monday, january 10.

somehow i have managed to have a string of four day weekends all in a row. i am concerned about going back to normal life. for the second day in a row, i've woken up, taken the dog out, started the coffee, and hopped back in bed. with no intention of getting out again until i'm warm and properly caffeinated.

yesterday was a beauty of a day. after climbing back in bed with coffee, a warm pup, my brother josh (who's in town from austin) piled in and we watched a hitchcock movie together until we were ambitious enough to go out in the snow. jared, maria, and winnie came over and i baked some honey cornbread and eggs, and more coffee (clearly).

we then bundled up and made our way down to the neighborhood park where friends were planning to meet us. all of plaza midwood was playing out in the snow, and all the dogs ran around and played, and winnie seemed to handle the cold a little better this time.

after playing for a bit, it was time to rescue rebecca from her treacherous walk to the park. beu and i drove to find her, and picked up lydia on our way back to my house.

all of us ended up settling in at jared and maria's for the day. we watched toy story, popped popcorn, and warmed up while winn slept the afternoon away. later, josh, lydia, becca and i ventured out to the grocery store for sustenance. we made a plan, split up, got the goods and headed home with plenty of cookies and beer.

maria had been cooking dinner in the crockpot all day, so we got home and played a game until dinner was ready. winnie got her pajamas on and drifted to sleep, and we turned on the shining and ate our dinner in the dark.

after the movie, our little caravan headed out into the snow to drop everyone off at their prospective homes.

it was a great day. dare i say, a perfect one. by the end of it, i was wishing we could all just live in one big house, or you know adjacent smaller houses and cook and eat together all the time.

and then i remembered we can.

january.

the holidays are over now. many times this first week of the new year has a feeling of sadness lingering over it. i don't feel that way this year. these last few weeks have been festive and lovely. every moment i wasn't working i packed in lots of hot chocolate and movies, 'ice skating' (meaning wine night), pizza parties, and new years eve karaoke.

we also got snow on christmas day this year, which has never happened. it was beautiful. jared has been off work all week and that has spoiled us all, i think. having him around and available felt so nice. festivities continued when maria's family came into town, and i ended out the week with a four day weekend.

so, instead of feeling sad that it's all over, i feel like i have a huge reserve of quality time stored up to last me for a little while, you know through the harsh winter.

more than anything though, i just feel really thankful for 2010. it has been a great year. it is odd to say goodbye to that entire decade (what do we call that? the 00's?). just about everything happened to me in those 10 years. high school, college, and the first half of my twenties.

anyway, real life starts back now, but as it turns out i like my real life.

so, happy new year everyone.

photo dump

here's an update from my phone.


beu on a hike



bethany and i on a balloon mission.



winn and auntie lo.









ginn and mesa on a very strange evening.



my girl.



new place.



one of my nanny babes all grown up.



spirit week at work. annie hall/jersey shore respectively.





black mountain/sufjan times.






autumn in nc.



jmac's birthday donut.



my car got violated.



tran wedding.













so that's the last couple of months in pictures.

surprised.

sometimes i wish there was a really natural platform for sharing what God has done (is doing) in our lives. i mean, i don't feel like we need to have testimony night or anything, but there are groups of friends that have no idea what the Lord has done in my life (and vice versa) mostly because it feels too big to talk about quickly in between everything else.

maybe i'll just start talking about it here, because i feel pent up, and like i don't give Him enough glory. because honestly, most days i just want to talk about how unbelievable He is, and how He changed my life. and how i never thought i'd be able to talk like that about the Lord. ever.

i grew up in a wonderful home. my parents loved and sacrificed, not just for us but for our community. we saw (as kids) first hand what it looked like to pour everything out for other people. and we also saw what can happen when serving seems to blow up in your face. we made it through, like a lot of pastors families, hanging on by a thread. and all of it left me wondering who the Lord really is.

i remember trying so hard to love the Lord well, and never feeling like i succeeded. guilt for not measuring up started really early in my heart. like 4 years old, kind of early. so i grew, and began cataloging church experiences that i didn't understand. somewhere along the way, i stopped seeing the Lord and church separately. and to me, it became this bullying mutant in our family. a presence that we were just trying to survive.

growing up is hard for everyone, and it was no different for me. high school came along, and i struggled. my sophomore year brought with it a particularly messy church dispute, ending with our family leaving. i remember having to visit new churches after that, and not being physically able to leave the car. the thought of starting the whole process over paralyzed me.

we had all been hurt, and as a 15 year old girl, i felt like i had a gunshot wound that no one noticed. i had been striving my whole life to love the Lord right and well, and it wasn't working, clearly. so i walked around wounded, and i didn't ask for help.

at that point, i really withdrew and became hard. just mean and hard. school got worse with time, and i started eating for comfort, and by my senior year i couldn't even shop in the same stores as my friends. all of these things pushed me further into a black hole. just more excuses to stay angry.

this is where my story takes a turn into 'after-school-special' world.

my senior year, on a whim, i figured i should remedy my weight situation. decided to start weighing myself and to just generally try to eat better. by graduation, i had shed a lot of weight, and gained a ton of friends. things felt good and different, and i clung to these changes for dear life.

i headed off to college with fears looming over me about gaining the weight back. i think i felt like i had fixed my life, and still viewed the Lord as an extracurricular activity instead of a Savior. mainly because i don't think i really saw my need for one. my view of the Lord had more to do with willpower, than it did about surrender.

long story short, my desperation to keep the weight off led directly to an eating disorder. a five year long struggle that steamrolled my life. a secret that i worked full-time to protect, nurture, and hide. all of the anger that i had never talked through or shared was funneling straight back at me. and i hated myself.

i spent actual years of my life lying to people i loved about everything. by the fifth year, i was not functioning. i'd moved back in with my parents, and was in school (barely), and never left the house except to go to class.

my family knew, and they'd approach me about it once in a while, when things got especially bad. but i would just spew hatred back at them, and they'd back off. through all these years, i remembered the Lord but did not see how He could even fit into the mess. i figured i would find Him once i got it together again.

one night, in my parent's house, i read the book of romans start to finish. i remember starting to understand that things weren't going to be fixed by my willpower. my parents went out of town soon after that, and i had a particularly bad weekend. when they returned, i told them that i was ready to stop trying to remedy the situation on my own.

less than a week later, i was on a plane to a treatment facility in arizona. that is still one of the scariest things i have ever done. but the alternative, continuing on in the state i was in, felt the scariest.

my brother, jared, was in college at the time. he had been really active in confronting me, and was a big reason that i decided to go. he surprised me and drove up to say goodbye before i left, and that visit still breaks my heart to remember.

the memories of arriving in arizona are still vivid. i felt like an impostor. i kept thinking that compared to everyone else there, i really had it together (ha). i could write a book on each day i spent there, truly. but, what happened in a matter of words, is that i fought the Lord. i gave myself permission to disregard Him. it felt like there was a concrete slab between us.

more than once, my roommates (in treatment) would complain that i was waking them up at night because i was talking in my sleep, i asked them what i was saying, and they told me every night i would pray and just say Jesus' name.

and that just annoyed me.

i don't have a specific moment that i remember, but somewhere in all that fighting and disregarding, i met the Lord. like really met Him, and got an idea of His real character. and i just remember feeling completely gutted. and He saved me, and pulled me out of a black hole, so deep and selfish and ugly.

three years later, i'm still surprised by it. i am so surprised that after all the ideas i had about who He was, i was so wrong. He is so much better. infinitely better.

and He is healing me, every day.

out of touch

well, now that october is almost over, i thought i'd check in. i am right in the middle of moving right now, which makes me crazy. actually an insane person. i get heartburn just thinking about it.

but--it is the perfect october day today. lots of rain and leaves blowing everywhere. i received a text early this morning from my old nanny family asking me to fill in today. which is great because i need all those dollabillz during moving times. my nanny babies aren't babies anymore, but they are so fun. they're supposed to be napping, but jenna is bossing her animals around in her crib.

times are a little hard right now. it's been one of those months where it seems like i'm not capable of making one right decision. it has been a little sobering. everything that is going on right outside my door seems to be things i should have learned to overcome long ago. obviously, that's why they're still knocking on my door at all hours. isn't that the worst?

things have been pretty silent with the Lord these last few weeks as well. i think when i am in the thick of it, i turn everything off. i scurry around and try to fix things (unsuccessfully), and go to bed a little scared of what tomorrow might bring my way.

today is bringing new perspective, and i see the light at the end of this funk.

there is a lot more to say, but i am out of practice. and i already feel winded from this tiny blogging effort.

harvest

anytime i spend too much time inside, i get restless.

all i can dream about is walking around my farm one day.
for now though, taking beulah down to the park after work is motivation enough to finish this week well.

one day.
one day i'll bake my pies on my farm.

distracted

i am writing because i would like to be distracted from my duties for this evening. which include kitchen and bathroom cleaning.

the worst.

i remember not being able to go out as a teenager until i cleaned my room up, so i would really try to get motivated to clean, but would always get distracted by things i found along the way. old notes passed during classes, or movie ticket stubs or whatever it happened to be. oh gosh, old diaries were the best. usually mortifying, always entertaining.

anyway.

this week has been strange. no way around it. last friday, beulah got into some baking chocolate while i was out, and it was very hard to tell how much she'd eaten, but a couple of ounces can be lethal for her weight range. she ended up throwing some up, and is totally fine now, but sheesh, i thought i was gonna lose my buddy for about 12 hours. and it was awful.

hmmm, work is lovely. mainly because of the ladies i work with. we make coffee together every morning, and really just enjoy each other. my job makes me thankful.

i feel a little like 2010 is slipping through my fingers. things are going to speed up now, and before you know it, it'll be new years. and 2011, etc.

i should change the music and get motivated to finish cleaning.

maybe in a few years i'll stumble on this blog and get distracted, trying to remember 2010.