Clutter and mess

Time feels like it's flying lately, but I'm enjoying life and finding exciting new things often.  Last Saturday, Kev and I were driving on a familiar road about a mile or less away from home when we saw this road that veered off the main road. We always just drive by but that day we decided to do something adventurous and take a detour down that road!  It actually led to a nature center in our area and interestingly enough to a cemetery as well. As we kept on driving, we discovered a nice little getaway in the community that we thought we knew really well. There was huge mansion, I'm not sure what it was used for, with beautiful grassy fields surrounding it. Someone was even getting married there. We even discovered a new park with tennis courts that are literally about a mile away from home.  It was beautiful and a huge piece of land I never knew about.  Doing things like that keeps my life from being too boring. Sometimes I drive different ways home just to get away from mundane habits in life.

Bird by Bird

I haven't been able to read as much as I'd like, but I've been dying to share this great quote from "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lammott.  The book is about writing and about life, but when I read this quote, it reminded the OCD side of me to just let go more often.  Here's a quote to all you perfectionists and for those of you who need everything to be nice and neat, the 2nd paragraph is for you:

"I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping stone right, you won't have to die.  The truth is that you will die anyway and a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it."

"Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force...Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up.  But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived... Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it's going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation..."

That's quite a challenge, huh? Updates on our anniversary still to come!

I have a really hard time getting up in the mornings. Saturday morning, I pulled myself out of bed (slow motion) and forced myself as always to rush to my running group for a long run.  I'm not a morning person, but I am a runner, which is why waking up around 6am on Saturday mornings to go running can present quite a conflict for me.  I never know which one to choose, which is why I always show up to run, and why I always arrive late.

Saturday was a 12 miler and let me tell you, it rained on us for the whole two hours! Can you imagine? It was honestly, horrible, yet wonderful at the same time.  The wonderful part was that although the humidity was pretty heavy, the rain was my saviour.  To add to that, I got to crash many puddles on my run and got soaked from head to toe. The bad part? I felt horrible and wanted to walk often. In some ways, I think I am quite a wimpy runner.    

Recently started a new job working for a hospice.  The orientation today was really long, but very interesting at the same time.  I've already had a number of people comment about how working in hospice is so hard and I'm sure at times it is, but from my little experience in the working world, it seems that the jobs that are hard work and seem less appealing to others can oftentimes be the best jobs to have.  Some people have asked me whether it is depressing to work in a field where people are literally dying daily. I had an inkling that the opposite was true and I have barely worked at this place for a month, but honestly I'm convinced it is quite the contrary.   

Granted my job does not work directly with patients, this opportunity, I have a feeling, is going to be quite worthwhile.  Today in orientation, I learned from one of the counselors, the art of being present.  I think one of the joys of working with old people is that you don't often have to pretend or impress them.  Just being with them is good enough.  I think this is especially the case when you work with people who are frail. When I used to volunteer at the nursing home in Houghton, I used to visit this one resident who I could barely understand. He was bed bound and literally half the time I just stood there or sat with him.  Mostly because I was young and didn't know what to do. But after four years of doing that, I became pretty comfortable just sitting and making some conversation when he wanted to.  And that was good enough!  Okay well dinner time is calling me.  More to come...

Yay for pizza dough!

My friend, Sooz, I mean DR. Sooz came over to visit for a day trip from PA a few weeks ago. What a special treat!  I love  seeing and catching up with friends. Best thing about the day is that we did NOTHING.. and that was okay.=)  I'm definitely the type of person who doesn't need to travel far to enjoy my life.  I could sit on the steps outside and literally stare at the grass.  I could take a walk in the neighborhood. I could try new things in my home.  I could walk around Safeway just for fun. And all that makes me perfectly happy. What makes me happier is when I can do all those things with friends. In some ways, you could consider me a lazy host. One day I'll take people to the museums or zoo when they visit.  So let's see we went for walks in the trails, brought Sooz to try dim sum for her FIRST TIME, walked at a lake nearby, took a nap (for realll), and most importantly, Sooz helped to save my first attempt at making pizza dough. 

You would think that when you have a breadmaker, making pizza dough would take less time.  It took an hour and half for the machine to make the dough (only?!?!?) and then I had to do all this punching and kneading.  I honestly thought it was a flop.  Thanks to Sooz and all her experience and her mom's experience with pizza dough, the pizza dough was saved and perhaps I may try it again (not in the near future...it's too much work).  Unfortunately, Sooz didn't even get a taste of the pizza, but props to her for saving my pizza dough!  You have no idea how horrible it feels when you try and make something and you spend all this time in anticipation and then next thing you know, everything flops and you're left with a lump of dead dough.  

The new things I've been making this year... ham and potato chowder, bread, almond jello, a baguette that took me way too many hours to make, meatloaf... it has been an exciting year. Thank God for my friends and my sister, Jo, for being a hotline that I can call when I don't feel like reading the directions.=) Actually, even I do, getting live instructions to recipes seems to work best for me.

Adding to that... Thank God for an extra day before heading back to work.  Not working on Mondays is pretty fantastic.