late-night thoughts from an emotional mind

John's upstairs, sleeping, and I should be, too. But lately, the days are seeming to go by so quickly - well, no. Not the days. The nine hours out of the day when I'm at work, generally go very slowly. The few hours of the day we have here at home at night, before we have to go to sleep, are the few that race by. I just wish there were more time. There are so many things I want to do, time I want to spend with my husband, and yet it seems like for 5.5 days out of seven, we just don't have enough.

The worst thing about getting done with a long day of work and coming home?

You work hard, go home tired, and then realize you have to start over the next day and do it all again.

I live for Sunday and Monday (our weekend, as I work all day on Saturdays; and John has an office hour Monday afternoon and class Monday night), the days we get to spend together, and I cook, clean, experiment with recipes (and without recipes), actually get enough sleep at night, praise him as he works on all his stacks of grad school homework, and sometimes, go thrifting. And as I pull myself through the week towards those days, each one that passes seems interminably long.

We're considering a new career path for us both, down the road: becoming certified to teach high school (I'm considering elementary education). Weekends off, reasonable hours, and, best of all, summers off. Time! Time to be had together! Time to travel! Time to spend with our children! What a novel idea!

I think a part of what is making me feel so confined right now is the fact that this schedule keeps up relentlessly. How do people do it for years on end, go to the same job, day in, day out, maybe a few vacation days a year? Are they not panicking inside? But I know I have to do this for us. I know that this, at least, is temporary. There are so many marrieds who have conflicting schedules, and it is so hard for them to be able to snatch any precious moments together. I am so blessed to have John, and I know that I would do this for years if I had to, for us. And then I think of my Dad, and how he's done hard physical labour all his life, and wonder how on earth he's done it for all these years, worked year-round, hard, heavy, terrible work. And then I realize...it was for us. His family. Because he loves us. And then I remember that that, truly, is why I do what I do; very different work, but the same mentality. I'm not doing it for me - I'm doing it for something bigger than myself: I'm doing it for Us. And really, shouldn't love be the reason? It's amazing.

And I'm tired and very emotional, and finally off to bed.

Goodnight.

Happy faux-Fall!

I'm not even going to try to make an excuse for not posting in over a month (except that, as I type this, I realize that that's exactly what I'm gearing up for). It's been such a busy month, full of job searching, applications, lots of hot, hot days, a few visits with family and friends, and settling more firmly into our life here, together. I absolutely love being married.

I'm listening to Il Divo's "Regresa A Mi" as I type this, and I love this song; it fits in perfectly with this day, the crispness of a 57 F morning, and my pumpkin spice candles and potpourri.

I'm not usually a potpourri person. Bags of stale, technicoloured, cellophane-wrapped fake-smelling stuff? Ugh. I hate it, and especially when people leave it out for so long that it gets fuzzy from dust. Eeesh. I bought this potpourri from a vendor at the Johnny Appleseed Festival in Fort Wayne, Indiana, this past weekend. This potpourri is beautiful and natural, with tons of apple slices, slivers of orange peel, and pine cones, and smells amazingly of Autumn, with clove and cinnamon - and as anxious as I am for chilly days to finally be here to stay (we're supposed to be back up near 90 in a few days), I just had to get it.

The Johnny Appleseed Festival was so much fun! It's a festival set in the early-to-mid 1800s, thus all the vendors (hundreds and hundreds) have to dress in time-period appropriate clothes, and cannot have any newfangled technology helping them make their wares. We went there with our friends from Tennessee (we have friends!), and had a super time getting to interact with real! live! people! We saw people using thick wooden paddles to stir a huge, cast-iron cauldron of soup (am I the only who was violently reminded of Voldemort's rebirth at the end of Book 4? Oh, probably...), and a man perched on the wooden frame of a pottery wheel, keeping the wheel going with his foot, and creating amazing things with the clay in his hands.

And I got to see a llama. LLAMA!

John is doing well, loving most of his grad classes, and is doing a fantastic job as a grad assistant. He loves helping teach and tutor, and it really confirmed for him the fact that he wants to always be in the University teaching field.

The biggest piece of news around here, though, is that (as of tomorrow, when I sign the contract) I have a job. Finally! I'd been quite discouraged, because of all the applications I'd submitted since we moved here the end of July, I hadn't gotten any call-backs. None. Then, on September 6th, a lady from the University Library called to set up an interview appointment (a month after the deadline to submit the application!). I had the nearly two-hour long interview on the 7th, and though they said they had more interviews the following week, I got a call on the 11th, offering me the position. I was completely shocked.

I start on my birthday. :)

In the meantime, though, I've been cooking every day, rediscovering how much I love it, how proud I feel when John sits back in his chair after the first bite, and says, "Sweetheart, this should be served in a restaurant!" I'm just hoping me means, like, a good restaurant.

Also, be impressed; I've made a whole flock of origami paper cranes. They're resting on one of the endtables in the living room until I figure out what to do with them. I folded them while I was watching one of the bi-weekly two-hour marathons of "Friends," just so that I felt that I was at least semi-productive while I sat on the couch.

Sorry for this boring post, but really, I was feeling terribly guilty for not having even logged in for over a month (what's the website? boggler? blogger? bolgger?).