Jersey Sleeping
That is Jersey. She’s tiny and cute and a great deal of fun. And I love her because she is my cat and she chose me.
Couch damage
That is what tiny, cute, fun Jersey has done to my couch. How do I fix it? And how do I stop the cat from clawing the couch? This is, of course, insuring that no harm comes to my cat.
I get up at 630 four days a week to squeeze in trips to the gym before class and work. I spend a great deal of time bitching about, particularly when my alarm goes off at 630 on those mornings. I moan about being sore and I whine about the numbers on the scale not moving downward quickly enough for my taste. I spend time on the elliptical before attack the Nautilus weight machines. More often than not, I hate it both before and during. Muscles burn. I’m out of breath. I’m sweaty and my hair is all over the place.
And then it happens. Every morning, without fail, an older man wheels himself across the floor of my gym. He’s an older man with a prosthetic leg, a man who has to wear compression stockings on his other leg, which does not work significantly better than his prosthetic. He uses his arm strength to heave himself onto a recumbent bicycle, refusing any help and smiling all the while. After pedaling for longer than I would be able to, he uses his arm strength to heave himself back into his wheelchair, wheel over to the wipe dispenser and then wheels back over, making sure to take the time to wipe down his bicyle. After he is done with his cardio workout, he proceeds to the free weights area to lift and make sure that his arms stay strong and his metabolism stays as high as possible. The whole time he is smiling and jovial with the staff and the other gym patrons.
I am 25 years old. That’s not old by any stretch of the imagination and yet, despite my good overall health, I whine about getting up in the morning. I whine about not having lost enough weight yet. I whine that going to the gym is just one more thing I have to fit into my already overfull day. And then I get to see this complete stranger and his work ethic, his smiling face and his commitment to whatever modicum of health he can maintain despite his obvious injuries and physical ailments and I am reminded that my body is ultimately not my own, it is a gift from my God and I have no business whining about taking care of it. So tomorrow, when I get up to go to the gym, I’m going to do my best to remember this lesson before he shows up. To remember it when I don’t want to spend even one more second on the elliptical or do one more rep on the biceps curl. To remember that I have been blessed with health and that it could be taken away in an instant.
Happy workouts everyone!
I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.
And now complete in Him
My robe His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.
Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.
When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.
And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down
All down at Jesus’ feet.
This is my new iPod Classic. I have finally joined the 21st century. He’s black and I have named him Obama. Now I can have whatever music I want when running or driving.
The image just above you is a pair of big girl panties. Put them on and buck up.
There will be a more meaningful post later this week. However, I have hurt my back and am feeling remarkably cranky at people. Put on your big girl underwear and do your best to be adults. I’m locking comments on this post on account of the fact that once my muscle relaxers kick in, I’m likely to rethink my harshness and delete it.
I’m proud. It is not the first time I’ve been truly proud to be an American, but it is definitely the first time in many years. I know that for many many people this election was about race, but I can honestly say that it was not for me. This election was about getting to vote FOR someone who I believe in. It doesn’t help though that this is a huge boon for civil rights, for poor black kids in the inner city and for every person of color that has been mistreated simply because of the color of their skin. It’s a beautiful day and I am proud. Aren’t they a beautiful family? If only they would become cat people…
Before I get concerned emails and comments from the Christans who read my blog, I’d like to say that this is not an announcement that I will be departing from my Christian faith. This post, and perhaps subsequent serials, is simply designed to promote discussion, thinking, and reading about a topic near to my heart. This post deals with one problem; subsequent ones will deal with other problems.
I believe that there are multiple reasons for leaving the Church. Today we’ll focus on one that I have noticed rather evidently in my life. I grew up in a family that was at our place of worship every time the doors opened. Sunday school, Worship, Sunday night service, Wednesday night and any and all things in between. As a teen I went to all of the youth events, attended a Christian camp until I was old enough to work at said camp and then worked there for four summers in college. The summers that I did not work at camp I spent in foreign missions. I don’t say any of this to brag, because I believe that all of those things can be extremely problematic and in fact have been problematic in my adult life. That problem is Obligation.
Part of attending everything available to you is developing the sense that you have to be there. It’s not so much that you think that nothing can go on without you and that everyone will be lost if you are not present. It’s more that you believe that God wants you at events and at church activities and you begin to define your life around church functions. Eventually though, this is not enough. At some point you wake up, realize that you have no relationships to speak of, and instead are simply a good church person. While it is not bad to be a good church person, it is a horrible way to live life. Once you realize this, there are two options: fix the problem by waking up to relationship with Christ and hopefully other people or freak out and leave the Church because you have not found fulfillment in activities and obligation.
I’ve rarely considered really leaving the Church, but the few times I have, one of the reasons has been lack of relationship and a huge sense of obligation. I’m not attempting to solve problems here because I don’t really have a good way to do that. I’m simply posing an issue and hoping to create discussion.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have a deep love for Razorback sports. Tonight I was exceedingly proud of my basketball boys who bested OU and should have a real shot at entering the Top 25. After a disappointing at best football season, I’m pleased to see the basketball team doing quite well. I’ll now leave you with this fabulous picture of my fabulous roommate.
While I intended to do my obligatory Thanksgiving post before Thanksgiving day, time got away from me and I ended up doing a great many things that were probably less important than listing the things I am thankful for. Without further ado, here’s my list of things that are both frivolous and serious.
1. Salvation/forgiveness. I list these together because I don’t believe that you can seperate them, at least as far as God is concerned. I also want to express thankfulness for human forgiveness. In an episode of Seventh Heaven that I caught yesterday, Annie said, “I love you, so I forgive you.” I think that about sums up our relationship with God and I’m extraordinarily thankful that it also seems to sum up my relationship with my friends and family.
2. My parents. I find it obvious to mention at this point that I’m thankful for my mother’s health. She was diagnosed with breast cancer this fall and I’m thrilled that it was no more serious or hard to deal with than it was. I’m also thankful that they don’t complain about helping me out financially despite my advanced age.
3. My hairdresser. The women out there know how difficult it is to find someone that is both likeable as a person and adept as a hairdresser, and after several years of hunting, I finally found one. It might be a frivolous thing to be thankful for, but nonetheless, I am.
4. Books. I love books of all kinds, provided they are well written. I read everything from Christian romance novels to books on economics and I’m thankful for them. The older I get, the more convinced I am that I know very very little and the more blessed I realize I am to have tons of words and ideas available to me.
5. I am never hungry. I might not always get to eat exactly what I want (and a lot of that is due to battling my sluggish metabolism) but I always have enough to eat.
6. Health insurance. I spent a year without health insurance and now that I have it, I am hugely thankful for a free flu shot, office visit and prescription copays and the ability to choose my doctors.
7. My heated mattress pad. I hate turning the central heat on because of what it does to my skin and for giving me nose bleeds. I love when I finally crawl into bed and the bed is all warm and cozy because of the heated mattress pad.
8. Text messaging. I love getting text messages and receiving them and I love the quick communication they provide. I lalso love that this year my dad provided my sister and I with unlimited text messaging, which makes back and forth quoting of song lyrics and television shows and movies possible with my sister.
9. Coffee. I love coffee, and not just for its caffeination effects. I love its smell and its taste and its ability to warm you up. For those same reasons I love hot tea.
10. This particular year I’m thankful for the microbiology class I took, the immunology class I took and the professor that teaches them. Because of her, I’m afraid I’m going to have to become an educator. It was always something I didn’t want to do, but I’m afraid it’s what I’m supposed to be. Thanks Dr. Tarasenko for helping me realize that being a doctor or some other medical professional isn’t the only thing out there for me. (I’d like to interject here that this does not necessarily mean I won’t pursue a career in healthcare. I love taking care of people and I love science and I haven’t necessarily determined what the very best course for me is. God and I are still talking about that)
There are a great many other things, but odds are when you noticed the post was this long that you merely skimmed it and in order to minimize your reading, I’ll stop at ten things.
Last night I was proud of my country for the first time in a long time. Let’s not make any mistakes: I am always proud of my troops; I support and pray for my leaders whether or not I agree with them. However, last night I was given the opportunity to watch as a black man and his sweet African-American family was elected to become the President of the United States of America, despite our nation’s long history of electing white men to serve in that office. Last night I was proud of John McCain and his gracious and eloquent concession speech. I believe that McCain is a valuable American and a huge asset to our nation and I hope and pray that he is remembered for much much more than his campaign of late. Last night I was proud of America.
I would also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that President-elect Obama will not be taking your luxury SUVs or your elaborate homes and your massive grocery budgets and forcing you to exchange them for aging Geo Metros and small apartments and government cheese. (This might be a great time to remind everyone of one of my personal problems with church in America: storing up treasures on earth. You know that Range Rover is going to rust and be useless, don’t you?) I would also like to remind everyone that there are a great many people who work, who are educated and who cannot seem to make things go better for themselves and that these people are not all black, are not all homosexuals, are not all illegal Hispanics. There are woman just like me and at least as far as this election is concerned, I am proud to have voted to elect a man that is willing to talk about women’s health care and equal pay for equal work and providing the opportunity for citizens who have no health insurance through work to buy into the government’s group health plan. I am just freaking proud of my country. Let’s not ruin it with hate speech and derisiveness and fear-mongering. God is still in control, even if you don’t like the outcome of this Presidential election.
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