Oh dear me…

Are you kidding me?

I think it’s a Japanese Game show… and I think it’s brilliant.

Cheese and a Mouse put a Smile on my Face

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Spring is coming, I can feel it. But, not so much today. Oh well, as long as no more intense cold comes our way, I’m happy.

Today is busy busy busy, but I thought I’d post this commercial a friend of mine shared with me the other night. If you know my love for rodents (though more for rats than mice), you’ll understand why I loved this so much. I think you’ll get a kick out of it, too. Even if you do feel less than amiable toward these misunderstood creatures.

Contentment my foot

So, my word for this year is contentment.

Can I tell you HARD this word is?

These days, I’m all the more aware of those things in which I’m dissatisfied, and it seems like more things I never would have been aware of are coming out of the woodwork. Go ahead and say, “you picked the right word if it’s difficult for you! God is stretching you!” We’re all thinking it anyway.

But I feel like a crazy, crazy mess. My thoughts are crazy. My responses are crazy. The itch to want more and more and more is crazy. I feel quite unbalanced and feel as if I’m spiraling more out of control, but not in the “God has it” kind of way. In the, “I’m diving head first into the tornado of things I shouldn’t be thinking about or wanting” kind of way.

I think I’m just in A mood today. And do you ever feel like, when you’re in that “mood”, that there is no one to talk to? Even when you know in your brain that you have people you can talk to? I don’t know what I would even talk about… the never-ending list of the things that are causing discontentment in my life? All the things I know in my head I’m supposed to do but don’t seem to feel like acting on? And do I discuss my sorrows and woes until I bore people to death or they become just plain irritated by my whining? Is there ever a point that people are allowed to get sick of walking continuous steps backward with you? And what do you do when you have all the “right answers” in your head but just won’t follow through? (I’ll call it intentional back-walking.) I know that’s stubbornness, or pride, or both. But is there any way to find motivation again? Or will I just continue to feel lost and confused until I suck it up and just start doing *insert thing I should be doing but cannot think of at the moment or do not want to think of at the moment, here*.

Anyway, there’s the update on my one word, and how it is clearly ruining my life.

P.S. I apologize, English majors, for the run-on sentences and that one sentence, or maybe two, that ended with a preposition. My thoughts don’t convey themselves in the most proper english manner, which, I hope, is forgivable.

Finding my Congo

For days, I’ve been trying to write about Haiti, but it keeps coming out Congo. I have a friend who is tirelessly campaigning to get tents to Haiti, and she asked me to blog about it, and I’ve tried, I really have. I care about Haiti, and we’ve given money to relief efforts. But it’s not the same. Congo is more than a cause now. But what is it? I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. All I know is that I can’t write to you about Haiti right now, not with any real conviction or passion, you’d see right through me, you’d know my heart was saying Congo all that time, and while it makes me feel a little heartless, a little guilty, not to have enough room for both, what I really believe is that everyone has their Congo, whether they’ve found it yet or not, and we’ve all got to latch on and fight like mad to do something.

And there it is, the man who plays guitar until his fingers bleed, because he’s trying to say something. Something about life and about art, the way we couldn’t paint without dark colors, and there is a beauty about Bishop and his bottles of Coke and Sprite and Fanta that I will never find the words for. But I will not stop trying.

You’ve just read a blurb from the blog of my friend, Erin. Doesn’t she write beautifully? You can read the entire post for context here.

I keep trying to add my own thoughts to explain how much this segment impacted me, but they’re too jumbled to make much sense. Through her words, I’ve had light shed on the fact that I don’t have to be involved in everything. Instead, I want to find my “Congo”. And, coinciding with my word being contentment this year, I want to be content with what God lays on my heart, rather than trying to live up to what He’s laid on the hearts of others.

Thanks, Erin. Keep fighting.