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(I know, I said I was going home, but then, well, I didn’t. Sue me.)
- Do you care what other people think? Explain: Yes and no. I try very hard not to do things because others want me to, but I know I also fall prey to caring what they think in regards to certain things. It all depends on who they are, I guess.
- What two things do you sense you’re supposed to do before your life is over? I hope that through my church work, I accomplished one of them, which would vaguely/broadly be “to change the world.” Other than that, I guess I don’t really know. Make a positive contribution to society. Life the life God planned for me.
- Is your family life the way you imagined it would be? If not, what can you do to change it? This is way too deep of a question that opens a whole bag of worms, and, well, it’s time to go home for the day, so I’m pleading the 5th.
- If you can go back to your childhood for one day. What day and age will you choose? I think any time before junior high, because I don’t remember my childhood well, nor do I remember it terribly happily because of chemical imbalances in my brain, but I know that I had a good childhood and had fun, and I think it’d be nice to experience even a piece of that, knowing what I know now (and medicinally-altered as I am).
- What are two skills you’ve wanted but don’t have? I wish I had any artistic talent in terms of painting or sculpting or the visual arts. I also, sometimes, wish I had a tad more grace, because that would enable me to dream for several skills, like… not falling down stairs, or dancing, or just generally being less self-conscious.
I just had a lovely and long post about my weekend, and Blogger ate it. Bite me. I’ll recreate, but later, when I have the emotional energy.
For now, here’s a laugh from my horoscope for today:
“Supremely dependable, you can accomplish — and often do — the work of ten. Just don’t make this a habit, or some people could start taking advantage of your reliability. You have a life, too, you know. Remind them of that.”
That basically describes life at work every day. OK, maybe not funny, or profound, but apparently blog-worthy.
- Rising :: Of the Dawn
- Third :: Day
- Disruptive :: Hacking Phlegm Noises
- Surround :: Sound
- Distant :: Time and Place
- Suction :: Cup
- Fried :: Rice
- Nuggets :: Chicken Mc
- Clip :: Audio
- San Antonio :: Texas
OK, I know there are a lot of dating books out there full of crap advice. This stuff is from a book I haven’t read and summarized by someone I don’t actually know. But I’m putting it out here anyways because it’s too long to IM or email about, and, well, I’m interested in your thoughts. You being my collective reading audience, male and female alike. (And, giving credit where credit’s due, I totally took this verbatim from a post on ChristianityToday.com’s dating forum, just deleted some that weren’t worth discussing or irrelevant.)
- Be a “creature unlike any other” (besides positively affirming yourself and believing in yourself, taking good care of yourself, they also include nutrition, weight loss, exercise, dressing well and even encourage long hair!!)
- Don’t talk to a man first (and don’t ask him to dance)
- Don’t stare at men or talk too much
- Don’t meet him halfway or go dutch on a date
- Don’t call him and rarely return his calls
- Always end phone calls first
- Don’t accept a Saturday night date after Wednesday
- Fill up your time before the date
- How to act on dates 1,2, and 3
- How to act on dates 4 through commitment time
- Always end the date first
- Stop dating him if he doesn’t buy you a romantic gift for your birthday or valentines day
- Don’t see him more than once or twice a week
- No more than casual kissing on the first date
- Don’t rush into sex and other rules for intimacy
- Don’t tell him what to do
- Let him take the lead
- Don’t expect a man to change or try to change him
- Don’t open up too fast
- Be honest but mysterious
- Accentuate the positive and other rules for personal ads
- Don’t live with a man (or leave your things in his apartment)
- Don’t date a married man
- Slowly involve him in your family and other rules for women with children
- Love only those who love you
- Be easy to live with
I’m sure I could spend all day blogging about this, but I’d rather hear your thoughts first.
To make up for my laziness last night (spawned from an extra-long trip to Target, the threat of rain, and the cool air) and the consequent lack of going for a jog like I should have, I walked to work this morning. And I will walk home tonight if nothing gets in the way (like the fact that my shoes might give me a blister before then, or that it is supposed to rain).
I love that Spring, aside from the whole “new beginnings” effect it has on the world, makes it easy to want to be healthy. Somehow, healthy foods, a little bit of physical exertion, all of it seems… enjoyable, or at least possible, in the spring. Of course, my body’s a little unhappy with my recent choice of eating an apple a day, but it’ll adjust.
Did you know that when you’re pregnant, you only have to add an extra 300 calories a day to your diet? And you have to drink your 8 glasses of water and 4 glasses of milk.  freaked out about that a little bit.
We still don’t have a roommate for May 1. There are two girls who are interested for June 1, and a guy who’s interested in May 1. At this point, we’d really like May 15, since  and I figured we could probably split the half-month between us, and it would give us a chance to paint and clean and rearrange. Money would be tight, but do-able. I think. We’ll see. I’m getting anxious, as in, I want to be moved now. I haven’t done any packing because, well, I’m just moving down the hall. I need to take down my bookshelves, but other than that, I think it’s pretty much just pushing everything to the front of the house.
It seems as though my typing skills are sufficient enough to tackle data entry today (yesterday they were atrocious, and that was a bit of a problem for said project). OK, not the most fun project ever, but it will keep me busy.
My caramel roll calls out to me.
I was just told by a 17-year-old boy (and I could be wrong, he could have been 15) that I look pretty. This did not make me feel pretty. It made me feel old. And a little ishy, if you know what I mean.
I was exhausted when I woke up this morning. So much so that I briefly contemplated calling in sick, just so I could get another four hours of sleep. But here I am. I’m tired because of a great weekend that was chock-a-block full of fun stuff, so it’s not all that bad.
Due to a Twins game, OSF plans changed to El Norteno plans. Good times were still had by all, but I still want OSF. We just have to plan better next time. (Parking downtown goes up significantly when there’s a game, and it seems kind of ridiculous to pay $15 for parking when that’s how much the meal was going to be, don’tcha think?)
Saturday we slept in a little bit, but we had lots of things on our “to do” list and not much time. No dawdling at Crate and Barrel, or the Apple store, despite how much  or I might have wanted to (can you guess which of us wanted to dawdle at which one?). We got the last of the furnishings for ’s bathroom (well, the vases are only temporarily filled with the water and leaf design that we stole from Crate and Barrel, but figuring out exactly what to put in them will take some time, and as far as I’m concerned that means it’s off the “to do” list and more on a “long-term projects” list), including a waste basket, soap, shower curtain, and towels. And he finished building the towel rack sometime on Sunday. It looks really nice (the towel rack and the whole bathroom in general). I found a shower curtain as well, which makes my bathroom look all light and airy. It’s part of the Purging of ‘06 (aka getting all traces of  out of my house). Plus we stopped into JC Penney, where I never go but stopped in once with  before Christmas when she was looking for gifts for her parents and I ended up with a bathmat that is only sold there, so I could finally get the matching hand towels. I know, such a crisis. Just kidding.
There was also a trip to Home Depot (for… brackets, I think, and we could price the lumber needed to build my tetris shelves, which will be a nice summer-long project) and Target. Somewhere in the afternoon, the BBQ was canceled, which meant we had a lot more time to get everything done. Shopping for Easter dinner was done, and was surprisingly less expensive than I thought it would be. We got home and worked on his shelf and other projects while I prepped for Sunday’s dinner. We learned that the yeast I’d brought was too old to work, went out and got store-bought biscuits instead. This week hopefully I can figure out how to make yeast breads (without the bread machine).
Sunday morning we went to church, which was a halfway decent choice. It’s a little strange to try to pick a church for Easter Sunday. I’ve never had to do that before. But they had contemporary music and the sermon was fairly well-done, so it ended up working out. There was much flurry in the kitchen the rest of the day, but all in all I figured that, with the hour of prep on Saturday, Easter dinner only took up six hours, including eating and clean-up. Everyone showed up who’d confirmed they were coming, so we were only missing ’s brother. His dad made cheesecake for desert, and his friends brought wine, which caused only a small amount of drama when we realized no one had a corkscrew.
After everyone went home and we finished cleaning up, we took a walk and played Frisbee in the field at the local elementary school, since it’s staying light out later and later and the weather was still beautiful. We relaxed for a while on the sofa before almost falling asleep and realizing it was time to take me home.
When I got home, I talked with for a while, learned that we still don’t have a roommate all set to move in May 1, and discussed rearranging furniture in the kitchen and the fact that she’s getting a couch next weekend (goodbye, futon from hell!). came home and said she meant to call me over the weekend to let me know she packed up her pots and pans (since I keep meaning to buy a set). There’s some more fun shopping for this week, or maybe over the weekend when I have access to non-mass transportation.
I know, a lot of boring little details. But it was a good weekend. And now I don’t care about anything because I’ve got Natasha Bedingfield playing on my iPod (she’s my favorite artist of the moment, and I only have 2 songs of hers and keep putting them on repeat). I promise my next post will be more exciting, or funny, or deep, or… short.
- Ambition :: Golden
- Meatloaf :: Mom’s
- Celebrity :: Challenge
- Coach :: Football
- Slacker :: Saturday
- Reflection :: Mirror
- Original :: New & Improved
- Risk :: It All
- Saved :: At Last
- June :: Bugs
- Have you filed your taxes yet? Yep – two weeks ago. I even got one of my refunds already.
- Do you use e-file or the old fashioned paper forms? E-file all the way.
- Do you do your taxes by hand, with the help of computer software, or do you hire an accountant or tax firm? Online, with the help of site software. I can do them by hand, and don’t need to pay anyone to do them for me, since they’re so simple right now.
- How soon do you do your taxes? Are you a procrastinator or do you do you start them before you even have all of the supporting documents? A little bit of a procrastinator. I could have had them done about a month before I did. But I don’t like waiting until the last minute. Four years ago I was fired on Tax Day, and then had to go home and do my taxes, which just sucked. It’s not a happy day in my mind since then anyways, so I like to avoid as much unpleasantness then as possible.
- Imagine you were subjected to a tax law like the Stamp Act of 1765. Would you be willing and able to give up your favorite beverages (coffee, Diet Coke, etc.) and manufactured goods in a boycott like many women did during the American Revolution? I don’t think I’m political enough to boycott Starbucks for a law. But I am poor enough that if they tacked on enough taxes, I’d have to.
[Editor's Note: I'm dying here. Someone make it stop. Or make the clock move faster. Or something.]
- Toothpaste: If you were asked by a toothpaste manufacturer to come up with a new flavor, what would be your top three suggestions? I really like my “Citrus” flavored toothpaste, so I’m sticking with that. Anything sweeter would make me feel like I hadn’t just brushed (I was thinking about chocolate, or marshmallow, or cotton candy, but obviously that would at least seem counterproductive).
- Food: What’s the absolute strangest food you’ve ever tried? While not terribly exciting, I think calamari is pretty strange. Very, very yummy though. Oh, and the time I cooked mussels, that was weird. Throwing living things into boiling water with the express purpose of consuming them with a creamy sauce over noodles – just seems… odd.
- Gasoline: Economists are predicting that gasoline prices in the U.S. will reach $3.00 per gallon within the next three months. How will this summer’s gas prices impact your travel plans? I have no summer travel plans. Well, I hope to go camping a few times, but since I wouldn’t go alone and couldn’t, not owning a car, I assume that the group will just all split the costs, and so that’s not really all that bad. I’m not, however, planning a trip to Illinois, or out of state, any time soon. (Though a friend from college just got in touch with me to tell me he’s getting married, and he lives in California, and he asked for my address, so I’m kinda hoping that I’m getting an invite to the wedding, which would be a cool excuse to go to California, but that’s probably not this summer, and I’d never drive to California, so I guess it’s all irrelevant.)
- Health Insurance: Do you think all employers should be required by law to pay some or all of the costs associated with their employees’ health insurance? Yes. I love my health insurance. I think everyone should be so lucky as to have at least basic protection. Call me communist, whatever.
- September 11th: How do you feel about movies that attempt to portray what happened onboard commercial airplanes that were downed on 9/11? Do have an interest in watching these movies? I have no interest in watching them whatsoever. My recollection of that day is still crystal clear. But I think movies are fine, as long as they’re done tastefully, since they are probably proving to be therapeutic and cathartic to those creating and/or watching them.
- Taxes: Did you file your 2005 taxes yourself or did you enlist the services of a professional tax preparer? In either event, did you file online or by hand? I did them myself. Well, kinda, because I ended up using an online program that saved me… hundreds of dollars. And I submitted online.
- Hey You: When you’re on a horse farm and you want to get a horse’s attention, you make a clicking sound with your mouth. What sort of sound would I need to make to get your attention? Please don’t. Whatever you pick will annoy me.
In case no one has told you, it’s Good Friday, and since I’m bored and have nothing else to say, maybe I’ll talk about that. Call it Kelly’s Church Lesson for the Day (/week/month/whatever).
Let’s start with Lent. This is the 40 days before Easter (not counting Sundays), starting on Ash Wednesday. Lent is a time of preparation, for one to reflect upon one’s own life, one’s spirituality, whatever. I’m not sure why people give up things for Lent – it’s not been part of the faith traditions I grew up with.
Palm Sunday is the week before Easter. It celebrates when Jesus came riding into Jerusalem during the Passover Feast. Everyone thought He was the promised Messiah and was going to come free them from the Roman Empire. It was like a parade, everyone was so excited. Once they figured out it wasn’t going to be a political overthrow, however, their feelings turned.
Maundy Thursday is the celebration of the Passover Feast. It also happens to be the Last Supper, you know, the one that Jesus shared with the disciples right before the whole Good Friday part that I’m getting to. It’s when He washed their feet, and talked cryptically about His death that they didn’t understand, and revealed that He knew Judas was going to betray Him.
After the meal, He went up the Mount of Olives to pray. He brought a few disciples along for a while, but then left them behind, asking them to keep watch. They fell asleep (it was pre-dawn). Obviously, His conversation with God, His Father, was difficult, seeing as how what was about to happen was not exactly a happy thing. This is where, “not My will, but Yours” comes in. And Jesus comes down from the hill, finds the disciples asleep, is obviously disappointed, but then the soldiers come to arrest him. One of the disciples gets a little excited (I think it was Peter) and chops off a soldier’s ear with his sword, but Jesus goes peacefully (and I think He heals the ear, too, but my memory’s a bit fuzzy – if you really care, go look it up in the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John).
Good Friday, then, begins with the imprisonment of Jesus, the religious trial, where the Jewish leaders decide to turn Him over to the Roman Empire since that’s the only way He’d be executed. Pilate, the judge, finds no wrong but is swayed by the angry crowd. He tries to give them the chance to let Jesus go free, but they choose Barabbas, a hardened criminal, instead. Thus begins the whipping, the beating, the mockery, the disrobing, of Jesus. Finally He’s made to carry His cross to the hill, is nailed on it, and hung up to die.
The sky turns black and it’s this scary few moments in history when God turns His back, which must have been incredibly painful for Jesus, seeing as how they’re Father/Son and also two of the three persons in the Trinity (which, I know, is confusing, seeing as how they’re all God but there’s only one God and not three, and just think of it being like three states of water – liquid, ice, and gas, and maybe that’ll help). Jesus says some things on the cross, everyone cries, and then He dies. He gets buried in a tomb, and there are soldiers placed outside to guard it, so that none of His disciples can come and steal the body and claim that He came back from the dead.
Angels, however, get around this plan, and on Sunday morning when some women come to treat the body with perfumes, the tomb is open and Jesus is gone. And He appears later to the disciples, several times actually, including times when Thomas puts his fingers in the wounds, and times when He seems to defy physics (and just “appear” in locked rooms).
That’s Easter. Jesus hangs around for a while, teaching the disciples, and then goes back up to heaven in a spectacular display. And we’ve been waiting ever since.
But the story doesn’t fully tell all that really happened at Easter, because there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that’s much more difficult to explain and understand, but the basics are this:
- Everybody has sinned. (Romans 3:23)
- Sin separates us from God. (Isaiah 59:2, Romans 6:23)
- The only way to “pay” for sin is with the shedding of blood. (Hebrews 9:22)
- Jesus stepped in and did this on our behalf. (Romans 5:8)
- So we can have a relationship with God. (Romans 8:38-39)
- When God looks at us, He doesn’t see our sin. He sees Jesus. (That’s good, since God can’t look at sin.) (Romans 5:1)
- So we’re always forgiven, for everything, as long as we ask. (Romans 8:1)
- And the promises of heaven and eternity with God, those are all ours for the taking. (Romans 10:9)
It’s a pretty sweet deal, really. Not to make Christianity seem easy, because there are plenty of times when it’s not. Like when you want to be mean but know you should forgive. Or when looking temptation in the face and turning it down. Or when you don’t. Or for people who live in those parts of the world where it’s not OK to be Christian, or even if you hang in certain social circles where it’s not OK (or just some parts of it aren’t cool, like not drinking to excess or having sex outside of marriage or… fill in the blank). There’s these lovely things called grace and forgiveness, however, that make it all possible.
And that is really what we talked about, all those years I taught youth group. Sure, it may not have seemed like it all the time. When we talked about prayer, or fighting with friends, or peer pressure, or having crushes, it may not have seemed like it, but Easter was always present, even if not center stage. And though it definitely hasn’t taken a major role in my life this past year (or, rather, I haven’t been focused on it), it’s still there. While I may be on hiatus, in a bit of a lull, living stagnantly, I never stopped believing any of it, even the fantastical stuff. Trying to figure out “me” outside of church hasn’t meant changing what I believe, but figuring out… what else there is to me besides church. I guess it’s not really all that healthy to define yourself entirely by your career and faith, both of which are so intricately entwined when the career is ministry. So hopefully I’m a bit healthier these days, and know myself a bit better, and see the world… more realistically, less black-and-white. [Editor's note: there's still a lot of black and white, don't get me wrong, because I'm totally about right and wrong. But there's a lot that's fuzzy and gray, too, and I think now I can acknowledge that and make peace with it.]
So maybe I didn’t spend this Lent preparing for Easter. But maybe I spent the whole last year preparing. Not for this Sunday, but… for life after Easter, in the figurative sense. The life that goes on, day after day, after Jesus went back to heaven and the disciples were left with… a lot of confusion and messiness and real life.
So welcome to the mess. As you can tell, it’s pretty much that way here all the time. Brief moments of clarity and order, that are usually overtaken by… my inability to put thoughts into complete sentences that others understand.
Gummy bears do not make good breakfast food. They feel like they’re dancing around in my tummy, and not in that happy-go-lucky kind of way. I even sent them dancing partners, Teddy Grahams, but it seems as though it’s more of a junior high dance (girls on one side, boys on the other, no one daring enough to cross) than a mixer. The bagel I just got should cure all. I’ve found that plain, unadulterated carbs often fix minor problems like that. Good thing I’m not all about South Beach. Though, I suppose if I were, I wouldn’t have had the gummy bears for breakfast anyways. Huh. Regardless, I like food with flavor, and as long as my pants fit, it’s all good.
Did I mention that eBay is evil? So is Crate and Barrel. Evil because I love them and have no self-control. Sometimes I hate payday.
I’m going to be an aunt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m very excited, can you tell? and her husband are mostly in shock, and it’s not exactly the timing they were going for, but they’re still happy. Only immediate family knows, so… if you happen to know any of my extended family, you’re not allowed to tell them. They each got to tell 2 friends, and called their parents. But that’s it until June, when they’re out of the first trimester. They’re not planning on finding out if it’s a boy or a girl, so it looks like I’ll be knitting some baby stuff in yellow and green. December 5 was yesterday’s tentative due date, but there’s some blood work being done today to firm that up. It’s probably more mid-December.
So exciting!!!!!!!
I’d use more exclamation points if I could figure out how!!!!!!!!!
Now every time my lips feel dry, I pull out my new Born Lippy and taste the strawberry goodness. I have watermelon too. got them for me while we were in Chicago. I got the strawberry-scented Home Frangrance Oil as well, and can’t wait to use it. It smells so summery! It will be used extensively in purging ’s room and cleansing its aura.
In attempting to catch up from vacation on all the reading I normally do on the web, I ran across these words that made me … think, I guess, and I thought I’d blog about them. You know, before taking the time to talk about my vacation and the rest of life. Which is coming. Really. But I’m trying to catch up at work as well. And maybe squeeze in a load or two of laundry. It’s a balancing act. Really, the trick here is to attempt to explain myself well and truly without revising in light of who I know will read this (because, you know, blogs really are just supposed to be a place where one can think aloud, and sometimes I treat this one more like a letter to friends than a journal, which is all fine and good until I go and have journal-worthy thoughts). [All that to say I'm trying to be honest but to not put too much stake in what I'm saying? I've really got to work on brevity.]
While I was too busy investigating whether this was the “right” puzzle piece, I forgot that love isn’t a puzzle at all. It’s not a search for one perfect piece or else all is lost. Instead, it’s a mixture of following God’s will, finding compatibility, and—the part I forgot—choosing to commit. Dating isn’t about finding what you think may be the “right” puzzle piece and then holding your breath through the vows to see if you picked right. It’s about choosing well (with an eye to compatibility, chemistry, and God’s guidance) and then committing to make it work. Love says, “I’m gonna stick with this even if I’m angry at you. Even if I hate you right now. Even if I’m miserable. Even if I’m bored hanging out with you. I choose to love you.”
With that realization, I felt tremendous freedom. No longer was I bound by infrequent emotions or what I thought was the “right” one or not. Now, I could listen wholeheartedly to God, realistically evaluate my compatibility with my girlfriend, and work to make our relationship the puzzle piece that fits.
I’ll readily admit that I fell into the idea of soul mates and “the one” and perfection and all that. It sounds great, doesn’t it? If you find your soul mate, then obviously everything in life will be wonderful. Clearly, if you’re soul mates, you won’t have any problems. Um, right. At least I came to realize that soul mates don’t come solely in the form of spouses.  has been someone whom I have referred to as being my soul mate because we have that kind of relationship, and in many respects conversing with her feels like talking with myself, or like coming home. I’d probably say the same thing about , but I just consider that our sisterly bond, I guess. I don’t think that your spouse/lover/whatever-you-want-to-call-that-person has to be your soul mate, or that you only have one soul mate. I do think he/she should be your best friend, but those two things are not mutually exclusive or inclusive. One or the other or both – it’s all good.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah. I had a professor in college who challenged my belief that “there’s one right person out there for you.” He said God’s will was much more like a field, and you could run into any number of people that are right for you and you can choose and each would be acceptable to God. I still don’t agree with that, but as we all know, I have a pretty strong view of the sovereignty of God (and a much weaker belief in free will, but that’s not really what this discussion is about). I do believe that God has a plan and there’s one right person and here’s how that plays out: if you’re interested in someone, or dating someone, or whatever, and it doesn’t work out, even if you think that person was “the one,” they obviously weren’t. You can’t screw up your “only chance” with “the one.” Call it the steady hand of God, call it fate, or just call it crap if you disagree with me, but that’s where I’m coming from on this.
We all know (well, those of us who have grown up enough to know that life isn’t all roses and chocolate and once you get married or the closing credits roll, real life continues and it’s messy and hard and not always fun) that finding the right person is hard, and that even once you find that person it doesn’t mean everything is easy. Just because they’re “the one” doesn’t mean they don’t have flaws, or that you don’t have parts of you that annoy the crap outta them, or that you won’t disagree on potentially huge and important issues. I think it means, however, that it works anyways.
But back to the article I quoted. The point isn’t even about finding “the one,” but what you do with that find. The idea of sticking to our commitments is a foreign one in today’s society. But that magic combination the author referenced:
following God’s will, finding compatibility, and… choosing to commit
that’s a brilliant statement right there.
And now, as usual, I get to the point of my post where I realize I haven’t really said what I meant to say, but can’t figure out exactly how to express what I originally thought when I read the article. Crap. Well, maybe I’ll try again later. Those are my unedited thoughts for today.
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thankful
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