The Music Thief

True confessions moment here... I LOVE housesitting for friends, family, you name it. Taking care of a house and their pets can be a bit inconvenient to my schedule sometimes, but what makes it worth it is their music collection. I love listening to their CDs when I find myself looking for some entertainment around the house. I come across all sorts of different music I would never have taken the time to explore on my own. Most importantly, I kinda "steal" their music and import it into my computer's music library. Technically I'm not actually leaving with their stuff, but I guess I like using the words "steal" and "thief" because it makes me feel more bad-ass than I really am capable of.

So this past Christmas week, I came away 800 songs or more richer. It was a jackpot for my musical taste too with lots of Bach, Mozart, some Beethoven, Pavarotti, Edith Piaf, Miles Davis, Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerld, Louis Armstrong and Yo-Yo Ma. Sadly no Elgar that I could find. On the flip-side, I now have some awesome albums I had not expected to enjoy: a bunch of Felix Mendelssohn Hawaiian songs from 1942-1945, the Lady & the Tramp soundtrack, some old broadway musical soundtracks with the original cast, the best of Bob Marley and Paolo Conte. It's a pretty great deal actually. Watching a house and dogs for two weeks in exchange for some money and hundreds of songs? Yes please!

Plus, I pride myself on being a exemplary 'house-sitter.' I love tidying up around the house, maybe a little cleaning if I feel like it and I love cooking them a crock-pot meal to come home to. Tomorrow I'm going to make Chicken Chile for the current family I'm sitting for. They're originally from Texas before moving to Hillsdale, so I'm banking on their being Mexican food aficionados like myself. I like to think my generosity in the kitchen and in the laundry room while they're gone justifies my recent musical acquisitions. What sort of things are you guilty of when you house-sit?

On Books

The first thing you should ever know about me is how much I love books. Don't ever expect me to walk into a Barnes & Noble, Borders, local bookshop or even a garage sale without taking a good look (1 hour minimum), let a lone leaving without buying one! Even better, I'll take books for free. One of my latest acquirements I found lying in a trash can in one of Hillsdale's classroom buildings after finals. Guess they must've really hated that class, but I've always wanted to learn more about the Reformation! My favorite activity in college? (OMG, I'm such a nerd...) Buying books before the semester begins. I'd even buy books for classes I was auditing and really didn't need to keep up with the reading. On the other hand, I won't spend my relatively hard earned money on just any book. I'm all for history, the classics, cultural studies, novels and the like. No Sci-Fi or Anime Comic books for me please.

Two things about myself & books lately. First, now that I need to prepare to move my stuff at a moment's notice for any odd reason, I figured it'd probably be wise to undertake the daunting task to catalog all of my personal library in an excel spreadsheet. All 260 of them. Books are actually quite compact. Looking at my shelves, I'd estimate maybe around 150, but 260?? How did I acquire all those? I'd hate to think how much money I spent on books that I could've used for a new pair of winter boots. Then again, I think I'm better off having read A World at Arms and empathizing with the U.S. 290th Infantry before the Battle of the Bulge than having toasty toes. I'm proud of my library and look forward to continue to see it grow, but I know full well that its going to be a bitch to pack and lug about when I have to move it all someday.

Second, As food, rent, insurance, hedgehog care and other life essential payments now become unavoidable, the cost of books has become ever present in my thoughts. My friend Mary, however, suggested a wonderful and free solution to my book addiction! Paperback Swap is possibly the most genius online book club that I have ever come across. I've saved over $30 so far on books and acquired 6 new ones in the last month alone. A definite fav of late! I'm reading A Year in the World right now, which is a great literary and cultural travelogue, but at the same time I can't wait to crack open my new ones. Looking forward to starting The Professor and the Madman, The Glitter and the Gold and Eat, Pray, Love. Sometimes I'll give in and have 7 or more books going at the same time...then it's a little overload. How many books have you had going at one time?

Thistle the Hedgehog

What does a unattached college graduate get when you can't afford a dog or cat and want to color outside the lines a little bit? A Hedgehog, naturally! Ok, I admit I get a decent number of raised eyebrows in bewilderment when I tell my friends I now have a Hedgehog as a pet.

Hedgehogs actually make great pets for anyone in this phase of life. They sleep for practically 20 hours a day, require minimal space or hands-on care, eat in small quantities and are naturally very clean critters. Essentially, I have the best of both worlds; I don't feel guilty leaving her to her sleeping bag while I'm at work, but it's nice to have a small little someone to come home to at the end of the day. Plus who couldn't love this sweet little face! Her quills take a little getting used to, but it's only as prickly as it would be handling a cactus. I guess it helps that I have a strong ability to endure pain. It also takes a bit of patience and determination because Hedgehogs are rather shy, but they become more comfortable after they are more familiar with you and your surroundings.

Enough about the specifics of Hedgehog care, I want to introduce you to my little one. This is Thistle. As you can see in the picture above, she absolutely LOVES her sleeping bag. She's a little over a month old, so she's still skittish and shy around sudden noises. Phoebe, our English Springer Spaniel definitely doesn't help. She's taken a keen interest in Thistle because she just can't seem to figure her out. Every time Phoebe comes near, Thistle balls up and does her little "huffing & puffing" routine, so all Phoebe gets to see is a ball full of spikes. I'm enjoying this particularly because Phoebe will occasionally insist on sleeping in my room with me so she can keep an eye on this little mystery. Phoebe's intense curiosity over Thistle would make a great children's book, actually.

As I start to think more about my interaction with Thistle, my descriptions sound pretty boring. It's not much more than pulling her out of her cage, watching her sniff around and then most likely she'll falling asleep in the folds of my clothes. If you're looking for action and adventure, Hedgehogs are not your cup of tea. At this point in my relatively new hedgehog ownership, it's more the simple enjoyment of watching and learning her little behaviors or quirks. Thistle has a rather calming affect on me actually. In order to enjoy my time with her, I have to slow down my life and the million thoughts whirling in my mind and focus my attention primarily on her. After that, all my current obligations start to seem inconsequential. My stresses? They're just self-imposed. Life all of a sudden seems so simple.

I'm hoping as I take these little breaks from life with Thistle, I can start to gleam more from my Hedgehog ownership. There are these videos on Youtube of pet Hedgehogs swimming and lazily floating when they get a bath and it's hilarious! I'll let you know if I ever get to that point with Thistle. But for now, I'm perfectly happy with our cold Autumn nights, wrapped in a warm blanket with a movie and a sleeping hedgehog in my sweater pocket.

Cheers!

I came across the Australian word "Woop-woop" one day and thought that it was a perfect, lighthearted description of my current life situation. I literally live in middle of nowhere Michigan. I guess it could be worse if I lived closer to the Tip of the Mitt. More so, I'm at a stage of my life that seems to be in a sort of limbo. Post-college but pre-career. Want to go to graduate school but not ready yet. Back to living with the parents, but ready to move out and experience the world some more. Need to buy a car, but what if I move to the big city? I'm on the edge of so many life changing decisions, yet I feel pretty carefree and relaxed about it all. I enjoy those sorts of challenges though. They make you stronger and reveal a little more about your character each and every time. Virtus Tentamine Gaudet.

So why join in the blogging pop-culture? I began blogging in 2007 when I studied abroad in Oxford so my family and friends back home could keep up to date in detail about all my exciting adventures out there. Now that I don't have college responsibilities taking up my free time, I was reviewing my Oxford posts and noticed how much more I lived my life with an appreciation of my surroundings at that time. There is so much beauty and interesting things in and around our lives, no matter if we're in exotic locations abroad or in a mundane small-town America. It is in the spirit of rejoicing in these unique and memorable moments God gives us daily that I resume sharing these with friends, family and strangers alike. Cheers!