6 more sleeps

Only 6 more sleeps and we start our new adventure to Mississippi. 

I think know it finally hit me yesterday that this was all real.  I had a blast meeting people at the moving sale Friday and Saturday and making deals and even though some of it was hard to part with it, it wasn't too traumatic..until it was time to clean up and take the rental tables back.   When we finally decided to wrap it up and I sat in my lawnchair and looked around and realized how much stuff we really sold it was kind of surreal.  Before when I had yardsales it was usually around spring cleaning time to clear the clutter because summer is crisp and clean in my mind and cleaning the clutter was always a good thing.  I'd sell stuff and it was no big deal because I still had all my favorite stuff in the house.  This time was very different.  This time all my favorite stuff was out on tables with people pawing through it and having to remove myself emotionally from everything I owned because while I could take it with me there was no reason too, there was no favorite stuff in the house to go back into to.  Its a weird feeling having all your walls bare, cupboards and cabinets empty, furniture gone, nothing falling out of the 'tupperware' cabinet when you open it because you have entirely too much crap in it, no lost lids - I found them all!  That was like the golden grail of all of this, all my bowls and pots and pots that were suppose to have lids finally had them, what a feeling of accompishment that was.  But anyway, everything but out clothes and a couple of miscellaneous things we're going to need this next week is gone.  There's a pile of stuff out on my driveway that we didn't sell and we're going to donate to a fundraising yardsale and even as I type this I know my favorite baking pan is out there and I'm fighting myself to not go get it.  I don't need. Heck I'm movin to the south, them thar suthun women can do the baking for me and I'll just have to go to the church to buy somethin when they hold a rummage sale...see up here in the north we do yard sales because we just toss the crap we own out in the yard they hold rummage sales ...they organize everything all pretty like and folks come in and rummage through it...they don't care if you buy their stuff they just want to sit and visit with y'all a bit. Anyway, back to my point....

I sat and looked around at what was left and started putting stuff in boxes and stacking it up in a donation pile, sent Ashley into the house to get the things she picked out and put in her car and she walked out with a picture that my mom painted.   I knew she was going to take it, I even agreed she could, i was thrilled she wanted it because it means a lot to me, but when she carried out of the house to put it in her car I almost completely lost it.  I helped her put it in the car and that was hard, I know it sounds silly, I know where it's going, I know she loves it as much as I do, I know that "at least its staying in the family" but at that very moment in time that didn't offer me any comfort, I felt this ...I don't know...desperation? well up inside of me to take it all back, to take the pay cut and just stay put right here, the only place I've ever known to be home (save the year I spent in Phoenix when I got preggo with Ashley) and keep the comforts I love so much around me, to continue to be complacent in life but I knew I couldn't do any of that, so as I placed the painting in her hands to put it in her car I had to let it go, I had to let it all go.  I managed to choke the tears back as she got Gabe in the car and then herself and as she drove away..being the drama queen that I am...i said, 'good bye' and that's when things got fuzzy...not a confusion fuzzy but a fuzzy and in the tears were burning my eyes and i couldn't see fuzzy.  Don pulled up shortly after that and started taking the tables down and I busied myself with packing stuff up avoiding his eyes because I knew once i looked into them I'd find that comfort I thought I lost as I watched people drive off with my stuff and I just wasn't ready for that raw emotion. But then he did it.  He offered me a drink of his soda and said something to me..i don't even know what it was...and I caught a quick glimpse into this eyes and I knew I was fixing to be sobbin..he said something and in trying to protect myself I got pissy and didn't yell at him but I snapped at him and he said "i'm sorry I didn't mean to make you mad" and I could barely get the words "I'm not mad" out before I was sobbing my heart out.  I couldn't see, my glasses were getting wet, tears were pouring out of my eyes, i couldn't talk, I could barely breath and I had no choice but to let it all go.  I sat on the step of our shed and cried (hell I'm crying right now) I sat there for I don't know how long and the tears just poured and the sobs were just unrelenting and he being oh so smart after all these years didn't say anything, he just let me cry...he went into the house and brought me some tissue - which stuck to my face because my face was so wet from crying - and he let the dogs out of the back yard and they both came over to me and showered me with puppily loves and that made me cry even harder so here i am bawling my head off with globs of wet tissue stuck to my face spitting dog hair out of my mouth and I'm sure I was quite the site, one car drove by real slow like they were going to stop and I'm sure they saw me and that's why he hit the gas and they sped off.   I managed to catch my breath and I thought the tears were done so I started getting busy and God bless my husband for giving me "that moment" and then a text came in from Jessica saying she and Michael were going to stop by and say hi. I warned them..."we're packing up the remnants and I'm crying so enter at your own risk" and they came anyway :).  They pulled up just as I put the lost of the leftovers in the pile and I stood on the sidewalk talking to them and the sobs hit me again...I didn't even try to hide it and love my son for inheriting my sense of humor and Jessica for just hugging me because between them they brought me back to the reality of how great this is really going to be.  This new start. 6 more sleeps peeps. 6 more sleeps.

I'm so excited and yet scared spitless to take this new opportunity. I wonder stupid things like "will I melt in the humidity?" (well that would be one effortless way to drop this last 10 pounds once and for all right?), will I be able to understand folks that have a deep southern accent? I mean I'd hate it if someone said something like "mayonaise theres a lot of people at the rice tonight" and I misunderstood them and thought they wanted rice and mayonaise, or if I had to ask them to repeat themselves repeatedly or have to ask them to "show me" what the were saying or even worst if this stupid southern accent that's taken over my brain were to pop out and they either laugh at me or get mad because they were thinking I was making fun of them.  I wonder what it smells like there.  If you've lived here for any length of time you can relate to the "boise cascade on overdrive" smell right? do they have smells like that?  Will I be able to handle the slower pace of everything there? I've been warned by people that actually live there to be very patient...nobody's in a hurry...I'm always in a hurry and I get frustrated when others are warp speeding with me. Will I be successful in my job or am I going to fall on my face.  Will my new boss appreciate my sense of humor or am i going to have to stiffle it?  will I be ostracized for not eating ocra and drinking sweat tea? and there's the heavy emotional stuff that I'm not going to allow myself to get into anymore today...missing my kids and my grandkids and my sister and my friends and not having the chance to run into old friends at walmart or applebees or where ever, and the not so much emotional stuff as comfort stuff like knowing exactly how to get anywhere I need to go  not being able to know the river or lakes I'm fishing and knowing what kind of bait to use, will my fishing pole break when i land my first large mouth bass? what happens if i catch an alligator...don't laugh y'all it could happen and speaking of alligator what happens if I go to a cajun restaurant where the accents are think and they don't serve chicken (chickens are pets in the south!) but try to fool me because i'm an easy target northerner and actually feed me gator or try to pass of froglegs as chicken, and y'all know how much I love my chocolate and I especially love chocolate covered nuts, what if i mistakenly think i'm buying chocolate covered peanuts and actually end up buying chocolate covered crickets? see? I should sell tickets to a day in my brain....silverwood roller coaster rides got nuthin on me.

6 more sleeps and I get to start answering my own questions.

Restoration

Is it possible?

Is it possible to restore something that is broken into something that is usable again? Is it possible to restore something that was broken and make it even better?  YEP YEP YEP...I had a washing machine many years ago in my single parent days that quit spinning.  Do you know what a pain it is when the washing machine quits spinning...in the middle of a load of laundry...a 1 lb pair of jeans suddenly weighs 10 pounds, gallons of water just sitting there, socks and underwear floating in the drum (ok, I don't really wash my socks and underwear with the jeans but I'm trying to make a point here so bear with me), I didn't have the money to get a new one and really didn't have the money to get that piece of crap fixed but I had to do something, I had 2 little kids, a pile of laundry, it was summer time so they changed their clothes a billion times a day and that pile kept growing before my eyes so I called my neighbor to see if he could help me.  He did some tinkering and managed to get the water drained and helped me take the heavy clothes out of the machine, did some more tinkering and just happened to have a spare part ...the same spare part that my machine needed (although I'm pretty sure the amount of time he was gone equated to the length of time it would have taken him to get to the hardware store to perhaps buy that part for me? hmm, I'll never know the real answer to that question because I'm not suppose to...I was suppose to accept that it was just perfect timing so I did).  After he got done tinkering with the machine and replacing the part he started it up and ran a cycle with no clothes in it.  It worked beautifully and so he had me do a load of clothes.  I put some stuff in there and we ran the cycle and again, it worked beautifully..full spin, full cycle and no squeek...the squeek came with the washer when I bought it used so I noticed it's absence immediately and I praised his talents and help to the high heavens.   The thing he said to me when I mentioned the absence of the squeek is that I was probably overloading the drum and slowing down the mechanics of how it was suppose to work.  I learned then not to overload the drum, things come out cleaner when you do wash an a right sized load vs. an oversized one.

Somewhere along the years I guess I sort of forgot that rule, or maybe I just took it for granted that that was what I was suppose to do. 

I had a head-pounding, heart-breaking reminder of this lesson just recently.  The difference was that I didn't have a neighbor to call to tinker with it and fix it.  This was something I had to fix myself.  Only it was just myself that had to contribute to fixing this broken thing in my life, it took the contribution of my husband and God and God worked overtime for me and I'm pretty sure that my husband did too.  I did "just enough" to get by and realized that I had to do more.

The 4th of July weekend was a pivotal weekend for me. (I pivot alot, gotta keep everything in perspective and that requires doing a 360 every now and then).  It was the lowest point of the low points since Don moved out.   I realized I was absolutely miserable.  I realized that the "game face" I was wearing looked absolutely aweful on me...kind of like those women who CAKE on the make up...she might look good from a distance but if you *really* look at her you can see how fake the face is.  That was me. I wearing this fake face and it was heavy and it was ugly and it hurt.  It hurt deep...all the way to my heart and my gut.  I went to the parade with Ashley and the boys on the 4th and opted out of going to the park for the 4th festivities because that game face was wearing on me something terrible.  I walked into my house and shut/locked the door and I hit my knees.  I hit my knees in prayer.  I'm sure if the neighbors heard any of it they might have thought that there was an injured wild animal in my house because I just let everything go inside of me..I cried and moaned and yelled and sobbed and begged God to soften my heart and bring me restoration, I can't remember really ever feeling so very alone as I did when I dropped to my knees that I day.  I prayed, I prayed in earnest for my heart, for my finances, for my kids, for my job (facing a strong possibility of a layoff) and then something inside of me rose up and I prayed for my husband.  I prayed for him like I have never prayed for him before. 

Despite the past blog posts and words I said out of hurt and anger and pain I love my husband.  I love my husband with all of my heart.  He is so much very much a part of me that loosing him was like loosing a limb.  I felt numb and awkward and couldn't for the life of me "get it together." Nothing was working right without him.  There was an emptiness inside of me that I can't explain and despite my futile attempts at filling it with "things" nothing did.  Until I prayed.  We've gone through some really hard times in our 15 years together and in my realization and honesty with myself the part that stuck out the biggest was the fact that we did it TOGETHER.  So I prayed to God to soften both of our hearts, to open us up to each other in a way that we'd never opened up before. To give us the opportunity of honesty without judgement or ridicule or me taking control (grin) or fear.  I asked God to help me put things into true perspective and what He showed me was me being in control and not Him.  He showed me that I needed to loosen the reigns I had on myself and those I'd placed on Don.  (and by the way, no this didn't all come to me as a sudden revelation, He started feeding me this baby spoonfuls the minute I realized Don was gone but it wasn't until I whispered Don's name to Him that it all became clear to me). I finally fell asleep that night with our wedding picture on my pillow.  I fell asleep wishing I was with him instead alone, I fell asleep afraid that I'd lost him and just keep praying that somehow things would work out.

The next morning I got up and got ready for work and put on my game face despite the heaviness that it created in my heart.  I felt as if there was nothing left to do except resign myself to living in this constant turmoil, knowing from past experience that it would lighten up a bit but it would always weigh on me.

Then I got a phone call.  With information on a job lead.  So I took the information and made another phone call to a former boss of mine.  He told me what he had avaibable and asked me if I was interested.  Trepidly I said yes.  He forwarded my resume to his counterpart and told me he would be in touch to set up a telephone interview and then about 10 minutes later he called back and said they didn't need to do an interview because his counterpart was willing to take me based on my skills and on my former bosses recomnendation.  He told me the job was mine if I wanted it and I panicked.  I asked him if I could get back to him the next day and he said yes.

I had to have Don come over and help with somethings in the yard that evening and I mentioned this opportunity to him. I could see his heart drop into his stomach when I told him the job was in Mississippi and that I was pretty sure I was going to take it if we could come to an agreement on the terms (wages, etc).  He managed to put on a fairly good and heavy game face and something inside of me crumbled.  I knew that I couldn't do this without him.  He'd been there with me through all the muddy mucky bad times and he deserved to be there with me in the good times and I deserved to have him by my side too.  I looked him in the eye and before I knew it, the words..."Go with me" came out of my mouth.  He hesitated for what seemed like forever and asked me if I was sure.  I told him I'd not been so sure of anything in a very long time.  That led to a very long night of God answering my prayer of softening our hearts to allow us to open us up to each other in a way that we'd never opened up before, a long sincer night of honesty without judgement or ridicule or me taking control (grin) or fear.  He told me things I didn't want to hear but already knew and I told him some of my own things.  We agreed that if everything fell into place with this job we would go together and no matter what we would work through our issues and well....things really started falling into place....and in these last 4 days I realized that when you overload the machine it stops working, when you distribute the load evenly and share the burden things can be restored...and while we have a lot of things to work through, our laundry's been aired and we're back on track.  I'm so very excited to see what God has in store for us!

More later....I have a LOT of work to do because MY HUSBAND AND I ARE MOVING TO MISSISSIPPI - that would be (as learned in 2nd'ish grade) EM EYE CROOKED LETTER CROOKED LETTER EYE CROOKED LETTER CROOKED LETTER EYE HUMP BACK HUMP BACK EYE!

Cooking for One and whatever useless random ramblings come out of my brain tonight

You have to eat.   I've been so very bad about my food consumption this last month.  I've been skipping breakfast or if I have it, it's a shake which is good for me but then I skip lunch and come home and nothing sounds good because I gotta tell you, cooking for one is a pain in the rear so I have some stupid dinner - cheerios seems to have been the stupid dinner of choice lately. I finally found some recipes for single or 2 servings and am experimenting with them..and even though dinner tonight was originally for 8 servings, I made an amazing single serving cherry chipolte bbq chicken tonight on the grill, it was delish! I halved the recipe and froze the left overs so i can pull one out and have it again without having to go through all the trouble of cooking it again or messing with amounts of ingredients.  Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 cup fresh or frozen (thawed) dark sweet cherries, pitted and chopped - I used fresh
• 1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/3 cup cherry preserves
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons minced canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, (or more to taste if you're me)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

Preparation

1. Stir cherries, broth, preserves, ketchup, vinegar, chipotle peppers, thyme and allspice in a small deep bowl. Transfer to a shallow nonreactive dish (glass) large enough to hold chicken. Add chicken and turn to coat well. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight.
2. Preheat grill to high. Oil the grill rack (yep, no burnt fingers or singed eyebrows!) Remove the chicken from the marinade. Transfer the marinade to a medium skillet.
3. Bring the marinade to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the sauce is reduced by about half, 12 to 15 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, reduce the grill heat to medium and grill the chicken until cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, 7 to 9 minutes per side. Let the chicken cool slightly; serve with the sauce.

Nutrition

Per serving: 180 calories; 3 g fat ( 1 g sat , 1 g mono ); 63 mg cholesterol; 15 g carbohydrates; 24 g protein; 1 g fiber; 179 mg sodium; 272 mg potassium.
I didn't take a picture of mine cause I was too busy eating it but here's the pic that came with the recipe - and I must say I prepared a pretty darn close rendition! minus the extra cherries and lemon - but had you come for dinner I'd have served it just like this for the presentation factor...my taste buds and tummy didn't care what it looked like because it smelled fabulous and every bite was different ...varied between sweet and spicy and tart at times.  I had it with steamed asparagus and a dinner salad.

Tomorrow night I'm going to make me a quasi good old fashioned 4th of July meal - Raspberry bbq ribs, corn on the cob, and I'm thinking about grilling some zuchini and squash and peppers and onions.  I'm really hungry for veggies lately!  the only thing I won't have that's tradition is potato salad (too much work to make it for one and i don't like store bought so I'm just going to skip it), and I won't have any homemade i-scream but no worries, i'll still have desert...like this one that I had just a few minutes ago that totally satisfied my sweet tooth, my chcolate craving and all the while being healthy.  A bit of melted Xocai chocolate with Strawberries.

Edging is done!!!

Before

After

This is a "patch" of roly polies that I found when I removed a chunk of grass/dirt.

Seeing the crazy amount of roly poly bugs i found today, I did some research on them...did you know (ok, here comes the random thoughts I warned you about):

The Roly Poly bug are in the isopod  family (same pod or foot) and have seven pairs of legs that are all similar in size and shape.

They have simple eyes, three body parts, uropods, and a pair of prominent antennae, gills and lung like adaptations.

They need moisture to survive but cannot live submerged in water.

Female roly-poly bugs may have one to three broods of young per year.

When the eggs are formed, the female places them into a brood pouch-she may carry up to 50 eggs and gestation is about 2 months.

Roly Polies (poli? Hmmm) molt up to a dozen times in their lifetime and the average lifespan of a roly-poly is between two and five years.

Roly-poly bugs cannot bite or sting and have an exoskeleton with plates.

They like dark, moist areas and if left out in the sun they will perish.

They are able to roll up into a ball for protection, but they can also use odor as a defense.

They eat scat and decaying matter, including flesh (of other creatures - like the stink bug - not humans).

They fight over food and communicate by tapping with their antennae.

They absorb water with food, through mouth parts or by capillary action through their uropods.

They digest material from dead plants and animals and waste products and return essential nutrients back into the soil.

They eat the eggs of stink bugs. Since stink bugs can do considerable damage to crops, roly-poly bugs may be beneficial as a natural insect control method.

Yea, that's what I do...I've been educating myself on all sorts of random things.  Why? So that when I'm faced with having to have a conversation outside Facebook, I'm able to come up with something to talk about.  No worries, I don't foresee myself sitting in a social setting and blurting out "Roly Poli eat flesh and put off an odor when necessary for protection" but you never know, it could come in handy someday and well....now you can use it too. 

I'm ready for the holiday to be over.  The neighborhood sounds like a war zone...joys of living down the street from not just 1 firework stand but 4 firework stands and the city that still allows aerial fireworks. Complete and utter hate for them.  This holiday is one that I've tied to Don's family for the last 15 years.  His sister is my best friend but I've only talked to her once since he left and it was short and brief and had a definite point/reason behind it.  I miss her and the family a lot but when you split up with your spouse he/she get to keep their family, and i know I'm going to be missing the annual 4th of July party and all the festivities and traditions but I'm just going to make the best of it and besides, I have to work Tuesday morning so it'll be an early night for me...but still, I'll be glad when it's over so I can quit thinking about it.  I'm going to spend some time with Ashley & the boys tomorrow - we might go to the pancake feed at Memoria Park and watch the parade, maybe we'll go swimming afterwards or come back here and eat popsicles and play in the sprinkler, the only thing I know for sure is that Gabe is going to want to play hockey and Kaden will be full of kisses and loves.  These are really the only things that matter.

Happy 4th of July everyone!  I hope you all have a safe and fun holiday!