On Our Way To Crazy

It’s still pretty sad around this place, y’all. We’ve gotten a little more used to the quiet, to the empty house, to the lack of dog hair on every available surface. But sometimes we are watching football and Aaron is getting all worked up and yelling at the TV and I say, “Miles, will you please tell him to keep it down?” without even thinking about it.

Here’s something else that sucks about a house with no Miles in it: we have to clean up after ourselves. I did not realize how much we counted on that dog to eat all the food we drop around here. It’s so annoying when you throw an almost empty bag of chips at the trash, miss, and then have to sweep it up.

I miss him. A lot.

I don’t think I’ve written about this yet, but it’s been a pretty big deal around here so I guess I should make mention. Aaron has been fairly jobless since mid-July. He ended his relationship with the band and has been working to piece together some new management and consulting clients. Things are coming along slowly, and it can get really frustrating and scary, but WOW are we in a good place. When push came to shove we chose sanity over safety. And I know that was the right decision. And when we have to sell our house and live in a box on the street I will still believe that.

Did you guys watch Freaks and Geeks when it was on? We’ve been watching the reruns on IFC and I’m pretty sure it’s one of my favoritest shows ever. I love Sam Weir so much. I think there are only a few episodes left and it makes me so sad.

I have a bit of a shoulder situation. We were at a friend’s house last week, eating and playing games and hanging out. It was midnight-ish when we decided to go jump on the trampoline. We jumped for a few minutes, then laid around and talked for a long time, then jumped again. I was standing in the middle of the trampoline when my friend decided to try to do a flip. Or so I thought when I took a big step backwards to get out of her way. Turns out I was on the edge and I took a big step backwards right over the springs and fell three feet onto the wet grass. Super graceful and not embarrassing at all, right? Right.

Now my right shoulder is sore and twingy and achy and I can’t really raise my arm up. I am awesome at life.

Yesterday afternoon at the bookstore I bought four gift bibles and a David Sedaris book. I got up to the checkout and the guy said he was pretty sure I was the first person to buy that particular combination of items.

I did my first Sunday morning big church baptisms this morning. OH MY GOSH it stresses me out so much. It is such a joy to be a part of those kids’ lives and get to participate in such a big day with them. It is. But I get super angsty and anxious about doing real serious church business on stage in front of everyone. I don’t feel like I’m good at it. I can do relationships and small groups and games and serious discussions. And I can get on stage and do announcements like nobody’s business. But when I have to do something with more depth to it I panic. I truly thought I was going to have some kind of breakdown this morning.

It went fine, of course. Not great. It helps that I deal with kids, so no one thinks twice when one of them forgets to take his shoes off until the last minute and then they sit on stage for the whole service. I just can’t do eloquent and meaningful and professional very well.

I made it though thirty years of life without knowing about the amazingness of Swedish Fish. How is that possible?

Sit. Lay down. Don’t sleep on top of the sofa cushions. Quit growling at our guests. Stop trying to eat everything in my purse.

There are a lot of things we told Miles to do that he ignored. But there was one I was kind of hoping would stick. I told Miles a thousand times that he was supposed to live forever.

But he didn’t listen. Our sweet boy passed away yesterday.

Oh, you guys. My heart is completely broken. I can’t believe I live in a world that doesn’t have Miles in it.

It’s just so weird here now. Everything feels wrong. When I woke up this morning, no one was pawing at my face to go outside. I put on my pants without anyone standing on the legs trying to make me fall over. I poured a glass of milk and sat down and no one was staring me in the face hoping I would share.

It sucks.

I cannot overstate how awesome that dog was. He had the perfect temperament for us. All he wanted to do was be as close to us as possible and go to sleep. You couldn’t sit or lay down anywhere in the house without him being right on top of you. And if you made him move, he would lay down on the floor and rest his chin on your feet. His whole world centered around us, and no matter how bad a day you’d had it was impossible not to feel better around him.

I miss how his head would pop up if you said any word that sounded like treat or food or hungry. How he would go out of his everloving mind with excitement every time you put your sneakers on because there was a chance we were going for a walk. How he would sniff every corner of the house just in case something edible was there. How he would nuzzle in behind your knees when you were sleeping and then go limp when you tried to move him. How he would halfheartedly growl at people when they walked by.

The house feels so empty now. No one howls when we pull in the driveway. No one runs maniacally between us when we walk in the door trying to keep tabs on us until we are in the same room. We are still two grown adults with jobs and lives and responsibilities, but we just kind of wander around aimlessly and look at each other all sad. We don’t know what to do with ourselves.

I can’t stop crying. He truly was our best friend. We were three, and now we are two.

We miss you so much, Bub. Thanks for taking care of us.

Remember way back when we had four whole months before thirty? And we had big plans for all the things we were going to get done in those four months? And we had no idea how INSANE life was about to get? Man. Those were good days.

So I’ve been thirty for a month and two days. I… did not get the list done. Not even close. So it has a new title and some redefined expectations. Let’s see how it goes.

30 Things to At Least Attempt To Do in the Year I Turn 30

1. Make fresh pasta from scratch.
2. Roast a whole chicken. – Oh. This is definitely happening. Bring it on, fall.
3. Run three miles.
4. Figure out how to curl my hair. – OK. Here’s the thing. I know how to get my hair to look like this. It takes a thousand hours and a gallon of hairspray, but I can do it. I have also figured out how to make it do a cool wave thing thanks to some how-to youtube videos. (Did you know about those? They exist. FOR EVERYTHING.) What I still do not know how to do is make my hair HOLD the curls I put into it, and I don’t know it that is going to happen. My hair starts out super curly at 9 and is stick straight by 4. I don’t know how to fix that.
5. Practice Meatless Mondays. – Ha! I tried to do this one, I really did. And I stuck to it for a few weeks. But I kept forgetting it was Monday! Seriously, I would finish a chicken salad at lunch and then realize it was Monday. Poor planning on my part.
6. Refinish a piece of furniture.
7. Create a photo/art collage wall in our dining room. – I bought frames! That’s it so far. Sorry, dining room.
8. Grow something edible. – Nope. Although I did water Susan’s plants for a week, and she has eaten from them. Does that count? It’s probably the best I’m gonna do this year.
9. Learn how to use my Diana camera. – I really want to do this one. Maybe the cooler weather will get me outside and practicing.
10. Submit two articles and/or bible studies to youth publications. – Ohhhh, y’all. The depths of my neuroses on this one could be a week’s worth of posts. I have a ton of ideas, but then I am completely overwhelmed by them, by my (lack of?) writing skills, by fear that no one will find what I think useful or interesting.
11. Make real brisket. – I REALLY want to do this. Good football food.
12. Go to the zoo. – It was too freaking hot this summer to go to the zoo. But I have a real day off and a coupon in my life now. Plus the zoo just got flamingos.
13. Line the back of my bookshelves in a cool paper. – This was a great idea in theory. It really was. I love the look of papered shelves. But I have two problems here. My shelves aren’t very tall, meaning there’s not a lot of space between the top of the book and the bottom of the next shelf. You wouldn’t see much paper. More importantly, though, my shelves are cheapos from IKEA and I’m afraid if I remove the backs the whole thing will fall apart. And we can’t have that.
14. Make an apple pie from scratch.
15. Make an appliqué t-shirt.
16. Go to a laser concert at the Adventure Science Center.
17. Read five classic novels I haven’t read before.

• A Separate Peace by John Knowles
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• A Room With a View by E.M. Forster
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
• Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

18. Open an IRA. - This is a maybe for this year due to some unforeseen circumstances. I know I need to. I really do. But we also need to eat.
19. Go to a drive-in movie.
20. Learn to make sushi. – Let’s be honest. This is probably not going to happen.
21. Make baklava from scratch. – Aaron really loves this stuff. It would be wrong to skip it.
22. Write random notes to 30 people. – I am trying hard to make this one happen. I’ve done about ten. We’ll see.
23. Attend Rock and Roll Trivia Night at Mercy Lounge.
24. Spend a whole day outside with nothing but books and a notepad. – The upcoming swing of cooler days is just calling out for completing this task.
25. Pay for someone’s food in a drive thru.
26. Take a nap in a hammock. – Do any of you guys have a hammock?
27. Make a piece of jewelry for myself.
28. Put together our wedding album.
29. Attend an art crawl.
30. Go to the Bluebird Café.

So… thirteen completed, five removed from the list due to an excess of ambition, three at least slightly in progress, nine left to go. Will I do it? Who knows. I will keep you posted.

In honor of the super awesome Brooks & Dunn concert we went to last night, today’s Friday Mixtape has a theme very close to my heart – late 80s/early 90s country music.

When I was growing up, every Sunday morning we ate a big breakfast while we listened to America’s Country Countdown on the stereo. My mom would play air piano, my dad would eat his eggs around the guitar he had in his lap as he worked on picking out the solos, my sister and I would try to sing all the words to “Ain’t Goin’ Down Til the Sun Comes Up”. I learned two very important lessons at that table: that white gravy goes on scrambled eggs and pop country is NOT real country. They were true in 1993, and they are true today.

This one makes me laugh. My grandparents moved to St. Louis when I was in elementary school, and one time, either when they were visiting or right before they left, my (15) cousins and I decided to put on a show for them. One of them decided that we should sing this song to them, but change the lyrics to “I’ve got friends in HIGH places” because St. Louis is further north than Dallas. I don’t know how my 10-year-old self knew that ‘low places’ meant ‘bars’, but I knew enough to know that we didn’t need to sing that song to our grandparents.

Garth Brooks – Friends in Low Places (Live in Central Park N.Y.)

bear420 | MySpace Video

Oh, man, you guys. This is a favorite favorite favorite. My mom is a HUGE Steve Wariner fan. I’m pretty sure I’ve known the words to this song my entire life.

I know it’s almost cheating to include this song. I KNOW. Surely I can think of something a little less obvious, right? But I can’t help it. It is SO AWESOME. And the video is amazing. It has to be shared.

Aug 1 – Had a giant relay day for the youth and upcoming 6th graders. It was hilarious.
Aug 2 – Post-youth dinner at Peter’s Sushi. This is a routine I could get used to.
Aug 3 – Weird day. Weird weird day. But then our friends had a super cute baby, and that was awesome.
Aug 4 – Fun text conversation with a friend.
Aug 5 – Came in to work to find a Justin Bieber poster on my door.
Aug 6 – Holiday World! Best day of the summer.
Aug 7 – Spent some fun time with a new youth group family.
Aug 8 – Thai food and frozen yogurt (with Lucky Charms in it!) with Susan and Brandy.
Aug 9 – First youth group with the new 6th graders, great parent meeting, and a surprise birthday cake from the kids. Oh – and then they covered my car in streamers and Post-It notes.
Aug 10 – Best birthday party in the history of birthday parties. Ever. EVER.
Aug 11 – Movies and frozen yogurt with a bunch of kids on their last day of summer.
Aug 12 – So You Think You Can Dance finale party! And Mike and Kari are having a boy!
Aug 13 – Renewed my tags two weeks early and my license three days late. I call that success.
Aug 14 – Took the kids to help teachers get free school supplies for their students.
Aug 15 – Played what was possibly the most hilarious game of Telephone Pictionary of all time.
Aug 16 – Loved listening to Aaron lead high schoolers in a discussion on story.
Aug 17 – One of my favorite senior girls gave me a really sweet note. Totally unexpected and amazing.
Aug 18 – Had some meetings that were really good and productive, if a little intense.
Aug 19 – Good conversations all across the board today.
Aug 20 – Loaded up on new music and podcasts for our drive to Texas.
Aug 21 – Read Hunger Games.
Aug 22 – Some of our kids helped serve communion. It is so great getting them involved in big church.
Aug 23 – Drove a thousand hours in the middle of the night to get to Texas.
Aug 24 – Wedding dress shopping with my sister! And we found one! And it’s awesome! (Also. Read Catching Fire.)
Aug 25 – Massive Rock Band concert in the living room with my family. I have a newfound respect for Ringo.
Aug 26 – Drove to Austin. Ate delicious food. Read Mockingjay.
Aug 27 – Spent all day at the pool, then walked to a record store and ended up at a Hot Hot Heat show.
Aug 28 – Texas high school football, long nap, delicious mexican food and an amazing 80s cover band show at one of the coolest venues ever.
Aug 29 – Breakfast quesadillas, meeting our new future sister-in-law, quick IKEA trip, Whataburger with my parents, and… oh yeah, FIFTEEN HOURS ON THE ROAD.
Aug 30 – Fun meeting with the kids who have dubbed themselves ‘Team Awkward’.
Aug 31 – I went to the grocery store for the first time in about a thousand years.