jimmy

And then comes the snow day. That we dreaded. But because it’s allowing me to sit on the couch with a cup of hot tea and my better half, I digress. Not to mention, there’s not many things more humorous and intriguing than the wonderment of a Southern boy in an ice storm.

We are no longer Mississippians, but Kentuckians. After living in two separate states for two months, we finally both got settled in our new jobs and our brand new, first ever home! So even though it’s Kentucky- the place I never thought I’d live again- I’m happy to be here.

I have finally made the decision to fulfill one of my new year resolutions and sign up for a half marathon. I can’t take all the credit, though- Kelly, one of the reasons I run in the first place- decided we would all participate in one for her bachelorette party. A unique but very exciting and extremely encouraging idea that I can hardly wait for! After the snow cleared last week, I decided to start my training and got in about 2 miles for two days…not a very big dent in the whole 13.1, but it’s a start. And then snowpocalypse hit again…so no more running for me until we can actually see the roads again. At least it’s progress…

Not having blogged in quite some time, the “notes” on my phone and in my email are piling up once again…so without further adieu, here we go:

Have you ever heard a song and not really understood it or had any connection to it, then sometime later- maybe even years later- you hear it again, and all of the sudden you know exactly what it means? I think that’s another one of those subtle God things. He’s reminding us that He knows the plans He has for us long before we can see it.
Earlier this year, my very dear friend, Bobby, introduced me to Jimmy. I was unaware, but apparently Jimmy is the angel that God has put solely in charge of putting songs in your head. Walking through the store humming a song? Thank Jimmy. Mindlessly nodding your head to a beat on your mind? Thank Jimmy. Randomly dancing while you carry out daily tedious chores? Yep, that’s him again. I imagine Jimmy to look like a tiny little Rastafarian (I’d give him 5’2 max with dreads down to his elbows), always wearing sunglasses and spinning beats in the heavens…and how cool that he works for God?! So next time you wake with a strange song in your head that you may not have heard in years, or maybe you don’t even like, take time to listen to it a little closer. It may very well be another one of God’s subtle messages.
And on a side note, Jimmy was playing Christmas music in my head on November 1st this past year. That sneaky little dude sure does love some Christmas!

I have realized that I think more when I drive alone. Not simply because of the “alone time”, but because it’s the only time I can play MY music as loud as I want and sing it as loud as I want without worrying if the neighbors can hear me. Singing gets me on my “frequency” and gives me goose bumps. (Getting goose bumps and highs from small life events is known as your “frequency” because that’s when God can speak to you the easiest. Just like tuning the dial for a radio station.) The dopamine kicks in, just like it does in a perfectly warm shower, and everything is right….and so my brain begins to roll.

Remember me saying I need to be more open minded with my style? Yeah, well, turns out I may need a little help with that. On a recent shopping trip, I found a very unique dress that I thought just might be my ticket to the “stylish yet eclectic” vibe I was pulling for. After fighting for over ten minutes in the dressing room to decide where it should fall on my shoulder and whether or not it was on backwards, I realized that it was four sizes too big. Likely the reason I couldn’t get it to fit “just right.” Oops.

And remember how I constantly look for patterns, especially in my home addresses lining up my future? The last house I lived in before moving to Mississippi was number 524…and Alex (who became a permanent part of my picture shortly after I moved to Mississippi) was born on 5-24. Whoa.

That’s all I got for today. Gotta check on the stew on the stove. Deer stew. Eww. Our freezer is filled with two whole deer anyway-you-can-process-them. And I’ve learned that I am not really a deer meat fan. So I’m trying to be creative. But mostly, I’m just trying to get rid of it.

Cheers to snow days that allow cooking experimenting time for musky deer meat. Hurry up turkey season.

Until next time…

Love always,

Addie

“Don’t die before you’re dead.”

a purpose

Couldn’t even follow through for my first week of scheduled blogs. Shame, shame. But I don’t feel bad…I have been very busy. That’s how it goes, ya know? You make plans to do something and something else comes along. This is my life.

Last week was Fat Tuesday, the epitome of Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday (no I didn’t get my ashes, and no I’m not Catholic if you’re wondering…I just like to celebrate Mardi Gras and give stuff up for Lent. Oh and drink wine…I gave up soda and sweet tea, in case you were wondering.) It was also the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Valentine’s day, and the National Peanut Buying Point Associations annual meeting in New Orleans. I didn’t go to the farm show (I’m saving my money for the gin show in March instead), and didn’t go to the peanut meeting, though Brian and Misti did…and I made sure to remind her to scope out Channing Tatum’s restaurant, Saints and Sinners while she was there, and I spent Valentine’s day alone because my Valentine was in MY hometown. (In his defense, I got beautiful flowers sent to work and it’s only fitting for us to celebrate on February 15^th because that’s the anniversary of the day we met.) You’re probably wondering why any of this is relevant to my “busy” week if I didn’t even participate in them…well they aren’t. But I just felt like throwing it all out there. The busy part came from an employee’s hand being smashed in a semi-trailer door at work, leading to surgery and post ops…which means paper work, paper work, and more paper work for me. I also was on the road literally every day last week…running work errands. And I played nurse for Alex, whom I drove to Meridian on Tuesday for his eye appointment. He has decided to get Lasik surgery so he had to go in for pre op, which means lots of dilation, drops, lights, and prodding into his eyes. He looked like a cartoon when he walked out of the room: eyes fully dilated, no color at all-just big black dots. So playing on the iPad on the trip home was quite a feat for him…tilting his head one way and angling the tablet the other way…it was quite amusing to say the least. Since I’m talking about road trips, I must also mention that we took a trip to Livingston last Sunday for Andrea’s birthday, where I ate my first ever, yes that’s right, first ever piece of King Cake. I’m becoming a true Southerner every day! Rainer got the baby…which was ironic since he was the one who stuck it in the cake in the first place. Weird how that works.

This weekend, while at home, I attended my cousins baby shower and am excited to announce that she has reached full term and baby Kason will be here before we know it! I am also unhappy to announce that there is such thing as “prego nose”. As if the thought of being pregnant isn’t scary enough, now we have to worry about our noses getting wider along with everything else on our body! Fingers crossed that won’t happen to me. Oh, and don’t worry Lauren, it doesn’t look that bad!

I also had the special privilege of visiting my new baby niece, Ginnie for the very first time! Though she is much small than I ever was, I think I can see a resemblance! Or maybe I’m just biased. Anyways, she’s basically the sweetest, most precious baby ever. Ever. Got it? I already can’t wait to get home and see her again. I know my brother will be such an amazing daddy and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for them. What a blessing! God works in mysterious ways, sometimes we just have to sit back and enjoy!

Baby Ginny and Aunt Addie

In lieu of my farming theme for today, I will share one of many beautiful pictures that Alex has taken. No matter how hard or tiresome his days in the field are, he never ceases to take moments out to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation around and through us all. The true nature of agriculture is something that can only come from God: the rich soils, the sun and rain, the work ethic of those that provide for us all- it’s only by God. Let us be thankful.

Corn Harvest 2012

And since I didn’t get to do my faith/funny from yesterday, I thought I would share this video. I may have cried a little when I watched it…it’s a little boy who called in to his local Christian radio station to share some very inspiring words.

I wish you all a very outstanding, productive, fun-filled, and blessed week.

Love always,

Addie

“You are only helpless when your nail polish is wet. Even then, you could pull a trigger if you had to.”

“why is my font so weird,” she thought…

Peanut season rush hour is over, along with the sickening Christmas blood sugar-edge-of-a-coma digust, and New Year’s hangover, giving my head and body a chance to breathe and slowly return to a somewhat “normal” state. Or at least as normal as I can get….

It starts off quiet: I’m sitting at work adding a few new contracts to the system, typing out a spread sheet for taxes, which reminds me that I need to type up the lease agreement for the apartments, which then gets me to thinking about my apartment, and lighting, and color swatches, and washing machines, and the next thing ya know, I’m searching for Turkish rugs on eBay…again.

Or I’m checking emails when I suddenly realize that I might need to pin a few things. As I scroll through the ecstasy of DIY’s on Pinterest, my “painting itch” starts to creep up and the next thing I know I want to bake a soufflé, try to prepare chicken seven different ways, and “pick” a massive amount of chalk board for little to nothing. And somehow I still haven’t realized it…the bubbling matter that has been stuck within me for so long that is trying every way possible to tell me to LET IT OUT! I brush it off again, assuming that it must be getting close to my time-of-the-month, not even stopping to consider the amount of time that that has passed since I last wrote a full anything besides my “notes to self.”

I hop in the shower to rinse off the day, eager to clear my head before crawling into bed. That’s when it hit me. Instead of freeing myself from anything, the thoughts and inspirations that I’ve kept locked up inside me (attempting to hold them off until after peanut season and the holidays, when I would have ample time to properly compose them) began to spill. It’s like the heat from the water was seeping the words out of my pores and suddenly I was afraid of their vulnerability. When I push thoughts to the back of my mind and refuse to think about them, they are safe until I’m ready for a creative brainstorm to perpetualize* (Yes, I believe I made up the word perpetualize. But it works nicely.)them on paper…or the computer. But when they start to erupt on their own, I am always afraid that I will think them and immediately lose them (like most NORMAL people do with weird thoughts).
So, I half-a**ed the rest of my shower to get out as quickly as possible before my thoughts (literally and figuratively) washed down the drain with everything else. I threw on a borrowed robe and rushed into the bedroom, stealing “play school supplies” from a 3-year old to scribble down the thoughts as fast as they came to me. Note to self- don’t go this long without writing. Ever. Second note to self- keep notebooks close by so you don’t have to steal Josie’s paper anymore.

Creativity is not something that can or should be withheld. It will find it’s way out eventually. Even if through another channel like Pinterest or apartment shopping. It’s like screaming, or pooting- you just gotta let it out. Or else you’ll explode. Possibly in the shower.

It’s not even like I have profound thoughts that really need or should be shared with anyone. Kameron and Payton followed me to the bedroom last night after watching me run like a banshee out of the shower, making sure I was ok. I explained to them that I had to write my thoughts down. I felt very philosophical saying it, but the looks on their faces quickly made me feel like a drama queen. Big surprise there. Then when they asked what I was thinking that was so important I needed to write down, I re-read over my short-handed notes and almost laughed. Because nothing about it was important. But not writing it down somehow made me feel like I was going to lose that part of myself in that very moment. I guess I like to write because I can make little, nothing moments seem so much bigger, at least to me. And from then on, every time I re-read my thoughts, I can reflect and know exactly where I was in that moment.

I’m in love with words. And language. And cues. I’m not very good at using them and often times make them up, but I love to read them. They’re like music because they can make you feel. Or interpret. Or both. I love to write because it’s somehow an appreciation of the things I love the most. (Or possibly a depreciation from anyone else’s point of view after reading the things that I write.) When I don’t have time to really write the way I like to (in a non-rushed manner–the way I like most everything), I make stupid little notes to myself to return to later. I’m weird because I don’t like for people to read my notes in rough draft form. It’s like I am wary of them until I finalize and read over them again to make sure I still like what I thought I liked..I thought…. Because of this, I (purposley and subconsciously) write my notes in a cave-man like manner that makes simply reading them hard, and understanding them like trying to focus inside of a kaleidoscope. Sometimes I find the notes and can’t remember what on earth I could have possibly meant. Other times I read them and instantly know what I meant by “I wish I was strawberry cake.”

Nevertheless I need it like a drug therapy. (Yeah, we’ll go with therapy because that’s definitely more relevant in this case.) Some people enjoy hunting and the sanctity of nature, others enjoy the beach or retail therapy, while others simply prefer the burn of bourbon. I can’t say that I dislike any of those “therapies”, but my primary one is and always has been writing. I can remember sitting in my room as a child, mad at the world for who knows what, and unable to write my feelings because I couldn’t spell to save my life. So I started scribbling as hard as I could, sometimes ripping the paper and breaking the pencil lead or forcing in the marker tip beyond use. Then I started drawing. But I’m not a very good artist. But once I got the basics of language down, I started writing. And it’s all downhill from there. (I always wonder why we say it’s all “downhill” to explain something that’s easier/better. I get the easy part, but if something is better shouldn’t it be “uphill”. When I say “We finally made it to TJ Maxx and it was all downhill from there” it sounds to me like it went “down” in a negative sense, but in truth it went wayyyy up, because seriously, what’s better than TJ?!)

I am pretty sure that I use writing as an outlet because I cannot speak. Those that know me might initially disagree about me claiming to be shy, but after they thought about it for a while, I’m pretty sure they would agree. As bold as I would like to be, and as many awesome come-backs and introductions and speeches and prayers and probably-not- so-witty remarks that I have composed in my head, I cannot find the courage to vocalize them. Which is pretty dumb because I can write some of the weirdest things in this blog and publish them on the Internet for virtually anyone in the world to see, but to say the actual words out loud to even a tiny audience gives me the heeby jeebys. If my voice is paralyzed, at least my thoughts aren’t. Maybe it’s an accountability thing. Maybe I’m afraid that people won’t like what I have to say or will disagree with me. Maybe I’m afraid that they really will like it. Either way, writing lets me be more anonymous with the placement and usage. And the best part is, I don’t even have to be part of what’s going on in your (the reader) comprehension process…I think I just had an epiphany- my New Year’s resolution need to be to speak more. That includes having the courage to speak. What a good one!

Now that I have taken up all this space to express my undying and unnatural love for words and creativity, I think it’s time to draw this post to an end. I have formalized my bubbling thoughts in another document on my computer (and feel much better), which will be added to future blogs. Soon, I promise. But this one is getting weird and needs to stop. I think I think too much. Or maybe my ADD is getting worse…I wonder what I thought about in class when I was a small ADD kid that wasn’t paying attention….

Yeah, definitely time to stop.

See you again soon.

Love always,

Addie

“I wonder…if the rent in the canvas of our life’s backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. To see through to God. Through the earthly trappings into glorious moments beyond. Through which His light is bursting through the openings. This was a see-through place, but until I opened my eyes, I would not see God.”– Daily Devotional, Girlfriends in God