At the End of 2012

I suppose 2012 was an ordinary year, one of sadness sprinkled with a little laughter on top and nougats of joy in the mix, the kind of year that feels extraordinary sometimes and plain old boring too.

Maisie who hates the camera.

 All the talk of the end of the world was nearly comical except for the part that was annoying.

Our pups are no good at pictures.

I didn't want the world to end.  I wanted to stay right here and keep on going despite the crazy and the sadness and the disappointment 2012 brought, I was still ready for the dawn of a new year, a fresh beginning.

On our new balcony..!

I love a good beginning, a restart, but the world, as so many said the Mayans had told it (I never took the time to check), was scheduled to end.  When I got in bed on the night of December 20th, hours before the silliness of preparing for the world's end would be over, just before it would become everybody's new joke, I decided to accept what I think I already knew.

Little Melvin-bo-Belvin.

If the Mayans had been right, I wouldn't have minded too terribly much.  Because right now, I am content and I am blessed and, although I love a fresh start, 2012 would have been a good year to go out on.  It was full and busy, sad and grief-ridden, funny and joyful.  It was just an ordinary year that felt incredibly fascinating and wonderful and incredibly dull and terrible all at the same time. 

So, I am quite glad the world didn't end.

I hope you are too,

Oh, July.

I miss July.  I miss that sandy beach and the warmth and the thunderstorms of vacation.  I miss the me that existed in July when I last blogged, when I last wrote.

August hit like a hailstorm, fast and ferocious.  I searched for an umbrella, a coat, any bit of shelter, but I found none.  She let up on occasion and the sun would come out, but the storm that started in August would last through the semester. 

I drowned myself in papers to grade, assignments to create, assignments to complete, emails to send.  I rarely stopped thinking and doing and surviving, and when I did decide I needed a little respite, it was usually at the wrong time which, upon returning to the whirlwind, left me more breathless than before.

When I think back, though, it wasn't so terrible as it sounds now, as it felt then.  I learned so much, and I grew so much.

I started my second year of teaching, and the babies I inherited are so precious; I adore them.

Hub started his Master's program and is going to school full time, so we had to learn to carefully orchestrate our time together and our conversations--a big adjustment.

We moved two blocks from where we lived--crazy. 

I took six graduate hours.  Plenty of normal teachers work full time and take that many hours (some even more), and they survive. Come to think of it, I guess I survived, but I'm not just about surviving.

The semester was taxing and left me tired and dizzy all the time, and I decided that since I didn't have to live like this, I wasn't going to.  Not anymore.

I got tired of forgetting things and feeling a constant state of panic.  I grew weary of re-prioritizing my life moment-by-moment.  I started resenting my education, and if I'm not learning anything, what good is it doing anyway?  It wasn't making me a better teacher or a better wife; it was definitely not making me a better person in general either.

So I decided to slow down, to learn how to breathe again, to learn to enjoy.  Who cares if I don't finish my program lickety-split?  Does it really matter that I can't multitask as well as it seems everyone else can?  No, I don't think it does.

I think it matters that I learned how much is too much, and I just very nearly crossed that line; now, I'm ready to back far away from it.

Happy January,

A Trip to Florida

I hopped on a plane and was on my way home. Then we hopped in a car, my mama and me, and we drove to the coast of paradise.  

We looked down at the ocean from the front  yard of our little cottage 

and spent beautiful hours with our feet in the sand, reading and talking and thinking.

We enjoyed each other's company

and ate good food.

We painted pottery,

snacked on gelato, 

and visited my favorite bookstore.

It was a lovely little trip about relaxation, fun, and friendship, and I'm ready to go again.

Anybody else on board with postponing summer's end?  Let's make that happen. . .

Things I Love about Summer, Part 2

Homemade snow cones, 

pajama days,

Vacation Bible School,

cleaning out, 

and watermelon.

Oh, the sweet, glorious watermelon. . .

On Cooking

I find cooking therapeutic.  Really, I do.

I like dreaming up edible creations and watching them come to life.  I like being in the kitchen, quiet and contemplative.

The choosing of flavors and foods for removing stress, the chopping and slicing and dicing for getting rid of frustrations, the mixing and stirring and sifting for remembering blessings: this is what being in the kitchen means to me.

A lot of the world's problems can be solved in the kitchen, I think.  At least, I solve a lot of the world's problems, and my own, in the kitchen.

I'm not much for recipes, the tedious measuring of each tablespoon of this and teaspoon of that.  I'm more for a pinch of this and sprinkle of that; it feels more freeing.

The kitchen is where I go to remember where I came from and to be grateful for where I am and to dream of where I'm going next.  The kitchen is where I can be reborn after a long day; the kitchen is where I can celebrate a new triumph.  The kitchen is a place to enjoy life, and cooking is a joy.