The Newness of Life

I got a job. A very, very busy job. For financial reasons, I had to resign my position with the mission and I feel very, very blessed to have found something that is helping our family very much right now. In an office. A very, very busy office. I love the work but it sure has turned my life upside, inside, outside turvy. And it looks like it will continue that way for awhile now. I don’t know what that means for this space. It’s been like home to me for years now and I’m not willing to give it up completely even though I will not have the time that I used to have to write. Or create. I’ve put a hold on my photography business as well.

A few things are new since the last time I worked in an office outside of my home:

1. I used to wear cream colored tights under forest green shorts with a matching forest green blazer. I don’t do that anymore.

2. There used to not be any internet. How did we used to communicate anyway?

3. I used to dream about flying all the time. My height dreams are a bit more specific now. I no longer want to fly an airplane or skydive or hang-glide or do anything from any height where I’m not firmly attached by a harness to a solid, physical object that’s attached to the ground. I’m still all about the height and the speed though. Give me a roller coaster, a sky coaster over the royal gorge, a zip line over anything or a window-washing job on a skyscraper. I just want to be attached to something.

I know. This has nothing to do with working in an office. But I think about it nonetheless.

4. I used to not have three amazing young women to come home to each day. I can’t believe I get to live with these girls that I love and their dad that loves us all. They’ve all adjusted great and are doing more than their part in making sure the house is clean each day. At dinner, Grace informed me that she accomplished two of her three goals for the day. One was to finish reading her book – done. Two was to pick up the family room and vacuum – done. And the third was to play school in her room with her dolls. After dinner she accomplished her third goal. It only took her a couple hours.

So that’s where I am.

In keeping with my theme of newness, I got to be part of a birth again the other day. It never gets old. How I love being there at the moment of the first breath (and everything leading up to it.) It’s my next-to-last photography job for awhile. I’ve got one more on the books, due in a couple weeks and then I’m turning the camera off for awhile.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of baby Rose’s arrival:

Thanks for reading. I may not be home as much now, but I still live here.

Dear Dallas (part dos),

I’d like to propose switching things up. I switch things up a lot. My husband actually believes I might be bordering on mental illness. This is how most of our conversations go:

He: “Can you put this in the fridge?”
Me: “The bridge?”
He: “No, the fridge.”

I submit that if there is mental illness involved here, it’s not on my part only. Because yes, I cannot seem to resist changing the words of his sentences EVERY time he says ANYTHING. But, at the same time, he cannot seem to resist correcting me EVERY time. It makes for a fun life. I’m in the car! The jar? No, the car. Then he gets mad that he fell for my stupidity yet again. And I do admit, it is stupid. But so fun too.

But I digress. Yes, yes. In a dress.

Here is what I’d like to propose for Dallas: Let’s all switch up the am and pm on our clocks. Because, let’s face it, I am not one to complain about the weather unlike everyone around me. I’m really righteous like that. Trust me, this post is not about the weather. In fact, I say loudly that I am not complaining every time I get in the car and drive for a good ten minutes before the air conditioning finally actually cools off enough to do anything. I say it over and over, through the streams of sweat running down my face and into my mouth so that I sound like I’m blowing bubbles while I scream out that I am not complaining. I say it while I bounce up and down, trying to keep my rear end from bonding permanently to the 1000 degree car seat and melting my whole self into oblivion. If a person melts, did they ever really exist? Or persist? In bliss?

No, this post is about a good old-fashioned switcheroo. It could make life so much more bearable for the next six weeks or so. From today until September 15th, let’s all just sleep through the hellish hours of noon to 8pm because who really wants to do anything then anyway? We’ll just blissfully dream the hours away in our air-conditioned homes because if there’s one thing Dallas has, it most definitely has air-conditioning. (See Dear Dallas, part uno) Then, we’ll get up and go to work and school and do our cooking, cleaning, yard work and shopping in the much more tolerable midnight temperatures of 82 degrees. We won’t need sunscreen or sunglasses. And we’ll all be so much easier to live with while we wait with growing anticipation for the next big thing.

Ding. Ding.

Brrrrrring.

Hello? Fall? We’re ready for you if you want to come a little early this year.