Blah-ness

Since last Wednesday I have not been sleeping well. As most of you probably already know, my "Papa" passed away last week. I took the rest of the week off from work to be with my family and help plan the wake and funeral. I think this really helped me in terms of dealing with it all. No one is ever ready to let go. Even if it is expected you're still not ready to not see that person anymore.

I was overwhelmed by the amount of support I received in this last week. From various emails, text messages, myspace messages, voicemails, and cards, I realized that there are a lot of people that are there for me. For that, my friends I thank you all tremendously. You will never know how much I appreciate all of your support.

This past week I worked Tuesday and Wednesday night and Thursday and Friday on day shift. Kind of crazy. I realized that I am not a morning person at all!! I like the people I work with on my shift and I like the goofy times we have together.

Last night I went on my first official bike ride of the season. It was FANTASTIC!! I hung out with Jason and his friend and we walked around Streets of Woodfield. SO many bikes I was leaving a trail of drool behind me I think. We went to Jason's to hang out after that and his brother Mike and friend came home from being on their bikes. Jason proceded to tell them that I LOVE bikes and asked them if I could have a ride. Mike's friend took me out on his new bike which was cool. It was nice to be out in the warm-ish air just riding around. However, it made me start thinking about buying a bike again. Something that I need not do right now.

Anyways...I hope all is well with you and that you enjoy the weekend!!

Resting in God's Presence

I listened to Rob Bell's message from church yesterday called "Resting in God's Presence". He and one of his friends, Sister Virginia Stasium, gave the message. It was really good. A lot of what I needed to hear and pass along. If you would like to hear it go the the Mars Hill link and go to the "Listen" section.

There were 3 times of intended silence throughout the message. Sister Virginia walks through some excercises that really help with focusing. She had a lot of neat things to say. Here are a couple:

"Obedience is to listen with the ears of your heart."
"Let God be God. Let God be love."
"You will know who you are and whose you are and you will know it does not depend on you."

One thing that Rob said in response to John 17:20 was this:
"Jesus' hope and prayer for us is that we would find life in God in such a way that we would be united and in such a way that people would say "That's God right there. Yes, that's the way"."

Finding life in God. I'm on my way back up the roller coaster of life. And hearing this message today and taking time to be in the silence helped me to remember and believe that God is with me. Yesterday, today, tomorrow and always, He is with me. No matter how many times I screw up, no matter how many times I try to do it myself, He is always there to help me pick up the pieces and carry me.

My grandpa is not doing well. He's lived 85 years of his life and there's not too much hope that he will get better. The harsh reality of it is that he will probably be leaving this earth soon. Me, being the selfish person I am, is having a hard time dealing with that. I'm not ready for him to go yet. I'm not ready to let him go. But I know that through this time of saddness and sorrow, that God will be with us. God will hold us in his hands and comfort us and help us to grieve when the time comes. Please keep my family in your prayers.

May you find life in God and know that He is with you always.

Conover

This weekend was really good. Friday morning I left early and started to head up to Conover Wisc. Matt's parents have a cabin up there and Vicki and Matt invited some of us to go up for the weekend. My drive up took a little longer than expected. I stopped in Wausau to get gas and some food and decided to stop at the Chevy dealer. See, when I stopped in Rockford earlier, my parking brake light came on for no reason. So I checked the fluid level, added some in, and went along my merry little way. Driving around Wausau looking for a gas station, the brake pedal felt a little softer than usual and the parking brake light was still on...2 hours later, the diagnosis was simple. I was low on brake fluid...something the other dealer should have checked when I brought it in for an oil change 2 weeks ago...

I'm not going to go through the whole weekend piece by piece but here are some highlights:
-Some of the best food I've eaten in a long time, generously cooked by Vicki and Keith (I shredded cheese!!!)
-Laying on the floor doing lots of puzzles
-Making many a trip to the Energy Mart. I think I went 4 times in 5 hours on Friday...
-Shotgunning a beer for the first time and having Keith lick my face to get the beer off...a lil gross...not gonna lie...
-Sitting in the snow cave with Vicki and Dee for 2 hours just talking about life.
-Sitting in front of the fire for an hour talking with the girls while the boys cut down a tree for more firewood
-Almost making it to the lake on a kneeboard while sledding
-Holding hands and praying before each meal
-Being with people that I love and care so much about
-Laughing
-The quiet silence
-Holding hands and praying before we left to come home (which only took us 5 hrs thanks to the caravan-ing action)
-"Boxing-In" a guy who cut Dee off and needed to learn a lesson

I'm so glad that I have all of these people in my life. I don't know what I'd do without them. Thanks for a great weekend all!!!

Done with March

We're only 14 days into the month of March and so far it's been pretty bad. Work has been insanely busy. Everyday something happens that makes me stressed beyond belief. And it seems that every Monday something crappy happens. Today on my way to do some food shopping, I got a ticket by one of Buffalo Grove's finest.

After a few minutes at work, the open heart went bad and they called for a lot of products and then we had a Trauma. And the trauma was pretty bad too. Our break room is being remodeled which in turn leads to a complete disaster all over the lab. We have coats hanging everywhere, our lockers stuffed into the hallways, our refrigerator in the pathologist's office, and no where for us to eat. Tonight I ate with Helen, Tammy and Kate in the lobby of the women's center. Quite relaxing with the water fountains and all...I enjoyed the comfy couch and quiet area...

And now for the prayer requests...Please keep my grandpa in your prayers. Pray for healing and the stopping of the infection. Please keep Aunt Barb and Pete and the entire family in your prayers for strength and peace. Please pray for Katie. For the healing of her mind.

Alone Time

Saturday afternoon I drove up to Grand Rapids to see Kim and hang out. I got a little lost but found my way eventually. I love Kim. I can't believe that I almost missed the chance to get to know this girl just because I was afraid of making bonds and then breaking them. I love that she accepts me and loves me for who I am. I love that we can watch Harold and Kumar everytime I go up. I love being able to go to Mars Hill and hear Rob Bell speak.

On the way home I had a few good conversations. One was quite confrontational and hard, but in the end all will be well. I just need time to heal and forgive and allow that person to regain my trust. Another was with God. And yet another with a good friend. My conversation with God was a little weird. Basically it was me telling me what God saw was going on in my life. God wants me to be alone right now. He wants me all to Himself. He wants to teach me and grow me up. He wants me to be solely focused on Him. The hard part is that I don't want what God wants for me. Looking back on the past few years, I realized that He's been trying to get me alone for quite some time but it was me who has always resisted. It is me who has repeatedly put guys up on a pedestal instead of having God on that pedestal.

As a side note...I have taken inventory of all of my cds. While I have over 200, not all of them were in the cd case that was stolen. There are 82 cds missing as of now. Some I have saved onto my laptop. If anyone knows of a way that I can transfer the files from my laptop to my home computer can you email me and let me know how? A lot of my mixes are saved to my windows media so ideally I can just burn them again. But I can't burn cds on my laptop, only on the house computer.

If you can still keep my grandpa in your prayers I would appreciate it.

Returning to a State of Normal

Happy Birthday Libby!!!! Hope you have a great day!!!

Today was a good day...so far. I got up at the butt crack of dawn to get my bezel replaced at the dealer. After I was planning on taking a nap but that didn't so much happen. I got ready and headed over to Circuit City to pick out a new stereo. The Pioneers that they had just weren't the same as mine. I ended up getting a little older version, but a step up from the one I had. On my drive home, with some Train turned up, I felt that I was returning to a normal state of mind. Now it feels like my baby is complete once again. I'm super excited to spend some time with Kim and to spend some time alone in my car. My baby will turn 100,000 miles probably by the time I get to Michigan tomorrow. That's a milestone that I'm not too excited about...

Yesterday was hard. I went to the lake with Aunt Barb, Pete and Kristin. Being with them where Laur spent her last moments was surreal. It just doesn't seem like she's gone. Today the memories just keep flooding back and won't stop. Remembering the panic I felt. Conversations I had. It was about this time last year when I started to head home in a panic. Only to be stuck in my car for I think about 4 hours or more.

I'm glad to get away from the area and just away from everything here. Even if it's only for a little bit. My counselor is a little concerned about everything that has happened this week and I don't think that it helped that I cancelled my appointment for today. But I felt I needed to get things done and organized at the expense of not dealing so much with my feelings. They'll still be there next week right?

Committed

This will be mostly a ranting post and may be deleted at a later time. But for now...

When someone makes a commitment, what does that mean? The dictionary gives a few definitions but one that sticks out is this "A pledge to do something". When someone makes a commitment to another person, they are saying I pledge to do this. Just like wedding vows, two people pledging their love for one another and saying I will stick with you through all the crap that may come no matter what.

What happens when that pledge is broken? What should one do? If someone makes a commitment and then breaks it, what should happen next? Right now I am livid. This week has been pretty crappy as is, and topped off with added stress of the break-in and vandalism to my car, my grandpa being in the hospital, I thought it wouldn't get worse. And funny enough it did just a little bit ago. I'm not going to say much because I haven't been able to talk to this person about the situation. But in a nutshell, a promise, a commitment was made to me about honesty. That commitment was broken and I'm pissed.

I don't understand why people feel the need to lie to me. Or not tell the whole truth to me. I would respect people and trust people a lot more if they just stopped lying. Yes, the truth may hurt and people may have their hearts broken and hopes shattered, but in the end isn't that better than lying and leading people on? If you are my friend, then why in the world would you feel the need to lie to me? Or to not tell me certain things? I'm a big girl, I can take it...I've dealt with a lot more pain than you know. I've dealt with a lot more heartache than you will ever know.

I'm out....

P.S. I love Riggs soooo much and I miss her like crazy!!!! ;-)

A New Day and a New Month

So today is March 1st. Tomorrow is Dad's birthday and Friday is Libby's. Tomorrow I will be sad and mourn the loss of my friend Laurie. I can't believe it's been a year already. It seems like this all just happened yesterday. Ick!

I woke up this morning to my phone ringing and I think I had a conversation with the glass people. My mom told me that my dad had already vacuumed my car out. What a great daddy I have!! Then a guy came out and replaced the glass in my car. I made a call to the insurance company again to see where my adjuster was so they sent 2 other guys out. They did their thing and sat in their car and cut me a check for the dashboard and stereo. The original estimate I had gotten from the car dealer (of $1500) was for the entire dash. I guess the only piece that needs to be replaced is the bezel. I have no idea. Anyways that is a lot cheaper than replacing the whole dash. I think I will get that all fixed next week. I don't know that I will have time this week to get it done before I leave for Michigan on Saturday. I will also be installing (or have someone install) a top of the line security system.

I love my car. She's like me in a lot of ways. She fits my personality completely and to see her get damaged and violated like that just hurts me. I know it's just a car and it's just a material thing but my car is my escape. I can be sad and cry or be happy and dance and she won't judge me because she is a car. OK reading over that it sounds like I'm on drugs, but I promise I'm not...I just have an attachment. God provided me with this car and provided me with the jobs I had so that I could pay for the car. He provides for me and my family in ways that I can't even explain. Many of my deep conversations with God have been in the car. So yes, it is just a car, but in a way it's much more.

Have a great day!!