HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHELLEYBUTTON!!!!

fairness

if a guy says you're 98% enough of a reason for him to make peanut butter cup bars, but that he needs a special occasion, and halloween comes and you ask him sweetly to make said bars, and he makes said bars, said bars should be yours i think.

happy world series!

sisterness

for halloween the boom boom room girls are going to be beanie babies. naturally, i'm going to be a bumblebee (aw, yeah, that's right a boom boom room bumblebee beanie baby), as i have black and yellow articles of clothing already, what with being a hufflepuff and all. i claimed it immediately. thing 5 will be a kangaroo, because she's pregnant, and thing 3 claimed cheetah, since she has a bunch of cheetah print clothing. thing 4 hasn't decided yet. and angie? what did dear angie decide to be? a ladybug.
really? a ladybug? when it drives me nuts that you're so dependent on us being the very best of work friends, together at all times, never able to so much as go to the kitchen to get your oatmeal until i say that i'm going to go get tea, you're gonna be a ladybug? when i'm a bumblebee? we are not the same person! last year for thing 4's birthday, i colored a purple dragon, because she loves purple and dragons. and so you colored a purple dragon. guess what - i actually meant it when i said that was annoying. you don't have to copy me!
this is what i have been saying in my head for a week or so, as i've asked myself over and over what is her deal? today it dawned on me. we say i'm like the big sister she never had and she's a pesky little sister. it all makes so much sense. she's never had someone to emulate. and as she's a very lovey-dovey person, she thinks it's great fun for friends to be the same, and so she'll do whatever i do. i, on the other hand, have never had a little sister, constantly present and wanting to do everything i do. this is completely new territory for me. and i am not the lovey-dovey type who wants someone joined at my hip, so it makes it that much worse.
so my apologies, didder, for being annoying and wanting to do everything you did and be with you all the time back in the day. i'm trying ever so hard to be patient. and i'm going to try all that much harder to be that much cuter to be sure that at least if someone thinks we're trying to be cutesy, her ladybug is just a poor man's bumblebee.

prayer retreat

not much to say. always nice to be by myself, and i do love the simplicity there. the weather was cold, but not unbearable - i just spent more time inside than i usually do, which was fine. i had really been thinking that with the yom kippur thing and feeling that God was calling me there that there would be more to it. friday night i just wanted to leave. i had been prepared for some deep soul-searching and brought something we were given at Bible school that lists different sins of omission and commission that helps get you thinking (i struggle a lot more with the omission ones, go figure). it hit me when i did it before. not so much now. oh well. i did read some good stuff in the catechism that got me thinking a bit. idunno. it was fine.

trying a new church tomorrow...

we'll see

prayer retreat

last year i felt that God told me not to go back to the prayer retreat place unless He called me. i was all set to just take a day at state park or a lake or something for prayer and Bible reading and outdoors-getting. 
and so i find it humorous that He called me back this year. i'm headed back. only for two nights this time (next thurs and fri) instead of my normal three, but they're letting me stay a little late on saturday, which is nice. after yom kippur, i really felt like this was something i needed to do, and then you add on the church situation and my feelings of being tired of things and whatever all else, and it's definitely where i need to be. i'm purposely coming back so that i can go to church on sunday, though. i'm hoping that will be a helpful push in that direction. we'll see how it goes.

ok...

In my dream last night, there was something about Prov. 6:12-13. Hoping it would be something inspiring and/or enlightening, I looked it up this afternoon.
"A troublemaker and a villain,
    who goes about with a corrupt mouth,
    who winks maliciously with his eye,
    signals with his feet
    and motions with his fingers...,"

Melilot Classic: Sunday, October 5th, 2008 [to be read after the previous post]

[when i'm stalling because i don't want to go to bed, i often just click on a year randomly to see what i was doing to see what i was doing at this time a few years ago. just now i clicked on October 2008.] 

 

i wish Bible study was on the other weekend

i don't like having it on the weekend i work. i'm too tired to want to leave the house. i don't want to go today. however, of course, the chapel that i quoted the other day gave a list of ways in which we are 'caught napping.'
"GOD says, 'Do not neglect meeting together...' Hebrews 10:25

...and we go to church or Bible study only if it's convenient and we feel like it."

and another one i read recently (entitled 'Duty or Privilege') said, "Going to church is a privilege as well. A friend of mine likes to say, 'I don't have to go to church, I get to go to church.' That in itself sums up duty versus privilege...It is a privilege to worship and praise our GOD at church." The prayer in that one said, 'Forgive me for focusing on duty more than privilege. Open my eyes to new privileges every day. I love you LORD."

so i guess i'm going to Bible study. and i guess i'm going with a good attitude. :)

i'm tired

i'm not really looking for solutions, i'm just getting this out.
i'm tired. i'm tired of looking for a church. for a few years i was feeling out of place at my old one. so i looked for one, which was draining. i found one where the preaching was amazing. and discovered after about six months that there was nowhere for me to get involved. so i'm looking again. i've been going to one that was in my final three last time, as i feel it has some places i can serve and perhaps then meet people as well. but i don't like going. i know that part of it is that i don't like church in general, but i also don't care about these sermons, which for academic me is hard. it's so easy to find reasons to stay home. one of them is that i've been waking up with a headache a lot of the time. i'm starting to wonder if i'm not sleeping well on saturday nights because i'm dreading church the next day.
i'm tired of keeping my heart diligently. it's exhausting.
i'm tired of the emphasis i've felt lately from Christian culture that a woman's not complete if she's not a mother. i know this recent surge of indignant Christian motherhood is related to the planned parenthood thing, but sometimes it feels more like they're condemning people who don't show they value life by creating more of it. and entwined with that is marriage, which is a slightly painful subject for some of us sometimes. i'm tired of it being thrown in my face.
i'm tired of the brandybucks getting together all the time. i love them. but if i'm being honest, i'm tired of them. they smother you with love, which is great, but at the same time, i'm feeling smothered right now.
i realize that this can come off sounding like i'm depressed. i'm not. God healed me of that, and i'm 100% certain it will not return. i'm just tired.

melilot dolly, you know better

no 'pushing daisies'! maybe if you ever get your own man you can watch it, but heavenly days, for right now? wise or unwise? come on!