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I woke up at 5 today, tossed some clothes on, grabbed a read, and dashed out the door. ...Plugged in my garmin, impatiently sat through McDonald's drive through for a coffee, and made my way out to Mission Hills to support my friend and help welcome her son to the world. There was a lot of waiting and holding on to belongings but it was worth congratulating the proud Mama and the newest nephew. Joseph Ray (to be lovingly called Joey) 7 lbs 13oz, 20 inches, and born at 9:18am (via c-section). I believe a newborn babe is the most humblest example of humanity, with the potential to do great things but unable to do so alone. It ignites hope. :) On a whim, I also took Sally out for a run/jog/walk. At first it was a casual trot of sorts, then a full on run, where my feet hit the ground and left so quickly and mechanically that it felt like flying. What a feeling! I'm in no shape to run...yet. But I think it's something I might train to do for leisure. What I felt today was amazing...when you run right, it doesn't feel like pounding pavement, it's more like winding up a toy and watching it propel. I would say I ran a good 2/3 of our little journey, from my house, around the lap at the nearby park, and then back home along the opposite side of the loop. By the time I reached my door my sides hurt, I was breathing extra hard, and I started to cough and wheeze. But I did it! One of my new year resolutions is to lose 5 pounds a month. The month is roughly halfway through and I am on track! 3 lbs so far! I am really hoping to make my mark and do so on a monthly basis. Excited. Good day, very good day. :) Current Mood: accomplished
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Sometimes I can't believe when I update either. It's so...sporadic. Nate and I were the only ones home and both were hungry for dinner so we fixed the most amazing thanksgiving left over sandwich known to man. We started talking and I got all teary eyed and started blabbing my emotions out about how lonely I'll be when he's gone and how different things will be. I know he's going to do fine, I'm more worried about me. When you only have one sibling and spend lots of time with them, they automatically become your best friend whether or not you want to accept it. (it sounds and is completely selfish) I've had pangs of depression lately, from a variety of things, but mostly from that feeling of losing everyone close to you. I don't make friends easily. With that being said, I can make acquaintances fairly easy. But those are two very different things. I'm socially awkward, though sincere. I don't have charm or an infectious personality, smile, or laugh. Usually it takes extra patience or at least a glimmer of similarity in interests to get to know me. But when I do have a good friend, they are usually a best friend. I lend them every drop of my soul. Last year, one of my best friends moved out of state. Luckily, she's been able to visit a few times since moving so it hasn't been so hard. The hardest change is not having a solid triad. I had three musketeers. None of them hung out with each other but they were all dear to me. Now my last local best friend is debating an out of state move for financial reasons. Being married with children, she rarely has time to visit or have me visit. I love her and her family dearly, but it is indeed a different friendship relationship once you have family responsibilities. She also lives several towns over, which makes it hard as well. I could really use a local friend. Someone who lives in town or a surrounding area. Someone with a semi-expendable income who can afford to do things like watch a movie with me, possibly go to a concert or go on a day trip with. Someone who can keep me accountable in my faith but it's legalistic or judgmental. Someone who understands my fairly hectic lifestyle or shares it. Someone who I can connect with. I've almost been tempted to post such a description on craigslist. But I'm pretty sure God has other plans. He's going to kick me in the butt and tell me to look closer at those around me, maybe they aren't so hard to get to know after all. Tags: friendship, lonely
Current Mood:  lonely
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My Bible randomly opened to Job 11 and I read it. Wow. Powerful. There is so much jam packed in this book, let alone this chapter. I really feel like this is a book I need to reread with my heart open. This hits so many areas. Security, humbleness, God's greatness, tackling occasional depression, financial and situational worry, accountability, trust....the list goes on. It's crazy how you can read a passage several times and then one time, the application hits you like you've never seen it before. I think this will be my Bible chapter for the month of January. Lord, speak to me through Your Word and help me to grow... A favorite snippet: Job 11:13-18 “Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. One of my friends just posted that she was laid off and is an emotional wreck. She through faith, moved out of state to live with her agnostic grandmother to minister to her but she must pay her way. I got to share this passage with her and I hope it will encourage her like it did me. Also, in good news, the weather has started to warm up! It was in the seventies today and for the first time in a long time, I was able to comfortable wear just a t-shirt! Tags: bible, faith, reading
Current Mood:  rejuvenated
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So being unconventional, I sometimes wonder about things. Like if we're all a little bit psychic or if we empathize or know that something is not right with another person because we feel it. Not by mental strength of our own, but as part of the way God has made us. This is something most people would pshawww me about. "That's crazy talk." But I've always wondered if perhaps we have frequencies like radios and if once in a while we tune in to other people's frequencies, or if their frequencies interrupt ours. This would explain why everyone yawns after someone else does, even if they don't see or hear the yawn, or why you can pick up how someone is responding to you. It even says in the bible that nature groans...and scientists have proven that most of the recorded sounds of plants, trees, and animals in nature have been in minor key. Interesting, huh? (Romans 8:22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.) Anyways, this is all speculation. All I know is that our creator made our bodies so very complex and that it isn't just what science knows. We are not just animals that recognize ourselves in reflections. We know that you can die of a broken heart. Emotions have more to do with us than we give it credit for. I was reading an interesting article on human frequencies that I looked up. I'll have to get that book and see what it says. This talks mostly about frequencies in the form of food and esscential oils, but it also slightly covers emotions. I was more interested in food frequencies at the point of research. The link: http://AromatherapyLiving.com/oil_frequency.htmlP.S. I know at the same time that there is a danger to becoming too "feely". God also gave us rationality to keep us for falling for everything we see. And I am careful not to get wrapped up in the charismatic. I do take this in with a grain of salt. Tags: bodies, frequencies, science
Current Mood: amused
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Well usually resolutions involve striving towards unreachable goals...so I'm going to switch my priorities around this year...These have no hierarchy as they're all goals. 1. Screw weight loss... Yeah, screw weight loss. I'm a big girl who eats relatively healthy...I'm conscious of what goes in my body and although I have a sweet tooth, I've pretty much got down the art of moderation. I don't go to the gym faithfully, but I do go on a regular basis. Therefore, I'll keep doing my thing, and if the results aren't a reduction in weight, I'm not going to let it get me down. I will however, continue to research the holistic and eat less processed food. 2. Learn Spanish... I think learning Spanish will help open some doors...one, I'll be able to communicate with a broader range of people, two I'll be bilingual (trilingual if you count Cambodian, which I can completely understand and can speak conversationally), and three, I'll have more job opportunities. I think in the near future, California will become even more (if not fully) bilingual as a state. Right now, you can't even get a government job without knowing Spanish...soon other jobs will require the same...I have a computer program to start. When I pass that, I'll go on to take it at college level and then put it on my resume with pride. 3. Study my Bible more faithfully... I want to get to the point where I crave my spiritual food as much as my body craves physical food...I'm a long ways from there, but I know if I am more faithful, I will hunger more for God's word and instruction. 4. Find a Bible Study... My church has one...and they're a great group, but I've known most of the people there since I was 7...I'd like to branch out, and meet more people...open up my circle a bit, and have more people in the study (but still be local). 5. Continue the job hunt... Still lookin' for that perfect full time with benefits design job! 6. Be frugal with the frivolous... 2011 is going to be a saving year. I need to build up my rainy day fund as well as straighten shopping priorities. Do spend more to get organic and more wholesome food/health/makeup. Do spend less on clearanced items I'll never wear/ cute but unecessary stuff that I'll never use. And put a little away for a getaway. 7. Extend my skills... As much as I consider web design to my be Achille's heel, I know it's the direction media is taking and I need to get savvy. And perhaps dabbling in AutoCAD? 8. Organize my clutter... I feel best with lots of things around me...that's why my 8x10 room is cluttered with everything from clothes to craft supplies. I feel good knowing I have 5 books on one subject, and 5 white blouses to ensure variety...I'm not ready to let go of the superfluous and live a simple monk life...but I know I should probably get the junk in order. Neat messes...that's my motto. 9. Be more time and date efficient... I usually have a calender up by the first of the year and by mid May, it's fallen off the push pin, on to some hard to reach crevice of my room, no thanks to wall to wall furnishings that make my compact space more managed. This year, I'd like to keep it up and have dates scribbled all over it like most people do. Ya know, use it? No more messages on cellphones that crash or erase. I'm going to sync my macbook's calendar messages with my wall calendar, with my desk calendar, with my pocket organizer. Yeah.... I also have trouble with time. I'm not ruled by it. If I'm not conscious of it, I forget about it. I get tasks done because I'm time conscious, but I don't really follow that for life. I need to jump the time wagon so I'm not wasting time on the little stuff. If I assign an hour to web surfing, I won't get so caught up I forget it's been two. If I make myself get grocery shopping done in 30 minutes, I wont be tempted to stroll isle by isle for the useless and double my time for nothin'. Tags: job, new years, resolution, time, weight
Current Mood: determined
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Dec 2, I went to see Brooke Fraser perform at the El Rey Theater. It was so great! I went with a friend I'll call "H" who I haven't really talked to in a couple years since her family stopped going to my church. It was so nice to catch up! Now that she's in college she doesn't seem as young (she's around my brother's age). On the drive there and back we got to talk about college and peer pressure and how you have to choose Christianity for yourself as you get older. It felt good as I was not really instructing or mentoring, but speaking casually as a friend while encouraging. She's got her head on really straight, probably straighter than me at her age. :) I told H to dress warmly because she is tall but really tiny and the weather had been brisk. So we bundled up. Halfway through the concert, people started crowding and we got packed in. H braces my shoulder and starts tipping forward and says "I think I'm going to faint". She was fumbling because she was doing her best to stay conscious. Luckily, Brooke ended her song and there was an intermission. I had her sit on the floor and I grabbed her a waterbottle from the bar. She has overheated when the people clustered! I felt really bad for telling her to dress warm! Brooke's voice is even richer in person. On her tracks it seems mellow, which it is, but in person you can catch the subtle dynamics that you don't hear. And she is outrageously funny. She wore tassled shoulder pads that she swished all night. She called them statement shoulders that made her more aerodynamic. She had tweeted that she was craving cupcakes so a person in the crowd got her two from a bakery. She explained how she loved American cupcakes but that Kiwis have a very different meaning for the word cupcake. A cupcake in New Zeland is, believe it or not, a prank where someone cups their hands and catches their fart and "throws" the gas into someone's face! Gross! I wondered why her second album, Flags, was so different from Albertine. She explained why. Albertine to her was a very emotionally heavy album and after becoming a #1 album she toured and sang out those emotionally heavy songs every night and it tore at her. With flags, she was inspired to write other people's stories rather than personal ones so that the weight wouldn't be upon her as she sang. I think the next album will be different as well, hopefully more of a marriage of her two styles since I really loved Albertine. Brooke is teaming up with mycharitywater to try to get $50,000 raised for clean water. Did you know many girls stop going to school in Africa once they get their period? Schools over there have no public bathroom or water systems and they cannot clean themselves and therefore quit school. Everyone walks miles to collect water that may not be sanitary just to try to stay alive. It really hit my heart. If you'd like to donate, go to http://www.mycharitywater.org/p/campaign?campaign_id=8365. She is asking $27 for her 27th birthday but you can donate however little or much as you want. :) Tags: brooke fraser, concert, music, water
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In response to someone who disliked that people around her were acting like there was nothing to live for if you weren't in love: "Love is a complimentary goodie, like a cherry on top, but life is the ice cream. If you spend your time worrying about that cherry you're letting the good stuff melt away." Facebook, you are turning me into Confucius! --- In other news, I went off to mail a birthday package to Silver-Nyssa and when I came back, I found a letter from her! She sent me fall! I was ecstatic. I would never have thought of it, but she pressed some pretty leaves like you would flowers and they surprisingly retained most of their coloring! Also, went to a restaurant/lounge on Sunset in hollywood today called La Vida for my friend's 24th birthday. Not too shabby, but the food was ehhh and the music is totally catered towards a 30's crowd. Lots of remixed ninties music and beats. "Go to a trendy place in Hollywood". I guess I can cross that off my bucket list now. Tags: birthdays, bucket list, dating, hollywood, love, single
Current Mood:  bouncy
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Today on facebook: Rachael's Status: i turn 22 in about 3 weeks! I feel so old! Laura I'm already there, honey! You get to join my ranks in three weeks. 22 isn't so bad :D 2 hours ago · Like Rachael 22 and im STILL SINGLE! ;P 2 hours ago · Like Laura Good things come to those who wait. We find soul mates, not a date! That's my motto. hehe. 2 hours ago · Like Rachael haha i like it! 9 minutes ago · Like Tags: age, birthday, love
Current Mood: amused
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