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.

It's a pretty good day - one of those days when I like my job. I had a problem earlier with a hotel opening, and my boss stepped in and expertly took care of the situation. Now I know I need to be more forceful with these people. Also, we had a fun lunch at Huey's today, and I got to ride in Helen's new car and discuss work things with her. I'll be sad when she moves in a couple of weeks!

I'm debating buying a new CD walkman. I have two cheap ones- one for walking and one for the car (I mistakenly thought one of them was dead and bought another). But I used to have a nice radio tuner/CD player for walking, which really did stop working. Now that I'm walking so much, I'm getting sick of my CDs. Radio would be helpful if only for variety. I just received some unexpected money and I'm trying to decide whether to spend it on this, or something else, or save it.

You know, tithing is really important. God promises in Malachi to bless us if we tithe and even says, "Test me in this." I've been giving a little more at church lately, which has made me nervous, but somehow my needs are still more than provided for. I know it's not a coincidence. :)

Tonight I'm turning down two potentially beneficial events to sit at home with the guys and watch American Idol. I feel guilty.

My Caedmon's Call Chronicles CD finally came in the mail yesterday. I ordered it three weeks ago. Yay!

This "Life Soundtrack" thing was going around a while ago, so I saved it and have been working on it over time. It's finally done. I altered the options a little bit because some of them were repetitive, and some seemed like they should be included but weren't. Have fun! ( The music in the background )

TGIF! It's a quiet day, something I haven't experienced in a while. I am full of anticipation of our date tonight. We decided to postpone ceramics for a special occasion. Instead we're going downtown to have Chinese food and see 50 First Dates. :) The rest of the weekend will be full of other fun activities. We're seeing Passion of the Christ on Sunday night with the church group. Knowing how much it will shake me up, I'm not really looking forward to it, but being spiritually jarred is good for growth. I'm very disturbed by gory movies, but I can stay okay by telling myself it's not real. This was real, and it was for me. It's pretty overwhelming.

On a lighter note, my musical appliances have formed a conspiracy against me. A couple of months ago, my beautiful, fairly-new Kenwood stereo stopped turning on. The standby light is on, but when you hit the power button, nothing happens. (I refuse to believe that it's dead and want to take it to a repairman...if I ever get around to doing so.) Shortly thereafter, my tuner/discman died completely. The cheap discman that I use in the car became my all-purpose one. On Wednesday, it went the way of the others. Today I'm getting another cheap one because I can't stand the radio anymore, but Evan thinks I should just get a car stereo with CD player and he'll install it for me. It might be a better idea in the long run, but it seems like an unnecessary expense right now. So many things demanding my tax refund. :P

Yolanda didn't show up last night. I went to Streets and she had just left. It was weird, but not unexpected since you never know what's going on over there. Hopefully we can do McDonald's next week.

I miss Jessica.

A quote to think about today:
The questions worth asking are not answerable. Could we be fascinated by a Maker who was completely explained and understood? The mystery is tremendous, and the fascination that keeps me returning to the questions affirms that they are worth asking, and that any God worth believing in is the God not only of the immensities of the galaxies I rejoice in at night when I walk the dogs, but also the God of love who cares about the sufferings of us human beings and is here, with us, for us, in our pain and in our joy. - Madeleine L’Engle