well, there is the one thing...

rereading the previous blog post makes me realize i am not being totally honest even with myself by reporting a HUNKY DOREY on everything in my life.

there is one little big thing that i could use some prayer support on.

my health and weight right now is atrociously out of control. thank GOD i am a healthy person, but my battle of up and down up and down up and down weight for years is once again taking its toll on me.

and i don't know what to do. which is probably a good thing.

see, i know we are supposed to submit our minds, our hearts AND our bodies to the Lord. He gave em to us, and He wants to manage em with us. and for me, weight has always been a key point of control in my life. if i'm "doing well" i am eating right and exercising and thin, and if i am "doing badly" i am eating too much and using food for comfort and i am a failure.

me, me, me, me, me.

i want to change that around. i want to GIVE this whole chubby little body to Him, and let Him make what He will of it :) i want to break free from the chains of weight and the implied standards the world has set for us as women. i want to feel good. AND look good, but mostly feel attractive and healthy.

i want to kick this weight problem forever. by giving it to the Lord!

any ideas how to do that?

:)

loss for words

well, finally the thrill seems to have worn off.

i cannot think of anything to blog about. and it's bugging me. it's hard to believe it's been a week, and i haven't even been on vacation! usually stuff just "pops" into my head, and there you go, i put it out here.

this week, nothing. i am only slightly concerned to have a creative "blog block" - it does probably have something to do with the weather. but anyway, here's the rundown of the past week:

the yard is doing fine, even though my front lawn is unexplicably dead. Glad the chemlawn guy that charges $160 bucks a year didn't mention that.

the job is fine with some new projects coming up, but time to breathe in the meantime.

the boyfriend is fine even though he is now working 7 days a week, and if i try to tell him too long a story, his eyes glaze over.

the cat is fine, even though her claws have GOT to go.

and finally, i hope the bloggirls are fine, i need to read some posts and catch up this week!!!

working it off

ah. much like Karen and Monkey having potato chips after a school exercise program, i have decided to treat myself for gardening.

i bought this on Friday. um. 3 days later and the carton is almost gone. i'm afraid the "reward" is outweighing the physical exertion, literally.

i like to just take a whopping spoonful every time i walk by the fridge. which has apparently been quite often this weekend.

:)

psalm sunday

What you're after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
Psalm 51:4

oh happy me

well. i guess the spending fast is officially over. not only have i been to three greenhouses in the last 24 hours (but i did find a dwarf cherry tree for the beginning of my Back Forty orchard dream) BUT

i have almost test-driven a nissan xterra,

i have purchased 2 pairs of flip flops, and 2 new shirts,

i have bought a new doormat, garden hose and green canvas purse,

and I HAVE BEEN SHOPPING ONLINE.

i was oh-so-close to pushing the BUY button on a new quilt at the company store just this morning. see, i love grandma quilts. always have. my grandma did NOT quilt, but you would think she did by the way i love handpieced quilts. over the years, i have probably purchased 5 or 6 of them, i cannot remember ever having any other kind of comforter on my bed.

the company store has beautiful quilts, usually in the $175-$200 range for my bed size. so, i was looking in the clearance bin. they had a really pretty one for $99, but still. so i hesitated before pushing.

then, in a store i never would have expected, it has "shop" in the name, i found THIS. woo hoo! i think i like it even better than the company store one! 100% cotton, hand-quilted, and LOOK AT THE FABRIC! see the fake cheetah fabric? see how it goes with my elephant painting? see how it manages to mix cheetah fabric, elephant paintings and grandma quilts all into one gigantic visual utopia?

best part. on clearance for $40 bucks, down from $99.

:))))))))
ah. i am at peace.

the madness begins

well, it's finally HERE. the season i have been waiting for!

yesterday at about 2pm, i decided to go transplant a few daylilies in my back yard. i have a "junk" garden that needs to go this spring, and there are some bright orange holdovers from mabel's previous owner, a woman named Rose. i tried to keep many of her perennials from when i moved, although none of them are in the original location. i planted 50 plants along the back of the garage, i hope they grow there!

i also spent my first $57 at menards, got some hiacinth and daffodil cuties and a trio of creeping phlox to put over my rock wall in the back. oh, and a new hose and bunches of leaf bags.

of course, i became obsessed after that one little taste of dirt. i ended up going til 8:30 last night, and have 5 giant bags full of dead plant gunk to show for it. but i also have a pretty good start at getting all of my perennials "uncovered." for fun, i like to look at last year's photo from may 22nd. in only a month, i'll go from this to that!

too bad i cannot walk today, or i might take a stroll and enjoy the little babies that i unearthed!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5124669

my dear friend k~ has started up an etsy shop to sell her crafts. she is amazing. felted bags, crocheted items, and other stuff she "hand crafts" will be up there at some point!

look at the happy bag i just saw on there :)

new favorite thing

thanks to the hundred dollar store.

$3.99 a 4-pack.

love love love it.

><((((º>

Look what i learned how to draw.

MacWeekend

Kristie and i had plenty of men in our all girls weekend...both of them named Mac.

Mac #1 - both of us are pretty sure we had eye contact with him at the concert. not sure what he was saying, but it made us happy :)

Mac #2 - this little guy got us where we were going, and gave us a false sense of confidence about driving in the city. note to self: do NOT take a "short cut" turn into the metrodome parking lot at 10 pm on a saturday night during baseball season, if you want to find a dairy queen in record time.

:)

beautiful day

one of the "bennys" of living in a designated "bad" area of town, is that one day a year, you get free curbside garbage removal!

my "heap" would have probably been alot larger, but i just got started at 6:30 last night after a weekend long out-of-town trip. i did haul a bunch of crap to the curb, and even had my neighbors company help me bring the old toilet that has been in my garage for a year and a half! woo hoo. i will finally be able to sweep the garage.

the interesting part was the "shoppers" tooling around the neighborhood last night. i unloaded about HALF of my stuff into the truck of a native family. the kid was so happy to get my old ten speed from college! and the woman got rugs and a couple old chairs. it was silly. i wanted to have them come in the house and pick up some more stuff, just to see the look on their faces!

anyway, unfortunately i spent most of the weekend acquiring more "stuff" so i came out about even in the matter.

crime drama

http://blogs.argusleadermedia.com/voices/

i love crime dramas on tv. law and order, and although it's been awhile since i watched, csi.

this week, i have been watching a real-life courtroom drama unfold, via the internet. sadly, it's happening right here in our "safe" little town. a woman has been accused of murder. not just any murder, but a love-triangle murder. those kind get lots of attention. and not just any death, but a gruesome one, in which the victim was dismembered with a chain saw.

it's really compelling. and our local newspaper, with a rare moment of clarity about delivering actual NEWS, has decided to let a reporter blog about it in real time.

amazing to be a part of this, through the reporter's eyes.

i do admit it has cut into my work week some though!

raaaaaaaah.

okay. i did it. looked outside because it's a gosh darn BLIZZARD out there.

shoot.

denial

i COULD be blogging about the snowfall i woke up to, or the fact that snow is predicted for my weekend in minnesota which i am so longing for.

i COULD be blogging about the fact that every gardening blog i read says that the crappy cold weather we are having will most certainly ruin almost every perennial plant there is for the whole season, and for me that's alot of plants.

i COULD be blogging about today being kind of depressing around here, because i hate gray snowy days.

instead, i will blog about PIZZA. because PIZZA makes me happy. i have discovered frozen pizza that is SO GOOD. it's from California Pizza Kitchen. i bought my first one at target a few weeks ago, the sicilian. mmmmmmm, spicy.

then, last night i dug into my second one, a garlic chicken that i bought at wal-mart, of all places. this pizza was as good as our local fancy pizza place, spezia, serves. thin, crispy crust and SO MUCH FLAVOR.

mmmm. might go eat the leftovers for a breakfast snack, since i cannot look out the window.

crumb crisp coating

http://mirrors.digitalrave.net/files/audio/welles-orson-frozen-peas-spot.mp3

he he he. listen to this.

katie over at an unnamed agency in town just linked to a great site talking about the "creative process" and how sensitive artists are. which led to this even greater audio clip where Orson Welles loses his mind over a c0mmercial about peas.

i like how he is throwing a hissy fit, but still sounds so "proper" - easy on the ears, as he would say.

yep, this is about how important my job is some days also :)

chom-ping-broc-coli

at least somebody around here likes vegetables.

:)

the day

They took Jesus away.

Carrying his cross, Jesus went out to the place called
Skull Hill (the name in Hebrew is Golgotha),
where they crucified him, and with him
two others, one on each side, Jesus in the middle.
Pilate wrote a sign and had it placed on the cross.
It read:

jesus the nazarene
the king of the jews.

listening to this today

quotation wednesday

The price of anything is the amount of life
we exchange for it.
~Henry David Thoreau~

one up

between k #1 talking about her husband cleaning everything in sight, and k #2 talking about painting with her kids, i thought it only fitting to snap a shot at the mess under my desk. if you zoom in real close, you'll see the CLUMPS of dust that show this entanglement has been there awhile.

here's the scoop. i am afraid to death of this mass. i am SURE there are things in there that have absolutely no function. but in the interest of destroying the vital flow that DOES HAVE MEANING, i do not dare touch this.

at times, when larry my computer guy has been over, i have wanted with every core of my being to plead with him: "larry, i'll give you anything you want, just please help me remove this unsightly growth i have!!"

so far, i haven't had the guts to do it.

God glasses

wow. i feel like i woke up with slightly better vision today than i had yesterday. which is quite unusual, esp. since i have worn glasses since the third grade.

nope, not talking about my actual vision. today, i feel like i have my "God glasses" on! last night, i had my worship group over here and wow, we had a great night of prayer and praise! my house is still feeling it this morning!

okay, back to the god glasses. see, i used to think of myself as such a "smart" person. in fact, i think of all of the "identities" i have grasped onto in my life thus far (artsy girl, nature girl, small town girl, sensitive girl, funny girl, fat girl) - being the smart one was my very favorite. oh yeah, and i have been positively reinforced for being smart most of my life too. in school, and in my jobs - in my parents' case, it was a mixed blessing because most of the time i let them know i was smarter than THEY were, when i was growing up.

but these days, i have a differing opinion about my smarts. i have realized that i HAVE NONE unless i can see things the way that the Lord sees them. in Luke 10 (message bible, which i like lately), He talks about just this:

Jesus rejoiced, exuberant in the Holy Spirit. "I thank you, Father, Master of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the know-it-alls and showed them to these innocent newcomers. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.

so there you have it. once, i was a "know-it all" and now i am priviledged to be a newcomer to the family of God. i get to see what He shows me, when He shows me, and know great things that are the deep secrets of Himself. i don't know it all anymore, but what i do know is WAY more valuable!

i pray a round of God glasses for each of you today!

observation monday

is it just me, or are shoes INSANELY cute this spring?

not since the late 80s have i been so excited about all of these funky flats i am seeing!

:)

for i know the plans

well, woke up this morning with a "plan" - phillip laughs at this, because it really was loosely constructed. but to me, it was big. i decided to visit a new church today.

for awhile, i have been pondering if the Lord was ever going to move me from the place He first brought me. five and a half years ago, when the Lord first came to me and delivered His new plan for my life, He set me down at my current church. i had never gone to church before. to me, church was just a stuffy place where people went if something sad happened (funerals) or if they were lucky enough to get married. that was it, i had never put much more thought into it.

so it was quite a life change to begin attending church regularly. at first, it was not so easy. i did not feel comfortable in my new surroundings. but the Lord in His care for me saw that there were people that i could relate to, if the surroundings were kind of odd... Women, mostly, whom i still love and admire today. Dianne and Sher and Kit and Rachelle and Barbara and Anne and i'm sure more whom i am forgetting. They were there when i was hurting, there to give me hope.

but lately, i've been getting the itch to go deeper. for some reason, i am drawn to this side of town i live on (drawn enough to move here to live!) and another church is opening up a new "satellite" in our part of town. it's still a couple of miles away, but the neighborhood is the same flavor as the street i live on. meaning, it's NOT the most prosperous part of the city. there really are no "bad" neighborhoods in SF, but these lower income, older, sometimes neglected areas contain things like the meat packing plant and the penitentiary. for some reason, to me, it feels more comfortable over here.

i admit that today during the teaching (which is actually on videotape) i felt a stirring, things beginning to "make sense" - i also admit i am scared to leave my old new life behind! but on this Palm Sunday, the title of the sermon was "He makes all things new" and the gist of the sermon was how God changes the "landscape" of your life. the essence of it was about giving up control, granting the KING of all kings your life or your "land" - that if you think of your life as your "land" - then to give it to God was to give Him permission to grow something great on YOUR LAND. back to the gardening analogy of earlier in the week from deuteronomy (God likes to do that, to get His point across).

So today, i have asked the Lord in prayer:

God, i grant you permission to build your kingdom on MY LAND. Lord, you provide the seeds, the rain, the soil, the sun, and the Spirit which makes things grow. I ask you to forgive me for acting like the one in control. I thank you for the life you have laid before me, the garden that i have yet to see grow, and i ask you to bless every corner of it, as i give up my desire to guide it myself. i thank you for being the GREAT GARDENER and the One for whom i was created. i ask you to guide me as i listen for your voice, telling me which path i am to follow next.

amen!