a much needed break

So, tonight, i am home alone. Anthony's at ball, Leon will be out, I will be home. Alone.

Normally this would be incentive for me to pick up the phone to find someone to have over or go for coffee with, but as I sit here waiting for the workday to be over, I find myself eagerly anticipating this alone time.

I am not the type of person who needs a lot of alone time, I am quite ok with being around people for 99% of my time. But when that 1% sneaks up on me, an evening to myself is just what i crave. Just me, alone with my thoughts.

And that is probably what's fueling this yearning today, so much has been happening lately in my life (see last post) and in the lives of those around me, i just need a moment to process it all.

But just one moment..... i should be good to go by 8ish if anyone is interested in going for coffee, lol.

imminent change - ACK!

Well, about 3 months ago, i blogged about change, about the fact that two people whose lives directly impact mine were moving away. Now, those moves are imminent - both are moving this weekend.

The first is my sister Lana, her husband Russ got a job in Edmonton, so off they go. I have lived in the same city as my sister for my entire life, except for 2 years when I was at Briercrest, and 1 year when she was overseas. That's 23 years together. And for 6 of the last 7 years, we have both been on campus - either working or in school, so our contact was very frequent - lunches together, phone calls, emails, etc. I will miss them a lot, and wish they didn't have to move, but i am also very excited for them and their future out in Alberta.

The second is my boss. He's moving to Ontario to accept a position at the University of Waterloo. It's a really amazing position for him, and will allow him to further his career and influence in his field of expertise. And i am excited for him and his future out in Ontario. However, this means one huge change in my life, because after December, i no longer have a job. (now you all understand why all the changes coming at me in March were pretty stressful and daunting to me?) I will be working full time until Dec 31, wrapping up the research studies we are currently working on here, working with my boss long distance. Then there will be a few casual hours here and there in Jan/Feb to tie up the last of the loose ends.

So yeah, i have no clue what i'll be doing once the new year comes around, and it's a bit unsettling. I keep reminding myself that God has a plan, and he has things arranged beyond what I can see, and that He will provide. It's a big leap of faith for me, and i'm deliberately choosing to try not to worry, to try not to plan and organize and create a comfort zone (or an illusion thereof) for myself, which I am so good at doing when things are uncertain. I am researching options and trying to dream big. Did i mention i'm trying not to worry and fret? That is hard for me, but it's been going ok.

My options so far are as follows: get a f/t job, get a p/t job and go back to school to take a few more credits that i will likely need to get into the Masters program i aim to take someday, or if neither of those works, go on EI for a bit and see what else comes my way.

So please pray for me in this next chapeter of my life... i may end up leaving the University life to get a job in the real world, eek!

My recommendation

I just have to put the word out there for Jerry's ice cream, in particular, their Coconut Cream Pie ice cream.

It. Is. Amazing.

I have never been a huge fan of Jerry's but their ice cream and gelato (experienced last night for the first time) is incredible - freshly made, with fresh ingredients, made in store, and just the most tasty thing ever.

They will even give you little samples of any and every kind you want to try before you make up your mind what to have.

(the Nutella gelato is also very very good)

Here's to many more...

4 years ago right now, i was getting into my wedding dress and completing the final primping and priming that any bride does before walking down the aisle.

I remember being very excited, a bit nervous, and very very happy.

4 years ago I made a committment to honor, love, care for, and stick with Anthony "until Christ returns or we are separated by death" (i still remember that line well in our home-made vows). It has not always been easy, and I know I have failed many times at upholding that commitment. But the beautiful thing about a covenant like this is that you pick yourself up, and keep on going. There is much grace and forgiveness, and always a desire to work things out, to make things better, to reach for the stars and have this marriage be everything that it can be.

No, it's not always easy, in fact, many times it is extremely difficult. But that committment keeps us there, keeps us committed to trying, giving us hope for the future. And that is the key to a successful marriage. Not lovey, mushy feelings, not always being in agreement or always seeing eye to eye, but the ability to stick with it and work to make things better even when those feelings are absent, even when disagreements and differences of opinion seem to abound at every turn.

I am eternally grateful to have Anthony in my life, to have him as my life partner to journey with, as my support, my confidante, my encouragement, my kick-in-the-pants when needed, and always my friend.

I love you Anthony. Here's to many more wonderful years with you.

Maybe i need to get a life....

I was loading the printer today when i noticed a big dust bunny in the corner of the counter behind the mostly efficient machine. So I exclaimed to my coworker Jeff, "I just found a dust bunny!"

Yeah, he thought i said "I just found my destiny", and was silently wondering how i could find my destiny behind the printer.

Glad that wasn't the case, not sure what a destiny found behind a printer would look like....reminds me of engagement rings obtained from either 25 cent toy machines or boxes of cracker jacks - can be used in place of the real thing, but not quite as exciting.

I had a dream the other night, a pretty weird one....

I had a dream the other night, a pretty weird one. I told it to Anthony and he figures i must have been on drugs. I am blaming it on the fever i've had this week from being sick with a cold.

So, it starts out at my parent's house, Anthony and dad are showing me the car they rebuilt for me, it's a 70s model, beautiful blue paint with metallic rainbow ghost flames. Suddenly, i am at this large building in a big open room, and there's a bit of a walkway looking down on the main part. There are hospital-type beds (without the siderails) lined up in rows, pushed tight against one another.

A bunch of my friends are there with me (now, i just have to say that in real life, some of these girls are pregnant, some have just had babies, and some are not pregnant at all), but we are all there to get abortions. It's the hip/cool thing to do in the culture of my dream, i guess. We had all just gone through the first step (no idea what that was, prep stuff i'd imagine) and now we were to each lie down on a bed and get ready for the next step. Right beside each other, no curtains, no privacy, and from what i recall, the guys/husbands were looking down on us from the walkway area. I was freaking out, i knew i didn't want an abortion, and i was trying to convince my friends not to get them either, telling them that we didn't have to follow the status quo, we didn't have to go do what the masses were doing. I convinced a couple of them not to do it, don't know what the rest decided.

Because then, i was looking for my shoes (my black sandals to be specific) so that i could leave, and i could not find them. Then the guys on the balcony started throwing various shoes down at me to see if they were the ones i was looking for. Then i couldn't find my purse, and after looking around, everyone realized their purse had been misplaced as well. Someone had come up on the walkway area where we had left them, and moved them all around. None were missing, just hidden and in the wrong places. So i spent a lot of time finding people's purses and getting them back to the rightful owner, then someone said "She's so good at finding purses, we should get her to find pens too!"

So my next misison was to go find and collect all the pens I could find. While i was pen hunting, the location morphed to the house of a Psych prof for whom I used to work. She was encouraging me to find the pens, i was finding them all over her house - under furniture, in baskets in the living room, etc. People were excited for me for finding all these pens! So after that was done, we all sat down in the living room, and Anthony's sister Amy came and wanted her hair cut, so we decided to bic it and shave her bald....we proceeded to start doing this, and Val (the prof) was getting quite upset and telling us that we'd have to vacuum up all the hair when we were done.....i remember we got one strip off the front of Amy's hair -- one strip surrounding her face from ear to ear, and then we had to try to get the vacuum to work. It was one of those old ones that have a horizontal large part that rolls on the floor and then has the hose and nozzel separate. We were trying to make sure the right bag was in there and trying to get the hose end to connect to the large part, but it would not work and everyone was getting frustrated.

(end of dream as Anthony woke me up to say goodbye) So yeah, a little bizarre....and i didn't really even remember any of it until an hour or so after i got up, when it all came flooding back to me. Dreams are such funny things.