Musings

Dear blogoverse (but mostly Anna),

Hi! How's it going?

Things have been pretty slow around here.
Work, husband, reading, the usual...

I feel a little cheated at this time of year. Now that I've got a full time job, I don't really get a summer... It's enough to make me miss school, just a little.

The regularity of school is what I miss. Knowing my schedule would be the same every day - having class, hanging with friends, etc.

I also miss having a plethora of friends around. Waco is not my favorite place to start with: it's in Texas, it's hot, and far far away from my friends and family.

Stephen, however, does make up for some of that.

Speaking of Stephen, we got into a discussion tonight about personal bubbles. Not like a personal space bubble ("don't stand so close to me" and all that), but like a bubble of relationships.

My bubble is very small. I'm choosy about who I want in my bubble. For example, my family is, of course, in my bubble. Mom, Dad, Sarah, Rachael- very important to my bubble. My matey soul, Anna, is deeply entrenched in my bubble. You'd basically have to pop it to get her out of there.

So there are maybe 10 or 15 people who I would definitely say are in my bubble.

Stephen has a much bigger bubble. He is less choosy about who comes in his bubble. There are lots and lots of people who he would say are part of his bubble!

And then, I think he and I have a collective bubble. People who may not necessarily be in one or either of our personal bubbles, but who are nonetheless in a mutual bubble. This bubble is much larger than my personal bubble.

I feel like I've gotten off track. My point in all of this was: Over the course of the last 3 or 4 years, I have drastically changed. My bubble used to be much larger and I was much less choosy about who came inside. And I'm not sure if it's part of getting older, or being far away from people I know, or something else. But I do miss the days when I had a bigger bubble and had more friends  to fill it.

I love Stephen. And he fills a good chunk of my bubble. He makes everything about my life better. And I love my family and the friends that I have. But I still hope that someday I can live in a place where my bubble can grow.

How about you? What's your bubble like? Are you very aware of your bubble like me? Or do you, like Stephen, rarely notice or worry about your bubble?

Auf weidersehen!

Breaking the silence

Hello blog world!

Well, I have been out of the blogoverse (did I make that up or is it something nerdy I shouldn't say?) for a looooooooong time.

Between work and Stephen and the holiday seasonsss, I have found very little time for blogging.

And, to be even more honest, very little to blog about.

The most exciting thing to happen round here in the last few months (besides my 2 year wedding anniversary and our trip to WA for Christmas, which, while blog-worthy, happened so fast and went by like blurs!), is that my best Anna is illustrating a silly little children's book I wrote.

I've never been great at writing.

Don't get me wrong - I could knock out a solid B+ or A- research paper or reading response or other academic type writing.

And I've always been good at noticing other's good writing (which is why I love to read).

While in college, the most creative writing I did was for my poetry workshop and then the poetry writing class I took.

Poetry was not my forte, but I was actually proud of a few of my poems.

But not real writing. Not like, sit down and write a story writing.

But one day, bored and bored and bored, I wrote a little story for Stephen about 2 monkeys in the jungle who become friends.

Like any good husband, he loved it! And encouraged me to write more.

So then I had an idea for a story about a shark.

It stank.

And then, my best Anna drew a picture of a penguin.

(For those of you who don't know me well, I LOVE penguins!)

And the story just fell into my head.

So Anna is drawing the pictures to go with my story and pretty soon, there will be a real live (not really published but sill super cool for us) book, written by Heather Cowden and illustrated by Anna Robertson.

Years from now, when there are little Cowden's running 'round, I'll have a little illustrated storybook to read them that I wrote! And that Aunt Anna illustrated.

The same goes for Anna when she's got some babies!

It's cool and fun and I'm excited to see the finished product.

Penguin in Love, not coming soon to any bookstore, but coming soon to live with me!