flickr

Posted some stuff on flickr. Love to show off my pics! See them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/29674193@N05/

Never give up

The summer is halfway gone...as soon as we celebrate the 4th, I have to start looking ahead to the coming school year. Usually that means that wonderful "I am free" feeling is starting to fade. The start of a new year is always exciting, but I often feel as if I have to be dragged into school. It's not as if I don't like teaching, I do, but the best parts of summer for me is the lazy early mornings, where I can read as long as I like and write and the late nights, usually messing with photographs in photoshop, neither of which I can continue doing during the school year.

I am thinking of some new ways to teach the classes...better organization, more pertinent content, how to incorporate more creativity into the projects while still maintaining some control over the groups. This year, my classes are bigger than ever, so some thought will have to be given to classroom discipline. My classes can easily slide into chaos if I don't keep a tight reign on them.

In my campaign to always keep the creative fires burning (sorry for falling into cliches) I have begun writing posts for ecotimes online newsletter for my friend Ann. The newsletter is a centered around trying to be as environmentally friendly as possible.It's a fun way to keep writing and exercise my funny stuff...meaning that I have to try and keep the posts light and witty, not fall into the somber serious vein that so many "green" articles do. So far, it's been fun and I am learning a lot about living a little more earth friendly.

Yellow Brick Road

I am officially Mrs. Cox now...long time of crazy, busyness over. School out, masters completed, wedding well attended and now long honeymoon drive around the northwest. Boulder, Park City, Portland and now Seattle, with a few stops in Twin Falls and Baker City, Idaho.
This is a picture of the Flatirons in Boulder.


I haven't been blogging as I had planned to do on this trip...too many late nights, rushed mornings to get anything on paper (or computer). I have been snapping a lot of pictures though, expending my creative energies with the camera. These are just a few of my favorites. I have literally a thousand pics so far and will be busy the rest of the summer picking through and fixing the best from the trip.



This trip has been great in many ways, one of which has been getting to know the way my camera works. Still figuring it out...I think it will be a long learning curve, but a satisfying one.



One of the things which has driven me crazy on this trip is the whole smoking issue. What a monumental pain in the ass it has been at times. Very few hotels will let you smoke in their rooms and even outside one has to be careful not to get too close to the doors or in areas where children may be. Wonder how I survived living with smokers? Everyone is afraid of some kid getting a whiff of smoke from 200 yards.



Still...what a great trip it's been so far. I will be reflecting about what we've seen and done, both in writing and with photos, for months probably. What a great way to start a summer and a new life.

DO NOT look at me

My friend and my sister threw a "couples" wedding shower for Jeff and I last night. I loved it that they wanted to give us a shower, but it made me uneasy. I didn't like thinking about it and delayed registering anywhere until everyone kept asking me about it and I saw that I was hindering the process. I originally thought that my reluctance to participate in shower related activities was about not needing more stuff. Jeff and I combined have more stuff than we can possibly use and have been actively trying to reduce the amount of clutter, furniture, and redundancies in our home. Not that I didn't appreciate the thought and effort that my sister and pal were showing. I did and still do. Many friends came, brought many useful gifts and they all had a nice time. Except me.

I spent most of the week before the shower actively trying to forget that it was going to occur. Easy to do, because the wedding is just days away now. The day arrived, and I was dreading going. Finally I began to examine why I was feeling this way. What the hell is wrong with me, I wondered. I felt like an asshole because my sister had driven 4 hours to help host the event and spent untold amounts of money on decorations and wine. My friend had it at her home and she was reeling from a terrible sinus infection. And here I am, not wanting to go and feeling very uncomfortable when we arrived.

As I moved from group to group, thanking people for coming, laughing, telling everyone how excited I was about marrying Jeff, inwardly I was feeling so awkward. After my second margarita, it hit me that I do not like being the center of attention. In fact, I hate it. I hadn't realized how much it bugged me to have everyone looking at me, even in friendship and love. It's exhausting. I now understand my very up and down feelings about the wedding itself. While I am happy to be getting married to Jeff, I am uncomfortable with the ceremony/reception aspects. Somehow I feel responsible for everyone's fun...are they having a good time? Am I entertaining enough? Lots of pressure and as I write this, I know it's an unreasonable burden to place on my shoulders.
This week, as the day draws nearer, I will try very hard to be more relaxed about everything and to understand that I can't control anyone else's anything, including their fun level. Enjoyment comes from a give and take situation: I do everything I can to make people comfortable and welcome, they will either like it or not. Either way, I've done my part and I can relax.

14 days and counting

I will be married in fourteen days. Most of the time I am very happy about it, but sometimes I am so nervous...will everything look all right? What if the caterer doesn't come through? What if I look like an elephant in my dress? (I'm really worried about this dress. I know it looks okay, but is it the best I could do?) Too many things to remember and not ever having any time.

Took some pictures with my new camera. Jeff got me a Canon g10...nice camera. Can't wait to have more time to just mess around with it. Maybe on the honeymoon. Lots of time there, no doubt. Found a great site to learn more photography. http://www.all-things-photography.com/digital-slr.html so far, a good site for a beginner like me.

These are three of my first pics with the new camera. I think flowers and landscapes are my favorite subjects so far, but I also like messing around with different subject matter.

Sometimes people drive me crazy

Can't sleep, may as well write

So for some reason I can't sleep and it's 2:30 in the morning. What the hell? Too many things on my mind: wedding plans, school stuff, why I'm so unmotivated to get back into shape, etc. When things get like this, I know I may as well get up. Of course I'll feel like crap all day tomorrow or rather, later today. No choices though so here I am.

The picture to the left is one of my favorites, even though it's crooked. I know I could fix it, but I like it this way because it's how I was feeling when I took it...just a little off-kilter, with Jeff still at the center. I took it at Alley Springs when we were doing one of our drives. We had a nice time that day as we usually do when we drive but I was feeling off balance because I was still going through my "is this okay" phase with Jeff. It seems as if I spent much of our first year or two together asking myself questions about him. Maybe I needed to do that, but things got much better between us when I finally decided to just love him.



I like this picture too...the many faceted relationship of Janiece and Jeff. He's isolated by a frame, seemingly alone. I'm not whole, just fragments of me show up. We are united by the picture, though. Huh...probably making way too much out of a picture, the result of being up at this strange hour. Very disorienting...

I begin again

Here I am... new to the world, innocent, just beginning the journey. No one knows when they begin their lives how long they have and what will happen on the journey. Just as well. How could we bear knowing all of the crap that was going to come at us, even also knowing that there would be some fantastic things as well...we would check out of life before we even began it.

I am thinking about my upcoming wedding, where I will in fact begin again and about my mother, who had to put her husband, my dad, in nursing care. She too is beginning again. How many times do we get to do this? I had thought, when I was in my early twenties, that getting married then was it...you chose your life and then got on with it. If I had known that I could have do overs or that I could change the course of my life, then I might not have been so nervous, fearful of failing or picking the right thing. I might have given myself time to think, to breathe, to grow into myself before I began my life with Michael. Oh well, I didn't and that's one of the big lessons I need to remember now: the past is past. Get on with your life. It has taken me five years to get over, actually heal, from my first marriage, to get to the point where I could trust myself and Jeff. I might not have spent enough time single...I don't know. My self-esteem was never strong enough to withstand the thought of no one loving me. So I spent a lot of my single time worried that there never would be anyone. Fear...my greatest enemy.

Look at that sweet face. How could she be fearful that no one would love her? A lot of wasted emotion and energy. I did like living on my own in many ways, making my own decisions about everything, having my own nest. Now I have to share again, compromise, live with someone else's crap. What I am gaining though is far more important than mere self indulgence. It is wonderful to have someone here at night to sleep with, to hold when I am feeling alone, to tell about my day and hear about his. It takes me out of myself to care what is happening to him. To care about how he feeling, how his life going.

Jeff said to me last night that I am a good listener, that I am sympathetic to other people's problems and as a result, they tell me all their shit. I take it all on and then I feel so burdened down with it that I feel terrible. He's right, I think. I do like to help people, but it does get to be too much, especially when I am feeling over-burdened with my own life. No one ever seems to understand that sometimes it kinder to not tell me everything, that I can't fix everything in their lives. Of course, I am talking about my mom. Is she going through a tough time? Absolutely. Do I have the time and the energy to run out there every two days to fix what's wrong? Can I fix what's wrong? NO. She's going to have to adjust to her life on her own. I wish she could see that it will be a while before she will feel comfortable with her new life, that she won't be happy in it for some time.

That's it. New blog, new life...again.

How I feel after a long day at the Junior High...many headed and spewing what passes for wisdom but is mostly just H2o.