Thoughts

These are stray things I feel like posting, but didn't know how to (or possibly I'm just too tired to) string them all together in a connected blog post. So, I'm just going to say them, list style.

#1: Someday I want to live in a house with trees in the yard and a front porch, preferably with a porch swing.

#2: Today I saw three people on unicycles, all at different times of the day.

#3: Today I also saw a perfectly normal looking man walking down the street - perfectly normal looking excepting the fact that he had angel wings pinned to his back. Hm.

#4: Today I almost got hit by a car. I could have died! But I didn't.

#5: My room smells like Thanksgiving right now (I attribute it to the Pumpkin Spice and Apple Pie candles I have burning.) It's very nice. I didn't intend on including this one in my list when I started this post, but I think it was worth mentioning.

I Don't Want to Grow Up... Sometimes...

I recently spent an evening with two of my very best friends - and their baby girl. Instead of goofing off and wasting time and watching movies and tv and playing video games, or doing puzzles, or making brownies at midnight or any of the things we used to do before we had to schedule time to hang out, we just sat in the living room and talked about kids and politics. I also heard about the mom's Bible study my friend is starting. Kids and politics are interesting enough, and it's awesome Char is starting a Bible study for new moms, but sometimes I don't want to grow up. Somewhere in between the story about how Char forgot the diapers one day and discussing McCain's campaign strategy, it hit me how much things have changed.

However -

that night Angelina learned how to say my name. She kept coming up to me, or pointing to me and saying "Hi! Hi Tay Tay." That was pretty awesome. I also got to see Lina dance with her daddy in the living room, which I later learned was a rare privilege. It was fun. So I do love kids and I do like politics, and I generally like Bible studies. Every once in a while I just don't feel that old, that's all.

Simple, Like A Breath of Fresh Air

I wish I had a picture to post with this entry, but I think it would take away from the word picture I'm trying to paint anyway. So no picture for you.

One foot in front of the other. Late afternoon sun casting leafy shadows on the pavement. June bugs humming, cows mooing, flies buzzing. The heat permeates the air with the sweet smell of blackberries. Things that slowly, but steadily pass through my peripheral vision as I focus on the road ahead: railroad tracks, a small country school, a picturesque cemetery, a Victorian house with a white picket fence, a beautiful, lazy river cutting its way through hills and trees, a mountain. Favorite familiar songs on my iPod fill my mind with distraction and motivation enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other as I wipe sweat from my forehead and fan myself with my t-shirt. It feels good to breathe hard with the sun beating down on me. As the late September afternoon turns into an early September evening with a harvest moon against the periwinkle sky that meets the earth along a jagged line of pine tree tips, I turn the corner onto Creamery Lane. My mom's flowers in the front yard are so pretty, and our grass is green, soft and refreshingly wet after being watered. I pat my dog on the head as she sits on the doorstep, her pink tongue hanging out of her mouth and her tail swishing from side to side. (Lady used to come on runs with me, but can't now because she's been getting seizures. Sad.) I sit down beside my dog, who lays her head in my lap - endearing - and gaze across our yard, across the small country road, across our neighbor's yard to the impressive Mt. Shasta. Even without snow it can put on a show.

That's a slice of my day. I wish I always appreciated things like I appreciated them today. Sometimes my runs through Edgewood are like an overwhelmingly simple breath of fresh air.

Blackberries and Other Good Things

Tomorrow I get to go home.

Really, you have no idea how much weight those words carry right now. The first thing I'm going to do is take a long drink of cold, Edgewood water. Then I'm going to go for a run in the evening down Edgewood road. Then I'm going to hang out with my family in the living room and relax. Maybe I'll eat some homemade popcorn because it's delicious. Like the kind you pop in the pan, not the microwave crap. The next day I told JB I would take him on a picnic and we would pick blackberries. He said "ok, but I just might get some scratches, KK." I told him we would be careful, but if he got a scratch that we could put a band-aid on it. He said, "But we will be far away from the house!" I assured him we could pack some band-aids along just in case, "OH! That's a GOOD idea, KK!" So I'm excited about that. I'm also looking forward to seeing my Grandma and Nonno and Nonni. I really wish I could see Carla, but she's leaving right before I will arrive. Oh well. I get to see her next weekend, then stay with her in Bend for a few days. I love Bend. The main thing I'm looking forward to is not having to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months on end. (Ok, ok, it's not months on end, but two months can feel that way.) The things I'm looking forward to eating are:
-Blackberry Cobbler
-Green salad with fresh tomatoes and lemon cucumbers. YUM.

I realize this might sound overdramatic, but who cares. I'm just really glad I get to go home.

I Am Plagued with Common Sense

Level-headed, mature, has so much common sense, solid, a rock, not emotional.

These terms have all been used to describe me, by a wide array of people. Now, before you become disgusted with me and stop reading this, (or perhaps you're so intrigued by my self praise at this point that you will read on anyway)know that at this moment in time, and in fact many moments in time, I am frustrated with my common sense. Why? Because it's so restraining! Don't think I am not flattered by these descriptions of me by others, I am 100% flattered, and most of the time I love my non-emotional common sense. But I would love to be able to just flip out once in a while. You know, yell at someone because I have grounds to. Or just cry and cry and have someone else tell me it will be OK rather than having my stupid common sense brain screaming at me, "Karen, how much does this or will this really matter in the grand scheme of things?" Stop common sense, go away! Just for one day let me over-react and exaggerate and think that it's the end of the world. When I have grounds to be mad at someone, let me give it to them, stop pulling my grounds out from under me. Let me grieve at the loss of a friendship, or complain because I've been sitting in a trailer all summer and not feel guilty about it.

Even now, I feel like posting this blog is an emotional reaction that I will regret because my common sense tells me I don't need this release, that I am just fine. So perhaps I will delete it tomorrow. And perhaps I won't. My common sense and I have had a lot of battles lately.

Words Aren't Enough

What do you say when a seasoned firefighter tells you he's spent the last two days searching for and going through the remains of the nine firefighters killed in the recent helicopter crash in Trinity County? What do you say when he can't help crying after he's said that? What do you say? Or do you say nothing at all? I'm sorry seems inadequate. Silence seems uncaring. What do you say when he looks up from their pictures with tears in his eyes and asks, "did you know any of these guys? I did." What do you say? I don't know - all I know is I had to say something when this happened to me today. I mumbled that I am sorry for the loss, and I can't imagine how he must be feeling. He thanked me and it seemed genuine - like he knew I was searching for the words but could not find them. I think it's because sometimes there are none, but they are the best way for us to convey our sincerity in caring.

It's easy to detach myself from what's happening around here without realizing it. Today though, as images of the fallen firefighters and pilot flooded the trailer (office), I was acutely aware of my emotions, and it was hard for me. Pictures of them with their families, their new wives, their fiances... reading of their ambitions of finishing school, starting school - the seven that were killed were so young! Somehow it feels closer to home since they were all from Southern Oregon (Central Point, Grants Pass, Medford, Ashland).

What do you say? I have no idea.

It's stupid to play tug-of-war with God

A big lesson I've been learning from God in these past months is about letting go. Under that umbrella there have been many experiences that have pointed me to that concept. Even in small things, like school decisions, summer jobs, etc., God is teaching me to allow Him to take control. The tricky part is that it can't be of my own doing - that is, if I try to give things to God, I inevitably try to get them back sooner or later, whether consciously or subconsciously. That's why the lesson I've been learning from God is about letting it go rather than giving it up. It's because God has to take things from me, and I have to let go of them. When I try to give them to God they fall back to me, because even though I want to, I don't know how to give them completely away. It's almost as if I know what I want, but I don't want what I want. (I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I feel like it's a process to get to want what you know you truly want, or perhaps know you truly need. You have to get past the surface level stuff.) I've also been learning that God is extremely caring when he offers to take things away from us, things we want to hold onto, but He knows we shouldn't be clinging to. With me recently, He has been doing this slowly, and slowly replacing the things that it hurts to watch fade away with something infinitely better - Himself.