little black journal

Ooooohhh, yesterday was a rough day.  I went to bed around the usual time on Sunday night, fell asleep within 30 seconds of putting my head on the pillow, and then awoke to feelings of uncomfortable nausea around 2 am.  Discomfort quickly turned into pain and by 4 am, I was running to the bathroom and emptying my stomach.  So glad that I scrubbed the toilet and the bathroom floors on Saturday, because I spent the much of the next 6 hours laying on the cool tile of our bathroom floor, hoping with each bout of gagging that it would soon be over.  Was it the slightly undercooked chicken I ate for dinner the night before?  Had I picked up the flu from someone?  Whatever the reason, I felt terrible.  I spent the entire day in bed, doing whatever I could to make myself comfortable, which wasn’t much.  Fever and achy-ness set in around 4 pm to add to my misery.  Thank God Shane had yesterday off of work.  He gets a gold star for nursing his whiny, sick wife back to health.  He did whatever he could to make me feel better – setting up the computer in bed so that I could watch a movie, rubbing my back as I tried to fall asleep, monitoring my fluid intake to make sure I avoided dehydration, even baking me applesauce muffins when that was the only thing that sounded good to me (and baking is not one of Shane’s favorite pastimes).  I don’t know what I would have done yesterday without him.  Today I was at about 80% – well enough to go into work, though there were times today when I was tempted to crawl under my desk and take a nap.  I hope to be back in full force tomorrow.

The really fantastic thing is that now I know that Shane can bake – I’ll be taking advantage of this little tidbit in the future…

I’ve been riding an emotional roller-coaster the last couple of weeks, and it’s taken some fairly low dips – I’ve found myself feeling overwhelmed, misunderstood, and very unsteady.  Concerns, pressures, and disappointments compound upon one another and form this totally out-of-control snowball that is hurtling at me at 600 miles an hour.  But so much of this is because of my own doing.  I am frustratingly emotional and I often let myself become totally absorbed in my feelings when I swing really far one way or the other.  Saturday at the pumpkin patch I was silly and grinning and telling Shane that we were having “one of the best days of 2008″, and earlier tonight I was sitting on the couch crying my eyes out for reasons that are too trivial to deserve elaboration.  It’s hard, being so emotionally volatile and not really knowing what to do about it.  Where is that healthy middle ground, and why can’t I find it?  I pray for steadiness and the ability to process things reasonably, but it’s just so easy to fly off the handle.  Immediate relief.  But then… the realization that my little outburst was totally unproductive and probably a little childish, and so I add “illogical behavior” to my list of self-woes.  I feel defeated.

Thankfully tomorrow is a new day.

Haven’t posted lately, for I’m in the depths of studying for architectural licensing test #5, coming up on Saturday.   Have I mentioned just how intensely I’ve come to dislike studying for these things?  Oh yeah, I have…  Well, let me reiterate:  there are so many other things I’d rather be doing right now!  Reading good books (NOT the Architect’s Handbook for Professional Practice), sketching cool stuff (NOT below-grade waterproofing details), curling up on the couch with my husband (NOT with my building materials flash cards).  I’m praying for good weather on Sunday, for I’m declaring it an offical celebratory play day!  (I desperately need something to look forward to, as I wade through the last of my stack of study materials.)  How would you spend a commitment-free, wide-open day in Seattle?

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.

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.

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.

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…

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!

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.

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!