Into the Woods, Part I

A few weeks ago, Alex and I joined a new church-- Grace Fellowship Presbyterian. Our parents joined us as the congregation welcomed us into their fold, and we have been really thrilled to be a part of this fantastic church community.

99% of the time, that is.

See, my dear friend Clay, the youth minister at GFPC, took advantage capitalized on my apparent love of teenagers, based on my being a middle school counselor, and asked me to chaperone the winter youth retreat. Excited to dive into community with our new church, I agreed.

The cabins are heated, he said.

We'll hardly be outside, he said.

We arrived at beautiful Alpine Camp in Mentone, AL, around 6 pm on the Friday night of our retreat weekend. My 9 middle and high school girls and I unloaded into our cabin, prepared our bunk beds, and headed to the Lodge for a surprisingly good camp dinner: chicken fajitas. Since I was coming off a 7 am- 4 pm workday of dealing with my own 450 middle schoolers, I started funneling coffee at dinner. I sensed it would be a long night because of games, giggling, and even a little Bible study.

How naive I was...

After dinner, we had a little free time before evening worship. The girls and I settled into our cabin and got to know each other a little better. At this point, I realized that I had not yet even taken my down "puffer" jacket off. Realizing how cold it must be in the cabin, I go to turn the heat on.

And I turn. And I turn. And I turn.

I'm hardly an expert on space heaters, but I eventually realized we weren't even working with a pilot light at this point. So when we returned to the Lodge for worship, I notified the camp person (manager? groundskeeper?) of our heating situation.

No problem, he said.

After worship, we gathered in the cabin with David-the-camp-man and one of the male chaperones, pondering over our heating situation.

Note: outdoor temperature-- 27 degrees, indoor temperature-- slightly higher than 27 degrees.

Eventually, the heat began working. And it was glorious. I can feel it now: those first flickers of rejuvenating heat...

So off we went to play ice breaker games with the other churches. Around midnight, we returned. And what did we return to? Glad you asked.

A cabin hovering somewhere around freezing. Once again, our heat had gone out. So, I called David-the-camp-guy once again. Good news: he restored the heat. Bad news: it's not going to stay on long because he doesn't have the tool to actually fix it.

Turn the smaller space heater in the bathroom on, he said.

That'll warm the ENTIRE cabin, he said.

Shortly after David-the-camp-guy left-- you guessed it-- the heat goes out again. Minutes later, the fire alarm begins beeping. Not a blaring alarm... just the super high pitched once-every-60-seconds kind of alarm that lets you know that the battery is dying.

Meanwhile, my happy campers are going about their business-- braiding hair, giggling about boys from the other churches, and so on. Head Counselor Ruggles here took care of the fire alarm by calling Clay, the youth pastor. Called him once. Called him twice. Called three times. Left a voicemail message not quite worthy of a church retreat, and shot off a few text messages. And then, I waited.

Approximately 45 seconds later, I gave up. Off into camp I went, because really what did it matter? Same temperature out there as it was in the cabin-- might as well take a stroll. I tracked down the boys' cabin and drug Clay out. Like a knight in shining armor, he fixed the alarm. Or, rather, he took it down, took the battery out, and left us defenseless against a night fire. It's not like we had a small space heater blaring in the bathroom or anything... Nevertheless, the beeping stopped and we were able to, at long last, lay our heads down and crash.

That was the plan at least. See, Clay ASSURED me there would be heat. So Big Girl just brought a set of sheets and a queen-sized quilt that I doubled over. Meanwhile, my sweet campers had sleeping bags worthy of camping on frozen tundras. So they snoozed right off as I lay there staring into my own frozen abyss. And then, the snoring started. Snoring worthy of an obese man suffering from sleep apnea. All from a petite sixth grader with a stuffy nose. The snorer was to my right, on the top bunk. Unfortunately, she was out of arm's length or I would've taken matters into my own hands-- literally. As it was, I was paralyzed by the bitter cold in my bottom bunk. Furthermore, my bunk buddy on the top bunk repositioned herself every 45 seconds or so-- not that I was counting each and every tiny budge. I had other things on my mind-- survival, for one. At this point, I am layered in nearly everything I brought: sweat pants, wool socks, long-sleeved t-shirt, fleece pull-over, down "puffer" jacket... I thought I had overpacked seeing as how we were staying in a "heated" cabin and all.

For hours, I lay awake, sending a periodic SOS into the Twittersphere and one desperate text to my dad, thinking he might drive out to Mentone at 2 am and rescue me. Evidently, once you're married your husband is responsible for middle-of-the-night rescues... My husband wasn't quite responsible enough to keep his phone charged, though.

At long last, my shivering and quaking exhausted me enough to drive me into a shallow sleep. Altogether, I slept about two and a half hours, and that may be a generous estimate.

My final illustration-- graphic though it may be-- should truly show you the depths of my despair. On one midnight pilgrimage to the restroom-- truly a Mecca in our cabin, being our one and only source of heat-- I couldn't help but notice that as I relieved myself, steam arose from the toilet. And that, friends, should tell you something.

So there ya have it, folks: night one of our adventure in the woods!

I Don't Know About You...

Just when I think Taylor Swift and I have at last parted ways, she goes and proves me wrong. Sure, we're in different chapters of life, but we can still agree on some things. For one, nothing brings a smile to your face quite like a walk down Memory Lane....

It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters and make fun of our exes...

We're happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time... It's miserable and magical...

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling twenty-two... Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you...

Everything will be okay if we keep on dancing, like we're twenty-twoooooooo....

It seems like one of those nights... to have breakfast at midnight...

It seems like one of those nights, we ditch the whole scene and end up dreaming, instead of sleeping...

Thoughts and Things

Welp, school is back in session! I went back Jan. 2 for an in-service day with just the faculty. We hit the ground running, and we have been in full sprint ever since. I think tomorrow is my last crazy day, and Monday should settle back into the usual, more routine crazy.

But I really wouldn't have it any other way.

So here's what's going on now...

Reading: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith and Breaking Free by Beth Moore. Next up: Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris and Reshaping It All by Candace Cameron Bure.

Watching: Downton Abbey. Gossip Girl. Nashville. Once Upon a Time. How I Met Your Mother. The Biggest Loser.
Next up on Netflix: 30 Rock. Parks and Rec.

At work:
- Ambassador interviews are tomorrow! My 8th grade students have filled out applications, the Top 10 have been announced, and tomorrow they'll interview with a team of 4 from outside of the community. I am SO excited to get this pilot program started!
- I sent out permission letters for two small groups yesterday. They're due tomorrow, and next week we'll start. These two groups are on anger management. I gave a survey to all the students in my school, and anger management was the number 1 issue chosen by students! I was shocked. So I mapped out lesson plans and invited 26 students-- 13 for each small group-- to participate one day a week for the next six weeks. Is getting all the students in the school with anger problems together in my office a really great idea? Ehhhh... I don't know, but here we go!
- I'm going to start using Rosetta Stone in the next few months, courtesy of my school, because approximately 30% of my kids are Hispanic, and on a campus of 2,000 kids we only have ONE translator. So even being able to use broken Spanish would be enormously helpful.

At home:
- We just took down our Christmas tree yesterday. This flies in the face of everything I was taught growing up; that is, the Christmas tree comes down on New Years Day. So I was approximately 10 days late. True to form.
- Our puppy is almost totally house-trained! Gryffindor Hays Ruggles, more commonly known as "Gryff" or "Mr. Gryff" or "G-Money"... okay, I have a problem with nicknames. Anyway, Gryff spends most of his day in our fenced-in yard. In the afternoons, he happily comes in and lounges on his new bed in the living room. He has yet to chew up anything other than a planter and a screw driver, so my shoes collection has been blessedly spared-- knock on wood. He is truly a wonderful addition to our little family, and he is Alex's pride and joy.
- We finally got dining room chairs! After six months of marriage, we at last have the means to actually sit at our dining room table-- although that means that it must cease being our catch-all for mail and unfinished projects. The lovely chairs made it from Ikea to our home in time to host a couple of Christmas gatherings, thanks to my in-laws who sent me the early Christmas present. And, as I like to remind Alex, since they're my personal chairs, I get to decide if he gets to use them or not.


Now that we have our Ten Weddings in Twenty-Twelve behind us, we are VERY much looking forward to boring weekends at home, full of lounging, sleeping, reading, catching up on favorite shows and movies, and a few projects I've been dying to get to. Maybe I'll even be one of those artsy-fartsy people that posts how-to blogs with pictures of each step. Maybe.

And now, time to finish up preparation for Ambassador interviews... and maybe watch an episode (or three) of Downton Abbey at the same time.

New Year's Resolutions

I've never been one to make resolutions. Sure, every now and then I'll get a wild hair and throw one out there. I've sworn off sodas before. I've even sworn off swearing (what can I say, my friends are bad influences). I guess I could give up chocolate or try to lose 10 pounds... but I really can't think of the last time I wasn't trying to lose 10 pounds.

The truth is, 2012 was such an amazing year that I can't think of a lot of things I'd want to change. I planned a wedding, earned a Master's degree, got married, moved into our first house, interviewed for "grown up jobs" and was even hired for one, finished my first semester in my dream job, and all the while woke up every morning next to my best friend (well, for the last 7 months anyway).

So it's been a pretty good year. Even so, I can't deny that there's some excitement in starting a new year. I don't necessarily need a clean slate, and I'm not especially anxious to say goodbye to 2012, but I can't help but get kind of energized thinking about the potential of a brand new year. So I guess I have some resolutions of sorts after all. Or just things I'm looking forward to.

First of all, Wedding Season 2012 has officially come to a close. Altogether, we celebrated 10 weddings in 2012. And that's just counting the ones we were able to go to, not the ones that overlapped. For almost every wedding, there was at least one wedding shower. Then there were a few rehearsal dinners. And about five bachelor/bachelorette parties. It comes up to about 20 events. Out of 52 weeks, that's almost half the weekends of the year. While I feel enormously blessed to have been able to celebrate with so many loved ones, I am very excited to just be BORED one weekend. To sit around in my pajamas and work on Pinterest projects. To watch a marathon on Netflix. To write a blog once in a while even.

I have some projects at work that I'm really pumped about. I'm starting an ambassador program for my 8th graders, and I have several classroom guidance lessons planned out (one includes a clip from Full House, and I'm entertaining the idea of rustling up some pictures of me in middle school...). I'm starting a Student of the Week program, complete with rewards and a spotlight bulletin board. And I finally get to start small groups. I have really high hopes for this semester now that I have one semester under my belt.

I want to start eating to live, not living to eat. For the longest time, my love of food has almost been comical. The office ladies at work joke about my sweet tooth, and I can sniff out a cream cheese dip a mile away. But at some point it's almost become a crippling addiction, a need for things that don't make me feel particularly good. Sure, the chicken fingers from the greasy spoon in Douglas are delicious, but the feeling of Crisco running through my veins and seeping out my pores is less than glamorous. I'm going to try to get away from the processed foods that keep me going during the week-- the Lean Cuisines and 100-calorie packs I live on. I can't even pretend that I'm suddenly going to be a strict "clean" eater, but I think with a little more intention and planning I can do much, much better.

Drink more. I need to move away from the chemical crap I put in my body every single day-- the diet soda. Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Ginger Ale, Cherry Coke Zero... my canned addiction. In its stead, I want to turn things a little more natural: tea, coffee, wine. (And water, of course). There's just something soothing about holding a warm mug in your hand, and nothing feels more sophisticated than a gorgeous glass of wine-- I've just got to start liking what's inside. I've turned to coffee once or twice when a meeting has been boring me to tears, but I think only filling half the cup with coffee and the other half with cream and sugar kind of defeats the purpose. I've started on what I consider "beginner tea": Earl Grey, and I've really come to love it. I've even found a white wine or two that I enjoy; one day I'll join the ranks of the red wine drinkers. One day.

I want to be more committed to my spiritual life. With so many weekend activities, it's become pretty easy to lay out of church on Sundays-- well, when you're out of town as much as we are, you really don't have a choice. We do still go when we're out of town, but visiting Briarwood or the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham doesn't do much for building relationships with our new church family. We want to get plugged in.

I want to take more pride in my appearance. I go through spells of laziness-- sweats and tees, leggings and pull overs, etc. I have several girlfriends that always look cute. Not just cute, but put-together. Maybe I just want to be more put-together. But honestly, I think I perform better when I'm dressed cuter. Even "Jean Fridays" at work decrease my productivity.

I guess the bottom line is, I want 2013 to be even better than 2012. And 2012 was pretty awesome. So it sounds like 2013 is going to take some effort from me in the self-improvement arena. A Better Me in Twenty-One-Three. Maybe that will be my motto. Or maybe I'll never say that again because mottos are kind of ridiculous...

Maybe I'll start my list by taking a bubble bath. I can't think of a better way to start bettering me.

Happy New Year's, everybody!

Life Gets in the Way

I think about blogging almost everyday.

My kids at school do something almost every period that I think-- I've got to write this down.

Unfortunately, I get home in the afternoons with zero desire to look at a computer screen. And so, day after day, my stories and thoughts get put off until they don't feel relevant anymore.

So, although anyone who read this blog often has surely given up on me by now, here I am. Back again.

This year has been a year of phenomenal growth and change. It's unreal to look back at this time last year and realize just how different it all is.

This year, I've gotten a Master's degree, my first grown-up job, a new last name, and a bonus family. We added a dog to our little brood-- tallying our family up to four: Alex, Lindsey, Macy, and Gryff-- and just this week cut our first Christmas tree as a married couple. The verdict is still out on how Macy and Gryff will handle said tree. Two days later, it's still standing... so there's that at least.

We made it to one Auburn game, and we went to Tuscaloosa for the Iron Bowl, although we didn't bother going to the game. As a split couple, we've now made it through two Iron Bowls without going our separate ways... although, after a season like this for MY team, it wasn't like I had a lot invested in this year's Iron Bowl.

This year, I took my first trip to New Orleans... and quickly discovered that I'm not particularly fond of New Orleans. And I stayed in a hotel by myself for the first time at a conference in Montgomery. I've become a coffee drinker-- that's possibly happened in the last 24 hours-- and even developed a liking for white wine. Liking may be too strong a word, but I can drink it. People have always said it's a "developed" taste... I've never had to "develop" a taste for Coca-Cola or sweet tea, so drinking wine seems like a hassle... But the glasses are pretty, so there you have it.

My hair is longer than it's ever been because my husband has never seen it in the bob that I kept for nearly 24 years and, in his mind, associates short hair with mom's and old ladies... So the mere mention of a "trim" gets reprimanded. I periodically set a deadline-- "Fine, I'll let it grow until... But THEN I'm cutting it off, like it or not!"-- but I always chicken out. By now, I've put in a lot of time to get it this long... so I'm, quite literally, attached to it.

I've also grown quite attached to my students and my co-workers. When I started my school counseling journey, I was high school 100%, As I did my internships, I quickly decided that elementary school was the way to go. Although I would NEVER say I was disappointed to get my job this summer, I will say that I was hopeful that it would lead to an eventual transfer to an age-group more to my liking. However, three months in, I can't imagine myself anywhere else. Life in middle school is an absolute circus, but I love it. All of it. The hormones. The break-ups. Everything.

We've recently started attending a new church and, with it, a new Sunday school group. The Sunday school class is for "potential new members" but, let me tell you, it is not for the faint of heart. There's homework, and the 8-week class wraps up with an interview with the elders. While this was off-putting to me at first, I have quickly grown fond of the in-depth discussions and rigor of the teaching-- WHAT do we believe, WHY do we believe it, etc. And even for those of us that grew up in the church-- maybe ESPECIALLY for those of us that grew up in the church-- these are still questions that we don't necessarily search ourselves for. It's a small church, but the community is awesome and the teaching is God-breathed. We do our "homework" together when we do our quiet time at night, and we are greatly looking forward to how the Lord will use this in our lives, and, more so, how the Lord will use US in the life of the Church.

So there ya have it. A little life update.

Welcome Home.

This past weekend, my sweet husband and I made my yearly pilgrimage back to the Mothership.

Auburn. Glorious Auburn.

From the moment we drove into town, everything went wrong.

We sat in traffic for an hour on our way into town. We passed three wide open parking spots in downtown on our way in, but couldn't find a spot for blocks when we came back to town for supper after our hour-long wait. Our hotel was awful. Awful. The hallways smelled like smoke-- just not a typical cigarette smoke. Not a burning smoke either. Like a drug smoke. And the rooms were worse. It was like walking into an 8th grader's armpit-- I work with middle schoolers; trust me, I know. The floor in our bathroom was sticky, there were stains on the carpet, and the air was damp. After dinner Friday, we sat on the steps of Samford Hall for over an hour, just refusing to go back to our hotel room.

Saturday, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, which makes for a beautiful day but an unbearable four quarters in the upper deck at Jordan-Hare. We left sweaty and sunburned. Very sunburned. STILL sunburned. And the game... I don't even have to tell you about the game. It was ugly.

But did I stay until the bitter end? Absolutely. I sang the fight song as the defeated players piled back into the locker room. And I was thrilled to go downtown afterward, even if it meant hanging out with a bunch of Arkansas Hogs.

Because Auburn isn't just football to me. Auburn is home. Interestingly, the "theme" at Auburn this year is "Welcome Home." We're known throughout the country as the 'Auburn Family' because it's something we pride ourselves on, because it's something we insist on. And for four years, Auburn was my home. Probably the four most significant years of my life, from a developmental standpoint. Auburn is where I "found" myself, as some people like to say. The friends I have today are the ones I had at Auburn: the ones I met in the ADPi chapter room at Berta Dunn Hall, the ones I spent endless hours studying with at RBD, the ones I spent countless weekends with at Jordan-Hare. Where we rolled Toomer's when Daniel found out he was cancer-free, where we spent "Terrific Tuesdays" at the intramural fields, where BreakFeast first kicked off.

Someone said to me last year, "Lindsey, do you realize that you live in a red state?" My mind first jumped to politics, but I guess she read the confusion on my face and followed up with, "You know, Alabama has beat Auburn in every sport this year." I never went back to check the statistics. Maybe she was right; I'd like to think she skipped one somewhere where we pulled through, but the truth is: it doesn't matter. Because it wouldn't matter to me if Alabama beat Auburn in every sport we played for the next ten years. I'd still be an Auburn fan.

Win or lose, every trip to Auburn would still feel like a homecoming. Even with a terrible hotel room and horrible traffic and painful sunburns.

Count your blessings.

Count your blessings, name them one by one;

Count your blessings, see what God hath done!

I knew what I was getting into when I took my job. For that matter, I knew what I was getting into when I started grad school. It's not like I stumbled into this profession on accident; I actively sought it out. Daily, someone says to me, "I don't know how you do what you do." And the underlying sentiment there is not some sort of awe, not that they think I'm some kind of hero. The message between the lines is, "What kind of freak wants to do this job?"

And to be honest, I frequently ask myself that question. 

For all the fun I have with my coworkers and getting to know my students and --hopefully-- getting to help students learn and grow, there isn't a single day that goes by that I'm not completely overwhelmed. Not by the amount of work, though it is looming at times, or the running around, but simply by the stories with which I am entrusted. Every day, a student walks into my office and lays their broken, bleeding heart down on my desk. 

Sometimes it's silly and frivolous and I have to fight unbelievably hard not to roll my eyes.

"So-and-so and I have been best friends for a week now, and last period she said she's not my best friend anymore."

Sometimes it's more serious. 

"So-and-so is telling everyone that I'm pregnant. And I'm not. At least, I think I'm not."

And sometimes it's the kind of thing that makes me want to lock myself in a closet and break down walls all at once. It's the kind of thing that knocks the breath out of me and leaves me willing myself not to throw up right there in front of the student. The kind of thing that leaves me crying in the corner behind the filing cabinet when I finally get a moment to myself. 

It's incest and neglect and abuse and vicious, vicious cruelty. 

Lying in the floor in the fetal position isn't an option for me, but I find myself running to my mental fetal position anytime my office clears out. Going to my happy place, my memories of what a childhood SHOULD be. What each of those children DESERVE. And what I got for some reason.

Memories drenched in sunshine and to the tune of my dad's loud laugh and my mom's sweet lullaby. She would play, "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus," on the piano in the dining room and we'd sing along, each trying to drown the other out. Memories that stretch out down long interstates to Jamestown, Atlanta, Memphis, Destin, Orlando... and sibling rivalry was placated with travel games and gummy Lifesavers. The time Adam and I got his-and-her windsuits and cowboy boots for Christmas... and decided to wear them together. The way we took turns telling the Christmas story and acting it out with the pieces of the porcelain Nativity. The forts we built under the magnolia tree in my grandmother's yard. The times Dad let us stay up and watch the Tonight Show when Mom was away on business trips. 

I relive these over and over again in my office as I sort out the details of who to call first: the parent, the principal, DHR, and so on. And I play them like a song on repeat in my mind as I try to go to sleep at night, here in my cozy bed with my perfect husband in my perfect house.

And it's astonishing, really, that I should ever complain when my complaints amount to whether or not I have the right black boots for this fall season.

So here I sit, after another exhausting day, counting how blessed I am. For whatever reason. And thanking God for being an all-powerful, all-knowing God who can use ALL things-- even the ugliest, most broken situation-- for His glory. And I just pray that in some way, I'm useful to these kids, even if the only thing I do is listen and share the burden of making those memories my own.