Neglect

I am so sorry for anyone who normally reads my blog that I have been neglecting you so much this past week. Neil was visiting for Thanksgiving week and as bad as it may sound, this blog did not cross my mind once. We had way too much fun!

Unfortunately I am on a short break between jobs, so I don't have time for a full update, but I promise it is on it's way - including pictures!

Camping

This weekend my roommate, neighbors, and I went "camping". We stayed in an old cabin right on the beach, feasted, and hung around a campfire. It was a lot of fun, and made it feel a little like fall for once. The fire was complete with s'mores, thanks to Rosie, who insisted on stopping at the superette for marsh mellows. Took me back to the good 'ole girl scout days haha. In the morning we woke up to the sunrising over the ocean (we were camping on the east side of the island), and then my neighbor and I got to work on breakfast. She made grits and eggs, and I made banana, roasted macadamia nut pancakes. The pancakes were amazing if I do say so myself. ; )

We spent the rest of the day down at the beach relaxing, before I stopped by my aunts house to borrow her car to pick up Neil from the airport on Tuesday!!!!!!!!!! I forgot how much I love it up on the North Shore. It is like a different island compared to the south shore. I need to make it a point to make it up there more often. This is for sure.

Thanksgiving is almost here. Still haven't decided what I'm making. Yikes. I should probably get on that. Hmmmmm ....

Started at the Elementary School

Today was my first day as the teacher's aide for the first grade class I decided to help out. Those kids are adorable, oh my gosh! I am now officially Ms. Katie, and get to work with the little ones individually on reading and math. I cannot believe the huge range in ability between all the kids! I don't know how a teacher could attend to the students individual needs by themselves. I read with one student who had to sound out just about every word he read, while another (who had already skipped a grade) was reading a chapter book better than half of some of the middle schoolers I had in Florida. Crazy!

I will be working there five hours a day, three days a week. It seems to be a good little set up.

I cannot believe we are already halfway through November! It's ridiculous, I feel like yesterday I was in awe at how fast October flew by! Again, crazy!

Wow....

So I was walking home from the laundromat with my hands full of clean clothes, and I'm about two blocks away from the place, when this man comes running down the sidewalk with MY UNDERWEAR in his hands because I dropped them on the way out!!!! How embarrassing!! I think if I saw a stranger drop their underwear and they were already out of earshot, that pair would just have to accept a fate of living on the sidewalk for the rest of its days. Sorry.

On another note, I just got back from a lovely little run, swim, and walk. We ran down to the beach, swam out to the flagpole and back, and then walked through the park home. I feel so much better. Now I'm going to have lunch, and maybe go shoot around with the new basketball I bought yesterday : )

Resolutions

Kapiolani Park

I know resolutions usually wait until the new-year, which amazingly, isn't that far off. However, in light of the book I have been reading (The Happiness Project), I have decided to start early. Today, as party of my low-key, sickness recovery day, I treated myself to breakfast and coffee, and then took my book to the park to read in the fresh air, under the shade of a banyan tree. I love the park by my house! Anyway, the book highlights an entire year where the author aims to improve her happiness. She came up with resolutions to focus on each month in an effort to add more joy into her everyday life. As I was reading, I couldn't help ask myself what my resolutions would be if I were to add more happiness into my life. Not that I am unhappy now, but the purpose of this book is add even more happiness to your life, and why not? Happiness is something you can never have too much of in my, and probably most peoples', opinion.

Here is my first draft of resolutions I would like to start working on (some apply to when I come home). My plan is to print these out, and put them around my room in the hopes it will be a constant reminder to get up an do the things that make me happy. Let me know what you think, and share any resolutions you have now, or any you would like to start! One suggestion from the book that helped me come up with some of these is to remember what you enjoyed doing growing up. Make time to do those things again.

• Eat out once a week, somewhere new
• Listen to live music
• Dance more, learn to dance differently
• Salsa, ballet, hip hop
• Eat when I’m hungry, and savor it
• Join a sports team
• Learn something new – take a class
• Drawing, painting, cooking, guitar, Spanish, wine
• Lighten up & let it go
• Make new friends, and stay in touch with old ones
• Always be reading a book, not just novels
• Try a new recipe once a week
• Join a club, organization, etc.
• Go by myself
• Go on a mini – vacation once a month
• Go play outside
• Do something with Meghan & Danny once a week
• Grow my own food, even if it’s one plant at a time
• Run three times per week

And on that note, I am going to get started on "Go play outside". I have been talking about buying a basketball to go shoot around with for too long. I am going to buy one and shoot around right now. After all, there is no better time like the present, right? : )

Gratitude

I am currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I whole-heartedly recommend it, and have found some very enlightening insight in its pages. I have been meaning to blog a little about some of the points I have found most useful and interesting, but I am sick, and don't feel quite like getting into all of that now. However, I am reading a section on gratitude and couldn't help but comment on it. I would really like to take a moment to say how inexpressibly grateful I am for my family. Of course growing up, it is pretty standard to bicker with your siblings, and to "hate" your parents for your early curfew, assigned chores, etc. Now though, especially being so far away from them, I am so thankful for my entire family. I have become so aware of the fact that they all will do anything to make me, or anyone of us, happy. My old boyfriend and I are trying to coordinate him coming out to Hawaii for Thanksgiving, which includes finding a place for our dog for the duration of his trip. I felt sure I could count on my brother, sister, and parents to help. It might sound a little "assuming" to think I could just unload my dog on my family for ten days, over Thanksgiving. But that is exactly what I am so grateful for. The fact that I know my family would do whatever it took to take care of the puppy so I could have a friend out here with me for the holidays. When I called my brother, sister, and parents (all individually) they each had the same reaction. They didn't dwell on details of how Hailey (the dog) would be taken care of. They each said, one way or another, they would make it work. No problem.

I have always felt this way about my family. Probably never took enough time to tell them. And for some reason with us, it always feels a little embarrassing to say mushy things like this, but I feel so lucky to have the brother, sister, and parents that I do. And I think the chapter in The Happiness Project really reiterated my deep feelings of gratitude toward them. So much so that I felt strongly compelled to heave my sick-self out of my bed to grab my computer and type up this blog post.

There. I feel better. I had to get that off my chest : )

Love and miss you guys!

House warming & Home sick

We have finally having a little house warming party tonight from 4-7pm. Unfortunately for Rosie I have to work up until people are supposed to come over, so she is in charge of the food. Sorry! It will be nice to show off our handy work a little, and have friends over without the evil eye of our old roommate peering out from her room. Ha.

Also. I officially miss home. Pretty bad. Maybe it's the holidays coming up, or maybe the honeymoon phase of being in a new place is starting to wear off a bit ... but either way, I miss it.

Starfruit Marmalade!

Oh!! I forgot to mention ... yesterday I made starfruit marmalade. A total experiment that turned out delicious! The starfruit tree outside probably has more fruit than leaves at the moment, and so I wanted to do something with them. Rosie made cookies which were pretty yummy, and yesterday I tried the marmalade yum yum! It is so fun to experiment with food and have it come out tasting good! Especially when the ingredients come out of your backyard! The marmalade reduced for about an hour an a half and went from a light yellow to this rich, dark red. So far it is delicious on toast and with brie cheese ... perhaps as a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich?? ... we'll see ...

Job Numero Tres!

This morning I woke up to a voicemail from the principal that decided to add me to her substitute list (which still hasn't started because the application process is extensive to say the least). She would like to hire me as a paraprofessional/teacher's aide for two of the 1st grade teachers at her school!! It's $13/hour and I will be working about 15 hours per week! Yay yay yay! This is exactly what I need - more income! I have been stressing the last week or so about money because my bank account isn't quite as healthy as it was when I moved her. It's lost a lot of weight you could say. And I don't particularly want a skinny bank account, body yes, bank account no.

I think I start next week. Just waiting on the phone call that my application/fingerprints have been processed.

I will have to invest in a raincoat though as I got soaked on the way into the school today. Not fun. And as winter draws closer, so does Hawaii's rainy season. Rain + moped = unhappy teacher's aide.

Halloween Weekend!

Dressing up consisted of two days and two separate events. First, was Art After Dark - the event held at the Art Academy with beer/wine, open art galleries, and live music, and of course, a costume contest. I had a lot of fun getting ready (which I think is the major source of fun when it comes to Halloween anyway), and between the red lipstick, huge pearl earrings, and fake eyelashes I felt like I belonged in the 40's. Rosie (the roommate) and I caught a cab and headed to the Art Academy. The line to get in was wrapped around the block! Noooo! Rosie was a member to the Academy so her line was only about 10 deep, aka an hour + less wait time than mine. There was no way in heck I was standing in that line, plus it would have been a miracle to even make it inside before the event ended. I decided to see how much it would cost to become a member. For students it was only $20 for a year. Sweet! Not too bad. It was two nice-looking elderly ladies working the membership sales. "They'll understand if I don't have my student ID" I thought. Ha! How wrong was I! They didn't budge an inch. I pleaded with them explaining my friend was already inside and I was stuck out here all by myself, and my ID was at my house, I just didn't bring my wallet. There were hearing none of it. Ughh! I am not paying $55 to become a member, when I have no clue how much longer I'm even going to be living in Hawaii ... and that's when I saw my in. Two young guys nearly at the front of the 3 mile long, non-members line. Maybe if I ask really nicely they'll let me stand in line with them... "Excuse me, my friend is already inside, and I'm out here all by myself, and those mean old ladies won't let me in because I don't have my student ID, and I really don't want to go to the end of that long line .... do you think I could stand in line with you??" (fake eyelashes came in handy here, haha) All they said was "you've been standing here with us this whole time, right?" ... exactly ... they caught my drift. Success! I was in! **Life lesson learned from all this: if you are planning to go somewhere that has a chance of a long entry line. Wear fake eyelashes and bat away! Haha.

Saturday was dress up time round two. My cousin and 4 of her friends came down from the North Shore and we all got ready at my house. They raved about our place! Said it looked straight out of a magazine! Yay! I loved hearing that :) We all got dressed up - me as Rosie again, my cousin as a punk rocker, her girlfriend was Liza Minelli, and then a pin-up girl, a snail, and a greek god and loaded into a cab and headed for Chinatown. Wow! It was so crowded! Six stages of live bands playing and thousands of people dressed up in costumes! Talk about people watching. After about four hours of walking around downtown, aimlessly trying to find other friends that were downtown, listening to music, dancing, and drinking, everyone was about ready to head home. Well almost, the majority of our group voted to stop at Zippy's (the Denny's of Hawaii - AKA crappy diner that's open 24/7). Finally, after everyone got their healthy dose of sodium, saturated fat, and preservatives, they were ready for bed. I had a greek god in my kitchen, a snail on my living room floor, and Liza Minelli in my the other bedroom. Only on Halloween!

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