Becoming a believer

It's true- this summer I became a believer.

I guess it all began about 2 months ago when I applied to a temp agency for summer employment. After being subjected to a series of tests which test one's ability to type, spell, add, multiply, match numbers, navigate spreadsheets and fasten a screw into a piece of wood, they promptly placed me at a technology co-sourcing company where I became a "quality assurance associate." It sounds all professional but really it's just the p.c. way to say "someone who sits at a computer all day long and tries not to zone out or get a backache while they are clicking the computer mouse a lot and looking for other people's mistakes." To be a bit more precise, my job was actually to sort through thousands of scans of government documents and make sure there were no bent, fuzzy, upside-down, blank or damaged pages. Or as my supervisor liked to say, "our job in QA is to move images."

Besides not being all that intellectually-stimulating, the job began at 5 a.m. in the morning and was organized into 4- 10-hour shifts a week. So four mornings a week I was dragging myself out of bed at 4 a.m. to get ready, eat breakfast and drive 30 minutes to work. The early mornings were brutal sometimes (especially since I have traveled 6 out of the last 7 weekends and like to spend time in the evenings with the handsome fiance as well as other friends/family; plus somewhere in there we are supposed to be planning a wedding).

Okay, so the stage is set; I walk into work at the dot of 5, clock in, sit down at my computer and start to move images. About 16 minutes into the morning I start to feel tired, 2 minutes later my eyelids begin to feel extremely heavy and a few minutes after that my brain gets a bit fuzzy, though not too fuzzy to realize that I am approximately 3% done with my work day and already I have switched into zombie mode. I tried all the tricks- tapping my knee on the floor, chatting with my co-workers, listening to loud music, munching on carrots (my boss quickly put a stop to that as food is not allowed near the documents due to danger of soiling them; he stood firm even when I mentioned that carrots contain vitamin A which helps your eyesight and hence would help me do my job better). One morning I even let myself close my eyes for 3 seconds every time I came to a blank page, which quickly became an exercise in willpower, namely having enough to open my eyes again at the end of the 3 seconds.

The best solution I found was to stay mentally tough. I would break the day into 5 parts, 2 hour increments each. So 18 minutes in I can do the mental math and tell myself I am actually 15% of the way done with my first increment which makes it easier to not despair. And then, the most beautiful part- during my 10-minute break at 7 a.m., I put my head down on my cubicle, set the alarm on my cell phone and slept. I think in the business world they call this power napping. Research says it's supposed to increase productivity and relieve stress, but for me it became part of basic survival. I woke up after my 10-minute power nap able to put in another two hours and if I needed it, I could catch a few more winks at my 9 a.m. break.

I realized this summer that for most of my life I've been spoiled. I have had many jobs that I enjoy and all have started after 7:30 a.m. This summer changed my perspective on the world; I become a believer- a believer in attempting to be grateful for what is and a huge believer in power napping!

Planning weddings with Cinderella

It's been more than two weeks since I got engaged. John took me to a cozy park by the river, the site of our first date. He had schemed to have a romantic picnic set-up for us with roses, candles, cheesecake and sparkling grape juice. He soon got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and I eagerly said, "YES!" We reminisced about how "we"happened, prayed together and spilled the grape juice all over the tablecloth and ourselves.

Since then wedding plans have been in full swing. Some parts of it have been easy; some parts have been very difficult. I have enjoyed finding creative ways to personalize the wedding so that it reflects who we each are. For example, we are having an international dessert bar with desserts from all the places that John and I have traveled. (We also have some other non-traditional ideas but I can't give away all the secrets yet). The most stressful part of the process has been finding ways to include and honor all the people that we love and who have shaped who we are today.

From time to time during wedding planning I have to admit that I find myself slipping into the Cinderella mindset. I think that actually our culture does a good job of selling this kind of wedding. You hear it sometimes when you are trying to make decisions about how much to spend on certain wedding items; then someone encourages you," just go all out- you only do this once!" Or when you are perusing the web, you see these ceremonies that could be part of a fairy tale world with an endless sea of flowers and chiffon and soft candlelight ambiance. I start to think that I have to have all the glitter and sequins, the sparkle and glitz, an extravagant beauty, the princess complex or as David's Bridal slogan says, "the wedding of my dreams." In this Cinderella mindset, it ends up being about the beautiful satin gown, the carriage pulled with white horses, the shimmering headband and the glass slippers; you end up not remembering much about the prince or their life together after they found each other.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm into beauty and glitter isn't bad, but really when it comes down to it, weddings are symbolic, single-day events where two people commit themselves to each other. They are a time to celebrate with family and friends the endings and new beginnings. So my goal is to concentrate on planning a celebration that focuses on relationships while preserving a simple, reflective beauty. I hope that I can remember that while I am excited about wedding planning and having the people we love together, mostly I'm excited about figuring out how my life with John is going to look. I want to stress out about how we can best complement each other's strengths and weaknesses instead of which photographer we should choose. I want to spend my best energies figuring out how to communicate effectively and serve others together, not which bridesmaid dresses my attendants will wear. I want to freak out about discovering what it means to love him the Christ-like way, not about how to decorate our outdoor auditorium.

So ta-ta for now, I'm off to a day of making decisions CALMLY as a non-frazzled bride-to-be should...

...until the next time I lose perspective and slip into my glass slippers or put on my Cinderella tiara.

I may have R.R.S.!

The other day I was talking to someone who was saying how people like to stick with the relationships that they've worked hard to establish; they like to stay in places where they are known. I realized that while that sounded true to me, it certainly has not been the story of my life.

I think it's because I've caught a bad case of R.R.S. (regular re-structuring syndrome). Symptoms include constant change of address, switches jobs often, sifting and sorting through belongings frequently, feeling the lure of new relationships/community, being anxious about the inevitable lonely spaces, lots of phone calls to faraway places to keep in touch with the meaningful relationships from past "homes", periods of stability and rootedness with sudden relapses.... In short, you move a lot.

So yep, you guessed it, I've had a relapse. I'm moving next month- to Columbus, Ohio where the handsome suitor lives. I'm going to rent a room from our mutual friends (the matchmakers who got us together) and go job hunting. I do wonder if the handsome suitor will serve as a cure for my chronic R.R.S. Or what if it's contagious and I give it to him?

Just showing off the handsome suitor...

Car Drama

I've always thought that it would be a good idea for me to take an auto mechanics class. These last couple of weeks I have been even more aware of my lack of car knowledge. It all began a couple of weeks again when I was on my way home from seeing the handsome suitor in Ohio. I came over a hillcrest in the dark and my headlights shone on a deer. I missed the first one but the second one landed with a BAM! on top of my hood and then crashed back in front of me on my windshield. The windshield broke into a million pieces but thankfully did not shatter. I was also grateful that I was within 30 minutes of home so my parents came to pick me up as I watched "Ashley" (my plum Saturn) being towed away, never to be driven again.

Since then I have been driving my brother Eric's car since he is a freshman in college and not allowed to have a vehicle on campus. His car was an ideal plan B while I leisurely shop for a good deal on a reliable, 5-speed, low-milage Honda/Toyota that I could cash off (oh! and dark blue or green are my favorite car colors). It was all going according to plan until last night when I went to meet some friends for dinner in South Bend. On the way home I drove over a nail and got a flat tire. I was close to a well-lit gas station and as divine intervention would have it, a woman filling up with gas offered to have her husband change my tire for me. These good Samaritans went above and beyond the call of duty- shivering in the bitter cold with me for close to an hour, making chit-chat, shining their headlights on the project when well-lit station closed down, offering well-meant safety precautions about driving on spare tires.... I drove the long way home at a snail's pace but hey, all's well that ends well.

Lest you think that is the end of the story, this morning I was going to the tire repair shop and I got a fourth mile down the road when there was again a jarring vibration. Yep, the spare tire was flat, "leaking at the seams" for some unknown reason. Finally my dad took the spare tire off; I take another vehicle (with the spare tire and the original tire in the trunk) to the repair shop only to find- alas, the repair shop closed at noon! With no fight left, I drove across the road to Wal-mart and waited two hours for some simple tire repairs/replacements.

The moral of this story: Sometimes life just doesn't work out quite like you planned. (Plus all you-all should appreciate your cars that are running well and getting you from place A to place B).

If you spent a day in first grade...

This week the lifeskill we are focusing on is sense of humor. My students are implementing this lifeskill very well as they have made me smile several times this week. Here are a couple of the lastest:

- On Monday I asked my students if anyone knew who Martin Luther King was. One student replied, "Oh! I know him. He was a president." Another student chimed in, "Yeah, he was our first black president." Still another, "Right, he got shot when he was watching a play in the movie theatre."
- During journals, one of my most easily-distressed students kept lamenting, "I'm just all out of ideals. I'm just all out of ideals."
- After a rather loud, chaotic re-entry to the classroom after recess, one student muses in very serious tones, "Miss Miller, what do you think happened to that quiet class from yesterday?"
-I hadn't had much time to buy groceries so one day I was eating instant oatmeal while sharing lunch with my students, one boy commented, "I think Miss Miller is pretending to be Goldilocks."
-One student tattling on another, "Miss Miller, Bob (name changed to protect identities) said that he loves school more than Jesus or God."

Getting rid of housemates

I guess this story all began one evening when I boasted to a friend that I used to be afraid of mice but now I not nearly as wimpy. I think my exact words were, "I'm getting much braver."

The very next evening my sister Emily and her husband Shawn came to my apartment for dinner. We are sitting at my kitchen table eating black bean salad and solving the world's problems when Shawn stops in mid-sentenct to point at my toaster. He whispers, "Look over there," as a mouse runs from behind my microwave all the way across my windowsill and darts into the top of my stove. Yep, you guessed it, the recently-claimed "brave" spirit vanishes and I begin to scream. Shawn quickly rises to the challenge and starts dis-assembling the stove. Each time we hear scurrying noises or see glimpses of brown fur dashing to a new hiding spot, there are more high-pitched squeals and freaked-out, knee-kicking dances around the kitchen.

Shawn finally gets into a face-off when he opens the bottom drawer to find not one mouse, but two squinting at him with their beady eyes. Now try to imagine- Shawn is halfway hidden underneath the disassembled stove with an oven mitt in one hand, a pair of tongs in the other staring at two mice, one in each of the back corners. Emily and I are his "back-ups", standing safely removed on kitchen chairs, one wildly waving a spatula in hand, the other with a broom. Shawn corners one of the mice as it makes its mad dash behind the wastebasket and catches it with the tongs. The other runs across my feet on its way to the storage closet while I do some more "high knee kicks". In the end, we set two traps, tried to put my kitchen back in order and called it a night.

I think the moral of this story is: Always have an extra pair of tongs and a courageous brother-in-law around to get rid of unwanted housemates. Oh, and leave a bit of "growth room" when you talk about your conquered fears.

P.S. When I came home after my family Christmas, both traps were full.

P.P. S. I emptied the traps myself. Perhaps I should get some of my brave points back.