Author: Jana

  • Sunday afternoon with E

    John is at a conference today (AAR), and C is at a school meeting this afternoon. So it’s just us girls knocking around the house.

    What we’ve done so far:
    –ate edamame and girl scout cookies for lunch
    –tried E’s mood ring on my fingers, my tongue and my toes (FYI, my toes were in an envious mood, just in case you were wondering)
    –retreated to our rooms for an hour or so of quiet reading time
    –had a chevre and cracker snack
    –brought out the oil pastels for an art project
    –got cozy in PJs and handknit socks
    –talked about cats, art, warm & cool colors, church, brothers, washing dishes, etc.

  • name games

    I don’t care much for fantasy novels. Perhaps one reason why is that the names are all so goofy-sounding. As an example, in one of my kids’ fantasy books (titled, appropriately, The Naming), here are a few of the names that I found in thumbing through the pages for about 15 seconds:
    Maerad
    Cadvan
    Farndar
    Valverras
    Dernhil of Gent
    Likud
    Ceredin
    Enkir
    Nelac
    Owan
    Gast

    So here are the fantasy names that I’ve made up myself in a little more than 15 seconds:
    Veedubvan
    Fahrder
    Dunghyl of Baedcent
    Garghill Anspyt
    Verraslaepe
    Shelac
    Cankir
    Claen de Ovan
    Emerod
    Gast (that last one works for me, too)

    Ok, for those of you who are having an I’d rather-be-blogging-than-doing-my-job Friday, why don’t you join in the fun and see what you can come up with….

  • Make me smile…

    –when i climb under the bedcovers and slide my foot down between the sheets. That first moment of clean, cool linen against skin. lovely.
    –when it’s windy and cold and I’ve been sitting outside for 2 hours selling girl scout cookies w/E at Trader Joe’s. And the local coffee shop drops off 5 cups of hot cocoa topped with mounds of whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles for the girls. the looks in the girls’ eyes as they realize that all that chocolatey goodness is for them. adorable!
    –Mom’s loan of her chainsaw to our community garden. And using it to chop down decrepit structures and overgrown trees. thanks!
    –my nephew’s antics in my LR. His marching, dancing, and ‘uh-oh.’ his sweet dimples.
    –my upstairs neighbor’s slightly off-key and LOUD singing of Karen Carpenter songs. Her enthusiasm is absolutely infectious (tho I sing Cat Stevens back at her…)
    –my neighbors (and Friends) who bring me spent coffee grounds for my compost bin.
    :)

  • Blog Against Sexism Day


    I’m joining in the fray with a few thoughts from vegankid.
    —There are too few female tenured professors. Despite the fact that women have been at least half of all college undergraduates since 1978, women represent only 36% of all tenured faculty nationwide, and only 13% of doctoral granting universities boast women presidents. Many women in academic settings report discrimination.
    —Women are poorer. Women constitute about 70% of the world’s absolute poor – those living on less than a dollar a day. In the United States in 2004, there were 20.1 million women living below the poverty level. Worldwide, women’s access to resources and education still lags behind boys/men due to double standards.
    —Slavery still exists! Women and girls are the majority of the 800,000 to nearly 4 million people trafficked (bought and sold as property) internationally every year.
    –For those of you interested in thinking about sexism in the LDS world, read and ponder the following quotation from the original Woman’s Exponent Magazine.

  • write right


    I rarely handwrite anything anymore. All of my schoolnotes are on my computer. I correspond with almost everyone via email.

    But sometimes it is a joy to actually put a pen in my hand and write. I like making notes in the margins of my books, and every once in a blue moon I handwrite a note or a letter to a friend.

    Most of the times when I write I reach for a ball point pen. Ball points are smooth, they dry quickly, and they don’t smear when wet (a big factor when it’s raining or when I’m writing a check). I prefer fine-tipped ballpoints for taking notes, a thick tip for my signature. My favorite ballpoint ever was a graduation gift from my Uncle Bill & Aunt Sharon: a very slim Cross pen with a gold leaf pattern embossed around the center of the barrel. It was a heavy pen, but quite feminine. The black finish was smooth, not glossy. I haven’t seen that pen in at least 12 years, but I still think about how much I liked it and how it felt in my hand–the perfect weight across my fingers….

    When I am annotating school materials I prefer a felt-tip pen. John turned me on to ‘Staedler triplus fineliner’pens (available in a wide variety of colors) for notetaking. My favorite colors are apple green, sky blue and dark grey. The sepia brown color is also a nice choice. I’m almost addicted to these pens. Often I can’t wait to buy a new color–rewarding myself with a trip to the UCI bookstore with just that goal in mind.

    When I was an undergrad I went through a phase where I used calligraphy pens for writing–even my schoolnotes. My favorite was a green flowered pen (a gift from my Japanese sister) that I filled with pale green ink cartridges. It could be messy at times, but I felt cool writing with such a pen. It gave my mundane notes an added importance.

    I have a writing desk at home where I keep my stationery. In it I have an old fashioned quill pen that John bought me in England. I also have a bottle of sepia-colred ink. Every once in awhile I pull them out and write something. How tedious it to dip the pen in the ink every few words! But, oh, how elegant my writing looks with that particular pen! :)

  • profile


    me, March 2006
    Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    I think the prettiest part of me is my neck and shoulders. I’m not sure why I feel that way, but it might be that 19th-century girl inside of me that is attracted to the romantic cameo-style cutouts of that era.

    It’s funny, though, that I had forgotten I had dark brown scars across the back of my shoulders. Because I never see them [they aren’t showing in this particular pic, but are in some of the others that john took]. It was deja-vu-ish to look at them in a picture after so many years of forgetting. The scars are from a particularly nightmarish bout with morphine–a drug I was given to ease the pain after my amputation. For some reason one day I “wigged out” and started clawing at my own shoulders, leaving deep welts where my fingernails cut the skin. The cuts never healed well because I was on chemo at the time and all the new cells in my body–even those that were ‘good’ cells–were killed. Thus, the scars are still there.

    My body tells so many stories–mostly sad ones, I think. Almost every part of me bears a scar from some kind of medical procedure. But, despite that I do love my body. It’s soft and warm. It’s very strong. When I am stressed out, the smell of my own skin calms me.

    So John took this pic yesterday. I always feel I can trust him and the camera. He makes me look like I feel.

    I tweaked this picture (and a few others)in photoshop–mostly just softening the background. I want to learn how to manipulate images better–to add artistic effects and fix errors. It’s not an intuitive process for me. I get so frustrated when I can’t figure out the ‘layers’ or the tools don’t work the way I want them to.

    But John is a patient teacher. :)

  • not shining…

    As a reward for finishing up a big project today, I dusted off my latest netflix movie and settled in for some entertainment. I felt pretty sure I would like this movie because it’s about a piano player who plays Rachmaninoff.

    Well, Shine was a bit disappointing. Though I am always happy to see someone with a physical challenge (like mental illness) portrayed in a positive way, the writers came up with a maudlin and predictable plot. Not even the ugly-man-bare-buttock-humor was redeeming (unlike in Waking Ned Devine, A Room With a View, or Bean).

    More than anything I was annoyed that the piano scenes were awful. I wanted _real_ playing, not a poor imitation. And the concertos were all chopped up throughout the movie. What a shame.

    Not sure why this movie was Oscar material–feeling pretty disappointed in the sad, sad state of American cinema. Does anyone out there have any really great movies to recommend?

  • deep thoughts…

    –As if we all needed another reason not to do fast food, eeuuuuwwww! And just after I found out that Chipotle gives free beverages to anyone with a student ID! :)
    –I can’t say how happy I am to know that the Chinese are clamping down on spitting. After spending a gruesome 2 hours sitting across from a woman in the Beijing airport who was spitting and blowing her nose onto the floor [read: at my feet], I’m happy to know that such behaviors will no longer be allowed…
    –UCI made headlines today. Glad to be attending such a contraversial school. Hah.
    –finally, a humane mouse trap. But what I want to know is how to adapt this for catching garden gophers…

  • because today needed a rose picture


    This pic is from the small rosebush that John bought for me last weekend. Merci :)

  • this is depressing


    You know, I often think of myself as quite the world traveler. Not so. Check out the rather pathetic chart above…
    I’m quite curious about how many countries y’all have visited. I suspect that maybe Caroline, Dora, Michael, or Mom are the most well-traveled….
    create your own visited country map

  • for the children

    An incredible story of a Mom who took on a 700 pound polar bear to save her kids. Amazing.
    I would do the same for my kids. Without even thinking twice.