Revival

I have not written in a long time. I figured it might be time to fire up the old blog again. Even if just for myself.

Waiting patiently for this day to come....

You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
- Psalm 30:11-12

Ice cream aisle

There is a lockbox on my door now.


I will post MLS listing on Tuesday. My house looks great and my faithful brother-in-law helped put the finishing touches on the place.


Thank you kid sister for making today bearable. It sucked - except for the Olive Garden and the pedicure. Thanks Hill.


Please, pray for a quick sale. I know it's selfish, but I absolutely believe in miracles and I need one here.

House update...

Today I spent back and forth from home to storage unit. Slowly but surely it's getting done. I realize that I'm worn out after about two trips up/down the stairs and it doesn't help that it's 87 degrees!

Tomorrow will work on the bedroom - take my cat to my parent's house and figure out what to do with this white dresser I have...I want to throw it in the trash...which I may end up doing.

My wise friend Adair told me that when my space is cleaner and more organized, I'll feel better. I think she's right, but getting there is part of the problem.

Right now, I'm watching Mary Carillo eating her way through China. Man..do I have stories of that! She's at the hot pot restaurant where I tried **many** interesting things. I miss China. Now..it's my favorite...Beach Volleyball!

Today is a birthday...I wonder for who?

What a fun weekend. Thanks to my friends and family for providing such a fun week..and weekend. The older I get the longer I like to celebrate. I guess it's that I need to forget that in one more year...I'm really old. It's pretty much over for me after that.

15 years ago today...the most beautiful baby boy was born. His red hair was a big surprise to all of us. My dad was so excited that he locked his keys in the car! We celebrated my 24th birthday in the hospital with a red velvet cake made by a dear friend.

He was (and still is) so incredibly life-changing for me..not so much in what I do..but HOW I do it. It is so important for me that he love Jesus more than anything...and love his family. The blessing in my life today is that he does both of those things, very well. He is kind, loving, friendly to all people, and he loves Jesus. That is the best birthday gift that our loving heavenly father could ever give me. I am so lucky to share this day with him and so thankful to the Lord for him and that he loves me...and wants to hang out with his "silly old aunt."

I love you boy. More than you will ever know!!
Your palla.

A very exciting month ahead

A few highlights of the month of August...

- 8.2.08 The Blue Angels! INTERMITTENT CLOSURES!
- 8.3.08 Working an event at Mo with the kid sis & BFF
- 8.5.08 Duke's & X Files with Diane
- 8.7.08 Dinner with the UW Girls at Spaghetti Factory!
- 8.8.08 The Olympics start
- 8.8.08 First Seahawk Pre-season game at Minnesota
- 8.9.08 Emerald Downs Saturday...come one come all! We'll be upstairs in the suites
- 8.10.08 15 years ago today...my BEST Birthday present of all was born!!!
- 8.14.08 Family Camp...still deciding
- 8.25.08 The first African American in history will accept a major party nomination for president of the United States.
- 8.28.08 The best mom in the world was born 64 years ago

These are only a few highlights of a very busy month. Should be fun!

Story Corps

To those who listen to NPR, you know that Story Corps is a conglomeration of people's stories that they are collecting. Then, these voiced vignettes will be stored in the Library of Congress kind of like a time capsule, to be heard for later generations. Story Corps portable recording units have been around Seattle and are routinely making their way around the country.

NPR broadcasts Story Corps usually everyday around 7:30 am and again throughout the day. These stories are from regular people talking about moments in their lives that were meaningful. It is a true testament to the fact that we are all apart of the human race - and we each have our own singular moments that help shape us and make us into the people we are and will be. Today's story was from a 70 year old man who contracted polio at age 8. He remembers being in the hospital for months and coming home with restrictive braces on his legs. My grandpa had polio and I remember his gimpy legs vividly. Anyway, this young boy was dotted on by his mother, who never made him get out of bed or do anything for himself.

One day, his mother went out to lunch with a girlfriend (at the prompting of her husband, the boy's step-father) and the step-father came in and picked up the boy by the scruff of the neck and moved him to the living room - which had been cleared of furniture. The step-father dropped the boy on the ground and said "walk". The boy hated him for doing this and was afraid to get up but was more afraid of his step-father. Anyway, the boy crawled and made it across the room. The step-father said "Good job! You can do this!"

They never told the boy's mother and each week would convince her to leave the house so he could practice with his step-dad. The man telling the story said he loved his step-father for making him work so hard and encouraging him to get up and walk.

These are the kind of stories told - some sad, some very difficult, some happy. They are stories of humanity and lives lived. I encourage anyone to check them out here

What would your story be?

Problem Averted

Just picked up three $5.00 Starbucks cards and made little notes that say:

"Thanks for parking in my spot. I hope you enjoy this little treat and remember to find another spot next time!"

Last night, my middle sister was driving me home and she said "You know, you have to be kind to the person who parked in your spot."

Dangit. I hate when she's smarter than me!

Singleness Amplified

There are only a few times (and very brief) where I feel "bad" being single. I usually do not feel bad about it...I have a full life with family and friends that I can't keep up with and school, working two jobs, church stuff and taking care of my 100 year old Granny some weekends. So, yeah, don't have a lot of time to feel bad/sad about being single.

This changes when someone parks in my RESERVED parking spot. What part of RESERVED = YOU CAN PARK HERE..NO BIG DEAL?

This hit me on Sunday night after coming home late from a hard weekend at my grandmas. She fell on Saturday night trying to get out of bed late and I paniced and cried and hated being there and hated her being this old and not thinking clearly. She thought we had all left her...although we were 30 feet away in the living room watching Batman Begins. Anyway...so sleep was precarious on Saturday night and I was tired coming home and thinking about unloading all my stuff to start a work week the next day.

Lo & behold someone had parked in my spot..not simply parked like "I'm only gonna be here for 5 minutes.." but had BACKED in to my spot. That screams "I'm gonna be here as long as I want and I don't care."

Now, I'm not sure what pushes your buttons on a regular basis..but when this happens to me it makes me SO mad. Like rage mad. Mad enough to plot things to do to the car that I actually might go through with if my building didn't have cameras on all angles of the parking lot. So, I pray through my rage...I feel bad...and I hate that there's no one else to stick up for me...to help me...to kick someone's ass. I know that's not really how it works, but it would have been nice.

I emailed and called and am trying to handle it diplomatically...I didn't bang on everyone's door and demand to know if they had parked in my spot. I didn't slash tires or put cat poop on the door handle. I am sick. Twisted.

I'll be glad when I no longer have to worry about this...

Direct from GRCC!

Thank you for your interest in the Educational Planner, Transition position at Green River Community College. Your materials are now in the review process.

Due to the amount of time we take to thoroughly assess our candidates’ qualifications and the volume of applications we receive, it can take several weeks between receipt, review and selection. Although you may not receive information from the College regarding the status of your application during the review period, we will notify you when the search has concluded.

Again, we very much appreciate your interest in employment at Green River Community College

Quasi review of The Shack

This post started out as a review of The Shack but as I read through passages again and let the words permeate my thoughts it's more of a review of living in community and my thoughts and purposeful attempt to do this - soon.

An outstanding theme that runs through this book is the thought of inter-dependence on one another and total dependence on God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit - each manifesting differently in the book. It is clear that we can't live without relationship. Although at this point in my life, a help-mate or "significant other" has not joined me in this journey, I've been surrounded by an amazing network of family and friends. These folks are my life - can't imagine walking without them, and relationship with them, and I desire the ongoing presence of them in my life. I want to learn, to fail, to cry, to try new stuff, to dream, imagine, screw up, yell, scream, laugh until we fall down, and like the book says "loving is the skin of knowing". What a statement.

To know someone - then to learn to love them...an amazing God concept. An amazing peek at his Kingdom here on earth. Why do I fight this? Why do I fight tooth and nail when his Spirit is calling me into a relational dependence? Oh...I know...control. Control is an ugly beast.

I don't know all I know about this book yet-it will take a BBQ with the BFF and family to really hash it out...I know that I want to see God differently-without "rules" or "conformity" and with all freedom and love.

Let the games begin

Well, it finally happened. What I never thought would happen has happened...I got the dreaded "email from the conservative relative concerned with my voting for Obama."

I love my cousin. He and I shared many great times together back in the day. He was there for me during a rough move to So. Cal in my senior year and made the move not so scary. He made me laugh on more than one occasion and I even paid my own way back to be at his wedding.

But today, sadly, I got sent the dreaded "I'm concerned for you" email. It was predicated on the Dobson rant and questioning of Obama's faith in his radio show. This has stirred up some ire on various forums I visit, but nothing that really concerns me. It really shows me that Dobson is misguided on his thinking and possibly should stick to psychology and not try to marry religion with it.

Anyhow, my cousin is concerned that our country is moving away from being biblically based. I countered with the fact that I never thought we were Biblically based. Most of the founding fathers were Deists or Atheists (Ben Franklin) and wanted their "right" to proclaim this. In fact, how Biblical is the statement that we "are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Ah...that's a negative. Jesus in fact says something more "upside down" than this in the Sermon on the Mount. I don't think us having "rights" was a big part of his motivation.

My cousin then went on to share his fear (FEAR is always a wonderful motivator) of how Obama would roll back all the "pro-life" stuff and that he would give homosexuals more favor. I am tired of these issues frankly. I think the God I serve is BIGGER than these two issues and in fact I am mandated to love the "gays and pro-choicers" and I do so happily with the understanding that Jesus loves them and died for them JUST AS MUCH as he died for me. In fact, I do not support suppressing anyone's "inalienable rights" Black, Hispanic, Muslim or Homosexual...if we have rights at all - they are for everyone.

I love my cousin and sadly time and distance have not allowed us to spend much time together in the last 20 years or so. I know how he was raised and I know theologically we would disagree on 99% of any issue. I love him though. I could care less if we agreed on issues...and I could care less if he changes his mind on any of them. I guess the bottom line is the love I have for him is greater than any political or theological difference. I hope he heard that loud and clear in my response to him.

When One applicant is ENOUGH

"Thank you for your inquiry. I can assure you that you are an applicant for the position and the Hiring Department is motivated to fill the position. They are waiting for a sufficient applicant pool before they choose applicants to interview and rest assured that I will notify you when things have reached that stage. Hope that helps!"

Direct quote from email to Green River Community College about the job they keep pushing back the deadline on...

THIS is encouraging. Please, keep praying.

The summer of my selfishness

I tried to go and rent a storage unit today. A nice concrete 5x10 to put all my worldly possessions. I don't have much...but what I have I like - it is me and my collections and somehow the thought of putting it in boxes and stuffing it away hurts my gut.

I drive to the little street where the big PUBLIC STORAGE sign looms overhead. I pulled in and lo-and-behold...there were NO parking spots. I drove around and even tried to park on the street but the huge sign said NO PARKING. So, what's a girl to do? Drive home and make fajitas and drink black cherry with VV? Of course!

Do I lack motivation? I don't think so..it's a very tough spot to be in and I resent it a little bit. I really do and I don't like to wallow. I can't even pray about it anymore. There are no answers that I want to hear. Yes, I admit...I don't want to listen to what God may be telling me and I don't want to do maybe what he's asking. I want my way and I'll stomp my foot and not find a parking place at the storage unit lot.

Welcome to the summer of my selfishness. I don't know if you'll stay long...but it's ok. I'm fine being alone.

To Write Love on Her Arms

I have not blogged in forever. It gets that way with life sometimes.

I was driving the other day and saw this bumper sticker on the back of a person's car. It said "To Write Love on Her Arms." Personally, I HATE bumper stickers. Nobody gives 2 s*#ts what you think and you really think we're going to do what you say because it's on the bumper of your car? Yeah, guess again.

Anyway, this one I noticed for whatever reason and became intrigued. While all you smarties probably already knew what this meant,I did not and usually when the Lord is trying to tell me something or suggest something he'll bring things to my attention a few times until I get it. So, bumper sticker is intrigue #1. Then, today on Facebook I see a piece of Flair that says the same thing. Intrigue #2.

I decide to google the phrase to find out what it is. What a story. I am amazed and humbled and I gave money...which I have little of.

Please google the words and read the story. THIS, my friends, is what WE ARE TO BE ABOUT.

Thank you for the bumper sticker and the Flair. I get it.

The sign says it all

The House goes up for sale next week. I'm meeting with my realtor on Wednesday to sign the paperwork. Then, I'll have to get a storage unit and start the "de-clutter" process. (See, this is what it took Jen!). I'm also having it cleaned by a professional (or 10) in order to get it really clean.

I have mixed emotions. On one hand, I don't want to move, I love my house and where I'm at. Yet I'm also excited at the possibility of making money on something - money to payoff debt I've incurred and maybe do something fun (Kauai 2009).

I'm also feeling the same way about living in community - which it looks more and more like this will be my option. Scared of unknowns and of feeling failure. Nobody needs to understand this...just know I feel it and however unrealistic the feeling is..I will own it. I'm also excited at the possibility of living purposely this way. It's a way I think, more and more, will have to be a viable option. Individualism is so last century!

I will post pictures of my house when it looks presentable. I also need a place for my cat - my mom is rejecting her and I don't want her to be around if people come looking. So, lots to think about and decisions to make.

I emailed the folks at Green River - they got my application package and they will let me know when the review process starts. I printed the email and hung it on my mirror in my bathroom. Just to remember to pray about opportunities, the future, change and all things collective.

She made me - not responsible for the content.

The Kid Sister mandated that I blog...so I guess I will give all 2.3 of my readers something to read...

I have not been to the gym in weeks - and have fallen off the "diet" wagon something fierce. I went tonight and talked to my trainer - and we worked out together. It was really nice-he went easy on me and then we started talking about the future and when our "contract" would be over...which thankfully is in June. I told him that I really liked him and how we got along and that I couldn't afford the monthly payments any longer. It was something I did stupidly, thinking I could pay and it's been HELL every month to try and come up with the money.

He then said he would continue to train me-outside the "program" and I can pay him myself - $25/session. WTH? Are you kidding me? That is like 60% less than I'm paying now! And...I can come as often or as little as I want. What freedom! It made me want to continue with my routine of not going to the gym, but only going to see him! Nah..not really...I want to get back into the grind.

I miss the bff and the time I used to have to just hang out. What happened to that?

On the job front - my friend from the Salvation Army gave me a lead...not sure I qualify as it's a big wig job...and I still have not heard from the state. One of the jobs closes tomorrow...so, I could get a call to interview. Praying for that always.

That's it for now.

My weekend at Granny's

In an attempt to earn some much needed extra money, the kid sister and I are taking care of my 100 year old granny. She is amazing...her legacy and love of her family are something I can only hope to attain. It has been very, very, hard for me to see her decline - not mentally - but physically. She used to make really good pork-chops and make us Christmas cookies every year and shop for all of her 538 grandkids Christmas presents. They were the funniest presents but they were thoughtful and EVERYONE got something. Perhaps I get my gift-giving love from her.

While she is at her home still, she can't do anything for herself. Anything. So, my loving sister and I are going to stay with her. I am going to cook and clean and the kid sister (who has nursing aspirations) is going to do the grotty stuff. This is NOT something I want to do - I want her to be my granny - not someone who is incapable of helping herself. Needless to say, I'm praying for my own heart and that I may exhibit compassion.

Interestingly, I was reading Shane Claiborne's new book Jesus for President and he eloquently has a piece on the elderly. I quote part of it here:

In its worship of all things new and hip, US culture has sacrificed its relationship with the elderly and infirm. And most of the church has done exactly the same, putting older people into nursing homes and retirement centers.

So, I will spend the weekend at my Granny's and remember how very much she loves me - she was there when I was born and probably changed a diaper or two - now I can return the favor.

Happy Mother's Day Eve

Tonight going to the Mariner game with my entire family. I hope that they will actually win tonight. It would be nice.

I'm so excited that MNAC (mommy needs a cocktail) FINALLY has Auntie shirts! Maybe she can now start Auntie's Day so I get gifts and money...or something.

I am going to order one pronto! Brown, I think. I'm excited!

Sunday Night Prayer list

Since I hate Sunday nights...my family has instituted the Family Dinner...we each pick a place and decide to meet there on Sunday nights. It usually doesn't matter if one of us is busy or working...we plan to meet and we have done it now for 2 whole weeks in a row.

Here is my weekly prayer list...
1. Work...boss...co-workers
2. Resume going to GRCC & Highline CC
3. Looking for other opportunities.
4. My mom, dad, sisters, bros-in-law and Brent & Ellie
5. My pastor, his wife (the BFF) and Will & Lo
6. My friend Kat-facing surgery on Thursday.
7. Finances - that I continue to manage well.

That is one request for each day. Looking forward to a fun week of work (not), dinner with friends, working at Mosaic and Mother's Day.