About Me: The Unabridged Version

{Also known as the post where you learn more randomness than you ever wanted to know about me.}

I'm Marian {aka "Scooper"}. I love words, beauty, and funny people. I have been a wife for 17 years and a mom for 12. Once a history professor, I'm now a stay-at-home mom, having traded in a college classroom six years ago for five years of homeschooling my own kids around the kitchen table. 

In December of 2011, we made the big decision to put our kids in public school. It's been a welcome change for all of us and we vow to simply take things one year at a time.

You can find me reading, writing, taking pictures, sipping Starbucks, over-thinking everything, rearranging furniture, and not doing laundry. I write for many reasons but mostly because it's cheaper than therapy. I joke about that but it's the truth. Through blogging, this glass-half-empty girl spills thoughts one letter at a time until lemonade is squeezed from the lemons. It's a serendipitous thing really, not at all the reason I started but the sweetest reward. Through my posts, I often find perspective.

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I think I blog partly because it's the only thing in my life (of keeping home and teaching children) that stays finished. I don't have to wash, sweep, or fold my blog countless times a day. Once I click "publish post," I actually have something to show for my time. I like that.

I have many loves and an equal number of disclaimers. Here it goes...

I love fancy food and drink, though I've been known to feast on PB&J remnants from my kids' plates. 

I find great fulfillment in writing, though I remain ignorant of countless grammar rules. I also like to make up words.

I was a history professor until 6 years ago but I rarely know the correct answer to the esoteric history questions asked on Jeopardy or in Trivial Pursuit. I am not a history buff. I have never been to a re-enactment. While I enjoyed 14 years of university life as a student and a professor, I now consider myself a recovering academic.

I adore books but I'm usually reading about 17 at a time resulting in an embarrasingly low completion rate.

I'm a fan of all things "girly": make-up, fashion, hair, etc...but confess that on most days I am sporting yoga pants (though I don't do yoga), unchanged running clothes, a pony-tail, and a face that's lucky to get Chap-stick & mascara.

I describe myself as an introvert disguised in an outgoing personality. {Classic INFJ.} I love people yet crave solitude, in part because I can't take a shower or go to the restroom without being interrupted by tiny humans or a dog who always need something as soon as I close the bathroom door. 

I'm the only person I know who is equally inspired by make-up and History. I actually own a book entitled, The Cultural History of Lipstick. For real.

I will admit to loving smart people, thoughtful books, and great journalism. But I can also devour three People magazines in one sitting while on vacation. And I get school-girl giddy for televised red carpet events. I may or may not covertly watch Entertainment Tonight when my kids aren't in the room.

Laughing is a drug for me and I'm crazy for people who are funny. Ironically, I have a tendency to take myself and life in general much too seriously.

Ever the bargain junkie, I actually don't mind living a frugal-ish life. But, I have been known to blow money on crazy thrift store kitsch and forget to mail in valuable rebate coupons. My husband jokes that I could write a book called How To Go Broke $1 At A Time.

A clean, organized and orderly home makes me happier than it should. Currently, however, a 7-year-old's half-written story, jewelry beads, pre-school workbooks, an iPod, hair clips, fruit puffs, a dismembered Polly Pocket, the newspaper, a dish towel and a bowl of half-eaten pasta graces the kitchen table where I'm writing. Such disarray is an accurate reflection of the general state of affairs here.

I have never gotten a tattoo, ripped my jeans {on purpose,} or sported funky hair. But at 36, I pierced my nose, something I'd inexplicably wanted to do for 10 years. My nose, however, {quite set in its ways after 36 years of minding its own business} didn't like it and I kept snagging the tiny jewel on towels and tissues. Goodbye, nose ring. Hello conformity {and common sense.} I'm still kind of sad about it.

As I mentioned earlier, I home-schooled for nearly 5 years and then abruptly did the unthinkable: sent my kids to public school. They love school. I love the quiet. Sometimes the "real" collides with the ideal and sometimes that's for the best. I've learned to never say never and to hold all plans loosely.

I always wanted a career, a husband, and a family {in that order.} But I fell in love with a charming boy I met my freshman year of college and we started dating two years later. Three months after we graduated, I married him. I'm convinced he's the only man on the planet who could put up with me. Marriage has been hard {we are, after all, strong-willed first-borns} but God has been faithful. The charming boy is still my best friend and he is still irresistably charming. Marrying him is one of the smartest things I ever did.

Growing up as a pastor's kid, I was in church every time the doors were opened. You might think that skeptical notions about faith and God and truth would have not an ounce of non-conformist air to breathe in a churchy upbringing like that. My heart, however, has a fierce will of its own and has forever been the heart of a skeptic. Faith does not come naturally and my "story" from belief to unbelief and back to belief is simply a testimony to God's irresistible grace. 

On any given day I still look to people and circumstances for happiness and personal peace. I often trade pleasure for joy and reason for faith. I'm immensely grateful for a God who delights to pursue, longs to forgive, loves without limits, and never gives up, even on a crazy skeptic like me.