No, I cannot forget where it is that I come from - JCM

my grandparents, ukie side :: wethersfield, ct :: february 1986

That might very well be the last picture ever taken of my grandfather.  If memory serves, he passed away sometime in ‘86. Heart attack.

I spent most of this afternoon trying to clean my craft room up. I started in the closet and that’s as far as I got. I found a box of random stuff - old drama club bits, my UCONN Hockey scrapbook, my attempt at NaNoWriMo in ‘03, and lots of newspaper articles.  Of course I had to look at each and every one.  I had a very good, very long cry.  I have articles from 1986 when Challenger exploded, I have the articles when Columbia experienced the same fate, I have the Sox winning the ‘04 World Series, I have the last day of the Whaler’s existance and I have a lot of 9/11 stuff.  Painful.  At least the NaNo was a nice palate cleanser.

I also managed to slice open my pinky with an X-acto knife, take a picture frame to the bridge of my nose and trip twice.  Needless to say, the room is in worse shape than when I started.

So, Groundhog Day Resolution Day.  I’m a wee bit early, but that’s OK.

1) Take (and pass) the CPA exam.
Wild Success: Getting my license.
Progess: Bought the study guide

2) Less dining out
Wild Success: More money, less weight.
Progress: Not much but I do sometimes take leftovers to work when there are some.

3) More time with friends
Wild Success:To really become a part of my friends’ lives again
Progress: I can’t always make it, but I’m doing more with them when I can.

4) Dedicate myself to my health
Wild Success:Getting down to my target weight
Progress: I’ve been trying to get in at least a half hour of Wii Tennis in a night (Haven’t looked at a scale yet…)

5) Use my camera at least one time a day
Wild Success: Completing all 366 “once a days”!!!
Progress: I let it go in February and started back up yesterday.

6) Knit more
Wild Success:More socks, a sweater for me
Progress: Frogged a pair of socks, lost 4 inches of a sweater.

7) Stop biting my nails
Wild Success: To have decent looking nails, instead of the raggy ones I have now
ProgressI have white showing on 5 fingers…perfect biting length. I haven’t given in yet.  Photos next month.

8) Be myself more
Wild Success: To blog like myself again, get a card published
Progress:I’ve got the domain set up, I have the design, I just need to put it together. As for the cards…check in with me next month.

 

Vanished off the face of the earth

bu vs maine :: agganis arena, boston, ma ::  february 16 2007

I’m alive.  Just buried. 

Wonder Hubby’s mom has “the C-word” and we’ve been on pins and needles for a while.  Waiting for news sucks.  Having people in denial/controlling things that aren’t theirs to control is just making everything harder.  On the school side, I have a 15 page group paper due last week.  Yeah. That good.  A member of my group, one that offered to do the bulk of the work, has vanished.  Poof! Gone!  Leaving me and the other person to pick up the slack. Did I mention I have another paper due? And a project? And a job that keeps me at work until noon on Saturday, killing all my good homework time?

Yeah.

In other news, I took a stab at getting rid of a vicious green-eyed monster attack. 

My heritage is Ukrainian and god knows what else.  There’s a lot of people with my last name and I’ve not had the time to work on my dad’s side of the family tree to figure out what’s out there. But I digress.  Almost a year ago (!!!!!) I kissed and made up with a very old, very good friend.  Who happens to be 100% Latvian.  She speaks it. She lives it. Her name drips it.  We talked at length about the Old Guard of each culture pushing out the younger generation and how my mother failed me by turning her back on her heritage. Then, I ran across my cousin on MySpace.  Some bad blood started between my aunt and I after my mother died and I’ve just never been able to forgive her for it… and in doing so, distanced myself further from my Ukrainian side. My cousin spent a lot of time with my grandparents, and both her parents are Ukies, so I know she’s had a lot of exposure.  And it pissed me off.

Between the two of them, they created this strange jealousy.  One is so entrenched in her culture that it comes up often in conversation.  Like every other word often.  And I want that.  I want to know people who share my blood and speak a language I don’t (yet) understand. My cousin spent more time with our grandparents than I did and I know she probably managed to pick up more than she realizes.  To be left out hurts like I can’t even put into words.

When my father passed away, I became obsessed with knowing where I came from. It was too soon, and the project got put on the back burner. But with the reappearance of both of these people in my life, that project started whispering in my ear. I found a place in Boston that teaches the Ukrainian language and the culture. I’ve actually been in contact and will probably start after tax season. There’s supposedly a Ukie contingent in both Salem (MA) and JP…at least there are churches in both areas.  Yeah, I said “churches”. Big ol’ Agnostic me, is seriously thinking about going back to church.  Not for the religious aspects - I turned my back on God a long time ago - but for the social networking. I know, it’s a frightening thought.

It’s time for me to do this.  To find that part of me and embrace it.  To never let it go.

Groundhog Day Resolutions

groundhog day resolutions :: da ‘brook :: two two ought eight

I linked to Dave’s take on Groundhog Day resolutions a few days ago.  Considering my world was turned upside down in December, it was nice to have a little break to think about what I really wanted for myself this year.

1) Take (& pass) the CPA exam—duh!  I need the CPA license if I want to be a cost accountant.  It’s not required for my job at a CPA firm (but it is HIGHLY recommended) and it will bring a pay raise and allow me to go out on my own if I ever choose to do so.

2) Less dining out—We’re really lazy and fickle.  It’s hard to go grocery shopping when we eat according to our moods. We’ve tossed more food because it sounded good at the time and then we weren’t in the mood for it or didn’t feel like cooking.  That needs to stop.

3) More time with friends—If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times:  It’s awesome to have my family back together.  ‘Nuff said.

4)Dedicate myself to my health—Between the bipolar and the weight, it’s time to get serious. 

5) Use my camera at least once a day—I joined the Once a Day group on Flickr and then, life got in the way and it just wasn’t something I deemed important. It should be.

6) Knit more—I can run a yarn store off my stash.  It’s time to start knitting between my sporadic visits to my Tuesday night group.

7) Stop biting my nails—Soon, I’m going to be doing client visits.  My hands are a constant source of shame.  I even went so far to visit a hypnotherapist but came away with disasterous results. I can do it - I got off to a good start last year and then all hell broke loose.

8) Be myself more - more creative outlets—I used to like web design, writing, scrapbooking and card making.  Now it just seems like a lot of work… and it’s really not.  It’s important for me to start doing these things again.

The David says when embarking on a project to imagine what wild success looks like and then go after it. I’m still working on that part…but I’m close to having a solid definition of wild success for each of these.

The Bubaru’s back and so is the bunny!

bourque the bunny :: da ‘brook :: january twenty-second ought eight

When I last saw this little dude, he was living in my 1992 Subaru Loyale.  Bourque the bunny - forever known as BuBu Bubaru Bunny. 

After a long protracted battle with two Mazda dealers, I traded in my brand-new Mazda for a brand-new Forester.  I should have gone back to Subaru instead of getting the Mazda… Oh well.  Its all done. I’ve got a nice, shiny Subaru and some poor fool is getting my Mazda.  I’d almost feel bad about it except “there’s nothing wrong with it.”  As long as the new owner doesn’t hit potholes, they’ll be just fine. *sigh*

We got some really bad news last night… I’m having a hard time comprehending what it all means and what’s going to happen.  I’ve always planned for the worst and hoped for the best - but thinking about the worst case scenario right now is making me sick to my stomach.  I don’t often buy into prayers and all that, but one of the girls in my knitting group prayed and burned candles for me when I was going through the worst of the job doodie.  Did she make it all pan out? Did my dad?  I don’t know - but I don’t doubt that it helped.

Send good vibes… please.

No pic today

Not in a picturey type of mood right now… but am focusing on the future.

Came across this (Groundhog Day resolutions) on a few different sites and decided this might be a good idea.  I went though my old blog’s archives for 2007 and noticed that while I experienced a lot, most of it wasn’t productive and/or particularly happy.  (For some reason there were a bunch of deaths this summer - Hubby’s dad, a friend from high school, a co-worker’s baby was stillborn, and the Colonel.  And those are just the ones I can think of!)

That’s not to discount the absolutely amazing things that happened this year - Viz, Jeff, Bryan, Melanie - but 2007 was rough.

I’ve gotten a taste of 2008 and I’m pretty sure I know what I’m going to be working towards.  I’ll post the finished list on 2/2.