A better friend?

Friendship. If it is a great friendship, then there should be give and take. I have been frustrated lately because I just do not know my friends like I should. I cannot seem to remember the things that are important. What kind of things they like? I feel like I should be able to say that my good friend's favorite thing is blah blah. Or at least have some inkling. I do not feel I always do.

I listen and listen, but most of the information disappears. I need to began writing things down. I have to accept that I have no memory storage that I can go back to later. It is usually gone forever.

It makes me think to that I cannot even remember my friends exact Birthdays. Facebook has to remind me. Uh...sad. If someone asked me what my best friends number was, then I would have to look in my phone. Uh...really sad.

I want to be better at knowing things about my friends. Christmas is coming and I want to find thoughtful gifts that really reflect something more important than cash value. What is your favorite color?

Just when you think you have it all worked out...

Life is everchanging.

No matter where I feel I am in my life, I still feel that I am twelve steps behind. I could be feeling completely fulfilled and then something happens. My hubby and I could be working out our bill situation and feel confident where we are going and then we have to owe $400 for a lousy mistake. Why do these things happen? Partly because we let the mistakes happen and do not think before we act. Partly because pure dumb luck.

I am blessed to be loved and to know where I am going in this life, but I forget sometimes in all the hub bub that it will work out. God is good! I know this, but why do I stress, why do I worry? Why would I say to my God that I do not trust him? This is basically what I am doing when I choose to worry. "Thanks God for all you do, but I think my problems are too big for you." UH NO!! So dumb.

Lately, I have been having many DUH moments. Mostly the ridiculousness on how I act with certain things that are so pointless in the grand scheme of things. I know that I am ever trying to be the person God calls me to be and therefore, when I open my eyes and ears I continuously find things that I know now are sinful, but before I did not believe so. I do not think it was because I was a more terrible person before, but more that I have changed and found other things that need to be improved on. I am excited that these things are happening, but I have been feeling a bit stupid a lot. The best way to deal with all the stupid things is to work on the moment.

We have been reading a book called "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. I am only on the third chapter and I am already blown away by the things I miss in life and in the end I am missing greater moments with God. I hope that I can take what I have been learning and apply it and not do what I usually do and which is just shelving it away. I am chock-full of information that is quite pratical and yet I let it collect dust. Bah! Prayer will be happening on this matter and it will continue forever.

I am terrible at it, but I am being convicted to do so...

My step-mom was the QUEEN of writing letters/cards to people. She was also amazing at letting people know the importance they have in her life. I admire that greatly.

Lately, I have been really convicted to start letting people know how important they are to me, to someone, to God. Not just by email or text, but sitting down and taking the time to hand write a nice letter/card to those that are important to me, those that I miss and those that need encouragement. Besides the no time issue, which I think I can muster up anyway, it is the fact that I stink at writing letters. I never know what to say or how to say it. I want it to be sincere and I want it to be well written. Why is it so hard to put together words to tell someone I care about them or that I love them or that they mean so much to me? Am I just being to picky? Am I afraid that they will find it trite (love this word)?

And also I have been wanting to let those that I pray about know that I am praying for them. However, what is my reasoning for this? I originally thought it was because I know I feel comforted when I know someone is praying for me. I worry though that there may be another reason. Maybe I am looking to feel appreciated for doing this.

Speaking of praying, God is good. I have been praying more and more lately because I never thought my prayer life was where it should be. I always got feelings that I should be praying for people and initially I thought that I was just being weird. But this is not so, I have been praying for those that pop in my head and it turns out they really needed that prayer. Cool. God is good!

Is it me?

I was told very young that there will be people in your life that will not like you for whatever reason or will be annoyed by things you do and there is nothing you can do about it.

Is there nothing I can do about it? If there are those that do not like me, or do not like the things I do, then do I change those things? What if those things cannot be changed?

I was thinking on this because I realize that I fall in love with people rather easily. Almost as if I am adopting people into my family. I cannot help it. It is hard because I do not always get that same love back. It is not required of the other person, but I think I have done something wrong and want to fix it. It used to get me in trouble because I would be like the "Runaway Bride" and not have my own opinion on things. I would want to please others, so I would agree with things and just go with what whoever said.

Now it is not as bad, but I still cannot help, but fall in love with people. I want others to not be annoyed by me and it makes me sad that I could have that affect on people. Why does it have to be this way?

I have been struggling.

I have a need to want to fix people's problems in the only way I know how. Listen and give the best advice I can. However, sometimes it is hard to give advice when someone may or may not be being real. How do you give advice to someone who may not be telling the whole truth? I don't want to cause more hurt to anybody, but I want to help. I know that I should keep loving no matter how the person may be. I see people hurt; I have an ability to see people fake smiles and stuff and then I am drawn to want to hug and comfort. I see strangers or people I met for just a few days and if they are sad, I just want to be a shoulder. It hurts when people don't want to trust me, and although, I understand, I still want to be there.

There is a problem with my inability to trust all people on being honest with me. I know that I have lied before about stories in order not to seem what I deem as not good for whatever reason (embarrassment, not coolness, unchristian-like (funny only because lying is unchristian.) So I know some people would do the same thing, but when do we start trusting people? When do we actually put down the walls, so that we can help each other for real? And of course sometimes maybe people believe something is real that really isn't. Like they really have the worst parents in the world, but in reality they just have a parents who have maybe one too many rules.

When listening to problems, my dad put in my head to see things as a third party and not partial to anything. However, sometimes that is difficult simply because when a friend is hurt, you want to be on his/her side. I just know that when dad listened to my problems he helped me question things in order to see from different sides and make sure that I was not being silly or wrong. I hope to give similar advice and see people changed for the good. I am just afraid that I am giving the wrong advice over and over.

Am I asking for advice? Maybe. Is that ironic? Not sure, still having a hard time on the definition of ironic. Apparently, Alanis had it all wrong...

I cannot even tell the many things that have changed in my life, since last time I posted without writing a book. Instead, I will start, as if, I have been writing all along.

It seems important to stop and take a moment to say that I love my job.

It may not be the job that I wanted when I was a child, but it just did not work out for me to be a marine biologist, pediatrician or a lawyer. However, it turns out I was never meant to be those things and that in the end it is not my "day job" that will define my life, but it is my work at my church. Anyway, back to

loving my job...it is so lovable not because of the tasks I do, but because of the benefits I get. The list is long, but one such benefit is a nice free lunch, and another great benefit is weekends are off. Those two are just the tip of the iceberg, but important for me, since I many of the things I do for church involves nights and weekends.

As much as I love my job, there are times where I gripe about my job. What happens in these cases is I feel guilty for thinking such things. Why should I complain about my job, when (A) many people do not have jobs and (B) it is helping me achieve things part of a much greater purpose. However, sometimes I am just tired, sometimes I am just sick, and sometimes I just want to go home because I have some new toy (usually an electronic thing) waiting for me (side note: I could not have bought this without the wonderful job I have.)

OR sometimes I am just feeling a bit "woe is me." When this happens, I just want to be in bed watching something comedic. Today was going pretty good. Although I did not get myself out of bed to work out (this may have been what ultimately changed the outcome of today), I got up and got ready and went to pick up somethings for work at our warehouse. There was more boxes then anticipated, so I had to spend twenty minutes trying to make the boxes fit. Because it took longer than anticipated, I could not get my morning fix of Go Girl (Trust me...this is not

good.) When I finally arrived at work, I called to get help with boxes and that is when I realized that my truck was leaking. AND when I say leaking, I mean BLEEDING profusely. In a matter of minutes a huge puddle was forming. At this point I am trying to hold it all in. I called AAA to have it towed to my auto shop (paid $20 because it was over the miles) and it turns out to be just steering wheel fluid hose that broke. To get this fixed, I have to pay $370! It is frustrating because I know that I probably do not NEED to get it fixed, but I should.

As I was cleaning up after lunch, in order to make it nice for a client coming in, I lost out on a chance to see one of my favorite things!! I was cleaning and did not hear my boss call me to try and give me Pageant of the Masters tickets. I missed out and all because I was cleaning like I am supposed to! After the morning I had, this probably would have changed my whole day around and instead it just made it worse.

Now that I feel this way, I just want to drown myself in desserts and I want a gosh darn Go Girl. UGH! It is a complete "woe is me" attitude and it will all pass, but it just really sucks right at this point.

Embracing the "fluff" to play the game and the anti-online student.

Definition of "fluff" : The BS information put between actual content to make the assignment more school worthy.

Background: I have a plan and in this plan I have to go back to school. The school that I need to attend is only online. These online classes are good and bad. Good because they work with my schedule and bad because my learning style struggles with the online format.

I have been learning to embrace my ability to "fluff." However, sometimes it is hard to do this because I just think it is a waste of time and sometimes I feel it is a form of lying.

Why do I have to give you a minimum word count? Why can we not just base on the information that is known and not on how much "fluff" that is given?

Oh well...