jMcJohnson

Here are some thoughts I’ve been having.

Last week I dreamed about a little door with a picture of a rabbit painted on it. When I couldn’t figure out how to open it, someone told me it was a “rabbit kick door” and I’d have to kick it like a rabbit to open it; which I immediately realized meant “lay on my back and kick both legs out at the same time.” Ryan told me “Rabbit Kick Door” would be a good name for a band. This is his typical response to most of my ideas/dreams/suggestions. He finds a band name in there somewhere.

Yesterday my mom called my cell phone and left me a message of her singing “Happy Birthday” and hoping I was having a great day. Five minutes later she called back and said sorry, she forgot it wasn’t Thursday and to save the message and listen to it today. I am an only child, and so is she. I am basically one of like, five living relatives she has. And she forgot when my birthday was! Ha!

Lately, I like to imagine my body being run by a team of microscopic elves, each with hammers and blowtorches and spools of twine keeping everything together.

Ryan and I belong to maybe the coolest gym ever. This gym is not the typical meathead-tank top place-it is a small neighborhood gym where they joke that there are no man-nipples allowed and on the weekends there is usually a dog or two roaming around. They also have all this crazy art on the walls, some of which happens to be these really stylized paintings of skeletons. They are artsy and cool, but still…kinda weird. Looking at them while you run is oddly motivating. Speaking of motivation, I have been listening to a lot of Kanye West while I run. His over the top ego-driven lyrics make for a great soundtrack to sweat your nuts off and feel like even though you look like dog shit, you really may be the greatest athlete of all time.

On Tuesday afternoon I bought a jaunty new hat.

I hope I get a Nintendo DS and NintenDogs for my birthday. I will keep you posted.

I love the way this turned outl! I first found this on Denise’s blog; she’s not someone I know personally, but her blog is really beautiful and inspirational. You basically answer a series of questions and the answers become your search terms on Flickr; the pics you find are then arranged into a mosaic. It’s kind of interesting to look at it all together and think that it’s a little perspective of yourself.

This is how it all works:

Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search, using only the first page of results, choose your favorite image, copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker (3 columns, 4 rows).

The questions:
1. What is your first name? (Jamie)
2. What is your favorite food? (Feta)
3. What high school did you attend? (Salina South)
4. What is your favorite color? (Grass Green)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (Paul Rudd)
6. Favorite drink? (Iced tea)
7. Dream vacation? (Italy)
8. Favorite dessert? (Cannoli)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (Writer)
10.What do you love most in life? (Feeling Connected)
11. One word to describe you. (Trying)
12. Your Flickr name. (Jamie Nicole)

My photo links:

1. jamie’s bus, 2. Ricongiungimento, 3. What’s old is new, 4. 133: SOTTS will make you jump!, 5. Paul songeur, 6. 166/365 summer days driftin’ away, 7. Horizon of my Life, 8. Leave the gun…, 9. one would., 10. CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, 11. Some Trains Go Nowhere, 12. Mission Bay Montessory 1983 - Peggy’s Class

Flowers from the 39th Street community market

I have been reading the blogs of some of my former Lovewell students who are all grown/growing up. I am so blown away by how eloquent and funny and introspective they all are; much more so than I when I was their age. I read about then going to college and missing their friends and wondering if their tight knit groups will survive; I read as they ponder relationships, the future and whether they’re making the right choices. And as I read what they write it takes me back in time.

Back to when I felt those exact same feelings about the exact same stuff. Back to when I cried over missing my dearest, closest friends, when I was angry at the injustices I saw around me every day and when I dealt with opposite sex drama on a near daily basis. Most of all, like these kids (young people? youths? friends? what is the right word?) I worried. About money, about my looks, about my talent or lack thereof (what the hell is talent anyway?) about whether people liked me, about my NUMEROUS poor decisions, about whether I’d ever be proud of myself for anything. About who the hell I was supposed to be.

For the most part, many of the worries I had never materialized; unfortunately it was those things that came out of nowhere to sideswipe me and leave me breathless that were the most devastating. They will have those too, and my heart just aches for them. It aches because I know that it’s not going to be easy. I know that they will have to make difficult decisions. I know they will hurt and be hurt. That most of all they will doubt. Themselves and others. I know that life will change and continue to change always; and that things they thought would last forever will fall away.

There will be good things too. Their real friends will be there always; no matter what distance comes between them. They will grow and evolve through the amazing experience that is college (remember: moderation is key, friends) They will succeed. More than anything, they will just magically start to get it. It will all gradually start to make sense.

I have no advice. I am only an observer. But I know these kids. I know their hearts. I know they are strong. I wish I could protect them from all that’s coming, but I know that wouldn’t help them in the end. In fact, it’s the very things that I wish I could protect them from that will turn them into the adults they will become.

And I can’t wait to meet them.

In honor of Shannon’s birthday last week, I decided to attempt my first entirely homemade cake. My real wish was that I would have gotten Martha Spangler’s birthday cake recipe, but I did not, so I had to go it on my own. I did know a few things I wanted out of this cake:

1. It had to be chocolate
2. I wanted to use cake flour (because I never had before)
3. I didn’t want to use a buttercream to frost it; as Shannon is not a huge frosting fan (I went with ganache)

I found a good (and seemingly simple) recipe, so I dug in. Thank god I decided to do it over two days as it took me two hours just to make the batter. Well, not just the batter, but also to cut out parchment paper circles for the cake pans, butter the cake pans, butter the parchment paper and dust the buttered pans with cocoa powder (instead of flour so it will all look chocolat-ey; a genius idea). I also had to sift all the dry ingredients, cream the butter for the suggested 5-10 minutes, chop and melt 4 oz. of bittersweet chocolate and boil 1.5 C. of water to add at the end. All this while running back and forth to the laptop (I didn’t print the recipe, just read it off the site where I found it) and making the most of my 2′x2′ of kitchen counter space (seriously).

I may be making this sound like it wasn’t fun, but it really was…I love cooking, baking in particular. I don’t do it a lot, because I live with a man who eats one bite of a cupcake and considers it his allotment of cake for the entire year; thus, I either have to give what I make away or eat large quantities of it . Am I awesome or even pretty good at baking? I would say no, but the creation is really the best part anyway. And also the eating part is pretty good too; when it’s edible, that is.

Behold! My elf kitchen after the cakes went into the oven:

The cakes as they baked…

Geez, I never noticed that my oven looked so ghetto inside. That could be because it was last cleaned in 1942.

My chicken timer, doing it’s thang

Finally the cakes were done and I put them on the racks to cool. I also waited until later that night to de-pan them. Usually I get impatient and try to take them out 20 minutes after they leave the oven and they stick in little chunks to the pans, but this time, thanks to parchment paper and patience, they slid out of the pans perfectly! I sliced off the tops of them to make them flat so the layers would lay correctly (and fed the scraps to Joe who pronounced it “good”) and then assembled the cakes with a thick layer of raspberry preserves in between. Into the fridge it went.

The next day, I made the ganache. Ganache is simple: heat heavy cream and pour over chopped chocolate. Cool in the fridge to thicken. Spread liberally. That’s it. It’s decadent and delicious, and not as thick and sugary as buttercream. It typically goes on in a pretty thin layer. The making of the ganache was simple enough, but when I tried to frost with it, it was just not thick enough to fill the edge gap between the two cakes with my trusty cake-froster-spatula-thingy. Grrr. That would not do. So, I put a gob of it in a zip-loc bag and snipped off the end and voila! Magic mini pastry bag! So I piped it in between the layers and the rest of the frosting went smashingly.

The finished product:

By the way, it took a SERIOUS amount of willpower not to just scoop this leftover ganache directly into my mouth:

After chilling the cake for a bit, I got some pink decorator’s icing and decided to write Shannon a birthday message on top. It is so hard to use this stuff because it comes out so fast and if you mess up, it’s just messed up. “Happy” and “Birthday” came out ok, but “Shannon” was just not going to fit. Thus:

It was certainly made with love…who knows how it will taste?

I had such a good time making this cake and I think Shannon liked it which was the most important thing. I was thinking as I made this of how Martha always makes her amazing birthday cake for all her girls every year and how special and what a great tradition it is. I really want to start making the time to make homemade cakes for the people I love; it really is so worth it. It also gives me a chance to be anal retentive and follow a complicated recipe word-for-word which gives me a special kind of OCD feeling of accomplishment that I truly enjoy.

Bonus pic of the inside of my fridge:

Don’t you always wonder what’s in people’s fridges? Well, if you are weird like me, wonder no more.

If you want to show me your fridge…well…let’s just say I wouldn’t be opposed.

You saw The Dark Knight this weekend, right? Didn’t you?

You DIDN’T?!

Go. See it now. Run.

I’ll wait.

We’ll talk when you get back.

Today is Shannon’s birthday. Shannon is great, mostly because she will pose for incriminating photos like this one:

Ha ha! Don’t worry, Shannon wasn’t ACTUALLY constipated, but that is another story for another time.

Shannon is smart, capable, beautiful, creative, huggable, a laugh riot, totally real, totally unique and totally a great friend. She is truly like a sister, in the way that I know I could tell her ANYTHING and she would just nod her head and discuss it with me; even if she secretly thinks it’s weird/gross. There is something so comfortable about her, it just makes you open up the minute you start talking to her. I love that. We missed out on being friends in our younger years, but we have totally made up for it over the last few, and I am so grateful she’s around.

Happy birthday Shannon. I hope all your wishes come true.

1. Gym membership purchased: DONE
We pre-paid for six months, so there can be no “Oh, we really can’t afford it anymore” baloney while in the meantime we waste an equal amount of money eating takeout 4 nights a week. We even worked out on the day we signed up. We wore our workout clothes so we could not back out. The trainer guy who did our paperwork was like “It’s cool that you guys are working out today. A lot of people just sign up and leave, and then we don’t see them for like, two weeks.” And I laughed heartily and said “Really? People do that?! That’s crazy!” While in my heart I know that I did that the LAST time I signed up for a gym membership.

But that was OLD Jamie. Fitness Jamie thinks those people are “crazy.”

2. Purchased (and am in the process of eating) Healthy Food: DONE
Did you know that there is a special technique to hard boiling eggs so that they won’t have that icky greenish-gray tint to the yolks? There is. It’s PRECISELY following the boiling times set by the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. Yeah, so, now I have been eating hard boiled eggs for breakfast. And…I feel great about it. They keep you full, they taste delicious with toast, they were once inside another tasty food; a chicken. Go eggs!

3. Getting Rid of Junk Around the House and Stuff That Doesn’t Define Me Anymore: In Progress
We bought an actual metal filing cabinet (surprisingly expensive) and we are getting rid of our old broken one that doesn’t shut completely and is filled with bills and pay stubs from six years ago, warranties and instruction manuals for stuff we don’t even own anymore, and about twenty years’ worth of greeting cards. I have no idea why it seemed like a good idea to save all this junk. Also on the chopping block: clothes, books and kitchen crap that has outlived it’s usefulness. Buh-bye crap!

A pretty good start for being home for six days and much more to come. I’ll keep you posted…

Maria

Ryan

Jacob

Erin

Guillermo

Shannon

Me

Some days, as much as I try to avoid it, my inner beast comes out. I get irrationally mad, annoyed by nothing and become generally a pain in the ass to be around. Most times my beastly-ness is born out of some other frustration that can’t be fully expressed at the time…but don’t try to tell me that when the beast is in full effect.

If we are hanging out and the beast decides to make an appearance, there are usually warning signs:

1. I give you “the look” (hard to describe; you’ll know it when you see it)
2. I develop a severe aversion to being touched, looked at and/or spoken to
3. Suddenly, we are arguing and you aren’t even sure what has just happened.

Poor Ryan is usually on the receiving end of the wrath and ironically, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even have a beastly side. Even though I try my hardest to pick a fight with him, he has pretty much learned to ignore me and evacuate the premises so as not to have to even deal with me.

He is a smart man.

Do you have an inner beast?

Now that the Lovewell portion of my summer has ended, others have asked me (as I have asked myself) “what’s next?” What will I DO? What will my JOB be? How will I make MONEY? The answers to these questions lie in my future plans, and as of this moment…I really don’t have any.

People love to have plans. Hell, I REALLY love to have plans. Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than “playing it by ear” and the idea of “let’s wait and see.” Also, the idea of “starving to death” is an unattractive one, and having a financial plan can help us to avoid uncomfortable situations like that.

I am blessed to be married to someone who makes a good amount of money doing something that is very easy and (admittedly) a bit boring for him. However, we have always had this arrangement that basically boils down to this: one of us toils away in the salt mines while the other chases rainbows. My hope is that one day, we will each find the pot of gold at the end of said rainbows and neither of us will have to be in the salt mines. I know that can happen. But only if we can each have the chance to REALLY go after what we want; not quit halfway through due to money worries, or the despair of just not finding what we are looking for. I have been in the salt mines for the last couple years. They have been the nicest, most comfortable salt mines I have ever experienced, but still, too salty to be called anything but. It is my turn for rainbow-chasing.

But the question remains. What rainbow to chase?

My answer is…I’m not sure. I am sure about what I DON’T want to do. I don’t want to:
1. Sit behind a desk (that’s not at my house)
2. Have to sit in boring meetings about nothing.
3. Have to adhere to any kind of dress code.
4. Have all day to surf the internet an dream about what I would do if I was free.
5. Ask myself as I go throughout my day “what is the point of this?”

This is not a treatise against desk jobs. I have had many, and I have enjoyed some of them, including my last one, which I actually loved; at times. This is about me forcing myself out of what is comfortable but unsatisfying. This is about time passing by and me still feeling like I haven’t found “it” in terms of my work. This is me figuring out who the hell I actually am on my own. This is me leaping and realizing that the other side isn’t as far away as I think.

I place it before all of you and the universe at large: I don’t know exactly what is next for me. That simultaneously gives me hives and makes my heart swell with excitement. But my feelings about this whole thing on a metaphysical level are such: Universe, you have had a hand in placing this restlessness in my heart over the past twelve years. Thank you for being patient. I am finally ready to do my part to figure this all out by taking chances, being fearless and scaring myself every day. But. You have to help me. You have to help me find the people and situations that are going to help me on this journey. I will take care of my body, my mind and my spirit if you just help me to see the signs you place before me. The signs that, I suspect, have always been there, but that I have never had the courage to believe were for me.

My greatest wish is always that I can find my usefulness. That the universe will help me to find my fulfillment in helping others; whatever form that may take. I have had glimpses, but I have never understood how it could be my life. Now…well, I’m right here; open and waiting.

Point me in the right direction, and I will run.