inhibitions

I always think allergies are just allergies until I have serious congestion, a sore throat and a headache.  Even then I try to play it off as ‘bad allergies’ but this morning I gave in and bought cold medicine.  For my allergies.

Was thinking about my life the other day and I can hear you yawning now and x’ing out but that’s cool.  Most people have a few things they are really good at doing.  Brian has photography and the ability to write.  My sister has a serious way with kids; nurturing doesn’t even come close to describing her.  Mom: physical and mental science.  I can think of everyone in my life and place them in some spot or general area of spots in terms of their abilities, interests and strengths.  Some people have a few spots or like five at which they’re mostly good…

I’m good at nothing!  I truly, other than navigating a car (I’m pretty awesome on roadtrips), cannot think of one thing with which to associate myself.  I can (and won’t ) sit here and tell you a few things that I’m pretty good at, though they wouldn’t be considered ’strengths’ by any stretch of the imagination.  It’s a weird thing to write about  because I promise you I’m not fishing for compliments or for the great people in my life to tell me that I’m worth something – in fact I’ll close comments because it truly isn’t about that.  Maybe it’s hard for us to see our strengths on our own?  Brian thinks he sucks as a photographer, which is mind-numbingly ridiculous.  He has issues with self esteem, and so do I but I just wish there were one thing that I could really call a calling.  It accounts for me not knowing what to do with my career or how to tell people what’s going on in my life.  Sure, I have a job and I’m taking some courses…but that’s nothing to write home about.

Maybe I will let the comments through if there are some – Have you ever felt placeless?  You do things and please people but your goals are foggy and distant?  Lemme know if you have felt this way or do now because it’d be nice to know that I’m not alone in this.

Gary Hathcock

In general, I don’t think a father-in-law is supposed to mean so much to the girl his son married.  I don’t apologize for this, but my thoughts and feelings about him don’t outline the supposed law of ‘father by marriage.’  My parents are second to my husband and then just below my sister and grandmother are my in-laws…as much a part of me as anything physical.

Grateful doesn’t really cut it, because while I will always be eternally in debt for getting to know him as well as I did, I’ll also wish it were for longer.  Grateful doesn’t bring people back.

Honored isn’t right, though it is.  Two of my favorite pictures of him are at our wedding, and I’m honored that he would share his son with me…that he would drive so far for our wedding…that he would consider me a daughter.  Being honored makes the separation harder.

So I sit here in my hotel room with lots of work to do and the sting of his leaving us still heavy on my life.  My promise was never to be good at adjectives or saying how I feel.  I’d never make that promise to myself or anyone else.  But to take a stab at it, I feel lost without him, knowing that our lives will always be different and weird in some way.  Also, other than my parents, I’ve never made a serious goal of trying to be more like another person…we should be happy with our own inconsistencies and achievements.  But I hope to turn a lot of this grief into an education of how to live.  I want to look back at this time years from now and still remember how much he loved his family, how Jesus Christ was the most important thing in his life, and how unimportant the office job is when all things are considered.  I want to remember his laugh, his singing voice, his sense of peace-making among the brothers.  I am writing this down to later recall his old car, torn suitcases, 92 cent flashlights, plaid button-down shirts.  The fact that he’d never write a paragraph with as many “I” statements as this one.  Charles Dickens, chess, intense Bible study, the white shirt he wore to the beach.  Calluses on his hands from hard labor, Tar heels basketball, light looking and M&M cookies.  The lower spot on his side of the bed where he spent hours on his knees in prayer.

I wish more people had known him so that they could have a better idea of how we all should live.  I’m lucky to take his lessons with me, and hope to someday know the peace that he now knows.

And my greatest wish for anyone I’ve ever cared about is that you’ll leave this earth with the life behind you and the future ahead of you that Gary Hathcock claims.

a good week

Outside of missing Brian and Olive, this week has been decent.  The horrid things I’ve said about Maryland in the past may soon be revoked.

Meanwhile – “No, we do not have ‘bartending’ at our liberal arts university, ma’am.”

Guh.

almost 6 months old

Snow Day - March 2, 2009

taking notice

Saying that my house is old is an understatement.  Here’s an idea of how aged our rental home is: if you throw a ball for the dog, it doesn’t stop for a LONG time because once it gets close to stopping, it hits a dip in the linoleum and goes another direction for a while before it hits yet another curve in the floor and heads the opposite way.  As you can imagine, this is great fun for the puppy.  She’ll run after her ball and then watch it turn and follow it around the house.  I’d be more annoyed with our warped floor if it didn’t provide such enjoyment for her.

More indications that our home is from another time are random hooks in the ceiling.  I’m not sure if these are plant hooks, or ones upon which you might find a hanging lamp…maybe my living room was at some point the bleeding out room of a slaughterhouse?  Whatever their purpose used to be, they now have a new job.

They are the very reason Olive gets up in the morning.

She wakes up with us, runs into the living room and looks up at them.  If they are there (they’ve never moved), she will then eat breakfast and sit by the door for her morning potty.  We enjoy movie night in this room and she normally heats my lap while her long body is in a half moon shape.  She sleeps through war scenes, laughter, and the alien coming out of Kane.  Nothing stirs her.  Roughly twice during the course of a movie, she jumps out of her (always) deep sleep.  She whips her head around, often with alarming speed, and checks on her hooks.  Whew, still there.  I think she dreams about them.

There is one hook in our bedroom, right above where Brian sleeps.  Of course, the jokes have all been made, and he noted a few years ago that should it fall on him, he’d get quite a bump.  Olive sleeps at our feet usually, with our legs as the hot dog buns, and will wake up in the night to come check out her hook.  This involves a great deal of maneuvering through blankets, waking us up, etc.  There is nothing else in our house or her life that enthralls her as much as the blasted hooks.

I was thinking about her peculiarity recently.  She must, at all times, know about them.  It seems really strange to me, but then again, should it?  What do I keep close tabs on without reason?   Where is the line between taking in creation and becoming overly interested?  I’m not trying to get too philosophical here–there is nothing wrong with taking the time to notice the world around you.  I just wonder what I could have accomplished with that time, were it put to a cause that means something.  That’s probably just the workaholic in me.

yes,

I added snow.

Yes, I know we don’t have any.

And I know we won’t get any.

A girl can dream, can’t she!

Meanwhile, Olive had another photoshoot:

Facebook | Your Photos – The Nose. It Grows..

unpossible.

This doesn’t seem like it could be real.  I’m posting it anyway.

all you need is trust and…a little bit of insanity?

Every time I wake up, I notice that spring cleaning fairies have come through my house, rearranging all of the furniture, cleaning a different spot than before, and making the house look a little bigger.  I don’t know what has gotten into him, but I’m not going to say one word.  This illness is one that I’d like for him to keep, thankyouverymuch.

as the air gets a little cooler

I’ve wanted to update for a while, but to be honest with you, I haven’t known how to say what I’d like to say.  Part of me is very open about my feelings politically and morally, and part of me is very hesitant to try and put these feelings to words.  I am not unhappy with the results of last week’s election, though my heart tells me to be wary of any decision that is made right now, due to our economy and global situation.  Thank goodness North Carolina had early voting in place.  If that hadn’t been an option, we’d probably STILL be undecided.  hehem.

Anyway, that’s enough about that.  I’ll just be hopeful for some changes that need to take place, and in prayer about the things that I hope stay the same.  My husband and I got a puppy a few weeks ago.  Her name is Olive and she is a sweetheart.

Olive at 7 weeks

She is a chocolate and tan miniature dachshund.  We love her a lot and are happy to have grown as a family in this way.  Right now, there is much biting and jumping and learning where to pee, and though that can be painstaking, I’m loving every minute.  We’d like to socialize her to other animals soon, so anyone who might have stumbled upon this blog and lives within 75 miles of Albemarle, NC…hit me up.

We’re in the midst of vaccinations, crate training, house training and trying to get her to sit still long enough for some pictures.  A good selection of the few we have so far can be found on my facebook page:

Facebook Album: Olive

I know.  Too much adorable.

Work is going well.  We’re having students on campus much more than last year, which is a good sign in my opinion.  My numbers are way up from last year at this time, and I’m feeling good about the students that I’m working with right now.  We had Falcon Preview Day on Saturday with a great turnout.  It went very smoothly with only one or two hiccups.  I got a deposit!  That’s always a good thing.

I’ll try to end on something a little less mind-blowingly boring.  I’ve never been on board with those of you who LOVE autumn.  For some reason, the short days and colder weather never brought about good feelings for me, so while most people have been “I LOVE FALL!!”, I’ve been, “Time for a coat.”  For some unknown reasons, my feelings have changed a little this year.  Our Fall has been especially beautiful, with the leaves lasting on the trees much longer than last year.  Also, the shorter days haven’t been as much an issue for me, again, inexplicably so.  I’m enjoying it, and while I don’t know why, I’m not going to ask.  It’s never a bad thing to start liking something for which you’ve never had an affinity previously.

I’m not even upset that we aren’t putting up a tree this year.  Stop right there.  Don’t choke on your coffee.  Brian and I LOVE Christmas but with a new puppy and being in VA for about three weeks around the holidays, there is little need for heavy decorating.  We’re still planning on putting up other festive things like our wreath, kitchen stuff and stockings.  Just not the tree.  It really is one of the most depressing things to come home on January 3rd to a house full of dusty decorations.  Finding a way to stuff it all back into the respective boxes, while also doing laundry for work, and putting away new gifts is just terrible.  Christmas isn’t about having a tree in your living room, anyway.  And I’m sure we’ll have plenty of glittery, tinselly puppy poop to pick up while we’re in VA.  We can get that out of our systems there.

lapse

Oh yeah, this thing.

As I write this, I am actively drowning out the wailing in the other room.  Brian has a cold.  This means the world is over, all puppies have been killed, our landlady has decided to move in with us, Daniel Day-Lewis has died, and a general gnashing of teeth.  You know, a cold.  Anyway, it has been a wonderful summer, filled with short work weeks, a fantastic beach trip, multiple weekends in VA, and a really great class.  All of which probably denoted a blog entry.  Oh, and we made it to a second anniversary.  I suck.

For now, I’ll just say that I finally get to move into my new office in three weeks, my classes are starting out really well, travel looks like it will be eventful and worthwhile, and there’s one big secret that I’ve promised not to share.  No, we’re not pregnant.

I registered to vote a few weeks ago.  My department runs the first table of financial registration (the hoops new and returning students must jump through in order to attend class), and while I was sitting there I noticed a table with big colorful signs saying things like “Rock the Vote”, etc.  First things first: does one vote really rock anything?  Do you “rock” for the simple act of voting, or is it just the idea that young people voting is totally ‘rockstar’?  I digress…my bewilderment over the sign was immediately replaced with embarrassment when the girl at the table confused me for a student.  Most of my co-workers laughed at me because I’ve lived here for over two years and I guess it’s a big deal if you put off your civic duty for as long as I have.  It really wasn’t on account of me being particularly anarchist, I just hadn’t put much thought into it.  Frankly, I haven’t kept up with local government enough to really know who should get my fantastic vote.

It isn’t right for me to poo poo voting as a way to avoid my dislike for the way our government is handled.  This must be anti-American of me, and I don’t mean to seem anti-, semi-, overly- anything.  And I know that the reason I should vote is because I believe things should be a certain way and should fight for this way by participating however I can.  The word Politics has always brought about interesting thoughts in my mind, filled with erased pencil markings and a general distrust in most of those involved. I just don’t really have any idea why my registering to vote and the subsequent voting is going to clear things up for me.  Or why it would rock.

Nevertheless, I can vote now.  I’ve paid more attention to this presidential election than any others, and do plan on being a bit more cognizant about the lesser (and perhaps more important) races.  For now, neither McCain nor Obama have hit me over the head with a love stick, but I know where I stand about most things and will come to a conclusion enough to punch some paper in November.

If I can handle it, I’m gonna go to bed and pretend I’m deaf or something.