our trip to the UU church

FYI- disclaimer- I am writing about religion and I know this is a touchy issue.  The following are just my personal viewpoints at this time and I do not think at all that I have all the "right" answers...

Since moving to Columbus I've been thinking about places to meet new friends...
One place I decided to visit was church.  Church is such a big thing down here. Having said that not everyone goes to church every week, and many that do aren't super religious,  for some it's a social thing.  For others, you can get discounts on the good church daycares if you are a member of certain churches (and then of course are the people who are actually religious).  But at work the other day, we prayed before a colleague's retirement breakfast.  Yep, at work with my boss.  So that's a bit odd for me.  I've also been asked by numerous colleagues if I had found a church yet.  It's like visiting my grandparents at work. 
I do not want to join a church and pretend to believe what people there believe just for networking reasons, or particularly for daycare discounts...Yuck.  Growing up with my background (father being a Southern Baptist minister) some of the people who were looked down on the most were people who really only came to church for the big important days like Easter or Christmas.  So while other people might be okay with being an occasional churchgoer (and I do not fault them for that at all) for me it either feels like something I have to be all in on, or not really worry about.  Which has been quite problematic for me, because it's not something I want to do every week (and I disagree with a lot of the more literal/conservative viewpoints), but also not something I want to never do.  So I have quite a bit of dissonance about this.
So what I decided to do today (quite a long background preview to get to this point) was go to an Unitarian Universalist church, as I felt that I would not have to pretend to believe everything they did (since they have no real set religious dogma).  It was held in a house (not someone's house currently).  There were probably about 50 people there and for the space it was pretty full.  Joanna and I were the only ones who went since I wanted to skope things out before bringing Dean (see what childcare options, etc there were).  I'm actually really glad I went.  They are accepting of everyone's viewpoints and backgrounds.  One greeter said his background was Methodist and one said his background was Jewish.  There was at least 1 openly gay young couple (might have been more, but they were the only ones who identified themselves as such during the church service).  The age of the group was definently trending toward older, but there were other people there who had kids too.

Cool things about the service

• It was a lot like regular church, but without a reference to a particular god.  We sang songs about our creator.  We read responses.  We had grape juice or wine.  We had a moment of meditation. 
• It was very different from my church growing up in these ways.  People felt free to get up and refill their coffee during the service.  People got up and lit a candle for any concerns/celebrations and shared  them with the congregation during the service.  After the speaker gave HER message (okay big one here, there was actually a woman minister) there was time for discussion and questions.  It was a much more interactive feel than the I am sitting and hearing a message but I cannot contribute or question anything.
• People were talking about things that we talked about in graduate school- like social justice.  And making the world a more tolerant accepting place.  And once a month they give their entire tithe to a local charity. 
• It definently did not have a "hippie" feel (not that I have a problem with hippies :).  You could have taken the entire congregation and said they were Methodist church in the South (based on dress/apperance) and no one would have blinked.

So I had a good time.  And I think I'm going back next week with Dave and Dean too.  So ironically the Bible Belt has finally gotten me to go back to church (and it's a UU church).  Ha!

Football :)

Don't you love the symmetry of this pic?  Something about babies and dogs :) 

Notice Joanna's football jersey.  So at our house we're pretty excited about football season.  This generally means dressing all members of the family in panthers garb and up until very recently meant listening to the panthers game on the computer.  Well, here's a warm welcome from Georgia...No more Bengals vs. Browns :)  This is quite excellent.  Also, the fact that we can finally watch ACC football again is great, and don't even get me started about basketball season...

Southern grocery stores

So many people say everywhere is the same now...stores are chains and all sell the same stuff,  the era of Wal-mart.  In many ways I would have to agree.  Down here there are the same stores at the mall, lots of the same chain restaurants, Targets, Wal-marts, etc.  Some of the grocery store chains are in many different areas of the country as well.  However, one thing I've noticed are some of the different food selections at the grocery store.  One thing- the flour section.  I know random, huh?  Growing up my mom always got the same kind of flour.  I even remember when they stopped making a certain kind of flour it was a very sad occurance.  Brand loyalty to the extreme.  What a random thing to have such brand loyalty to huh?  But the flour section here is huge- much bigger than the selections in Ohio- must be a Southern baking thing.  Another thing, they actually have Muscodine grapes at the grocery store here.  I can remember going to pick them growing up and loving to eat them.  Needless to say, I haven't had them in awhile.  At the grocery store today I saw them, they actually sell Muscodine grapes here in the grocery store.  To me those things that make each place different are fun and interesting... Flour and grapes :)

Our fan

Today we installed a ceiling fan in our living room.  And by "we" I mean Dave did most of the work and I assisted.  Our living room has a great high ceiling with exposed beams, but without a ceiling fan, man was it hot.  The AC was running all the time.  What made it a bit more difficult was that there was no light fixture there.  However, with the help of a swag unit (I know, really...) we were able to run the wire along the edge of the beam, down the side of the fireplace and plug it right into an outlet.  That will also mean that we can take the fan along with us when we eventually move.  YAY!

Cute pics of my other one...he's getting so big too!





Dave's preschool

As most of you know, my wonderful husband Dave is watching the kids while looking for work down here in Columbus...Dave really enjoys cooking, especially large chunks of meat.  I appreciate that he has encorporated meat and cooking into learning activities for Dean during the day.  I think they both had a blast.  We are really enjoying our backyard for grilling (as you might guess from the pictures), even though it's been pretty hot lately.  I promise to post pictures of the house soon, but as you can see in the background of one of these pictures there are still boxes (and I at least want to get all boxes put away before posting pictures).  Funny thing is our old daycare would take pictures like this to document learning.  They would post them online with little sentences like this...

In the area of language Dean is now able to follow 1 step directions and is developing the fine motor skill of twisting small objects. 

Dean is demonstrating the early math skill of measuring a given amount.

And of course who could end the post without a good ole baby picture...



Or two :)

My first week at work

So I have officially finished my first week at work. 
Cool things about work
1)  I make significantly more money than I did at my old job
2) While I have 3 schools instead of 2 I have about the same number of students and maybe a few less 3) My office rocks.  I had pretty much given up on ever having as cool of an office as I had at CE (view of our small pond and courtyard).  My office now, is on a row of offices with all the other psychologists.  The building is gorgeous and only two years old.  I share with one other person.  I have my own desk, my own bookcase, and the test library has every test I could ever want to give to a child. 
4) The other psychs I work with seem really great.  I've had lunch with several different groups of people this week who are all really nice (there are about 16 of us).  Once school starts most people have 1 office day a week (to actually get some paperwork done at work).
5) The central office where I work is called MCPEC.  One of the awesome people I work with stated "We call ourselves the McPeccers".  Sweet. 
Uncool things about work: 
1) Going to have to dress significantly nicer than in Lakota.  Doesn't look like people here are really into casual Fridays.  Or realizing "hey it's summer, wear whatever you want to".  Not So Much.  Because my office is at central office people take it up a notch. 
2) Seem to be lots of random rules.  For instance, you can snack in your office, but not eat lunch in it.  You cannot exit the side door.  You have to sign in and out.  You have to turn in a weekly and a monthly log.
Overall, far more cool things than uncool things. 

Snakes on a plane

So here's the story of my last few minutes in Oxford.  I ran by the bank to get the ridiculous amount of money orders our rental company made us get rather than a good old check (more on our new place to come).  I was in the US Bank and a middle aged guy from College Corner walked in.  He had on a cut off shirt, some old jeans and looked to have been working pretty hard all day long.  The one thing that made me stare:  he was wearing a "snakes on a plane" t-shirt (with the sleeves cut off).  For those of you who don't know the Snakes on a Plane were a flag football team the psychology deptartment had about 4ish years ago.  The shirt is kelly green with a giant snake on a football field (the team was around the time of the movie and a play on words).  There were probably about 15-20 shirts made-- ever, since the design was created just for our team...

I asked the guy where he got the shirt (he didn't remember).  Thinking about it now I'm guessing someone donated their shirt to the family resource center (I think it was Jim from the name of the back of the shirt).  So even though we have left Oxford, our time as a fantasy team lives on, with the guy in College Corner. :)

Moving....

So I'm leaving on Thursday night to sign the lease on Friday in GA.  Hence the lack of posting about our new place.  We found a place.  It's a 3 bedroom/2 bath house with a fireplace in the living room and a fenced in backyard.  Everyone cheer for Dean and Watson!  But I have about 1 minute before packing most resume again.  Thanks so our awesome friends for helping with the packing last night :)

Cute things Dean has said lately:

Dean:  We're going to Georgia? 
Me:  Yep, we're moving to Georgia.
Dean:  Is Don coming to Georgia?
Me: No buddy.  (how sad)

Dean:  What's that? (in reference to our neighbor's blazer)
Me:  A car.
Dean:  That's not a car.
Me:  Well, that's really a SUV.
Dean:  An SOB? 
Me:  Dying laughing....

Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee

So we're here.  We looked at some places on Saturday (no pictures of those places b/c most were too scary to pull out the camera for) and rode around all over town.  We found an area that we'd like to live in (really nice and not scary :) and have driven by the outside of some available houses in our price range.  The real estate place opens on Monday and we're going to go by then to see the interior.  So far so good!  We have already found a good BBQ restaurant (Country BBQ).  Pictures of the BBQ sandwich, pork ribs, and banana pudding (in a mason jar).  It was awesome.

There is also a great park right by the neighborhood we want to live in. Pictures attached. I was afraid we wouldn't find anything we liked as much as Oxford Community Park, but it is really pretty and we had a blast!

 This is Joanna's favorite way to hold her head (she does it all the time).

 The bridge to the playground

The non flat terrain :)

A tale of two dresses

Okay- so the dreaded event happened.  The dress doesn't fit...The dress I'm referring to is the bridesmaids dress for H'.s wedding in September.  I had to try it on while pregnant (very pregnant).  And try to guess what size I would be when I was done.  And I've actually lost all the weight from the pregnancy.  I can fit into my regular clothes (even jeans).  When I weighed at the doctor's I was 1 pound less than before getting pregnant. The fit of the waist of the dress, check, the hips, check.  The one exception- the boobs.  I'm thinking no matter how much dieting it is unlikely I will get rid of the breastfeeding boobs.  So one other awesome thing I've learned about Columbus is that there is a David's Bridal there (totally the reason we're moving there).  So while looking for a house this weekend I will also be trying on new dresses (and praying it gets here in time- no worries H., the first one got here super fast).

Joanna- Look Mommy, I totally fit in my dress

Light in August

Just as a preface, I don't think anything I have to say is going to be earth shattering, but I've loved reading megh's and L.'s blogs to know what is going on with them so I'm going to do the same about our move back down South.

So my days as a stay at home mom are quickly coming to an end.  I've actually enjoyed it far more this time.  I think partly because of the weather- more fun to stay home in the summer, and also because I've had Dean to talk to/hang out with.  Tomorrow we leave to go down to Columbus to look for a rental house.  Hopefully we'll find some places that aren't horrible, I'll post pictures.  Next weekend we move.  The following Monday I start my new job.  Yep.  With a 2.5 year old and a 7 week old.  With all the time we've spend in Oxford who would've thought the ending would be so fast.  I moved out of my offices at work yesterday, turned in my computer and keys, and that was that.  It really sucks not to be able to say goodbye in person to most of the people I worked with for 4 years.  But while I've enjoyed Lakota, I'm definently ready to be closer to home.  And it doesn't hurt to be leaving when my salary would basically be frozen for 3 years (or reduced if extended days are cut further).  So yay for a raise :)      

Off to the library because apparently their "truckies" are so much cooler than the ones at home...