we now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

hello, lovlies.

i know the last couple weeks have been maybe a little heavy. thanks to all of you for bearing with me while i reset my parameters, so to speak. since y'all've all been so patient with me, i'm going to reward you with some talk about chicken.

stop making that face.

in case you didn't see, about a week ago, i begged y'all to feed me and made a joke about the monkees/the beatles/the dave clark five that i think was lost on everyone (i'm looking at you, mom). my wonderful sister-in-law sent me a recipe for pork tacos that i haven't gotten a chance to try yet (i haven't been to the store since aforementioned begging), but it did remind me of how much i love shredded chicken anything. - it's in the crockpot at home right now and i can't wait to leave this library in seven hours and get home and eat it all. it also reminded me how easy tacos are. yay for chicken and tacos and chicken tacos! - this is really similar to spicy chicken, but much more low-maintenance.

it went something like this:

1. start with boneless, skinless chicken breasts. or, if you're less lazy than i am, don't.
2. cut all the nasty parts off the chicken (while your housemate sits at the table and asks, "what on earth are you doing?") - save these for stock. you can be as lazy as i am and still do this (more on that later. are y'all keeping track of everything i say "more on that later" about? will you send me a list?).
3. cut the chicken into (approximately) 2-inch "squares." make the pieces smaller. i'm not sure why i did this. i was quite tired yesterday. i think i was thinking something about increased surface area for the marinade? this is probably not a necessary step.
4. mix the marinade. we eyeball this step, everyone. maybe that's why it never tastes the same. it's about 2 parts lime juice (i think fresh-squeezed is best, but i know we're busy people and it's not like limes just grow on tr---okay, so maybe they do. but i like to save my fresh limes for margaritas. it's just a marinade it'll be real hard to tell the difference. it's not like we're making a lemon meringue pie or anything.) to 1 part olive oil, a whole lot of fresh ground black pepper (if you think you have enough, go a little longer), some onion powder, garlic powder (or smashed cloves - whatever's in the pantry), just a little bit of salt, and a heaping handful of cumin. whisk it all together. - if you have some tequila on hand, throw a little of that in, too. we didn't have any, which speaks to bigger issues in my house right now.
5. pour the marinade over the chicken.
6. put the chicken in the fridge. i left it overnight, but i guess that's not entirely necessary. if  you choose a time-frame shorter than overnight, skip to step 9.
7. go to bed.
8. wake up.
9. put the chicken in the crock pot on low. if you're not studying for comprehensive exams/writing final papers, leave the chicken for 6-8 hours, and skip to step 11.
10. go to the library and cry for 8 hours. try to get some work done. in the words of a sweet friend of mine, "you. got. this." and just remember, by the time you get done with this, your chicken will be ready to eat - yummy yummy!
11. transfer chicken to a bowl because you don't want to scratch your crockpot. using two forks, shred it up. it'll fall apart.
12. wrap it up in a tortilla and go to town. add some cheese if you want. maybe salsa. avocado (not you, mom). good gracious, i'm hungry. just know that this chicken in a tortilla (from HEB, if you're blessed enough to live in the lone star state) will make you plenty happy. it certainly does me, and i don't even have the good tortillas.
13. sit down, fat and happy, and go back to writing your papers. (again, if you're not writing comps papers, you can skip this step.)

i also like to use this chicken for quesadillas and enchiladas and sometimes i get a little fancier with my tacos, but if y'all haven't heard, i'm writing comps papers and probably don't actually have time to be telling you about my chicken.

my nose is going right back in a book (or PDF, as the case may be). right this second. stop talking to me. you're distracting me. spanish spanish spanish. that's how it goes, right?

have a wonderful week, my dears!

♡whit

a new perspective

i’ve spent a large portion of the last few years thinking about how happy i’ll be when whatever-the-next-milestone-in-my-life-is happens. first it was graduating college. then it was getting a ”real” job (one that wasn’t in a restaurant). then it was getting into grad school. then graduating grad school. the one that’s been hanging over my head through it all is finding that right person and getting married and having babies. watching my friends (and exes) do it has been less than easy. but you know, it’s been alright, because it’s nice to look forward to things, and thirty is the new twenty and eighty is the new fifty.

but holy hell. i‘m getting really tired of waiting for everything to be perfect for me to be happy. so i’m not going to wait anymore. i’m just going to be happy. i’m going to do what i need to do for me to be happy and as long as it’s not detrimental to anyone else, to hell with what the rest of them think.

i’d be lying like a cheap rug if i said that the fact that i just lost a friend at the old age of 31 had nothing to do with this new perspective. obviously the two are related, but i don’t think that makes this any less valid.

i’m horrible at change and i’m horrible at things not going according to plan, so the fact that my life is not what i planned when i was ten years old is not a thing i enjoy. but as several people have reminded me over the last few weeks, my life to this point, although it may have run way far  away from the original plan, has not been a waste. my experiences and my stories and my successes and my failures - although i would gladly unlearn some of the lessons they’ve taught me - have made me who i am and have put me where i am. and although hindsight is 20/20 and if i had known what i know now i would have likely made some different decisions, in the majority of cases, i made the best decision i could at the time.

i am here now. i can’t undo things. there are no do-overs, just do-betters. so today i choose my own happiness. today i quit caring what that looks like to the rest of the world. today i quit caring about what i “ought” to do. today i quit worrying about when my life will happen and when all these other things will happen that will make me happy. today i choose to release all the ghosts of my past that have been dragging me down, always reminding me of the things that didn’t work out the way i wanted them to or thought they should or hoped they would. today i choose to embrace where i am. today i choose me, and today i choose to be happy.

the South is like Christmas. (or, the post to annoy all yankees)

weird title for march? maybe. humor me.

i love yankees. well, that's not entirely true. as a group, that great lakes vowel shift they do drives me batty. i'm fairly certain my ears start to bleed a little when i hear it. but there are some yankees (vowel shift or not) that i just love to pieces. my daddy, for example, and my sweet aunt loie (who i've decided is actually a southerner at heart - whether or not she knows it). there are lots of other yankees who hold a special place in my heart. if you're a yankee who reads this whole post, rest assured, you're on that list.

i follow country outfitter on facebook. it's allegedly a clothing ... company. or something. much more frequently than they post about clothes, they post things about country music, southern traditions, things your meemaw (or in my case, grannaw) taught you...not a lot of clothes. they seem to post the same things over. and over. and over. i'm not complaining. maybe i am a little. but that's not why i brought it up.

yesterday they posted (or i saw it for the first time yesterday) this little article entitled "25 Ways to Keep Southern Charm in Your Life No Matter Where You Live." y'all know how i feel about southern charm and southern traditions and how i'm a little bit losing my mind in this part of florida that should be more southern than it is. if i've said it once, i've said it a million times: i'm living in the north-florida (south-georgia) equivalent of austin. (if you don't get that analogy (metaphor?)...bless your heart.) in this article, they recommend things you can do in whatever part of the world your life has landed you in to have a little bit of dixie in your life. they're generally very good suggestions - keep a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge, for instance. come on. that's just smart, southern or not. they suggest making one night a week "comfort food night" (i don't remember exactly what they call it) and have fried pork chops and greens and a stick of butter. also a great idea - okay, maybe not the butter part, but the rest. i would posit, though, that these are things that southerners do without having to be told. and we don't do it because we need some more south in our lives, we do it because it's part of who we are. something deep in our souls calls out for front porch swings and sweet tea and fried food. it's this thought that has motivated the thesis of today's post:

Southern is not a thing you do, it's who you are.

we say "y'all." a lot. but not because, as the article suggests, it's charming (although i think we can all agree that it is). we say it because how else would you possibly refer to a group of 2-5 people? and we say "all y'all" because how else would you refer to a group of 6 or more? we take it with us when we move to other parts of the country (occasionally by accident or against our will) because what else would we do? would you expect a bostonian to move down south and stop sounding like this? didn't think so.

i could continue and explain why i don´t quite agree with every single point of this post, but y'all are smart folks and i imagine you probably get it. which brings me back to the title. people always talk about the "Christmas spirit" - Christmas isn't about the presents or the date roll cookies or the wreaths we hang on our doors. it's about giving and being kind to people and that little kid who just wants to get shoes for his mom (i'm sorry. that was sneaky and terrible i shouldn't have done it.). i think being Southern is very much the same. sure, we're (by and large) a sweeter population than the rest of the country, and we're not afraid to tell you, but when we tell you, it's not because we need to brag on ourselves. it's because we want you to know that when you're in trouble, when you need someone to help you change your tire on the side of the road or jimmy the door on your car when you locked your keys inside or help you find your wallet when you lost it or offer you some sweet tea when you come over to help us fix something at our house, we're likely the ones to do it.

Southern isn't what we do. it's who we are.

y'all have a great weekend. ♡whit

help! i need somebody!

that title was specifically for my mother. she sure loves those monkees.

but really, y'all, i need some help. we (my roommate and i - we're like our own little family) are in the middle of what is, without a doubt, the most difficult season of our post-graduate careers to date - welcome to comps season! in ten short days, we'll have to turn in our final papers. you know. the ones that determine whether or not we get degrees. we are both losing our minds. or we've already lost them. i'm not entirely sure. we're tired and cranky and sleep-deprived and strung out on caffeine and on the verge of tears or hysterical laughter (or both) during every. single. second. but we're also ravenously hungry. in what is probably not the healthiest decision we could ever made, we've decided to eat our stress. the absolute junk we've been putting in our bodies the last couple weeks has got to stop. i can't speak for the roommate here, but it's making me feel like 

this is where y'all come in.

a couple years ago, i started "the crockpot chronicles." it was (i think?) a pretty big hit, at least for my little readership. what i'm asking (begging?) of y'all is this: we need food. to eat. that doesn't make us feel miserable. and that doesn't require, like, any time to prepare. i'm thinking crockpot recipes will be the best for this last qualification.

successful candidates will meet the following qualifications (i'm also in the middle of a job search; can you tell?):

- almost zero prep time. dump and go is key here.

- relatively inexpensive ingredients. did i mention we're grad students? bonus points if i already have it in my fridge - ha! if y'all saw the fridge, you'd know why that's funny.

- quality(ish) food. we're hoping for something a little more substantial than potatoes and cheese and pasta. although we are fans of all of those foods.

- yummy. i don't think i need to explain this to y'all.

these four criteria have been listed in order of importance. we're counting on y'all! i know they tell you at the zoo not to feed the animals, but please, please feed the grad students! comment with your favorite easy recipes or links to them - please, thanks, we promise to make you some cookies! (well, i'm the only one who promises that last part.)

at some point after this semester is over, i'll post about our favorite recipes from you sweet people. and hopefully, i'll be signing off with a couple letters behind my name. (but only for a little bit, i don't want to be that girl.)

oh - i almost forgot. i know that song's not by the monkees. y'all calm down. i'm a huge fan of the dave clark five. ;-)

♡whit

it's been a week.*

*this should be read as, "good gracious, it has been quite a week," not as, "seven days have passed."

take a second (or a minute) and breathe. we've made it to saturday. tomorrow will be sunday, and those of us in the states will move to a new row on the calendar. if y'all will indulge me, i'm going to wax philosophical for a minute.

the passage of time is a funny thing, and the way my view of it has changed throughout my life is even funnier. when we're kids, we can't wait to grow up (cliche, i know), and when we get there (although i still have a hard time considering myself a grownup), we seem to want it to slow down. i've had less of that desire for a slow-down lately (that's a story for another day), but i get it. but after this week, i'm glad that time, in the immortal words of the great tracy lawrence, marches on. i'm ready for this week to behind me. i'm glad we get to move to a new row on the calendar and that - symbolically, if in no other way - we get to start over. obviously the things that happened last week won't cease to be part of the landscape that makes up my life and who i am, and please believe that i'm not at all saying i'm "over it," but in front of me is a brand new week, and i'm incredibly ... relieved.

monday was the worst day i've had in a really long time, for obvious reasons. tuesday was weirdly okay. even though there had been a huge change, i woke up tuesday, the sun came up, people went to work, i went to class, and time marched on. wednesday was another story entirely. my alarm went off really early because i still had lots to do to prepare for the day that i hadn't done on monday or tuesday. i hit the snooze button until the last possible minute. even at that last possible minute, i thought about emailing my professor to tell her i wouldn't be in class and knocking on my roommate's door to ask him to sub my classes for me so i could stay at home in bed all day being sad.

i thought about shawn telling me not to be an idiot.

i got up and went about my day. it worked. until about 9:45. everything fell apart while i was sitting in class. when it (the class, not my falling apart) ended, i headed to teach. crying my way across campus like a champ, i called my roommate and told him i didn't know how i was going to teach. in true rockstar fashion, without my having to ask, he told me he'd be there in ten minutes to relieve me. i won't bore you all with the details, but the rest of the day was equally non-productive. thursday and friday were equally gloomy, but i managed to do what needed to be done, in what my mother would call true croxton-woman fashion. (she likes to remind me that we're a special breed, and i love to hear about it. more on that another day, too.)

at several points throughout the week, i looked around hating everyone i saw for not being as sad and angry as i was. but more frequently than that, i looked around at my friends and thanked the good Lord that he gave me people who - although they may not share in my grief - check on me and take care of me and provide me love and support and kind words when i can't just jump in the car and drive to my mom's house and snuggle up with her and let her hold me while i sob.

two more days have passed - and quickly - between that last paragraph and this one. and they've given me a bit more perspective. i got to talk to my good friend last night - the one who's dealing with the same thing i'm dealing with, but more acutely. i had just wanted to check in and see if there were any updates, any new information, but what came out of our conversation was so much better. we talked for close to an hour. we covered a lot of ground. but the most beautiful thing to me was that he expressed the things that have been coming to my mind all week that i've been afraid to put to words. the feelings that i've been feeling guilty for having? he's having the same ones. i'll spare you all the journey into my psyche that would bore and disturb you, but i will say this: i'm glad i have a friend with whom i share (at least part of) a brain. knowing that he's on the same page as i am during this turbulence is so beyond reassuring, and he, too, is a part of my heart.

i'll close with this: i'm incredibly grateful for the ways that so many of you have loved me so well through this last week, in big gestures and small - please know that to me, they've all been huge. a big hug from me to all of you.

♡whit

not how i expected my monday to go.

i started a post last night about how, in spite of the fact that i'm feeling incredibly overwhelmed by life these days, i'm also - somehow - feeling pretty optimistic about it. (it definitely didn't hurt that i'm coming off of two awesome weekends in a row with some wonderful people.) i reflected for a while on how blessed i am to have such fantastic folks in my life - people who have seen me at my best and seen me at my worst and loved me through it all. people who have refused to judge me or leave me when i've made it so fantastically easy. i waited until the friend that visited me this weekend let me know that he had safely arrived at his destination, by which time i was pretty tired, so i hit save and went off to dreamland, full of plans for this week to grab life by the proverbial horns, and set myself down to do some serious work and get things accomplished.

this morning got off to a great start - woke up early. did some reading for my classes. got caught up on emails from students. went to school. listened in class. taught my kiddos (and they actually seemed engaged!). solved some problems during office hours - was almost considering the horns officially grabbed.

i checked my phone. saw that i had a message from the friend who had just left yesterday. i assumed it was going to be about what an awesome time he was having on the second leg of his vacation.

i was wrong.

our dear, dear friend had passed away. this morning. out of the blue. at the ripe old age of 31. as i'm sure you can imagine, i didn't get the joke. i mean. these guys have a weird sense of humor, but this was a bit much, even for them. i called to tell my friend that i wasn't amused. when he answered the phone, he sounded almost normal enough for me to believe that he was going to explain the joke and why it was funny, and i would not laugh, and i would call him a nasty name and promise to punch him really hard the next time i saw him.

almost.

the whole conversation lasted less than ten minutes, during which i demanded twice that he tell me he was kidding.

he didn't.

my heart sank.

i've had eight hours to process. for the first three, i compulsively checked facebook (i guess this is what my generation does when we grieve), and there was nothing. somehow, i held onto hope that if no one was talking about it, maybe it didn't really happen; maybe there had been some insane misunderstanding. it's really unclear what happened, which i think is making this that much to accept. and then my incessant refreshing paid off in the worst sort of way. my sweet friend posted some beautiful, eloquent, heart-wrenching words. and just like that, it was out there in the universe and was officially true.

the following is a list of things i love about shawn.

he's funny. and quirky. and sarcastic (it's no wonder we hit it off when patrick introduced us). he's unbelievably stubborn. he's an incredible judge of character, although this drove me crazy when he judged the character of a guy i chose to date. it took me almost a year to realize it, but shawn was right from the beginning. the most aggravating part of that particular situation was that he thought it more important to tell me what he saw than let me continue on unwarned. (i did continue, because i match him in stubborn-ness.) when i finally got on the same page, you bet your boots he said "i told you so." but he only said it once, and then we didn't talk about it anymore. he does love being right, though, so i'm sure if i had ever admitted to him that he was right about anything even marginally more trivial, he'd never let me live it down. he lets me call him "shawnathan" because i think it's funny, even though i'm fairly certain he hates it. he's beautifully generous - with his resources, sure, but more importantly, with his time and his talents. i think patrick said it best today: if you're in shawn's inner circle, there's nothing he won't do for you.

i could continue, and in the coming weeks, i likely will. for now, i'm going to leave it at this: my friend is gone, and i'm very sad. i'm sad for me, and i'm sad for him, and i'm sad for everyone who loves him. my friend is gone, and my heart hurts, and i am very sad.

love you, shawnathan, and miss you terribly.