body imagery

whew. finally went shopping for clothing yesterday. this has become a very low priority for me in the last years, as wearing my 'home pants' is way more common than it used to be. however, there is a time for acting like you care, and God is telling me that it's right now.

i wouldn't say i've had serious body image issues in my life, but i did spend a good chunk of it thinking that if i were thin, i would be happy. that particular line of thought is interesting to me now, and i cannot believe that at least 15 years was wasted in it. i guess what i now know is that if you cannot be happy with yourself no matter what you happen to LOOK LIKE, then you won't have joy later when you look differently.

that being said, i believe God chooses for us to be stewards of many things, including our bodies. i have not done that so well the last few years, mostly choosing food as my comfort over the stresses of life. it doesn't help that i love food. but anything we love first, before God, is a problem.

so, i'm owning up to it. it's weird when your particular sin is what others can plainly see. however, i am not hoping to be skinny, i'm hoping to be healthy. so giving up worrying what others see is probably on my list as well.

in any case, whether you are a size 4 or a size 16, i would highly recommend Gap jeans. i actually sprung for 2 pairs at (nearly) full price, and even a thrifty girl like me thinks they are actually worth it.

yay! here's to being cute! especially on the inside!



ps. i have no grand sermon about the shoes. but the shoes are pretty good, too :)

for my lovely kirsten

i am excited to visit you next month. i kind of wish it was next month right now.

i have a plan for us, let's make terrariums...?! i am obsessed with terrariums right now, and they are harder than they look!

i will find us some vintage clear jars. then, we can get some sand and dirt and carbon chips and cute little rocks and mini plants at the greenhouse.



ps. we can also do some things that you want to do :))

love you.
me

time travels

i love clocks. always have. i never needed an alarm growing up, that is one benefit of anxiety, i guess. if i have an early morning meeting, i usually wake up at 3am.

however, it's probably a good thing i have an internal alarm, because none of the clocks around here actually work. they are all wonky. i found this lovely center clock at the goodwill yesterday, in a wreckless visit that lasted about 12 minutes. it was $6 and i could see it's potential :)

ha. it actually runs, but the knob with which you can change the time is gone. i cannot for the life of me get it set. i suppose, technically, i might unplug it and wait for the EXACT correct moment to plug it back in. sigh. not sure i really care all that much.

if you do plan on coming over to my house, you might want to bring your watch with you :)



in other news, there is nothing like the feel of hot cement after a long, cold winter ;)) happy lovely wednesday!

good news bad news

so, i got my new glasses at noon today. i ended up purchasing from a place with 'mart' on the end. i could NOT justify spending $500-$600 for designer glasses. seriously people, i'm not designer anything, except i AM a designer. i'm sort of an oxymoron that way.

so, a student of mine recommended eye mart. i was so stunned at the price, i was doubtful. it's also been about 6 years since i had a new eye prescription, so i guess i was a little scared of change. the only bad thing about not changing, is that i could not see. which is a bit of a hindrance.

so, picked em up. everything was huge and bright and sparkled! i drove around town, amazed that i can see stop and street signs. seems like a good thing, right?

until i got home and sat down at the computer. dang it all. for some reason, i can no longer see the computer screen.


doh.


i wish old eyes did not happen...
i guess now i'll have to get a GIGANTIC computer monitor that i can sit several feet away from. that should solve everything ;)

breathe!

sigh. sigh of relief. today is the first 'normal' work day i have had in awhile. generally, mon-thurs has been kind of a blur. and friday has become 'catchup' day, which has somehow also bled into saturday or sunday, or both.

today, i have a normal list. i am learning a couple of things. for one, you miss stuff when you are always thinking about what you have not accomplished yet. you miss joy. you miss really listening to and being with your friends. you miss your yard.

yesterday, i called a couple of people and apologized that i did not have their stuff done yet. i told them that i would rather be honest and admit i am overbooked, and asked if they would forgive me. know what? both of them did, and now i have a bit more time on both of their projects. it really was not that hard to admit that i am a 1-person agency, and that 1 person sometimes cannot meet everybody's needs. schwew.

so, today is good. i still have a really full week, but somehow a weight has been lifted. i DO plan to go outside and poke around in the flower beds, and see what is coming up. i do plan to smile. i do plan to not plan every second out :)

i do hope you get to do the same! happy tuesday :)

thinking about things

spring is in the air, and i once again want to change everything in the house. i love it when motivation returns, but seriously, i cannot change the whole house every year, or every time i want to...even though it makes me happy to think of being surrounded by new.

i did choose a painting, it's the one above called 'meet you there' by judy paul. it really reminds me of psalm one, which is my new life motto. i really love the tree shape, and would somehow like to incorporate that into my setting if i can. we'll see. i have not pushed the 'buy' button yet. still praying about it, and making sure.

anyway, something inside of me is holding me back from just making a bunch of superficial changes. i get the feeling that God wants me to make a permanent shift this time around. to start seeing things from a whole new perspective. what if i did? what would i see? would it be hard or easy to see things from God's perspective? how do i start?

i read this story on a friends' facebook page on friday. it really stuck with me. it's written from a fellow who had the unthinkable happen. i think this made the news nationally, but esp. around here, where the 2 brothers are from originally. they were 2 great guys - brothers - and one needed a kidney transplant. both had families, etc, and the healthy brother proved to be a perfect match for his older brother who was sick. somehow, something went horribly wrong during the transplant procedure, and the GIVER of the kidney died. the sick brother lived. in fact, he is doing well. although both men were strongly Christian before, now the brother who survived says this:

Ecclesiastes isn’t an easy read. A king looks back on his conquests and muses the significance of all his work. The wisest of kings splits the difference between Heaven and earth with razor edged Truth. He deduces that life is no more than “spitting into the wind.”

I have to tell you, as if maybe you didn’t already know, that I concur. Something happened inside me when Ryan died that I thought would revert back at some point, but it didn’t. Color bled off the pages of life. As many times as I’ve seen a globe, I now saw a flat earth. I still can’t label the feeling – grief, depression, detachment. But I didn’t think much of it because I knew the stages and figured it slid nicely somewhere into one of those slots.

But it’s not a phase. Yes, wounds heal and memories soften.

But I think maybe, that perspective is how God means for us to see life here. What I mean is, this place has become our everything. And I don’t think it was ever meant to be. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t embrace the rich moments with family and friends. But I think it does mean to keep an eternal perspective so eternity is the backdrop to everything we do.

I never saw life from this perspective until that night. Who knows if I would have ever ‘got it’? Those that do get it without having to go through something like this – well, they have incredible insight. And I admire them.

you can go read his whole blog at: cometoofar.com

like chad, i want to 'get it.' i want to see beyond what looks to be the right direction, and see from God's seat what the right direction in life really is. that kind of choice involves more than just a casual prayer, or a once-a-week worship gathering. that kind of choice involves leaving this world behind. i admit that i kind of don't know how to do it. there are so many things i love here.

but today, pastor mentioned in his sermon that many, almost any of us, given a diagnosis of terminal anything, would not have a problem giving up our 'stuff.' we'd easily forfit the house or the job or the accolades or the goals or the WANTS just to LIVE.

i want to LIVE, really live, don't you? what if we just decided to do it, and asked God to help us?

day one

hi baby 'matos!

the promise

i woke up this morning with the 'onslaught' on my mind. at least 15 projects all swimming around in random, chaotic ways. the thing that God has blessed me to be able to do, once again trying to force its way into becoming my kingdom. determined, i turn to the Lord, who has not left me stranded without hope.

my devotional said this:
In multiplicity of duties you may lose sight of Me momentarily, but even in the most pressing circumstances you will discover My presence when you pause to worship Me silently in your heart. Never fear that activity will crowd Me out. I will be very real to you at all times if you do not let the confusion that is around you in the world invade your inner sanctuary.

in other words:
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:7

thank you Lord for a sanctuary. i keep thinking of my little screened-in porch, where i can look out and see all around me, but feel safe and protected and somehow the 'ugly' is filtered and i concentrate on the beauty.

thankful i have a road trip on the agenda today, so that i can be out in the middle of dakota, and praise and be with my very favorite One.

:) happy tuesday!

mondayness

check out the tangled situation in my office window today. I had to move some stuff to set up the 'greenhouse' so here we go. oh, and i had to cave and buy some mini daffodils at the grocery store yesterday. i'm pretty sure that real flowers in the house are more important than food or water. but not quite as important as coffee....love them.


speaking of tangled, take a look at bossie! she is crazy big still, even though a good share of her leaves on the back side of her fell off over the winter. i am so excited to bring her outside and repot her and get her going in her summer home! i have never had a fern live thru the winter. must be that bossie and i are meant to be.

so, i got the tomatoes planted, not sure what to put in the other little pods. flowers? zucchini? herbs? hmmmm. i also am going to try 'winter sowing' some flower seeds outside, in recycled milk/pop jugs. supposedly, they act like nature put them there, and grow as soon as the weather warms. fingers crossed for success! most of my seeds i actually direct sow in may, so i need to think of more ways to start NOW when i have the itch.



hmmm. what else. i went for a drive in the country yesterday afternoon, and MOST of the country around us is now a LAKE. serious flooding going on. pray for those folks if you think about it.

otherwise, all is well. God is planting some seeds in my head, too. i am pretty sure that if i take care of them, with His help they are going to be outta this world :)

"For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not
to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11

happy week everybody!

jump start!

woo hoo! i got the grow light in the mail just now! it's called the 'jump start.'

it took siesta approximately 13 seconds to get in on the new piece of machinery. i wish, like her, that i could crawl under that thing for awhile!! he he. i also love how non-high-tech it is. there is a little pulley system, you lower the light when the seeds are babies, but you can also have full-grown plants under there, if you want to. i want to.

i actually got my OWN personal jump start already this morning. a friend called, and we chatted about the amazing, supernatural, sooooooo coooool idea that God is in the process of downloading into her life. i mean it people, there are no ideas apart from God, and the ones that are purely from Him are PHENOMENAL.

i am so not worthy of even being a part of her idea, but i am sensing that God does have a place for me there. whoa. and to think i was kind of wishing for retirement just a short year ago. i don't think we'll EVER retire, even in Heaven, do you? i think God will always have a place for us to be a part of His plans, and the neat thing is, we won't be too tired or stressed out to want to. zowie, that's good ;)

he he.

anyway. since my post was kind of a downer this morning, had to share ;)

friday again?

wow. where did the week go? every morning it seems i wake up, and for a minute cannot remember WHO I AM. do any of you ever have this happen? my earliest memory of this experience was when i was a child, and fell asleep in the back seat of the car at night, coming home from somewhere. i still have moments like this, sadly, they are happening more frequently. yikes. so much for forgetting what day it is!

i shut the phone off several times this week. it was WONDERful. i will maybe even do it today, too. and looking at next week, which is full of taxes and meetings and campaigns and classwork and out-of-town travel, yep, i may try it again.

i thought that getting the iphone would make me have to talk on the phone more. alas, thankfully, it is not true.

anyway. i miss living. today, the ups man will bring me my mini greenhouse, and i WILL plant some seeds this weekend. and then, i will wait for them to sprout. and then, i will nurture them and encourage them and fuss with them as they are babies. and THEN i will get to go outside and be with them every day!!!

living is good. i must think of a way to do it today, actually.
happy friday!

adopted

love this video. love it.

i kind of like it when mac has his Jesus look going on, too. and that they have set that reminds me of the black crowes when i saw them in 1990.

but, it's good for other reasons, too :)

what year is it?

i guess you have noticed the lameness of my posts lately. you can always tell when life takes a big chunk out of me, because my blog tastes like a rice cake.

i laugh at the 'feast or famine' part of my life - a few short months ago i was living on savings, and contemplating going to a homeless shelter. now, i have more to do than 1 person can hold in their head, say nothing about actually achieve. i lay in bed at night asking for peace, and for God to attach a filter to me, and filter out the stuff that doesn't matter. i have a feeling a bunch of it doesn't matter, to be honest.

for instance, i have less than 6 weeks to go with teaching. i'll be relieved to be done, but kind of sad, too. i have been thinking about starting a mentoring program here in sf, because i really cannot bear to let some of my students go. the grading and talking about computers, i can let go!

i also am finishing up with my rural development grant from the past year. it's been hard, to be honest, but also kind of fun. i love small town SD, but the challenge of how to make small communities viable in the future is not something a new logo and color palette can easily solve. i have made some friends along the way, however.

new stuff? yeah. that, too. there are new logos and websites and brochures and nationwide launches coming out the wazoo. must be spring! enterpreneurial types like spring, i've come to figure that out.

sigh. i still have not planted my tomato seeds. my neighbor actually had his garden tiller out yesterday, attempting to till some mud. he makes me laugh, he always starts about 6 weeks before me, but God knows that plants will not grow until may, so we always end up the same in august. even so, i love his sense of hopefulness. and perseverance. someday, he is going to BEAT the weather, he just knows it. ha.

happy tuesday! at least i can remember what DAY it is...i am going to try and buckle down and concentrate on one thing until i feel like i have accomplished something good. better go fill the coffee cup first :)

he he he

seeking approval

u
whew. gotta get cracking today, working from 10-10 for some unknown reason!

i need your help, though. i have decided to buy a print by one of my favorite artists, judy paul....

not this month, probably. taxes are yet to come.

however, soon. very soon. which one do you think looks the most like 'me'?
i should make it clear that so far, i think they all look like me :)


happy wednesday!

day in the life

here's my day:

up at 6:52. not loving that it still feels like 5:52.

make coffee. apologize to God for all of the offenses of Monday. read bible. find out that God agrees about the offenses.

check computer. plan for 'hard project that i don't want to do' today.

answer a few emails. have breakfast.

answer some more emails.

talk to carey for an hour. decide that we both have 'hard projects we don't want to do.'

play fruit ninja. try to focus.

answer some more emails.

make lunch. grilled cheese and a pomegranate popsicle.

a little more fruit ninja.

email carey.

decide to blog about fruit ninja instead of digging into 'hard project.'






sigh. i can see this is going to be a loooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggg afternoon.

the crazies

i have been trying to think of something profound to post for a monday.

reality is that 'the crazies' have set in over here, and i cannot think of anything profound, only a million not-profound things. must. stop. thinking.

so, here's a baked potato pic. thanks to karen writes, my baked potatoes are now spectacularly good. almost, ALMOST profound, in fact :)


happy Monday!

off with her head!

schwew. i woke up this morning with NO headache, after catching a whopper of one last night. i never used to get headaches when i was younger. i wonder what the deal is. of course, usually when i have too much going on in my noggin is when i get them. usually thursdays.

i am glad it's friday, however. my 'break' week is almost over, and i got about 1/4 of the stuff i needed to get done, actually accomplished. it's always, ALWAYS feast or famine in advertising. after several months of famine, i need to keep working.

however, much of the week was spent contemplating God's way. a different way. His sacrifice for us, and whether or not we are actually living into the Promise. i want to do that, whether the 'to do' list gets accomplished or not. i want a priority shift, to His kingdom rather than my own.

so, i'll have my *yummy* homemade yogurt, and dig into the day. i am grateful for the sunshine and for all of the relationships in my life, and yes, the 'to do' list as well.

have a great friday, all!

are we there yet?

every new day that i wake up to snow makes me a little more riled up. as my friend Anne pointed out yesterday, SPRING WINS. always ;)

ha. anyway, i am almost ready to plant some of the first seedlings. not until next week. i have been debating and debating about whether or not to buy a little grow light and a warming mat, but i guess i did fine last year without. i'm not sure being a farmer is an inexpensive hobby. but the end results sure taste good :)

speaking of. i made a swiss steak in the crock pot last week, using some of my home made marinara that i cannot for the life of me remember how i made. it was very good. good thing, since i will probably never be able to make it again!

ps. siesta is ready for spring too. she has told me she is finally going to GET that squirrel that has been tormenting her thru the window all winter. should be interesting to watch.

finding home

Four designing women play with the iphone in the lobby of church.
clockwise, from upper left: anne, angela, jenni, me

i had such a great day yesterday!

even though i am extremely introverted MUCH of the time, i do enjoy filling up with people. i'm trying to remember what life was like without people who share faith, and sincerely love one another. i don't WANT to remember, actually. it was empty.

not to my surprise, the Lord spoke to me about this in my bible time this morning. the concept of being part of the church body, and finding your home there...your purpose, your aliveness. i like going somewhere where i can find my aliveness.

Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles,
some are slaves, and some are free.
But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit,
and we all share the same Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:13

if you sometimes wonder about what purpose God has for your life, i would contend that the answer is not to be found alone (although GETTING alone with God is always a good thing). i would contend that your purpose will be found as part of a community of believers, as part of the body, as set apart from the world, and into a place where he has reserved for His purposes.

and guess what? you will LIKE being in this place!

happy monday, all :)

the crazy ride

i seem to dream about weird escalators and staircases alot. i think the explanation that most 'dream interpretations' say about this is c.r.a.p. because i sincerely doubt that they mean i am 'moving through my spiritual journey with great progress and ease.'

which is not to say i'm not doing that, but whenever i have these dreams, i am stressed out. and tired. and overwhelmed. and i am going up staircases with no railings and perilous overhangs, and wide gaps with icky stuff down below, and weird twists and turns that it seems like i will not be able to maneuver.

my escalators aren't even pretty, like the one above. they are grey and menacing and BIG. and often on both insides and outsides of the building. and sometimes have parts of old buildings in my past, like my elementary school or the advertising agency that i used to work at. which, come to think of it, were quite similar ;)

he he.

anyway. i woke up this morning feeling somewhat normal. i think it might have been lack of sleep that caused me to go on 'the wild ride' last night. not sure. but i'm going to stay on flat land ALL DAY TODAY. seriously. not going to even venture down to the basement.

happy friday :)

the question

so, karen asked yesterday if it was true that you really could NOT take a bad picture with the hipsta on iphone.

after class last night, i decided to try.


funky pillow laying on the couch....pretty.


curly leaf coming out of my aunt's precious begonia plant...pretty.


princess collage by erika hanging on the wall....pretty.


aarp card that came in the mail yesterday...pretty!


me after a 14-hour workday....



CRAP.
i guess the iphone cannot do everything.

out-of-town meetings and clouds

it probably has something to do with naming my company 'pie in the sky' yesterday. today i was thinking about clouds, specifically of the cloud of glory that God made to lead the israelites around in the wilderness.



i was thinking this as i was driving to a meeting in the middle of *somewhere* on very icey roads.


i would have liked to see that cloud! especially toward evening, when it transformed to a pillar of FIRE. wow.


i was singing these chris tomlin lyrics as i went:

Where you go, I'll go
Where you stay, I'll stay
When you move, I'll move
I will follow you
Who you love, I'll love
How you serve I'll serve
If this life I lose, I will follow you
I will follow you

really, when you think about it, how easy is THAT? sometimes, i think we make it harder than it ever should be to be a christian.

i'll be totally honest here, i was also thinking 'you almost cannot TAKE a bad picture with the iphone hipstamatic!!'

:)



but mostly, i was thinking this: how wonderful it is that God has given us every tool we need in this world, in the form of the Holy Spirit, our 'glory cloud' that will lead us and take us everywhere we are meant to go. how simple, how gloriously simple, is that!!!

it was a good day for an out-of-town meeting.

And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.

Exodus 33:14-15