GOOD LORD

This is what I was thinking today at work when I was trying to grab a second to breathe. I told my supervisor that I needed a bigger desk. It's been a week since I've been officially done with training at my job. Last week was still kind of slow...which I hate. I would much rather have something to do that just be sitting at my desk, twiddling my thumbs, BUT this week has been crazy. Since Monday, I've been slapped with 6 cases. I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off; but truth be told, I kinda like it. It's just such a cool job. On top of work really picking up, Tom and I have been super busy with Young Life, and MOVING! Yes, we finally moved in to our house this past weekend. We actually closed on it today, so we now officially own it. The move went really well. We were very fortunate and grateful to have several people from Young Life help us, as well as my brother Alex. During the process, all the "movers" decided that our couch was just too big to fit into the back den where we wanted it (it's an older house, so the doorways are small). Well later that day, after everyone left, Tom and I decided that we WERE going to get that couch into the den. One side of the couch is actually broken from when we moved into our "old" house in Raleigh, so we thought we had a little wiggle room. GOOD LORD. I'll just say there was quite a bit of swearing involved and some more breaking of the couch. But--the couch is in the den! There are a lot of things we'd like to change or add to the house, so we're trying to prioritize and realize that it's not going to all happen at once. I would attach some pictures of the house, but Clive chewed up my digital camera a few weeks ago. Seriously. I could rattle off a million things that my dog has destroyed over the past month, but that's another story for another day. Needless to say, we don't have any pictures to show anyone. So if you wanna see our house, you'll just have to come visit!

So Much to Say

I have so much to write about, but I don't want this to be 5 pages long, so I'll just commit to writing again tomorrow.
The other day, Tom and I were listening to NPR and they were interviewing 3 different soldiers re: their experiences in Iraq. At the end of the program, one of the male soldiers read a poem that he wrote as he was leaving Iraq. It was so moving that both of us got choked up. We looked it up online later. His name is Brian Turner, and it's called "Night in Blue":

At seven thousand feet and looking back, running lights
blacked out under the wings and America waiting,
a year of my life disappears at midnight,
the sky a deep viridian, the houselights below
small as match heads burned down to embers.

Has this year made me a better lover?
Will I understand something of hardship, of loss,
will a lover sense this in my kiss or touch? What do I know
of redemption or sacrifice, what will I have
to say of the dead--that it was worth it,
that any of it made sense?

I have no words to speak of war.
I never dug the graves in Talafar.
I never held the mother crying in Ramadi.
I never lifted my friend's body
when they carried him home.
I have only the shadows under the leaves
to take with me, the quiet of the desert,
the low fog of Balad, orange groves
with ice forming on the rinds of fruit.

I have a woman crying in my ear
late at night when the stars go dim,
moonlight and sand as a resonance
of the dust of bones, and nothing more.