The day before

It's the day before Mark leaves. These days are always kind of hard. I'd HATE to be in a situation where he was leaving for longer than 2 weeks. I honestly don't know how military families survive without their loved ones!!

I'm up and down. Part of me cherishes the time together, but always with a bitter sweet taste. Great to be together, but sad knowing we'll be apart in less than 12 hours. It's probably good I'm working tomorrow morning. Last time he left I came home and cried. Not that that's bad, but isn't necessarily a good time either. 

The laundry is all caught up, the taxes have been done, the errands have been run, there are plans for dinner (although it's not started yet) and we're on our second to last activities before he packs and I do a small project. 

Part of me feels like this trip is worse since it's so close to his previous one. The memory of knowing how hard it will be to have him away is pretty fresh. On the other hand, the routine I get myself into when he's gone, is also kind of fresh so I'll be curious to see if it's easier or harder. Or perhaps the same. Either way, it's lame!!

Because I like to plan my life while he's gone to help keep me from spending my days pining away, here's what I have going on:

Sunday - work, run, scrapbook with Trisha, stay at Barb's (alone)

Monday - meet halfway between here and Seattle to spend the day with Marla, stay at Barb's (alone)

Tuesday - work as much as I can handle, probably run at the gym, stay at Barb's (alone)

Wednesday - same as Tuesday, but with a hair appointment (yippee!!)

Thursday - same as Tuesday

Friday - fly to Burbank to meet up with Barb and drive back with her

Saturday - drive

Sunday - drive

Monday thru Friday - work and try not to think about how much I miss my husband, it will help that Barb will be home. I'll have a buddy.

Friday or Saturday - head to Whidbey for a half marathon and hopefully Mark will be home by or around that time

Sunday - run a half marathon with Trisha, our first of the year. I don't expect it to be my best time ever, but am looking forward to the shirt, it's one of my favorite race shirts from last year! 

It seriously bums me out that he's leaving!! I've never gotten tired of being around him, in fact never feel like we have enough time together! We have fun doing anything together and laugh all the time and one of my favorite things is sleeping next to him at night. Which, is why I sleep at Barb's, fewer memories of Mark over there than the apartment we share together. I love our little place, but sitting in a space absorbed with wonderful memories of your absent life partner is just asking for heartache. Don't get me wrong, I think it's good to cry and mourn the loss of someone, even if it's just for a few weeks, but how much should you intentionally put your heart through?

I know God has a reason for everything and have pondered what his reasons might be for taking my favorite person away for a couple weeks, to a place we couldn't afford for me to go along, ever. I haven't come up with the answer, but wonder if a small thing could be Him giving me a chance to reconnect. As a married woman, you truly are distracted. It's wonderful and from God and SO great!! But also nice to connect with my "first love" (if you will). I don't want time away from Mark. I don't even feel like I need time away from Mark. But perhaps God knows more than I do about what I need? I'm not suggesting I know that this is the purpose of why He takes Mark away, but I'd like to be hopeful and would otherwise think it's God torturing me. Thinking God just wants me to hangout with him more is nicer than thinking God wants to make my life miserable ;)

So, I'm going to try and keep this in mind this week (and next) instead of getting angry about the situation. I prefer to not choose the angry route, but have recently more than I would like. 

With that, I'm off to organize a few things before I start dinner. We're doing breakfast for dinner and it should be yummy! We'll watch a movie while we eat and then head to bed, where I'll lay in what I call Mark's "arm crease" and probably cry a little as I think about how I won't get to snuggle up to his perfect man body for 2 whole weeks!! And then I'll go to sleep and say good bye in the morning and start counting down the days!!! Although, that's a little hard when his return is always kind of up in the air.

Tagged

Apparently I was tagged twice and forgot to post the tagged thing, so here it is.

A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. I'm going to skip this step ;)

What I was doing 10 years ago: I was 17. It was the spring after the fall I went to Europe for 2 months, I was probably back working at Sonic, visited DC with my dad to do some lobby at on The Hill, and would spend my summer interning with Peacemaker Ministries.

5 Things on my To Do List today: Go to a noon meeting, leave a little early, go on a movie/dinner date with my husband, try and have a good attitude even when tired, eat yummy leftover tomato basil soup and grainy bread - the soup my mom made during her visit last week.

Snacks I Enjoy: Lately it's been yogurt with granola in it, bottled frappuccinos, little bites of chocolate and the Skittles in my office.

Things I would do if I were a Billionaire: Go on a long vacation with my husband, visiting all the places we want to see and being thoughtful, but not worrying about money. Buy a house, pay off debt, give large gifts to people (especially family) to help bless their lives... things they wouldn't be able to do, like pay off morgages.

3 of my Bad Habits: I play with my eye brows. It's somewhat harmless, but is definitely a habit! Lately I've let myself be grumpy and have a bad attitude when I feel like it, am trying to change that. Desserts.

5 places I have lived: I can only list 5? Hah! Los Alamos, New Mexico, Helena and Billings, Montana, Portland and Dallas, Oregon.

5 Jobs I have had: Office person at an auto shop, carhop (complete with rollerskates) at Sonic, loading trucks at night with frozen food, checker at an IGA, helper/nanny/cleaner for a woman with a new baby... those were just 5 of the jobs I had before graduating highschool.

Life vs Blogging

Yet again, I find myself NOT choosing to blog... for a variety of reasons. Sometimes I simply forget, other times I just don't have time, or I'm left with a choice between another more important task and blogging. I can't seem to find much balance with anything these days. I remember a time in my life where balance was a word frequently put in front of me. By the end of that season, it became clear that balance was not the thing I should be striving towards. We'll never fully find a balance, so if you can't beat them, join them! However, in my flailing, I forget to reach out for God instead of other things. I still have not found the perfect nitch for God in my new schedule. I want to make a nitch no matter how perfect/imperfect it may be, but I'm having trouble. I guess that was the good thing about my previous schedule, I could count on those regular God dates.

At work we were gearing up for Easter. I ended up with almost a dual role and then in the end, took the day off to be with my family. And we had a terrific visit!!

And just when I think things will relax a little and perhaps I could start to feel a tiny bit of normalicy in my life, we find out that Mark is being sent back to Taiwan. He leaves Sunday. I'm in a flurry trying to get myself scheduled for as much as possible while he's away so I don't have to spend my time thinking about how much I miss him. And am trying not to be drowned in those feelings before he leaves so I can enjoy the time he's still here.

Even though Barb will be gone for another week after Mark leaves, I still plan to sleep at her place. I figured it's easier to stay in a bed that I'm not used to sharing with Mark, even if it will still be alone. And Monday I have plans to spend the entire day with my good friend Marla who recently moved to the area. We haven't seen each other for 1.5 years! I'm super excited about hanging out with her!!

I hope to post a few highlights from the family visit this weekend, along with pictures!

The buzz

Okay, so maybe there isn't really a buzz, but I couldn't come up with anything else to title this blog. Speaking of blogging, I haven't done much reading or writing lately. It's been interesting to get into my new job, finally have Mark home again, and see how the schedule seems to fall. Here are some highlights:

- Mark and I have enjoyed commuting to/from work almost every day together! With Barb and I working at the same place - which is about a mile from Mark's work - and my more flexible schedule, Mark hasn't had to take the bus once. We've also come to realize we're not sure if we'd even use a second car. Which is good since we weren't planning to get one until late summer anyway. But now we might choose to wait even longer.

- I LOVE my new job!! Part of me feels like I'm going to have to go back to a "real" job at some point because this one seems to encompass some of my favorite things!

- What are those favorite things? here are a couple: a more flexible work schedule, working with people and regularly interacting with humans, communication, making a little progress towards the end result every day/week, gathering more information all the time on how things are done at Sunset and details about upcoming events, debriefing weekly with my boss who invites me to be honest about how things are going and she helps me think through stuff, weekly Event Review Team meetings have become a highlight!

- Mark is making a change in his work at ESI. It's all good!! I'll probably mention more about that as we get final details because I'm SO PROUD OF HIM!!

With the new job and schedule comes a few adjustments. I've decided that evening workouts are probably going to be rare, which means I need to do them in the mornings... which means I need to get up. Which is hard. So that's been an issue lately. Also, I'm having to readjust when my God time happens since it used to be at least 3 to 4 days a week during lunch times. With this new job, I rarely take a lunch break or leave the church for lunch (my choice), so am missing that time. However, this week I've been more pro-active about making intentional time. I guess that's the nice thing about working at a large church, I get there a little early, find a quiet corner with a comfy couch, turn on my iPod and get a little time before the day starts.

I have found that one of the things I frequently forget at work is God. I'm not used to Him being involved in more than my personal life at work. An email from someone the other day in response to a person stepping in to fill a roll was, "praise God". My thought was, "that's right! God DID solve this problem and it's okay to verbalize it!"

One thing that has suffered the most during this new job transition is my Monday night book group. Since I've started at the church, I've only made it to book group once and that was the Monday night Mark was gone. Even then, I'd had trouble keeping up with our reading in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Last week I finally had to admit to myself and let my friend who leads the study know that I wouldn't be able to come any more. It was just too much on top of the new schedule and I was falling further and further behind on our 3 chapters a week. My friend was nice about it though and they actually will be taking a break after this book is over anyway, so I might be able to pick back up with them in the fall again.

I have committed myself to finishing the book though and was able to keep reading this week after a little break. I am LOVING this book!! I had never gotten past the first few pages before so thought it would be too difficult to read the old writing style or I wouldn't agree, but his explanation of Christian principles are on such a basic level, that I'm finding it encouraging and stimulating and makes me eager to keep in mind how I can practice what he is writing about.

Today's chapter was on Charity. Here are a couple of the lines I underlined:
"But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion." - he was talking about love towards others.
"It is important to understand that this natural 'liking' is neither a sin or a virtue, any more than your likes and dislikes in food are a sin or a virtue. It is just a fact. But, of course, what we do about it is either sinful or virtuous." - in reference to how we feel about other people.
"Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbour; act as if you did." - I love that line!
"About the second of these two [man's love for God], people are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, 'If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?' When you have found the answer, go and do it."

A rockin' song!!

My brother (on base) and cousins (guitar and drums) performed at their churches talent show the other night. It's AWESOME!! I didn't even know my cousin Peter could sing! Check it out!