Good Friday to my left, Easter to my right

In just a few short months B and I will make the trek across the country to Oklahoma where we'll set up camp for a while. One major problem is I want these few shorts months to be over, already. On Thursday I have a conference call interview scheduled, and I'm really hopeful about this position. Ever since I applied to this position, my desire to pack my bags and GO has erupted. It's just about all I'm thinking about.

Today I have:
1) Priced rental trucks to OKC
2) Priced new cell phone plans in OKC
3) Estimated our summer income with an updated excel spreadsheet
4) Memorized the travel times between our probably place of residence, my (hopeful) job, my MA program, and back home.

I AM READY!

Mythic metaphors of light vs dark, good vs evil, and death vs life might be going too far. But I think leaving Atlanta and going to Oklahoma will bring more positive relationships in our lives. We'll be closer to friends, family, and our spiritual home.

I don't want to be blind to the reality that living in Oklahoma will bring a whole new set of challenges. Oklahoma is far from perfect, and so much is still unknown.

But I am tremendously excited and it's hard to focus on anything else...

-S

Forward, march!

The other day S told me, "I posted something on the blog.  It's a little different from the usual posts about babies and crafts."

Excuse me?  What did you say?  What are you trying to insinuate, mister?

We don't have a baby!  So, really just crafts.  Get it right!

Finally, FINALLY I am starting to feel some forward motion in my life.  Nothing's really happening, nothing new anyway, but something kicked me out of the rut that I was calling home. 

My home sweet rut looked something like this-

I should look for a job in OKC, eh...
I should practice something musical that I do for a living, eh...
Go for a run?  eh...
You're doing that 3-day thing again, maybe you should fund raise, eh...
Call your friend, eh...
Let's choose some more PhD programs!  eh...

Sensing a theme?  Do you get this way or is it just my lazy self?  

Well, I sold the rut for a nice profit (changed the flooring, added an island to the kitchen...it really brought up the value) and am moving forward slowly.  Moving forward slowly looks something like this-

Oh, there's my resume.  
I could do that job, I guess.
Good morning Buddy, let's get out of bed.
Call the dentist.
Roast a chicken.

I'm headed downstairs now to roast a chicken.  I am terrified of the giblets that I will have to extract.  Terrified.  Wish me luck. 

Psst...I want to make an envy-inducing slide show of our Alaska pictures to share on here but I am not motivated to figure out how to do it!  Any suggestions?

Dreaming of demolition

When we make the big move to OKC this summer, we will get to help get my parents' house ready to sell.  I'm not 100% enthusiastic about this move yet, but I am 150% excited about all of the projects we get to tackle!  So when my mom sent me pictures from the backyard after my dad removed an old storage shed and I saw this:

 S and I immediately had visions of this:

And this:

And led S to say longingly, "I've always wanted a sledgehammer."

I don't know if my parents actually want us to demolish this concrete driveway in the backyard but I do know that they want us to reach for our dreams, so...this shouldn't be a problem, right?

Some tea, some stones, some schools, oh who can remember the details, anyway?

I was deeply fascinated and disappointed by the report on Greg Mortenson's non-profit agency, which supposedly builds schools in Afhganistan and Pakistan. Investigative reporting by 60 minutes revealed inconsistencies with stories integral to Mortenson's credibility. Additionally, there appears to be either questionable or unethical accounting practices related to Mortenson's non-profit agency, his career as an author and public speaker, and his personal expenses.

One of the most interesting things I read about this ordeal is the blind eye turned towards the facts reported by 60 minutes by those in the inner circle of the non-profit world. I'm not sure if anyone has used this phrase yet, but it seems Mortenson was "too big to fail" as far as celebrity philanthropists go. Except instead of being too large economically, like big banks on Wall-Street, his mission carried too large and powerful of a message. It's not that no-one knew Mortenson embellished his non-profit work and lined his pockets; the problem was that the cost-benefit analysis determined that the world was a better place thinking of Mortenson as a philanthropic icon.

Maybe more revealing than an idolization of Mortenson, we idolized the power inherent in a good person with a good idea doing a good deed. It seems to me we live in"good Friday" world that longs for an "Easter message" (I'm paraphrasing Anne Lamott who paraphrased someone else). The challenges of Afghanistan and Pakistan are great and it seems the experts have few viable solutions. As a people, we latch onto the idea that someone has innovative solutions to complex problems. We can't help ourselves. We want hope. It's not sad that Mortenson is imperfect. It's unrealistic to think he should be. But it will be sad if we lose hope that good people exist and every day millions do good deeds. It will be sad if we choose another idol to elevate -- because these idols always fall. It's simply the human condition that we'll fall, every imperfect one of us will, at one point or another. Instead of elevating a person, we must elevate a mission (a world without war, hunger, catastrophic disease, oppression) that eclipses any person or institution.

In what mission do you place your faith?

Quest for the Best: Vacations

This is our new series to be continued, well, forever.  I figure instead of reading a gazillion reviews of products and places and services, I should just ask everyone I know.  Much easier.

Today's quest for the best: Romantic Vacations.

Where is the best place to go for a relaxing get-away?  We're thinking totally cliche here: beaches, massages, rooms with private pools and a window or door that opens to the ocean and a gorgeous view, yummy drinks, lots and lots of sunscreen.  Something along the lines of this: 

What or where do you recommend?  What or where do you NOT recommend?

On your mark...get set...go...

Officially official

I got word on Monday that I will definitely not be going back to school this fall.  Not happy news.  Round two of PhD applications will begin soon.

In the meantime, we are moving to Oklahoma City for one year beginning in July.  I'll admit, it's not my first choice, but there are some good thins about returning to the OKC.  I will now list some of them for you.

1. We'll be closer to our niece and our soon-to-be niece or nephew and S's whole family.
2. We'll be closer to my brother and perhaps his significant other and my parents and my grandparents.
3. We can help my parents fix up their house in OKC (they moved to the DFW area a while back) to get ready to sell sometime soon.
4. S can finally finish a master's degree.  Since he has two halves of two degrees, this will be nice for him.
5. Buddy might get to have a backyard.
6. We can reconnect with friends and the coffee shop location of our first date.
7. Maybe, just maybe, we can begin to grow our family.
8. I can work on getting published and learning languages and refining my applications.
9. When three of my best friends visit their families in Tulsa (with their born and yet-to-be-born babies!) I can see them too!

I'll have to take the GRE again since my scores expired in October.  Bleh!  But this time around I'm married to a math teacher so that might come in handy.  We might be moving into my parents' house, which doesn't really seem like a step forward, does it?  But they don't live there so maybe it's not so bad.  And there are LOTS of projects to take up our time at their house.  I've already redone the entire kitchen in my head. 

I might have had a teeny tiny breakdown over this turn of events, but I'm a little bit better now.  I listed nine positive things about moving back to OK for a while so I must be totally great!  Right?

Now I need to find a job.  Help? 

Give me an A...

Give me an L...

Etc, etc, etc.

We are on our way back from a fantastic trip to here:

More to come.  Including gratuitous cuteness from our five-month-old niece.  Prepare yourselves.

What's in a name?

When I go shopping at the library, particularly when I shop online at the library and request whatever books are featured in O magazine this month, I'm never sure which books I'll have at any given time.  This week four books came in for me and their titles make me giggle every time I pass the stack sitting on my dresser.

Three Stages of Amazement

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Super Sad True Love Story

Aren't those great titles?  I love book titles.  

Do you have a favorite book title or an "if I ever write a book it would be called..."?

It's my favorite

When my house looks like this.

Sunny, full of flowers, projects waiting to be finished sitting on the table.

By the way, I tried to grow paper whites so I'd have pretty delicate white flowers gracing my home.  I got 0 white flowers. Instead I got scraggly green onion-looking tufts of leaves.  What did I do wrong?