New Schedule

Levi started working days(ish) this week (noon to midnight). You know what that means for me? This is dinner:

I feel this is a step up from last night's PB&J on crackers!

Hung

I finally put nails in the wall to hang yet another great find from Roxy's:

A fun little rack for mail

More Loves

I've been continuing to acquire unique pieces throughout the week and now I have these to share with you:

A great headboard from my friend and shabby chic mentor, Nichole. Maybe one day we'll get it situated at the head of our bed. Right now it's sitting against another wall. 

An old door from Roxy's that I've had my eye on. If it says in this spot, we'll have to remove the glass so we can get to the thermostat. This door is actually yellow on the other side, but that didn't really fit our decor so we're using the unfinished side. Levi is especially excited about the door because you can tell from the unfinished side that it was in a house fire (and if you put your nose up to it, it still has a fire smell!)

Decompression of the Mind

Reader beware: this blog got a little out of hand.

I haven't written much on this blog because I've not been sure that much happens in my life worth publishing to the entire world. But today I think I'd like to write just for my own benefit. You see, though it may be Sunday afternoon for most people, this is my Friday night. I just finished my work week and went to church (which, it turns out, is a great thing to do of a Friday night) and so I would like to just think things through before I go for my ritual Sunday afternoon nap.

So, first of all, I have the things that I just did at work on my mind. Last night my path crossed with some very, very interesting characters. For starters, there was the forty-something man I met in the not-so-nice part of Oklahoma City who had been bashed upside his head by a cement block wielded by his local drug dealer. The man was so drunk that he didn't feel the pain (yet), and didn't even realize that he was injured until we had him look down at his blood-stained t-shirt. People with head trauma often get combative, and he most certainly exemplified that. My partner Chad even got to sit on him at one point, which is one of his favorite things to do. After that, a police officer threatening to tase him, and us tying him down to our cot, he finally settled down and contended himself with the occasional expletives flung quietly in our direction.

Then there was the car wreck where no one was really hurt, the woman who was having some sort of serious cardiac event, and another car wreck where the man probably did suffer some serious head trauma, a DUI, the loss of his job, and jail time. Bad night for him, though he didn't yet realize how bad a night it was going to be when I was there with him.

The most interesting call of the night, though, was the 24-year-old guy who overdosed on a whole lot of heroine and who knows what else. Oddly, it was in the same apartment complex where we ran a different overdose earlier this week, and the complex isn't even in our service area, which means we're not even supposed to go there. When we arrived he was unconscious in the back room of the apartment (why do people always go to the farthest depths of the house to pass out? I think there's probably something deeply significant in this fact, but I'm not sure what. It reminds me of how animals will often leave their herd if they're know they're going to die soon. Maybe we're not so far removed from the real jungle as we feel in our own self-constructed concrete jungle.) and he had stopped breathing, though he still had a pulse that would also soon stop if we didn't help him. I started breathing for him with a bag-valve-mask while my partner started an IV. Once the fire department arrived I had them start doing the breathing while I prepared the Narcan, our all-around anti-opiate drug, for my partner to give through the IV. After the Narcan the guy very slowly started to come to. First he was responsive to pain, and then eventually to speech. We hauled him out of the labyrinthine apartment on a backboard and drove fast to the hospital, where he attempted to convince everyone that he would never do drugs. :)

While work might be the most immediate thing on my mind today, though, I don't think it's the most important. That's part of why I like going to church right after my work week. Though it's difficult to do so when I'm dog-tired, it's really nice to be reminded that there's more, a lot more, to life than work.

For example, Emily and I have been talking a lot lately about responsibilititis, as you may know from her previous post. The two of us have so many apparently important things to do that we could easily invest all our time in these while neglecting those things in life that motivate people in middle age to get divorced, buy a corvette, and move to Vegas. I'm sure this temptation isn't unique to the two of us, but sounds very familiar to a large chunk of Americans. Once a person recognizes the gap in their life between the things they do and the things they'd like to do, the question becomes, "do I change what I do to something that I enjoy more, do I try to learn to enjoy what I do more, or both?" I think the way people answer this question is a large part of what defines them and how they view the world. For me, I'd like to try a healthy mixture of both options, because I know that simply changing what I do in my daily life won't cure me of my responsibilititis, because any life eventually just becomes everyday life. I also know that gritting your teeth and bearing it can lead to a very, very unhappy, unfulfilled person. A healthy balance, then, seems like the only sensible solution. I suspect that a balance is the right way to go, too, because the idea has just the "odd twist" to it that C.S. Lewis said true things have.

Anyways, those are a few things that have been on my mind. I wouldn't say they've just been swirling around my head uncontrollably, but they've been simmering somewhere on the back burner of my mind along with many others. I'd like to pull the others out and explore them some, too. Maybe that's why people do this blog thing after all. :)

Responsibilititis

Does anyone else suffer from what Levi and I refer to as responsibilititis? That is, the feeling that you must be "responsible" by doing necessary things (e.g. laundry, dishes, etc.) before even thinking about having fun or taking a moment for yourself.

Lately, things have been so busy with the move and work that responsibilititis has me overwhelmed. Every night that Levi works, I cook him dinner and get him out the door, do the dishes, put on a load of laundry, water the plants, attempt unpacking boxes if there's time and squeeze in some Bible reading before I fall into bed (still at a somewhat decent hour so I can get up and do it all again tomorrow).

After a week of a bad case of responsibilititis, I decided I needed to have fun tonight. I was disappointed Levi had to work, but I planned to get a good magazine (while I was at the store getting corn for tomorrow's fellowship lunch at church - responsibilititis strikes again!) and devour it in a bubble bath.

Well, I got the magazine but then proceeded to sit on the couch with it while I stared at the laundry that needed folding and thought about the dishes yet to be done in the kitchen. I had to fight responsibilititis because I've been realizing lately that life is too short to never let yourself rest, rejuvenate, be creative and have fun!

I have to admit, though, that while trying to fight off the feeling of guilt I had about not doing "chores," I began to feel completely overwhelmed to the point that I cried. Can you believe it? Who CRIES about not doing chores??? What's wrong with me?! I should mention that, due to the busyness of the last few weeks, it seems that my evenings spent doing chores only accomplish the tasks necessary to keep our household going, so I never get to things like unpacking or decorating (things I desperately want to do). This has left me feeling even more busy and even more behind, so I feel extra-guilty for taking time for myself.

To make matters worse, I especially feel like I have to get chores done while Levi's gone to work. I know he doesn't expect me to run myself ragged, but I feel like there is a (Emily-made) expectation for me to not just sit around doing whatever I feel like all evening. And, while Levi's great about helping, he just simply doesn't have time to help on the days he works between long shifts and sleep time. That leaves me to do the chores that need doing most nights of the week.

How can I get past this? Does anyone deal with a similar struggle to balance work and play? I don't have a problem allowing myself to play, it's just that I have a hard time not feeling guilty while I'm playing if there's a long list of to-dos. I still want/need to be responsible and get things done, but I need to take time for myself, too! Thoughts?

Chair Love

Well, it's happened again. Yesterday, I fell in love with a piece of furniture at a neat little store on my first trip. It's an office chair from Ripley's Antiques in Noble. The store is especially great, like a small version of The Rink in Bethany.

Let me tell the back story before I show you the chair. Recently, Levi and I (well, mostly me) were browsing a Pottery Barn catalog when we came to this picture:

I was mostly interested in the desk while Levi couldn't get enough of the chair. He definitely has an opinion when it comes to furniture, but rarely does he get excited about a particular piece. Since the chair from Pottery Barn is $399, I knew we would probably never get it, at least not for a long while, but I kept it in the back of my mind.

That's when I found this chair at Ripley's:

How cool is that? Not only is it the same type of chair Levi liked but it's GREEN! And guess how much it they wanted for it. Are you ready for this? $15. I thought I misheard the cashier and couldn't get "I'll take it" out of my mouth fast enough! Ripley's will definitely be a store I go to again. If you're going to check it out, take me with you!

I have a very sweet husband...

...who does things like this:

for no reason.