Mixed Emotions

First of all, let me just say that I totally had ice cream for supper. Yeah....I had a giant rocky road ice cream cone for dinner. It was quite delightful. I must say that if you've never dared to be crazy and simply have an ice cream supper, you should give it a whirl. It feels so luxuriously bad, yet it really isn't.

Secondly, do you ever have those moments when someone says something to you - possibly in jest, possibly not - and it just gets stuck in your head and kinda eats away at you for days? Well I surely have. For those of you who haven't heard I get to spend 6 glorious weeks in Europe with my step-grandma. I was initially oober excited as I'm sure you can imagine. However when I shared the information with one of my closest friends she seemed to be more jealous and ugly about it than excited like I thought she should be. She wasn't thrilled to hear "Barcelona for 3 weeks" but was even less amused when it came to be "and Munich making a grand total of 6 weeks!" Her simple view on the subject was "Well go ahead and leave. When you get back I'll have made all new friends and won't have anytime for you!" Granted it is quite possibly that she was completely kidding, but it really somewhat hurt my feelings. Then I began to think about it: 6 weeks really is quite a long time even with cell phones and Internet, yet I will probably be without both of these wonderful tools - cell phone for sure. I tried to brush it out of mind, yet it keeps coming back with every "oh..........well have fun....." that comes from what I would normally refer to as friends. Certainly not everyone will forget I exist while I'm off in a foreign country most likely aching to share all my adventures with friends when I get back and searching for the perfect present to bring back. Some of my friendships are rather new and I'm not quite sure they can withstand such a great distance for such an extended period of time. I'd really hate to lose said friendships. They are quite entertaining at times. Then of course there's the issue of taking A MONTH off of work. Sarah was completely gracious and understanding in my request for the time off, but as I held Grayson in my arms today at church after only 3 weeks I realized just how much I had already missed out on. I know I'm not related to them but that certainly doesn't mean I don't care about them. Ask Lori - I attach to children quick. I can't help it! They're so adorable and wonderful. Grayson will probably be walking by the time I get back and I haven't even seen him crawl yet. Geez!

Don't get me wrong I'm still excited to be going. I'm just caught in that awkward state of torn-ness (not a word I know but suffices to convey my meaning). You know the place between being excited to do something crazy and fun, yet realizing just how costly that fun will be. I really wish she hadn't said that to me. Then it's quite possible I'd still be bouncing off the walls and squealing about it. And yes I do squeal, but only for special occassions like trips to Europe! I don't know....this whole things got me in a funk and I have way to much awesomeness attempting to take place to be caught in a stinky old funk. Oh well c'est la vie, non?