Over-Zealous Introspection

Disclaimer: I become deeply introspective around the end of each year. If you don’t want to hear my reflections on life, you might want to check back next year.

We watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last week. Of course, it wasn’t as good as the books, but what movie ever is? Answer: Holes. If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book I highly recommend you do both. The movie and the book are great!! It’s a children’s book, so it’s easy to get through it in just a few hours. Anyway…

At the beginning Lucy is wishing she was beautiful. Her older sister is known for being beautiful, and she longs to look like her. I think every woman (and probably most men) can relate to this feeling. I know I can. It’s so hard not to look in the mirror and only see flaws and things I would like to change. There comes a point in the movie when Lucy is looking through a book of spells to help some unusual friends become visible again, and she stumbles across a spell for beauty. She tears the page from the book and puts it in her pocket. Later that night, she climbs out of bed and recites the spell in the mirror. She is instantly changed to look like her sister, and is transported to a party, where all eyes are on her. She realizes that by doing the spell, she has actually turned into her sister, and she no longer exists. Because she doesn’t exist, her brothers and sister never found Narnia and missed out on the greatest adventure of their lives. Aslan finds her, and asks her what she has done. She tells him that she just wanted to be beautiful, and he tells her to think of all that she has lost by making that wish.

This hit me so hard. There are so many things that I want to change about myself. I wish I were more organized, kinder, thinner, more efficient, happier, a better cook, cleaner, more beautiful, healthier. The list goes on and on. But what if, magically, all these changes happened for me? What would I lose in the process? I’m not saying that I should stop trying to improve on my weaknesses. I’m just saying that maybe we need to look at our weaknesses and see if anything is gained. Maybe we can stop criticizing ourselves long enough to think about our strengths for a while.

Why Do We Do What We Do When We Know What We Know?

When I was about 13 we had a speaker at Girls Camp talk on this subject. He talked about the Israelites, and how they saw that Moses could do all these miraculous things, part the red sea, make water come from a rock, heal people on the verge of death, and yet, they were constantly going their own way. He then brought up the point that we do the same thing. We know the right things to do, and yet, we don't do them! He made us repeat the phrase over and over until we all had it memorized, and it has stuck with me these last 13 years.

I have been thinking about this a lot, not just in relation to my life spiritually, but my life in general. Why do I not do my laundry when I know it means I will have nothing to wear on Monday? Why do I eat junk food when I know I will feel awful the next day. Why do I not say my prayers every night, when I know it brings me peace?

I have all the tools available to me to live a perfect life. I know the principles that lead to a healthy life, an organized home, a peaceful spirit. I just don't use them like I should.

Why do I do what I do when I know what I know?

Bad Hair Season

I have been having the proverbial 'bad hair day' for about a week now. It's strange, because I just got a good haircut a couple of weeks ago, and I even dyed it, which will usually tame it into submission for at least a month. But every time I look in the mirror it's all frizz, pouf, and stringy-ness. There could be a few reasons for this (I haven't switched shampoos in a while, my blow-drying habits have changed slightly)but I choose to blame it on my number two nemesis: WINTER (my number one nemesis is laundry, in case you were wondering. I swear, those socks hide under the washer just to spite me!!).

I know most people don't think that winter exists here in Texas, and to other people, that might be true. But I was born and raised in the desert, and to me, any temperature below 50 degrees is Winter with a capital W!! Don't get me wrong, I was as happy to get through August as the next Texan, but why can't it just be lovely October or April all year?? I hate needing to wear a jacket, I hate having to wear tights, and I hate having my hair look like I just crawled out of the sewer! (Don't worry, I still wash my hair regularly, so it doesn't smell like I just crawled out of the sewer).

And in unrelated news, the Christmas tree is up!! No ornaments yet. At least that can wait until after Thanksgiving. I'm trying to pace myself!

It's Beginning!

I have had Christmas fever for a few weeks now. I'm trying to restrain myself from putting up the tree (three more weeks, I can do this!!) and twinkly lights and putting fake snow on all the windows.

So I decided to decorate my blog instead. I went low key, for now. No pictures of snowmen or presents or trees, just a few color changes. Hopefully it will get me through to Thanksgiving until the real festivities start! I can't wait for Christmas cookies and parties, hot chocolate, holiday movies, and Christmas shopping!!

Cleaning Out The Fridge For Dummies

I couldn't sleep Friday night/Saturday morning. Sometimes I get bouts of insomnia, where I JUST. CAN'T. SLEEP. Very frustrating. Luckily, this past week was one of the laziest of my life, so there was plenty of housework to keep me occupied in the wee hours of the morning. I decided to get a jump start on everything, and at about 7, after doing two loads of laundry, cleaning the guest bathroom, and eating some candy, I decided the fridge needed to be cleaned out. Below are the steps for cleaning out a fridge. If you are a dummy. Like me.

1) This first step is very important. Do not, under any circumstances, keep your fridge clean. Do not wipe off sticky bottles before putting them in the fridge. Do not use your leftovers, let them sit sadly in the back of the fridge for a few months. When they are growing new food, you know it has almost been long enough. This is important because if your fridge does not get dirty, you cannot clean it, and you might as well stop reading now.

2) Sit on the floor in front of your open fridge, and take everything out. Try not to throw up when you open containers of three month old alfredo sauce or corn that seems to be growing a new life form. Cleaning your fridge during allergy season is especially helpful due to the stuffy nose. I even recommend waiting to clean out the fridge until you have a very bad head cold, if it helps.

3) Realize that sitting with the fridge door open for that long is a waste of electricity. Turn the fridge off.

4) Separate all the food into good and bad. Throw the bad away. Keep the good in a pile. If you fridge looks like mine, you will now have half a gallon of milk and some butter left in the good pile, and half of bag of very stinky trash…

5) Fill a bowl with warm soapy water. Wash off all the shelves. Bonus points if you take out the drawers and clean them too! Extra bonus points if you can identify the sticky goo under the vegetable drawer.

6) Put all the good food back. Give yourself a huge pat on the back.

7) Make a grocery list, now that you realize your fridge is completely empty (man cannot live on butter alone).

8) Go throughout your day feeling accomplished and thinking of how bright and shiny the inside of the fridge is.

9) The next morning, have a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Realize the milk is warm, even though you just got it out of the fridge… Remember that you forgot to turn the fridge BACK ON.

10) Be thankful there wasn’t actually food in there.

11) Vow to never clean the fridge again.

Right Now

I've been looking for a new job ever since the wedding. Praying for a new job. Dreaming of a new job. It's not that I was in a bad place, it's just that I got everything out of that job I could. I was bored, and tired of the same thing day in day out.

And now I have a new job!!! I put in my two weeks on Friday!! I had daydreams of putting in my two weeks, and the song Take This Job and Shove It was always in the background, along with me shocking my coworkers, venting my frustrations to my director, and running out of the building in a blaze of glory. So the actual putting in of the two weeks was pretty anticlimactic. See, I forgot how much I like everyone at work, and how much I respect my manager, and in real life I would never want her to be blindsided. I also forgot that two weeks notice means just that- you have to be at work for two more weeks! I could have left in a blaze of glory, but it just would have been awkward to come in on Monday morning, ya know??

Now that it's done, and I know I am moving on, the sentimental part of me is taking over. I have a really hard time with lasts! (I saw a bumper sticker once that said "Why are we sentimental about things that sucked the first time?" It made me stop and think) My last staff meeting, my last team meeting, my last student yelling at me (ok, I wasn't sentimental at all about that!) the last halloween (my office goes ALL OUT).

I have also been surprised at the number of people who have stopped by my desk to tell me how nice it was to work with me. Our director even welled up when he announced I was leaving. It is all really nice, and I appreciate people doing it, but I just keep thinking- the last two years of my life would have been so much better if people would have told me nice things while I was working there. So many days I rushed to my car at the end of the day so I could cry all the way home because of what a bad day I had. Just one person saying a nice thing would have totally changed that.

It made me think- do I wait to tell people how much they mean to me or how they have helped me? Do I hold back on complements? It made me remember to focus more on RIGHT NOW and be aware of the people around me. It is so easy to lift someone's day, why not do it more?

Things I Do That I Know I Shouldn't

1) Clean my ears out with a Q-tip. I've heard countless doctors tell me not to do this. But sometimes, I just feel the need!!

2) Climb into bed after taking a shower. This is 100% guarenteed to make me late, and yet, I do it at least 3 times a week. The world is so cold, and my bed is so warm!

3) Eat half of the cookie dough before I make cookies. I know it will make my stomach hurt. I know later I will wish I had more cookies to eat. But when it's sitting there in the bowl in all it's uncooked glory, it just has to go in my mouth!!

4) Put things off. I know I will feel better when I make that annoying phone call/fold the load of laundry/clean out the fridge, but for some reason, I just keep putting it off!