The many faces and uses...of my back yard

So, today I was running behind (as usual) and did not have time for my usual run.  I have been working REALLY hard to run most days and I did not run yesterday (though I did some killer kettle bells and tae bo-ha!).  I had about 20 minutes before I had to jump in the shower to make a lunch date, K has requested not to be in the running stroller anymore (I get it--she IS 5, but she still weighs so little), and I didn't have time to go to the track we have been going to where she can ride her bike or swing on the nearby swingset while I complete my run.  What to do?  What to do?

[Enter my "great" idea]

Yes, the back yard.

We spend a lot of time in the back yard.  I love this house--and the back yard was the biggest selling point.  For a family who loves to be outside with two big dogs, this fenced in back yard was calling our name.  So, what did I do today?  I ran a few laps around my back yard--forwards.  Then I galloped sideways to the left, then to the right, then I ran backwards...and repeated.  About 20 minutes of that helped me work up a sweat and made me feel like I had the check in the box for some sort of cardio activity for the day.

Crazy?  Maybe, but it was another chance to reflect on our home here.  I love this house--more than I have loved any other place that we have lived.  Maybe because Buzz is here more often than at our past houses, maybe because we have such great neighbors, maybe because of this yard--I don't know, but I love it.  And the back yard is still my favorite place.  It has it all:

A hammock, under a weeping willow tree.  Ahhhhh...

A playset for our kiddo and her friends--I knew this house was a "yes" when I couldn't get K off of the playset when we came to look at the house.

This is the "cooking facility" and table where we prepare and eat most of our meals--the grill is now dimpled and without a cover thanks to the hail storm, but we still love it.

This is K's private diner--sometimes it's in the tree house, sometimes it's under the tree house, sometimes it's in the yard--today, it was in the sandbox.  :)

Oh yes, and the fire pit.  Notice the "seats" around the fire pit?  Well, those are new.  Those came from an old friend of our front yard--the birch tree.  The birch tree used to drip sap and stick leaves to the cars in the driveway, and Buzz was convinced it must come down.  Last weekend he was on a mission:

That would be my husband--on my neighbor's house, preparing for the goodbye ceremony for the tree.

Thanks to some great friends and neighbors,

And some pulling and tugging while chainsawing...

That bad boy came down!  Whoot Whoot to men with chainsaws!  ;)

It took a couple of days to clean up the front yard, but, anyway, the trunk gave us some fire pit seats.

So, that's about it.  I love my yard.  It gives me rest, play, exercise, food, and good stories--all of which often involve dog poop, but that's okay.  I love it here.  I'll miss it when we leave for the next part of our journey--we found out when and where we are going next year.  I'm excited and ready to get back to the beach--but this yard will always hold a special place in my heart.  :)

The Rambling Calm AFTER the Storm

Oh yeah...I remember this feeling...

I keep thinking "once X is over, things will be okay"--with "X" being a fill-in-the-blank of life happenings such as comp exams, deployments, bad days...

I've recently blogged about my efforts to come to terms with the fact that things just don't settle down.  Period.  And I need to stop looking at that supposedly greener grass on the other side.  And now, I'm in what was supposed to be the calm AFTER the storm.  And, on that point, I will digress just a bit...

That big storm that hit us a few weeks ago--utter craziness--is a great metaphor for this attempt I am making to be okay with the stress that encompasses my life right now. 

I'm sure most people have heard the phrase "the calm before the storm," to illustrate when you know something big is coming even if life is relatively quiet at that given moment.  Well, my life has been filled with calms AFTER storms.  I am usually immersed in fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants adventures between mommyhood, work, school, and military wife life.  And then, sometimes unexpectedly, things seem to slow down--and that's hard on me.  I apparently thrive on having things to do--right now.  It's when I slow down that the stress intensifies.  During the crazy times, I'm just trying to get through the minute--get done what is due here and now.  But when things slow down, my mind takes over.  Unfortunately, though, in this lifestyle, it never really stops.  So, the big exam is over (for now), but now I realize all of the things I put off preparing for that one day--like keeping the house organized, preparing other manuscripts, being the mom and wife I want to be. 

So, this calm AFTER the storm has hit me pretty hard--not to mention I am back in my hometown awaiting my mom's homecoming--which keeps getting pushed back--AND (I can't even believe I am writing this because my fear runs so deep I don't even want to dance around discussing the topic) there are people on my mom's hall who are getting the (gulp) stomach bug...and it's spreading.  I'm a wreck.  I know I need to be there (like physically, on the sick-hall) for my mom, but that fear is elevating my stress to dangerous levels!  Anyway, this "calm" is taking a toll on my sanity...just like that storm. 

Back to the actual storm: There was no calm before that thing hit our house--it had been windy, raining, thundering, etc. all day.  Schools asked parents to pick kids up early, after taking shelter for tornado warnings earlier in the day.  It was a crazy day to start off with.  And then THE part of the storm that rocked our world hit--and it was scary--the scariest weather I have ever witnessed.  So, we took shelter in our little downstairs bathroom (without windows)--all of us, including the dogs.  And, from our hideout, we could hear the storm--the wind, the hail.  It sounded like someone was shooting our house (and it looked the same once we caught a glimpse).  But, possibly the creepiest part was how it stopped. 

It just stopped. 

We sounded like we were in a war zone (which was verified by my husband who has been in such zones)...and then, nothing. 

Silence.

I was scared we were in the eye of the storm (which I'm not even sure that storm had an "eye" but after living through many hurricanes in Florida, that was my terminology).  I wouldn't release us out of the bathroom for a while--the quiet was the creepiest part of it all.

When we finally went out of the bathroom, we looked out the windows, and eventually made it out to our yard--where all of our neighbors were doing the same thing, crunching through the hail.  We could see each other through the steam rising from our damaged yards.  We all made sure everyone was okay.  (Greatest part of life in the 'burbs: your neighbors make sure you are accounted for after a natural disaster.) There was this smell in the air--I can't describe it--I'd never smelled it before.  My neighbor and I decided THAT was what creepy smells like.

But other than our crunching through the hail and our voices, there was nothing...no cars, no animals, no sounds of life.  And, as I mentioned in my previous post, WE are the LUCKY ones.  In our calm, the storm left our houses standing (though severely damaged) and our loved ones, though shook up, were safe.

So now, in my life's latest "calm" after the storm, I am living in a perpetual anxiety attack.  The exam, the semester, and so much of the craziness from the past year is over. No transition, no outlet, and I won't know if I passed that exam for another month (or more).  There was no closure.  It's sort of like the time when Buzz comes back from a deployment.  It's exciting--I'm glad he's home, just like I'm glad this chapter is over (unless I didn't pass that exam and have to do that part all over again).  It's a great milestone.  It's good.  But it's different.  Just like when he comes home, we hug, and we go home--but there's no transition, no closure or outlet for all of the stress I bottled up for the entire deployment. I guess all of this points to the fact that I don't handle stress well in the moment OR after, huh?  :P

I'm on edge; I'm shaky; I'm nervous.  There is nothing that has to be done RIGHT NOW but so much on the to-do list.  The exam is over, but the work doesn't end.  My mom's surgery is over, but the recovery is in full swing.  And, of course, Buzz is not here.  Nope.  The Marine Corps always takes him when I feel like I need him most (which, in fairness, is always, so it's not like there's ever a good time for him to be absent from our lives--but it happens so often and it always seems like a really bad time). 

Am I crazy?  Probably...but I'm also human.  And I need to work on finding internal calm in this stressful calm after the storms of the past few months.  I don't know how to do it.  But the first step is to stop dwelling on it here in my online outlet.  So, Step 1: stop rambling; Step 2: deep breath...here we go...

Life in the 'Burbs: Dressing your mailbox for success

Welcome to the first (I think there might be more) installment of "Life in the 'Burbs" where I contemplate the strange things in suburban life that are so foreign to me.  I didn't grow up in the suburbs.  When I first got married, I jumped between apartments and base housing...much different from the suburbs.  When we bought our first home it was in Jacksonville, NC--I suppose it was TECHNICALLY in the suburbs, but it was a neighborhood of Marines and their families, so it was pretty much still like base housing except with more bills and less rules.  When we moved to TN, we bought a house in the suburbs--the REAL suburbs...where people act differently than all of the places I have lived before.  I love it here, but as a sociologist, it brings about a lot of questions.  I notice some quirks that I suppose are normal for suburbanites, but I'm not a native.

There was a time in my life, before I moved to the 'burbs, when I thought that mailboxes were merely receptacles for receiving mail delivered by the USPS.  How silly!?!  Mailboxes are not just for getting your mail...apparently they are for showing off your landscaping skills (or, more likely, the landscaping skills of the landscaping company you hired to dress your formerly naked mailbox).  I don't know if status-symbol is the right word, but mailboxes in my neighborhood have something to prove!  I was thinking, while walking the dogs today, how humorous it is that people have taken this necessary, government-mandated box and turned it into a fashion statement of the front yard.  All mailboxes (and their surrounding areas) are not created equal.  But what makes a good mailbox?  I truly have no idea...but I did take the opportunity to walk just a few houses up the street to document some of the mailbox ornamentation in my little neck of the 'burbs.  Please forgive the lack of quality in these photographs...I felt a little silly walking around taking pictures of mailboxes so I was trying to be inconspicuous.  (On a sidenote, I think this would be a great idea of a coffee-table book--I called it.  Can I get a copyright on that?  I'll get to work as soon as this pesky PhD is out of the way.)

This is our mailbox, poor thing.  The mailbox landscaping came with the house.  But the box itself is falling over and is being overtaken by that bush that we keep trimming back but won't let up.  That little dogwood looks like it might be on its last leg, or should I say branch.  Those white flowers are pretty, but they are taking over, too.  We have a single tulip holding down the perennial fort.  Some of the monkey grass is new since we've been here.  We have no idea what to do with this thing.  We really need some fresh mulch, though.

This, I think, represents a mailbox that has it all.  Residents are obviously well-read (note the newspaper-box-thing).  You also have your classy Japanese Maple, some tulips, some irises (I think that's what they are) and some monkey grass...all encompassed in nice rocky line with mulch.

Here we have your big-time-mailbox-landscaping example.  Look at that mailbox, standing strong on a freshly-painted post-thing.  Complete with your colorful flowers, complimenting the landscape of the larger yard, and your bold monkey grass, all held together with rock and mulch.

I feel like this mailbox landscaper came from our school of thought.  I'm not sure that they knew exactly WHAT to do with the mailbox's yard, but they knew it was something.  So they planted this azalea (I think) around the mailbox and let it be.  Notice the symmetry with a similar bush on the other side of the driveway.

Similar to the specimen two pictures above, this mailbox landscaper went bold, but held off on the color.  Strong, upstanding mailbox in and of itself, it is complemented with a couple varieties (careful not to overdo it) of greenery with some new mulch and brick fence.

A fan of irises (and difficult to contain monkey grass), this mailbox landscaper also welcomes visitors with the garden flag--nice touch to make your mailbox feel homey. 

Woah!  This mailbox landscaping is in need of some TLC (I think--but of course it is quite possible I'm totally wrong).  What probably began with some crisp and defined greenery is spilling over a bit.  I picture the different plants fighting for the attention of the mailbox.  Clearly, this specimen has potential but needs some control.

A common sight in our neighborhood...the brick mailbox.  These pieces of yard ornamentation allow for additional landscaping around them or for the mailbox to boldly stand on its own, as if saying "Dude, I'm made of brick.  I don't need no landscapin'."

Now we move to the somewhat common "there's supposed to be something here, but what?" mailbox landscaping.  I'm glad our little area was filled in when we bought our house...otherwise, our mailbox would likely fall into this category or be extremely tacky with mis-matched plants because, again, we don't know what to do with these things.  I'm thinking of suggesting an HOA meeting on the topic.  People need to know what's expected of their suburban mailboxes.

Oh...this poor guy didn't get the memo. 

Am I the only one dorky enough to notice these things?!?  This is important stuff here.  Urban sociologists, move over--I'm going to dive into the subfield of SUBurban sociology...