The Summer without AC (AKA: The Sweatiest Summer of my Life)

I try not to complain. I have been blessed to live rent-free in a beautiful house this summer, I have a car that runs and gets me to and from the TWO jobs I am lucky to have. I was able to perform in an incredibly fun musical in Park City.

But. All of these awesome things have been happening during one of the HOTTEST summers on record here in good old Utah. We've been living with temperatures floating between 85 and 110 since June, and it's still cookin'. And as lucky as I am to have had a room and a car and jobs... I've been doing all of it without the luxury of Air Conditioning.... and I've never been stickier.

Phil's house, old, beautiful.... HOT. I'm on the second floor at the back of the house with an awesome window facing east- so my room cooks in the sun almost all day long. Two fans and lots of sleeping naked or nearly naked, or escaping to my mother's house, is how I've managed to survive.

My car. Good ol' Leo. A Lexus, a classic.... HOT. Leather seats, and a heating/ac system that shorts out if i push any of the buttons to turn on the fan. Driving around with windows down and wearing skirts/tank tops as much as possible when driving anywhere.

The OG. Steady income, great co-workers... HOT. The AC in our kitchen has been on the fritz since May. Apparently it's working and blowing air into the kitchen at 63*, but because it also cycles air from the ovens out and replaces it with air from outside in... the kitchen is consistently at a sweaty 80* or more. My glasses are always sliding down my nose and I have a perma-sheen on my face whether I'm working hard or not.

Its been... exhausting. And I have a hard time knowing when to shower anymore because if I shower before work I'm just going to get gross and sweaty at work, but once I come home I'm going to sweat in my bedroom even if I'm not doing anything, and if I shower between working at OG and driving to SLAC, I'm just going to get sweaty in my car on my drive.

I've learned to be oh so grateful for the the little things. Water-bottles, tower-fans, body-spray. I can't imagine having to live in a climate/location where Air-Conditioning isn't an option for anyone. But I know people do it, every day, all day, and they don't know the difference. It's why I've tried not to complain to much, because I realize even at my sweatiest, I can still go sit in a coffee-shop, or at a friends house, or even walk through the market, and cool off.

On the upside- I've found an apartment in Salt Lake and will be moving at the end of the month. It's a one-bedroom, basement apartment, with full AC, and it's darling. My boss at SLAC owns the house, and her son lives upstairs, so I have great neighbors/landlord. AND Buster can come live with me! Also, I'll be transferring to a different OG, most likely Sugar-house. Fingers crossed that their kitchen is not sweltering.... :P

let me give your heart a break...

i've been patching myself together for so long i don't think i even realized i was doing it.

and now that i'm working on focusing and fixing and growing

my band-aids are being pulled away and i'm still a little wounded underneath.

things aren't fully healed yet.

growing is hard.

What's in a name?

I follow a blog called the "This Is Me Challenge". I've mentioned them before, they give challenges for bloggers/scrapbookers to help tell the story of them. This week's challenge was:

WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND YOUR NAME?

Margaret: 

Derived from Latin Margarita, which was from Greek μαργαριτης (margarites) meaning "pearl", probably ultimately a borrowing from Sanskrit. Saint Margaret, the patron of expectant mothers, was martyred at Antioch in the 4th century. Later legends told of her escape from a dragon, with which she was often depicted in medieval art. The saint was popular during the Middle Ages, and her name has been widely used in the Christian world.

Saint Margaret of Antioch

I don't know if I've ever looked up the meaning/history of my name in that sense before. I love that it means 'pearl', and that Saint Margaret escaped from a dragon. That's pretty damn cool...

Really my name is a family name. My great-grandmother Goertzen was named Margaret.

 Grandma Goertzen was (i've been told, she passed before I was born) kind of a grumpy woman, and she was not a fan of my grandmother. In my great-grandmother's eyes, Nadine (my grandma) was the woman who stole her son away and converted him to 'that awful church'. My dad tells stories of his angry, not very-nice grandmother, and how she was always slightly rude to his mom. Which is so crazy to me, my grandma is THE most sweet wonderful person, I can't imagine not liking her.

Anyways. When my parents were expecting me they didn't know if I was a boy or girl, and had discussed a few different names. Because my due-date was Christmas Day they had thought of Nicholas, which was a name they obviously fell in love with since that is what they named my brother 4 years later. But when I arrived, and I wasn't a boy, they had to decide on a different name. I've been told I was named Margaret as sort of a peace-offering to my great-grandmother, and to keep the name in the family.
I like to joke that Great-Grandma Goertzen decided she would watch over this girl who was given her name and make her the rebel of the family- because... I kind of am.

I've gone through alot of nick-names. Very few people actually call me Margaret. And it's taken me a long time to actually love my full first name. I always felt that my full name (Margaret Elizabeth Goertzen) sounded like an old woman. But I've grown into it, I think. I like how traditional and beautiful it sounds all put together.
My mother wanted to call me Maggie from day 1, but they started calling me Meg first and that ended up sticking when they realized my initials spelled my nick-name. I went by Meg nearly my whole life, and a few years ago started going by Maggie and Love it.

I also am called Mags, Margie, Margarita, Magdalene (by Tia), Megert, Meggie... pretty much any variation on Margaret, Maggie, and Meg that you can think of. Except for Megan. Never call me Megan.

We are capable of finding, saying, feeling so much more.

cause really what's the point if we're just coasting on the surface?

This summer has been... strange.

I finally got my Lexus, named him "Leo" (because he is a classic, he has expensive tastes, and has never won any awards). Less than two months into our relationship Leo decided to develop some health issues and needed about $2600 in repairs. He was in the shop for about two weeks. I had two rental cars, one that I ended up crashing into a deer, and one that i managed to keep in one piece. Lesson being, I'm not allowed to have nice things. :P

Been living at Phil Lowe's house all summer, taking care of his cats and keeping the house secure. It's a sweaty existence, no AC in either my house or my car. This house is old. And stinky, the cats struggle with their bathroom manners. But it's a place to live. And he's kind enough to let me live rent free for the time being since I'm house-sitting while he's gone for the summer. I'm very ready to move to Salt Lake, however. Ogden is... exhausting. I have only a handful of friends up here anymore, and the people I'm closest to all live in SLC. I feel a little suspended in time (*cue xana-music*) up here. Like I'm just treading water and not getting anywhere. So I'm working lots, and trying to re-build my bank-accounts, and hopefully this fall I'll be a resident of the SLC and starting to feel some progress.

In the mean-time, I'm using this month as my re-focusing month. I've been journaling (you know, in a paper and pen kindof journal), and trying to get organized. I'm taking a look at some choices I've been making in my personal life and trying to stop selling myself short. Its not an easy process. Somewhere along the way I stopped believing that I deserved something fulfilling and real, and I've been putting on a smile and coasting casually through some things that are less than I deserve. I'm struggling to find a way to separate myself from those things and find the things inside myself that are healthier, more satisfying. It'll happen. Every day is a step forward and I'm adjusting little things. I want to lose some weight, I want to throw out some junk, I want to set a budget and stick to it, I want to tell people how I feel about them and be honest.  I want to stop playing silly high-school games and putting up with bullshit I don't deserve. I'm tired of coasting.

So I'm trying to put myself in gear.

we are capable of finding, saying, feeling

so much more.

living in flux

Saturday before last almost all of my belongings were wedged into a 5'x10' concrete room.
I had help from my incredible family and my awesome friend Chris, and it took all day but we did it.
And then I slowly started getting the rest of my things moved out, cleaning bit by bit.
Scrubbing away dust and dirt and memories, throwing out bottles of soda purchased solely as mixers.
Watching what had become my home become an empty shell of a house again.

Moving is hard enough. I've said before I don't do well with change.

Well, a midst the chaos and stress of moving, my trusty little Grey Lady of a car was running REALLY rough.
Took her in for a checkup, and she died on the table. Quite literally. Never again to be revived (not unless i had 3500 extra dollars lying around.)
My car got me through college at Weber. Got me to and from a million classes, rehearsals, auditions, dinner shifts, parties, bars, wedding receptions, good decisions and bad ones, lunch dates and coffee breaks.
And this weekend all it took was one signature to sign her away and that was that.
Im purchasing another used car from some family friends, and it all will be fine.
It's a 92 Lexus, older than my two younger siblings, and worth more than The Grey Lady was even before she moved on. And I'm paying less than I paid for my old car to begin with.
Though I did take out a small loan to facilitate it.

Hopefully the Lexus will be mine by wednesday or thursday. Sooner rather than later.
Because, in my car-less state, I've needed to continue camping at my mother's house so that I have mobility to and from work.
I'm grateful for her hospitality. And that we've been able to get everything done that we've needed to.
But I'm ready to be done moving.
I'm tired of camping and living in limbo.
It gets to a point where even concrete things feel out of place.
Working
and Friendships
and Lifestyles....

its exhausting.