well, hello there…

oh, hi.

it’s been awhile

(and)

so much has changed.

so much is changing these days, everything is moving so fast. i can barely keep up, let alone maintain any sort of normalcy. i suppose i should probably begin with a list (my brain has been surviving on lists the last 10 months)

we’ll call this one Things Which Have Happened Since Last I Blogged (*secret* i don’t like that word. “blog” – yuck)

number one, (and probably the most terribly sad) we lost norman. there’s a whole story behind this, but it’s sad & i don’t want any more sad today. goodbye norman. mama and daddy love you, so much.

number two, We moved from the Lakehouse to my grandparent’s one bedroom basement apartment in town (no photo…), had some terrible tenant disasters with our house, booted out the tenants, renovated our house (still in process), and MOVED HOME at the end of November. it. feels. amazing. (more photos to follow, in the next month or two)

number three!!! Micah Got a JOB!!! (Praise God) He’s been working for a small local design shop here in Omaha and still in pursuit of his dream job. **Shameless plug – check out his website, offer the man a sweet job – www.micahmax.com** We survived and, if I may say, are stronger for the 6.5 months (HALF OF A YEAR!) spent living in the unknown unemployment. i really want to thank our good friends at What Cheer, Princess Lasertron, as well as all our other friends who helped us out, so so much, during that time. we couldn’t ask for more amazing people in our life.

number four, i began culinary school. eek! it. is. absolutely. amazing. aside from the constant terror that i’ll make a fool of myself, not knowing anything about anything, i leave every class excited, inspired, and content. pretty awesome considering i’m not even in the kitchen yet! last quarter i took a class in sanitation, nationally certifying me as a certifiable sanitation expert. (ha) i’m currently in an introduction to the program class. this endeavor is giving me a lot of anxiety, but it’s the good kind, the kind that motives and at the end of the day fulfills. one step closer to figuring out what i’m doing on this planet. : )

number five, Buster Brown. our baby boy puppy pup. he is magical. seriously, he possesses the ability to put a spell over you and melt your heart. in the past month of loving him we have yet to meet one person who “doesn’t like that dog.” he’s our baby and we spoil him rotten.

um…i suppose that’s it for now. a list. : )

there will be more, i promise. in fact, later today!

weee!

rainstorms

whew.

i decided to sit down and write this, i don’t even know where to begin. the last few weeks weigh heavily on my heart and shoulders as i type.

i’ll start with the immediate. today. today it smells and feels like fall yet spring has barely sprung. partially i feel i might be retreating to a comforting thought on the other hand, there’s a good chance i’m mourning a loss.

micah’s unemployment. i have no words, made apparent by my cut-too-short sentences, however i am learning more about myself, him, and who we are together in all of this than i probably learned in our few years of dating and first year of marriage. it’s a crazy place to be. i can say with complete assurance that in the last two weeks there has been no rest for either of us. the constant fear of the unknown shattering everything we thought we knew. every plan for the future (tentatively) placed on hold, others we push forward with blind faith. that there is an other side to all of this. that we will be okay. that we have to keep on living as if life hasn’t completely blown up in our faces.

and with his unemployment, i quit my job. plunging us further in change and upheaval. in this we know that the right decision was made, as the picture appears to us now. trusting that the bigger picture is so much bigger than us. in three weeks i begin to nanny for a family that we are falling in love with. and i will find some other income to supplement the shift, but for micah? we still don’t know.

having friends here this week has made everything seem slightly lighter (yet, behind every smile, every laugh, our minds are racing, our hearts are bleeding, we cope) last night, watching micah’s band play one of their last shows brought out a raw emotion in me, a familiar warm feeling. i felt as though even in the midst of all our chaos there was truth. our love. our friends. music. nature. faith. hope.

lightening and rain came down outside the glass behind them as they played. secret smiles were shared. and i closed my eyes and let myself move to the music that was so familiar to me. i don’t think i’ve felt something so raw in so long. (those boys are truly talented and i am completely in love with all of them) it was exhausting. it was perfect.

this morning we find ourselves, after the friends have gone, with again the reality of our situation. we can’t pay our bills. we have to move out of our house. we don’t know where we’re going or how we’re getting there. we hold each other. we talk about our fears. we cry (together and alone).

after venturing out for food we are back at out house; micah taking a nap, me stealing his computer to spew out my thoughts & drown out my brain with sigur ros on his amazing headphones.

listening to the album i haven’t listened to since our wedding, almost one year ago.

who would have thought we’d have a year like this. feast & famine in the most true form. highs and lows like i’ve never known. a love much deeper and more mature.

despite the constant worry and exhaustion, i have also learned that the man i married is more of a fighter than i ever really knew. i’m finding myself falling more and more in a strange love with the way he is. how he’s handling this. how he is so broken yet so strong.

he is truly an amazing man.

not once has he ever stopped the search for the next step. after constant roadblock he keeps going. as defeated as he might feel he doesn’t let up.
he. is. so. much. stronger. than. me. (praise God)
i find myself waking up each day amazed at him. at his endurance. his courage. this man takes me breath away.

whew.

and plans, we still continue to make them (as silly as it might be) we are continuing to treat life as if it hasn’t broken us. i think it might be the only way to make it through. this is something so uncharted. something so easy to lose yourself in. something so easy to lose love in. but we’re not.

today i get marriage. tomorrow i probably won’t. right now, from this dining room table i understand priorities. i get faith. and i know love.

at the end of it all, could i really ask for more?

we’re going to be okay.

i almost forgot!

{story time}

when i was 8 years old and living in small town nebraska my parents had strict rules regarding the parameters of my adventures. i was allowed to only venture within the confines of our block. luckily there was quite a bit going on in that little patch of town – a neighbor, who despite city ordinance, stubbornly burnt his trash in a large metal barrel every saturday sending intoxicating scents to the heavens (and my backyard), a small grove of fruit bearing trees just over our fence in our next door neighbors backyard (she had a GAZEBO!), a mortician who’s mortuary was connected to his home and who also had a daughter my age with an equally wild imagination, and an elderly couple who graciously opened their house to the two of us.

while their names are currently escaping my mind i can see their house vividly. they had this amazing treasure filled basement with it’s antique phone (no numbers or dial!), board games, checkers, and dress-up clothes…the husband, earlier in his life, had to have a tracheostomy – leaving a large hole in his throat causing him to sound like a robot (due to the vibrator he used to speak)  & daily his wife would have to clean his breathing hole (sorry, i know that’s not completely appetizing). the neighbor girl and i would make it a ritual in the summer to be around for that part of their day so we might be able to help, you know, if they needed us.

hindsight, we were probably more of an annoyance than a great help but despite our pesky persistence to constantly invade their dwelling they always received us with open arms and big smiles. they were our excitement, we were their joy. it was in their house that i first learned how to play checkers, first fell in love with stories from “the good old days”, and it was in their tiny sunlit kitchen that i first had chipped beef and toast. (and i had it again, and again, and again)

for me, it’s a taste that is distinctly nostalgic, a “warm all over” food that’s as easy as can be…

on a blustery, snowy [crazy windy] day what could be better than hot lunch?

today’s lunch, chipped beef over homemade biscuits

(please excuse the future phone quality photos…)

first i started with the biscuits (as i was out of bread and didn’t feel like going outside), i used a recipe for “quick drop biscuits” that we have often used for last-minute breakfast sandwiches

suuuuuuper easy:

ingredients -

2 c. flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/3 c. oil
2/3 c. milk

in a small bowl combine dry ingredients, add liquids and stir until well mixed and the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. hand mold or drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet. bake for 10-12 minutes @ 475 degrees. enjoy!

while the biscuits were in the oven i began my chipped beef, a recipe taken straight from Hormel (because that’s the one that my neighbor used…and because it’s good)

ingredients -

1 pkg dried beef (about 2.5 oz), chopped
2 tblsp butter
2 tblsp flour
1 1/3 cups milk
1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
a dash of pepper

in a skillet or pan, cook the dried beef in butter for about 3 minutes

slowly stir the flour into the butter/beef mixture, add the milk. cook & stir until the sauce has thickened and is beginning to bubble. cook, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes longer.

stir in the worcestershire sauce and pepper…spoon over biscuits (or buttered toast points) enjoy!

it’s a good day for hot lunch and memories. yes.

snowy day dreaming…

welcome.

smiling as i write this, i’m begining a new journal. a new chapter in my life. 9 months and a week, give or take a day, i have been a married woman. glowing inside and out, in my own distinct way.

never before in my life have i spent this much time in my own brain, never before have i been forced out of my own world in such a way as this.

i’ve daily found myself learning who i am, who he is, who we are and who we (me) will be. in all my adventures i’ve never been on one like this. here’s to a lifetime of firsts and lasts and on to only-s, for me and him. it’s good. some days great. but today? it’s just me. : )

i feel like i should begin with just a little back story. a recap of the year past so that i can aptly move on to the new. bulleted points like i know best.

{2008}
* marriage : planning, executing, reveling, discovering, living. it happened.
* trips : austria, germany, grand marais, and many many trips to the cities i love
* new jobs : both of us.
* friends moving away, in opposite directions
* house parties
* repeated passionate encounters between my self and our small, but apt kitchen
* future phones (his milestone, not mine)
* figuring out how to survive in a city sans sufficient mass transit with one car, each working on opposite ends of the city
* geo caching adventures sometimes i feel only we can appreciate and understand, our little secret
* last but not least, second only to our own wedding, two of our very closest, most special friends falling head over heels in love

it’s been good.

today? 2009, only 12 days in has been a wild ride.

depression has been gripping, more so than it’s been in years and where i’m at? i want nothing more than to ride it out. find out what’s on the other side. persevere.

we bought our first car together (officially), a beautiful 2002 jetta wagon. identicar. it’s good.
someday it will have a dog and a car seat to keep me company but for now it holds friends, and siblings, and love…already finding new adventures of it’s own.

plans. lots of them. with hearts elsewhere we seem to be keeping our heads in this town.
me resisting, he ready. we’re rooting. (for a while)
it’s been a blur of real estate listings (on line mostly, although we did have one tour). heartbreaks as i realize that the job i would like would like me too but can’t, as i like to put it, afford me. moving on. exciting free-lance for the mister, and a dream that may flower in the immediate future.

the restaurant.

planning in a few weeks as weekend escape to denver, i stumbled upon this, adding it immediately to our loose itinerary. wow. what an absolutely amazing and exciting idea.

shortly after my day of discovery i was dropping off a loaf of bread by my parents house (we can’t eat two, get real) and began to tell my parents about our trip. i told them about the friends we were going to visit, the great deals we got on our flight/hotel, and then began to tell them about the SAME Cafe. before i could even finish my mom asked me, “so…you’re gonna do it?” immediately something clicked and although i hadn’t really been thinking about it, it sounded right. “yes…” well, i mean, i’d like to look into it more…check out the place. my mom’s excited encouragement and infectious can-do attitude was overwhelming and i needed to get home. i told her i’d talk to them more about it later and left…

for the last week my head has not once let the logistics and dreams of this escape. i’ve had no rest. and in the searching i find myself asking, “am i capable? am i called? am i thinking this through? are my reasons on target?…” and on and on…but it’s there.

and so is the peace.

the warm blanket i remember feeling when the husband and i first began dating. mom connecting the dots, listing my talents, our contacts, and experience…my family is 100% behind my decision.

husband, only nervous (& rightfully so) about finances, feels it’s right. that i’m capable. and the fit is there.

so where am i? breathing…slowly and surely, excited and scared about what all this could mean. researching non-profits, cruising for potential spaces, and wondering if this is something i can do alone. and needing to pray. long and hard.

so i’m here today, at the beginning of an amazing mountain, that i may in no way be trained to climb. but i am faithful and full of love, learning about patience and trials. and i think i’m going to do it. whew.

welcome.