33% architect

I got my third “pass” letter in the mail this week for my architectural licensing exams.  3 down!  But 6 more to go…  I never anticipated this being such a laborious process.  When I started studying for my first test back in February, I thought I might enjoy falling back into study-mode, reliving a small piece of student life.  I thought it would be fun to spend my Saturdays at a cafe with my books and flashcards.  I was wrong.  I am putting off doing that very thing as I sit here and type – I should be off somewhere else, distraction-free, studying for my upcoming test on Monday.  Instead, I have already spent much of today surfing the internet, cleaning the house, doing a little yard work.  I guiltily took a 30-minute nap after lunch.  Shame on me for not being the studious architect-in-training that I know I should be…  Some of the study material has been interesting, but I’m down to needing to memorize the nitty-gritty details, like the proper slope of a storm drain line, or the difference between mediation and arbitration in terms of an building-related lawsuit.  Why can’t the architectural licensing process require things like building cool models or using travel to experience the way that culture informs architecture?  One can only wish…

I am looking forward to having this process behind me so that I can enjoy spending more time on my neglected hobbies – I’m afraid the “now painting”, “now reading”, and “now stitching” pages I’ve posted on this blog don’t rotate nearly as frequently as I’d like with completed projects and new endeavors.  All the more motivation to get these tests DONE.

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irritable

I was irritable today (unfortunately, Shane can confirm this).  I don’t know if it’s work, or my pesky summer-time allergies, or the fact that I couldn’t fall back asleep this morning when Shane got up at 4 a.m. to go stand in line for an iPhone, but I found myself getting incredibly bent out of shape by the most insignificant things.  Cases in point:

I was out at the jobsite all day today and popped over to a nearby supermarket/deli for lunch.  I was sitting at a table, enjoying my broccoli-cheese soup and sourdough roll, when I watched a man walk up to the tray of bite-size doughnut samples near the counter and commit a crime of total germ-spreadery.  The tray had a pair of plastic tongs sitting next to it and a note that said “PLEASE use tongs!”  As a slight germo-phobe, I can appreciate the sanitary reasons for not wanting people to reach their hands into a pile of food samples.  The man picked up the tongs, which was a good start, but then he placed the doughnut sample directly into his mouth from the tongs.  I think there may have even been lip-to-tong contact!  While this is definitely a little gross, I shouldn’t have let myself react with such repulsion.  My eyes followed the man with an icy glare as he moved about the store.  In retrospect, his show of such poor manners is almost funny.  Laughing might have been a more suitable reaction.

Irritable moment number 2 (or was is number 8?  I lost count today…) occurred when I got on the bus to go back to the office from the site.  It was a full bus, and my feet were tired from another day of punchlists.  I walked toward the back of bus, hoping to find an empty seat.  There was indeed an empty seat, but a woman had her purse sitting there.  She made absolutely no attempt to move her purse to her lap, even when I grabbed onto the pole near her seat and made a clear effort to look for a place to sit.  I hovered over her for the next couple of stops, grumbling something to the effect “that is soooo rude” under my breath.  She just watched me stand.  Really, I could have and should have politely asked her to move her bag, but in my grumpy state, I found it much more satisfying to pout and complain.  So silly of me.

The good news is that it is now Friday evening and I am contentedly enjoying a cup of tea in our quiet house while Shane is out having a beer with a friend.  I’ll have to apologize to him when he gets home – my first words when I walked in the door this evening were “I thought you were going to clean the house this afternoon!”  Not exactly the warm hug and “How was your day, Honey?” he was hoping for… Thank goodness he is a forgiving and understanding man.

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distracted

With work being as busy as it is, and my next licensing test coming up in a couple of days, and my list of “free time” projects growing all the time, my mind feels like it’s stretched very thin. I feel like I have lost my ability to focus. When I’m at work, I’m thinking about all the studying I have to do. When I’m studying, I’m thinking about the unfinished painting or sewing project that I have sitting upstairs. I try to set aside time in the evening to work on these projects, but I never get around to it, because I am worn out and exhausted by 8 pm. And then as I’m trying to drift off to sleep, I find myself composing my task list for the following work day. I am one big, neurotic stress-ball. I find it impossible to relax. It’s frustrating. And tiring.

Thankfully, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, as my test will be over on Tuesday and my big project at work should be wrapped up by the end of the month. But then again, come next month, there will be another test to take and another project to work on. And will I allow myself to become consumed by these things once again? I desperately hope not. I just haven’t figured out yet how to avoid it. I have not been dealing well with deadlines and pressure and stress. Ideally, my feelings of stress would drive me to productivity, and my productivity would allow me to feel that I’ve earned the right to take a break and relax, but it seems instead that my stress is just frazzling me to the point that I’m not getting much of anything done. And so my frustration compounds and compounds and compounds. Goodness, I’m a Debbie-downer tonight… I think I’ve got a case of the “Sunday night don’t want to go to work tomorrow didn’t get much done at home this weekend” blues. Sigh.

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looking forward

I’ve had a hard time “embracing the present” this week, and so I’ve been focusing on all that I have to look forward to:

Getting up late this Saturday, then making French toast for breakfast (I’ve had a craving lately).

Seeing my Kindergarten class at church this Sunday. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve taught, and I’ve missed those kids.

Finishing up the punch lists for the project I’m working on in just a couple of weeks. Time to move on. My feet hurt.

Receiving the new cool, modern, wood bed frame and headboard that we just ordered from West Elm. Good-bye, squeaky old metal frame.

Heading down to Portland in a couple of weeks to visit my niece. Gotta say, I’ve got the baby itch (we’re not ready for our own, but it’s wonderful to enjoy other people’s kids!)

Checking out “First Thursday” (local Seattle art gallery walk) with Shane next Thursday. I love that he works downtown now, just a few blocks away from my office.

Planning our week-end getaway for the month of June (a new summer tradition). Camping? Vancouver? We need to get out of town.

Completing my third licensing test in just 12 days, after which I am allowing myself to take a one-month break from studying.

I know I shouldn’t resist dwelling in the present, but future seems so much more fun right now…

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weekends rock.

We’ve had a wonderful weekend – it’s been a good mix of having fun and getting stuff done. We had an errand to run in Tacoma yesterday and decided to check out Point Defiance while we were down there. This turned out to be the perfect perfect-weather getaway – a park with a nice variety of beach, garden, and forest.

It felt so good to aimlessly wander for a couple of hours, without having any reason to rush back home for anything. More and more, Shane and I are seeing the value in getting out of the house and enjoying each other; this is so much more important than having a clean home or catching the basketball game on TV. However, that said, after our day of fun yesterday, we did decide to spend a good part of today on housework. 4 loads of laundry done; 3 boxes of stuff pulled out of closets and put in the Goodwill pile; 4,000 computer/TV/video cables sorted and neatly coiled (this is a bit of an exaggeration, but anyone who is married to an IT guy will know what I’m talking about…); 3 bedrooms vacuumed and dusted; 2 toilets scrubbed; and something like 100 weeds pulled from our yard. It was a full day – we definitely earned the bottle of wine that we enjoyed out in the early evening sunshine of our backyard. The best part of this weekend? The fact that it’s not over yet! Looking forward to our Monday off!

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tears

I got that phone call last night that anyone with a sick family member dreads – it was my mom and dad, calling to tell me that my grandmother (“Nannie”), who has been quite ill for several months, had taken a turn for the worse and seemed to be nearing the end of her life. I was upset, but I somehow believed that she would pull through this decline, as she has done in the past. Dreaded phone call #2 came this morning – Nannie passed away sometime during the night. Emotional numbness allowed me to make it through the work day (“keep busy, don’t let the tears start”, is what I kept telling myself). But the second I stepped off the bus this evening and turned the corner onto our street, the floodgates broke and I began to sob. This hurts. This is my first adult experience with the loss of a loved one, and I am frustratingly fumbling through what it means to grieve. I know that the grieving process looks different for everyone, but that is what’s so difficult. I want a formula to follow, steps to go through, milestones to accomplish. I have spent an evening curled up in bed, crying while Shane rubs my back and prays for my family. I have called my dad and cried with him over the phone. I have cried on the couch. I have cried in the shower. And just when I think I’m about cried out, my eyes start burning and the tears start falling again. I am of course saddened by my loss of my grandmother, but what pains me so deeply is the knowledge that my grandfather has had to say good-bye to his wife of over 60 years. Their marriage was a testament to the meaning of devotion. Nannie spent so many years nurturing her husband and children, taking care of the house, preparing meals, being an active and attentive wife, mother, and grandmother. But as she became weaker and was able to do less and less, Grandaddy didn’t hesitate a bit to fill in where he was needed. When Shane and I visited them back in Maryland last fall, I was touched and humbled by how lovingly he prepared her breakfast, helped her to the bathroom, made sure that at any moment she had everything she needed and desired. We woke up one morning to find him baking cookies, rolling snickerdoodle dough in a bowl of cinnamon and sugar. He said that although Nannie rarely had much of an appetite anymore, she did love those cookies, and so he would gladly bake them faster than she could eat them. It was clear that he wasn’t doing these things out of habit or obligation – these were genuine labors of love. Devotion is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

So…what now? Do I cry some more? Do I try to distract myself? I suppose the best I can do is allow myself to feel sadness, but rejoice in the fact that my grandmother lived a life in which she gave and received so much love.

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inevitable

It was inevitable. With all these babies being had in our neighborhood, our church, and our family, I am starting to feel the slightest twinge of baby fever. I want a little one of my own. I want to decorate a nursery and pick out baby names and make homemade baby food. I want to know what it feels like to love a child in ways that I can’t even begin to imagine now. And hearing my brother talk with such tenderness about his newborn daughter has made me excited to see what fatherhood will look like for Shane. I can’t wait to see him change diapers and rock our baby to sleep and eventually throw the baseball around with our future son or daughter. And yet… I am so not ready yet for the responsibility of parenthood. I have no doubt that the joys will far outweigh the sacrifices, but I am still a very selfish person – I like operating on my own schedule. I like taking naps, going out to dinner on a whim, having a clean house. These things don’t necessarily have to fall by the wayside when a child enters the picture, but they certainly become more difficult. And are we financially ready for a child? Can we afford for me to leave my job for a significant amount of time? And what about that trip to Europe we want to take within the next year? Won’t that be difficult with an infant? So many questions still… And so for now, we will wait, and pray, and plan. And dote on all these new babies around us!

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he’s back (thank goodness)

Shane got back last night from his 5-day business trip down to Tuscon, and it is wonderful to have him home again. While I enjoyed having some time to myself, and appreciated being able to spend my Saturday afternoon watching chick flicks instead of the NCAA tournament, I was starting to get a little lonely. Spending a few days on my own has caused me to appreciate all over again just how integral Shane is to my day-to-day life. He keeps the blankets from falling off the side of the bed in the middle of the night. He is that shoulder I need to lean on after a stressful day at work. He doesn’t let me spend all morning watching reruns of Beverly Hills, 90210 (I found I need someone to call me out on my trash-TV binges). He makes sure that I laugh deeply and regularly. He remembers to always close the garage door and turn the heat down at bedtime. He keeps me from being freaked out by the noises that the house makes at night. He takes the garbage out when it’s cold and raining outside. He makes certain that I always feel loved, appreciated, and pursued. He leaves his socks on the floor and his empty glasses on the coffee table (wait – that might be another post…).  Anyhow, I’m happy he’s home.  Life is better when he’s around.

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going/coming home

I don’t want to dwell too much on this “Where is my home?” question, but it’s something that weighed on my mind throughout the past couple of days in Turlock. I took my seat on the plane back to Seattle a few hours ago and the gentleman next to me asked, “Heading home?”, and I caught myself hesitating before I responded with an emphatic “Yes”. That 90-minute plane ride was host to a number of emotions for me: one part sadness over having just said good-bye to my parents and girlfriends; one part thankfulness for the time I got to spend shopping and hanging out with Amanda and Francine (dearest friends), chatting with my parents, and stuffing myself with some absolutely fabulous burritos from the local Mexican joints; one part (or maybe two parts?) excitement over returning to Seattle and seeing Shane; and one part bitter-sweet acceptance that Turlock really isn’t home to me anymore. That town holds sooo many memories for me, and there’s comfort of the familiarity of it all, but I was reminded throughout the weekend that it just doesn’t “fit” me anymore. This is largely due to the fact that my parents have sold the house in which I spent many of my adolescent years and are moving up to Oregon later this month, but that’s really only part of the reason for my emotional departure from this small town in the Central Valley. I’ve realized that I belong in a city where new construction consists of high-rises rather than strip malls, where I have a choice of spending my Saturday morning in a local cafe or an art museum, and where I can have Thai food for lunch on Monday, Indian on Tuesday, and Greek on Wednesday (though Turlock’s Mexican food trumps Seattle’s any day). I’m not knocking my small-town roots – my two closest friends lead very fulfilling lives in Turlock, surrounded by people they’ve known and loved for years, and they’ve proved that staying there has its advantages. Shane and I don’t get to run into old friends from high school all the time, and we can’t pull together an impromptu family-wide picnic on a Sunday afternoon. But still, I’m happy in Seattle, because God has wired me with this “urban craving” that I just can’t suppress. There are people and things in California that I will forever miss – which is completely ok, but I can’t let these things keep me from further rooting myself in Seattle. Next steps? Stop obsessing about this whole singular definition of “home” (why is this such a big deal to me?) and simply enjoy the transition from Californian to Seattle-ite…

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are we home yet?

I’m heading back to California next weekend for a quick visit with friends and family, and I’ve caught myself telling people that I’m “going home” for a couple days; then I pause and think to myself “isn’t it about time that you start thinking of Seattle as home?” And then I realize that finally (after 2 1/2 years), I think I’m getting there – this past week has contained several reminders that we are slowly but surely rooting ourselves here.

Being involved in our church has been hugely meaningful in our connection to Seattle. The small group that we host every Tuesday is a source of so much joy and encouragement (and calories – we’ve shared a number of pretty indulgent desserts over the past few months!). We took a break from our regular Bible study this past week and decided to just kick back and enjoy a movie together. And as much as I enjoy the depth that comes out of our studies and discussions, this night was a reminder that the greatest thing about about this church-based community is that we have really become a group of friends who really like just hanging out together. Six months ago, most of us didn’t even know each other. I also volunteer a couple of times a month in one of the Sunday School classes and got together with several of the other teachers last Thursday. Nothing big – just a couple of hours of catching up with one another and sharing ideas about children’s ministry, but I left that meeting feeling so supported and uplifted. Again and again, I am inspired the passion and sincerity of the people we’ve met at Quest.

Another one of these root-setting reminders came in the form of the wonderful dinner we shared last night with some friends. Thanks to Jack (lawyer-by-day, chef-by-night), the food was incredible. But the conversations we had that night were what sent me home with a smile on my face. We spent several hours at the table sharing about our families, our travel experiences, our restaurant recommendations… We pondered the origins of chapstick, Shane revealed his dreams of opening up a fast-food Indian restaurant, we reminisced about the days of Atari… Good times. It is encouraging to see these much-needed “local” friendships growing and deepening.

And finally, a couple of simple experiences this weekend reaffirmed how much we really love our neighborhood. Shane spent much of yesterday and part of today helping our neighbors lay new sod – not a “fun” task per-se, but still, it’s nice to have someone just around the corner that he can play in the dirt with. And we had our first backyard barbeque of the year this afternoon when our neighbor a few doors down pulled out his grill and called us over for hot dogs. A few other neighbors wandered over and we sat around in our lawn chairs and chatted for awhile, pretending that it was much warmer than it actually was. I love being a part of a community where these spontaneous gatherings are so natural – Shane and I lived in our previous apartment for a full year without meeting anyone else in the building. We have been so blessed here by the warmth and generosity of the people that live around us.

So are we home yet? I’d say yes – actually, we’ve been home for awhile now.

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