Have a very Smarky Christmas!

Ladies and Gentlemen, drum roll please!

I present to you the 2015 Clark-Smith (Smark?) Christmas monument extraordinaire!  This is no average evergreen, folks.  This Christmas tree, this symbol of the season, is classic, yet classy; bold, yet unimposing; you absolutely cannot look upon this tree and not smile.  

Without further ado, feast your eyes!

Yes, this is our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, and if you think it's rough now, you should have seen it out in the driveway, all bare and pathetic!  When we took in this little tree, it was unloved and unwanted.  The people giving it to us tried to convince us we didn't want it.  But hey!  Free stuff?  Bring it on, man.  We broke out all the decorations, unpacked all the lights, waited in anticipation for our Tree...!  And then we got this and we honestly weren't sure if it was even worth it.  And then an idea popped into my head.  This tree needs popcorn.  I spent...quite a bit of time and created quite the mess stringing popcorn, and it was totally worth it.  A few tiny candy canes, some sparkly balls for good measure, and viola!  We have a Christmas Tree.

But Christmas didn't stop there.  Christy and I carried it over to the office where I spent most of Sunday putting together a wreath (and driving all over Bend trying to find the things I needed for it).  I may have caused marital strife by buying pinecones, but it needed them!!  If I had been home I would have picked up some pinecones out of the yard, but I did not have access to pinecones at the office, and I needed pine cones, and I needed them right that second because we had to get it done before Bryan came back from Portland.  We aren't sure how Bryan feels about Christmas yet...but I have a feeling we're about to find out.  Hopefully he takes it well, because if he doesn't like Christmas, it's going to be a very sad month.  For him.  I already have the garland ready to go over my little doorway; I'm going to bring it in sometime this week and put it up when he's not around.  Christmas is gonna happen, whether he likes it or not.

Merry Christmas, From the Smark Household!

Accepting change as an INFJ

Introverted-iNtuitive-Feeling-Judging

I had the opportunity to have not just one, but TWO conversations about personality types this week!  That was fabulous.  A lot of good things have happened this week.  We are settling in to the Clark residence, and starting to work out all the little things which have to be figured out when you suddenly move in with another couple and have to make your lives mesh.  I love having people around, and Justin and Christy are wonderful people, and I am already so enjoying having another woman to talk to and commiserate with!  But, as much as I love people, I am still an introvert, and I am still exhausted.  Right now I am actually alone in the house, just me and Buck, sitting in the super comfy chair I have claimed for my own, and it is a relief.
We are living in someone else's house, I am making dinner in someone else's kitchen.  I am trying to live with two people I don't know very well, and work for someone I don't know at all.  I am adjusting to a new place, and new roads, and new expectations, and new jargon, and it's a lot of new, and I am honestly doing so much better than I anticipated, but.....my BP was still higher than it has been in months, and I had to go meet my new boss and you could see my heartbeat through the two scarves I was wearing.  That's no joke.  However, I survived, I ate lunch, I even ordered food all on my own, I agreed with everything he said.....and then I tried to find my way home without using the GPS (I was feeling confident), and stop at Fred Meyer to get coke, a laundry hamper, and "some food".  I am not good at getting "some food".  It was a very stressed Rianna who wandered around trying to figure out how to buy food to cook dinner for people whose eating habits she did not fully understand.  It's like being a newlywed all over again.  Christy's trying to eat healthy, and so is Justin, but he wants meat and vegetables, and Jesse wants anything but vegetables, but everyone will eat whatever I cook, because they're polite, so I won't even really know if they like it or not!
Finally left Fred Meyer.
Got in the car and realized I had forgotten the coke and the hamper, which were the two things Jesse (who was locked out of the house because I had the keys) asked me to get.
Stopped at WalMart, made it out again, ran into my grandma in the parking lot!  Crazy.  And nice, but again, I'm socializing in the parking lot at WalMart, and Jesse's asking when I will be home, and wanting to talk about my job, and stress!
Long story short, I got home, talked to Jesse, both of us got upset, he talked to Justin, Justin talked to Christy, Justin talked to me, Christy came in and we had a family meeting, and by the end of the night, after everyone had talked to everyone, and I had cried more than was necessary, lo and behold it all worked out just fine!  But it took a lot of talking, and a lot of figuring, and a lot of remembering that my life is not my own, and everything I do now no longer affects just me, but also my husband and now these other people we have in our life as well.  Which is, well, stressful.
So there's one day in Bend down!  Go us!  The next morning I went to work.  The night before, of course, I was up half the night trying to figure out what to wear, because, obviously, that's the most important thing to be thinking about.  I got myself dressed in the morning (Jesse's comment: "you're wearing those shoes?"), and I went to work.  That was good.  I got there, I went inside, I sat down at my makeshift desk (meaning Bryan set up a computer and scanner for me on the other end of his desk), and started scanning stuff.  I can do that.  Yes!  It was remarkably quiet...we hardly talked, once we all settled into whatever we were doing, and at one point Bryan did this weird double take thing, because apparently my computer monitor was at just the right height to make it look like I was staring at him.  Which I wasn't.  Then Christy and I went to lunch while Bryan had a meeting, and I explained to her why I dislike making restaurant choices, and she explained to me why she avoids making restaurant choices.  We stopped by an art gallery, and went back to work.
Then Bryan had me do real work that was actually important and I messed it up and he was way too nice about it, and I have been beating myself up about it ever since.  I didn't sleep last night because I kept thinking about writing letters, and when I did sleep I dreamed about ruining people's lives by messing up legal paperwork.  But that's getting ahead on the stress timeline.  First we have to mention

that someone called Christy and invited them to dinner (Christy said "we have people living with us now, did you know that?" and "we haven't really discussed how the four of us are going to do things.  Do we have our own lives, or do we do things together?  Are we all expected to be home for dinner every night?").  Justin ended up accepting for all of us and we went straight from work to a busy restaurant with two more strangers, which is....stress.  I ate my ceasar salad in silence, and I felt as though I had been socializing all day long, but I hadn't!  I sat in near silence with two people, and it exhausted me.
I was so happy to get home, and put on my fuzzy pants, and curl up in the big round chair and finish watching Star Wars...I cannot tell you how much I was looking forward to that.  I kept looking at my phone thinking I wanted to text someone to tell them how introvert-exhausted I was, but I didn't want to have to carry on a conversation after that; just wanted to tell someone.
The boys were tinkering in the shop, so Christy and I ended up sitting in the living room and talking for an hour (at least) about everything and it was good.  It was just the right amount of socializing, and I was able to feed my introversion by being cuddled up in my PJ's, but still feel like I was being fed by having another person to actually talk to, who didn't expect small talk or witty comebacks.

All in all, thank heaven it's the weekend, and I have the house to myself and a comfy chair and sourdough bread rising on the woodstove, and I am truly blessed, no matter how stressed.

Back to our roots.

Greetings from Oregon! We are not quite settled yet, and still on the road, but we have made it to the Great Pacific Northwest; hallelujah, praise be! 

We picked up Frank and Vee in Dallas super early Thursday morning, and I had a nice nap in the back of the Subaru at 5am because their flight was delayed for two hours. The plan was to head home, finish packing, pick up the truck on Friday, and be on the road Saturday morning. Instead, the UHaul guy let us pick up the truck Thursday afternoon, so while I was teaching my last class at party planet, Jimmy Moreno came over and helped Jesse and his dad load the big stuff.  By the time I got home, half the place was loaded up.  We tossed the last of the random stuff in boxes (that’s the absolute worst part of moving, trying to figure out how to pack the last random odds and ends.  I wanted to just throw it away.), and curled up in our sleeping bags for the night.  We came into that apartment sleeping on the floor, and we spent our last night there on the floor.  It was fitting.

The next morning we finished the loading (I really got out of most of the work. I should call my in-laws more often!), cleaned everything up, turned in the keys, scarfed some “pig pigs” from the donut place, and were on the road at 10 am.

We ate a lot of PB&J

That first day was long.  Our plan was to get to Denver, Co., and by golly, we made it!  But if we hadn’t booked the hotel ahead of time we probably would have stopped sooner.  We had one last meal in Texas, and introduced the parents to fried pickles.  They were quite delicious; possibly better than the first time I had them. 

Deep fried pickles

Have you ever driven through Oklahoma?  Holy goodness.  Apparently there are jokes about the roads in OK, and while I’ve never heard them, I believe every one of them.  It was instantaneous.  As soon as we crossed the border it was like driving on a sidewalk, with periodically spaced seams and bumpy lumpies.  About halfway through the strip the lines on the road went away, and it was dark, and sketchy, and no fun at all.  Then all of a sudden we hit this massive bump; it was like driving right through a ditch in the middle of the road!  We were a little surprised, and then started laughing about how when we got to the end there would probably be a jump you have to go over to be able to leave the state.  The door’s gotta hit you on the way out.  Then Jesse said “Hey, it’s nice to have lines on the road again!”  We looked at the gps and realized that last bump had been on the state line, and it was night and day difference between Oklahoma and Colorado!  Except it was still night.  But you catch my drift.

It was a long haul, and we had forgotten about the time difference, so 11 was actually midnight, and we were all happy to climb into beds with fabulous comforters!  I thought Vee was going to sneak one out in her suitcase. 

Unfortunately, I made a poor hotel choice and failed to make sure it had a continental breakfast, so we got a later start than we intended, due to having to go to IHOP.

 

Side note: Jesse just said “I don’t regret it that much”, referring to his marriage and subsequent collapse of all his hopes and dreams. Yay me!

Originally the plan was to make it all the way to Payette, ID, where Jesse’s uncle John lives, on the second day, but because we had an extra day, due to picking up the uhaul on Thursday, we decided to circle the wagons in Twin Falls.  That hotel was an excellent choice; there was a dutch brothers across the street!  Oh, coffee gods, thank you for smiling upon my life after two years of abandonment!  Pumpkin eggnog lattes have never tasted so good!

We spend the third day in Payette, watching John process a deer and eating pizza.  It’s super appetizing, I tell ya.  Uncle John is pretty good people.  I know Jesse is greatly looking forward to being close(ish) to John again, and going hunting and doing all that good, manly stuff.

Monday morning brought us across the river where we stopped at a gas station and people were there pumping our gas!  I had been planning to take a picture doing a handstand in front of the Oregon sign this entire trip, so imagine my horror when I realized we had crossed into Oregon and I didn’t even realize it!  I was slightly devastated.  Thankfully, the border was still only about a block away, so after stopping for more dutch bros, Vee and I went back across the river, turned around, and found the Oregon sign!  It was so much smaller than I had anticipated, and it was at the end of a bridge, and there was a wall, and it was super not the way I had envisioned.  However, we made it happen.  Kinda.

Finally, 1 pm found us in Bend, OR!  We threw all our junk in the corner of Justin’s shop.  And his spare bedroom.  And his guest bedroom.  And the refrigerator he bought for us.  Then all four of us piled in the Subaru, and here we are.  Driving little back roads winding alongside the river, watching fall leaves peeking out of the evergreens flash by the window, on our way back to Colton.  Three more hours in the car today, three tomorrow will take us to Elkton, and three more on Wednesday to get us back to Bend, our new home, sweet home. 

Hopefully Jesse will have an interview with Nosler Thursday or Friday, and I should be meeting with Bryan on Monday.  Once jobs are in place we can start looking for a house of our own, and preparing for Sarah to come live with us!  Christy said we will call a family meeting to reevaluate the housing situation in a month.

And you’re all caught up!  I’m sure it’s going to be difficult for me to transition out of teacher mode…I will miss all of my Texas family and the life we shared, but I know God has a plan bigger than even Texas.

Mama, I'm coming home!

Oh my goosey!  In 17 days we will be in a U-Haul, on our way to Bend, Oregon.  I’m sure this is old news to anyone reading this, but I gotta document it anyway, right? 

Side note, my Pandora is a total teenage girl right now, and my fake eyelash has suddenly decided to start stabbing me.  My life….!

Anyway.  On Sunday we were totally grilled by our pastor about why we’re going home, and it surprised me a little bit.  You’d think, of all people, he would understand when we say “It’s time; God is taking us home”, but apparently that wasn't enough.  Maybe he feels a responsibility to make sure we aren't just doing whatever the heck we want and saying it’s because God told us to.  So we started running through the story, though there really isn't much of one, because we have no plans.  God said go, so we’re going.  Stepping out in faith.  Abram-ing it.  All that good stuff. 

We have always known we would go home eventually, and over the last 6 months or so we knew it would be sooner than we originally had assumed.  Things weren't going quite as smoothly here as they had been; my dance team fizzled out, everyone we moved here with moved back, Jesse was feeling stuck in a job rut, my new position was not what I expected it to be, Jesse’s grandma passed away, my grandma was in the hospital a couple of times….It started piling up, and when we went home for Granny’s memorial service we knew it was over.  I stood in the church with my siblings and dreamed of us cruising down to The Ranch with spray paint to stake our claims on the pieces of land where we will build our tiny homes and live together in perfect familial harmony.  We schemed to find nice, only slightly crazy people who would be willing to live in our commune and provide spouses for our future children.  We laughed at Bubba and the candy that was “SO GOOD!”  We cried at the funeral of a woman none of us knew well and many of us had never met because we are learning life is as fleeting as it is beautiful.  Someday we will all be together in the commune that is our eternal home, I know, but that doesn't make being apart any easier while we are here.

Long story short, we will not fly back for another funeral; we will be there for the life which comes before.

As soon as we got home Jesse asked me to run the numbers and figure out how long we could make it in Oregon on one income (since I would have to quit my job and had no idea how long it would take me to find one).  We looked at our bank accounts and decided the safe thing to do would be to stay here till June, which had been our most recent plan.  We knew we couldn't leave until Jesse’s suppressor came in, because you can’t move until the background check is finished.  That was September 28^th.  The next afternoon he texted me on his way home from work and said “pack your bags, baby!”   The suppressor came in one month before our apartment lease will be up, which is just enough time to give notice to the apartment and our jobs.  I felt awful leaving Party Planet, because I am the only dance teacher, and my heart hurt to think these girls will be losing dance, but Leslie managed to find someone who used to own her own studio to come in and continue my classes.  It couldn't have worked out better if we had planned it.

Last Friday I got a phone call from a guy named Bryan, who is Justin’s attorney and needs someone to help out in his office that he shares with Justin’s wife, Christy, who is an accountant.  He says he’s at the point where he can’t quite manage everything on his own, but isn’t sure he’s ready to hire an employee.  If all that works out (no promises), then basically I would be doing the same things I do now, but dealing with adults instead of babies.  It was rather amusing how everything he said made me think “been there, done that, signed the paperwork”, down to working in an office with no windows.  It sounds like it wouldn’t be the most glamorous job ever, but it’d be familiar.  Also, I didn't notice any grammatical errors on his website, so I would feel comfortable working for him.

Now all we are waiting on is for Jesse to get a call from Nosler, the company he is hoping to get hired at.  That was the only thing we had planned and is so far the only thing not working out….That and finding a house, which we can’t really do until we have jobs.  We really would like to have a house lined up before we leave here, because if not, we will be living in Justin’s “spare oom” for a while.  Spare ooms are great, and all, and I am so thankful to Justin and Christy, being willing to open their home to us, but it’s not a forever situation.  Also, if we could find a house, say, in the next week or two, we could theoretically have Thanksgiving in Bend, and we wouldn't have to flip a coin to figure out whether we’re going to Colton or Kellogg! 

Honestly, that is the one thing I've really been stressing over, this week.  Is that ridiculous?  I’m about to pack up and move across the country with no house and no jobs, and I’m worried about where we will spend Thanksgiving.  But this will be our first Thanksgiving in Oregon since we got married, and the first one we will have to pick a house to go to.  The year when we were dating the Cline family brought their venison up to the Smith house and we all had a jolly good time.  I love Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is a big deal.  Having to pick someone to spend Thanksgiving with, knowing you’re not going to get to see the other someones, is super difficult!

But it will all work out.  In the meantime, I have 10 more getups!  Only 10 more getups before we are getting up at 3 am to drive to the airport and pick up my favorite parents-in-law.  Only 10 more getups before I say goodbye to all my kids and the women who have shaped my life for the last 2 years.  After 10 getups I will turn in my keys and leave East Elementary for the last time.  There will be tears and hugs and laughter and possibly some things we can’t have at school…but we don’t talk about that…Right now is the lull before the storm.  Now is the time when I am a little excited, and a little sad, but mostly life goes on as normal; I still have to get up and get my paperwork done.  Soon we will enter the mad dash to get everything packed and loaded in the U-Haul and get ourselves on the road again.  Soon we will be home, even though we will never truly be home again, because a part of my heart will always be in Breckenridge, Texas.

Water and Fish. Two separate stories.

Cup 11 of 16 for the day!

I have had every intention, lately, to blog about my life, but every time I sit down to write about work, I just....can't.  It's not that I don't love my job!  It's just not that interesting, and I'm not allowed to talk about the few things which are.  I do a lot of paperwork, and my office is right next to the bathroom.  Close proximity to the bathroom is a HUGE thing right now, because my doctor has decided I'm dehydrated.  I don't believe her, so I drink 12 cups of water a day in an effort to prove her wrong.
 What I really need to do is man up and tell her I want to get off my meds, but I'm too much of a wimp to do that, and besides, if I get off my meds I'll actually have to be healthy, and who does that?
Honestly, I've been doing really well lately, but then the other day I had a bit of a scare.  Y'all probably remember my BP problem (I never shut up about it), but it's been basically under control for the last 6 months.  I've been taking  my meds, and avoiding salt, and working out, and it's been summer so I've been pretty much stress-free, not to mention a trip to Hawaii; how much more laid back can you get?  So things are good.  I get dizzy every once in a while; usually when I first wake up, I make it to the bathroom and I kinda have to catch myself on the counter until things even out, and then I'm good.  The doctor said that's normal, to drink some water and tell her if it gets worse.  Cool beans.
Well, the other day, Jesse was leaving for work, so I stood up to give him a hug goodbye.  I'd been up for about an hour, at that point, no dizziness.  Well when I stood up things swam a little bit, but no black spots or anything, nothing out of the ordinary, just stood up too fast, right?  Then I was dreaming.  I don't remember what I was dreaming, but I was definitely not awake.  You know that in-between stage where you're asleep but you still kinda know what's going on around you?  It was like that, and then I heard Jesse saying "what are you doing??" but it was all quiet and far away, as cliche as that is.  At that point I realized I was half on the floor and Jesse was holding me up, so I said "I'm falling over, hang on a second!"  I stood up, sent Jesse off to work, had a bottle of water, and thought "huh, that was strange."  Well, I work with many women who love me, and they decided I was probably going to die, so I called the doctor and the doctor said "no more monkeys jumping on the bed!"  Oh wait....that was what we were singing while we were in line for the bathroom, sorry!  No, the doctor said "oh you're fine, just have some water", and that was when I decided I don't believe her.  I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to pass out like that.  Anyway, that's my blood pressure story.  I drink a lot of water, and I pee even more, and I take my BP 3-4 times a day.  Woohoo!

Can't decide if this combo will be divine or disgusting...

And on to other things....like dinner!  That's what I really intended to be talking about, because I really like food, and I really like excuses to take pictures of my food.  There are too many pictures in this post, fair warning.

Tonight I'm making kokonee.  That's as far as my menu plan went, so at lunch today I asked my friends how they like to cook salmon and we went from there.
This is my Great Kitchen Adventure of the day!

I'm starting with this recipe, and then making it how I want to.  I don't like guacamole, so I didn't want to buy any like the recipe says, and instead I'm whipping up my own version of the topping stuff.
So far I have a nice big spoonful of greek yogurt, 1/4 of a small avocado, a teaspoonish of minced garlic, a few cilantro leaves, a splash of lemon juice, and a sprinkling of sugar.  I mixed this up about an hour before dinner, for two reasons:

1. My choices were start dinner or do laundry.  That's a no-brainer, folks.
2. Things like this are yummy when the flavors have time to soak together and blend and stuff, right?

So far my verdict is that I used too much garlic.  I bought a big jar of minced garlic and it's strange.  It almost has an after taste, and I'm not a huge fan, but I'm stuck with it till I get through it, sadly.

While that's been chilling in the fridge (pun only partly intended), I've been clickity clackiting away here, and it's about time to start some mexican rice.  Of course it's a Pioneer Woman recipe.  What else would it be?  It was supposed to be rice pilaf, originally, but then I had this can of tomatoes, so it's evolving...I'm going to keep that recipe open in another tab and we'll see how close it turns out, shall we?
Melt some butter, saute up some onions...
(I've always had this strange fascination with chopping onions.  It was the first thing I would do when I was doing prep at the coffee shop because I wanted to get to it before anyone else did.  Is that abnormal?  I don't know why it brings me as much enjoyment as it does...)
Add some garlic and rice and stir it around for a while.  Then the can of tomatoes that started it all, salt, pepper, and cumin, chicken bouillon, and BAM!  You got yo-self some Mexican rice pilaf.


I actually mostly followed the recipe for the spice rub on the fish, but I didn't have any of that chili powder, so I used half regular ol' burrito makin' chili powder, and half cayenne pepper.  I rubbed the fishies down, and tried to get some on the inside, too, since they're whole fish, not salmon steaks like the original recipe was designed for.

A big mess and twenty minutes later...rice is bubbling away on the stove, and as soon as the oven heats up I'll pop the fish in the oven!  I should probably provide some sort of vegetables, but that would most likely require cleaning a dish to cook them in.  Unless I just throw some corn in the rice cooker or something, but corn hardly counts as a vegetable.  It's mostly water, after all, and your body doesn't even digest the majority of it.

In other mostly-water vegetable news, I'm growing celery and it hasn't died!  It's green and growing and alive!!  Go celery!

Hey, that looks almost edible!  Actually, it was pretty delicious.  In Jesse's words, "love me some kokonee!"  Just a teensy bit spicy, but the yogurt sauce countered it beautifully.  Jesse said he didn't like the rice, but we only ate half the pan at dinner, and the rest of it has now been finished off, so it must not have been that awful!
All in all, if I would learn to slow down while I eat fish, so I don't swallow quite so many little fish bones, fish would be one of my favorite foods.  But I'm impatient and I don't like having to dissect my food after I've cooked it.

I forgot the guac-y stuff in the first picture....so here's another!  I know you wanted more....

And that's my life.
Wish you were here.

Today's View From the Mat

Honestly, I just took a picture I liked and came up with a profound-sounding caption, so now I'm trying to think of something I can say to go along with it...

"Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun." Ecclesiastes 2:11

It's easy to see life this way.  For two years we have been here in Texas, living our Great Adventure, and some of it has been truly Adventurous.  I started a dance team.  Like...What?  BYC Dance Company came into being, and it was amazing!  But some of it (a lot of it) has been less Adventurous.  We have spent countless days sitting around our apartment, staring at Netflix or, Lord help me, Minecraft.  That background music gets really old after a while, ya know?  You can only build so many houses, blow up so many piles of TNT.  Eventually you've watched all 9 seasons of Bones, both seasons of Agents of Shield, and all the nerd-tastic movies you own a few times over, and you've baked more cookies than you could eat in a month...and then eaten them all.  In a weekend.  I was making myself a planner, and collecting nice little quotes from pinterest to put at the top of every page (because who doesn't like pinterest sayings, right?), and I came across one that said

"What you do today is important because you're trading a day of your life for it."

As far as pinterest cliches go, that one struck me as being pretty deep.  I mean, it's true!  Every single day I spend sitting here on the couch, watching The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and eating salad and cheesecake is a day of my life in which I do nothing.  How's that for vanity?  It's not even striving after anything!  It's completely selfish.  But lately I find it so hard to strive because it's all just wind anyway, isn't it?  I got to thinking, and was trying to figure out what is worth a day of my life.  What is important enough to give up my life?
People.
People are worth it.  My family is worth it.  My kids at the school are worth it.  My tiny dancers are worth it.  But today is July 24th, and I have 4 days till my last summer dance class, 4 weeks until school starts again, and 4 months until I get to see my one of my sisters for Thanksgiving.  In the meantime, I have been doing that whole hippy, focus on me-time thing.  I do yoga and I started tumble classes (I am so close to having a back handspring I can taste it!).  I read two books in three days, and I built a custom planner.  I baked a batch of cookies and a pan of cheesecake brownies.  I bought strawberries and bananas and made chocolate fondue just for the heck of it.  I cut my bangs and dyed my hair and I try to dance at least every couple of days, just for me.
I get frustrated feeling my life is stagnant.  I am  missing my family, and I feel I am not doing a whole lot of good right now.  But as I was chilling in child's pose this morning, listening to the humming birds and enjoying the sunshine, I remembered something:  we came here for a lot of reasons, but one big reason was for us to have a chance to establish Us.  We came here for Us.  Not for our families or the people around us; they are absolutely still SO important, and ultimately life is about the people, but maybe it is ok to take time to be...Us.  I realized I haven't had an anxiety attack all summer, and we even went to Strawn for dinner the other night!  I socialized with people, and had normal conversations, and didn't have any ridiculous urges to yell at my husband for things I imagined.  Must be doing something right...maybe being a selfish hippy isn't so  bad, eh?  
We are coming up on our 2nd anniversary on Monday, and really, two years isn't very long, in the grand scheme of things.  Someday soon we will be ready to come back to the real world.  Someday soon we will be strong enough to focus on more than just Us.  Someday soon our family will be established and we will be prepared to expand it.  But for now, just for a while longer, I am going to be content doing yoga and cooking steak for Jesse.  We will continue to work at being Us, because someday life will be hectic and other people will be involved, and we will need Us to be auto pilot.  We will need these years of isolation and frustration and adventure and discovery and anxiety and boredom to look back on and remember who we are as Us.

And that's today's view from the yoga mat, the part of the blog when Rianna reveals the way life changes when you look from a hippy point of view.  Peace out and namaste!

Living the Life

I had never before traveled far enough, fast enough, to experience jet lag.  I know I only got a small dose of it, but let me tell you this: It's remarkably disorienting, and when I have gotten a chance to sleep, it's amazing.  Best sleep of my life.
Keeping everything in Texas time (over less than 24 hours we passed through 5 time zones), we got up yesterday (Thursday) morning at noon and had breakfast.  We packed up at geocached for a while, and then went to the airport and caught our first plane at 5pm, where we ate subway for lunch.  Our plane landed in Seatte six plus hours later, so just after midnight, Texas time.  There we finished off our Subway for dinner, and took off again around 2am.  That flight was 3 hours and 34 minutes, and I probably dozed for almost 3 hours.  I am a gifted napper.  I have periods of insomnia, so I can't exactly say that I am blessed with the ability to sleep anytime and anyplace, but I am usually able to nap whenever I choose.  Therefore, I was able to sit back and at least shut my body down to rest, even though my brain was partly aware of what was going on, and the audiobook Jesse was listening to.
Touchdown in Dallas was 5:46 am, and it took us until 11:30 to finally make our way to Breckenridge.  We ate somewhere in there...then ran some errands and make some mac and cheese at 3:00 and were both passed out on the couches by 3:30.  In 30 hours I slept just over 4 hours, traveled 5 time zones, had my feet on the ground in 3 different states, and ate 5 meals.  
But enough about that.  Is vacation worth all the jet lag?  I'm not a huge vacationer; I am more of a workaholic homebody, but I was struck with the beauty of Hawaii, and am in awe of the imagination of our Creator.  There are more colors in a mile of Hawaii's coastline than the entire state of Texas.  The sheer magnitude of the trees and bamboo and cliffs is astonishing.  The fantastic shapes of the flowers and fruits and leaves!  Round, flat, bumpy, thorny, thick, delicate, spiney, smooth; it's all there.
We spent a lot of time driving around to various places all over the island.  We stopped at countless beaches, hiked miles up and down ridiculous hills, picked up coconuts and mangos everywhere, toured a coffee factory thing, took a dinner cruise, went to a luau, kayaked and snorkeled and went to every farmers market on the island, I swear.  It was quite the experience.  Jesse has been trying to convince me for some time that we need to live in Hawaii, and I must admit he's closer than he ever has been.  We spent some time talking with a couple of the guys working the dinner cruise we went on, and they talked about "living the life", and not being there for the money or anything.  They're just living.  I would love to go to the beach every day, eat fresh food from farmers markets, live in funky harem pants and be a hippy....that would be amazing.  But for me, living the life is still being with my family.  I will never be living the life as long as I am thousands of miles away from the people who made me who I am. 

It's goin'.

Well it has been a while, and a lot has happened!

This is my little 5 yr old

To sum it up...A bunch of snow days happened, and that got in the way of many things.  We drove down to our last competition in awful snow and ice; it was bad enough that they delayed the competition for a day.  We didn't quite come out on top at this last one, but that was ok.  We still have some trophies to show off, and we are now gearing up for the end of the year showcase!  That has involved continued rehearsals for our two competition dances, extra ballet classes, my two regular

We are working on her very first solo!

Lilly asked for an emotional lyrical solo

classes and their routines, 5 or 6 new students, and three solos to choreograph, teach, and clean, costumes to be ordered, sent back, re-ordered, letters sent to parents, an auditorium to book, dress rehearsal to be scheduled, and the program written all before May 3rd!  Now of course, not all of that has fallen on me; Leslie makes amazing things happen for me.  But it has been hectic!  In the midst of all that I have had to cancel the youth group thing.  My rehearsals have been running into youth group time, and I just do not have the mental capacity to make it all happen.

Selfies with the coolest teacher ever!

In my other life, the one where I get up early and actually brush my hair, I had an interview for the Head Start Family Services position.  The lady who currently does that job is retiring, and she asked me to apply for the job when she left.  The interview was two weeks ago, and still no one has heard anything.  At first it looked like I was in a pretty good position to get the job, but now I'm not so sure.  Honestly, as my mother said this morning, it would be a God thing.  It would be so great....I really think I would be good at it, but probably I'm more wanting the office and my own space and my own title and someplace to keep all my pens and post-it notes, and God probably isn't going to bestow such things upon me for such selfish reasons, but you can pray for His will to be done anyway.  I've been trying to do that, amidst the prayers for my own desk....Mrs. Brooks offered to give me a desk in the corner of her room so I could have someplace to put my stuff!  Like I would get anything done there.  I spend too much time in her room, as it is.

Oh hey!  Have I mentioned that I am now "Tia Rianna"?  Yep.  I have adopted a tiny Mexican as a niece.  My friend Sarai had her baby Ariely, and I went over the other day to play dress up while Jesse was working late.  It's not fair that everybody is getting to have babies and be all grownup and domestic.  Well ok, I'm not in a huge rush to have babies, because then I wouldn't have time for my kids, and that would
be sad.  So my childlike/domestic adventures are limited to wearing my owl apron while I spend my entire weekend making lots of food, and then canning it.  Yep, I just canned my first pork and beans.  Hello, camping food!
It's a little intimidating, I'm not gonna lie.  I haven't canned anything in years, and never without my mother.  Really my mother has canned and I have hung out in the kitchen, eating whatever I could scrounge.  So going at this lone has been an experience.  it has made a decent mess, BUT I haven't exploded anything, and so far all (5) of my jars have sealed!  I have another 6 in the pressure cooker right now, so hopefully they will share the fate of their brothers.  Of course, if they don't (assuming they don't explode), I won't have to make dinner tonight, so maybe that's not such a bad thing!  
 Anyway, I ust end this edition of DBA chronicles, because I have something burning in the kitchen....