Three years later

What do I remember about our arrival in Oklahoma City on April 4th, 2014?
It was cold, it was very windy, and I really had to go to the bathroom (sorry, but it's true).  Amos and I stayed in a Best Western with New Mexico-themed conference rooms, which was kind of odd since we had driven from New Mexico that same day.

It was the beginning of a great adventure...or so I thought.  Little did I know that depression was about to descend.; it was a hard five months.

Three years later, living in Oklahoma is once again an adventure:
I know the location of the biggest hill in Tulsa (or maybe the whole state ;) just kidding).
I have found a few windy streets.
I have a mental list of places I want to visit (the center of the universe, the Blue Whale, Cherry Street Farmer's Market, Cirque Coffee, Muskogee to see the azaleas, little parks around town...).
We have friends at church whom we enjoy hanging out with and who make a point to say hi when they see us.
I have lots of places to take people if they want to visit...hint, hint.

After three years, I suddenly realized today that we have a routine again:
Sunday: church, maybe night church
Tuesday: eating out, Bible study
Wednesday: early Bible study for Amos
Thursday: grocery shopping, eating out
Friday: laundry every other week, muffin baking every other week

Now if we could just go to bed before 11:00 every night... :P

People ask if we are going to stay here for a while.
Yes, I think so.
Is Oklahoma my favorite state?  Heck no*.
Is Oklahoma as bad as I first thought?  No, probably not.
*NorCal reference

God really blessed me and Amos (though mostly me, I think) when He moved us to Tulsa a year and a half ago.  Amos' bosses wanted him to move to Tulsa, but I was not interested.  If I had only known how much more enjoyable life would be in Tulsa compared to OKC!  We had a great church with kind friends in OKC, but so many things are more comfortable, and beautiful, here (*cough* hills and trees).

Now the challenge is, how do I get involved?
Three years is a long time to be hanging out on the fringes of things.  There are some days that I wish we could transplant Crossroads (and Danielle ;) ) to Tulsa, but that is not to be.
Now I have to see what I can do to help our church here.

"By day the LORD commands His steadfast love..."
-Psalm 42:8a

Quoth Anne

"Having adventures comes natural to some people," said Anne serenely.

"You just have a gift for them or you haven't."

On this adventure, I parked on the shoulder, which was much muddier than I thought.  My shoes and tires were caked.

On this adventure, I lost my keys...again.

A storm

Thursday, July 14th
12:30 am*
Jennica awakes with a gasp to a huge bang and a flash of bright light.  A storm is raging outside.
After convincing herself it is not the Rapture, she tries to go back to sleep.

7:30 am
Jennica and Amos leave the apartment, commenting on the blue sky and the cool air.

12:00 pm
John, a coworker, walks out of the office with a golf umbrella and the enigmatic words, "Wish me luck!"
Rod, a coworker, rushes out of the office, saying he needs to close the car window that he left open.

12:15 pm
People start scurrying around the office.  Jennica looks out the window and sees a dark, ominous sky.

12:17 pm
Tornado sirens are heard, even up on the ninth floor.

12:19 pm
Jennica stops looking out the windows and tells a coworker she will be right back.

Paul:  Oh, that's right, you're from California.
[He thinks I'm going to the basement.]
Jennica:  Actually, I'm going to the bathroom.

12:25 pm
Jennica joins Paul and Rod at another window.  They watch the storm blow in.  At one point a very small cone forms in the clouds but is quickly drawn back up.  Jennica thinks this is all very exciting, but it would be a shame to be sucked out the window.**

12:30 pm
Jennica, Paul, and Rod return to the office and look out of other windows.  A tornado siren goes off in the building itself, but a voice quickly informs the building that "the tornado has been canceled."

12:35 pm
People try to go back to work.  John comes back up from the basement, not having bothered to leave for his usual lunch break.

12:45 pm
Jennica decides to eat lunch.

2:15 pm
Jennica leaves work and navigates the traffic that is even worse than normal.***

2:30 pm
Jennica arrives at Amos' office, but he is not able to go home yet.

3:00 pm
Jennica arrives at home and finds this:

And this:

(The power was out)

5:00 pm
Jennica arrives at Amos' office, having navigated a city missing half of its traffic signals.

5:30 pm
Jennica and Amos arrive at the chiropractor.

6:00 pm
Jennica and Amos drive to dinner, but Jason's Deli is closed.

6:50 pm
Jennica and Amos reach a Panera Bread and order dinner.

7:15 pm
Jennica and Amos are informed that Panera is out of bagettes.  Jennica chooses Asiago bread; Amos chooses whole grain.

7:20 pm
Jennica and Amos receive their meal.

8:30 pm
Jennica and Amos arrive at home.  The power is still out.

8:35 pm
Jennica takes some pictures of a beautiful sky, which tries to pretend that it hadn't just unleashed a storm on the city.

9:00 pm
Jennica takes a selfie.

Friday, July 15th
3:10 am
The power comes back on.

----------------------
* Times are approximate.
** It wasn't that bad.
*** Apparently bad drivers get even worse in the aftermath of a storm.

Unlooked-for

I had an unlooked-for adventure today.

Before that adventure, I actually had two other adventures.

The first adventure was walking down the road to Target.  I picked out a card for a baby shower, a gift bag, a set of black pens that included a free silver pen, and a few other things.  I called my mom on the walk back home and found out that my brother Luke was headed to the orthodontist to get his gums trimmed.  (Apparently the gums are partially covering his back molars?  Ow!)

I arrived at home, changed into some shorts, grabbed my camera, and headed out for adventure number two.  I walked out to the two ponds that are near the three churches.  I took lots of pictures, watched turtles get stuck on rocks as they tried to fall into the water, scared a huge frog into the pond, and watched a frog and water snake swim.

I had just made it back to our apartment when the Unlooked-For Adventure began.

I didn't have my keys.

Oh dear.  Oh dear.

I hurriedly retraced my steps...back through the field...along the brilliant green algae ditch...across the road...around the first pond...around the second pond...through the woods...over to the doors of the church...back across the road...through the neighborhood...down the hill...up the stairs...the door was definitely locked.

No keys.

I called Amos as I headed back to walk through the field a third time.  As we were discussing asking the office to let me back in, I found them, lying in the field where I had knelt down to take a picture of some trees and the blue sky.

*phew!*

On to the next adventure...

Click the pictures, especially the one with the hidden frog. :)

Near the place I dropped my keys 

What a beautiful contrast!

Honeysuckle; not very fragrant quite yet

Can you find the frog?!  He IS in there!

Irises growing in pond

A large frog, aka, Chub

Irises

Abandoned barbed wire

The second pond; much less algae

Flourishing plants

Nature retakes territory

Natural barbed wire

An abandoned sign

A water snake!

Purple clover picked during Adventure #1

Two years later

Here we are again. April 4th.  A day that will live in infamy, at least for me.

Two years ago, Amos and I arrived in Oklahoma City, full of hopes and excitement.  My hopes were quickly crushed, smothered under homesickness, the ugliness of the city, and a gaping hole that used to be my identity (friend, neighbor, missions coordinator, note taker, needed).

I was miserable.

Two years later, I am doing a lot better.

In the two years we have been here...
I have found some nice grocery stores, especially in Tulsa.  (Hello, Reasor's!  I love your cheese samples! :D )
I found my favorite OK hill, also in Tulsa.  It definitely isn't a mountain, but it's better than nothing!  Sometimes I take a detour, just so I can drive down it.
We have attended two great churches, both with good teaching and friendly community group/Sunday School classes.
We have made some very nice, genuine, encouraging friends, both in OKC and Tulsa.
I have had several jobs: substitute teacher, testing center clerk, and now, administrative assistant at a small corporation.
I have been able to visit California a few times.
We have survived severe weather!
We have so far managed to avoid any collisions.  Seriously, the driving in Southern California is nothing compared to driving in Tulsa.  Who taught these people how to "drive"?!
We have moved four times in two years.  The longest time we spent in one apartment was seven and a half months, and the shortest time (in the drafty bug house with the nutso landlord) was thankfully just three months.

All in all, looking back, it has been tough, but not bad.

Amos and I were talking about our transition last night, and we realized we still aren't used to living here.

We lived in Santa Clarita for almost ten years.  We attended our last church, Crossroads, for almost five years.  We had a routine, and even when we added things to that routine, it was still manageable.

Here in Oklahoma, we are still getting used to living in one apartment for more than half a year.  We are still trying to remember the names of all the friendly people at church.  We are still figuring out where to go to eat.  We are still dealing with weekly headaches for Amos.  We are still wondering when we will have time to fit in our normal California activities, like getting frozen yogurt on Sunday evenings or going on walks.  We are still trying to go to bed before 11:00.  We are still dealing with stress, known and unknown.

Still.

But.

Our second year was better than our first.  Here's to even better things, in year three of this exodus.


"...the LORD will go before you,
and the God of Israel will be your rear guard."
::Isaiah 52:12b

Books and ponds

Last February, I visited the Friends of the Library annual book sale at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds, and I came away with a ton of good books.  Amos was off at a men's retreat, so he didn't get to go, but this year, we made a weekend of it!

On Friday, we woke up, had breakfast, and headed down the turnpike to OKC.  We ordered sandwiches at my favorite deli and took them down to Lake Overholser, one of the reservoirs that provides water to OKC.  We ate our sandwiches, watched the pelicans float up and down the lake in the wind, and endured the breeze.

Next we headed for the outlet mall.  Tulsa doesn't have any outlet stores, so we made a point to visit these in OKC.  We bought socks, replacement lids for our glass dishes, a rice cooker (the old one was ancient and would flood the counter with murky rice water), jeans, and a few other things.

Voss was up next!  We visited Amos' old office and spent some time talking to his friends and old coworkers.  Most of the guys are pretty nice, but Amos is quite happy with the Tulsa office. :)

Our next stop was our hotel, the same hotel we stayed in when we first moved to Oklahoma (they have a really good breakfast).  We hauled our bags up to our room and watched a few episodes of House Hunters before we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

After a restless night of too few blankets, searching for the fan button on the thermostat at 2:00 in the morning, and trying to relax on the hard mattress, we got dressed and hopped down to a breakfast of bacon, biscuits and gravy, hash browns, eggs, fruit, coffee, orange juice, and yogurt.

We arrived at the fairgrounds and started looking!  I headed to the cheaper book room first, straight for the audiobooks.  I don't know where Amos went. ;)  I collected a stack of paper books and audiobooks and left them in the holding area.  The second book room held nicer, rarer books, and I was looking for a specific set as a present for someone.  I found several copies of the books, so I picked through them till I had a full set, complete with crumbling dustjackets (at least the covers underneath the jackets won't be too faded).  I chose a few more books, paid for all of them, and checked my bag in at the rare books holding section.  Back to the first room to pick up my selected books and see if Amos had discovered any treasures.  He came up with four CDs!  No books!  Out of 600,000 tomes, Amos didn't find anything.  Whoa.  I poked around a bit more, paid for my cheaper books, CDs, and audiobooks, and went back to the other holding section to pick up the special books.

They couldn't find my bag.

They checked through the shelves, they rechecked my number, they let me search through all the bags...

My books had vanished.

Nooooooooooo...

I was reminded of what Amos prays every day, that we would glorify God in what we say and do.  He had prayed that at breakfast that morning, and I had thought, "And let me be patient with all the people at the book sale, because there are a lot of people and they are annoying."  (The rooms are packed with people, some of whom think they are the only ones at the sale.)

With that in mind, I was able to stay calm.  The head cashier took my name and number, refunded my money, and even offered to meet up with me if someone returned my books, since I had come two hours from Tulsa and wouldn't be able tor return for them.

Disappointed but resigned, we went to lunch at Earl's Barbecue and discussed what to do with the rest of our day.  Suddenly I had the idea that we could go back and re-purchase some of the books I chosen, since there were multiple copies in the piles of books.  Amos and I headed back to the book sale, and I ran in and chose a few books from the ones that were remaining; the complete set wasn't available anymore. :P

Our next adventure was visiting the Hinky Pond.  (That isn't its real name; we used to live near a small park and pond, and we would often see the same limping goose.  He always made a strange "hink hink" sound, so I dubbed him, and the pond, Hinky.)  Amos and I collected our library books (brought down from Tulsa), folding chairs, and sweet tea, and trundled around the pond to a small spot of shade.

The great Hinky, himself

We read and drank our tea for a few hours, and then...

My phone rang!

Someone returned my books!

Yeaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Amos and I popped over to Walmart for some snacks and toll money then returned to the fairgrounds.  Someone had taken my books home, realized she had the wrong ones, and returned them!  She got her books and I got mine.

Overall, it was a very nice weekend.  Amos and I had a good time hanging out, shopping, reading, and visiting a few people, I didn't go crazy on the people at the sale, and we got a lot of really good books.

Let's do it again next year! :)

The Incorrigibles

I just finished my fifty-ninth book of the year, the audio version of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book One: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood.  The narration was excellent, except for the narrator's interpretation of the housekeeper's voice.  It is a fun and entertaining story of three feral children being brought up and civilized by their young governess.  All goes reasonably well until the night of the Christmas ball, and then - "Mayhem!"
I'm looking forward to the next few books in the series! Hopefully they will be as good as the first one.

Please notice the little boy in the tree, haha!

Sick+Pics+Books

I've been sick the last few days, but today the sore and scratchy throat is gone, leaving behind the "coughy" throat.  Monday I did not feel very good, but I did submit two library job applications.  Tuesday I slept till 12:30, after getting up around 8:00 to have breakfast. Wednesday I moved around some more and actually went outside!  Today I looked up more jobs and turned in one application.  Tomorrow is grocery shopping and Hobby Lobby day; I have to make this year's Christmas ornament!

I actually took a few pictures last week!  You can click on them to see them better.

Under the freeway...

A nice, back-lit spider web on a bridge

I guess this is sumac!  Very pretty out in the woods...

A little spidey friend...

In other news, I finished my fifty-fifth book for the year, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.  Amos is catching up: he has forty-five books on his list, and he reads faster than I do!
*grabs the nearest book*
*signs off of the blog*

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving...but to Canadians it is just Thanksgiving.

Some of our downstairs neighbors are a little...volatile...today.  I was stalking watching them through the blinds this morning as they argued out on the lawn and then in one of their cars.  A while later our upstairs neighbor comes out on our shared walkway and calls down, "Can you guys stop slamming your front door?!"
"It's none of your business!"
"Shut ******** up!!"
Upstairs neighbor goes back inside without another word.
More stalking watching through the blinds and through the front door peephole...

Josh, Grace, and Jaden are coming to Oklahoma on Thursday and Friday!  I knew that but was reminded of it just now.
"Hmmmm, what will we do this week...we need to find a dentist...I should ask Amos about our insurance and going to the den - JOSH AND GRACE ARE COMING!  Whoa!  Only three days away!  Whoops!"
They will be our first friends to visit us, making a special stop on their way to Minnesota or Michigan or one of the other M states.

I'm listening to my Little Women audiobook, which I got for free from AudiobookSync this summer!  Little Women is one of my favorite books, but I am more aware of how preachy it sounds, after my Children's Literature professor made that observation earlier this year.
Oh well.
I still love the part where Meg loses her bangs.

Quite a bit of the house is set up now, but I feel like I need new eyes in order to see all the things that are still out of place.  Better be off to do that!

Conglomerate update

My Boys in the Boat book went back to the library on Saturday, and while it is once more waiting for me on the hold shelf, I'm trying to finish a new book, Maisie Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear.  This book is set in 1929, dealing with the title character's rise through the British social ranks and the solving of a mystery intertwined with the aftermath of World War I, a war I have become interested in over the last year or so.  It is very good so far!

You know that article I shared last time, the one from Tim Challies?  This blog post is a response from a missionary in Africa, and I think it is even better.

Our car has now been in the shop for ---counting--- TWELVE days.  We are not pleased. First it was the engine; that was fixed. Then it was the clutch, which we told them about but they apparently didn't look into.  Then the wrong clutch part was ordered and installed.  The new part will hopefully arrive tomorrow, so we may have our car back on day thirteen or fourteen...who knows!

The testing center has now hired three people to fill the three open positions, but as one of those people may not be there much longer, I'm not sure I am any closer to dropping down to thirty hours a week!

In other news, I am growing a little sweet potato vine.  I'm not sure he got the memo about being a vine, though; he looks like a small shrub!

In the last week...

I have...

...suffered through freezing temperatures and no furnace for two days.

...remembered our friends who just moved to the Middle East and are living in a cold, concrete apartment.

Remembering our suffering has reminded me to pray for them.


...rejoiced over the birth of our CA friends' little boy, Owen!

...learned of the diagnosis of SMA for the little boy of some of our OK friends.

Life and death are so close sometimes.


...been terrified of the "what ifs" that come could come with trying to leave our current apartment.

...opened my Bible to rediscover Psalm 37, a partially-memorized psalm from this summer.

"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him;
Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
Over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil."

Odd, part 3

Continuing my series on weird Oklahoma, I have a few more observations to share with you.

Oil derricks. Oklahoma pumps a lot of oil, so oil derricks are everywhere.  I've seen derricks in grocery store parking lots, in the field surrounding our new church, and even at the State Capitol (the only state capitol with a functioning oil derrick; they are very proud of this).

Driving.  Oklahomans are very bad drivers.  People who say California has bad drivers have obviously never been to Oklahoma.

Tribal license plates.  Oklahoma is home to many different Indian tribes, each of which is actually a sovereign nation.  Each tribe has a unique license plate design.

Sidewalks.  Where are all the sidewalks?  Do they take them in during the day?!

Overalls.  Many men wear overalls here (though definitely not everyone).  When Amos and I go somewhere, I keep track of the overalled men I see; the highest score so far is three.  Amos says that we will be seeing more because the cool fall weather is coming.  (Amos and I went to the state fair back in September; I saw a grampa wearing overalls AND a fanny pack!)

Ma'am.  I work at a university now, so I get called ma'am several times a day.  It throws me off every time.

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Part 1
Part 2

Odd

Here are some strange things about Oklahoma...

There are LOTS of drive-through restaurants.
Panera Bread, Subway, even donut shops!

A lot of men have long hair.

There are no helmet laws.
If you are riding a motorcycle, you have to wear some type of glasses or goggles, but you don't have to wear a helmet!

E-cigarette stores are on almost every street.
I don't know why, but e-cig stores and "vapor lounges" are very popular here.  There are also cigarette butts everywhere.

Lakes and ponds are ubiquitous.
I don't know where all the water comes from, but I like it!  I also like all the pondlife.

Center turn lanes/suicide lanes are rare.
The vast majority of streets here in OKC don't have a middle turn lane.  People just stop in the left lane and put on their turn signal.

No one runs when it is raining.
When it rains, there is no hurrying to the car, hurrying to the house, hurrying to the grocery store entrance; people just stroll along at their regular pace.

People spit in public.

People really like their rims.
There are suped-up cars everywhere, even Suburbans and old Lincolns!

There are no dog poop pick-up laws.
Dogs just go wherever their owners let them, and no one picks up after them.

Discarded mattresses and box springs are everywhere.
Twice a week people take their garbage out to the curb, and mattresses and box springs are always included.  I'm not sure if a sleep store had a huge sale or what!

Memoria de Cinco de Mayo

I'm not a fan of Cinco de Mayo.  I'm not sure what is being celebrated, and I don't like mariachi bands; mariachi music sounds like Polish music, which, coincidentally, I don't like, either.  The only redeeming factor is the food.

For the past nine years, Cinco de Mayo has also conjured up a college memory from freshman year.  On certain days of the week, I would eat lunch with my friend Sherrie, fellow teacher ed major and later roommate at aptartment 29.  On this day, we were eating Mexican food in the caf, serenaded tortured by the sounds of a mariachi band.  The band had been hired for the Cinco de Mayo themed lunch, which was actually happening on Tres de Mayo (I think our school was trying to save money by having the band come on a different day).

Sherrie and I were talking about our P.E. for Teachers class or finals week or something like that, when our attention was arrested by Caleb*, an upperclassman.  He appeared next to me holding a glass vase with a Gerber daisy (decorations for the lunch), and as he looked at me he said, "I just wanted to let you know, the beauty of this flower is nothing compared to you."  Caleb set the vase and flower on the table, I said a very pinched thank you, and he walked back to his table.

Awk-ward.
Awkward.
So awkward.

Sherrie and I now had something new to talk about.  What did he mean?  Was he serious?  Was I supposed to take the flower with me?!

I was bothered by this interaction for several days.  I saw Caleb around campus, but he never said anything.  Once I saw him walking along, throwing a football with some friends, and I decided just to ask him what the Cinco de Mayo flower had been about.  He said that it was dare from his friends.

Okay, not as nice as a sincere compliment, but at least I didn't have to be paranoid any more, and I was very glad I hadn't taken the daisy with me!  I was glad that our paths rarely crossed after that.

------

I was a sophomore in Israel when Cinco de Mayo came around again. While there, I heard that one of the girls from my freshman wing was dating the same Caleb.  "Weird!  Remember what happened on Cinco de Mayo last year, when..." I told Michelle, who had also been on my wing that year and had heard the story.

Sara and Caleb have been happily married for several years now, and I am stuck with an awkward memory from when I was an eighteen-year-old freshman.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  At least I have a funny story, even if I don't like the holiday. :)


(Yes, his name really was Caleb; if you do something dumb, you forfeit your name change, haha!)

Bless You

Amos and I have been sneezing a lot, especially while in the bathroom.  I would find little fuzzes on the floor or in the bathtub, and I was afraid that we had mold growing somewhere (this is supposed to be the humid South, after all).  I remembered the other Jenica writing a post about a visit to Hong Kong in which chunks of mold flew out of the air conditioner in her rented room, and I was afraid!

I managed to get the cover off of the little vent in our bathroom, and I found the dust bunny production plant!
Think this might have been why we were sneezing?!  I sure hope so, because now it's all clean.

Click the pictures to see how bad it really was.

I took the fan apart to clean it.

Ewwwwwww.

Another view...

The hole where the fan belongs

Dirt from the fan

Dirt from the hole

Here's to better breathing and less sneezing!