Summertime

Well, I am going to say the inevitable: Summertime is coming to an end. We will soon be in the month of September and back to work. As an educator, one would expect me to experience feelings of despair at this statement, but I am going to go ahead and not feel that. Instead I am going to opt for feelings of o.k.ness (don't right-click dictionary that one, it never has it). As fun and free summertime is I am ready to have a little routine back in my life. Before I sell out to this idea that routine is desirable I would like to take a moment to mentionwhat I have been able to do with all of my free time this summer.
-Take Jr. High girls to Jesus Camp
-See my family
-Go to a few baseball games
-Make dinner for my friends
-Go to the beach! ! !
-Get my house in order
-See my buddy Alison Garrett
-Turn 27
-Karaoke
-Go to San Diego to hang with my family
What I consistently did from the beginning of summer was spend time with Dave, he is my boyfriend and he is really fun and so on. He is. . .It is too hard for me to gush, I am not a gusher, so just trust me, he is my favorite. Our friend Kate has been trying to make this happen for a while and I must say her intuition was right on.

Just last night I spent some time with my old boss Otis (Young Life). He is so great and has known me for quite some time. It was exciting to tell him that I am seeing a really great guy. I quickly fill him in on our dating journey, slipping in the part that I really struggled to call him my boyfriend. He commented that he wasn't suprised. I laughed, only because I was uncomfortable. That is what I do, I laugh when i am uncomfortable. I also skirt commitment. I am pretty sure this stems from a little bit of perfectionism. Not because I am a perfectionist, but that I am afraid of messing up (I prefer for things to work out "perfectly"). It takes a lot more for me to go for things because if I see a glimpse of potential failure, I "lose interest". I probably don't look like a perfectionist because I never put myself in a situation where I will do anything too far from right. I am sure it could be a road to a very uninteresting life. Thankfully God has put things in my life I have to commit to not knowing what could come of them.
All this to say, this summer has been fantastic and I am grateful I had this time to do stuff ("that's not stuff Meredith"). It will be nice to slip back into the 'ol routine in a few days.

9 months!

I had a baby!
No, not really but it has been nine months since I last posted. That is long enough to brew a baby in my stomach. This brings up a good point, babies don't grow in the stomach which is a common misconception among most children. Babies grow in the womb. What is the womb, you ask? The womb is the uterus. So there you go. . .Also the birth canal is the passage from the uterus to the vagina. So now that we are all caught up on babies, let us move on. Move on to what? I don't know. Oh, I know, what I have been doing for these nine months. The reason I haven't been blogging. I had a full time job for a while. I taught high school kids with special needs. It was really fun! REALLY fun. There where some low-lights, but for the most part I was into it. I think it is fair to say that most of my time and thought has been consumed by my band BODIES OF WATER (in stores now!) We have been, playing, practicing, releasing, shooting, and hanging. I can't really get too far into it or else four days later I will have just scratched the surface and will spend another 3 days trying to wrap things up. That is a problem of mine with writing. I start writing and realize that it is going to take pages and pages to communicate what it is I am try to communicate, then I get overwhelmed, then I go for the easy out and end up looking skitzy.

T.G.I.F

Really. It is Saturday, but I was thinking T.G.I.F all day yesterday, and really T.G.I.F shouldn't be restricted to just Friday because it is a state of being that should be available to be used across the board. But for this week it was literally Thank Goodness It's Friday. I started a new job last week teaching Special Education at the High School. This is beautiful news because it is what I am going to school for and most people have to wait to finish their credential before getting paid the big bucks, but I am going to be able to make money and go to school. I am really enjoying it so far. It is mildly overwhelming (I don't know how to explain mild overwhelming) but I think I am going to manage.
I was what one might call a lover of high school. I have been told that my enjoyment of high school could reflect poorly on me because majority of people found high school to be a low point in life, therefore I am a bad person for having the opposite experience. That is neither here nor there.
What I am getting at with this whole idea of T.G.I.F. is that yesterday I had a rush of familiar feelings that I knew all to well when I was in elementary all the way through high school. That feeling when you wake up on a Friday and can't help but feel excited that at the end of the day you get this tremendous gift we call "the weekend" or as I like to refer to it as the "freekin' weekin'". Being back in the school environment (day in day out, same class room) brings a new/old appreciation for Fridays and the weekend. I remember as a kid, all week waiting for Friday. Why didn't we anticipate Saturday? Granted it is the full day of the weekend the real pay off for the weekend is when the bell rings or you punch your time card to leave on Friday. What if your weekend falls on a Tues./Wed. then T.G.I.F. on Monday when you check out. Once again T.G.I.F. shouldn't be restricted but the idea of changing it to T.G.I.M or T.G.I.T displaces the nostalgic feelings that made Fridays our favorite day of the week growing up.

Consistency

Consistency isn't always a strong point for me. Journaling, flossing, reading the Holy Book, even exercise. This fall I decided to, through the influence of my friend Jo, to take a stab at a sprint triathlon. A sprint is a half mile swim, 12 mile bike and 3 mile run. Anyway we trained, participated in the race and immediately decided to make a trip to my home land (Phoenix) and do another one with my brothers. So the training continued. We did some four mile runs with Zoey (a dog) and some bike rides (we are total biker chicks). Needless to say I did the race in AZ, had a blast, loved every second and haven't done ANYTHING since, not so much as to do a couple crunches. Why is this? I am capable, it is good for me, I enjoy it but I can't manage to keep it up. I can't figure out why some things stick while others are a constant struggle to keep afloat. There are some things that I do manage to do on a regular basis like overcommiting myself, miss my friends that live 5 minutes away that I feel like I never see, and pick at my blemishes. These things are not good for me, that I enjoy and yet they come so easy. Isn't it weird. I guess this is the goodness of life to be aware and to constantly push for consistency in the right stuff. What is good and right isn't always easy, but we know God isn't going to send us out on our own to fail, but He is going to walk with us and help us every step of the way. I don't think it will ever be easy to be consistent in things that don't come naturally, but walking with Jesus and trying to keep up is a beautiful place to be.

Appearently

I found this blog that I never posted in the spring. I think it is funny, so here it is a couple months later. My opinions haven't changed:

I am going to blog like I workout.

Spring has sprung and finally I am mildly participating in the activities. Anything serious, no. Fun, yes. I will tell you something, if a dude has confidence and a sense of humor, he can pull any chick he wants. I am using the terms "dude" and "chick" because the formula works for them, not necessarily "ladies" and "gents", but I think we all need to be dudes and chicks at one point or another.

I Love Rain

I love it, I really do. Maybe I will marry it. I woke up this morning at 8:30 and laid in bed for an hour saying to myself, "this is so cool, I love this, rain is the best, I love the sound, this is so cool, this is really cool." Then at 9:30 I relocated to my couch and proceeded to talk to myself in the same manner for another half hour or so. I love cold, I love wind, I love stormy, I love rain. Ironically (or not, depending on how you look at it) I grew up in Arizona and moved to Sunny Southern California. Weather stirs my spirit in a sweet way. It reminds me how big God is, he created and controls it all. Then there is that whole cleansing analogy, but in the same moment I can't help but think that He knows how much I like rain. So today is good.

Saving myself for marriage

Noble. Respectful. Good. God's heart. These are some reasons why I am saving myself for marriage. I think it is wonderful, but sometimes I wonder, have I taken it too far. "Jess, what DO you mean?" I will tell you, hold on, and whether it relates to me saving myself for marriage or not, it is not clear, but is seemed like a great segway into what I am about to say.
I can't make eye-contact with men. If I know you and know that there is no way anything will ever happen between us (which is most any guy I know) I could win a staring contest, but if I don't know you or haven't had the chance to smother you in friendliness I avoid eye-contact. I don't have to think he is cute or vise versa, just being in the same 20 year age bracket 20-40 years old intimidates me. Unfortunately I think it stems from low self-esteem about my attraction level. I think I am a wonderful person, beautiful and everything, but I feel like I have little to no ability to attract the opposite sex upon first glance. I am avoiding rejection really. My thought is, if I make eye-contact they might think I am interested in them and having such low views of my attraction level I don't want them to have the opportunity to say, "Um, no thanks". Like that is really what eye-contact communicates. . .I know, it is ridiculous, but I have noticed it a lot in the past week or two. Tomorrow I am going to make it a point to stare down 2 or 3 single men I don't know. This is going to be awkward.