Advice for Cicadas (link) June 2, 2011

Oh, Amy. Good job, my friend!

Long Day Tuesday March 8, 2011

“Due to circumstances beyond my control…” — Michael
“…impulsivity and inattention to detail…” — Dwight

That may be my very favorite side-comment/interruption on The Office ever.

Anyway, that’s not what I came to say. That has nothing to do with anything other than I like it.

I came to say:

• I won’t, but I wish I could vent about my day here without A. Sounding like I’m complaining about a role I’m very grateful to have and B. Discussing things that have no business here. Sometimes, I collapse into my car completely drained of all human emotion. Makes me an enjoyable dinner companion, I’m SURE. You’re welcome, Andrew.
• Tonight, I registered my baby for Kindergarten. Hold me.
• We took her on a tour around the school (I used to work there and it’s humongous). When we passed by the gym, she asked, “Oh! Is that where we’ll go to scream?”
• Colin Hay. Gosh, I just adore this guy. Sweet friend Brian reserved a table for us, so we actually got to sit comfortably (3rd and Lindsley can be a crush on a night with a popular artist). I will say, he’s MUCH funnier when he’s not on live radio. And then, just to torture me, this guy  is there the next Sunday night. I don’t think I can skip out two Sunday nights in a row, so I’ll have to be content to listen on Lightning 100.

• BG is obsessed with the movie Tangled. Her current favorite activity is tying long things (almost anything will do) to her ponytail, carrying around a small frying pan, and talking to her imaginary chameleon. She will walk around the house for an entire day trailing this behind her:

 

• And y’all: I totally commissioned art! Classy. I saw this pretty mass-produced canvas at World Market (you know, where they keep all the things I love and wish I could buy), but it was quite small and WAY more than I would spend anyway. However, I have a thing for doors and took a picture so I could mull it over.

I showed it to my VERY talented friend Jennifer around Christmas, and (sort of) joked that she could paint one for me. I really was mostly joking, though everything she paints/draws/creates is beautiful. Well, she just brought me this:

How cool is THAT?

Oh my grief. October 7, 2010

That is Baby Girl’s newest “expletive.” Yeah, I’ll take that for now!

I want to write but can’t quite form any meaningful sentences (at least nothing I’m willing to plaster all over the internets). I guess that means I probably would be wise to just be quiet.

Oh.

I’ve never been especially good at that. When have I ever let having nothing to say keep me from talking?

Never, that’s when.

So, in typical bullet form, here are some randoms floating around in my head:

• Thursdays are my favorite days most of the time. I get to have a slow-start morning, drink a cup of coffee before it gets cold (probably), and make my list of things that need to get done Thursday/Friday without feeling like it all has to be done rightthisminute.
• Instead of working at my regular school, I spent three days this week in a training with special ed teachers and another psych. As much as I complain about training (it takes serious effort for me to tune in no matter how fascinating the topic, which is why I often end up volunteering/getting volunteered to BE the trainer if I know enough to do so :)), it really does give me a fresh perspective and energy. I get so bogged down in the details of what I do, and I start fantasizing about looking for something a lot more clinical/therapeutic-based. Or, you know, becoming an accountant or a writer or a waitress or something–it’s a wide swing. Having a few days of academic-type interactions gives me the ability to not melt into a puddle of stress when I see the BOX of files I brought home from my (did I mention) only part-time job. Sometimes waiting tables sounds pretty good. I could do that.
• I foresee a lot of time spent at the Transmission Shop of Dad in the very near future.
• I am no longer blond (for the time being). I totally forgot how much fun it is to have a different hair color. My dad is going to HATE it. I get a tattoo and he just tells me it’s fine but for-the-love please tell my little sister it hurt like nothing else, but he gets all bent out of shape when I cut or color my hair. Weird.
• Did I forget to mention the tattoo? Ah, yes. It took six minutes and I still had to stop halfway through and try desperately hard not to pass out. Two little words on the inside of my wrist. Just what I needed, nothing more–a battle scar of sorts. The tattoo guy (“The Viking.” Seriously.) was, God bless him, trying his very best not to laugh at me. He failed, but I totally forgive him because of the whole only six minutes thing.
• Baby Girl is upset with me this morning because I don’t know how to make a paper airplane. I didn’t actually realize I don’t possess this ability AT ALL, but I truly don’t. I should have paid better attention in middle school when this skill was being mastered by my peers. I’m sure I was looking at the boys, but not for purposes of learning paper-folding techniques. Her unabashed disappointment in me is the same sigh she uses when she wants me to make her train tracks into a figure 8 and I just can’t do it. I just want to say, “Baby, if you want me to write you an original epic fairy tale with amazing historical cross references, I am all about it and can do that JUST FOR YOU because I love you forever, but your mama has zero visual-spatial skills. Take it up with my brain.”
• I can’t believe I have enough musical excitement to have a bullet point for it, but: road tripping for Jimmy Eat World in Columbus, OH this weekend (can hardly CONTAIN myself), Ben Folds with the Nashville Symphony in November (my sweet husband decided to ignore the screaming budget and my repeated insistence that it was too expensive–even though it IS), and a pretty-sure report that Colin Hay is playing the Sunday night Lightning 100 show at 3rd & Lindsley in March. I freaking love this city.
• I’m in a cooking club. Someone may have even called it a GOURMET cooking club. Surely she was mistaken (either in calling it that or inviting me). If you’re not laughing at the idea of me doing this, you don’t get it. I’m simply viewing it as a chance to wear a little extra makeup, chat with friends during the hours normally consumed with bath/bedtime stories/preschool witching hour behaviors, and eat things with fancy cheese on them.
• And I know it isn’t a blog from me unless it smacks of a therapy session just a little bit, but I’ve been sitting here long enough (and I didn’t upload any of last month’s photos for this silly blog, which is what I sat down to do in the first place). I’ll save my overwhelming run-down of preoccupations for another day.

Cleaning out my brain (I Can’t Focus/What Day is This? Edition) September 9, 2010

I have nothing real to say.

So, here are some words.

• I just typed an email to a friend containing the reply “Yes, please. Cheese soothes my soul.” What is wrong with me? And why am I jiggly in all the wrong places? A MYSTERY.
• Dear Gap Curvy jeans: You had me at “You may find you need to size down.” Bless you. However, I have mixed feelings on this, as Gap was the very last store where I could just grab my size off the rack and never worry about trying it on. I hate to shop for clothes. Again, what’s wrong with me?
• Thursday is my catchup day to attempt to restore order to (some of) the chaos that builds up Monday-Wednesday. Last Thursday I made a “Must Get Done” list. I got two things on it done, added six more, and now it’s Thursday again and I’m still working on the same blasted list. I can’t figure out how to prioritize it–it all seems important and pressing. Blah.
• I don’t talk about my job on here for many reasons, but this is about my reaction to it. It’s frantic and sometimes heartbreaking and is really taking an emotional toll on me this time around (and it’s only early September). Maybe it’s always been like this for me, and I just don’t remember it because I’ve been doing other things for most of the last year. I think my perception on this is skewed. As someone so kindly pointed out to me, I’m a mess and stressed out no matter what I’m doing right now. Well, okay. I guess that’s one way of looking at it. I suppose I might as well make some money. I KNOW I have it better than most, really I do. I think the problem is me, not the job.
• While “helping” me make scrambled eggs this morning, I asked Baby Girl to stir the eggs with a fork. She heard “please get a spoon and slurp down some raw egg while my back is turned.” BLECH. She told me I make delicious egg soup. Double BLECH. Good thing there’s not a nationwide salmonella freakout or anything.
• My mom’s birthday is today, Andrew’s birthday is the 12th, and Baby Girl’s is the 13th. That’s just really a lot of cake. Can I submit a request to change one of those to June? That would definitely help me out. Thanks.
• My car looks like a dumpster. Trash everywhere. This is not a good sign for what’s going on in my brain.
• Really, I just want to do some venting and complaining.I’ve been doing a lot of that in certain circles lately, but there’s always more to flow out. How can I do that and not be one of those exhaustingly annoying people who are always frazzled and stressed out and just a CHORE to be around? Any ideas? I want to be cheerful and sunny and energizing rather than draining, but good grief sometimes I just don’t have it in me.
• I put a lot of pressure on myself. I spend a lot of time telling myself that it really will be JUST FINE if things don’t get done within a certain timeline, the world won’t end if XYZ doesn’t happen the way I think it should, no one but me is even AWARE of the things I’m obsessing over and have deemed so arbitrarily important, etc. etc. So many of these things just aren’t on anyone’s radar but mine.  I just can’t get myself to believe myself. Working on that.
• Toadies. Tonight. Exit/In. I need it to be LOUD. In an only-in-Nashville-esque dilemma, there is also a free concert at the same time with Five for Fighting and Tonic right around the corner.

I feel like a hamster on a wheel. A loud, squeaky, annoying wheel.

Random side note: You know the theme song from The Office? That accordian-sounding instrument is a melodica. You may have known that; I did not. There is one in my living room right now. Baby Girl has decided it is her life’s work (for today, at least). In her musically gifted hands, it sounds like a cross between a kazoo and a wheezing duck. That’s been my soundtrack for the last hour.

Soothing.

Found a card reader February 20, 2010

This is what we left in Iowa:

 

 

 

…and this is what we came home to in Nashville.

I did not see that coming.

 

Another “Oh, yes. I am defintely in Nashville” February 17, 2010

I didn’t know I would have so many of these so quickly.

You know you’re in Nashville when…

You’re waiting to leave the parking garage on 2nd avenue last night, a ridiculously long line forms at the guard booth for some unknown reason that requires four security guards at the gate, and the group of (possibly) drunk teenagers in the car in front of you piles out of their car to do what young, giddy people full of themselves do. What? No, not a Chinese Fire Drill.

‘Round here, they LINE DANCE in the parking garage while they wait.

Ah, to be young again.

So…about that… February 10, 2010

Well, for starters, I suddenly find myself in Nashville again.

I have been writing this post in my head for about a week, and it just will. not. write. It always ends up in the trash file, because there are just too many eyes to see it.  I know, I’m the one who puts it out there for the world to see. I know, I know. I struggle with that, too. I need an anonymous unloading blog. Duly noted… Never have I been able to find the balance between saying too much and leaving too much unsaid. Over the past several months, I’ve been constantly bouncing between wishing I hadn’t said something that I did say and wishing I could find the words to find what I do need to say. The end result has been pretty much one of two things, most of the time: sullen silences or unintelligible tirades. Sorry to you if you’ve gotten both–it sort of swings from hour to hour. Either way, I haven’t gotten that one down just yet. CLEARLY. I’m either mentally clapping my hands over my mouth to keep it all in, or standing there like a moron with a brain full of everything but no words at all.

This time, I really do want to be careful what I say here. The shorter I keep it, the better chance I have of not saying something I’ll regret later. If you know me in the real world and want the whole gory story, feel free to call me and ask. The biggest change is that we relocated back to Nashville last week after Andrew was asked to step down from his position at Grace. In short, the elder team there felt that his spiritual leadership was insufficient for the position. So…what can you say to that? We knew for about a week before the rest of the church body and tried to honor their wishes for us to wait to tell anyone. Of course, that meant we weren’t able to even access the support system we had started to build in Iowa at a time when we really needed it. Anyway, I think I’ve given personal apologies to almost all of the people I blew off that week or generally acted strange around–so that’s that. Long story short–after we got over the surprise of it, we made the decision to head back to TN to regroup and decide what to do. That was able to come together pretty quickly, so here we are.  We called a few people before we came, but lying low for a few days has been kind of nice, what with my head about to explode and all.

Because we have renters in our Murfreesboro house, we made some calls and were able to move into one of Andrew’s parents’ rental properties here in town. We gave them no notice, and they were literally mid-remodel (and not one complaint from them, God bless them), so there’s a lot of work to be done. Work is good. I could definitely use some mindless labor right about now, and hopefully I can find some clarity somewhere between paintbrush strokes. I have a few job interviews this week, and I am just hoping I can pull it together enough to remember what it is I do, exactly. Should be interesting. I don’t know if Nashville is home for a few months, a year, or forever. That remains to be seen. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I felt a little break in my fog when I saw that skyline. There’s something about home, even if you don’t get to stay. How could I have not known that before I left?

So, to sum up: 

• Everything is in boxes again,
• my hair is a wavy mess because my blowdryer  shot actual flames right before we left Iowa and I haven’t bought a new one (yes, this is important),
• random basketcase moments without warning,
• Baby Girl now plays “packing my toys all up” as a game,
• and pretty much every area of my life has a big question mark hanging over it. Good thing I’m not a planner or anything.

So, okay, there could be pages and pages here, but they’re all in the trash file. I also hate that I didn’t really get to say goodbye to anyone in Iowa, other than the 6 wonderful guys who packed our truck (and by packed, I mean there was not one single iota of wasted space and I have no idea how they did it–and it was about 5 degrees) and then sang worship songs with us in the almost empty living room. However, I have never been good at goodbyes, so that may be just as well. I hate goodbyes. Many people from Grace called me, and I could barely get through the phone calls without losing it. Thank you to everyone who did call or sent a quick gift before we left–it was much appreciated, even if I sounded a little checked out and probably didn’t even respond in complete sentences. Hopefully, I used words that made a little sense. There was a lot of good there.

A few good things, though:

• Baby Girl is getting lots of grandparent time,
• I can see the grass,
• tons of space at the new place (well, there will be once the projects are done),
• and I was able to locate clean, matching clothes in time to go help out a friend today (take the victories you can, right?).

So, fresh starts and all that. I’m going to call that good enough for now.

P.S. I’m working on launching a new blog site, but as it turns out I have no earthly idea what I’m doing, it’s taking a little longer than I thought. It’s all pretty but terribly nonfunctional at the moment, so stay tuned for that. Clearly, working on that is more important than unpacking, job searching, painting, spackling, and just thinking in general. You must have your priorities, really.

P.S.S. You know what I hate? Complainers and whiners. I’m going to stop being one. Soon. I think.

Only in Nashville January 29, 2010

So, I have A WHOLE LOT to say for a change, but this is neither the time nor the place.

Instead, I give you the random Craigslist ad that made me almost spit out my morning coffee today:

 I don’t know if it’s really all that funny or if I’m a little loopy from extreme sleep deprivation or gnawing all my fingernails off in the last few days, but the title alone got me. Only in Nashville would a person refer to himself as a “Hit Songwriter/Handyman.” The whole situation is a country song in and of itself, because of course the ex-wife and kids got all his money. Since he’s in Christian country (is that thing?), I’m guessing that means his wife took the crumpled $20 bill he earned off the nightstand when she left, leaving him penniless.

And QUICK! Name your very favorite Christian country artist.

Yeah, that’s what I came up with, too.

Now, I don’t really want to mock the guy and I really do feel bad for him. I do. It just bugs me when people give the whole big back story when I think they should just say they’re hard workers and are looking for _____ in exchange. There’s no shame in working or needing help, no matter what the job is or what the circumstances are. Anyway,  I needed a laugh this morning, and that was it.