"awkward" and "anger"

are two states i rarely, and i mean rarely, find myself in. i see very few situations "awkward" (ie the silence at the end of a topic in a conversation doesnt, walking the same way as someone else and nearly running into each other doesnt, etc)  and i experience very little anger-- not much gets me down. today for some reason i experienced these both to an extreme.

after realizing i had signed up for an 8am class in the city that is 45 minutes away i switched into one on the right campus that had already begun two days before i signed up. meaning i had missed two days of instruction, so trying to be an on-top-of-it-student i made it to my new class ten minutes early... to an empty classroom. across from the door was a bench with a guy sitting on it who ever-so-gently asked "math 4?" with excitement that someone might actually sociable i answered yes and that led us into a quick conversation of the class, teacher, and if we needed the book, etc.

well for me i like to be as close as possible to someone when i talk. its subconscious. i dont realize that when you take a step back during our conversation i take a step toward you. i dont realize that i am 2 inches closer to you by the end of our conversation. i dont realize that i am practically laying over the table when you talk to me. so- with that said i subconsciously decide to walk from the opposite wall to possibly sit on the bench with this guy. as i get near it i realize and self talk to myself saying- "eh. that could be weird for him" so i stand, i would say sort of awkwardly by the bench, still talking. note: i am not feeling awkward yet. our conversation dies a bit... and i ask him his name and tell him mine. silence.

a girl walks up, whispers in his ear and grabs books that are sitting right next to him. girlfriend. i assume. he stands up and grabs her. yep, girlfriend. she lays her stuff down and full on hugs him, kisses, and giggles all of this occurring with an arms length distance from me. practically i could lean in and join without much effort.

uh... what do i do? i look at my phone for a few seconds and thankfully someone had went into the classroom at that point and i followed. thank you, couple for making me feel totally awkward.

anger. i had my fair dose my senior year of high school and it is a raging emotion. i hate it. it dictates your thoughts, motivations, and your heart. what happened today was only a glimpse of that kind of anger. but i was angry. and i mean angry.

my afternoon/night class had let us out 45 minutes early and i had plans to sign up for a gym membership at the reccenter after class. this was the perfect time. i turned down the road that was called the same as the reccenter. that makes sense right? welll i had found myself down a ways, further than i had remembered from last time, and did a u turn-- back up to the main road-- did another u turn... and then found myself on the opposite side's main road. without spotting the reccenter.

so i go around the entire neighborhood and then finally found the correct street. once i pulled into the parking lot. i got out my license, my military id, and my car registration (two forms of id and two proofs of residency). i go in .. to a not friendly face who says she needed the things i listed above. noticing that my car registration and my license addresses matched, but the names didnt. my car registration had my dad's name and my address (which is the same). i show her that on my military id i am still a dependent (meaning i still live with him even though i am over the age of 18). she will. not. accept. it. 

okay here is the thing. i had driven for 30 minutes to get to the stinkin reccenter. and then on top of it, i could understand if she had to scan my proofs or something to that extent. but no the form just says to check what proofs were seen.

heres to tomorrow...

emotions.

life goes fast. so fast. months, weeks, hours, days. seriously i feel like i had just gotten out of my first semester of college thinking i have all the time in the world to do my favorite things. this break will be so great and go by so slow. sleeping when i want and shopping-- you get the idea. well here i am 3 days before my spring semester begins. where did that month just go? gone! so fast. i have gifts and pictures to show... but what sticks most were the emotions. kind of like most situations. i am really in tune with my emotions. which sucks 95% of the time. here are some i recall over the last month of break.

excitement of having 5 weeks laid out in front of me of no school.

frustration after babysitting for 4 out of 7 nights of the week for the first two weeks.

thankfulness during christmas with my sweet family.

eagerness while watching reactions of my gift receivers.

embarrassment while realizing how many friends i did not make time for this break.

jesus in so many ways at passion 2011.

laughter in a eleven hour ride back from atlanta.

behind considering that i am testing into my math three days before classes begin.

creative while i made 15+ journals for friends and family.

cold with 15 inches of snow.

trapped after 4 days of 15 inches of snow.

blessed while being with brayden, jeremy, and bri.

joy when waking up to my favorite worship blasting out of my ihome.

simplicity eating my moms homemade oatmeal for breakfast.

wishful thinking of doing something like this.

prayerful for 1 peter 3:3-4 would be true of my life.

conviction of living for my own joy.

its crazy to me how many emotions we feel in a day. an hour. sometimes a minute. but it is just as crazy to me how much we push them away too. and how much we shouldnt. because it makes us who we are and how we are. and if we know our selves we will be able to serve others better. so i challenge you- pay attention to your emotions. youll soon learn to use your heart instead of your head. which will change almost every relationship. 

in this together.

without going into too much detail my mom and i had an emotional discussion tonight on needing to serve each other better. during prayer about it i was reminded that we arent here for anything other than exactly that- loving each other by serving. selflessly serving each other in our relationships.

it is so easy to be selfish. it is so easy for me to ask how can THEY serve ME? but thats not what we are to ask. its the opposite. how can I serve THEM? can you imagine if we lived in a world (and when i say world i mean our day to day life) in such a way that we each were wondering and asking how can we serve each other? that would be the nicest way to live. and in reality the way we are supposed to be living.   how incredible is that? that THAT is the way we are supposed to be living. (ephesians 5:21; philipp 2:3-4)

there were two sayings that my mom said as i grew up-- "everything. always. works. out." and "an act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever unappreciated." growing up i watched my parents do these random acts of kindness... in so many different ways. mom tutoring kids, dad eating lunch with family-less, etc. i have loved random acts of kindness (rak) and have always loved hearing stories of people making others days or days being made by these raks. my senior year of high school i founded the random acts of kindness club. this christmas my mom gave me a book of random acts of kindnesses. so after our discussion ironically i had the book out hoping to read through it.

 i also had just read through a book called sex god by rob bell (so good) and it was all about how we are all connected. that we are all one but that we live in a world of the oneness being broken. broken. and that there are few things that god has created to make that oneness in this world that doesnt have it. those things being-- marriage, sex, and relationships. it was saying that in the moments of serving each other we get a sense of what it was meant to be.
one.
together.
united.

in the introduction of the random acts of kindness book it reads- "in a sense, kindness truly is the acting out of our deep and real connection to everyone and everything around us. it is the realization that all of us are in fact-- not just in theory or theology-- in this together."

may we realize we are in this together. selflessly serving each other and seeing others better than ourselves.

heavily floured surface

last night was dedicated to baking christmas cookies and other- for lack of better words- treats with my mom. this has always been my favorite. making a list of what we want and then doing it all in one night. but, life has gotten ahold of us and we havent done christmas baking like this in 3 years. so needless to say i was really looking forward to it. this year on the list was the following: decorated sugar cookies, buckeyes  (peanut butter, powdered sugar, butter mixed balls dipped in chocolate leaving the look of a buckeye), peanut butter ritz covered in chocolate, my grandmas famous chex mix, and magic cookie bars.

the last thing i did last night was the sugar cookies. we didnt want to leave it in the fridge for an hour like most directions say to do- so we found a new recipe and i followed it strictly. if i didnt know i was literal enough already i knew after this experience. so i make the dough and put it in a ball and read "roll dough out on a heavily floured surface". so i take the flour out and pour flour and spread it around.

i plop the dough on top and begin to roll. i mention- "hope i didnt flour it too heavily". my mom looks over and laughs. hard. and says "doug look at how much flour she put on the counter." he laughs. we measured a cup and a half of flour on the surface.

heavily is a strong word in my defense.

today's selection: 2 corinth 4

being an aunt

on november 3 a little boy named brayden cooper was born. my brother's first baby, my parents first grandson, and my first nephew. which can only mean one thing... spoiled and rightfully so. he is precious.

his first two weeks of life were in chkd neo-natal care for tests and monitoring of his seizures, so when he finally came home you can guess it we never have taken our hands off him when we are visiting or when he visits. which is great for us- babies are so therapeutic, and great for him because physical touch is so important for babies.. and well anyone really. its a way to both know we are loved and show we love. (of course not the only way!)

so brayden has had many naps in our arms to say the least. i mean who wants to refuse a baby sleeping on them? it has been great but not when we attempt to put him to sleep in a bed.

today i have worked from 9-2 and christmas shopped until 530 on 5 hours of sleep so with little explaination i am a little cranky. i came in from the cold and came to bring my bags into my study and my twinkle lights are circled around brayden's little portable sleeper, my mom is sitting next to them, gently rocking this wide-awake sweet little boy and proceedes to say this little punk wont fall asleep!

so, auntie amie to the rescue and i pick him up and without fail 45 seconds later brayden is passed out in my arms. goodbye cranky attitude, hello perfection.  so here i am-- twinkling lights, blogging, light worship, and a sweet boy in my arms.

he'll learn to sleep on his own, but for now one more nap wont be that big of a deal

eh blogging?

thinking back to the bloggers life i am reminded of the horrid, embarrassing days of xanga. Middle school... when i thought i was the best thing, ever. i think my blog name was something like x__livelifeup__x. How cool is that? I have since moved on to myspace and now facebook and was reintroduced into the blogging scene when i was told about a blog by a lady going to cancer (libbyryder.blogspot.com) and i have since contemplated making one again. I caved in the beginning of october and made this blogspot member. i was thinking of blogging about my "situation" of being at home for college instead of away as i planned (dont we always feel the situations we are in are the most important to be told/ so drastic?).  but i decided not to.

so here i was tonight with two of my very best friends- lauren and bethany- and i mentioned i kind of wanted to make a blog. they said yes yes yess -that i "seem like a blogger" and they have encouraged me to do so. so here it is.

but.. i have a lot of thoughts about doing this. i am uneasy dong this because 1. it can easily turn into a selfish thing i feel like. "let me tell you about all the happenings in my day" because i am so important. 2. or i can be a bit too vulnerable for a computer and share in depth of "heres what jesus is teaching me" (which is super encouraging for others to hear) but theres a line that is easily crossed of sharing too much of my heart. right? maybe i am thinking about this too much? but it is important to have the right intention for this.

so, i will begin and attempt to find the fine line between the two. i hope it goes well, and i hope you enjoy reading.. if anyone does.

today was a sweet day. began with sleeping in until 11am, hot chocolate, hanging out with my mom... then coffeed it up with my old young life leader katie, and ended with crafts, chris graham music, and twinkle lights with two of my dearest friends-- all of this while snow on the ground outside. shlove it.