is your life 'exciting'???

well, i'm pretty pooped out tonight because i worked both jobs today ... over 12 hrs between the 2 ... so without any big introduction, here are my 3 things for tonight ... 

1) today is the first day in over 2 weeks that i left on time, with everything checked off my task list and my desk semi-straightened!  this bodes well for tomorrow...

2) do you have a bucket list??  i think i need to make one ... there are definitely some experiences that i would like to have before i die ... and now might be the time to start putting them down on paper and checking them off my list ... (see below)

3) when i was younger i was convinced i would lead an exciting life. i figured i would be 1 of 3 things ...a stay at home mom with 5 kids, an "urbanite" living in NYC and working in a big skyscraper, or an elementary/high school teacher. (my definition of exciting is clearly not that of... say ... a skydiver...) while i have become none of those things, i love that several of my best friends are indeed these people.  and i know for a fact that they do lead busy, productive,fulfilled, even exciting (at times) lives.  

so how come that excitement passed me by??  

- a few reasons i think. 

• the biggest reason might be because i am not a very excitable person.  i'm very laid back and rarely do i get have any big emotional highs or lows.  so i'm not sure how living an exciting life would fit with my personality. 
• another reason is that i 'settled' pretty early in life.  i got my associates degree and was offered a job.  i was tired of school and was flattered at the opportunity presented to me.  
• and then it kind of spiraled downward for a little while.  i started viewing credit cards as free money, i bought a brand new car, moved out on my own and began racking up the debt.  
• as soon as i started settling into this routine, i lost the ability to even think about an exiting life. 
• my life became working for a pay check so i could make the minimum payment on my credit cards.

thankfully i saw the error of my ways and have been working very hard these last 4 years to get all my debt paid off so my life could be "free".  

the end is in sight.  i can almost taste it and trust me when i say, it's EXCITING.  i finally have possibilities ...

i wish so much i could go back and do things differently but i know that these were lessons i needed to learn the hard way.  

if i could go back now, i would have made myself finish my bachelor's degree,

i would have moved to mexico or guatemala and worked in an orphanage for a year or 2 and then i would have thought very long and hard about where i wanted to spend 40 hours of every week. 

is your life exciting?? if you could go back, what would you do differently??

i'm pretty sure i overworked my brain today

i wonder if albert einstein's brain every hurt him ... mine certainly did today ... but this blog is about the positive so how am i going to turn this around??


1) my accomplishment today ... yes ... that is how i'm viewing it ... i was in a meeting today from 8:30 to 2:00 pm.  45 patients were discussed and all that discussion was documented by me, myself and i.  i basically typed on a laptop for 5 1/2 hours ... then when that was over with, i had all the rest of my work waiting for me. including some quality data reporting.  wait, don't fall asleep yet.  i'm happy about how much i got accomplished today!  despite my brain hurting ...


2) last night in my college bible study, we were studying luke chapter 2 ... when the baby Jesus is presented at the temple when he was 40 days old.  i've never thought about the reason he was presented before.  we studied some of the jewish culture.  the 40 days was the time it took for mary to be deemed 'clean' after giving birth.  and by default mary's baby would be deemed unclean as well.  that would explain why the jews might have been resistant to Jesus being their savior. how could their deliverer have ever been deemed 'unclean'.  it's interesting to think and talk about those early days of Jesus.  how at age 12 he knew more than the smartest scholars of the day.  we talked about just when as a young child he realized He was the Son of God.  maybe all along??  we may have even discussed the merit of tattooing on our bodies the questions we want to ask God when we get to heaven ... 


3) draw something is my favorite app right now ... i've had it about a month now and i'm addicted.  and i'm not even a good artist!!!  do you play??? if so, start a game with me!!!  it's a little lame to admit i know but were you in a 6 hour meeting today???


if you are reading, leave me a comment ... :)


r-

short and sweet

so ... i stayed up way past my bedtime tonight to watch The Voice finale! but i wanted to make sure i stick with this more than 2 days ... so here are my 3 quickies for today


1) dunkin donuts iced tea is my new favorite drink ... 


2) my college bible study group rocks.  even on nights like tonight when i'm drained and don't have much to give, we still manage to dig deep into the word and find some hidden truths ...


3) i'm heading back to maine for work next week - for the whole week this time!  i'm pretty excited about this for a couple reasons ... a) it shows that the CEO of my organization has faith in my ability b) it allows me to be away from my normal routine but still be working and c) having a room to myself these days is by far a luxury for which i'm very excited!


that's it for me tonight ... a deeper blog tomorrow night ...


r

case of the monday's

okay so day 2 of the new blog - is that a habit forming???  talk to me at day 14 i guess ...
so my 3 things for today ...

1) when you work 7 days a week, you don't really think monday is a bad thing ... it's just another day of work ... now sure, i don't get to sleep in and perhaps go to church before heading to work, but it's feeling more and more like just another day.  today a co-worker was talking about being ready for friday already but it dawned on me that wishing for friday isn't really all that productive ... because wishing for friday means monday will again be just around the corner.  i don't mind mondays (other than the getting up early part).  sure mondays are busy and it's never a day that i can 'ease' into my work, but it goes by fast ... and i feel like i'm really productive ... so hopefully you don't hear me complaining about mondays in the near future

2) i mentioned the tulip festival yesterday ... i'm happy to say that Riley and i went to the park this afternoon so we could see all the tulips and enjoy this gorgeous weather.  i have to admit i was wrong yesterday.  the tulips aren't at peak right now, they are beyond peak - which makes me sad.  the happy part is that i did get some great pictures!  and i have to say when it's sunny out and the subject matter is brightly colored works of art, my iPhone makes me look like a professional photographer.

i really do love the fancy tulips - even their leaves are pretty

breathtaking

3) i have been the biggest naysayer of all things 'reality tv' for the past 10 years or so.  but i do have to confess, finally 1 of them has one me over.  i started watching The Voice last year in it's first season and i was hooked immediately.  this year is about the be over, the winner will be announced tomorrow night and i throughly enjoyed tonight's finale.  the 4 finalists got to sing 3 times, once by themselves, once in a duet with their coach and once as a tribute they sang one of their coach's song back to them.  i just spent the last 2 hours pretty much smiling at the tv.  so i figured i could mention it here because it really was a very positive part of my day ...

as far as mondays go, this one was a really good one.  i'm excited to see what tomorrow brings

good night all ... 

new title

so...


i'm attempting to refresh my outlook on life. my old blog name was 'organized chaos' but that doesn't really apply to my life at this present time... 


you see, i currently work 2 jobs and sometimes feel that i don't have time to breath, much less actually sit down and type a full blog.  


i would however like to try to focus each day on the positive or inspiring.  so i'm hoping the change in title will force me to evaluate each day and find the good, the positive, the God-moments, the funny or the beautiful.


i'm guessing this will be harder than if i were focusing on the cynical or sarcastic on a daily basis.  that comes quite naturally to me but i don't want to necessarily encourage that part of me ... 


here we go ...


1) have you noticed the tulips?? they are at absolute peak right now where i live. and i love each and every variety of them!  my city has this pretty sweet annual festival just to celebrate the tulips each mother's day.  i am determined to visit the park this week and take in all the color and beauty they have to offer. (look for pictures coming soon)


2) do you keep reminders of the times God was faithful in your life? my pastor today finished up a 4-part series on spiritual growth entitled "it's time to move".  today's message was on why we don't move in our spiritual growth. one point he brought up is how easily we can be distracted by the mundane trials of being a human being. he pointed out that in the old testament, they built memorials as reminders of times when God was faithful to his people. he suggested we might need to keep a memorial of some sort to remind us of God's faithfulness in our life. so on days we are contemplating doubting God's love or grumbling about the circumstances in our life that are 'inconvenient', we can quickly be reminded of that fact that God is faithful and will not leave us or forsake us


3) my dog makes me smile - currently he is laying next to me on the couch.  he is always thrilled to see me when i walk through the door and my mere presence makes him ecstatic.  it's hard to stay upset or be grumpy when met with his joy.


so how did i do??  honestly it's harder than it should be.  i aim to improve


enjoy your sunday night

My Story

I've started a creative journaling project with my Student Leadership team at youth group.  We are taking the 1st week to tell our story and then start writing about what leadership means to me ... i wanted to share on here the 1st part of "My Story". I wrote this on 3/10/11

As I sit on my couch on this rainy night, a blanket around my legs and Riley curled up next to me, I'm remembering how my story in Christ began.

I was raised in a Christian home but did not answer God's call in my life until I was 15.  It was summer and I was at a family Bible conference in Indiana. During the evening session, a tornado warning was sounded and several hundred of us were ushered into the basement to wait out the storm. It occurred to me that if the tornado did hit the building and I died that night, I would end up in Hell for all eternity. That realization was the start for me and about a week later I asked God into my heart and for the first time believed with faith that He had saved me. That my eternity would forever be with Him in Heaven.

Fast forward 19 years and here I am today. I never could have predicted how my life would end up.  If you had told me when I was 15 that in 19 years, I would be living by myself, with a dog, attending a large non-denominational church and working with teenagers, I would have asked you what drugs you were taking.

In my 15 year old mind, I would have imagined being 34, married to a perfect man (Derek Jeter perhaps), have 4 or 5 kids, a large house in a big city and been members of a small community church. None of which has come true. But I am more than okay with that because I see just how completely God is in control and how His plans are greater and more importantly, always correct.  I feel like if God had given my the life I dreamed of, I would not have been happy; I would have resented my kids, disagree with my husband and complain about it all to anyone who would listen. I'm very thankful God has had the control in my life and not me

Here is a picture of me in 1996 - I was 19. This was on a road trip to Tennessee. We stopped in Virginia for church. This is with my 2 best friends at the time; my brother Jon and our best friend Josh.

love

I have always loved little kids. I started babysitting when I was 12; and with a few rare exceptions, I loved babysitting more than any other job I have had.  (there was this one girl that I'm convinced was possessed by a demon, but other than her ...).  I was given the gift of being "good" with kids. I'm good with babies, toddlers, elementary kids and surprisingly even teenagers.

When I was a teenager myself, I dreamed about getting married and having kids.  I thought for sure I would have 5 or 6 kids; my plan was to be a stay at home mom; that was my highest aspiration. Even when I was in college, I did not envision trying to get a degree that would provide me with a career that I would retire from.  I was mainly there to find something to "tide me over" until Mr Right came along and my life could "start". 

Obviously, God had a much different plan for my life.  I watched all my friends get married and start their families.  I made new friends and again, watched them get married and start their lives together.  Somewhere in that time frame, God had to teach me the very difficult lesson on contentment.  But thankfully, I learned that lesson and have never looked back from there.

These days, I am doing everything in my power to be the world's best auntie.  And not just to my biological nieces (and maybe one day nephews) but to many of my friends' children as well.  I love making those connections with them; there is something almost magical when they want to show me their toy or give me a hug.  When seeing my face makes them smile.


Over the holidays, I was able to spend time with all of my nieces.  We were all together for New Years.  It was great! We made sugar cookies, which we decorated, we played games, put puzzles together, colored, etc. 

Someone fairly new to our family told me that I should adopt 20 kids because I was so great with them.  She said I was so patient and good with them.

Her comments made me think a lot.  She was right; I was really patient with them.  There were times that it was nuts when we were all together, but I wasn't stressed out, I didn't get upset at them, I didn't ever have to "force" myself to be sweet to them or show kindness.  It was interesting to ponder, because I'm never that patient or sweet or kind.  It's not exactly in my nature. 

Recently, the message at youth group was on "love" and we read through I Corinthians 13 and all the attributes of love: patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil, rejoices in truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

It occurred to me that when I was with my nieces, all of these attributes about love came so naturally to me.  It wasn't even something I thought about or had to force myself to be; it was as easy as breathing.

Why was it so easy for me to show this love to my nieces? Why does love for my co-workers not come this easily?  Why does love for the high schoolers in my youth ministry not come this easily? (i do love them, but i don't always have the same level of patience or kindness with them)

Who would I be if I showed the same type of love to everyone that I show to my nieces?