Twilight shadows

Such a pretty sunset I had to share. I loved the colors in the sky and the way the branches were backlit.

I'm picking up something new

I purchased a Nikkon d40 DSLR camera last summer. My major is communications and photography wasn't someting I had attempted in the many years that I have been studying journalism. It's a huge part of media and I figured it was time to learn.

Let me just say I've been having a blast! My daughter is tired of me taking her picture although at time she voluntarily poses for me. I'm getting ready to purchase two umbrella studio lights. I'm hoping to make a profitable hobby of it.

At any rate, I will be posting photos from time to time. Obviously only the ones I'm really proud of but nevertheless, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

It's in the air

I went to pick up my books for the Fall semester and since I'm an online student, it's one of the few times I will be visiting campus. Turns out, I was there the same day they were hosting orientation for new students. The excitement, anticipation and the feeling of the newness of the school year was palpatable. I had forgotten just how refreshing a new school year could be. It was a necessary reality check. I love to learn but for some reason I was just not as geared up as I always get at the prospect of new supplies and knowing that I would end the semester just a tad bit smarter than I started.

Yucky guy

I was on my way back to work from a frantic lunch of shopping as I passed a church sign that said, "Beware of the high cost of low living." Of course the meaning speaks for itself. There's not much need to expound but I decided to share my little spin on it. You definitely won't see this on a church sign. . .well, maybe. Here it is: Being skeezy ain't easy.

There are a few people that I know that love the bar life. They love chasing skirt and casual encounters are nothing. They have no one to answer to, regardless of who they hurt in the process, which is typically themselves. Every day is surreal. It's a haze. Their minds are so inundated with alcohol and promiscuity they can't even function. They live to go to the same place every night, look at the same people and drink enormous amounts of alcohol.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy going out from time to time. I enjoy a nice dirty martini or glass of wine, but my life is so much fuller for having relationships rather than acquaintances and being able to remember the things that I experience without the effects of a hangover to hinder.

I'm not saying that everyone who hangs out at a bar is that type of person either but life is not always one big party. There are things that need to be cultivated to ensure that your latter years will truly be golden. I hope that these people that I know don't wake up one day and they're 35 years old with nothing show for it but an unimpressive long list of sexual partners and liver disease due to years of intoxicating themselves.

So you get all this because of a single sign that I saw on the way back to work from lunch. Imagine what happens when I read a paragraph.

Ahhhh, love. . .

So I'm over my PMS/Menstrual rage and I've run across some notes I jotted down a few weeks ago. I tend to get thoughts and inspiration in waves. In this case, they came to me while driving to lunch with my honey. I was thinking about how much different and special this relationship is in comparison to anything I had previously. There were so many things that I now have that I did not before and the irony is, I didn't even know what I was missing. Here's what those messy "driving while writing" notes said:

Love endures.

Love allows for mistakes. (And, as it turns out, cranky days when your hormones are uncontrollable.)

BUT love does not cause damage.

Love means accepting a person just as they are but refusing to accept inappropriate behavior.

Love is holding someone accountable to do what's right according to God.

Love is an intimacy, another gift, that is given by God and we must handle it with care, just as our salvation.

Beyond falling in love, when our brains go all wonky, it is a choice to love someone. It is a promise and it takes work.

Love is having the safety to express any emotion you may feel and knowing that it will be handled with the utmost care.

So those are the things that decided to find their way into my head that day. I realize that this all can be found in Corinthians but this was a personal revelation to me. I love when that happens. It makes you realize just how blessed you truly are.

Ugh

It’s just another ordinary day with ordinary routines, schedules with the aches and pains that go along with it. I’m tired and very cranky. Being a woman sucks on some days. For the most part, my life is very blessed and I’m happy to be alive with a job, a wonderful fiancé and a beautiful daughter . . . but on days that I think my uterus may fall out, I’m a little peeved. I’m sorry if this is too much information for some, but for me and every other woman on the face of the earth, it is a very real and hateful reality. Your hormones wreak havoc on your every emotion, thought, desire, and hunger pang and all you can think about is crawling onto the couch with a good book, soft pillow and warm blanket and hide out from the world. Ah, but no. I’m here at work listening to other people’s gripes and complaints all the while thinking, “Whatever buddy. When you feel like someone is stabbing you repeatedly in the lower abdomen then we’ll talk but until then, you and your water bill are simply a minor problem that I really don’t give a jack about. Have a nice day.”

The other negative side to this whole situation is the fact that any time something is said that sounds even remotely like a negative; the tears come or anger flairs and it’s completely irrational and uncontrollable. It ain’t pretty. A beautiful, mild mannered woman can turn into a raving lunatic with hair standing on end and spittle flying and there’s no stopping it. I can say I’m not that bad but I can become basket case for a few days out of the month and I hate it. I hate being the victim of nature and taking out the frustration on the people I love. Adam only thought he was being punished by having to die but that’s not the case. He was being punished by Eve’s mood swings (and the removal of God’s constant fellowship but that’s only a side note in this rant). Death was a release from that imprisonment. Go figure. So not only does a woman suffer the physical side effects, but everyone in their path suffers some type of emotional stress if not physical disfigurement. Thanks to Eve and that damned serpent, we become moronic every 28 days.

Mmmmmmm. . .cupcakes.

A fictional piece

***To be absolutely clear, this is a fictional piece that bubbled it's way out of my head. I just wanted to put it up here so that I could gauge a response. So let me know if you like it or have any ideas.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what events brought me to this point. As I stood holding a gun, trembling, pointing the barrel squarely at his head as he slept, my palms were sweaty and an ice cold bead of perspiration drew a slimy line down my spine, like a slug in the dead of winter. Years of torment, berating and abuse both physical, emotion and sexual welled up inside of me. I was tired of being the victim. I wanted him to feel the burn of embarrassment and the cold hand of rejection slap him upside the head. He would certainly feel that if the butt of the gun came down on his skull. I wouldn’t kill him. I couldn’t. If I did, I would be no better than he. I would only maim him so he would have to live with his ugliness on the outside. I turned the gun and rammed the butt into his cheekbone. His face cracked.

Four years earlier, Charlie and I were married in a shotgun wedding of sorts. I barreled toward a toxic relationship with a relief that I would be out from under an overbearing and manipulative mother without regard to the horrors that I opened myself to by trusting a man who resorted quickly to manhandling and name calling when his way was not granted. His insecurity and complete lack of care for my feelings was a small price to pay to escape a tyrannical Ice Queen who took out the anger of her own childhood abuse on the children she claimed to love. She had hollowed out her husband, my father, into a ghost of a man and created another child, my sister, who eyed everything with jealousy and hateful disdain. I was left feeling utterly alone and unloved. Any attention was better than nothing and moving out into a place of my own with no one to answer to sounded wonderful. It wasn’t long before a steel-toed boot shattered that wistful dream.

Stick it in your ear

I realized today that during the course of my lifetime I have taken a lot of crap off of people. I didn't start out this way but eventually I grew complacent and non-confrontational. I still attempt to pick my battles wisely and I chalk a lot of behavior up to people's motivation and past but it's gotten to the point that I've had enough.

Choosing to be happy is not selfishness. Making decisions based on what makes me happy is healthy. However, some people make life decisions based on what someone else says they should do, what would make someone else happy and claim that others are selfish for not making them the priority. Now, I ask you, does that even make sense? The answer for the slow kids in the class would be NO!

I went the opposite direction. I made bad decisions based on the fact that it would open a door for escape and really miff some people. But now I say forget that mess! My decisions now are based solely on what is best for my health, happiness and well-being because if I'm happy I have a solid basis to raise my daughter as a happy and productive member of society. That is my ultimate goal.

Love is never truly understood until it is spoken in our language and God places those certain people in our lives to show us through them how much He loves us. My angel speaks it to me on a daily basis, with slobbery kisses and a tiny head lock. She provides endless hours of entertainment and amusement. My fiance shows me what love is by going out of his way to ensure my happiness. He is my sounding board, my support and my comfort.

This is my life and these are my decisions. Deal with it or take your toxicity elsewhere. I am unbelievably blessed and quite frankly, I don't care who likes it or doesn't. I didn't know it could be this good.

Humble Me

Understanding love is a never ending process. It grows day to day and it's the subject of many songs, stories, books, and movies. As of late, I have truly come to understand how love fits into everything.

I was on my way to work this morning listening to Norah Jones, Humble Me. It reminded me a lot of my previous marriage. At this point, I have found a love that it true and normal compared to the abnormal to which I have been consistently exposed. As I listened I began to wonder: Are we exposed to people who show us what love is not just so that we're open to what love should be?

I suppose we appreciate it more when it comes our way if our experience hasn't been all butterflies and rainbows. Truly, if it were already that, would we need to ever leave our first loves? And how does God fit into all this?

Obviously, God committed the ultimate act of love by sacrificing His Son. I suppose we truly do not know love until we are able to embrace God's love for us. Even after salvation, that tends to be hard to comprehend. We lose sight of Him and thereby become the self-centered creatures that we tend to be.

As with anything, I believe He gives us specific relationships and experiences for a reason and a season. We are forever learning and growing but to really start the process, we have to trust Him.

Where is your heart?

On my way to work the other morning, I was listening to the local Contemporary Christian station, and I heard the DJ ask a question that as a Christian I have heard over and over again but today it took on a whole new meaning: Does God have your heart?

I am a born-again Christian and I have been since I was a young girl. My faith has carried me through some of the most difficult times of my life. Without it, I would have been a much bigger mess than I was. So when the question was asked, I knew without a doubt that He has my heart but I began to understand it in a different way.

When you give someone your heart, when you fall in love, everything is devoted to the other person. Your time, your energy and your every thought is given to the other person. It is the same with God. He wants His love for me to be requieted. It's not hard to feel overwhelming appreciation for the gift of eternal life but it is harder to remain in love with God because we are selfish creatures. Like any relationship, on our part, it takes work to maintain that relationship. God is always there, regardless, and now, because of the people He has placed in my life, I can understand exactly what He wants from me. It's the same as the desires I have for those people and the love I desire from them that God wants from me. And just like those relationships, I can't make them love me, God is in the same position. But He never gives up.

His love for me is astounding. What's even more, He feels the same about you. It's such an overwhelming idea. It's so big that none of us will ever understand. Those of us who accept His love are so fortunate. So what about you? Have you given your heart to God? He's given you His.

Grrrrr!

I am steeped in class work for the Spring semester. One of the classes that I am taking is Adobe Photoshop. I am enjoying the techniques that I am learning but I am having an extremely difficult time being creative with my first assignment. We are to create a photo collage merging three different images into one creative photo. I just can't seem to get it together. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

On top of all of this, I have discovered that anytime I develop upper respiratory infections, my mouth decides to break out into ulcers. Always a blast when you can't eat, especially when you're as thin as I am. I also get very irritable when I haven't been sufficiently nourished so I can't express how much fun I am to be around right now. Everything that typically annoys me has been heightened to the point of nails on a chalk board. Ultimately, my coworkers are just watching me sulk at my desk and, thankfully, seeming to avoid all of my obnoxious explanations of seemingly innocent questions. At least, I hope so.

So, needless to say, all I really want to do at this point is go home and read Eclipse, the third book in the Twilight series. Yes, I am addicted. I want to make out with a vampire. That sounds like the best alternative for a day like today. I hope he doesn't mind mouth ulcers.

A new day, a new hope

He has been inagurated and now the work starts, well, the work starts after the ten balls that he has to attend today. Poor guy will be dead dog tired after all the hoopla. If I were him, I'd be tempted to take off the first day on the new job!

But all that aside, I am so excited to see what this day will bring in the next four years. Living in this area and being a Christian, I've experienced all types of judgement and differences of opinions and I've learned that there are some people that you just can't have a discussion with. Many people believe that the reason behind discussion is to argue. I believe it is to present different ideas and possibly change someone's mind. I never set out to change someone else's mind. I do believe that he has been placed in office for such a time as this. God didn't fall asleep when he was elected nor did he neglect the polls. God's is the only vote that counts. There are several misconceptions circulating about Obama's views and what he stands for but if proper research is done, proof of these misconceptions is found, especially on the moral issues.

At any rate, there is a new president. There are new possiblities. Bush did with what he had available to him and, just like any other president, experienced ups and downs during his administration. Obama will face the same.

I am ready to see what Obama can do.

It's been decided

I have the cutest kid EVER! I love her so much and thank God every day for her. She teaches me so much and makes me smile every day!

And kids really do say the darndest things. Among my favorites:
Have you lost my mind?
I love you this much!
Everybody loves me.

This is why I call her my Angel Butt!

The lessons in chick flicks

We went and saw Bride Wars last night. . .I won! As it turns out, Anne Hathaway's character has a huge dance scene which according to him made the whole movie worth it and, okay, I have to admit, she is really pretty and she can also dance. But on the way home he told me that he was happy to have seen it because he learned something. I didn't believe him at first but he was really sincere. Unfortunately, I can't really give too much detail because I don't want to give anything away because it's a super cute movie.

It just goes to show that if you allow yourself to be open and receptive to different experiences you will learn something. Life is all about living. Profound statement, right? If you don't allow yourself to experience new things then you will never fully understand just how special life truly is. I've learned a whole lot just in the last year because I have allowed myself to learn and I've opened my heart and my mind to people that I wouldn't have in the past. I haven't lost my core beliefs but I have learned how to better relate to people.

So class, what have we learned here today? That chick flicks, as goofy and as pointless as they sometimes may be, can still teach you a few things. Oh, and Anne Hathaway can dance.

It's so not fair

Why don't guys ever just indulge a girl and take her to see the stupid, sappy chick flicks? We sit through countless hours of football, basketball, action movies. . .JUST TAKE ME TO SEE BRIDE WARS!!!!!!

Okay, I feel better.

In with the new

With the new year and the return of routine (yay!), I have found focus and a renewed sense of purpose. It's so cliche to have resolutions but everybody's doing it and, yes, I would jump off a bridge if everyone did that, too.

I am ashamed to say that through the holiday season I didn't attend church. The whole month of December went by in a blur and I didn't go at all. Not even Christmas Eve saw my little behind planted where it should have been. The first Sunday of 2009 gave me a different view. I went and our pastor spoke on setting proper priorities. Geez. I get it! There's no balance for me. My foundation was shaken and I need to find my footing.

I've always been notoriously tunnel-visioned. I go beyond focus to a blinder's view of what I want to do and what I want to have happen and only begrudgingly tackle tasks that have to be done. I'm learning to be patient (but I don't wanna!) and I'm learning that God holds things for us in His perfect time. I've always known that but I've never put it into practice. I can honestly say that I am content with the way things are. I'm leveling out and I'm reframing my life around the things that are proper priorities.

Another year gone

It's been a while since I've posted a blog, as my friend Kim has so helpfully pointed out. . .Thank you, Kim. . .and has also offered some topic ideas when I said I had writer's block. . .again, Thank you, Kim.

One of her suggestions was a look back over the year, as it has been quite a dramatic one for me and my daughter. Through a divorce, a reforming of routine, dating (eeesh), and learning to finance a Christmas on a shoestring, I've learned a ton about myself and how much I truly am blessed. I always knew it but I had always felt as though I was missing out on something. I felt stuck.

Rewind to New Year's Eve 2008, I was sitting on my couch by myself watching the ball drop while my little angel butt slept in the next room. There was no inkling that I would be where I am today. I knew things were bad and I was quite miserable but I was determined to change it. Two weeks later, my daughter and I were living with my mother. I felt I had lost at the American Dream. My life had fallen into shambles and I didn't know how to fix it.

This year I spent New Year's Eve with a man that I can safely call my kindred spirit. This relationship has been 10 years in the making but it was certainly worth the wait. All the experiences I have had in the last few years have led me to a place of understanding. I will never completely understand what motivates people to make choices they make or why I am so compeled to fix everything but I do know this: All things work for the good of those who love the Lord. I do certainly love my God and my faith is the only thing that has kept me thus far.

They say you should never look back in order to move forward but I completely disagree. The only way to really appreciate where you are is to look at where you've been. Remembering the dark times makes the future all that much brighter with possiblity. So here's to 2009. May the music be good, the food be edible, and the love be stronger than ever before.