I see a red door...

I don’t know what to write today, I feel random and tired and weird. I think it’s the weather. It is beautiful outside and the air smells like spring and baby chickens and tulips and stuff. I’m not in the mood for it. I hate winter as much as the next mid-westerner, but this spring has come too soon. I’m not ready, this is me stomping my foot in protest.

I’m sitting here wondering if this is a metaphor for my life, and I don’t want to think about that so I’m going to move on.

Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night, my outlook is dreary.

For all those who been sufficiently confused or depressed by this entry log on here…

It’ll be good to laugh.

Ode to David

Cosmic bowling was a huge success, my brother is a rockstar. Even when we were kids he had the Midas touch. Anything he picks up turns to gold; bowling balls, tennis rackets, and pool cues. The kid is amazing.

On the way to his birthday brouhaha, the kid held court on conversations ranging from compression and cam shaft configurations (which for the record I was able to chime in on and make several notable points) and algorithms for calculating the day Easter will fall on each year.

I'm so proud of my baby brother. He is incredibly smart and profoundly well rounded. He loves sports, computers, cars. And he's not a nerd about any of those things. He's a very understated individual, he doesn't flaunt his stuff, you'd never know this kid was a boy genius (especially not with the medicine ball sized hole in the butt of his jeans).

Happy Birthday, David. May the next year be richer then you could imagine.

I love being home...

So just to update you... I have slept and ate, and slept and ate. I saw by cousin's baby... aww she's cute. I ate lunch with my grandmother, she's cute too. We are going bowling tonight with the fam. Should be very exciting. Then I'll probably eat and sleep. I went to the Prayer Furnace in Chicago, saw one of my dearest friends in the whole world, James, who has a wife and baby of his own. I saw a lot of other people I haven't seen in awhile. It's great to see the House of Prayer in the City doing so well. I love Marvin and Sally and their family. They are such a blessing to the city.

Alright so off I am to cosmic bowl...

At last...

I'm here in my great homeland. Sigh, deeper sigh. Upon departing the airplane there is an immediate vibe, Chicago just feels different. I have to say it... it's the great north! I almost kissed the ground. I swear you can smell pizza right off the plane.

There is also a certain speed I forget about. Everything is faster, I'm sure, not noticeable to most, but there is a difference. Maybe it's the moving walkways, but I think it's the attitude. I love it. It fits me. There is no talking or looking at strangers, everyone is focused and moving towards a goal.

Everyone is so serious, which I noticed as I walked by a mirrored wall, I looked like I was attending a funeral, so did everyone else. Mentally, I smiled. I like my blank face, it requires very little energy.

All the while I'm listening to Keith Urban's new album. It was an interesting juxtaposition. If I only had a sweet tea, I would could have been a cultural ambassador, bringing back treasures from the ancient world.

When I arrived home, I was showered in office supply samples (gifts befitting my ambassador status). This only makes sense if you know my family. I have already managed to gather two large sacks of retractable highlighters permanent markers, computer screen wipes, various types of adhesive, an anti-microbial mouse pad and one glass post-it note dispenser. Did I mention a set of neon binder indexes?

Life can't get much better.

I'm Being Attacked

I kid you not, whenever I try to leave town, all hell breaks lose. Work has been slow lately in the post onething world, and then all of a sudden today I had 1000 bricks dropped directly on my head.

I had two meetings scheduled, another two or three popped up from nowhere, in between all that I was generating a mad amount of invoices, each of them consuming large amounts of time and brain cells normally dedicated to keeping my brain cool and collected. I overheated on several occasions and actually shouted in the hallway that I hated my life, which of course resulted in several more spontaneous meetings from my hallway neighbors.

Thankfully I have been able to fast most of the day, if you don't count advil and redvines.

And the day has barely begun. I have packing, chores, and regular "wrap up my crap" stuff that has to get done.

But I'm so excited for a little R&R, it my brother's 21st birthday, and I'm coming home to love and annoy him in a way only a big sister could. Also slated on this trip, eating my mother's homemade baked mostaccioli (yes I had to look that up). My mouth waters just thinking about it. I know there are some other delectable dishes on the menu. Yum.

So I think I have just wrapped up my last call at work, so now off to the homestead where more fun is, I'm sure, just around the riverbend.

Annyoung

Annyoung
Originally uploaded by tavila1017.

I love my cat. I'm not some weird cat lady, I promise. The plain truth of the matter is that Annyoung is a very cool cat. Named from a character is a very cool show, Arrested Development. So good start there.

Second, he's a ninja. From the moment I brought him home he was doing this ninja kick that shocked and awed all my roomates. He also has a roll twist maneuver to avoid any swats from his pissy sister Tulip.

He loves small places. He loves them, when I wake up in the morning he jumps on my bead and stalks my face, purring so loudly he is hardly stealth. He then procedes to shove he face into one of my nostrils or directly against my lips. One time for fun my old roomate and dearest friend opened her mouth and he stuck his whole head inside. He also likes boxes, plastic bags, and bowls. He'll curl up and sleep in them for hours.

He's an intense little beast, but he's my baby and I love him to death!

I’m Working On Me… (and it’s rough like HK)

Lately I’ve been working on me. This is not so pretty. In fact it’s rough. I’ve been looking at my life, looking for patterns. I’m looking for reasons for my poor decisions or my equally poor reactions. Some of this is just, well; it’s just what it is: bad calls. But I keep making them, somewhat surprised every time at the outcome.

This decisions and feelings have made me think, "I don’t know myself that well." Even more interesting, the "me" I know, doesn’t line up with reality. Basically I’m saying; who I think I am has slowly but radically become a different person from who I really am.

Don’t worry; I think this story has a better ending then Primal Fear. But the point is the same; am I really being honest in how I live? Can I be, when I’m so unfamiliar with the real me?
Hence the title I’m Working on Me. I’m stumbling back to this true self. I wandering back to my beginnings and trying to straighten the crooked. I’m bringing Jesus back with me. He’s helping to correct these misadventures, these lies I have told myself for years. He’s whispering softly to me about a child he made in a womb about 23 years ago. He’s telling me who she was made to be.

These are things I haven’t thought about in awhile… who has God made me to be? It’s a question that is really obvious, I just haven’t asked in awhile. I’m not sure if the question hurt my heart, because I’m unsure sometimes if I’m living on this path. Am I becoming the person God has made me to be?

So that’s a lot. Not sure you wanted to know all that. Ha. (insert nervous laughter)…

Till the End

John 13:1 came to me this morning. It is a picture of Jesus I love. Something that he had recorded by John thousands of years a go. Yet one day he whispered it in my ear, one day it stuck me and revealed more of him to my heart.

"It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love."

After this Jesus goes on to wash his disciples feet, literally. And soon afterward he is offered up on the cross to wash their souls.What is love? It is that a friend would lay down his life. What is the full extent of the Father's love? He bows then and washes the feet of his friends. Is this his way of saying, "I am about to die? I am about to wash you clean, not just physically but I am about to wash your soul. I am about to be like a lamb led to slaughter. My blood will wash you and your descendants."

"He loved them to the end." This is what some translations say. He loved them with everything he had, he poured himself out completely. There was nothing left, he loved them unto death. Jesus is the very definition of love, love till the end.

Washing the feet of his disciples, was the fullest extent of the love of God.

Who is this man?

Okay, here we go

This is one of those things I swore I would never do. Blog. But lately I've been reading a blog (thank you Randy), and I've really enjoyed it. So here I find myself venturing out into the cold world of my own opinions. Here are the questions I am posing to myself:do I have something to contribute?will this blog be worth reading?am I really just massaging my ego?

Ultimately it will just be me, it will be what I think and what I believe, I'll rant and rave and be opinonated. Boiled down, who knows what it will turn into, who knows what it will look like.I guess we'll just wait and see