I feel like I'm going to need to start a "Hurricane 2005" category on the site before all is said and done.
I don't have a lot of information on this, but my dad just called to say that he heard from Aunt Barbara Jackson in Louisiana. Aunt Barb's husband, Steve Jackson, is a Louisiana State Police Officer, and has just been called up to go to New Orleans and help with the evacuation and crowd control in what is an increasingly tense situation. Please pray for his safety there and for the Jackson family, since I know they will be anxious for him while he is gone.
I've talked to Mom and Dad a few times since the storm and although they aren't likely to have power for a while and don't have water service either, they are doing well overall. Keep praying for everyone there.

Information is online about the status of Desire Street Ministries. There is information on how to send money and what their prayer requests are at this time. Me, I'm glad to have a list ... it's just so overwhelming.

These are the first words that Dan said to me on Wednesday morning, after he had been out of town for three days. He had been traveling until late Tuesday night, and when he got in, I was already asleep. So when I rolled over in bed on Wednesday morning, I was seeing him for the first time in a little while. I had missed him, and it was a nice moment. He hugged me and then he said the words that every woman wants to hear.

"Will you buy me a monkey?"

I am so not making that up. Since then, Dan's been elaborating to me all the reasons why a monkey would be a really useful animal to have around.

"We could train it to find the remote control. Or better yet, we could just train it to change the channels itself! It could be the Remote Monkey!"

"When we get a dog, it could ride around on the dog's back!"

"They had a monkey in that movie Swiss Family Robinson!"

And on and on and on. I have no idea what brought this on, but then I am usually not sure what triggers the various obsessions that Dan develops from time to time. Obviously, we will not be buying a monkey, but I might have to break down and take him to see the chimpanzees at the zoo. If you see us, be sure to comment on how badly a monkey would mess up wall to wall carpeting.

In a few minutes I am going to leave for my last day of work at my current newspaper in Belen, New Mexico. The word "Belen" means "Little Bethlehem" in Spanish, so for the last two years, I've enjoyed saying that I work in Bethlehem.
Yesterday I cleaned all my little knicknacks and photos off my desk and had lunch with my co-workers. They all gave me gifts ... mostly references to my mooching capabilities: A box of Kleenex from Sandy because I'm always popping into her cubicle to steal hers, a box of mints and a big bag of peanut M n Ms from Jessica, because those are the things I steal from her. Coffee mugs, magnets, things to remember my time there by. It was nice. And it helped me start to recognize that I am really leaving.
So today is my last day in Bethlehem. It feels weird.
Dan and I will be leaving tonight to go and visit Dan's parents in San Antonio, so you will be without my lovely voice for the next few days. Try to get along without me.

After scanning the comments on the "Dan wants a monkey" entry, it has come to my attention that you people are not backing me up. Y'all think he should have a monkey. So what I'm asking you now is when he gets a monkey, can he come and live with you? If not, then I think it's time for you all to ponder your previous comments and then TAKE THEM BACK. Otherwise, Dan will be calling you soon to work out a rotating schedule for his room and board. Let me know what you decide. Because Dan is doing a victory dance as we speak.

I am currently basking in the glow of three days of glorious unemployment. I finished my last week at my former job last Thursday, and then we went out of town to see Dan's family this weekend, which was a great break for us. I don't start my new job until Thursday, so since Monday I've been officially unemployed. It's been kind of nice. I've cleaned the house and taken care of pesky things that I never seem to get around to when I'm working, like cleaning out closets and cooking actual food and catching up on email and laundry. It feels really good to have gotten done with the laundry for once instead of always being three loads into a six load cycle. And I love for our apartment to be clean ... really, really clean. But tomorrow is my last day of endless available time, and then it's back to work. That's probably a good thing, because after a while, I start to feel kind of edgy if I don't have somewhere to go, something to do. Three days is about the maximum amount of time that I can be at leisure and still be comfortable. Still, I'm going to make the most of tomorrow. I think I'm going to cook breakfast, drink coffee, go to the bookstore, buy a good book and just enjoy my day. Time really is the greatest luxury in the world.
What do you do with free time?

Today, September 17 is the day that Ryan and Aaron, my dorky little brothers, entered the world and took up plaguing the life out of me. I remember that in order to prepare my three year old mind for the concept of "twins," someone bought me two baby dolls in matching blue nightgowns before the boys were born. I thought the baby dolls were great, and I thought the boys were OK too, when they were in that phase where they just lounged around drooling a lot. But then they started walking and talking, and according to family legend, that's when I started turning to them before we entered any public place and saying to them in the most threatening voice I could muster "DON'T embarrass me." That's a riot now, but it wasn't a totally unreasonable request at the time. These were boys who once ran around in our yard buck naked waving beach towels behind them like superhero capes. Did I mention that it was the front yard? And that at the time, the family of a friend of mine was pulling up in our driveway to pick me up for a sleepover?
But today, they are 22 years old, and it's been a long time since I was embarrased to admit that I am related to them. Now, I'm actually really proud of them, just like I am of the rest of my family.
This is the first time the boys haven't been together on their birthday, and so it was a little weird to make two separate phone calls to catch up with them, but they were both doing about what I would have predicted. Aaron was in D.C., on a way to visit a tattoo parlor to have one of their artists draw up an design for an emblem he wants inlaid on the base of his prosthetic leg. Ryan was grilling himself some filet mignon ("My present to me, Haley," he told me.) and watching some college football. It was so normal it made me want to cry. But I didn't. Instead I teased them about getting old and told them to have a happy birthday. I also told them that I love them. We've always said that in my family, but I think we say it a lot more now, which is a good thing.
So here's to my baby brothers. May they live long and prosper.

One year ago today, I started this blog. I almost missed my blogging anniversary due to the business of starting my new job, but tonight I remembered. Thinking about all the things that have happened since I started hanging my life out on the World Wide Web like so much dirty laundry amazes me. I'm still not sure why I got fascinated by blogs in 2004, but I did, and in September, I got my own, much like other people might decide to get a Chia pet, as a friend of mine remarked at the time. Originally, I just meant to use it as a way to keep friends and family posted on the life of the Albuquerque-based Wachdorfs. I figured that about 10 people would read it, since we're not all that exciting and that was fine with me. Then, on March 18, everything changed, and the Supporting My Troops Category became the focal points of the blog for a while. That was a difficult time to say the least, but one good thing that did come out of it is that my family got to see live on the Internet how many people love us and wanted to help us in our time of need. I never expected that when I started the site, but I believe things happen when they happen for a reason, and I am glad that my seemingly random decision to get a hobby one year ago gave all of us such a remarkable opportunity to be in one another's lives. I've enjoyed having you all here.
So here's to the Internet, the 210 entries I have written and the 745 comments y'all have left over that time. And in honor of my first year as a blogger, here are my personal favorite entries, a kind of Missing Mississippi Greatest Hits Collection. Feel free to nominate others if you wish:

How do you say "Go Away" in Japanese?
Hail, Albuquerque!

What a wonderful world. (Aaron and Kelly get married.)
Peace on earth. And a flamethrower.
The neighbors really hate us.
Don't mess with My Little Pony.

A Letter from Aaron.

It was a beautiful day.

Some things are meant to be.

Go, Spurs, Go!
Here's a challenge, sports fans, aka The Biggest Blog Controversy of the Year.
Less a little laughter, a tribute to the world's greatest stupid dog.

And, of course, Sweet Nothings, the monkey post.

What a year. Keep coming back, and I'll keep writing. Life seems to provide plenty of material.

Last night, Dan and I were getting ready to go to bed, when a very scary thing happened. I had gotten all settled with a book I was reading, and Dan was starting his usual campaign of trying to talk me down from my usual 30 minutes of reading to 10 or 15 minutes. I was really tired, so I decided I would skip the reading and go to sleep right after I got up and got a glass of water. Then, I walked around the corner of our bed just in time to see a centipeded that I KNOW was six inches long slither its way under OUR BED! Now, you have to realize that even though the centipede was pretty gross looking, I probably wouldn't have freaked out so badly were it not for a little-known fact about me: one of my greatest phobias is that a bug will crawl or fly into my ear. The mere thought that this will happen in the middle of the night when I am sleeping is just too much for me to handle. So I immediately started doing the "Dan, come kill the giant bug!" dance, and because my husband is a good man and he understands my deepest most neurotic fears, a 20-minute hunt for the Nuclear Centipede ensued. This was not a small undertaking, because we have three Tupperware containers of winter clothing stored under our bed right now, but Dan did it all, while I sat on the bed and shivered in terror. If I wasn't so scared, the sight of Dan pointing our bedside lamp up under our bed while brandishing a giant can of Raid and a pair of kitchen tongs would have been very comical, but I was not in a laughing frame of mind. Eventually, all the light and kitchen tongs drove the centipede out from under our bed, and he was dispatched with enough Raid to kill a small mammal. Dan picked the bug up with the tongs and flushed him down the toilet. The Tupperware containers of winter clothing are still sitting in our guest room because between the trauma of the whole experience and my overall exhaustion right now, but we slept in our Raid-fresh scented room last night. And once again, I knew that the man I married really does love me, no matter how high-maintenance and crazy I am.
That's a good thing to remember right now.

This weekend I developed a weird craving to watch the first season of "Scrubs" on DVD, which we own. That's not all that unusual because I love that show to a degree that is highly abnormal, but about halfway through watching the DVDs while I cleaned my bathroom, I realized why I was doing it on this particular weekend. The first season of Scrubs is all about a group of medical students who are starting their first year as doctors. It's terrifying and they feel like they are screwing up left and right and they are going to be terrible doctors. And in a way, I relate to that right now. As you all know, I started a new job this last week. And even though I've been doing the same basic job I'm doing now for the last four years, I'm doing it at a differernt newspaper with new people and situations now, and it makes me very anxious. My first week has been overwhelming to say the least. There's something intimidating about coming into a new place where you have to learn everything from where the bathrooms are to what is expected of you on a day-to-day basis. It's stupid, and maybe it doesn't happen to more confident people, but it makes me feel less like a competent professional and more like an awkward junior high student with braces and acne.
The good news is that I have really cool new co-workers and editors who have been very kind to me in my first few days on the job and have graciously overlooked my breakouts of first-week jitters. (It's an embarrasing story ... I don't want to commit it to the eternal memory of the Internet.) The other good news is that things are getting better. I'm sure that in a few months, I will look back and laugh at the fact that right now, walking into my office is an absurdly frightening experience. Time makes a lot of things seem easier. That's one thing I know from experience.
So back to my TV habits this weekend. One of the things I love about Scrubs is that it is a narrated show. The main character, J.D., is the voice of the story, and he provides the over-arching insights that tie together the otherwise random incidents of the show. Possibly one of the finer speeches of the first season is delivered at the end of an episode that is all about the fact that sometimes, you just don't measure up to your own expectations in life. Here it is.

"I think one of the most universal human experiences is feeling alone. You'd never know it, but there are most likely tons of people feeling the same way. It may be because you're feeling completely abandoned. Maybe because you realize you aren't as self sufficient as you thought you were. Maybe because you know you should have handled something differently. Maybe because you aren't as good as you thought you were. Either way, when you hit that low point, you have a choice. You can either wallow in self pity, or you can suck it up. It's your call. .. But that's not what this story is about. It's about the day I realized that admitting we're not heroic is when we're the most heroic of all."

I don't really believe that our entire destinies rest on how we handle situations. If I thought I was the only one who could save me, I'm not sure I could get up and go back to work tomorrow in spite of my anxiety. Ultimately, I'm resting on a much higher power. But there's truth to the idea that sometimes you just have to keep going at it until you get it right. I'm also realizing how much I need the people in my life lately. Like Dan, who tells me that everything is going to be OK, and that if it's not, I can still be his wife. (I know, he's so generous.) And my parents, who believed in me enough to help me load up a truck and move off to Clovis, New Mexico when I was 21 and had no money because I had this crazy idea that I could be a journalist. Or my brother, who called me just now and told me about how nerve-wracking his first day of Marine drill was just to encourage me. Marines don't often admit that they were scared, and that meant a lot to me. Everyone, I think, is scared sometimes. But it doesn't mean they aren't doing the right thing.
So yes, this time of job transition is probably the final straw that will mean that I will forever think of 2005 as the year that I remembered that life is truly scary. But I will also remember that I didn't go through it alone. And because of that, I consider myself very blessed. Certainly not heroic, but very blessed.

It's been a long time since I've seen it, so I could be wrong, but I think it's raining outside. This water-like substance has been falling out of the sky since yesterday, and last night, there was thunder and lightning and, Dan says, hail. However, I am not talking to Dan, because he's decided to take the day off work, and I can't. It's such a perfect rainy day to stay home and drink coffee and read and be lazy, and I have to go to work. Cruel world. If you know our home number, feel free to make prank calls to Dan all day long. I need some revenge.