my birthday

Notice there was no post on my birthday? It was pretty unremarkable. I didn't tell my students (deliberately) because I didn't want to deal with the litany of "that's gotta be the best birthday ever!" that I always get.

It never is. If I hope for anything good to happen, I'm always bitterly disappointed, so I'm working toward making it a non-event in future years.

My sister sent me a red rose and a balloon. :)

Mom sent me a card with $20 in it a couple days before. I don't understand that. She can't afford it and I don't need it. It makes me feel extremely guilty to take it.

Because I went over to my sister's house that night to watch a movie with them (and had a couple pieces of pizza), I missed Dad dropping by. He stuck a sweet card in my door, and I found it when I got home.

My brother gave me a glass from the Dollar Tree (LOL) that's pretty much plastered with our last name. I guess he forgot that I'd been with him when we saw those glasses.

My sister's younger son picked out a card from him and his brother. It was a Happy Bunny card that reads "Everybody is beautiful on the inside. If you think bones and guts are beautiful, that is." Oh, that made me laugh SO hard!! He knows how much I love Happy Bunny.

Other than that, it was much like any other day. I went to the coffee shop and sat there for about a hour, but the coffee guy got out of there pretty fast when I came in. Given his lukewarm responses to me in person and via email, I'm pretty sure he not only isn't interested, but probably dislikes me as well. I suppose I shouldn't care what he thinks for this reason, but I guess that I'll follow the old rule "Speak only when you're spoken to." I can't possibly have any influence over him that would be beneficial to me, anyway. Any effort I put forth for this now is just wasted.

Looking back, I never truly expected to be the one that nobody wanted. I thought surely there was someone out there for me. I've seen less attractive, less likeable people with a lot less to offer finding someone who would love them, so logic whispered to me that I was okay and there had to be someone for me too.

I really don't believe that anymore. As a matter of fact, I'll bet that if I had found someone, he'd have cheated on me and divorced me anyway.

Supposedly we're going to have a small ice storm tonight. I hope we have one and I'm out of school tomorrow, because it's 12:40 am and it snuck up on me.

Aperture / Depth of Field Reminder

I always have trouble remembering the relationship between aperture opening and depth of field, so I looked up any memory tricks that might be out there. I found a pretty simple one which I think may help:

At f22 you get the largest depth of field from the numbers you gave. The higher the number the greater the depth of field. (betterphoto.com)

a regret

This has been bothering me since last night, so I want to get it off my chest.

I regret that several years ago I admitted to my boss that I'd lost my temper with a verbally abusive student. I was very angry inside and I took him to the office.

Then I was grilled as if I were the guilty party.

Apparently Mr. P equated losing my temper with going absolutely freaking psycho and screaming and yelling at the miscreant.

I didn't know that my terms were so different than his. What I meant was that he made me so angry I felt like he'd gotten the best of me.

And then Mr. P went on to defend one of the school's worst-behaved, rudest, smartass students in the awful way he'd talked to me, because I essentially couldn't ignore what the boy said and it made me angry.

As I found out later that day, the boy's grandfather was great pals with my boss and that of course meant that he was a little angel to both of them. Said grandfather, after saying that the kid did nothing at all (a whole class witnessed the "nothing at all"), knelt down on the floor and said, "Let us pray..."

I kept my feelings about that baloney to myself. Unless he was praying that the jerk became a good kid and would stop being such a problem for me, I didn't want to hear that hypocritical crap. It irritated me for him to assume that I even was of the same religion as he was, and how dare he presume ANYTHING religiously on my behalf????

I don't know what particular church he went to, but it was obvious the old man thought he was better than me, and that the grandson he was raising poorly was as well.

I think it was the Church of Hypocritical BS, to be quite honest.

I'd bet good money that kid has been in and out of jail despite his grandfather's "praying". Sometimes praying isn't what you should do when you are mindfully raising a rotten kid. Sometimes a true ass whipping is what the kid really needs to straighten out. I'm sure that at some point, that boy has already gotten several from members of the general public over that mouth of his.

I did learn something from this. I learned never to trust my boss to do the correct, morally right thing when it came to someone he knew. And I also learned that if he asked me did I lose my temper, he was digging to see if he could turn it around and make the whole thing my fault somehow.

From that point on, I never said I'd lost my temper again. I didn't act any differently, because there was nothing wrong with how I was handling my classroom. But I did grow a cold, hard-plated demeanor that gave them no fuel for their lies.

I regret that I foolishly let him make me out to be the one in the wrong, when that boy cursed me in front of my class.

Baby Beans

Some time ago, my stepmother gave me back a couple of my baby dolls that I'd had since I was very small. I don't know what possessed her to do it, just as I don't know what possessed her to take them in the first place.

I'd thought all this time that while I was gone to college, she'd thrown them away with the rest of my stuff. That may be what got me started with this hoarding problem of mine. I came home one weekend to find that she'd decided what I could keep and what she didn't think I should have anymore, and it left me with this awful feeling of loss.

She only did it for meanness. She decided that she'd let her grandchildren tear them apart if they wanted, and it didn't matter that I didn't get to keep one little thing from my childhood.

Now I'm afraid to get rid of much of anything, for fear of that lost feeling. I'm afraid I'm going to miss something and either not know what it was, or not know how to get it back or lose that feeling.

So she gave me two of my beanbag dolls back. She said she'd been keeping them put up for me. I kind of doubt that, but whatever. I was glad to see them again, especially Baby Beans.

Being a puppet, I used to have her talk to me and play with me, and yes, I really did sleep with her in my bed at night for as long as I can remember when I was little.

I'm not entertaining the notion that I'm saving her for my little girl, because the likelihood of that happening is dwindling every day.

But it's nice to see my Baby Beans again. She actually reminds me of what I looked like when I was little, which is good because I don't have any pictures of myself back then. I'm going to make a scrapbook layout with her, but I have to sneak around taking the pictures because she makes Quincy freak out. LOL

No Atlantis layout

I was gazing at my favorite wish-I-could-go-there place, Atlantis, when I got the brilliant (LOL) idea to make a layout explaining why I want to go there. I figured that since they had such beautiful pictures on their website, I could put some of my favorite ones on my page...

But the pictures they have on there turned out to be such low resolution that when you look very closely at them, are obviously quite pixellated. :( Darn.

I'm a nutcase

Either that, or something's really wrong with me, and it isn't just a case of chronic depression like my doctor and I have always thought.

What I mean is, I don't remember actually writing that last blog entry, and yet the words sound really familiar to me. I don't do drugs, and I certainly hadn't had any alcohol, so I guess whatever my problem really is, is making me forgetful of certain things. I remember having that semi-meltdown on the other entry, but just not that very last one.

After reading the Writing Assessment survey questions to my students, I've spent the rest of the day second-guessing myself and close to panicking because I think I'm a bad teacher. They honestly made me feel that I'm doing something very wrong in not having my students work in groups for peer editing every day, and I'm not having them write long-term assignments that requires the class to be on the computers every day. Someday I'll look back and see the ridiculousness of these worries, but for now, I'm becoming quite upset by this. (I can tell it's for real, because I'm starting to get dizzy.)

I do think that it might help me if I go on and define what I would like to be in the future.

For one thing, I want to break away from this hoarding problem I have. Granted, it's not as bad as some, but having to walk around stuff and seeing lots of unnecessary stuff around makes me want to get control of that. Fast. I'm working on it, though. I've started challenging myself to throw out a full garbage bag full of stuff I see around the house, every time I get the urge to clean.

Another issue is the laundry. I feel like I don't have any clothes at all because the (admittedly few) ones are all dirty, and I've been washing them an outfit at a time as I need them. But being unable to look into my fairly well re-organized closet and actually find clothes there (as opposed to being unable to find anything because of the junk that used to be in there) is bothering me.

I've started designing again, though not quite in the manic state I used to, working till 2 in the morning even on school nights. I've been playing a little during weeknights and working a lot more on the weekends. So what do I want from that?

Well, I really want to take some art classes, so that I can draw things for my kits like the other people do. Want a digital soda bottle? I'll just draw it and there it will be. But I can't draw a soda bottle right now. I know that there are no colleges offering me any way to get a degree in fine arts because you basically have to be unemployed. Forget switching careers unless you want to be uninsured, homeless, and eating ramen noodles again. I really can't go there having nobody to back me up financially. I'm basically screwed there.

Failing that, I'd settle for being successful with my designing. What does that mean? I'd like to have a lot of sales, and make lots of extra money each month. I think the best month I ever had, I made a little over $200. I wouldn't mind doing that again, and surpassing it. I'm going to try hiring someone else to do my advertising for me, and see if that doesn't boost my sales. It's the part I hate the most - marketing my creations. I never feel that they're good enough, and I can't psych myself into believing anything I have made is wonderful unless I'm getting some great reviews and selling a lot of those things.

Basically, what I need is for someone to stroke my ego and show me the money. LOL (But it's true.) Who goes through the trouble of creating something and is then content that nobody seemed to have liked it and it never brought in enough money to cover the hourly wage of creating it? Not me. Nobody I know, either. Even when I created and posted free stuff before I started selling, I was desperate for the approval of others.

Another thing I would like is to see my work published somewhere. :) I know, I have to create layouts and submit them to magazines for that to happen. Which means that to be successful in that arena, I'm going to have to be absolutely prolific. I guess I have the time in the evenings and on the weekends. What else is an old maid going to do with her time?

Of course, the old maid has an awesome new camera, and no children of her own to capture in meaningful photos for layouts. I can't publish pictures of my students without parental permission and that would be far too much trouble. I take pictures of my nephews, when I see them, which isn't very often. I'm never with them enough to get any decent slice-of-life pictures, however. My photo ops are extremely limited at best.

Not only do I want to be published, I really want to be well known in the scrapbooking world. Why is that important? I'm not sure. Maybe I want there to be people who look up to me and admire me for something. It sounds pretty egotistical for me to put it that way, but is it, considering that nobody actually does?

Hey, I always wanted to be famous. I just thought when I was a teenager that I could actually be good at acting. I never actually got a chance to participate in anything that would lead me in that direction correctly, so I just had to accept the fact that I'm a lousy actor and the only reason I could hang around the real talented people was if I did the grunt-work on the sets. *sigh* That's the way it goes. Now I have no interest in being in the limelight. I'd rather just cringe into the shadows where I seem to belong.

This is funny... I just got an email from Memory Makers Magazine about the new issue and it seems they have tailored some stuff juuuuust for me. The anti-Valentine section : "Single & Lovin' It! Flying solo through life opens the door on fresh subjects for layouts. Your stories matter—scrap 'em! "

Hahahaha Actually, I have the urge to run to WalMart right now and buy that. I really do. But my hands are coated in cheddar popcorn I'm trying to finish.

To that end of being a prolific designer, I subscribed to an online training ezine for Photoshop Elements (and NO, I'm not spending the $600 on the full version of Photoshop unless I have the sales to justify it) and bought every single one of their very expensive back issues. It's actually the first training I've found that's helpful to someone in my situation.

I only recently realized that I could be using design templates to create those hated kit previews... I always struggle for hours making mine just right, and I know how to breeze through a lot more quickly thanks to what I've learned in the ezine since just mid-December. I have been busy creating template sketches so that I have somewhere to start from when I'm working on quick pages, and I won't have to begin from scratch and an empty creative pallette. Why didn't I think of it before? Well, I don't know. I haven't really done a lot in the last couple of years, but I'm motivated again.

I allowed myself to buy some paper collections that I enjoy looking at. I like examining them and mentally hacking the techniques they used so that I can make something as awesome looking. After all, they have their designs published and sold on actual paper, and I like the multi-layered look anyway. I'm not copying anyone's work, though I am mimicking their techniques as I perceive them. Usually what I end up with is quite different from my inspiration piece, but wouldn't you know, it's quite lovely in its own regard. I've just been a novice, guessing my way through, and now I'm ready to actually KNOW what I'm doing and know how to get where I want to be.

I guess I want to be a designing success so that if I get too tired of teaching, I have something I can go to. Honestly, I'd like to be known as a great teacher too, but I don't see how that's going to happen. I feel that my ability to do my job is steadily worsening every year. Is that because of all my emotional issues? Would I feel stronger at work and not constantly tired if I had a satisfying, stable life to come home to each day?

Going further down

All evening I've been asking -- is it too much for me to just want someone in my life who will be good to me?

Instead of that, I get absolutely no one; good or bad is irrelevant.

I have a hard time believing that this is all the luck of the draw and that I just perpetually miss out on basic things that other people have. It's not like I want a big fancy house. I just want someone to be with me. I don't want to die alone, but I'm pretty sure it's going to all end that way despite everything I do and have ever done to make my life any better.

I've already decided that I'm not going to spend another 40 years alone and wishing I wasn't. I will work up the courage to end it, and stop wasting everyone else's time.

My birthday's coming up in a couple of weeks, but I'm not going to remind anyone. I just want to forget about it. At best, it's a two-fisted punch that I just don't want to think about anymore. Why would anybody want to celebrate the birthday of anyone they don't care anything about, anyway? I don't feel like I'm here anymore, so I can't see how anybody else would notice me either.

Here I go again.

I'm really not sure what's started me sliding back downwards, but I can feel it happening. It could be that shopping trip to Jackson yesterday when I was so up, and though I'd decided to buy myself some cute new clothes, there weren't any that would fit me.

Once again I've fallen victim to the short-yet-large-breasted-woman problem. In order to get a top of any kind that will fit around my breasts in the front, it has to be an oversized top that bags under my arms and in the back, and hangs inches off my fingers in the sleeves. Of course that doesn't look attractive at all. I might as well be wearing a huge muumuu.

I did find a cute jacket that would have looked great on me if they'd had a size 16. The 14 was too tight when I buttoned it, of course. And if I get a larger size, it's going to be massively oversized in the arms, back, and underarms, again.

It's really too bad that if I lose weight, my breasts stay the same. I'm very close to the size I was before I had the reduction the first time, and I doubt my insurance would pay for it a second time. But what if I had it done a second time and they grew back again? And again? I feel like an absolute freak of nature.

My sister's dog is in heat, and she wants her to have puppies, so they decided that I would have to keep them over here in my kitchen while they do their thing. The problem is their new laminate floor "And you can't get it wet or it will ruin it!!!" Um. I thought that the beauty of laminate flooring was the easy care... it doesn't stain, or even absorb anything.

She's desperate to believe I'm just as stupid as she wants me to be sometimes. So I let them bring her over, and my dog immediately started humping her. She ran into the couch and got blood all over my white pillows, because they decided it was a good time to just go outside and smoke, and it didn't matter if anybody watched her because it was my house after all.

I put them in the pen together while we went to Jackson, and they spent the night in it last night. This morning when it was time for me to go to work, she attacked my dog, and left him hollering. So I took him out and let him have the run of the house while I was at work. When I got to work, I called my sister and told her she'd have to come get her dog, whether she'd gotten pregnant or not, because she hurt my puppy.

This afternoon she called and kept saying that didn't I think I should keep her dog for another night or two just in case? I said no, come and get her. Mean as she is, she won't let him do anything anyway.

So my sister is mad at me for not wanting to feed (at my expense) and take care of her dog for the weekend.

And my dog is moping around the house, whining and barking at me because his girlie is gone.

And I get to clean up all of her urine that she left in a damn flood all over my kitchen. My house smells horrible.

Grr i need to write something....

... and it just slipped my mind!