If I Only Had A Brain

I haven’t posted in quite a while. That is in part because work has been a bit strange lately; in part because Matt was home for a very brief period last weekend and most of the time was spent getting him and his stuff ready to turn around and leave again; and in part because my mom flew in on Tuesday morning to keep me company (and keep me sane) through the last bit of Matt’s Huge Month of Being Away.

So, what have I been up to? Not as much as I wish. I’ve taken Shiloh to the dog park regularly, spent time with some good friends, and am currently reading Jim Butcher’s FURIES OF CALDERON, which I like very much thus far.

My boss hasn’t been doing all that well lately. . . for a while it was just general fatigue, but recently that translated into a couple of falls when he was at home, and he is currently in the hospital for a little while as a result of that. I haven’t spoken with him directly, but the latest news I got was that the doctors are confident that he will recover fully, though he won’t be leaving his home for a week or possibly more. On the one hand, it’s nice to not have to work while Mom is visiting; on the other, I sincerely wish that condition were not a result of Vernon’s injuring himself.

So that’s what’s happening with me. Shiloh’s still cute; Bob2 is still alive out on the porch, as best I can tell. And Matt comes home tomorrow afternoon! Woohoo! I get my husband back!

Time to go and finish reading the book. It’s “due” back to the generous soul who lent it to me on Sunday. (He knows that without a deadline, things tend to languish on my To-Read Shelf. Smart boy.)

Bob2 Update

Bob2 is still alive.

I moved him out onto the porch this morning. I realize that I probably should have done this a week or more ago, but I’ve been a little slow on the uptake in general lately. But this morning I came into the office to clean off my desk so I can pay the bills so our electricity stays on and our phones stay connected, and I saw Bob sitting there, indoors, not getting as much sun as he would like. So he’s outside now. The porch is shady in the mornings, but catches sun from about noon until sunset, which is about 9pm these days, so he should be happy.

Now I should go back to cleaning the desk, so I can proceed to paying the bills. And then writing. Because there is always writing to be done.

Favorite Colors

When I was little, my favorite color was pink.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s very cute that Betsy was a typical little girl who liked pink girly things. You’re not seeing the sinister angle. The other side.

See, I went a little bit overboard on the pink. If it came in pink, I wanted it in pink. I had pink jeans, not blue jeans. I had pink tires for my bicycle. I played with Barbies not because I particularly liked them, but because everything came in pink. When we moved across town and into a new house, I got to pick the carpet that would go in my room–without a second’s hesitation, I picked the pinkest carpet I could find in the store. And then I tried to convince my parents to paint the walls pink, too. They stopped me at a pink border around the top of the wall, but for years I was still happy because the white walls of my bedroom looked pinkish because they reflected all the other pink in the room. I had pink curtains, pink sheets, a pink bedspread, pink stuffed animals. . . . it was amazing. I’ll have to find a photo and scan it so you can get even the beginning of an idea of what it looked like.

It was great until I entered my teenage years. Then I revolted against pink, though I couldn’t do much about the carpet. I never, ever wore pink clothes. I changed the curtains and everything else, and tried to pretend my pink phase had never existed. Halfway through high school, I convinced my parents to let me take down that awful pink border and paint the walls and get new carpet (which they probably only agreed to since they knew I’d be moving out and they’d be buying new carpet for the room anyway, since no sane empty nesters have one pink room).

It wasn’t until I was out of college for two years that I voluntarily bought anything pink again, and that was half because I found the perfect laptop bag for 75% off its normal price simply because it was pink. So I’ve been easing myself back into a judicious use of pink for the last three years or so, and I think it’s going pretty well.

But the funny thing? Even back when my favorite color was pink and everything I owned was pink, my favorite favorite color was orange.

Why?

Because I liked orange popsicles best.

Ah, the complexities of childhood.

Blogging and Depression

The problem with blogging while fighting off depression is that there’s not a lot of witticism or carefree fun that comes naturally. There’s a good deal of cynicism and gloomy introspection, and there are far too many blogs out there filled with both of those for me to feel that adding my bit here would benefit anyone in any way.

That makes it rather hard to blog. I’m not saying that I only blog sunshine and roses, all the time, just that nobody wants to listen to me whine and, frankly, blogging about what I haven’t gotten done does not help my depressive cycle.

At all.

So I avoid it.

Then I feel silly for wanting to post an entry talking about my good day yesterday, because by normal-people standards, I didn’t do all that much. By depressed-person standards, it was a victory.

I cleaned the house (the office wasn’t bad, really, but the rest felt like a mess), ran a very full dishwasher and then put the dishes away, and did almost all the laundry. We took the dog to the dog park, and, perhaps most importantly, I marked up manuscript pages with edits. It’s been several weeks since I really did any work on the manuscript. It’s been floating in the back of my mind, as always, but I haven’t been able to pull together the brain power to work on it. It’s one of my least favorite parts of depression. But now I’m looking forward to going through and making those changes and then moving forward again. It’s a good feeling.

So yesterday was huge. Great. I also opened the curtains for the first time in five days. Funny how letting light into the house can help. I ended the day feeling like it had gone well, which is significant. Too many times, even a good day ends with me feeling discouraged and frustrated, and that’s no good at all.

Today has been pretty good, too. I went to work, but my boss didn’t, so I got to come home early. We ran some errands that I’ve been putting off, I’m finishing the last of the laundry now, and then my official task is to read a library book that I’ve renewed so many times I can’t renew it again. It’s due tomorrow evening, so I’m dedicated to reading it. Happily, Matt has things to do this evening, so the time is pretty much open for me to do my reading.

That’s about all. It’s not very exciting. Depression rarely is.

Vacation Wrap-Up and Whatnot

Apologies yet again for failing in my blog schedule… I’ve uploaded more photos from the trip and made comments over on flickr, in the Utah album. Head over there and check it out. The first five or six photos have already been posted on the blog, but the rest are new.

I’ve mostly been reading this week, between efforts to settle back into the routine of being home. On that front, it’s been a rough week. We had several special events on campus, which meant shuffling our usual schedule, and I’ve been fighting off a rather persistent bout of depression recently. It manifests as an extreme inability to focus combined with rather overwhelming lethargy. I’m working, bit by bit, to keep moving forward, or at least not stagnate entirely. It seems a hopeless business most days, but I have good friends and family who keep me in line and crack the whip when I slide a bit too close to the edge of full-out wallowing.

So that’s where things stand. It’s a busy, rather stressful month in the Whitt household, since June is extra-busy for Matt and his youth ministry responsibilities. He’ll be home eight days between now and July 4th. I expect to spend rather a lot of time with Shiloh at the dog park while he’s gone. I’ve got a few other plans, too, which I won’t expand upon at the moment. We’ll see what the month brings.

Utah! (I really am here. Doing things.)

Okay, okay, this makes three days without updates. You should know by now that my promises of daily postings are more like wishful thinking than anything else.

So, here’s your update. We did go to IKEA on Saturady (I was going to take a photo to post, but Matt wouldn’t let me. Party pooper.) and we bought too much stuff, as always happens when we’re let loose in that fabulous store. Picked up a few Christmas gifts for family members, some airtight canisters to store our coffee in, new pillows, things like that. We also hit up a couple other places, including Payless Shoes, where I got these (much cheaper than that) and another pair, even cheaper, that I can’t find on the website. Both very cute and comfy. Yay shoes!

Yesterday (that would be Sunday) we made a rather abortive attempt at hiking. There were several obstacles, but between the semi-slushy snow on the trail (but not enough to make snowshoes worthwhile, of course) and the unrelenting rain, we turned back sooner rather than later, and spent pretty much the rest of the day avoiding the outdoors, because it was rather uninviting. And since it was raining while we were hiking, we never pulled out the camera, so no photos. Not that you could have really seen anything anyway.

I have, so far, read three books.

This morning, we decided to head over to Park City and see where the day led us. We walked around historic downtown PC for a while, then went east to Kamas for lunch and then farther east into the Wasatch National Forest for a bit of mountain biking. It was muddy and tiring and I’m way out of shape, and we didn’t go very far, objectively speaking, but it was lots of fun, and I’m glad we did it. Still having plenty of daylight, we swung down and got a really fantastic view from the top of Memorial Hill in the Heber Valley. Here’s part of the view, plus proof that I’m actually on the trip:

See? Skinny, pale, and squinting. It must be me!

Anyway, from there we headed a bit farther south and west over a well-traveled gravel road to get to Cascade Springs, which was lovely and interesting and generally great. Matt took some great photos, but apparently I didn’t upload any. At any rate, we were going to continue on a paved alpine scenic route up past Mount Timpanagos and on to Provo, but it was closed. The nerve! But never fear! There was another option–a state park road that dropped south to the road we needed.

It did come with a warning, but that seemed like much more of a formality than anything.

I mean, look at that! You can almost hear the birds singing! That sign? Biggest. Understatment. Ever.

On the up side, Leo (that would be our 4Runner) got to have fun on vacation, too!

That was the first of three water crossings. Then there was the freakishly steep climbing, which we probably would not have managed without Leo’s low 4-wheel drive gear. There were a few very scary moments. Not, “Oh no, we’re going to die” scary but, “Hmm this might be very, very bad for the car” scary.

But we got some really amazing views. (97% sure this is Timpanagos)

We wouldn’t have gotten anything like that without hiking for several hours. It was fantastic. Very cool. Very fun. I have no desire to ever do it again. :) Definitely an unforgettable part of this vacation.

Between the driving, which always makes me stiff, the mountain biking, and the off-roading adventure, I anticipate not being able to get my own body out of bed in the morning without help. I’ll make sure there’s a book or two on the bedside table so I won’t have to move if that’s the case. Never hurts to be prepared.

Viva vacation!

Utah!

Okay, so I don’t have any Utah photos for you today, but I do have photos from the first part of our morning. We stayed outside of Grand Junction and took the time to drive through the Colorado National Monument, which really is lovely. We’d like to return sometime and do some hiking, rather than being relegated to the Rim Road. It was a spectacular drive, though, with many opportunities to pull over and walk to an overlook and take photos or just enjoy God’s creation. Driving through on an overcast Friday morning certainly affected traffic, and there were hardly any other people. Amazing quiet, and a really surprising lack of wind, given the fact that wind and water are the chief agents of erosion in this really amazing terrain.

It’s hard to see the vegetation much there, but up along the road there were old trees twisted by the wind, stunted by the harsh conditions. Most of them are probably a hundred years old, but look much smaller. Here’s one that must have started out in a crack in the rock, but has gotten big enough that it looked like it was rooted directly in the sandstone. Very cool.

Tomorrow we’re going to take it easy, really relax and unwind, and maybe venture out to IKEA. Whee IKEA!

Park Space Love

Have I ranted here on the blog about the silly people who park in our spot? About the people who park right beside our spot in the stripey bit of the handicapped spot beside ours, as if that were a real spot?

I think I have.

Just to give you a little taste of the kind of thing that happens all the time around here, Matt just pulled the car up so we can load bags for our vacation…

Really? Did the lawnmower dude NEED to put his tarp of grass RIGHT THERE?

It has become amusing to me. Maybe I can set up an electric shocker fence for anyone who crosses into our parking space. That would do it, right? Right?

Vacation!

Okay, so I’ve been rather swamped lately. You see, there was that unexpected trip east last week, and then all the scrambling to catch up and make sure Matt remembered everything he needs to do (he is now officially done with his school year - yay!) and–taking up most of my time this week–there has been the planning I put off for our upcoming vacation.

That’s right, folks. For the first time in two years, I will be traveling entirely for pleasure. We aren’t meeting anyone or seeing family or going to a conference or anything other than relaxing in the middle of some of God’s beautiful country. And we leave this afternoon. Yipes!

We’ve rented a condo thing outside Park City, Utah for the week, and we will be relaxing, hiking, mountain biking, and generally exploring the Salt Lake City/Provo/Uintas Range/Wasatch-Cache Mountains area for the next week. And, as a reward for your general patience and fabulousness over the last few months, I’ll do my best to post a spectacular (or at least an interesting) photo from the trip every day. We’ll have wifi, and I’m taking my laptop, so there’s no reason this shouldn’t work.

Yay Utah!

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend