On Floyd Time

Drew used to call what we live on "Indian time" but since we live in Floyd now it's become "Floyd time." In other words nothing is on time, no one is in a hurry and things may get done today and they may not get done until next summer. Clearly this has become my approach to this blog as well.

Here are some highlights (or low points depending on how you look at them) since my last update:

Drew totaled our car. He's fine and we got a bigger Subaru which the dogs seem to be enjoying.

We found a "new home" for our rooster and adopted 4 more hens. They're a pretty multicultural group now. 



Both our dogs have had emergency vet trips. One of them has had 2 hip replacements and the other diagnosed with Lyme's. I spent this past Tuesday morning walking in a grassy patch beside of our vet while a male nurse chased after us trying to catch Dolly's pee in a metal pan. These are the moments that I think I should have my own reality TV show. I could be one year into a PhD program with what we have paid in vet bills since June.


I successfully stayed by myself without getting scared for the first time since living in Floyd.


I go back and forth between adoring my students and cursing them. Usually under my breath but when a fire drill went off in the middle of an awesome review game on Friday I cursed out loud which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy. Moments of "you changed my life, Mrs. Moore-Hubbard" and the creation of CD's for me called "Napoleon's pre-game mix tape" are closely followed by "which month comes after October?" and "wait, wasn't Martin Luther King our first black president?" That is why I go back and forth between thinking I will do this forever and I can't do it for one more day. My fickleness strikes again.


Speaking of which I might be ready to move. Thoughts on Asheville? Or Ireland? Those are the two leading contenders in our household right now. All that's stopping us is figuring out how to travel across the Atlantic with a couple of sick pups and a flock of multicultural hens?


Drew's the same. Thank God. There's not a fickle bone in his body. He's cutting wood all the time and skinny as a rail. He has taken to baking his own bread and he's become quite the coffee snob. The only bad thing about him is how much he wants me to be happy. Sounds crazy but whenever I come home saying "I want to make a living peddling eggs" or "Let's bring the chickens inside" he's always supportive but he's learning I sometimes need a strong hand which is why only one of the chickens has been inside and just for a minute....


I have the best of intentions of updating again soon.....

As of late

So here's what's happened here lately.

• I've been working on my classroom, I'll post pictures when I'm finished but here's a sneak peek. 

• Drew and Ike hiked Mt. Rogers, they were supposed to stay gone for two nights but the rain sent them home early. There were lots of critters from what I understand: ponies, turkeys, cows and mice. Hate that I missed that. 

• We watched the Grand Budapest Hotel. It was so much fun. 
• I made cobbler for the first time in my life. 

• I met my hometown friends and their babies for lunch in Abingdon at Wild Flour Bakery. Lunch was scrumptious. And they were super nice. Especially considering all of the profanity coming from our table (just storytelling). 
• Ike got another barkbox. 

• We visited a lovely little church in Floyd on Sunday. It was mostly older people but they were so nice and the sermon was just what we needed. Funny how God does that. 

• I read Jesus Feminist. Don't let the f word scare you. As Sarah Bessey says "Most of what has passed for a description of feminism is fearmongering misinformation. This is my favorite excerpt: 

"Our big and good God is at work in the world, and we have been invited to participate fully-however God gifted and equipped and called each of us. One needn't identify as a feminist to participate in the redemptive movement of God for women in the world. The gospel is more than enough. ...But as long as I know how important maternal health is to Haiti's future, and as long as i know that women are being abused and raped, as long as i know girls are being denied life itself through selective abortion and abandonment and abuse, as long as brave little girls in Afghanistan are attacked with acid for the crime of going to school, and until being a Christian is synonymous with doing something about these things, you can also call me a feminist."

Her book is so encouraging to women and so empowering to those who have been held back for so long. But she also talks about forgiveness in situations where the church has hurt us. "Let's pray for them, forgive them where they have hurt us, and pray for those wounded in our collective cross fire. Let's be gentle in our dealings with them, but then let's get on with it." 

Read it. Woman. Man. Daughter. Son. Mother. Father. Read it. You'll be glad you did.

• And most importantly: Ike slept in his own bed last night! 

Stay tuned for news on my latest purchase:

The Big 2-4

Happy Birthday today to my cowboy/outdoorsman/intellectual husband. Every day when I watch his mind at work I get more excited for the great things he is doing. He is the funniest and most intelligent man I've ever met. And he pretends to listen to me for hours. I am the luckiest gal in the world to call him mine. I didn't know you could love someone this much. Thank you Mr. Hubbard for loving me so good. And Happy Birthday, you're officially older than me for the next 23 days.

Men in the House

This week I have a house full of men, not boys. The usual 2 are here and my brother is staying with us this week. My baby brother has grown up. The conversations he and Drew have are impressive sometimes but most other times they are ridiculously silly. All the way home until he and I fell asleep we talked about less than superb teachers he'd had and what he didn't like about them as I took mental notes to not be that teacher.

We are heading to the Community Center in a bit and I suspect my days of beating him in basketball are over. He's officially taller than me now.

Drew has been tilling for 2 days straight. I suspect he won't be much count on the basketball courts because his arms are still vibrating. But oh I can't wait to plant seeds!!!

 

 

Ike got filthy digging in the fresh dirt of the garden so he had to have a bathtub and now according to Bryce he "smells like medicine."

 

 

 

I like having a full house. I'll be sad when Bryce is back home and Drew is back to work but I'm hoping to have plenty of company when it gets warmer. Namely a stubborn little baby girl that just won't make her arrival. I've even grown accustomed to the mess, so bring your mess and come visit, one and all!

 



 





On Husbands

Mine has been working third shift for the past two weeks. 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and its the opposite of fun. He volunteered for this shift and is happy to be there for the men that work that shift for their livelihood, not as a 2 week project.

He's a man's man and a woman's man. He's an everyone's man. Today he washed dishes (by hand because our dishwasher's broken), vacuumed, and scrubbed our shower cleaner than it's ever been. After having breakfast with and playing frisbee golf with his newest guy pal.

He has become the definition of husband in less than 2 years and I'm left wondering if I've grown into half the wife equivalent. I never love him more than when I go to him and say "we are out of bird seed again." for the third time this month Just knowing the response will be "They're eating better than we are" or "They can go hungry for a while" but no, he says "We'll have to get them some more then won't we?" That's all it takes to make me weak at the knees.

While considering going on a mission trip together we got the news today that it's too long of a trip for him to take off work. But he didn't flinch when telling me that he thinks I'm supposed to go and that we will raise the money no problem. When I say "What if I bring back a baby?" He replies "We would figure it out, it would be fun." And he means it. He wouldn't be surprised or even flinch. He knows how to deal with me better than I know how to deal with myself.

I couldn't come up with an idea to pitch to him that he would dismiss. It's much more likely that I would talk myself out of something I want than to think that he would. He builds me up and keeps me grounded at the same time.

I hope yours lifts you up, hears you out and loves you unconditionally. I hope he loves the things you love and makes your days brighter. I hope he enjoys your company and is content in your presence. If you have it, you are blessed. We are a lucky bunch!

A Love Story pt. 2

 I'm so happy I got to share my parents' sweet love story with you. However what awaits you on the rest of this page is nothing like that. aka the Meg and Drew saga

I wish blogger allowed me to set up a timeline but maybe that's the historian in me. I'll try to manage without one.

5 years old: James Andrew Hubbard and Meghan Elyse Moore started kindergarten at J.W. Adams Elementary. Different classrooms. Different teachers. It's likely I still was not aware of his existence, nevertheless we were sharing the same general space.

6th Grade: Meghan sits behind Drew in literature he has since gotten contacts, she unfortunately has not. And for that reason alone (that's what I tell myself) Drew is in love with Meghan's still very best friend in the whole world. While the poor Meghan, braces and glasses has developed quite the crush on him. why am I referring to us by our proper names??? it's getting annoying, changing it up. Husband will kill me for telling this but I remember him putting Hershey kisses around Kristan's desk to say "now that I've kissed the ground you walked on will you go to the dance with me." Thank God Kristan had the foresight to say no or I would be writing their love story right now.

7th Grade: My friend Sarah and I decided to write letter confessing our love to our crushes. Let's just say her letter to James was well received while Drew had to break the news to me how awkward I still was and why it was best for us to remain "just friends."

8th Grade: Role Reversal. Must have been me finally getting contacts and an older boyfriend. Suddenly pretty blue eyes was interested. Me, I was kinda over it. He called me 'beautiful' not like saying "you're beautiful" but like as if it were my name, which was a little much from a 13 year old. Tone it down a notch babe. I was in a bad boy stage, a serious one. But I agreed and we gave it a shot. 2 weeks. 1 of which Drew was on a hunting trip with no communication. He came back to the news that I had cheated with aforementioned bad boy for the record totally not true and it ended. is this getting boring? or is this middle school drama as exciting now as it was then?

High School: Drew says we were best friends but in all reality we were both dating older people who ran in different crowds. I remember sitting in the gym during lunch reading why was I reading, that's weird, I was not at all studious and suddenly Mr. Creepy's hand is on my leg. Bless his heart, he had no clue what he was doing.

Summer 2007: Camping trip, with about 10 other people sleeping around us he decides to tell me he loves me. Nevermind that he's leaving soon for college, just that he loves me. NBD.

Fall 2007-Fall 2010: I'll make these 3 years brief and let you use your imagination to fill in the blanks. Engagement. 1 wedding, planned and canceled. Drama. Break-up. Independent. Talk every day. More drama. Surgery. Date. Date someone else. Move to Salem. Drama. Fight. Love. Cry. Hate. Slap the shit out of him. Feel better. Love again. Engaged again.

What a fun 3 years. Oddly, I have no pictures that survived this time period. Probably because I was hoping to forget it.

Fall 2010-May 2011: Wedding planning. Seeing little of each other but making plans to move me to the 'Burg and start our life together.

May 2011-Present: Marital bliss.

Okay, not really but I'll save our married life story for another long, boring, uninteresting to anyone but me and Drew post. We aren't perfect and we love hard and fight hard. But love conquers all. And God allows us to forget the worst parts of each other (or at least see past them). I can say with absolute certainty neither of us could deal with what we've put the other through without God's help. Forgiveness is the key. We have mastered dealing with our issues and moving on.  Keep moving forward, that's what I always say. Not really but I'm gonna start because that's darn good advice.

And if you're wondering, yes, I realize this is lame but I had to improvise. I asked Drew weeks ago to write our love story to put on my blog and he said he'd love to. As of today, he still hasn't. Part of that whole marital bliss thing. If ever he does write I'll post it and maybe it won't bore you as much as mine. Or maybe you'll have stopped reading my blog by then because of the lameness that is our love story.

Operation: GMCB and life

For those of you who have known me for very long, you know the life-long battle I have had with my hair. I was cursed with blessed with naturally curly hair. I, actually, used to have beautiful curls. However, I have straightened them and straightened them until now I have a fuzzy mess atop my head at all times. When my hair dries naturally it is no longer curly but wavy to a certain point, then straight and very fuzzy.

I recently found, on pinterest, some suggestions for making the most of your curly hair. Admittedly, most of them were things my sister had suggested to me for years and I chose to ignore. But I was inspired. I made Drew hide my straightener and I am in. Whole-heartedly. I have already seen some improvement. But I'm calling this Operation: Get my Curls Back!

This was day one, one week ago. I definitely need to find the products that work best on my hair because the products I had on hand were sub par.

So far the changes I have made:

Not using a straightener. Ever. At All. For any reason.
Not washing my hair everyday.
Rinsing my hair in cold water.
Conditioning! (I never used to do this)
Drying my hair with one of Drew's old T-shirts instead of a towel.

I will keep you posted on the status of my fuzzy mess. I am hopeful that once I find the products I want to use that I can have beautiful hair again. Oh and going home this weekend to get my hair colored to cover the ever-increasing grey. I know that isn't good for my hair but call me crazy I'm not ready to be grey-headed at the age of 23.

In other news, I start school tomorrow! I'm so excited but after 17 years of school, still nervous. I'm feeling better everyday about my decision to do Education. Don't get me wrong, history is still my passion but everywhere I turn I see more reasons to invest in the future of our youth. Watch Waiting for Superman. (you can watch the whole thing on youtube). It makes me want to be back in D.C. like yesterday. My dearest friend in the whole world is in the Mississippi Delta doing her part to bridge the gap and she suggested I watch the movie. I had no idea how hard it would hit me.

 

So, obviously, there are some changes happening around here. In really good news, Drew has been moved to Pulaski which has cut his commute in half! Hooray! He is much happier and so are Ike and I. He gets more sleep and no longer spends more time in the car in a day than he does with us. He is going to be playing softball this fall with Northstar so he's pumped about that. Oh and his boyfriend David is back in town for school so he is happy as a clam.

 

I have been taking Ike to the dog park every day. He has made lots of new friends and is able to run out some energy. He's a bit lazy compared to some of the other dogs and is usually the smallest but he holds his own. Except for when he gets scared and runs over to hide between my legs. He is such a weirdo but I love him. I'm hoping he adjusts to my new school schedule well, he has gotten very used to having me around 24/7.

 

 

That's an update on the happenings here on Bishop Road. Life is changing and moving forward, we're just trying to keep up.

 

 

 

Jesus Never Fails.