oh heavens, shame on me!

i forgot to wish my boyfriend a happy birthday on sunday!

please know i still love you, cuddy, my darling country boy! happy late birthday!

did we ever doubt why i've had people (independent of one another) call me katie scarlett?

i'm a horrible person. that's all there is to it.
ukrainian maintenance man has smiled at me differently the last two times i've seen him. instead of his face lighting up, he looks a little uncomfortable, and perhaps a little down. i'm finding it extremely irritating. he's supposed to smile at me like he's happy, almost relieved actually, to see me. he's supposed to smile at me like just seeing me brightens his day. now he doesn't, and all i want is for him to smile at me like that again. no, i don't want him, but i want him to like me, because i am just that vain and heartless. my impulse is to flirt my way back into his good graces; string him along with just a little hope. there's no reason why i couldn't do it. i can be alluring when i want to be.
oh, i'm a horrible person.

actual headline

"The Olsen twins demonstrate bad taste"
really?

what my mother learned from the WWII movie we watched last night

it was a hallmark hall of fame true story about a woman saving 2,500 children. a good story.

at one point, the guy (played by goran visnjic) was showing the girl the secret compartment he was building inside her wardrobe to hide people in. they got stuck inside. soon her mother came by, so the girl hollered, and her mother let them out.

i, however, told my mother that if i'm ever trapped in a wardrobe with goran visnjic she can leave me there. ;D

why chelleybutton's awesome this time

I may have mentioned it before: I have another blog. A baseball blog. I don't actually expect people to read it. But I really like it when they do. Throughout the season, I give points to the guys for wonderful things that they do. Then, at the end of the baseball season, I give out awards like 'Strike Outiest Pitcher,' and 'Most Excited to Be Out There' and 'Prettiest Addition.' Since I have to not only think of awards, but introduce them all in the setting of the Melilot Brandybuck Minnesota Twins Award Dinner, it, admittedly, takes forever. Both last year and this, after about a quarter of the awards, I'm ready to quit. I can only assume my readers are too. And these poor girls, if they get behind, there's a lot of reading material. I'm sure it's overwhelming.
And yet! After a (completely understandably) long absence, Chelleybutton went through and got caught up today. Is she a huge Twins fan? She likes them, yes. But mostly I think it's just because she's a wonderful friend. She is. She's wonderful. And that is why Chelleybutton's awesome this time. :D

Happy National Dance Day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ3cTwI9bIw

prayer ministry update

GOD and I had a conversation the other night. Okay, not so much a conversation (as Dharma's Indian spirit guide would be sure to point out), as a me talking a lot.
The thing is, I don't like having a prayer ministry. I don't. I don't like being committed to pray for these people. It's not that I don't like the people, and it's not that I don't think it's a blessing to be asked to pray for them. It's just that, I don't know, I'm not good at prayer. I don't like it. 'Like' is not the right word. There are times when I like it very much. It's just that those times are so few and far between that I don't like to be committed to praying in between times. And I don't like feeling guilty if I don't do it.
I find it boring. I know it should never be boring to come into the presence of the Holy Almighty GOD, to be invited into HIS throneroom. But that doesn't mean that that's not how I feel. I find it frustratingly boring.
The nice thing about GOD is that I can tell HIM this. HE knows it anyway, so why not try to talk it through with HIM. The not nice thing about GOD is that HE's often silent; either because HE doesn't say anything at the time, or because HE's not flesh and blood in front of me talking back. If I start talking with someone, I want them to converse back, and with words I understand!
And don't give me that, 'HE speaks to your heart' crap. It's true. It is. But sometimes it would be nice if I could see and hear HIM on my plane. And not as the Biblical JESUS. 'Oh, but GOD did come to earth to be one of us.' Yeah, well, I wasn't there at the time. I've never gotten to have a real conversation with HIM.
Those are all the thoughts for right now. I don't care if it flows or if it's abrupt. That's my prayer ministry update.

i hate target field

i want to go to games, gall dang it!

ukrainian maintenance guy part three

k. he was there today. and it was just a smile and a hi. phewph!
(and i asked karol if it actually had been weird the other day, or if it was just me, and she said it was definitely weird. she also said that she does think he likes me. so helpful.)

ukrainian maintenance guy needs to be there again

i haven't seen him all week. i need to know if it was flukey thing (which i'm really hoping it was), or if it's something i should be worrying about. because i had a dream last night that i broke his little heart and felt very very badly about it. no use feeling bad if it's not even true!

Movie Review: Dorian Gray [with Ben Barnes and Colin Firth]

Good heavens. It was so scandalous I turned it off.

dear yahoo,

you are wrong. your article on eligible royals subtitled, "William might be taken, but Sweden's billionaire prince isn't spoken for yet," is clearly a fallacy. please check all sources (i.e. this blog) before making such claims.
sincerely,
melilot brandybuck

time to shop!

i don't have the book i need for my tolkien class. i thought i did, but apparently, i don't. bummer, huh? ;)

and in four months!

i get to see kimberly for the first time in forever and a half! yay! and meet those babies of hers what i've never met.
oh yeah, and see josh. but he's just a boy, so he doesn't matter so much. ;)

why can't it ever be a guy i want?

what exactly does one do when one thinks a 55-year-old divorced ukrainian is interested in her?
the problem is that i'm nice. and he's so quiet and shy and alone. and he likes that my mother is interested in his (and any, really) culture, and that i'm interested in seemingly everything.
i guess i don't know that he's interested in me, but he's always smiled at me differently than he smiles at the rest of the kitchen people. and today when he was looking for a coffee cup and i found one for him (which has happened before), he touched my arm as he thanked me (which has not happened before). he then proceeded to follow me around talking to me the entire time that i was cleaning up the dining room (which is a long time for a guy who doesn't talk). and he kept (seemingly nervously) running his hands through his hair the whole time. and i couldn't help but think, 'oh no. i've seen this coming. and i've done nothing to prevent it. oh no.'
it could just be that he's lonely and needed someone to talk to today. but i don't know. it didn't seem like it. and i don't know that he'd ever ask me out or anything, but if he did, i'd feel really bad saying no, but there's no way i could say yes. oy gevalt.

the walk of shame

i think everyone at my church comes individually. we don't have that big of a congregation, but our parking lot can't hold all the cars, nor can the block our church is on (esp right now with one side parking). this is a problem for those of us who are perpetually late. as i was walking the block from my car one time, i heard one of the girls refer to it as the walk of shame, as we who are late are forced to be on display for the whole neighborhood, and, when church is over, for the whole church, as they drive by while we are still walking to our cars. i found that fitting, and have thought of it that way ever since.
lately i've taken to parking around the corner, as it's closer than having to park on the next block up. while our church is on the corner, however, it's still a third of a block to the door. and today i was wearing my hooker boots. and it's been a little warmer lately, so snow has melted, and now refrozen into ice on the sidewalk. and in that stretch walking by the church to the door, there are no little outlets like there would be if there were houses, so i couldn't get back out to the street where it wasn't icy.
so i got to do a nice little shuffle step, but it couldn't completely be a shuffle step cuz it wasn't smooth ice, so if i hit a bump i would go flying forward. i was walking extremely gingerly, hoping to not die. meanwhile, coming up behind me was an 18-year-oldish guy from my church who had parked around the corner on the other side of the street. as he caught up with me, i moved to the side a bit, since he was obviously going faster than i, and said, 'i don't know why girls insist on wearing these stupid shoes.' and he replied, 'especially in this weather.' and kept walking.
he kept walking! i was so mad. well, not mad. just a tad indignant. all i could think was, 'if you were plaid, you would've offered me your arm. but no...' in all fairness, he didn't know me, and is young, and did hold the door for me when i got there. and in all fairness, i was late. if i want plaid to escort me, i have to get there on time, cuz he always is. although, if i got there on time, i would have a better parking spot, so i wouldn't need anyone to escort me.
at any rate, i couldn't help but wish this boy would've saved the day. it would've made this story a lot better.

good grief

the other day i was looking for a cami and stumbled across a cute summer top. my thought, 'oh! it's so cute! and to think, i haven't been able to wear it cuz it's the off-season.' not winter, no. i thought 'off-season.'

Psalm 119:57-58

"The LORD is my portion; I promise to keep THY words. I entreat THY favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to THY promise."

and in one month!

chelleybutton will be here again and we'll get to go to my first game of the season with some of my other favorite people!
and i'm extra excited cuz i always think i don't have 'girls.' you watch movies and hear other people talk, and they have a group of friends they go out with all the time. i never go out with a group of friends who are all mine. once in a great while i'll go out with people from church, but usually i cling to one or two people cuz i don't really know the rest of them, or i just don't feel comfortable with them all. but this time, they're all mine! my chelley, my didder, my erma, my scout, and my diana. it almost seems like a bacherlorette party - it's all about me! :)

and in two months

i get to go visit uncle cocoa and aunt dairy princess in tacoma for a week, which will be very nice, and we'll get to see my boys play the mariners in seattle. :)

but today

i got to hang out with hobbitsister and erma and scout and boof aunt and baby girl. and that was happy. :)

one year ago today

i was at spring training. baseball and palm trees. sigh.

some possibly prophetic thoughts

•back in high school or college, i took a spiritual gifts test. i got prophecy. i was disappointed. what on earth does one do with that? can't i have something more practical like teaching or helps? i've never had a clue what to do with prophecy. and so i've done nothing.
•a few years ago, i fell in love with baseball. after awhile i felt called to a ministry to the players and their wives. as we all learned back in september, eventually GOD broke me down to the point where HE taught me that i don't have to 'do' anything in order to have a ministry to those people. i was called to a prayer ministry. which disappointed me. i'm not a good pray-er. it's just not my thing. but that's what HE called me to, and i'm trying to be faithful.
•around Christmas time i had a dream that i was bringing treats to firefighters. there were a bunch of them at the firehouse, but i only saw the faces of two of them. they were distinct, but not faces i knew. a day or two later there was a fire in chicago in which two firefighters died. when they showed their pictures on the news, i freaked out. they were the firefighters from my dream. i had never seen them before, but i dreamed them, and all of a sudden there they were. it got me thinking again about my supposed prophecy gift. what on earth could it possibly mean? why did i see them before i ever saw them? was there something prophetic about it? was there something i could have/should have done about it? am i a real-life eli stone? these thoughts have been plaguing me for 3 months. no one has had an answer for me.
•i'm in a beth moore Bible study about the patriarchs. in genesis twenty, when abimilech takes sarah, GOD comes to him in a dream and tells him that if he leaves sarah alone, abraham, who is a prophet, will pray for him and it will be well with him. beth moore points out that this is the first time the word 'prophet' is used in Scripture, and the first thing GOD says about a prophet is that he will pray.
•i laughed. what on earth? i supposedly have the gift of prophecy, and the first thing i've ever felt that GOD has called me to is a prayer ministry. are those related? how accurate are those tests anyway? and if it's right, where on earth is GOD taking me? i didn't want the gift, i didn't want the ministry, but then, was there ever a non-reluctant prophet? it might just be that HE's taking me one step at a time. that once i've gotten the hang of this step, perhaps HE'll show me the next piece of the prophet puzzle. it could be that it will be years or decades before i actually learn how to use this gift. but is this the something more i've always felt i was meant for? is HE going to start showing me, little by little?
•or is this all me wanting something bigger? for some reason, it doesn't feel like that's the answer.

thought from my first lecture (well, not my lecture, cuz sadly i'm not paid to talk about tolkien, but the lecture i listened to)

My darling Tolkien believed in the power of myth. He believed that all myths ultimately point toward the Truth, and thus could be useful in bringing someone to the One True GOD. While he may have been unsuccessful in his dream of creating a mythology for England, certain facets of it stuck with his writing.
The professor of the class I'm listening to, Corey Olsen, stated that that is one reason why, by right, The Lord of the Rings, should not be popular. We live in a time when people don't want to believe in myth. They don't think it desirable or necessary. And yet...deep down...they crave it. While ultimately Tolkien was unsuccessful in his attempts at a mythology for his country, "...he succeeded in doing something far greater than what he was trying to do. He didn't write a mythology for England; what I think Tolkien does in his works is he establishes a mythology for the modern world. A mythology for a world that's tried to forget mythology, but which can't entirely drive the need for mythology out of its mind and out of its heart." And that is why it is popular.

:-O

i found an entire class of tolkien lectures for free online!!! :D

http://www.tolkienprofessor.com/lectures/courses_seminars/wc_class.html

and yes, this is when i say, why yes, yes i am