goodbye ruby monday

it's been announced. there will only be one more monday REVO service. it was a very difficult decision for my friend to make and while it saddens me, i am also behind the decision one hundred percent. either way, i would have supported it. i believe in her ability to sense God's direction and i embrace her concern for the volunteers that would have very soon been over-commited given that they will now be adding a rehearsal once a week to accomodate for the extra service added on sundays.

whenever God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.

gonna post this now so i can go potty

this is going to be short and sweet because i've had a lot of water and it's going right through me.

i'm tired and grumpy today. i need a good night's sleep. like really good. all snuggly buggly in the world's heaviest blanket and my pajama bottoms don't bunch up around my knees. where i don't have to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and i don't have to punch my dot in the side for snoring or twitching or both. where i wake up before my alarm clock goes off and feel refreshed and the only thing keeping me from getting up is the warmth of the covers.

ah. now that would be nice.

i ran into an old friend a few weeks ago. it wasn't until after i'd gone on and done my own thing that i finally realized where i knew her from. so today i went back to say hello and introduce myself (again). she remembered me and said she'd had the same feeling after we'd met - that she knew me from somewhere.

i think this is the first time i've run into anyone i went to college with. she said i needed to come back again and visit with her more. i told her i'd try and come someday when i could bring my dot.

cool.

joshua

my friend and i have been looking forward to doing beth moore's joshua study. we've checked with just about everyone for a copy of the dvds. but no one seems to have them. and the leader kit is about $200.

so we've decided to do the online Bible study. it was originally designed to be done online and then they eventually came out with the dvd version. so we're going to be doing it as it was intended. plus she's done it via web before and said it's really good.

so it's official. i'm going to start my very first online Bible study! yippee!! cannot wait!

i've just downloaded and started using desktop google. and [shock of all shockers].. i love it! i am so looking forward to going to work tomorrow to download it there, too. not much about google i haven't been completely nuts about.

i am all things google! heh.

please.. look into giving a gift of life:

TWO.

is the number of sound of music references i've heard watching television tonight.

ONE.

the number of best husbands in the world i have. (i love you, my dot)

bah humbug

that's my laptop wallpaper for the month. i love emily strange! she's so dark and bizarre. something that always attracted me, even as a kid.

my dot and i are going to borrow my mom's christmas tree. it'll be the first time i have ever had a fake tree. and the first time i've had a tree at all at this house. i wonder what the cats will think. heh.

i collect angel ornaments. someday i'll have enough to cover the tree without supplementing with other ornaments. oh, and of course will have an angel topper. heh.

and here is something on my wishlist. actually, what i would really like it to say is"google girl" on it. or maybe, "i am all things google". now that would be cool!

photo rich

posting a few photos from tgiving. this first one is of the two kids i “babysat”. not!! we just got along and played tangoes together. their dad is my dot’s mom’s cousin. (i’m still learning the family tree.)

here’s a pic of my mom-in-law. my dot takes after her a lot in the face. but then.. i’ve never seen his bio-father to make a comparison. she’s very sweet. loves her family. she gets depressed after she has all the family over and then they leave. she doesn’t like the “leave” part.



here’s my dot’s younger brother and his wife, who was my very bestest friend since high school. we were inseparable. i wish we got to see more of each other now.



and here is my dot’s older brother. he was in my brother’s class in high school. in fact, another one of their classmates stopped by the house while we were all there. i need to remember to tell my buh that i ran into jeff zaber!



my lil-bro-in-law was messing with one of the cameras. here i am giving him the stink eye. he deserved it for aiming that thing at me!! my dot's brothers teased him about seeing this look often. er.. maybe they were teasing me!



and then.. finally.. one of my dot and me. i like this one.



we got back from oklahoma late friday afternoon. we were going to go on a date, but my dot wasn’t feeling well. he’d gotten my cold. so we held off and just stayed in watching movies from the couch, had my curry lentil soup and a pasta caesar salad for dinner.. with a little kendall-jackson merlot. yummy.

saturday we got up and went over to rush creek to work on the house we’re trying to sell. we painted, cut and installed baseboards and trim. mom’s been helping us out quite a bit so she was there priming and painting and helping to clean some of the windows and areas where the wall texture accidentally landed. we worked over there for about nine hours then went over to my buh’s. gigi knew we’d be tired after working all day long so she had us over for dinner. salmon patties (ick! not hers.. just salmon in general) and salad. for salmon it was a decent meal, but not one i’d make on my own. unless i used tuna. or something.

we got home and i took a hot bath while my dot was in the shower. then we got in bed and watched a little telly before crashing. my dot couldn’t sleep so he got up and played his computer game until the wee hours of the morning. he had dark circles under his eyes this morning.

i wasn’t feeling so hot this morning, either. i started a new cycle of pills last night and it always makes me nauseous. i felt like i was going to spew all morning long until i could finally force myself to get something in my tummy. i take my pills at night so i will sleep through most of it. doesn’t always work, though.

oh!.. here’s a photo our IT guy took of me working. well.. if you can call being at a creative brainstorming afternoon “working”. we got to play with play-doh while we worked. i made a hippo eating a penguin. *grin* when i look at this picture i'm reminded of a story my grandma used to tell of the very first time she'd ever met me. i was a few months old and my parent handed me over in a pink fuzzy blanket. gma says she unwrapped the blanket to find two of the biggest eyes she'd seen staring right back at her. i don't think i have big eyes until every once in a while someone catches me in a photo like this one.

sudoku and the feast

last night i realized where my dot got his snoring. his dad was sleeping in the room next to us, just outside our door and my dot was on the other side of me in the bed. i was essentially right between the two of them. and they snored.

i could kick my dot. but..

..so i endured it. i was very tired when i got up this morning. i heard some voices and thought i'd better get in the bathroom before it starts filling with people wanting to shower.

after i got out of the bathroom i saw that the only ones up were my dot's parents. they chatted with me a bit, offered me some coffee, and that was that. i was out of bed for good. i had some pumpkin bread with my coffee and pretty soon my dot joined us.

it wasn't really long after that when his mom got to work on cooking for lunch. all that preparation!!! and she says it's worth it. she says she usually cries after everyone leaves each year, because she enjoys having everyone over just that much. and enjoys all the work it takes to put together the feast. hmh. hard to wrap my brain around.

i helped out where i could and tried to keep out of the way when i couldn't help.

finally kriss declared it ready, uncle vann prayed over the meal, and the feasting began. not counting the meat (because i hardly looked at what there was) we had:

broccoli & cheese casserole
green beans
corn
brussel sprouts
peanut butter filled or cheese filled celery
cranberry sauce
shrimp (made special for me)
rolls
dressing
deviled eggs
pickles
olives
sweet potatoes
mashed potatoes
gravy

lunch was very very good. i stuffed myself. just like a turkey. heh.

shortly thereafter a few naps commenced, some of which lasted until well into early evening. but about 6 of us sat down and played a game of phase 10, which also lasted until well into early evening.

then we brought out the tangoes again and played with that for a little while. now a bunch of us are on our laptops and all of the kids are around the pc. i've been playing sudoku.

and i plan on turning in soon. i'm yawning a lot.

all in all - a very enjoyable thanksgiving holiday with my new family, and my dot's and my first thanksgiving together as husband and wife!!

he is at the top of my list of things i am thankful for. i surprisingly don't make "thankful" lists at thanksgiving. as much as i love lists, you'd think it would be natural for me, but i just don't do it. so this year, in light of all the new things in my life, i will for the first time, put together my top ten things i am thankful for:

i am thankful for orange
i am thankful for the world's heaviest blanket and sleeping at my warmest
i am thankful for sweaters with hoods
i am thankful for cheese - all kinds, shapes, colors, consistencies and reasons to eat it
i am thankful for music - the well-put-together kind where the lyrics and energy and crescendos and mix all lend itself to the feel and sound
i am thankful for laughter. the kind that takes you over, seduces others into it, the kind that makes you feel like you've just had a massage and gone on a roller-coaster all at the same time
i am thankful for being able to do what i am passionate about. and get paid for it
i am thankful for the many many people in my life whom i love, my family and friends, my co-workers, my church family
i am thankful for my dot
i am thankful that i am a citizen of heaven

tangoes

at the in-laws for tgiving. we drove up here this evening, stopped at burger king and used our 2 $5 gift cards to pickup a little dinner (yay-veggie burger!), and met the family at my dot's parent's house. we'll be staying here for two nights.

there are two kids here, i think they are my dot's cousins once removed, and i brought out my tangoes for us to play together. my mom-in-law said i make a good babysitter, but the truth is i just make a good peer.

i met some of my dot's family that either i hadn't met before or just didn't remember. and niecy is here (my best friend.. since high school. she's now my sister-in-law. we did, after all, want to be sisters!) and she spent most of the evening in the kitchen making stuff for tomorrow. me? i just brought some broccoli/cheese casserole and a couple of bags of chips. the chips were requested, the casserole was a bonus bring.

i figured since it's been a tradition in my family, i could bring it to my dot's. plus it will give me an entree to eat in the midst of all the animal protein.

it's quiet now.. most everyone has either left or gone to bed. it's been a good day, a good time getting to know everyone and get to be part of the family.

miss me?

guess what i'm going to say. go on, guess. it's the oldest (and lamest?) excuse in the book - try and guess.

yup. you got it. "i've been busy".

geez, how overused and trite can i get?

so i've been trying to get all settled into ministry work and seem to have a million projects all brand new just begging for me to tackle them all at once, teams to build up, job descriptions to create, websites to design and populate, and maybe the hardest one of all of them: get my paperwork in order to transfer my retirement account. i swear, i've never received so many emails w/instructions or documentation to fill out or approve or signatures to get notarized in all my life!

i just finally finished the task of going through all of the many files and binders and clippings that i inherited from about 6 different people when i first started here. apparently they were all so happy to find that i would be doing what i am doing and they could finally get this stuff off of their desks.. and right onto mine. but i have gone through the last bit today and have it all filed (most of it in the round file).

one final task will be to get all of the job descriptions written so i can distribute and get covenants and agreements turned back in to me. once that is done, it is maintenance from here on out, my friend!

well, i mean, there are going to be new projects all the time, i am sure, but at least the regular part of my job will be organized and in place. when i first started here i had no one in the position before me to train me. no processes existed, no training was being held, no communications were being made. so i've had to build all of that up. now i just have to keep it that way.

outside of work, my dot and i have spent a good deal of time working on the other house trying to get it in selling shape. we're on the last stretch, i believe, with only trim/moulding, paint touch ups, a good cleaning and a little landscaping left to do. it would be so wonderful - financially and emotionally - to get that thing sold. it has been the bane of my existence for a good long while and i will celebrate it's departure.

my dot and i are constantly adding to a list of things we will do/buy when the house sells. we feel like we've put off so much of our lives to post-sale. we don't go out to eat, we don't buy clothes, we don't buy gifts, we try and wear things more than once to save on laundry-related water and electricity expenses, we make our meals and take lunches to work. i don't mind being thrifty, i think it's a great habit to be in, but i am so tired of saying no to lunch invitations and worrying about being invited to someone's house for dinner because it is only polite to ask if you can bring anything and i fear what i will be asked to bring. is it expensive? is it budgeted? ergh!!!

life after house will be much lighter.

is this a burping house?

when i burp my mother gives me the eye. you know - the stink eye with a raised brow that says i'm in big doo-doo. she thinks it isn't very lady-like, and while i'll admit there are certain social niceties we should all be mindful of, i must stress that "all" should be mindful. what makes burping from a guy more acceptable than from a girl? hmmmh?

the best burper - no! that doesn't do her justice - belcher!! the best belcher i have ever heard is my aunt. she can vibrate walls, register on the richter scale, and has, on occasion, attracted lion cubs responding to her roar.

i aspire to be as good as she.

my brother comes close. he used to burp the alphabet, earning himself the stink eye, to which he would respond, "i didn't do it on burpose."

when i get a good one, a real rumbly from my tumbly i'm right proud of myself. and so's my dot. he'll give accolades when deserved.

and sometimes it's a contest to see who can expel the mightiest between us. hey! when you don't have cable, you gotta find yer entertainment where you can.

i had a mindblowingly genius idea for a blog entry, but when i leaned forward to pull my laptop screen toward for closer viewing, i burped, and all other thoughts were blasted from me. and all i could write about was this simple joy we find ourselves many times too proper to indulge in.

friends.. join me in one of life's greater pleasures. burp. go on, it's okay. just do it! do it loud and do it proud. do it!

***eerrrrpppp!!!***

(and then say excuse me so you won't get the stink eye.)

halloween is coming

there is a cemetery in my front yard.

this is our 4th annual haunted garage and halloween party, hosted by yours truly. (well, ours truly, now. i love you, my dot.)

the first year we put black tarp up on my garage walls so it would be pitch dark for the haunted house. the thought of putting up and taking down each year was more than i could bear. so we painted the walls the next year. lazy? no. creative!

we also built small wall frames and covered them with cardboard and then black tarp (leftover from first year's walls) that come apart and store in pieces. again, creative.

we have a huge black coffin with red innerds and lots of headstones with (you guessed it: creative) sayings on them that get scattered around my lawn. this year i told my dot we need to put the coffin up on something like bricks so i don't end up with coffin shaped dead grass.

the maze part goes up fairly quickly now. but the theme!.. the theme takes time to develop.

we rely on rody for the groundwork. he usually has the year after next planned before this year is over. and he's the genius behind the scares. he's also the artist.

my dot is our builder. he can build a coffin, for goodness' sake. (when i see the word sake, i think of japanese spirits.)

and kelly? he's kind of our resident drinker. heehee.

this year is well underway. i still need to find one, big prop that is integral to our whole theme. i'm hoping i can get to garage sales this weekend and then that they have what i'm looking for. as you can see i will discuss no details so as not to give anything away.

all this evasiveness makes me feel like an undercover agent.

i could tell you, but then..

a new friend

there was a woman at my church who would sing with the worship team from time to time. and then i started seeing her more during the worship service - i remember one in particular. i was asked at the last minute to take a part in reading scripture during serving at one of the communion stations. it was maybe one of the coolest things we had done during a service. turns out she was the one responsible for it. the cool thing, i mean.

anyway, one day i passed her in the hallway where we exchange compliments about each other's hair. and i thought to myself - i'd really like to know her.. she is so cool. i found out later that, miraculously enough, she thought the same about me.

later, i was talking to our friend abby-gail and had told her about some things i'd been thinking about the direction my life was heading, how i felt about some changes going on at church, and some things on my heart. the next day this woman went to abby-gail asking about me and how i could fit in.. possibly. and, well, the two conversations were completely on the same page.

and.. we've been thinking alike ever since.

my new friend, my long lost twin, my jt-berry. she even hired me to join her staff as venue director. the position i just started this week. and i cannot think of any job i've ever had that has fit me more, felt better, and been more my element than this.

it really is a bit spooky to be around her sometimes when i notice even a very small and seemingly inconsequential thing about her is just like me. we even have the same wedding band and our husbands have the same name.

i consider it a blessing to know her and am honored to call her friend.

a new day has dawned on me

a whirlwind weekend has dumped me into a new job with quiet mornings to start me new days fresh and rested.

thursday evening we moved things out of the house to get ready for company, and my brother came over to pick up some of their stuff that was still here. i threw out my back somewhere between moving furniture and a mad cleaning spree.

on friday my sis-in-law had a hysterectomy. she would have been able to come home on sunday, but she has had a few minor complications arise that have delayed her return. her blood pressure was down, hadn't been able to complete some routine tasks, and has been plagued by terrible headaches. by yesterday afternoon she was feeling pretty good (except for a headache) and would have probably been released if it had not been so late in the day. but just as well since she is going to see a neurologist today about those headaches.

friday evening after visiting g in the hospital, i came home to my dot's folks arriving to stay with us.

saturday morning was our development-wide garage sale. my dot wouldn't let me help set up much since my back was still hurting. around 10am jt showed up and we perused the neighborhood for some REVO supplies. i found out i am a bargainer!! talked a guy into selling an old fashioned sink (the kind with the bowl and the pitcher set on a dainty wooden stand) for $20 and i got a pillow donated to the church. whoop!

after making $157.75 we decided to call it quits and moved the unsold items back into our garage. not much was left, though.

we went to the church and set up for the next morning's service, came back home and showered, dressed and went to dinner with friends to celebrate a birfday.

on sun morning we got to church around 7am and got down to bidne! and i got prayed over. aww.. my dot asked the group for prayer over my back so they went right to it and laid their hands on me and asked God to heal me. by that afternoon i was jumping up and down to the songs!!!

after church we had a creative meeting that had us finally headed for home around 3pm where we both promptly fell into a deep, serene... nap! until i had to get up and run out for groceries before caro showed up. i made burritos and we watched underworld while my dot played his game.

yesterday morning, i got up and went to my very first [official] day at my brand spankin' new job! we had a chili cookoff (i submitted the worship arts dept's chili - vegetarian, of course), a staff meeting where we got to pray over all the requested we'd received at church the day before, got my computer almost all set up, and got ready for our monday night REVO service.

which, by the way, seriously rocked the house. on our way home from the service, jt called me and said, "God took over". no kidding. we had more people on a monday than we'd had before, considering the fair opened this weekend and it's allen school break. and the people were totally worshipping and experiencing God in that place! what a treat to be a part of that.

i fell asleep on the couch last night [not] watching buffy.

and that breaks us to this morning. i'm sitting at 'my' desk (it's a beautiful roll-top desk that my dot made, i think out of oak) going over emails and mail and thinking to myself how wonderful it is to be able to wake up without the startling sound of my alarm, knowing i don't have a commute anymore and that i get to participate in God's work and the furtherance of His kingdom. and i get paid to do it.

doesn't seem fair to the rest of 'em.

my bum hurts

alright! alright!! i admit it!! i'm not such a lady afterall.

sitting in this derned chair all day, my bum is now sore. i'm sick to death of being stuck here. cannot wait to have the freedom to move around (and the freedom to wear the shoes to do it comfortably).

am i done yet?
how about now?
ok.. now?
knock knock
who's there?
NOW???

i have worked like crazy the last few days trying to get accesses set up in all of our many systems for the girl who will be replacing me. i've had to knock a few skulls and get a little ugly to do it, but i think the hard part is over and now i'm just waiting for her confirmations to come in. phew!

and this is totally nonsequitor, but can i just say how happy i am to hear that blogger and google are working together now? i am all about all things google. i cannot get enough! i use their email, their spreadsheets, their calendars, their word docs (writely).. and every time i use a new product of theirs i am delighted all over again. so all hail google!

because i'm so ready to get outta here and because i love lists (like in a bordering on unhealthy way), here are the top 10 things i am most happy about with the job change, other than the obvious "i'm working for the Lord" thing:

10. working in the dungeon. okay, i know it's geeky, but i like the idea of working in what was previously the choir room but have called it the dungeon. they've tried to pin other names on it, like the oval office, command central, the nerve center.. but i'm going to see if i can redub it the dungeon. and i'm going to be so close to a bathroom, that i can trail a piece of toilet paper on my shoe all the way to my desk and still have the other end stuck to the roll (well, it might have to be a brand new roll!)! i have never been this close to the bathroom before. this may not seem like a big deal until you're in the middle of a project, need desperately to go, and have to traverse the entire length of the building for relief!
9. people spend lunches together. they have all-staff potlucks once a month (and i won't be the only veg!!), they have a cafe onsite (but i'll be bringing my lunches for the most part), and there is a break room in, well, the dungeon. yay!!
8. working with someone who is so much like me i'm starting to suspect my twin lived afterall.
7. understanding the business enough to come up with ideas. and then have my ideas actually considered. i was shocked.. shocked!.. when i heard an idea of mine discussed from the pulpit. my idea! and they thought it was good enough to share with the church! whoa, dude!
6. getting away from the airs. bankers put on airs. sometimes it's so silly it makes me giggle and the guys want to know what i'm giggling at. how can i tell them i'm laughing at them? how do you say that to someone whose haughty?
5. getting to exercise my creativity again.
4. not having to make this drive!
3. being there when my dot gets home after work. and having had time to shake off work and prepare myself for him to walk in the door and give him all of my attention.
2. feeling like i'm in my element. i've said it before and i'll say it again: you can do something well, but it doesn't mean you like it. i'm going to be honest about something that i haven't said out loud before. when i started this job i said how much i loved it every single day. well, the truth of it isn't that i loved it so much as that i wasn't at the other place anymore. the other place was mean and heartless and you wouldn't dare turn your back on it, i didn't trust my own boss, i didn't trust anyone there! the other place tried to drag me down to its level and many times it succeeded. it had bad air. you breathed it in and even if it didn't contaminate you, it left a bad smell and you could feel it in your lungs no matter how hard you exhaled. i've enjoyed the people here and my boss is certainly one of integrity. but it's not my dream job and it's not my element. i'm not one of them. and i don't belong. it will be good to be somewhere i get things.
1. getting to wear my own clothes instead of feeling like i've stolen clothes out of my mother's closet. well, not really my mother's closet, but some stuffy adult that likes to wear heels and pantyhose and are worried about being proper and would probably balk at even a fake tattoo or the idea of having a bloody mary before noon. and denim? why! i never!!! but, ohhh.. the sweet feel of denim, the flip and the flop of flip flops, long belled sleeves that cover my hands, colorful toed socks, hoodies, corduroy,.. how i love thee.

how does freedom taste?

the countdown has begun. i have three more days at this job.

the boys took me out to lunch today. we ate at rockfish - omiwerd!! it was so good. we shared a plate of fried pickles and then i had some jalapeno cream soup (i need to learn how to make this) and then a blackened catfish po' boy. i could only eat half the sammich, so took the rest with me for dinner tonight. but we ended up just snacking on fritos and bean dip before going to gary/leslie's for Bible study.

almost during the entire lunch, the boys kept arguing like little kids. at one point i interrupted and said, "ok, you're both smart, you both know you're history, now shut up!" i think they were getting on each other's nerves. it's good that one of them will be leaving for about a week and a half while he and his wife adjust to their 2nd baby! awww!

tomorrow i'll be packing a lunch, then thursday i'm having lunch w/lynn and friday i'm having lunch with the girls. and on friday afternoon our building is sponsoring a ben & jerry's ice cream sundae/cookie event. plus we're having a fire drill and on my very last day at work i will have to clunk down 11 flights of stairs. ugh! i guess it'll give me a chance to work off all the lunches and ice cream.

but then.. oh, the sweet taste of freedom. i hope it'll taste like new york super fudge chunk.

the other day, i saw a man standing next to a truck in a parking lot lifting hand weights while watching the traffic ease by. mobile gym?

the weekend is over. finally.

after work on friday, all of us met at mom's house to help her move. we got started with a few things, stopped for a pizza dinner, then got back to work and loaded up the truck. got it to b&g's and went home and crashed. sat morning we were back at b&g's at 8am for breakfast. then we unloaded the truck, went back to mom's and loaded it back up again with the rest of her stuff.

we headed back up to b&g's with the final load and left mom there to hand off the key to the buyer. we'd pretty much just gotten in the door when mom called. her car broke down. so i headed out the door and right back down to mom's. as i was driving down there, roadside assistance was able to help her get the car out of park so when i arrived i just followed her to the volkswagen place where she dropped it off, i transferred all her stuff to my car, and we took off. they're going to look at her car today to see what the problem is.

when we got back up to b&g's, mom had to take the truck back. she tried calling the u-haul place but no one would answer so she had to take it to the next place further away. by the time she got there she was turning in the truck 30 minutes late and was going to be charged, but told the u-haul lady that she tried turning it in at the other place but no one was there. the lady told her that for some reason that happens quite frequently and so didn't charge us. yay!

we were all so exhausted that we just sorta laid around after that. bubba opened his presents, we had cake and margaritas, watched some movies, and then my dot and i left a little after 10.

after church we were supposed to go to chuck e. cheese for bubba's birfday celebration, but he had been up all night throwing up (and was backed up. ewww!) so we just had tuna salads and hung out for the afternoon. then my dot and i came home and i packed up buh's office stuff outta my front room while my dot mowed the yard.

hopefully someday this week we can take down the desk and take it with the boxes over to b&g's so they can set up their office and we can have that room for furniture that is sitting in our hallway!

it's been a slow process - the putting back together the house, plus adding my dot's stuff. but we are getting there bit by bit. just having the furniture in the correct rooms will be a nice change. we're so tired of having to step around stuff and not get to really move in and feel like we have a home. but with getting buh's office stuff out and having the garage sale this weekend, it's going to make a big difference.

plus! after this week, i'll be home a little bit more as this is my last week at the bank. no more commute to dallas, no more getting up at 5:30, ahem, ok 6am!, no more coming home and not getting to recharge before seeing my dot. i think that's probably going to make a bigger difference than anything else!!

my dot deserves to see me at my best. hopefully soon he will see what that looks like. because i sure haven't been there the last few months!

***

an observation that is never meant as a compliment: you look tired this morning.

a conversation between the two boys moving my mom (after the pizza). after working hard and being tired and punchy, this was, up to that point in my life, probably the funniest thing i'd ever heard:

boy 1: did you just fart?
boy 2: no. i burped.
boy 1: are you sure?

i'm on a budget

last night my dot and i went to the supermarket together and bought some produce and snackies for our lunches. first off, as sad as this may sound, this is one of the best times i’ve had with my dot in a while. we were together, we were on the same mission, and we actually took the time to walk through the market and look at things. we took time. something we have neglected to do for ourselves and for each other.

one of the last dramas i was in was talking about how fast things can start to go during the holidays and i was able to contribute a line which ended up being one i got to deliver during the performance!

time is currency, and i’m on a budget
so we spent some precious time together at our local kroger picking over fruit (i got nectarines, he got peaches, we both got plums), salivating over the snackies (we ended up getting fig newtons, honey teddy grahams, and fritos scoops), and scoring on a sale on 6-packs of water (10 6-packs for 10 dollars). we also picked up some laughing cow cheese wedges, which was a major expenditure to me. i’d like to get them at costco next time. and we got some extra sharp cheddar cheese (a favorite for both of us) and some triscuits and wheat thins.

i hadn’t bought snackies in a while since we put ourselves on a rather strict spending plan, but as i told my dot yesterday, when i am at work and i am dreaming all day of going downstairs to the cafe and buying some potato chips, it’s time to splurge. they aren’t cheap. but they’re cheaper at the supermarket than they would be at the cafeteria.

for our lunches today, i packed (in boring ole tupperware. i covet you, mr bento. i covet you) leftover black beans and rice from dinner last night topped with jalapeno slices and sprinkled it with konriko’s jalapeno all purpose seasoning, a plum, shelled edamame, 3 fig newtons, some teddy grahams and garlicy pretzel croutons. very yummy, but very potent). i snapped a photo before i packed mine all up. i also added a nectarine (a peach for him) and a carrot cake (he got banana nut) muffin for breakfast


this is the best seasoning.. ever!truly. try it on avodocados.
the black bean and rice recipe was super duper easy. my belly was rumbling yesterday starting around 3:30 so on my drive home i was trying to figure out something quick and easy. i took a can of black beans and drained the juice into a 2 cup measuring cup, then poured in the juice from a small can of diced chilis and the juice from about half a can of chopped tomatoes. filled the measuring cup up the rest of the way to the 2 cup mark with water and used that to cook the rice with. when the rice was done, i fluffed it, then added the beans, chilis, and the half can of tomatoes. we gorged.

anew

a new life, a new blog.

that's what i told my dot today.

although when i said that i was going to go back, wipeout my old blog, reinstall moveable type, again!, and start afresh. then i thought about it. and said to myself: this isn't what i want. i want a program to do all the work for me. i don't want to worry about programming and stylesheets and troubleshooting anymore. i want to type and hit the pretty publish button and then go have a coffee and danish and not worry about the derned program running properly or locking me out and ne'er letting me back in for 6 months or some other issue that, yes, i've already encountered and spent countless hours immersed in support forums trying to rectify.

so i wash my hands of moveable type and have moved on (or, rather back!) to blogger.

b'sides. everything in my life is so incredibly new and changed right now, the old blog is almost irrelevant. almost. it is my history, afterall. so to that end, i may consider reposting all those years of entries and linking back to them someday. but for now i will content myself with the now and the forevermore.

i am having quite the déjà vu moment. years (and years and years) ago when i first put hand to keyboard to produce my very first blog entry, i was in the final stages of a job about to enter the ministry for the first time in my life. it was september 12, 2000. the entry's title was "on my way out". i was killing time, itching to go. i had a new life ahead of me and it was all i could do to keep from running full boar for it. but i had a job to complete and so i sat there (with an emphasis on the word 'sat'.. my second entry was titled "my hiney hurts") biding my time until they opened the doors and cut me loose.

and now, almost exactly 6 years later i sit at my computer, staring at the screen, trying desparately to remain useful in the final stages of my job all the while complaining that my hiney hurts. just not out loud, mind you. i am, after all, a lady. i am also about to take up the ministry again. and i am about to expand right out of my skin with excitement.

i am also recently married to my dot. my high school sweetheart. my beloved. my heart. we had lost touch since hs and had reconnected may 13, 2003 only to discover to my chagrin that he still made my heart go pitter pat. apparently i had a similar effect on him. and so on july 15 of this year we tied the knot with a backyard barbeque and 70 or so of our family and closest friends.

people ask me now how newly married life is. i am at a loss for a response because, truth is, i do not know. we have both been so incredibly busy i hardly feel married. our house is still not put together since the berry exodus. we still have some of his stuff at his house, which we are trying to remodel enough to sell. i am working two jobs, juggling the old and the new. and we are both volunteers for the revolution venue at our church. we can't seem to get our schedules to calm down enough to actually sit. relax. enjoy.

we're praying for a reprieve soon. until then, we are just trying to keep from drowning.