Snow, part 1

Well, it has been a crazy few days, and there's nothing like a big snowstorm to make me love my job more.

On Wednesday, forecasters were predicting we would get 3 to 6 inches of snow on Thursday morning. As the early morning person, I decided to go ahead and go into work before my 6:30 a.m. shift started. When I left my house, there was not a flake of snow. By 9 a.m., it was coming down fast and complete with thunder.

Since the snow started after most people got to work, many ended up stranded as they tried to get home at midday when they realized it got bad. The interstate was shut down, there were cars and even buses stranded everywhere and the university ended up closing (a very rare event). By 3 p.m. we had 11 inches of snow — a much bigger deal than 3 to 6 inches.

It was the kind of day journalists live for. I was so busy managing our website and social media accounts, the first time I got up was to go to the bathroom at 12:30 p.m. (I did have a stash of food to sustain me.)

I was doing everything I could to inform our readers and share any information I had. I was tracking the MoDOT traveler map and sharing screenshots of interstate cameras. I was tracking everything people said about the snow using a hashtag. And I was trying to translate the information I was sharing with our audience on social media with those using our website. I was juggling so many things and easily had 20 tabs open on my browser, but those are the situations where I thrive.

Meanwhile, our outreach team was collecting people's pictures shared on social media in an easy-to-view format. This was our first experiment with the tool, and it turned out awesome. The team also had a Google map going that showed road conditions based on submissions from our readers and staff. All this stuff on our site was so popular, the site actually went down about 1 p.m. on Thursday. The tech guy got it up and running quickly, but it was a testament to how many people wanted the information we were providing.

I did make an escape about 4:30 p.m. to come home and get some rest before I went back bright and early Friday morning. On Friday, I did much of the same. What was cool was that people realized we were a good resource for information. People on Twitter started asking what we knew about road conditions at various intersections and roads around town. Using our Google map, MoDOT and anecdotal information from reporters and Twitter, I responded to each question. And that was my favorite part of the day. I loved that "direct" interaction with people and knowing that people turned to us for information.

This was one of those adrenaline-rush events that even though it is fun for me in my job is a pretty serious situation. Fortunately, there were hardly any accidents, and we didn't hear of any fatalities. But there were a lot of people stranded or students who had a long walk home.

But it was a reminder that the newsroom is exactly where I want to be during an event like this and that's what was missing in my time in Virginia. The bonus of this newsroom is that we got to do all of this stuff and teach our students how to do it at the same time. The downside, of course, is that two long days of hard work doesn't let me me off the hook for teaching class Monday morning. I'll be spending some time preparing for that on Sunday!

A year ago

I've been a pretty terrible blogger lately. It's at the bottom of my to do list right now, and I'm OK with that but I thought today was worth marking.

A year ago, J and I went on our first date. We had talked on the phone once, but it was basically a blind date. We met for dinner at Macaroni Grill, and it was one of those first dates where we never ran out of things to talk about. I didn't know then that a year later we'd be engaged, but I did leave that date looking forward to another one. And I'm so glad there were more dates after that.

Show us your singles: Beth

I am one of Kelly's success stories. I am engaged after meeting J a year ago through Kelly's Korner. So I continue to post about my single friends. Today, I'm going to tell you about my best friend from high school, Beth.

Beth, 29, Nashville

Beth is one of my favorite people in the world, and I'm so glad she gave me permission to write about her. Beth and I have been friends for going on 15 years. Most of that time we haven't lived anywhere near each other, but with a few visits a year and phone calls in between, she remains my closest friend.

Beth, far right, and I at a Beth Moore conference in 2010.

Beth lived in D.C. for seven years after college working in government and a think tank. She moved to Nashville about a year ago after completing her masters in communication. Returning to her home state of Tennessee (we're both from the Chattanooga area) was a tough decision, but she enjoys her current job in state government and liked Nashville so much she recently bought a house there.

Beth is an artist on the side — painting for friends and family, drawing my save the dates — and my birthday cards are always unique.

Beth, right, kayaking with her mom.

Beth loves to be outside, and on the weekends, you'll find her biking or hiking. She is a world traveler. Most recently, she has traveled to Switzerland and South Africa to see friends.

She is outgoing and has a full social calendar, but she prioritizes spending quality time with people that she can have deeper conversations with. She will cut through the small talk pretty quickly. Lately, she has been showing off her new house with gatherings of friends.

Beth, left, with her sister, Katelyn.

Most importantly, Beth truly lives out her Christian faith in everything she does. When she first moved to D.C., she found a church and volunteered her time to lead a small group of high school girls. Even after those girls graduated, she kept up with them and continued to mentor them. In Nashville she is volunteering with The Next Door, a drug rehab program.

It has been such a blessing to me to have Beth walk alongside me for the last 15 years. She is the friend that knows me so well and isn't afraid to hold me accountable. She is beautiful inside and out and definitely worth getting to know.

If you or someone you know are interested in finding out more, leave a comment or send me an email.

It's been a while

Hello again blog world. I has the best of intentions for blogging over break, but somehow that never happened.

I had a wonderful 10 days off at the beginning of the break, and J and I got to be in Tennessee with my family for Christmas. Then I came back to work for the remainder of the break, so that time off is feeling like forever ago. But I'm ready for the semester to start and to return to my normal schedule and routine. I am teaching the same class I taught in the fall, so I am feeling mostly prepared. 

It's hard to believe this will be my last semester teaching. I will still spend the summer in the newsroom, but I won't be teaching. And then in the fall, I will be a full-time student.

Wedding plans are going well. A few nights ago, J asked me what we need to do next, and I didn't have an answer. We've wrapped up what we can for now, and I'm going back to Tennessee in March to make some final reception decisions and have a dress fitting. J is working on adding a master bedroom/bath to the house.

I'll end with a story. J and I don't go to bars. He doesn't drink, and in a college town, it's really not our scene. The two times we've been to bars together were for work functions for him. But on Friday night we decided to go to the country bar in town. We knew there are dance lessons there on Friday nights and thought that might be a good thing for us to try out. 

If you know me, you know I have no rhythm and I'm definitely not a dancer. And in that sense, J and I are a lot alike. Anyway, an EMT named DJ taught us a couple of line dances. We weren't great, but we tried. In one of the dances, there is a moment where you pause, and the EMT said that's when you shake. J, trying hard to follow all instructions, took that direction very seriously. I fell in love with him all over again watching him. No promises about our dancing at the wedding.

Birthday weekend

Hello again blog world. I'm still alive, just busy with the end of the semester and wedding plans. All of the big stuff for the wedding is done. I'll be doing a few things next week when I go home for Christmas, but it's all coming together really well.

Anyway, after the weekend we've had I thought it might be worth a blog post (and J actually suggested it). 

Friday was my birthday. I knew it was going to be a busy day at work, and I didn't even have time to go to lunch with coworkers. But it was also one of those bad news days. Most of the time the news of the day rolls off of me, but there were three fatal accidents overnight Thursday that we were reporting on. It was actually the fourth one this week, and it made for a tough day of work.

But J came over after work and gave me a beautiful watch for my birthday. 

It was his office holiday party, so we went to the Billiards Club for that. We had fun with his coworkers and playing pool. We ended the night by going out for dessert.

I've had a Groupon to go ice skating for a while, and I told J I wanted to go this weekend. The only public session was Sunday afternoon. So after lunch with church friends, we drove to the state capital to skate.

J was pretty shaky and fell a few times in the beginning, but he changed skates and was feeling more confident. After the break to resurface the ice, we went back out. On our second trip around, J lost his footing and fell hard, face first. He hit his head hard enough on the ice to knock him out. We are laughing about it now, but it scared me to death when he didn't move.

There were some great people that came to his rescue (because I totally froze), and the ice rink called 911. 

There was a pretty funny story about the guy that was the most helpful — he is actually a first responder in another county. He was trying to check J's cognitive abilities and asked J to remember his name — Ryan — and two other things. A few seconds later, Ryan asked J if he remembered his name. J looked at him, and said, "Charlie." It turns out this guy looked just like our friend Charlie who just got his EMT certification as part of his police academy training. J thought Charlie had come to his rescue, but really he just managed to make the guy helping him question his injury.

Anyway, J doesn't remember anything about the fall or the few minutes after, but he was back to himself soon enough. But he went ahead and took the ambulance ride, and we spent an hour and a half in the ER just to make sure he was OK. Everything came back clear — no broken bones and just a mild concussion. He did get stitched up and is wearing a brace for a sprained wrist. Here's the picture in the hospital after the stitches but before they cleaned up the blood on his face.

And back at his parents' house all cleaned up.

We're very glad it wasn't anything more serious, and hopefully, he doesn't wake up with too bad of a headache. But I don't think he'll be game for ice skating again anytime soon!

Independence

I have always been independent. Even as a kid I wanted to do everything for myself and had no fear. And going far away to school increased that independent streak. Since college, I've lived by myself and have pretty much been able to handle whatever comes my way. Sometimes it does require paying someone to fix things or complaining a lot to my landlord to get rid of a raccoon. But I'm proud of my ability to handle things on my own.

But the downside of that independence streak is that I can be a bit of a control freak. I don't like change, so I really like to be in control when my world is changing. I'm also afraid of being hurt, so I have tendency to try to control my relationships whether it's a friendship or a dating relationship. And by control I mean that I often put people in boxes and limit who they are to me and what our friendship/relationship could be.

But when J came along, I handled it differently. In some cases, it was intentional and some of it not, but it opened the door to much more than I expected.

The Monday after J and I's first date, it snowed a few inches. I woke up to an email from him asking if he could come shovel my driveway. My first reaction was "no way." I didn't want to let down my guard and show that I needed something. I had parked at the end of my driveway so I could get out easily and resolved the situation in my own mind. But I forwarded it to a friend, and she immediately replied and said, "Your answer is yes and have some hot chocolate ready for when he is done." I took her advice and let him come shovel the driveway that evening. He drank hot chocolate with me, and we got more time to talk and get to know each other. And it was the beginning of me letting down my guard.

On our first date, we met at the restaurant, but after that he started picking me up for our dates. He opened the truck door for me every time, and I would even wait for him to come around and open it when we were getting out. (He still opens the truck door for me, but I'm not as patient anymore in getting out of the truck.)

I always let him call me, and while I suggested a few date ideas and the occasional restaurant, he generally came up with the plans for our dates and we had (and still have) a lot of fun on all of them. There were other things where he took the initiative, and I pushed down the desire to assert my independence. Basically, I let him be the guy.

This doesn't mean I became someone I wasn't or let him control me. I just stayed away from my defense mechanism of asserting my independence and trying to take control of everything to try to avoid being hurt (which really doesn't work anyway). And honestly, those things weren't healthy on my part.

In return, he treated me better than I had ever expected from someone. He didn't play games with me. He called when he said he would call. He surprised me with thoughtful gestures and sometimes gifts. He was clear about how he felt about me and where we stood in our relationship. He took the lead in our relationship, and it gave me a picture of what he would be like as a husband and leader in a family.

A few months into our relationship, he told me that he really appreciated me letting him be the guy and giving him the chance to treat me the way he believed I should be treated. It gave him the confidence to lead because I wasn't second-guessing every decision.

But to dispel any thoughts that I came out seeming needy in all of this, J also told me that he was attracted to my independence from the beginning. He knew I could take care of myself, and it made it more of a privilege for him that I let him in my life and let him do things for me. He also said that he breathed a sigh of relief on our first date because he knew I would not be a needy girl that called him three times a day.

Of course, a couple of months ago I called him at least four times in two hours — in my defense, he didn't answer until the fourth time — because I didn't have any hot water. He kindly rushed over, and it was once he got here that I found a card that said my gas had been turned off because the company switched out my meter three days earlier. But it just goes to show that somewhere along the way I let down my guard and started relying on him.

Timing

I haven't written much about J and how we met. Mostly, I've wanted to protect our privacy and avoid the trail of the world wide web. But it has no doubt been a big part of my life for the last eight months, and it seems odd to have left it out of this blog, especially since it's how we even met. So I'm going to be filling in the blanks in some random posts over the next few months.

In case you missed it, I let my sister write about me on this blog to include on Kelly's Korner's Show Us Your Singles. J's cousin's wife clicked on the link on Kelly's blog and got in touch with me about J. She and I emailed back and forth, and then she gave my information to J. He emailed and then called, and eight days later we went on a date. I'm still in awe of how it all came about. But J and I were talking recently about how perfect the timing was.

J had left his full-time job as an engineer for a construction company in town to have the chance to go in a different direction career-wise. In the meantime, he was finishing building a house, and when I say building, I mean he built it all himself. I had been told all of this ahead of time, and on our date he explained his unhappiness in his previous job and his aspirations for what he wanted to do next. And these weren't just vague plans, he was taking a class and actively applying for jobs.

I had been back in Columbia for six months and had my dream job. Work consumed me, but I loved it. However, in the months before I left Charlottesville, I was miserable in my job. I wasn't passionate about what I did, and it really was just a job that I felt stuck in. There were times in my job hunt that I wanted to walk away from that job without something else lined up. I wasn't in a position to do that, but the thought crossed my mind. Fortunately, God had me waiting until this dream job became an option and brought me to Columbia.

So when we were on our first date, I got where he was coming from. I understood why he left his job, and I was impressed that he was in a position to do that. Two years earlier, I probably would have written him off because he didn't have a job, but when we met, the unemployed thing didn't bother me. And just as he finished his house, the right opportunity came along for him, and he has a great job that he's enjoying.

On the other side, J says one of the reasons he was attracted to me was because I was so passionate about my job. I can definitely get on a soapbox about what I do these days, and I know I did that on our first date. But it wasn't a turnoff for him. He wasn't intimidated by my job or resentful of the fact that I care so much about it that it often consumes me. Since he started his new job back in May, we've discovered that we have similar work habits, i.e. we are both admitted workaholics. But again, a year earlier, I couldn't have cared less about my job. It's not possible for me not to do a job well, but instead of talking about how much I love my job, I would have been whining about how much I hated it, which probably would have been a turnoff for J.

So God picked this exact time to bring us together. Obviously, a big part of the timing is also that I actually picked up and moved halfway across the country six months earlier. But it was more than coincidence. God had each of our hearts in the right place when we met.