Cigarettes and Chocolate Colored Mulch

So being married changes you. Not always in the ways you world expect; in really odd ways. For instance I have never liked cooking much less baking, but now I love love love it. It’s actually one of my favorite things. Go figure.

I also have hated doing lawn work or any type of gardening. But now, that’s all I want to do. I want to buy pretty flowers and herbs and bags and bags of mulch.  I think this is a result of having a permanent partner and help mate with me at all times. It gives me a weird freedom to try things; David gives me the energy to do things that used to overwhelm me. It’s very nice.

So the other weekend David and I were re-landscaping our front yard. Tearing up dead bushes and planting new ones and spreading mulch. I was the mulch spreader; David was the bush-digger upper.

I began spreading the mulch in one area of my lawn and came across this rather large pile of cigarette butts. I chuckled at this discovery and began trying to simply cover them with mulch but I swear they would not be covered, they just kept resurfacing.

In this battle of wills I was losing and I knew why.

Before I was married I had a group of wonderful people I lived with. I love these people. They made my life possible, yea amazing. One of them smoked, which honestly did not bother me a bit. I grew up with people smoking and so it doesn’t even faze me. I just prefer that people don’t smoke in my house or car. So this roommate would smoke outside which was totally cool with me.

I didn’t really like the fact that these butts were accumulating in my garden, but I was a totally wuss; a complete wuss and totally unable to deal with confrontation. That’s the honest truth, and so I never told that roommate it bothered me. And of course, she’s not a mind reader and she never knew it bothered me.

And so now 4 years after she moved out, I am still trying to cover up those butts with mulch. I could kick myself.

I think lately I’ve been realizing a common trap in living with roommates; the inability to properly deal with confrontation. I don’t think it’s just me, I think it’s a pretty common issue.

My thought was always, “I’m not going to live with these people forever, I don’t need to address this issue” or “I’m going to go low on this issue and try to be humble.” I’m not even sure these were conscious thoughts but looking back it was my perspective. Can I just say this attitude did not serve me well? Not at all.

My roommates were the perfect opportunity to learn how to deal and live and share life with other people. It was the perfect opportunity to live out the gospel and learn how to be kind and work out differences. Instead, I let my fear of conflict paralyze me and I never learned those very important lessons.

And now I’m living with someone, my husband. And he’s not going anywhere, so I just can’t think, “gosh that really annoys me when he does this, I’m so glad I won’t be living with him forever.” Actually I am going to live with him forever, and I need to tell him how freaking annoyed I am with this or that or sooner than later I will explode over a tiny thing and really hurt this person I love.

Oh and the thought, “I will go low on this issue”? Somehow in marriage that thought does not satiate in the same way it did with roommates. Knowing that I will be living with this person for-ev-er, somehow makes the thought of going low very distasteful. Go figure.

I find myself wishing I had learned how to conflict with my roommates, because it would make conflicting with David that much easier. Instead, I ignored the issues and am now having to learn lessons I would have perfected with friends.

If I could go back five years and re-do parts of my life, that’s one thing I would change. I would try to embrace the conflict; I would try to see it as learning/training for marriage (or life/work in general). Ignoring the key or small issues won’t make them go away, they’ll just pop up later, like cigarettes in chocolate colored mulch.

I liked you better in ER

I just watched Syriana, two words obnoxious and confusing. I’ve now sat through two movies produced by dear old George, in which he could have just held a press conference to say what he wanted to say. It would have been cheaper and with less of a carbon imprint.

I’m all about getting a message out in way that moves people hearts and art/film are a great way to do that. But don’t push it down my throat. I don’t want to gag on a producer’s political agenda while eating my delicately seasoned popcorn. To me it’s like crossing through the 4th wall, I don’t want to meet the wizard pulling the strings. It ruins the illusion.

If you want to give me a great “speech” about the corruption of the oil industry, please bludgeon a man to death with a bowling ball pin.  That’s art (and totally brilliant). Give me Daniel Day Lewis slobbering and yelling about babies in baskets. That’s a significant piece of work.

But George posturing behind and in front of a camera? Blah. Waste of my time.

Fog like existence

I haven’t been feeling like myself for awhile, maybe it started in September maybe earlier. It’s hard to say, but by January I was in a pretty dark place.

It was so dark, I didn’t know down from up, or forwards from backwards. This darkness had three parts, mind racking insomnia (going back at least two years), persistent and craze inducing anxiety, and a deep seeded ambivalence. AWESOME.

Each of these things have come and gone, off and on again, in my life. But something ab0ut this lasy January made my life completely unlivable. It just had built up and I couldn’t find a way forward, a way out. The ambivalence was like a door slamming shut in front of my face and it was paralyzing.

So I went to some friends and they pulled it all out of me, examined the mess for themselves and gave me a map, a way out. And that’s what I needed. I couldn’t do this by myself, I needed someone to hold my hand and tell me what to do.

I needed to see a doctor, I needed to get some professional help. My reply, “I thoughts that’s what you people were?”

Sometimes, at least for me, when you have done all you can, when you have gone to inner healing classes for three years, when you have talked it out as much as you know how, when you have prayed and cried, and straightened yourself up and walked forward, when you have bought as many cats as you (or the city you live in, or the husband you live with) can justify, when you have married the love of your life, when you live in the house of your dreams, and you drive a nice little car, and go to your wonderfully fulfilling job, sometimes even with all of that, you still don’t want to get out of bed. You still don’t want to really live.

And if that feeling lasts for long enough, you can’t just keep going, you can’t just keep trying the same things, you need to get some help.

And so I made an appointment. I sat on a vinyl covered table. I talked to a doctor I had only met one other time, and I told him everything. I left that office and I thought I can do this, I’m not crazy. I will make it through. I walked out of the office and to wal-mart’s pharmacy and I stood in line while every old lady brought their groceries to pay for at that counter. And then the pharmacist says to me, thank you for waiting. I say, no problem, not a big deal. She says, you sure are nice for a sick person. I say, I’m not really sick.

But looking back now, she was right.

And a month of tiny blue pills later, I am different. I can breathe. I sleep well every night. EVERY NIGHT. I am not “”just about to boil over” all the time. I feel more even, more on point. I’m excited to get out of bed. It’s a freaking MIRACLE.

I’m not living in a fog anymore. My life’s not perfect, but I’m not shying away from it, I’m not pulling the covers back over my head. I’m rising to meet the challenges some days, other days I’m just moving forward however I can manage.

So today, I’m thanking God for that doctor and for the pharmacist, and for that medical researcher, and that evil pharmaceutical company and the treacherous over priced insurance company. I’m thanking God for those little blue pills.

Brain Block

I’ve had a serious case of brain block recently and this blog has haunted me. It’s not for a lack of things going on, holy moses things are going on, but I’ve found those things challenging to write about.

So I’m thinking I’m going to take this blog a few different directions, first I’m going to start blogging about my cooking escapades. I know, exciting right? But hey I love cooking. And that’s weird, because I hated cooking when I was single, but now? Totally love it. That’s another thing I want to blog a bit about, the newly married life. I’m also going to blog some inner healing stuff that’s been happening and you know pretty much my regular old schtick hopefully though with some new perspective.

I’m baaaaackk!!

Merry Christmas

Tis the season of insanity in my parts. But I wanted to take a minute and from our family to yours… Merry Christmas!!

The Whole Family - Annyoung, Claire, Tulip and Pammy

David with Annyoung and Claire

Me with Claire and Pammy

David with Claire on her first snow day

See you all at onething!!

Excuse me, but my uterus is showing

Let me start by saying I have to vote. I don’t have a choice. I am compelled by something, mostly my love of history. After reading tons of accounts about the lives spent and lost for my liberty, I just have to vote. And then top it off with I’m a woman, and with all the women who fought to give me the right to vote. It’s just important to me. I have always wanted my voice to be heard, so it would be hypocritical to not vote.

In the debates, last week, John McCain just killed me. I want to like him, I mean I really really want to, mostly cause he’s the only pro-life candidate. But his use of air quotes when describing “health of the mother” argument on the issue of abortion, was more than simply cringe worthy. It was riot worthy. You know, John McCain, I’m against partial birth abortions too (even in rare health of the mother cases), but you don’t have to belittle thousands of American women by your trite hand gestures. “Health of the mother” situations are real and painful and I don’t want anyone referring my health in air quotes. Especially not a presidential candidate.

So I started looking for some third party candidates and I fell in political love with some of them. There candidates who believe that the privatization of insurance and medical companies are evil. They have candidates that believe in the continuation of affirmative action. They have candidates who actually want to do something about education and the economy and the environment and health care and minority rights and the war.

And everyone of those candidates I loved (on the liberal and socialist end, as if you didn’t know) was also wildly pro-choice. I mean wildly.

And I’m wildly pro-life.

You know what? it’s hard to be a pro life woman, well at least a liberal pro life woman. Especially in my community. Where everyone is told (directly or indirectly) to vote based on a handful of issues (incredibly important ones). It’s hard because all my other deeply seeded beliefs lead me away from the one “approved” candidate.

I’m still undecided about what to do. My wonderfully wise husband suggested that I take the issues and in my own heart prioritize them as I think God would. What would he consider the most important and righteous issues of the day? If I vote for those, with that in mind, I may very well be casting a vote for a man I dislike, but I think I could say to the Lord with clear conscious, “I tried to be responsible with my voice, I tried to do what you would do, I tried to judge like you would judge, in my very human, very limited way.”

Maybe at the end of the day, I know that no matter who takes office, there will be no real justice, no real change, I can only be counted as one who wanted her voice to be heard.

Scent of a Woman

There are certain aspects of womanhood that I could just never grasp onto. Even through repeated effort. No matter how I tried it just never felt natural. Two things come to mind; Lipstick and Perfume. They just seemed so brazen and noticibly feminine I never felt like I could pull it off. Lipstick is so loud and feels so crappy on your lips. Perfume always just smelled desperate to me, desperate and homone -y. Yuck. But then maybe 5 years ago I stumbled onto this.

This is Lemon Sugar. One of my favroite scents. So fresh and clean. Just delightful. I’ve gone through two large bottles and now I have this mini.

So I had finally found a perfume that didn’t smell like sex. I figured maybe I just need to try some more and then I found Stella.

This is not at all fruity. It smells like a wonderful field of flowers. I love Stella, by Stella.

So then of course came…

This is a limited edition Stella Fragrance called Peony. They no longer sell it . I love have loved Peony’s since childhood. This scent always makes me feel like a little girl.

So two flowery scents and one fruit; I need some more fruit so I went back to the Fresh line for this…

Ahhh, Bergamot Citrus. What is Bergamot you ask? I have no idea. But this is yummy and delightful.

And finally, I received this as a birthday gift. This secnt makes me feel like a hot blonde rockstar.

LAMB. This smells like nothing else I have, it smells like sparkle. Love love love the LAMB

This is how I overcame my fear of perfume (and now have a costly addiction). Sephora is my homeland, for fragrance, for make up, for comfort, everything but lipstick. I still cannot do it. Does anyone have any recommends for a natural feeling and looking lip product? I need to breech this last hurdle of womanhood.

I love ugly things

This is the chandelier from my dining room. My parents said when I first looked at the house, “well of course we can change that.” And I said, absolutely not. I love it. At that moment I receievd the Anderson eyebrow raise, that says, “Did we raise that child?”

Dining Room Lighting

I Am Loved

 

I am loved well. There are days when I feel God is withholding and cruel. I have been struggling with this on and off for a few years. Even in the midst of the some of the best years of my life, I can still feel like He is keeping himself from me; Staying far away on purpose. Just saying it makes me feel like a Brat. In the truest sense God has been merciful and generous with me. He has been abundant with me. Everything in my life speaks to that.

Yet my heart cries the opposite.

And so lately I realized that the way that David loves me is slowly proving my heart to be a liar. David, my dear husband, loves me well. His love teases me into rethinking my thoughts about God. David is sweet and patient, he is moved by my heart, my feelings, my emotions. David wants to be with me where I am, he wants to sit next to me, he wants to hold my hand.

His love has helped me to know the God who has loved me well my whole life.

Some CDs Worth Buying (even when you don’t have to)

Here’s a secret. I don’t listen to Christian music, oh wait you knew that? Am I really that obvious? bummer. Most just isn’t very good. Insert period right there. I like worship music and I listen to my fair share of it, but when I leave my work/church I need something new, I need something different. So I listen to the radio alot, I surf the iTunes store with regularity.

All that to say when I find some Christian jewels, I jump, I shout and I stand in line at the very bookstore I manage and tell everyone “I don’t have to buy this CD, I get reveiw copies, but I’m standing in line, becuase I love this artist and want to support their work.”

So I was reading Matthias’s blog today and proptly left my chair spinning, grabbed my wallet headed down a few doors and bought The Medicine by John Mark McMillan. Stunning, if you read Matthias’s blog post you’ll know why.

Albertine, by Brooke Fraser (of Hillsong Fame) has been playing over and over again in my iTunes, another CD I bought but didn’t have to. I love her voice, her sound, her style, her lyrics. It’s different and so so so enjoyable. It’s how I start my day, I get my tea, I put in my headphones, and I stare horrified at my inbox. Just ask my assistant.

Give these a listen. Both available in iTunes.