Southbound 35

What the hell am I doing down in Kansas City

Know damn well it ain't where I belong, no no

Think I'll quit my job come five o'clock

Find my lonely way back home

Well, my baby said just what are you trying to prove here

Really want to leave me here all alone

Said I'm tired of staring at this ocean full of Yankees

I'd rather be in Texas on my own, oh yeah

Now we were southbound 35

We were headed down the road

Hit the border by the morning

To let Texas fill my soul

To let Texas fill my soul

*lyrics from "Southbound 35" by Pat Green (who, by the way, went to the same church we did in Ft. Worth)

*Disclaimer: I did not actually leave Ross to move back to Texas. He had to work tax-free weekend, but I already had PTO scheduled and plans to go to Texas, so I drove down by myself for a few days.

Work in Progress

Work often overwhelms me these days. I used to be able to work 4 days in a row (sometimes even 5 and, about once every 6 months, 6 days in a row). At the ripe old age of 25, sometimes I wonder if I'm already burnt out. Even worse, sometimes after working 3 days in a row, I'm afraid that as tired and as frazzled as I may be, I don't even know the meaning of "burnt out" yet.

I remember in grade school we had a ceremony for a 2nd grade teacher who had been working at the school for 25 years. I remember thinking, "that's way longer than I've even been alive!" That still blows my mind. So much happens in the first 25 years of your life... what happens the next 25 years? Am I destined to be doing the same thing day in and day out 25 years down the road? Dear God, I hope not. 25 years in the same place STILL blows my mind. 25 years ago, I was just a baby!

I've been out of school for over 2.5 years. Work is no longer a fun novelty, it's work.

Sometimes I think it'd be nice to do something that doesn't involve interacting with others. (I know, I'm antisocial enough as it is). But then I see aunts and grandmas stepping in to help an overwhelmed dad and a baby who has lost her mom.

I see strong, patient mothers who are dealing with the tragedy of not having a normal pregnancy, delivery, or newborn baby, yet they sit with their child every day and know more about the baby than the doctors or nurses ever will.

I get parents thanking me so much for taking care of their baby and requesting that I take care of their child every day I'm here.

And I'm thankful I have a job that allows me to witness the best (and worst) sides of the human condition. I get invited to baby showers when a long-term kiddo is getting close to going home. I frequently lend an ear to overwhelmed parents (and realize my life isn't so bad after all).

It doesn't happen every day, but sometimes when I'm not running around like crazy, catching up on charting, or trying to problem-solve a patient's latest problem, I get to sit down and snuggle with a baby. I get to feed someone their very first bottle. I get to carry them outside their rooms when they become "portable" and can remain stable without oxygen. I hear babies cry for the first time, I see them smile accidentally, and I get to watch them find their hands and reach for my face when I talk to them.

I do love the perks of my job, and usually when I'm bragging about a baby's latest accomplishment or cute moment, Ross tells me that this is the perfect job for me. As for now, I'm exhausted and looking forward to another few days off.  Texas, here I come!

Crazy spring breakers?

My back is getting better; a week off definitely helped. Now I just need to get back into running gently and avoid anything that makes my back hurt. (I'm still not sure exactly how I hurt it. I suspect I did something wrong when I was doing an arm workout last week.) Of course, heat and this yoga stretch help the most:

*

I work 4 nights in a row starting Friday but next week, I think I'm going to go to Bikram yoga three or 4 times and then get back into running after that. NO INJURIES ALLOWED! I am GOING TO run the Cowtown next February!

In slightly more interesting news, here are some pictures from Amarillo. My camera died, but I managed to steal a few pictures from Ross' mom's camera. Emily, my sister-in-law, found this awesome recipe for German Chocolate Cupcakes and suggested we make them over spring break. I make muffins from scratch all the time, but I'd never attempted cupcakes. The batter was very mousse-like and the finished product was amazing with a glass of ice cold milk! Emily took the awesome cupcake photos:

Before...

After... yum!

Ross spent Thursday afternoon and evening playing with Legos working on a grad school project. I had to take pictures!

Check out the color-sorted bins. Apparently he sorted them like that even when he was a kid!

I guess he's going to make a stop-motion animated Lego film for his Visual Storytelling class

All in all, we had a fun and relaxing break. Back to the grind-- and cold-- tomorrow. Snow is in the forecast again!

Amarillo by Mornin'...

I get off work in about 30 minutes and Ross is picking me up so we can get on the road! We're headed to Amrillo for Ross' spring break. ("Spring break- Wohoo!") I'm excited for 60 (maybe even 70) degree weather!

Please excuse the melancholy

Moving charges you to sit up and take note of things that you'd previously taken for granted. Time, for example. Fort Worth. Friends.

Ross and I went to a wedding in Austin this weekend and drove home last night. It's always nice to come home but at the same time, I realized the finality of our decision to move to Kansas. Come Friday, when we click "Take Me Home" on the GPS, it will no longer lead us to the Stonegate Villas where I've lived for 2 years and Ross for 1. This is our last Sunday living in Texas and try as I might, I can't wrap my head around it. At the same time, it hovers like the clouds in the sky right now and creates a fog around me. I can't escape it.

I was reading Eat, Pray, Love again last week and this passage caught my eye:
"I have searched frantically for contentment for so many years in so many ways, and all these acquisitions and accomplishments-- they run you down in the end. Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time-- when pursued like a bandit-- will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you [or one city behind you], changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping our the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won't. You have to admit that you can't catch it. That you're not supposed to catch it."
-Elizabeth Gilbert

We do have plenty of things to look forward to in Kansas, but right now I'm going to focus some more on the wonders of Texas:

Christ Chapel

We went to Christ Chapel one last time this morning and loved Ted's sermon, as usual! It's going to be quite a mission to find another church we both agree on as wholeheartedly as this one. Pray that our search is short and fruitful. It's going to be very easy to get caught in "church searching." In Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, Screwtape (a highly placed assistant to the devil) writes to his nephew Wormwood (a demon):
"Do you realise that unless it is due to indifference this (fidelity to one church) is a very bad thing? Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that 'suits' him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches."

For those who haven't read the book, Screwtape is coaching his nephew who is in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary man. The book is satire, of course. When they say that fidelity to one church is a "bad thing," the Christian reading it should interpret fidelity as a wonderful thing indeed which, as long as the fidelity isn't due to indifference, can bring us closer to God and our church community.

Hmm... that was quite the segue. Point being, we love Christ Chapel and will miss it!

Friends

Ross went to A&M and many of his friends are now scattered from coast to coast in various grad schools. We got to see a lot of them at the aforementioned wedding in Austin, though. There also happened to be a lot of the same people at Andrew's wedding who were at Mark and Merrell's wedding where Ross and I met over 2 years ago!

My Groomsman and Me

Ross and Mark

Gus, Andrew (the groom), and Ross

Since I went to TCU right here in Fort Worth, I do see a few school friends a little more frequently. By "a few" I mean 3. I got to see Emily Campbell and her cute 20-week baby belly while chaperoning Victory last month! Amanda Schaum and her husband don't live too far from us, but our schedules always conflict and we don't get to see each other much. We're not too worried, though, because they may actually end up in Kansas City with us soon so Amanda can go to KU for grad school as well. Kate Box and her husband are WONDERFUL, but they live in Plano so it's always an ordeal to get together.

Then we have Brittnye and Evan Hartfield whom we met through Nick and Kate. Brittnye and I love walking and talking and baking. She doesn't mind listening to me talk about "my babies" at work because she has a baby of her own-- sweet Avery who is already 10 months old! Evan is in architecture school right now, so he and Ross have plenty to talk about even when us girls aren't around. We love Nick Box for introducing us, but curse him for not doing so sooner! Our only small consolation is the fact that Evan has relatives in Missouri so we may be able to convince them to visit us every now and then.

Brittnye and me with our homemade pie!

I don't know if this falls in the "friends" category, but for the past two years, I've been babysitting for two precious boys aged 2 and 4. I met them when the youngest one was only 6 weeks old and I fell in love instantly! Now they both run around and chatter at a mile a minute and I will miss them dearly. Their parents are wonderful and if we were staying in Fort Worth, they'd be amazing mentors when Ross and I start to have kids in a few years. They're throwing us a going away dinner tonight but I really feel like we should be doing something for them instead! Going to their house makes me feel so happy and "at home." It's been a good steady base for me when everything else was changing (graduation, night shift, wedding stuff, moving).

We are incredibly blessed here! I just have to keep remembering what Mark and Merrell said to us this weekend: it'll be fun to make KC/Lawrence "our" city like they did when they moved to Denver. For now, it's time to go enjoy the time we do have left here with people we love!

Texas, how I love thee

Well, the countdown begins... two weeks left in Texas. How did moving get so close already? And no, we have not started packing yet, thank you. I've lived in Fort Worth just over 6 years now, which means I've spent more consecutive years here than in any other city. That blows my mind! Before college, you could pretty much divide my life into 5-year segments: 2 years in Independence, 5 years in Omaha, 5 years in KC, 5 years in Omaha.

That means Fort Worth is "my" city. It's the place I chose for myself and so much of my life has happened here, for better or for worse! Right now I'm focusing on the "for better" parts and I'm really going to miss this place. I've been in my cozy little apartment for 2 years already. Packing may be harder than we're thinking.

As much as I resisted Texas pride at first, I will admit it's there for a reason. It's a great state! I'm really going to miss my friends here. Of course, the closer we get to moving, the more social Ross and I have become. Ironic, I know.

In our rush to cram in as much Texas as we can, we've been trying to tackle my checklist of all things Texan that I have yet to do.

My first dinner at Babe's. Yummy fried chicken!

More to come as we work through the list!