A Productive Day…??

Jimi might be coming up this weekend, so I’m finally motivated to paint that spare room… it’s 1:00 pm and I’ve already had breakfast, a coffee date, and went to the hardware store to buy trim paint… a very productive day already, considering how my days have gone!

Maybe I’ll take some God time first… I’ll probably end up being even more productive later if I do.

I wanna hear from you: What are your God times like? What do you do? How often? How are you motivated (or what do you lack in order to be motivated?)? What prevents you from having quality God time? Do you even know what I mean by “God time”??

Taking the Time

Though I didn’t haul my rear out of bed ’til 10:00-ish this morning, I FINALLY took some time to focus on the book study I’m doing with some friends (we were meeting tonight, after all). I transferred the mound-of-clean-and-dirty-clothes from my comfy chair to my bed so I could utilize it, made myself a massive cup of earl grey tea, and settled down to read chapter 2, the Second Cup, of Fresh-Brewed Life by Nicole Johnson.

The Second Cup was titled Encounter Your Journal… I’m normally pretty good at writing about the important events of my life in my journal, but I write sporadically at best. And, lately, everything is sporadic and nothing is regular. Oh wait! I’ve been pretty darn dedicated to this blog for a while and I definitely don’t let a day pass without checking Facebook and Myspace!! I should also mention that I acquired the sequel to Eragon (Eldest), and I’m whipping my way through it (when a story is good, it’s good!).

I’ve felt keenly lethargic about many things in life lately, but after reading the chapter, I actually had several moments of inspiration! I picked up my journal and had a great entry, one where I could distinctly see the contrast between the lies my soul’s enemy has been telling me, and when God took over and started inspiring creative thought.

And the rest of my day was affected….

Now if only I can maintain the discipline!

Haste the Metal Day

I’m not a metal-head or a huge scream-o fan, but there are these certain friends of mine that just do it so well! Make metalcore scream-o music, that is!

I just heard one of their new songs on their myspace and was quite impressed. So of course I have to share it!

Go to: www.myspace.com/hastetheday and listen to “Stitches”.

A Bit O’ Ranting

Today I drove my mother to the city (I live in a town of less than 10,000 people) to have something called a Port-A-Cath installed. It’s a semi-permanent port for drawing blood and injecting chemotherapy. Because my mom’s going to be undergoing treatments for at least 12 more months, which means every 3 weeks they poke around her veins to find one that’ll accept an IV (and sometimes it takes up to 4 attempts, leaving the failed attempts bruised and tender) and just as often having to have bloodwork done, she wisely opted for this procedure.

Have I mentioned my mom has breast cancer that metastasized to her liver and lower spine?

Though it’s a reality in our culture that kids someday grow up to “take care” of their parents, you never think that day will come before you’re middle-aged with a passel o’ tots of your own, and a home, and a minivan, and at least one life insurance policy. At 25 and single, without so much as a car to my name, it’s definitely not something I foresaw for this season, and, no offense, Mom, it’s not something I enjoy.

The worst part is, if I were to be brutally honest, I’m not needed as much as I thought I might have been. She’s doing heaps better than anyone could have predicted, and she only “needs” me the odd time, to drive her to an appointment, or make dinner or clean up the kitchen or do laundry. I’m not organizing visits to a sick bed, planning menus for someone who has no appetite, creating and maintaining a relaxing environment, taking charge of the care of my younger siblings, etc.

At the same time, I dread the thought of someday having more responsibility. I never asked to be the oldest of a single mother of six, and I don’t want to accept the “natural” role that goes with that birth rank. I’ve unnaturally stepped into responsibility beyond my years so many times in my life, and, though it became normal for a while, now I want to run the other way. I wish my dang siblings (all of whom I love, of course) would just step up and take the responsibility!!

Perhaps it takes me stepping out of the way so they’ve got their backs against the wall and they have to do something about it. If I’m there in the middle, why should anyone else do anything? Sarah will just take care of it all! Sure, she’ll gripe and growl, but it’ll get done!

I do have to admit that this whole feeling is magnified by the fact that I’ve come back from almost 6 years of living on my own in different countries to live in a tiny, sound-magnifying house with my mom and two of my brothers. This house is not big enough for the all of us! So what if there are four bedrooms? I can hear my mother snoring upstairs and the dryer running downstairs. I can hear everything that is said and done on the first floor and everything in the bathroom echoes painfully into my room.

Yet, it all seems to point to this being the right place for me for now. I’ve prayed about another place to live, but nothing has opened up. What I thought would be a few months turned into seven and counting. I got involved at my church. I got a job. I started a Bible study with some friends.

Just remember, family and friends… IT’S NOT PERMANENT! Sorry if that’s become a hurtful statement… I really love you all, but small-town Ontario is not my heart’s home, and I must move on when the time is right, whether my siblings step up to the plate or not!

Super Trees!!

A friend sent me an email with these pictures and a (poorly-written) explanation which reads:

These trees were grown in Santa Cruz CA, the year I don’t know , but the man
that grew them never told anyone how he did it . then in around 1999 the
owner of Nob Hill foods in Gilroy CA moved them to his park in Gilroy and
they are doing well.

Insane, huh?!?!

The Idiosyncraticness of Me

1. Multi-tasking while brushing my teeth. I seriously have a hard time just standing there by the sink and brushing without going to change my clothes, put on jewelery, etc.
2. Harping about the quality of things.
3. Being late.
4. Saying I’m going to bed at a certain time, then staying up 2 hours later.
5. Reading several books at the same time.
6. Enjoying anti-social behaviour.
7. Being “artsy-fartsy”.
8. Having big hair.
9. Carrying salon-quality bobby pins everywhere I go.

10. Turning up my nose at tap water and weak coffee.

11. Possessing a menagerie of candles.

12. Being wont to shock (surprise?) people with jewellery or fashion or hair choices.

13. Crafting what I deem to be clever phrases. Sometimes I’m my own biggest fan.

14. Singing snippets of random songs at random moments. Lately, everything from Patsy Cline to Tina Turner to Celine Dion to Elvis.

15. Getting peeved at inconsiderate drivers, or, well, all people that seem to lack common sense.

16. Playing a competitive game of soccer.

17. Bossing around my siblings.

18. Focusing so much on now that I lose sight of next month.

19. Typing a mile a minute. Or maybe closer to 75 wpm. 90?

20. Using a special, orthopedic pillow, or whatever it is they’re called.

21. Lusting after new technology (can we say “iPhone”, anyone? “Blackberry”? “MacBook”?) .

22. Multi-tasking while driving. Why waste time at home doing makeup, making phone calls, or practicing songs when you have drive time to do it all in?

23. Getting worked up talking about church culture vs. a God-filtered life.

24. Either constantly shifting positions or standing up because of the effects of the mysterious, self-diagnosed disease of NBS.

25. Falling in love with pretty things, such as my red down throw or my 50s-inspired black heels.

26. Being capable of creating a list of self-descriptors so long it would take a whole day to read.

27. Knowing when to finally quit and go on to another task.

Wistfulness and Wasted Efforts

Last night I went to an evening of one-act plays at the high school I went to. Walking through those front doors always evokes a trip down ye olde Memory Lane. After all, I walked through them every day for eight months out of every year for five years (no, not weekends)(and yes, I was a good student with a good reason for being there five years)!

When I was in Grade 9, the school was brand new, and my class owned those halls and lockers! We established traditions, set precedents, designed logos. My name is on several of the award plaques hung around the front hall, and my picture among those of the first graduating class, hung in the library. I remember when the library was a third of the size it is now, and the school was only an “L” shape instead of the “C” it is now. I was there for the first mass (Catholic School). I was the Assistant Director of the first play. I was there before the cafeteria’s food services were set up, and pizza and chocolate milk were brought in every day. I know there’s a time capsule buried somewhere, and I know what’s in it.

Without bragging on myself, I have to admit that I was one of the few students to gain admittance to the staff rooms in the first couple years of school… I was just that kind of student, the kind teachers forget is a student! Some of the faculty boasted that they’d trust me with their children. They let me use their office phones even though they were off-limits for students. They went to bat against other staff members on my behalf. In my last year, I could walk into the Vice Principal’s office just about anytime–I was sorta his protegee and we respected each other mutually. As the years went on, there were even some staff that seemed to be jealous of how I was treated by some of their peers, and appeared to be especially hard on me.

The VP made me the Editor-In-Chief of an idea of his which led to a school newsletter/newspaper we called the VOICE. I took the idea and made it my piéce de resistance. I designed the layout in PageMaker, edited the articles (no, I didn’t write them all), published, printed, folded, and sold the thing. I controlled the quality of the VOICE (read: no horoscopes), and the integrity of its look (only grey 11 x 17 paper, absolutely no staples, same font size for every article, etc.). My teachers allowed me to get out of class to work on the VOICE (and I really hardly ever abused that privilege… I was a good kid, too good, some would say).

When I left St. Anne’s, I felt like a conquering hero. I had a boxful of awards, I had done so many beautiful and rewarding things over those years, I had been a good student overall (even as the only girl in my 12th grade computer programming class), and I had memories upon memories. My lifeblood was tied to that school.

Eleven and a half years after entering St. Anne’s as a lowly ninth grader, my memories have been superseded by a new generation of students, none of whom recognize me as one of those who broke in the system for them. The names of my classmates up on those award plaques mean little or nothing to most of the faces that pass them by day in and day out. My own awards are in a box in my mom’s basement, along with my certificates and graduation cap, the pictures, and everything else. And the VOICE? Fizzled down to two issues on colored paper stapled together, with different-sized fonts and articles of questionable quality… and then it died.

Wasted efforts? Perhaps.

Even if I’m the only one who remembers, I will enjoy chasing my ghost down the halls of St. Anne’s, through classrooms, on and off the stage, into the change rooms by the gym, then down the hall to my locker. I’ll wistfully recall the smiles, the victorious moments, the tears in the eyes of the vice principal as he hugged me and handed me my diploma. I’ll take a deep breath and be thankful for what I learned and where my steps headed after that last day of high school.

I confess: I’m a Private Slacker, and a Public Overachiever

When I’ve got someone to work for, I work. I work myself into a frenzy. I can speed-clean an entire house in three hours, down to taps and laundry. I can make entire dinners, shop, set the table and decorate, clean the house, serve, be the hostess, and clean up afterwards. I am willing to work for hours and hours and hours putting together a party or other special event. In high school, I stayed up into the wee hours every time I had an essay or project due the next day.

I am most motivated to do the dishes or clean the house when I know people are coming over, or I know it’s annoying my family that things are not cleaned up (I’m living with my mom and two younger brothers right now).

Yet, without an impending deadline (project due in 4 hours; company coming in 3 hours; leading worship in 2 hours; teammates expecting emails yesterday) or people to motivate me to work, I slack. I sit on my heinie for hours, reading, blogging (gasp!), watching downloaded TV shows, chatting, eating, you name it, all except for doing anything productive.

Case in point: back in the fall, after my sister moved out of her room, I, very hopefully, bought two cans of paint. The house my mom lives in is cheap-o in every regard, including the paint, and we didn’t paint a thing when we moved in about ten years ago, then proceeded to apply stick tac, tape, tacks, and regular wear-and-tear to the walls, making them appear as if they’d be more at home in a refugee camp.

The room was originally mine, and me, being the eccentric artsy-fartsy person I am (shout out to you, SammyHammy), I covered it in pictures, posters, collages I made from magazine ads, and random other junk. When Leah took over, she retained a lot of what I had, and added her own, covering even part of the ceiling! The poor walls had been tortured by tape, tacks, and stick-tac for about eight years, until I finally ripped it all off sometime in November.

Some background information you should know: Since I moved back to my mom’s house in August of last year, I’ve been living in my youngest brother’s old room. He has cerebral palsy and has always had a wheelchair and all sorts of special equipment. A few years ago, his first-floor, right-inside-the-front-door room in this tiny, translucent house was renovated–the closet was removed and a bathtub installed in the neighboring bathroom. A track was hung on the ceiling so that Littlest Bro could be swung from his bed, through what are essentially cupboard doors, into the tub. All fine and dandy, for a guy who could really care less who’s up ’till all hours watching movies in the living room a handful of feet down the hall ’cause he sleeps soundly no matter what. Not a problem for a kid who isn’t made uncomfortable by the loud echoed sounds of peeing whenever anyone uses the washroom, especially boys (more distance to travel, you know). But for me? Freaking annoying! I’ve gone a bit postal on my family a few times when I wanted to sleep at 1:00 am and they were still up. I’ve turned up my music when people use the bathroom and I’m in my room, or I’ve simply left, but it’s getting ridiculous!

Now that the stage is set, you understand why I should have been raring to get our other spare room painted and livable (I’m going to have to steam clean the carpet first, too). It wasn’t until last week that I finally started to attend to the walls, which, of course, needed to be scraped, washed and rinsed, puttied and sanded, and primed twice before they could be painted. After slacking for two and a half of the free days I had last week, I did about 2.5 hours of work.

This week, I had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, all day yesterday, and today off. You’d think that, during that time, I’d continue the project, and even have ample time to finish it. Logically, you’re right. I wish that had been the case, but no. I didn’t do anything ’til today, Friday, around 2:20 pm, when I perused my progress, then went around once more with a bucket of primer, priming everything I thought needed to be primed, which included a lot of second coats. Then I searched in the basement for some trim paint and rinsed my brush out, and found a paint tray. Took it all upstairs and set it down.

And now it’s 4:16 pm, and you should have noticed by now that my hands are not, I repeat, NOT holding a paintbrush or anything like it. I’m distracted by writing a blog about slacking. Things have sunk to a new low, perhaps, or perhaps blogging about slacking is actually somewhat productive (Jimi thinks so… more about him later)!

Would someone please come over and watch me work just so I have a reason to stop slacking?! PLEASE!!!

Alright, this confession is officially over. I do hope it has redeeming values somehow!

The Poetry of Meredith Grey

Something I posted tonight on the “Aah! I can’t get enough Grey’s Anatomy” group on Facebook:

I love Meredith. She’s gloriously flawed (that’s where I got that term for my last post), and that’s beautiful. It’s real! Sure, she may seem more dark and twisty than some of us would like to admit we are (have you ever tried to drown yourself in the bathtub?), but I definitely have seen myself in her reactions, her narrations, her thoughts.

She’s poetry. She’s beautiful and deep. She has a depth she herself hasn’t tapped. Perhaps now that the bane of her existence, her mother, has… passed on…, she can go there. She can start believing that she really is extraordinary. We all know she is, just like we know we are. We might not live like we know, but there’s at least a tiny little part of us that knows. We may be too dark and twisty to let it show, but, I’ll bet, if given the opportunity to fight like Meredith was given tonight, we’d take it.

Mer’s got a new lease on life, on love, on family, on a future. And so does everyone around her. She came back for them, after all. She loves them. We’ve seen her struggle for hope at times, we’ve seen her wallowing in tequila, and I’ve already mentioned the bathtub thing. She’s been there, done that with the suffering thing, and the wisest know it’s endurance that makes one stronger. Perhaps she wanted to give up, but with a group of interns and the best surgeons in the country, not to mention millions of viewers worldwide, cheering for her, she’s back in the race.

Meredith is poetry because we feel her. She’s poetry because her story is beautiful and emotional. There’s an intensity to her that tugs on our psyche and draws us in.

“Sometimes a Miracle”, they called it. I believe the miracle goes on, because Meredith is breathing again. And so are we.

My Onion Life

Pretending…

…I do it so well! I’ve had lots of practice, I guess–hiding my true self because I’ve always had to protect myself and others. I’ve had to silence my needs in favour of what those around me needed, all the while pretending that all was well with me. I quickly learned what everyone around me wanted or needed, and did my best to become that person.

Now that I’m aware of the pretense, however, I’m faced with a question: Do I “take pretending to a whole new level or quit pretending altogether?” (Fresh Brewed Life, Nicole Johnson, page 2)

I’d like to quit pretending. I want to be able to be gloriously flawed, weak at times, strong at times, and my true self always.

I would like the “layers” of my onion-life to be easily “peel-able” by anyone at any time, and thus the core of me visible to those who are looking.