Saturn from Cassini

One year for Christmas, I got a telescope. I loved looking at the Moon from our back porch. I was always stunned speechless at the detail I could see: I remember noticing for the first time that the edge of the Moon wasn’t smooth, as it looks like with the naked eye. With a telescope, you can see ridges of craters sticking up all around the edge of the Moon.

I never stopped watching meteor shower, and I never lost interest in the skies. In college when I needed another science course, I chose honors astronomy, and I loved every minute of it, complicated equations included. We spent time at Baker Observatory, using the 8 inch telescopes and even the 16 inch telescope several times. Wow–seeing Saturn magnified enough that I could see the shadows its rings cast on it was breath-taking. I don’t remember all of the constellations we learned, but I still check the site Dr. Patterson displayed at the beginning of every class period, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, and I check it daily.

I never stopped gasping at all the stars I can see when I’m out of the city. On a cloudless night, I can see the band of the Milky Way, pick out Orion, Bootes, and Cassiopeia.

Somehow, unexplainably, when I’m looking at the stars, I’m filled with this excitment that makes my toes tingle.

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But no matter how I get the message, it still makes me happy.

pink tulips and purple irises

I’ve already mentioned that I like fresh flowers, but now I’m going to be a little more specific. My three favorite flowers are irises, roses, and tulips.

The house I grew up in had beautiful purple and gold irises growing on the side. I don’t know if Mom planted them or if previous owners did, but even today, more than 17 years after we moved out of that house, irises remind me of my childhood: Climbing in the gumball tree in the front yard, jumping in leaf piles in the back yard, rescuing a mouse that Tuffin caught.

Grandma Oakes has always loved roses. She always grew them in the front yard, always had some cuttings inside.  For holidays and special days, someone usually gave her a big beautiful boquet of roses. Red, white, yellow, mixed. Roses, to me, mean Grandma Oakes.

They’re also very romantic.

I don’t know exactly why I like tulips, but I think it’s their shape and color.

Do you know what makes your favorite color your favorite?

Crocheting itself makes me happy because it requires focus. The repetitive movements are soothing. I can just get lost in it, and when I come back, I feel rejuvenated.

Completing a project makes me feel happy because it’s a skill, an accomplishment.

They’re beautiful. They’re so expressive. I could stare into them, laugh with them, cry with them forever.

As a teacher, I never know if my students are laughing because my joke was actually funny or if it’s just because I’m the teacher and they earn brownie points by laughing. I hope it’s the former.

I even have a hard time telling jokes: I usually lose it and just crack myself up before I can get to the punch line. Again, people laugh at that, but when I get to the point, it’s not funny anymore.

But sometimes, I can be truly funny. Most of the time it happens with Rob and I elicit one of those great, true belly laughs. Sometimes I’m on a roll when I’m out with people. You know, a funny day. I love it. It’s great.

Another thing that’s awesome is my friends. I’m funnier to them, I think because they get me, they get my jokes. That’s why we’re such good buddies. Not necessarily just because they get me, but because we get each other.

And it infected me. Slowly at first, but now, two years later, organizing and maintaining that organization has become a part of my life. It makes my happy, it makes my life run smoothly, and it makes me want to find more ways to organize the other areas of my life that aren’t organized yet.

Plus, as my life changes (which happens every semester), my system has to be adapted. So it’s fun to modify my current system to the new semester, the new courses, the new demands.

I also enjoy reorganizing a cluttered space: home office drawers, messy bookshelf, kitchen cabinets that are over-stuffed, or the purse that’s become unusable because there’s so much crap in it.

My latest task is my email inbox. I love Gmail because the conversation view changed the way I processed email messages. The filters are great for auto-sorting and filing. I have set it to check all of my other necessary accounts (like work and webmaster accounts) so I don’t have to. I love the sleek design and intuitiveness of the controls. But those features only help the onslaught of emails to a certain extent. Since February, I’ve been trying to figure out how to respond to all the email I receive in a timely manner, how to keep track of the emails I need to keep track of (by moving them to my ToDo list or calendar, or labeling and archiving them). I tried Zero Inbox during March and April, but once the semester started, I didn’t have the processing time each day. Which means I’m currently trying to figure out the process that works for me and my mind. I’m getting there, but I still get behind in my emails. Maybe I need a 9-to-5? Teaching is so variable that it is hard to change a good routine once you’ve found one!

Time is harder to organize for me than physical space. Even so, I like organizing.

Sometimes we sleep facing each other, just holding hands. And that is quite wonderful. But what I really truly love is when we “spoon,” with his arms wrapped around me, his breath tickling the hair on the back of my neck, and his knees snuggled behind mine. He can’t fall asleep like that, so most nights, we cuddle like that for a while, and then he rolls over.

It isn’t only physically comfortable, it’s emotionally relaxing. I lie there, warm beneath my down blanket, with a roof over my head, a tummy full of food, and all my needs met. And I am blessed enough to be married to a man who loves me for me, someone who gets me (most of the time ), who knows my warts and loves me in spite of them, treats me right, and makes me laugh til I can’t breathe anymore. There’s so much more, but all those things make being enveloped by his arms the emotionally safest place I can think of.