Not a Good Day for Flowers

PLEASE NOTE: This was written several weeks ago, and for some reason entirely unknown to myself, Bob Saget, Andrew's trombone, or even my teddy bear Francis, it didn't get posted to the blog. So, here you go. Have a nice read on this while I draw pictures about Thanksgiving. END NOTE.

Did you know that I have a china set? I do. It's pretty. It's an off white shade, with beautiful silver and white flowers and designs on it. It even has silver on the edges. It's actually very beautiful. I'm very proud of it. However, all of the pieces are very dusty and dirty. I've just pulled them out of the box where they've been hiding for a good long while because I now have an elegant hutch to put them in. So am I going to wash them?

No.

Now, you may be wondering why, if it is indeed true that I'm proud of my fine china set and wish to display it, WHY would I not clean this collection of teacups and dinner plates and gravy boats and those ones that I'm not even sure what purpose they have? Because apparently is the day to kill off flowers.

I have a favorite set of mugs. Each one has a different type and color of flower drawn on it all cutesy like to make a mismatching matching set of four. There used to be four. Two were killed off in the battleground of college living. Today for lunch, I went for my favorite- peanut butter and jelly sandwich with milk. The ONLY correct way to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is with milk. Any other notion or way of consuming this type of sandwich is blasphemy. End of story. Anyway, I decided to use one of my favorites, the blue and green flowered one. I reached up on my tippy-toes to get it off of the high shelf... and then watched it land on the floor by my feet.

That's right. I broke my favorite blue and green flowered mug. After staring at it for a while, I noticed that my arm was kind of sore. It turns out that I whacked it during my failed mad dash to save my beloved mug. I mourned my mug. Even using my favorite pink and orange flowered mug didn't make me feel better. Not even my favorite lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwich with milk didn't make me feel better.

I got up after lunch and started doing the dishes. I wanted to clear out all of the other dishes before I brought in my china set. I didn't want any accidents because there were too many dishes in the sink. It was a good idea, I though. Besides, cleaning the dishes is a good thing to do if you don't want a stinky kitchen. But my good idea decided to rub itself in my face. As I was washing one of my green and pink flowered bowls I got for our wedding, it JUMPED out of my hand and split into two pieces and a sliver right there in the sink. I stared at that for a while, too. I picked up the pieces and tried to put them together- it looked like it would be a clean gluing job. I put a cloth down on the counter so I could put the wet pieces down gently. But then the stubborn buffoon piece of crockery decided to jump out of my hand AGAIN, and the two pieces became three.

That was when I decided to give up on glass things for the day. And things with flowers. That china set is just going to stay dirty until Andrew has time to supervise me while I'm working with it. Instead I sat down, ate some starbursts, and drew some pictures for this blog. And then I decided to write this story for you as well. So here you go.

No more flowers or glass. And especially no more glass flowers. At least for today.

How I Broke the Elections

Tuesday, November 6, 2012 was a very important day for me. It was the first time that I voted. I felt very cool to be able to do that. More importantly, I felt a surge of pride that I am literate enough in politics to feel like I had a fairly good grasp of what is going on in the world today. I care about what's happening. I read the news. I listen to debates (until it makes me so frustrated that I have to go hide in the other room and have Andy tell me what's happening). I feel like a responsible citizen.

But when I went to vote on Tuesday, things didn't actually go very smoothly.

Andrew and I showed up at the polling/voting type place. Our precinct was assigned to an old folk's home, and there were some adorable old folks sitting on the veranda. It made me happy. We stood in line for all of about five seconds. Now THAT is my kind of line! The nice people checked our paper stuff, and then asked:

"Would you like to vote on a paper ballot or electronically?"

Knowing my history with technology, I emphatically chose the paper ballot. I went over to a little cubed off section and seized the pen lying there on the desk. I boldly colored in the little ovals, marking my opinions for the future of my county, state, and country. I studiously considered the type of pen I was using, because I actually really liked it, and considered getting one for myself. I decidedly shoved my stuff in my purse, and resolutely stood. 

I then looked around like a lost fish in a really big puddle because I didn't know what to do with my ballot. Andy had already finished and was waiting outside. No help there. Then I saw a lady sitting by the door and a huge machine. I watched as a gentleman walked up to the machine and fed his ballot into the scanner machine, and then was presented with a sticker for his good behavior.

Feeling more comfortable because I now knew what I was supposed to do, I went up to the Lady of the Machine and prepared to get my sticker. Oh, how I wanted that sticker! I love stickers! I stuck the end of my ballot into the machine. The ballot got pulled in....

And then it got spit back out again. That lousy Machine didn't want me to get a sticker! What a lame head of cauliflower! The Lady of the Machine had me try five more times before declaring my ballot to be a broken one. She told me to go over to the other corner of the room and get it voided, and then to fill out another one. I walked dejectedly over to the Voider Man. I'd never broken PAPER before. I'm paper-writing girl. I read books. Paper is what I do.

My head was drooped low until I heard the Lady of the Machine call out and say, "Don't void your ballot. It might be the Machine."

That made me perk up. I didn't break the paper, I broke the Machine! I felt much better. That's much more normal for me. But then I started to feel a little guilty as the line in front of the Machine grew longer, and NO ONE could enter their ballot. What had I done? I had stopped the election process! 

After several minutes of not being able to contact anyone or to fix the Machine, Voider Man just had us stick our ballots in a little slot to be looked at later. That helped ease my guilty feelings a little, since we were still able to cast our votes, even if it were to now cause many people extra work going over the ballots later. Oh well. Voting is a good thing to do, so I guess I can sacrifice other people's time to do it. I stuck my ballot into the slot, but the Lady of the Machine was distracted by something, and didn't offer me a sticker. 

I hmphed! and took a sticker anyway. Just because I broke the elections doesn't mean that I didn't vote. I earned that sticker.

Enjoying Compliments, and Missing the Source of Said Compliments

During my junior year of college at BYU, I took a Shakespeare class. Andrew would be quick to point out that it was not the only one that I took, but he's at work now, so I can say whatever I want. Huzzah for free speech! Anyway, I took this class and it was pretty interesting. In case you didn't know, I graduated with an English degree, and I love reading, and I love Shakespeare as well. Not all of his plays, mind you, but a lot of them. This was no ordinary Shakespeare class, however. It was different.

Instead of the usual run of the mill 10 page research paper for the final and whatever piece of torture for the midterm, we kept a blog during the semester. The blog was to be the equivalent of the research paper in work, but it was spread out over the whole course instead of writing it all the night before it's due. Because, let's be honest, what English major actually has time to write the paper for THAT class when they're already working on the other three papers for THOSE classes? This blog project was to help us to get around that problem while at the same time allowing us to have more freedom of tone and expression, and a whole lot of fun with media clips.

During a peer review, a classmate decided that she was one of the awesomest people on the whole planet, and gave me some very nice and glowing remarks. She said that not only was I a "FANTASTIC WRITER," but that"throughout the blog Natashya maintain’s a personable and intelligent voice. If these posts were handed to me in paper form with no identifying markers I would quite reasonably be able to assume that they were written by one person." That really makes a writer feel pretty good. A consistent voice that actually sounds intelligent? Awesome! (The peer review was done via blog post, and it's here if you wanted to see it. Even if you didn't, it's good to cite your sources.) (OH! And here's my somewhat intelligent Shakespeare blog that I did last year.)

Not going to lie- I feel pretty good about myself, and very benevolent towards this person. I mean, what taste and discernment! But besides feeling great because of these wonderful compliments (most of which were probably undeserved, since I really wasn't the best about posting on that blog- but it WAS the semester that I started dating Andrew...), I now realize something.

I miss writing. 

True story. I am one of those weird people that actually love to read something, and then analyze it in a paper. I LOVE it. I don't always like writing the paper in a very stressful time frame, especially when grades are on the line, but I do enjoy the actual activity. Did you know that I wrote a 12 page research paper on Disney princesses? Yup. It was about how society's ideal feminine archetype has changed from the Maiden to the Modern. I used Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Enchanted, and The Princess and the Frog as my texts. It was a really great paper to write. I mean, how many people get to watch three Disney movies for HOMEWORK?!

I know that a lot of people have said that they like this blog because of my personable writing tone. Honestly, I just write things how they come to my mind, almost as if I were just speaking. Maybe that makes some of you wonder what the heck kind of conversations I have with people, but I can assure you that most people I spend time with are rather splendid at understanding my language. And at speaking my language.

All of this goes to say don't be surprised if you suddenly see an essay pop up on here. Or maybe I'll just start writing stories. Stories about life. Or maybe I'll just keep blogging and writing in my journal.

NOTE: I'm starting another type of blog postings- the kind where I just blurb out something, even though there may be no point to it. If nothing else, it should at least help me get into the habit of posting.