Monday, January 25, 2010

What Happens When You Just Start Typing

I’m not afraid to admit that “The Bachelor” is one of the highlights of my Monday. (Okay, FINE. It’s THE highlight. Happy?) I just can’t! Stop! Watching! It’s ridiculous, but also wonderful. More than anything, this show teaches me how NOT to behave. Because holy honey mustard on a cracker are these people inane.

I got Joey and Sam’s wedding invitation in the mail today! I am so. Excited. And cannot WAIT to go to Austin and hang with the posse! March 20 cannot come soon enough.

It makes me really sad that I don’t get the Fox Business channel. This means I can’t watch John Stossel! I have to settle for reading his BLOG, which is definitely not as good because the phrase “Give me a break” is infinitely better when Stossel says it out loud versus when he types it. Ugh.

I still have not seen Avatar. I definitely need to see Avatar. (And let’s make it clear that this is definitely more “need” than “want.”) But I just have to see it on the big screen before it goes away! It’s too much of a cinematic event. But by now just about everybody has already seen it! To quote Clue, “Won’t anyone go with me?”

Okay, first of all: why is there an entire program about chocolate on TLC? The World Championship of CHOCOLATE? That’s just…why would they do that to us? Second of all, and perhaps more importantly: why did I watch it while getting ready to go to the gym? Yeah, I frequently have TOTALLY AWESOME ideas like that.

My cousin and my brother came by for a little N64 and SAG Award (What? Who doesn’t love awards shows??) fun on Saturday. And apparently the night before they had been out at our family’s land in the boonies making a fire and doing who knows what else. My brother OF COURSE wore the same jeans over to my apartment. Now my couch smells like it’s been sucking on the business end of a barbecue grill.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Furious

2010

-Ten year high school reunion.

-Turning 28. That’s drawing steadily closer to 30.

-Not 2009.

-Fresh slate: lots of things in the works… some coming soon… and some coming not so soon. Suffice it to say that the list of goals and dreams for this year are long. It’s January 7th and I’ve already crossed two items off my list.

Goal #1: I started reading Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” over Thanksgiving break. I returned from Mexico 520 pages into the 762 paged book. I couldn’t bring myself to read it during the crazy month of parties and work. I brought it with me back to Texas but didn’t want to steal myself away from friends and family to spend time with Howard Roarke. Determined to complete the book at the start of the year I began reading it on the flight home on the 31st. I finally finished that sucker on January 2nd. Turns out it’s not even on the recommended 100 books before you die list from BBC. Dang it.

Goal #2: I save receipts. I claim that it’s to make sure they go through my checking account correctly. I keep them just in case I need to return something. But the truth is… I had receipts from Chipotle dating back to February. Was I really going to take back my burrito? I stored all of those receipts in a large drawer in a dresser. There were hundreds of them. I went through them all and threw all but 15 of them away. It feels amazing.

Other 2010/28 year-old goals: Run 2 races (1 of them being a ½ marathon). Read “Mere Christianity.” Create and hold to a financial budget that includes saving and giving. Travel out of the country. Write a manuscript for the book that’s been rolling around my head for 8 years.

Just a few… there are some more that are going to stay close to heart for safe keeping. But more than any hope I have for the year, I am waiting in expectation for all that the Lord has in store. For “many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21) I trade in my lists for whatever he purposes this year!

Closing with some thoughts from my current read, “The Furious Longing of God” by Brennan Manning:

The furious longing of God is beyond our wildest desires, our hope or hopelessness, our rectitude or wickedness, neither cornered by sweet talk nor gentle persuasion. The furious longing of God, as Dan Berrigan writes, is “not to be reduced to a thing, a grand ideal; it is not to be reduced to a plaything, a caged songbird, for the amusement of children.” It cannot be tamed, boxed, captivated, housebroken, or templebroken. It is simply and startingly Jesus, the effulgence of the Father’s love.

"I AM MY BELOVED’S, AND HIS DESIRE IS FOR ME." Song of Solomon 7:10

It’s going to be a furious year.