Alpha-Found Soup

Since writing about my life and putting it online is basically an assumption that other people want to read about me and will be entertained by my exploits and is therefore somewhat prideful, I've decided that it is totally acceptable for me to occasionally brag about myself.

Today, I needed to go to the grocery store. I decided, however, that a nap was a better option. So, while I went to youth group well-rested with a nicely-planned lesson to teach, when I got home tonight and was hungry, I was in a bit of a bind. I went on a scavenger hunt of sorts through my kitchen and found enough ingredients to make soup. I proceeded to make a soup that consisted of the following: squash, zucchini, half of a red onion, corn, diced tomatoes, kidney beans, northern beans, and vegetable broth. It ended up being pretty good, and I made some space in my cabinet. Look at me, I thought, I can create dinner from seemingly nothing.

I must admit, I am feeling quite proud of myself and am considering having my students call me Food Macgyver tomorrow. Even though they are way too young to get the allusion.

Weekend Update

This weekend I went to an English teacher conference. Here are a few highlights:

1) On the drive down, my friend and I drove through McDonalds. We were busy discussing our requirements for our future husbands (she is single too). She was in the middle of talking about how the most important thing is his relationship with Christ. As I pulled up to the window to get our food, she was saying, "How is your relationship with Jesus?" The guy working the drive-thru leaned out a bit and said, "I'm sorry--what?"

2) The last page in the conference program was a list of places to eat near the conference center. One description said that the restaurant boasted many items on its menu, including "veal meatload." Seriously, this is a conference for English teachers. Does no one proofread these things??

3) We ate dinner Friday night at a very nice restaurant. At first, I was a little uncomfortable because it was so nice and our waiter kept hovering. (He would come refill my water after about every three sips. Seriously. I'm not kidding.) Then, I started eating, and it was so good and I got so full that I totally didn't care anymore. By the end of my dinner, I was leaning back in my chair, paying no attention to how I should be sitting up very straight....

4) The weather started to get bad on Saturday, so my friend and I decided to leave early so we didn't have to drive home in the dark. We talked with the other people from our district about what we should do (our curriculum coordinator and ESOL teacher, who are both women and were going to leave early, and two male teachers, who were not leaving early--I could digress on my theory about what this says about the differences in men and women, especially in the area of driving, but I won't). Finally, we decided to leave early because both our moms were worried about us driving home in the potentially icy weather. This, I later told my friend, is how you know we are both single and under thirty. We just left a work function early because our moms wanted us to.

We got home safely, loaded with lots of fabulous new ideas (I don't know how excited my students are going to be....), and I'm looking forward to a new week!

Clothes v. The New Neighbor Part 2

So my new neighbor stopped by today to drop off his business card and home phone number in case my roommate and I ever need anything. Very nice and thoughtful, especially since he works for the Criminal Justice Academy and has a gun. No longer will I be afraid of running on the treadmill, no matter how many Law and Order: SVU episodes I watch. If I hear a crazy noise, I can call my neighbor who will come over with his gun. It is like Elliot Stabler has moved in next door. But, the real point of my post is not how my mom--who worries about me whenever she knows I am going to be getting back to my house late-- should now stop worrying because my neighbor has a gun. The point is what I was wearing.

This week is Spirit Week at my school, so each day has a theme. Today was retro day, so I wore pink corduroy pants with this off-white hippie-tunic looking thing that has pink embroidery. The pink on the shirt didn't really match the pink on my pants that well, but I decided it didn't matter because 1) it is retro day and 2) I'm a crazy English teacher, my clothes aren't supposed to match perfectly all the time. I got home from school around 5:30 and about 2 minutes after I walked in the door, the doorbell rang. It was new neighbor. Hi new neighbor. It's nice to see you again. This is my hippie shirt. Peace. Far out or whatever.

To recap, when he met me I had sheep on my pants. Today, the second time we have ever spoken, I was wearing my retro day outfit. Either he now thinks I am totally crazy or he didn't notice anything because he's a guy and it's clothes. Whichever it is, I am starting to wonder when I got bitten by the embarrassing clothes bug.

Monday=Trash

This morning my roommate left for school. Shortly after she walked out, she walked back in and told me to go look in the street. Our trash can had blown over during the night, some animal (probably one of our neighbor's 800 cats) had chewed the bags, and our trash was strewn all over the road.

Fabulous. Happy Monday. Welcome home roommate--have a good first day back at school.

My first instinct was to think "if I had a husband he could pick up the trash," but since I'm not allowed to have thoughts like that anymore, my roommate and I knelt down and started picking up our very wet trash. Thanks rain!

Now, I was getting ready to go to a student council advisor workshop, so I didn't need to leave my house as early as I usually do. So, I was still half in pajamas. Kneeling in my wet trash. In pajama pants that are blue with sheep all over them. (Whenever I talk about the sheep pants, I feel the need to mention that they are from J. Crew--as if that somehow legitimizes having sheep on your pants.)

About two months ago, someone moved into the house diagonal from ours. Because we are wonderful neighbors, we had not met this person yet. Our new neighbor came running over and started picking up our trash.

Hello new neighbor--very nice, unmarried (I totally ring checked, plus there's only one car), male neighbor. These are my sheep pants. All the sheep and I are very pleased to meet you. Baa. At least I had my hair and make-up done.

I couldn't help but think that if we fell in love this would be a fabulous meet cute (a term I know from watching The Holiday.) Cut to a shot of us sitting on a sofa a la When Harry Met Sally.

Me: We met when he came to help my roommate and I pick up trash--
Him: The wind had blown the trash can over.
Me: Yeah, and it had rained, so the trash was wet. The bags had opened up--trash was everywhere.
Him: It was everywhere. She was kneeling down picking up trash in these crazy-looking pants.
Me: They had sheep on them--they were pajamas.
Him: She looked really cute, so I walked over to help.
Me: Even though our hands were covered with trash, we shook hands. He had kind eyes.
[We sit for a moment, smiling and looking into each other's eyes.]
Him: It stormed on our wedding day.
Me: I always worried that it would rain on my wedding day. But I was really glad it did. It was windy--
Him: Really windy--
Me: And it reminded me of when we first met.

So here I am, picking up soggy trash with my cute new neighbor and all I can think is, "Seriously, I'm in sheep pants, and I'm really glad I've been cooking for myself. Otherwise, my trash would be a bunch of Lean Cuisine boxes, which would make me look like I've given up, but now I look fantastic because my trash is made up of real food. Also, I'm glad we picked up the tampon box before he walked over.

We finished picking up our trash. My roommate went to school, and I went inside to put on real pants. This, I thought, is some way to start a week.

Week In Review

Since I didn't post much this week, I thought I would offer a short recap of the latter half of my week.

WEDNESDAY: After school, I went with a friend to a local bridal shop so she could get measured for a bridesmaid's dress. (She had never been to the store before and is a slightly directionally challenged, so it was just easier if I went with her. Plus we hadn't really talked in a few days, and we needed to catch up.) While she was getting measured, I started looking through wedding dresses, which is not always the best thing to do when you are single. I found one that was totally me--and therefore totally fabulous--and ended up a little sad because obviously a wedding dress is pretty high up there on the list of things I don't need to buy right now.

The dress, however, did give me the extra nudge I needed to pump up the speed on the treadmill and up my run from 20 to 30 minutes. Yea--I guess. (To communicate how much I dislike running, I offer this excerpt from text conversation between my roommate and myself:

Me: I'm running on your treadmill.

Her: Did you have a bad day? Is that why you are running?

See, I hate to run. I'm not one of those people who loves it and wants to do it all the time--I think they are crazy. I usually only want to run when I've had a bad day. I never run because I want to.)

THURSDAY: Since finishing The School of Essential Ingredients I have wanted to do nothing but cook. I especially wanted to bake a cake, which is an obvious diet no-no. I found out that one of my student's birthdays was Friday, and that was all the reason I needed to put my new Kitchen-Aid to the test and do some hard core baking! (It turns out that, for me, baking is much more therapeutic than running--I'm going to have to find someone to start dumping baked goods on when I feel a bad day coming.) I also had some trouble deciding what I wanted to eat for dinner, so after a trip to the grocery store, I went home and cooked the following:

1 huge pot of white bean and vegetable soup (which I didn't use a recipe for and turned out being quite yummy!)

1 yellow cake (from scratch) iced with chocolate frosting (also made from scratch)

And, a ginger chicken and snow pea stir fry.

Keep in mind that I'm home alone this week thanks to my roommate's rouge gallbladder, so by 8:00 on Thursday, I had a kitchen literally full of food and only one mouth to eat it.

(As a side note here, I am really enjoying my "I have to cook for myself" thing. I've made some great new recipes and always have left-overs, which makes packing my lunch much quicker and fun--It also means I've been eating something other than a frozen waffle for breakfast, which makes me feel like a whole new person in the morning.) While it would have been nice to have someone else around to eat all my food, I'm glad I'm single because, if I weren't, someone might have been around to stop me from cooking so much food. And I really enjoyed myself.

FRIDAY: I hung out with my mom and my little brother. Much to my delight, my brother wanted to play his Harry Potter video game and watch part of a Harry Potter movie. I thought that I should be concerned that I'm turning my brother into a little nerd, but it was so much fun for me that I stopped worrying about it.

One of my favorite parts to the evening was in the car on the way to dinner. My little brother informed me that a lot of the boys in his kindergarden class pretend to need to go to the bathroom so they can get out of reading (a trick I am quite familiar with since I teach boys). He quickly assured me that he has never done that. I'm glad I'm single, otherwise I wouldn't have so much time to hang out with such a cool kid.

SATURDAY: This morning, I went to a rec basketball game because one of my students invited me to come see him play. It was at 9:00. I don't like to be up before 9:00, but it seemed important to my student so I went. While I was there, I ran into another teacher from my school. She has 3 sons, all of whom were playing in 9:00 basketball games. She was talking about how she got all 3 of them up, ready, fed, and at their games on time. All I could think was I couldn't even do that for 1 person. I had gotten myself up and to the game, but I can't say I was ready since I had put on a hat instead of fixing my hair and since I hadn't managed to get myself fed. It's a good thing for me that I'm single since I obviously can't be trusted to get people ready on Saturday mornings.

So, even though I was worried about getting lonely, I had a pretty fun and full week. Another week when I found lots of reasons to be thankful for my single status.

New Book!

I wrote a bit in my last post about my belief that books find us at the right time. I started a new book yesterday, and found this quote that I think expresses how I fell quite nicely.

"Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true."
-The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I think it is as delightful as finding the perfect book at the perfect moment, and I am quite looking forward to reading the rest of this one. Just another reason I'm glad I'm single--no one to interrupt my late-night reading. I can leave my bedroom light on as late as I wish.

Essential Reading

Anyone who knows me knows that I generally approach books like they are food. Some I devour, some I read and reread slowly so that I can savor them, some I try, push around the plate, leave alone and never finish. So, you can imagine my delight when a friend loaned me a novel about students in a cooking class. "How wonderful," I thought, "something that combines two of the loves of my life: cooking and reading." It gave me a huge desire to cook, which was a bit of a problem yesterday since I was going out to dinner for my brother's birthday. I fought the urge to cook until finally at 8:30 last night I walked into my kitchen, cooked a meal, and packed it up to bring to lunch today. Amazing for me...but not so amazing for my diet (brown pants, you will have to wait), especially since one chapter is about baking a cake.

I started reading Erica Bauermeister's novel The School of Essential Ingredients yesterday morning and quickly found it to be one of the most delightful books I have ever read. While it is true that all the characters are taking (or teaching) a cooking class, the truth is the book is really about discovering who we are, or rediscovering the who that we lost somewhere along the way.

I have this theory that books find you at the right time, that they somehow manage to come to you when you need them, and that when they get to you they speak to you in a unique and personalized way. I found myself saying to my friend this morning that I couldn't believe I hadn't read this book before. How had I lived without it? But, I think that it found me now because it is truly fitting for where I am right now in my journey. When each character in the book feels their identity click into place, I know exactly how they feel because I am, just as they are, starting out with my new, more complete sense of self. Now, for the first time, I have stopped viewing being single as a problem or an area of lacking in my life. Now, for the first time, I have embraced that part of who I am. Now, for the first time, I have let myself discover and enjoy everything that means for me.

And I think that finding who you are and celebrating it is the most essential ingredient of all.

Alone Again...

...Naturally. My excitment to no longer be home alone was short-lived because my poor roommate tried to come back to work today, got sick, and per her surgeon's orders is now back on bedrest for the rest of the week. This means that she is going back to her parents', and I am going to have to stop watching Law and Order: SVU unless I want to keep getting freaked out at night.

This really has nothing to do with being single, I'm just bummed out that she isn't going to be home for another week. At least she was there last night for the Bachelor, which is not nearly as much fun for me to watch alone. And she doesn't care how many times I say I think that Jake is good looking.

The Ideal Husband

On Friday, I was talking with another teacher at my school. She asked me if I had a boyfriend. I answered no, and then went on to tell her that, while I didn't have a boyfriend, I am still working on my list. All girls know what I'm talking about. That running list you keep of things you want the guy you marry to have. As I've gotten older, I've found that my list has started to change. Sure, it still has some remnants of my younger list--I would still like it if the guy I marry was taller than me, preferably tall enough for me to wear the occasional heels. And the number one thing on my list, he has to love Jesus, is still the same. But, over the years, my list has become less appearance-based and more quality-based.

I want someone who, like my roommate from college, always thinks going to the movies is a fantastic way to pass the time, always thinks it is worth the nine dollars the ticket costs, always thinks you should get there at least ten minutes early so you can get settled and be completely prepared to watch when the previews start. Someone who thinks that it's ok to see a movie on a Friday night and go see it again Saturday afternoon if you really, really liked it. Then, to go to Target the day the movie comes out on DVD and totally cut some woman off in line just so you can get back to your room two minutes earlier to watch it again (this, by the way, is exactly what we did for Love Actually.) Or at least someone who accepts that I'm this way, finds it adorable and endearing, and is willing to put up with it.

I want someone who, like my friend who teaches Language Arts with me, totally gets me--especially the weird stuff that no one got before I met her. Someone who gets excited over a book, thinks that you can never reread a book you love too many times, who can finish quotes from books when I start them. Someone who understands just what I mean when I don't know what I mean and words just start coming out of my mouth in a fit of word vomit because they have thought the same thing before. Someone who doesn't get wierded out when I tell them some story I learned in mythology about how people used to be blobs that got broken in two and now people are walking around looking for the other half of their original blob and how I feel like they are the other half of mine.

I want someone who, like my other friend who teaches with me, I can be brutally honest with. Someone who I can go into a room with, close the door, and say, "You know how sometimes you just feel like everything is wrong and you have no idea how to start making anything right again?" with and not have to worry about them bailing because I don't have everything under control. Someone I can share being not perfect with without the fear of being judged for it. Someone who will read through all the spell cards in Harry Potter Clue with me until I feel like I can go back to my life.

I want someone who, like my little sister, can quote movies and tv shows and recognizes when I do it. Someone who will play Jeopardy with me. Someone who will watch sports with me, sometimes over the phone, and will text me scores when I'm not home to watch myself. Someone who knows what I'm thinking and knows how I'm feeling without me having to say anything at all. Someone who will tell me when I'm being an idiot but stop bringing it up and just keep loving me even when I don't change right away. Someone who shares music with me and is fun to go to concerts with. Someone who will let me cuddle up next to them when I'm upset, even if they aren't a physical touch person, because they know it will make me feel better.

I want someone who, like my older sister, will take care of me. Someone who will take charge of things because I hate to do that and am really bad at it. Someone who doesn't stop loving me because we get into a fight. Someone who is able to forgive me--even when I'm not the nicest person around.

I want someone who, like my little brother, I can act like a kid with.

I want someone who, like my step-sister, is always willing to totally geek out and play board games with me. Someone who will write down the same answer as me on the mind-reading challenges while playing New Moon the Movie Board Game.

I want someone who, like my best friend, is always there for me and who gives me another family. Someone whose family I become part of so much so that I can go to family events and not feel like an outsider at all. Someone who I can have a real relationship with, one that lasts through things like moving, living in different countries, and losing parents.

I want someone who, like my best guy friend, will come over to put my new license plate on my car just because I don't want to do it myself. Someone who makes me feel like I don't need to worry when they're around because they will take care of anything that might come up. Someone whose presence can calm me down when I'm really worried or upset, even if it is three a.m. and I'm in the ER with a friend. Someone who will come see me in the ER if it is three a.m. without me having to ask them to.

I want someone who, like my roommate, won't tell me to stop talking to the television, especially during reality shows when I feel the need to keep a running commentary. Someone who will agree with me that ABC should hire me to work on The Bachelor and run out and stop people from saying stupid, embarrassing things that are going to be put on national television because I would be really good at it. Someone who won't make fun of me for voting repeatedly for my favorite dancer on So You Think You Can Dance. Someone who is just really fun and someone who I can laugh with. And someone who I can cry with too.

I want someone who, like my mom, will read young adult books so that they can come to the book club at my school with my students because they know how much I love my job and want my family to see what I do. Someone who loves God and loves other people. Someone who I will see the love of Christ in each and every day. Someone who cares about their family more than anything else in this world.

I want someone who, like my dad did before he died, makes me feel like the most special person alive. Someone whose eyes say to me each time I look in them that I am a treasure, that I am loved, and that I deserve to be treated as such.

The more I thought about my list, the more I saw that all the things I wanted in a guy were things I already had in my life, and this left me feeling quite blessed. It also left me re-evaluating my list. Obviously, God has faithfully met all my life's relationship needs so far, so I guess my list should only have one item on it.

I want the one person that God wants for me. While I think I know what I want, He knows exactly what I need. And, if that means I'll spend the rest of my life in flat shoes, I'll be more than happy to do it.

Life Doesn't Always Turn Out the Way You Plan

During a high school drama class, I memorized the opening monologue from the movie While You Were Sleeping. There's a line in it that says, "Life doesn't always work out the way you plan." This weekend, I met my college roommate in Athens, GA where we went to school for an impromptu girl's weekend that consisted of eating at our favorite restaurant, going to our favorite stores, and generally doing things we did while we were in college. (Because we are kind of lame--but in the coolest of ways--this means we also went to bed early and went to a movie).

Last night, my roommate said that if she could go back and do college over again she wouldn't spend so much time studying (she studied A LOT). She said she would spend more time doing fun stuff instead. So, this got me thinking about what would be different if I could go back in time and redo college. And it also made me think about how I thought my life would turn out the first time I drove into Athens.

The current me is actually a lot more fun than college me. College me was shy and super self-conscious. I didn't do a lot of things I probably would have enjoyed because I cared too much about what other people thought of me. Generally, I didn't think too much of myself, and I pretty much wished I could change just about everything about me. I didn't feel like I was all that worth loving.

After I graduated, I went to Moscow for a year, which is where I started to really figure myself out and enjoy myself. Now, four years after my college graduation, I feel like I've finally gotten to a place where I've accepted myself for who I am and started to celebrate that. Yeah, I'm a totally nerdy bookworm and sometimes I would rather stay home with a book and a glass of wine than go out. Yeah, I'm totally not the world's greatest dancer, but I like it--who cares if I look like an idiot and everyone else in the room thinks so--I'm going to dance if I want to. Yeah, I get really excited about stupid stuff, like cheesy buttons that say stuff about reading and kitchen gadgets and Harry Potter. Yeah, I am super sarcastic and usually laugh at my own jokes. For better or worse, that's me, and I finally decided I wasn't going to hide it. I was going to stop pretending to be someone else and put that version of me out there for the world. And the irony of it is that since I've stopped acting like someone I'm not and started putting the real me out there, I've found that people actually like me for all my quirks I was trying to keep hidden before.

If I were 18 again, I would tell you that my plan was to find the guy I was going to marry while I was in college. I would tell you that by the time I graduated, I would be engaged. Thankfully, life doesn't always turn out the way you planned. If my life had, I would have been married before I knew who I was. I would have been married before I learned what it meant to love me for me, nerdiness and all. I would have spent my life with a guy who I never really believed actually loved me--because after all, if I didn't think I was worth loving why would someone else?

Instead of that life, I'm now almost 26 and still single, and I must say I'm glad things have turned out this way. I had plenty of space to figure out and become the woman God created me to be, and I had a pretty great (although sometimes hard) time getting to know her. Now, I'm having a pretty great time hanging out with her. It's kind of fantastic to be able to look in the mirror and actually think "I like me." And honestly, I'm still enjoying the new me so much that
I'm thankful for being single because it gives me the opportunity to make up for lost time, to do the things I was too shy to do before.

So while current me would love college, I'm glad I was still the old me when I went. Because if I was different then, I wouldn't be where I am now, and I have to say that I'm really enjoying the here and now.

Alone, Whether You Like it or Not

Alone is something you'll be quite a lot. Keeping with my reflection on one of my favorite children's books, this is another quote from Oh the Places You'll Go. I baby-sat my little brother last night, and I read it to him. When we got to the page that talks about how sometimes in life we'll be alone, I couldn't help but completely identify. I had a bit of a long weekend, so I was pretty tired when I went to school Monday morning. I had to stay late at school Monday, so Tuesday was basically a long, tired mess. My roommate went home with her parents after her surgery, so I've been coming home to an empty house. Long days, lack of sleep, and no roommate can leave one feeling alone--quite a lot. Even when that someone sees friends and over 60 students in her classroom everyday.

By Monday afternoon, I found my mind thinking how nice it would be if I had someone to go home to. I think this is one of the hardest things for me about being single. When I have a bad day, I want someone to share it with, someone to be there on the days when I walk in the door and drop everything because carrying it the six steps to my room seems like too many. I guess there are just some days when I wish I had someone to help me carry all my bags so to speak. I like to call these days "Max days." If you've ever read Where the Wild Things Are, you might remember a line that says "Max was lonely and wanted to be where somebody loved him best of all." I wanted to go home to a place where someone loved me best of all.

I tried to pull myself out of my alone funk by reminding myself that I'm not really alone. I have friends, family, students. This I know is true, but like any girl, I don't always feel like the truth is true or that the truth matters. And as a girl, it is really, really easy to believe my feelings. I feel alone, so I am alone. Not the best way to think.

I tried to pull myself out of my alone funk by making a list of reasons why I'm glad I'm alone this week:
1) I'm and intorvert, so by definition, I need to be alone to recharge. I needed some serious recharging, so I guess it's a good thing I have an empty house to come home to.
2) I just realized that I can watch all ten seasons of Law and Order: SVU online on Netflix. I totally love this show (which I kind of get freaked out by sometimes since it is all about really horrible things happening to women and kids, but I think it is everyone's favorite Law and Order). I've been watching it a lot since I've been too tired to do much else. If I wasn't alone, someone might have tried to get me to watch something else....
3) If the only way to get a boyfriend is to act like the girls on The Bachelor, then I'm really glad I'm alone because it means I've never acted like that.
4) If my life had gone the way young me thought it would, I would be married by now. This means I wouldn't live with my roommate and wouldn't have been here to take her to the hospital. (This is actually a serious reason that has crossed my mind a lot the last few days and a reason that I have been very, very thankful to be single right now.)

My list helped a bit. But, I found that my desire to have someone around who cared how I was feeling was still there. (Let me just clarify that I know that I have plenty of people in my life who care about me. My mom voiced her concern that I was going to get sick from lack of sleep multiple times.) But I think that what I want is for someone to care how I'm feeling more than they really care about anything else. I want someone's priority and main concern to be taking care of me when I've had a long day. Someone who loves me best of all. While I want this, I'm also totally aware of how unrealistic it is. Even if I somehow end up marrying the world's most perfect guy, he'll be human, which means that he won't be the unselfish guy in my dreams at the end of all my long days.

Even though I know this and even with my new commitment to take care of and celebrate myself, I don't think this desire is going to completely go away because as great as I am towards myself, I'm probably always going to want someone else to be great towards me too. The truth is that while I'm getting pretty good at making a list of reasons why I like being single, I could just as easily make a list of reasons why I want a boyfriend.

So, I guess it comes back to my decision to celebrate rather than mourn my single status. My decision to believe the truth even when it feels wrong. And my faith in the fact that God knows what's best, has a plan for my life, and loves me more than I love me--more than anyone will ever love me. My faith that He cares about my long days. And my faith that with Him alone is something I'll never be.

A Most Useless Place

My roommate ended up having to have her gallbladder removed, so I spent a lot of time yesterday in the waiting room at the hospital. As I sat there, I couldn't help but think of a page out of one of my all time favorite books, Dr. Seuss's Oh The Places You'll Go. (There was one point when the fire alarm went off for about 20 minutes, fire trucks came, and fully-suited firemen walked into the hospital. During this, I thought, "Wow. Doctors and firemen in one place--it's a girl's dream.) The page talks about how sometimes in life you end up in a most useless place, the Waiting Place. And as I thought about it, I couldn't help but think that that is how so many people view singleness, as a waiting place.

When I was younger, my life plan looked something like this: High School, College, Get Married. There was no place in my life map for being single. If fact, if you ask most girls when they're young, I don't think they would include Single Time in their long-term plans. Because of this, I think we have started to think that being single is just an in-between time, like it's the time between college graduation and wedding day, when the next part of life starts. As a single person, there is elevator music playing in the background of your life, and you just hang out waiting until some guy's voice interrupts the music on the other end.

This, I thought, is no way to live. Why live like my life is on pause and only Mr. Right can come pick up the remote and hit play (while I'm talking about remotes, I must say one great thing about being single is having control over my remote)? Unlike the waiting room at the hospital where all I could do was sit around helpless until a phone rang to give me an update on my roommate or until someone came out to tell her family what was going on, my personal waiting room was something I was completely capable of getting up and walking out of. I could pick up my remote and press play. And that's what this year is about for me--pressing play.

So here's hoping my future husband didn't just stumble into the Waiting Place looking for me because I'm not there anymore. If he wants to find me now, he'll have to go out and look for me. Because I'm not waiting anymore. I'm off to great places. I'm off and away.

Relationship Status

So it's a New Year, which means it's time for ads for tax preparation companies to start popping up everywhere. I just so happened to get forms in the mail this week. Often times when you're filling out forms, applications, or updating your facebook page (which I don't actually have), you will come across a neat little section labeled Relationship Status. Underneath the heading are some options beside nice little boxes for you to check. Naturally, I check the single box, but I started to think about it. Is single really the best word to describe my relationship status?

We are created in God's image, and He desired relationships with us enough to sacrifice His Son. Based on that, I think it is pretty safe to say that we are created for relationships--with God and with people. How have we let that term, relationship, become so narrowly defined that it only seems to apply to whether or not we have a spouse or a significant other (which is a term that kind of bugs me, but that's a whole different discussion)?

My roommate woke me up at 2:00 this morning because she wasn't feeling well. We ended up in the ER at a local hospital. Shortly after we arrived, I called a friend of mine who works there--and was at work--to let him know I was in fact sitting at his place of employment (this naturally confused him a bit at first since I usually don't call him at 2:30 in the morning, usually call his cell phone, and usually don't call from a hospital phone). Shortly after I called, he was downstairs with us in the ER. Our conversation actually went like this:

Me: They just brought us back into a room.

Him: I just have to hang some narcotics and then I'll be down.

My initial reaction was "why can't I get a job where I get to say things like 'hang some narcotics,'" but this reaction was shortly followed by relief. My roommate usually handles pain really, really well so for her to actually say she needs to be in an emergency room means that she is in A LOT of pain. Plus, I've never had to rush someone to a hospital before. Needless to say, I was kind of freaking out (on the inside, obviously, since I was doing my best to stay cool and calm for her), so having a friend around, even though he couldn't stay that long, made me feel much, much better.

When her doctor came in, I realized that his son and I were friends in high school and that his other son is now a student at the school where my roommate and I both teach (he was actually in my roommate's class last year). Then, I found out that the resident was in a class with one of my friend's brothers who is also in his residency right now. My roommate's parents got there around 6:30, and when I left at 7:00, my friend walked me out to my car.

Here, I thought, in just a few hours, I've seen evidence of so many relationships. Roommate, teacher, old friend, new friend, daughter.

So as I sat in an emergency room holding my roommate's hand and telling her a bunch of stupid stories to distract her from her pain, I couldn't help but think to myself that, while neither of us has a boyfriend right now, we are both far from single.

If You Liked it Then You Shoulda Put a Ring on It

In her song, Beyonce is talking about a guy putting a ring on a girl, but when people get married, guys get rings too. This practice has resulted in a classic single girl spy move, the ring check. As any girl knows, ring checking is that thing you do to any new guy you meet where you try and get a quick glance of his left hand to check for hardware. I don't want to brag, but I am kind of a pro at the ring check. I can be incredibly stealthy. I can ring check anywhere, from a crowded room to the pew of a church. If I were going to level ring checkers, naming the levels after fictional spies, I would probably have to say that I am a Sydney Bristow level ring checker. From the limited research I've done, most girls start ring checking when they are about sophomores in college, so I've had some time to practice. I have a plethora of moves, from the casual glance, the "purse check," where it looks like I'm adjusting the strap of my purse, but I'm really ring checking as I turn my head, the "shoe check," which works best if your shoes have laces or your pant leg gets caught on the point of your pointy-toed dress shoe, the "I'm going to just look at your hand because we're not talking right now" that is appropriate when the guy is somewhat far away so there really isn't a need to be discrete. There are more, and each girl probably has her own unique technique.

This morning, I had to take the Praxis PLT, which is a test that all teachers have to pass to be able to keep teaching. This means that this morning, I also had to wake up at 5:30, drive 45 minutes, and sit in a desk for two and a half hours answering multiple choice and short answer questions. I'm not bitter about it or anything-I love waking up at 5:30 on a Saturday when it is 20 degrees outside. But back to my point, I was sitting in a classroom, looking around, waiting for my test to start. Because it's a test for teachers, most of the people taking it were girls, but there were a few guys. And, before I knew it, I was looking at one guy's hand and noticing probably the widest wedding band I've ever seen (perhaps his wife, being a girl, is familiar with the ring check and didn't want there to be any confusion or room for interpretation). Whoa, I thought to myself. Not whoa because his ring was so huge, but whoa because I just ring checked that guy and didn't realize I was doing it. Have I reached a point where the ring check is just a reflex that I don't control? Is it something I do without thinking??

Is it like breathing???

Before I got too freaked out by my apparently uncontrolled ring-check reflex, I decided to do some reflecting. Why do girls ring check? I came up with a few reasons:

1) Maybe it is an unintentional thing we do to make sure that we don't make a move on a taken guy. I mean, if I get married, I don't really want other women flirting with my husband, so maybe the ring check is something nice and polite that we do. Like we just want to check so we know how we should act towards the guy. We're just looking out for each other, making sure we don't encroach on someone else's territory. Solidarity sister!

(While this makes girls sound nice and respectful, I can't ever remember really thinking this before I ring checked.)

2) It's some strange science thing that is somehow related to a biological mating impulse.

(I don't really know that much about science, and I have a sneaking suspicion that this theory comes out of the fact that I really love the show Bones because it sounds like something that Dr. Brennan would say.)

3) It is a hopeful glance. As a girl, I can sometimes do this thing where I see a guy, and before I know it, I am seeing our entire future in my head. I'm usually mentally shopping my way through the Pottery Barn catalogue decorating our living room before I catch myself. So, I think we ring check for potential. If there's no ring, maybe he's the guy for me. Maybe this is the beginning of the end of my singleness! Maybe the Cherry Red Manhattan Leather Recliner can finally be mine!!

As much as I wish that theory 3 wasn't the correct theory, I kind of think it is. (I'm a little upset about doing it at test. I blame a friend of mine who once told me a story about how she got asked out on a date during the SAT. This story has placed somewhere deep in my subconscious that standardized tests are a place to meet boys. I'm pretty sure that her story ended up with her not doing as well as she wanted to on the SAT because she was distracted by the boy, so I should totally know better...oh well). I think 3 is right because usually, when there's a ring there, I feel a tiny twinge of sadness in the pit of my stomach.

This tiny twinge has no place in my year of me! So, what do I do? Stop the ring check? Since apparently I'm doing it without thinking about it first, this might be kind of hard. So, I'm going to have to come up with another option. Perhaps all the rings I see can be a reminder to me that God has a unique plan for each of us. Part of that guy's plan is being married. Part of my plan is being single. And I'm thankful for that, so I guess it's time that I started being thankful for the rings that remind me that God cares about and has control over my relationship status--even when they aren't on my finger.

Glad to Be a Girl

There have been countless times when I thought that I would rather be a guy because if I wanted to go out on a date I could just ask instead of having to wait to be asked. (I know, there are some who think that it's fine and dandy for girls to ask guys out on dates, but I guess I'm just old-fashioned.)

Then, I look at the boys I teach, and I am reminded that if I were a boy than I would think that crushing goldfish on the cafeteria floor, mixing food on a lunch tray, and making jokes about bodily functions were the epitome of humor. (I know that men, aka boys who just look old on the outside, seem to grow out of this stage, but I have a sneaky feeling that they just learn to hide it well.)

Call me crazy, but I would rather be at home with my wit.

If Girls Like Clothes So Much...

then why do they eat naked food? After reading my post last night, my younger sister called me to report that she had just gotten dinner with a friend at a burrito place. She informed me that the three girls in front of them, as well as the five girls behind them in the line, all ordered "naked burritos." "Proof," she said, "of everyone's New Year's Diet."

While I completely understand the fact that skipping the tortilla will bring down the calorie count and rid your burrito of carbs, and while I have been known to order the occassional naked burrito myself, I still think it is totally ok to get your burrito with its clothes on (even if you are on a date--but I must add that my college room mate and I decided that a burrito might be one of the worst foods to eat on a date because there really isn't a way to look pretty while you eat one). And, while you're at it, accessorize the thing a bit. Salsa, cheese, the works. Because if you feel better after getting all dolled up in the morning, who's to say that a burrito doesn't feel the same way?

A Girl's Gotta Eat

Recently, I saw the movie The Young Victoria. I loved it, thought it was just about the cutest movie I had ever seen, and decided that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert might just be my favorite people ever. So, because I'm me, I decided that I needed to do some research on the real Albert and Victoria (my research prior to the film consisted of a few text messages to a friend who teaches history, which basically just sets me up to be a total hypocrite when a student asks me if he or she can use a text message as a source in a research paper....oh well). For me, research means getting a book, so I got on Amazon and ordered a book all about my new favorite couple. I started reading and realized pretty quickly that basically all my favorite stuff in the movie was actually a bunch of lies. By pretty quickly, I mean before I had finished reading the prologue. I was a little disappointed.

So there I was thinking that I was going to have to find a new favorite historical figure because my old new favorite historical figure was really just a movie character. Then, I found this fabulous tidbit of information: Queen Victoria apparently loved her food. So much in fact that some guy named Duc de Nemours who had come to meet her in the hopes that they could get married got totally shocked by her eating habits and hit the road.

I guess if time travel were possible, Duc de Nemours should probably look into coming to the here and now. I have heard so many girls discussing the concept of "date food," which I think is a little strange because if you keep dating someone they will eventually find out you eat real food, but at least modern women wouldn't shock Duc de Nemours. And all of this made me think about how for New Year's I did what every girl does--start a diet.

In my case it's more of a restart because I went on a diet for my best friend's wedding, which was just a few weeks before I started teaching, so I also got a bunch of new, cool, "teacher" clothes. I then started teaching, and during my first year, I managed to gain back my pre-best-friend's-wedding-diet weight. I'm not really unhappy with my weight now or how I look--it's just that some of my cool "teacher" clothes don't exactly fit anymore, and that makes me sad. The only real problem with that is that I, like Queen Victoria, like food. I like to make it, eat it, watch other people make it, read recipes, etc. So, I'm now hanging out in a fine place between "I like my food" and "I like my brown pants."

Luckily for me, I am a master at manipulating my diet. I'm allowed to eat a certain amount of points everyday. If I, like I did today, eat a 3 point breakfast, a salad for lunch, and skip over my afternoon snack because I'm in a really long meeting and don't have time to eat it during planning before my students come for last block, I have enough points left to eat a cheeseburger for dinner (and some fries, but I didn't really want to gloat about my diet food). While I know that this isn't really the way my diet is supposed to work, I still find great joy in the fact that it can work this way on days when it has to, and this week has been a really long week.

And then I thought about why every girl feels the need to go on a diet all the time anyway. I hope we're not doing it for boys. I think every girl deserves to look in her mirror every morning and think to herself (or say out loud, which is, I must admit, a real pick-me-up on those days when you just had to give yourself a major talk to even get out of bed) "I am quite beautiful." If we can't think this about ourselves, it will never matter how many people think it for us. So, I've decided that I'm allowed to eat cheeseburgers sometimes. Even if it is in public. Even if there is a boy around to see.

Tonight I sat down and ate my cheeseburger alongside my book about my new favorite historical figure, and I thought, "Who cares if my eating habits shock some guy?" I mean, Queen Victoria's did, and she ended up with her face on a stamp and having an entire era named after her, which in my book, is not so bad.

Why I Can't Quit My Job

As previously discussed, there are some days when I want to marry a rich guy so that I can quit teaching, but after thinking about it, I remember how much I love my job. Here's a brief conversation that just took place in my room that fits perfectly into the category of "I can never quit teaching because then I would miss out on things like this":

Female Student (to Male Student): "I was going to say something, but I'm not going to say it because it might hurt your feelings."

Male Student: "I don't have feelings. I'm a man."

While making this announcement, he proudly hit his hand against his chest. See, even if I married a billionaire, all his money wouldn't be as entertaining as that. Plus, why would I want to marry someone with no feelings??

Single on Purpose

My younger sister has a friend who just moved to Bosnia to play professional women's basketball. She graduated from college, got a phone call from her agent a few weeks later, and just a few days after that was on a plane to Bosnia. Seriously, she got a call, and her agent told her she had 15 minutes to decide if she was going. I'm a little in awe of her courage. Leaving behind everyone she knows to move to a kind of random Eastern European country is a pretty admirable thing. Then I found myself thinking about how if she wasn't single, Bosnia might never have happened for her. Would 15 minutes have been enough for her to work out all the details and make her choice if there was someone else there she had to make it with?

While it's a bit tempting for me to use this as a chance to sing the praises of the single girl's freedom (She can move halfway across the world on a moment's notice! She can go wherever she wants on vacation! She always gets to pick what movie to watch! She can buy herself shoes that cost way too much money and no one ever has to know or tell her that she has to take them back!), the truth is that I don't really think that's what is going on here. I think that while being single has it's advantages, so would having a boyfriend, so would being married. So, one isn't better than the others.

I think what's going on here is that there is a best for everyone, and that everyone's best is different. God knew that my sister's friend would go to Bosnia, and that her decision to go would have to be made so quickly. Just like God knows my sister's friend, He, in his infinite wisdom, knows me--better than I know myself. He knows the path my life is going to take. He knows about any Bosnias that are in my future, so I can trust Him.

This means I don't need to spend time wondering what would have happened if I had talked to that cute guy in front of me at Barnes and Noble who was buying a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--a great book if you've never read it. (And yes, I'm that girl who goes to a bookstore and proceeds to judge people based on the books they are buying. There is a reason someone invented Amazon.com. If you really want to read that book that a book snob like me would totally look down on you for reading, order it online. This way no one has to know you are buying and reading it. Or, if you are a book snob and are emabarrased that you sometimes feel the need to read silly chic lit, Amazon.com is a fantastic option. It lets you keep up the appearance that you only read the finest literature available.) This means that I don't need to wonder what would have happened if I was more confident and outgoing when I was in college. This means that God didn't turn around one day, let my husband walk past me, then turn back around and think, "Woops, guess that means she's going to have to be single now. My bad."

This means that I can have peace and joy in knowing that I am right where God wants me to be, right where He knows is best for me. And that doesn't just apply to my location.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner!

Well, the answer is no one but me. One thing I love to do is cook. Sadly, over the past few years, I have stopped cooking much for myself. I often found myself thinking that all that work (Mainly the work of cleaning up--I HATE doing the dishes. I kind of blame my mom for this because doing the dishes was basically the only chore I had to do on a regular basis as a kid. I know, instead of being super thankful that I had only one real chore, I gripe about my fear and loathing towards dishwater...which kind of makes me sound stupid.) just wasn't worth it if I was just feeding myself. I would, however, tell myself that one day, when I got married, I would cook all the time because there would be someone around to cook for.

Since declaring 2010 my year of me, my attitude towards cooking caused me some pause. By telling myself that I would cook if only there were someone to cook for, what was I saying about myself? That I somehow don't need to eat? I mean, according to my statement, if it's just me there isn't anyone to cook for. Well, I can assure anyone that eating is something that I in fact do. So, what did I really mean?

I think I meant that I wasn't worth all the effort--the planning, the shopping, the slaving over the stove, the dishes (yikes!)--but a boy would be. In my mind, I wasn't "someone to cook for." Wait a minute, new, year-of-me said to myself, if you aren't worth a nice dinner, some boy sure isn't! Who said single girls were banished to a life of frozen, pre-prepared meals eaten from microwave-safe cartons? Who said you can't make something fancy--some dish that screams, "You must drink a glass of wine with me, and while you're at it maybe light a candle or two!"-- for yourself and no one else? This revelation led to one of the things on my list of things to do for myself: cook myself fabulous dinners.

With this in mind, I made dinner for myself tonight, and while I sat enjoying my pan-seared chicken with garlic sauce accompanied by sautéed mushrooms, steamed broccoli, and a glass of white wine, I couldn't help thinking that I was totally worth it. I even kept thinking it as I did the dishes.

Decisions, Decisions....

So I'm a teacher, and today my students are doing in-class writing about an important decision they have made. I guess if I were a student in my class, I would write about my decision to spend this year not bemoaning my single status. My essay would probably sound a bit like this--

As much as I wish my decision to celebrate my singleness was a one-time thing, I am quickly discovering it is not. Today, I have already wished for a husband twice. First, I went outside to crank up my car so it would be warm when I had to leave for school. My thought as I bumbled out into the cold of my driveway was that if I had a husband, he would delight in walking out into the cold morning to warm up my car for me. Second, I had a conversation with a friend I teach with that can basically be summed up with this: "If we could only marry rich guys, then we could quit teaching. We wouldn't have had to get up this morning to come to school. We could stay home and cook all day! We could go out to lunch and shop instead of trying to control the first-day-back-from-break-so-we're-going-to-be-crazy kids at school!"

There are some obvious flaws in my thinking here. For starters, my imaginary husband would probably think it was really cold too and would probably not look forward to freezing cold leather any more than I do. And while I love to think that the person I marry will be wonderfully attentive and thoughtful all the time, the reality of the situation is that I will be marrying a man. And is anyone, my fictional husband included, really all that thoughtful at 6:45 in the morning? So, I had to decide in that moment to stop thinking the way I was thinking. Instead, I started to think of how grateful I am to have a car, how thankful I am that it takes less than a minute to get from my front door to my car, and that one day I might have a house with a garage (which, unlike a husband, is something I could actually purchase).

Moving on to my friendly conversation about rich husbands....While there are some days when I'm not the biggest fan of my job, most days I absolutely love it. While the thought of staying home all day drinking tea, reading books, and cooking dinner sounds amazing to me on days like today, the reality is that after a few days I would get bored. I would miss my crazy students, and I would probably start to resent fake husband who let me quit my job and stay home. Also, I would not have an excuse not to do laundry. So, I had to stop myself and start to think of all the things I'm thankful for again. I get to go to work and talk about reading and writing all day. I get to laugh--often at myself. I work with some really amazing people who I would most definately miss if I stayed home all day. I get to make a difference in the lives of kids everyday. And, because I'm single right now, I have lots of time to put into teaching--doing things like planning, reading young adult books, and going to my students games and concerts.

So I guess that my important decision is a decision I'm going to have to keep remaking, over and over again, everyday. I have to choose to think about all the wonderful things I have, not one thing that I don't. I mean, look at today. I had to make it twice before my students came rambling down the hall at 8:10.

Then again, I could follow in the footsteps of one of my students who is currently writing about his decision to wear pants to school today instead of shorts. I have to agree with him that it was a very good choice because the heat isn't working in my classroom....

Introduction

She had always had a thing for stories. It didn't matter what form they took--television show, movie, miniseries. Short story, poem, novel, novella. Magazine article. Commercial. Song. Truth or fiction. Fiction masquerading as truth. Truth that had to be at least a little bit fiction. She didn't discriminate; all were welcome. To stories, she was Lady Liberty. They traveled from distant lands, and there she stood, a beacon at the end of the journey with open arms saying come in.

While it is true that she loved and welcomed stories of all kinds, it would be unfair to overlook the fact that she did have a soft spot for one kind of story. Stories about relationships, any kind really. Friends, parents and their children, siblings, co-workers, neighbors. If it was a story driven by people being in each other's lives, she would devour it. Sure, she enjoyed stories about solving crimes, saving lives, saving the world, but even in these stories, she was one to hone in on the B-story. What did she care if he saved the world? She only really cared what happened with his wife/girlfriend/daughter/father/bestfriend/whoever.

And in all fairness, it must be said that her favorite kind of relationship story was the kind of relationship story that reigned in the heart of all girls. The love story. The one that starts with the lonely girl and ends with those three words. Not those words, the other three. The three words that should be every girl's first words. Happily. Ever. After.

It would be reasonable to assume her problem with stories started at a young age, with stories about unlikely happiness preaching to young girls impractical hope. They are taught that in some unexpected way love will bloom, that over any difficulty love will prevail, and that when things get hard, a boy will appear who will make problems and fears go away. It is the lovely soil from which the eternal optimist blooms. And in this garden she resided until one day when she began to wonder....what happened to the girl who never pricked her finger on a cursed spinning wheel? The girl who had no fairy godmother to put the kingdom to sleep with her until her prince found her?

Her answer was simple. The love that would not be hers could be hers in stories. And this is why she loved them. In them she could live a life far beyond her own. Their laughs, her laughs. Their tears, her tears. Theirs was the love of her life. Theirs were the voices that drowned out her mundanity.

And so, as she gourged herself on stories, she began to wonder about those girls whose stories are never told. The ones who are single and whose lives sometimes seem painfully routine and normal.

Maybe they have their own love stories. The story that every girl should have, but few actually do. Not the one where someone falls in love with them, the one where they fall in love with themselves.

And as she wondered, she began to see that that is a story that deserves to be told, that that is a journey every girl should take. That taking the time to fall in love with herself is something every girl needs.

So this is the story of my year of me. The year when I celebrated being myself and embraced myself--really strange quirks and all. The year when I decided that if I had a boyfriend/husband wasn't an excuse anymore to not do things I wanted to do or not have things I wanted to have. This is my journey.