July 1, 2009

My family lost a very good friend this past week.  Twyla McCollumn.  She went into the hospital with pneumonia and ended up passing away, Saturday June 27.  It makes one stop and take stock of how mortal we really are.  I have to admit that I don’t think in terms of never coming home one night, or not being able to see my friends and family again because something random happens (it brings back the fall of 1999 when my uncle passed away).  But when you go awhile without it being close (you know people pass away every day), you forget or get comfortable with life and live it like you have all the time in the world.

Our Bishop preached this past Sunday morning about having our ‘heart’ involved in our relationship with God.  And that if our heart was involved then we would follow Him, obey his commandments, and do it willingly and without question because from the heart the mouth speaketh.  If we just have head religion then our feelings are not involved and it’s easier to go our own way.  He did an awesome job, and it makes one take stock of their walk with God.  I personally have problems trusting people, and to rely on someone else.  I know this is terrible, but it’s easier to not involve the heart.  I know that God would never break my heart and He loved me enough to die for me…but that is head knowledge.  I’m ready for it to be heart knowledge.  To truly let all obstacles lay by the wayside, and to be open to whatever may come (or be)…I know that there is something awesome out there, He’s just waiting on me to step over the ledge trusting Him to be there.

As to other things in my ‘new beginnings’ post from last month (you can see it below).  Well, I didn’t exercise every day, but I didn’t gain any weight either. WOOT!!!  At the rate I was regaining my weight, I could see me being the size of the Good Year Blimp by Christmas, and I would need a tent for my friends wedding rather than the awesome dress she has picked out.  I’m striving to keep the course, and to continue losing the weight back off again, we only have 8 lbs to go. :)

I’ve reconnected with some friends from college through facebook, and it’s great to get to talk to them and share ‘life’.  We have all been through some paths that we didn’t see coming when we were in college with our whole life ahead of us.  But it’s good.  They remind me of the dreams I had, along with what ‘can’ be.

That about sums is up for now.  I hope that anyone that reads this has a wonderful Fourth of July weekend!  Be safe, and enjoy some fireworks and time with family.

Later…ERM

June…to new beginnings

Tomorrow is the first day of June…this year is already almost half over.  Time is flying faster than I can blink I think.  I’ve had a very stressful time since March apparently, I’ve gained back 8 lbs of all the weight I’ve lost (which was around 18 lbs)…I’m very frustrated about that.  It’s much easier to put it on than to take it off.  Though I did have a crazy December that helped me lose some of the weight.  But as the title of the blog is ‘new beginnings’ tomorrow I have decided that I’m going to start being the person that I know I need to be to keep the weight off and to get the weight I have gained back off.  It’s a new day, new month, new beginning.

We had a reunion last weekend for the Youth Group from 1989-1992, that were under the leadership of Calvin and Cheryl Jean.  We had a great weekend.  Saturday night we had a dinner and we just sat around telling stories from the ‘good ol’ days’, and just getting to know one another again.  Sunday morning Calvin preached on ‘Selling the Church’; he reminded us why we’re here, why we do what we do, and how important the church is.  Sometimes we forget, or we let things in our life overshadow our relationship and walk with God.  It was a great weekend.

My family, The March Gang, is in town for the summer.  They are here to raise their funds for another nine months in Ireland.  they are staying with me while they are here.  It’s an interesting change.  I’m so accustomed to being in a quiet house, and coming/going without having to worry about anyone…but it’s good.  I’m enjoying having them here, and I will miss them when they are gone again.

I love the song by Matthew West , The Motions.  When I first heard it on the radio it hit a cord in my because of some stuff that I was going through in my life at that time…and even now.  I know that there is so much more that I could be doing, but I get in a rut and flesh is so apt to follow the easy path.  I don’t want to be caught just going through the ‘ho-hum’ of life and missing the bigger picture and missing out on what God wants for my life.  Today my pastor preached about Pentecost and having the ‘power’ and anointing, and the fact that we don’t have to be perfect we just have to be willing to be used and to step out and ‘do’ something.  I’m waiting on the audible voice of God, or for Him to just come down and sit beside me and say “Hey, this is what is”, and to show me where and what he wants.  Sometimes I feel like I’ve totally missed the boat, and that I’m watching it chug out of the harbor and everyone else caught it and knew exactly what they were going to do.  I rethink all the decisions that I’ve made in my life over the past ten years and the “What Ifs’ are HUGE…but I know that it starts over NOW.  It’s a new beginning…a new day…and it depends on how I take THIS day and this chance not on the past.

To new beginnings…to new months…to the rest of 2009.

Blessings…

Tonight I sat in Chuck’s class at church titled “Blessings and Abominations”.  He talked about how God took the children of Israel through the wilderness to teach the trust and discipline, and to also prepare them for the blessing that He was going to give them.  Chuck also talked about patience and how sometimes we fail to receive God’s blessings because we don’t have the patience to wait on Him to bring it.  We get frustrated and fail to wait for it…because we live in a NOW mentality world.  Also, that once we do obtain the promise we are to remember WHO made it possible and that it is not by our own righteousness that we have it…God’s love and mercy are want bring us into blessings.

I am so blessed, and I fail to remember that sometimes because I look at the circumstances that I find myself in at that moment instead of what has happened in the past and what I’m looking forward to in the future.  God has done so much for me.  He made it possible for me to build a house, and when I lost the job I had that made the payments affordable He has also supplied a means for me to keep the house…and I have not went hungry; He has given me a family that is AWESOME!!  They are there for me regardless, and sometimes I can be a pain.  He has placed me in a church under leadership that has vision.  I’m not always what I need to be and I sometimes lose sight of the goal; but He is faithful, even when my faith falters.  He loves me when I feel unlovable.  He catches me when I fall, or at least is standing there beside me coaxing me to get up.  He is my supplier of all things that I need; and gives me things even before I know that I need them.  He’s awesome, and sometimes in the fog of life I forget the simple things while looking for the big.

I am thankful for all my blessings…and I know they come from Him.

I had a picture published…

I use a flickr site to store a lot of my pics online…I have a tone more that I need to put up…anyway, Schmap!! emailed me the other day and they wanted to use one of my photos from Ireland in their Belfast Historical Background section.  Of course I said YES, and you can go check it out here:  SCHMAP!!

Other than that…not much happening.  I’m really blah right now, we have had nothing but rain and cloudy skies for a week, and we’re only having that for another week.  I’ve gained about five pounds due to eating everything in site…I need an exercise driver to crack a whip over me and keep my butt motivated, or soon I’m going to start looking like the Goodyear Blimp.

Riley and Tara and the kids come home in SIXTEEN DAYS, I’m very excited about that.  Though my house needs a lot of stuff done to it to make it comfortable for them…I need some dressers and some beds moved in.  I need to make a ‘to-do’ list so it will be ready by the 20th.  WOOT!!!

Had a good weekend so far.  Spent Friday night at my cousin’s house, then Saturday I went to PB and hung out with some of my friends that I haven’t seen in awhile.  Now it’s off to church today, and we’re having a fat cow party…but I’m going to help make the cake instead…which means I really must get going. :)

Random thoughts…

Sometimes there is no ‘one’ thing that causes one to sit down and write.  Though a lot has happened and continues to happen in life, the point is that it just ‘happenes’ and you don’t make a note to self to sit down and share it.  So this post is going to be a bunch of random things that have happened lately…

My birthday.  I turned 32 on April 19.  Did I picture myself where I am today when I was envisioning my life as a youngster…not really.  I have a fuzzy picture of what I saw myself as, but I’m pretty sure that it didn’t include what is going on now.  For my birthday my mom cooked me lunch, I spent most of it in church (since it fell on a Sunday), and then I had dinner with a friend(s).  Overall it was a nice birthday…and I rang in another year.

Drive by shootings.  My Grandma Foster’s house was shot.  If she had been standing up beside her chair, rather than sitting in it, the bullet would have caught her right between the eyes.  We thought that it was some crazy kids that was shooting at the road sign in the ditch beside her house…but come to find out it was some STUPID kids that was shooting AT the house for kicks.  I’m not sure what all has happened yet, but last I heard a week after the incident the sheriff’s department was yet to write a report about it, and we’re waiting on that in order to get the insurance money to fix all the holes in the walls…the bullet went through three walls.

Church exchange.  We did a church exchange with a church here in town where they came to our church and their pastor preached and we did praise and worship; then we went to their church and our pastor preached and they did the praise and worship.  Last night was our night to attend their church.  It was an awesome time.  Chuck preached on ‘The Withered Hand’, and about how we compensate for what we don’t have in demonstrations of God’s power…but it’s time to stretch forth our hand.  It was a great sermon and the service was really good…it was fun getting to see everyone and worship together.

The blahs.  Sometimes I get the blahs.  This week I’m battling them, and I’ve decided in my mind that I’m going to kick them in the butt by exercising them away.  I may end up skinny but what harm is that…I always feel better after exercise.

My water heater.  My dad came and replaced the element in my hot water heater tonight (thanks dad!!).  I was getting the joy of occasionally going out and hitting the reset button on the water heater to have hot water, or waking up late and having to boil water because it was not working properly.  But now I will have the convenience of just having hot water…we really take it for granted sometimes.

God is awesome!!  I’m thanking for His love and mercy.  He is better to me than I deserve, and I love Him…though my actions may not always show that I do, I am working on being what He wants me to be…and He is still working on me.

That’s all for now…hope you all have a wonderful night/day/week.

Until later…ERM.

Someone thinks I’m beautiful…and big

Some interesting things have happened in my life over the past couple of weeks, or month.  But to explain my title…I was going about my business as usual today and went to check my email.  It popped up and I saw that I had two new messages, I was all excited (I love mail); well one was from New York & Co and the other was from Big Beautiful Women and the subject was ‘We’ll Help You Find the Right Match’.  So, one…do they think I’m big?  Two, are they trying to match me with a woman, or do they have a list of men that like BIG women?  The only solace I have is that they at least thought I was beautiful. :)  Gotta love some spam!

Onto other matters.  I’ve come to find out that some guys (and notice I said ’some’) are fickle.  I was datingseeing someone recently, off and on…a few outings.  Well I’ve had a lot of stuff happen over the past couple of months and I’ve been busy, not to mention that I was planning a trip to Ireland, yadda yadda (some of it excuses)…anyway.  He came down to see me right before I left (which was March 19), so four days prior to that…the fifteenth.  I was busy with last minute things that were going on and didn’t get to talk to him much (it was at church).  He ends up getting a phone number of a girl that lives in a town about 30 minutes away…that same night.  I come home from Ireland and a week goes by.  I meet up with a friend of mine and she asks if I’ve heard about our mutual friend…I had a quizzical look on my face because I had no clue.  He’s getting MARRIED, and it’s not to me.  I laughed and laughed.  I found it very humorous.  So within a three week span (maybe), he texted, met, and got engaged to someone.  I say more power to ya!!

So about some of the ‘change’ that would be happening in my life.  I had an opportunity to work for a branch of civil service, I was looking forward to working for them and felt it an honor to make it through their interview process.  In order to work the job I had to wear a uniform, which I was fine with, unfortunately their uniform consisted of slacks, shirt, and shoes.  I asked for an accommodation to allow a skirt to be part of their uniform, and then prayed that if this is really what God wanted for my life right now that he would make it feasible.  They did not grant me the accommodation, though they had granted other members accommodations to wear items that were not part of the uniform.  I then quietly withdrew my application and let them know that working for them would go against everything that I hold as part of ‘who’ I am.  Part of me wanted to yell about the injustice of it all, and another part wanted to contact the other applicants and let them know that I had the job and the reason why they are now working for the company is because I bowed out (I was good enough to work there too), then the sane me realized that apparently this is how it’s meant to be for now.  Somewhere in the future there may be an opportunity for me to work for this company in some capacity, and I would still consider it an honor…but for now this ’season’ of my life did not come and I’m o.k. with that.  The money and benefits would have been great…but God will take care of me.

That’s all for now…

ERM

God is Awesome!

There is probably a better word to use there, or maybe not…all I can say is that He’s awesome!  He loves us with unconditional love.  He gives us guidance.  He supplies our needs, sometimes before we know we have one.  He sends people into our lives to make a difference, we only have to accept it.

Our pastor preached Sunday morning on the title, ‘That’s against my religion’.  If you are religious at all, at some point in your life you may have used it as a cop-out.  Sometimes in jest, when you don’t want to do something you may have said it.  What we really need to get down to though, is what is really against ‘our’ religion.  Not the religion of the church you attend, or of your best friend, or of the person next door.  The personal, this is what I believe, this is MY RELIGION.  And stick to it.  Can I say that I’ve never fallen or faltered in what I believe…or stopped and reevaluated some issues.  Sometimes going back and forth, trying to figure out where I stand and why I stand there.  NO!!  As Paul would say, Forbid and I again I say Forbid.  In my opinion you should at some point question it all…should you forgo what you at one time held dear…probably not (though it sometimes happens).  But in case you do…God loves you!!  He is willing to forgive, and sometimes for the same dumb mistakes.

Coming face to face with the ‘convictions’ not just preferences…we need to decide what we will hold true and sacred and what we will not waffle on.  If it means being left out of what the ‘group’ is doing…so be it.  If we get to heaven and realize that we didn’t need that conviction…who cares, we’re in Heaven.

God is love.  I want to strive daily to be what he wants me to be; and I will probably fail again at some point…but I know that He loves me, and I am His.

ERM

Things I learned in Ireland

Pillows are flat.  It’s a wonder they call it a pillow.

The reason Ireland is so ‘green’ is because they keep it well fertilized.  Which makes for a great aroma. :)

If you are ‘qeued’ you are actually in line, and waiting.

Swans have legs…or actually feet like ducks.

Pay attention while walking on slippery, mossy rocks…you can easily bruise your knees and take out small children.

There are no ‘magic’ Kleenex…only in the minds of tired people.

I have some of the best family ever…and they are very entertaining.

It rains a lot…but regardless you can have fun.

They have some awesome food…fish & chips, bread, bread, oh and did I mention bread?

Digestives can be a good thing.

There is so much that I wanted to remember and tell, and I’m sure that I’ve forgotten most of it.  The country is so beautiful, and the people I came into contact with were nice.  They like our accent.  It was an awesome trip and I’m very glad that I was able to go.

Here’s a link to the final set of my pictures…Ireland ‘09. 

Ireland Day Seven — Coming home

We said our goodbyes to the kids last night, so this morning we only saw Riley as we headed out at the break of day to the airport.  Our flight out was at 8:40, but we had to be there earlier to get through customs and such.  Side note:  I will be able to unpack and undress in under five minutes from here one out. :)  We had to unload everything that was electronic (computer, video camera, camera, etc) out of our bags; tack our shoes off, and I had to take my jacket/hoodie off…and be fast enough so that the people behind you did cut in line (though they did sometimes) and then be able to reassemble all items in a timely fashion on the other side of the gate so that you don’t hold up traffic.  Coming into London, we got to go through this process twice…which was great fun.

Anyway…we made it to the airport, said our final goodbyes and started our trip home.  We made it to London with time to spare, then caught our flight to Phily.  We landed with just under an hour and forty-five minutes to spare to make it through customs, collect our bags, and make our connection to St. Louis.  They made us ‘hover’ for 30 minutes out in no-man’s land.  When we landed, I turned my cell phone on and called my home number to find out that we had a ‘delay’ for our connection that would last 110 minutes.  Instead of rushing, we were able to take our time, and we went to wait.

I spent $8.50 on a little box of fruit and a Snapple…the place didn’t have the correct price tags in front of the food…and I didn’t want to hold up the line.  We tried sleeping…because our plan had an additional delay.  We were supposed to take off at 6:55…we ended up leaving Phily at 10:30 (when we were to arrive in STL originally).  The flight was uneventful, we arrived at STL and headed home. 

ALL my luggage arrived with us this time…I was super excited about that.

We arrived back home at 4:30 am…making it about 27 hours that we had been up total, with little cap naps on the plane and in the waiting areas.  It was a CRAZY day!!!

I was very excited about getting to sleep in my own bed (for the three hours I had before heading to work), with a ‘real’ pillow.

Until later..ERM

Ireland Day Six - Wednesday, March 25

I woke this morning with mixed feelings.  Excitement of getting to see another castle and some sadness because this was the last day that I would get to spend with my family.  We all got up and ate breakfast, Seneatha playing the chef and cooking eggs all around — well for those who wanted them.  I got a basic kids plate, because I was having toast and one egg, she asked if that’s the plates that we were eating on and I was like, ‘yeah I am’.  So she grabbed one for the next egg that came up, which was Riley’s…so Riley ate off of a Hello Kitty plate.  It was humorous to me. :)

After getting us all fed and bathroom break done, we headed out.  It was almost ten, but we were still doing good.  We headed to Carrickfergus Castle.  It sits up on the shore, just northeast of Belfast.  It was a really cool castle.  They had figures set throughout the castle of people that would be there, and their stories.  We had the opportunity to walk throughout the castle, watch a couple of videos in the tv room (while waiting for the rain/wind to calm down some), and to say the we have been to a castle. 

When we were in the gift shop we asked the ladies there where a good place to eat would be, that would have authentic food, they sent us to Sozo’s and then onto O’Neils Bakery…two VERY good selections.  After eating, and as we were walking down to the ‘nice’ bakery (the ladies at the castle told us to pass up the first one because they weren’t ‘nice’…meaning their food wasn’t as good); we stopped at a goodwill and I purchased some tea cups for my mom and a skirt for myself.  It was a great time!

After leaving Carrickfergus, we headed into Banbridge to hit a couple of shops and then to go to the American Outlet to pick up some tea pots and tea.  It’s a very cute little town, this is the closest place to Riley and Tara that has a bank and other stores that they can shop (their village only has a corner supermarket w/ a post office in it).  I found a couple of shawl type things, and a ‘tea for one’ thing that ‘I couldn’t live without’…so I made some final purchases before heading back to the house to pack and get ready for church.

After arriving home, Seneatha and I packed.  Then we went down to play with the kids while Tara finished dinner.  We set the table and had supper then headed off to church.  Bro. MacFarland’s pastor from Florida was there, he preached on ‘Authentic Christianity’.  It was a good service.  Afterwards we talked to the church members before heading home to weigh our bags (with Bro. Mac’s scales) and to finish getting everything done and prepared for tomorrow.

Until later…ERM