Hello, my name is....

Hello, my name is Abby, and I'm addicted to....it's just so awful, I can't say it. I can't!

It's true. I know it's shocking, but think about how I felt, discovering I was an addict. It's a scary lonely feeling. One that I haven't even openly admitted to myself that there was a problem, until today. I can't hide the truth any longer.

I'm addicted.

I was avoiding doing anything productive at work, and was checking out a few of the blogs that I read today for updates. Actually for new recipes, because our menu needs some major CPR. Most of the blogs I follow are all big time bloggers. They get paid, and they are at the Blogher conference in New York City. Lucky bastards. Someday that will be me, I'll be some bigtime blogger and people will hang onto my every word and I can go spend 5 glorious days in New York City. But, until then... But I digress.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, CPR and recipes.

I was looking for something gourmet, yet not weird enough that my husband and I won't eat it. And I popped on over to Ree at The Pioneer Woman , she is giving away this absolutely gorgeous purple pot. If you wait for it, the pictures will scroll across her homepage. If you look today. If not, look at that cute little butterfly border at the bottom. Do you see it? Well, the placement of said pan and the placement of the butterflies, made me think that the pan had butterflies on it, and forget trying to win it. I was buying that puppy. So I clicked over to the giveaway area and started researching how to win it. Needless to say I was disgusted that it was missing the butterflies, but thought I would take a gander at the website that the purple pan could be found on. Oh My Goodness!!

Can we say cooking heaven? Would it be tacky to email my wish list to all my friends and family and tell them that all birthday and Christmas gifts MUST be purchased from here or they will be disowned? Maybe disowned is a little harsh, perhaps, ignored, their prescense ripped from my life forever is a little less harsh.

I started browsing, and decided I would start putting things I have no intention of purchasing today in my cart. Holy smokes batman. I'm not even halfway through and I have like, well lets just say A LOT of money in that cart. There are things that I'm amazed that I have been able to cook at all without. There are things that are just plain cool, things that are just plain wicked, and they are things that I need. They are like air, I can no longer cook properly without them. I wonder if my husband would be mad if I cleaned out our savings, checking, and maxed out several credit cards to fund this little endeavor?

I don't think he would. In fact I can guarantee that he won't mind eating ramen noodles for a few months. Or living without hot water. Those things are of a minute importance in the grand scheme of things. Right?

So let's try this one more time.

Hello, my name is Abby, and I'm addicted to...cooking gadgets and gizmo's, and pots and pans, cookbooks and recipes, I do like them, Abby I am.

Now I'm off to search for recipes, hopefully I won't be distracted by purple pans with butterflies.

Lost and Found

As our family moves forward this week after losing Jack, I find myself lost. At the funeral as the pastor talked less about Jack's life, I found my mind wandering. As I looked around the room, the realization, that if I live to be 86, the majority of the people in the room with me, wouldn't be there. Over the course of the next 56 years I would sit through dozens of funerals. Yes, it's a morbid thought, but it's reality. We won't live forever. Sucks doesn't it?

That doesn't sound very lost, just weird. Right? Wrong. Speaking from someone who is a full time idiot student, has a full time job, a husband, laundry, dishes, doggies, and a few friends; it's hard to find time for everything. So you get lost. You start trying to prioritize and the dishes go unwashed and the laundry piles up, while you focus on homework, or you focus on your husband and marriage and the homework and laundry pile up. So you feel overwhelmed and, well, lost.

I'm also at a cross roads with school. I want to finish so bad, and December marks a significant milestone with my associate's degree. Yet, trying to make a decision about what route to take with my bachelor's degree is proving to be more difficult than it should be. I want to have options, I don't want to be stuck with being a CPA or a corporate accountant. I want to be able to do both, not either or. I want to be able to find a job I can fit into, and right now, I don't know where I fit. I don't know if I will be the corporate guru, or if I will do something else, like CPA or forensic accounting. I don't have a clue, and realistically I don't need to have one just yet. I'll start my bachelors in January and that will take 2 (two) years to finish. Plus the extra hours so that I can take my CPA exam. Eek!!

So that leaves me at lost. I don't know where to go or what to do, and that always makes me wonder if I haven't made a mistake. I start second guessing all the decisions that brought me to this one. I start thinking about the thousands of dollars that this is costing me and then I wonder if I wouldn't have been better off without all this headache and debt. Then again, I see the house that I want and I just have to hope that this is the right path, the one that God wants me to be on, not the one I want me to be on.

And all that does, is make me even more lost.

So if you see me out wandering around, perhaps you should grab me, and hang onto me, until I find me too.

~All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

~If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing. ~Saint Augustine

~We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance. ~Harrison Ford

Endings

Beginnings and Endings

This week I have been profoundly reminded of endings. You see, my great Uncle Jack’s life ended on Sunday. While we were all surprised, it shouldn’t have been that much of a shock, as he was 86 years old.

I’ve wanted to vocalize something for days; I just haven’t known what to say. I open word to type out my post, and the words just roll around in my head and they can’t seem to find their way to paper, at least in a cohesive way.

As I was returning home from the store late Sunday night, it dawned on me why losing family, or friends is so heartbreaking. Not only are they gone from your life, birthday parties, and holidays they also take a part of you with them.

My grandfather called me weediewart. It was my nickname that he had given me, probably from before I can remember, because I remember being referred by it often. No one calls me that anymore, which on one hand is a good thing, but on the other, it’s something I miss. And to Jack, I wasn’t Abby I was Abb. He left the last letter off my name, and always had. Even when he married us, he called me Abb. And Sunday night I realized that I would never be Abb again. My Aunt Nita calls me by my full name, unless she was joking with me about Jack’s unique nickname. And even if my entire family took to calling me Abb, it wouldn’t be the same. Then the thought came to me that Jack had taken Abb with him, just like my grandfather took weediewart.

Maybe that’s why death and funerals leave such a gaping hole in your life. You just aren’t losing the person, but you are losing a part of you too. I won’t just miss the Abb reference, I’ll miss a lot more, but the thing I know I’ll miss the most. My name.

I was also reminded this week that life is unpredictable. Here today, gone tomorrow. My grandfather hated funerals. He always swore that dying caused a burden to those still living. Maybe he was on to something. This week I often find my mind wandering back to birthday parties and holidays, and to my wedding and to my Aunt. I look over at my husband at night while he sucks the shingles through the ceiling sleeps peacefully and wonder what I would do, if suddenly he were gone. I can’t even begin to imagine. I remember how terrified I was when he a bad wreck a few years ago, and that was just worry over his injuries. I can’t even begin to imagine how my mom felt when my father had a heart attack last year. I hope that I never have to find out. I can’t imagine how quiet our house would be, and the knowledge that it would be like that from here on out. I can understand why so many widows and widowers remarry and even take their own lives. Silence is deafening.

So this Friday I’ll have “date night” with my family instead of just my husband. And instead of dinner and a movie, we will laugh, cry, and celebrate the life of my great Uncle Jack. I can’t think of a better date, or anywhere else I would rather be.

~The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. ~Mark Twain

~The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity. ~Seneca

~We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love. ~Madame de Stael

~Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality. ~Emily Dickinson

Selfish or Selfless

Several weeks ago there was an article on MSN that discussed whether being childfree by choice was a selfish act or not.

This article pissed me off a few weeks ago, and today, when it popped up again, I was pissed off again.

I love kids, don't get me wrong. And most of the time I would love to have a whole pack of them running around my own house. While I could do this through other means, such as adoption, foster care, or surrogacy; those methods, those options aren't really options for us.

Does that make us selfish? Absolutely not. They all have their own problems, benefits and risks. Do we want to have children? Yep. But neither of us are comfortable with any of the other options. Somedays I regret it like you wouldn't believe, and other days, I'm thankful, that we haven't gone down that little road and made that mistake. I think that adoption should be something that you feel compelled or called to do. Not something you do because you can't have your own child. I want the morning sickness and the stretch marks, and the heartburn, and the constant trips to the bathroom. Or I want nothing.

I don't think that because we are choosing to remain child-free that makes us selfish, I think that it makes us selfless. We know that we would feel differently towards a child that wasn't our own, and if I were to become pregnant, then we would have a real problem on our hands. I don't want to hurt a child, and we both feel that is exactly what would happen. Is it selfish to not want to let another person suffer because we don't feel capable of looking a child that was adopted as "our own"?

What about all the people who just don't want to have children? Not all women are born with a maternal instinct. What about these people who came from abused homes and don't want to see the cycle repeated? What about women and men who never get married? Are they selfish because they don't want to bring a child into a single parent home?

Having children is a personal choice, just like eating healthy. It's no ones business but yours. Your not considered selfish for eating carrots and depriving bunnies around the world from nutrition, why would you be selfish for taking on something that you really don't want to do in the first place? How is it selfish knowing that the child's life wouldn't be as full as it would with someone else as it's parents?

While I realize that the article mentions Sex and the City, a lot, yet this scenario is something that my husband and I face often. Yeah, a lot of it is probably our own insecurities shining through, but it's hard to explain to people that we can't have children and that adoption isn't for us. We get told to relax, to quit trying, to look into, that my friends, husbands, brothers, cousins, sisters, neighbors son adopted and they had no problems. It's personal, and it's hard having people tell us that "it will happen" when, without, serious medical intervention, "it" won't happen. It's not because we aren't relaxed, it's because there is something physically wrong. No one would dream of telling someone who is missing a leg, that just to relax, and when they least expect it they will walk again. But, that's a rant for a different day.

We do lots of selfish and selfless things everyday. Bringing a child into a world that is filled with such uncertainty seems pretty selfish to me. Then again, my husband and I choosing to not have a child seems more selfless to me. We won't have to deal with school shootings, worry about the future for the sake of our children, we won't have to put off retirement to pay for college, we will be able to save for our future, so that we aren't a burden to someone else. That sounds pretty selfless to me.

Doors and Windows

Opportunities are everywhere. You can find them under a rock, or in a shoe, or under a boulder, or out in the blue. I do not like them, Sam I am, I do not like…wait..that’s not right. Where were we? Oh, yeah, opportunities. They are literally everywhere. Some of them you make yourself and others are found along the way.

Then that brings up the whole “when one door closes another opens” concept.

Bet you thought this post was going to have to do with some sort of construction, didn't ya?

Just follow my ADD for a minute.

Things at my job have been slightly sucky lately. The recession has finally hit us here in West Texas and we are slow. Slow enough that the owners are concerned about the business surviving for another 20+ years if things continue as slowly has they have. I was promised a couple of days off, to keep payroll and things down, since things have been so slow. You know that whole cut down on expenses concept. I didn’t get those days off, and basically got paid to play games on the internet, as the “rush” that my immediate boss hoped for, just didn’t happen. I can count on one hand the number of times the phone rang in two days. Then I get another project dumped on me yesterday. Something that while I understand the information one party needs, I don’t know enough about the types of materials we use to WRITE it all down. In words, kinda like I right on here, except without the sarcasm.

So I have wondered, if maybe this isn’t one of those door-closing moments. Except instead of it being slammed shut on my fingers, it’s gradually closing. Or if maybe, just maybe, my half-day off a few weeks ago, was enough time off that I realized that I’m kinda burnt out. I know, I know, how can you not know you are burnt out? Hello, work full time, go to school full time, cook 5-6 meals a week, laundry, must sleep somewhere. It’s easy for things to fall through the cracks. You know, like me.

So the question remains, door closing or …..?

I had planned on finding a new job after the first of the year. I’ll have my associates’ degree in December, and surprising to myself, there are actually people who will hire you with just an associates’ degree. So you know, with these thousands of dollars in student loans I’m racking up, I figured it would be a wise idea. Plus, the longer I’m here, the harder it will be to leave. It’s a small company, most of which have known each other for 30+ years or are related. So I have become “family”. And it’s always hard to leave family behind. Except for Great Uncle Edgar who is 94 and still asks everyone to “pull his finger”. Yeah, won’t miss that guy.

So my question is this. How do you know when one door is slowly closing? Or is God just making it easier on my heart to leave?

I’m pretty sure that the door hasn’t been slammed shut yet; there are no tears, no panic. Instead there is just a “what do I do”, question that keeps looming. Do I stay, do I go, do I wait, do I know?

Darn crystal ball. Rolled it off the table a few weeks ago and broke the stupid thing. Now I have this big gray stain on my carpet and no answers.

Or, am I looking at this all-wrong? Maybe it isn’t about doors and windows; maybe it’s about learning not to worry so much. Maybe it’s about having faith, trusting that God knows what he is doing, without my input. Well, without listening to my input, anyway. I know He sees stuff I don’t, and I’m sure that this is just a test of patience. Wonder if He would be opposed to bribes for a peek at that crystal ball? Probably.

So for the time being I guess I have to quit worrying about doors and windows. I’m going to try to learn to be patient. I’m going to try and take more time off from work. I’m going to try to be patient. Maybe if I repeat it enough it will sink in. I’m going to try and be patient. And have a little faith, that things will all get worked out, that I’ll get all worked. I am my own worst enemy after all. I’ll also spend more time worrying about the things that will never happen.

~ Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. ~John Quincy Adams

~ One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life. ~Chinese Proverb

~ In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. ~Blaise Pascal

To fail or not to fail

I had an epiphany.

Yeah, another one. They just keep coming and coming and coming. Apparently that’s what happens when you get old. Or so I’m told.

Next month, I will have been a college student for an entire year. Wow.

I made it a year the first time too. And then life happened. Or my commitment wavered. Or…

So I got to thinking, what have I accomplished in the last year? Please imagine wheels turning, smoke coming out of my ears and then the sound of machinery breaking down.

So back to the question of what have I accomplished? Let’s see, I have made a baby blanket, sort of, I hired out my mom to do some of it, and she gave it to me, back in December. I hope I can finish it tonight. I rescued Bailey, but then again, I think he is rescuing me, so not sure if that counts. I’ve attempted to keep the DVR cleaned off. Have yet to succeed. Except for when it crashed and I lost everything.

Sure I’ve maintained a mostly A average. What can I say; Algebra kicked my butt, both classes. I’ve done my homework even when I didn’t want too. Instead of hanging out with my parents I’ve gone home and studied. Sure I’ve taken my laptop to places that I probably shouldn’t have, and times when I shouldn’t have.

Yet, I know that I will fly through next month, and I’ll wake up and it will be August and I’ll be started my last block of classes. My last 2 classes. The only thing that will stand between me and an associate’s degree is….well, me.

I’m my own worst enemy. I’m also my biggest fan.

So how does all this fall into that whole epiphany thing?

Well, I joined Wei.ght Watc.hers* a few months ago. To say that I have fallen off the wagon is an understatement. I’ve fallen off, laying face first in dirt, and the wagon periodically comes and runs me over, you know, just for good measure.

So I got to thinking, that if I had put forth as much effort, and the attitude towards losing a few pounds as I had towards school, where would I be now? I don’t want to think about that answer, because I know it, and I don’t like it.

When Algebra got hard, it’s not like I just decided to blow it off, and not do my homework, instead I put in more effort, I researched, I made sure that I allowed extra time to get assignments done, in case there was a problem. I tried hard, and then when hard wasn’t cutting it, I tried harder. I pushed and I pushed and I did everything that I had to in order to pass the class.

So why is weight loss any different? Or quitting smoking? Or going to church?

It’s not. As much of as cliché as it is, you get out what you put in. I put in a ton of effort with Algebra, and I earned a B. I’m very, very proud of that B. I would have loved an A, but I couldn’t be more thrilled about my B.

I have put a lot into school. I hardly read books for fun, I don’t cross-stitch much, or crochet, or cook a lot of complicated meals. I spend that time studying, putting effort and time in. And my reward – well, I haven’t gotten that yet, but 6 months from tomorrow I will graduate with my associates’ degree. I can’t see myself quitting now. All I can see is that piece of paper with my name on it. I have dreams about it. I can see myself out celebrating with my husband and my parents. I can taste it. Yeah, it just tastes like really expensive paper.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t been permanently successful at weight loss. Maybe that’s why I didn’t finish school the first time. Because I didn’t see the end result. I couldn’t imagine how different things would be. Granted, with my associates’ degree, my life won’t suddenly be different, I’ll be the same person, I’ll just have spent a small fortune to get it, but it’s just a stepping stone to getting what I really want. But I can still imagine what my life will be like. I can imagine having the money to buy our house, and not worrying about just getting by. I can imagine that. I can see it.

Maybe that’s what the problem with the weight loss is. I know what I want as an end result, but I want it now. I have had a hard time sticking with it because I wanted instant results. You know, weight loss inside, just add water. I didn’t have that impatience with getting my degree, so what’s different?

Me. I’m different. Maybe it’s that whole getting old and wise thing. Maybe instead of blaming various things, I’m not doing the research, not putting in the effort to finding out why.

Hmmm, maybe I’m onto something.

Drum roll please.

If you want to see any results, you have to be patient, and you have to be prepared to stick it out for the long term. (Cymbal crashing) Yeah, that was new.

Whether it is in weight loss, school, a marriage, kids, building a house, or even watering the dog. It all takes time. It all takes work. It all takes starting the task, and seeing it through to the end.

Maybe failure, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail? What are you waiting for?


~There is no failure except in no longer trying. ~Elbert Hubbard

~One fails forward toward success. ~Charles F. Kettering

~The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed. ~Lloyd Jones

Deaf

When I say deaf, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Probably something to do with hearing, or ears. Or your children when you are trying to get them to clean up their room.

I think that there are a variety of “deaf’s”. I think that you can’t hear because you physically have something wrong. I think that you can’t hear because you don’t want to hear it. This one is often put into place for bad news. I think that you can’t hear when your child, spouse, or pets have needs that aren’t being met. These are those silent words, the ones that are usually conveyed by a look or a request that is pleaded onto tired ears, and you are distracted and give the answer that they want to hear, but don’t follow through with the actions that prove you heard their needs.

So now that you have had that little trip down definition lane, let me give the official dictionary version.

Deaf – adjective – 1. lacking or deficient in the sense of hearing. 2. unwilling to hear or listen : not to be persuaded.

Maybe Webster and I were related in a former life or something.

I think my dog (yeah he is staying) Bailey, is deaf. At first I thought he was just unwilling to listen, which is politely saying ignoring your happy self, but now, not so much. When I walk down the hall and call him, his ears perk up, but I think he is straining for something, just trying to hear my voice. He sleeps so soundly that I have to touch him to wake him up to go outside of a morning, and other times, I think that his sense of smell takes over and he smells my scent better as I approach and gets up on his own.

Watching him sitting in the living room straining to hear me, or listening intently, I don’t really know, has made me think, how we are so similar. We are capable of drowning out our husband as he talks about work, we are capable of drowning out our mother on the phone while we watch TV. We are all guilty of being deaf. Sometimes we just don’t hear, and other times, we just don’t want to hear. We hope that by ignoring it, the problem will go away, and instead, the problem usually ends up bigger than we could have imagined. We end up alienating our spouses, our children, our parents, and our pets.

The last few weeks I have been busy with work, school, and various other things. You know like cleaning, and laundry, and remembering to run the full dishwasher, and writing papers, and taking quizzes. I’ve also been deaf. I’ve worried about me, looked out for number one, and my husband, my dogs, and mostly myself have suffered because of it. Instead of being able to go home and relax, I’ve had to go home and play catch up on laundry and cleaning and homework. And I haven’t got to lay in bed at night and love on puppies, and I haven’t thrown a toy and played with Blaze. I’ve been deaf to their needs and their wants. I’ve missed my husbands’ pleas for time together that don’t involve homework and cleaning.

So like Bailey, I’m going to have to stop what I’m doing, and hold my breath, and strain just a little to catch what I’m missing. Because if I were to die next week, I wouldn’t want them to wish that I hadn’t been so deaf for so long and to wonder how different things would have been if I had paid more attention. If I had just took the time to listen.


~Lots of people talk to animals.... Not very many listen, though.... That's the problem. ~Benjamin Hoff

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. ~Epictetus