Things I Liked About Today

It rained.

It snowed.

I didn’t have to go to work. One of my “kids” is sick, poor thing.

I took my boots back.

I talked to Erin for like 2.5 minutes.

A saleswoman tried to sell me a $275 pair of Gucci sunglasses. It is an ugly mug that needs $275 sunglasses to make it look good and NOTHING made of plastic should cost that much.

Witty banter with the salesgirls at BP.

Eating an Auntie Anne’s pretzel while driving through rain on the freeway.

Snoozes.

Wearing my red and black polka-dotted swing dancing dress to work. Many compliments which I am vain enough (and girl enough) to really enjoy.

Two hours worth of solid work on my book. We’re nearing the end!

Work was very low-key and pleasant. I drank hot chocolate with a little coffee in it.

Listening to my “secular song of the moment” by Missy Higgins called “Where I stood”.

Watching the snow fall in the street lamp ’s mylight as I left work.

The cat sitting on my lap in front of the space heater.

Watching Frasier and while typing this up.

Shopping for sneakers. I haven’t shopped for sneakers since high school. This is a task too large for me. I need a super shopper to help!

Texting with Gill. Always happy and today I got to be helpful!

Dinner. Dinner was really good.

The fact that I get to go to bed really soon.

FYI

I’ve updated my “Quotes” page with quotes from one of my favorite plays, Cyrano de Bergerac.

The first is a quote about noses which I, a lover of noses, think is just about the funnest quote ever.

The second is one which strikes my heart as beautiful.

My Dream House

This is a blog response to Seven Angels, Four Children, One Family.  She’s asked us to describe the mansion we would like in heaven. I am going to deviate slightly and describe the home I would love to have on earth someday.

There are a few generalities about my dream home. The first is that it would be near a wildlife preserve so that there would be a forest for me to wander in. The second is that I’d like some kind of water on the property whether it be a stream, a pond, a lake or the ocean nearby. The third is that it would be a house made my someone who loves what they do. You can tell the houses that were made with love…

On to specifics.

I want a craftsman style home with big windows and copper drainpipes. It will have a porch suitable for sitting on with friends, and a screened in porch in the back so my kids can sleep “outside” in the summer.

Inside, the house will be full of books. Every room will have shelves or a bookcase or an end table crammed full of books. The living room and kitchen will the be the central focus of the house with the bedrooms and other rooms radiating off of it.

All For Love For Real

So here’s the deal.

God is not a solution to your problems. Becoming a Christian and convincing other people to become Christians will not make the world a better place. All the Bible studies, church luncheons, youth groups, Sunday mornings and good intentions in the world will not change one heart.

But Love in the form of a God of Glory WILL.

Seriously. When we become so enamored of our Saviour that the only thing we see when we look around us is HIM- that’s the day that things will change.

Everything flows out of a heart overflowing with Love. You don’t become a Christian to cure world hunger, you feed the poor in your city because you can’t help it. You have to serve as an expression of the overflow of your heart.

If we could all wrap our heads around this concept we might spend more time at the feet of our Jesus and less time trying to work out how to make everything better.

I’m just saying.

Maybe…

I almost posted an excerpt of my book here. You all came SO close to being the first ones to read it.

But I re-thought the idea.

Maybe another time.

Houston- We Have a Problem

Ok, some of you know about my super power. (No, not being able to sense the presence of horses at great distance…)

I am invisible to the opposite sex. Or perhaps a better way of putting it is that I have some kind of instant mind-blanking effect. Sometimes a guy will check me out when I’m walking in the mall or something (though it does NOT happen as often as my mother thinks it does) but no-one ever does a thing about it. It was my own private kind of mo-jo. I liked being ignored.

I keep trying to post

I’ve sat down and written two posts tonight- or at least tried to. One was a dream vacation in the South of France and the other was a quote that perfectly defines what I want to grow up to be.

You will notice that neither of them are posted here. Apparently, lack of posting is contagious. I caught it from my sister, Michael and Kristi Walsh collectively. It’s a disease that makes someone unable or not desirous of posting new things to their blog.

I wish I was witty and clever and had something wonderful to share….

Oh hey! I’ll share my toothbrushing revelation. (It’s better than it sounds.)

It started by me thinking about my singing voice- it’s fair but not fabulous and I tend to be rather pitchy. From there it went to how some people paint ugly things and some people can’t seem to find enough rhythm to dance.

Ready?

When we get to heaven it’s not that we’re going to be suddenly good at everything, it’s that we will be able to percieve the beauty in what we were doing all along. 

 God’s ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts- therefore how can we possibly understand what self-expressions are or are not beautiful in His eyes? Heaven’s choirs will be made of the off-key ones who sing as a joyous expression of their love of the Father.

I won’t be painting or dancing or writing in heaven… I’m gonna play the piano and SING!

Cry in the Dark

Oh God!

Here we go again.
It’s the place that I’m weakest.
       (And I know you don’t mind because you made me this way)

But it still hurts like heck
                And I don’t like pain.
                I admit it.

I don’t want to live in the future
               especially since the future doesn’t exist
I want to be present and available and joyful and obediant
I deeply desire to rejoice with those who rejoice

So help me ignore it
                 Or make it go away
                        Or teach me the lesson that needs learning
                         (And please teach fast!)

Cause I can’t do it even one more time
Not in my own strength, anyway

So it is FULLY up to You this time
       I’m just going to gaze at You

And You’ve got to make the rest of it work out.
I’m not even going to try.

Because, Kind Father, You know how tired my heart is.
So please carry it.
Small as it may be, it’s too big a burden for me now.

“Something baaadddd…

….is happening in Oz!”

For those of you who do not understand the above reference, it is from the musical “Wicked”. It’s a very short song sung by a goat who is noticing strange things happening in the wonderful world of Oz.

For those of you who don’t understand why the heck I am referencing obscure songs from Broadway shows, I’m getting to that.

Lately some rather odd things have been happening to me on an alarmingly frequent basis. Nothing too drastic or so strange as to be alarming, but I hoped that someone smarter than me might be able to tell me what’s going on.

First of all, I’ve been dressing myself for nineteen years now and lately I have begun putting my pants on backward. Regularly. It’s usually pajama pants and I always notice and correct the error but come on! I’m almost 22 for Pete’s sake.

Not to mention, I am almost constantly seeing things out of the corner of my eye. Whenever I look, whatever I saw it gone. I understand that most people experience this once in a while but it’s happening almost all the time and it’s getting annoying. Two nights ago I literally saw a pool of silver around my feet as I walked but when I focused on it it was gone. Sometimes it’s people walking down the street who aren’t actually there or maybe it’s a car or a bird or even a tree.

The last major thing is that I’ve been dreaming every night. I dream a lot but not THAT much. Additionally, I will have a dream in which a certain person figures prominently and then that person will have called or texted while I was asleep. It’s happened with three different people over the last week. I dream then wake and look at my phone and there their name is!

Weird.

Just. Weird.

Unexpected Reminder

I came home from work tonight and grabbed my latest brain-candy book. In this book I came across a small reminder about how to live… I thought I would share it with you all.

“There’s lots o’ things folks don’t ‘preciate,” replied the sailor-man. “If somethin’ would ‘most stop your breath, you’d think breathin’ easy was the finest thing in life. When a person’s well, he don’t realize how jolly it is, but when he gets sick he ‘members the time he was well, an’ wishes that time would come back. Most folks forget to thank God for givin’ ‘em two good legs, till they lose one o’ ‘em, like I did; and then it’s too late, ‘cept to praise God for leavin’ one.”

And THAT is the truth! Brought to you courtesy of L. Frank. Baum and his wonderful children’s book, The Magic of Oz.