Doing nothing is rather hard to do

Unemployment.

It's awkward, let's be real.
Interesting things happen when you're by yourself with not much going on and apparently no purpose in life.

Thankfully, orientation starts on Monday and I will happily depart the world of the jobless with scraps of my sanity still intact, but before I do, I wanted to leave behind this list of reasons why unemployment is the worst. Read it, and be encouraged that no matter what happens to you, at least you don't talk to strangers about cheese.

The Unemployment Effect:

#1. The Facebook Background
     I think I set world records for how many times a person can check Facebook in one hour. If someone had changed my desktop background to a screenshot of the Facebook homepage, it wouldn’t have increased how many times I saw it every day. With my homepage constantly on standby in the background of my life, I would jump on each new notification like a female college freshman on a jar of Nutella, then impatiently sit and stare at the screen, waiting for a socially acceptable amount of time to pass before responding. After all, it simply wouldn’t do to be answering all queries with 10 seconds of the time they were posted… people might get suspicious.

#2. Loose Connections
     Spending a lot of time at home by myself led to some interesting consequences. In addition to a decline of passable social skills and inability to sustain a decent conversation, my thoughts started leaking their way out into my words. Normally this wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but my thoughts are rarely complete, coherent sentences. They run more along the lines of, “So that’s why this but the door was oh but it doesn’t matter because well it’s not too important anyway and the dog needs the internet for the next couple hours.”

#3. The Cheese Factor
     I mentioned that decline of passable social skills, right? I denied this particular side effect for a long time, but even I had to admit things were going downhill after a conversation I had two weeks ago, when the
words “I love cheese” escaped my lips. Not simply “I like cheese” or even “cheese adds a certain taste palette to various foods which I find rather enjoyable.” No. With enthusiasm, I proclaimed my undying love for cheese and proceeded to discuss with a near-stranger how each type is just as good as the others.
Needless to say, I was horrified later when I realized this person probably now knows me as “that cheese girl.”

#4. Siren Sweatpants
     I’m pretty sure that in the beginning, when God declared it was not good for man to be alone, he also muttered under his breath that it is not good for April Ether to wear sweatpants all day long. Moses just didn’t catch that part, I guess. The siren call from those heavenly garments of flexibility and sweet-baby-angel kissed soft fabric may be almost irresistible, but to quote Admiral Akbar, “IT’S A TRAP.” When it became necessary to leave the house (and actually look somewhat like a normally functioning human being), my body protested against the relative torture and confinement of even a pair of jeans. “These are not clothes! This is madness, who came up with this preposterous idea?”
Along that thought, sweatpants quickly become the only pair of pants that fit when a lot of free time and a fully stocked fridge get together and produce the type of food baby which doesn’t go away in a few hours, but crashes on your couch to stay for a month or two.

Of Marriages and Maids [part two]

The seestor is married!

Actually, the seestor was married about a month ago. So why am I just now getting around to writing about it? Simple. There is finally photographic evidence that this event did in fact occur and I was in fact a part of it. Evidence which I will share after some thoughts.

If I learned anything from that weekend, it would be this: weddings will not go according to plan. Rental chairs will not come on time, Christmas lights will uphold their reputation for being notoriously unreliable, everything will run behind schedule, and the bride will need to be sewn into her strapless dress when the 90 degree weather makes the double-stick tape obstinately refuse to do its job. However, while it might not be the wedding everyone had in mind, at the end of the reception when two of the people you love the most run away from the party in a tunnel of heart-shaped sparklers and a rising moon above, everyone will agree that it couldn't have been more perfect.

Em and Chad moved to Colorado about two weeks after the wedding, and they are now happily settling themselves before he starts doctoral classes at the end of the month. I can't wait to visit them as soon as I can afford a plane ticket there! As much as I love my sister, it is not advisable for anyone's mental health to make a 20+ hour car trip in a vehicle with no working stereo system and no one to talk to, so plane it is.

Pure Joy

I sprinted up the driveway, breaths coming hard but steady and even, heart pumping strong with each beat to push life through my body. Heavy black clouds pursued my brother and me as we finished our evening run, and the drizzling rain which came in spurts warned of the downpour to come.

Racing against the storm, we climbed the steps to our porch and, turning around to watch, saw the rain pour out of the sky. As a girl who loves a good thunderstorm, and because I felt the rain needed a consolation prize for losing the chase, I ran out from under my shelter to greet the sheets of water.

I fell down spread-eagle on our driveway, the hard concrete at my back and the grey sky above with the raindrops striking my face like kisses from heaven. Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply and reveled in each sensation, each shred of experience, and the thoughts that came with them. My heart swelled, and I laughed aloud at the thought that life is a gift, and it is so good to be alive. God's power was evident in the wind, his gentleness appeared in the caress of the water on my skin, and I couldn't help but imagine him belly-laughing in heaven along with this child of his who was giggling like a little girl at the fun of getting soaked by the storm. Spirit called out to spirit; his to mine, and we lay in the rain together, as Father and daughter.

I also couldn't help but think that with a different perspective, it might have seemed a miserable and hopeless situation. If you looked at me with a narrow focus, I was there on the ground - wet and cold - with no shelter and no immediate or apparent way of escaping the rain. You would have pitied me and thought it was such a shame I was suffering like that.
But I had a different, broader perspective. I knew my house was right behind me, and I could go in when I was done, the wet and the cold wouldn't last forever. There would be food, a towel, hot tea, and my favorite pair of pajama pants. There was joy ahead, but there was also joy in the moment, made sweet by the knowledge of what was to come.

As a Christian, I should have a different perspective on life, in trials and pain. If I remember what is coming, what is ahead - the reward that Jesus promises and the incredible gift of himself and his unveiled presence when we go home to heaven - what joy that should give me in even the darkest trials and situations of life!
They will become bearable and even sweet in a way when I realize that Jesus is lying next to me on the driveway in the rain, and when it is time to go inside the house, I'll hand him a towel, he'll hand me a cup of tea, and we will rejoice in unhindered fellowship together.

I long for that day when Jesus and I will walk in his back door.

It's a boy!

Except not, because blogs don't have gender.
But I do want to announce that I've started another blog over at aprilether.wordpress.com

Feel free to join me over there if you like - I'll be talking about all sorts of grown-up kinds of things, such as big girl jobs, missions work, and this life of faith in Christ that I am trying to live.

I won't abandon this one. After all, every writer needs a place where he or she can write about platypuses, coffee, and crafting, but it's useful to have two different blogs for two different purposes.

All right then! I'll keep ya posted,