Blog of Mildly-Epic Proportions!

I really like watering down hefty words-- Mildly-Epic... Tremendous-ish... Somewhat Awe-inspiring... I think it's funny.

So apparently it rained in Springfield the whole time I was gone. Kara says Springfield missed me. I will accept this, as it makes me feel loved. :) Especially since it stopped raining about an hour after I got back into town.

BTW, I noticed that yesterday I had 75 blog views from the hour of 11-midnight! Did everyone decide to take a late evening blog ramble, or is there one person out there just refreshing his/her page over and over to make me feel good about myself and how interesting I am?

I have noticed a lot of people are blogging lately. I don't think I have anything to do with it... but I think that I'm more likely to notice the blogging, since I started myself. Isn't that normally the way of it? Maybe everyone gave up blogging for Lent, so they are all back with a vengeance.. Or perhaps not. I've noticed that blogging really falls into 3 categories. 1) Themed blogging-- I'm going to write a blog and it's going to be all about aardvarks and the crazy stuff aardvarks do! Here is a  picture of an aardvark! Here is another! Here is a picture of an aardvark with a hilarious caption! This blog will be awesome! 2) Slice of life/anything that pops into my head blogging-- I'm gonna write a blog: It is rainy.... I heart rhinos.... Did you know that Pandora spelled backwards is Arodnap? I think that means something... This blog will be awesome, right guys? 3) Deep meaningful insight blogging-- I'm going to attempt to compose an online log of my thoughts. A treatise, if you will, on how I view the universe, society, and the motivation behind individual actions. I wish it to be inspiring and thought provoking or, failing that, awesome.

My blog is the second type in case you couldn't tell by my prolific use of ellipses.

So driving back in the rain today was... *insert accent of non-native English speaker here* how you say? ... the suck?  Especially when I hit Lebanon and it really started coming down and I couldnae drive the speed limit, Cap'an! I hate not being able to drive the speed limit. I feel peer pressured by all the other cars. No, I really do. They want me to drive faster than is actually safe and risk getting in an accident. I can tell by the way they pass me. They are all like "whooooshhhhhhh." And I'm all like, "Oh yeah? Well, whoosh to you, too, buddy!"

I'm not actually like that... I'm more like, "Ahhh! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Ahhhh! The rain! The raaaaaaiiiin!"

I'm not very eloquent under pressure. Perhaps you noticed?

The salesman called me today at 8PM to tell me he hadn't seen my car yet, but he'd been looking all day and that he was sure they would "drop" it on the lot tonight since today was the last day of the 5 day window. He said he would call as soon as it was ready. I have fed the Jeep the last tank of gas I shall ever give it! And tomorrow I should be driving around my new Prius! Ahhhhh! Prius!! (I'm not super eloquent when I'm excited, either.) Don't be surprised if I visit you tomorrow if you live in Springfield. For serious.

I had a really good day today, despite the driving/driving in the rain. It was pretty well gray and cloudy the whole time I was driving and along the way (probably around Kirksville, for those of you familiar with the drive) I prayed for a break in the clouds so I could see blue sky.... just for a little bit, cause the gray was depressing and making me think about things I didn't want to think about. But I didn't expect to get a break, because my parents like to watch the weather channel in their spare time, so I'd seen more than my fair share of weather discussion this weekend, and I knew it was supposed to be raining pretty well all day and the whole trip. And it did rain pretty well the whole trip. I didn't get a break in the clouds... until I hit Jeff City, when all of a sudden I could turn off the wipers and spot blue sky between the rain clouds. And I thought to myself. "Patience. You can have what you want, if you are just patient." Dunno if that was me or God or meterology failing, but I think it's good regardless.  I want to hurry my life along so much now... I feel so keenly how short life can be, and I just want to *go.* But my sense of urgency isn't necessarily what is best, and I probably do need to re-learn a little patience.

Once I got back in Springfield I sat around for almost 2 hours wanting to do something, without anything to do... and then suddenly in the space of 15 minutes an elaborate plan involving Kara, Chik-fil-a, Ice Cream, and Katie, Jonny, "How I Met Your Mother" and fun fell into my lap. It stopped raining and I saw the sunset, and both times tonight that I got into the Jeep I turned on the car just as some of my favorite songs started. It really is the little things in life. No foolin'.

The third book in a trilogy

Another thing I like about a (my?) small town? When you are driving it's common courtesy to wave at every vehicle you pass. I've grown unaccustomed to this living as I do in the "big" city. People are far more anonymous in larger cities... and in a lot of ways I prefer that... but it's kinda nice when you are driving down the road and the oncoming driver waves at you. Or when you are driving in the country and the person in their yard waves at you. Makes ya feel welcome. Maybe everyone feels a little alone out here and so they want to connect to anyone they can. Or maybe they just don't want to endure the ribbing that they would get if they didn't wave hello to someone they are related to, and chances are higher in the country than in most places, so you just wave at everyone.

Things I'm bringing from home, to home: 6 jars of spaghetti sauce, a chocolate meltaway egg that blows all other chocolate out of the water, and will make me not want to eat other chocolate for about 2 years... luckily it's large enough to last for about 2 years. 4 issues of the Smithsonian, and both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. I figure I should give them another chance as an adult... probably not both at the same time, though.

I've been eating and sleeping like there's no tomorrow here... I think my body might think it needs to hibernate... why it wants to hibernate when spring is here (sometimes) I have no idea.

I'm watching The Lake House right now, with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves... I can't decide if I've seen it before or not... It's not necessarily good, but I'm kinda enjoying it. Makes me want to get a lake house with a magical mail box so that I can write to someone from two years in the past. Preferably not Keanu Reeves though... his eyes are really squinty/tiny. Still I think there is something insanely romantic about a guy waiting 2 years for a girl to sync up time with her. It speaks to my soul... or at least the hopeless romantic/starved for romance part of my soul.... Remember that incredible love story? I can do it again...

please?

Lots of sweet older ladies came up to me at church today... most had tears in their eyes... and my grandmas both had the same look... Ach, that look... makes me wanna break down and cry. It's the look that tells me there is something about me to be pitied. It's the look that says they love me and they wish they could have taken this pain from me. It's the look that says they know, and they are so so sorry. Sometimes it's easier when people don't know... sometimes it's easier when people are "young" (aka my age) and they haven't seen and lived through all the good and bad of life... Sometimes I feel like I'm 27 going on 87... and I just want to go back in time 2 years. I don't even remember what we did 2 years ago on Easter, but if I went back in time I'm sure I'd enjoy it.

My brain is so screwed up sometimes... I want romance, but the only real romance I've ever had was with Nathan... and thinking about love in any way except as a remembering or as a fantasy feels like I'm doing something I shouldn't, when that's not actually true. I know it makes more sense in reverse but what it really feels like is that my brain thinks I'm married when my heart knows that I'm not anymore. My heart wants something that my brain says is off limits... except my brain is out of sync. So I reverse myself about every 5 minutes when it comes to matters of the heart... I know there are plenty of happy-pants answers out there about God being my romance, or about how platonic relationships are just as fulfilling, but I really don't want to hear them. Cause God isn't going to kiss me on New Year's Eve, and platonic friends aren't going to discuss our future children with me, and neither one is going to look at me with that stupid goofy adorable grin that says "I adore everything about you, even your annoying habits" that I miss so much.

But like I said- I'm a hopeless romantic and since this isn't happily ever after, I must be in the second part of a trilogy.... or maybe the beginning of the third, since the second book in a trilogy always seems to end when things are at their darkest. And there is no mistaking when that was.

Yes, I think I've begun my third book. Time to meet me some Ewoks.

Roads

I realized that my picture posts sometimes preclude any deep/semi-deep/personal thoughts, cause I just get caught up in explaining them, so today I'm going to refrain from the niece-and-nephew-palooza (even though we all had a lovely time today- Love you more, Da!) and just show you some pictures of where I grew up.

I don't think I can live at "home," again. I'm too happy with being close to grocery stores and restaurants and movie theatres. I love Springtown and my church family and having people close to my age around. But there are a few things that I love about Northeastern MO... and one of them is how beautiful it is.

 Seriously, idyllic doesn't begin to cut it.

 There at the end of the driveway is where I used to wait for the bus. Every morning- for many years.

 And this is the view from that vantage point... "The road goes ever, ever on..."

It may sound weird but this is one instance where I vastly prefer the Rankin-Bass animated Hobbit/LotR movies. That song was much better for me as the folk-sy song as heard below- Though I really remember it to the beat of the sadder version with different lyrics that is on the right. Either way I prefer this song.

Anyway, as I was saying...

 There is an old barn out behind our house... It's pretty well falling to pieces, but it's really pretty, too, in it's sad, forlorn way. There is probably a parallel to be drawn somewhere from that old barn... either to the loss of the farming way of life, or to the aging dependability of "home." That barn is kinda like the giving tree.

There really isn't a bad view all around my house. It's rather nestled into scenery.

 And that scenery includes cows. You see, not all land is good for planting crops... (Aka all the hilly, beautiful stuff) but that just means you throw some cows onto it- and then they calve, and then: idyllic.

And this my friends is probably why I tend to dislike "country" style interior decorating... Because I grew up in it... only it wasn't on the interior, and to see it anywhere but the outdoors makes it feel fake... or dirty.

Of course it's also the reason I have a bent towards nature designs and a love of western shirts with pearl button snaps that defies all logic...

Rhonda and the kiddos went home so that they could be at their church to help out with sound tonight and tomorrow, so tonight has been much quieter than the past few nights have been and it makes me reminisce. I've lived in the same house all my life. I was brought home from the hospital here and we never left. Coming home always makes me feel much taller for a few days, because I remember it from a shorter vantage point for so many of my memories... But it also brings back old feelings... especially from Jr. High and High School. Growing up in the country (especially this far out in the country) is very very different from growing up in a big town- or even just "town." It's beautiful, and it makes you pretty comfortable with silence, but it's also lonely. I have a tendency to believe there are fewer people in this world than there actually are. (One, because people in my life have a tendency of popping up somewhere in my past or at the same time in multiple ways.) But also because I'm at the place I will always call home, and I could walk outside right now and see every star up in the sky... and probably be the only person outside for miles and miles and miles. That tends to make you feel like we are pretty alone in the universe. I know there are those of you who think this sounds like a little piece of paradise on Earth, but I guess it just proves that I'm an extrovert, because it makes me sad... and wistful... and melancholy.

I think that's the worst thing about cancer... and death.. It's ability to make you feel so keenly alone, even when surrounded by people who want to be there for you and who love you.

Or mayhaps I just feel this way, because I listened to "Road Goes Ever On and On" too many times.

Hard to say. Oh yes, hard to say.

Elusive Silver Gilding

I love cable TV channels. I think this is a fact generally well known to all. Especially Bravo. There is something about their brand of reality tv that I find both fascinating and addictive... but I've not been watching a lot of TV as of late and I think there is a reason for this. I'm at home, as most everyone knows and my parents have cable (well, it's technically satellite) and I've noticed that TV is pretty well chock full of emotional landmines for me. Yesterday, it was a commercial for something where the man was talking about the beautiful things he's seen in his life (and we keep seeing home footage of a girl/lady growing older) and then he says the most beautiful image he's ever seen is the image that the drs used to catch his wife's cancer early, so that she could be cured. And then you see the same woman and a man looking at something in a dr. office, and then even later at like a grandkid's birthday party or something... and it's really sweet, but... ach. Sometimes it's so hard not to ask "Why us? Why him?" But I know that's a hard, sad path to walk, and one without any resolution. So I try to keep focused on other things...

Went shopping today, like old times... well, with the addition of two little ones. It was fun, though, and honestly the kids did great, for being out all day... Plus Mom got to eat at Chik-fil-a twice in one day! I taught Rhonda how to play a game on my PSP... Unfortunately the battery wasn't fully charged so she didn't get to play for long... but I have no doubt if she had she would currently be wiping the floor with my Katamari scores... She's always been better at video games than me... I just like them.

Most adorable moment of the trip went to Jeriah, who seemed to develop a bit of a crush on an Old Navy mannequin. He just went over and gave her a long hug... He stopped just as I got my camera out, so we made him do it again, so you all could enjoy it as well.

True love.

And that's pretty well when I stopped taking pictures while we were out. I had stores to visit and things to buy!

So I'll show you some pictures I took after we got home- Here we see the beautiful Kadin showing off her new purse (seen around head), pink skirt, and shoes. Trust me when I say that the black purse is a much classier purse than the blue sequined dog purse she almost got.



Jeriah got cowboy boots! Those are actually rather hard to find without characters on them. Also of interest: Jeriah wears the same size shoe as Kadin. He is not quite three and she is 5 and a half.

I especially enjoy the one pant leg up, one down look he was sporting pretty well all night... though which pant leg switched a few times.

And! We finished the gingerbread church!

I know you can't see them very well, but those are some really awesome bushes on the side of that church... along with... you know... the roof... and the silver plated floor inside the church. Only in the most holiest of Gummi Bear churches do you see examples of the elusive silver gilded floor.

Magnets and Gingerbread

Well, today has been quite busy. Woke up, showered, went to Memphis, which is not the same town I saw 9 months ago! Had lunch with my grandparents and aunt, went to my parents house, spent most of the rest of the day decorating a gingerbread church and fending off Kadin and Jeriah... Cause decorating an Easter church is more difficult than it might seem, and the help of an almost three year old isn't as useful as it sounds. I took some pictures that I will share with you, though there will be many more on Facebook when I return home.

Firstly, I have mentioned to a few people that my mother is a collector of things.. one of the largest being magnets... then when I mention that she had my dad metal plate the kitchen walls above the chair rail so she could put magnets on them, I get several kinds of reactions- but always a request for pictures. Today, I bring you pictures. This one is taken from the entrance to the kitchen.

Did I mention they are organized by theme? Cause they are.

See where the refrigerator meets the wall there?

Here's a look down the side!

And that's the wall next to the fridge.

She has somewhere around 4,000 magnets, she thinks...  The ones that are up aren't even nearly all of them, She tells me that all the holiday ones are put away upstairs. I so wasn't kidding about the organized by category. I've kinda forgotten how weird it is... and then someone asks me for pictures, and it feels a little bit like I grew up in Graceland and people are wanting pictures of the Jungle Room... What? You mean green shag carpeting on the ceiling isn't normal?

OK, on to the gingerbread church:

You know why we make gingerbread churches at Easter?

1) Cause we like the look of stained glass windows

Sooo pretty! Jolly Ranchers-- Much better as decoration than as a candy.

2) Christmas is already too busy to spend so much time on one project.

And when Rhonda and I decide to spend some time on a project, we really go for it... We decided to leave off one side of the roof of the church to let light in for the windows... but that meant we needed something to go inside... AKA congregants for the church. Luckily, the bear families were willing to come. We are especially proud of our multi-racial family, seen above. :)

Yes, that's a bear preacher... and a bear playing the piano off to the side. No one gets into a project the way those girls formerly known as Miller do!

And this is my saddest moment... You see I had great hopes to make a huge tree for the front of the church... a huge tree that was 3 dimensional and stood up by itself.. It would have been really flippin' cool...But the tree just couldn't take it and cracked under pressure... Mom says we needed to bake the gingerbread longer, or it was too humid today. Considering we had a massive rainstorm, I'm going to say it was the humidity that done her in. Also pictured: dishwasher detergent and my toes.

You notice there are no pictures of the finished product? This is because it's not technically done. The roof needed some drying out time, and we ran out of royal icing, and didn't want to make more... Plus the kiddos were getting restless cause Rhonda and I spent all day working on this rather than solely focused on them.

So you will get finished gingerbread church pictures some other day... and as for today the only other thing I have to say is:

You see those two glorious coconut cream pies? I'm loved.

In which a boy falls asleep

Well, I *was* awoken by Jeriah, but he was being very quiet and just whispering to himself as he played, which honestly is totally adorable, so I will forgive him. Kadin and Jeriah have a fun game they now play called, "climb all over Renee." It is accomplished by finding where Renee is and climbing all over her. I've had my toes stepped on, my ribs kicked, and my ears grabbed about 4,000 times, and I kinda love it... though that might be because I've also been hugged that many times, too. I don't think I realized how much they were holding in when they were seeing Nathan and I when he was sick and for the funeral... Makes me miss Nathan, too, though. He loved these kiddos so much. Kadin drew a picture of him for me... He kinda looks like a white Steve Urkle (how's that for a mid nineties pop culture reference!), but I think it's sweet.

Jeriah is normally loud... like shrieking loud, but he's coming close to being understandable to me... Rhonda still has to translate every once in a while... He also likes to go through my stuff... He put my lotion on his hands about 5 times today and once when we were making the gingerbread (and therefore distracted) he put it on his legs, too... He also found my pumice stone and told me he was going to take it outside because it was a rock.  Kadin on the other hand is obsessed with Angry Birds on my phone. She is very excited about the random golden egg levels you can find, though I've not cleared enough levels to have many. We read 3 or four books today and an American Girl catalog... Wow, those dolls have changed since I was little... They don't even make Samantha, Felicity, and Kirsten anymore! (sorry boys, I know you in all likelihood have not a clue what I'm talking about... but then again, perhaps you do.. I'm sure some of you had sisters!)

I just realized that Rhonda doesn't have her caps lock key on her laptop keyboard. I can't help but wonder it this is because she was always turning it on by accident or if it is a casualty of something (like childrens). I also just noticed that Firefox is not flagging the word "Turing," which is what you get when you accidentally don't type the n in "turning." Assuaging my natural curiosity I googled it and and found out that a Turing test is named for Alan Turing, and it is a "test of a machine's ability to demonstrate intelligence." This has been your ffd.

Oh, for the love of all that's adorable! Just now Jeriah came out to the living room where I'm blogging, crying. (He passed his parent's room on the way.) I asked him what was wrong and if he wanted to go find mommy, and his response was to climb up into my lap and fall asleep. And when I say fall asleep I mean it took him all of about 6 seconds to do so. Melt my heart and make some brownies!

mmmmm melted heart brownies.

Of course, I didn't really know what to do at that point so I just held him for a little bit and then took him back to bed... I figure that's a safe enough option.

Moments like that are pretty much why I can't give up on my future... Too sweet, too precious, too special.

GPS Life Lessons

I have learned some very important lessons today regarding my GPS.

1) It takes a really long time to download map upgrades.... a REALLY long time... I was planning on leaving at 4 or so-- earlier if I could. So I started the map download all unawares. You see I was going to update the maps last night but there was a problem with the security certificate (the problem remained this afternoon but I took a chance... I'm such a rebel!). So I started the map download/update at 3:15 thinking I was giving it plenty of time... or not. I left as soon as the maps were updated... at 6:15.

2) Even though I got the latest update, the poor little GPS is still confused by the awesome new bypasses that have sprung up since the last time I came homeward... He just kept trying to re-ca-alculate over and over.. I'm surprised he didn't just throw his imaginary hands in the air and say, "Blimey! 'Ow did you get over there? There's no' even a road there!" (I have my GPS set to the male British dude.) He calls exit ramps "slip roads" and I think it's just adorable.

3) Never trust a GPS in the country. I know how to get to my sister's house from Kirksville, but my GPS told me to go a different way... I did, thinking maybe it was a better way. It's was NOT a better way! It was a series of 4 or 5 crazy curvy back roads with a posted speed limit of 55 but it's absolutely impossible to actually go 55 on them because of all the hills and curves and road signs with a suggested speed of 35 on the next mile... and those signs show up every mile.  So while the GPS told me I would get here at 11:13 suddenly it turned into 11:26, because it was judging me for listening to MoDot and not careening into the dark at a breakneck pace. (And yes, on these unfamiliar snake roads at 11:00 at night, 55 would have been a pace to break your neck at.) I saw one other car the whole time.  I'm really glad my life isn't a horror movie cause I would be murdered about 45 different ways right now. I think Navi was mad at me for driving on the bypasses... but no Camdenton or Lake of the Ozarks traffic? Heck, yeah!

Yes, I call my GPS, "Navi" ... Yes, it is named after the fairy in Ocarina of Time. It only seems appropriate. I mean it's pretty well constantly saying, "Hey! Listen!"

Well, I think I'm going to try and go to bed now... it's really early for me but I'm tired from driving and belting out songs for 5.5 hours, and apparently my sister is a crazy person who tells my parents that she wakes up at 9 or 9:30. Of course, since Jeriah was asleep when I got here I actually expect to be awoken by pouncing or head butting earlier than 9:00. He's all boy, that one.