Water, Water Everywhere and All for Me to Drink

DESCRIPTION OF THE EARTH ELEMENT SIGN WATER Water signs are attuned to waves of emotion, and often seem to have a built-in sonar for reading a mood. This gives them a special sensitivity in relationships, knowing when to show warmth and when to hold back. At their best, they are a healing force that brings people together -- at their worst, they are psychic vampires, able to manipulate and drain the life force of those closest to them. Water signs are tuned into the many shades of meaning in relationships, and at times can absorb "vibes" from others. They have to work harder than other elements to maintain their personal boundaries.

THIS IS SO ME…
Intuitive, emotional, imaginative, nurturing, secretive, dreamy

Those with planets in Water signs are often assessing a situation by its undercurrents. It can give them an air of being aloof or even shy at first, but they're the warmest of souls when you've won their trust. Going forward in a relationship or situation often means being sure of their emotional ground, a kind of decision-making process that is baffling to others. Their perceptions border on psychic, but these insights get clouded by the intensity of feelings, or are altered by the vivid imagination.
The nuances of feeling experienced by Water signs can lead them into the arts. Some find release from their own personal dramas when they're able to express them as universal. As writers, musicians and actors, they help others make sense of the human experience. But this also happens in everyday life, since Water signs soften the edges of the mundane by padding it with emotional meaning.

Water is a formless element on its own, and that's why those with this sign are so quickly shaped by their relationships to others. They need time alone to remember where they end and others begin. And to let what's been stirred up by life find its way to a quiet calm again. These are people who need people, but also need the restoring space of solitude.

THIS IS SO US…
Water and Fire:
Water and Fire can be one steamy combination under the right circumstances. Water can add emotional nuance to Fire's instinctual responses, and help Fire learn things like tact, compassion and how to nurture. Fire can blaze a trail for Water out of the swampy abyss of inaction. Their vitality and enthusiasm lifts Water up, so they can find their way.

Just An Observation

It’s been six weeks since the wedding and I feel so much better. My mood and outlook on life has completely changed for the better. I feel lighter and not so burdened. The only thing, though, is I don’t “feel” married. I know I have a husband and I know that I’m his wife but it just feels so natural. I really love the fact that I’m not snappy with him like I was when planning our big day.

While planning the wedding, I dreaded every second. I was so worried with so many details that it consumed me and my life. I couldn’t enjoy what little time I had with David because all of that time was devoted to organizing and planning this affair. And, on top of that, this wasn’t even for us: it was for the families (well, actually his family). If I could go back in time and have a “re-do,” I would have definitely rethought our options, especially the ones David suggested initially (I’m so hard-headed it’s not even funny). Renting a couple of cabins on the Buffalo River, staying at the lodge at Azalea falls or even pitching a couple of tents at Buckville and then inviting David’s parents and maybe a friend or two of mine would have been perfect. Afterwards, we could have spent the money on our wedding on a really nice dinner for everyone in celebration and thanks for supporting our decision to spend the rest of our lives with each other. It would have been just our style and far less expensive. Even it did cost the same, though, it would have been better on our nerves.

But our wedding is in the past now. I’ve had many compliments on our wedding including how much fun some people had, which is a plus considering that some weddings can be wretchedly boring. This I take pride in. What is done is done and I accept that. It does not matter how May 9th began, proceeded and ended, David and I were married and that’s all that really matters. We can now look forward to our life together and stop worrying about the knick-picking planning that consumed us the months after our engagement.

I am comforted in the fact that our marriage feels so natural. Nothing has changed. My routine is still the same when it comes to commuting back and forth from Little Rock to Hot Springs though at times it is irksome. For example, I sometimes forget to bring/wash a certain shirt that I wanted to wear to work the next day or fret that I forgot my medication at one house. I guess having two of everything is the only solution for now. This is ok because I know that my family needs me and David has been more than helpful in understanding this. He helps where and when he can and for this I am eternally grateful. Leaving home is hard enough but when you have obligations to run two households it can make it even harder. Flexibility and patience is key. When I start school in January, I’m hoping all of this will change for the better. I will have classes in Little Rock but, hopefully, not everyday of the week. I’m also sure that I will be getting home earlier than 5:00 pm. This will help me get chores done and then spend more quality time with my family. Along with this new schedule, I should have more study time available to me and be able to get to bed at a decent time. Right now, I feel rushed wherever I stay. A few more months, though, and I hope this will all change.

I am married but I don’t feel it. I am happy and it shows. I am blessed and this makes the day go easier. I could get used to this.

Milo - it's a plant!

You never really know how "lost" you are until you've left your cell phone at home :/ What did we do before these handy-dandy pieces of machinery?

We called each other on landlines and actually talked to our friends and family without sending a text message that read "Hey." Hey?? What the...? Why didn't you just call me?! Great, twenty cents down the drain. Crap. Besides, how do you respond to "Hey"??? Uh... "Hey ... back"??? Forty effing cents. Shitake.

I've left my cell phone in Hot Springs ~sigh~

Whoever said Life was fair?

I cannot begin to express how angry and betrayed I feel by life and society. My cousin is expecting her second child at the tender age of 19 this August and has, what I feel, “stolen” the name that I chose long before this pregnancy and long before the first.

I feel that I have done “everything right” in that I’m doing things in the “proper” and acceptable order. I graduated high school in the top 11th percentile of my class (stupid band/choir/jocks – it could’ve been the top 10th percentile if I had chosen band, choir or a sport for an elective – more on this at a later date) and I had a job in high school not to mention I paid for my first and second car during this time. I went on to college, I paid for college (though I only went part time but I’d rather do it slowly than be in debt thousands of dollars) and I graduated with a 3.23 GPA, Associate of Arts. I took care of my ill grandfather and held a full-time job. I paid for my health insurance, my car insurance and any other expenses that came my way. Thank God for my good health and His guiding hand at the steering will, too, or I’d really be paying out. I practiced safe sex and even paid for my own birth control pills every single month ($360 a year for 9 years) not to mention that I took them religiously. I found a really great and respectable man, got a great job with the State, married that man and will be attending UALR Spring ’10 to finish with my B.S. in Secondary Education.

I’m ok with the fact that, at one point, this cousin wanted to better herself. She understood that she messed up and did what she thought was the right thing to get back on her feet and take care of her responsibilities. She was enrolled in all the assistant programs so that she and her first born could get medical care and be covered by insurance (she even did this the second time but on her own – no help from Daddy from what I hear), she applied for scholarships in the nursing programs that were offered and was accepted with full tuition paid, she even found a respectable young boy that wanted to not only be with her but be a “daddy” to her daughter. She was on birth control as well but how religiously, who’s to say. Now she’s pregnant with her second child. A boy. I’m thrilled for her if this is what she wants. She was going to move out and marry this boy but decided not move out or marry him (yet) because she wouldn’t get any assistance and would not have full-paid tuition for school.

I’m just pissed at the fact that the one “treasure” I wanted more than anything was to have my own Mason Lee Cornell – a name that meant more to David and me than any other name that we’ve thought about. Mason honoring David’s history and lineage going all the way back to his great-great-great grandfather (and my great-great-great grandfather, too, on the Thompson side) who was a member of the Masons. Lee was a name honoring me, my maiden name – the name that has been passed down for generations and marks the only link I have to my paternal family. Lee honor’s this cousin’s baby daddy in that it honors a tradition of “naming every [first-born] boy” on his side. Mason? “It sounded neat and we fell in love with it.” Do you not realize that you will have a Jason (the uncle) and a Mason (the nephew) in your family??

Some will read this and think I am being catty and/or unfair. Keep in mind that this is my opinion of the situation at hand and I feel that I can freely represent this opinion at my own discretion. I feel that I am more “entitled” or have better “right” to name a child Mason Lee (it sounds ridiculous as I type it but I can’t find other words to better clarify my feelings). But, lucky me, always doing everything the right way and in the correct order, gets beat with the stick again. Ah – thank you Life and all your fairness. Oh wait, was that sarcastic?

...

I am a living, breathing archive of my parents' failure. If you know my past, and if you think about this very thoroughly, you will know how true the words are.

But on the "sunny" side of things, I am a living, breathing archive of my grandfather's joy.

Newlywed Brownies and the Breaking Point

My husband, David, is a Biology major and a Chemistry minor who just so happens to love cooking and baking. When you’re a “down home” girl, like me, who just so happens to love cooking and baking as well, things can get tricky in the kitchen. “Scientists” are taught to measure; “down home” girls are taught to eyeball it.

I love my husband. I love him dearly. This includes all of his little quirks and annoying habits. I knew this going into marriage but when it comes to cooking, these little endearments rub the fur off my patience. David had never made brownies, or seen the process of, until the other night. If you are a knowledgeable cook, like David and me, you know that baking is chemistry and all the “formulas” must come out exact or you end up with either salty petrified wood or sickeningly sweet glue. But if you’re baking with Betty Crocker, her boxed “formulas” are fool proof. Really fool proof.

I begin the process. Fresh eggs? Check. Enough vegetable oil? Check. Paid the water bill? Check. The directions called for either a 13x9, 9x9 or 8x8 glass dish or metal pan. Even after all the wedding registry work, we failed to register for, or receive, a 13x9, 9x9 or 8x8 glass dish or metal pan. No big deal. I found a glass baking dish that “looks” like would work. I’m a “down home” girl; you don’t use exact measurements, right?

“What size is that?” David points to the dish.
“I don’t know but it should work,” I assure as a reach for a mixing bowl.
“What size does the box call for?” Another query from my darling husband.
“Thirteen by nine, nine by nine or an eight by eight but this one will be fine.”
“Are you sure?” DING! Unknowingly to him, my patience is being pushed.
“Yes.”

I cracked 2 large eggs into the mixing bowl and measured out a little less than 1/3 cup of oil. One third of a cup is what the box called for and I remember that this was the exact measurement because of the following:

“Is that enough oil?” He asks.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t the box call for a third of a cup?”“Yes.” Why lie? I know what I’m doing. This isn’t my first brownie rodeo.
“Then why didn’t you add the full one third?” It wasn’t a derogatory question. It was actually really naïve but I’m about to smack the boy. “I normally don’t add ALL of the oil. I figure the less amount of fat the better.”“I thought the oil was there to make them moist…” he trails off.
Oh. My. God. I reach back into the cupboard and, without measuring which I’m sure made him ancy in his pantsy, I poured what I thought to be enough to make a WHOLE 1/3 cup of stupid vegetable oil into the mixing bowl.

I stir everything together including the three tablespoons of water (“I wouldn’t think it would make that big of a difference” he says but, trust me, it does) and ask him to grease the baking dish.

“I’m curious,” he says as he walks out of the kitchen. He comes back with his measuring tape. He measures the dish. What the f… He’s measuring the dish! “Hmmm…” he says. “Looks like it’s a six by ten baking dish. Are you sure this will be ok?”“Yes, David.”

“Hmmm…” he pauses and whips out his cell phone. “Let me check and see if the volume would be right.” THE VOLUME. He’s doing the calculations for the freakin’ VOLUME of all four of the baking dish sizes on his cell phone calculator. First, he has the formulas MEMORIZED and second, HE’S CALCULATING THE FREAKIN’ VOLUME OF ALL FOUR BAKING DISHE SIZES.

“It looks like this dish has a volume that’s between the nine by nine and the eight by eight,” he concludes.

You gotta be freaking kidding me, I think to myself. “Trust me, Dave. This will work. Now, can go and grease this for me, please? Get the edges and corners.”

I try to pour the batter into the greased, almost volume correct, dish. I say “try” because Helpy Helperson is, well, TRYING to help hold the bowl while a scrape the goo out with a wooden spoon. We registered for rubber spatulas and our registry shows that SOMEONE bought the damn things for us but the utensils are no where to be seen. I scrape the mix out as best as I can. Stupid registry. “Give me the bowl.”

I put the dish of brownies into the preheated 350 degree oven (the first thing I always do before baking because THAT’S WHAT THE BOX SAYS).

“It says 30 minutes but we’ll check them in about 20,” I say.
“Ok.” I FINALLY got an agreement.

Twenty minutes roll by and I decide to check them out. Now, the box said to insert a toothpick 2 inches from the side of the pan and, if the toothpick comes out partially clean, the brownies are ready. I’m pretty sure that when I checked them with my toothpick it wasn’t EXACTLY two inches from the side but it was the side and it came out partially clean.

“Are they done?” Dave asks.
“Looks like it,” I say, very satisfied with myself.

He then gets himself a toothpick, measures out exactly two inches from the side of the dish, inserts the toothpick (which comes our partially clean) and says, “Hm. Guess they are.”

I walk away.

If I don’t break this man, I will have to break this man.

My Food "To Do" List

Whole Roasted Suckling PigWhat can I say? I’m a meatatarian. They say the skin is super crispy and the meat super moist. I am there … with some roasted potatoes and carrots.

Roasted Leg of Lamb

I’ve never had lamb but I would really like to try it.

White Asparagus I love the green I might love the white more.

Bon Bo Hue A classic Vietnamese spicy beef noodle soup with some unusual vegetation containing but not limited to lemongrass, dried chiles, mint leaves, bean sprouts, lime wedges, shredded banana blossoms and rau muong (a native aquatic tropical plant). Sounds interesting and delicious. Think Ramen but more classy.

Kobe Beef The best stuff on Earth from what I hear. Melts in your mouth … like all steak should only better.

Louche Absinthe“Traditionally, absinthe is poured into a glass over which a specially designed slotted spoon is placed. A sugar cube is then deposited in the bowl of the spoon. Ice-cold water is poured or dripped over the sugar until the drink is diluted to a ratio between 3:1 and 5:1. During this process, the components that are not soluble in water, mainly those from anise, fennel, and star anise, come out of solution and cloud the drink. The resulting milky opalescence is called the louche. The addition of water is important, causing the herbs to "blossom" and bringing out many of the flavors originally overpowered by the anise.” http://foodproof.com/blogs/view/post/100-things-you-should-eat-before-248

Caviar and BlinisI want the traditional with creme fraiche; the works.

Haggis

Gnarly lookin' fellow and the traditional Scottish delicacy. You gotta try it at least once.

Foie Gras

I’ll have to eat it on a non-diet day since it’s basically nothing but fat but I’ll counter act it by drinking some read whine and smoking a fine French cigarette. They say they are some of the healthiest people on Earth so why not?

Chrysanthemum Tea

Chhyrsanthemum is my birth flower so I feel that I must indulge my ego a bit. Plus, it's really pretty!