Grandmother's Birthday

Last week was Grandma's birthday, giving me the always appreciated opportunity to cook a fine meal and have company over. We invited our neighbor, Lori, to join us. On the menu - Grilled salmon in a creamy wine sauce, roasted asparagus and basmati rice. For dessert, gluten free lemon cheese cake.





Grandma was delighted at all the hype for her birthday. Why not? You only turn 85 once.

Me as an Idahoan

The fact that I'm now living in Boise seems to have caught up with me. I had a wonderful 6 years in Eugene, and now I'm moving into a new adventure in my life. So how do I put to rest my time in Oregon and move forward?

Possibly by remembering time with friends




Or a pedicure with my sister




How I love the Oregon coast



And how I love Rain Rock












To Oregon and Oregonians, thank you.

My first week in Boise

One week ago right now I was pulling into the driveway of my new home on Columbine Ave. My first week here started with watching Jem perform with the Idaho Dance Theatre, which was a real pleasure considering I haven't seen him dance in a few years. The rest of the week was a mixture of cooking, puzzling, and cleaning. In in the middle of the week I had a flurry of job-related activity, including two interview. I seem to be zeroing in on a wonderful nanny job in the north end. The family is checking my references this weekend, and short of unknown and catastrophic results, I think the job is mine.

Today I watched Jem perform as a guest with the Idaho Ballet Company. I told him that I think they should replace some of their current dancers with him, as he had better balance, poise, and technique than some of the company members. Oh well, so much for a sister's opinion.

Me as a blogger

You may have notice that my blogging is rather irregular. I have been analyzing the reasons behind this and come to this conclusion: I have confused my intentions in blogging. My core desire is to write insightful, smart and artistic blogs that will provoke thought and discussion in you, my meager audience.

This amount of pressure makes it nearly impossible for me to write anything out of fear that I'm not upholding the long and wonderful tradition of talented writers in my family. The best remedy I can imagine for this situation is to give up my artistic dreams and simply convey the interesting events and stories of my life without delusions of brilliance.

In this spirit, here's the new of the day - This week I'm moving to Boise to help with my grandmother and work. I've come to a good pausing point in my education, but I'm looking into nursing programs in Boise. I have several good job leads and will be meeting with people when I get to Boise.

Post-finals

My last several months and weeks have been filled with adventure, as is usual in my life. It has culminate in finals last week. This term for me has included (in chronological order) swine flu, trying to make pottery, food poisoning, dissecting a kidney, east coast trip, pneumonia, and finals (and these are just the highlights). Unfortunately my term hasn't included much blogging, but I hope to remedy that now that school is over.

The last week has been interesting. I finished school, and did well (which was actually a little surprising, it wasn't an easy term). I canceled a party at my house friday night because of freezing rain, I got a tragic pool playing injury (it's better now, but my finger really hurt for like a day), rescheduled my party for last night (fun and food with a few friends). I've had two clients vomit in front of me since saturday, and tonight I got news from nursing school.

I've been preparing myself for the worst for a few weeks, but it still feel really horrible. I know that last spring I got my hopes up too much about nursing school and subsequently crashed into the most difficult 6 months of my life. I did not want to repeat that. But once I found my inspiration again, remembered my desire to pursue nursing, it's only natural that I got excited. And I'm now equally disappointed that I did not get in.

I have an abundance of feelings right now. Why wasn't I good enough? Why should I keep trying? Was I just arrogant to think it was even possible to get into Johns Hopkins? I thought that getting into nursing school would fix how stuck I feel in my life. Stuck in Eugene, stuck at a job that I've outgrown, and stuck away from my family. But without the "quick fix" of my ready plan, my plan to escape all of this, I suppose I have to face myself and how I feel about my current state of life.

I guess I just have to face a bunch more uncertainty. I guess I won't be leaving Eugene in 2 months like I had despirately hoped. I guess I don't know where/if I will get into a nursing program. I guess it's probably OK to not know these things, although it feels pretty aweful right now.

European History

Monday marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wall was up for 28 years, separating Germany into east and west. The wall was constructed because 3.5 million Germans left east Germany for the freedom of the west in the years after WWII. After the construction of the wall 200 people were killed trying to escape across the wall. Up to 5000 escaped successfully using such routes as tunnels, zip lines, hot air balloons, or simply driving full speed through the check point. Finally, with thousands of people revolting in the streets of East Berlin, the wall was opened on Nov. 9th, 1989. Two days later the deconstruction of the wall began.

We all remember those powerful words of our great president,

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

And I Follow My Nose

My week, in smells:

Monday - On mondays I make dinner at Rain Rock, and it smelled amazing. Garden burgers and cheese!
Tuesday - Smelling my lunch heat up at school activated the smell receptors in my brain. It made me hungry and my Thai noodles were tastytastic.
Wednesday - Fall days smell like clean air and wet leaves. They also smell like cold!
Thursday - Kidneys, when dissected, smell like formaldehyde.
Today - Coffee, bagel, and orange for breakfast smell like comfort, warmth, and happiness.