Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

The likely end of the cell phone saga.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 6 comments link this post

First, there was my vintage phone.

Then there was my "new" cell phone.

Then, with only slight mention to my blog's readers, there was the second-hand (but fabulous Motorola Razr) phone that was sent to me by Will which required my brother to do some computer wizardry and flash it from being a Verizon phone to an Alltel phone and get it to work with my account. I was positively giddy with that phone, which had a camera and was much more up-to-date than anything prior.

And now, it has happened.

I have an actual new phone, with a "real" cell phone plan that involves a contract and everything. My pay-as-you-go phone plan from the past year or more worked very well with my life then. I didn't use my phone much, and would never have used the minutes that came with a regular cell phone plan. It was an excellent choice at the time. However, down here in Bismarck with that being my only phone...it became fairly expensive. Every minute on the phone cost me 15 cents. I decided that with the new apartment, I would not be getting a landline phone and my cell phone would be the only one. This called for changes.

And so, I am now the proud owner of a Verizon LG ENV2¹. I went with Verizon instead of Alltel because I know Verizon bought Alltel and I figured it was only a matter of time...

Now, I can talk to my friends and family² who are on Verizon for free! I can stop crying about the cost of each text message! I downloaded a calm, inobtrusive ringtone which will further my devious plan to expose the masses to classical music: Chopin's Raindrop Prelude! And -- here's the real kicker -- I can check my email on my phone!

Oh, the glory. I am wirelessly reborn.

¹ During a conversation about cell phones, in which I mentioned I just got a new phone, my flight instructor asked what kind it was. All I knew was...the color. "Um...it's red." I'm a technical genius! And no, I did not pay that listed price for my phone. That's way too much.

² My sister Jacqui!

Labels: family, my life, technology

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Beyond the uniform.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

We are more than the uniform we put on.

I got to thinking about this as I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, heading to work. I had my inexpensive khaki pants on, the white polo shirt tucked in, the white baseball cap with the store logo, name tag clipped to the pocket... my work uniform.

At the store, I am, according to my uniform, "just" a worker in the bakery.

I got to thinking of how people will see me differently -- actually, not see me at all -- in this uniform versus when I might be out and about in regular clothes or dressed up on a night out on town. You can't tell me that I'd be seen the same because I think we could all agree that the reaction is different.

I know I wouldn't notice me, though I have been making a concerted effort to meet the eyes of clerks and workers in the places I patronize, smiling and telling them to have a nice day. I figure any effort to swim against the stream of anonymous autonomy that seems to fill our existence today is worth it. I understand, of course, that it simply isn't possible to get to know every person I meet in the day, from clerk to passerby. It is possible, however, to remind myself that people are people and not the uniform they wear.

Here's what I know about people:

People have things that hurt and make them sad.
People have fear.
People want to be loved.
People want to feel that they matter and to know that someone cares about them.
People bring joy to other people in their lives.
People have unique personalities and abilities.
People have stories that make up their lives.
People have anger and disappointment.
People have joy and laughter.
People are just like me, for I am a person.

Knowing all that, I must work harder to see people as these kinds of real people and not as the uniform they are wearing.

In my uniform, I'm just another woman with a name tag clipped to her shirt, punching a time clock. There might be assumptions made on me and my life based on that uniform -- maybe on intelligence or education or the kind of person I am or the interests and abilities I possess -- who knows what goes through people's minds. You readers, if you did not know of me on this blog, would not even notice me at my new job. I'd just be another worker who either did or did not wait on you at the bakery case as you would have liked.

There was a moment today when I, on my way to punch out and leave, walked by a business person and smiled. I try to smile at everyone that I can, more for myself (when I smile, my mood lifts) than anyone else. I watched as this man took in my store cap, name tag, and white coat and went back to his business with a kind of dismissive sniff.

I'm not personally offended, though it was another good and humbling reminder to never get too full of myself since the mere arrangement of a shirt and cap quickly knocks me down in that ever-shaky and useless thing called "status."

But I also know that in different situations, the reaction would not have been the same. For example, I've noticed that I am greeted and smiled at and treated much differently when I am out at the airport getting ready to go flying. Or, when up front at a podium, presenting at a conference. My uniform is different.

But I'm not.

I'm the same person.

So, smile at the clerks in the grocery store or gas station, and tell them to have a good day. They are real people and they matter.

Note: The sad thing is that some people are actually less than the uniform, and some people have wrapped their identity into the uniform so much that when it's gone (i.e. they lose their job), they lose their identity.

Labels: essay, my life, work

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

First days.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 5 comments link this post

Religious folk are usually quite happy to wax eloquently about last days. I'm here to talk about first days.

The first day on the job as a K-12 art teacher was terrifying. I had no training in education, for the situation was one where a person with a bachelor's degree in the designated area of study could get an "emergency" certification for a year. There I was in a room of high school students with supplies ordered by the teacher who had just quit that were supplies I would never have ordered, fully aware I had no clear concept of curriculum, grading, nor the real reason high school boys take art (which is: to cut things with Xacto knives). I found myself, through the year, near tears, and constantly begging, borrowing, and raising money to buy art supplies that made sense and not the weird stuff the previous teacher had purchased.

The first day (or, I should say, night, since it was the graveyard shift) at the Post Office was one of frigid cold winter temperatures out on the loading dock, cuts on my hands from staples people used on padded mailing envelopes, and a crash course in memorizing zip codes, mail routes, names, the different classes of mail and how to handle them, the different bags for priority, first class, and parcel mail, and the location of hundreds of post office boxes for the local residents. It was overwhelming and I was frequently exhausted from all the lifting, hauling, and tossing.

The first day as a graphic designer consisted of basically no training and teaching myself to run the computers and equipment on the fly while meeting customer orders and learning the processes involved in making the product in the store. Learning, on my own, the complex software involved in graphic design without a hint of experience in it and the terms used in the industry was overwhelming and I doubted I would ever learn it all.

The first day as a reporter was one of trying to write as quickly as I could during a city council meeting, trying to understand issues I'd not even been aware of before and to grab quotes accurately and phonetically spell the names of the people talking so that I could go back and find the correct spellings. I had no training beyond a sheet of paper that listed the names of those in local government, and a basic hope that I could mimic what a newspaper article ought to sound like with a lede, body, and closing.

Today was my first day in the bakery department of a local store, writing frantically when I began to understand that the woman training me was indeed a serious professional pastry chef who had all her recipes...in her head. I learned about torte and seasonal tastes of customers and mousse and ordering supplies and heavy cream and rosettes and red velvet cake and marscapone and fondant. I realized how much I would be in charge of and how it would affect other departments and the location of freezers and coolers and pastry bags. My notes are a bizarre combination of recipes and notes on the location of knives and decorative chocolate. I understood that at some point I'd be coming up with my own recipes and takes things, and my mind immediately shifted to being receptive to noticing different foods, tastes, and ideas that would help in this job. All in all, the day was overwhelming and exhausting.

In all of these experiences, I've learned that it will, eventually, come.

Contrary to religious interpretations, I find that, in general, last days are easy. First days are difficult.

Labels: food, my life, work

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Shiny new blog post.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 8 comments link this post

Is this blog post extra shiny and new-looking to you? Does it glitter and glow with modern up-to-datedness? Does it holler "4GB RAM!!!"?

It should.

I'm writing it on my new laptop.

I'd been using my mom's little Dell laptop these months away from home, but I can't do that permanently. She very much likes her laptop and really does need it. I decided to not rip my desktop system out of the home network and drag it down here to Bismarck where I will be living, so a laptop was logical. Plus, since I probably won't be able to afford internet, and since I will be living super-close to the library I practically live at now, anyway, a laptop would be key in getting online from their free wifi connection.

At Best Buy, where the guy helping me was, oddly, a former UND aerospace graduate and air traffic controller for three years ("I hated it," he said. "I really hated it."), a sale on laptops abounded. And so I found this fine HP laptop which will work well with my 750 GB external hard drive at home. With the small scanner I purchased earlier and the extra printer we have at home that no one is using, I should be good to go with my computer and design work in my new digs.

This new laptop is something. It's very shiny. I guess shiny is the new thing.

It hurts my eyes.

Labels: my life, summer 2008, technology

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

No feast and famine with manna.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Silence is a kind of famine.

I live knowing I'm the richest person on the earth -- great family; great life with every possible blessing and protection, emotionally and personally baggage-free for the most part; education; fantastic travel opportunities -- everything imaginable, basically, but I'm never satisfied. It's a shameful feeling to know this about myself, that even while I can be extremely thankful, I am still not satisfied. Uncontrolled, it slips easily into complaining and I reside exactly there far too much.

I always wanted more. So I waited. I tried to make the best use of the wait, and be useful and active and involved in whatever I could. You know, to be faithful in what was put in front of or given me. But it was very clear in my head that I was functioning in a waiting room and I wanted to somehow either accept where I was and get out of the waiting room and find peace in going back to where I started, or get out of the waiting room to the main destination.

Waiting and not letting yourself stand still while doing so is extremely exhausting, far more so than plunging on ahead.

My mom emailed me a few weeks ago, ending with the reminder that God gives us the desires of our hearts. I admit to only half-believing it and shying away from the concept in general because it seems like people mistake the desires of our heart with the desires of our greed. I didn't want to make that a cheap promise and start complaining that God wasn't giving me all the things on my shallow laundry list of "I wants."

I don't, I admit, even know what my heart really wants, though I think I know what I want. They aren't necessarily the same thing. When I don't get those things that I easily want, I get in the habit -- for me, it's been about ten years forming -- of thinking "God loves me, has a plan for me, and evidently it's to just sit here and wither. Can I endure to the end?" Paul's verse about pressing on to the goal then becomes less about a magnificent goal and more about a miserable endurance race.

God knows our heart better than we do. Even if that is His plan, that we endure in a place in our lives, he never leaves us without the tools to finish it.

But I sort of doubted and sank into some gray place of treading water just enough to keep my head from going under and that's it. I felt the tools I'd started so strongly with were broken far too many times and I was less and less able to repair them to do the job.

My friend Naomi once remarked on a similar topic, referencing the verse that said, essentially, how our Father would not give us awful gifts, but good ones. That's not to say I understand the difference between what is awful and what is good, since I believe I frequently desire things that, in the end, are terrible though they seem good at the time.

But I took a chance over a month ago and pointedly asked for a specific kind of job. I rarely pray in specifics, since a vague prayer makes it easier to handle a "no" or "not now" answer without undue hardship to already weak faith. But I took a chance and prayed specifically for what I wanted. Nothing happened at first, which was disheartening, until...an answer.

I then decided to pray for an apartment, but be specific about what I did and did not want. Today I found an apartment and the moment I walked in, I knew. The circumstances surrounding it will be interestingly coincidental for those not adhering to the same religious beliefs as I have. As it is, I'm still sitting here a bit surprised. I have the smallest faith on the planet, and didn't actually expect an answer. I just figured I'd better pray it so it couldn't be said I wasn't "doing my part."

I don't know the reason for so many years of silent famine, and an overwhelming feast all of a sudden. A very weak part of me that I despise admitting to is nervous that I used up my happy, good-things quota and is thinking that tomorrow, the hammer drops somehow. I was given the feast, and tomorrow I start starving again. But maybe, if I stop thinking in terms of feast and famine, I would see this very differently. Just like with manna, we are given just enough to meet our needs and that's it. We shouldn't take any more than that. The rest, all the extra, ends up rotting. So, new job, new place.

We'll see from here.

Labels: my life, summer 2008

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

First lady.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Come this Thursday, First Lady Laura Bush will be within a few hundred feet of my bedroom window here in Bismarck.

That doesn't happen every day.

I will likely not be around for the moment.

Oh well. I'm sure the creepy Peeping Tom squirrel that has been wreaking havoc on my sanity by peering in my window from the tree and the eavestrough will make note of the event and fill me in on the details later.

Labels: my life, summer 2008

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Sugar and flour all day.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 5 comments link this post

So I announced yesterday that I had a new job on this site and on Twitter.

It'll be full-time when I'm done flying, part-time until then. I'm hesitant to talk about it, since I have a mild persecution complex and think mighty Thor is just waiting to drop his hammer on me or some such nonsense.

Essentially, I'll be a pastry chef. And occasionally, I'll get to help decorate cakes.

(I'm trying to refrain from turning this post into 95 percent exclamation points. !!!!!!!)

This is in a bakery where I've gone numerous times and just stared at the cakes and amazing pastries in the case. They look like something off of the cooking and wedding shows on cable. They are amazing; truly edible art.

Those of you who know me and have read this blog know my feelings about cake. And you know I love to bake.

Mom has periodically give me cake-decorating things for Christmas and birthdays over the years; she showed my sisters and I how to decorate cakes and bake from a young age. This year for Christmas, I got a few more items, and I bemoaned the fact that I had no occasion for which to make a fabulous fondant cake. When I was quite a bit younger, she bought me a mini-heart cake pan. One year for Valentine's Day, I baked a bunch of these cakes, frosted them white with red piping and trim, made individual boxes for each with a paper doily under them, and gave them out to people at school. Since I was a bit of a dork, I gave them not to "friends" but to the custodian, the cooks in the kitchen, my bus driver, the school secretary, etc. I also made my brother's wedding cake, and have made cakes with the caricatures of people on them using the icing like encaustic paint. I just love baking and fancy desserts.

So you can imagine what I think about getting this job. I hope I didn't frighten anyone at the bakery with my Cheshire-cat's grin as I was shown around in the back.

Frankly, this has been a few months of repeated rejection (my old familiar friend) and endless job applications, but this really made it worthwhile. I can hardly wait.

Labels: food, my life, summer 2008

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

About finishing.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Somewhere, I became more about finishing than speed.

This realization set in the last mile of the 5K today, when I finally found myself running on my own and settling back into the pace I'm used to running from training. All the rest in my group had long gone up ahead and I figured I'd hear the usual "we're sorry" and apologies once I crossed the finish line. I felt a bit guilty about that; I don't want to be a person who inspires others close to me to apologize for their successes.

They needn't bother with those apologies. I really mean that. I discovered that while I liked having friends at the event, I prefer to do the actual running alone. Slowly, at the pace I know, with the goal of finishing on my mind.

I don't do things very quickly in life. I don't learn the lessons, make the abrupt changes, or head down a career path at any great speed. This is not always by choice, but sometimes the way God seems to deem it to be. Slow down. Listen. Pay attention. Quit blundering on and take it in for a while. It probably looks very different to someone on the outside, perhaps like indecision or fear or poor choices or someone not living up to potential, when it's really a kind of struggle and exercise in learning to wait.

I want to finish well, though when you're going so slowly it seems that you are neither doing well nor doing anything that will bring about a finish.

Sometimes the slowness of things bothers me. For example, a mediocre online business for ten years? Watching people pass through or by while I felt locked in some kind of slow- or stop- motion? These were things I had not planned for my life. I'd always seen it as being different when I imagined how it would be years ago. When you're dealing with a God whose day is as a thousand years, a decade is put in a different perspective. I just have to learn to adjust.

So I jog on, slowly, to keep going and finish when it seems I'm taking too long. To understand when it is and isn't my turn for something.To make lists and still be able to hope as the improbability rises each passing year. There's never been any shortage of ideas of what to do in life; it's just been about time. And timing.

I crossed the 5K finish line this morning, and my friends, long since there, apologized for going so fast. I laughed and said it was OK and really meant it and wondered about getting back into my regular groove tomorrow when everyone had left town and I was back on my own.

"Are you thinking of moving to Bismarck, Julie?" my friend Molly asked me.

I paused.

"I don't know. I don't really know anyone here...but that isn't very different from any other place for me," I said. I thought about the 5K I'd just finished. While I liked having friends at the event, I prefer to do the actual running alone.

Is that how it will be? I have certainly trained for this particular race that way, though not always by choice.

"I don't know," I repeated again.

I know certain things about my life have grown tiresome and I'm interested in sloughing them off. But I don't know. For now, I just keep moving slowly. And concentrate on finishing what's in front of me.

Labels: my life, personal

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

OK, 5K.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 6 comments link this post

After flying this morning, I stopped by Scheels here in Bismarck to pick up my packet for the 5K I'm in tomorrow. I gave them my name and then, since my last name is apparently a linguistic impossibility, repeated and spelled in numerous times.

"No, that's NIDE -- long "I" -- LINGER. Neidlinger."

People often think I say "Neugebauer" which causes me to (particularly since I'm in Burleigh County and I remember 1992 very well) emphatically state that no, my name is "Neidlinger."

The 5K event here is divided up into those who will run and those who will walk. In Fargo, they lumped the many thousands of us together, and the first mile was basically about barely moving, trying to get around the walkers.

"Are you running or walking?" the lady behind the counter asked.

"Running," I replied. But if you press me on it, I'll crack and admit it'll be more like a jog!

I was handed a bag with my free T-shirt and the number I'll pin on. Number 160. Or, if I were a runway (and in a way, I'll be running), I'd be "one six."

By tonight, all of my friends who are either running the 5K with me (or the two crazies running the half marathon) will have arrived, and we are going to fill up on pasta at the Walrus. Because yes, I'm going to be such a serious athlete/runner tomorrow that I need to eat pasta to prepare for it.

I'm such a poser. It's three little miles.

Labels: health, my life, summer 2008

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Good time to buy.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I see my mutual fund bottomed out, just like everything else in the financial world seems to be doing right now.

Good time to buy.

I could get a couple of shares for what one was costing me the last time I bought.

Labels: current events, my life

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Classy journals.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

While waiting for something to be printed and bound at a nearby office supply and print center store, I browsed the journal aisle. I came to a section of "business" journals and notebooks.

There was the Executive Journal, with its heavy cover and embossed gold brand name. The label proudly proclaimed that this was a high-level "gold" journal for executives. Next to it was a smaller journal with a little less gilding of the lily. Its label called it the Business Class journal.

In flipping through the two, I immediately preferred the qualities of the Business Class journal than the Executive Journal. Clearly, I am more comfortable with the lower class.

If there had been an Economy Class journal, I probably would have bought it.

Labels: my life

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Boxholder.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I frequently berate my empty Bismarck post office box.

"Why don't you have mail?" I ask*. "That's your job! Don't you want to do your job?! Get some mail in you!"

A few days ago, it complied. Inside was a...magazine from a local hospital addressed to "box holder."

Everyone got them.

Whee.

The cover article featured the face of a woman with pale skin who I'm sure is a very nice person. The headline beneath her was one talking about the dangers of skin cancer and the need to protect the skin.

Boxholder.

From a local hospital.

They could just skip the dumb magazine and reduce costs.

I left the magazine, face up, baking and broiling on the front seat of my Jeep. It seems a delicious irony, every time I get in the car, to look over and see a fading magazine cover with the headline "protect yourself from the sun."

I'll give you a taste of the sun, Meaningless Boxholder Magazine.

* A modified line from Happy Gilmore.

Labels: my life, summer 2008, today's mail

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

The haphazard paragraph.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

Sometimes I rattle something off in an email and read it later and wonder. For example, this just left my outbox:

But yeah, I have an art degree and sell some of that, do a little graphic design, and taught myself some basic web site stuff. I also frequently start and quit jobs. The starting brings in the extra needed money, while the quitting brings in the needed sanity. Right now I'm trying to learn to fly. It's expensive and I have no plans for what I'll do with it afterward, so things are progressing normally for me and my life, I guess.

Huh.

Labels: my life

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Graters.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

I'd seen the Ped Egg on TV and thought it looked like a handy device. It's a small kind of grater that is used to get rid of callouses on feet. I go barefoot when I'm inside, and probably spend more time out of shoes than in. My feet get pretty rough.

Some of you readers may want to exit the scene right now.

I never bought the Ped Egg off of the TV, though, because I've grown to despise the over-exuberant actors such commercials employ (particularly the ad for selling old gold jewelry for cash). I had seen the device once in Target back in May, near the checkout counter, but never purchased it. I just wasn't sure. It looked a little medieval.

In talking with a friend, however, the Ped Egg rose to the midst of the conversation with no segue.

"I love my Ped Egg," she said, swearing by its effectiveness. I was immediately convinced. We then made several jokes about saving the dead skin in a ziploc and leaving instructions for the kids, during the reading of her last will, on adding water to reconstitute her.

"Where did you get the Ped Egg?" I asked.

She told me Target; I had looked for it since that moment in May, but not seen it at the counter, nor in the aisle with fingernail clippers or pumice stones.

"It's over in the kitchen wares department," she said.

I found that hard to believe. Merely having the word "egg" in it should not qualify it as a kitchen ware. But tonight, as I went to buy Tilex for the shower and a box of baking soda for my fridge, I decided to check for myself.

Lo and behold, the Ped Egg was, indeed, in the kitchen wares deparment at Target.

That's kind of gross, I thought, picking up a Ped Egg from the rack and adding it to my basket. Directly across the aisle from the Ped Egg were the cheese graters.

Someone should be fired for this.

Labels: friends, my life, product placement

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Lose weight, fast and easy!

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

The title to this blog post is going to bring in a lot of hits from Google, and leave a lot of people disappointed. I like to be a disappointing blogger, though.

So.

I've lost some weight recently. It came off pretty fast. I'm going to reveal to you the secret Julie Neidlinger Summer 2008 Weight Loss plan so that you, too, can experience this.

Go to Nicaragua and take a bunch of really strong antibiotics to combat an ear infection that you get down there. This will cause you, about a week after arriving back home, to have a digestive system that totally malfunctions because it was completely sterilized, and that will rebel for a month and a half afterward, meaning every possible thing you eat (except yogurt, which gets really old really fast) makes you feel as if your insides are twisted and you want to die. This becomes a great incentive to not eat (eat and feel like death vs. just not eat) and also makes all food completely unappetizing. Then, even as you start to get a little better, your stomach shrinks and eating one sandwich leaves you feeling like you ate a huge Thanksgiving dinner and you are full for the day.
Live in a room with a small fridge and a toaster oven. A minimal kitchen such as that makes eating more of a duty to stave off hunger than a pleasure. Food becomes simple, low prep, and not much. This isn't really such a bad thing.
Have limited funds and find ways to make one turkey wrap last for two days. Find ways to calculate your "daily food cost" and keep it low, such as by drinking water (free) before you eat and finding you're not that hungry after all.
Sign up for a 5K prior to all of this, and realize that you had better start running or face shame on race day.

Essentially, it's the age old tricky combination of (here it is, the great secret!)... fewer calories, more exercise.

A handful of almonds fills me up to uncomfortable at this point. And going out for a run in the evening is about the only thing I have to break the monotony of sitting in my rented room alone, either drawing or studying in silence. This summer is turning out to be a weight-loss dream. A few more months of this, and I'll be able to fit decently into the cute shirt I bought at Dollywood this past May.

(Yes, I won't tell you anymore about that, since it shames me to use the words "decently" and "cute shirt" and "Dollywood" in the same sentence.)

I believe the antibiotic in question was Cipro.

Labels: food, health, my life, summer 2008

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

He's not downshifting.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

I went out for a run this evening. I was looking forward to a run down the gravel road; I haven't been home for about a month, and while I've really enjoyed my runs in Bismarck, the gravel road is nice. I had on my leggings (no shorts, for it is cooler up here than it is down in Bismarck), and my super-huge KFGO T-shirt that Jack Sunday gave me this summer when I visited him at the KFGO studio in Fargo.

I started off at a brisk but steady pace. I knew I could keep this up for a mile or so, easily. I got to the point of the road where water on each side has required the road to be built up over the years, meaning that there is room for one vehicle and that's it. The shoulder of the road is too soft and you have to stay away from the edge or you'll end up in the water. It was then that I heard the sound of a grain truck behind me.

This is harvest time and today was a big day for it: dry, still, the air heavy and thick with grain dust.

I turned and looked over my shoulder, seeing a grain truck turning out of the yard, fresh from dumping a load of grain in a bin. I picked up my speed just a little bit, since there wasn't going to be room for both of us on this part of the road. I was aiming for an approach at the top of the hill where I could step off of the road and allow the truck to pass.

I assumed it was my dad or brother or someone from our crew, and figured they'd slow down and give me a chance to get past the narrow part of the road.

Then I heard the truck get louder.

He's not downshifting, I thought, but picking up speed. Dang.

I picked up speed, too, up-shifting to high gear up the hill.

The truck grew louder and gained.

Crap! I started running harder, and then dashed across the road to the approach, bent over and gasping for breath.

Panting for breath, I looked up as the truck passed. There waved a neighbor, huge smile on his face, chuckling at my predicament. I had to laugh, too. It had to have been quite a sight, me sprinting up the hill to beat out a grain truck.

It kind of reminded me of a movie I'd seen, one of Spielberg's early films in which a maniacal truck driver terrorizes a guy in a car. The whole movie is, essentially, the truck pursuing the guy in the car.

Needless to say, the rest of the run was much milder, and my steady speed was shot. I'd used up all my reserve. But, it was a good night for running. Minus all the bugs I ended up swallowing, of course. No wind, lots of bugs. That's how it goes on these still, late summer nights.

Labels: my life, nature, north dakota

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Big news and great trepidation.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Bath and Body Works is a store I approach with great trepidation. I can barely handle walking by it in any mall; the smells and perfumes that gush -- there is no wafting, believe me -- out of the store are almost paralyzing. You will lose nose hairs if you stand there too long. How anyone can work there is beyond me.

However, mom sent a couple of coupons in the mail, one of which offered a free lotion. I felt obligated to get the lotion and hang onto it until Christmas and give it away to whomever it is I forget to shop for. So, there I was, at the gaping mouth of a Superfund Site. I stood in front of the store, and tried to prepare myself.

Really, it's a store only second to Victoria's Secret as far as stores I dread entering are concerned. Victoria's Secret used to be dreadful merely because of the men who always seem to be "resting" on the mall benches in front of that store and also because of how I always felt depressed about my body image moments after entering; now the added Stink Creep (stores selling lotions and perfumes and candles) has also entered the V.S. fray.

I walked into Bath and Body Works and immediately I felt that three minutes were taken from my life. It's something akin to a farm chemical dealer. Or maybe, Parabens-R-Us. The ingredients in the products sold at BaBW are a kind of witches brew of dyes, preservatives, perfumes...

Four minutes were chopped from my life. I had to move quickly!

I hate shopping. And I can't shop quickly, whether it is groceries or clothes or books or, in this case, bath products. I have to mull over the total ounces, for example, and figure the cost per ounce. Then I have to figure in percentage discounts, the likelihood of the product being used or who I could give it to. I review the ingredients and at least try to avoid the one with DDT in it. And lastly, I smell it.

I'm pretty picky about smells; though, as you may know, I do love perfume.

I was in the middle of an internal debate between to possible final selections when my cell phone rang. It was dad. That was odd; I'd already had the Daily Dad Call.

I answered the phone.

"Are you ready for the big news here," he asked.

I'm a worst case scenario-ist with unexpected phone calls. "Oh no! Did the cat die did someone die who died??!!"

"No one died, Julie. But our 'pet' gophers that live out front of the house have figured out how to climb up to the bird feeders."

Several things:

I'm dying a slow and painful death in BaBW, and this call has only prolonged my misery.
I paid 15 cents on my contract-free cell phone plan for that?
How in the world could a ground gopher climb up a skinny, metal rod? Gophers don't climb like a squirrel, do they?

"You called to tell me that?" I asked, but with only slight amazement. After all, we are the family so desparate for news that we barely greet each other with "hello" anymore, choosing instead to cut right to the chase and ask "any news?"

"Yes. I thought you should know," he said.

I know you're wondering something, and the answer is "yes."

I was able to make it out of the store to a location where I could find oxygen.

Labels: conversations, family, my life

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

No cake.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

My parents came down to Bismarck yesterday, and all three of us went to a wedding. There was no cake. There was cheesecake -- and it was good -- but alas...no cake.

I'll pause while you weep for me.

Anyway, the wedding was nice and it was good to see old friends but I've definitely met my wedding quota. Aphrodite is a hideous beast.

(Is there a "cake" god?)

The reception was rather old-school -- no fancy meal, just desserts (which are, frankly, my just desserts). I rather appreciated it. I mean, who are we kidding? I don't want catered chicken and potatoes. I just want junk.

The reception would have gone so much better had not good friend Paula knocked over the punch bowl and crippled an elderly woman whose tennis-ball-tipped walker became sodden in the pink juice and ceased functioning properly.

No.

That didn't happen.

Paula and I did, however, decide enough was enough with the bitty punch glasses and grabbed large coffee cups instead. I mean really. It's important to stay hydrated. We did this in between discussing the maturity level of a certain segment of youth pastors.

Pots and kettles; all black.

This morning I took my parents on a spell-binding tour of all the places I hang out here in Bismarck: the park where I run, the library (where I treated them to some delicioso Italian gelato), and of course, my place. My parents, truly kind indeed, bought me a small dorm fridge for my room. And a small toaster oven.

I don't want to get into the reasons why I am thrilled to have my own fridge, but let me just sum it up by saying that, for the past month, I have been terrified that an ever-expanding package of hamburger meat would soon explode and cover my meager collection of yogurt and almond milk in the shared fridge.

(Almond milk is good. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.)

My meager protests at this extremely good and generous gift were off-put by my mother. "Cody will be going to college in a few years. He can use it then."

The lady at the checkout counter asked if I was going to college. Bless her. I'll be sending her a check in the mail for her kindness towards my advancing age.

"Um, no...efficiency apartment." College. Those were the days, and they were days eleven years past.

As we were leaving WalMart with the fridge and toaster, a lady stopped us to see our receipt. It's the standard procedure, I guess, to curb large-appliance shoplifting. Dad later said I should have told the woman who asked about college that yes, I was going to college, and that I would be majoring in advanced shoplifting.

Small wonder I am the way I am.

As it is, I sit in my room, enjoying the fact that I have fresh food now available; that I can, if need be, make a hot sandwich; that I don't have to live off of yogurt and cereal, my staples the past couple of months; and that some kind woman thinks I look like I could be going to college still.

I may go get myself a cold beverage out of the new fridge right now: R.W. Knudsen's Lemon Lime Spritzer. Mmmm. Cold.

Labels: family, friends, my life, summer 2008