Apparently, I only write on Friday’s these days.

This week brought more recruitment events. Both flops.

I took my comprehensive exam for my degree on Tuesday. I’ll know the results sometime next week. That’s all I want to say about that right now.

12-14 hour days this week, none of it spent on Julie’s house as we are working around her floor guys/cabinet guy (kind of a blessing if you ask me) and that meant lots of falling asleep on the couch, but a few things got crossed off our list here. Mark got to the lawn and while the hedge and trees aren’t trimmed yet the yard isn’t the ugliest one on the street anymore. He feels better. He and I both got moved in to our offices. Boxes gone. My couch/cork lamp are in place. I just need to hang a few things on the wall and then I can have the ribbon cutting with the Chamber. I have photos to post. The window treatements that Trisha made me are STUNNING. Just stunning. In fact the tax guys that office down the hall keep stopping by and jealously comment how it’s not fair that my space looks so good.

I’ve been asked to serve on the board of the non-profit that runs the building. Community Service Building is in fact run by a non-profit and requires two agencies to be represented on the board. So as of January, I’ll be sitting on the board.

I spent a day at USAO meeting with the president, lunching in the cafeteria, spending money in the bookshop, visiting the alumni house. I have plans to become more active with the alumni. There are plans to partner GS with USAO and at the end of the day, “whatever you need Misti, you just come ask. We’re here for you.”

So many stresses, volunteers bitching, parents questioning, timelines looming. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

I’m running away from it all this afternoon and going to Arkansas. I haven’t seen my mom since we all gathered to bury my dad’s wife in June. It’s been way too long. I miss my family so so much. I miss my nephews and I can’t wait to see their new puppy Anna Banana. I’m going to do everyone’s hair and I’m going to show my mom how to make homemade apple butter and I’m going to just chill out.

Mark isn’t coming with me. He’s staying here to finish work on Julie’s house. *lord please let that get crossed off of our list* We both decided it was better for me to go home this weekend and him stay here It’s not ideal. At all. But it’s fine. I’ll be home Sunday in time to settle in with Michael and finish this roller coaster of a tv show that he and I love so much. Breaking Bad forever finale airs that night and that will just be the topping on this weekend of soaking in some family time.

Right now, I’ve typed so long that Mark jumped the shower line. I’ll go clean the cat box, unload the dishwasher and start throwing some things in a suitcase. So much work awaits me in my office, but I’m looking beyond that.

Family. Home. Refill.

Hope your weekend holds all three.

I decided to do a Thankful Friday post today for the simple fact that we in this house have survived the week.

This week has been every single night driving to the Village and working on Julie’s house. This week has been every single day each of us dealing with stress and deadlines and demands at our jobs.

This week has been me with no sleep due to some sort of janky nerve/neck/back issue compounded by all of the stress I’ve internalized. I’ve seen McCracken several times for relief and yesterday finally allowed myself a massage.

This week has been me dreading finding all of the tax stuff (my extension ends on Oct 15 and I still haven’t done 2013 and turned them in yet)

This week has been me knowing that on Tuesday of the upcoming week I have to take my comprehensive exam (again) to finish my Masters degree.

This week saw us with no coffee in the house on the day that I had to be up at 5, at the office at 6 in Shawnee at 7 and have an event table set up by 8 then a recruitment event at 5pm that night.

I am thankful it is Friday.

I am thankful that we have survived this week.

I am thankful that I live with a man who will wake up at 6:30 laughing about how neither of us bought coffee, puts on his pants and goes to get some beans before I’m out of bed today.

I am thankful that even though we thought we would be finished with Julie’s house, the floor guy didn’t take into account OUR work schedule and stained the floors yesterday. We can’t walk on them until Saturday. BUT we CAN walk on them Saturday! So hopefully we can get this little repair project behind us and get on with the things that are banging at our door here.

I am thankful for this dork who is sitting next to me singing lines from Oklahoma with the dork who is typing. He makes me laugh even when I want to stab.

I am thankful that Our Cindy finally has a diagnosis on her Pop. I hate the diagnosis, but forward motion of any kind is some sort of relief.

I am thankful for volunteers who don’t yell at me, who remember their intention behind participating in this program.

I am thankful for the temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s and the mums I’m going to buy this weekend and plant.

I am thankful for the friends I will see and celebrate this weekend.

But really?

I’m just so thankful that it’s friday.

Me: My CEO just sent an email asking if anyone has a metal detector?

Mark: why?

Me: she ended the email by saying, Don’t Ask.

Mark: hahaha

Me: do you have a metal detector?

Mark: nobutIused to when I was little. Me and my dad would go treasure hunting. We found all kinds of old things, old treasures. One time we found this gold and ruby ring that my sister Lori wore for a real long time until she lost it.

Me: but you don’t have an old one now.

Mark: maybe it wasn’t gold. maybe it was bronze or something.

Me: do you know anyone that has one now that we could borrow from?

Mark: and we used to find a whole bunch of poptops. remember those? the kind with the ring and the tongue? you could cut yourself on’em? Jimmy Buffet knows what I’m talking about.

Me: . . . blink

Mark. . . can we get a metal detector?

 

 

aaaaand scene.

 

It’s a beautiful Fall morning. I got some house straightening done yesterday. So much more to do today. Much more work at Brokedown Palace but I think we can knock it all out or 90% of it out today. I want it to be over.

I need to re-do the bed and the bedroom. I’m not sleeping. Maybe I need some new sheets. There might be a trip to Ross or TJ Maxx in our Saturday.

It’s gameday here in Norman. at 8:30 am I’ve already got cars parked on the street and people walking towards campus corner. It’s an 11:00 game, so I expect it to pick up quite a bit. Today, it FEELS like football.

What a perfect day to be in Norman. Or with my pseudofamily in Stillwater. Or right here on my porch with my newly charged laptop (amazing what a new powercord can do) and a piping hot cuppa joe.

Cheers ya’ll!

 

I slept for shit last night. The last two nights actually. I have had horrible dreams, night sweats, it’s too hot, then I get the temp turned too cold in the house.

Where’s that damned Goldilocks and her JUST RIGHT when you need it?

I woke up in the guest room this morning about 5am and heard Mark get up and start gathering his tools and supplies. Today is the day that the HVAC gets replaced at Brokedown Palace aka Julie’s House. There was an AC leak for godknowshowlong, so there is some repair work that must be done in the subfloor and under the house. This must be coordinated with the ripping out of the old system by the HVAC crew.

So after days of trying to coordinate and some bad moods and insurmountable globs of stress coming from all of the sides to deal with…this is happening today. I forsee our part of the repairs on this house being finished and starting off on Monday with zero responsibilities and zero keys to that house.

I feel discontent this morning.

Maybe it’s the finality (even though the sale was final last week) maybe it’s the lack of sleep, maybe it’s the condition of our house and the sheets that need changing and the laundry that needs doing and the floors that need sweeping. Or maybe it’s the job stresses and commitments and whatever.

Likely, a little of all the above. I’m betting that it’s the shift in the weather. The change of seasons is upon us, I can feel it in the air.

This time of year brings all kinds of powerful emotions and memories and feelings, it never fails. Every. Single. Year.

I was on campus at USAO yesterday. I had to go to Chickasha for some GS business and stopped to say hi to faculty who are still to this day some of my best friends. I was enveloped in memory, as I always am when I walk Davis Hall. I can see Roger and Ann and Marcia and Jan and JC. John and Patsy and Kathy. Kirk and Chris and Cindy and Talaura and Neil and his crazy ass hair. Carsten and Jack and Sarah and Dr. Webb and the writing lab and Carol in the office. I miss Greg and Jen and Hucks and Joe who were part of an entire other group of friends I met via my exhusband. Maybe I’m sad a little because while we are all still connected via social media, each of these relationships have gone their own way, as they do naturally, and that is okay.

But I miss them.

I miss being that “family” that we all were. All incarnations of that group, that family…they were precious.

And we saw Wicked last night. I can’t remember if this was my 2nd or 3rd viewing, but it was Mark’s first. I enjoy that show. I really really do. I’m humming the music in my head and probably will be all day long.

So this morning as I’m shuffling around getting ready, sipping coffee, and perusing yoga classes that I want to begin taking here in my new community, I’m also thinking about my past community.

Who can say if I’ve been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better

And because I knew you…

Because I knew you…

Because I knew you…
I have been changed for good.

I told Mark last night that I was actually grateful for a full five day work week. The deadlines and needs and must do’s were about to strangle me. CST meetings for the month began last night, I was there until after 9pm. There are a lot of needs and questions and we are still recruiting and it seems like there isn’t enough of ME to go around. That’s a lesson to learn. I’m a fixer. I think a lot of women are. It’s a need that goes beyond any kind of control issue, and really it’s not a people pleasing issue either, not fully. I just want for those around me to be able to go about the business of life, or Girl Scouts, or whatever they’re going about, with some ease. If I have the ability to lend a hand or a thought or do a thing that facilitates that ease? Then that’s what I should do. It is what I WANT to do.

The lesson comes when I realize that I’ve done what I can do. It’s up to the other person to make choices that will alleviate the stress and the vitriol and the ick from their lives. It’s up to the other person to ask for help, or assert themselves at the correct moment, or to know what’s happening within their lives that will bring the ease. My job dictates that I am a liaison between two parties, that I facilitate and guide. It is rare that I have to take over and DO. It’s not out of the realm of possibility though. I have caught myself many times this past month just sitting back and letting them do it. Relationships are trickier.  I’m wholly invested, and because of that the hurt can come quickly. BUT…I’m learning. Some people are just complicated. Some are dealing with demons that have nothing to do with me, that I can do nothing about. Some are the easiest in the world. Nonetheless, learning to step back, to keep quiet, to let things naturally cycle and work out, that’s a lesson. It’s been easier to see, easier to step back, easier to bless and let go because I’ve got Mark to volley these ideas off of.

Relief.

It’s a relief to have someone to talk to about these work and life situations.

It’s a relief to know and feel that it isn’t my responsibility to fix ALL OF THE THINGS.

It’s a relief to know that I can, should, and will begin to step away and let things work themselves out.

We survived GOTR festival. I know that the infrastructure had some weak spots. But it was a great time, so much fun seeing friends, hanging with Talaura and Cindy and Michael and everyone else I saw there amongst the sea of humanity. The music was amazing. Mumford brought a show that would’ve convinced, I’m sure, even the most skeptical and self righteous of hearts. The musicianship was just mind boggling.

It was hot, and sweaty and dirty. There was in fact an element of survival. It was a real festival in Oklahoma! So awesome! I’m still glad we didn’t camp, though I had twinges of wishing we had.

Today begins the rest of the calendar year that includes zero festivals. It also includes about one more day of work at Julie’s house and then that gets crossed way off the list. Work which let’s face it, has been a blur and totally stuffed away while I was on vacation, is now front, center and crystal clear. I have to really find a way to make some magic happen here.

This house needs unpacking. The laundry needs doing and groceries need buying. There are still many things that need to happen but it seems that we have survived the summer of crazy crazy crazy change. The always looming deadlines seem to have eased up a bit and it looks and feels like we can start to ease into our #quietlife. 

The one that includes time with friends and family, celebrating and laughing and enjoying it all together. I can’t wait.

I was supposed to be off work today. Mark and I both were supposed to be off work today so that we can join the mass migration to Guthrie Oklahoma for the Gentlemen of the Road stopover mini-festival.

That isn’t happening.

Mark is swamped at work. To the point that there is no way he can leave today.

I’ve set my auto-reply on the email for the day, but I will be in the office and working and cleaning and organizing the space in preparation of next week and the deluge of volunteers that will be in my office. I lost a volunteer leader yesterday from a troop. I’m still determined that we will make troops and find space for girls. I’m just so behind. Working every single night in August left no time to follow up. As soon as I got through one piece, seven more arrived. It’s been like swimming without arms and now school has begun and troops are meeting and we have Fall Product sales happening this month…I’ve got to have some time to work and get back on track.

There isn’t one single piece of clothing clean in this house. There are maybe a few things to eat and drink.

Today however, my house will officially be NOT my house anymore. From here on out it’s Julie’s house. My house is the one I live in. As it should be. When I signed all of my papers yesterday Kathy commented that I was significantly less emotional about this change than she expected.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had my moments of mourning, knee deep in nostalgia. But it’s time to move on. I’ve had enough change in my life to know you get to keep what you want to keep. We are making so many repairs to the house that I sleep well knowing that the new owner will buy a solid place to live. I didn’t get that going in. I’m leaving it better than I bought it. That’s pretty much what we should all be doing in every aspect right?

Leave it better than we found it?

In that vein, I’ll leave this post in a better frame than I started.

I’m going to get some laundry done today. I’m going to get the camping gear moved and find a path to the furniture in the garage that is going into my office. I’ve got errands to run, banking to do, phone calls to make to cut off all the utilities. I’ve got emails to write and answer in the office, and a few things yet to buy to make things complete there. I will see friends and loved ones this weekend.

All of those things, I am thankful for.

What a glorious vacation. Camping in the beautiful Colorado mountains, waking up with the crisp air, cooking over a camp stove, being with friends and hearing great music. Let’s just say that the re-entry to reality was a rough one yesterday.

I fell asleep in the middle of a conversation with Mark. Literally. He was talking to me about the closing costs and closing papers and repairs to finish this sale of my house and I just fell smooth asleep.

There are lots of things chomping at our heels right now, getting back into the groove with our house that still needs unpacking, my office that still needs unpacking, all of the recruitment stuff from August, the students are back at OU, Mark is understaffed and so ridiculously overworked it just blows the mind.

But for now, we are holding on to the Colorado magic, singing together around the campfire. We only have one song together so we’ll be learning a few more before next year. We met some fabulous camp neighbors who sang with us and ate with us and laughed and talked with us for the week. We plan to camp with them again next year.

I’ll tell you all about the festival in a few days. I’ve got some fun stories and photos.

But really, what I want to tell you today is that yesterday…I paid my very last house payment. My very last mortgage payment on Brokedown Palace. We are set to close either Friday or Monday. We have 30 days past closing to finish the repairs. I’m taking a pretty awesome loss on the house. There will be no money after I pay for the HVAC replacement and the other repairs. In fact, I’ll have to borrow money to finish the repairs. SO the hope of paying off the other credit cards and getting out of debt with this sale is an empty one. But it is what it is. I’m finished with that place and the stress and agony that it’s given me. I take with me the memories and the laughter and the backyard parties that brought us all such great times together. Julie will have a really safe and sturdy house to turn into a home with her own special magic. I can’t wait for it to be hers and not mine. So there is that for some forward motion!

The air is clean and crisp and while the temps are still scorching in the upper 90s during the day, the mornings are full of Fall. That makes me happy.

 

This weekend is the Gentlemen of the Road festival in Guthrie. It’ll be a fun time, and hopefully I’ll start getting excited about it soon. I’m excited to see Cindy and meet her fella. I’m excited to see Talaura and for all of us to have some facetime together. It’s going to be 98 on Saturday. That sucks. But the music will be great. Mumford & Sons, Alabama Shakes, Edward Sharpe. So good. As of now, there is no way I’m camping. I want to be home. But we’ll see what the week brings.

So ending the week by selling a house, seeing good friends, hearing great music?

That’s not a loss at all.

Right now, in Pagosa Springs, it is 52 degrees.

Highs in the 80s during the day, 50s at night.

The trailer is packed. Mark is taking the car for maintenance at 7:30. While he’s gone I’ll finish packing the kitchen bits, my personal getting ready bits and put the house back to rights.

I’m not relaxed yet. I’m not even close. My brain is still running lists of things we need for this trip, things for my job, things for the closing of the house* and things for when we get back.

Those voices have about 8 hours the shut the hell up. When we pull into the Santa Fe National Forrest this evening…I want nothing but radio silence up there.

I’ll probably post pics on Instagram. But I won’t be writing.

Prayers for traveling mercies for us and our friends that are also going, and I’ll see you on the flip side.

 

**appraisal came through on my house. we are set to close on the 16th. In fact I’ll have all of my papers signed next week. Then we have to clear out the garage and make the repairs. We should be finished with this project by the end of September/first of October. Thank God. I’ll pay one more mortgage payment. That is all.

 

I finished a long day of work and dealing with volunteers and seeing just how dysfunctional the information flow really is with one of my/all of my/ CSTs yesterday around 5pm. I had to come home and put myself down for a little 30 minute nap. When I got up, Mark was cleaning our trailer. Hand washing her with the utmost of care, running the battery to test the lifespan, airing it all out, measuring for ice chests….really other than fresh bedding she is ready.

We walked up to Lion’s Park and did a quick run through of Midsummer Night’s Fair which is a juried arts show that happens in the same park that Summer Breeze uses. It was a little over 4 miles round trip that we walked and when we got home we sat on the porch and talked. We do that every night. We sit on the porch and talk and talk and talk until we have more yawns than words coming out of our mouths. Both of us have so much work to do with our jobs before we leave. Our hearts however, are already on the mountains.

Today has been spent prepping for tonights concert. Elephant Revival is the last band we saw at Harvest Fest last year. I love them so. We’ll seen them next week at Four Corners. Tonight, Norman gets to see them for free. I am continuously amazed at the things Mark does for the community. It’s a lot of work. But the payoff is pretty awesome.

As much as we are busy, and frenzied and getting caught up in our routines, it’s really nice to go sit under the stars and watch some magic happen on a stage in a park. That’s my sacred Sunday time.