgery myself. Someday we will buy a house, and when we do, we intend to stay in Santa Barbara (preferably Goleta, where it's cheaper and more spacious). The lower cost of housing in places like Ventura or Buellton simply isn't worth all the headache of long commutes. That's almost 2 hours of your life wasted EVERY day, driving. Not to mention the wear and tear on your car, and gas costs. I think those long daily commutes are ultimately what destroyed my beloved Neon. I've decided that I rather like being "spoiled" by living close to everything I need-- school, work, shopping. And although I still wish Santa Barbara had a Food4Less, a Target, a Wal-Mart, a true dollar store and a JCPenney, we get by, as those are stores we only hit once a month anyway, and we can always drive up to Lompoc or down to Ventura once a month or less to stock up on bargains.

Housing costs vs. long commutes. After enough experience with the latter, we're definitely opting to avoid it in future!

Then and Now (22 vs 32)

Today's inspiration comes from Tabitha, who in turn stole her blog idea from someone else. Hey, spread the joy, right? The theme today is to compare yourself: then vs. now. They did 5 years. My life has been pretty steady and unchanging for the past 5 years, so I thought I'd expand it to 10 years.

Career-wise:
1999: by the end of it I was halfway through my active duty career in the U.S. Army. Despite the ungodly hours, I was actually enjoying the routine and the concreteness of my work. Unfortunately, all that uprooting isn't very conducive to a stable family life, so I knew this wasn't what I was going to do long term. I had started taking computer science classes at the University of Maryland, which has branches on larger Army bases throughout the world and had, at the time, the most extensive online course offerings of any other college. Why computer science? Because I was in the Signal Corps, which fits in perfectly with that area of study, and the majority of my colleagues had degrees in some engineering field.

2009: wrapping up my 2nd year at Citrix Online alongside hubby. Still pondering what I want to do for the rest of my life, because programming and software engineering can be fun for a while, I just cannot scrounge up real interest or passion for it-- I do my job and that's it, I go home and don't want to think about it until the next day. These days I'm miffed that my husband not only gets paid more than I do for doing less work, but he also *enjoys* it very much :-P So yeah, much like 1999, I'm still on the search path for a suitable career.

Socially:
1999: I was living in Germany and living it up. Making up for my sheltered existence up until then by really letting loose: bar-hopping till 3am, dating guys that were all wrong for me, and generally enjoying being thousands of miles away from family. I worked hard and played hard, and decadent Europe was the perfect playground.

2009: Total opposite. I think I've gotten all my partying and wild living out of my system, and when I returned to the States and went back to school, where I met and married my husband, I seemed to turn into an old fuddy-duddy overnight. Relatively speaking, anyway. I remember a few years ago, celebrating a friend's birthday. We hit a bar after dinner, and I was already yawning and yearning for my bed... at 10pm! I wasn't even 30! These days my life is one long routine, and I like it just fine. I like the stability and comfort of a daily routine, and always crave it when I'm gone from it too long.

Family:
1999: Just the 'rents. And my grandmother, who had been living with us since I was 8. Of course, I was living in Germany this year, so there really wasn't any family nearby to speak of. I was single and enjoying the single life to its fullest. I figured I'd wait till I was 30 to get married, and then wait a few years after that to have kids. That is, if I even wanted kids. I was still on the fence and wasn't sure I liked them or the idea of having them.

2009: Family's still small: me, hubby, the boy. There's still the 'rents, but they're only 100 miles away instead of thousands (or, for my entire life before going off to the military, a few YARDS away :-P) Life has a funny way of turning out: got married and started a family a little sooner than I expected, but it's actually working out better this way. I'm still young enough to be able to handle a rambunctious kid and by the time he's old enough to leave the nest, I'll still be young enough to enjoy it! As for more kids-- nah, just the one. That's it. No more. We made sure of that. And other (people's) kids? I still don't like them. Sounds kind of funny coming from a woman who has a child of her own, but honestly, it's very different when it's someone else's kids, and I just can't stand being around them. They're loud and messy and yucky and germy and possess entirely different personalities that I'm not sure I can address/handle. As antisocial as I am around adults, I'm even worse around kids. What do you DO with them!?!?

Spiritually:
1999: A practicing agnostic ;-) No, seriously-- I wasn't raised to believe anything, but I wasn't raised to disbelieve anything, either. Religion was more of an outside curiosity. I knew that there was something bigger than us out there, but didn't know what it was nor did I really care to research it or even just give it much thought. If I had any passing interest in the Bible or religion in general, it was more from an academic standpoint, like learning about new cultures. Not that I even had *that* sort of interest in it back then.

2009: I definitely do believe in God and in Jesus. I believe that the Bible *is* inerrant-- it's our fallible human interpretation that is full of error and ego. I believe in a just God who will judge fairly, despite what (decidedly human) fundamentalists insist on. Yet I still have lots and lots of questions. There are still things I don't profess to understand, and there is much with established Christian doctrine that I either don't get or outright disagree with. I believe faith and intellect are closely tied together, not mutually exclusive. And I'm always learning.

Hm, I think that about covers the major aspects of my life. Oh, save for one more: this last one comes at Allan's suggestion:

1999: Still innocently exploring, um, things.

2009: The woman who out-pervs her husband at nearly every turn, and on whom even raucous guys like Joe refuse to turn their backs.

O:-D

Nature's Beauty

Those of you who know me may be surprised to read a post title such as "Nature's Beauty". After all, Mother Nature and I have never gotten along. After 8 years of military training environments, I'm all camped out, and refuse to camp or hike or spend any more time outdoors than is absolutely necessary. After all, "Thou shalt not hike" is one of the core tenets of my religion. Yet one of the questions on Plinky.com caught my eye, and I thought I'd answer it for today's post:

What's one of the most beautiful things you've seen in nature?

You all know that I'm not much of an aesthete. It's why I don't really dabble in the arts, and why my home decorating skills revolve around practicality: what looks neat and tidy and what is easy to clean. This lack of aesthetic sensibility stretches to nature, as well. Blue oceans and red sunsets and black starry skies and orange canyons and purple mountain majesties are all well and good, and I do enjoy them simply because their existence are a sign of a healthy (part of the) planet. But visually? I don't find anything striking in that sort of beauty.

True to form, I find beauty in functionality. And that is why the beautiful things I've ever seen in nature are its living creatures (except for humans :-P) Everyone knows that not only do I have a soft spot for animals, but most of the time I actually like them a lot better than I like people. But that's for another post... this is about why animals are the most beautiful things I've observed in nature. Every creature is perfectly engineered for its surroundings. Porcupines have quills and turtles have shells for protection. Many have fur to keep warm. Some live in amazing tandem, like crocodiles and their feathered "toothbrushes". Fish are streamlined to glide effortlessly through the water. Even the ugliest animals, such as the star-nosed mole, are marvels in their function. The food chain, albeit heartless at first glance, provides a good balance of life and predator and prey work to keep things in harmony.

Not every creature is visually pleasing, but each of their unique adaptibilities to their environments is stunning to me. Nothing is more beautiful than seeing animals living peacefully, free of human interference, in their own habitats, the way they were meant to. It doesn't get more "natural" than that, in my opinion!

How about you?

Playing in the Sandbox

I've definitely been making the most of the 3 cents per day I shelled out for custom CSS on this thing. I spent the evening playing around with various themes and tweaking them, still dissatisfied because so many different themes had different pieces of what I like best in a blog layout, yet none would allow me to fully tweak everything to my liking.

Then I discovered the "Sandbox" theme, which is exactly as the name implies-- a no-frills sandbox that gives you free reign to add all the customization you want from the ground up, rather than having to tweak existing CSS. Of course, that means more work for me, as now I have to discover everything from scratch, but hey-- such full flexibility is really the only way I'm going to be able to cram most of my desired features into a theme, so why not? :-) It's also been a good way to learn about CSS :-)

I like the general 2-column layouts, but many of them have widths that are too narrow-- a long post would spill over too many lines and make it harder to read. Adjusting the widths of most of the prettier themes meant destroying the seamlesslness of the blog body with the header. Another look I like is the "boxy" look, in which each individual post is encapsulated within its own "box", so it's easy to tell it apart from the other posts. That is why I particularly like the "Rounded" theme I started out with. I would've stuck with it, too (rounded corners are nicer than square corners) except for the fact that the line breaks were too close together, making several long paragraphs look like one giant blob. Defeats the purpose of line breaks :-P

This current them isn't ideal, but I was able to play with the width of it without making the header *too* wonky. And I figured, since I'm still trying to post everyday and folks *do* visit this site to comment, a finished theme would look nicer than my current work-in-progress. So if you ever stop by here and see a very wonky layout, you'll know that I'm currently online and continuing my quest to perfect my theme :-)

In the meantime, I'm open to suggestions. My Blogger blog had a distinct coffee theme, which was fun, but I'd like to try something different now. Any ideas for color schemes? Backgrounds? Fonts? (the only non-negotiable font is the post font itself-- I like my 10-pt Arial, and it is always the first thing I change when customizing a theme! :-))

Ah, shopping

Unlike most women, I don't generally like shopping. Oh, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy perusing department stores by myself from time to time to see if there's anything cute on sale, but I probably do that as often as I see the dentist (and yes, I'm a good girl and visit my dentist twice a year :-D) As a rule, I like to go into a store with a shopping list (or at least, a set idea of what I intend to buy, such as particular household goods), get all the items, maybe allow myself a few detours by well-placed, marketing-approved display items, and get out. An exception would probably be bookstores, as I do like to just wander the aisles without any agenda and see what's new. But even that is a rare occasion, as I do most of my book shopping online through used-books outlets. The last time I bought something brand new at a physical Borders store, it was only because 1) it was a compilation-- seven of C.S. Lewis's books in one tome and 2) I had a 40% off coupon, making the net price of each of the individual titles quite cheap.

And so it is with amusement and general amazement that I read about folks like Joe and Tabitha braving ungodly hours on Black Friday. What fortitude! What determination! What bargains to be had! :-) My parents themselves hit the stores on Friday, but went later in the morning, thus avoiding the mad crowds... and all the terrific sales :-) Not me. My days of getting up at ungodly hours are over-- 8 years and counting (wow, it just dawned on me that I've finally been out of the Army, post-discharge, than I've been in!), and I wouldn't trade my warm blanket and pillow for anything.

Still, Black Friday or not, there is always holiday shopping (and its accompanying madness) to contend with. I had blogged earlier about how grateful I am that Allan has a small family, making our holiday celebrations nice and calm and low-key. That also comes in handy when it comes time for Christmas shopping! We all tend to get each other the same things every year, and to be quite honest, I rather like the predictability of it. It makes shopping each year a snap.

Best of all is when it can all be done online. Save for actually placing the orders, I've already finished my Christmas shopping this year. I've picked out what I want to get each family member, and logged it all in my Kaboodle.com shopping list. A few clicks of a button and it's done. No long lines. No antsy customers. No harried cashiers. No traffic to fight. No parking spots to vie for. No fidgety kid to drag along. No crowded aisles to squeeze through.

It doesn't get any better than that... does it?

All settled in

It's been a few weeks since we moved into the new place, and this weekend we finally got around to cleaning up the last odds and ends. We'd had everything stuffed willy-nilly into closets and lying around unused floor spaces, until a last-minute plan for my parents to come visit us on Saturday threw us into action on Thursday and Friday :-)

We spent most of those 2 days tidying, sorting, organizing, re-arranging, and finally, when everything was put away where it belonged, we were able to do our weekly cleaning of dusting, mopping and vacuuming. The house was spic and span in time for my parents' visit. If they hadn't decided to come up this weekend, we might have found excuses to postpone it even further, especially since a lot of the mess was simply out of sight, tucked away in closets, an unused desk and the balcony outside. But now I feel better that we actually got our butts kicked into gear and just got everything out of the way this weekend. Now we can truly put up our feet and enjoy the new place :-)

The rest of the weekend was pleasant-- Saturday we all ate lunch together and went downtown to the courthouse to climb up to the bell tower and get a grand view of Santa Barbara. The winds had pushed most of the clouds away, so it was a gorgeous, sunny, blue-skied day, and we could see for miles in every direction-- from the ocean to the mountains and all the landmarks in between.

Anyway... yes, we're all settled in now and I'll have to find my camera and take those "after" pictures soon. Hmm... funny that we put everything away neatly and I can't seem to remember where the camera is ;-)

So what motivates you? When you're dragging your heels and procrastinating doing something that you know you should be doing-- what gets you off your duff?

Return Codes

Hubby ordered some clothes from JCPenney, which arrived in the mail today. I was looking at the invoice that came with the shipment when I flipped it over and noted the return instructions, which included various codes to choose from indicating the reason for return or exchange.

Amongst the codes were:

• Damaged or soiled


• Defective material, workmanship


• Poor quality or poor value


• Parts missing


• Not as ordered or advertised


• Just did not fit


• Did not look good on (me)


• Changed mind/did not meet expectations


• Style not right

All of which made me giggle, because they sound like reasonable codes that could apply to the return/exchange of a husband. Although I guess it's really more "returns only", because honestly-- once you've been married, would you want to do it all over again and simply trade in your husband for another one? ;-)

Hello World! (aka New Beginnings, part 2)

It was August of last year that I posted an entry called "New Beginnings" on Blogger, when I made yet another major migration of my blog-- this time from Myspace to Blogger. That has lasted a little over a year, and since then, Wordpress has made some nifty new features available-- features that it didn't have when I started comparing blog forums last summer.

This time the change is largely transparent-- most people who read my blog either read it through an email subscription or via the RSS feed which feeds into Facebook's Notes. However, I chose to move for 2 reasons:

1. I liked Wordpress' ability to password-protect individual posts, rather than having to lock the entire blog as Blogger does. Oh sure, other forums such as Livejournal or Myspace offer that ability too, but you have to be a member to read those protected posts. The protected posts also get published as part of your feed-- with a placeholder to enter your password, so those who wouldn't otherwise visit the blog site itself would see it.

2. I felt it was time for a change in the blog name. Every site I've ever been on, my username has been pretty predictable-- first and last name. Given the uniqueness of both names, it was really easy to find my various public profiles just by Google-ing my name. I didn't really want the folks to someday think of this and come across my blog. Many of you have no qualms with sharing your profiles and blogs with your folks, I envy you. Mine just wouldn't understand. But more than that, I once had an ex with stalker-ish tendencies find me that way-- must've searched for my name, come across my blog (actually, Todd's diary) and emailed me a message with a thinly-veiled guilt-trip. It was a bit creepy, to say the least!

So... I'm sure you're wondering: why "Heckled Trio"? Well, my friend Tabitha introduced me to a website that makes anagrams of whatever you input. I put in the German word for my favorite animal (and if you're reading this, you should know what it is) and "Heckled Trios" was the first result that came up. It caught my fancy, and seemed appropriate, not only because of the favorite animal, but because there are three of us in my little family-- we're a trio, and we heckle each other. A lot. Very fitting, and easy enough to remember :-)

Anyway...*clinks glass* here's to new beginnings... sort of. I think the only who's going to notice anything new is me, with a new interface to get used to ;-)

A quiet, simple Thanksgiving

I am exceedingly grateful that Allan's family is very small, and that my family doesn't care about celebrating the holidays. Christmas and Thanksgiving are always very low-key: we meet up with Allan's family, which consists of his sister and her husband (and their dog), his dad, and his mom and stepdad. No myriad of people to keep track of and mingle with. No maniacal kids running around wreaking havoc (one little man can cause enough, thank you!) I remember when I was single, watching movies with such scenes and feeling a twinge of envy that I didn't have a large family like that to gather with. But then I got married and joined in on the Knight family traditions and discovered that I was *really* glad that I would never have to deal with gatherings of that magnitude-- small wonder the holidays are so exhausting for so many.

Then this year, we shrank it even further. As I mentioned in my previous post, we spent this year's Thanksgiving in Santa Barbara-- just the three of us. My boys and me :-)

We started off with a swim in the pool at noon-- the weather was so nice and warm and the pool was heated comfortably, too. Todd and I splashed around in the pool and jacuzzi while Allan played on his laptop in a nearby patio chair. It was also a good way for me to get some much-needed exercise after being under the weather for so long.

For dinner, Allan glazed a ham and made dressing as well as mashed potatoes from red potatoes instead of the traditional Russet. And they came out delicious! Sweet and creamy and, because we couldn't find the potato masher, even more yummy with a few hints of solid pieces in the mix. We finished a bottle of Martinelli's sparkling cider and had sweet potato pie (well, I haven't had my slice yet, I was too full from those delicious potatoes!) Todd's art creations from school adorned the table as centerpieces: a turkey made out of a pine cone and a plain paper cutout.

All in all, the meal was a resounding success-- even Todd seemed to think so-- he ate faster than he usually did :-) And we really liked how the potatoes turned out-- red potatoes are definitely a winner!

Relaxing evenings with family-- whether it's 3 or 8-- such a nice way to ring in the holidays!

Unexpected free day

There I was, working away in my cubicle, when, at around 11:00am, my boss's boss came roaming around the hallways, chasing everyone home early for Thanksgiving. Todd was starting to get bored (I didn't realize he had a day off school today) so I wrapped up my work and jetted out at lunchtime. Apparently Allan's bosses were downstairs doing the same thing-- shooing their minions home early for the holidays, so the entire family took off and headed to Zodo's for lunch and bowling. Todd won. He was the only to score in the triple digits-- he got exactly 100, while Allan came in with 86 and I trailed with a measly 69. Hey, I'm just happy to have broken 50!

We had originally planned to do our usual Thanksgiving tradition-- go down to LA and celebrate with Allan's family at his sister's house tomorrow. But this year, with his father still recovering from his recent surgery, and Todd and I both a little under the weather (and probably still contagious, esp with my persistent cough) we all felt it was best not to risk exposing his dad to anything. So, for the first time EVER, the little Knight family is staying home and celebrating ourselves. We're actually looking forward to cleaning up the apartment a bit and then having some ham and mashed potatoes followed by sweet potato pie. Just the three of us. We've never done anything like that before, so we actually had fun shopping for Thanksgiving-related items after we went bowling.

We capped off the evening with a trip to the apartment complex's clubhouse, and enjoyed watching "Wall-E" (yes, I know, for the umpteenth time) on the big-screen TV and comfy leather sofa. My only regret is that I never got to see Wall-E when it came out on the real big screen-- the movie theaters-- now THERE would've been a really great experience!

So, although we'll miss seeing Allan's family (Aunt Debbie owes Todd some long-awaited belly kisses, and vice versa!) and catching up with them, and will miss seeing my family (we'd planned to stop by afterward and spend the night), we're looking forward to another way to celebrate Thanksgiving :-) And we already have a centerpiece lined up-- a turkey made out of a pine cone, that Todd brought home from school! :-)

Seasonal illnesses

You know, it's strange-- last winter I didn't get a flu shot, and was laid up nearly every single month for a couple days with the flu-- fever, chills, nausea, the whole nine yards. It always came in cycles-- Todd would come down with something, he'd bounce back in a day, and a day after that I'd get sick.

This year, I thought I'd be smart and get a flu shot. I figured that even if my skepticism about its effectiveness proves true and it doesn't work, I'm no worse off than I was last year. Besides, they were offering them at work for free, so, why not? Well, so far so good. No flu.

What I *have* been hit with in waves, however, are some nasty COLDS! Started with a sore throat that morphed into a cough, congestion and some minor aches and pains. And you know how those coughs go-- they always linger for a couple weeks. And no sooner had I recovered from that when I was hit yet again with another cold. The coughing and congestion haven't fully subsided yet, but I started doing a bit better (and the phlegm was green). Then last night Todd wasn't feeling well, and now I'm back to feeling more "ick" than "blah". And this is now my 3rd week of still-productive coughing and congestion. I'm making an appointment first thing Monday morning if things don't improve by the weekend.

Marvelous, isn't it? I took preventive steps and got a flu shot, only to be beat down by colds instead. At least last year, with the flu, I'd be sick for a few days, and then healthy for a few weeks before getting hit again. This time it's just one long progression of the blahs, with occasional waves when it gets worse, but no return to full health along the cycles.

Sigh... I'm really looking forward to the long weekend!

The fun with neighbors

I'm listening to my neighbors talk as I type this post. Every single window and door in our apartment is shut tight-- and this is good quality dual pane stuff! Yet it's still not enough to block out the sounds of my neighbors prattling from across the street! If my windows were open, and if they were speaking English, I'm sure I'd catch every word of it.

Nearly 4 years ago we moved into a 1-bedroom apartment in UCSB's family student housing, and had all sorts of fun dealing with noisy upstairs neighbors there. You can read more about it here:

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=28049135&blogId=102838529

(warning: don't read the comments section if you're at all squeamish or prudish :-P)

And now, with our new apartment facing some other buildings across the small lane that winds through our complex, we're greeted with the sights and sounds of one particular family-- partying till late at night. When we first moved in here, we were greeted to the sounds of loud music in the afternoon. We peeked out the window and noted what appeared to be a party on the neighbor's patio, so we figured, no big deal. Parties don't happen every day, and it IS still daytime.

Cue to last night. A Sunday night. A night before a Monday, otherwise known as a weekday, when most people wake up early to go to work and/or school. Regardless of what day of the week, it got really ridiculous when the sounds of their loud booming voices carried on till almost midnight. Fortunately I was still up late last night (especially since I had laundry to wait for), and fortunately my son can sleep through just about anything, so he wasn't disturbed when I had to open the bedroom window for some fresh air.

Tonight they are at it again. What I don't understand is why their immediate neighbors, i.e. the people who actually live in the same building as these people, and share walls with them, haven't complained.

I know this is not the first time I've seen a bunch of folks sitting out on their patio, talking. We always passed by their patio on the way to our old apartment, and so I know this isn't the first time they've carried on raucous conversations outside, disturbing the peace. So why hasn't anyone else put a stop to it yet? My best conjecture is that since it looked like a clown car had vomited its contents into the patio and apartment, all those people must live in the same building, and all converge onto that one on the ground floor every time they want to get together. Because I know I'd be complaining first to the noisy neighbors, then to management, and finally to the police if I lived that close to them and had to be subject to such noise. We're all the way across the street and it's already bad enough. There are quiet hours for a reason, people, and even though it doesn't start until 10pm, have a little courtesy!! Is that too much to ask for these days?

Apparently it is, for some...

Another lazy weekend

This weekend finally allowed the whole family to catch up on some much-needed rest. We turned in our keys to the old place on Friday afternoon, and what bliss it was, coming home on Friday evening and not having to rush off to clean it! We had full intentions of tidying up the new place this weekend-- most of the stuff is put away in cabinets and closets, but more in a cram/jam style without any semblance of order.

But, of course, the best-laid plans never came to fruition. At least today was fairly productive-- Todd and I went shopping in the morning (I finally got a Snuggie!) and hit the library after lunch, and looked at a few open houses together. Todd especially likes exploring the back and side yards of a house.

When we got home, Todd plowed through almost the entire stack of books we'd brought home from the library. Thankfully he doesn't mind re-reading the same books again and again, so they will be enough to tide him over until we can hit the library again next weekend.

And so here it is, 11:00pm and I can't take my shower yet because the towels are in the wash. I figured I'd use the time to cap off my week-long streak of blogging every single day. I think that is a first, or at least, a first in a very, very long time.

I'm left with one question: why are children's books so expensive? I'm looking at a large, glossy hardcover with only about 20 pages in it, and its price tag reads $16. I couldn't imagine shelling out $16 for a book my son is only going to use for a little while. It's not like it's a classic that he can treasure for the rest of his life (such as the "Little House" books). Why does it cost as much as a normal hardcover adult nonfiction!? And *more* than an adult fiction book? Maybe I should take up writing children's books... seems to be good money in it, if the stock of library shelves in the children's section is any indication ;-)

Brush your teeth or you're going to hell!

A couple of months ago, a co-worker and I were discussing religion, and man's tendency to twist religious concepts and invent rules and regulations of their own making. To paraphrase his example: "Muhammad told people to brush their teeth. That doesn't mean they're going to hell if they don't, or to heaven if they do. It's simply a matter of hygiene: your rotten teeth stink!"

That's the way I view a lot of the biblical teachings: the majority of them are guidelines for good, healthful (both spiritual and physical) living. Quarantining sick people and cleansing yourself thoroughly after handling blood are good health practices designed to keep yourself and the general population healthy. That doesn't mean you're a hell-bound sinner if you don't.

I was reminded of this discussion while reading Tabitha's blog entry about a small group study our church is conducting, a study based on the Beatitudes (Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount-- you know, "blessed are the peacemakers..." or cheesemakers, if you're a Monty Python fan) My comments centered around one chapter of the study I particularly took issue with: the accountability factor.

Basically, the idea is to find a trustworthy friend and bare your soul to him/her, enabling you to make a fresh start of sorts. I even read a whole book (unrelated to the study) that was dedicated to this very idea.

Now, I firmly believe that to make any sort of spiritual progress, it IS important to come clean with God about all the hurts and hangups in your past and ones you're struggling with. I believe it's important to take stock of what you've done with your life so far in order to make a determined effort to move on. It's a little bit like twelve-step programs: the first step is admitting you have a problem.

I *also* believe that if you indeed have a close friend who is trustworthy enough to share your deepest, darkest secrets with, it can be a healing experience. I absolutely agree that it can be beneficial to be able to talk to someone about it, rather than have a "one-sided" conversation with God.

So far, so good. I'm on board with the whole idea of sharing with someone...

... IF you actually know someone whom you trust enough. Ah... that can pose a challenge, right? But that shouldn't be a big deal, should it?

Not according to the study and to the book that I read. Their point of view is that it's IMPERATIVE that you go through this accountability exercise before you're free to move on and progress spiritually. Not just with God (which, as I said before, IS imperative, in my opinion), but with another person.

Now hold on. You're telling me that just because I don't happen to have a close and trustworthy enough friend to share this sort of thing with, I'm going to spiritually stagnate? I can't make progress in my own relationship with God until I find a fellow human to share with? I'm sorry, but I take real offense to that. It can take years to cultivate that sort of friendship, and to be told that that means I'll be treading water throughout those years is ridiculous.

One of the points the study uses to "prove" that this is the only way to go is, of course, Scripture. Specifically, James 5:16: "Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed".

Which goes back to my first point. Again, I absolutely believe that line of Scripture is meant for our benefit. I do not doubt that it can be incredibly healing and helpful to be able to share with another person. I do not doubt that it's a totally different experience than just admitting your faults to God and praying by yourself. Again I am reminded of twelve-step groups and their atmosphere of complete acceptance, non-judgmentalism and "no excuses allowed". I can't emphasize enough that I do believe in it and am in no way denigrating the notion expressed in James 5:16.

However, I don't believe that NOT doing so is going to hinder your spiritual progress. I believe that there are a number of ways to come to terms with your past, learn from it, and move on, and while involving other human beings (a la "group therapy") is an excellent way to really be honest with yourself, I don't necessarily believe that it's the ONLY way. Brushing your teeth is not going to get you into heaven, and baring your soul to a friend is not a prerequisite for having a close relationship with God.

All this blathering and nary a conclusion in sight. I guess I just wanted to rant a bit about how this study and line of thinking is just another example of human beings making their interpretation of the Bible the ironclad, singular way to go. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Ah well. Just a couple weeks more and we're done with this study. And despite my vehement disagreement with this particular portion of it, I have to admit that the study itself *does* have a lot of good, general guidelines. I just don't appreciate feeling like I'm being punished because I haven't yet formed such a close, trusting friendship with someone else. It's hard enough as is without being pushed toward it by a handful of well-meaning "Bible thumpers"!