Find me a rock, I have a few things to say...

I almost didn't remember how to log in just now, because it has been so long since I have blogged. I think there has been almost too much going on and too much that I have been thinking about to blog on any one thing. Just for the sake of an update, here are some randoms....

Announcing the arrival of the long-awaited, baby T. I visited her today and she is tiny, beautiful, and amazing. I usually don't say that about babies. I am not in the stage of my life where I want one, I do not coo whenever I see a small human. However, maybe it is because I care so much about her Mom that it finally hit me about how amazing it is when you have a baby for the first time. It is a complete shift in what is important to you. I sat there with her in my arms and looked at her white-blond, barely visible, eyebrows and felt like I got a glimpse of what it must feel like to become a parent for the first time. My heart goes out to her parents who are exhausted, thrilled, and just plain emotionally worn out right now. It is a scary thing to worry about doing everything right for the most important thing in your life all of a sudden...

The Wedding is over. It was wonderful, so much fun, so many things happened that I will often think back about and play over in my mind. If I were to choose the emotion that described the way that day felt it would be either love or happiness. Now that it is over, though, I am so relieved. I was almost afraid to admit this right after the wedding, but I am now freely admitting it. I am just excited to be married, I am glad all the hoopla is over. It is nice to just to be in the right now instead of constantly planning for something in the future. Amen.

Changing my name has become my least favorite thing lately. I don't know how to sign my new name, the bureaucracy is slow and ridiculous (a topic for a forth-coming post), and it is just pure and simple boring work.

I love that there is month of summer left. A trip to cabin with fun friends! A trip to the Wilderness Area where wild animals roam free (and so do people with canoes on their shoulders...)! A trip to California right before school starts! And Grad school in the fall! Yippee!

A quote I have been thinking a lot about lately, "Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it , whoever you are, you need one." -Jane Howard

Sometimes I get exhausted with people who are gamers and wild carders (a.k.a.- you never know what you are going to get). I just want real, reliable, solid, honest. Wild carders are sometimes too disappointing. When you need realness, they can be heartbreaking. Gamers are most the time never real, unless it benefits them in some way. You have to think too hard about what game board you are stuck on at the moment and why. I don't want to be caressed. I want solidness. Give me an answer. Let me be myself. Be yourself. Don't over analyze or have to decide ahead of time what your objective is. Communicate. Be honest. Dare to put yourself out there. I think in the end I feel lonely around people I feel aren't telling me the truth, or that I have to think too hard about having a conversation with. Amen for the friends (and husband) in my life that are the rocks when I am looking for a place to sit for a moment and digest, instead of the bogs where I just sink into a bunch of water and muck if I stay for too long.

In the end real conversations- whatever they may be about (I am not picky), energize me. Puzzles in peoples words or actions (or the two not matching up) make me crazy. I have been thinking about another quote, I recently read:
"I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred- that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt... If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend."
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

That quote reminds me of something else. The other night when I couldn't sleep, I got up and watched "Pride and Prejudice" all the way through- (I had never seen it before). It was fun. I was up into the wee hours of the morning, doing nothing of importance. I think I liked the movie, because I couldn't turn it off. I didn't like the characters they had cast for Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, but I still liked the movie. I really like Jane Austen and the characters she creates. As cliche as that is, it is honest. I came to realize this a little more after I read the book, "Jane Austen's Book Club" this spring.

I also realized after watching the movie, that although I thought I had read "P&P" in high school, I was mixing it up with "Wuthering Heights" and never have read it. Now I am almost afraid to crack the book in fear I will no longer like the movie as much.

One final though is that as husband and I go into the fall, with me working part time in order to go to grad school, money will be a little tighter. I am currently in the mode of deciding which of my unnecessary spending habits to curb. Splurging on moderately expensive haircuts, new shoes, Starbucks treats, eating out on the weekends... When I think of it that way, I realize how many ways I could cut down, and how lucky I really am to not have to most of the time.

At the risk of being really annoying and way too long winded, I have to end with a favorite line of mine from a Martin Sexton song, "I've got a little faith on the table, found a little hope from the jar, there's got to be sanity 'round here somewhere and just shake it up, shake it up. A simple message, simple virtues three, but its not as easy as it looks on TV- mix this up with a little sadness and you will find peace-joy!"

Planet Wedding

I never thought I would be so nervous before my wedding... It was my job to plan events like this last year. I liked it and was good at it. Even earlier this year as I was designing invitations, registering at Target, or deciding on a guest book, I didn't think that much about being nervous. I thought maybe, maybe, on the day of, right before the ceremony I would be nervous. But days before?

And here is the thing: I am not nervous about marrying John. I have never been so sure of something in my life. I am ready to run, no sprint, down that aisle to exchange vows with such a wonderful man.

I am nervous about three things that I can identify: 1) being the center of attention, 2) asking too much of people who have been willing to help, and 3) missing some of the tiny little details that go into planning a wedding day.

All day, every day lately I have been thinking wedding. This detail, that email, this phone call, this check... The list goes on and TAKES UP THE WHOLE DAMN DAY. I feel like I no longer have contact with the outside world, unless of course, it is part of the wedding industry. I am on the planet wedding and it is driving me nuts. I thought that this was a planet that only Bridezilla visited. Clearly not some down-to-earth gal that is trying to keep it all in perspective, right? Wrong. (I have been abducted).

So I realized today that one of the only things that can keep me within the bounds of reality are my great friends that are around. Today, when I was getting a little too distracted, K sat me down and went through the weekend with me, minute by minute, to reassure me that I hadn't forgotten anything. I felt more relaxed than I had all day. Then tonight, some of the gals came over and helped me put together the programs, and for a few blissful hours, I was clearly back on planet earth. I was still thinking and talking wedding, but it was different. There was laughing and talking about things that had nothing to do with the "W" word. It was great to just have company. I was so relieved to know I wasn't in it alone, that it will be over soon, and most of all that there are other people around to help.

Thanks be to good friends and for a swift return to earth!

Escaping to camp

When I was in college I was a camp counselor in Northern Wisconsin. I loved it- I actually got paid to sail boats with kids all day long. Granted, sometimes the kids got to be a bit much, or the showers that would only spray water on you while you pulled on the cord were a bit annoying, or you got sick of being outside constantly and you would want to be in the real world for just a little while. Doing things like purposely walking through the weeds in the water to demonstrate that they weren't monsters and that you didn't really need to scream whenever you came into contact with them while swimming, became, well, a bit mundane. Things like walking on carpet became what you day dreamed about.

So of course, anytime the real world becomes a bit much, I day dream about camp. Today, as I was in my car running wedding "errands" for what seemed like hours, I tried to think of the most fun thing that we did at camp. I think it was the sock-flour game that I can't remember the name of. Here is how it went. All the campers dressed completely in black, and the few people that were appointed to be the "medics" dressed in white. A portion of the counselors and campers would get tube socks filled with flour. The object of the game was to avoid getting hit with the flour-sock and getting a white mark on you. If you did get hit with a sock you had to stand where you were hit and scream for a medic until they came and "freed" you. The game went on until the "sockers" or the "medics" were victorious (The sockers were always victorious, eventually). At that point, all the campers would be completely white with flour and would be hosed down and then sent for a swim, fully clothed in the lake (I wonder how that worked for the eco-system of Lake Pokeg?). It was a fun game, especially if you got to be a "socker". For a couple of hours, all thoughts of the real world would vanish and all you really were focused on was running around, screaming your lungs out, and of course, getting as messy as possible.