found music.

valentine schmalentine

truth of the matter is... saying i'm "kind of" a feminist, well~ let's just say is putting it mildly.

i have a major problem with what seems to be men and society's generalized norms of male/female expectations.

but i don't have time for all that. I will focus this weeks' spirited one sided discussion on a particular classic behavior set that drives me wild. (& not in a good way~ ugh really! have you been listening to anything I've been saying!?)

1. THE CAVE-MAN FORMULA
(equivalent roughly to: ME SINGLE + U SINGLE = U NOT ONLY REQUIRED BUT ALSO OBLIGATED TO DATE ME.

yep, let's just discount that the other person has any kind of brain or any inkling of interest in you and man-handle them into a relationship with you! I mean, c'mon~ why wouldn't you?

and women! don't you know you are nothing as a unattached female and surely your only validation in life is to be thrown over the arm of whatever brute that approaches you!? moreover, you should be happy and thankful for being 'selected' and promptly make a sammich to express your joy.

guys~ maybe that girl you're so baffled by why she doesn't like you~ take a step back and THINK: 'hmm... am i just assuming that because she is single she will by default have a strong emotional bond and connection with me?' 'does she perhaps have some other ambitions in life other than me a random creeper?'

ugh nevermind. enough~ if you will excuse me, i have some better things to do:

this song playing on my car stereo

driving home from work tonight, this song playing on the radio, and the snow was falling horizontally on my windshield. it was honestly beautiful. i had never seen snow fall like that. i wish i would have taken a video, but i doubt it would have captured it anyway.

the singers' twangy voice sang~

"runaway train, never goin' back
wrong way on a one-way track
seems like i should be getting somewhere somehow i'm neither here nor there" 

God, i hope i'm not on the wrong track. i hope you'd turn me around or stop me if i was headed to de-rail... i hope you use me, where ever it is i'm going. my life's an open book, write your name on every page.

this makes me cry

what the video doesn't share but this article does, is a bit about the boy battling tears in the red sweatshirt. he's one of the "cool" kids, he's the quarterback of the football team-- the guy everyone looks up to and emulates. kids are so mean, and i can guarantee no one would have stood up for the poor "waterboy" if a "celebrity" of sorts hadn't done something. yes, i know its a beautiful thing that he stood up against the bullying and influenced the entire team to stand up for the boy, but still it makes me sad. how many times is a child somewhere not stood up for? how many times is someone disabled, quiet and shy, or even "different" in any imaginable way "kicked under the bus" emotionally or physically? people are so mean. i'm a supposed adult~ and even today i can not grow a thick enough skin fast enough for how i get ripped up & bad-talked. it's hard, and i can't even imagine being a young child picked on and taking everything so deeply. i pray for every little heart out there, God protect them.

sweeping things under the... placemat

years and years ago, growing up in eastern idaho, i was a child with a few strong dislikes in the area of mealtime delicacies. namely, my particular distaste was for vegetables that were cooked and green in nature: broccoli, lentils, lima beans, brussel sprouts, peas... i hated them all!

one day, to my despair, peas were once again on the dinner menu~ and i resolved then and there that i simply would not eat any peas at all (in my vision) from that day forward! declaring such a goal was completely out of the question, so i devised a more devious means.

slowly but surely throughout dinner, while people were talking, i quietly picked up a single pea, glanced around the table, and put it under the rim of my plate. my little process was noticed by no one~ so i grew bolder and put more and more, completely encircling the plate. i smiled with inward glee, the rim of my plate overlapped in just the right manner to completely hide my entire store of nasty peas.

i remember even being congratulated for "doing such a good job eating all my peas" and i remember feeling so incredibly smart for my little "illusion."

"why don't you bring your plates to the sink when you're finished eating."

over the clatter of clanging dishes, as i heard those words, my heart sunk to my knees. with a dull sense of dread, i knew once i lifted my "clean" plate off the table, an entire serving of little green peas would come spilling out.


i hadn't thought of that.

--

all will be revealed. those are some scary words for all of us. it makes me think of how in life its pretty easy to be a "clean plate" to others around you with them never knowing the sin you're hiding underneath it all.

1. admitting you even have a problem is the first step & probably half the battle. Jesus did not take kindly to people that thought their little illusion was good enough: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean." (Matthew 23:27)

2. being sobered by the vast ugliness of our sin. the reality is that we can't simply "clean it up". there is no way, it's not possible for us. one sin is enough to eternally separate us from God, how much more all of our sins!

3. realizing that God doesn't grade on the "curve" of how much it appears you're ok in reference to how dirty others are. He has a perfect standard= perfection or fail.

4.applying God's grace is our only salvation. in Christ, we are freed from the control of sin and we are more than conquerors! God's grace was never meant to be after we get ourselves "cleaned up first"~ how insulting to God's gift: he made a way for us, when He knew there was none.

5. and last~remembering the forgiveness of Jesus. the woman being stoned for adultery~ how beautifully Jesus forgave her!

let's stop sweeping things under the placemat... take our dirty plate piled high with sins, give it to Jesus, and never look back!



...and don't forget to say "thank you!"

fall sweaters

God, after today all i can say is~ you have quite the sense of humor! ;) & i have the sneaking suspicion you  love these sweater looks as much as I do?

i tried.

honest to goodness i tried.
i told you this was coming, should have just believed me~

...and begin rant.

welp.
so i'm pretty quiet some of the time, with that 'some' being when i want to be, or merely when i am extremely uncomfortable. a lot of times i think people read me very wrong.

other's perceptions
1. i am conceited.
2. i am prissy.
3. i am judgmental.
4. i am rich?

truth of the matter
1. i actually find this the most {annoying} common myth that goes around about me. people that know me all know i really dislike talking about myself/ i have an almost in-bedded nature to word all my insights/answers as questions /and generally lean too far on the 'not liking myself side' to even register on the 'full of myself side'.

2. though i wear (gasp!) makeup, or at times dress nice, i am actually very oudoorsy. give me a trail with trees and a free afternoon and i'm golden: i will disappear for hours exploring.  furthermore~ i grew up with 2 brothers and paid my fair dues in the tomboy category, i guess i just don't feel the need to prove it to you by dirt in my fingernails.

3. it invariably happens. i tell someone i'm in fashion, and they start to get all self-conscious about what they are wearing. i could honestly care less! like a doctor, i've seen it all, and it doesn't phase me anymore. i'd much rather see people in their natural style/element than them adapt to what they think i would like. while you're worrying that i'm judging you for looking like a slob in sweatpants and a hoodie, i am {honestly} probably thinking how accurate last week's trend meeting that "athleisure" is going to be our best seller.

4. though i do have a very good paying job, i did not grow up having a life of financial ease by any means. i paid for school myself by working part-time/ heck, even full-time! jobs year-round even during 22 credit semesters at school! still today, i use coupons at the grocery store and all of my furniture is not even from the same decade(s) to even consider matching.



so you can take all that silent judgement~and go judge someone else.


no, don't do that.

apparently,

i use this blog as a vent for my strong emotions that don't have an outlet to escape other wise. so what does that mean, if i haven't had the inkling to write in more than a month?

as i look back over this and see despair, anger, love, etc in very passionate potent doses-- it makes me wonder how accurate some of these thoughts where when they were expressed "in the heat of the moment" so to speak. but irrationality is something i have never been afraid of, and i suppose i will continue... and taking away emotion would be like separating marrow from my bone.

but anyway, i thought i would write today. well, for one, because today i feel surprisingly 'fine'. or to word it more understandably, i feel neither extremely happy/angry/sad at all today, sort of a hum-drum feeling of a state of all around o-kay.