Feel better now.

Just a short note to say I feel better from my complaining blog earlier. My complaints still exist, but I have many blessings to report, just don't have any more time to blog for a couple days, and didn't want to leave my blog hanging on a negative note.

waaa.

I'll try to have a more cheerful post soon but right now I just feel like complaining. I guess that makes me a spoiled brat because I've got many blessings I could speak of, but all I can think about now is the things making me unhappy. I've had almost a whole week off work now and I have to go back tommorow, but I don't want to go back. ever. I like being at home. I like staying at home and making meals for Joel and keeping the place cleaner than usual and what not. The other complaint I have is that I got a brand new french press coffee pot for Christmas, and I liked it very much and it made very good coffee. After the first time I used it on Boxing day morning I accidentally dropped it and it shattered.

Also, I've mentioned on here before about how I've got these strong feelings that I want to become a mother. I've felt this way almost 2 years now, and it's getting worse and I cry about it probably a couple times a month now, even though I try not to dwell it. Maybe I'm just depressed because of the winter blues and I'm projecting it on to this issue. And if I'm being perfectly honest, the fact that so many people I know are now beginning or in the midst of their child raising years, doesn't make it easier on me. Ofcourse I'm happy for these people, I'm overjoyed for them, they are some of the dearest people in the world to me. And I want that kind of joy too.

Maybe I've had too much time off work and too much time to think. It's probably best that I go back to work tommorow.

They don't serve breakfast in hell.

I heard this song on the radio twice today. It's pretty new to me since I wasn't a Christian when it came out, and I just recently started trying to improve the messages that go into my ears by listening to free 100.3 instead of other radio staions while I'm in the van. But what do people think about this song? I don't like it. It's annoyingly catchy and I don't want it to play over and over in my head.

Pastor Leyton said today that joy and sorrow can exist in the same person at the same time. I needed to hear that because I was feeling guilty for feeling any joy when painful events are occuring in the lives of my family and friends. Now I don't understand this, but I guess that's how God made us, and that's how He is too, and it's good to feel deeply.

Violence in P.A.

I grew up in P.A. and my parents and brother still live there. Both my Dad and brother have had their lives in danger within the last year. A while ago, my dad was working (he used to deliver pizza as a side job) and he was jumped by a group of people and had his wallet stolen and was beaten to within an inch of his life, now every time I see my dad I'm reminded of this incident because all of his front teeth were knocked out. I'm posting about this now because last week my brother was at a going away party for one of his friends (not the type of party I would find myself at, but that should be irrelevant). Again, a group of people decided they wanted to crash this party, and thoroughly kicked the crap out of two of my brother's friends before one of his other friends called him to come outside to try and help the situation (this angers me, I don't know what they thought he was going to do). When my brother got outside one of the crashers pulled a knife, and my brother began to fear for his life, and made a poor decision, which I can't post here because it could get him in trouble. Let's just say the crashers are lucky to be alive, and my brother is lucky to not be in jail. I'm still stunned by this incident, can't believe this happened again to another member of my immediate family, and can't believe what my brother tried to do. I'm angry and confused and feel like I should do something but I don't know what. Not even sure what to pray, except maybe that my family's hearts would not be hardened by racism any further. God help us.

The Battle Continues

For the last week I've been trying not to watch TV, and utterly failing. I had asked Joel if we could get rid of the rabbit ears for awhile because I knew I wanted to stop wasting so much time and try to fill it with more important things. I could tell from his response that he wasn't thrilled with the idea. This is something I feel God leading me to do, but Joel wanted me to just not watch, and leave the rabbit ears alone. So I tried it Joel's way, and failed because I'm weak. So Thursday night I took them off and hid them, and now I have gone over 36 hours without watching any TV, and done devotions twice, as well as a load of dishes, while still working (today is my first day off). And Joel hasn't died or even asked me where they were. Hopefully I won't be so tempted to watch TV that I'll dig them out of their hiding place and put them back.

I have more to blog about, but it needs its own post.

There are only 4 paychecks left in this year. That's an odd way to measure time isn't it? Bear with me while I do some stream of conscoiusness blogging, because I'm not sure what to write, but wanted to post anyway. Why does life seem to revolve around money so much? Isn't money weird. It's a piece of paper or an electronic record that says one person deserves nicer, or better, or more stuff than another person. Or more vacations or nicer furniture for the bedroom or an hdtv with new max hdtv service. Why do I want these things? All that stuff is going to either help me waste more time or else its going to end up on the trash heap eventually. I can't even manage the stuff and time I do have proficiently, why do I want more? It's the end of the week, I've been working, so there's dishes all over, the kitchen's a mess and there's not many groceries, so I can't cook myself supper, even if everything was magically clean and organized I don't know what I would want to cook. So I ordered some pizza, as often occurs on friday or saturday nights because of this very same cycle. I want to do better, and keep a cleaner place, be more organized, eat more healthily, read more instead of watching tv, have less stuff laying around everywhere. I'm tired and crazy lazy, hey that rhymes. achahchhchcxcxg. There's no breaks. Just keep plugging away, and hopefully your head will stay above water, or at least not go under for that long. What else can you do? You can't fix everything all at once. In the words of my mom-in-law (and some self-help book she read), don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff. Come to think of it, I agree, mostly. Obvously it's not ALL small stuff, but most of the stuff I wrote about in this blog is mostly small. I think. Is it? I hope it is 'cause I'm not doing too good with some of it. I'm going to go read a recipe book and try not to cry now. Bye. Don't worry, deep, down I'm ok, I really am. Just had a little minor freak out. I'm so ok, I was thinking for a sec about not publishing this blog so as to not worry anyone. but I'm too lazy to write another blog . Ok Bye, for real.

Blink and it's next month

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted. Time is going by so fast. Physically, I'm doing much better compared to last month. Work is still steady but not as insane. They're sending home the people they sent in from around the province to help out this week. It's getting cold. Joel's birthday is in two weeks. He'll be 25. We're getting old. Sorry for all the short random thoughts, been going so fast these days I haven't had a chance to build the short random things into something meaningful.

I found this picture of Joel, and I think it's so cute, I wanted to post it. I'm going to have little kids that look like this someday.

Falling apart at the seams!

Well, my ankle is almost all better now. It just feels a little stiff. Joel and I have had kind of a rough month physically, though. Shortly after I sprained my ankle, Joel sprained something in his neck while he was sleeping. We think it was due to some repetitive strain his neck took at work from folding clothes. That took a few days to heal totally. Then about a week later, Joel got the flu, which took a few days for him to feel better. Now I did something to my back when I was sleeping and it hurts to move. It happened not last night but the night before, and towards the end of yesterday I thought I was feeling better, but after sleeping last night it feels worse again. It hurts every time I move it, which is why I'm not in church right now like I would like to be. Well, hopefully my back will be alright after another day of sitting around the apartment. If not, I have a physical booked for Tuesday anyway, so I'll ask the doctor about it then.

I'm on my four day weekend from work right now, and I had dreams of going on a fall hike somewhere. With the rain and my back, that doesn't look likely, sadly. But at least last night when my back wasn't feeling too bad, I got to see some friends and get out of the apartment with Joel. We had some delicious chili for supper, then blueberry pie for dessert. We also had a rousing game of phase 10, followed by a fast-paced game of settlers of catan. Interspersed talk of various appendages added spice to the evening. Don't Ask.

Anyway, if you read this please pray for me. Besides my physical woes, there are other issues in my life that are causing me stress. I'd prolly go crazy if I weren't so darn sane.

Help, please.

Hi,

Sorry about the lack of blogging lately, life's busy, and it's kinda low on the priority list. I have a specific reason for posting today. I sprained my ankle at work yesterday, and I will be off until I can walk again. If you read this, could you please say a little prayer for me? I want to go back to work.

Thanks,
Lindsay

Am I living life on "auto-pilot"?

The movie "Click" caused me to ask that question of myself. Joel and I went to a matinee of this movie the other day and it is amazingly deep for an Adam Sandler movie. His movies are maturing as he is. It still managed to be really funny at the same time though. It was a good balance, for the most part. Still had a few unnecessarily coarse moments, but they were worth enduring, I think. Anyways, "auto-pilot" is what happens in the movie when Adam skips a scene of his life in expectation of the next big thing, whatever that may be (a promotion, for example). It's kind-of a basic physical maintenance kind of state, probably equivalent to being a zombie. I feel like I'm in auto-pilot sometimes, because I think about the next days off, holidays, when we will have kids, when we will pay off our student loans, when we will have our own house, instead of being completely "in the moment". Of course, some forethought is good, and dreams for the future can inspire your actions today. So what frequency of future-oriented thought is healthy? Daily? Hourly? Every few minutes? Weekly? Monthly? Yearly?

Right now I think about the future probably a couple of times a day. Sometimes those thoughts won't go away when they visit me, and I end up planning the next couple of years out in my mind in excruciating detail to the point that no mere mortal could even honestly plan. When I catch myself doing that I know that it is unhealthy and unproductive. And I need to discipline my mind to not do that. Why do I do that? Do I not really believe God is in control of it all, or do I just want to try to control it myself? Lord, I give it all to You and I choose to trust You today. Let me do the same tomorrow.

Who knew an Adam Sandler movie could cause me to search my soul like that?

I've survived the summer of two moves.

I apologize to the hard-core bloggers about my drought of posts for the last 3 weeks. It's been a busy time. Worked, got ready to move, worked, cleaned, worked, moved (which included lifting heavy things for me this time), worked, and now I have some cleaning to do at Joel's Dad's house today, then maybe I can get a little rest. But I wouldn't have been able to rest knowing I haven't blogged since June, just one of those things that eats away at you.

I stayed up too late last night. I'm not one of those people who can just compensate by sleeping in. The sun gets up early, and once it's up, I can't get back to sleep if I wake up. So I'm yawning even as I type this. It was a fun night though, hanging out with friends. I get lonely at work a lot because it is so task oriented, so it was great to start off my 4 days of by spending the evening with a bunch of nice people.

We're enjoying the new place. Nice to sit on your own furniture again after housesitting for 2 months.

What else should I talk about? I feel like this post is missing something, but not sure what else I should say. Let me know.

K?
Bye for now.

P.S.
It's ironic for me that every time this thing spell checks the word "Joel's " for me it suggests I replace it with "joyless". Just thought I'd tag that on.

God teaching me.

Just thought I'd share a little about what God is teaching me the last couple weeks. I got so sick and tired of myself, sinning, then coming clean over and over. I asked God to help me figure out what I can do to stop falling into the same stupid thing repeatedly. He answered my prayer by sort of "turning up the volume" on the Holy Spirit's voice within me. Now, more often, I'm able to notice my heart turning away from God the moment it happens. This gives me the chance to turn my heart back to God before I slip into the same old behaviour(s). The downside is that if I feel my heart turn away, and I don't do anything about it, my sin is more prideful and willful, more than just a slip. But Christ's blood is enough to cleanse even willful disobedience, and what God is doing in me makes me want to love Him and obey Him more and more.

Rainy and cloudy.

Maybe it shouldn't be this way, but when it's rainy and cloudy outside it makes me feel rainy and cloudy. I was wallowing a little in self-pity yesterday because it was my first day off, and of course that means it has to rain. For a rainy day, it actually turned out not too bad, though, we went to Pam and Ryan's wedding (just the ceremony though, because Joel wasn't feeling very good), then later on we rented some movies, which we haven't done in a long time. So it turned out to be a pretty fun day after all.

Stuff and other stuff.

I have two more days of work to put in before I get my 4 day weekend. I'm always pretty tired at this point in my rotation. Also, we're still trying to figure out where we're going to live after this month. So kinda under some stress, but handling it ok.

I've been trying to experiment in the last couple of weeks with changing the types of media I watch/listen to. It was a suggestion in a book I've been reading that if your mind is exposed to purer things, you will be more likely to think purer thoughts. It makes sense to me, and I think it's starting to help me. No more C95 in the radio in my van, as well I've decided to give up a couple of my favorite TV shows that are full of immorality, like Desperate Housewives (although they are now in re-runs for the summer, but I don't plan on jumping back in this fall). Not judging anyone who watches this stuff, I'm just trying to figure out what is helpful for me personally in my specific state of weakness.

For the gals reading this, have any of you read Every Woman's Battle? I've been reading it and would like to discuss with someone, though I don't know who else has read it, or would be interested. Tried to talk to one girlfriend about it but she seemed either not to understand what I was talking about or not interested.

Beautiful day.

I'm alone today, I have the day off and Joel's working. I'm having fun. I bought a new swimming suit at Wal-mart, and hanging out by/ in the pool here. Had watermelon for lunch. Delicious. It's 30+ degrees out, what a great day. I think I'll take another dip, then maybe a nap.

Ummm...

Trying to think of something to post. It's a normal day. Have to work in 2 hrs. It's beautiful outside. I think Joel wants me to watch TV with him cause he put Family Feud on instead of Jon Stewart. I guess I'll go do that. Sorry for the stupid post. Have a good day.

Mother's Day

This is the second year in a row where I've cried on Mother's Day. For a little over a year now, I've had a strong, deep, desire to have a child. Circumstances, mostly financial, are preventing Joel and I from going ahead at this time. It makes total sense to my rational side as to why we would wait, but the feelings in my heart aren't listening to reason, so I've just been trying not to think about them. Usually I'm so busy with working that I don't think about it, but it's impossible not to on Mother's Day.

Father God,
I don't know if I should ask for a change our circumstances, or to change my mind, or to change the feelings in my heart. But I pray You will cause Your will to be done in our lives, and help me to be patient while you are doing it. I've come to understand that struggle is a fact of life for everyone, and it hurts. I pray for Your healing and comfort. Let Your will be done. Thank-you for your power, grace and love. Because of You, there is hope for me.
In Jesus name, Amen.

What do you think?

Lately, I've been wanting to post prayers on my blog, but before hitting the post button, something stops me. Would posting a prayer on here make me like a Pharisee praying loudly on a street corner?

Obligatory Post.

I'm blogging today 'cause I feel I should, not 'cause I feel I want to.

I have been really busy at work, training a new gal. It's been fun, I'm really enjoying having someone else with me while working. It's also helping me to both become more critical of my work since I have to explain everything I'm doing to someone else, and to realize how far I'm come in terms of strength, dexterity, knowledge, and skill since I first started this job last July. So it's making me humble and proud at the same time. Is that possible? My "mentee" is starting to be at the point where she is actually a to benefit me time-wise, instead of slowing me down, which is good as well. She knows how to do more at this point in her training than I did at that stage.

I'm lucky to have a job that I find rewarding, I just wish it were possible to have the security of a permanent position. But I guess God is teaching me to rely on His security instead.

I think I'll change my blog's color to turquoise today. I'm on a turquoise kick.

Poor Joel.

He had that oral surgery today to get 4 wisdom teeth out, and all he can eat for the next few days is Jello and other liquid/mushy stuff. I hope he doesn't hurt or swell too much as he is healing. I sure love that guy.

Not much else to report, work is picking up, and my manager just asked me today to mentor the new gal who is starting next week, so that'll be cool to have someone riding with me for a while.

Also, we tried to apply for a mortgage with a co-signer(my mom), but there's just too much debt between the bunch of us right now with our student loans and her mortgage. So we'll try again sometime next year, and hopefully our finances will have improved by then. This means, however that we will have to move into another apartment after we house-sit for Joel's dad. Anyone have any suggestions for good apartments?

Take Care, All. You are loved.

Another work week wrapped up.

Just finished another work week, and I get my 4 day week-end this week. That's good because I feel really in need of a rest. Work has been kind of slow this week, which is kind of frustrating, because you have to sign off for 500 min worth of work every day. This is a creative challenge when you are only given 3 hours worth of work, and so is everyone else. There's only so much cleaning and stocking you can do to your van. I guess everybody's in the same boat, though, and our manager realizes I'm not so incompetent that it really takes me 4 hours to do a highspeed install. I hope business picks up when I'm back next week, because I always feel uncomfortable having to charge more time to a ticket than it actually took me, even though it is common practice when there is no work to do. I guess as long as I make it clear in my comments that I tried to get more work from dispatch, but they didn't have any, I shouldn't feel guilty. Just wait a couple months and I'll probably be complaining there's too much to do!

I was looking at some adorable pictures and video clips of my nieces and nephew today. They really are cute kids, I'm not just biased. They brought a smile to my tired face. Have a look if you want to...
http://www.dropshots.com/new.php?userid=86219
http://www.dropshots.com/new.php?userid=73821

Making it through.

Yesterday I saw a friend at church. I asked how she was doing and she was honest with me instead of superficial. She's not doing too well, she is exhausted from work, and then I asked how her husband is doing and she sounded tentative, and said that she doesn't think he's doing great either. We arranged a coffee date for today to talk about life or whatever she needs to talk about.

After I got home from church I had a bit of a breakdown because I was already worried about how my other friends are doing, and I'm powerless to do anything to fix the things that are wrong in their lives. I went to bed and cried and prayed for my friends troubles. Even if I'm hurt or angry about how things are, God really is the only one who has the power to change these things, or heal what is broken, or give strength to overcome weakness, or reassure that goodness and righteousness is being restored to the world. And the silent treatment I was giving God, wasn't good for me, and certainly was not helping to change things for the better. Yes, I'm weak and powerless, but even more so when I refuse to pray. That's how my weekend went, it was hard, and I was confronted with my weakness and powerlessness. When I turned to God he gave me the strength and reassurance I needed to continue fighting the battle raging in this world.

What to say? What to do?

It's Saturday morning, and haven't really been in contact with any friends since I had Bible study on Monday night. I just read a few of their blogs this morning and everyone seems to be having a rough week. My friends have been confronted with the ugly brokenness of humans this week, and I don't know what to say without sounding like I'm being shallow or ignoring their pain. I just want anyone who reads this to know that I'm sitting here crying for your pain. If you are dealing with a death, news of a moral failing, sickness, weakness, I'm so sorry. I wish I could fix what's wrong with the world, but I'm weak too. So all I can do is cry and tell you I'm sorry and pray. I love you and I'm sorry...

Stepfordization?

I'm having a weird day. I thought I was working today, but when I downloaded to get my orders this morning, they didn't give me anything. That was strange, I knew business couldn't be that slow, so I checked my schedule. I'm sure they must have changed it because it now says I have today and tomorrow off. It still has the same number of days on and off, they are just in different places than I thought they were. Oh well, it was a nice surprise.

With my new found freedom today, I decided I would spend some extra time alone with God. But I didn't get on it right away, and I got the sudden urge to iron my jeans. I never iron anything, let alone jeans. This left me with three possible conclusions (perhaps whoever reads this could vote and let me know what they think). 1. I'm getting old and ironing my jeans is something that is coming with my old age. 2. Ironing is from the devil and he just wanted to distract me from God for a while to see if I would forget about the extra time. 3. Joel had me stepfordized, and that command start remote isn't really for the car.

I did finally drag myself to my bible, and had a great time once I got it open, by the way. I'm a bit compulsive in my worrying, and when I go to Jesus, He really does enable me to slow down my mind and focus on Him. My concerns are still there, but the knot in my stomach gets replaced with peace in my heart.

Praise God for unexpected days off. I'm glad that I can skip the work socks today and wear some girly socks that match both my shirt and my new car.

Getting my butt kicked, gratefully, though.

I made it through my first week back at work alive. Every muscle in my body is sore, though. I was kinda hoping since I was off for a couple months, they would give me a couple days to ride along with someone else to see if I could remember how to do this job, but no such luck. I guess it's like riding a bike. While my brain remembers most of the job, my body doesn't, though. I've lost some of the dexterity my hands and fingers had, so I'm finding handling my tools a bit awkward. I also have to get some of those nice callouses going on my hands again so I don't bleed as often, and my band-aid consumption will go down. The muscles that are complaining the most are my calves. They feel like rubber bands that could snap at any minute just from normal walking. They enjoyed their two month vacation, and now are trying to remember how they ever managed to walk the equivalent of 50 stair cases a day while carrying boxes full of tools, wire and supplies. While, I could go on, but I've reached my textual complaining limit for the day. On the bright side, I'm looking forward to getting my work metabolism and shape back, even though the process of doing that is painful.

Thank God spring is on the way. I think I suffer from a bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder, because I feel lazy and tired all winter no matter how much sleep I get, and I crave large amounts of sugar and chocolate. I'm already feeling better to some extent now that more sunlight is coming through, and the fact that days are getting longer still also is giving me something positive to focus on to get me through the remaining snow-filled days. I just heard a chickadee sing "Spring's Here", I love hearing that in early February, such a simple and wonderful encouragement from God to me, and now anyone who reads this.

My last day of getting paid to annoy Americans.

I've been praying since I got this collections job that I could find something better, or get my old job back. I knew God would answer but I wasn't expecting it to be so soon or suddenly. I got a phone call two days ago from SaskTel to offer me a new work term to start this Monday Jan. 30th as a technician again. This time I'm being given an 8 month term, so this will allow me to build up enough hours to apply for EI if I get laid off for the winter when this term expires. That way, I won't have to get a silly job annoying Americans by calling them until they pay their bill, so that I can pay my bills. I will sure appreciate this job more now that I've worked in a job where I had to work extra hours to make up for not working on Christmas Day. I also won't have nagging worries this time about whether my performance is good enough, since I'm being hired back for a second term, obviously the company feels I proven myself competent.

Well, I need to prepare for my last day on the phone as an evil debt-collector. This will be the last day when I have to go to work feeling hypocritical because I prayed the Lord's prayer that morning (forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors). Praise God.

Now thankfully, I will have many EDOs to come. Maybe I'll give one of you folks a call in my newly regained leisure time. Talk to you soon.

Lindsay, The Girl phoneman.

I think I need a babysitter

Joel left me yesterday to go be one of the old guys for a youth retreat. I've been pretty irresponsible since he's been gone. I stayed up until 2 am eating ketchup chips and drinking diet pepsi, then woke up this morning and had more ketchup chips and diet pepsi for breakfast. I felt guilty after that, so I washed it down with some baby carrots. I'm pretty pathetic as a single person I guess, I've said about 3 words outloud since I got home from work yesterday night and they were "i'm so weak". That was this morning when I went to get the carrots out of the fridge. I guess I'll heat up some lean cusine when I come home after work today so I don't repeat the same thing again.

Other than that, I don't have much other angst at this point, except the usual work-related angst. I work in the collections department for Sprint PCS, an american cell phone company. From the way I get treated by many of the people I call, it's clear that being a bill collector is one small step up from being a tax collector which we all know is the scum of the earth, right?

"Well, thank-you so much for your call sir, you have a good evening and thank-you for choosing Sprint." (Even though you should now have your mouth washed out with soap for what you just called me, and you haven't paid your bill since October.)

Inaugural post.

Hey folks,

Not much time to post now, will get back to you later. Started this blog mainly so I could post on other people's blogs. Since I started reading some of your blogs, I've wanted to comment to or comfort or encourage some of you. My first comment will be on Joel's blog, wanted to make his day by posting there. Will make a real post here soon, hopefully complete with angst, and/or humourous reflection on something, proving that math majors can indeed write, and my degree is therefore useful in some small way.

Have a good day all,
Lindsay