on eating a weekday lunch with my mother

There are certain activities that, when accomplished, make you feel like you've really got your life together. Cleaning a car (yourself) is one of those activities.

So obviously I cleaned my car last week.

I know, I know. Yay me. Just try to even get at me, Life! I've got vacuumed car mats, wiped down coin holders, no more Lupe snot infested windows, and dust-free AC vents. What now?

Oh I know what now. How about now I dust off this ol' keyboard and get to type-type-typing?

You don't know how many times in the past lots of months I have sat down to start writing. And that clean car bit was the best I could come up with! I would stop attempting to write because where should I even start? What was so interesting about my life that it needs to be shared? I felt like I had no words. No muse. No reason to write. Mostly because I was/am still trying to sort through my thoughts and feelings about so many things so how could I write on topics about which I had no idea how I felt?

I still feel that way. Suddenly I have found myself in a season of life where I question things. All the things. Everything.

Did we make the right choice to move? On all moves?
Does Lupe need to switch up his food to the seafood flavor?
Do I keep eating chocolate until I turn into an oompa loompa or stop now when I'm halfway there?
Why does Rick put up with me?
Is it time to start a family?
Do I learn all the words to the Moana songs or just the one line?
Is it okay to start The Office again for the fifth time?
Is happiness a choice and am I doing a good job at choosing it?

^^^listen, that's not even scratching the surface of the inside of my head recently. It's as if the characters from Inside Out crossed over with the leads in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

But one thing I've come to realize is that I don't necessarily need to have the right words or feelings---I just need to start type-type-tying through everything and I will possibly find the right words. So here we are.

Hi! I'm Emily. Nice to meet you. Yadda yadda yadda.

Want a quick rundown of what's been going on? Cool. No big deal, Rick and I moved (again), but this time it was back home.

This means a lot of things. For instance, just this past week I had lunch with my mom on Monday, my siblings-in-law came to dinner Tuesday, my sister spent the night Wednesday, on Thursday I taught a new client who remembers watching my grandfather broadcast on TV in Atlanta, and by Friday another new client realized she knows my father-in-law and even helped him set up my rehearsal dinner. 

All in a week's work, my friends, all in a week's work. Lupe spends just as much time, if not more, at my parent's house playing with their dogs, and Freddie and I often end up at places we frequented while dating. It's all so weird, so deja-vu-y, and so wonderful.

But I have to be honest, it's also been hard. I was talking to a client who has moved many times throughout the past twenty years, and I asked her if the moving and starting over was difficult for her. She thought only for a second before responding with, You know, it wasn't. I really tried to bloom where I was planted, and I enjoyed every place we were. 

Bloom where you're planted. I love that! Freddie and I have really have enjoyed each town and each apartment where we've been. We became fluent in being beach bums in Charleston, walked miles up and down King Street, and picked out fun little bungalows in the Old Village. We also became fluent in Texas cowboy, went to fifty million Rodeos and are ready to go to fifty million more, and biked miles and miles and miles around the city of Houston.

Each place has really left a deep impression on our minds and hearts, and I feel like in return we've kind of left pieces of ourselves in each place. Charleston Rick and Emily were different than Houston Rick and Emily who are different than Atlanta Rick and Emily.

Here's where my fun brain comes into play: did we bloom too much where we were planted? Did we get our roots too deeply in too many places? Are we making things harder on ourselves by having to start over every few years? Which Rick and Emily were the best Rick and Emily? And the big one: did we make the right choice to move?

I might not know the answers to most questions I create on a daily basis, but on that last question ^^^ up there I know the answer.

When I get to see and hug our families on a regular basis, when I get to visit my grandfather in the hospital, when I get to teach in the Pilates studio where I fell in love with Pilates ten years ago, when we get to spend a Tuesday evening cooking with old friends and a Wednesday evening playing games with siblings, when I get to go to bed knowing that the next week will bring all those familiar feelings and people again then yes, I know we made the right decision.

What I'm trying to say is A) obviously I need to be medicated, right? ;) B) a lot has been going on, but being Georgians again is fun and C) remember the whole cleaning your car bit from earlier? I guess what I was trying to say there is that coming home is much like cleaning out your old car: a little refresh and shine are all you really need to spruce up things and make something old and familiar feel new and exciting again.

Shoot! I knew I was going somewhere by starting this post with a clean car story. Wink.

pee-sss: I have a very big respect and appreciation for anyone, military or not, whose job requires them to move often. You are my hero. 

pee-pee-sss: Chucktown and HTX friends, we miss the bleep out of you. 

famous last words

I'm going to the bathroom to read.

A party! Let's have a party!

Mozart!

I'm bored with it all.

Famous last words. If you Google famous last words you'll find some of ^these^ along with many, many others. If you stalk my blog, you'll quickly learn that I am a frequent famous last word-er. Not sure if there's a support group for us FLWs, but if so A) let me know which church basement I should be going to for this problem, and B) do they serve donuts?

A little over four years ago Freddie left Atlanta for Charleston and never really looked back. Well, he looked back long enough to grab me by my left ring finger and bring me with him marry me. Whenever we were asked if we'd move back to Atlanta or Georgia one day we'd always laugh and say Probably not! Because duh, we had lived in that area our entire lives. Come on, people asking questions, get it together! We wanted to explore, to travel, to be in our own bubble. So we did. We explored, we traveled, and we started building our own little Rick n' Em bubble.

side note: I used to babysit a boy who couldn't say bubbles so naturally instead he called them boobies. It was the greatest. 

Which is why right at two years ago when Freddie got the opportunity to work in Houston we said Yee-freaking-haw! and traded in our bathing suits for cowboy boots (uh, still my most favorite rhyme ever). Freddie never really looked back after that move either, but I sure as word-that-rhymes-with-bit did. Not living in the town of Chucks was a hard pill to swallow, but once Rodeo Rick and I experienced our first taste of Texas BBQ and watched our first round of Mutton Bustin', we were hooked on all things bigger and badder in the Lone Star State. Still we'd pretty frequently get asked when we were coming home or when we were moving back to the Peach State, and still we'd give people the oh puh-lease chuckle. No. Thank. You.

And now I present you with an intermission story of 

Freddie and Emily: Through The Years Of Moving

Blurry bar pic of Freddie's last night in Atlanta circa 2013

The freckled Lowcountry Weisses circa 2014

Texas Weisses with the addition of Lupe Tortilla Weiss (and his tongue) circa 2016

Being away from family is such a strange feeling. Some days it's nice to have distance and make whatever time you do have together that much more precious, but being away slowly started to feel more like a punishment. Why couldn't we get more than just quick holiday catch-ups with our families? Why, Delta flippin' airlines, do I have to pay $600+ for a plane ticket if I want to go see my family on a trip that wasn't planned 3-4 months in advance?

I remember when Atlanta and thoughts of the potential to live there again one day started creeping back into our heads. We'd casually mention it to each other, and then as if we knew we were saying something wrong we'd take it back.

But we always said we'd never go back! 
But it's Atlanta! 
But it's where we grew up. 
But there are so many other fun places.
But but but...

**It's important to note when I use the pronoun we that 85% of the time I am talking about me/I. I could be in a corner having anxiety attacks about going back on my word while Freddie would be sprawled out across the two patio chairs, beer or cocktail in hand, already having moved on and/or completely forgotten about whatever he said that may sound crazy. Let's all be more like Freddie.

Anyways, who's still with me at this point in the story? Mom? Dad? Good because here's the point of this long butt story:

Georgia or Bust, am I right? East coast, best coast?

We are moving back home! Back to Hotlanta. It's scary, stressful, super quick, but it's oh-so exciting! I hope you inserted your proper response of ::squealing:: right about ^^there! A job opportunity for Freddie came up, and next thing you know we were out champagne toasting Freddie accepting said job opportunity and us planning a move.

Houston was a big bleeping deal for us. We didn't have much money, stability, or even much of a support system when we moved here. It felt a lot like starting from scratch, but we did it. We figured it out. We spent a lot of time just the two of us. We made the best of friends. We budgeted. We found the coolest dog ever (our biggest accomplishment in life, thanks Reddit). We lived here. Here I'm using the verb live not in the yes-we-have-a-Houston-address way, but more in the we-got-through-the-sticky-times-and-created-the-party-times-here way. Because that's what living is really all about, right? Life shouldn't be all butterflies and rainbows, but it sure should be about finding the butterflies and the rainbows even on the cold, dreary days.

Ugh, I hate myself for that analogy. My b. Eye roll. 

I will finish by quoting the great T.I. feat. Rihanna, So live your life (Hey!) Go be, go do, just go. One of my close friends recently moved back home and although her move was for different reasons than ours she shared with me a simple, yett powerful sentence from one of her friends: You will never regret going home. 

So on that note...we're gonna go to Jawjuh!
Over
and
out. 

on being distinguished

I have this note on my phone where I jot down just about any thought that comes in my head. The purpose of this habit is, of course, to use these genius ideas as blog posts one day. 

Will our future children be as cool as Lupe? I should blog about it, but obviously the answer is no.

Peanut butter&jelly + traffic. Not sure where I was going with this one, but obviously needs a post. 

0 and 5 years old + laughing. Kids? Laughing? That is nice. Needs a post. 

Changing name. Banana Hammock or maybe I meant last name? Who knows. Needs a post. 

Two types of people: like gasoline smell and don't. Right on, right on. Important stuff. Needs post. 

Wait! I need to stop giving away all my good potential blog material! 

^^But first, let's go back to that last idea up there. Seriously people, how can some of you like the smell of gasoline? My nostrils and I just do not understand this. Please explain. 

Moving on. 

I found a grey hair. Let me rephrase that, I found grey hairs. Plural. Emphasis on the ssssssss part of that word.

a sampling

side story: if you ever say, I am going to get my hair cut around my grandfather he will undoubtedly respond with You're only getting one of your hairs cut? Obviously the hilarity in our family is unreal. Wink. 

This whole grey hairs things kind of all happened fast. One morning after teaching I went to wash my hands. I looked up in the mirror, and my eye was drawn to this one rogue hair sticking up like Alfalfa. I pulled it out and went on with my day. But as I was showing Freddie later, I moved my part over farther than I normally do and wham bam thank ya old ma'am, there were so many little grey hairs just hanging out on my head. Like they'd been there forever. Like I'd lived on this Earth forever enough to have grey hair(s) grow.

Now I'm not freaking out, and I haven't scheduled a hair appointment to dye the bleep out of all my hairs, but I do find it amusing. I've never considered myself a distinguished person, but suddenly I'm viewing the world through my new grey hairs glasses. I feel taller. I feel cooler. I feel like I can hand out advice. I feel like I've lived. I feel like chuckling at the teenagers throwing candy at the movie theater instead of wanting to hurt them. I feel like sipping straight liquor and reminiscing on the good ol' days.

**it's important to note I only have found about 10 grey hairs, and yes, like always, I am exaggerating things. 

**it's also important to note I am not really feeling or doing any of those things. 

Anyways, now that I'm all distinguished and grey and stuff, I decided to cook dinner the other night. This really proves that I am a changed woman because I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've cooked dinner for us. And by one hand I mean three fingers. Don't even need a whole hand to do this math!

BUT WHO IS COUNTING?!

I'm not counting. Well, that's not true. I am counting. My grey hairs. Every time I stand and look in the mirror. One, two, three, four...

Along with being a changed woman and having gone grey (as they say!) (who says that?) (no one) and cooking dinner here are some other new tricks I've got up my sleeve:

• Buying a new duvet cover and changing out bedding. Big things are happening here. 
• Taking recycling to our old complex since our new complex doesn't recycle. 
• Getting my master's in full time Pinterest planning of our upcoming Italy trip.
• Teaching Pilates to children.

pondering the meaning of grey hair

I've always wanted to sleep with an older woman. -- Freddie on my grey hairs.
But I don't even have that many grey hairs! -- My mother. Thanks for giving me your genes, Dad.

And with that I'm over and out.

I'm glad we could both completely ignore the fact that I haven't posted in a million months. Or just two. But anyways, thanks for ignoring that! Wink.