"The principle is this: that in everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, and contracts are so many ways of surviving with success this breaking point, this instant of potential surrender.
"In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the Institution upholds a man and helps him on to the firmer ground ahead."
~G.K. Chesterton on marriage~
"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land."
~G.K. Chesterton on travel~
October 28, 2010
October 21, 2010
is off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Ounce!
ahem. yes. it's been a little while.
I can't tell you how many times I've opened a page to start a new post and just haven't gotten to it. life is crazy. which is why I'm taking a vacation.
*is extremely excited*
this time tomorrow I'll be at our family condo in eastern WA. all by my onesy. maybe doing a puzzle, or watching a movie, or eating cookie dough, or soaking in the jacuzzi, or journaling, or reading something that has nothing to do with school, or SLEEPING (I'm really excited for this one), or cooking breakfast. because who says you can't have breakfast at 9:30 PM?
so yeah. I've been working my tail off to get all my homework for the week done so I don't have to take anything with me. if you're taking two natural sciences and a social science, you know how hard this is to do. but I've just about done it (one more assignment to finish up tonight, and a quiz to take in the morning before I leave). then I head to Safeway to get gas and the season's first satsumas, and I'm off! I'm not even bringing my laptop. because I need to relax, and I can't do that if I have my laptop. no, I'm bringing the heating pad that makes my back feel good, and aromatherapy oils to burn in the diffuser, and wonderful-smelling bubble bath, and a giant quilt and down comforter. lots of books and lots of blank paper. and movies. and FOOD. lots of that too. :P
other than planning and preparing for this trip, I've just been busy extricating myself from the many commitments I foolishly made this month. things are starting to settle down once again. I'm loving work, and may soon start working three days a week at Menchie's (yay!). teaching is also going well. Bath and Body Works is not going so well, mostly just because I never get any hours there (or if I do, I'm on call and I end up not needing to go in). if I'm able to work three days a week at Menchie's, I'm going to quit Bath and Body. I spend more time just working out all the glitches in the scheduling there than I do actually working, and it's stressful, frustrating, and ridiculous. it's not worth a maximum of one shift per week.
last weekend on worship was incredible. I still can't quite put words to it, but the best I can say is that I've never felt such love and care from and for people as I did with my worship team. we have truly become family to each other, and it's the biggest privilege in the world to play together every three weeks. it's amazing to see how these relationships have developed, how much we care for each other all the time, not just when we're on worship.
we have this little ritual, after we finish playing the set before the sermon, we all hang out for a couple of minutes behind the church while my friend Bret has a cigarette, and we talk about how the music went and what things went terribly wrong, and what we could do better. then we usually walk around to the front of the building and either sit in for the sermon or hang out in the foyer until it's time to play the set that comes after the sermon. last weekend we were behind the church just talking about everything and nothing, and ended up spending the entire sermon out there without realizing it. we'd been talking for nearly half an hour and it felt like five minutes, no joke. I think heaven will be a little bit like this. except even better, which I can't imagine yet.
I feel like every day I'm growing up. and it's not necessarily a successive thing either - I don't get farther along every day. sometimes I feel like I'm growing up today the exact same way I did yesterday. it feels new again too, and a little scary but a little exciting as well. Roger says that our journey through healing our hearts is like sweeping with a broom - you are moving somewhere, but with each sweep you cover a lot of ground you already covered. but I think I am learning that repetition is a good thing. I am learning a lot about marriage, which makes me wonder if I will ever be married. I am learning a lot about love; what it is and what it isn't. and sometimes it even changes around, so you really have to know your situation and the people you are with, and what is best at a particular time. for example, sometimes loving someone means giving them advice and godly council, telling them what they should do and how they can improve. sometimes it means just listening. a very wise person has been doing both for me lately, in some hard circumstances. but sometimes love means staying out of it. sometimes love and affection are opposite things, because someone has to work through their own issues and not have a friend who might enable them to take an easier route. sometimes the right path is the hardest one, and you have to walk it alone - knowing that your friends do love you (in the sense that love is deliberate action, or deliberate non-action in some cases), and are praying for you, but can't help you learn what you have to figure out for yourself. Bret says that sometimes ideals get mixed up with preferences. Meaning that what we really want deep down because we know it to be right, gets mixed up with what our flesh wants. and that's when we have problems and love gets tricky.
I'm not sure if any of this makes sense - perhaps you have to be inside my head. there are a lot of things I would love to share that would make it all make sense, but I just can't, yet. maybe someday. God is doing some amazing and incredible things though, and I thank you for your prayers and even more for your friendship, even when I'm the friend who drops off the face of the earth.
alright. now I'm going to finish homework, and finish packing, and then go to bed, because the sooner I go to bed, the sooner tomorrow will be here!
I can't tell you how many times I've opened a page to start a new post and just haven't gotten to it. life is crazy. which is why I'm taking a vacation.
*is extremely excited*
this time tomorrow I'll be at our family condo in eastern WA. all by my onesy. maybe doing a puzzle, or watching a movie, or eating cookie dough, or soaking in the jacuzzi, or journaling, or reading something that has nothing to do with school, or SLEEPING (I'm really excited for this one), or cooking breakfast. because who says you can't have breakfast at 9:30 PM?
so yeah. I've been working my tail off to get all my homework for the week done so I don't have to take anything with me. if you're taking two natural sciences and a social science, you know how hard this is to do. but I've just about done it (one more assignment to finish up tonight, and a quiz to take in the morning before I leave). then I head to Safeway to get gas and the season's first satsumas, and I'm off! I'm not even bringing my laptop. because I need to relax, and I can't do that if I have my laptop. no, I'm bringing the heating pad that makes my back feel good, and aromatherapy oils to burn in the diffuser, and wonderful-smelling bubble bath, and a giant quilt and down comforter. lots of books and lots of blank paper. and movies. and FOOD. lots of that too. :P
other than planning and preparing for this trip, I've just been busy extricating myself from the many commitments I foolishly made this month. things are starting to settle down once again. I'm loving work, and may soon start working three days a week at Menchie's (yay!). teaching is also going well. Bath and Body Works is not going so well, mostly just because I never get any hours there (or if I do, I'm on call and I end up not needing to go in). if I'm able to work three days a week at Menchie's, I'm going to quit Bath and Body. I spend more time just working out all the glitches in the scheduling there than I do actually working, and it's stressful, frustrating, and ridiculous. it's not worth a maximum of one shift per week.
last weekend on worship was incredible. I still can't quite put words to it, but the best I can say is that I've never felt such love and care from and for people as I did with my worship team. we have truly become family to each other, and it's the biggest privilege in the world to play together every three weeks. it's amazing to see how these relationships have developed, how much we care for each other all the time, not just when we're on worship.
we have this little ritual, after we finish playing the set before the sermon, we all hang out for a couple of minutes behind the church while my friend Bret has a cigarette, and we talk about how the music went and what things went terribly wrong, and what we could do better. then we usually walk around to the front of the building and either sit in for the sermon or hang out in the foyer until it's time to play the set that comes after the sermon. last weekend we were behind the church just talking about everything and nothing, and ended up spending the entire sermon out there without realizing it. we'd been talking for nearly half an hour and it felt like five minutes, no joke. I think heaven will be a little bit like this. except even better, which I can't imagine yet.
I feel like every day I'm growing up. and it's not necessarily a successive thing either - I don't get farther along every day. sometimes I feel like I'm growing up today the exact same way I did yesterday. it feels new again too, and a little scary but a little exciting as well. Roger says that our journey through healing our hearts is like sweeping with a broom - you are moving somewhere, but with each sweep you cover a lot of ground you already covered. but I think I am learning that repetition is a good thing. I am learning a lot about marriage, which makes me wonder if I will ever be married. I am learning a lot about love; what it is and what it isn't. and sometimes it even changes around, so you really have to know your situation and the people you are with, and what is best at a particular time. for example, sometimes loving someone means giving them advice and godly council, telling them what they should do and how they can improve. sometimes it means just listening. a very wise person has been doing both for me lately, in some hard circumstances. but sometimes love means staying out of it. sometimes love and affection are opposite things, because someone has to work through their own issues and not have a friend who might enable them to take an easier route. sometimes the right path is the hardest one, and you have to walk it alone - knowing that your friends do love you (in the sense that love is deliberate action, or deliberate non-action in some cases), and are praying for you, but can't help you learn what you have to figure out for yourself. Bret says that sometimes ideals get mixed up with preferences. Meaning that what we really want deep down because we know it to be right, gets mixed up with what our flesh wants. and that's when we have problems and love gets tricky.
I'm not sure if any of this makes sense - perhaps you have to be inside my head. there are a lot of things I would love to share that would make it all make sense, but I just can't, yet. maybe someday. God is doing some amazing and incredible things though, and I thank you for your prayers and even more for your friendship, even when I'm the friend who drops off the face of the earth.
alright. now I'm going to finish homework, and finish packing, and then go to bed, because the sooner I go to bed, the sooner tomorrow will be here!
October 4, 2010
when the moon fell in love with the sun/all was golden in the sky/all was golden when the day met the night
So.....I don't have any new food stuff to put up. Or rather, I do, but I'm too lazy to go get my camera right now to get the pics. But pumpkin crepes, coming soon! I also tried using up extra coconut milk with baked bananas in coconut milk. but it didn't taste so great, so I now have to think of something creative to do with baked bananas. Banana pumpkin bread? I don't know. Still have coconut milk and I'm thinking about coconut pudding..............
But anyway, I thought I'd just put up a post about me. Since this is my blog and it's all about me anyway, self-centered as that is. :P I'm kind of crazy between work and school, but my matra is that variety is the spice of life, and I'm honestly enjoying splitting my time between school and three different jobs. I think I would actually get bored if I only worked one place and did school. Not having time for a social life isn't too bad, as half of my friends (the ones I physically see more often) are off at school now anyway.
School kind of sucks - the best part about it (besides the epicness of choir every morning, of course) is the variety.....botany lab with certain people monday, lectures tuesday and thursday (in which I pretty much just chat with my adorable friend Christina), bio lab on wednesday with different people, and only choir on fridays. Homework is killing me, but the school part is really quite easy, thankfully. Sooooo much reading though. I think geography might be getting more interesting though, which is good because I've literally been falling asleep trying to read the textbook. Worse than any other class/textbook I've had to deal with yet. But I'm figuring out how all the homework works and what days I need to do certain things, so even that is calming down.
Menchie's is fun. Slowing down a bit, because of the weather. I love that all my coworkers there are so nice and so much fun, and not working the closing shift anymore is incredible. I love being with customers more and less cleaning, but above all not having to do the late nights. Getting a little more sleep is going to save my sanity this quarter. :)
Bath and Body Works is also really fun! I've worked (during store hours) three times now, and I'm really starting to get the hang of it. And it's weird, but I still love interacting with customers. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't been in retail long enough, or if it's just that God has wired me to like working with people. I love getting the focus off of myself and trying to help someone else and make them happy, and generally the people who come into both stores are already fairly happy. So it all contributes to a really positive atmosphere, which is fantastic. Even when I don't want to go to work, as soon as I get there I'm energetic and upbeat and it usually carries through the rest of the day as well. What's also nice is that as the work at Menchie's gets a little slower, Bath and Body Works is really picking up because of the holidays. And piano is.....haha, well it's piano. I love it and it's exhausting. But I'm starting to think Christmas music, for myself and for some more advanced students, which is fun.
Family stuff is still interesting. Still can't go into details, but please pray for my family. Things are generally getting better, meaning that God is working for good even in some bad situations that are going on, but it's still difficult and there are some great days and some really bad days too. Some dear friends of mine have been so encouraging, and I think the biggest comfort is just being reminded of the goodness of God, and knowing that people are praying for me all the time. Our God is amazing and I'm reaching the point where it's not so difficult to praise Him, and to see Him at work, even in the midst of pain. Crazy funny, but our pastor is starting a new sermon series about Job (kind of) and life during trials. That is also encouraging!
I'm soooooo excited about fall, and looking ahead of that to Christmas! We have pumpkin fro-yo at work now and I had some tonight with graham cracker crumbs, caramel syrup, and a mini cinnamon roll, and it was SO AMAZING! I'm baking a lot with pumpkin. The weather is just beautiful, even when it's raining. I can wear scarves and sweaters again!
It's also a busy season for me with some annual stuff that is coming up. MissionsFest Seattle is this weekend and I'm going up on Saturday, which I'm really looking forward to. I always learn so much there, and meet amazing people, and it's just such an awesome time of seeing what God is doing all over the world and where He is leading His people. Next up is our church's harvest fest, which is Peter Pan themed and I am Wendy. I'm also in charge of cookie decorating, my goodness. Lots of kids, lots of frosting = hectic. :P
In a couple of weeks I'm taking a personal weekend and heading over to our family condo in eastern WA for a couple of nights to myself. I plan to bring lots of paper and pens, junk food, puzzles, maybe some movies and books. But I have the feeling I could use some introspection time and that maybe something will happen there, that maybe God will be telling me something there, when I actually make the time to listen. I'm not sure, but I'm really looking forward to it.
November brings the Christian Musician Summit up at Overlake, and finally I am going!!!!! I went once or twice, years and years ago with our old church. I was a terrible keyboardist then and don't remember much from those trips. But now I'm a fair keyboardist and have much to learn, and I'm so looking forward to how I can improve myself through the workshops and stuff there. Plus half the people from our church's worship teams are going and we're all sitting together, so should be a fun time. :)
And now, dear friends, I am tired and since the weekend is over and I have to get up early (did I mention I started jogging before school??) I'm off to bed. I hope this little update finds you all well and enjoying autumn as much as I am!
But anyway, I thought I'd just put up a post about me. Since this is my blog and it's all about me anyway, self-centered as that is. :P I'm kind of crazy between work and school, but my matra is that variety is the spice of life, and I'm honestly enjoying splitting my time between school and three different jobs. I think I would actually get bored if I only worked one place and did school. Not having time for a social life isn't too bad, as half of my friends (the ones I physically see more often) are off at school now anyway.
School kind of sucks - the best part about it (besides the epicness of choir every morning, of course) is the variety.....botany lab with certain people monday, lectures tuesday and thursday (in which I pretty much just chat with my adorable friend Christina), bio lab on wednesday with different people, and only choir on fridays. Homework is killing me, but the school part is really quite easy, thankfully. Sooooo much reading though. I think geography might be getting more interesting though, which is good because I've literally been falling asleep trying to read the textbook. Worse than any other class/textbook I've had to deal with yet. But I'm figuring out how all the homework works and what days I need to do certain things, so even that is calming down.
Menchie's is fun. Slowing down a bit, because of the weather. I love that all my coworkers there are so nice and so much fun, and not working the closing shift anymore is incredible. I love being with customers more and less cleaning, but above all not having to do the late nights. Getting a little more sleep is going to save my sanity this quarter. :)
Bath and Body Works is also really fun! I've worked (during store hours) three times now, and I'm really starting to get the hang of it. And it's weird, but I still love interacting with customers. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't been in retail long enough, or if it's just that God has wired me to like working with people. I love getting the focus off of myself and trying to help someone else and make them happy, and generally the people who come into both stores are already fairly happy. So it all contributes to a really positive atmosphere, which is fantastic. Even when I don't want to go to work, as soon as I get there I'm energetic and upbeat and it usually carries through the rest of the day as well. What's also nice is that as the work at Menchie's gets a little slower, Bath and Body Works is really picking up because of the holidays. And piano is.....haha, well it's piano. I love it and it's exhausting. But I'm starting to think Christmas music, for myself and for some more advanced students, which is fun.
Family stuff is still interesting. Still can't go into details, but please pray for my family. Things are generally getting better, meaning that God is working for good even in some bad situations that are going on, but it's still difficult and there are some great days and some really bad days too. Some dear friends of mine have been so encouraging, and I think the biggest comfort is just being reminded of the goodness of God, and knowing that people are praying for me all the time. Our God is amazing and I'm reaching the point where it's not so difficult to praise Him, and to see Him at work, even in the midst of pain. Crazy funny, but our pastor is starting a new sermon series about Job (kind of) and life during trials. That is also encouraging!
I'm soooooo excited about fall, and looking ahead of that to Christmas! We have pumpkin fro-yo at work now and I had some tonight with graham cracker crumbs, caramel syrup, and a mini cinnamon roll, and it was SO AMAZING! I'm baking a lot with pumpkin. The weather is just beautiful, even when it's raining. I can wear scarves and sweaters again!
It's also a busy season for me with some annual stuff that is coming up. MissionsFest Seattle is this weekend and I'm going up on Saturday, which I'm really looking forward to. I always learn so much there, and meet amazing people, and it's just such an awesome time of seeing what God is doing all over the world and where He is leading His people. Next up is our church's harvest fest, which is Peter Pan themed and I am Wendy. I'm also in charge of cookie decorating, my goodness. Lots of kids, lots of frosting = hectic. :P
In a couple of weeks I'm taking a personal weekend and heading over to our family condo in eastern WA for a couple of nights to myself. I plan to bring lots of paper and pens, junk food, puzzles, maybe some movies and books. But I have the feeling I could use some introspection time and that maybe something will happen there, that maybe God will be telling me something there, when I actually make the time to listen. I'm not sure, but I'm really looking forward to it.
November brings the Christian Musician Summit up at Overlake, and finally I am going!!!!! I went once or twice, years and years ago with our old church. I was a terrible keyboardist then and don't remember much from those trips. But now I'm a fair keyboardist and have much to learn, and I'm so looking forward to how I can improve myself through the workshops and stuff there. Plus half the people from our church's worship teams are going and we're all sitting together, so should be a fun time. :)
And now, dear friends, I am tired and since the weekend is over and I have to get up early (did I mention I started jogging before school??) I'm off to bed. I hope this little update finds you all well and enjoying autumn as much as I am!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)