Would you forgive me love / If I danced in your shower So I suck at updating. Welcome to my life, dears.
Brianna is walking. And has a tooth. Both of these things are awesome and also scary. The good news? we mostly weaned before the appearance of said tooth.
Also, she has given up on formula. She weaned her own sweet self onto cows milk, which is early, earlier than I had intended, but I'm rolling with it. I'm just trying to make sure she gets enough iron - and we'll all be good.
And she's eating table food like it's going out of style. She took down an entire happy meal Sunday night, while we were killing time waiting to see if Chad was going to get admitted to the hospital overnight - long story. The point is, she's only 10-months old, and ate 4 chicken nuggets and all her fries. And drank 8 oz of milk. There is no way a child that small should be able to hold that much, lol.
I did NaNoWriMo this year. I didn't win, but i came really close - 43000 words or so. I blame my being sick, and out of town for the last weekend in Nov for not winning. But it was a pretty good experience overall, at any rate.
Getting ready for the Great Christmas Tour - with an added complication of a 10-month-old added to the already crazy 12+-hour drive with dog and cat and presents. If you want to get together whilst we are back home - let me know, and we'll see what we can do.
Also, Brianna will have a new little cousin (on her Daddy's side) sometime this month. Probably sooner rather than later. We're looking forward to meeting him!
There are other things, but my mind is mushy. Being sick (all the time) sucks, and I'm hopping to be done with it soon. (Probably just in time to create another germ carrier to make us sick all the time, lol).
I have no fear of drowning / It's the breathing that's taking all this work So the Biggest Loser thing.
I suck at it this week. Here's what I did:
Ate salads for lunch when I was in the office (turned out to be twice, due to sickness - both me and the baby).
Ate healthier dinners. Only had fast food ONCE.
Ate a crap-ton of veggies.
Drank a crazy amount of water.
Did 2 yoga classes and a Zumba class. Was very very sore.
Ate ONE PIECE of chocolate cake. At a party.
End result? I gained three pounds. Suck.
So this week? I'm taking the stairs, and hoping to get more workouts in. Trying to eat more healthy (and less overall, I guess?). This whole thing is complicated by the fact that I'm breastfeeding, so I can't just cut my calories in half and burn it all off... I still have to take in "enough", or my supply will tank - and I'm having enough problems right now, I'd rather not add to them.
So. Hopefully burning a few more calories will help. And maybe eating a few less. Alreay have one Zumba class under my belt... so that's something.
It's a long wait for the turning clock Another seven quick takes (I'm totally not original ATM. sorry?). And also, (for those of you who don't like that sort of thing) sorry for the fact that it's mostly baby news - seriously, it's the all consuming thing in my life right now, so if it weren't for that I wouldn't have any blog fodder.
I am ready for Christmas. I have all my shopping done, all the gifts to my family mailed, and the last of the non-family gifts get mailed today (they will be a little late... sorry). I have everything wrapped, and expect for a couple of small stocking things, I'm not waiting on any more packages. Yay!
My boss organized a surprise baby shower for me this week, which was awesome. Now I have more baby stuff, including some stuff to decorate the nursery. Yay!
That same day, I got a huge box of baby stuff from William and Kim. Because they are awesome. Now I'm goign to spend Christmas week trying to organize this stuff, so I can find it all when I need it.
Went to the baby doctor yesterday, and it looks like the baby is already starting to drop. Which doesn't mean that it will come early, but means that things are moving in the right direction at least. We go in for an ultrasound on Christmas Eve, to get an idea of the baby's size and position. Yay! If the baby is big, we have to figure out the best course of action (induce early? c-section? tough it out?), and if the baby isn't big, I have to figure out why I've gained 50 pounds, and what I'm going to do with the extra weight when I'm no longer pregnant, lol.
I started this pregnancy with the greatest ideals... no induction unless there's a serious medical reason, no c-section except for the same, and I absolutely would not have them induce me early unless it was a life-or-death thing. Somewhere along the way, though... I got tired. And now I'm like... "OMG, big baby? Sure, induce. Tomorrow would be awesome. Unless you can do it today. Do you think cutting the kid out of me would be better?" Not that I think it will come to that... but I'm just tired. I'm tired of being tired all the time, and of not being able to tie my own shoes, or walk up a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing, or get up from a chair without doing some weird back bend thing to rearrange my center of gravity. And I want to eat a rare steak. And some sushi. But it'll be like, a seriously long time before I can do either - maybe for Christmas next year or something. Blah.
I go to Babies R Us this weekend to get the last big piece of baby furniture (I have good coupons, yay!) - this one's a dresser / changing table. And I'll put off buying everything else until after my shower at church on the 4th :-)
My family, and possibly Chad's family, will be in in early February, which will be nice (but also interesting, as they may be here at the same time, and there could be interesting family dynamics there). And yeah, I'm a little nervous about my mother's parenting style clashing with mine, and the same for my mother-in-law. Hopefully, I'll make it through the visit without being told that I'm doing it wrong (in my head, this is said lolcat style: UR DOIN IT WRONG!). We shall see.
Head over to Conversion Diary if you want to read more seven bullet updates from random people, lol.
He can settle any sea / But it doesn't mean He will It's amazing how life can be so crazy that you can barely stand it, and are stressing about every little thing... and one more thing happens (like, say, you have to evacuate the city because you're pregnant and they locked the freakin' hospital doors)... and suddenly, for some reason, everything is ok. I mean, everything is on its head, but suddenly I'm ok with it.
So here's what happened. My dad was in the hospital, I was stressing about going home, and then my Granny broke her hip and went into the hospital. I was pretty stressed about everything, and just barely managing to hold it together. About an hour after I heard about my Granny (this was Wednesday night)... They announced the evacuation orders for my county, excluding Pearland itself. After some looking, I found out that our "voluntary" evacuation for Ike meant (among other things) that the hospitals were locking their doors. So, Chad and I decided to leave, with no great idea where we were going to go. I slept that night, drove to my office to grab my computer, and spent the rest of the day trying to help Chad get the house ready to leave. We left about 5pm, after boarding most of the windows, and packing the animals, our photos, and enough clothes to last us through Sunday.
Monitoring the traffic leaving Houston, everything to the north and west was close to gridlocked. So... we headed east down I-10. Other than two pretty serious traffic jams due to accidents (slowing us an hour each time), the traffic wasn't that bad at all. Although it was extremely difficult to find a drive through place that wasn't closed and boarded up.
We started looking for a hotel room in Baton Rouge, which was a lost cause, really. We headed north up I-55, and when we got to Jackson without finding a hotel, we gave up. Chad and I took turns driving and sleeping, and we made it into Southaven about 6am on Friday morning. Crazy stuff.
Friday, we slept a little, ate Abner's, then went to the hospital so that some people Chad's mom works with could give me an ultrasound, which was awesome. They did both 2d and 3d ultrasounds, and got some great pictures of the little one moving about, sucking its thumb, and being difficult by covering its face. It was really cool, and made the trip pretty worthwhile.
Saturday, we got up early and drive to Huntsville, and visited both my Dad and my Granny. We had a good visit, and Daddy seem to be doing a little better. He's walking without a cane, and he was really glad to see us (and the baby). That night, we headed back to Southaven, intending to leave for home in the morning. But once we arrive in Southaven, we discovered that we could not go home. I-10 was blocked in places, and the authorities told us to stay where we were. We knew Pearland was hit kind of hard (friends lost a great deal of their roof), but that our house was at least intact, and not leaking through the roof.
So we sat back and tried to enjoy the "vacation". Each day, we made plans to come home the next day... but between the roads and the authorities, we didn't get to come home until Thursday. I ended up working remotely some, to keep from getting to far behind, but JSC was closed the entire week.
When we got home, we saw first hand how our house fared... we lost our fence (half the neighborhood did as well), and our shed (with the grill and everything in it), and (we discovered later) a little water got in around the windows on the back of the house. This may mean replacing all the windows and the back door, and replacing all or part of the drywall/insulation in the bedroom (and maybe part of the carpet). But overall, we didn't fare too bad. We have power, water, and gas, so we're all good. We even have groceries at the store, finally.
Traffic, however, sucks. My 45 minute commute has morphed into a 2 hour commute. But since that's my biggest complaint, besides finding contractors to fix the house, I can totally survive.
And I'm far less stressed about everything else, and more centered, which makes entirely no logical sense. But I'm enjoying it, while it lasts. :-)
Sometimes He calms the storm With a whispered peace be still He can settle any sea But it doesn't mean He will Sometimes He holds us close And lets the wind and waves go wild Sometimes He calms the storm And other times He calms His child ~Sometimes He Calms the Storm, Scott Krippayne
I can't find the words to pray / I'm a little down today So I've been really quiet, which is typical - and yet not typical. There has been a lot going on, but long story short, I haven't had to words to explain anything, or the emotional capacity to think through everything enough to find the words. But I'm working on it now, so this will probably be a long long post... it's been a long time coming.
So. Being pregnant. It hasn't been that bad, although I've whined a lot about it to anyone who's gotten too close to me (mostly Chad, though, as I've kind of withdrawn a bit from the rest of the world). Everything is progressing well, the baby is growing great, and the doctor seems happy with all my tests for now. The two biggest problems have been my tiredness... I'm super tired all the time, and can't seem to get enough sleep no matter what. And my emotions. Which is part of why I've withdrawn a bit... when spilling french fries or breaking a nail makes me cry, I have little reserves left to deal with people. And their problems. Or even my own problems.
My dad had a stroke about a month ago. It took the doctors like, three days to figure it out, so by the time they got around to "fixing" it, it was pretty bad. He was in the hospital for more than a week, then went home with no feeling in his right hand, trouble walking, an inability to read at all, some mild confusion, and vision loss on his right side. And a pretty serious case of depression. After a couple of weeks at home, and starting physical therapy, and improving a little... he had another stroke. This one has left him much more confused... I've talked to him a half dozen times in the last week, and every time he asks me at least twice when the baby is due. He's not always sure why he's in the hospital, or even where he is. They moved him from the regular hospital (where he's been for a week) to the rehab hospital late last week, and they're working him pretty hard there. It doesn't look like he'll be going back to work. Mom's holding up pretty well, but she's really starting to wear thin. She's trying to decide whether to switch jobs to make a little more money and keep better insurance, or to keep her current job (which she's only marginally happy with). Since she's the sole breadwinner for the time being, at least, she feels like she's under a lot of pressure.
This has caused me a great amount of stress aver the last month, as I'm not exactly in a position to drop everything and run to Huntsville to help out, and not in an emotional state to really be much help even if I went. Practically speaking, I have 6 days of vacation left for the year. To match Chad's time off at Christmas, even though we aren't traveling, I'll need five of those. That leaves one lonely vacation day. Chad and I have talked about going home over a weekend... driving in to Huntsville on Friday, picking up a U-Haul trailer to hold stuff we need to bring back, and coming back through Memphis - arriving home Monday, having spent about 24 hours with each set of parents, and about 30 hours on the road. This, you might have noticed, takes two vacation days, which puts me short at Christmas, which I think at this point is inevitable. Add to this the complication that there's a wedding in Huntsville in early November that I'm kind of expected to attend (except it's not really a wedding, I suppose, but that's another story). Plus, the longer we wait, the more uncomfortable I'll be traveling. And thus the more whining Chad will have to endure on the drive.
So the long and short of this becomes... when do I go home? Later, to meet family obligations to attend a wedding, and when my dad might be a little better (if he doesn't get worse)? Or earlier, when I can (possibly) be more help, and will be more comfortable, but will miss the other family events?
Blah. To complicate this even more, I'm not sure my folks will be here for Thanksgiving, as I'm not sure they'll have the money to travel, or that Dad will be well enough to travel. And since I can't go home at all in December or January, that was supposed to be Christmas for us. And I don't know if my mom will be able to come out for as long as she was planning to in February to help with/see the baby. And Chad's parents haven't made any plans to come visit us before the end of the year, or after the baby comes (they will, I'm sure, but no plans yet). So me going home is my big chance to visit, until I'm able to travel with the baby, which will be like, the middle or end of March, at best.
So yeah, words have failed me lately. Life, it seems, goes on day by day, regardless of everything else. And day to day, life isn't all that bad. It when you lump all the days together that it starts to get overwhelming, I guess.
Now all the demons look like prophets and I'm living out / Every word they speak... It's funny how the smallest thing someone says can really get to you. In good ways, as well as bad (although more often the former, I guess).
For instance. The other day, I got a voice mail message from someone... not a personal voice mail from someone who directly called my phone, but a voice mail that was sent out to a somewhat large group of people. The message, for the most part, didn't even pertain to me. But at the end of the message, there were four words that made me feel really really good (which is completely nonsensical, based on the distribution of the message, etc). "I'm thankful for you". A very small thing... but it really made my day. For the rest of the day, when I got tired or was having a rough time, I thought back to the message... and the fact that someone was thankful for me. Not for my work, or my skills, or what I had done... for ME. And that, for whatever reason, means something to me.
Six things I'll never get tired of hearing:
I love you
I'm so glad you came
I appreciate you
I miss you
I'm praying for you/thinking about you
I'm thankful for you
Seriously... it's all the little things that keep me from drowning in the vast chaos of life. Without them, I would truly be lost.
Out of the shaker and onto the plate / it isn't karma it sure ain't fate So I've been eating the same brand of string cheese for something like 8 months now. And I just (as in, about 30 seconds ago) realized that there is a joke on each wrapper. Ha!
I saw a tornado on Saturday. A funnel cloud, I suppose, since it apparently didn't touch ground. But it was pretty cool, since I'd never really seen one before.
Things are kind of slow here (although I'm still not managing to get much of anything accomplished), which is a nice change of pace from the April/May rush of travel and stuff. We're not traveling again until we go back to Memphis and Huntsville for a couple of days each next month.
We'll all stay skinny cause we just won't eat So I bought a box of Kashi chewy granola bars... they have more fiber, and more protein, and less sugar than the granola things I have been eating, and are full of whole grains and stuff instead of unpronounceable preservatives.
The problem? They taste like bird seed. Which isn't as bad as it could be, I suppose. It's better than cardboard. But not exactly what I'm craving when I reach for a granola bar.
I need some healthy type food that doesn't make me feel like a bird.
Take some time, mellow out / Party up, but don't fall down Yay! Fun stuff is happening! and more is about to happen!
Went to a graduation party this weekend for Dr. Sarah Nagel. Who's dad is now the Faculty Senate President at State. So we spent a lot of time catching up on the real story of what's going on at State (not the nice, clean, daffodil-drama-free story that I get in the alumni newsletters). Fun times! And best of all, Sarah might not be moving far away from us (yet, at least)! While we were there, my mom called to tell me that...
My sister is coming to visit me this week! She's flying in Wednesday, and flying out on Sunday, which is the same day we leave for our...
Disney Vacation! Cruise and theme parks! As grown-ups! Yay! and a couple of days after we get back, we get to leave again because...
William is getting married! So we get to travel to The Coast and see old friends and stuff. I love visiting old friends, so we're doing it again in late June or early July when...
We meet Richie and Angela in Orlando to go to Universal for a couple of days. But, it gets better than that. They just got engaged, so...
We'll be traveling to Seattle for their Wedding in November!
So much travel! It's crazy! But yeah, it should be fun. Sometime in all of this, we might have to think about going home to visit our parents...
I feel like a million miles away / And I don't know what to say I've been kind of anti-social lately. Not sure exactly why (although being pretty busy has kind of helped it along). Also not sure if I'm really over it. For what it's worth.
Maybe I'm just tired of reaching out. I feel like, all too often lately, I reach out to people only to have them walk off, leaving me standing there with my arm sticking out like an idiot. I guess that's preferable to having them cut my arm off. But, metaphorically speaking, my arms are tired. I'm not sure what the solution to this is, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't to board myself up in my house and become a hermit (and yet that's more or less what I'm doing).
Anyway. If you haven't seen me, that may be why.
In other news... I've been watching Deadliest Catch this season. I don't know why I like that show so much, but I do... it's pretty funny. The dynamics between the guys on each boat are interesting, too. Lots of families. Family dynamics are always interesting.
Summer has hit Houston, humidity and all. Everywhere, that is, except my office. As in, not the building I work in, by my particular room. Where it's like, 50 degrees. and about 72 in the hallway. I'm waiting for little tornadoes to form in my doorway, seriously.
Maybe I push when I meant to be still / Maybe I take it all too personal In general, I over-analyze things. By "things" here, I mean everything: conversations, emails, body language, the importance of what is for dinner, etc. I have this sometimes crippling fear that someone, somewhere, will be mad at me for something. That they (whoever they are), in fact, might be mad at me right at this very moment. So I spend a great deal more time than I should trying to figure out who (if anyone) is mad at me, and what I did to cause this, and how I can make it better.
Amazingly often, I talk myself into believing that someone is mad at me (even when they aren't), and I get all stressed out about it, and (when I've exhausted my other options for trying to make this better without actually communicating the fact that I think they are mad at me) I resort to some more adult method of dealing with my problems: I avoid said people in person while saying vague, snarky, passive-aggressive things about them on my blog. Then, if (by chance) I find out that they were not, in fact, mad at me in the first place, I feel guilty.
Occasionally, though, I don't realize that people are mad at me until long after the fact, when whatever it was that made them mad in the first place is now so huge that it causes them to avoid me entirely. Then I feel guilty for having missed whatever secret sign that I was looking for in all my over-analyzing. All the while, telling everyone else that it doesn't really bother me.
The moral of the story? I should stop over-analyzing and get over myself :-) Generally, I don't get it right, and even if I do I can't really change anything. People who value relationships generally will let you know when you've seriously upset them (you know, before they can't stand being around you any more).
That being said, I really enjoyed church yesterday. It was the first time I'd really felt home there... I don't know how to describe it. It was nice to have people stop to talk to me and know my name. Joining a women's small group wasn't what I expected, but I'm glad I've stuck with it... it has certainly helped with feeling like I'm a part of something, and is encouraging me to reach out into other small groups.
My mission for the year: don't over-analyze interactions with people at church. They aren't all mad at me.
I want to be meeker / but have you seen this old Earth? I'm tired. At least it is Friday :)
I miss old-school music (old school, for me, means mid/late 90's christian rock). Pandora is awesome for being able to listen to said old-school music. Unfortunately, I can't get Pandora in my car :-(
I bought some CDs at Half-Price books, though. So I can still have some amount of Old School, in the car. And if I got it together, and figured out how to make play lists work on my nano such that I could easily swap music on and off of it... I could listen to that in the car.
Long story short, I'm whining, there's an obvious solution to my problems, and I'm just to lazy to deal with it. That's like, the story of my life.
I guess that I was hoping / that you'd finally understand The six month curse has stuck again. And interestingly enough, it wasn't me.
In other news, we're trying to tie down our cruise plans for the summer... so if you're interested in cruising, let us know kinda soon. We're looking at going the second week of May. And possibly leaving from Galveston.
This weekend I may try to catch either the CSI exhibit at the Museum of Natural Science, or the Pompeii exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. I feel the need to go experience some culture of some kind. If the museums don't work out, maybe I'll talk Chad into going to the movies with me or something.
For what it's worth / It was worth all the while So we drove to Denver this past weekend, which was awesome (which is to say, being in Denver and visiting people was awesome, having a captive audience in the car for 36+ hours was awesome, the driving itself was not so awesome). I got to see all kinds of interesting things for the first time on the trip though:
Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado. Ha!
Giant windmill things (in Kansas)
Tumbleweed
Prairie dogs
Oil wells (the kind that look like those bird-looking perpetual motion things... not sure how to describe it)
The Rockies
I also learned some things on the trip:
Kansas is the birthplace of Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, and William Chrysler.
The first patented helicopter was in Kansas.
In spite of all this, Kansas is lame.
Apparently, real trees don't really grow where there's no water, so you get stuck with these little weedy trees... which are funny. But not really trees.
Those windmill things are bigger than I could have imagined.
Traveling to Denver while trying to get over a sinus infection will make your ears hurt. But they won't actually explode. Which is good.
We got to visit Krys, Manda, and their boys, play Shanghai (though not the last couple of rounds), eat pancakes and sushi (not at the same time), tour Boulder, appreciate the awesomeness of friends who have known you forever and don't manufacture their own drama, run around Pearl St. mall, and Manda introduced me to a store that sells happy-hippie eco-friendly natural soaps and shampoos and stuff. And they are opening one in Houston. Yay! I might have to buy stock in them or something, seriously.
All in all, the trip was a success. I would definitely do it again, with less car this time, and more airplane.
Right and left it's all the same conspiracy / just cause you ask, doesn't make a difference to me Did my civic duty and voted yesterday. Not that it really mattered much... I always was one to go for the under dog :-) I had an unrelated excuse to work from home, so I was able to go to the polls at an off-peak time, and mostly avoid the lines. This also meant that I was the only person in my party at the polls who was under, like, 100 years old. (This probably holds true for the other party, as well, but I didn't sneak over to their side of the building to look)
I went to the first meeting of that Tuesday night women's bible study last night... it looks like it's going to be a good group, but (as of last night) there isn't really anyone my age. And I'm the only one without kids. But everyone seemed happy to have me there anyway. Interestingly enough, there was a woman there who had recently moved from Starkville. So we sat and talked about places we ate and shopped in Starkville, and where exactly we lived.
Somehow, the year has gotten away from me. I was pretty sure it was still the middle of January, and then people started asking me what I want for my birthday, and reminding us to nail down our summer travel plans (since we're looking at traveling in May)... How did it get to be March already?
The sky starts to crash the rain on the roof starts to drumming I managed to take an hour for lunch again today… I went to Target, and bought Propel and paper towels. Which is entirely uninteresting, but saves me a stop on the way home.
Chad and I bought two apple trees this weekend. One for the front yard, and one for the back. We managed to plant the one in the front, but planned to do the one in the back yard tonight. Unfortunately, no one told the weatherman this, and now we're under a thunderstorm warning. So it'll have to be Wednesday, as I think we're both busy tomorrow night. And tonight, maybe I'll read or something… or at least pick out a book to bring to work tomorrow. I'm currently in the middle of several (which is typical), so I need to decide which one I want to finish next. Slowly but surely, I’m working through my "to read" list.
The best thing you've ever done for me / Is to help me take my life less seriously I actually took a lunch today. As in, I packed my lunch and took it to work (this in and of itself isn't unusual these days), and then (and this is the amazing part) I stopped what I was doing for an hour and took a lunch break.
I did it yesterday too.
The sad thing is, neither of those two breaks were actually used for eating... I still ate over my computer, while working (or attempting to, at any rate). Yesterday, I took the break to run down to Half Price Books and look around, specifically for a little journal-type book to use for the bible study thing -- I found one that will work great, I think, and in addition to that I found another journal that has graph paper instead of lined paper. Who thought of that? And why didn't they call me when they did? I bought it, with no specific purpose at the moment. I just miss writing on graph paper -- and today's break was spent reading (with my office mate out of the office, I could shut the door and enjoy some quiet for an hour, reading the Time Traveler's Wife. Except it wasn't really quiet, as I share an office wall with someone who projects very loudly into the phone, mostly about finance, and am around the corner from someone else who also projects into the phone (and at people in person), mostly about travel arrangements).
I might continue to take real lunch breaks. Until such time as I have too much work to do to really enjoy them (which will be, you know, right before the next big deadline). Not sure about the reading thing though... might have to take it outside, at the very least. Not just to escape the loud phone people, either. I forgot that 9/10 of my reading time is in bed, right before (and sometimes slightly after) bedtime, so when I finished my hour and stood up to open the door, I thought I was going to fall over. I didn't, but I'm still not sure if the lightheadedness had to do with the reading, being stationary for too long, or was just a fluke.
Actually, this week has been really easy, work-wise. Which is a nice change after last week, where I was rushing to get everything ready for user testing and trying not to die in the process (In the end, everything was ready, and I'm not dead yet). I attended a conference for two days, and spent some time tying up a few loose ends that slipped through the cracks last week. Since then, I've actually been inventing work to do, as I was so busy last week I forgot to ask for extra work to do this week :-P
There's a lot in my head, and very little of it particularly blog-worthy.
And in the air the fireflies / Our only light in paradise I ate Brussels sprouts for the first time in literally years last night. They were awesome, just like I remembered only better. Thank you, Bird’s Eye, for inventing single serving frozen veggies that cook in the bag in like, a minute. Actually, frozen veggies in general are pretty awesome. Tastes almost as good as fresh, and I don’t have to worry about them going bad in the crisper while I get around to eating them.
I joined a Curves studio down the road from my house… I’m now working out 3+ times a week. So far, it has been pretty good. On the off days I‘m trying to do something aerobic, but that’s been kind of hit-and-miss the last two weeks. At least I’m doing something. (That’s what I keep telling myself).
This week, I picked back up Kingdom Hearts II, noting that there will be a sequel coming out at some point that will actually fit in the timeline right before the game I’m playing. I figure I should actually beat this one before the sequel comes out, so I can justify buying it. I managed to get to Johnny Depp world (Pirates of the Caribbean), but I haven’t beaten it yet. Almost 12 hours into the game, and I still had to have Chad explain to me what was going on in the plot (to be fair, he had to look it up online to figure it out).
I’m joining a women’s bible study starting next week… should be interesting, and will give me a chance to interact with some more people who might or might not be my age (the jury’s still out on the age thing). The woman who’s running the study has been married for something like 15 or 20 years, so I would guess she’s quite a bit older than I am, but younger than my mother. I’m hoping there’s a good mix of ages in this group (that always makes it more interesting), but that I’m not the only young married chick without kids (it’s less lonely that way).
I’ve been thinking for a while that I really miss State. I came to the conclusion the other day, while talking to a friend, that I probably do miss State somewhat… but what I really miss isn’t Abner’s, SEC football, the Union, or the Drill Field, but feeling like I really belonged someplace. Like I was supposed to be there, and like I was part of a community. When we moved to Texas, I kind of retreated into my own world, mostly because I didn’t feel there was a good community to be a part of. And I’ve missed that feeling… so I’m trying to reach out of my now tiny comfort zone, and find a community. It was easy at school… we were all basically the same age, and dealing with basically the same set of experiences. In the real world it’s hard. But not, I think, unattainable. And probably worth the extra effort.
Throw me somethin' mister / I wanna dance with your sister We went to Mardi Gras Galveston this past Saturday... it was fun, and crazy, and everything I suppose Mardi Gras is supposed to be (except, you know, it wasn't in New Orleans). And now I want to go dancing, so that may be the plan for this weekend (we'll see).
I spent most of Sunday recovering from Saturday (and the weird feeling-tired-and-blah sickness thing I've been fighting for like, two weeks now). It was raining, so I couldn't finish the yard work (which was more than ok with me)... but I did get some house work done (go me!).
I bought a new calendar this week... the squares on my old (free) one were so tiny I was having trouble recording all the things I wanted to keep track of. I ordered this specific calendar because everyone said the squares were big enough for anything. So yeah, it came in the mail this week, and I opened it up to put it on the fridge on Sunday. Oh. My. Goodness. This is like, the calendar of huge squares +10. It is so freakin' big, I couldn't hang it on the freezer door (it's too skinny), so I had to move everything from the fridge side to the freezer side and put this one on the fridge side. I was able to write meals for the week (instead of trying not to lose my little meal plan lists), and still have room for everything I need. And more. nd I don't have to write tiny (or smaller than usual, anyway).
I'm the best damn thing that your eyes have ever seen There are some days when I'm so freakin' awesome that I can hardly believe it. I just managed to make the impossible graphics library that I've been fighting with integrating into my prototype for a couple of weeks work, not only from my machine, but from Java Webstart (so anyone can run it). I finally determined that the problem was including the .dll files in the download... and figured out how to do it.
Now I'm happy. Because this means I'll have something that is actually testable to send overseas at the end of next month for user testing. Unless I run into more problems between now and then.
This is why I love coding... the buzz you get from solving a problem in a innovative way, and seeing it work (after hours and hours and days and days of seeing it not work).
You treat life like a picture / But its not a moment frozen in time So there’s been a lot going on in my head lately, most of which doesn’t translate well into language, much less blog-world. Just a lot of rambling stuff, I suppose, about growing up, friends, family, and life in general. And I’ll throw some religion and politics in there, just to spice it up a bit.
But yeah. Point is, I really haven’t had much to say. That anyone wants to read. Or for that matter, that I want to write. But, one of my brain ramblings has produced a series of thought that (I think) are actually post worthy, so here goes:
I always have these high plans for things… like this year, I started out with some goals (some realistic, some... well, will take some work, at best). And I go along pretty well for a while on the adrenaline of accomplishing things... I think, this is awesome! And then I miss a day (or whatever)… and I spend so much time beating myself up over the missed part, and feeling like I screwed everything up (I tell myself I’m good at that), that I miss the next one, and the one after... and after a while, I’m like, what’s the point? I've already "fallen off the wagon"... so I might as well not try (after all, I'll probably just mess up again).
And then I get to a point, again, where I’m faced with the consequences of not having done whatever (for example... having 8000 loads of laundry to do, because I put it off… who knew we owned so many clothes? Or having gained weight because I was too tired/lazy to cook, and we ate fast food several times during the week)... and I say to myself... Self, if you had done what you were supposed to, you wouldn’t be here. So I jump back on the wagon, and resolve to do better. Next time. Next week. Next year. Whatever.
I’m working through the FlyLady system... which I really like. But I’ve been doing the crash-and-burn cycle for like, 6 months. I keep reading: "You’re not behind, just jump in where you are", and I think... sure, I’ll jump in. As soon as I get caught up on the dishes. As soon as the laundry is done. As soon as the house is clean. As soon as I lose the 10 pounds I gained over the holidays. As soon as I find the perfect notebook to hold my control journal. As soon as I’m not behind…
The point is, I need to not get so hung up on the "wrongs", and learn to bounce back. Without falling off the wagon. I need to celebrate the "rights", and remember why I’m trying to make changes / do things better. And to see the big picture, not just the tiny corner that says this isn’t working.
So, following that idea, here are the things I’ve accomplished so far this year:
I have started eating healthier, most days of the week (this includes cooking healthier dinners, which has been kind of hit-and-miss, and packing lunch).
I have managed to work out for at least 15 minutes at least twice a week (go ten minute workout dvds!)
I cleaned out one drawer of the dresser and (finally) started using some of the drawer dividers I bought forever ago.
I got (with Chad’s help) almost half of the dvds scanned and into the new cataloging software I bought.
Chad and I cleaned out most of the garage in preparation to make it into a martial arts workout room (this was a huge task).
I’ve been drinking more water (not back up to 8 glasses a day consistently, but working on it).
I have entirely cut out caffeinated soda, and only drink soda at all if I’m out at a restaurant.
The worst is over now and we can breathe again I think I broke my toe. And it's the weirdest toe to have broken, too... the second from the smallest toe on my left foot.
I fell down the last three stairs. which kind of put a damper on the rest of my day. But there's not a lot they can do for broken toes, besides xray them and say, "Yep... that's broken." It turned an interesting shade of purple, though.
It's good to be home. Although the whole toe thing might mostly kill my plans for getting the house back in order.
We'll love you just the way you are / If you're perfect I think I'm finally done Christmas shopping. For the most part. I *think*. Sheesh. I don't think it's quite Christmas in my head yet, despite the fact that I've sung the Christmas Tree song to the tree every time Chad has turned it on (and Chad is counting the days until he can ban that song for another 11 months). I'm hoping I'll feel more like Christmas when I get back to Memphis/Huntsville, where it's cold, and everyone is wearing sweaters and stuff. "Going home" for Christmas kind of helps set it apart from the rest of the year... there's something about pulling into the driveway after a long trip when it's dark and freezing cold, and being greeted by family and (warm!) food that always makes me feel like Christmas.
And then, you know, the family drama catches up with you, and then it *really* feels like Christmas. You know what I mean. You can't have a family gathering without at least a strong undercurrent of this kind of drama. And since I only come home a couple of times a year.... it all hits at once.
So what did I accomplish this year, from my family's perspective?
I once again failed to produce grandchildren for my parents (through lack of trying on my part, which makes them sad).
I left school, which is probably good, since I was getting too educated for my own good (or something like that). In any case, they're pretty sure this should hasten the arrival of grandchildren.
I sold out to the corporate man, and work for the devil. Which might not hasten the arrival of grandchildren. Since I'm now a "career woman". And stuff.
In all seriousness, I think my parents are more or less proud of me. But they make no secret of the fact that they would be *prouder* if they had pictures of grandchildren to show off. Because that's what it's all about, in the end. Or something.
You wait and see when the smoke clears Lessons for the day (more for archival benefit than because you guys will be interested...):
You can't use relative path names for images that you want to load from jars. You have to use a ClassLoader to getResource().
It takes about 3 hours to determine this, if you forget that you can see the console output *if you run the jar from the command line* instead of trying to load it through Java WebStart.
It takes about 10 minutes to fix this problem, thanks to Find/Replace.
You cannot load files into a File object by their filename (even if you use getResource) if they are stored in a jar. Apparently, jarring them cause them to not be files any more (I know, it makes no sense to me either, but that's the best answer I could come up with from the forums). You need to use ClassLoader.getResourceAsStream() to put the jarred file directly into an input stream, skippign hte file object all together.
It takes another three hours of [Run the program in Eclipse. See that it works. Jar the project. Sign the jar. Run the jar through WebStart. See that it's broken.] repeated, ad nauseum, and googling various variations on the theme of "jar read from file" before you remember that you can run the jar from the command line. And get the exception output, with the error name, and google that.
It takes about 30 seconds to fix this problem, once you know how.
And, if you spend all day debugging all this stuff... you get no real quantifiable work accomplished.
Live in hill top mansions / driving sixteen cars In case you wondered, Rock Band is awesome. I'm so gonna sneak down to the living room and play while Chad's asleep. And I'm gonna play as the singer. And no one will be there to laugh at me. Ha.
So we now have an XBox 360. So someday (when I get it), I'll be able to play Beautiful Katamari. And that makes me happy.
And the quote of the day: You can't squeegie a gorilla!
It's true, we're all a little insane... Just so as you know, I totally suck at writing. (Not that I'm giving up, I'm just saying is all). The chances that anyone will ever get to read the novel? Practically zero. I mean, really. I'm hesitant to even post an excerpt on my NaNoWriMo profile, it's *that bad*. ~Disclaimer: I know there are worse writers out there, but I've also read enough to know that I wouldn't read anything that was as poorly written as what I write. I might not be entirely objective about this. But it's how I see it.~
Odd issues with writing... I feel the need to write an abstract. Too many journal papers. Sheesh.
Also, I have this weird desire to "get things right", and instead of making a note to look something up, I have to drop my story and spend time in Google trying to determine which is more correct - shawabti? or shabti? Or, how far is the Valley of the Kings from Giza? How long does it take to fly from a US hub (say, Houston) to Cairo? Does it take longer if you're on a budget?
Blah. Research.
I'm hoping to make my target word count today... somewhere around 3400 words. I'm sitting just shy of 2300 now. And I'm going out tonight, won't be back until after 10pm.
Can't feel the force that holds me down / but I believe in gravity
So… anyone want a kitty? Because we might have an extra, if no one claims it… Chad rescued a lost kitty at JSC (very domestic, friendly, with a collar and no tag)… when he called the security people, they said it would probably be put down at the end of the day if no one claimed it.
So we’re bringing it home, and we'll try to find the real owners. Meanwhile, we'll have an extra cat in the house, which should be interesting and all that… hopefully Kitty won't eat her.
Otherwise, we're our normal boring selves. I'm working, Chad's working, we play games sometimes, and yeah… that's about it. Boring people, I know.
Still sorting out life but I'm doing alright It's 9pm, and I'm actually thinking about just going to bed. How freakin' lame is that?
It has been a crazy week, though... or couple of weeks... geez, a month? the summer? Suffice it to say, the craziness abounds.
Chad's schedule has been crazy, doing ISTs and other cool acronyms... which has given me a couple of evenings to chill, and have the house to myself. This is in theory pretty cool, but I have yet to figure out how to make it work. For instance, Monday night I reviewed a list of things that Manda suggested doing the last time she had the house to herself... and ended up doing none of the listed things, and instead watching City Confidential, followed by crappy reality TV (WifeSwap), followed by a really odd documentary type show about a family that has 13 kids and only spend $150 a week at the grocery store. I got some cleaning done in there, too, but mostly just watched crappy TV.
Tonight I watched City Confidential, and then got sucked into a documentary about a serial killer who eventually got caught and put on death row, but they never found half the people he killed... yeah. Really healthy TV habits. But I got some other cleaning stuff done, read the first couple of chapters of a book someone lent me, and now I'm ready to call it a night I guess...
In other news, starting September 1 I'll be a real full time employee at Landmark, doing usability and like, getting paid and stuff. And benefits. Like a real person. Isn't that amazing?
In other other news, apparently my brother tore his rotator cuff at work... so now instead of stocking produce, he's greeting people at the door. So if you happne through the Sparkman Drive Wal-mart between 4am and noon (no clue what days), you should wave at him and stuff.
And for the record, I'm not terribly fond of hurricanes. Phenomenal cosmic (destructive) power aside, the build up is annoying. And people freak out, and panic, thus causing other people to panic, and it's not fun. I like tornadoes better. They destroy smaller areas, they don't tend to come with floods, and you only have a few minutes to panic and freak out.
That being said, we have an evacuation plan, and I have now put my finger on everything we would need to take with us (a surprisingly small list, really, which makes me wonder... why do we have so much other stuff?).
Anyway. I'm falling asleep whilst typing, which is always bad. I'm going to quit fighting it, and go to bed, which is pretty sad, actually).
I hear you say, that I'm totally a mess So I absolutely hate New Years resolutions. Because I make the same ones every year. You know: keep the house cleaner, lose weight, eat healthier, be a nicer person in general... And by January 15th (if I'm lucky) I've managed to screw them all up to such a point that I give up. This I suppose, is the quintessential problem with being a perfectionist... I'm not perfect.
So I didn't make any this year.
But now I have a better plan. Instead of resolutions, which are made once a year (usually when the house is still full of Christmas candy and such), and are easy to screw up... I'm just going to try and start good habits. And if I screw up a couple of days in between... I don't need to "catch back up", only jump back in where I left off.
You're crazy for believing I don't care Dear Microsoft,
You know what makes me mad?
Web pages that resize my browser window. Honestly, there's no reason for it. The desktop, and thus the size of the windows on it, is owned by the user. What if I had my screen resolution set to 800x600 or something lame like that? You would have just resized my window to something that overflowed my screen, in all directions. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?
Do me a favor. Hire some real usability people. Please. And while you're at it... provide me with some reasonable way to make Office 2007 look more like a it used to, and less like it was designed by someone who had never used a WIMP interface.
Pharaoh, he was a powerful man / With the ancient world in the palm of his hand This is just cool. A little disillusioning, though, to find out she was overweight, diabetic, and probably had liver cancer. Kinda spoils the typical vision of the good looking, fit, take-charge female who did something no other female has ever done... become pharaoh, with all the requisite titles (except, of course, Bull of Ma'at).
But cool and interesting, none the less. When I was about 10, my life ambition was to be an egyptian archeologist... probably why I enjoy my Elizabeth Peters books so much. This tomb (KV 60?) was actually discovered during the time those books were set... I think one of the Amelia Peabody books mentions it, actually... I'd have to look it up.
Right or left, it's all the same conspiracy Having flexed my political activism muscles yesterday over the internet music debate, I wasn't planning to delve into the realms of politics again this soon... But yeah, I have something to say.
Read this, about Massachusetts' initiative to "make sure everyone has health insurance". And everyone is praising it, and if it succeeds it could be a role-model for a national plan, etc.
But I don't see how they are helping. Telling people to get insurance, or risk paying a fine probably isn't going to get great results (look at how many motorists don't have insurance in states that require it -- and the fines for not haveing car insurance are much much higher)... And what about people who can't afford health insurance? I mean, there is a substantial SES demographic that falls between the "I'm so poor I rely on the state to provide my basic needs (and healthcare)" bracket and the "I have enough money to get by (and buy insurance)" bracket. Simply telling people to get insurance isn't going to help.
Asking insurance companies to play nice, probably not going to help either. I mean, really. Plus... if you forced the insurance compies to comply and insure *everyone* who applied... They will raise rates.
Having the government provide health insurance isn't the way either... honestly, I don't want to spend my tax money paying for druggies and alcoholics and people who are otherwise screwing around with their health (any more than it already does).
So the answer? No idea. I agree the healthcare system is broken... but I don't think that either a) mandating health insurance for everyone or b) providing government health insurance for everyone is the answer.
The day the music died... Pandora (along with a great number of other internet radio stations) is participating in a Day of Silence, to protest the new increased royalties that are going to be charged to internet radio stations.
I wrote my representative... who was very politic, and basically said the bill to exempt internet radio from this is in committee, and she can't do anything about it, but to please vote for her the next time she's up for re-election.
Pandora is one of my biggest sources for discovering new music. I have bought probably 50 CDs, just because I heard the artist on Pandora and liked them. Regular radio around here has a rotation of like, 40 popular songs, so it's difficult to find things that are new and interesting (especially if your taste in music happens to be slightly off the mainstream). As usual, the music industry is missing the mark by putting these people out of business...
Separate words from the sentence themselves / I pack double meaning like bread from the elves I'm not a big fan of rap, but this caught my attention. The lyrics are really well put together, and well... funny. And geeky. I might have to look into more of this group...
Answers, finally. Answers to the TV show theme quiz:
1: Where is the World is Carman Sandiego? Sung by Rockapella. 2: Suicide is Painless, the theme from MASH. 3: DuckTales. 4: Sesame Street. 5: Family Matters. 6: Due South, written and sung by Paul Gross. 7: Theme from Firefly, written by Joss Whedon. 8: Everywhere you go, the theme from Full House.
Now what's cooler than bein' cool? Totally weird.... So I'm listening to pandora (because it rocks, and to drown out the ringing in my earsthat's driving me crazy)... and my girly music station plays a cover of Hey Ya by Ediblered. A very slow, angsty, girly music cover. My brain is rebelling against even recognizing this as the same song. And yet... somehow I feel compelled to listen to more of their music. Very strange.
Apparently, I suck at this game. ... Or else I'm just too obscure for you. So it's hint day... I've also added an extra line or so to each of these.
she put the "miss" in misdemeanor / When she stole the beans from Lima -- aired on PBS, right before (or after?) Square One.
The only way to win is cheat / And lay it down before I'm beat / to another give my seat / for that's the only painless feat -- you all know this one, just probably not the version with words.
Tales of derring-do, bad and good luck tales, oo-oo / D-d-d-danger, watch behind you / there's a stranger out to find you -- Cartoon...
Sunny Day / Sweepin' the clouds away / On my way to where the air is sweet -- Another PBS show.
It’s a rare condition, this day and age / To read any good news on the newspaper page / Love and tradition of the grand design, / Some people say it’s even harder to find. -- Ran forever. Think suspenders. And saddle oxfords. And cheese.
You know you have to leave here / You wish that you could stay / There's four directions on this map / But you're only going one way -- obscure. but one of my favorites. starred Paul Gross.
Take me out to the black / Tell 'em I ain't comin' back / Burn the land And boil the sea / You can't take the sky from me -- was cancelled after the 3rd show, filmed and aired 12 episodes, became amazingly popular.
Everywhere you look / everywhere you go / There's a face / Of somebody who needs you -- Came on right before (or after?) #5. Also ran forever. starred twins.
she's from the city of angels/ like Betty Davis, James Dean, and Gable Alright, alright, I'm succumbing to the music game as well. With my own twist: name the song, and the TV show it was the theme for... extra kudos if you get the artist (in some cases there might not be one...). Some of these are kind of obscure...
she put the "miss" in misdemeanor
...to another give my seat / for that's the only painless feat
D-d-d-danger, watch behind you / there's a stranger out to find you
Sunny Day / Sweepin' the clouds away
It’s a rare condition, this day and age / To read any good news on the newspaper page
There's four directions on this map / But you're only going one way
Take me out to the black / Tell 'em I ain't comin' back
everywhere you go / There's a face / Of somebody who needs you
Maybe I've been here before / I know this room, I've walked this floor Having a good visit home.
Busy though, so I apologize to everyone I haven't contacted about getting together, etc. Went to Sbbn's wedding today... it was great, but all I have to say is this: Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright is not a wedding song. I'm just sayin.
Anyway. Must eat food. And stuff. Going to Memphis tomorrow, Home wednesday.
The Mississippi's mighty, but it starts in Minnesota/ at a place where you could walk across with five steps down
My keywords are not working exactly as I would like them to. So weird. Don't know how to fix it.
Settled on a d20 character idea. Already having fun with it. (and we haven;t started playing yet). Chad says I'm evil, but he's enjoying it, too.
I will never never never understand women. So don't call and ask me for advice on how to figure them out. 'Cause yeah, I don't know. Don't have a clue. On the other hand, if you figure them out, by all means let me know.
It's funny, when you're used to coming in to work for like, 3 hours at a time, how much 8 hour days kinda suck. But that's ok... 80 hour paychecks sure beat 10 hour paychecks.
I need to learn XML, which to this point I've never bothered with. I'm considering renewing my Safari subscription to gain access to some books... but not sure. It's kinda pricy (about $20 a month for the base rate, $40 a month for unlimited). Maybe I should check out what ACM has to offer, as I've already paid my dues for the year (ouch! I forgot how much dues were once you added in SIG memberships and transactions, etc).
Um. Yeah. Still totally addicted to LotRO. Started running quests with my secondary... the thing that annoys me the most? It takes freakin' forever to get somewhere. Like, anywhere. I spend more time running than anything else.
Have-to's and need-to's and get-to's by three Sleep. Is good. But now that I have tiem for sleep... yeah, I'm not really taking advantage of it. LotRO has somewhat cut into my sleep (something about never getting off the computer until 10:15 or 10:30, and then having to do all the stuff you should have done before gaming...), and I've be trying to get out of the house early(ish) to beat traffic. This morning, didn't work so good. I left at like, 6:45, but I had to run by the school on the way to work (the words "on the way to work" here mean "before I could go to work", not that the school is actually "on the way" anywhere from my house). So I didn't get to work until 8:30.
And all day I've been drawing little pictures. that are not icons (not that small). And trying my hand at interaction design.
Back at work full time, starting today. Yay for work!
Finished my First Year Project Paper last night at about 7pm. Also finished my stats final, and ran the exams I need to grade through the scantron machine. Double yay for being done!
Played more lotr online... not sure if I like it or not, but I can't stop playing. :-)
Fixin to start playing in a d20 future campaign. Have almost zero workable character ideas. If you have any ideas of dynamic female hero-type people I can model after, by all means let me know. Out of the running already: Lara Croft (already done), Tank Girl, and Ameila Peabody (couldn't seem to figure out how to port her from 1900's to the 2100's), and Grace Hopper (because, alas, computer scientists aren't heroes). I am severly lacking in inspiration.
Someone asked me on Friday if I could live anywhere, where would I live? I shocked an entire table of people by saying I'd live in north central Mississippi. Apparently, this is weird, as no one actually wants to live in Mississippi.
I miss Abner's chicken, and lots of otehr back home food, but I'll be back in the south somewhere around the 25th of this month... in Memphis for a couple of days, Maybe Thursday evening through Sunday morningish, then in Huntsville part of Sunday, all of Monday, and maybe part/all of Tuesday. Yay for travelling!
Once I know who I'm not then I'll know who I am Life... is exceedingly busy. Not bad, just really busy. I feel like I'm running behind, too (although I'm not completely sure that I'm actually behind in the real world. Maybe just in my head).
But yeah. Having a four day weekend last weekend totally rocked. I did lots of stuff. Including unpacking some of the large number of boxes that we still have laying around from the last (several) time(s) we moved.
Less than two weeks of classes left, then I'm working fulltime for the summer. Yay for summer! I know I've already planned more stuff than I can possibly do in like, three months. But it'll be fun to try and get it all done.
Slow dancing in a burning room... So school and work (but mostly school) have kind of been ruling my life lately. Which is to say, I have had no life, as I'm still dog tired from whatever it is I'm getting over.
But. Today I finished my Stats midterm. Yay! Now all I have to do this weekend (school wise) is write a presentation, write some part of my first year project paper, write a paper proposal for linguistics, and write a results section for stats. And something else, I'm sure, but I can't remember it.
Also, in the realm of annoying, it looks like I may end up spending my birthday giving make-up exams. How lovely.
And... you may have notice the I implemented the labels feature... it's really more for my benefit than yours, so I can find stuff kinda quickly. I'm trying to figure out if I can make the labels less prominant, but don't hold your breath as I don't have much time to devote to it. And it may take me a while (read: possibly years) to get all of my archives tagged... there are like, 1060 some-odd entries. Seriously.
Belief is a beautiful armor / But makes for the heaviest sword I survived my midterm. And today started both March, and Spring Break, as I have no classes tomorrow. Sometime this weekend, I'm am headed out for destinations unknown... Vegas, I think, but for a while it was looking like Grand Canyon or possibly Boulder.
Hopefully we'll figure it out before we leave ;-) Brian is coming with, which will be cool.
And I should probably clean the house, instead of blogging. But Chad's gone to karate, and I'm not terribly motivated to clean by myself.
There's more that rises in the morning than the sun today... was an ok day.
I have a voice scheduled for Thursday. Yay! Then I can start running subjects (right after spring break). And I'm mostly done studying for my midterm. Which is good, since it's tomorrow. Now I'm just tired. So I'll probably go to bed when Chad gets home (in like, 30 minutes).
After tomorrow's midterm, I've just got one more assignment due before the break. Yay! and some papers to grade, but that should be fairly short work.
I never was much of a martyr before / and i ain't 'bout to start nothing new I am so tired of putting everything I have into something, only to have it come crashing down around me. And part of me is like, But look, I invested all this time, and I worked so hard, yada yada... and the rest of me is like, Shut up and deal with it, no one likes a martyr anyway. Obviously, you didn't put *everything* into it, or it would have worked out.
Warring factions in my brain. Gives me a stupid headache... which then makes it difficult to work on my current soul-consuming project (my midterms and first year project).
I wake up and tear drops they fall down like rain... Blah. Been having kinda a blah week, really. I think I'm coming down with something (when am I not?), I've been waaaay stressed out at school (having your ass handed to you on a platter by the departmental progress committee will do that), the realization that New Orleans is never going to fully recover has finally hit me, and it's just been kinda blah.
But this past weekend was awesome. I enjoyed New Orleans Mardis Gras to it's fullest (and by that, I mean the drunken part but not the orgy part. Contrary to popular opinion, I do have a few limits). I caught beads (lots of beads), ate decent New Orleans food (port of call was really busy, so no hamburgers for us), watched parades, walked down Bourbon Street, and drank a drink that was literally more than half as tall as I am. In case you wanted to know, I cannot in fact hold my liquor like He-Man, everything is funnier when you're drunk, my drunken vocabulary mostly consists of the words "totally" and "awesome", and fire is the most totally awesome thing ever to be in a parade. Oh yeah, and I'm never (ever) allowed to drink that much Hurricane again.
But yeah. Back to the humdrum (but not boring, no never boring) life of a grad student. I've finished tonight's homework, and now I'm trying to decide whether to read Eugene Field while taking a bath, or to play Elebits (the greatest Wii game evar).
Oh yeah... all my pictures are broken. I'm working on that, it's annoying, I hsould have it fixed sometime this week (moaybe tomorrow).
Broken Roads So I was going to post somehting mushy yesterday, in honor of it being valentine's day, but I forgot :/ Then when I rembered today, I realized that 1) it's not valentine's day any more, and 2) the song lyrics I was going to post that remond me of Chad... I already posted them. A while back. When the song came out, I think. So yeah, I'm not going to repost them here, but I think "Bless the Broken Road" by Rascall Flatts would have been appropriate yesterday.
Other than random forgetting of stuff (which is totally normal, for me, I suppose), I'm kind of just hanging in here. I think I might have pissed off my advisor, and I'm really really tired for nogood reason, and I fixing to have to sue my car insurance company because my health insurance company is going to stop paying for my back problems, since they were caused by my accident, and my car insurance company thinks they shouldn't have to pay all of it (or something). it all lovely.
But. It is all ok. Because, rain or shine (weather.com says shine!), I'll be in New Orleans for Mardis Gras weekend (which is to say, Saturday), and I get to see all (some) of my Mississippi people, and be totally crazy (within some amount of reason, I suppose). Yay for Mardis Gras! Yay for New Orleans! Yay for Port of Call hamburgers, and other good NOLA food! Yay for parades, and beads, and old friends! Yay for Harry Conick, Jr. (just because)!
How much longer will I try before I realize / I’m desperate in the situation that I’m in again? Blah.
I should be doing something productive, but I have neither the brainpower nor the motivation. I just turned in my Stats homework, and it was kind of a crappy attempt, but I couldn't seem to wrap my brain around it. I know it'll be simple, and I'll figure it out over the weekend (have to take the prof's comments and revise over the weekend).
My head hurts. These stupid migraines are getting worse, and I don't know what to do about them. The combination of Amerge and Aleve has brought it down to a dull roar, but I still can't concentrate (plus, my reflexes are now like, zero). Maybe I should suck it up and call a real neurologist. Or something. I mean, I seem to be collecting doctors these days. What's one more?
Another consequence of my head hurting: I seem unable to say anything intelligent. I feel like a freakin' cave man. Stringing words together in real time is annoyingly difficult, and trying to decipher what other people are saying... yeah. So. I have to meet with my langauge professor in like, 30 minutes. And she's going to think I'm an idiot. Which, right now, I probably am.
Edit: The meeting wasn't so bad. She might not think I'm a total idiot. So now I'm gonna take some time and try to come up with a paper topic for that class (need to have a topic by midterm, I think).
I dream like a mad one... Had strange, strange dreams last night.... all the more strange that I can't remember them. I know they included my mom, Brian, Chad, and some random subset of people I knew/know from State. But I can't really put my finger on anything else about them, other than they were strange. Bits and peices are coming back to me, though, but none of it makes sense. And it's kind of annoying, cause I'll be reading a journal article, and all of a sudden I'm like, What the hell were we doing driving Hil's car? And how did we all fit? And where were we going? And then of course, I have totally lost track of what I was reading.
The sky pours out biblical rain / Then days so still the beauty gives you pain [whining] My back still hurts. [/whining] Nothing new there.
It's really freakin' cold here. Just in case you wondered. We're too far south to have gotten a lot of the ice and stuff, but cold cold rain... yeah, not much fun. They closed Rice this morning (when I didn't have class), but are open all afternoon (when I have class).
But this (nsfw!) made me laugh today... Because I am sick and wrong. But then, I suppose, that's why I read PennyArcade.
Also, for like, the first time ever, I'm totally ahead on homework. Not only am I ahead... I've been ahead for two days. Yeah, really. I finished everything yesterday that was due this week... got assigned a new homework yesterday afternoon, and finished it just a few minutes ago. So yeah. I might get to enjoy my weekend (well.... I know I'm going to get assigned a pile of journal articles to read over the weekend. But it was a nice thought).
Not the doctor Oh. My. God. I just want to go to a doctor that will fix my back, and my head, and will not make me hurt worse or make me come and see them 8 million times a week. Is that too much to ask?
So I went to a family practice doctor today. I waited for almost an hour to get into his office (no big deal, I expect to wait). Then, he doesn't intorduce himself, and this is the conversation that we have...
Him: So why are you here? Me just like I told the girl who scheduled me, and the girls when I checked in, and wrote on at least 3 medical forms: I have had a headache for 8 days now. My lower back hurts, and I had a car accident 6 days ago that might account for some of the back pain. Him: I don't do car accidents. Did you tell my girls all this? Me: Yes, but what about my headache? Him: I'll refer you to another doctor for the back pain, and I won't charge you a co-pay. *mumbles about ambulance chasers*. Me: But what about my headache? it hurt before the accident? Him: *has already left the room*
Yeah. Total waste of my time. Didn't listen to anything I said, didn't look at me. I hate doctors. The doctor he refered me to... is a surgeon. In Alvin. I am not driving all the way to Alvin to have someone tell me that I need back surgery. Stoopid doctors.
So now I have to find a new family doctor. Again. Preferably not one who's an ass. Are there just so many doctors in Houston that they feel like they can all be asses? I mean, really. This is ridiculous. I don't really care what insurance gets charged for the medical stuff... it's not like the chick who hit me is paying any of it... I just want someone to fix me, dammit.
I had to learn the hard way... Um. So yeah, Bob the Builder. But now, make that a midget pr0n version of Bob the Builder. (Someone warned me that this existed, and I didn't believe them. I had to see it for myself, which was probably dumb, and has probably scarred Chad for life).
Anyway. Had a great night tonight. Ate dinner (ribs and chicken) with David and Nichole, went to see Night at the Museum, almost ate donuts, and now I'm killing itme on the internet, proving to myself that mankind truely has descended to a point where people find a reason to post pictures of midgets wearing bob the builder hats and posing in um, very interesting positions. I'm just saying, I didn't think we'd fallen quite that far yet... but I was wrong. The intarweb is a strange and scary place. And on that note (and before I see anything else scary or wrong), I'm going to bed.
It's funny what you know and still go on pretending With no good evidence you'll ever see that happy ending
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues / in the middle of the pouring rain Well... it was raining. When we got here, between 1 and 2am on Friday morning.
And now it's kinda cold (as in, it's colder here than at home in Houston). But right now, I'm just thankful that I'm back in the land of Sweet Tea, Memphis Style BBQ, and Abner's Chicken. I mean, really, what more could a woman ask for (besides immunity to eat all of those things without gaining weight)?
Speaking of which... on my way to eat ribs today, got to ride in Michael's 350-Z... it's pretty sweet. But kinda small. :-) Also got to play a Wii, at someone else's house. And it was fun, but (as is typical for video games) I suck at it.
Also... fighting with one of Amazon's toy shops atm... ordered a black knight for Matt, had it shipped to him... but funny enough, when it got there, it wasn't a black knight, but a "Fun with your dog" science kit. I called them... the shop is closed from Dec 21 to Jan 8. I am not amused by this. Matt, however, is.
Anyway. Still no real info about what is going on in Huntsville... other than that we'll be busy with family on the night of the 26th and the morning of the 27th. I'll post more, when I know more, I guess.
Who can decide what they dream? / And dream I do... Blah. Stayed in bed until like, 2pm today, with the exception of getting up around 8:15ish to take a shower... still don't really feel like I slept. I feel more like I wasted like, 5 hours that I could have been doing something productive.
Work is becomeing a wild and crazy game of politics that I would really rather not play, but am somehow stuck in. But at least I don't have to deal with it (in person) until January 3rd... I'm working remotely from now until i get back from Memphis/Huntsville.
And speaking of the Hammon's Great American Christmas Tour 2006... We'll be in Memphis at some point (late) on the 21st, leaving (early) on the 26th for Huntsville, leaving Huntsvile for Memphis (early) on the 31st, and leaving Memphis to come back to Houston on the 2nd. So yeah, if you want to see us sometime in there, call me, or e-mail me, or something. We'll work it out.
Back to the doing productive things. I htink I'm oging to go arange icons and work on Stats stuff, whilst blasting my eardrums out with some combination of Eve6, Evanesence, and Indigo Girls (and maybe some other stuff thrown in there somewhere).
It's just enough to be strong / in the broken places... yeah. Working on that. Today isn't the best day for it...
Anyway. I forgot to mention that my last post was the 1000th post. Yay for me! or something.
Working on Stats, listening to Lily Holbrook, talking on the phone... yeah. Supposed to be doing lots of other stuff, but I'm not moving fast enough or something... who knows.
the ice is thin enough for walkin' the rope is worn enough to climb throat is dry enough for talkin' world is crumblin', but i know why world is crumblin', but i know why
storm is wild enough for sailing bridge is weak enough to cross this body frail enough for fighting i'm home enough to know i'm lost home enough to know i'm lost ~Jars of Clay
She keeps running into herself... She keeps running into herself Trying to find somebody else She keeps running into herself Hoping to find somebody better... ~Plumb
While we pray to the god of the lesser things... I talked to my mom last night... which is always interesting. Apparently, Chad and I have caused a stir with the relatives (that is to say, my dad's relatives) by not planning to be in Huntsville on December 25th. So now, the whole world (which is to say, the Glasscocks, the Jacksons, and the Cambpells) is in an uproar, and Christmas is in the process of being moved. To some unknown time. I have an equation for this...
(5 Glasscocks + 5 Jacksons + 2 Campbells + 2 Hammons) = (10 fulltime jobs + 4 part time jobs + 3 full time students + 1 business owner + 5 sets of in-laws) = impossible to find a time when we can all be together.
My mother seesm to think I really have my life in order, too, which is funny... I guess she just sees her little girl, grown-up, married, owning a house and going to school somewhere that no normal person can afford (hell, I can barely afford it, and I'm not paying tution). And I see... I don't know. Someone who's still wondering how she got a license to be a "grown-up" in the first place... I mean, who really thought that was a good idea? Someday, someone will figure out that I'm really a little kid running around pretending to be a grown-up... and they will revoke my grown-up card. And then where will I be?
I guess talking to my mother makes me introspective or something... who knows.
So I finished my final paper for I/O at like, 11:30 or so last night. Yay for meeting deadlines (by the skin of my teeth, but still). And now I have to go turn it in... this is the last week of class. Yay! (or something).
Um.... yeah. interesting image from PostSecret, sums up my thought on lots of things.
And the lyrics (or portions of them) from the song I took my title from.... one my mind since the wind has been blowing like crazy (cold wind, too.... brrrr).
It looks a lot like givin' up Peace we bring is a bitter cup Set our bodies down like offerings While we pray to the god of lesser things
If the wind should shake this house apart The cradle hits the ground with a broken heart Will we say we never knew a thing? While we pray to the god of the lesser things
Ash to ash and dust to dust Steel on steel or rain to rust What mortal breath blood money brings Forth from the altar of the lesser things ~ Jars of Clay
I was hellbent on agony back then... been listening to old mp3s. brings back old memories... both good and bad. Mostly from Freshman year, but some before and after that.
I did some crazy stupid stuff back then. Fun, mostly, but crazy and stupid. And... well... not always fun, come to think of it. lol. Like the time Mike ran into a tree, and got a concussion, and we had to take him to the Oktibbeha Coutny ER (for those of you who have never been there... this is like, the smallest "trauma" center ever. Ask me about it sometime)... And Hil freaked out...
Or the time that Hil, Louis, Grey, Joe and I all went out to Dorman Lake for a Mudslide Party (the drink... not the wet dirt)... and Joe was busy hating Louis for hitting on Hil, and Hil was busy being oblivous, and Grey was disgusted with the whole situation... and then we ran out of ice cream, so Grey and I drove like, 45 minutes round trip to the nearest store, and by the time we got back everyone else was drunk, so we all ended up just going home.
Yeah. Lots of random crap. Some of which I had forgotten... Interesting, I suppose, if nothing else.
Random note to self... typing on a Z-board is annoying. Remember to switch out keysets before blogging.
My regrets become distractions when I cannot do them justice So I dug up my old laptop hard drive tonight, in search of a couple of mp3s. Yeah, my hard drive from like, years ago. Talk about a blast from the past... Found some funny, funny stuff though, including:
About 6.5 gig of mp3s of my favorite songs from my u-grad years... and I still know all the words :-)
The start of a short story based on a character that I developed from Chad's D&D players handbook back when I was still avoiding playing D&D like the plague.
Mathematical proof that Chad is evil.
A meme type list of random facts about me at the time.
Chat logs from forever ago. Funny funny stuff. Including a conversation I had with "John Glenn". Ha. Bet you didn't remember that, did you? Well... it is saved for all posterity. On my hard drive.
Pictures of people (Willer Lite, Sbbn, Mikie (pre marriage and children).... among others).
Proof that Chad is evil (I can't help it....)
**** THE PROOF THAT Chad Hammons IS EVIL ****
C H A D H A M M O N S 67 72 65 68 72 65 77 77 79 78 83 - as ASCII values 4 9 2 5 9 2 5 5 7 6 2 - digits added \_____/ \_____/ \_____/ \_____/ \_________/ 4 7 2 1 6 - digits added
Thus, "Chad Hammons" is 47216.
Turn the number backwards, and add 38 - the symbol of slavery. The number is now 61312.
Subtract 5181 from the number - this is the year first commercial cheese factory was established, written backwards. It gives 56131.
Subtract 1964, the year Beatles with "Can't buy me love" topped the charts in a very mysterious way. The result will be 54167.
Subtract 1927, the year Fidel Castro was born. The result will be 52240.
Turn the number backwards, subtract 1904 - the year Oppenheimer, the man who created the atomic bomb, was born. The number is now 2321.
This, when read backwards, gives 1232. This is 666 in octal, the number of the Beast...
Isn't it ironic? So I went shopping for a suit coat to wear to my next interview... And I had no idea it was going to be such an ordeal! apparently, I was not designed to wear suit coats. At all. After going to Ross's, Marshall's, Sears, JCPenny, Foley's, Mervyns, and Dillards, I decided to hit the little (more expensive) stores... (Well, less expensive than Dillards, but more expensive than everywhere else). So I went to all these stores I would normally never set foot in... Banana Republic, Bebe, Talbots, Express, Limited, on and on and on (every place in the Baybrook mall)... Nothing fit me. Except a really cute shirt at Ann Taylor, which I bought (I didn't even try on coats there, they were out of my budget).
I was frustrated, and tired, so I headed home. On the way home, I decided to stop at Target to look at cabinet shelf thingies to hold game controllers and stuff... and what should I find? The perfect charcoal blazer... one button, fits perfectly. And it was only $30. And it goes perfectly with the aforementioned cute shirt from Ann Taylor.
I can't wait until the career clothes shopping starts in earnest *rolls eyes*.
Speaking my mind (or not)... I hate it when someone says something that really pisses me off, and I bite my tounge in the interest of not causing a scene... and then later, I realize I really should have said something. And in hindsight, I know exactly what I should have said...
*sigh* I guess there's a fine line between speaking my mind and being a bitch. And I probably need to push that line a little more than I do... I'm just so tired of putting up with crap that I really shouldn't have to put up with.
I don't expect the world to move underneath me, but for God's sake could you try?
I'm frustrated by your apathy... I get extremely amazingly frustrated when grading labs. Like, throwing my pen at the wall frustrated. I don't understand not doing a lab because you don't know how and you didn't bother to ask.
Came across this song on Launchcast... it rang really true... more so than most gooey country love songs ;-)
I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you
Every long lost dream lead me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
- "Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts
I Left My Wallet In El Segundo, in addition to being a real song, with real lyrics (that, strangly enough, are about a guy who left his wallet in el segundo), and a real polyphonic ringtone... is also a blog. Who'd have thought? Not only is it a blog... but it's a political blog. Conservativish politics, too. Wonders will never cease.
Interesting book... "The Search For Significance" by Robert S. McGee. It's about self-doubt, and finding your place in life and in God's plan. Good study guide... I have a feeling that this book was all the rage a while back and I missed it... Anyway, this guy seems to right on track as far as his theology goes... And sitting down and reading a couple of chapters today has done more to change my thinking process than the 4 or 5 counselling sessions and personality profiles I took last year.
I am a flower quickly fading Here today and gone tomorrow A wave tossed in the ocean A vapor in the wind Still You hear me when I'm calling Lord, You catch me when I'm falling And You've told me who I am I am Yours - Who Am I, by Casting Crowns
I've waited for this moment All my life and more And now i see so clearly What i could not see before. The time is now or never This chance won't come again Throw caution and myself to the wind.
There's no promise of safety with these secondhand wings But im willing to find out what impossible means. A leap of faith.
Parody of an angel Miles above the sea I hear the voice of reason Screaming up to me "You've flown far too high boy now you're too close to the sun, Soon your makeshift wings will come undone"
But how will I know limits from lies if i never try?
Theres no promise of safety with these secondhand wings But im willing to find out what impossible means. Climb to the heavens on feathers and dreams Because the melting point of wax means nothing to me.
I will touch the sun or I will die trying.
Fly on these secondhand wings Willing to find out what impossible means Climb to the heavens on feathers and dreams Because the melting point of wax means nothing to me Means nothing to me Miles above the sea. ~Thrice "The Melting Point Of Wax"
to what end do we proceed so boldly if all we are is chemical reactions and what world have you deftly sold me if you reduce me
if I have no soul to touch no heart to love no evil to rise up above no angels and no ghosts no real victories to toast if you believe that this is true then I must ask to what end do you proceed -- Thrice
These lyrics make absolutely no sense at all. I mean really. Read them. It's like he was on drugs or something. Why couldn't he sing about his dog dying or his truck or something?
Haunted by a jaded past
Never thought that love could last
Hope was but a castaway at sea
Skepticism took it's toll
Closed the windows to my soul
Was fighting just to keep my sanity
When out of the noise I could hear You breathing
You came along knowing just what I needed
Turned me around and ya got me believin'
You would die for me
Now I'm fearless with nothing left to hide
All the doubts of yesterday, love has driven them away
And now I'm fearless when I am by Your side
It's forever me and You in this covenant of truth
Ya know I'm fearless...oh yeah
Patiently You stripped away
The walls of pride that I had raised
You revealed the child inside of me
We will run and not grow old
Soar on wings as I've been told
Together we will fly the heavenlies
Cause out of the noise I could hear You breathing
You came along knowing just what I needed
Turned me around and ya got me believin'
I would die for You
I close my eyes
not to remember
every crime or time I fell
into the open arms of temptation
driving the nails
how does your love remain so faithful
to the unfaithful
where do you hide the tears
you should be crying when
i've fallen again and
where do you hide the tears
that fell in the day i turned you away
you throw them away...
the sea of forgetfulness
~ Seven Day Jesus
notepad, people. I had to type this in notepad. And I had to go to to the Commons to post it. Because my computer refuses to acknowledge that blogger exists. Grrr.
First, I have to say that Chad is the bestest most wonderful awseomest fiancee ever... and he sent me lots and lots of cool stuff for Valentines Day... He sent me flowers, and a binary clock (w00t!), and a beanie critter (it's *so* cute and fuzzy), and three cards. Lots of cool stuff. That I like very much. Especially the clock... because binary clocks are awesome. Chad 0wnz0r5.
So I had this really interesting dream last night... I could speculate about where it came from... my mind trying to compile the
religious/philisophical conversation Sbbn and I had last night... combined with me still trying to sort out this past weekend... combined with four slices of american cheese right before bed... combined with less than 4 hours of sleep... you can call it whatever. But it was interesting. And terribly vivid. Anyway...
I would like to point out that this dream is rather personal... if that bothers you, then don't read it... I don't know what else to say.
So the dream followed somthing like this:
I was sitting cross-legged on a wall. A short wall, maybe 3 feet high... and wide enough that I can sit facing down the length of the wall without falling off. The sun is shining, it's warm... I can smell the grass, the trees, Earth. I am peaceful. I recognize this place... this is my place, the place in my mind I used to go to talk to God. I look up, and Jesus is also sitting cross-legged on the wall, facing me. He is exactly as I remember Him... but I am different. Every other time I have been here, I have seen myself as a little child... Jesus has picked me up and swung me around, and sat me on his lap to talk. But today I am older... and I feel a little ackward... like I have been away for too long.
Jesus looks at me, His brown eyes searching me... "Where have you been?" He asks me. In my mind, I review all the dark valleys I have trudged through... all the time I've felt alone and unprotected. I try to think of the mountaintops... but can only come up with a few. I am silent, unable to look away from His eyes...
"What do you want from Me, Child?" He asks... And I, again, am silent... tears of shame and guilt fill my eyes... How could I be worthy to be His child? I've run so far... I've done so much... how could I ever ask Him for anything? I look away... Sure that if He sees anymore in my eyes, He'll leave. But He doesn't leave... He moves closer to me. He wipes the tears from my face, He holds me, running his fingers through my hair.
"You are not My child because you are worthy of My love," he says. "You are worthy of My love because you are My child." He paused. "What do you want from Me?" He asks again. I struggle for words.
"I don't want to be alone anymore." I finally whisper. The release of having spoken is enormous... I glance up at His face... and He smiles down at me.
"Deedee... precious child. When have you ever been alone?" My eyes fill with tears again.
"You left me alone once in the woods... You didn't help me."
"I love you, and I would never leave you. It was you who left Me. And yet, still, I was there."
"Then why didn't You do something?" I again look up into his face...
"You never asked." The pain in His eyes is as real as the pain I feel... "It was someone else's name you called." And I remember... as if I could ever forget. I called out to Her... but She didn't answer. I was too proud to admit my mistake...
"But at night... I wake up from the same nightmare alone... where are You then?"
"I am right there with you. But when you wake up, you turn away from Me... And yet, still, I am there." Still in my nightmares, I am too proud to admit my mistakes.
"Why do you let me dream about Columbia... and astronauts?" I shudder, the pictures in my mind so much more vivid than the pictures on the news... voices, images, sounds... it's too much for me to handle. I bury my face in His chest.
"I gave you a sensitive heart... I want you to be able to feel for others. You feel this very deeply. And your feelings manifest themselves in your dreams. It will pass, child... and you will grow because of it."
I don't understand... and yet I feel comforted. And safe. And I wake up refreshed.
If I could just sit with You awhile
I need You to hold me
Nothing can touch me
though I'm wounded though I die.
If You could just sit with me awhile
If You would just hold me
Moment by moment
till forever passes by.
So... yeah. Like I was telling Sbbn last night, I'm not usually one to put a lot of stock in visions and dreams and such... but sometimes there's something more there. Did God actually speak to me in my dream? Or did I just filter in what I knew He would say? Or did my mind just make it up?
Something interesting to think about, I suppose, if nothing else.
Cool song we sang at retreat... just found the lyrics on the internet...
Blessed be Your name in the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow, blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name when I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be Your name
Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
blessed be Your glorious name
Blessed be Your name when the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s “all as it should be,” blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be Your name
You give and take away, You give and take away
My heart will choose to say, “Lord blessed be Your name”
~ Blessed Be Your Name, by Matt Redman
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today
Is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
~dcTalk
Just a thought... not aimed at anyone at the moment, so don't get offended. I just don't understand the point of braging about your religion, ethics, morals, etc... and then bragging about things you do that obviously don't match them... pick one or the other, man. Or at least keep quiet about it... I'll admit, I'm no saint. I screw up. A lot. But I don't brag about it, either... *sigh*
Oh yeah... busting it old school style... In my Winamp: dcTalk, Newsboys, Skillet, Five Iron Frenzy, Seven Day Jesus, Jars of Clay. *sigh* Memories... Not that I miss high school in general... but there are a few things I miss, a couple of people I wish I hadn't lost touch with.
The Butterfly Song... lol... one time, a bunch of us were playing Taboo at a get together thing (I guess it would have to have been the beginning of my senior year in High School)... and Daniel was up, and he got the word "butterfly." Being the only two people who had ever listened to Seven Day Jesus (it hadn't really hit Alabama then... I had brought a CD back from California, and had made Daniel listen to it because he was my bestest friend)... we had somewhat of an advantage... it was the single shortest round in the whole game. Daniel looked at me and said, "I want to be a...." and I filled in the missing word. from that point on, Daniel and I were never allowed to be on the same team *grin*. what happened to Daniel? Looked for him online the other day... found his e-mail at Troy State... e-mailed him, but no reply.
Jesus Freak... I remember the Varsity Trip (spring of my senior year) that Katie, Julie, Deidre and I sat in the back of the bus and sang dcTalk songs for almost the whole trip from Huntsville, AL to Greenville, SC... Steven finally made us stop on about our 6th time through Jesus Freak. Then, the whole way back, Deidre played random recognizable tunes on her straw slide (made from one Burger King straw and one McD's straw)... Steven made her stop that when she figured out how to play the Jeopardy Theme.
Love Liberty Disco... I tried to teach Elisa how to dance to this song... Hillary used to play it all the time. And make fun of me because I couldn't dance.... I wonder where Hil is....
Shine... My theme song freshamn year of high school... right after my dad explained to me that when I sat at youth group and no one talked to me because I was the Missionary's Kid, I wasn't on the outside looking in at everyone having fun... I was on the inside, looking out at all the people outside in the cold. Which was very comforting. Especially when we went to Chicago, and they put me in the Chaperone's van. I was really hurt for a while... but i had fun, Daddy was a chaperone, and we stuck together. And after the fact, when I learned what had gone on in the kid's van, I was happy to have been in the chaperone's van. That time, I really was on the inside looking out.
Evolution... The time Geoff Moore and The Distance gave a concert after the Stars game... I went to the game, and ended up talking to Miss Nancy, Tim, and Jeremy all evening... then listening to the concert... and became good friends with Tim and Jeremy... Tim's married now... Jeremy is in the military, stationed in Afganistan last I heard... Miss Nancy and my sister are now best friends...
Lean on me... dcTalk style. Catherine, Beka and I used to sing this all the time... complete with motions... usually while brushing our teeth... Now that was funny.
You know what I don't have? That I can't find anywhere? The Holy Books... by James Ward. Or Love Command... he did both of them. As far as I know, those are the only two songs he released... but they were big in the ghetto in St. Louis when I lived there. *sigh*... I guess they never made it into electronic format... probably mom has a cassette somewhere. Maybe.
sometimes I think about your face,
I'd like to see it with my eyes
are you so proud of you disgrace,
that there's no time to realize
I see you laugh I see you smile,
with no regard to anything at all
what did you think,
or did you think at all...
sometimes I think about His mind,
and how His heart could love
a man like me and one like you
and could I even be so kind,
forsaking everything I long to do
now that you...
~Seven Day Jesus
So now I know why people in my dorm (including me) have been sick all semester.... we have an infestation of bats (like, more than 200 of them) in the walls on the top floors, and they are doing wonderful things to the air conditioning ducts.... and all that wonderful (and aromatic) bacteria is blowing through the vents onto us, the students that pay for this crap, no pun intended. What is The University doing about it? Ummm... at the moment, nothing... they are thinking about using poison, but their not sure how that's going to sit with the Alumni (think of all those poor helpless bats)... traps are out of the question... there's too many, for one thing.
So my question is this.... why do they charge me exorbitant fees to live in this dorm? Why do I put up with this? How did the bats get in the walls in the first place? Why do I not hear them at night? Are they fruit bats? Was the boy injured? Is the canoe wood, or aluminum? .... wait, off subject...
I feel really far away from everything today... don't know why. I'm away from my family, when I feel like they need me... I'm away from Chad, because I'm still in school... I'm away from Elisa, because, lets face it, we haven't really communicated in the last year or so... I'm away from most of the Wesley crowd, because they are all in Southaven/Memphis this weekend for the Willie Nelson concert... I just feel distant. Detached. Out of place. I can't concentrate on anything.... except bats. I'm really not that far away from the bats. Not that I mind bats... their kind of cool, when they aren't carrying rabies... and aren't in my dorm. Grr.
Take, take till there's nothing, nothing to turn to.
Nothing when You get through.
Won't You break, scatter pieces of all I've been.
Bowing to all I've been running to.
I, I got a question.
I got a question - Where are You?
Did you leave me unbreakable?
Leave me frozen?
I've never felt so cold.
I thought You were silent.
I thought You left me for the wreckage and the waste.
On an empty beach of faith.
Was it true?
Scream, deeper I wanna scream.
I want You to hear me, I want You to find me.
I want to believe but all I pray is wrong
and all I claim is gone.
I, I got a question.
I got a question - Where are You?
Where are You?
--Jars Of Clay, Silence
Images on the sidewalk
Speak of dream's descent
Washed away by the storms
To graves of cynical lament
Dirty canvases to call my own
Protest limericks carved
By the old pay phone
And in your picture book
I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And you plead to everyone
See the art in me
Broken stained glass windows
The fragments ramble on
Tales of broken souls
An eternity's been won
As critics scorn the thoughts
And works of mortal man
My eyes have drawn to you
In awe once again
--Jars of Clay
So today is an interesting day... I'm in a odd, introspective mood... Don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing yet... we'll see.
On a happy note, my mommy bought me enough food to feed an army... so I'll have food when I go to school. That'll be good. maybe I won't kill my roommate. Maybe.