November 30, 2005
I come by it honestly
I tend to leap to the worst case scenario pretty quickly. It helps me to prepare for the worst and 99 percent of the time when nothing bad happens, at least I was prepared. I'm constantly repeatING this scripture ("But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own") from Matthew to myself. In college, I even had it taped to my desk. (Ironically, I wouldn't classify myself as a worrier.) I learned this weekend though that at least I come by the crazy honestly.
Dad: Do you have pull down stairs to your attic?
Hannah: Yes. Why?
Dad: Is there a latch on the outside?
Hannah: No... why?
Dad: Well, I'm just thinking, if someone gets up there, if you keep it latched, they wouldn't be able to get into your house.
Ginger: Dick, how would they get up there?
Dad: You know, in case someone breaks in, and then hides up there in wait for her.
Yes, Dad. Just in case.
They also told me that if I take handgun classes, they'll arm me. I guess this is their way of saying, "Good financial decision to buy in a regentrifing neighborhood. Have a .38."
Posted by hannah at 04:03 PM | Comments (2)
November 29, 2005
Famous by Proxy
So my friends make music. Really amazing music. And guess what they did? They went and recorded a CD. And guess what else? You can buy it! So go do that, won't you? I hear they make great stocking stuffers.
Posted by hannah at 01:12 PM | Comments (1)
November 28, 2005
Today
I think, for the most part, that I have done a pretty good job of putting on a brave face. I've been social - meeting friends at the gym, for shopping and movies. I try to not talk about him a lot, or vent too much, because what can anyone say? "Sorry you got your heart broken"? I had a nice time with my family this weekend and we did a few touristy Atlanta things, which was fun for me too. They got to see more of the city I now call home and I'm glad. There were a few moments when I stopped to think about being together with my dad and my brother, something that over the past 18 years hasn't happened a lot, and it was all I could do to hold it in. On Thanksgiving my stepmother and I were in the kitchen prepping the food and setting the table, and my dad, brother and sister-in-law were in the living room watching Arrested Development DVDs. Every once in a while my dad and brother would let out these loud, identical laughs - always to the same jokes. To someone from a unbroken family, this might not seem like much, noticing the similarities between a father and a son, but to me it's monumental. I don't even think they realize how alike they really are: if they did, what would keep them divided?
I'm just sad. And I'm tired of being sad. I'm angry. And I'm even more tired of being angry. I know we were never promised an easy life, or a fair life, or a simple life. We were only promised salvation and love. So I try to let go of the sadness and the anger. I try to focus on the gifts I have been given: health, family, friends, creature comforts. Some days simply shifting my focus works splendidly. I laugh and I feel light and easy. But there are other days, like today, when it is all I can do to not cry at my desk. It is all I can do to not call him and beg him to see me - to call off whatever it is that we've decided to do and just go back to how it was before. Back to when there was an us. Though those days were often confusing and not entirely healthy, at least we got to be together and be happy in those quick moments when he was mine and I was his.
Posted by hannah at 03:58 PM | Comments (3)
November 23, 2005
Whale of a Time
The new Georgia Aquarium opens to the public today. But on Monday and Tuesday annual pass holders could make a reservation to get in early for a sneak peek. So yesterday, Mary, Sarah and I trekked the short distance between our office and the aquarium to check out the fishes.
Bernie Marcus, the philanthropist who made the aquarium a reality, said that he was going for the "wow!" factor. And I couldn't help being wowed. It's a beautiful facility, and even though we couldn't see much due to the crowds, I'm so pleased that we opted to get annual passes.
There are Beluga Whales and Whale Sharks (the largest fish in the sea) and Sea Otters and African Penguins. It's incredibly kid-friendly, and I think it's going to bring money and attention to the city that Atlanta hasn't seen since the '96 Games. According to the local news the Aquarium saw a huge spike in annual pass sales after Matt Lauer and the Today show were here on Monday. There are people in Wisconsin and Texas buying annual passes. That's awesome.
I've never been happier to work downtown, to live inside the perimeter, or to call this city (that I often feel like I sort of stumbled upon), home.
Posted by hannah at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2005
Make like a tree and leave
I've spent the past 7+ months of homeownership doing everything I can to avoid yard work. The first few months I was in the house I hired a guy to mow before I finally broke down and bought a (very basic) lawnmower. After that, I only actually mowed the front yard twice and never touched the back. Luckily my back yard is very little grass and lots of ivy, so it wasn't too jungle-y back there. Besides, I think the bunnies liked it.
So it should surprise no one that I put off raking as long as possible. I have two medium-sized trees in my front yard, plus a very tall pine and a humungous tree in the back that spewed leaves all over my roof, into my gutters and covered my front and back yards as well as my deck. Needless to say it was a leaf fest.
But my dad, stepmother, brother and sister-in-law are all descending upon Atlanta for Thanksgiving and I couldn't let them think I was some girly irresponsible homeowner who allowed leaves to rot on her her steps, yard and rooftop. So this weekend I busted out the rake, the lawn and leaf bags and went to work.
Two blisters, eight lawn bags and a huge curbside pile later, I finished only the front. Who knew raking was so hard? Who knew piles of pine straw could be so heavy? Why was I throwing all this pine straw away when only months earlier I went to Lowe's and PURCHASED pine straw? Why don't I pick up my dog's poop? These were all important questions. Ones I probably won't ask until next November.
There are a lot of things I still want to buy for my house and do to the interior (paint the bedrooms, buy bookshelves, rugs, artwork, patio furniture) what I want more than anything is for a professional landscaper to show up and just tell me how to fix my yard. Every time there's a heavy rain all the pine straw and pine bark wash out of the beds. So I have quite a few spots with the weed cover visible thanks to Dennis and Cindy, and I realize how tacky and wrong that is. But I have neither the talent nor money to fix it. If anyone wants to nominate me for Bushwhacked, I'll give you my address.
And as for raking the back yard? It can just leaf me alone.*
*You knew that joke was coming.
Posted by hannah at 10:29 AM | Comments (9)
November 17, 2005
One last look
As I sat in the lobby waiting for my group's bus to board I decided to run back outside and take a few more photos. This was the last one I snapped and it is by far my favorite. The blue of the chairs, the water, the sky, the umbrellas. The King Palm fronds bending in the breeze off the Atlantic. It all just looks so perfect.
I wasn't as enthralled with Puerto Rico as expected to be, but you can't complain with a view like this.
Posted by hannah at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2005
Love of a dog
There is no love like the love of a dog. Yesterday, a terrible day (as you might have guessed from the previous entry), was capped off by the best news I have ever gotten, and as I kneeled for my nightly prayers, overcome by tears of gratitude, sorrow and joy, I felt a warm body come to rest at my side.
Montego pressed up beside me, outstretched perhaps in a prayerful vigil of her own. She stayed there till I finished crying, until I whispered amen, before hopping up on the bed to go to sleep.
No, there is no love like the love of a dog, and of all the things I am grateful for this holiday season, she is certainly at the top of the list.
Posted by hannah at 03:45 PM | Comments (5)
November 08, 2005
Hola, Adios
I'm going to Puerto Rico on Thursday, which means I am about to get on a PLANE and FLY there over WATER. Yes, I know it makes me crazy to be scared, but I am anyway. I try to get over that by imagining myself poolside at the Ritz, asking a beautiful Puerto Rican server to bring me another drink, but that image doesn't always help. It's a work trip, which means my expenses will be small (a good thing as I literally have $13 in my checking account till Friday), and it's a little ungrateful to not want to go, but I sort of don't.
I've just been so stressed lately, with work and volunteering (volunteering should not make you stressed but oh my lord, it does), and my "love" life and missing my family something fierce. My homesickness has somewhat lifted, mostly because my dad called this weekend and told me that he and my stepmother, Ginger, would like to come here for Thanksgiving. I'm estatic about this. We'll probably get premade food and eat at my house, while we watch lots of movies and eat leftovers. There will definitely be a trip to the new Georgia Aquarium and my dad has wanted to see Stone Mountain since I moved here, so I'll relent this year. I'm hoping there will also be shopping and perhaps not-so-subtle-iPod-hints.
My desk looks like a paper monster gave birth and even though I have to put on a bathing suit in 48 hours I haven't worked out since I ran on Saturday. And today was our work "Thanksgiving," so my tight pants aren't helping me to not freak out over my impending bikinidom.
If I can get through today and tomorrow and my 8 a.m. flight across one time zone and one very large sea, I'll be fine. I can do this. Bikini not withstanding.
Posted by hannah at 04:03 PM | Comments (4)
November 03, 2005
Judy & Jo
I wrote about my Aunt Jo, who died in August, a month or so ago. The day after I heard that she'd passed, I brought this photo in and set it on my desk. That first day, or three, I would tear up every time it caught my eye. Now, it just makes me happy to look at it.
My mom is 32 in this photo, Jo, 41. They're sitting in the grass, barefoot, at what was then their brother's farm, but what had been the farm they lived on as girls. It was in that farmhouse that Jo would kick my 4-year-old mother out of bed and where my mom got pecked in the head by a really mad chicken.
Uncle Bub, Jo's husband, was still living and a within a month or two after this picture was taken, my mom got pregnant with me.
They look so happy here, sisters, barefoot in the grass. I don't know whose motorcycle that is, or whose crazy '70s car. Maybe that chair was there for their grandmother, who would've been about 99 that year. I don't know who took the picture, or what kind of conversation was interrupted when it was snapped. I do know that they look happy and that they were surely sharing secrets. Sisters do that, I'm told. I don't have a sister, never will, but my mother does, and sometimes, that's close enough.
Posted by hannah at 05:03 PM | Comments (1)
Homesick
Sometimes I miss my family so much, it's exhausting. I have a good life here, and good friends, but there is no compensating for the safety and love of family. The last half of 2005 hasn't been easy. (Scratch that, it's been flat out hard.) Not for any particular reason, growing pains I guess, and being apart from them, from the only people in the world who care about me down to my soul, it's difficult.
The first year I lived in Atlanta, the year of waiting tables and job searching and empty pockets, I questioned my decision to up and quit my steady job and move 550 miles away. But even on days when I had to work a double and smelled like Ranch dressing and beer, I was still sure that I'd made the right choice. I felt a rock solid certainty that God had led me to this city at that time in my life. I believe that now too (most days), but there are moments when I wonder WHAT in the world I am doing all the way down here.
Sometimes I feel like I accomplished what I set out to do: I led a single life in a single-friendly city. I took risks and made friends and found a job and men to date. I joined organizations and branched out and learned new skills and tough lessons. I wouldn't trade the Atlanta friends I've made for anything, but a lot of the time I feel like I've done enough. I made good memories, filled some scrapbooks, and now I can go home.
It's weird to think of Ohio as my home, as most of the time I lived there I resisted it in full, but when I think of the land, of the soybean fields and white farm houses and the fact that even now, almost six years after his death, my Papa's caps are still hanging on the hat rack, I want to fall on my knees and crawl back.
I want to praise God for giving me such a family and beg His forgiveness for moving away from them.
But I know it's just a phase and that I'm tied here now - I own a house and I've finally, finally found a church I can call home. I would miss my friends terribly. But I still miss my mother more.
Posted by hannah at 02:18 PM | Comments (1)
