Countdown to...

FALL! Technically, Fall is here, but I am wishing and hoping to wake up to the kind of Fall day I dream about. The day that is crisp enough in the morning to make you want a light sweater and a cute scarf. We have had a couple of nice mornings, but nothing requiring extra accessories, and none day that stayed "Fallish", if you will, all day. I am also ready for my first Iced Pumpkin Chai of the season. And pumpkins. All all that jazz.

And then, of course, I am counting down to my TWO DAYS OFF! A four day weekend! Are you kidding me? This is the last week in September. Hard to believe. But it means I am THAT much closer to regaining my sanity.

This is a good thing. Trust me.

On my days off, I hope to:

- See a movie

- Eat outside at a delicious restaurant

- Enjoy the aforementioned pumpkin chai

- Buy a book and spend some time reading (probably with my pumpkin chai)

- Write a long overdue letter to a dear friend

- And maybe, just maybe, go the the fair. I REALLY want to see the musical

That is what is defined on my days off wish list, so far. Lots of other options have floated through my head. We will see what sticks.

Hope everyone's week started well!

Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh BOY!!!

So, ya know how I've been going crazy a little lately? Just in a bad place, mentally/emotionally. Well things got a little better this week. I expected them to get worse, because I did something stupid. I read a book that usually makes me feel crazy. Have you read The Perks of Being a Wallflower? I bought it a few years ago and have read it a few times. It's very honest, which makes it kind of hard, or... ugly? Is that the right word? Life is ugly sometimes. Messy. Anyway, I like it a lot. I was kind of disturbed last summer when I saw it on the "School Reading List" table at Barnes N Noble. The book is about a high school kid, a freshman in fact, but the thought of someone that young reading it made me uncomfortable at the time. Now, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Maybe because this time, when I read it, I didn't feel MORE crazy. I actually felt less. Thank goodness!

Also, I think that going to church on Wednesday helped. My wise friend, Marie, taught me "fake it till you make it", and I left work on Wednesday knowing that I needed to be able to fake it at church that night. At our last practice, they all saw me cry. It wasn't totally bad. God had taught me a really life changing truth that week. Or at least, a perspective changing truth. One that I meant to blog about. So it wasn't totally sad crying, more confessional and submissive. But it rocked my world so much that it's kind of what started me slipping into my dark spot.

So I walked into church ready for fake smiles and reflected questions. But that group of people... man, they are so awesome. Just cool people. Our leader is so amazing. It didn't take long... my smiles weren't fake. They felt a little funny on my face, but not because I didn't mean them. So that helped.

Then Thursday I got to wear jeans and a t-shirt to work, and they bought me Jason's Deli for lunch because I won a contest, and it was a pretty good day. We had some training Thursday night and the trainer was so funny. And knowing that the next day was Friday is always a huge help on Thursday.

Friday was okay, but the fact that it is Friday always makes it a pretty good day. And guess what... it RAINED! Real rain! For a few hours. Glorious! Right as I was leaving work, it started.

But here is the exciting news: I have two days off!!!!! It's always what I crave when my thoughts get out of control. Time to myself. That's usually what spurs me to take a day off. Now, last year being my first year at the school, I had a total of 2 days off to use. I used one to go to a funeral and one to move. My year started over at the end of June, so this year, I have a week of vacation and two sick days. Holla! I have already used one of each, but that means I have five left. Now taking these two days off, I will have three. That kind of freaked me out when I was putting in the time off request, but I think it will be fine. With the holidays coming, we have a few days that school will just be closed.

And I wanted to take two days instead of one because I want to have one day to spend out and one day to spend at home. Whenever I have a day off, I always want to do things at the house, like clean and organize, but I also really want to do things out of the house like go to lunch and go see a movie and go shopping. I never fit it all into one day. I either take care of the house, but don't do anything fun, or have a day out and come home to a messy house. This way I can do both!

It is a Monday and Tuesday, and it is in the middle of October. I'm HOPING that the weather will be cooler. I absolutely love fall. It is my all time favorite, for reasons I have blogged about before =-) So I am going to start making my "days off wish list". I want to craft, I want to see at least one, most likely two movies, I want to go eat lunch at that pizza place that Brett doesn't like, and I want to buy some cold weather clothes. I need to. And shoes, for sure. I could use some new clothes now, but I want to make it through the season with what I have. I think I can, except I need some new bras and underwear. We'll see if I can make it another month without shopping. It should be easy, because I'm broke, but I have a really good coupon. I need to see when it expires. If it's soon, I may take advantage of it, at least for the essentials.

Money is really tight, and we have some extra expenses coming up. October is going to be tough! But I know we will make it. We always do.

I hope you have some time to yourself coming soon! It's healthy.

Ready for Fall, and Other Random Thoughts

If you haven't heard, we had some really nice weather in the Dallas area last week. After what felt like an eternity of over hot days this summer, like the pool wasn't fun because it felt like a hot tub, we had some blessedly sweet, cooler days last week. It. Was. Awesome. Mornings in the 70s. Swoon!

Well today, last week almost seemed like a dream when I had to get on the intercom this afternoon and say "Hey teachers, just wanted to let you know it is too hot to go outside today. I'm so sorry, it is tooooo hot."

We can't go outside if the heat index is 103 degrees or higher. The temp this afternoon was 106. With the "wind chill", the heat index was exactly 103. Boo.

I am SO ready for the fall! My mind is a strange little thing. Something about the cooler air and watching the leaves die so elegantly and beautifully, really wakes up my soul. A crisp fall air, frankly, takes me back to some of my happiest memories. The smell of winter approaching is something that I value in a very profound way.

I hate to say this, but I've been struggling mentally lately. I don't want to be sad. I don't want to be one of those "sad" people, that friends don't look forward to catching up with because they always have something to complain about. And honestly, I don't have anything to complain about. I am abundantly blessed, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But sometimes I struggle...

I struggle with not knowing the future. I believe so completely that I serve a God that loves me incredibly and deeply and that he has a plan for my life. That is ABSOLUTELY enough. But, being a planner myself, I struggle with being satisfied with the unknowns.

I am also struggling with facing the same struggles. Frustrated doesn't accurately describe how I'm feeling, though it can be extremely frustrating when I find myself OVER AND OVER AGAIN making the same mistakes and choosing the same bad choices. Why do I experience the same failures over and over again? When am I going to grow up and be smarter? Will I ever? Please say yes. I don't want to die this way.

Okay, enough drama. I sincerely hope that my next post will be less whiny. For all of our sakes ;-)

Labor Day Getaway

It's a truth I realized a year or so ago, and as soon as I said it, it was a huge comfort. Life is NOT the day to day tasks that demand so much attention from us that they sometimes seem to be all that we are. Work. Commuting to and from work. Cooking, cleaning, laundry... you get the idea. I definitely fall into the trap sometimes of thinking that my job is my life. That it defines me. I remember how happy I was starting this job a little over a year ago and feeling my life was "better" because this was a "better" job. Better in the sense that I would be happier because it was a more positive job. Helping people, working on a team, working with children. Definitely an improvement over staring at a computer all day working for difficult people on tasks that usually felt insignificant. But now I know, my job does not equal my life. The weekly routine is not all that I am. It's the special moments. The road trips to friends. The hour drive to and from the drive-in on a crisp fall evening. The shopping trips for our "firsts" as husband and wife. This year we will be purchasing our first full size Christmas tree. I'm SO ready! The moments that are usually fewer and farther between than I would like. Those are the moments when I am truly living.

I say all of that to say that it was a HUGE blessing to be able to get away this past weekend. To do some living! Jeff, my oldest and one of my dearest friends, moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma three or so years ago. Brett and I have been talking about going to visit him for probably two years. (It didn't occur to us that first year. Wedding planning kind of consumed us, I guess.) But since then, it has been time and financial obstacles keeping us from going to see Jeff. But I have been thinking for months that Brett and I needed to take a trip. Get out of our day to day lives to remind us what our real life is about. And I miss Jeff. I miss him all of the time. He is special in a way that I don't always know how to describe. He is the perfect balance of kindness and confidence. Never too good to help someone in need, but not a guy who is afraid to call the shots either. A helper and a leader at the same time. A servant leader, I guess you would say. Without a doubt, the kindest guy I will ever know. I can say that with confidence, because there is just no way that anyone out there is equal to him. He's one of our favorite people, and we were thrilled to finally go see him!

And it was such a good trip!!!!! We prefer to take road trips on 3 day weekends. We like to leave after work on Friday and get there, wherever the there is that weekend, late, and then have all day Saturday to be with our friends. Then leave on Sunday afternoon so that we can get home on Sunday night and wake up in our own bed on Monday and have some time to rest before going back to work. That is how it worked out this weekend.

Brett got off at 1 and I got off at 4, so we were on the road by about 4:50. There was quite a bit of traffic in Dallas, and we made two brief stops along the way, so it was around 11:00 when we got to Tulsa. Jeff is a Baylor alum, so he had some friends over to watch the game. They were leaving as we were arriving, but it was nice to get to meet several of his friends. We stayed up chatting and planning for a while and eventually went to bed.

We started our day Saturday by going to Jeff's favorite breakfast spot. I already forgot what it is called, but I had a really good omelet and a biscuit that would make any southerner proud! Then we headed to the Tulsa Flea Market. So. Much. Fun. I LOVE flea markets! Flea markets, garage sales, antique stores. I love them. And this one was so neat. It is inside a giant building on the fair grounds. I don't know what it is called, but it is like the building all of the cars are in at the Texas State Fair every year. Just the fact that it was all indoors made it easy to linger, despite the heat outside. And linger we did! We took our time and went to every booth treasure hunting. We walked the whole room seeing what we liked and then went back for the items that were still calling to us. I bought a huge old frame that I am going to use to hang several small pictures from. Also, an old green chair that is small and metal and missing a seat. It's on my porch and I am going to find just the right size planter to sit in it. I also got an old teal metal fan. SO cute! I have the perfect spot in mind for it. And I got two tiny little Dr. Pepper bottles. We are Dr. Pepper fans. Little piece of trivia for ya there. The bottles are about three inches tall. So cute! And they have liquid in them. I don't know if it is actually DP, but it sure looks like it! And also a hand embroidered place mat. Or at least, it's the size of a place mat. I'm going to frame it and hang it on the wall. It's adorable. Brett looked at several vintage comic books, but didn't get any in the end. Jeff got an AWESOME train set and tackle box. He's a fisherman.

After the flea market, we stopped at a little pizza joint for a seriously good slice of pizza. We each got a different kind, and I can't decide whose looked best! My Canadian bacon was awesome though.

After that, we went searching for a comic shop for Brett. It took some looking, but we found one and Brett found some good books!

After that, it was time to rest a bit. I'm not gonna lie. The boys fell asleep. It was awesome. We just relaxed on the couches for a couple of hours underneath the cool fan. It was so nice.

When we got up, Jeff drove us around the parts of Tulsa that we hadn't seen yet. It's a really neat little town. Kind of like Fort Worth. I can't tell you why, because I know nothing about Fort Worth. But both boys do, and they both said it was like Fort Worth. So there you go. There are TONS of huge beautiful houses built in the 20's. "Oil money" Jeff said. I had no idea oil was big in OK back in the day, but apparently it was. The homes were absolutely gorgeous, and each one unique. Then we headed to Cafe Ole. A really neat Santa Fe style Mexican restaurant. It was just cool enough to sit on the patio and we enjoyed a tasty meal under the twinkle lights. Then Jeff took us to his favorite coffee shop. Shades of Brown. Um, shades of cool is more like it! It's not small, but it's narrow. Small rooms that spread back. The first room was packed wall to wall because there was live music. Several guitar players, a percussionist and a singer playing swing and jazz music. I LOVED it! And Jeff bought me a grasshopper. Like a mint frappaccino, but a way smoother texture. It felt more like a shake than blended ice. So delicious and so refreshing. It was great.

When we got back to his place, we watched an 80s classic that I had always felt weird about never seeing. How is it possible that I, a self professed lover of 80s cinema, had never before seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles? I have no answer. But I can now say that I have seen it. It was the perfect end to an awesome day.

We had planned to go to church with Jeff on Sunday morning and then have lunch at McAllister's before heading home. Our plans changed however when Brett was up all night Saturday with an upset stomach. He finally threw up at about 8:00 Sunday morning and then was able to sleep a couple of hours. Poor guy. Not sure what it was. He had a sauce on his dinner that neither Jeff or I had on ours, so it could have been that. But he felt feverish to me, so it could have been a weird 24 bug that hit at an unfortunate time. As soon as Jeff got back from church, Brett and I said goodbye and hit the road.

To make matters worse, as we stopped to gas up before hitting the road, Brett came to examine our tire (that I had tried to fill, but instead flattened... idiot) and threw out his back. Not kidding. So he already was fighting to stay still and keep from throwing up in the car, and then I broke his back so that he would suffer WAAAAY worse the whole way home. I felt so bad! We made it home and slept 11 hours to make up for our night without sleep. He is getting better but still in pain.

But besides the stomach and back pain, it was a really great weekend. I'm so happy that we made it to see Jeff. I love his house, and I thoroughly enjoyed his town. I know it was our first of many trips out to see him.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend! I am fighting allergies this week and ready for this weekend. Melanie's shower is Saturday and I am so excited. I wish that I had spent more time with Melanie throughout this pregnancy, but we have such different schedules. It makes it tricky. But it will be such a joy to celebrate her baby this weekend.

Peace our playas!