The many faces of Julia....

Dear Esther, Please note, should your daughter now think its ok to..... smash people in the head with pillows, steal people's hats, climb into pillow cases, jump on beds, and/or scream and yell while jumping on beds..... Blame Zack.

I enjoyed some serious snuggle time with Julia too.....but I claim innocence to all in appropriate behavior. (haha....tricked you.)

PS. (Leah & Scott, we missed you and your munchkins)

The good stuff

Sometimes when I feel like I am way too overwhelmed to deal with another moment of my crazy life, and I climb into the bath tub with a glass of wine and a book (thinking that I may never venture out of the bathroom again), I am completely surprised by how easy it is for my boyfriend to get me out of my funk. He may not be the most eloquent person, or well traveled, or well read...but he knows me better than I know myself. He talks me out of being crazy, can almost instantly stop me from crying, and is constantly there to listen to me whine about whatever small problem lay in the way of my day. I am amazed by the way we just fit together. Me, with my mile-a-minute whirlwind of thought and talk and dreams and craziness....and him with his ever calm and thoughful sense of reality. He grounds me, and he keeps me sane. This is what I love.

I spent Sunday in the midst of a family that I adore. So unlike my own. Its a giant conglamorate of people from farmers and hunters, to lawyers, to teachers and nurses, to cuddly, mushy, happy babies. In the chaos of dogs, and kids, and breakfast coming and going, there is this incredible sense of peace and love that completely envelopes everyone in the house. Its a feeling that is rare and wonderful and I cannot imagine living without. There is this sense of belonging, whether you have been a part of the family for five years or five minutes you are welcomed with open arms. There aren't many places that accepting in this world.

I am totally...

...quitting my job. Because here I am AGAIN in Rochester while my entire family is in Syracuse for the weekend....I have to work in an hour and I am so not happy. UGH.

ok....

...I am beat. I am working, 2, maybe 3 nights a week. Making barely enough money to pay my many bills (aka: I just started paying back my student loans).... I am driving back and forth between my house and "home" because both are undergoing major overhauls a la HGTV. At my house the cabinets are up and counters are on and everything looks beautiful and wonderful. At home we are putting a chair rail around the bedroom and painting with a pretty faux technique and three colors of paint. (and lots of Aunt Dort's help.) And then.....our "new" living room now has removable walls which need to be painted and the moulding needs to be replaced and......oh yeah I have been filling out application after application in hopes of finding a subbing job, but no one will hire me until my recommendation letters are in so I am waiting on the teachers to get their butts in gear and mail them to the school.... in the midst of all this I feel torn between home and home....I cannot be in enough places at once, I hate the idea of renting my pretty little house to someone who won't take care of it, and at the same time I don't want to not be with the people I love. I can only stretch in so many directions at once.

But....I know that things will slowly fall into place, its been a seven year roller coaster. It just been such a long tedious process of moving and school and breaking up and making up...and wondering what we want and need and more importantly learning the difference between the two. Its so ironic that when it finally comes time to have what it is that we always thought we wanted, it still seems so out of reach.

tug-of-war

I am having the biggest eternal battle right now and it sucks. Like really, truly sucks. I have wanted nothing more than to move home for the past 5.5 years. I want the hills, and the farm and the friends from home more than anything else.....sorta....I am also in love with my new marble floors, my bright yellow kitchen and new cabinets and my yard that is brimming with the possibilities of spring flowers from the thousands of bulbs that I planted this fall. I am not thrilled with sharing....I am a bad bad share-er. I am stressed from driving back and forth, I don't know if I am coming or going, I can't possibly keep my resolutions of jogging twice a week if I can't find which house my sneakers are in......(which isn't necessarily a bad thing) and I have painting to do at both houses! Why when I can have what I want is it no longer what I want? I mean I do want it still.....I just want both.....ok what I really want is my own space, my house, and yet I want the people I love with me there. Can't I have that? oh....and I want a puppy too. Penny wants a little brother.

I love my hometown....

There are a bazillion reasons why I love DeRuyter...

for example the other day, in the parking lot across the street from my house, I watched an old friend get his car firmly stuck in a foot of snow. My mother and I sat with our warm cups of coffee and laughed at him for a good ten minutes while he spun his tires, pushed, shoved and otherwise made a fool of himself. But then, we went out with shovels, (as did two other neighbors that had also been watching and laughing from the comfort of their homes first), and cleared the parking lot, dug out his car, pushed him out, and let him park in the driveway while he got his pizza.

..and also, my mechanic will squeeze me in for just about any tiny little problem I might be having with my car, even if it means he has to stay late, and wont charge me if the loud banging noise I'm hearing is just snow caught in the tires and all he has to do is clean it out. It takes me weeks in Spencerport just to get an appointment for the oil to be changed....

I'm glad that I am able and READY to be heading home.