PRICELESS

Half a dozen eggs.

An entire package of bacon.

One fire truck.

Breakfast with my husband, PRICELESS!!

Mark had trouble sleeping again last night. Jetlag. I coaxed him into staying in bed until after 8 when he wanted to get up at 5. We got up and previously deciding to skip church, weren't sure what to do for breakfast or how to start the day. We opted to cook at home instead of go out so Mark got started on breakfast while I worked on the computer. 

Things were going along well until we turned out backs on the bacon. I was in plain sight of the kitchen, but not paying attention. A few moments later our entire place was filled with the smoke of overcooked bacon. Mark quickly opened the door and I opened the sliding door and almost immediately heard the sound of the smoke alarm. A couple of them. I closed the front door (since we were still in our pjs and I didn't want the neighbors looking in) and tried to fan out the smoke alarm. We've set them off before and got them to shut off pretty quickly. No go. It kept going off!! I tried to pull the battery out only to realize it was a different alarm going off in our apartment. Turns out we'd set the alarm off in the hallway, which set off an alarm in EVERY apartment in our building!!

Glancing outside we say people leaving their units and debated going down to tell them it was just us in hopes the alarms would shut off. We were embarrassed and not sure what to say, so tried to wait it out a couple more minutes. 

Within that time, I noticed a fire truck pulling into the complex. Nice! We both got dressed and went outside with everyone else trying to play it cool and not realizing until then that the entire building alarms were going off. At this point, we weren't sure it was as because we didn't burn the bacon THAT bad!

As the firemen made their way towards our stairwell, we told them about our bacon smoke and suggested we weren't sure it was from that or not. We were really not feeling so good before our neighbors. We walked up to our apartment with the fireman and then stayed in there when the guy said it probably was from that. He was super nice about it and we felt like schmucks!! We didn't go back out and hoped people wouldn't know which apartment we were in or recognize us later in or anything (dang pink hair!).

The alarms soon went off (apparently they have to be shut off and won't just go off after the smoke has cleared) and we continued with our breakfast. Mark gave up after breaking several eggs. We went through half a dozen eggs and an entire package of bacon before finalizing our breakfast of English muffins, 2 eggs each, and the left over bacon. 

I guess the nice thing was that we were able to laugh about it and enjoy the rest of our morning. Although we haven't braved leaving our place yet and are afraid people will hate us. We hope they forget about the incident soon.

Home + with my husband = total bliss!!

Well, we are both home and it couldn't be more wonderful to be together again!!! Mark got home around noon yesterday from Taiwan and came home and went to bed, getting up in time to pick me up at the airport at 12:30 (my flight was delayed 1.5 hours). Because Mark slept so much when he got home and it was the middle of the day his time, we stayed up for a while after we got home until I could drag him to bed after eating a little and watching tv. We got up kind of early and took a midday nap. I've been trying to keep him up (which is a challenge) so he'll be able to sleep tonight and doesn't keep us up super late again.

I had a great time in Florida!! I went with a team of 6 other people from Sunset to get the low down on The Summit Leadership conference we'll be hosting at Sunset and we had excellent team building time and connection with each other. It was inspiring, encouraging, and all around a fantastic trip!! You can view a few pictures Janet (who is also my boss ;) took that she posted on her blog. 

In a little bit Barb is picking us up to go hangout at my aunt and uncle's and play Wii and Dance Dance Revolution with some cousins. Good times!! 

Laying low

I think that's what I'm doing, laying low. And was reminded of WHY when just now reading friend's blogs on Valentine's Day. I was glad to work that day and evening as my husband is still gone. I miss him more every day and would prefer not to think about "real" life, so am absorbed in my little world of working my new wonderful job, sleeping at Barb's, spending (almost) as little time at our apartment as possible and looking forward to when I work tomorrow, Sunday, head to the beach for Sunday night and then fly out for 4 days early Tuesday morning. Mark might come home while I'm gone, but in case he doesn't, it will be nice to be away from the little things that remind me he's not with me. It's tough to be the one who stays at home.

This time I have done better at figuring out ways to better manage life without my favorite person. Here are some things I'm doing:
- starting a new job/schedule where life no longer seems normal like it did before
- sleeping at Barb's every night so I'm not reminded of how Mark isn't sleeping next to me
- sleeping at Barb's also helps me feel less alone as I'm not going to bed and getting up solo
- planning my days with many activities
- planning my time with friends who know me well and don't mind if I unload on them
- try not to sniff his t-shirt which reminds me of his perfect and wonderful smell
- and finally, talk to Mark almost once a day for at least a few minutes!! He's doing okay, working SUPER long days and they haven't found the exact resolution, but are making progress.
- and I bought shoes

Right now life with him in my every day life seems too good to be true!! I'm trying not to get hopeful that he'll be here when I return late next Friday night and I'm trying not to think about how that is still a week away!!

Okay, I promise I'll write something of more value another day but right now this is what absorbs my thoughts.

Does everything happen for a reason?

Umm... I don't know. I want to think so, but sometimes there are small things that just don't really seem to matter. 

In talking with my friend Marla today and mentioning this, she had a couple great ideas of what God's reasons could be. I gave her a scenario from last night where Mark and I had a plan of how to get our errands worked out and it didn't happen the way we had thought. Not like a "we had our own agenda and didn't leave room for God", it was just a simple stop at Mark's work, but he'd left his keys at home, creating a few kinks in our plan. Simple... so, what was the "big" reason behind it?? Or was there a "big" reason and it was just a little thing that happened. 

When I hear comments about God "testing us" or challenging us or stretching us, it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. I feel like it's God being cruel or something. This is an element of God I don't and might not possibly ever understand. I can throw out all the theories about possible car accidents avoided by getting stuck behind a slow car, or a growth opportunity God might be putting me through, or even something more simple. But in the end, I am left with two things. Faith and trust. Trust that God will do as he says and have my best interest in mind (Rom 8:28), and faith that he IS and DOES what he says he is and will do (e.g. help me when I ask).

Sort of like what my parents used to say, "You don't have to like it, you just have to do as I say." Although in terms of God, I will choose to find the joy in trusting and obeying and having faith, even in small things like forgetting keys or bigger things, like my husband being out of the country for the second freakin time in less than 6 months of being married. And maybe God will choose to give me glimpses of "why" here on earth but otherwise looking forward to getting the full story (if I still care) when I'm with him one day in paradise.

Speaking of paradise, that left-over chocolate pie from last night was a little slice! Or, in my case, a kind of too big slice.

 

The beginning of the change

It's 11:30pm and we have to get up around 5 tomorrow morning. Lately, my body seems to prefer more sleep then less, so the short night time is a bummer. 

Mark is packing, we both ironed, and I'm waiting for the ipod to finish loading. It's been loading a couple tv shows for 2 DAYS!! Yes, it's taking WAY too long!! But I'm too cheap to buy the super fast Internet and only got the sort-of-fast Internet. So my computer kept going to sleep before it finished loading and now I'm running an update and, blah, blah, it's just taking too long. 

Tomorrow morning I drop my husband off at the airport for his trip to Taiwan. I'm NOT looking forward to the rest of the morning as it will simply be a reminder of my newly "alone" status with him away. So I've saved voice messages from a friend of mine to listen to tomorrow on the way home from the airport so I have something else to focus on. Being a planner, I've already planned out how the rest of my day/week will go without Mark. I'm going to take it one day at a time and hopefully he'll be back before I know it!!

Monday I start my new job. I'm SUPER excited, but a little nervous to see how things go. I'm not worried about how they will go, but you know, I want it to be good. In the past I made it a personal policy not to blog about work. But I'm not sure I feel as strongly about it with this job,  so I'll see what happens.

I just saw a pig fly by my window!! Hah!! Actually the ipod FINALLY sync'd up and everything is updated. So I'm going to help my husband finish packing (even though I'd rather unpack him so he could stay) so we can head to bed. Poor guy is going to start the trip exhausted!!

We're ONLINE!!

A disk that didn't boot, 45 minutes with tech support, trying a few of my own ideas, frustration, and finally light at the end of the tunnel - I got the Internet at home set up and running on my laptop. Sweet action!! The best part was somehow finding the solution myself ;) Although I have to give props to Apple because I think I solved the problem by simply following their prompts. 

Mark are and I off to make dinner at Barb's while catching up on American Idol. 

Good night.

The only thing constant is change

This phrase seems to describe my life right now.

On a side note, I've started about 4 blogs in the past week. Not sure why none of them have made it to the "post" level. I have a commitment with myself to never blog when I'm in a hyper emotional state. So perhaps that's why ;)

The phase from the movie Groundhog Day always comes to mind when I mention how I don't blog when I'm emotional. Phil Conners (Bill Murray) has kidnapped the groundhog and is letting him stear the pick-up he's driving. He tells the groundhog, "don't drive angry, don't drive angry". My line of "don't blog emotional" always come out sounding like Bill Murray talking to a groundhog, in my head.

Here are the things that are changing right now in my life:
- our budget changed the 1st of February, we're trying something new
- my job changes next week
- this week, the "feel" at my current job has changed because I'm leaving
- my husband leaves on Sunday for about 10 days
- with the new job, my insurance will be changing
- our lives will change a little with the newness of Internet at our place, starting this week
- I was at a women's retreat last weekend that made me think of some things I need to change (on the inside)
- with the new job comes a slight change in schedule
- with Mark being gone next week, I'll change the way I do food at home
- with Mark being gone, I might even change where I sleep and crash at Barb's a couple nights
- this week my mid-week runs change from 3 miles to 3.5

Umm... that's all I can come up with for now.