leaving, in the happy honda

All my bags are packed. (Well minus my blow dryer)

I'm ready to go. (Ok, I guess I probably should vacuum)

I'm standing here outside my door. (It's freezing! And you wonder why I'm moving south)

I hate to wake you up Wisconsin to say goodbye. (Because I realize after a Packer win, even in the pre-season, on Monday you could still be hungover)

But the Chicago traffic, it could be sheer torture

The Illinois drivers are waiting, they're blowing their horns,

Already, I'm so lonesome (only for the Spotted Cow, Von Stiehl wine and cheese curds) I could die.

So kiss me (no beer breath please)

And smile for me

Tell me that you'll wait for me (with a glass of Leinie's in hand)

Hold me like you'll never let me go (except at 1:30 p.m. you really must let me go. Southern Charmer's orders)

Cause I'm leavin

In the Happy Honda

Don't know when I'll be back again (perhaps when my Wisconsin wine supply runs)

Oh Wisconsin, I really am ridiculously excited to go....

Things I have discovered...

while packing up my life. A week from today it's goodbye cheese curds and beer, hello....

Well. I hope somewhere in Alabama there's still cheese curds and beer.

1. Our apartment is infested with spiders. Little ones, big ones, brown ones, black ones, even lime green ones. And they are scary.

2. Boxes attack. I mean, how else can I explain all these strange bruises? Surely I didn't run into them myself. I'm much more coordinated than that. (And for some reason, the boxes are only multiplying. Where did all this stuff come from?!)

3. No one needs that much mustard. And I mean no one.

4. Fievel has been sleeping in our storage closet for I'm not sure how many months. Last time I checked rent payments are not accepted in the form of mouse poop. Pay up my little rodent friend.

5. I still don't know if I'm entirely prepared to wake up to this every morning...

Dum dum da dum...

There in my mailbox, it sat.

The yellow letter. A shade of sunshine that would be classified cruel and unusual punishment if manufactured into a bridesmaid dress, but apparently the perfect hue to be obnoxious enough to make busy brides open it asap.

"Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that your bridal gown has been received by our store!"

Excuse me while I squeal.

Now, if only I was moving to Minnesota so I could try it on every other day.

Two weeks from today, the moving trucks will have pulled away. The Happy Honda will be in drive (what will no doubt feel like perpetual drive, oh 10-hour drive how I don't look forward to you). And the Wisconsin chapter of my life, in all its glory of fried cheese and beer, will be closed.

I really hope you can get mozzarella sticks at the grocery store in Alabama. Otherwise I may need to cancel those movers.

I'm really not kidding. 

Amy's guide to churching it alone

In honor of my last two weekends churching it alone, I give you my February 2008 post on the single girl's guide to putting some class in attending mass...

You would think, of all the places to be single, church would be the most friendly.

For as long as I can remember, mass has been a group activity. From birth til I was 18, Mom & Pop Guckeen and I settled into a pew smack dab in the middle of St. Anne's church. Always on the right side. God forbid we'd switch it up and sit on the left. Our seating arrangements rarely varied. Me, Mom, then Dad. Unless of course I was playing that mass. It probably would've been a bit hard to play piano from that far back.

At Marquette it was much of the same, my usual spots switching depending upon whether I was cantoring, playing, or singing with the choir. The only time I sat in a pew was when I was doing soundcheck.

Pews are hard. I didn't like it very much.

So imagine my surprise when June rolled around and there I was. Alone and in Milwaukee. In a pew. (Well technically a chair, the cathedral doesn't have pews). Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. All by myself. My right hand shaking my left at the Sign of Peace. 

Okay. Perhaps that's an exaggeration. But in my 9 months of going it alone, I believe I have established the official rulebook on how to church it alone. 

5. Choose your seat wisely. There's nothing worse than feeling like the smelly kid at the Sign of Peace, unless of course, you are smelly. Then you deserve it. Don't sit somewhere where you'll need some sort of extendable arm just to shake hands. I've heard they're expensive and hard to come by. 

4. Always put money in the collection. Even if it's just 50 cents. You likely spent at least 10 times that at the bar last night. You must thank the house of the man who turned water into wine. And we're talking classy wine with a cork. Not something that comes in a box. 

3. When in doubt, just sing really really really loud. 

2. Never sit on the outside end of an otherwise empty pew, obstructing all other potential traffic in and out of the pew. You are single. You have your own space in just about every other social situation. That doesn't entitle you to your own pew. You're bound to get at least one parent, no doubt envious of all the extra room your butt is enjoying compared to their cramped slab of wood with six kids under the age of 5, that will despise you purely based on all that excess space. And they will not intervene when their child decides to start throwing their ever so pointy G.I. Joes at you.

1. It is never okay to check someone out when they're coming back from communion. They are in the process of digesting the Body of Christ. Going up for communion, that's another story.

The times, they are a-changin'

My favorite imagination game as a child was house.

Well. Maybe it was Miss America. But for the purpose of this entry, we’ll pretend it was house.

My 15 children and I had it made. In my little head, I was, of course, married to some hunky Baywatch star (perhaps the root of my problems lies in my pre-adolescent passion for all things David Hasselhoff) and the biggest concern I had to deal with was making sure all the babies were fed and diapered at 1:15 p.m. sharp. Even then I liked things to go according to schedule, according to plan.

I resigned from my job today. And the heart of the reason lies in the fact that I’m not just playing house anymore. I’m living it.

Or I was at least until employment cruelly ripped my fiancé out of my arms and into the state of Alabama. Now I’m living some strange version of house that 6-year-old Amy likely could not have wrapped her brain around.

Things are so not going according to plan.

There are reasons beyond Seth of course, as to why I volunteered myself to join the league of the unemployed. Don’t think I’m one of those girls giving it all up for the sake of some man. But for all intensive purposes, those reasons became a bit harder to deal with when the only other person wishing me good night in person day in and day out was Hannaford the Honey Bunny.

Although my mom, for the record, has been pretty fabulous from afar in helping me keep it all together.

So off I go into the great blue, or should I say Southern, yonder.

I’m saying goodbye not just to friends, co-workers and mentors – I’m also bidding farewell to my alma mater, where my education didn’t just grow, but my faith and sense of self did as well. Gone will be the city lights and traffic jams, replaced with Sundays spent on the front porch and visits from Petey the Peacock.

I kid you not.

I could not be more excited, more energized by this monumental change about to take place. Although sometimes I think I've taken my original goal of getting the heck out of Minnesota just a little bit too far.

Although as the Happy Honda steers over the state line come August 31, I may just wet my pants a little.

And oh yeah. I’m unemployed now... well, as of August 27. So what else will I have to do but blog?