I'm still here, are you?!

Hello.

I missed you.

Let's not stay apart for this long again. 

Um, it's Stacie.

No, not Tracy, Stacie.

Don't worry, I get that all the time.

My fault, anyway.  I've never spent this much time away from the blog.  Not when I was so stressed I nearly threw my parents' printer into their pool while trying to print wedding RSVP cards, or when I had the oh-so-hectic schedule of work, work, work, quick dinner, memorize lines, rehearsal, felt during rehearsal, drive home, fall into bed.  I always managed to have a story to tell, or had a story I wanted to tell.

But I was also happy then.

Now I'm just....blah.

At church on Sunday I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a few months.  Our quick let's-catch-up-in-the-10-minutes-before-the-next-service-starts conversation made me chuckle in a laugh-so-I-don't-cry kinda way.

It went a little somethin' like this:

"Hey! How are you?!"

"Oh fine, and you?"

"Good, good..."

(small talk)

"....did you hear we got a puppy?"

"Oh!  But you still have Oliver, right?"

"Well, no.  We had to put him down in January."

"Oh no I'm so sorry!"

"Yeah, he got sick...."

(small talk)

"So how's your mom?"

"Well...."

"Oh that's right, I heard her father died."

"In February, yeah...."

(small talk)

"...and at least my mom has some company, with (sister) and (bro-in-law) living with her."

"What?  I thought they lived up north?"

"Well, in December (bro-in-law, sheriff's deputy) had to shoot and kill someone so now they're staying with my mom while he fights debilitating anxiety...."

...

We only had a few minutes to talk so that's as far as we got.  Plus I think there's this thing in the Bible about not complaining, so....

It's just not happy-time here on the farm, is what I'm tryin' to say. 

I'm sad for my losses and for my sisters' struggles.  I wish that my family didn't have to move halfway across the country leaving me all alone here.  I'm ready for something to go right so that I can see a light at the end of this very dark tunnel...I know it's there but my faith is wearing thin.

Or as I told my mom, maybe the sun just needs to come out so I can get some vitamin D already!

Not that long ago I saw a co-worker go through a similar year where one thing after another just went wrong.  I felt bad for her and thought she had the worst luck in the world.  But then things started to not go wrong, and eventually life evened out and I saw that it wasn't a case of bad luck that she was going through but one of those "seasons" big kids were always are talking about.

Seasons.  So mature sounding.  Short for "that time I wanted to hibernate for six months."

Another big-girl lesson learned:

1) Sometimes things just go wrong for awhile.

Also:

2) Girl scout cookies make you fat.

So, boo.  All I can do just hang in there....

...and freak out.

Just kidding.  I'm just going to wait.

I work hard. For dog clothes.

You are going to be mildly impressed blown away by this post.

No, really.

I'm normally not too keen on wrapping up my weekends here, mostly because nothing happens besides the typical 30hr felting session//craft show//zombie movie marathon//remembering loved ones who have passed.  But this past weekend was just too much to not share.

Too. Much.

Day One: my very first auction.  I can't find the words...no I can find the words, I just can't arrange them into a sentence that conveys how exciting this was for me. 

Thank you bullets:

• I love junk.
• I love to repurpose junk.
• I love working for my junk.
• I love a good deal.
• I love old stuff.
• I love watching people.
• I love imagining why anyone would want German woodcut figurines.
• I love out-of-the-ordinary activities.

While driving home with my mom, my sister, our junk, and her 1860's drop leaf table she got for $17.50thankyouverymuch:

"Hi honey (this is my mom on the phone to my dad), we're just on our way home from an auction......Yeah, an auction.  Stacie dragged us to it......(to me)  Your father said that had you written all over it."

I may or may not have ended up with $13 in goods by way of a paddle-happy sister.  But in her defense she was sure I needed a gold framed oval mirror.

Also Day One: Mr. Oliver T. Lucas is now the proud owner of a brand new rain jacket!

He hates it, but we are hoping he'll grow to appreciate it on those days we would normally have to call off walks due to inclement weather (drizzle).

"Yay, Oliver has a rain jacket!"

"Yaaay....you do realize this means we have to walk him in the rain, right?"

"......oh."

One More Thing About Day One:  turkey sandwich. 

What?!  It was a great sandwich.

Day Two:  shopping and holiday coffee and nap and zombies. 

At the end of this day I had Christmas gift ideas, one shirt I don't need, another shirt I'll wear once this year, peppermint mocha in my belly, one hour of uninterrupted snuggle time with the dog, and my weekly fix of zombie apocalypse.

At The Very End of Day Two: banana split.

My current vice.  Don't judge.

...

Of course there was some work to be done.  Which I did.  Because those four necklaces, 13 baby headbands and acorn ornaments can't make themselves, am I right? or am I right?! or am I right?!?

And that brings us to Monday.

Aren't Mondays easier when you know there's an eatin' holiday coming up?

Is this just me?

Anniversaries are for buying sneakers and dog treats

My wedding anniversary was Tuesday.

Time goes by so fast.

It marked Mr. Lucas and my third go 'round on this crazy domestic train.  And apparently the gift for three years is Italian food.  Thanks for the risotto and tiramisu, Corey...it's what I always wanted!  I hope you enjoyed your slab of meat and cream puffs because I put a whole lotta thought into it.

When you've been together long enough, seven years total for us, I'm learning the every day interactions lose a little bit of that spark from the earlier times.  Conversations are less about the "I love yous" and more "make sure you clean the toilet before John and Liz come for dinner...they don't need to know we're tamale-intolerant!"  Which is why it's so important to set aside days every now and then to revisit what brought you together in the first place.

An anniversary is the easiest place to start.

The following is advice to you taken from my magical day; use what I've learned to create a little romance with your boo:

1. Wake your mate up early.  Trust me, he's going to love smelling your morning breath through your whispered sweet nothings.  He may ask you if you swallowed trash the night before, but this is just his way of saying, "hey, you are special to me."
2. Go to work.  All day.  Don't take the day off; absence makes the heart grow fonder.  It also makes you forget for a second that you can't plan a meeting for right after work so maybe keep a little sticky note nearby as a reminder.
3. Don't talk on the phone either.  It's easier to not fight about whether you may or may not have forgotten to mention you will be going out of town for the weekend if you do not speak at all.
4. When you are both reunited, go buy some running shoes.  For your partner.  In the pouring rain.  He probably won't use them for the next several weeks, but this really is the best possible time to do it.
5. Next, drive to the pet store and buy your dog a bag of Greenies.  While it is still raining.
6. Go home.  Put dry clothes on.  You're going to a fancy restaurant for dinner, for goodness sake.
7. Try that place you used to love but haven't been to in awhile.  And take their only table in the bar.  Yes, it will be the size of your bathroom sink but that can only bring you both together.
8. Splurge!  Have your one glass of wine for the month on this day!  And then giggle uncontrollably as you fight your significant other for the last piece of bread.
9. Make conversation.  Talk politics, let him laugh at just how little you know about the state of our national debt for someone who works for a politician.  Just remember as he posts your nonsense on Facebook he's laughing with you.
10. When you get home, put on some pjs, get ready for a night of snuggling to one of your shows, grumble about how you're too full to watch Chopped on Food Network and then drift into a Riesling induced fit of slumber full of dreams about having to share your man with the girl who lived next to you in the dorms your freshman year only to be reminded that, yep, he's all yours as he wakes you up with a snort and yanking of all the covers.

The End. 

Now, enjoy your own magic making, friends.  I'm so glad I could help.

I quit.

Let's get real, people.

Sometimes life is shizz.

No mom, I said shizz.  It's totally not the same.

She's a little sensitive.  I spent the weekend using semi-foul language with the sole intention to ruffle her feathers.  Kind of like an I'm-an-adult-see-what-I-can-do kind of thing.

I also eat dessert and then tell her about it.

It's how I say I love you.

But I digress.

What were we talking about?

Shizz?

Yes.  What shizz we have to go through sometimes, eh?!

And isn't it grand that there are more times than we care to count when all the shizz hits the fan at once?

Snarking grand.

But this is all to say that eventually that shizz that stunk up our mental places turns into fertilizer; metaphoric crap we can actually use to make life better.

Oops, I said crap.

Crud.

But actually, crud doesn't make too fine a fertilizer.  You need literal poo.  But here I go getting away from myself again.

No, I'm not really quitting anything.  Sometimes I'd like to, but I'm not.

Shizz is only shizz if I let it get to me.

So I go back to the drawing board and do it differently.

.....

How vague can I get, you ask?

Mmmmhmmm.

Bon Voyage!

No, no.  I'm not going anywhere!

I'm still snuggled up all cozy in my Saratoga Springs.

It's my parents and youngest sister, Kimberlie, who are packing up and moving on. 

To Wisconsin, of all places.

Wisconsin??  Where the heck is Wisconsin?

Good question.  Very good question.  Unless you're from the midwest, all those no-coastal states get jumbled together.

Surely Oklahoma borders Illinois and maybe parts of Ohio where that jut-out thing kinda juts out like it does....

Extra points if you know the shape of the state if not where it goes.

Minus points if you lived in Indiana for 11 years and still don't know what's on the other side of Illinois.

Stacie Jo.

Tsk tsk.

So without further embarrassing ado, I share the ridiculously short list of things I know about the great state of Wisconsin:

(wait, it is great right?  I'm just assuming it doesn't suck...)

{one}  Cheese.  People make cheese in Wisconsin and then they wear it on their heads at certain times.  Possibly when there are a lot of people all together in one place.  And then they call each other cheeseheads, but in a good way.

{two}  Green Bay Packers...whoop whoop!  And in watching Green Bay games I know that it snows a foot a minute all winter.  Which begins in October.

{three}  People say "eh?" at the end of sentences, turning all general statements into questions.  I can imagine this makes conversations very, very lengthy.

{four}  The state borders Lake Michigan and is home to Milwaukee and beer with a very misleading name.  Milwaukee's Best?  I sure hope not.

{five}  Home of the Badgers.  As in University of Wisconsin Badgers.  GO PURDUE.

{six}  Serial cannibal Ed Gein lived and "worked" here.  Is it weird that I know this?

...

Of course there's more to the Cheesehead State...

The, uh, Badger State...

Packer Nation?

The Land West of Lake Michigan Yet East of Minnesota, The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes?

Anyway, those Wisconsinites (actual term) have found a real gem in that there state.  Something that gives them a real reason to trudge around in armpit-deep snow while fending off flesh-eating cheeseheads and still say first thing in the morning, "I think I'll do it all over again today, eh?"

Goodness gracious.

So good luck Mom, Daddy and Kimberlie!

Corey and I will be there just as soon as you've dug a path for us.