Quiet evening

I got my hair cut tonight, but I'm too lazy to take a picture to show you. 3 or 4 inches cut off. Layers. Bangs - albeit long ones. Generally it has a shape again. 6 months is too long in between cuts. But moving out and and a few other things made it less feasible to spend the money for a really good cut for a while there.

I wandered in the mall for a little while before I had the hair appointment. Mostly I hung out in the bookstore.

I've been in bookstores a little too often this week for the good of my budget.

I picked up two new titles tonight. Both were one's I was surprised to find in a secular, large chain bookstore. "Starving Jesus" by Craig Gross and J.R. Mahon, and "The Year I Got Everything I Wanted" by Cameron Conant. I've been reading Conant's blog for a while now (I link to it in my sidebar) and was delighted to find his book in the store tonight.

If this week ever actually ends (a fact I'm sort of doubting since it feels like one of the longest on record), I'm going to spend tomorrow evening curled up with lit candles, a cup of tea (or several) reading. I have at least three titles purchased this week that I'm looking forward to diving into. And a magazine. I have a magazine too. And probably a hot bath. The books would be good while soaking in sweetly scented salts for an hour or so.

For the moment, though, I'm going to enjoy watching Grey's Anatomy, then I'm going to try and catch some sleep. Not something I've been doing that well this week, but still worth the effort...

Surviving Thursday

I've hardly eaten today. I don't know exactly what's been going on with my body the last few days, but it's NOT happy with me at the moment. I'm inescapably nauseous just at the moment, and sipping tea and water as if my life depended on it.

I still need to get through three more hours of work, the evening commute, and a haircut before I get to be home for the night. If I can survive the time at work, then I'll make it.

The atmosphere in the office feels heavy again today, and I'm not sure why. There's not the usual things that are connected to that. It's making me more tired (and probably more ill) than usual.

I'll be glad when this week ends.

In the meantime, here are a few things I'm clinging to as things that are making me smile and remember that life is so much more about the things outside the walls of my office building.

• a fair degree of certainty about a job uncertainty that had been hanging in the balance for several weeks. (more on that another time).
• a surprise lunch with Kari since the highway was closed to clear up an accident
• the fact that my siblings and I each decided to purchase our own ticket to a Rascal Flatts concert in March, and make that our Christmas gift to each other - an evening out in March.
• a haircut scheduled for tonight.
• a venti passion tea sitting on my desk.
• a warm polar fleece sweater.
• that I get to take the bus home tonight instead of the train.

Odd Wednesday

In the tradition of Wednesday's lately, this one is bringing strange surprises.

I'm having some odd physical symptoms. Slightly blurred vision that comes and goes in my good eye. (concerning since my left eye is lazy, and my brain basically doesn't recognize the visual input from it, so I rely on my right eye to be able to see.) Oddly stuffed, buzzing, staticy sensation in my right ear. And a few other things that I won't mention for the moment.

I'm not particularly worried. It's a Wednesday after all. Weird things that are connected to the spiritual realm in ways I don't understand happen on Wednesdays.

It's snowing pretty heavily again, too. Should make the commute to my parent's house for a church leadership meeting kind of nasty later.

With that said, I'm going back to staring at spreadsheets and transferring tiny numbers to new columns. (Always fun with occasionally blurred vision!)

See ya later!

Wednesday Morning Smiles

Because it's Wednesday, 8:40 a.m., and the day already feels a bit crazy. Here it is... this week's edition of the things I love/that I'm thankful for/that are making me smile.

• passion tea
• that the Lord is speaking to my heart - even when it's in dreams and taking up part of my night's sleep
• nature valley sweet & salty granola bar for breakfast
• for friends that have aided and abbetted God as He's broadening my heart to the world
• for not waking up cold this morning
• for longjohns that let me survive the cold commute
• for figuring out an inner pocket so that my ipod doesn't freeze and stop working on the commute
• music that lifts my heart
• "The Elf's Lament" by the Barenaked Ladies and featuring Michael Buble from the album "Barenaked for the Holidays". Makes me crack up every time I hear it (and I play it a lot). So completely intelligent and subversive and funny. My new favorite lines? "Full indentured servitude can reflect on one's attitude, but that silly red hat just makes the fat man look outrageous." and "I make toys but I've got aspirations." I've taken to quoting that second one in all of the moments when I'm tired and sarcastic and nervous and stressed and am lacking for other words... makes people stare at me oddly!
• for a forecast that's supposed to get a bit warmer by the weekend
• for a haircut scheduled for tomorrow night. six months is too long in between haircuts. my hair is too long, and completely unmangageable. 3 or so inches coming off tomorrow night baby!
• for plans to hang out in the mountains with a dear friend for the day on Saturday.
• for a presentation about Malta that went smoothly at church on Sunday.
• for a level of relief from lingering dread that a conversation I had a few weeks ago stirred in me, and for the friend who saw clearly enough to pray for me when I described that conversation to her.
• for finding the perfect ornament to add to my collection started by our parents, symbolizing something significant from each year of our lives. (and what, you ask, did I buy to symbolize this year? a dove. If you want to know what that symbolizes for me (and it's not peace!) you'll have to ask me!)
• for the fact that I get to wear jeans to work every day this week because it's renewal season and I'm doing a lot more slightly dirty, up and down manual work.
• for the time saved every morning in not having to pack a pair of dress pants to change into once I get to work - I commute in jeans - they're warmer than a thin pair of dress pants, and they take the beating from the snow and slop that exists in the winter season better to.
• for mandarin oranges
• for smoked gouda
• for a working pair of headphones
• for music from Jacob and Lily
• for warmth and light

Tuesday evening...

I'm curled up in my praying chair, in the corner of my bedroom. There are candles lit, the scent of incense in the air because I was burning it earlier. A mug of tea within easy reach - mango rooibos is the brew of choice tonight. Soft instrumental piano music playing quietly on my laptop - a cd of old hymns.

The clutter around the room is bothering me, but I don't have the energy or drive to clean it tonight... maybe tomorrow, maybe not...

As I was driving home from the grocery store earlier tonight, I was searching for a word to describe how I've been feeling lately.

The word I came up with is "displaced".

I remember telling a friend towards the end of the summer that I was so tired of feeling as if my whole life was in transition all the time. The transitions have smoothed out, but there isn't yet the sense of comfort, of knowingness that comes with time and patience.

Displaced sounds like a bad thing. I don't mean it that way at all. I just mean that I am feeling as if I am slightly in between spaces. I'm no longer in the old (boring) comfortable and familiar space. I'm not quite fully into the new spaces I've begun to sense the Lord asking me to occupy. So I'm inbetween, slightly displaced. And I think it's a very good spot to be.

I had salad for supper (and at lunch, too, come to think of it). I can't remember the last time I had salad twice in one day. Probably before I moved out of mom and dad's house. Not being a huge lover of lettuce, I don't buy the stuff, and rarely make salads for myself, preferring to get my daily dose of vegetables in other forms. But today, it tasted really good.

I bought two books and a magazine tonight. Reading related purchases always make me happy. One of the books is the book on Africa that I started reading three weeks ago - I have to return my copy to the library, and wanted to purchase my own, and mark a few things I'd flagged before I returned the copy to the library. The other is a memoir about life and spirituality. Can I just say that memoirs make for some of my favorite reading of all-time? Particularly those that fall into the genre one of my university professors described as "spiritual autobiography." The magazine is one that looked like it might have some fun, uncomplicated Christmas ideas among other things, and will, if nothing else, probably provide some great clipping for collage projects in the future.

I'm thinking that I'll probably need to make a list of things that are making me smile either tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm in need of the reminders of the beautiful things in life at the moment...

Well... I think I'll read, and finish sipping my tea for a few minutes, then maybe watch a bit of television before bed...

until next time!