Happy first day of winter!!! ...I know there are reasons for having the first day of winter so late in Dec. but maybe someday they'll be nice and change the calendars for those of us Northerners and put the seasons back a month or two. It would help a really lot to prevent confusion.
So I've been very busy preparing for Christmas. Presents, wrapping, cookies... always more cookies. =)
Supposedly we're supposed to get 8 in. of snow Christmas Eve, and 16 in. on Christmas!!! ...I wonder if we'll even have Christmas on Friday??? Maybe... we'll have it on Saturday! Who would mind? =)
And so... right this moment I am working on downloading photos for a present for my Grammy.
Oh and I'm listening to some great Christmas music!!! I bought a Christmas CD by "Better Homes and Gardens" at WalMart, and it's excellent. It kind of adds a jazzy, smooth sound to Christmas. Definitely worthwhile. =)
So I hope all of you a having a very merry Holiday Season!!! ♥
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Infatuation vs. Love
1. Infatuation almost always leaps quickly into bloom. Love usually takes root more slowly and it grows with time.
2. Infatuation is accompanied by a sense of uncertainty. You are stimulated, thrilled, and filled with a kind of feverish excitement. You are miserable when he or she is absent. You can’t wait until you see them again. Love brings a feeling of security. You are warm with a sense of nearness even when he or she is away. Miles do not really separate you. You want the person near, but you know you can wait.
3. When you are infatuated, you may lose your appetite. You may daydream a lot. You can’t concentrate. You can’t study. You can’t keep your mind on your work. You may be short-tempered and unpleasant with your family. When you’re in love, you’re just the opposite. You can be sensible about your loved one. You feel more secure and trusting. Love gives you new energy and inspires you to do more than you ever dreamed possible.
4. Infatuation brings that feeling that you can’t wait. You can’t take the chance of losing him or her. When you’re in love, you know you can wait. You are sure of one another. You can plan for your future with complete confidence.
5. Infatuation may stem from a desire for self gratification. You wish to be identified with the person. You want your friends to see that he or she has chosen you. When in love, there is always a deep concern for the welfare of the loved one; you are far more focused on him or her then you are on yourself.
6. Infatuation may be merely physical attraction. If you are honest, you may discover that it is often difficult to enjoy each other unless you are leading up to sexual activity. Sex is also a natural and spontaneous part of love, but only a part. If your love is real, you will enjoy a deep friendship with a loved one. You will truly enjoy each other without being physical.
7. Infatuated couples may find it easy to disagree. When you’re in love, although your personalities may be quite different, there is an eagerness to hear the other side; to give as well as to take; to compromise.
8. Infatuation hardly ever thinks of the far future. What will the person be like thirty years from now? What kind of parent will he or she make? What kind of home life will we have? Love is more concerned with the future, wanting to grow and build a life together.
9. You may fall into infatuation, but you never “fall” in love.
10. Infatuation my lead you to do things you feel are wrong, things that worry you. But love will never pressure you to compromise your values or violate your boundaries.
11. Infatuation may lead you to try to become someone you are not to try to win the person’s approval or acceptance. Love embraces your differences, celebrating who you are as a unique and valuable human being. Love brings out the best in both people. “Why do I love you? I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”
From the book, "Guys Like Girls Who..." by Chad Eastham
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Lisa Gerrard
This woman has such a beautiful voice...
And this song is absolutely breathtaking.
Enjoy!
A Clean Room
Due to business in my life for the past month or so, my room has been in a constant state of messiness. I guess I would try to clean it but there was always some scrap of this or that I left out from some project I had been working on.
Sooooo... this past week my whole family has been powering out and cleaning the house, from the top to the bottom (the ceilings really were the worst part). Anyway, I guess I finally decided I was going to have a clean room if everything else was going to be tidy... so I went to work.
And wahla! Now it is all sparkly... JK. lol
But, no really, every time I walk in there I keep expecting a disaster, and am shocked by orderliness.
I really don't understand how some people don't mind messy rooms.
Sooooo... this past week my whole family has been powering out and cleaning the house, from the top to the bottom (the ceilings really were the worst part). Anyway, I guess I finally decided I was going to have a clean room if everything else was going to be tidy... so I went to work.
And wahla! Now it is all sparkly... JK. lol
But, no really, every time I walk in there I keep expecting a disaster, and am shocked by orderliness.
I really don't understand how some people don't mind messy rooms.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Let It Snow!
It snowed yesterday and today! I hope it just keeps on snowing.
It is cold though... very cold indeed.
It actually was 18 degrees this morning... maybe colder!
I forgot how cold it can get in the winter... =( lol
And working out in the cold... brrrrrr... it's like none other!
BUT.... tomorrow we may go get a Christmas tree!!!
I'm looking forward to that. =) I love the Christmas colors.
It is cold though... very cold indeed.
It actually was 18 degrees this morning... maybe colder!
I forgot how cold it can get in the winter... =( lol
And working out in the cold... brrrrrr... it's like none other!
BUT.... tomorrow we may go get a Christmas tree!!!
I'm looking forward to that. =) I love the Christmas colors.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Battle
I've been reading this book for a week or so and I finally finished it today. It's called "Every Young Man's Battle" It's actually a book written for guys... but let me tell you, it's been an eye-opener for me.
Being a girl, I always heard the stereo-typical comments like, "guys are all about sex" and other "harsh" statements. All my life I've known that guys are "extra horny"... and yeah, they probably think quite often about stuff that rarely crosses my mind. I also knew that guys are visually stimulated, pretty much a million times more so than girls are. So "knowing" that.. and finding it all "far out" and kind of hard to relate to, I put all that information on a back burner in my mind, and continued living my life. (ignorance is bliss right?)
Little did I know how much I didn't realize and the problems it would cause me.
I always knew the basics... guys are "logical", girls are "emotional", and guys would rather be respected and girls loved. And that, was that.
But I didn't have the life experience to understand exactly what all that meant in reality...
So when this handsome, charming guy turned up... I pretty much forgot that "you can't preheat the oven without cooking the roast. " (from a Doug Wilson book "Her Hand in Marriage" which is Very Excellent btw) ...and after years of dreaming about meeting my ideal man and having a perfect fairytale relationship I closed my eyes and took a leap.
Well... actually I didn't close my eyes. They were wide open the whole time... which is the worst part. For a good part of my relationship with this guy (or what seems like forever to me now), I thought I was doing things well, and handling myself properly and in a Christian manner.
Now I look back and just try to comprehend what on earth I was even thinking... or more likely what I wasn't thinking.
"Every Young Man's Battle" has to do with the sexual sins that EVERY guy struggles with. There is no guy that is perfect enough or sheltered enough or godly enough, to not deal with sexual temptations and struggles.
And you see... that is where I went wrong.
I didn't purposefully try to ignore the truth... I was simply naive and didn't understand or even know what the truth was. I misunderstood the whole entire creation of males. Because of my own insecurities and emotional needs I didn't realize that there was more to the picture. In my mind there were those "bad" and "naughty" boys, but there were still the good guys who didn't struggle like others. The nice Christian boys who had it under control. Who maybe still looked but didn't lust.
Now as I look back and think about that thought process, I can't help but laugh. It doesn't even make sense! I guess I just never asked myself WHY would a guy look?... and what would he be doing with what he saw?
Now don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to put the guys down because us ladies have our own struggles. We struggle just as much with sexual temptations but just in different ways, and for different reasons.
Needless to say, I have a lot of things I'll be changing about the way I act around guys. I am ashamed of some of the things I've done, or said, or maybe even implied without realized it. I always though I do it all right when it came to my turn to be in a relationship. I thought that because I had seen how my older siblings struggled and failed and that I had studied up and knew how it all worked when you did things God's way that I could avoid those problems. I guess God just gave me a wake up call... before it was too late. I know know how mistaken I was... how my flesh will always fail... how close and open I have to be with God for him to work in my life.
...But instead I was proud.
If I could apologize to Trenton for all the ways I made his life hell just because I was a hypocrite I would. I know that not all of his problems are my fault but maybe it's just that he's not better off for having known me.
I guess that's what it comes down to though, right? Being a hypocrite? I think Romans 7:18-23 describes it perfectly:
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
It's the flesh warring against the spirit, and our new man trying to live in this sinful world and yet still be not of this world.
Sooooo... even though I thought I could learn from other peoples mistakes I had to learn the hard way.
It scares me too... there is no guarantee that I will not fail again, and as a matter of fact my chances of doing things wrong are quite high.
So I must rely on God, and my family and friends who can see things from a much clearer perspective, to give me good advice (and they already have).
And thanks to "Every Young Man's Battle," I will never look at guys the same way again. A guy is going to have to "work to get me", and prove that he can be a man... and not only a man but a man that has God as the center of his life. Not Lust.
Being a girl, I always heard the stereo-typical comments like, "guys are all about sex" and other "harsh" statements. All my life I've known that guys are "extra horny"... and yeah, they probably think quite often about stuff that rarely crosses my mind. I also knew that guys are visually stimulated, pretty much a million times more so than girls are. So "knowing" that.. and finding it all "far out" and kind of hard to relate to, I put all that information on a back burner in my mind, and continued living my life. (ignorance is bliss right?)
Little did I know how much I didn't realize and the problems it would cause me.
I always knew the basics... guys are "logical", girls are "emotional", and guys would rather be respected and girls loved. And that, was that.
But I didn't have the life experience to understand exactly what all that meant in reality...
So when this handsome, charming guy turned up... I pretty much forgot that "you can't preheat the oven without cooking the roast. " (from a Doug Wilson book "Her Hand in Marriage" which is Very Excellent btw) ...and after years of dreaming about meeting my ideal man and having a perfect fairytale relationship I closed my eyes and took a leap.
Well... actually I didn't close my eyes. They were wide open the whole time... which is the worst part. For a good part of my relationship with this guy (or what seems like forever to me now), I thought I was doing things well, and handling myself properly and in a Christian manner.
Now I look back and just try to comprehend what on earth I was even thinking... or more likely what I wasn't thinking.
"Every Young Man's Battle" has to do with the sexual sins that EVERY guy struggles with. There is no guy that is perfect enough or sheltered enough or godly enough, to not deal with sexual temptations and struggles.
And you see... that is where I went wrong.
I didn't purposefully try to ignore the truth... I was simply naive and didn't understand or even know what the truth was. I misunderstood the whole entire creation of males. Because of my own insecurities and emotional needs I didn't realize that there was more to the picture. In my mind there were those "bad" and "naughty" boys, but there were still the good guys who didn't struggle like others. The nice Christian boys who had it under control. Who maybe still looked but didn't lust.
Now as I look back and think about that thought process, I can't help but laugh. It doesn't even make sense! I guess I just never asked myself WHY would a guy look?... and what would he be doing with what he saw?
Now don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to put the guys down because us ladies have our own struggles. We struggle just as much with sexual temptations but just in different ways, and for different reasons.
Needless to say, I have a lot of things I'll be changing about the way I act around guys. I am ashamed of some of the things I've done, or said, or maybe even implied without realized it. I always though I do it all right when it came to my turn to be in a relationship. I thought that because I had seen how my older siblings struggled and failed and that I had studied up and knew how it all worked when you did things God's way that I could avoid those problems. I guess God just gave me a wake up call... before it was too late. I know know how mistaken I was... how my flesh will always fail... how close and open I have to be with God for him to work in my life.
...But instead I was proud.
If I could apologize to Trenton for all the ways I made his life hell just because I was a hypocrite I would. I know that not all of his problems are my fault but maybe it's just that he's not better off for having known me.
I guess that's what it comes down to though, right? Being a hypocrite? I think Romans 7:18-23 describes it perfectly:
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
It's the flesh warring against the spirit, and our new man trying to live in this sinful world and yet still be not of this world.
Sooooo... even though I thought I could learn from other peoples mistakes I had to learn the hard way.
It scares me too... there is no guarantee that I will not fail again, and as a matter of fact my chances of doing things wrong are quite high.
So I must rely on God, and my family and friends who can see things from a much clearer perspective, to give me good advice (and they already have).
And thanks to "Every Young Man's Battle," I will never look at guys the same way again. A guy is going to have to "work to get me", and prove that he can be a man... and not only a man but a man that has God as the center of his life. Not Lust.
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