august
is it possible to actually sweat to death?
counteracting the grumpiness
well, the majority of my first forays into blogging seems to be just
a smidge... grumpy. which is not bad in and of itself, but good grief.
my life's not all doom and gloom!
lately i realize how lucky i am to have friends that love me, and that
i love in return. i have friends i can call when i can't fall asleep; i
have friends that voluntarily put themselves "on call" for me during
emotional times; i have friends that i can call after months [or even
years], and pick up right where we left off; i have friends that i know
will always be there for me, no matter what.
if you're reading this, and you're my friend [you know who you are] -- know that you are loved and appreciated.
paranoia
there's nothing quite like the uncertainty of continued employment to keep morale up at the workplace.
show me some integrity and honesty and i'll respect the decisions you
have to make. secrecy and half-truths however, will put you right at
the bottom of my people-with-solid-character list.
"so, how's the therablogging?"
[ - from rachel, during her 99th hour of cell phone usage]
[endurance]
"
... is not the patience which can sit down and bow the head and let
things descend upon it and passively endure until the storm is passed
... it is the spirit which can bear things not simply with resignation,
but with blazing hope; it is not the spirit which sits statically
enduring in one place, but the spirit which bears things because it
knows that these things are leading to a goal of glory; it is not the
patience which grimly hopes for the end, but the patience which
radiantly hopes for the dawn ... it is the quality which keeps a man on
his feet with his face to the wind. it is the virtue which can transmit
the hardest trial into glory because beyond the pain, it sees the goal."
thoughts on a sunset
as i was driving on the interstate this weekend, i... came upon a storm
system. that's about as best i can describe it. "came upon". it was
about 8:00pm, and about a fifteen minute's drive ahead i saw ominous
clouds and several bolts of lighting. i steeled myself for the joy of
driving in a thunderstorm at dusk. as i approached, it turned out that
the storm was directly west of, but not quite on, i-75. and so, for about half an hour, i
took long glances at the system to my left as i drove alongside it. i
took note that i could actually see the
rain coming down from the west; as i yet traveled along in relative
dryness, ready for a downpour at any moment by the darkening clouds all
around me. in another fifteen minutes i reached my exit, where i was
headed west [of course]. as i finished the turn, i realized that i
again could see the rain -- only this time, i noted that it was coming
pretty much horizontally. in big gusts. really hard.
fun.
so, it's looking pretty gloomy. dark thunderclouds, downpour, wind
gusts like there's no tomorrow. my little cavalier, small but mighty,
plugged its way through [albeit around 40 mph]. and then, suddenly, i
was out of the storm. the pounding on the roof ceased, the wipers
skittered across the less-slick windshield. and, i realized for the
first time in about an hour, that it was still light out. a beautiful
sunset was before me... oranges, pinks, blues. so focused was i on the
darkness of the storm that i had completely forgotten it wasn't yet
nighttime. the sun was still there, doing its thing... regardless of my
utter
unmindfulness of It.
there's a metaphor in there that would do me well to keep in mind.
emotionally irrational
i am not really a gal that is prone to mood swings. you can generally find me on an even keel, well balanced, very grounded.
lately, however, several circumstances have arisen that have caused my
emotions to go haywire. one minute i am happy-go-lucky, glad to be
alive, counting my blessings; the next minute i am feeling as if the
world is falling apart, everything is going wrong, life is spinning out
of control. and, let's just say that having x-chromosomes isn't really
helping things out this week either.
so as you can imagine, this is quite a juxtaposition.
i feel as if i'm going crazy.
i really do.
i am feeling needy and whiny, and it's making me nuts. who are you, and
what have you done with maria?! please report any information on her whereabouts immediately to unleashed.squarespace.com.
busyness
i hope to make this place more interesting in the weeks to come [i.e. posting entries that are less cryptic, and more than two sentences long]. at the moment though, i seem to be quite busy: which is weird, since i honestly don't have much of a life. go figure.
tonight is the last concert for summer band, which has required my tuesday nights [practice] and wednesday nights [concerts]. thursday nights [and subsequent sunday mornings] i've been sort of "on call" for worship practices/services. the next weekend or two i will be driving "home" to spend time with a wonderful friend that has been out of the country for a year.
busy, busy.