It is so beautiful outside!

I wish my desk was facing the opposite direction so I could fully enjoy my view! Even though it is of the parking lot…it is sunny and bright-the most perfect fall day. I went for a walk at Lime Lake this morning, and was totally in love with the scenery. The trees all around the perimeter of the lake are in various stages of change and I was kicking myself for not bringing the camera. The only bummer to my walk was that this stupid dog followed me for half of it. He kept going into the water on one side of the path and then the other. Some old man on a bike yelled at me, “DOGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON A LEASH!” I shrugged, gave a detached look, and said, “He’s not my dog!”

Every day this week, after getting out of work, I have smelled Lenny’s Sub Shop, just across the parking lot. It smells so good. I may just have to stop in there one day either before or after work. Not for awhile though…our pocketbooks need to recover after our two Applebee’s visits in a row 🙂

I called up my doctor’s office this morning to get some info on my ultrasound next week. Kev and I were a bit confused as to whether it was going to be a 3D ultrasound or just a regular one, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to call and ask. The woman told me that they would start out with a regular ultrasound to get all the right measurements of the baby (like head circumference, the chambers of the heart, the vertebrae, length of the femur, etc.) and then switch over to 3D to get some pics of the face and find out the gender. So, I am very happy with that news. Now, only one more week to wait! AHHH! I can’t believe that a week from tomorrow we will know if we’re having a son or a daughter-crazy! Sometimes I still having trouble believing that we’re having a baby at all!

Alright, I need to order my next book club book off of Amazon and do some reading of the new book I just started. It’s fascinating. “The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million”. It’s about this man who is trying to find out the truth about what happened to his uncle’s family during the Holocaust. I’m in love with good memoirs.

Adios.

Apparently my morning post didn’t actually post…

I must have pushed the red button to close out of Safari when Di came in, rather than pushing “publish post”…gosh, I’m dumb. The “lost post” was all about how sick I was this morning and was probably too much information anyway. It also described my morning walk with Jake at Lime Lake, and how I’m considering going back this afternoon to read and swim alone. When I told Di that, she said, “Aren’t you afraid of the Loch-Ness Monster?” Nope, not at all 🙂

Kevin and I have plans for Saturday to go to Saugatuck Dunes State Park, but apparently there’s a 60% chance of precipitation, and the weather says “scattered thunder storms”. GREAT. I was really looking forward to our anniversary celebration day, but I don’t want to drive 2 1/2 hours out there to get stuck in the rain! We’ll have to keep our eye on the weather and see what we want to do. I’m crossing my fingers that it works out!

I’m beginning to think that my blog title “in transition” is starting to not apply anymore. I am married. We live in a house. Although I’m not in my dream job, I’ll soon be a mommy which basically is my dream job. Even though we don’t plan on living here in good ole Horton forever, we’re not really in the process of transitioning anywhere. We’ll be staying put for a few years. So, with that being said, and good ideas out there for my new blog title? Heck, maybe I’ll make it “Live for today, Hope for tomorrow” or some other inspirational treat I can dig up at work.

Well, Jake’s completely conked out so I think I’ll take advantage of that and try and stick him in his cage so I can make my getaway to the lake. Of course, as soon as I try to lure him in he’ll all of a sudden be wide awake and whine when I leave, but I’m guessing he’ll be asleep again within minutes. We walked pretty far this morning and his little puppy legs were working hard! SO cute!

Lost treasures

This seems to be the theme of the week: recovering lost treasures. Lori returned “Eat Pray Love” to me, and even though it wasn’t truly lost, I had completely forgotten I had lent it out, completely forgotten that it is one of those books where the words become gems in your mouth. She had a few pages marked, pages that had moved her in some way, so I naturally flipped open to them. It seems an intimate thing, reading pages that really meant something to someone else, a glimpse into the soul almost. What I found was a particular page that I particularly remember from when I read the book myself. Here’s the best part:

“I couldn’t care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside of me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.”

Without really realizing it, these words are my internal mantra while I’m outside. I think I just had this revelation when I rediscovered this passage. When I’m running or walking alone, out in the beautiful woods, seeing the sparkling water, feeling the wind, that’s what I’m saying to myself. I just want God. God be with me. Let’s just be together, absorbing each other, whispering to each other. Let’s just be quiet together, communicate through the wind and the water and the trees. See how the branches sway? That’s God waving hello. Hear the birds singing? That’s God’s good morning song to me. God, let’s just take this walk together; run with me…

Dragon Nymph

Last week I subscribed to the National Geographic podcast. Each week they come out with a new one; no commentary, just the camera and nature. Today I watched a dragon nymph devour a tadpole. Disgusting, yet fascinating. I tried to find a picture on google images, but they all looked like fishing lures, or they were these weird naked drawings of pixies.

I’m really struggling to find an interesting topic to talk about here…Nothing new is happening! I’ve recently developed an interest in reading other people’s blogs, and there are some really good ones out there! I feel so inadequate in this blogosphere.

More than Slush

Yep, it’s snowing again. As I was running today, this was my mantra: This sucks. This sucks. This sucks. Not the running, no no no, the snow. To be specific, it wasn’t really true snow, it was slush. I got slushed on. I was soaked, chunks of slush kept falling and sticking to my eyelids, and I was thinking, “what does the sun look like?” I don’t want to be whiner. Really, I don’t. I don’t want to be one of those people who can only complain about the weather. The fact is that I don’t like the person I become when the weather is consistently crappy for months on end. And that is why I must move. For my sanity, for me to be happy, for me to not be depressed for half the year, I must move. Michigan summers are wonderful, the rest is crap. I made a great attempt to cry, to validate my feelings.

As I was running and hating slush, I saw a UPS truck with the words “Worldwide Service” on the side, and that got me thinking about that little word “world”. Wow, what a powerful word! Everything, really EVERYTHING, is contained in it. That word means mountains and rivers, rain forests, tundras, deserts and oceans, plants and animals, and all kinds of people. It means food and dancing, and languages, and clothing. Customs and history, movement, and time. Snow, rain, sunshine, breeze, stillness, the moon reflected on a lake, and the woods alive with birds. Flowers in spring, children, vegetable gardens and grass. So so much; such an extraordinary, powerful word. I thought about this world I live in, and about how little I’ve seen and experienced of it. The fact is that I want more than slush.

Pictures of what I want:

The top one is Portland, OR; bottom left is the Chesapeake Bay, and the bottom right is the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

More snow?

This evening I went running outside, down the path, and it was so beautiful. The snow was falling lightly at first, with a breath of wind, and the trees were laden with the day’s worth of snowfall. As my run went on I found myself in a wonderland so breathtaking that I had to stop and walk, inspect the snowflakes gathering on my sleeve, and to catch a few on my tongue.

For all that I complain about snow, I sure do like it.

Oooooh short and sweet post.

Crap: I’m working overnight tomorrow night. I thought I was done with that period of my life…

Pillars of my Life (Ok…lame I know…but fitting?)

Right now I’m sitting in my usual chair, after reading 60 pages in my latest novel “Pillars of the Earth” (which I realize, as a book title should be underlined or italicized but I’m not quite sure how to do that because the button isn’t working…whatever) and I’m thinking about my life. As usual. “My life” seems to be a pretty common topic, this being my blog and all, but honestly, I’ve really started to ask myself some hard questions. Perhaps by writing them out I can begin to sort through the murky obscured cloud that is my future hanging before me. I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t know what I really want or what I want to do. I’ll I’m sure of is that I’m unsure. I AM sure that I want to do it all with Kevin (which is great since we’re married!) but today we were talking about what we’re doing this summer and we came to the conclusion that well, um, ahh, yeaaa…we just don’t know. Here’s some things that I do want for my life. See, I’m not completely aimless.

1. I want to live in one of those homey-type houses one day that are full and busy, and look like they’re straight out of a Pottery Barn catalogue. I want hardwood floors, quilts made by mom (of which I already have 3, with promises of many more), a reading room with bookshelves brimming to capacity along the walls. I want a big kitchen table, for all my kids to gather round, and a big kitchen with more counterspace and cabinets than I know what to do with. I want comfy chairs and couches, a patio, a sunroom, a garden. A place to really call home.

2. I want to be a mother. I really want to know what it’s like to look into a tiny face and to see myself and Kevin there. What will that child look like? Blue eyes for sure, but what else? And then, to get to teach and cuddle and love this little creature…wow. It blows my mind to know that there are people who, in their deep love for their children give them away in hopes that someone else can give them a better life than they could. That’s incredible love right there. I’d be honored to be able to raise one of those children, and I’d do everything I could so that that mother’s sacrifice would not have been in vain. So that’s my next want, to be a mother to a little Chinese girl, who’s mother was probably pressured on all sides to give her up. Ahh, talking about Chinese kids tugs at my heart and I may start crying soon, so I’ll move on…

3. I want to live by the ocean because I feel some strange deep connection to it. It’s almost like in that show Invasion, how the people who had been made into aliens were mesmerized by water, enchanted, enthralled. In a lot of ways, that’s me (you know, except for the part about being an alien. But then aliens never really admit that they are aliens, so I guess you’ll never know.) Anyway, when I’m sitting on the beach, or standing on a pier, I feel so peaceful. The wind, the sand, the grass; it all eludes this hypnotic power over me and I feel as though I could stay there all day, maybe even all week, or month, or year, or lifetime, just completely wrapped up in that feeling of peace and power. I guess when it comes right down to it I love God more when I’m near the ocean because I can sit there and completely see him. That’s where I meet him. To live anywhere else is like cutting myself off from him. It would be a sin.

When I look at these simple requirements that I’ve made for my own life, it seems so strange. Of course one day I’ll live in a house. I’ll probably be a mother too, since I am determined to be. And the ocean, well, that too isn’t out of the question. How many people can honestly say that they are going to get everything they’ve dreamed for in this life? How lucky am I to be able to choose where I live, how many children I will have, and the type of house I have? Most people on this planet have to take what they can get. But I can choose. Why do I get that option, when billions have no choices, no opportunities, no hope for a better life?

Two posts in one day!

I was thinking of waiting until tomorrow to write so I didn’t seem to overeager or anything, but then I thought to myself, “Hey, who is really reading this? Probably not anyone I actually know. Write on.” So that’s just what I’m going to do.

I have really come to hate questions regarding what my major was and what I “see myself doing” with it. Honestly, I don’t know. And I don’t have to know. I just graduated 4 months ago. If I’m doing something that I enjoy, even though I’m not getting paid, that counts too right? I love working with the kids at church, and honestly I think that a lot of the classes I had to take for my ministry major come in handy when I’m working in kid’s ministry. Unfortunately, I can’t get paid because just like everywhere else in the state there are no job openings. What I’m saying is that I’m content working at JoAnn’s and volunteering in kid’s ministry. I don’t really care if people don’t think that it’s very “respectable” or whatever. I’m enjoying my life. And I’m not hearing too many people saying that.

On the other hand, I don’t want to work at JoAnn’s or in retail forever. I want to work somewhere that makes me feel alive and needed and like I’m making a difference in the world or at least in someone’s life. I want a job that really challenges me and makes me better. I just haven’t found it yet. 

I don’t want to live in this place for the rest of my life. Which is why I’m secretly counting the months until Kevin graduates so we can move. I need a change of scenery. I don’t want to raise my kids here, when I have kids. I don’t want to grow old here. I can see Kev and I living in the mountains or by the ocean, or at least somewhere where I don’t feel so crowded. I’m not much for the city, I need space to see the sky and run on trails. The park next door is a decent substitute, but it won’t satisfy me long-term. I need to be able to walk around barefoot and not worry about what my hair looks like when it gets all mussed up by the wind.

I’m thinking northern California, or Montana, or Colorado, or South Carolina…