Glimpses of the Past

Mom wants her house back and since all of us are officially moved out, never to return she's asking us to get rid of our junk.  So I hauled home the last few boxes of childhood junk, toys and memorabilia from the closets of their home.  I spent several hours digging through these treasure troves of my past remembering the girl I was at a point where I'm trying to figure out the woman I'm going to be.  This year I turn 30 a major turning point made even more significant by the recent loss of Armin.  So I thought as my first post in quite a while to share these items of significance with you and the memories I found stashed away by a younger me, saved for a future me to reminisce over.  Quite a lot of this is going to goodwill for some other youngster to collect and treasure until their older self realizes their non-worth but some of it will always be part of my life and will now move into my home as valued objects lost for awhile but now reclaimed. 

My hat collection...none of which were good choices and most do not fit anymore (can you head grow?)  
Favorite Sidney Sheldon book, mostly due to one character being named Megan.  It was read to death, stained by koolaid powder and now gross very gross, good thing I have another copy :D
One of 3 boxes of books which as I dug through was like meeting old friends you'd forgotten about but they are so familiar that you can pick them up and remember every detail of them and the times you spent together. 

My grad photos, certificates of achievement, awards I'd won, and artwork I did dating back to elementary and all the cards from my 18th birthday were in this box.  

 

This spoon stolen at Christmas 1997 by me from BPs while visiting with the girls from High School while home for University.  The only thing I've ever taken and boy did I feel like a bad a** but reality is boy what a dork.  

This little memory cabinet was built by my Grandpa to house the many little trinkets a child accumulates and wants to save, while keeping her mother happy that they are not cluttering up the house they are on display.  You'll see a fake fossil made at the dinosaur exhibit, a california grape, several cow erasers and my name badge from when my family was awarded Farm Family at Klondike Days.  

Why was this McDonald's toy important to young me?  I have no clue, the mouse made out of a walnut was made by my other Grandpa and I collected animal figurines but why a space ship out of plastic. 

This book contains diary entries so embaressing and revealing I will shortly be burning it, man the pain of being 18.  

Look an original troll....you know it's original by the walkman and the snazzy outfit from a time of fashion best left forgotten. 

Angela, my cabbage patch doll...but wait you say she isn't a cabbage patch doll.  Okay so she isn't officially a CPD but she was made with love by my mom at the peak of CPD mania when you couldn't find them except for more than my parents could afford and now my CPD is worth more than any collectors CPD because she's priceless, one of a kind and carries more love in her than any mass produced doll could ever have.  The funky hair cut happened when my sister decided to practice her cutting skills...grrrr. Her original outfit was no where to be found, it was a nightgown made to match the nightgown I got that Christmas so we could match.  

There were many other toys, books and scraps of paper...but wait for it next time I will share never before seen pictures taken by young me....watch for it.....I promise not to caption with names to protect the not so innocent :D

Long Time No Write

Okay first off appologies for not updating recently. Now to catch you all up on life.

THE WEDDING went off without a hitch, only a few bridezilla moments but nothing major and everyone had a blast. Glad it's over with and life can go back to normal. Have to say the best part was that I actually liked the bridesmaid dress and felt it looked good! It was nice to visit with so many of our family, everyone was looking pretty good!

My motorcycle lessons went well but I failed the test due to extreme nerves :( but that's okay I'm going to practice lots with Armin this summer and tackle the test in a little while, maybe find someplace where they do a road test not a parking lot skills test. I even have a scar already from the course when I laid the bike down thankfully I wasn't hurt and it was just a little bike.

The big news and the reason I haven't post much is that I've been spending a lot of time at the doctor's this spring. I finally decided that it was time to go see someone about the way I've been feeling, especially when it started to impact my work. Turns out I have depression, something I've long suspected and ignored trying to deal with it on my own. I'm now seeing a counsellor and I'm trying out some anti-depressents. So far this has really helped and I'm feeling much better-more energy, more positive thoughts, sleeping better and no more panic attacks! I feel really dumb for not getting help sooner and now owe people a lot of appologies for all the times I've bailed on things because I "wasn't feeling up to it" and a lot of thanks for sticking around while I haven't been a very good friend/daughter/sister/family member.

Armin and I have decided to get back into the swing of church shopping, this seemingly never ending and frustrating process has taken it's toll on us and we've swung through all sorts of extremes. Through lots of discussion we've decided what we'd like in a church, what we want for our hypothetical kids, and now we're off to find this mythical church...hopefully within a reasonable distance of our place :D or we may just find someplace we can settle on for now.

We've purchased our airline tickets to London for Nov/Dec and are starting to plan out our European adventure. We're going to hit London, Paris and Germany allowing lots of time for visiting with Armin's family. I think the most exciting part is that Armin will get to spend his 30th birthday in Germany. We will be home for Christmas with pictures and souveniers in tow. We even purchased a new camera, a digital Canon XTI with the regular lens and we splurged on the telephoto lens. We're still playing with it but so far it is everything we wanted!

Well I work today and I haven't even done my hair yet so I better run!
Meg

Yeah for warm weather!!

Okay so I'm now two days for two of being able to drive home with the top down and it's great! I love the looks I get, I love the feel of the wind in my hair and pumping the tunes out into the air. Last week I was crippled with a horrible headache and missed three days of work so I did a lot of reading. I read the whole Lauraine Snelling Red River/Blessing series, not great literature but not bad for those Christian historical romancey things. It was light on the romance but heavy on the character development which made me happy. I'm really excited because the library has purchased Barbarella and I've got it at home here to watch! I remember this movie from a sleepover when I was 12ish, we rented it and Tremors (both of which I'm pretty sure two 12 year old without parents shouldn't have been able to rent) and we watched them and thought we were soo cool and totally giggled through all the adult content. Somehow I don't know if the movie will live up to the memory they seldom do.

The long awaited wedding shower happened on Friday and went off pretty well, not as well orgainized as I'd normally like but no one but me noticed. The bride enjoyed it, the chocolate martini's were a hit with everyone that tried them (even my grandma) and you can't go wrong with chocolate fondue. So all that stress was really for naught.

Armin's been feeling poorly, but well enough he got bored and decided to fiddle with the truck, stupid boy, so I'm going to go tell him to go back to watching TV. Bye!

Spring maybe?

Okay so you buy a convertible and then spend the next 3 months just waiting until you ccan take the top down. So friday I thought "man it's nice I can just about justify putting the top down even if I might have to keep the heat on" and then it started to snow. Guess that shows me who's boss and it's not me. On a side note
rear wheel drive + fresh snow + new standard driver = pretty hairy drive to work

So things have settled down with the shower but now it looks like the bridesmaid dresses have gone AWOL so the next crisis is arising but I'm just trying to stay out of the line of fire on this one because I just can not take anymore stress. I realized this as I'm picking a fight at midnight with DH over nothing much that I've reached massive stress overload and I'm not sure how that's happened. I've cut back on anything except work and time with family and friends and the occasional card making evening. No volunteer boards, no church stuff, no sport teams ...nothing. So how the heck could I be stressed out, perhaps it's the effect of being full time for the first time in like forever and having to learn how to balance an erratic work schedule, housework and the downtime I require to keep me sane and still feel like I see people I like (as opposed to the hoards of people I help at the library who while nice enough aren't my people). I'm going to have to work on this and get things in line or head back into therapy again.

Today I had the surreal experiance of helping this guy get a library card and him asking if he really could take 40 cds out and watching him gleefully pick out his picks, then realizing as I'm checking out his material for him that he might just be as wildly diverse in his music taste as I am. In the stack was my favorite gregorian chant album, the new akon cd which I love, the miseducation of lauryn hill cd always good, some of my favorite opera albums, some great rock cds and enough dance music to mix it up. If he'd thrown in a few bollywood soundtracks you'd pretty much have my current mp3 player mix. Weirdness I thought I was the only person who was that random.

While I'm chatting about music let me plug my new favorite soundtrack. The Juno movie soundtrack is amazing (so totally check it out) and I'm now trying to convince DH to go to the movie with me, I may get him to go by telling him it's either that, The Other Boleyn Girl or Sex and the City.

Since my last post our dear kitty KD passed away (he's the lovely cat in my blog pic keeping my books warm) so it's been a tough couple of weeks for us and for our remaining cat. The dog hasn't noticed but he's had a tough early spring here by developing an apparent allergy. The vet said he's "allergic to spring". How can you be allergic to a season? So now the he's on doggie claritin which he hates taking and keeps finding ways to foil DH's plans to disguise it. So far he's licked all the peanut butter off the bread and left the pill behind, ate the sausage then promptly threw up the pill, ate the cracker and bbq sauce and somehow sorted the pill out from it and left it behind and I'm just waiting for the next adventure.

Well I should post more often and then maybe these wouldn't get so long. (yeah right) Bed is calling so night!

Midlife crisis

Appologies up front but this is going to be a rambling post, just one of those nights.

I think I'm having a mid life crisis (despite the fact that I hope I'm nowhere near midlife). I bought a sports car I can't drive and a motorcycle I can't drive. My theme this spring is "yes I'm coming up on 30 and in driving lessons at the AMA". Actually despite the driving lessons and my discouragement with how hard I'm finding driving stick to be, I'm really pleased with my new purchases. I like fast cars and I've always wanted a motorcycle so to get both this spring is a big exciting leap for me. I've come to the realization that despite the pressure to have kids I'm just not ready. Nothing about kids excites me right now. I think kids are cute and I enjoy working with them at the library but I'm glad to be selfish right now and enjoy my freedom. DH and I are also saving for our trip to Europe this fall and I'm really looking forward to it. Things have been chaotic at work and will continue to be so until we finally get into the new building (sometime this summer) then the fun of tons of people coming just to see the new branch begins, so a vacation will be inorder for this fall.

Back to the midlife crisis, I think I'm just in a space where I'm trying to find me again. For so long I was really tied up with my church work and friends and got sucked into a vortex where I got lost, combine that with getting married before 20 and working hard to make that we work and I think I lost me. I mean I turned into a car girl without even noticing and it's been longer than I care to admit since I worked on my poetry. At work they call me little miss sunshine and that just bugs the heck out of me just because I don't walk around angst filled and angry, taking it out on everyone around me doesn't mean I don't have pain but I've gotten so good at hiding the real me behind the facade society demands. Why is it that the only socially correct answer to "how you doing?" is "fine"? Try answering anything else and watch everyone's reaction it's actually quite funny. Add to this the fact most of my so called friends are too busy to find time to spend with me but that my work schedule is so demanding and erratic I can't even take a course or get involved in a club to meet new people which just means I'm feeling very isolated. I think I've had longer conversations with my cat lately than with anyone meaningful. Even DH has been preoccupied with stuff lately (namely guitar hero) and has been unavailable for deep discussions. Sigh oh well I make it sound like my life sucks but everything points to the contrary maybe I'm just suffering from what my mom calls old cow syndrome-the grass is always greener on the other side. Maybe I should look at what I'm thankful for:

1. Things have settled down with the wedding shower turns out wires got crossed and mom was told we were doing the sex toy party for the shower instead of the stagette. Like I'd do a sex toy party at an event my Grandmother was going to that is so wrong. Hopefully I can stay out of the fray for future wedding inspired blowups.

2. Driving Lessons are coming along and soon will be done and then I get to enjoy driving my new car and motorcycle.

3. My job is great, been stressful lately but it's still great and the new assistant manager looks to be a good guy.

4. New scrapbooking stuff-discovered a fabulous new scrapbook store on my way to and from work so I've been quietly stocking up :-) I've also been enjoying ebay shopping for scrapbook stuff. Now I should actually work on an album with all the cool stuff I've bought.

5. DH- he really is the best because after I cried on his shoulder last night he took me out for supper tonight and spent a lot of time just listening to what I was thinking and feeling. He also wins the award for patience while he's been helping me practice driving stick and for knowing that sometimes ice cream does solve everything.

That's a much more positive way to end this post!

Meg