Introspect

As our church begins its series on humility, we  are being honored with the presence of The Meek Squad, an organization committed to providing people with humbling experiences!  You can find The Meek Squad and its founder, Rick Humbell, on facebook and twitter, and if you go to http://www.themeeksquad.com you can learn more about who they are, sign up for the newsletter, and watch the commercial showing what The Meek Squad is all about in the “About Us” section!  If you or a loved one could benefit from a humbling experience, feel free to call 910-202-8875.

Looking forward to a great series for the next few weeks at PC3.

We took Linus to the vet this morning.  Got him more shots, more meds, and a couple pamphlets on training and registration.  I try not to look at receipts as we pay for these things, as though we might be able to catch something that we don’t need.  It’s all got to be done, and if we can get it over with now, the better off we’ll be!

We talked to our vet about Linus’ puppy habits – biting, tugging on the leash a bit, etc.  Nothing we’re that concerned about, but they are habits we’d like to be taught how to break as opposed to letting him get away with them.  And so, the vet gave US a bit of training on how to make his world black and white, how to discipline, how to encourage.

For leash training, our vet recommended the choke collar (sorry, sensitive dog owners).  No, Linus is not a problem with the leash, and so this collar simply teaches him more quickly not to pull, and therefore he stops choking himself.  I was all for it, as Linus is already doing pretty well and the collar would probably only speed up the process a bit.  Sure thing, doctor!  And so we headed to Petco for the collar and a few other things.  We did NOT expect the lady at the register to give us a stern, motherly scolding as we tried to make our collar purchase.  We didn’t know what to make of it, as Linus seemed to do quite well when we put the collar on him earlier in the store.  No, no, no, she said, what you need is another collar (wish I could remember the name, but it involves a muzzle).  She called for someone to cover the register as she took us to the collars to show us what they did.  She put the collar on Linus, who began to immediately fight it.  “They do that,” she said, “but in a couple minutes he’ll stop.”  Then she began trying to walk with him around the store.

Even on the leash, just the way it is now, I have NEVER seen Linus put up such a fight.  He was pulling and tugging, and all the while this energetic lady kept chirping “good boy! Good boy! Come on, good boy!” I saw nothing “good” about it.  He wouldn’t obey for anything.  Then she told us we should give him treats, and tried to put one in his muzzled mouth.  He managed to force it down despite the muzzle’s restriction, and off she charged again with him dragging behind on three paws, while the fourth latched itself to the muzzle in an attempt to remove it. After dragging him through the entire store, she finally stopped and told us, it works better when you start him off testing it out at home. I replied that he actually does pretty well on the leash, and that he seemed to be doing worse than I’ve ever seen him.  The lady determined that softer treats were what we needed.  Mike replied that perhaps Linus really wasn’t as bad on the leash as we thought, and perhaps we wouldn’t need to buy anything.

We did end up buying the choke collar.  We’re keeping the tag on it for a couple days, because if it seems to be hard on him we WILL return it.  I just never knew that people could give you as many different opinions on dogs as they do children.  Once again, it comes down to us determining what works best, which, I suppose, is good practice for kids.

It’s Friday, the first September Friday.  I’m impressed that the first four days of September have already brought us crisper mornings, overcast skies, and a growing desire to sit in a coffee shop with a scarf, a cup of tea, and a good book.  I feel guilty for wanting more summer, as fall has done nothing to deserve my distaste.  Simply put, it’s the season before winter and therefore carries a sense of foreboding with it.  However, my goal is to put every season in its place, and to therefore do nothing more than enjoy this one for what it offers.

I do hope that this fall weather will renew my energy and get me back into the groove of waking up early and spending time reading, journaling, and praying.  I don’t like “forced” quiet times because they too quickly feel more like homework than devotion to me, but consistency also works wonders and so when I fall out of habit, I seem to lose myself.  I’ve picked up a few books I’m interested in reading, but the 90-day bible reading must hold my attention for now, and I am, yet again, 3 days – that is, 36 pages – behind.  I am so glad to be reading the entire thing and this schedule really pushes me to get it done, but I’ll be glad when it’s over so I can return to quality reading rather than quantity reading.  I can’t wait to go back through different books – especially the old testament – and study them more in-depth.  For now, though, I press on.

And though I probably should cut out a chunk of time to catch up on my reading, I’ll be spending this fall day cleaning house, doing laundry, and grocery shopping with Mike.  I have more on my neverending to-do list, but I have a feeling it will have to wait.  We have a wedding, a friend coming in from out of town, and an extra day off to enjoy this weekend.  So today, we’ll just see what happens.

It’s 11:25 pm.  My husband and brother-in-law have overtaken our bedroom to work on fun techie stuff while Christie, Linus and I doze to the sound of Friends episodes playing.  It’s too late to write much, so it’s time to put up the long-awaited pictures of Linus.   So, here they are. Enjoy!

Sleeping on the rug

So cute!

No, he doesn’t sleep all the time.  Would be nice.   But he’s precious when he does!

Linus and his monkey… Noah jr??

Hi puppy face!

The kids I babysit for meet Linus.

High energy puppy and high energy kids?  They were perfect for each other!

Such fun.   Though I must say, puppies are hard work!  More on that another time.  Enjoy the photos for now – good night!

Okay, so you see, I know I made the promise to write on this blog daily for the week leading up to our anniversary.  It was a dangerous commitment to make anyway, as I can be easily distracted or become busier than originally planned.  But what I’d like to use as my excuse instead, and I think it’s a rather good one…

Mike surprised me with a puppy on Monday!!!  Not minutes after I finished my blog entry, dinner was made and I was in my bedroom when I heard Mike come home.  I meandered into the kitchen and saw him absolutely grinning from ear to ear and looking at… the ground.  The grin I expected, as he always enjoys seeing food upon walking in the door.  But seeing as how I hadn’t put the food on the floor, I couldn’t figure out what he was doing.

And then I looked down, and there he was.

Boxer/Pitt bull mix, brown with a random white splotch on his neck and white on his paws, and the biggest brown boxer-eyes you ever saw.  Only 12 weeks old, and without much control of his legs yet, he squatted unsteadily, half sprawled on the slippery floor.  Mike had Brian and Danna bring him home, and they had all the dog necessities brought in as I stared at our new little baby, sputtering, “What is this?! What is this?! Is it ours?”

It took four days, 1,000 opinions, and one poll for us to decide on a name for him. Linus.  No particular reason, and I’d really been fighting for a Harry Potter reference but there were none that we could agree on.  However, Linus kept cropping up, and we both agreed that we liked it, and so its last place in the poll votes went completely disregarded.  Sorry, everyone. (Feel free to call him Dumbledog, as he is quite dumble-y!)

Linus turned our world upside down.  This is a good and bad thing for me.  I love that we have him! I love learning more about him, playing with him, knowing how much potential he has.  He loves chewing on leaves and sticks outside; he lags behind on the leash (I’m sure this will not always be the case); he loves to sprawl out sleeping between Mike and me in bed (when we let him on there); he understands “sit” so we can take his leash off; and he loves, loves, LOVES to play and be as close to us as he can!

The bad thing is that I am still quite bad with change, which throws my schedule off, which I also don’t do so well with at all!  Hopefully Linus will soon be getting a routine and a regular schedule will be resumed. I will try to put up pictures of him as soon as I can load them without him barking at me or chewing a cord to vy for my attention.  I hope to also write more about our one-year anniversary so that my previous blog promise is not entirely broken!

In honor of Mike’s and my upcoming one-year anniversary (what?!) on August 15, 2009, I would like to spend the next week reminiscing on the days, the moments, the memories leading up to our wedding.

My goal is to write a post each day this next week.  It will begin today and end next Saturday, our anniversary!  We’ll see if I’m able to do it.  I hope you enjoy, and that you know in advance that there is no way to do the week before our wedding justice in words, pictures, or video.  But I will try.

I’d actually like to begin by saying that this idea required me to dig through my closet to find the journal that I kept up until August 12, 2008.  It was hidden below a basket of hats, a box of ticket stubs/cards/other memorobilia, and the Chile scrapbook Martha and I tentatively kept up with during our time there. I enjoyed skimming its pages, as the words reminded me again of the joys, struggles, and all other mysteries that encompassed our engagement year.

And then I flipped to August 10th, and to my dismay there was no entry.  Boo.

So, I suppose I’ll be doing this by memory.

***

Sunday, August 10th, 2008 found me in Charlotte, North Carolina.  The city where I was born; the city where I would be married.

I’d left Wilmington the day before – Saturday, the 9th.  I’d had two amazing last days in Wilmington.  Thursday evening had been my last normal night with my roommates, and we did what we do best: we ate, we lounged on our picnic table in our kitchen talking about anything and everything, and then we spontaneously decided to see a movie at Mayfaire late that night in our pajamas.  Then I spent the last night in Wilmington with Mike, the roomies, and a few other friends at Carolina Beach.  We roasted all kinds of food and played a hilarious “telephone-shrades” game.  I didn’t camp on the beach the entire night, and therefore got to sleep one more time with Martha in her wonderfully comfortable bed, located at the time in our house where she’d stayed over the summer.  It was early in the morning on Saturday when I awoke and left town, so that Mom and I could spend the day in Charlotte running errands.  Once I arrived, we tackled those errands until we were left shell-shocked at the number of things we had accomplished and still had yet to accomplish.  We required a cold pop apiece poured over crushed ice from Cookout to revive us, and we had an excellent time gulping them down and then continuing on our way.  I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I was so lucky to have Mom around, who goes at the same pace that I do and who offers the best advice and encouragement.

And so Sunday arrived.  I don’t think we actually did much that day.  I remember going to church, and thinking that it was the last time I would be attending church as a single girl.  I had a habit of doing that the entire week – or perhaps month – before the wedding. It was as bad as running around the house on New Year’s day, yelling, “I was the first to hug Dad this year! I was the first to turn on this lamp this year! I was the first to touch the toilet this year!”  Which, can I just add as a side note, I am the first and last person who will ever be in my apartment at 6:53pm on August 10th, 2009.  I’m just saying.

Mike called me Sunday afternoon, and we ended up getting into a difficult discussion on the phone.  I have a feeling it became more than it needed to be for two reasons: 1) We were, as we still are, learning how to communicate and also read each other well, and 2) The discussion was on the phone.  Never an easy thing for us.  But we worked through it that evening.  Yay.

And the highlight of my day was driving to Barnes and Nobles with Stefanie!  I needed a journal, and one of my greatest delights is journal shopping.  It takes a ridiculous amount of time and a lot of critiquing of many kinds before I can settle on one.  And this journal had a particularly important task to take on – it would be the journal that would take me into married life and well into, if not beyond, the first year.  (As it stands, this journal will, in fact, extend beyond the one-year anniversary.  It’s huge.)  I found a lovely journal that fulfilled all my requirements, and Stef and I rode home blasting songs from our childhood (you know, like ones from Steven Curtis Chapman and Amy Grant and Billy Joel and from various musicals).  The sunset that night was gorgeous, and I felt a delightfully curious blend of contentment and exhilerating excitement and anticipation all rolled into one.  I had no idea how I was “supposed” to feel as a bride-to-be, and so I simply tried to soak in every happy emotion I could, ENJOYING every moment as so many lovingly told me to do.  That simple advice made such a difference for me.

And so, Sunday passed.  5 days to our wedding.

Vacations, thoughts, and other random activities are lined up in my mind, all waiting for me to compile a blog post just for them.  Each will have its turn.

Today, my thoughts are on books.  As summer meanders from one day to another, I find myself diving into a few really good reads.  Summer brings fierce joy to my heart, and reading is a favorite past-time, and putting the two together makes me giddy with delight.  Below you’ll find the books I’m currently engulfed in.

It started with this:

A challenge that some coworkers and I are undertaking with a small tweak.  We considered the likelihood of finding enough time in 90 consecutive days to read 12 pages a day, and determined that such time simply would not be found.  And so, we are reading the bible in what has been calculated as 121 days: reading 12 pages a day Monday through Friday, and using Saturday and Sunday for any catch-up reading, which has already been a lifesaver in keeping me up to speed. 

My feelings on this book thus far: I am surprised, as I read, that I as a Christian have entrusted my life to this faith without reading the Bible in its entirety, just to be aware of the history of what I’m getting into.   Now, finally reading, I find that I understand God more and less: He has shown Himself to be far more than the God I had tried to hold in the confines of my mind, and I am even less able to explain Him than I thought, relating more closely to those in the Bible who constantly claim that God’s ways are too great for us; that they are beyond words.

I then began this:

I have read these books at least once a year since I was 13.  Spring and summer have been my favorite times to pull them out, and whenever a new book was released, that called for the entire series to be re-read beforehand.  More on the Harry Potter craze in another entry, but for now, I am on the Chamber of Secrets – book two.

My feelings on this book thus far: Book two is not my favorite (though still thoroughly enjoyable), and so I’m anxious to move past it to book 3.  Books 3 and 6 are tied for second favorite (is that allowed?) while Book 5 stands in first.  After I finish this series again, perhaps I’ll reevaluate the placing of favorites.

And today I picked up this:

I didn’t have plans to read more than a couple pages to amuse myself while I sat in the Living Rooms earlier today, but the author is very engaging and brings up very difficult arguments that I’m intrigued to read more about. With that said…

My feelings on this book thus far: Intrigued.  This book focuses on a question that can nag at me again and again, and I appreciate when someone is willing to point out the absurdity of arguments that may sound like an “easy answer” but must disregard biblical truth in order to be presented in the first place.  He seems to be ready to tackle this question without disregarding the facts: that the Bible says God is loving, and God is all-powerful, and that there is evil in the world.  With that laid out up front, I’m interested to see what he makes of it.

So, there you have it.  3 books currently holding 3 different bookmarks (a tea bag, a note from Mike, and a blank post-it note).  What’s on your reading list, and what do you think of the books you’re reading right now?

We have a leader training and I’m supposed to edit a video for it.  I told Mike to simply help me out and show me what to do and I could do it.

This is what ends up happening:

I’m sitting around and he is editing.  In my defense, I keep telling him I can do this.  His response?  This won’t take long at all.

Which I think secretly translates as, “This may or may not take awhile, but it’ll just be easier if I do it myself.”

He’d also like to make note that he thoroughly enjoys this sort of thing.

Ah, must go – I think he needs some input from me!

Our staff is currently going through a new ministry we’ve created called Step 2.  It goes through the “basics” of having a walk with God, such as learning to find our identity in Christ, learning God’s character, learning to spend time with God through prayer and reading the bible, understanding intimacy with Him, the importance of community, etc.  I highly recommend it if you have a chance to go through it – it’s only 8 weeks long and it is great for anyone with any kind of relationship with God.

And as I was saying, our staff is going through it right now.  We just finished Week 2, which discusses trusting God.  One of the questions at the end asked, “Where do you have trouble trusting God?”

I thought about this.  I thought about moving to Wilmington 5 years ago and how scary it was.  But I did trust God enough to do it.  And I thought about the decision to date Mike and then marry him.  I think that was only possible by trusting God, since I had no clue what I was doing.  Really, I thought, big things in my life have made trusting God the only option.

And then another thought crept in.  Followed by a whole swarm of related thoughts.  A couch bought that would not fit into our home for anything last week.  Having to pick out another couch from the same store, only to find out that it would not arrive at our home in time for family coming into town to utilize the bed incorporated into said couch.  Which also leaves us going for 12 days with no couch to sit on.  Traveling 4 hours to buy furniture, and then finding upon our return that one of the pieces was not the right color.  Redecorating and having to find new homes for every object we possess.  And then, the kicker… returning to a home for the past week that went from this:

to this*:

(*The room did not ACTUALLY flip-flop; I took this photo with my computer so it is the mirror image of the room.  Which does, in fact, accurately reflect the feeling that our home has been turned inside out and upside down in the process of changing things up.)

Do you know how this has made me? CRAZY!

Okay, I have to admit… this picture is deceptive.  It gives you the impression that oh, these things probably are making her nutty, but she realizes that it’s actually quite silly.

Lies.  Ask my friends.  I’ve been ranting about it, dwelling on it, griping at Mike about it.  An accurate picture would be me with an evil look on my face, ripping my hair out or in the process of throwing things. Breakable things.

And in my Step 2 group, I realized I’ve let this get to me more than any big decision.  I don’t like when the little things in my life are out of place.  What will I learn from an oversized couch? From 12 days with nothing to sit on? From a mismatched piece of furniture?

Upon pondering this, I realized that I have 2 choices: 1) Rant about it and freak out; get angry and irritable until everything is set right and then next time be MORE diligent in getting measurements and ripping open boxes to ensure that the product is exactly as I wanted it, or 2) Allow myself to grow in gratitude, and chill out realizing that it’s NOT THAT BIG A DEAL and there are many other things that deserve way more attention than this.

I’ve started with choice 1.  Not trusting God enough to believe that this is okay, that it will be okay, and perhaps that He is simply trying to develop my character by providing circumstances in which I have the choice to let things go rather than cling to the control I’m convinced I have over the little things in life.

Taking a lesson from Step 2 and allowing myself to trust God would be choice 2, and the one I need to choose for the sake of my character, my sanity, and my husband and friends for that matter.  Trusting that perhaps this is revealing my desperation for control so that I might be able to change my attitude.  And let go.  And realize that we found a couch that I think I might like better that will be here soon.  And laugh at the college feel of our living room with the beach chairs in the prominent seating location in front of the TV.  And stop worrying about the clutter, which is looking 10 times better now that my incredible husband has tackled a lot of it.  And therefore stop criticizing my husband for what’s not been done and start letting him know how much I appreciate his hard work in putting together our furniture and cleaning our entire home beforehand – without me asking. (Baby, you don’t know how much that meant to me!)

Yeah… it’s harder to trust God when it comes to control, and the little things.  But it’s funny how much more I could chill out and be a nicer person if I did.  So, I’ll try choice 2. And trust God.

Mike and the breakable objects in my home will hopefully be able to stop backing away in fear whenever I walk by!