"I'm learning to breathe; learning to crawl; I'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall" Switchfoot

Still Daily

I think this more than constitutes for my daily sighting of a giraffe. I saw one yesterday on a little kid's shirt. And lest anyone think that because I don't mention my sightings of them very often that I am no longer spotting them, rest assured, I am. I'm trying to get blogger to let me post pics from my phone that way I can just send a pic whenever I see one directly here. But for some reason its being stupid and not allowing me to do so.

Re-discovered "Lenka" after forgetting about her music for a while.

Debating getting facebook again. Don't think it's really worth it. We'll see.

Me off.

Wedding

Well first I'll give yall a few pics... For some reason some of them are sideways and I can't get them to rotate. So, this'll have to do

The wedding was amazing! I wish my backyard could look like that all the time... Nick and Rose are off on their honeymoon :) My lack of desire for a wedding has not changed, but this is the closest it has come to changing recently. Just because it was completely beautiful. I'm soo excited for Rose to officially be a part of our family too! It goes without saying for most of you that she's amazing. You all know that already. She was an amazing bride, too. No Zilla stuff happening.

Anyway, I'm excited to see what God does in their life together!

Me off.

"Love , by definition, seeks to enjoy its object." - C. S. Lewis

3

Hmm. 3 posts in one day. This is unusual. It probably isn't necessarily a good sign of the amount of time I have on my hands today. Or rather, the amount of time I am not doing things I should be.

I adopted a word. I don't remember where this is at, and of course its ridiculous. But I've decided to use the word "vanmost" which is essentially a synonym for "foremost". And as we're on the topic of words, I've discovered I also greatly enjoy the word "dysphoria". This possibly may be because it is used in the movie "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" which is widely known as one of my favorite movies. Also, I encourage everyone to begin using the phrase "said the harlot to the priest" in place of "that's what she said". This is the European version, and being such automatically makes it cooler.

I think I'm done for the day.

Me off.

"over it yeah i'm finding out i'm just over it. no i dont know whats over just yet but i wont go slow and time can let the mind forget." relient k

Memories Forgotten

In keeping wtih my promise to post past writings, this is something I started writing a long time ago. I didn't finish it, and I can't remember for the life of me who I'm referring to in it, but I kinda like it...

My life of late has been consumed
With thoughts and music bringing back you
Right now you're gone, but if I listen
I can still hear your eyes glisten
Twinkle and spark like they did in better days
But now you hide the pain behind a glaze
One that seems to have taken over you
Robbing me of the friend I once knew
If I could I would to make you smile
Something I haven't seen in a while

And that's the abrupt end... It's possible I was speaking of my grandpa, but I'm not sure.

St. Louis!

Just had my phone interview for going to the Dream Center in a couple months! I'm so excited! I love that place so much. I know I've said it several times, but it has my heart. I just hope everything goes through with my time off for work. I think it will. I'm also super excited because I found really cheap transportation. I'm gonna probably take a MegaBus which keeps my costs under $100 for both trips! This also opens up the possibility for me to go out there more often. Like, when I say under $100 I mean its going to be like $60ish for both trips. Which is phenomenal.

Nick and Rosie are getting married on Saturday. That's wedding number 2. Things are starting to get crazy at my house. Since they're getting married here, we have all kinds of things getting delivered this week that we have to set up. We have tents, chairs, dance floor, tables, etc. We had stone delivered for our driveway today. Its just going to be all kinds of chaos. But its exciting.

Jimmy's coming home tomorrow. I can't wait. I love it when my brudder comes home.

Uhm. Yeah, not too much to say really. Just... St. Louis! Woot! :P

Me off.

Writings

So I ran across a bunch of stuff I've written in the past. I think I'm going to start posting some of it here. I don't really know how to classify alot of it, but here goes...

This one was the result of a though process, not sure entirely how I feel about the accuracy of it, but its something to think about.

The Hunger of Love - 4/24/06

"You must obey the law. Follow where He leads. Pray this prayer and you will be a Christian. Love the lost, feed the poor, clothe the naked, and you will be sanctified. You must witness and spread God's word. Then you will gain access to Heaven." said She.

"To be I must do?" asked I. "Does love begin in the heart or the deed? Indeed, does the action of eating make one hungry? Or is it a deeper longing for nourishment? To be I must do? I think not. I think to do I must be. In order to show the love of Christ to others I must first be His love and He be mine. A love of God does not flow from our own actions, but from His. We cannot make ourselves love God by what we do. Out of the heart we act. Our heart does not change because of our deeds. A person could eat and eat and eat, but the more she eats, the less hungry she becomes. How can she know the hunger, the deep desire unless she allows herself to wait for that desire to come? You, ma'am, continually eat by serving; by singing at church, by attending Bible study, by daily studying yoru devotion. All things that are good and well. But the reason you eat is for taste. When you do these things it makes you feel better about yourself. You don't eat for the deep desire for the nourishment these things provide. And by constantly feeding your belly with these things, having the wrong motive, it doesn't provide you with satisfaction. In fact, the more you eat with the lack of hunger, the more you feel you must eat. Food eaten outside of hunger does not provide nourishment. It does not go to the health of the body but to its puffing up.  As does doing good deeds without the deep desire for Christ. I challenge you, ma'am, to not read yoru Bible. Don't pick it up until you can't bear living without it anymore. Instead listen to what God is softly speaking to your heart. Hear as He woos you to His glorious self. Listen to the simple sweetness He whispers in your ear. Be captivated by the mysteries that He will reveal to you. You know your Bible front and back. You know what it says. Now listen to what He speaks. Then, when you've heard Him, when you've experienced His wonder, then and only then pick up the Letters of adoration He has written for you. Let their breath become your breath, their life, yours. As you go through the day, breathe in God, breathe Him out; allow His romance to surround you and smother you. Once you allow His wondrous love to completely engulf your being, your actions will naturally flow from a heart overflowing with love. Y es, you, even you need to allow your heart to be loved by your Creator in its deepest depths, its most hidden places. He longsf or you; He weeps for you. He craves your love, covets your company. He yearns for your heart. Will you keep Him yet waiting as you fill your belly with deeds instead of filling your heart with His love?

There's a giraffe in the movie Coraline. 2 actually.

Without consequences or pain how would we know evil to be evil?

Sometimes the life you choose doesn't choose you back.

A Tretise on Being a Bridesmaid (4 going on 27)

My count is up to 4. And while this is still a long way from being in 27 bridesmaid dresses, it feels as if this number could be possible if the rate at which I am acquiring them continues.

Having been in one wedding and with 3 more approaching between this fall and next spring, I've developed several "bridesmaid foundations" that I stand on.

1. The day is not about me. It is about the bride. I will do what I can to remember this and help as much as possible.
2. The key words in the above foundation are "as much as possible". I am not super human nor do I have a never ending finance pool. I will communicate my limitations to the bride, while being sensative to the fact that, within my limitations, I want to do what I can to make the process as enjoyable as possible for her.
3. With God all things are possible. This should probably be number 1. But basically this means that God is aware of what I need as far as money and time. He will provide as long as I'm taking wise steps throughout the process.
4. Swallow the cynicism. Bride's don't want to hear why you don't believe in marriage. I have a hard time with this one... But I think I'm doing better.
5. Enjoy it as much as is possible. This is a difficult one for me, too, being that, as you've seen, my views of such matters have been slightly tainted by cynicism.

There you have it. I in no way execute these things perfectly, but I do find them running through my mind on a fairly regular basis. By the end of this, who knows, maybe I could take Katherine Heigle's place.

Me off.

Weddings, Marriage, Love, What???

All cynicism towards love set aside, there is something that I really don't understand. Weddings. To clarify, I suppose I do understand why people would want to celebrate... but its hard for me to see much to celebrate in marriage besides the ability to have sex. When I see the rejoicing, I sit back and shake my head wondering if they really know what they're about to do to themselves (mind out of the gutter, not what I meant). By that I mean, over the years of marriage, its hard. And this is all being said tongue in cheek as I am not married and therefore do not have the most expertise on the subject. But in what I've seen, marriage is not a walk in the park. So when I experience a wedding, there's a very inherent part of me that is thinking "Congratulations! Welcome to a life of discovering not only your spouse's flaws and annoying habits, but your own too! Welcome to fights. Welcome to finding out that you don't really even like the other person half the time. Welcome to hell."  Bearing in mind that I understand I am wrong on this, it is however, how I currently feel about the subject.

If all that doesn't sound awful enough to make people run the opposite direction, I don't know what would be. Its funny though, because, all of that makes me want to get married even more. So, I don't know if there's something wrong with me there. I enjoy discovering people. Good or bad. Discovering the bad isn't necessarily fun, but its the most amazing thing in the world to watch God redeem it. Mainly for that reason, I hope that God has marriage for me. I look forward to working through life with someone. That and I really want kids. This is something I largely doubt though.

My observations of the world of love tell me that people's understanding of what it is has been brutally warped. If I may be so brazen, people's definition of love has been raped by sex so that now the two words are often synonymous with each other. Because of this, love is viewed as warm, fuzzy, feel-good... etc. etc. But yall know this already probably. If you don't, I'd like to know the address of the rock you live under.

Perhaps my jaded opinion towards all of this is coming from a bitterness at the thought that it may not be intended for me. That's honestly probably the source of it. Well, it's from a couple different place actually. I applaud those who have seen and experienced first hand the same devestation that I have when it comes to this matter and still have the courage to enter into a life with someone else. I really truly pray that God would be the center of all the marriages that are happening... and the ones that already exist. Cause any alternative doesn't work.

Written but Untitled

Just something I wrote about a year ago. I actually woke up one morning and had it, typed it out in my phone. No title for it as of current...

Just beneath the surface
Of my turtle shell
The cracks reach around me
As my broken heart swells
The pain numbed by time
But the wounds remain
I'll stick my head out
To see if it still rains
Sorrow in tear drops
That fall from the sky
Create streams that flow
From the seas in my eyes
As the rain falls harder
The cracks found in my shell
Become the beds of rivers
Where living water flows

Hourglass on Atlantic; The Sea of Atlas

Sleeping at Last's Yearbook EP - June!

The Sea of Atlas
Through wires and waves our voices carry
Such careful words that we can barely speak out loud
We found an ocean when we needed land
We drowned in words when we needed a hand
So we plead for night and the sun keeps spilling light

There's a fine line, a fine line in between
Our progress and our instability
We can't help ourselves but hunt for more
A design flaw or the olive branch that proves the shore
The catalyst we've waited for

We live and die under the thumb of fear
As though the finish line will merely disappear
If we take one less step even to catch our breath


Hourglass
We're taking turns
At shattering apart
At least we're taking turns

How did we get so good
At dismantling these hearts
How did we ever get so good?

We dress our best
To receive their sympathy
At our worst we dress our best?

"Time heals all"
According to these greeting cards
Oh how we'd rather time resets

If we could turn the hourglass we would
If we could move a grain of sand we would
If we could find our way back we would

Our minds keep spinning webs
Of question marks and regrets
Will our minds keep spinning webs

I once heard honest words;
"Though nothing may ever be the same
The heart keeps widening for change"

You Are My Sunshine

I was listening to music and browsing websites through stumbleupon.com. As coincidence would have it, I was listening to "My Only Sunshine" by Bing Crosby and stumbleupon gave me this image at the same time. Gotta love it.

I actually really like the entirety of that song. Though it is rather depressing as a whole.

There's something about old music, like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. that just brings a melancholy joy to my heart. There's just something comforting about a crooner's voice combined with an upright bass, flute and violin and a little bit of white noise. It makes me want to sit next to a fire (bon fire or fireplace depending on the weather) with a cup of tea or hot chocolate, just listening. There's just a romance to it.

We must have been created for a world simpler than the one we've created for ourselves. A world where things were savored. Moments that were made to delight our souls, tastes that can both excite and comfort, smells that ignite soothing nostalgia or desire (I'm thinking about food here people, come on get it outa the gutter :P). And, I think one of the most important things we were made to delight in, after God, is each other.

We were made to delight and be delighted in. I think its an inherent need that comes with being human. In fact, the word "need" doesn't begin to touch on the depth of necessity I think this is for us. Maybe I'm exagerating or generalizing... I don't know. But when I think about it, we were made to delight God; to please Him. So I can't help but think that this is a part of our DNA.

Personally, there is nothing more fulfilling to me than when I know that God is happy with me. Second to that, one of my favorite things (if not my favorite thing) is when I can see that other people find joy in who I am. Also when I find joy in who others are. I really love people. They're flaws frustrate and hurt me sometimes, but those flaws aren't who they are. I love people for who they are, and I love discovering who they are. Quirks are a weakness for me. They bring me so much joy because they make people interesting. (Which really explains quite alot....)

Anyway, wow... my thoughts wandered a bit from where they started. Suffice it to say, if I know you, you are my sunshine in some way or another. And if I don't yet, you likely will be when I do.

Me off.