Ode to Fall

I love the smell of Fall. It has quite a distinct flavor, doesn't it? Crushed acorns, crunchy leaves, fire, grills working overtime to cook all that tasty meat for game day. The air is so crisp; a welcome newness after the hot-wet of a Georgia summer.

My sister-in-law once mentioned that her favorite thing about nature is that just when you're getting tired of one season, a new one begins. The perpetuity of nature is wonderful. Just when I thought I couldn't take one more day of muggy, Georgia, summer heat, a nice cool snap came our way. With that cool snap came the telltale signs of Fall.

Now when I drive down the street, crunching acorns under my tires and smelling fireplaces blazing warm, the thought of summer, with its hose-pipe water smell and fresh flowers itching my nose, is far, far away.

Welcome Fall. I've missed you.

On the Job

The last time I posted was two months ago. I know each of you have probably been in a very deep depression over the last two months. I apologize. Give me your doctors name and I'll call in a request for some Xanax.

The last two months have been quite eventful. A new job for me, dealing with the repayment of my student loans, facing real REAL life, weddings. I'm not really sure which one to write about.

Just rolled the dice. They landed on the new job. Ok, so here we go.

I am Columbus Consolidated Government's Board of Tax Assessors newest Appraiser/Auditor. That is quite an official title, don't you think? However official that title sounds and however official my new job may be, the unofficial items, people, and experiences I have had in my new job thus far are much more interesting and will be what I will tell you about.

I am blogging right now from the comfort of my off...I mean cubicle. It is all beige, which is good, because the decor never clashes with my outfits. It is pretty roomy though. There is this other whole corner that I never look at. I'm looking at it now. It is so bare and lonely looking. Maybe I can turn it into my craft corner. Or perhaps an herb garden. Another great thing about my cubicle (wait, did I mention a first great thing about my cubicle?)...well, what I was going to say is that all three walls around me are bulletin board (covered in beige fabric, of course). Do you realize the opportunity this affords me? I have deemed it my personal ambition to cover every single square inch of this bulletin board. Oh my gosh. Just had a brilliant idea. What if I wallpapered it!?! The really great thing about cubicles, though, is all the privacy they afford. Like if I had an office, I couldn't talk on the phone without someone hearing my entire conversation; or I couldn't play on the internet without my very tall coworker standing up from his desk and spying on me; or I couldn't...wait. Sorry. I got confused. So yes, cubicle life has taken a little getting used to, but I'm getting there. So please consider my cubicle to be the unofficial item.

The unofficial person I would like to mention is Larry. Larry is my 55ish year old coworker (the tall one mentioned above) who has been married three times (all to oriental women), lives at home with his single, 32 year old son, has four, tiny poodles, a girlfriend who is a Sheriff's Deputy named Marge, and who, I am convinced, never attended a grammar lesson in his life. He thinks that the current month we are in is "Optober", that a comma, can just, be stuck out, there wherever in a sentence, and that past tense and present tense do not matter. Larry whistles. Nonstop. Sometimes it will be an entire song; other times, it will be just two quick notes and then he is done. And then sometimes, I think he is just making the tune up as he goes. I've started compiling a list of songs he whistles. His favorite song to whistle, by far, is Mambo #5. I've started dancing in my desk chair everytime he starts that one up. A few other songs, just for your enjoyment, are: Anchors Away, Hey There Delila, America the Beautiful, and Deck the Halls.

And finally, the unofficial experience I'd like to tell you about happened during Customer Service Appreciation Week, my third week on the job. Customer Service had several events planned that week for all CCG employees. (Hang on, Larry just stood up to look around.) Amongst them were a hotdog lunch, a drawing for free lunch from the CCG Cafeteria (ughh, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit) and an email scavenger hunt where they gave a clue and we had to respond. Well guess what? I won the email scavenger hunt. We had been told that the prizes would be restaurant gift cards, pedicure gift cards, Target gift cards, etc. However, when I went over to HR to retrieve my gift, this is what was in the bag: a Columbus Tech gym bag, a Columbus Civic Center notepad and pen, CCG mini coasters (literally, they are the smallest coasters I've ever seen), a Columbus Civic Center magic 8-ball, and a Metra Columbus Transit System coffee mug circa 1972, which I have put to good use holding all of my paperclips.

I decided right then and there that I would appreciate the hilarity of all of this and not be bummed out.

There are little unofficial experiences I am having here that make cubicle life with Larry bearable and honestly, down-right funny. I'll keep you updated. Right now though, it's time for my lunchbreak, which I am really deserving of, considering how hard I've worked this morning, reading tax code, filing, and blogging.

For Sara & Grandmother

Sara and Brandon (but mostly Sara, sorry Brandon),

Most of our shared childhoods were spent with our Grandmother in her kitchen. Oh sure, we'd run around with the boys, play with Pogo the poodle, swim. But I have very vivid, picturesque memories of being in the kitchen with you and our Grandmother with one of these three things in place: a flour sifter, a round biscuit cutter, or just a juice glass to cut the biscuits when the cutter could not be found. And she, in all her biscuit and sticky rice glory, would be wearing an apron. It might have been the white one with the Battenburg lace at the bottom or the green one with the tiny purple flowers. But I honestly cannot think of you, our childhood, our Grandmother, without thinking of those very iconic things.

And so Francis-and-every-other-Southern-woman-like, after everyone had filled their plates and found a seat, she would sit down either on a stool or one of those dark wood, creaky kitchen chairs, throwing one coolat pant covered leg over the other and proclaim, "well, I know it's not going to be any good."

So how appropriate for me to gift you with something so iconic of the matriarch of our shared families. My hope is that you will sift the flour, wear the apron, all the while recalling warm, vivid memories while making new memories of your own.

And Brandon, word to the wise: if the biscuits are burned and the rice is unintentionally sticky, just eat up. She's only carrying on a family tradition.

Love always,
Peyton

Take my life...

I have decided I would like this song to be played/sung at my wedding. It is perfect. A wonderful pianist, David Nevue, does it beautifully.

Take my life and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee;
Take my voice and let me sing,
Always, only for my King.

Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee;
Take my silver and my gold,
Not a mite would I withhold.

Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in endless praise;
Take my intellect and use
Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will and make it Thine,
It shall be no longer mine;
Take my heart, it is Thine own,
It shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store;
Take myself and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee.

Ah, so perfect.

Strawberry Fields Forever

I have mentioned before that I would like to overcome the adage, "eating is for pleasure". I wanted to put myself, my mind, my body through an eating bootcamp with my war cry or cadence being:

MUST NOT EAT FOR PLEASURE!
OR ELSE MY PANTS GROW TIGHTER!
MY WAIST GETS MUCH BIGGER!
MUST NOT EAT FOR PLEASURE!
HOOA!

But I'm beginning to understand something: eating IS pleasurable. Why in the world would God have created such things as the sweetness of strawberries, the juicy, thirst quench of a watermelon, the raw simplicity of a carrot, the perfect purple of a plum, the fulfillment of a potato, the spiciness of a jalepeno? I am 100% positive that God created those things, with their specific attributes, for OUR pleasure.

It's the way we manipulate those perfect creations - preserve them, fry them, freeze dry them - that creates this "oh that's bad for me; I can't have that" mentality. I'll be the first to admit that I have fallen into that way of thinking.

Because I am dieting, I must not enjoy food. SO NOT TRUE PEOPLE!!

I brought a baggie of fresh strawberries and blackberries to work this morning for breakfast. I picked up a strawberry. I smelled it - it smelled of earth, of unadulerated sweetness. I bit into it - juicy, fruity, perfect explosion in my mouth. As for the blackberries, I still have seeds stuck in my teeth. What a wonderful, albeit annoying, thing!

So my new quest, instead of only eating for sustanance, is to eat the perfect food I know God created and intended for me to eat.

(Disclaimer: I am sure the occasional french fry might slip into my mouth. Just being honest.)

I am my father's daughter

I noticed my dad's eyes for the first time yesterday.

For Father's Day, I invited him to go to breakfast with me. Nothing fancy of course; just his regular haunt, Waffle House. (I have grown accustomed to hearing my friends say over the years, "hey, I saw your dad at Waffle House this morning." If I had a nickle...)

My dad is very much a creature of habit. For as long as I can remember, the following things have been constants in my dad's life: coffee, cigarettes, a somber smile, creativity, and silence. I have never known much about who my dad was and is. He's never offered much, and well, I've never really asked...or made the effort to simply listen. But over breakfast, as we shared a pot of what I am pretty sure is the love of my dad's life, I listened. He spoke.

I learned about his early business dealings; what a schmoozer Ricky Baker was! Taking businessmen out to lunch, talking shop, doing deals, buying in, getting his cut of the share, traveling, deals gone awry.

I heard about the hilarious this-could-only-happen-to-Ricky-Baker type scenarios. These stories got my dad (and me) cackling. It was so good to see him laugh.

I heard about his regrets. Hearing him voice his regrets was difficult. I have never thought about his regrets from his side; only the effect they have had on me.

He was transparent with me for the second time in my life. (The only other time was at my college graduation when he gave me a very prolonged, firm hug and whispered in my ear, "I am so proud of you, Peyton." I will remember that forever, I am sure.)

The provisions that my dad has offered his family, me in particular, have not been great. I have been paying my way for quite some time; looking to my older brother for advice and support; finding spiritual guidance in church leaders. God has always provided a multitude of provision in the areas my dad was lacking. But I am beginning to see what my dad has provided for me: bits and pieces of himself.

So much of him is in me: creativity, a little (ok, a lot of) rebellion, sometimes finding it hard to move past regret, his coloring (thank goodness!), his nose...and his eyes.

I noticed my dad's eyes for the first time, sitting across from him at breakfast. They are brown, yes, just like mine. But there is a small sliver of gray-blue that encircles the brown. Something I have never, ever noticed before. I never looked; never paid attention long enough to discover a detail like that.

As I was kissing Mark goodbye last night, after having told him about breakfast with my dad and noticing his eyes, Mark looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Peyton, you have that thin grayish blue circle too!"

I am my father's daughter.

Handmade

I am becoming a bit obsessed with handmade items. The thought of buying something from someone who uses their own creative ingenuity to make, greatly appeals to me. Oh sure, there's a lot of Crap with a capital C out there. (i.e. - Crochet tissue box covers. Who, who in the world? Why? Where did they? Items like this generally render me speechless when trying to figure out their need and their place in our already junked-up galaxy.) But creative ingenuity is all around us, people! I know people who make their living from selling their photographs, art, food, etc. I'm sure you can see how, for a creative, joy-filled and animated gal who makes her living from sitting behind a creativity-draining, lifeless, plastic box everyday, this idea is extremely appealing.

I long, I mean long, to live this way. There is nothing I want to be doing more than working in my garden right now; or making some salsa to sell on Saturdays at the market; or making more of an effort to become a better (amateur) photographer; or finding old scraps of, well, scraps, and turning them into a fun kitschy piece of...something.

I was in the produce section of the grocery store last week watching an employee unload crates of fresh corn into a bin. I watched him for a few minutes; studied the crates a bit, then I asked him, "what do you do with those crates after you unload the corn?" He said, "nothing. You want them?" Well, yeah! There's no telling what I could do with them! A rustic, wood and wire crate that has a big ole', faded, red corn stamp on it? Heck yes I want that thing! So I took a few home. I still haven't figured out what to do with them. But I will.

But that's the thing. Here I am, stuck behind this thing all day. Stuck. With no real time to do the things I know I was creatively created to create. One day. I hope.