Yes, kind neighbors to the east of me in my cul-de-sac, that was my barbecue cover flying, lofty as a birthday balloon, over your direction. I am glad to say it stopped on my side of the fence, around the corner, between your house and mine so I did not have to come pester you for it. I am really glad that my patio umbrella stayed on this side of the fence. No, I am not kidding.
The wind kicked up this evening something fierce! I was talking to Liann on the phone when it got dark outside, the plants started to move a little, then sway, then bend horizontally from west to east in earnest. I had lowered the umbrella earlier, but when I saw what was going on, I yelled to Liann that I had to go, ran outside, and stood there getting blasted with wind, wondering stupidly what to do with the umbrella. If I yanked it out of the table in that wind, I was pretty convinced they would find me later in downtown Boise, like a disheveled cousin of Mary Poppins. But the wind was yanking so hard and making the table and umbrella bounce up and down, that I figured I would risk flying through my neighbor's windows in an attempt to save the lovely table and umbrella my parents and Michael and Joanna bought me when they were up here in June. I pulled it out and hustle, hustle, tucked it over the edge of my little wooden patio Whew!
One of my lilac bushes (actually it's more of a tree, a late-blooming variety, I think--I have four others that are definitely "bushier" and bloomed early in summer), I am sad to say, did not fair quite so well. Early in summer, here's a bit of the backyard, with the lilac "bushes" in bloom. The lilac "tree" is the really wispy thing to the right of the lilacs already in bloom.
Here is it tonight, much fuller, and until about 7:00 PM, was standing pretty vertical. Bummer! I went out to try to see what I might need to drag to the curb for the trash dudes, but I can't really tell until I climb up in the dirt. Tomorrow, maybe.
Time for dinner! And a bath after standing in the wind with plastic shopping bags and other debris and greenery whizzing past my head. Hang on, Toto!
EDIT: Last night, 9 homes burned down and 10 others were damaged in Southest Boise in what started out as a grass fire but got whipped into a housing area when 50 mph winds kicked in. I no longer feel sad about my tree, but rather very grateful I have a house. One person was killed in the fires. Please pray for these homeowners and their families!
I miss you all. And now that the Olympics are over, I can ponder re-entering the real world of work and friends and thoughts and dreams. But not the kind of dreams that get you knocked of the balance beam and into deep depression and no gold medal. Just normal dreams.
It's been a strange year thus far, trying to determine in some ways who I want to be and what I want to do. And the things out of those two groups that might actually be possible.
I have discovered that I wrestle regularly with feeling alone, but wanting to cocoon up into myself frequently, too. I want to learn how to swim those two parts of me.
And I am learning to talk with my God differently. We live here in this house together. I would like to live here well and learn what that really means.
I have avoided blogging because I have had too much to say in some cases, but a felt need to be quiet and limit my contact with the world, too. I haven't known what to do with that.
Just dive in again, I guess. Bits and pieces--it doesn't all need to be beautiful and fluent.
But God did say to put it out here. So back to diligence, I pray.
I got my first Walmart Supercenter haircut today. Everyone should take a risk now and then.
Even when I have had to watch my budget, I have never really skimped on paying a premium for my haircuts. I vainly consider my hair one of the three pretty things I have going for me: hair, nails, lips (in the words of Anne Shirley, "Someone complimented me on my nose lips long ago and I'm afraid I've thought about it far too much ever since."). But, my current stylist is on maternity leave--what's a girl to do?
After a post-church trip to Costco today to grab some things in preparation for the fam's arrival next weekend (like folding chairs--it would be nice if we could all sit at the dining room table without having to play musical chairs), I stopped at Walmart to pick up some yellow bug lights (side note: I had a boyfriend tell me once that I looked "really good in this light"--we were at my parents' front door standing in yellow bug porch light--nice). As I left Walmart, I walked past their little Style Salon, and one of the gals was just sitting there reading a book. I asked if she had time for a trim; voila, I have evened-out hair. I think.
We'll see what I think in the morning :)
Also, if you only live four miles from Sonic, you can find a reason to talk yourself into driving there for an Oreo Blast. You may have talked yourself out of buying ice cream while you were at the grocery store yesterday, but today you need some, and even though you could have bought a half-gallon for what you are now paying for a regular-sized Blast, you tell yourself this is a good idea because at least you are not tempted to eat an entire half-gallon.
I love my brain.
Okay--finally! I can go to bed now--Kristin Chenoweth has appeared on The Tony Awards. I can sleep happy.
If you have five minutes to enjoy some brain candy, go to this link. Fun! :)
Or two degrees of separation from the band OneRepublic; whichever impresses you more.Or haunts you more. Anwyay...
I have been meaning to post this for awhile, just because it's fun, but now I can do it before the American Idol finale tomorrow night, when OneRepublic is scheduled to perform their hit, "Apologize". You may have heard it on the radio (I caught it in Bed, Bath and Beyond the other night). If not, here it is:
So, the lead guitar player, and one of the two founders of the band (Ryan Tedder, the lead vocal and guy at the piano, is the other), is Zach Filkins. Who is Zach Filkins, you ask?
Well, he's the guy second from the right in the pic below: Which for me is fun and funny, when you know this guy, also second from the right:
That's Doug Filkins, Zach's dad. Zach, I have never met. Doug, I have spent a lot of time with over the past five years. He is a missionary with one of the distance education missions we partner with. Doug and I have spent many an hour together, in work teams and even sometimes just us, locked up in an office or classroom rewriting Bible courses and evaluating training for use around the world. The picture above is from meetings in Germany this past February, during a splendid Sunday out with some of our other terrific mission partners, and a good long sit at a tremendous place in Staufen called Café Decker. I can't even tell you how much you wish you were me in that delicious place. But, back to my story...
Doug introduced me to the long-lasting power of Tootsie Pops to keep you going over interminable days of pounding your head into a table as you try to rewrite New Testament Survey course objectives to be relevant in countries all the way from Ukraine to Brazil. And I encourage him in a Starbucks habit that he doesn't really want, but he knows I am right ;)
Doug and his family were missionaries in Spain for years, where Doug taught at a seminary. I have loved learning from him (he has an actual post-grad degree in instructional design; I pretend like I know what I am doing). Over the past five years, we have shared about our families and prayed for each other and our loved ones through various up and downs. So, I heard about the starts and stops and almost theres and then not-quite-theres of Zach and the band. And when we met in February, things had finally come together for OneRepublic in the months just prior, and Doug was so excited for them. He's an amazingly humble guy, but it's always a blast to see someone excited when their kid's dream comes true.
So, in all that, I also have really high confidence that Zach is a great guy, too. He and Tedder are both believers, and they met on the soccer field in high school. Nice story.
So, there. I am famous!
Okay; I know famous people.
Alright; I know people who are related to famous people.
Good enough for me :)
And here are more pictures from Café Decker to make you drool...
Yes, I am drooling. Shamelessly.
And here 's a nice shot Doug took of me at the top of this tower above Mülheimwhere you can see the Alps and France and all kinds of cool things. Have I mentioned my growing fear of heights in the last several years? Um, yeah.
Before I left Oregon yesterday, Beth pressed into my hands a bag full of hand-selected chocolate nummies for my birthday. Previously in the weekend, I had the joy of savoring my first, v-e-r-y long-awaited taste of a Vosges Mo's Bacon Bar. Thank you, Chris, for sharing. I can't say I would have been that generous...it's too yummy!
So, there was no Bacon Bar in my bag, since I had tasted that, but many other splendiforous things. I laid out all the chocolate beauties on the table when I got home last night. I just love even looking at them. I had opened the Dagoba lavender bar on the flight home and ate two pieces with a glass of merlot. Made the plane flight much less painful. This morning, I looked at the spread on the table and asked who wanted to come to work with me today. Fran's Gray Salt Caramels peeped right up, though they also argued that they would be happy to stay home and be eaten in the comfort and joy of my living room in the evening. We (me and the box of three perfect caramels) finally decided that they would come with me to perk up the work day.
Oh. My. Goodness.
So, so delicious. The buttery caramel just literally melts in your mouth, and the salt is perfect and crunchy, and...oh, I am a happy girl.
I ate one and saved the other two. They came home with me, but since I stopped at the gym with some friends first, they came in my purse to the gym. They certainly were not going to sit out in my hot car. It gives me shivers just thinking about it.
I actually just gave in tonight. I tasted the Naga Bar. Not only is it gorgeous to eat, it leaves a hint of curry and coconut as you keep breathing for minutes after, like you can still smell it. I love it!
I have always loved chocolate. Can you move from love to obsession? If so, I have Beth to thank. Thanks, Honey! A perfect way to stretch out my birthday!
Consume this the second evening after helping friends move into a new house. While working at house, point out frequently that you are good at carrying heavy things; God didn't give you much aerobic talent, but He was generous with lots of upper body strength, so why dontcha just hand me that big ol' box, and I'll take this end of the quite heavy dresser. That's right, I am cool, and I even growl when I work, "Grrrrr...ha ha ha...grrrr."
Take 2 Tylenol PM on first night after move. Sleep pretty good. Wake up so that everything is sore. You can't even move your sheet to your nose without a little, "Eee!" escaping your lips, eyebrows shot to the top of your forehead. Spend 40 minutes figuring out how you will get out of bed and showered to get to church. Praise God you are not a door greeter this week. Remember not to tell in a mocking voice anymore the story of your brother push-upping his arms out of commission one night when he was in college. Poor man.
Make it through church, and manage to keep most of your little, "Eeeps!" from escaping. There are many triggers for the tiny noises: neck, back, legs, arms, wrists. Fun for all!
Return to couch for most of day. Ponder things like laundry, but remember; it requires your arms. Alas, so many things do.
Give in and take the evening cocktail. Make note to remember that you are now 38, not 31 and spry. Sleep with a dopey look on your face. Praise God you live alone in such stupid moments as this :)
The Boom, by the way, is what Liann and I call the amazing 20-year-old over at Ridiculous Metaphors. We have happily adopted her into our crazy world, but sometimes she has to pay a high price for having two odd old maids boss her around. Like having us call her The Boom (after the Katie Ka-Boom cartoons, which she vigorously defends are nothing like her), or Biscuit, or Bean, or Boom Boom, or Kid, or whatever.
Tonight, "Boom" seems particularly appropriate, since the theme song to the cartoon goes like this:
She's Katie Ka-Boom
Katie Ka-Boom
She lives in a house with a garden in bloom
Her family knows that any time soon
Their little lady, Katie
Goes ka-boom
She has been planting lots of flowers, so she has a lovely little garden in bloom now. Sluss, on the other hand, is the one actually going "Ka-BOOM!" tonight. Thus, the gasket blow.
There is nothing attractive or Godly in character about the irrational anger that sometimes wells up in me over things I can't figure out. Tonight, it was the #@%*$* lawn sprinklers.
I made the leap to buying a house with a lawn because it had sprinklers on a timer. I do not hand water things in the yard. For verification of this, simply check with Liann about the number of dead flowers and patches of brown vinca she would come home to after she had gone away on vacation and foolishly placed me in charge of the yard. The house would be spotless inside, but the yard would be dead. I hate watering.
So, while Corrina is happily plant, plant, planting away in Springs, I am here battling with my Nelson EZ (HA!) irrigation timer. There are directions in the panel of the timer; I follow them; nothing. I look up directions online; pretty much the same as what's in the panel; I follow them; nothing. Oh, the fury. I try to just run the simple little test it can do; nothing. I finally decide Zone 1 does not actually exist in my lawn. In fact none of the zones, up to 7, actually exist here. Maybe I am watering some old lady's lawn in Montana, 'cause there ain't nothin' happenin' on my lawn.
I actually call my father, who, while he was here last week, professes to have gotten the sprinklers to work when he ran them on a test cycle. I saw the grass afterward; yeah, it was wet. But I call now to make sure that it was wet from the sprinklers and not from the hose or some weird alien fly-by. Yes, Kathie, it was the sprinklers.
@^$#!*!!!
By now, I have decided that I was tricked into buying this house, because everyone in the world can get the sprinklers to run except me. It was like an out of body experience, the frustration was so high. I smacked my garage door opener a little too hard in a moment of angst, and had to get a screwdriver to fiddle with it a little bit to get it to work again. %@$%^#@^.
There is something seriously wrong with my patience meter, and my, "I can do it MYSELF" meter. Dad politely suggests asking the neighbor for help. For me, this is equivalent to having to drink a bottle of ammonia or something; I should be able to figure this OUT! And even before I call Dad, I know that I should just wait like two hours and let God clear my head and start again, and the answer will be a cinch. But I can't give it up until I have an anger headache that is so snarly that I know if I go to bed with it, as cheesed off as I am at me, the sprinkler designers, and the neighbors at the end of the cul-de-sac who are watching me go in and out and in and out and in out of the house to see if water is spraying from ANYTHING, I will wake up mean and ugly, and of course, I have to greet at church in the morning.
That will be pretty.
I spend from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM monkeying with everything I can think of. I finally surrender. And, yes, there was prayer interspersed throughout the two hours. And some talking to myself. And some $@$^#@ thoughts.
For some reason, about 8:20, I go out to the garage and try one more time for a test cycle. What is that noise? Is that water? Zone 4 starts to do something. It works. What the...? There is a Zone 1 after all? Well, I never...
So, if you find a gasket lying about, it's mine. I blew one clean off tonight. If you find any pretty flowers, they are The Boom's. She is the one with the patience meter that is nicely adjusted.
See why we need that kid around? Good and humbling in all the right ways :)
