Back Where We Began

An old friend randomly e-mailed me last week and she ended her e-mail with something along the lines of "Everything comes full circle, I think". Today, I went back and read some blog posts from Jan. 06, when I first started this blog, and lo and behold, everything really does come full circle. It's a long story, that probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me, but I am finally giving up and going back to art. (Well, sort of. I am only a couple classes away from completing all requirements for psychology, so I still plan to finish it out, but I have decided that come Spring semester, I will be taking classes in person and minoring in art. If I decide to double major, then so be it, but for now, let's just plan on the minor.) This has been years in the making, as for some reason, I have fought with everything in me to avoid art, and in some twisted way, avoid God. And I let my experience at the art institute serve as the perfect excuse to continue this wild get away. Well, He finally beat me...er, rather I finally realized I never even had a chance. I don't know why, but for years, I have told Him that I should be a doctor instead of an artist. And I have all but reamed Him a new one for "burdening me" with art. And for a stubborn idiot like myself, it takes near death for me to give in. There is a verse that talks about "in your faithfulness you have afflicted me", and while I don't believe God ever causes death, disease, pain, on his children, I do believe He will cringe, and stand by as we destroy our very souls. And so for the last who knows how long, He has been faithfully cringing as I bring destruction into my own life, wondering how many weights I will lift until the barbell comes crashing down onto my chest and stops my breathing, finally realizing that it is going to take someone bigger, much bigger, and someone stronger, much stronger, to lift it all off and let me breathe again. So, I don't know what I will do with art. I don't know how we will pay the bills if my school schedule conflicts with my job schedule. I don't know that it's really a practical degree. I don't even know if I will like it. But, I do know I'm tired and I'm ready to stop running.

Good Quotes

I came across this quote today by an unknown author, but thought it was refreshing:

God tells us to burden him with whatever burdens us.

Life in General

I figured it's about time for another update. Abe is officially back to his old sassy self and it makes me very happy. (Thanks to anyone who prayed for my puppy dog!)

I am so messed up with time. I had looked at the calendar yesterday morning and realized how quickly Canadian Thanksgiving is coming. So today I was grocery shopping, and thinking I needed to get all of the stuff for it...then I realized after I got home and unpacked the groceries, it's still another week away...hmmm...my mind was already into October. Oh well. Hopefully everything will keep! Unfortunately, Jesse and I both have to work the day of, plus Jesse has classes that day as well, so we will celebrate on Sunday instead of Monday I think.

We ordered the hardware for our kitchen cabinets yesterday. We kept going back and forth debating between "brushed nickel" or "oil rubbed bronze"...I don't actually even remember which we went with in the end. Anyway, I am hoping to start sanding down the cabinets soon and getting them ready for the paint. This has been one of those projects that has been put on hold for way too long. I think the summer time slows down the house projects because it's so much more fun to be outside than in. Now that the weather is getting chilly again, I find myself looking around inside and wondering what I can change. Plans for the fall: kitchen cabinets, slight redecoration in the bedroom, and a major cleaning/re-organizing of the office. And of course, lots of yard work. I want to plant some bulbs this fall. I thought about it last fall, but never got around to it, then when spring came and I had no blooms, I was kicking myself.

My brother got engaged a couple weeks ago, so I am going to a little party deal for him tonight. I'm excited for their wedding (they have set the date a year out, so I have a while), but it will be the first wedding in I don't even remember how long where Jesse won't be working and photographing. I actually don't even know if we have been to a wedding together where he wasn't working.

Anyway, that's it for now I suppose.

My Big Boy

Thank God my big boy Abe is getting better! After a week of throwing up, crying and whining through the night, scratching and pacing, one regular vet visit, two emergency vet visits, one bottle of pills, one tube of antibiotic ointment, one container of liquid medicine, one complete blood count, one x-ray, five hundred dollars, and many tears (that would be mine), he is getting better!!! (And I don't care if it's silly or trivial, I will ask anyway for you to pray that he makes a full recovery by the end of this week.) But yeah he is getting better!!!

Jesse Is Funny.

It has been a rough few days around here. Abe has been sick, and also acting slightly mental, so we have gotten little sleep the last few days. I was healing up well from the surgery, but started going back down hill when Abe started going down hill. He is on antibiotics now, as well as ear drops, so hopefully this will all be looking up soon and he (which means we also) will be sleeping quietly through the nights. In the midst of all this chaos, Jesse's five o'clock shadow turned to an eight or nine o'clock shadow. Anyway, yesterday we were both really feeling the stress and over-tiredness, so in an attempt to cheer me up, Jesse emerged from the bathroom as Pedro the Spanish Conquistador:



(Don't worry, he shaved it off before going to work the next day.)

thelongestrantever....

Can I just say that I am glad summer is ending? This has been a hard summer. I seriously think I had a quarter-life crisis. Let's recap here...realizing I don't want to get a PhD in psychology after all, which means majoring in psychology for a bachelor's doesn't really get me anywhere further than where I can get without a degree, so my degree is somewhat pointless but I have taken out too many loans and gotten too deep in to quit, so I ponder changing majors, but that would mean going to school in person and maybe having to quit my job, which let's face it, is really a dead end job anyway, but it pays great for while I'm in school, gives me good hours, and I have a generous and kind boss and like the people, regardless, I had various meetings with schools about changing my major, of which I finally now for this week at least have it narrowed down to two options, which I won't publicly say, because let's face it, I'm flaky and I want to do something different every month if not every week, I had surgery and beforehand was slightly wondering if I was going to die, because my life seems to have lost all purpose and direction this summer, lo and behold, I'm still alive, and everyone gives me the advice that if I want to be successful and happy in life I should just follow my passion, but apparently, this summer, I have no passion, so that advice really stinks for a person in my position, they say if money were no object, what would you do all day, that's what you should pursue, well what if I'd buy a big lot of land and have an orchard and five dogs and bake and sometimes pretend that I am going to learn to sew and make cool things, but then I'd get out my sewing machine and have to measure fabric and I'd get frustrated that I cut it too short, but I don't want to remeasure so I'd sew it together anyway and it would be lopsided in the end and unfit for use of any kind, then a week later, I'd probably repeat all of this with something like woodworking, you can't really make a career out of that, ya know, so maybe I should just follow what I know I am good at, truth is, I can out organize anyone, and I am a frickin awesome administrator, but really, who wants to work at some company administrating if you don't even care about their bottom line, so I stay in school plugging away because none of the future life makes sense except that I hope someday we don't have think twice before buying new underwear because we don't know if we really can afford it or not, and it's so depressing that most of my underwear have my name written in them, it's true, because they are so old, I had them when we went to Nicaragua, and the laundry was community laundry, so if you really wanted to keep tabs on your panties, which believe me you sure do in a place like that, then you need to have a definitive marker, and really after being removed from that situation, it's slightly hard on the ego to slap on a pair of undies that have your name written in permanent marker across the butt, and my dog is sick, my poor big Abe dog is sick, and my poor little Horton dog has broken out with yet another rash and is eating his butt as we speak, and this is really my life, which I happen to somewhat enjoy, because really, I'm not a high fashion high life kind of girl, and there is something cute and lovable in the way my dog licks his butt and doesn't care if all the world sees, nonetheless, I am concerned that my big boy Abe is aging faster than my little heart can handle and I can't bear the thought of him living in pain, so I made him a vet appointment tomorrow and hope to find out something good, although I don't know what, but I do know that I am glad I can drive our SUV doggie vehicle, which had the window smashed in by some nice person in the middle of the night two nights ago, which caused a big ruckus in the morning as Jesse was leaving for work, thankfully Jesse is stinking awesome and found a piece of glass at a scrapyard and fixed it himself instead of having to pay 200 something for someone else to do the labor, but that is just another thing on his plate that is probably near ready to crack under the pressure of everything else on it, BUT fall is here and a new season is coming, which means, I will buy new underwear. I will consider taking up knitting. I will redo another room in the house. I will brush my dogs and marvel as their furry winter coats grow big and soft, and I will relax with a cup of chai. So eat that, summertime.

Just Two More Clips...

Jesse and the Fish



Riding Test Track

Jesse Has Dessert

I finally know how to upload videos, so I will post a few clips from vacation. (Side note: the video quality is quite poor...I'll get better with time...)

We're Back!

We are back from vacation and we are very tired! We caught an early flight out of Orlando, so we had to get up at 4:50 (3:50 Missouri time) in the morning. Not fun! But, at least we made all of our flights! We had a really good time, although it was jam packed. Here are a few photos...

This is Jesse at our resort the evening we arrived. The resort was very pretty, although we were so busy doing other things, that we hardly spent any time there!





Disney World is made up of 6 parks, lots of cool resorts, "Downtown Disney" (a shopping/dining/entertainment area), as well as a few other things like golf courses and the wide worlds of sports. We only had time make it to four of the parks. The 2 we didn't go to are water parks.

We started off at Animal Kingdom, which is my favorite of their parks. As always at Disney, the theming and attention to detail are amazing. This is Jesse in "Asia".


Here I am being an "honorary bug". (The glasses are for a 3d show.) Jesse and I went to this show last time we were at Animal Kingdom and still love it. The special effects go beyond just a 3d movie screen to smells that they pump into the theater, air that blast through, and mechanics in the seats that make you feel different effects.



This is the "safari". Disney rides are different from other amusement park rides, because they always tell a story, and the rider is always involved. So, for example, on this ride, we were on a 2 week safari in Africa, and end up helping the wildlife reserve save 2 elephants from poachers. Jesse and I really like this ride, because you get to see so many different animals, and you can't see a cage or fence in sight.

Animal Kingdom has a ton of beautiful scenery. I could just walk around the area all day even if there were no animals!



Besides seeing a ton of animals, we also rode a fun dinosaur ride, and I tried out their newest thrill ride, Expedition Everest. Jesse wasn't feeling really great, so he stayed back and waited for me. I think he may have been the smart one! I've never been quite so surprised or freaked on a ride before in my life!

After we were done at the park, we went to eat at a restaurant at one of the other Disney resorts, called the Animal Kingdom Lodge. This is Jesse getting ready to enjoy his dessert plate!



This is us just walking around the resort grounds and seeing more animals.


We were on Disney's dining plan, which was awesome. You get 2 snacks, 2 counter service meals, and 2 sit down meals for each night of your stay. You get to choose where to redeem the meals at, so there is a wide variety. And the meals include drinks, appetizers, main dish, and desserts, so you get a lot of good food. Plus, the meal plan already includes tips, so you don't even have to worry about that. Having the meal plan let us eat at places that we could otherwise never afford. For example, our first night there, the meal we ate was 80 bucks!

Day two we went to MGM Studios in the morning and Epcot for the afternoon and evening.

At MGM, we only went on one ride. We decided we weren't brave enough for the others (like tower of terror). The coolest thing we did there (in my opinion at least) was the "Lights, Camera, Action, Extreme Stunt Show". Basically, cars speeding around, things catching on fire, and stuff like that. But they roll back the clips and then explain how they do different stunts and such in movies, so it was pretty interesting.

This is a photo of us before the show, with the "movie set" in the background.



And this is Jesse singing in the rain!



As we were leaving MGM, it started to pour rain. Thankfully, we had checked the weather before and bought ponchos to bring with us, so we busted those out right as we arrived at Epcot.

Jesse sporting his fashionable poncho...


A big part of Epcot is the world showcase, where they have all these little lands set up to be like countries. We decided to have dinner in Morocco at Marrakesh. We got to enjoy a little belly dancing while we ate! (Sorry for the bad photo....Jesse is much better than me!)


This is Jesse in line for one of his favorite Disney rides, Test Track. The idea is that you are testing new cars, so you go through all the crash test dummy experiments. The ride ends with the "barrier test" and you go speeding out the building around a track. It's a fun ride.


And, here's us in front of the Epcot ball.


Epcot also had a ride called Soarin, which we love. The idea is that you are hang gliding over California. It's basically a big IMAX screen, but you sit in seats that go up and dangle you in front of the screen, then they pump in air to simulate the wind, and as you go over different scenes, they pump in smells (like pine trees as you fly over a forest). My favorite part of the ride was when we crested over a cliff, and Jesse taught all the little children on the ride a new phrase spelled O-H S-H-I-T. (Jesse's not a big fan of heights.)

Anyway, our last day there we went to the Magic Kingdom, which is the park that most people think of when they think Disney. It has Cinderella's castle and most of the Disney classics like It's a Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean.

I made Jesse try on some silly hats and pose for photos.







This is in front of the tea cups.


And of course, who can go to Disney and not see the castle?