A Survey- Participate If You Like :)

For my 26th year of life, I decided to learn to think. As odd as it sounds, I believe it is very easy (and perhaps even the norm) to make it to 26 (or for an entire lifetime) without really learning to think for yourself and I am not happy to simply exist on the "truths" of other people. I have thought about a lot this year (please forgive me for being a blog slacker, thinking makes me tired- hehe), but nothing has rattled me to my core quite like thinking about my faith.

I have called myself a Christian for quite some time, realizing full well that by identifying with a group I am allowing myself to be identified with the individuals in that group. I was ok with this idea for 15 years or so. But this year I began to consider who I was identifying with (I should stop here to give another shout out to Shane Claiborne's amazing book THE IRRISISTABLE REVOLUTION because I really believe it changed my life) and what their actions (or lack thereof) might be saying about me. 

Here is a brief look at my journey into this question (we're getting to the survey part- be patient!):

Q. What is a Christian?

A. A follower of Jesus Christ (I like to keep things really simple when talking to myself)

Q. What would a follower of Jesus Christ look like? (not what color would their hair be, but what would a life devoted to following Christ look like)

A. A follower would strive to emulate the life and love exhibited by Christ while He was on earth (ok ok, my REAL answer to myself was "He would wanna be like Jesus"- don't judge me!)

Q. So what did Christ DO?

A. As far as I can tell, He loved A LOT. He gave all He had to help meet the needs of people in His community, both physically and spiritually. He touched people who were considered untouchable and He loved people who were considered unlovable.

Q. So, let's try this again- what would a Christian look like?

A. 

I didn't want to answer the question because I knew I wasn't measuring up. Not only that, but I couldn't think of a single person who I could point to and say "THAT is how Christ would be living!" 

And that makes me very sad.

So I'm looking- for a church, a group, or just a few people who give a damn. And it's frustrating.

What is even more frustrating is that the song "My Jesus" by Todd Agnew keeps popping up on my ipod and it is pretty much the theme song for this journey. Here's the video:

So this is the survey- I want to know what you guys think about this. 

Do you know Christians who you feel are being Christ in the 

community? 

Do you think I'm being too critical? 

Anybody having a similar frustration? 

Wanna recommend a medication that will keep me from playing Q&A games with myself? 

I don't need answers, but I would enjoy hearing your opinions :)

THINK!

In 6 days I will be voting for Obama. I am not voting for him because he is better dressed (he is) or better looking (that too) or a better speaker (anybody gonna argue with that?) than his Republican counterpart. I am voting for Obama because I have listened to both candidates speak about how they plan to make my country better and I have read each candidates views on issues that matter to me and THEN I decided that my views more closely lined up with Obama's.

If you went through a similar process and decided to vote for another candidate, I completely respect that and I am so grateful that we live in a country where we are free to make our own decisions.

Tonight my soap box is not McCain vs. Obama. My soap box is that so many people fought so hard for us to have the RIGHT to vote for either candidate we choose and I feel that most of us aren't taking our vote seriously.

I asked a coworker if she watched the first presidential debate and she told me that she didn't need to watch the debate because she already knew who she was voting for. "Without knowing where the candidates stand on the issues?" I asked. "Yup!" she answered proudly.

You may be laughing, but the sad fact is that i know MANY people who vote this way (though most of them aren't dumb enough to brag about it) and it makes me sick! 

Just today I was considering early voting and I realized that I don't know how to vote on the offices besides president. I spent an hour searching for a website that could break down the issues and tell me each candidate's position, but I came up with nothing. Knowing that many of my coworkers have already voted, I began asking if they could recommend an informational site and was frustrated beyond belief to find that almost nobody could find one. When I questioned how they knew who to vote for for County Soil and Water Representative, I got answers like this:

"I just left them blank."

"I just went thru and marked some names."

"I voted straight ticket." (While I realize that this may be what many of you do, this is my blog and I am exercising my right to free speech to tell you that is dumb- but I still love you!)

Not a single person said they read up on the candidates and made informed decisions on who they believe will best lead our state and our counties.

And that makes me very sad.

But I know a lot of you (myself included) have not voted and I hope to encourage some old school THINKING in this last election week, so I would like to share with you the website I FINALLY found that breaks down the platform of every nominee on the ballot. 

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Section?oid=oid%3A33533&category=oid%3A160812

They are listed in alphabetical order, so it is helpful to have a sample ballot handy. You can find one by simply googling "Durham (or insert your county of choice) County NC Sample Ballot".

So I encourage you all to vote on or before next Tuesday, but more than that, I encourage you all to THINK!

happy things

this is one of my new favorite songs by my new favorite singer and somebody made a killer music video for it- i hope it makes you as happy as it makes me!

a rant

in searching online for a t-shirt last weekend, i ran across a shirt that read "The only difference between tattooed people and non-tattooed people is that tattooed people don't give a shit that you don't have tattoos" I chuckled but i knew immediately that i had no interest in the shirt because it would make me look like an asshole. what kind of egotistical jerk thinks that people actually CARE if she colors her skin?

about 5 days after discovering that t-shirt, i went in for my seventh tattoo. it was then that i began to see that the creator of the shirt might be on to something...

i want to be very clear about this- i love talking about my tattoos. i love planning them, preparing for them, getting them, and taking care of them so that the best possible piece of art is left on my skin. i dont mind when people ask to see them, want to know what they mean and why i got them, or even say things like "so are you just gonna cover your body in tattoos?"

the answer is yes :)

I'm not sure why this particular tattoo has made such waves. i can only guess that it could be the size and colorfulness of it, the fact that i posted disgusting pics that are normally reserved for freaking out my mom when the piece is healed, or maybe just that facebook and myspace make it so darn easy to wander into one another's lives that we feel we have a right to pass judgement on our "friends".

wellllllllllll ya don't...

i doubt that any of the people who inspired this rant even bother to look at my blog (that would be dangerously close to getting to know me instead of just talking shit behind my back), but just in case any of them stumble on here, i have a message:

I am a well-educated, 26 year old ADULT. the United States of America thinks i am capable of casting a vote for the next President, giving myself lung cancer, drinking until i pass out, and renting a car :) i have spent countless hours researching tattoos and how to be as safe as possible when getting them. i put a lot of thought and planning into each tattoo i get. i realize that my body will change and my tattoos will look different. NEWSFLASH: your body will also change (in fact it's changing right now- put down the cheeseburger!), but my fat will be pretty and colorful! 

in conclusion- i am very happy with who i am and my tattoos don't change that. i don't get them for anybody but myself. if you like them, i would love to hear that. if you hate them, you are welcome to your opinion and you can tell me all about it if it makes you feel better. but talking to other people about what i do with my body just makes you look silly and sad.

my wish for you is that the rest of your week will be so full of happiness that you don't have time to create drama over a flower that i got to honor my father.

and to my actual friends who know this post wasn't aimed at you, thank you for accepting me with varying amounts of color and metal- ill be needing more tattoo buddies soon ;-)

Earning my big girl badge

I hate politics.
I have always felt that politics accomplished little more than pitting well-meaning and rational people against one another over issues that may not be earth shattering concerns. And political commercials are possibly the most horrible form of entertainment since Jerry Springer and often sound like grown-ups shouting "You're a poopy head!" and "Uh-uh, you're a booger eater!"
Yes, please let these people run my country...
But as I'm getting older (and just in case I was unsure about that, I am currently laying in bed with a heating pad wrapped around my suddenly arthritic knee) I am realizing that there is little chance that I will escape these political poopy heads (unless i can spear wild monkeys and learn a nice rain dance- and even then the man with the most wives is elected leader, so I'm still at the bottom of the food chain) so I might as well embrace the fact that politics will be shoved down my throat for the next month.
And that is why, dear friends, I am currently watching the Vice Presidential debate!
I will accept pats on the back tomorrow when I'm not naked- goodnight!

Joke's not funny

sometimes i think God kinda messes with me. like if i have a generally bad day, it is not uncommon for something actually bad to happen to put things into perspective and remind me to stop feeling sorry for myself. and today has not been the greatest day. and i have participated in my fair share of pity parties today. but as i sat on my bed uploading pictures from the weekend with patrick curled up beside me, i could not have imagined that God's next joke would come crawling out from under my sheets and send my already neurotic dog into full-blown fits.
Pat and i got the message- and im pretty sure we're not sleeping tonight :-/

Why autism chose me

If you have known me for any length of time you know that most of my life lessons come in the form of an 11-year-old boy with autism. Last weekend's lesson was about living in the details.



Eric was doing such a good job of passing the ball at soccer practice on Saturday that one of the fathers suggested he work on stopping the ball under his foot before kicking it. The request seemed simple enough, so i told Eric "Put your foot on the ball to stop it."
He looked at me like i was speaking Chinese (not an uncommon look from him) and then propped his heel up on the stationary soccer ball.
Well he almost got it. So i tell him "No, no, like this." and place the sole of my shoe on top of the ball. He immediately places his foot next to mine and i squeal with excitement that he mastered this skill so quickly.
"Now kick the ball back to Richard." I tell him.
He looks confused for a second and then, without ever taking his foot off the top of the ball, pushes it toward his partner.
So we tried again.
"Put your foot back on the ball. Good job! Now take your foot off the ball. Excellent! Now kick the ball to Richard."
When he kicked the ball sideways and nearly fell down, i realized that while he took his foot off the ball (just like i asked), he didn't actually put his foot back on the ground to support his weight and had been balancing on one foot.
We went through the entire drill again and when i told him to take his foot off the ball, i emphasized putting his foot back on the ground and standing on it. The blank look told me that this wasnt working so i got creative.
"Like this buddy!" and i jumped from foot to foot doing something of a hybrid between Riverdance and a Mexican hat dance. He copied me. Then he kicked the ball perfectly. And he stopped the ball, planted his foot, and kicked it every time after that.
Since saturday i have thought a lot about that interaction and what working with autism means to me. I have always been a very fast-paced person- i walk fast, i talk fast, and i think fast. But living fast doesnt exactly lend itself to being good with details. I like big pictures and outcomes and when i am taking in a panoramic view of the park, Eric is touching and smelling and, yes sometimes tasting, one leaf or one rock. And this is when Eric teaches me the most because sometimes the leaf or rock he chooses is the most beautiful of them all and i would have missed it. And if he kicked the soccer ball like most kids, we would have missed the chance to dance :)

What the hell???

so i woke up this morning and, like always, stumbled to my alarm clock, my underwear drawer, and finally out into the hall without ever turning on a light (dont wanna disturb the monsters- they are only good when they are sleeping). but standing in the pitch black hall this morning, something caught my eye. The entrance to the attic, which is just over my head when i walk out of my bedroom, was glowing. I remember pausing for just a second and thinking "Damn, the ceiling is glowing." and then getting in the shower.
[I am not the most rational or motivated person at 6am]
Throughout my day, my morning confusion returned to my thoughts and i wondered if a fully awake heather could still see the magic of the glowing ceiling. When it was finally dark enough outside to provide the perfect shade of blackness in the hallway, the dogs and i bravely (actually i really psyched myself out and was shaking a little) entered the darkness, armed only with a camera. I knew that a) nobody would believe that my ceiling glows and b) if i could post a picture, one of my faithful readers would surely know what was going on. I found the best angle to capture the lighted rectangle above my door and pressed the shutter button only to have the camera beep and the screen flash bright white- did i mention i was already scared?- because my battery was dead!
BUT the white screen provided just enough light for me to finally solve the mystery!
Did u guys know there is a light in the attic? Apparently i have been turning the damn thing on every night thinking i was turning off the hall light!
I wonder if lauren knew we had a light in the attic...

Cabbie Love :)

At first the dogs were not fond of the new roommates, but now they have learned to embrace the cabbage!

Because it made me smile...

Lauren stopped watering her plants on our front porch and having to walk past them everyday and watch them progress thru the various stages of dying and decomposition was difficult for me. A couple days ago I noticed that something appeared to be growing in her squash plant pot. It is growing really fast and, while i was originally a little bit grossed out, i am now embracing my new fungus friend. His name is Squish- Squish the squash fungus- and I would like you to meet him:


I got a notice that I had a "parcel" in the office and I was super excited because I knew the only thing I should be getting was the 3 dolls I ordered from ebay last week. So i went to our parcel room and was obviously looking for a cabbage patch sized box, but there were very few large boxes in the room. After looking at EVERY package (twice!) except for one sad looking package on the top shelf that was being held together by 5 lbs of packing tape (nobody would ship an ebay purchase in THAT!), i almost gave up and asked the office manager for help. Just for laughs I checked the sad box to see what poor sap would be receiving it. Look what came home with me:

just in case this pic doesnt make it painfully obvious, the sides are both caved in, there was doll hair sticking out the side, and the box had all the sturdiness of a target bag. I'm wondering where all my shipping money went...
Once I finally broke into the box (and lemme tell ya- it took some time!), I found this note:

Not gonna lie, I teared up :)
I think Virginia's dolls will be very happy here.

Paris Hilton makes me laugh

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

and good for her for standing up for herself against the old dude :)

Patrick and the gerbils

Just a typical Tuesday night here in Durham...

Where are all my dolls???

So I had a visitor this week who proved to be an AMAZING help in cabbie rat check and organization (thanks Amanda!!!!) and after only 10 short hours (and i think that might be a low estimate) of unpacking, we finally got all the cabbies out into the fresh air (and they needed it!) However, i am still missing a significant number of dolls (at least 2 bags) and most of my very favorites are among them (mom reminded me that i gave them to my cousin for safekeeping when the others were being stored in the rat hole- good idea, too bad i forgot!), so here are pics of SOME of my dolls, minus the favorites and about 20 dolls still residing upstairs in various stages of de-ratting :)

My New Favorite Commercial

because i dont think people laugh enough...

Day One of the Project: Cleaning the Rat Patch

So while the patch was stored for 8 years or so, rats decided to snack (and do other horrible things) on them. So far I have found 2 bags that contain dolls with chewed up and/or stained clothes and hair.

So that means bath time!

Everybody in the bags who had a possibility of even SEEING a rat gets clean!

And I'm just getting started...

For Those of You Who Said "You have HOW MANY dolls?"

A visual...

We're Gonna Miss Her...

Ponderings...

There have been some very important things on my mind lately and I'm wondering if my readers (the faithful 2-hehe) might have some answers. Here goes...
1)Why is it so easy to shave the skin right off your knees but completely impossible to get those blasted hairs? I mean, when the skin is gone, what do the hairs have to hang onto???
2)Why is it that the people with the longest legs walk the slowest? I cannot tell you how many times a day i get stuck behind a GIANT (5'5 and above) who is barely moving! I try to scurry around them, but more often than not i end up getting pinned between the giant and a wall or having to relinquish my position to oncoming traffic. Are longer legs just that much heavier and therefore unable to move at an acceptable pace???
3)I have been watching a lot of shows on Body Dysmorphic Disorder (what, that's not how you spend your friday nights?) and it is an incredibly sad disease that causes perfectly normal people to look in the mirror and see themselves as monsters. They see flaws that don't exist and oftentimes end up housebound for fear that the public with be disgusted with them. The thing is that everybody who is diagnosed with this disease is BEAUTIFUL! Which makes me wonder- if a less attractive person has BDD, is it just called ugly?
4)So I was reading my favorite book (The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne- READ IT! IT'S AMAZING!) and Shane was picking apart the verse where Jesus tells Peter “The gates of Hell will not prevail against you.” He explained that gates are for defensive purposes instead of offense (unless you're talking about some hi-tech electronic gate that smacks the hell outta people who come near- and i don't think that's what Jesus was referring to) and that he thinks Jesus meant something like the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church.
This is where my imagination took over... I pictured everybody lining up for roll call in Heaven on the first day and God is like "Well, I have a surprise for you guys. Everybody gets to go get 5 of their friends out of hell!" And we all line up at the "gates of hell" and God blows a whistle and we all just plow thru the gates and race to pull our friends out.
I don't think this picture is exactly biblically based, but it sure is fun to think about :)

this song is ALWAYS stuck in my head!

but i love all their ads- go to www.thetruth.com to see more

Prone to Excess?

When I was a kid I loved Barbie. I loved Barbie so much, in fact, that when my mom decided to count my Barbies when I was four years old, I had over 200 of them. You read that right- 200. Do you know anyone else who can claim that? Ya, me neither...
Once on a trip to the beach, I decided I needed a hermit crab as a pet, so I got one. Then I got another one, and another one, and another 2 and then a big aquarium and some extra shells and some toys and then a few more pets. At the peak of my hermit crab addiction I think I had 11.
11 hermit crabs are smelly...
When I turned 16 I decided to collect Cabbage Patch Kids (if you dont know this, we prolly arent close enough for you to be reading my blog-hehe). By the time I left for college (when I was 18), my collection had grown to 1000 dolls. I KNOW you dont know anybody else who can claim that...
There were also times of baseball cards, stamps, rocks (collection of champions), and every type of doll you can imagine (well maybe not EVERY type, but you get the idea).
I wrote all this to say that even as a child, I was clearly prone to excess. But as I get older and more mature (stop laughing), I'm beginning to wonder if it was actually an obsession with having lots of things or if it was something else...
I was not a great student. Actually it would be more appropriate to say that i COULD have been a great student and sometimes was. But from as early as 5th grade, I was either a top student in the class or getting removed from class and sent to the principals office with a pink sheet. There was no in between with me- if I liked the class (and at that point it was probably more related to liking the teacher) I would excel, if not I could cause some drama.
The trend continued and probably worsened in high school and by college, I either went to class or I didn't- mostly I didn't. I don't mean that I occasionally skipped my classes, I mean that on multiple occasions I showed up for the first day of class and then didn't return until the final exam- I even skipped my final exams twice.
In the midst of not going to class, I started getting pierced. Most people might pierce their ears and maybe an occasional nose, but i got 14 piercings in 3 years or so. Then came the tattoos. I would argue that I have handled getting inked with plenty of self-control, but I know that my mother feels differently. And to be honest, the self-control comes mostly from a lack of money and not from actually trying not to cover my body in art :)
So this is where I am now. I am looking back at a childhood that seems very all or none and realizing that this tendency has bled onto my relationships. There are only two options with me- we can be very close friends or we can be acquaintances. I will care about you so much that if you are struggling I make myself physically sick with worry or I will barely notice your existence- there is no in between.
And apparently this is a problem. I am slowly coming to accept the fact that some people actually WANT to just be friends. They aren't looking for a BFF and aren't interested in adding another acquaintance- just a friend- and i have NO IDEA how to play that game!
Nor do I know how to only have one doll, one pet, or one pistachio...

Things I Loved Today

~ eating a Tony's cheese pizza with fake sausage- I ate the WHOLE thing yo!
~ snuggling under my covers with nothing to do and nowhere to go and watching it storm
~ seeing the Diamond Heels freak out on Chad Flack when he hit a 2 run homer to take the lead in the 8th- i teared up a bit
~ having a stranger pay my way into the skating rink and telling me "maybe you can pay back the favor to somebody else sometime"
~ skating for hours with eric and catching him watching me and smiling
~ a phone call with an old friend
~ scrapbooking!
~ drinking pineapple juice right out of the bottle
~ having patrick sleeping by my head as i type this
~ watching the Diamond Heels win the game as i type this :)
Happy Saturday!

What 26 Looks Like...

i have the best coworkers ever :)

Home Alone

Just 3 short (sarcasm) weeks after my life suddenly turned on its head, things seem to be straightening out- slowly...
I finally turned in our old apartment keys on Wednesday before work (which made exactly 8 days straight spent packing or moving-ugh) and closed that chapter of life, so that was helpful. Oh ya- kudos to my AMAZING moving crew who set a new world record in moving speed! Huge thanks to Tyson, Keith, Jessica, Amy, Khou, Gretchen, and Rebecca. And thanks to Emily, Caraina, and Jen who helped me get boxes and to Heather P who hemmed my professional pants at the last minute so I didn't look like a bum going to my grad school interview- I got in and, if nothing goes horribly wrong, will start taking classes in the MAT in Special Ed program at NCCU this fall- woohoo!
Now you're caught up to this weekend. Thinking back to how stressed out and tired I was at the end of this week, I suppose the fact that all my people are out of town for the weekend is a good thing, but when I first realized that Brandie and Lauren would be gone for the weekend I was pretty upset. Brandie and I have our birthdays two days apart and have celebrated together for the past 5 years, but our birthdays are this week and I will be outta town for Mother's Day next weekend, so I'm kinda bummed...
Nevertheless, the show must go on!
So I did all my necessary shopping when I got off work yesterday (buying pizza and chips to entertain me on my lonely weekend) and came home determined to lay around and watch tv until I passed out (I have big goals).
Here is my dilemma. My typical tv shows of choice are reality tv and weekends are especially full of crime tv shows- my secret love. I try to be careful about when and how many of these shows I watch because I have a RIDICULOUS imagination and often let inappropriate things (murder scenes mostly) slip into my dreams- this is an even bigger consideration for me since I'm staying alone in my new townhouse and the dogs are I are still quite unfamiliar with all the sounds of the place- they bark psychotically every 5 minutes or so. So I tell myself no crime tv tonight and go downstairs to prepare my pizza. When I came back upstairs, my tv was on one of the crime stations (because they are set as my favorites) and they were profiling the case of this blonde chic and seemed to be setting it up as if her boyfriend murdered her, so I figured it was safe to watch. After all, it was still light outside and domestic violence shows tend to upset me less because I have no "domestic" to be violent :)
So I'm watching the show and I'm slowly realizing that her boyfriend didn't do it (now fully aware that I should change the channel, but determined to find out whodunnit) and he is reliving the night he realize something was wrong. He called her cell phone and left messages all day and she never called back, so he went to her apartment and her car was there but she didn't answer his knocks. Panicking, he remembered there was a sliding glass door in the back, but knew he wouldn't be able to get in because she kept a stick in it as a lock. You know where this is going, but what you might not know is that in my scary new townhouse there is a sliding glass door in the back (facing the woods) and I have been unable to locate one of those lock sticks and that is a main source of stress in my life these days. As soon as the creepy announcer voice said "Jeremy approached the sliding glass door to find the stick was gone and the body was..."- I was out!
I decided it would be safer to watch a movie, so I popped in "Evening". I just purchased this movie a few weeks ago because I saw it in the theater and there was a quote in the movie that I have desperately tried to remember since I first saw it, so I decided to distract myself by finding the quote.
[Big sidenote: The movie is about a woman who is old and dying (yup, this is what I watch to cheer myself up) and her old best friend comes to visit after many years of not speaking and as they are lying in bed together reminiscing, the old lady says,
"Have you been happy?"
Her friend answers, "At times. And at times I have been very unhappy. But I never expected as much as you did."
The old lady replied, "I expected so much..."
And then her friend said, "Oh yes you did! And you got so much..."
I love that quote (my blogger name is "expecteverything" after this movie) because I have always expected so much- from myself and other people- and, for the most part, I feel like I get more because of those expectations. Oh well, that is for another blog :) ]
So I'm watching the movie and crying my eyes out (because that is what I do when I watch movies alone- tear duct therapy) and I sit up in bed to check my email or something and I almost wet the bed (which I haven't done in at least 6 months) when I see this white glowing face in the tree outside! But before I had time to think that my plastic sheet isn't on the bed yet, I realized that the glowing image was my pasty white face illuminated by the computer screen reflecting in the window. Though it was only a 5 second scare, I can not stress enough how incredibly scary it was!
That's when I knew it was bedtime...
Today has consisted of hanging out with all the most amazing kids in the world- I took Eric to softball practice (and I'm proud to announce that I did NOT lock him in the car), bought a dryer (which has nothing to do with kids, but I'm quite proud of it), did flips and hung out at the park with Jennifer and her kids (gotta say- they are AWESOME kids! I wish we lived closer so I could have more precious kiddie time), and took a walk with Heather, Hudson (my favorite baby ever), and the pups. I came home hoping to veg out in front of the tv again (perhaps with less drama) and found myself engrossed in a show about gangs (confession- the gang members were showing their signs and before I could stop myself I was practicing throwing up gang signs- in front of my open window- in Durham- did I mention I don't have a sliding door stick???) and then I took a nap.
I think it's just about bedtime for me. But I don't need to watch crime tv to give myself nightmares because I was just informed that I'm taking Billy SWIMMING tomorrow! I won't get into all the reasons why this is a VERY BAD idea, but I have a feeling that my next blog will be entitled, "When white fat met the sun".
I hope you are all having an amazing weekend and thanks to everyone who stuck with me during the three weeks when my only forms of communication were bitching and whining- I wouldn't do it for you, but I'm glad you did it for me! ;-)

So it is 7:30pm on a random Monday evening and I am driving my two dogs (one is on so many drugs he is barely able to stand and the other is wearing a plastic shield to keep her from chewing on her bloody stump of a tail) down I-40. It is pouring rain and I am driving to North Raleigh to hand deliver some paperwork that I forgot to mail in (again). My gas light comes on (again) and I notice that there are two brand new wrecks on the other side of the road and I grumble to the dogs about sitting in traffic and the damn rain (keeping in mind that we are still in a severe drought) and how I am an idiot for not mailing this stuff in last week. In my head I am planning my next blog- a rant about my hellish week (I locked my autistic boy in a hot car and AAA had to come break him out- and that was one of the BETTER parts of my week!) and wondering if the bad news will ever stop coming...

Literally it came out of NOWHERE- one of the biggest and brightest rainbows I have seen in a long time just popped up in front of my car- almost as if it wanted me to follow it. I took the time to enjoy it for just a second before grabbing my cell phone to snap a pic- my mom will love it! So I took a few pics (before realizing that a state trooper was cruising in front of me- this is NOT the week to push my luck with the law) and veered off on an exit to buy some golden gas. I was disappointed that the gas station was on the wrong side of the road (how DARE they build a gas station on the non-rainbow side of the road!), but as I pumped the two gallons of gas I could afford, I noticed that the people around me were all looking to the sky. Then I noticed what I had been missing all along- the rain had stopped and I was parked directly in front of the OTHER side of the rainbow! It almost seemed that it was springing up from the gas station! Just as I grabbed my phone, an old biker dude kinda guy walked up beside me with his camera phone. "I'm bout to do the same thing." he said with a smile.

And I couldn't help it- I was smiling. I am angry and frustrated and really ticked off about pretty much everybody and everything right now, but I just stood in a gas station parking lot staring at the sky with a bunch of strangers and I smiled.

Rainbows mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and I know that it's nothing more than science to some (reflection and light and stuff), but to me it is one of the most beautiful natural occurrences imaginable. Even more than that, it's a promise. Believe what you want, but the rainbow reminds me that there's only one promise that won't be broken. And today that was the best reason I could think of to smile.

Heather and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad WEEK!

Since I kinda dropped off the face of the earth this week, I feel I owe my readers (all two of you) an explanation as to my absence. What follows is an account of my hellish week. Names have not been changed to protect the innocent because none of you fools are innocent. I had a bad week and now EVERYONE MUST PAY!!!

I will pick up exactly where I left you on the last blog- Sunday afternoon. I had gone to church so I was feeling happy and holy and had no idea of the storm that was headed my way...

I was hanging out with my favorite 6 month old Hudson and we decided (it was his idea really) to take a long walk on a gorgeous afternoon. The walk went ok (and by "ok" I mean I had to stop twice to remove him from the stroller because he was screaming and people were staring, i had to chase his stroller down a sidewalk when it started rolling backward down a hill, and I drove him into a bush one time- in the context of the week that followed, it was a lovely walk) and I returned home with only tired legs to complain of.

The next day at work (Monday if I already lost you), I would stand up from my desk and a pain would shoot thru my left foot and ankle so sharply that it forced me back into my seat. I didn't worry about it too much (it's not like i really WANTED to work anyway) until i found myself barely able to walk to my car after work. I spent the night sitting on my bed scanning pictures (if you haven't heard, this is my new HUGE project i have given myself) with a heating pad on my sad ankle. 

Thinking the rest had fixed my gimp, I headed to work on Tuesday only to find that I had to basically drag my bum leg up the hill. Melody made me go see a sports med doc (i guess there really are no excuses not to see a doctor when you work at campus health) and my foot and ankle got squeezed and squished and poked and prodded and then the verdict was announced- tendonitis.

Ok- I'm not even sure i know what tendonitis is, but it sounds like arthritis and arthritis means OLD (ref. Heather dictionary). With my 26th birthday fast approaching (may 6th- I want gifts), this was all just poor timing...

"But what caused the tendonitis?" I questioned the doctor. I mean, I haven't biked or skated in awhile and I can't remember the last time I did gymnastics or jumped off things for fun- so what could it be? "You probably overdid it during your walk on Sunday." was his answer. 

Let's think about this. I have been hobbling my ass around Campus Health for 2 days and when I finally get confirmation that something really IS wrong with my foot, I want to explain to my coworkers that I wasn't just being whiney all week and what can I say but,

"I hurt my foot walking...

with a baby...

in a stroller."?

Ummm, can't I just say I dropkicked some girl in a bar fight?

The doctor told me to stay off my foot as much as I could, so Tuesday night I was back in bed scanning more pictures. 

I decided to officially rest my foot on Wednesday (this might be a good time to interject that I am moving next Wednesday, so at this point in the story I have exactly one week to pack up my whole apartment and get this place clean and ready for inspection- and I'm in bed), so I stayed home and- you guessed it- scanned pictures. The picture scanning was not without drama of its own though. While going thru pictures of myself from high school and college, I came to the realization that I do not currently look puffy because my hair is shorter (the story I use to console myself while i wolf down a bag of doritos), I look puffy because i AM getting puffy- there I said it! And not only am I getting puffy, but scanning pictures of people I try hard not to think about only caused my subconscious to jump on the bandwagon and I started DREAMING about the people I don't want to think about, so now I am waking up in a HORRIBLE mood!

I decided that being home alone was doing more damage to me than all the walking would do to my foot, so Thursday I headed back to work. It appeared that my luck was beginning to turn around when I received a request for an interview for grad school. We made the appointment for next Wednesday (anybody see a problem with this? ya, I didn't either.) at the exact same time I had an appointment to sign the papers for the townhouse. Did I really expect anything more?

By the time I got to small group on Thursday night, I wasn't exactly spreading sunshine, so Heather offered up some white chocolate liquor which I gladly accepted (What? You don't drink liquor at Bible study? Perhaps you should join mine...). Things were beginning to look ok again when I got a phone call (these are the moments in the movie when you scream at the character "Don't answer the phone!" because you know the other shoe is about to drop, but the poor helpless sap doesn't have a clue).

So I answered the phone (wink) and my roommate informed me that my dogs had escaped from their crate and had destroyed my room (as I typed that last sentence Oreo leaped on the bed and began licking the screen, obviously still apologetic for her bad behavior). I returned home to find a) two very happy dogs and b) a hole in my wall accented by fur and slobber.

Let's review again. I'm moving in LESS THAN A WEEK and this is the only apartment I have ever lived in that did not bear the marks of my dogs- Oreo ate the carpet out of my first apartment and Pat shat (yup, that's the past tense of "shit") all over a textured wall in the next one.

And now the hole.

Oh yes- I forgot to mention that on Thursday I realized I had maxed out my credit card, so now I am in debt up to my eyeballs and I can't put the charges for a busted up apartment on my credit card. (Last night I realized that I have NOT maxed out my credit card. It was apparently a website error, but it caused significant panic on Thursday)

Not gonna lie- I didn't handle things well. I screamed and cursed and pouted and cried and my dogs and roommates all hid from me. Then I fixed the crate and went to bed.

And by "fixed" I mean that when I came home from work on Friday afternoon, Pat was sleeping on my pillow- Oreo was in the crate being pissed off.

I don't remember much else about yesterday- I think my mind went into self-preservation mode. I vaguely remember that while I was inspecting the crate to see exactly how my canine Houdini made his second escape, I noticed a distinct chirping sound coming from one of the three smoke detectors that Lauren and I have between our rooms. We took turns taking the batteries out of the smoke detectors, trying to disable the chirper, and finally realized that all the batteries had been removed and not one, but TWO of the bastards were still going off! THREE phone calls to the office later (I wasn't playing- I threatened to disable all our detectors if we didn't get help), the chirping stopped.

One trip to Wal-Mart and sixteen automotive clamps later (my mom suggested putting one on each corner of the crate, but I thought that sixteen was a better number), my dogs stopped escaping.

The blog ends here not because my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week ended but because you are now caught up to 4:19pm on Saturday afternoon and nothing bad has happened while I wrote this blog.

Keeping my fingers crossed...

What I Look For in a Church

So my friend Elizabeth dragged me to her church yesterday. She really did drag me- she called me every Sunday morning for 2 months to gently remind me that church was about to start if I wanted to drag my sinful self in.

I never did- until yesterday.

If you don't know me well, here is something you should know- I'm a watcher. Especially in new situations, I notice EVERYTHING!

So I walk into this new church and I'm skeptical- because that's who I am- I don't know these people and I don't trust this church and I will watch until I have reason to believe otherwise. The first thing I notice is the cheesy worship music- I hate cheesy worship music, so I roll my eyes. Some people are raising their hands- that has always kinda weirded me out...

Next is the neighbor greeting part that makes me wanna run screaming to the land of Germ-X, but I resist- Aaaahhhhhhhh church!

The pastor begins to speak and he cracks a few jokes and I'm not really listening because I'm focused on the little boy in front of me and how he is obsessed with his daddy and I'm thinking that he is adorable and I would kinda like to have a little kid to be obsessed with me like that- then I would like to give him back to his parents :)

I guess I was subconsciously listening to the sermon because I heard the pastor say something about drugs and the congregation bursts out laughing. Confused, I look to Elizabeth and she explains that they are laughing because the pastor has been to prison.

WHAT?

He immediately acknowledged the laughter and explained that his congregation was laughing because they knew his story and if visitors wanted to read it, they could pick it up in the back of the room.

Prison, huh?

Elizabeth would later explain to me that he spent some time in jail (presumably for drug possession) and that he accepted Christ while he was there. When he was released, he went to Duke Divinity School, got married, and had 5 kids- what a life!

Immediately upon hearing that the pastor spent time in prison, my attitude toward that church changed- I know, I know, it doesn't make sense, but that's just how I work...

I noticed that the pastor was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and I liked that he looked comfortable- made me feel comfortable. I liked that people felt comfortable commenting to one another during service and nobody gave them the evil eye. I liked the fact that two homeless guys who I recognized from Fayetteville St sat in the front row of the congregation. And I liked that the pastor had been in prison.

I'm not pledging my allegiance to this new church or to any church for that matter. But for yesterday, it was exactly what I was looking for in a church.

Thank you Elizabeth!

Carolina in my mind...

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of Carolina basketball. I remember watching giants like Eric Montross, Antawn Jamison, and Vince Carter and being in complete awe. At the time, all I knew about my heroes was that they were tall and that they lived in this magical place called Chapel Hill and I hoped that someday I could visit the land of the giants :)

Fast forward a few years and I'm sitting in my first college class at UNC. I took a moment to breathe in the experience and to stand in complete awe of the opportunity that lay before me. Over the next four years I would find myself pausing often to soak it all up- the electricity that filled the Dean Dome as I chanted "Tar!" and my 15,000 closest friends answered with "Heels!", the incredible peacefulness of an afternoon spent lounging in the quad or playing football in the yard, and the way my eyes filled with tears every time I heard the Clefhanger's rendition of "Carolina in My Mind".

I loved every minute of it.

This afternoon I was walking on campus and the trees were in bloom, the sun was just warm enough, and the sky was this amazing shade of Carolina blue- in short, it was a perfect day. And just as I might have missed the moment, my ipod shuffled to James Taylor- the perfect soundtrack to the perfect day- and I was reminded, once again, how incredibly blessed I am to live in this magical place called Chapel Hill.

The Truth About Wisteria

For the past two weeks or so, I have been obsessed with a particular stretch of 54 that I pass on the way to and from work. This area has a wall of bright purple flowers that stretches for about half a mile and it makes me soooooooo happy! No matter how early it is or how stressed I am, passing those beautiful flowers just makes me smile. Sometimes I even remember them when I'm not in the car and I get excited just thinking about seeing them again!

So, ya, I like this area :)

Since I am just discovering this year that I live among some beautiful plants (25 years in NC and i noticed the flowers and trees THIS YEAR), I have been kind of obnoxious about asking my family and friends to identify plants that I find appealing, but nobody seems to know what my heavenly purple plant could be...

Finally I had had enough. I googled "NC vine" images and I recognized the very first picture as my purple friend! The website called the vine "wisteria" and I giggled at remembering Wisteria Lane from my Desperate Housewives days. But now I wanted MORE wisteria! Where could I see more? Where did it come from? Could I plant some in my apartment complex? I needed more information, so I found a wisteria website.

And that is when my dreams died...

"Wisteria occurs throughout North Carolina and is listed as a worst weed by The Nature Conservancy's Sandhills office. The Chinese variety of wisteria is the most frequently seen in North Carolina. When this vine escapes into forests, it climbs trees, intercepts sunlight, and kills or represses host trees. Hundreds of miles of wisteria vines are destroying trees at Raleigh's Umstead State Park. In fact, this deadly vine may be as destructive as kudzu."

So that's it. My beautiful wisteria is actually KILLING the beautiful trees it lives on!

Life just isn't fair :-(

Welcome to my blog!

I think the first blog is always kinda awkward, don't you?