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.

P.S.

I heard this song last week and thought that maybe if I were the dancing doll in a music box, this is the song that would play when you opened it.

This is just to say

(to borrow from William Carlos Williams)

I feel lonely, lonely, lonely.
Lonely.

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.

Day one: a start

Tricia's right, it feels like time to bring back the blogging, but I just don't know how to go about it. Sure, I could just start blogging, but that wouldn't be nearly complicated enough. Did Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde keep the same blog? What about Dante after he returned from the underworld? ... yet none of these metaphors are at all helpful because I neither am I trying to imply that I am struggling with an evil inner personality, nor that I have been, or am currently going through hell. Just that my life now is completely and utterly different than it was then. Anyone have a better comparison that I could use?
Besides that, I never felt like this blog really spoke my voice. Maybe it was the sporadic posting. Maybe it was knowing that people I actually know read it, so I intentionally or unintentionally limited myself to being somewhat likable and p.c., afraid to let myself be truly known. Whatever it was, it didn't work for me. So I guess I either need to stop blogging altogether, or start blogging for real. I'm leaning towards the latter, but I haven't quite made the decision. The thing is... people read this thing! Not a lot of people, but a few. Some I know, some are strangers, but the fact still stands. So the question is, how do I move on from here? Do I owe some sort of update? A little narrative bridge to connect the old life to the new? Or can I just pick a day and start telling its story?