The Ramblings of an Em…

so the other night i was on the phone with aaron, which is always good and fun and puts things back to right in my world. somehow we got on the subject of cereal and the best cereals…he started telling me about this rockin new cereal he found “blueberry muffin tops” and its sounds amazing - i have to find it.  anyway, then we started talking about other cereals, including my controverisal favorite: captain crunch.

people are always disparaging my cereal choice because they claim it shreds the roof of their mouth…i have never experienced this sensation so you all must be full of crap.

this conversation directly led to an awesome dream i had that night where a giant blueberry muffin top was chasing captain crunch…finally the muffin top chomped down on him…then spat him out crying because the captain had shredded the roof of his muffin top mouth.

then i woke up.

and laughed.

the moral of this story?

coversations with the aaron rock. especially long ones that revolve around cereal.

“being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up…” - the ataris (so long astoria album)

i love that song, mostly thanks to the greg who first got me obsessed with the ataris in college. every time i hear it or anything off that album i flash back to driving around PA with greg, mike and lisa singing at the top of our lungs…oh how i miss them…

but that wasn’t really going to be the point of this post…

i had a weird day yesterday. one of those days where someone’s off-handed comment makes you stop in your tracks and take a harder look at yourself and your behavior. not bad…just weird. i haven’t had one of those “out of body” perspective shifts in awhile and i think i was due. and the thought comes around to this…i’m an adult, working a good job, paying my bills, generally being pretty damn responsible…but i’m not grown up yet. do we ever feel grown up or are we just constantly stuck in this cycle of “growing up”? i know its a “maturity thing”…whatever that means, but i think i was caught off guard yesterday because i realized i had become comfortable. in my job and in some ways, in my life. i mean comfortable as in i kind of put myself on autopilot and assumed i was supposed to know everything about my job and my little world without actually stepping out and learning more - taking it to the next level. i’m getting lots more responsibility at work and with that i get a lot more scrutiny…so i have to step it up…i feel like i’m going to get stretched again. and while that’s a good thing, i’m a little scared.

so i’m listening to the ataris to gain some courage! here’s to growing up…

i read this today and it made me smile:

haikus are easy
but sometimes they don’t make sense
refrigerator

so I’ve been putting of writing a new post this week because I honestly had no words that would even come close to describing how amazing I feel or how good God is and how he’s revealed himself to me this week as the ultimate provider who will lift me up when I can just obey and give myself completely over to him. it has been an incredible week and i’m literally crying as i’m typing this, i can’t talk or write about anything that happened this week without my heart swelling and my eyes dripping tears down my face.

so what happened?

well as pretty much everyone knows i’ve been struggling (since graduation) to generate enough income to pay all of my bills each month, with about 80% of my income going to student loan creditors. it has been such a struggle not to get bitter and look back in regret on my college years since they cost me about 60 grand…but i would never trade those 4 years for anything. the friends i made and the things i learned, not just in the classroom, are priceless. still, i had an almost full ride to a couple of state universities that would have taken me down a different (and near debt-free) path…but i decided i wanted to continue forward with this change in my life and go to a “christian” college. hence the 60 grand in debt…

anyway! i’ve been just scraping by and then my loan rates raised which resulted in me tacking on the 4th job (see older posts) a few weeks ago.  so i was working 13-15 hour days and trying desperately not to be miserable. i figured if i could just make it for a year doing this i would be in ok shape to move where i wanted and hopefully get a job that would get me a little more income so i could have maybe 2-3 jobs rather than 4.

then this week happened and we had employee reviews at work, the forum for discussing raises, etc. i had done all this crazy math and figured out if i could get a modest raise i could possibly afford to drop the 4th job and go back to scraping by each month again. so my boss calls me in her office, sits me down and proceeds to tell me how vital i’ve become to her and the company and how impressed she is with my work and my abilities. she started tearing up talking about it! which of course made me tear up too…anyway, we got through that and she said she wanted to talk about a salary increase. now, i can’t go into specific details here because i can’t risk any of my co-workers reading this and we’re not allowed to discuss salaries…but suffice to say she wrote down a number where she wants me to be annually and it made me almost swallow my tongue in shock.

this was a life changing raise. PLUS a bonus on top of that. so of course i started tearing up and she started tearing up again and said how much she’s hated watching me kill myself just to barely get by and this is the amount i’m worth here and the amount i should be receiving and actually i was worth more to the company, but this was what they could afford.

(if you’re really curious about the amount, let me know and i’ll satisfy your curiosity)

but let me be clear, this raise not only allows me to pay all of my bills every month with no problem whatsoever, it means i can add dental and vision to my medical insurance, pay my dad back for the money he loaned me when i graduated from college AND allow me to put at least $500 a month into savings. life. changing. amount.

NOW the story gets even better. i found out that my Mom had their entire church praying for me last week, for my financial situation to change drastically and for God to provide for me. not only that, she was fasting and praying for me…amazing. so i got to call her and say “so i want to discuss the awesome power of prayer with you”…and then of course tell her about my incredible raise and we both started crying, then i told my dad and he started (literally) jumping around the house woo-hooing.

God is good. I’ve been talking with Greg about how God provides and how we limit him by expecting to take care of everything ourselves and be unwilling to trust us with our lives…and why? why do we do that? especially in the face of his grace and mercy and he proves that to us again and again…

so praise God for this, I certainly am and will continue to thank him and probably cry every week when I get my paycheck.

i love that aaron loaded me up with a TON of new music when i was visiting in April. i have so much that i’m just now only about halfway through it all. i was fully intending not to like the newest panic at the disco album…just from reading reviews and press…it sounded like it would be overprocessed and a lame attempt to be the beatles…but instead i really love it. i’m addicted to this song half because of the lyrics and half because of the lilting tinny piano stylings:

She held the world upon a string
But she didn’t ever hold me
Spun the stars on her fingernails
But it never made her happy
Cause she couldn’t ever have me
She said she’d won the world at a carnival
But she didn’t ever win me
Cause she couldn’t ever catch me

I, I know why
Because when I look in her eyes
I just see the sky
When I look in her eyes
Well I, just see the sky

I don’t love you I’m just passing the time
You could love me if I knew how to lie
But who could love me?
I am out of my mind
Throwing a line out to sea
To see if I can catch a dream

The sun was always in her eyes
She couldn’t even see me
But that girl had so much love
She’d wanna kiss you all the time
Yeah, she’d wanna kiss you all the time

She said she’d won the world at a carnival
But I swear I didn’t ruin her
I just made her more interesting
I swear I didn’t ruin her
I just made her more interesting

I, I know why
Because when I look in her eyes
I just see the sky
When I look in her eyes
Well I, I just see the sky

I don’t love you I’m just passing the time
You could love me if I knew how to lie
But who could love me?
I am out of my mind
Throwing a line out to sea
To see if I can catch a dream

thank god for the music - i would lose my mind without it. right now i’m weaving a mental tapestry of jackie greene, aaron sprinkle, panic at the disco and the foo fighters…ahhh…peace…

so this week marks my first full week of having 4 jobs.  I have to say its not quite as horrifying as I thought it would be…yet.  I’m working my regular full-time job I love as the head of our PR department, then I picked up a night job working at the laundromat down the road 4 days a week from 5-10pm, then I work with my kids at church on Sundays for about 4-6 hours and finally I write freelance articles…at least a couple a month.

I was toying with the idea of not working with the kids anymore since my church is up in Goshen and gas is almost $4 a gallon…but it makes my heart ache to think about not being around those little guys.  I love my preschoolers and they make it a little easier on me not being able to see Cameron that often.  Plus if I gave up that job then I wouldn’t be able to justify the Sunday morning drive to Goshen, which means I’d have to find a church in Warsaw…ick.  I couldn’t find one I liked the 4 years in college, so I’m not about to attempt to find one now that I have a church home 30 miles away.

But back to my newest job, which Ruthie has taken to referring to as me being a “laundress”.  I think that’s kind of awesome.  And funny since I don’t actually DO any laundry.  I basically keep the place clean and make change for people if the machine won’t take their money.  Its about 2 hours worth of work that I stretch over a 5 hour shift with lots and lots of reading in between.  I actually read 3 books this week during the 4 days I worked, which is awesome because I NEVER have time to read…much less get paid for it.  The problem is I have to find time each week to go to the library and stock up on books because there’s no way I can afford to buy enough books to keep up this 3 books a week pace.  I’ve decided to take a cue from Aaron and start keeping track of the books I’ve read too…now he usually starts his list at the beginning of the year, but I figure I’ll start now:

1. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
2. Wicked Lovely
3. Peter and the Shadow Theives (Book 2 of a series…its amazing, you should read it)
4. The Subtle Knife (I’m technically only 3/4 of the way through this one, but its Book 2 in the “His Dark Materials Series” and its fantastic)

Today is going to be a good day, mostly because I get to go home at noon…well “home” being Josh’s house of awesomeness so I can do laundry because I have no more clean pants and am sitting here at work in yoga pants.  I also get to take a nap and relish the fact that I have a night off and get to see Sex in the City, eat sushi and hang out with some of my best friends.  Its been a long time coming and I really need it after having a slight emotional breakdown last week…yeah. it wasn’t good.

PLUS I might convince the boyzes to duck into ULTA so I can buy fun fun girl stuff like lotion and perfume and hair gunk.  Ahhh…life is feeling more normal…crap…”knock on wood”!

not that i ever needed reminding, but this bit of conversation quoted below is why Matty and I are friends, i love him to death:

Matty: My dad used to talk about “rights of passage” to me all the time. First dates, drivers test, graduation, etc. The more I thought about it, those are the romanticized rights of passage, those are the ones that we hear stories about. There are others that are longer, more complex, but to come out on the other side of our - dare I say - “looking glass maze” still standing… I say all that from an internal point of view. While there are no guarantees in life, logic dictates that things will get better…f***ing life. What I wouldn’t give for a glass of good old fashioned romanticism about life.”

Me: no kidding. can i have some rose colored glasses please? the last 3-5 years have been a mess of rites of passage

Matty: I think they sell rose colored glasses at wal mart along with children’s tears and the wine of innocent fairies.

So here’s to a lifetime of friendship and great one-liners, thanks for being a friend who can make me laugh even when i’m so f***ed up in the head i can’t see straight, i love ya.

the greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return…

“I understand being sick, but a cold?  Anybody can have a cold!  I mean, I’d like to have a good illness, something different, impressive. Just once I’d like to be able to say: Yeah, I’m not feeling so good, my leg is haunted.”

i hate having a cold. it started with a scratchy swollen throat and now has resulted in awesome congestion in the whole nose/throat area. rock. as happy as i am to be sick on a friday and not have to take any sick days off at work, it kind of trashes my weekend. stupid cold!  I love the whole “my head is in a vice” feeling, it makes me flash back to watching Three Stooges movies with my Dad and somehow Curly almost always ended up with his head in a vice.  In what normal version of reality are there vices randomly lying around?  And now I’m cold-rambling…sorry.

I did almost accidentally take night-time cold meds this morning which would have been hilarious right about now at work.  Here’s to a day at work with little to no productivity because apparently I become a moron when I have a cold…my ability to reason and create goes right out the window…probably because snot is clogging up my brain.

good times.

have you ever had a vacation that you wish was your actual life, when in fact it is only a brief respite from your plodding everyday life? i find myself in the midst of one right this moment.  I’ll even do you one better than that…I’ve found myself in the midst of a moment I wish I could live in rather than in my everyday life.  Sitting on the floor in a comfortably warm house with my best friend listening to him rock out on the guitar (oh and the harmonica too) at approximately 4:38pm on a Thursday…this moment of complete contentment is overshadowed by the fact that I know it has to end…in just a few short days I’ll be back on a plane heading back to my everyday life, choking back the inevitable tears of having to say yet another goodbye to those I love more than anyone.

I find myself wondering lately if I will ever get to a point in my life where I can stop constantly leaving or being left…will I ever feel settled?  Will my life once again be filled with comfortable perfect moments like the one I’m wrapped up in now?  Is there anything I can do to make sure it is, or is it one of those amorphous things you have to just let happen?

Its not that I don’t have a good job and great friends back home, I really do - I’m pretty lucky I guess…but I just know its not where I’m supposed to live out the pivotal moments of my life.  It just isn’t right…it isn’t home.  Home isn’t a place for me, its not a job, its not an apartment where I have enough space to house my couch and books and art…its certain people. And back “home” is where those certain people…well…aren’t.  And so it can’t be home.  No matter how many great friends I have there, how much I like my job…it won’t ever be home.

“now that I’ve tasted blood, now this wine seems too thin”…by the way, how great of a line is that?  Best friend is rockin the guitar and I love this song…mostly because its all about a heroin junkie.  How can I leave right?