and away we go…

•December 22, 2012 • 2 Comments

Thursday after work I was supposed to be traveling a few hours to meet my mom who was bringing The Cutest Boy halfway to meet me. The plan was that he was going to stay here with me a few days and then Dave and I were going to head up to my mom’s house Sunday and stay there for a couple of days. My ex is coming to get my son on Monday afternoon as they are flying out of Omaha early Tuesday morning to head to Arlington. That WAS the plan. And then it snowed. A lot.

With I-80 being shut down and Nebraska locked under a snow and ice fortress, there was no traveling on Thursday after work. And Friday didn’t work out either. So, instead, Dave and I and The Cleo are headed up to my mom’s bright and early this morning where The Cutest Boy awaits.

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Presents!! And an old sled of mine. And a chair.

As you can see, we’re ready to go! I do so love giving presents. I actually think that’s one of the hardest things about me being under the “no spending” regime – I have spent many, many years using my favorite language of love: giving presents. Now, things are different and I can no longer do that. But this year, we did very well saving and collecting gifts for my family and I get to take this whole pile of presents with me today.

I hope everyone travels safely for the holidays and you get to spend time with family and loved ones and friends. Be back in a few days. :)

Posted in The World Around Me
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the random awesome of my life

•December 19, 2012 • 2 Comments

So yesterday was kind of a frustrating day. This happens sometimes – no one has perfect days at work every day (and if you do, please message me and tell me about it – seriously). But the cool thing is, the bad didn’t overcome me. Well, it almost did, but then three awesome things happened:

1) I had the sheer enjoyment of going shopping with my friend after work. I’m not being sarcastic – it was awesome. You may think that shopping sounds kinda selfish but wait! First let me tell you about what we were shopping for! See, my department at work ROCKS and we’ve been adopting a charity at Christmastime the last two years – this year we adopted the local emergency shelter. We gathered money together and I called the shelter to see what they needed the most right now. That list consisted of cleaning supplies, disinfectant wipes, laundry detergent, printer paper, toilet paper, and paper towels. My amazing colleagues contributed so much that we were able to buy this much stuff (and for scaling purpose, that’s the back of a big ol’ Honda Pilot):

All the supplies for the shelter!

All the supplies for the shelter!

The picture really doesn’t do it justice – it’s 2 boxes of printer paper, like 24 rolls paper towel, 60 rolls of toilet paper, super size glass cleaners, dish soap, all purpose cleaners, scrubbing cleaners, floor cleaner, 8 things of disinfectant wipes, four large boxes of laundry detergent and some kleenex. And I’m probably forgetting something, but you get the idea. I’m so happy to be able to deliver all of these supplies to the shelter today!

2) While we were loading the stuff into the vehicle, two older ladies got out of the car next to us and we were talking about the snow forecast. I stood up from loading things into the car and one of the ladies stopped mid-sentence to say “you are so pretty!” – um, that doesn’t happen to me everyday. Yay, random stranger compliment! :)

3) Then, after I was home from work, another friend stopped by and to give me a present – but not just any freaking present – like the best present EVER! I enjoy coloring to relax (check out meditative mandalas – very good stuff) and she brought me new colored pencils, a fancy sharpener, and these two super fantastic coloring books, The Gangsta Rap Coloring Book and this super awesome gem:

Unicorns are Jerks Coloring Book

Okay, so these first of all are like the best coloring books EVER. But, the extra cool part is that I was *just* talking about Unicorns are Jerks on Facebook the other day and this particular friend is not on Facebook – she is however, psychic. Not kidding.

So, that’s it. That’s how my day got 1,000 times better.  The total random awesome that sometimes in my life. You just can’t make this shit up. :)

Posted in support system, The World Around Me
Tags: , , ,

vegan AND gluten-free? are you nuts?

•December 18, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Yes, yes I am. And I do really love nuts, thanks for asking. :)

As I’ve changed my eating lifestyle throughout the years, I’ve learned so much about my own body and how it handles certain types of foods. First of all, as I had long suspected, sugar is a killer. If I eat anything with sugar after 6 or 7 at night, I’m pretty much guaranteed to have one heck of a headache in the morning that nothing will get rid of quickly. I later chose to be vegetarian, and then vegan, for ethical reasons and learned along the way that my body really does not like meat nor dairy. This lesson was a hard one to learn because every time I fell of the vegan wagon and ate dairy or (sadly) meat, I would be sick. Really sick.

Some of that sickness was due to me pretty much being lactose-intolerant (this happens after you’re vegan for a long time) but there were many other health symptoms that came back. Issues that I had dealt with my whole life and assumed they were “just the way it’s supposed to be” but that went away when I was vegan. Probably the easiest example to give without going into too many details is acne – once I stopped eating meat and dairy, I pretty much stopped having issues with acne. Acne was a huge deal for me in my life and I’ve had it way past the teenage years timeframe that it’s known for – I had it through my 20′s and 30′s. But, when I watch what I eat, it goes away. If I stop eating vegan, it comes back. I can give you citations to research and science crap that will explain why so let me know if you’re interested in learning more – I’ll put my librarian hat on for you.

So why gluten-free also? Well, I have friends who either have celiac disease or have a strong intolerance to gluten. And there’s some research about how gluten affects your body that I could share with you as well (again, just ask me). But for me, when listening to others describe some of the effects and symptoms they’ve had before going gluten-free, I hear myself and I too would like them to go away. Therefore, I’m going to give it a try. This of course is going to be an interesting project and change for me. Thankfully, going vegan taught me how to cook and bake – and now, I will have to do this even more so I don’t end up buying unhealthy processed & packaged food.

One of my friends shared the blog Gluten-Free Goddess with me. And while perusing it (and falling in love with the recipes!!) I learned that the author also bakes vegan. She has a great “Vegan Baking Cheat Sheet” with helpful tips, including this gem:

“Baking gluten-free and vegan translates to one simple truth that is hard to teach. Because it can only be learned by experience. This one simple truth?

Unlearn everything you think you know- or thought you understood- about baking.”

The whole page and blog is wonderful (with great photos!) and if you’re interested in learning more, I would definitely recommend going there. I feel fortunate because I never really learned how to cook/bake before going vegan so I don’t have too many of the traditional ideas about baking to unlearn. But there are definitely some things there that I needed to unlearn. It will be a new adventure for me  for sure – but one that I believe will have amazing benefits.

Today is officially day one of vegan, gluten-free eating. I’m looking forward to seeing how this choice improves how I feel and pushes me closer to my goal of being healthy overall and running a half-marathon. Oh, and my new one: being a cross-fit athlete by the time I’m 40. Yeah, I’m serious. But that’s another post. :)

Posted in Eating, Reflecting, Vegan
Tags: , ,

but what do you really love doing?

•December 17, 2012 • Leave a Comment

In the continued development of making sure I make time for me and my family & friends, I ran into a bit of a snafu. The problem isn’t *how* to make time – I working on that pretty well – the problem has been answering that question “what to do with my spare time?” which of course led to the “what do I like to do?” question. Oddly, this question has caused me some grief – turns out it’s difficult for me to figure out how to do this “spend more time on me and my friends/family” thing and that I really do not know the answer that question.

As has been mentioned before, change is constant for me – I get bored quickly – with hair, clothes, furniture arrangement, etc. (and let me stop for a moment to be thankful that my constant desire for change doesn’t cross over to foundation things like jobs, people, and virtues). But I do really believe that I’m constantly searching for what I truly, truly love to do – what hobbies, past-times, etc., do I want to do? This is important to me to figure out so I can accomplish this goal of spending more time in the “spare time” category and less time in the “working time” category. But figuring this out has been hard. For those of you who spend lots of time around me, you probably have seen this manifest lately with the many questions about what books you think I should read or other similar requests.

I suppose you will not be surprised when I tell you that I still do not have an answer to this question. This post does not end with “Melia Erin’s 10 things she loves!” or anything of the like. But, I do have one idea on how to figure it out and it came to me Friday evening. In my attempt to avoid the TV and internet (because my emotions were on overload and needed a break from the news), I started reading an Oprah magazine. Laugh all you want, it’s okay – I fully admit that the fact that I read Oprah and Real Simple magazines might surprise you. But anyway, there was an article in there about taking a leaps of faith and discerning between a fear-based and love-based decision. Included in this article was this excerpt:

“You can gain more clarity by getting into the habit of imagining the choices you’d make if you had no fear — of failing, of losing, of being alone, of disapproval. Take a minute now to practice:  What clothes would you wear tomorrow if everyone were sure to approve? What music would you listen to today if nobody else was around – not even your mind? What books, movies, or food would you enjoy if no one ever judged you?”


So, that’s kind of where I’m starting. I don’t normally fear what people think of my choices or anything like that, but this little task of “what would you do if no one was around?” seems to be a good starting point for me. I know for some people, this would be a fairly easy task but for me, it’s not. I’ve spent so many years working and studying that I just really don’t know. For example, with the exception of my recent requests of what to read lately, almost every book I’ve read in years has been non-fiction or scholarly. There were a few in there that were not – last winter break I read the entire Harry Potter series; when I was recovering from an appendectomy two years ago, I read some mystery novels; and most recently I read The Passage by Justin Cronin (good, but way freaky – do not read it straight through until 2am like I did – you won’t get to sleep – trust me on this). But mostly, it’s just been articles and scholarly stuff.

This will definitely be a “to be continued…” journey for me. Don’t be surprised if I seem to randomly ask you questions about what fun hobbies you have or what YOU really love doing. I’m curious now how many other people know what they’re passionate about and if they find ways to incorporate them into their days.  Sounds like a good winter break project to me. :)

Posted in Reflecting
Tags: , ,

Weekly Photo Challenge: Delicate

•December 16, 2012 • 4 Comments

This week’s photo challenge was “delicate” and I (as usual) couldn’t pick just one thing to take a photo of nor could I then pick just one to show. So, here we are again with a collage. But the cool thing is that all my photos in the collage have a little story.

Friday night my best friend sister delivered me a present:  an  unabridged second edition 1958 Webster’s dictionary!! It’s like the largest single-volume dictionary I’ve seen in a long time. It makes me so happy to sit and think about the words in there – I mean, think of all the words that are not in there because they just simply did not exist 50 some years ago! So the first image is of a thin delicate page from the dictionary – showing the entry for delicate, of course. The Christmas ornaments in the next photo are currently on my tree as I type. I’m still amazed they’re still on the tree between my crazy cat and wild dog. But there they are, looking all pretty.

When I first saw the theme for the weekly photo challenge, I immediately thought of china – as long as I can remember, my mom and grandmother have had sets of china that we always used for holidays and special occasions. But then some years ago, my mom decided that there was nothing more special than the occasions when you get to eat with your family so we started using the china all the time which was pretty awesome. Sets of china are kind of thing in my family – if you have time someday, ask my grandfather about the china he bought during the war and had shipped to the states. He’d LOVE to tell you all about it. When I moved out on my own after the divorce, my mom gave me my first set of china – the china tea set that is in the next photo.

The past couple of years in the house we live in now, I have used greenery-garland to wrap around this odd pole in one of the doorways. It’s become kind of a thing now to see what I can hang from it – the colors change every year because (not surprisingly) I get bored with the theme I used the year before. So this year it is all red, green, and gold – and for the garland on the pole? Red glitter snowflakes.

One of my good friends taught me how to can tomatoes and other good stuff this year (and now I make a mean corn and black bean salsa!). She teaches me how to be a regular ol’ Becky Home Ecky (hmmm…mom, I don’t know how to spell that!). So yesterday I spent the afternoon at her house doing apples. I got to use this crazy ass tool that peeled, cored, and sliced apples all at the same time. It was pretty cool actually. We froze apple slices, made homemade apple pie filling that we canned, and made homemade apple sauce. The long peel from each apple was so thin – so that too became an image for delicate. And while at her house, I got to play with one of the two baby kitties. They are so tiny – but much larger than when I first saw them awhile back. She nursed them to health when they were only like 2 weeks old (if that – I can’t remember for sure) because their mom was killed by some other animal. Anyway, they are almost 3 months now and still so delicate and little – this one is Boot. Isn’t he adorable?

So, there you go: delicate, melia-style. :)

Posted in Reflecting

end of year reflecting

•December 15, 2012 • 1 Comment

I’ve never been one who really likes forced-upon life decisions – from the extenuating circumstance variety to the “it’s new year resolution time” variety. Don’t get me wrong, I stop to make goals and reassess ALL the time, I just don’t like being forced to do it. And the end of the year, I always feel like I have to do it and I usually fight against it. But this year has been an interesting year – this semester has been especially hard and trying for me. (Ha. I just realized that I think of my time in semesters rather than months/years – suppose I’ve been in academia awhile?) I do find myself assessing, reflecting, and setting goals frequently these last few months.

There are many reasons and events that cause me to pause and reflect more lately and over this past year – maybe part of it is because I turned 35 this year. I remember that turning 25 was really hard for me – it seems silly now, but I had a hard time turning “a quarter of a century” old. I suppose part of that was because my life was kind of a hot mess. I had just recently left and divorced my husband, was trying to mentally prepare for my son to move to Texas in a few months, hated my job, wasn’t for sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, and let’s be honest, those of you who knew then and are still with me:  I was kinda an alcoholic making really stupid decisions. I wish I could say I pulled myself out of all of that all by myself, but that would be a huge lie – the only reason I made it through that was from the love and support of my best friend sister and my mom.

But, here at 35 I live a very different life. I am no longer a hot mess, nor an alcoholic. I have since completed a couple graduate degrees, have a job I love and am super passionate about, and have a solid foundation of friends and family. So, what’s the deal? Why still the pausing and questioning? The need for additional goal setting? Changing? I could list here all the events/decisions/activities/circumstances of the year (in addition to turning 35) that I believe cause all of this, but that would be a long list and this would be like the most depressing post ever. And right now, the last thing anyone needs is more depression and anguish so I’m not going to do that. Let’s work on the positive instead.

One of the positive decisions I made this year was to spend more time on me and my friends/family. Two major positive goals that I set and continue to work on were to be healthier so I can run a half-marathon some day and also to tackle the horrid financial situation that I live in everyday. I also actually took a vacation with my husband!! I even stopped the cycle of “working so many hours in a week that it actually caused me physical illness” and have seen success there.

An additional decision/goal I set much earlier in the year was that I would get rid of stuff and clutter. We (read: me) just have too much stuff. I have not done much work on that decision yet and now that the end of the year is upon me, I find myself wondering how I can fix it. What is it about the end of the year and the looming new year about to arrive that makes us want to fix everything? I don’t really have an answer to that. But what I can say is that I’m going with it for now and am about to tear apart my house and get rid of extra stuff and clutter and furniture and just sell it or give it all away. It all makes me feel heavy and claustrophobic and so far, watching it go out the door has been cathartic for me.

So for me, the end of the year is going to be about reflecting and working on my decisions/goals – whether I like that I’m doing it or not. And about getting rid of my baggage (both literally and figuratively).  But it will also be about spending time with my family and loved ones. In less than a week, The Cutest Boy will be here – except he’s not a boy any longer. He is now The Cutest Teenager Who Yesterday Started Wearing Contacts Instead of Glasses. I’m sure he and I will have lovely time playing some ridiculous game on the Wii together – but we’ll be together and that’s what is important.

And, we’ll see how the rest goes. There’s still like 2 weeks left in the year to fix everything. :)

Posted in Reflecting
Tags: , ,

horrifying tragedy

•December 14, 2012 • Leave a Comment

I have nothing to add today beyond expressing my deep sympathy about the horrifying tragedy today, confusion about why the media thinks it is okay to interview very small children right after they’ve lived through said tragedy, and agreement with our President when he stated today ”We’re going to have to come together to take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics”. Grief. Deep grief. I pray for the victims, the children and teachers and staff, their families, and everyone who was there or connected to this tragedy.

Tonight, hug your children and your loved ones. Talk to those who live far away. And love and care for each other.

Update: I find this helpful – advice from Mr. Rogers about talking to children about tragedy and disaster:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.“

Posted in The World Around Me

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