renaissance

Ren·ais·sance  [ren-uh-sahns, -zahns, -sahns, ren-uh-sahns, -zahns, -sahns] 
noun 
      (lowercase) a renewal of life, vigor, interest, etc.; rebirth; revival: a moral renaissance.
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Remember that funk that I was talking about before?  It actually lasted quite some time.  It started long before I posted that entry, but I hadn't really realized it.  Looking back at some of my posts before that one, I can see it.  

I let myself go, not caring, no direction, no goal, just getting by.  

I had stopped exercising, stopped meditating, ate anything and everything without a second thought about carbs or calories or cholesterol, sat around the apartment after work doing nothing.  I was becoming a sloth.  
Then I saw what was going on.  I gained 15 pounds from the lowest weight I had been at which was about this same time last year.  15 pounds!  I tried running again and where I was once able to run 5 miles, I could barely make it around the block.  I wasn't happy.  Not with myself, my job, what I was doing (or not doing) with my life so after a short amount of time dwelling in self-pity, I came to a decision:

On Tuesday, I will be starting over.  My own renaissance.  I will be exercising every morning again - I am so looking forward so kicking my own ass once again before heading to the office.  I have updated my resume and will actively pursue the search for a new way to spend 8.5 hours per weekday.  I will be meditating daily.  I will be drastically lowering my carb intake and watching my portion sizes again.  I will be cutting way back on my alcohol - limiting it to weekends only.  I'm thinking I should be able to lose that 15 pounds again in 2 to 3 months.  Thankfully my awesome husband will be doing the same so we'll be able to help each other along the way.  Oh - and I had a good length of my hair chopped off.  Perhaps symbolic, perhaps just in need of a change.

I'm putting this out there so I know that people have seen it and will hold me accountable.  I'm pretty good at doing something once I have a goal - I just needed that goal to work towards.  Bear with me as I post from time to time on my progress and please...I could use all the encouragement I can get. That self-confidence level is in need of a boost again.  :)

Here comes Rebecca version 3.0

stay classy, wisconsin news!

We had a pretty good thunderstorm yesterday.  A good, old-fashioned, stay away from the windows because the grape-sized hail being thrown against it at 70 mph might break the glass, kind of storm.  It's been a while since we had one of those.  Anyway, when the coast was clear and we headed outside to see if we had any damage, (especially since we had no power and what else were we going to do?) we were surprised to see that we actually did for a change.  Everywhere.

And since every neighborhood in town had some sort of damage, be it downed power lines or roofing torn off or tree limbs down or whole trees uprooted, we thought there might be something on the news about it.  They'll run with any little weather story, you know...for hours.

 I checked their websites and this is all I could find:  Two men survive stormy Friday on Lake Delavan.

That's it.

The story of a guy clinging to his beer cooler for dear life for 45 minutes.

Way to represent.

a ray of sunshine

On yet another day when my Twitter feed was making me sad for humanity - the subject was either the terribly depressing and scary situation in Syria or the equally depressing and scary fact that people were devoting brain cells to a 20-year-old former Disney princess who will "rebel" to get as much attention as possible...like many others before her - I found one shining gem of a conversation:

 

 

Billy Zane swoops in with a line from Titanic for the win!  But that's not quite the end...

 

 

 

He gives Val Kilmer a Memphis Belle reference?!  Epic!  My high school self is full of squee!

 

It's moments like this random conversation between two of my former crushes (and the breaking news) that keep me signed up with Twitter.  Though most of it caters to those much younger than I am, Beliebers, people who like to #ReplaceASongNameWithTwerk, and beg celebrities for a retweet, it does give me a smile every now and then.

 

 



get it out of my head!

Ever since I heard this song for the first time at the beginning of the year, it gets stuck in my head and stays there for days upon end.

It's there again, so in an effort to release it from the clutches of my brain, I'm sharing it with the rest of you.  As an added bonus (whether you care or not) I'm including the making of the song, from the movie Sound City (highly recommended, by the way).  It's so cool to see how it all comes together.

Okay, here's hoping I've cured myself...

or not.

fumbling towards ecstasy

We all have a few albums that we can listen to from beginning to end, without skipping any songs, over and over and over again without ever getting sick of them.  Sometimes you have to find yourself in the right mood first.  Sometimes you have to feel reflective or nostalgic before you put it on, but once you do you're instantly engrossed - humming or singing along with every song, transported to another time or place.  One of these albums for me is Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.

The album was released in 1993, but I never heard it until '97 or '98.  I remember it was in my friend's car and even though we were busy talking, I kept pausing and listening to the music.  It was like I'd heard the whole album before even though it was the first time.  Within a few days, I went out and bought the CD for myself.


From the first song, I knew it was going to be put into heavy rotation on my stereo (ah, the memories of the 5-CD changer).  It was haunting, simple yet complex; full of emotion, yet not melodramatic.  The melody and the harmonies intertwined in something that was completely organic.  It was almost perfection.


As time went on, I found other music that fit more with where I was in my life and I stopped listening to it as often.  With the arrival of mp3's, the CD collection that I had was thinned out, but this was one of the few that I kept.  It's sitting in a box in a closet somewhere with a few select others.


Today was one of those days when the mood was right.  I've now listened to this album twice so far and am guessing it will probably be at least once more before I move on. 

What are the albums that you can listen to over and over without ever getting sick of them?

time-sucking vacuum

So, a day or two ago I decided to join Pinterest because REASONS.

I have no idea.  I think it's just another means for me to gawk at men.  (I blame you, Stan.)

Anyhoo...the boards are much like the things that I post on here, so if you're on, you can find me here: http://pinterest.com/goddessr

I did find one thing that represents me well, I think.  I had to share...

Words to live by.

Except for the whole Steve Trevor thing.  Seriously.  Stop doing everything for one stupid guy who keeps getting himself kidnapped.

funkytown

I've been in a bit of a funk this week. Melancholy, down, spacey, blah.  I hate that kind of funk.

In an effort to drag myself out of it, I'm posting a whole slew of "funky" music.
Stuff with the word "funk" associated with it - not necessarily true funk music...at all.

today's horoscope

Well this sounds encouraging:

You may find yourself bursting into tears for no apparent reason today, Aquarius. Seek comfort in sitting by a body of water where you can let your emotions flow. Tension builds as the storm draws near. Once it has passed, however, there is calm as the sunshine pierces the clouds. This time of peace and serenity may seem far off, but it's closer than you think.

 

I burst into tears this morning, but that had a reason - I had to go back to work after having four wonderful days off.  Waaahhh! 

 

I don't want any more tears and I want my serenity and sunshine now!

 

 

wisconsin's not so bad

You know, sometimes I get down on Wisconsin.  I get pissed off at the stereotypes of the fat beer-swilling, cheese-loving, cow milking, backwoods hicks.  I think about the politicians like McCarthy and Walker and Ryan, and I forget all of the great people who have come out of this state.  I took a moment today to take a look at some of the awesome people who have called the true mitten state home, and found some who I hadn't known about.  Pleasant surprises!  Here are some of the greats...

Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker - you know, the people who brought you such classic scenes as this:

And while we're on funny people, let's add a few more: Chris Farley, Joel Hodgson (you know, MST3K), Frank Caliendo, and another of the greats, Gene Wilder:

Then there were more actors listed like Willem Dafoe and Heather Graham, Tom Hulce (though it's not certain), Tony Shaloub, Spencer Tracy, and a couple of people I was pleasantly surprised to see: Mark Ruffalo - my favorite Hulk...

...and the vampire I want to be when I grow up - Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pam from True Blood) Oh, and this is completely NSFW


And there are so many more names that you know, like Harry Houdini, Georgia O'Keefe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Orson Welles, Liberace, Les Paul, and a whole slew of others.  Let's just not get into the whole serial killer thing like Dahmer and Gein, okay?

Yay for Wisconsin!  We're not all backwards-thinking, 19th century-living, paranoia-instilling douchecanoes.

ostriches from hell - updated with illustration!

I pass an ostrich farm on my way to work every day.  Considering I've been driving this path for the past nine years, I kind of know how they usually look and act on any normal day.  (Not to mention I've seen them doing things that I really have never had any desire to see.  Ostrich luvin')

Oh!  Did I tell you I hate ostriches?

They peck hard, they kick hard, they're really fast and birds just shouldn't be that big.  At all.  Unless they're a Muppet with a person standing inside them. And even then they're still kind of creepy.

Anyway, as I was getting up to the farm on my drive this morning, I noticed that the ostriches were standing in a group up near the fence line and they were holding their wings down in an odd way that I hadn't seen before.  Hmm, wonder what that's all about?  Then I get to the point where I'm right in front of them and I saw something horrific.  They were all staring in the same direction with almost zombie-like eyes and their mouths (beaks? bills?) were all gaping open like you see in horror movies - think Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 

Ahhhhhhh!

Okay, the picture above is from wiki commons and is only one bird, but imagine seeing twenty of these things doing exactly the same thing.  I'll have to update this later with my own illustration.

EDIT:  I've done a quick sketch of what I saw.  Well, a smaller number of them anyway...

They don't look happy, do they?

So now I'm convinced that their demon ostrich overlord is sending the message that it's time for them to attack.  The human race will not be wiped out by global warming, disease, zombies or even a Sharknado, it will be taken over by possessed ostriches.

Don't say I didn't warn you.