six months later

so i own an apology to the blogging community. or rather, the tiny corner of the blogging community who read my posts. i have been very neglectful of this space of mine.

here is a quick update on my life the past six months:

• i applied, assembled a portfolio, interviewed for, and was accepted into grad school. i start classes in a couple weeks.
• my amazing grandfather passed away. this still does not seem real to me.
• i injured my rotator cuff and spent most of the summer frustrated at my inability to do... everything.
• we adopted a second dog. he is wonderful, challenging, and completely different from remy.
• we took a long-anticipated vacation out west. my geek was introduced to water skiing.
• we took on a major landscaping project which has filled pretty much every spare moment in our summer weekends.

it has been a wonderful, sometimes exhausting, summer in which i have re-discovered the joy of being outside, and neglected the online word.

photos to come soon.

ode to a crockpot

there is nothing quite like getting to the end of a long work day and knowing dinner is waiting for you, warm and ready to eat, at home. i'm not really going to write an ode. i'm too tired. but if i were a poetically inclined individual that is what i'd do.

so instead i will leave you with this:

Paean to My Crock Pot (For Eileen)
Oh Crock Pot--
how I love your 70s sensibility.
You stay home all day dressed
in floral charm, serve me
dinner with a warmth
free from post feminist irony
or messy cleanups.

so true

i should buy stock in sterilite

if you know my mother, you know she is the organization queen. i've never considered that to be one of my strengths, but as we unpack things from the move i've realized that an overwhelming majority of the things i own are sorted into neatly labeled plastic organizers. I have big bins for sweatshirts and pajamas, medium sized bins for shoes, small bins for underclothes. There are drawers for scratch paper, for pens and pencils, for phone chargers. Smaller drawers for toiletries, paper clips, broken jewelry (yep, seriously) and tiny boxes for first aid supplies and band-aids.

i do indeed have a place for everything... though everything is rarely in it's place!

it seems i owe my mom a thank you for getting her scatter-brained artistic daughter to live in a semblance of order. let me just pull down that "cards and notes" box from the closet...

six feet under (series finale)

me: aww, you're all teary-eyed
mg: it's sad. what are you, an emotional brick?

moving is a lot of work

new house = muddy yard
muddy yard = muddy dog
muddy dog = muddy hallway

1. crate dog

2. afternoon project: fix muddy yard

3. evening project: wash dog. wash tub. wash hallway. wash crate. order takeout.

the dress

is blogged again. this time on vintage weddings by the knot. check out Reese's dress at the end of the post, it's amazing.

is it possible

for the third time this year i will be in a position to review student portfolios. college seniors. seriously? i'm qualified for that now? oh yeah, college was... years ago. weird.

boxes

it is only when moving that i regret having a library's worth of books.

today

i am wearing the incredibly comfortable black heels i wore for the wedding. and it makes me feel like dancing.

clarifying

so mg reads the blog and he was very concerned this morning. "do you really think that's going to happen to our marriage?" to which i answered "no".

the previous post was a response to an ongoing discussion of marriage in today's culture. a culture that does not value marriage as a life-long commitment. does not see commitment as good. there are endless jokes about the stupidity of men, the silliness of women, the general unhappiness of people who are stuck married. by "what i fear" i didn't mean that is the direction i think our marriage is headed. but it is what i see in many marriages around us, and what i want to be sure to avoid.

i love our marriage, but i also know that life is (hopefully) long. at times it will be difficult. there will be pressures on our relationship that we can't predict. i don't think anyone sets out to have a complacent marriage, but i do think too often people aren't intentional about avoiding it. they wake up one day and wonder how they got where they're at. i don't want to be that person. i don't think i will.

meg does it again

there's a great discussion going on over at apracticalwedding on what it means to be a wife but not (yet) a mother. the question was raised "in your marriage, what do you fear"? here are my thoughts:

Someone mentioned that what they fear most is a complacent marriage. I think that word sums it up perfectly.

So what do I fear in our marriage? I fear falling so much into a routine we don't even realize we have one. I fear getting off work every day and coming home to this: He takes care of the dog, I take care of dinner. He does the dishes, I start the laundry. He turns on the tv, I grab the laptop.

There's nothing wrong with that routine in and of itself. It's practical. I love cooking. The dog obeys him way better than me. But I want to remain aware of what we do. I want to cook dinner because I enjoy trying new recipes, not because it's expected and an obligation. I want him to choose to wash the dishes out of love and a feeling of partnership, not assume he has to take care of them because that's the habit we've fallen into.

Now I cherish these little everyday things of life. Ways we partner together to take care of necessities, things we do together. But I fear letting those things become the big things. Mindlessly letting them run our lives. I want an intentional marriage. One that is brave, courageous, self aware. One where we challenge each other to do new things, even hard things, because in the end those are the things we will be proud of. I want a marriage that is anything but complacent.

now, go read the rest of the discussion. it's thought provoking to be sure.

caricature

the dress

is blogged over at apracticalwedding. if you are planning a wedding, or know anyone who is i would strongly recommend pointing them to this blog. meg and the community of amazing women who have gathered there are sane, thrifty and know how to have fun.

on dog doors

mg: we should push his crate up against the door,
at least in the beginning.
self: yeah.
mg: that way we can see if he's dragging stuff in.
self: *nods*
mg: like small children. and dinosaurs.
self: because those are the most likely options.

i search for "race car"

and the stock photo library gives me photos of canadian bluebirds. yeah... pretty sure something is broken here.

trying to get it together

i can never seem to remember everything on the same day. every morning this week i have managed to make and bring coffee but forgotten to grab my yogurt or fruit for breakfast. today i remembered to grab breakfast, but forgot to start the coffee so it would be ready in time.

at least i always have lunch packed. thanks to leftovers and a wonderful husband.

up

the movie. we went to see it with my brothers. at the dollar theater.

there's this moment when the main character (an elderly gentleman) is looking through his wife's scrapbook. he discovers that she considered their life together to be an adventure, even though it was only made up of small moments they shared.

i loved that. the idea that a marriage can be a grand adventure. even if you never leave home.

adjustments

to set the stage i should say... it was not the best of days. And i do not always handle such days with the grace that i would like.

i had left work early, on my first day back from vacation. the dog has been sick and made a mess that i did not have time to clean up. i got locked out of the house. i did not have directions to the place i was going and (being unable to enter my home) had to drive to my parents. all of this so i could go on an hour-long drive to visit an oral surgeon because the tumor he removed is back for the fifth time (or is it the 6th? i've lost count). anyway, not the best of days and i was not in the best of moods.

so finally i was on the interstate. as i merged off the entrance ramp into the flow of traffic i was reminded of a head-on collision that recently made the front of our local paper. neither driver lived. a young college student and a mother of three had each gone for a drive and never came home. i was suddenly acutely aware of the traffic around me. of the unpredictability of life.

i started to wonder what would happen if i never made it back from my drive. would mg be okay? what if 10 days of marriage was all we got? i felt an urgent need to call him and tell him how much i love him. just in case. to tell him it would be okay if i was gone. that god was in control. and that i trust him [god] and his plan for our life.

i started thinking about my day. the day that had not gone at all according to my plan. i realized that it was a beautiful fall day. the sun was shining. the wind was carrying leaves in graceful swirls around my vehicle. here i was, consumed with anxiousness and anger at the situation. i totally missed the fact that i had an hour with nothing to do but delight in the beauty around me. the fields ready for harvest, the burning bushes with their brilliant crimson foliage. i had been given an incredible gift.

and it was about that time that i had an epiphany.

there i was driving along 74, praising and thanking god for the beauty of his creation, for the unexpected gift of the solitary drive. when i realized i would never have had this time, this conversation with god, if it weren't for that tumor. and i found myself, in all sincerity, thanking god for the tumor. you see, i realized that if the only reason this has recurred over... and over... and over again was that i would have this drive and this conversation with god well, that in and of itself made it all worth it. and in some small way i now understand how people who have been through great suffering can not just survive it, not just praise god in spite of it, but actually thank him for it. it takes a different perspective, to see suffering as a gift. it is definitely not an attitude i come by naturally, but i hope god continues to grow it in me.

we are wed

and... we are blogged.