English Lit

English Literature is coming to an end. I did enjoy the class pretty well. I thought it was an interesting chance to read some authors that I had never tried before. I was most impressed by Frankenstein I think. It was interesting to read the story, since I have seen the movie adaptations before.

Mrs. Dalloway

We read Mrs. Dalloway this week in English Literature. I have previously read the book and I have to say it did not improve upon a second reading. I thought that the book was strange and a little bit hard to follow.

I am not sure exactly why the book was so acclaimed, I didn't think it was all that good. I think too much stock is put into these weird books.

When You are Old

When You are Old is the following poem by W.B. Yeats:

When You are Old
by W. B. Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

This poem is beautiful and sad at the same time. A woman who has grown old is reflecting back on her younger life. She was beautiful and had many admirers. There was one man who loved her for who she truly was. However, she did not appreciate him as she should have and eventually he left. Now she is left to her lonely old age to contemplate what could have been.

The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

We read an interesting poem in English literature this week, called The Goblin Market. Here is a link to it, if you are interested in reading it.

http://plexipages.com/reflections/goblin.html

I was surprised by the underlying theme of this poem, which was the empowerment of women. It would highly doubt that the poem was very well received by Rossetti's contemporaries at the time that it was published. The Goblin men in the poem represent the lying and cheating men who seek to get what they want from a woman and then discard her when they are finished. The heroine of the poem manages to outsmart the men. While, obviously, this poem appeals to me I cannot see it being very popular at that time.

Say Over Again- Elizabeth Browning

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me,
Though the word repeated
Should seem a "cuckoo-song," as dost treat it,
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain
Cry, "Speak once more--thou lovest!" Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me--toll
The silver iterance!--only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.

We read this sonnet this week in my English Literature class. I loved it. I thought that it was a simple and beautiful sonnet about expressing affection to your lover. I think it is deceptively simple. It seems like such a basic concept, tell the one that you love that you love them. Not only that, but SHOW them that you love them. However, it seems to be a concept that people struggle with in their relationships daily. I think one of the biggest killers of relationships is neglect. People may love their partners, but in the hustle and bustle of every day life I think they tend to forget the need to express that love. It doesn't need to be something big or over the top, even just little affirmations of love can refresh the relationship and reassure your lover.

Frankenstein

This week in English Literature we read the story Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Considering that I had only ever seen the Mel Brooks movie prior to this, I was in for quite a surprise. The story in the book was worlds away from any modern interpretation of Frankenstein that I have ever seen referenced in any modern day book or show.

I found myself feeling a lot sorrier for the monster than for Victor. Overall, I found Victor to be very selfish and week. The monster was thrust into a situation that he new nothing about, and then abandoned. He tried to make the best of it, but could find no love or compassion from anyone simply because he looked different. I could see this driving anyone to seek vengeance.

Romantic Poets

This week in my English Literature class we are studying some of the Romantic poets: Byron, Percy Shelley, and Keats. I enjoyed all of the poems that we studied but one of them spoke to me more than any of the others. That poem was Lord Byron's "When We Two Parted". The poem made my unspeakably sad. It is always so sad to think of two people who are filled with this joy and love and care so deeply for each other. Then, at some point, that love turns to hatred or even worse, indiffence. It is painful to think you can love someone and share with them so deeply, only to then have them gone from your life. The hole that they leave behind is painful and hard to fill.

Still Trucking

I am still trucking along with weight watchers...I am losing about a pound a week, so I will take it. Dev and I were really busy this weekend, working on the house. We redid my craft room, it wasn't set up to accommodate my knitting. Deven got his surround sound speakers hung, considering he got them for Christmas 2009 it was about time haha. We also got our guest room cleaned up. So all in all it was a pretty productive weekend.

20 Pounds Down!

I started Weight Watchers the first week of January. I have been talking and talking about losing weight but never really doing much about it. I have been doing WW for 4 weeks and I have lost 20 pounds! This is partly because I had so much to lose, and it is partly because I have been sick for 2 weeks, so that helped me lose faster. The fact remains though, that I have lost that much. I still have about 99 pounds that I would like to lose, but I feel like I am off to a good start.
This is a good step for us on our TTC journey as well. As we are approaching the 1-year mark of trying I feel better that I am at least taking a step toward some kind of change that may help us. I am not sure if my weight has anything to do with out TTC troubles, but I am prepared to bet that it cannot hurt to lose some.
I have been busy other than that just doing school. I am on my last semester to finally finish up my Associates. I have 4 classes this semester and then I will be all done.

Bedroom Makeover

Deven and I are almost finished with our master bedroom makeover! We still have some things to finish but it looks totally different now.

Here are the Before Pictures:










Here are the After Pictures:





Unfortunately with the way the layout of the room is, we have no choice but to put the bed under a window. Oh well. We still need to get some plexi-glass for our nightstands to protect them from the cat's claws, that will look much better than our green towels. :)




Since this picture was taken, we got faux wood blinds for all the windows in our house, the wider ones. They look really good. We still need a rug and some artwork.







We have since replaced my black vanity with a shelf that is like the two upper ones, only larger. We are still trying to find a mirror that we like with it. I also got a small brown storage ottoman to use as a vanity seat.

Again

Here we go again with the trying to be a better updater, I will get it eventually...haha. We've been really busy turning our house into our own. I will be putting up some before and after pictures shortly.

Slacker

I am really proving myself right about the terrible updating thing...I suck. Oh well. Deven and I closed on our house, right on schedule the morning of July 17th. We had a few glitches the first week that we lived there, but it is all sorted out now and we are LOVING the new house!

Here is a picture of the outside:

We are so happy and excited. We are loving every minute of decorating our space. As we get more unpacked and decorated, I will post pictures of our before and afters.

Also, I noticed in my last post that I said something random about the new kitten but never clarified who she was or where she came from...

Introducing...

Tiger Lilly

Deven and I were driving home from visiting Whitney and Rachel in Edmond. It was three o'clock in the morning and we were almost home, driving down Eastern. I noticed a glint in the road that looked like eyes, so I slammed on my brakes and asked Deven if that was a cat in the road. I pulled over and he got out. As he reached for her she leapt out of the street and onto a tree. She was hanging on to the side of the tree, fluffing herself up and just hissing and spitting. We couldn't leave her there, obviously. The pictures above were taken when she was about 6 or 7 weeks old. When we found her, she was only 4 weeks old. She was just a scared little orange fluff ball. So now, we find ourselves being the owners of FOUR cats. The other three didn't know what to think of her at first, but now they are all getting along just fine.

Anyway, that is all for now, but I will try to be better.

Houses and Anniversaries Oh My!

Deven and I had our 1 year wedding anniversary this weekend! We had a really lovely date and a great time. On Friday when I came home from work, Deven had 2 dozen roses waiting for me! I will post some pictures later. Then on Saturday we went and tried a new restaurant called Mama Rojas. It is in the building where Bahama Breeze used to be, up on lake hefner. It was, sadly, a disappointment. They had really good drinks though. I had a frozen margarita swirled with frozen sangria- it was delicious! The food was mediocre at best. The atmosphere was pretty terrible too. The floor was tiled, and the wall and ceiling were both made of wood. There was no sound absorption in the entire building. Deven and I were sitting right next to each other and we still had to YELL to hear each other. It was also about 90 degrees in the restaurant. OH well, it was still nice to try a new restaurant. After that we stayed in the hotel room that we stayed in the night of our wedding. Our house has been utterly CHAOTIC with the packing and the new kitten and everything, so it was very nice to just relax in a nice clean room! :)

Speaking of packing...we are packing because Deven and I are in the process of BUYING A HOUSE!!! We are so excited! We put in the offer on May 11th. It was accepted the same day! We have to wait until July 8th, because it has to have been owned by the current owner for 91 days before we can buy it. Our closing date is set for July 17th! We just cannot wait, but we have to much to do! We have to pack up all of our stuff, and we have to paint paint paint! We are looking very forward to our new adventure!

I'm Not Dead

I may be the worst blog updater, evar. I always intend to, but it always slips through the cracks. It has been a lot busier at work lately, yay tax season! My accounting class is going really well, which is a relief. Deven and I have been spending alot of our time at home switching off playing Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360. We have alot more things we *should* be doing, but by the time we are both home for the evening we just want to relax.
On Monday we went to the Music as A Weapon concert with my mom and Nitwhey. That was alot of fun. Disturbed put on a really good show.
As far as my diet goes, I would say it is going mediocre. I am doing a lot better about not drinking sodas, or at least drinking Cherry Coke Zero. My food varies from day to day, some days I manage to eat pretty healthy, others not at all. I plan on starting my Tai Bo back up soon. However, since I still haven't bought a scale I cannot say for sure how I am doing.

Weight Battle

Maybe posting on here will motivate me...maybe not...but it can't hurt to try. I have gained a lot of weight in the past 5 years, and I am ready to get rid of it. Here is a picture of my current weight:



06-28-2008

And here is my goal weight:



05-15-04

As you can see, it is 5 years and 100ish pounds later. I have a lot of work to do, to make up for all of my slacking. As far as I can tell, my biggest enemies are Root Beer and Cheese. I seem to do fine resisting until those two come along. I think Deven and I are going to try Weight Watchers. I also need to go back to my terrifying Tai Bo: Get Ripped tape. And there is always a WII fit to play with as well. Hopefully putting this all out there will help me motivate...

Me and the Hubs

This is me and my husband. As you can clearly see from the picture, we are some pretty awesome peeps. This is us on our honeymoon at Disney, showing off some bling bling. This guy is pretty much my favorite.