"I don't have issues...I have a full subscription." ~ Jack the Plumber

A wise plumber I once knew (ok, I don't know him, but I was hovering while he was working on my leaking shower faucet) said, "I don't have issues...I have a full subscription." Oh, so true, so true of us all.

The pastor at my church said something recently in our weekly newsletter that really spoke to me. So much so that I wrote it down and carried it around with me for a while so I could refer to it and now it’s posted over my computer at work and I read it several times a day.

“The human heart is able to twist and turn logic and agreements, to find loopholes and justifications. We can listen, agree, and then convince ourselves we are exceptions to the rules. That’s why Jesus told us our hearts are corrupt and more deceitful than anything else.” ~ Clay Smith

I think it spoke to me because I’ve been fighting with some issues, some temptations, for a while now.

Temptation

1. the act of tempting; enticement or allurement

2. something that tempts, entices, or allures

3. the fact or state of being tempted, esp. to evil.

It’s come down to two major things that plague me pretty much daily and sometimes it can be amazingly frustrating. Especially when those temptations drive me to distraction. Or rather, to seek out distractions, which then snowballs into me not paying attention to what I’m doing whether I am at the office or working on a project around the house or whatever.

I was pondering those two particular pains in my ass today and started wondering which one of them makes me feel worse for doing it? I’ve been thinking about that off and on for hours now and still haven’t come up with a clear cut answer. It may depend on the day or the hour. Or the consequences. Ok. That’s a lie. Of the two specific things of which I speak (indirectly I suppose since I’m not willing to identify them publicly), there is one that makes me feel worse than the other for giving in to it.

Then I began wondering, which temptation makes me feel better for conquering it? Oddly enough, it’s a total flip flop between the two major warring factions. The thing I feel least amount of guilt about doing is the thing that I feel the greatest satisfaction from managing not to do. Yeah, I know. I don’t understand that last sentence either and I wrote it. And read it over five times.

Suffice it to say that I gave in to one temptation today and once the deed was done, I realized I felt no joy in it. No passion. No thrill. Merely dull resignation. Or perhaps it’s finally an enlightening moment realizing that often the things we think we want or need are, in fact, the last thing that will bring us pleasure.

I was listening to a book on CD this morning as I drove to work and a quote stuck out (I am paraphrasing) – Be the master of your pleasures as well as your restraint.  That really spoke to me.  While the quote was about food and making right choices, it resonates beyond that I think.  Be the master of your pleasures as well as your restraint. That’s big.

Guilty pleasure – (per Wikipedia) –

A guilty pleasure is something one enjoys and considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it.

Perhaps I should redefine some of my temptations as more guilty pleasures if I find enjoyment in them, in spite of the guilt. But can I master both my pleasure and my restraint? Ah, there’s the rub.

Sometimes life is like a John Hughes movie

I spent some time (much too little time, by the way) with some of my best friends this weekend. We go back to high school, though some of us haven’t become that close really until the past few years. Regardless, we all knew each other “when”. “When” our clothes were questionable, “when” some of our hair defied the laws of gravity, and “when” making stupid choices about which boys you dated was par for the course. Every time we are together I learn something new about who dated whom back in the day. What an incestuous little group we had! Yowza!

A few of us were able to get together to surprise my friend Renee in honor of her 40th birthday. She’s the one leading the charge into our 40s and over the next year we have to figure out how in the heck to surprise any of the rest of us. I strongly suggested finding a way to get me a personal meeting with David Bryan, which isn’t as far of a stretch as you might think since a guy from high school with whom Renee is still really good friends is in the musical Memphis on Broadway. Written, of course, by my beloved Dave. So I’ve got those 2 or 3 degrees of separation, but I’m not sure my heart could take it if I met him. I’d scream like a tweenage girl does over Justin Beiber. And that’s scary. But if that DOES happen, ladies, please remember to get it all on video because I’m sure it would be a sight to behold if I ever managed to regain my composure and stop babbling like an idiot.

Anyway, while we were all chatting in Renee’s kitchen, she was relaying to another friend of hers who had joined in the fun about what happened to me last week, when I got an apology from the boy who broke my heart back in high school. She was telling her friend that it was like something out of a movie; not something that happens in real life. And she said that she wishes SHE could get an apology from her guy who fits that description from high school.

That got me to thinking that in many ways Renee was right. It was something that you think only happens in a John Hughes 80s teen movie where the boy realizes he was a jackass and goes after the girl, if only to tell her that he’s sorry. Cue some song by OMD or Spandau Ballet, throw in Molly Ringwald and you’ve got yourself a hit!

As a John Hughes junkie, I like the thought of having my own personal JH moment. And then, I realized in an embarrassment of riches, I actually had another one of those moments because my prom date was really my Jake Ryan. My date to the junior prom was the boy that all the girls were swooning over that year. Just such a cutie patootie in addition to being smart and ridiculously nice. In fact, he still is. I’m currently awaiting the arrival of their annual family Christmas card with pictures of “Jake” and his wife and kids. It’s always too frickin’ cute and I am always happy when it arrives. (ETA: The card arrive today! Sweet!)

But yeah, “Jake” (who if you know me personally you totally know this guy’s real name, BUT DON’T USE IT FOR CRYIN’ OUT LOUD ) was my big crush back in high school so getting asked to Prom by him was quite the teenage coup. Plus, my dress was fab and we both looked great. I still have the dress, though I’m not sure what I will ever do with it. I just can’t bear to part with it.

It seems truly like an embarrassment of riches to have gotten my date with my “Jake” AND to have gotten that 23-years-overdue apology. If you follow a John Hughes train of thought, I guess the apology game from my John Bender – the rebel with bigger problems than anyone realized who most likely did drive my parents nuts in the brief time we dated, just like Bender thought he’d be great for Claire to use to make HER parents nuts.

I guess now I need to find the Keith to go with my Watts (“Some Kind of Wonderful” for those not up on the JH universe) and make him realize that he really doesn’t want Amanda Jones. That girls with the short blond hair are just way, way cooler and look great wearing his future.

A conversation with the guy who screwed me up

How's that for a great title for a blog post, eh?  It makes me laugh to read it, but yet it's true.  Read on my friends. Read on.  (And as a disclaimer, should someone be reading this who knows who this person is, do NOT name names or anything remotely identifying.  I'm trying to blog, not "out" someone who is no longer an asshole. Thanks.)

Once upon a time, I was just your average teenage girl. I really was.  I was in love with the guys in Duran Duran and had seriously questionable taste in clothes. It was, after all, the 80s.  And then...I met this guy.  We'll call him "Bob" since, y'know, that's totally not his name.

I met Bob on my 15th birthday and was smitten. Probably because he was the bad boy/rebel and what sweet, innocent (stupid) girl doesn't go for that, right? Right.  He was my first date, first kiss.  I'd never call him a "boyfriend" though because we barely dated. Maybe 6 or 7 times.  Then we ended up having some weird, dysfunctional...something...going on about a year or so later where we were some strange version of friends.  Anyway, I've blocked a lot of it out for various reasons.  But I'll wrap that part of the story up by saying he was bad news.  He was arrested repeatedly for God knows what. My parents had long since forbidden me to date him.   Just bad, bad news.

This is the guy who screwed me up.  Just screwed. me. up.  If I went into deep analysis I could say that this screw up colored how I have related to men ever since, but let's not do that.  I know it deep down.  And perhaps now things have come full circle.  And maybe I'll get unscrewed (in a good way, mind you).  Read on please. I promise it's worth it.

Mystery Man

It was a hot July morning in Dubai – is there any other kind? – and I found myself at the airport, getting ready for a flight back to the US. I moved to Dubai in mid-February 2001 to work at Zayed University. Six months later and very, very homesick, I was heading home for 2 weeks to see family and friends and just revel in being back in the United States for a while.

I had purchased my tickets through a local travel agency and was all set to go on one of the first direct flights that Delta Airlines had going in and out of Dubai International Airport. Alas, not being a seasoned traveler, I did not check behind my travel agent and when I got to the counter to check in around 4am, the ticket agent told me I had not been confirmed for the flight and would have to wait until 6am after they called everyone for boarding to see if I could get on the flight.

Needless to say, anyone who knows me knows I began to panic at this point. I think I managed not to cry, but I was clearly not happy. At some point, perhaps sensing my distress, a fellow traveler approached me to ask what was going on. I remember having seen him in the check in area along with another man dressed in the traditional Middle Eastern dishdasha, but he was dressed in jeans and a sweater. He asked what was wrong and I told him. He never offered solutions as I recall, but simply offered support and his conviction that everything would work out and I would be able to get on the plane.

I don’t recall that we spoke much more, but when it came time for boarding, he looked at me and said, “I’ll see you at the gate.”

After everyone else had checked in, I was finally able to be confirmed for the flight – which was only 1/3 full to begin with, so I still do not understand why it was necessary to put me through 2 hours of torture waiting to find out if I was going to get on the flight. I made my way to the boarding waiting area and he smiled when he saw me and said, “I told you it would work out.”

We boarded and with such a small number of passengers everyone had a great amount of space to themselves in the seating areas. The flight did make a stop in Cairo to clean up the plane and change crews and everyone had to deplane for 45 minutes. I sat in the waiting area of the Cairo airport with this Mystery Man – we never exchanged names – and a woman from Dubai who was traveling to Disney World. We all chatted about things I can’t remember nearly 10 years later. I only remember the woman’s final destination and that my Mystery Man was Canadian and originally from Kashmir and worked for a Canadian bank in Dubai. I wish I could remember more about what the 3 of us talked about because we enjoyed each other’s company so much.

Then it was time to reboard the plane and head for JFK Airport in New York. It was also at this point that I made one of the dumbest decisions of my life. When my new nameless friend suggested we sit together, I declined. I have NO IDEA why. I think my intent was to move around the cabin later and go back to talk to him as I think he wasn’t sitting too horribly far from me. But in truth, all these years later I can’t remember exactly what he said or what I said or anything except that we did not sit together. I knew that we were also on the same connecting flight to Atlanta from JFK, but after meeting my friend Diana at the airport for a brief chat I never saw the Mystery Man again.

This story, however, is not about me not spending more time talking to this man. I regret that and always have, but that’s water under the bridge. What I have not forgotten, however, is the kindness of this stranger. When I most needed encouragement, he was there with it. Not spouting platitudes or clichés, but simply saying, “I’ll see you at the gate.”

From time to time I wonder what has become of the Mystery Man. I have a very vague recollection of what he looked like, but I would not know him if I ran into him on the street. I am sorry that I never had the chance to tell him how much I appreciated him that morning. How much even almost 10 years later that it still means to me that he was kind to me. When I think of him now and then, I send up a quick little prayer for his well-being and ask God to please let him know that I’m grateful.

While we have people in our lives that are constants, we have the transients as well. Folks who come into and go out of our lives for a reason and a season. When I thought of the Mystery Man this morning, I was struck for the first time by how easy it is to impact someone’s life in such a short time. I will never forget this man. Never. I only hope that from time to time he remembers the American woman from the airport, but it doesn’t matter if he does or not. I will remember him and maybe, at least every now and then, I will return the favor by being kind to someone else as a way of thanking this man without truly being able to thank him.

Everything we do, everything we say, it all matters. No matter how insignificant we think it might be, it matters. To someone.

Things I’ve Noticed Recently

If you dress too nicely to go to work, the women in your office will immediately decide there is a reason.  First and foremost, you must have a date or someone you are trying to impress.  It can’t just be because 1) those clothes were clean, 2) that’s your favorite shirt and 3) sometimes you like to wear the sparkly earrings.  *sigh*

On the day after you dress too nicely, if you dress more casually then obviously you really DID have a hot date the night before, hence dressing too nicely the previous day.  *double sigh*

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. And sometimes the Lord just looks at you and goes, “Get real!”

Not everyone appreciates the fact that sometimes when Sammy Hagar sings, I hear God sending me messages. I mean, it’s not like my fillings are picking up radio frequencies or something!  And, for the record, I do not have fillings because I do not have cavities. I am also not scared of the dentist, except the one in “Little Shop of Horrors”.

Oh man, there are so many more things I’d say in public if only it was socially acceptable.

I need to wear black pants and high heels every day for the rest of my life because apparently they make me look really freakin’ fabulous.  I’m just sayin’…

I am easily swayed when someone tells me I look really freakin’ fabulous…

I have a real problem with eating Cheez-Its and calling that “breakfast”.

Candy corn is a vegetable, right?

Big Brother is watching me and I think Big Brother might need to get a new hobby.

Also anyone lurking in my bushes in the back yard – or front, for that matter  - should get a new hobby too.

I am taking way too much time off in December to 1) have no place to actually GO and 2) it makes me want to buy gallons of paint and paint the brick in my laundry room. I’m dangerous when I have a project.

I like having a project.

I AM a project.

I am a SCIENCE project.  Gone wrong, clearly.

I could tell you the last…oh wait, I was going to make a statement and then realized it was totally false.  Reboot!

I may never get “Fergalicious”, but I am so totally “dorkalicious”. I rock that one baby!

Do people still say that things “rock”? 

I want a pet rock for Christmas. Someone hook me up!

Hey!  “Hook Me Up” is a Bon Jovi song!

I love Bon Jovi!! Did you know that?

I wonder if Bon Jovi know that I love them? Maybe I should tell them. Or is that stalking?

I feel like a total stalker on Facebook now when the little thing on the side pulls up with someone’s pictures and Facebook is basically beckoning you to check them out.  And really, how many times do I need to look at pictures of your dog or your profile pictures?  I dread to think of what pics of MINE are popping up on someone’s home page.  Makes me want to delete all my photos.

Random Friday Ruminations

Random thoughts:


• I love Michael Bublé’s new song “Hollywood”. It makes me want to dance around my office, which I often do. Sometimes you just have to give in to your urges.

• I have started walking up and down the stairs in my office building again to wake me up throughout the day and give me an energy boost. And possibly buns of steel. Or at least not so much buns of Jello.

• It is entirely possible that my most recent ex-boss and I are friends. Interesting. I had never really considered that possibility. I mean, she was my boss. I’m all about drawing lines and all that stuff and certain levels of protocol and all that crap. But after 2 lunches together in the past month and the likelihood that we’ll do it again, I have had to face the fact that she might actually consider me a friend. Hmmmm…I like that notion. She’s very cool. And she tells me how smart I am (that I am too smart for my current job). Can’t complain about that! LOL

• I am still praying daily about the 5 things I put on God’s list back in July. I’ve also gotten some other people interested in reading the book I got this from – Give God a Year, Change Your Life Forever. That’s so awesome! Even more awesome? I am seeing God’s hand at work in ALL 5 of my areas now! Woohoo! It might be small movement, but it’s there. I love it!! If I’ve seen such small changes so quickly, I can only imagine what will have come to pass when an entire year (end of July 2011) has passed.

• In spite of being able to clearly see God at work in areas of my life, I’m still struggling with having and keeping faith. That’s a big challenge for me. I can talk a good game, but I stop myself a lot and question whether I really believe what I’m saying. Do I really, truly, honestly believe God is going to work in those 5 areas of my life in the next year and turn things around? Or am I just paying lip service to the notion? Sometimes the answer to both of those questions is a resounding “YES!” How’s that for confusing?

• There is one area where God is working where I really hope I am finally making a breakthrough. Maybe it’s melodramatic to call it a “breakthrough”, so we’ll think of it as a positive change in behavior. Or something like that. I’m a believer that if you do not learn your lesson from an experience, you’ll keep on having that experience over and over again until you DO learn from it. You’ll make the same mistakes over and over again. And how much does that suck like a Hoover? Too much!! So while I am making a few of the same mistakes this time around, I’m actually not making as many. That’s pretty cool. And I’m not sure that all the mistakes were or are, in fact, mistakes. I’m certainly learning from whatever is going on. The situation is still eerily similar to things that have gone before, but the point is that I am changing how I react and how I view things. I really, truly hope this is me learning this particular lesson. I’d like to move on from this to something much more positive!!

• People are weird. ‘Nuff said

• I love Halloween, but I have no interest in finding a costume to wear. (Yes, I know it’s already November.)

• People are weird. Sometimes I am their Queen.

• Mean what you say and say what you mean. Otherwise you’re just blowing smoke. And you’re kinda annoying as well.

• I really appreciate it when people compliment my intelligence. You can change fat or ugly, but stupid lasts a lifetime.

• Men who look at women’s profile pictures on Facebook and randomly send them a friend request just because they think they are pretty are seriously creepy.

• I would not be a good stand-up comedian. I’d be a much better Dave Barry than Jerry Seinfeld. I’m much better in writing. I rock the written word. Sometimes…sort of…

• I think the first 4 seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210 were the best because of Brenda Walsh. It’s all about Brenda. And Donna Martin graduating…

• I should not be allowed to drink Diet Coke AND consume candy corn. Or Pop Rocks so I hear.

• I am so underappreciated by the men of the world. Of course, I have a very smallish list of the male gender that I truly appreciate so maybe we’re even. But those are actually 2 different kinds of appreciation and what was my point again?

• My car is named “DB” after, of course, the great David Bryan. He’s so dreamy. And the car is pretty groovy as well.

• I would if I could but I can’t so I won’t.

• Why do people rush straight from Halloween to Christmas? When did we start forgetting that Thanksgiving comes in the middle of all that?

• I think I’ll be napping all day on Thanksgiving. Those are my only, ONLY, plans. Aren’t you jealous?

• I don’t really want to put up any Christmas decorations this year. They are such a pain. Does that make me Scrooge?

• “The sweetest song is silence, that I’ve ever heard, funny how your feet in dreams, never touch the earth.”

• I like to quote song lyrics.

• “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

• I also like to quote movies

• Oh, and by the way, damn I’m good.

Contentment breeds...contempt?

I was driving home from work the other day and pulled into my hometown and was hit with this amazing sense of happiness. Contentment. When I pulled into my driveway, I was so, so happy to be home. It wasn’t even because I was tired from the commute – 45 miles each way, Monday – Friday – because while I am generally tired OF the commute, I am not usually tired FROM it. In fact, I enjoy the drive home most days. Perhaps it is because I am ON the way home, but often I think it is because I can crank up my iPod and often roll down the windows and just drive really, really fast. Uh...I mean, drive within the proper boundaries of the posted speed limits because I’m a law-abiding citizen. Yeah. That’s what I mean! So while I greatly resent having to DO the commute, I can generally do it without too much issue, except when people just refuse to put their foot on the gas and DRIVE YOUR DAMNED CAR!! But that’s a story for another day…

My happiness in arriving home was a bit of a surprise because my house has been on the market for a year now and my plans are to sell it – maybe, eventually, someday!! – and move closer to work. Don’t misunderstand me; I happen to love my house. It’s a great old house, although it’s really too big for me. I have rooms I never use. My house is great for hosting parties and while I wish the yard was smaller and there was a porch on either the front or the back, it’s really a great house. If I could pick it up and move it closer to where I now work, I’d do it for sure. Especially because I detest the idea of having to pack my life into boxes again and move it somewhere new.

The location is great – I can walk to the community theatre in about 2 minutes which was especially nice when I actually had time to participate in shows – and nothing in town is really that far from anything else. The neighborhood is nice for taking long walks, which I do more for my mental than physical health. I also love that when I’m out walking (or at the grocery store or even stopped at a traffic light), I can easily run into people I know. I don’t necessarily know my immediate neighbors, but I know a lot of folks who live in my neighborhood. There is comfort in the familiarity of everything.

And that scares me. I think I fear the contentment. I fear that it will lead to complacency and stagnation and eventually contempt. Contempt for what I will have become. For what I will have been able to accept. For you see, there is nothing left for me in that town. Nothing that I can see at least. While my father is there, he is not a young man and if I stay put for him, what happens when he is gone? My house is great, but there are other great houses in the world. My job isn’t there and while the theatre is still there and I love and adore that place, I no longer have time to give to it to nurture that love. When I AM there, it makes me sad that I can’t be there more often. I do have some friends there, but again, most of those have fallen away in the past year or so. It really started before I got my current job, but my lack of time doesn’t help. I honestly haven’t figured out how people do a long commute and still have a life. Maybe it’s because I am single and am not used to juggling having another person in my life or having children who take priority over things like sleep. All I want to do when I get home is eat dinner (the eating is frequently optional) and then get as much sleep as I can so I can start the long day all over again.

It makes me sad that I can’t figure out a better balance and how to have a life. I need some resolution to what is going on in my life. This is one area I’ve been praying about for a while now and the only thing that God has said is, “It’s not going to be that easy.” As in, if my house was going to sell and I could just pack up and move to another house in another city, then that would have happened already. But God says it is not going to be that easy. Oh great. You mean it’s going to get harder? More challenging? Fun. Just what I wanted. But God doesn’t always give us what we WANT, He gives us what we NEED. And those two things don’t always correspond.

When I arrive home tonight, I’ll be glad. Happy to be driving through my town; happy to be walking into my house where everything is familiar. But I still wonder if deep inside of me a small part of my soul isn’t dying. Or at least crying. I could stay – WOULD stay – for the right reasons, but I’m not even sure what those reasons might be (or more, I refuse to give voice to them - I can think of several things). Maybe that is all part of the challenge I feel coming my way. God said it’s not going to be that easy and I believe Him. It’s not that easy NOW. I just hope it’s going to hurry up and get here.  I'm ready to move forward.

This One's For the Girls...

This blog is for my female friends, so if there are actually any men out there reading this, stop now or shut up about TMI. It’s my blog and I’ll talk about whatever I want to. And today, I’m talking about bras.

More specifically, why is it like the torture of the damned to go bra shopping? I am convinced that bras are really only made for women with small breasts who are trying to put them up and out and make them appear bigger. And as someone who already has big boobs, well, only being able to find smaller bras is really amazingly UN-helpful.

As it is, bras are some kind of medieval torture device. They are ridiculously hard to get on. Why is that? Why is it so freakin’ hard to put a bra on?? It’s a production! A little poking, a little prodding. Stuff this in that compartment and that in the other. Shift around. Jiggle around. Smush it if need be. And then, for the love of God, don’t bend or move the wrong way during the day or you have to run to the restroom and shift it all around again. *sigh* It’s like a workout all in itself.

It’s not like they are the most comfortable things in the world to wear all day either, although I will confess that I did buy some new ones recently and one of them – they are all the same, oddly, but this literally only applies to one of the three I purchased – is amazingly comfy. I would tell you what brand and style it was, but then I would actually have to take it off and read the tag and, as previously established, it’s a fight to get that thing back on. Suffice it to say, however, that if I could wear this one particular bra every day, I would. It’s heavenly. (And I can totally find the tag later if anyone actually wants to know the brand and style.)

Trouble is, by the time I need to buy some new bras, they will have discontinued that style!! It happens every. Single. Stinking. Time. Without fail. I find a bra that – glory be! – fits and fits well. It makes The Girls look good and keeps ‘em comfy at the same time. So I buy several, but eventually I need new ones and then I can’t find those anymore! Then the hunt begins and I just detest bra shopping. I put it off until a few weeks ago when things were desperate and after many failed attempts, I did finally find the 3 that I bought. I should have bought 900, but these babies aren’t cheap either!

*sigh* I miss the 36Cs I had in college. I think they might even have been perky then, without the underwire! (I think underwire is about the only thing that can make 40DDs perky…) Oh the good old days! Yeah. Right now if I could just have a little lift I think it might offset some of the torture of the whole bra shopping experience. Or at least The Twins would be back where they started in their glory days. Uh…I think they had glory days. I’d probably have to ask someone else for confirmation on that. Maybe that’s just a Bruce Springsteen song…

I also want to know why it’s hard to find decent fitting underwear!! What’s up with that? I do not want to wear a thong, people! My butt is the size of Nebraska (Ok, maybe it’s more like Montana, but I’m being kind to myself today. Work with me on this.) and a thong is never, ever going to be flattering. And besides, they look damned uncomfortable. And what the hell are “boy shorts”? If I was a BOY that might be fine, but I don’t want boy shorts. I want ladies underwear that is comfortable, covers my ample ass, and is also at least reasonably attractive. I mean, no one sees it but me (that’s a whole other blog we’re not getting into today), but still. Is attractive underwear too much to ask for?? I think not. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to Victoria’s Secret for it either. I’m a big girl. I was not made for the scanty panty I’m afraid. So please Victoria, share your Secret with, say, Fruit of the Loom so I can find some affordable undies in my size with a tad more material than a couple of scraps of lace and some elastic. The world would be a much better place. I assure you!

(Not Necessarily Such) Great Expectations

I was having a conversation recently with someone about expectation versus anticipation.  From simply reading the words, I see a slightly negative connotation to the former and a more positive one to the latter.  I realize that they are virtually synonymous terms, but to me, to expect something is more like having to do your homework or taking out the trash or, say, getting up at 4am to work out before going to work entirely too early in the morning. If I am anticipating something it’s more along the lines of what I see as more positive stuff, like cake on your birthday or a hot shower after the expected nastiness of mowing the lawn. That sort of thing.

So for a couple of weeks I’ve tossed those words around in my brain and this morning finally locked in on something. Part of my problem (ok, I have many problems, but today we’re just dealing with one of them!) I s that I think I expect too much. From basically everything and everyone in my life. Wow. That’s a biggie for sure.

Every day when I start out my drive to work, I take advantage of the time and the quiet to pray. I have the 5 things I’m praying about for the next year, but I also pray for the prayer requests I know about – friends and family and even strangers who need to be lifted up. Or sometimes I just let my train of thought jump the track because if no one else in the world can keep up with me, I know that God surely can. He made me, after all.  He knows my mind even when I do not.

My mind is always going 90 miles an hour which really drives me insane.  And others I am sure.  Am I the only one who can’t seem to make their brain slow down? Like, ever?  I think that’s part of why I don’t always feel rested in the mornings.  I know I wake up at least twice during the night, but when I do my mind wants to instantly jump back into thinking a thousand thoughts and I hate it. It’s so hard to control.

Anyway, to get to the point… This morning I was praying about the “usual suspects” and sometimes I pray more in-depth for my 5 things and others times it’s more of a hitting the high notes because God knows what I need and He knows what I want and He’s going to do the best thing, the right thing, for me regardless of what I want or think I want.  And I gave those 5 things up to go because I knew I could not do anything with them and that He had to take over.

As I am driving alone my commute, I clearly hear a voice in my head saying, “"Oh honey, you are not in control of anything that is going on right now! But you are so cute for thinking that you are!" And then I swear I felt God pat me on the head and laugh. *sigh* At least He said I was cute. *pouting*  But this is not actually the point. Merely a little side story. 

The point – going back to my original train of thought – is that I had a realization that I tend to have expectations about things and that are never fulfilled.  So maybe I need to toss those aside for a while and just go with some anticipation.  And maybe not even though in the end.  This is usually my favorite time of year. The weather turns cooler, the leaves turn the most beautiful colors. My birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all roll around (I got no use for New Year’s Eve though).  What happens with it all, however, is that I expect all of those things to be something greater than they are. I always, always expect my birthday to be something special and it always, always falls flat. Always.  I can’t even tell you what it is that I want from my birthday, but I never get it.  So this year I decided to change my perspective and I no longer have any expectations about having this amazingly, fabulously wonderful birthday.  Quite a few weeks ago I decided to take the day off of work and made some plans for how to spend my day. Just me. Doing exactly what I want to do.  That way I can anticipate the plans I have made and have no special expectations of anything else or anyone else.  I’m really looking forward to my birthday next week because of that and hey, if anything else comes along to add in to my day, then that’s great. But if not, then I already have something to look forward to.

I decided this morning to apply that idea to the rest of the holiday season that is coming along. I always – for some reason that I can’t fathom – want some big Hallmark holiday to happen and it never does. And it’s not like it was that way when I was growing up, so maybe I’ve watched one too many Lifetime movies or something. LOL  I can’t necessarily even say specific things I want or ways I want those days to be, but they are always sorely lacking. So I’m putting away any expectations I have on what those holidays are “supposed” to be like.  Instead I’ll just anticipate the changing of the seasons and then holidays and take them as they come.  Well, at least that’s what I’ll try to do.  And if it doesn’t work out quite right this time around, it’ll just be good practice for next year.

Pap's Bible

I've been given many Bibles over the years and I still have them all. From the pink New Testament given to me as a baby at my dedication...

Please note the delightful brown crayon scrawling doubtlessly done by yours truly.

...to graduation gifts on through to the one I use today, that belonged to my late paternal grandfather.