The Beauty and the Mess

I forgot to mention this, but thanks so much to Jen and Jason for sending me a keychain radio scanner thingy (it looks sort of like this). Everyone here thinks it's really cool! Thanks for being in the know and saving me tons of money. :) Now I can have more music variety on my walks. Also, my Friends 'Til The End book finally came in the mail. It's great...I'm reading through it slowly. At some point I want to scan a bunch of the pictures and make icons from them. I've been making a lot of random stock-photography icons lately but never get around to posting them. Are you guys interested?

Tonight I get to go to Macaroni Grill with my family, the guys, and my sister's best friend/roommate, Amanda. I'm excited but feel guilty about my insatiable appetite. On the plus side, I've exercised to some degree every day this week, which is unusual. :) I called the house earlier, and Debra answered and sang her conversation, in English and Spanish, sometimes alternating every other word. When my mom finally wrested the phone from her, she felt like she ought to sing too. LOL. We're weirdos.

I feel such a burden lately for many of you. So many people's lives are changing and I find myself wanting to pray a lot. I wish I was a more eloquent person, so I could pray more specifically instead of saying the same things again and again. I'm going to pull a Lauren and end with a verse: In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. - Jesus, John 16:33.

The good news for the day is, I can see! The bad news is that my prescription is now -6 in both eyes. That scares me. I tested at 20/20 with the new contacts, and the doctor seemed pleasantly surprised. Attention, eyes: you have a lot more to see. Don't get any worse.

Evan and I are going to see Man On Fire tonight. It looks good. Personally, I'm a little freaked by how talented and mature Dakota Fanning is, in the same way I was freaked by Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. No kid should be able to act that serious. It seems...alien.

I'm so thankful that I have a job so I can afford stuff like contacts and movies and rent. It's good to remember that some people have to go without those things. Sometimes I think about life centuries ago when there was no such thing as glasses. I can't imagine going through life and seeing everything as a big blob, though I don't guess they knew any different. It makes me sad for them.

Kathy will be done with her thesis next week, and then I'll get to see her more. Only eight weeks until Emily's wedding, and twelve weeks until Kathy's. It's so soon. How did we get here? Last night I made a list in my prayer journal of all the upcoming weddings and babies that I need to keep praying for. It was a long list. I need to budget my prayer time better, because there are people I'm neglecting. There's just so much to pray for. I know God will accomplish things regardless of whether I pray or not, but I like to participate. :)

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Last day of work! Last day of work! Last day of work! Only for five days, but still. That ought to be enough time away to restore my sanity.

I watched Erin Brockovich last night. What a great movie! I can't believe I waited so long to see it.

( Prayer, Inner Elves, and stuff )

Have I mentioned how much I love this icon?

As of next Monday, I'm going to be temporarily busier at work. I will be helping the Records department to catalogue all of our hotel files, then mail them away. (Because, you know, we don't need the files. We only work with them every day. They'll be much more efficient in the Dallas office.) So if I am not as posty or responsive next week, it's not because I don't like you guys anymore. :)

Fun things are scheduled for this weekend, which is good. Tonight Ryan and I are going to the football game between my sister's high school and my brother's high school. It's Debra's homecoming, so she gets to do all kinds of senior things. My brother called a few minutes ago to ask me what you use to write stuff on cars. It turned out he wanted to write "Bolton Rules" all over her truck (Bolton is his school). I managed to talk him out of it. It would have been funny, though. :)

Also, Saturday night is a big board game night at Kathy's church, so we are going to that. I am excited. I rarely get to play trivia games because Kathy hates them, so I'm excited about finding someone to play me. I'm great at trivia and creative games, but awful at strategy games. This is why, when Kathy and I play Monopoly, I might as well hand all the properties to her at the beginning and save us a couple of hours. :)

I put in a prayer card at church last week, which I had never done before. I realized that I am hesitant to ask people to pray for me. I generally only ask when I'm at the end of my rope. Isn't that silly? I like to pray for people, so why do I think they wouldn't want to pray for me? Anyway, I got a card in the mail yesterday with the signatures of the prayer group that got my request. It was such a nice feeling. Yes, this is how the Body of Christ is supposed to work. :) So: don't be afraid to ask for prayer! Prayer is a powerful thing. I've seen the results of it in my life all week.

I hope all of you have a nice weekend!