Step One: with Grace, Peace, and Cardboard Boxes

I have decided that what we need here is a little direction. My nearest and dearest have wonderful directions for their blogs: remodeling a first house, life as a new mother, a hobby, a gift perfected inside a New York apartment closet, etc. Well, since my life with hubby Husker now has a new direction, namely north to Chicago, I've decided to sync (let's be honest, it's more of a re-sync) the direction of this blog with our life as we move from Texas to Chicago. But this sync comes with a confession, so let's get the heavy stuff off my chest before we dive into the mountain of boxes taking over our apartment (pictures to follow).

I am in awe of my friends, namely the young women who have recently taken that big step into marriage and raising a family. I have read so many inspirational posts about being a young and educated woman who is happy and fulfilled raising a Christ-centered family, I could burst. It makes me so happy every time I read one, really it does. I'm glad that they are not letting mainstream views on what makes a "purposeful" life shape their views on God's blessing of new life and family.

However...

I am not there, yet. God has other plans for me, for the moment, and as much as I rejoice in His gifts to me and the direction He is leading me, I am a sinner and comparison is surely the thief of joy.

After I was accepted into grad school, I found that my happiness and excitement at this new stage in my life was slowly being drained away by my selfish need for praise and validation. I received many happy congratulations from those I texted (literally within an hour of getting my happy news), but after only a week I was feeling hurt...no one "liked" my excited Facebook statuses, no one commented on my last blog post. I started to feel like no one supported where I was in life, that through the silence was a judgement that I wasn't a mom already and I was lesser for it. It was childish, really, and I know that. But seeing every uploaded baby picture or pregnancy announcement get 100,000 likes, and many posts about the blessings of starting a family (but none about it being ok for God to provide a path for someone to school or a career first) started to hurt. I was brought back to this hilarious cartoon (and I know that none of you will take this the wrong way and think that I think so little of posts about family and babies - they are great, this is just an illustration of the temper tantrum that *might* have happened inside of me for like, 5 seconds):

But then I prayed about it, and God worked with me (ever so patiently) to remind me that He has just as happy of plans for me, and that I don't need to compare myself to others and worry that they won't think well of me simply because I'm pursuing my master's degree. My family supports me. My husband supports and loves me.

So friends who are at a different place in life than me, please accept my apology for being so childish, selfish, and narcissistic. And keep on being the amazing women of God that you are...and I am going to keep going down my path, and I will do it with grace and peace.

Now back to that mountain of boxes...observe:

From here on out, I will be chronicling our big move from Texas (with it's sun, heat, low cost of living and free parking spaces) to Chicago (with it's urban style, four seasons, and often gag-inducing cost of living).

This is Step One: Being Box Lady and Box Boy

At the moment, hubby and I are looking at an end of July move date. So, for the next two months, we will both be dumpster diving for boxes. There is no way on God's green earth that I am OK with paying hundreds of dollars for packing materials when I can get used materials from work...or Target...or Wal Mart.

I hope you all stay tuned and laugh along with us. I have no doubt that trying to coordinate a total upheaval of life so early in marriage will provide a plethora of opportunities for laughter, humility, learning, and entertaining blog posts.

Cheers.

Tension...Broken

Hello friends, who, without my texts and occasional Facebook posts, might have thought my Husker hubby and I were kidnapped and taken across the boarder....we're still here, but maybe not for long.

I apologize for the extreme hiatus. My excuses run thus: 1) from Christmas until five weeks ago, I was spending all of my extra time working on my application to graduate school and my longer marathon training runs; 2) five weeks ago, I submitted my application (which included a 25 page quasi-fictional travel memoir short story) and have been spending all of my energy stalking the mailman and waiting, waiting, waiting for the admissions decision (waiting for something you want and something that could drastically change your life takes a lot of energy...to stretch a metaphor just a little, this was my version of a five week pregnancy...except that I didn't know if I would really have a baby...like I said, it's a stretch).

Now, due to a very nasty blood blister incurred on my latest 7 mile run, which is still healing and preventing me from running, and receiving and answer from DePaul, I have the time to share with you all that.... I WAS ACCEPTED TO THEIR MA IN WRITING AND PUBLISHING PROGRAM!

Ah!

Freak out!

Deafen the poor admissions rep on the other end of the phone with screams and giggles of joy!

So now hubby Husker and I must make some big decisions in a very short time. The move from Houston to Chicago, the termination of two jobs and the search for two more, the quest for an affordable apartment, and finding the money to pay for tuition and undergrad loans will be taken with the utmost care, deliberation, and penny pinching. I'll be honest, I miss the Midwest, I miss being close to my family and my friends, and I really want to be a grad student, but I don't want those things so badly that I want to ruin the financial stability hubby and I have managed to sustain these nine months of marriage. 

But I have faith. God sat with me and wrote my short story. He was with that admissions committee when they looked over my application. Although the knowledge that I had never taken a creative writing course was fuel to the fire of doubt for me, it wasn't for Him.

If God and I are thinking along the same lines (and sometimes this does happen), this Wolverine and her Husker will be moving to Chicago around the end of July. Fingers crossed and prayers sent...every day.

Virgin Turkey Tacklers

Don't you just love that title? It could mean so many things.... :)

This Christmas was the first Christmas for both Nic and I that we were away from our families. The way that we dealt with this possibly depression-inducing situation? We decided that we would basically cook and then eat ourselves into food comas. But have no fear, I had extra insulin on hand for us both!

I technically began weeks ago by baking about 15 dozen of three different kinds of cookies. Only two of those kinds made it to Christmas day. I took that as a compliment from my husband.

I woke up early Christmas Eve Day and made apple brown sugar and chocolate chip coffee cake for Nic. It was the definition of scrumptious.

Note: This very county patterned plate was my grandma's, and I think both she and my grandpa would have approved!

Nic then headed to work on Christmas Eve Day. I also worked...on plotting out the cooking time-line for the next 48 hours. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. With my time-line on the fridge, a cooking apron securely tied around my waste and a spatula in each hand, I was practically armored for battle. Let the cooking begin!

I spent 4.5 hours making, punching/kneading and watching my first ever batch of homemade dinner rolls rise. Seven cups of flour and several bruised knuckles (my dough decided to punch back) later and I had these beauties to serve to my husband...

We also had franks from Omaha Steaks wrapped in this homemade dough for dinner that night...unfortunately Nic was so hungry when he got home that I didn't get a picture of them before two of them met an early demise in the pit of his stomach.

On Christmas we started the cooking marathon early. Shortly after presents were opened I had the pumpkin pie in the oven. I was in charge of all sides and desserts while Nic took responsibility of tackling our 10 lb. turkey. We decided to make a root beer-glazed roasted turkey with rosemary, cinnamon and cayenne stuffed with apples and onions. My sole role in handling the turkey was denuding our rosemary bush for the 6 tablespoons of rosemary we needed. Our poor plant is very naked now. But its sacrifice was acknowledged with every "mmmm" that escaped our lips when we partook of this beauty:

 

 

 

Didn't Nic do a fabulous job??

The turkey was joined by sides of bacon-apple cornbread stuffing...

...and cranberry sauce (my first try and according to Nic the best he's tasted even though he doesn't particularly like the dish)...

...and of course we couldn't forget one of my favorite dishes: green bean casserole! I know, this very safe and canned side joins my love of hamburger helper...they just can't be explained amidst my love of everything exotic, ethnic, spicy and gourmet-fusion. Although, truth be told, we did mix it up a bit and use garlic cream of mushroom soup in the this casserole...

...and all together these dishes made the beautiful and boutiful spread that Nic and I shared as our first Christmas dinner together as a married couple...

God bless us everyone!

The happy couple (or, as happy as we could be with this sitting next to us while I insisted we get some pre-dinner photos together)...

 

Some of the Things This Wolverine Loves About Christmas

1. The moment when you realize that flour, sugar, and even some sprinkles are not only coating your kitchen counters and floors, but also your shirt, elbows, and hair. This situation is a natural result of cookie baking marathons. And trust me, having flour and sugar in funny places is WAY better than having sand in funny places!

2. The moment when you realize that you don't have enough cookie tins for all of the cookies you have made and/or received in the mail.

3. Having meaningful marital discussions over the proper way to decorate sugar cookies with your spouse.

4. The ability to know when your tree needs water by the more piney smell it gives off.

5. The chance to constantly rearrange the gifts under the tree for maximum aesthetic viewing pleasure.

6. The excuse to burn every candle in the house. At once.

7. The excuse to drink hot and sugary drinks at every meal.

8. The chance to show some Christian love to other harried customers in the post office. Also the chance to share a Christian smile while also showing that you will not lay down and die (or more accurately, be run over) by that crazy lady who just tried to steal a parking spot from you at the mall while visiting your husband and work.

9. Knowing every line in the Grinch song and always wondering why it's such a bad thing to have garlic in your soul....no one has been able to answer that one, by the way. It's right up there with the question of why store mannequins have very hard and prominent nipples. Sorry dad, I still don't have that answer for you yet!

10. The time and leisure to blow through 4 young adult novels in a week.

And there you have it, folks. Some of the things that have been keeping me ticking during my time off while my husband pulls 14 hour days at his two retail jobs. I tell yah, that Husker is a hard-working man! And I love him all the more for it.

Duh, Monday is Red, the Number Nine is a Diva, and the Calendar is a Three-Sided Rectangle

It's official. I'm a synesthete. Promise we can still be friends? Even if I told you that the number 2 is a goody-two-shoes and that Friday is blue? Maybe I should define synesthesia and synesthetess for you first.

Synesthesia is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. For example, some synesthetes (those who experience synesthesia) smell different odors for each number, or hear sounds for the different colors. For a full explanation, check out Wikipedia's page.


I don't smell purple though. I have what's called ordinal linguistic personification and spatial-sequence, or number form, synesthesia.

My ordinal linguistic personification synesthesia takes the form of numbers having personalities. The basic personality traits are contained in the numbers 1-10 with subsequent numbers having personalities formed from the individual single digit numbers within them. Lemme break it down for you:


1 = Very mailable and easily influenced personality. No beliefs or convictions of its own.
2 = Goody-two-shoes to the point of wanting to slap it. Teacher's pet. Annoying perfectionist.
3 = Naughty toddler. Very mischievous but always claims it's too young to be responsible for its actions.
4 = The older mentor/version of 2 but minus the annoying part. A very law-abiding personality.
5 = Very unique and independent, like that person who can pull off wearing plaid with stripes. Marches to the beat of its own drum.
6 = Demure. Soft spoken. Feminine.
7 = My favorite number. Easy going and like #5. Very chill.
8 = The academic who wishes it weren't a single digit number. Wants to distance itself from the others, especially #7.
9 = The diva. Don't cross her because she can be a b*tch. 3 wants to be 9 when it grows up.
10 = The overseer of the lower numbers. Denies its identity as the lowest of the double digits. Conflicted.


Good so far? And so for me, the number 79 is a very strong personality number because 7 won't be manipulated by 9, but 9 isn't sure 7 is cool enough to be seen with.

My spatial-sequence or number form synesthesia is the strongest. To help you understand a bit better, here's a good video.

I see the days of the week laid out in an "L" shape with Monday at the top of the "L" and Sunday at the end of the horizontal line. But I'm always looking at it so that Sunday and the foot of the "L" are sticking up to my right and I read the days of the week side-ways (because they are written as if the "L" were facing like it is when you write it). The days of the week are in connected boxes and they are all colored. However, Saturday and Sunday are slightly longer boxes and part of Friday bleeds into Saturday. I think this is because I know I can stay up later on those days.


Monday = Red
Tuesday = Yellow
Wednesday = Purple
Thursday = Green
Friday = Blue
Saturday = Silver/Gray
Sunday = Gold/Brownish-orange


I also have a very specific spatial orientation to the months in the year. They are arranged in a 3 sided rectangle that is missing one of its long sides. I stand in place of one long side with December to my left, followed by January and February on the short side. March begins the long side opposite me followed by April-August with September beginning the short side to my right. The short side to my right stops with November and there I stand: in the corner of the short side with November to my right, a long gap and then December to my left beginning the other short side. Each month also has a color.


My number sequence is also 3-dimensional. It's at an angle to my left and continues at an angle going up and to my right in front of me. At 10, the line goes straight in front a bit, then at 20 it angles to my right again and stair steps up at each integer of 10 (20s, 30s, 40s, etc.). At 101 it turns the corner to the left at 90 degrees and each number thereafter is in that straight line to the left.


Years proceed in the opposite way. I see myself at the current year, with previous years stepping down to my left, with a slight kink at 1990 so that 1989-1900 bend slightly to the right. Then, 1700-1899 double back on the 1900-1999 line.


I discovered that not everyone has this spatial relationship to numbers, days, weeks, months, and years just this week when a colleague of mine, who teaches AP Psychology at the school I work at, described her lessons about synesthesia and mentioned these various kinds of synesthesia. I told her that of course my days of the week have colors and that I see them three dimensionally in relation to me when I think/talk about them. She diagnosed me on the spot in the cafeteria. I got to be her guest speaker the next day in her AP class.


Are you a synesthete? They claim 1 in 23 people are. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this....

No Charlie Brown Christmas Trees Allowed

Ah, the first Christmas as a married couple. When two people attempt to make 20+ years of two different family traditions into something new and their very own. This could be a very beautiful or a very ugly new thing, depending on the compatability of the respective traditions.

Friends and family, have no fear. You won't hear any bickering in our apartment over white or colored Christmas lights on the tree (they're colored, of course), no arguments about a themed tree or one with a menagerie of beloved ornaments (it's a menagerie of ornaments, no question), and absolutely no disagreement about real vs. fake tree (I did a fake tree last year and about cried. Every day. So it's a real tree this year.) All of this agreement means we obviously did our premarital counseling homework.

But Texas did not do its "Ariel's necessities for Christmas" homework. The list is rather long (and it starts with the lack of snow), but for this post we'll simply focus on the adventure of getting a real, live, fragrant, Christmas tree in the Lone Star state.

My loving and understanding husband promised that we could go pick out a tree two days after we returned from our Thanksgiving trip to Nebraska. I was going to have my tree up and decorated before the first day of December! Things were off to a good start!

First stop that evening was Walmart for a tree stand. We checked out the pre-cut Christmas trees offered there and were appalled to see a total of 6 Charlie Brown Christmas trees (and I mean the Charlie Brown trees before Linus put his blanket around it). Observe:

I promptly turned up my nose and Nic and I proceeded to a Christmas tree farm. In Michigan you can find a plethora of them. In urban Texas you have two choices, both of which are at least 30 minutes away from where ever you live. No matter, my Ford compact gets good gas mileage. Spring Creek Growers, the five-time winners of Grand Champion Christmas Trees of Texas, here we come!

As we approached the farm, I noticed the two "farm hands" helping to bind and load trees into people's trucks. They are in t-shirts. Because it's 65 degrees outside. I zipped up my jacket and pretended to shiver. It made me feel better.

The nice lady at the information shack told us that we could go cut our tree or choose from the freshly pre-cut trees. We decided to check out the cut-your-own trees.

Here is Nic with the measuring pole so you know how tall you are cutting your tree. Apparently, Nic did not see the height markings on the pole, so half way to the trees he asks me "What's this pole for?"

I told him it was for pole vaulting over the trees.

After doing a very scientific and thorough inspection of the trees offered in the field, I declared them unworthy. You only had two tree choices: Leyland Cypress or Virginia Pine. Wimpy trees with not enough branch strength to hold paper snowflake ornaments or fruity trees with swishy looking needles with a poor excuse for pine fragrance.

Back to the pre-cut trees.

And that's where we met "the one." A six foot Fraser with buff and toned branches and a strong pine scent to make you (or at least me) weak in the knees.

Nic might have called it "tree fondling" but I called it "tree love at first sight." It was ours, it was meant to be. We paid for it, had it shaken and bound. Then we took it to our car.

Remember my Ford Escort, my compact car that gets great gas mileage? That's right, that was the only vehicle we had to transport our tree home. Observe the result of determination and Nic's mad skillz.

An older Texan passed us as Nic was loading the tree into the backseat and promptly told him, "Son, ain't no way you're gettin' that tree into that there car." Pa-lease, sir. Just because we're the only ones in the parking lot without a Ford F-150 doesn't mean we can't engineer the improbable. I've seen way more ghetto tree haulin' arrangements than this.

But we drove home under 45 miles/hour, just in case.

The only other bump we had while putting up our tree was discovering that we only owned (and could afford after the cost of the tree, the tree stand, the gas to get the tree..) one strand of lights for our tree. Be honest, does it look that ghetto?

Of course it doesn't because the flash always washes out the lights. Perfect. We can pretend.

The last thing I must mention about our tree is how much love is hung around its branches. There are several personalized and "our first Christmas" ornaments we received as wedding gifts and the skirt was handmade by one of my aunts. Both of our families are with us this Christmas season, even if they are hundreds of miles away. We love you all.

Halloween: A First

Nic and I have a pretty good track record when it comes to Halloween. Granted, this was only our second one together, but two for two is still a perfect record. Last year, he surprised me by deciding on Thursday night to drive the 12.5 hours down from NE to TX to be with me for the Halloween weekend. I love this about him, his romantic spontaneity.

This year, however, was our first Halloween as a married couple.

The Friday before Halloween, we had a small party at our apartment; the first shin-dig we'd ever hosted at our place. It was pretty chill and laid back: four friends from church, pizza, a friend's homemade pumpkin cinnamon bread pudding, and games. Nic and I were almost the champions of  90's Trivial Pursuit game, but were beaten by our friends who were both born much earlier in the 80s and can recall more events from the years 1990-1999 than either Nic or I. However, it must be said that we were the first to obtain a colored triangle in the game, and that I impressed the others by knowing what a FPS is...a First Person Shooter video/computer game, duh. (A shout out to my dad and brother for those endless games of Doom, which made my correct answer possible.)

The weekend was very quiet and the extent of our Halloween celebrations was a Ghost Busters marathon ("there's always room for jello!"). Then there was the Oktoberfest/Reformation Day cook out at church on Sunday, which came complete with a very tough trivia game about all things German/Lutheran/October.

On Monday, I told Nic that I desperately wanted to carve a pumpkin with him for Halloween. We always carved pumpkins at my house on Halloween. My parents have this great video of me as a toddler flinging pumpkin guts everywhere as I dig into my first pumpkin. Winning!

As soon as I got home from work on Halloween, Nic and I headed to Wal Mart. We'd seen pumpkins there just days before and figured we'd get a steal on a pumpkin and the carving kit as they'd most likely be on sale. I must say, this made me very sad to think that our only recourse for getting a pumpkin was to go to Wal Mart. My heart ached for the roadside pumpkin picking of MI!

Tragedy of tragedies, Nic and I walked the entire length and breadth of our super Wal Mart only to discover that THEY DID NOT HAVE PUMPKINS ON HALLOWEEN DAY. Oh, but they were 2/3 of the way set up for Christmas, complete with fake trees and ornaments. I think that this is one of Texas' greatest flaws, that because they don't have seasons, they just rush through them irreverently and without respect.

Luckily, we have a Kroger down the street and I KNEW they'd have them as I'd just been by there days before. But what did we find? That Kroger too had no trace of Halloween decorations, let alone pumpkins. At this point, panic was setting in for me. We had one last spot to check before despairing. The HEB across the street. Surly, if they had organic versions of every herb/vegetable imaginable, they'd still have pumpkins.

Well folks, Here Everything ISN'T Better.

They did have pumpkins, of a sort. They had "pie pumpkins" which were very small and barely worth their $5 to use for carving. But they did have these massive pumpkins, which would have worked just fine, for $25 each. Well, I was not about to pay $25 for an over-sized pumpkin, even if it was organic! I reasoned that with the trends of the other stores, there was no way that this store was going to sell all five of these giant pumpkins for $25 each.

Time to try out my mad haggling skills. I told Nic I was prepared to take these drastic measures for a pumpkin, but I'm not sure he believed me until I was dragging him to find a manager.

Two managers and a checkout girl later and I am trying to work my hard-earned Hillsdale rhetoric skills on a Latnio manager. I explain that we are willing to pay $10 for a pumpkin and that I doubt she will sell all of them for full price before they are rotten.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have that power" she tells me.

BS. I've worked in retail and know that for customer satisfaction you  can make these kinds of calls.

'"Fine. Then we're not getting anything" I reply and storm off with Nic. Perhaps I should have swore loudly in Spanish, then maybe she would have taken me more seriously.

Back at our apartment, I was pouting in the kitchen when Nic came to my rescue. He was holding this mini pumpkin, which was partially spray painted gold, that we had taken from my work's Golf Tournament weeks before as fall decoration. I mean, this thing barely qualified as an over-sized gourd. But, Nic assured me we could still carve our Harry Potter pattern into it.

Score, hubby!

 

Me, after my rum and coke and Nic's optimism has me feeling a little more...festive :)

 I'm a little over enthusiastic about the pumpkin seeds we're saving to bake. And check out the Harry Potter we had playing while we carved, yup, we're just that into themes ;)

Nic looks practically jolly as he disembowels our wittle pumpkin.

Our original pattern had Harry's whole torso with wand in hand...but we could only fit his head on our mini pumpkin

Despite this look, Nic did not partake in the rum and coke that night

Ta-da! Check out Harry's cranium! 

Thanks to my creative husband we were able to have a smashing Halloween together. We had an adventure that now makes for a fun story. 

Stay turned for a post about this weekend's trip to the Texas Renaissance Festival!