I am an Idiot.

Favorite things of this very moment (7:14 pm CST):

• Korean Pop
• Taeyang (he is pure beauty)
• T.O.P. (his voice is magic)
• the box from Nikky...magic, magic, magic
• "Fool's Gold" on DVD

I've come to the conclusion that the concept of always want what you can't have is just reality. Not always. Smart people love what's freely given. They're content with life. They're thankful for their God given talents and treasures.

But not me.

No, I'm an idiot.

*sigh*

I think this year I'm going to work on being content. I'm fairly easy to please. I find joy in incredibly minut things. Details, sidewalk chalk, stars. So why can't I find happiness in everything else? I've been blessed with fair health, a wonderful family, the best friends a person could ask for, so what is my problem? What is there not to be content with? Is it not enough? Will God not provide for all my needs?

I am an idiot sometimes.

Crooked Lines

My eyes are dry
but they feel like the tears are forming
You could set me off
Like I'm a time bomb
a broken clock
a cracked pane of glass
There's a twinge in my voice
that reaches to my heart
Even if there is a boy with a beautiful smile-
I can't seem to shake you
You're next to me when I turn around
Don't claim I matter
I know the weight of the wounds I bear
and you seem untouched and whole
Sometimes I wish I could cut your soul
because you've torn mine
it's only what's fair
And it was so smooth
like a razor's silk edge
But my wounds aren't straight lines

Serious Business

(A picture of my heart...yes, it is being guarded by a spider. Jeff won't touch it that way, I guess. Ha.)

Favorite things of this very moment (10:57 am CST):

• K.D. Lang singing "Golden Slumbers/The End"
• The absolutely pure gold sunlight that's covering everything this morning
• Heat
• The lovely purple tulips Mom and I picked up this morning
• Knowing I'll get to see Nikky this evening along with quite a few other good friends
• Blue Gummi Sharks (the BEST gummy candy in the world, even better than Cars from IKEA), and that they're selling them at Snyder's in Oregon again
• Mira
• Knowing I still get to watch "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" before I leave for the retreat this afternoon
• Nikky's box (I can't wait to give it to her...as always, it's completely bizarre and full of crazy letters)
• Linkin Park (they may not stop anyone's heart, but I sincerely adore them...they're addictive for me...why is that?)

I may very well have brought up this quote before, but if I have, it bears repeating:

"I need to be with somebody who understands that love is serious business, that I am serious business, someone who will stay forever, someone who won't betray me and then come around with a 'Hey, I'm sorry, I won't do it again' the next day and think that makes everything just dandy. I've got a hole in my heart here. I'm not taking any more chances." -Crusie & Mayer, Agnes & the Hitman

I love this quote. I ran over last night when I was flipping through the book again. After finding that passage again, I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up taking it with me in the van this afternoon. It's probably real questionable, but I want to reread it again. I've probably already read it 3 or so times, but it's just a great book. Action, romance, good food, the mob, conspiracy, humor...and that quote.

I fully agree with it. The quote sums up a lot of what I'd love to find in life. I'd like to find someone who takes love as seriously as I do. Someone who is interested in fighting to keep a relationship healthy and together. Someone who isn't just in it for them, but is in it for "us." Who is interested in maintaining a balance, and who won't try to buy my affection. My affection cannot be purchased. I'm not that easy.

You know what I want? I want time. I want someone who wants to actually be around me. To be willing to sit on the front porch and just watch stars and make fun of everything with me. Who will be okay with staying home to watch movies and eat homemade pizza. Who will make me mix cds, and who will read letters if I write them to him. Who will be my best friend and so much more besides. Who I can touch. Someone who believes that I am worth his time, and shows me.

I am serious business.

The Bluebird of Happiness is Flying with Me

(The beautiful picture above is from, I believe, the movie "Perhaps Love")

My favorite things of this very moment (3:55 pm CST):

• The ever so classy music of the Eurythmics
• The last of my coffee from Kayla and I's coffee stop this morning
• Knowing that sometime in the future I'll be getting a paycheck (even though it won't be a lasting job)
• The beautiful picture there at the top, it's just...lovely
• Warm "Who" socks (they really do look like they're from a Dr. Suess book)
• Oatmeal, chocolate chip, butterscotch chip cookies (homemade...mmmm)

Today has been a lovely day. Sometimes life just really fits together properly, and today was one of those rare and lovely days.

Kayla and I had coffee this morning and then went to the bank. We worked from about 9 this morning till around 2. It's nice to get to spend time with one of your very best friends, to catch up on so many details in life, and also get paid for it. Like I said, sometimes God brings all those beautiful little pieces into place. Even if tomorrow doesn't sparkle quite the same way, I know today was a glorious little piece of perfection.

Little bits of loveliness: classical guitar music; a new cd by Coffey Anderson (called "Worship Unplugged 1" which was great) from Kay & T; coffee with one of the most genuinely beautiful women I know; lots of catching up; working (with the knowledge I'll actually get a paycheck for this); lunch with Kayla, Dad, & Becky Hall (she's great, Brian and Kim have one of the coolest mom's ever); Sousa marches (*smiles*); finding out Gail would be willing to cover for me so that I don't have to teach next Sunday (with the hopes that this will make it easier for me to find a way to Refuge); homemade cookies...today has been wonderful.

The best part? It's not yet over. I still have 8 hours of this lovely day yet to live. I hope God blesses your day with a great deal of joy and wonderment, and I hope that carries over into your weekend and all through the coming week.

Love. *smiles*

"For I Know the Plans I Have for You..."

(The picture above was taken by Nicole Rowell, and I think it's beautiful)

Favorite things of this very moment (10:34 pm CST):

• Knowing the outcome
• Crazy Love by Francis Chan
• Ice water
• Long, prompt emails from Jay
• Having breakfast with Kayla and T to look forward to

Today has been a little surreal. Actually, this week has been a little surreal. The whole of it. The week started out with me running through a list in my head of all the places I could still try and apply to find a job. Not my favorite task, but a necessary one. A new job must be found. This is one quest that can not be thrown aside.

Monday was a holiday, and that day was spent with my family, and then also in going to Augustana College in Rock Island, IL to see my youngest brother, Joel perform in a concert as part of the Gold Honor Ensemble. The concert was fantastic. The Augustana Ensemble played, the Gold Honor and the Blue Honor Ensembles also played. Everything was wonderful. Augustana is a beautiful college. If only they offered library science there...

Tuesday started off fairly quiet. I'd made my to-do list for the week, and was getting some of the chores out of the way like laundry and cleaning of catboxes (oh the joys of catboxes...gick), and then my father called. He told me that he had a job for me. I needed to come over to the bank, they'd had a problem with some calendars they ordered, and they needed someone to go through them. I ended up there by 1 that afternoon.

Wednesday, I spent all day working at the bank, but also set up an interview on Thursday at a home for the mentally disabled. Listened to a great deal of The Return of the King. Tolkien is brilliant.

Thursday...ah yes, today...

Today has been weird. I battled a great deal of ice and spent some time salting our driveway and walkways here at the house, and then I got ready and went off to my interview. The interview seemed to go pretty well. I had to take a 25 questioned, short standardized reading test while sitting in the dining room. One of the residence was in there eating lunch. Very sweet, but very loud. Imagine trying to write an important paper with the TV all the way up and your siblings talking to you. That was basically what the test was like. Aparently I did alright on it though. I then filled out the form giving my consent to having them run a background check on me (I have nothing to hide). Then I went and talked with the woman in charge of the home as well as the clerk for both the homes in Oregon. That seemed to go pretty well. They seemed to like me fairly well, and they answered all the questions I'd been saving.

They told me that they would contact me this evening if they needed me to come back in for a 2nd interview tomorrow. It's almost 11pm now, and I haven't received a phone call. They aparently don't need me. Hopefully though, Kayla will get a call. She also applied there and her interview was yesterday. Tomorrow I get to meet Kayla and Terrence for a breakfast-esque type coffee outting before Kayla and I head over to Stillman to work with the calendars (she started helping out there today), so I will hear whether or not she got a call at that point.

What this all comes down to though is that this week has been rather bizarre. I am exceedingly grateful that someone in China screwed up the printing of hundreds of calendars going to a small, locally owned set of banks in a rural IL area. Those mistakes have provided me with a short term job that will help me make yet another car payment without having to touch my savings account, and that is a truly blessed event. Beyond that, I've also realized how terrifying I find the concept of working with mentally disabled adults. I need to learn more about what working with them is really like. I'm sure the work is very rewarding, but I've never been around adults with mental disabilities, so I'm just not sure what it's like.

This also means that I am back to handing out more applications and collecting still more. There will continue to be odd jobs until I can find something permanent. Of this I am fairly certain. There's always someone needing something. See a need, fill a need, right? *smiles*

Besides, this is just one small part of my life, and an even smaller part in history. One never knows where it leads.

Have a wonderful night.

Surrender & Hope

“Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.”
-Francis Chan, Crazy Love

Talk about a slap across the face. Last night I practically cried myself to sleep in a whiny and frustrated act of self-pity. All I could think about was how there couldn’t possibly be any guy out there searching for me. That I would be alone forever. That Kyle was right, maybe I am supposed to cause single forever because there can’t possibly be anyone out there who wants me.

It’s like 1:30 in the morning last night, and all I can think about is how I don’t want to be like Pat and Earlyne (even if they are happy being single and have amazing ministries). How I don’t want to be single forever, how unfair it is that I would have so many dreams and never get them fulfilled.

Me, me, me, me. Whine, whine, whine.

Then this morning, I’m still thinking about this. Frittering my life away by detail as Thoreau would say, and then I start reading. I am reading my Bible. I was reading in Ezra about the rebuilding of the temple. God had such specific detail and directions for the temple. So much detail and He understood them all and made sure everything was just right.

Then I open up Crazy Love and start reading Chapter 2: You Might Not Finish This Chapter, and Francis Chan is talking about how there is nothing normal in any given day. It only seems normal because we (I) wrap ourselves (myself) in our (my) worries and personal lives (life).

Each day is detail and wonder, and this shouldn’t suck away my life and heart. No, it should be expanded to the point of bursting.

What is it to worry? It is to think God can’t control it all or that He doesn’t know me well enough to see and understand my dreams, and to think that He has forgotten what He has created me to be. It is to forget that God is big enough, powerful enough, and loving enough to take care of what is happening in my life.

God is big, powerful (all-powerful), and He loves me.

God has placed in my heart a large and plentiful supply of love that is holding on for the day He brings the right guy into my life. He has given me my dreams, and God knows all the details of my life. All of them.

God will make a way when there seems to be no way, like it says in that song.

More importantly, I do need to surrender my dream of finding the right guy and falling in love. Not because I should give up hope and not because it will never happen, but because I don’t know how it will happen. Only God does, and on top of that, God knows every detail and dream and whisper of a hope in my heart and far He knows them fair better than I do; I wouldn’t even know what I should be asking for.

This should actually give me more hope. God loves me and knows my details. When I cry myself to sleep thinking God’s being unfeeling or that He will take my dreams from me, I’m being an idiot.

The only time God will take my dreams from me is so that He can take them, reshape them, and make them even better.

Two verses to ponder:

“Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires.”
-Song of Solomon 3:5

and finally:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also in set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
-Ecclesiastes 3:11

A Poem for Tomorrow

I’ve written poetry for most of my life
but I still can’t describe
all the beauty I see
The grace in your smile
or the amazement I find in the number of eyelashes
encircling your midnight eyes

Everything in me marvels
you are details and silk
You are long fingers and shaggy hair
Each strand that falls in your eyes
makes me ache

The face that I want you more
with each word you say
(even when you’re mad)
and with each breath you take…

It still takes me by surprise
that something like you exists

And more.

So let me kiss your perfect fingers
and work my way back to your lips
and savor everything in between
And while we’re at it
tell me all your dreams
the fact that it’ll take the rest of our lives
to learn all your details
brings a smile to my lips

Let’s take the rest of time
Each minute is yours
Now and forever

hair to toes
heart and soul
inside and out
You’re my one bit of perfection
The only miracle I’ll ever need

If I had to ask room service for three things…
Well, really,
You’d be all I need

Do you want anything?

Honestly, you are everything
that I didn’t expect
and you’re more than enough proof
that a loving God exists
and that I never knew
what I should ask Him for
I’m glad
because that means I got you.

I love you
because you sparkle,
twinkle, shine, glow
You’re all the magic I need

and no matter how long I write poems
the words will never encompass
all the love I have for you