What a disappointment

Drat. Brad found the most interesting sounding job online yesterday. We were both going to apply for it. It was for a writer for a relief organization in Virginia, and it sounded so fulfilling. There would have been so much purpose behind the job -- international hunger aid, water purification, disaster response both domestically and internationally. Just applying was going to feel so good.

But it was a Christian-based group. Initially we thought it was ecumenical, only loosely affiliated with evangelical groups. Then I took the time to fill out an application form, and at the bottom where you swear everything you said is true, there was a line vowing not to use alcohol. At all. Even in your personal life. For one, I find that ridiculous and think people that say Christians can't drink are silly. For another, I go to a church where I drink wine every week -- where I give my 6-year-old wine every week. I'm not going to lie to a Chrisian relief organization.

So darn. If only ELCA relief groups weren't based in Minnesota.

A new addition

To my links, that is. I've seen Failblog before, but Carrots reminded me of its existence. I've just guffawed for half an hour, and I needed that!

I can't breathe!

A fictitious Obama campaign staff sings "One Day More" from Les Miserables. I don't think I've laughed that hard since I first saw Tina Fey do Palin! Go Here

Cloven hoofs

My husband has a thing for goats -- as in he finds them endlessly amusing, even their mere existence. So he put them in a story.

Oh, and

the PC lives again. So we have resumed marital bliss with two computers and no competing for online time.

Bang

When you are looking for work and float out to the Internet job sites a vague title like "writer," you get very interesting results. Especially if you include the D.C. area in your searches:

Ammunition Handling Doctrine Writer

I've heard of snake handling, but this is a new one. Bet that's an interesting religion.

Searching for public affairs also brings up fun new careers: Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Specialist and Social Norms Marketing Coordinator.

Editor is generally not as interesting, but here's one I'm sure my sister would tell me to go for: Assistant Editor, AMERICAN HUNTER (the NRA).

Virginia is the place to be.

Offline

Our home computer died this weekend. We might be able to revive it, but it is six years old and had been complaining for a while. We're only missing a few files -- namely my resume and address book and a few pieces of Brad's portfolio -- but it hasn't been as bad as it could have been. Luckly, I still have my Mac, so we're sharing like good children and taking turns going to the public library (I have 12 minutes remaining ...).

So I won't be spending much time blogging for a bit. I just wanted to update before I disappeared. I will let you know when: I've got a job, Brad's got a job, we move, we get a new computer, or any combination of the above. We have prospects, we are pursuing them, and we are trying our damnedest to be patient.

Mom, I don't have your addresses anymore, so here's the Pumpkin Apple Streussel Muffin recipe. I substituted whole wheat flour for white and applesauce for the oil, reduced the sugar by 1/2 cup, and used a whole can of pumpkin rather than one cup. If anyone else wants to try these, they're FABULOUS.

I am still breathing. Really.

The plug has been pulled on my beautiful magazine. There's a chance the publisher may relaunch in the spring, but I'm not going to wait around for that. It hurts. Not so much about the money -- it was just part time and would have only bought us a couple more months -- but my pride is going to suffer greatly telling people the magazine is gone. Especially if former coworkers find out, even though I'll never know what they say.

We of course fell victim to the economy. The editorial content was great. I heard so many glowing compliments, so many people telling me it was the best publication they'd seen in this area. I was really proud of it. But the ads just weren't there. A dumb choice was made for an ad sales rep initially, then we didn't have time to recover before the bottom fell out on Wall Street.

So now I'm stressed out. I shouldn't really be, this now gives us geographic flexibility and perhaps greater odds with both of us looking for full-time work. But I'm still stressed. We're both unemployed, and that's scary.

Would you retake this?

Ah, school pictures. Especially with glasses. Should I even bother having this retaken?


Hmmm, now that I see it on here, it doesn't look quite as smirky. I don't know ...

He resurfaces

My dear husband has re-entered the blogosphere and has a lovely initial post. Enjoy.

To cope with the news

I lead a Sunday school class (I know, I still can't believe it!), and the chapter we were supposed to read just didn't speak to me this week. So I went trolling online for passages about dealing with financial anxiety -- I know that's what my mind was occupied with most of this past week! I came upon this lovely prayer that the Church of England put on its Web site:

Lord God, we live in disturbing days,
across the world,
prices rise,
debts increase,
banks collapse,
jobs are taken away,
and fragile security is under threat.
Loving God, meet us in our fear and hear our prayer:
be a tower of strength amidst the shifting sands,
and a light in the darkness;
help us receive your gift of peace,
and fix our hearts where true joys are to be found,
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thank you, Rowan Williams (though I question some of your comma usage).

Socratic life

The only thing I know is that I know nothing. Someone just tell me what comes next and what I'm supposed to do when, and I'll do it. I'm tired of thinking about the myriad versions of the future.

Fall

And what has been happening in my world, you may ask? Well, nothing particularly exciting, where I felt I should write to share my thrill and encourage you to do the same. But it also hasn't been an uneventful month.

As of Friday, we will be down to one part-time salary. Hooray! What fun! For many complicated reasons, Brad quit his job. He's leaving on good terms, with lots of good references, and we both feel that it's truly the right thing to do despite the worst economy since the Depression. We have savings, we are fine at least until March. What's next is anyone's guess. Best-case scenario, Brad finds a stop-gap job so we don't touch the savings, and I start looking for full-time work at the turn of the year. We then move for my job. And Brad? Well, serious talk has been bantered about regarding an MFA. As in I'm pushing him to get one and actually be HAPPY. Ideally, he would really like the program at University of South Carolina -- easiest move, good chance of a job for me, still close to family and friends -- but he's going to look at a few others, too, rather than just doing convenient. Let's hope he actually likes USC. (I can still be a Tiger, right?)

So eventful, but nothing anyone actually likes to talk about, right? Beyond that, the weather is lovely and I can't wait for full-on fall to arrive. Anyone for camping the end of October? We're thinking Kings Mountain State Park. We'll provide s'mores, BYO-everything else.

Six

Six sounds very old. It doesn't sound like my child. It doesn't at all sound like the number of years since she was born. But that is indeed what age she turned yesterday. My big girl is so proud.

In the NICU the first day:

One month old:

At six:




This is the cake I made. I am so proud.


Side note, if you ever plan a pool party for young children, be sure to specify that parents are NOT to leave their children at the party!

Now that's just weird

A mother that I barely know -- as in I've spoken to her four times in two years -- just asked whether I would bring her child home with Abigail from school on Mondays. I understand being worried about how to handle working and picking a child up from school, but our school has an after care program. Whyyyy would you ask someone you don't know well to take your child home? Especially since she was just asking for once in a while when her family couldn't help out? I find that very, very strange.

Heigh ho, heigh ho

It's off to school she goes! Abigail went back to school today, all decked out in her favorite color and very excited. I hope kindergarten lives up to all of our expectations!

By the way, that tree began as an acorn dropped and forgotten in our garden nearly four years ago. If we ever move, we're digging it up.

Yes, yes I am

Backdating posts, that is. I am in blissful denial that I have neglected my blog this badly. Please feel free to revisit early July with me.

Welcome to the Middle West

I have returned to my family roots and taken my newer family branches with me.

The husband, daughter and I went to the greater St. Louis area for five days -- in July!, that's living on the edge! -- and had a really good time. Well, Abigail and I did. I think Brad had a surprisingly pleasant time given the sheer number of distant relatives he met.

I haven't lived in St. Louis for 22 years now, and I've now lived in the Carolinas for 12 years, but Missouri is still somehow like home. I love hearing my mom talking about where she and various family members lived. I love that there's a cemetery in the middle of nowhere where I can trace several generations of my family. I love that my simple trip to see my grandmother became a family reunion of 11 and another of 18 because that many people still live at least within traveling distance of the city.

And Missouri is beautiful. The roads carve through the hills, rocks layered in straight, buff-colored lines. I'd almost forgotten how hilly it is; Brad was reminded of the Blue Ridge foothills. And the broad, muddy rivers (particularly so right now), so different from their eastern counterparts.

We spent one day driving out to the old Buxton farm, where the road still says Buxton Acres and the Buxton headstones fill a row in the tiny cemetery, but where we are otherwise forgotten. It's eerie driving past the old house, seeing new homes where grandpa used to take us on tractor rides. And to think that once the entire valley belonged to my family. I really missed Dad as we tried to piece together the old stories for Brad and Abigail. So many questions you don't think to ask when you're 21.

We had dinner that night with Mom's nephew's and their families, then the next day was the mini-clan gathering of the Buxtons. I do miss the big family events. The afternoon at my aunt's was really nice, though, catching up with people I hadn't seen in as much as 8 years. And Brad really enjoyed my close-in-age cousins, who were thankfully much more talkative than the last couple times I saw them. Family is great.

The next day, so Brad and Abigail didn't have to spend their whole summer vacation meeting strangers, we went to the Arch. It really is so purty!




We went up, of course, and went around the Westward Expansion Museum -- which was disturbingly the same as when I went there as a little girl. The stuffed beavers weren't looking too hot, and some signage was missing. It really needs an update, lots more interactive things. I loved the museum when I was little, but that was before multimedia and I come from a family that reads all the plaques. I was disappointed it hadn't been modernized -- though of course there were two very shiny, new gift shops.

We also took a carriage ride along the river with a small pioneer girl we acquired along the way.



It was sad to leave and know that odds are we won't be back until my grandmother's funeral years from now. If it weren't so far away, Brad had enough fun with my relatives that he wouldn't be averse to going back. But now I have family on different coasts and different continents, so we must choose. Next stop, Florida at Christmas then England in the spring.

Robot Parade

Fun with cardboard and aluminum foil! I'm actually surprised my daughter could fit in this tiny box -- maybe one of my thighs could. By the way, the hat has been promoted to daddy's official "Thinking Cap," which Abigail insists must be worn whenever he is at the computer. He threatened me with my life if I blogged a picture of him.

While enjoying the pictures, consider listening to "Robot Parade" by TMBG or "The Humans are Dead" by Flight of the Conchords.

Even MORE books!

Smitty posted the Modern Library list of 100 top books, so let's do it again! Bold for read, italics for mean to read.

I find this list equally flawed. (Only 17 for me.) Looks like they just compiled syllibi from college English courses -- let's see, how many books can we list by the same author? And crazy, Death Comes for the Archbishop as the only Cather? I was a Cather fiend in high school, and My Antonia was much better. Maybe they just picked it because it was short.

Of course, reading this one makes me realize who wasn't on the other list, and wow, how do you not include Faulkner? Or Cather, for that matter.

Anyway, books are fun!

1 Ulysses – James Joyce
2 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
3 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
4 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
5 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
6 The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
7 Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
8 Darkness at Noon – Arthur Koestler
9 Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
10 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
11 Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
12 The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler
13 1984 – George Orwell
14 I, Claudius – Robert Graves
15 To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
16 An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
17 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
18 Slaugterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
19 Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
20 Native Son – Richard Wright
21 Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
22 Appointment in Samarra – John O'Hara
23 U.S.A. – John dos Passos
24 Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson
25 A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
26 The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
27 The Ambassadors – Henry James
28 Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
29 The Studs Lonigan Trilogy – James T Farrell
30 The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
31 Animal Farm – George Orwell
32 The Golden Bowl – Henry James
33 Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
34 A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
35 As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
36 All the King's Men – Robert Penn Warren
37 The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
38 Howard's End – E.M. Forster
39 Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin
40 The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
41 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
42 Deliverance – James Dickey
43 A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
44 Point Counterpoint – Aldous Huxley
45 The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
46 The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
47 Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
48 The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
49 Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
50 Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
51 The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
52 Portnoy's Complaint – Philip Roth
53 Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
54 Light in August – William Faulkner
55 On the Road – Jack Kerouac
56 The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
57 Parade's End – Ford Madox Ford
58 The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
59 Zuleika Dobson – Max Beerbohm
60 The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
61 Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather
62 From Here to Eternity – James Jones
63 The Wapshot Chronicles – John Cheever
64 The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
65 A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
66 Of Human Bondage – W. Somerset Maugham
67 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
68 Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
69 The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
70 The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell
71 A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes
72 A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
73 The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West
74 A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
75 Scoop – Evelyn Waugh
76 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
77 Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
78 Kim – Rudyard Kipling
79 A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
80 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
81 The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
82 Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
83 A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
84 The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen
85 Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
86 Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
87 The Old Wives' Tale – Arnold Bennett
88 The Call of the Wild – Jack London
89 Loving – Henry Green
90 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
91 Tobacco Road – Erskine Caldwell
92 Ironweed – William Kennedy
93 The Magus – John Fowles
94 Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
95 Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
96 Sophie's Choice – William Styron
97 The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
98 The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
99 The Ginger Man – J.P. Donleavy
100 The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington