little black journal

With work being as busy as it is, and my next licensing test coming up in a couple of days, and my list of “free time” projects growing all the time, my mind feels like it’s stretched very thin. I feel like I have lost my ability to focus. When I’m at work, I’m thinking about all the studying I have to do. When I’m studying, I’m thinking about the unfinished painting or sewing project that I have sitting upstairs. I try to set aside time in the evening to work on these projects, but I never get around to it, because I am worn out and exhausted by 8 pm. And then as I’m trying to drift off to sleep, I find myself composing my task list for the following work day. I am one big, neurotic stress-ball. I find it impossible to relax. It’s frustrating. And tiring.

Thankfully, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, as my test will be over on Tuesday and my big project at work should be wrapped up by the end of the month. But then again, come next month, there will be another test to take and another project to work on. And will I allow myself to become consumed by these things once again? I desperately hope not. I just haven’t figured out yet how to avoid it. I have not been dealing well with deadlines and pressure and stress. Ideally, my feelings of stress would drive me to productivity, and my productivity would allow me to feel that I’ve earned the right to take a break and relax, but it seems instead that my stress is just frazzling me to the point that I’m not getting much of anything done. And so my frustration compounds and compounds and compounds. Goodness, I’m a Debbie-downer tonight… I think I’ve got a case of the “Sunday night don’t want to go to work tomorrow didn’t get much done at home this weekend” blues. Sigh.

I’ve had a hard time “embracing the present” this week, and so I’ve been focusing on all that I have to look forward to:

Getting up late this Saturday, then making French toast for breakfast (I’ve had a craving lately).

Seeing my Kindergarten class at church this Sunday. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve taught, and I’ve missed those kids.

Finishing up the punch lists for the project I’m working on in just a couple of weeks. Time to move on. My feet hurt.

Receiving the new cool, modern, wood bed frame and headboard that we just ordered from West Elm. Good-bye, squeaky old metal frame.

Heading down to Portland in a couple of weeks to visit my niece. Gotta say, I’ve got the baby itch (we’re not ready for our own, but it’s wonderful to enjoy other people’s kids!)

Checking out “First Thursday” (local Seattle art gallery walk) with Shane next Thursday. I love that he works downtown now, just a few blocks away from my office.

Planning our week-end getaway for the month of June (a new summer tradition). Camping? Vancouver? We need to get out of town.

Completing my third licensing test in just 12 days, after which I am allowing myself to take a one-month break from studying.

I know I shouldn’t resist dwelling in the present, but future seems so much more fun right now…

We’ve had a wonderful weekend – it’s been a good mix of having fun and getting stuff done. We had an errand to run in Tacoma yesterday and decided to check out Point Defiance while we were down there. This turned out to be the perfect perfect-weather getaway – a park with a nice variety of beach, garden, and forest.

It felt so good to aimlessly wander for a couple of hours, without having any reason to rush back home for anything. More and more, Shane and I are seeing the value in getting out of the house and enjoying each other; this is so much more important than having a clean home or catching the basketball game on TV. However, that said, after our day of fun yesterday, we did decide to spend a good part of today on housework. 4 loads of laundry done; 3 boxes of stuff pulled out of closets and put in the Goodwill pile; 4,000 computer/TV/video cables sorted and neatly coiled (this is a bit of an exaggeration, but anyone who is married to an IT guy will know what I’m talking about…); 3 bedrooms vacuumed and dusted; 2 toilets scrubbed; and something like 100 weeds pulled from our yard. It was a full day – we definitely earned the bottle of wine that we enjoyed out in the early evening sunshine of our backyard. The best part of this weekend? The fact that it’s not over yet! Looking forward to our Monday off!

Shane and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary yesterday. It was nice to hit “pause” on our busy week and enjoy a special dinner together at La Medusa. 2 years… I find that anniversaries are a good time to take a “marital inventory” and reflect on how we’re doing. There have been days when being married to Shane feels like the most natural thing in the world, like we’re living the life that was always meant to be. Then there are days when I think to myself, “Holy crap! Who is this man in my bed? There is still so much I don’t know about him! Are we seriously married?” These moments can freak me out a bit, but I have to remind myself that I will never know every little detail of my husband’s inner workings. And do I really want to, when the journey of getting to know him better is so much fun? For example, in the car on the way down to Silverlake last Saturday, Shane spent awhile telling me about the mischief he used to get into as a kid. I love discovering these things about his past – I hope he never runs out of new material to share with me. So as far as the current state of our marriage goes, I’d say we’re doing pretty well. I’m freaking out less and less these days. And we’ve genuinely enjoyed each other’s company lately, even more than usual. We met for lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant on Monday and I caught myself grinning as I watched Shane approach the restaurant from a block away. I was so thrilled to be able to spend just 30 minutes with him in the middle of the day. He has this uncanny power to calm my stressed-out mind, to pull me out of a stubborn pout, to make me laugh when what I am mad/frustrated/sad/etc. It is both comforting and unsettling to be aware of the influence that he has over the state of my spirit. I occasionally try to put my guard up against this influence, but then I remember that I am blessed to be married to a man that treats my vulnerable heart with such tenderness. So, we’re doing well. Do we still have room for growth? Of course. We continue to work on finding our “rhythm” and have set these goals: pray together more regularly; eat dinner at the dining room table together more regularly; talk about our finances together more regularly; foster relationships with other couples who can encourage us, and vice versa.

I look back on this photo of our first moment of prayer as a married couple, and I think about how we’ve grown over the past two years. And I look forward to the journey ahead of us…

I got that phone call last night that anyone with a sick family member dreads – it was my mom and dad, calling to tell me that my grandmother (“Nannie”), who has been quite ill for several months, had taken a turn for the worse and seemed to be nearing the end of her life. I was upset, but I somehow believed that she would pull through this decline, as she has done in the past. Dreaded phone call #2 came this morning – Nannie passed away sometime during the night. Emotional numbness allowed me to make it through the work day (“keep busy, don’t let the tears start”, is what I kept telling myself). But the second I stepped off the bus this evening and turned the corner onto our street, the floodgates broke and I began to sob. This hurts. This is my first adult experience with the loss of a loved one, and I am frustratingly fumbling through what it means to grieve. I know that the grieving process looks different for everyone, but that is what’s so difficult. I want a formula to follow, steps to go through, milestones to accomplish. I have spent an evening curled up in bed, crying while Shane rubs my back and prays for my family. I have called my dad and cried with him over the phone. I have cried on the couch. I have cried in the shower. And just when I think I’m about cried out, my eyes start burning and the tears start falling again. I am of course saddened by my loss of my grandmother, but what pains me so deeply is the knowledge that my grandfather has had to say good-bye to his wife of over 60 years. Their marriage was a testament to the meaning of devotion. Nannie spent so many years nurturing her husband and children, taking care of the house, preparing meals, being an active and attentive wife, mother, and grandmother. But as she became weaker and was able to do less and less, Grandaddy didn’t hesitate a bit to fill in where he was needed. When Shane and I visited them back in Maryland last fall, I was touched and humbled by how lovingly he prepared her breakfast, helped her to the bathroom, made sure that at any moment she had everything she needed and desired. We woke up one morning to find him baking cookies, rolling snickerdoodle dough in a bowl of cinnamon and sugar. He said that although Nannie rarely had much of an appetite anymore, she did love those cookies, and so he would gladly bake them faster than she could eat them. It was clear that he wasn’t doing these things out of habit or obligation – these were genuine labors of love. Devotion is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

So…what now? Do I cry some more? Do I try to distract myself? I suppose the best I can do is allow myself to feel sadness, but rejoice in the fact that my grandmother lived a life in which she gave and received so much love.

For the first time in months, I opened all the windows today and enjoyed the feeling of a fresh breeze flowing throughout the house. Heaven! The joys of spring can officially begin: walks along the lake after work, barbecues in the backyard, tending to my new little herb garden… Days like today make the months of gray drizzle all worth it. I hate to let my mood be dictated by the weather, but my God, this sunshine is making my happy! Is there such a thing as a Vitamin D high?

It was inevitable. With all these babies being had in our neighborhood, our church, and our family, I am starting to feel the slightest twinge of baby fever. I want a little one of my own. I want to decorate a nursery and pick out baby names and make homemade baby food. I want to know what it feels like to love a child in ways that I can’t even begin to imagine now. And hearing my brother talk with such tenderness about his newborn daughter has made me excited to see what fatherhood will look like for Shane. I can’t wait to see him change diapers and rock our baby to sleep and eventually throw the baseball around with our future son or daughter. And yet… I am so not ready yet for the responsibility of parenthood. I have no doubt that the joys will far outweigh the sacrifices, but I am still a very selfish person – I like operating on my own schedule. I like taking naps, going out to dinner on a whim, having a clean house. These things don’t necessarily have to fall by the wayside when a child enters the picture, but they certainly become more difficult. And are we financially ready for a child? Can we afford for me to leave my job for a significant amount of time? And what about that trip to Europe we want to take within the next year? Won’t that be difficult with an infant? So many questions still… And so for now, we will wait, and pray, and plan. And dote on all these new babies around us!

Shane got back last night from his 5-day business trip down to Tuscon, and it is wonderful to have him home again. While I enjoyed having some time to myself, and appreciated being able to spend my Saturday afternoon watching chick flicks instead of the NCAA tournament, I was starting to get a little lonely. Spending a few days on my own has caused me to appreciate all over again just how integral Shane is to my day-to-day life. He keeps the blankets from falling off the side of the bed in the middle of the night. He is that shoulder I need to lean on after a stressful day at work. He doesn’t let me spend all morning watching reruns of Beverly Hills, 90210 (I found I need someone to call me out on my trash-TV binges). He makes sure that I laugh deeply and regularly. He remembers to always close the garage door and turn the heat down at bedtime. He keeps me from being freaked out by the noises that the house makes at night. He takes the garbage out when it’s cold and raining outside. He makes certain that I always feel loved, appreciated, and pursued. He leaves his socks on the floor and his empty glasses on the coffee table (wait – that might be another post…).  Anyhow, I’m happy he’s home.  Life is so much better when he’s around.

It’s been a busy week at work. No, I haven’t been sitting at a table engaging in intense design discussions and sketching ideas for the next Dezeen-bound project. I’ve been meeting with scientists to help them determine how their research equipment would best be arranged in the lab spaces we’ve designed for them. I never thought that the words “Biosafety Cabinet” and “Fume Hood” would become part of my regular vocabulary. My last two years of college were a time of such incredible creative growth and exploration. Little did I know the amount of unglamorous practicalities that must go into putting a real-life building together – fire codes, handicap accessibility, budgets, time constraints, door hardware schedules, etc. I spent my thesis year at Cal Poly pouring my heart into a project that was very conceptual and sculptural (see the image of part of my thesis model below), and so it’s been an adjustment to make the shift from architectural student to architectural professional. Don’t get me wrong – I have been blessed with some amazing opportunities at my current job and it is extremely rewarding to actually walk down the halls of a project that I’ve worked on. I’m just still getting into the groove of things. And I suppose there’s something to be said for becoming well-rounded…

This weekend got off to a rocky start, but has turned out to be a fantastic couple of days…

friday night: sat on the couch and cried for awhile due to fatigue (it was a long, draining week at work) and nervousness about the licensing test I was to take the following day.

saturday morning: things looked up a little – the sun was shining and Shane and I got to spend some time out in the yard, weeding our garden and reveling in the arrival of Spring.

saturday at 1 pm: the highlight of the whole weekend – I got a call from my brother announcing the arrival of my healthy new niece: Elise Wynne Jarrell was born on March 22nd at 9 am. I can’t wait to meet her…

saturday afternoon: took my second architectural licensing test and whizzed through it – I walked out of the testing center feeling like all my preparation had really paid off (though I won’t know the official results for another 8 weeks).

saturday evening: enjoyed some time over at our neighbor’s house, watching basketball, playing with the kids, eating good food, sharing good stories.

saturday night: movie night at home, which we haven’t done in awhile. Atonement and caramel-vanilla ice cream. mmm…

sunday morning: brunch with our small group from church. Jack and LaVerne went all out once again: french toast, procioutto-wrapped asparagus, fritatta, bacon, sausage, yum… it was raining outside, and it felt so good to be holed up in a warm home, sharing food and conversation with such good friends.

sunday afternoon: completed a couple of small home-improvement projects I’ve been meaning to get done. checking things off my to-do list is always fun.

sunday evening: an excellent service at church. taking communion was especially powerful for me tonight. He is risen indeed.