Sleeping at my parent’s house

Today was a pretty normal day… but for some reason I ended up at my parent’s extra room instead of nice and cozy in our little house.

Tonight Brian and I went to the park around 7:30 so I could go running and he could play frisbee golf. We were there for a little while, and when I was done running my face was bright red and I was really, really hot. I was so excited about going home and taking a shower. When we got home I immediately jumped in and took a long, wonderful slightly cool shower, and when I was done I stepped out, started to dry off, and then the power went out.

I am a baby when it comes to the dark anyway, but the fact that I was naked made it a lot worse. I couldn’t see what I was doing, and immediately the fear of a stranger jumping out of my closet overtook me. Reality quickly set in and I realized that the power was probably not out because of a plot to murder me and Brian, and my fear started to fade. It was, however, extremely annoying. After I got a flashlight and some clothes I talked to Brian and he said the neighbor’s power was out too. I’m all for good will towards men, but for some reason knowing that it wasn’t just our power that was out made me feel a lot better. The feeling that there is a community experiencing the same problems that you are experiencing seems to make it seem a lot smaller of a problem, when in reality the problem is actually bigger. Anyway… so we called PSO and it went to a message that said something the effect of “We already know your power is out, leave us alone”, and we sat and waited. As we waited, the house got warmer, and as it got warmer, Brian wanted to leave. We decided that it was getting late and just best to go somewhere with air conditioning for the night, so we decided to come to my parent’s house.

On the way over here, I was thinking about all of the different people we could have called, and we are really lucky to have so many people in Tulsa that we know we could stay with in situations like this. There are people who don’t know anyone, and we had at least 5 homes we could think of quickly that would take us in a second. I thought that was pretty amazing.

So, now here we are in my parent’s extra room for the night, praying that our refrigerator keeps everything cold until the power comes back on and drinking Yogi Bedtime Tea. Goodnight!

Molly: [mol-ee]; (noun); see Mollycookie.wordpress.com

I’m going to start writing more on MollyCookie, my blog that talks more about food for a while. It’s just something fun to do since I’m cooking every day. Right now I would say that cooking is one of my favorite hobbies, and I wanted a good spot to write about it. So- for now if you don’t find me much here I’ll be there writing about food and cooking and other things in my life. There is a link on this page or you can follow the link I just gave you to the page. Sorry for the redirection, but I thought I’d try this out for a while. Thanks! See you in the kitchen!

Molly’s Best 5 of Tulsa

Lately I’ve been pretty excited about the possibility of living in Tulsa for most of the rest of my life. I say most of, because when I’m older I’m going to drag Brian to the beach and make him live with me there for a while, but I’m thinking that will be when our kids are old and grown up. For now, Tulsa is the place that I’m very happily spending my time daydreaming about the next several years. There are several things that I love about Tulsa, and there is a lot of me that wants to make Tulsa better. This week I had a conversation with a parent about how Tulsa doesn’t have any (or at least many) genetic counselors for families of kids with special needs, and I got all excited about joining up with a geneticist and working with a team to create a position for that in Tulsa. I hope someday Brian and I have a loft downtown and that I can drive to St. Francis every day and spend time with those families and kids.

For now though, before my dream job is realized, I am get to live and focus on all of the wonderful things that Tulsa has to offer today. This week there will be an article in the Tulsa World about a girl I know who tells what, in her opinion, are the 5 Best Tulsa Treasures. I want to try to come up with what I think my favorite things about Tulsa are. Things that without them Tulsa would not be the same for me.

Before I get into it, I would like to say that I looked for pictures to go alongside these places so that you could see them and what I typically do when I’m there, but I didn’t have very many good ones. I guess I’m too busy having fun when I’m at these places. I do have a good one from The LLH and from Woodward park, but I don’t have any others. So … now you know.

1. Queenie’s – I would say eating breakfast at Queenies on a weekend is one of my favorite things to do in Tulsa. I love Queenies for their laid-back atmosphere and their delicious food and desserts. It is definitely one of Tulsa’s treasures. Without Queenie’s, my out-to-eat breakfast experiences would be a a lot less happy.

2. Vintage 1974 – This wine bar is perfect. I love the lighting, decor, the people who work there, and, of course, the wine. I discovered this place with Jessica back a few years ago when Vintage won the award for the best Mojito in Oklahoma, and ever since then I’ve loved to go and sit in a dark corner or out on the patio having a good conversation with someone. It’s a great place to meet people and catch up since it’s quiet, but also spirited. It really is the perfect wine bar.

3. The Painted blocks on Riverside – As a kid, when my parents would drive down Riverside with me in the back seat I would always get so excited about the painted blocks. I know lately they have started to paint over some, but I don’t know the whole story behind it. I’m hoping that they are going to continue letting some of Tulsa’s artists paint on them. They are such a cool thing about our city, and I would hate it if they were gone. I remember a really great Wizard of Oz scene painted on one. I don’t know if that’s still there or not.

4. The Little Light House – Maybe I’m a little biased, but this really is probably the best place in Tulsa. There’s no where else that has such a loving, awesome, tuition-free school for kids with disabilities. It gives families a chance to meet each other, support each other, and learn the best ways to help their children. The teachers and therapists work with the kids every day, and they end up doing things all the time that doctors always said they would never be able to do. If you want to go to a place where miracles happen daily, this is the place to go. I don’t know if anywhere else in Tulsa can say that.

5. Woodward Park – And last but not least, Woodward Park is another place that I have always loved in Tulsa. It’s a beautiful place to take a walk, take pictures, lay down and read a book, play frisbee, or get engaged. Brian proposed to me on a bench in this park, so for me, this will always be one of Tulsa’s treasures. Here is a picture right after he proposed. Cute huh?

So those are my 5 favorite things about Tulsa today. I’m glad that I live in such a cool city. Now if we could just fix the weather so that it’s 70 degrees year round, we’d have the perfect place to live.

Not so early bird

When I was younger there was an imaginary sack full of things that I planned to do when I got older. Every now and then I was watch a movie and see a young lady in her 20s reading a paper or doing yoga and I would slip that idea into my sack and think, “Someday, when I have a job and my own place… someday I’ll do that.” I think for the most part the sack consisted of things that I do now, but there are a few things in the sack that I haven’t been able to pull out completely. They are things that for some reason, even though all the right circumstances are in place, I can’t seem to get those things out of the sack. Time and time again I try, but they are too far to reach.

One of the things that is buried deep in the sack is waking up early. By early I mean early enough to spend a little time drinking coffee and not rushing out the door. At this point I would settle for waking up even an hour before I have to leave the house. For some reason there is something about my body that will absolutely never get out of bed 25 minutes before its time to go. It doesn’t matter if I have to leave at 5:30 or 9:00, I still won’t get out of bed unless it’s within 25 minutes of leaving time. This presents problems for me. I generally am rushing around, typically I forget something, and it leaves me stressed for the rest of the day. I know that I want to wake up early, and on the rare occasion that I do it makes me extremely happy and I love my day because of it, but these aren’t motivators that work. Is the problem the lack of a good motivator, or is it something else? I do know that it’s annoying when I don’t get up early enough, but for some reason I go ahead and do it again the next day.

I don’t really know at all how to fix this problem. I do know that there are plenty of things I’m doing that I’m happy about, and my little sack is almost empty, but this waking up thing and a few others just seem to be just out of reach. I wish I could say I was going to try or do an experiment and see if I could wake up early for a week or something like that but I know it won’t work. The attempt would fail. I guess for now just writing about it is enough. We’ll see where it goes from here.

Cooped up

Today I took the day off work so that I could finish studying for a test I have tonight. This class isn’t extremely hard or anything, but working full time and going to class every night really does make it hard to find time to study. I am going to be so glad when this class is over.

I feel like I’ve spent lots of time in the past few days alone in my house. Brian has had to work a few days this week that I’ve been off, and I’ve been having to study so I haven’t been going out and doing anything else. One of the things that’s good about this is that I’m really falling in love with our house. I love the way it’s laid out and I love our porch. Right now it’s raining and I took my laptop out to our back porch so I could listen to the rain and write a little bit before I get going with studying today. I love the patio furniture my parents got us and I love the extra building that I’ll use as my painting studio once I have some time to go in there. We never even looked at houses, this was the very first house we looked at and we were told about it by a friend. It really just fell into our hands and we didn’t have to think about it at all. It worked out perfectly. But, after a few days of being cooped up anywhere it starts to get a little crazy. I think today I’m going to school to study.

Since I haven’t had much time to do any extracurricular activities lately, I’ve been dreaming about things that I want to do. Here is a list of things that if I wasn’t in class I would want to be doing, and that I will hopefully do as soon as class is over:

1. Go see My Sister’s Keeper
2. Cook dinner again every day
3. Make chocolate chip cookies
4. Set up my painting room and start painting
5. Start going to Bible Study again
6. Paint my fingernails
7. Go to the mall
8. Take Timmy out for coffee
9. Go to the OKC Zoo
10. Have my 4th annual wine party – need to think of a good theme
11. Go visit Jessica
12. Ride my bike
13. Redesign my website
14. Go on a date with Brian
15. Get my hair cut and dyed

That’s just few things. Those came out really fast.

I guess I’m going to finish up my studying and take my test. Organic Chemistry blows.

Fundraising Blues

I have always been one of those people who hates receiving letters from my friends or family that ask for money. Generally the people are raising money for something worthwhile like a mission trip or a charity they work for, but being asked to give to those things has always made me feel uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s only pertained to those types of giving though, I hate being solicited period. One of my least favorite things to do is to walk around the mall lately, because there are crazy people that work in the little booths trying to straighten my hair or give me a massage every time I try to walk past a store. I would rather just be left alone and to not be bothered or asked to participate in any experience that they want me to participate in. No hair straightening, no purchasing of a cell phone, no slowing down my shopping!

I also never want to answer the door when a little kid comes to the door to sell candy. This is the one that always gets me though, because I will buy the candy from the kid who is selling for his team or church or whatever. I have a hard time turning down someone who is under 10, especially when they say something that is overly-rehearsed and their parent is standing 15 feet behind them in the street for moral (or sometimes forceful) support. Plus, I like candy, especially America’s Finest Chocolate, so I don’t really mind buying a candy bar from them. Maybe part of the reason I don’t mind this much is because I sold candy as a kid for softball and Drill Team and those types of things. I guess I see the kid and feel some sort of bond with them because I’ve been there too.

I honestly care, a whole, whole lot, about missions and organizations and what they do. I am passionate about helping people in different ways and when it comes to volunteering or working for something, I’m all for it. I just don’t like being asked for money. I don’t necessarily feel like I need a lot of money, and if I know someone needed something I really don’t think I would hesitate to offer it to them, but there is something about being asked that bothers me. So, does this make me a bad, selfish person? Some people don’t seem to mind being solicited at all. They don’t feel the need to shy away or avoid the situation. They simply hear the person out and then give an answer, yes or no, to the request. Some people aren’t immediately turned off by the fact that someone wants something from them. It’s such a silly thing really, for me to be so completely uncomfortable and opposed to interacting with someone who wants something from me. What’s the big deal anyway? I can always say no. And maybe, just maybe, it will be something I’m actually interested in helping with, but if my initial reaction is negative without hearing them out then I’ll never know.

This is all very interesting really, since I am a Fundraising Coordinator, and every fall my job is to encourage parents and runners to go out and do the exact thing that I despise. I want them to go out and ask people for money so that their kids can continue to come to school, and so that me and my coworkers will continue to get paid. I give them ideas on how to write a good letter, creative ways to raise money, how to ask a small business, how to ask a big corporation, how to think outside the box, how to use Facebook and other social media to help with their campaign, etc. Being stretched so beyond my comfort zone makes me feel a little big like God might be trying to teach me something. Maybe someday down the road I’ll need to know how to fundraise, or maybe he just wants me to have a different heart for giving. I don’t know. Either way, for the time being this is where I am and I’m going to try to do a good job. I guess I just have to hope that the people they ask aren’t too much like me. I guess we do have one thing on our side, I don’t think I could even say no to this face:

Morning on the Porch

Right now I’m sitting on my back porch drinking a cup of coffee and listening to the tree’s branches that surround our back yard wave in the breeze. Brian is sitting quietly next to me reading a new book he got for his birthday on photography and holding the rim of a cup of coffee up against his forehead as he rests his elbow on the armrest of his chair. It looks uncomfortable to me, but he must not think so. Every now and then a cool breeze will come through and all of the leaves will swish louder than the other moments, making me look up from the keyboard to watch them. They always look this same, so I don’t know what really makes me look up besides the startling sound. The coffee I’m drinking is really, really good this morning. Brian woke up before me and made it, and the smell of it woke me up and gave me the motivation I needed to get out of bed. I stood up, went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and walked out into our kitchen and living room to find that Brian was missing. I took a few more steps towards the chair where he normally sits in the morning and saw him out of the corner of my eye on the back porch. Seeing him in a different setting doing something by himself that he found enjoyable and relaxing made me so happy. I almost didn’t want to intrude on his time, but when I stepped out to say good morning the way he smiled at me was so loving. He looked genuinely happy to see me awake, so I decided it was ok for me to get some coffee and come outside too with my laptop and write. The cooler weather today must have drawn him out. Weather.com is telling me that is 82 degrees right now, which feels like a cold front after the terribly hot week we had. If I didn’t have to study for a test today I would take Brian out into the world and ride bikes or play Frisbee golf. Maybe I’ll do that anyway.

Last night we was Brian’s birthday party, and we had lots of fun. The house quickly filled up with family and later filled even more up with friends. We ate hamburgers and hot dogs, pasta salad, deviled eggs, rice krispy treats, blackberry cobbler, cheesecake, baked beans, ice cream, chips, southwestern corn dip (which was really good), and more that I’m forgetting for sure. We were definitely prepared to feed an army after our moms brought in all the side dishes and extra desserts. Toni asked me relatively quickly if I had any Disney movies, and thank God we had Wall-E or I don’t know what we would have done. For someone who loves Disney movies so much I certainly don’t have very many of them. I’ll have to make a note to start collecting them for situations like this.

Speaking of notes, I’ve recently discovered this amazing website called evernote.com. It is amazing. I LOVE to make lists, and this is basically a tool that you can use to keep lots of lists organized for yourself. You can also install this thing on Firefox or Safari where you can click on a web page at any time, and it will turn that page into a note and add it to your Evernote box. I do that a lot with recipes. I will click on a recipe to save it to my evernotes, and label it recipe or dessert or whatever, and then when I want for something to make I can look at all the recipes that have looked good to me on the internet to decide what to make, instead of going online searching through thousands of recipes to find something that looks good. All the things that have looked good to me are already in one spot. This works for me because I read food blogs a lot, so every day I’m looking at recipes and saving ones that look good. When I started my Evernote, I started with 9 Lists that are useful to keep updated from an article Brian sent me from Lifehack.org. For someone who likes to keep lists, they are really great ones to start with. I highly recommend you all start an Evernote account and get these 9 lists started.

Now I guess I’m off to study for my test I have tomorrow. At least the day had a very relaxing start.

Flag Day

Happy Flag Day everyone! I have always really enjoyed Flag Day, mainly because it’s my brother’s birthday too. I think we’ve always thought it was pretty funny that his birthday is on such a silly holiday. When we were younger and living in a neighborhood with lots of other young families, they did parades for some holidays like Halloween, the Fourth of July, and Flag Day. I remember on Flag Day a fire truck would come out and all the kids would hold a flag and carry it as we walked around the neighborhood. Some kids rode in wagons, which I think I remember Timmy and Zach (a little boy we babysat) doing as I walked alongside with some of my friends. We were young enough that when we told Timmy the parade was for his birthday, he believed us. I love when kids are at that age where they believe things that make them extremely happy.

This Flag Day in Tulsa is stormy and wet. Today Brian and I are going to go to my parent’s house to celebrate my brother turning 20. He’s old. He is going to be a sophomore this year at OU and he got straight A’s this past year taking all these ridiculously hard classes. He’s probably going to work for NASA or the CIA or something doing math all day long when he graduates.

It has been almost 2 months since my last update, which is terrible and I’m very sorry. A lot has happened since my last post that I will just sum up quickly. We have moved into a house, which is extremely nice and awesome, I’ve gotten through one fundraiser and planned another one, a golf tournament, which is going to happen tomorrow, and now that I’ve given it a substantial amount of thought and actually started taking classes, I think it’s safe to go ahead and tell the world that I am going to go back to school and apply to get my master’s in Genetic Counseling. It’s something I hadn’t heard of a 2 months ago, but it is such a perfect fit with where my life and work have taken me that I think it’s really what I’m supposed to do. The next step is to take a few classes that I need before I can apply to the program. The classes are Organic Chemistry (which I’m taking this summer), Genetics, and Biochemistry. I’m really excited about taking Genetics because it’s something I always wanted to take when I was at OU, but I never did because it seemed a little silly to take such a heavy science class as an elective when I was already taking big science classes. Now I wish I had followed my heart and taken it back when I wasn’t working full time. I know it will all work out fine, it’s just that the next year is going to be busy with night school.

So, that’s what’s been going on around here lately. I’ll have to find some pictures of the house and put them up here. I promise I’ll be back sooner than in a month and a half.

Jessica was born today… 25 years ago

Tomorrow is Jessica’s birthday (but the date on my blog will reflect her birthday as being today since I haven’t changed the settings to reflect my current time zone), and as a tribute to her and her friendship I thought I would post some pictures that I have of her. I know she’ll probably hate this, but it’s her birthday, and on your birthday you have to take a little bit of extra attention.

New Flip Flops

I decided to make a new header for the site, and I hope everyone likes it. I went back to the old title and hopefully the new look will inspire me a little bit to start writing more. When I first started blogging, I used it as a way for friends and family to keep up with what I was doing since everyone was so spread out. I was in college, friends were at other colleges, and I didn’t live in the same town as my family, so it made sense. Now there aren’t that many people who read this outside of Tulsa, so I feel less of a need to keep people up to date on what’s going on. Sometimes it’s hard to think of something to write about that most of you don’t already know, but I guess that’s when I need to be creative and think of something. I’ll try to be better. It turns out that today, I do have a little story to tell.

I’ve had the same pair of brown flip flops for a very long time. I’m not sure when I got them, but I think it’s been several years that I’ve had them. They are just plain, rubber, brown flip flops. I never really wore them or held on to them because I like them, but mainly because they were comfortable and matched almost everything I wore (I wear a lot of brown).

But yesterday something happened that made me very sad. It was raining, and I was getting out of my parent’s car in their garage and I slipped. I fell down and bruised my arm, but other than that I wasn’t seriously injured. It wasn’t that big of a deal except it made me realize that these flip flops that I’ve been holding on to are a threat to my well-being. My mom told me that I needed to throw them away. “You’re an adult!” she said. “You don’t need to wear those shoes!” I guess being an adult is not compatible with brown slippery flip flops.

I got home and told Brian about the incident, but I didn’t tell him that my mom told me to throw them away, hoping that maybe he wouldn’t think of that and that I would get to hold on to them for a little bit longer. They really are so easy to put on when I don’t know what else to wear, and they are sooo comfortable. I really didn’t want to throw them away. After telling Brian the story though, his first words were pretty much the same as my mom’s. He thought it was time for those shoes to go too.

This morning we went to church and then afterwards we drove by Sun and Ski, and Brian thought we should stop in and look at new flip flops that are actually sort of safe. I tried on lots of different types of Reefs and decided on this pair:

As you can see they are sufficiently treaded and are the same basic style as my others. These are great too, because they actually have arch support, and when I walk I feel like I’m bouncing around. They are amazing.

So, after buying the new shoes I gave in to the request of those who love me and decided to throw away the slick, deadly shoes. Farewell my brown friends.