Box of Rain

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”

This as some people may know is the starting line in most of the Wheel of Time books that were written by Robert Jordan.  I felt that it was important to include this in the beginning of my post because this past week, the wheel of my life turned another spoke and I hit the big 35.

When you reach a certain age as an adult birthdays are not really that big of a deal, so when I hit 35 last Friday, it was just like any other day.

These past few years I have been surrounded by many new people and have made new friends and have grown closer to friends I have already had.  So, being that birthdays are just like every other year, this year it was special.  I had some friends bake me a cake and some other friends make me dinner. It was great. It reminded me of when I was a kid or still living at home as an adult, my mom would always make my favorite dinner and bake a cake.  The unfortunate aspect for the majority of my birthday was that my husband the Traveler was not there.  To my great surprise, he was able to make good time and was home to enjoy the last few hours with some friends and me. He did not come empty handed. I was completely satisfied in getting my husband back after he was gone a week, he got me the Canon Rebel T3i Camera I have been wanting along with a tripod and a card to store pictures. It is definitely a splurge but hey he’s getting a Harley, albeit used for his birthday/anniversary present as well. So double score for the both of us.

I am very grateful for what I have and thankful for all of those who are in my life. As my road is nearing age 40, it has been a crazy ride. Sometimes I sit back and think of where I came from, where I have gone and where I will end up in the future.  It is easy to look back where you come from because that part of you is what brings forth the person you become as you blossom into adulthood. This aspect of life is owed to your parents, or in my case, my Mom.  As a kid everything you are told to do and the ways you are told to do it don’t make any sense at all. Once you reach that pivotal point in your life and you realize ‘damn, she wasn’t crazy! She was right’. It is like a ripple effect that sets the rest of your life in motion.

Now it’s time to reflect on your past, everyone has a past and everyone’s past is different but no matter what life brings you, everyone has their own way of handling things and getting by.  My past has been interesting, I have done some extremely stupid things in all sorts of subjects, but luckily for me I never got caught or in trouble so bad it wasn’t something that I couldn’t build off of the mistakes. I finished high school and stayed home for a few years, did some college and later decided to sign up for the Air Force.

Although I left home at age 21, I don’t think that I was ready for what my future in the military would bring. Going through boot camp can break you down and rebuild you to be a better person than you were before you gave your oaths of service.

Little things like leaving the toilet seat up instead of leaving it down as you were taught at home, cutting out all sugar and anything considered unhealthy for you for a complete 6 weeks and lastly having someone stand in your face so close they could spit in your mouth yelling at you about smiling, being stupid or what on earth did your momma do to you to make you end up here and the way you are.  At the halfway point through my boot camp experience I changed and became a military person and a military thinker.  I was more orderly than I was in the past, I was prouder of myself as an Airman than I was as just me. I learned a self worth that I think many people don’t have. I learned to believe in myself and realize that as long as you stay committed to what you believe in that nothing can bring you down.

The journey to my first base was life changing in many ways. I had never been out to the upper west of the United States. My first station was in Utah. Having my first duty station in Utah was something unexpected and nearly incomprehensible. After a few months of settling in to my role and became a bonafide member of the Air Force, I met my soon to be husband. A path in life that I had never expected to take nor had any plan for, children, no thanks! I never had a want for children, I figured that if I did have any children it would be due to poor choices or incidental circumstances on my own part, but regardless of the situation the child would be loved, just the way my mother loved my brother and me. My Mother never married so I figured like mother like daughter. Plus Ma always said I was just like my father when it comes to relationships and dating so my mom probably figured that I would never settle down.

In January of 1999, barely 3 months after I arrived to my first duty station, my now husband came into my life. He was recently returned to Utah from a TDY (Temporary Duty Station) in Italy. I thought nothing of it originally but after persistence from my friend who was stationed with us, I decided to give him a shot. I should add that there was a 3-week period between the initial meeting of him and our “first date”.  Well the first date quickly went from dating to love and very shortly after marriage in just 15 days!

Military life came and went and eventually as you know we settled down in Tennessee. Thirteen years later the Traveler and I are still married, we have 3 children and life has been filled with love, giggles and good fortune. I sometimes think to myself and find it amazing that I started my family at age 22 and here I am now 35. My family is complete and continually growing older.  I don’t look my age from what I am told, but boy do I feel it. I sometimes feel that I am not good enough to have what I have or deserving of what I got.  I know that it isn’t true but all of this responsibility that I have gathered through the years can be overwhelming.   I suppose since we have a good foundation for our life and as the years continue to pass on everything will continue to fall into place.

Where do you find your faith? Do you even have it? For the past 8-10 years I have struggled over my own faith. I was raised in church as a child. Once my Grandma passed we didn’t attend church as much as we used to. I know that it was tough on my Mom attending a church, which had a big importance in her life for many years. I understood when she told me that it was hard for her to go because she seen her Mom everywhere. You see, my family attended the same church for many years and when cancer took Grandma she left money to the church and in her memory they erected a cross on the church building with a memory plaque. Each time you walked through the door it felt like she was there to embrace you as you walked through the door.

My mom never kept her faith hidden and she always believed in God, but attending church every Sunday wasn’t important or expected. As I got older and learned how to drive, I chose to find my own path to faith.

I was raised Lutheran, and was baptized as a toddler. Once I grew up and found my way to church again I decided to be confirmed. I attended regularly on my own until I joined the Air Force and during boot camp, I went every Sunday.  Shortly after joining the military I met my husband, we got married right away and looked for a church where we felt comfortable yet we never seemed to find one. For whatever reason, we stopped searching and then eventually made our way back to Chicago and attended my family’s church from time to time.   At this point and time all was well and then we made another big move.  Prior to the move we had stopped going to church.  Onward to Tennessee!! I settled into my new quiet and incredibly slow paced life. I lost my faith, I am not quite sure when I turned away but as the years gone by I withered. Resentment and doubt grew and at this time I don’t believe.  I can’t say for certain there is no supreme being, but the stories and what not about Jesus and God I am not buying into it.  My choices and opinions are not a mutual feeling in my household; I am on my path alone.  I have lived a happy and fulfilling life and I am for once extremely happy. My family and some wonderful friends and great additions surround me to our extended Tennessee Family.

In recent months I have met someone who is intelligent unique and for some reason interested in me. Now don’t get any ideas I haven’t met another man.  He is someone who has an interest in my journey from a believer to a skeptic.  I don’t think he realizes what he has gotten himself into but he has offered his time to hear me out and for me to hear him.  Since living in the South I have been “bible thumped”, told what I should believe and it has not helped me.  I believe it pushed me farther into my heathen cave.

What went wrong or what changed, I can’t explain. I just have lived like this so long and am comfortable in my person it had never mattered.   I can’t really say that it matters now either.  I have always been religiously curious and loved to learn about the various habits of different views and religions on life.  Many Christian people have ideals and agendas and some (not all) think that if you don’t follow a Christian path that you will go to hell. I believe one can manifest their own destiny and that if I choose to not go to church, and still have God in my heart, then what does it matter where or if I ever go to church.  That feeling was with me for a little while when we came south, but it didn’t last very long.  My lines of thinking now are that why does it matter if you end up in heaven or hell, if you don’t believe, you don’t believe. So then there is essentially no heaven and no hell.. You’re dead; you’re dead, right? That is what I have thought but recently I have wondered is it? My curiosity has been raised to the extreme and I believe it’s because of the man that I mentioned above.  Exactly what he has done to me I have no clue. He says something like a divine intervention led him my way. I call it bullshit right now, but he has gotten me wondering now.. Even though we are completely opposite sides of the religious world, we have grown a rather fun friendship. He is unlike anyone in his position that I have met before. Although I haven’t learned very much, he has shared his education on the subject matter and has allowed me to express my views with a clean slate.  He believes I am messed up, at first I don’t think that he realized how much I am.  It’s not just my religion that is messed up, but also many things about me! Just ask my friends/family to explain that further to you LOL.  I think as the weeks have gone by and we have grown to have a closer friendship, the reality for him is setting in and I think that he is ready to grab his oh shit handles and is in for a bumpy ride. The reality that I speak of is just how big of a mess I truly am…

I can’t say that I know where this road is going to take me, but I figure it is worth my time to seek my truth.  As a naturally logical and highly skeptical person I can’t imagine myself as a believer once again.  I have so many doubts and the idea of a lot of things about religion is ridiculous.  I have been told that I was right in that opinion that the relationship with God doesn’t come from religion in itself, but it comes from within you.  Who knows if I will go from using God or Jesus in a form that would offend most Christian people to where I think that Jesus is on my shoulder and as long as he is my life will be happy.  I can’t sit here now and imagine my future sitting in church every Sunday and absorbing the sermons, lectures and getting the message the Preacher is trying to say, but since we have opened this can of worms, I owe it out of respect to him to be open minded and to see where exactly my “long strange trip” will lead.

And now this portion of my voyage ends. I shall close with a verse from one of my favorite songs..

“You’re sick of hangin around you’d like to travel; Get tired of travelin you want to settle down.  I guess they can’t revoke your soul for tryin, Get out the door and light out and look around.”

Yesterday morning I started out early and it was pretty cold. We foster 4 puppies for an animal rescue that I have been volunteering for, for the past few years.  I had em set up to feed and enjoy some playtime.  I decided to run/skip (insert smurf theme song) the 20 feet or so to my car. As I was skipping across my yard, I fell in a hole and down I went…

I didn’t think that it was a very bad fall, although I did hear the snapping twigs sound and it hurt like hell. I had some things to do in and out of town and kind of kept a record of my own pain management.  It got worse as the morning hours went by, my husband harassed me to call the doctor, who referred me to an ortho doc to have it looked at.  I was then informed I had severed the two lower tendons of my ankle. He recommended therapy and to wear a brace for the next 6 weeks. Then after that I would have to wear a brace if I was doing any activities.. Well we all know how much I exercise and I am probably the laziest skinny chick on this planet. I was also told; there still was a chance that I would need surgery in the end if my tendons did not properly heal. For those who know me well, know I don’t have much patience. I would like to lean more towards the surgery up front if it is necessary than to wait and see shit the doctor has told me so far. I am trying to obtain a second opinion from another doctor, but I will have to wait until tomorrow.

I believe that this was an inevitable thing to happen, since I have twisted my ankle several times, but nothing major when my husband isn’t home.

There you have it, be weary skipping through your yard before 8 am.. It can turn ugly quick.

Well finally after a very long hiatus I am back online. I am unsure as to who would read this blog, so I have decided to use this as a forum to get the stresses of my life off of my chest.
Since the last time I blogged I was still in school. I have recently finished obtaining my Undergrad in Environmental Science with my concentration in Fish and Wildlife. Shortly after completion of my Undergrad, I got a really stupid idea to run into my Grad Program. My Grad program is basically in the same field and I also chose the same concentration. I am about 14 months into my Grad program and I am doing ok. I don’t think that I realized what I was getting myself into, but I think for everything that I have on my plate I am doing well.

My last post was a little bit over 3 years ago and that is insane. I had some administrative issues that didn’t allow me to log on. As I get more time I will begin to update more frequently and I am planning to do a recap of what has been going on in my life for the past three years and all of the changes that I have experienced.

I am still incredibly busy but I have finally finished my Summer Session. I am now enjoying a week break finding that I am incredibly bored.  I finished up my Pollutions & Water Science classes. I astonishingly pulled two A’s in the course.  I also boosted my GPA up to 3.7 with a few extra #s that make no sense to me.

I go back on Aug 4th with two more classes and they are American Govt and Biology Those go through the end of Sept.  Will be interesting to see how the hell you take Biology in an Online Course. I am still working on making my blog look better. For some reason I cannot log into an FTP program and change the SOB.

Until I get some more time, May you find water and shade

I’ve been so busy I haven’t had much time to write. I am still alive though! Going to school and playing with the kids. I will try to get an update soon. I am not too excited about my blog being back. I can’t seem to change my flippin background!

Well I started out in April with two classes and ended up dropping 1 class because I didn’t really need it and it was gonna be a crazy amount of work. So I am in the last week of this term, my classes are only 8 weeks. I  have an A so far and I still am waiting on my power point grade for my presentation I had to do last week. I did it on the threat to the polar bears and the controversy over them being added as a threatened species. My final is an open access final that has 10 essay questions. I really fricking hate essays but I need to hunker down and get it done since the class ends sunday midnight EST. My blog still looks butt ass ugly I am having problems being able to access my FTP program it keeps telling me that my login is incorrect and as far as I know it’s the only way in order to change your layout. The boys got haircuts yesterday they have matching ones and  they look really cute. Cole is off school today because tomorrow is their last day so I assume they are getting their report cards ready or some stuff. I get to drive him to school tomorrow just to pick up his report card so that should be fun stuff. I am off to Chicago soon where I will be gone for two weeks.  We’ve had a houseful around here my bil and sil been staying with us and we often keep their 3 yo with us while they are here and today her daughter is here as well so I  have 5 kids.

I am off to start work on my final. 4 questions are from web research and the other 6 are from my wildlife book.

Well after a long hiatus my blog is back online. I will be revamping and updating when I can.