Ch-ch-ch-changes

Seven years ago, I married James and graduated from UA. 2003 was such a good year! After that, I tutored kids, subbed at TA, worked in the church preschool and church office, subbed at Bama Exterminating, taught at TCS, and tutored more kids - now mostly kids from Korea. I love tutoring them, so decided to try taking a grad course or two in teaching English as a Second Language. Last December, I started the application process to UA's grad school: GRE, writing samples, locating professors for recommendations, acceptance letter - yay! Yet, spring, summer, fall... classes just didn't pan out. What's the deal, God?

So last Thursday morning, I met with Dr. Liu to find out more about the program. They could offer me a half teaching-assistantship, which is a big deal. But I still had to consider the other half of the tuition, and the how to handle a schedule of classes and tutoring. (Of the three families whose kids I tutor, two plan to move back to Korea at the end of the year, but one would still be here for tutoring three days a week.)

Something happened Thursday afternoon, though. Actually, two things happened.

The Kims told me their family had just decided to return to Korea in January. Whoa! I'll miss these girls, and it means that all three families at this one appartment complex, who came to me at different times (April '09, July '09, January '10), will fly away at practically the same time.

And Dr. Liu sent me an email titled "Good news," telling me the graduate office can offer me a full TAship! Both these pieces of news came between 2 and 3 o'clock on Thursday, Nov. 20. So it's back to school in January ... thank you, God, for clear indications of what I should do. He's with us through it all!

Garden Center, part 1

We have a wonderful backyard, which we fenced in three years ago. Johnny and James did a lot of work building this fence, which was our prerequisite to getting a dog. We got the dog, named him after the Jimmy Stewart movie "Harvey", and let him run around in the backyard. He loved it: the running, the playing, and the digging up of any helpless green thing I tried to plant. One day we dug a big hole in the lawn's hard clay. There we planted an innocent fig tree, lovingly rooted and driven down from Maryland by James's Mom & her husband Gary.

A few days later, Harvey dug it up, chewed it up, and ran up and down the hill in our backyard triumphantly.

So, we made a well-defined backyard in order to get a dog; but that dog precluded any chance of planting a pretty backyard. When I saw the Garden Center at Sam's Club... ohhh, I wanted it. A raised, U-shaped flower bed with trellises and even a gate to keep critters like Harvey out. Cedar planking. A coiled-hose sprayer. A drip irrigation system with a timer. Only problem was, the thing was crazy pricey: around $800. James and I talked, but decided to wait and think about it more. After all, the fence and Harvey himself had been paid for, and we didn't want to dip into savings too often.

Several weeks went by, and I was back at Sam's to get groceries. As usual, I went past the Garden Center display and longingly looked it over. Wait!!! Only two sets of giant boxes left! An unreasonable fear took hold of me, that the chance to have this thing was about to pass me by. In an adrenaline-charged moment I came to regret, I did it. I bought the Garden Center, helped some guys wedge the boxes into and on top of the car, and drove home.

Somewhere between 15th Street and Watermelon Road, the adrenaline melted into a puddle of "What have I done?" Once home, I did another wrong thing. Using gravity and nervous energy, I propped the boxes as inconspicuously as possible against the wall of the garage. My unwitting accomplice, the car, blocked them from view pretty well. But not that well...

The Garden Center is a good thing, but the way I bought it was bad, because I want a good relationship with my husband. A healthy marriage.

By the time James got home and saw it, I was a mess of conflicting emotions. Contrite, ashamed, apologetic, yet hoping he'd be okay with it. He wasn't. And who could blame him? "We talked about it," is a pretty lame excuse for going ahead and doing something this big that we hadn't decided on together. "Can we take it back?" he asked. "Yes," I replied, "and you have the right to say we take it back. But if you decided we could keep it I'd love to keep it..." Hope springs eternal.

The boxes were too heavy to lift again by ourselves, and it was late, so they stayed. And stayed. As the days wore on, I still felt guilty about what I'd done, and half-resigned to the fact that the boxes should be returned. A funny thing, that receipt. It occured to me that on top of everything else, I could "lose" the receipt (just a slip of paper), be unable to return it, and get my way. Selfish, evil thought.

I'm really, really glad I did the right thing and kept that slip of paper ...because next time I went to Sam's, lo and behold, the price had dropped to $599. And with the receipt, dated 29 days earlier, I was able to get the difference in cash from customer service. (I did mention to them that my husband was pretty determined to return the thing for a full refund of the original price.)

So, we kept it, assembled it several months later, and with a truckload of dirt (thanks, Dad!), some rocks, and pretty plants, we had a garden!