Be strong and courageous.

today's prayer:
(OK, it's yesterday's prayer but I missed yesterday so I'm doing this one)

Deuteronomy 30:1
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Pray this verse in your own life. Where is God asking you to go? Be strong and courageous.

What I hear/see:

Strong: 

Make good eating choices.

Resist temptation to eat the wrong things or to not be active.

Not allow myself to get distracted and thus waste my time but allow my time to be used wisely. 

Do something constructive daily on my home -- even when I don't feel like it.

Courageous: 

Believe that with God's help, things can and will change. 

Not give up or allow discouragement to gain a foothold. 

Trust that God will redeem my marriage and home.

I want to start DREAMING and following and praying about those dreams.  I don't think I realized I wasn't dreaming before.  I'm still not "feeling" it like I used to.  I used to be super emotional about things and this time I'm not.  Interesting.

celebrating weight loss -- with ice cream

So I joined Weight Watchers again.
I don't really like counting points, but the general idea of weighing in weekly does impact my food choices.

however, stubborn as ever... I weighed in yesterday and learned that I lost .7 lbs (hey... it was a loss so I'm happy.)

I celebrated with chips and hot cheese dip for lunch.
Which sat in my stomach all day and generally made me not feel so great.

Then when I got home, I had ice cream for dinner.  Though in fairness, that's all I had.

Do I know how to celebrate weight loss or what!!!

Perhaps I need to buy a home scale and start weighing daily?  hmmmm

Signs of wisdom..... if you look deep enough

From an email...
Thanks K

I love stuff like this.  Especially when there is no threat of some level of impending personal doom if I don't share it with 10 people.  (For the record, I automatically delete those.)

why we need friends

At work, I am a square peg.  I don't quite fit in.  I'm too loud, too fun, too -- everything.  I ultimately think that these qualities have a good impact on the work place.
 
Sometimes I feel a bit "picked on" because my foibles stand out a bit more than those of the next 10 people.
 
today, I was pulled aside and told to clean my desk "before somebody says something."
Um, but you just said something...
 
So I complained to my friend K.
 
Me:   They told me to clean my desk AGAIN!
K:      again?

Me:   And I look down the aisles at some of the desks here and think REALLY?  I need to clean my desk?!   Why is the standard different for me?  Like I used to get picked on for things I wore and now there's that one girl and she dresses so unprofessional.  Does anybody say anything to her?

K:     That I don't know.

Me:   Oh no, K! I've become one of THEM!!!

K: 



 

Me: 

 

 

 

 

They've gotten under my skin and I'm becoming...

ack...

corporate!

 

K:    Come on... don't be a douche canoe*

(insert very loud 1 note laughter as I catch myself from being "inappropriate" at work)

 

Me:  did you hear that?

OMG...

I totally LOL'd

 

K:  thought so

 

B:  now I'm crying!

oh man!

I applaud your perfection!

 

K:  I try, sometimes I'm on.

 

Me:  OK, all that stress -- gone!

 

K:  YAY!

K:   wait til the day they come to you and say you don't look busy enough because there's nothing on your desk

 

 

*you're welcome!



 

 

handicapped bathrooms

So, am I the only one who wonders about the layout of these stalls?  It's like the designers have to have all these things checked off on their list but they don't think about how best to make it work.

I understand the larger stall, I understand the bar and the higher seat.
But seriously?  If I, as a mostly able bodied person, struggle to reach toilet paper that is basically hanging on the ground, how on earth is a handicapped person supposed to be able to easily reach that?  Shouldn't it be higher?  In fact, why are so many of the toilet paper dispensers so low?  I'm not even tall and I find them too low in general. 

Is it because they have to have that bar in there?  But then who decided that the toilet paper had to be super low?  If they are sitting on the higher seat, wouldn't it be easier to reach?

Just wondering.

teenage romance

I have a beautiful and (mostly) sweet 13 year old girl. 

This has caused me no small angst as a parent as I want to protect her from all the crud out there in the world.  However, the path I have chosen as a parent has been to prepare her for all the crud out there and (hopefully) empower her to be her own person, to stand up for herself, to hold others to a standard of behavior when they are around her.  (I say the path I have chosen because my husband is still very much in the protect her mode.)

The 13 year old boys however kind of freak me out.

I don't know --scratch that, I do know.

BOYS WERE NOT LIKE THIS WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER!!  Boys had nowhere near this kind of confidence or game.  Do they have YouTube video's that teach them how to woo a girl?  I mean, some of the stuff they come up with would work on me.  What is up with this?  

We had one boy over the summer who was upset because we wouldn't allow her to date.  (reasonable, right?!)  He tried to get our daughter to sneak behind our back and then when that didn't work he said he would wait for her.  A 12 year old boy is going to WAIT until they are 18 or maybe 16 and I'm thinking WHAT?

This other boy build up this girl he liked and kept telling my daughter about her until she realized it was her!  Smooth!  Very well done.  

Watch out girls.  That's all I'm saying!  Be careful who you give your heart to.

strange conversations

conversation with friend:

Do you know what I was thinking about last night?

No.
Or should I say not yet.

Things that smell like the color they are. 
For example:
  My mom gave us a body wash from Bath and Body Works called "Country Chic."   It was purple.  And I was like, yes, this smells purple. 
Then I thought about the people who do that for a living.

See country chic, I would have thought it should be blue because I associate country with light blue.  I would expect it to smell blue and possibly make me sneeze.

Oh we would be good at that job. 
  Except I wouldn't want to be a professional smeller, all that stuff gives me a headache.

Then she sends me a picture of the bottle (because the visual is obviously important here and you can't smell on IM.)

And I feel duty bound to explain that this is, in fact, blue; not purple.

But apparently it's more puple in person.  She's bringing it in tomorrow to show me.