77 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality: January 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

I'm going to cheat on this blog entry. I got tagged on facebook with this silly note deal: 25 random facts about me; and so now you get them on the blog. Blogs and facebook are notoriously self-centered, so here goes....

1. I'm both blessed and cursed by facebook--how much fun is it to reconnect with old friends and stay connected to friends who are far away but I'm also slightly addicted to silly games like MyFarm and flair.

2. I've been happily married to Tom for almost 10 years!

3. Tom and I still watch reruns of the x-files.

4. I just started a job as a temp 1/2 time at CPA firm through tax season. I find this ridiculously amusing and also oddly providential.

5. I have a new habit of using the word ridiculously--it stems from a few weeks ago hearing the weather person say, "It's bitterly cold out there." Really? 'Cause you used that word when it was 20 degrees and now it's 10 below! Seems like there should be a more extreme word... like ridiculously.

6. I recently moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and I have a sneaking suspicion I will live here for the rest of my life. Who knows--things can change... but still....

7. I have a bad habit of ending sentences with... simply because I have more to say but I kind of want to leave it open to question.

8. I have with three cats. Well, really, I have a cat, Tom has a cat, and Tom's cat has a cat.

9. I usually don't admit that I have three cats, because I find it kind of embarrassing.

10. I have been both a down-hill ski racer and instructor, and I'm so glad to live somewhere where I can ski again, even if it was a small, lame hill somewhere because I LOVE IT!!!

11. I also love to read, and right now I'm reading News of the Spirit by Lee Smith and The Shack, which for the first time in a long has my book list to 2 books, only fiction, and no ministry books. hmmmm....

12. I'm an out-of-work minister, and while I was pretty sure I did not define myself as a minister or would ever define myself by my job, when Tom suggested I get a vanity plate for my car when I moved to Wisconsin, the first thought that ran through my head is, "How can I do that when I don't have a job?" Which was really weird and something I am continuing to work through.

13. I am also working through living somewhere I absolutely love 100% but leaving my minister breakfast buddies and my precious Montlieu Crew behind--I'm still ridiculously attached to them. Moving to NC was easier I guess, 'cause somehow we knew we'd end up back in the mid-west again some day, but now...

14. I am 99.99% sure I will never move out of the mid-west.

15. 100% of the time I get a sinking feeling that when I say something with 100% certainty, God will 100% get me back with that.

16. I keep forgetting over and over again that God is love.

17. I like to drink beer out of glass boots.

18. I LOVE, love, love to travel. I leave for Italy in 6 weeks.

19. I play the violin but am not musically talented, so I am extremely thankful my parents started me playing at 5 years old so I at least have the longevity thing going for me.

20. I like to read sermons by Charles Spurgeon and Barbara Brown Taylor and well, really anybody else, because I do like to read sermons.

21. I have jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, twice. And I would consider going again when Sasha goes for her pre-30 goal, if she'll go with me when I fulfill my before-30 goal of riding a mechanical bull--3 years late of course.

22. Because I love people so much, I kind of feel guilty that I haven't mentioned my family and other friends, previous co-workers, and all the people I should give shouts out to--love you guys!

23. I love to take pictures and have a hard time not dragging my camera bag with me wherever I go, even places like the grocery store.

24. I have stepped foot in every state but Louisiana, Washington, and Oregon (I'm actually not sure about Oregon...).

25. I'm a seven on the enneagram, an ENFJ, and have the spiritual gift of hanging out.

If you're up to responding with 25 facts--go for it. Otherwise, maybe at least one or two would be fun :)

Love,
Jess

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Birthday reflections

Oh my goodness—I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in this long. See the date of the last one? That’s when I was 32. But then on the 9^th, I turned 33. Tricky business—it’s not that big of a deal, really, but I have spent the last few years planning quite a party. You don’t get it from the movies, but if you read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the birthday party for Frodo and Bilbo is a big deal for both of them. It’s Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday, and it’s Frodo’s 33^rd. It’s a big deal to make it to 111, even for a hobbit, and 33 is a big deal because it’s when hobbits officially become of age. I like the idea of not being a grown-up until 33. I especially liked that idea when I was 32 and younger. It’s kind of a bummer to be of age in just about every culture (many don’t consider you of age until you’re 30 anyhow).

The party looked like this: official invitations, big tent in the back yard, fire pit, good food, really good beer, smoking porch (hobbits love good pipe weed), fireworks—a LOT of them!, and a bard—a friend of mine who was going to teach drinking songs to those who wanted to learn a few. That would have been a great party. However, we moved to WI—not a great place for an outdoor party in January. We live in an apartment, so it’s not like we can host a lot of out-of-towners as planned. And since I moved in December, gathering all the people I knew in southern Wisconsin totaled a whopping 6 of us, including Tom and me. But we still drank good beer and a good time was had by all.

Next up—reflections on taking Amtrak around the Lake to Holland.For now, off to the dentist!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Madisonians take their badger very seriously—Bucky Badger, that is. I made the mistake on my first trip out to visit Tom of calling him Bucky Beaver in public. Tom immediately sushed me—“BADGER” he hissed like one in my ear, glancing around to see if I’d made a spectacle of myself by letting anyone else hear me.

Before moving to Madison, I dressed up like a cheesehead UW fan for Halloween. Jenny Hughes did an amazing art job of Bucky, with his snotty little sneer, on my face (see below). Since moving to Madison, we’ve had two Bucky sightings—one at a basketball game a few weeks ago and the other at the hockey game on Saturday. On a side note, that was our first-ever live hockey game, and probably the first hockey game either of us had really watched. We learned there are three periods to a hockey game; and, since we sat in the very front row, we learned hockey players ram the hell out of each other now and then—VERY exciting. We also learned that when it’s a tie-game at the end, it’s sudden death. Bummer for our UW Big Red but a good deal for Tom’s sort-of Alma Mater, Northern Michigan.

Enjoy a few pics of Bucky’s hijinx.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Celebrating Wisconsin's Flatness

So when we moved to NC from MI, the most common comment was, "Michigan, hmmm. It's so... FLAT." Hmmm, what do you say to that? Ah, well, there are some rolling hills? The dunes? The Porcupine Mountains? What's up with your southern hospitality?! But then after a few years, I realized on road trips home to Michigan that it was about 1/2 way through Ohio that I could breathe more freely—I could see the horizon clearly and usually about that time the sun would start to set. Oh, I missed great sunsets—hard to beat when you live on the east side of Lake Michigan. I realized that with the flat came some serious bonuses—silos and farms in the distance, long stretches of road, gorgeous sunrises and sets, space full of mid-westerness. Love it! So the picture below is for all you who think Wisconsin is flat and say it like it's a bad thing—a quick stop on the side of the road while running errands one town over and this is my view. Enjoy!!

On the way to Cottage Grove

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Greetings from 77 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality

Madison—the Berkley of the Mid-west—77 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality—Wisconsin's Capital—Mad City—whatever you want to call it, we now call it home. And we LOVE it! It already feels like home. It has that beautiful middle-class midwesterness to it—friendly, low-key, down-to-earth genuineness witha bit of hippy-granola-love-our-beer-in-boots funkiness thrown in.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few thousand for you to enjoy without having to read.

Love from 77 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality,
Jess