Back on my feet

As you may imagine since I haven't posted anything here, November and December were even more difficult than October. But now, my semester is over and I'm starting to think through the changes I need to make in my life. I know everyone makes New Year's Resolutions and never keeps them. So I'm purposely not calling these resolutions. I am however, trying to set forth some goals and guidelines to make my life more scheduled and orderly. So far, the biggest and most important goals to me are 1) to take my medicine everyday and 2) to pay my bills on time. I don't think this goal are by any means out of reach.

Just for some laughs, here is my outrageous Christmas wish list I came up with:
* Boot Camp for a month
* plane ticket to Boston
* manicure & pedicure treatment
* membership to YMCA and personal workout buddy
* Personal Assistant
* Annoying pill box that will beep at me until I take the pills and go refill prescriptions for me
* warm slippers that have good traction
* wine rack
* someone to go through my stuff and get rid of all the junk
* ear phones for my Palm (and cord for card)
* organization
* lose 30 pounds
* get my car detailed
* a new DVD/VHS player (both of those are broken)
* a digital camera that works and doesn't require duct tape (but not until after I lose 30 pounds because I don't want any pictures of myself until then anyway)

This is the list I sent to my family members when they asked me what I wanted for Christmas. As a result, I did receive a gift certificate for Boot Camp, a gift certificate to use to "get my nails and toe did" (it was a joke), a DVD player, a digital camera, a Wii with Wii fitness and my mother volunteering to come next week and help me get organized and get rid of some of my junk. No one volunteered to lose 30 pounds for me. Although, my brother's girlfriend said she wished we lived closer to each other so she could train me. I may actually join her running group even though I'm far away.

So maybe the Christmas list was not as outrageous as I thought! I know my family cares about me and wants to see me doing well and happy. And I am so very thankful for that.

October

Why is October such a difficult month? It seems like for as long as I can remember....well for at least the past 5 or 6 years, October has proved particularly grueling. September is great, November is okay, but October seems to be a perpetually challenging period of time. And it's really odd to me because overall, I really enjoy the fall season and all that it brings to daily life.

Is it because this is the middle of the fall semester? Even during times when I haven't been a student, I've always been operating on some kind of academic calendar. It makes sense to me that when everything gets started in August or September, there is a lot of energy and motivation. By October, enthusiasm has kind of died down and you are right in the thick of things. It doesn't help that I seem to have some kind of emotion crisis each October as well. Is it just me or am I merely participating in an autumnal phenomenon?

All I know is that I'm looking forward to November. I'm not suggesting that anything radical happens on November 1 to suddenly make life easier. I guess I just have all of October to wrestle with the difficulties of life as I know it in whichever year. And by November, I'm starting to figure out how to make it work or how to cope, either one. All in all, I think November will be better. Then maybe I'll post more on my blog. In the meantime, during the last few days of October, here is an autumnal scene for you to enjoy:

Saturdays

Every Saturday, I get up early to go to one of the parks here in the Athens area to cheer for the Downtown Falcons. I coach one of the cheerleading squads and it is loads of fun, but very exhausting at the same time. Today, for some reason I was especially tired. So when I got home around 2:30, I really just fell on the couch and rested there. My dog, Daisy, never passes up an opportunity for napping so she joined in too. This is the picture my roommate took to capture the moment:

Frustration and Rain

I'm supposed to be doing some reading for class tomorrow. But I just can't stay focused! I've been in a major funk for the past week or so. At one point I realized that I'm frustrated with so many things in life and that the common factor in all of them is me...so I must be the problem! It's never fun to be confronted with the selfishness in my heart and for insecurities to be exposed. I wish I could shake the funk though.

Now it's raining and I'd rather just sit and listen to the rain on the porch outside or hitting whatever equipment is inside our chimney than read about "Language Evolution." I usually can't think of any way to improve on this wonderful house I live in, but today I kind of wish I had a screened porch to sit on so I can really listen to the rain and fall asleep on a comfy couch out there. The living room will have to do for now.

Time to Blog

I haven't written anything on here in quite a while. I've been super busy! I started classes again and started coaching cheerleading again. And so I'm just trying to keep going sometimes and not crash! I think I need some kind of theme for the blog...something specific to write about on a regular basis. I'm also tired of this layout on the notepad. Maybe after I get caught up on all my reading for school and stuff, then I'll have time to change it.

Right now, I'm off to cheerleading practice. Go Falcons!

Happy Birthday to ME!

My birthday was last weekend and I got to the beach just in time to celebrate with my friends! I had such a great time and they did a great job of making my birthday special for me. I met them at a Crab restaurant and after dinner they had a surprise cake and balloons for me back at the house! It was so fun! And the best part was that I was overwhelmed by all the friends who wished me happy birthday. I could hardly get any work done that morning because my phone and email and Facebook was just blowing up with birthday wishes! This was in stark contrast to how lonely I felt on my birthday last year. But that's another story that is not worth re-telling. Praise God for bringing me such wonderful friends and lots of great people into my life!

I See Things Upside Down

What looks like failure is success
What looks like poverty is riches
When what is true looks more like a knife
It looks like you're killing me but you're saving my life

And I give myself to what looks like love
And I sell myself for what feels like love
And I pay to get what is not love
And all just because I see things upside down

What looks like weakness can do anything
What looks like foolishness is understanding
When what is powerful has not come to fight
It looks like you're going to war but you laid down your life

But I give myself to what looks like love
And I sell myself to what feels like love
And I pay to get what is not love
And all just because I see things upside down

What looks like torture is a time to rejoice
And what sounds like thunder is a comforting voice
When what is beautiful looks broken and crushed
And I say I don't know you but you say it's finished

-Derek Webb "What Is Not Love" from the album I See Things Upside Down

Not a Baker

I had a strange desire today to make a pound cake. Then when I was looking for a yummy recipe, I decided to make pound cake cookies instead. So that I wouldn't have to bother with cutting the cake before it cools. And because I already had a recipe for pound cake cookies that looked really simple and delicious.

The problem with this plan is that I didn't have all of the necessary ingredients for the cookies and I really didn't want to go to the grocery store for just those 2 things. I'm going out of town in a few days so I'm trying not to buy any groceries this week and just use what I already have at home. I only had one egg (needed 2) and the recipe called for baking powder and I only have baking soda. But I started to make the cookies anyway, thinking that I can just substitute for the missing ingredients.

Somewhere on the internet, I saw a few suggestions of things that can take the place of baking powder. There were all combinations of at least 2 other ingredients. One of these suggestions was a little bit of baking soda with some molasses. Well, I just happened to have some molasses in my pantry. I don't really remember why I do, but it's there. I think I used it in a barbeque sauce I made or something like that. Maybe it was something I made around Christmastime. Who knows.

So I added the molasses and baking soda to my cookie dough instead of baking powder and I instantly knew this was going to be a mistake. I was on the phone with my sister at the time and her silent reaction upon hearing about my ingenius baking substitutions told me instantly that the chance of these cookies actually tasting good was slim to none.

I went ahead and kept trying to add ingredients to make the dough tasty and then tried to bake the cookies. I pulled them out of the oven, let one cool for a bit and then tasted it. Sure enough, it was pretty disgusting. I even trying sprinkling the cookies with powdered sugar and it was still pretty bad. Definitely not worth the calories to eat it.

Maybe the whole molasses issue was providential. I am trying to lose some weight and making cookies really doesn't fall into the weight loss plan. So making them gross definitely keeps me from eating them! All in all, I have discovered one more thing that I need directions for and that I don't need to try to "wing it." I can rule out any hopes of a career in baking, right? Rachael Ray has said that the theory is that people are either good cooks or good bakers. I think I'm actually a decent cook so that makes it okay that baking is just not my thing.

L'arte di cappuccini

This is amazing! This guy works in a bar in Florence, Italy and one of my friends went there for cappuccino recently. This is what she saw in her cup.

Consequentially, the barista who created this work of art has some videos on YouTube of how he makes them. Here is one of them. I miss Italy so much!

Spinning and the Backyard

I went to my first spinning class last night. I've always been too intimidated to go to one before. But after I did Boot Camp for a month, I wanted to find something that would kick my butt in a similar fashion because I'm not prone to push myself very hard when it's just me working out.

So I went to the class and for the first 15 minutes I hated it. It was so hard and my body is not used to moving like that when it is hard. I kept thinking I was going to fall off the bike or spin my legs out of control. But once I got used to it and by the end of the 45-minute class, I loved it. I was dripping wet from sweating and the instructor estimated that we burned about 800 calories during the class. Well, maybe she did, but I didn't always turn up the resistance when she said to. Regardless, I really liked it and I want to keep going.

But today, my butt is really sore from the bike seat. And my calves are almost throbbing. In fact, I'm writing this at 1am because I can't sleep. And the main thing keeping me from sleeping in the fact that my calves are so sore. They don't hurt really. I don't think taking any pain reliever would help. They are just really tight. So much that it hurts and is a little difficult to go down stairs. Maybe I'll take an Advil just in case.

I also bought a pair of biking shorts with padding in them to solve the seat problem. That should take care of it. The other reason I think I can't sleep is because Mandy, my new roommate, and I went walking in the neighborhood after dinner. It was kind of late for me to exercise (around 8:30) and I think my body has a hard time calming down after that. Even after a bath, some hot tea and a chapter from The Shack, I still couldn't fall asleep.

On a completely different note, here are some pictures of our backyard. Thanks to Photoshop, I stitched them together so you get the whole panorama:



It is so gorgeous out the back door. It really is a nice garden and I'm so incredibly spoiled by it. The yard and the rest of the house. Daisy loves it too, of course. I just realized that I have to stay here forever because my standards have been raised too high by getting to live here. I don't know if I'll ever find a place to live that is as fantastic as this place!

Pictures of the House, Finally

I finally took some pictures downstairs. Tomorrow, when the sun is shining again, I want to take some pictures of the beautiful backyard. And when my room and the office area are finished and everything is in its place, I'll take pictures of those too.

New Chairs!

I love it when you find just what you want--even when you're not looking very hard.

I wanted 8 chairs that would go with my dining room table that actually match each other. But I not willing to pay hundreds of dollars for these chairs. So I have been looking on Craig's List and looking for deals, trying to figure out if matching dining room chairs were really that important to me.

Then today I was driving down the road, on the way to get my vacuum cleaner. And I saw a yard sale in a church parking lot where they had 8 matching chairs all together. I figured they would be sold already because it was 10:30am and usually all the good stuff is gone really early. But I pulled in just to be sure. And the chairs were still up for grabs! I bought them all and one of the guys running to yard sale actually loaded them up and delivered them to my house for me! On top of that, he took away the 4 old oak chairs I'd been using around the table and took those back with him to sell at the yard sale. It was too good to be true.

I really need to get a picture up here of the chairs and the rest of the house. The dining room even looks really different that the picture in the previous post, since I have matching chairs and curtains hung. I'll work on that tomorrow.

Fun at Bebecca's House

One of my 3 year old friends got in the habit of calling me "Bee-Becca" instead of Rebecca during the past year. This really caught on even with some of my twenty-something friends. So, to some, my name is now Bebecca. And I kind of like it because it makes me think of my 3 year old friend who has now moved far away!

So, we had our first dinner at "Bebecca's" house this past Monday and since I haven't taken pictures of the rooms yet, I'm putting this picture up of us in the dining room. You can't really see the room that well. I also just really like the picture of us doing what we do best. This is about half of my small group from church. They have all become kind of like family to me and they have all taken turns taking care of me in various ways during the past few months. I was so excited to finally host them at my house, in a place that was actually big enough for everyone and where 10 of us could sit at one table. I wanted to serve them a little bit because they have all served me so much and so generously.

Well, everyone ended up helping out so much that it really was like a family dinner (as it always seems with small group). Jennifer brought bread and Nan whipped together some peach cobbler, Ben took over the grilling duties and I'm sure had help from the other guys outside. Many different people were involved in chopping up vegetables and washing dishes after we ate. It was so great! We had a blast and we'll have to do it again soon. It just felt so good to have everyone where I live! Right before we ate, I told everyone that I feel so blessed to be able to live in such a great place that I feel like I need to share the wealth and have people over all the time!

More pictures are coming soon. But for now, here is a glimpse of fellowship in the dining room. The only thing different is that now thanks to two guys named Ben, there are curtains hanging in the dining room that weren't there when the picture was taken.

Nan's caption for the picture to the right is "She's nice to me and gives me cucumbers to eat..." because this baby likes cucumbers as much as cookies!

Will I ever finish?

I've been unpacking and putting things away in this house now for 10 days. I took a little break over the 4th of July weekend, so really I guess it has been a week of getting settled in. And there is still so much to do! First, I have so much more stuff than I ever realized. I can't believe I actually have enough furniture and more than enough wall art to fill up this house. It's not the biggest house ever, but it's definitely the biggest place I've lived since I've been on my own. Almost all of the furniture that belongs to me came from my grandmother or one of my great aunts. I am so blessed to have been given this furniture. I'm sitting on my grandmother's couch as I type with my feet propped up on my Ikea coffee table which is one of the few things in this living room that I actually purchased. I used to have a really nice coffee table from my Aunt Mary with a marble top, but last fall someone broke it when he tried to move it out of his way by kicking one of the legs. When it collapsed, I bought a new one that was cheap so that if it breaks it's not a big deal.

Really, all I have left to do is hang the curtain rods and a couple of other things on the walls that need holes drilled for the anchors. I have a friend helping me with that tomorrow. And I also need to unpack and wash all of my clothes that were in storage because they all smell like the storage unit. Then after I put those away and get the office area organized, I'll be pretty much finished. I guess I just thought I would have put everything away by now. I'm just still so amazed at how much stuff I have! And I'm also still in awe that I get to live in such a great house! Hopefully I will have pictures to post soon of what it looks like so you can all see how great it is too.

Also, I did end up eating the salmon and I'm still okay--not in the hospital or anything. And I bought a new Pyrex dish today. All is well.

Trying NOT to eat glass

I cooked salmon for dinner tonight, but there was a little problem. When I took my Pyrex dish out of the oven after the fish was cooked, I set it down on the stove top like I always do. While I was admiring how yummy the honey mustard sauce looked glazed on top of the salmon, the dish shattered right before my eyes! It was almost like a tiny invisible bomb was inside the dish with my fish and it blew out the corner of the glass and cracked the rest of it.

I called my mom while I was picking up the shards of glass across the kitchen floor to see what I had done wrong that made the dish shatter like that. We decided that there may have been a tiny hairline crack in the Pyrex from my move that I never even noticed because it was so small. That could explain why it seemed to explode spontaneously after being heated and then set down to cool.

Then we were debating whether or not it is safe for me to eat the fish. My mom said no because there are probably slivers of glass either on top of or inside the salmon fillets. In fact, I could see a few sliver glimmering in the light on top of the delicious honey-mustard glaze. And seeing as how I still do not have health insurance (I need to get on that, pronto!), I don't want to risk swallowing some glass that could cause some internal bleeding and who knows what kind of damage to my digestive system. My mom reminded me that if I have to have surgery because of swallowing glass, I'll end up paying everything I have for the surgery and then I'll have to go on welfare and get food stamps. So eating glass is not a good idea.

So I washed the fish off and got rid of most of the yummy honey-mustard that was baked onto the fish. I was only growing hungrier by the minute while I was inspecting each fillet for glass specks. And I might add that generally when I cook a meal for myself, I actual make about 4 servings and eat leftovers the next day and freeze the rest for another day. It's just more efficient for me to do it this way. So I'm not just talking about one salmon fillet, this is about 1.5 pounds of salmon we're talking about so I really wanted to try to save it. (Salmon is not cheap!)

I think I got all of the possible glass off and I can make more sauce to put on top of it. I decided to eat a salad for now, but I'm still debating whether or not I should try to eat the fish! I think all the glass is gone but what if I missed some or it's too small to see? What do you think I should do?

Judges that Care

I had to go to court today for my speeding ticket. I won't go into it--I just ended up pleading guilty to speed much faster than I was actually going. It doesn't matter so much now and I need to stop whining about it. One friend I talked to today really put it in perspective when she pointed out that there are probably many times in my driving history when I actually was driving way too fast and I just didn't get caught. So I know I deserve to have to pay a fine....blah, blah. And going to Defensive Driving School can't hurt me, right? It's never a bad thing to learn how to be a safer driver I guess.

But what I really wanted to write about was how impressed I was with the Judge in this particular court. When I went today, evidently the Solicitor was not expecting me. So I presented my papers that said to be there and they went off in search of my paperwork. In the meantime, I was sitting through all of these kids who had to appear before the judge for DUI and underage drinking charges. Maybe it's just because I have never been present for the conversations between judges and defendants before, but it seemed like this judge really cared about what she was doing. For each case I witnessed, she required drug and alcohol awareness and counseling. But she didn't just assign this in general--she assigned the defendants to have counseling at a very specific place in Athens because she knows they do it well. She also had some of them write an essay about the importance of being responsible with alcohol or something along those lines. When she explained why she was giving these sentences, she expressed that she didn't want these kids to end up in a court again for DUI (if they weren't already) or in a bad accident or developing a serious problem with substance abuse that could ruin their lives. Her approach was kind of like getting caught is the best thing that could have happened to them because maybe they will learn something from it before spiraling to worse things.

Like I said, this could be the norm for most Municipal court judges. I just didn't know. I don't know what I expected her to say, but I was really surprised that she seemed to care so much.

New House

The house may not be new, but it is kind of new to me. I say kind of new because I've spent a lot of time here when my friends were living here before me. Now that they have moved, I'm so lucky to have it as my new home! Not only is it an awesome house with an even better fenced-in backyard--but it comes with lots of good memories for me from hanging out here with the previous residents. Either way, this is my first night sleeping in the house as an official resident. I really wish at least one of my roommates was here already to spending it with me, but that will come soon enough. Tonight, it's just me and Daisy (my dog). I wish I had some pictures to put up, but my camera doesn't really work well and it's difficult to upload pictures. I'm realizing as I type just how exhausted I am. I guess I'll go up to my enormous, way-to-big-for-just-me bedroom to go to sleep so I can get up early tomorrow morning for Boot Camp!

Worst Movie Ever

Here at the apartment, we have all of these movie channels. And since things are kind of slow around town for the summer, we've been watching a lot of movies--good, bad and ugly movies....we watch a whole lot of them. This is a good thing when we have days like yesterday where we saw part of Dirty Dancing and Sixteen Candles (and we got to play with hula-hoops, but that's a different story). But today I decided I wanted to see Georgia Rules and find out what that was all about. It is the worst movie! The story line is really messed up and there is too much going on and it was hard to follow. But the acting was pretty bad too on top of it all. We just ended up making fun of the movie for the last part and that made it more entertaining. No wonder it only got a one star rating. Then, when it was finally over, we went back to watching good movies like Legends of the Fall. Overall, I do not recommend watching Georgia Rules...it added nothing to my life.

More change

I regret to inform you faithful blog readers, that the domain for this blog will soon change. This is something I have considered often in the past few months. I really like the name B-Bop's World but when I started the blog I was not as anonymous as I would like to be when I'm posting my stories and blurps on the internet.

I realize that if someone really wants to find me and figure out what I'm doing, they will find a way to do that. But I guess I have just decided to make the effort to prevent any future stalking by changing the address for my blog.

With that said....I don't want people to stop reading my blog just because it's in a new "location" on the web. I would like to leave it open for viewing by anyone because I think the story God is writing in my life is a story of hope and I want to tell that story to anyone who is searching for hope. So if you want to keep reading my blog, please email me at bbopsworld@gmail.com so I can reply to you with my new domain name. I hope to hear from you soon!

Boot Camp

Yes, I'm going to Boot Camp....but it's not what you think. I won a month's worth of Wow! Boot Camp at the church auction to raise money for the mission trip to Nicaragua. I thought it was perfect because I need to get back in shape and I wanted to donate money to the trip. So I started Boot Camp last Friday. You go 3 days a week for 4 weeks and then see how much you have improved at the end.

I have to admit--the first day kicked my rear end pretty good. I'm not a runner and there was a lot of running. It's kind of like circuits where we run for a while and then get to a station to do squats or lunges or something with handheld weights for upper body or ab work. It's the running that's killing me. But hopefully this will be just the thing to kick my rear end into gear and get back in a good workout routine and get back in shape.

The down-side is that I go to Boot Camp at 5:30am. So that has completely messed up my daily schedule. I started working too in the mornings, so here is what my day looks like now:

5 am -- wake-up
5:30 -- boot camp (wondering why I'm running before dawn...oh yeah, the heat)
8 am -- get to work
12 pm -- go home and eat lunch
1 pm -- struggle to try to run errands or get reading done
4 pm -- give up and take a nap
6 pm -- wake up and fix dinner
8 pm -- watch a movie or do something with friends (or tonight i went grocery shopping)
10 pm -- go to bed
11 pm -- still can't sleep--start reading or doing work
1 am -- finally fall asleep

So I'm on this crazy cycle it's really hard to get off of it! Maybe I can correct things over the weekend when I don't have to get up early.

So sad to see you go.

Some of my favorite people in the world are all related to each other. They are a family in themselves and they have let me be part of their family. I have been so blessed to be part of their lives recently but now it's time for them to go and plant a church and bring the good news of God's love to other people who need to know it just as much as I do. At first I was very upset that they are leaving and afraid of what is going to happen to me without them here. Then I realized that I was being very selfish in wanting to hoard my friends instead of trusting that God has a plan and He is going to do wonderful things through them and that I'm going to be okay without them every day.

They truly let me be part of their family. They even included me last night in their family tradition of leaving a memorial at their house before the moved. This picture is of me with the mom and kids at their Ebenezer.
The idea is based on this verse: 1 Samuel 7:12 "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, 'Thus far has the Lord helped us.'" We all put down rocks and told what God has done while they were living here in Georgia. I could not have imagined more precious blessings that to know these kids and their parents during the past year or so. And I'm so thankful that they included me in remembering how God has been faithful during their time here.

Spontaneity

I really did miss having roommates. I forgot how fun it could be to just drop everything and go get ice cream just because you have the urge. When you live alone, things like that are not as likely to happen. Without roommates, you have to call your friends until you find someone who is home and then make plans to meet up to go do something spontaneous....which defies to definition of spontaneous.

I've only been here a few weeks with my temporary roommates but I have really enjoyed getting to know them and sharing space with them until I can move into where I'm really going to live for a while. This is a picture of a spontaneous trip to Harry Bissett's one night (a week-night even) for some bread pudding. I'm sure it was perfectly normal for these other girls, but for me it was extra fun because it has been a long time for me since I just dropped what I was doing to go out for dessert. And by the way, the bread pudding was excellent!

It's good to be employed

I have a new job. I don't want to go into details, but I started on Monday and I'm working as an office assistant for two people that I already knew to some extent. So far, the job has been good. It's always fun for me to do something new and learn how people do things, etc. I'm still trying to figure out the best way for me to organize myself at this job and the best ways to help my two bosses. Yes, it has been a little overwhelming because there is just so much information at the beginning and I'm trying to learn the lingo and the computer system and the company database and get my email and access to everything set up. So I'm pretty exhausted today. I'm not worried about getting it all down, it's just that today it makes me think a lot just to remember really simple things like how to print out stamps and stuff. And I took a typing test and found out I can type 70 words per minute and I think that's pretty good!

But everything is good. I have a job, a place to live (I think), some new work clothes from TJ Maxx and some that are gently used from Plato's closet. I have good friends, food to eat, a great pool outside my door for the next couple of weeks, a reliable car, a wonderful church home and a loving family! And of course, I have Daisy, my dog. Although she is staying with my grandmother right now because I can't have pets in this apartment where I'm staying for the month of June. I think this picture was taken while I was in undergrad around 2000.

Overall--things are good.

Sleeping In

I decided that I wanted to sleep in today because I didn't have to get up for anything! I took my final for my Maymester course yesterday and I don't start my new job until Monday. So I was really excited about have 2 weekdays off to take care of whatever I want to do.

I went to bed last night at around 10pm expecting to sleep until 10 or something. But this morning, I woke up at 8:30am! Ha! I guess I'm not quite as exhausted as I thought I was. I'm still thankful I didn't have to get up at 6:30 or 7. Now I'm trying to decide what to have for breakfast. I can have anything really because I have time to make it this morning. I'm thinking about making an arugula and cheese omelette--only because I have some baby arugula in the fridge that is going to go bad if I don't eat it up quick.

So far I'm thoroughly enjoying my "sleeping in" day.

Hopelessness and Redemption

I was just painting and I heard a song by Katie Melua on my iTunes that reminds me of where I was spiritually about a year ago. This is the part of that really stood out to me.
"How can I think I'm standing strong,
Yet feel the air beneath my feet?
How can happiness feel so wrong?
How can misery feel so sweet?"
I remember so vividly when I heard this song for the first time and how I could really identify with those words. It made me cry then for very complicated reasons and it makes me tear up now because I remember just how hopeless I felt then (when I could relate). And what is so sweet about it now it that right after that song played on iTunes, it shuffled to the next song with was "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go." I think the title says enough right there. These two songs show me how much I have hope where I did not have it before. Really the whole hymn is so profound and great but here is just one poignant verse:
"O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be."
Only God can redeem something so wretched and turned it around so we can see His love.

Pray that I don't crack

Moving out of my apartment caused me to review the year that I spent living there. I'm very thankful for what I have learned about myself and more importantly what I have learned about God during the past year. Most of what I've learned about God has just been in the past few months. I thought I knew Him before, but now I am just amazed and baffled and realize that I don't have anything figured out. All I know is this: God is going to love and extend His grace to me whether or not I want Him too. He has picked me up out of the dirt even while I was still contemplating rolling around in the mud. On Sunday, Pastor Hal described it as feeling the tears of the Father on my sinful neck. It is something that is pretty hard to describe.

What I was originally thinking about when I started writing this post was that I feel like I'm in a pressure cooker right now. With moving out, finishing my Maymester class, working out the new living situation and thinking about job interviews...I feel like the pressure is just building and building. Last night, as I laid down on my air mattress to go to sleep, I cried for a few minutes just to release the pressure. I kind of thought of it like a steam valve that needed opening so I wouldn't explode. So I'm pretty stressed and that's ok because these are stressful things I am dealing with. I just keep praying that I don't crack. I haven't so far, I've pretty much held it together without the aid of any chemical substances (well...there has been a good amount of caffeine involved). So I know that the help must be from above. I have been praying and praying that God will give me the strength, energy and focus to be able to get all of these things done without a major breakdown. I have to trust Him because I feel like there is no other choice. Especially with the job and living issues because I did not initiate those things this week. He brought forth opportunities in both of those areas on Monday and it was not my doing. So I'm not getting anxious about them just yet. It's all going to be fine.

Packing

I'm taking a short break from packing. The movers are coming tomorrow and I'm not finished yet! I get weary every few hours, so I try to take short breaks to rest and get motivated again. I've already packed all of my kitchen utensils and I don't have much food here. So for my midnight snack I'm having frozen blueberries that are turning my fingers purple, and the last little bit of Pinot Grigio served in a Locos kiddie cup that didn't get packed yet. So random.

As many of you know, I am not at all an organized person. I am actually a self-proclaimed pack rat and there in no rhyme or reason to the things I keep in drawers for years. So I'm quite proud of myself for the amount of things I have actually thrown away this week without a moment's hesitation! I'm especially proud that I didn't waste time reading all the notes or details of what I once considered "keepsakes." I just tossed them. I still have a bunch of stuff....letters and notes from people that are still so special to me, photos, books, etc. So I keep going back to the store to buy more boxes because I honestly didn't realize that I have so much stuff!

I was trying to come up with a "Top 10 things that make packing fun" list, just to amuse myself while I'm working on this. But I only came up with 2 fun things, 1) finding unexpected items--like the match to a shoe I've been missing for a while or sometimes even some money! Most of the money I've found are euros which is worth way more than the dollar. 2) Using bubble wrap. Although I'm trying not to pop the bubbles because I want the stuff to be protected, I still smile when I hear it go "pop" accidentally.

Check out this clip of Mr. Bean Packing. It's on YouTube but does not allow embedding so you'll have to follow the link. I can kind of relate to his problems.

Skee Ball and Microfiche

The past few days have really brought back memories of childhood. First, I was doing research in the library for my thesis. And the articles and papers I needed to look at are stored in the basement of the library on microfiche! I can't remember why I even used the microfiche machine when I was little, but I do remember that I used it at the county library for some kind of research project.
Then I was at the gas station spending a fortune to fill up my tank. Their digital credit card machine was out of order so the guy had to use the hand-held machine. I had no idea what it's called--but you know the one....where they make an imprint of your card number and name on the carbon paper. That was flashback to the 80s number two.

The third reminder of how much fun that decade was came when a couple of my friends decided that happy hour was the same as always and kind of boring today. Somehow we started talking about Skee Ball and how much fun it is. So we ditched the bar and went to Chuck E Cheese where we were surprise to find two things: 1) the pizza is really not that terrible (no worse than Little Italy) and 2) they sell beer and wine at Chuck E Cheese!? We did not partake in those refreshments because we would rather spend our money on tokens for Skee Ball than on beer and wine who brand and vintage is not even specified! We thought that it must not be very good. Three 20-somethings and 54 tokens later, we ended up with around 225 tickets. I did not recall that the tickets really don't get you anything of value at Chuck E Cheese. So we spent 150 tickets on a bag of cotton candy and gave the other 75 to little kids who were collecting them and saving them up for some big pillow or something. We ate cotton candy and looked at shoes in the store next door until our stomach's ached from all the sugar and air. Overall, it was one of the most fun and random evenings I've spent in a long time!

This week just felt a little more like 1988 than 2008 at times. I didn't mind though because I loved being 8 yrs. old and lip syncing Debbie Gibson songs. Maybe I'll just record that new song "Bleeding Love" from the radio onto a cassette tape, pop it in my Walkman and complete this strange week of throwbacks.

Look at me! How dare you look at me!?

I'm going to participate in a panel for the Computers and Writing conference held at UGA at the end of May. I will be talking about RCLGA but I was just browsing through some of the other papers people are giving at this conference, and I came across a panel titled "Look at Me! How Dare You Look at Me!: Identity, Representation and the Digital Communicative Act." I thought this was a hilarious title that describes so accurately what we see happening with blogs and social networking websites these days. Here is a quote from Morgan Gresham's proposal for this panel:

"Our voyeur culture totally feeds into our need to tell everyone/anyone about ourselves – only to become upset when our privacy is invaded. If people are now destined to share *everything*, then some of us are now destined to control, to hide, to deny everything. Fear of self-disclosure is problematic as it is audience awareness to the extreme. Identity is something we piece together and we perform; identity is composed. That is why it is hard to create an online space. 1) We don't know who we want to be, and 2) We don't know who will be seeing the identity that is created in a particular space."

This is something I really started to think about when I was a high school teacher. One of my students posted on his blog very violent details about how he wanted to kill me. I'm sure it never crossed his mind that I might read what he had written when I "googled" my own name. But he obviously wanted someone to read it, just not me. The problem with the internet is that, even though some sites have privacy settings and controls, we really never know who is reading our stuff. So, like the above quote identifies, we have no idea who our audience is. And so much of what we actually say in life is determined by our audience. I'm not going to go into the philosophical or psychological implications of identity that follow from that. But the truth is, I have no idea who is really even reading this post right now! It seems like so many people want to show of their lives on the internet but then get really offended when people actually look to see what they've posted. I'm not saying it's wrong to have these conflicting feelings...it's just kind of bizarre, don't you think?

Just something to ponder...

Kudos to Dr. K

OnlineAthens.com | UGANews | Preserving the spoken word focus of linguistics project 05/03/08
http://onlineathens.com/stories/050308/uganews_200...

This article is about my professor and the Linguistic Atlas Project. I will be working with the project for my Masters thesis. I'm so excited about the grant and that it has been publicized so much!

Catching My Breath

Once again, I am taking my semester right down to the wire. I just finished a project that is due in about an hour and a half. But I really don't think I completely procrastinated on this one. I mean, I did have a partner to work with, which always changes the way I work on things. Anyway, it's done. I feel good about it. I think we did a good job. My part just happened to be the last part and it took me longer than expected to get everything in our XML file to validate against the DTD and transform correctly through XSL. If those letters mean nothing to you, just ignore them. If you know what I'm talking about, then you probably understand why it took me longer than expected to get all of those things working together since I'm such an amateur.

So I'm catching my breath very briefly before I go take a shower, then present our project, then start cleaning my apartment and throwing stuff away so that Michelle can come and help me pack tomorrow. I can't believe how excited she is about packing up all of my things. She was talking about packing with me the way I would talk about going on vacation to the beach or something! I'm so glad that someone enjoys it though and that we are all made differently.

I just wanted to write something here to explain that I haven't disappeared. I'm just busy busy busy these days! And if you want to help pack or paint, you know where to find me! (I hope)

Glory in my Valley

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
You have brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see
You in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Your glory.
Let me learn by paradox
That the way down is the way up,
That to be low is to be high,
That the broken heart is the healed heart,
That the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
That the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
That to have nothing is to possess all,
That to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
That to give is to receive,
That the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
And the deeper the wells, the brighter Your stars shine;
Let me find Your light in my darkness,
Your life in my death,
Your joy in my sorrow,
Your grace in my sin,
Your riches in my poverty,
Your glory in my valley.

-This was in the "Worship Meditation" section of our bulletins at church today at Redeemer Presbyterian. I changed all the "Thy"s to "You"s to make it a little more personal to me. And it pretty much sums up my most honest prayers about my own life these days.

Heather's survey

Heather posted this on her blog and challenge me to do it too, so here goes:

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Getting ready to graduate from high school and participating in all of the Senior Year activities, that go along with that (mostly being obnoxious with Sharon, my BFF)

5 Things on my To Do List:
-make dinner
-finish my DTD extension for my Humanities Computing project
-decide where to live for the next 2 months
-vacuum out my car
-register for summer and fall classes

5 Snacks I enjoy:
strawberries
cheese and crackers
yogurt
ice cream (is that a real snack?)
grapes

5 Things I would do if I were a Billionaire:
-give lots to all my friends in ministry who raise support
-pay off all my debt
-take a trip around the world
-hire a maid
-eat fancy dinners

5 Bad Habits:
-biting my lip
-eating too much sugar
-not answering my phone
-leaving dishes in the sink
-falling asleep with the TV on
(those are just the ones I'll actually admit to...)

5 Places I've Lived:
-Marietta, GA
-Powder Springs, GA
-Athens, GA
-Paris, France
-Pisa, Italy

5 Jobs I've Had:
-retail at clothing and gift stores.
-waitress at Taco Mac
-After-school program at various elementary schools
-intern with Campus Crusade for Christ
-high school French teacher

Now all my friends who have blogs have to do it too!

Fun-filled Day

I'm staying with Michelle and Dan's kids this weekend while they are out of town. They left this early this morning and although I am a little tired, I'm having lots of fun being "Aunt" Becca. This morning we had milk and cereal for breakfast while they all sang the song they know about this topic by G. Love and Special Sauce. Then we did home-schooling work. After that I took the two youngest kids to a friend's house so they could go with them to pick strawberries at Washington Farms. While they were gone, another child went to stay at a friend's house and I was left with the two oldest at lunchtime. We needed to go pick up a birthday gift for a party tomorrow and we decided to have lunch at Chik-fil-A since we were going to be right there! I think this was a real treat for these two older kids. AND they were passing out samples of their new flavor of milkshake, so we each had a taste of Coffee Caramel Milkshake for dessert!

When we got back to the house, the two youngest kids came back with their fresh strawberries and we all put on our swimsuits and rushed over to the pool at my apartment complex. We had the pool all to ourselves this afternoon so that was nice, but the water was so cold! Little Hope's lips were quivering but she still wanted to swim. After we got all tired out from that, we drove back to the house and decided that the perfect snack after swimming would be a Scooby-Doo cheese and a peppermint brownie cookie with milk. It really hit the spot!

Two more kids have gone now to spend the night with friends and I just have the two youngest kids here at the house. They are watching The Little Mermaid which I'm pretty sure they had never seen before I brought it over earlier this week. I don't mind watching it because it has always been one of my favorite movies....well, since 1989 or so when it first came out....and I know all the songs by heart!

I'll probably go to bed at 8pm when the kids do because I'm not used to all this running around and having fun. But it has been a blast!

Fighting for Joy

I'm reading a book by John Piper called When You Don't Desire God

Here is something he has to say:
"The fight for joy is the struggle to trust God with the burdens of life. It’s a fight for freedom from worry. It’s a fight for hope and peace and joy, which are all threatened by unbelief and doubt about God’s promises...It’s a way of saying that
we are weak and desperately need the mercy of God."

I have to think about this a little more.

Insomnia and Bizarre Dreams

First, let me say that I'm really surprised people are actually reading this blog! Maybe I'm more interesting that I thought.

But right now I can't sleep. I've been trying to go back to sleep for about an hour, and that gets really boring and frustrating. Then I got hungry.... So what does one do at 4am when one cannot sleep? I'm eating yogurt, watching the news (who knew the news starts on CBS at 4am?), and catching up on anything I might have missed on Facebook. It's too late for me to take something to help me go back to sleep, so I just have to find something to do. Yesterday I woke up really early and started reading one of my library books for my thesis research. It was actually very entertaining and interesting to me and I thought 'I should do this more often when I can't sleep.'

I don't know why I can't sleep. Most of the time it's hard for me to fall asleep because my mind is just racing thinking about things and I can't get it to stop. It's not that I'm really worried about anything, I just have a head full of thoughts. But right now, I'm not really thinking about anything at all.

A few nights ago, I had a dream about my mom's puppies. She breeds Cocker Spaniels and English Toy Spaniels. She actually has a website called Dawgpatch with lots of cute pictures and information about puppies. My dad calls the English Toys "monkey-faced rat dogs" because they have sunken in noses and beady eyes. The puppies are actually really cute and sweet, but it's still funny that he calls them this.


So in my dream, someone was getting a puppy from my mom, but the puppy was acting really wierd and pooping all over the place and getting into everything, being really bad and not acting much like a sweet little lap-dog puppy. So she took the puppy to the vet and had all kinds of tests run on it, only to discover that the puppy was actually half monkey! The vet said (remember this is a dream) that a monkey must have wandered into my parents yard and bred with the mother of these puppies and produced monkey puppies! So mom had to call all of the other new owners and tell them they had monkeys and not pure-breed English Toys.

My dream was so vivid that when I woke up, I actually thought this had happened until I was alert enough to realize that this is ridiculous! I immediately called my mom to tell her about my hilarious dream. I don't think she enjoyed it quite as much as I did, but my dad sure did laugh when I told him that I dreamed that the "monkey-faced rat dogs" really were monkeys.

So which is better, insomnia or crazy dreams? At least I am entertained by my dreams....

Fun with Templates and Themes

If you haven't found this out about me yet, I'm definitely the kind of person who wants to know how everything works. It's usually not enough for people to give me facts. I always want to know why or get some kind of background information. I take things apart just to see how they're made and then see if I can put them back together. I do this with abstract concepts too, like languages with their syntax and grammar as well as theological arguments. It can be a blessing and a curse all at the same time. On one hand, I'm hardly ever bored--but on the other hand, I have trouble sleeping at night because I never stop thinking about things.

That is essentially what is so fascinating to me about computer programming and especially web sites. Today I spent more time than I should have fiddling with CSS codes to try and create this really cool layout I have here on my blog now. I actually went to the CSS Zen Garden website for inspiration and ideas. I found one of the designs that didn't quite make the cut and used a lot of codes from that design. I used Photoshop to create the background where it looks like handwritten notes about this blog. I guess what is really important is that I had fun doing it. And now I am really proud of the way my blog looks. I think it also reflects more of my personality than the original classic template I had. I'm sure I will decide to change it in the next few months and find a new challenge in CSS. That's what happened with my MySpace profile--as soon as I finally had my profile coded the way I wanted it, I was ready to change it already!

I also added one of my favorite songs by Patty Griffin to the page. Please feel free to silence that if it annoys you. I realize that people often prefer silence during their web browsing, so there is the option of the pause button. Thanks for checking out my new design!

So many websites....

I just updated my Facebook profile to add the URL to this site. Then I started to wonder why I feel like I have to be all over the internet. It would probably be easier to just have one site with different pages for different things (blog, professional stuff, etc). But for some reason, I have 4 different pages. However, two of those pages are part of "social networking" sites so I really don't have the option of moving that information. It just kind of baffling to me how everyone is on the internet now, not just using the internet, but also featured in various websites.

I think I like having all of these different pages because I'm curious about how they work. It's really fun for me to try to create my own layouts and widgets and take them apart to look at the code and all the pieces. So there's my justification for have 4 websites....none of them being particularly interesting.

Writing a Blog

I heard somewhere that the average reader per blog is 1. Only one reader per blog. I don't know if that is including the author of the blog, but I thought it was pretty sad. So I have this blog that I was not planning on doing anything with. But I'm just curious to see if anyone will read it. We'll see. I wasn't going to blog about anything because I don't think my life is all that interesting to people who don't know me well. And for those who do know me well, I just tell them what's going on instead of writing it in a blog. So I don't know what I will post here, but I'm sure I'll think of something.