Sheepishly…*

*(Now even more sheepish since I forgot to add a very important point before publishing this!**)

I love the Serta Sheep. I’ll admit it. I think they are the most adorable sheep ever, except Shaun. Neal found the image on the left for me, mainly because I love the Serta sheep and 29 is my all-time favorite number. Serta, however, will not sell me one of their glorious stuffed sheep, possibly because we sleep on a Sealy instead. Whatever their reason, I emailed last year and they told me that they no longer sell them online and that certain stores may, at times, give them away as promotions. No, they don’t know which stores, where, or when. *sighs*

So I admit I kind of squealed when I found a mini-Shaun on Etsy. As you can see, I haven’t purchased it yet, because I really don’t know what I’d do with a mini-Shaun, other than pet his tiny head and sigh over his adorable-ness. Then, of all the things, I found Baaab on Etsy, too. Now this one is perfect for me, mainly because—as my friends and family can tell you—everyone I don’t have a name for is Bob. My imaginary boyfriend (that I no longer have, of course, since I started dating Neal, who made me break up with him. I think I gave him to Misty, though) was named Bob. I have fond memories of Bob. *sighs* *looks over at Neal in the recliner* I mean, I don’t miss Bob at all. *ahem* Moving on…the guy who cuts me off in traffic is Bob. The stranger who says something to me in the store, prompting a friend to say “Who was that?” is always Bob. Anyway, the point is that not only would I get a sheep, but I would get to call him Baaab all the time. (And, as my college friends can attest, I do a mean—as in “dead-on” and not meaning murderous or anything like that—sheep impression anyway. Also a darn good seal impression. It’s a long story. No alcohol was involved.) What could be more perfect than that?

Well, I’d tell you, but I have to wait until I actually get it. Neal’s ordered something pretty darned special for me (and if he wants to tell you what it is, I won’t stop him!), and I’m excited to get it. I think I’ll call it Shaun-Baaab. I’ll have to update with pictures once we get it. *grins*

**Neal also found out when researching the above item he’s ordered that the same person who created Shaun for Wallace and Gromit is the person who created the Serta Sheep, which could be why I love them all so.

(Did you notice how the sheep have different colored eyes?)

Waiting for change

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

-Alan Cohen

And, boy, are we ready to embrace some change. It seems, though, the more I want change, the less change seems to happen in our lives. In the past year, Neal and I were looking forward to several changes that we had planned for the upcoming year.

We were hoping that Neal would find a new job in a small college (or perhaps at a private college prep high school) that would allow him some greater teaching opportunities, which he is desperately seeking.

We were hoping to have a new apartment—and possibly new city—to move to, which is semi-happening.  We decided to move to a different apartment in this building (actually, we’ll be living in the apartment that the “nice,” rowdy boys currently live in), but we were hoping to move somewhere a little larger or with less stupidity.  Unfortunately, we went with less hassle and less money over all that.  As for the new city, that just didn’t work out due to the above (and below) reasons.  (Unfortunately, Mamacita, as we were looking forward to some of the natural areas and cultural insights that you’ve told us about.)

We were hoping I’d be working toward my graduate degree, but that hasn’t worked out at either university I applied to.  I’m thinking we need to either save up tons more money or win the lottery in order for this to be feasible.  Ugh.  I think we’ve decided to hold off my applying elsewhere until we actually know where we end up in the next few years.  We’re hoping to end up somewhere that I can also get my degree, netting me the in-state tuition instead of the higher out-of-state tuition and also taking out the moving factor that tends to present an even bigger monetary problem.

Plans for the next year include Neal looking for a position where he’ll be happy (I’m rooting for Canada or Britain—well, one can always dream, right?) and where I can later get my degree (Vancouver, anyone?  Yes, this is on my short list anyway, but we’ve decided I’m not applying there unless a good position opens up for at least one of us.)

Who knows where we’ll end up.  Heck, we could end up right back here, yet again, but we are both hoping not.  We’re ready for change, for some “movement in life.”

We both really need the vacation this past weekend, mainly due to all the crappy news (beyond the above even) we’ve been receiving lately.  Getting away from it all really helped clear our heads and refocus our eyes to what we really want, and we do want some change, some end in sight to the goals we’ve set for ourselves, but at this point, we haven’t really had our beginning yet.

Housekeeping!

I’m not really sure why I feel that this is a housekeeping post, other than I’m going to jot a few things down here that really have nothing to do with each other.

First of all, I discovered (some time back) a blogger who goes by Sarcastica and only recently stepped out of my lurking-only position (one I have on many blogs since I rarely like to comment on strangers’ lives—yes, even when they put the information about their lives “out there” for anyone to see) on her blog. She is a wonderful blogger with such fortitude and maturity for her age (which I hate adding on there, since many times physical age has nothing to do with actual maturity or grace in life) that I was immediately drawn to adding her to my daily feed. I wanted to draw some more attention to her (not that she really needs it from me *laughs*) mainly because we’ve recently discovered that we have a few things in common that most people don’t really understand. And we both are honest with ourselves about relationships with other people and do NOT let these problems rule us or make us something other than what we want to be. It’s refreshing.

Of course, it helps that she loves me THIS much, too, as evidenced by her giving me such a wonderful award! *chuckles* Since I only recently started talking to her and commenting, I was definitely surprised to find myself on such a list while reading through her latest post. I’m not really a meme person, but I did want to acknowledge the sentiment and just say how grateful I’ve been the past couple weeks for getting to know Jessica (who spells “Jessi” the same way I do, which is interesting to me, as I’ve never met another Jess who did so) and for being able to talk to someone who understands some of the feelings I’ve dealt with regarding certain people in my life. (I’m being purposefully vague here, just in case. It’s really probably not you, though. *winks*) Since most of the people I love THIS much don’t blog, it’s a bit hard to pass the meme on. More of my friends and family need to be blogging. Hmph.

Onward to more housekeeping issues. Neal and I finally jaunted up to Canada since we were less than an hour from the border during our anniversary vacation this weekend. We ate at one of the best restaurants we’ve ever eaten at in our lives (both of us agree on that one), mainly due to the fresh, homemade bread that literally melted in your mouth. Mmmmmmmm. They don’t have a website that I can find, so I’m going to just give you their name—The Prospector Steak House—and let you know they are on Cumberland Street near the waterfront in Thunder Bay. Crossing the border into Canada was fairly uneventful (although we stopped on the border stateside to see the largest waterfall in Minnesota before crossing. This was perfect timing, as it had been cloudy all day but the sun came out right when we reached the top, affording us a delightful FULL RAINBOW from the mist rising up from the bottom of the falls), but we were amused that the border guard sounded like Kermit the frog. He seemed pretty disinterested in us, and Neal said we don’t really look like people going to Canada to do harm. My thought was that if I WERE going to Canada to do harm, I’d probably want to look harmless. Obviously.

Once across, we stopped at the visitor information center and spoke with a wonderful lady who marked our way on the map (and is the one who suggested the restaurant), complete with every stoplight Xed on the map. (She told us she grew up in the town we were visiting.) She also gave us ideas as to where to visit afterwards, and we were definitely awed by the other waterfall we decided to visit (the second largest in Ontario, apparently). We didn’t have much time before it grew dark (and we lost an hour when we crossed), so we’re already planning on returning and spending more time at the falls. (Let us know if you want to join us!)

We did return the favor to the information center lady, as she will be visiting Duluth in just a couple weeks, so we gave her advice on what to do when she came to town (“I’ll be honest,” she said, “it’s just for the shopping. I don’t know anything else to do there.”) She was excited to hear about ColdStone Creamery (the two here in town), since she’d seen it on Oprah once. *Iaughs*

Our trip back to the US was more eventful, with our guard searching the car and finding something fairly ominous in our trunk: our Christmas tree. Apparently, we have forgotten it was in the trunk and haven’t stopped by the storage shed to unload it. The guard found it highly amusing, so we were glad to give him a laugh (especially since his evening was looking to be fairly boring with so few people around at that time of night.)

As a last bit of housekeeping, I’m starting a part-time job next week through the temp agency that is potentially temp-to-hire. It’s low hours, but the money will (obviously) help us out. We’ll take it a day at a time and make a final decision IF they offer me the permanent position (which may not happen at all). Keep us and our decisions in your thoughts and prayers, if you would.

I have a fairly big (to me) announcement to make (that correlates to a recent post), but I’m trying to decide how to make sense of what happened. I wasn’t expecting it and…I’m still a bit flabbergasted at the turn of events. I hate being cryptic, but…as I said, I’m still trying to make sense of it myself and will post when I can do the topic justice.

Finally, I just have to say this: WHOO-HOO! TWO YEARS OF MARRIAGE AND GETTING BETTER EVERY SINGLE DAY! I love you, Neal!

(Sorry for the “general, life-update” post, but sometimes they’re needed just to get a few things out of the way.)

Got it?

Neal is grading a small essay he had students write near the end of the semester about a David Quammen essay. One student wrote, “I don’t like it because I didn’t understand it.”

There should come a point in time in a mature person’s life when s/he realizes that not understanding canNOT translate into dislike. If you don’t understand something, how can you then decide that it’s silly or stupid or something you don’t like? You don’t even understand the point of the thing, so how exactly does that work?

A lot of people I went to college with would say, “I hated The Matrix!”

My question back was always, “Did you even understand the movie?”

“No.”

Okay, then. I’ve never figured out how this even works. I think people are being taught that if they don’t understand something, saying that they hate it makes it seem as though they don’t WANT to understand it: “I hate math! I can’t do it,” we often hear from children who are struggling with mathematical concepts. They hate it mainly because they feel they can’t do it. I’ve helped children grasp concepts that make them smile and say, “Math isn’t so bad, is it?” No, no it isn’t…

If you “get” it.

We need to be teaching kids that not understanding something should translate into finding assistance or getting help to learn the basic principles of understanding the concept (be it a math theory or a movie). We need to teach them that not understanding isn’t a reason for giving up; instead it’s a reason to work harder to understand the principles we’re being taught. And simply saying “I hate it” doesn’t mean that you get a free pass in life when you really mean “I don’t get it” instead. Hating something requires a thought process that isn’t available without understanding.

As I’ve heard from many teachers in my past: “If you don’t like something, you still have to have valid reasons behind it.” Why was the movie bad? Why don’t you like the book? If you don’t know why, then you don’t dislike it. You just don’t understand it enough to appreciate it (or truly dislike it).

Becoming

I think that my parents and I have a good relationship, which didn’t come easily for me once I moved out of the house when I was 18, especially the relationship with my mother. A lot of children don’t go through having two moms in one body throughout their lives and not being able to fully grasp what happened to her until they were older.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the changes started, but my mind always links it to two events that happened when I was around nine or ten years old: We moved from our farmhouse in the country into a house on the edge of a small town and my mom decided to get a job outside the house. Suddenly, the woman I had known for almost ten years was no longer there. (To be honest and fair, these probably aren’t truly linked. They most likely simply coincidentally happened at the same time that my mom’s symptoms began.)

MY mom was meticulous about paying bills and budgeting and very conscientious about spending money. We didn’t have much, so we couldn’t really be frivolous with what we did have. MY mom kept notebooks full of hand-written notes, painstakingly written with a piece of carbon between two pages to keep track of whom she’d written about what—letters mainly to businesses about their products, etc. MY mom was home when I got home and asked about my day. MY mom helped keep the house tidy. (Yes, we had chores, but she did help out with housework.) MY mom baked birthday cakes for us each year (neat ones, like a pink wooly worm with licorice whip hairs about its body or a perfect replica of Mickey Mouse’s head) and canned tomatoes and green beans from our garden and baked supper for us at night. MY mom cared for us in so many ways and we knew that she cared, hugging and kissing us before we went to bed and yelling, “I love you!” as we ran up the stairs afterwards.

This new woman in our house? Who was she? This new woman was angry all the time. She was mean and hit us for little reasons—and sometimes no reason at all. Nothing we did was right. This woman came home after we got home from school and didn’t care about our day. This woman threw things all over the house, not bothering to pick things up, and then yelled at us for not picking up after her. She bought things without regard to whether we could use them or needed them, just because they were there—not caring if we had the money for them. She yelled at everyone for any reason she could think of. We no longer had cool birthday cakes, and we were too scared or embarrassed to have our friends over. Anything could become a projectile or a whip of sorts, as long as she was mad enough. This woman didn’t hug or kiss us goodnight any longer, and we didn’t hear “I love you” before we trudged up the stairs for bed each night.

This woman didn’t really seem like a mother any longer; she now seemed to need mothering herself.

Things progressively got worse, even worse than described above. A lot of it I really don’t like to talk about anymore, because it really does no good to hash it out or discuss it with other people—especially people who don’t know me or my parents. Most people don’t know what it’s like to be more responsible than your mother from the age of 11 onward or to feel as though you were the one raising your mother instead of the other way around. Most people don’t understand what it’s like to work so hard to find a way out of that, to think that your only way out is to be so perfect in almost every way—to finally feel when you receive a full-tuition scholarship, not that you’ve done something exciting and finally earned something great, but rather that you finally have a way to escape from being your mom’s mother. Who knows what it’s like to yell at your mom a year after you graduated from college because she stole your credit card number off a bill and used it buy things online? Who else knows what it’s like to only converse with your mother in screaming matches because she makes family life so stressful?

But who else knows what it’s like to finally, finally come to terms with the fact that your mother doesn’t care how much she has hurt you? When you finally get the nerve to tell her, “Mom, all I ever wanted from you was an apology for what you did to me all those years,” all you hear back is, “That won’t change anything, so what’s the point?” That is the point that you realize that your holding these feelings inside didn’t matter to her as much as they did to you. That was the point that you realized you had to forgive her (with no apology on her behalf) and move on—move on because the anger you felt toward her was only hurting you more and more, and she really didn’t care.

I think I was 20 or 21 years old when this occurred to me. My mom didn’t look back at what she had done in any apologetic manner. I was mature enough to find out if she even cared how I felt, and to my chagrin, she didn’t. Instead of using her mental illness diagnosis to help herself and to get help for herself, she used it as an excuse for her actions, as a crutch for everything she did wrong in life. That probably wouldn’t change, but I could. I could do something about how I reacted.

I stopped caring when my mom hurt me or said hateful things. I stopped getting involved when she screwed over other family members. No one was there or helpful when I was being taken advantage of, and I couldn’t continue being my mom’s caretaker. I couldn’t try to change her when she didn’t want to be something different. It just won’t happen, and the screaming matches were always, always my fault anyway, of course. So I just stopped arguing. I stopped bothering.

I know this sounds awful and uncaring, but that’s not the entire truth of the situation. I love my mother, and in many ways, we have a much more open and caring relationship. I take the good and negate the bad, because there is nothing else I can do. I now hold conversations with her without it ending in an all-out verbal brawl. I now discuss life issues with her. I still hope that she will recognize her illness as a way to get help instead of a way out of taking responsibility.

Part of me wonders if I will hit “publish” on this one. I know my mom sometimes reads my blog, but I also know that this has been cathartic for me. Some people need to know that I’m okay with the way things have turned out, even if they aren’t the way that I really want them to be. I can’t change how things are and I can’t change my mom, and I’m done trying to do either. There are so many ways that she’s sabotaged herself, and the only way I can have this relationship is by taking a step back from the entire situation and reminding myself that I have my own life now, my own family, my own worries and cares and problems. I can’t fix my mom. I can’t fix my childhood.

I can only live my own life well and forgive, forgive, forgive. I can only ask my husband to love me, warts and all, and realize myself that I can and have, for the most part, overcome the childhood that threatened to tear me apart and ruin my emotional health. I can only use my mom’s life as a warning for what I could become if I’m not mindful of what I’m doing and who I am. If I ever start to change, if I ever become another woman that I don’t want to be, I don’t want to remain that new woman for the rest of my life. I want to recognize it and accept help. I’m doing everything I now can to be aware of the signs and symptoms for this illness that changes people into something else entirely and I’m making sure that my husband is aware of them as well. I’m making sure that I remain the Jessica my husband married (with normal life and personality changes over the years as we grow together) and that he never has to regret whom I’ve become.

I’m making sure I don’t regret who I become either, whether or not I eventually have the illness myself. Forgiving my mother and moving on was the hardest thing I’ve done in life, but it was the most freeing moment I’ve ever experienced.

Finding the perfect gift: How simple is that?

Neal and I have our second anniversary coming up (although I keep calling our anniversary our “honeymoon” for some silly reason.)  We are again going to be traveling up the North Shore to a little B&B that we enjoyed last year.  We were pretty danged smart to get married over a holiday weekend (although not finding accommodations easily for family coming into town, albeit only a few people since we only had about 15 people at our wedding) since we always have a three-day weekend either right before or after our anniversary (unless the date falls within the holiday weekend itself, obviously).

Last year for our first anniversary, we decided that we really couldn’t think of appropriate anniversary presents.  We both are excellent gift-givers (if I do say so myself) and both of us always love whatever the other gives us (for Christmas, birthdays, etc.), but we just couldn’t find something special enough to get for each other.  We both looked for a couple months but still came up short on something that conveyed how we felt about each other.  While we were on our anniversary trip, we happened upon a nice art gallery and found a wonderful piece of art that we both enjoyed.  It was a bit pricey for us, but I suddenly had an idea:  Why don’t we “pool” the money we would spend on each other for our anniversary and buy something together?  I said this to Neal and we discussed it, realizing that the idea was perfect for an anniversary.

An anniversary celebrates the oneness that marriage brings to two people.  We are no longer separate entities (spiritually—don’t read too much into that if you aren’t from a Judeo-Christian background and don’t understand the connotations behind the “two becoming one” idea: We are still separate people with separate interest, etc.) but have become one flesh in the eyes of God.  Why was Neal trying to find that “special thing” for just me while I was trying to find the “most wonderful thing” for him?  Why couldn’t we find something that was perfect for both of us as a married couple?  After thinking about it, we realized that there was no better way to express the sentiments of an anniversary than to buy something together that will be used or enjoyed by both of us.

We purchased the piece of art, and it has hung in our apartment ever since.  I think of our trip last year and my love for Neal every time I pass by it, remembering how we decided together that it was a perfect fit—not only for our own artistic tastes but for the home we’re busy creating together.

This year, we’re looking at a few options for an anniversary gift for the two of us.  Do we want to own land in Scotland?  Would we rather have another (albeit larger) piece of art?  What will encompass who we want to be as a couple?

We’re not sure yet, but the discovering these ideas together and deciding what WE want is fun and exciting each year.  There are no worries that it doesn’t express exactly how I feel about Neal because it will express exactly how we feel about each other and how we view our relationship.  How can it not be the perfect gift?

Great (mis)quotes I can’t pass up.

Yes, these are actual quotes from an online group I belong to. These were actually written by a member of the group, and I thought they were too good to pass up.

“…and that’s why on April 15 his licence was SASENDED ( which we didn’t even know about until yesterday), as Americans we should know that we can believe every thing we hear on the news.”

Yeah! We should know that we can believe everything we hear on the news! (Especially when we’re reading it in the newspaper, which apparently now talks to us.) Which one of you are telling her that you don’t believe what you hear on the news?

And, from the same post, comes this little gem:

“…I’m greatly offended at the accusation that he or I was knowingly doing some thing legal.”

Her husband’s van lost its brakes and plowed down the steep hill of Duluth (for those who don’t know, Duluth rises from 607 feet above sea level to 1427 feet above in a few short miles), hitting five cars and injuring several people. (Well, lost its brake, I should say, since he was driving on only one brake. It became hot under the constant use going down the hill during rush hour and gave out, leaving him with no brakes.) This particular poster had previously posted a plea for someone to help her find a good van to replace that one, as they had only that vehicle and no other way to work (and they were apparently struggling for money as it was and could not afford to miss work.) Unfortunately, it was also posted in the newspaper that her husband was driving in an invalid driver’s license, so the moderator took the plea off the group to avoid assisting any illegal endeavors (since she mentioned that the van was for the husband to continue driving to work—without a legal license). These quotes are a part of her response to the moderator, which was generally rude but did have these two gems in them.

Just in case you forgot that you are supposed to believe everything you hear in the newspaper (yes, I meant that wording) and that you should definitely not accuse anyone of doing anything legal.

Senator Coleman, perhaps you should tell Senator Amy Klobuchar that.

McCain apparently is back-tracking on his comments a bit now, but he stated yesterday

“The bridge in Minneapolis didn’t collapse because there wasn’t enough money. The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects.”**

Representative Oberstar and Senator Coleman got into the act today, complaining about this indictment of misspent funds:

D-Minn. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., said, “He is manipulating a tragedy that took 13 lives in order to advance his election campaign.”

Even Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota said McCain was wrong.

“The bridge didn’t collapse because there wasn’t enough money,” Coleman said during a conference call with reporters.

“I understand Senator McCain’s deep concern about earmarks,” he said. “In this instance, I simply think he’s wrong if he somehow ties the collapse of the bridge to a funding issue. Let’s get the full data.”**

Excuse me, but remember when Senator Klobuchar stated that the bridge collapsed due to so much money being spent on the war in Iraq? I do.

I’m not a McCain fan, but I hate the double-standard being set here. We can’t blame the failing infrastructure on funds being spent on a bunch of pet projects, but we can blame it (and the destruction from Katrina, too, if you’ll remember) on the war in Iraq? Oh, wait. I wrote about the massive amounts of pork that were injected into the bill that was passed in an attempt to prevent future infrastructure failures AS WELL.

Perhaps you’d do well to remember past comments before lambasting someone else for “playing politics”. Not all the wasted money in this country goes toward the war in Iraq. As I said before:

It is not only a reflection on Minnesota, but also on our government as a whole that the monies to help us rebuild the bridge were held up due to large amounts of pork in the bills that were offered. How admirable and noble of our congressional leaders to use such a tragedy to build their own local pet projects. In response to what she’s doing to help pass bills to remedy this situation (as she attempts to show in her letter), let me give you these quotes from our local paper:

U.S. Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., also secured $65 million for the Northstar Corridor Rail project between Big Lake and Minneapolis and $35 million for the Central Corridor Light Rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Coburn, who requested the study, tried unsuccessfully this week to pass a moratorium on earmarks until all of the nation’s deficient bridges are repaired. His measure failed 82-14. Klobuchar and Coleman were among those who voted against the Coburn bill.

Coleman and Klobuchar inserted their own pork in there and defended it. Fine. However, I thought their concern was the infrastructure of this nation, according to what Kloburchar was ranting about after the collapse. I simply cannot see how she can point fingers at anyone else (or any other reason for lack of money) when she outright denies the rest of the country the ability to repair their own deficient bridges and roadways just to insert her own pet projects and spend more of the money that could go toward other projects pertinent to the nation’s infrastructure and stability.

The war in Iraq isn’t the only reason money doesn’t go where it’s needed. Maybe it’s time for Ms. Klobuchar to start thinking with her brain instead of spouting party politics during already difficult times. She’s clearly shown that she’s not part of the cure, but she is obviously part of the problem.

Hey, Coleman! I now remember why YOU are defending the pork spending. You’re guilty of it even in a rather ironic bill that was supposed to help deal with the infrastructure issues. You three need to get together and figure out how to explain to me how the money spent on the war in Iraq caused that devastation but your overspending on frivolous pet projects had no effect whatsoever.

**Posted comments with this symbol are taken from this AP story.