Lynette Bishop Snell

Moving June 16, 2006

One week ago today I moved my entire life:  household, pets, children, husband, into a new home, in a new state.  We left everything we knew, loved, and treasured in Florida in order to pursue an opportunity of a lifetime. 

I have met neighbors, have been to 1 party and invited to 2 others already. 

Funny…I still feel a bit empty.  I know that feeling will ebb over time.  However, I don’t believe it will ever go away completely.  I hope it doesn’t.  I don’t want to forget anyone who meant so much to me in my “old life.”

My one major consolation is that I was very happy with myself before we moved.  I felt certain that my identity would not change when we moved.  That my identity was not linked to Florida and everything in my life there.  But I wasn’t 100% sure.  Now that I’m here, I realize that it is true. 

My identity is linked to me.

Wherever I go, it goes along.  While I may change over time, I know that who I am will now, and hopefully forever, be rooted in my soul.  I am amazed at the freedom this gives me.  I can go anywhere, do anything, meet anyone. 

Before we walked out of our home in Florida for the last time, I sobbed as I walked through each room…remembering.  But when that door closed, that part of my life closed too and I moved on. 

I will forever have wonderful friends…lifetime friends…to return to.  I anticipate many years of making memories ahead of us.  I miss them and their ready availability to answer my call, run to Costco for lunch, go shopping for shoes, or simply chat.  But even though the physical link of closeness has been severed, I am not dwindling to nothingness.

Their presence in my life has only enriched my soul and who I am.  So in essence, I look forward to more enriching opportunities, while missing my old friends with all my heart.

Some friends do not understand this.  I can only say to them that perhaps they are not so secure yet in who they are to know that their identity is not tied to any one person.  This seems self-assured and somewhat cocky.  I don’t mean it to be but it is the only way I can think of to explain why the move has not devastated me.

I am saddened by it, a bit lonely right now, and experiencing minor regrets.  But I am embracing the untold opportunities facing me.  And who knows?  One day I might move again and then where will I be? 

Right where I am now.  With me.

SOLD! May 18, 2006

Well, at the very least we have a solid contract on our house.  We bought a house up north and now we are preparing to move.  Hard to believe but once we listed our house with an agent, it sold in less than 10 days.  And our market is exceptionally weird right now.  We are very lucky to be moving out of Florida to a state that isn’t like Florida at all.  Because right now in Florida it is an unrealistic market.  So many houses have inflated prices.  Last year, things were selling for close to a million bucks that a mere 18 months earlier would have sold for half that price (or less).  It’s weird and no one has really given a good explanation for why it happened.  Then everyone in Florida got greedy (hard to blame anyone) and started slapping their homes up for sale.  Where before there were a few out of control priced homes on the market, now there is a glut of out of control priced homes for sale.  We are really blessed to have sold our home so quickly.

I can’t fathom how people are surviving buying houses that are so expensive when they are coming in from other states where the market is, well, normal.  Our friends from Dallas were in total sticker shock when they moved back here.  They had no idea the prices had so drastically increased in the 3 years since they moved.  They’re used to it now and are hoping their contract finalizes in a week or so and then they too will be moving out of limbo-land into happy land.

If all goes well, we will be settled in our new home before Father’s Day.  Here’s a picture of our new place.  Now that we’ve sold our house, I’m really starting to get a bit excited. 

The people who bought our house here are also fantastic and it is just amazing to me that no matter how much I screw up as a believer, no matter how little I seek God’s direction in my life, no matter how much I think I can take care of business on my own, God just keeps on working and doing His thing.  I’m just this bystander, or better yet, hanger on. I have this image in my mind of a Very Large Man playing chess, moving pieces accordingly, and winning every time.  I’m a spec of dust on one of those pieces.  And all I can see is the little square that my piece is sitting upon.  Good thing God sees it all.  I’d never make it out of square one if things were truly left up to me.

And in the meantime, our house is sold.

Long Ago and Far Away…

Once I used to sit here writing and posting happily to my blog.  Then something happened.  When I sat down to post my latest entry several weeks ago, my program kept denying me permission to post to my own website!  How rude.  I kept asking my husband to fix it and there was never a time when he wasn’t doing something else (being CTO of his company, working on the house in an effort to sell it, traveling).

This morning I tried to post again, just for the heck of it.  No dice.  So I went to my webpage (which I had done previously) and tried to edit a post (which I had not done previously).  I thought, perhaps I can sneak in through a back door and post this way.  I got an error message which stated simply “Your database is out of date.  Please update by clicking here.”  I clicked.  It updated.  I posted.

So that is the truth and I’m just sad to say I didn’t figure this out sooner.

Now I can post again and hopefully stay on top of it!

The Story of My Day, Ver. 1.3 October 18, 2005

OK, third time’s the charm.  I have attempted to type this blog and include a nifty graphic twice already.  The nifty graphic messed up the entire posting both times.  I am burning that graphic and never using it again.  It’s appropriate really, for the words in the graphic are what set me off today.

I just began a blog entry regarding the frustration of my day with all things technology-related.  And what should happen in the midst of writing the post?  The software crashed.  This is the story of my day.

It began, actually, yesterday when I was searching for the most cost effective options for travel and lodging for the Glorieta Christian Writer’s Conference next week.  I utilized every possible search engine known to man.  Priceline, Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com, Hotwire, and then I searched individual hotel and airline sites.  I was so confused by this morning that I didn’t know if I was flying to Santa Fe for a conference or going to Vegas for a weekend trip.

The sluggishness of my wireless network did not help matters.  I sat for interminable amounts of time, waiting for pages to finish loading that never did.  I hit the reload button so many times on my browser that when it eventually caught up with my clicking, I was so far from where I wanted to be that I would have to start all over again.  It did not make me happy.  At all.  In fact, I was quite ready to hurl my precious Macintosh out of the window.  This insult was acute.  Mac’s just don’t generally behave in such an unruly manner.  But mine did. 

In an effort for diplomacy, I started afresh this morning.  I plugged my laptop directly into the hub with an ethernet cord and that seemed to alleviate some of my network issues.  Those issues aside, I started my search for stellar savings at top hotels and airlines via the internet.  In the process, I made a startling discovery.  All those sweet package deals that cause outbursts of “Wow!  I’m getting this trip for a steal!” are bait for the real hook, which is a message that pops up after you hit “purchase.”  The  message reads something to the effect of this (here is where the graphic was supposed to go, but you’ll have to ignite your imaginations and dream it up on your own):

‘YOUR PRICE HAS CHANGED.  We’re sorry, the price of this package has changed from $344.60 to $402.90 since you chose it.”

What?  I must have chosen twenty different packages on both Expedia and Orbitz and gotten the same sort of notice.  I do not understand how they can advertise one package, you click on it to purchase, and then receive this warning of price increases.  How fast can airline tickets and hotel rooms and rental car prices go up?  In the blink of an eye?  I began to think these companies program some sort of automatic price increase into the action of “click here to purchase.”

Once I finally got over my shock and admitted defeat to the greater economic giants, I clicked there to purchase and was hit with yet another warning.

“This flight does not qualify for e-tickets.  You must receive paper tickets via mail.  Please choose an option below:
a. Fedex overnight- $24.99
b.  Fedex standard – $21.99″

That was it!  Those were my only choices.  Now I know how they get you to buy into the whole “buy as a package and save $200!” line.  You may actually save that money on the ticket prices, but you will pay through the nose to the agent handling the transactions. 

But again, what was I to do?  I had learned all this too late.  Next time, however, I will be armed with the knowledge that these packages are not what they seem and if you simply ignore the man behind the curtain, you, too will be taken to out to lunch and relieved of all your change as you are nickeled and dimed to death.

So perhaps you can understand my true frustrations with this day. Now it is 2:03 p.m. EST.  I was supposed to be at my son’s school three minutes ago to help with Writing Process.  Am I there yet?  No.  Why? you may be brave enough to ask?

My AC went out last night.  I made a service request and was informed the tech would be here around 12:30.  I was here at 12:25.  By 1:30, I called to find out why my 12:30 tech had never shown.  The explanation?  “Oh you shouldn’t have been told 12:30.  He was still at his other job and wasn’t finished then. “  He pulled in my driveway as I was hanging up the phone with the AC company.

So now I sit and wait while this man tromps through  my attic and outside the house trying to figure out why my ac unit has no power.  Fortunately, it is October, glorious October in Florida and I am enjoying cool temps and humidity free afternoons. 

That helps my mood some.  I’m still missing my son’s class.  And my teeth hurt from clenching them so much.

At least I got through ver. 1.3 of my day without having to abort and begin 1.4. 

UPDATE:  We have a “service contract” with our AC company.  Guess what that gets us?  After paying $190/year, we get to pay $114 for a housecall.  Yep, I do believe I need to see the dentist about a teeth guard.  My teeth will be ground to nubs before this day ends.

Not-So-Happy Pills July 1, 2005

I’m going thru the change. Not THAT one. The one where I am switching from Paxil CR to St. John’s Wort. I used to call Paxil my happy pills. Now I’m thinking that that is a misnomer.

I wouldn’t describe what I’m feeling as “happiness.” It’s more pure, raw, unfiltered life. Colors are more vivid. Emotions are on the edge…constantly hovering and waiting to pounce upon any innocent travelers who stray near them. And then there is music.

Music. Has there been such an outlet for emotions as music? Not for me. I cry so easily these days when I hear any songs. Just a word is all it may take. I don’t remember feeling music so acutely before when I was on the happy pills. Is it possible that Paxil was masking my emotions? In order to keep me stable, I think the medicine was blocking out everything: good, bad and indifferent. I wasn’t too happy, I wasn’t too sad, I wasn’t too angry, I wasn’t too anything.

Once I’d been off of Paxil for about 2 weeks (I was weaning myself), Tracy said to me one day, “I hear more life in your voice when I talk to you than I have in so long I can’t remember.”

So what’s so happy about a pill that doesn’t let me feel emotions? I haven’t cried at movies, sappy stories, TV shows, books, in years. At first the flood of emotional freedom almost consumed me. I could not handle or process all that was going through my head.

But with time and patience, I began to feel like I was coming out from underneath the water and into fresh air. I still feel so many raw emotions that at times I feel threatened. But mostly I am beginning to enjoy the ups and downs. I want the distance to be a bit less extreme than it is now, but i hope the gap does not ever close completely, like it seemed to have with Paxil. I’m not sure why I never noticed it. I was so happy to just be even I guess that I didn’t worry about feeling.

But back to Music. I have realized that I have not fully enjoyed music in too long. I love the sweeping emotions that flow through me with different songs, voices, instruments.

I have also begun singing at church with the Praise Team. I am NOT a wonderful singer. I can, however, carry a tune which makes things a bit better for me than others. I feel the music we sing so thoroughly that I want to shout out…”don’t you feel it? isn’t it wonderful?!!!?”

I just can’t get enough music. Everywhere I go I must have music. Perhaps this IS how I am processing my emotions. Music IS my outlet. Whether I am singing, listening or playing…I am FEELING!

And also for the first time in years, I have something to write about! I have the desire to write and now I have the catalyst. The “change” is doing more than just switching my medication. It is helping me change.

And I just might sing a little music along the way!