Mere Christianity

Oh C.S. Lewis, you and I are just not friends. This book made me angry more than it made me happy. Honestly I didn't finish it. We were working on it for our small group and we threw in the towel and gave up. It was a recommendation from someone and I just couldn't handle it. Lewis is very black and white in this and in my world there is a lot of color. I have been told to read his other works because they are a lot better, but it's going to take some time before I want to try Mr. Lewis again.

I Heart New York

I have a habit (bad for my wallet) of going to the bookstore and just roaming the shelves until something jumps out at me. That's how I found this jewel. Clearly this was going to be a perfect book for me because in fact I do heart New York very, very much. What I didn't realize is how much I would actually relate to the book. First off it starts with a girl at her best friend's wedding who finds out that her fiance was cheating on her (catches him in the act during the reception actually) and then finds out that her best friend knew about it the whole time. Now that's not exactly my story, but it was close enough to have me enthralled. The next day after a good cry (and peeing in his toiletry bag) she hops on a plane and goes to NYC knowing no one. I threatened to do this many, many times following my own wedding being cancelled, but never got the balls to do it. I got to live out what I wished I had done through this. She ends up making friends with the concierge at the hotel she stays in, meetings beautiful men and has fun dates (after a fabulous makeover). It was kind of cathartic to read this having been through something similar (minus the dating, but we'll get to that). Overall it was wonderful, it was set in the best city in the world, it was fun to imagine all the places that I have been to countless times, and I just loved it. Absolutely a must read.

Back in the Swing of Things

Okay it has been a minute (or a month) since last I blogged. One might have thought I gone blown away with the tornado from the last post, but I didn't. Instead I have been fighting with a fun (I use that term extremely sarcastically) home improvement project (or ten) that have thrown me into a nervous breakdown (or several), plus school wrapping up, plus Junior League, plus CrossTimbers, plus juggling that thing I call a social life. Enough for excuses, I'm back! In the meantime of regular blogging I have redecorated my living room, started on the kitchen, and have decided to mix up the bedrooms, plus work on the pool (we'll get to all of that soon, I promise, the stories are way too crazy not to share). I also graduated with my Masters! (insert screaming, laughing, crying and a huge sense of relief) I'll also get to that. So all of this being said, get ready blog world, there is a log of blogging coming up at Little Black Dresses and Pearls, so stay tuned!

What an End to This Week...

Okay so this has been just a HORRIBLE week on oh so many levels and I thought it was quite amusing that it was ending on Friday the 13th. What I did not anticipate was the tornado around 4:00 this afternoon, so here is that part of the wretched week's story.

I got a call that there was baseball sized hail around Riverwind (opposite side of Norman from my house), so I asked my friend Brianne to follow me home so I could put my car in the garage (the garage which was "cleaned out" at lunch so I could cram the car in when I got home from work). By the time we get to my house, which is three minutes from the office, it had started to rain. We crammed the car into the garage (literally) and I got the big dog in the house and in the hallway and we headed back. By this point it had started to really rain.

Darling Brianne turned the wrong way and the sirens started going off. We were trying to call the office to tell them we were on our way back and couldn't get anything to go through. We were listening to the radio on the way back and if you listened carefully one 1/8 mile wide tornado started on Highway 9, bounced to the mall, then back to the weather center, then to OU's campus, up to Norman North, back to Norman High, and over to Norman Regional (across the street from our office). Needless to say they were being over dramatic.

We make it back to the office, get DRENCHED while running inside and everyone is downstairs in the hallway. We hang out there for awhile, everyone attempting to get cell service (ha.ha.ha.) Someone had a radio on and it was more melodrama and them making it out that all of Norman was leveled. I'm not discounting that there were storms nor that they were bad, but the guys on the radio were saying so many things that were so conflicting it was impossible to tell what was really happening.

Eventually the storms passed, we went upstairs to get our stuff and Brianne took me home, where all was safe and sound. That's when the texts and voicemails started coming in. I had people all over the place checking on me and I felt so bad because I couldn't get anything to go through. Occasionally I would get the voicemail to work so that I would know who was checking, but overall cell phone service was awful. Wait did I say it was awful? Because an hour later it still isn't working.

When I got home to electricity and internet I updated my facebook to check in with people since nothing would go through on the phone. Eventually I was able to check voicemails and the best one came from darling Megan England:

Hey call me or text me or update your facebook status so I know you're okay.

You never have to wonder if we think alike! So once again, in severe weather facebook saves the day. So if you are reading this and I have not updated you on my status that is why and all is well and those of you that did check on my you have no idea how much it meant...love you all!

Cheetoed

Let me just say that I had the best of intentions and I take full responsibility for the ramifications of my actions.

That being said here is the story of a spray tan gone horribly wrong.

It all started this past weekend when I realized I was really, really pale. I leave for a cruise on the 18th and considering my plan is to lay on the deck in the sun with a book my pale skin was not going to do very well. If I can get a base tan then I tan really, really well, but it takes a bit of work. I decided that I would take matters into my own hands and go to the tanning salon for the two weeks prior to the trip.

I went, paid my money, bought my lotion and day one went for 8 minutes. It was fine, no burn at all, so day 2 I bumped it to 10 minutes. That was a mistake. I got a bit, well, crispy. Tan and Tone was running a special yesterday that all their tans were $1 and the magic tan was $10. After talking to the girls that work there I decided I would try a magic tan, because I couldn't get in a tanning bed due to the burn and Junior League Charity Ball is tomorrow night. I thought that was just the PERFECT solution.

Now I have never done this before, generally I am a Jergens Natural Glow kind of a girl. And I also have a tanning spray gun, so I've done that myself and had sweet Mary airbrush me too. Both of those were fine and I figured this wouldn't be that much different.

BAHAHAHAHA!

Okay so I watch the video, learn the poses, am explained it all again by an employee. Forty five seconds later I am tan. But I don't see much. The girl that explained it all said that wiping it off was the most important part. I suppose I may be too analytical because I really needed to understand how this all actually worked, because in my extremely logical mind the jets sprayed the tanning stuff on for about 8 seconds per side and then I jumped out and wiped it off, how on earth was this going to leave me tan?

Well, kids, let me tell you what, learn from me, it does. So I did the wiping, still worried that I would have no color in the morning. I went home and avoided water for the correct amount of time. I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror...O.M.G. I scrubbed as much as I could before work. When I got to work I went straight to my cave and stayed there. I IM'ed my friend Brianne and asked her to come look to see if I looked like Cheet-o. She thought I was wearing orange, not that I let the spray tan gods work their magic on me.

Here's what I learned:

• use the barrier cream and use a lot of it
• when you wipe off the tanning solution keep it far, far, far, far away from the places with the barrier cream
• cuticles and palms, even if you put barrier cream on still end up looking orange
• you can remove some of the Cheet-o-ness with rubbing alcohol

Brianne's exact words were "well it's not good." I guess I know that if I want an honest opinion I have a friend for it! :) She left and I rubbed on my skin with rubbing alcohol. Apparently the really bad place was around and on my nose. When she came back over to check on me (because I wouldn't leave my desk without approval that I wouldn't frighten people) she said "oh it looks so much better! I didn't realize how bad it really was until I see it looking better now!" I really, really, really love her!

So that is my tale of the spray tan. I'm not going to say I'll never do it again, though the idea of someone airbrushing me is sounding like a MUCH better plan, but I will take some valuable lessons from this experience. Tomorrow may be Charity Ball, but I'm not taking a date, just hanging out with wonderful girlfriends who will get a huge laugh out of this little adventure and really, if you can't laugh at your own flubs then what fun is life?

My feet after an INSANE amount of exfoliating tonight...

Mastered

That letter means that those crazy people at OU are going to give me a Masters degree! This also is the reason that I've been completely absent on the good ol' blog. I finished my comprehensive exam which was a twelve page paper that incorporated facebook, church, young adults lacking permanent, consistent emotional support, existentialism, and my future plans. Sound random enough? Well apparently I put them together in a coherent manner worthy of graduate level work and they are going to let me graduate in May.

Last week I also found out that I was invited into Phi Kappa Phi, an honor society for the top ten percent of graduating graduate students and Golden Key Honour Society, which is an honor society for cool people (okay really I haven't the slightest clue and I got the invite last fall and ignored it, but then decided that I wanted more flair for my cap and gown).

After all of that excitement I got my final grade for grad school last night: A. That means that when I finish my Masters I will graduate with a final GPA of 4.0.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't completely and totally excited about all of this. When I was in high school I graduated with honors and had a GPA over 4.0 (thanks weighted grades), then I got to college. I was really good at undergrad, at least the social aspect; the school aspect I really didn't care about and my GPA reflected it.

Grad school was not in the plan. Three years ago I was planning a disaster of a wedding. I wanted to be a wife and mom, and while I see nothing wrong with either of those things that wasn't the direction my life path ended up going and I'm okay with that. Wife and mom are still on my to do list, but I really love where my life is at. That being said I did get sad today when I was ordering my announcements and saw undergrad couples that were purchasing all their stuff together and knowing that when graduation rolls around they will take pictures together and have those memories, together. I'm sad that I won't have those graduation pictures with whoever "the one" is. In the end it will all work out and I know that. I also know that had I been dating someone during the craziness that was me in grad school it would have never worked. I rather enjoyed being able to pull all nighters and then retreat to the pool or the comfort of my bedroom to watch Sex and the City or Dawson's Creek. Had I been in a relationship I would have, knowing me, sacrificed some part of this experience and I wouldn't feel about it the way that I do, and I'm really, really proud of myself.

All in all the last twenty six months have been busy, crazy, fun, and completely and totally worthwhile. In sixty four short days I will walk across a stage in a sparkly decorated cap (more on that later) at Lloyd Noble Center, hopefully with some crazy kids screaming and yelling and blowing air horns, and they will give me a Masters. Now that I have the school bug I don't think it's going away any time soon. I've already decided that I'm going to get my counseling license and a Ph.D. is completely not out of the realm of reality (I really want the poufy hat!).

Who knows where I will be in another three years because where I sit now is not at all what I could have ever imagined one thousand ninety six days ago (yes I counted Leap Year day :)), but I wouldn't change it for anything.

Saving Myself for Donnie Wahlberg…

Well maybe not really (or maybe so, who knows!) Here we are again that wonderful day of the year we all love so very much: Valentine’s Day. Last year I was pretty upset by this little twenty-four hour period, but this year I’m just really not. I really just don’t care, it’s just another day.

So why then am I writing a blog for the first time in a month and a half over the subject?

Contentment.

This is my word of 2012. I’ve had real issue with this word in the past because I thought that if I said I was content with my life that meant that I was happy staying where I was, which I’m not. I want to get married and have kids and that’s not where I’m at, so I didn’t want to tempt the fates into thinking that they could just leave me here and I’d be happy about it, because I wouldn’t be. Then a friend encouraged me to watch the movie Courageous. I won’t go into my analysis and critique of the movie because it isn’t relevant here. What happened was that the movie didn’t come out on DVD for some time after I was told to watch it, however I noticed a book at Barnes and Noble inspired by the movie: The Resolution for Women (there’s a men’s version too). I started this book at the beginning of the year and I’ll admit I have not been diligent about reading it every day, but I’ll get through it eventually.

The main point of the beginning and what struck me so much was this idea of contentment. The book laid it out in a manner that I not only understood, but completely and totally agreed with. It suggested the idea that we all have different seasons throughout our lives: seasons to be single, to be married, to be a parent, to be a student, to build our career, to be a kid and so on. The idea of contentment isn’t the idea that you have to be satisfied forever with what you have now; rather it is the idea that you are content, happy and enjoy what you have in the season that you are in. It was like a light bulb went off there in my bedroom.

Contentment doesn’t mean that I am giving up and saying, well I guess this is how it’s going to be and I have to live with it. Rather it gives me the opportunity to live my life to the fullest and enjoy this time I have. Now I’ve known all of this for years and for a long time I’ve told myself I need to learn to live in the moment, but they were just words and the voice in the back of my mind was telling me that I was biding my time until my “real” life started: the get married and have kids life. I don’t really know what the major difference this time was, but I really and truly got it this time around. I realize all the great things that I get to do because I am single.

I took an amazing trip to New York and DC in November and got to enjoy just spending time alone, which was amazing. That trip was all about having new experiences and finding myself along the way. I had never flown by myself before and that felt like this huge thing, that wasn’t really all that big of a deal. At the same time I made all the arrangements myself (besides a bus ticket to DC) and got myself where I needed to be all by myself. I’ve always been a very independent person, however I tend to stay in my own comfortable bubble and that trip pushed me outside my bubble and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I’m finishing my Masters. During the month of February not only have I completed my last class, but I also have to write my comprehensive exam (which I still don’t think is THAT big of a deal, but everyone else is flipping out about). To be honest I’m glad I’m single because I just really don’t have time, right now, to factor someone else in. I am doing everything I can to just have some “me” time in between class and paper writing.

On top of this we are starting some new things at CrossTimbers that I’m ridiculously excited about, but that are also kind of time consuming in the beginning planning process. (And, no, I’m still not 100% certain how this all ended up happening at once.) This has become an amazing opportunity that allows me and a group of people to truly make a difference in other people’s lives as well as our own and I’m so excited about the direction it is going.

February also includes seeing a dear friend in one of my favorite musicals, the birthday of a beautiful little girl, whom I adore, that must be showered with birthday excitement, a women’s retreat at my home church that I am beyond excited about, and to top it off a trip to Dallas with one of my most favorite people for the Jordan Knight solo show (because if you couldn’t tell at the beginning of this I am having some NKOTB withdrawals lately).

So all in all February is a really busy month for me. If I had been put in a relationship at this point the person I was with would probably be feeling abandoned or I would be focused on them and not all the other things I need to do. That’s kind of how my life has been these days. It’s not that I don’t want to be with someone; it’s that simply this is not the season for that.

I don’t know how long this season of my life is going to last. Maybe it will be that mystery date in July or maybe it will be sooner than that, but if it happens to be longer than that, then that’s okay too.

For the last few months I have been toying around with the idea of finishing my LPC (license professional counseling) classes. The class I just finished up sealed the deal on that. Basically I’m signing myself up for another year and a half or so of school, but I’m okay with that. I truly feel like it is the place that I’m supposed to be in this season of my life. I’m not really sure what this means in the long run of my life, but I feel certain that I’m going in the right direction and certain things that I thought would be happening right now are on hold for a reason, though I don’t know that reason yet. I figure at some point it will all make sense, why I have shifted my passion around, or put a major passion on hold for a little while.

For the time being, I am enjoying the fact that if I want to lock myself in my room and watch Dawson’s Creek for hours I can. If I want to hop on a plane to NYC I can. I am going to enjoy that I can do whatever I want at this point in my life. I fully believe that in the right time I will get all the things that my heart desires, but I fully believe that this is not the right time. I would rather enjoy my life now, single, than push for a relationship that isn’t right and end up more miserable in the end.

For the first time in a long time I am really, truly happy (albeit very busy and slightly stressed, but happy) and content with where I am. I would rather have a million Valentine’s Days alone than be in an unhealthy relationship again. All the things I have learned will go with me into my next relationship, which I will allow to happen naturally and not push for or try to force. That’s just not the way this crazy life works. And if you have a problem with me being thirty and single and my life not matching how yours looks, then that's your problem, not mine, and it probably means there is something lacking in your own life. I encourage you to take a look and try to find the missing piece. It took me a long time to put all the pieces back together to become whole and I’m glad I took that time because I would not trade it for anything.

So happy Valentine’s Day to all (and especially to Donnie Wahlberg…I’ll be here patiently waiting… ;))