So in remembrance of 9/11, I thought I would repost my experience from the first time I volunteered at the WTC.

Day At Ground Zero

The last few weeks have been some of the craziest I’ve ever known.  From the water heater explosion and subsequent renovations to the movers (who were definitely NOT shakers) who stripped me bare of nearly all my earthly possessions, I have been trying to maintain some semblance of balance.  This has not always been easy, but then I never thought it would be.

Water heater aside, the move has been fairly calm.  Last Saturday I was a little frantic as I did a few last minute things around the house, packed the suitcases, and got loaded into the car that was taking us to Newark.  Chena was checked in (which took awhile) and then we were both off to the City by the Bay.

The arrival at SFO was a little stressful as it took me almost an hour to get the correct answer to the question, “Where do I pick up my dog?”  After about 45 minutes of waiting for her to come out of what turned out to be the wrong location, I was in full-blown panic mode.  I was tired, stressed out, and desperately wanted my dog back.  We finally located her in a separate building that we had to actually drive to quite a distance away from the baggage claim.  I don’t know which one of us was more happy when she was finally brought out in her kennel.

Once in the city at the corporate housing apartment in the so-called “luxury” building, I finally felt able to breathe…despite the cigarette smoke which somehow makes its way in from the apartment next door.  Yuck.

The building itself might be considered luxury, but the oversized hotel room masquerading  as a studio apartment?  Not so much.  The living area is small, the kitchen is dark and unattractive, the TV is old (like 15 years at least), the decor is plain, and then sound proofing is non-existent.  The best thing about it is the bathroom, but since that’s where the cigarette smoke seems to seep in the most, I can’t even get excited about that.  Best thing about being in this building, though, is definitely the rooftop deck (FANTASTIC view – you can see both the Transamerica Building and Coit Tower) and its proximity to my office (I can walk to work in about 10 minutes).

My plan is to enjoy it for what it is (convenient and free) until it’s time to move into my permanent new home on September 1st.

I have a deposit down on an Archstone apartment in San Bruno.  For those of you not familiar with the Bay Area, San Bruno is down the peninsula from San Francisco a couple of miles.  It’s maybe 2 miles from the city limits and roughly 10 miles from my office in the Financial District downtown.  The apartment building I’m moving into is brand new with an in-unit washer/dryer, large bathroom, terrace facing the courtyard, and gorgeous kitchen with granite and high-end appliances…  Basically everything a girl moving 3,000 miles from her newly renovated townhouse could ask for.  Secure garage parking is included, the whole community is dog-friendly and smoke-free, and I’ll be walking distance from the BART (subway) station as well as shopping and restaurants.

The only thing I’m slightly (but only slightly) worried about is how close to the airport the building is.  I’ll be 3 miles away which, while convenient, could also be noisy.  The planes apparently do not fly directly over my side of the building, but they still fly pretty close and may therefore be loud.  However, everyone I’ve spoken to and all of the reviews I’ve read have indicated that this is really not a problem and eventually becomes just background that you get used to (like sirens do to city dwellers, or trains to people who live by a station).  In addition, the building itself was built to originally be sold as condos so the concrete walls and floors provide fantastic soundproofing, both from neighbors and the outside.

I want to go back down there and get some measurements and take some pictures (once I do, I’ll be sure to post them).  My car (which was supposed to show up yesterday) has yet to materialize, but when it does, this will be one of my first objectives.

So that’s really the latest on my new western front…  Chena is adjusting, as am I…  I know it’ll take time to really settle in and feel at home, but we’re off to a good start!

“The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievablylost.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

It’s been a few days now since cancer took my friend Nancy from this world. I’ve lost people before, but never a close friend and never like this. I haven’t really known what to do with myself… I haven’t wanted to go anywhere or do anything. I haven’t even wanted to talk which is EXTREMELY unusual for me. Aside from immediately after I first got the news, I have barely cried…but I can feel tears lurking just below the surface. I feel slow and heavy. And I loathe cancer.

I think part of me doesn’t believe the loss is real yet. After all, Nancy lived in California so, aside from trips we took together and my visits out to see her or hers to see me, it’s not as if I’m missing a part of my daily routine. But there is still a void.

To know Nancy was to love her. You couldn’t help yourself. She was always so vibrant and full of life and laughter, it was impossible not to enjoy yourself in her company. Our senses of humor played well off each other – in fact, we often said that we were funnier together than each of us was on our own.

I met Nancy on my sailing trip to Thailand in January 2005. We really connected so we stayed in close touch and went on to travel to Peru together. I stayed with her on multiple trips out to the Bay Area, and she stopped by to see me on her way back to the West Coast from her year of travel in Europe.

I have a collection of days in my mind that stand out to me as perfect moments in time. If I could fuse them all together into one single string, it’s amazing how many of them would include Nan.

• Hours spent talking and drinking gallons of wine on her deck in San Jose, wrapped in blankets late into the night.
• Countless inside jokes shared in Thailand and Peru.
• The day we spent sea kayaking in Monterey Bay followed by lunch in Carmel.
• My first trip to Sonoma with Nan as my tour guide…

The list goes on and on.

As I am now only weeks away from moving to the Bay Area, I was so much looking forward to actually living near her… We both were. When I told her the news, she exploded in laughter and excitement. Knowing that she was battling the return of cancer, I also wanted to be there for her. I believe once I finally am settled there, that’s when I’m going to miss her the most.

Right now I’m fighting through my list of regrets… I wish I had known her longer. I wish I could’ve had more travels with her. I wish I could’ve seen her on my last trip to San Francisco when I was looking for my new home (which was only a couple of weeks ago). I wish I could’ve talked to her in her last days so she could hear me say, “I love you” one last time.

I know I can’t dwell on these things, but it’s hard not to. It’s hard to not think of all the why-didn’t-I’s and the I-should-have’s and remember that I wasn’t ultimately in charge of the way this played out – only God was…and for whatever reason, it ended the way it did for a reason. I wish I knew what that reason was, but I have to be okay with the fact that I may never understand it – at least, not in this lifetime. And that’s where my logic and human reasoning need to end, and faith picks up and carries me the rest of the way to acceptance.

In going back through my emails with Nan, I am glad to see that I rarely ended an interchange without telling her I loved her, so I take comfort in the fact that she knew. She knew how much she meant to me. So although I wish I could’ve said it one more time, at least I know I said it a lot beforehand.

But as much as I have pain and sadness and heaviness that comes with the loss of a friend, I am still grateful to have known her. I will forever be thankful that I got to have had her as a part of my life, and that I had the privilege to have been a part of hers.

For my birthday last year, I was in Seattle.  It was cold and rainy and J and I spent the day hanging out while S, Z, and KJ prepared the most fun evening of good food and fun.  It was a great day.

This year has been a little less exotic…  Yesterday I spent hanging out at my aunt & uncle’s with almost all my cousins, my aunt’s awesome Italian cooking, and topped off with a slice of my favorite triple chocolate cake and a traditional candle blowing ceremony.  Today has been very chill so far with a morning spent on the couch with coffee, TV, and a virtually endless barrage of FB notifications popping up on my phone.  I’ll be going to workout in an hour (where my trainer will likely have the rest of the gym sing to me if he remembers that it’s my birthday).  After which, Alyssa will be meeting me in New Hope for dinner.

While my actual birthday may not be as “exciting” maybe as last year, I’m glad since 2011 has been a whirlwind so far and I’m feeling very much like I need to have a little bit of calm amidst the craziness. January brought the confirmation that my job would be transferring me to our San Francisco office.  February was spent understanding the details of this prospect and getting my house on the market.  Right now I’m in the middle of…

• Mentally and emotionally prepping myself for the move (which is now less than 12 weeks away)
• Trying to sell my first home which (and no one could have prepared me for how bittersweet this would be)
• Organizing my trip to SF in 2 weeks to start looking for my new home
• Coordinating with movers, real estate agents, human resources, and relocation people on the move itself
• All the other little odds and ends involved with uprooting my life to repot it 3,000 miles away.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining!  I love change…in fact, I thrive on it.  But change is always difficult, even when it’s good, expected, or sought after.

I’m excited about this move on so many levels and for so many reasons…not the least of which is the excitement of wondering what it is that God has in store for me there because I have complete confidence that (as has been evidenced in the rest of my life) He has things up His sleeve that I would never have imagined for myself.

So here’s to another year down, and many more to go!  I can’t wait to see what’s next!

I’ve had some…awhile ago. In my 20′s I feel like I had a far more mysterious and magical life. I saw possibilities and ran after them. Now I’ve become an “adult” and my existence has turned into something very plain and ordinary. Predictable even. My friends and family have, for the most part, all moved on and opened new chapters of their lives and left me behind. You’ve all found spouses and had children while I’ve done little but stand still and wave as you’ve all paraded past.

I’m not trying to sound bleak or pathetic, I’m just wondering where my adventure has gone.

Life, love, the promise of something new… These things seem out of reach right now. I’m 36 and feel like I’m in a holding pattern of sorts – unable to land, but unable to fly to somewhere else too.

There are certainly good things about my current state, I suppose. I love my house and Chena. I have a good job. I have a lot to be thankful for…but my drivers – the things that always propelled me forward in the past – have seemingly fallen out of reach.

That adventurous me still lives, although it pretty much lies dormant these days. Every so often I feel it rise up in my head and say things like, “So change something! Quit your job…move…find that spirit you once had again!” Then the sensible adult says, “Easy tiger… Wait. Have patience.” But for how long? How long do I have to wait? How long am I going to be able to keep myself content in suburbia? How long will I be able to last on life support?

I hesitate to even share these thoughts…  Most people wouldn’t understand – or they would think I was whining.  I’m not, I swear.  It’s just that sometimes these things weigh more heavily on me than others.

So I guess what I’m really wondering is why am I here? What is God’s plan? What does He want from me and for me? Why am I always on the losing end of love? Why do I think I’m never going to have children? What is the point of it all anyway? Am I doing something wrong? Did I miss the boat in some way?

I know there are no answers and I’m not really expecting any. I just needed to vent, so thanks for listening.

First, let me just say that I am not a mountaineer, but I think that this is less due to a lack of will and more a result of my environment growing up. When you’re raised on the East Coast, there aren’t really a whole lot of mountains around to climb… Hills to hike maybe, but not true mountains. However, for years I have been fascinated by climbing. If there’s a book written about it, I’ve probably read it. If there’s been a movie, documentary, or TV show made, I’ve probably seen it. Even the completely unrealistic, cheesy fictional ones. I also enjoy pushing myself to see what I’m capable of. For example, I refused to take any seasickness medication before going out on my first big sailing trip because I wanted to see if I would actually need it. Turns out I didn’t. I did the same thing when I went to Peru to hike the Inca trail. I didn’t take anything to help with altitude sickness because I wanted to see how well my body would adjust on its own. Turned out it adjusted pretty well, although I did have some issues the one night when we stayed above 14,000 feet. I want to run a marathon this year for this reason. In the same way, the challenge of mountaineering is extremely attractive to me. Pair that with my adventurous spirit, throw in my love affair with mountains and the outdoors, an interest in climbing seems like a natural byproduct.

As many of you know, I was born in Bend, Oregon and I have come to believe that this somehow encoded a love of mountains into my DNA. I adore them (they’re not part of the illustration on my blog by accident!) and can’t underscore enough how much I look forward to living back among them again. But since my parents moved me to the Philly area when I was a mere 6-months-old, my affection for mountains lay dormant until the first time I saw some in person.

I was 20 and was headed to Seattle to attend the Christian Writer’s Conference at Seattle Pacific University. I had first flown to San Francisco and spent a few days with my family there before flying from San Jose up to SEA. I had a window seat and was looking out at the clouds when suddenly noticed a particularly large object jutting up through them. It look me awhile to realize I was staring at Mount Hood. I was so overwhelmed with its beauty that my eyes immediately welled-up with tears. Pictures and movies hadn’t even come close to preparing me for the actual majesty of an in-person mountain.

Alaska was where I became truly addicted to them, though. There is nothing like being up in a small plane and looking out to see nothing but miles upon miles upon miles of a rippled mountain landscape coated in snow. There is something so awe-inspiring and quieting about them that words alone fall short in conveying. In Alaska, you also have the added bonus of being literally surrounded… Some volcanic (like Augustine and Redoubt), but more just the ranges of them that run down to the sea. One of my favorite places to go when I needed to get away for a minute without going far was up to Flattop. Flattop, so named for its flat top, is a mountain just on the edge of Anchorage and part of the Chugach Range. It’s a great hiking mountain in the summer especially, but there’s also a fantastic vista point not far from the parking lot where you can see for miles…all the way up to Denali on a clear day. I used to love to drive up there on winter mornings when the whole of Anchorage was encased in an ice fog. On the drive up, the fog would be dense and heavy, but it would start to thin near the top until suddenly you emerged in the crisp, winter air and glorious sunlight. The city below would be completely cloaked and you could imagine yourself alone in the world. To echo some of Ben’s sentiments from his post, I have always experienced God in the mountains in a different way than I have elsewhere.

Biblically, this makes sense to me as well.  God seems to have a special place in His heart for mountains. I love how He always had His temples among his people, but when He chose to take up residence with the Israelites in the desert and speak to Moses, it was on a mountain. Jesus also had a thing for mountains. The gospels speak repeatedly of him going up into the mountains by himself to pray…sometimes he would stay there all night (Luke 6:12). He also did a lot of his speaking from mountainsides (but I suspect that probably had more to do with acoustics).

Shortly after arriving in Alaska, my friend who moved with me had decided she wanted to go home. Those first few months there after she left were some of the loneliest I’ve ever known as I tried to figure out what my new life would look like 5,000 miles from everything I knew “home” to be. But the great paradox I learned is that it’s in loneliness that I feel the least alone for it’s in loneliness when I am most reminded that I am not alone.  God is there.  As David writes in Psalm 139:7-9…

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

Even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

It was also during this time that God used the mountains as perspective givers for me. If things weren’t going well, or if I was feeling overwhelmed with life, I would just drive out to where I could spend some time with the mountains and in prayer. It’s extremely humbling to stand on (or even next to) something so majestically huge with the knowledge that it was formed by our God through His power alone (Psalm 65:6). He is indeed an awesome God.

I wrote the following poem on 10/14/96 during my first few weeks in Alaska…not surprisingly, it begins and ends with mountains:

The mountains stretch out
Across purple skies
To the end of the world
Or so it seems.
But they do stretch far
Far
Far out of sight.
Beyond comprehension.
Beyond confusion.
Beyond dismissal.
Beyond betrayal.
Beyond lies.
Beyond fear.
Beyond feelings of hopelessness
And loss.
All my fragments
Of ragged dreams
Are swallowed up
In the magnificence
Of jagged rocks
Blanketed with snow.
The enormity
Of the mountains
Makes problems seem
Insignificant.
Small.
Trivial.
Resolvable.
So I sit
In stillness
And focus
On the mountains.

Partly what I love about not just mountains, but the wilderness in general is the peace that’s there. I feel like peace is often so hard to find today in our crazed tilt-a-whirl lives. In an attempt to obtain it, I will sometimes purposely leave my cell phone at home (gasp!). I love when I go on trips that cause me to abandon my connections to the world. I have found that when I extract myself from the craziness of life, turn off my cell phone, and just allow myself to be quiet, God is able to speak without competing distractions, and I find I am often more apt to hear Him. The wilderness gives me an excuse to do that.

John Muir once said:

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

When I had gone back to AK for a visit in 2002, it was a particularly clear day and Denali was so stunning, I decided to go on a flight-seeing trip out of Talkeetna up to the mountain.  It was kind of last minute, and outside of the regular tourist schedule, but I found someone to take me and ended up with a bonus – the pilot was flying the first climber of the season out to Denali base camp and I got to ride along. On the way back, the pilot told me about someone he had dropped off on a glacier near Denali for several weeks over the winter. I had actually read an article about it so was even more interested when the pilot told me he had been their “taxi” to and from their adventure. To be left in the middle of the mountains in Alaska would probably be a nightmare for some, but it sounded like heaven to me.

There has been a lot of judgment flying around from the so-called “armchair experts” who are, in my opinion, awfully brash – throwing their dogmatic opinions at people and on topics about which they have little knowledge and no personal experience. While not a mountain climber myself (or at least not currently), I still can understand the drives and the desires that motivate them… I also know the joy that comes in doing something you love, even when discomfort – or even danger – are involved. I think I realized this the most acutely on the second day of the Inca Trail. It was the day I both looked forward to and dreaded with the same breath. Most guidebooks even referred to it as “grueling”. We were coming up to the highest point of the trek at 13,770 feet – Dead Woman’s Pass. We were tired, sore, hungry, wet, and cold. I remember stopping for a breather at one point and saying to one of the other members of my group that I was walking with that, even though I was as physically uncomfortable as I was, I was also incredibly happy. “At this moment,” I told her, “there is absolutely no other place in the world I would rather be.”

That’s a fantastic state to be in. One day, I hope to reside there permanently… For now though, part of my journey is learning to live in contentment with where God has me. But He also knows my heart…better than anyone else…and He understands the irresistable song the mountains sing to me and maybe one day He will place me among them again. Perhaps then I’ll start to climb them too.

That phrase really epitomizes the awkward things we sometimes blurt out after an event where we don’t really know what to say.  When faced with situations like that, chances are the reason we don’t know what to say is because there isn’t anything we CAN say.

In the midst of the horrific tragedy this week that has affected so many people I love, I certainly don’t know what to say.  I don’t know what to do or how to feel either.  I’ve been trying to sort it out in my head, but being verbal processor, when I don’t know what else to do, I write.  So here I am.

Most of you guys reading this probably know about the climbers that were lost on Mount Hood last weekend – Luke Gullberg, Anthony Vietti, and Katie Nolan.  I didn’t personally know any of them, but Katie Nolan had been a member of my church when she lived here in Philly.  Understand that when I say “member” I don’t just mean someone who shows up on Sundays. Katie was deeply involved and richly connected with a lot of the people that I now am privileged to also call my friends.  I have heard nothing but the most heart-felt accolades from everyone I know who had come into contact with her.  The picture I have gotten is one of her as a beautiful, amazing, and dynamic individual.  She clearly loved Jesus, people, and life in general.  Katie was very special.

Right now, I’m struggling to figure out exactly where I fit into the landscape on this one.  After all, I didn’t know Katie.  She wasn’t a part of my life. I didn’t experience her.  And because of that, I feel almost as though I don’t have a right to be as upset as I am.  As if there’s only so much grief to go around and I’m somehow robbing someone of theirs who is more deserving of that emotion.  Of course when I say it like that, it sounds ridiculous, but it’s still how I feel.  But not only is this just one of the most terrible tragedies, the fact that it’s such a public tragedy puts a completely surreal layer on it.  There aren’t words to describe just how weird it is to have something like this actually hit so close.

So why do I feel so profoundly sad?  How can I so easily be brought to tears over this?  I’ve been thinking about it some and I believe the answer is complicated (go figure) but I’ll do my best try and put it into words…I need to.

First and most obviously, my heart breaks for my friends – Katie’s friends – who knew her and know the true extent of what was lost when she disappeared on that mountain.  I hurt so deeply for them, so much so that it’s as if my soul aches.

I also feel a very personal sense of loss at being cheated out of an opportunity to know Katie.  One of Katie’s closest friends here had told me about her on more than one occasion under the heading of “I think you guys would really hit it off.”  Since the tragedy, others have said the same.  From everything I’ve seen, heard, and read about Katie, I would have to agree.  We certainly seem to have had a lot in common, and her adventurous spirit naturally resonated with me.  I want to have known her, but now I won’t get the chance.  And I definitely feel like I’m the one who lost out.

I feel the most heartsick for one of my friends who was particularly close to Katie.  If I were to lose either of my best friends in such a way as this, I don’t know what I would do.  I would probably shutdown.  I might even disintegrate completely.  At the very least, I wouldn’t be able to properly function for awhile…a LONG while.  Thinking about her, I can’t even wrap my head around how she must feel…  What do you do with that?  How do you respond in the awkward space filled with shock and grief?  Probably best to not rely on Hallmark cards to lead the charge. I hate clichés which mean little when things are going well, let alone when a piece of your world has been ripped away.  And I wouldn’t dare try to speculate on what God’s plan might be in all this because…well…I’m not God.  So I sit and pray and think and cry because it’s all I really can do.

And so that’s it for now.  I can’t really think of anything else to say, so before I blurt out something stupid, I’ll just end with this:

We live in a broken, messed-up world and sometimes the things that happen in it really suck.  But at the end of the day, God is still exactly who He says He is, and He will do exactly what He says He will do.  So we can rest knowing that He is at work and one day “He will wipe every tear from [our] eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain…” (Revelation 21:4).

Right now we are in the midst of the season of Advent.  The season of waiting that leads up to the initial entrance of Jesus into the world.  Emmanuel.  God With Us.  Our Living Hope.  He came the first time to save us.  And we can live in hope and ultimate peace knowing that He will come again to completely redeem us and this screwed up world of ours.

You can hang your hat on that – Katie, Luke, and Anthony did.

I made the decision after finding out what my end cost would be after insurance (yep, they actually kick in some coverage on this) and also weighing the importance of health to other things.

While it’s true that I want to get out of debt so badly I can taste it, I realize also that delaying my debt-free-dance by approximately 1 month is worth the sacrifice for improving my overall health & fitness.  This is something I’ve been struggling with quite a bit since I started overhauling my eating habits.

One of the areas I was scrimping as much as possible (in order to pay more towards the debt payoff) was food.  As a result, I was eating horribly…well, maybe not horribly, but not well either.  I didn’t become a frequenter of fast food restaurants (I’ve never felt right going into one since watching “Supersize Me” and reading “Fast Food Nation“), but I was just making the cheapest food choices.  Once I started eating appropriately and incorporating organic foods into my diet, my food budget has shot way way up.  This is forcing me to rework my whole budget and has thrown off the system I had for the last 18 months,  but I have no doubt I’ll figure it out.  What it boils down to is eating healthy is NOT cheap…but I believe the rewards certainly outweigh the cost – especially in the long-term.

As for this 8WW program, let me start by giving a quick summary of what will be happening over these next 2 months:

Each week I will be going into the office approximately 3 times.  2 of those visits will comprise a chiropractic appointment followed by an hour of time with one of the personal trainers.  These are not your typical Bally’s-type personal trainer, mind you.  These guys are hard-core, Jillian/Bob-like trainers.  I expect full ass-kickings.  But when they’re done chewing me up at the end of 8 weeks, I hope to see myself back into my Alaska/UK/NYC physical shape.  Can I get an amen?

The third visit of the week will be that of a 1-hour massage appointment.  Yeah, baby.  I also will be having more sit-downs with the dietitian I met with the last time.  (She was great, by the way – really helpful and basically told me that I’m doing everything right from a nutritional standpoint.)

The program is truly holistic and looks at the spiritual as well as the physical components of health so the final piece of the pie is meditation (not to be confused with medication) which I have to do on my own time, but there’s also a class and they teach yoga if I’m interested.

So, with the overall plan, I have to commit to my weekly visits, daily meditation, eating appropriately, drinking all my required water, and doing at least 20 minutes of cardio exercise on my own each day that I’m not with the trainers.

Yeah, it’s a lot and definitely a big commitment, but I’m really excited about it.  I think the hardest part for most people would probably be the eating and water, but thankfully I’ve been pretty steady since doing the detox so I’ve already been eating pretty much the way I’m supposed to for the program anyway.

The challenge for me will be making sure that all my meals “balanced” meaning they contain a protein, a carb, and a fat.  I struggle with getting the protein in…well, that and leafy greens.  I really wish I didn’t hate leafy greens so much…  The only one I can tolerate (and even enjoy) is spinach, but spinach doesn’t carry all of the same benefits as the other leafies.  So I just have to suck it up and power through arugula, Swiss chard, and the rest.

This first week is technically the hardest as you’re not allowed any carbs except for veggies.  Not a huge deal for me at this point, however I am going to miss my fruits.  But it’s only a week.

Tomorrow after work is my first personal training session with another on Thursday.  Then on Friday comes my massage.  I have a feeling I’m going to be needing the massage after Tuesday & Thursday…  I doubt the pain will be as severe as what we experienced after hiking the Inca Trail, but I’m sure there will still be pain…but hey, “no pain, no gain” is a saying for a reason, right?

Turns out my 8 weeks will actually be interrupted by my annual Seattle trip which I’m taking this year from September 17-24, but we’re going to work around it.  And don’t worry Jel, while I’m out with you guys, I won’t suddenly turn into some sort of crazy high-maintenance chick.  And, by the way, there will be coffee…oh yes, there will be coffee.

Aside from Seattle, it would seem I’ve actually timed this beautifully.  As it happens, the last Friday of my 8 weeks (and the day after I return from Seattle) is the date of the U2 concert date at Giant Stadium!  What better finale could there possibly be?

But now, to business.

The detox. Let me begin by saying that there was definte actual “detox” involved. I had a definite reaction to not having caffiene or sugar or both. The first two days contained a mild and irritating headache. On Day 3, the headache subsided, but I was still feeling kind of “off”. Day 4 I started feeling…well, fantastic really. By Day 11 I had lost 6 pounds (5 of which are still gone) and I felt like I had been given new life. Seriously, I felt THAT good. So good, in fact, that I haven’t really stopped yet. I’ve reintroduced some foods that I wasn’t permitted on the detox (cheese, for instance) but I still haven’t had caffeine or sugar or anything else “refined.” This isn’t just because I feel so great, but also because I’m suspicious that I may have some food allergies or intolerances that I wasn’t aware of previously, so I’m trying to reintroduce foods slowly to see if I have any sort of adverse reaction to them. So far I’ve been good with dairy. Wheat is next on my list to try, but I’m not there yet.

So let’s recap.

The 11 Day Detox managed to…

• Detox me from caffeine and sugar (which killed my sugar cravings completely)
• Clear up my skin
• Get me off of allergy meds (I haven’t even remotely needed a Zyrtec since I started)
• Help me shed 6 pounds

You might say the detox was a success, and I would agree…mostly. But I still have some work to be done.

See, one of the things I was hoping the detox would assist with is the near-constant digestive trouble I’ve had since having my gall bladder removed.

I’m told most people don’t have these issues. Most people can go back to eating completely “normally” after the surgery with no adverse affects. Sadly, I am not most people. What I am, though, is sick of dealing with it. I was hoping that the detox might give my liver and colon a fresh start and perhaps they would begin to function more normally. They definitely seem to be a little better, but definitely still not “normal.” This has been discouraging to say the least.

Having the detox not make much of a dent in this problem area marked the end of my proverbial rope.

And so now I’m taking the next logical step and am going to see a registered dietitian. I have to work from home on Tuesday due to an impromptu dentist appointment, so I’m actually hoping to make my first appointment with the dietitian for the same day since I’ll have more flexibility.

I’ve found a dietitian in the area that works for an organization that actually has a variety of services – nutrition, massage, personal training, etc. So who knows – maybe I can couple the nutritional stuff with something else…like massage. Hm. Now there’s an idea.

Anyway, so next steps are calling them on Monday to see about making a Tuesday appointment if I can. I’ll continue to keep you guys posted, but in the meantime, I really do feel AWESOME and would highly recommend even a short detox like this one to anybody.

In the last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about health and nutrition.  I’ve got a number of little annoying health issues that have been bugging me (e.g. allergies, digestion due to lack of a gall bladder, arthritis in my foot left over from when I broke it, etc.) and I’ve been looking into ways to help these issues by doing something “simple” like changing my eating habits.

This of course isn’t a bad thing to do…in fact, it’s something I should probably be a little more conscious about anyhow.  I’ve already made changes in my lifestyle over the past few years between not eating any artificial sweetners, cutting out soda, hydrogenated oils, etc. but I’m feeling more like maybe something more radical is called for.

I expressed this interest/desire to a friend of mine at church who had some fabulous insight and pointed me to a detox plan that she and her husband have been doing for years now called “The Fast Track Detox Diet“.  Yeah, I know, sounds a little hokey, but she loaned me her book and, upon reading as well as listening to her story, it has prompted me to give it a try.

At its core, the plan is a liver/colon detox plan.  As everyone knows, we’re bombarded with toxins day-in-day-out in our normal environment.  With cancer, diabetes, and obesity on the constant rise, it certainly can’t hurt to employ a little more deliberate action into our eating and even going through a periodic detox, right?  So I’ve decided to give it a go.

This plan seemed a lot more feasible to me than others I’ve read about…  For one thing, it doesn’t require a unrealistic eating regimen to be followed for weeks on end.  It’s 11 days.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t control my environment and pantry for months-on-end, but 11 days I can certainly handle…

So this week has been about reading, gathering intelligence, and getting myself psyched out to start the plan.  My friend has been a huge help since she’s as excited as I am.  Since I recognize that the stage for success is set by surrounding myself with everything I need so I’m also working through my shopping list, meal plans, and all that jazz.

Thursday is the day I’ve set aside to hit the farmer’s markets and hook myself up with all the veggies I need.  The fruits are best gotten frozen, so I’ll probably make run to Whole Foods or the like to make sure I have plenty of organics in that department.  Veggies on the list include those which are known for being especially good for the liver & colon like artichokes, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.  Of course there are supplements involved such as whey, flaxseed oil, and other fun items like that.  In addition I can’t neglect my proteins which will include free range chicken, grass-fed beef, and farm-fresh eggs.

Another aspect to this whole process is the clarity that seems to come with detox so I think journaling will certainly be in order…  Not sure how much of it will be appropriate to place on the blog, but I will post what I can just so I can share with you all how the whole process goes.  I’m even looking at possibly getting a massage in during my detox day – it’s been over 2 years since I’ve had one of those so it would most definitely be a welcome addition to the day.

In particular I’ve been told/read that the juice fast day is one of particular mental and spiritual clarity and renewal.  Have to also admit that I can’t wait to see what God chooses to use this time for and what insight He might provide me during this time.

In essence, I am committing to “eating clean” for a solid 11 days including a one-day full-out juice detox day (7 days before the fast, and 3 days after).  The more I’ve read and researched, the more excited about the prospect I become.

Detox…bring it on!

To begin with, I titled this “Online Dating Sucks” because…well…it does. Sucks like a big ‘ol freaking Hoover.

One of my biggest beefs with the whole process is that I feel that the online venue allows for people who might otherwise lack the social skills to enter into a dating relationship in the normal course of life. This is not to say that it always attracts socially inept individuals (case in point, myself) but it does seem to cater to them. After all, how easy is it to meet women from your hiding place behind a computer? You don’t even have to be yourself if you don’t want. No one’s going to make you be honest. No one’s going to call you out on not being true to who you really are. No one’s even going to know that the picture you posted is a 10-year-old glamor shot from the mall and doesn’t even remotely look like the non-airbrushed you who, incidentally, weighs an additional 40 pounds and no longer has hair. I’m just saying.

Again, I understand that the online thing works and has worked for a lot of people. For me however, it has yielded less-than-favorable results.

In addition to the “protection” that online dating provides, I also feel like it lends to microwaving something that really ought to be slow-cooked. You may or may not like someone within the first few seconds of meeting, but that doesn’t mean the jury should immediately render a verdict. Most recently I discovered I had an attraction to someone that I had known for months and would never have thought I’d be interested in…but getting to actually know him was what changed that. Online dating doesn’t allow for this. Instead, I think we lean towards calling the jury back prematurely rather than looking to maybe begin a friendship. Seriously, where’s the fire people? Stop running around with your hose! (No dirty pun intended) Why not calm down, relax, and enjoy the ride!

But that is not what happens.

Allow me to elaborate by sharing with you my typical online match-up experience which has gone something like this…

• In a fit of optimism, I join eHarmony (or match.com or the like, but for the sake of this example and the fact that I’m on eHarmony right now, I’ll stick with that).
• I see a lot of profiles and a few of which I actually like.
• One of us reaches out through eHarmony’s “Guided Communication” process.
• We take a few days to work our way through all of the Q&A sessions and end up finally going back and forth through site-handled email.
• We exchange phone numbers, and then someone makes the first call.
• We talk. It usually goes well because, let’s face it, it’s hard for a standard small-talk discussion to go badly.
• We decide to meet up (usually sooner rather than later) for dinner/coffee/what-have-you.
• The night of the “big date” arrives with little (if any) fanfare.
• Afterwards, the guy typically proceeds to fall off the face of the planet…or at least they seem to.

The End.

Sometimes I’m disappointed when this happens. Most of the time I expect it. This last time out was no different. Experience has taught me not to get hopes up. That if you must be optimistic, do it with caution signs. “Danger: Potential Flaky Guy Ahead”. Yeah, you ain’t just whistling Dixie.

As I said in my previous post, I was cautiously optimistic about this last guy. On paper, he seemed great. Said all the right things, did all the right things…with gusto, I might add. In our conversations he even implied that, while we may not be each others “perfect match,” that was no reason to think that we wouldn’t still be friends, at the very least. It seemed to fit… Our interests were similar. As were our personalities. And, while I really don’t think that ending up with someone just like me would be a good idea (how would anything ever get done??), I definitely thought there was friend potential. My mistake.

We had our date last Friday night. I didn’t sense a true click (read: chemistry) like you do when you meet someone you think you could see yourself with, I still finished the night thinking, “Gee, that was fun. He’s pretty cool. I definitely see friendship” only to find after the weekend was through that he didn’t feel the same way…or at least, that’s what I assume. See, after receieving dozens of text messages and spending hours on the phone, since our outing, he has barely seen fit to respond to any communication from me. Well, whatever.

The thing that pisses me off really is that interested or not, to disappear on someone is just rude. It goes against everything your mother (hopefully) taught you about basic, polite social behavior. How about a little respect fellas? Why not at least say, “Hey, didn’t really feel a connection, but I still had a nice time hanging out with you”? What’s so difficult about that? I mean unless your dinner/coffee companion threw a drink in your face and called your mother ugly, there’s really no excuse to not at least manage a pleasant “Adios” after the date is done for the sake of closure if nothing else.

But the sad thing is that this is what I’ve come to expect because this is what happens again and again and again. If it weren’t for the fact that I have solid friends who would tell me if there was something I was doing that provoked this behavior, I might be tempted to think that it is somehow about me. Something I’m doing or not doing that’s screams “It’s okay to blow me off” to these guys.

Thankfully, I’ve also had relationships in the past that have lasted (none of which were begun online, I might add) and so I know I’m capable of being in a relationship and being a good girlfriend. I am. Promise.

Even so, since the only common denominator in these stories is me, it’s difficult to not feel like somehow I’m bringing this on myself…but how can you really know? That’s where you come in.

I’m really hoping that this post finds its way onto the computer screens of not just my extended circle of family and friends, but that some other women out there who have maybe had similar or otherwise frustrating experiences with the online dating scene and may find my thoughts resonating with them.

So please forward the link to anyone single women you know, or if you are one, I’d love to get some feedback or hear other people’s stories…and not the ones that are all about someone you know who met their husband/wife online. I’ve had enough of those. Right now I just need to know that I’m not alone…and/or crazy.

I’ve done enough venting, but thanks for listening. Now it’s time for you guys to weigh-in…please! And while you do, I’m going to sit back in a chair on my fabulous patio in the warmth of late Spring, enjoy a beer, and be thankful that I have such a great life even though there’s no man in it (online or otherwise)…yet.

“When you’re young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun.  Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious.  You could break a bone or a heart.  You look before you leap and sometimes you don’t leap at all because there’s not always someone there to catch you.  And in life, there’s no safety net.  When did it stop being fun and start being scary?” – Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & the City

Okay, so I wanted to do a little…well…talking, I suppose.  And I didn’t want to put it out on the blog without a password because I’m not entirely sure that the guy I’m talking about hasn’t discovered this blog yet.  My plan originally was not to tell him about it, but alas I sent an email that had a link to it at the bottom (oops) and so I’m not certain that he didn’t see it and click on it thereby rendering all things posted as potentially unsafe.

[UPDATE:  Since we are now several months past this whole event, I have removed the password and changed the names to protect the innocent so I feel there's no longer any danger in making this visible to the world.]

I should probably begin by explaining how, around my birthday I had a moment of pure optimism and rejoined eHarmony for the first time in over 2 years.  I’m sure I just made Cbo’s head explode or at the very least, her skin crawl with that statement.  Honestly, I can’t say that I disagree with either of those responses.  In fact the first couple of days, the only matches I received were balding men in their late-40′s who looked for the most part like they either had a bunch of bodies hidden in the freezer, still live at home with mom & dad, or some combination of both.  However, now 3 weeks later, there have been a few thrown across my match page which actually managed to catch my attention.

Only two of them have I actually gotten all the way to emailing with so far.  One of them is 2 months out of a 4 year relationship and while I know that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not ready for another one, he did bring up his ex twice in the first phone conversation we had prompting me to ask how long the relationship had been over for.  That doesn’t bode well and I can’t ignore the little robot inside me screaming “Danger, Will Robinson!” while waving red flags.

The other one of the two is who really intrigued me.

For the sake of privacy, I’ll just call him H.  H is 39, lives in Massachusetts, and has lived a very VERY interesting existence up to this point.  In our conversation last night (which lasted over 2 hours) I found myself shocked that this guy was still single.  He doesn’t seem to be emotionally stunted.  Nor does he appear to be socially inept.  He doesn’t spend his weekends LARPing.  He’s not a closet serial killer, and he assured me that he’s not gay (although I’m not sure why he felt the need to assure me of that) and has never before been married.

But…I can’t help think there’s got to be SOMETHING.  Something about this guy has got to be off…  He’s good-looking (or at least that’s what I pick up from his photos and just some other in-between-the-lines indicators), he’s got a family he loves, he’s insanely upfront and open, and by all counts appears to be just one of those “good guys” you always read about.  So…where’s that other shoe that surely about to drop right on my head?  I have no idea…at least not yet.

Now I’m not typically this skeptical…  In fact, more often than not, I’m the glass-is-half-full girl, however in the realm of dating (ESPECIALLY online dating), I tend towards being cautious.  I can’t help it.  I think anyone would who’s been burned as often as I have would be.  I’ve actually lost count of how many guys I’ve had great phone conversations with, but who turned out to be total duds in person.  I also have had others seem as great in person as they were on the phone only to never be heard from again after our meet-and-greet.  One even was amazing on email, practically proposing to me on the phone, but then when it came time to meet up in person, he completely freaked out and couldn’t go through with it.  Still others were not even interested enough to venture into a phone conversation.

That’s just a taste of my experiences in this arena – can you blame me therefore if I look at these new guys a little sideways?  The wounds are no longer raw from these other idiots in my past, but the scars are still there.

H’s story, as best I can summarize, is that he’s spent the majority of his life living and/or traveling all over the world (sound like anyone you know?)  He was in the Air Force working as a photojournalist.  About a year or so ago he was struck by a drunk driver and suffered a near-broken back.  The last year he’s spent in physical therapy getting back to himself.  He was unfortunately forced to give up his job since he couldn’t lift a can of coke let alone a camera bag, and so he ended up taking a job with a company in Mass. which focuses on technology program management (which sounds very similar to what I do with project management).

From what else I can gather, he’s smart, very articulate, extremely trusting, and doesn’t appear to have any unabomber tendencies.  Even though I don’t see any glaring red flags as yet, I think there is a potential yellow or orange one.  One of the questions he posed to me before we got into the whole open-emailing phase was centered around how I felt about opposite gender close friends.  We discussed this a little further last night since I had a hard time answering that question with the multiple choice selection, and I was sure there must be some driving force behind him asking it in the first place.  Turns out one of his best friends is a woman.  We didn’t discuss at length since it’s nothing I felt needed to be talked over in an initial phone conversation.  Neither would I care unless we became seriously involved.  Essentially I feel that if I were to end up in a serious relationship/marriage with any guy, I would expect that the most intimate relationship in my and his life would be ours.  I would think it strange if I got married and my best friend continued to be some guy I knew that wasn’t my husband…and I would hope my husband would think that would be strange as well!  Call me crazy, but I’ve seen relationships torn apart over less.  I’m not saying it would be an issue, but just that it could be.  However, it’s also not something I’m particularly concerned with right now – just one more reason for caution.

So that’s all the news…at least for now.  Looks like I may actually get to meet him as early as May.  I was going up to Boston anyway to hang w/S and the girls over that weekend so H might come and take me out for dinner.  I’ll be sure to keep you guys posted.

Oh the post title?  Yeah, that was just a reminder to myself to remain cautious, but not be timid.  Cross the road, just make sure you look both ways.

XOXO

Sidebar: I just was distracted by watching Chena bury some item of great value (at least to her) in the folds of a towel on the floor. But it’s cool, she’s a dog. It’s what she does. Still, kinda funny.

Anyway, despite my little online explosion the other day, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m really doing pretty well – this especially for those of you who don’t see me all that often and might not know what to think when I don’t post for weeks and then suddenly come out with a message like I did on Monday.

But I’m good. I’m busy, I’m happy, I love my dog, I’m healthy, I have hardwood floors, I have a new patio door, I’m getting a new patio to go with it next week, and I’m employed. I’ve been thinking it over the past couple of days and decided that, despite any guy thing (or lack thereof) I’m not about to be bullied by happiness.

I should probably explain that last statement.

Dave Ramsey says in one of our FPU lessons (and he may have been quoting someone else, I don’t know) that if you’re not careful, happiness can become a “bully in a schoolyard”. Always drawing a line in the sand, but as soon as you step over that line – as soon as you obtain what you’re after – it moves. But happiness is not really the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Happiness is where you are right now, regardless of incidentals.

I think I started to learn this lesson somewhat when I was in England. I was frustrated with being in the UK – especially being so far out in the middle of nowhere. But I also knew that it was a good time in my life…something I would look back on and appreciate – although there were many times when I couldn’t wait to be “looking back” on it instead of living it! Still, I knew that this was the case, so I made a concerted effort to find things that I loved and appreciated about Leamington, Warwickshire, and the UK in general. Even now, I think back on that time and remember fondly my fabulous flat on Clarendon Square, the amazing Irish butter, Muellers Crumble Corners, riding my bike to work, walking everywhere, taking weekend trips into Europe, being so close to Stratford that I had a membership with the Royal Shakespeare Company at a “locals” rate… I could go on and on. So despite the fact that it was rough year (and I know I complained a lot), I still could appreciate it and still do. So much so that I’d go back for the right opportunity.

That whole concept of completing the phrase, “Happiness is [fill in the blank]” is really kinda difficult to do. Happiness is…uh…what? How can you define happiness if it’s a moving target? And there’s the rub.

Happiness isn’t that thing just out of reach. It’s not the marriage and kids you don’t have. It’s not the job you wished you’d gotten. It’s not the car you drive (or wish you drove). Neither is happiness a particular thing that happens once or many times over. Happiness is now. Happiness just IS.

If we don’t stop tying our happiness to the having or attaining of specific things, we’ll always be bullied by it and we’ll never find true contentment.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that sure, I’m missing some stuff from my life that I’d like to have, but ultimately, those missing items don’t necessarily detract from my ability to still see and enjoy and love and find happiness in where I am right now.

Paul said it like this in Philippians 4:11 – “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”

Rock on Paul. That’s what I’m talking about.

Janelle’s thoughts on this were the most encouraging. I think she said that, in all the time she’s known me, she’s never seen me have this good of a relationship with a guy I wasn’t dating. We’re just friends…and good friends at that, at least I think we are. I feel incredibly comfortable with him, and I think he feels the same with me. We’re alike enough to have things to talk about, but different enough to be interesting. He makes me laugh – and vice versa (always good to find someone who appreciates my sometimes-insane sense of humor). I feel like I could say just about anything to him, and again vice versa (I think).

The agony is two-fold.

On the one hand, as I said, we most likely have no future. I also have horrible luck with men. The ones I like usually don’t like me back – or if they do, chances are there’s something terribly wrong with them that only time will reveal. The ones that do like me are usually desperados who mistake my being nice for romantic interest (the LARPer springs to mind). There is a part of me that REALLY wants to know whether there is any interest on his side or not…although I’m not sure which response would be worse.

Allow me to explain.

If the answer is that he likes me too, well then I’m faced with what to do with that when getting involved with him would be a potentially slippery slope into a place I don’t know if I really want to be. At the same time, this would be a nice ego boost – everyone wants to be wanted, after all.

If the answer is that no, he isn’t interested in me as anything more than a friend, then I think I would be more hurt than I have been in a long, long time. I mean, what could be worse than someone who knows you incredibly well then decides that they don’t have any interest in who you really are. It’s one thing to have someone reject you who doesn’t really know you. It’s another matter altogether to be rejected by someone who does. Call me crazy, but THAT is not something I particularly want to face.

Where do I go from here? I have no idea. I love what Jel had to say when we spoke last night – she’s so encouraging. But at the end of the day, caring about someone only seems to amplify feelings of loneliness and my desire to share my life and experiences with someone which I’m otherwise pretty much able to ignore.

Talk about a rock & a hard place.

So…now what?

But the real reason I’ve been spurred to write this morning is due to a story I just saw on Good Morning America.

I’m not normally a morning show watcher (GMA or any others), but they caught my interest this morning when they previewed a piece on Twitter they were going to do. Being a big fan of Twitter, I naturally was interested to hear what they were going to say (they think Twitter’s great, by the way).

But then Twitter wasn’t all that attracted my attention. They went on to discuss a dating compatibility tool that uses – get this – DNA.

That’s right my fellow singletons – for just $99 you can give GenePartner a swab of DNA from your cheek and have them run their tests to provide you with your given genetic compatibility with others looking for that “special someone”.

Hm.

GMA went and followed a couple on their first date where they had them do their DNA testing before having dinner. The results were then revealed on GMA this morning with the couple sitting in the studio. This particular couple came out with a 90% match which only seemed to solidify what they had already discovered from their date. So they already knew they liked each other. If this couple had been doing this on their own, this means that they’d have spent $99 to find out what they already knew.

A few things about this make me uneasy, but I’ll just share a couple of them.

First, what if it had gone the other way? What if they’d be out on the date, liked each other, but then the DNA results came back to say that they weren’t genetically compatible. That alone may not have been enough for them call it quits right away, but I can’t help but feel like knowing that in the back of their minds wouldn’t undermine their possible relationship. Think about it – what if you were married, engaged, or even seriously dating someone and you and your partner decided to do this DNA compatibility testing for kicks and it came back that you weren’t genetically compatible. How much would that suck?

Another thing that troubles me about this is it further shows what I see as a burgeoning trend among our single society to run after so-called scientific methods of finding your “perfect match.” While I’m far more inclined to listen to what a psychologist would say about the kind of man who would be good for me, I still would rather leave it up to my friends, family, and God to bring me the right guy across my path.

And maybe that’s the difference. Maybe in the absence of a belief and trust in God to hook me up with the man I should be with, scientific methods work as a substitute. They certainly seem far more concrete than what many see as an ambiguous God who surely has far more important matters to attend to than finding me a date for the weekend, right? Or maybe some of the motivation stems from the GenX-ers fear of divorce. We are the first real generation of divorce, after all… Perhaps as a result of that, we’re searching for new ways of making sure the one we pick is the right one for us – after all, who really goes into a relationship wanting to divorce? Perhaps those from broken homes think that they can avoid this fate if they have enough unbiased, third-party input into selecting their mate. I’m totally speculating here, but there might be something to that…

I’m not trying to say that some of these scientific approaches couldn’t help…God is the master scientist, after all. At the very least these types of tests and things can probably teach you something about yourself that you may not have already known which is certainly valuable.

eharmony, for example, has an interesting personality test that it uses to find your matches for you. So while eHarmony failed to match me up successfully with anyone in the 6 years (and hundreds of dollars) I spent with them, I still found the personality test output interesting. And, while some of the matches they sent me were dogs, there were some good guys as well. Of course the ones I liked never called me back… If we’d had a DNA test in hand that said we were genetically compatible, would that have changed anything? I doubt it. We had eHarmony’s endorsement that we were compatible from a personality standpoint and clearly that wasn’t enough.

The fact is, you either feel it or you don’t and no amount of scientific testing or results can change that. All it can really do is potentially affirm a choice you’ve already made, but I don’t think it can make you try against your gut reaction. I speak from experience on this one.

So maybe this makes me naive, but after all the online dating I’ve done over the past decade, I’ve come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, I would rather put my faith and trust in the God of the universe to take care of my needs – emotional or otherwise.

Therein lies my dilemma.

The gazelle in me says “Make Dave Ramsey proud – throw it at the debt!”  But then there’s the other part of me that looks at a chunk of unfinished items that also need to be addressed in my home and wonders if I shouldn’t siphon off some of that money to cover a few of them.

This is really tough for me because all I really want to do is pay off those stupid credit cards… Then again, some of these things aren’t exactly luxuries.  Sigh.

I’ll be having my monthly budget meeting with Shanna in a few weeks, but in the meantime as I’m thinking through this stuff, I thought some of you might be willing to give me your two cents.

The open items requiring money are:

• Downstairs Baseboards ($?) – These were left undone after my wood floors were put in and need to be completed.
• Bed ($600…?) – I hate my bed.  I’ve suffered with it for 2 years and don’t think I can really take much more.
• Kitchen floor ($?) – Also left undone after the wood floors were installed.  Needs to be tiled and sealed.
• Patio door ($1,000+) – This is an issue because the current patio door is leaking in heavy rain which seeps in at the foundation and will ruin my wood floors if not corrected.
• Upstairs bathroom ($?) – Disgusting.  I’ve dealt with it for 3 years, but it has a mildewy smell and needs to be gutted.
• Landscaping/patio installation ($3,000) – I’ll get into this more in a minute, but essentially it’s extra living space and a chance to clean up someone else’s terrible mess that I inherited when I bought the place.

In thinking through the priority of said items, I think for me it goes something like this:

1. Kitchen floor
2. Patio door
3. Downstairs Baseboards
4. Bed
5. Landscaping
6. Upstairs bathroom

Now I know that the landscaping thing is the most expensive by far except for the bathroom, probably, but it would be so great to have that done.

In order to understand why this is a priority for me, you’d have to know that today both my backyard & front yard are an absolute mess.  There are 6-foot tall weeds growing along the side of my back fence which I have been unable to get rid of.  The rest of the “planting boxes” (for lack of a better way to describe the crummy brick boarder around the yard) are full of jungle-like vegetation during the warmer months of the year that all but threaten to overthrow the yard itself and displace me from my home.  The yard itself floods easily which makes for a real swamp in the rain.  There’s nowhere to sit or do anything outside right now which is something I really love when the weather’s nice.  The front of the house has a large, barren garden with 2 dying bushes in it.  The fence on the front porch is rotten.  There is a built-up garden area to one side of the porch which has rotten railroad ties which are falling down.  In short, it’s just awful.  I would love to have a place where I could sit in the front or the back.  In a small townhouse like I have, any extra living space is a big deal, and my yards are the only additional living space options I have.

Basically, I know I could spend away all of the extra funds I’ll be seeing in the next couple of months if I’m not careful, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad idea to use that money to cover even a few of these things.  Say, maybe items 1-5.  Part of what makes it difficult is that I don’t know exactly how much most of those things will cost, although I suspect the kitchen floor will only be a few hundred, and the baseboards will not be that much either.

So I can either pay off my remaining credit cards completely, or get some items in my home completed and I have no idea what to do.  Of course it also doesn’t help that I don’t know how much my bonus will be yet either – we’ll find that out closer to the end of this month.  This will certainly have an impact on my decision here as well.

Thoughts anyone?  The lines are open.

In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
- Benjamin Franklin

In our present society, one might almost think that this famous quote by one of my favorite founding fathers could be reworded to replace “death” with “debt”.  It is staggering how in such a relatively short amount of time, we have managed to rearrange our finances and priorities into a place where our economy relies so heavily on debt that if everyone were to stop using it, our economy would essentially collapse.  Yikes.  Of course that would never happen – there are way too many people and way too many credit cards, but it’s still a frightening reality when you think about it in those terms.

However, if we all were to get on board with the likes of Dave Ramsey (and others) and slowly migrated ourselves out of debt and instead focused on building wealth and giving, our economy would be way stronger than it is now.  Imagine a world where there are no credit cards, no interest payments, no fees & penalties, no foreclosures, no repossessions…  Well, maybe someday.  I am, however, beginning to be able to imagine my own life in those terms.

I’m coming up on a year since starting my Dave Ramsey plan, cut up my credit cards, and began a whole new way of financial living.  Have I missed my credit cards?  Not once.  My starter emergency fund has been more than sufficient to carry me through a few minor unexpected expenses which have come up over the course of the year.  I have made sacrifices, changed habits, and have been the subject of a lot of teasing – not by my friends, but mostly by my coworkers.  It seems that many people believe that the only reason the whole budget-thing works for me is because I’m single with no kids (although I do have a dog and while I’m sure she’s not as costly as a kid, she still isn’t cheap  by any means!)  “It’s totally different when you have a wife and family,” one of my colleagues had said.  I didn’t respond since it was clear he didn’t “get it” and I didn’t want to get into a debate, but what I wanted to point out to him is that solid financial principles and teaching are only solid if they work across the board for everyone, regardless of your marital status or family-size.  I know my fellow debt-free crusaders understand me on this point – there’s quite a few of you out there with blogs that tell of your respective journeys…most of whom, might I add, are married with kids:  Debt Free 2009, My Personal Debt Free Journal, and many of the blogs off of the Snowflake Revolution web site to name a few.  I’m just saying.

Moving right along…

Now that we’re past Christmas and New Years, the next thing that begins to occupy my thoughts is tax season.  Tax time begins rearing its ugly head in January and the insanity usually builds until we hit April 15th.  April 15th also happens to be one of my cousin Aubrynn’s birthday.  Poor kid.  Thankfully she’s still too young to know what a stressful deadline date that is for most people, but hopefully the fact that it’s her birthday will serve to add some joy to that otherwise annoying day.

Anyhow, in general I have not minded tax season because it usually means money in my pocket.  I’ve often been told that I must be doing something wrong if I’m always getting money back after paying thousands into the hands of the IRS all year, but I do my best to estimate out my “real” tax liability for the year and so keep more money in my paychecks while still giving the IRS what I should.

Last year I failed miserably at this and ended up with a $8K+ refund.  Oops.  This year I’ve been dreading doing my taxes because I was CERTAIN I was going to owe.  Big.  Like $4K or so at least which made me nervous…not because I can’t pay it (budgeting works, I’m tellin’ ya!) but because I just would far rather use that money for good (pay off debt) than evil (give it to the IRS).   So why the liability?  Earlier in 2008, I had converted a traditional IRA to a Roth.  What I didn’t do was consider the tax implications of this.  Later I realized that I may have just thrown myself directly into the path of an oncoming tax bill.  Major oops.

In my great journey to become debt free, any extra money I bring in serves to bring me closer to that goal.  The thought of having to use some (or even all) of my bonus check to cover a stupid tax liability absolutely burned me up.  And then to add massive insult to critical injury, the market tanked AFTER the conversion so if I had converted in December, let’s say, my tax liability would have been less than half of that estimated $4K.  Fabulous.

The good news is I think I may have found a way to fix it…

As I began my yearly TurboTax Online interview, I did a little investigating and discovered that my mistake is not without recourse.  I can actually undo this.  It’s called a “recharacterization” and I as long as I submit the paperwork and complete the recharacterization before April 15, it’ll be like the conversion never happened!  30 days after that, if I want to reconvert it, I can but with the much much much lower account value.  Score…although I’m not sure I’ll bother.  This has been such a hassle and the IRA isn’t really worth that much so I might be better off just leaving it alone.

Anyway, so if I do all this and erase my tax liability, this also means that I’ll be getting back at least a couple grand which I can throw back at the debt!  (This is also great because it might help to make up for the decrease in bonus I’ll most likely be looking at for this year).

Oh, and on that note, I should mention that I managed to pay off another credit card yesterday!  This is a HUGE deal for me since it’s the first debt payoff I’ve been able to make happen in 6 months, so I’m pretty excited.  Party on Wayne.  This was my Best Buy card which I had used under a 0% for 2 years interest deal to purchase my fridge & dishwasher.  The 0% interest promotion was good though mid-April and by paying it off now, I saved myself from having to contend with $858 in deferred finance charges!  Exciting stuff…and yes, I probably do need to get out more.

So I’m now down to only 2 credit cards with balances left – one with no interest until August, and the other with 10.99%.  I should have the interest-bearing one paid off easily with the tax refund I’ll now be getting and/or bonus (whichever comes in first).  And who knows, if my bonus is hefty enough, I may even be able to kill off the other one by the end of March leaving me to tackle my car loan next…and, might I add, WAY ahead of schedule!

Part of my excitement in all this is that since I’ve not been able to actually pay anything off in awhile, I am feeling a lot of renewed vigor with all these potential upcoming wins which serve to bring me that much closer to my ultimate goals…and will give me more flexibility to move as God leads.  I’m still probably looking at another 24 months before I can call Dave Ramsey and scream over the radio, but it’s all about those baby steps!

2009 looks to be off to a running start…and away we go!

Here’s the Reader’s Digest version as best as I can tell it…

I am (or was?) going out to Seattle to help Janelle & Sean with some logistical issues that cropped up last minute which were potentially going to keep them going on their long-overdue honeymoon.  I am of course MORE than happy to help them out – the only hurdle being…you guess it…work.

Rather than being forced to take a week & a half vacation time off work, it struck me that there really is no reason I couldn’t just work while I’m there.  After all, my friends wouldn’t be around so I would have flexible scheduling during the day with early mornings & evenings free.  Practically tailor-made time for getting stuff done!

Now here’s the rub: Major events taking place in our department this month which include a big project on the table that I’ve been placed in charge of threaten my ability to be as flexible and mobile as I might otherwise be.  (Figures)

This was also something I did not foresee when originally posed with the question last Monday which was in the middle of All Things Christmas and therefore there was no discussion to be had about it in the office until all management returned from their respective vacations.

I did bring it up to management first thing yesterday. I brought it up again at the end of the day. Both times being met with a, “Let me think about it” response. If I hadn’t already been teetering on the edge of insanity, that just about pushed me over.

Time was becoming increasingly important in terms of being able to get a ticket and work out all of the other logistics.  To say I was a little antsy would be the first major understatement of 2009.  I hate feeling like I have no control over decisions like this in my own life.  But the truth is that, unless you work for yourself (which I plan to someday!) your employer really does own your time in many ways.

So then today I re-approached the situation with the intent of expressing the need for a “best guess” decision since a plane ticket was riding on the response. I proposed two options my favorite being where they would approve me working remotely until Tuesday (2/3) when Sean & Jel returned where I could then take off the rest of the week and so get some visiting time in before coming home myself.  The other option was that I would not work, but would then need to leave the same day S&J returned so I could be back in the office by Wednesday, 2/4.

Earlier this afternoon I got my answer:  Neither.  Instead, they would approve me to work remotely for one week, but no more – I would need to be back in the office on Monday, 2/2.

The good news is that this was a major exception they were making for me – they wouldn’t even consider approving such a request for most other people in part because they trust me and my ability to get everything done that I needed to do. Naturally it’s still not the optimum situation – I’d much rather stay and get a couple of days with S&J before having to come home. With this alternative, I won’t even see them at all…MAJOR bummer.

Anyway, we’re still living with one foot in the Land of Limbo because it seems there may be one other alternative which would potentially preclude me from needing to go out there at all. I’m okay either way – at least I know where I stand with work now…and, at the end of the day, this was all about helping my friends and so whatever works best for them is what I’m in favor of.

Of course if I don’t go at all, then I would also say that this should buy me some extra time during my next trip during our 4th Annual Labor Day Seattle Extravaganza.

So despite the last couple of days being such a rollercoaster ride, the hardest part of the waiting is over and we should have everything completely ironed out soon.

Tell the fat lady she’s on in five.

New Year’s Day…now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.  – Mark Twain

Well 2009 is off to a fantastic start. Yesterday was dull. Today is duller (if that were even possible). I was going to go to S’s for dinner tonight and then go see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button but alas, she had to cancel and so now I’m doing nada.  I’ll probably stay in and watch more of The Food Network.  You laugh, but I’m dead serious.  I’ve been a little food-obsessed since being sick last week.  It would seem that my body does not recover quickly from stomach-related illnesses, so I can’t eat anything right now outside of Jell-O, bread, water, and broth.  As a result, I’ve taken to eating vicariously through others.  I’ve been watching hours upon hours of The Food Network…Big Daddy’s House, Rachael Ray, Iron Chef…you name it, I’m watching it and salivating over everything on the screen.  In addition, I’ve been actually reading my recipe books and making lists of all the wonderful sounding dishes I’m going to whip up when I’m able to eat again.  It’s like Jim Gaffigan says – when you’re hungry, The Food Network is like porn.

So crazy food obsession aside, right now I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. It’s Friday, but it’s a weird Friday because yesterday the office was closed and so most [sane] people took today off. I was originally supposed to have it off as well, but due to the possible Seattle venture later this month, I felt it was more wise to not use up any vacation I didn’t absolutely have to take. See, I got a message from Jel & Sean on Monday – they’re set to finally go on their honeymoon, but their plans for the care of their kids fell through at the last minute. They exhausted all resources on their end and then came to see if I would consider coming out to Seattle to watch the kids for the last portion of their honeymoon trip. I would love to, of course – their kids are awesome, and they’re practically family to me, so I would do whatever it took to help them out. The only catch is that I can’t really afford to use up all of that time as vacation. I sent an email to AD to see if he would consider letting me work remotely as an alternative. There’s really no reason why I couldn’t – I won’t have anything else to do when I’m not watching KJ or running Z around, so it would be a great opportunity to shake up a dreary winter and help out my friends. Thing is, I just don’t know what he’s going to say.

I have never asked for flexibility to this extent, so I’m hoping that he’ll be cool with it. However, every once in awhile he’s surprised me by not being okay with something that I think he will be. I’m trying not to worry about it, but it’s hard… After all, I’m having to wait a week to hear his response so the suspense has been building and building and building. I feel like I’m in some horror movie with high-pitched violin music in the background waiting for an axe-weidling Jack Nicholson to come flying at me from around the next corner.  It could happen.

I also am having an I’m-so-sick-of-my-life-I-can-hardly-stand-it moment today. You know the kind – where I’m wishing I was anywhere but here.  Some of it is I’m sure brought on by the stress I’m feeling over not knowing what will happen at work on Monday.  Some of it is tied into the promotion thing which I’m still steamed about.  Some of it is the weather.  Some of it is how insanely morgue-like it’s been in the office this past week.  Some of it is my unfinished kitchen floor.  Some of it is my missing baseboards.  Some of it is my hideous backyard.  Some of it is my hair which I just couldn’t get to look quite right this morning.  And some of it is just my insatiable hunger for change that I do not see being fulfilled any time in the foreseeable future.

I have a headache, I’m cold, I’m tired, and I was told I could leave at 2, but alas I personally am stuck here until at least 4.  Sigh.  I had this Chicken Noodle Soup in a Bread Bowl from Panera for lunch.  The soup was way creamier than I would have expected for what traditionally has been a broth soup, and then combined with the bread (which I think has expanded in my stomach to roughly the size of Japan), I’m finding myself to be uncomfortably full now.

I guess you could say that I’m not really having the best day.

I know, I know…it’s a new year full of hope and promise and doves and pixie dust. Well not in my narcotic-free world…and the rest of you should stop doing drugs if you’re seeing doves and pixie dust.

New Years actually ignored me this year.  Literally.   I completely missed midnight.   I was talking to Jel on the phone and we hung up while there were still 7 minutes on the clock for 2008.  Next time I looked at the clock, the one on the stand said midnight, but apparently it was slow because the one on the cable box said 12:03.  So I unknowingly christened in 2009 with ice water while watching Iron Chef America.   Exciting stuff.  No New Year’s kiss (when was the last time I was kissed anyway?  2005, but 1998 was my last Near Years kiss I think…that’s awfully sad), no champagne, no pomp, no circumstance…practically no New Years at all.

So I officially have skipped the holidays this year.   I refuse to believe that Christmas happened because I was so sick that I virtually have no memory of it, and now after being snubbed by New Years, I think perhaps the better position to take is that there were no holidays this year – they just didn’t happen.

I suppose I could use this time to document my 2009 New Year resolutions, but how can I document resolutions for a year that snuck in like some sort of deviant ashamed to come to the front door?  Do I really want to encourage that behavior?  Well, I guess regardless of how it arrived, 2009 is actually here, so I should at least acknowledge its presence with some sort of list of things to accomplish over the next 12 months, so here we go…

2009 New Year Resolutions

1. Finish off my debt (at least everything but house-related)
2. Get back into shape (something that has been severely lacking since leaving NYC also)
3. Formulate a 5-year plan (this seems appropriate since I’ll be 35 this year and would like to have something sorted out for where I’ll be when I’m 40)
4. Partake in 2009′s holiday season since I missed out on 2008
5. Cook at least one new recipe at home each week.

So that’s it for this year…  I don’t like to go too crazy with resolutions – would rather keep them smaller and therefore things that could actually be achieved which is why “Climb Everest” didn’t make the list this year.

What are your New Years resolutions?

It’s that time of year again…  Time for cookies, trees, gifts, snow (if you’re lucky), songs, mistletoe, ornaments, lights, and joy at celebrating the birth of Jesus.  It’s also time for yearly updates.  Every year I receive tons of letters from my friends telling me all about the seemingly endless amounts of awesome things their kids accomplished – Johnny took his first steps, Billy said his first word, Jane walked on the moon, Susie found the cure for cancer…  And each year as I sit and read through these letters, I’m struck by just how much I have NOT done.

Or at least, the past few years have been like that.

Prior to 2005, I typically felt like I had a lot to say come December.  I was moving to or living in or traveling through amazing places – Alaska, Europe, Asia, New York City…  But then I moved back to Bucks County – not far from where I grew up – and the excitement seems to have ceased.

I debated as to whether or not to even write something for this year having felt outdone by just about everyone else out there…after all, how can you beat out someone taking their first steps?  But after some thought on the matter, I decided that perhaps it was more important do go through this exercise for 2008 because it would help me focus on finding the things that were worth mentioning.

So in the name of hoping 2008 was worth it, I give you…

2008: Year of the Rat

(I’m not making that up – check the Chinese calendar if you don’t believe me)

Let’s begin with 10 “stills” in my life (because it would be more depressing to end there – not that they’re all negatives or anything, but you know what I mean):

1. I’m still in Pennsylvania
2. I’m still single
3. I still live in the same townhouse
4. I still have the same fabulous roommate
5. I still have Chena the Amazing Dog & Brighton the Great Bird – Chena turned 2 this year and Brighton turned 10
6. I still work for the same company
7. I still have the same job…or in this environment, perhaps it’s most meaningful to say I still HAVE a job
8. I still have debt
9. I still love coffee
10. I still hate raw tomatoes

Below is a summary of 2008…such as it was:

January

I went to Atlanta to visit my family while Jo & Josh were there. I also found Dave Ramsey and decided set New Years Resolutions to lose weight, start living on a budget, and begin a plan to pay off my debt.

February

I started my budget.  I also found out that my foot which I broke in Vermont in 2005 was, in fact, still broken so I was going to have to treat it by wearing this weird bone stimulator (no, it’s not like that – get your mind out of the gutter)  10 hours/day for 6 months.  Yay.

March

Gas prices really started soaring, but I still managed to budget in a trip up to Boston to visit Esther & the girls for a long weekend over my birthday.

April

I started attending a Financial Peace University class that was being held locally and I found an amazing church…FINALLY.

May & June

Absolutely nothing of note took place.  Nothing.  May & June were a total waste this year.

July

I discovered I had a nest of yellowjackets my attic.  That was it.

August

Like its predecessors of May & June, August failed to contribute anything of interest for 2008.  I think I saw a movie.

September

The most exciting month all year!  I went to Seattle to visit Jel & Co.  A blast, as always, made even better by the fact that we had a full week to relax & hang.

October

Not as fun as September, but pretty.  Great foliage this year.  I also had new hardwood floors installed on the ground floor of my home. Oh, and I handed out candy to a lot of princesses & vampires with a few Harry Potter’s thrown in.

November

The removal of all the election paraphernalia from yards & TV was a highlight of my month, second only to the birth of my first nephew – Ronan Powell Rogers.  Yay!  And then of course there was Thanksgiving.  Yum.

December

I calculated that by the end of this year, I’ll have paid off 52% of my unsecured debt (36% of my overall debt) thanks to my budget, Dave Ramsey, and God.  I’ve lost 20 pounds of the untold amount I put on after moving out of NYC – still some to go, but I’m on the right track!  I got a Wii & a Wii Fit.

I really can’t underscore the importance of this task.  It’s huge and has required a lot of sacrifice which, in turn, has made for a relatively boring 2008.  And perhaps I should go ahead and warn everyone now that 2009 & 2010 will be going up against 2008 on that front.  In 2011, I’ll be sure to give the title of Most Boring Year to one of these 3 contenders because, let’s face it, until I get my debt paid off, I may not being doing much else between now and then…although I do foresee a trip to North Dakota to see my nephew this coming year and perhaps a smaller getaway or two if I can manage it – we’ll see if that budget will allow me that!  I became a moderator in December of last year for the GAP Adventures travel forum called The Watering Hole which, while a technically a volunteer position, carries with it some other nice perks like credit towards GAP trips which I might be able to leverage towards this end.

In closing, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I sincerely hope your 2008 was more interesting than mine…  But now look out 2009 – here we come!