November 2005

So, I’ve been going through a really bad chocolate craving this past week. For the hell of it, I decided to type “chocolate addiction” into google to see what kind of results I would get. Very interesting stuff. Did you know that chocolate apparently contains a small amount of cannabis? Of course, you would have to consume a rather large amount of chocolate in order to get stoned. Apparently, some guy decided to use this argument as his defense in court when his urine test came back positive for marijuana. There’s also some lady in Birmingham, England who survives on pretty much nothing but chocolate. That must get old. Switzerland apparently has the highest consumption of chocolate, 22 pounds of chocolate per person per year, twice that of the U.S. I also found this cute site called Chocolate and Zucchini that had a whole bunch of really cool recipes for chocolate deserts. Studies have found that dark chocolate is very good for the heart.

Ok, enough about chocolate. I’m getting another craving.

I’ve been seriously neglecting our blog. The library world has had my full attention for quite a while. But, I’m happy to say that the end is near. I have only two classes left. I’ll take one class this spring, take the summer off, then my last class in fall along with my comprehensive exam. Yes, I did say comprehensive as in I’ll have to spew two and a half years of information into four essays in six hours. From what I’ve been told, it’s suprisingly painless as long as you’ve kept up with the current trends and major issues. I guess we’ll see.
In other news, Mike and I have been discussing the prospect of having children. I’m a little nervous about this, especially since I still have major problems keeping our house plants alive. They always start dying on me about three weeks after I buy them. It’s a little embarrasing having all these dying plants all over the house so I usually just chuck’em and go to the store to buy more. Everytime I do this, I keep telling myself “now, you know, you’re not going to be able to do this with your kids, Carleen.” But at least my dogs are happy and well fed so, there is some hope. If all goes according to plan, I should be popping out our first one somewhere around Christmas next year.
The other new thing in my life recently is acupuncture. I’ve only gone twice so far and probably won’t go again until after Christmas but I am very pleased to say that this needle thing may actually be providing me with some relief to my back problems. I won’t lie and say that it wasn’t painful. I also have a really bad needle phobia so I was rather tense going in there anyway. During the first session she put needles in my lower back, behind my knees and then she tried to put a needle in the side of my ankles but the first one hurt so bad that she didn’t dare do the other one. Apparently that pressure point is in someway linked to my kidney’s. I then asked her whether it will normally hurt that much and she said no and then asked me whether I was currently feeling any fear or anxiety and I said, well, I am in graduate school which apparently was a good enough reason for her. I’m not going to pretend that I actually understand all this stuff but I will tell you that you do get results. On this particular occassion she left the needles in for about forty-five minutes. Once they’re in, they’re in, you don’t feel anything except this strange sort of warm feeling around where the needles are. Afterwards, I had this really weird euphoria sensation and felt really relaxed. I was pain free for most of that day although I suffered a rather nasty headache the next day. I had another treatment yesterday, however, this time she was kind enough to use the “needle-less” acupuncture which sort of feels like this strange prickly brush that vibrates as she moves it over all your differnt pressure points. Yesterday I was doing great. I woke up a little sore but most of today has been fine too. Very interesting and promising experience.
Fall is my favorite time of the year. Maybe it’s because there’s so many holidays back to back. There’s always a good excuse to eat chocolate in Fall. My mom is actually ordering some Norwegian chocolate from a store in Ballard, WA. I can’t wait to dig into that. I will share, of course, but you have to know the secret password. (shhhh…don’t tell anyone….the password is….laffy taffy).