I’m reading ‘to kill a mockingbird’, it’s got such sweet writing; you know, from the girl’s perspective. So straightforward as if it’s from a child, but yet not coz the writing is still savvy. We are about to watch ‘kung fu hustle’.. should be silly.

oh man, the book is kinda stressing me out a bit lol ‘the purpose filled life’.. It’s a tad relentless. It makes me feel like I’m not that great of a Christian and stuff. Jesus said ‘My yoke is easy and My burden is light’.. but sheesh.. yesterday’s chapter was good, it was about being best friends with God. I loved that. but I didn’t like the way he put it, he kept saying that you are as good friends with God as you CHOOSE to be. I don’t think that’s quite true, and I think statements like that are guilt inducing. I think we would all choose to be like Moses and have God ultra close. I think we would all choose to have God talk BACK on a regular basis, like 50 times a day, like friends over coffee.. we can’t just CHOOSE that kind of friendship with God. When God first saved me, and actually spoke to me a bit coz He was.. saving me.. He actually giggled at me for expecting Him to talk to me all the time.. He liked that I wanted that, don’t get me wrong, but He said ‘You forget I’m God’ and basically stopped talking to me for the most part. Now God didn’t explain exactly what He meant by that, but I infer that He meant that God is inherently silent and a tad seperated from us.. so that we can’t just CHOOSE to be close friends with Him as that book implies. It’s not that God is seperated from us, perhaps that is the wrong word.. but when God says ‘you forget I’m God’ when you expect Him to talk like friends over coffee and then stops talking, you have to take it as some kind of ‘God is different than we are’ and we can’t just CHOOSE that away.. Perhaps if I BEG, I could change God’s mind wrestle with Him like that guy in the old testament.. I do so love God, and I miss those days when He revealed His beauty to me. I can almost taste their memory as I write here. I feel God’s presence smiling upon me. Perhaps He’s giggling at me again, saying I’m wrong, that you can be real close to God. It’s a wonder that God is so beautiful isn’t it? what with all the bad stuff going on.. His temper is so lovely.. I sit here smoking cigarettes and thinking I’m bad for doing that, but it’s like God doesn’t even think about that, He just loves me and looks at other stuff or something. I’m sure He doesn’t like it, but.. oh whatever.. I think about how God got angry and destroyed the world with the flood.. and I wonder why God doesn’t get angry again, you know? Perhaps He does and I just don’t see it, coz God doesn’t reveal that sort of thing to everyone.

hey I’m tryna make a TOM WAITS mp3 disk for da new car jammin’ while i cruize dealy.. there’s nobody like tom waits. I found my ‘mule variations’ cd today, and had a nice afternoon listening to tom. I wonder if he is a Christian, coz he talks about God and Jesus alot in his songs, even if it’s a chocolate Jesus, hehe.. when I saw him in concert he talked about having a money jar that you have to put a buck in every time you swear, something like a buck anyway.. and he said he would just get up in the morning and put in 10 bucks so he could relax, hehe.. that may not sound Christian, but all his other stories were carefully crafted I daresay. ye just can’t tell. Alot of people hit you in the solar plexus with their NON-Christianity, and it hurts, but when you can’t tell I always wonder about the person.. are they close to becoming Christian? Is God already walking all over their lives and they just don’t know it? Or is there something that’s hidden about them, do they have a facade that we can’t see through? you know what I mean aye? CHARM.. the bible says that charm is deceitful, so often when I’m charmed by a person I get a bit sad after the fact coz I think of what’s probably underneath.. so what I wonder is.. is tom waits charming? or is he a Christian? I was watching A&E the other night and they had a couple epidsodes of ‘biography’ on back to back.. comic legends night.. and first was john belushi, and next was chris farley, and you may think it’s the same story, drugs booze, dead at 33 or whatever.. but i was PANICKED thru the john belushi story, whereas the chris farley story I was very glad to hear that thru out it all he went to church every week.. so you see it’s two entirely different stories, night and day, light and dark.. chris farley could say ‘yea tho i walk thru the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil, for Thou art with me..’ I had no reason to panick even tho he lost the battle, he won the war. They were both charming aye? but what’s underneath? that’s the question. As you can see, I know nothing about charm, hehe, only what I see in others and what I read in the bible. I have no experience of it first hand I’m what you might call ’set apart for Jesus’, hehe.. not a crowd pleaser.. I’m ok with that, lol.. excuse me, it’s affirmation time I think

I’m really enjoying the book ‘the purpose driven life’.. Sometimes it stresses me out, coz I think ‘how can I worship all day, and praise all day, and obey all day??’ and it makes me realize all the things I SHOULD be doing as a Christian that I’m not and it makes it all feel so impossible.. but it IS changing the way I think, and usually by the end of a chapter that’s stressing me out I start coming around and realize that it’s doable in some way. Plus God is like rescuing me, so things are lookin’ up and I’m in a good mood. God takes such good care of me! Isn’t it wonderful to be in His hands? I’m so looking forward to an eternity with Him, and my near future even. I find that I can’t imagine heaven, but I think that’s normal, it says in the bible that it’s beyond what we can imagine. I’m just starting to get used to how sweet life is with God. Getting used to His presence and Lordship, not being alone. Anyway, thanks butterflies for recommending that book, I’m loving it…

I was out all day today, and most of the evening. My sister in law and I went out to the mall and then out for lunch and then to pick up my wee niece and then to the grocery store. And since it was ME shopping at the grocery store and not my hubby, it took simply forever lol.. I don’t know how long it took me just to find brown rice. My niece was going ‘we are going to buy you a secret surprise aunty!!’.. my sister in law is all ‘well you’re not supposed to tell that!! don’t tell anymore!!’.. and then they bought me flowers Isn’t that sweet??

My sister in law called her friend’s little daughter down to le chateau kid’s section to buy her a belated birthday gift.. what a free for all she was having running around choosing what she wanted to buy, she was so happy, then I pointed out this sorta j-lo type little dress and she tried it on and spun around in front of the mirror and she looked soooo sweet in it, but her mom didn’t like it coz she couldn’t wear it to church.. so the whole thing ended up turning into tears and ‘fine you’re not getting anything’ and it was sooo hard to watch! It was supposed to be her birthday gift and the girl gets nothing these days coz her parents are going thru hard times. The little girl was so upset, and so was my sister in law coz she wanted it to be a GOOD thing, then her mom started getting upset and said ok you can have the capris and the halter today and then in 2 weeks when daddy gets some money we’ll buy you the dress, and the little girl was just whimpering and said ‘i don’t know it’s your money’.. and the mom said ‘ok fine if you don’t want anything we’ll go’.. and my heart just wrenched.. and we walked out of the store all silent, and the girl was crying so hard when we went outside with nothing, and her mom said ‘are you happy with your decision to buy nothing?’… and the little girl shook her head, tears streaming down her face, her mother starts asking her to make more decisions about it, and the girl answers totally incoherently, and i knew she was so upset that she wasn’t comprehending at all so i just raised my voice and said, ’she’s just confused i think, let’s just go back in and get her the clothes’.. and we rushed back into the store. this little girl was totally uncomprehending but at least came out with something, she’ll get the dress later. my sister in law couldn’t stop thinking about the dress all day tho. what a massacre! I shouldn’t have pointed out the j-lo dress! it was up high in a corner, they would have never seen it, totally my fault! I on the other hand tried on this beautiful marilyn monroe type dress, it looked sooo good on me, but I heart-wrenchingly left it behind, because we are so broke I know I will always regret losing that dress. but I won’t think about that.. I just watched ‘van helsig’.. those flying female vampires creeped me out. shoulda chosen ‘i heart huckabees’ lol.. ‘as good as it gets’ is on now, that should have a calming influence before i go to bed.

hey butterflies, hubby mentioned that we should move back to our home town, hehe. Coz I’m so lonely out here. But that wouldn’t be for years, like 3 years, when he’s finished his schooling. Plus I don’t know if we would EVER go back to 40 below winters. It was sooo cold there, and the summers were nuts too, like super hot with mosquitoes. But I have to admit, that for the first time in years I was tempted when he mentioned it. I started daydreaming about buying a house between springs church and my friend cindy’s house. Anyway, I started thinking about all of the things you have said recently, butterfly, about moving back home, and the stuff you said about girlfriends. I left all my girlfriends back home too. But I suppose it’s nothing to think about anyway, since it would be three years away, minimum. But still, I started getting whistful. hey I went shopping today with my sister in law, and I got the book ‘the purpose driven life’, just like you suggested. I’m really looking forward to reading it. I could use some wisdom about purpose right about now, that’s for sure. I’m battling this urge to tear down my ENTIRE website! I’m a flibbertyjibbet. I wonder what sort of redesign I could do to combat this urge. I’ll prolly just ignore it and wait for it to pass. ’sweet november’ is on right now, and ’sleepless in seattle’ just ended, so it’s a pretty good night. I just love feel good movies. I think I’m hormonal lol I’m over a month late, and there hasn’t been a case of immaculate conception in a long time, so I’m wondering what’s wrong. How old do you have to be to.. stop? I would think I’m young, but maybe not. Not that I’m going to reveal my age lol I haven’t done that since I was 22. But it’s been like, every day a new drama since Christmas lol and it’s getting worse lately. So I thought today that maybe I have PMS! I’ve never had PMS before, but maybe coz it’s been building since february it’s getting to me. I never kept track before either, the only reason I noticed the last time was coz it coincided with a dietary change that took place on valentine’s day, and it’s now 2 months later… Isn’t it funny that like your whole life is the same until you get old, then it’s all new territory, uncharted waters where everything falls apart and slips between your fingers. And you are no longer the target demographic for self help books I’m sure.. there’s no help to be had. ‘what to do when your face is falling toward your knees’.. you won’t find that on the new york times best seller list. ‘how to talk to your parents about the birds and the bees GOING TO SLEEP FOREVER’.. I don’t think anybody has written that one yet. egads, I wonder if I’m supposed to have a midlife crisis now, hehe. Perhaps I can just say that’s why we bought the cute little car and be done with it. hubby and I just read the first chapter of the book, it was hard to not read more coz it was so introductory. but I think the message that the first chapter gave was a good one, that it’s not about ME, it’s about God’s purpose and such, coz I’ve been like doing all this searching for what I ‘want to do’.. you know? to make money.. and it all feels so miserable. I wish God would guide me, that there was more GOD in the process, not just ‘what can I handle, what would I be good at, ME ME ME’… I feel like God has been so close to me with everything else and I don’t know why this has to be so.. different. I don’t know why I have to decide what to do for a living, alone. Maybe this book will be good for me aye? that would be nice. oh butterflies, I see you will be gone for a week, guess you won’t see this then lol I’ll be missin’ you..

I’m watching movies and I am getting all inspired by them. I think I’m just romanticizing cinema coz we are about to get rid of our cable. The movies all look like little pieces of art to me. Well no they look like BIG art; every scene, every line looks like little art. I’m sorta working on my project and dawdling with movies. I’m vacilating between depressing stress and happiness about it all. I just designed one of the pages, so I’m taking what I feel is a well deserved break to write here. Which really means I don’t know what to do next. I’m generally upbeat at the moment, tho I’ve made quite a mess of things lately, what with letting smoking get so out of hand that I’m actually craving, and what with gaining weight, I have to go back on plan and stay there, which is a bummer that I have to stay on a DIET for the rest of my life. But I feel that I have God pointing the direction and things will get better soon. I just made this long post about horror movies, so I had to delete it coz it was too depressing. But now I’m in a bad mood lol. I don’t think all movies are art! My ex used to take me to horror movies all the time and I just hated it. I used to say that if I wanted to see crap I wouldn’t flush. Only I used a slightly harsher word than crap. I will have to work harder tomorrow. It’s like bed time now and I only did one thing today. I was out all afternoon, out in THE CAR, went for lunch with sister in law. So I feel nice and sick from what I ate today and I will gain two lbs tomorrow. It takes 10 bites of something to gain a lb, and then weeks to lose it. There’s something fundamentally unfair about that. I think I will watch the cosby show, where they are doctors and lawyers but never have to work, that will be cheery. I think it will be GOOD to get rid of cable.. things are so sick in tv-land lol. There is nooooo sense of reality. What are those people doing being all cheery and talking coherently? lol people aren’t LIKE that! At least not until God gets ahold of yer. And I don’t see God on the set of ‘friends’ lol.. course people without tv can be weird too. I have met some of them and experienced their weirdness first hand. Sometimes tv can be your best contact with the outside world. If I am going to give up tv I will have to start reading more, or my brain will turn into a massive lump of poo. Course I’ll prolly end up spending more on books than I do on cable. Perhaps I could try the library. I had stopped going to the library coz they stuck me with $50 in overdue fees for a huge stack of books I had taken out, and then I ended up in the hospital and forgot to take the books back with all the turmoil. I told the librarian what had happened, but she just stared at me all stone faced and demanded the 50 some odd dollars, so I walked out and never went back. but that was like 7 years ago, maybe there’s a statute of limitations, hehe. I waited for them to come around, but they never write, they never call, guess they are too big for me and giving me books for free just wasn’t important enuff to them.. and niether was the $50.

Hubby is off work for a few days now, but he will not be happy with me. He doesn’t like it when I get myself in a mess. When I get stressed and unhappy, he gets mad. At least they are run of the mill messes these days. Like cigarettes and stress about my diet and websites and stuff. I have had much worse. The diet stuff should be fixed in a jiffy. The cigarettes I fear may be a problem. The new project is in God’s hands and I feel good about it for the most part. I suppose I will just have to crack down on the cigarettes, coz I don’t want a monkey on my back. EW! Remember that old short story called ‘the monkey’s paw’? It scared the heck outta me when I was a kid. It was about this key chain or something with a dead monkey’s paw on it. And the paw had magical powers to grant wishes, but there was always somesort of horrific downside to the granting. But in the end, when the owner of the monkey’s paw son dies, he’s too broken hearted and can’t resist wishing him back to life. And man oh man was it scarey when the zombie dead thing comes lurching to the door in the dark of night. The story ends before he opens the door I think, coz it’s so horrific that he realizes what he’s done, and what’s at the door.. EW! I’ve got horror stories on the brain tonight. I will have to clean myself up by reading the bible or something. I feel so yucky with all the smoke and bad food and stuff. If it’s not one thing it’s another aye? When you have some HUGE life problem you think that once you are healed or whatever that things will be peachy. But people that aren’t battling some huge sickness or what not, are not peachy. They are in a war with stuff like job stress and CIGARETTES. Or money problems, or food, or booze, or all of the above. All the stuff that fades into the background when something catastrophic is in the foreground. Perhaps the trick is to make the stuff fade into the background when there is nothing wrong in the foreground. I remember seeing this guy on oprah, it was a show with eligible bachelors type deal, and they were describing their dream women, supposedly looking for a date I guess.. And this one guy gets up and starts talking about how much he loved his old girlfriend, coz she loved life so much, she was dying of cancer you see.. and she was dead now, and he said he wanted another girlfriend with cancer! so that she would love life like that. I thought that was so bizarre. Not only would it be a short term relationship, but it would be incredibly hard and heart breaking. Strange thing to desire. but I hope a girl found him, and maybe he helped her thru a hard time. Anyway, my point, and I DID have a point.. is, the trick would be, to learn to KEEP loving life that way even after the catastrophe is over, to keep the crap that gets ya down in the background even AFTER you are healed, or if you have never been sick. I may be wrong tho. Coz we operate differently in a crisis. Things on the back burner can’t stay there forever maybe, I don’t know. And people that have never been sick don’t HAVE anything on the back burner, so they never get a foreground that’s any different. Have you ever seen jim carey immitate Christians? it’s funny looking, but sad. He puts this huge smile on his face and sings a song about nothing in particular really, but he does it super boistrously and joyfully, an ‘I’m so joyful I’m a Christian’ type song. But it’s shocking that that’s how we look to non-Christians lol they don’t understand what the heck there is to be so hugely joyful about. They’ve never met God. They think we are brain washed and in some network marketing scheme lol. I remember the last time I tried to become a Christian, and I hadn’t met God, I remember thinking that I didn’t believe Christians REALLY believed alot of the stuff they said they believed. When you are on the outside looking in, it can look pretty unbelievable. I thank God for saving me! What’s that scripture? ‘for you have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son He loves..’ Well I have talked myself back into a good mood! creflo dollar just said to overcome evil with good. guess that’s what I did, hehe. And now it’s time for bed, for sure…

Well, it’s new project time, and I’m stress surfin’.. but God is with me and things are turning out for the best. I have alot to design and alot to learn, so I best get on that aye? I had a change of plans for the better today, so I’m in a good mood, and things will be moving along quickly. I’m quite scared, but it really does seem like God is helping me, so if God is for us, who can be against us?? I’m still sitting here like a slug, posting to my blog instead of working tho… perhaps I’m waiting for it all to sink in! I’m going to have to suddenly change into a ‘working hard person’ here. I’m definately not used to that. hehe.

Well we got our new car! We had an appt. to pick it up at 2:00 at the dealership, and I think we didn’t get out of there until like 5:00! I was getting real impatient by the end lol.. but we finally drove away in it. It’s soooo suhweet! We went booting all over the place and didn’t get home till about 11:00 p.m. put about 100 k.m. on the car, hehe. This morning I went for a drive in the pouring rain, which I usually hate, and I felt perfectly safe, the car didn’t budge, it totally gripped the road. I have to leave in about a half hour for a dentist appt. so that’s a road trip, then I will go to the chiropractor. I just love the car. It was such a combination of cuteness and a smart choice that I’m so proud. I’m second guessing the automatic transmission a little bit, I’m worried that the car will get sucky as it ages. If I had gotten a stick, it would have been easier to get more guts out of it. but then I couldn’t have gotten keyless entry, so I guess this was the way to go. I’m very attached to my keyless entry! When I get to hot summer days I imagine air conditioning will over shadow it, but right now the keyless entry is my fave feature. hubby is playing with the mp3 player, making huge disks of bad songs, lol. next is the 80’s billboard 100 hits, sheesh, could things GET any worse? I will have to retaliate somehow. with my chick songs. veruca salt, and hole. hehe. nothin’ like a little courtney love to make hubby rethink. ‘Go on take everything, take everything, I want you to!!’.. I feel for courtney, anybody with a song like that should be a bigger star, but everything went wrong for her. everyone hated her coz of kurt cobain. She should find God… course I think everyone should find God. I was watching this movie called ‘the gospel of John’ last night, the story of Jesus.. and it just struck me how it’s all so hidden, until one finds God, or God finds us rather.. The ‘world’ walks around totally oblivious to whats really going on. I know I did, until God rescued me. I was miserable, lost, and oblivious. I hate thinking of that for people. It must break God’s heart.
Anyway, I have a new car glow, in spite of the fact that the dentist told me I need a new bridge, that’s going to cost me about $1600, and that’s only on one side of my mouth, the other side will cost cosiderably more! maybe even twice that.. and i think i need 3 root canals, oh joy..

Well we just got back from the dealership and we got approved!! and they are going to ship in the car we want from another dealership, hopefully it will only take a day or two. We couldn’t get it in black, but we got it in blue. convenience package with air and mp3 player. We leased, we didn’t buy. but hubby says we will buy it at the end of the lease. the buy out price isn’t bad. It was sooooo stressful, let me tell ya. The guy puts thru our credit application and tells us that usually it comes back in seconds, well it took like TWENTY FIVE minutes for us!! I nearly had an aneurysm!! my heart was constricted and I was light headed. I kept having to take these deep breaths to keep from having some sort of panic attack. I was convinced they were looking at our stuff, trying to figure out a way to approve us and failing.. then the guy FINALLY came back and told us that we were approved. I just gave him a dirty look instead of looking happy that I had a car lol the poor guy looked confused. So in a couple of days we will be driving a brand spanking new 2005 toyota echo hatchback. My hubby will be happy about not having to spend so much money on gas, that’s for sure. they are supposed to be super duper grrrreat on gas. best in the nation or something. I’m starting to get quite happy about it. It’s a cute car. I’m glad that I got to pick a car that I liked, as opposed to hubby getting real stubborn about some ugly sedan or something.. he has plans to fix the head gasket or whatever on our current ride, and either keep it or sell it. i’m sure it will just sit unfixed in the driveway for a very long time lol. when there is no PRESSING NEED things like that tend to go undone. oooh, I can hardly wait to get the new car It will look good on me hehe. You know what I mean? If we had bought such a car BEFORE, I would have looked silly getting in and out of it, me being so big and the car being so small. But now, it’s just right lol.. hopefully I can get some good pics of it, so you can take a gander at it. we ran into a friend of hubby’s in the supermarket just after, and got to talk excitedly about the car, so that was fun. he was like ‘wow, a 2005?? a brand NEW one??’.. duely impressed It took our stress down and raised our happiness level. Coz I was still ready to puke even tho the stress was officially over. All in all I think we did everything right, it was good we got that suggestion to lease that came at just the right moment this morning. It helped us free our minds, when hubby was panicking about affording the payments. and moving up to the 2005 at a lower interest rate was the right move also. And getting the convenience package over the RS package that I was initially looking at was a cheaper way. hubby isn’t jumping up and down for joy because this really means more monthly payments that he’s not looking forward to. financial troubles always put a damper on happiness don’t they? sigh. we sorta have a plan in place to make payments, but we are flying by the seat of our pants, for sure. but I thank God for making our new car dreams come true. I know that we couldn’t have done it without Him. God does make dreams come true.. I’m here to attest to that fact. I’m still pretty worried about the whole thing, but I know I’m in God’s hands… I hope they don’t take too long getting the car to us. It will be a bummer if we have to wait like a week or something. It’s probably good that we didn’t get black, I wouldn’t want to be invisible at night and stuff. I wonder ifin’ I can start my little business idea and actually make money at it. It’s hard to find online courses to take. Does anybody else find the web really slack? Whenever I go out looking for something I need on the information SUPERHIGHWAY, I always find myself pretty much sorely disappointed. I might find ONE place that SORTA gives me half of what I need. On tv they act like google gives you a zillion hits, a plethora of possibilities, well it gives hits, but it’s never anything remotely resembling what you want. Online schools… you can find many crappy hits, but try and find ONE simple, cheap, accessible, php/mysql online course and you will find yourself at a loss. I finally found a FREE tutorial, but I’m sure it won’t cover much. I actually WANTED to give someone money, but there was no go-getters to take it. And you would totally expect to find courses on a thing like that out there, but nooooo. I think it’s a conspiracy of spam and crap, that’s mostly what the net is. I think I will ask my therapist if she has a line on any jobs out there.. I’m sooo stressed. I will just have to let hubby worry about the car payments, but I have my own stuff to worry about, and I need a job!
I just phoned the pet food store nearby to see if they are hiring and they are! hubby always comments on how quickly they go thru staff so I thought maybe they might be hiring, lol. It’s within walking distance, so we wouldn’t need two vehicles, and they provide all the on the job training, so I wouldn’t need all sorts of specialized knowledge. I wanted to hop out tonight and apply before they closed but my bro is busy, so we are going to go out in the morning and do it. I wonder if I could get an interview with them. Of course I’m NOT going to go getting my hopes up THIS TIME. lol not going thru that again. I sent off an email to my therapist to ask her to look for something for me too. Even if I COULD get an interview I would probably totally mess it up. Coz I have been out of the work force for so long, and I have no idea what to say in an interview, and I’m not exactly a ‘talker’, ifin’ ya know what I mean. Anyway, I’m going to go work on a cover letter for tomorrow.

Considering the fact that I’m trolling the net for new cars and stuff, I’m incredibly bored. I think it’s mostly because at the front foremost part of my brain is how much financial trouble we are in and all I can think about is how humiliating it will be to get turned down for financing at the car dealership tomorrow. We did get to go to a car dealership today, but just for a short time. We had meant to spend the day at dealerships, but in the morning my bro phoned and informed us that today was my neice’s birthday party and we had to be there at 2:00, so we just lazed around then went out and bought her a present and made our appearances at the party and only had a little of the day left to run to one nearby dealership for a short time before hubby had to leave. And we didn’t have time for them to run the check to see if we qualified. I thought the salesman was going to cry when we left. He was trying to lower the price of the car, but he wouldn’t lower it as much as we wanted him to, and we weren’t happy with the deal. Tomorrow I’m going to phone around and ask about NEW cars, coz apparently with the interest rates they are offering we can get a better deal. Tho I think hubby is in for a rude awakening as far as how high the payment is going to be. He’s been thinking of leasing prices I think, and purchasing is a different matter aye?

Well, personally I think we are screwed. I talked to the bank and they said noooooo, no car loan. So we are going out in a few to get turned down at a car lot. lol you can see how optimistic I am, can’t you? So it looks like we will be getting a crap car, in spite of my wonderfully laid plans, coz we don’t look good enuff to them. I’ll keep ya posted..