Finding my Footing

This past January, when all the New Year's resolution buzz was bouncing about, I ran across a blog that was suggested by my Google reader called willrunforcoffee.com. Apparently Google knows of my coffee issues because I can tell you that 'run' was not the hit word for those smart little servers that know everything about us. If you are not familiar with the blog it is the story of one woman's journey to becoming a runner. Basically, she began by committing to participate in a race a month for a year. What started as walking 5ks ended with running half marathons. I thought to myself, "I could do this. One race a month for a year. I like this. I can do this." I haven't run in a race since the Peachtree Road race in 1999. I haven't really run since then with any focus or dedication. Yet, on January 12 I downloaded a Couch25k training program and got started. At the middle of February I "ran" my first race and today I just finished my fifth. The process has been slow for me but with each step I feel myself changing as I find my footing and reclaim those parts of myself that have been dormant for some time. So race number six is my first night race, number seven a 10k, and ... race number eight will be a half marathon. Anyone else tackling a goal this year?

The Moving Box

I have been married almost 12 years and in that time we have moved 10 times. Prior to 'settling down' I moved in and out of college dorms, apartments, and rental houses for six years through college and part of graduate school (I’m thinking 6+ moves). You would think I would be an expert mover after nearly 20 moves in my lifetime. Ask those who have helped us move. Ask my husband. I am not.

I make a mean to do list and have utopic visions of the best possible moving day scenario dancing in my head. Unfortunately, somewhere between the arrival of the packing boxes and the day of the move it slowly falls apart and we are dashing about cramming, dumping, and jamming. The dream of a uniform tower of color coded boxes stacked neatly in the hall just waiting for the kindly moving men to come fetch them turns into the reality of chaos. Next time, I say, next time I will get this right.

You see in my life there will probably be a next time. As a spouse of a United Methodist minister we are a part of the itinerant appointment system. We go when and where we are told to go. So I expect there will be more moves in my future somewhere down the line.

In the beginning it was just Kevin and I moving and it was kind of exhilarating to me. In a weird way it satisfied my travel itch, because if you think about it moving every year it is like going on a long trip. The suitcases are just bigger. I felt adventurous and courageous to be living life our own way.

Yet, slowly grown-up life has seeped in with the birth of our daughters. Now these moves have implications far beyond my personal preferences. So I got my special box.

This special box can hold anything up to about 20lbs. If I start to worry about our girls liking a new room, home, school, church I just stuff it in my box. If I get sad thinking about people I will miss I just stuff it in my box. If I get worried about finances and changing employment for myself I just cram it in the box. If I get nervous about the church Kevin will be serving I just dump it in the box. If I worry about making friends or if people will like me it just goes in the box. Sometimes it gets really full, even to the point of bulging, but I keep stuffing it in.

However, when we get to our new house and the unpacking begins my special box stays firmly attached to me. As I unpack other boxes and take on the task of setting up a home I sometimes find new things to jam in my special box. Eventually all those things cling to me, become a part of me. You see for the last seven years with each move I gain about 20lbs.

That special box is really my mouth as I attempt to abate my fears, stresses, and those feelings of being completely overwhelmed by eating. I have battled my weight most of my life and after giving birth to two large, beautiful babies it has been especially hard. I gained enough weight with each pregnancy to give birth to a 12 year old instead I birthed two adorable 9-ish pound infants. The math was not in my favor.

Slowly as I get comfortable and gain my footing after a move I start to unpack my special box. It is never an easy process. I am pretty sure the glaciers are melting faster than I can lose weight but it does slowly happen. It seems as I get ‘near’ my goal weight again a move looms on the horizon. And so, my freak out begins and I find my special box once more. I guess I am lucky I am not 200lbs overweight with all our moves, the 40lbs I currently have to lose are a gracious plenty.

So here our little family is coming up on our eight month in our new ministry setting. We really love it here and our girls are thriving. Our new church family is wonderful and Kevin’s ministry is engaging. I am getting comfortable and gaining my footing. I am starting to unpack my box. Hopefully, this time for good.

The $6,000 Razor

I hate using a dull razor. Under the best conditions I hack myself to pieces so you can image the carnage of a dull razor. Yet for years I never had a new, sharp glistening blade of steel in the house. I am not a masochist. I was just economizing.

My path to the razor that have saved my family $6,000 and counting is both convoluted and direct. Basically my husband changed careers and answered his call into ministry. This change began a seven year journey of degrees, part-time jobs, and re-locations each of which left us less financially stable than the previous. So in year six, living in family housing in Wilmore, Ky, making less than a 1/3 of our previous income, and trying to stretch every dollar to feed our now family of three I first heard of Southern Savers and couponing. The very idea of using coupons brought up childhood memories of standing in the line humiliated as my mom would pull out coupons from her purse and 'hold things up' at the checkout.

I would go to the store and try to make our budgeted grocery money (thanks Dave Ramsey) go as far as possible. I would stand in the razor aisle staring wistfully but walk away from the $10-$15 price tags empty handed and go buy diapers or some other pressing need instead. Finally, my tortured legs helped me put my pride aside and I decided to give this coupon thing a go.

I didn't jump in right away. First I read a lot of blogs from people who give tips and advice as well as shopping lists. I found that Southern Savers was the best fit for me. Finally, in January 2010, inspired by the birth of another mouth to feed I took the plunge. Guess what my first big deal was? Why razors of course!

I have two years of full fledged couponing under my belt. I don't dive in dumpsters and I don't have a vast stock pile but I do have a closet that probably has 15 packs of new, sharp glistening razors and a stocked pantry. I do feed a family of four mainly organic healthy food, buy diapers and baby needs, and get household supplies for about $80 a week. I am able to give to our food bank toiletries and items I could have never donated before. I could save more but I choose to buy organic, green, and fresh products and produce when ever possible.

What could you do with captured income of $6,000? Make ends meet? Help get out of dept? Go on vacation? Home improvements? Give extravagantly?

101 Greatest Books- Jane Eyre #5

Going through the 101 Greatest Books List put together by the College Board. Their original list is in alphabetical order. I am approaching it in no particular order of my own....

While I am on a Bronte kick I thought I should go ahead and tackle Jane Eyre. Jane, Jane, Jane you and I have a complicated relationship. On again off again for years. I feel like I have a high school relationship with this text. Moving from love to hate in a blink of an eye only to make up one raining weekend when there is nothing else to do and starting the cycle over again.

You see the problem is I have read Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. I know Jane is supposed to be the first great feminist hero way ahead of her time and redefining the claustrophobic boundaries of her female contemporaries. But you see, I can not unread Wide Sargasso Sea and Rhy's Bertha is a intertextual sledge hammer to the original text. So stretched somewhere between 1847, 1966, and now I look for the space to fit the pieces of Jane Eyre back together for me. I may have to wait for a rainy weekend.

I am interested to know if you have ever read one book that has forever changed the way you will read another?

101 Greatest Books- Wuthering Heights #4

Going through the 101 Greatest Books List put together by the College Board. Their original list is in alphabetical order. I am approaching it in no particular order of my own....

The first time I read Wuthering Heights I was a senior in high school in AP Lit class. There were about 20 of us crammed in Coach Weeks trailer in the back of the over-crowded school. Having a coach as an AP English teacher would be surprising to some but Coach Weeks was my Varsity Soccer coach. In the four years I played for him I never once doubted his intellect and talent for the game of soccer. I knew he was an English teacher but I never imagined I would have him as my AP English teacher senior year. He made us run sprints until we hurled and do push ups in the mud so when I sat in his cramped trailer and cried as he read WH aloud to us with tears in his eyes I had one of those life changing moments. The moment when you realize what you think you know of the world is very different than how the world is and you stretch beyond yourself to make a new meaning. It was so with me as tears streamed down my face listening to the passion and anguish of Heathcliff and Catherine's love read by a Coach I admired so much. In that moment I learned how connected we are by literature and the vast power of the written word. I knew then I wanted to be a part of that.

So years later I have sat in front of hundreds of students getting choked up reading To Kill a Mockingbird or Of Mice and Men or pretty much anything by Shakespeare (except Julius Ceasar) hoping that one of them would open their heart to the words and find the power for themselves.

101 Greatest Books- To Kill a Mockingbird #3

Going through the 101 Greatest Books List put together by the College Board. Their original list is in alphabetical order. I am approaching it in no particular order of my own....

It is difficult to write about something I love so much. I face the fear that I will leave out something important, something significant, something revealing. So instead of trying to concisely collect my thoughts on one of my favorite books of all time I am going to have to approach this stream of consciousness style.

I first read TKAM as a young girl. I did not understand much of the plot,especially all that was happening at the trial, but even then the characters danced off the page at me. The tomboy in me really wanted to be friends with Scout and I think I had a crush on Jem.

I have a first edition copy of the book. It has typos and grammatical errors. This gives me hope.

Quotes from the novel run through my head and I will always laugh at Scout asking Atticus to "pass the damn ham".

I love the conspiracy theories and the mysterious surrounding Harper Lee.

Every time I read TKAM it breaks my heart.

I can't decide how I feel about Atticus Finch as a father. As a lawyer and as a man he is without reproach, but with each read I am more and more conflicted how a feel about his role as a father.

I don't like red geraniums because they always make me think of the Ewells.

I came home the other day from the store and Kevin had CB in his lap reading Chapter 10 aloud to her. I will cherish that memory forever.

101 Greatest Books- Pride and Prejudice #2

Going through the 101 Greatest Books List put together by the College Board. Their original list is in alphabetical order. I am approaching it in no particular order of my own....

Jane Austen and I became friends late in life. I completely missed her in my British lit classes and since I have always gravitated toward American Literature I never pursued a relationship with her. She was one of those writers who fell somewhere between Shakespeare and the Brontës and unbelievably I don't think I ever cracked one of her novels until grad school.

At some point I caught part of the Masterpiece Theater Pride and Prejudice epic movie with Colin Firth. I have always loved Colin Firth and I think my crush on him drove me to the novel. So it began.

The Bennets, Darcy, and even Mr Bingley began to dance in my head and invade my dreams. I fell in love with them and their beautiful, small world. Then, when the darkness of the decline and death of my mother began to be my world I fought off my grief and sadness with Jane and the world she seemingly created just for me. Kevin bought me her entire works bound in one book. It is a beast of a book but one of my most beloved. Her characters befriended me then and still captivate me today after too many rereads to count.

I love the wit of Jane Austen. I retreat to her novels, especially P&P, to keep my wits about me.

Grendel and a Smoking Pipe : Beowulf

Going through the 101 Greatest Books List put together by the College Board. Their original list is in alphabetical order. I am approaching it in no particular order of my own....

I decided to begin at the beginning in my journey through the 101 Greatest Book List.

So I begin with Beowulf. I remember reading parts of Beowulf in high school. It was not a life altering experience. I remember we learned a brief history of the English language with the unit and then blazed through Beowulf and moved on down the time-line of English Literature probably onto Canterbury Tales.

However, my relationship with the hero of ages gone changed drastically in college. The second semester my Freshmen year I entered Dr Martin's class as a wide-eyed English major taking my first upper-level English course. Dr Martin was an icon on campus. The kind of professor you see in the movies. He had a deep raspy voice, white tasseled hair, and smoked a pipe. I remember he smelled of tobacco, tweed, and dusty paper. I loved him from the start. I had Dr Martin in his last semester of teaching before he retired. So guess what professors do on their last tour of duty before they hang up their hats? They teach exactly what they want, the way they want with no apologies.

So, we read Beowulf in its original Old English for two months. Softly, deeply he read the great poem. I was in awe. I tried to follow along.

Somehow the two great men have been intertwined in my memory. So Dr Martin has become the great hero who battles the monsters and becomes king as he smoked his pipe and recited the thousand year old lines from his worn copy of Beowulf.

Have you read Beowulf? What is your story with the text?

101 Greatest Books

I love to read. This fact served me well through my English degree and years of teaching. However, those of us who are bibliophiles, closet or otherwise, are always evaluating ourselves against our own personal reading list, our own internal library of texts.

Some well wishing person will ask, "Have you read _____________?" and if I could answer a confident "Yes" then my self esteem could stay intact for a few more moments of that day. But, if that person were to drop the name of a title I had not read or worst yet had never even heard of my world of novels, paper, and fine print would collapse around me in dust.

So to avoid these moments of doom I have taken two drastic measures.

1. I have washed my hands of anything written in the last 20 years. Don't judge me. There is just too much old stuff to read and time keeps marching on and I don't think to the betterment of literature available (with some very notable exceptions).

2. I have decided to read through the College Boards 101 Best Novel's List. I found there to be a shocking number of book lists floating out there in cyberspace. However, I respect College Board as the scholastic gatekeepers with their assessments such as the SAT, and Advance Placement Exams.

Here is the list: (In alphabetical order)
– Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua Things Fall Apart
Agee, James A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert The Stranger
Cather, Willa Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen The Red Badge of Courage
Dante Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo Selected Essays
Faulkner, William As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Faust
Golding, William Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph Catch-22
Hemingway, Ernest A Farewell to Arms
Homer The Iliad
Homer The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik A Doll’s House
James, Henry The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair Babbitt
London, Jack The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur The Crucible
Morrison, Toni Beloved
O’Connor, Flannery A Good Man Is Hard to Find
O’Neill, Eugene Long Day’s Journey into Night
Orwell, George Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel Swann’s Way
Pynchon, Thomas The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William Hamlet
Shakespeare, William Macbeth
Shakespeare, William A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare, William Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles Antigone
Sophocles Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Swift, Jonathan Gulliver’s Travels
Thackeray, William Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David Walden
Tolstoy, Leo War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard Native Son

To date I have 68 of the novels listed above. So I am rolling up my sleeves, getting the bookmarks ready, and finding a comfy chair to read the rest.

Have you read any of these novels? What are your thoughts on this list?

Reading without a Pencil

I can't remember when I couldn't read and I don't remember learning to read. It seems I could always open any book I could lay my hands on an read it. I don't have a romanticised Scout Finch memory of reading the nightly paper with my father. I just think I was born reading. I asked my mom if she taught me- she said I just always seemed to know how but she would help me with the hard words.

Through the years my love of reading has served me well.
I could escape into a book when the real life views were not so pleasant.
I could learn as much as I wanted to learn without having to wait for someone to teach me.
and later... I could share these books I love with others.

However, before I could get to the paid sharing, i.e. teaching, I had to read a lot. I learned to read not just for entertainment but for the complex and sometimes narcissistic pleasure of decoding, deconstructing, and critiquing a text. As such a reader, the pencil was always at hand crammed behind my ear, placed as a bookmark, or languishing in my mouth...but always within quick reach to jot a note.

So, since at least Mr Weeks AP Lit class and through four subsequent English departments I have been tagging every book that has passed through my hands in my made up code of understanding.

Today I was reading, The Catcher in the Rye, for no good reason other than I didn't remember the main character's name so that doesn't qualify as having really read it for me. I am about half way through and I realized there is no pencil to be seen. And it was shocking. I am not longer reading for the professor who will engage me or the students I sought out connections for...I am reading for me- the little girl who couldn't keep her hands off of any book.

It has been too long

I have started a thousand blog posts in my head. I am always composing life in some way or another. Some people work in numbers. I work in narratives.

I have to say some of my thoughts have been good; others have been painful, and some I consider to be inspiring. Yet, because they have gone unwritten they have gotten lost in the clutter of my over-filled, under-worked mind.

Interruptions have become a way of life for me. So now I am giving myself permission to interrupt to create space to write.

I hope it will be so....if you could convince my girls it is ok for Mommy to have quiet moment it would be helpful.

Buttercup

Buttercup.
I love that word.
For one, any allusion to The Princess Bride is a win in my book. And, when has any mention of a cup of tasty although indulgent butter been a bad thing? I guess I have a little Paula Dean in me there.
However, the main reason I love buttercup(s) is the bold little flower's proclamation of spring. They are the final lap flag of winter; the first heralds of spring. I love their eagerness. It is like they want to be the first with the t-shirt and concert ticket so they can casually say to the tulips who lag cautiously behind, "Oh, spring. Yeah. I like already bloomed four weeks ago. You know when it was still snowing."
Gotta love their tenacity.
Bloom on little cups of sunshine, bloom on.

Mother's Day

Although I am a mother myself I always think of my own mother on Mother's Day. Somehow it has and always be her day and not mine. This coming Saturday is the first Mother's Day since my mom passed away and as you can imagine she has been on my heart a great deal lately. Most days I am fine as I move through the daily routine of life, but sometimes in the small moments I find myself very sad. I have opened myself up to the grief...let it come and wash over me. Thankfully, it surrenders just as it overwhelms and I am able to walk on through the days.

I think what makes me miss my mother so much in this season is I feel like she was just becoming the mother she always wanted to be. As some of you know my own relationship with my mother was complicated but I have always loved and respected her. She was raised in home where love and kindness were expressed by providing the practical needs for a child, not by hugs and kisses. I know my mother worked hard to overcome her own austere beginnings but I don't think she was every really able to express all the love she felt until my daughter Cavender was born. As a grandmother my mom fully was able to abandon herself in her relationship with her granddaughter. It was beautiful to watch and has changed my heart forever. I hope Cavender will remember the time she had with Grammie. Even if her mind looses some of the memories I know her heart will always be filled by that special love.

(Snow day remix) A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter...

Almost a year ago I wrote this post...
The "Great Storm" in ATL this weekend made me think of my adjustment to our Kentucky winters. Although we would never admit it, I think Kevin and I have a little yankee in us now...

Background: Kevin and I have given up TV for lent. We have done it before and we really enjoy the kind of time no TV creates for us.

Issue: No TV equals no news.... and I am really ok with this fact. I stay in the loop online, which is what I prefer to do anyway. However, last night our internet was not working and we missed the "Great Storm" forecast. So when I awoke this morning to snow flurries I felt the need to hurry, to rush somewhere. But where?

Realization: Why is it those of us born and raised in the South have a compulsion-- a need to scurry to the grocery store for winter storms? How bad does it really get that we need to 'stock up' 'just in case'? Remember the great storm of ... '82?
I can hear Glen Burns in my head.... Action 2 weather.... stay tuned!

I must say I was shocked the first time I rushed to Kroger to stock up during our first Kentucky snow...there were parking places, milk was on the shelves, and there was no line in the beer isle. Different.

But I am not a local, so off to Kroger I will go.... 6-8 inches of snow...
what do we need?

A loaf of bread....
A container of milk...
and a stick of butter.....

or something like that.

I have never watched American Idol

I have never watched American Idol, The Bachelor, 24, or most any other must see T.V. I can't think of a current show that I actually know its time slot by heart. Usually when I watch T.V. each flip of the channel is a great mystery as to what could be on that would be of interest to me. I am rarely interested in the same show two weeks in a row. I am more of a marathon watcher. I think it is because I like movies and this format makes a TV show more like a movie...and after the marathon is over, its over, and I don't have to think about it again. Done.

I know it must sound like I never watch TV. But that would be a very false assumption. TV has become a security blanket of self medication for me. If I watch TV I don't really have to think...so if I don't think that means I don't have to be aware of all the things that need to be done, that I need to do better, that I should do to be a better person. At night, once CB is tucked into bed and Kevin is back to hitting the books, I retreat to a cozy chair and blanket and flip on the tube and turn off the voice in my head telling me my house is dirty, I should be working out, and there are at least 10 projects that are waiting for my attention.

I have carried this small harsh voice in my head through most of my life journey. The reoccurring message in some form or other is:
I'm not a good enough daughter
I'm not a good enough friend
I'm not a good enough student
I'm not a good enough athlete
I'm not thin enough
and later
I'm not interesting enough
I'm not a good enough wife
I'm not a good enough mother
I'm not a good enough teacher
I'm not a good enough student
I'm not attractive enough
and then later...
I'm not a good enough person
I'm not a good enough Christian
I'm not enough

This small piercing voice has been devastating at different points in my life. Crippling my ambition, my confidence, my ability to love others because I hated myself.

I recently realized that the most broken part of that hurtful head-chatter is that I have been translating it all wrong. Really, what I was saying to myself when I thought all those self deprecating things is that God did not make me....(insert painful phrase here). Another words, I was really saying to myself all those years "God did not make me a good enough mother, wife, person..." that some how I was misshapen and left un-whole. When I realized I was really blaming God I felt so ashamed and convicted. Somethings started to make sense. How could I live in a true relationship with Jesus if there was a wall of guilt and blame between us? How could I be a vessel that showed his redeeming love to the world if I didn't feel redeemed but broken myself?

I know that I am a child of God who is good and pleasing in his sight. My own failings are a result of the baggage of my own past hurts, bad habits, and continual poor choices.

So now instead of thinking that I am not well made I am trying to retrain that small harsh voice to boom loudly from within my soul that I am specially made to do great work. The rest of the baggage I am working on unpacking and cleaning up the clutter that pain can cause. It is a big job but I know I am up to the task with a little help from my Friend.

25 Random Things

1. I don't like catchup so much so that I usually forget that other people do like it.

2. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day but unfortunately I don't usually wake up early enough to eat breakfast. So I love to make breakfast foods for dinner.

3. Kevin and I have been married for 8.5 years and we have moved 7 times (8 is just around the corner).

4. I am really bad at packing both for moves and trips. Luckily it doesn't bother me not be perfectly packed.

5. I am not afraid of bugs, spiders, snakes or other creepy crawling things. However, I can't stand to catch a glimpse of something in my peripheral vision. I freak out.

6. Maybe it is a throw back to my coaching days but I really like clipboards. I think life can be managed better with a good clipboard and a list.

7. Cavender, our four year old, cracks me up daily. She is very funny. I don't think she always means to be so this could be an interesting learning curve in the coming years.

8. I love to add potato chips to any sandwich. Six inch turkey sub with baked BBQ lays is my favorite combination.

9. When I tell people I lived in Amsterdam for a semester in college I love to look at their face as they decide if I was a druggie or a prostitute. Both options make me laugh and I don't usually give them any relief from the awkward banter in their head.

10. I was an English major at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC and made some amazing friends there.

11. I don't like to talk on the phone. I usually don't answer the phone...it is always for Kevin anyway.

12. Sometimes I miss teaching and then I just think about all the hours I spent grading papers and I quickly snap out of it.

13. I do miss being a yearbook adviser. I loved teaching those classes and putting the book together year after year. Once a yearbook nerd always a yearbook nerd.

14. I can't water ski. I tried once and almost drowned (I still blame this incident on my older sister). I would like to learn one day.

15. I love to snow ski. However, it is on the "don't ever think about doing" list given to me by my orthopedist after my seventh knee surgery. Therefore, the last two times I have been 'skiing' I spent my days hanging out while everyone else hit the slopes.

16. I broke my foot walking across the street.

17. I tend to be very clumsy so when dinning out or in public settings Kevin has to juggle keeping Cavender from spilling her cup and then cut his attention to me to be sure I don't spill my drink or fall down. Sometimes he has a very difficult job.

18. I used to have a strong stance against blogging. I felt it perpetuated and fueled egocentric people. Like most things I take my random stances against....I eventually came around and I am a big fan of blogging now. I love to write on mine and I actually have a reader so I can easily keep up with the others I read.

19. I never had a grandfather. Both of my mine passed away before I was born. I have adopted Dr Kalas, the President of Asbury Theological Seminary, to be my pretend grandfather. He hasn't agreed to the arrangement but I claim him as mine anyway.

20. I love my job. I get to work with pastors and church leaders from all around the world. It is amazing. I also like it that everyone Cavender meets who is of another nationality she calls them "Mama's friends".

21. Kevin and I started dating the night of our Youth BBQ fundraiser at Snellville UMC in 1998. Ironically, I don't like BBQ.

22. I really like ethnic food. Currently, Thai is at the top of the list but the few Korean meals I have had lately is pushing it toward the top.

23. I am tired of death. This year five people have passed away in my family including my mother and grandmother.

24. I have the most amazing husband in the world. Besides the fact that he puts up with my drama he is very talented in his own right and a great father.

25. Speaking of being a great father.... this is a good thing because we are expecting our second child in October.

A Paper Problem

It seems like forever since I have sat down and taken the time to post to this blog. However, I have written several posts that have only bounced around the recesses of my mind. Too bad I never made time to capture these thoughts before they dissipated into to do or shopping lists.

Along that vein I have recently been coming to terms with my paper problem. I currently have five started journals, one quote book, this under-posted blog, a half used planner, and one notebook for writing ideas. This does not count the myriad of individual papers tucked here and there, inside books, my planner, and stacked to look at later. I am not satisfied with a technology based communication model. I love the feel of paper, the smell of opening a book, and the soothing glide of a pencil across the page (the spelling challenged like myself always use pencils).

So what have I done to get control of this madness? Why, I have bought a new journal--it will really work this time, or so I have been chanting to myself over and over to will it to be true.

These are the moments when I envy the self discipline of my husband and battle the inner dialogue of failure that comes so naturally to me.

Since my mom passed away I have come to realize there was so much about her I didn't know. One day, I want Cavender to have both the memories of our own life conversations, and the scraps of my own mental ramblings for her to process as she will.

Besides the way my memory is declining, probably due to the number of Diet Cokes I drink, I better collect what few creative moments I have left.

Going Dutch

One time, years ago, when I was spending a semester in Amsterdam I decided I needed to add more physical activity in my daily routine. Running on the cobble stone streets was starting to do in my fragile knees. I needed something new, different. I think it was my travel buddy Maureen who came up with the idea of attending aerobic classes at a local gym. Having been coordinationally challenged my whole life aerobics and I have not traditionally been a good fit. Yet, I found myself one cold winter night entering into this fairly large studio surrounded by people in their best/brightest athletic gear ready to get their groove on. I wanted to blend in and hang toward the rear, but as usual, those spots were already taken so I found myself much closer to the leader than I ever intended. Soon, the techno was blaring and everyone had that gleam of anticipation that only the expectation of endorphins can give. Meanwhile I was giving myself my little mental pep talk... "you can do this" or "if you fall down, it's ok, just make it look like you did it on purpose-just make it look like you needed a stretch"....

However, the next 60 seconds make me realize that the next 60 minutes were going to be harder than I anticipated. The instructor began to give his directions in Dutch. Up to that point, it hadn't crossed my mind that I would only be able to understand about 1 in 100 words. Amsterdam is a multicultural city and I had gotten so used to hearing English that I came to expect it, assumed it would be used, or at least desperately hoped I had a prayer of 'grapevining' in the correct direction. I am so thankful that my first session in that sweaty room was not captured on film. Confused, off beat, peripheral vision fatigued, and often moving in the wrong direction I lumbered through the evening. I still believe that the leader was making some jokes and my expense throughout the routine due the volume of pity smiles I received as I made my way to the exit after class. I ended up going several more times, each one easier a little easier than the first though less funny to those around me. So why am I thinking of the pinnacle of physical awkwardness? The moment when the ability to laugh at myself got a full test drive? Because this is one of those moments that lives in my memory and often likes to come out and dance around my head for awhile. It reminds me to laugh at myself--something that I need to be reminded of often.

I think some moments are experienced so completely that they become part of who you are. I know all the pieces of your collective life experience are wrapped up, or shoved into, the fragile vessel of our memory, but I am speaking of those moments that even while you are in the midst of them there is a consciousness that this will stay with you...is one to remember. This is when time seems to slow, that my eyes dart around soaking in as many details as possible to repaint this scene over and over because I know it will be useful one day.

I have had several of these moments in my life thus far and they are not always as serious as you would think, i.e. Dutch aerobics class. It is has always interested me what things strike me, cause me to pause, and collect the fragments of the moment to put away for later. Often, it is in the little nothings. Not in the big life moments one would expect.

What are the moments that stay with you? Which ones seem to fill up all your senses when they bubble up and come out to play in your head?

1, 2, 3, You're It

I used to be quite the tag player in my day (being the tallest person in the class gave me a wingspan of giants compared to my playground competitors). A friend of mine, Kelly Lawson, rekindled my desire to play so here is my bloggerific version...

The Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.

4. Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Fact 1: I have had 17 jobs since I was 14 years old (at least these are the ones I can remember). Before you judge me for my fickleness please note that most of these jobs were held simultaneously. So here's the list: babysitter, softball field score keeper, Memorial Stadium Concessions worker, Chick-fil-a, Salvation Army SE Headquarters Development, Rockola Cafe-Spartanburg, SC, Golf Club of Georgia (drink cart girl, waitress, bartender) Wofford College Post Office (Amie and I could tell you some stories), Ellen Hines Smith Girls Home, Wofford College Bohemian Editor, Snellville UMC Youth Assit., Snellville UMC After School Program Asst., Macaroni Grill, Gwinnett Co. Teacher, Fayette Co. Teacher, SAT Reader, Beeson Program Coordinator at Asbury Theological Seminary.

Fact 2: I have a secret, or not so secret, love for Star Wars. I know it dates me but I grew up on the original movies. Back in the day they were amazing. I had Star Wars sheets, a stuffed Ewok, and I seriously contemplated being Princess Leia when I grew up. I am by no means claiming to be a Star Wars expert and I have never attended a Dragon Con convention. However, in college I did dress up as Hans Solo one year for Halloween and my dear friend Ingrid went as Princess Leia (she had the hair and looks!).

Fact 3: I have a very unusual laugh. Some say obnoxious, some say unique, I say memorable. I was reminded of this fact the other night during a family tickle fight in which I lost the battle due to a double offensive launched by CB and Kevin. It had been a long time since I really laughed that belly, uncontrollable laugh. I don't think anyone here in KY has heard it.... and realizing that made me sad. Perhaps I knocked the rust off my tickle box and will be ready to laugh again.

Fact 4: I can't stand to watch people get embarrassed. It makes me so self-conscious for them that I become more miserable than they are. If it is happening on TV, I immediately turn the channel. Luckily, KB has the same aversion so he doesn't mind when I have to 'turn away'.

Fact 5: I love to go camping. Love it. Smoke, dirt, bugs, no bathroom facilities does not deter my fun. Some of the best times in my life have been around camp fires. The annual camping trips with David T. were always a highlight of my year (even though they usually ended with at least one of us in physical peril…jumping off water falls, slipping down rock faces, being in the middle of a river when the damn is released, busted rafts…sound familiar?) Kevin and I used to camp a lot but we haven’t much since the kido was born. Charlie, my sleeping bag, and I are always ready for an outdoor adventure. Maybe for Kevin’s graduation I will buy a tent (the spouse of a graduate should get a present too I firmly believe) since ours has dry rotted in storage.

Fact 6: Chinese food is my favorite. Although I haven’t tried, I believe I could eat it everyday. I like pretty much anything that you can order in a Chinese restaurant. I realized how often we get Chinese food the other day when I asked CB what she wanted for dinner and she asked for the soup with eggs in it from the restaurant with the fish tank, unusual request for a four year old. Due to budgetary concerns I usually order similar items, but if the sky is the limit I love those unusual dishes that come out in strange little pots full of oddities and yummies.

Fact 7: I have a PBS addiction. I find myself watching the strangest things simply because they are on PBS. In our current grad student lifestyle, we have very limited cable… fourteen channels to be exact (two of which are the same channel). So perhaps my current PBS relationship is due to a lack of choices. Yet, when other favorites are on I still gravitate to channel 13. Why? I think it is because I always learn something and I like to learn. Maybe one day you will see me on The Antique Road Show. Currently, I don’t have any antiques or anything of real value but I am thinking this is the only way I will ever make it onto PBS (Masterpiece Theater and NOVA are pretty much out).

Ok... so that is a little snapshot of my strangeness. I will now pass the torch of tag onto:
http://kevinbbarnes.blogspot.com/
http://danunderwood.blogspot.com/
http://wadeandbrittany.blogspot.com
http://drk-shannon.blogspot.com/
http://2manbreak.blogspot.com/

Please feel no need to continue the game. I am just sharing the opportunity!

A Little Thank You Goes a Long Way

I have always been terrible at writing thank you notes. I have the best intentions/fantasies of writing the most perfect, timely, and touching note in return for every kind gesture I receive. My thank you note anxiety is so severe that I am often thrown into the bowels of guilt because I receive a thank you note from someone so promptly that I wallow in the memory of all my unwritten notes through the years. I find comfortable excuses (I can't spell, I have messy handwriting, I don't have stamps) to wrap around me for awhile. Yet, these wear thin and the guilt always finds a way in through the crevices of my threadbare excuses.

I now have a large green box full of notes for me to write.

It stares at me from the chair by our door.
For almost a week it has sat mocking me for the task that I have left of undone.

But my heart is afraid of opening that big green box for it was the box that the funeral director handed me as he walked out the door after my mom's funeral.

These are no ordinary notes. These notes represent my mother, who took thank you notes very seriously. What can I say to our/ my/ her/ their friends and family that poured out so much love to us through meals, flowers, cards, calls, and visits. What can I say to those who drove up to my parent’s house in those final days to say their goodbyes to our Lela but were thoughtful enough in their own pain to take care of us?

I am afraid of that big green box because I know when I open it my heart will break.

I am left to write the thank you notes for my mother who always wrote them so well.

I will do my best.