And here comes another one

I'm not exactly sure what's up with the complete lack of blogging... my guess is that my brain just needed some time to assimilate all the new information that i've gathered over the past couple weeks.

So..

As previously mentioned, I applied to UW, SMS, and LECOM. In the midst of those applications I figured out what I want to do (at least clearly enough to take a step forward, not saying that won't adapt as time goes on) and then 1. stopped applying to UW, 2. withdrew my application from SMS, and 3. hoped that LECOM would let me in. And by hoped I mean panicked.
Thankfully, they were merciful and I have been accepted to LECOM's class of 2013!

What this means (etc.):

• I'll be moving back to Pennsylvania on May 19 so that I have time to get settled, find an apartment, etc.
• I have decided to become a part of LECOM's Problem Based Learning pathway, and I'm pretty excited about it! LECOM describes it this way: "Teams of eight medical students study medical cases as they progress through modules of the core curriculum and systems of the body. Together, PBL students research the basic and clinical sciences, and they solve the problem presented by the patient’s case." What that essentially means is that instead of sitting in a classroom all day every day and doing med school similarly to the way I did college (some might say "binge and purge"), I'll be meeting with other students and a facilitator 3 times a week for 2 hours each to discuss a case, and then studying independently the rest of the time. I am looking forward to learning in a way that seems to be a better fit with the way my mind works.
  
• My goal is to become a family practitioner who specializes in maternity care and natural birth. I have contacted a couple doulas and midwives in the Erie area who are willing to let me shadow them (or in the case of doula-ing actually help since I've taken a doula course) while I am in Erie. My hope is that I will eventually work to improve the U.S. maternity care system by facilitating discussion and collaboration between doctors, midwives, and other health care providers. I want to be a doctor who supports home birth and free-standing birth clinics, especially in rural areas.
  
• I will be home to celebrate my papa's 80th birthday in June and my sister's 30th birthday in August!
• I will not be here to celebrate Cara's 30th and Hadley's 1st birthday in September or Grayden's Kung Fu Panda party in November. :(
• I will get to hang out with Statia and baby.
• And Tricia! And EMMH!
  
• I will not get to hang out with my Melissa.
• I will be surrounded by my family! And get to eat Sunday dinners at gramma's!
• I will deeply miss my church family. And the great teaching at soma. :(
• Erie summers. The peninsula. :)
  
• No Washington summers. Will miss my mountain. :(
• Will also miss this mountain.
• Cheapest beer ever! :)
  
• No more Broho. :(
• Getting to know my niece and nephews all over again. :)

The list goes on... I really am excited for this new step, but I'm definitely grieving. Already. Silly things make me cry. Like flocks of birds flying in a crisp v-shape. yep.

Attraversiamo

Twice this week I have ended up at a sort of party saying, "Dammit! I forgot my camera!" I'd love to tell all about my experiences, but the thing is I would really rather post a couple pictures than conjure up several thousand words. So at this point, I'm just going to tell you this:

Does your mind ever get stuck on a word? Maybe a street name, a kind of beer, a funny word like 'slacks' or 'after'?

This week I met Eugenio, the owner of Trinacria Ristorante Italiano, and his name won't leave my mouth! Eugenio. "Ay-oo-gen-i-yo." You say it fast and loud, like a rollercoaster. The "ay" and "oo" sounds are the last couple clicks at the very top of the hill, and then comes the freefall of "genio." It's so fun I just can't stand it!

I took Eugenio's arm and told him, "I know one Italian word. Attraversiamo!" He giggled and said, "Letza cross the street-a!"

I told him that since moving to Olympia I have wanted to come to his restaurant, but whenever I think of it I'm with a friend and we're both in jeans and we say, "Oh, some other time."
Eugenio told me, "You can come in jeanza! Doesn't matta..." and basically convinced me with his insistance, "we have da best-a foo-da, da best-a price-a!" Then he and a waitress revealed to me the table that they have set up in the kitchen for family or people who come alone so that they can be part of the hustle and bustle of the kitchen! I may go in alone sometime, but I definitely won't be lonely!

bring out your tiny violin

I'm feeling 'eh' and can't put my finger on it.
It feels like I've lost something, and when I try to figure out what that is, it leads to a slow and gentle depression of my spirits because, as it turns out, it could be caused by any number of those things in life that aren't the way I would like them to be. I miss my family. it feels like I haven't talked to any of them in a really long time. phone calls with my cousin, my gramma, my sister, my mom, they used to be quite frequent... it's my fault I know. I am usually the one who makes the call (maybe 75% of the time) and I haven't been doing that because... I don't know. I haven't been talking to anyone. this is a pretty clear indicator of the state of my mental health. I guess I just feel pretty isolated. I'm frustrated with working so much because it doesn't leave much time for fun, and also I work during the hours of the day when it's light out, so after that I don't have many options. I could (and sometimes do) take the bus downtown, but I'm a little apprehensive about walking home in the dark from the bus stop since I live in perhaps the scariest neighborhood in Lacey. this leads to hours spent alone in my bedroom, which really isn't good for me at this point. last night i finished my book and colored a picture in my new strawberry shortcake coloring book, but i would have rather been doing something fun with friends. today is my day off and i went to bed at like 9 last night. lame.

on the brighter side, i'm looking forward to having this weekend off and doing something fun. not sure exactly what yet.

Love, me.

In Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert tells a story about walking into an elevator and thinking she sees a friend whose name she cannot remember. It takes only a split second for her to realize that she is seeing a reflection of herself in a mirrored wall, and though she feels like a dumb dog, that moment is one that she carries with her. In an unguarded moment, she writes, she recognized herself as a friend.

On Friday I had a similar moment. I was enjoying my day off, wandering around downtown Olympia, when I passed a store decked out in Valentine's decorations. I back-tracked and stared at the window displays of paper hearts and all things red and pink. I probably looked like a kid on Christmas morning. (For all my life Valentine's Day has been my favorite holiday... I've decided to explain this further in a post nearer to the actual holiday.) I went into the store, a little boutique full of things that I love (greeting cards! candles! jewelry! bake wear!) and an urgent thought came to my mind, "I have to buy something for Valentine's Day! For myself! Because I love me!" I literally laughed out loud when I heard my mind say it. But then I thought, "good for me!" It's nice to recognize ourselves as friends every once in a while.

"harder" but happier

I'm feeling pretty good about life right now. My dear wife Tricia helped me realize that through her recent blog post, where she said, "What I'm saying is: I didn't leave Camden for the easy life. This is actually harder. But I'm happier. Much, much happier."

I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to explain why those few words are just ringing in my heart right now, but I can't do it. I guess the easy, sort of explanation-free way of saying it is that I left Baltimore and moved to Lacey where I struggled to find a job, and to find friends, but there was happiness there. And then in September I left Markus and moved to this new life in Olympia, which has been an even harder transition, full of pain, depression, self-loathing, but also growth and healing. And now I'm standing in the middle of January of the year 2009 and witnessing little pieces of my heart starting to light up and glow that have been dark for months or years (depending on which little pieces you're looking at.)


It started with going to a bar downtown with a friend and having a good time. We made friends with the owner, and now I can go there by myself and feel welcome. Then last week I told him (the owner) about how I'm just trying to open up my life and meet new friends, and he let me know that he has people over for dinner parties at his house about once a month and that he would invite me to the next one!
It grew when I called up an old army wife friend that I thought was maybe gone with the rest of my army world, and I was greeted with open arms. We had coffee one day, dinner a couple days later, and enough conversation to remind us why we loved each other in the first place!
It blossomed when work relationships finally started moving their way into friendships. Next week I am going swing dancing with a co-worker! (And another co-worker is the teacher!) And last night one of my favorites gave me her number so we could go out and play some time.

I want to keep developing these relationships and letting my roots just dig in here, but it's really hard because I don't know where I'll be living in a month or if I'll be able to even get to Olympia. Time will tell, I guess.

Me. The single girl.

Tonight I remembered that it can sometimes be fun to live alone.
I'm watching my friends' cat/apartment while they are on vacation and mostly I've just been dropping in to say hi, fill the food and water bowls, give a little scratch, play a little mousey, and I'm out the door. But I didn't have to work tonight or tomorrow so I'm staying the night so that I can give this needy cat a little more attention. My vacationing friends left plenty of food for me to munch on should I so choose, including a few bananas that have progressed from 'delightfully tasty' to 'too mushy to peel,' so I decided to make some banana bread for them to come home to this week. As I was getting ready to make the bread tonight I realized that there weren't any eggs in the house. I set out for eggs, a lighter (I've been wanting one for the candles in my room, and couldn't find one here either), and maybe something for dinner. As I was wandering around the grocery store, I remembered back in the day, when I was a single girl, living alone in my apartment in Erie. I had great dinners a few times a week, pieces of meat or fish from the store that were prepared and ready to bake. Fish with seasoning. Chicken and stuffing. Pretty simple meals really, but nothing that a single girl would normally make for herself. So I found my way to the back of the store and there they were! I was going to get fish, since I never eat fish anymore and I am very concious of the lack of fish in my life, bu then there was this absolutely deliousious looking piece of chicken that I couldn't resist. Chicken breast, stuffed with cheddar cheese and fresh asparagus spears! I left the store with one of those, 6 eggs, a lighter, a log of clean-burning wood, and a bottle of white zinfindel, and tonight has been wonderful. I lit all the candles in the living room, started a fire in the fireplace, cooked my dinner, poured myself a huge glass of wine, and made a yummy looking loaf of banana bread. What a cozy and nice night it has turned out to be.

A dream realized

The day before Madelyne came Stephanie mentioned that she wanted to buy a sling or wrap of some kind, and me being me (the baby/birth lover who has no reason to know this stuff, but does anyway) I gave her some info about a few carriers that I've heard people mention, with special emphasis on the Moby wrap. I even told her where she could get one downtown. I am such a baby fool... So Steph went and bought one that day.
Fast forward to this past Friday.
It was a busy day for both Stephanie and I. I had errands to run in the morning, and work in the afternoon, and she was getting the house ready for the holiday work party that she and Lloyd were hosting that night. I got home from running my errands just as she was getting ready to run to the grocery store. Relieved that I was home, she asked if I would watch the kids while she went to the store. I said no problem, as long as she was home by 2:30, which was when I had to leave for work. As the minutes ticked by, and I realized that she was probably going to get home just in time for me to leave, I decided that I had better start getting ready for work.
The problem? Madelyne had been really fussy all day, and was really only content when she was being held.
The other problem? The hems in the (only clean) pants I was planning on wearing to work fell out and I needed to sew them back up. (They actually fell out when I was in Baltimore because I wore some sequiney shoes that caught on the threads and tore them out. I did a 'quick fix' then too, by taping them up with scotch tape!!! I had forgotten all about it, then washed them last week, and there went my first solution.)
The solution? Become a domestic goddess!
I found the Moby wrap, and having helped Steph with it a few times, was able to wrap Maddy to me very securely. Then I admired myself in the bathroom mirror. Carrying a little baby in a wrap is something that I have wanted for so long. It's hard to explain I guess, but it's like a fulfillment of some part of me. I hope some day it will be my own little one, and I think that's a little part of the pain in this whole break up process that I am (yes) still going through, but for now I'll take what I can get. (ha)
Then I got out my thread, found a brown spool, and hand-stitched my pants up (not enough time to get my sewing machine out from the garage, but I should do that soon.) I also fixed my hair and makeup, and was ready to go before Steph walked in the door! I felt a little like Super Hannah that day.

The adventures of baby Madelyne

First, I must say that I've realized what's behind my blogging patterns. Basically I only like to blog if I'm in a good mood, a 'blogging mood,' and that just hasn't been very prevalent as of late.
But anyway, I promised a story, so I'm going to tell it.

Last Tuesday, November 25, I heard a strange sound coming from downstairs. When I got to the kitchen, I found Stephanie on the phone, crying. I was worried. She had just returned from visiting her hospitalized father on Sunday, and though he was doing better and was at home when she left, it was the first thing that came to my mind. I must have looked panicked. She turned to me and said, "it's good!" and after quickly ending the phone conversation she again turned to me and asked, "So are you ready to have a newborn in the house?" My response: "Yessss!"


Then I got the rest of the story, piece by piece throughout the day as more information came in from case workers and family members. Stephanie tells the story much better than I do, and will continue to tell the story on her blog, Maddy's World.
We've had Maddy for over a week now, and she's doing really great. She's completely precious and is just a really good baby. I am so grateful that she's with us.
Maddy and I on Thanksgiving

Short version

This is (some of) how I got to where I am now:

In July I was reading Shane Claiborne's Jesus For President. He's a footnote freak. Footnotes on every page. I wrote some of them down, including one about Advent Conspiracy. This led me to the Advent Conspiracy webpage. Which led me to the Advent Conspiracy blog, where churches that had participated in AC told what they did or how they were affected. I was just browsing when the title of one of the entries caught my eye. Something about "Changing hearts in the South Sound." My heart jumped. "The South Sound! I live in the South Sound! A church near me participated in Advent Conspiracy?!" I had been looking for a church since moving to Washington in February, but hadn't had much luck finding the right fit. Could this church be the one? The entry mentioned Soma Communities, which I immediately Googled. As I made my way through the website, I felt certain that this church and I would get along. One of the things I was looking for in a church was an active 'small group' life. Soma's website talked about their missional communities, smaller groups of people in the same general location that meet weekly. Hurrah! When I looked at the map and saw that there was one in Lacey, I emailed Lloyd, the contact person. He got back to me immediately, and I checked out the missional community that week.
Now here I am, 5 months later, living with Lloyd and Stephanie and their son Jake.

That's the short story. It doesn't fill in a lot of the details, but I had to bring you up to now, because now is where I am, and now is where life is happening, and boy do I have a great story to tell.