Plastic Box

So much this year to be thankful for

Is next week really Thanksgiving?! I swear that a moment ago it was just my birthday, and now everywhere I go there are carols and santas and gift sets. Granted, those were all set out and decked up in stores by Halloween. But still, time is flying by.

Things are progressing very well with my and Jon's situation, and I really think it has to do with me not physically being there in the house. That was an extremely emotionally trying situation, and I am very blessed (for both of us!) to have been able to give us space while we finalize everything. There are still some house repairs to schedule (gutter de-icers, driveway, etc.) but we're focusing more right now on getting the house sale/proceeds verbiage in the papers and then we will be all set to file. Makes me more than a little sad to know that we'll be ending our marriage in the same building where we got our license to become married. But...there is no time to dwell. 

There are cookies to be made, gifts to wrap, trees to decorate, and I know that we both will be surrounded by our loving families this holiday season. Sometimes, when it seems like you've lost everything, it's good to be lifted up by the people who will never leave you, whoever they may be.

I'll post more pics of my new place as stockings get hung and hallways get painted. This weekend is another "blitz" weekend of working on projects here, and I'm very excited to see, come Sunday, how much more like home it feels.

Giving thanks (already) for my life, as imperfect and unconventional as it may be.

"Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

Words

I bought a Kindergarten activity book for Ryan (4) today because it included ways that she could practice her alphabet and learn to write words together that mean things. She is an amazingly smart child and I look forward to the days when she's reading chapter books and wanting to talk about them. We watched Narnia tonight and when I told her the whole giant story was in BOOKS, she was soooo excited. We have motivation to read!! You have no idea how much this excites me.

I also got a letter in the mail this week from my closest and dearest friend. I know how hard it was for her to write it, but I am eternally grateful that she did. What good are words if we don't use them to help the people we love? What good are they if they don't expand our world beyond our own teeny-tiny understanding?

It is through words that we know each other. Know what is out there in a world beyond the tip of our own nose. It is how we say "Hey, I am alive too and you're not alone."

Thank you, words. How often you are taken for granted but how often you show us what it really means to be human. This is why I became a librarian. Well... that and the awesome power to look up secret things about everyone I know. ;)

When in doubt, hug it out

Amidst all the crazy (e.g., sewage/plumbing explosion Saturday), sometimes you just need to go out with your girlfriends and have a 90s dance-off in the middle of a crowded club. It's a great reminder that yes, you're still a dork, and no, you don't care.

Marti came up from Columbus and we hit the town on an unseasonably warm night to celebrate T's birthday. We danced, we laughed, we were our usual unconventional and happy selves.

  

 
 
 
 
 

Land of the living

Offline for five whole days, two of which I spent in a flu-driven haze, unable to do much more than sleep, yak, and feel sorry for myself. Ahh the joys of sickly self-pity.

But I'm back...still at home (the new one, that is) due to my Junior Achievement 1st graders, and back in the office tomorrow. Things are moving so speedily now. I'm optimistic about what November, and then, inevitably, the holidays, will bring.

Here are a couple new pics of the UH homestead (and yes, I finally removed the blue painters tape you can still see in the dining room photo below):

 More to come, I just need to upload them.

Four-letter word

Last night was, for all intents and purposes, the last night that I would spend in my house in Avon. Though it was an emotional night and morning, it still hasn't hit me yet...not fully. Feel sort of numb today, my body's reaction to the overwhelming request to process everything (loss of marriage, loss of cat, loss of house), and I'm not yet rounding the bend to where all the happy is (new relationships, new house, new life). For now I'm settled into the valley and just too tired to move. I'll get there. The bell will sound and my legs will carry me forward, like they always do.

I can't help but sing this song in my head this week... from the Angel episode "A Hole in the World." It's called "A Place Called Home" by Kim Richey:

Well, it's not hard to see
Anyone who looks at me
Knows I am just a rolling stone
Never landing anyplace to call my own
To call my own

Well, it seems like so long ago
But it really ain't you know
I started out a crazy kid
Miracle I made it through the things I did
The things I did

Someday I'll go where there ain't no rain or snow
‘Til then, I travel alone
And I make my bed with the stars above my head
And dream of a place called home

I had a chance to settle down
Get a job and live in town
Work in some old factory
I never liked the foreman standing over me

Oh I’d rather walk a winding road
Rather know the things I know
See the world with my own eyes
No regrets, no looking back, no goodbyes
No goodbyes

Someday I'll go where there ain't no rain or snow
‘Til then, I travel alone
And I make my bed with the stars above my head
And I dream of a place called home

A rose by any other name

It's quiet here... no one is begging for food or rubbing against me. There's no litter to be changed, no water bowl to fill. When I wake up in the middle of the night there will be no soft fur to reach for in my tiny little room.

Kitty has been with me every move, every change, every new chapter. But this time we are on separate journeys; after our goodbyes this morning we each moved on.

Thank you for 11 years of companionship, in my darkest days and my happiest. I almost returned you (!) after that first week because I thought you didn't like me. I couldn't have known then what a source of stability you would be for me. You used to play fetch like a dog and had the most awesome, deep, sincere purr of any cat I've met. You hung in there through seven moves in different cities, always finding your litter box (praise god), and remaining terrified of birds and the general out-of-doors.

I hear that kitty heaven is the bomb, so I hope you're living it up. I miss you here but know that we are both where we need to be.

 

and PS... Paranormal Activity was not the least bit scary.

Divided against itself

This week. Yeah. Wow. This week.

Please bear with me. I know it will never be more than I can handle, so my spirits remain up up up and away... but it's going to be a very hard one.

I carry hope with me... just like the Emily Dickinson poem that I memorized for my high school English class.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Free to be you and me

I'm pretty geeked about my fall teaching assigment for Junior Achievement (JA). In fact, I had a great idea for a game to carry across the month or so that I'll be with the kids, and had to position an old receipt on my steering wheel to jot it down.

For the November through January period I'll be working once a week with 20 first graders at St. Clare School in Lyndhurst. The topic of the materials that JA sent me is "Our Families" (last time I had "Our Community," so it will be nice to teach something new!). We'll talk, play games, share, and learn all about the different people that can make up a family and how each family is unique and special.

I think it's an extremely relevant topic for this generation of first graders, as I read in Library Journal earlier this year that stepfamilies and alternative families outnumber nuclear families in the US. Rather than push the same "mom, dad, and biological siblings" idea at them, I want to help them celebrate whatever their family looks like, and that having one type of family versus another does not have to affect their success as young people or adults.

For those unfamiliar, here's a bit about JA. Wish me luck!

Are you afraid of the dark?

I point to The Lost Boys as the originator of my love of the supernatural. From there, the stereotypical vampire obsession began (FAR before the Twlight series), but then trangressed when I stumbled upon The Shining and Pet Cemetary at nine years old when my friend Sarah W.'s parents were away. I think the blood-and-guts genre can be enteraining, sure, the CGI and the bursting heads...but I like (no, not the right word)...I am intrigued by movies that can actually make me afraid.

What is fear, anyway? I know in mice that they determined it's connected to the stathmin gene and the neuroD2 gene...that ol' amygdala. It is blamed for so much. But what makes us retain fear?

I know people who can see a scary movie and say "Eh, my world is the same today as it was yesterday, before I saw the scary movie, so I know that there are no ghosts out to get me." And then other people who carry it with them: "Since I saw that, I can't sleep soundly and I'm afraid of what might be."

What is that fundamental difference? Is fear different for everyone? Like our ideas of heaven and hell...I like to think that if we are going to either that they could at least cater to a few of our unique expectations. Glittery wings? sure. Cake made of bone meal? you got it.

I'm about to see Paranormal Activity in T-minus three days. My subconscious world today will be vastly different than my subconscious world on Thursday morning. We are, ineed, like sponges, whether we like it or not. I just hope I will able to tell my amygdala that it's cool, man. You have other things to worry about than spirits that make sheets move on camera.

I mean, honestly, BRING IT. I would sometimes rather be like "Yeah this ghost is being a giant bitch" than "Yeah, I'm getting divorced and have to split the cost of milk." What would you rather hear about in the office kitchen?

So I'll let you know how FREAKY Paranormal Activity is. If I can dare type. ;)

Happy day

I wore my lucky red shoes AND got my five-year anniversary plaque at work today! This is the longest I have worked at any one company, nudging ahead of my four years at McGraw-Hill.

I have to say, there is no way I would have lasted this long at EY without my experiences at McGraw. I am thankful for all the people I met there, and all the deep water I was thrown into so that I could learn how to swim.

Here's to five more years and then some of uniting people with knowledge at one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, and 11-year recipient of the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) Award. Go team!