A Happy Friday

After many months of attempting to lose weight, exercise & generally be healthier, I did something I haven't done in a while, mostly b/c it's always depressed me.

I tried on my skinny jeans.

Now, for women who have never gained weight without being pregnant, or for men who are unfamiliar with the term, "skinny jeans" are the jeans that all women keep in the hopes of one day fitting again.

Such are the jeans I tried on a few weeks agon in a depression-state-cleaning-my-closet-on-a-friday-night. They went on, but wouldn't zip. i shrugged, took them off, and attributed something else to be depressed about.

i continued wearing the size "--" for the last few weeks, noticing (joyfully) that they were getting REALLY baggy & that wearing a belt was no longer optional.

This morning, I had a glimmer of the jeans when I was packing for my weekend in bham. I had already gotten dressed in the baggy jeans, and was turning around for a belt when the thought struck me - i might could fit into my jeans now.

so i kicked off my shoes, shimmied out of my jeans, and shimmied into the new ones.


THEY FIT.

They fit so well, I actually had to check the tag to make sure that they were in fact the Skinny Jeans, not a misplaced pair of baggy jeans.

I am delighted beyond all normal clothing standards for casual friday at work.

see post 2/16/05 for original jean drama.

Note to Self...

If you get into a fight with a friend who has your spare house key, make sure to make arrangements to pick up said key. It may happen that your now ex-friend chooses to mail your spare house key back to you through the postal service. It may happen that someone less-than-upstanding will rip a hole in the envelope and steal your house key, only after taking a glance at the address on the envelope. It may happen that you have to call your landlord at 5 pm for an emergency lock change - for a minor fee of $25 and an evening of anxiety over who might try to come through the door when you're calmly watching reruns of Sex and The City.

Introducing....

Max & I celebrated our engagement by going to Florida for the weekend! He officiated at a wedding on Saturday for a young couple from his hometown, and I got to tag along for the weekend. It was a lovely wedding on the beach near Panama City, and the reception was just off the beach in a small coastal town. It was simply beautiful - if a little chilly given the march winds. It was a fun weekend to kick off our own wedding & marriage planning.

The Best Part...

The best part about getting my best friend back...

is getting to marry him!

Becky & Max
July 22, 2006

4 years ago tomorrow

In addition to tomorrow being the National Day of Becky's Birthday, it is also the anniversary of my Grandad's death. I was thinking about that this morning as I drove into work, sad for a variety of reasons - this anniversary being just one of them. I remember my Grandad (Robert Schrum to other people) as a wonderful, kind man. These are memories I have of him - some are of he and my Grandma Emily - she passed away 14 years ago, but her birthday would have been next week.

- always left the back door of their house unlocked, and when we walked in, Grandma would ALWAYS say : "Robert, I knew we should have locked that door."

- always had a cup of gum in her upper cupboard - usually big red

- Grandad always carried hard candy in the glove compartment of his Oldsmobile. and it was ALWAYS an Oldsmobile.

- hated driving at night, and hated driving on the interstate. could get around just fine on the back roads, even from youngstown, Ohio to Cleveland, Ohio

- Grandad always called me Becky-boo (to this day, my favorite nickname that anyone can utter)

- After I left home for college, but would be home on breaks, when Grandad called the house & I happened to answer the phone - would ask - "Well, Becky-Boo - what are you doing there?"

-would go through the litany of sons-in-law when he talked to any of them on the phone. "Dave, Ron, Mark"

-always referred to his great-granddaughter, Katie - as "shelley's little girl" even though we hadn't called my sister Shelley since she was 14 and Katie was by that point 10 or 11.

-wore grey so regularly that it's now a family phrase "Bob Schrum Grey"

-loved his kids passionately, even though he didn't always know how to say it - he'd do anything for them and they knew it without a doubt.

Here's to you, Grandad. We still love you.

Edited on 3/16: More memories that have come since this first posted:
- I wear my grandmother's birthstone ring on my right ring finger. i wear it every day to remind me of the strength I inherited from the women in my mother's family - the schrums, the boyers and all of the names that have come since and before. These are strong women who have endured trials and trials - and endured them with grace and strength to pass on to me & my sisters and my cousins and our children's children.

I wear Emily Boyer Schrum's ring with pride and joy, and I think of her very much on days like this. Some of her children have been through very trying circumstances since she left us, but they have done her proud in the way they have managed their lives. Here's to you - mom & Aunt Barb... for standing up for yourselves with the strength you inherited and embody daily.

Even many years after grandma died, every conversation with grandad would involve something like this: " I sure do miss your grandma/mom." "We know, grandad/dad. we miss her, too." So here's to you, Robert & Emily. Thanks for the legacy and the love.

As a wise woman once said...

I demand Big, Season Six.

Not Season One when things were just starting and great.

Not even Season Two when things were "different" but he wound up moving to Paris, anyways.

Season Six. Specifically, the very last episode.

I deserve it and demand it and refuse to settle for anything less...

than butterflies.

Carrie: "I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love. "

Big: "It took me a really long time to get here, but I'm here. Carrie, you're the one."

Carrie: ""Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."

Congregations for Children

This is my newly-redesigned webpage for my work... thought I'd brag on what me & frontpage did last week.

Congregations for Children

Happy Becky's Birthday Week

I would like to wish everyone a Happy Becky's Birthday Week. It is celebrated annually March 13-17... any & all days are appropriate to wish Becky a "Happy Early Birthday" or "Happy Birthday" or "Happy Belated Birthday" - as is appropriate to the day. The actual day - as you all know - is Thursday, March 16. This COULD turn into "29 and holding" - but I believe this will be my last twenty-something birthday... I'm almost officially old.

I bought & hung a hammock in my small patio today... I sat outside for a while today - it was the perfect (in my opinion) way to spend a saturday in march. Imagine - 85 degrees the weekend before my birthday - that NEVER happens in Ohio!

This is what Fox thinks a suitcase is for.

I treated myself to fresh tulips the other day - they fully opened this afternoon... aren't they pretty?

Today was a good day

Despite getting very little sleep last night (note to self - do not take anti-depressant before bedtime. It really does have an immediate impact upon your body's ability to sleep!) - I had a good day today. I checked the status of the bills I'm following in the legislature, I worked on recreating my CFC website, and attended a meeting of other lobbyist-types. It was great - simply because I was greeted when I arrived, and was called upon to speak to a bill that had undergone changes that no one else noticed... and I knew what to say! It was a good moment.

After lunch, however, I became very sleepy. I bought caffeine in the form of root beer to help me through the afternoon (a rare event!)... and kept working. It was a good feeling to still be working at 4:30 and decide that I could go home without feeling guilty for lack of work.

Upon returning home, I discovered 2 (yes - TWO!) gifts in my mailbox - CDs from a new friend in anticipation of a concert next weekend (much excitement) and CDs from an old friend to help expand my music collection. Both contain really different styles of music, and both bring me great joy. I think I might actually just listen to music tonight instead of my usual sitcom-rerun-with-maybe-a-movie-thrown-in evening. I fully intend on catching up on the sleep I missed last night, too. I bought myself two books yesterday (before seeing extraordinary cingular bill) and am 1/2 way done with the first one ... it's one that you just can't put down for it's eerie correlation to your life. The second one is a novel by one of my favorite authors - Jodi Piccoult - "Keeping Faith" - I love her style of writing & it was a complete splurge for me to buy her book instead of waiting for the library or going to a discount book store. ( I think I need to stop splurging one of these days!)

Now, don't get me wrong - there were crappy parts about this day. I found out that I have a $600 deductible on my insurance, so the $400 doctor's bill that I thought would be covered is NOT GOING TO BE COVERED except by yours truly... that sucked. I also realized (thanks to a lovely note from my landlord) that I forgot to pay rent. Yup - kept writing MARCH on my bills/notes/emails, and completely forgot that MARCH 1 due date of rent. So, I had to pay a fee. That did NOT help my "spend as little as money as possible between now and payday" attitude of life right now. Somehow, I thought that having the money in my account meant that it would pay itself, apparantly. And, once it's late, you not only have to pay a fee, you have to pay with a money order. So that meant an emergency trip to Kroger at rush hour on Old Canton Road. I almost died. Fast Car. Turn Lane. You get the picture. I cursed the young fool who was going so fast, and crept home.

Here's wishing everyone a "Happy Becky, Julie, Joran, Brian, Derek and Laurie Birthday Month"

The Cost of Life

Well, it's official - simply living my life is expensive. In the past month, with all things considered, it's no surprise that my cell phone use has intensified. Now, back in December, my work use of my phone depleted all of my roll over minutes that I had accrued from years with Cingular. However, I have not accomodated my cell phone use to reflect this fact. Imagine my surprise, then, to see a phone bill close to $400. So, my mileage reimbursement from march will NOT go to car repairs (check engine lights' been on for two weeks) or paying off my doctor's bill from last fall. Alas, it will go to my cell phone company. I consider it simply paying for the therapy of talking to friends & family through the last 5 weeks of hell.

Too Funny

Neologisms
Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
And the winners are:
1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), the belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

A last minute plan

My friend Allison & I had lunch on Tuesday. She mentioned that she & her husband & other friends were going to the Alison Kraus concert on Thursday night. I exclaimed (not really) that I had wanted to go to that concert, but by the time I found out about it, the tickets were sold out. She said they might have an extra ticket... turns out - they did! so, we (Matt & Allison & Beth, the US-2 who works at The Bethlehem Center with Allison) went out for dinner before the concert at Hal & Mal's - local brewery in Jackson, and then to the concert.

We sat in the 3rd to the last row in the balcony - i think the air was lighter up there, and Alison Kraus & Union Station were merely little shapes on the stage. Facial features were not seen. Body shapes were seen.

It was a WONDERFUL concert - a great mix of acoustic bluegrass music with a blend of Alison singing with male backups, and occassionally one of the male members of Union Station taking the lead with Alison harmonizing. Either way, it was beautiful. For those of you who DON'T know this - Dan -------- (don't know the last name) did the voice overs for George Clooney in O'Brother Where Art Thou... and so we heard "I am a Man of Constant Sorrow" and the encore was an acapella version of "Down to the River to Pray" - which was just haunting.

I was SO thankful for the opportunity to go... this week has turned out to be fairly busy & fairly social, which is a nice change.

3 prescriptions - 15 side effects

Well, my lovely doctor decided that yes, indeed, my life situation warranted some medical assistance. I now have something to help me re-gain my grip on life, something to help me sleep, and something to help me get rid of this cough that has plagued me since my move to the deep south.

Unfortunately, the combination of starting three new prescriptions on the same day leaves me with all of the "first few days" side effects... all compounded on top of each other. Which means, my heart is beating fast and I'm shaky/nervous from the asthma medicine, and the other two make me queasy whenever my stomach is empty. So waking up this morning was quite an ordeal, as is simply typing this blog. my fingers are trying to goamileaminute and i can't hardly make them stop.

i'll be glad for the help when the side effects diminish, which all of the patient advisory inserts warn me will take just a few days until my body gets used to the medicine.

She's a Twit

So - I finally had an appointment with the counselor - and, yup - she's a twit. The only thing she could come up with was "things will get better in time" and "read this book" and "get enough sleep/food/exercise/pleasurable activities."

No shit, Sherlock.

I don't think she knew what to do with a Masters' educated woman who cognitively knows what's going on in her life & the processes through which I must travel, yet has very little emotional capacity to do a damn thing about it.

I'll call back & get another referral - I've even got a good name of someone to whom I should be referred. I just wish...

I don't even know what I wish anymore.

... maybe that I could fast-forward through life? Is that an option?