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.

Just what I wanted for christmas...

...a new sump pump!!! YAY!!!! For the low low price (plus labor, plus overtime, plus holiday Christmas eve pay) of $698.52.....YIPPEE!!!! Did I mention that you may in fact be receiving a new holiday furnace too? Heck lets throw in a new dehumidifier along with it, why not? You can even make toll free calls to your insurance company to learn that you aren't covered for sump pump failure. Aren't you lucky? Merry Christmas!!! Oh, you wanted to be home with your family and your boyfriend right now? Aww, now ain't that a grinch.






-Totally bummed out, completely feeling bah-hum-bugy, sitting in my cold cold cold house waiting for the heater repair guy to arrive. Happy Holidays.

Snow Day.

No, School was not canceled today...it should have been. Its cold and blowy and icy out there. I am however staying home. Why you ask? Because I am an idiot.

I got up early, showered, had breakfast, dressed in a cute new sweater, and then went out to start my car so that it could defrost. I came in, had a cup of coffee and watched the news. When it was time to go (I was even leaving early to account for bad weather), I went out and proceeded to back up ever so carefully.....right into one of the railroad ties that line my driveway.

THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME I HAVE DONE THIS!

I should have known better, I should have wiped the snow off the back windows better and I should have pulled forward first to straighten myself out....but I didn't.

It doesn't look like that big of a deal, however, that spot is just enough lower than my driveway that all my tires do now is spin and spin on the ice, and I cannot drive back up onto the driveway. I rocked the car. I straightened the tires. I pushed and shoved. I shoveled. I put cardboard in front of my tires. I put cardboard behind my tires. I looked for some sand. I tried and tried....I spilled my coffee all the way down the front of my cute sweater. And now, I am an hour late for work. AAA said they have people who "really" need a tow truck to take care of first, my feet are wet and cold....and the woman that I am student teaching with must certainly think I am just to lazy to go into work today.

...So I put my PJs back on. Screw AAA.

Home Improvement

So we're getting closer to being done with this home improvement project...closer, yet still so far from finished. Thats my mom up there on the ladder measuring for the last pieces of sheet rock...

YUCK

I'm feeling sorta overwhelm-y today. (And yes I can make up words as an English major 26 days away from her Masters degree). Like the world is crashing down on my tiny little house and I don't like it very much. I didn't go to school today, which is totally unlike me. I made up some bs excuse about having a stomach bug which was not even slightly believed by the secretary in the building or my cooperating teacher but the kids were only going to watch movies today in class and its not like my presence was going to be helpful or necessary. And...sometimes it makes me nervous that after 2 degrees in English I still find absolutely nothing wrong with writing long-run-on sentences that really have no point. So I probably won't go to my class tonight either, because obviously if I have a stomach bug I wouldn't want to infect everyone there as well. Basically I had to bar tend last night, got home after 3 and had no desire to get up this morning to go to school. I had all these plans to get alot of house work done, and pay my bills and run errands....none of which has happened yet.

I did let the dog out. and fed her too.

So Adam is in Iraq. It makes me cry that Banks is dead. No one seems to really understand why I would be so sad about this guy dying that I only met once....and I would try to explain it but that would only make me cry again. Its just that his kid is so darn cute, and now has to grow up not really knowing his daddy. And it could have been Adam and not Banks. And I have to send Adam his christmas presents this week if i want him to have them by christmas....it makes me so angry-teary-frustrated-lonely-cranky that he won't be here on christmas morning and that there will be no snow and santa claus and family around him. Thinking about it makes my brain hurt and it is just so unfair. I am aware that he signed up for this, and I am so so so proud of him and all the boys over there doing what they need to do to keep us safe. But, I want my brother home for christmas.

I bought candy canes yesterday...I've eaten five today. I love Christmas. In fact, if my house wasnt filled with sheetrock dust and my belongings weren't piled up all over the house I would probably be getting the decorations out today.

I think we are buying furniture for christmas for eachother...like maybe a bed room set or something because neither of us has one. We just have a bed on a frame but no head board or anything. Its exciting to me to have "big girl furniture" and also to have something that is "ours". I of course want a giant, four-poster, princess-y, mammoth of a bed with satin sheets and hundreds of pillows...and he wants something rustic and small and normal. Boys are so impractical.

I bought marble floor! Its rosy and beautiful and lovely and I can't wait to install it (only i have no idea how) in my new new new bathroom. I painted the bathroom a deep burgundy and someday in the near future it will have a toilet and sink and marble floors which I am so so so excited about.

Ok, so random post is over. Maybe I should go take a nap because of my stomach bug.... or maybe go to the mall.

Pray for....

...my brother Adam who is still in Iraq, but especially pray for the famliy of his best friend Sgt. Derek R. Banks who passed away on Wednesday after several men in Adam's Co. were injured late last month by a roadside explosive device. Banks leaves behind a wife and young child. Pray for the rest of the men who are still in Iraq and for the families that are dealing with their loved ones being away for the holidays. Its really not something I had ever imagined having to deal with, how can one prepare to worry for thier brother's life every single day?

I had all these interesting little stories from school and my remodeling project that I wanted to post this weekend, but instead...... just pray with me this weekend ok?