Eggs on the Equinox

Ah, shoot. I forgot to balance eggs today. Though today my mother told me that they say you can balance eggs any ol' time. The influence of the equinox is so small that it does not affect (have any effect-- is that the correct usage of affect/effect?) the ability of the egg to balance.
I find this to be horrifying. (Yes, overreaction.) My whole life I've been under the impression that it was only twice a year (uh, twice, right?) that one could actually balance an egg! And how exciting! I've been lied to, it seems. Lied to. Again. Like how all my toys when I was little were not actually mine, because I'm the youngest. They were just on loan, you know, from my older siblings. I own nothing from childhood and you can balance eggs any time you want.



Here's a pretty good site about balancing eggs, though I have to say I never heard of only doing it only at the vernal equinox. But whatever. I'm crushed and happy all at the same time. After all, now I can play this game whenever I want. AND I see that I can balance eggs on their narrow end. However, I think I used to have more patience.

Oh well. Happy egguinox everyone.

Brought to you by...

Photos by me
Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Beauty by God

like shining from shook foil


Color Burst




Also, that picture in the last post is by me. Copyright and all that. No stealing.

Delicious Autumn

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot


Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. ~Stanley Horowitz


Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus

Celebrate!

I'm having a party! I'm so excited-- I'm totally going all out. At least, that is my plan. But then, the party is not for a few weeks and my stress level in relation to the fanciness of the party could go in such a way that fanciness goes down in order that stress level goes down. I need a chart for that. Anyway.
I spent six hours on the evite. On the evite! Oh, it's a pretty great evite, to be sure. Beautiful. It has pictures that I myself took. It is nice fall colors. I made sure that everyone's names appear as actual names and not as silly email addresses on the guest list. I'm just a little bit worried about this: If I spent 6 hours on the electronic invitation, how long am I going to spend on each facet of the party? There's the cleaning, the menu, the presentation... Oh my! I've already started thinking about tiny little things that no one ever cleans and no one ever notices. I'm trying to figure out what I can clean three weeks in advance. AND I'm going to be housesitting for the 10 days leading up to the party. So I won't even be home to prepare. Uff-da.
There's also this about me: The more time I have, the more elaborate the party will become in my head. But I'll inevitably have to cut it down to be realistic and then I'll be disappointed. You'd think knowing this would help. But it won't. I'll still be disappointed. Alas.
I also feel like this isn't the kind of thing I should be posting! What am I thinking? I tell people how great it's going to be and how much time I spent... and then they'll show up and think "Really? She spent that much time? What was she doing? I could have done this in half an hour! And the food really isn't that great." Oh, the insecurity. Bother.

BUT you know what? It's going to be a GREAT party. Festive and all that. With great food and great company. So. Hoorah for that.

Empathy

What is worse? My own personal grief or the grief I feel when I watch someone else in pain?
There has been pain on a big scale around me lately, with the Moores loss and with my college friends losing their baby, etc. But something that hit me really hard just now was a very brief online encounter with my sister in WA who is feeling neglected by her boyfriend, augmented by other stresses of school. I'm sure it's a simple thing and it will probably work out. And even if they got married there would be times when this would happen and she would feel lonely and they will let each other down... I'm realistic about that. But it's still painful. I can hardly stand to see her in pain. Especially when I had to see her in so much pain after her last, really cruel, breakup and now that I know what a breakup feels like.
I nearly wish empathy didn't exist. But oh, what an awful world it would be without it. And aren't we glad that Christ has empathy with us?

Discouraged

I was just told by my mother and sister both that I seem to have a great social life and should just enjoy it and be happy. And, granted, I did have two social engagements after work today. I joined an ex-coworker for cupcakes and then joined friends for a walk and dinner. Tomorrow I'll be happily house-sitting with a dog and three cats! (Okay, that doesn't count as social.)
But I can't help feel losses even through all that. I miss a friendship that was well on its way to developing. I realize that she got busy with her wedding and then she got married and now she spends time with other friends and not me... But isn't that it? Other friends and not me... why not me? It's always that I want to know what went wrong. What did I do? What could I have done differently? Was I too needy? Did I only ever talk about that one thing...
And I just wonder about the cycle of relationships and wonder why some last and some don't and how some survive through distance and some seem to do well set on pause. Relationships are so freakishly important to me (I know, they're important to everyone-- we're relational creatures, as God is a relational God-- but seriously, I'm more relational than anyone I know.) and it's very stressful! And with all I go through thinking about my friendships and peer relationships and family... I don't know how I'm ever supposed to be in a healthy, working romantic relationship. Maybe that's why I'm not. I'll never meet anyone anyway. (Ohhh, so pessimistic!) I'm with the same people in the same places. And you can't just date all the people in one group-- doesn't that start to look a bit suspect? And on the one hand, I'm told that I'm playing it too safe. And then I'm told to just enjoy exactly what I have. Which is it?
Aargh. I would say that I just want nice simple relationships, but that's not what I want at all! That would take all the goodness out of it! I just don't want to stress about it.