Poison

"What there is in this world, I think, is a tendency for human errors to level themselves like water throughout their sphere of influence. That's pretty much the whole of what I can say looking back. There's the possibility of balance. Unbearable burdens that the world somehow does bear with a certain grace." The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver, page 522.

I was pissed last night. I still have a little bitter taste in my mouth. And the sad part is I had a really good day. I worked (and have had a job every day of this month). I went to LAUSD (who believes that they paid me too much in 2007 if you can believe that!!!) and they realized their computations were way wrong....always always always ask for proof from bureaucracy when they try to pull one over on you. The good thing about them is they are afraid of unions! I went to my sisters house and we walked to Trader Joe's with backpacks to get groceries and ended up finding ourselves in the middle of a farmers market. Amazing. And we cooked a fabulous dinner. Then while I was driving home I got a phone call from my hubby telling my we were cited for the dirt pile in my front yard and the dirt on the sidewalk.

I immediately knew who called that in. Because the citation was at 4:55pm and I know the city of Carson errs on the side of finishing early, not being out late writing up citations. And they gave us 36 hours, in the middle of a workweek, to move the dirt. I can still see her beady little eyes as she hides behind her potted plants smoking cigarettes watching me.

All we are trying to do is make this place look like the rest of the houses on the street. NICER. Sorry we cant take a week off to move a pile of dirt back. We have pipes and sprinklers being installed on Friday and our new retaining wall will be up on Saturday. And the dirt will be level. And the weeds that have always been here will be replaced by pretty green grass.

I wish I could let stuff like that go but when people wrong me, especially behind my back, I want to make sure they know that they don't have that power over me. But the truth is we all have the incredible power to hurt each other. Poisonous we are. Toxic even.

And as my mom and I talked about yesterday, the truth is that we often times don't do our best and, while we learn from it and hopefully adapt, we leave a wake behind us of destruction and catastrophe. We were in the wake yesterday, the faraway waves lapping at the other shore. Nothing to steer us off course but to splash us and see us rolling concrete across the lawn and shoveling/sweeping dirt at 9 pm. Pissed.

I'm going to try to make my wake small today. Try to not pour out to much evil.

Oh, and we called the city. Got a week extension for the dirt. I want to say "eat your heart out" to her, but I wont. So I will say it to you.

Progress...

This was mu backyard when we first moved in.

It looks like it is going uphill because it is. We wanted to level it right away but flooring and electrical and new plumbing took priority. Until it started raining and we had floods below our bedroom window a few times. Priority shifted back to the yard.

Last weekend we started by cutting down the bamboo. Kuma was helpful.

Then Friday morning this little beauty arrived!

Dave got right to work. Yep, still uphill.

Coba came over to help on Saturday morning when Dave went to go on a recruiting weekend at SC.

Pretty soon we had visitors.

Elisha brought his tractor..

And scooped dirt off of my patio.

Then he got a chance to help uncle Coba. He literally rode along for almost and hour.

The dirt mound in the front yard grew and attracted the neighborhood. I finally had to establish dirt pile rules (1. no kicking dirt or sliding down the driveway side of the pile 2. no cussing)

Then more friends came to help.

King of the hill and gatorades for my bamboo helpers!

Tomorrow Dave has a day off so he is going to put in drainage and next weekend we are going to plant grass! I am so very very excited!

Dog Poo

Well it never fails...
I am really good at letting the dumbest things (and hey even some really important things) get the best of me. I mean really. Like I get depressed and then I find myself turning everything off and shutting down. For what??? For something I usually can't control or if I can I really shouldn't anyway. I stay in bed a little bit longer, eat a little bit worse, and spend money I shouldn't as a justification.
Then usually Jesus hits me between the eyes as only Jesus can (in a very loving, sweet, knock you on your ass type of way that really wakes you up). Like reminding me that I don't have it all together and that I am missing the mark on a lot of things. So maybe I should just focus on those things and asking for grace for me, instead of everyone else that pisses me off.
And then sometimes he just gives me a good dose of humility.
For Example:
Woke up this morning to Dave telling me that Kuma had gotten sick in the middle of the night and had diarrhea all over the floor, his bed, his cage, the wall and himself. He got into my gardening stuff yesterday and must have eaten something that didn't agree with his system. So before school I was wiping up poop, scrubbing poop, spraying off poop, bleaching floors, walls, towels and then giving the poor boy a bath. And while I am sitting in the tub he just looks up at me and puts his head on my shoulder and sighs. Like "sorry mom, I tried to wake you up but you kept sleeping." And then while I cleaned up after him, he threw the ball to himself and sniffed to see what I was doing.
OK OK, I get it. We are all into crap up to our elbows...so we might as well clean up and stop crying about the stench.
Its pointless and disgusting.

Word is out...

The day before our wedding..


Well, I have been thinking about this blog for almost a months and a half now. In my mind it was way more glorious and exciting and I was shouting from the rooftops and yeah..something big. I know what your thinking and the answer is no..I am not pregnant. Not yet..still got that masters to finish on Thursday! (which I am sure I will also blog about because I am so excited for that to be finished..)





Dave and I have been dreaming and scheming since before we got married. Actually Dave was dreaming and scheming before we ever started dating about his future as a football coach. He quit a lucrative job in commercial real estate (his replacement made 100, 000 dollars the first year...) to coach the JV football team at Carson high school... I was in Bolivia at the time, pining away for the love of my life having no idea that he even was interested in me. Later I would find out he had already told his family that we were going to get married when I came back...this man knows what he wants!





2 years later he had the opportunity to apply for the head varsity coach, become a coordinator at Carson, or take an assistant job at El Camino College. El Camino has been national champions or division champions almost every year since the tenure of head coach John Featherstone began. It was a difficult decision but he/we decided that he really wanted to pursue coaching as far as it would take him. Rewind 3 years previous to college when he felt God directing him to work with young men and teach them character and show them God's unending love and protection. Every year since he joined the staff at El Camino (2.5 years..) he has gone to the National Coaches Conference to try to make connections with Division One programs. We decided that he would work as hard as he can to get into the NCAA level for 5 years after which we would reevaluate if that was still his direction. Every year his connections grow, serving as a coach for various camps at schools like USC, Miami, Reno, Memphis, and UCLA. God's favor has been on him and each year more opportunity and possible jobs have been presented with his name on it...only to have the positions filled with someone else or no movement to happen and therefore no job for him.





This year we decided to buy a house. We knew (and his parents knew) that we may not get another opportunity to buy with prices as low as they are (GO BARACK! We want to make a killing, lets get this economy going!) so we went for it. Almost immediately after we bought the house it looked like we might be getting a job in San Diego. After 2 months of remodeling and living out of my car/in the back bedroom of his parents, the last thing I wanted to do was move away and rent out our house. But this is the life we both signed up for...so I was willing. Then Sarkisian got the head job at UW and Dave had a few calls in to him..and the wheels really started turning and I was getting ready to move into another spare bedroom only at my parents house in Mukilteo.





December 10th: Dave sends me a text message "Holy _______" (I know..its a horrible problem..he's working on it..) I ask him what..I am freaking out because I think that this means that Sark called him back.. We were both subbing that day at Narbonne so I went to his classroom at nutrition to see what. He told me his quarterback had gotten offered by New Mexico State..and I believed him even though he was lying.





IT WAS PETE CARROLL. DAVE GOT OFFERED A JOB AT USC!





So this week we can finally talk about it.. Dave is going to be the Strength and Conditioning Assistant this year. And we are off on this journey that began 5 years ago on a dusty little field that's 3 city blocks from our new house...





I can't wait to tell you more!