Since I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport with nothing better to do for the next couple of hours, it seems like the best time to be blogging. I have gotten through the first of 6 weddings I have been invited to that are occurring in about a one month period. Apparently they all had the same good idea of when they wanted to get married. Unfortunately, I'm only able to actually attend 4 of them, but that includes this one in Atlanta and my best friend Sarah's in L.A., of which I am the maid of honor. Basically, that comes down to meaning I am spending A LOT of money on other people this summer. A lot. Which means I'm not spending money on any vacation this year... which means I have lots of vacation time to use without spending money. Oh the woes of life!
I've been working hard at trying to be more active lately. I got new running shoes and nice moisture-removing socks so that I could start running again without getting massive blisters...but I have yet to do that. However, I am on a softball team, I play tennis most weeks, volleyball on Sundays... and I've convinced Jen that we need to start bike riding, which I'm excited about. We started this week, going to do some trail biking out in City Forest since we had hiked through there and saw some amazing biking trails. Yeah... that turned out to be more of a nightmare than we expected. It was a lot of fun, but it was definitely not a beginners trail... which meant that Jen flew over her bike once, rode into the forest at another point, and I ran into several trees. We left bruised up, and my legs had scratches up and down them....not a big deal until you have to wear skirts for the next couple of days for wedding events. I'll just have to remember to avoid things like that before my own wedding someday!
In other news, I have ADD and can't focus on blogging right now. I'm listening to the news as they discuss everything going on in Iran, and everytime they say where their sources are coming from, it is from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Ironic that these websites set up basically for social aspects are now the source of breaking world news. Congress also apparently has already written up a proposal for taking over healthcare and making it government-run and is trying to fasttrack it through the House and Senate. I must say, it is a little scary how quickly the Obama administration has changed things in the 5 months they've been in power. At this rate, we'll be a socialist country within a year. Maybe not, but it is a little ridiculous that they decided to step into the free market and instead of letting companies that needed to go bankrupt and reorganize to be able to, they took them over, and are now pushing extremely hard on the healthcare issue. I have quite a few opinions on a bunch of these issues...however, my phone just reminded me that at some point I have a plane to catch, so I will avoid a soap box and instead get ready to leave Southern accents behind. Especially since a group of 10 men decided they're going to have a team meeting right where I am sitting and are circling seats around me. A bit awkward to say the least.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
I want my sister back.
My sister is doing another one of her winding dives. She just informed me that her boyfriend gave her a phone so that she can text and everything (her current phone is on my mom's plan, which is FREE for her, but my mom refuses to pay for her texting). This generous gesture of her boyfriends means she now has a phone that will be signed up for a plan under HER name where she gets unlimited everything for the low price of $50 a month! Um, how is that comparable to free? Apparently it's worth it to her to not be under my mom's 'harsh' rules. This is after I just found out a month ago that while she was in her year-and-a-half of no talking to family, disappearing in another town, working in a gas station and living on a friends floor, her then boyfriend did the same thing; oh-so-generously got her a phone and gave her her very own phone plan, which she quickly defaulted on and ended up owing hundreds of dollars that my dad just had to recently pay. Back down the rabbit hole.
My dad doesn't know how to handle it anymore, they keep fighting and she demands that he should be treating her as an equal and that it is her house too, yet she refuses to get a job and begin to pay back the couple thousand dollars she owes him, and she has already trashed the brand new car that my dad bought and let her start borrowing 3 months ago. In one argument, she told him she can't handle all of this and that she's still depressed and could commit suicide at any time. Although it's obvious it's just her trying to get under his skin and scare him enough to leave her alone, we're all still terrified that she's going to end up disappearing again and/or that she'll pull another suicide attempt for attention and accidently pull it off.
My dad is planning on telling Amber tonight that she has three weeks to get her act together and get another job for the summer or she has to move out of his house. He's calling my mom to talk about it and discuss options. He figures she can move in with my mom and give my mom the chance to work with her; I'm just worried she's going to decide she'll just move in with her boyfriend or something. From what Colin and her friends have been saying, this guy is controlling, has cheated on her and lied to her, and refuses to hang out with her friends, it always has to be him and her, and is just overall not the kind of guy she should be with. But she's swooning and head-over-heels. I'm afraid she's going down the road to getting married to a not-good guy because she doesn't want to be alone and hasn't seemed to care who that means she is with, which again would mean she'd disappear. Basically, my family and I are just scared for my little sister and her decisions currently, all I want to do is protect her and instead it feels like she's pushing further away again.
Please pray.
My dad doesn't know how to handle it anymore, they keep fighting and she demands that he should be treating her as an equal and that it is her house too, yet she refuses to get a job and begin to pay back the couple thousand dollars she owes him, and she has already trashed the brand new car that my dad bought and let her start borrowing 3 months ago. In one argument, she told him she can't handle all of this and that she's still depressed and could commit suicide at any time. Although it's obvious it's just her trying to get under his skin and scare him enough to leave her alone, we're all still terrified that she's going to end up disappearing again and/or that she'll pull another suicide attempt for attention and accidently pull it off.
My dad is planning on telling Amber tonight that she has three weeks to get her act together and get another job for the summer or she has to move out of his house. He's calling my mom to talk about it and discuss options. He figures she can move in with my mom and give my mom the chance to work with her; I'm just worried she's going to decide she'll just move in with her boyfriend or something. From what Colin and her friends have been saying, this guy is controlling, has cheated on her and lied to her, and refuses to hang out with her friends, it always has to be him and her, and is just overall not the kind of guy she should be with. But she's swooning and head-over-heels. I'm afraid she's going down the road to getting married to a not-good guy because she doesn't want to be alone and hasn't seemed to care who that means she is with, which again would mean she'd disappear. Basically, my family and I are just scared for my little sister and her decisions currently, all I want to do is protect her and instead it feels like she's pushing further away again.
Please pray.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Tear me down because you need me to be broken, breathless for you
I'm currently wondering where my will and self-control are. I don't think I'm very strong or disciplined when it comes to temptation. Take today for instance. The first Tuesday of every month is when our church fasts together. I had the choice to do it. And I chose food. I had training today, and since Dow's cost-cutting now means they refuse to feed us, a group of us went to Big Apple Bagel. It was so yummy... in an unsatisfyingly satisfying way. It's like I have no discipline. I told myself I'd just skip dinner and breakfast and not eat until lunch tomorrow. Except then I ate dinner, telling myself I'd skip breakfast and lunch tomorrow. At this point, even if I do, I think I've defeated the purpose.
I think I need to take the time to really meditate on the purpose of fasting, and my purpose in it, rather than just doing it because the church does it. I have actually chosen in the past not to do it with the church because I have heard of times when not even the staff remembered to do it, and I felt like it was just a check-the-box activity that lacked a truly spiritual purpose. However, I also feel like our church is in trouble and needs serious prayer, and I want to fast with the focus of lifting it up to God. I want it to be purposeful to bring me closer to God, closer to the model shown to us through scripture.
Isaiah: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter -- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"
I'm going to pray about this more, take it to God... and work on my poor discipline when it comes to food (and maybe other things too).
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."-2Tim 1:7
I think I need to take the time to really meditate on the purpose of fasting, and my purpose in it, rather than just doing it because the church does it. I have actually chosen in the past not to do it with the church because I have heard of times when not even the staff remembered to do it, and I felt like it was just a check-the-box activity that lacked a truly spiritual purpose. However, I also feel like our church is in trouble and needs serious prayer, and I want to fast with the focus of lifting it up to God. I want it to be purposeful to bring me closer to God, closer to the model shown to us through scripture.
Isaiah: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter -- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"
I'm going to pray about this more, take it to God... and work on my poor discipline when it comes to food (and maybe other things too).
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."-2Tim 1:7
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