Peanuts

I love peanuts, wether they be in the form of lil peanuts that I deal with at work (Helena), or the roasted kind; I love 'em!

Just a lil thought

I told you that 'joy' thing was for real today I got an amazing thought from 'Praisenation' and thought I'd share it with you :

Today's Scripture comes at a very hard time in David's life (that's King David,author of most of the Psalms). HE was past his youth, he had sinned in a veryterrible way, committed adultery and murder, lost his friends and most of hisfamily, was a laughing stock, scorned by the other rulers of Israel. He was dying of some affliction or was in fear of his life from his enemies. Any ofthis sound familiar? Have you ever been in a situation where you just felt that allwas lost?, David was bargaining for his life.

His thought was basically as follows:"LORD, if you kill me, who is going to Praise you?" I want to draw two conclusions from this.

1. Praise must be very important to the LORD. David did not bargain with hismoney, his possessions or his stature on this earth. When we are bargaining for ourlife, wouldn't we use the most valuable thing we can to achieve our goal? Think about it for a moment. David was arguably the richest man on the face of theearth, and to win the LORD'S favor, he used Praise!

2. Praise was very important and valuable to David. Since he felt that he would besoon dead without the LORD'S intervention, David was giving it his best shot. Hehad pulled out all the stops, so to speak. To David, Praise was his bottom line. Could we say the same in our lives.

If we were to stand before the LORD to give anaccount of why we should continue in this life, could we say "Because I am a PraisePerson?" Seeing the great value placed on Praise by both King David and the LORD, would itnot seem fitting for us to incorporate this wonderful activity into our lives to thefullest extent possible? I think so!

God is SO Good

GOD IS GOOD! PRAISE HIS NAME!
Praise him loudly from the roof tops, from the highest peeks, from the tallest trees Praise his name!

Redeemed

The day is redeemed. I read about 30 pgs of Grammer and Phonology, (not all but almost half of the reading for tommorrow). I also got to talk to Bennett about my grade! and he changed it. Hardly any begging but just a little logic swayed him and he gave me a C+! yeah! so life is good yet again. Praise The Lord!

This is not a life

So here I am sitting in my underwear (sorry for the pic), writing in my blog at 12:30 in the afternoon on a Wed. I have done NOTHING! all day, I woke up around 10:15 and got out of bed around 11:20. Then I threw on a sweatshirt and went down stairs where I watched Gilmore girls for an HOUR! while eating peanutbutter M&M's. This is not a life, and if it is to someone I'm sorry. But I need to work, my boss is pissed at me so I'm not on the schedule untill Fri and then I work Fri all day and Sat all day. This should be interesting. But without the pressure of not having time to do anything I don't get out of bed and I dont work. it's crazy. i'm gonna have to go to the Library tonight to read this Grammer and Phonology (90pg) that I should have read this morning! this is ridiculous. and the episode of Gilmore Girls that I watched wasn't even a new one. I thought I missed my class... which would have just been sick (it's at 1:00pm) AHH what has my life become! I'm gaining weight and I'm not motivated enough to lose it and I'm getting lazy and I'm too lazy to motivate myself! This is just sick. This is not a life!

Totally Sureal

Okay, so tonight I hung out with Dustin. We had a color date that should have been fun, and it was. We joked around and colored two pictures each and it was a grand old time. It took me back. The problem is, it didn't take me far enough back. You see (and it's also partly my fault as well) we were acting almost like we were dating again, him reaching over to hold my hand and me flirting with him. Well now that I am looking back (ya know hindsight is 20/20) I see how that wasn't what either he or I needed. We needed to restablish the friendship not the relationship. So I don't know where to go from here. I also found out that he was sopposed to being hanging out with his roommate but instead he called him and canceled to hang out with me. That's not cool. I know he wants to hang with me but don't neglect those who are your closest friends for others who you are salvaging. Like I said in the beginning I can't place all the blame on him even though I wish I could but I can't cause I was at fault too. I just don't know what to do now. I tried talking and we talked for about 2 1/2 hrs. That's too much. (Again I didn't say goodbye either) But now we hung out and that didn't work either. I know this isn't going to be easy to restablish this friendship but I don't know if I am ready to put so much effort forth to fix the many problems that we have. I don't know what to do now. It's just not working.

Get your Joy on!

Yesterday as I was talking to Dustin I was surfing the web for online devotionals just to see what is out there. Well what I found was this site that said that they would send me 'JOY' each Monday to start my week of crazyness off right. So of course my curiosity got the best of me and I gave them my email. Well I figured that it would be interesting to see what would happen so today I checked my email and I found that they had infact sent me 'joy' but how joyfull I wondered. I was already tickled pink to have something to read in my inbox which is usually stuffed with junk mail anyway. So I opened it and by golly I almost laughed out loud in Olsen's class (which would have been bad). The first line of me 'joy' was 'Get Your Joy On and Praise the Lord All Week Long!' like I said I almost laughed out loud but it really did bring joy into my week. So GET YOUR JOY ON!

"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalms 118:24

Snowing Stupidity

Today it SNOWED! I say that in that manner because it's still coming down from the sky. I am hoping that it stops because I have to open the store tomorrow.. ewww. But really it's coming down and we have quite a bit of snow on the ground! I went to work today. which was kinda dumb because we closed early around 4:30pm and I went in at 2pm. And I risked my life both getting there and coming home. But anyway, as I was fleeing the mall for my life I walked by the foodcourt and I saw the most splendid act of stupidity. There were people eating at Burger King! As if your life is not in danger already from the weather, you are cloging your arteries with fast food! the nerve of some people! not that I don't eat at BK every once in a while but I just don't think that it is wise to bring your children out in the bad conditons to eat unhealthy food. I didn't think it was snowing stupidity but apparently I am wrong.

A Rush of Emotion

"Did your parents cry in front of you when you were younger?" It's just a simple question, but it has such implications. I have found that the emotional health of the child is based largely (not wholely) on the emotional health that the parents display. My parents never really showed emotion (ie crying, yelling) around me when I was younger. From that I formed my belief that to show emotion is weakness. To cry makes you vulnerable and to yell is insensitive. So that was fine when I was still in the environment but now I'm out in the 'real world' and I have found that my assumptions are not true and are in fact harmful. Last night I was talking to my roomie about this and she said that sometimes it annoys her about my happiness that seems to be present all the time. she said "sometimes I just want to tell you to stop smiling because I know that's not how you feel" and over break someone said to me that I have an aura of happiness and carefreeness. That it seems as if I don't feel hurt or sad ever. Well that's not true, the other night I was hurt, and I cried, but even when I was crying I felt foolish and dumb, like I shouldn't have the right to cry and expect other people to hold me up. (which they did, I have amazing friends) but when I think about it it kinda scares me because although I know that I can cope with the way I am, I dont' want to screw up my children. I want them to be healthy but I don't even know where to begin as far as showing the correct amout of emotion with my children. I have a long time until I have to really worry about kids but I do worry sometimes that I'm not really fit to be a mother and that is the reason I am the way God made me. But when I look at that it reaks of the devil, I know it's just a lie right from him to hold me down, but you know, sometimes you know it's not the truth but you still believe it. I don't know what brought this rush of emotional thinking on me but I really wish I could just remain in my 'happy bubble' as some people call it and not have to worry about anything.

Learning Disabled

I spent 4 hrs of my life yesterday being learning disabled, I mean learning about being learning disabled. It a class that I'm taking this semester that should be fun. I'm looking forward to the knowledge that I'll gain however the work is astronomical! I had to write out an outline that's about 4 pages long (the chapter is 40 pgs.) than I had to do my case study and finally I had to take a quiz for the chapter this morning! it's nutz, by the time I'm done with this class I think I'll be learning disabled!

It's A Child Eat Cherrios World Out There

Some people say that it's a dog eat dog world out there but I have found that in my line of work it's a child eat cherrio world or sometimes they don't eat them and they just throw them around and then their big fat parents just stomp all over them and make a huge mess. Sometimes when I get home from work at night around 11pm I wonder if it's really worth all of it and I dwell on the messy cherrios and the big fat parents. But not tonight, tonight I am blessed. I was closing tonight (what is new) but I was told that I'm being demoted! Okay now you are thinking that I'm not blessed but merely touched. Not really, see I'm gonna be just an associate with the power of an assit. manager still. And my pay isn't being affected. So I have less responsibility and the same pay. like I said blessed! Also I got to hang out with Jon cause no one is getting pictures taken at 8:30pm on a Mon night. So he left about then and then came back and I had forgotten how much fun we have together! When he first started, he was a little touchy feely, always hugging me and just generally touching me. So it's all good now. We just joke around a lot! It makes work fun. so then we closed and that's something else I love about closing with Jon because he gives me a ride back to school. I still haven't decided how I am going to thank him for doing that all the time. We had to do the night drop as well, that was kinda weird and new. OH I forgot to talk about the most blessed part of my night, when Jon had stepped out Carly came in and we got to talk, which is weird because I don't think that Carly and I have ever really talked about anything, she's really Mandi's friend. But she had some really good stuff to say and that was good. Then Anders came in and that was just strange. cause of this summer, it's still a little strange to see them together especially the way they are when they are together. Sooo anyway, that was good. And I just want to also say while I'm on the blessed kick that I am sooo blessed to have AJ as a friend who is concerned with me, we reconnected over this past break and that is wonderful, last night he called just to see if I needed someone to talk me to sleep, that was soo sweet! Thank you God for the blessings you are pouring out on me!

Reading disclaimer

So I'm writing my thoughts: if you are reading this and do not wish to go inside of my head then don't read it. I can't and won't censor my thoughts for you. So I'm kind of upset now. As I mentioned in my past entry; I was contemplating breaking it off with my boyfriend, and eventually did. It's been rough these past few days for me and I don't want to even imagine what it has been like for him. I don't think it came out of the blue for him but I'm not sure, we got together to talk about the whole thing the day after we broke it off. At least that's what I thought we were getting together to talk about, but it turns out it was mostly (not all but mostly) about trying to talk me out of the decision that I had made. He played every card he had, the 'my friends think it was low too' card, the 'what about the promises we made' and the ultimate one, 'Were you lying when you said you loved me?' I dont' think that his friends know the whole truth so I'm not that upset about that, although I don't like to think that people believe that I'm less of a considerate person than I am. The promises weren't that many and none of them were concrete, we had been together for about 3 months officially and he's only known me for not even a year! so really there weren't that many promises or any real basis to base longlasting promises on. and finally when I said I loved him, that was really for me, that was me saying, 'ok, now I'm in this and I'm gonna give it my all till I can't or do not feel that I should anymore' and that's what happened. I felt he was more of a duty than a joy in my life, I felt that he was a restriction rather than a freedom. So to Dustin, (if you are reading this) I'm sorry, pure and simple, I'm not appologizing for what I did but I'm sorry for the pain and frustration that I caused you and I hope that you can forgive me someday.

Distracted

OK so I'm not distracted as much as I'm distracting myself. I was reading my sister's blog and found the most wonderful treasure, you know where it says in Matthew that 'Mary treasured up all of these things in her heart'? well I have been challenged to find just such treasures in my life and place them in the recesses of my heart to grow from warm, fuzzy feelings into concrete joy and hope. So anyway, as stated before my sister Stasi was in an acciedent and I had some crap to deal with from that. I was sopposed to be in the seat that Alex was in, he should never have been in that car when it smashed into a cement barrier at 60 mph. I guess I'm still dealing with that in my own 'put-it-off-till-you-can't-anymore' way. So back to my story. After the accident I think we all just went into self-preservation mode and no one really talked about how they felt. So I felt kinda like I didn't have a right to be upset about myself or have feelings that others needed to listen to. So I cried with Manda till she calmed down and then rubbed her back till she fell asleep and I woke up in the morning to make everyone blueberry pancakes and made sure that the girls had food to eat and headache and pain medicine at the right times and not too much. And then the other set of feelings came in, the ones that say that 'you are affected too, why should you have to do everything?' and I gave into them somewhat, I fought with Stasi and then felt awful, I just wanted to hug her and tell her that it would be ok and that everyone loved her and that it wasn't her fault, but now that I had been selfish I couldn't and it made me feel like crap and when that happens I lash out, and she was the obvious canidate. So then Alex came home and things got better in some ways, because with Alex my mom came home and then I didn't feel like I had to hold this family together any longer. So I had time to dwell on the selfish thoughts of being unappriciated. Then today I'm putting off outlining 4 chapters of Grammer lessons and reading Stasi's blog and I found out that she really does appriciate me and the things that I do and it made me feel wonderful and I'm storing that one up for later, hopefully it can go with me in my little treasure box I'm convinced we all get to take to heaven.

givenUPDATEing

Been a while and tons has happened. Let me catch you up. First school let out then I went home, Stasi and I fought about dumb stuff, then she wrecked her car to peices with Ami and Alex inside, don't worry everyone but Alex got away without a scratch, Alex had a lacerated Kidney, he's ok now and looking to go back to school on Tues. Prolly for just a half-day. So then I was home watching him and being his maid. While all of this was happening, my boyfriend Dustin was in South Jersey with my friend Lauren staying there for 3 weeks, that went well, at least that's the story they are telling me, but now mysteriously Lauren's mom is praying really hard for me. go figure. AND while all of this is happening, I went on a date with Brian, that was fun, we went to see Lemonysniket (spelled entirely wrong I'm sure) and then we had a 'fake' snowball fight, because there was no snow. We had tennisballs. it was fun, then he drove away just as a joke and an old man in his PJ's came out and asked me if he should call the police and if I was ok. I said yes and we got away without any police involvement on our date! So now I'm back at school and joy of all joys, Dustin is being super needy and weird and it's freaked me out to the point that I am right now in the process of decieding wether to break it off or not. I am struggling about wether it makes me a bad person because most of my reasons are about me and concern for me, but I am being reassured that I'm not selfish and that it's really the right thing to do in the long run. OH and yesterday I dropped 6 credits from my schedule, that was fun, I also picked up the most difficult class that Nyack offers, Grammer and Phonology with EP, so that will be fun, and I upset the dean of the school of education also, by taking his class and ended up dropping it for fear of not being accepted into the school. not cool. But life is ok now... I think.