Through the Wringer: Part II

I apologize that this post did not appear yesterday. I had set it to auto post, but apparently blogger had other ideas. Without further ado, Part II:

D had left only a week before, when he called with news. He had a job interview in town. D came into town and interviewed. We spend a couple of days hanging out with each other like D had never left. During this time, D got the call saying he got the job!

That’s how less than two weeks after he left, D moved back into town and into my life. Our first “official” date was Valentine’s Day. D gave me flowers and took me out to a fabulous steak dinner. I think we watched a movie at his place after that.

Things fell naturally into place after that. D and I began a relationship. My previous relationships had been serious. I had thought at the time, that both were headed for marriage. But my relationships before were nothing compared with what I had with D. We could talk about anything. I finally felt like I had someone I could share virtually all my thoughts and feelings with. I had never had that before. I also felt that for the first time, I had a relationship that was give and take. Of my previous two relationships, both had felt like it was me doing all the giving.


Then, in the spring, came the letter. It was from USD. I was scared to open it. Luckily for me, it was good news. I had been accepted to law school. I finally knew what I was going to do after I graduated from SDSU! I was ecstatic, but I think my parents were even more excited than I was.

Graduation came way too fast and I realized that by the end of May, I wouldn’t have a place to live. I had started a job in April working the front desk at a hotel and didn’t really want to move until the end of the summer. That’s how D and I ended up living together. For all intensive purposes, we spent most nights together anyway. D was living in a house the size of a postage stamp at the time. It seemed like the perfect solution for the time being.

That summer was idyllic. We both worked. We played in the summer softball league. We had friends over to barbecue. D would mow the lawn and I planted flowers in a tiny garden next to the house. But, the summer was coming to an end. I was going to have to move almost two hours away to go to law school. D was looking for another job closer to where I was going to school. His current job was not something that involved his degree anyway. We were preparing for a long distance relationship.

D went with me to look at apartments in my new town. We found one that seemed decent. D and my mom helped me move down to start law school. I was to have a week of orientation and then start classes. I muddled my way through orientation week, feeling utterly overwhelmed.
Toward the end of the week, D called. He was interviewing next week at a company about 20 minutes away from where I was going to school. It seemed too good to be true. I also met some great friends toward the end of that first week in school. D came down for the weekend and I introduced him to my new friends.

D had his big interview and then went back to work the next week. A few days later, D called with news again…

Did D get the job? Find out tomorrow for Part III of “Through the Wringer”

Happy Crafting!

Through the Wringer: Part I

I've been struggling for awhile now on whether or not I want to do this, but I finally decided I would do it. What is the "it" I'm referring to? Well, I'm going to share with you a little bit of my back story. The events I feel led me to this place in my life. Feel free to skip this if it's boring, and I promise I'll have a tutorial posted sometime this week. If you're interested, here's the first part of what I'm calling "Through the Wringer"

I'll give you a little info on my childhood first. I grew up on a farm near a small town in South Dakota. I loved reading, school, and having mini make believe adventures in the grove or "woods" as I called them. Looking back, I'm glad I grew up in that environment and I wouldn't have it any other way. In high school, I went the geek route. I was involved in band, choir, debate, oral interp, FFA, and vast other activities I can't quite remember. By the time I got to college, I was burned out on participating in a lot of these types of activities.

I went to college at SDSU (and that stands for South Dakota State University, not San Diego State!) Go Jacks! I loved the atmosphere of college, being surrounded by friends constantly, the spontaneous road trips, and feeding entire neighborhoods (at least that's what I did!). I had always loved history as a subject and majored in that. After I had taken a few political science classes, I became hooked on that and decided to double major. Originally, I thought I would be a history teacher, but the closer it came to taking the teaching classes, the more I realized I did not want to do that.

I was two semesters away from graduating and I had no idea what I was going to do with my history and political science majors. It was then that my political science advisor, Dr. Robert Burns, said to me, "Why don't you go to law school?" Huh? I mean, somewhere in my dreams during the high school debate years I had thought it would be great, but I didn't have the stuff to really go to law school, did I? Sure I had taken Dr. Burns' law classes and loved them, but I never really considered law school as an option. Dr Burns gave me the best advice ever when he told me, "Take the LSAT and see how you do. If your scores are good enough, apply to a few schools and see what happens."

I took Dr. Burns' advice and took the LSAT. My score was decent, so I applied. I only applied to one school, the only law school in the state, the University of South Dakota. I figured that there was no way I could afford to pay out of state tuition elsewhere.

In the meantime, my personal life had it's ups and downs. I had a couple of serious relationships during the college years. The first with a high school boyfriend who was semi-controlling and needed to spend every waking moment with me. I broke that off. Then I began a relationship with a guy who had many of the same interests as me. He was into the political science and history vibes, he planned on going to law school right away. We were pretty serious, but he would rather read or play computer games than hang out with me. I had gone from one relationship extreme to the other. I broke it off.

During my last relationship, I made some awesome friends. A, would eventually become my best girl friend and still is. Ironically, she was friends with boyfriend number 2 first. He introduced us. And then there was D. D was a guy that A introduced me to at karaoke. D and I kept running into each other at karaoke, softball, etc. We eventually became friends and started hanging out, especially after the end of my last relationship.

*D and I at karaoke

D and I would talk for hours on end. We would have these long talks after getting home from karaoke often until 4 in the morning. D and I were just to the point of starting a relationship, when D's internship in town ended. D had graduated the semester before, and decided he needed to move back home with his parents to save money while looking for a job. We said a tearfull (on my part) goodbye knowing that he was going to be two hours away and it probably wasn't best to start a relationship that way.

A week later D called...

Want to know what news D had? Tune in tomorrow for Part II of "Through the wringer"

Happy Crafting!

Funky Find Friday: Steampunk

Okay, so I've been a bad blogger lately. I'm hoping to make up for some of that this month before I have the baby ('cause I'm not guaranteeing a lot of activity in April!). I thought I would do some redeeming with a Funky Find Friday.

This Friday, I thought I would talk about steampunk. What is steampunk you ask? Wikepedia says: "Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, frequently featuring elements of fantasy, that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England" *Source I cut this definition down more to say that as far as art, jewelery, and clothing goes its a combination of Victorian era things with mechanical things. An example of this would be lace and watch gears. Steampunk is gaining wild popularity in clothing and jewelry design and can be found all over Etsy. I first came across steampunk on Craftster.org in the form of jewelry.

Enough rambling, time to show examples:

First is this fab clock sculpture made by Tim Wetherell for an Australian museum.

*Source

Or how about this steampunk skin for your ipod?

*Source

Very popular are steampunk cuff links made from watch movements like these from London Particulars on Etsy:

*Source

How about some steampunk inspired art pieces:

This digital art print by Galeriedeilluminata on Etsy is great:

*Source

Or this print from Chet Phillips's Steampunk Monkey series on Etsy:

*Source

I too have been caught up in the craze. Here's a necklace I made recently out of watch movements, gears and vintage silverware:

*Source

Steampunk takes on different meanings to different folks. But in general, the style is fairly defined. I wear a brooch on my coat of a seahorse with a watch movement for a body (I'll try and get a pic later). I constantly get compliments on it and explain to people what "steampunk" is. I love the style as far as jewelry goes. I hope you enjoy it too!

Happy Crafting!