hopefully something rhetorical

Just wanted to share that I have decided to join Brené Brown in the read-along she is doing on her blog.

I just finished listening to the first podcast, and it was wonderful!

I just sat down to write this post, and I turned on Pandora, and the first song that came up was Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson.  It seems like a perfect sentiment for this afternoon.

I don’t know if I have shared yet, but the boy and I are going to be moving back to Northern VA.  I am ecstatic about the chance to live near my family again…to go home.  My grandmother is getting older, my brothers are starting their grown-up lives, babies are being born, and I am feeling too far away.  All this causes the draw I feel towards home to be stronger than normal.  So, finding out about this move was wonderful!  But, as with any move, my life has to be rewritten.

Even though this is a move back to a familiar scene, I have to rewrite the day-to-day adventures.  And, it is important for me to rewrite, not just fall back into the same old roles I have already lived there. This is hard to do.  Those old roles are comfortable and safe, and they are what people expect of me.  I am also a little scared of falling back into the hectic pace of life I am finally trying to ease my way out of, particularly since it seems so clear lately that additional stress is not good for my health.  So, I decided when we found out that this was going to be a moment this year for me to think about my word.

I have been embracing this move and all the possibilities it presents.  I have a lead on a new job, and I have already sent in an application.  We have a decision as to where we will be living, at least for the short term.  And, I have an idea about what the next step in my career will be, and my application to the program is underway.

This last one has presented a little bit of a problem for me in the “embrace” department.  Part of the difficulty I have had with this word is that I am not sure what to embrace from time-to-time.  I keep questioning whether or not I am falling back into the same patterns or whether or not I am pursuing what I really want.  I have said for a number of years that I really regret not having completed my minor in college, and now, I have a chance to work on a masters in the same area.  This new degree would allow me some flexibility with teaching opportunities as well.  I could potentially teach a few classes with a lightened grading load.  It seems like the right step to embrace.

Completing the application, however, has been a test of this decision to embrace this step.  Asking for recommendations has struck a nerve that I was hoping to avoid with this familiar moment of putting myself out there.  The boy’s job makes my career difficult to navigate.  To do what I really want, I need more education than I have now, and that requires that I ask for help from others, which is something I am definitely not comfortable with.  Bottom line is I am trying to figure out if this is a moment to embrace the opportunity for quiet or if this is the time to fight for what seems natural.

For now, I think my decision will be to embrace the choices I have already made and just keep breathing my way through the process.  I think I will be listening to this more often though!  Never hurts to have a reminder.

I thought I would share the second installation of handmade Christmas.  Yes, I know Easter on Sunday.  Yes, I know that it is April, but I am slow.  This handmade gifting is still a little new for me.

So, without any further ado here are the gifts that went to the family from the midwest.

• Starting with my father-in-law’s quilt, this is truly a man quilt.  It is made with a cheater flannel for the blocks on the front, and it is bound, backed, and batted (wow, there are a lot of “b” words in quilting) with flannel.  After it was washed, it was this yummy, heavy quilt that would be perfect for a cold day.  It was hard to part with this one!  But, I did.  And, it is loved in its new home.

• The other quilt I “made” was for my brother-in-law.  I already posted about this one asking for advice.  Ultimately, I left it the way it was, and it was loved as well!  Now, I am just hoping that Sam will actually use it!
• Next, I made the my nephews crayon and colored pencil rolls.  And, as I posted before, I love these little things.  They are particularly great for little boys that want to draw.  And, mom is loving having a quick set of crayons to take to dinner.  I was most interested in the fact that the three year old put away each crayon after he used it!  That made Mom much happier with them too!

• To create a reusable gift bag for each kid, I just went to Hobby Lobby and got canvas and denim bags.  With a quick bit of fusible interfacing, I added a monogram for each child.  It was an easy way to gather up all their goodies.  And, I felt great that it wasn’t a huge tone of wrapping that just got thrown away.

• For my sister-in-law, it was a cute, cheater panel table runner.  There will be more of these in my future.  The pattern is super cute, and it was a great way to practice my stippling a little more.  (Sorry for the awful picture on this one!)

• And, finally, for my mother-in-law, I made a quick little apron to accompany her crafty gift card.  The apron is nothing overly complicated, but I really have fun doing these. It is the same pattern I used for my giveaway apron back in December.  They are just a dish cloth with a tie and some binding.  The colors on this one are pretty cool, and I was happy to be able to add a little something handmade with the rest of her gift.

So, that wraps up the midwest portion of the Handmade Christmas.  Now all that is left to show off is the stuff for my family!  I will post that soon, so I can finally get this all up and mark Christmas 2008 as actually done.

The other day, I posted about my family’s cleaning tradition.  We had always called it mumphing.

However, my mother left a comment on that post about the fact that she and my father had decided it was spelled with two “m”s.  I didn’t think much of it until today when an old family friend looked it up on urban dictionary the way I had it spelled.

Mom wins.  Two “m”s from now on!

On February 28th, I took the following photo.

I thought I was taking a picture of the last snowfall of the year.  And, then we woke up this morning, exactly one month later, to this!

Can you believe it?  It will be April on Wednesday.  This seems like some sort of cosmic practical joke.  Last week, we were taking a tour of the yard looking at all that was starting to appear.  And last night, we wrapped everything that needed it in frost cloth, but we aren’t hopeful that all those cute little buds are going to make it.

Instead of just talking about the weird weather though I wanted to share what I forgot to add to my little blog list from the other day.

About a month ago, I tweeted that I had found a treasure.  It all started in January when Ali Edwards showed pictures of her new office space.   And, hiding amongst the pictures were those lockers!  I fell in love.  I couldn’t help it.  I started looking online and figured out pretty quickly that these little locker banks can be found if you are going for new ones, but they aren’t easy to locate otherwise, particularly from my current location in the middle of the United States, almost literally.

Then, I went to one of the “vintage” stores in town (really it is a junk store).  When the BGF and I arrived, we realized that the other true vintage stores in town had moved right next door.  It was awesome.  And, what did I spy outside but a beautiful set of lockers.  I called the boy and explained the situation.  I am not sure that he really knew what or why I wanted these little beauties, but he picked up on the excitement and said okay. He is so good that way. I don’t even think he knew that I had been looking for them.

I went inside immediately and claimed them as my very own.  The next day, we brought them home, borrowed a set of bolt cutters to get a few remaining locks off, and put them to immediate use in my office!

I can’t put into words how much I love them.  They are exactly what I was looking for and pretty reasonable considering I didn’t have to ship them to me. I love all the goodies I can stash away.

I haven’t decided whether or not I plan to paint them.  For now, I just content to have them here!  The cats even like them!  They are definitely my favorite junk store find ever.

Do you ever take a break, but you don’t realize it was a break until you get back from breaking?  That is what happened.  Last week, I visited my family back home in VA while the boy and I were on Spring Break.  And, while I meant to post, I didn’t.  I didn’t grade either.  It was a little wonderful.  So, instead of actually posting here, I am just going to talk about the things I will be posting when I am done breaking (most likely this weekend…as if you were waiting with bated breath…ha!)

So here they are, in completely random order, blog post ideas to be:

• I want to share the wonderful pictures of the newest member of our family, my brother’s little girl.  She is a cutey!
• Handmade Christmas Part 2
• Handmade Christmas Part 3 (I am so excited that all Christmas presents have been gifted.  It only took me an extra few month.  I am totally starting earlier for next year.)
• I found an awesome and unique new remix artist that deserves a post of his very own.
• And, I have something brewing about my own art too.

I think it is a good list.  I can’t wait to get back here!

There is a new meme going around that is pretty funny.  I heard about it here, and I thought that I would play along.

Apparently, you type “Unfortunately [insert your name here]“, with the quotes, into Google and see what comes back.

This is what I discovered:

Unfortunately Sandy disappeared.

Unfortunately Sandy made the very difficult decision to not continue and descend from this point.

Unfortunately, Sandy’s was merely a guide track for the musicians, not even properly on mic.

Unfortunately Sandy hears her and cannot understand Rizzo’s behavior.

Unfortunately Sandy is not the food capital of Utah.

Unfortunately Sandy fell into a coma from which she never regained consciousness.

Unfortunately Sandy was sick and unable to judge.

Unfortunately, sandy soils may lack nutrients, can drain too freely, and may dry out too quickly.

And, following Helen’s lead, I thought that I would add my own:

Unfortunately, Sandy did not want to clean her house but had to because the realtor comes tomorrow!

Hope you are all having a great day!

Yesterday, my BGF told me a story.  Really, it is her story, not mine to share here.  But, she has taken a break from blogging, so I thought that I would step in for her.

Apparently, she was at work and made up a word while she was talking to her coworkers.  She has a really cool job working at a plant nursery, but everyone knows that she is an English major, so it caused roughly the following discussion.

CoWorker#1: That’s not a word. You can’t say that.

BGF:  Yes, I can.  I am an English major.  When you graduate with an English degree, they give you a piece of paper that says that you are allowed to make up words.

CW#1: Really?  No way.

BGF:  No, really. I have it at home.

CW#2 (in on it): Oh yeah, I have heard of that.  I was a Communications major, but I had friends that talked about it.

CW#1:  Wow!  Will you bring the piece of paper in?

BGF:  I don’t know if I even know where it is now.  But, I will look for it.

When the BGF told me about it, she recounted with some joy that they had actually fallen for it. And, while it is not completely true that English majors are ever given written permission to make up words.  Making up words is something I have enjoyed ever since I was little when my father made up the word “mumph.”

Mumphing is what you do when you have company coming over.  If you imagine the act of shuffling papers back into a nice, neat pile and apply that action to the whole house, that is mumphing.  My father created this word as a way to talk about what we needed to do before the wonderful woman who cleaned our house every two weeks came (with 4 children spread over 14 years and two working parents, it was a requirement to have help with the general cleaning).

mumphing = straightening, but not necessarily cleaning

And, this term has followed me throughout my life, particularly into my married life. It actually makes me a little giddy when the boy looks at me and says something like “We need to mumph, right?”  I love it because the boy never had a chance to meet my dad, and it makes me think they are some how connected through language.

This word is part of our lives.  And, it always makes me feel better to know that we have a defense against quick get togethers.  You know, when you are out at the bar, and everyone decides to come over.  We know that we are safe.  We can run home and mumph!    In some weird way, it tells my typically perfectionist self that we can just make it good enough. It is actually a sign of what a high regard we hold you in when we decide to stop mumphing when you are coming over.   And, to be honest, true mumphing often includes moving piles of things that really should be put away to a room at the back of the house that you can close the door to.

However, as of Sunday, our house will officially be on the market.  Looking around right now, I am still not exactly sure how that is going to be possible, but I am determined that it will happen!  We will get there.  But, it is quite clear that the time for mumphing in this house is done for a while.  And, this is a little unnerving for me.  This is the first house the boy and I bought together.  And, so much of us is evident in all the nooks and crannies.

In fact, this whole process of opening my house up to people to come in and critique my furniture and paint color choices kinda freaks me out.  Logically, I know that I just watch too much HGTV.  Yes, people that are looking at houses say nasty things about other people’s decorating choices.  That is just what happens.  But, really they are just trying to see themselves in a new space.  They aren’t focused on the pieces of my life.  In all actuality, they are trying to see past them.

But, I can’t help to hope that this process is a quick one.  I am sending all those good thoughts into the universe.  Now, we just need the Army to tell us where we are going next!

Sunday is the spring daylight savings time switch.  We spring forward.  We lose time.  At this point in my semester, when I am trying to get my house on the market and get grading completed before Spring Break, this isn’t something that I was looking forward to.

This was my old way of thinking.  Losing time relates to not having enough time, a constant fear of mine. But, this season, I have decided to take my word to heart and embrace the daylight saving that will occur on Sunday.

And, because for me, knowledge helps me embrace what I don’t know, I thought that I would share what I found out about the benefits of daylight saving time changes.  Some are related to me specifically, but most could easily be adapted to anyone reading.  And, because I am a true English teacher, my source is at the bottom!

• Moving time forward helps those activities that require more sunlight.  So for me, life.  I need more sun in my days, so this is my number one happy benefit.
• Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra sun in the afternoon.
• More light in the afternoon means more safe times to walk in my neighborhood with no sidewalks.
• There is a perception that energy is saved, which makes sense logically.  (Although, some don’t agree that this is the case because people are using energy in the morning hours they wouldn’t have had to use before.)

  Wikipedia

So, here is my little list. Instead of fighting that which is outside of my control, I am going to embrace this year’s time change and revel in the extra sun!  Hope you will join me.

Me: “I love the word demolished.  It is a great word.”

The Boy: “But, wait, if demolished means destroyed, then what does molished mean?”

M: “What?”

TB: “You know, de- would be the predicate.  Wait, is that right?”

M: “No, I think you mean prefix.  Wait, do you know what a predicate is?”

TB: “Yes, it is a part of a sentence.”

M: “Yes, but what part?”

TB: “The end part.  You know, it is where the object gets verbed.”

M: “Hmmm….I guess the object does get verbed.”