I can feel it. Despite Quitting VH, despite there being No More Books...despite having been a month since rereading any of them....MY HARRY POTTER OBSESSION IS ON THE VERGE OF RETURNING.

It's the movie. I was looking at a trailer and then suddenly I was looking at some HP crafts on craftster.org and then I was slapping myself to keep from posting HP MOVIE PARTY on facebook and inviting everyone I know. I don't particularly like the movies...but Half Blood Prince is my favorite of the books (Followed closely by Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire).

And I have such a mob-mentality about stuff like this too. The more people get excited about books, the more excited I get about them. You can bet your ass if there was a Vorkosigan (It's a sci-fi novel series) movie or fan following at all, I'd have a homemade Dendarii uniform and a room full Vorkosigan crap. HP is easy, because everyone loves it. I'm just a monomaniac like that.

Also, I'm getting bored out of my mind not having a job and not having any money.  I stay home all day without a car while G goes to SEU to work. And I wasn't feeling well the last few days and thusly the apartment has degenerated into a sort of half-mess while I sleep/read on the couch. Which means I haven't been sewing or writing or working on anything important, and thus feel useless and kinda depressed. Blehhhh.

I'm feeling better now so hopefully I can jump back into sewing with a HP related craft and get back to the Narnia/Larp projects that I've already comitted to and the writing projects that I've also comitted to.

Ember was sick today. I felt so awful for spraying her with the water bottle several times because she was YOWLING at the top of little lungs all morning--I thought she wanted to go outside because we opened the back door last night for the first time since she came to live here. But after a few hours of yelling, she got really sick to her stomach and our thorough cleaning of the apartment was interrupted by having to clean up her messes.  I was super worried about her for most of the day, but she's feeling much better. Sleeping and playing and scratching our dining chairs, of course. I'm totally relieved, but I have absolutely no idea what could have triggered this episode, and have been fretting about it all day.  :(

She's 9 years old, which is about how long my last cat Bluebonnet lived, but he was a tough old outdoor tomcat. We don't have money for the vet, but if this happens again any time soon, I'll suck it up and ask my mom to help at least with the check up.

In other news, sewing machine is fixed--but I haven't taken pics of my newest completed projects. We've been cleaning to get ready for the housewarming party. And I'm going to Karate again, now that we live so much closer to the school. I forgot how much judo hurts.

Last week my sewing machine broke, and I've been desolate while it's at the shop. It's totally my fault too--I was forcing a very thickly gathered cotton twill sleeve through between the cuff fabrics and it put the needle out of time with the bobbin. So my rampant sewing is halted temporarily. It's frustrating, because I WANT to make so much stuff! Like a shower curtain, pillows for the couch, and of course costumes.

So in the meantime I've been teaching myself Dreamweaver CS3 and working on the costume website that John and I are creating. It's going pretty awesomely since Dreamweaver is based on CSS, which I  just so happen to be familiar with from classes at SEU. I'll post a link to it when it's actually presentable.

Saturday G and I went to a Round Rock Express game with the whole Garcia clan--we had a top box all to ourselves! It was really fun, even if we left at the top of the 10th when it was 4-0 and Round Rock scored five runs in the bottom of the 10th! (The game had been 0-0 for the first 9 innings). Then Sunday we had dinner with my family for Father's Day--delicious fried shrimp and fajitas, with brownies and Catan afterwards. Mmm. Wonderful.

The job front is Meh. I got some freelance work to write technical documents for my uncle's computer company, which is awesome, but I'm actually getting pretty bored of being a housewife. I feel so lazy! I'm actually getting a lot done, but it feels wierd sleeping late and doing stuff around the apartment instead of rushing around in a ball of stress to get five million things done. Hmph.

Also, for those of you who aren't on facebook, my wedding pictures have been posted online! Check them out here:  www.patrickmotola.com/angelaandgunnar.html

Last week there was a black out and tornado warnings in our area. John was over at the time, so we ate our chicken-pot-pie by candlelight and played ninja-burger until the lights came back on a few hours later. Ember was freaked out. This flash from my camera was blinding.




John, Vivi, Gunnar and I all went to Six Flags on Saturday. This is Gunnar and me on the Swings.


Our new Couch was delivered on Monday. Here's me and Ember in a blurry picture together. She likes to sit on it at night. Luckily she's old and grew up around leather, so there were no problems with her trying anything foolish with her claws around it.


Here you can see the rich chocolatey brown color. This is our first piece of non-thrift store/donated furniture ever! We saved a lot of money from the honeymoon to pay for it, but it was so worth it!


Today I was sewing like a feind and made this mail sorter for Gunnar from this tutorial. I tweaked it a little of course, and since I've never really done a binding before the corners kinda look like crap, but I like it overall. It will hang next to his desk and hold receipts, pencils, etc.  I was trying to use up some of my scraps to make organizing my sewing closet easier, but alas, this didn't even make a dent.



I saw another cool tutorial  on Crafster.org (my new favorite site) and whipped this out. I figured it would be useful for 6 flags, which won't let you throw your backpack or purse in the bin anymore, or even TAKE a tiny purse with you on any good ride!!
 

And I'm about halfway done with John's Narnia undershirt. I want to stay up all night and finish it, but I know that's a bad idea. BAD IDEA. I'll just surf craftster until I'm tired enough to go to bed.





 

I am deliriously happy.

I've been writing a thousand or more words every other day.

I've been reading about a book a week. I should start a book review blog, but I probably only think that because I just finished writing a book review for TPWD. And because I read a couple of book review blogs that sucked. And because of the following:

For those interested in Parents trying to ban books that they haven't read from kids who want and need to read them (Again?! Of Course!)
http://rebeccael.livejournal.com/393137.html

It happened! And it was wonderful!


In case you weren't at the wedding, or if, like me, it was all such a whirlwind that you can hardly remember half of it, then enjoy the following that I scraped out of facebook! The professional pictures are still being processed, so the quality on these isn't great, but they're pictures!
( More Pictures! )

Friday I got to see Star Trek in IMAX with Josh and John---SO GOOD. I have to agree with the consensus that youngSpock was strangely attractive. I think maybe it's because the actor reminds me of Gunnar.

Then on Saturday G and John and Nick and my mom and I watched all three extended edition Lord of the Rings movies in a row. Yes, for real. We started at about 1 p.m. and finished around 3 a.m. that night. During that time we made seven 13 foot table runners and two 8 foot table runners, and I finished the bodice of my dress. Very productive!

I'm at Oak Springs for one more day, and guess what? I'm going to ask the principal if she wants to hire me for next year. I know, I'm crazy. I swore I'd never teach ever and here I am dying to get a job at a inner city elementary school. But I just have one of those feelings. Kinda like when I met Gunnar. And if it works out, then it was meant to be, and if not, I'll know it wasn't. Does that sound too vague? It's a million things, really, and it's hard to explain. Just pray for me.

Oh yeah, and the wedding is in four days lol. My fam is driving me insane, but that's what they are there for, right? All I can think about is the dress, but I have a whole page-long list of things I have to do first. I'm going to eat some chocolate, take a deep breath, and dive in.

Sorry these updates are so sporadic. Things are chaotic.

Kindergartener: I want to eat a dinosaur when I grow up!
Me: You can't, all the dinosaurs are dead.
Kindergartener: *Tears in sad little eyes*
Me: Um...I like how you colored the trees and ocean and dinosaur all pink! Very original!
Kindergatener: *Big Smile* I'm the most awesomest!



Field Day tomorrow at Oak Springs.Yay?

The business that is life marches on, but luckily it's been pretty pleasant.

On Thurdsay I flew up to Nebraska to see my long-lost Brother John, to retrieve him from the corn fields and drive with him back to the wonderful Lone Star State. The flight was pretty boring--I managed to get more than halfway through Return of the King--but the drive was actually pretty fun. We left Lincoln at abut 11:30 in he morning, after some pancakes and starbucks, and headed southwest through Nebraska and Kansas, singing along to They Might Be Giants and all our favorites at the top of our lungs.

That car was PACKED to burst. Everything that John owned was fit into the car, tetris-like in it's precision. It was also very heavy. We quickly realized just how heavy when we neared a yellow light. "Put on the brakes," I suggested. John did, but to our surprise the car didn't slow down even the tiniest bit. "Ok then, I guess we can make it." I said, and so John hit the gas. We were even more surprised when the car didn't speed up at all. We sailed through the yellow light in stunned silence, and then burst out laughing. We were extra careful about braking way in advance for the entire tirp.

The sun was shining brightly even through our designer sunglasses, and the blueness of the sky stretched from low horizon to low horizon as it only can in the gentle plains of the midwest. The clouds were like little things from a fifth grade art project, fluffy and cotton-ballish and high. We took turns driving and John napped a bit, all the way down 135 and 35 through the rich red soil of Oklahoma. 

Night fell, and we kept on going, and then a few sprinkles began to fall, no big, and then it began to rain.  At first we just turned up the radio and ignored it. Texans aren't strangers to rain, and we both had our eyes on the road even though John was driving. Then it began to hail, and the rain came down so thick and hard that we couldn't even see the road. The only thing guiding us was the dim red spots of the taillights in front of us. "Should we pull over?" we wondered, but we litterally couldn't see the shoulder, or any exits until they were past. I seriously hadn't seen rain like that Gunnar and I drove west on the I-10 one summer and got caught in a desert thunderstorm. John and I could see the lightning hopping from cloud to cloud above us, though it never did strike the ground. It was very eerie. Finally, the car in front of us exited and we followed to a little gas station in the middle of nowhere. We decided to go ahead and fill up and get some snacks and find out what the deal was.

The station was crowded, but no one knew anything really. In fact, the only people we could get more than two words out of were a few other Texans who were traveling north. I often forget how talktative and helfpul Texans are until I leave Texas. Finally, I went out to the car and turned on the radio, just in time to catch that bleeping radio emergency warning sound. The storm that we were in was reported to have 60 mph winds, hail the size of quarters, and the possibility of tornados to appear without any warning.

Needless to say, we waited it out, even though it added a few hours to our trip. We listened to Harry Potter Seven on tape for most of the rest of the trip.

In other news, Buffalo are not even as big as longhorns. How disappointing!

I'm starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed by all the upcoming wedding stuff--it seems like every time I cross something off of my list, someone reminds me of two more things that I need to do.

Besides teaching middle school on only four hours of sleep and having puffy eyes all day from crying so much yesterday (stress, chaos, arguments, etc) today was alright. I did special ed inclusion, which was really easy. I forgot my lunch but ended up with an hour long lunch and had subway. Two of the classes were study halls with several other T.A.s in there and the only big class was watching Incino Man. I finished reading The Two Towers and also got to leave early, since I didn't have an eighth period.

When I got home I just crashed and slept for about four hours. I just finished the last grommet on my dress while watching Dollhouse and with Ember purring next to me. Very relaxing. Probably the only relaxing moment I'll get for about a week though.

Tomorrow I'm subbing at Travis and then helping Gunnar unpack at the apartment. Thursday I fly up to Nebraska and then Friday I drive home with John. Saturday is my bachelorette party. And Sunday is Mother's Day. This is with me missing out on Josh's birthday party which I so wanted to dress up for and probably also missing  the SEU graduation.

http://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2009/apr/scout5/

If you do not read this, I will hunt you down and kill you. This is my first official published article. Congratulate me duly, unless you already did in person.

I'm finishing my second one right now. LOL. Impending deadline=millions of livejournal posts, don't you know that??????

I am now officially residing with my parents in Round Rock, hopefully for the very last time in my entire life. Well, at least I turned in my apartment keys. Half my stuff is boxed up and sitting in the garage, ready to go to Gunnar's new apartment tomorrow, where it will be to welcome me after the wedding. Which is in 23 days. *faints*

Remind me to be nicer to Gunar too...I could not have gotten all my stuff boxed up and organized enough to move by today without him. He's been super calm about this whole thing while I just flail about being useless and stressed and insane and cry a lot. Pretty much All I've done all week is work on the dress (which entailed finishing off the third season of Arrested Development on Hulu), work, and pack.

And a few hours of sleeping here and there.  I was late to the school I was subbing at this morning because I slept though my alarm. When I found myself gazing sleepily at a furry orange Ember who was licking my nose in my very well-lit room this morning, I pushed her off and went back to sleep for five minutes before the "OH SHIT WORK" thought actually hit me. She woke me up right at 8:00, exactly one hour after I had to be at the school. I called and apologized, then zoomed down 35 to ger there at abou 9. I felt really guilty about being late. Thank God for hungry cats.

So can I just take a second and tell everyone how wonderful Gunnar is? Besides being incredibly handsome and smart, he is one of the kindest, most selfless people I have ever met in my life. I know I complain about him on this blog sometimes, but really those are only minor things. Truly, when I'm with him, I feel totally at peace, my trueest self without any lies or pretenses--because I don't need any for Gunnar.

Gunnar is patient and understanding when I make mistakes. The other day we went to see his dad and do poses for our cake-topper-sculpture his dad is making and I was just vile.As soon as I got there I made him his parent's dogs outside (and I got mad when he wanted to give them treats) I actually poured the soup he'd made down the drain after one bite, proclaiming it inedible and unnacceptable, and then demanded desert instantly. I refused to do the dance with him and instead scowled while we posed as instructed.  He never said a mean word towards me or acted like my requests were ridiculous (which they were--no dog treats? WTF?). He only did as I asked and loved me despite my horrid words and actions. The next day after I'd had some sleep and my stomach wasn't so upset I did apologize, but that was still no excuse for how I behaved.

Sorry if this is overly sappy, but I just wanted everyone who reads my blog to know how lucky I am to have found Gunnar. I truly think that God brought us together for one another. I think that his kind heart is teaching me to be a more considerate person a little at a time, and that my practicality and realism keep him from floating off altogether on his fantasies.

No matter how the dress or the cake or the wedding turn out, I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to being married to Gunnar with my whole heart.

If anyone I know gets it, it will be me. I probably have the highest statistical chance anyway, with the teaching of nasty kids who never wash their hands and pick each others noses at every school in Austin on a daily basis. I wash my hands every time I pass a sink and sanitize with my purell about a billion times between, but how am I supposed to know that the first grader I'm bent over to help with math questions is about to cough on my face??? Plus I'm mostly at inner city schools where many kids visit relatives in Mexico and the Valley all the time.

I'm so effed.

A month. After working at Texas Parks and Wildlife for almost a year, I think I could handle the wild as long as it was pretty standard American Backcountry.

But then I'd get my period and go insane and die.

This has been an all-around crappy week for subbing.

On Wednesday I went to Mendez Middle School in East Austin. I ended up in the principal's office reviewing security tapes because another teacher reported that a girl was trying to push me down a flight of stairs. In actuality, she only wanted the class to shove me out of the doorway and trample on out instead of being kept after the bell for one minute because of their dismal behavior.

Yesterday was alright, though LBJ high is by far the poorest of the high schools I have ever been at, including Akins. Akins is an atrocity because the teachers don't really give a shit about the kids--LBJ is an atrocity because the teachers really do care, but the kids are really the ones in charge. I lucked out yesterday because the classroom teacher was there for most of the first period, there were only 6 kids in the second class because of a field trip, and then the final class was pre-AP. Even still, I had several kids walk out of class, several taken to ISS, and one who stole my pen, then another student gave it back, and then the asshole stole it again.

Today was the worst though. I was back in the same class as yesterday at LBJ. Besides the lockdown because of the five men in ski masks with guns who robbed a house across the street from the school, and besides having to yell at two students for each having one end of a power cord which was wrapped three times around the neck of another student, I was hit with sharp pencil launched from a slingshot during class. Of course I called security, but since I didn't know which of the five or so most likely deviants had done it, there was nothing anyone could do. The principal, an administrator, two security guards and a police officer all came to the class and talked to the students and threatened suspension. The kids laughed and joked while the principal was talking. Fuck that. If a principal and a policeman together can't control a class of high school freshman, then I have no business being there. For the first time since I started subbing I actually felt like I was in danger. 

I was originally signed up to return to the same class tomorrow, but after first period I went to the office and told them that I would stay to the end of the day today, but I would not return to that school on Friday. The substitute coordinator was sympathetic, and told me that after that first class she totally understood never going to that class again. She tried to convince me that not all the classes are as bad, that it was just freshman who are the little shits, but I'm really not convinced.

After three such days, I kind of feel like a failure. Am I that lame to not be able to control a class of freshman? Do I have any right to be in a classroom at all? I mean, I do fine at Crockett High and the one or two kids who did need help with Algebra I was able to help, and I get compliments on how I can manage fourth and fifth graders...

But like it or not, I don't have another job, and this is still better than waiting tables.

Tomorrow I'm going to teach Speech at Crockett. 

Forward Momentum, right?

So I finally plucked up my courage and started working on altering the dress. Last week I added steel wire to the hoopskirt I already had and bought a huge petticoat from David's Bridal to throw over the hoops. My skirt is now approximately the shape of Belle's Yellow Dress in Beauty and the Beast.

And I know now that I can do it. Two simple seams solved 95% f the fitting issues that I had with the bodice. Lowering the neckline in the back is already halfway done and very simple. I took the sleeves off and am deciding how to most elegantly deal with that. I'm thinking sheer organza or chiffon petal sleeves or fitted sleeves will be best.

I ditched the ugly underskirt and will buy either an alternative patterned brocade as the front panel or I'll throw some beading on some light chiffon and let it be all flowy and good there. I also found the exact trim that was used on the bodice and can add that to the skirt if I want too.

I'm a good seamstress. I just needed to remember that fact, take it slow, and I'll be fine. The dress will be beautiful.

So I responded to a bunch of job postings I found on craigslist, including one to be a reviewer of dating websites.

Well...what they meant by dating was actually online adult entertainment websites. As in porn.

>.<

So that would be a no.

The search continues.

P.S. I really want a chocolate milk shake right now.

I know I don't post nearly enough. I think when life is boring I post more because I'm bored--and life is not boring at all just now. Can just I say that being a grown-up mostly sucks? 

Only mostly though. I have to remind myself of it, but there are a lot of good things happening right now. G and I had another dance lesson this evening, which was really fun. We've totally got the hang of our Rumba and should be totally hot when we get on the floor for our first dance as husband and wife. And we picked out and put a payment on an apartment. I'll stay with my parents once the lease on this downtown apartment is up and then move in with him in our new place after the wedding, so yay! It's super beautiful with lots of windows and cabinets and an indoor laundry room. It's actually almost the same square footage as the 2-1 that I have with Tiff and he has with Tom, but it's a 1-1 and $100 cheaper per month. 

Bad things include the depressingness that is searching for a full time job, the stress of all those random things we have to buy for the wedding, and the worry over family stuff like my dad having to have surgery on his gallbladder. The job is the most stressful thing, since without a full time job I have no steady income, no way of paying for the gazillion dollars of student loans that are coming up, and no health insurance.

I've been sewing a lot lately, since I don't have money to go shopping but desperately want new clothes. I have a box of clothes that the costume shop was getting rid of last year that I picked out, and have been using them as material for new stuff. So far I made a pleated skirt out of an ugly taffeta bridesmaid dress and a nice fitted blouse out of an old-lady long sleeved shoulder-padded button up shirt.

As for my wedding dress, Tiffany is going with me to some alterations places to see what can be done. There is still enough time to, as they say on project runway, "make it work."

Also, I'm about halfway through my stack of books I got for a dollar each at half price. I read Redwall (I was upset that though it's the first in the series, it's not actually about Martin the Warrior!)  and the first three Anne of Green Gables novels, which are incredibly charming. I'm about to start on Peter Pan. Oh, and I randomly read The Burn Journals while subbing one day in an English Class and House on Mango Street another day during a conference period at Martin Middle School. It's unfathomably wonderful to be able to read strictly for pleasure now that I'm out of school. I will admit to surfing the web and reading Buffy fanfics more than I should but as the kids say "grown ups can do whatever they want!"

Alas, how I wish that were so!

High School was a refreshing splash of maturity after two days in inner-city middle schools. But it wasn't just the age difference. I didn't see a single pregnant girl all day, and the students actually clapped when I introduced myself and told them I just graduated from St. Ed's. Watching those classes today was like watching classes picked right out of my memories of Round Rock High--normal, middle class kids with normal, middle class names like Ashlee and Jackson, leaving the Nolbertos and Darraneishas to their inner-cityness.

When I told them that I usually sub at Travis, they gasped or laughed. "You left your bulletproof vest at home today though, right?" one boy joked. But I just shook my head and professed a love for Travis. And I do love working at Travis. I have a sincere admiration for what the caring staff at an inner city school can accomplish with high standards, strict discipline, and an understanding of a culture that is broken and cyclical. Each of the three high schools I've subbed at have all been profoundly different--after my venture to Akins I was afraid to go anywhere but Travis. At Akins the staff have lost all hope, preferring to treat the students as prisoners, and the students respond in turn and meet those expectations exactly.

And East Austin isn't bad. Poor doesn't equal bad, and diverse doesn't equal bad, and after working with the youngest of the East Austinites, I understand part of why they grow up to be those prisoner-kids at Akins or those struggling pregnant girls at Travis. I've heard horror stories about Johnston High, but now I'm really curious to see what it's like.

I feel like there are a hundred different versions of me, and each one is trying to take over my life. I haven't felt this way since I had to choose between the USAFA and SEU. Which road is the right one?