Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming

Growing up, I was never afraid to fly. I loved flying...and when the plane sped up for take off, that was my favorite part, because it gave me such a rush. In college, I had a friend who was a pilot, and we caught a ride on a Leer Jet from Dulles Airport to Ocean City for the afternoon. Because my friend knew the pilots of the privately owned Leer Jet, they told us that we could stand up while the plane was taking off rather than being safely buckled into our seats. At the time, it was a total blast because the Jet was so FAST at take off. Looking back, I think, 'I wouldn't do that now'...

And then one day I was on a flight from Palm Springs to Washington, DC. I was eating my awful plane meal, that included bread that tasted like the packaging it had lived in for weeks no doubt, and watching my movie with my headphones on, and the plane...dropped. And my food almost fell off my tray table. And to my right a girl in her late teens, early twenties started screaming. Like bloody murder. Which really helps. It was just really bad turbulence, but it went on for a few hours and it managed to give me a splitting headache and officially took away my fearless attitude when it comes to air travel. I sat there and prayed...which sounds really silly now, but I was scared I wouldn't make it home, because I had never been on a plane that experienced that kind of violent turbulence.

I took that trip 3 months before my dad passed away.

I think of my life in terms similar to BC and AD, in regards to losing my dad, because when I look back at now what is almost 3 years, I realize that my life was headed into an extremely turbulent time, that would last quite a long time. Everybody talks about the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm just now starting to see that light, and to enter, what I hope, is a calm and peaceful time for me, at least for a little while.

And then I got married, which has been wonderful, but set into motion other major life changing events. My husband and I decided we were going to move from the DC area over wine at a Middleburg, VA, winery. And so we moved to North Carolina. We loved being close to my brothers and made some amazing friends, but it wasn't the place for us, so we moved to Charleston. And as much as I loved it in Charleston the second we moved here, at first I was very, very lonely. We couldn't afford to fly back to DC to see family and friends. The reason? My husband has been, for the most part, looking for a steady job since May 2010. Living on one income for almost a year has not been easy, and I know I'm not alone, especially in this economy, but financial difficulty can break even the strongest person and relationship.

But somehow, we have managed to make it through. And, by the grace of God, we have met some amazing friends since we moved to Charleston, and reconnected with some old ones, and for that I am so grateful. These friends have helped me to gain the peace I now feel. I have heard recently that everyone is a work in progress, and you just 'have to make it through' the hard times. I fully subscribe to a saying that my dad used to say: never complain...never explain. I hope I haven't complained that much over the past few years, despite how difficult of a time we have been having. I hope most people didn't even know how hard of a time we have had. And that's why I'm ready to be honest now, as we are very close to being out of the weeds, and the light at the end of the tunnel continues to get brighter and brighter.

And a few weeks ago I was on a plane from Charlotte to Charleston. It wasn't a long flight, and it was about 10:30pm so the lights were all out unless someone was reading, but most people were sleeping through it. And the plane dropped and steadied itself, over and over again, barrelling through the night sky. And this time, I wasn't scared. Giving up control and having faith that everything will be okay is not easy, but sometimes it's what needs to happen to make it through the darkest times. And sometimes people need to know they are not alone, even when all of the lights are turned off.

I dedicate this post to my wonderful, talented friend Darcy, whose father passed away two days ago of cancer, and who stood next to me in the ICU when I found out that my dad died, and hugged me when I cried. I love you and will be here for you when you need me. XOXO.

It's Not the Destination, But the Journey That's Important

Just about everyone I know has had their life planned out from a young age. Number of kids identified, names of children all picked out, and what kind of house they wanted to live in pictured, complete with the white picket fence.

For example, when I was in college, I worked with a girl who had recently graduated with her undergrad degree, and she said she 'had very little time' to find her Mr. Right, because she had to be married by the time she was 22, to have her first kid at 24. She seemed very unwilling to budge with her time line, and to this day, I wonder if she ever really kept to it.

If you would have asked me when I was 17 how my life would go, I would have told you that I would get married as soon as I graduated from college, with my first child at 24 or so. And if the same question was asked when I was 22, I would have said, married by 26, first kid by 28...and so on.

My point is, it doesn't matter how much you try to put your type A spin on your life, because it will never turn out exactly (or even close to) how you planned. And that's not all bad.

I have a record number of friends that will have their first babies in 2011, and I'm so excited for them. I'll be turning 33 this year, and the more time goes by, the more I wonder when that will happen for me. The more years that go by, the more anal my husband becomes, and I'm not trailing that far behind, to the point where I wonder how much a baby would disrupt our lives and could we even handle it? I saw this after my husband blew a gasket over the recent realization that our dogs were scratching up the hardwood floors. I mean, don't kids draw on walls with crayons (and with worse things? ick). I wonder how my husband would react to that.

I used to be frustrated with waiting it out for the right time to start a family. We have been waiting for the right time...and sometimes I wonder if the right time will actually come. So I have re-focused my energies thinking about when we would not only have the family we want, but the house we want, that in my dreams seems to be getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

To put some perspective on things, as I've said before, I was very close with my father, and I feel like I've been passed some of his traits. He always aspired for more, and he worked and he worked and he worked to get it. He always had this restlessness of not being 'quite content' with what he had. I remember going to open house after open house with him saying 'which room would you pick if I had this house?'. And they were always the most beautiful houses. And huge. With wine cellars and big backyards, and built in hot tubs, and stables nearby where I could keep my horse. If I had one, that is.

Well guess what? I'm the exact same way. Every new neighborhood I drive through that I like has me pulling up Zillow on my iPhone, dreaming about how long it would take to make enough money to live in THAT neighborhood. And the silly thing is, I've gone from a 500 square foot condo in the DC area to a nice, new sizable townhouse. But has that been enough for me? Well...let's just say I'm always thinking about what's next. And I'm still dreaming of that perfect house.

My father was the same way. And then one day he had enough money and decided to build his dream house. All 16,000 square feet of it. And boy was it gorgeous. People would stop in front of it in Oakton, Virginia, when they were driving by because of its sheer mass and beauty, white limestone imported from Italy. I got married in that house.

But here's what I learned from all of that. Unless you have $2,000 every month to spend on utility bills alone, without blinking an eye, don't dream of that 16,000 square foot house.

But what does this all mean? I mean, seriously, what is the point? The point, my friends, is that it's good to dream, but if you are only living in your dreams of 'what you may have some day', you will never be enjoying the present, because the present moment will never be quite good enough, and your house won't ever be big enough, and you'll always be trying to get there, not ever really knowing where 'there' is. That's where I've lived for the past several years.

A friend said to me this week that things happen when they are supposed to, and to stop worrying about things, because you tend to realize later that things always work themselves out for the best, although you may not think so at the time, because we want things to happen when it's convenient for us. Because we always seem to think we know best, but in reality, we really don't know at all.

So, maybe I'll be the 36 year old 'new' mom, because that's when it will happen for me. And maybe I'll live in my modest townhouse until I'm 70. And I do think that would be okay, if that's what is supposed to happen. I'm ready to start focusing my energy on what I have now in my life, rather than what I want to have at some point in my life. I'll still dream big, but I won't let my dreams overtake me and bankrupt me. Because in the end, it's all just stuff, right?

And really, living in a townhouse in Charleston is 'living the dream' as my husband likes to say. So I'm gonna enjoy it. And I will wait patiently for my train to come.

No, You're Not Crazy, But There's a Little Black Swan in All of Us

So I have temporarily broken my trance that was caused by my excitement over our new, massive and sweet dog, because I got to have a girl's afternoon with a great new friend.

And we saw the movie Black Swan. O...M...G. I'm not going to ruin the movie for anyone that hasn't seen it, but there were so many amazing things that came out of this movie that has my mind spinning.

Despite the fact that it occasionally scared the bejesus out of me (yes, I put BOTH hands in front of my face several times throughout the movie - and thankfully, I had a Stella to drink to distract me during those times - I can't say the same for my pregnant friend with her lemonade :)), there were a few things about it that really stuck with me.

First, the drive for perfection is in every one of us (I think...). Who hasn't been driven crazy by their own mind the night before something big and REALLY IMPORTANT. I never knew why people had to take sleeping pills until I was in my late 20's. If you have never had to take one, then you are lucky, and hopefully you never will. But I think out of the drive for perfection can come great and beautiful things, but also can be just plain awful in the process, and you don't really know if 'it's all worth it' until you succeed and someone pats you on the back. Because I think I'm not the only one that needs a pat on the back every now and then, and has external factors that feed majorly into my self worth. I'm getting better at giving myself 'pats on the back' but really who does that on a regular basis if you aren't like Stuart Smalley.

Secondly...I'm going to tell you that I was a scared little kid when I was growing up. I was very shy. I hid behind my mom's legs when strangers approached me. I used to think that 'bad guys' were going to come out of the woods behind our house in Reston, and honestly, it took me a really long time to make the transition from an introvert to an extrovert, and I think now I'm somewhere in the middle. So my point in saying this is the fact that I over-analyze things, and I totally get the fact that sometimes situations will make you want to throw up, like in the movie Black Swan, when Nina got so stressed she had to run to the bathroom. Thankfully, I haven't done that in a REALLY long time. Yoga helps keep me in check when I take the time to do it. Let's just say right after 9-11 when I was out of a job for 3 months and interviewing non-stop, and not being hired, I went from a size 6 to a size zero because I couldn't keep anything down. I'm telling you, it's no way to live. Pressure absolutely keeps the weight off. At least for me. But it was a valuable life lesson that I survived, which has made me a much stronger person now.

And I'm not writing this to say I'm ANYthing like the main character of Black Swan, but I think that just about everyone can relate to extreme pressure, and great expectations that are placed on us either by ourselves, our parents, or people that are close to us. And a lot of times it helps us work very hard to be better people, and to be more successful. You just have to try to keep it in check and accept and celebrate your victories as rewards when they come, because that's what you are working for. And listen to this song when you get down, because it's a great pick-me-up (at least I think so). Oh, and it makes me want to dance and sing loudly.

Part 2: What Happened When We Picked Up Gibbs

Driving back to Charleston from Kenly, NC, with our 39 pound, 11 year old corgi mix at my feet in the passenger seat, to keep him away from the big, yellow lab, was a small feat in itself. I wasn't ready to take the risk to see how they would get along just yet, especially in the car. So, we drove the remaining 4 hours back to Charleston that way, with Marley eventually finding a comfortable way to lay under my feet, and the big dog mostly sleeping in the backseat, with the occasional look over the flat screen TV box we were toting back as part of our Christmas gifts.

When we got home, we coaxed who we were now starting to call 'Gibbs', up the stairs. He lifted his leg only once, because mostly we were watching him like hawks, to see what he would do. He settled down for a bit, and then we decided to try to give him a bath. Gibbs would not have it, and there was no way we could get a dog that big into the tub, so we gave up. We then tried to get him to go back DOWN the stairs, because he seemed like he needed to go for a walk. He was not having it whatsoever. He ran away, he'd lay down on all fours, and simply avoid us to get out of the way. Not even food worked to coax him down. After 10 or so minutes of trying, I told my husband he needed to carry him down the stairs. Carrying down what we learned was 107 pounds of yellow lab was quite the challenge, but he managed to pull it off.

The next day I called the local Kenly, NC, police station and SPCA. Gibbs mostly slept except when we took him to the vet to see if he was micro-chipped. He wasn't. We made the decision that if no one called us to claim him, we needed to take him to get a full examination on Wednesday, since we were unsure if he was sick or had problems, and we also needed to get back on the road to go down to Hilton Head to spend time with my family, so both dogs needed to be boarded for two days.

My cell phone rang on Wednesday morning just before 9am, and I knew from the area code that most likely it was the owners of Gibbs. I picked up and spoke to a man with a heavy southern accent, who said that he believed we had his dog, that the dog lives outside, but has a nice doghouse, and got off his lead from time to time.

His wife looked at my Facebook photos, and verified he was their dog 'Hoss'. I told them that we would be happy to meet them in Florence, South Carolina, which was halfway back to Kenly if they wanted us to. But the gentle man I spoke to asked me if I wanted Gibbs, and said they had 'lots of dogs', and that if we would give him a good home we could keep him. In fact, he said, he was looking for a home for Gibbs about six months ago and no one wanted him. I absolutely wanted him. In the course of a few days I'd already grown very attached to this big lug of a dog, and I had wanted to get another dog anyway, for Marley to have a buddy.

So we took both of the dogs straight to the vet. Gibbs to be checked out and both dogs to be boarded for two nights until we returned from Hilton Head.

According to the vet, they don't believe Gibbs had ever had a bath before. He was covered in fleas and when the vet bathed him blood and a ton of flea dirt washed away. He had also never likely been boarded, so they had to give him a mild sedative to calm him down. We returned today to pick both of the boys up from the vet, and Gibbs' fur was nice and clean, and he no longer smelled. $400 later he's good as new (he had parasites I won't mention here that they had to treat him for). Let's just hope that bill is only once a year.

All in all, I believe we made the right decision, and I am really glad we are keeping him. Although if you had told me a week ago we would soon have a 107 pound dog that we would pick up off the side of the road, I'm sure I would have just said 'yeah right'.

Now to make my list of New Year's resolutions...

When it's 'Time' to do the Right Thing: Part 1

Again I have slacked off, but I can't force myself to write if I have nothing to say. But now I do.

What an interesting week it's been. We went up to northern Virginia for Christmas. The trip is always really long and painful, with my husband flipping the radio stations every few seconds in search of something better. That...and listening to the same episode of Prairie Home Companion twice for 8+ hours is like water torture.

Before we were even 30 minutes out of Charleston, I was looking down at my iphone, because I am addicted to technology, and the car swerved violently, and I looked up startled. I saw a King Charles Spaniel crossing interstate 26. And I have to say I was a little freaked out. Thankfully we watched the dog get to the side of the highway without incident...at least until we were out of sight...

Four hours later, a little more than halfway through the trip, we were cruising along on I-95, when again the car swerved a bit, not quite as much as the time before, and this time, I saw a GERMAN SHEPARD PUPPY in the middle of I-95 as we zipped by at 85 miles per hour. The puppy was probably a little over a year old, and he stood up and sat back down, unsure of what to do as the cars sped past. And what flashed through my mind was that we needed to do something...call the police to come get him...something. And my husband said the police wouldn't do anything. I'm not sure if they would have or not. It was a busy travel day and I'm sure they had their hands full and wouldn't want to catch a dog in the median of 95 with cars speeding past on either side, as the dog would most likely cause a much more major accident, risking people's lives, and not just his own. So we continued on. And the thought of that dog stuck in the middle of I-95 haunted me. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to field the question of 'why didn't you do something?' But what was I to do? I told my husband if we saw ONE MORE DOG that needed help we weren't going to drive by again.

The holidays with my husband's family was really nice, as was seeing all of the amazing friends we could fit into the short period of time we were there. We were supposed to get back on the road the day after Christmas, but instead I woke up at 5:30am with the stomach flu, and there was no way I could sit in the car for over 8 hours in the midst of a snow storm with the stomach flu. So we stayed. And I slept during the waves of time my stomach settled, pretty miserable the entire day.

We got back on the road on December 27th, a day late, but the snow was gone, as was the horrible traffic, which made the trip back to South Carolina much easier. And my husband got me 'Water for Elephants' on CD, a book I had read and loved, loved, loved, to listen to on the way back. The time flew by in the car not flipping through the stations.

We didn't stop until we saw a sign for Subway, which happened to be in Kenly, North Carolina.  Oh, but right before we stopped I saw the dead German Sheppard puppy on the left side of 95 at the edge of the median, his eyes closed like he was taking a long nap. I said nothing and my stomach churned with the large amount of guilt I felt for not doing anything the week before.

We went inside Subway and picked up our lunch, and as we were in Subway, people started saying 'whose dog is that?' We went to the window to look out and saw a yellow lab walking around the parking lot. Someone in the shop said 'I saw that dog walking on a leash about an hour ago. I guess the owner left?' We opened the door to get in our car just as the big dog laid down in front of a car that was pulling out of the parking lot.

He just laid there as the car started and then stopped sharply, almost running him over.

I ran over to him with a few other people to try to get him out of the road. He had a collar with no tag, no phone number, and I stood there hemming and hawing a bit over what to do. I told my husband we couldn't leave him there. No one else seemed to be willing to help. So I called the SPCA. They were closed. The only other option was to load him in our packed car and see if someone at the police station would help. They were also closed.

So we decided that we would take him back to Charleston and decide what was best, perhaps taking him to the SPCA there but my own mind was convincing me otherwise as I thought about the consequences if he didn't get picked up by his owners.

- To be continued in Part 2 -

Gifts From the Heart

While my husband is upstairs being sick (this is the first time he's had a fever in a LONG time), I thought this would be a good time to reflect as we coast into Christmas.

Ever since we moved away from DC, my whole outlook on the holiday season has changed.

Last year in North Carolina, well, we did go back up to DC for almost 3 weeks, but I don't remember stepping foot in a mall to do any Christmas shopping.

And this year has been no different. Actually the only difference between this year and last is that last year we could be a 'little' more generous with gifts, and this year (sorry gift exchanging friends), we really aren't able to. This year, gifts are coming from 'the heart' and not from 'the mall'. But the thing is, as I look at our Christmas tree and the emptiness underneath, I'm not really sad about it. We pretty much have everything we need.

I mean, we have a nice small house which I can proudly say I decorated. We have paintings from Argentina on our walls, hand-painted ornaments that I have received from one of my clients every holiday season, a photo book I made for Jon after the honeymoon we took almost two years after our wedding, and my favorite, a mosaic mirror that I received from one of my best friends, Theresa, who was so thoughtful, that she took a piece of wood from my father's house before it was burned down (yes, on purpose), as she knew she would make me something with it one day. And that something is now a mosaic mirror that is hung neatly next to the front door of our house. And it is really, very special to me.



I think about these wonderful things that have been given to me with love by my amazing friends, gifts not from the mall, but that were from the heart, and I'm not so sad about our empty little tree. Yes, we might not have much this year, but we have our morals and our hope that life will continue to get better. And I have to say, though I know I'm not helping the economy this year with holiday shopping, I have felt the 'spirit of the holiday season' much more than I ever have before and I am so thankful for the beauty of the sparkling Christmas tree, and the peace I feel in my heart.

And, I end this not with a Christmas song, but a song that whenever I hear it, stops me in my tracks, because it's just so lovely. Enjoy.

Just Relax: The New Playlist

I've had a lot of nice comments on my 8tracks mixes recently, which I love, so today I decided to create a new one. You may see a theme here: Happy, Love, Relax are all listed in my mix titles. That's no accident.

I hope you enjoy. No phoning it in on this one. This took me forever.