Progress January 19, 2009

In the past I have had a typical on again off again relationship with the gym. I’m sad to admit that I didn’t go once for the entire month of October. I probably went 5 or 6 times in November. But, the second week of December, I was inspired. Since then I have gone at least 3 times a week, but usually closer to 4 to 5 times a week. Unfortunately I haven’t lost any weight. I gained a few pounds when I was in California in December and I was super disappointed that I couldn’t get rid of them. So, on the slim chance that I have been losing inches, I took my measurements.

Since the last time I took my measurements in October, I have lost an inch and a half around my arms; one inch around my stomach; and one inch around my thighs!!!!! I couldn’t believe it! It is amazing how much this little bit of progress has inspired me to work even harder! I don’t even care that I’m not losing weight! It won’t be too long before I can fit in my goal size.

So as a reward, I bought a new pair of running shoes. Yay Nike outlet store at Colorado Mills! I got a pair of shoes that were listed at $82 for only $40! For the first time in a while, I’m excited to go to the gym tonight!

Saturday Evening in Southern California December 7, 2008

I’m having a good time in the “Inland Empire” aka the 909. It is always fun for me to remember how much I love spending time with my sister, Jini. She’s two years older than me and we’ve been best friends since I was 13. I’m so blessed to have her in my life. We’ve had some really tough times, and sometimes I feel like she is one of the few people who understands where I’ve been and what I’ve been through, because she’s been there too.

We got engaged on the same weekend. We got married the same year, just 4 months apart. I’m not gonna lie. I thought that our relationship was seriously going to change. Her life is altered, and mine isn’t. On November 11, 2008, Zoe Ezra Rose was born. Jini’s life is going to be seriously different now. I thought that now that she’s a mom we wouldn’t have anything in common. To be brutally honest, the morning of my flight out here, I didn’t want to come.

Zoe’s due date was December 3, and my trip was scheduled to be from 12/2 to 12/9. I had hoped that Zoe would wait and this would be a fair well trip to my fun, hip, career minded best friend. But, not only did she not wait, she was born 3 weeks early. So I had some time to amend my expectations of this trip. Many of  you know my aversion to having kids. I guess I’m just not ready, but some times I think that my life would be much better off if I never even have any. I guess it’s an ongoing struggle in my brain. Since I was going to be helping my sister and bro-in-law (which is feeling more and more like a real brother every time I get to hang out with him), I figured that this would be a good chance to open my mind and my heart and really consider if now is the right time to start having kids of my own. I saw this trip as the beginning of the road to wanting children. Seeing Jini, who I knew was born to be a mom, and spending time with Dervin, the proud dad, I thought would open my eyes to see the joy of kids! Turns out that after seeing all that, I’m still just as selfish as before. I’m still not ready. It’s a little disappointing.  That certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t ABSOLUTELY love my niece! She is truly a doll! But I just don’t want any of my own! It’s so frustrating! I feel like there is something wrong with me.

I guess I’m just a little bummed out. Generally, I’ve been having a really nice time. I’ve been able to encourage Jini to get back into her healthy daily routine of walking in the morning for a mile or two. She just told me earlier how I’ve been able to show her that it is ok to take Zoe out and enjoy activites. I’ve helped decorate their house for Christmas, and helped pick out their Christmas tree, and do some of their laundry, and help keep up with the dishes. Ok, mostly it sounds like I’ve just been doing chores, but it’s been a really relaxing trip and I have genuinely enjoyed myself. I’m glad I came. Even though I’m not ready for my own, I can certainly appreciate the baby. It’s also nice to see that Jini is still the same caring, thoughtful, insightful, beautiful best friend/sister as before!

I’m OK… October 30, 2008

Not that anyone has asked, but here it is. Everything is going REALLY great!

Peter’s new job is starting to pick up for him. He is currently somewhere in Europe. This is his second international trip in a month, and I’m excited for him.

I’ve been trying to decide which one of us has it better. Most of the time he is stuck in a hotel or a work trailer taking measurements (yes, it’s as boring as it sounds). But he does get off days where the company pays for expensive meals, and he gets to explore a city he’s never been to before.

Meanwhile, I’m working almost 50 hours a week because it’s really hard for me to want to leave work to go home when I know that Peter isn’t going to be there. I have to do all of the household chores by myself. I don’t like to talk on the phone when I’m at home because as soon as I hang up I feel almost choked because I’m even more alone than I was before I picked up the phone. BUT! I get the full use of my car. I don’t have to share. When I go to the store I can spend as much time as I want looking at the clearance section without being concerned for the growing impatience of my husband. I get to go to church. I get to hang out with my girlfriends. I can go to bed at 8 pm if I want without having to defend myself. I can stay up reading in bed until midnight if I want.

I decided that I have it better. I hope I don’t make it sound like I’m glad that Peter is gone. I’m not. But if I don’t focus on the positive, I’m going to be a weepy basket-case. So, in making a list of all of the pros of being by myself for an uncertain amount of time, I just made my day better.

5 Miles! August 29, 2008

I’ve been going to the gym quite regularly these days. Usually I go 2 days in a row then take a day or 2 off. So last night I went to the gym after taking 2 days off. I was expecting to have a great workout, but I surprised myself! I was able to run 5 miles in 54 MINUTES! I was even on HILL MODE!

So I am not losing very much weight (according to the shipping scale I have at work) and to be completely honest, I haven’t lost much in way of inches either. But I feel like I might be finally getting in shape! For now, that is enough of a result to keep my going!

What’s going on August 15, 2008 August 15, 2008

Against the good advice of my husband, I’ve decided to write a blog without a firm subject. So, please pardon the rambliness of this post and I’ll try to keep it short-ish.

My father-in-law moved out a couple of weeks ago, so that’s a relief. Plus, he is still taking Peter to work in the morning, and that is a huge help.

I am probably about a month away from my big promotion. I can’t tell you how excited I am! I’ve been looking forward to this since January, and really, it’s what I first had in mind when I moved to Colorado 2 years ago!

Many of you know that for my birthday last month, Peter bought me a puppy! She’s so cute and tiny still! But the best part is that she is fitting SO well into our family, it’s like she was meant to be just for us! If you want to see pictures, I’ve posted several of her on myspace (I would have posted pictures, but that function is blocked at work).

I have to admit that I spent so much time with Ally when we first got her that I neglected the gym for too long. However, I feel like I’ve been making up for lost time and the past week I’ve been consistently working out at least every other day, and they have been kick-butt work outs! I have to say though, that Peter is AMAZING at helping me to remember why going to the gym is so important to me, and he’s been really great about encouraging me to get my butt out the door!

I finally got my nose pierced! I’ve been wanting to get it down for quite sometime, but because of fear I haven’t. I’m so happy with it. Also, on the same day Peter got his first tattoo! I think it is SO hot!

We are still looking for a church in our area. We (painfully) decided to stop going to ORCC because we are trying to take care of our 1 car and since it has a 26-gallon gas tank, we’ve been trying to cut down on unnecessary traveling. It isn’t so much the 40 mile round trip that was hurting us, but the 4 to 5 times a week that we would make the drive. Anyway, we’ve attended Faith Bible Chapel a couple of times and we are still trying to decide if that is where we are supposed to be. Your prayers in making good decisions are welcome!

Stuff June 28, 2008

I’m going through some stuff right now. There has been a lot of stuff going on. I’ve just got STUFF! I feel like my heart is breaking, but I don’t really understand why. I’m trying to keep in mind that other people have stuff too, and they aren’t trying to avoid me, they just have stuff.

I just REALLY, REALLY want to make sure that my life and my decisions and led by God and not stuff.

Catalyst – Wednesday 6/11/2008 June 13, 2008

Last night was my last night at Catalyst as a leader, at least for the summer. A couple of people knew and offered their encouragement, which was extremely nice. With everything that was going on last night, it spoke volumes that people would take the time to offer kind and supportive words to me.

During worship, we sang a song that Mark Thomas had written while him and his beautiful wife were going through a super tough time of loss. I don’t remember the name of the song but the chorus goes something like this (I don’t remember exactly, but Kimmie helped me to remember this much):

It’s your love that rescued me

It’s your love that set me free

It’s your love that made a way

And it’s your love I will proclaim

I was singing and doing a pretty good job of keeping my mind and heart focused on God. When we sang through the chorus the first time I felt how moving it was just to think about God’s amazing love He has for us and how He’s rescued us from an eternity in Hell. But the second time we sang through it, it brought me to tears. God showed me a picture of a time in my life when I was questioning everything including if I wanted to remain a Christian. I just couldn’t seem to shake off the temptations and the desires to sin and make bad choices. I felt completely lost and all alone. But God showed me that I was on a path that once I made it through that rough time it brought me closer to Him. (I’m tearing up as I write this, thinking about what a wonderful and loving God we serve.) He never left me and he made a way for me when all I wanted to do was deny Him.  And even though I still struggle with thoughts of shame about that time, last night I felt that He truly wanted to set me free with His love.

Updates June 11, 2008

So a lot has been going on and I have been greatly neglecting my blog. I can’t fill you in on everything, because 1) I don’t really have that much time and 2) I can’t quite talk about some of the stuff yet. First off, I’m not pregnant, so try not to jump to that conclusion. I know that I haven’t blogged for a little while but I am TOTALLY swamped at work which leaves very little time for blogging and also, I am trying to exemplify a good work ethic and hard work to my new assistant.

Here goes: Good things are happening at my work for me. We have been crazy busy and that is good for growth. Many of you know that back in January I was told by my boss that I would probably be getting a promotion later this year, possibly around October. Last month he informed me that the position that I would be moving into needs to be created within a couple of months. At the time I had a part-time assistant and so we offered her a full time position taking my place, but she had already retired and enjoyed working part time, so she turned it down. I was kinda relieved because she was a nice person and a good worker, but she had a couple of annoying habits and very different views that I have. I was also excited because I had an opportunity to pick my new assistant. I got to hire my good friend Kim. She’s been here for almost a month now and she is catching on pretty quick. During her first week I was really nervous because she doesn’t have a whole lot experience with Excel and my job pretty much revolves around Excel. But by the end of her first week I realized what a great thing that is because I feel like she is a blank canvas. I told her that in 2 months she will be my masterpiece! It’s going to be really good because I don’t have to un-teach her anything, she can learn everything the right way (a.k.a. my way). In the end, everything is going to turn out really good, it’s just really hard to deal with right now because I have new responsibilities, but I still have all of my old responsibilities, but when I take care of those I have to go slow so that I can walk Kim through everything so everything is getting really backed up and I have a mountain of work. But she is taking on more and more everyday and I can’t tell you how proud I am that she is really working out. Not mention that it presents her with a great opportunity. This industry is growing right now and it is a great way to get much needed office experience that will help her to grow with this company (for as long as she chooses to stay) or anywhere else that she might move on to.

As with several of the leaders in Catalyst Peter and I feel like we are in a transitional time in our lives. It makes me sad because of all of the changes (some not good, some great) that are going on in Catalyst right now that I wish I could be a part of, but for now, at least for the summer, Peter and I are stepping down from leadership at Catalyst. We feel like we’ve been giving out so much of ourselves that we’ve really been neglected receiving from God and the Pastors at ORCC. And to be brutally honest, we’ve noticed a difference in our relationship. So we are going to spend the summer finding a balance between giving out of ourselves and replenishing from our Source and spending time focusing on each other. Part of that is returning to the Young Professionals Married Group that meets a couple of Thursday nights out of the month. And let’s not fail to mention that we are hopefully going to save a fortune in gas by not going to church 4 to 5 times a week!

Working out is going great! I’m still really pumped and excited about going. I’m not going to lie, though. Last week I felt like giving it all up. But I made it through that rough patch and I feel like I am more dedicated than ever. Also, I’m more sore than ever. And while I haven’t lost as much weight as I had originally thought I would, I’m pretty sure that I’m losing inches in a few key places and I know that I’m building lots of muscle. In all, I’ve lost 8 pounds. I’m really stoked because I just bought a new pair of jeans yesterday and I actually went down a size!!!!

Peter’s father is still living with us. I’ve come to the conclusion that God may or may not have brought him here to help Joe get his life right and get back on his feet so much as to help Peter and/or me to learn something. I know that I have been really struggling with patience. I just don’t like people in my space touching my stuff. I mean, I can handle it when we have friends over but after a few hours, they leave, and I have my space back again. This is just different. And I know that Peter has been struggling with some of his own issues with his father living with us, which I won’t go into.

So I guess those are the four major areas of my life right now. Now that I am getting to have a little bit of down time at work again I’m looking forward to writing a little bit more consistently. We’ll see how that goes.

Signs May 7, 2008

Did I read that sign right?
TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

In a Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

In a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a secondhand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING – BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR

Notice in a farmer’s field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.

Message on a leaflet:
IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

On a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR – THE BELL DOESN’T WORK)

Catalyst 4/30/2008 May 2, 2008

Last night at Catalyst was a great night! It was unfortunate that I had to leave so early (please see previous post) and I hardly got to talk to any of my friends. I was able to chat and connect with a couple of Jr. Highers that I don’t usually have the opportunity to talk to. I think that because it was a small group night it really opened up the verbal highway and helped me and the “kids” feel like we were on the same level.

Let me start at the beginning. When I got to church last night I was feeling more frazzled than usual. I had a basic outline of what I was going to talk about from the Company 320 (Catalyst leadership) meeting a couple of weeks ago. It was mostly about Earth Beat. I wanted to use that as an avenue to talk about giving. Since the main theme of our (Peter’s and my) small group, Complete, is about equipping the Jr. Highers to become complete adults and complete Christians. I think that I should note that this was my first time (with this small group) leading the discussion. I’ve lead small groups before, but usually with Complete I co-lead. Anyways, I had printed out 6 verses about not just giving money, but giving of your gifts, and the right attitudes to go along with giving. Mainly since most Jr. Highers don’t have jobs and don’t have a lot of access to cash. But, of course I had forgotten to bring the extra print out with the verses on it too church. I had to have the always helpful Hosh make a copy of mine, then I had to spend a few minutes remembering where I wanted the verses to go in the outline and cutting them up and numbering them. I completely missed pre-service prayer, which is where I gather my focus and energy (I hope that doesn’t sound too weird) for the evening. So, going into worship I was still feeling frazzled and focused on myself rather than God and the ones that He wanted me to reach out to that night.

As usual though, through the AMAZING Catalyst band, by the end of the second song, I felt like I could sense God’s presence, but I was still struggling to put away my thoughts about my stressful living arrangement (helping Peter’s dad get back on his feet by sharing our small apartment) and my crappy day at work. Then something AWESOME happened. Between the 2^nd & 3^rd songs, Peter got up on stage and told everyone why he worships God and encouraged others to fully enter into worship. He is Rad-Sauce! I had to make sure that the others that were standing around me knew that that one’s mine! I was so proud of him! Back to worship…The band struck up with, How He Loves Us. Best. Song. Ever. After the 1^st verse, I was able to put away all of my “me” thoughts. Close to the song’s ending, Pastor Ben got up and prayed that God would come into our lives and distract us and pull us away from the things of this world, not only things of this world, but distract us from ourselves and our own selfishness. I was earnestly praying for that to become my own prayer when I felt God tell me that I would be doing a really selfless thing right now (by opening up our home to help some one in need) if I wasn’t being so selfish. Talk about my heart turning “violently inside of my chest”! He opened up my eyes about how if I would stop letting myself feel so uncomfortable and stop complaining about every annoying thing that Peter’s dad does I might allow me to step out of myself and be closer to God.

Then it was time for small groups. Until recently (last Wednesday night) there have been 2 separate Jr. High groups, but they’ve now been combined into 1 group. We had about 20 to 25 “kids” in our group last night. The icebreaker I opened up with was, name, grade, how long they’d been going to Catalyst, and their favorite thing about Catalyst. There was the one kid who said that there wasn’t anything he liked about Catalyst, but aside from him, I was surprised at how many of them said that small group was their favorite part of Catalyst! I didn’t even say my favorite part of Catalyst was small group AND I LEAD IT! Ha!

I think that most of them interacted well in the discussion, and once I felt like I had gotten off subject, but it was totally God because it brought a few more of them into the discussion. THEN! To close up the group, I had every single person say 1 prayer request. Once we got around the entire circle, I announced that everyone was going to say a prayer for the person on their right. Of course that was met with some groans, but I told them that all they had to do was say at least one sentence and they didn’t have to be nervous because they can keep in mind that they are just talking to God and He hears every word that comes out of their mouths anyway. I also told them that before we started they needed to take it seriously and to be respectful of God and respectful of the person praying, which meant no chit-chatting while we were praying. I cannot tell you how stoked I was by the time we finished! There was only one girl who had a fit of giggles while praying, but aside from that it went really great! I was happy with the entire night! God is SOOOO good!

 

I apologize for how long this post is. I always start off thinking that I have nothing to say and by the end I feel like I’ve written a novel!