magical thinking

What was I thinking? For some reason, I thought now would be a good time to take one of the two classes I need to take this year toward my degree. Ok, so maybe I wasn't crazy:

• I was all set and enrolled in a class last fall, and with the holidays, travel, and a completely nuts work schedule, I deferred it.
• The class I needed was offered again this term, and I thought it would be good to get it out of the way - no time is perfect, right?
• There was a tiny little thought in the back of my head that while it would cut down on time with Tom while he's here a bit, perhaps, I could still study with him around (less possible over distance) and that having it to do after he's gone would help me adjust a bit better.

But I was wrong. Very, very much so. 

My coworker John tells me I engage in magical thinking. I think I can get a lot more done in the time allotted than I actually can. I often run late to meetings (not something I'm proud of), but it's generally due to the fact that I think I can get one more thing done in the time that I have before the start of the next thing.

So - work has NOT slacked off... if anything it's gotten more intense as I try to juggle two projects that could each be full time, and supervisey stuff. The one that was supposed to have eased off by now has not, but the other is now in full swing. Oof!

And I hate that because of homework I've had to cancel small group with some high schoolers from my church, and move game night to someone else's so my Tuesdays are free. And still I'm not keeping up with the darn stuff.

And.... enough ranting! If/when I ever get this degree, remind me to go back and read this post so I can be truly thankful for the accomplishment. I really am doing well and am SO enjoying having Tom around. There has been great x-c skiing snow this winter, and I have a new niece, and great friends.What more, really, could I ask for?

Back to the books...

A fob story

Once upon a time, there was a girl. One day this girl who was walking with her friend Linda, when she realized she badly needed to use the facilities. As luck would have it, it was after dark, and their path was in the middle of nowhere, so there was little option but to use the facilities as nature provided: a tall patch of grass near the side of the path. Unfortunately for our protagonist, she happened to be holding her key fob in her hand, and somehow let it drop somewhere in the grassy patch. There was no hope of finding it in the dark without a flashlight, so Linda and the girl finished their walk.
The next day, she returned to the spot, and spent about an hour looking for the fob and mourning her carelessness. No good. A week or so later, Linda had pity on her, so they again walked the path. This time they searched more accurately, as Linda had a better idea of where it had been dropped. Still no trace.
A month later, our scatterbrained hero found herself with an unexpected afternoon off work. She decided to use the time to price out a new fob ($60) and a metal detector rental ($14). Armed with that information and 2 hours before the rental place closed, the girl rented a metal detector and made her way up the path to the fated site. This time, after 20 minutes of searching (and nervously watching the rapidly dropping battery indicator), she heard the joyous signal that all was soon to be well with the world. Sure enough, there it was, partly hidden in the grass right next to the path.
And our story draws to a close: the metal detector is returned to its shop and our hero and the adventuring fob are happily tucked in for the evening, all set to live happily ever after.

Amy, Tim and my first tussle with move preparedness!

Technorati Tags: liberia,misadventures

good weekend! My step-mom Amy and her husband Tim had just made a looping tour of the midwest and stopped in to visit me for the weekend. We had a lovely time talking and catching up, eating, and generally just hanging out. Tim and Amy got some time to explore Appleton while I was at a wedding. They also actually had some successful clothes shopping experiences, which I can’t help but find admirable.

We talked quite a bit about what would stay and what would go with this whole Liberia transition. The general plan at this point: selling/giving away the furniture and most of the toys (bike, skis, motorcycle), along with most of the winter clothes, many of the books and other stuff that is almost more “simplify your life” stuff than anything. Things that would be hard to replace, or things for which I’ve saved up to get something precise, would go into storage (mementos from my Grandma & Dad, cooking stuff, antique books, and so on). [Joy – any idea on what I’ll want for cooking/baking stuff in Liberia??].

Part of the original activity plan was to hit the Farmer’s Market in Appleton on Saturday morning – it was the first one of the summer and believe it or not I’ve never made it to an Appletonian Farmer’s Market! That plan changed, though, when Amy took a look at my closet. It wasn’t that it was messy, per se. It was squunched. (Hmm, now that I think of it I really should have taken before and after pictures.) And Amy knows me well: for whatever reason dealing with clothes just overwhelms me. In an ideal life I would never think about clothes at all – I’d wear a jumpsuit or a perfectly cute-and-comfortable outfit would just be there waiting for me every time I’d hop out of the shower. Amy’s put up with me clothes shopping, so I suppose she felt it was time to earn more jewels in her crown or something. Or maybe she just likes suffering! At any rate, she proposed skipping the Farmer’s Market and helping me go through my closet to make decisions about stuff.

I think I struggle because I hate feeling that I’ve spent money on something that I haven’t used to the “completely worn out” stage. And living alone, it’s just plain hard to be sure that something really should be jettisoned without solid moral support. So she patiently waded with me, hanger by hanger, through the entire closet. Ooof! I was – of course – quite crabby and miserable, but she knows me well enough to just laugh at my scrunchy faces and keep on pushing.

You wouldn’t believe how freeing it is - nor how happy I am that it’s done! Now I “get” to decide what to do with all the clothes! Suggestions?

misadventures

I often hear people say things like, "of course that would happen to me..." and as I've thought about it, I don't know that it's really unusual to think of oneself as an outsider to the general stream of humanity. For me it's been a variety of things: being a pastor's daughter, being a Christian, being part of a unique and dynamic (and wacky?!) family, or the cultural unawareness that comes with not watching many TV shows/R-rated movies. But it can be all sorts of things for folks, I think: medical conditions, physical characteristics, family story, whatever. It's like we think if that characteristic/set of characteristics were different, life would somehow be "normal". It took me quite a while to figure out that the majority of people feel like they're part of a unique minority for some reason or another.

Life for me has been fairly uneventful lately, not particularly by my choice. I had three awesome things lined up this weekend, and it was killing me that doing one meant missing the other two: my cousin Steve got married, my church did a mini-work trip in St. Louis, and it was Canoecopia in Madison. The wedding won out, but none of the plans I had made for it to be workable came through, so I ended up figuring that it just would have been pushing it too much to go. Then I got sick Thursday, and so watched hopes of St. Louis, and then Canoecopia dissipate. The funny thing is, I really have nothing to complain about - I got to watch the Badgers/hang out with friends yesterday, catch up with Amy on the phone and go rambling with Tammy today, get my hair cut tonight, and generally just clean and get caught up on rest and stuff. This is a dilemma I often face. Who likes complainers? I'm BUMMED - for real - that I missed out on those very-cool-marvelous-awesome things! And yet, how can I possibly, remotely have any valid reason for upsetness? If any of you have figured that one out, I'd seriously love to hear it. It's like after our apartment fire: it was majorly bitey to lose pretty much everything. But within a week, due to peoples' incredible generosity and the fact that I still had a job, I was back to having more possessions than probably 80% of the world can claim. What do you do with those conflicting emotions that somehow don't average out to any one feeling or perspective?

In light of these observations, here are a couple misadventures that I thought it'd be fun to share. I've back-posted them to the dates they occurred, but I'm hoping that with all of above as disclaimer, they won't sound too complainy! Notice I'm NOT claiming that, "of course, this WOULD happen to ME"... :)

Spilt Milk

Double Negatives

spilt milk

Once upon a time, I got into buying milk in glass bottles. Tastes better, less waste, kinda cool. All went swimmingly till one time when I carelessly put two half-gallon bottles in the back footwell of the car, never dreaming that those heavy bottles might clunk together and break. They did. Well - one did anyway. It was summer and I had a heckuva time cleaning up the mess, and dealing with the smell for the next few months. I foreswore milk in glass bottles for quite a while, but it was only a matter of time before their old-fashioned charm worked its magic on me and I was back to my old ways. This time, however, I was SMARTER. I bought this really cool wooden caddy that would hold 2 bottles side by side - making it easier for me to carry them, and harder for them to smash themselves into each other. I had learned from my carelessness, and was prepared to go singing off into to the sunset, intact milk bottles in tow.
Tonight, I was in a bit of a hurry and I plunked my (full) milk bottle caddy down on top of the crocs which were residing in the back footwell of my car (notice a theme developing here??). I wasn't too worried about it, because even if they weren't perfectly stable on the floor of my car, where else could they really go? And it's not like they could hit each other being in the caddy and all, right? Well, somehow - still don't know how exactly - they managed it. I was on my way to meet my friend Linda for dinner when I turned a corner (ok, a bit abruptly), and heard an ominous (that word's for you, Tammy!) cracking sound. I got to the parking lot, opened my door with great trepidation, and sure enough - the top of one of the bottles had sheared clean away. Dang it! At least this time, most of the milk was still in the bottle, but it was a frigid, windy night, so I had a heck of a time emptying the bottle, pulling out the crocs and floor mat (trying NOT to tip them!), sopping up what I could of the mess, and regrouping myself. I can't help but wonder if the glass was a tad flimsy, because as my frozen and sticky fingers tried to pick the broken bottle up from the pavement it broke again, and again, before I could get it back into my car. I headed into the restaurant to clean up and meet Linda (who was probably wondering what happened to me!). On my way back out to my car after dinner, I noticed that my right rear tire was nearly flat; so my time spent in the cold with frozen fingers was not quite done for the night! At least this job can be done with thin gloves on, so as I sent tire guage pieces flying around, fought for supremacy with the stiff air hose, argued with the little cap thingys about whether they really wanted to be on the tire stems, and re-filled all four tires with air, my fingers were not as cold as they might have been. I came away thinking, you know, these two incidents could really make me think of this as a terrible horrible no good very bad day, but that would probably be overly dramatic. It's been a good day - with two terrible, horrible, no good very bad incidents thrown in!

Purple Flurry

So, I tried downhill this weekend! A first, at least since I was in 8th grade or something. Before this time around, here was how I considered it in comparison with my obsession with nordic (cross country).

• lovely adrenaline rush
• expensive (gear rental. K, this one isn't exactly fair - you have to either buy or rent for x-c also. Though x-c is cheaper)
• time consuming (you know how mountains are always further away than they appear? Ski-able hills in Wisconsin are like that too. Only you can't see them at all.)
• expensive (lift ticket)
• fun (chair lifts - hooray for all things escalate-y!)
• expensive (food)
  

A few things to note: at Granite Peak, near Wausau, there is no intermediate option for skiing. Once you skip exiting the chair lift at the half-way-up station, you're beyond the point of no return. It's all black diamonds to return to ground zero. Now I've been told, and am quite prepared to believe, that black diamond runs on hills in WI are laughable compared to black diamonds in real, live mountains. However, for a complete newbie, those things are still sufficient to help you learn things about yourself you never knew. For whatever reason, it doesn't help if conditions are moderately icy, or if you throw in the thick metal support poles for the chair lift into a narrow run.

So when Linda, Javier, and I spent a day at Granite Peak, I'm happy to report no major encounters with support poles, trees, or innocent bystanders. For Linda and Javier, this wasn't even a question: they both knew their skill level, and knew enough to challenge themselves appropriately. I, on the other hand, fell heaps of times, and REALLY biffed it three times. You know, the kind where you're going tail-over-tea kettle at high speed and need to simply relax and wait it out till you slow enough to plant a ski pole and hang on for dear life. Even so, I didn't really get hurt at all, till the last one when I sprained my thumb. That time, I was going super-fast, but not overly worried about it, till - well, I'm not exactly sure what happened but suddenly I was down, head-below-feet, and ramming pretty quickly toward a group of trees I had been about to try avoiding. Javier was ahead of me and says he couldn't say what happened, exactly; all he saw was a purple splotch blurring by. (I'm not sure why, really, I had to be the only one on all the slopes all day wearing a coat that color?!!). I did slow eventually, and was able to regather myself and my wits. No clue how my thumb managed to do that to itself, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't take one more full-length run before we called it a day. Since then tooth-brushing and card shuffling have been a bit of a challenge, but given the circumstances I really don't think I have cause for complaint.

So, are you ready for the updated list, now that some experience is thrown in?

• insane lovely adrenaline rush; definitely a blast!
  
• expensive (gear rental. K, this one isn't exactly fair - you have to either buy or rent for x-c also. Though x-c is cheaper)
• time consuming (you know how mountains are always further away than they appear? Ski-able hills in Wisconsin are like that too. Only you can't see them at all.)
• expensive (lift ticket)
• fun (chair lifts - hooray for all things escalate-y! why don't they have these for x-c??)
• expensive (food)
• humbling
  
• great time with friends, great stuff to learn, and a lot less work than cross country!
  

Even with all that it has going for it, call me cheap, call me a chicken, but I'm thinking it might be a while before I next hit the slopes. Cross country is the life for me....

Then again, if you're going (and it's somewhere other than Granite Peak!), well, you know where to find me!

lost things, and found. decisions. friends.

As I hear about folks losing their jobs and losing loved ones and dealing with huge, difficult life issues, I look at my own life and chide myself for not having it more together.

On a silly level: should I be glad that I found 2 Things Lost under my car seat today? Or ashamed that my life is so disorganized that I lost them in the first place - and it took me over a week to look there? While the adrenaline rush of finding something lost is really something (I can definitely identify with the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go looking for the lost 100th), I wasn't at all sure I'd find them and felt pretty badly about it.

On a slightly more serious level: I have an ongoing struggle with balancing my decisions. This is one of the more-not-fun things about being single - it's so much more fun to make decisions with others who will also be affected by them! How much should I be volunteering/helping the community vs. having fun vs. studying? Regarding cash flow: how much should I be saving (especially in this economy), how much spending on "me", and how much giving to good causes (and which ones?). How much time should I spend alone/reclaiming my forsaken apartment/reading/working out/having fun with friends?

Well, here's hoping the decisions for today are all right: I worked, got out skiing, spent time cleaning my apartment, talked to a couple of friends on the phone, and tomorrow after work I'm heading to Chicago for the weekend to hang out with my college buddy Alex. Now it's just a matter of packing... and - just for the fun of it - getting some sleep!

Oh, and if you'd like to join me, here are a few things I'm currently praying about:
- my cousin Abby, who's dealing with miserable issues of recent surgery, questionable recovery, and a miscarriage within the past year
- my friend Linda, whose grandpa died last Friday
- my friend Cheryl, whose husband died a few weeks ago, aged 44.
- folks who have lost their jobs
- (as always!) world events
- and - a Friday morning update - my friends the Rosenes - Paula's mom died this morning.

Double Negatives

Remember learning in math that two negatives cancel each other out and become a positive? Today, I found a real-life application of that worthy principle!

So it's a Saturday and I'm running around like crazy trying to get everything all pulled together. My friend Jim has called and invited me to a chamber orchestra concert in a cathedral in Green Bay for the evening, and I have a birthday party for my friend Ella on the east side of Appleton right before that. Timing-wise it should be fine - ok, it's been snowing like ca-razy all day, but hey, that's the way she rolls in my lovely home state. Somewhere during the day I hit the "trunk unlock" button on my remote keyless entry thingy instead of my door unlock button (maybe something to do with the heavy mittens I'm too hurried to take off before using the remote??). Of course I don't figure it out till I'm actually in my car and the 'door ajar' light is on, but there's no way at that point I'm getting back out of my car to go shut my trunk - I figure I'll get to it the next time I'm out. So, I find a present for Ella, wrap it, and head over to the party. Have a great time, but finally figure out that I should have changed for the concert BEFORE coming to Ella's because now I barely have time to run home (west side of Appleton), change, and head back to Green Bay in the snowfall. I head out to the car, start it up, and realize there's too much snow on it to be able to just windshield-wiper it off. So I hop out, hit the door unlocker button, shut the door, and just as it closes realize that I had just hit the LOCKER button (I didn't know it would let you do that with the car running!!). So now I'm standing outside a running car, in the snow, on the wrong side of Appleton, trying the door desperately to make sure the handle isn't just joking with me, and wondering which of my friends who has a key to my place would be willing to come over here, get me, take me back to my apartment for the key, and bring us back to the running car.
Then it hits me! The trunk is open! And because I have this lovely Focus with the pass-through back seat, there's a chance I can push it forward from inside the trunk. You can guess the rest - there's no graceful way to reach yourself in around random trunk collect-y stuff, skis in the back seat, and into the car enough to reach the back door. I can only imagine what the neighbors thought, but I am happy to report that I was able to clear off my car, make it back to my place, change, NOT join the cars in the ditch on the way to Green Bay, and get to Jim's in time to hit the concert. And it was a lovely concert, at that. Merry Christmas!