reverie

I believe in love letters and birthday cards and notes just because.  I believe that there are few things more thoughtful, more personal, more caring than a handwritten letter, note, or card.  I believe in snail mail.  I have been horrible about putting this belief into practice over the last several years, and I am working to rectify that now. Awhile back I bought supplies for an address book.  To most people this would mean a little book labeled "Addresses" with alphabetized sections and lines on which to write friends' and family's information.  Being me, I had to do things my own way.  After a significant amount of contemplation, I decided the supplies I needed for an address book were a 3-ring binder, photo binder pages, 3x5 index cards, sheet protectors, and Sharpie pens. I am not a paid spokesperson for Office Depot.  I have been a long-time Sharpie fan, and I was ecstatic when they came out with pens a few years ago.  The pens do n...

Step 1: Purchase delicious and nutritious coconut oil from Trader Joe's. Step 2: Consume the entire contents of the jar--probably not all at once.  I recommend making scrambled eggs, eggs over easy, roasting vegetables, and making pie crust.  Coconut oil is a fantastic 1:1 replacement for shortening, just make sure to refrigerate the coconut oil long enough for it to solidify.  You can also put a tablespoon of coconut oil in your morning tea or coffee for an energy and brain boost.  I know it sounds weird, but just try it.  It'll make your lips nice & soft too.  My sister and I also discovered on Sunday that you can apply a generous amount of coconut oil to corn tortillas to make them pliable enough for homemade taquitos.  The taquitos were delicious, not greasy, and did not taste coconutty. Step 3: Once you've used every bit of coconut oil you possibly can, soak the jar in hot water for about an hour.  The hot water and any remaining b...

In my nearly 9 years of blogging, I have only missed my first day of February post once.  If you're new around here, first of all welcome and thank you for stopping by!  Secondly, February is a cherished and beloved month for many reasons, but primarily because it's my birthday month!  :)  Some other cool people I know have birthdays in February too.  I just started to list them, and then I realized it's actually a lot of people.  Woohoo February birthdays! I love celebrating and birthdays are no exception.  Life is a gift and our days are numbered, so what possible reason would I have not to enjoy it? Here are a few other things I'm stoked about this month. Psych FINALLY returns!  This is one of my very favorite shows.  It had a doozy of a season finale last April.  Yes, that's right last April.  Nearly an entire season of baseball, the postseason, winter meetings, and the start of spring training will have taken place befor...

I have a Women of the Bible devotional that I recently started re-reading.  When I bought it several years ago, I sort of skipped around and did more of a topical study and never completed the whole book.  This week the book caught my attention and I decided that I would go through it in order this time. Naturally, the book begins with a study of Eve.  Last night the reading was on the fall of man.  Having grown up going to church, I've heard this story about a million times.  It's easy to assume you already know everything there is to know about a Bible story when you've heard it more than once before.  Of course, that's a bad assumption because God can always reveal something new to you in scripture, no matter how many times you've heard or read a certain passage. Last night I was really struck by Genesis 3:21.  "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them."  In context, this is right after God explains what bei...

Like the rest of America, I was shocked and heartbroken by the events in Newtown, CT this past Friday.  The loss of such young children in such a horrific way is unfathomable.  The president addressed the nation on Friday afternoon and I did not watch, but I heard reports of people either being moved by his tears or offended that he faked crying.  Whether he was moved as a father, or faking good leadership doesn't really matter.  I have been left with the question of why these children matter more to Barack Obama than children born alive after a failed abortion.  (He voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act as a state senator in IL.)  Why do these children matter more than babies in their mother's wombs, at any point during their gestation? Others have drawn the similarity between abortion and the tragedy in Newtown, and some have been outraged by it.  How could anyone draw such a comparison?  It's simple, either you believe the lives ...

I have been unemployed for nearly 4 months now.  That is, I have been without a full-time job for 4 months. I am still working as an Independent Scentsy Consultant, but as you might imagine that does not bring in the same sort of income as a 40 hour/week office job.  I hope to be able to grow my Scentsy business into a sustainable full-time gig, and with any luck I will not have to return to the doldrums of a job just for the sake of a paycheck. I was sitting in church this past Sunday, listening to a sermon that I felt largely disconnected from.  It was mostly directed toward parents, and as that is a joy I have yet to experience (though hopefully someday), I was not in tune with most of the message.  At one point, though, the pastor was speaking about being thankful and that he tithes because he is thankful for salvation.  Jesus paid the price to redeem us, and it costs us nothing.  Our salvation isn't dependent on our tithing, but it is something we ca...

This week has been draining for me, as often happens when things don't go how you hoped/planned/imagined/expected.  I was met with sleeplessness, topsy turvy emotions, and most of all questions.  How?  Why?  What now?  Ultimately these questions are about seeking what is true and what is right, which has left me also pondering lies. What lies are you willing to buy?  Of course my initial reaction is that I don't intend or want to buy any lies.  The more thought I've put into it though, the more I realize that I am willing to accept a lot of things that I know to be wrong.  And really isn't accepting what you know to be wrong or untrue the same as buying into the lies?  When we decide to acquiesce, we've given up fighting for truth.  We've given up taking a stand for what is right. What's more, by accepting lies we may be inadvertently telling others that it's okay to buy into the lie as well. What happens to the world when we di...

For many people the election ends today and they will go back to their normal lives and a "normal" amount of politics, which seems to be little or none for most.  But for a political nerd, this is just our biggest holiday.  Imagine if Christmas came once every 4 years.  In between there are smaller holidays, other elections, but this is the big one. The thing is, after today the election isn't over for us.  Whoever wins, we still work, we still fight, we still pray.  Winning an election is only part of it for us, even if our preferred candidate comes out on top.  The most important work happens next--keeping candidates, especially the ones who earned our votes, accountable. After today we stay immersed in political news everyday.  We listen to talk radio, we read as much as we can possibly get our hands on, we catch the highlights on Twitter, and we know what the MSM isn't reporting. For political nerds, today is a highlight (hopefully), but...

Ingredients (L to R, back to front): Coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, arrowroot powder, aloe vera gel, baking soda, tea tree oil, lavender essential oil, shea butter, vitamin E oil, cocoa butter, lemongrass essential oil, and beeswax. I already had a couple of these ingredients on hand, I just had to wait for my order from Mountain Rose Herbs to arrive the other day to make my concoctions possible.  I will tell you at the bottom what I'm making.  Hint: these items are for 5 different products, some with overlapping ingredients. For the past several months I have been on a journey to change my eating habits.  After my dad who is a vegetarian had to have a triple bypass, my sister & I pretty much had the same reaction of, "What the heck?"  If that can happen to someone with our dad's eating habits, then something is amiss.  We started studying Ayurveda (5000 year old Indian health science).  I had also simultaneously come across a wealth of ...

Job update--I am still working 2 1/2 weeks into August, but I am working half days.  It has turned out to be a great solution for me.  :) In other news Shauna Niequist, who's book Cold Tangerines I have quoted a few times recently, has another book Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way  and it is $3.99 for the Kindle right now.  I don't know how long the sale will last, so if you're interested get it now!  :)  I haven't read it yet, but if Cold Tangerines is any indication, I will love this one as well.

"I kept finding myself in tears, hoping for a life that was wholly different from the one I was living.  I couldn't figure out if I was just tired and needed a vacation, or if I was scared and needed to quit.  Everyone has dreams that they think about on bad days at work.  But they're dreams, right?  You don't actually do them, right?" -- Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating The Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life I've been at my current job for just under a year and a half.  In that time I have cried at my desk more times than I can count, due to stress, frustration, anger.  It's been a tough job for me, perhaps exacerbated by the fact that it came on the heels of a job I loved. Several times I have considered just throwing in the towel and quitting on the spot.  I'm far too . . . pragmatic?  Deliberate?  Chicken?  Something along those lines, to do something so impetuous.  So when the need arose to quit my job to...

I often find myself reading before going to bed, whether it's books, blogs, Twitter, or some article that's part of whatever random thread of research I'm following at the moment.  I frequently fall asleep reading.  My Kindle has become a very handy part of this habit as the cover has a pull out light that provides enough light to read in bed and turns itself off when the Kindle has been idle for awhile.  This has pretty much perfected bedtime reading as I am not later awoken in the night by the light. Last night I was reading Revelations of a Single Woman and I got to the chapter titled "So, Why Aren't You Married?"  Since this question is nearly impossible to answer, I mostly expected wit, wisdom, and anecdotes from this chapter.  What I encountered instead was this. "You might understand that the world is fallen and often unfair, but that's still not the kind of answer that warms you on a lonely Saturday night.  And if in your heart of he...

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased."   -- C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory" This quote has been bouncing about my head for a couple of weeks as I consider the unfathomable blessings God desires to lavish upon us.  How easy it is to settle for the comfortable pseudo-blessings that we attempt to bring about ourselves by carefully controlling our lives.  But what if?  What if there are real blessings that are not only slightly better, but actually infinitely better than what we have the ability to even dream let...

Pie crust promises are easily made and easily broken.  Cheesecake promises are however something far more steadfast.  Today was rough, so this afternoon I texted my sister to see how she felt about cheesecake and Captain America tonight.  Like the wise sister that she is she thought it was an "excellent plan." So after work, I headed toward the Cheesecake Factory.  The sky ahead of me was bluish grey and stormy; the sky behind me was sunny.  I hoped that I might see a rainbow.  I recognized that I didn't need one, today has not shaken my faith, but I just really wanted one.  What better way is there to feel God's promise and faithfulness reasserted? I drove past where I would normally turn to go home, kept driving, and just before I turned onto the major road that would lead me to my destination, faintly across the whole sky was a rainbow.  I started crying.  It was beautiful and perfect.  My God shows up.  And if I hadn't decid...

This morning I realized that I hadn't bought a new journal in over 3 years, possibly more.  I have a journal that I had been using in that time, but it was woefully neglected for the majority of it.  I've been realizing a few things over the past several days, the kinds of things that need journaling (and are not yet ready for public consumption, though perhaps at some point in the future), and I decided that these new thoughts perhaps needed a new journal. After a Goldilocks-esque perusal of B&N's selection, a journal that had a drawing of a bird and a rainbow on the cover grabbed my attention even though it wasn't necessarily "my style."  I flipped through it and delightedly discovered perfect line spacing, colorful but not obnoxious doodles around the edges of the pages, a scent that reminded me of India, and "where troubles melt like lemon drops" written in small cursive on the back cover.  It was perfect. I don't like "The Wizar...

Marriage has been on my mind a lot for the past several months.  I got to ring in 2012 by celebrating my dear friend Shauna's marriage to her wonderful husband Michael.  The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a blast.  :) Other than that there have been tough family situations, politics, and turning 30 that have brought marriage to mind as well. Recently I started reading a book called Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect  by Connally Gilliam.  Normally I don't read many dating/relationship/singles sorts of books.  I read some of the most popular ones in college and as I didn't find it to be all that fruitful I haven't returned to that genre. I stumbled across this book on Amazon and the subtitle, pink heels on the front, and then the reviews convinced me to give it a shot.  I read the excerpt on Amazon and was amazed and a little freaked out that this woman seemed to be in my head.  She resonated with me ...

First of all, thank you so much to everyone who prayed for my dad. His heart surgery went well. They had told us it would take 4 hours, and pretty much on the nose at the 4 hour mark someone came to get us to go back and talk to the surgeon. The conversation was quite brief, but all that mattered was that everything had gone well. We got to see my dad very briefly after surgery, 2 of us at a time, and he joked with my sister & I when we were in there. That made me feel a whole lot better. He came home the following Saturday. :) We stayed in Omaha for just over a week after the surgery and then we headed back to Texas. To say I wasn't ready to come back would be a remarkable understatement. Honestly I am having quite a hard time transitioning back into "normal" life. I am not quite sure how to fix that. If anyone has any tips, dark chocolate, or rum they wish to share to help I am open to them. ;)

A lot has happened since we met last. This past Thursday, my dad went to the emergency room for chest pains/tingling/tightness. The doctors decided it was best to keep him in the hospital and move up his surgery. He will be having open heart surgery tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 7:30am. The past several days have been an emotionally exhausting whirlwind to say the least. I am greatly looking forward to breathing a huge sigh of relief once my dad is out of surgery and back in his room to recover, and then when we can bring him home a few days later. I know he and my family are covered in prayer and I am so thankful for that.

My dad needs heart surgery. My dad needs heart surgery. I cannot wrap my mind around that. When I found out this morning, I wanted to puke, cry, and then curl up in bed for the rest of the day. I cried as little as possible as I still had to make it through the day at work. After work there were still plenty of things to attend--we discussed details for going to Omaha instead of the planned trip to India, I made dinner, and 2 of our amazing friends came over for coffee since we didn't feel like going out anywhere to meet them. Ashlee even picked up Starbucks for everyone. Now that I have reached the end of the day and am alone in my room, though, that pukey feeling has returned. I have no idea how to unwind from a day like this. I am trying not to predetermine that everyday will be like this until my dad is safe at home after surgery, but I don't see this uneasiness relenting any other way. My dad has several blockages in his heart, including a 99% blockage of what doctor...

This morning my sister, my brother-in-law, and I went to the shooting range, and I got to shoot a gun for the first time. I wasn't the prodigy marksman I always hoped I might be, but I did alright. I got 3 shots in the bullseye and several in the surrounding inner circles. It was quite a fun way to spend a Saturday morning. I have a healthy respect for guns, and while I certainly hope I never need to use a one to protect myself, my family, or anyone else, I appreciate that I have the right to do so. I am extremely grateful for the freedoms afforded to us in America. I look forward to going to the range again, improving my aim, and figuring out what type of gun I am most comfortable with. After all I couldn't very well be a self-respecting Texan and not know how to handle a gun.