Clearly, I Have Been Preoccupied For a While...

...yep, been a while.

*cough*

So, a bunch of changes went down since my last writing...in April...anyways.

1) We bought a house!

My husband and I rapidly outgrew our apartment, so we went on the hunt for a larger one we could rent, preferably one that'd be big enough to support us starting our family in the next year or two.  Well, we live(d) in a college town, and the cost of apartments in the small city just down the street was...unreasonable, to say the very least.  On a whim, we did some thinking, crunched some numbers, and hunted around until we found a 3 bedroom house we loved.  That was, oh, May.

We moved in on September 19th...if that doesn't tell you how drawn-out closing was.  It is very much a buyer's market in our area, meaning houses are for sale at fantastic prices, but all the real estate lawyers in our area are swamped.  There was a solid month of back-and-forth between the seller's attorney, our attorney, the mortgage people's attorneys--it was a blast.

... I'll pause the sarcasm here.

But we're finally in!  Painting isn't anywhere near done, which is stressing me out.  I'm doing what I can between all the other chaos.  We're still living more out of boxes than I'd care to admit thanks to a bathroom reno that had to be done while we moved in, my getting sick, and our other big change:

2) We adopted a kitten!

In the middle of July, an all-black, female kitten had been spotted running around Hubster's sister's yard.  She and my mother-in-law asked us if we'd take the female kitten, and we agreed.  In the meantime, however, my sister-in-law's neighbor's girls had adopted the kitten and named her Shadow.  We were bummed, but we let it go.  We couldn't keep a kitten at our apartment anyways and had yet to get our closing date, so we figured God was just telling us he had other plans.

Well, he did: Shadow had a brother, a tuxedo kitten, and he had set up home on my sister-in-law's porch.  Reportedly, my sister-in-law opened her back door, asked him what he wanted to do, and this kitten came rushing in and never left.  Hubster's sister called us, and we agreed to take him once we got into our house.  She agreed, in turn, to care for him until then.  Thanks to his hilarious mustache, she and her girls took to calling him Pablo Mustachio, a name that stuck.

Meet Pablo!

Our little Pablo is one of the sweetest cats we've met, and he's too cute for words.  His moustache becomes "milk dribbles" leading into his tuxedo chest piece, with a tiny tuft of black as a button in that area.  All of his whiskers are white, even the ones over his eyes, and he has a white tummy and four white socks/booties.  He's also got yellow/green/brown eyes that can't make up their mind as to what color they'll be.  (I call it pistachio green...pistachio...mustachio...*ahem*)  My favorite part?  One of his back "socks" has a black toe.

I mean, LOOK at that toe!

Pablo, as of this writing, is a little over 6 months old and 7 pounds.  We moved into our house on September 19th, and he came home the 21st.  Poor little guy then immediately chased that with a neutering on the 24th, where we learned he still had roundworms (we'd treated him for that in August after his pre-adoption check-up and first round of shots), that he had retained two top canine (fang) baby teeth, and that one of those was trying to become infected.  He came home from the vet on amoxicillin and on strict orders to rest: no running, no jumping, no climbing.

...yeah...about that.

For those who are unaware, keeping a 6-month-old kitten quiet, still, and resting is about as effective as telling a kindergartner after a heaping dose of Halloween candy that it's time for a nap, post-haste.  Nailing Jell-o to a wall is less of an exercise in futility.  He never blew an incision, though, so we call it good.  When Pablo hurt or got tired, he snuggled.  When he had the zoomies and just had to run, well, he ran.  A lot.  Sometimes into things.

It's readily apparent that he's going to be a very long, lanky cat when he's full grown.  He's growing like a weed and into everything we own.  We've decided to make him wear these vinyl nail caps to keep him from wrecking things.  Pablo's very good about seeking out his scratching lounger and scratching box when he feels the urge to scratch; he just forgets when he's playing or climbing that he packs 18 sharp claws between his four paws.  With the caps on, he still can do all the things he wants, but he doesn't inadvertently wreck our banisters, curtains, or hands.

Like I said--house is a work in progress. And he got himself up there without help.

We love the little hooligan, though, and feel blessed to be in a house we love and to finally have a cat again.  Both of us are huge cat people, so being pet-less drove us about nuts.  Expect him to feature here regularly as, as my friends and husband tell me, I was always a crazy cat lady: it's just official now.

#CrazyCatLadyStatusAchieved

We Will Pretend This Sleep Madness Makes Sense

It's 4 am here.  The wicked exhaustion I fought off all day prompted me to doze from 7 pm to 1:30 am.  Hubby let me crash as, let's all be honest here and quote him directly, "When you came home so surly, my first thought was, 'Geeze, does someone ever need a nap!'"  (True love right there, folks.)

And I did.  Only now I woke up with a really sore elbow (slept on it funny), heartburn (my ever-present frenemy the past few days), and still sleepy but unable to sleep.  So probably going to take something to crash here in a bit so my entire Saturday isn't wasted.

Then I look across the hall, where my hubby dozed off on that couch...and all I can think is, "Holy crap, do I ever love that man."  And I feel all happy inside...and conflicted as I know he'll be in pain if I leave him sleeping there, but I don't want to disturb him, either.

So, to attempt to add some cohesion to this, anyone got a good remedy for gallbladder-caused heartburn?  Because I'm about out of ideas here and would really, really, really like to sleep more than 4-6 hours at a shot sometime in the next, oh, week.

Gallbladder, Round Two

My PCP ordered a HIDA scan to rule out gallbladder once and for all as the cause of many of my issues.  I have to be at the hospital for it between 7:30 and 7:45 tomorrow morning.  Time right now?  4:15 am...this is NOT the time to have insomnia, brain!  And since I have to fast for this, I can't even down chamomile tea to knock me out.

*insert the loud sound of one Cherish's head hitting a desk in frustration*

This would be a significantly smaller problem if the HIDA scan was the ONLY thing I have to do tomorrow.  I'm returning to work at noon, partaking in a long, oft-tiresome meeting, then going straight from work to help set up a company outreach event we do annually until late evening.  That event will kick off on Saturday at 7:30 am.  To say sleep deprivation isn't allowed for tomorrow would be an understatement, but I fear that's just the reality I'm facing.

...Maybe I have a copy of "Walden; or, Life in the Woods" from college...that always knocked me out back in my English major days.

(...no offense to you Walden lovers...I just am NOT one of them.  I understand the greatness of Thoreau's work from a literary perspective and a cultural one, but I have no love of it personally.)

A Fortnight Passes

So, two weeks have passed since I posted last...at least this time, I have a good reason:

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: Last week, I had three birthday parties, three days in a row, for two guys born on the same day (my baby brother and my husband's good friend).

Wednesday: I crashed the second I got home and slept until Thursday.  No knitting or reading done = no Knit-Along.

Thursday & Friday: I spent the entire night and all of Friday cleaning for company as a dear friend of mine from college was coming to stay with us until Sunday morning.  I was VERY glad to have her, but that ate the part of my weekend not taken up by...

Saturday: Two friends of mine from college got married on Saturday, August 2nd, in a town over an hour from where my husband and I live.  We spent the majority of that day at the festivities or traveling, and we and Dear Friend got home around midnight that night.  We had an absolute blast at their wedding and reception, even though the sky decided we all needed a demonstration of Noah's Flood done in five minutes flat on city streets.  (Also, take note: this Protestant was very confused in the full Roman Catholic wedding mass...and thought it was very long but beautiful...but long...so long...)

Sunday: Woke up feeling sick.  After our company left, I slept and/or rested most of that day.

Monday: Found myself in that wonderful "I am not unwell enough to classify as sick, but I have no desire to do anything not involving a flop onto something soft" land, but I made an appearance at a bridal shower for one of my sisters-in-law's friends and at the weekly game night Hubster and I attend.

Tuesday: Day #3 of "Okay, body, pick a mode, any mode, but for the love of all things cute and fuzzy stick with either sick or well" land had me still not so great.  We ate leftovers from the bridal shower for dinner.  I felt none of the shame...and I was glad I didn't leave the food my mother-in-law tried to pawn off on me on her counter like I so desperately wanted to do.

Wednesday: Cherish threatens to send her body to counseling to make it choose a mode as she's sick of being neither sick nor well.  (Anyone detecting a pattern yet?  Anyone?  Anyone?)  It was the first day of a new volunteer tutoring job I had agreed to take, so I pulled myself together long enough to make an appearance and something more useful than a talking corpse in a library chair.  When I got home, I knitted maybe two rows tops and read all of three pages of another book but forgot to take pictures of either endeavor.  Honestly, I'd probably have not taken any pictures even if I had remembered as, as sorry as I am to say this, I liked my couch better than any blog readers by that time last night.  Again, no shame shalt be felt this day.

That brings us to today.  Though I finally--FINALLY--feel like a human with an immune system worth more than a peanut at a carnival, I am less-than-pleased to state that I am out of "spoons" for the day.  Yep, I'm done.  Y'see, I flew down our driveway today.

Without a car.

In a knee-length skirt.

And landed on my side...as in I skidded down the driveway on said side.

I learned today that 26-year-olds don't bounce like they're six years old anymore.  I also relearned just how bad a bruise under a brush burn can hurt.  I feel like I'm 80 today after brush-burning my left leg from the knee to the middle of my shin, bruising (I think--haven't looked yet) my left hip, and just overall aching everywhere from both the fall and being sick all week.  I am a SORE lady.  It's time to go home and sleep.

But, yeah, haven't forgotten about here yet.  Should have some type of post up in a day or two.  I'm also finally--yes, after TEN YEARS, FINALLY--making progress on my Sailor Moon fanfiction, so I may share it here as time goes on.  We'll see!

For now, though, I want ice.  And a gauze pad.  And maybe a hamster ball to protect myself from, well, myself.

Literacy Ain't Just for the Young!

When I tell people I teach reading to adults, I often get a lot of...interesting looks.  Some pity me, assuming I get the absolute "worst" of society: drug addicts, high school dropouts, felons, criminals, homeless people, jobless people, etc.  Others assume my students are only there as someone forced them there, demanded they stop being the drain on society they so obviously are.  Even a few assume I spend my days desperately trying to force adults to learn things they have NO interest in learning.  Heck, I've even had a few tell me I just repackage lessons and get my summers off...while I was packing up to go teach a class in July that I had spent an entire weekend designing.

...yeah...about that...

I don't get mad at these people.  (...well, okay, I got mad at the last one for being condescending, but that angers me in people who verbally attack people who aren't me.)  Instead, I just view them as someone who has no idea of what I do everyday, and that's okay.  I just see it as another opportunity to educate people.

It's not uncommon for people in adult education to joke that we're a forgotten field.  Much of the literacy funding that's available in the USA goes to children's literacy.  Honestly, that doesn't surprise me: it seems a huge chunk of the educational movements in our country are focused on "our future," with "the future" soundly considered to be those who are under 21 or, in many cases, 18 years of age.

But is that the right approach?

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a TEDx Talk about the growing need for adult literacy instruction in our nation and beyond.  The speaker (Daphne Greenburg) spoke about being an adult literacy tutor and the many people she encountered in her line of work.  Even as a professional in that field, it spoke to me.

Many of those students sit at the tables in my classroom.

You can ask an adult education professional (instructor, program director, tutor, etc) for what kind of people make up their classrooms, and I'd almost bet that most people would counter with "Just start naming the types of people you know.  We've got them all."  And they'd be right.

• I have high school graduates, and I have high school dropouts.
• I have college graduates, and I have college drop-outs.
• I have currently employed people and demoted workers, and I have jobless people seeking work in a rural, impoverished area.
• I have people holding down steady jobs--people who want to move on to new fields of work.
• I have people with steady jobs who got hurt on said job and now cannot perform their duties and are forced to make a career change.

In short, just like in any other population, you cannot make sweeping generalizations of adult learners.  That term alone can also refer to adults going back to college, and how often do we truly refer to those learners as lazy, inconsiderate, criminal drains upon society's lacking resources?  This is a vast injustice as these people, though not the "future," are a huge growing concern for our society.  They deserve as many educational opportunities as the young.

Who knows: how many of them, like Greenburg says, will be going home to some of the very same learners childhood literacy movements are trying to reach?  Does it not benefit children to surround them with adults who understand the value of education?

Hey, I Had a Blog!

Well, I went to read a blog today in Blogger and, low and behold, I apparently STILL have the blog I started as a scholarship entry for grad school back in, oh, 2010.

...It is 2014...for 24 whole days now!

Needless to say, today I deleted the one-and-only post as it was TERRIBLE.  It reeked of "college senior English major burned out on school, writing, scholarship entries, and life."  (It also reeked of "I THINK I want a Masters in Library Science but all the doors are closing and I have no idea which one will open so I will ramble here until you throw money at me KTHNXBAI.")  That's not what I want to be my blogging legacy (if such things even exist) in this world.  So, it's gone.

Instead of ending the blog, however, I decided to re-purpose it.  Rename it, redesign it, and play around to see if I really want to get into this whole "blogging" thing.  I have many blogs I read that I love, and they always inspire my creative side to write more, to get my voice out and share it with others.  It will take some time, though, to figure out what that is.

I'm up for the journey.

So, for starters, my name is Cherish: hence the "pun-y" title to this blog.  I'm a newlywed as of December 28, 2013; my husband is a PR guy for a local university.  In my free time, I knit, crochet, write, draw, and play clarinet when I can.  That free time is sorely limited, however: I'm also a 25-year-old teacher at a non-profit in Western New York.

What makes me unique as a teacher is that I'm what's called an "adult classroom instructor."  My non-profit in concerned with family literacy, and I work in their adult program.  My role in the non-profit is to teach adults to read as well as to sharpen their reading skills so they can better themselves (through HSEs [High School Equivalency diplomas, for all you non-New Yorkers], obtaining jobs, or improving their work outlook), their families (through the empowerment of knowing they can help their students learn as they can read better as well as through the economic boost of such knowledge), and the community.

Yes, you read that right: I teach adults to read.  And write, on occasion, but that mostly happens at the jail.

...oh, that too: I teach two mornings a week at our local jail until July.  Many teachers equate their classrooms to jails at times: my classroom really is one a few times a week.

Despite the challenges you can imagine crop up in my job, I love it.  I love the creativity it takes to create lessons that engage, encourage, and strengthen my students.  I love the environment of adult education and the HUGE changes I see happen with my students.  I adore knowing that I work with students many, many other people, educational systems, and communities have written off as "lost causes" and "worthless drains on society."  I never see them that way: I see the potential that lies there, even when they fail to see it themselves.  And I adore knowing that my attempts to teach them often go beyond the classroom, helping them better others.

So, welcome to this teacher's personal blog.  Let's see where it goes.