Worming around

Tonight after bringing in my veggies from the garden and rinsing them off I noticed a tiny little worm in my sink. It was wriggling around and being all wormy. I turned on my water and flushed it down the sink. I finished cooking up my veggies, scooped 'em all into my bowl and sat down to start eating...only one little problem- All I could think about was that worm and how it had been on at least one of the things I was getting ready to put in my mouth. And, even though I'd washed them all and then sauteed them all up I almost couldn't eat any of it. I dug around in my goodness and searched obsessively for another worm in my food. There wasn't one and my dinner did eventually get eaten but I learned a very important lesson: worms also like the dirt and so rinsing off my veggies before eating them is not only a good idea it's positively necessary.

The worm, it came from somewhere in there.

The little things

I have favorite smells. I love the smell of fresh cut grass and the way the air smells right before or after it rains. I can't truly (or happily) wake up in the morning without the smell of coffee and then the taste of it in my mouth. Part of the reason I will never give up printed books is because I love the smell of the pages; I'm not entirely sure what that smell even is but I love it.  I love the way my hands smell after picking tomatoes from my garden and the slow aroma of onions browning. But one of the smells I love the most is elusive and incredibly difficult to find. That scent is red currant. I have to confess I don't really know what a red currant actually is in real life I just love smell in candle form. These things used to be everywhere, it was the "it" scent for a while and if I would have known it would go out of vouge I would have stocked up. Alas, I did not and so now I am on a never ending quest to find red currant scented things. Tonight on my walk home I stopped in to Ross under the guise of looking for bras but spent most of my time in housewares and shoes. Lo and behold they had Red Currant candles! I swooped them all up, balanced them in my arms and felt quite excited about my find (at only 1.99 a pop!) until I saw the line to check out... It was long and everyone had cart full of crap and seeing as I am not a patient person, I deposited my finds in with the bath things at the front of the store and began my walk home. It seemed like the best plan at the time but Now, hours later, I am sitting here wishing I had the smell of red currant in my life and that I would have dug deep into my reserves of patience and brought those little babies home with me.

Me on my walk home oblivious to the mistake I had made. 

Ramblings

I have random things to say and none of them are particularly interesting or exciting but perhaps if I shove them all together in one post the end result will be something spectacular and wonderful. (Probably not, but here goes...)

A Pair to-go please.

Over the past year I've lost a little more than 20 pounds and while for the most part I love my new body there is one part that has gotten smaller than I would've hoped. Well, two parts to be exact. The boobs area and the booty area. The booty area I can sort of control by endless squats and lunges which helps but there really aren't any exercises to build up bigger boobs. Here's a fun tidbit: non of my actual bras fit anymore so instead I wear sports bras most of the time and they do nothing for my shape. For a while I considered the possibility of remedying this situation by an eventual boob job. I imagined myself with a "C" cup, traveling through life all happy and booby; I felt sure that was my future. However today as I was laying outside reading I suddenly didn't find my boobs quite so offensively tiny. In fact they looked downright adorable in their bikini, so for now I am giving up on the idea of finding a way to fund my boob dreams. (I'm not entirely sure why the internets need this story but....there it is I guess.)

Not a picture of my actual crush
but safer for the internets.

I have a crush on a boy and it has reignited the giddy, crazy, imaginative girl inside. It was crush at first sight. I used to be extremely boy crazy and even though I've been attempting for the past while to put myself out there and find someone new it hasn't worked out that well. I don't think all of it is to blame on the guys out there that I've met or spent time with, I think part of it was also my reluctance to really find possibility. A couple months ago I had some help from another cute boy and although that didn't work out I think that the blip did it's job and now boy crazy Jill is back. And even though I'm rusty and out of practice (with flirting. jeez get your minds out of the gutter), I'm feeling ready to shake off the dust and WORK IT! Watch out. Hopefully.

Me reading, not writing.

My writing journal and pencil.

I've started writing and reading more which, I believe, are related. I already did a lot of reading and would always lament the fact that I wasn't doing any writing of my own. Then one day I listened to a podcast about the process of keeping a writing journal and I realized I already have one of those, I just haven't used it in over a year. So I dug it out, found a pencil (because a pen just freaks me out), and started writing whatever came out. And, even though I haven't been writing every day I have at least been writing on a more regular basis and it makes me happy. The writing is not amazing but maybe there is something good in there somewhere and I'll be able to use it someday for something. I like the physical act of pencil on paper, and even though I enjoy typing out things on my computer (I love the sound the keys make) I feel more creative when I can see my crazy sloppy handwriting sliding across the pages.



Life has been really, really good. I have been happier, busier, fuller from veggies out of my garden (and also skinnier) than I have been in a very long time and I love it. Life? life is getting better and I have a feeling, a hope, that it's only getting started.

A few more photos from recent happy times in the life of "Just Jill"

The (Thug) Seniors on my Dance Team

Play time with adorable Roxy.

Beautiful, beautiful Friends

Summer dinner (not pictured: zucchini)

Annual trip to Priest Lake. Perfection. 

Altered reality

Months ago I quit my Facebook but then I reactivated it for some reason that I can't actually remember right now. I don't check it very often but every time I do I'm reminded of the reason I quit in the first place.
Everyone on there seems to be competing for either the best or worst life ever. And I, for some reason, seem to believe all the best things - I compare facebook life to my own and it comes up short every time.  This then causes me to feel bad and depressed about my own regular, boring, and sometimes lonely life. In the running for worst life possible I feel like over exaggeration is the winner.

My regular life: the couch, a blanket, comedy on TV...and cats running around. 

I believe (although the message sometimes gets lost on the way to my heart) that over exaggeration is the star on Facebook and that nothing is really as bad -or good- as it may appear.

For the love of Books

During Priest Lake family vacation this year I re-read Jane Eyre, I'd promised some girls on the dance team I'd read it with them so if they had any questions or needed some guidance they could ask me. The last time I'd read it was for a literature class and I remembered liking it a lot better the second time than I had the first time when I was in my early teens. So I figured the third time would probably be even better and I was right. I think that's partly because I didn't have a professor telling me that this or that actually stood for something completely different, obscure and most likely obscene.
I remember one scene early on in the book that my professor picked apart and showed how it was actually about Jane's first sexual experience (i.e. masturbation) and I remember thinking at the time "really? how do you get that out of what's written here?" As I reached that part again this time through I really tried to read between the lines, to find hidden meaning, to see if I could find what I'd missed before...no dice. I just don't think it's there, I don't believe Ms. Bronte would be impressed with that analysis.
I love books; the characters, images, drama/conflict/suspense/humor/love, the smell of the pages, the weight of that world in my hands...I love books. I pursued becoming an English teacher for some years and then after moving home I dropped it however I still think about taking back up my studies again but I wonder if I could do it. I don't think I'd be able to rip apart a piece of Literature like that, to tell my students that there is a hidden message in a certain passage. I found myself more interested in how this story is still relevant, or how my dance team girls would have reacted/behaved if put in a similar situation, did they think Jane behaved foolishly or admirably? How did they think her life could have been different if she'd made different choices along the way? Would it have been better? Worse? Let's look at the words that are there, the story given to us and digest it, why does it seem like so many teachers are trying to rewrite the stories or find things that aren't really there?

Ready. Set. DANCE!

I found out I have a new skill today. I can teach Improv dance. Who knew?
It's the time of year when the studio does three weeks of Summer Intensives, which basically means full days of dance for them and long days of teaching for me. On my schedule for today were three Improv classes. When I saw those on there my initial response was "uhm...what? they expect me to teach what? I can't do that." But you know what I did today? I taught Improv and (if you don't mind me tooting my own horn) totally rocked it. I had so much fun, never has an hour and a half gone by so quickly.
I have a day off tomorrow so I'm going to spend it in the sun maintaining my amazing summer tan. I need a way to seal my skin off so I can keep this color.