Just Be Still With Me, You Wouldn't Believe What I've Been Through

Look what else just popped up in my backyard.

Today on my afternoon break, I was sitting outside reading my book and there was a lot of discussion in it about predestination and if bad things happened for a reason. Because it was the fourth anniversary of the tornado, I was probably even more reflective than normal. (who knew that was possible?) Basically, I'm more of a chaos theory kind of girl. I don't believe crappy things happen to certain people for a pointed reason. As if Buddha, or Jesus or that magical tree in your backyard or the collective conscious of the universe or whatever the hell you believe makes things work in the world has nothing better to do than sit around teaching certain people lessons?

I think bad things just happen randomly. Those Baptists who came around our neighborhood after the tornado handing out pamphlets to the kids that told them the tornado was everyone on our street's fault because of all the sinning we were doing, were full of shit. Especially when you look at natural disasters - were the people in my very residential neighborhood bigger sinners than the guys who live on fraternity row who were untouched by the tornado? I think not.

I do believe, however, that when bad things happen, it is a good opportunity to look more closely at ourselves and make sure we have our priorities in order. Sometimes I feel almost lucky that so many bad things happened to me at such a young age. It's helped me appreciate the people I have in my life while I have them and let them know how I feel. It's also helped me to try things when I was younger that I might not have if I thought I was going to live as long as I already have. A lot of things I'd never do in the place and at the age I am now, but I'm glad I did them when I was younger. I'm sure my girls get tired of hearing me say it, but I really don't think you can help what happens to you (for the most part) but you can help how you deal with it. Some crappy situations I've dealt with better than others, but hopefully I get better and better with each shit storm... Although, I'd just rather have less things to recover from.

Fill My Heart With Song

Here is a bench downtown after a snow storm.

Well, kids. I'm still insanely busy, but I have just one more day before I can finally relax. I can handle one more crazy day, can't I?

My sister took my girls to Ottumwa today, so I've been flying solo all night. I've been running around so much, I didn't have time to notice how weird it is to go an entire day without seeing my daughters. That doesn't happen very often in my world.

I'll be very surprised if I have time to post tomorrow. I have to work my normal shift, and if the weather isn't too scary, I'm planning on driving down South tomorrow. I'm just staying for dinner and gift exchange and then we'll be driving back to Iowa City that night.

Christmas day is the girls' dad's birthday. I tried to get him to give me some kind of schedule for when he wanted the girls, but he must not have been sure what he was doing. So, I figure they'll open their gifts from Santa. (yes, he still comes to our house). Then see if their dad wants them for a while. He normally does something with his friends in the evening, so I'm planning on having dinner with the girls. I think I'll make a Christmas lasagna for dinner instead of Chinese take-out. We've had a lot of rice and veggies lately. It's not traditional for either their Irish or their Mexican side, but I didn't think boiled cabbage enchiladas sounded very good.

I don't have any real plans for those four days. Mr. B. said he might try to come up on Friday for a little bit, but I don't count on that. He's supposed to call me tomorrow or Thursday and let me know. I figure, if he shows, great. I'm always happy to see him, but if he doesn't, I have plenty of resting, relaxing, running, and cleaning to do. I'll just have more time for myself.

So, to all of you, no matter what you're celebrating, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, the fact that there is no spiritual force that exists, or the eventual return of your space ship to take you back where you came from, I hope you do it balls out...And I mean that with all reverence.

You Tell Me What You Want and I'll Tell You What You Get

I think I'm finally getting slammed by that cold. I've been putting it off forever and kinda, sorta almost getting it, but it looks like I've finally succumbed to it. So, this will be a mostly photo post. I figure the fewer words I use, the less chance I have of saying something stupid or making any more typos than I normally do.

I decided to take you on another lunch date with me. I like to go on an adventure for a half hour during my break, so I feel like I'm doing more in the day than just allowing my soul to be sucked through the beige cubicle walls.

Today I walked out of my building and heard drums and singing. I tend to follow the music whenever possible, and I found The American Indian Student Association members whooping it up behind my building.

I also thought I'd take a little different walking route than the last time you and I lunched together. Lucky for all of us I did, because I found this guy out on the Pentacrest or rePentacrest as some used to like to call it.

Here are some students listening to why they deserve hell and putting their book learnin' to use by trying to philosphically prove that a judgmental god cannot exist...Or at least one of them was, anyway.

This guy turned out to be the laziest fire and brimstone preacher I've ever seen. He would yell and point and judge, all while sitting on his pious ass.

Instead of going downtown, I wandered behind the Old Capitol for some peace and quiet. Apparently, I was done having an adventure for the day. Here is a guy enjoying what could be the last warm day of the year.

Here is the top of the Old Capitol. It was only a few short years ago, when I stood outside of my office and watched it burn. I also made some snide comments about how long it took the firemen to go two blocks to fight it. I remember one of the temps laughing at me and saying, "Wow. I've never met anyone who actually heckled firefighters before." Yeah, well. I'm special that way.

There were some nice red leaves looking West from the veranda.

And, finally, on my way back I looked down the street to see what kind of progress they were making on cleaning up the flood. The road is still closed, as you can tell from the orange plastic fencing. I wonder how long it will take for them to fix everything they can still fix?