For Ellie

I finally finished my latest labor of love, this one for Elizabeth Ann McConathy, Ellie for short. She was born Jan. 23 and I finally met her earlier this month and got to give her (and mom Tara) her birthday gift. Since no one knew until the big day if she would be a boy or a girl, I had to go with a gender-neutral theme and fill in her name and vital information in pink once she made her appearance. Sorry the picture isn't the greatest, but believe me it looked pretty good all framed up in pink. Of all things, the text part gave me the most trouble. I must have started, pulled it all out and re-started 10 different times. Now that I've finished Ava's and Ellie's, I better get busy on the new baby's, huh?

Sunday column: Taking back the summer

Ahhh, take me back to the days when summer meant vacation:

On the beach in Pensacola in 1991, before I was concerned about skin cancer, obviously.

1993, first family vacation to Disney World!

In the mountains of Colorado with Hollie and the Biersmiths, 1996.

Mission trip to Mexico with First Presbyterian Church, 1999

Family trip to Washington, D.C., 2002

Since I officially entered “the real world” about six years ago, the summer months have not delivered the excitement and relaxation they did during my days as a student.
Back then, summer was a seemingly endless stretch of laziness and freedom, sprinkled with a few out-of-town trips. Even once I turned 16 and started working, showing up at a part-time job in a ponytail and flip-flops wasn’t exactly hard work. The best part was I worked with my friends and had plenty of spending money to waste on things like Route 44 cherry limeades from Sonic and really bad movies at the Tinseltown in West Monroe.
I traveled to Mexico for a few mission trips, went to the mountains in Colorado (where it snowed one day in June), toured the historical landmarks in Washington, D.C., partied in New Orleans and did a lot of lying around on the beach in Florida.
Even taking classes at Louisiana Tech during the summer was a breeze because everyone was more laid back, the classes whizzed by on an accelerated schedule and I still found myself with plenty of free time to leisurely sip my Route 44 cherry limeades.
But ever since that graduation day in May 2003, when I faced the wide open future of working as a professional for the first time in my life, summer has lost much of its charm.
Those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to enjoy a school schedule that allows for a three-month break know that work is the same no matter what month the calendar is on. Sure, we all have our crazy times of the year, but we’ve still got to show up at the same time every day and perform our daily grind. If we’re lucky, we get a week or two of vacation. But, I’ve always found that it takes about half the week of vacation to actually unwind and before you know it, Monday rolls around again and you’ve got to face an overflowing e-mail inbox and countless voicemail messages back at the office. What a drag.
Despite the harsh reality of summer as a full-time worker, I’ve resolved to change my attitude this year. I will try to savor the summer, rather that write it off as a time only students and teachers can enjoy. I want to take back the summer!
Nevermind that I used my precious week of vacation back in January to recover from the holiday madness. I don’t need time off to make the summer fun; I can squeeze in fun things at night and on weekends. Here are a few ideas I came up with to help myself take advantage of the hot and humid time of year that soon will be upon us.
• Get outside more often. I hate the heat as much as the next person, but the weather isn’t so bad in the evenings once the sun starts to set. Working in an office with no windows and darting from the air-conditioned car into the air-conditioned house is standard procedure for me during the summer, but I’m feeling the need for some fresh air. When I was younger, I’d spend summer days on the softball field, at the park and in the backyard “digging a hole to China” with my brother and sisters (Dad didn’t like that little project). This year, I’m going to extend my daily walks with Casey the dog, get out to Lincoln Parish Park more often and just sit in the backyard coated in Off with a tall glass of water — or a Route 44 cherry limeade.
• Watch more bad movies. Every week when Friday rolls around, my husband takes it as his cue to start asking me to go see a movie at the theater. I don’t know how this happened, but somehow I stopped going to the movie theater except on very rare occasions. Well, not anymore. In the tradition of my teenage years of cash burning a hole in my pocket and nowhere else to go, I’m going to go see more movies this summer. And I won’t let it bother me if the movie isn’t an Academy Award winner. I’m just going to enjoy the freezing air conditioning, the overpriced concessions and a little quality time with my husband.
• Take on a couple of (doable) projects. My mom was the queen of the summertime projects back when my three siblings and I were growing up. This was probably out of sheer necessity, because how else do you keep four kids occupied for three months while school is out? She’d cook up some crafty ideas and help us put our own spin on them, and it always left us with something to hold up and feel proud of at the end of the summer. I’m not going to get too ambitious and say that I’m going to sew myself a new wardrobe over the summer, but I am going to peel myself off the couch after work and try to be a little productive.
My summer 2009 experiment could prove to be a smashing success or a disastrous disappointment. Either way, though, I’ve got to at least try. I just can’t let the students have all the fun.

Catching up

In my mission to take back the summer, I am getting myself motivated to do more than work, sleep, eat, watch TV, repeat. Although as many of you know, I've had a good excuse for doing nothing more than the bare minimum for the past three months!
Lucky for you blog readers (all three of you!), I'm resolving to be a better blogger. Not that it would take much to do better than I have recently, but hey, at least I'm trying. I will catch up on some overdue Sunday columns and throw in a few pithy posts about general randomness when the mood strikes (and hopefully, it will strike more often).
Enjoy!

Sunday column: Reality check

Lucky for us, our wedding day was a moment of bliss amid the tumultuous pre-wedding and newlywed months that surrounded it.

This column was inspired by my re-reading the brilliant book What No One Tells the Bride by Marg Stark given to my by my genius friend Jessica (thanks Red!).

My best friend is getting married in the fall, and I find myself in somewhat of a strange position.
I want to be helpful but not overwhelm her with unsolicited advice. I want to keep my mouth shut and listen to her, but there are times I can’t help but comment. I want to relate my wedding experience to her without saying “At my wedding ...” 100 times in a single conversation.
It’s a fine line, I tell you, and crossing it could sting us both a little.
There are many differences between the way she and I approached our weddings. Mine was a traditional affair with all the bells and whistles. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. But, seeing her nontraditional approach has opened my eyes to the variety of ways couples can plan a wedding that is special and sacred.
But beyond the minute details such as who processes in with whom, how big the guest list should be or what type of reception menu to order, there are other — more important — aspects of being engaged, getting married and being a newlywed that I want to share with her.
For example, I want her to know that she and her new husband likely will have some vicious fights in the months following the big event, and they’re not alone. I want to tell her that she will mourn the death of her single life more than she ever dreamed she would. I want to warn her that everyone will expect her to be bubbly and happy leading up to and after the wedding, but there will be times when she probably will be flooded with the exact opposite emotions, and that’s OK.
These are the things that no one tells the bride, so when they happen, we feel like something is wrong with us, our relationship or our fiance/husband.
The truth is, though, that these and lots of other feelings are normal parts of making one of the biggest changes in your life.
Committing to sharing your life with another person until death do you part is one of the most major, if not the most major, decision that most of us make in our lives. It should be considered natural that a mixed bag of emotions — not just complete joy — will come along with it. The problem is that the wedding magazines don’t write about that. The Web sites gloss right over it in favor of “50 tips on how to create the perfect bouquet.”
That bouquet will be dead in a day; your marriage, however, should be more long-lasting.
My husband and I are still considered newlyweds by most people, but in the short amount of time we’ve been married we’ve already been through some ups and downs.
I’ll admit that it took me a while to figure out a balance in our relationship after being single for many years. I still haven’t completely adopted the “we” and “our” language, and maybe I never will. Thankfully, my husband is good-natured about it, even when I refer to “my” bank account instead of “our” bank account.
Every couple needs to just give themselves time to adjust and realize that nothing is perfect and no one is perfect. The marriages you’ve witnessed so far in your life do not necessarily set an example for what your marriage will be like.
Growing up, I always saw my parents, who have been married more than 30 years, go to bed at the same time. Thus, when I got married I expected that Nick and I would do the same. It was actually hard for me to accept the fact that he is rarely ready to go to bed at the same time as me. After trying to force the issue for a while and feeling like a complete failure, I finally just accepted the fact that he was a night owl. Know what happened? Now, on the rare occasions when we do go to bed at the same time, I find myself tossing and turning for longer than normal because I’m used to having the whole bed to myself and him crawling in later.
It may seem insignificant, but these are the types of things that can really weigh on the mind of a newlywed. We want things to be “perfect,” like they show in the magazines. But, it’s time we all take a reality check and understand that each unique couple will develop the type of marriage that’s right for them, no matter what Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa or any other couple has done in the past.
After nearly two years of marriage, I’m just starting to realize this. I only hope my best friend gets it faster than I did. It will save her some heartache, that’s for sure.

Proof

See, I wasn't kidding about the blue Jell-O or the press-on nails. Although it isn't the greatest picture in the world, if you look closely you'll see them. Here are Tara, me and Erin in 1992 enjoying a snack on the floor at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Good times.

And here are our craft projects of the moment. Looks like we were working our way through the ceramics that lined the dusty shelves of Craft Corner. I don't believe any of these works of art made it home with us at the end of the week. We left them in Bunkie for Grandma and Grandpa to "admire."

Sunday column: Family (again)

The state of the economy has forced people here and across the country to do many things they otherwise never would have dreamed of.
Thought you’d never buy furniture at a thrift store or forgo one season without adding a few new wardrobe items? How about this one — moving back in with Mom and Dad? How many of us loaded up our college-bound cars years ago with every intention to never look back?
The global economic meltdown is forcing many of us to consider some possibilities and make decisions we never thought we’d have to. Returning to Mom and Dad’s house may be one of them. But, I wonder, is it really that bad?
Especially for families with children, sharing a home with your parents, or your spouse’s parents, could have a couple of perks. I know for most people it is not an ideal scenario, but these days we’re all having to “turn lemons into lemonade,” as the cliché goes.
I was fortunate enough to have a close relationship with my grandparents while they were living. Although we didn’t live in the same city, much less the same house, I still treasure the time spent with them and the memories we made.
When I met my husband, I remember feeling more than a twinge of jealousy when he told me that three of his four grandparents are still living. Mine have been gone for years, and I miss them.
After all, my mom never kept several flavors of ice cream in the freezer year-round, or let me eat blue Jell-O with my fingers out of a big bowl on the living room floor, or play endless games of Monopoly and Scrabble with me. Those are the kinds of things only grandparents would do.
I grew up with two cousins close to my age, and our tradition every summer was to spend a week together at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. They lived in a tiny town with just a Wal-Mart and a Piggly Wiggly, so we three girls were creative in the ways we entertained ourselves through the years. But, we were certainly never bored.
Grandma, a retired nurse, and Grandpa, an artist and carpenter, tolerated our antics (such as half-hour giggling fits, half-finished craft projects and many unsuccessful attempts at press-on nails) with saintly patience and humor. Would Mom and Dad have been so agreeable? No way. That’s what’s special about grandparents.
I’m sure they were exhausted and relieved every year when our parents rolled into the driveway to pick us up, but that never stopped them from hosting us again the next summer.
I can only imagine how many more fond memories I would have if we’d all lived in the same city. Yet, I’m grateful for the closeness we did have, especially once I realized that not everyone’s extended family lives within driving distance.
So, maybe the kids are a little more spoiled when Grandma and Grandpa are around, but it usually doesn’t cause much harm. The closeness of family is a gift not everyone is fortunate enough to enjoy, so those of us who have it should appreciate it. Even if we unexpectedly find ourselves in close quarters.
I’ll be the first to admit that family relationships are challenging, and that’s putting it mildly. Sometimes we wonder how we’re even related to those people. But when it comes down to it, the lucky ones can always rely on family, despite our differences.
In recent months we’ve all seen how unstable things can really be. We question the reliability of our jobs, our finances and even our government. Those of us with families we can count on must truly realize how fortunate we are.
We may grow out of the phase where a little blue Jell-O and some press-on nails are all it takes to make our day. But, when the people who wanted to see us smile back then are still there for us now, that’s something to truly be happy about.

Sunday column: Safety first

When it comes to safety, let’s just say that my husband takes it very seriously.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not complaining; being safe is important. And, it does mean a lot to me that he cares enough about me to always want to make sure I’m safe.
But, he can get carried away.
For as long as I’ve known him, Nick has had a nightly routine of making certain “checks” before he goes to bed. This consists of things like checking that the knob, deadbolt and chain are locked securely on both the front and back doors, checking that the oven and all burners on the stove are off, checking to ensure windows are closed and locked, that kind of thing.
These are all important safety measures no matter where you live or how many valuables your home contains.
And now, in light of the several tragic house fires that recently have happened in our area, Nick has added another check to his nightly routine.
Every night, and it’s usually pretty late because he is a night owl, my husband feels compelled to push the “test” button on our smoke detector. He wants to make sure it still works, he says. I was OK with this the first time, since we hadn’t checked the functionality of our smoke detector. It was a logical thing to do.
But, to check it every night? I don’t find that quite as logical. That sucker is loud, and it can be heard from outside the house. And no matter how much I beg, Nick refuses to not check it. It’s become a compulsion for him.
I can only imagine what our neighbors must think. Please accept this as an apology for my husband, who suffers from a slight case of safety OCD.
I wouldn’t be surprised if his next course of action is to draw out a fire evacuation plan for the two of us. While these are important and necessary for families, when there are two adults living in a small house, evacuation pretty much boils down to “Get out however you can.”
On the road, Nick’s safety mechanisms are just as active. He never, ever speeds and always volunteers to be the designated driver.
Anytime I go somewhere without him, he checks to make sure my cell phone is fully charged and accessible in case I need to call him. And before I walk out the door, it’s always, “I love you. Be safe.”
As amusing as it sometimes is, though, I find Nick’s overactive safety awareness reassuring. Maybe it’s because as a child, I had my own fears of what could happen once the sun went down.
For whatever reason, I went through a period during my childhood in which I was terrified to go to bed at night. I’d lie awake in my bed with my overactive imagination running wild about all the things that could happen during the night. I had one particular fear that the bathroom faucets would be left running all night and the upstairs of our house — where my bedroom was — would flood. Rational? Of course not. But it was a very real fear to me at that time. It was so real that I’d get up periodically to make sure the faucets were tightly turned off.
I’m the one who forced my family to have fire drills and develop a fire evacuation plan. I even begged my parents for a little rope ladder to put in my upstairs room so I could climb out in case of emergency.
Eventually, I suppose I outgrew my irrational nighttime fears. Or at least, I learned to suppress them to the point that I could sleep at night. Living alone for many years, a few times in big cities, really tested my ability to keep my imagination in check. Because, if you let yourself, you can dream up all kinds of scary things that can happen while you’re alone at night. Especially if you’re a young single girl working the night shift at a newspaper.
So maybe it was kismet that I would fall in love with and marry a man with an eye for safety. At least if I know he’s worrying about all those scary things, then I can put my mind at ease.