Mama's little bear

Some posts just don't need words.

Ah, how cute

Yesterday I was given the honor of being a University Scholar. At ACU, this is a pretty big deal, so I was excited. There were two students from my department, myself and Erin Holland.

The way these induction ceremonies usually go is something like this: the student name is called based on alphabetical placement of the departments, that student and the professor from their department who they chose stand up together, the professor places an Olympics-type medal around the students neck, and a minute or so long paragraph is read that was written by a member or members of their department's faculty.

These short readings are pretty consistent. They list accomplishments, significant volunteer work, publications, convention presentations, etc. But (big surprise), when the mc got to the art department, consistency was thrown to the road side. Instead of listing the cold hard facts of our accomplishments, they wrote about how Erin has more natural talent than any student they have ever had, and for me, well, let's just say this was the last sentence:

"One of Kalyn's professors said 'If I had a daughter, I would want her to be just like Kalyn.'"

And the audience went:

"Aaaahhhh."

I had to hold in my laughter over the ever-present quirkiness of my department. But I was also kind of proud of them. I don't know if it is the extra-long classes or the nature of our curriculum or just the incredibly good fortune of have exceptionally decent people as professors, but the art professors get to know their students way past the surface level. And yesterday, it showed. Of course, it had to be at the expense of my overall embarrassment of getting the only "ahh" at a fairly formal affair. I guess that when I leave this fine institution, I will always know that although I may not have been the best student ever, I was the one they wanted to adopt.

Finally, one of our pets is turning out to be a Christian

When BJ first got his job as pulpit minister at Nugent Church of Christ, I bought him a perfect, medium size Bible for preaching. Tonight, Gus ate the corner of the cover of this Bible when we weren't looking. According to BJ, Gus in hungering for the word of God.

Saying goodbye

It seems like a vast amount of time separates this post from my last one just over a week ago. A lot has happened. Thursday afternoon, my grandmother passed away. The past few days have been a time of mourning, fellowship with family, and remembering an amazing woman.

It has been five days, and I already miss her. The last three and a half weeks before her death were awful, so I'm glad she is finally at peace, but that comforting thought won't make the healing process go quicker or be easier for my family. Since my Grandma Pierce died eight years ago, the sharpness of the pain has dulled, but I still miss her at every milestone I face in my life and every time I sit down to play the piano, which she loved so much. Now, I will miss them both.

I would like to take a moment to write down a couple of my thoughts from the funeral today. First off, this was probably one of the only funerals I've ever been to where all of the glowing, wonderful things that were said about the deceased were actually true. The speakers talked about her embodiment of Proverbs 31, her extreme submissiveness and peacefulness, her love of her family, and, most of all, her reflexion of Christ in her life. And, yes, that is all true. All I could think while sitting in that church building with over one hundred of her decendents was that we had all given grandma a reason or two to not love us so much or disagree with us or feel disappointment in us, but her love never decreased when we screwed up. She sometimes thought my skirts were too short, and I occasionally slipped and said "crap" or "sucks" in front of her, but I haven't a single doubt that she loved me dearly. Two days before she came down with the illness that took her life, she heard that BJ and I were having some money problems, and she immediately wrote a check for a considerable sum of money. Although that check is minuscule compared to everything she gave me in the past twenty-two years, I will never forget that final gift.

On a lighter note, I had a haunting moment this morning where I wondered if perhaps the ghost of Grandma might be present. My grandmother believed in reproducing rapidly (obviously, she had eight kids). In fact, one of the last conversations we ever had was in her hospital room when I assured her BJ and I would have kids and got her approval on a couple name ideas BJ and I had. So when I was getting ready for her funeral this morning, it suddenly hit me that I had forgotten something very important last night. Birth control. My Sunday pill was still there. She would have loved that.

What makes Gus so dang wonderful

Today is our four week anniversary with Gus. It has been a fabulous four weeks full of laughter, barking, failed attempts at teaching Gus anything, and, unfortunately, more pee than I ever thought possible. As we are getting to know Gus, we are constantly learning more about his personality. Here are a few of my favorite memories or new discoveries about our precious puppy.

1. Gus is not so bright. When Emerald and I took our new puppy's to the vet last week, everyone was raving about how smart Emerald's puppy is. All anyone thought of to say about Gus is that he is fluffy. Yes, he is very fluffy.

2. Gus does not like leashes. During my fourth attempt to get him to walk on a leach, we put it on him and then decided to walk without holding the other end to see if we could just get him used to it. BJ, Sienna, and I took off walking to the park, but Gus did not follow. After noticing this, we peeked from around the corner of our house to see him sitting, leash attached, staring blankly up at the sky.

3. Gus likes water ALOT, so, therefore, Gus pees ALOT. After the rainstorm yesterday, Gus stood next to a puddle in our yard drinking water while he was simultaneously peeing. Great multi-tasking skills.

4. The old saying "His bark is bigger than his bite" was actually a prophesy of the birth of Gus. Most of the time, our house is filled with the barks and howls of Gus while he is playing with Sienna. But the second I come over to pet him or pick him up, he melts and is completely silent.

5. Gus is a little stinky. Turns out, you can use Febreeze on absolutely everything. Trust me, I have. The only think I haven't Febreezed in this house is Gus because BJ fears it would be a health hazard.

6. Gus is Sienna's new favorite toy. Also, Tony is pretty happy since Sienna now has significantly less time to eat him.

7. Everyday is the best day of Gus's life. And every time I come home is the best moment of the best day of his life. Apparently, Purina puppy chow is a smorgasbord of Prozac.

8. But best of all, Gus is really, really lovable. Just like the character he was named after, the fat and stupid mouse from Cinderella, there is no way a person can't love him. The other day while BJ and I were striving to watch TV over the noise of Gus barking while tugging on Sienna's ear, BJ looked down and said, "I'm really glad we have him." That pretty much sums it up.

Exhibit A

This week, I got in the photos of my senior art show, Exhibit A. I was really pleased with the quality of the photographs, so I thought I would post some pictures, ecspecially for people who wanted to see the show and couldn't come.

This is a photo of the pre-show preparations. Kayla and Emerald helped with a lot of the cooking. Kayla and her fiance, Darby, were helping me set up the refreshment's table just minutes before the door was open.

This is the group who I did the show with. Hanging above us is a whole bunch of A's. We each made about seven of these over the preceding week. The word Jazz is also in the grouping. This is because we had a live jazz band performing at the opening.

I love this photo because it is me talking to the person in the artwork we are standing in front of. A couple of summers ago I drew a charcoal picture of my brother, and it was in the show. So this is the model standing next to the artwork derived from him. Pretty cool.

I like this picture because I think it shows how chaotic the evening was. There were just tons of people there the whole time. Also, this is a good picture of what the gallery looked like as a whole.

This is my favorite picture from the evening. BJ and I are just standing around talking in the midst of the loud, busy room. I still can't really believed that I had a husband at the gallery opening. I never would have expected to have that sort of a guest at my senior show three years ago when I started my art degree. Life is funny.

An update

I got to see Grandma today, and it was really difficult seeing her in this condition. Just a week ago I was sitting at a wedding reception talking to her. Today, she looked fatigued, breathing was a huge labor for her, and she constantly feels uncomfortable. The doctor reconfirmed with our family this morning that Grandma does not want life support or the paddles used, and he took her out of ICU. At first, we thought it was a good sign that she was out of ICU, but it seems that he mainly did it so that the family is no longer limited by visitation hours. In other words, we're just waiting for something we don't want to acknowledge we're waiting for. She told Mom yesterday that she has lived a good life, she has been happy, and she is okay with going. Knowing she feels that way helps with letting go, but it is never easy.

Seeing Grandma's eight children anxiously sitting in the waiting room and holding her hand when they go to her room despite her very contagious pneumonia has really made an impression on me. The very people she brought into the world and now helping her leave. It is beautiful.

I would like to ask for prayers for our family. More specifically, I ask for prayers for my mother. She talked to Grandma everyday 2 or 3 times a day for as long as I can remember, and they have never lived more that 22 miles apart. Mom has quite an adjustment to make whether or not Grandma miraculously pulls through. For Grandma, I just pray for peace.

Craziness

Well, this is the longest I've ever gone without writing a post, but I have a good reason. I went to Menard (where there are hardly any working computers) for a little of my spring break, and my grandmother ended up getting severally ill, so I've been consumed with that situation. I just got a call from mom that Grandma is doing better, though. Our family would appreciate prayers, though.

I have enjoyed getting to see my family, but this has been a tough break. In fact, I think I can safely label Tuesday night one of the worst nights of my life. There where two contributing factors to the horribleness of this night. First, everyone (including the doctors) seemed pretty certain that Grandma was going to pass away that night, so I couldn't stop thinking about the phone ringing. And to make matters even worse, Gus had found the tuna and dry food of my parent's cat, Abby. And he ate it ALL. Basically, he had three days worth of food in an evening. I probably don't need to write this out for anyone, but he was really, really sick. So I was trying to run him outside the whole evening plus cleaning up things when we didn't make it out in time. Finally, at around 3:30 a.m., he and I got to sleep, but he woke up at 6:15 with the same problems. In fact, it never really ended until about noon.

End the end, though, the night turned out all right. Grandma made it through and is improving, and Gus finally got all that food out of his system.

It's a boy!

We have a new addition to the family. Meet Gus. He is an Old English Sheep Dog mix. And he is HUGE!!! The vet could not believe he is only about 6 weeks old. He is very fat, and very furry. BJ calls him a box with a head. I love him. This blog post is a dedication to our new baby and our two other crazy, loveable pets.

This is a close-up of the head part of the box. Pretty precious.

This is Gus's manhood. Ruff! (Uncle Bro's in the background. He is continually amazed at the cuteness and craziness of his niece and nephews.)

This is Gus and Sienna bonding. It was a short moment, but BJ managed to catch it in a picture. Most of the time, Gus is trying to play with Sienna while Sienna is trying to figure out why he is still in her home. She was really excited when we brought him home, but she has since realized he isn't leaving.

This is BJ and Tony recovering from the exhaustion of having a new puppy in the house. Before we got married, a lot of people doubted whether BJ and Tony could live together. Well, here's proof. They can.

What???

Today in my figure drawing class, we were drawing portraits of our model as always. Things were pretty calm and quiet. Then, all of the sudden, our model broke down crying and ran out of the room. She didn't ever come back, so we had to take turns modeling. It was one of those moments where I realized that although I may be a girl, I don't understand girls.

The Exciting Life of Tony

Tony spends approximately 20 percent of every day staring at the fish tank. That's a lot of time when you consider the 75 percent of his day that he knocks out with sleep, eating, and playing in his kitty litter box. This is pretty impressive considering most of the fish died two summers ago, so there are only five fish left in a huge tank. But, even so, Tony is absolutely enthralled with the almost non-existant activity in the tank. Yesterday, though, something happened. One of the fish boldly jumped above the surface of the water and made a splash. I could literally see Tony's world shake. In Tony's world, it was the equivalent of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's wedding in the life of the paparazzi. I was so happy for him in all of his little shaky, wide-eyed excitement. I'm pretty sure it was one of the best days of his life.

PUPPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A family at our church recently discovered that their dog had given birth to what they thought were 11 puppies underneath their house. Since BJ and I are pretty much the only people at the church in good enough condition and small enough to crawl under a house, we were elected to go out this morning a help get the puppies. We had a blast.

I have never crawled underneath a house, and that was really fun, ecspecially since I'm short enough I could get on all fours while BJ and Reggi were scooting on their bellies. Once we got to the back corner, we started stacking puppies into a Rubbermaid container. We then scooted them out and rolled them in a wagon to a shed where we counted them: 6 girls and 6 boys. That's right: 12 PUPPIES!!! I was pretty excited, and continued to cuddle with them. Here are a few pictures of the adorable puppies...

My Valentine's Day card from BJ

After my last post, I thought that the Valentine's Day card BJ got me was particularly appropriate.

The outside read:
"I'm not interested in a nice, normal relationship..."

And when you opened it, it read:
"I like ours better!"

Perfect.

Wondering why I said "I do"

During the first year of a marriage, I think everyone has moments when they can't believe how lucky, and then there are those moments when they wonder what in the world they have gotten themselves into. Tonight was one of the latter.

BJ was playing World of Warcraft with his friends, which I generally don't mind, especially on days like today when I'm doing homework. But for some reason, I decided to measure his devotion to me today to see which is more important: WoW or me. So I did what any wife who has lost all self-respect would do: I flashed him like a beadless girl at Mardi Gras.

At first, it seemed that he hadn't even noticed. I got irritated, but when I look at the conversation block on his screen I saw that the situation was far worse that him not noticing; he had written, "hey guys, gotta go. Kalyn is showing me her boobies." All the guys wrote their haha's, and then a moment later BJ wrote "I just got slapped", to which Dave responded, "Note to self: get a wife. Minus the slap."

I guess I should be proud of myself that BJ definitely chose me over quests and trolls and the race to level 70. But when BJ returned, there were entirely too many jokes about boobies, more specifically my boobies. This was disturbing. When Dave beat BJ to level 70 by four minutes, Dave did a little good-natured gloating, to which BJ responded "but I hit level 70 with boobies". After this, Dave had to admit that he would "take level 70 with boobies any day over just level 70." This has officially been one of the more embarrassing nights of my life.

Marriage counseling on the road to DQ

Every Sunday evening after church, about eight to twelve of the congregation members pile up in cars and drive to the Dairy Queen in Anson. Despite the Super Bowl being on, tonight was no different from any other night, except that we got the whole DQ to ourselves.

On nights like tonight when we have a fairly big crowd, the women pile in one vehicle while the men go in another. This has become a time when I have gotten to observe these women the most and communicate with them more openly than we do in church pews before service starts. I love hearing them talk about their past lives and their plans for the week and how adorable their great-granddaughter was when family came to visit over the weekend. But the part that interests me the most at this point in my life is when they talk about their husbands.

They have all been with their men for more years than I've been alive, and the glimpses I see of their marriages are simultaneously inspiring and exciting and terrifying. For example, Ann, who is nearly blind, talked a few weeks ago about what a hard time she and Mac are having finding the right shades of make-up for her. As she is going blind, her old trusty brands are changing shade names, so they are going through the trials and errors of shades that wash her out or leave dark lines. In some ways, I just want to say "how cute" and think of me and BJ growing old together, but that would be overlooking the profundity of what I am guessing if frustration on Mac's part as he tries to understand the labels on the mysterious products his gorgeous wife has effortlessly used for so many years.

Tonight, there was another one of these humbling moments. Ada's husband mysteriously became ill right about the time BJ and I first started going to Nugent. They are just now figuring out was is wrong and finding a few ways to relieve his pain. The women in the vehicle were discussing whether Medicare would pay for one of the treatments he is receiving this week, and Ada, who is about sixty-five with health issues of her own, said with her teeth practically gritting together, "If I have to go digging ditches, he will get that treatment." And she would.

I've heard a lot about the honeymoon stage which apparently BJ and I are experiencing, and how it's the happiest time of your life and so on. And I love this time, as one can tell by the numerous sappy posts I have written about the surprise I constantly experience as I see how much love grows daily within this covenant. But tonight left me speechless. I love BJ a lot tonight, but it is impossible for me to even grasp the depth to which this love will grow after fifty years of good memories, bad memories, funny moment, stretches of boredom, and all the other complexities of marriage. All I know is that when this body of mine starts getting tired and frayed, and the random gray hair I now have has taken over the rest of my head, I hope I am willing to take up a shovel and dig a ditch for BJ. I'm pretty sure I will.

Tony's is now attacking the drawstrings on my pants as I write this blog. It is punishment.

I have always considered myself a friend of nature. I try not to pollute, and I have always like taking care of God's little creatures. Take for instance when I took in Tony a year ago when he was a disease stricken kitten living in a bush. If I hadn't done that, today there would probably be 20 illegitimate kittens from five single mothers who were savagely raped by Tony and would be cheated weekly out of child support, but I saved the stray cats of Menard from such distress.

Anyways, it has come as quite a shock to me to find that 2007 is proving to be the year I became an enemy to nature. On New Year's day, I killed a deer. And last night on the way to church, I hit a rabbit. It died. I'm a bad person.

I am so excited!!!!!!!

My senior art show is having it's gallery opening tomorrow night. The past two weeks have been a crazy hodge podge of cutting, pasting, sewing, deco pouging, painting, and other random activities. Unfortunately, this has made little time for sleep or for seeing my husband. So although it's been fun, I'll be kind of glad when it is over.

I just finished writing the artist's statement that will be hung in the gallery. Each member of the opening has to write one. I thought it might be fun to post it on my blog for those of you who won't get to come to the show. I'm planning on posting pictures asap. Wish me luck!

Artist's statement:

"Before going to Kindergarten, I would spend most of my days at my Grandma Pierce’s house. Our normal activity to pass the time was to sit at her dining room table and have drawing competitions. The guidelines for these competitions were as follows: use crayon on paper towel, and draw monsters. So I spent hours trying to draw monsters more scary and spiky than those of my eighty-year-old grandmother.

Art ran through the veins of my family. My Great-Aunt Doe was a gifted photographer who painted her black and white images with pale pastel glazes. Everyone who grew up in Menard, Texas, had their first picture taken in her dining room, which is in the house I eventually grew up in. My father is perhaps the most artistic of the bunch; he is a carpenter, pianist, and painter all in one. And my mother and her mother are gifted seamstresses who sent me to school each year with two week’s worth of homemade clothes. Also, my brother had a passion for the written arts that was contagious, as is apparent by the poetry sprinkled among my artworks.

I grew up with very quirky, artsy people all around me. And I loved it. Art, be it visual, musical, or written, was a tangible presence in my life as I grew up, and thankfully, I lived in a town so small there was nothing else to do but art. I guess it is only natural that I ended up in a department that so many people look at with a skeptical eyebrow raised. When I am asked my major, and I reply with “art”, I always get the same response: “You won’t be making any money.” Yes, I know. But without art, without its acts of creating and of seeing the created and of continuing in the traditions set for me so many generations ago, life would not make sense to me at all."

Living is a stretch for me

As everyone knows who has ever taken an exercise science course with me, I am one of the two most inflexible people in the world (the other being Kayla). So in cross training Monday morning, I was sad to hear we would be doing a flexibility (or shall we say inflexibility) test. The teacher puts us in groups of about six, which meant for me that five people would be witnessing my humiliation. Sure enough, my score was literally a third of every other person in my group except for one girl who had a c-section six weeks ago. She only doubled me. Thus continues my life long hatred of p.e. courses.

What grad school does to a body

I just got home from a test, and due to cabin fever caused by the past two weeks of crazy weather, I decided to do an aerobics video. I asked BJ if he wanted to join me, to which he said no thanks. But with a bit of persuading, he agreed to do the toning section with me that comes after the dance portion.

So I did 30 to 40 minutes of working out and called BJ in for the 15 minute toning section. BJ smirked at first as we did light workout, but as it progressed, he said with a hint of confusion, "My legs are hurting a little." A bit shaken from the discovery that a woman's aerobic video might be harder than he thought, the video moved on to the stomach work out.

And then ten minutes later I hear: "My stomach's cramping and I can't breath" and "I think I'm going to die."

I've decided that BJ will be doing more aerobics with me.

Cursed be all cabinet doors and meditations on marriage

For the past few weeks, it seems our house has gone through three day cycles of clean, disaster, clean, disaster... Yesterday was a disaster day, but I couldn't bring myself to clean it again. So it remained a disaster until my sudden energy burst at approximately 7:30 this morning (a bazaar time for a night owl to have an energy burst). I ran around cleaning like Martha Stewart on Red Bull. That is, until a cabinet door sabotaged my rampage of domesticity. I was bent over cleaning, and when I stood up straight, I banged my head really ridiculously hard on the corner of the door. I walked crookedly into the bedroom, prayed I wouldn't die from strange concussion complications(keep in mind, 2007 has not been a kind year to me so far), and fell asleep for two hours. When I awoke, a sizeable knot had formed on my noggin. My brother said it is the air rising up in my head. BJ agreed. Jerks.

On the bright side, today was mine and BJ's 6 month anniversary. We ordered pizza and watched an old musical. I LOVE being an old married couple. Although I am still a total novice at this whole marriage thing, here are some things I've noticed about married life in the past six months:

1. Fights cool down significantly. Whereas we used to feel the need to state our positions and yell, we have now resigned ourselves to something like this:
Kalyn: (perturbed look)
BJ: (pleading) Honey, don't be mad at me.
Kalyn: Okay.

2. The greatest thing about living together is it feels like I got my life back. When we were dating, I was constantly driving here and there, trying to fit BJ into the openings in my busy schedule. Now he's just here. And I'm just here. Suddenly, I have more time to sew and paint and play the piano, and the best part is BJ is here to be with the me I never felt I had time to be when we were dating. In some ways, its like he is finally getting to KNOW me.

3. With time, excitement cools while you find yourself falling in love more and more. I always thought that butterflies in the stomach were synonymous with being in love. But the butterflies are getting more and more rare while, at the same time, I am finding myself staying awake some nights staring at BJ amazed that I love him more today than on our wedding day (and for the record, I loved him a lot that day).

When I told Mom our plans for our 6-month anniversary, she laughed and said we sounded like an old married couple. I actually don't think I mind being an old married couple.