So it's been awhile

"It's been awhile..."

Those are the opening lyrics to some 90s alternative song, anybody know which one it is? I can't remember.

It's (relatively) early (for me) on a Saturday morning and it's snowing outside, the first snow of the winter for us. Josh is sleeping and I'm updating (while considering how much I really want to go upstairs and make myself some breakfast). This is a really fun time of year, isn't it? I love the holiday season. Joshua and I are both big on fireplaces and one day when we have our own place we'll make sure we have one. And you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be using that thing every day during the winter. What's more cozy than the crackling warmth from the fireplace soaking into your skin while you sit bundled up in a blanket with a cup of hot chocolate or mulled apple cider? Not much. Add a little music to suit the mood and you're there.

Lately in our lives: Josh has been going to school for 13-hour days while he's in a six-week intensive course to get his CNA license. Clinicals have just begun for him (may I say he looks very good in scrubs) and he has decided that working with the elderly is not for him. Too slow of a pace, he says. That and yesterday he got some explosive diarrhea all over his shoes and I think that had an influence. Josh is very caring, so I thought he would be good working with the elderly. Which he is... he was singing Christmas carols to one old dear as he fed her her lunch this week. What kind of CNA does that? But he said that he is also task-oriented and so the slow pace of having to wait on the elderly is not a good match. Maybe emergency room medicine, then? I don't know... we'll just have to wait and see.

I'm working at Biltmore Estate, driving other people's cars around all day. Valet parking, baby. Um, who ever imagined that I would be doing that for a living? Not me. But I love the people that I work with and the place that I work for. That makes all the difference apparently. Plus, I feel like I've gone on a bazillion test drives already. When Josh and I are ready to buy a vehicle, I'm going to know exactly what I want. Seat warmers. iPod hookup. Camera for backing up. Compass and temperature display in between the speedometer and tachometer. Automatic seat and mirror adjustments. A BMW 328i. Okay, how about a Lexus. I'll settle for a Lexus.

I've also been re-inspired lately to pursue some latent loves of mine... music, for instance. I watched a DVD of a live MuteMath concert and of course it made me want to be in a band. These guys are freakishly talented and it made me want to put some effort into playing again. It's worth it, you know? Plus, I've never seen the lead singer of a rock band (although MuteMath couldn't be labeled as a traditional rock band) play the keys, and that was inspiring in itself. I'm also going to try my hand at filmmaking... with Bryan's help, of course. I've got a documentary up my sleeve and we'll see how that goes.

2010 is going to be the Year of Health for the Geigers... physical health, emotional health, relational health, financial health... Michelle and I are starting our own Biggest Loser competition with another friend of ours... impetus would be a trip to Italy! Woot! Godspell is returning for several runs of shows in the spring and summer for which I will either be mic wrangler or swing understudy or both (we'll find out today). I really want to do the 3-day breast cancer walk in 2010 but I'm still feeling a little insecure about my ability to raise the funds. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to get over that and just go for it.

Spiritually I'm really taking a turn into finding out why I believe what I believe. I'm surrounded by a great group of people to go on that journey with-- people to both help me question and help me find answers. I'm anticipating several heated living room discussions and an anchoring of my soul that I've been looking for. But let me never forget my child-like faith.

Okay, my stomach is starting to mutiny. Better go in search of food. Hopefully I'll be back sooner than later. Ciao, bella!

Update on 101 in 1001

So Kak reminded me about this 101 in 1001 list that I made almost a year ago, and it's the first time that I've gone back and looked at it since I authored it. I had a number of "secret goals" that I didn't post on my blog, but I had written them on a Word document that I saved onto my computer that was my master list. However, due to an unexpected hard drive crash, that file (along with all my others) went into the black hole of oblivion, something that I now consider often when relying on my computer to store important data. So I have changed those goals to new ones, since I can't remember what they were. So let's see how far I've come in my first 292 days. 709 days to go!

101 in 1001

The idea is 101 goals to meet/things to do in 1001 days...
1001 days will take me from today, January 10, 2009 to October 9, 2011
(from 23 and single to 26 and married for two years!)

The Key:
Not started
In progress
Accomplished
New (replaced) goal
Fun commentary by Megan!

1. Get married
   
2. Get my third tattoo after I turn 25 ~ less than a year to go on this one... and I haven't even been thinking of ideas
   
3. Read the Bible all the way through ~ something I started and then it tapered off... good reminder
4. Grow a vegetable garden
5. Send out Christmas cards in 2009 or 2010 ~ 2009 was a bust, guess I better get on this!
   
6. Learn to live in the secret place
7. Make a habit of reading before bed
8. Buy seasons 2 through 5 of ER
9. Buy some sheet music and practice my reading skills to the point where I feel semi-comfortable sight reading ~ how about "obtain" some sheet music? I found some good free stuff online!
   
10. Spend one month eating locally
11. Visit Washington D.C.
    
12. Make this fancy lemon-cranberry cake that is kind of out of my baking realm
    
13. One candlelit and music-filled evening with Joshua
14. Take dance lessons
15. Take a Tai-chi class
16. Get a professional massage Went to this wonderful Japanese spa called Shoji the day after we got married... incredible! I told Josh that for Christmas we should just go there again and that should be our present to one another.
17. Stay at the Grove Park Inn during winter and lounge in front of their cavernous fireplace
18. Visit my cousins
19. Take a trip with Josh to the Outer Banks
20. Walk across the Mile High Bridge at Grandfather Mountain
21. Spend time listening to my grandparents’ stories and write some of them down
22. Be 100% okay with disappointing people
23. Dig for the answers to my spiritual questions, and discover why I’m asking them
24. Participate in a 3-day walk
    
25. Plan a progressive dinner party
26. Initiate a conversation with a stranger when I don’t feel like it
27. Wear a size four and stay that way
28. Make a habit of thinking differently
29. Quit soda for a year (again)… ~ Coming up in 2010...
    
30. Get contacts
31. Give away the clothes in my closet that I haven’t worn in over a year Except for some sentimental pieces...
    
32. Build a bonafide snowman
33. See what’s at the end of the yellow rope in the caves of Rumbling Bald Only more mystery!
    
34. Have an emergency fund built up completely
35. Pay off debt
36. Learn to make biscuits from scratch from Grammy
37. Learn to sew
38. Make a quilt
39. Create a filing system that is actually useful
40. Own the game Settlers of Catan thank you, Joshua
    
41. Make a homemade pie
42. Visit the Biltmore Estate when it’s decorated for Christmas, preferably with snow on the ground outside ~ no snow when I visited for Candlelight, sadly
    
43. Carry on a Christmas tradition with Joshua
44. Hike up Cold Mountain
45. Run in a race of some sort
46. Ride my bicycle at Bent Creek
47. Hike to Graveyard Falls
48. Pick blueberries at Black Balsam
49. Tutor someone in ESOL ~ her name is Amanda and I love her!
    
50. Memorize the book of 1 John
51. Visit the Library of Congress
52. Start taking people's portraits
    
53. Spend at least three weeks in Nicaragua
54. Become fluent in Spanish ~ thanks to Amanda, this might be a possibility
    
55. Introduce my sister-in-love to a particular someone who shall not be mentioned here
56. Complete the wedding day chela photo sequence
57. Buy a book about waterfall hikes in WNC
    
58. Read a book of poetry
59. Make spanakopita ten times (2/10)
60. Spend another luxurious day at Shoji Spa
    
61. Read all of my National Geographic magazines from 2008 (0/28)
62. Live in our own place
    
63. Spend a day reading by a waterfall
64. Run 10 miles on the Mountains to the Sea trail
65. Make the most comfortable bed possible for Joshua and I (down feather pillows, down feather mattress pad, high thread count sheets, duvet)
66. Get my CDL
    
67. Have a dog
68. Have a cat
69. Travel somewhere by train
70. Have $3,000 saved toward a trip to Europe
71. Become a Legacy tour guide at Biltmore Estate
    
72. Take a road trip out West
    
73. Hike to the top of Mount Mitchell
74. Use teeth-whitening strips
75. Exfoliate regularly
76. Do tech work for 20 Godspell shows (10/20)
    
77. Change my diet to the point where at least 50% of what I put in my mouth is raw
78. Start a collection of board games that could rival Heather Heather’s
79. Become proficient on guitar
    
80. Grow out my hair until these 1001 days are up (excluding trims of up to two inches)
81. Buy a bookshelf
82. Slide down Sliding Rock ten times (0/10)
83. Write, shoot, and edit a documentary on Doris Howard
    
84. Hike up to the top of Looking Glass Rock
85. Hike to the top of the Mount Pisgah Summit when the autumn foliage is at its height
86. Go camping
87. Take a trip with Matt and Breanna
88. Email Deborah regularly
    
89. Try to find Skinny Dip Falls
90. Visit all 14 state parks in Western North Carolina (0/14)
91. Take a trip with Joshua to Highlands/Cashiers, NC and hike as much as possible
92. Read 50 books (0/50) ~ Since I haven't been keeping up with this list, I haven't recorded how many books I read in 2009. Oh well.
    
93. Learn to make banana bread
    
94. Go stargazing with Joshua ten times (2/10)
95. Go to India with Joshua
    
96. Wear a different necklace every day for two weeks (0/14)
97. Discipline myself to work as unto the Lord, not unto men.
    
98. Make a work of art and send it to K-Smeltz
99. Go on a plant-gathering expedition for tincture making.
    
100. Take my sister-in-love on a trip
101. Enjoy every moment of my wedding day I think the only unenjoyable part was after four hours of taking photos (before the wedding) when my feet hurt and I was hot and just wanted to sit down and cool off and marry this man already!

So I think I unintentionally accomplished more than I thought I would! In order to complete my list I'll have to actually start thinking about it, though...

Autumnal

Autumn has arrived, complete with gusty cold winds that send golden leaves swirling through the air and bright blue skies that simply cannot be rivaled. It just makes me happy.

Happy because my cheeks get rosy from stepping outside. Happy because it's wonderful weather for drinking my favorite french vanilla hot chocolate and mulling cider that I bought locally and spiced perfectly. Happy because I wore a scarf for the first time last week, one that was knitted for me by a loved one. Happy because we've piled our bed with blankets and are cold enough to snuggle together for warmth when we crawl underneath the covers at night. Happy because it's finally fireplace weather!

The foliage isn't at its peak yet, but it's a beautiful process. I am so grateful that I live here, and that nature declares the glory of God in such a breathtaking way, right outside my bedroom window.

Right now Joshua is learning to make herbal tinctures from our friend Vicki, and I'm sitting at her laptop, feeling cozy and content and hopeful. There's a teakettle boiling on the stove, and we just cleaned up dinner dishes, and there's a playful cat digging through a recyclable shopping bag at my feet. It's just one of those perfect atmospheres, you know?

I know. And I'm joyful. :)

A Willy Wonka Parody

This made me laugh out loud this morning.

6:00 a.m. on a Sunday

Alarm goes off. The sun isn't up over the mountains yet, and Josh and I are bundled up in our basement bedroom, snuggled under blankets that ward off the early morning chill that seeps through our open windows.

Snooze.

6:10 a.m. Alarm goes off again. Josh hauls himself out of bed for a shower. I pretend I didn't hear anything.

Snooze.

6:20 a.m. Since we have to leave in 15 minutes, I decide I should probably get up. Get dressed, brush teeth, pull up hair. Upstairs to root around in the cupboard for a granola bar. Juice. Mumbled hello to Bryan as he appears in the living room to put on his socks and shoes. "See you there."

Out the door we go, my handsome husband and I, and into the car to drive downtown. It's that mysterious few moments at dawn when darkness is receding but light hasn't fully arrived to fill its place yet. We're not talkative on the way there.

This morning at Highland we're putting on a mini-production that is 40 minutes long and chronicles the story of Esther with a humorous bent. Bryan is part of the cast and so today is my day to be pushed out of the nest and see if I can fly.

7:00 a.m. Cast arrives at the Prayer Gallery on Lexington to get their wireless mics taped on. All me today. Bryan gets the mics out of their cases and replaces the batteries as I get to work. Ace bandages, safety pins, duct tape... it's a familiar routine from Godspell. It is strange to see Luke and Bryan, who usually are working beside me, waiting patiently to get their mics on. All seven done in 55 minutes. That's good for me.

8:00 a.m. Drive to the Orange Peel for load in. Bryan is off in one direction, making sure the wireless mic receivers are properly set up at the monitor booth before the cast's sound check starts. I have helped with our normal media set-up for about a month now but it's still strange to be in our corner of the sound booth by myself, running cables and setting up tripods and video cameras without Bryan's watchful eye. Especially since last week I broke one of the snaps on a tripod leg. I do what I can before we start the sound check. Today I am running the music for the production, filming the services, and running the multimedia screens for the services. The most I've done before is one thing at a time... usually the screens since that is the most simple. Trial by fire?

9:00 a.m. First service begins. We never record the first service in its entirety, so at least I can settle in slowly until Esther starts about half way through. Nate starts the worship set off with a song that I don't know. It's not in MediaShout, at least that I can see. Blank screens with bubbling geometric shapes in amber are all the congregation has to look up at instead of lyrics. I panic, try to find the song in the library. None of the lyrics I type in are producing anything. Still blank screens; Nate is crooning away, blissfully unaware or uncaring that there are no words for anyone to look at. Finally, two-thirds of the way through the song I find it at the bottom of the MediaShout file. Sweet relief. Although the baby bird seemed to fall out of the nest and plummet head-first toward the ground, she found her wings and learned she could fly.

Filming the production and running the music cues at the same time wasn't as hard as I thought. By the second service I felt like a pro. When Nate added another song that wasn't in the set list, I was cool as a cucumber and fixed it in one verse's time. It felt really good to succeed at this, and know that Bryan actually has someone to fill in for him now, that I can do all of it at once and do it well.

I came home and took a long nap.

This afternoon I read the entry for August 30 in My Utmost for His Highest. It's entitled "Usefulness or Relationship?" and really struck home with me. It's been a year since Joshua and my "non-move" to Florida that rather re-defined life for us. In many ways I felt like I was moving backward and forward in life at the same time-- I moved in with a family instead of living on my own independently, yet I was engaged to be married. I didn't have a "real" job, yet I was growing very much in how to be emotionally healthy. The year was a constant tug-of-war in my mind as to "this is right and good" and "I feel un-useful and people think I'm irresponsible." I discovered that I placed a lot of my self-worth in what I do rather than in whose I am. I discovered that what other people thought of my life and my choices affected me much deeper than I had hoped. I discovered that I was much more interested in what I was doing for God than in knowing Him personally.

This page-long snippet from My Utmost for His Highest really hit the nail on the head. It goes like this:

"Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven." (Luke 10:20)

Jesus Christ is saying here, "Don't rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service-- rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour "rivers of living water" through you (John 7:38). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it. Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfuill His purpose, as long as your continue to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7).

Our tendency today is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make their request for help on the basis of someone's usefulness. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. For the saint, direction and guidance come from God Himself, not some measure of that saint's usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord gives His attention to in a person's life is that person's relationship with God-- something of great value to His Father. Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory..." (Hebrews 2:10).

So, yeah.

I am thinking of going back to graduate school in the spring for an M.A. in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). It actually just fell into place one night this week when Joshua and I were talking about our dream vacation, backpacking in Europe. While we were on a Greek tourism website, Josh clicked on a link for "Teach English Abroad" and then we started talking about how I always wanted to do that and yada, yada, yada. Josh and I have been considering lately what we could bring to the mission field if we go international. We've always wanted to do missions but never thought through it enough to actually consider what we would do when we got to another country. Neither one of us are great evangelists or the pastor sort. When Josh decided to go back to school and pursue a degree in nursing, a major factor was that it is something that he can do anywhere in the world, and something that the world needs. It appeals to us to minister to a people group not only spiritually but also through health care, education, and social justice. I was a little jealous when Josh found his "thing" and was kind of moping actually, saying, "Well, what am I going to do?"

TESOL hit a sweet spot with us. Maybe because I once pursued it before I fell in love with this guy and moved to North Carolina so we could get married. But it seems like a good fit for me, and that Josh and I would make a good team as nurse and teacher. I'm excited to jump on some volunteer opportunities with ESOL in the Asheville community, and to talk with the program director at Western Carolina University (that's where I'd be going) about the possibilities.

Good things happening here!

I'm off to the gym in a few minutes to meet Michelle and Josh needs to use the computer for his homework. Till next time, yo.

A new year

Yesterday was my 24th birthday. I love new beginnings... Mondays, the first of the month, New Year's. Birthdays might be my favorite new beginning, simply because they are inherently personal.

Joshua and I just got back from a long weekend in Florida visiting my parents. We spent time with them and some good friends, playing hard and seriously relaxing. It was a really good trip for me because it afforded some well-needed perspective and was a realignment for the next year of my life. My personality type is constantly reevaluating goals for self-improvement and so this was right up my alley.

Right now I'm in the office... rain is falling softly outside. All the windows are open and it's a soothing sound. Peaceful, quieting. I woke up strangely optimistic and joyful today... probably the after-effects of feeling centered, more confident and at peace with myself.

Yesterday I started a 365days project on Flickr which I hope to do to chronicle my 24th year in images. If you are interested you can follow the progression here.

Joshua and I have also started a joint blog called Keeping Up with the Geigers. Our audience is our family members who are spread out all over the country, so that they can see what we're up to since we are notoriously bad at phone calls. Anyone is welcome to read, though. It will be more informative than the deep ponderings of Megan's heart, which some might prefer, haha. Check it out.

What have you all been up to? I've been pretty absent from the blogosphere for the past six months or so, I have some catching up to do. I'll be doing the rounds and visit your blogs soon, promise.

Quick update from the life of Megan

Things going on, which may or may not be new, but are ever-relevant...

Broke-- yes, with a capital "b" thank you very much.
Miraculously enough money in the bank account to pay for Joshua's tuition and books.
Because he is going back to school this semester!
We're both really excited.
Nursing it is, if he can get accepted into the program.
Won't find that out until next semester.
Looking for a job... possibly one of the most discouraging activities ever.
Grape picking in the Biltmore vineyards?
School bus driving?
How about a singing messenger job?
I probably have a bumblebee costume lying around somewhere...
My birthday is quickly approaching.
So is autumn.
I find myself in some serious need of re-assessment.
And a massive to-do list.