All good things ...

Below is little snippet of what I've been listening to lately. I guess the whole thing doesn't fit, so scrolling is a bit difficult. I have it on "Random," so navigating the little sucker may be rough. Still, it's music! Yay! We like music 'round these parts.

Oh, and the first song is the song I got my little title and excerpt from above. I'm going to try to add it to my profile on here as well. (It says you can, but who knows?) Anyhow, here's a little music to spice up this joint! :)

'Click your heels three times and say ..."

Dryers vent into the hallway of our apartment and it has the cleanest, freshest smell when any laundry is being done. It ranks right up there with rain and skin.

Today has been packing (again) and cleaning (again) and getting ready to go out of town. I loathe packing and love traveling. It seems there's always some Catch-22. Still, I'll take the packing if I can take the vacations. As it happens, I have been lucky enough since moving to have little reprieves at least once a month. The first 6 months I lived here was like one, big, extended vacation. We were talking about that last night. In truth, it's been a little difficult coming down from that high. It can be addictive.

Most of the time, I stay balanced right smack in between discouraged and elated. It's a tricky management sometimes, but I do try. My "career" and "professional" life is totally in the toilet, and I've just accepted that it probably will be until I graduate with my Master's, yet my "personal" and "home" life is not much short of completely amazing. Of course, I wouldn't mind having my friends and family physically around, but I seriously have to thank the beauty that is collectively the telephone, the car, and the plane ride.

So, most of the time I'm great, I'm golden, I'm keeping my chin up despite the frustrations. From time to time, however, the lower end drags me down a bit and the blues set in. Yesterday was one of those days. I couldn't seem to shake it. Finally, by evening's end, I was back to "normal" again. (But, really, what is normal? No one knows.) The point is that the impending visit home is making me one happy little lady. (Where are those dang ruby red slippers when you need 'em?!)

I've been burning CD's for the drive to and fro all day. If there is one thing that cheers me, it's definitely The Mixed CD/Tape! (I like the way "Mixed Tape" sounds way better than "Mixed CD," but since the tape is now obsolete, I feel strange keeping it in my repertoire.) I get tired of listening to the same, tired thing over and over and over, and I have to 100% agree that music shapes mood. Certainly, you can select music to fit mood, but what you listen to on a regular basis probably molds you a bit more. Something to do with chakra, I'm sure. ;)

But, really, that's a question I ponder quite a bit. I think that's why I had to shy away from the newer stuff for a bit and resort to the oldies. They tend to be a little more upbeat. "The stories, oh the stories, they were so much better then ..." (From a poem I wrote a while back called 1933.) Anyway, it's "the chicken or the egg?" debate, and, more specifically, "Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" assertion. (Nick Hornby, High Fidelity.)

I think about the weirdest things! If you could go fishing inside my brain to hook a few thoughts out at random, you probably wouldn't believe what you discovered. Aren't we all like that, though? We're all freakin' crazy as bedbugs. The older I get, the more I believe it must be true.

Further affirming this belief was the marathon of Trading Spouses on CMT (of all stations) yesterday. While I was folding laundry and organizing photo albums, I flipped on the TV and there it was. The channel was the remnant of the previous night when we were watching Any Given Sunday before bed. I never watch CMT, not being the biggest country music fan in the world, so I had never seen the show. Talk about wonky! Those people were flat-out bizarre.

Given the name of the show, I'm sure you can assume that 2 couples switch a spouse/parent. In this case, it was the wives/mothers being swapped, most of the time completely across socio-economic, racial, cultural, religious, and geographic lines. The fireworks were quite huge, and the train wreck aspect of the show proved to be too much to pull away from. In the end, each family discovered how totally elated they were to be reconnected at the end of the week-long stint away from each other. The lesson, I'm sure, is supposed to be: "Be happy with what you have." I, myself, don't think I would need to wive/parent another family to realize it, but oh well.

It's time for me to load the car. I need to leave soon-ish. This is good news! I'll be back on Monday, usually with some good stories to tell. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend! I know I will!

In the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, "Take care of each other."

The gun & the cannoli ...

Well, it's official, I'm living in sin.

It hasn't quite sunken in yet, but I know I'm happy! That's all that matters. It is a bit strange because we were both very used to staying every night at his place. We rarely stayed here (cats and allergies and whatnot), so it's kind of a new living space for the both of us. it's a nice mish-mash, whatever way you slice it. :)

After the weekend's events, we both feel like we've been wrung through a knothole backwards; however, the majority of the moving is done. There's still a bit of last-minute stuff to store, but that's about it. Words cannot express how much I loathe moving. The good news is that Alex didn't have all that much to move. He dropped over half his stuff in the move to Austin from New Mexico last year, so ... yeah. Almost done!

It's good timing, too, because we're leaving town on Thursday. Alex is headed to Albuquerque for an eye doctor appointment and I am headed to Lubbock for the entire weekend as soon as I taxi him to the airport that day. It's a holiday weekend, and my mom's birthday all wrapped up into one nice, little packaged deal. So, I'll be doing "girly" things with my fam and friends for the first few days. Then, Alex will fly to The Hub on Saturday afternoon and co-ed family events will commence.

Speaking of my friends and family, it's CRAZY how much I miss them! It's even more so how it has actually gotten worse, instead of better, as the time has gone on. I've been here for going on the back-end of a year so far, yet all the time has done is make me realize more and more how much those folks at home mean to me. It's not easy being apart, that's for sure. The visits are SO MUCH FUN, though! We've got it all mapped out. I'm excited!

It just proves to me more and more that it's not necessarily where you are, it's who you surround yourself with. Here, it's super-saturated with things to do, but it's not fun if you don't have your posse ("peeps," if you will) to come along. Alex and I have a great time together, though, so that does help matters tremendously! Still, I miss my folks (and I don't just mean my parents).

Everything is always so up in the air that I don't know if we're coming or going half the time, but I do know that things have not gone exactly how I planned coming here. The whole "hiring freeze" BS that I've mentioned time and time again threw a HUGE wrench into "the plan." So, we've adjusted a bit. It all depends on what we decide together, but we both need to start figuring out where we want to go to Grad and Law School (for me, for Alex, respectively). Here is now out of the question, for too many reasons to type at this moment. I need to go somewhere where I can teach while getting my Master's, and Alex needs a law school that isn't so snooty and more hooked on their diversity than accepting people who have all the creds.

So, we are in the process of discussing where we would like to go ... together, of course. "You jump, I jump." Now is the time of decisions, that's for sure! And not always easy ones ... in fact, very rarely easy ones. It's okay, though. It's "character building," as my fabulous Aunt Kay would say. Whatever happens and as always, we shall see. There's no hurry right now. Write goals in permanent marker and plans in pencil. One step at a time. All the cliches! You get the idea.

OH! And, quickly, my sister helped solve my music stagnation issue last week, so I'm starting to kick off the ickies. (Musically, that is.) Some stuff not on her list that I have been listening to a lot are You Are the Best Thing by Ray LaMontagne (on his new album coming out in October sometime), I'd Rather Be With You by Joshua Radin (also on his new CD), and To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts by Matt Nathanson. (Hey, I had to have something to get me through the heavy lifting!)

To end, I'll go with this one today: "There is no set path. Just follow your heart."

Bubble wrap galore!

I finally did it! I organized every, single, flippin', flappin' nook and cranny in my bedroom! That includes closet, bathroom, dresser, vanity, and under the bed. Whew, I'm exhausted! But it feels oh, so goooooood!

That's been my week in a nutshell: organize, clean, grapple over whether or not to throw "that" away, put it in the Maybe pile, take out of the Maybe pile, throw in the Keep pile, stare for a few minutes, try it on again, put some shoes in the Never-Again-No-More pile on with the Maybe/Keep item, get frustrated and throw them in the Never-Again-No-More pile. On and on the cycle goes ... er ... WENT ... until today! Today, it is all finished. I sit here in the middle of my "new" bedroom, staring at the greatness that is no clutter, organization, and necessity-only. It's glorious!

Okay, so, I realize that I said "my" room in the previous paragraph. The truth is ... that isn't going to be the truth for much longer. A big-ish step is upon us, and Alex is moving in this week!!! We are both super-uber-exicted about it. Well, we will be super-uber-exited about it once we get everything moved. And then, in a couple more months, we will be even more super-uber-excited about it once we can get our own place. It's not that I don't love Melissa to death and think is she is a wonderful roommate (because I do and she is). It has more to do with the fact that Alex is crazy-allergic to cats and she has 2. Plus, we are a newly-living-together (soon enough) duo and will probably be ready to spread out of just my one bedroom sooner rather than later.

We would have gotten our own place now, when his lease is up, but mine isn't up until December. It's been a tricky planning process, which has been made much harder by my Nazi apartment people (sad, but true). The reasons behind my accusations are numerous and way too extensive and anger-inducing to mention right now. Just know that we have gone 'round and 'round with those about some stuff in our lease that we should be able to do and have been told we can't. So, long story short (kinda), he's just going to stay here with Mel and I until around the beginning of November. At that point, we'll find somewhere else. It works out well enough.

I'll never forget when we made the final decision. We had discussed it a little here and there, but finally had a "serious" discussion about it one Saturday morning a few months back. We were leaving my apartment when we kind of looked at each other all goofy and said the final, "Yes, this is absolutely what we want to do." Alex grabbed my hand and shook my arm with this huge grin on his face. "What?" ... "I'm just so happy to be making plans with you. I'm excited!" And I am, too!

Moving in, though ... I've never officially lived with a boy, so it'll be very different for me. The funny thing is I'm not AT ALL nervous, or weird, or freaked out, or doubtful. It's time and it's with the right one. Plus, he always puts the seat down for me, so I'm not too worried about little-big things like that. ;) It's just a really great step, we both think ... a very natural, no-question-about-it step for us. It's been so nice! We are always right there on the same page, sentence even! In most situations, it seems like one person is walking slowly and the other is at a full sprint. Not with us. I'm a lucky girl. We have "the stuff." The good, right stuff. (New Kids on the Block! Hey-oh! Um, no ...) I could go on and on and on, but I will spare everyone the sapfest. (You're welcome. Ha!)

So, yes, all of that to tell you all why I went on the insane spree of clean/organize/donate/store/wash/fold/arrange this week. The truth is that it has actually be quite fun making extra room. The big move-out/move-in is this weekend, so we still have A LOT to do. Which means, I should be going now. I've chatted enough while he is at his apartment packing. Going to grab some alcohol and head on over! Because, really, what's packing and moving without inebriation? Time poorly spent, my friends ... time very poorly spent. ;)

Splish-splash!

It finally rained some this weekend! I'm crossing my fingers and will do a rain dance in the middle of the street (if need be) for more this week. You know how some people get depressed when there is too much rain? Well, I'm the polar opposite: I get depressed when there is not enough. Loads and loads of sun bums me out ... rain makes me feel all giddy and frisky. Bring on those clouds!

(On the flipside, however, my mom has informed me that she woke up on Saturday morning to find it raining in her kitchen. Apparently, all of the weather up there made their ceiling cave in. That kind of rain, I'm not sure I would be too fond of.)

Oy, with the poodles, already!

As a jumping off point for today, here's my horoscope:

You may feel as if you are in a rut and could be rather disillusioned about the prospects for change. A recent disappointment only added to your current malaise. But don't make despondency a habit, for everything is about to change. You are better off being hopeful about the future than you are being saddened by the past.

I think that about sums up the teaching job situation for now: disappointment, malaise, and despondency. (HA!) No, not really. That dern "hiring freeze" is most assuredly the bane of my existence right now, though. I have had 2 interviews in the last 2 weeks and haven't heard back from either one. This means that the jobs most likely haven't been filled, as I was told by both that contact would be made "no matter what." The words from both as I left, laughing and shaking hands were, "Sarah, you will DEFINITELY be hearing from us soon." That would lead one to believe that the phone would actually ring at some point, correct? Well, not so far. In their defense (whether warranted or not), I discovered that the principals aren't allowed to discuss the positions they are trying to fill after the interviews have been completed until papers (contract and other legal bullhonky) are signed by someone (myself or whomever else).

So, on the downside, I'm uber-frustrated by interviewing and getting no response about anything in return. On the upside, however, I am actually getting calls for interviews. This shows interest. Interest is good. The problem is getting through the district's main office and having them fully approve the hire. No word yet on if that will ever happen. In the meantime, I do have subbing all set up and kickin' to begin again. In the end, if all else fails, I do have that as a backup plan. This is always good.

I'm really just trying to keep my chin up as much as possible. It's not always the easiest task, but getting down on myself about it is "counterproductive" (Alex's assertion). I believe it must be true. I am doing everything I can do, and I'm just trying not to take it too personally. I'm qualified, I'm enthusiastic, and I'm not a total idiot. Whatever is supposed to happen will happen. Right? Right.

By way of an actual, legitimate update, I think that is all I have for now. As I mentioned earlier today, I had a slightly different, possibly more rambly post typed up and ready to post. Right when I hit "Publish," though, our finicky Internet connection went all wonky. The last bit of the post, which would have simply continued on for a while below this, was eaten. I would try to recreate what was said, but I'm sure it wasn't of urgent importance. What is of urgent importance is that it is Friday and I am ready to start the weekend!

As always, I'll tell more about the job stuff as I know the final word. In the meantime, I'll just be excited that school supplies are crazy-cheap right now and my addiction to such purchases hasn't sent me into bankruptcy quite yet. :)

**Boo/Hiss**

Booooooooooo ... I just wrote the LONGEST update on this thing and my Internet connection flaked right in the middle of posting. The entire thing wasn't totally lost, but I don't have time to fix it right now, as I have a lunch engagement soon-ish. I'll update the update this afternoon and post, post, post! (I fear I've had too much caffeine this morning. Starbucks will be the death of us all, I'm certain! Ha ... I kid, I kid ... or do I?)

Anyway, update in the next few hours. In the meantime, Happy Freakin' Friday! :)