A Good Weekend.

For many people a good weekend would consist of not working. They would spend their time relaxing and enjoying the company of family and friends. They would be having fun playing outside if it is nice or just hanging out indoors if it wouldn't.

I will admit that sounds wonderful. It does.

But I will also say that in the last couple months I have had to work at least one day every weekend. And you know what? Each weekend has been a good weekend. I love my job. It brings me such joy. Yes, I don't always want to go to work. But once I am there, I am happy.

For those nine hour shifts I know that I matter to at least four people on earth. I love that. I love being needed. I love making a difference in people's life. I love that I can connect with people and that I can be what they need.

I love that I feel that for at least thirty hours a week. Because I don't feel that in my personal life. I feel seperate. Unconnected. Lonely. Don't get me wrong, I am happy. It may sound like I am complaining. I don't mean to. But people look their whole lives for someone to matter to. My job has shown me that I can stop looking.

That because I matter to them, I matter to me.

A Picture.

I have an enormous wall in my living room with nothing on it. I am in search of the perfect picture for it. Honestly I am not sure that there is a picture perfect enough for my living room. The living room is the focal point of the home, especially when you have a cute (yet tiny) apartment-type home like I do. This wall is visible when you come in my front door. Right now it is a big, blank white slate full of potential.

But I am waiting for the perfect picture. How long will I wait?!? I fancy myself a creative person and as such I have certain, well, expectations for my space. It is hard to be limited by white walls. I want my home to feel like MY home and to scream ME. For those of you that don’t know me, I am not a white wall kinda girl. I am the kinda girl that would paint her bathroom pink, just because. I am the kinda girl that would make new curtains just because I found fabric that I like better. And no, I am not the kinda girl that knows how to make curtains (or use a pattern).

So I cannot paint my walls. My living room window is far too colossal for window dressings. I am wondering if I can MAKE the perfect picture. I am not good at painting things. I am a writer, I can write a scene that could leave you breathless. I could make you smell the air. I could make you feel the ground beneath your feet and hear the sounds in the air. But if I draw the scene or paint it, it would look like that of a child. You know? Beautiful perhaps, but completely incoherent.

I wonder if I can use my words to paint a picture. Is that possible? Are words and paint interchangeable? What if I combined them? What if I took my favorite colors and combined them with words that I love? Could I paint how the words make me feel and then intertwine the actual words with the colors?

My idea is this: a kind of abstract swirl and texture of colors, with quotes and verses decoupaged in with the color. It would be kind of a mixed media effect.

I just don’t know if I have the vision for all that. It is one thing to use scrapbook paper to make something pretty. It is a completely different thing to pull beauty out of thin air and put it onto canvas…and have it look as beautiful as it did in my head.

I have a great respect for artists. I have fancied myself as having an artist’s spirit…without the talent. I see like an artist, but I have trouble translating that sight into something that someone else would enjoy.

But who knows? Maybe I could pull this off. I would love to sit here in my chair and look up at that wall and have it not be glaring its whiteness back at me. Whether I make the perfect picture or find it…one of those things has got to happen. 

A Loss is also a Gain, sometimes.

So. I have officially (by the time this post goes live) been without the internet at my home for almost two weeks now. How's it going you ask?? There have been some interesting moments, not gonna lie. Moments where I could have just banged my head against the wall in boredom.

But what have I missed out on?? Really, what have I missed out on? A lot more television shows I shouldn't exactly be watching? Time spent wasting time just surfing the web? Being on information overload and not being able to sleep?

The only real reason that I miss being plugged in is talking to my dear friend via skype everyday, almost. Now we have to make chat dates and that isn't quite as fun as just bing there all the time. I miss her.

But otherwise, aren't I gaining? Isn't it a good thing that I am not wasting a lot of time online, like I used to? I think so! I have such a feeling of independance and freedom. Not just now that I am in my own place, but I am untied from everything right now. It is kinda refreshing in a way.

As I type this, it is Monday night. This will post Saturday at noon (if everything goes as planned). I kinda miss the freedom of blogging when I feel like it. But I do like the feeling of this being something I do instead of something I choose to do, when I feel like doing it. I have to make a concsious effort to get blog posts out so you can read them. I have been keeping a log of my life now...more of a journal then I have kept before. Some of my blogs will come from that, other things will be strictly blog posts! I like to write and having this blog keeps me accountable and reminds me to write. And people are reading what I write. I like that.

Words have power. I hope that my words connect me to the world around me, instead of having constant access to the internet getting in the way of true and real connectivity with the world I am in. Forget the internet, that is connection I want to make.

A Maybe Someday.

Sometimes reading mommy blogs makes me nostalgic, for the future.

Which sounds weird. How can you miss something you have never experienced?

I get the same desire in my heart for a baby as I get for a husband. I don't know if you understand, but it is like this dull ache in your spirit. Sometimes desires, even good and pure ones...leave you a little achy.

I don't know why this is popping in my head today, but it is. Sometimes it just does that. I have talked about my desire for a hubby, but not really my desire for kids.

But it is there. Oh man, is it there. Sometimes I get scared. I think that if I talk about this it won't come to fruition. Like I will jinx it or something. I get afraid I won't be able to have kids. I get so scared to want it as much as I do.

Fear is a crazy thing. Fear doesn't come from God. God has not given us a spirit of fear. But when it comes to this area of my life, my future life, I am afraid. I pray that God relieves my fear. He gives me confidence to face the unknown, I just have to claim it.

So for know, I will dream. Dreaming doesn't bring results, but it brings hope. I have hope. I will feel my child in my arms someday. I will be a comforter. I will be an encourager. I will bring joy. I will guide along.

I will not be a perfect mom. But I will be a mom and that will be enough. :)

A Pioneer Spirit.

If you have been following my book shelf page at all, you will know that I recently finished reading all of the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. 

These books are so amazing. I read a couple of them growing up but never all of them in order. It was a neat experience for me. For those of you that don't know, the Little House books are a narrative of the life of their author. She was a pioneer with her family. But ya'll know me,  I won't give you the plot...not that I could even begin to do that with such a large book series!

What I got out of these books is the spirit that flows through them all. In the face of adversity, famine, illness and any other hardship the family withstood it all. They had good times to, times that filled my childhood mind with much ammo for daydreaming as I was growing up.

But what has hit me now, as a somewhat grown up girl, is that they kept going. In spite of everything...they didn't give up. They worked as hard as they could and didn't let their spirits die. They found the good in everything they went through.

Oh, that we all may be more blessed with a pioneer spirit.

A Contentment Issue.

God calls me to be set apart. God calls me to live a life seeking what is good, acceptable and perfect. Finding contentment is a real struggle for me. It leads me to do things that I shouldn’t, buy things I can’t afford and always be looking around the corner. I got this apartment because it was cute and made me happy. I have been shopping constantly because there is always one more kitchen gadget or some fancy new cleaning supply that I need. I pigged out on taco bell tonight because eating that makes me feel happy for a minute. In the same way, I obsess about what I don’t have. I don’t have a fella. I don’t have an internet connection. I don’t have a television. I don’t have a thin body. I don’t have a lot of friends. I don’t have a lot of money.

I am so focused on what I don’t have and what I think I need that sometimes I forgot where I am and what I do have. I desperately want to get married, but my future husband not complete me in the way my heart likes to think he would. He would not make my life perfect. We would just be two imperfect people walking the same direction together. Me going into this thinking he will solve everything will only bring heartache.

I need to find my contentment in Jesus. He is where true happiness, true contentment lies. Why don’t I desire Him as much as I wish I did? Why don’t I wake up in the morning and just jump out of bed to spend time with my Jesus? I think deep down, I know that my pursuit of worldly things will only end in unhappiness and if I really wanted to dig, I think I am afraid that Jesus would let me down too. I have never written that , let alone said that out loud before. I know that is a sinful lie. I know that. But my heart won’t let me believe it sometimes. I know the answers, the security, are in His word. In a way, I think I am afraid to find them. I am afraid to truly be face to face with my own futility.

The things I want for my life, the things I desire, are all futile. They could all vanish in an instant. I could be in a car crash tomorrow, lose an arm and lose my ability to work. That would cause me to lose my apartment and lose my autonomy. Things could work out with this guy I like. I could fall in love with him. I could love him for the rest of my life, but he could die. Or he could leave. 

I have always told myself that I am not going to live under the yolk of that uncertainty and that fear. I do not want to be a fearful person. But in the same light, I do not want to be an oblivious person either. I want to find the perfect balance of being able to live in the moment with eternity in mind. I think the “trick,” if you will, is to be focused on Jesus. That is something that is easy to say and not so easy to do.

If I was focused on Jesus, I wouldn’t need to spend more money on cleaning supplies only because it smells like sunshine and rainbows.

If I was focused on Jesus, I wouldn’t be afraid of offending my friends and family with His truths and the way of life He calls me to.

If I was focused on Jesus, food would not be an issue for me. I would not need it to be happy.

If I was focused on Jesus, self-confidence wouldn’t be an issue. I would get all my confidence from the King of Kings.

If I was focused on Jesus, I wouldn’t be afraid to speak the words He has placed in my heart. I wouldn’t be afraid to speak my feelings because He would be flowing out through them like a spring bubbling over a rock.

If I was focused on Jesus, contentment would not be a struggle. It would just be.

Lord, I want to be more focused on you. Please help me.

A Reflection on the Move.

Maybe there is no such thing as happy ever after.

Maybe.

I can’t say that I have succumbed to that pessimistic 

(or, even, realistic) view.

But really, what if this is all there is??

My “real life” started about four days ago. I moved out of my parent’s house into a cute little apartment that I should be able to afford, most months.

Today I realized something.

I HAVE to make it. Failure is not an option. My life has never been what I wanted it to. Not that it has always been horrible, but it has never been what I wanted it to be.

In high school, I was harassed and ostracized.

In college, I was lazy and unambitious.

In college the second time, I was motivated and not as successful as I wanted to be.

I am not as skinny as I want to be.

I am not as athletic as I want to be.

I am not what I want to be.

Here I am, in the best period of my life so far, and I still feel discontented.

I have an amazing job.

I just moved into a super cute apartment.

I have some people that care about me.

I have decided that my life is starting over today. I have to make it. I have to. I have to be the person I want to be. Things have got to change. I have to learn how to be contented with what I have, perhaps then I will be contented with what I want, someday when I get it.

So here I sit at my table for 1.5 people and I write. All I want you to know is that this is my life. I am a somewhat eccentric normal girl trying to live her life the best she can. I want to bring you (whoever you are) along for the ride. For better or worse, this is the real deal, the true story.

But it is more than a story to me, it is my life. 

A Happy Beginning.

Regrettably, that is not my bed. (At $15,000...it is too exorbitant to be anyone's bed!)

But that is what the bed looked like to me the whole week of the move.

It was not the smoothest move in the world. I signed my lease last Friday and moments after I got a call from the people the dogsit for....they were having a medical emergency and needed me for the foreseeable future. At that point, all I had packed was books. I also worked 27 hours in three days that weekend so packing and watching the dog who lived on the other side of town was not an option. So I had four days to reflect on how much I needed to get done.

Naturally, there was not even a second thought about dogsitting. Medical emergencies never come at a good time! I was scheduled to move in on Saturday and I was able to get back to my parents on Tuesday! So I did all packing (and some working) in FIVE days. Crazy biscuits.

Well, it happened. I moved. We made it, I survived with only one bruise on my leg! Amazing. Slowly but surely it is feeling like home. I will take pictures at some point. I can't find my camera charger!! It's in a box, somewhere. I hope. My place is super cute. The thing I am struggling with the most is the smell. It doesn't smell like home. It smells like new carpet and cleaning solution. :) Not bad, just not very home-y.

It will happen! It will be home, because...well, it is home. And I am not moving again until I have a diamond on an important finger. Seriously. Moving is not fun.