Ninja by day, student by night

This past week we have been staying at the Grapevine Inn in Sunnyside, WA, and today is our last day here.  I’m waiting for Gus to show up so we can pack up and get out of here, because the checkout time is 11 a.m. and even with late check-out, it is getting a little bit too late.  The people who work there are actually very accomodating to Gus’ schedule, but I hate to put them out, or at least not do it so often that they might resent it.

Still, it helps a lot since Gus has the car and I can’t really leave the little one alone.  She’s sleeping right now, which is nice because it gave me time to corral all our luggage and worldly goods into the front room.  Sometimes I wonder how long I will be able to swaddle her for her naps and bedtime.  It works very well but I know at some point she will need to learn how to sleep without it.  If she’s not too fussy I try to swaddle her loosely so she can break out of it at some point, and then she ends up sleeping like a biology frog, it’s really cute.  But for now, it’s swaddling and her sherpa blankie on her legs or she’ll keep waking up and fussing.

Last night she was really fussy after her bath.  We figured out that the hotel towels were too scratchy so I brought her duck-patterned towel and that was much better, no screeching or wailing.  Still, she had a fit as I rubbed in the heavy cream we have to use to keep her skin somewhat hydrated.   She kept letting out these ear-piercing shrieks and Gus was wondering why she was making such a ruckus, as opposed to crying.  I read on babycenter that other moms were having similar issues right around this time because the babies got their 2-month shots and learned how to shriek, so now they were using their new skills.  Ugh.

I also learned that Selina would be losing some of her baby hair, so I got all worried because even though she has some wacky cowlicks on her head, she has a nice full head of hair.  Then I learned it was mostly focused in the areas that get rubbed when she sleeps.  Most babies have it on the back of their heads, but Selina likes to sleep with her head turned to my right, so she has a thin spot there.  Luckily she has a ton of hair so it’s easy to hide with some strategic combing.  Now if I could only figure out how to deal with her hair on the crown of her head.  It has a natural poof so it sticks up and makes her head look cone-shaped, and the back likes to stick up as well.  I think I need to invest in some baby elastics so I can put the offending hair in a baby ponytail on top, similar to Pebbles from the Flintstones.

Speaking of hair, I need a haircut, especially since my hair has hit that point where it is shedding regularly again (which for me is a lot).  I hate getting my hair cut though, they always cut too much off and it’s pretty long for me, so I kinda want to keep it that way.  Still, it’s time to bite the bullet, it’s getting dry on the ends and that never feels nice.

So what I want to know, is how to keep a stylist from cutting too much off?  They always cut too much, and it pisses me off.

Enough about my hair.  Makes me feel grumpy just writing about it.   I think today I will consider my to-do list for the coming weekend/week.

• Laundry
• Unemployment paperwork
• Make appointment for ear piercing
• Select photos for printing (India)
• Select photos for album (Selina)
• Select photos for baby room
• print
• put into frames
• Put away winter clothes
• Pack up summer clothing
• Pack up maternity clothing

Since I’m a freelancer (web, print, photography, etc.) and a makeup junkie, it is super important to me to know the color trends for the next season. So when Pantone comes out with its pdf on color trends, I always make sure I go through it to learn what I’ll be using, as well as think about how the trends will effect my ideas on web design.

Here’s the link to the Spring Pantone 2011 pdf, check it out!

It isn’t dry at all, it’s full of color, designers, sketches and lots of visuals to whet your appetite for spring.

So I’ve been poking around the house, mostly doing some tedious, monotonous tasks (also known as stuff that I love to do).  For example, I decided I wanted to fix the tags on my music, which I have been working on all week.  Seriously, monotonous and absolutely addicting.   First I modified the mp3s by using a volume-leveler, then worked on updating the tags.  Now I’m half-way through the tag update, and now I’m attaching album art to the songs.  It’s pretty fun.

I really need to add the learning Japanese playlist to my Ipod, I think it would be great way to reinforce my anime watching and have something new to listen to on my way to and from school.  One of my life goals is to learn how to understand Japanese, and a subgoal is to learn to write and read Japanese.  I would also like to learn Punjabi so I can communicate better with my future in-laws, but I’m not sure how that will go.  I try to pay attention to what Gus says on the phone, but it’s hard to grab things without any context.

I’ve also played around with my kanji notes, I really need to write down my kanji in my ice cream sandwich notecards (they are SO cute).  I’m always surprised at what I remember when I go back and look at the list of 100 kanji on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (Kyuu Kanji).  I’m using the Heisig method, and it seems to be working even though I don’t study kanji on a regular basis.

In other creative endeavors, I mentioned that I updated the theme for this journal and then I thought I could update it.  I don’t have any amazing pictures to use yet, so I decided to go to my favorite inspiration site, http://www.colourlovers.com.  You can find me there as cynja, but I found this great article on http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2009/03/19/lesser-known-color-vocabulary-a-through-c, which was really interesting, because I love color and new vocab words are always neat.  I saw a few that would make great band names.

So now I’ve downloaded a few palettes, so I can get my muse going, it’s really fun.  I’ve been sketching a few times a week, mostly practicing a single topic.  Last week’s topics were 3-D shapes and sketching bodies using circles.  I’ve also tried sketching my own hand (hard), hair, objects in front of me, anime eyes, fruit, flowers and abstract line drawings.  Practice really does improve my skills, I definitely won’t give up.

In other news, I’ve been working on my garden, and my green beans, and snap peas are ready to go into big containers, while my tomatoes, basil and cilantro are growing their first leaves.  The other plants are starting to germinate, so they should be ready for transplant by next week.  Even my cardamom seeds from our chai tea mix are starting to sprout, so I guess I’m doing something right.

Even the bonsai tree is getting a few new leaves each week and I’m noticing an improvement in the way the older leaves look, they look so green and glossy.   It really warms my heart to see all these plants growing and getting stronger every day.  I’m sure I will see more improvements over the next few weeks since Gus was sweet and bought me a container of Osmocoat (a plant feeding additive) for my container garden, as well as the containers from his house that the family were not using.

The nice part about having plants around is that you know they are helping the environment by taking carbon dioxide and converting it to oxygen, so I know our house probably has lots of good air.  Sounds silly in a way, but I suffer from allergies (especially since Prosser has a lot of allergy-producing trees, plants and grasses).  I’ve been taking my allergy meds on a semi-constant basis, but I forgot yesterday and I was down for the count.  All afternoon I lazed around because I was so sleepy and I didn’t know why.  I’m sure if I had done a check on pollen.com, I would have noticed that I needed to take some meds and I would have been feeling more energetic.

It could also be that I’ve been working out hardcore all week, but I’ve been all over the place, energy-wise, it’s hard to tell.  According to my calculations, I’ve done a little over 11 miles this week, basically doing an hour of jogging/walking on the treadmill.  I’ve been checking myself on the bathroom scale and even though I’ve haven’t seen any big changes on my weight, I have seen a 2% decrease in my fat content, which makes me very happy.  Maybe I haven’t been pushing myself hard enough in the past few months, because I haven’t seen many changes and it discouraged me a lot, even though I saw an improvement in my body tone.

Gus insists that he is seeing a change in my body, but who knows, he’s always very kind to me when it comes to my body, so it’s hard to take his support seriously.  I should though, I know there are a lot of guys who are not very nice about women’s bodies and I’m lucky that he is encouraging me and not making me feel bad for having extra weight on my body.

It’s been a big week for changes, I also got my hair reshaped and added some baby side bangs, they are very cute when I wear my hair in a bun.  I haven’t kept up with my Lent promise though and I feel a little guilty about that.   I will try harder starting today though, because my hair feels a lot healthier now that I got the dry ends taken off.  Gus likes it too because he doesn’t have to deal with a huge head of hair in his face, suffocating him at night.

I guess I better get working on my chores, today is Friday-cito and I definitely want to do some of the fun things I have in mind.  Gus might go to Seattle this weekend, so I might have some time to myself, so I definitely need to get things done so I can enjoy the weekend, with or without him.

Busy day today, I’ve been working on my notes for my exam.  I’m a little nervous, but it will be okay.   I went ahead and ran 1.75 miles today, and really killed it, did it in 32 minutes, but mind you, I was doing the second half on slow (2.6-2.8) with a varying incline (3-6%).  So not too bad overall, although eating is still an issue, because I’m trying to cook tasty dishes that aren’t too big.  That’s the hardest part.  I can try to watch my portions, but making sure that there isn’t too much in the first place is always difficult.  Most recipes are made for families, so I usually have to guess whether they will be okay for just the two of us.  I’m getting better though, I am lowering the amounts and adding more vegetable sides, so Gus will feel full.  I’d hate for him to be hungry.

I tried out a pudding recipe as well, it was a surprise for Gus because he LOVES pudding, and I thought it might be healthier to make it from scratch, instead of from a box.  It was pretty easy, although I thought I messed up because it wasn’t thick and gooey like Jello pudding.  He loved it though, he said it was exactly like Indian pudding, and I added sliced strawberries, a few chocolate chips and some granola to make it extra tasty.  I even layered it so it would look nice too, haha.  I always forget to take pictures when I make a good-looking dish.  In any case, he liked it, and next time he wants to try it layered with some sliced almonds.  I think that’s a great idea.

I overdid it last night, reading what was basically a naughty romance novel in manga form.  Unfortunately it kept me up until 4 a.m., so I’m dying here, internally.  I should be ashamed of my laziness from yesterday, although I did get a few things done.  Too bad none of the things I got done was related to school.   Ah well, I packed up two boxes of clothing and colored my hair a dark brown.

I think I’m a little lonesome from not having my baby-ji around, and we still have until Saturday!  I’m going to keep busy though, I need to finish reading the chapters for class, and of course, return my movies.  I would also like to buy a few things to wear, but I’m still at a loss at where to buy clothes that will fit me.   I’ve watched enough What Not to Wear to know what might work for me and to be honest, I need a lot of basics because my breasts are much too big to fit the ones that I own now (from the juniors department) .  I’m still not sure what style I want to convey, but looking better would make me feel a lot better about myself.