Oh gracious. It must be time for me to get snippy about parents. Again. Argh.

So I have these two students, and one of them, who has been coming in coughing and sick for the last couple of weeks, comes in AGAIN coughing like a lung is about to pop out. I'm thinking, "Great. What am I supposed to do?" So I tell her that we'll try some gentle warmups but if it doesn't sound safe for her to sing, we'll just do some more learning about composers and listening, like we did last week (when her parents sent her to her lesson at the very beginning of a cold, when it's still pretty contagious.....thanks). She says, "We did that last week and Mom says that's a waste of her money."

Seriously? You send me an infected child to breathe on me for thirty minutes, rather than just calling that morning to tell me she's sick, when I've made it clear that I won't charge for canceling at the last minute if that happens? Really? And I'm wasting your money by educating your kid about composers? Seriously? (But I do love this kid...she's hilarious.)

It gets better.

Then, she leaves and the next one comes in, and I remind her that this is the last lesson she's paid for, so she should let me know if she plans to continue (she had been using a Christmas gift certificate). She says, "No. My Mom wanted me to tell you that she thinks your lessons are too much money and they're not worth it."

Yep. That happened.

First of all, there are high school students here, teaching beginning piano lessons, that charge as much or more than me. I make an effort to be affordable. Secondly, why teach your kids to be rude like that? Why not just have them say, "No, thank you" without the personal comment?

Plus, when did art get to be unimportant? Art is not an extra. Art is what makes us human beings. Art is vitally important, not to mention all of the time and money I've put into being a musician and teacher. Are we going to just negate all of that because it doesn't bring in a lot of money and doesn't provide dental insurance? REALLY?

Ugh. Way to teach your kids that their goal in the life should be to make a lot of money. I am so glad that my parents didn't do that to me. They would've been screwed, but still...I don't like to be too disappointing. Maybe develop your kids' souls a little instead of always looking at the bottom line. Maybe a little less American Idol and a little more live string quartet action.

I don't know. I don't have kids. But if I did, their butts would be sitting on a piano bench, starting at age three, whether they liked it or not. The end.

Alrighty. Real post today. I guess maybe I've been slacking, but there really hasn't been much to post about since I've been crafting so much (unless you want to hear about the five billion times I've poked myself with straight pins which is, I know, truly fascinating).

I am truly surprised that my hands haven't fallen off yet, and that they don't really hurt. Too much. Except the thumb that has arthritis, but I went to acupuncture yesterday and now even that isn't hurting.

Acupuncture is awesome.

I think everyone should try it at least once, especially if they have any sort of achey-painyness, or if they have tension and stress.

So, yeah, everyone.

Even I, with my naked issues, can handle taking off my shirt and lying on a heated table for an hour while a heat-lamp makes my back all loose. After all, I still have my bra on, and if you've ever seen one of the kind of bras I wear, you know that it's as close to a shirt as shirtless can be. I like something substantial between me and my shirt. At the end, the acupuncturist prods and pulls on my neck (gently, of course....sometimes), and then I get out and drink a ton of water so I don't get a headache. The next day, my neck feels all loose and good. For about a week.

Sometimes I go to the chiropractor, too, but that doesn't seem to do as much as the needles. They are amerrrrrrzing.

Maybe I'm just too uptight. I don't know, but if I have to stop having acupuncture, I may cry. A lot. 

It's my favorite.

Super short post, here, as I'm busy being crafty and I totally forgot that I have a blog. I'm like a hamster that's been distracted by a shiny new wheel.

This blog is my old wheel? Naw, that's sad.

Anyhoo, I decided to test the waters and see if anyone would actually want to buy my crapola before actually going to a real store and being like, "Hey! You! Sell my wares!"

I would totally actually say that. I even have a store in mind...

So, yeah, take a gander, but please don't mock. I'm sensitive. Also, if you mock me, I will mock you back, and I have superior mocking powers.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/marespin

Ta-da!

So, for those of you who are curious, here's my yesterday: We hired a new person at our work and she came in and trained all morning with me, and it went pretty well. She seemed to be getting stuff and she seemed to have a pretty good attitude, and all of that. Blah blah blah. Anyhoo, round about the end of the lunch hour I sent her on, I get a call from my boss.

Yep, the girl got another job offer during lunch and decided not to come back.

Who does that? Wouldn't you at least finish out your day and fill out your paperwork so you could at least get paid? What's the deal with her?

I don't know. Maybe my super sweet appointment-making skillz were too intimidating. Actually, I think maybe she was terrified of the twenty-minute long phone calls we get. Because...oh my gracious. They're rough.

At any rate, that was lame, and I wasted a whole day of training, which I'll just have to repeat again with some other new person. Ugh.

Happy Friday. Maybe this weekend will have some excitement in it, to make up for the lameness of the week. I sure do hope so. 

All I want is a magical elf who will come in and clean my house and do my laundry whenever I don't feel like it. It has to be magical because, otherwise, there's no way it's going to get the house as clean as I want it.

Sigh. I guess I'm screwed. Better make plans to do it myself.

Or learn magic.

Say, that's an idea. I think my time would be much better spent trying to become magical. I mean, I do actually like cleaning, but thinking about cleaning my house this weekend is making my brain hurt really badly.

Plus, I'm having a really tremendously bad hair day today, so that kind of makes me a little crazier than usual. Yikes. I feel bad for the new people who are starting work in my office today. They're going to think I'm bonkers if I keep this crap up.

I am so going to keep this crap up. I may even wear my unicorn head in, just to provide ambiance.

At any rate, I have to give myself a pep talk so that by the time Saturday morning rolls around, I'll be pumped to clean my house. 

You can do it, me! You know how much you love making everything around you sparkling fresh!

Ugh. It's too early for that. Maybe I should just go have my coffee. That's a much better idea. Ciao.

Yesterday was new glasses day! I was very happy with how both pairs turned out; however, the one pair, which is not only the men's pair but is also my favorite, was really big, so they had to bend them up and stuff to make them fit. It was pretty fun to watch, but I was freaking out a little, because I thought they  might just snap.

They didn't.

I really like them, even though a certain person who shall remain nameless giggles at me every time he sees them. But he can suck my big toe. They are awesome.

What with my hair growing out and getting mega curly, especially in the front, and my new glasses (just the one pair...the other one is more sophisticated...I call it my "urban P.E. teacher" look), I almost look like Clark Kent. Except the being all manly and muscly part.

I'm not very muscly, in case you hadn't guessed.

Maybe I should wear a cape and tights to work today. Well, at least the tights, because I don't really have a cape, although I'm pretty sure I could make one. I don't think I can fly, though, and I sure as heck don't want x-ray vision.

Most people look pretty gross under their clothing.

Maybe I just need a new style role model. Probably a girl one would be nice, except most of them are too dainty and I always think that crap would look stupid on me anyway. Nope. I think sometimes boy stuff looks good and sometimes girl stuff looks good, and as long as I have my long earrings, I'll be good.

And shoes. Lots and lots of shoes. And purses. Okay, maybe I do like girl stuff. Just not tube tops, as they are vomitastic.

Apparently, there are some people who can look at something they've made and say things like, "I know. It's so beautiful. I really think it looks perfect."

Not me so much.

However, I did go to a store this weekend and see some other hand-sewn merchandise, and when I inspected the seams, not only weren't they perfect, they weren't even as straight and neat as mine.

Which made me feel better for a fraction of a second, until I realized that maybe she is just a bad sewer and other people probably don't sew as crooked as she does. Or as I do.

Argh.

I'm trying, but I think I have some sort of mental deficiency when it comes to straight lines. I swear. I can put in zippers just fine and I'm really good with buttons and curves around corners, but sewing that straight line around the edges to finish something off drives me bananas.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Anyhoo, I guess since I'm trying not to be perfect, this is just fine, but I don't think I like it very much. I just have to keep remembering her seams. So, so crooked, but the bags, overall, were really nice and I wouldn't even have noticed if I wasn't being nitpicky.

Plus, I like to imagine that she's also fatter than me, is also growing out her hair, so it looks like a very hairy accident happened on her head, like me, and she has horrible body odor.

That would put me over the top, and it is, after all, a competition. 

Or maybe that's just in my head, but does it really matter? If I decide it is, it's real. Game on, anonymous lady, game on.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know, I know. A lot of you hate Valentine's Day, but I will always love it, no matter what anyone says. Why? Here is my list:

• You can eat as much candy as you want, and no one looks at you funny. Who cares if no one buys you any? Buy yourself some, or make it homemade and then you get to lick the bowl and that is AWESOME.
• You get to be silly and sappy with your special person, even if he normally just gets to see your boogers and see you first thing in the morning looking all gross or even be there when you're pukey and sick. It's a special day to remind us all of how it feels to be in love, which is pretty great. Sometimes it ends, which is sad, too, but sometimes it doesn't. And that is just fantastic.
• Girliest holiday ever. Yep, along with green, I love pink, and no one's going to convince me that I'm wrong. Doilies all the way, homies.
• Finally, and most importantly to me, it's a whole day to remind us to celebrate love. Love is the most important thing in the whole world and we should celebrate it. Not just love between romantic partners, but love between families, and love between friends, and even just that hippie kind of love for your fellow persons, which is pretty cool, too.

See? It's a great holiday. And even if you don't like it, you should still have french fries. Or cake. Or a glass of wine.

Or be like me and have all three. That's happening.

Today is the first day of Lent.

I realize that a lot of you know that, but that's my topic, so I wanted to make sure everybody was on the same page.

Anyway, I don't know that I necessarily agree with giving something up for God, as I'm pretty sure that He doesn't really care all that much whether I eat chocolate or meat or whatever for the next month and a half. I kind of like the idea of having an excuse to try to do something so that I can be a better person, though, so maybe I'll use the time to do something positive.

Oh, yes. I'm just a regular Girl Scout, aren't I?

I just think maybe God would enjoy positive action more, rather me just being punitive with myself, which just seems like a throwback to the whole monks + self-flagellation thingy, which creeps me out.

So I need to decide what to do, and I think I'm going to try to let things go more, to not allow myself to worry endlessly if something isn't perfect, or if something at work goes undone by someone else. I am going to try to just get done what I need to get done, and not to try to finish everything for everybody else.

Yes, I am the kid in class who finished other people's homework for them out in the hall right before class so they wouldn't get into trouble. I still do that, but in different ways, and I need to probably stop it and let people make their own mistakes. It's too stressful to try to fix things for everyone else.

Alright. It's on. Going to do it. I swear. 

Maybe I should've just given up chocolate. Nope. That would just be pointless and sad for me. I do love the chocolate. I think I may have some M&Ms for breakfast, just because I can.

I can't believe I was so reluctant to try Pinterest, and I can't believe I only started using it eight (or so) months ago. It has, officially, taken over what I used to call my life.

I mean it. I can't stop.

People like me, who can't sit still for more than five minutes because they get ants in their pants (not literal ants; that would indicate a lack of house-cleaning, and I'm not down with that) should never, ever, ever get started on Pinterest.

Yep, I've pinned about 500 crafts to try, and so far I've done about a quarter of them. I've already done four this week, and it's only Tuesday morning.

My secret? No sleep.

That, and getting up super early and working straight through the day, and trying to ignore Netflix, which is constantly calling, and any real work (you know, that kind you get paid money to do).

Too bad I have to work in the office so many days per week, or else I'd have so much crafting time. SO MUCH.

It's days like this that I realize that I have not, contrary to popular belief, turned into my Mother so much as I've turned into my Dad's Mom. Indeed. The woman could not sit still for more than a second, and I don't think she ever actually sat at the table for a full meal. However, I haven't reached her level of über-perfect-perfectyness with anything, so I have to keep going.

Oh, except my chocolate cream pie. That mofo is heavenly and definitely perfect. Got to get working on my doilys, though. Why try to make a perfect doily? Because I can, yo. I know I can.

Apparently, my eye doctor orders glasses really fast, because my new glasses are already there. And I'm kind of excited to try them on, but I'm also a little nervous, because, although I've been wearing my long-distance reading glasses lately to protect my injured eye, I'm not used to wearing them all of the time and I feel like I may have trouble.

Yes, to my cornucopia of various issues, you can add the glasses issue. Wearing glasses, even sunglasses, makes me feel like I have something in-between me and the other person/food/view, and it drives me nuts. I have to take them off to eat, because they're too distracting, and I have to constantly remind myself not to speak louder to people when I'm wearing them, because there isn't really something there...it's just me. Being a weirdo.

I'm getting better at it, I just hope I can eventually wear them when I'm eating, because I think that's probably the time when most of the eye injuries happen. I'm a little accident prone. I get sauce in my eyes all of the time, and I have been known to smack myself with my spoon, while gesturing wildly about something, usually something stupid.

We'll see.

For now, I'll just concentrate on not having red eyes all of the time anymore. That will be nice. It would also be nice if I didn't want cookies all of the time anymore, but I don't think they make glasses for that. Yet. I'll work on it.

My favorite thing in the whole wide world is playing grocery store tag with one of those old ladies from church on a Sunday morning at around 11 a.m. See, I know that they're just getting to the store because they go to the early service and I, well, I just don't go to any service unless I feel like it, so chances are that I've only been awake for about an hour and my hair is hidden under some sort of hat and I'm still wearing slippers because I didn't have the energy to put on socks.

So I have to hide so I don't feel her stares of judgment.

The church we go to is pretty open-minded, but there are a few older ladies that definitely give me the stink-eye whenever I see them, and this forces me to go into a tirade about religious oppression and my freedom to worship as I choose, which for me usually involves sleeping in and having waffles on Sunday, and sometimes running to the store so we can have sandwiches for lunch on those big fluffy rolls, because those are completely amaaaaaaazing.

Anyhow, then I catch sight of Mrs. So and So, approaching at a speed of up to two miles per hour, and I have to duck behind the oranges and then huddle by the floor until I can see that she's occupied enough in something else, probably looking disapprovingly at the goth couple who are shopping for doughnuts, and then scurry away, keeping it low so she doesn't catch a glimpse of me. Usually, I am wearing a bright pink sock monkey hat at the time, so this is no easy task. I then have to look up and down the aisles before I enter or leave one (because there's no way I'm just leaving...I hate grocery shopping a lot, and I have to get it over with), and then rush to get everything on my list.

And then, normally, I get to giggling about something else, like the lady who wears makeup in the style of Mimi from The Drew Carey Show, and BAM!

I let my guard down. She sees me.  "Hi! I didn't see you at early service!" Crap. So I say, "No, I had to work."

Work. On a Sunday. I actually do work on Sundays, sometimes, but that's definitely not the case on this particular Sunday, and that's kind of obvious. She looks me up and down, and I can just feel the "tsk, tsk, tsk" in her mind.

I walk away, feeling like a bad person. But not really too much because I get to go out to the car and laugh about how she always has one of those boogers in her nose that moves in and out when she breathes. Ha ha ha....gross.

Yesterday had to be one of the longest days in history, probably because I couldn't see properly for several hours of it because of have my eyes dilated. We went to our eye checkups in Albuquerque. Why on Earth would we go that far (two hours each way to where this doctor works from where our house is)?

Because he's a grumpy old guy, and we dig that.

Plus, my husband and I had both heard something about our personal ocular health that we asked him about, and he got all angry and said the other doctors were full of it and totally wrong. Which was fun.

So, my big news is two-fold: First of all, I have a recurrent ocular erosion, not allergic pink-eye, so the other doctors were wrong about that (which is awesome, because I had this paranoia about it being the kind of pink-eye that's contagious one of the times, and then I'd give it to everybody, even though that never happened), and I have to use eye goop in my eye. Forever. Which is a long time and kind of freaks me out, but I have to say that my eye never felt as comfortable as when I was using the nightly eye ointment for the injury I got in it when I was on vacation. So, yeah, I have really dry eyes, which is no big surprise, mostly since I live IN THE DESERT.

(Yeah, people get all antsy about the lack of precipitation and I just think, "Really? Why worry about that? A: You're not a scientist, so you're not going to help solve the problem, B: You can't really do anything about the weather, and C: YOU LIVE IN THE DESERT. Calm down." I don't, of course, say that, because that would be a wee bit bitchy, but that's pretty much where my brain goes.)

Okay, so the other big piece o'news? Glasses. Yeah, my vision's a little worse, and what with the recent eye injuries and the fact that my work gives me a headache, I should probably wear some a little more often. So I went and picked me out a pair from the Costco (not the sweet ones that make me look like Tootsie, though).

And then I got home and Googled my frame choice to see if I got a good deal, and I discovered that I bought men's glasses. Great choice, me. Oh, well. They're awesome and I might actually wear these ones more than once a week. Maybe. If I can handle the weirdness of talking to people through glass.

The point of this story? Why are you reading my blog for a point? There isn't one; I was just excited about my new glasses. Geez.

I've decided that the most efficient way to analyze a person's personality is to ask them questions about which TV character they would be from various shows, especially shows that were on Nick at Nite when I was a kids, because I feel that I have the closest relationship with those particular characters and can be more accurate in my analyses.

For example, if a person was to tell me that he would be: Alfred from Batman, Cleveland from Family Guy, and the Professor from Gilligan's Island, I would say that he was probably too concerned with taking care of everyone else and that he needs to go out and do something selfish, for once. This would probably never happen, though, because those would be kind of weird answers.

If someone else told me that she was Velma from Scooby Doo, Alice from The Brady Bunch, and Amy from Bosom Buddies, I would primarily be concerned with the fact that she was my evil twin, because those are my characters. I don't know that those say a lot about me, except that I would solve all of those mysteries way faster than Freddie, I can make a mean chocolate cake, and I tend to be the fattest girl in my office.

Dang. I should've been a psychologist. This new system works all the time, every time.

Unlike Freddie, who is a worthless mystery solver and should just keep his mouth shut and look pretty. That's his real job, after all.

You know when you tell somebody a story that's part of your life and you are driving home and you realize just how awful the story was? Yeah, that was pretty much my yesterday. 

Not so awesome and now I'm a wee bit embarrassed. However, I am making up for that with a new task: I'm going to learn how to type! Yes, I took typing in high school, and I'm pretty fast for a hunt-and-pecker (hahahahaha), but I really do have to look at the keys. I figure it'll be educational AND fun.

Or just educational, but I needs to get me some learnin'. After the fun with the z thing yesterday (yeah, you probably shouldn't do that at work...no one else thinks it's funny), and the fact that I have like 9 billion things to do over the weekend, I need a task to keep my mind from feeling like an idiot for opening my big mouth.

Yes, I do stupid things and set myself tasks so I can learn a lesson. Good plan, no?

Happy Friday. Don't screw it up.