Hot Tea and Cold Snow

My cup of tea steeping in front of a snowy window

This morning when I woke to my husband moving around the room, he mentions he had received a text from my mom letting us know we need to be careful. He looked outside and saw nothing on the ground. Approximately 15 minutes later, he walks into the living room and I hear him exclaim about all the snow on the ground. Sure enough, the snow is covering the ground. I know my husband is wishing there was a snow day and he didn't have to go to work. But we all have our responsibilities that have to be fulfilled.

Me, I woke up to my chest hurting and a rattle. My cough is settling in. It skipped past the runny nose and congestion and went straight for the ringer: the chest. I stayed in bed longer than yesterday as I was not going to be walking today. When I did get up, I did some dishes (and counted them as exercise) and prepared for work. I settled in with a hot cup of Irish breakfast tea and chocolate chip muffins. And yes, I still have calories left for the day!

Yummy muffins

The topic? As I stare out the window at the snow softly falling, I have to wonder why I am not near as excited about seeing the snow as my husband is.  I know I love to watch it and observe it covering the ground. However, whenever I see snow or hear them forecasting for it, I cringe. All I can think of it is how I have to get to work and worrying about getting there. Why can't I enjoy the time off or relax? Why can't I enjoy a day with my cute puppies and hopefully having my husband spend it with me? I tell you what, if I did have the day off today, I would be settling back in between the warm sheets and hopefully shaking this rattle in my chest. Perhaps this state of mind is evidence of the time we live in. A time where we feel as though we have to work constantly. Perhaps it is a mindset we have to resolve. One day, I will love having a snow day. But today isn't that day.

One of my fluffy puppies, Fionna

But for the time being, I will enjoy the few hours I have left. I still have to get ready for work and do all the prep work. Lunch is already packed. I am going to place a heating pack on my neck and continue watching TV for now. Enjoying life one day at a time, one puppy kiss at a time and one loving look from my husband at a time. Until next time, I hope you enjoy this thing called La Vie.

A Calling, A Whisper and Snowflakes

Everyone do me a favor....go to your calendar and tell me what the date is.


April showers bring May flowers.

Go on, I will wait...

So, if your calendar reflects the same thing that my calendar does, it is currently the 5th of April, 2013.  Can you believe it that yesterday, the 4th of April, it snowed where I am?!?

I found it to be one of the craziest weather activities that I have witnessed in my young life.  Certainly, being where I am in the South, I am accustomed to it being hot and cold, back and forth, until it finally settles into Summer or Winter.  But I cannot ever recall seeing snow in April.

It was beautiful.  I was at work and whispers and murmurs began to sound throughout the building.  My back is to the window so I slowly turned to see what everyone was so entranced by.  Snow.  Big, white snow.  My coworker told me it was like clusters of flakes falling at one time.  It was like being in a snowglobe.

I often joke that Mother Nature needs to get out of menopause.  But at the same time, this is a miracle of our world.  Yesterday made me think of those persistent and courageous daffodils that peek up and begin to show the world they have survived winter.  I thought of how many of them would be harmed by the cold and the snow.  I use to think the same of the azaleas in the yard where I grew up.  Yet, they are so resilient.

We all encounter things in our lives that cause us to feel like we are moving backward.  I know I have.  I have put my life on hold for many different reasons only to wake up one day and realize I don't even know what my dreams are anymore.  This morning, after my fiancé left, I sent him a text message.  It read:

Please pray for me.  I am feeling lost and not fulfilled.  I know I shouldn't as I have you, my family and friends and a job.  I have everything that should make me happy.  But I still feel somewhat empty.

His reply:

I am always praying for you.  Every day.

Now you may say, "Eww, that's gross!"  But that is Love.  I realized last night, on my way home from work, what one of my coworkers told me.  We were talking about the study and practice of law and going on to higher education.  I told him that I never could because of the money.  He told me that if I am not careful, I will soon wake up and half my life would be over and I will not be where I feel like I should.

OK, I took a little artistic liberty with that.  I elaborate and wrote how what he said made me feel.  But those words really hit home.  I have stepped aside for so many things and people in my life that I have lost sight of what I want to make myself.  Is there any healing from that?

No, like the daffodils, there isn't healing.  But there is rebirth.  I have to be resilient like the daffodils and azaleas in the snow.  They have waited so long and couldn't wait any longer for Spring to be sure to set in.  But when the world started moving backward, they, too, retreated.  But that doesn't mean they won't appear again.  Just because I have been foolish in the past, setting my life and my dreams on hold for those around me, does not mean they won't come back to fruition.

The only remaining question is: what are my dreams?  What is my path?  I feel as though I am still fresh out of college and searching for my path in life.  How long will it take to discover it?  I have no inclination.  I do know I have a great support team in my fiancé and my family.  You, too, can be my support team.  Afterall, we have to stand by each other.

The other night, I had a thought that maybe at the end of a year, I might publish some of these posts and elaborate on them a little.  Any thoughts?  Comments, criticism or ideas?  I cannot become a better writer if I do not know how my writing is perceived.

UPDATE: I want to clarify that I am deeply in love with my fiance and thoroughly enjoy my job and what I am doing.  I simply feel like I have a calling for something more, be it volunteer work or going back to school.  I just don't want any misconceptions.

Snow-Covered Dream

This weekend has been wild and the weather matched it to a T.  My fiancé and I woke on Sunday morning to a dreary day, planning to travel to Roanoke, VA to have a birthday celebration with one of his cousins.  Not even an hour later, I look out the window and snow was falling in heavy flakes onto the ground.  The world began to look colder.  We hurried to get to church only to find that services had been cancelled.  The birthday party was frozen, much as the world around us.  We decided to venture there, anyways, to visit his parents.

We had a glorious time.  I love my future in-laws greatly.  But the snow kept worrying me to no end.  What if we can't get out, I think.  What if I can't get to work?  What then?  My fiancé tried with all his might to calm me, but to no avail.  I had swung into a mini panic attack...OVER WORK!

I told him he wouldn't understand and I truly don't think he ever would.  How do you explain to someone that missing work is giving you a panic and anxiety attack?  That you feel your duty to your place of employment so strongly that it makes you feel sick to miss it.  Or how even when you are sick, you try everything in your will to get there or last there.  We got home safely and I am sitting in my pod, safely.  No worries, no anxiety.

Work seems to be like a constant in my life.  My father taught me a strong work ethic.  You look and ask for work if you don't have anything to do.  That is called job security.  When you have questions about things, you learn about it until you can't understand and then you ask for help.  That is called ambition.  Did my learning such a strong and powerful ethic cause me to go too extreme?

My fiancé would tell you that I am a worry wart.  Shoot, I would confess to that as well!  I worry constantly.  And yet, I tell the people around me to not worry about things they have no feasible control over.  So why can't I embrace that as well?

Saturday night, I had an interesting dream.  I was biking on a path and people were constantly biking around me.  I was moving slowly, but it was hilly as well.  And the hills got steeper and steeper until I finally reached a hill that was insurmountable on my own accord.  I felt myself rolling back and closed my eyes.  All of a sudden, I felt something pushing me up.  I was not peddling or using any of my own force.  I found myself at the top of the hill.  Furthermore, the top of that hill turned out to be the top of a mountain where no one else could reach.  I stopped there and gazed out in this view that no one else could or would ever witness and gasped.  I could see from shore to shore, boats in the harbor and houses in the villages around me.  I took pictures, inhaling the air and feeling the warm breeze.

Then, I woke up.

When I told my fiancé, he interpreted it the same way I did.  Perhaps it is God's way of telling me that nothing is insurmountable if I trust.  And I know I have a hard time trusting Him sometimes.  I worry and fret when truly, there is no reason.  If it is in His hands, He will find a way.  Maybe not now, not tomorrow or not for several years.  But it will happen...in His time.  But, until my time or your time comes to discover what is the answer, enjoy a thing called, "La Vie."