Flashback to the California Zephyr*

November 26 - December 11

The Facts

In my previous post, I forgot to mention that we biked to Indiana via the pedestrian bridge.

There's a sign near the bridge that advertises it as a great "date night" option. I mean, it is a nice bridge.

I've talked to several lifelong Louisville residents who told me they were tired of the cold and wanted to move somewhere warmer. Somewhere warmer! My response was something like, "Are you serious? This is our somewhere warmer!" Perspective, man.

Not sure how many of you are big video game people, but I tried "Undertale" and gave up after a couple days. I wanted to like it-- I really did, but I'm a quitter. And I'm not ashamed of that in this particular instance.

On one of our bike rides, we visited The Louisville Game Shop and bought Hanabi which we were introduced to during our visit to Cincinnati. We also stopped at two different book stores-- neither of which I can remember the name of. I did buy a few books though. I can never pass up a Francine Rivers book when I find one. This time it was a copy of her most well-known book, Redeeming Love. I've had at least three copies of this book pass through my hands (I buy them to give away because they're so stinking great), but this is the earliest printing I've come across. That doesn't mean much since it's not a literary classic or worth lots of money or anything, but it's a little piece of history (albeit relatively recent history) on my bookshelf. I'm sometimes embarrassed to confess my love of Francine Rivers since she primarily writes romance, but her books make biblical stories come alive for me and her characters are people worth emulating. Also, I've finally given up on trying to read Gilead. Sorry, Mr. Eleveld. 

I tried. I really tried. Several times. It's over. I've tortured myself long enough. I mentioned I'm a quitter, right?

New places we checked out during this time include The Cafe, two different Quills Coffee shops, the Louisville Visitor Center, Work the Metal, and Mall St. Matthews. Back home (my Joliet, Illinois home), I loved to eat food court Chinese food, but didn't particularly enjoy the likely possibility of running into random high school acquaintances. It was fun to get sub-par Chinese food (which I often prefer to the high quality stuff 😂) and remain anonymous!

Something Joey and I have noticed during most of our interactions with locals is that even though the accent isn't dramatically different, we have a really hard time understanding people. Usually, it's just one word that trips us up, but it's enough that we have to ask people to repeat themselves. I wasn't expecting this.

I started my job! I am a Life Guidance Resident Service Assistant. In other words, I'm a caregiver for people with Dementia and it's what I anticipated I'd be doing while in Kentucky. Although this isn't my first time in personal care, I experienced something new this week-- I stepped in human poop. Aren't you glad you read this blog?

The Feelings

Even though Joey is still not as busy as I thought he'd be at this point, I officially got the first stressed out text from him last week. It's not fun to be on the receiving end of those. There's not much I can do to help.

When we first got married and moved away those 900 years ago, I remember being disappointed. My expectations for what I thought life would be like as young newlyweds weren't met. I don't think I could even explain my expectations for it-- it just didn't feel right. What we're experiencing now-- moving to a new city with only each other for company-- this feels like what I was expecting then. What I'm really trying to say is: we're enjoying time together exploring the city and chillin' in our apartment. We're having fun. It's literally the same situation we were in before, but this time way better somehow. 

Lisa, our summer travel pal, little free library crusader, and lover of snail mail, coffee, and cats, made a connection for me that helped me understand why I feel far more at ease socially than ever before in new experiences. When we took our cross country train* trip this summer, Joey and I marveled over how easy-- and surprisingly fun-- it was to talk to strangers on the journey. Conversation starters are built in on the Amtrak. "Where are you going? When did you get on? Have you done this before? Where are you from originally? How's it feel to be roughing it in coach while we kick back in our lavish roomette?"
Additionally, there's something kind of freeing about not having a clear conclusion for this time of our lives. Obviously on a train, there's an end destination, but you're basically just along for the ride and there's not much else to do except enjoy it. I'm sure it also helps that I'm the least stressed out I've been in years making it easy for me to feel comfortable in my own skin. And playing on repeat in the back of my mind is Joey's voice saying, "It's only awkward if you make it awkward." 

The Requests

There's been a bit of headbutting about prioritizing which churches to visit, but I'm trying really hard to default to going about it Joey's way this time. We've got a lot of potentially great churches to check out. Pray specifically that we'd be able to discuss our visits to these churches without getting defensive and that we'd be careful with our priorities.

This is what happens when we do things Joey's way. We sit as close to the stage as possible. We weren't even late.

A word from Joey: "That church had an overflow room downstairs displaying a live feed of the service upstairs! We sat upstairs."