My Little Nest

I have a new neighbour who is building her little home in the tree in my backyard. She caught my eye yesterday as she put her little nest together and I realised how much I related to her. Not so long ago I too was doing almost the same thing. My new neighbour is a bird by the way.....

It's funny how the homes we live in as adults are a spin off of the homes we grew up in. there are those who think of our childhood homes and want something better. They're homes are completely different. The rest of us, however do the opposite; either way, it's a spin off. When my flatmate Charity moved out of the cottage we were sharing I was left with an empty two bedroom cottage with very little in it. All I had was a chest of drawers, a bookshelf, a sleeper-couch handed down to me by my friend Lian and some other odds and ends. My house was empty and I was faced with the daunting thought of decorating it as I saw fit. Now, four months later, I look at my little nest and I chuckle to myself. My house is so much like the one I left at home. The colour scheme is brown and beige, just like at home and just last week, I bought a beige rug not unlike the new one I saw at home when I was there over Christmas! We spend so much of our teenage years yearning to have our own homes with our own rules and what to we do the moment we start our new homes? Passively rebuild the very same homes we were trying to break out of....

Now that is what I call irony! Life is just like that I guess :)

I want to break free

I don't know if it's the Festive Season or the PMS, lately I've been overwhelmed with a feeling of incessant dissatisfaction...

It might be the festive season thing because when the year draws to an end, it draws the last of your desire to do anything worthwhile. Put me in a car and take me home where I can wake up every morning knowing that the whole day is mine and I can be as redundant in it as I like! I'm trying to push myself over the next ten days. I don't want to look back on them with regret wishing I had enjoyed them more.

I'm sure it will be better after this weekend when I don't have piles of marking to do anymore.... Bring on the freedom, the freshly cut grass and long lazy afternoons in the sun with John Mayer crooning in the background. I'm counting down the days.....

If You Never Try, You'll never Know

My very good friend and I have gone for about 3 months without seeing or speaking to each other. It was really strange because when we were not living in the same city, we spoke at least 3 times a week and now we live 15 minutes away from each other and we struggle to touch base with each other...

Anyway, so yesterday we hung out for a bit. It was nothing special at all; we just had MacDonald's and fell asleep to some reruns - I ended up sleeping over. But, that short time that we had together was the best I think I've ever had in a really long time. When you go through a tough time, you often isolate yourself from the people you love in an attempt to protect them from the worst of you. While this isolation is good for retrospection, losing touch with people who know you best is not in your best interest, because it is these very people who drag us out of our black abysses and into the light, just by being around you, all we have to do is reach out to them...

I'm never going to allow myself to wallow  again. It's not good for my sanity.

Just be yourself

The most daunting thing you can say to me! Let me elaborate.....

I like getting things right. And getting things right for me means getting a nice and neat list of  how I got that thing right so that next time I do that thing I know what to do. Unfortunately, teaching does not allow for such lists because there are so many different factors that make the thing (teaching) go "right". If I'm this bad when it comes to teaching, you can imagine how bad I get when it comes to a relationship of any nature. I often ask the other person this question, "why do you like me so much?" and the response I often get is, " I don't know. just coz you're you." What does that even mean?! How, pray tell, do you expect me to draw up my "get it right list" with that response? What if I carry on "being myself" and you change your mind- being myself would then prove redundant wouldn't it?

I realised though, that that's the problem. The fear of getting it wrong and being moved from the good books is constantly wrestling with the fact that I am enough..... So forget the list! I'm gonna stick to being myself because that's enough. Plus, it does away with the admin of the list.....

Here goes nothing...

Heart Of Worship!

I've always really enjoyed this song, but there was one line that made absolutley no sense to me.
"I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it." It drove me crazy because to me, it was gramatically incorrect- until I heard the story behind the writing of the song....

So at this church they decided to stop have worship for a while. They would sing and spend time in prayer and meditation, but there would be no musical instruments. It was to teach them that worship has very little to do with music and more with intimacy with God. It  was during this time that that song was written. What that line I did not understand meant was that, we have made worship a thing and have not viewed it as the an encounter with God... And just like that, It made sense- like those pictures that you don't understand until you take a step back and BAM- you're looking at the Mona Lisa!

So let's not make worship just another thing we do at church. Let's come back to the heart of worship where it's all about Him!

I Am

This is a poetry excercise I did with my grade nine's but first I did it myself and this is my result...

I Am
I am loud and vibrant.
I wonder when my day will come.
I hear beautiful music.
I see smiling faces.
I want to be needed.
I am loud and vibrant.

I pretend I can fly.
I feel the city's pulse.
I touch everything.
I worry about being alone.
I cry for what could have been.
I am loud and vibrant.

I understand that it's not so simple.
I say let's embrace the compelxities.
I dream about guitars.
I try to see everything.
I hope this one is it.
I am loud and vibrant.

Potbelly!

I was informed a few weeks ago that I may be getting a bit... pudgy! Not something a girl wants to hear, but tough love is often what is needed for action to be taken...

So excercise is the order of the day! I've started running again and I've pulled in the reins on my daily diet AND, to top it all off, there is a mirror that I walk past every time I walk into my room that reminds me of the... abundance of my ASSets. I must admit though, I feel great! I forgot the rewards a good physcal lifestyle brings. Besides  my often stiff muscles, I know that soon they will pass and results will soon show and I can't wait to see them!

Here's to grinning and bearing it :)