Delight: Commute

One thing I love about small town living is my commute anywhere in town. The realtor told us when we were looking for a house close to work that you could get anywhere in Tahlequah from anywhere else in Tahlequah in five minutes, unless there's traffic in which case it's eight minutes.

My commute to work from home is exactly five minutes, three if I hit the green light. I have only one light on my way to work and three stop signs. The speed limit is 25 mph, so it's a very leisurely commute.

My commute to the grocery store is three minutes. It's a stop sign and a light away from the highway.

My commute to my favorite Italian restaurant is less than a minute. It's a stop sign away from my house.

My commute to my friend's house is the same as campus.

It is pretty nice to have no hurry to get anywhere. I fill up my gas tank maybe once a month, sometimes less often than that.

It makes for a perfect excuse to spend lunch at home with my husband. Or to swing by my house in between dinner and a movie for dessert. Or to enjoy long lunches since the drive back to work is so short. Or to enjoy naps before an evening out. I've always lived pretty close to where I work, but this commute takes the cake!

Grieve: Target

Oh, Target. I grew up shopping at Target. If we weren't buying groceries, we were buying at Target.

You can buy anything at Target! Cute stationary for friends far away. New kitchen gadgets like colanders and pretty measuring cups. Bedding that's always on sale. Helpful desk organizers. Big rubbermaid tubs. Adorable headbands and bows. Affordable bathing suits or hats or purses or jewelry.

Here, in my small town, I have no Target. My closest Target is an hour and a half away. I have a Wal-Mart. And don't you go saying it's the same. Because it's not! The place is always messy, there's never any cute linens or plates or organizers or mats or accessories. And my Wal-Mart is always packed full of people and these people love to shove gallon containers of Koolaid right on top of the nail polish. But, this is my shopping place. This is the place people drive from all the smaller small towns to my small town for the WalMart.

I miss you, Target. I miss your sales, your sweet seasonal products, your name-brand kitchen utensils, your fashionable, affordable clothes and accessories, your home goods, your decorative items and your shiny clean floors.

Lady Quote

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
Jane Austen

Grief and Delight

When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that, in truth, you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Kahlil Gibran

While I have not come to fully love life in Oklahoma, I have come to accept it. I've been trying to figure out why I cannot quite love Oklahoma, and I think it comes down to comparing it to other places I've lived. I've lived in some pretty awesome places, and Oklahoma itself might be awesome, but I'm not allowing myself to see that. All I see is this is not Philadelphia or this is not New York or this is not the Carolinas. How fair is that to Oklahoma? to myself?

Unless I can see past my romantic ideas of other places I've lived, I'll never fall for Oklahoma. I need to fall for Oklahoma since we're at least here for another year and some change, if not longer. In an effort to force myself to change, I'm going to publicly grieve elements of the country that I miss while living out here and I will publicly delight in things I can only enjoy in Oklahoma.

Perhaps if I let myself mourn the things lost, I might be able to enjoy the new things in my life out here in Oooooooooklahoma.

Baby girl!

I had a dream last night that Bryan and I had a baby girl. For a good part of the dream, I was so entranced by my baby, how tiny she was, how she looked like me and Bryan, how cute her little pink hat looked.

And then, I thought, wait a second...we weren't ready for a baby! We hadn't been trying for a baby, and I didn't remember being pregnant. That's when I knew it was a dream, but I wasn't totally awake yet, so I let myself enjoy holding a tiny newborn baby in my dream.

So many of my friends have had babies recently, and one of my favorite bloggersMarriage Confessions' Jennifer just had a baby girl named Gracie that she's been blogging about. I really enjoy watching babies from afar. Blogs and facebook let me do this pretty easily. All the cuteness of a baby without any diaper changing, baby-screaming or messes.

As some of my friends let me know that they are now trying for a baby, I am excited for them but even more sure that having a baby isn't the right thing for me and Bryan right now. We're young, and we have too many "things" that are more important. We like to travel, to take week long trips to see friends, perform comedy or be present at major events like weddings, babies, graduations. We like to stay up late dancing at bars or watching loud movies. We like to lounge around on weekends doing nothing but nap and watch tv. We can barely handle the household chores and the mess that just the two of us create. We just are too much like kids ourselves to have kids just yet.

That said, my dream baby was adorable.

Lady Quote

No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, who wants to gnaw off its own leg.
Frederica Mathewes-Green

Lady Quote

This too shall pass.
my grandmother

Life is more important than work.
my mother

Lady Quote

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. (…) Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.
Susan B. Anthony

Lady Quote

A woman can definitely be sexy in a pair of Jimmy Choos and a pair of hairy legs, she can be sexy in a Wonderbra and hairy armpits .
Shazia Mirza

Lady Quote

Death, taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them.
Margaret Mitchell