the great purge of 2011

Over the past few years, my mindset regarding "stuff" has shifted from having it - wanting things to be around in case I want to read/watch/use it - to one of not having. I use the library instead of buying books; I don't randomly buy DVDs anymore; most of the clothes I buy are thrifted and thus cheaper and one less thing for a landfill. I'm much more deliberate about what I buy in general - I'd rather spend money on good food (ingredients and meals) than another DVD I sorta like.

A few months ago and sporadically since then, Andrew and I have done some major spring cleaning and went through our closets, bookcases, dvds, cupboards and purged a TON of stuff. Clothes went to Goodwill (two garbage bags worth) and I FINALLY got rid of my favorite shirt from middle/high school - my 1997 Tator Trot shirt. Seriously, it had more holes than swiss cheese. All of our tupperware definitely has a matching lid now and I got serious about the "one in, one out" policy regarding wedding presents, since I don't need two 8x13 cake pans. We sold several bags worth of books and DVDs to a secondhand store and I have 5 or so books listed on Amazon, trying to sell them for more than the bookstore would buy them.

We cleaned the closet that weekend!

This picture is from yesterday, so the closet cleaning stuck pretty well over the past few months.

We got rid of enough books to clear off one whole shelf plus parts of others:

We also sold enough DVDs to have a whole shelf for game:

Yes, that is one of Sam's toys on the floor... a Target dog that he ripped the stuffing from its guts.

It's been really good to weed out our belongings and get rid of things I know we won't use. Now that we've gone most of our stuff, I'm now beginning to purge some other areas such as... the fridge!

We have 3 half bottles of meat marinade. I'm making meal plans that include using these up.

4 types of mustard! Andrew's responsible for this one since I hate mustard. He keeps bringing some home after his work camping trips.

Two identical bottles of stir-fry sauce. Seriously.

Two nearly empty bottles of salad dressing. I'd been making my own balsamic vinaigrette whenever I wanted dressing, so these got shoved to the back. I'm actively using them up now.

Other things to purge:

Hotel shampoo and soap. I've got a big bag of it and apart from maybe keeping a few bottles for traveling, I'm going to use them all up. I imagine this might take some time, since there's at least a few washings worth in each bottle.

Tea candles! We had a bunch of candles left over from our wedding, including some much larger ones. They were just sitting in the closet and I pulled them out during the original purge back in April. I've been using them up since then and I went through 6-8 of the larger candles and have now started on the tea candles.

Slowly but surely, I'm going to use up all of this extra stuff. It's not quite as fast as bringing it to Goodwill or a secondhand store, but it's much needed. Someday, I'll be able to store the ketchup in the fridge door.

Other things as of late...

I made some cake balls, but only had enough chocolate to cover a third of them. Oh well, they're still delicious.

Sam watching me cook. He often stands there and just watches. Sometimes he's a little further around the corner, just showing half his face. He's such a weirdo.

He likes to sit on people's laps. Regardless of where or how they are sitting.

We sit like this a lot. This was me last weekend after a 9 mile run. I was tired.

Sam before I started writing this post. He wanted to know what I was doing.

Ok. I'm done for today. I start a new job on Thursday. I'll tell you more later. Good bye.

bikes and books

I'm going to fight someone.

Ok, maybe not someone, but my bike for sure. I wanted to adjust the brakes today, so I wrangled with my front brake for awhile before I realized that it was tight enough. It's a byproduct of the handle design that makes it seem looser than it really is. Booo.

Then I fiddled with the back one for awhile and now I can't seem to get it back to its original tightness. I took a break and checked some stuff online, so we'll give it another go here shortly. I'm frustrated, nonetheless.

No illusions; I am not a bike mechanic.

Ugh. Got to fix the bike quick, so I can grab a book and go read by the lake. I just finished book 25 of the year, which is good. I was lagging behind there for awhile, but I caught up by having only leisure reading and lots of time on the bus. Here are the books I've finished since getting back to MPLS:

• Me and Mr. Darcy, Alexandra Potte
• Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith
• The Hip Hop Wars, Tricia Rose
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Ernest Hemingway
• Spanish Lessons, Derek Lambert
• Strawberry Tattoo, Lauren Henderson
• Potential, Ariel Schrag

I'm also doing a much better job of reading more books written by women, people of color and non-straight authors. There's 6 women, one out lesbian and one Black women author. Although I suppose Hemingway kind of stands in the face of all of that... I figure when I read something misogynistic, I might as well go all the way. Hah. I have a big stack of books borrowed that I need to read, but the library books get some priority since they've got a deadline. Yesterday I picked up a Mexican cookbook, one of Ellen's books, the graphic novel by Schrag, and John Hodgman's book. I forgot how great the downtown MPLS library's bookstore is. All of the books they discharge from circulation are sold at cheap prices - most expensive one I saw was $3 (a collection of sermons and lectures by Rowan Williams. I was going to buy it, but no cash and I'm living light these days).

Ok. I need sunlight so I'm giving the bike one more chance to be fixed nicely before I throw it off the back porch.

9 days

Me from now to the end of the semester - aka at the library.

Make me beans, my women!

I can't seem to make myself sit down and do work. Uuugh. I have things to read and things to write, but all I do is check my email and Google reader. Normally I head home early on Tuesday afternoons (so I can procrastinate there) but I have a curriculum meeting today at 4. Then house dinner! At least if I'm procrastinating, I should be doing something still useful like updating my resume or working on my spider solitaire win percentage (28%).

My prof for my history class gave everyone a paper extension until Monday after break, so the pressing thing I had to do this week is no longer pressing. I spent a couple hours yesterday building a model for my church architecture class, so that's coming along nicely. My other things aren't due until after Thanksgiving break or even into reading week, so I'm feeling relatively stress free this week. I'll have to bring home work, but I should be able to get it all done.

I'm flying home Friday afternoon so that's also on my mind... I'm not sure if I'll get to doing laundry before then so I might just bring home a suitcase of dirty clothes. I hope I can do at least one load before then, since I'm really hitting the bottom of the barrel in terms of clean clothes. I might have to fly home in a paper sack. I blame this whole thing on Elm Campus forcing us to get rid of our washer and dryer.

I'm in the basement of the library now (in a failed attempt to get stuff done) and I just saw Josh. When he saw me, the first words out his mouth were, "What are YOU doing here?" Jerk.

I'll leave you with this exchange between Jake, Nichole and I yesterday as we all cuddled:

Jake: Cuddle me, my women! Make me some beans!
Me: Beans?
Jake: Isn't that what straight guys like?
Nichole: I thought you said beans because it was a Mexican thing.
Jake: Hmm... I would have said taco if I wanted it to be a Mexican thing!

I love my housemates.

50 books in 2008 update

Last 6 books I've finished:
Have a Nice Doomsday, Nicholas Guyatt
Jesus Freaks, Don Lattin
Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (highly, highly recommend)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver (love)
The Dracula Dossier, James Reese
This Common Secret, Susan Wicklund

Books waiting to be read:
Plotted, Shot and Painted, J. Cheryl Exum
Breathing for a Living, Laura Rothenberg
The House of God, Samuel Shem
Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush, Eric Boehlert
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco (on my reading list for 5+ years now... the day I finish this will be the day I get a real job)
God's Problem, Bart Ehrman
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, Louise Murphy
I also have Nick Hornby's How To Be Good waiting as standby. I've already read it but I know it's good.

Books I've started but haven't finished:
Shakespeare's Wife, Germaine Greer
The Veil Unveiled: The Hijab in Modern Culture, Faegheh Shirazi
The Call of the Weird, Louis Theroux

Most of the books waiting to be read are library books so I have to have somewhat quick turn around, or at least renew them. Some are from the U library and some are from the Minneapolis Public Library, so the non-U of M books need to be returned in about three weeks. I'm getting a lot of reading time in while I'm on the bus to and from work. It's about a 35-40 minute bus ride, so I get plenty of reading time.

Andrew comes home today!

Long overdue update!

Well, I've successfully handed in papers, moved out of my apartment, flown home to Wisconsin, enrolled at the University of Minnesota and returned to the Twin Cities for the summer... all in the past week.

It was my great grandma's 90th birthday party this past weekend, so I was able to see my extended family for the first time since Christmas, plus we all congregated at a bar with pictures of the pope. Not too shabby, if you ask me.

I wish I could have spent more time in Green Bay, but my summer class started today so I needed to be back. My mom got a cold this weekend, so I could have stayed at home with her to cook her soup and take care of her! We went to downtown DePere for the Memorial Day parade, which was fun. Kari says she wants to be a Civil War re-enactor after seeing them in the parade. I got sunburned.

Today was my first French class since high school. It was pretty good... A lot of stuff I remembered quickly and some I didn't. I looked up my instructor in the U directory and apparently she's not even a PhD student but a Masters candidate. I don't have any problems with her teaching the course or anything, it's just a little depressing that we're at the same education level and she's teaching a class. True, it's Beginning French, but still. She's getting paid to be there and I'm the one paying her. When do I get to start teaching classes? I think I'm going to put together a syllabus on Jesus movies for a teaching opportunity through the residential colleges at Yale. Non-professors apply to teach self-made seminars at the residential colleges, so I'm going to apply for that at the beginning of the year. I'm going to work on my syllabus over the summer and get feedback from the various advisors/professors I've worked with over the years. Take that, French instructor! Just kidding. She seems cool.

I told Kari that after one day of class, I can already tell the difference between MY schools and a public state-school education. hah, it's fun pretending to be elitist. This is the third university I've been enrolled at... lots of fun.

Andrew comes home on Saturday! yay! I'm excited. I miss him.

I've passed the halfway mark for my 50 book goal. I finished Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love before I left New Haven and The Dracula Dossier (soon-to-be-published) the other night. Now I'm 30 or so pages into Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer, a book I've been wanting to read and one that Tessa highly recommended. Exciting. Now that I'm a U of M student, I'm going to get an ID card tomorrow so I can check books out of the library. When I told Kari, she said I was like the guy in Breakfast Club who gets a fake ID so he can vote. At least I'm not committing voter fraud.

Ireland!

Today I bought my plane ticket for Ireland! Whoohoo! I'm leaving March 7 at 8:30 AM (yuck - means I'll have to be up early early to get to the airport) and arriving in Cork at 11:25 PM. Then, on the way home, I'm leaving Cork on March 23 at 4:00 PM and arriving at JFK at 11:00 PM. And then there's another 2 hour drive home. So, apart from the annoying drive to and from the airport and the annoying long flight, it's all very nice. The nice part is the time in between the flights when I'm in Ireland with Andrew. He's my boyfriend. He's nice. So many nice things. Now that I've spent the majority of the money I saved in the fall on my plane ticket, I have to save some money to do things in Ireland, like see castles and drink beer. I'm working more hours this semester, so that should be helpful, at least. Plus it's my birthday soon and it's tax time (rebate! unless I've been screwed by The Man). I have to save lots of money. I put away about $50 every week or two this semester, so it should be easier now that I'm making more. I think once I'm done saving for the trip I'm going to keep up saving at this rate. It's a good habit to have, plus it'll come in handy next time I have to pay over $250 for books for one ONE of my classes.

I started second semester and all of my classes are going well. It's way nicer to have afternoon class as opposed to morning class. Less of an opportunity to sleep through it. Here's my schedule:
M: 1-6 work at the library
Tu: 9:25-11:15 Cinematic Spectacle, my Film class downtown
1-6 work at the library
7-9 Theology and Cinema
W: 1:30-3:20 Christianity and Culture
6-10 work at Holy Grounds
Th: 3:30-5:20 Reading the Visual Culture of American Religion
F: 9-12 work at the library
S: Nothing!
Su: Nothing!

I'm so excited not to have to work Saturday morning. I hate hate hated it last time. But now that Susan, my boss at the library, loves me, I don't have to worry about working crappy shifts anymore. Sunday I even got to train one of my friends and close the library. You know, the high rolling stakes of being a circulation desk employee.

My classes all look great. They're all about stuff I'm very much interested in and potentially classes I hope to teach at some point, so it's nice. Lots of reading for my Visual Culture class... although the "Reading" in the title kinda gave that one away. But I'm reading some pretty cool books, so no worries there. I don't know if I can read the pretty cool books at a rate of 2 per week though.... so I lied about the no worries. There are some worries. Small worries. I'm especially excited about my Christianity and Culture class. The professor is very cool and he's paired some really traditional theology of culture readings with pieces of literature, art and music. It's a pretty interesting way to do it.

I went to bed early last night (10:30 Mom, just like you) and slept until 10... it was great. I woke up a bit and rolled around, but I always got back to sleep right away. I had some crazy dreams, none of which I can really remember. I used to be really good at remembering my dreams. I need to start doing that again. I need to put more importance on writing my dreams down right away once I wake up. I have my journal by my bed, but I need to move it to a more prominent position, I think.

Ok. Goodbye.

A brush with Keck

I was working at the library yesterday morning - my first time working there - and in comes this old man who tried to renew his books online, but his ID wasn't working so he needed to come in and have us do, and he was looking up some articles. He was kind of bumbling and old and like Anna, I do have a special place in my heart for bumbling, cute old men. He swipes his card, and up pops his account. Leander Keck's account. Leander Keck of Paul and His Letters, Leander Keck of my Romans class and his participation in Christ's death through baptism Leander Keck. The one who Polk said wouldn't appreciate Logan calling him "Leander" as opposed to "Keck" in his reflection paper. Anyway, it was like meeting a celebrity, but a celebrity for religion majors. I didn't say anything about having read his work, and now I'm kind of regretting that, but maybe he'll come in again. I think he probably would have appreciated someone recognizing him, but I couldn't remember the name of his book that I read and by the time I did, he was already wandering around the library.

I'm conflicted. I'm not sure how I feel about that new Beatles musical movie. I want to see it because the trailer looked good, but once I found out it was a musical I got iffy. I've listened to some of the song portions on the website, and I'm not a big fan of some of them. But then, some of them I really like. I think if it just contained all Beatles songs I'd like it much better, but I guess I just have to see it. It's directed by Julie Taymor and I do think there needs to be more women directors, so I want to support that. Plus I really, really liked Frieda and she directed that. Andrew and I are going to see it when I'm home for the wedding, so huzzah. Here is the website if you want to check it out: http://www.acrosstheuniverse.com/

Um, I kinda started a fire on my stove today. But other than that, I have to get back to my reading. I really didn't do much this weekend and now I'm looking at the pile of books and kicking myself. My apartment is really cold too. I'm wearing the wool socks Anele knitted for me, and usually I don't pull those out until November. Damn northern exposure! I'll have to tell you about the stove another time, unfortunately. Oops.

My iconography professor, Jaime Lara, showed us this tower:

This tower has stood for centuries. It's not there anymore. It was destroyed by bombing in Iraq in the past few years. Thanks, George W.

I'm getting settled in with my classes and work. I had my Political Economy of Misery class on Tuesday, which looks very promising. A lot of reading, but I'm excited. The title of the course is kind of specific but yet vague. It's really about the sociology of sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, all of those -isms that oppress, but within the realms of ethics and religion. Prof. Townes is a womanist ethicist - or ethics through the lens of women of color. I think my favorite part about the syllabus is that in our group presentations we're required to include specific actions. We're going to talk about these things in theory and academia, but we also have to give specific ways to remedy, make changes and put our work out into the general public. It seems like a nice change from theoretically talking about all the ills of society but leaving it at that.

I had my first day of work today at Holy Grounds, the coffee shop in the commuter lounge at YDS. It's super laid back. The big excitement of the day was a new piece for the new espresso machine came in - which means that we don't have to keep using the old machine for espresso shots and the new machine for steaming the milk AND we can make more than one shot at a time. So excitement abound. The job's nice because I get to drink coffee and read and occasionally make people drinks. I'm a big fan so far. Saturday morning I have my first shift at my other job, the YDS library. I've always wanted to work at a library, ever since middle school. Now I get to. I'm excited. Andrew's excited. Apparently geeks everywhere have mad crushes on librarians, so good for me. I've got about 8 hours a week at the library and 5 hours at the coffee shop.

I come home three weeks from today!