!@#E$@ SNOW!!!!

I hate snow. I hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it

LOATHE ENTIRELY......

I found a poem by this girl Emily M. It's perfect. It says,

"Dear Winter: SUCK IT."

AMEN!!!

February... shortest or longest month?

Sigh. I'm sorry I've been so bad at posting lately.... I've just been so unmotivated since Christmas. I've been feeling so lazy and just blah-ish at work.... it's bad now that my co-worker came back. I love her and I'm glad she's back, it's just that now, I have a lot less on my plate, and I can't believe it, but I kind of... well, I miss the crazy hectic pace I had when she was gone. I love having a lot to do, coming into work with purpose, having a list to check off, just roll from one thing to the next to the next... I hate trying to find things to do, I hate being bored at work, and that's what's currently happening. It doesn't help that I'm slightly in-between projects at the moment, and this crap winter weather CERTAINLY doesn't help. :P Luckily, I think the pace at work will pick up shortly. I'll just have to ride this out till then.

Some updates since I've last posted- I'll be moving at the end of March/beginning of April. I'm so sad to leave my apartment, I love it, and I will especially miss my sweet landlady Catherine. But I really won't miss having a male roommate. Even though Chris was pretty ok for a guy, I just didn't like it. So, I'll be moving in with my friend Suzanne- we met through Church, so not only is she a girl, and my friend, she's a Christian! Yay! We haven't found a place yet, though we've been looking around and have found some good prospects. We'll hopefully get to check them out Feb 13.... please pray for us! :)

Speaking of Church, I've been keeping busy there! I've still been attending both my community groups, and I'm really enjoying the 10 month Grow course- we're halfway through now. I planned a service project with my Mon night CG to serve our fellow singles community groups... so I'll be baking up a storm this weekend for that! We're making care packages full of all sorts of baked goodies and candy and notes for the different groups. I'm so excited!

Also, due to the Women's meeting I attended in January, I now have a mentor at my Church. I've always had a mentor-type person at every Church I've been at, and I missed the mentorship/friendship of Pam and Steve and Brian and Mary, the two couples at my former Church. Theresa has been great, we really hit it off through email and we're getting together for coffee next week. I think I'll really learn a lot from her, and her friendship and guidance has already been such a blessing to me.

I've also started finding places to serve within the Church, now that I'm an official member. I prayed a lot about it, and so this past Sunday, I took my place with the audio duplication team. We make CD copies of the sermons for people to take to others who couldn't make it that Sunday, or for evangelistic means. I definitely felt it was the place for me, because not only did they really need the help, but this ministry has a special place in my heart, because I watched my Dad serve our home Church for years in that way. Of course, back then, it was on tape cassettes, not CD's, and he only made 5-6 copies, not the 100+ we do each Sunday. Still, the purpose is the same, and it's a joy for me to follow in my Dad's footsteps. :)

Anyway, although I generally dislike the month of February (does anyone else feel that for the shortest month, it can feel like the longest??) I do have a lot to look forward to. The superbowl is this Sunday, and this Saturday I'm going to have a blast baking the day away with my mom and sister, next Saturday I'll be having breakfast with my friend Alexis, going apartment hunting with Suzanne, and ending the evening with a Valentine's party at Phil's house. I'll be getting together with Theresa next Thursday as well. President's Day, I took the day off, so I can just relax with Britty. Later during that week, I'm going out to lunch with Phil and Christina (we all work so close together, it seemed like the perfect idea!) Towards the end of the month, Steph is going to have an open mic night at her house, so I need to think of what I'm going to do for that. Not to mention I have two Grow meetings somewhere in there.... and my dear cousin AJ is turning 21 on February 27, can't forget that! I surely have to be there to help him celebrate. :) So, although February is normally kind of a bummer month, it looks like I have a lot to look forward to. :)

And how could I have forgotten? February already had a great start. I went to H&R Block today to get my 2009 taxes done... and found out that I'm getting a hefty refund back! :D Woohoo! A lot of that money is going to my vacation account.... my family is looking to perhaps due a cruise around Christmastime. We are usually so traditional, we need a change... I couldn't believe when my Dad suggested it! So that refund will certainly help that fund. :)

Ok, hopefully, I will blog again soon! Till then, enjoy your month of February! Hopefully it's looking to be as good as mine is!

Dead Like Me

I really like the TV show Dead Like Me. It's a bit depressing I guess, because it deals with death (the main characters are grim reapers) and I don't particularly care for the language, but barring that, I do like the show. It's interesting, offbeat, definitely not your average show. It has a dry sense of humor that I find refreshing. I like George, the main character, I feel like I would be friends with her if she was a real person. Anyway, my sisters got me the DVD set for Christmas and every now and then I've been watching an episode. The one I saw today really got me thinking. Rube tells George that in the game of life, she's been a bowling pin, not a bowling ball. She just sits at the bottom of the lane, waiting to get knocked down. And he says, "I'll tell you what, it sure is better to be the ball." Later in the episode, George is contemplating that. Since the first episode (where she met her untimely death due to be smashed by a flaming toilet seat falling out of the sky from a Russian space center) she's been resentful of dying. Now, in this episode, she thinks back to her life and started questioning her behavior and her actions, like why she didn't do certain things. Basically she asks herself, "Why didn't I live when I was alive?"

And that really hit me. Oftentimes I curse the situations I may find myself in, but how much of it is my fault? My complacency, my fear of just getting up and DOING something? Why don't I try to live more fully, instead of just sitting back and letting life run me over? I feel more like I'm the poor sap at a dunk tank- I feel like so often, I just sit on the stoop, cringing, wondering when someone's going to hit the button and I'll get dunked. And instead of climbing out of the stupid tank when I am dunked, I just get right back on the stoop and do it all over again. And if I AM going to just stay on the stoop of the dunk tank, why don't I even have any fun with it? There's a lot of people who really make the best out of every situation life throws at them, good or bad. I basically just stay miserable no matter what.

Well, no more! I'm tired of not living, I'm tired of waiting around, worrying about what life may or may not hit me with next. I want to do something with my life and enjoy it! I don't want it to pass me by. When I'm on my deathbed, I don't want to look back on my life and wonder why I didn't live more. The time is now, and I'm going to take it. Like Betty says on the show... "Happy thoughts!"

ESV Study Bible!

Today was commitment Sunday at my Church, where I was officially recognized as a new member of Covenant Fellowship Church. There was a special lunch after the service, and since my family couldn't come, I had my friends Jason, Kayte, and Jackie come with me instead, which was really fun. Also, as a gift for being a new member, I (and all the other new members at CFC) received a brand new ESV study bible!!! I was amazed and overwhelmed. For those of you who don't know, the ESV study bible is like the Rolls Royce or Lamborghini of Bibles. It's phenomenal and I know it can be quite expensive (I know because I was drooling over them at Hackman's Bible Bookstore around Christmastime, when I was in to get an NKJV study bible for my mom for Christmas). It's only one more reason, as if I needed any more reasons, for me to love my Church! I can't wait to go through my new Bible! :)

Enemy Guidelines for 2010

Man, I need to start the new year off with a laugh, and I was scrolling through my favorites list on my computer and happened to come across this website that my cousin sent me. The Enemy Guidelines is the most hysterical thing ever. Whoever wrote this is a GENIUS! Enjoy! :) I'd say what my favorite is but honestly I love so many of them I just can't pick. :)

http://www.dbooth.net/internerd/dynamic_internerd.cfm?id=17

It's Christmastime, Charlie Brown!

I love Christmastime. It's a beautiful time physically- all the decorations and lights, I just love it! But it's also a beautiful time spiritually, as we celebrate our savior's birth.

I've been having a wonderful time this season hanging out with friends and family. December 5 was the holiday party for our singles group at Church. We had a blast. Phil was a kind and gracious host in opening his home to us. I arrived a few hours early to help Phil, Kayte, and Jason prep a lot of the food. Jenn Payton arrived a little later to help as well. All went well, with the exception that we accidently clogged Phil's sink. And he has a garbage disposal, which makes things more difficult, so in trying to use a plunger to unclog the drain, we backed up all the water into the dishwasher, which then started leaking all over the floor...... poor Phil! Luckily this happened before the party, so we could adequately clean everything up and put a nice "DO NOT USE" sign on the sink so no further problems were caused. We had a great turnout, and it was a fabulous time of food, fun, and fellowship. My favorite part of the night was when Dave started playing the guitar and we made up our own song... Dave started and then had everyone else "sing" what their worst Christmas present was. It was hilarious. :) We did sing some real Christmas carols as well though.

Earlier that morning was also an important event for me as well- after taking the 10 week membership course at Church, I met with Brian (one of the pastors) and officially became a member of the Church! :) I was very excited, and it was nice how everyone was excited for me. :)

This weekend, I had a lovely day with my mom and Britt as we went Christmas shopping... I'm happy to say that I finished my shopping! We also went out to On the Border for lunch, to celebrate my mom's birthday. Later that evening, we made Christmas cookies (Snickers Surprise and Heath Crunch cookies, yummy!!) and I also finished wrapping all my presents. Because there was an small ice storm on Sunday, I ended up staying at home instead of heading back to Philly like I'd planned, and it was so nice. My dad made us homemade pizza, and we watched Christmas movies and just had a great time. It was a wonderful weekend.

This weekend should be fabulous too, because Becky will be home!!! She's currently on her way here now, she should arrive in Dulles around 6:30 am tomorrow morning. I'm so excited to see her! Even though I saw her a little more than a month ago, I'm still anxious to see her again. So I took a half day on Friday (yay!) to have a little more time with her. Saturday night, we're going to the singles Christmas party at Church, so she'll get to meet all my friends there. I can't wait!

So that's a little bit of what I've been up to lately.... I hope to write more, but I have been incredibly busy with work (I won't get much time off for Christmas, which is a real bummer) and with all the other Christmas events going on, I don't know if I'll have much time to update during December. So if I'm not on again for a bit, Merry Christmas Everyone! :)

Sabrina Ann

I love Sabrina Ann.

No, Sabrina Ann is not a person, Sabrina Ann is in fact a store. A store which is my guilty pleasure. Every morning, coming home from the gym, I face the store before turning onto Ardmore Ave, and as my headlights illuminate the store window, I gaze at the display with what I would imagine could only be described as naked longing in my eyes.

I have to be content to just gazing at the dresses on display from afar for now, because Sabrina Ann is a wedding dress shop. And not just any wedding dress shop- a consignment store! It's a once worn-never worn store, a lot of what they have are actually floor model dresses from other stores. And really, what can be better than thousands of beautiful wedding dresses on display? CHEAP wedding dresses on display! I don't know who is the window dresser for Sabrina Ann, but whomever they are, they should be paid well, because they do a fabulous job. Hence my staring obsession with the window every morning. :P Some of the dresses are just so beautiful.

I'm not even close to being married- I'm single with no prospects in sight, but I really don't fantasize about a wedding day very much. Really, I kind of hate weddings anymore, because I think that the value and meaning has been sucked out of what a wedding should be. Not everyone does this of course, but the world in general has perverted what a wedding is. Really, while the wedding day is a special day of course, it marks the first day of two people's lives joining together to walk as one, and people are there to celebrate that, it's just. ONE. DAY. ONE DAY. That's it. The wedding doesn't matter, it's your life together that matters. The MARRIAGE is what matters. And the world has forgotten this. Now, weddings are just one more excuse to spend tons of money on useless, frivolous things, get drunk, dress up, and one-up other people (men don't do that so much as women. Do you know how many women I've heard gossiping about different weddings, with this being better than that, and she was too cheap on this, and that should have been done differently, blah blah blah... it's disgusting.) It saddens me. It saddens me to go to lavish weddings only to find out that a couple of years later, the couple is divorcing. (Not that people who have cheap weddings last any longer.... after all, vegas weddings are cheap and most of them never last.) I'm not trying to begrudge people a beautiful wedding, or a "special day," I just want people to remember that while it is a special day, they need to remember that it's not the main point. If I ever get married, I want to remember throughout the whole day that in the grand scheme of things that is my life, this is just another day. I pray that all people would work as hard on their marriage and their lives together as they do on making their wedding day "perfect." The world would be a much better place if we did.

Back to my original point... should the day ever come (and I do hope and pray that it does one day come) that I get married, I hope to be able to finally step into Sabrina Ann and try on some of the beautiful dresses that grace the store, and yes, find one that makes me feel like a princess. :) I'm not against everything about weddings!


But don't get me started on engagement rings. :P