stickers

before i could afford/choose my own clothes, shoes, purses, etc., stickers were a form of expressing myself.

this evening as i was leaving wal-mart, i was enchanted; a sentence i never thought i would say. but after picking up the necessary items an unemployed women of my stance needs (e.g. mountain dew and ibprofen) i noticed a female employee at the exit handing out wal-mart logo stickers to small children. and i smiled, remembering my not so far from current obsession with that stationery "must have".

when i was younger stickers were my life. they were worth more than gold. in fact, if i got money for my birthday, or christmas, i would go out and buy more stickers. i had sticker books, containers for stickers, a sticker making machine, the list goes on. i adorned all of my favorite objects with my favorite stickers; there were the adhesives of cats on my phone, self-made stickers on my school supplies, and generally anywhere else i had been you would find glossy prints of cute animals, or flourescently colored shapes to make everything look better. sort of like a non-cryptic note saying "sarah was here."

and sometimes its easy to forget where you come from, and what used to make you happy. its important to remember, and i was glad for the little reminder in an insignificant place, at an insignificant time.

so here's to the small things in life: may they never be out of style.

two things that make my mouth water

Sarah's quiche:

5-6 eggs (minus 1 egg white set aside in small dish)
7.5 ounces of Ricotta cheese (about 1/2 of a regular sized container)
1/2 cup of shredded cheese (i like to use either Italian blend, or chedder & parmesean)
give or take 3 Tbsp. milk (i just have 1%)
1 tsp. flour
~1/4 cup shredded Hormel Natural Choice deli ham lunchmeat
~1/4 cup mushrooms
~1/4 cup chopped french onions
~1/4 cup diced red pepper
(Different meats/vegetables can always be substituted, my personal favorite is spinach, plain & simple!)

I use a store bought pie crust to line the pie/quiche dish- Pilsbury is always good & cheap- and glaze the crust with a egg white/milky mixture. Then I cover the showing crust with foil and bake everything together for about 45 minutes. Yum!




Best Smoothie Ever: (in honor of my recently purchased blender)

1 peach
1 banana
1/2 container fresh rasberries
1/2 small container lowfat vanilla yogurt
1 tsp. ground flax seed
1/2 cup milk (again i use 1%)

I like to first crush 3-4 ice cubes to make it super cool especially during summer. Then add chopped fruit and rest of the ingredients. Again, fruits are always easy to substitute but this tastily gets me out of my strawberry-banana habit ;) tomorrow i'm going to try watermelon and grape! Serves 2- enjoy!


(oh, and for the record, i don't have a recipe book to reference as i created these two delights myself ;)

on the eve of turning 27

tonight was movie night for me & jesse- we decided to watch "The Shawshank Redemption". since i bought this film quite a few years ago, it was on vhs. so we had to snuggle in his room to watch it on his old tv. i had forgotten how much i liked this movie, but for some reason, was in the mood to watch it.

its not the most upbeat flick; despite the happy ending there is a lot of stress and suffering the main character, Andy Dufrain, has to endure. not only is he sentenced for life due to a crime he didn't commit, but he gets raped, beaten innumerable times, and generally treated like shit along with his fellow inmates. however, Andy still rises above it all, ends ups making friends among the guards and doing taxes/books for the warden and others. and of course, ends up escaping through the prison's sewer system to freedom, and justice is given to those who wronged him.

so inspite of all the teeth clenching, and wincing moments throughout, its a feel good movie in the end and there are a lot of laughs along the way. and as i was watching, i got to thinking about some symbolism between the movie, and what i have/am experiencing this time in my life.

in no way do i have the same misfortune of Andy Dufrain, but yet, in the same way he was injustly sentenced, i feel like i am being punished for no reason. i have been "fired" 3 times from temporary jobs in the past 2 1/2 years. not for doing anything "wrong" or "unethical", but simply for my time being up. and the interview i had last week, well, that didn't work out either. so tonight i felt a little bit like Morgan Freeman's character in the movie, Red, as he was rejected year after year for parole. in certain respects to the working world, i feel i have paid my dues. i have been receiving some sort of paycheck- big or small- since i was 13 years old, when i worked as a part time janitor for my family's church. fourteen years later, tedious job after tedious job, i still don't know what i want to be when i "grow up". and on days when i think i do, i don't know how to get there.

there's a section of the Shawshank story, where Red talks about what it means to be institutionalized, after an elderly man is released on parole. Brooks- the former librarian in the prison- commits suicide as a result of having no idea how to exist in the "real world." after 50 years of being placed in an institution, day after day of the same routine, he doesn't fit in in the modern world full of automobiles on every corner, and is too old and arthritic to keep pace at his part time job at the grocery store.

in some ways i feel i have been "institutionalized" as a temp. i've become somewhat dependent on temporary jobs, first starting when i worked summer jobs, or work studies at college, and now because that's the type of employment i've had working with an agency that finds positions for you. and even though i've interviewed numerous times to make these temporary positions permanent, apparently i'm not wanted in that facility. and so because all of this, its not only hard to try and apply for various jobs after so many failures, but also hard to have goals and strive for something big. its my fear of rejection, plain and simple. and even though these failures aren't specifically my fault, its hard not to take it personally time, after time, after time.

tomorrow is my birthday, and i just didn't want to turn 27 without having a plan, either immediate or long term. i didn't want to say i'm unemployed to my friends and family, when they call or write to wish me a happy day.

but who knows, maybe its a good thing that i don't have something to fall back on, some immediate easy way out through my temping agency. maybe its good my figurative book is open and the page is empty. maybe freedom means- like Andy's escape- having to crawl through hundreds of feet of shit before i can reach paradise. and still having hope despite my current situation.

so here's to another year- and may it be the best one yet.

dolphins and sea turtles

is it wierd that i'm more upset about the recent oil spill than i am about losing my job again? and is it even more strange that i'm more sad about the hurt and dying animals in the Gulf area than i was about the terrorist attack on 09/11/2001?

i was doing some reading tonight on a couple different websites as to why this problem hasn't been remedied yet. per Weather.com: "An estimate from a government-led team in May put the leak at between 504,000 gallons to 798,000 gallons a day." and to use one of their easy to relate to graphs- thats enough to fill over 52 olympic sized pools. in one day.

and i guess i just find it ironic that our government as well as other countries, especially in the last 10-20 years, have been obsessed with the oil, the need of oil, and the lack of oil reserves. and of course oil spills happen quite often, but this is by far one of the most devastating one in a long time. people kill people for oil -> oil kills wildlife -> humans once again suffer at the upset of homeostasis. and even though accidents happen, it's just so depressing to me that all of this seemingly could have been avoided. the same article i mentioned above, stated, "So far, 29 dead dolphins and 227 dead sea turtles have been collected within the oil spill area." what did the dolphins and sea turtles ever do to us? i posted the link to a short slide show- only showing just a few scenes of the tradgedy. i liked this particular picture of the 3 clean pelicans next to the 4 dirty ones. it seems so symbolic in the way some people relate to one another, and react to devastation. sometimes we just stand by and watch the suffering, and do nothing. either out of ignorance or apathy, but mostly, because there is really nothing more we can do. http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/oil-spilll-animal-slideshow_2010-05-27?page=5

i've always thought it would be quite an experience if i could be apart of the clean up crew-i see those commercials about how purchasing the dish soap "Dawn" will contribute donations to help clean up the animals caught in oil spills. that makes me really wish i could somehow take an all expenses paid trip down to Louisiana to lend a hand. (and on another note- hasn't LA suffered enough lately? they're still recovering from Katrina!)

humans are often the biggest help in times of crisis, but we are also the one biggest threat to our earth. and it saddens me when i feel like it all seems pointless. even the volunteers who are working all non-stop to help, are just redoing the same work day after day until the oil stops leaking. its interesting how in the same pictures i saw of dirty beaches and these clean up crews, i saw people swimming, tanning, putting up their feet and vacationing as normal. and its not that people shouldn't be allowed to have some free time, but honestly, i don't think i could stomach being that apathetic only a few feet away.
http://photos.nola.com/tpphotos/2010/06/dauphin_island_oil_scenes.html

in another article on abc.com regarding the spill, (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Politics/attorney-general-eric-holder-justice-department-investigate-bp/story?id=10805026&page=2) reporters Brian Winter and Kevin Johnson conclude: " 'They seem to be throwing up their hands,' said Carl Safina, an ecologist and founder of the Blue Ocean Institute, an environmental group. 'It seems like we're ruining the Gulf of Mexico, and there's nothing effective that can be done to stop it.' "

i believe there's still hope. but to anyone in the future who would demeaningly call me a tree hugger, i shake my head at you. i really, really do.

gravity

i believe it was Sir Isaac Newton who said, "what goes up must come down," in relation to matter. if he was still alive today, and an acquaintance of mine, his new law would be regarding emotional physics- "if Sarah goes up, she must come down".

and sometimes a little sooner than i would like.

after a night of pre-birthday fun, i drove home in the dark alone, realizing i wouldn't be able to have fun again for awhile; at least not fun that involved any sort of spending. after a blissful social gathering with my friends, i came home and opened the door of my apartment only to look the unwanted truth in the eye- the truth that was sitting on the couch waiting for my arrival like a parent who's waiting for their teenager past curfew.

because once again, without avail, and all too recently, i am without a job.

there are some silver linings at best,such as an interview already scheduled for next week. but its not completely fixed that i'll get in, and of course the timing couldn't be more awful with summer and summer plans just around the corner.

so i had fun. but then i came home and realized i still had decisions to make. decisions i've been trying to ignore for the past few days. decisions that would make people (and myself) possibly hate me just a little bit.

too bad i can't fly up to space where there isn't any gravity and just float above my problems. too bad i have to stay grounded. because if i don't, it's all the further i'll have to fall.

ode to Sex & the City

to celebrate my upcoming 27th birthday, i decided to have a shin-dig 2 weeks early. this Friday night, a bunch of my girlfriends and i will be dining @ the Cheesecake Factory and seeing the upcoming theatrical release, Sex and the City 2.

5 years ago, i never would have thought i would've enjoyed this series as much as i do. but after seeing the first of the two movies awhile ago, i decided to rent the seasons on DVD. from then on, i watched, and watched, and watched. who knew i would become addicted to the story of these four women? yes their lives are much more glamourous than mine, one facet of the show revolving around Carrie's addiction to Manolo Blahnik shoes. but there are several reasons why i enjoy the show, other than the fashion and extravagant life styles.

first of all- i appreciate the fact that Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, & Samantha are so different from each other, yet they remain close friends for years. so much so that in one of the later seasons they declare each other to be their soulmates. and secondly- i love the fact that Carrie writes a newspaper column. and better yet- about sex and relationships. wouldn't it be great to get paid to just write your opinion on what you've experienced first hand? and not only that, but she comes up with all these insights that have struck a chord with me time and time again.

and so, in my blog-ode to Sex & the City, i have decided to share some of my favorite quotes from the show:


"Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.”

“Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free til they find someone just as wild to run with them.”

“When you're young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun. Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious. You could break a bone or a heart. You look before you leap and sometimes you don't leap at all because there's not always someone there to catch you. And in life, there's no safety net. When did it stop being fun and start being scary?”

“I will never be the woman with the perfect hair, who can wear white and not spill on it.”

“I admit it's tempting to wish for the perfect boss - the perfect parent - or the perfect outfit. But maybe the best any of us can do is not quit, play the hand we've been dealt, and accessorize what we've got."

“I'm thinking balls are to men what purses are to women."

"I revealed too much too soon. I was emotionally slutty."

"Think about it. If you are single, after graduation there isn't one occasion where people celebrate you ... Hallmark doesn't make a "congratulations, you didn't marry the wrong guy" card. And where's the flatware for going on vacation alone?"

“After a while, you just want to be with the one that makes you laugh."

“That’s the thing about needs. Sometimes when you get them met,you don’t need them anymore.”

“Maybe mistakes are what make our fate... without them what would shape our lives? Maybe if we had never veered off course we wouldn't fall in love, have babies, or be who we are. After all, things change, so do cities, people come into your life and they go. But it's comforting to know that the ones you love are always in your heart... and if you're very lucky, a plane ride away”

letter to my sister, upon her college graduation

My dear Sister,

I think we both know the meaning of the phrase "walking in someone else's shoes," both literally and otherwise. I- like you- have a gift for being empathetic, compassionate, and just generally wanting to understand how someone else is feeling. I love that about you, about us, and our family in general.

God knows we've both had our hellish times, sometimes together, sometimes even towards each other, and sometimes at very different times and places. Like those infamous term papers we never thought we'd finish, or that graduation we never thought would come. And yet, here it is. There were some days in college where I didn't think I would make it through that class, or that final, but I did. And you have too. And one day you will look back at these past 5 years and not remember how hard it was. But knowing we could make it through those times, I know we can make it through today, tomorrow and the next day, no matter what life throws at us. Sometimes it may seem easier to relate to one another when we're experiencing some of the same things at the same times; like new relationships, family problems, job crisis, etc. But even if we're too busy to see each other in person, or even talk on the phone, I know you're somewhere out there and totally get me.

There are days when I want to talk to someone and I think to myself, Rachael would understand. There are other times we are on the phone and I am continously suprised that we have so much in common. Maybe this was always the case, and I just never realized it. Of course, in a lot of ways you & I are like night & day, but just like evening and morning, we both share the same world, the same passions.

It must be harder in some ways to grow up as the younger sister; I'm sure you've been told a time or two, "Oh you remind me of Sarah," or "Hey, thats what Sarah did too," and I'm sure it can be annoying. The funny thing is, I haven't always felt like the best role model, sometimes I don't want you to look up to me. And upon your college graduation, in some ways I feel I have failed myself, and you. I haven't acheived certain things I've wanted to by this time in my life, I'm not even using my college degree at the moment. And I don't want that to be the case for you, but I don't even think it will be. You've already done so much, and you don't even have your diploma yet! And in a lot of ways I look up to you, Rachael. In some aspects, you act like the older sister.

Even growing up, when I was all boy-crazy and hanging out with friends, you were getting good grades and making 4-H projects. But it was still nice to know I could walk across the hall and come bother you in your bedroom. Some of my favorite childhood memories with you involve playing dress-up; somehow, I always was the 'princess' and you always were the 'peasant'. And as silly as it all may seem now, I don't want you to live your life just to make everyone else happy. Because you are a princess too-you deserve the best! You are so beautiful and intelligent- you have the world ahead of you. I know that may be a bit cliche, but its true. I only and ever want the best for you, I want you to be happy every day of your life.

I've seen so many good changes in you as you've gotten older, and if I'm to blame for some of them, well then I suppose I'll take that credit. Never forget to be true to yourself, and make yourself happy first. Because if you are full of joy, then the people around you will be too. I've learned this from experience, as I'm sure you have too.

And lastly, I want to say thank you, my dear sister. Thank you for all the times we sang and played piano together. Thank you for sharing crab rangoons and watching shows on IPTV with me. Thank you for always listening. Thank you for once being scared of thunderstorms and spiders. Thank you for letting me win at board games. Thank you for yelling at me at times when I needed it. Thank you for letting me entertain your friends in high school and crashing your birthday parties. Thank you for liking frogs and Barbie dolls. Thank you for being silly with me. Thank you for the Sunday night talks. Thank you for asking me to borrow my green shoes. Thank you for being flexible when I don't know what to do.

I love you Rachael. Thanks for loving me and being my sister. I know it must be a lot of work sometimes, but I want you to know how much I appreciate you, and how proud I am of you for finishing what you started 5 years ago....you are truly amazing, my little sister. Truly amazing.