working my way back out

So I realize it has been almost an entire year since my last post. I'm sorry about my long silence. I won't try to rewrite the entire past year for far too much has passed between then and now, but I will say it has been a very hard year. Trying in ways I never guessed it would be. God is faithful through it all, but it has not been a particularly easy year.

Right now I'm trying to declutter both physically and emotionally. It is a long process. Every weekend I tackle one part of my life and find myself with bags of trash and recycling to haul out to the dumpsters, both literal and metaphorical. Every time I think I'm nearing the end there's a new stash of stuff and more tears to shed that I didn't know were left behind. I think it will be a while longer before I get to the end of all the junk, but I believe there will be an end in sight eventually.

Ephesians 2:1-7
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

the very odd day

This morning as I was getting ready for church I noticed my nose for no particular reason. It seemed bigger, longer than normal. Since it probably didn't grow overnight, I assume it's just an optical illusion, but every time I looked in the mirror it just looked odd. It was as though my nose had been replaced in the night with some foreign nose.

It's rather like when you read or say one word repeatedly and for no apparent reason it starts to seem not quite right. The spelling doesn't look correct, and the sounds feel awkward in your mouth. Everything about the word is strange.

That's how my nose seemed this morning. And like with words that have acquired a certain strangeness, given distance and time, things reverted to normal. When I got home from church, my nose appeared just as it should.

---

We've been having scattered thunderstorms for the past several days. So when I looked out my living room window 20 minutes ago, I wasn't surprised to see drops falling from the sky. What was unusual was that all I could see were sunshine and blue skies, so I stepped outside to take a look. I expected to see a cloud hovering above the building, out of sight from my inside vantage point, but no, there were nothing but blue skies overhead and all around excepting one or two very tiny, white clouds a little ways in the distance. And yet, there I stood in the sunshine with raindrops falling all around. There wasn't really any wind either, so I'm positive the drops weren't blowing off of any tree leaves. It was rather like an unusual omen that might happen in a children's fantasy movie before something rather strange and amazing happens.

---

There is something wrong with the keyboard on my MacBook. At the strangest times, the cursor just starts jumping around the text box. It will move up into other sentences and highlight random words. It's most annoying and makes it a chore to type anything. This post, for instance, took twice as long as it ought to have because I kept having to correct for the errant cursor. I think it's time to visit a Mac Genius.

lost and found

Some of you know this and some of you may not, but I broke up with Diego almost two months ago. Although I changed my relationship status on Facebook, I immediately deleted the notification that would have shown up on all 350 of my "closest" friends' news feeds. At the time I just couldn't handle the potential stream of e-mails and phone calls and questions, and the thought of having to repeat the story (or variations of it) over and over again just seemed overwhelming. So I took a very passive approach to breaking the news.

Even now I don't feel up for any sort of mass announcement, so this post--whatever you might thing it is--is not intended to rehash the break up, to cast blame, or to paint anyone as a villain. I have no need to disrespect him or us and post all of the tiny reasons for and nuances of the break up for anyone to read. The only thing I will say about it is that it was my choice and that I believe I made the right choice. I have a lot of peace about the decision even now.

What this post is about is how I feel like part of me got lost over the last few years. I am largely to blame for that. I think the people-pleasing part of my personality is such that I want to make others happy, to be who they want me to be, to make things easier for them. I have never been a fan of conflict. Wait... that was an understatement. Let me rephrase: I have a huge aversion to interpersonal conflict. So perhaps over time, I let bits and pieces of myself slip away without even realizing it. Maybe it was easier to let those things about myself slide than to make issue over what individually seemed like small things.

Right now I'm in the process of finding those pieces of myself. I'm remembering the things that brought me here. I'm looking to the future with optimism and hope. I think it will be an interesting journey, one I'm very excited to embark on.

sweet victory

I don't think I've posted about this in the past, but as you saw in my post a few days ago, I recently had my wisdom teeth removed. They were causing intense pain in my mouth and jaw back in September. At the time, I decided that it was time to have them looked at and possibly extracted, depending on what the dentist recommended.

So I ended up booking with a dentist, who from here on out will be referred to only as evil dentist, and getting talked into prepaying for a very pricey extraction procedure only to find out within 15 minutes of booking the appointment that my dental insurance would not cover because of the procedure in question and my medical insurance would not cover because evil dentist is out-of-network.

I then went to a second dentist, oral surgeon to be exact, who ended up removing my wisdom teeth last week Friday. After the initial consultation with second dentist in early November, I learned that not only had evil dentist duped me into prepaying for a surgery my insurance wouldn't cover, but she had also completely misdiagnosed my problem. She had said that all four of my teeth were impacted after looking at the x-rays and not actually physically examined my mouth. I questioned it at the time because all four teeth are fully erupted and not covered by the gum at all, but I was assured that they were impacted. When I went to the second dentist, however, I found out that I had been right and my teeth weren't impacted, not a single one.

I thank God that the evil dentist misdiagnosed my problem because if she hadn't, my dental insurance would have covered the procedure and I probably wouldn't have canceled the appointment. Knowing what I know now, there's no way I would have wanted her to do anything to my mouth. Who knows what type of complications could have happened?

On a financial note, since the original appointment with evil dentist on Sept. 18, I have been fighting the dentist office to be refunded the amount I prepaid for the surgery. I finally disputed the charges with the credit card company and will be reporting evil dentist to the Better Business Bureau.

Last night I finally received sweet victory in the form of this letter from Capital One, which stated:

"Thanks for contacting us about a dispute on your Capital One account. On your Nov 2008 monthly statement, we credited your account $1,575.00 or $1,664.00, which is the amount you're disputing. Unless the merchant resubmits the charge within 45 days of the date of this letter, we consider your case closed."

I win!

overextended

In undergrad and grad school, I thrived, or at least survived, in a continually overextended state. In all honesty, I'm sure I wasn't really thriving, but I found a way to fit an insane amount of things into my schedule and do most of them successfully. I was the queen of multitasking.

I'm happy to say that I've lost that crown. I have lost the ability to multitask and function when I'm overextended, and I have no desire to get any of that back.

Before I would plow on through, work ridiculous amounts each semester, and then crash as soon as I had a break longer than a weekend (read: Christmas and summer). I found after grad school that I really loved having time to myself so I could read or clean or catch up with friends or exercise or basically do whatever I wanted. It made me feel much saner, and I liked it.

Now I find myself starting to feel overextended once more, and I'm not happy with myself for letting that happen. This semester the following things are vying for my time:

1. Preparing for my 3-year review (part of the promotion and tenure process)
2. Writing a book
3. Indexing plays for a database of theatrical productions
4. Spending weekends with D. (half here, half there)
5. Tutoring Maysaa
6. Teaching an ESL class
7. Keeping in touch family and friends
8. Accomplishing daily life things (like cleaning and buying groceries)

And I just feel like it's all too much.

The work things are, well, work things, and as such, must stay. Diego, friends, and family are also essential although I'm finding it harder and harder to have time to keep in touch with friends and family. I made a personal commitment to work with Maysaa, and it's important to me to keep that. I need to keep up with daily life stuff or the results make me really stressed.

So that leaves one thing: the ESL class. It is the, um, low-hanging fruit of the semester, and I think it needs to go. It's also turning into a rather time-consuming venture this time around. It takes an entire evening to prep for the class and a second evening to teach. That's two evenings out of my week :(

The class just started last week, and I'm only teaching one of the two nights, but I can already tell that this is more than I can handle this semester. Although I feel bad dropping out this early in the game (I hate "quitting" things), I know it's the right thing to do this time. So I think I'll talk to the other teacher (who's a big ESL organizer in the area) and let her know that this isn't going to work out this year. I'm willing to stay on until a replacement can be found, but if I'm to stay sane and do well at the other things in my life, this just has to go.

oblivious, half asleep, or both?

As I stayed home sick today, the strip mall behind me burned. I, however, was totally unaware of this until almost 5 p.m., when I stepped out to run an unavoidable errand. From the looks of the charred, gaping hole in the middle of the building, it appears the fire started in the Chinese restaurant that used to live between the bagel shop and the video rental store. How the heck could I have missed that when I was in my apartment 100 yards away?

I learned that the fire began around 4 this morning. I vaguely recollect hearing sirens sometime in the middle of the night, and for quite some time, I heard what sounded like a semi-truck idling. In my stupor I never put the two together, so I was quite surprised when I saw the remains of the building, surrounded by emergency vehicles and a crane.

This makes for the second business that has burned right behind my complex in the last 6 months. Maybe it's a sign...

where there's smoke

As I walked to the parking garage, I first heard the sirens. As I began to climb the stairs, I could see the smoke rising in the distance. I knew that the smoke was coming from the general direction of my apartment complex, but from where I stood, it looked like it was maybe closer than that. Once I started driving, I quickly realized that the fire was further away than I thought but much closer to where I live than I had initially guessed.

Many thoughts ran through my head: I hope that's not my apartment complex. No, it probably isn't, but it looks really close. Why did I not get on the ball with getting renter's insurance? I really, really hope that isn't my apartment complex.

When I got to my neighborhood, I saw - much to my great relief - that it was not my apartment building. The recycling center that's probably 100 to 150 yards behind my apartment was on fire though. As I stood out in the parking lot with a couple of my neighbors, tiny pieces of ash floated down around us. I went inside after a few minutes of standing there, my clothes and hair already smelling like a campfire.

Fortunately, the firefighters got to the scene right away, but it still took them a few hours to get the blaze under control. The local news reported that it was a 3 alarm fire (not entirely sure that that means but it sounds serious, and judging by the size of the fire, I'm sure it was).

I took this picture from the parking lot behind my apartment complex.

Yes, it's as close as, if not closer than, it looks. And yes, tomorrow I'm going to call about renter's insurance.

there are new things

I hadn't realized how long it had been since my last post. Life has been barreling on at warp speed, and I'm just now getting a chance to stop and breathe.

March was officially as crazy as January and February were, and April may as well already be over. Actually I have 19 days of work left (25 days including weekends) until my summer leave begins. I have a ton of things I either need or want to do at work between now and May 3. Somehow it will all get done.

I may have news in the very near future about a book that I will hopefully be writing. More to come on that...

But the really big news is (said in a whisper) I'm dating someone. His name is Diego, and he's wonderful :) I usually (OK, never) write about guys, not here, not even when this was the Nevada Project. And I probably won't write much even now. Not yet at least. I just want to enjoy this at the moment. I can write later.

beautiful summer

I have a picture hanging in my apartment of me and two close friends from Reno. The picture was taken during the summer of 2004 at my going away party a few weeks before I moved to Indiana. I love that picture. We're all full of smiles as the wind whips our hair around. I'm wearing a green tube top and have an array of tan lines from bikini tops and various tank tops.

The tan lines have always bothered me. I guess I always felt the picture would look better without them (yes, I know that's really silly). Last week I was looking at the picture and decided that the tan lines weren't so bad after all.

They weren't so bad because of wonderful memories they represented. Trips up to Lake Tahoe and Donner Lake. Sunday afternoons spent at softball games. Walks along the Truckee River. Various attempts to play tennis. Drives around Reno in Stacey's convertible. Those are all memories I wouldn't trade for anything.

It was a beautiful summer even though I knew that it was the prelude to a difficult move. I consciously made a decision at the beginning of that summer to enjoy every second of it rather than withdraw in preparation for the move. As difficult as it was to leave, I was so grateful for every second I had while I was still there.

I know that summer is still a few months off, but I wish each of you a beautiful summer filled with the best of memories to take with you when you go.

old and new

I'm terrible about replacing old things, or perhaps, on the flip side, I'm good at making things last.

For years, I had this ice scraper in my car. Actually I had it in my last car way back into high school. Now understand that there is nothing at all special about this ice scraper. It's teal plastic and probably cost $3 at the local hardware store. At some point in undergrad, the brush part of it came off, so for at least 6 years, it's been literally nothing but a scraper. You would think I would have spent the $5 to replace it years ago, but I didn't. I've managed. Just this past weekend I finally broke down and bought a new scraper (complete with a brush) and just in time for the snow we got today.

I still have the stereo my high school boyfriend bought me when I turned 16. That will be 11 years ago next week. The amazing thing is that it still works - the radio, the CD player, the tape player - all of it works. Every once in a while, it gets crabby with me and won't play some of the really new CDs, but I can't quite justify getting rid of it since it works the majority of the time.

My alarm clock is the one I bought my freshman year of college 9 years ago. It still works, but the case is separating at the seams just a bit and the plastic on the back is yellowing from being in the sun. I know it wouldn't cost much to replace it, but hey, it still wakes me up in the morning.

Don't get me wrong, I love shopping and buying new things probably more than most other people, but sometimes I just can't justify replacing something just because it's older and looking a bit shabby. Today we live in a culture that is so easily seduced by the next new, shiny thing that we justify buying the new thing instead of fixing the old one. Imagine how much less stuff would be in junk yards and landfills if we made an effort to fix the things that are old instead of trashing them for something new.

Maybe part of it is that things aren't made to last like they used to. Cell phones are only designed to last for 2 years. A computer that's 5 years old (like mine) is a dinosaur by today's standards. The new technologies aren't always compatible with older technologies (see CD player example). I wonder sometimes if this flood of new products will stop at some point. Sometimes I think it might be nice if it did.

notes from reno

I've been in Reno for 4 days now and have 4 more to go. It is, in a word, wonderful to be here. On Sunday an old friend asked if it felt weird to be back. The answer: no, not at all. Of course things have changed, I've changed, but this still feels like home.

The best part is being able to spend time with close girl friends. I hadn't realized how much I miss that. I guess it's the same when I'm home in South Dakota and can spend time with friends there. Being with old friends always just feels right - like I've never left.

If you were to ask what I've done in my time here so far, it might not sound like much. I've been to church, done a little shopping, spent time with dear friends. It's not a big, exciting vacation like some people might hope for, but it's exactly what I wanted, exactly what I needed. It has been the perfect vacation so far, and I'm so glad there are 4 more days of it :)

Oh, and Peter - Stacey & Brian's baby - is absolutely perfect and beautiful. He's a lucky little guy to have such wonderful parents :)

when you weren't looking

At some point, when I wasn't really paying attention, I became more OK with living here. I hate it when that happens when I'm not paying attention, but that's always how it happens, isn't it?

I would go as far to say that I like it here let alone love it here, but it's OK. It has helped a lot that I made some friends outside of work. I joined a Bible study (a couples Bible study ... that's a whole different story) with some fabulous people. The funny thing is really that I joined the Bible study and then decided to switch churches, like, 2 weeks later.

I think I made the right choice.

I guess I should say I made the right choices: 1) to join the Bible study and 2) to switch churches.

I had been dissatisfied with my previous church pretty much ever since I started going there. I went there for almost a year simply because the preaching was really good. I still think the preaching is good there. The music was so-so, but it was kind of starting to grow on me. My biggest problem with the church (and this may sound superficial to some) was that despite the fact that it's a large church with tons of different people, it was nearly impossible to meet people there. They didn't really do a very good job of welcoming new people. Let me clarify that statement. They didn't do a very good job of welcoming 20-something singles. The church as a whole, just did a better job at welcoming families and couples.

Anyway, I've only been going to the new church for a couple weeks now, but so far so good. I know there is no perfect church, but I think this will be a better place for me.

go, go...

I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the last week and a half. Last week I was barely home at all (even when I was in town), then I had my library conference in DC from Friday through Monday, I worked yesterday and today, and tomorrow I'm heading out again to spend time with a friend who flew out for the conference. Whew. I hardly feel rested up from the conference or caught up at work for that matter, but it's time to be off again...

One of these days, I'll stop for a bit and write a decent post, catch up on e-mails, make much-needed phone calls, and generally return to a more sane state. Until then, love for you all! I'll return soon :)

settling

Today was move-in day for my friend Meris. She works with me at the library, and this is her second full-time position. I think she was tired of dumping her money into rentals and may stay here for several years, so she bit the bullet and bought her first house. The move went fairly quickly, but it really was a wretched day to move. It was in the mid 90s for most of the day and really humid.

Someday -- way, way off in the distant future -- I wouldn't mind owning a house myself, but now is certainly not the time. I'm excited for her that she's found a place she wants to stay and that she's in a position where she can stop and put down roots. In a small way I'm almost jealous that she's at a point where she can settle, but really, I wouldn't want to feel that way about this place. It's much, much too far from the places that are home for me.

my weekend, or, what to do with 13 lbs. of strawberries

This past Saturday morning I dragged myself out of bed to go strawberry picking. For only $1.29 a pound, you too can go pick your own strawberries. Among other things, the Valley seems big on pick-your-own farms. Apples in the fall. Peaches and strawberries in the spring. It's really kind of neat.

I think I got a little carried away because when I went to pay, my pickings weighed in at 13 pounds. Oops! It's a good thing I only grabbed one flat to fill. I had considered filling 2.


So this weekend I basically did 3 things: I picked strawberries, I washed and hulled strawberries, and I made things out of strawberries. I am so glad I didn't pick any more berries than I did.



Those of you living within driving distance may be receiving some strawberry freezer jam in the near future since I made 3 batches. Those of you who aren't nearby... well, maybe I'll find a way to bring some with me when I make my road trip through Indiana to South Dakota in late July.

to old friends near and far

In all my moving around, I've done my best to keep in touch with people, but I've also lost track of more people than I'd care to admit. Tonight I got to reconnect with an old friend. I'm ashamed to say that it had been literally years since I'd talked to her. We'd both moved and gotten busy with graduate programs and totally lost track of each other.

Just a few weeks ago we were "reunited" through Facebook, and tonight we talked on the phone for the first time in around 4 years. It was wonderful to talk to her :) I think it's a sign of a good friendship when after not talking for that long, you can still talk easily with each other. I really hope we're able to do better at staying in contact this time around. Somehow I think we will be.

---

I spent the weekend visiting Stacy & Nate. Stacy & I had big plans for the weekend. The plan: clean out Stacy's clothing closet. We were entirely successful. Maybe I'm just a big dork, but I really like cleaning out clothing closets. Normally it's my own, and I do it every time I move (so about every 1 to 2 years). There's just something really satisfying about purging the old, worn-out, unworn items out of the closet.

On another note, I just love that I live so close to Stacy & Nate. It's been so wonderful to be able to reconnect with them and to get to know them better as individuals and as a couple. I love seeing how friends change and mature over time and experiencing how our friendship changes and matures too.

creeper?

This morning I hopped in my car to go to work, turned on the ignition, and flipped on the wiper blades since it was raining outside. I probably wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been raining, but there was a note stuck under the passenger side wiper blade. I got out and grabbed the note.

The note was written in pink marker on a 3x5 index card. The note read:

Keep working hard! Friends will help a lot, so keep them close. God will keep strengthening you and give you hope!

I think the message itself is really cool and reassuring, but I have to admit that I'm a little creeped out by the fact that it was even there. Whoever put it on my car did it either last night while I was parked on campus or after I got home at 10 and before I left for work this morning. I'm guessing it was the latter.

Overall, creepy-factor is far outweighing the positive message of the note.

ingleesh

As I walked into Target today, I vaguely noticed 2 women speaking to each other in Spanish on the sidewalk in front of the store. What I noticed more was a local man, who looked a little scruffy around the edges. He kept repeating something as he walked past the women towards the store entrance.

Man: I kent unneerstan wat yur seein' (I can't understand what you're saying).

When he entered the store, he joined up with an equally scruffy-looking woman, who I can only assume is his wife or girlfriend. As soon as he was by her side, he commented, "Eef theer gowin' tuh leeve een thees cuntree, thay ot tuh lurn the languig" (If they're going to live in this country, they ought to learn the language).

Personally, I'm more offended by his misuse of English than their use of Spanish. I would imagine that their Spanish is exponentially better than his English, and that they know a fair amount of English whereas I would be shocked if he knew a single word of Spanish. Why would these 2 women, whose native language is Spanish, speak any other language to each other?

I have tremendous respect for people who are brave/adventurous/driven enough to move to a country where they don't speak the language. Imagine how vulnerable you'd have to let yourself be to take a risk like that. It is not their Spanish that offends me but his ignorance.

lately

I got a haircut yesterday:


My friend Laura came out to visit 2 weekends ago (so many fabulous times). The really good pictures are all on her camera:


I learned that Thomas Jefferson was a man after my own heart:

one year

Today marks the one-year anniversary of working here. Some days it doesn't feel like it has been that long, and others it feels like it has been much longer than that. At times I still feel like the "new kid" even though I'm not the newest person on faculty anymore. I think I feel that way because I'm definitely still the youngest person here and quite possibly the least settled.

In general...

... I love working with the English faculty
... The foreign languages faculty continually present me with new challenges
... I like most of my colleagues
... There are aspects of this job and university that drive me nuts
... I don't feel challenged by my work, but I would like to be
... It's still a good first job out of grad school