I feel guilty that I am able to return to my life and that, while I am sad, my day-to-day life hasn’t changed all that much.  That’s not the case for Lauren, Doug and JJ.   I wish pain could be transfered a little bit to other people so that their load could be a little lighter, and ours could be a little heavier, but it doesn’t work that way.

At Corey’s funeral, the president of Wooster College read a poem that he modified from one A.A. Milne wrote:

When I was one,
I had just begun.

When I was two,
I was nearly new. 

But when I was three,
I was really me.
So I think I’ll be three now, forever and ever.

Please keep praying for the Cline family. 

Lately, I have felt so thankful that my life and world are intact, and for health and love.  November has been a rough month.  I’ve been shocked at how many sad things have happened.  The shattering of so many people’s lives from many different things.  Two situations in particular stand out: a man I met through work murdered his 7-year old daughter and then committed suicide, and Ginger, a sweet lady from my bible study, just found out that her 9-month-old baby has Leukemia ((this is after losing her six-week old baby from SIDS a couple of years ago)).  There have been many other sad things, but these two in particular are on my mind.  

Celebrating Thanksgiving has been a bright spot in a depressing month, and I was able to forget about the sad things for awhile.  Sometimes when I hear about these trials the people in my life are going through, I wonder when it will be my turn to really experience tragedy and loss.  Sunday, Funnel and I heard a teaching on Job, who experienced more suffering than any of us ever will in our lifetime.  It was a perfect message for me right now.  I was reminded of God’s faithfulness to us throughout our trials – something a worrier like me needs to hear from time to time.  

“Be a Warrior, not a Worrier!”  ((I made that up a few months ago)). 

The last few days, I have felt really good about everything.  Hopeful and content.  I’m excited about the possibility of something new, and I’m realizing that things don’t have to be as hard as they have been.  

((change.))

I’m planning on updating more often with some photos and some of my baking & cooking adventures, as well as an exciting (at least to me!) announcement about a new wedding service I will be offering.  

grace& love.

We got some good confirmation last night about a decision we were trying to make so hopefully, from here on out, things will be a little easier for us and a couple of the things I was stressed about won’t be an issue.

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I’m glad Fall is almost here ((and you would think it was by the way it feels outside when I leave for work in the morning)).  I’m excited for my hoodies and sweaters, our wedding anniversary, OSU football, Sunday night bible study starting up again, and crockpot cooking ((I know I can use my crockpot year round, but it feels so much more appropriate when it’s chilly out)). 

Things to do:
- Dry-clean my coats.
- Buy some new courderoy pants ((my favorite pair is a disaster)).  Does anyone know where I can find some cute, inexpensive ones?

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Last December at a craft show, I bought a French cookbook that was created by a very sweet woman who was trying to raise money for her teenage daughter to go to France on a school trip.   I am really excited because tonight I am doing three of the recipes – “Amazing Parisian Bread”, French Onion Soup and Creme Brulee.  I actually started the Creme Brulee last night, but tonight I am going to try to make the top crispy without one of those torches— I read online that putting it in the oven on broil for 30 seconds has the same affect.  The funny thing is that I don’t think I’ve ever actually had Creme Brulee so if it turns out to be a complete disaster, I’m not sure if I will know the difference.

For almost the whole time we’ve been married, he’s been working the night shift (8 days on /// 6 days off).  That’s meant a lot of nights alone and a lot of days where we might just get to see each other for a couple of hours.  I was always counting down the days until his next 6 days off, when we could fall asleep together at night instead of saying goodbye. 

Besides the missing each other, he was always tired and feeling out-of-whack from switching from regular sleeping on his breaks to daytime sleeping during his work week. poor guy. 

So, I’m excited about the getting-to-see-each-other-way-more aspect of it, but I’m even more excited that he’s found a job that he is excited about.  They are lucky to have him.. he’ll be great. 

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May looks like it may be the busiest month I have ever had in my whole life.  I’m starting to feel overwhelmed about all the things going on and how I’ll ever get it all done.  I was almost in tears yesterday as I was flipping through my planner.  A lot of it is my fault because I suck at saying “no” and I commit to too many things, but a lot of it just the nature of springtime… weddings and graduations (and it’s fundraising season at work.)  

I do really poorly emotionally and mentally when I don’t have enough quiet time for myself, so I’m thinking that I’m going to take the month of June off to make up for May.  I’m really going to try not to plan anything or commit to anything else.  I know that kind of makes me an anti-social person, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I need to be for a little while.   

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The new Grand Theft Auto game came out today. 

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Over the weekend, I made two chocolate chip cookie pies (per Bakerella) and I think it’s for sure my new favorite pie.

Today I discovered this painting by Isaac Bushkin.  The title of it is “Lost but not Forgotten.”  I was really taken with it and stared at it for a long time.  ((It reminds me of this video.)) My heart hurts for that little bird.

I go through phases of my life where I feel like my emotions are on steroids.  I think this is one of those times.  Today, for example, was just your average, uneventful day.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  But my feelings were swelling.. I felt so happy.  The happiest I have felt in a while.  And I can’t even give you a good reason why.  Just an average day.

She said she usually cried at least once a day not because she was sad,
but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.”
— brian andreas.

While I am on this emotional high, I will confess that there are so many people I love that I have never ever told.  Even people that I don’t really know that well, but I am blessed by the small presence they have in my life.  They have made such a big impact on me and they probably don’t even know it. 

((above:))We have purchased an exericise ball, and it has come to my attention that polaroid film is being discontinued.  What the heck? 

Funnel works at Walgreens, and I told him he should buy a bunch so we can stock up, but polaroid film has an expiration date, so its not like we can just keep it forever.  I’m thinking about doing some kind of polaroid project.  Maybe a polaroid-a-day for a while, or I saw someone online who did a polaroid+haiku project.

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Life lately has been work, listening to talk-radio a lot, drinking hot tea, keeping up with politics, developing new attitudes, thinking about all of my projects but not having the time or energy to work on them, waiting for spring and warm weather to come, etc.

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It’s been a good weekend – sushi, time with friends, time together.

I am excited for today & my day off tommorow.  I love suprises.

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I wonder how different my memories would be if I didn’t have photographs to document them.  Once, I heard someone saying how they disliked pictures for that very reason.  Because whenever they look back on certain events in their life, all they can see are the images in their photo album.  The photograph becomes their memory, rather than the experience itself.   

My step-grandmother once mentioned that she didn’t have a single photograph of herself as a girl and she didn’t even know what she looked like when she was younger.  Can you imagine… all the times we look into a mirror day after day, year after year, and then how easily someone could forget the way their own face looked.

Back in my introductory creative writing class in college, I was asked why I wanted to write.  I wrote on my paper, “I want to write so I don’t forget.”  I am scared of forgetting.  How precious all these little moments in my life are… the conversations I have had, the songs that I would turn to when I felt a particular way, secrets I have been told, moments that have made me cry, times  my heart has felt like it was going to explode. 

Sometimes I wish life would slow down a little bit so my heart and I could catch up.  I have “wow, I am getting old” moments every now and then.  When people I am friends with are having babies, and kids that were born in the ’90’s are already in high school, and I don’t get IDed when I buy wine at the grocery store.  But mostly I can’t believe how far I already am from particular events in my life and I want it to pause for a moment.  I don’t want it all to fade away into one big blur, where you can get an over-all feel when you look at it, but can’t make out any of the details.

Yesterday I spent 8+ hours doing exactly what I wanted to do and I still got so little done.  How horrible (because I want to make headway! progress!) and how wonderful (because it means that my little project is so much bigger than I expected).  I determined that if I worked on my project for somewhere between seven and fourteen days straight, working 8+ hours per day, I could complete it.

Other things I would like to do on my sabbatical: go to the library in the mornings and spend afternoons and evenings reading books on photography, business, and crafting.  I would drink toasted marshmellow-hot chocoloate (which I sampled today at Barnes and Noble).  I would finish my little side projects: half-knitted scarves, Jim-Bobs needing limbs sewn on, birds needing wings, photos needing scrap-booked.  I would work on my stories about Spanky the Elephant and Jesus’ Favorite Little Squirrel.

I also would like to clean our apartment.  It is relatively clean, but doesn’t everyone have those drawers and closets filled with random stuff that you don’t know where else to put?  I need to do something about that.

I feel extremely overwhlemed and stressed today.  A lot can be attributed, sadly, to the Christmas season.  In my head I am thinking about all the things I need to buy and how much money they will cost.  I wanted to design our Christmas cards this year, but I don’t know when or how. 

Of course, all these things are true of most adults.  Everyone needs a sabbatical.  Everyone has their little project that needs completed.  Everyone is too busy and spread too thing and stressed out about money and things.  I guess we all should have been college professors.

 
((the stray kitty on thanksgiving.))

I feel like a lost person, as far as my career path and purpose.  I get excited about my random ideas that would let me stay at home and make things all day instead of going to work, which would never work out.  People tell me that I would be good at this or that, but I don’t know how to make any of it happen.  They say that I will find my niche, but I don’t know if I believe in niches.  I think niches are like unicorns.

I am totally Pam Beesley right now, right?

I turned into a blob last night after my homemade organic pizza sucked and I had to throw it away, and I didn’t have enough lemon juice to finish the lemonade I started mixing, so it tasted like what I used to drink with my friends when we went to a restaurant – we’d order water with lemon and add sugar from the sugar caddy to make a very weak, gross lemonade.  I cried a lot and it wasn’t about the pizza or the lemonade, it was about feeling like there is nothing for me out there, and just really depressed.  And I look at people around me who are a lot older and just as miserable with their jobs, and it reminds me of why niches are like unicorns.

This morning seemed better, but when I went to check on Kirpi, I thought that she had committed suicide and I felt like I was going to be sick.  I was a mess.  But after a few minutes, I went back in there and she was fine, she just got caught in a really awkward position attempting to escape from her cage and had fallen asleep like that, and so I had to rescue her.  She didn’t want to eat anything and I felt really bad that I had taken her wheel out of her cage (it’s where she likes to go potty so I am always having to clean it, and I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.) and she only tries to escape when she is bored and doesn’t have her wheel.  I felt horrible.

There also are two baby ducks that are stranded in our apartment pool.  The Mom duck is majorly distressed. The water is too low for them to get out and I was meaning to call someone to rescue them, but I forgot. (We would have rescued them, but the gate is locked because the pool hasn’t opened yet).  I hope they are still okay.

I hate these sad moods.  I feel rediculous because I know I am a lucky person— I am healthy, I have a nice apartment, a job, great family and friends, I love my husband, our hedgehog is not dead.

And I know there are a lot of neat things I have to look forward to – I’m going to help Adam & Cara photograph a wedding in Philadelphia next weekend, my summer photography class at CCAD is starting in a couple of weeks, we have some little trips planned for the summer (Cedar Point, Put-in-Bay, Michigan), we are renting a house in Cape May in September, yesterday was our 7-month wedding anniversary, we have a bunch of weddings to go to this summer, Mario Party for the Wii is coming out today (and we’ve reserved it) (!!!).

Despite all that, I can’t get out of this sad mood.

let’s get out of this county
we’ll pick berries and recline
let’s hit the road, dear friend of mine
wave goodbye to our thankless jobs
drive for miles, maybe never turn off.
we’ll find a cathederal city
you can be handsome, i’ll be pretty.

Ohio does have nice springs, summers and falls.
Therefore,
I would like to become a “snow-bird.”

Where could our winter home be?
not Myrtle Beach (too commercial)
and not Florida (too many snow-birds there already).
I am thinking Hilton Head Island
or maybe Georgia
or maybe a house-boat.

My mom has a patient who owns a house-boat.
Every summer, he leaves his wife and goes to live in his house-boat, alone, for three months.
Gas is too expensive, he says, so he just leaves it at the dock.

Artist: Rachel Salomon

One thing.  I have been feeling worn out lately.  It’s not a lack-of-sleep-or-good-nutrition-worn-out, but a different sort.  I get worn out observing the way other people interact with the ones I know are most important to them.  I get worn out thinking about jobs and houses and timelines.  I’ve stumbled a lot lately in my convictions, my attitudes and my responsiblities and that sucks.  I’ve been really emotional lately too. (I am thankful for my patient husband.)

Why is it so hard to be a good person sometimes?

Thursday, my dad and I were driving together to Pataskala and we were talking about love, marriage, divorce.  He said this: “A lot of people have a lot of heartache because a lot of other people don’t have hearts.”

We also were talking about all the places we’ve lived over the years.  He said, some people live in the same places their whole life.  I said, Dad, we’re drifters.  That made him smile.