This is a Good Life Letter

Dear Blog Reader,

Yesterday I had lofty goals of getting many items crossed off the list as this early Sunday morning brings another round of travel.  Instead, I nursed a headache from book club Christmas party shenanigans while drinking coffee with Karen and Brittany for hours.  Then, because she realized I was getting in rougher shape (so responsible I am!), Karen proclaimed that lunch was necessary and the next thing I knew I was in her car in a this is what I look like straight out of bed mode.  She was spot on.  Food fixed all woes.  Next, we went to a craft show and then put mascara on in the same bathroom - we showered in different ones - to get ready to head out to the annual cookie exchange.  Book club Christmas party Friday night, where there are no rules about sparkles and selfies and group picture posing.  Coffee drinking Saturday morning with Christmas tree leggings and two forever friends.  Pretending like I'm a college student lunching on Saturday afternoon.  Cookie exchange partying on Saturday night with even more of my favorite people.  This is a good life.  The only thing I can actually say was productive about the weekend was I had a really great mascara rendevous last night and much needed quality time with the people I call my people.  

P.S.

Please tell me you understand what I mean when I say it was a great mascara day.  Sometimes it goes on just right and you feel like you just might be six years younger.  

P.P.S

The picture of Bobsy Twin and me is supposed to not be the same exact one side by side but I'm sitting at the airport and I can't do anything to fix it so seeing double is what you get.  

P.P.P.S

Karen came to my house at 4:15 this morning to take my garbage out and clean the coffee pot and bring my running late hiney to the airport.  She is the very best human. 

Sincerely,

Me 

It's a Somewhat of a Fortunate Fault

Felix culpa.  

Latin for "fortunate fault."  

Finding the good.  

Felix culpa and I like it.  

I'm not even sure where to or how to what to say seeings as how there's been a void of written words since before I ran 13.1 miles with my sister-in-law and ate zebra cake on Mother's Day.  Well, there's been words.  A great many words.  Just not the kind which are easily wrapped up and placed on a page.  

I've read more than once from several different spots this summer about how a person cannot actually process nor intelligently discuss all that is going on while it's happening.  But rather, the brain wrapping has to get a high five after it happened.  The places I read this nugget made it much more fancy schmancy but that's the jest of it.  One has to be through the woods before one can remember why they were in the woods in the first place.  Or something like that.  

A slight sidetrack note here.  It's the oddest thing to me that when you need to see or hear words, you do.  My summer reading has included everything from Bossypants by Tina Fey to The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion to A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess to more...and yet?  Yet the words find you.  The Felix Culpa?  Came from a book.  The notion of not being able to substantially process until after?  Came from a book.  It's amazing, books and their power.  

Sidetrack another note here.  I had a professor during grad school who once answered a question with, "I don't know enough about that to speak intelligently."  That has always stuck with me as a class act way of saying how in the hell do I know?  Remain quiet until you do know.  Good plan Dr. Walking Stick.  I'm not kidding, he had a walking stick. 

Back on topic in three, two, and one...I mean here, I'll just say this for now.  

It's been a summer.  A summer with a capital A.   

And when I say that, I mean it.  

My life today looks pretty much not a whole smidgen anything like it used to, other than I still read a lot, take a lot of pictures, run a lot around my house, run a lot around my town, run a lot around my head, and like pretty.  See?  I can't wrap this up and put it down intelligently...probably should have remained silent but lucky for you, it's ramble time.  There's so much to explain from my career head to my feeling heart but for now I'll say this.

I'm single.  It was a process that took awhile and it's for the best.  The very best for both and that's all I say about that as it's not just my story.     

And in April, I quit my job.  On a Thursday morning I walked into my principal - whom I love dearly - and had a heart to heart and when I walked out, it was official.  

I didn't have a plan.  

I didn't have a back up.

I did, however, have a feeling.  A gut feeling it was time to find some new.  To push myself to grow and change and grab the wheel of my life by the horns.  I think I mixed two metaphors there but I kind of like it, therefore it's staying.   

Quit and then a whole other pile of change occurred...you know, the unraveling and becoming alone. 

Now fast forward to dang near the middle of August and here I sit.  In a hotel room with a new job.  A job which requires travel.  A job still in education.  A job which involves the meeting of different people pretty much every single day.  A job which has me to drive into a town, find the school, walk up the stairs - schools most certainly always have some form of stairs you walk up or maybe that's just the last couple I've been at but still - and face a room full of strangers.  Yep.  That's it in a nutshell.  And so far, I freaking love it.  

Quitting.  Quitting is a necessary evil sometimes.  It's a fortunate fault.  A Felix Culpa.  

Now let's see if I can start to figure out a way to back the track up some and do some woods talking about the woods walking.  We shall see if it comes.  If not, please know that the zebra cake did indeed turn out and the table was indeed pretty and my sister-in-law and I did indeed run that half marathon. 

One last sidetrack, I think I like the backside of having it together better.  The unflattering inappropriate joking and the a piece fell off the cake.  The backside of having it together is a win.  

 

From Tuesday to a Different Tuesday

On Tuesday, in a parking lot at o' dark thirty, I had a mild panic attack.  

It went something like this.  

Car was running.  Of course it was running as we are in week twenty-seven of below temperatures so starting the car is routine.  

I hit unlock on the fob and nothing.  

I had just finished my morning run so I was sweaty which made the bitter cold all the worse.  I was shaking, holding my tennies, and frantically clicking the unlock.  Nothing.  

Panic attack.  I almost ran after Karen's car as it drove away...

And then I used the key.  

Funny how technology can ruin us.  

Keys!  They still work!  Even if the fob doesn't.  

On a different Tuesday, on the drive out to my brother and sister-in-law's house, I commented several times about the sky being pretty and the drive feeling relaxing.  Does sitting in a passenger seat feel so darn good to anyone else out there?  Might just be my favorite decompressing time. 

When the sky is pretty, it's not just relaxing but also worthy of pulling over.  

Then we carried on our way to celebrate birthdays for Momma Debi and my older brother with family visits and cheesecake.  

There you have two different stories about Tuesdays.  

Up Up Time

Today was back to work day and now that it's evening, I think I feel alright with it.  Well, I have to be in compliance since the money tree for the backyard hasn't been delivered yet.  That Amazon Prime two day shipping isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Anyways back to what I was saying, I tend to take the week and a half or so of Christmas break to really fall off the routine and structure bandwagon.  I do things like eat coffee ice cream after having cinnamon sugar toast and I sleep until seven and don't do any running or really much of any activity other than sitting cross legged with a crochet hook or lifting a coffee mug to my face while visiting.  

 

 

And I have decided I need those days of no rules with wearing leggings with fuzzy socks and nights of baths with wine and a book.  It actually makes me itch and want the structure.  The down time makes me want the up time back.  I was excited last night to set my alarm for 4:42 to hit the gym and I felt back in control while packing my lunch with real food like carrots.  The novelty will wear off again and then force of habit will take over but for now, I'm enjoying it all feeling like new resolve.   

It's up time again.  Go time.   

But that's not to take away from the magic that was Christmas break this year.        

  

I am fairly certain I could have really handled a few more days off but like I said previously, I think I'm alright with being back in the game.  Days of playing with helicopters and enjoying homemade tomato soup with ridiculous grilled cheese and never taking off glorified pajamas can't last forever.  Right?  Money tree where are you?     

We are Strong

As I sit here on this Saturday morning of Christmas break, with my 1980s sweatshirt quilt wrapped around me and a space heater humming at my feet, I feel like I want to write.  Probably because I just spent the last two hours reading.  Reading makes you want to write.  Or at least it does that magic for me.  Reading someone else's fantastically woven words inspires me to sit down and peck something out.  All full knowing, it won't be to the caliber of published works. 

 

But it's writing.  For me. 

 

And writing is a funny thing.  Sometimes I don't feel like I want to ever do that business again.  To sit here in this blue paisley chair and put any thoughts from my head down to this paper.  And then I go with that feeling and don't do it just for the sake of it.  But then it strikes again, the pull to make sense of an intangible train of thoughts.  And then I go with that feeling too and sit here with my space heater to say something. 

 

 

Which in this case is...

 

I love my book club. 

 

You want to talk about something that makes me feel inspired to read, write, and to live like I could jump off any risk at any moment?  Let's talk about book club then.

 

It's a sacred thing.  I don't toss that word around lightly either.  Sacred.  Sitting around a table or in a cluster of chairs or we could even sit on the floor, with that group of ladies...is magic. 

 

We had our annual Christmas party the Friday before all of the festivities started and this year proved to be as epic as all previous.  Complete with the Bison game on in the background playing to a vinyl records soundtrack of the old country of George Jones mixed in with the shatteringly beautiful Your Song by Elton John. 

This time of year is always bittersweet.  One celebration after another while the ever present nag of this the end of another year pulls at my heartstrings.  This party was the kick start to the nostalgic feeling of wrapping up the past 365 days.  All of us went around the table and reflected upon our favorite moments from 2013.  Our challenges and our triumphs and our misgivings came through, like they always do. 

 

It's a rare commodity, to be fully accepted and never judged and to put it almost unfairly simple, that is precisely what my book club is for me.  I often say things in book club or think things aloud in book club which I believed in my head would never see the light of day.  For I know those thoughts flying out of my mouth, have a safe spot to land.

 

It's a sacred thing.  Book Club.  At the end of every meeting, there is usually a mess of wine glasses and empty martinis and leftover bits of food and crumpled napkins but as we all put our coats on and shake our hair out of their collars, we are never a mess.  Quite the opposite, we are aligned and back to our core...ready to tackle the next month.  Because anytime we are given the full acceptance we all crave and so desperately need, everything else - all the little - quite frankly doesn't freaking matter.  

 

For we have been reminded we are strong.  Strong women who can and will do anything.    

Freaking Cold or Winter in the Desert

It's bone chilling cold today and I just spent about three and a half minutes cleaning out my car backseat quick like with out socks on my feet and a cement garage floor.  It was fun.  Fun and smart. 

 

Twenty-seven below zero actual temperature is not for the faint of heart and it really makes me question why living here has appeal and then I remember it's my people.  My people is the appeal. 

 

Because let me tell you this, winter in the desert is much more my swing.  A Thanksgiving week with bare feet making pies and morning runs and bike rides under the sun and tricks in the pool both day and night and being outside under a pink sky and evening wine chats with patio doors open to let the breeze in...is the best ever. 

 



 

Winter in the desert will wear you out...fall asleep in the middle of the living room in the midst of chaos kind of wear you out.  Winter in the desert is appealing, more so than this twenty-seven below zero ridiculous that's floating around here currently.