Day One Hundred and Five - When My Mind Leaves Today So Does My Peace

It's a fairly simple concept, and it is the entire message of today's incredibly brief blog.

When my mind leaves today, and goes to dwell in either the past or the future, my peace leaves with it. When I am focused on today, my heart is at rest and full of joy. It has everything it desires and sings constantly of the goodness of God. But when my mind begins to dwell on what ifs, my heart is thrown into confusion and doubt, and my peace vanishes.

The thing about that is planning is one thing, I'm a planner, I love planning, but worrying about tomorrow doesn't change tomorrow one bit. It doesn't make it better or worse; it only robs me of my peace.

And I sort of got addicted to peace. Tomorrow will take care of itself. I have everything I need today. Except enough sleep. And the one provision I am going to make for tomorrow is go to bed early today, so I don't have the same deficit in the morning.

Day One Hundred and Four - She Gets Me

I am a creature of routine. I thrive on it, to a certain extent. I like spontaneous, so long as it doesn't interfere with my routine. Today is Tuesday, there is a routine. Erica comes over between 2 and 4, and we do whatever we feel. Usually eat and watch Biggest Loser. It's true. Sometimes she'll stay late for a Disney movie, sometimes she goes home early as we're both tired. Today we had a date and went to see "The Vow", which was absolutely dreadful and depressing, and chatted, and got take out from Applebee's so we could indeed watch 'The Biggest Loser' as is our tradition.

And I just... enjoy her so much and really want everyone to know that. She is such a wonderful friend, and she can take my crappy days and my angry days and my spastic days and she laughs with me and rages with me and listens with me. She is an amazing friend; she gets me. She knows exactly who I am, and loves me anyway.

I look forward to Tuesday all week.

Thank you, Erica, for getting me and putting up with my crazy. I hope our Tuesdays never end.

Day One Hundred and Three - When You Have A Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

The first half of my day was fantastic. I learned of the birth of a very handsome Sparkly Marshmallow named Ezekiel and am very happy that he and his momma are doing well! Congratulations!

The second half of my day was not. I will not go into detail, for the situation itself is still incredibly messy, and it is not be aired publicly.

But what I can say is how it made me feel, that I believe, is in my right.

And I feel like shit. And this, friends, is why we have what I love to call 'emergency plans'. My emergency plan is my husker blanket, my stuffed elephant, and Winnie the Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin. No matter what has happened, those things make me feel better. And they do. Granted, I switched out the Pooh for some Mythbusters, but the concept remains the same. I've had that emergency plan for years and it does indeed, always help.

But it doesn't fix. It calms me down enough, though, to where I can bring it to the Fixer. In this particular situation especially, it is completely out of my power to fix. But not His. Never His. It is always in His power to fix, and I hope it is His will as well. And when I have brought it to Him, and laid it down, and asked that He do the fixing, I get my peace back.

I've never been good with peace. With being at rest with God. But by some miracle (and the help of my friend Bruce) I found it. And it is addictive. It is awesome. It is the best thing I have ever found ever. It is joy and peace, and nothing is going to take that from me. Not even the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I invite you to do the same. Have an emergency plan. (Preferably one that does not involve binge drinking or any other bad choices.) And when you are calm, bring it all before the Fixer. And then, strive no more, but sleep well, and face a new day, hand in hand with the Fixer.

Day One Hundred and Two - Take One For The Team

I listened to a sermon today, as many of you may know, I struggle with church, but love good sermons. Mark Driscoll is my favorite. As usual, he struck home. For me personally, it was that I really really need to get my butt to church. It's an act of worship that I must start doing out of obedience. 

But that's not what I want to talk about, not today. The other thing that hit home was this: "'But I'll lose my job, or my friends, or my grade point average.' Yes! To the glory of God! You worship a God who was murdered! You lean over the plate, and you take one for the team. That is how that works." 

I LOVE this. I'm not sure when or how but somewhere along the way, the church lost sight of a very important teaching: we were never promised ease and comfort. We were promised the very opposite. A student is not greater than his master, and we are not greater than Jesus. He taught, He served, He was murdered, and He rose again. We are to serve, suffer, and rise. That's what we were promised. Suffering was PROMISED. 

Not that life can't be great, or comfortable. My life is both right now. But I'm not expecting this to last. This blessing is for a season. I want to suffer. Because it means I'm doing something right. If you never encounter opposition as a Christian, then something is terribly wrong. The truth is not popular. It calls for humility and submission. In America, neither of those ideas is terrible popular. It is not popular to be firm in your beliefs, or tell people that they are wrong. The notion of being 'slaves to Christ' isn't popular, and it never will be. Mostly because the idea that we are all slaves to something isn't popular, regardless of its truth. Christianity will never be popular, Jesus did indeed promise that. He was opposed, suffered, and was disgraced. You will be the same. 

And that is for your GOOD. It is humbling. It is uniting. God will bless it, that was promised. That all things meant for evil will be made to good for those that love Him. Even if we don't entirely understand, it is still true. Do what is right, even if it is unpopular. Speak the truth, live the truth, even if it is unpopular. Be one person, do not have a christian face and a non christian face. Do all things for the glory of God.

I'm not perfect, I've failed at these a lot. It is a lot easier to have two faces. But that is not what I was made for. So once again, I am determined to be one person, and take a number of hits for the team. For how else can we know the truth from the lie, if others do not show us with their lives? 

Day One Hundred and One - The Interwebs

I. LOVE. The interwebs. And yes, I'm going to use the term 'interwebs' for this entire blog, so get over it. I love it so so very much, especially pinterest, facebook, and hulu. LOVE.

I. HATE. The interwebs. I hate it so very, very much, especially pinterest, facebook, and hulu. HATE.

Both of those statements are true. I love pinterest. Because it really is full of amazing stuff. For instance, (I HAD to give a shout out) I found this recipe for homemade laundry detergent on pinterest. Super simple. 1 cup washing soda. (Arm & Hammer sells it and I found it at Fareway so it should be easily accessible.) 1 cup 20 mule team Borax (again, Fareway). 1 bar of finely grated ivory soap. Stir for 5 minutes. Add 1-2 tablespoons per load. I have about 300 loads worth of the stuff for less than $6. And even more importantly, it WORKS like MAGIC. For instance: for a girl who doesn't sweat very much, I have a magical talent for "pitstaining" every white shirt I owned. I tried EVERYTHING to get it out. Tide. Super tide. Bleach. Super bleach. Stain pens. Soaking. EVERYTHING. You know what it took? A 1 hour soak in some washing soda and borax. White as the day I bought it. WELL DONE INTERWEBS.

I hate pinterest. It eats my life. But in a far more productive way then Hulu or say Netflix. Honestly. I pay for netflix and it eats my life. But the difference between netflix and say barnes and noble is that most reading (most, I grant you, twilight gave me nothing) gives you something in return. Zoning out in front of a TV does mostly nothing. A half and hour here or there, or a movie with loved ones, those are great. But a pit fall of mine happens to be wasting hours of time watching stuff because... well I'm not sure why.

I'm gonna chalk it up to the brat.

But here's the kicker: the motivators are stronger than the brat. I cancelled my Netflix subscription today. Because I've literally watched all of the good things on it. Including every episode of mythbusters. Three times. I also cancelled my XBox Live subscription. Because I almost never get new games, so that shouldn't be much of an issue. Because the only person I ever talk to on it is having her third kid tomorrow (good luck!)  and I'm assuming will be a bit occupied for the next few months at least. Because it was $15 a month that I wasn't really getting my money's worth from.

There is a big world out there that has a lot to offer, and as the snow continues to melt and the air warm, I know I'll be spending more time in it. Even just for walks. Or runs. And there are books to be read, and books to be written. There are all sorts of things to be done that do not involve my ass on a couch watching a screen.

If nothing else, there are thoughts to be thought.

So here's to loving and hating the internet. But mostly loving, because it's not the internet's fault that I have poor self control. And if I can have a bit more of it, then the internet and I will be at peace once again.

Day One Hundred - 10%

That's right, everyone, we are officially 10% done today! That's right, we have 90% left to go! Haha, I'm just as excited as you, let me tell you. But it's sort of amazing when I think about it. Where will I be at day 200, where will I be at 500, where will I be on the final day? And where will all of you be? A lot can change in almost three years. Look at how far we've come in 100 days.

We're gonna do two things to commemorate our progress.

1) We're going to FOLLOW the blog officially. It takes 3 minutes if you don't have a google ID. If you read it regularly, please, for me, follow it. And then, leave a comment with your list.

2) Make a list. That's right, I want you to make a list with me. What are the things you want to change in the next hundred days?

a) I want to find a second job I enjoy and start saving for a vacation.
b) I want to start running again.
c) I want to be talked into something ridiculous by the original sparkly marshmallow. Maybe even one of his running things.
d) I want to have all of my books out of storage.

That's my list. What's yours?

Day Ninety Nine - Motivation

I have this weird thing that happens to me sometimes. Sometimes, I wake up and something in me has changed. Or sometimes, things start to slowly change and I catch onto it right before it solidifies. Either way, the change is never conscious. It's always just... there. And it's always good, the timing is always perfect. 

The shift from head knowledge to heart knowledge that I wrote about the first of the year? That was one of my strange 'motivators'. It was of the 'insta' variety. The slow growing sort last showed up when it was time to quit the bar at which I worked. It grew and grew in my heart and mind until it just was. I didn't work there anymore. 

So I was kind of surprised at the growing motivation that I just recently became aware of: I need to start saving every penny and get rid of all my stuff that isn't essential. So I pretty much need it whittled down to my books, my clothes, and my pictures. I couldn't tell you why yet. I don't know whether its because I'll need to take a trip soon or be moving or any other number of options. But the motivation has settled deep inside in a way I can't force myself to acquire. 

Personally, I hope it leads me to the saltwater remedies. But I'm not curious where it'll lead me. I'm curious if I'm the only one that gets these 'motivators'. Anyone else?