Monday, July 14

This past weekend was a beautiful picture of my life. Friday night after E went to bed, we sat down to play cards but instead had two random pop-in visitors. We sat around and drank girly drinks (even though they were both men)... talked about things like Jacob's deception in the Bible and 5th anniversaries... and Dan and I went to sleep talking about how much we love our friends.

Saturday morning I hopped in my Mom's car and headed with her to Chapel Hill. She dropped me off to meet some old friends for breakfast before heading on to Raleigh to see my brother and his wife. We sat in the restaurant and enjoyed each other... and it was really one of those moments where you realize some friendships just don't change. Several of us have left Chapel Hill, but you wouldn't know if from our time together. I spent the rest of my time there driving Starlyn's car around to some old haunts...

-I stopped at the Student Stores and treated myself (and Elizabeth) to some new attire... and some new notebooks.
-I went to Sutton's for some Potato Munchers and a Vanilla Coke. (and sadly couldn't find my picture...)
-I walked through the alley below Player's and smelled the same ol' smells... even with the absence of The Rat.
-I walked through the BB&T building and immediately felt like I was a freshman... meeting Shawnee for a Squeaky Dog after class.
-I went to U-Mall and amazingly didn't buy anything at Camerons.

Mom and I had a hysterical drive home where she made up some fake memory about friends of mine...

Then Sunday after church we had a "just us" day. Dan and I did yardwork while E napped. When she woke up, we played in the sprinkler then went to the pool. (Although, sidenote, I wasn't excited about the 40-year-old-middle-school-girls who looked me up and down when I got there. Seriously, I thought those days were gone. Not so much.)

Our DVD player wouldn't work right last night so we couldn't watch the Small Group video with the college students... so we just played Nertz instead. And then someone dropped a frog off in a Nike box at our door. Random.

All of those things rolled together reminded me why I enjoy my life so much. I little bit of this and a little bit of that... all of them various blessings to make one happy weekend. Top that off with lunch with Misty today after our first Kindermusik class... I'm one lucky girl.

Contentment level= 95%

Sometimes a picture says it all...

(Mimi putting on lipstick, Easter.)

Totally how I feel in this rainy mess.

Spit.

My days this week have been filled with hurt and tears. A hard, hard week in my head and my heart. Yet through it all, my sunshine is Miss Elizabeth. Her smiles, her laughs, her drool and spit... and even her not-enough-hair-ponytails bring my happiness on days when I want to refuse joy. She says "oh no" when she sees that it's raining... she feeds Webster cheese and thinks it's the best thing she's ever done. I continue to be amazed just watching her grow.

Miracles, in picture form.

Being a Girl is Hard.

Being a girl is hard. It just is. There are so many things that we deal with that boys don't think twice about. Friends hurt our feelings and while situationally things might get easier, sometimes the hurts go really deep and scar us at our core. We spend hours as a teenager wondering what people will think about us and wondering if we will fit in. Then we grow up a little and pretend to think less about those things, all the while just finding new ways to think about them.

And so we've just (supposedly) bought a house.

Our offer got submitted and accepted tonight... a different house than the first two mentioned, but great in a whole new set of ways. And it was built in 1994. We've got to get points for that, right?

Here's where being a girl kicks in. Already there are thougts going through my head about what people will say... did we "rebound" into this house since the other one just fell through? Did we really think through this decision or just wanted A house? And... even bigger... did we pick this house because it's right down the road from two of my best friends???

I have spent years carving out my identity separate from my girlfriends. I have always been "that girl" who cares very much that she has a best friend. More so than having a boyfriend, best friends have always been much more important to me. And I've always wanted these women to know that they are my best friends and I theirs. I've often fallen into the shadow of a more popular, more dynamic "lead" where I end up being the short funny sidekick. It's taken a lot of journaling, a lot of my crushes falling for them, and a lot of building my own esteem to realize that my worth is not directly related to my best friend-ships.

So when this great house became available right down the road from my dear friends... and yes, my best friend in town... my first thought was that we should not take it for that very reason. In it's own backward way, it felt like I was somehow asking my girlfriend in 7th grade to go to the bathroom with me at class change. It felt like I was once again hiding in the shadow of those friendships.

Until a wise friend of mine pointed out to me that it was just the opposite... that it was a mature and "grown up" decision to choose to live our lives (and bring Elizabeth up) in a neighborhood surrounded by people we love. These are people we see 3 to 4 times a week anyway... essentially, I'm just going to be Going Green in that we can now walk to each other's homes rather than drive.

I'm already guarding my heart from the "attacks"... especially because I know one friend also looked at this house and didn't like it. Thankfully, God has brought me to a better understanding of who I am separate from my friendships that allows me to enjoy them all the more. And, thankfully, we'll be living in a (mold-free, unlike the last one!) house that will be a home.

And, thankfully, my girlfriends will be right around the corner.
And I don't care who knows it.
LYLAS.
BFF.
RHTS.
Out the door in 94.

I'm just so over it.

This all just sucks. (Sorry Tom...)

We made an offer on a house... but it looks like it might fall through. Bad inspection today. I'm so bummed.

That was the one bright spot in our week... prior to that I've had a sick baby, a sick husband, and my step-mom is in the hospital and has not been doing well at all.

Can we just scrap this week and have a do-over?
I'm just so over it.

Roller Coasters

I have very vivid memories of roller coasters in my life. My first experience was going to Carowinds with Jamey's family for his birthday... and we were both too short to ride one. Yep, even the Scooby Doo one. Sadly, the bumper cars were enough to jog my bladder up a bit for a kindergardener, so I don't know why I thought I could have even handled a more adventurous ride.

Jump ahead to my eighth grade year... I clearly remember how cool I thought my Aunt Debi was because she would ride that rickety old roller coaster with me at the Pavillion in Myrtle Beach. I'm not sure if we rode it before or after having a Peaches Corner hot dog, but I remember feeling queasy nonetheless.

Freshman year at UNC during one of my asthma exacerbations (mentioned below) when I was having the closest I've ever come to a near-death experience, I fully remember feeling as though I was riding a roller coaster in the real-life ambulence trip. As I was unconscious, I didn't realize it was an ambulence, and instead my subconscious had me screaming and hanging on for fear of death in some imagined coaster car. As we got closer to the "station", my ex-boyfriend who was riding with me kept encouraging me to hang on due to my screaming to him "I'm not going to make it!" (I've since then equated his role in my subconscious to my spiritual cheerleader, and maybe that was what God was using to cheer me on to waking up.) (I'm not making any of this up, by the way... it freaked me out then and it freaks me out even now that I've shared such a story with the masses or lack thereof online...)

My current roller coaster is a little less exciting, but just as real to my psyche. Dan and I are in the process of looking for and buying a house. I took the forbidden step last week of falling in love with one... now nothing else comes close. We went to several open houses today and realized that if nothing else, we are both on the same page in our love with THE house. We've taken a couple of friends with us to look at THE house, and they keep offering encouragement- "it looks like a Becky and Dan house!" or "oh yeah, I can so see you here."

Enter the roller coaster. Conversations in our house range from "Where will we put the guest bed?" to "Should we wait another year to save more?" I talked to my Dad today who offered fatherly advice of "don't bite off more house than you can chew." Yes, this house is bigger/nicer than we originally thought we could/would have. But we have waited. We have prayed. We have paid off debts. We have fought. We have looked at our options. And now we are in love.

Hopefully I will be able to invite you all to a cookout at THE house sometime soon. If that's not the case, will you please bring a clean receptical for me to throw up in? I might need it anyway... roller coasters often do that to me.