Suma-time/part 1

This is from a short trip up to Portsmouth, NH. A day where we went to a waterpark (hilarity), to Hampton Beach, to Portsmouth, to LL Bean in Maine and then back home...all in about 14 hours. Fun times!

This picture is from the time we spent in Rosemary Beach, FL with Ash's family...albeit very brief (b/c some are more fearful of hurricanes than others, ;) ), we definitely loved our time with them...especially our nephews Noah (2.5) and Jonah (10 months).
This picture was taken less than 20 hours before Gustav hit about 100 miles down the beach from us. BTW: being that we were in the middle of the rain bands, we never saw a drop of rain in Rosemary Beach. Suckas.

A Bushel and a Peck...

So Ash and I decided to go apple picking this past weekend...I mean, now that I am respectively DONE with most of my fall shows for a few weeks (I have had one every weekend from August until last weekend on both weekend days, not to mention being away from Ash for more than 10 days during Sept). Needless to say, the hubs is a trooper. (But I did treat him to the fleet foxes show here Monday night as well. Did I already say that it was amazing? B/c it was...

Having an actual Saturday off felt like the best vacation I've had in awhile.  Here are some pictures to highlight our adventure. We also stopped by Salem, which is particularly cheesy this time of year...

If I find enough gumption to post more pics, I have quite a few from our McClure/Lucas vacation extravaganza in Florida and Birmingham to post later. yay! 

the ballad of love and hate

I know several of you may have been shocked to finally find a new post on our neglected little blog when you opened your google reader. I'm a little shocked to be blogging. I don't really have a reason to write much of an update on here. This summer has turned out to be much busier than I had intended it to be. I guess I'm a little thankful for that in some ways, but being that I feel so stressed with it, I'm not sure it's worth it. This isn't really the type of situation I was looking for with my "small business." I'm not sure what I'm looking for out of this situation other than helping out financially when I can. I love being able to help out with our finances.

As far as this little blog, I enjoy being able to put the general update out there...to not be as forgotten as we feel for those of you who care to read what we write. I hope to be able to catch up with those whom I miss the most on a more personal level and fall so short of even responding to most of my emails in any given week being that I get more than about 50 per day at this point. 

I think the longer I go without putting anything out there, the less inclined I am to start up again. Much like my exercise regime. It's usually accompanied by a huge *sigh.* ...with potential failure and judgement looming in my future.  I feel the weight of not doing the things I want/should do in these days. I have felt so consumed with my daily living, with my to-do list, that I forget the other things in life, like going to the store or being a wife. Being that the summers are so short here, I long to even be outside enjoying the weather and sunshine while I can. And day after day all I do is sit in my dark little studio, inhaling what dust and chemical I may only to make a little more money.  By the way, I hate money.

I don't know where I'm going with this and I'm sorry for dragging you along. Overall, I think I like this place in life a little bit more than I did in our first couple of months, despite the continued hardness of it. I like how much closer Ashley and I have gotten as a couple here. I like our space. our garden. riding my bike to the studio on a sunny day. that my studiomates are so different. and so great. i love that Ash really seems to like his new job. i love that my friends are having a babies that we prayed for for so long. (and that I get to meet soon!) I love being able to take a class in anything I want to learn about. I love the option of going to a portuguese church service and eating pao de quejo on a regular basis. i love not owning a home. i love that a hot day here is 90 with 30% humidity, not 104 with 80% humidity. i love the good beer here. I love a realized and expanding potential of a city.

BUT

I hate being so far away when terrible things happen. i hate not knowing how to respond to pain. or death. or friends who are hurting. or loneliness. (i want to know how and to do it better.) i hate not seeing our niece and nephews regularly. I hate chasing down people here who say they want to be our friends but who, in actuality, have no time or space for new friends. I hate not ever seeing or knowing my neighbors. I hate not having a sense of community. I hate being far away from friends getting married that we hoped would sooner than they thought they would. I hate missing out on porch time...missing wine (or soco with susu) and porch time and thursday/friday nights with friends...any night with friends. i hate feeling as lonely as i do most days.

I guess these are just growing pains. Or maybe the fact that I downed sangria right after Ash left on a camping trip this weekend and have been watching Dr. Phil when I should be stringing jewelry b/c I have over 456 pieces that need to go out before we leave for the beach next week.

I can change jobs faster than you can kiss a duck.

And that's pretty fast.  

(This is a compilation of other info and thoughts I've been letting go of randomly, so forgive me if you've already portions of my spill)

I turned in my two week notice Friday.  Exactly four months after I started.  This is the least amount of time I've held a "real" job - I only worked three weeks at Walmart in college.

Goody Clancy (GCA) just wasn't a good fit for me.  More so than any other firm I have worked at previously, their work is focus on one thing: making their clients happy.  So, really, their designs aren't so much a reflection of how good their work can be.  Rather, their work is a reflection of how good their clients can be at designing a building.  I saw what I believe to be bad design decisions made simply because the client requested them.  There was never any discussion about how to better achieve goals - whatever the client wanted, that's what they got.  GCA is all about service, which is great.  Our clients are, after all, footing our paychecks.  However, I would rather be at a place that clients come to because of our expertise, our design, and our creativity.  Not so much because we can follow orders.

[Below, a GCA designed atrium.  Pretty un-interesting)

So how did I end up at GCA?  Well, we had a house on the market, with an offer, and I had one job offer at the time.  We wanted to make the move work, and so we made it work.  GCA wasn't my first choice, but

 it wasn't my last, either.  I did like a few of their buildings - one of which they ended up not being the chief designer of, and who knows how the other one got built.  I had been told that they had come from a long "dry spell" in design terms, but some people said they seemed to be coming out of that.  I thought these two newer buildings were evidence of that.  Maybe at least one of them is, but I'm not willing to wait 10 years for that to happen.  I didn't see too much interesting design being done around the office in my tenure, nor was any presented to us in our weekly office presentations.

So, I'm starting work at Sasaki in two weeks.  Sasaki seems different.  Whereas GCA pretty

 much does only higher-ed work and multi-family housing, Sasaki 

does it all.  And, they are a multi-disciplinary firm.  So I'll be working directly with landscape architects, eco-tech experts, urban planners, etc.  And the firm is all about collaboration between these fields - it's one of the reasons their designs end up being pretty good.   

 

[Right, a Sasaki chapel.  Much better.]

errr, who's winning the match..?

You know...for two people to not care about sports much at all, we sure picked wrong city to move to. This was the scene in front of Ash's office today in celebration of the Celtics win last night. It's just too bad you can't see the blimp and helicopters swarming above...

I've been reading this book with a friend lately. The quote struck me as I read it about 3 weeks ago and just kept rolling around me all weekend

"...we would go to church and receive, it might be, a true blessing of consolation from some passage of scripture, from one of the good old hymns, or from being together. And we would hear also a sermon in which {the pastor} would struggle again with his terrible duty and need to bring comfort to the comfortless, to say something in public that could answer the private fear and grief that were all around him, and he would mostly fail. We would shake his hand at the door as we went out, trying, I suppose,  to console him for his wish to help what could only be endured..."

~Wendell Berry

 from Hannah Coulter

No words.

Yesterday, our dear friend Dewayne passed away. I don't think I have every been so shocked and pierced by such news in my entire life. I have been swallowed up in the grief of it and am still so shocked by it. To have lived only yards away for over a year and now to be so far away from you, Cheryl, makes me sadder still. Every fiber of my being just wants to be able to run across the street and weep with you on your porch b/c my heart is weeping for you and with you here. But my plane leaves early in the morning, so I have nothing to do now, but wait on it.I can't wait to just sit beside you and hold your hand, as if that could somehow transfer all of the grief and loss that you feel to me. If I could, I would do it in a heartbeat. I have no words to comfort you with, and I don't think I could even try. I can only think of how cruel it feels, how wrong, and how it pulls every light on in my own closet of fear and despair.

Our time Friday night on your porch and at dinner was sweet and I'm so thankful you made time for me while I was in town. What a gift to get to hug you both, to laugh with you guys and spend time together all night. That's all I've been able to think about. Even how my next post assignment was from Dewayne, "Scratch and sniff: Tattoos that smell." I loved his humor, his wit, and words of truth and care always in the mix. I loved how he loved you and publicly praised you simply because he knew you, always looking at you when he thought you weren't looking, just smiling. I loved his heartier laugh when something really tickled him during our sillier moments...how he would just grin when there were no words left to add as we wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. Our Friday nights on the porch with you both were always so rich as well. Thank you for sharing yourselves with us. For not being afraid to simply live your lives with us. I love that you moved into our neighborhood, but you moved into our hearts forever. Living life with you guys there was enough of a reason for us to never, ever sell our house (and I haven't stopped questioning our move yet). I felt the loss of our place there when I was in Bhm this past weekend, which now seems miles wider and deeper.  I have to trust that there is Someone who spans that distance.

And I'm so sorry...

I'm SO sorry, my dear sweet Cheryl.

I'm heartbroken for you. 

He was a good man. A very good man.