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.