Terrapin Station

Rain, Rain, Go Away

this is the icon we've had since Friday, and this:

is the radar map.  Oddly, this weather is coming from the southeast, rotating counterclockwise.  This is exactly the opposite of how our weather normally goes. 

We are having the

icon forecast right through Wednesday. 

Sigh. 

Update!

Hey! 

I've spent the last little while in a trough.  I've been down about several things and, well, I figure if you can't blog anything nice...

Yesterday was explosive, a culmination of several things.  I had really good help from a lot of folks and realized I needed to put on my big girl panties and deal with one of the things.  I did.  I was so exhausted in the evening that once I was asleep, I didn't wake up for my husband's return home (complete with barking dogs), the dogs jumping on him and me in the bed all night, nothing.  He asked if I had taken a sleeping pill.  Nope, just knocked out with several adrenaline rushes and the aftermath.

Today was an excellent day and I found myself feeling better than I have in a long time.  And seeing things falling into place in a way. 

Met a friend for coffee after work, then choir rehearsal.  I am now attending the early service, which has more contemporary music, and I just loves it.

I am very grateful. 

Heading For the Fall Time...

 

Yesterday for the very first time, I felt that fall might be coming. 

Why was that?  I'm not sure.

Maybe because of football.  I attended a staff meeting at which each of our units (I direct one) was asked to host a tailgate party for international students at one of Mean Green University's football games this year. 

Now, if you know me in the slightest you know that I don't like football, object to colleges spending money and attention on football, wish no one ever played it anywhere that I had to know about it.  That I went to GIANT FOOTBALL SCHOOL IN TEXAS (Texas A&M), where the students stand up for the entire game, in the boiling hot sun (note that when the Aggies are winning, games approach 4 hrs. in length because of being on TV).  That I did that for years and suddenly, in my junior year, realized I didn't have to, didn't want to, wadn't gonna!  (Was it the beginning of self-actualization?  Well, it was definitely what the Aggies would call, becoming a two-percenter.) 

Yeah, so I offered to host a tailgate party September 12.  And even go to the game.  Though it was noted that the recent rankings show Mean Green U as dead last in our conference.  So there's that whole underdog thing that might be fun! 

Anyone want to come?  It'll be a blast, I guarantee it...

Anyway, it gave me a real sense that fall is on the way.  Not all the planning for next year, for incoming exchange students, etc. - got me there.  But I'm believing it now. 

• I'll go on a motorcycle ride again and it won't be hellaciously hot, but COLD.
• The leaves will fall off of the trees and every time the dogs come in they'll look like leafy dust mops.
• I'll wear sweaters and mittens and knitted hats.
• I'll be willing to cook in the oven once more.
• It will be good.

Awake, Awake To Love and Work..

...but no lark is in the sky...

it's 4 am.

I don't want to go back to sleep lest I miss the early exercise class to which I'm hoping to re-accustom myself.

I have an all-day meeting today, or more specifically, a day filled with four different presentations.  Yesterday was so busy and so full, with so many different things left unfinished, and I felt that I was going 90 miles an hour.  Then today I have to come screeching to full-stop and sit and listen. 

The last year has been such a growing year, personally and professionally.  I feel like a pecan - do you know how they grow, in a big husk that starts off green but turns brown:

then the nuts fall onto the ground where you pick them up.  And it's a smooth and beautiful nut shell:

but guess what, it's still a shell.  There's more way to go to reach the promise in the middle:

More Randomness

The mid-night awaking....

Image: Toothpastefordinner.com

Ken took me to dinner at Mr. Chopsticks Friday night.  Masaman Thai curry with a Fat Tire Ale.  Good for what ails ya.

Two enormous rainstorms yesterday.  HOT and still in between.  Ken worked outside most of the day; he is a hero.

I worked really, really hard cleaning and sorting in the office yesterday.  Found the missing boat title midday, cleverly filed in its own file folder, where I put it the last time we couldn't find it.  Argh.  But can't regret the work done up until that point.

or after it...

I worked to reorganize the library room, preparatory to moving my desk and computer in there.  Ken will have his own office for him (and Billy the accountant, when he's here), and I will have my own space.  And it will be good.  Some real closure to the part of our lives where I was the accountant/office manager for his business, in addition to my own work. 

Great amounts of dusting (and now, sore throat).  Lots of recycling and trashing.  Removed some tape from the ceiling tiles where it was still lingering from our painting of the library room when we moved here...oh, 9 years ago or so...

Took 3 boxes of books to Recycled yesterday.  They sent me home with $35 and about half of them, which I will take to Half-Price tomorrow when I'm in Lewisville for church.  They'll take them all.  Now all my books fit again, not bad when you consider I used to have an entire room bounded with bookshelves...I am currently devoted to the LIBRARY, which keeps most books for me in between readings.

Latest student program to go out returned Friday.  Some of the students had friended me on Facebook and I accepted...I reversed that decision tonight.  There just has to be a boundary somewhere, and some of them talk about things I don't want to know about.  In ways I don't want to read.  So there you go. 

Dinner last night: Sarah's Trini salmon, sugar snap peas, roasted potatoes.  Skinny Cow truffle bar for afters. 

Good morning!  Should I stay up or go back to bed?  Probably the latter...will call it "first nap."

Sunday Check in

My parents came in yesterday afternoon, en route from their Florida trip.  I picked them up at airport and we came back here for a quiet and early evening.

This morning to church, and then lunch at Weck's, my new favorite place.   Yummy chicken and green chile stew.  If something is good, IMHO, green chiles makes it better.  They headed home after that.

Now it's raining softly, which is a pleasure. 

I am planning to go to Transfiguration's U2Charist on August 29...anyone local want to come with?  I have already signed up.  Let's do it!

Josie just came to sit on my lap.  She wants a walk, but does not like to walk in the rain (as in, digs in heels and refuses to go, so it's futile). 

The socks are progressing...I'm halfway down the foot of the second sock. 

Okay, no more procrastinating (haha) - have tomorrow prep to do.

An excellent day

Ken and I slept in a bit, played with the dogs, and went to IHOP for breakfast.   We split the low-fat omelet, which was a perfect portion for us both.  Splitting a restaurant meal usually works really well for us. 

Came home and sister Sarah came over. We worked on some legal papers, then went to the bank for a notarization and to the Denton County Master Gardeners 2009 Fruit, Vegetable, Herb and Flower Show - gorgeous things!  Afterward walked to the Farmer's Market and bought tomatoes, cukes, little potatoes, leeks.  (Any suggestions on things to do with the leeks?) 

When we got home we looked thru recipe books for things I can cook while my parents are here this week.  My dad is newly on a diabetic diet so it is a bit different but I think we can manage it!

For lunch we made some delicious salmon that Sarah had brought with her, and added salad and the potatoes to it. 

Grocery shopping, prepping more of that great salmon, and our visit was done. 

I'm thinking about my new favorite scripture:  2 Cor 6:3-10.  This is so not me.; nothing really bad has ever happened to me for my faith.  Yet I have a friend who is embodying it, to my daily awe.  And I also think about the people of Iran - so inspiring.  So heartbreaking.

Hope you all have had excellent days, too.

Heard on campus this morning

I was walking toward my building just before 8 am...a pearly morning.  I was headed to a place where I would cross paths with two pretty young ladies. 

As I approached and then walked past/between them, I heard this conversation as they prepared to part:

Girl One:  "Bye, girl."

Girl Two: "Bye."

G1: "Hey, try to have a better day."

G2: "I'll try."

G1: (heading off in her own direction, calling back) "I'm sorry - I just had to clear my conscience."

And, SCENE.

And I walked right in the middle of them, where they had been together and had gone separate ways, and felt a great wave of...something.  Unhappiness?  betrayal?  anger? 

So strange to feel other people's energy that way.  I stopped off for a minute of conversation with a squirrel on the way into my building, which helped me shake off those feelings. 

***

Now I am in my office, listening to the construction of a new building across the way, and to the coos of a pigeon that has decided to hang around somewhere on the front of my building.  Friday s/he was looking in the window as we were meeting!  I will bring some bird food if I remember; I have a nice wide stone windowsill and a window that actually opens! 

I may regret that if it turns out to cause a lot of pigeons to congregate on my windowsill and make a mess, etc. 

But what I know is that entering into any relationship...is just going to be messy. 

Friday Eve

Ken and I are having a meeting, which means working in the office together and telling each other things we have forgotten.  It's good. 

It's been a week or 2 of little, entirely avoidable, crises at work.  My last nerve has been worked. 

My parents are FLYING to Florida in July, instead of driving.  Woohoo!   The doctor had insisted they'd have to stop every hour to walk around due to health issues. If you don't know my dad and his pathological "drive hell bent for leather" ways, you can't imagine just how hilarious that is. 

Based on dad's recent experience with flight delays, he had announced he would never, ever, ever fly again.  And in the past, "to fly anywhere in the Southeast (including hell), you had to go through Atlanta."  Not so these days; I found American tickets from DFW (3o min from my house) direct to Tallahassee.  Woot!   Cheap tickets, too. 

However, in my personal  travel planning annoying news, to fly from Atlanta to Tallahassee on American Airlines, one must go through Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.  Really.

The weather is gorgeous.  It is breezy and coolish (though it got pretty hot this afternoon).

I went to the Farmer's Market this week.  For dinner we will have stir fried bok choy and Swiss chard, along with Daikon radish (I'm not sure how to utilize the latter; any ideas?) 

Tomorrow I'm making some tabbouleh.  Yum. 

Mary and Freda and several others are being ordained tomorrow in Diocese of Dallas.  Hooray!

More from LA LA Land

I finished my portion of the training this am.  Went well I think and done with that until July when I present again at Emory U. 

Have turned up a very painful kink in my shoulder.  In the interest of paying attention to what my body tells me, I eschewed the evening's festivities for a massage / sauna / steam room combo at the hotel spa.  Now I'm waiting on room service dinner.  So very luxurious, seems like I should feel guilty for it but I just won't.  It still hurts, by the way, and I'm covered with Ben Gay to boot. 

So sad to be in CA today with the CA Supreme Court upholding Prop. 8.  

The sleepy now...more later.