on my place in the world...

friends... we don't have internet at our house. we mooch off of someone either very close or with a strong signal. at any rate, either they haven't been home or they didn't pay their bill (perhaps we should help out)!

therefore, i haven't had access to my blog, so Nablopomo has been on hold for the time being. Lucky you, though, I'm at Starbucks using someone else's un-secure network to do so!

Since Thursday:
I sat at the beach with my mom and eva, collecting shells, watching dolphins, and chasing said little girl! I saw my older brother, for the first time in months (since he was in Jerusalem for the summer, consequently missing our wedding). Overall, it was wonderful.

If this seems rushed, it is.

Friday I flew home and went to work for ten hours, with a meeting before my shift and then the shift itself... a lot of work... semi-tiresome... and nothing around the house.

Saturday we went to try to get free tickets to the bengals game, taking advantage of husband's veteran status and kroger's free offer. well, when we got there, they said that they already had 50 people, took their names, and just told them to come back at 1pm, when the tickets were to be given away to get theirs. so... kroger gave us a $10 gift card despite all of that! bummer! but, i also made $5 off of Target (buying laundry detergent)... so, $15 for nothing isn't too bad!!

Sunday, was church where pastor spoke on having a spirit of pride... in a bad way! and how we can overcome it... very moving. then sunday school with our little ones, 26 that day, and a cowboy theme talking about honesty... we love it!!
Then, we hung out at starbucks, playing the old married couple game where we drink our coffee and read the paper! and afterward we went back to church so that we could attend a meeting on a mission trip to china. i would love to go, but i think mom may be in alaska for the summer and i don't feel like leaving eva with anyone for any length of time, let alone two weeks. so... i cried.

we also made some delicious food and served a family that means so much to us. the father of this family is being healed of lymphoma, by god's grace, so that god is glorified... so we made them a wonderful meal: sugar snap peas and shrimp casserole (from scratch), guacamole (from scratch) with chips (chips that we didn't make), and an apple crisp (also from scratch)... we were so blessed doing this!

and that, my friends is the long and short of it... in the shortest version possible.

ps... i can't wait to play christmas music... but i demand that it waits until i celebrate thanksgiving!!

i wrote this cvg-atl

Sometimes I like to blame my having so much crap in my purse on my assignment as mother, or wife. But I think it is high time I’m honest with you, my purse, said crap, and… myself:

Dear Chopsticks,
Thank you for serving your purpose at the mall and after church last Tuesday for Trick or Treating and Wednesday for Trunk or Treat, respectively. You looked beautiful in Eva’s hair as well as in the vision of you in my hair at work, really, you did. Sorry that I never put you in, though.
But as I sit (a week since, then, mind you) on an airplane to Atlanta without a meal service, let alone sushi, rice, or anything of the Orient—I no longer have practical need for you.
I’ll take you all the way to Jacksonville and back home—we will adventure together. And when we arrive in our quaint little home, I’ll put you in your golden embroidered blue silk pouch until next time. Soon.
Thank you for your assistance, companionship, and faithfulness at the bottom of my purse, oft mistaken for a nonexistent pencil.

Dear Tampon,
You and your kind are lucky to be used, so, it is nothing personal. It is not your fault your cotton has been bleached and “enriched” with chemicals, it’s not. I hate to take it out on you—which, I think is why I keep you, tampon, there at the bottom of my leather bag, in case I’m not prepared (but thanks to the Clockworks, this is rare), or if another woman asks and I can help her by offering none other than you. But what woman desires something so neglected—yellow and white paper wrapping in shreds, no longer keeping anything sanitary; cotton embedded with crumbs and dried leaves crushed and ground to the finest pepper; scented with eau de moi, le scent du every jour, patchouli; infested with H1N1, I’m sure, off of lingering coins, handled by the tristate, if not the nation, escaped from my change purse—what woman?
I’m sorry, but thanks for your “just in case” orientation, I appreciate being equipped but… It’s not you, it’s me… We can’t go on in this manner, pretending that something is there when it is most definitely not.

Dear Ricola coughdrops:
Wow; I love you, I really do. I love you so much it scares me. I’m afraid one of us is going to get hurt in the end.
I love the way you feel behind my lips—the natural honey and lemon exploring every bit of my mouth, coating my throat with each swallow—I do, I really do. Or the way I can hold you at church and your earthy scent, so well-paired with my patchouli, wraps around my conversation bubbles, masking coffee, or more recently, sage, lavender, nettle, and chrysanthemum.
But what about my keeping you around well beyond the length of my feelings for you? Because I’m comfortable with our living situations, you in my purse and my purse at my side.
When your wrapper sticks to you when I grasp each end, what used to be a simple act of pulling in opposite directions, watching your slow unsheathing, becomes labored peeling wherein you’ve taken on a smoother, more gummy texture adhering to the demand of your clothes. I bet you kick your feet to sleep at night.
I’ll have one of you before coffee, spit you back in the wrapper to save and then lose either off the edge of my tray table or the seat of 16A. Good-bye dear friend.

Dear Receipts,
Yours is a labor of love, or mine for you, anyway. There is no disguising this relationship—I’m only in it for one thing. And that thing is habitually overlooked.
If you’re lucky you are, in a timely manner, filed at home in our kitchen drawer. If you’re unfortunate you crumple, soften, fade, turn color from heat in my change purse, or are in limbo between purse and filing on our kitchen counter top, stacked neatly, mind you, next to mortar and pestle and cactus. We’ll finish traveling together, I’ll doubtfully add more to you this trip but with high hopes I’ll take you home to store and calculate, and hypothesize and graph and assess.
But then, let’s be realistic… it’s been real.

Dear Rock,
Emily thinks you look like a petrified piece of bread and Eva can guess what you are without looking. But me… I’m sure that I can safely assume you were placed in my leather pouch by my little lady, though I’m not totally sure, nor do I know when or where we were.
I’m strengthened by your silent comfort in my purse. I’ll keep you for a while longer. I won’t stand on you, but I will carry you. In fact, tell your crag friends to join you, Rock, in my brown leather bag from Jerusalem.

on stopping to admire stars...

better late than never, i suppose... lucky... you're going to get two posts today to make up for yesterdays slight.

explanation:
husband woke drove me to the airport early yesterday morning (this is our first time away from one another as a married couple) where i flew out to atlanta. once in atlanta i landed in concourse e. i was craving chick-fil-a, but couldn't remember what concourse it was in from when bobby and i were in atl on our honeymoon... so i walked (my diversion to the train isn't constant, i just felt like walking)... and i walked.

not in concourse d (from which my flight was departing).
not in concourse c.
nor was it in concourse b.

there it was in concourse a... and it was a quarter to ten, no waffle fries. was it worth it, then to spend almost 8 dollars on chicken nuggets without waffle fries? i told the woman i'd be right back, stepping back to contemplate.

this particular chick-fil-a was combined with both a burger king and a cinnabon. i love cinnabon. and now they have six little mini buns... i chose those and hasbrowns from chick-fil-a, which could have easily come from burger king (both of which were right next to my gate at concourse d, i soon found out, ha!).

so i sat eating my cinnabons with their buttery disgustingly good icing that i licked off of the bag! mmmm... and then i road the train back to concourse d, where i caught my flight to jacksonville, north carolina to see my little brother.

he is deploying soon... to asia. he was supposed to leave today, but it was pushed back. regardless, it is a blessing to see him because i wouldn't have been able to make it back over here between thanksgiving and christmas. so i hid when he came home from work... he loves surprises and was highly surprised!

last night we went to the beach to watch the sunset, even though it didn't do so over the water. it was still beautiful. and to see all of the stars without light pollution was magnificent... you could clearly see the (no, not the other realm mom) the other arm of the galaxy, which is so amazing. god is good!

eva and i ran along the beach with a flashlight and picked up shells in the dark... it was such a wonderfully beautiful experience that i wish everyone could have in their life time.

on being late...

sometimes being late is perfect. like right now. i am about an hour late for my november 3rd blog post... but that is okay.

it was a long day/night at work. we got out late. i came home to find my most wonderful and caring husband on the couch awaiting my entry into the house. he is now lying on the guest bed next to where i tap away at these keys. eva is with my momma in north carolina. they went to see my little brother (who refers to himself as my big brother). he will be deploying soon. eva keeps bragging that she'll be six when he returns, thinking "wow, i'm going to be six!" and yet, this saddens me to no end that my brother will not be so near as he has been all my life for two years...

when we were younger we had a system for who got to sit in the front seat (before all the laws about kids in the back and carseats until 80 pounds, etc.). we had "odd" and "even" days. i was odd... this meant that every once in a while i got two days in a row... but it also meant that yauncey got the front seat on his birthday, mine, and our momma's. of course, when portia and damien were in town, they were exempt and got to sit in the front seat... on account of their being born before us!

but we lacked such a system for saturday mornings.

i was talking to bobby this morning over breakfast about how i miss saturday morning cartoons. i remember for as long as i can remember mom having to work most, if not all, saturday mornings. yauncey and i would wake up without our usual phone call from the airport, and the sun would be shining through mom's windows, brightening her bedroom where we all slept on the king-size four post bed. he would usually wake up first, much to my dismay, because that meant he would get to choose the feature.

we would drag bowls, cereal, milk, spoons, and kitchen towels (because we didn't use napkins) into the front room where we would remain for the next few hours. until our friends woke up and called us out to play.

we knew that this show was on this channel at this time, but when it ended we had to switch to this channel for this show, which lasted an hour but we would stop watching it early so we could switch back to another channel for another show. bobby's world, eek the cat, pepperanne, x-men, fudge... the list goes on.

so, perfect timing, right? husband moved into our bed just now... i think that i'll do the same.

on not having anything to say, but saying it anyway...

as i'm still learning the ins and outs of blogging, i am without photos or links... those will come soon. i suppose... soon enough.

we decided on cookies last night, chocolate chip... and would you know it?... we're having them again tonight! and no movie last night... probably not tonight either. bobby has a lot riding on this test tomorrow, so another night studying.

thank you all for hanging in there and bearing, with me, the weight of having to read nothing more than journal entries as i reenter the swing of things. to be honest, i used to write so much and it has morphed into so little in what seems like such a short time but, in reality, is actually nearly eight years since graduating high school (the last time i was formally held accountable for writing... college doesn't count).

enough nablopomo numero dos... bobby is out of the shower and it is time for cookies, milk, and tea... maybe... if i'm lucky, a glass of orange juice with lots o' pulp!!!

g'night friends, good night.

on the beginning of nablopomo

wow... it has been a while since i last posted, and so... I'm starting fresh.

It is National Blog Posting Month... so, I'm going to blog every day for the next month. Because.

my hands are cold (my feet, not so much thanks to tights and a pair of socks) and, yet, Bobby and I both want Pumpkin ice cream from Graeter's. Delicious. Of course, we do have butter pecan ice cream in the freezer in which we could indulge next to a fire in front of a movie this sunday night... we'll see.

he is studying right now. i just enrolled for starbucks' insurance... which means a whoosh of routine exams in the next few weeks.

and... that, my friends, is a decent start!

you string these beads...

a few of the ladies in my life started a young women's bible study; we're reading through the book of jeremiah one chapter a week... really chewing on the meat. chapter one: his calling to be a prophet. his obedience despite fear, doubt, inadequacies... his inner turmoil as a result, spilled onto pages out of order, most of which burned.
eva cried today. mom cried today. i cried today. i pulled the car over onto a street "road closed" said the sign attached to the chain stretching across the cracking, no, gaping asphault. and there we sat in our tears, our confusion, our anger, our pains, our denial, our spoken and unspoken words. there we sat in silence, amid screams, aching.
sometimes i think that each breath is teaching me how to breathe all over again. i picked up a djarum kretek to help with that on the way to work. i slowed down. i saw the nose, that beautiful nose in the side view mirror of the car of the boy sitting in traffic in front of me. i saw the monarch flutter in and out of turbulent pre-storm air (the storm never came to pass).
i have read two books in the last two days. my eyes are begging me to cover them. my back is itching. my room is a mess. my kitchen cupboards are bare. there is much too much to be done... and school commences monday.
and my soul is weeping. i don't think that i'll go into detail now... i don't know who reads this (perhaps all the more reason to take advantage of anonymity).
i pray for direction, then i think that if god showed me any more than he does (which isn't much... no, i shouldn't say that... he shows me a lot, but there is still so much that i don't pick up on) i wouldn't do it anyway... like a stubborn child, i think my way is best... as if any decision thus far, has been a good one. it is actually more like the stubborn child who has to do things in her own time as she musters up the courage to make a decision despite inadequate understanding.
i'm blogging again because i need the outlet. i'm doing it on here and not myspace because i just needed something different.
i'm sort of in a funk. if you pray, and especially if you do it in the spirit, please don't hold back... i need some intercession.