Monday, January 28, 2013

Lost my voice

No, this is not some deep metaphor about how I have lost my inner voice and my epic journey to find it.

I literally just lost my voice due to a massive allergy/sinus attack.
It's been in the 70's here during the day so I think the pollen got a "get out of jail free" card.

I have this bittersweet relationship with sick days. I hate to be inactive. Hate it. (unless my husband is home then I can become embedded in the couch, snuggled up to him watching TV).

But here I am home alone, hacking up bits of lung and wishing I was feeling well enough to go somewhere or start a DIY project.

On the flipside I am a little excited about the option of taking a nap today.
I feel like a spoiled rotten brat. I have no little ones at home so I can get some actual real rest.

I had the dreaded night cough. I am sure everyone can relate, just when you drift off into peaceful slumber you get that drowning sensation in your throat and you have to bolt up and cough for, oh, 10 minutes. I was finally getting some solid sleep when the 5:30 came around it was time to get up.

So in the Spirit of Sick days I am listing my top 5 sick day activities:

5. Enter Internet sweepstakes- passes time and I have won a candle or two over the years.
 
4. Look at magazines - preferably Real Simple, Country Living, People Style Watch, In Style, Better Homes and Gardens, All You or any other fashion/decor related magazine. If you can do this with out tearing out pages you are a better woman than I.

3. Eat Soup. Clearly a soup that would make you say "Meh" on a healthy day will be the most delicious thing in the world on a sick day.

2. Read a thrilling, romantic, uplifting, or funny book. With socks on, with a fake microfiber shearling throw, with hot chocolate/coffee, nibbling cookies. Go big or go to bed, you are way to sick to be awake if this does not appeal to you.

1. Watch You've got mail. I also watch it when doing laundry, sewing and just about any excuse I can make up. Acceptable substitutes include The Lake House, Leap Year, 13 going on 30, Kate and Leopold, Letters to Juliet,  or any thing Jane Austin.

I think I am developing a cough drop addiction, but only to the lemon and honey ones. That seems all natural right?

Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Best and the Worst of the Internet

Count down:
(I always try to be positive and uplifting so the best first)

The Best of the Internet

5.) It has really improved shopping. I am a girl who is a big fan of budget shopping. The Internet makes this fun, easy and gives me, who lives out in the country, variety. You can price check, look through thousands of options and pay from your own home.

4.) Maps. I am terrible at using verbal directions. Don't tell me how to get there, draw me a picture. Now I can get the Internet to do that for me anytime I want.

3.) The Internet encourages creativity. I am writing this now because of the Internet. I have put so many thoughts down in words that I never would have before and I don't have to be a published author to do it. The same goes for photography, art, crafts, etc.. Just look at Pinterest, Blogs, Amazon (you can sell an ebook easily now) and Etsy to explore some of it.

2.)The Internet is an amazing way to educate yourself. I can look up the ballot of an upcoming election and what it all means on the web. I can read news from anywhere. I can study my religion in depth, read blogs about cooking, read up on medical issues, parenting issues and Google anything under the sun.

1.) The Internet has made me closer to my friends and family. I know more about my friends and family now that ever before thanks to email, facebook, etc...


The Worst of the Internet

I like to think if this is a wake up call to one person about what we stuff into our minds or put out for the world to see, I have done something worth while.

5.) The Internet promotes envy. There is a fine line in sharing your joy and thankfulness and crossing over into look-at-me-ism. Sometimes it's hard to tell how much to share and some people's lives are presented as a study in perfection that can only make everyone else feel defeated and jealous. (flip side the woe-is-me-ism: the fierce competition to literally have the worst life in the universe)

4.) Glamorization of foolishness. It's a 24/7 tabloid, joke mill and blooper reel that screens nothing and puts everything forward as if it is worth watching. I fall for it more often than I like.

3.) Vice and sin central at your finger tips. You used to have to put some effort into being bad. If you wanted porn you had to go out of your home and buy it. If you wanted to overspend, cheat on your spouse, show off too much skin, or watch slasher movies, you had to leave your house on that mission or make plans to do it. Now with the click of a mouse, the destruction of your life is hassle free.

2.) IMHO overload. (IMHO stands for "in my humble opinion") This disclaimer is used to preface an opinion sometimes and a rant most of the time. Rants are usually poorly thought out declarations of opinion that require little thought, care or respect. You can add to this the comments that people make on other people's facebook pages about how that person should run their facebook page. Seriously, if you cannot stand what they post, UNFRIEND them, or post a rebuttal on your own page.

Also you can include the blizzard of inspirational sayings, pictures, political articles, and totally fictional forwards sent daily to every email and facebook page that exists.
Hey, I share these from time to time but I use them like hot sauce- lightly and with care. Too much and you ruined something good.
I feel that everyone- of any or no religious persuasion- is responsible to fact check something before they share it. If you are spreading a lie, you are helping no one.

Which brings me to the #1 worst thing about the Internet:

1.) It is a hoax factory and the most successful rumor mill of all time. Evil people do exist. They have a variety of beliefs and can label themselves anything you can imagine. They send out things they know aren't true because it gives them a thrill to trick people or they send out things they don't care to check because it supports a point they agree with.

The more people they trick or enrage/persuade, the bigger the thrill.

Please don't be used by them or taken in. If you are it is a tragedy.
The most current and best example of this is the propaganda that is going around that the Sandy Hook Tragedy was a giant hoax or conspiracy by our government.
No, I do not believe everything my government or the media puts out to be true.
But... I would never ever ever want to be part of something that would open and tear at the wounds of families who have lost loved ones.
Investigate everything and never take the word of a You Tube video, clip montage, famous person, or an "expert" that appeals to your interests or concerns as rock solid truth.
The best lies are interesting and exciting.
It is destructive for you and everyone you communicate with when you take no time to think it through.

This is what I like about blogs. I can give you this "overload" of IMHO and you choose to click on it or not.
If you like it awesome, if not you can move along about your day, never to read my blog again.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Etch-a-sketch brain

Sometimes I wish I had an Etch-a-sketch brain.

You know, with a waggle waggle of my head I could erase something I don't want there.

I have always had a problem buying into things or having ideas about things that limit me.

For example:
At a young age I felt called to missions. Now I had no idea what that meant and no one really could tell me so I made up an idea about what that meant:
Traveling somewhere far away, sharing Jesus with foreign people.
So when that did not happen in my life I grieved that I had missed the mark.

Also I got married young (two weeks after I turned 20) and I had some ideas about what marriage should be. Needless to say those ideas were not based in reality (thanks for nothing Hollywood and romance novels) and I felt disappointed that I had missed the mark in the marriage dept.

The list goes on and on- children, jobs, possessions, etc...

Here is the kicker, I am just at 36 finally figuring out God does not need my help defining anything.
He knows exactly what the missions call on my life meant and what my marriage should be.

But I have been operating on the pictures I sketched up in my head and I finally realize I need one good clean shake to set it right.

How's about I just keep a clean screen and just wait for Him to draw the picture?
Do I think I can try that one on for size?

To be honest, I want too, really badly. I have a very strong sense that this could be a wonderful way to live.
All the best stuff in my life has often come as a total surprise to me.

I want to just open my eyes each day and look around, taking what happens for exactly what it is as God shows me.

I want to eagerly wait for the answers to my prayers with out a framework to fit them in.

I want to share what God has done in my life all the time with out a goal in mind for each person I share it with.

The point is my "stuff" always misses the mark because I don't have clue what the mark is.
And that is completely OKAY. God never expected me to, that's why He gave me the Holy Spirit.

I'll leave the perfection up to Him and the following up to me :).