No joke

I stopped by church this evening because I had the time to help set up for a big rummage sale this weekend. It is also youth group night, so my two favorite men were there. In moving all of the goods from the room in which they were stored to where the rummage sale will be, RM was wondering what one of the large tools was. So with he, myself, and two teenage boys in the room, he says, "It's a concrete vibrator."

This is what a concrete vibrator looks like.

I am pretty sure the rest of the conversation was lost on the teenagers, as they were trying to figure out what to carry. I just kept kinda laughing, and RM and I were going back and forth wondering what you use a concrete vibrator for. I finally left saying, "It's all yours."

If you would like a description on what these are for, this is a great one.  It sounds like the critical things to consider when choosing a concrete vibrator are shaft size and vibrations per minute.

You can't make this stuff up.

Might as well...

A turn of events finds me with an hour to kill at lab on a Tuesday night. I could get an hour of work done, but this time was originally personal time planned for a monthly discussion of what bugs you about religion or non-religion or what you love about these things or why you're skeptical of these things. It was just me and the associate pastor, who I might have mentioned previously {ahem}, so since he and I had a beer and then called the gathering early given the lack of attendance, why not write about boys? Nice segue, huh?

I am writing this more for amusement's sake, and I guess a little bit of 'what if'. What if I stayed her another year or two? There are two boys who do not know they are in the running for the rebound. Lucky them. To minimize incriminating details, well, that's not so easy. One is a religious man (RM), and one is a veteran (VM).

RM is a cool guy who has come to his calling via a non-traditional and challenging path. 20 years ago he probably would have called you crazy if you predicted his career. He likes to develop meaningful youth programs. He is friends with his sisters. He is socially liberal. He likes to chop wood and be outdoors. He is an interesting guy. He is my sister's age (which is older than my age), and given that he and I are often the oldest "young adults", we have joked about me not being that much younger than him. Today he gave me a heads up on a church in the city where I am moving. I joked that now he is trying to get rid of me after giving me a hard time for leaving, to which he responded, "If you love someone, set them free....That's in the Bible, right?" Oh, be still my beating heart. It is all I could do to repress the over-analyzing college woman and to instead smile to myself and let it go.

VM, given his dedication and service, is likewise a good person. He is also incredibly quite/shy. BUT, he now says hi to me in his own way (i.e. gives me a wave in the hall) on his own with no prompting. Yay! We ran youth group together and he talked more than I have ever heard him talk. He likes doing things, and came to an outdoor service opportunity in the spring on the first day they tested the tornado sirens...and we were right near it...and he immediately dropped to the ground. It took the rest of us a minute to realize he was not joking, that this was his engrained reaction to a siren. When he collected himself and got up and stood there red faced and controlling his breathing, I seriously wanted to give him a big hug. The moment the crush started right there, this I-want-to-help-you-moment. His SIL and I have continued (and just finished) a Bible study and I have offered help for the upcoming church rummage sale more than I might have otherwise because his mother is running it. Why not see as much of him as I can before I move, right?

There you have it. Good men in my life who I wouldn't mind dating, but since I am moving away in two months, I guess I will just have to consider them friends.

Before...

...Sunset

I just watched Before Sunset. I may have seen it before; I don't remember these things. (Seriously. Try to have a conversation with me about a movie I saw a month ago and I will not be much of a conversationalist. I like to watch movies to escape, not to think and discuss.) (Also, if you want to watch Before Sunset for free, sign up for a HitBliss account!) (Also, I took all of these photos from my house.)

Anyway. The whole movie is a conversation between these two people. You are just listening to Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy talk for ~ 70 minutes. I totally enjoyed it. I will probably watch this movie again. Many things did make me think during the movie and make me a little sad - not in a bad way, but in a I-relate-to-that-sentiment kind of way. It got me thinking about if there was a one time thing that I wish had worked out. (No eye rolling, Mollybee.) It got me wondering if the move I made here to the Midwest was early enough in my relationship that I couldn't have foreseen how it has turned out, or if it should've worked out. It reminded me that there was this guy I date for about a month whose name I cannot remember. He was Guy #5! (I remember Guy #4. He was a good guy. If that had worked out I would've stayed in Boston. {sigh} Oh, and the update on the guys!) It made me realize if there is a movie with these thoughts, I am not the only one who has them, something I have thought about as a good friend of mine is excited about dating and I am dreading it. It made me think about why I have crushes on particular people right now. It made me think about the older man who is a friend of my downstairs neighbor and was around today (remember him, Aim??), and how that would make a good one-night stand. It made me think about the friend of a friend of my friend-who-is-excited-about-dating who lives where I am moving and is single and a dad and supposedly a nice guy. It made me wonder why if I have blocked my ex's phone number I had the option to download a picture message from him. It makes me think about the various lives I would have had if various relationships had worked out (not in a depressing way).

It also made me wonder what I wait for. Not just in relationships, but every day. Why do I come home and sit on my porch and watch the sunset when I have other things I need to accomplish? When will my head feel clear, and when will I feel motivated more often than not? Would a week on a beach alone accomplish this? Is it just a vacation I need or something more?





I love some of the old posts I find when I link back to old stories. I am just linking to them now for my future benefit. Like the story of my now 5-year-old digital camera I was so happy to buy. Or a summary of BFFs. SO many more. Some day, when I have a whole weekend when I do not have to do work, maybe I will read old posts like a journal.

Fulfilling

As I get closer and closer to my move back to the East Coast, I am enjoying my time here and knowing I will miss many of the people and things here. One is the church that I joined.

I got to be a confirmation mentor this year, and I am very grateful the pastor asked me if I was interested. My mentee is a kind, sweet, energetic, and thoughtful young woman. The confirmation class gave her an opportunity to think about issues that youth do not get the time to consider in other facets of their life. How often does a child really sit and think and discuss topics like faith, belief, poverty, kindness, service, or love? And I do not think you have to have a specific religion to make discussing these topics valuable. I see the youth who went through the process and they gain a certain maturity. One in the group of five decided that he did not want to confirm his faith because of difficult topics discussed throughout the year. The statements of faith that these children wrote were beautiful. The common theme was about how they struggle with Christians who do not love everyone, but say they do it in the name of their religion. They recognize that even within a religion their are different takes on how to practice that religion, and it frustrates them.

My mentee and I did not know each other at all when we started this process, and after this experience, I am sad that I will not see her continue to grow because I am moving away. I did tell her that I would love to continue hearing what she is doing even though I am leaving. She gave me this cross and a stone that says "Faith" as a gift. I love it.

The associate pastor who runs the youth programs is on vacation, so I volunteered to help with youth group tonight. I came home to my house being 57 degrees and not a bottle of red wine in the house, so a cup of tea it was. The message on my tea* was fitting.

 

I spent quite some time getting a couple of activities ready for youth group. Another adult had mentioned he would do the Bible study part, so I had been thinking about how to keep 6 to 10 middle and high schoolers busy the rest of the time. I came up with a candy ball and Bible mad libs. We actually filled the 2 hours well with dinner and activities, and it was fun! A pretty decent success.

It does not hurt that I totally have crushes on the associate pastor and the guy with whom I did youth group tonight. Maybe a post for another time, but don't hold your breath. :-)

 *If you have never had any Yogi tea, it is worth picking up a box just for the messages - they are great!

Over it, but technically not

I've been busy enough lately that I do not feel like sitting down and writing for an hour before going to bed instead of watching TV for an hour, and I have several post drafts waiting in a queue to actually get written. While I have some time on a Saturday night, why not start with what I'm sure many people wonder about (because lots of people ask me about it, and really this blog is about me, right?): What is the deal with me and CF?

Recap: 18 months after I moved away from family and friends for our relationship, he made the decision against my better judgment to take one job over another, and the new job required that he move further West. Further away from my family on the East Coast and his in Europe. I make sure that it is known that he has his dream job, but to me it still did not make sense. It has been 18 months since CF left to start a new job in another state. I was Absolutely. Miserable. for several months after he left. I was functioning and doing laundry and cooking and getting out once in a while, but most nights I would sit in front of the TV and cry a time or two. My friend in lab was surprised recently to learn how often I would fight the tears (sometimes losing, even during the day), as he never saw me crying. (Go me?)

The year of 2012 slowly shifted though. I hesitate to point out all the frustrating things and make it sound like I tried a lot harder than CF to make it work, but...

Over the course of the year I slowly got over the fact that he left me (but we were still together). I traveled to him in September, he traveled here in October, and then I think Christmas was the next time we saw each other. In hindsight, Christmas was his last chance to make some grand gesture to possibly put our relationship back on track...or at least try. He gifted puzzles. Lots of puzzles. And it was almost like the icing on the cake with my feelings about our relationship.

You see, CF loves putting together puzzles. He will stay up until all hours of the night to finish one, much like I have done to finish a good book. He and I had this discussion last year about how I was so frustrated that he was spending his time on puzzles when he should be finishing his dissertation (still not done to my knowledge) or getting things done to make time for our relationship. Then he frames completed puzzles for several Christmas gifts. Then another person left his company and he inherited farms. And he got super busy with work.

And we have not spoken since before Valentine's Day, but technically we have not broken up. What am I, 12 years old?!

It gets more ridiculous...

Actual "conversation" before I headed to my parents' for a weekend in March for a belated celebration of my Dad's 60th birthday about which I never blogged, but it was quite fun...(Background repeat: We hadn't spoken since before Valentine's Day.)

I did randomly call him after that, and he never called me back...but he has randomly texted me late at night since then, likely because he's hanging out with friends and drunk and not afraid to do so. Thanks, alcohol.

He figured out from my sister's posts on FB that my grandfather died...and sent me a FB message.

I called him that weekend...and he didn't return my call, but did text me more than 24 hours after I called to apologize that he'd missed my call! Yay?

Easter weekend, I tried to psych myself up to call him and get it over with. Easter = new beginnings, right? What did I do? Not call him. I proceded to repeat this on many evenings throughout the spring.

Then he sent me a FB message on my birthday. Not even a post on my wall or a card in the mail or a call or a text. His mom sent me a card though! And his sister sent me a message to see if I received it.

His friend and I play wordswithfriends, and she asked if he and I were still together. Keep in mind, he lives close to her and her BF and I assume they've seen each other at some point in the past three months.

So instead of calling, because I clearly am a 12 year old girl, I texted him asking if we were ever going to speak again and if we consider our relationship effectively over.

To which he responded 48 hours later: Yes and I don't know.

(He uses his one and only phone for work, so it is not like it would've taken him 48 hours to see my message.)


Okay. I get it. This is ridiculous. I FEEL ridiculous. I also recognize that I am not the only one in this situation. CF is in this situation and also chooses, for whatever his reasons are, not to call me. Part of my problem is that I am pretty happy right now, quite honestly. I have made a life, friends, and activities for myself here. I also have a sh*&-ton of things to do in the next 2 1/2 months before moving back to the East Coast (hurray!!!). Dealing with CF is still hanging over my head, but I don't think about it. I don't want to deal with it because it isn't happy. So sue me.

Pizza/cheese bread-like

I had a head of cauliflower in the fridge for a while. I have no idea why I bought it, but decided to try a couple of recipes in which cauliflower makes the "bread". I thawed some of the tomato sauce I made in my crockpot at the end of last summer, and it was a lovely compliment to this delicious cheese "bread" recipe and this cauliflower crust "pizza".

With the pizza crust, I used two egg whites and added some flax meal.

Both recipes are pretty easy, and while the cauliflower is cooking, you can cook other things and clean up. The crust is surprisingly sturdy to toppings! It is a little bendy, but if you basically put one layer of (mixed) toppings, and slice it in smaller sized pieces, you can definitely pick it up. I also tried a flax crust a while back. Apparently I liked the flax better. It probably held more. The cauliflower crust is certainly more cost effective though.

[And looky here...Apparently I have made a cauliflower pizza crust before and enjoyed it. I did not follow my advice to go light on the toppings previously though! Also, looks like I made it on a pizza stone before, but cooking it on a metal pan with parchment paper (sprayed with olive oil) is the way to go.]