Army Crawl

This time of year is always a crap shoot - will I be happy? Sad? Sick? Depressed? Productive? What?? 

I lost my Grandma Louise on Nov 8th and my dad on Nov 10th and my body is still keeping score.  Lord almighty! It's been several years (30 for GL and 9 for my dad) and I still find myself incapacitated even if only briefly. 

I have this vague impression lately that I am army crawling through my days, just trying to get to the next one. There is a version of a  healthy me on the horizon that just keeps floating out of reach - this frail and depleted me hopes that if I just keep reaching, I will be able to obtain what I seek. Guh. 

It's bewildering because my nutrition is good, my sleep is good, my friendships are good. There is some fragility in my relationships with family that needs healed, but it's not untenable - just mildly uncomfortable at times. 

Please, Baby Jesus, let it be a just a phase.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace

(Gesu Church in Miami, FL)

One of the things I did this year in furthering my spiritual formation is sign up for Adoration once a week. To put it simply, I go and sit in silence to pray, read or journal in the silence of the Adoration Chapel.  Because there is always supposed to be 2 (or even more!) Adorers present at all times, our Parish has us signed up for shifts. Guess what time my shift is? 

Nope. It's 11pm -12am every Tuesday.  

Tonight will be longer as I am filling in for the person after me. I am really patting myself on the back for this sacrifice, y'all! I think that might negate any extra blessings I might receive in exchange. But, anyway.

My husband has graciously accompanied me for at least the first hour tonight (and every other regularly scheduled Tuesdays!) and while I think that having him here is a distraction to me, I am also inspired by his holy worship. 

There is another person who has the same shift as me, and his snoring has become something I look forward to as it brings some humaness to this spiritual endeavor. I don't think he knows that he snores- he may not even know that I know that he is asleep! 

I am saying a prayer for you, for me, for all of us tonight. Amen.

Oh Haiiiii!!

I was so afraid that my blog had disappeared- I mean, I haven't actually logged in for a couple of years, but still, shouldn't it be there? It only contains about 200 years and tears of my emotional growth...just saying. 

I gave my momma a present of StoryWorth last year for Mother's Day. If you aren't familiar,  it's a company that sends your loved ones a writing prompt about once a month, and then binds all of the essays in to a book when they are done. It really is genius - and worth it if you ask me. I think it is just HARD sometimes as a human to answer some questions that hit too close to the bone. 

Anyway, I started thinking about how many of my learning/teaching moments from the 2000's made their way to my blog but there is a definite drop off in activity - why?? I didn't stop learning or doing really ridiculous things that I would want to save others from (isn't THAT the truth??l). Rather, I think I ran out of prompts. Ha!

I need me some prompting. 

In other news - it's been 11 years since the infamous break up with Mr. G. 

I think my body is remembering all of that trauma - what a bewildering yet awesome way we process past pain. 

I will be very gentle with myself today in light of this realization. 

What is YOUR body remembering today?

Road Damage Ahead

I am not a fan of riding the motorcycle on dirt roads, but this one was only partially dirt. The other part of the road was pavement from prehistoric times. It was a rough road any way you slice it. 

 The view, though!

So very lovely. 

It looks like it will be my last ride on the back of the bike as a single lady -I am getting married in 20 days. 20 days. Twenty days. TWENTY DAYS.

Lord, have mercy. 

That's What Friends Are For

We have a girlfriend who gets to go on lots of dates. She really is that charming and lovely!

Goodnaturedly, she has allowed us to start a pool on which of her many suitors will make it to the next level.

What she didn't know is that we would do our own reconnaissance during her dates.

We involved the bartender, the hostess, the server, AND the other guests in the restaurant - and so we got the job done.

The man in question will survive to see another date with our approval. Lucky guy!! 

Annoying Things Pt.367551

Seriously. When looking for a recommendation, why do you have to qualify it as being a request for a GOOD recommendation? Do you have people in your world who routinely set you up for failure by giving you bad suggestions?

"In Search Of: Mechanic. Must be trustworthy and competent. Not too expensive."

Really? Do you think there would have been someone thinking, "Oh! I know a great mechanic, but now that you say that you need someone trustworthy and competent...well, that one is out." Good thing you clarified ahead of time! Think of all of the untrustworthy, incompetent and overpriced mechanics your friends and family would have suggested to you.

Or this one: "Looking for free or cheap lawnmower. Must run great and be in excellent condition."

I am sorry - what you are looking for is a new lawnmower and those must be purchased at (or near) MSRP. Or stolen, I guess.

Maybe I should start ignoring those types of posts instead of answering with my favorite response: "???".

Prickly

I am dangerously prickly and sullen lately. Quick to take offense - and sure to give it. Being known for my rays of sunshine and optimism, this is hard to reconcile! I honked and "gestured" at someone who cut me off (he pulled up next to me and apologized), I refused to engage in an argument with a client and ended up losing his business (not because I was taking the high road...I simply didn't care enough to exert energy on him), and have been randomly glaring at one household child or another (so I am told).  I feel yucky on the inside but don't have enough spunk to commit to a change. 

I need a pep rally or something. I can see it now: Go! Fight! Be nice! 

Bye Little Birdie

Jeremy is a senior this year. I have already grown and graduated a senior child (she graduated from both high school AND college), but this time seems to be different. I am not sure if it's because my daughter insisted on doing everything herself and making sure that I didn't stick my nose in her business, or if it's because I actually understand now what it means for a child to graduate and go on about their life without you. 

I am panicking a little. It's not that I don't want them to have their own lives...it's that I don't want them to have their own lives without me. And yes, I have already inquired: Jeremy will NOT let me attend college with him next year. 

Bummer. Maybe the youngest will.  

A Spring Lament

It's that season-in-between-seasons here in Colorado. Not Winter anymore and not really Spring yet - but almost. It still gets below freezing at night and can snow any given afternoon if there are enough clouds. Even if the forecast says 61 degrees.

We are past the Spring Equinox, and that should mean something!

All it really means to me is that I wore the wrong thing to work again today.

Nom. And more Nom.

I can tell you without a doubt that I will need to take cooking classes before I walk down that aisle again.

In the last 11 years, the percentage of meals prepared by me for me and my little tribe is maybe an optimistic 45%. The percentage of meals prepared by me for me and my sweetheart is around 9%.The rest of our eats have been prepared by fantastic restaurateurs.

While I really enjoy those percentages, I am pretty sure that cooking meals for my man will increase my chances of staying married in the future. I want to have at least a 50% success rate of marriage when it's all told. So far my percentage rate is 0.

How many nights in a row can you serve grilled cheese and tomato soup before it starts getting redundant? Asking for a friend.

What's ya digits?

 First thing out of the box, I would like to share this comprehensive and practical list of  GOOD MANNERS. I am a fan of good manners because I believe it is the easiest way for us to show respect and awareness to others. Plus, I am terrified of seeming rude so having a list to refer to fits me well!

Speaking of fitting me well, I have been studying my Enneagrams pretty intensely for the last few weeks. Last Spring, our health coaches Amanda  and Carrie did a segment study on them using the Enneagram Institute's material. I was hooked! It's like astrology without the dark stigma of occult involvement. I don't even have to confess to my priest when I study the Enneagram! Anyway, our little church did a workshop seminar earlier this year and I discovered that I was actually mistyping (misnumbering? misclassifying??) myself as a strong 2 (who needs to be loved and creates dependency situations with others) when I am actually a 6 (who needs to be valued - I actually run away if someone depends on me too much). I also learned that 6's like to know what all of the rules are (like manners) but chooses when and if they will follow the rules rather mercurially. That makes sense to me! 

What is YOUR number? 

At Eclectic Energies, you can find a smaller and pretty accurate test - it will even give you little bonus information like what your "wing" is. 

I believe my wing is a 7 in case you were wondering. 

That makes me funner and enhances my inability to commit. Wooohooo!

Leftovers

I joined a gym this year. It was supposed to be a body-altering decision, but apparently you actually have to go more than once a week. More than once a month, even!

I love regaling my friends with my gym anecdotes because it usually involves me dropping something while on the treadmill and the absurd chaos that follows whilst I try to do retrievals with grace. (Grace and I are not friends, btdubs. Smooth, Grace and Style have evaded me for years.)

The last time I went to the gym was a little scarring, however. Ever try really hard to engage someone in conversation that doesn't really want you to talk to them anymore?

It's probably because you have eggs and spinach left over from dinner in your teeth. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.  Word to the wise, friends.

More Bread Crumbs

I did a search on my email to see if I could find the name of the Chicago suburb we stayed at when we had our Quitnet International 3D. It was just a piece of trivia that I thought would be an easy find.

I didn't find it. The year was 2007 and there were a whole lot of other emails that year, too. The email listing the itinerary with the town name is a literal needle in the haystack.

What I did find, however, read like an archaeological dig. What a year that was. Who in the world was I, even? I can feel myself slipping back in to that whirlpool of confusion and excitement ...and fear.  Like I have stumbled upon a portal of the Time Between Times. I followed breadcrumb trails through my blog, through my instant messages - even through picture archives I had forgotten about.

Shaking off the swirling emotions is proving difficult. But is that even what I want to do? Maybe my ruminations are designed for a purpose.

One thing that I know for sure: I feel the loss of you keenly. I miss my support system, my tribe of vagabonds and artists and writers and musicians. I wish there was a way to tell some of you that.

More of the Same

Goodness!

It's been awhile. Too long, really. I am always thinking about the words in my head that want to find their way to paper (you know what I mean), but have been too ...I don't know. Stubborn? Prideful? Petulant? Lazy?? However you want to describe it, I have been too much of it to open this blog back up.

But here I am.

Today I said something really awful to a friend. It was the very worst kind of awful - the kind that leaves marks and hangs in the air with all of it's poison relentlessly oozing. Ugh.

I asked him why the terrible people in our world couldn't be the ones offing themselves instead of the talented, beautiful and beloved.

It was supposed to be a harmless musing out loud. It was not harmless.

I am glad that my friend knows my heart and can forgive my outrageousness (that isn't a word, by the way - but it should be).

I'm Leaving

I'm leaving on a jet plane! I am going to NH to see my mom and Bob! 

Truly, it is a magical adventure whenever my mom is part of my plans. She still creates magic for me - I have no idea how. 

I hope to see some ocean, maybe hike a little, maybe eat some really great comfort food and sit by the fire. 

Do you know what I hope for the very most, though? A scare-free plane ride. Both ways. 

                                    The beach not too far away from the Boston International Airport - 2007

Pricey Bargains

Garage sales are so fascinating! It's like gambling (only most of the time it's cheaper) because you could come across a treasure...or not. I am safer than most from the siren call of the garage sale as I never carry cash (which is also a problem).

Today I stumbled across a garage sale in my own neighborhood. Actually, right across the street. Turns out the couple that has been living there for the past 25 years is moving. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to meet them as I had never seen them before. Not once in the last eight years that I have been here.

Anyway, as I moseyed my way through the piles of "stuff" they were hawking, l noticed that they had some interesting goblets here and there. One particular goblet looked like it was silver - tarnished, yes, but silver nonetheless. I brought it down off of it's perch to get a closer look, and quickly returned it as it felt too light to be the quality I hoped it was. And wouldn't you know? It fell off of the shelf and crashed to the ground in two pieces. Guh. The base had snapped right off of the stem.

I have never broken anything at a garage sale before, so I didn't know what protocol was. The neighbor hadn't seen it, and no one was around. So I left.

I went back to my house, got the two quarters that was the asking price, and returned to let the garage seller know what had happened. He didn't seem to care much - as was my anticipation. But if I had not paid for it (although I left it with him to dispose of), I would have been waiting for Karma's swift retribution my whole life. And I wasn't willing to go through that for a fake silver goblet.

Or anything else, really.

Tweet Tweet Tweet

Writing has always been my "thing". My blogging started in '05 with MSN's Spaces ( I was writing at the Tow Away Zone! Clever, huh?) and then migrated to Blogger in '06 when all of my fellow bloggers did. I think Facebook was the death of our blogging. I can't be for sure of that fact, but as evidence, our blogging decreased as our FB'ing increased.

Twitter is another factor responsible for our (collective) decreased writing. I really haven't enjoyed Twitter all that much - that may be because 90% the tweets in my feed were either upsetting to me, offensive or political.  I never saw anything from people I actually knew, and if I did, I had already seen their post on Facebook! I refused to delete anyone because doing that made it seem that I am close-minded, judgmental and not open to anyone else's point of view. Which is exactly the opposite of who I want to be.

But, holy cats! My Twitter feed! It. Was. Infuriating.

So, I decided to take a look at who I was following - and who was following me. I guess I didn't know enough about what a good follower/followee relationship looked like when I started my tweeting...nor was there any rhyme or reason to who was included in my twits. I started hitting the unfollow button. And that brought me so much happiness that I kept hitting the unfollow button until there was nothing left but people I WANTED to follow (and who were following me)! My whole experience with this particular social media has just changed for the better. I know there is a life metaphor in there somewhere about how when we choose our companions well it makes our life happier...when I get it worded better I will be sure to tweet it!

(@terilyn1610) :-)

See You At the Pole

Today was See You at the Pole day for my kids and their high school. Truly, I was impressed that they went - mostly because it entailed getting up and being to school even before the sun came up.

Both of the boys have been active with their youth group, our church and summer church camp for about a year, and all on their own accord! I am so grateful for that. They even have a school bible study that meets at lunch on Tuesdays. Now, I went to Christian schools when I was growing up - I don't think I had near as much God in my life as these boys do. They seem to be comfortable with their spirituality around their peers and adults alike.

But even in their cool Godliness, they are still teenaged boys. As my youngest was leaving for the school this morning I hollered,"Love you! See you at the flagpole!". Horrified, he stopped in his tracks to look back and ask, "Uh, you aren't coming, are you, Mom?"

Haha! I really did think about going after that. In my jammies.

Oily Happenstances

I bought a new car. (See picture- it's cute, right?) I spent many hours searching the internet for this specific car: Chevrolet Sonic RS. The RS part is important because it means I have a turbo, leather and a sunroof. I don't know why those things indicate luxury to me, but they do and I had to have them. So I got them. I also get 35 MPG on the highway - not luxurious, but very practical. 

To date, I have put 30K on my new little car in 10 months - somebody quick figure out my monthly average, but I'll estimate that it's pretty high what with all of the commuting for work and my long-distance relationship. And, oh yeah, the road trip we took to Yellowstone this summer. 

A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I were "flying low" down the highway when I heard a terrible thump under the car, and saw something that looked like a rock careening down the lane behind me. Thinking I must have hit a dirt clod or something similar, I didn't take too much notice. Until oil started covering my back window. (Oil? How in the hell would oil get on my back window?) As my oil pressure lamp lit up and the oil pressure alarm sounded off  (like this: DINGDINGGGDING!!!), I wobbled my way off of the highway to a gas station parking lot. Ugh.

The kids and I sat on the curb next to my little car, bewildered and waiting for roadside assistance. Believe it or not, I have never had to use roadside in my life. It's pretty easy, all in all. However, I was so shaky that my sons were dialing dueling phones for me while we arranged for rides, advice, etc. 

The tow truck driver was a young kid, burly and earnest. As he jumped out of the truck, he let out a low whistle at the puddle of oil now staining the parking lot. "Threw a rod", he says, "Wow - that stinks". (What? What? WHAT?? I have thrown a rod in a vehicle before...it was my fault...I was waiting for the Change Your Oil light to come on. It never did come on. It was a 76 Toyota pickup that didn't even have a Check Your Rattling Engine light. I have been very good about oil ever since. I could not have thrown a rod in this little car.)  "Would you mind looking at the hole in the pan, Sir, to see if the hole is coming out or going in? I am sure that I just hit a rock," I said, trembly voice full of panic. Trying to scootch his large frame under my tiny Chevy, he finally located the spot where the oil had been pouring out of. "Huh. This hole is threaded - this is where your oil plug should be!", he nodded wisely to me. 

So - apparently - when you are flying low down the highway, your oil plug can just FALL OUT. This is not something I have ever heard of, and of course was not prepared for. 

Now I am well versed in all things Oil Plug, Oil Light, Overhead Cam, Turbos, dealerships who promise you the moon but give you moonrocks, other dealerships who pick up the slack and restore your faith in some dealerships, and roadside assistance. Go ahead - ask me anything. 

Privacy, Please

Oh! Now, that feels nice. I can say whatever I want to and I don't have to worry that somehow, someway my words will be read by people who will take them the wrong way. And I also don't need to worry that I sound whiney or too happy or too ANYTHING, really.

I really do like to write. Well - mostly, I like to muse. And I like to look back to see what it looked like in my head in the past, if for no other reason but to make sure that I am growing as a human.

Unfortunately, I also like the feedback and the communications with others that an open blog provides. I miss my old bloggy friends. Sarah, Colleen, Jock, Brenda - I miss them. I miss the tremendous influence that they had in my everyday life.

I hope they are all well.

Maybe I should reach out...