Goings-on of the moment...

Right now I am working on my goddaughter's 10th birthday party plans. Her birthday is not until mid-July, but we are throwing the party sometime in May so that all her school friends will come. I've come up with a slightly gothic/emo Alice in Wonderland theme, a la Tim Burton's version that is coming out sometime next week.

If you know me even a little (or have read my blog for awhile.... all 2 of you [lol]), you know that I go all out with my party planning. So, yes, I've already started. I'm rustling up some amazing ideas from the Internet (people have some great ideas out there!). I can't wait to get started. I think it's going to be one of my best. I think I might start hitting up some Goodwill stores this weekend to start looking for mis-matched tea pots, cups, plates, etc. I told you, I'm going ALL OUT....

This weekend is the Baby Shower of a childhood friend of the family. I am so excited for her. This is a girl who had a rough first half of her childhood and then went on to have a very rough and dysfunctional marriage to a total drug addict and liar with whom she had a miscarriage (blessing in disguise, Lord?). She is now married to the perfect man for her and they are having their first child together (he has two awesome daughters from a previous marriage who love my friend like a mother). My family is like family to her and we are all UBER excited. This baby shower is definitely going to be a celebration....

Right now I am impatiently awaiting word that my other friends have had their baby. Baby Monroy is due tomorrow. Come on, little guy. We all want to meet you already!

In other not-so-great-but-necessary-for-now news, I've decided to step down from Children's Ministry at church. It sucks and I feel horrible about it, but its something I feel I need to do right now. I am so busy with preperations for moving back to San Fernando and trying to get life in order right now and my weekends are the only time I have to do all this. I would rather bow out than be unreliable and have to flake on the kids. Of course, I definitely won't be missing church, whether it's Calvary Chapel Chino Valley, Shepherd of the Hills, or either one via the Internet; I just can't stick around to serve. I have already promised myself, and more importantly God, that as soon as I'm settled in the Valley, I'll be looking into serving at Shepherd. I MUST use my singleness productively to serve the Kingdom. I know this!

Speaking of church, next weekend is Calvary Chapel's Women's Retreat. I'm so excited. I was BEYOND blessed when I went last year. It literally changed my life. This year, my sister Kim is coming and I'm so excited for her. I know she is struggling with her walk (aren't we all though, really), so I'm hoping this will jump start her on the path to full surrender to the Lord like it did for me.... not that it's been a pefect path. =)

Well, that's about all I can think of for now.... TTFN!

John 8:12

"I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darness, but shall have the light of life."

Went to lunch with my co-worker today (the same one who asked me to lunch a few weeks ago). As we got in the car to come back to the office he pulled something out from the compartment in the driver-side door and said, "I had a friend who was selling stuff and I thought of you." He then handed the object to me. It was a beautiful hard-covered (wood, actually) journal, with John 8:12 inscribed on the front next to a lighthouse.

I was floored. I even almost cried. Good thing I had my sunglasses on. lol.

What a beautiful and thoughtful gift. What a gift that I so didn't deserve.

I showed it to my co-worker and she said something like, "See people are noticing you. You are a light to the world." Yeah right! I don't know how, since all I've been doing is moping around like a spoiled brat and idiot for the last couple of weeks. No light to the world have I been, I can assure you of that. Shameful.

Well, I'm back to normal. I've snapped out of it, and I'm going to do my best to live up to this gift....

In other news. Yikes! Homeboy has asked me to lunch twice and gotten me a gift. We all know what this means..... Still not sure how I feel about this. God, it's in your hands.

I'm not okay...

Have 't written much lately. I suppose it's because its been nothing but the same stupid stuff. I've been feeling pretty depressed and borderline resentful towards God. I've lost all hope and joy. I know its my fault, but I also feel like its been attacks from the enemy.

One minute I feel like everyone around me is an idiot and then next minute I feel like it's not them, it's me. I'm the fool.

For example, this last Thursday my bureau put on a Retreat for our staff. The planning for this Retreat has consumed the last 2 or 3 weeks of my work life as I've helped my boss come up with everything from the food choices to the design for the table centerpieces. Although I've had a big part in everything, at the end of the day, I knew it was my boss who was in charge of the whole thing. Yet, the day of the Retreat I somehow got saddled with much of the responsibility of orchestrating registration of and food service to nearly 200 staff, which meant I also had to deal with the big boss breathing down my neck because it was not well-ordered (something I thought my boss would have taken care of before the show began--apparently, she had no plan for either how we were going to go about registering or serving food). It was chaos.

I was not happy. I felt like on one hand I was expected to have had all this planned out, but on the other hand when I tried to present plans on-the-spot for executing these tasks (good plans, might I add), they were almost all immediately shot down. I was beyond frustrated. I was beyond stressed. I was a little on the angry side. Not only was I trying to handle the big jobs on my own, but I also had the big boss breathing down my neck about hurrying things up and publicly criticizing the job I was doing.

Now the selfish part of me would love to say that I was put in a bad situation and that you should feel sorry for me, but the Holy Spirit won't allow that. I was not completely innocent that day. In the middle of my stress, I let all censorship of myself go out the door. The entire day, I could not stop running my mouth about what was pissing me off. I could not keep my mouth shut about how the big boss created chaos and made things worse than they needed to be. I knew what I was saying wasn't really appropriate (just by the awkward silence alone lol), but I just couldn't tame my tongue. I was even talking crap in front of people that could quite possibly run and tell him what I was saying, but I was so annoyed and upset that in the moment I didn't care.

Well, now I'm torn between being upset with my boss and her boss and being upset with myself for not being in control and letting this mess roll off my back like an adult. *sigh*

I'm telling you, the enemy is doing a number on my life right now.

So, now I'm going into work tomorrow expecting some sort of confrontation. It may not even happen, but I want to be prepared nevertheless. The funny part is that I have an evaluation due in less than a month. Let's see if it's affected by this crap. I seriously think my boss probably thinks I'm mentally unstable at this point. Maybe she's right. Or maybe its just that I'm surrounded by people with no common sense and it drives me crazy.

Or maybe she's right...

Maybe I'm not cut out for this anymore and I need to transfer to a district...

Lord help me. I'm about ready to transfer out of life.

Big Brother [will be] Watching You

Wow. First we are talking about the "Green Police" in an Audi commercial, who "punish" you if you don't comply with their green standards. Now Michelle Obama wants to essentially create a Food Police to control what we feed our kids. What's next? Telescreens in everyone's homes making sure we are getting up to do our daily exercises and making sure we aren't committing any ThoughtCrimes?

Seriously. These liberal leftists really want to turn our government into their very own Big Brother, watching and monitoring and controlling every decision we make. They truly believe that we are not smart enough to make our own decisions.

This article by Ben Shapiro really speaks to this:

The environmentalist frenzy overtaking the Democratic Party and its left allies is just one symptom of a burgeoning anti-democratic wave among liberals. Even as the deep green crowd pushes forward with its anti-technology, anti-liberty agenda, first lady Michelle Obama insists that we now police what inner-city kids eat for dinner. Her "anti-obesity" initiative, spearheaded at LetsMove.gov, suggests that it is our responsibility to "ensure that all families have access to healthy, affordable food in their communities." What if not all families want healthy food? What if they prefer McDonald's? Surely the Food Police follows hot on the heels of the Green Police -- already, liberal politicians are floating "fat taxes" as punishments for businesses that market unhealthy products.

That is truly scary to me and you should be terrified also.... It's crazy how all of this sounds just like George Orwell's 1984. Here's the description from Wikipedia:

Nineteen Eighty-Four (also 1984), by George Orwell, published in 1949, is a dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of the Party, an oligarchical collectivist society where life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, public mind control, and the voiding of citizens' rights.

When the enemy has a field day...

Wow. The enemy is doing a number on my sister right now. Yesterday she called me crying. She discovered some rather disturbing things that her husband has been doing behind her back and lying to her face about. I won't get into them here, but they are bad. My heart broke for her.


Now she is at a crossroads. She's going to confront him, but I think she's ready to just leave. Apparently, these are things they have been struggling with since before they were married, but she really believed that they were over and done with. She was wrong.

The protective, sisterly side of me wanted to tell her to get their baby and get out of there, but the Christian side of me--that side of me that knows that there are things in my own life I should be ashamed of and for which I have been forgiven--pleaded with her to remember who the real enemy is here: Satan. He hates marriage and he wants all of our children to grow up in broken homes. I told her that she needs to do everything she can to fight this and to help her husband get help. I told her to call the church and see if they could help. She did and they advised her not to confront him alone.


Well, before this whole confrontation could go down, the enemy threw a horrible wrench into the situation. I truly believe he caused this in order to make my sister lose focus.

She was getting ready and had the baby on the bed. Their not-so-friendly cat, Stitch, was on the bed with the baby. She loves to get near him and try to pet him, but he usually isn't having it. So what I think happened was that she got in his face and he tried to back up, but began to go over the side. Well, everyone knows that when cats are falling they will grab on to the first thing in front of them. Well the thing he stuck his claw into was the baby's face. The cat was literally hanging off the poor baby's face.



Of course my sister freaked out and then freaked out even more when she saw the gash just below the baby's eye. The cat literally missed her eye socket/eyeball by millimeters.

She took the baby to the ER and the poor thing had to get 2 stitches. Needless to say, the confrontation never happened.

So, I've been trying to get ahold of my sister to see how she and the baby are doing, but she doesn't answer her phone. She's probably at work, but I can't help but be very frustrated not knowing what's going on. I really don't want my sister to lose focus and let the enemy talk her out of getting help.

Please Lord, give my sister strength. Let her see through these attacks from the enemy and not allow them to deter her. Put Your hands of protection upon this family and use Your Holy Spirit to convict my brother-in-laws heart into repentance and to transform him. Give my sister the discernment and understanding she needs to know what to do and to be in-line with your will. In Jesus' name, Amen!

Lunch date

So I just got asked on a lunch date by my co-worker. Yikes... I think.

This guy is super nice and always comes around to say hi. I've been getting that "I like you" vibe from him, but then again it could be the "you're a cool person and I want to hang out with you" vibe, so I said yes. We have plans for tomorrow.

I'm a little nervous because I'm not so sure I like him the same way, but at the same time, I don't see it as a big deal either. We are cool and there is nothing wrong with going to lunch with someone of the opposite sex. Plus, he wants to tell me about a Bible Study that he went to. I just hope he doesn't want to pay for my food because we all know what that means..... We'll see.

So, Lord, do what You want with this. I know You will keep me in Your hands either way...

Back to normal. Well normal for me....

I gave myself a blogging break for a bit there. I was starting to depress myself even more by reading my depressing blogs. lol


Not much has happened. I'm mostly focused on all the moving plans and stressing about money, as usual. We have already purchased 3 nice pieces of furniture for the house and it's slowly but surely transforming into a pretty chic bachelorette pad. =)


Here are some highlights of the last week:


Mom found out her checks were stolen. She got an email from Chase letting her know that she had overdraft fees. When she went online to check her account there were two checks totallying over $1100 that she did not write. She spoke with Chase and, because my mother cannot say anything without giving TOO MANY details, they denied her claim with the reasoning being that she was negligent (she was too honest and told them that she wasn't quite sure where the checks were, so she's not sure from where they were stolen). Irregardless, Chase should have given her her money back--that's what the FDIC insurance is for--but they refuse to. Now we are all planning to close our accounts with Chase. Washington Mutual would have never done this; they cared about their customers.

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Tirsa's friend, Sergio, may also move in with us. It's not a for sure thing, but I hope it happens. For one, we will feel a lot safer with a guy there. Secondly, he is a really sweet, kind, Christian guy, so I don't see any shadiness. PLUS, it will make rent even cheaper for everyone because we'll be splitting it 4 ways.

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Despite not feeling very good and being beyond broke, I went down to the Valley this last weekend to help with the new furniture; to give my parents some alone time; to watch This Is It with Katie, Tirsa and friends; and also because Mandy wanted to buy me the bedding set I want for the "new old house" for my belated Christmas present. I got there Saturday morning and from there we went to go buy two more pieces of furniture. We got them home, built them, and then started to prepare for the This Is It viewing party. Unfortunately though, everyone started dropping out, so it was just Katie, Tirsa and I. Katie was disappointed, but we ordered pizza and tried to make the best of it.

Sergio ended up showing up, which I admit made me happy (apparently, he likes me and I have to say the more I get to know him, the more I like him too). Anyway, when the movie was over, we played some Dominos and then, after we found out that Sergio had never watched it, we threw on Chapelle's Show (I know it's not the most Christian thing to watch, but I can't help it... that show is funny). We literally stayed up until 2 in the morning watching the whole first season. When it was over I took Sergio home (he literally lives in some apartments across the street, so he had walked over). Another admission: I would not have minded if I would have gotten a good night kiss, but that didn't happen. Oh well.... lol


So yeah, my weekend was interesting, but cool. I got to hang out with someone I am interested in getting to know. Got my bedding set. Got to help with the beautification of my new old house. Let's keep this momentum going right into the most dreaded day of the year for me: Valentine's Day. (BOO!)

Trapped... by me

*long sigh*

Life.

I truly believe that some people were born with more burdens than others. God’s will for some people’s lives involves a little more suffering than others. It’s not fair, but then it is because His will is always fair and right… we just don’t always get to understand it.

I think I was one of those who have a little more burden than others. God saw fit to allow me to be born with a melancholy disposition. I’m prone to depression. I’m a classic self-pitier. I don’t have really cool things “happen” to me very often. I’m usually disappointed with life.

I believe that part of this is just my destiny. But a lot of it is me.

Right now, I hate work. I go through cycles of this. I will be at a position and start to hate it, wishing that I could go somewhere “better.” Then magically I’m given the option to move on. I get excited, thinking that this next place will solve my problems. Then I go right back to hating work again. For a long time I thought it was the County. The County is not perfect and most certainly could use some improvement in the area of personal relations amongst staff, but I’m starting to see that it’s not just the County. It’s me.

I don’t know for sure why I can’t be happy being anywhere too long, but I can’t help thinking it has to do with my wanting to married so badly.

I feel like I was created to be a mom and a wife. Everything else is just a hobby until that happens. I will never love “doing” anything as much as I will love the job of wife and mom. At least this is how I feel. It’s like wanting to be a lawyer from a very young age and not being able to get a job in a law firm right away. You keep looking for that job that you REALLY want, but in the meantime you still gotta make ends meet, so you settle for jobs that you are actually really good at, but deep down you could care less about. You can’t be content at those jobs because they are not in the law firm. Does that make sense?

The sad part is that for all you know you may not like the law firm either… once you have it. I really hope that doesn’t happen to me. IF God even sees fit to make me a wife and mother.

Lord, help me to be content wherever it is You put me. Help me to be content in any situation. Help me to be content in YOU. Help me to get over myself. I don’t know what else to do then to wish and hope that I could be married someday, but at the same time I don’t trust that it’s going to happen. I don’t want to feel like a little rock floating around in space with no direction and no hope of coming to rest, unless it’s via a flaming wreck on some distant planet.

Haha… okay did that even make sense? Ay ay ay… I’m crazy.

This will make you fall asleep...

"I don't want to go through the motions. I don't want to go one more day... Without Your all consuming passion inside of me. I don't want to spend my whole life asking, 'what if I had given everything, instead of going through the motions.'"

Meh.

I feel just like that--like I am just going through the motions. Wake up. Go to work. Go home. Sometimes go to church. Repeat. There is no passion and no fire. There is nothing to look forward to. I come home to a cat and some parents. I don't say much. Eat, watch TV, go to bed. It's dull and lifeless. It's mundane. It's BORING. I need the Lord to bring a revival into my heart. Set my heart ablaze, God. Otherwise, I'm just a robot right now.

The days are slow, yet flyby. I'll be 30 soon. Yikes.

This weekend was strange, but it had it's good points. It started early when I went home early on Thursday because I was practically having a mental breakdown. For some reason, my monthly friend literally made me CRAZY this time around. After some snafus and just general frustration with pre-existing issues, I finally just went home. It was the best thing for me at the moment. I really believe that I may have walked out for good if I didn't make the decision to semi-calmly leave for the day.

On Saturday, Katie and I took Maddie to see Mary Poppins at the Ahmanson Theatre. Then afterward we had to take her home because her mom was upset about something that happened at school. Yay. Thanks for cutting our fun day short, lady. We didn't even get to take her to dinner.

After that drama, Katie and I had some Denny's and then went to Sandy's for a last-minute birthday BBQ for Miguel's birthday.

Miguel is hitting the big time. Opening business after business. Miguel and I are cut from the same cloth. Good, productive people (we both happen to still be virgins too) who just can't seem to catch a break with love. I told Miguel that we should marry each other if we hit 40 and are still alone. =) For now I'll take just being his personal assistant so I can get out of this stinkin job and work for someone I actually respect.

Speaking of love, I sort of admitted out loud to my sister that I don't believe that God will bless me with marriage and kids. I don't believe I have lost faith in God in general. I do believe that He loves me and will continue to bless me, despite not deserving it, but I've pretty much lost all hope in ever being married or having kids. Maybe I am just selfish... I don't know. I will admit that I'm impatient. I can't lie and say that I have hope right now that I will still be blessed in this way. Sometimes I think it was coming, but somewhere along the way, like everything else important to me, I fouled it up.

Sunday, I didn't make it to church because we ended up heading down to LA to buy an almost-new dining set that we found on Craigslist. My friend Mike's pregnant wife, Alycia, came with so we could use her truck to transport our new purchase. We treated her (and baby) to some Shakey's. It was nice to spend some time with her.

Afterwards we went to Big Lots to check out some other potential buys. We left with a really nice dark wood shelf unit (yes, I was surprised that they even had "nice" stuff). I put the thing together at the house pretty much by myself and we all definitely agreed that it fit in with our vision for the house. I have to say that after we've purchased everything we want to get, the place is going to be looking pretty nice. Can't wait.

I can't wait for a change. Can't wait to have my own say in things.

For now, back to the real world and feeling trapped....