How to proceed?

I've disappeared and I'm not certain it's a bad thing. Since returning to Chongqing 6 weeks ago, I've debated whether or not to keep this here blog. Not only am I super busy at work, but the time I do have off I'd like to spend away from the computer.

Months and months ago I read another blogger's farewell. Having begun to find other moms in a time of need, she now felt less needy and ready to move on with life, sans blog.

I've been wondering if I'm there also.

I love to write, but...what is the right medium? Where is the right place? How often should I do it?

As I figure this out I will attempt to be better at putting something here. Maybe this will turn into one of those diary blogs that starts out bad and turns into a really rad book.

Yeah. That's what will happen.

All jittery and stufff

I'm feeling a bit jittery. There's work to do and all I can do is play with my feet, shake my sitting booty, and wring my hands as if waiting to hear "it's a girl!" at the hospital. The reason?

What I feel are restless legs.

My mother suffers from restless leg syndrome, and since being pregnant with PB, I have also. It's a strange thing, and hard to describe to someone who does not have it. For my mother, it happens at night, keeping her awake. Most of the time, that is when I would feel it too. But every once in a while, I get it during the day.

I feel like I need to run. I feel like there is no comfortable position for my legs or feet. I feel like I need to stretch but stretching does not help. I just feel all, well, jittery and stuff. And it's annoying.

Why now?! Come on, body, I need to work. I'm all bouncy and stuff and focused on my legs and this awful feeling and not on my work. Argh.

I will pace, bounce, massage, stretch, jump, squat, scream...and repeat.

I have got to get through this and on to more important things.

It has taken me 35 minutes to post this

Wednesday I leave for my first ever backpacking trip. 3 days in Yangshuo, China, hiking backcountry with 8 teenagers who haven't done anything like this either. Well, at least I've slept on the ground before. Under a tarp. In the rain.

PB got sick on Saturday, me on Sunday, HD today, and hubby...I hope it waits until I return on Saturday next. Wicked cold with body aches. Hello Spring!

Mosquitoes are back.

There are only 9 weeks until I will have finished my first year of teaching. I'm thinking about throwing a party. The question is, last day of school or first day back in the States? Maybe both. And more. (Almost there, Abby! Keep going! - Thanks, inner voice.)

Want to see some pictures? Ask China Telecom to add another cable to our complex so it doesn't take hours. I think a letter-writing campaign is in order. Eh, no time. Pictures in a week.

I'm going to paradise! I'm going to paradise! (Imagine I'm next to you repeating this in the most annoying, bragging voice of an 8-year-old, because) I'm going to paradise!

Why I'm homesick today

1. The internet hates me and only works sometimes, kind of.

2. Not being able to tell the woman "for the love of god, stop cutting!" before she destroys my hair and makes me look like a 10-year-old.

3. No lentils.

4. I like clothes dryers.

4 more months and we will return stateside for the summer. I can do this. Easy.

Maybe my hair will look normal by then.

Happy (belated) Birthday!

Yesterday I turned 30.

I mulled over writing about it from the moment I woke. This should be a momentous occasion, beginning my 4th decade. Instead, I find myself reflecting on the decade now finished. My 20s were fun, sad, hard, beautiful, and each year is marked by a change in life, and a change in me. Thus, rather than go on about how old I am, I will chronicle my so-called coming of age in 10 short bits --

20- The year of Bushisms, 9-11, and finding my calling in Biology.

21- Long distance relationship, generous friends, and a LOT of alcohol made this year happen.

22- I moved to Omaha, decried the start of the Iraq war, and discovered that a lack of conflict is not the key to happiness.

23- Leaving comfort, and finding it anew in hubby; W part 2; back to school; and finally, independence.

24- It was this year I took the great leap to Portland, with a fiance in tow. It was one of the smartest things I have ever done, aside from age 25.

25- Married my love.

26- I became a mother this year, and shortly after, a natural birthing advocate. The pain, hair-pulling, and intense love that followed HD's birth have shaped who I am, as a mother, and a human.

27- Oops - here comes #2! And, Obama!

28- My dream birth, Bachelor's in Biology, mad.momma, and a return to high school (teaching this time!).

29- What a way to end! I earned my Master's in Education, teaching license, moved to China, and had a steady income for the first time. I went from being the bread-eater to being the breadwinner.

Writing these few words, I now see how Bob Dylan filled three volumes with his memoirs. Expanding upon everything one experiences each day, month, year of life, could take an eternity. Our lives are epic; my twenties were epic! I can only imagine what I will have to add after my next 30 years.

Well, goodbye 20s. Thanks for everything!

Look what I can do!

你 好 吗？我 很 好。 我 叫 Abby。 你 叫 什么？我 是 老师。 你 从 哪 儿 来？ 我 来 自 美 国。我 是 美国 人。 再 见。

(How are you? I am very well. My name is Abby. What is your name? I am a teacher. Where are you from? I am from America. I am American. Good bye.)

And I can say it too!

Stream of consciousness

I know, I know - I missed a day. Well, we went to a huge expat party, ate, drank, were merry, and came home late with the kids. I decided, everyone needs a day off. I considered doing two posts today to make up for it but this is my blog and I reserve the right to change the rules as I please.

So resolutions are good. And this resolution is going very well (aside from the paragraph above). I enjoy it. I spout my mouth about all things uninteresting and random and you poor people read it. It's not the next great American novel, but it's something. At least I'm writing. But the writing doesn't feel, um, to have a point. I sit here feeling uninspired and frankly, a bit tired. Yet I've challenged myself to write every day. To the world. Something worth reading. From my brain.

I read once that if you want to be a writer you must write every day. Hone your skills. Get something out and feel it, read it, leave it, make it better. All writers, big and small, write EVERY DAY. But what is this writing they do? Is it junk like I put here? Is it musing over a new chapter in a novel for an hour? What exactly am I supposed to be writing?

I guess I should start with my goal. Writing, I said, would be an outlet for me to relieve stress so that I may be sane for those with whom I share space. Ultimately, however, I would like to write a book. And I fear that I will write a nonfiction book, not that there's anything wrong with that. But being the avid fiction reader I am, I've always wanted to write a novel. A novel you can't put down by page 2. A novel that brings the emotion out of the reader's mind and onto their face. A novel that has my name on it and sells more than 10 copies to friends and family.

So how do you write a novel? What kind of writing should I be doing every day? Do I need an idea fir....

You know, this sounds like I should be taking a class or something. 'Cause I have time for that.

Or do I?

Resolution Update 1

So far, so good.

I crocheted tonight (no work!) while watching Wall Street.

I've done a blog every day.

I hope my cold is better by Thursday to begin my exercise regimen.

And reading is going well. I'm reading about Buddhism and it's appealing to my, well, should I say, spiritual side. Or what sort of a spiritual side I have. I am not religious. I am not an atheist. But what if? Buddhism's concern for others as the path to enlightenment is pretty appealing. However, the supernatural stuff is still a bit hard for me. The book is a 'history of' type and I have yet to read about lay practice. How I feel about the Buddhist path after reading that, well, we'll see. The path to true enlightenment, to nirvana, to Buddhahood, is paved with selflessness, but how that tranlates to blo-Joe Buddhist is still a mystery.

Final thoughts for the night are recent notes from a big kid: "Mommy, get off the bus. It's time to go." "Your teeth are big."

And my favorite, when asked how she likes her new classmate -

HD: I cut his legs.

Me: What did you cut them with?

HD: A knife.

Me: Where did you get the knife?

HD: At school.

Me: In your class?

HD: Yeah.

Me: What color is the knife? (trying to find out if the knife is real)

Pause.

HD: (whispers) I can't tell you that.

Happy 100!

This is my 100th post! Woo-hoo! I made it!

I'm very impressed with myself for sticking with this thing for so long. Through grad school, my first year teaching, and moving to China, I wouldn't've thought this would still exist.

However, I've been thinking about purging lately. Does deleting long ago posts violate blogging ethics? I've matured since beginning this over a year-and-a-half ago. Reading my history can be embarrassing.

Well, if I'm going to bare my brain to the world it's got to be all of it. Including posts like this one that just feel like filler because I have a goal to reach.

But if you're interested, here's my list of highlights from the past 99 posts, in reverse chronological order:

Morning messages
I pooped in the potty!
Random thoughts this week
I've been tagged!
For the record I'm 5'7"

And finally, what 100 posts looks like:

Turkey Broth to Die For

We were invited to a belated Christmas dinner on New Year's Day with some other expats. The dinner was very much a Thanksgiving meal for us, complete with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, and sweet potato-pecan amazingness. Very, very good.

At the end, a half-eaten turkey glared at us as we cleaned up the kitchen. I offered to take the poor thing off their hands so I could make stock and turkey soup (thanks mom!). They obliged, even letting me borrow a pot to cook it in. After leaving them the wishbone (that I broke - is that bad luck?), I had a pot full of turkey bones. Yum.

The next afternoon around 3 the pot was brimming with bones, carrots, onions, and water that looked a bit like this:

 I had read a recipe once (okay, an hour before this picture was taken) that discussed skimming the stock throughout the cooking. Usually, I just skimmed the first bowls-ful of foam and left the thing to simmer for an hour until I got tired of watching it. Apparently this is why my stocks have always been so-so.

This time, I skimmed every 10 minutes for the first hour. I started with cold water on low heat and let it get warm veeerrry slowly. It did not bubble for over an hour, though it did steam. When I skimmed, I was not removing foam but little fat droplets that were clearly yellow and hanging around my onions. I removed bowls and bowls of fatty stuff, stopping to take this picture because I was so amazed at how yellow it was.

Now the really cool (or disgusting) part of this whole process was not the amazing, delicious, and rich stock I got after 4 hours of a slow simmer. **Check out how reduced it is?! Awesome.**

The cool part was how the skimming appealed to my love for picking at things (here comes the potentially gross part). I am that person who has scars from paper cuts because I pick the scabs for so long. Having a newborn is sometimes a struggle as you are not to pop the cute little baby acne they get lest you scar them at 8 weeks of age (told you it was gross). But searching out little droplets of fat in steaming broth among floating veggies and turkey bones? Heaven.

And it was totally worth it. Not only is the broth amazing enough to be referred to as such twice in one blog entry, but I left it in the fridge overnight, hoping to skim the fat off the top in the morning before freezing. The next day, there was so little fat to skim, it was difficult. I left it, thinking, I've already done my part. Leave a little fat.

Devine.

A final note: when I began the skimming process I was all excited and brought hubby over to see. His first response to my joy was, "isn't fat where all the flavor is?" I was so surprised that I responded with, "yes, but the flavor from the fat seeps into the water before I remove it." Who's the biologist?

Really, with stock, the flavor is in the bones, not the fat. Leaving in fat will make a more flavorful broth, but a richer broth comes from one strengthened with bones. And that is what is now in my freezer. Ha.

It has begun

What's in my brain...

I'm finding it a lot harder than I thought to just brain dump here. Tate did mention I should tell him I'm going to take a dump when I do this. Anyway, there is a lot of pressure that comes with writing for an audience, small though it may be. I do like that about writing in a notebook, the way it can can just flow and no one ever has to read it, even me.

But this is my quest for freedom from a stress-haggard life and I must continue.

I will try to keep this from becoming a 'dear diary' type thing, though much of what will appear is sure to be just your regular old day-to-day stuff. So I guess I'll just start with that.

Today, PB had really bad morning breath and got an awesome new coat that makes her look like a raspberry. HD and her best friend reunited after the holiday break and HD had a look of extreme disappointment upon seeing that her friend had gotten the Tinkerbell fairy wings that HD asked Santa for(good thing she can't read this because she's getting them tomorrow - Santa was late on this this year). Hubby told me I was good at coming up with activities for class and spent an hour working on a new puzzle with HD. I got a bit more planning done (there's ALWAYS more) and discovered an awesome lab for making balloon rockets.

I still have not read anything for pleasure - but I think I will have time! It's early yet and the grading I've put off for 3 weeks can wait for the ride to school in the morning.

This is bound to get more interesting.

It has to.

For my sake as well as yours.

Till tomorrow...

Trying it again, huh?

Yesterday, Tate and I were discussing New Year's resolutions. I said mine was to find stress relief so my stress doesn't effect my relationships. I have realized how little I have done for myself here, allowing all my energy to go into work and the girls. Therefore, I am proposing 4 ways to a stress-managed Abby. Here's the list:

1. Run/walk at work 2 afternoons per week. During the week, I do not get any exercise. We have a track at school that rarely gets used. Might as well.

2. Read for pleasure every day. Tate and I have been going to bed quite late and it has cut into my reading in bed time. I want to read non-work related material at least 30 minutes per day. I'll have to see how this goes - it may need to be in the morning, reading news I'm embarrassingly far behind on, or maybe I just need to go to bed at a reasonable time.

3. Crochet. When pregnant with HD, I made a gazillion blankets. Then she was born. Here we are, 3 1/2 years later with no new handmade stuff. I found some awesome $1 yarn that was begging to be made into a throw that our beds are desperate for. I need to do this weekly. Make some stuff.

And 4. I will write on this blog every day for the entire year. You're right, I've said this before and it didn't work out so well. But I find that I need to write every day. I need to dump the contents of this noggin and writing by hand goes even worse than writing on here. And here, at least, one of you out there may hold me accountable for missing a day. Or 5. So here we go again. Hop in and prepare yourself for the innards of my mind. You will now be subjected to what needs to leave my consciousness every day in order to stay sane. Should be fun.

By the way, Happy New Year!

And see you tomorrow!