new work out plan!

oh pinterest, how did we live our lives without you? how did we craft? how did we cook? how did we built imaginary closets or dress imaginary babies?

anyways. i found a great list of do-able (i guess sort of easy) workouts that i'm going to start doing today. i've been slacking on my workouts, so i thought having a List of things to do to cross off (i am obsessed with crossing things off lists. it gives me such joy!) would help me be a bit more motivated. plus these are all things i can do while watching the baby!

today i begin the Starter's version (20 days)

ok yes, its seriously easy, but anything is better than nothing, right? hopefully it will help me lose those last 2 measly pounds to get down to my prepregnancy weight!

a letter to artists

Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and, reaching beneath reality's surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery. The intuition itself springs from the depths of the human soul, where the desire to give meaning to one's own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things. All artists experience the unbridgeable gap which lies between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardour of the creative moment: what they manage to express in their painting, their sculpting, their creating is no more than a glimmer of the splendour which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit.
Believers find nothing strange in this: they know that they have had a momentary glimpse of the abyss of light which has its original wellspring in God. Is it in any way surprising that this leaves the spirit overwhelmed as it were, so that it can only stammer in reply?

{ a letter to artists from Pope John Paul II }

Helpful Websites for College English Professors

{1}  Modern American Poetry.
Great for teaching American Lit. Or just reading for fun, if you're a poetry nerd like me.

{2} Owl Purdue
Excellent powerpoint presentations and lessons on MLA and other grammar issues.

{3} Edsitement
Has lesson plans and great discussion questions for many different classic literary works

:: Resolutions Update ::

so, another new year's resolution update:

1. finish reading through the entire Bible
(currently I'm in Isaiah)

2. lose the baby weight by the 9month-post-partum mark

3. submit my work to at least 10 magazines this year

4. send my book out to 3 publishers

5. save up enough money to take a really awesome 5 year anniversary vacation in august!

"art isn't a sack race" (Charles baxter)

At the barnes and noble this sleepy Sunday afternoon, my husband sits across from me engrossed in online discussions of the various particulars of his hobbies--comic books and comic book related things--while our baby girl naps in her carseat beside us. I am slowly working my way through an ambitious stack of literary and writing related magazines. I have been thinking over my craft this week; about taking my time with it, while still engaging in all aspects of being a Poet with passion. Perhaps not a paradox? My greatest trouble isn't lack of ambition, it's knowing when to slow down. At the same time, as others with a Passion can attest, I Want it, how can I help but go after it with all I've got? "it" being..a book, of course. I plan on sending The Manuscript out several times this year...but I know I need to wait until this fall; I need to take the summer to revise, again. I'm not the same poet I was last summer. That will always be the case. Sometimes I feel daunted, pursuing the elusive book deal...but lately I have felt truly like it could happen, maybe even in the next five years or so. Especially, and Not in spite of, with ,my life being oh so filled with everyday glories--a profession, a husband I love, babies and more babies, and my awkward blooming faith.

zuzu's 4 month belated checkup

zu had her check up yesterday--15lbs, 7oz (less than i thought!), 26inches long, the picture of health. oh and i found out i'm not supposed to give her her rice cereal via bottle (oops). so we're working on using a spoon; so far zuzu thinks spoons are for Chomping with her TWO little bottom teeth. yes, two! i can't believe it. and also she had to have her immunizations. i hated watching them stick needles in her perfect chunky little legs. we both cried.

a post in which i talk politics

bryan and i are probably just about the most disconnected people on the world. we don't watch the news. we don't read the news. i am only vaguely aware that the primaries are going on; if we were still at the farmhouse, i think i wouldn't be aware of it at all.

every other day, on the way home from work, i see Ron Paul supporters campaigning on the corner near the goodwill. i envy them--i've never been so excited about a candidate as to wave signs at people in passing cars. i've never even really Liked a candidate. i've been rather apathetic about politics from the get go.

because in my heart i believe all politicians are skunks and liars and dirty-cheats. and, at best, puppets to the big-money corporations that truly run america (walmart, for example.)

so this year i again face such puzzling dilemmas....

am i republican because i'm from an upper-middle-class family that worked its way up from poverty? and because i'm white and christian and because my dad votes republican?

am i a democrat because i was on food stamps this past year and republicans don't care about people who don't have money? because i listen to NPR and i'm not sure if i should vote entirely based on issues of morality, since our nation isn't really (or ever was) a christian nation...

i don't know. for the most part i feel like my vote doesn't matter.