Those were the days

I know it has been said a hundred times before but no one does romance like Jane Austen. Maybe its the time in which her novels are set that I find so romantic as I've always been in love with that period. Although I admit I struggle to find the fairness in a world where the main goal for any woman was to be married as soon as possible. There is something about the will of Elizabeth Bennett that I admire and her ability to speak her mind so plainly in a world that looked down on that type of behavior. One must wonder if it really was possible to see someone across the room, dance a dance with them and know that you were in love. Of course today's society would simply say that was lust, eyes meeting from across the room an simple attraction. Perhaps that is all that it was but somehow they managed to take that moment and fall in love, marry and by most accounts stay together until death did they part. How different and how far we've come today, the inability to maintain self-control; now once that spark that heart fluttering attraction wears off we're dreaming of someone else wishing we could find that again. I must admit its better than ecastsy the instant attraction you have for someone across the room, or when their arm brushes yours. Even worse than that take someone like me with an imagination that runs wild you can see your whole life flash before your eyes with that high seated firmly in the pit of your stomach.
Jane Austen channeled that energy and then provided the love will find a way. One thing I love about romance both in the days of Austen and today, it typically always revolves around a woman from a lower status in society being found and falling in love with a man from privilege. I wonder in reality just how likely men like that would be to fall in love with women like that. Women who are strong willed, say what they think with no regrets, require the man to do things for himself without being at his beck and call. Although I imagine that I would love to afford to not have to work and to spend my days traveling from city to city to party I also must admit that that in no way is in my personality. I have worked from as young as I can remember and I don't know that I could live with simply getting by on life.... Strange how very much the world has seemed to change over the years yet at the same time how very much the same.

This is my brain clearing area, and I love that about this, how much information gets locked away and there must be somewhere to purge it all. Was suppose to work on a paper tonight and instead I drifted off into the world of Jane Austen and romance that I'm not even sure truly exists. Ahh, to work on my paper, now that my brain has been purged perhaps I can write.

Alone

A three day weekend has come and gone and I have forgotten just how quite this house is when he is gone. He's been home for so long and and the few times he's had to work I've been at school or at a conference. When he's home this house is always bustling with people, there are people here when I get home and they are often here when I get ready to go to bed. I enjoy my alone time and I'm quite ok being alone I am thankful for being an only child in that respect, but I must admit that it's been so quite this weekend that I'm actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow so I can have some human interaction. Don't get me wrong I love my dogs but it will be nice to talk to a person. I did manage to begin and finish an 800 page book along with making my office workable again. There were books and journal articles spread all over the floor and it would make trying to get my homework organized an extremely difficult process. After three days I can finally see the floor to the office again. I still have to log in most of the journal articles but at least I feel like I can work again. I also read the book for my book report but for the life of me I cannot seem to wrap my head around actually writing it.

Fish tank is so loud right now, and I've managed to kill another fish. I don't know why those damn fish hate me but one always dies every time he goes away and I always end up getting blamed for it. So I'm sitting in this quiet living room listening to the fish tank with two lazy dogs sleeping on the couches and I've just realized that my birthday present has gone from 2 minutes ahead to 45 minutes ahead. Ugh, guess I'll have to read the directions on that tomorrow and get it straightened out. Two weeks until the new job starts and I'm not sure how that's all going to work out. I have really got to get my head on straight this next week. Just saw the preview for Eat, Pray, Love....I can't wait to see it. Although I have to wonder what kind of job she has that allows her the opportunity to take a year and travel to Italy and India. Overall it looks like a wonderful movie though. Ahhh, anyway mind won't quit wandering off into far off places and guess it's time to get ready to go to bed.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

This house seems so empty without him in it. It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm dreading having to go blow dry my hair. I hate the whole concept of blow drying my hair and putting on makeup I guess that comes from growing up with a woman who never wore makeup. It's such a strange society that puts so much emphasis on looks and entertainment. I'm preparing the slides for the intro to digital media course and in researching new and digital media I've realized that society knows more about the day to day lives of Lindsay Lohan and Brad Pitt than they do about what the President is doing. We've allowed Hollywood to replace family, and we let stars who make $20 million a movie to dictate to us how we are suppose to live, to make us feel bad because we don't support society. Perhaps those who sell their houses for $10 million should look to themselves instead of to me, they spend more money for a week in a hotel than I will make in a whole year.

Wow, where did that all come from....almost time to go get ready. Have to present at the principals meeting today, still waiting to hear if they are going to let me work part time. My fingers are crossed I'm not sure how we'll financially be able to make it if they don't. We've been having conversations about living within our means and I have a feeling that is going to be a very bumpy road. Feel like I'm all over the place this morning, that does not bode well for my workday. Thank goodness it's a three day weekend and my husband is off working, have to get a book report written and really really need to get ready for the new job only two more weeks.

Do I Really Have To??

It's been two weeks since I was last in the office and frankly I don't want to go back to work. That's not to say that I don't love my job and I don't understand that in order to pay the bills I have to work, the two go hand in hand I get that. At the same time that's not to say that I don't envy the life of luxury that not having to work would afford me. I'm nervous too about the fact that there are only a few more weeks left of walking into that school board office everyday and then the new job starts walking into the college everyday. I still don't know that I'm making the right decision as far as this job change goes but I hope it is. I'm more concerned about the effect that the paycut is going to have on us. He's really going to have to step up and pull it all together and I'm just not sure if he's ready for that. Sometimes the age difference between the two of us really shines through.

Wish there was a crystal ball that would tell me where I will be in 10 years, I can remember having that same wish when I was little. I've always wanted to know always wanted to be prepared trying to stay one step ahead of life which is impossible.

Times are a changing

Strange how when we are younger all we hope for is to get older and as we get older all we wish for is that we were younger. Yesterday was my 29th birthday each year seems to go by faster and faster. I'm sitting in a hotel room (I spent my birthday at a conference for work) running a fever and anxiously awaiting the end of this conference so I can go home. I have been dreading this birthday for many many months now, not because i think 30 is old and I dread that aspect of it, but because by this time I just expected to have done more with my life, to have been something more. When I say this out loud to my friends I often get yelled at. Yes, I am 29, yes I have completed my first year of my doctoral program, I own two houses, I've been semi-happily married for almost three years now, I have a successful job as a webmaster that I am about to leave for what I hope will be an equally successful job as a faculty member for a community college. When they say those things to me I know that I am suppose to feel proud of those accomplishments but I don't. What I see is someone stuck in the same town, living in the house I grew up in, making half the money that my friends who went to school half the time do. I watch the people I went to high school with on facebook as they post about their ever changing lives and continue to feel as though they are doing so much while I am doing so little.

Some are now lawyers, military personal, nurses, doctors and one of my best friends whose modeling website I am currently building. They've all moved away and have built these lives for themselves that I cannot help but envy. I use to have such dreams and aspirations when I was a child, astronaut, model, actor, doctor, teacher, writer and so much more. I wonder now how many of these feelings are simply because of the various changes that are waiting on the horizon for me. I've eternally been "that girl", I live my life with the future in mind, I'm the responsible one who can't even let her hair down at a concert. I grew up being told to watch my behavior because other people would judge me and I would not like it. That is true I have that type of personality and I'm ok with that, but I envy those that can let their hair down and go for what they want out of life.

This blog is for me to give me an area to scream and cry and release all of those emotions that I bury deep inside because I don't want to upset the apple cart. I'm not sure what this year holds in store for me but I know in less than 12 months my twenties will be in my past and I will cease to be a young adult, instead I will just be an adult a transition for the future I am not so excited about.