Evidence That I Really Love Fall: My Apartment Edition

please note: i am new to photography and do not actually know anything about my camera other than how to turn it on and push that one button. but i want to learn!

an assortment of gourds in a beautiful wooden platter that says give us this day our daily bread in german (but,um, bread does not really handle being a centerpiece very well).



seasonally colored candle and farmers market eucalyptus that is drying (dying? can't tell). please also note: no window treatments. have ever. been in our apartment. because i am a Big Failure at decorating.


tiny supersweet vidalias...living it up on top of some big old red onions that should probably be used, maybe, yesterday?


do not walk, RUN, to target to buy this poached (maybe spiced?) pear candle. and yes, that is my laptop perched precariously on the arm of the couch. don't tell my husband.


i don't actually store apples on the armchair in the living room, but maybe i should - they look pretty happy there.



and finally...all the fall treats one could ever want, hanging out on the butcher block.

It...is...finally...fall!

After weeks of above average temperatures and one tragic record-shattering weekend that hit 90 degrees (OCTOBER 8th people), it has finally cooled down. To be fair, it dropped 30 degrees in one night and went from the record high to a below-normal low. But that's the fun of living in the Midwest I guess. Our bedroom is totally destroyed, strewn with flip flops and capris that I just buried with sweaters and scarves because I have no idea what to wear - Monday I overheated in a tshirt and last night I was underdressed in three layers of clothing. This psychotic roller coaster weather is wreaking havoc on what little organization I have in my house.

But I LOVELOVELOVE fall, and pumpkin-carving, soup-eating, layer-wearing, apple-picking season doesn't feel right until there is a chill in the air. It's hard to get excited about drinking hot cider when it's just as hot outside as it is in your mug, and really all you want to do is find your bathing suit and hit the beach (I resisted this urge, but it was hard). I am a dedicated four season kind of girl, so I get almost pathetically excited each time the weather changes, and kind of bitter when it does not. For example, I do not believe in things like pumpkin spice frappucinos. Besides being a cleverly disguised term for global warming, pumpkin spice frappucinos are wrong because no, you do not get to have the best of both worlds. Fall and summer in one syrupy cup? Ew. What is next, eggnog frappucinos? I am just thrilled that is now seriously fall, and I can take my HOT COFFEE DRINKS outside, wearing my jacket and crunch some leaves under my actual shoes (goodbye, flipflops! I love you and miss you already!). It is truly glorious.

In other exciting and new season type of news, we have been going to a new church and it is really, truly wonderful. We've struggled to find a church in the almost four (FOUR! i can't believe it) years we've been here. We went to the traditional church down the street, a big suburban church, a yuppie urban church...I think we've been searching for the kind of community we both had at our childhood churches. We have learned to continually adjust our expectations, which is a good lesson, and we've also learned what is really important to us in a church, which is an even better lesson. We've been going to Our New Church for about two months now, and all I can say is, God used all those detours and dead ends to lead us right to this place. We are meeting people, getting involved, and mostly importantly being FED by the teaching and the worship. And there is something wonderful about making this kind of change in this season of the year. It's like fall for me - comfortable and surprising all at the same time.

I feel like I've been hibernating lately. I think it's partly by choice, but mostly it's like an avalanche of everything I do just fell on top of me. School has been a non-stop parade of tests, quizzes, projects, presentations, care plans. Every time I check something off my to-do list, I have about fifty other tasks waiting for me. This week was the first round of papers for my 18 freshman writing advisees. So I had to fit 18 (yes, eighteen) 45 minute slots of time into my schedule. I also have my part-time job at the hospital, which keeps me busy until midnight one to two days a week. And then...stop it now...then there is the babysitting. Joshua and I have done two overnights in the suburbs in the past month, and I've been babysitting an average of 2-3 times a week. Add that to my night class, my clinicals, my internship at a senior center, and the previously mentioned job, homework and writing advising situation....

It kind of gives me palpitations to sit back and read this all in one paragraph.

I haven't even had time to have senioritis. What I have had time to do, apparently, is completely blanket my apartment in powerpoint handouts, homework, freshman papers, receipts, clothes, dishes - you name it and it is currently a) dirty b) in the wrong spot or c) dirty and in the wrong spot and I need it THISMINUTE and I can't find it. I definitely gave a presentation today wearing my black pants Formerly Known As Clean. I've had clinicals and an internship that have used and abused those pants, and frighteningly I have only one clear memory of washing them in the past 6 weeks.

I should say that I do like to be busy. I like to feel like I have accomplished something at the end of the day, I like knowing that I've learned something. I know I am guilty of complaining about being bored as equally as I complain about being busy. But I feel like the last two weeks have pushed me past busy into some other realm where I am just mechanically achieving some sort of "done-ness" in all my activities. At 11pm last night I was at work running around checking my patients' vitals, getting a new admit settled in, and trying to finish all my charting... and I actually felt overwhelming relief to still be there. Because there was nothing else to do, no homework, no household tasks, that I was responsible for until I left that unit. I felt like I was hiding from my life by being at work.

I just have to remember that at this time next year, my life will be happening AT work. And hopefully I will have enough perspective to look back at this season of life and be grateful for it being over as opposed to just complaining about the present.

Also, I hope that this somehow, someday, can be turned into a situation we joke about. Like, "remember that month where we never saw each other and we let half the food in the fridge rot because we didn't even have time to make salads and we both wore dirty clothes in socially unacceptable situations and we went broke because we went to starbucks EVERY.MORNING?" yes...the potential for humor is there...

I have decided that life sometimes gets in the way of ideals.

Joshua and I probably fit pretty easily into the granola-crunching category of people who are a little preachy about things like recycling (our trunk is currently filled with EMPTY wine and beer bottles taken home from other peoples' houses which we, at some point, plan to recycle). We buy the majority of our groceries on Saturday mornings at the market. In fact at this very moment, I am currently baking a blue hubbard squash that was grown in Indiana on an organic sustainable farm. In approximately 45 minutes, that squash will become soup - a soup that also includes locally grown onions, garlic, fresh sage, and organic vegetable broth. I've been planning this soup all week, but I just had to wait for the temperature to get below 90 frickin degrees.

But my point is this - our fridge and cabinets and even the oven may be stuffed with fresh! local! organic! food, but where did we eat lunch today?

Target. Did you see a stressed-out couple chowing down on an all-beef hot dog and asian chicken pizza hut special? Because that's us.

And yesterday?

Charcoal Delights. Chicken gyros? Us again!

Besides the obvious fact that eating out blows through serious wads of cash, I hate that we do it because then we eat the crap we are trying to avoid in our Certified Organic lifestyle. It is a little incongruous to spend twenty minutes choosing the best beets and swiss chard when really I am consuming my weight in french fries every month.

But the reality is, I do not have the time to make every lunch and every dinner. Some days, I barely even have time to eat anything in between clinicals and internships and class and work. This week has been one of those incredibly overwhelming weeks where everything collided at once and the food we drooled over this weekend is currently sitting dejected in the fridge (not the squash! I cooked the one vegetable that could probably have hung out happy and healthy til Thanksgiving!) while we stuff ourselves with fast food.

I really hate it. And I want to change. But that would require planning ahead, probably one of my least favorite things to do and something I am certainly not good at in terms of food preparation.

And now I have to go, because my squash is almost done and if I even have a prayer of finishing this soup before Joshua gets home and needs to eat before his class starts at 6:30, I should be 10 steps ahead of where I am.

fall...

Somehow, months have slipped by since my last post, and the summer I mentioned last time? Totally gone, out of the picture. The temperatures are inching downward, I have officially worn a sweater twice, and I had my first pumpkin spice latte last week. Even if it hits 80 degrees again (I'm talking to you, Forecast for 9/18/07) it just doesn't feel like summer anymore. Next week will be the 4th week of school - which means that unbelievably, I'm (slacking off on) studying for midterm exams in my quad classes.

Life has not been all that lovely lately. I am balancing school and work and a sudden onslaught of babysitting jobs with full-time wifelihood (wifeness?) along with the upcoming stresses of writing advising and studying for NCLEX. Joshua started a full-time MBA program - he only has class twice a week, but he has hours upon hours of homework. Our weekends are full of studying and for me, shifts at the hospital. I knew it would happen, I was prepared for the structure and routine of fall. I was even excited about new binders and new pens (purple! to scribble all over my endless powerpoint handouts). But the actual day to day living of it is harder than I expected - I realized this when we sat down with the calendar and we had no unplanned days until the end of October. Sometimes I forget that the time between August and Christmas happens at twice the speed of the rest of the year.

I think that would be enough to fulfill my need for a crazy overwhelming lifestyle, but instead our activities are probably the least intense thing we are involved in right now. We both have friendships that are changing, and people who are coming in and out of our lives for purposes we don't really understand. I am feeling the effects of being "off-time", a little concept I picked up in Psychology 101 that has really become a light bulb experience for me . I've always done things at a different age than my peers - I didn't go to college right away, but I got engaged when I was 19. I worked full-time, then went to college, then got married at 21, and now I'm still in school while my friends graduated a year and a half ago. I don't know many other married people my age, and the ones I do know haven't celebrated their 1 year anniversaries yet. We will be married 3 years this spring. The idea behind being "off-time" is that no matter how positive your life events are, they are inherently stressful if you are not experiencing them at the same time as the people around you.

So I would just like to throw this out there - I Am Stressed.

Stressed emotionally, physically, spiritually. I have been feeling that intense, constant prodding in my spirit that always accompanies major changes in my life. I have been spending more time praying and reading scripture and suddenly I realize how much of a hassle and inconvenience it is to serve a living, breathing God. Just when we are feeling comfortable in our little lives, He shakes us out of that cocoon and asks us to do things that are difficult and painful. Just when life gets crazy, He asks us to deal with hard truths in our relationships and face things we don't like about ourselves. I have been avoiding this kind of growth for these exact reasons, but somehow the time has come and all my silly excuses have been swept away. God's timing is perfect, and I'm trusting that if He is saying NOW, then I do the hard slogging work NOW.

Hopefully I will post again before Christmas!

I'm blogging twice in a week. A new record! Also known as, my days off from work bore me to tears and I'm driven to write after spending hours stalking the blogs of people I barely know, or who are in fact complete strangers.

Today has been glorious in that I slept in past nine (a new record!) and then woke up to my friend Amy texting to say that she needs to iron a shirt for her first day at work, and could she use mine, and she would be bringing coffee! Luckily she has her own keys to our apartment so I did not even have to peel myself out of the sheets (these fabulous sheets) and I was able to start the day with a latte without ever leaving bed. I don't think life gets much more spoiled than that, and that is why I firmly believe in a) working the PM shift, b) giving friends your keys, and c) owning things that other people need and are willing to bargain Starbucks for. I am hoping she never purchases her own iron.

Tonight is round two of Adult Jazz, which I am very excited about now that the cramping and pain from last week has just barely passed. We went running last night (TWO miles! If you had asked me six months ago if I could run two miles straight without begging for death, I would have laughed uproariously and then asked YOU to please bring me Starbucks in bed, that is more my style thankyouverymuch) and I think the run finally worked out my Hamstring Issue. I gave myself a Quad Issue yesterday running on concrete, so I am thrilled to see what new muscle spasms and injuries I can acquire this week. Joshua is working on a heel problem, which he likes to call a stress fracture. Our newfound athleticism is both wonderful and frightening apparently.

However, our healthy lifestyle is not getting out of hand. We are going camping next weekend in Wisconsin with our friends - not so much the commune with nature type of camping, but the float-down-a-river-on-a-tube-with-beer-in-both-hands-sort of camping . I'm pretty sure the only thing that those two types of camping share is the fact that you sleep in a tent. We were planning the grocery list at lunch today (eating Chinese takeout at the picnic table behind Joshua's office) and it involved copious amounts of condiments and processed meat and cheese and like I mentioned, beer. So chances are good that we will return from the (not so) wilds of Wisconsin unable to ever run again. Which will give me more time to spend reveling in the glory of my bamboo sheets!

I think to sum up, this is my last summer as a bona fide college student (part-time job? check. staying up late? check. wasting away again in margaritaville? check check.) It is fabulous and I love it but I'm trying to find that balance between enjoying it immensely and wishing it was over so that school could start again and I could just hurry up and GRADUATE already. I can't believe that July is here and will be gone before I know it in a whirlwind of camping, working, going to Cali for a wedding, hopefully having my brothers and Amanda visit, and then going home at some undetermined point to see my parents.

Well, when I just typed that all out, I can see that the summer is practically over now, and I just better enjoy the weather and the grilling and the gorgeousness while it lasts! And also the free time - I'm taking a nap to save up my energy for Adult Jazz!

Oh Right...I Have A Blog?!

Well I think the past few months just go to show how consistency is obviously what I strive for, and so often achieve in my writing career...

um, no.

I have not actually forgotten about this blog, contrary to everything that is obvious and straightforward in this life. In fact, I have felt very guilty about the lack of posting, but then things became kind of a downer for awhile (more family cancer, although we're jazzing it up with the thyroid instead of the breast, my dad is still unemployed, joshua was working 14 hour days and weekends for a while there). Sometimes writing things down is therapeutic and cathartic and then sometimes merely experiencing a difficult situation is enough and to commit it to words just makes it even more raw and jarring.

Still, the 10 week hiatus was a bit much. After all, it is the SUMMER, I'm employed and working a crazy flexible, glorious schedule that allows me time to sun myself, keep up a demanding running schedule, and waste the days away slowly killing brain cells on the InterNet (please see Yahoo! Music Videos and the hilarity that isWill Ferrell).

However, during my blogging break, I have achieved one of my major goals - which is to get my ever-widening tush back in a dance studio before the cellulite starts creeping up my back and into my hair or something equally repulsive. This Thursday, I found myself surrounded by all sorts of dancing goodies, looking for a pair of jazz shoes to purchase for my new Adult Jazz class (please note - i used to make fun of Adult Jazz back when I was underage and flexible and could throw my leg behind my head for fun and then do double pirouettes en pointe) I might be a measly 23 years old, but that is past the typical prime of a professional dancer's life, and I've spent the last 5 years drinking my weight in lattes and cooking pasta. Right now Adult Jazz seems pretty intimidating and I would like to smack my 18-year-old condescending size 6 self in the face.

So, Thursday morning I bought these (in basic black):


and Thursday night I found myself wearing lycra and leather (please also note - not as sexy as it sounds) and attempting to perform all the steps that I once knew in my sleep...tendu, rond de jambe, battement, chassee, chassee, pas de bouree...I did not do anythng embarrassing like fall down or start crying after discovering my complete inability to even jazz walk, but I think the experience can be summed up by saying that it is now Saturday and I am still sore enough to dread things like, I don't know, changing clothes? However, I am also thrilled to pieces that I successfully did most of the combinations, and I have been torturing both Joshua and all my neighbors by practicing my pirouettes in our dining room. I have also convinced roughly half my friends to sign up for dance classes by promising them flat abs and killer calves.

I did not mention that they would also need to stock up on Icy Hot and any product ever marketed to the arthritic geriatric population, because while it is 100% true, I think it's probably a turn-off.

I'm back and stiffer than ever.