#11 tending to a gaping wound

i admit, "gaping" might be a tad strong. more accurately, this wound was oozing with blood and swelling like fresh melons, and the surrounding bruises came in an array of colors that would make the good folks at pantone dizzy with excitement. i have issues with needles and vomit (and clowns, but that seems irrelevant here, doesn't it?) but apparently i can handle caring for someone with blood falling out of him. it helped that it was my husband, jeff, who took some particularly nasty stage dives this weekend. i'd probably be less likely to wipe blood off a passing stranger - that would be odd.

anyway, this dressing a wound was a first for me. it left me feeling glad that i could do something to help him and only mildly grossed out. the picture doesn't do it even a smidgen of justice, but enjoy. note how clean the wound looks.

tomorrow: becoming an expert on an obscure historical event. suggestions please!

#10 seeing a show three times in a row

specifically, seeing a show three times in a row which i am not involved in. 
thursday, i went to Godspell.
friday, i went to Godspell.
saturday, i went to olive garden...then i went to Godspell. 


obviously, i'm not just some crazy person who loves Godspell - jeff is in it! and he's pretty great in it, if you ask me and many other people. but putting him aside, seeing a show three times in a row was a fascinating experience. 


first, the audience affected my experience. thursday was a small group, and the energy was a bit low. the show was still enjoyable, but some of the jokes fell flat. friday, the audience brought a lot more excitement, and the cast seemed to feed off of that. saturday, the audience was even more responsive - the cast had to pause for laughter several times. 


second, my seat changed things up. thursday, i sat in the very back of mezzanine right, which made me feel more like i was watching a movie or television and less like i was experiencing live theater. i felt like i could talk if i wanted to - this was partly because it was so empty and there weren't other patrons around us, but partly because of the distance. i did refrain from talking, except for one part where they all repeat "the law and the prophets" over and over again and it sounds kind of rappy and i like that part so i rapped along. friday, i sat in orchestra right. that was annoying because i wasn't getting a big picture of the show. saturday, i was at the very front of mezzanine center. i loved that! i felt like part of the action - i had to hold back from high fiving the cast as they ran by during one song. 


third, my company altered my experience. thursday, i was with theater kids. i knew they would enjoy the experience and that they were similarly there to root on specific actors. i was relaxed the whole time. friday, i went with my sister who tends to find theater boring and her new boyfriend, who i had no clue what his views on theater were but his first question after sitting down was "so...how long is this going to last?" this made me nervous and edgy the whole time - every time something was slightly avant garde, i wanted to either explain it to them or apologize, but i could do neither. i was put at ease a little bit at intermission when jenna said she was enjoying it, but there was still an element of eek for me. saturday, i went with a friend who is a theater kid but has no prior knowledge of the book of matthew. i felt comfortable but prayerful as well, hoping that the show would open a great conversation. it didn't end up doing that for us, but i'm hopeful that it gave her some kind of new understanding of what we believe. 


fourth, the sheer repetition of the show for me gave me new insights each time. i noticed little things that the actors were doing that added to the show. i started to understand some of the scripture in a new light. i also noticed when mistakes were made and had a very critical eye by the third viewing - that's probably the worst side effect. 


all in all, i enjoyed the experience, and was glad to support jeff in something he's so gifted at. plus it's a great show. i think i'll see it again this friday.


later today: my new experience of tending to a gaping wound! 

#9 selling something i've decoupaged

okay, my decoupaged masterpiece is on ebay. i feel a little weird trying to sell some of my art - if you can call it art - but feel free to tell your friends, especially those who are in the market for an interesting, artsy new journal. there are many things you can use it for:

- writing a play

- making grocery lists

- recording points for a game of dominoes

- coloring pictures 

- feeding goats

- wrapping up old gum

- writing a novel

- documenting your life

- composing a song

- creating a flipbook

- fanning yourself

ready? go! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120559714013&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

p.s. proof that i karate chopped a magazine. (thanks for the picture, courtney):

proof that i popped open the champagne (well, it's not really proof. in fact, this isn't even the right cork. dog ate the real cork, this is just a stand-in):

tomorrow: possibly knitting. possibly becoming an expert on an obscure historical event. possibly something even better that you suggest, keeping in mind that i'll have about two hours of free time.

#8 popping open a bottle of champagne

i finally decoupaged yesterday! but that was not going to be the new thing - i've done that a hundred times before (or at least like 37). the new thing was going to be selling it. i will do that today. so keep your eye out on ebay if you are in the market for a delightful new journal.


i was going to call yesterday (and the day before that and the day before that. ack.) a wash, but then arabella brought over sparkling wine and i realized that i'd never before popped open a bottle. to be honest, it terrifies me because sometimes people do it wrong and it sounds like a gun shot and i thought that if i did it wrong someone might lose an eye or a limb. or my dog. 


but there was no destruction of any kind. i simply shimmied the cork carefully out of the bottle. i was so careful that my pop! was really more of a pa. 


kind of anti-climactic, don't you think? next time i'll aim for something and just let it rip. 

#7 karate chopping

once again i didn't have time for decoupaging yesterday. last night, at 11:41 pm, some friends asked me what new thing i'd done that day. i told them nothing, i was going to have to take a fail that day. they found this unacceptable, especially since there was still a solid 19 minutes remaining in the day. we quickly brainstormed options: i declined standing on my head for five minutes because it sounded unnecessarily painful, and then i settled on their suggestion of trying to karate chop a magazine in half for one minute. 

jeff held the magazine, and i chopped. and chopped. and chopped. HI-YA! 

while i did not succeed in a clean break, i did cause surprisingly significant damage to both the magazine and my pinkie finger. we used food and wine magazine though - i can't help but think that people magazine would have been an easier task. weak binding, you know? these are things i should have considered before the choppage - i am learning so much.

in conclusion, i am officially a wimpy ninja! 

tomorrow: decoupaging and selling? meh?

#6 eating seafood

tonight i went to mccormick and schmick's for dinner with my friends erica and arabella (arabella is not friend 2's real name, but she asked if she could have a fake name on the blog and i said yes - arabella is what she would like to name her daughter someday, but her husband and i have both vetoed that due to the fact that arabella is obviously the name of some sword-wielding medieval fantasy heroine, so she's going to have to settle for having it as her online pseudonym).

i told my friends that i wanted to try some seafood - i can only recall trying tuna from the can and some barracuda on my honeymoon, so any seafood would do. erica ordered a calamari appetizer and arabella ordered coconut shrimp. i started with a little piece of calamari that had a lot of batter on it. it tasted like batter, which was great. then i went for the shrimp. i gracefully attempted to bite half of the shrimp off, but the texture completely freaked me out and i spit the entire thing back into my hand. i don't know erica all that well, so i'm glad i was able to make that impression early on. a couple minutes later, i manned up and shoved the shrimp in my mouth (minus the tail - apparently you're not supposed to eat that). i chewed a few times, then quickly swallowed it. i will probably never eat shrimp again, though i would be delighted to have more foods fried in coconut batter. yum!

to top things off, i tried a scallop doused in alfredo. it tasted like alfredo. this was good. and i ended with cod - beer battered fish. it was greasy. this was meh.

therefore, i tried FOUR new things today. holler. and i never have to eat those fish again - i can say "no thanks, i've tried it. and i don't like it."

the end.

tomorrow: decoupaging and selling for real.

hold on.

i don't actually have time to decoupage and sell something on ebay. i will push that to tomorrow. 


today's new thing will be trying either lobster or shrimp. happy mccormick and schmick tax relief celebration day! 

#5 write an anonymous note to someone i respect

i can't write a whole lot about this on here, otherwise it will become less anonymous. it was an interesting exercise though - not only was it nice to reflect on the reasons i respect this person, but it was helpful for me to think about whether i have any similar good qualities as a result of knowing him/her. and i think i do!

proof that i did, in fact, write the letter (since this blog is new and some of you might think i'm a liar or something?):

in conclusion, i recommend using google docs to keep your addresses. it's convenient!

tomorrow i will decoupage something and put it up for sale on ebay! or at least i'll start decoupaging something - this might be a more than one day situation.

#4 juggling

tonight i attempted to juggle. i could be good at it some day, but the odds were not in my favor tonight for three reasons:

1. i only had 40 minutes before i had to be somewhere.

2. i only had ping pong balls, which are a wee bit light for juggling purposes.

3. crazy dog.

number 3 was really the kicker. buster thought i was playing with him. i insisted several times that i was not, in fact, playing with him. i even took a different ball out for him to play with, calmly explaining that he could certainly play with his ball in the next room while i learned to juggle in the kitchen. he stared at me with the same look as yesterday, when i had tried to teach him to play dead. so my juggling practice turned into a race to get the ball each time i dropped one. there was collar grabbing, full body tackling, and one time there was panic because the ball had gone so far behind a cupboard that i didn't initially see it and i thought buster had swallowed it and i couldn't help but think of how painful it would be for the little guy to poop that.

proof that my continued inability to juggle is not quite my fault: 

please note the mangled middle ball. 

tomorrow: i will write an anonymous letter to someone i have always respected.

some proof

proof that i am not an artist:

proof that i am a bread maker:

proof that i am not a dog whisperer:

aww, at least he's pretty.

#3 teaching buster a new trick

i had a migraine most of the day, but just started feeling better so i tried to teach buster to play dead. i realize i wrote that i'd give him an hour, but he just looked so bewildered that i stopped after ten minutes. oh well. at least i know for sure that i am not a dog whisperer.

tomorrow: learning to juggle.

#2 bread from scratch

there is a lot of waiting to rise in bread making. i know this now, because i am a bread maker. well. i made bread. does that make me a bread maker? since i doodled, am i an artist? yeah, i didn't really think so.

so i did laundry, went to a talent show, and saw jeff for a while yesterday, and in the midst of it all i made bread. all together, it took approximately ten hours to make said bread. i started around 1, mixing all the ingredients save for half of the flour. the directions told me to "wait for the sponge to double." i had to look that up. was i really supposed to just know what a sponge was, in bread making terms? honestly, i'm still not entirely sure what it was since no one has bothered to make a bread sponge article on wikipedia, but it seems to be the beginnings of the dough. i let the sponge rise for a few episodes of friends and a washer to dryer switch, then i added the rest of the flour and kneaded my little heart out. there is something about squishing sticky dough between my fingers that is simultaneously delightful and icky; honestly, i can't settle on which. i liked playing with it. i did not like that it got underneath my fingernails and that i briefly felt like i would be carrying a smattering of dough with me for eternity.

after all the kneading, i rolled my dough into a neat ball and went to put it in the bread pan, which is when i realized that i do not own a bread pan. 

then more rising happened, but i let it get a bit out of control (read: i totally forgot about it). by the time the word 'bread!' popped into my head -- exclamation point and all -- we had just ten minutes before we had to leave the house for dinner. i decided that my bread was already going to be sad and misshapen due to the lack of bread pan, so i just left it and decided to bake it later.

we then attended what was supposed to be a two hour talent show, which lasted three hours.

next we went to an art show.

then we went to wendy's.

then wendy's took a long time, because apparently cooking nuggets is not something that should be rushed.

finally we went home. i picked the wet towel off of the bread. then i kind of scraped more towel off because it stuck. then i started feeling sorry for the bread, so i put it in the oven to put it out of its misery.

41 minutes later, at about 11 pm, jeff and two of our friends and i were munching on slightly squishy but entirely delicious fresh from the oven bread. success!

i am not a bread maker. but i could be a bread maker if i wanted. good to know.

tomorrow i will try for solid hour to teach buster how to play dead. this is not something i've done before. wish me luck.

#1 doodling

doodling is serious business.

i tried to not care what it looked like, but then everything turned out blobby. i even tried to not really care about what i was drawing, but then i couldn't think of anything to draw at all. so i decided to use word association and literally draw anything that came to mind, which is why i ended up with a scribbled depiction of a goat, a can, and a boot with a rose in it. i used to think i was an intelligent being, but i'm starting to think i'm just strange.

i tried posting pictures of the monstrosities, but i can't seem to figure out how to send pictures from my phone. boo.

today's anything will be baking bread from scratch. i attempted to make cinnamon rolls from scratch once, and i ended up with a lump of wet dough stuck to the counter that took considerable effort to clean. i'm hoping, of course, to succeed at the bread. but my more realistic hope is merely to not make too big a mess.

till tomorrow. (i just learned that 'till' is an acceptable english word, so i'm going to use it, darn it!)

anything once

so i was watching friends yesterday - something i do every day since my husband purchased all ten seasons for us - and ross made a new year's resolution to do something new every day. i thought that was a great idea and something i'd like to try, even though ross's resolution ended with him exiting a date's bathroom pantless with lotion and baby powder smeared all over his sweaty legs. i will simply avoid purchasing leather pants as one of the things i've never done.

today's new thing is:

#1 purposeful doodling. i plan to purchase a notebook tonight and doodle something exquisite. i will post results soon. i hope to doodle regularly (don't be icky, i am referring to drawing), but for now i'll start small and just have one doodle as my goal.

in conclusion, this is the first post on this blog even though i've had it for over a year, so i feel like i should do some kind of introductory something or other. so, here goes:

i am emily.

nice to meet you.

end scene.