Well it's been 11 years or so. A lot has changed, mostly me. 

I've had kids, moved across the country, lost people dear to me (miss you, Mom), and deconstructed my faith. I haven't really reconstructed anything in its place, and I can tell you, it's a relief to be rid of it altogether. 

My brain was so wrapped up in thoughts of heaven and hell and sin and repentance, and it's truly freeing to be free from it. I find myself feeling very zen most of the time. I'm probably going to start a new blog soon so if anyone follows this one, (God I hope not), I'll let you know where to find me when I get there. 

I love where I am now and I love my family and it's been quite the little pirate-y adventure. 

Panic!!!!

Have you ever noticed that when you're panicking, and you tell yourself to stop, it only seems to get worse?  Maybe it's like having a fear of heights.  Jed and I visited the Rio Grande Bridge near Taos on our way home from our honeymoon.  Having a rather severe case of acrophobia myself, all I could think was, "Don't look down..."  But of course, I looked down.

Right now, life feels like a tight rope stretched over a 15 bazillion foot chasm.  It's not a very wide chasm, and I could probably get over it pretty quick, but there's this little voice that gets progressively louder every time I get closer to that rope.  I try to ignore it, but the more I try, the louder it gets until finally I feel like I have a mini drill sergeant in my head screaming his lungs out at me.

"OH MY GOSH!!! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?! PANIC! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! FIX IT!!! FIX IT NOW!!!!!"

You see, I have a rather hyper sense of responsibility.  I could probably even convince myself that hurricane Katrina was at least partly my fault.  

The chasm I'm trying to cross isn't really a result of anything I've done right or wrong; it's just life, and life is hard sometimes (well, most times).  

The truth that I'm really trying to grab hold of is that I'm not responsible for everything that happens in my life.  Now, before you go all crazy on me and think that I'm losing my grip and going to end up a homeless alcoholic for the rest of my life, I do understand that choices I make today will probably have consequences, good or bad, for the future.  For example, I chose to quit my job not too long ago, and that has had consequences, good and not so good.  However, I also feel like the decisions I've made, like getting married and quitting my job, were not made lightly and that God was directing me toward doing those things.  

So, in all actuality, God is responsible for what happens to me now.  Yesterday, when I was having one of those moments where I couldn't even think straight because of my mini drill sergeant, I had a cup of tea.  Now this wasn't just any cup of tea; my mom gave me a box of "Scripture Tea" for Christmas.  It's green chai tea, and on each little tab is printed a little verse.  I thought it was a little cheesy at the time (but sweet, of course), but each cup of tea that I've had has had a verse that was quite appropriate for what I was thinking about at the time.  Yesterday my verse was Psalm 31:24:

"Take courage if you are depending on the Lord."  

Okay. 

Easier said than done, but armed with this verse and others like Psalm 37:3-7 and Matthew 6:25-34, I can keep doing battle with the little lier that's found it's way into my mind.  

Patience

To teach is to learn twice over. ~Joseph Joubert

I’ve wanted to teach since my junior year of college, when it was too late to start working on a teaching license.  Getting a license in the state of New Mexico is quite a pain after you get out of college, and I’m afraid I don’t have very much patience sometimes.  However, as of today (well, as long as I pass a background check) I get to be a substitute teacher for a private Christian school here in Albuquerque!  

This is quite an answer to prayer.  After quitting my job at RAA, I really had no idea what to do.  I’ve been applying for part time assistant/receptionist jobs on Craigslist since the beginning of January, but I really don’t enjoy office jobs.  Jed and I started our own business offering web design and tech support (check it out here), but I don’t know very much about how to provide the services we offer, and we don’t need a lot of administration stuff just yet so I’ve been floundering a little.  (I do hope to learn all that stuff eventually, but it will take practice and time.) 

So, last week, my good friend Emmy texted me and told me how she was going to start subbing at this Christian school, and that they were still looking for subs.  She gave the name of the principal I could contact, so I e-mailed him my resume and a cover letter telling him how much I wanted to teach.  I thought nothing would come of it really, especially after I’d sent out so many resumes with so few results, but yesterday, I got a call, today I had an interview, and today I got the job (pending background check).  What was even neater was that they were really excited to have me since I have a math background, and they assured me I’d probably get called in to sub quite a bit with that experience.  (I guess math degrees do come in handy after all.) 

That’s what I’ll be up to this year.  It always amazes me how things can fall neatly into place if one waits patiently enough. 

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.” Psalm 37:7

A new year always brings a lot of talk about change. Resolutions are made with great resolve (thus they’re called resolutions) and everyone is determined that this year will be better than the last year which was full of procrastination and drudgery.

As I reflect on my past year, my mind reels with all the changes it brought. It’s still a little hard to comprehend, and I can't really imagine what this year's going to bring after this last one. Here’s a sum-up.

January: The place at which I was temping hired me permanently. I also corresponded with some missionaries on the field to which I was planning to go through World Team.

February: Jed and I started dating officially. The day after we made this decision, he left to go to Holbrook for a week to help fix up his grandpa’s old place. That was quite sad for me. But I went to Vegas with my dad

and visited Jed along the way. This was also my first Valentine’s day to actually be dating someone. But we’d only been dating for a week by the time that holiday rolled around, and all he got was an e-card and all I got was nothing.

March: Jed and I went on a double date to Chaco Canyon which was a lot of fun.

Right around this time, I also finished my application to the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

April: The family that I had been praying about going on the mission field with changed their minds about what organization they were going to go through. I was left in a bit of a muddle as I’d already joined World Team with whom they were originally planning on going. My relationship with Jed was a little funky at this time as we still hadn’t really figured out how to talk to each other about goals (or anything… We were quite awkward), so I briefly considered joining the Air Force (something I’d considered doing on and off since I graduated from college).

I mentioned this idea to Jed, and he objected quite a bit, so I decided that wasn’t the best idea after all. That got us started on talking about our future together and what we each thought about it.

May: (I think) Jed wrote me a letter telling me he loved me and explained what he’d been feeling since we started dating. To hear his feelings made me feel so much better about sharing mine and somehow, that created a much stronger bond between us than we’d previously experienced. Shortly after he’d written the above letter, he wrote another one explaining what he meant when he said he loved me. And boy, was it a heavy letter. But very good. However, the things he said in the letter and the level of commitment he demonstrated by saying those things made me feel uncomfortable progressing in our relationship on just a dating level. So I said so. About 10 or 20 minutes after I said so, as we were sitting in a lovely park near my house, he asked me to marry him.

June: I left for North Dakota. Jed drove me up, and, geniuses that we are, we drove straight from Albuquerque, NM to Grand Forks, ND. It took us 27 hours. And we had some funky car trouble on the way up and almost hit a herd of cows in Nebraska. SIL wasn’t anything like I expected it to be. But it was a lot of fun and I met a ton of awesome people there.

July: I was still in North Dakota, constantly drenched because of the humidity

and working my way through mid-terms. Somewhere in there, I dropped one of my classes because trying to take 10 credit hours, 4 of which were graduate level, and maintain a long distance relationship was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Jed and I talked a lot, but we got into quite a few very intense discussions. They were rather exhausting, and we got a lot of things out on the table which were quite helpful to know later in our relationship. He also came and visited me about halfway through the month, which was quite nice.

I ordered and received my wedding dress. $160 on eBay!

Jed found out that the job he had wasn’t going to be able to afford to keep him on any longer. Major bummer.

August: SIL ended and Jed flew up to drive me back. We brought along a passenger to drop off in Denver, and we stopped in Laramie to visit Jed’s brother and stay the night. We definitely weren’t going to try to drive straight through again. I started trying to find a job when I got back, but I also spent a little time just trying to recover from the summer and enjoy the nice dry air. Wedding planning, which started in June, continued full force as we tried to hunt down the perfect venue.

September: I found a job back with my old employer but in a different department and, great fun, had to work the night and swing shifts for 2 weeks without being given any warning. Wedding planning was on hold for me, but fortunately, Jed had taken a great interest in planning the perfect wedding. He however, was still looking for steady work, with contract work keeping him busy in the meantime. We sort of decided on a venue for our wedding.

October: We finally decided on our actual venue. Decoration buying and cupcake baking started full force.

I worked the night shift for the first bit of the month, but that was over with soon enough. I had my bridal shower, which was lovely, and my birthday, which was also lovely, within a couple of days of each other. And the wedding was only a month away!

November:
Wedding and honeymoon!

The wedding turned out lovely, even if it was a little crowded. And the honeymoon, thanks to my lovely aunt and uncle was wonderful. We went to Pagosa Springs and had a big condo all to ourselves. After the honeymoon, I moved in with Jed in his parents’ home (since he didn’t have steady work and I hadn’t worked very long yet). Jed continued to have a lot of odd jobs programming and helping people with computer stuff.

December: I had to work the night shift yet again for 2 weeks and began to feel like I was losing my mind being at work all day or all night with nothing (quite literally) to do.

My attitude got quite bad really, and I’m a little ashamed to admit that. However, that fact, along with some logistical things having to do with my health insurance (it’s rather involved), caused Jed and me to feel like maybe quitting might be the best option. So, I did. And then, as Jed was still having trouble finding a job, we decided to start our own business! Exciting, right? And a little crazy? Maybe.

So that’s where you find us at the beginning of this year.

For this year's plans, tune in next time!

My husband and his cat

From the moment I met Lucy, I knew there was no way we would ever be friends. She glared at me with her bright green eyes and wagged her fluffy tail every time I got near her. After Jed and I got married and I moved in with him, things didn’t get any better. I can walk across her path unintentionally and she hisses and growls and bats her little paws at me. If I try to pick her up (which is only in emergency situations like trying to get her out of my room), she turns into a screaming set of claws determined to tear me to pieces. I do admit that I haven’t really tried to help our relationship by being particularly nice, but really, she started it, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s just a little jealous of me.

As long as I’ve known him, Jed has sung the praises of this cat, saying she’s the prettiest cat in the whole world (and she is pretty, with long, shiny black fur and white boots and markings), and super smart, and altogether wonderful. Before I’m accused of being jealous of his admiration for his kitty, let me just say that she’s really not very nice to him either. She puts up with him whenever he picks her up, but looks miserable the whole time and will eventually growl and hiss to be put down. The only time she’s ever nice to him is when he feeds her, and she’ll do whatever he asks then. She even sits when commanded.

The other day, after Jed and I had a long discussion about all of our misunderstandings of the past couple of weeks (most of which were me misunderstanding him), we sat on the couch watching Lucy slink through the living room. She literally slinks. Most cats walk around with their tails held high, but I’ve had yet to see Lucy do this. I commented on this to Jed, and he responded that that’s one of the things he likes about her because it proves that she’s not like other cats. He then launched into his usual spiel explaining how wonderful she was and how she knows the word crate and will sit when asked and can probably speak English if she wanted to. After a minute, his attitude changed from his usual playful and slightly antagonizing tone as he began to tell the story of how he got Lucy.

His mom used to hate cats apparently (you wouldn’t know it now), but Jed always thought they were adorable. He managed at one time to convince her to let him have one. The one condition was that he would have to keep it in a rabbit cage outside. He, understandably, chose not to get one at that time. One day, some time later, he was visiting some friends in Farmington who always had kittens to give away. The litter was made up of almost all tabbies, except for a tiny black kitty that was sitting a little apart from the rest and mewing at him as he watched her. He picked her up, and was almost immediately attached to her. She purred and mewed happily in his arms, and he decided that he had to keep her. So, he took her home. Before his mom came home that day, he made a plan to put Lucy up on his shoulder and prayed that his mom would see how adorable she was and wouldn’t make him put her outside. When Jed’s mom saw her sitting there purring and licking Jed’s face, she exclaimed, “What a cute little kitten!” and Lucy was never put in a rabbit cage.

As she grew up, she remained a loyal kitty and followed Jed around constantly. She was, from what Jed says, a happy and sweet kitty, and he took care of her to the best of his ability. He called around for the best vet when she was sick and made sure she took her medicine. Then he moved out of his parents’ house. He took her with him as he moved around town, but he said she started to change a little. When he lived with some friends who had a dog, Lucy decided she no longer needed to use a litter box. She started getting crankier then, though she continued to be loyal and sweet to Jed. She finally lost it when he moved to the middle east for a year and a half. He forgot to tell her goodbye before he left, and his mom said she sat at the door for days waiting for him to come home.

When he finally did come home, she wouldn’t look at him for days. It’s taken her a very long time to adjust to him being home. Even now, as I said before, she tolerates him, but she isn’t the same sweet kitty that he brought home from a friend’s house 4 years ago. Yet Jed still sings her praises and loves her dearly. He said he believes if he just keeps being nice to her and saying nice things about her, she might just turn back into that nice, sweet kitty that he used to have.

As he told this story, I couldn’t help but think how fortunate I was to be chosen and pursued by such a loyal man. That sounds awfully sappy, but oh well. And before I’m misunderstood, I don’t mean I’m lucky because I get to get away with acting like a witch like Lucy. But, as I consider the vows Jed and I made 4 weeks ago today, and the current divorce rate, I feel God’s blessing on my life through Jed and am confident that til death do us part, we’ll be together.

It's about time!

This last week here’s flown by between meeting all sorts of new people and going to class for 5 hours a day and, supposedly, studying for however long you’re supposed to study when taking this many classes during the summer. I didn’t quite expect coming here for linguistics training to feel so much like being back in school. I’ve had to readjust to living in the dorms and walking everywhere and carrying heavy books wherever I go and eating in the cafeteria. (Fortunately, the cafeteria here is much nicer than Eastern’s.) My classes have been altogether quite interesting. Here’s a quick overview.

Second language acquisition is altogether the easiest and the most fun. We sit in a lecture every morning that is there basically so we can have the super cool lab. Our professor just goes over the psychology of how to learn a language and steps that can be taken to do so. The lab is the fun part. The class is divided into groups of 4 (or sometimes more) and assigned a coach and a “language nurturer.” The language nurturer is someone who’s native language is not English. Our coach sets up a variety of objects and has the nurturer (my nurturer is named Pascal) point to them and tell us what they mean. After that, he repeats the names of the objects and we have to point the one he said. He also acts out verbs for us and when he repeats them, we have to act them out. Already after a week, Pascal is telling us in sentences to act out different things using the objects we know the names for and we can usually figure out what he’s saying. Our language is Kirundi which is from the country of Burundi in Africa. Neat, right?

Articulatory phonetics is probably my second favorite class. We get to learn how to make different sounds that make up language (including the tongue clicking everyone keeps asking about). So far we’ve been learning what words like bilabial, labiodentals, alveolar, and fricative mean, and the difference between a voiced and a voiceless consonant. It’s a funny class, too, because for homework we get to practice making all the funny noises which is pretty different from any other class I’ve taken.

Syntax and morphology is the study of the grammatical makeup of sentences. I like this class because it’s mostly made up of trying to figure out puzzles. We’re given a couple (or quite a few actually) sentences in another language and then given those sentences’ English gloss (translation) and told to find the stems and prepositions and pronouns and whatever else we can find. It’s pretty fun.

The last class is the one I still haven’t figured out if I like or not because a lot of it seems like psychology. It’s called Introduction to Sociolinguistics and is basically the study of the uses of different languages. I like it because it kind of addresses questions I’ve thought about before, but everything is pretty fuzzy. It’s like trying to explain to somebody how you know the sky is blue.

Well, that’s kind of a general overview of everything. There’s a ton of other stuff I want to talk about but I either have forgotten it for the moment or am too lazy to write more. So hopefully I’ll be blogging a little more later on.

Where's the reset button? Dang it!

I've been having one of those months where I wish I could just wipe everything off my plate and start over. Little things just keep piling up and I feel like I don't have any control over it. I don't really have any control, though, which is probably why I feel that way. The feeling that's bothersome and unnecessary is the panic and worry that can be quite a pain in the neck to ignore. But, I found some time to sit and "be still" for a little while today and found that to be quite refreshing. I also found some time to go through some pictures I got to take over the weekend and enjoy them. They're rather peaceful.